Saturday 8th December
There is a major religious festival in Chile today. A huge number of people (hundreds of thousands) are making a pilgrimage to Lo Vasquez sanctuary between Santiago and Valparaiso to celebrate the feast of the immaculate conception. Many of those people make the journey in foot, and so they have closed the motorway. This does rather complicate our journey to the airport! Our departure from hotel Zero was brought forward by 2hrs, but we started the day with a feeling of doom with regard to long traffic queues and even longer queues at the airport.
This feeling was nicely over ridden by two things, firstly the stunning view from our window at sunrise and secondly, the hotel night porter who did a great job rustling up an early breakfast of huevos duros (hard boiled eggs), fresh fruit and great coffee as we admired the garden and bay bathed in the morning sunshine. We had expected a stale sandwich and maybe a biscuit or two, but he produced all of the above with a cheery smile!
Our transfer arrived early and we set off winding down to the centre of town. We suddenly remembered leaving a necklace behind so the driver kindly returned us to the hotel to retrieve it.
The journey started on the motorway but we were soon winding our way on backroads, up into the mountains and through low cloud. We emerged into sunshine and passed through vineyards, olive groves, and cactus plantations the fruits of which are known as ‘tuna’, all to the sound of Cat Stevens playing over the car audio system.
Once again the airport transfer was an enjoyable tour rather than a grim slog on a crowded motorway.
Santiago is a huge city, we pass many industrial areas, cement factories - I wondered where the ubiquitous concrete came from! There were acres of new cars, JCB and Massey Ferguson showrooms. We arrived exactly as Lat am had requested - 3 hours before take off (because of the festival...) and found the airport well staffed and much less busy than predicted so we got to the gate with no significant delay.
We therefore spent a quiet two hours chilling with Starbucks coffee and our books, listening to the incongruous-seeming Christmas music being played everywhere!
Once again the flight gave us spectacular views of the Andes mountains and salt flats/ lakes. Good advice to sit on the RHS of the plane.
Outside the airport building the heat hit us- thank goodness for air conditioned minibuses! The climate here is hot and windy - up to 30 degrees by day(occasionally 40!) and down to minus 12 at night. So this might test our packing skills!
Louis our guide explained that Calama is principally a mining town - producing mainly copper, with some lithium, potassium and zinc! The mines are visible on the distant mountainside above the roofs of the town. This is made up of hundreds of brightly coloured single and two storey buildings sprawling in this small area, surrounded on all sides by desert and mountains. It’s hard to imagine what life must be like for families living here.
The salt flats extend to the distant mountain ranges, punctuated by the occasional wind farm.
The 90 minute drive from Calama to San Pedro de Atacama was spectacular. A long undulating road a vast flat desert to either side. It looked incredibly inhospitable!
We approached the oasis of San Pedro, visible from some distance away, as a green area with trees amongst the rocky desert that surrounded it. On arrival San Pedro de Atacama we found a small town of single storey buildings made from adobe or mud and a dust road for a Main Street.
The Pueblo Kimal hotel is at the end of the Main Street. It comprises a collection of adobe mud huts with woven roofs connected by wooden walkways, along with a reception/ spa and restaurant/bar across the road at the main hotel. Our cabin is secreted away in a private spot at the back and the inside looks very different from the outside!
Outside we can see mud and straw walls with small windows and a stick roof. There is a raised shady area with a stick roof and a table and chairs. It’s far too hot to sit outside, even in the shade! Inside, unexpectedly, is cool air, a comfortable bed with crisp white linen, two armchairs and a bathroom containing and enormous jacuzzi bath!
After unpacking and changing into something more appropriate to the climate, we ventured out to explore.
The hotel has a spa and two small shady pools which looked so inviting! It is all very peaceful with the sound of the small waterfalls falling into the pool and the leaves of the trees rustling overhead.
Back at our hut we sat for a while looking at maps and guides and our itinerary. A bar nearby was playing great happy music. They started to play ‘Mambo number 5’ by Lou Bega and we leapt up to dance to one of our old favourites .... only to be surprised by the maid, dropping by to tidy the room!
We sat on a small terrace near the pool for a delicious welcome pisco sour and then wandered down the dusty main street, having bought a meat empanada for lunch. The local bar was packed and lively, if a bit grubby...
There is a huge variety of shops here - you can buy artisan jewellery or textiles, technical clothing and yoga wear, more sophisticated ceramics and paintings, and all sorts in between. The streets are crowded with locals wearing dusty caps and boots, middle aged travellers like us, in trekking shorts, walking sandals and Tilley hats, and young hippies / gappies with dreadlocks, piercings and body art, and loose rustic style clothing. There are also the local dogs lolling everywhere, fat, friendly and happy looking.
We picked up some bottled water and cherries from the market - apparently the tap water contains traces of arsenic!
Back at the hotel we went for a quick swim in the unheated pool before testing out the jacuzzi bath and ejecting most of the bath water onto the floor!
Dusk falls earlier here and came on very rapidly as we are now on the Tropic of Capricorn!
We were spoilt for choice when it came to restaurants for dinner. We had no personal recommendations and remain sceptical about the usefulness of tripadvisor.
In the end we opted for the busiest restaurant and one that we had heard mentioned. The Adobe restaurant is set in a lovely open courtyard with table set around a central fire pit, which was blazing well. We were shown straight away to a table between the fire and the window and ordered some beer. After our empanada we weren’t very hungry but struggled once again with the Spanish menu. It’s relatively easy to translate the words for each of the components of a dish but very hard to visualise the nature of the finished meal. It didn’t go well tonight and we ended up with three plates of unfamiliar food all at once, none of which we particularly enjoyed. To make matters worse we were completely unable to communicate other than by shouting/sign language due to the arrival of the four piece pan pipe band who struck up with a fast, loud, tuneless and vigorous version of ‘The Boxer’. Between them they managed to play two guitars, the pan pipes, a whistle, a large drum and a set of cymbals. The latter were a couple of feet from our table and the energy and enthusiastic clattering of the percussionist almost made our teeth rattle.
We clapped and smiled and tipped them, but the ambience of our previously mellow evening was irretrievably changed and we had forgotten what it was that we had been trying to talk about!
Back on the street, ears still ringing, we wandered along, people watching, before returning to the hotel where reception were able to supply us with a cup of peppermint tea to take to our room - excellent! Sometimes it’s quite nice to act our age...