San Pedro de Atacama

Two weekends ago I went to the city San Pedro de Atacama, which is located in the northern desert of Chile. The town is inhabited by people, but it is mostly a place for tourists to go and experience the desert. Its necessary to go through tour agencies and obtain guided tours of the region, so the first day was spent shopping around the various agencies to find the best price. Our tour package included three days of activities.

The first day, we went to a very salty lake (called laguna cejar), so salty that you literally don’t have to do anything to float. I had heard about this phenomenon from other people, but I truly didn’t believe it until I was in the water and floating without moving a muscle. You could even float vertically without sinking! The lake has a high concentration of salt because it is between two mountain ranges and when the snow melts, it has no place to filter out and it just collects in this lake. When we got out, we had to be hosed off because the salt crystallized on our skin.

Ofter the laguna cejar, we went to another less salty water hole. There was about a 12 foot drop off you had to fall into before reaching the water. We all had a good time jumping in, even though we all were a little bit nervous to do it at first. The last place we went on our first day was another big salty lake to watch the sunset. It was beautiful because as the sun was setting, it created reflections of the mountain ranges on the water.

The second day we went to a small pueblo and saw some llamas. We were able to pet and feed them and meet the owners. We then went to a fertile region of the desert, where they grow crops such as grapes that are sweeter than usual because of the distinct minerals in the soil of the desert.

In the afternoon, a group of us rented bikes and rode to a place called Valle de la muerte and went sandboarding. Sandboarding is basically like snowboarding, except on sand. After a very rocky bike ride with our boards on our backs, we arrived at a huge sand dune. Climbing the sand dune to get to the top is tricky because each step makes you ascend a little bit, but it also causes you to sink down into the sand. By the time you get to the top you’re out of breath and its time to wax the underside of the sandboard. After waxing, you strap on the board to your tennis shoes and attempt to slide down the hill as far as you can without falling. Its pretty tricky, and when you fall it doesn’t hurt, but sand goes everywhere!

On the third day we woke up very early (around 4am!) to see the geysers. We had to ascend about 4,000 meters to get to them, and the tour guide brought a tank of oxygen with us in case anyone got altitude sickness! They geysers were very pretty and active almost the entire time we were there. After the geysers we went to a hot spring. The water was definitely warmer than the air temperature, but that wasn’t saying much since the temperature at that altitude is pretty cold. I still went swimming in them though and it was a lot of fun. When you touched the sand at the bottom, you couldn’t keep your hand in the same place for very long without burning it!

Overall, this trip has been my favorite trip in Chile so far. The desert is an amazing place to experience the diverse geography that Chile has to offer.