San Pedro Atacama

In America, Adventure, Chile, Cycling tour On 13/08/2001 2 comments

The small town of San Pedro Atacama looks like it is Sunday everyday. Early in the morning there is nobody on the streets, they are waking up slowly. The electricity is only during the day. It starts at 8am and goes to 1am. On Sundays and holidays it stared at 10am. On my first 2 days in town, there was no electricity because the generator was broken. For sure it is not a good place to have an ice-cream.

An interesting point of the city is Licancabur volcano, it can be seen from almost everywhere in San Pedro Atacama. It worked as a magnet for me, anywhere I had been, I was always searching for it on my landscape view.

I visited Pukara de Quitor, 3kms from town. I waked there to see the surroundings. It is a ruin, maybe it used to be a fort, constructed on the wall of a hill. Next day I rented a bicycle to go a little further, Tulor, about 11km from town. The way there it was already a good part of the trip. I went through a small unpaved road. There was nobody, nothing the whole way there, a complete desert. A great feeling of loneliness. I even thought I could be on the wrong way, since there was no one to ask I kept going. Sometimes I couldn’t even see the tracks of the road, it was easy to get lost.

In Tulor, a guide showed me the place. They believe the ruin is about 2800 years old. The greatest part is covered by sand, and according to my guide, it is hard to excavate more because to maintain it, it is very expensive. On the way back I got lost, after bicycling maybe in circles, I ended up on a paved road and got safely back to San Pedro Atacama.

I also did a tour to the Valle de la Luna. First we stoped in a view point called ¨Valle de Marte¨. As the name says, there are rock formations that look like images from Mars. From there we went to Valle de la Muerte, a canyon with a small path. The name (death valley) was given because there died many animals (specialy horses and mules) that were brought from Argentina to the Antofagasta port.

We continued to Valle de la Luna in order to see the landscape and by the end of the day, go up to the dunes to see the sunset. The mountains change color as the sun goes down. Blue, pink, red, incredibly beautiful.