San Pedro

Got to San Pedro de Atacama on Monday, a popular stop for tourists who want to visit the Salar de Atacama, the 3rd largest Salt flat in the world (#1 is Iyuni in Bolivia, #2 is Salt Lake).
What a nightmare though!!! This town is purely built on tourism...you don´t even get to meet Chileans...all you hear on the streets is English, French, German. The town is quite cute...all adobe constructions...about 4 square blocks...but only consists of tour agencies, handcraft stores, and restaurants. Everything is so expensive and unappealing to me.
I did sign up for the classic tours: Valle de la Luna, Salar de Atacama, and the Tatio Geyser....but honestly very disappointed by all. The tours tend to stretch the visits with´fill-in´stuff to do, ie: visit a local town, when they actually drop you off for 20min to do some shopping. Ugh, can´t stand that. Plus wherever you go, there´s about a dozen mini-buses following you. For the Valle de la Luna, we were about 150 people standing on top of this sand dune to watch the sunset....breaks the atmosphere if you ask me. Then imagine when we all have to head back to the buses: just like sheep!
The Salar was interesting to see just to compare to the one I saw in Surire up north. Because the water is so much deeper here in the desert, the salt crust makes little rock formations, almost like sponges...very different than in Surire where the salt was flat (hehe, as in salt flat!). But once again, they sell you the tour as though you´re going to see a flamingo reserve...well 12 birds doesn´t count as a reserve to me....especially compared to the hundreds I saw up north! Anyways, you get the point. Oh one last thing: the tours include breakfast and lunch...that´s 2hrs of eating instead of touring. Of course I love to picnic in beautiful places...but not next to the bus along with a million other tourists!
This morning, I got up at 3:30am to go on the Geyser tour...you need to get there by 7am so you can see the full effect of the evaporation. As soon as the sun rises, the Geysers don´t produce smoke anymore, so less impressive. The site was quite amazing to visit: the highest geysers in the world, at 4,100m, but the drive there was a nightmare.... on dirt wrinkly road... I think I shrunk by an inch, my vertebrates are all smooshed. Try sitting in a mini bus that´s vibrating faster than those gadgets at Sharper Image for 2hrs each way. I think I also lost emeral on my teeth!
So that´s the summary of San Pedro...I would highly recommend either going straight to Putre for a real Chilean adventure, or if you must stop here, do the tours yourself, rent a car, or get on a bike for the nearby sites. Did get to catch a beautiful sunset on my last night there. Still appreciating being in the middle of nature and taking in all the beauty, but need to get away from the crowds.

Fun fact on logistics: because we are in one of the driest deserts of the world, the town shuts off the water around 8pm or so, at least in the hostals... so you better get your shower before (cold of course).

Off to Bolivia...to go see the biggest salt flat in the world...