Tour life in Atacama

So the following day we woke up at half 6, grabbed our lunch pack from the hostel (lovely hostel thing, since many people goes on early tours you can request a lunch pack instead of breakfast) and waited for the van to arrive between 6:30-7:00 am. He arrived after 7 am but at least there weren't so many people left to pick up. The van looked and sounded like it would break into pieces any minute but the bumpy road and the sound was surprisingly soothing. We slept for most of the ride getting to  our destination but it was not comfortable to say the least. It took one or two hours to get there so nice to get some rest anyways.

Our destination at this morning tour included some lakes, looking for flamencos (flamingos), seeing a little village and such. Altiplanic lagoons and Salar de Atacama. Very different surroundings than our experiences so far in Chile. And we started up high, over 4000 m. We only did a little walk on a trail that ascended just so little but I got nauseas almost immediately. J couldn't understand why everyone was walking so slow. Surprisingly our guide who did this many times a week also expressed that she sometimes felt it when walking fast. Guess she stays there for such a short time that she can't benefit from it to upcoming tours. 

High altitude lagoon

Dry environment

Lagoon

Little village

Included in the tour was a little breakfast, more bread as usual. Something they had made me very happy though, coca tea! Great for altitude sickness from previous experience in Peru. I also stumbled upon some coca candy in the little village on our way back that I introduced to J. He was sceptical at first but kept asking for more later on.

Our guide didn't talk so much about our visits, we were more left to see the beauty for ourselves. Although she did point out the volcanoes surrounding us, which were mostly dormant but with one active in a far distance (last eruption 2 years earlier). I'll leave the rest to pictures from the morning:

Flamencos at Salt flat

Flying flamingo

We got back at San Pedro around noon and had approximately one hour before our next tour was about to begin. After some minor hassle we found our hostel, dropped of in town and I hadn't updated maps. We had already finished our lunch pack at the little town we visited but it was not enough to keep the energy bar up for the evening. So we stopped by our little corner restaurant and had something quick. We were a bit worn out but the mission had to be completed. And this time they arrived somewhat more in the set time range.

Back at San Pedro

Another tour company picked us up with a little bit of an upgraded vehicle but still questionable. The afternoon tours highlight would be to see the sunset in valle de Luna (moon valley) but before that we visited some other stops. One were supposed to be three Marys (holy Mary) but with only two still standing since a tourist had hugged one of them for a photo resulting in it collapsing. Glad not to be that tourist. This three rock formations can with a little bit of an imagination look like a human and I think it was a priest that long time ago named them the three Marys.

Two Marys to the left

We also did some hiking in this tour to get a good view over the sand dunes. Apparently you could do sandboarding in the area but not at the places we visited. This tour contained a bit more information from the guide. Mostly about salt mining and it's death in the beginning of the 70's when industrialization took over. We visited old salt mining places, saw how people lived while working and it didn't look like an easy life. Especially since the temperature is so varied, many degrees below zero night time and many above during the day. And it's so very dry here. Surface wise the driest desert on earth as we learned.

Salt cave

Ruins from when people lived and worked here, not much isolation...

Pretty nice views here

View from up high

Inside a little salt cave

So the tour ended with the promised sunset. We were a bit worried about not seeing anything since there was a lot of clouds arriving in the afternoon. But the sun still shone through but of course it's probably more majestetic without clouds. And I missed the starry sky that's supposed to be remarkable over here. Still a great way to end the day, last day of the year to be more precise. Yes this was our New year's eve.

We were very very tired when we got back to town and we managed to grab a Pisco sour and some beers before the supermarket closed at 9 pm. After showers it was around 10 pm and we feared it would be hard to find any food in town. So we celebrated New year's with cookies and chips and the Pisco sour. Still very cozy :-) And we watched the somewhat dangerous fire works around town, many kids that shouldn't be allowed to handle this kind of things. It's authentic I guess though. We were both proud we stayed awake for the time to hit 12 but I'll tell you it was a struggle. Such a full day with changes in altitude. But a good one.

In town

Happy New year!
S

Ending with some more sandy pics