Atacama desert

Wednesday, March 09, 2016 Zsoltiii 0 Comments


San Pedro de Atacama
Finishing the wine tours in Mendoza we realised that we still had about two weeks left before our flight from Santiago de Chile to New Zealand, so instead of spending too much time in big cities like the capital and Valparaiso, why not going somewhere much more exciting?


During my last visit to South America in 2011 with Koppany, we had no time fot the famous Uyuni salt flats, and ever since I felt we missed out on something. Now, being only 2000 km away, I asked Dani if she wanted to see the desert? I knew already she was a tough girl, but did not expect her to say okay, why not?! without hesitation.

So we bought flight tickets to San Pedro de Atacama, actually landing in Calama, a booming mining town. San Pedro is the most convenient place to visit the Bolivian salt flats from the Chilean side, with an elevation of 2400m also good for acclimatisation, otherwise a small village with adobe houses (and an adobe church with a roof made out of cactus!) and completely set up to accommodate tourists discovering the nearby point of interests. There's nothing but tour operators, small supermarkets (selling the same stuff), hostels and restaurants.

We immediately sorted out our pre-booked salt flats tour so we could relax and enjoy what the Atacama desert had to offer.

Piedra del Coyote. Haven't seen the Road Runner though..
We've seen the Valle de la Muerte (Death Valley), seemed very appropriately named.

A walk in Valle de la Muerte
Also visited Valle de la Luna, that takes it's name from the craters scattered around the white (from salt) landscape.


Finished the day watching the sunset on the top of a sand dune




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