San Pedro de Atacama: Day 1

So this past weekend I packed my bags and took a trip up to Northern Chile to San Pedro de Atacama. This is known as the desert of Chile and it's gorgeous.

Here's a map of where it is incase you're wondering.....

San Pedro is the area in the orange and Santiago is 6 regions below that. Looks a lot closer than 20 hours right?

We took a flight there to avoid the 20 hour bus ride. Apparently, Chile is relatively small in size it's just insanely long and it takes forever to get from one end of the country to the other. I would have never imagined it was 20 hours! That's almost the time from NC to CO! Anyway, we hopped on a flight Friday afternoon and got in around 8pm after taking a bus from the airport in to Atacama. We couldn't see much when we arrived, but we wandered the town for a few minutes and then went to bed early.

We woke up at 3:45AM to go on a tour of the El Tatio geysers. It is the 3rd largest geyser field in the world and the 2nd in the highest elevation. So we loaded our small little tour bus and took almost a 2 hour drive up in to the mountains. When we finally got out the sun had just barely started to rise and it was FREEZING!! We knew it was going to be cold, but this was bitter cold with like 4 shirts, 2 jackets, hat gloves and two pairs of pants on. We wandered through the geyser fields for a while and then ate berakfast as the sun came up.

The best part was that it's not like yellowstone where everything is marked and organized. It was so natural, no roads, just open land. There were some stones marking the perimeter to keep you from stepping on a geyser, but it was just so natural.

Charlotte, Jess, me and Elisabeth at the Geysers

After we ate breakfast (and stole extra sandwiches for lunch), some people swam in one of the hot springs. I however chickened out..... I know.... but I couldn't feel my toes or fingers and there was no place to change out of your suit after jumping in and you were not allowed back on the bus in a bathing suit. The other gals went and they said it was nice, but more like a warm bath so I'm ok with my decision. Also, the sun finally came up all the way and it was a gorgeous day!

Elisabeth, Charlotte and Jess in the hot springs

Hot Springs

After swimming and wandering for a bit we loaded up the bus and went to a tiny old mining town. There are only SEVEN people that live in this town in the middle of no where. They were salt miners (or maybe copper....) but now they just welcome the people who come through and sell empanadas, lama meat and there is one woman selling socks. Can you imagine living here? Literally, it is in the middle of nothingness for miles and miles.

Wild animals as we entered the town

The church of the town.

The one woman selling socks and gloves.

Our last stop on the morning tour was to the Cactus Valley.... another gorgeous area to see. We even got to climb up a little mountain...

Sea oats, desert sand and snow covered mountains all in one.

We got back to San Pedro around 2 and took a quick nap before heading out again for our next tour. ( The only way to see all of this is through tour guides because they aren't like national parks in the US. They are really remote and you're pretty much 4 wheeling and not really on a road a lot of time.)

This tour was to Valle de la Luna - Vally of the Moon - again, gorgeous! Think a mix of Moab and the Grand Canyon, but with a lot less people. It's just a gorgeous landscape of red rock formations that really do look like how you would picture the moon and then massive sand dunes.

Valle de la Luna

Can you tell it was a little windy?

Salt rock formations. The white stuff is salt and it expands during the day and shrinks at night when it cools so it's crackling around this time of day.

More salt rock formations

"The Amphitheater"

"The 3 Marias" Do you see how they look like angels praying?

Inside an old miner shack.

The last stop was to the top of mountain to watch the sunset. It was so gorgeous, but unfortunately it was also insanely windy with sand blowing everywhere! It was so windy we could hardly hold our heads up to watch the sunset because your eyes were just pelted with sand. I bascially wrapped my head in my scarf, put on sunglasses and pulled my hood so tight around my head and was THEN able to enjoy it. Gorgeous red rocks, mountains and volcanoes in every direction!

Our view point for the sunset.

Gorgeous volcanoes in the sunset.

After that tour we headed back to town grabbed a quick bite to eat and then crashed in our hostal. It was a long day and we had another big day planned for Sunday! I'll share all about that later!