Three highlights of San Pedro de Atacama, a pearl in the Chilean desert
Chile is a country of contrast. It has glaciers, forests, the huge Andes and also, the driest desert in the world. It is called Atacama Desert, it has as little of rain as one millimetre every 20 years.
In the middle of this dry desert is located San Pedro de Atacama, a small town that is totally focused on tourism. About 85% of its 5.600 inhabitants perform economic activities related to tourism.
To get to San Pedro one should take a two hours flight to Calama from the capital, Santiago. From Calama airport (Called Loa), there are special buses that transport passengers through the dessert for about 10 US Dollars. One can also arrange a special service in advance, and all options, from budget to luxurious, are available.
Hostelling International has a
hostel right in the middle of San Pedro de Atacama, where one can get a good bed, free wi-fi, tours information, money exchange service and a lot of interaction with travellers from all over the world from between 10 and 30 US Dollars a night. When I was there, I found tourists from Germany, Holland, Brasil, Switzerland and Spain.
A good tip is to compare the tour prices, because there are several tourist agencies in town offering more or less the same tours, but with different prices. The difference is explained by the kind of vehicle they have, and the preparation of the tourist guides, for example, if they speak good English or not. Another good tip is to take the tours and don´t try the „do it yourself way“ renting a car and driving around. There are almost just dirt roads around San Pedro, and hills are dangerous for people not used to drive in such circumstances.
Everybody visit the Moon and Mars valley, a stunning area of the Atacama Desert, where the landscape looks like from other planet, literally. Red rocks and dry canyons where even used by the NASA to test the rovers and other vehicles sent to Mars. But my favourite highlights of San Pedro de Atacama were the geysers, Puritama natural spa and Laguna Cejar.
To visit the geysers, one should get up really early, because all tours pick up their passengers about 4:00 am from their hotels. It is not a coincidence: the spectacular water boiling over 100 degrees rises from the earth every morning, as if it would be clock-regulated, at 6 am, and one should drive 90 kilometres away from San Pedro to reach the geyser area.
The spectacle is really unique: Combined with the sunrise and the very low temperature – always a bit below 0 – the boiling water rises from the earth in columns of heat and steam that can easily reach four meters.
Of course, there is a perimeter where one is not allowed to walk, because one can fall into one of the geysers. Every year, sadly one or two tourists that did not observe such rules get severely injured or even die.
But tourists can also bath in some of thermal lagoons that from the expelled water, specially signalized as an allowed walking area. It is a very interesting experience, considering the cold temperature at that hour and the extremely hot temperature of these lagoons. Of course, to leave the hot water is the most difficult thing, because outside it feels so cold!
Also related to water is my second favourite highlight of San Pedro: The Puritama natural spa. They are 45 kilometres away from San Pedro, a natural pooled river of thermal water.
One should start in the last and eight pool, and get closer and closer to the source, where the water is almost uncomfortably hot. Everything is surrounded by high native vegetation which grows just because of the presence of water, so scarce in this dry desert.
My third favourite highlight is also related to water: Laguna Cejar. This is the second place in the world, after the Dead See in Israel, where one can float in the water. It has high concentration of salt, which makes it thicker and almost impenetrable for a floating body.
It is located about 20 kilometres from San Pedro de Atacama, and a good tip is to take a bottle of water with you. After bathing in such a saline water, your skin will burn while drying, and a quick and improvised shower is the best that can happen to you after. Also, one should carry flip-flops, because to get to the weather, one should walk over tiny salt formations that can hurt your feet because they are quite sharp. I can say that my skin was extremely soft after bathing in Laguna Cejar, because of the peeling effect of salt grains.
San Pedro de Atacama is a pearl in the middle of the desert and has so much to offer: Natural and outdoor activities, amazing places but also a good amount of nightlife for a town of that tiny size. Great restaurants for all budgets, bars and cafés, and also archaeological exhibitions at the Gustavo Le Paige Museum and Meteorite Museum.
Links of interest
