Our weekend trip to San Pedro de Atacama was a little anti-climactic for me. Evidently, I had eaten something which didn't agree with me sometime during the previous week and it sort of came on all of a suddenβand I do mean all of a suddenβon our second day of a three day trip. So, I did manage to see the geysers on day one, and the archeological sites on day three, but missed the Moon and Death Valleys on day two.
Hell, I like geysers and ruins as much as the next guy, but abject desolation is really fascinating. And that's what I missed. So, I'll just point you to some of Kris's pictures on her Facebook account for what the Valle de la Muerte and Valle de la Luna look like, and you'll have to hope she'll add some more captions to her pics.
She's getting to be a good photographer, and right after we got back, I showed her how to get the annoying date stamp off the pics, so now she'll be even better.
A few basic facts on the Atacama Desert of northern Chile: first, it's the driest place on Earth. Second, it's very volcanically active. And, third, there are a lot of minerals there. The first two essentially mean that not many people can live there. So, there's an airport in Calama the only thing that might pass for a city in the region and that's where you have to fly if you want to get in there.
It's two hours from Santiago by plane. You can also take a bus, but that's a long ride. From the Calama airport, you can easily arrange transport to San Pedro de Atacama, about 70 minutes away by van. There are about 20 tour company kiosks right next to baggage claim in case you haven't arranged transport in advance. LAN Airlines pretty much will help you arrange your van when you buy your plane ticket, if you want.
