We arrived in San pedro (2400m) at dusk and to cut a long story short ended up staying in a locals house, in our own little room with a bathroom. It's great, clean and safe the two main requirements of travelling!
San Pedro is a quaint little town all made of adobe in the middle of the Atacama desert,surrounded by volcanos, salt plains and lakes. It's very geared up for the tourist and the choice of food establishments is vast, both in price and quality! We have found a regular breakfast joint and Curtis has taken to having a hamburger the size of a plate! Gets him through the day.
The streets are mainly dirt hardened by years of no rain - well that was until we arrived!
The first day we visited some local salt lakes and watched the sunset, a little hampered by cloud, but still beautiful. Andy and Curtis plucked up the courage to go for a float in one lake that was 70% higher salt content than the Pacific. We think that's what the guide said! Needless to say they were in and out within minutes!
The next day was when the fun started, it was cold and windy and had apparently been snowing on the higher altiplano so no trips were going out into the salt plains, so we in our wisdom decided it was still a good day to hire bikes! We went out to some local ruins - Quitor and they dated back to the 13th century. They were one of the many fortresses in South America that were destroyed and taken over during the Spanish invasion. We then decided to keep going into the Devils Valley which was a tough ride, especially for Curtis with a strong headwind and soft dirt underneath. Unfortunately we didn't get to see as much as Andy got his chain very stuck and despite big efforts to release it he ended up going back with a family from Santiago with 6 kids who all practised their English on him! Meanwhile Curtis and I enjoyed the blast back downhill trying to keep up with them - in Curtis's words - " doing a Sonja!!!"
Next day we woke to pouring rain, leaks in our roof and then as we lay in bed we saw it turn to snow! Apparently the first time in 36 years in San Pedro. It has caused all sorts of problems with no trips leaving town, people not being able to get in or out of town and at least 50 + trucks carrying numerous goods lined up along the main road waiting to get over a pass 5800m into Argentina. Tricky for these guys as most have no money for food or accommodation and have to sleep in their trucks - this isn't likely to change for at least another 5 days. Curtis was excited with the snow and made a snowman to show our landlady! The streets as they are dirt, were foul and turned to rivers and mud, several hostels and shops flooded. They just aren't equipped for extreme weather in these countries, which is star age as they seem to get lots of extreme weather!
Beautiful days now, snow on the surrounding volcanoes and the air is clear for scenery - we biked out to the valley of the moon (round trip 25km) yesterday and guess what , Curtis got a flatty, so we spent the whole trip home pumping his tyre up every 2 km! The valley was stunning with spectacular rock formations that definitely resemble images you have seen of the moon. Curtis enjoyed the cave that was formed by water erosion, it was the right height for him, Andy and I spent most of it crawling on hands and knees and head butting the roof.
The best trip yet was last night when we went into the desert on a astronomical tour to an observatory.They had 10 enormous telescopes set up on various stars and planets for us to see. The first hour was a quick lesson on the history of our galaxy. (Think that is the right term) It was amazing how clear the fish hook, (scorpio), Southern Cross,mSaturn and Venus were. Looking at Saturn through the telescope was probably the highlight for us. Curtis loved it and I think has found a new interest to discover. That along with collecting rocks! He has found a favourite market where a man sells cool pendants made of local stone and has managed to bargain for a jade and some local blue stone pendants!
Will write again soon and post some more photos separately.
Chao for now!
Chilean BBQ at our favourite restaurant
Water hydrant!!
Playing handball at Calama bus station
Laguna Cejar with volcan Licancabur in background
Curtis's snowman with sushi the dog (land lady's)
Streets in San Pedro after the snow and rain
Local at a community concert.
Pukara de Quitor ruins
Jumping into the icy water of Laguna de Piedra
Being silly!
Volcan Licancabur
Relaxing in 8 degrees of salt water!!
Calama bus station - having lunch.
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