First days Chile

I left Atins by boat and had a chance for another wonderful walk in the dunes during lunch stop. Then to Sao Luiz, nothing special, next day to Sao Paulo and the day after to Santiago where I unfortunately had only 22 hours time, but I got to see quite a bit of this beautiful city. Some beautiful old buildings, a beautiful cathedral and very beautiful modern skyscrapers concentrated in a part of town nicknamed Sanhattan. One thing I loved was that there are beautiful large trees along many of the streets downtown.

From Santiago I was supposed to fly to Arica in northern Chile and from there I wanted to travel to San Pedro de Atacama. I hadn't studied th map well enough when I bought my South America air pass and didn't know how long the busses take. I tried to change my LAN flight to Iquique but they said a destination change was not possible with this air pass. After I handed in my luggage and went to the gate I saw the plane was landing in Iquique on the way, which was much more convenient. I asked if I could get off in Iquique and the Lan agent at th gate said no. In the plane, I asked the stewardess again and she said it was not allowed. As I have learned in life never to give up, I explained her how adventageous it would be for me and to please let me get off. She promised to ask. In Iquique she said I could get off but without my suitcase. I explained her I really needed my suitcase, it was red and might not be so difficult to find. She was real nice, asked a worker at the airport and he found it. Otherwise I might have made it to San Pedro at midnight and probably not ven found my room, which at daylight, at 5:30 in the afternoon, took me one hour to find in this little town. But it was worth every effort.

San Pedro is a ridiculously expensive little town. Not only because of the thousands of tourists who come there, not only because they have to bring everything from far away, but also because of the mines nearby. While an average salary is about 400.000 pesos a month, the miners earn 5.000.000 and as they rent rooms to stay this has also driven the prices up.

I wras very lucky to find a room at a nice hostel, Hostal Talar, whose owner, Marcelo, knows some very good companies who make excursions with small groups. The companies regcommended by Lonely Planet are big companies who travel with large busses with 25-28 people. You can forget about them.

The region around San Pedro is absolutely fantastic.

Yesterday I made an excursion with 4 more people and a real good guide to the most fantastic places I have ever seen!

In the region of San Pedro thre are 16 volcanoes, 7 of them active but there has not been any major eruption for a long time.

During my flight from Santiago to Iquique I was already amazed that the whole region north of Santiago is 98% desert. San Pedro is one of the dryest regions on earth. It rains about 5 days a year, but when it does everything gets flooded. This February, one dy it rained for 45 minutes. The cars that were on their way got stuck in the mud and the people had to walk back to San Pedro. Some of the cars were atuck in the mud for a week. Jessica, Matcelos wife, the owner of the hostel where I stayed, told me they had guests from Belgium, an older couple, who had rented a car and gone to Moon Valley, which luckily is not so far. They got stuck in the mud and had to walk back and arrived at one o'clock at night. They had already alarmed the police.

In spite of being desert, in the region of Atacama there are some fantastic lagoons which, I am not sure, originated partly from melted snow of the Andes, I can't remember from what else. The tour yesterday was to the Altiplano lagoons . Most tours go just to 2-3 of them and I was extremely lucky to get a tour with a company called Andeswide ( for whoever of you wish to come here-highly recommended, with the guide Marcello. I speak Portuguese and he speaks Espanol so we communicate in Portunol. He is a very knolegeable man and told us so many interesting things on the way and showed us so much.

On the way from San Pedro he first showed us how the vegetation changed as we got further into the desert and a place where the government planted several long ros of special trees, Tamarugos, which grow 5 meters high but their roots go down up to 80 meters into the earth to find some water. The trees were supposed to stop the dunes from expanding and it seems to work.

When the Spanish conquered Chile they brought with them donkeys to work but these could not adapt to the slippy ground in the salar and the stones. They used to fall when carrying heavy luggage so they abandoned them and started using the Lama like the indigenous people. That's why you see only wild donkeys here, the descendants of those Spanish donkeys. There are 4 types of Cameloids living here. The lama and alpaca, which have been domesticated, and the guanacos and vicunas, which are wild. 

The vicunas live above 3800-4000meters. They live in families, one male with up to 7 females. The young males, when they grow up, are expulsed from the family and form groups where they fight with each other to decide who is the dominant one. Here in the picture a vicuna mother with her young one.Vicunas are protected animals in Chile and you get 5 years in jail if you kill one.

And here a sweet Alpaca we met on our way.

On the way we saw some gorgeous volcanoes. One of thm, the Licancabur, was always thought to be an inactive volcanoe until they found out it has a lake with hot water on top. San Pedro is about 2400 meters high and the Licancabur almost 6000, not easy to climb.

The first lake we went to, laguna Tuyaito, is the most beautiful place I have ver seen. It is such a pity I cannot capture th panorama in pictures, only a little bit of it so it is difficult to grasp the beauty of this place. I would have liked to sit there nd look at it for hours, something unfortunately impossible on a tour. If I ever come bck to this lace, I hope so, it will be in a rented car on myself.

The laguna Tuyaito is surrounded by a fantastic salar.

The second place we went, also stunning, was pedras rossas, a huge agglomeration of red rocks of volcanic origin near a gorgeous green lake.

From there to th Lagunas Miscanti and Miniques. Miscanti and Miniques are 2 nearby volcanoes, near each a gorgeous lagood in a deep blue color. On the way, fantastically colored mountains.

Here a little part of the laguna Miscanti, named after the volcanoe Miscanti at its side. Do you realise how lucky we are, that our eyes can see the whole scenery, while our poor cameras always only show us a little part of it? I wish I could show it all to you, but you will have to go there.

And here a little part of the deep blue Miniques lagoon, also named after the adjacent volcanoe.

Doesn't it look like a drawing?

And the last one was the lagoon Chaxa, one more beautiful than the other. It is a lagoon in the middle of the Salar de Atcama, around the lagoon all white salt and in the lagoon Flamingoes and other birds. The water changes color from lightblue to pink to reddish, probbly depending upon th minerals in the bottom. It is undescribably beautiful. I think this was one of the most beautiful days of my life.

On the next day I also had the luck of being able to participate in a tour which does not go frequently, to the Salar de Tara and flamingo reserve.

We left early in the morning and stopped for breakfast at a gorgeous little lake with flamingoes and Andean ducks at a height of about 4300 meters. As the guide had to prepare breakfast we had more time to enjoy this gorgeous lake.

The next stop was at the Monjes, pillars of volcanic origin in all kind of bizarre forms. As our car broke down there we also had plenty of time to walk around and explore the region, also at about 4400 m height.. The highest point we crossed was about 4800 m.

After a back and neck braking drive through the desert we arrived at Salar de Tara, a heavenly place. A light blue lake surrounded by reddish and pastel colored mountains, with thousands of flamingoes. It is interesting that they live at such heights ( about 4300 m). It is not allowed to walk at the shore of the lake, only about 10-20 m away , not to disturb the flamingoes. As our guide prepared lunch at this place that also gave us about 1,5 hours time to enjoy it.

Next day I went in the afternoon to the Valle de la Luna, the moonvalley. It really looks like on another world. Pink mountains, partly covered with white salt ( you might think it is snow) in the most bizarre forms. It was a small group, a cute Japanese girl, 2 Brasilians ( who planned to hike up the Licancabur volcanoe, 8 hours to go up to the top, 5916 m high, and 4 hours to go down!) and me. Our guide, Patricio, the owner of the company Andes Wide, an extremely nice and knowlegeable man, who makes excursions with few persons because he enjoys it more and charges no more than the big companies who go with busses with 25-28 people! If you ever go to San Pedro, I very much recommend this company.

We first went to this beautiful viewpoint overlooking part of the valley. Doesn't it look like on another planet?

All the white you see is salt, not snow.

As you might have noticed, I am absolutely in love with this landscape.

And here the Licancabur, my favorite volcanoe, in the background.

Before sunset we hiked up to a beautiful viewpoint. At this time of the day there are hundreds of persons hiking up to all the possible viewpoints to admire the sunset from above.