San Pedro de Atacama an amazing place and we loved our stay there. Imagine an oasis in the middle of the desert at 2,500m of altitude, within which exists this small, dusty village.

We flew from Santiago to Calama, which allowed us to skip a 24h bus ride. We then took a bus to cover the final 90km to San Pedro. The scenery was spectacular.

Once we were checked into hostel Chiloe, we headed to the busy commercial streets to begin an intense market research exercise on tours of the surrounding area. We were particularly interested in the 3-day jeep trek to the salt flats in Uyuni, Bolivia but had heard stories that the quality varied enormously from agency to agency. L’s perfect Spanish worked a treat and a couple of hours later we had narrowed the field to 2.

On the way home, we bumped into Martina and Sam, a young Swedish couple that we had met in Pucon, so we ended up having diner together. As luck would have it, they too were looking to book a trek to Uyuni, so the next day we used our enhanced bargaining power to negotiate a discount with one of the agencies and book ourselves into the same jeep.

We had decided that day two would be an easy day, so we chilled in the morning and then we joined an excursion to the “Termas de Puritama” in the afternoon.

We were taken to a little oasis in the middle of the desert. The thermal springs ran along the bottom of a steep canyon, easily identifiable because of the thin stretch of vegetation that bordered its banks. Along the stream, large pools of water had formed, allowing visitors to wallow and enjoy the scenery. All the pools were connected with an elegant wooden walkway.

Our only gripe was the German-esq manner in which the good people of Chile would occupy all of the available space with their towels, creating an endless patchwork of empty towel. Nevertheless, it was a lazy, enjoyable way to spend the afternoon.

Being ‘date night’, we ended our day in one of the best restaurants in town (everything is relative). We ate some pork and pastel de choclo (see St Martin de Los Andes entry) and enjoyed some tunes from the resident pianist (which was a clever move by the restaurant, since it prevented the travelling hippie vagabond bands from entering the restaurant and torturing the customers with another strained Bob Marley classic…Ed’s nemesis strikes again).

The following day, we woke up early to try our luck and see if we managed to get a seat on the ALMA bus. We were extremely lucky to get the last 2 seats and delighted to finally have a free excursion! ALMA is a project between North America, Europe, Asia and Chile that has successfully created the most powerful microwave telescope in the world.

Due to the perfect conditions of the desert (very dry, high altitude and hardly any cloud cover), 66 satellites dishes have been positioned at an altitude of more than 5,000m in order to receive an almost uninterrupted microwave signal. These dishes are all linked together and the signal they receive is relayed to their Santiago office, where it is analysed by scientists.

Unfortunately, we did not get to see the satellite dishes, since, because of the altitude, anyone going to the site needs to undergo a proper health check with blood tests etc… Fortunately however, there was one being repaired at basecamp. We also saw the two unique trucks that were built (at a cost of many tens of million of dollars each) to transport the dishes up and down the mountain. One of them was called Otto, which Ed found funny (being the name of the Ballin’s family dog).

In the afternoon, we boarded a bus to visit el “Valle de la Luna” (valley of the moon), whose dramatic moon-like landscapes are one of the main attractions around San Pedro. Some people opt to visit it by bike but given the extremely high temperatures, strong winds, substantial hills, dust and general unfitness, we thought that a tour would be the best way to enjoy it!

We made several stops along the way, including caves that had been carved into the salt mountains and the “tres Marias” (the three Marias), which were sculptures that had been formed over time by the wind. Unfortunately, only 2 ½ remain since tourists used to climb them until one of them broke…(apparently the culprits were French!).

We also climbed some steep valleys and were rewarded with some spectacular views of the sand dunes and the “amphitheater”.

We ended the day with a beautiful sunset and then had diner with the swiss couple that we had met at our hotel. They told us that they had got engaged the day before, so we had a lot of fun celebrating that with them (not aided by the aforementioned travelling hippie vagabond bands that burst into the restaurant several times and tortured us with strained Bob Marley classics).

We also bumped into Katie and Tom and agreed to have diner together the following night.

On our third and final day in San Pedro we headed to Laguna Ceja. This lagoon is extremely salty so you are able to float in a similar fashion to the dead sea. It was a bizarre feeling and the salty crust that formed on your body afterwards did wonders for the skin!

On the way back to San Pedro we visited a much smaller lagoon, which was apparently shaped like an upside down cone, reaching depths of over 40m. In there lies a car rented by Brazilians that had forgotten to put the hand brake…bloody tourists!

We were treated to another amazing sunset and because if was the 14^th of Feb, everybody started taking very cheesy shots (including us!).

We arrived quite late in town, picked up our laundry, paid the hotel and had a lovely diner with Katie and Tom at Abode.

We did not stay too late because we all still had lots of things to do, pack and organize before our grand tour of the desert!

Next stop: a three days jeep trek through Bolivia to reach the salt flats of Uyuni.

Highlights:

• The moon valley and those spectacular sunsets
• Getting to ALMA, despite their waiting lists being full for the next few months
• Laguna Ceja and floating on extremely salty water

Gastro highlights:

• Coca leaves ice-cream (according to Lolo…)
• Diner at Adobe, really cool place and delicious food