San Pedro de Atacama

Just spent an hour writing up the day only to have my tablet crash without saving it.

The tour picked us at the hotel around 6:30 and spent an hour picking up other participants at their hotels. With a group of 20, we headed south along the west side of the Atacama Salt pan for an 11-hour, 250-mile, 1-mile elevation change jaunt.

The Atacama pan is an immense brine lake hemmed in on all sides by the four mountain ranges I mentioned yesterday. It is fed mostly by underground sources coming down from the Andes to the west. The surface is a thick crust of evaporated salt and minerals. It is a mile deep and was formed by the faulting, uplift and subsidence that formed the Andes over millions of years. The weight of the crust presses down on the liquid brine at the bottom, forcing it up to the surface where it evaporates to form new crust. The lake is about 1,100 square miles - one of the largest salt lakes in the world - and sits at about 8,000 feet.

An hour into the jaunt, we arrived at the National Flamingo Reserve. Our guide, Roberto, kept up a constant, informative stream of information about the history, geology, ecology, and culture that we passed through during the entire trip - in good English. At the Reserve, Roberto led on a walk along the paths to see the shallow pools of brine where the three native species of flamingos waded while filtering the brine shrimp they eat and which give them their color. The crust is hard, jagged, and sharp - much like coral - brownish, with white or translucent nuggets of salt. We compared the coral-like surface to out memory of the smooth surface of Lake Nakuru, another flamingo reserve in Kenya. After the walk we had a light but filling breakfast, provide by the tour, by the bus. Roberto led us through the low-key but informative exhibits at the Reserve's HQ, adding additional information.

Out of the Reserve heading west and south, we went up (and up, and up). The bus stopped at Socaire, a town of about 1,000 where the tour arranged our lunch on the return leg. The people of Socaire still farm the surrounding gullies using terraces formed with mud brick walls - much the same as they have done for centuries. The Conquistadors, arriving in the mid 1500s, were extremely impressed by the Inca terraced agriculture and called the uplands by their name for terraces (roughly, "atraves"). Usages and corruption changed that name into "Andes." Socaire sits at about 11,000 feet and the little walking we did left me lightheaded and breathing deeply. Alongside the path we saw vicunas, the small indigenous deer related to the llama and alpaca.

Southward and upward we continued into the "Altiplano," the name for the region in Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia above 4,000 meters elevation. We stopped at Laguna Miscanti, another salt flat isolated by the eruptions of the line of volcanoes along this stretch of the Andes. There are more than 40 volcanoes along this line, many extinct but some mearly dormant. The last nearby eruption was about 1,000 years ago. The lagoon is blue-green and smooth, reflecting the peaks on either side. We walked down a path above the the lagoon and enjoyed the view. There were no others land animals and only a few birds.

As we continued up it got cooler (maybe in the 60s at 2 PM) and windier. We got to Piedras Rojas (red rocks) and more salt flats with red hillsides due to the large iron content of the volcanic soil. We topped out about 13,500 feet and walking was a breathless experience (and to think just yesterday I complained about being out of breath in Atacama, a mile lower). At one location, fresh, 100 degree water flowed green into one of the salt pans. Roberto told us that there is evidence of human activity here dating from 12, 000 BC and human settlement from about 8,000 BC. As he talked he showed helpful pictures of various animals and indigenous culture from reference books he carried. As we headed back down into the basin, we could see on the far southern side of Atacama pan the white expanse of the lithium extraction process. The process pumps liquid brine from the depths of the lake and spreads it out in large ponds to evaporate the water, then refines the residue to get the lithium and other minerals.

Back in Socaire, we had a great lunch of some Chilean dishes and headed north and lower toward San Pedro. We stopped at the marker designating the spot where the Tropic of Capricorn crosses the road. This marks the southernmost extent of the sun's annual oscillation. At noon on December 21st, the sun is directly overhead. Here, there is also the trace of the "Inca Highway" the road (footpath) stretching the length of the Inca empire and on which moved much of the empire's commerce and communications (carried by runners who could average 50 kilometers in eight hours). We rolled into San Pedro about 6 PM. Since we had an early start tomorrow, we showered and soon crashed.Read more