The Atacama Desert is a vast expanse that so far hasn't been fully commercialized to its final extent. What I mean by this is that there are large stretches where there is not much going on at all, and instead many of the main sites that have been turned into true tourist locations are all within a 2-hour radius of San Pedro de Atacama, our home base for the next three days. Figuring out what to do each day, the logistics, which sites require pre-booking tickets, which you can get day of, which you can only get day of on site, all of it is rather complicated. Luckily for us, my Dad's random habit of watching travel vidoes on youtube on TV on Sunday afternoons paid off big time, as he found a gem - a guy named RustyPics who seems to be a more unassuming than most travel vlogger / professional nature photographer. He had visited the Atacama desert in late 2024 for four days, a half day more than what we would have. He helped us unlock the code.
In the end, the plan was to basically follow all his suggestions and ideas with some swapping of combinations of places and events (for instance, we weren't getting up at 4am for a tour of the El Tatio Geysers, no matter how much better the geysers would be at morning). But at least one day in, I can say mr RustyPics is a smart man. If anything, my complaint is he has a way better camera than most humans so his photos will look better on the video than ours will look. Luckily though, real life seems to match his photos pretty damn well.
Our first stop after the 75-minute drive from Calama to San Pedro de Atacama (which I'll call San Pedro for ease), was to Emporio Andino, a lovely little coffee shop / grab & go spot with empanadas and sanguches / restaurant. We will likely go here many times, mostly for those first two things. Lunch is a bit of an arbitrary concept in Atacama, with most being either to-go emapanadas (which is what we did) or if you're lucky a weird timed sitdown. Anyway, we grabbed some really good capuccinos, a giant, cold bottle of water (to refill other bottles), two empanadas and a sanguche and off we went to the first spot, which I do think was our friend Rusty's as well.
The Atacama is a desert, but various parts are more mountains, some more steppes, some what you would imagine when you hear "desert", and some are giant salt flats, some of the biggest in teh world. Our first tourism stop was one of these, about an hour south of San Pedro, at Laguna Chaxa, in the Sal de Atacama salt flat (the biggest in teh world). Laguna Chaxa's claim to fame is the flamingos that rest in its lakes in the middle of these salt flats - along with the incredible, hauntingly beautiful scenery (I think I'm going to use that "hauntingly beautiful" line a few times...). Truly the scenery of Laguna Chaxa is hard to describe - cool, faultless peaks around you on all sides, far enough to not be imposing, close enough that their reflection is perfectly mirrored in the lake. Flamingos were all around, most staying a bit further away from teh dedicated walking path, but enough lost their way close by to allow for some amazing sights.
Sadly, we were two months before hatching season (as I saw one time in of all places the Salt Lake City Bird Park, baby flamingos are among the cutest animals around), but still it was mesmerizing. The best might be when one flaming that was rather close to the path, did some weird little twitchy dance while its beak was fishing for the little sale water shrimp things that make up most of its diet. No idea why this one did that while all the other flamingos seemed far more steady in hunting for food, but it wss adorable and memorable all the same.
For a first impression into the Atacama, Laguna Chaxa was pretty perfect - despite its elevation (every site is between 2,500 - 4,200 meters), the flat paths, the mystic salt flat scenery and colors, it was all so intense in the best way. As was our next stop of the Valle de Arcioris (Rainbow Valley), which is located about 45 minutes north of San Pedro (so the diametric opposite direction). We were able to check in to our lovely, albeit un-airconditioned, AirBNB early as well, and on the way first back from Laguna Chaxa and then to Valle de Arcioris, we crossed first a llama farm, and then a series of llamas idling by the road, including the cutest baby with its mom, who seemed afraid but would adorably poke his head up every now and then. Llama are way less rare in Atacama than Vicuna and some birds, and even flamingos, so seeing them was a nice surprise.
As nice a surprse was the Valle de Arcioris. On the one hand, it was a bit tough to know exactly where to go as the map and gidance was fairly minimal. I guess the best way to describe it is you drive around a landscape that probably looks more like a desert than anything we've seen so far - sand, rock formations, hills, but with way more colors than sand red or brown. Hence the name Rainbow Valley. The main weird color was a green hue made up from a particular type of rock that lined many hills and ledges. So was light purple, yellow, and so much more. This whole area had some staggering landscape views and valleys and open areas, all interspersed with the colors of the rainbow (no blue, I guess...). Valle de Arcioris is more a pick your own adventure site than others - hence we even figured a couple times we probably drove a bit too far off course, but still a wonderful way to acclimate yourself to the vastness of the Atacama scenery.
Finally, a bit tired for the day, we returned to our AirBNB and then took to explore the town. San Pedro is not big in terms of its commercial center - much like an El Calafate. Everything is essentially an a 3x4 stretch, with one pedestrian only lane in its center. In there are tons of tourist offices (most people that come here seem the backpaker types who will take these group tours rather than us driving oursevles around), tons of stores and restaurants, all built into these brick buildings that look homely from the outside, but often have larger, better decorated than you think, interiors. Already a few places I've ID'd for future shopping trips. They also have a beer bar, named Cerveceria Saint Peter, which has a few local brews. No idea how local, they just said one stout and one amber (along with the normal fare like Austral, Kuntsmann, etc.), but the stout was good, they had wifi, they gave great cornbread on the house; no idea where the Saint Peter name comes from, but so be it.
After the beer, I walked down that main drag a bit with my parents checking out a few stores, before we went to dinner at La Picada del Indio. Dinner options are more multiple in San Pedro than you would think, but a lot is catered more at the heavy tourist population - meaning a host of spots advertising heavily that they serve pizza and pasta. Even La Picada, which is a more traditional Chileno restaurant, serves pizza. We didn't get that, but instaed I got a lomo (steak) main that was weird in that the steak itself was perfectly cooked with one of the better cabernet sauces I've ever had (seriously), but combined with some pretty meh sides. The drinks were nice though, and the place is super well rated - for a quick meal, not at all disappointed.
After dinner and dropping my parents back, I headed back to downtown (e.g. that main street) and went to their other reputable beer bar ChelaCabur. Sadly, a place that only serves fairly mainstream stuff (granted, mainstream in Chile means Austral and Kunstmann - two better than Budweiser equivalents), but not sadly a place that was great in every other way. They play generally heavy metal, they have the weirdest set of movie, metal album posters, and just the coolest vibe. Great way to end the night for what looks to be a great three-and-a-half days in Atacama.
