Categoria / Category Chile

In America, Chile On  15/08/2001  One comment

From San Pedro Atacama this trip to Argentina took 12 hours. The Chilean road was good and paved. The desert-like landscape and with impressive lagoons. When entering in the Argentinean side, the road got worse, no more pavement. We stopped at the Argentinean customs and immigration. When I saw from far away the Argentinean flag I got emotional. I felt I was getting home, getting closer to my culture.

Once more I was in line to stamp my passport. There were many Europeans, the policeman didn’t ask anything, just stamped their passports. In front of me there was a Chilean woman, on her turn, the policeman asked her lots of things: intention of the trip, where she was going to stay, if she had relatives there. My turn he also asked me where I was going, for how long, if I was going back to Brazil or if I was going to travel in Argentina. After me, he stamped all the other European passports without asking anything. Once more, prejudice…

In America, Chile On  14/08/2001  One comment

We left San Pedro early on the morning to visit Salar de Atacama. We got there for the sunrise, there was plenty of flamingos by the Chaxa lagoon. From there we went to Socaire, a small village near the salt panning. We had breakfast and visited the small church.

We started to go up the mountain toward the lagoons. Our car was the slowest, we were driving 10km per hour. The other tour groups passed us. After a few km the car broke down. We got off and walked. We were at an altitude of more than 3000m. It took us more than an hour to get to Miñiques lagoon. Then we walked a little more to Miscati lagoon. When we got there our guide showed up, the car was running. We didn’t have much time to see the lagoon because we had to go back before the last car, just in case ours break down again.

On our  first way up the car stopped again and didn’t run. A van that was behind us decided to push us to the top of the mountain. Imagine a car pushing the other one, like in a cartoon...

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...