San Pedro de Atacama is an oasis in the middle of the dryest desert of the world, the Atacama desert, a place famous for its landscapes, its clear skies with little light continuation ideal for an space observatory and its geological marvels.
It’s main economic activity is tourism and there are a number of tour operators near the Plaza, restaurants, hostels and hotels in this small village. It has some supermarkets and small shops where food can be bought. Aside from tours to different areas in the desert, other activities include astronomy, mountain bike cycling and sandboarding.
After lunch, we explored the town and booked three different tours: Moon Valley and Mars Valley tour (setting sun), a night astronomy tour and an early morning high plateau lagoons tour.
- Day 2: Mountain bike and Moon Valley tour (evening)
We booked two mountain bikes on the second day for six hours, each bike being 5000 Chilean pesos. The hire included helmets, reflecting jackets, a spare tire, a lock, a small pump, repair kit and a small map of the area. Following the recommendation of the person who rented us the bikes, we went to the indigenous community of Catarpe, a beautiful fertile valley 10 km to the north of San Pedro. The entrance to Catarpe is 3000 Chilean Pesos per adult and they provide with a map. Three points, out of the five marked in the map, can be visited: San Isidro chapel, the tunnel and the Devil’s Gorge (also known as Chulakao Ravine).
We biked on off-road tracks to the chapel, which was the furthest far away point. An adobe white painted chapel, San Isidro was built in 1913 by Lucas Cenzano. It is found 5.7 km to the north of the control point. We went slowly to the chapel as the road was very bumpy and, on occasions, very sandy. After visiting the chapel outside (it was closed), we ate lunch under the shadow of a big tree and started going back to San Pedro.
At the junction, we turned off left to visit the Devil’s Gorge, a spectacular narrow windy canyon that leads to a viewpoint o top of a hill, a 2.5 km long walk that can also be biked.
Back to the main track, we turned right towards the tunnel, built in 1930. It was the main rural road connecting San Pedro de Atacama with the city of Calama. It closed down in 1950 due to the floods and heavy rains of the rainy season. We started the climb towards the tunnel but I found it very difficult and we turned around towards San Pedro where we returned the bikes before our evening tour to the Moon and Mars Valleys.
Moon Valley
Located in the Salt Mountain Range, the second oldest mountain range in Chile (created about 20000 years ago), the Moon Valley is one the driest areas of the Atacama desert. This area barely sees any rain, the water that feeds the very sparse vegetation comes from the Domeyko Mountain Range (the oldest mountain range of Chile) in the rainy season.
The name of the area, Moon Valley, is owed to father Gustavo Lupei, a studious of the local culture, that noticed the similitude of the landscape with the first images of the moon that were televised back then from the US.
The Moon Valley is made of sedimentary rocks, salt and various minerals and its magnificent sand dunes are a rarity in the rocky Atacama desert. In the rocks can be found gypsum, which means there we used to be many crustaceans in the area. In fact, this was a sea thousands years ago, before the seismic transformations that created the mountains and pushed the water west.
To access the Moon Valley, we each paid 3000 Chilean Pesos. Our first stop was near the Major dune, an immense sand dune that we crested out to reach the viewpoint from which we could see the Domeyko mountains, the Andes and its volcanoes, and of course, the Moon Valley.
We kept going into the desert leaving the sand dunes behind and entering the rocky part of the desert. A thin crust of salt laid on top of the brown soil. In some of the rocks, salt crystals can be seen whereas other places, there is an eggshell like layer, very fragile, that is still crystallizing.
Our second stop was the strange rock formation called the Three Mary as two of the formations look like praying nuns, the third one was broken long ago.
In the past, the region lived off cattle herding, then mining, mostly sodium nitrate, a fertilizer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries until a chemical fertilizer was invented. Then San Pedro de Atacama, which had been rich, became very poor and some families took to salt mining to earn a living. Nowadays, San Pedro de Atacama’s main economic activity is tourism.
All of this was explained at the Victoria salt mine, the third stop, where people used to mine salt. The mine owes its name to the wife of the owner.
Near the rock formation called Amphitheater was our last stop inside the Moon Valley. This immense upsurging wall is testimony of the tectonic transformations that have formed this area. We had already seen the Amphitheater from the top of the dune, but it was more impressive up close.
We stopped for a toilet break in the Moon Valley control point before heading off towards the Mars Valley from where we would watch the sunset. The entrance to the Mars Valley costs 1000 Chilean Pesos per person.
We entered the Mars Valley from the top to go to a viewpoint from where we had a spectacular view of the valley proper. Down, the area was littered with round brownish hills. A completely different scenery from the grey dunes of Moon Valley. We stayed in the viewpoint for 40 minutes before going back to San Pedro de Atacama and our New Years Eve dinner at a nice restaurant.
The village was full of people celebrating the New Year. There we witnessed an interesting Chilean tradition: they build life-sized dolls made off old clothes, paper sitting on a non-flammable chair, called monos. At midnight, they burn them and with them all the bad things from the previous year.
- Day 3: Pukara de Quitor and Astronomy tour
As everything was closed during the morning of the new year, we took it easy and rested until lunchtime. We had booked a night astronomy tour, so during the evening we went to the Meteorite Museum.
The Meteorite Museum consists off two hexagonal domes that contain a collection of meteorites found in the Atacama desert by two brothers. The entrance fee includes a very exhaustive audio-guide available in Spanish, English, French and Portuguese and a hands-on area. The entrance fee is 4000 Chilean Pesos per adult and it is really worth a visit.
Once the visit was finished, we walked to Pukara de Quitor, a pre-inca fortified settlement built in the hillside. This village is located on a strategic point on an ancestral route used by the Incas. The archeological remains found in the ruins evidence that it was permanently inhabited until the Spanish conquerors conquered this Pukara in the 1570’s. The settlement cannot be accessed at the moment, but it has a small museum and two viewpoints with amazing views of the Atacama desert and the Mars Valley. The entrance is 3000 Chilean Pesos per adult.
After dinner, we went to the meeting point to the astronomy tour. A bit disorganized and delayed by almost one hour, the astronomy tour was a great opportunity to observe the night sky in the desert of Atacama. From the telescopes we saw the Moon, two nebulas, Sirius and a clutter of stars. And the explanation just before the observation was just as good. Because it was late and we had an early start the day after, we decided to go back to San Pedro de Atacama on the first van rather than stay to taste the snack being offered.
- Day 4: High Plateau Lagoons tour
A cold windy morning greeted us for breakfast on the Tuyacto Lagoon after a very early morning to reach this spot to break our fast. Even when the lagoon’s water is cold, on its deepest part there is a hot spring whose water is at 50 to 46 degrees Celsius. In fact, there is lava 5 km underneath and still five active volcanoes out of the total 48 volcanoes in the area.
Much like the high plateau lagoons in Bolivia, the lagoons at the base of the volcanoes of the Atacama region thrive with microorganisms that feed flamingos and the small bushes the vicuñas eat. They are also shallow lagoons created by the violent changes thousands years ago that shaped the mountain ranges of the Andes, the Salt Mountains and the Domeyko mountains. We walked up a petrified lava tongue to reach a great viewpoint where we could see the Talar salt flats and a small lagoon.
In this colorful landscape one element is key to understanding its evolution and current shape, lava. The rocks are basalt stones from old volcanoes independent of their color. The red hills are lava remains that have oxidized with time while the black spots are remains from newer volcanic eruptions that haven’t oxidized yet. And it is important to understand that the oxidizing process takes thousands of years.
Soon after we went into the National Flamingo Park, with an entrance cost of 5000 Chilean Pesos per adult. The first stop in the park was in the first viewpoint where two lagoons can be seen: Miñiques Lagoon (a salt lagoon) and Miscanti Lagoon (a fresh water lagoon), both with different animal life despite being close to each other, separated only by a tongue of lava. On the short walk from Miñiques Lagoon viewpoint to Miscanti Lagoon viewpoint we had the chance to learn more about the local plants and their medicinal uses.
And for the last stop, we went to the Soncor area within the National Flamingo Park built to protect this prehistoric bird that only lays one egg per year. In this area a salt flat stretches far into the horizon. Like Uyuni, it has salts and is rich in lithium; unlike Uyuni, this salt flat is less humid and not flat at all as the water quickly evaporates creating a much different landscape. The Chaxas Lagoon in the salt flats is home to ancient algae and microorganisms, flamingos and some migrant birds.
We had lunch in San Pedro at a nice restaurant quite late, almost Spanish Sunday lunchtime. The food was really good, specially the octopus. After lunch, we cleaned our clothes on the washing machine and got ready to leave the next day towards Salta, Argentina. We would be back to Chile further down south, in Puerto Natales, gateway to the Chilean Patagonia.
