Excursions in the Atacama Desert, Chile

From San Pedro I made two excursions; the first to Valle del Muerte (Death Valley!) and Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon), the second to the Tatio Geysers.

The landscape around Valle del Muerte was spectacular, rocky geometrical structures, huge sand dunes, barren mountains and volcanoes in the distance. No photograph could do justice to the sunset, which painted the whole scene in a blood-red light, pink fluffy clouds hung eerily overhead. The heat of the day ebbed away as the cold night approached, the planets brightly visible points at dusk. Later on at night, millions of stars shone through the thin desert air, illuminating the night sky.

No rest for the wicked... the following morning we had to get up at 4am for the excursion to the Tatio Geysers, a thermal field underneath the Atacama desert. Here, volcanic activity heats up rocks far underground, over which underground rivers flow. The heated water is forced upwards and bubbles out of the earth in the form of geysers. For some reason, the geysers are most active in the small hours of the morning hence the early start. Hundreds of geysers bubbled up around us, some steaming, some bubbling, some gurgling, some shooting out boiling water into the air, and some just the right temperature to warm up my hands (the night air at this altitude, over 4000m, was well below freezing). On the way back, we had the opportunity to bathe in thermal springs, quite an interesting experience as the air was very chilly, and the water temperature seemed variable, occasionally almost too hot to bare, other times too cool!

We also stopped in a semi-indigenous village before returning to San Pedro, where we enjoyed a cup of tea, a local brew made of coca leaves (good for the altitude), and where a llama attempted to eat our chocolate.