San pedro de atacama excursions. Open left menu San Pedro de Atacama. A short tour of the Valle de la Luna desert

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

Today my story will be about one of the most popular and frequently visited places in Chile. About San Pedro de Atacama.

What to see in San Pedro de Atacama

I will not deviate from the tradition of transforming the public into a small guide: from Caldera you could only get there by night bus from the Pullman Bus company, a 12-hour journey, cost 25 dollars.

At 9 am I was already in hostel While I was waiting to check in, I found out for myself some details about visiting the most popular places here.
On my “must have” list were: Valle de La Luna (Moon Valley),

You can visit the first two on your own; there are several ways: by bike or hitchhiking.

I already figured out about the second one while riding a bicycle. And now I’m sharing with you.

Village of San Pedro de Atacama

But first, about the village itself. San Pedro de Atacama is located in the middle of the desert, in a strategic location at the junction of the three borders of Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina. This is where the Atacama Desert originates.

In some ways, “desert” cities are similar to each other, like Uyuni in Bolivia and San Pedro. Dusty, gray (possibly from the same dust), low-rise and nothing particularly interesting about them.

This guy makes pictures by burning them with a magnifying glass aimed at the merciless, strong sun.

I just liked the graffiti, but in general this is a souvenir market

To Valle de la Luna by bike

In Valle de la Luna

It's better to go in the middle of the day to catch the sunset, which occurs at 20:00.

My mistake was to listen to the advice of the girl at the reception, to leave closer to 16:00. There are so many miradors (observation platforms) in the Valley of the Moon that it is not possible to see them all in 4 hours. It seems to me that the optimal time to start is around noon.

The valley is located 16 km from the city. The road to the toll point is well paved (entrance to the park costs $5). But after that comes the most interesting part. The asphalt ends and gravel begins, and the landscape of the road resembles in some places a large and sometimes small washboard. And in some places it’s full of potholes,

All the pleasure from pedaling disappears after 10 minutes. With all this, there is terrible heat (not a shadow), the height of the valley above sea level is 2,600 meters, which makes breathing difficult, and most of the way is sometimes small and sometimes steep climbs.

When a little luck does occur and the descent begins, another problem appears. Have you ever tried to gain speed by riding a bike on a washboard?! The length of the valley to the last mirador is 14 km, that is, you need to cover 30 km in one direction and the same amount in return.

Alternative to cycling

Well, enough of the sad stuff, my job is to warn you. There are so many travelers traveling to the valley by car that it won’t be difficult for you to stop one of them and drive to the first mirador, and then moving from one observation deck to another will be a piece of cake. Just go to the parking lot and ask the first car that leaves to give you a lift. You’ll save time and money (renting a bike costs $5 for 6 hours) and your butt will be intact.

A short tour of the Valle de la Luna desert

I don’t know why this valley is called lunar; the landscape and fiery red surface are more reminiscent of satellite photographs of Mars.

The first stop was the caves, where you can get a very close look and even touch the salt crust deposited on the rocky outcroppings.

Do you see the salt crust?

A lot of people gather here; if you are a lone tourist, it is not easy to get between groups. And it turns out that the entire path in the caves is an attempt to penetrate between narrow walls, consisting of stone, sharp ledges and an organized group of onlookers. As soon as you exhaled with relief, you walked a couple of meters to the next cave turn,

and there a new obstacle from the next group is already waiting for you.

this is what it looks like

By the way, the all-terrain vehicle for the planet Mars was first tested in the Chilean Atacama due to the colossal similarity of conditions and terrain.

And another interesting fact: the Atacama Desert is considered the driest desert in the world. On its territory, rain falls once every few decades. The lowest air humidity is recorded here: 0%.

I present to your attention another mirador that captured my imagination, it’s called “Amphitheater”

And for dessert, one more photo of the sunset. The best place to admire it is the Duna Mayor (main dune) observation deck. About half an hour before the start of the action, cars, buses, motorcycles and bicycles come here from all corners of the valley. And everyone climbs together on one of the fossilized ridges to capture how Mars “turns” into the Moon (author’s note).

sunset in Valle de la Luna

Indeed, the Martian red surface of the valley transforms into the lunar surface during sunset))).

Chilean hitchhiker

While it was not yet completely dark, I went down to the bicycle parking lot and rushed back, no joke... 20 km to the city. My poor bottom could no longer endure the torture of the saddle rattling on the endless bumps. After driving about 5 km, I stopped for a smoke break.

My iron horse did not have a footrest, so its place was on the ground, which looked a little strange from the outside. The first car stopped to see if I was okay. Noticing that it was a pickup truck, I was not at a loss and asked for a ride to the city. It was Chilean time, they happily agreed. They loaded my bike into the trunk, me into the cabin, and we rushed towards the village lights.

In addition to the Moon Valley, there is also Death Valley and the Devil's Throat Canyon. If you start in the morning, you can have time to ride around all three places.

One day tour to Laguna de Tara

The next day I bought a tour to the salt lagoon de Tara. Unfortunately, you can get here either by car or with a tour. The cost of the trip is approximately $65 for the whole day with breakfast and lunch.

Our first stop was for breakfast against the backdrop of the famous Licancabur volcano, whose height is 5,920 meters, and its “headless” brother Huriques.

While the driver and guide were setting the table, our not-yet-friendly group scattered a couple of tens of meters, naturally, to take pictures and selfies. After a 10-minute walk, I felt noticeably worse, the already forgotten, but painfully familiar shortness of breath, a headache, and my legs began to tangle.

- “Strange” - I think
- “It seems like 2,600 meters and I can’t even pedal”

I asked the guide what it could be. It turned out that we had already managed to climb to a height of 4,000 m! And this is not the limit, the maximum point will be 4,800.
We've arrived! Well... I have no choice, I have to endure it.

For those who plan to travel to the Salar de Tara and other high places by car, I strongly recommend that you undergo adaptation. If you feel bad on the road, everything can end sadly (((.

There was a Korean couple in our group, and what caught my attention was the way they formed sandwiches. A thick layer of butter is spread on the bread, a thick layer of marmalade is placed on top, and jamon and cheese are placed on top. At first I thought that maybe the guys didn’t understand that it was marmalade? Maybe something was mixed up? But, having finished one such sandwich, they repeated the whole procedure again and the marmalade was not missed!
Who has been to Korea? Is it their norm to eat meat with jam?

Stone pillars "Monks of Pakana"

And then we headed a little down and made a new stop, at an altitude of 4,400 meters, at the stone pillars of the “Monks of Pakana”, scattered at a decent distance from each other. These beautiful volcanic rock formations have been shaped by winds over millions of years. And these pillars got their name due to their similarity with the silhouettes of monks.

if you don't understand, this is me and the monk kissing)))

Obsidian deposits

On the way to the salt lagoon, you may encounter obsidian deposits.

Obsidian is an igneous rock, a type of volcanic glass, whose main minerals are quartz and feldspar. You can take a small pebble as a souvenir. But not in my case, as you understand. If I had spent 15 months of my journey collecting pebbles as souvenirs, my backpack would have become too heavy to carry.

Salar de Tara

And finally, the Tara salt lagoon appeared.

First, the road goes along a rock wall of extraordinary beauty, then our path skirts the lagoon on the right,

and the rocky ridge went to the left.

A couple of dozen steps and nothing else interferes with the view.

Death Valley is one of the valleys of the Cordillera de La Sal (Salt Range). Closer to sunset, strange disturbing sounds are heard, although this is not a danger at all - it is salt crystallizing.

The unique landscape of hills and multi-colored hills is created by formations of clay, shell deposits and mineral salts formed by wind and soil erosion.

Death Valley got its name because in the past anyone who crossed it would inevitably die. Proof is the numerous remains of animal bones that are found here.

Death Valley is also known as Mars Valley due to the reddish color of the geomorphological and topographic formations.

Moon Valley

The Moon Valley is an amazingly beautiful natural phenomenon. It is located 17 kilometers from the city of San Pedro de Atacama and is part of the Atacama Desert. Over the course of several thousand years, various disasters occurred in this place, which contributed to the formation of delightful combinations of colors and shapes.

The Moon Valley really looks like the moon, there is practically nothing alive in it and it seems as if you really found yourself on the moon.

The valley contains dry lakes covered with a beautiful white mantle of salt. Their colors range from green and blue to red and yellow, and there are also salt statues that take on many unusual shapes.

Tourists often visit the Moon Valley at sunset; it is at this time that shadows mysteriously move across it and the landscape changes with surprising frequency.

What sights of San Pedro de Atacama did you like? Next to the photo there are icons, by clicking on which you can rate a particular place.

Toconao Village

The village of Toconao is an ancient Chilean settlement where the ancient peoples of Latin America lived many millennia ago. This is an amazing place in the northern part of Chile, with winding streets, old souvenir shops, old fig, pear, apricot, quince orchards and shops in the middle of the desert. The name "Toconao" is translated from Spanish as stone.

The village of Toconao is located 38 kilometers south of the small town of San Pedro de Atacama, in northeastern Chile. It is located in the center of the Atacama Desert, at an altitude of 2500 meters above sea level, and is surrounded by a network of small rivers, so several varieties of fruit trees grow well here. The main feature of Toconao Village is its unique eclectic modernist architecture. All the buildings here are made of volcanic stone, slabs and bricks.

The best places for tourists are local workshops that sell alpaca wool knitwear and various handmade jewelry. The village of Tocanao is usually visited in the summer or the first half of autumn. On the way here you can see the Chaksa salt lake, near which flocks of flamingos and other beautiful birds live. From the village you can book a walk to the picturesque Jerez Gorge.

Los Flamenco National Park was created in 1990 and covers a total area of ​​189.82 acres. It is located around the city of San Pedro de Atacama and has beautiful topography, as well as diverse flora and fauna.

A five-hour drive from San Pedro is an area characterized by a salty landscape and hot waters, where the Tzapaleri River flows, the characteristic animals of this area are the Andean fox and the vicuña.

The other is located a little to the south, its flat territory stretches between hills and mountains, where flamingos, condors, rheas and other birds live.

To the south of the city of Soker there are beautiful lagoons, the local representatives are tufted ducks, horned owls, and rheas. There are many volcanoes and hills in this area; the highest peak reaches 5910 meters above sea level.

The park also includes the Valley of the Moon, where mountainous terrain prevails and is home to red foxes, eaglets and many other animals.

Miniike Lagoon

In the Los Flamencos National Park, at the foot of the volcano, there is a uniquely beautiful place - the Minique Lagoon. The Atacama Desert is one of the driest in the world, so the small salt lakes and lagoons that form on their shores are especially surprising.

These small islands of life provide shelter for many animals and birds. Thus, on the banks of Minyike you can find several rare species of flamingos, mountain sandpipers and guagliata geese.

The water of the lagoon is blue-blue, framed along the edge by a crust of salt and cracked lifeless earth. The air in the desert is very dry, which gives it incredible transparency.

Another attraction of the Atacama Desert is the incredible silence, which is no less impressive than the beauty of the piercing blue surface of the lagoon against the backdrop of white-pink mountains.

Many tourists choose routes along the lakes and lagoons of the desert, enjoying the beauty and silence of this difficult region, realizing how much they missed it in the noisy city.

Miscanti Lagoon

The Altiplano is a high plain located in west-central South America. In Chile, it contains perhaps the most impressive salt lakes and lagoons, known for their unique colors. Miscanti Lagoon is one of the most beautiful in the Altiplano.

Miscanti Lagoon is located within the Los Flamencos National Reserve, located throughout almost the entire Altiplano and divided into seven sectors. The water in the lagoon is brackish due to springs gushing at its bottom, bringing mineral salts to the surface.

The blue water of the lagoon is framed by a snow-white salt crust. In some places it has cracked, allowing access to water, and many waterfowl gather in these places. All together this presents an incredible colorful picture: the deep blue of the lagoon, snow-white shores and pink mountains in the distance.

Toconao village

Literally 30 kilometers from San Pedro de Atacama there is a small quiet village of Toconao. It consists of two small narrow streets converging on a central square, a low church with a bell tower and several souvenir shops for tourists. At first it may seem rather inconspicuous, but this is only at first glance.

The fact is that all the buildings of the village are built from the local volcanic stone liparite, piercingly white. Therefore, the entire village seems to literally glow in the sun and looks amazing against the backdrop of the blue sky and the silhouette of the mountains. The Antofagasta Church and the small three-tier bell tower next to it are monuments of colonial times, but the descendants of the Inca and Chinchorro tribes still live in the village itself. In addition, this is a real paradise in the desert.

Toconao is located very close to a canyon, on the slopes of which gardens and fruit trees bloom with might and main, while one of the driest deserts in the world stretches around. Local gardens are irrigated according to an old, proven system: to water the plot, it is enough to remove a board from one of the tributaries of the stream that flows through the canyon, and the water itself will run to the plantings. In spring, grapes, quinces and pears are harvested here and guests are treated with pleasure.

Not far from the village there is an amazingly beautiful salt lake Chaksa, where you can admire flamingos and other birds that live here.

Salar de Atacama

The Salar de Atacama salt flat is located at an altitude of 2300 meters above sea level, 55 kilometers from the city of San Pedro de Atacama. Its area is 3000 sq. kilometers, according to this indicator it ranks second in the world. Surrounded to the east and west by mountains, it contains many volcanoes, including Chile's most active volcano, Lascar. In addition to huge reserves of salt, the Salar de Atacama contains about 27% of the world's lithium reserves (a metal used in the production of medicines, batteries, etc.). Under the huge white surface of the salt marsh lies a large lake (with an area of ​​about 300 thousand hectares), and its numerous lagoons are home to many ducks and pink flamingos.

The most popular attractions in San Pedro de Atacama with descriptions and photographs for every taste. Choose the best places to visit famous places in San Pedro de Atacama on our website.

More attractions of San Pedro de Atacama

San Pedro de Atacama from A to Z: map, hotels, attractions, restaurants, entertainment. Shopping, shops. Photos, videos and reviews about San Pedro de Atacama.

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San Pedro de Atacama is a tiny Chilean town located east of Antofagasta. It is famous primarily due to its location. From here you can reach such incredible natural attractions of Chile that will remain in your memory for a lifetime. Due to the fact that getting here is not very easy, and even further, the town is visited more often by tourists from Chile than from other countries. Even so, San Pedro de Atacama remains one of the three most popular tourist destinations in the country (after Torres del Paine and Easter Island).

The most enticing attractions that can be reached from San Pedro de Atacama are located in the huge Los Flamencos National Reserve: mountain lakes, the Valley of the Moon, giant salt marshes and flamingo lakes. But besides the park, there are enough places to explore in the San Pedro region for more than one day. Geysers, prehistoric rock paintings, meteorites, settlements of ancient people, rainbow rocks, volcanoes and incredibly bright stars await travelers here.

Translated, “El Teixo” means “grandfather”, and this plateau is one of the highest geyser valleys in the world. Plus, it is the largest geyser plateau in the Southern Hemisphere and the third largest in the world.

How to get to San Pedro de Atacama

Bus service connects San Pedro with Salta and Jujuy (Argentina). Several buses a day go here from Kalama, the journey time is about 1.5 hours. The bus ride from Antofagasta takes about 4 hours, from Arica - 12 hours. You can get there from Santiago if you can handle it. The nearest airport is in Calama, which can be reached from the capital.

Chile is well known as a hitchhiker's paradise. Getting to Calama in this way is easy from almost anywhere in the country; getting to San Pedro is more difficult, but quite possible.

Search for flights to Santiago (the nearest airport to San Pedro de Atacama)

Entertainment and attractions in San Pedro de Atacama

The village is interesting in itself, although its center consists of only two small blocks. The main street, Karakoles, is pedestrian. And if you don't find what you're looking for within three blocks of it in any direction, chances are you won't find it at all. Take a look at the small white church of San Pedro, built of adobe - bricks mixed with straw. The church was built in the 17th century by the Spanish and is considered the second oldest church in Chile.

In the Archaeological Museum of Gustavo Le Peget you can see a collection of ceramics and pottery from the indigenous inhabitants of the area. The museum is not particularly large, but its collection contains about 380 thousand artifacts of the pre-Columbian era belonging to the Atacameño culture. The museum is named after the founder, a Jesuit monk, and is run by the Catholic University. And in the northern part of the city, on Tocopilla Street, you can visit the Museum of Meteorites. It was discovered by an enthusiastic meteorite hunter and his wife. The museum tour is conducted in Spanish and English.

Not far away, three kilometers from the town, is the pre-Columbian fortress of Pucara de Quitor. This is a stone terraced building that is over 700 years old and is classified as a national monument in the country. And in the south, 6 km from San Pedro de Atacama, there is one of the oldest archaeological sites in the country, the settlement of Tulor. The oldest buildings on an area of ​​5200 sq. m date back to the period between 380 c. BC e. and 200 v. BC e. Here you can see the characteristic round hut houses, and it is better to hurry to examine them: Tulor is included in the list of 100 world monuments that are in danger of destruction.

3 things to do in San Pedro de Atacama:

1. Buy baskets and pottery in the Atacameño style in the museum store.
2. Go on an evening stargazing tour (organized by local company SPACE, with a theoretical lecture, or on your own).
3. Attend a two-day festival with dancing and a small parade on the main street. The first day, June 28, is dedicated to St. Peter, and the next to St. Paul.

About 80 km north of the village is the El Teixo geyser valley. This is an amazing and almost mystical place in the Andes, at an altitude of more than 430 m above sea level. Translated, “El Teixo” means “grandfather”, and this plateau is one of the highest geyser valleys in the world. Plus, this is the largest geyser plateau in the Southern Hemisphere and the third largest in the world: there are more than 80 geysers on the plateau. The average height reached by the streams gushing from them is 75 cm, and the most powerful eruption exceeded 6 m. El Teixo presents the most impressive sight at sunrise, when each geyser is surrounded by a column of steam that forms while the air is still cold . Every year more than 100 thousand tourists come to see this miracle.

Near El Teixo, in Puritama, there is a thermal spa that has been known to the Atacameños for centuries. Today it is managed by the Explorera Hotel. There are open-air swimming pools with wooden walkways and waterfalls. Water saturated with sulfur compounds is useful for joint diseases and stress.

A little over a hundred kilometers from San Pedro de Atacama there is the Miscanti lagoon and the neighboring Miñiques lagoon, two mountain lakes at an altitude of 4200 m. Next to them rise the Miñiques volcano and Mount Miscanti. Heart-shaped Lake Miskanti appears to the traveler as a perfectly flat surface of deep blue color, incredibly calm and lifeless. It is separated from the neighboring lake by an influx of lava, which solidified here after the eruption. The lagoon is part of the Los Flamencos National Reserve.

Also on the territory of the reserve, in the Salar de Atacama region, there is the symmetrical stratovolcano Licancabur. The height of this powerful giant is 5920 m. The lower two-thirds of the northeastern slope of the volcano belongs to Bolivia, and the third part, the peak and crater, belongs to Chile. In a crater about 400 m wide, a lake with a diameter of about 80 m has formed, which is covered with ice most of the year. This is one of the highest lakes in the world. Fans of mountain hikes already have something to do in the vicinity of San Pedro: Mount Toco (5604 m) and Lascar Volcano (5510 m) are considered the easiest to climb (day route), Mount Pili (6064 m) and Seirecabur (5971 m) more complicated. But Licancabur poses a real challenge to climbers. Although it does not surpass the above-mentioned ones in height, it will take at least three days to climb to the top.

Atacama Desert

Vale del Arcoiris ("Rainbow Valley") is about an hour's drive from San Pedro. It is named so because of the stunning variety of colors of the local rocks. It is caused by different concentrations of salt in the rock. The panorama of the valley is amazing: a flat terracotta desert framed by green-white-red mountains, among which there are extremely bizarre shapes created by erosion. On the way to the valley, tourists pass a place where prehistoric petroglyphs depicting llamas, foxes, shamans and flamingos can still be seen on the rocks.

Meteorological conditions in the Atacama Desert region make it an ideal place for stargazing. At a distance of about 50 km east of the town is the Llano de Chajnantor group of observatories, which stands in the mountains of the Atacama Desert, at an altitude of more than 4800 m. It is home to ALMA, a powerful radio telescope with a diameter of 12 and 7 m, which allows the observation of millimeter and submillimeter waves . ALMA began operating in 2011 and was launched at full capacity in 2013. With its help, the study of distant galaxies, comets and the formation of new planets is carried out. This is an international project involving Europe, the USA, Canada, East Asia and Chile.