Victor Asteinza

The Stars of San Pedro de Atacama

May 14th, 2009

I arrived in Calama at 5am. The bus terminal wasn´t open yet and it was freaking cold. I had to wait an hour before the terminal would open. I opened my pack and put on warmer clothe. I then noticed a man drinking coffee and aksed him where he got it from. He told me it was around the corner. So around the corner I went and got myself a coffee. Went back to the terminal and waited for it to open. Around 6 someone showed up and opened the terminal. I went in and bought my ticket for San Pedro de Atacama, just two more hours of waiting. I was so glad that one of the guys I was hagning out with the night before had given me abook, so I just sat there and read ¨Chart Throb¨ for two hours. Kind of silly novel, but entertaining.

I arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, and right away I liked it better than Iquique. It was a pretty small town with dirt roads and tons of restaurants. Kind of touristy town, but it felt better to me. While leaving the terminal I started walking through town with a French couple, who were also looking for a hostel. We came across a place that was serving breakfast so we stopped in. I had a delicious ham and cheese omlette, and then we went on our seperate ways.

I found a pretty cheap hostel with clean rooms and a courtyard with hammocks to hangout in. I threw my pack in the room and then decided to just walk around town which didn´t take long since it was so small. I signed up for a sunset tour of the Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) and headed back to the hostel for a nap on one of the hammocks. The Valley of the Luna was pretty. We hiked throught this valley of huge salt crystals that looked like rocks, but one could hear them popping. Pretty cool. We then climbed a dune to watch the sunset. The sunset was pretty nice, but the really pretty thing was the way the Andes changed colors as the sun set. Absolutely goregous.

The next day I didn´t do much of anything, just kind of bummed around town and the hostel. It was great. I just love do nothing days. The next morning I was picked up at 4 am for a sunrise visit to see some geysers and take a dip in some thermal baths. The geysers were pretty cool, but they were not as big as I was hoping. It was also freezing that morning. I have not felt my toes be so cold in a very long time. It was there and then that I pretty much decided to not go down to Pategonia this trip. Its going to be too cold to enjoy and I don´t have the right gear with me. The thermal baths were not hot. At all. Only one little corner where the hot water was trickling out of was warm. It was kind of funny we were all huddeld in that one corner.

I arrived back at the hostel around noon and my friend Tom was there having breakfast with some other guys that he had met earlier. That night we all went to an astronomy tour, that was simply amazing. It was done by a French man and his wife. They are very passionate about what they do and enjoy sharing their love of the stars with others. They were also very entertaining, and hospitable. They served us host chocolate, which was amazing. He also took pictures of the moon with our cameras through one of the telescopes. Really cool. If you are ever in San Pedro de Atacama I highly recommend this tour.

The next day the four of us went out to the salt flats to swim in one of the salt lakes. The lake was so salty that it was impossible to sink, and it was a little of a challenge to keep one´s feet below you. They just wanted to float. It was pretty fun.

In San Pedro de Atacama it is illegal to have live music and/or dance after dark, but that doesn´t stop the locals. We heard about this ¨illegal¨bar that had both. It was a lot of fun. The music was Andean music and really good. We had orderd food and stacked our plates when we were done. One of the waiters came by, and told us that we couldn´t do that. It had to look like we were eating if the police came in. We so wanted the police to come in and see what would happen. They never did. We ended up being invited to a house of one of the locals, where we drank, danced, and sang some more. I believe it was around 6am when we finally headed back to the hostel. What a great night.

The next morning Tom and I headed out of town to Antofagasta on an afternoon bus.