Traveling Northern Chile, Chap2: Atacama desert

We discovered the Atacama desert in 94, during our honeymoon trip, and liked it so much, that this is our fourth visit. The fascination with the variety of light, texture and colors of the landscape, and it's uniqueness remains intact, the roads keep getting better, the maps more precise, making exploring easier and safer

Valle de la Luna

Laguna Cejar (Salar de Atacama)

Laguna Verde (Bolivia)

Lagunas Miscanti y Miniques

Domesticated Llamas, on the way up to paso de Jama

Mixed herd of donkeys, llamas and goats on the Salar

Vicuñas near Machuca

Toconao

Machuca

Caspana

Chiu Chiu

Hotel Altiplanico

San Pedro de Atacama now has an enormous choice of hotels, ranging from the youth hostel, to the 5* all inclusive resorts. Fortunately, most of them are constructed respecting the local colonial or indigen style. They are generally build with adobe, and rendered in sandy earth or painted with white lime wash, giving to the village ot's airs of mini hippie-metropolis of the desert. 

The hotel Altiplanico aims to reproduce a traditional indian village, with it's integrated colonial influences, it is made of earth-sand rendered adobe. It's very carefully planned with a circular path running along the 29 huts that each house a room. The decoration is quite restrained and includes localy manufactured fabrics, wood carving and sand carved symbols on the exterior walls. The central area is landscaped with local plants needing very little water, and several path run through them and to the central hut which contains the restaurant, lounging area, and reception. It's size, it's peace and the very nice attending crowd, makes it a perfect spot to relax after a day of exploration. 

Special thanks to Nick and Fiona for their contibution with the pictures, specialy the posy llamas...

Adventures in Taltal

Those weren't exactly your "tanning-by-the-beach-with-a-Margarita-in-your-hand-holiday"

1st day: visit to a copper mine in the middle of the desert

The boss: my uncle Nano who manages the mine

the mine:

the "elevator":

...and this is half of our family going down @ 85m deep: it is the scariest part of the trip for a frustrated me who has to stay above ground and anxiously wait for them to come back up; all because of a superstition that pretends that the mine is a female who will get jealous and seize to produce if a women goes down...

One has to admit, that working below ground in the dark, breaking away the rock with explosives, and taking them back out with only the help of a wheelbarrow and this bucket, one could easily become quite superstitious...It is a seriously hard way of earning one's living, but the 44 men who work here are quite happy to do it, as they earn over twice the average Chilean salary. They take 4000 tons of rocks out per month in 2,5 weeks/month rotations... this really is frontier country..

Here my uncle gives us a live demonstration of how the copper is dissolved in acid, and then precipitates on iron (a nail here) to a 100% pure shiny orange copper mineral

The codes for going up and down in the bucket....better not forget them once you are down there....!

2nd day: visit to Paranal's ESO

Other day, other world, although only a few miles apart... this is Paranal, the ESO (European Southern Observatory) program, still yet the biggest optic telescopes in the world. With an 8+m mirror, their name: Ver Large Telescope, is quite an understatement, as you will see in the pictures

...and the famous Residencia where James bond's "Quantum of solace" was supposed to have taken place. 

An artificial jungle for the scientists who spend months at a time here: a lot of green and humidity to compensate the extreme environment above ground

The blackout shield that is spread out at night to protect the telescopes from any light contamination:

But don't worry, we did do the beach trips after all this excitement, and did taste our fair share of Pisco sour, the Chilean national drink....but that's another story...