News del Mercado: San Pedro de Atacama

We made another flight to Santiago, en route to the Calama airport, though at least we headed north the entire time. This was the part of the trip that Jason was the most nervous about, I think, because Calama is a very dangerous place. Luckily, we only passed by Calama; we didn't even go through it. He had heard stories of people going to Lider (the Chilean Walmart) from the airport, and being followed. When they returned to their rental cars after shopping, their windows were broken and their luggage stolen. We got in our rental car and drove clear out of there to the much safer town of San Pedro de Atacama.

Northern Chile from the plane.

Outskirts of Calama.

One of the first things I noticed, even on our flight from Santiago to Calama, was that there were many more young guys from the States than in any of the other places we were. They looked like mostly guys in their 20s, college kids together on a trip, and some traveling solo. I was surprised, especially when we arrived in Calama and started driving, and this is what we saw...

Yes, that is trash alongside the road.

It was like a baron dessert, and I felt like we had just entered the wild, wild west with all the young Americans (outlaws) and none of the exotic backpacking foreigners from all over the world.

I was just surprised by how different it was from the other areas we had been in. It really is like the southwest in the US and even Mexico, which I do think are beautiful, but I was disappointed in all the trash collected alongside the highway.

Definitely beautiful, though!

Our hotel was definitely different, but quaint. We really enjoyed it for its uniqueness. The breakfast was only yogurt, juice, a small amount of cold cuts, and a huge piece of fresh bread that the manager probably purchased each morning. There was also a huge bottle of purified water that we were grateful for. Northern Chile is where you're not supposed to drink the water. We also used our water filter that Jason brought specifically for this leg of the trip. We didn't want to use up all the drinking water from their jug, which we probably would have if we didn't have our water filter.

Across from our hotel.

Our hotel!

The "hallway" of the hotel.

Breakfast area.

Water!!

The hotel cat we named Garfield.

Our filter system.

The neighborhood where our hotel was.

We walked to a local restaurant for another fabulous dinner with another favorite dish, which Jason wanted me to try. He got bistec lo pobre, and I got pollo lo pobre, which is eggs over steak or chicken and rice. I opted for the salad, expecting the salads we had been getting at other restaurants, which were more like mixed veggies with a little dressing, but this one was a real salad with some very fresh and delicious lettuce. I was pleasantly surprised! I learned the next day that up in the northern part of Chile, there is better access to a larger variety of food, whether from other countries, or better resources being closer to Santiago. The roads are larger up north, and there were more trucks, probably supplying the restaurants and stores there.

Look at the colors!

A highlight of our meal was that suddenly a bunch of local Chilean men started flowing into the restaurant to watch Chile play Paraguay in soccer! We chose the right place to eat! They ordered huge platters of food and drinks and were as invested in the game as I knew Chilens would be. We stayed for a bit, enjoying the game and observing the locals, but had to leave to go to the grocery store. As we left the restaurant, I definitely got some looks, and I could read what the men were thinking, "Why is this gringa here??"

We were in the back corner. There were more men to the left, but I didn't want to draw a lot of attention to us.

Outside our hotel at night. This was the only car we saw without Chile plates. This one is from Brazil. I love the car top carrier- we never saw those either!

Our big tourist day was next on the list. We left early to go to Termas Puritas, which is a collection of 7 hot springs. Each one gets progressively warmer as you go toward the source at the top. It was lovely! The temperature outside wasn't that warm, so I would have preferred even warmer hot springs, but it was still very nice and relaxing. Just a little chilly as we got out of each pool to go to the next.

There is greenery there!

The way down to the springs.

Look at that sky!

The moon.

The source of warm water.

A lizard.

Cactus!

We went back to town for a quick lunch before leaving on a tour bus to go to Laguna Cejar, which is where one of the saltiest lakes in the world is. They said it's the saltiest, but looking online, it looks comparable to the Dead Sea. Parts of the lake have dried up, and some parts you can't swim in anymore, but you can see the salt all around the ground and the effects the salt deposits had on the rock in the area. It was amazing!

The weather had warmed up more than it was in the morning at our other water adventure, but the salt water was freezing!! I had to bite the bullet and just get in and float. It was an ab workout keeping my head up out of the water to protect my ears as I was in the Yoga boat pose for bout 20 minutes. After we got out, we had to shower all the salt off. There was a lot of it! We walked around the walking path to see the salt deposits, and our tour guide took many good pictures of us! Then he served us some snacks while we chatted with our group. There was a guy from Denmark in our group, a lady from France, and two other Americans who are originally from India, but live in Boston and San Francisco now. The guy from Boston went to U of M and lived in Ann Arbor at one point!

My reaction to the freezing water! (Our tour guide had my phone and took tons of pics!!)

Our French friend was between us.

Hands up, we're floating!

Salt on my shoulder.

Flamingo! He was the only one we saw. You can sometimes see tons.

Our dinner that night included another fresh salad and super tender chicken. It was in the tourist part of town and was recommended by our tour guide as "barrato, bueno, and bonito" (inexpensive, delicious, and beautiful). There was some good live music playing there too.

The dinners there came with bread and salsa, not chips.

After resting, we made our final tour of the day to see the night sky. A tour bus picked us up at 9, not far from our hotel. We picked up a bunch of other people, whom we enjoyed talking to. It was a bigger group than our tour earlier. We mostly talked with a man from Finland and a man from Brazil. We went to the middle of the Atacama Desert, where they had a set-up for each person with some snacks on a charcuterie board and either preordered wine or hot chocolate. Before indulging, they let our eyes adjust to the dark and pointed out some things in the sky. Dark spots, light spots, and the fact that the Dippers aren't in the Southern Hemisphere. The fact that the Orion constellation is backward in the Southern Hemisphere and other constellations as well. The Atacama Desert is the best place to see the night sky. Since the desert is the driest in the world (some areas have not received rain in over 2 centuries) and the elevation is so high (bout 8k above sea level), it makes the perfect place for stargazing. Countries around the world have telescopes there.

The only light was these at our tables and the stars.

We each got our picture taken on their setup since we couldn't take our own pictures that night. He used a 15-second shutter exposure, followed by a flash. He told us when to smile and had us look at a certain star in the distance. I was so impressed by this man! Not only did he know just about everything to know about space and how to use a telescope, but he spoke at least English, Spanish, and Portuguese fluently, and was an excellent photographer.

After our pictures, he let us eat our snacks while he told us a bunch of information about space. Best of all, he expressed how important it is to take care of our Earth, because it's the only one like it. Next, we got to view some of his favorites through the telescopes. I was so impressed by the way he could say, "Here we have Jupiter with 3 of her moons and some sand storms..." and then, bam! Three seconds later, we could peek into the telescope and there it was! (Jupiter was my favorite, btw, and a special of the night). He would have us look at a spot that he pointed to with his extremely powerful laser and ask what we saw. We couldn't even see anything a few times, but when we looked into the telescope, we saw thousands of stars! Some were clustered in formations like snowflakes, some looked like jewels because they were different colors, and some were so bright they looked like something on fire! We saw Beetlejuice, which was Jason's favorite, and so amazing. I wish I could have taken a picture of all the sights we saw! It will forever be in my mind. It was almost like being in an observatory because the sky seemed like a giant dome over our heads.

We got back late, but were able to sleep in the next day before checking out of our hotel. We walked around the central plaza area of San Pedro and ate lunch before driving back to the airport. As we were leaving, we discussed how much we enjoyed San Pedro de Atacama, even though we had our doubts at first. It was another unique adventure!