Atacama 2018

Excursions 

Day 1: We rented bikes in town and rode out to Valle de Luna. The main road had a bit of traffic, but once in the National Reserve, there was only infrequent tourist traffic. The lunar like landscape has a unique look to it and it is well worth parking your bike and going for short walks. We were back in San Pedro by mid afternoon.

Day 2: We collected our rental vehicle in the morning and went out to the Lagunas Escondidas de Balinache, which are really cool looking water holes in the desert. We forgot to bring our bathing suits. We stopped at a couple of places along the way to wander in the arid landscape.

Later in the afternoon, we drove out to Laguna Tebinquinche which is supposed to be a nice place to catch the sunset. It was nice enough, but we weren’t bowled over by it.

Day 3:We made a pre-dawn start and set out for the one hour drive to Geiser del Tatio. We followed other vehicles in the dark, at a distance on the gravel, sometimes winding road up to over 4,000m. We were struck by how cold it was at first when we arrived at the geysers and by the number of visitors. It is a pretty cool place, the geysers start to fizzle once the sun warms the air up, hence the early start. Once we had wandered and jumped into the natural hot springs, we drove back on the very scenic road in the daylight and made a number of view stops along the way.

We stopped at the Quebrada de Guatin and did a very nice walk down and back up the gorge.

Day 4:   After the visit to the geysers, we became programmed for early starts, so we got on the road in the early light heading to the Lagunas Altiplanicas. Most of the driving was on tarmac that day, but the some of the lagunas looked amazing. The first stop was up a hill to Miscanti & Miñiques lagunas. We drove along the road a fair ways towards Argentina and stopped here and there to wander. In hindsight, we might have continued the drive as Google Earth indicates some more features near the border.

There was a road sign for Salar de Incahuasi so we drove along the track up the hill and stopped at one of the higher points and then went for an easy walk to get better views of the Incahuasi Salar which straddles the Chile and Argentina border.

On the return drive, we visited the town of Toconao and then made a detour to visit the very worthwhile (but busy) Laguna Chaxa.

Day 5:   We got off to an early start again a drove up the hill from San Pedro, passing a number of car carriers destined for Argentina. The highway is scenic and in good condition. We pulled off the highway, checked out the eroded monoliths and continued over our first real 4WD territory and we seemed to be the first human visitors to Salar/Laguna de Tara of the day. There were hundreds of flamingos in the water, some of which was still frozen from overnight temperatures. There were also some interesting rocks in the area to walk around.

On the return drive, we made a detour to the Salar de Pujsa. The wind was blowing so hard that we could barely get out of our vehicle without getting blown over. The salar and laguna were less dramatic than others in the area. That evening, we joined the throngs of tourists and drove to the Valle de Luna overlook for sunset. It was nice but I think I would have preferred another location without the crowds. 

Day 6:  We had a 2 hour extension to our truck rental, so we squeezed in a little local touring before breakfast and we drove to the Quebrada del Diablo which is actually quite a nice canyon. We also visited the nearby Inca ruins of Pukará de Quitor which are worthwhile too. After a late breakfast, we dropped off our truck and relaxed for the rest of the day.

We later caught a comfortable bus from San Pedro to Argentina. We were familiar with part of the drive and the remainder was interesting right to the Argentina border, then the Salinas Grandes and then the descent to our next destination of Purmamarca.......

Altitude: San Pedro de Atacama sits at 2400m (8,000ft), just below the elevation where many people feel the effects of thin air. However, much of the region and places of interest is above 4,000m. It does allow visitors to recover each evening. We also took the measure of taking Diamox to assist in our acclimatization (we thought it was effective), and after a week, we felt less impact of higher elevations.

Vehicle: Originally, we were going to join tour groups to visit the area, but with a little research (especially wikitravel), we opted to rent a vehicle. We opted for a 4WD pickup truck, which was to some extent“overkill”. I wouldn’t recommend it, but a sedan could do many trips (over rough roads at times). However, there were instances where a SUV or pickup was required. I booked a Europcar vehicle, using Easyrentcars.com as agent and got a very competitive rate. We booked a vehicle from San Pedro and not Calama because we didn’t need it for the entire stay, nor were we returning to Calama (rates are lower in Calama). Although the van tours appeared well run, with guides, food & wine included, we were happy to have our own vehicle rather than sitting in the back of a van with another half dozen or so tourists.

Route Information and navigation: It took a little web research to understand where to visit. I then referred to Wikiloc and found most destinations had gpx tracks available. I downloaded the relevant tracks onto a gaia gps app. We referred to the gps tracks from time to time, more for reassurance than necessity. Many of the destinations were sign posted and route finding was relatively straightforward. Maps.me was also a handy resource.