San Pedro de Atacama (Day 2)

The mornings in the Atacama desert are really nice because it is the perfect temperature to sit outside with a cup of tea and read. I am the early riser in the group, so I always get some chill time in the morning. We decided in the morning to rent bikes and make a trip out to Laguna Cejar, which is a salt lake in the middle of nowhere. After packing our lunches we rented some really nice bikes (only costed $10 for the day), and headed out for our hour and a half bike ride to the lakes.

It was surprisingly not too hot, and the ride was really flat. 

Below is out first look at Laguna Cejar, which was a stunning sight in the middle of nowhere! The water was a shocking blue, and the salt made it look unreal. We weren't permitted to swim in this lake because the salt would cut our feet. 

Next we went to the lake right next to Laguna Cejar that's called Laguna Piedra. You CAN swim in this one, and it was incredibly fun! There's so much salt in the water that your body floats really easily! We felt like we had floaty tools! Swimming was like nothing cause you could move so fast. Shockingly, the water was really cold! I couldn't tell what they were saying, but I think the guides said that the water is cold because of the minerals in the water!

No hands. No feet. 

Certain areas were deep, while you could just walk up on others. So strange!

When drying off from the lakes your skin would turn white, because of all the salt resting on your skin. It felt gross! Our towels were crispy and so were our swim suits! 

We biked back to the hostel where the rest of the gang hung out for the day, but Kaylin and I went on another great ride to this canyon area on the other side of San Pedro. It was stunning and reminded me a lot of Utah! We caught the sunset, and spotted the little church out in the distance that a lot of people bike to. We didn't have enough time to bike to it, but we decided to go biking again the next day and make it there. 

It was a perfect end to a fun day! It was so fun to be outdoors ALL day, and be so active while seeing beautiful scenery. One more day to go in the Atacama desert. Hasta mañana!

Chile has the driest desert in the world! It's cooler than it sounds.

San Pedro de Atacama (Day 1)

Hello! I am back! I just got back yesterday from a 4 day trip to the driest desert in the world called the Atacama desert. We travelled to a small town in the desert called San Pedro de Atacama, and it turned out to be one of my favorite trips so far! I am continually amazed at how beautiful this country is! My friend, Kaylin and I were talking with a man who worked for a tourism company in San Pedro, and he asked us where we were from. We told him we were Coloradans, and he replied "You know the problem with people from Colorado? They think they live in heaven." After the trip I've come up with the perfect reply "You know what the problem with Chileans is? They don'y realize they live in heaven." They really don't.

I have to split this blog up into a couple parts since the trip was so jam packed with fun stuff to do! There's some great stories to tell as well. We arrived in San Pedro in the afternoon on Friday and went to our hostel. It was a cute and quaint place. At this point I wasn't thrilled to be in the desert, cause we found out we had to buy all our water. Not because of Montezuma's revenge or anything like that, but because the water there had too many minerals and it would make us sick. It was hot, dirty, and we didn't have water. Yep, everything I thought the desert would be... and the drive from the airport had been ugly and boring. Great. So glad to visit the driest desert in the world.

 

We bought water, and left for our first tour of the trip. The tour took us to two main areas; Valle de la Muerte, and Valle de la Luna. The Valley of Death was interesting, and we got to go walking through some caves, Sarah licked a rock to taste the apparent salt, and we got some neat pictures. But I was not thoroughly impressed... little did I know that this valley was the warm-up for the rest of the trip. 

Sometimes we felt like we were on Mars or the Moon... 

or Tatooine if you're nerdy enough to get that.

Doesn't that just look tasty? Sarah thought so. 

Now we are off to the Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon), which is very famous in the Atacama desert. It's known for making the moon look very superficial because of it's clarity and huge size. We unfortunately were not in the Atacama at the right time for the moon to be out at night, but that's ok! The sunset was amazing and I started to love the desert! 

Valle de la Luna is all white at the base because of the amount of salt! It looks like a light layer of snow on the ground, but it's all salt. 

The three rocks below were blessed by a Spanish priest and name "Tres Maria's" (Three Mary's)

I wish that the pictures could do it justice, but they just can't. It was all so beautiful, I couldn't handle it! All day I felt like I was on a different planet, because this was landscape and terrain that I have never seen before. It was strangely beautiful, and far different from any other place I have been in Chile. This country will never cease to amaze me, and this is just day one of the desert. Just wait for tomorrow. Ciao!