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Published: September 23rd 2008
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Monday 11
Next morning we drove out of town via Chuquicamata. Have been told it employs 15000 workers per shift and they run 3 shifts per day. The workers all have fantastic pays and conditions…since early 1990s when the unions took control and organized miners’ rights. The next major long haul was to San Pedro de Atacama. This was a drive with big views up and up and up the mountain range. Malcolm and Jackie managed to sleep their way through this delightful landscape. The town has population of only about 5000 inhabitants the rest of this bustling little village is made up with tourists and being summer in Europe, San Pedro abounds with lots of Europeans.
We had been warned that the some of the accommodation could be a little rustic eg no hot water at night, no heating and since we had Malcolm’s mum with us we decided to go a little more up market and stay at Hotel Kimal. We ended up paying $150 per night for the privilege of having heating, hot water and a buffet breakfast. It was quite an oasis in an area of dust and sand with its own swimming pool
and spa. All of the buildings in San Pedro are made of mud bricks and mud/straw roofs and the roads were just dust and dirt. Since it doesn’t rain here there isn’t a problem. I can imagine these buildings on the GC…one huge downpour …one big mud bath!
Today was also the day to get all our washing done…1200 chilean peso per kg…this is where you wish you had taken quick dry gear instead of jeans….ended up costing us about $25. Hand it in by lunchtime and it’s all washed and folded by 9pm.
Tour operators abound along the main drag and all are touting the same tours. The trick was to find a tour that was conducted in English. The one that we had been recommended was full so then we just took pot luck with Desert Adventure. With no rest for the wicked we took our first tour that afternoon. It was the Moon Valley tour which included ‘Cordillera de la sal’, ‘Valle de la muerte’, ‘las tres marias’ and salt dunes and the big dune in the central area of the moon valley. After a long climb up a sand dune we walked along a
ridge to view the sun setting over Licancabur. We thought we were going to see the moon rise directly over the volcano but apparently this only happens once a year and this wasn’t it. This was our first desert experience…the wind was blowing a gale and I can tell you there was no need for an exfoliator…this was a natural exfoliator. We ended up with sand everywhere. The rocks are not as you would expect. They look like they would crumble away but in fact they are really hard and you can’t crumble with your fingers or even your feet. In one place, if you stand still you can hear the mountain, which consists totally of salt, crack and creak. Not to waste a minute, we returned from the Moon Valley tour at 7pm, rushed off to have a quick dinner at Café Adobe which exuded charm with its open fire. Next on the agenda was an ‘Observatory’ tour at 10pm run by a Frenchman called Alain. He made looking at the stars really interesting and had telescopes set up on all different sorts of things. Managed to take photos of the moon and Jupiter. At the end of this
tour 1245 and after having driven all day I was well and truly ready for bed.
Tuesday 12
Up early next morning to take an all day Atacama salt lake and high plateau lagoons tour. We visited Toconao village, Jere Valley, National Park ‘Los Flamencos’ (Chaxas Lagoon) Socaire village and Miscant and Miniques lagoons. The tour was led by Danielo who was a wealth of information and made the whole region come to life. The salt lakes were not flat and white as we imagined, but more like big fields that had all been ploughed up. We took a walk on the salt lake and it was interesting to note that there was quite a bit of water underfoot and little lakes at 36% salt concentration that support all sorts of marine and plant life. It wasn’t as dry as it appeared. Next up was seeing the pink flamingos. I think they knew they had an audience so did their little dance. The young flamingos up to a year old are white. The pink colour comes from the diet. Amongst all this desert and at 4000m you don’t think you would find freshwater lakes but this where we
saw Miscant and Miniques lagoons.
We met up a couple of Brazilians Mariela and Tania. They were the only other people on the tour that spoke English so naturally we were drawn to them. Mariela works for an American company and Tania works for the Australian Trade Commission and had only just returned from OZ.
Back to San Pedro via Toconao which is an old agricultural oasis in the middle of an otherwise arid desert with a very intricate irrigation system.
After a very full day we decided to have an early dinner at La Estaka as we were leaving early the next morning for Iquique.
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Sue Treadie
Susan Storr
Great photos!
Those salt rocks really are rather "moonshapey" themselves, aren't they?! Sounds like you're having a full on start to your adventure! Enjoy and great to hear your travel news.