Ahh the Chilean desert….a bit of a change from our frosty crossing from Argentina at some ungodly hour of the morning. It’s about 2-4 degrees C at night and 28-32 during the day right now (winter). Very extreme, but manageable if you dress in layers.
San Pedro de Atacama is reputed to be one of the oldest towns in Chile and lies at 2438 metres (8000 feet) above sea level, a good bit lower than where we’ve been when we crossed the Andes. It has a population of 2600 people and about 300 dogs of dubious lineage, lying about in the middle of the road in various states of manginess. People do feed them though, but I don’t think anyone actually owns them and if you give them any attention (or food) they will follow you for miles, speaking from experience. There must be a particularly horny Alsatian in town, as every second dog seemed to have some Alsatian in it.
San Pedro is situated in the most arid desert in the world, getting only 11 or 12 mm of rain per year and usually all in one go, so it is an incredibly dusty place. It’s considered to be the archeological capital of Chile, conquered by the Incas in 1450, then by the Spaniards 90 years later, so it does have a Spanish feel to it.
The streets have no cobblestones, they are just made of compacted mud, so I hate to think what it would be like when it rains – a total mud bath. San Pedro is very touristy, with shop after shop full of llama slippers, jerseys, ponchos and colourful souvenirs, but also tons of different restaurants and cafes. The oldest building, which is the Iglesia de San Pedro, was unfortunately under renovation, so we couldn’t photograph it, let alone go inside it. The Chilean national cocktail is called Pisco Sour, which is reminiscent of lemon-flavoured battery acid – I could feel it burn all the way down. The currency is Chilean Pesos, so about 450 pesos to one NZ dollar. It was a bit alarming the first night when we got our dinner bill and the total came to 30,000 pesos! That equates to about NZ$65 for a two course dinner and bottle of wine.
This is the only foreseeable part of the trip that allowed us to have some down time and a break from punishingly early starts, long travel days and a couple of back-to-back one night stays. In fact we had a whole day and evening off from any excursions, which was especially good because I was still feeling pretty bad with altitude sickness. So it was such luxury to have a bit of a sleep-in and catch up on a few things, plus about 8 of us had a massage (not all at the same time) and sat by the pool. Steve went on a half day quad bike tour in the desert and came back covered from head to foot in sandy mud, so he had to have a shower with all his clothes on, including the backpack, once we’d emptied it.
We did do a half day tour to the Valle de la Luna and Valle de la Muerte (Valley of the Moon and Death Valley) and climbed/felt our way through some salt caves, plus did a couple of hikes along the way. There are sand dunes that you can sand-board down, but also some that are so pristine and perfect, they just look amazing. The final part of that day trip was to go and watch the sun set over the valley and watch all the Mountains turn pink.
On the fourth day we left San Pedro and drove about three and a half hours to the west coast to the underwhelming city of Antofagasta, with a quick lunch stop before another short flight up to Arica, close to the Chile/Peru border. Our last one-night stop on the whole tour – hooray! There was a festival going on in Arica, so after having dinner together in a local seafood restaurant, we went our separate ways to investigate the town and then met up again at midnight for the fireworks display. We didn’t have to leave until 11.30 the next day, so that was a nice slow start to the day. Only had a short time in Chile really, but are looking forward to the next two weeks in Peru till the end of the tour.
2 Frosty Tops Do South America 