Our quick stop in Chile
Trip Start
Feb 23, 2008
1
36
43
Trip End
Jul 04, 2008
San Pedro de Atacama,
Chile
Monday, June 9, 2008
While we were here we did a couple tours. First we went on a Valle de la Luna tour. (Moon Valley) We are in a small bus with 20 other people driving around to all these beautiful view points in the middle of the desert. It is fun but a little too structured. It feels more rewarding if you can hike to these beautiful views points or something. But the guide is REALLY into talking about the land and nature so it makes it more exciting. We also walk across some sand dunes to watch the sunset over the land and the colors are amazing. We also listen to rock walls cracking as they cool down from the sun setting
Kyla in San Pedro
. I have never heard anything like that before.That night we had plans to go on a star gazing tour with a French scientist. We were really excited about it because we heard a lot of good things about the guy and all his cool telescopes. Unfortunately the trip was canceled due to too many clouds.
The next day we had to wake up at 3:30 am to drive on a freezing cold bus for 2 hours to reach the geysers before sunrise (We were going on the Geyser del Tatio tour). It was the coldest we have been on the whole trip. It was 3 degrees Fahrenheit. I had almost every piece of clothing I owned on, including an additional pair of Chris' pants. The Geysers were amazing. It was a field of steam and colorful holes. After walking around the geysers for a while we drank hot tea- and watched one of the guys on the tour pass out from hypothermia. It was scary and then Chris kept telling me he was going to pass out, which he didn't. Part of the tour was to wade in a hot springs. Only a few brave souls went, even though the water was steamy hot, I couldn't bare the thought of taking off a single piece of clothing. On the way back to San Pedro we stopped at a small village and ate goat cheese empanadas, coca tea, and llama kebabs. They were very good-the town cat and dog were begging us for some like crazy. I have never seen a cat beg like a dog before.
We heard from a lot of people in Bolivia that San Pedro de Atacama, Chile was not worth the stop because it is very similar to the Salt Flat tour in Bolivia. There is a salt flat in San Pedro, but we did not see it because we thought it would be repetitive. But we are glad we ended up stopping there. The tours we went on were different than the salt flat tour in Bolivia and were definitely worth it.
