Atacama Desert

As we arrived in the Atacama Desert, one thing was very apparent very quickly... the altitude. We had all of a sudden made a jump to 3200 m.a.s.l. in the town of San Pedro de Atacama, where we were staying as a base for the week. The day trips in the area took us even higher to altitudes of up to 4300m.o.s.l. Our Chinese rental car struggled and stuttered up the hill and the lack of oxygen made us equally huff and puff with every step, in addition to a slight headache in the first couple of days.

The landscapes in the Atacama Desert are a surreal mix of red rock formations, purple volcanoes on the horizon, dry sandy deserts and geysers spouting hot fumes. The result feels out-of-this-worldly.

Among our favourite daytrips was an outing to see the Geysers of El Tatio at sunrise. This required us to get up and start driving at 4.30am over completely dark and bumpy roads. When we got there, it was still icy cold but the sun was slowly rising over the mountain behind the geysers, making the steam puffs glow eerily in the twilight. After spending a couple of hours of frantic photo taking and marvelling at this spectacle, our hands and feet were thoroughly frozen through. Thankfully we happened upon a small natural stream of steaming hot water on our way back, in which we proceeded to take a bath to warm up. (was actually really hot at 40°C water temperature)

Another of the natural phenomena in the Atacama Desert is the incredible star-filled sky. It was explained to us, that not only is there very little light pollution, but they have almost always cloudless skies and the altitude means thinner air, which means less scattering of the light travelling from the stars to the earth. Unfortunately we werent fully equipped to take good photographs of the stars but an evening spent learning about star constellations, looking through a huge telescope and spotting some shooting stars (or more accurately meteorites, they are not stars) was amongst the hightlights of the week for us.

During our week in Atacama Hadleigh also fell in love with a little puppy that kept coming to our rental apartment and who we named "buddy". If Hadleighs demeaner with this dog is anything to go by, our future children are going to be absolutely spoiled rotten :)

After this incredible week it was time to say goodbye to Chile as we were embarking on an overland jeep tour into Bolivia and the famous Uyuni Salt Flats.