Chile: High and Dry in the Atacama

 

The Tatio Geysers Field, about two hours north of San Pedro de Atacama, is the largest
geyser field in the southern hemisphere and the highest geothermal field in the world.

     When we decided to go to Chile in November/December 2024, we were influenced by earlier vistits that year to Joshua Tree and Death Valley, two desert areas in California. Both were interesting, and Death Valley had two superlatives: lowest elevation in North America and highest recorded temperature (135 degrees Fahrenheit or nearly 58 degrees Celsius) ever on the planet.

     Atacama, the 40,000-square-mile high desert of northern Chile, has its own superlative: dryest place on earth. Some places in the Atacama have never recorded rainfall. And, like Joshua Tree and Death Valley, it seems as if it's on another planet, some place in the Star Wars universe with foreboding landscapes and a sun that is too bright. 

       It turns out that the driest part of Atacama is not where we were, though there was little evidence of rainfall at the San Pedro de Atacama Explora lodge, where we stayed four nights. And, although the Atacama's usually cloudless skies led to the establishment of one of the world's most important radio telescope complexes nearby (ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array), we had overcast skies as we scanned the heavens two evenings using Explora's own large optical telescope. Turns out that the winter months, July and August, are best for stargazing. 

    What we did have were volcanos, most inactive, one after another marching to the horizon. Geysers. High-altitude salty lagoons with brine shrimp that three species of flamingos dined on. Rheas running ostrich-like across rocky fields. And vicuna, the wild camelid that lives in the altiplano, elevations between 4000 and 4700 meters (about two and a half miles to almost three miles above sea level).          

       The Explora lodge is in the village of San Pedro de Atacama (elevation 7,900 feet or 2,400 meters), but as far as the guest experience is concerned, you wouldn't know it was there. San Pedro has an archaeological museum, a meteorite museum, an historic adobe church and, according to one of our guides, excellent places for empanadas and ice cream. We saw none of these, with excursions instead focused on higher elevations, the area's volcanic mountains, geysers and other natural wonders. In retrospect, I wish we had taken time to wander through the village. 

      At Atacama we met a Brazilian food journalist who told us that the executive chef at the lodge is  celebrity chef  Virgilio Martinez of Lima, Peru. His restaurant Central was considerred in at least one ranking to be the No. 1 restaurant in the world a couple of years ago. The waiting time to get seats at his restaurants in Lima is so long that this food journalist chose the Explora lodge here just to taste his cooking, which stresses local and unusual Andean ingredients. Explora has posted an interview with Martinez about his cooking. We stayed at three Explora lodges in Chile, but this was the only one with exceptional food, though no empanadas.

      All three Explora lodges, however, had amiable, well-informed guides and well-planned excursions, half-day and whole-day, guaranteeing that guests leave with some appreciation of the different regions'  landscape, ecology and history.

     Here are some photos.

Our first Explora excursion in the Atacama was to the Gran Salar de Atacama,
Chile's largest salt flats, about an hour south of San Pedro. The flats, about
1200 square miles, are bounded on the west by the Cordillero de la Sal or Salt
Mountains, which can be seen in the distance. To the east are the Andes.
The mountains allow no drainage from the flats, so when there is water here,
it sits until it evaporates, leaving behind salts and other minerals. Lithium
is now being mined here.

Our first wild flamingo sightings were in briny pools
at Gran Salar. These are all Andean. The Chilean
flamingos are the same size but lack the black markings.
The James flamingo, the other species here, resembles
the Andean but is smaller.  

Fabian's Lizard is one of the few denizens
of the Atacama salt flats.

Here we are in the Cordillero de la Sal, west of the salt flats, which can be seen in the
middle distance. Those far-away mountains are the volcanos that form the Andes.

We stood quietly in front of this rock face at
Cordillero de la Sal so we could here the ticking
sound of salt crystals cracking deep within it.

Salts and other crystalized minerals were easy to 
see during a short hike in Cordillero de la Sal. 

White crusts that look like salt crystals were formed as salty water 
leeched out of mineral-rich rocks in the aptly named Salt Mountains.

It was on our second full day at San Pedro de Atacama that we headed north from the 
Explora lodge to see the Tatio Geyser field. On the way we stopped at a large lagoon
to enjoy countless flamingos, mostly the Andean ones. 

I tried and failed to get good shots of flamingos in flight, in which they resemble the
 great blue herons I used to see daily on Maryland's Eastern Shore. The flamingos fly
to migrate between different elevations and different parts of Chile.  Eggs of the
 brine shrimp that they feed on attach themselves to the birds' feathers and
 thus move from lake to lake with the flamingos.

After watching the flamingos and other birds, we continued north toward
 the geysers and encountered several vicuna beside the road. They're much
 more skittish than the guanacos, which are found a lower elevations.   

        

The Tatio Geysers field is the world's third largest group of geysers, the world's
highest geyser field, and the largest geyser field in the southern hemisphere. It
accounts for 8 percent of the world's geysers. Visitors are warned to stay on 
paths lest they crash through the not-so-safe surface and into boiling water. The
geysers here seem smaller and less energetic than those at Yellowstone National
 Park in the United States and in Iceland. Nonetheless, an amazing place to visit.

The mineral-rich waters leave a crystalline crust. In the past
a spa was set up here to let people bathe in the waters, but
that ended when some of the chemicals in the water
were found to be carcinogens.

Those are the bubbles and steam of boiling water in one of the many pools at Tatio Geysers.
Ferrous minerals probably account for the orange and red colors, which reminded me
of the Paint Pot thermal field at Yellowstone.

On the way down from the geysers, we encounted
a group of wild donkeys. This is at about two
and a half miles above sea level, so these 
must be very hardy animals. 

Several of the donkeys appeared to be pregnant.

About halfway back to the lodge from the geysers, we stopped at theTermas
de Puritana, a series of hot springs. Explora has established a conservation area
here, which gives its guests exclusive access to this pool. All the other pools are 
downstream and open to the public. Explora provided us with
a changing area (we had brought swimsuits) and robes. Since this
was a "full-day" excusion, lunch was served to us on this terrace
beside the pool. Much warmer and with easier access than
sinkholes I used to jump into in Florida a half-century ago.

The Atacama, a desert dotted with briny lakes and natural springs, is full of surprises.
Jane spotted this dragonfly on the steps leading to the hot springs pool. 

Our guide noticed this burrowing owl near the road and had the driver stop so I
could take this photo. It seems to surveying its domain, the great Atacama wasteland.

The dry and rocky hills of the Atacama seem suitable only for cactus. These
resemble the giant saguaro cactus of the American Southwest. There seemed 
to be dozens of different kinds of cactus here.

The bell tower of the Church of San Lucas was built in the mid-1700s of stone
and clay. It's in the village of Toconao south of San Pedro. On a full-day excusion on
our last full day in the Atacama, we were on our way to see high-altitude volcanos 
south of San Pedro when our guide departed from the itinerary to bring us here. 

Our guide said San Lucas is the second-oldest church in Chile.

The church was partly made of cactus wood.

These llamas were at a farm south of Toconao.

This was our first glimpse of a rhea. I don't think I had ever before seen this
large, ostrich-like bird, which had absolutely no interest in us.

Our guide said rhea sightings aren't guaranteed in the
Andes, so we felt lucky at seeing several of these birds,
including one that stayed still long enough for me to
focus a telephoto lens.

After encountering the rheas, we pressed on to one of our destinations of the day, 
Laguna Lejia, which is surrounded by volcanos. This dreamscape is 4.325 meters
(2.69 miles) above sea level. What looks like water is largely a shiny salt flat. 

These llamas at Laguna Lejia are free-range but 
not wild. They were part of a group of maybe
50 that probably belong to a village
hidden somewhere in the mountains. The bits
of ribbon on the llama on the right were 
placed on it as a gift, a way that people
honor these essential animals.

This photo sort of sums of the Andes for me: volcano, llamas, a salty lake with a
crusty shore, and, in the distance above the llama, flamingos on the water.

We had seen piles of rocks like this along roads, especially south of San Pedro.
Carolina, our guide whose last name we didn't learn, said they're for offerings
to the volcanos. You pour an alcoholic beverage (here it is a nice Chilean lager)
on the stones and leave the bottle or can embedded in the rocks. After
Carolina's demonstration, Jane and I each made our offerings. 

Cerro Overo Maar is a monogenetic volcano, meaning that it was created by
a single eruption, which left a cinder cone and a crater that we see here
from its rim, which is at 4,555 meters (2.83 miles) above sea level. The mostly
round crater is 600 meters in diameter, making this a relatively 
small volcano for the Andes.  Jane came home with tiny piece of
 obsidian that was spewed out by the eruption eons ago. 

During our tour of the volcanos we were the only guests, so it was just us, our
wonderful guide Carolina and the driver Sebastian as we stopped at the little 
church, stopped to see the rheas and made it to the rims of volcanos and 
various miradors. Here, at a mirador (overlook), where the view is of
a deserted village at the bottom of a canyon, Carolina and Sebastian
set up lunch for us. It might have been a bit awkward being catered to
 like this, but it was more like a picnic shared by friends. Fortunately,
 not all of the cold beer had been offered to the volcanos.