The Atacama Desert dry and desolate and
yet it's beautiful and awe-inspiring. We spent six days exploring this amazing
landscape, a place more accessible than you might think.
Vver the next three episodes we'll show you how you can plan and enjoy the
ultimate trip to seeing this seemingly inhospitable, remote location. Visiting
the best lagoons, salt flats, geicers and volcanic la Luna landscapes. A
photographer's paradise! Basing ourselves in San Pedro de Atacama we'll get
acclimatized to avoid the altitude sickness and give you plenty of tips
along the way to help you plan a safe and memorable trip to a place that's
simply out of this world. Make sure you subscribe for the next
episodes so you don't miss a thing! Santiago the capital of Chile has the
closest Intercontinental Airport to atacama. From there it to our internal
flight up to Calama Airport. There are plenty of fairly cheap flights per day
with Latam, Jet Smart or Sky Airways. You can also get direct flights to Calama
from Lima, Peru. If you're traveling from Bolivia and you can only do that over
land. From Calama, it's another one and a half hours, smooth tarmac drive or you
can take a cheap bus to arrive in San Pedro de Atacama. Links to the bus
service on screen now! We hired a car and we'll cover that in more detail later
but before leaving the convenience of the city and not knowing what was
available in San Pedro you headed to a supermarket to buy some provisions. We'll
put a Google map linked to the supermarket in our description. Foremost we wanted plenty of water something for lunch and of course some beers and
wine to drink of an evening at our amazing eco lodge that you'll see later. [Will] you want some mini ones or big ones
[Simon] yeah [Will] cheese, meat? [Will] Ham and cheese? [Simon] I don't mind. As it turned out out the supermarket was much cheaper
than the small stores in Atacama, so if you hire a car this is a good tip to
stock up. After our rustic ham and cheese lunch it
was time to hit the road and head into the desert. In this part of Chile
services are few and far between in fact there are no gas stations between
Calama and San Pedro some things you should consider whenever driving in this
area. do I have enough fuel for the journey? Have I packed food water and
warm clothes in case I break down? Do I have a mobile phone with data I can use? Even these parts the 3G signal is pretty good. The car gives you the flexibility
to pull over jump out enjoy the scenery and take some awesome photos. As you approach San Pedro de Atacama you can see a few of the 12 volcanoes in the area and the vast mountain ranges of the Andes. We're standing on top of the mirador
coyote looking back over San Pedro de Atacama which is the main kind of
tourist hub for exploring the desert. It's got all your normal amenities, loads
of restaurants loads of hotels expensive ones, cheap ones but it really is the
main hub of all the tourist activities here and that's where all of the tours,
if you want to take one, will leave from. San Pedro de Atacama town is set on an
arid high plateau in the Andes Mountains. There are plenty of places to stay for
all budgets, we chose the Planeta Atacama Lodge a 15 minute walk outside of town. We pick this for the secure parking and less light pollution at night to improve
our stargazing. The accommodation which might appear basic has a real Chilean
charm and it was comfortable peaceful and quiet. The hosts could not do enough
for us. The buildings are made from traditional local techniques using clays
straw and reclaimed woods. The mud huts stay cool in the day but cozy and warm
at night. Whilst not the cheapest accommodation in Atacama we felt a more
realistic local experience staying here. Just a few kilometers outside San Pedro
is Valle de la Luna "moon valley". This protected reserve is 2500
chilean pesos each to enter and a good first date trip. Not only is it close to
the town as you get used to driving off-road but its altitude is at 2500 meters so it keeps you at the same levels when you arrived in
Atacama. It's recommended that you gradually introduce higher altitudes
over a number of days to avoid sickness you don't have to drive very far to get
up to elevations of 4500 meters which once you try to
walk around and exert yourself could cause you to be short of breath have
nausea or sickness. Your given a map at the ticket office
and this highlights four or five places you can stop at for spectacular Miradors. Walking through the sand dunes can be tough and hot work so carry some
water. There is nothing but rocks dunes and mountains for kilometres. The pure silence is incredible just a wind
whistling through the rocks and the crunch of your footsteps on the path. The Three Marias is a famous rock
formation, formed as a result of the intense erosion process from the salt and
desert winds. Apparently made of gravel clay salt gems and quartz. In another area you can get up close to
the rocks and see how they are encrusted with minerals and crystals of gem salt.
Apparently caused by the effects of the high pressure and absence of humidity
it's really amazing stuff!! It's super cool here, never been anywhere
like this before. We did hear that you can come here at sunset as well but you have to pre-booked and that costs more. So maybe we'll do that later not sure how
much time we have and but for now we're just driving back to the entrance where
there's another viewpoint about 11 kilometers up the road towards Calama
and there's a big lookout point there. Going to check that out. There's two miradors up here with
just incredible views. It's quite hot today but there is a bit of a
breeze so not too bad. The views here are just absolutely stunning and
you're sort of overlooking Atacama and San Pedro which is down in the
valley. It's pretty incredible! So we hired our car through Econrent
at the Calama Airport. They were the local Chilean car rental firm and we have used
them before. We've been given a Hyundai Creta which is sort of midsize SUV
it's a 4x2 so it's not a true 4x4 but what it does have is a little
bit extra ground clearance, it's a little bit bigger and a bit more comfortable
and that's kind of important because some of the roads here in Atacama are
more gravely off-road. There are plenty of asphalt roads, but if you go to say the
Luna Valley which we've just been to it is a lot more off-road and really you're
better off with something that's a little bit more powerful to help you get
up those hills and more comfortable through the bumps. It's got four seats,
big trunk, so very good size. I'd recommend this if this is something that
you want to hire if you're coming to Atacama. The main market connects through to the
center of the small town square. Open daily, here you can find lots of local
handmade llama and alpaca products to take home as souvenirs or to wear
immediately to keep you warm at night. You might be surprised to learn the
desert does not stay warm after dark and temperatures often get down to four
Celsius 40 fahrenheit in the winter months. Even here in this remote part of
Chile the usual tourist trinkets and fridge magnets are also available. The small Catholic Church just off the plaza built in 1745 is one of the oldest in
Chile and considered a National Monument. The Town Square, Plaza San Pedro de
Atacama is a charming area of whitewashed mud buildings a few cafes
and stalls selling fresh goods, spices honey, and wood carvings. Tours to the main attractions around
San Pedro are the biggest income for locals and if you don't have the car or you
don't feel confident to travel to certain places yourself tehn you have a
huge choice of tour companies to barter a good price. You will find loads of
these companies in the side streets around the town. Boards outside give you
an idea of what's on offer but you need to pop in to get the price. You generally
only need to book these a day or two in advance. We found that have we done all
the tours to the places we show you by car in our videos it would have cost us
almost double the amount of the car hire and we would have lost our
independence and the ability to stop and move on when we like, so bear that in
mind. We're at Laguna Ceja its cost us 30,000
peco for two people to get in. It's kind of expensive. This little complex is made up of three different super clear, super blue lagoons. This one
has views out across onto the volcanoes There's another one which you can swim
in and then the third one has flamingos in it. The facilities here they've got
showers and toilets but other than that it's just really nice and quiet
picturesque. The Lagoon is a sinkhole lake 19 kilometers from San Pedro
accessed via dirt track. Most people visit in the afternoon when
it's warmer. The salt concentrations in the lake mean you will float on the
water just like in the Dead Sea. The minerals are good for your health but
just be sure to wash off thoroughly in the shower after a dip! Walking around you can enjoy the
wildlife peace and tranquility of the place. There's several active volcanoes overlooking you. At night the town is bustling with
people having returned from tours looking for a place to eat and drink or
catching up on some shopping. You have plenty of choice and price ranges.
Not many restaurants have a license to sell alcohol or if they do you have to
be having a sit-down meal to include it. This is partly why we stocked up on some
drink at the supermarket to have in our accommodation. There are a few bars which were busy with locals so if you like to mingle you can search them out! [Simon] Adobe that's supposed to be quite good There are lots of dogs around town and
they are friendly and most of them do have homes, so nothing to worry about
they are well-fed. [Simon] Is it me or is Thursday night the new Friday night! [Will] Every restaurant has a dog waiting for scraps We ate at La Picada del Indio a few
times as the food was good and reasonably priced. We started off with
fresh soft bread and a garlic infused salsa I had a beef tenderloin Lomo which
traditionally comes topped with a fried egg loads of chips and caramelized
onions. Will had a similar dish but this was
with salmon, both were absolutely delicious!
We can't recommend this place enough! On our way out we saved some chunks of
meat for the dogs as we are nice like that. Hello, give a little bit to doggy. careful Good boy, where has the other one gone? He's gone so this one get's it all. Looks a bit like a cowboy
Western down there doesn't it. I think it's been quite reasonable, portions have been fantastic. Food's been good certainly not expensive enough to write home about.
I think its been nice, very nice places. There's lots more still to come from this Atacama three-part series If you enjoyed part 1 please give us a
like and consider subscribing. Remember to click that bell to be notified of our
future Atacama videos. For now thank you for watching until the next time happy
travels from the Memoryseekers.
