Discovering the World Sans Valise: Desert of Atacama (1) - 8th Wonder of the World! San Pedro de Atacama and la Valle de la Luna

After exploring the Lauca national park, we went back to Arica and took another bus to go to San Pedro de Atacama. You will notice that we spent MANY hours in buses as we crossed Chile from north to south. Lukely buses in Chile are very comfortable with reclinalbe seats. Luggages are safely stored and well monitored by the bus crew. We actually enjoyed all of our bus rides, even the overnight ones.

Once in San Pedro de Atacama, we took multiple organized day trips in small minivans to explore the desert around San Pedro.
Day 1: Valle de la Luna
Day 2: Valle Arcoiris (Rainbow valley)
Day 3: Piedras Rojas - Lagunas Miscanti y Miniques - Reserva Nacional de Flamencos
Day 4: Salar de Tara
Day 5: Geyser El Tatio

These trips were outstanding. We had a driver and a guide. The guide did not always speak English, which provided an excellent opportunity for us to test our Spanish. Some people offered to translate or answer questions when necessary. We appreciated their help. We saw some fascinating lagoons with flamingos, geysers, some wild life, villages with local people, volcanoes, salt flats....The nature and colors were fantastic. The silence and the immensity of this desert created a very special and peaceful atmosphere. Here are the photos day by day

San Pedro de Atacama
San Pedro is a small tourist town with many travel agencies selling packages to explore the desert of Atacama. The temperature is high during the day and quite low at night. The streets are not paved, so cars passing by generate a lot of dust. It has not rained here for more than 400 years! The town is the gateway to a vast desert and an active volcanic range.
The New York Times has selected San Pedro de Atacama as one of the twenty five best places in the world to visit. We fell in love with the Atacama desert as well.

The park near the church

The church has been restored two years ago to its original adobe style. Because of this restoration, the church is back to its original brown color.

The roof, some interior paneling, as well as the exterior gate are made of cactus wood.

Characteristic adobe walls: they are not very strong, and are easily damaged by the earthquakes in this region, but they are also easy to rebuild.

Our hostal

Surprising name, isn't it?

La Valle de la Luna

Not having been to the moon makes the comparison difficult but it sure is a strange surface and different from everything we have seen before. As we were waiting for the sun to set, we witnessed a distant sand storm that was beautiful to watch. We were glad however that it was happening many miles away from us. It did look dangerous.