Tag Archives: Atacama

Trip report: San Pedro de Atacama (part 2)

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Our vacation from a vacation from a vacation in San Pedro continues – here’s what we did days 3 and 4, as well as our thoughts on a few restaurants and hotels in San Pedro.  (P.S. Day 4 includes the most incredible natural landscape we’ve ever seen . . . and we get around.)  If you missed it, you can read Part 1 of our trip review here.

TOURS/EXCURSIONS

Day 3: Lagunas Cejar and Tebenquiche

Tour company: Layana

Price: CLP10,000/person (~US$20)

Time: Afternoon trip leaving San Pedro at 3pm (~4 hours)

What we did: The big attraction for this tour is going out to Laguna Cejar, where the water is so salty that you float.  A lot.  This sounded cool, so we signed up.  What we didn’t hear before we went was that the water is cold.  Really, really cold.  We had been looking forward to relaxing in the water, given that it was a hot, sunny day, but all that changed when our toes touched the laguna.  Ryan ended up getting in (briefly) and verified that you do, in fact, float more than in regular water.

Ryan floating in Laguna Cejar image

Ryan's the crazy one who floated in the freezing cold water

Then, we hopped back in our tour bus and headed nearby to Laguna Tebenquiche for sunset.  This place is really cool because you can get some incredible reflections of the volcanoes in the laguna – Ryan really liked this and took a lot of pictures.

Sunset at Laguna Tebenquiche image

Us at Laguna Tebenquiche

A nice touch by the tour company was that they brought along snacks and pisco sours – yum!  Some of our tour-mates skipped the sunset photo op and instead focused on taking pictures of themselves in various poses with the pisco sour bottle . . .

Verdict: This was a chill, relaxing afternoon activity – nothing spectacular (actually, the sunset was pretty incredible) but it was something fun to do close to town that didn’t mean being on a bus all day long.  One strange thing with this tour was that the guide didn’t speak English at all during the tour.  Not that he couldn’t speak English (he busted out some English with us later) but just that he didn’t bother asking if anyone on the tour wanted English.  With other tours we were on, the guides always said everything in both English and Spanish.  We didn’t say anything because we’d already heard enough about the volcanoes and lagoons on the other tours, but seemed strange to us that this was the approach.

See the rest of our pics from this trip here: Lagunas Cejar and Tebenquiche.

Day 4: Lagunas Altiplanicas

Tour company: Cosmo Andino

Price: CLP35,000/person (~US$70)

Time: Full day trip leaving San Pedro at 7am (~11 hours)

What we did: This was a day that involved a lot of sitting in the van, as many of the places we visited were really far away.  We started at the Laguna Chaxa, which is in the middle of a massive salt flat – actually the 3rd largest in the world (after Bolivia and apparently Utah – who knew?).  This was different than the salt flat we visited near Salta, Argentina, in that it’s an incredibly rugged landscape that looks more like rocks than the smooth white field we saw in Argentina.

Salar de Atacama image

Yep, that crinkly, rocky looking stuff is salt

The big attraction here for most people is the flamingos that hang out in the lagoon.  They were cool, but really, really far away – see?

Flamingos at Salar de Atacama image

Those are flamingos

Luckily, we have a really good zoom on our camera.

Flamingos up close image

They look just like the yard decorations in Florida!

We’d been to the (very good) zoo in Santiago the week before and seen flamingos from about 5 feet away, so we were less impressed than others in our group.

After breakfast at the first stop, we hopped in the van for a ~2 hour ride to 2 big lagoons at really high altitude.  They were kind of pretty but (in my opinion) not worth the hours in the car.  And, this was essentially just a photo stop – when we got there, we walked along a set path, then got back in the van.  Not exactly adventure travel.

Path at lagoon image

Please do not stray from the path

The stop that made this trip worthwhile, though, was at the Salar de Talar (Talar salt flat).  Apparently Cosmo Andino is the only tour company that goes there – we arrived and were the only sign of civilization anywhere around.  And this place was pretty incredible – the most spectacular thing we saw on the entire trip.

Salar de Talar image

It really looked like that - like somebody airbrushed an entire mountain

The colors that existed here were absolutely amazing.

Salar de Talar image

Seriously, you should check out our album - this place was incredible

We hopped out of the van and walked for a good 40 minutes along the edge of the lagoon – it was cold and windy but worth it because the view was so amazing. Check out our panoramic video and listen to the wind:

After the lagoons, we stopped in 2 small towns to walk around a bit.  The second one, Toconao, was really charming – enjoying sodas in the main square before heading back to San Pedro was a great end to the day.

Toconao plaza image

Such a cute town square!

Verdict: This tour was worth it for the special stop at Salar de Talar – this was one of the most spectacular things we’ve ever seen in nature.  After seeing it, we don’t understand why this isn’t the main attraction on the tour and the other tour companies don’t even go there at all.  Cosmo Andino was a little more expensive than other tour companies but totally worth it.  Also, our guide was great – Oscar was born of Chilean parents in London so speaks perfect English and Spanish . . . although we weren’t expecting the Cockney accent from a big Chilean dude, so took us a minute to adjust.  He was great and made the tour really relaxed and fun.

See the rest of the pics from our trip here: Lagunas Altiplanicas.

RESTAURANTS

La Estaka

This place is AH-MAZ-ING.  Better than pretty much anywhere we’ve eaten in Santiago.  It’s 2 long rooms (indoors, which is important during cold desert nights – some of the other places are outside), both with fireplaces that give it a cozy atmosphere.

La Estaka image

Cozy inside La Estaka when it's freezing outside

They usually play lounge music, and one night we were treated to an (actually very good) quartet playing traditional local music.  The food here is really, really good – over the 4 out of 5 nights of our trip that we ate here, we tried both salmons on the menu (one served with an incredible, cheesy quinoa risotto), the chicken curry and the steak.  There were some mix-ups in the service – on two separate nights, we tried to order the salmon with risotto and instead were served the other salmon.  Not quite sure how or why this happened, but the serving staff handled it really well and recovered nicely, comping us drinks to make up for it (we like drinks).  Aside than this, the service was fabulous – very attentive, very friendly and generally made us feel welcome.  By our last night there, the manager knew us, knew how we liked our salmon cooked and knew we’d want extra pebre with our bread (it’s so good!!!).  This place is on the more expensive end for San Pedro (mains CLP8,900/US$17), but well worth it in our opinion.

La Estaka outside image

We LOVE this place!!

Adobe

We think this place is owned by the same company as our beloved La Estaka.  They’re known for the fire pit they have in the middle of the dining area where people hang out at the end of their long day tours.  We had lunch here but avoided it for dinner – the fire pit is awesome, but it’s outside, and we were cold enough when we sat INSIDE!!  We had a salad and a pizza here, and both were good but not out of this world.

Blanco

What an embarrassment of a restaurant.  This is a swanky-looking place in all white right on the main drag.  It’s trying really hard to be sleek and modern, but just not getting it done.  We’re fine with basic food when we’re traveling, especially when we’re in the middle of a desert.  We just don’t like when a place pretends to be high end, charges really high prices, serves bad food and has a wait staff with an attitude.  Our waiter here was probably the worst we’ve ever had.  He completely forgot about our drinks and looked perturbed when we asked about them 15 minutes later, took our order wrong and then argued with us when we asked him to correct it when our food was delivered.  The chicken was raw in the middle and, when it came back from the kitchen the second time, was overdone and crunchy.  We came really close to walking out but ended up staying because we had a just-opened bottle of wine on the table.  It was this experience that sent us back to La Estaka for the remainder of our trip.

Tierra Todo Natural

We stopped in to this cool little open-air cafe for coffee (real espresso, not Nescafe) one afternoon and again for lunch another day.  The espresso was good, the sandwich I had for lunch was fresh but a little bland and the tacos Ryan had were really good.  We were a little confused by the taco menu at first (they have one that’s  a “guacamole taco” which consists of just a tortilla and guac . . . hmmm), but the meat tacos were really tasty, especially with cheese added.  Service is a little slow but friendly – we’d go back.

WHERE WE STAYED

San Pedro has a handful of really high-end places to stay (think US$300-600/night) and a bunch of simple hotels and hostals; we opted for the latter.  We made a reservation in advance to stay at the Takha Takha and then moved to the Hostal Katarpe after our first night.

Takha Takha Hotel

This is located right at the end of the main road running through town.  We arrived late at night and we happy that they had our reservation.  It was freezing, so we decided to upgrade to a room with heat, which cost CLP47,000 (~US$95).   The room was pretty, done in adobe.  But we were less-than-thrilled with the king bed (actually, 2 twins pushed together with a giant bump in the middle; could feel the individual springs when we laid down; one half of the bed (mine, lucky me) had a plastic potty guard mattress pad that crinkled any time we moved) and the bathroom that had 2 thin-as-paper closet doors.  The next morning, we saw that the compound was under construction and had building materials strewn everywhere – not that pretty.

Takha Takha image

The construction area was right outside our room

Also, no wifi – not a necessity, but nice to have.  For what we were getting, we thought the place was significantly overpriced, so we found another place the next morning and moved.

Hostal Katarpe

We found this place after wandering in to ~10 different hotels/hostals near the main street.

Hostal Katarpe image

See - isn't it cute?

At most of the places we checked, prices were pretty consistent, but this place was a great value!  Our room was set near the back of the property (quiet!!), was very simple and clean and HAD HEAT and wifi!!!  All this for CLP30,000/night (~US$60); note – we opted for the no-breakfast option for CLP5,000 less since so many of the tours leave first thing in the morning and include breakfast.  The place also has a central patio that was great for relaxing and taking in a bit of late-afternoon sun.  The woman who runs the place is very friendly and helpful, and we really enjoyed staying here!

Hostal Katarpe patio image

Ryan chilling at the patio after the crazy geyser tour

OVERALL

This was a great trip, and we’re so glad we were able to fit it in while we’re here.  It was really relaxing (other than the 4am geyser trip) and as different from Santiago as is possible.  We got a ton of amazing pictures (see them here), at least a few of them will end up framed on the wall (someday, when we have a wall to call our own again).  Yay travel!

Trip report: San Pedro de Atacama (part 1)

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We decided to take a trip to get out of the Santiago smog for a few days and quickly decided on San Pedro because (1) it’s the only major attraction that’s to the north, and it’s still too cold to go south and (2) it’s really neat.  San Pedro is a small town in the middle of the Atacama desert in northern Chile, the driest desert in the world.  We learned while we were there that there are actually places in the desert where rain has never, ever fallen.  Whoa.

The desert is beautiful shades of pink and orange that go on forever with some really funky rock formations, lagoons, lots of volcanoes and a giant sand dune we got to run down (without having to walk up it first – key benefit to the tour we took; see below).  This was such a great, chill getaway from Santiago (our vacation from vacation from vacation), and we’re really glad we went.  We went for 5 days and had an awesome time, and here’s what we did that made it awesome.  This post covers our first two days there – details on our last 2 days coming soon!  (Note: Lots and lots of travel details below for those of you planning trips to San Pedro; for the rest of you, focus on the pictures.)

TOURS/EXCURSIONS

There are a ton of tour companies lining the streets of San Pedro, pretty much all of them offering trips to the same attractions.  We’d done some research beforehand and heard horror stories about a few of them (e.g., they’d cancel your trip then not give you your money back and just wait until your flight or bus left and there was nothing you could do about it) and noted a few that had consistently good reviews on Tripadvisor.  Our first morning there, we went around and talked to a few of them and booked our excursions for the next few days – some have discounts if you book multiple tours with them or pay in cash (but you have to ask; they’re not just going to offer it up).  Here’s what we decided to do:

Day 1: Valle de la Muerte and Valle de la Luna

Tour company: Cactus

Price: CLP10,000/person (~US$20)

Time: Afternoon trip leaving San Pedro at 3pm (~4 hours)

What we did: We did this tour our first afternoon in San Pedro.  It’s the closest to town and seems to be the most common tour – pretty much everybody does this one.  We received a recommendation to go with Cactus Tours because they’re a bit more active than the others, and we really liked this.  Our guide (Pablo) was really cool, made the trip fun and relaxed.  We first drove out to Valle de la Muerte and walked for ~40 minutes across the desert.

Hiking in Valle de la Muerte image

Pretty crazy landscape!

We ended up at the top of this massive sand dune where people were sandboarding.  We then had a lot of fun running down it.

Sand dune image

Those people had to walk up first - ha ha HA!!!

And the landscapes were amazing.  Besides the really cool sand dune, there were also these crazy pointy rocks – how did they get that way????

Valle de la Muerte view image

Crazy landscape (along with the obligatory volcano)

Then we headed over to Valle de la Luna (so named because the landscapes are so strange it feels like you’re on the moon) and saw another really big sand dune, along with the Three Marias, which are 3 natural rock columns that somebody thought looked like Maria.  Except that now there are only 2 – some tourist knocked one of them over.  We ended the afternoon watching sunset over the valley.

Valle de la Luna sunset image

Sunset in the desert is beautiful

Verdict: This was one of our favorite trips, for the combination of actually getting out and doing some walking (many trips involve sitting on a bus for hours and then getting out and taking pictures of things, then getting back on the bus), the great guide that we had and the beautiful sunset.  Not to mention that it didn’t involve getting up before the sun was up (you’ll see what I mean in a minute).

See the rest of our pics from this trip here: Valle de la Luna photos.

Day 2: Geysers de Tatio and hot springs

Tour company: Cosmo Andino

Price: CLP25,000/person (~US$50)

Time: Brutally early morning trip leaving San Pedro at 4am (~8 hours)

What we did: This is a really popular tour in San Pedro, and most people would say it’s a can’t-miss, so we signed up and did it our second day in town.  First, we set our alarm for 3:45am and waited outside our hostal for the bus in the dark at 4am.  The drive up to the geysers takes about 1.5 hours, and we arrived while it was still dark.  The geysers are at 13,700 feet, so it’s REALLY cold up there.  We were bundled up in all the clothes we had (and some more we’d borrowed from friends in Santiago) and were still freezing.  And not just the “I’m uncomfortable” type of freezing; this was more of the “I can’t feel my hands and am somewhat concerned my toes may need to be amputated” type of freezing.  I grew up in Alaska and I’ve never been this cold.

Once we arrived, we had a cold breakfast and Nescafe outside the van as the pitch black was turning to morning dusk.

Breakfast at Tatio geysers image

Breakfast in the dark and freezing cold

Our guide then took us around and told us a bit about the geysers and then gave us some time to walk around on our own.  The geysers were kind of cool – lots of steam coming up from the ground, and one or two that would occasionally blow water up into the air.  But we couldn’t really figure out why we had to be there so early in the morning.  The explanation we got was that you couldn’t see the steam as well as it warmed up.  But to us, it seemed like the geysers looked just as cool (and maybe better) when we left around 8am (after the sun had finally come up).

Tatio geysers image

That's a fake smile (if you couldn't tell) - I was just pretending to have fun

We then drove out to a hot springs.  Cosmo Andino goes to a different hot springs than most of the other tours, so we were the only ones there.  It was basically a stream at the bottom of a hill filled with really warm water (actually boiling in some places – we didn’t go in to those places).  It was nice, but it was still very cold, so the idea of stripping down to our skivvies was less-than-enticing for us and we ended up only dipping our feet in.

Hot springs image

Pretty neat, but too cold to strip down

On our way back to San Pedro, we stopped seemingly in the middle of nowhere, where our guide (Oscar) showed us a bunch of endangered cacti (including one that was ~200 years old!) and then led us to a hidden waterfall around the side of a hill.  It had finally warmed up, so we were able to enjoy the waterfall and a little bit of sunshine along with the waterfall.

Jen hugging cactus image

It turned out that hugging the cactus was a bad idea

Verdict: For me, this tour was not worth getting up at 4 in the morning and nearly freezing to death for; if we had it to do again, I would skip it (or at the very least hire a private guide who would take us a few hours later).  The geysers were ok, but we just can’t see why the 4am start is necessary.  And I was so uncomfortably cold for at least the first 4 hours of the tour that for me it wasn’t worth the pain.

See the rest of our pics from this trip here: Geysers de Tatio.

Day 2: Astronomy adventure

Tour company: Space Star Tours

Price: CLP15,000/person (~US$30)

Time: Evening trip leaving San Pedro at 8pm (~2.5 hours)

What we did: While we were there, we learned that the Atacama desert is one of the best places for astronomy in the world, due to the high altitude and 350+ clear days per year.  What’s going to be the largest observatory in the world (ALMA) is actually being built not far from San Pedro.  A group of astronomers have set up an outdoor observatory where they basically give a tour of the night sky.  We were picked up in town around 8pm and driven to the observatory, around 15 minutes away.  We started in a round room lit by a single candle with a glass ceiling so you could see the stars.  Our host for the evening, a Canadian astronomer (I think named Les) who lives in San Pedro, was incredible.  He started by giving us a basic introduction to astronomy (really interesting, not dry at all), where we learned for one thing that Pluto is no longer considered a planet – who knew?

Then we went outside, near the 10 massive telescopes they have set up essentially in the front yard.  Les had the coolest laser pointer we’ve ever seen – crazy green and looked like it was actually reaching all the way to the stars.  He used this to point out the Southern Cross, Milky Way, Venus (we saw planets!!), Mars (more planets!) and even Jupiter which could all easily be seen with the naked eye, all the while explaining really fascinating historical discoveries.  He then introduced us to what was on each of the telescopes, and then we had time to walk around and look in each of them.  We saw 4 of Jupiter’s moons!!!  And we saw a star formation that looks like a butterfly.  And lots of other cool things.  We ended the evening by heading back into the candlelit room for hot chocolate and Q&A with Les.  He was really fascinating to talk to, had very thoughtful and detailed answers for all the questions but also had a skill for making it easy to understand.

Atacama desert night sky image

Sadly our camera does not have a long enough exposure time to take good pictures of the stars... they were spectacular

Verdict: This was definitely our favorite “tour” of the trip.  It’s definitely different from the other tours that are offered, and it’s like nothing we’ve ever done.  I hadn’t expected seeing the stars and planets to be so interesting, but this was really a fabulous experience!!!  Our camera is not good at night, so check out the Space Star Tours website for cool photos and more info – this is a must-do trip if you are in the area.

To be continued . . .

See how much fun we had in San Pedro?  Be sure to check back for Part 2 tomorrow – including the coolest landscape we’ve ever seen!!

Update:  Part 2 is posted:  Trip Report:  San Pedro de Atacama (part 2)

Atacama: A Vacation within a vacation within a vacation

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First…

we packed up our apartment in San Francisco, put most of our stuff in storage and went to Buenos Aires.

Then…

after ~4 months we left a couple of bags with a friend in Buenos Aires and went to Santiago.

Then…

after ~1 month we left a couple of bags with friends in Santiago and headed up to San Pedro de Atacama. We’ll be here for ~5 days.

Like a dream within a dream within a dream…

this is a vacation within a vacation within a vacation. We can only hope that the ‘kicks’ are timed correctly and we will be able to return to Santiago and then Buenos Aires and then the US with all of our things and ourselves intact.   If anything goes wrong we could become lost in vacation limbo forever. Obviously, this would be horrible.

We have to be careful.

We can only hope that our subconscious doesn’t create evil projections that are able to catch us and throw us out of our vacation early. To avoid them we will have to choose a new and exotic destination every day. We will go to crazy places like the Valle de la Luna, Los Geysers del Tatio, Las Lagunas Altiplanicos and others. If things get desperate, we may even go so far as to go sandboarding in the desert and/or cross the somewhat unpredictable and recently unstable border into Bolivia. Hopefully these crazy environments and activities will be enough to confuse our subconscious and keep us safe.

Time moves much slower here than in reality.

Because we have total freedom to choose what we want to do in each moment, every day spent in a normal vacation is worth 10 days of life at home (just add up how many hours you spend enjoying what you want to do vs. doing what you are supposed to do in a normal 10 day period in reality and you’ll see what I mean). Many theorize that this time distortion compounds with each additional layer of vacation abstraction–each day on a second level vacation is worth 100 days of enjoyment in your normal life; each day on a third level, 1,000. We’ll be here for ~5 days on this third level vacation which means that for us it will be the equivalent of 5,000 days worth of normal life enjoyment. You will hardly realize that we were gone, but for us, we will have experienced ~14 years of enjoyment here in the arid high-altitude desert of Atacama. If, upon reading this, you are now depressed by how little you enjoy your normal life, consider joining us–there is still room on our afternoon tour.

Unfortunately we do not have any spinny tops.

When we return… if we return… we will have no way of knowing whether or not we are back in reality or are in yet another layer of vacation. It’s entirely possible that we will spend the rest of our lives unsure whether we are on vacation or not. We are okay with this. If we do end up in vacation limbo, please consider joining us, but under no circumstances should you attempt to rescue us.

By the way…

If the last 6 months have just been a dream and rather than traveling in South America we’ve actually just been sleeping in a conference room using our laptops as pillows while making slides for a big presentation tomorrow… Please don’t wake us up; we will be cranky.

p.s. If you haven’t seen the movie “Inception” go see it. Then this will make (at least some) sense.