Below Zero and Above 4,000 in the Atacama Desert

It's a warm, sunny afternoon in San Pedro de Atacama in Chile as I type this.  I'm lounging in a hammock on the hostel's patio, catching up on reading, writing in my journal, emails, and of course this blog.  My bus to Arica (also in Chile, near the Peruvian border) isn't till 8:45 tonight, so I have lots of time. 

No cushy cama buses this time, though -- one of my travelling companions of the last few days headed on to Arica yesterday and he sent me a message warning that there's no dinner and no blankets on the bus.  So I'll be stocking up on fruit and chocolate bars (the dinner of champions) and adding a few layers of clothes before I board the bus -- it gets awfully cold in this part of the world when the sun goes down.  But it's dramatically beautiful scenery, with mountains and desert and salt plains and vast open sky -- gorgeous to behold as long as you don't mind occasionally shivering uncontrollably.

It was actually below zero one morning, as we stood on the street at 4 a.m. waiting to be picked up for a sunrise geyser tour.  I'd had enough of freezing so had splurged on a warm NorthFace jacket with fleece the night before, and without it I might have died of exposure (or at least would have been very, very uncomfortable) -- so well worth the exorbitant price I paid.  (I don't even want to think about how much cheaper it would have been at home ... warmth was worth the extravagance.  I bought an alpaca sweater, too, but, while that will also help keep me warm, it was mostly just because I really liked it -- and it at least was cheap.)

But the geysers were very cool, as well as cold, although the sunrise wasn't much of anything.  It's not the largest geyser field in the world -- it doesn't begin to compare in scale to Yellowstone or Rotorua -- but it's the highest altitude one at 4,300 metres.  San Pedro is perched at about 2,400 metres above sea level, so it was quite a climb up to the plateau where we found the geysers.

I hit even higher altitudes yesterday, as I went up to the high altiplano at nearly 4,500.  There are some pristine, beautiful lakes -- tiny but lovely -- way up there, and wildlife abounds.  I saw many vicuna (related to the llama, but daintier and more graceful -- llamas are goofy, ungainly creatures) and even a desert fox, whose brown and gold colouring blended perfectly with the stunted bushes and grasses of the altiplano.  The villages way up high are a different world and time entirely -- life is much more primitive than the suphisticated south of Chile. 

Lower down in the plateau, in the vast Salar de Atacama (a salt plain), the ponds are filled with flamingoes -- the bright pink kind that I'm familiar with, and a couple of other species that are black and white.  They spend summers higher up in the mountains, but this time of year come down to the lower plains where it's a little warmer.

Further away from San Pedro, but also in the Salar, there's a small lake -- Laguna Cejar -- that's saltier than the Dead Sea (85% salt) and considerably colder.  I took the plunge anyway, just to see what it felt like to float effortlessly on top of the water; once I got over the initial shock of the cold water on the surface, it was actually quite relaxing, and the water under the surface was warm as it was fed by springs underground.  The only unpleasant part was getting changed out of our wet swimsuits afterwards -- Annie (one of my recent travelling companions) and I, as the only two girls who went in the water, ducked behind the bus to change as there was nowhere else to go.  Awkwardly changing underneath towels and sarongs, we managed to be pretty discreet -- to the dismay, I think, of the four bus drivers who were quite openly gawking at us as we changed.  (Please, boys, it's nothing you haven't seen before -- foreign women have all the same parts as locals.  Give us a break.)

So it's been a lovely few days, and I'm loathe to leave this mellow and chilled-out little town in the middle of nowhere.  I've even been able to have real coffee (not Nescafe) and real breakfast (not pastry with dulce de leche) here, and we discovered a cool little bar that serves a fine Chilean microbrewery beer called Austral Calafate, so it's been an enjoyable time.  But I'm going onward tonight, to Arica in the far north of Chile -- from there I might try to go directly to Arequipa, instead of spending the night in Arica.  But I'll decide once I get there.  My travel buddy John the Aussie went on to Arica yesterday, so has promised to report back on whether the town's worth a visit.

From Arequipa, I'll head into Cuzco and figure out the Machu Picchu thing -- hoping to hike, but I won't be too upset if it doesn't work out and I have to go by train instead (but I'd definitely come back and hike another time).  So far, I'm still coping well with altitude and have suffered no ill effects, so I'm hoping that continues in Peru.

I'll probably spend a few days more touring around southern Peru -- Puno on Lake Titicaca, maybe Nazca for the famous lines -- and might venture over the border into Bolivia as far as Copacabana on the lake (but not to La Paz).  From Cuzco, I think I'll fly to Quito, since I'll otherwise have to spend about 4 days straight on the bus -- potentially enjoyable on a pampered Argentine bus ride, but in Peru and Ecuador likely to be decidedly less comfortable.

Then a Galapagos tour from Quito, and some side trips in Ecuador as time permits ... then home for about the middle of July.  That sounded so far away when I started this trip, but it's sneaking up on me fast -- just a few weeks to go.  *sigh*

Oh, the Randomness ...

That's the best part about travel ... the random things that happen that you don't plan for, that turn out to be pretty cool.  If you've read some of my previous posts closely, dear reader, you may have gathered that I had become somewhat cranky and disillusioned with the whole travel extravaganza, and was almost ready to pack it all in and go home.   Well, I'm over that.  I feel like an entirely new person and I've been having FUN again with this travel thing. 

I came to San Pedro de Atacama on Friday, which I already told you (if you read my last post -- if not, keep up with the times!).  I met a couple of backpackers on the bus here from Salta -- Annie from New York and John the Aussie from "Melbun" -- and have been hanging out with them for the past few days.  (So, in travel terms, they've become my closest friends :) )  It's been really nice having people to plan things with -- whether that is drinks in the bar down the street, going on a day trip, or finding somewhere for dinner -- rather than sorting it all out on my own.

Oh, I don't mean that I never meet people or that I'm a total recluse on the road.  I'm not, by any stretch -- it's just the consistency of having the SAME people to hang around with for more than a day or two at a time that's novel.  Usually I'm moving on, or they're moving on, and it's a 24-hour friendship at best.  And it gets hard always saying goodbye to the good people I meet.

I went with John the Aussie tonight to our "local", a very cool little bar called La Cave that's just down the street from the hostel, to see him off in traditional Aussie fashion with a beer or two, before he went off to catch a night bus tonight.  As you do when travelling, we started chatting to the guy at the next table.  He turned out to be Adrian the Calgarian, originally in Chile for work (for an oil company, big surprise for an Albertan) but extending his trip for a couple of weeks for personal travel.

Adrian the Albertan (left) and John the Aussie

Adrian looked like the quintessential computer nerd (and was, by profession), but also turned out to be an avid rock climber, ice climber and extreme backcountry skier.  So we kept chatting after John left for his bus, and what was originally going to be a quiet night in the hostel reading my novel instead became a long conversation with a random Calgarian about the best huts in the Rockies for backcountry skiing and camping.  (Bow Lake wins as the Taj Mahal of backcountry huts, should you wish to know.)

It was just fun, in a strange and random way.   Chatting up strange Albertans in a bar is not how I usually spend my time -- I can't remember the last time I went to a bar in Toronto and started talking to any guy at the table next to me, just on a whim (much less an Albertan).  But it was good -- no pressure, no one trying to pick anyone up or flirt or anything, just a couple of people passing an evening together because they happened to wash up in the same bar in the same town at the same time in a foreign land.  That's all it was, all it will ever be ... but I liked it.

I like the Carol I am on the road better than I liked the Carol I'd become back home.  This Carol appears to be a lot more willing to engage with the world outside her comfort zone, live in the moment and enjoy it for what it is ... without over-analyzing it or taking any of it too seriously as Toronto Carol was prone to do. 

I just have to figure out how to bring this back with me when I become Toronto Carol again.  I have realized that I don`t have enough people in my life back home -- no, I don`t mean that exactly, I mean that I don`t make enough time for the people in my life back home and I haven't been willing enough to let new people in.  I had become closed off and insular and hid from the world in many ways, and I don`t want to turn into that person again.  I don`t necessarily need to make a habit of chatting up Albertans in random bars ... but I`d like to remain the person who doesn`t automatically say no to the possibility.

So remind me -- Toronto people especially -- that the other Carol needs to come back from the road with me.  I used to know her well -- the Carol who would seize the chance to go dancing at midnight instead of going to bed early, or try something new and laugh at failure instead of refusing to take the chance.  Or open her heart to the chance to make a new friend or to fall in love, instead of withdrawing from the rest of the world. 

She's still here; I caught a glimpse again tonight.  Just gotta keep her around more often.

Dark Side of the Moon

This is wild, wacky and beautiful country around here.  I just arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile late this afternoon, and I feel like I've landed on another planet.  It's a tiny, dusty, frontier town in the middle of the Atacama desert -- the driest in the world -- that looks like the Wild, Wild West, gaucho style.  The sky now, at about 8:00 at night, is unbelievably dark and full of stars, as there is no other outpost of civilization for a hundred miles in any direction.  Calling San Pedro "civilization" is a bit of a stretch in itself -- I feel like I've landed on the edge of the world.

The bus ride from Salta is stunning, taking you high up through the mountains -- at the highest point, the road hits an altitude of about 4,500 metres.  This was too much for some of the passengers, who were nauseous, dizzy and close to fainting, but the bus crew came prepared with oxygen tanks and were able to avert any major health crises.  (Fortunately I was fine; this bodes well for a successful trip later to Machu Picchu if I can cope well with altitude!)

The landscape is lunar in places, particularly at the high altitudes.  You ascend up through the mountains from Salta through Jujuy and beyond, and eventually reach a immense plateau.  At first glance, you think that the ground is covered with snow, but on closer inspection you see that it's salt -- dry, cracked salt plains stretching in every direction, out to the mountains ringing the horizon. 

Then you eventually reach San Pedro, an outpost in the middle of the vast empty nothingness of the Atacama desert.  To the south is the Salar de Atacama, an enormous salt plain rivalled only by the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia; there are brilliantly coloured lakes, geysers, hot springs and the Valley of the Moon in other directions.  The town itself has one main street, about six blocks long, and probably 4,000 residents (not counting tourists, who in high season probably double the numbers).  Stray dogs chase things blown in the wind down the dirt-packed streets, and fast, incomprehensible Chilean Spanish* flies at you from every direction, as the locals try to sell you a day trip, feed you at their restaurant, change your pesky Argentine pesos for fine Chilean ones, or load you up with an assortment of local handicrafts.

It's another world, really.  I've landed at a relaxed little hostel with hammocks swinging in its gorgeous central patio, in the company of a couple of backpackers I met on the bus.  We're thinking about heading back out to the little bar we discovered across the street (one of the backpackers is an Aussie, so beer is always on the agenda), and tomorrow we'll probably set out to discover some of the countryside. 

But right now, I just have to go get warm.  It's bloody freezing in the desert when the sun goes down!

*NOTE:  Chilean Spanish is another language.  It fell off the boat somewhere along the way when current South American speech was developing; it sounds nothing like the rest of the continent, or European Spanish.  It's unbelievably fast, slurred, and slangy, and words are invariably chopped off into short forms or twisted into something unrecognizable.  So I may have to give up on actually understanding anyone again until I get to Peru!