Ending in the Atacama
“It is always sad to leave a place to which one knows one will never return. Such are the melancolies du voyage: perhaps they are one of the most rewarding things about traveling.” – Gustave Flaubert
Chile: Interesting Facts
I spent my last week in South America in a giant desert. The driest in the world just so happens to be in Northern Chile. The Atacama.
Google it.
I’ll start by addressing the obvious question. Of all the places to visit in South America, why end my trip in the Atacama?
I visited Santiago a few years ago and it was here that I learned about the geographically schizophrenic country of Chile. Santiago by itself offers a little of everything. It has high end shopping malls, tasty food markets, artsy parks, and giant crosses on mountains just like other South America cities. During my short visit we drove to nearby wineries and beach towns, stopped at a casino, and took a graffiti tour in nearby artsy Valparaiso.
That’s just the middle of the country. Chile is also home to the Atacama in the north, and the arctic landscapes of Patagonia in the South. If you’re up for some real Indiana Jones type adventure, you can visit the Chilean claimed Easter island to see the famously mysterious Moai statues. You know, those giant Polynesian elongated stone faces on a random island in the South Pacific. All without leaving the country.
Translated into ‘Murican, Chile combines the geographic qualities of Alaska, Hawaii, and California in a country the square mileage of Texas. All of this wacky landscape is then spread across a skinny landmass that’s as long as the United States is wide. Getting to the Atacama from Santiago requires a 18 hour drive north. Patagonia is just as far south – and don’t try to go in winter as most of the trails and mountain passes are closed. Easter island is a solid 6 hour flight from Santiago, and is unreachable from any other country.
Crazy, right?
In other travel complications, leading up to this stop I heard multiple times that the one South American accent people have trouble understanding is Chilean. ‘Good luck with your Spanish there’ several Peruvians and Colombians told me – ‘even I can’t understand what a Chilean is saying’.
Challenge accepted.
I even managed to convince my friend Crystal to meet me there.
Logistical Problems
Now the question of how to get there. Northern Chile has a few airports. Unfortunately, they are primarily served by flights from Santiago and Bolivia. Flying through Bolivia is expensive and flying through Santiago is a colossal waste of time when I was just across the border.
So it’s back on the bus.
I read quite a few travel blogs covering the general route from Peru to Chile. First, I had to get back to Arequipa, which required a short flight from my current location in Cusco. From there I needed a bus to Tacna, on the Peruvian side of the border. Then I had to grab a collectivo to cross the border and get through customs. Then pick up another bus in Arica on the Chilean side and buy a ticket for the 11 hour bus ride to San Pedro de Atacama.
Simple, right?
The blogs I read were alarmingly full of travel mishaps and misfortunes. Get to Tacna early enough or the border crossing will be closed. Make sure you get in the ‘right’ collectivo, and not a imposter that will take your money. Be prepared to get off your bus for customs inspections and make sure the bus driver doesn’t leave you behind.
This should be fun.
I allocated two and a half days to travel time. Just in case. Who doesn’t love 48 hours of full on transportation?? The extra time allocation turned out to be a good decision. It was only by the grace of god and the help of a petite Chilean grandmother that I made it to San Pedro in time to meet Crystal.
Half the Adventure is Getting There
Turns out bus transfers and the border crossing were easy. The problem that I didn’t anticipate is what hurt me. Flight delays. The flight from Cusco to Arequipa is 40 minutes. My plane was delayed 9 hours. Think that’s fun?! Try figuring out what’s going on in a foreign language. I got on a plane and off a plane. I waited in line for over an hour to get a free breakfast coupon for a single cafe with two employees that ran out of food. The airline announced no less than five gate changes (I’m convinced this was purposefully done so ornery passengers wouldn’t have time to yell at airport employees).
Luckily the world cup was on and Peru was playing. Unfortunately Peru lost, which did not help passenger morale. This was even worse for one poor Chilean guy who proved his team loyalty by physically holding up a wire antenna during the entire match to keep the reception. In short, it was a disorganized clusterf*ck.
But hey, that’s traveling.
By the time I got to Arequipa it was too late for a bus to Tacna. I had to spend the night and get a bus in the morning. But surprisingly, this was the most complicated part of my trip. Upon arrival in Tacna, a very small five foot tall elderly Chilean lady befriended me and helped guide me across the border. She told me where to go, who to trust, and who to ignore. In exchange I ran small errands for her in the bus station, and lent her 3 soles (about a dollar) for her own fare as she ran short of Peruvian currency. I also learned that, in contrast to other countries, the Chilean collectivo is not a passenger van or small bus, but a parking lot full of 1995 ford Tauruses. Alas, not only was this process easy but oddly fascinating.
The border crossing itself took 15 minutes. Once we got to the Chilean side, my adopted grandmother helped me to the next bus station, kissed me on the cheek, and told me to watch my money. Chile was expensive. I caught my last South American night bus to San Pedro de Atacama and arrived just in time to take a short nap before Crystal arrived.
Travel Friends
Crystal messaged me in the middle of my South American exploits saying she had some time off around the 4th of July. Where would I be and would I mind company? Well Crystal…. I’ll be in an exceptional, yet not widely known giant desert in Northern Chile. And I would love some company.
Crystal lived in London for 3 ½ years and is well traveled. But we have extremely different travel styles. After three months of vagabonding, I have swindled my budget down to $12/night private room hostels. They’re clean but simple. This is something I share proudly. I feel like an accomplished traveler. Crystal, by contrast, upgraded her flight to first class on her way to Chile. Good for her. Enjoy yourself, lady.
But obviously we’re sitting on different sides of the luxury travel spectrum here.
Furthermore, Crystal is not I would call outdoorsy by nature. She expressed initial concerns about the level of hiking. I found this reasonable given I’d been posting trekking pictures almost exclusively for the prior month. I assured here the Atacama was less about hiking, and more about star gazing and walking around geyser fields.
But….after Crystal booked her ticket, I gave her a packing list full of hiking pants, shoes with good traction and a small daypack. Crystal dutifully bought up a few shelves of the REI in Houston. She arrived in Chile bright eyed and open-minded, but we were both concerned that I may have bamboozled her into something for which she was not fully prepared.
Things to See in the Desert
Since I was out of wifi range on a mountain for much of the prior month, Crystal took the planning lead and found a great company to chauffeur us around for a couple of days. The tour company was run by a father and son duo, both named Patricio. Crystal and I were the only English speakers in our small seven person tour group. Everyone else was Chilean. Young Patricio translated the tour into English, but it meant we didn’t have much of the opportunity to socialize with the others. This is a shame, because they seemed like a fun group! But Crystal speaks no Spanish, and I’m Spanish slow, and was still getting used to the Chilean accent as well as Spanish slang. So it goes.
The bonus of this particular tour company was that Patricio junior is an amateur photographer and takes pictures of his guests’ adventures with a nice SLR camera. We had our own personal photographer! In addition to her other endearing qualities and willingness to blindly follow me to a South American desert, Crystal is also a great photo companion. She’s always game for some picture fun. Here are the shots to prove it.
Over the course of three days we visited salt flats, a flamingo reserve, mountains, desert lagoons, and deep canyons. We visited the most beautiful desert hot springs I’ve ever been in, and stood on a mountain for a desert sunset for one of the most breathtaking sunsets I’ve ever seen. I could give a written description of all these things, but why do that when I have all these fab pictures!
I’ve been traveling for three months and I have a lot of pictures by now of me standing and smiling in front of mountains and monuments. And selfies. It’s getting borderline narcissistic and boring. The pics from the Atacama are some of my favorite of my trip. It’s fun to mix is up with a friend who’s game.
The Last Day
After touring with Patricio and his dad for three days, the other Chileans in the group left to go home. For our fourth day in the Atacama, Patricio said he could bring us around on a private tour. We both enjoyed his excursions but personally I was itching to meet some other travelers and make friends on my final leg in South America. Crystal could have easily stayed with the Patricios, but she entertained me and we meandered the streets of downtown San Pedro to find another tour company for the last day. Our goal: to find a tour with other English speakers in attendance. We wanted to meet (and hopefully talk) to some other travelers.
For our final day we visited the Rainbow Valley and ancient petroglyphs. Our new tour group and guide were no Patricio, but we did meet a few other people. No one become fast friends, but we had some chit chat. And we didn’t have a personalized photographer following us around, but the uniquely colorful landscape still made for a great photo session. FYI: The mountain colors are a result of different minerals in the ground. Pretty cool, right??
The last night in San Pedro we took a star gazing tour. This was a memorable way to end the trip. We learned some astronomy and science about stars and the universe. As usual we were the only two northerners among a crowd of Spanish speaking South Americans. But we were hanging out in the desert in the dark so it’s not necessarily a great time to make friends anyway. We couldn’t see people’s faces, but we did see Saturn’s rings and Jupiter’s moons in a telescope. I’m not complaining.
The positive of traveling to a place like the Atacama that isn’t yet highlighted in Conde Nest’s top places to visit list, is that it’s not yet overcrowded and commercialized. San Pedro remains small, safe, and unintimidating. We saw other tourists, but the sites weren’t so overcrowded that we felt overwhelmed or oversold. That’s nice. Especially in contrast to a place like Machu Picchu where the prior week I endured long lines and hoards of selfie taking tourists. The negative is that we didn’t get the chance to meet or chat with too many other travelers. Most of those visiting the Atacama were Chileans from Santiago or Brazilians. It’s all an experience.
Going Home
The morning after our stargazing tour Crystal and I headed back to the United States. On the plane, I passed up Crystal in First Class back to my economy seat. She got off in Houston and I got on another plane to Washington. For me, it was a good end to three months in South America. I visited a really unique place, and even better, I got to share these memories with a really great travel companion.
I didn’t feel completely ready to head back to the US. My Spanish was just getting passable. But I’m only back for three weeks, and then it’s off to a new continent and a whole bucket of new life experiences. I have nothing to complain about. All these feelings only prove that I made the right decision in coming here, and have three months of memories that I won’t soon forget. Especially considering I recorded all those memories in this handy blog and a few thousand pictures.
