San Pedro de Atacama

San Pedro de Atacama is desert city in middle of nowhere but incredible moon like nature all around. Most of the houses around the city are one floors made of stone and dried mud. Mostly hostels has some wooden and concrete materials. The city is like 5 by 5 blocks. Even though the city has good selection of restaurants and places to dance salsa and so on most of the tourists go outside to enjoy the wonders of this desert. The first day I took it easy, booked my trips for next two day and rented bike in afternoon to go to Quitor and Valle de la Luna. The Quitor had done very nice views over the valley but took me more time than I expected so I didn't managed Valle de la Luna. Tried to catch sunset at Valle de la Muerte but I was too late either. The biking through the sand was very hard. I did 40km altogether in this sunny and dried and not comfortable surface and returned back by night. The nights are here quite cold by contrast. It's still 2500 attitude and it's warm only on the sun.

The next day my whole day tour around most famous lakes started early in the morning. Inn the bus with 20 people we were crossing this moon like land one lake by another. Pictures speak for themselves.

The third day I went to Cerro Toco stratovolcano measured at 5640m high. The plan was to wake up early and go by car to 5200m and climb the rest. Sounds like easy, but this attitude has serious consequences. There is less than half of the air at the sea level, causing breathing issues. There is also nearly doubled sun intensity. Freezing air. But most importantly the attitude sickness. I spent the first day in San Pedro de Atacama in a quite sporty way to accommodate and day after the tour was around lagunas slightly over 4000m giving me some room to accommodate. Still I knew from my previous hikes especially Mt. Kenya (nearly 5000m) that it's something not to be underestimated. We started early did a breakfast on the way. Then reached our starting point and started to descent slowly. But very slowly. You could feel with every step lack of air. Something brain can't understand until the point you start to braise. It took us 2 and half hours to climb because done people in the group couldn't manage. The views were fantastic like from Salvador Dali's board. Descent was much faster and we have been back to the city by 2pm.

I had some time so after little sunbathing (rather sun burning) I booked trip to Valle de la Luna by bus and did great lunch before. It's closest popular attraction. Moon like formations, full of salt. Great views again. And we stayed until sunset. Pretty tired I prepared my food for next morning and packed my stuff because my transport was at 5am. Going back to Calama and flying to Santiago.