Llama drama in the Atacama desert

The Atacama Desert lies 2500m up on a plateau in Northern Chile surrounded by the Andes to the east and the Chilean Coastal Range to the west. To say it is ‘parched’ is an understatement. It is the third driest place on earth after the north and south poles. Odessa was amazed to hear that there are parts of the Atacama where it has not rained for at least 500 years. It felt like it too. The sun baked us relentlessly as we explored this magical, otherworldly landscape.

Laguna Chaxa and the flamingos

Mingoes! Dessa found herself in flamingo heaven as we approached Laguna Chaxa, barely half an hour south of our base at San Pedro de Atacama. This surface lagoon within the Atacama salt flats is home to three different species of flamingo, of which we think we spotted two. With so little rain in the area, Laguna Chaxa is fed by a small stream that enters the Atacama Desert from the north and delivers runoff from the surrounding mountains.

From the small park ranger’s building we set off on a path into the drier area that surrounds the main lagoon. Here the relentless sun has evaporated any water to leave a salt covered, harsh surface which Rafe observed is reminiscent of a coral reef. The kids enjoyed getting hands on with the rocky ground and the salty deposits as we approached an isolated brine-filled pond. A couple of lizards eyed us with suspicion as we looked at the tiny shrimps that have made this and the main lagoon their home. We are fortunate that they have, as they are also the tasty food much loved by the flamingos that we could see in the distance. The shrimps, along with the microscopic algae in the water are stuffed full of beta carotenes, which is what gives the flamingos their pink hue.

We took our time to drink in the views here. The inherently flat, desolate, hot landscape surrounded by its snow capped mountains, populated by nothing more than the lagoon and the flamingos. For once, the pictures paint a thousand words.

Valle de Jere

On the way to Laguna Chaxa we spotted a sign to Valle de Jere. Curious, we took the detour to see what we could discover, and it turned out to be worth the trip. Valle de Jere is a valley at the confluence of two small streams that come down from the Andes and feed the flats of the Atacama plain below. The presence of this scarce water source has carved a valley over time and has seen the valley become a small but important area for growing fruit and other crops. This saw ancient civilisations base themselves here, and today the village of Toconao nearby still relies on the water and the crop.

A good deal of evidence of those ancient civilisations still remains, which gave us a great opportunity to get some world schooling in with the kids. Several man made caves carved into the cliff-sides were open for exploration. It was here that farmers would store their crop in the cooler atmosphere to give it longer life. Rafe and Odessa certainly enjoyed popping in and out of these, making us jump in the process. As well as an example dwelling, perhaps the most excitement came with the sight of the ancient pictography carved into the side of the canyon. Above the valley there are a series of celestial maps carved into the rock bed which were used by the ancient peoples to keep track of time and the seasons and dictate the planting and reaping of harvests. It was fortunate that there was a sign placed there otherwise we might not have recognised these dimples in the ground as a detailed manmade map of the stars.

Alongside marvelling at the evidence of ancient civilisations, there was still plenty of time for marauding on top of the cliffs and swordfighting with sticks.

In case you were wondering about the llama drama. There are plenty of them around these parts and they show no respect for the rules of the road at all. This would not be the last time we had to wait for the blighters to cross.

Valle de la Luna

One of the most well known places to visit in this area is the Valle de la Luna, which sits in the middle of the atacame desert surrounded by outcrops. This position and rock formations mean that over time the wind and the sand it carries have hewn spectacular shapes all along the valley. Those same valley and surrounding rock characteristics mean that the atmosphere in the valley has extremely low humidity and almost no plants of animals live there. For us visitors, it is awe inspiring, and though none of us has visited the moon we imagine that this is what it looks like (except there’s no cheese here).

We got up early to beat the hoards and pretty much had the place to ourselves as we drove first to the far end of the valley, and then worked our way back to the entrance. This proved to be a good move as by the time we were done there were plenty of tour groups starting to appear at the entrance.

At a couple of points along the way we debussed to climb up sandy dunes to viewpoints offering outstanding views all around. These excursions also gave Rafe and Odessa the opportunity to dig some holes and generally explore on their own.

The kids very much enjoyed riding on the back of the Hilux as we made our (slow!) way along the desert tracks which arriving early had afforded us the time to do, giving them a great view and a cooling breeze.

The magnificent Meteorite Museum

The Museo del Meteorito in San Pedro overdelivered. Both children, but especially Rafe, take after Helen in being interested in rocks and fossils. Rafe has a small collection / museum on display in his bedroom at home and so we were already excited to see and learn about meteorites.

The whole welcome and experience of the museum was really well done. Two local brothers have dedicated their lives to collecting and studying meteorites across the region. The museum is open daily from 6 to 9pm-presumably because the owners are busy collecting space rocks by day. The dry conditions of deserts are the best places on earth to find meteorites, which are usually rich in metals and are rusted away in more humid climates, but can survive for hundreds of thousands of years in deserts. The thin layer of sand over bedrock in the Atacama prevents the meteorites being buried, making it the very best of all deserts for the finding of space rocks. The displays at the museum draw on the 6000+ samples that the brothers have amassed. It was amazing to see real samples of everything from chondrites to carbonaceous meteorites and the ultra-rare (to use Pokemon parlance) pallasite meteorite.

An excellent audio guide packed with information took us round the different meteorite types, explaining their formation and significance. The highlight though were the three hands-on stands where we could touch actual meteorites and test their authenticity with a magnet.

It was refreshing to visit a museum that doesn’t filter the visitor through an extensive gift shop on the way out. No branded t-shirts, pens, hats or rubbers were available. However, by the reception desk there was a small display case with actual pieces of meteorites available for purchase by civilians like us! Well, it was no surprise that the kids spotted this on the way in, with Rafe quickly identifying an opportunity to bolster the collection of his own burgeoning home museum. As we then went round the exhibits understanding each of the different types of meteorite, in the back of his mind he was calculating which type of meteorite he might like to acquire here.

The choice quickly became obvious – a piece of the Vaca Muerta meteorite that was discovered round these parts in 1861. This large meteorite impact left pieces of the meteorite strewn over a wide area. At the time of its discovery many of these pieces were broken up by miners for their rare metals and sold. Nevertheless several 5kg+ pieces were retained and now reside at the Natural History Museums of London, Paris and New York. After the miners left the site was left untouched for more than 100 years until it was then revisited by geologists and more pieces have since been recovered.

So why was Rafe interested in this one in particular? Aside from the opportunity for his museum to boast exhibits alongside other internationally renowned museums, the Vaca Muerta is one of the very few meteorites globally where scientists have been able to use its composition to identify with some certainty its origin in space. The meteorite Vaca Muerta, including Rafe’s piece, broke away from the asteroid Vesta before impacting the earth. Vesta is the second largest asteroid in the asteroid belt with a diameter of 530km. Imaging from the Hubble Space Telescope revealed a massive crater on the surface of Vesta. The impact that made this crater ejected meteorites, including Vaca Muerta. So when touching this piece, Rafe and lucky visitors to his museum can state that they are touching an actual piece of the Vesta asteroid, which is still out there in the depths of space in the asteroid belt – around 160 million kilometres from us on earth.

Sunset over the Atacama desert

With the nothingness of the desert stretching as far as the eye can see in all directions, watching the sunset from one of the hills is a popular activity. And with some justification. We decided to stop at the Mirador Likan-Antay. This was not actually the spot we were heading for further down the road, however we got lucky on this evening. Subsequent research suggests Mirador Likan-Antay gets a lot less busy than other viewpoints such as Mirador de Kari-Piedra del Coyote, and is also free. With its cloudless skies and lack of light pollution, the Atacama is famous for astronomy and star gazing. Unfortunately for us, we visited at almost full moon time, meaning the sky was disappointingly bright at night, limiting the stars which could be seen, although we did get an excellent view of the conjunction of jupiter and venus. The desert is home to a number of telscopes, and we had hoped to go on a tour of the ALMA (Atacama large millimeter array) observatory, run jointly by the EU, Chile, USA, Canada, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. Unfortunately for us, these tours have not restarted since they were shut down for covid related reasons.

How we did it

We flew to Calama from Puerto Montt, via Santiago and stayed one night in town before getting a Frontera del Norte bus to San Pedro the next afternoon. It is only an hour and a half drive from Calama to San Pedro, and although there are no public buses from the airport, we found we could have booked seats on a transfer without the need to stay in Calama. Still, being the adventurous types that we are, we quite enjoyed the edgy feel of the mining town of Calama, had a fantastic Peruvian dinner and even bought Odessa some new clothes at the mall before being the only gringos on the local bus across the desert.

In the Atacama, there are few options other than to stay in San Pedro de Atacama. Although it is absolutely clear that San Pedro is almost 100% geared towards milking tourists (aside from lithium mining), we did enjoy our time here. We stayed on the edge of town at a great and quiet hostel (Hostal Illari) for a decent rate which was close to the bus station, two playparks, three cheap eateries and several small shops. This meant we avoided spending at the tourist traps in the centre of town. In fact, the only good thing we did find in the centre of town was that San Pedro’s ice cream game is surprisingly strong. Home made with local flavourings – highly recommend Dumbo’s.

Helen was in the market for a llama wool jumper with llamas on it (naturally) and found a good one. We didn’t buy it here though as luckily two separate locals told us it would be 50% of that price in Colchani – somewhere we expected we would visit later, to the north-east and higher in the Andes towards the end of our forthcoming trip from San Pedro de Atacama to Uyuni (more on this later!).