At a calmer pace

Our little bus load of intrepid travellers entering from Bolivia passed through Chilean border formalities on the outskirts of San Pedro de Atacama. Fortunately they decided not to fine Laura for the one mandarin she had missed when emptying her bag of fruit while we had been waiting at the Bolivian border.

We had no trouble locating the sightly upmarket hostel we had booked - on the expectation that we would be needing a little pampering after a few days of roughing it in the Bolivian salt flats and deserts - and we had hit pay dirt! Not only did we have the largest room, with a doorway that faced the sun, but there was hot water available 24 hours and excellent water pressure for the shower. And so it came to pass that by 2:00pm we'd had a lovely hot shower, changed into clean clothes, and were sitting in a nice little restaurant feasting on huge portions of tasty quiche - thinking about our poor tour friends in the 4WDs, who were still bouncing along on their way back to Uyuni. Bliss!

Then it was time to make some plans for our two and a bit days in town. There were lots of full and part day tours available but we decided we were well and truly over early mornings, so the geyser tours that involved a 4:00am start were definitely out. So too were the full day tours because we had had enough of sitting in buses/4WDs for large chunks of the day. So even though we would have liked an early night we decided to start with an evening astronomy tour. This gave us the rest of the afternoon to explore the town a bit (which didn't take long) and take it easy.

The astronomy excursion, called "Space", was quite good, despite being an outdoor activity on a cold, cloudless desert night. it was enjoyable not only because they had a lot of telescopes setup that were focused on different things, or because they gave you blankets to keep warm, or because you were given a nice hot chocolate to warm up at the end, but because the Canadian guy who gave the lecture to start with was very entertaining. He explained that his last year in Canada had 325 cloudy nights whereas his first in the Atacama desert had 340 clear nights. A bit of a easy choice for an astronomer. He also used a laser pointer to highlight things in the sky during his talk, which made it easier to follow. When it came to looking through the telescopes it was particularly interesting to see the rings of Saturn with a few of its moons, as well as the dual star system that is Sirius. Afterwards we were dropped off just a couple of hundred metres from our hostel, to minimise the walk in the cold, but there was also the treat of a nice hot shower before bed.

We had a leisurely start to the next day, having booked breakfast for the very civilised hour of 8:30am. During the morning we had a bit more of an explore of San Pedro before booking short tours starting at 3:00pm for today and tomorrow. We also had a look through the museum of local history, which traced the human occupation of the area from pre-historic times through to now. For a small town museum it was actually quite impressive and very well done, with most of the information presented in English as well as Spanish for the benefit of mono-lingual gringos such as us. In the spirit of keeping it simple we invested in breadrolls, slices of deli meats and some salad for a "home made" lunch we could eat in the courtyard outside our hostel room.

This afternoon's tour was to the Valley of the Moon, not far out of town. This offered a number of interesting photo opportunities in a barren but fascinating landscape that in places really looked like it could have been on the moon.

The tour finale was on the top of a mountain overlooking the valley at sunset, which provided wonderful views of the changing colours and light as darkness fell. Afterwards there was time for another nice dinner before spoiling ourselves with another hot shower before bed.

Another leisurely start to the next day with an 8:30am breakfast in the sunny courtyard. Another lazy morning of exploring the town, writing and sending postcards, and having another "home made" lunch before joining our 3:00pm tour to the salt lakes.

 

Sunset at the salt lake

We were forewarned to bring our swim suits despite the water in the lakes being quite nippy. Swimming in the salt lake was actually interesting in a couple of respects. Firstly only the top few inches of the water was cold, with the water underneath that feeling quite pleasant. Secondly the salt content was about 40% so it was impossible not to float high on the water. Not surprisingly Laura didn't last too long in the water and I'm not sure that she really enjoyed having the cold water thrown on her to rinse off the salt afterwards either. I chose not to rinse off because I figured I'd just get salty again at the next stop. However it turned out that the next lake was just freshwater, and without the warmer underlayer. So I just had a quick dip to rinse off the salt that had already dried on me like a crust. The final stop was at another large but shallow salt lake (maximum depth about 45cms) where we took photos as the sun set. Our guide also gave us a history of the geological formation of the Atacama desert and the surrounding mountains - supplemented by a Brazillian woman on the tour who was doing her PhD in geology. All up it was an interesting few hours.

Back in town we tried a new place for dinner before returning to our hostel to pack and get ready for our 8:30am pickup tomorrow morning to take us to the airport in Calama. It is time to leave the desert and return to a temporate climate.

It was just the two of us in the little minivan the next morning, with the driver putting on a DVD about mining in the Calama region that ran for much of the hour or so that it took to reach Calama airport. Not that we watched it all as the stark desert landscape still held most of our attention during the drive. Even when we were in the air it was still interesting to see the desert and Andean landscapes passing below us for most of the flight to Santiago.