Once you have frozen for a few weeks, you are happy to finally come to San Pedro de Atacama. The city is at "only" 2400 meters, so deep was not since Arequipa. It is located at the north end of the Atacama Basin, also a damn dead, salty, dry place, though not as huge as the Salar de Uyuni.
From here you can marvel at a large number of magnificent volcanoes, which line up at the borders to Bolivia and Argentina. With the appropriate wallet (Chile is almost twice as expensive as Bolivia) you can climb almost all of them.
There is so much to do here that I stayed longer than planned anyway, for example:
- You can rent a bike and do a tour north of the city to Catarpe. If you like, you can drive over a few kilometers a narrow gorge, which ends in the end in a pure mountain bike challenge. And at the charming little San Isidro in the middle of nowhere.
- You can visit the Valle de la Luna. I just can not get enough of crazy desert landscapes, canyons, rocks. In addition, at sunset was a top light again to marvel at the Licanbur (which I already found so great at the Laguna Verde from the northern point of view).
- Southbound and Argentinean border (past the active volcano Laskar), the volcanic landscape is particularly impressive. Even after a dozen other lagoons, the lagoons Miscanti and Miniques are special there! And there are really many vicuñas there.
The city itself is touristy, but at the same time super likeable, to which contribute atmospherically the single-storey houses, to a good extent of clay (also the beautiful church).
Paired with lots of sun and heat and a super social hostel with kitchen, the days here are a little holiday in itself.
