Atacama Desert - family trip

2014/04/30 - 2014/05/05

April 30: Sao Paulo - Santiago; Santiago Zoo, Astrid y Gaston Restaurant
May 1: Santiago - Calama - San Pedro de Atacama
May 2: Valle de La Luna, Valle de La Morte, Cejar, Toconao, Salar de Atacama
May 3: Salar de Aguas Carientes, Salar de Tuyaito, Laguna Miscanti, Laguna Miniques, star gazing
May 4: Geiser de Tatio, Puritama, City of San Pedro de Atacama
May 5: San Pedro de Atacama - Calama - Santiago - Sao Paulo

家族旅行でアタカマ砂漠へ！サンチアゴで一泊した後、飛行機で移動。個人ツアー込みのアワシ・ホテルに滞在し、アタカマガイド歴10年のパトリシオさんのお世話になりました。誰も高山病になることもなく、楽しかった！

エリア サン・ペドロ・デ・アタカマ(チリ)

• 旅行の満足度: 5.0
• 観光: 5.0
• ホテル: 5.0
• グルメ: 5.0

• 同行者: 乳幼児連れ家族旅行
• 航空会社: ラタム航空 ラタム チリ
• 旅行の手配内容: 個別手配

First day at Santiago; Santiago Zoo

You can see the animals VERY close.

Astrid y Gaston Santiago

tiradito

grilled octopus

chifa dish

Day 2: Calama Airport

98km to San Pedro de Atacama (1 hour by car).
Our guide, Patricio, picked us up at the airport and took us to the city.

On the way to San Pedro de Atacama

Awasi Hotel (http://awasiatacama.com/) - Reiais & Chateaux

Too cold to go in! It should be heated...really!

Day 3; The check point to the Moon Valley (Valle de la Luna/月の谷) - 15 km West from San Pedro de Atacama (15 min.).

Check point to enter the Moon Valley, which is a part of Reserva Nacional Los Flamencos.

The Moon Valley

salt...

You can hear the salt cracking sound day and night.

Las Tres Marias (3人のマリア)

"Dinosaur" Valley

Valle de la Muerte

「死の谷」かと思いきや、この地を旅したフランス人神父は「火星の谷」と名付けたかったとのこと。（現地の人には、Marsが、Muerteに聞こえたそうです。)

Laguna Cejar: This is part of Salar de Atacama. (South of San Pedrdo de Atacama). You cannot sink these lakes that have 30% salt concentration. These few lakes here are the only lakes that you can go in.

死海とほぼ同じか濃いほどの塩分を含むセハール湖。プカプカ浮いて沈めません。冬は寒いですが、試す価値あり！（午後は陰になるので避けるべし）

From Cejar, we went back to the hotel for lunch.

Day 3 afternoon: 15:30 Toconao Village - 38km South from San Pedro de Atacama. Population, 1000. We visited one of the houses.

We could feed lhamas.

Corn is one of the main crops of Atacama people.

Salar de Atacama - Laguna Chaxa (アタカマ塩湖チャクサ湖)

You can see a lot of white rock salts.

Only the brine shrimp live in the lake, and the Flamingos come to eat them. There are three kinds of flamingos in this area; Chileno, Andino and James. We have seen Chileno (grey legs and pink tale) and Andino (yellow tales and black tale).

Flamingos fly more when the sun is setting down.

With the sun setting, the mountains change colors; from pink to purple to gold...

We went for star gazing from 9pm. It was freezing cold, but VERY beautiful. 360 degree, dorm shaped sky with milky way and shooting stars. With telescope, we saw star clusters and Saturn...Ignacio even offered wine! nice...

Day 4: 9:30am, on the way to high-land. We drove to South East for 2 hours. From the car, we saw the lhamas on the way to the river.

Socaire Village - the last village before the Argentine border. 120km from San Pedro de Atacama. Population, 200.

Golden field of Cairon plants. They appear around 4000m high.

Salar de Aguas Carietntes

Salar de Tuyaito - super windy, and it was difficult to stand still!

Back to Salar de Aguas Carientes for picnic

Picnic lunch near the Salar de Aguas Carientes.

Vicunas crossing...

野生のビクーニャ、この界隈にもたくさんいるようです。

Laguna Miscanti (Left) and Laguna Miniques (right) with Miscanti mountain. Altitude: 4100 m

Miscanti Lake and mountain

We got a flat tire! Patricio fixed it at the 4100 m high..poor thing!

Vicunas in front of Lake Miscanti

Mount Miniques and Lake Miniques.

vicunas

Day 5: 6:00am, leaving for Geiser de Tatio (タティオ間欠泉) before the sun rise. 90 km North of San Pedro de Atacama. It is 4300 m high.

We arrived the Geiser at 7:15. Perfect timing. The sun is rising, it is around - 10 C, and we can see the vapor very well. According to Patricio, around 10am on, you can see just the hot water splashing out.

The water on the ground was frozen.

But the water inside is boiling from the heat of the magma. Because of the water has a lot of salt, the temperature is higher than 100 C.

Patricio is preparing breakfast...scramble egg, hot coffee, toast, and cold cuts...pretty amazing!

Wet land

Machuca Village - the highest village (4000 m) with 14 people.

Machuca lake always has flamingos...

Puritama (3400m high, 30km from S. Pedro de Atacama) has 8 pools around 30 to 33 C, and we can take a bath in 7 of them. We tried two. It is nice inside, but cold outside!

The pools are at the bottom of the valley.

This area has cactus. They are not the kind that give a local fruit called Tuna.

Back at the hotel around 2pm.

These dolls are used as a napkin holder at the hotel.

Chilean stew.

Quinoa risotto.

Around 4:30 pm, we went to check out the city.
S. Pedro Church.

Mail box and a dog. There are many dogs around the town.

Central Market; we bought quinoa pops, magnets, some dolls...

sun set

The last night at Awasi Hotel.

The last day; left for Calama airport. We continued on to Santiago - Sao Paulo.