Eleven hours on a bus is certainly not my idea of a good time, but the fact that our trip was mostly at night made the experience a lot more tolerable. As morning approached and we were within a couple hours of San Pedro, we hit (what we thought was) a traffic jam on Route 5. For a long time, we didn’t move an inch and eventually the driver turned the bus off entirely, which is never a good sign. When he started the bus again about half an hour later, he turned around and drove back towards Calama, the town we had just come from.
After getting off the bus and grabbing our things, we managed to find another traveler that spoke both English and Spanish; he explained to us that the highway had been shut down by a strike of the local taxi drivers. Yup, that’s right, taxi drivers had entirely shut down the country’s major freeway. Chileans are known for being very political and opinionated; though we hadn’t encountered any unrest thus far during our trip, protests and strikes such as this are common.
The bus companies didn’t know when normal service would resume, so we started walking around town to get a lay of the land. We didn’t find much other than car dealerships and doctor’s offices, though we did notice that the strike had infiltrated Calama as well. Taxis drove around by the hundreds, honking their horns constantly. Every so often, all the taxis would stop and park where they were and all the drivers would get out and mill around, effectively creating a massive roadblock that brought all traffic to a standstill. After chatting for a while and smoking a few cigarettes, they’d all get back into their taxis, honk and drive to a new location, and block traffic again.
While the taxis carried on their shenanigans, Becca and I ducked into the only open restaurant we could find and ordered some coffee and empanadas. As we ate breakfast, we were slowly sucked in by the loud and bewildering local morning show “Mucho Gusto” that was being shown on a couple TVs. The panel of hosts of this show covered bizarre and uninteresting local stories, put on awkward skits, and played video clips “of the week” (which were actually several-years-old YouTube videos), while some sound engineer constantly played the kinds of obnoxious sound bites you hear on crappy radio shows or in children’s cartoons. The icing on the surreal cake was that one of the hosts was a surly older woman with bright purple hair who looked like she had murdered before and could murder again. Seriously, this was the local morning show that nightmares are made of.
After stomaching as much terrifying breakfast television and disgusting instant coffee as we could, we wandered back to the bus station, where we were able to buy tickets for a mid-afternoon departure to San Pedro; evidently the strike was over. We laid around the bus station for a while and then took an uneventful bus ride to the desert. The “Calamity in Calama” was over.
Once we arrived in San Pedro, we wandered through town and asked a couple locals for directions until we found our hostel (Backpackers San Pedro), which was a bit out of the way, but very welcoming. After settling in, we walked around the town a bit to check out the restaurants and tourist agencies. While we deliberated what activities to book for the following day, we grabbed dinner at a restaurant (La Cosana) with a nice back area that had an open roof and a firepit. The open roof is common to a lot of places in San Pedro; the Atacama Desert is the driest desert in the world, so the possibility of rain is an afterthought. Firepits and fireplaces are also common because it gets very cold at night (more on that later). We treated ourselves to a liter of sangria and an incredibly delicious and massive meal, including the largest and most delicious veggie sandwich I’ve ever had in my life (not exaggerating). After all the traveling and annoyances of the last twenty-four hours, having a fireside feast under the stars was exactly what we needed.
We had three excursions planned for the next day, the first of which was a trip to the hot springs in the early morning. The drive to the springs had some great views of the desert and the Andes; unfortunately, the driver spoke primarily in Spanish, so we were deprived of all the interesting things he had to say about the surroundings. Nevertheless, we thoroughly enjoyed soaking and meditating for a couple hours. I wouldn’t say the water was “hot”, but it was much warmer than the air and very enjoyable, especially with all the sunshine.
After lunch, we rented bikes and rode about six miles to Valle De La Luna (Moon Valley), which has a variety of natural attractions and great views of the Andes. (Truth be told, I rode a bit further than six miles, because not two minutes after we left the bike rental place, my front tire exploded, resulting in a sheepish walk back for a repair.) We arrived in the valley in the late afternoon and, funny enough, ran into a backpacker we had met back in La Serena. We had only a little bit of time before the setting sun would cause a steep drop in temperature and he suggested visiting the salt caves. We rode to the caves and wandered around, using the handy miner’s lights we had received when renting the bikes. The valley was so quiet (provided there wasn’t anyone else within earshot) that when we sat down at the caves and listened without moving, we could hear the cracking of the salt.
At sunset, we walked up one of the nearby hills for a clearer view of the mountains. Using a salty rock as a tripod, we were able to get a photo of the two of us just as the sun was lighting up the Andes. A lot of good photos came out of this trip, but this one is my favorite.
As expected, the temperature dropped sharply just after sunset, so we immediately started to furiously pedal back to San Pedro. On our way out, we actually ran into the Spanish-speaking traveler that was stranded in Calama with us. It’s funny when you come across the same backpackers over and over again because you’re all on the same traveling circuit.
After a quick dinner, we met up with the tour guides for our evening stargazing outing. The Atacama is known the world over for stargazing because of its clear skies, dry air, and high altitude. In fact, one of the largest and most expensive ground-based telescopes in the world, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, was built within the last few years and is fully operational as of a few months ago.
The Atacama stargazing coin has two sides to it, so I’ll address each side separately.
First, the good part. This was the most spectacular view of the night sky I’ve ever seen. Our guide (a professor of astronomy) pointed out all of the constellations and a variety of star systems, but the most impressive sight in my mind was seeing the Milky Way for the first time. No matter how much our guide talked about all the other celestial bodies, I kept looking back at that impossibly clear band of stars across the sky and simply marveling at it.
The toys that our guide had at his disposal were really cool as well. He had a very powerful, computer-controlled telescope that we used to view a star cluster, a binary star system, and Saturn and its rings, which were so bright and clearly defined that they almost seemed fake. He also had the most powerful laser pointer I’ve ever seen, which he used to point out the constellations in the sky. The beam was visible for miles and he was basically using the night sky as a blackboard.
Now, the bad part: it was cold. Fucking cold. As in, holy shit, freeze-your-nuts-off, this-is-where-I’m-going-to-die cold.
Becca and I had bundled up and worn multiple layers, and that was fine for the first hour, but the second hour was brutal. We had made the mistake of not wearing multiple layers of socks, so when the tour was about two-thirds of the way through, we were both convinced that we wouldn’t be coming home with all ten toes. On top of that, our guide’s astronomy lesson slowly turned into a history lesson, which, as it does in Chile, then turned into Spain-bashing. Becca’s and my internal monologues were sounding something like this:
“Dude, I get it, the Spanish suck. Yup, I hate them too. Fuck the Spanish. Are we done yet? Dear God, are we done yet? I have so much life to live! Stop talking about the Spanish and LET US GO!!!”
Mercifully, at 10:00 (yes, that’s right, it was only 10:00), the tour ended and everyone ran back to the heated vans that were waiting for us. While huddling for warmth and praying that we hadn’t lost any appendages, we thanked each other that we had opted for the 8:00 tour instead of the 10:30 tour that ends at 1:00 in the morning. My toes are cringing in pain just from typing that out.
As easy as it is to remember the soul-crushing coldness of that tour, I like to think about the truly spectacular astronomical sights instead. Seeing the Milky Way in all its glory was life-changing. Stargazing in the Atacama is nothing short of a thrilling, magnificent view of the cosmos dovetailed with a harrowing near-death experience. I highly recommend it to everyone, but for the love of god, wear lots of warm socks.
After getting a ride back into town, we set off to find a place for dinner, applying the discerning requirement of Does it have a fucking firepit?!?! We settled on a well-known place (Adobe) and spent the first half hour chugging hot tea and red wine while continuing to wear our hats, gloves, and coats. Whenever the waitress left the table, we left the table, took our drinks, and stood by the fire. After about an hour of both alcoholic warming and actual warming (and some awesome pesto quesadillas), we felt human again. Needless to say, we indulged in the two-for-one wine deal and drank cabernet sauvignon well into the night.
To this day, Becca and I talk about that stargazing tour like we had survived a tour in Vietnam or a night on the planet Hoth. Live to tell. Seriously.
The next day, we went on an excursion to the Atacama salt flats, with stops in Valle de Jere, an actual oasis, and Toconao, a small, cute town. Valle de Jere has some interesting archaeological and geologic properties, but I still think the coolest part was the idea of being in an oasis. Toconao was as exciting as any small town, though it was interesting to see cactus wood being used in some of the religious buildings (for things like doors and staircases).
Around sunset, we drove to the lagoons in the salt flats to see the flamingos. They spent the entire time (and, to be fair, most of their lives) walking around in the lagoons, constantly feeding. It was a truly fascinating geographic area: salt flats and lagoons stretching as far as you could see, surrounded by mountains in every direction. Literally. There were 360 degrees of mountains.
The real show started when the sun began to set. As the sun settled behind the mountains, the sky turned yellow and orange; as you looked upwards, the sky transitioned into a beautiful, dark, clear blue that slowly became dotted with little twinkles of light. Exactly opposite from the sunset, the Andes were lit up in pink and purple and blue. Once all the other visitors had left, it was so quiet that the only sound came from the flamingos’ wings as they flew from one lagoon to another, their black silhouettes passing in front of the orange sky over the mountains.
The entire setting was serene and surreal and otherworldly. The sunset was one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen and definitely the most unique. As a photographer, I know when I’m in a situation that cannot be accurately captured with a camera and this was one of those times. These pictures don’t do any of it justice, but here they are anyway.
We milked our stay for as long as we could and once we realized we were the only ones left, we begrudgingly walked back to the bus to head back to San Pedro.
Before going out to dinner that night, we stopped at a tourist agency to ask them about their geyser tours, something Becca really wanted to do but I was lukewarm on (pun intended). The woman at the tour agency informed us that the geyser tours leave very early in the morning (around 4:00) and that the temperature at night is about -15° C (or about 5° F). With the stargazing wounds still fresh in my mind (how often do you hear someone say that?), I told Becca she was doing this one on her own. We were leaving San Pedro the next day for Santiago (via plane, not bus), so I agreed to research all the transportation details while she was gone.
While Becca woke up at an ungodly hour and ventured out into the cold, I slept in a warm, comfortable bed, got up late, and had a leisurely morning of eating breakfast in town and reading in a hammock in the sunshine. Once Becca returned, we caught our transfer to the Calama airport, which was swarmed with miners flying back home after spending their requisite time working the copper mines. By our conservative estimates, the airport was 99% men, 1% women, and 0% children. Because we aren’t Chilean citizens, we couldn’t purchase airfare online beforehand, so we had to resort to buying tickets at the counter, which is an experience almost unheard of in the States. We had done our research though, so we knew what the flight times were for the rest of the day and how much they cost. Our flight back wasn’t ideal in that it connected through Copiapo (another mining town) rather than going directly to Santiago, but we were happy that we were getting to our destination fairly quickly for a reasonable amount of money.