At San Pedro

Wednesday 19th December

A lazy day. Set off quite late from Calama. We noticed that all but one of the vehicles parked in the hotel car park were 4WDs. Not surprising as you need one, as we found out yesterday.

Head up another very long, straight road to San Pedro de Atacama. Eventually we wound up a hill, and at the top saw the great salt white flats.

Standing over the valley is the imposing Licancabur volcano.

San Pedro is Chile’s top tourist resort (allegedly) so it was a shock to see narrow streets with cobbled together adobe houses, with hardly any decent roads to speak of. It does now though have a petrol station and an ATM, quite a relief when you consider the next petrol station and bank are 100 km away in Calama.

Our hotel is 300m south of the centre and based around a square. It is single storey.



We walked into the centre of the town, and after 2 minutes realised we had seen all there is to see. Though to be fair you do not stay in San Pedro for the town itself, rather for the stunning surroundings. There were lots of tour operators offering trips to the sites, quite a few cafes and lots of backpackers, sat in the hot square.

We ate lunch on the square and were bothered by flies. This was a first and is most likely explained by San Pedro being an oasis, with quite a lot of green vegetation.

The ubiquitous Chilean dogs were sleeping in the shade, and we noticed that the ones who did trot about stuck to the shaded side of the street.

There was a big nativity set outside of the church, and some sort of children’s ceremony was going on.

The local police station and the council offices.

The church

The main road in to town

It is really hot here and the sun is very intense.

We went out about 8.30 pm in search of dinner and went to a wholefood place. It was very rustic with plain wooden tables and highly uncomfortable benches. Towards the end of our meal there was a power cut, and the waiters had to work by candlelight. Then suddenly a trio of Chilean musicians appeared playing traditional music. One even had a flute, though we were disappointed that he did not play it with his nose! Then a strange figure emerged with a huge white mask and black mane. Kevin likened him to Michael Jackson in Thriller. He coaxed a few ladies to dance with him, but luckily not Joan.

A hat went round and they went away. A few minutes later the power went back on. We then walked back. The skies were very clear, and we could see an upside down Orion, Taurus, and Auriga.

Bad roads and the nitrate pampa

Where we ate breakfast


Tuesday 18th December

Today we had breakfast in a dining room held up by wooden props, without windows and holes in the wall. On the news, there were further reports of earthquakes in the central zone of Chile.


We took a picture of some of the temporary buildings provided by the Government to house those who had lost their homes.

Then we headed up into the hills. The roads here are not the best maintained in the world. On a dusty, empty road we came across a man dressed like an airline captain, wheeling his suitcase behind him. There was not an airport, building or otherwise in sight.

We turned south to visit the town of Maria Elena, which serves a nitrate plant. It is described as a busy town in the guide book, and most likely was until five weeks ago when the same earthquake that had hit Tocopilla decimated the town. A lot of the houses were abandoned, the hospital stood closed and digger had begun to clear many of the buildings. There were just piles of rubble, with things like newspapers, tea bags and children’s toys amongst the mess. It was a very sad place. We did see where they had put up some temporary homes and had made a make shift hospital. Joan forgot to take any digital photos.

We then moved on to Pedro de Valdivia, a mining town founded in 1931 by the Guggenheim brothers to serve the neighbouring nitrate plant. Due to the cost of maintaining two mining towns (the other being Maria Elena), the mining company decided to move everyone out in 1996. The town was huge, with a church, hospital and empty swimming pool. Virtually everything salvageable had been stripped from the buildings, such as roves, windows, baths and kitchens. All the trees were dead too as we guessed they had previously been kept alive by irrigation.

The entrance to Pedro de Valdivia

The Church which is still intact

The former hospital

Workers' houses

The former nitrate processing plant

An empty swimming pool

The main square

More abandoned houses

Next was Ruta 5, Chile’s equivalent to the M1. It has one lane in both directions, with frequent off road excursions where they are relaying the tarmac. It is dead straight, with no services to break the journey up. We are not looking forwards to driving back to Antofagasta from Arica in a few weeks time, as we will most likely suffer from boredom.

Turning up to Chuiquicamata, the road got worse. A breaking up carriageway and even straighter! After 50 kms we saw the sign for the Chug Chug geoglyphs and turned down a dirt track which is described in the guidebook as just about passable by car. Thirteen kilometres later, and without most of our fillings, we arrived. There was no one else in sight. On a set of small hills were shapes of animals, people and geometric patterns. This is an ancient monument, but you are free to roam where you like on the hills.















We ate lunch there, providing entertainment for a small lizard who seemed glad of our company.

Back on the main road, it was not long to Chuiquicamata, a settlement next to a huge copper mine, with bright green slag heaps. We’re going there tomorrow. Then it’s a short drive to Calama and the Park Hotel where we are writing this.