Floating in the Atacama

On the 17th, we moved West from Uyuni, Bolivia, to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. The journey started at 6 am, after getting up at 5, and finally got us there around 6 pm. That included about 8 hours bus ride 2 hours, at Bolivian and Chile passports and customs controls, one hour to pick up a hire car ( actually a hire truck), and then driving the last 100km in the truck for an hour. Long journey , tiring, but also passing through unique scenery of innumerable giant volcanoes, salt flats, then later sandstone formations and then yet more snow-capped mountains and volcanoes It may sound repetitive, but in fact, each step is different and wonderful in its own way.

San Pedro itself has less charm, as it only exists for tourists, it's seriously overpriced, and basically, all the businesses in the centre are tour companies or restaurants . We have opted to be our own tour operators with our hired truck. That is possible, because we stay in a hostel and the owner provides us with endless help and advice.

So today, after a long sleep and a very gradual getting up, plus google Maps mistakes, we headed out to Lago Baltichane, which is about an hours drive along dirt track roads. Carolina warned us it was stony, but after Namibia and Kenya, we are not easily intimidated by driving conditions, and indeed, this was a 1 out of 5, where Namibia is 5.

The Laguna is a series of salt water pools in a glacial valley, whose floor consists of lava rocks and salt flats that are up to 900m deep.

The pools are turquoise blue, and the water is so salty. it's at saturation point.

You can swim here and that's the fun part. Swimming is actually difficult because you float so easily. You literally feel the water push you up. It was a really interesting experience.

When you get out and dry, the fun is not over, as a thin layer of salt covers your body. Dry towelling gets rid of most, but the remainder stays until you shower back in San Pedro in our case 3 hours later.

On the way back, we stopped for 90 minutes at a viewpoint on the top of sandstone formations. I sat and enjoyed the view, whilst the others explored the rocks and the sand.

We cooked at the hostel to get around the exorbitant restaurant prices, and the kids played before we all went to bed and slept very deeply.Читать далее