Leaving Chile for the Salt Flats of Bolivia

After re-arriving in San Pedro de Atacama, we booked a tour to take us into Bolivia, taking in scenery from deserts and lakes to the famous salt flats. We'd spent almost 3 months in Chile, so it was exciting to be moving on to a new, and very different country.

You can just see Jo in the background exploring the Quebrada del Diablo by bike

We had a day to fill in San Pedro, a place that we hadn't particularly enjoyed before. This time, instead of going on any crowded and hectic tours, we hired bikes for a day to explore a bit more independently and visit the nearby Quebrada del Diablo (Devil's Canyon). In appearance, it is very similar to the Valle de la Muerte, with red, Mars-like rocks. The huge draw was that we were almost the only people there to admire the otherworldly landscape.

The border crossing into Bolivia

The first thing we noticed on crossing into Bolivia is the difference in language. Chilenos speak Spanish very quickly with their own unique dialect and it can be very difficult to understand at times. Bolivians, however, speak a lot more slowly and we already feel more confident about our language skills.

The fantastic group for the salt flat tour

Our three day tour of the southern altiplano was fantastic. We had a great group of people in our jeep, with the two of us, our Swiss friends and another English couple. Plus our Bolivian driver, Pedro, who was good fun as well as knowledgeable about everywhere we went. Each day brought new, spectacular scenery and Pedro did a good job of avoiding the other tour groups. We were lucky that we'd spent the last couple of weeks at altitude, as the whole tour took place at over 3000m. Some others weren't so lucky and definitely didn't have a good time.

Us in front of the Laguna Colorada

The first day took in a number of coloured lakes, geysers and mud pools and windswept rock formations, all set in barren but colourful desert. We stayed that night in a hostel next to Laguna Colorada - coloured red from the brine shrimp in it that give flamingoes their distinctive colour. There was no heating in the hostel and the temperature dropped below -10°C, which made for a chilly night.

Strange rock formations in the Valle de las Rocas

On the next day we visited more lakes surrounded by snow-capped mountains, with their shores grazed by vicuñas. There were more impressive rock formations, created by volcanic lava that had been eroded into strange shapes by the wind over the millennia. We finished the day by crossing a small salt flat, then stayed in a hotel constructed from salt on the edge of the Uyuni salt flat - the largest in the world.

Sunrise over the salt flat from Isla Incahuasi

The final day of the tour was spent crossing the Uyuni salt flat. First stop was sunrise at the 'island' Isla Incahuasi, a salt island rising out of the flat. The drive was a strange experience, moving along in the dark with no landmarks - it felt like being in an aeroplane when the headlights were turned off. The lack of any landmarks allowed us to have fun later in the morning taking the classic perspective-altering photos. We finished the day, and the tour, in Uyuni at the train cemetery. I felt this was similar to Humberstone and Santa Laura, with trains that used to carry the mined salt around left to rust in the desert.

Blown away by the salt flats

Now we are in Bolivia, it is time to explore a new country. We're heading off tomorrow north from here towards Potosí, the highest city in the world.

Ghost Mining Towns, Mummies and Llamas at 4500m

When Kev last posted we were still in touristy San Pedro de Atacama, trying to deal with extremes of altitude, temperature and aridity. It was thus a relief to arrive in Iquique on the west coast, which was at sea level and relatively warm. There's not much that can be said for the city - it's quite a gritty place, rough around the edges and swathed in mist for 90% of the time. Strangely enough however, it did boast some excellent sushi restaurants and, best of all, it lacked tourists other than than ourselves and Cindy and Julien, the Swiss couple with whom we're travelling at the moment.

Old mining machinery in Santa Laura

The four of us hired a car for the day to visit the nearby mining ghost towns of Humberstone and Santa Laura. The two towns and their surrounding area were one of the world's most important producers of nitrate from the 1880s until 1960 and were declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2005. We enjoyed wandering around the abandoned buildings, both residential and industrial, and imagining the lives of the miners living there. The conditions must have been pretty tough - the towns are in the middle of the desert, in unpleasantly dry and hot conditions. We read that the temperature in the mines could get up to 50ºC. At least Humberstone had a swimming pool they could cool off in!

Walking up towards the Atacama Giant 

We also took the opportunity of having our own transport to go to see El Gigante de Atacama, a huge geoglyph on the side of a  hill in the desert. It is the largest anthropomorphic  geoglyph in the world, at 86m tall, and estimated to date to around AD 900.  It was believed to have magical powers, seen as a shaman or a deity by local people of the time.

Chinchorro mummy, in Museo de Sitio Colón 10, Arica

We moved on from Iquique to Arica, another coastal city that was a lot more pleasant than Iquique. A number of mummies have been found in this area from the South American Chinchorro culture and are on display in local museums. They are the oldest examples of mummification in the world, dating back to as far as 5000 - 7000 BC (2000 years before Egyptian mummies). The main museum in the town showcased some remains as they were found - we walked across a glass floor and could look down at the mummies beneath. Some had red or black clay masks, some had wigs and others were decorated with feathers. Quite a weird experience!

We took a bus from Arica up to Putre, a slightly giddying journey up a winding road to an altitude of 3500m. Our main aim of coming here was to visit Parque Nacional Lauca, which is even higher at an average of 4500m. Quite few tourists come to Lauca on a day trip from Arica  - a little stupid, we thought, as an increase of altitude of 4500m in a few hours is a recipe for disaster. We arrived in Putre in the morning and spent a day acclimatising and admiring the incredible scenery. It's a little like San Pedro, but better, with mountains all around.

The town square and church in Putre

The second day in Putre we organised a tour to Lauca. Our driver was a friendly Venezuelan guy, so as well as enjoying the incredible scenery and wildlife of the park, we gained an interesting insight into life and politics in Venezuela at the moment. Lauca national park was one of the most stunning places we have visited so far, with picture perfect volcanoes and lakes. There were lots of animals - we saw endless llamas and alpacas (I still can't tell the difference!) and also herds of their shy wild relative, the vicuña. Plus, among others, the cute rabbit-like viscacha, giant tagua (giant coots) and flamingoes.

In front of Volcán Parinacota

At Lake Chungara (4500m, new height record!)

Feeding a llama

You could really feel the altitude up here and we were glad we had had a night in Putre to adjust a little. At one point we had to walk up a hill, not a particularly steep one, and within seconds I was gasping for breath. My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest and I had to stop and then walk at a really slow pace in order not to feel like I was dying! For once we were glad that we were driven around for most of the day and only minimal walking was involved.

Vicuñas in Parque Nacional Lauca

We travelled back down to Arica the next day and this evening will be taking a nightbus back to San Pedro, from where we'll head into Bolivia via the famous salt flats.

Touring the Atacama Desert

We were in for a shock arriving in San Pedro de Atacama after our 16 hour night bus. For the majority of our time in Chile, we've been in low season. That was still the case in San Pedro, but the only people in the town are tourists and people selling things to tourists. It's in the middle of the Atacama Desert - the highest (San Pedro is 2,400m above sea level) and driest (some weather stations have never received rain) desert in the world. This makes it an uncomfortable place to be. The temperature fluctuates between scorching hot in the sun, to chilly in the shade, to below 0°C at night. Not great when none of the hostels have heating in the rooms. The extreme aridity painfully dries out your nose, throat and skin.

The tourist-heavy main drag in San Pedro

The main attraction is the surrounding scenery - volcanoes, salt flats, lakes, valleys and the night sky. Despite having learnt the lesson that tours are bad many times before, we decided to go with a tour company in order to see as much as possible. Although the tours were good, we're left feeling a bit flat - there's no effort, and therefore less reward, in being taken to see spectacular scenery in a convoy of minibuses with 10-100 other people. That said, the scenery is spectacular.

The valleys of Valle de la Muerte and Valle de la Luna, both near to the town, have completely different characters. Valle de la Muerte consists of red rocks and dusts in strange formations. Because of the colour, it was originally called the Valley of Mars, Valle del Marte in Spanish. This was mistranslated to Valle de la Muerte, or Valley of Death, and the name stuck. Valle de la Luna, Valley of the Moon, similarly appears like the moon. Much of the rock is formed from salt crystals and gives the valley an otherworldly moon-like appearance.

The Valle de la Muerte

The 3 Marias rock formation in the Valle de la Luna

The Tatio geyser field

Another of the big draws around here is the Tatio Geysers, the highest geyser field in the world at 4,320m. This is now Jo's new highest place record. We set off before dawn to be there for sunrise, and to 'enjoy' breakfast at -10°C. The geysers were stunning against a backdrop of even higher mountains in the early morning light. We also visited some nearby hot springs to relax later that afternoon, although stepping out of the warm water into the frigid shade was painful.





Our final tour was to see the Miscanti and Miñiques altiplano lakes at 4,220m above sea level. These were again beautiful set against the 6,000m volcanoes behind them. We continued on to the Atacama salt flat, surrounded by mountains reflected in the shallow pools of water. This made for perfect photographs of flamingoes ignoring the flocks of tourists.

Flamingoes in the Atacama salt plain

Us, the Milky Way, and the Southern Cross

The highlight of our stay was a stargazing trip. The Atacama desert has perfect conditions to view the stars - it is so high and dry that there is little atmospheric interference. As well as being able to see the Milky Way and other galaxies (the Magellanic clouds) with the naked eye, there were several telescopes set up for us. We were taken around various amazing views - Saturn, star forming nebula, binary stars and other galaxies amongst them.






We've met up with a Swiss couple that we'd met in Pucón, and we're now hoping to travel with them for a bit around the remaining parts of northern Chile, starting in Iquique.

La Serena and Pisco Tasting in the Elqui Valley

La Serena is the main town of the Norte Chico region of Chile and the scenery during our seven hour journey here was a dramatic change from everywhere else we've been so far - arid, desert-like landscapes, with few plants other than cacti of all shapes and sizes. The temperature is noticeably higher during the day, getting up to the high 20s, but drops a lot at night.

The arid Elqui Valley, near to La Serena

We were lucky to hit gold with our choice of hostel here. La Sombre del Viento, a recently opened place, was more like a boutique hotel than a hostel! We had the best shower of the trip and homemade yoghurt, bread and cake for breakfast every day. Our French host, Marie-Laure, was incredibly welcoming and happy to chat to us about her travels across the world over a pisco sour. We told her she could easily charge a lot more - but she doesn't want to attract only the rich customers. Awesome.

The wonderful hostess Marie-Laure, and her world travel map

We spent our first couple of days here checking out the highlights of the city, namely the Japanese garden and the Archaeological Museum where exhibits included one of the original Moai statues from Easter Island. We also decided to visit the nearby Valle del Encanto (enchanted valley), which is famous for its rock art and archaeological importance. Tour agencies in La Serena offer this trip at exorbitant prices, but we opted to go instead under our own steam. After two hours on two different buses we set off walking the final 5km in the baking heat, but luckily were picked up halfway by a friendly Chilean guy who turned out to work there! The rock art was really amazing, with a mix of petroglyphs (carvings), pictographs (paintings), and also lots of hollowed out depressions in the rock, possibly used to mix paint in. There were also two enormous, 3m wide holes, which were labelled as 'Baños del Inca' - baths of the Inca - although we're not sure how accurate this name is. Most of the art came from the early centuries AD, but they have also found evidence of human habitation here up to 5000 years ago.

Jo and a Moai

Pictographs in the Valle del Encanto

After three days around La Serena, we took a bus into the Elqui Valley and stayed one night in the picturesque, if very backpackery, village of Pisco Elqui. Pisco, a spirit distilled from grapes, is Chile's speciality and we've had many a pisco sour here - a delicious cocktail made from pisco, lemon juice, sugar and egg white. Most production of the spirit happens in the Elqui Valley and we enjoyed the long bus ride there with spectacular views of the valley far below, enclosed by steep cliffs and patterned with vineyards. While in Pisco Elqui we obviously had to try some, so did a short tour of the Mistral distillery (one of the premium brands of pisco), including two tastings.

Pisco tasting in Pisco Elqui

We've just survived a gruelling 16 hour bus journey to arrive this morning in the desert town of San Pedro de Atacama, which is literally in the middle of the Atacama Desert! More on that next time.

Valparaíso

Houses showing off their bright colours

We have spent the last few days in Valparaíso,
Chile's second city and, also, its capital of culture. It's not a place with a long list of things to see and do; more somewhere for strolling around and enjoying getting lost. It's situated on the coast, adjacent to Viña del Mar, and its 42 hills are a maze of streets, stairways and passages.

Valparaíso rose to prominence in the mid-1800s, as a convenient stop for ships travelling to the Californian gold rush from Europe. Many of the immigrants built their houses on the slopes out of adobe, then lined the walls with the iron carried in the ships as ballast for their arduous journey around Cape Horn at the south of the continent. To stop the iron rusting, leftover paint from the fishing boats was used to coat the houses, giving the city its characteristic multicoloured patchwork appearance.

Nowadays, the city is a haven for street art. Everywhere you look, you will find walls covered in murals of all shapes, sizes and themes, from the (very) weird to the wonderful. Although street art is technically illegal, many people commission artists to paint their walls to avoid someone scrawling a tag on them.

Street art

To get around the city, several of the hills are served by small ascensors, or funicular railways. Many of these are relics from the 1800s but are maintained as part of the city's UNESCO status. We used one to get to another of Pablo Neruda's houses, La Sebastiana. The day we visited was the national Cultural Heritage day, so it was free to get in but was thronged with people. It had magnificent views over the city and the harbour, but we missed the depth of information that was given by the audioguide at La Chascona, Neruda's house in Santiago.

More (rather phallic) street art

We're continuing next to La Serena - further north and close to the Elqui Valley, where they make the ubiquitous pisco.