The Bolivian Winter

After 3 nights in Purmamarca, time to hit the road again. Off we go to San Pedro De Atacama, a place almost all travelers we’ve met have told us great good; so we are looking forward to this stay, one of the longest of out South trip since we have decided to stay 5 nights!

ROAD 52 TO CHILI

 The road goes along a 'plateau' at over 4,000m

 and crosses Salar Grande

At the boarder

What we had not encountered for was the Bolivian Winter! This is a particular climate that hits this region almost every year and that can last for a couple of days to a few weeks and it means big storms and heavy rain falls. The town gets flooded and streets turn into rivers! We’ve already given some details of our hectic arrival in San Pedro in our previous post.

Next morning, the sun was back, as well as hope! We went into town to check with the visitor center on the latest updates. Situation was not bright: all sights around San Pedro such as Taito Geisers, the Altiplano, Los Flamancos… were closed by the authorities until further notice. Because the rain had taken a section of the main road, buses could not come in or out of the town.

Ghost town

The atmosphere was quite odd, and because more rain was announced by the end of the day (3 times stronger than first night according to the weather forecast), all tourists were looking to ‘escape’. Only 4 wheels drives could get out of town and travel tours were turning into ‘bus operators’ and were selling tickets to get to the nearest town (Calama) for 15,000 pesos (normally doesn’t cost more than 3,000 pesos!). Only one cash distributor remained open, and you had to queue for one hour to get money!

Given we had booked our room for the next 4 days, we decided to stay, crossing fingers that the situation would get better. We bought a few reserves for dinner (including awesome mangos and peaches), and back we went to the hotel for this upcoming ‘apocalyptic’ night. We ended-up doing our first ‘pyjama’ party of the trip: the candles and the movie definitely outweighed the thunderstorm and the rain outside. The kids loved it, and we too!!!

For the next few days, we settled down and organized our days the best we could. First thing we would do is to check with the travel tour on sight openings. As everything remained closed, to the great joy of the kids (;-)), we focused on home schooling. For lunch, we found a great little restaurant, La Casa Piedra (our little ‘Estancet’) where we got our habits!

In the end, it was actually nice to slow down and get to know better the town and the people. The hotel that we were not thrilled at first, ended-up to be quite nice. The locals who seem distance at first are actually friendly.

This time out also gave us the opportunity to meet with 3 French people from Nice, (Andre, Helene and we forgot the name of the last guy L). They had been retired for a few years and have been travelling across the world. We enjoyed their stories of African treks and other Asian adventures, including the true story of Pepito, a ‘home pet’ elephant somewhere outside Bali.   

All in all, a very positive experience. And happily enough, we were able to have a full day visit on our last day where we discovered the Altiplano, the Laguna Miscanti and Miniques, the Atacama Salar and Los Flamencos national reserve.

Town of Toconao

Town of Socaire

 Altiplano

 Laguna Miscanti

 Salar De Atacama

Los Flamencos natural reserve

We also got to learn more about the local legend of Atacama Volcanos which we will share with you;

“ A long time ago, two brothers, Licancabur and Juriques (represented by two volcanoes) fell deeply in love with Kimal (represented by the mountain just behind San Pedro De Atacam. This is the only mountain in the region, all other mounts being ‘Male’ volcanoes), a women from their tribe. The brothers’ fought for their love and one day Licancabur (protector of San Pedro de Atacama) shopped his brother’s head off, hence the flat Juriques volcano.

Lascar, the father of the two brothers (the most active volcano on the Altiplano) and the chief of the tribe got mad and decided to banish Kimal. Hence Kimal was sent on the other side of the Atacam Salar, facing the two brothers. Kimal was actually in love with Juriques, and loosing her lover made her cry all the tiers of her body, which explains the Atacama salted desert. She died not long after of sadness.

It is said that once per year, on the 21^st of December, the sun will set just behind Kimal mountain, projecting Kimal’s shadow on Juriques, joining them for eternity!’ 

 Licancuabur (5,916m)

 The brothers, Licancuabur & Juriques (5,704m)

View from the Salar

THE END