Atacama

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We decided that for these vacations we just wanted to get away as far as we could. Living in Concepción, my friends and I had always heard of the beauties of the northern part of Chile, so we decided that we were going backpacking there for the summer and see it with our own eyes. We had been saving money all year, had been studying and working like mad, so on the first day of our vacations, Rodri, Pauli, Benja and I bought a cheap bus ticket to Antofagasta and simply took off. Our target? San Pedro de Atacama.

First we arrived in Antofagasta and stayed there for one night. We went dancing to a very hip club and stayed there until the music went off. It was nearly 5 o'clock in the morning and we were going to San Pedro at 6:30, so we hurried back to the hotel, picked up our bags and hopped into the bus. We slept during the whole journey and got to San Pedro just in time for supper. There was a well-hidden little restaurant that had no name and was basically an old woman cooking traditional Chilean food. It was by far the best meal I’ve eaten since I got here.

San Pedro struck us from minute one. Its quietness, its sandy roads and its warm temperature were enough to make us forget about school and realise that we were really on vacations. Our youth hostel was a beautiful house made of adobe, which kept it warm and cosy. The owners of the place were two Germans that had come on a trip twenty years ago and decided that this was the place they were going to live in for the rest of their lives. I completely understood why.

At dawn we went on a day-trip to Tatio Geysers, and swam in thermal baths. Then, we went sightseeing to Valle de la Luna and watched the sunset surrounded by a landscape that I think is the closest I will ever get to going to the moon. The next day we swam in Laguna Cejar, which is compared to the Dead Sea, because it is very salty and oddly enough it's impossible to sink. On the way to the lakes our driver turned off the van and we experienced the pull of the magnetic fields, it was as if we were going backwards up a hill, weird!
San Pedro was awesome, now we are going back home, but someday I will come back for sure!

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