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Published: January 28th 2008
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Our Transport
All geared up to cross the Atacama Desert! Having arrived in Antofagasta in northern Chile, Sheena & I decided we would leave as quickly as we could and explore the region a little. We hired a car and headed south along the Pan-American highway (Ruta 5) from Antofagasta via Chañaral to the Pan de Azucar National park. This national park is in the Atacama desert which falls abrubtly into the Pacific Ocean where we set up camp on the beach. We were the only non-Chileans and it´s the kind of place you imagine will be discovered in a few years time by other travellers.
The camping in Pan de Azucar is very basic (cold showers etc...) but a great place to kick back without feeling like you're just another tourist passing through. We explored the park for the day seeing desert foxes, small birds of prey and thousands of looney tunes style cacti before setting off the next day to Bahia Inglesa - an extortionate beach resort which we later found out Chileans do not go to for that very reason.
Over dinner we decided all the above was kids stuff...we needed an adventure. We consulted the Lonely Planet and found our calling...the Nevado de Tres Cruces
Un Lobo
A sealion on the beach at Pan de Azucar National Park National park.
The Lonely Planet suggests hiring a high-clearance vehicle, carry extra gas and plenty of water to access the park set deep in the Atacama desert. Accordingly, we set off from Copiapo to drive 800km from the coast of Chile to the Chile-Argentinian border in 1 day in a Peugeot 206 armed with a full tank of petrol, two bottles of water and 2 packs of cheesy snacks!
What immediately hits you as you drive into the desert is the sheer scale and isolation. We drove 500km passing no other cars but just the odd oil refinery parked high up out of sight in the mountains.
All was well. The Peugeot was holding up to the battering we were giving it along the sandy roads, the sun was shining and we slowly winded our way up the mountains. After about 500km we eventually reached the Argentinian border crossing point to access the national park. I got out of the car and explained to the border patrol where we were heading. With a smile on his face he pointed at our Peugeot and said (more or less literally) "you don´t have a cat´s chance in hell of
Pelicans at Pan de Azucar
Admiring the birds on the beach! getting that car passed this border crossing" (only 4WD drives are allowed...the Lonely Planet was right for once). There was no debate. All we could do was a 3 point turn and start making our way back across the desert and back over the mountains from where we had just come...except this way we had no more cheesy snacks.
It wasn´t until later in the day that both Sheena and I were both feeling a little lightheaded. As we sat on the side of the road admiring a salt plain set high on the Altiplano we realised we had driven so high up the mountains we started to get Altitude sickness. With no coca leaves in sight we continued to make our way down.
The scenery was incredible. We were high up in the Atacama desert with the sun setting over the dunes. Nothing in sight aside from the odd copper mine and refinery. We finally arrived more than 800km later at 1am to a campsite. We pitched our home (aka tent) and tried to get some sleep next to the desert rave party that had just begun. We chilled out the next day and then head off
the following morning to Antofagasta where we would catch a bus to our final Chile location - San Pedro de Atacama.
On arrival into San Pedro de Atacama we booked ourselves into what we later found out was an illegal hostel.
SP is a backpackers town with lots of hostels (most of which were full), restaurants and backpacking tour agencies. Despite being basically a launch pad to Bolivia, the town itself has a buzz of its own.
We booked ourselves on 3 trips. The first, La Valle de la Luna (moon valley) was a 4hr tour of a valley which unsurprisingly looks a little bit like the surface of the moon. The most important thing to bring on this
tour was a creative imagination so you too could see the 3 Marys (and other biblical characters) formed by the rocks. The sun set (the highlight of the tour) behind a cloud.
Second on the list was a trip to El Tatio geysers. 4am we were picked up from our illegal hostel and driven 2hours up hill to 4300m altitude to see 1 of only 5 geyser sites in the world. The other 4 are in NZ,
Iceland,
Russia and Yellowstone park in the US. The geysers spit out hot water at different intervals. It was an impressive sight to see the towers of steam rise as the sun rose above the surrounding mountains. A quick dip in some natural thermal baths and a visit to a cactus field and we made our way home. A canadian couple moaned most of the way up and down the hill about the altitude despite telling us that they both have a history of not been able to cope with altitude.
Having found out the Canadians were booked on our third trip - a 3 day 4WD trip across the Bolivian altiplano (the high plains at altitude) Sheena and I spent the remaining part of the 2nd trip successfully convincing them that they might want to cancel!
More photos to follow once I've regained my patience with the Bolivian internet service...
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Steve Burdo
non-member comment
Wow
The scale of that desert makes you feel insignificant. Sometimes it is not the prettiest picture but rather a dusty desert that goes on forever that hammers a point home. Good stuff.