Very quick stop in San Pedro de Atacama

After 10 days in the region of Salta, we left for Chile. More precisely in the little town of San Pedro de Atacama.

We leave Salta with the 1 am bus (you read that right, 1 in the morning, probably the worst departure time there is). The ride is about 10 hours long, counting the 1h30 spent at the customs between Argentina and Chile. A lot different than the customs in Bolivia or Peru, here in Chile they don’t joke around. They check all the bags and we are not allowed any fruits, vegetables or anything animal.

A little bit before arriving at the boarder, we wake up to a beautiful sunset.

The landscape and the colors are incredible.

Luckily we have the best seats in the bus to admire this scenery. On the top floor, in the first row and warmly tucked into our sleeping bags.

The rest of the ride to San Pedro offers equally magnificent landscapes.

We pass by blue lagoons.

And the more we climb in altitude the more snow we see.

The snow capped summits and volcanoes are spectacular.

We arrive in San Pedro late in the morning.
San Pedro is a little town (very touristic) in the north of Chile, located at some 6,560 ft above sea level. It serves as a starting point to a lot of excursions in the region. In deed, the Atacama desert offers spectacular natural attractions such as a salt flat, geysers and plenty of lagoons.
The Atacama desert is one of Chile’s most fascinating regions, with a rich history and culture, heritage from the indigenous people who lived in this arid area.

At first sight, the town of San Pedro is really cute, with a nice little center Plaza, plenty of little charming streets, most of which are pedestrian and plenty of little restaurants with nice patios.

But the town is also full of travel agencies. Once we start noticing them it becomes almost frightening. Apparently there are over 70 agencies, all proposing the same tours and more or less the same prices. Which means the town is filled only with tourists. This pulls us back to reality after being all alone during our 7 day road trip in Argentina.

Thanks to our friend Julien, who was in San Pedro a few days before us, we went directly to the hostel he stayed in, since it was the cheapest he was able to find in town. Because San Pedro is very touristic, the accommodation prices here are a little high for our backpacker’s budget.

We settle down in our hostel, located a little outside the center of the city, but has a nice little garden. The place is very nice and relaxing.

Initially we planned on staying a week in San Pedro and go see a bunch of stuff. But that was before realizing that if we wanted to see everything we wanted, we either had to rent a car (a lot more expensive than in Argentina), or book through travel agencies that are pretty expensive. And as we were reading blogs or looking a pictures online, we realized that a lot of landscapes here resemble the landscapes we saw in South Lipez, in Bolivia during our 4 day trip. Indeed, during that trip we came very close to the Chilean border. The Licancabur volcano that we can see from our hostel, we actually saw the other side of it when we were in Bolivia.

So we decided to only do two activities, and go visit the Valle de la Luna and the Piedras Rojas. We also wanted to do an astronomical tour to watch the stars, because San Pedro is know to have one of the clearest skies on earth, with almost no light pollution. Unfortunately, we are during the full moon, so we can only see less than 50% of the stars, and had to forget about that part of the trip.

Valle de la Luna and Valle de la Muerte

The Valle de la Luna, is a desert area located at only 3 miles from San Pedro.

It has been shaped over billions of years by erosion from the wind and water. Because there is absolutely no life, and there are a bunch of craters and canyons, it looks a little like the Moon. The landscapes are fascinating, between canyons, sand dunes and mountains.

To visit the Valle de la Luna, the most economical way is to rent a bike. But Maider doesn’t like biking too much. On top of that in the afternoon, the temperature reaches easily above 90°F (with no shade), and the dirt roads go up and down a lot. Finally, since we wanted to watch the sunset there, we would have had to come back using our headlamps. All good excuses Maider found not to have to bike 😉 .

So as you guessed, we booked a tour through a travel agency and left at 3:30 pm, with our guide and 10 other tourists in a minibus.

We started by visiting a salt canyon. This one was made of several caves, carved naturally by an ancient water stream. This old salt flat, “turned” upside down, about 1 million years ago, certainly because of a major earthquake. The walls are made of argyle and salt crystals.

The little walk isn’t easy, as we have to bend over at times, do a little rock climbing at other times and needed a head lamp in some of the caves.

And we loved it! The views, both under and over ground were splendid.

After the canyon, we went towards a huge sand dune sculpted by the wind.

A quick little hike up to a mirador.

And from there a gorgeous view on the surroundings.

Landscapes we have never seen before are laid just in front of us.

We stay a while to admire the view and take plenty of pictures. This was a magical moment !

We come back to earth and continue in the Valle de la Luna. Where the guide brings us to “las 3 Marias”, these are rock formations that are supposed to look like 3 Marys praying in different positions. Actually the 3rd one (the one the most to the left), lost her head because of tourists taking picture on top of her. Since then the area is completely protected.

Last stop, before going to admire the sunset, in the amphitheater.

From there another small hike in the valley offers amazing views.

Maider is loving it, and takes plenty, plenty of pictures !

The highlight of the afternoon is watching the sunset from a mirador in the Valle de la Muerte.

This could have been a magical moment, but it was a little bit spoiled by the 30+ buses present.

We knew we wouldn’t be alone, since all the agencies in town offer the same tour, but boy we didn’t expect this many people! Haha

But this doesn’t take away the beauty of what we are seeing. On one side the sunset behind the mountains,

on the other side the Valle de la Luna illuminated by the sun’s changing colors. Magnificent !

The colors are incredible. We go from yellow, to red, to pink and as the sun sets, the light moves towards the volcanoes in the back.

A truly beautiful spectacle. We try to capture this moment the best we can, but nothing is worth seeing this with your own eyes !

Even the Moon is beautiful !

Time to drive back to San Pedro, we are glad we took this tour. Even though there were a lot of tourists for the sunset, the rest of the afternoon was pretty quiet, and the landscapes we saw were absolutely amazing. This desert landscape, surrounded by snow capped volcanoes is something we had never seen before. This was overall a great experience.

Piedras Rojas and Salar d’Atacama

The bus comes and picks us up in front of our hostel at 6:30 am. We start with an hour and a half drive to the village of Socaires, where we have breakfast. As we get to the village it is 8 am, and the town is still asleep EXCEPT for a group of 10 people playing music and dancing in the streets. At first our guide thinks they are “celebrating” the death of someone in the village, but we will learn that they are actually celebrating the Saint of the village and will be partying for a few days (Matt is still convinced they were simply still hammered from last nights party).

At that time we are at 12,470 ft above sea level, and the sun hasn’t come out, so it is FREEZING cold. The guide puts out a table on the town’s main Plaza and sets us a great breakfast. Even with the hot tea, it is really really hard to warm up.

We then leave to the Altiplano lagoons and of course keep climbing in altitude. On the way we see more and more sow and cross paths with some Vicuñas. The guide explains to us that their wool is so warm, that they can survive temperatures down to -20°F without body fat! At that moment Maider decides she wants to turn into a Vicuña, because she is freezing cold when she has all her clothes on and it is 50°F outside…

The landscapes are amazing. We see plenty of volcanoes (of course we forgot all the names). Indeed, there are over 90 active volcanoes (meaning there is magma underneath them) in Chile, and 21 are in the San Pedro area… Kind of a dangerous area to live in if you ask me. But it makes for absolutely stunning landscapes.

We first stop at the Laguna Tuyaito.

The strong wind is absolutely freezing so we don’t stay too long. But enough to admire the beauty of the Laguna.

And with the sun, the colors are incredible.

The second leg of our journey are the Piedras Rojas (red stones). We are still at 13,125 ft above sea level, so it’s still very cold but there is less wind, which makes things a little more bearable.

We remained absolutely speechless before what we saw. This place is stunning. Quick info, this place is called Red Stones, because the iron in the ground, oxidized with the water from the laguna, creating this red color.

The laguna is, of course, frozen at this time of year, creating these amazing colors. It is certainly one of the most beautiful views we have seen so far.

We hop back into the bus, and drive a little to get another view on the Piedras Rojas.

And on the way we saw a little Vizcacha, this little animal that has the head of a rabbit, and the tail of a squirrel. Hard to take a picture because it was hidden in the rocks.

To finish the morning, we drive to the salt flat of Atacama, and more precisely to the Laguna Chaxa, located in the middle of the salt flat. The Salar de Atacama is huge, 100 miles long and 80 miles wide. 40% of all the Lithium in the world is extracted here (so chance are that you have some of the Salar on you right now, either in your laptop or cellphone battery). The guide, along the way, did a great job of explaining how all these natural wonders came to be created. So interesting that Matt now wants to take a geology class!

When we arrive, we have a little spare time to walk around the Salar and by the Laguna. Once again the spectacle is beautiful. The Laguna is populated with plenty of flamencos, that we were able to see from pretty close.

 We could see the surrounding volcanoes reflect on the laguna. Magical!

Again we are in front of something absolutely beautiful. This salt falt is a lot different than the one in Uyuni. Indeed it isn’t as white, because it isn’t as protected as the one in Uyuni and also the wind brings in a lot of sand from the area.

We love the place, we take some time to simply watch the flamencos, admire the Salar surrounded by volcanoes and take tons of pictures.

And icing on the cake, this is were we are having lunch. We can’t think of a better way to conclude the morning.

Before going back to San Pedro, we stop in the town of Togonao, well known for it’s brick manufacturing. These bricks were used to build the tower on the main Plaza, and is now classified as a Chilean national monument.

Maider takes the time to by another bracelet. One by country so far 😉 .

This was an incredible day. We were charmed by the different landscapes and the colors of the lagoons.

We spend our last evening in San Pedro before leaving for La Serena the next day. La Serena is south from San Pedro, along the coast, where we rented an apartment on Airbnb.

But before leaving, we had a nice breakfast in San Pedro, in a french bakery we heard a lot about. And boy it was good, we have to admit, not a lot of breakfasts come close to a good french baguette and a pain au chocolat!

Bonus : A quick video of our days in San Pedro