San Pedro de Atacama, Chile 🇨🇱

It is freezing this morning and is -8 when I am collected at 5am (as a side note, Nicky and Liam went with another company and they were forgotten, so waited in the cold for over 2 hours!). I am wearing everything I can, knowing full well that by 10am it will be roasting and around 25degrees. We drive for an hour, it’s dark so I don’t feel too bad that I sleep.

The sun is just starting to rise as we enter the geyser area. It is very cool, just looks like the floor is steaming. There is lots of steam, coming from masses of channels underground where water hits hot rock. A few larger Geysers and also conical Geysers. I learn that the colour on the surface surrounding the opening is created by bacteria and the different colours are different types. We move to another area where we can walk around but first get a surprisingly good breakfast of avocado and scrambled egg sandwich. After a stroll around the quieter area we walk through wetlands where we see large footed Coot birds and herds of Vicuña. Our final stop is a small village called Machana which was one of the first in the area. Here we see a cheerful character cooking llama kebabs to the rich throng of tourists. Time to head back and it is only lunchtime but a roasting temperature now.

There are three new girls in hostel who are really friendly so we stroll to town to get money changed and see more of the town centre. Tonight it is packing up again but this this time for a new country, Bolivia.

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile 🇨🇱

Today is a lazy day! It is Jeff’s birthday so we go to the French bakery for pastries, any excuse really! Shivani and I have decided to book the Uyuni tour for Tuesday, it gives me time to do the Geysers tomorrow. I am also looking forward to travelling with her as she is such a positive ball of sunshine and the 3 days are supposed to be tough going. We head into town and book the tour with Cruz Andina, we liked the fact they stay down lower in Ville mar on the first night so altitude should be easier and warmer. On the way out of town we stop for an ice cream. I choose a local flavour, Rica Rica which comes from a desert plant and tastes of malted milk. It is then back to the hostel to laze in the hammocks basking in glorious sunshine.

Tonight I am going stargazing, this was something that was recommend to me as the desert provides perfect conditions for viewing the night sky. I climb into the van and spy Nicky & Liam who I met in Salta, I had mentioned the tour to them and it is great to see them tonight. Jorge is our host for the night and you can tell how passionate he is about astronomy. He previously worked at ALMA, which is a station that houses lots of the worlds biggest telescopes for Germany, France and USA. We arrive at his house and I spy at least 15 telescopes waiting for us to use. Settling in to chairs he takes time to explain a bit of history, how the night sky is mapped and that it is divided into 88 constellations. I am sat there just mesmerised by the view of the Milky Way. Obviously it is a different view to what we see in the Northern Hemisphere but I don’t recall every seeing something like this that wasn’t in a book, just beautiful. We see the Southern cross and learn how to use it to find the South Pole. Jorge points out the scorpion, Sirius which is the brightest star and Omega century.

We have a short break where his adorable little daughter Antonio helps her mum give out Hot Chocolate (which is lovely and warming whilst stood next to a gas fire).

Now it is time for observations using the telescopes. First looking at coloured stars; red, blue and yellow. Planets are those that don’t twinkle! We see clusters of stars, a spider cluster and also Canopus, the second brightest star in the sky. We are using different telescopes for each observation and he then surprises us with Jupiter, which looks like a cookie with a fork imprint on it. We can see four of her planets, she is just beautiful. Jorge also shows us Saturn with her rings showing as one big one. Finally the moon comes up, and viewing it through the magnification is great as you can see all the craters and lakes. Jorge has taken a few photos for us but regardless this is one night I will remember for a while….

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile 🇨🇱

Waking up this morning it is a beautiful day without a cloud in the sky. The hostel has a big open space with hammocks slung in a couple of places. Chatting to a Aussie, Shivani, she offers to show me the French bakery. I am slightly skeptical that this dusty little town has a decent bakery let alone a French one, but this is excellent. I really enjoy my raspberry croissant and the coffee is amazing, I know where breakfast is going to be every morning.

We continue strolling around town, it’s not very big but quite pretty little rows of adobe houses. There are hundreds of tour companies offering trips around the area, it is hard to see what is good let alone which the best companies are. I have already booked a tour of the Luna Valley this afternoon through a company the hostel owner recommended but I am keen to research tours to Uyuni for next week. It looks like a 3 day tour via the salt flats is one of the most common and easiest ways to get into Bolivia so I visit a couple of companies that have good reviews.

Valle de la Luna is a valley in Los Flamencos National Reserve. It’s known for its moonlike landscape of dunes, rugged mountains and distinctive rock formations. On arrival to the park they warn us that they might close it due to the wind. It is pretty fierce whipping up sand and pummelling my jacket. We head in regardless and the landscape is like you are on another planet. I visited Ischigualasto park in Argentina and can see similarities between the two. The formations are cool, we stop first at the three Marias that are two an a half now because a Russian tourist broke one whilst trying to climb. We also view what they call the Amfitheater which is a huge cliff structure, and there are lots of sand dunes. We learn a bit about the working mines that are long gone but get to go down a salt cave which has some interesting formations. The texture is made by small drops of water pulling salt down over thousands of years which is just incredible. Our final stop is a cliff top that overlooks the Luna Valley for sunset, quite a magical setting that I share with about 100 people!

I arrive back about 8pm and there are a few of us that have pitched in for a BBQ so we settle in around the warmth of the fire with food and rum.