Email from the southern hemisphere - Day 1

Hello again everyone,

After a long hiatus, I am sending another update. Actually, it is more of a trip summary than an overall update. Last Thursday (May 21st) was a holiday here in Chile and that plus my Friday off meant that I had a four-day weekend! (I love having every other Friday off. It is definitely worth the longer workdays!)

Well, you all know me and therefore know that it was unlikely that I would spend that time at home. Plus, Flaco had ‘given’ me a trip to San Pedro de Atacama for Christmas and this was the first time we were able to take it. So off we went!

One of Flaco’s clients is located up north and he travels there often…and hates it! Of course he goes to Calama, not San Pedro, which is a town full of miners and nothing else. I can’t really blame him for not liking it. However, he had never made the short drive to San Pedro, which is a beautiful town and major tourist destination. It was a good trip though because it was a first for both of us. (I have never been to any sort of desert, so it was very new for me)

San Pedro is a very small town with less than 2,000 inhabitants, but it pulls in a lot of tourists because of the natural beauty around it. It also has some of the clearest skies in the world and there are many important observatories for that reason. We stayed at a hostel right on the main street of Caracoles (well, to be fair, you are never far off the main street) called Don Raúl.

We left directly from our offices on Wednesday (May 20th) and went to the airport. Once we got to San Pedro we dropped off our bags at the hotel and went to Adobe, a nice restaurant on Caracoles. The restaurant doesn’t have a roof over the main seating area which gives you a great view of the stars and they have a fire in the center to keep you warm(ish).

The air is really dry in San Pedro and you are at 2,400 meters (about 7,800 ft) above sea level so they suggest drinking plenty of water and taking ibuprophen at the first sign of a headache. Flaco, who never drinks plain water, drank probably 2 liters a day! It astounded me! I laid off the water a bit because lots of water also means a full bladder and we were never really guaranteed to have restrooms. There are also no bushes to hide behind in the middle of the friggin desert! Luckily there was only one evening, after lots of up and downs in the mountains, that I felt the beginnings of a headache, and with a couple ibuprophen it was gone. Flaco struggled to sleep because of the dry air, but neither of us got altitude sickness (thank goodness! I still remember an unpleasant afternoon at Lake Tahoe because of the altitude. I also remember a few fellow MCE+3ers who got sick when we went into the Andes).

Anyway, on Day 1 (Thursday, May 21st) our ‘trip coordinator,’ Rene, took us to the nearby Incan ruins. The natives that lived in the area, Atacameños, were first conquered by the Incas. Not long after that, the Spanish came and conquered the Incas…Karma? We saw ruins of both, but in reverse order. First we saw the Incan ruins and then we went to Pukara de Quitor, an Atacameño stronghold. The stronghold is built near the San Pedro River on the side of a steep hill, the back of which is so steep that it was impossible for their enemies to climb.

Back in San Pedro we stopped for lunch at a pizza place called Casa Piedra. They had the best pizza! Not sure what it was about it, but it was good! This is also where we figured out that almost every restaurant in San Pedro has an open roof and bonfire in the middle of the dining room (so much for being impressed with Adobe’s creativity).

In the afternoon we went to the Valle de la Muerte (Valley of Death). There are apparently many stories about how the place got its name but the two most common are:
Nothing lives there (plant, animal or fungus)
A Belgian archeologist (or geologist??) traveled there many many years ago and was the one to name the area. The twist is that he named it the Valled de Marte (the Vally of Mars) because of the red rock and the strange land formations. It is said that he had a strong French accent which is why they reporter that was with him at the time thought he said Muerte when he in fact said Marte
Then we went to Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) to watch the sunset. The sun sets over the salt mountains but paints the Andes in wonderful reds, pinks, purples and blues as it goes. For those of you who look at my webshots, I apologize. I couldn’t stop myself from taking a bunch of pictures of the same thing as the colors changed!

Ok, so that’s it for Day 1.