San Pedro de Atacama

This long weekend I went to San Pedro de Atacama in the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world! I had an amazing time. Claire, Jess, Mimi and I made plans to go and then a lot of other gringos expressed interest in going too, so we ended up with a huge group (11 people!) which I was a little weary about at first but ended up being great because we got tons of discounts on tours and rentals and stuff.

So we flew into Calama, the largest nearby city, at around 12am Thursday night/Friday morning and then took a transfer into San Pedro and arrived by 1:30. We stayed in the cheapest hostel in the town, La Casa Del Sol Naciente (Roughly the House of the Rising- or maybe "New"- Sun: literally "the House of the Born Sun") 

The common area of the hostel

I liked all the books they had stacked up for our reading pleasure.

The some-what sketchy kitchen

Friday morning we got up early and prepared oatmeal for breakfast and then went out to explore the town, which is super cute and small. Only about half of the town has paved roads and a lot of the houses and fences are made out of clay stuff. 

You can see these two volcanos from almost anywhere in town. I'm pretty sure the one on the left is actually in Bolivia, we were really close to the border of Bolivia, Argentina and Chile.

We also explored the town church and the museum at the University there (I was suprised that such a small town had a university but there you have it)

Part of the large group of gringos

the church was cute but a little.. I don't know strange? Why is there a doll, I don't know..

This is the university, right inside is the museum

The museum was very beautiful but freezing cold!

We didn't stay long enough to figure out who this guy was because it was too cold to stop and read things, but he seems important.

After exploring the town we went back to the hostel and had lunch. (Avocado and tomato sandwiches. yum!)

Then at 3 it was time for our tour (which we got a smokin' deal for: 22 dollars instead of $56 each, for 2 days worth of tours because our group was so big!) So the first day's tour included Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon), las Tres Marias (The 3 Marias), Valle de la Muerte (Valley of the Death) and la Piedra de Coyote (Coyote Rock). (Brace yourself for a bunch of pictures.)

We had to stop at the park entrance to pay a small fee (we got a student discount) so we took a group photo. This is the self-proclaimed "Aventuroso Club" ("Adventure Club") made up of Jess, Claire, Mimi and me. haha

Okay first off: Valle de la Luna

Aww, me and Jess

This is a picture of the sweet hat that I bought as a gift for Connor, but I think I'm going to end up keeping it because I've grown attached to it, sorry bro! :)

Our guide showed us with sand how the valley was formed and why it was so salty. Basically a series of earthquakes caused the mountains to form and trapped ocean water inside the valley. When the water evaporated all the salt was left behind. (It was a little more complicated but she explained it in Spanish about 5 days ago, so that's the best I can remember!)

Then the guide made the group be silent and we could hear the entire mountain creaking. She explained to us that the salt heats up during the day and cools down at night so its constantly expanding and contracting. It was a little bit scary that it was cracking so audibly, we all thought we were about to be killed in a rockslide or something. haha

It looks snowy but its just that salty.

The sun was super powerful, we were at about 4,000 feet and there was very little shade so during the day it was like summer, but once the sun set you had to wear several layers to stay warm.

Next on the tour was Las 3 Marias, which unfortunately now is more like the 2.5 Marias because the one on the left was knocked over by a French tourist awhile ago, thus we couldn't actually get near them to take photos. The one on the right is praying, the one in the middle is holding a child, and the one on the left was in a position of repentence, which she kind of still is if you squint just right. 

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According to our guide this is the part for the kids, its either the Pacman or the Dinosaur (Dinosaurio), and in the background the little hills are called los Huevos de Dinosaurios (The Dinosaur Eggs) and unfortunately I don't remember how the guide said they were formed, maybe ask Stevie if you are really curious, she would know! :)

Next stop was Valle de la Muerte, but it was really windy so we didn't take many pictures, but we went back the next day so don't worry.

The final stop was Piedra de Coyote, or Coyote Rock. We got to take some embarassing tourist pictures and then watch the sunset.

Watching the sunset (L to R) Liz, Mimi, Me, Sophie, Jess and Lizzie

Ah, so pretty!

Pretty neat! After the tour we went back and ate some pasta dinner at the hostel, played some cards, and then went out to stargaze because there was almost no light pollution and no clouds. We saw several shooting stars and the Milky Way was also super visible which was cool.

DAY 2

We woke up early, ate some more oatmeal, and headed over to a different tourist agency where we rented bikes and sandboards (again, we got a sweet discount) and then headed off to Valle de la Muerte for sandboarding. The bikeride was easy, only twenty minutes, but hiking up the hill over and over was exaughsting! We started on the "bunny hill" and then moved to the big one. It was pretty scary but really fun. Afterwards I said sand everywhere (I found some in my ear hours later!)

Sandboarding was probably my favorite thing we did. More pictures (and videos!) exist, but I'm waiting for people to put them up, so for now these will have to do. As you can see we couldn't take very many runs because it was exhausting hiking up the hill everytime!! 

Afterwards we had the second half of our tour. We went to three different lakes: Laguna Cejar (I'm not sure how that translates,) Ojos del Salar (roughly Eyes of the Saltflat,) and Tebenquiche (which I think must be Mapuche or otherwise not-Spanish.)

Laguna Cejar was super cool. It was so salty that it was like the Dead Sea, you could just float! Swimming.. or I guess floating.. in it was really fun but getting out was so cold!!

The guide had to carry fresh water so we could rinse off. The saltiness kind of burned after awhile and my shins were like pure white because I didn't rinse them well enough. Crazy!

You can see me, Jess and Claire floating in the background, haha.

 Ojos del Salar was alright, basically its two salty lakes formed from when they tried to dig for oil but found water instead. Bummer for the oil company, but good for the desert.

As you can see, there was an enormous group of us, but it was lots of fun.

Just a hole in the ground, and there is another one behind the camera, thus "ojos" ("eyes")

Tebenquiche was also really cool. It was a a salt flat with about 3 inches of water on it. The bottom was pure white and incredibly smooth, it was awesome to walk around on. We watched the sunset here and got some snacks and Pisco Sour (delicious Chilean drink) from the tour guide.

I think because the bottom is so smooth and white it looks deceptively deep. Look, we're walking on water!!

haha, embarassing. 

Did I mention this place was BEAUTIFUL?

 That night we went back and made some more pasta (Mimi bought dinner, but she wasn't sure what to get for us since Jess is vegetarian, so we had pasta every night with various sauces, which is great because none of our host families feed us enough pasta, haha.) After dinner we played Hearts until late and I tried, with arguable success, to explain the game in Spanish to a Chilean that was watching us.

DAY 3

Mercifully we had nothing planned for the morning so we got to explore the town, buy some gifts, and soak up the sun. After lunch we met at the tourist agency to go for a horseback ride (and yes we got another sweet deal because of the size of our group.) I was pleasantly suprised at how fun it was (everyone was shocked to learn that the girl from Idaho had never ridden a horse.) Anyway my horse was named Negro, but I renamed him Buckbeak (from Harry Potter, if you are familiar) and it was more fun to pretend that I was flying on a hippogriff. 

My hat! (I'm on the left)

Such good posture, I was practically a natural. Haha, not!!

But look, evidence of me actually riding. I got that sucker up to a trot, but we didn't canter or gallop. Basically Negro/Buckbeak figured out that I had no idea what I was doing so then he just messed with me. I would try for like 10 minutes to get him to go faster, but he wasn't havin' it. then I would give up and then he's randomly take off!! It was a little alarming but I enjoyed it. haha.

After the horseback riding we ran to check out some Incan ruins before the sunset. We got there just as it was closing so we couldn't explore much, which was a bummer, but it was still really neat to see it.

After the ruins we went back to the hotel, got our stuff and went up to catch the bus. We stopped for dinner next door to the bus depot and talked to the restaurant owner (who was super nice!) while our food was being prepared.

Then we had an hour and a half bus ride, followed by a short taxi ride, then an hour or so waiting in a tiny airport (still can't get over how easy airport security is!) On the way back, Mimi, Claire and I were on a later flight than everyone else, which was a bummer, but then we each got a row to ourselves on the plane!

Well that's it. What a trip! Although I'm staying in South America til August, the rest of the Adventuroso Club leaves between late June and mid-July, so this was our last trip with the four of us! Can't believe this journey is over half way done! I'm incredibly glad I decided to stay as late as possible because I'm not ready to go home yet!!