The Desert!

The driest hot desert in the entire world. Where some weather stations have NEVER received rain. Perhaps also the oldest desert on Earth as well. Used for filming Mars scenes, and often compared to the surface of the moon. Composed of mostly salt lakes, sand and felsic lava. One of the top three tourist locations in all of Chile. The Atacama Desert!!

For our prepaid excursion, the seven of us GAP students adventured to the North of Chile to a tiny, almost exclusively tourism driven town named San Pedro, located in the Atacama Desert. The week leading up to our trip, I heard countless promises that what I would see would be like nothing I’d ever seen before; I understand now why. Because we’re not allowed to miss school (technically), we were limited to a three day trip, and although we only saw a fraction of what the desert has to offer, what we did see was incredible. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves (well, with some commentary thrown in for good measure).

When I woke up from a pleasant plan ride nap, this is what I saw. On Friday, at around 4 am in the morning, a CIEE van picked us each up from our houses and shuttled us to the Santiago airport (a fun flash back moment as it was the same airport at which we arrived in Chile oh so long ago). From there we went through an extremely relaxed security process (didn’t even have to empty out the water bottles, and taking off shoes was an unheard of concept), boarded a small plane, and headed off to Calama. There, another van was awaiting us, and after checking in at our hotel, off we went to explore the desert!

From right to left: Glen. Marcia. Luis. Glen and Marcia both work for CIEE (and they’re married). We had gotten to know them a little bit throughout the semester as they are part of the teaching staff of one of our classes, but on this trip, we learned a whole lot more. They’re great. And then there’s Luis, our tour guide for the weekend. This photo was taken at our first vista stop, at Valle Luna (because in the valley, walking around, it looks an awful lot like the surface of the moon). The drive there was an adventure on its own because our van was not, in my opinion, equipped for off roading we were doing (there were several moments when we thought we were going over the edge).

 

Another important member of our travel group and my friend Maggie at the same valley. The little guy’s name is David. He’s the son of Marcia and Glen, bilingual, and often was the center of attention on our trip. The first day he greeted us with the biggest smile and a “hello STUdents” in his funky, mixed accent, and from that moment on, he made us all laugh on a regular basis, many times dragging one of us (usually Maggie actually), towards a hotel room saying, “You’re going to Jayy-ull!”

After sufficient photos were taken, we drove to another vista of the same valley to get a different perspective. This is Tommy modeling on the edge of the cliff (something that made Luis verrrry nervous). The white you see in on the top of the mountains is snow. The white you see below is all SALT.  

 

Another short van ride away, we arrived at an old salt mine. This is a photo of one of the natural rock formations called, “The Three Ladies.” Anna, Elena and I did our best to imitate the rock girls, interpreting how we pleased. (The other rock formation on the left doesn’t have a name, but I think it sort of looks like a broken heart…) Also, notice the color of the sky. It was so blue, so pure blue.

 

 

With the help of Luis, we each brought back a chunk of ground salt from San Pedro. Here is Tommy demonstrating how delicious the salt was (we all licked the ground that day..). Apparently it’s some of the best salt in the world, and I’m excited to try cooking with it sometime soon!
 

The two pictures above are two different types of salt formations, the first being more ice like and the second being more stalagmite like (the salt mine had both). From what I understood, when the extremely salty ground water rises to the surface, it quickly evaporates, leaving the salt behind in little, fragile peaks. Every time we stepped, it sounded like crunching leaves, as our weight crushed the little pillars. So much salt!!

Our next stop was Valle de Muerte (Chile has a Death Valley too!). Here we went on two hikes. The first, we were careful to follow a premarked path as to preserve the perfection in the sand dunes. We followed the trail up to the top, snapping pictures of the amazing landscape the entire way. I went barefoot, at first because I didn’t want to get sand in my shoes, but then later because the sand was incredibly soft and felt amazing on my feet. Being a desert and all, you’d think the sand would be unbearably hot, but it wasn’t. While we were there at least, the mornings were sweatshirt weather, around lunch time (1-3) it was t-shirt and still sweating hot, and then by the time the sun was setting, it was back to being cold.

Our second hike was a bit more adventurous and a lot longer. I loved it. We trekked through the dunes, and because there were no other footprints in sight, and because the landscape was so new and bizarre, it felt as if we were the first people in the world to discover such a treasure. Unreal. We hiked through caves, climbed on the rocks, and ran down the sandy dunes as fast as our legs could possibly carry us, occasionally wiping out completely. It was like a gigantic playground for teenagers, and it just so happened to be picture perfect as well. We had spent the hottest part of the day eating an extremely drawn out, three course meal (fresh zucchini soup and salad, main dish of stirfry like veggies and pasta, and an jiggly flan-like dessert), so the sun was warm but not threatening, and the sky, goodness, it stretched on forever, perfectly blue. Like a mother duck, Luis lead us through the desert, occasionally having to stop, count heads, and search for the missing duckling (because more often than not, one of us was not in sight).

 

But he liked us enough, because as a special treat, he instructed the driver to take us to his favorite place to watch the sunset. I’m a sunset lover through and through, and this was one of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen. There’s something about the vastness of a desert, the colors of the mountains from the sun’s last rays contrasting with the consistency of the blue sky, the change in temperature to a brisk chill, and the enduring silence that makes it mysterious, melancholy, romantic, beautiful. Truly, my photos do not do the real experience justice. When we finally went back to the hotel that night, we were all exhausted and fell asleep almost instantly. It’s crazy how much you can do in one day sometimes (especially compared to how little you can do during other days..), and Friday was definitely a bussssssy day.

Flamingos! We saw three different types of flamingos in the Atacama desert Saturday: The Andeam Flamingo, Chilean Flamingo and the James Flamingo (there are only five types in the whole world-fun fact). On the bus ride to the reserve, Luis spent the entire hour drive teaching us about the birds (Glen calls him a walking encyclopedia and for a good reason). Luis has studied more than 6 different majors, ranging from biology to campo medicine, and he’s San Pedro’s longest active guide, so he knows the region better than the back of his hand.

After the reserve, we went to a town named Toconao, named so because it means both place of stone and something similar to our concept of a ghost town. It was tiny, and like San Pedro, centered around tourism. There were tons of little shops selling the traditional touristy items, and because Luis knows everybody, we were able to meet one of the artisans and talk to her about her life. We also met some llamas, which apparently are quite delicious to eat and come in the form of llama empanadas (fun to say). I did not get the chance to try one this time though.

Our exciting excursion for the afternoon was to go to Leguna Cejar, which is a sink hole in the the desert with a salt concentration ranging from 5% to 28%. Thanks to all that salt, and a little bit of physics, we were able to float with our hands and our feet above the surface, and watching Anna try to dive was an entertaining experience. As long as you didn’t lick your lips or have annnny cuts, it was a blast. The water was freezing, but like usual, once your body became numb, it was more pleasant in the water than in the wind. Elena and I stayed in extra long, and at one point, we were the only people in the entire lake like body of water! When we got out, we all had white crusty salt on our faces, and similar decorations on our legs. Anna’s hair had streaks of salt that made her sloppy bun look like that of an 80 year old. The beach too was made up of even more salt, rather than traditional sand. So much salt.

That night (and then again Sunday morning), we were invited to Luis’s house/campground in order to learn about (and then make) pottery! In addition to being a tourguide, a campground host, a father of 6 children and a volunteer organizer, helping 30 teenagers with handicaps become integrated into society, he also happens to be a pottery expert, and has his work in the prestigious art store in San Pedro. No big deal. He gathers his own clay from the desert, prepares it in a special way and then creates beautiful vases with faces. We got to work with the sparkling mud, making our own creations, and I believe he’s even going to send us our final projects after they’ve been fired. We spent a solid two hours working diligently. And right before we had to go, Luis gave a demonstration of how he makes his basic vase. In three minutes. He’s really quite the talented guy.

 

As we were driving to the airport Sunday afternoon, it became evident how little of the desert we actually saw. If I get the chance, I would absolutely love to go back. But if not, that's alright too, because I had an absolute blast this time :)