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Published: June 24th 2013
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I returned to Santiago after another long-haul bus (20hr) from BA. After the tough time my ears took from the popular music in Brazil and Argentina I was ready and excited to be seeing some decent live music. I had booked tickets to the Lollapalooza music festival months in advance and it was almost a dream lineup for me. Pearl Jam, Queens of the Stone Age, Tomahawk, A Perfect Circle, The Hives… plus I was looking forward to the opportunity to see 80’s punk pioneers Bad Brains, even though they were well past their prime. But before the festival I had a few days in Santiago checking out some sights I missed previously plus a couple of sideshows from Tomahawk and The Hives.
The two-day festival itself was an all-ages event which meant tonnes more people and no alcohol. Not even a roped off section for those who wanted to drink. Pretty lame, but by the way the Chileans pushed and shoved and basically went nuts in the crowd the addition of alcohol would have made things a lot more… interesting. Probably a good thing in the end. There were some scared looking 15 year olds emerging out of the
crush when the big bands started playing and the crowd predictably surged forward. A tough lesson. All the bands I wanted to see were great.
It was pretty funny at the Bad Brains show. They started off with one of their more mellow tunes and everyone was bobbing along, but after the start of the second song which was much faster a crazy mosh circle started up and nobody knew what hit them. Most there would never have heard of Bad Brains or knew of their punk roots so the circle of people, dust and flying limbs was almost as entertaining as the band. It was hilarious.
After a week in Santiago I travelled to the far north of Chile close to the border of Bolivia to the dusty town of San Pedro de Atacama. As the name suggests it is located in the Atacama desert and at an altitude above 2,500m. There is not much going on in the actual town of San Pedro. It’s more like an outdoor mall of tour operators, and the surrounding landscape is very arid, rocky and barren as you would expect from a desert. That doesn’t sound very interesting, but in
fact there are some really cool areas to explore. I really enjoy the sense of isolation in places like this, especially when you can take a moment to get away from the hordes of cattle (tourists) and appreciate the landscape.
I visited lagoons more than 4,000m above sea level which are so salty only tiny shrimp-like creatures can survive – which are ideal food for flamingos. I saw hundreds of pink flamingos and due to their photogenic nature, took hundreds of photos. It was interesting to watch the way they drag their beaks through the shallow water and mud to snaffle their prey. One lake was over 4,600m and covered in a thin layer of ice. It was funny to watch birds trying to land and skating across the ice unmajestically.
I experienced sunrise in a geothermic region with steaming geysers at over 4,300m (and -8 degrees temperature). It is the third largest of its kind in the world. Afterwards I took the opportunity to thaw my bones in a thermal pool of 38 degrees. A nice feeling in the pool, but not so nice after you get out.
I saw my first llamas and vicuñas of
the trip in this area as they prefer to live in areas of altitude. Vicuñas are more rare to see and wild compared to the domesticated llamas. Vicuña wool is the most fine and expensive of the four types of camelids with woollen jumpers costing in excessive of $1,000.
More of the other dry, sandy and rocky areas I explored reminded me of places I saw in southwest USA. The rock formations standing on their own in the middle of nowhere once again boggled the mind as you tried to comprehend how many years it had taken for the earth to erode and change to obtain this alien-like state.
I also took in a night sky observation which is absolutely perfect in this kind of location. It was run by a French enthusiast who had around 10 telescopes permanently set up in his backyard. He really knew his stuff and I saw some cool constellations, planets and red dwarfs up close.
After enjoying the desert it was time to pop back across into Argentina to see the north before heading up into Bolivia.
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