San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

Today I have booked on a full day tour that goes out to Pedras Riojas via high altitude Lagunas. This is a 7am pick up and as the morning is really cold, I have wrapped up warm, pretty much wearing anything that looks warm that I own.

We head out and stop at a road marker for the Tropic of Capricorn, but more interestingly is a monument to the Inca Trail. This trail which I thought was just a walkway to Machu Picchu, is in fact a commercial trading route that goes through to Chile. Today’s towns were largely created from tocumbas, which were the old camel stopping points found every 33km (average distance the camel would travel per day).

Continuing on we get higher up to the volcano range to the town of Socaire where we stopped for tasty scrambled egg breakfast. Once finished, we continue our route to Miscanti Lake. This is about 100km from San Pedro and we realise that we have snow! This is quite strange in the desert but it bathes the landscape in a lovely white glow, even the small grasses look frozen.

The Miscanti lake sits in front of the Miscanti volcano. Miñique and Miscanti volcanos are said to be warrior brothers and the two lakes separated after a fight over thousands of years ago. Unfortunately we are not allowed to reach the Miñique Lake due to the snow which doesn’t bother me really as I am captivated by the snow on the volcano range and enjoy throwing a few snowballs.

We were told at this point that other tours could not make it through to Pedras Riojas due to snow but we would try. We didn’t get too far before the Police turned us around due to road conditions. We were not going to make it through, so our guide stops at a few other scenic spots showing us lava flow and native animals such as the Vicuña which looks similar to the Guanacos we saw in Patagonia. Vicuña provide the finest wool of the Llama family but are now a protected species.

The rest of the group seemed really angry about missing Pedras Riojas and were trying to get the guide to turn back to San Pedro to try and get some money back. I was more relaxed about the day and felt the snow scenery had enhanced the adventure. Luckily for me the guide insists that he is paid to finish the tour and we head to Laguna de Chaxa.

The group has calmed down and the sun is baking down on us as we survey this salt flat area. The flat exists because it sits between the Andes and the central mountain range. The water with high mineral content from the Andes cannot go anywhere and so evaporates into this slat flat. It looks a bit like a coral structure rather than a ‘flat’ and is a dirty colour, down to the fact water doesn’t pass to clean it. This Laguna is famous for flamingos but today there were only a few to find. We wandered around the crusty surface watching birds, and me trying to spot geckos.

I felt it was a awesome day with some surreal landscapes.