San Pedro de Atacama
Well, it has been quite a while since we wrote anything or posted any pictures of our adventures in Chile, so, to avoid becoming hopelessly behind...
Our fifth wedding anniversary was September 14th, which coincided neatly with two Chilean national holidays. September 18 is the Fiestas Patrias, similar to Independence Day, and September 19 is the Día de las Glorias del Ejército, similar to Memorial Day. We took the five day weekend to travel north, to San Pedro de Atacama.
San Pedro is an oasis located in the Atacama Desert, the driest place on earth (Wikipedia says it is 100 times more arid than Death Valley -- which is kind of like measuring information transfer rates in Library of Congresses. Since I have no idea how arid Death Valley is, while it sounds impressive, it is really not too meaningful). However, Wikipedia also says that various scenes for TV and film set on Mars were shot there, and that NASA tests equipment for future Mars missions in the Atacama. In other words... dry. Really dry.
Another benefit of the dryness and lack of population is that the sky there is unlike anywhere else on Earth. Thus, there are a number of huge telescope installations in the desert. ACT just opened for business this year, and the "most ambitious ground-based telescope currently under construction," called ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) is being built.
We had a bit of trouble getting there (our flight was delayed in Santiago, so the airline put us up in the nicest Sheraton I've ever seen), but once we got there, we had a fantastic time. The Atacama Desert is made up of sand, salt and lava flows, but it is not much like the classic image of a desert (or at least, not the image I have in my head of a desert). I imagine there are places with nothing but sand as far as the eye can see, but the tiny part of the desert we saw was as much crazy rock formations, salt canyons and landscapes of plains with nothing but rocks and shrubs to the horizon.
Sunday afternoon, we toured three terrain features near San Pedro: El Valle de la Muerte, El Valle de la Luna and a salt canyon, all in the Cordillera de la Sal (mountain range of salt). Our favorite of the three, the exact name of which we cannot remember, is a canyon system carved out of an ancient salar (salt flat). We walked into a canyon that we later learned was made mostly of salt crystals. In fact, all of the "
ground" in the area was 50% salt. There were places where we could see salt crystals anywhere from one inch to 6 inches long in the canyon walls, and other places where it looked like the walls and canyon floor were covered in snow or frost, but was in fact, salt. We also it very interesting that the walls of the canyons were constantly shifting. At one point, we all stood very quietly, and could hear a creaking noise coming from the walls, as the salt crystals shifted and rubbed against each other -- a very eerie sound.
The Valle de la Luna was a bit disappointing. The main part of the valley is the most classically desert-looking, with a massive sand dune sloping down to the valley floor. There were some very cool rock formations and a number of truly astounding views, but the sunset over the dunes, which was advertised as the big attraction of the tour, left a bit to be desired. While there certainly no precipitation, there were plenty of clouds to block the view. There were also lots of tourists, which the salt canyon was relatively free from (aside our small group, of course).
Monday, we rode in a van through incredible landscapes (alas, it is impossible to get decent photos from a speeding, bouncing van) to some termas (hot springs) in a canyon an hour and a half from San Pedro. The contrast of the barren rocks with the lush greenery surrounding the hot springs was really cool.
On Tuesday, we got up early and went on a tour of the salt flats and Altiplano. Of all the different kinds of landscapes we saw on this trip, I think the salt flats were the most bizarre to my Pennsylvania-raised eye. Acres and acres of oddly-shaped rocks, made entirely from salt, as far as the eye could see. And even more strange was that things live t
here. The Salar de Atacama is one of the world's largest salt flats, and is home to a number of endangered species; most famously, there three kinds of flamingos that have their breeding grounds in the salar: Andean Flamingo, Chilean Flamingo and James's Flamingo. The three species of flamingos spend part of the year living peacefully in Chile, and the other part trying to avoid being eaten in Bolivia. It also holds 40% of the planet's lithium reserves, which causes problems for the communities in the area. The lithium mines, along with the many copper mines in the area, use tremendous amounts of water (600 liters per second was the figure one guide told us).
Our second stop of the day was the Altiplano, a high plateau that straddles the borders of Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Ecuador. The salt flats were the strangest landscape, but the Altiplano... just defies adequate description. The air is so clear, you can see, I don't know, 50 miles? You can see as far as whichever
mountain range happens to be in the given direction you are looking. And in that distance, there is nothing but ankle-high rocks and shrubs, sometimes punctuated by a group of rocks the size of a car or house. Again, photos out of a speeding van window are just not satisfactory. We also visited the absolutely beautiful Lagunas Miscanti and Miñiques.
Wednesday, we got up even earlier, and took the most unpleasant van ride of my life to El Taito, the third largest geyser field in the world (after Yellowstone and some place in Russia I've never heard of). The road... was not good. The vast majority of the traffic using the road is, not surprisingly, the vans that all of the tourist agencies use. Apparently, the suspension of the vans, after time, causes the road to be rutted and very similar in texture to a washboard. Imagine four hours of driving at 50 miles an hour on a dust-clogged washboard. Naseau-inducing, to say the least.
Anyway, when we finally arrived, the ride was well worth it. We came over the top of a rise, and saw a huge plume of steam rising up from a valley ahead of us. As we got closer, we could see that there were lots of small geysers giving off steam at random intervals. The geyser field is in a small valley, and gets its name, which means something like "The Grandfather," from the outline of one of the hills surrounding it. In the middle of the field was a huge machine. It was built in the 1960s as an attempt to harness the geothermic energy from the geysers, but was not financially successful. After strolling (very important at high altitudes, strolling) around the
geyser field for a while (and at least SOME of us paid attention to the warnings to not get too close), we went swimming in a terma created by the same geothermally heated water as the geysers. You can tell that the water was not evenly heated -- everyone is clustered around the few places where the hot water escapes into the pool.
Our trip back from the geysers took an extra hour, because some poor sucker drove his car somewhere he shouldn't have and bottomed it out hard... it lost important pieces, and blocked the only way out of the geyser valley. On the way back to San Pedro, we stopped at another oasis -- a cactus forest. The stop was cut short because of the delay in leaving the geysers, but we walked down through a river canyon to some small waterfalls and saw different kinds of cacti.
During the trips on Tuesday and Wednesday, we also saw an astounding amount of wildlife: foxes (one of them walked by just as the van pulled up to the top of the trail
to Laguna Miscanti, and then posed for the tourists to take pictures -- I hope he is well-payed for his performance); two species of llama: alpacas (these are domesticated alpacas used for meat and wool) and vicuña (these are wild, and protected); some kind of chinchilla-like creature (you get extra bonus points if you can find the little buggers); dozens of different kinds of birds; sheep and goats.
Now we have a debate here in the Ellsworth-Aults household: which part of Chile is the best? Jen is still firmly in favor of the Lake District, but I have been won over by the desolate beauty of the Atacama desert.
Our fifth wedding anniversary was September 14th, which coincided neatly with two Chilean national holidays. September 18 is the Fiestas Patrias, similar to Independence Day, and September 19 is the Día de las Glorias del Ejército, similar to Memorial Day. We took the five day weekend to travel north, to San Pedro de Atacama.
San Pedro is an oasis located in the Atacama Desert, the driest place on earth (Wikipedia says it is 100 times more arid than Death Valley -- which is kind of like measuring information transfer rates in Library of Congresses. Since I have no idea how arid Death Valley is, while it sounds impressive, it is really not too meaningful). However, Wikipedia also says that various scenes for TV and film set on Mars were shot there, and that NASA tests equipment for future Mars missions in the Atacama. In other words... dry. Really dry.
Another benefit of the dryness and lack of population is that the sky there is unlike anywhere else on Earth. Thus, there are a number of huge telescope installations in the desert. ACT just opened for business this year, and the "most ambitious ground-based telescope currently under construction," called ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) is being built.
We had a bit of trouble getting there (our flight was delayed in Santiago, so the airline put us up in the nicest Sheraton I've ever seen), but once we got there, we had a fantastic time. The Atacama Desert is made up of sand, salt and lava flows, but it is not much like the classic image of a desert (or at least, not the image I have in my head of a desert). I imagine there are places with nothing but sand as far as the eye can see, but the tiny part of the desert we saw was as much crazy rock formations, salt canyons and landscapes of plains with nothing but rocks and shrubs to the horizon.
Sunday afternoon, we toured three terrain features near San Pedro: El Valle de la Muerte, El Valle de la Luna and a salt canyon, all in the Cordillera de la Sal (mountain range of salt). Our favorite of the three, the exact name of which we cannot remember, is a canyon system carved out of an ancient salar (salt flat). We walked into a canyon that we later learned was made mostly of salt crystals. In fact, all of the "
ground" in the area was 50% salt. There were places where we could see salt crystals anywhere from one inch to 6 inches long in the canyon walls, and other places where it looked like the walls and canyon floor were covered in snow or frost, but was in fact, salt. We also it very interesting that the walls of the canyons were constantly shifting. At one point, we all stood very quietly, and could hear a creaking noise coming from the walls, as the salt crystals shifted and rubbed against each other -- a very eerie sound.The Valle de la Luna was a bit disappointing. The main part of the valley is the most classically desert-looking, with a massive sand dune sloping down to the valley floor. There were some very cool rock formations and a number of truly astounding views, but the sunset over the dunes, which was advertised as the big attraction of the tour, left a bit to be desired. While there certainly no precipitation, there were plenty of clouds to block the view. There were also lots of tourists, which the salt canyon was relatively free from (aside our small group, of course).
Monday, we rode in a van through incredible landscapes (alas, it is impossible to get decent photos from a speeding, bouncing van) to some termas (hot springs) in a canyon an hour and a half from San Pedro. The contrast of the barren rocks with the lush greenery surrounding the hot springs was really cool.
On Tuesday, we got up early and went on a tour of the salt flats and Altiplano. Of all the different kinds of landscapes we saw on this trip, I think the salt flats were the most bizarre to my Pennsylvania-raised eye. Acres and acres of oddly-shaped rocks, made entirely from salt, as far as the eye could see. And even more strange was that things live t
here. The Salar de Atacama is one of the world's largest salt flats, and is home to a number of endangered species; most famously, there three kinds of flamingos that have their breeding grounds in the salar: Andean Flamingo, Chilean Flamingo and James's Flamingo. The three species of flamingos spend part of the year living peacefully in Chile, and the other part trying to avoid being eaten in Bolivia. It also holds 40% of the planet's lithium reserves, which causes problems for the communities in the area. The lithium mines, along with the many copper mines in the area, use tremendous amounts of water (600 liters per second was the figure one guide told us).Our second stop of the day was the Altiplano, a high plateau that straddles the borders of Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Ecuador. The salt flats were the strangest landscape, but the Altiplano... just defies adequate description. The air is so clear, you can see, I don't know, 50 miles? You can see as far as whichever
mountain range happens to be in the given direction you are looking. And in that distance, there is nothing but ankle-high rocks and shrubs, sometimes punctuated by a group of rocks the size of a car or house. Again, photos out of a speeding van window are just not satisfactory. We also visited the absolutely beautiful Lagunas Miscanti and Miñiques.Wednesday, we got up even earlier, and took the most unpleasant van ride of my life to El Taito, the third largest geyser field in the world (after Yellowstone and some place in Russia I've never heard of). The road... was not good. The vast majority of the traffic using the road is, not surprisingly, the vans that all of the tourist agencies use. Apparently, the suspension of the vans, after time, causes the road to be rutted and very similar in texture to a washboard. Imagine four hours of driving at 50 miles an hour on a dust-clogged washboard. Naseau-inducing, to say the least.
Anyway, when we finally arrived, the ride was well worth it. We came over the top of a rise, and saw a huge plume of steam rising up from a valley ahead of us. As we got closer, we could see that there were lots of small geysers giving off steam at random intervals. The geyser field is in a small valley, and gets its name, which means something like "The Grandfather," from the outline of one of the hills surrounding it. In the middle of the field was a huge machine. It was built in the 1960s as an attempt to harness the geothermic energy from the geysers, but was not financially successful. After strolling (very important at high altitudes, strolling) around the
geyser field for a while (and at least SOME of us paid attention to the warnings to not get too close), we went swimming in a terma created by the same geothermally heated water as the geysers. You can tell that the water was not evenly heated -- everyone is clustered around the few places where the hot water escapes into the pool.Our trip back from the geysers took an extra hour, because some poor sucker drove his car somewhere he shouldn't have and bottomed it out hard... it lost important pieces, and blocked the only way out of the geyser valley. On the way back to San Pedro, we stopped at another oasis -- a cactus forest. The stop was cut short because of the delay in leaving the geysers, but we walked down through a river canyon to some small waterfalls and saw different kinds of cacti.
During the trips on Tuesday and Wednesday, we also saw an astounding amount of wildlife: foxes (one of them walked by just as the van pulled up to the top of the trail
to Laguna Miscanti, and then posed for the tourists to take pictures -- I hope he is well-payed for his performance); two species of llama: alpacas (these are domesticated alpacas used for meat and wool) and vicuña (these are wild, and protected); some kind of chinchilla-like creature (you get extra bonus points if you can find the little buggers); dozens of different kinds of birds; sheep and goats.Now we have a debate here in the Ellsworth-Aults household: which part of Chile is the best? Jen is still firmly in favor of the Lake District, but I have been won over by the desolate beauty of the Atacama desert.
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