Getting to the Atacama desert from Buenos Aires's is easy...... an early morning flight over the Andes to Santiago ......
and then a short flight on to Calama in the north. One needs to arrange a one hour road transfer to the San Pedro de Atacama area.
I was impressed by the amount of wind and solar power I saw en route!
I decided to stay in the Nayara Alto hotel on the edge of the town of San Pedro de Atacama in part because either half day tours or full day ones are included in the nightly stay. However I was a little alarmed when we turned off the main paved road and went through a muddy sand road.....
This is the driest place on earth.......but they were having unexpected rain! Their usual entrance road was impassable! It looked better the following day!
The hotel when I reached it fully met my expectations!
And the food there was amazing!
The first tour I took was to the Atacama Salt flat to see flamingos......beautiful. As this is at an altitude of 10,000 feet one has to adjust gradually! Running not advisable!
The afternoon tour was to the Valley of the Moon......and it was definitely barren!
The following day was to be to the El Tatio Geysers... at 14,000 feet. Unfortunately we didn't quite make it! The last 3 kms was blocked off... too dangerous to continue! This is the driest place in the world......but this February they had unusual rain and lots of muddy desert roads were impassable. However it was still a very interesting trip and we did get to see some hot springs.
Last day was a visit to a historic archeological site Tulor where one could see how the people in the area lived up to 3000 years ago!.
A visit to the attractive town of San Pedro de Atacama has to be on a 'to do' list!
Evidence of water inundation here too!
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