Acclimatising in the Atacama

The atacama has changed in 20 years …

San Pedro de atacama has changed a lot in the 20 years since I was last here.  In essence it is still a tiny village of 2500 people, but it is also the most visited tourist town in chile.  Every door front is a tourist agency, a restaurant or a souvenir shop.   It’s nice, but it was nicer before. We are here to acclimatise at 2600m before heading over to Bolivia to the altiplano which is at 4500-5000, and I have learnt the hard way to make sure that I acclimatise first. And San Pedro is a lovely place to spend a few days.
We spent the first afternoon wandering around adjusting to the altitude and finding the best empanada in the town.  We also tried to ignore all the tourists – but it was hard.  It’s been a long time since I have travelled with this many tourists (one of the upsides of travelling in Africa is you don’t have to see tourists with too short shorts and bad tattoos).

Avoiding christmas like the grinches we are…

It was Christmas Eve, and the hotel were somewhat surprised we didn’t want the eight course celebration menu.  I love how we celebrate Christmas – we basically ignore it – no gifts, no stress cooking for lots of people, but we use the money to go and have amazing holidays :-).   We had eyed up a burger place for dinner but sadly it was closed. We tried a bunch of other places, all were full or closed, and ended up at the Adobe which was overpriced but fine.  Hubby* had a healthy poor mans steak (steak, fries for four, and two fried eggs) and I had steak pilpil (with garlic and chilli).   After that we hit up Heladaria Babalu for good local ice cream (although we had been ruined  by Valparaíso where the portions were twice the size for the same price).  We had quinoa and chanar ice cream – not bad, and hit the bed!   Altitude makes me sleepy.

Mountain biking in the devils throat

After huge breakfast with some bizarre raw croissants, but excellent bacon and bread, we summoned our courage and borrowed some bikes from the hotel and headed up to Catapre.   It was a nice cool bike ride along some rough tracks, and when you get there, its an excellent mountain biking track through a long gorge (the devils throat).   Anyone who knows me, knows that I am as uncoordinated as can be (‘unco’ as we say in NZ), so I have never been great on a mountain bike.   Blissfully I didn’t take any major spills though did get some impressive skids in.    At the end of the throat, there was a stunning hike up to a great look out point.  At 2600m, it gets hard to breathe!
hubby in the devil’s throat
hubby in the devil’s throat
me in the devils throat
part of the cycling path in the devils throat
Puddles in Catarpe
We cruised back down the throat and then popped up along to river to see the lovely chapel of San Isidro.   It’s definitely different travelling with hubby as he takes time to take beautiful photos….. I lost him for ten minutes as he was taking photos of the reflections in the puddles :-), and he also takes photos with me in them, which is kinda odd
View from the mirador in Catarpe
San Isidro Chapel

Checking out the Quitor de Pukara

After Catapre we went to see the quitor de Pukara – and old Inca site.  It was a nice well graded 20 minute hike to the top, and for entertainment, I ran down the 1.6k in 10 minutes.   Even running downhill at this altitude had me out of breath.   We came back to town in search of an empanada, but sadly Emporio Andini was closed so we had to make do with Super empanadas (twice the price and half as good).
View down the Catarpe valley from Quitor de Pukara
Face carved in the rock at Quitor de Pukara

Tour to the moon valley

A quick trip back to the hotel and then we were back with the tourists to take a tour to the Valle de la Luna.
View down into the Moon Valley
The tour was my idea of hell!  Too many people and too slow, and it was when I wished we had rented a car.  The guide was terrible, and spent ages explaining completely irrelevant facts in truly terrible English.    Honestly! I got told off at one point for not staying with the group – group tours are not for me.  Fingers crossed we have a different guide tomorrow!!!!    Having a scramble through the caverns was quite interesting
Hubby and I in the caverns

We did have a lovely time at the top of the big dune in the park watching the light as the sun went down.
Sunset on the Dunes
View from the Dunes
Hubby at sunset
We got back to the hotel late so had a sandwich and ice cream for dinner and hit the hay as we had a 6am pick up booked.

Off to the altiplano lakes at 4200m

Early the next morning we were in a van with more or less the same folks, but thankfully a much better guide to head 100km south to the lakes Miñiques and Miscanti at 4200m.  The light was lovely and the lakes were stunning.  We were the first tourists there (though hordes more arrived later).  Felipe whipped us up an outstanding breakfast of eggs, avocado, ham and local toasted breads.   We strolled around a bit, but the local people are doing an excellent job keeping tourists out of the ecosystem.  You have to stay on the paths, and while it is mildly annoying for a second, I am actually very happy with how well they are protecting the landscape (though locals had told me Conaf was more worried about the mining companies than the environment, as 40% of the worlds lithium comes from the region).
Laguna Mimiques
Hubby hiking
Laguna Miscanti
Laguna Miscanti

Flamingos on the salt flats

From there we went to socaire to see the ancient irrigation system and a church, stopped by at the Tropic of Capricorn sign for some obligatory Instagram photos, and then headed to Laguna chaxo to see the flamingos and the salt flats.  I love flamingos!!!!
Tropic de capricorn
Atacama Salt flats
Flamingos on the Atacama Salt flats

Icecream, empanadas and burgers…

We then headed back to San Pedro via Toconao (for quinoa ice cream).   It was a lovely easy day in the back of the van, and tours here are pretty cheap – we paid 40 usd each including a great breakfast.    We had a late lunch at Andino – another excellent empanada, and then we made use of our lovely hotel room by lying down for a couple of hours doing nothing until dinner time.
The burger joint was back in business- and it was a great burger
Next step the salar de uyuni in Bolivia- the reason I wanted to come back, as I am pretty sure the hubby will love it
December 27, 2018, San Pedro de Atacama

Additional info

  • To get there fly to calama airport and then get a transfer with transvip for 12,000 per person or 75000 for a private
  • All hotels are overpriced, especially at Christmas.   We stayed at the Noi which was fine, but we paid twice what it was worth for similar hotels in chile
  • Best empanadas and cake at Emporio Andino,  Burgers at the burger garden were excellent
  • There are multiple day tours.  If you don’t want stress or navigation just take some of those tours.  There are lots of places in biking distances but it is hot :-).

*Note for new readers to the blog, hubby prefers to keep a low profile, so he doesn’t ever get named on the blog….. though I have finally started putting pictures of his face (versus the back of his head) on the blog.

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