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Published: January 15th 2006
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Valle de Luna at Sunset The bus to Calama was quite pleasent, we were expecting a nightmare, but with air conditioning, reclining seats (think Virgin Atlandic style sleepers), toilets and food and drink supplied, all was good. The bus left Valparaiso at 5pm and we were asleep by 11pm after watching Spiderman 2 (dubbed in English). We awoke at 7am and all that could be seen out of the window was desert, a mass of rocks and sand. We stopped briefly at Antafogasta to streatch our legs but other than that between waking at 7am and arriving at Calama at 3pm all we saw was rocks and sand. Amazing.
We thought about staying in Calama for the night but as we were still energised and the town looked shit we pressed on to our intended final destination - San Pedro De Atacama.
San Pedro is a little town 2440 above sea level. As welll as being amazing in itself as it is an oasis in a vast desert it has the advantage of being surrounded by some of natures most freaky things. I am no expert in geology but from what I have learned the reason for most of these freaky things is that
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Floating in the salt lake 65 million years ago 2 tectonic plates crashed into each other forming the Andes. All the minerals that were once under ground suddenly came to the surface, the water that was covering the surface drained away and the earth´s crust was left unstable meaning volcanoes and earthquakes. Over the last 65 million years things have settled down a bit, other than a couple of incidents 35 and 22 milion years ago. All that remains now is a couple of volcanoes, Licancabur being one, which blows its top every six years and is due to blow this year. It would have been nice to see it go but last time it went up 100 people died, so maybe not.
The first day was spent finding out how we would visit all these environmental oddities, during which we met a couple of Irish lads from Dublin (Ray and Pete). I appologised for 800 years of oppression, and they appologised for Val Doonican and we became buddies. We spent the evening sipping Pisco Sours and got tipsy. On day 2 of our stay we visted a salt lake, the concentration of salt in the water is so great that you cannot sink,
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Tatio Geysers at sunrise it is even difficult to submerge yourself fully. If you try to swim on your front your legs pop out of the water. Very relaxing and absolutely crackers.
The evening was spent visiting the 3 valleys created by the incidents 22 and 35 millions ago. There is a great deal of salt in the area which I presume was left behind when the water that was originally there drained into the pacific. We visted salt caves where some of the walls were pure salt. When a torch (thanks Stew and Liss) was put against the wall it lit up and gave the impression of being frosted glass. Our guide then explained away some of the geological facts (the presence of quartz, iron, copper, milky quarz, gypsum, lithium, clay......) of the area before we headed off to Moon Valley to watch the sunset. Valle De Luna has had its soft stone shaped by the wind over the last 22 million years. These stones produce some stange shadows as the sun sets over them. The fact that the best view of the sunset is achieved by journeying across the apex of a 100 metre high sand dune only adds to the
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Sib, Pete and Ray experience.
All of day 3 was spent with our guide. First we visited Laguna Chaxa the 3rd largest salt lake in the world where we watched flamingoes feed (thanks for the binocs Mark) in the searing 35 degree heat. The lack of water in the area has left much of the surface rugged ¨Like a scab¨as our guide put it - nice. The flamingoes were doing their flamenco dance, stirring the water helping them to suck out all the beta-carotine rich algae. It was an amazing sight. We then visited a blue Laguna some 4.5k metres above sea level, another amazing viewing experience that I will not bore you with now.
After lunch - Llama for meat eaters, Quinoa for the veggies, we headed off to a local church. The indigenous population are Atacameno, most of them were wiped out by the Spanish but those that remain have a mixed religion of Catholicism and earth Gods. Luckily for the Atacamenos they had a cross as a religious symbol so the Spanish were a little more forgiving. Tas being Tas rushed up the church tower for photographs. On her return to ground she was informed by our guide that
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Us at Laguna Chaxa any woman that climbs the tower will become pregnant that year. The guides wife had done the same last year and now he is the proud father of a lovely boy. EEEEK! Let´s hope we don´t have to come home early. The days journey took us through miles of desert allowing us to see a great deal of cactus and llamas, llamas are farmed here like cattle are in the uk. We also found out that the locals use the cactus juice to get high, they also get high on lithium too- the desert is a mighty lonely place.
The next day was a day of rest so me, Tas, Ray and Pete decided to hire bikes and cycle 30 ks through the desert in 35 degrees heat to visit Inca ruins. The desert provides a lot of clay dust so all of San Pedro is made of clay and straw. Houses, roads etc. They obviously got this idea from the Incas because it all looked very similar, but without roofs.
The next day we went to see some geysers (not the cockney type). The Tatio geysers are only visible early in the morning when the air temperature is cold. As we are in a desert the day temperature is 30+ degrees c, the night temperature is about 10 degress c, even cooler the higher you get. It was 7am and we were 4300 metres above sea level, we were freezing, even though we had on nearly all the clothes we have with us including scarves, hats and gloves. Some of the geysers were spouting steam and water 30 metres into the air. Others bubbled boiling hot water and others simply whilstled like a boiling kettle the pressure being that great. Amongst this crazy landscape lay a rusty old contraption totally spoiling what was a naturally asthetically pleasing environment. It turned out the British had used this contraption in an attempt to harness the power of the geysers, the atempt failed so they just left it there to rust.
We saw some hot pools where boiling water bubbled to the surface. The place is totally unsupervised and apparently the year before last a young Spanish boy fell in, he was dragged out. After surviving a 3 hour ride to the hospital over bumpy mud roads he only lasted 2 days in hospital before dying with over 60% burns - ouch. We dipped our feet into one of the cooler pools which was still hot then headed off home.
It being our last day in San Pedro and Chile in general (for now) we packed our bags and then drank some Pisco sour with Pete and Ray and toasted the experiences we have had over the last few days.
So far San Pedro has been my favourite place, the town and all its amazing satellite experiences. Adios to San Pedro and Hola to Bolivia. We decided to take a 4x4 across the desert to Bolivia with our Irish friends so we could take in some more of the natural oddities in the area.
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georgia
georgia
Just like madonna you too fell in love with San Pedro.