Sunday 9th December
Last night was a restless night- maybe the heat or altitude - 2400m. The room was a nice temperature and the bed comfortable but we felt as if we were sleeping on a heap of pebbles in a furnace / fridge. Accordingly we started today feeling grumpy, couldn’t find our belongings, faffed about a lot, muttered about hot, dusty, dirty deserts and generally found fault with everything, including the perfectly decent breakfast!
We started the day with a cup of coca mate tea, hoping that the combination of green tea and coca leaves would a)wake us up and b)help with altitude sickness.
Our salt flat tour pickup was at 8 am - our hearts sank and the grumpiness reached an all time high when we saw the 20 seater tourist minibus on the dusty road outside...
Then we met Diego our guide and Louis our driver and everything changed! Such huge smiles and the impression that they had waited all their lives just to meet us!
Firstly they explained that we were the only clients for the day - so it was effectively a private tour, and the lovely spacious air conditioned bus was all ours!
Louis spoke no English but spoke very slowly in Spanish so that we could understand him pretty well. He had a remarkable appearance - olive skinned and slim with a neatly trimmed grey beard and wearing chinos and pale blue oxford shirt, he had striking pale grey / blue eyes. The kind of man you immediately know that you can trust. Diego was younger and bespectacled. A former sand board instructor from Santiago, he had a couple of degrees in sustainability and geology and a masters in everything to do with Atacama and how to be a tour guide. As thin as a stick, he ate almost continuously throughout the day and encouraged us to do the same. (See later!)
As we drove along we can across a group of llama beside the road. All llama are domesticated animals and these were a friendly bunch, each bearing a small ribbon, coloured tag, or necklace, some with bells. We assumed that these were similar to stock identification markers at home, but no, they are a traditional decoration based on an old legend whereby the llama, in return for eating all the flowers, offered to carry flower heads around its neck to encourage pollination / seed distribution of the local flora.
First stop Toconao - a small village of only 1200 inhabitants. We were taken to the square, built of volcanic rock. It’s old bell tower has a cactus wood door bound together with llama leather.
Also in the square was a small market selling local produce including some delicious apricots which we tried and bought. Likewise there was a heap of dried herbs that could be used to make tea. The other stall sold some properly handmade woollen goods - lovely rustic lumpy hand spun wool, knitted into socks, hats and gloves, none of which we wanted to buy but loved looking at. Their irregular texture was entirely consistent with the long hard cactus spines that she was using to knit with! (As I type this, I still regret not buying the tiny pair of baby socks that she had made!)
We drove on to the next village, passing on the way several groups of vicuña, the smallest member of the camellid family. They look docile but can run at speeds of up to 50kph, which would mean that ancient man would have to be very wily in order to hunt one down!
These are a protected species in Chile, but in Argentina it is possible to buy the fleece of these lovely wild animals - it sells for about $1000 per kg!
We also saw a single suri - the Andean ostrich - standing in the pampas and its large chick lying nearby.
Then on to Louis’ favourite empanada shop to pick up a snack before proceeding to the salt flat. These were freshly cooked whilst we waited, and Diego tucked into his first (probably second) breakfast of the day.
The Atacama salt flat is 4th largest in South America covering 9000 sqkm. Water from the mountains travels through aquifers and arrives in the Andean depression carrying salts and minerals from the volcanic rock. This evaporates leaving concentrated solutions calcium carbonate, potassium chloride, and sodium salts contaminated with arsenic! The salt flats have their own ecosystem with salt tolerant grasses.
The salt crusted ground is very toxic - if you were to touch it or stand on it bare-footed for a few minutes human skin would shrivel and dehydrate. Nevertheless this place is home to a number of creatures, including the Andean fox, the Atacama locust and dozens of beautiful iridescent dragonflies which were fluttering everywhere.
The salt lakes host many birds including 3 types of flamingo - Chilean, Andean and James. They feed on Crustacea inc brine shrimp filtering them out of the water as they walk forward or stamp round in circles! Theses brine shrimp can live in salt water that is ten times more concentrated than normal sea water. They reproduce continuously in order to sustain their population as they seem to be the main food source for every bird here!
The Andean flamingo is the most common and has a distinguishing black tail. The Chilean flamingo is more rare and is all pink. The James flamingo is much smaller and rarely seen. We watched dozens of the Andean flamingos walking slowly through the shallow salty water, disturbing the sediment with their webbed feet, and then using their cleverly designed beaks to filter out the brine shrimp for eating, and the excess salt for disposal in a special gland under their beak. Several took off and flew past, quite spectacular in flight with their long necks, bright pink underwings, and their long gangly legs trailing behind. Suddenly we spied two Chilean flamingoes / strikingly different, being all pink and looking like a child’s toy! The flamingoes look very pretty and vulnerable but are able to survive in temperatures down to minus 30 and are unattractive to predators as they only weigh about 2kg and so don’t make much of a meal. There were also lots of sandpipers, puna plovers, Andean gulls and avocets. It seemed odd to see these familiar looking birds at home in this strange and hostile environment.
Another resident is the Fabian lizard, striped greenish grey and darting everywhere between the rocks.
Shortly after getting back on the road, as Diego was kneeling up in the front seat, facing backwards towards and describing the local geology, we spotted something over his shoulder in the distance. It was a large bird of prey, possibly a condor.
This caused incredible excitement between the driver and guide. The bus screeched to a stop and both men leapt out and ran to the top of the nearest sand dune. We followed, to admire through our binoculars what was now clearly a condor. It circled overhead displaying its familiar black and white plumage and distinctive fingertips, before drifting off over the salt flats. This was clearly an epic moment for Louis and Diego, so we loaned them our binoculars and took some photos.
This condor was of great significance to them both. Louis has had only seen a condor once before, and that one was in captivity. Diego had not seen one here since he started working as a guide 5 years ago. The word ‘Wow!’ needs no translation.
We drove on through areas where there had previously been a lot of volcanic activity. The fumaroles of the Lascar volcano remain active and send clouds of ash into Bolivia or Argentina every few years. The last major eruption occurred much longer ago but the long strips of grey volcanic flux were clearly visible.
We then climbed higher into the mountains to more salt flats and two beautiful lakes - Meñiques and Miscanti - that hosted more flamingos, horned coots, Chilean teal and widgeon.
It turned out that the condor sighting was a very rare occurrence in this area and the guide even got the park ranger to take a shot of the camera screen as proof! This was not just an interesting and enjoyable sighting, but also suggested the possibility of environmental change. Only recently an Andean cat (thought to be extinct) had also been spotted nearby. There are also many traditional Andean legends about the Condor, seen as the link between the earth and the sky (eating carrion on the ground, hatching it’s young high in the mountains) and it seems to be associated with good luck. It certainly elicited a very positive response from both Diego and Louis, who after careful thought announced in English ‘This is a special day!’
Lunch was a late stop at a roadside cafe. We airdropped our photos of the condor and of the two men watching the condor and they were delighted! Qinuoa soup, beef in sauce with rice and a tiny lemon meringue tart!
Then we drove back through all the scenery back to the hotel for a cold drink and a much needed quick dip in the icy pool.
By this time of day, with Diego’s encouragements, we had eaten a large breakfast, a cheese empanada, a meat and olive empanada, a banana, a toasted cheese sandwich, some apricots, some soup, stewed meat and lemon meringue pie.... Chile seems to be a country of large appetites, late nights and early mornings - exhausting!!
Late afternoon, we went for a walk up the Main Street, browsed in some of the bazaars and bought more water. The only bar that we really fancied had a wild haired accordion player manically manipulating his squeeze box at high volume, and the only remaining table was... so we opted for a pisco sour by the hotel pool in an oasis of calm!
Tonight we decided to eat late (see above!) and to go for a restaurant away from the tourist trail! Having been a bit disappointed with the touristy restaurants on the Main Street we found a good website ‘Authentic food quest’ that promised something more interesting. We found it, and were delighted to see it was only a 3 min walk away on the outskirts of town. The web site did also admit it was hard to find! Following google maps directions - despite arriving at the indicated location - there was no sign of restaurant Baltinache! We returned to the hotel disappointed, but on reaching wi-fi found the apple maps route was in the opposite direction! When we finally arrived on the outskirts of town this time, we found a small inconspicuous door in an adobe wall, and we were there!
Baltinache is a small place which serves ‘indigenous fusion’ food. The chef, Marta is a Mapuche, (the native population from Chile). Her husband César, is from San Pedro. He greeted us warmly in Spanish, handed us drinks menus and disappeared. Moments later he was replaced by a charming handsome smiling waiter with excellent English - apparently he had spent a couple of years in Vancouver!
There was no menu. We were given two choices to choose from based on the season and availability.  The cuisine was creative and simple, using local fresh ingredients.
We started with the local speciality - Pisco Sour Rica-Rica made from Pisco brandy prepared with the aromatic local plant it herb Rica-Rica.
We started with a seared salmon with sesame and soy appetiser, vegetable soup with toasted nuts or an empanada, followed by pork ribs with local potatoes or conger eel with chickpea mash and chillis!
Dessert was egg custard with seeds or fig tart. It was all delicious and such a welcome contrast to all the expensive poorly prepared tourist menus on the main drag!
We waddled back to our mud hut for peppermint tea, followed by another restless night!