We arrived feeling surprisingly fresh after the 17 hour bus journey into San Pedro de Atacama (SPDA) J and I slept loads, but woke just in time to catch some of the fantastic scenery coming up to the town. At 11am it was already 39 degrees celsius, a very dry heat. We made our way to our hostel Neuvo Amancer, not a bad spot, a little bit out of the town but nice communal areas and a good shower.
We got a recommendation from some fellow hostel mates for a tour company so we headed off down the town to see what was on offer. Having parted ways with Alex and Jeanette at the bus station (they were camping) we were laughing when within a few minutes of walking we bumped into them again. We decided to use our collective bargaining power to see what kind of deal we could get and secured ourselves three tours for 30,000 pesos with Corvatsch one of the big tour operators. By 4pm that afternoon we were back on a bus and en route to Valle de Luna (Moon Valley).
The landscape is spectacular, unlike anything I´ve seen before. One can see the mighty Andean range from the town. Licancabur the tallest in the range at 5920m is in fact a conical, active volcano. We stopped off a couple of kilometers outside the town to look over the Moon Valley with it´s rocky outcrops and massive sand dunes all different shades of brown. It is so dry here that the dust and sand gets up your
nostrils and into your eyes with ease, it takes a little getting used to. We´ve experienced this kind of heat before but never so dry, it leaves you gasping for water on a regular basis. Further down the road we got out of the bus again and did a short trek to the top of Death Valley. This has jagged rocky peaks and large dark brown dunes and the view from the top down is impressive to say the least. There are more rewarding views of the Andes from there too so it was hard to know which way to point the camera first. Our guide proceeded to bring us down over the edge and descend into Death Valley. After a few minutes of walking along the ridge of a large dune, he turned around and said "follow me" and started to run directly down the sand dune to the valley floor. We looked in shock and amusement, I think Jeanette was
one of the first to go careering after him. It was great craic as we were running yelping and screaming like big kids. There was a group of sandboarders over to our far left skimming along the dune surface and I felt it was all quite surreal! At the bottom we all caught our breath and poured the sand out of our shoes!
We walked on from there along the valley floor and past more tall dunes and rock formations which against the clear blue sky are abreath-taking sight. Back on the bus shortly after that and onwards to some salt caves and passages which again were more awesome geographical formations for us to get our heads round.
Before the sun set we made our way to another part of Valle de Luna and climbed up onto the mountain crest to sit and wait and watch the sun go down. It was fantastic, 100´s of people were all spread out along the mountain ridges watching and waiting. As the sun went down it cast beautiful purple and pink colours ofver the Andes in the
distance and into the canyons. J and I shared our beers with our Alex and Jeanette and savoured the moment. The only downfall was as soon the sun was down our guide was trying to get us to go back down to the bus. ¨Vamos chicos!¨ We held out for as long as we could not wanting to miss the best part. We arrived back in the town before 9pm and hadan early night. Geysers tour up next!
The geysers tour meant a 4am start so as to reach them before dawn when the temperature and light is best to view them. We were warned of cold weather as they are at an altitude of over 4500m, so we dressedas warm as our wardrobe allowed! As we drove around the town and picked everyone up I remarked how some people looked like they were prepared for snow! They had the last laugh however, after a very bumpy
ride up the mountains for two hours we arrived and were met with minus 7 degrees celsius as we stepped off the bus! Holy God! I can´t remember the last time I´ve ever been that cold! I thought my nose might fall off! Our guide who was a bit of a shambles didn´t make his alarm and so we were guideless wandering around the geysers. Jeanette and Alex tagged onto another English speaking guide who showed them around and warned them of the dangers, whilst J and I wandered aimlessly taking pictures and lamenting how cold it was. It was most impressive just as the sun began to rise and the light illuninated the long plumes of steam coming from some of the geysers.
Having already had a geyser experience in NZ we had a fair idea of what we were looking at. The remarkable thing here was that there was 50-60 geysers all in the one area. They lacked however the safety precautions that are abundant in NZ. Perhaps that´s what the guides are for! Feckin Gonzalo, messer! Our bus driver made every effort to please us in fairness to him, but he only spoke Spanish so we weren´t
too sure what he was saying and it just so happened no one on our bus spoke both Spanish and English.
We all stood around and had breakfast near the geysers, the bus driver boiled the eggs and heated our milk in the geysers steam much to my amusement. After brekkie it was straight over to the thermal pools and a reluctant strip off in the cold before a quick dash into the warm waters. ahhhhhhh. So we soaked there enoying the warmth with geysers steamin´in the distance and mountains all around. And of course a few
onlookers standing in their jackets, hats and scarves contemplating
whether they wanted to join us or not!
We made our way back down the mountains after that, this time able to take in the scenery we missed out on during the dark ascent. We spotted vicuna which are part of the camelid family (the other members native to the area being guanaco´s, alpaca and llama) They are the largest group of indigenous Amerian animals and are only found in the Andean region. We stopped here and there on the way down for snaps and to stretch the legs. One such place we pulled into was a small village with a beautiful white church on the hillside. James, Alex and Jeannette tucked into llama kebabs as we wandered aroud. It tastes like salty mutton fyi.
We were back in town by midday. James and I planned to siesta like the rest of the town but our plans were quashed when our hopes of organising our passage out of SPDA didn´t work out so smoothly, we spent some time trying to organise bus tickets back over into Argentina to no avail. Putting that to back of our minds we joined our
group once more for our final excursion. More to come on that...........
0 comments:
Post a Comment