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(Day 303 on the road)Visiting San Pedro de Atacama was special: It was the first place on this trip that I had been to before. Back in my student days, when I was doing an internship with a major airline, I was able to negotiate two free worldwide flights as part of my compensation package (the pay itself was pretty rubbish, if I remember correctly). I took one of those flights to Santiago de Chile and visited the Atacama Desert on that trip.
Pretty much the only thing I remember about that visit in 2002 - some 21 years ago - was that it was bloody cold. And I can say that with certainty: That part hasn't changed much (a lot of other things have). I stayed in a guesthouse for three nights, and after freezing my bum off the first night, I asked for extra blankets. When I was still cold the second night, I asked for more blankets. The third night, I was OK. Upon check-out, I realised I had slept under seven blankets. Probably a record on this trip - although I have had plenty of cold nights in the Andes.
The other thing I noticed
immediately after arriving in Chile from neighbouring Bolivia was the cost of things. Everything was literally three to four times more expensive, some stuff like tours even much more than that. After the minibus shuttle from the Bolivian border had dropped me off, I walked around quite a bit trying to find affordable accommodation. In the end, I settled on a pretty rundown place on the outskirts of town. Even so, it was still four times more expensive than what I had been paying for on average the last ten months. It was by far the most expensive accommodation I had. And certainly not the nicest.
Fortunately, I hadn't planned to spend much time in Chile anyway (as I wanted to explore the north of Argentina in depth). But honestly, even if I wanted to, I don't think I could have managed. Over the past ten months, I have spent an average of around €1.400 per month. Multiply that by three or four and you have a monthly cost between €4,200 and €5.600. Simply impossible - who can afford to travel here? I could probably have cut costs by sleeping in stuffy 10-bed dormitories, eating junk food and doing
without anything remotely nice, but that didn't seem very appealing. And hell, even a no-frills dorm bed here cost twice as much as a nice room with a private bathroom and breakfast in any other country I have visited so far.
So I spent three nights in San Pedro de Atacama and made the most of it. An affordable and very nice way to explore the area was to rent a bike. I spent the first day cycling through the Valle de la Luna. I am not sure how it would feel to cycle on the moon, but cycling through this earthly Moon Valley was certainly special. Looking at my old pictures from 2002, I know I was here 21 years ago - what a shame I don't remember anything!
Fun fact(s): There is a place in the desert called Tres Marias, basically a rock formation of three sleek pillars. A few years ago, a tourist thought it would be a bright idea to climb one of them to take a selfie, and the pillar broke off. A park ranger told me that they now jokingly call them Dos y Media Marias (Two and a Half Marias). But
looking at my picture from 2002 (grainy, analogue and then digitalised), I can see that there used to be three pillars. I can also see that a lot of places that are now off-limits to visitors (for example, a place called the Grand Dune) were open to tourists 20 years ago, because I have pictures of me scrambling on it.
The second day I cycled to a place called Laguna Cejar, which is basically a very salty lake. And very cold. The experience of floating in it reminded me of visiting the Dead Sea in Israel. Only floating in the Dead Sea was much more pleasant due to the warm water. Here, it was basically in and out while a Danish guy was kind enough to take a quick picture of me.
Before it was time to leave Chile, I was poised to do some stargazing. The Atacama Desert is famous among astronomers for its perfect conditions - dry climate and a location far from any light-polluting sources. Although the two-hour tour I took cost more than three full-day excursions in Bolivia or Peru, it was at least quite spectacular. While our guide's explanations were a little rushed
and mediocre, they had set up three high-powered telescopes. I had never given telescopes much thought, so I guess I was pretty naive about it, but these things had built-in GPS and star-tracking capabilities. You could basically point them at a particular star or galaxy and the telescope would follow that location, so you didn't have to adjust the telescope every few minutes. And the images of the far away stars they showed us (think 40 million light years) was certainly amazing. They had also set up a professional camera - and brought along a guy who knew what he was doing (15 second exposure, red light torch to light up the people for just the right amount of time). The resulting image was magical - you can see it here in this blog entry.
And that concluded my short stint into Chile. In preparation for Argentina - my next country - I spent part of my last afternoon hitting the withdrawal limit of my credit card and exchanging it for US dollars. Argentina is in the middle of (another) major financial crisis, so a bit of preparation was in order. But more on that in my next blog
entry. For now, it was time to buy an overpriced bus ticket to Argentina - about six times more expensive than a similar ticket would cost in any other country down here. Loco.
My route in Chile: San Pedro de Atacama.
Next stop: Purmamarca (Argentina).
To view my photos, have a look at pictures.beiske.com.
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Dancing Dave
David Hooper
Chile prices
You say it is expensive in Chile, Ben. Can you beat US$12 for a bunch of rotten bananas that explode when dropped in shock when the Chilean price is given?