Check out the cracks in the mountains caused by earthquakes.
The first thing that is hard to divert your eyes away from, upon arriving in San Pedro De Atacama, is the huge volcano that overshadows the town. Then there's the realisation that there are areas of this desert that have not seen rain for 2000 years. No surprises that we felt like prunes whilst we were there - our skin was constantly dry and cracked. This place sucks every bit of moisture out of everything!
The town itself is really cute, the architecture is minimalist, and in keeping with the surrounding desert, many of the roads are unpaved. We stayed a little out of the main centre as this is not a cheap place. Funnily enough, a little Chilean boy commented that we were staying in the 'Favela' of San Pedro De Atacama, it was a little ghetto as you'll see in the photo below.
During the day it was a very pleasant 22 degrees, however as soon as the sun went down, the temperature plummeted to below 0 degrees. Luckily our hostel had a fire pit, (heating hardly seems to exist in Chile!) so many a night was spent drinking and chatting around the fire.
The real highlight though was the spectacular surrounding areas. We spent a day sandboarding, which is quite similar to snowboarding. However Tom did have a massive stack, perhaps from getting a little over confident! He was finding sand in his ears and nose for days. We spent the late afternoon in Valle De La Luna - Moon Valley for sunset and pisco sours. This place was true to its name with craters, salty rocks and caves as far as the eye could see.
A trip to the El Tatio geysers was mind blowing, not only because we were 4400m above sea level (crisp packets were exploding at this altitude!), that we we ascended over 2000m in one hour, or that we were picked up at 4am. It was that 80 geysers were spouting hot sulphorous gases and water and steam at the top of a mountain, all due to a chemical reaction between hot magma and water.
Next stop.....Boooolllliiivvviiiaaaaa!
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