Calama, Chile Travel Blogs

Loads of lakes and flamingoes
Sep 1, 2006 (5 photos)

Both of us woke up with cracking headaches due to the altitude - approx 4,000 metres. Next time will get some diamox which helps prevent symptoms of altitude sickness! After breakfast we piled back into the jeeps and headed back past the 2 lakes we ...

Calama, Chuquicamata, Santiago
Jul 10, 2006 (11 photos)

... some video of the barren desert, but it was too dark at that point, and I just admired the view on the road toward Calama: the mountains fading from red to blue, the near-full moon above them, and the lights of town and of Chuquicamata, whose orange glow ...

An odd, but beautiful start!
Aug 31, 2006 (7 photos)

... with our fellow travellers to the border to get out of Chile and head north to Bolivia (we are coming back to Argentina and Chile at a later date by the way). Unfortunately someone somewhere had decided the road to Bolivia was shut due to snow so we had ...

about turn, bus life part 3
Jan 5, 2007

Got to Calama and found the next bus to Salta in Argentina is leaving in 4 days time. It appears we didn´t factor in that january is Chile and Argentina´s summer holiday time and the whole country has booked themselves onto the ...

Long journeys, short tempers!
Mar 24, 2004

... (no milk). We thought we had best head out into the town for some heartier fare after checking out bus times to Calama, our next overnight destination. Deeply overjoyed to discover that we were again misinformed as to the frequency of the buses - we ...

Start of my roadtrip to nowhere
Apr 2, 2008 (27 photos)

Roadtrip to nowhere

Now its salt, salt, salt and more......
Sep 2, 2006 (9 photos)

Another day, another headache, another painkiller. Had a good breakfast though of some sweet pastry fried thing with dulche de leche which is basically caramel. As ever, my diet is going well. Think we were all quite grateful to leave the place and ...

Crossing the Andes
Jun 29, 2005 (21 photos)

... and headed up and over another huge climb to the rather 'seedy' (as described in the 'Footprints' guide to Chile and we can't argue with that) city of Calama. We're here for a day to write the webpage before heading up the Atacama Desert towards Arica on ...

After hours of dirt road
Apr 4, 2008 (77 photos)

Ollague

Highlights of the Atacama Desert
Mar 2, 2007 (10 photos)

... next to large holes.  So the mining company is moving every family into brand new homes a few kilometers away in Calama and the town of Chuquicamata will eventually be dismantled.  Don't fall asleep yet... I have lots of statistics and ...

Chilling in Calama!!!
Aug 6, 2005 (1 photos)

... of Chile ´Watts Pineapple Juice'! Mmmmmmm! Happy days! We ended up having a lovely chilled out day mooching around Calama which could have actually been any town at home with its pedestrian precincts and proper shops!!! Obviously icecream had to be on ...

Stranded in the desert
May 5, 2009

... arriving at around 9am, and then be taking the 10pm bus to the city of Arica, which is on the Peru/Chile border. So what do you do if your in Calama for 12 hours? Ask the towns tourist office and your answer will be....not a lot. There really is nothing to ...

Geyser del Tatio
Sep 8, 2009 (5 photos)

coming soon

San Pedro de Attacama
Dec 17, 2006 (7 photos)

San Pedro de Attacama - The Bolivia trip finished in the small village of San Pedro de Attacama where I stayed a few days.  This is one of the very few villages in the area, as the Attacama desert is the driest place in the world, and unsurprisingly ...

San Pedro De Atacama
Jul 14, 2005

Nothing much over here...

Calama...Seriously, worth avoiding at all costs!
Aug 31, 2007

This place was just a nothing town! It is not geared up for tourism at all and thus was not all that good to spend time in! The first three hostels we went to to try and get a room for the night had shut down...nice one Footprint! Then, the most ...

Nuestra vida en San Pedro de Atacama
Aug 7, 2007 (8 photos)

... , y el resto de nuestro amigos llegaron al camping a las 9:00a.m.  En nuestro primer día libre nos fuimos a CAlama, la ciudad más cercana y allí nos compramos unas chaquetas de invierno en promoción y una espuma para ponerla debajo de los ...

Empanadas!
Jun 1, 2008

Our final stop in Chile was the beautifuly quaint San Pedro de Atamaca.  Having hiked up and down its streets trying to find the hostel we had been reccomended (turned out we walked past it 3 times) very hungry we ate the most delicious cheese, tomato ...

A night in "a sh1thole"
Nov 8, 2009 (2 photos)

Calama - They were right, the Lonely planet , when they described this place as "a shithole" !! I got into my hostal - Los Nativos - about 4pm and decided that I was staying in a shithole within a shithole, I climbed two flights of narrow wooden stairs to ...

It ain't chilly in Chile!
Dec 6, 2006 (15 photos)

... hiring a mountain bike and cycling a 45km round trip to the Valley of the Moon and up some stupidly steep hills on the way to Calama would be a really good idea.  Hadn't ridden a bike since i did the WMDR so it was tough going, especially in the heat, ...

Travel Marathon
Jan 26, 2007 (3 photos)

We had a marathon travel session that lasted 3 full days and 2 nights. It all started when we left Arequipa and didn´t end until we got here to Tucuman. We met 2 Argentinian guys named Jorge and Andreas. They were our saviors in terms of crossing borders. ...

De beaten track van peru en bolivia ik heb ...
Feb 17, 2000 (7 photos)

... Eenmaal in san Pedro kan je nog wat uitstapjes maken naar de Geisers of gewoon lekker gaan paardrijden. De Gringotrail gaat dan via Calama richting Arica aan de Peruaande grens en dan bv terug naar Lima. Ik ben nu in Calama en heb een heerlijk bed waar ...

Jama-Pass
Jan 11, 2008

will see

San Pedro de Atacama rocks!!!
Apr 20, 2008 (140 photos)

... so after 12 hours in semi cama (reclining seat - not quite the luxury we had been used to in premium class) we arrived at Calama where we negotiated a rather dodgy cab to take us to the main bus station and there managed to hop onto a local bus to take us ...

stuck in Calama
Feb 16, 2006

... (7hrs north of Santiago, on the coast) and headed off on TUesday afternoon. After an hour and a half we got to Calama and then continued on to the mountain pass that would take us from the Andes to sea level. Unfortunately because of unusually heavy ...

San Pedro - Chile
Jan 20, 2006 (5 photos)

Hola again. We have made our way to northern chile to San Pedro where we have hit the desert. Completely different landscape here as we have gone up a little in height & into the Andes basin. We have visited the Death Valley & the Moon landscape which ...

San Pedro, Chile
Dec 4, 2006

... the truck.  I dont blame them at all as the truck has become monotonously slow.  The good news is now we are in Chile we have tar sealed roads which is great.  The bad news is that prices are 3 times more expensive than everywhere ...

Flugziel heute: Calama im Norden Chiles
Oct 22, 2006

... neben mir ins Gespraech, der mit Frau und einem anderen Paar auch nach San Pedro de Atacama wollte und vom Flughafen Calama (1h von dort) einen Transfer arrangiert hatte. Kurzum: Ich wurde mitgenommen, im komfortablen Riesenvan und sparte so eine Stunde ...

Calama
Mar 11, 2008 (1 photos)

... to Uyuni. So basically all the travellers on the bus from Calama occupy the bus just emptied by travellers going from Uyuni to Calama. All sounds great, but lets just wait and see how it works out...we have everything prepared for a long cold (and hot) ...

One night only
Sep 20, 2008

As I arrived into Calama on the bus, I asked a couple Id heard talking in English, (yes always go for the easy option) if they were heading into the town center to find a place to stay for the night.. As it turned out they both lived in the City, both ...