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Published: January 31st 2010
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One of the most spectacular parts of our trip to San Pedro de Atacama was the bus ride there! It was a 10-hour ride through a spectacular mountain pass that took us up to the Argentine Border at over 4000 meters. This was my first experience with altitude and I could definitely feel the effects. I had a headache and even the smallest task was exhausting. Of course Chuck didn’t feel anything. When we first arrived in San Pedro we were a little bit discouraged. We couldn’t find our hostel and it was starting to get dark and no one seemed very helpful. Our hostelkeeper had told us that she would pick us up at the bus station, but we arrived 2 hours late because of a slow border crossing (at least we assume that’s why; you never really receive and explanation for these things!) When we finally found the hostel, it was way more rustic than we’d been expecting. I guess that’s what “laid back atmosphere means in the online reviews! Our room had no fan and only small windows and the showers were more like campground showers than hostel facilities. We searched for the “supermarket” and when we did
find it, it was little more than a corner store. I was encouraged however when the shopkeeper was very helpful in finding me the ingredients for pasta with ground beef and tomato sauce (we were craving comfort food) and when we saw how busy and energetic the streets were at night. All of the buildings are built in the adobe mud style, it’s hot and dusty and the streets are overrun with dogs, but it has its own charm once you’ve been there for a couple of days. We were still feeling the pinch of needing to get to Cusco in time, so we scrambled to book a tour of the geysers and the Valle de La Luna for the next day. The bus would pick us up at 4am!
The geyser tour was also a little disappointing unfortunately. We had thought we would arrive in time for sunrise and Chuck hoped to get some good photos. The reason for the 4am departure however was that the geysers are over 2 hours away and the best time to see the steam is in the cold of the early morning. The bus ride was incredibly bumpy so it was impossible
to sleep and that, coupled with the altitude, meant that I arrived at the geyser site feeling pretty tired! The geysers themselves were pretty impressive. There are steam, water and mud geysers and we enjoyed a breakfast of hard boiled eggs and hot chocolate cooked in one of the slowly bubbling water geysers. There is also a hot spring, but we hadn’t been told to bring bathing suits! On the way back to San Pedro we stopped at a little village with houses and a church made of volcanic rock. And that was it. Luckily we had a second tour that day and the incredible landscapes of Valle de la Luna more than made up for it!
Our Valle tour left at 2:30 pm so we spent a couple of hours running around booking and paying for our three-day Salt Flats tour of Salar de Uyuni which would leave the next morning. We boarded the bus with low expectations after that morning and I was happy to find out that we were wrong! The photos show the amazing desert canyons and dunes around San Pedro and we finally realized what makes the little town in the middle of nowhere
so popular! We saw the Valle de la Muerta (sp?) where people more brave than me were sandboarding in the distance. We walked through the Salt canyon which I did entirely in bare feet as the sand was so smooth and flawless. We saw the naturally sculpted stone formations of the three Marys, which can also look like a condor, Jesus on the Cross or the Lion King depending on who you ask! And finally, we climbed up the dunes of the Valley of the Moon to watch the sunset. Chuck took over a hundred photos and some of them do it justice, but the panorama of the setting sun and its reflection on the dune and the volcano behind us are truly unforgettable for me. Luckily we had a few other photographers in our group so that we didn’t miss our bus back to town. Most people left before the sun had completely disappeared, which Chuck commented was like leaving the theatre before the end of the movie! That night we were satisfied that we had seen as much as we could in our short time in San Pedro de Atacama and were ready to check out the biggest
and highest salt flats in the world, Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. I prepared the pasta dinner that we were craving (being sure to cook the meat REALLY well) and we enjoyed a bottle of wine at the hostel before getting to bed, ready for the next adventure.
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ML
non-member comment
Hi
Wow some amazing pictures. Sounds like a trip for the young. Lynn and I were out shopping today and found 3 Christmas dog toys (the ones they all like) for Morgan, Mak and Toby. We are planning to go back to Toronto on Friday. Ian was over for dinner yesterday (Anna was working). Anna is apparently feeling better. I can't remember if you know or not but I accompanied Lynn to Ottawa as Neil has he get ready for the trial week this week and start the new trial next Monday. Hopefully it provides some success. Take care and lots of love, ML