The first day in the Atacama was excellent, and honestly from start to finish the second day may have topped it. There were some tricky logistics at play, namely the fact that the first chosen site, the El Tatio Geysers was roughly two hours away, and the other main site, the Valle de la Luna, while closer to San Pedro, allows last entry at 5pm, and various treks and viewpoints of note within it close at varying times. Now, this particular logistic challenge is usually sorted out by the fact that most people to go El Tatio early in the morning, when the geysers are at their most voluminous and mystifying. This requires generally leaving San Pedro, generally by tour bus, at 4 or 4:30am to get there around 6am. We're not that type of family, and the one 3am wake up for Colca Canyon was enough.
So, instead we still left fairly early for us (7:30am), and started off northwards towards El Tatio. About an hour in we reached Machuca, a half-road town that is primarily there as a rest stop for trips to and from (mostly from) El Tatio. They served a really nice fried goat cheese empanada (made to order), and the main guy was starting to get the grill ready to serve llama kebab skewers. Sadly, the prep time for this would take too long, so we punted on the llama kebab until the drive back.
The drive from Machuca to the El Tatio Geysers is a rough one, the road conditions, which are normally excellent in Chile, turn into a dirt / gravel road that is a bit of a mess. The easiest way to actually not make it a rumbling, stumbling drive is to just drive faster than you think you should, which of course the risk being it may break your tire, but otherwise you are jack-hammering for an hour. The payoff though is probably worth it, as we get close to 4400m above sea level to see the highest geothermal field in the world.
The geysers themselves were great when we were there, reaching around 10:45 and staying until about 11:45am. I can't imagine hos magical it must be if you do come at 6am. Were I to ever come back to Atacama (and minute by minute I think that is becoming more and more a reality) I probably just bite the bullet and do the dawn trip. Anyway, back to the geysers, there are two main areas, each with about five to ten geysers of different sizes. The first part had the bigger geysers, at least during this time of day. It was mesmerizing to watch them bubble up every few seconds with seemingly random sizing and volume, standing in front of the plumes (even suffering through the whiffs of sulfur). Even if the geysers themselves from a water perspective topped out at a few feet (instead of 10-20 feet at 6am) but the plumes of vapor rose way above that. The second area didn't have as large of geysers, but had maybe more beautiful scenery, with the wisps of vapor rising above some beautiful, colorful peaks. The whole setting was wonderful, combining the altitude, the crisp air, the beauty of the surroundings and water vapor in a way that makes no sense if you aren't a scientist.
We did stop at Machuca on the drive back, adn did get the llama meat. The grill at this point was well ablaze, and the guy manning it makes these skewers with such care. They're made to order, which means it does take probably 15 minutes, but that is because the grillmaster is tending to each skewer with perfect care, turning them often, dousing them with chimmichurri sauce using some herb as the brush. It was all super cool, and luckily ending up tasting great as well - super tender, juicy (the chimmichurri helped) and a great little bite for at this point fairly hungry people.
We finally reached San Pedro again around 1:45pm, allowing for about a one hour to rest at the AirBNB before heading to Valle de la Luna. This is easily the site closest to San Pedro itself, comprising of two areas - the first being the main valley, which has a road running through its spine with four to five stops of note (mostly hikes). The other is a mirador / viewpoint a few miles away which gives the aerial view - this spot having last entry at 7:45 (sunset around 8:15). The main site has entry ending at 5pm, The first stop is Duna Mayor, probably the msot well known spot, which is a hike that has two main peaks / miradors. The mirador #1 is higher up and further away, while the #2 is a quick 10min hike from the fork between the two. The catch being if you do #1, you are supposed to then go from there down to #2 instead of walking back down the same way you came - each of the routes being theoretically one-way.
I wasn't sure both how the elevation would work out and how my parents would do, so initially we did the climb to mirador #2, which was fairly easy accept for most of it being walking through sand. It was easy enough that after getting to the top, my Mom (to which my Dad agreed) wanted to do the walk to Mirador #1. This ended up being great, but was a precarious hour after that. First, the climb to Mirador #1 isn't exactly difficult, but has a lot of little ups and downs over rocks, to which I had to aid my parents a bit. The view from teh top is amazing though.
Quickly on that view aspect - the Valle de la Luna is a brilliant combination between the sand dunes of a dessert (including essentially all of Mirador #2 hill in this case) and the rock formations and valleys / canyons of a Grand Canyon (if not as grand, fo course). This combination is just magical - I don't really know what I've seen that is like it. Maybe Wadi Rum desert in Jordan if it had even more rock formations. But my word the views from teh top of the miradors were just incredible, all giving slightly different perspectives and ratios of desert & dunes to rocks and valleys.
Back to the hiking aspect, the toughest part was actually getting from the Mirador #1 to Mirador #2, which requires traipsing some really terrifying ground. Most of this stretch is essentially on a ridge between the two peaks (about may 500m) and while most of it is wide enough (say 6-7 feet), some get a bit tighter, with no real relief if you were to slip and fall, particularly to the left side (as you walk). To get my parents across this without them giving up, I had to feign more confidence than I had, but it was an excruciatingly fun time.
The combination of the exertion of the hike and the misery at times of the narrow walk, my parents were effectively done with hiking for the day, so they stayed in the car at the second hike spot, the Acaches Miradors, which this time has three miradors, and if anything was the Duna Mayor hike with more extremes. More of it was just trudging through sand, including both incline and decline. The heights you reach are higher. It is definitely tougher, but it is also more impressive and awe inspiring. The views from teh first two Miradors are incredible, both featuring a large rock formation on the other side called the Anfiteatro (not entirely sure why, as I don't think it really looked like one). There was also these great rock formations to the other side, as the hills holding up the Achaches Miradors was a bit of a barrier to a flat desert with rock formations on the other side. Another magical little hike, this one being end to end about an hour as well.
From there wer drove to the end point of the first part of the Valle de la Luna, taking in the scenery, all still a bit tired. The lower part of the Valle de la Luna is great, and it was probably nice to do that part first and then go to the other part of the Valle de la Luna to see the same area from above and really get a sense of how large, how unique this area of land is. The other part is called the Chkari Mirador, which has two miradors that are elevated probably a thousand feet or so from the same road we were driving on earlier. The terrain is really magical from this angle - stretching quite far in front of you with just a mix of peaks, jagged edges, expansive sand dunes and more. I think in some ways the proximity of Valle de la Luna to San Pedro makes it underrated a bit - both in terms of how it is advertised.
By this point it was about 7pm, so we went back, showered and then went back to the main drag, that was abotu 50% busier today than yesterday, It's nearly all tourists (and a crazily high % of them seeming to be from Brazil) so not sure why today was so far busier than yesterday, other than maybe a theory that the visit level for this week is peaking around New Year's Eve (tomorrow). The stores were buzzing, the restaurants were all quite crowded, but everyone seemed to be in a merry mindset. After some trawling, we picked Adobe for dinner, a spot right in the middle of the main drag, that is large, has a really cool indoor / outdoor vibe with great local art / sculpture decoration. The menu, much like Picada del Indio yesterday, was a mix of Chilean classics and pasta & pizza - though I was heartened looking around that most people went for Chilean. As did we, splitting two starters of a sopapillo (little fried dough cracker) with ceviche on top (quite good) and crispy quinoa fried chicken with a olive sauce (not as nice as it sounded) and two mains of a Merzula fish in butter sauce (parents liked it a lot) and a lomo with corn puree (the steak was cooked well but overall not as good as yesterdays, however the corn puree thing was excellent). The only downside was they ahve live music, but had one group that stopped around 8:30 when we arrived at 8:20, and the next duo start at 9:30, just as we were leaving.
We were leaving to go to St. Peter's to share a couple beers, play rummy and wait an hour or so for our Stargazing tour, a common nighttime tourist activity in a place that if you drive ten minutes away from San Pedro you get a very dark, unlit areas perfect for stars. Now, we were given advanced warning that since the moon was about 80% full, we would see less stars than normal, but if the amount we saw is the "less than normal", I'll live with it (though can't imagine how good it is if you come on a new moon).
The tour leaves San Pedro at 11pm (there is a 9pm option) drives about 20 minutes away to a little outcrop where the 20 or so of us were regaled by Alejandro, an amateur astronomer. Using a super effective laser pointer, he points out stars, constellations, etc., and gives us the history, the facts and a lot more. That's roughly the first 45 minutes of the 90 minutes you are tehre. It is cold, so they give you a welcome drink (wine, mango sour, juice or water) and then a series of hot drinks options (tea, coffee, hot chocolate) for the second half which involves Alejandro setting up sights in the two telescopes they permanently have there. Despite the moon not playing alone, it was still great - there are still so many stars and you see things from the opposite perspective we normally do - be it parts of Orion that are usually more hidden by the light pollution in the US, to the Southern Cross. The telescopes were able to pick out Jupiter and a few moons, the brightness of one of Sirius, and the orange glow of one of the stars of Orion's belt. The only thing it couldn't really was saturn which was descending nearly below the horizon. All in all, the stargazing tour was an informative, exciting and memorable experience, even if the moon wanted to put a damper on things. That it did not, and this was a great capper to a day that started at 7am and ended at 1:30am.
