San Pedro de Atacama

April 6 - 10

As the bus descended down into the valley where San Pedro de Atacama (SPA) is, I sensed why this is such a special place.  It sits below a wall of volcanoes stretching as far as one can see.  Snowy peaks that turn color in the setting sun every day.  The other side of town is a moon like landscape called “Valle de la Luna”.  The town is adobe style with hard pack dirt streets and tourists walking around trying to arrange the next tour.  Tours to different sites are not cheap and before you know it you will have spent a few hundred dollars. ;)

Cherimoya flavor :)

Pizza with CC, Maikel, & Leonie

The tours I ended up doing were Laguna Cejar and Ojos del Salar, Valle del la Luna, and Geysers del Tatio.  I'm breaking them out into their own post as I have a lot of pictures to show from each.

Laguna Cejar & Ojos del Salar

Date: April 7

Laguna Cejar is about 16km round trip from SPA.  Since my hamstring doesn't do well when I bike ride, I took a car ride out there. (The rest of my friends, CC, Nick, Maikel, & Leonie rode bikes)  My driver took me further out to see Ojos del Salar.  Two circular pools of water in the middle of the flat land surrounded by calcium deposits.  Laguna Cejar is a salt pool similar to the Dead Sea.

Nick & Maikel. Nick had an adventure on the volcano Laskar the next day that put him in the hospital.  He's one tough guy as he had to fight for his survival after falling down the volcano.

Ojos del Salar

Perro Pedro welcomes all to Cejar

Leonie, CC, & Maikel

Valle del la Luna

Date: April 8

Valle del la Luna (Valley of the Moon) is quite spectacular and so very different from anything I have seen before.  Its the main attraction in SPA and is just outside of the town a short distance.  If you're feeling up exerting a little energy, you can ride a bike out there and back.  Be prepared to ride back in the dark if you stay till sundown.  Lucky for me, I'm lazy and didn't ride a bike and so had no problem letting a combustion engine do the work for me. haha!

My best Selfie ;)

You can lick this rock for the salt :)

Valle de la Muerte

Sunset at Piedra del Coyote

Geisers del Tatio

Date: April 10

I had a 4:30am start to the Geisers tour.  Its about a 1hr drive there.  The setting the geysers are in is pretty, but the geysers were not spectacular as I've seen in Yellowstone NP.  Swimming in the thermal pool ended up being very quick as its not that warm.  Anyway, it was a cheap tour and I got to see some more wildlife and country.

Pueblo Machuka

These Llama guys are everywhere :)

Beautiful drive that also showed bouldering potential on volcanic rock.

Bound for San Pedro de Atacama

April 3 - 6

Salta is not what I expected it to be.  I thought it would be a small city in the desert.  Its a big city surrounded by green mountains.  Its definitely not a desert. haha!  I made friends with 2 German guys (Friedemann & Leon) that were vacationing from their studies in Tucumán.  We climbed the Cerro San Bernardo and walked the city.  We also spent a night out in the country at a hostel called Loki.  It was nice to be in the country but it felt to touristy for my likes.

General Güemes

Salta from Cerro San Bernardo

Cemeteries are very interesting and different here.

Night view in Plaza de Julio

Love the Sunbeams :)

My German Amigos

Instead of heading further north through Argentina to Bolivia, I've decided I want to see San Pedro de Atacama (SPA) in Chile.  I’m so glad that I chose to go over this route which goes over 4300m (+14k feet).  At the border control 2 people had problems with the altitude and passed out.  They were given oxygen and were fine after that.  The landscape is so out of this world.  It feels like I’m on Mars or some other planet.

Purmamarca

Border Control

I arrived in SPA around 4:30pm and found a hostel with some Europeans whom I made friends with on the bus.  I’m looking forward to the next few days as there are lots of things to do here.