Ancient home to the Atacameño people hundreds of years before the Spanish, or even Incas arrived, the oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama is now home to adventurous travellers from all over the world.
San Pedro, 2,400m above sea level, has no private buildings higher than those pictured above, and almost all are made of adobe [mud and straw] brick and separated by mud streets and crumbling walls.
San Pedro's raison d'etre is it's proximity to some very special sights, the most spectacular being the Tatio [El Tatio] geysers, about 100 kms/62mls away, The Valley of the Moon [Valle de la Luna, 14kms/9mls] and some parts of the adjacent salt lake [Salar de Atacama]. Due to the amazing clarity of the Atacama's night sky and lack of light pollution, star gazing is also a special and popular activity.
San Pedro itself harbours a couple of attractions: a chunky 17thC church sporting a cactus wood ceiling and the Museum of Archeology, a fine collection of well documented artifacts illustrating pre-Spanish societies.
San Pedro is totally about tourism and offers an excellent selection of accommodation [more sophisticated than the exteriors may suggest] and restaurants, though prices are not low, internet connections are poor and some local tour operators little more than quasi-legal bandits. Try to check with other travellers on the most worthwhile sights and how best to see them before offering your wad to anybody with a 4WD vehicle. We have done our best to illustrate what we think are valid sights, though we make no claim to be perfect - we get lost, frazzled and impatient too.
San Pedro possesses no airport so flyers must land at the less than attractive mining town of Calama, 100kms away on a fine road. Unless you have an urge to see a truly massive hole in the ground at Chuquicamata [tours to the the 4km long, 700m deep open-cast copper mine can be taken] or your flight arrives very late there is little reason to suffer in Calama.
Many overlanders also bus into San Pedro fresh from Argentina, Bolivia or Peru. Or are on their way there...
Duration of stay: It would be possible to see El Tatio and the spectacular altiplano/mountain scenery in one day and do the Salt Lake and Valley of the Moon in another, though that would be rushing it, particularly since you may need to acclimatise for two or three days in San Pedro [2,400m] before heading for El Tatio [4,500m]. 4,500m is quite high enough to squash your eyeballs into a different shape and starve you of oxygen so you go wobbly and/or nauseous, thus making the expensive and magnificent trip into an unpleasant endurance contest.
Perhaps spend two or three days doing the Salt Lake, the two valleys and whatever else takes your fancy before venturing up to El Tatio's heights. i.e. Four days is a prime number.
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