San Pedro de Atacama

San Pedro de Atacama was another strange little town in the middle of the desert. Other than in Huacachina the desert was less sandy and more rocky. But also the town was a lot different. Lots of houses were build from the same stone and matched the color of the desert. The floor was often bare so you would walk on dust. But as it was one of the most touristy places around and Chile is definitely more developed and rich than a lot of the other countries it still wasn't really basic. There were lots of nice restaurants and shops around town. My hostel was nice with rooms arranged around an outdoor communal area. I knew I wanted to do a tour to the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia from here so I used my first day strolling around the little town comparing agencies and figuring out what else was there to do here. At night they had a chilean BBQ with lots of meat at the hostel. It was super good and the fire of the BBQ helped a little against the cold that came after the sun went down. The difference between day and night was big here. During the day you could easily walk around in shorts and a shirt but at night you needed a lot of clothes. I went to bed the first night almost immediately after dinner just because I was so cold. The next day I got me a bike to go to Quebrada del Diabolo. I didn't do a lot of research but heard from some people this should be the best site in the desert reachable by bike. The lady in the bike shop told me I would need to cross the river 3 times. As she said it as if this was completely normal I expected the water to be really flat. But when I drove into the water for the first time I got stock halfway and had to push my bike through kneedeep water. In my shoes. After this I realized I should probably take my shoes of from now on.
The Quebrada del Diabolo were rock formations with lots of small pathways through them. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to take my bike in so when I got to a point where a lot of bikes were lying I decided to also continue by foot. The site was pretty cool. The path would split of in more different paths between the rocks. As I didn't bring my bike I could also go for the ones climbing over rocks. After a while I found a spot on top of a big rock for my lunchbreak. I realized that it was completely quite here. Only surrounded by rocks you couldn't even here the usual sounds of nature like wind blowing through leaves or animals flying or running around. When I started walking back I realized that it might not be the easiest thing to find out as I had randomly chosen the path that looked more interesting. But turned out I could follow back my footsteps as no one had entered after me.
Cycling back I decided to not put my shoes back on after the first river crossing but just cycle barefoot. This wasn't super comfortable but still nice and freeing.
At night I did a stargazing tour. They had told me it weren't the best conditions for this tour as you couldn't see to many stars due to the full moon but I decided to do it anyways. And I actually liked it a lot. Especially as we got to watch the moon through the telescope and could see its rough surface with craters and everything. Our guide told us a little about stars and planets but as the tour was in Spanish I didn't understand to much when it got to more complex explanations. He showed us the cross of the south and some other constellations like the scorpion which was interesting as they were completely different to the ones we can see in the northern hemisphere.
He also pointed out jupiter and saturn to us and we looked at them through the telescope. You could even see the rings around saturn.
The next day I walked a bit more around town, treated myself to lunch at a nice little cafe and prepared for the tour to Uyuni. As Chile was really a lot more expensive than most other countries I usually had breakfast and dinner at the hostel. The kitchen here was ok and I actually enjoyed cooking for myself again. The only thing cheaper here than anywhere else was wine - even cheaper that beer!
I met 2 nice French Canadian girls my last night and we talked over dinner and some wine. But when people started going out I went to bed again. I just couldn't be bothered to go out in the cold. But as I had to get up early the next morning for my tour I at least had a proper excuse ;)Read more