San Pedro de Atacama

I've had adventures on remote islands, high mountains, and tropical jungle so far... in the past month. Next stop, the desert.

I got to the hostel in the morning and relaxed on their awesome hammocks.  Needed the break.  I tried booking a flight to la Serena... Turns out Chilean credit card transactions are near impossible for foreigners. More on that later.

San Pedro is a very tiny desert town, but expensive due to bring touristy. Still, the surrounding landscape is beautiful, and the prime source of tourism.  On the first day I took a tour of moon valley, a series of dried up lakes turned salt flat.  The lakes originally formed over millions of years during the ice age after shifts in elevation and the latitude of the continent itself resulted in the nearby mountains' ice melting into nearby valleys.

Certain areas, after the rainy season, dry up and leave a huge collection of white minerals, including salt and volcanic minerals, everywhere.  The areas where this happens seems to be limited, I can sometimes see them ending but too far from the tour bus.

On the second day, I went to a nearby town and canyon called Toconao, 30 minutes from San Pedro, with a tour guide from the hostel and someone else staying at the hostel.  It's a huge rocky path with a small stream in the middle, but historically the steam was once a huge river.  The rainy season being recent, some new plants recently started growing, but most plants were next to the stream.

Every now and then, you can sometimes see a small house on the path or on the mountain across the canyon, but these are largely abandoned.  The houses themselves are basic one room places, with a nearby cave to store fruit to keep it cold.