December 12, 2007 - San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

Dec 12, 2007
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Had a leisurely breakfast as my first tour was not expected to start until 9 AM. The tour bus would also pick me up at the Hostel, instead of me having to go to the Tour office (20 minute walk). I was to do an Archaeological tour of the area starting at 9 AM. There were 5 people on this tour. These were some of the folks who did the ´Valle de la Luna´tour with me yesterday. They were Spaniards. I was the sole English speaker and the driver made every effort to be bilingual explaining everything twice (once in Spanish and once in English).

Our first visit was to Pukara de Quitor (Stone fortress of Quitor). I discovered that my Hostel is actually located in Quitor. The hostel is about 300 metres from the border of San Pedro de Atacama. Which explains why there are no street lights for the 300 metres or so from my Hostel. The Pukara de Quitor had steep climbs. I hated it. At least it was on rubble and not on soft sand. After the steep climb, one is rewarded with excellent views from the top. The Incas once controlled this land (more like conquered). To protect themselves from the next warring tribe, they constructed this stone fortress. Pretty well preserved with different rooms.

We continued on towards ´Tulor´Village. This village is more than 800 years old and was discovered recently. Only 7% of this village has been excavated due to a spat between the local municipality and the central government. Each wants the other to pay for the excavations. I side with the local municipality as it is the responsibility of the central government to excavate and upkeep these treasures. With more excavations, this would be a great site to visit.

Our final stop in the archaeological tour was the ´Museo Arqueologico´ at San Pedro de Atacama. It is a small museum devoted to local culture. Contains the tools, pottery from the Atacamenian period as well as descriptions on the food eaten and animals domesticated etc. We were also told that the local Volcano (dormant now) was called LICANCABUR meaning ´Lord of the Lican´. The people were referred to as LICANANTAY (People of the Lican).

I requested a drop off back at my hostel and was back by 12:45 PM. I had a siesta for 2 hours. I paid the hostel charges US Dollars. It worked out to US$ 42 per night and was cheaper than paying in Pesos. (Total for 5 Nights US$210)

I walked to the San Pedro Centre for a late snack (Ice cream pancake) at ´Cafe Tierra´ before joining my afternoon tour to ´Salar de Atacama´. As the tour was delayed by 30 mins, I went around to a few more tour agencies to inquire about tours to ´Cari´Ravine and ´Puritama´thermal pools. As there is not much demand for these tours, they would have to be done as private tours and these were quite expensive. CLP 60000 (US$ 125).

Our tour departed around 4:30 PM and our first stop was the small village of Toconao. During the drive to Toconao we passed by the ALMA facility. Toconao is yet another Oasis set in the Atacama desert. Out of an immense flatland of desert, you suddenly find a few hundred green trees and houses. Toconao´s claim to fame is that all its houses are made of Volcanic
Stone.We took a walk around the village. Many citrus fruits are grown here. The ingredient for the local alcoholic brew is also grown here (the name escapes me).

From Toconao we set out for the Salt flats (Salar de Atacama). This is an immense salt flat that stretches all the way to Bolivia (40 Kilometres away). We spotted quite a few flamingos. This is the ATACAMA, I came to see! Immense flat deserts as far as the eye can see. There are 5 types of flamingos in the world and 3 of these are found in the Atacama. The two we spotted were the Chilean Flamingos (Pink body) and the Andean flamingos (Pink body with a dark patch at the tail).

I took many many pictures of the Salt flats, the sunset and the flamingos. I am quite sure I have some decent ones in there. There have been some comments and requests asking me to post pictures. I shoot in RAW format and each image is anywhere from 12 MB to 20 MB in size. Not sure whether the Blog accepts RAW Images and whether there is a size limitation to these images. If any of your folks recommended a way, I will start uploading pictures as well.

We returned to town around 9 PM. I ran into Amor (my acquaintance from La Serena) at a local restaurant. She and her aunt had arrived earlier in the day and they had completed the ´Valle de la Luna´ tour earlier that evening. As her aunt was quite tired, she was having dinner by herself. We had dinner together and parted ways by 10:30 PM or so as I needed to wake up by 3:30 AM tomorrow to get ready for the ´Geiser del Tatio´tour at 4 AM. Amor told me that since she was born on February 14th, her parents christened her thus!