San Pedro de Atacama

We are now in Chile! We are in a town called San Pedro de Atacama which is at the edge of the Atacama desert. The Atacama desert is supposed to be one of the driest places in the world. The average rainfall is 15 mm per year, however it has rained every day that we have been here, causing floods and powercuts in the shops and streets. The desert is a 600 mile plateau west of the Andes mountains.

The thing that I find most interesting is how much the desert looks like the planet Mars. In fact, the Atacama is often used for filming Mars scenes, and is being used by NASA to test instruments for Mars missions. It looks like Tatooine from Star Wars.

Yesterday we went to see La Valley de Luna and the Mars Valley. I couldn’t believe how alien the landscape looked for miles around us as far as the eye could see.

2 days ago we visited the geysers and hot springs in the Atacama desert called El Tatio. It was at 4320 metres altitude, which again made the air very thin and extremely cold. It is the 3rd largest geyser field in the world! The reason this was so amazing to watch is because this is still a seismically active area, with active volcanoes all around 🌋! Some of the geysers were spewing out water and boiling mud and our guide said it looks like the gateway to hell!

The town of San Pedro is really cute! There are LOADS of dogs all around! It looks like a wild west town! All the houses are built the same too!Read more