San Pedro de Atacama - Visiting the Desert
Trip Start
Aug 16, 2003
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83
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Trip End
Apr 21, 2004
San Pedro de Atacama,
Chile
Friday, March 26, 2004
Our first port of call was 'Colque Tours' to book ourselves on a three day excursion across the deserts, mountains, and salt lakes into Bolivia, where we would continue our journey northwards, and then back into Peru. We managed to secure a couple of seats on the Friday trip, and pleased, headed back to a nearby restaurant for a spot of lunch
Admiring The Desert View
. We were both extremely impressed with our meals (finally) - our food was absolutely excellent and would not have been out of place, had it been served in a top Paris eatery. Once suitably fortified, we popped back to our room to liberally douse ourselves in sun-cream before heading off for a walk into the desert to a spot overlooking the oasis of San Pedro.We enjoyed a lovely trek out of town and up a winding hill-side, after fording a river several times (Andrea got wet!). It seemed absolutely amazing to us that we were walking across such interesting terrain in the Atacama Desert - a place we had first discovered in Geography lessons at school. Once we had paid a small entry fee, we gradually climbed upwards, taking necessary breaks in the breath-sapping altitude. The views we experienced were fantastic: we gazed back down to the patchwork of green that demarcated the town, strikingly abstract in the barren sandy brown of the desert; we looked across at the rumpled textures of weathered sandstone; and admired the sight of spectacularly gouged canyons and valleys as the sun set picturesquely to further enhance our enjoyment of the location.
Totally absorbed in soaking up the scenery, we only just made it back down from the hill's summit before dark - as it was we continued the remainder of the journey back to town in the waning, and then absent light
Perched and Posing
! It was absolutely worth it!Pausing briefly to shower, we ventured once again to the main street for a few drinks. We chose the 'Casa Adobe' which had a fire-pit in the centre of an open courtyard, surrounded by a covered seating area. The atmosphere was superb, and we stayed much longer than anticipated, and actually ate there too. Wanting to experience as much of the San Pedro night-life as possible, we nipped next door to another bar, with similar fire-pit, commanding the attention of the patrons and had another couple of drinks - well, I, at least had a couple more beers - Andrea had all hers in one go, after ordering a gin and tonic (weirdly named 'Gin Con Gin' in Spanish) and receiving at least five measures in one! We got chatting to one of the barmen, who seemed keen to practice his English before plying Andrea with a Brazilian cocktail called 'Caipirihna', or something (I'll check the spelling!).
I felt fine the next morning. Unfortunately, I was alone in this. When Andrea did eventually surface, we had breakfast back at 'Casa Adobe' (at about 11.45) and looked around the town for a short while. With Andrea reaching her limit of endurance, we made our way back to our room, where I left her, in order to try and download my photos so that I would have a fresh memory stick for our afternoon excursion to Valle de la Luna.
By 3.30, Andrea had sufficiently recovered and we joined the other four people on our trip. We were driven round to various points of interest within the desert, such as 'Devil's Gorge', 'Death Valley', and the Valle de la Luna itself. We both thoroughly enjoyed the scenery, especially when we had the chance to walk up and along a massive sand dune towards the setting sun, but struggled to appreciate the background to the sites, as the guide spoke only in Spanish
Sand Dune, Valle de la Luna
. We could pick up some of the information, and a helpful Brazilian man aided us by offering translations from time to time.Once we had showered and washed the sand and dust from all manner of orifices, we went out to 'Restaurant Estaka' to have a celebratory birthday meal for Andrea (it was a day early, but we knew we would not have the chance whilst on the 3 day trip into Bolivia). We started with a Pisco Sour - a traditional Peruvian and Chilean liquor. For the first time since I could remember, we shared a bottle of wine with our meal, which was wonderful. I had been looking forward to sampling some local Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon, and we were not disappointed in our selection. We both ate to bursting point (as was demanded in such a situation) and felt fortunate in receiving such fine food - another fitting finale to our stay.
Dan and Andrea
