San Pedro de Atacama---Chile

I had originally planned to travel all the way down to Patagonia on this trip. Things are usually not as one expects, and so I had to adapt my plans and leave Patagonia for another time as I spent more time enjoying and less time rushing through this magical continent. However, I was lucky enough to pass through Chile for 3 days on my way out of Bolivia and into Argentina. San Pedro de Atacama is a small cozy town close to both the Bolivian and Argentinian border and much worth a stop to visit the dessert of Atacama. We expected nothing more than a dirty dusty town and found picturesque little alleys with cute restaurants, cozy hostels and of course dry pleasant heat, in which we needed no more woolen hats and Alpaca jumpers (which back in my backpack will make it a lot heavier!). San Pedro de Atacama is also very touristy with loads of agencies that want to get you onto a tour. And fair enough, so we found out during two half days. We went for a sunset tour to “La Valle de la Luna” (valley of the moon), where we saw great sand stone formations, canyons, sand dunes and the most stunning sun set I have seen the last 4 months. Of course the tour was very crowded with people because Chile seems to be a country that is easy for everyone to travel and so attracts people of all ages and fitness, but we were still able to find a rather quiet spot on the edge of a sand stone range to watch a peaceful sunset. The other day we went on a tour to “La Valle del Arcoiris” (rainbow valley), where we could once more gaze at astonishing rock formations that additionally sparkled in all colors of the rainbow from green to red, orange, yellow and white and of course in contrast to blue sky with amazing cloud swirls. We further received a great lecture on tectonic plate movements, volcanoes and indigenous culture from a very passionate guide, which made the tour even more pleasant. We also visited the indigenous town of Rio Grande, where people live quite isolated in the dessert within a canyon that once seemed to be a great river and who still agriculture their land inspired by the old Inca traditions.

Altogether this was only a very brief glimpse on a great country like Chile and I will have to come back to explore more. Shockingly, news had reached me here that within the last days there was a huge bush fire in the national park “Torres del Paine” in Patagonia, caused by a tourist that had burned his toilet paper. The park (which according to my original plans I had intended to visit right now) was closed for undefined time because a huge area was destroyed due to the strong Patagonian winds that spread the fire quickly.