Nuevo Ritmo

We just spent 5 days in the desert! We need water and lotion 😂 The Atacama desert is the driest desert in the world, receiving only 5 millimeters of rainfall annually on average. There are some parts of the desert that have never gotten ANY rain. I didn’t even know this was possible, and people live here! In fact, people have lived here for a long time, dating back to the Atacama tribe and the Incas. What a crazy place.

Besides being dry, this part of northern Chile is really amazing. The Valle de la Luna (valley of the moon) is a beautiful area of unique rock formations and sand dunes that lies just outside the town of San Pedro. It is named due to its close resemblance to the surface of the moon. Speaking of the moon, the Atacama has one of the clearest skies in the world, so naturally we went on a stargazing tour…which was only in Spanish. The sky was indeed incredibly clear. We observed the Milky Way, watched the moon rise, and through a fancy telescope got a close look at the moon, Jupiter and its four moons, and a nebula – the mother of stars. We were blown away by this tour, and how much Spanish we could understand 🙂 The next day we visited the Geiser del Tatio – a geyser field that is home to 8% of all geysers in the world. This was a really cool place to visit, and we were able to see a variety of shapes and sizes of geysers bubbling up and back down into the earth. Afterwards, we went to the Puritama thermal baths, which are basically natural hot springs nestled deep in a canyon. During the drive, we also got to see a lot of wildlife – vicuñas, which kind of look like deer mixed with llama but are actually a type of camel, flamingos which were very cool to see in the wild, and one desert fox. And did I mention that we rented a car and Jay drove stick shift? This was a lovely day spent appreciating the variety of terrain surrounding the desert. On the last day, I hiked Cerro Toco – a volcano at 18,400 ft! My highest mountain and first volcano yet. This was very fun, very cold, and VERY windy – about -4 degrees Fahrenheit and 40 mph winds. However, I was with a great tour group of 4 people from France, Spain, Brazil, and a local guide from Chile, and we had a blast. Yet another wild part of the desert.

Needless to say, we were deeply impressed by the magic of the desert and its intense, diverse climate. We were also a big fan of a local empanada joint at which we ate more than 5 times … Tomorrow we embark on our road trip down the Carretera Austral! Cheers to the next adventure 🍻