Adios San Pedro de Atacama: Excursions, Empanadas & Dogs

Five days in San Pedro de Atacama are over. Before coming, I was worried that spending so much time in a town of 2000 would leave me bored and restless. Instead, I was anything but. There were things (ok, tours) to do everyday, even back-to-back tours for those with deep pockets and a lot of energy.

On my first day, I did the requisite Valley of the Moon tour, basically a survey of the spectacular lunar landscapes not too far from town. This is also the most popular tour so different types of vehicles carrying various types of visitors (including an older Brazilian lady bearing an umbrella and an iPad to take photos on top of a sand dune) were on the same trail. Verdict: go with a small company, even if it's not the best (and certainly the most expensive) and you'll likely meet more independent travelers.

I took a chance with an agency run by a very beautiful artsy lady (straight of the Mission) with really cool hair, spoke perfect American-accented (and idiomatic) English, wore tastefully discreet tattoos, and who kept on calling me "sweetie". To top it off, she seemed to have a great nose job and the company's name was "Maxim Experience" (vs. Andino this-or-that, Blah-Desert-Expeditions, etc.). In other words, she stood out. Not exactly the best criteria for making a choice but I took my chances and didn't regret it.

San Pedro is straight out of a spaghetti western: narrow dusty roads, cantinas, huge friendly (but, yes, dusty) dogs (think Golden Retrievers, St. Bernards...) that roam freely, blocks of adobe buildings, wooden street lamps, the odd gaucho on a horse. I was half-expecting Clint Eastwood to burst out of a cantina. But since this is also a very touristy town, there's a North Face store, artisanal ice cream (ex: violet flavor), trendy restaurants w sophisticated menus that would fit right in Santiago. Needless to say, I opted for the freshly-baked empanadas from the small mom-y-pop grocery shops for $2.50 each.

The Atacama desert is also the best (the highest & driest) place on the planet to observe "outer space" and is home to the ALMA Project (http://www.almaobservatory.org/), the world's biggest astronomical project funded by NASA, Japan, etc. to listen to things that happen beyond planet Earth. The Europeans have their own station.

Naturally, I now also needed to look up - at night. I went on a star gazing tour with a resident French astronomer who had 10 hi-tech telescopes trained on different things out in space. Saw distant stars/celestial bodies and even - the best - Saturn and its rings! He also used a laser light to point out constellations, stars, the Milky Way (very visible to the naked eye) in the sky.

His explanations of scientific phenomena were simple yet profound. It was amazing. It was the kind of experience I wish I had when I was a kid. Brilliant.

Other highlights: having as a view from my hostel a volcano range with snow-capped peaks ringed with strange cloud formations, eating llama on a stick, chewing on freshly-fried empanadas, swimming and floating in a salt lagoon, hanging out at the best/most chill hostel having pisco sours, enjoying the very cool travelers' vibe in San Pedro.

Now, off to coast by the Chilean fjords in Patagonia.