Week 21

I spent 2/3 of the past week in the driest desert on earth: the Atacama desert in Northern Chile is unlike any landscape I’ve ever seen before, as it has multi-colored mountains, saline lakes, and nights so cold you have to wrap up in a winter jacket even though you wore shorts during the day.

Sunday afternoon we arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, a tiny town in the Salar (salt flat) de Atacama. Since we only had a half day, we went walking around the town, stepping into the ancient adobe church and going to the one museum in the area, about the indigenous people and Spanish overthrow of the area. The next day proved to be more exciting, when we rented bicycles and braved the incredibly bumpy roads leading to a series of ruins built into a hillside. The remaining stone walls were built into a steep slope next to the local river, a military strongpoint from every angle, as well as a convenient (though tiring) place to reside in general. Equally interesting was another excursion to Valle de la Muerte, where there were giant sand dunes and other rock formations. To enjoy an early sunset we headed over to the Valle de la Luna, where the view from the top of a sand dune was breathtaking.

Tuesday we got up and rented some snowboards to try our way at Sandboarding, a sport that involves walking up dunes in the Valle de la Muerte to slide down on the snowboards. If you have ever walked along a sandy beach you’ll know how tiring it is, so this activity was truly exhausting, but a whole lot of fun. While I never really mastered the techniques of steering, I did enjoy my time completing part 1 of what my host brother called “Chile Extreamo”! For a relaxing afternoon we went driving out to local

pools in the desert, filled with very salty water. They were a beautiful contrast to the salt flat surrounding area, although we decided not to go swimming. One was even home to flamingos, and was encircled by an area filled with salt rocks, a phenomena I’ve never experienced before. The evening was equally exciting, as we participated in an astronomical tour of the Southern night sky. The desert hardly has clouds, so we could see the entire curve of the sky for miles, and the stars were extremely bright. Our guide was very entertaining, so I did learn a lot about astronomy, while also looking through high-powered microscopes at some beautiful astronomical body that I didn’t know at all!

Wednesday I went as high in altitude as I have been in my life (on land)! We embarked an on extremely bumpy drive up to the altiplanos of Chile to see the local hot springs and geysers. On the way up we were privileged to views of the local wildlife, especially the vicuñas (Mandy’s favorite). After having seen Yellowstone the geysers were nothing special but being at a new altitude gave breathtaking (literally) views. Due to a lot of head-jostling we spent the evening relaxing, enjoying the heat of day and bundling up a lot for the cold night.

Thursday we headed back to Santiago, and spent the afternoon exploring the downtown area, including the Teatro Municipal, Museo de Bellas Artes, and others. I also enjoyed my first chorrillana, which was simply delicious!

Friday presented a trip to Cajon de Maipu for some hiking in the gorgeous Andes. It was very snowy and slippery on the way up, but the views were definitely worth the work. Due to the fact that we were in the Andes mountains, we celebrated by snacking on some Andes mint-chocolate candies! 

 Saturday we traveled to Easter Island, a flight with the fabulous LAN Airlines. Getting there fairly late in the evening we only had daylight to explore briefly, but we managed to see some of the famous Moai along the coast. Sunday provided us with a better opportunity to see even more Moai, including some that were still in the process of being carved out of the side of the volcano when the peoples decided to stop creating these giant statues. While I’m still convinced that the original settlers of Easter Island needed a hobby really bad, the figures were cool to look at and explore in more depth.