4th-9th September: San Pedro de Atacama

We left Jujuy early in the morning of 4th September for a bus ride that the Lonely Planet euphemistically described as "scenic."  The views were indeed stunning, as we climbed up the Andes turn by turn, reaching more than 4000m above sea level at the highest pass.  There were a few nerves over the 8 hour journey, but the generous use of the brakes suggested that the bus driver wanted to make it to San Pedro alive and so we did, arriving in mid-afternoon in a dusty basin surrounded by desert and volcanoes.

The town of San Pedro is relaxed and tourist-friendly, which after almost a month of travelling was a relief.  We decided to stay for a few days, taking advantage of the plethora of tours and acclimatising for greater altitudes in Bolivia.  Besides relaxing, much of the first day or so was spent talking to several of the 47 tour agencies in a town of 3200 inhabitants.  We even pored over the tourist office's notebooks full of reviews written by tourists about their experience with travel agencies.  Most had both positive and very negative reviews, which did not help greatly.  Why all the fuss?  Mostly because the main tour, a three day trip through the largest salt flats in the world to Uyuni in Bolivia, has a reputation for some terrible experiences. After four days we finally decided on a company called Limit-Xtremo.  More about that later.

Our first tour was to the Geysers del Tatio, with a very early start in the morning of the 6th.  The agency's minibus picked us up at 4 am.  I was so excited that I had no problem getting up, although John was a little less eager to venture into the cold.  We drove (well wrapped up in fleeces and blankets) for about 2 hours under the stars, it was beautiful.  We then reached the main place from which to observe the Geysers.  It was still very dark outside so we had breakfast (coffee, hot milk, ham and cheese sandwich and eggs), while waiting (in -15 Celsius) for the sunrise.  Step by step, the fumes from the Geysers were illuminated by the rising sun, it was really magical!

The guide walked us around the various geysers and explained the differences between geysers, fumaroles, boiling mud, and the rest.  The geysers are active the whole day, but the fumes can be seen most clearly from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m. when it is cold outside.  The early start was well worth it (in retrospect at least).  We then swam in a 30 degrees thermal pool, which brought our feet back to life.  The bus then took us to a town with only 40 inhabitants called Mapucha, whose inhabitants make their living in the desert by raising llamas.  Unfortunately, apart from the old church, most of the town looked quite touristy.  We arrived back at the hostel around midday, and went to bed for some well-earned rest.  We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and trying to catch up on photos, journal, blog etc.

The next day we had a very enjoyable lie-in and a quiet morning before our afternoon tour to the Moon Valley.  The tour took us through a beautiful landscape of sheer cliffs, exposed strata in rich colours, and gorges in the driest place on earth (looks like the moon apparently), with the incredibly enthusiastic guide describing the main geological phenomena (caused by erosion from cold snaps every 100,000 years, apparently; thankfully we've got a while to wait, the last was 5,000 years ago).  We saw the "Three Maries", stones thus named by a French priest called Gustave Le Paige who thought (rather imaginatively) that the formations looked like three images of the praying virgin Mary.  The tour ended with a beautiful sunset from a lookout over the whole valley (which had us, together with the other hundred tourists lining the cliffs, very over-excited with our cameras).  Here's one of the million snaps we took:

On Thursday, we also had a relaxed morning (necessary after being woken at 3am by the curious howling of the four huge Alsatians living next to our hostel and their supporting choir of strays outside).  We visited the Museo Arqueologico R.P. Gustavo Le Paige, which displays objects of the Atacameña culture (ceramics, textiles, stone and iron tools, and what had been amusingly translated as "snuff boxes" for taking hallucinogens).  The earliest settlers in the Atacameño region were hunters in around 9000/8500 B.C.   The culture was later influenced by the Tiwanaku civilisation, and was then overrun by first the Incas and then the Spanish.  The Atacameña culture has only really been reasserting itself in the last 20 years or so.

In the afternoon, we visited several lakes in the San Pedro de Atacama salt flats.  The first was the Laguna Cejas, a small lake in the middle of the desert nourished by a subterranean water source.  This was like the Dead Sea, with 70% salt content, but much, much colder.  John braved the water just long enough for me to take a photo of him floating, but not without some squealing.  The other lakes were even colder, so the clothes stayed on for the rest of the evening.  Finally we enjoyed another sunset, accompanied by a pisco sour and an impressive array of snacks (which we demolished rapidly).

Rinsing with fresh water

For our last day in San Pedro, we rented bikes and cycled to the Pukara of Quitor, a fortress built on a slope de la Cordillera de la Sal (one of the many mountain ranges surrounding San Pedro).  It was built by the Atacameños in 900 B.C-145 B.C., and was also used when the Incas were in power.  It held out against the Spanish for a while, but eventually fell (and was then decorated by the Spanish with the heads of 50 locals).  We spent the afternoon preparing for our upcoming trip to Uyuni, Bolivia.