In the north of Chile, a small adobe and peaceful village: is San Pedro de Atacama. If you are like me, never heard of this small town, put it on your bucket list of South America trip first. Then, continue to read my story of this lovely tourist town! It will probably completely blew your mind!

San Pedro de Atacama

Some General Information

San Pedro de Atacama locates in the north of Chile and 98 kilometers from Calama (the nearest city with airport). It is a base for travelers who want to explore Atacama Desert and its surroundings.
The Atacama Desert spans about 41,000 square miles. That’s somewhere between the size of Tennessee (41,220) and Ohio (40, 953). It’s over 600 miles long, but only about 60 miles wide.
The Atacama is the driest non-polar place on the planet (the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica are the driest). The average rainfall in Atacama is less than an inch a year, even in the wettest spots.

San Pedro - the Lovely Adobe Tourist Town

I showed up to San Pedro de Atacama at the end of my 3-day Salar de Uyuni tour. I was exhausted and honestly did not feel like exploring a new place. The only reason I even stopped through San Pedro was because of its convenient proximity to the airport in Calama, which could get me to my next stop of my South American trip, Santiago for cheap. I found myself a hostel and booked 2 nights there planning to just to relax before flying to Santiago. However, latter I found out this magical town totally blew my mind! This area is one of the most exciting places to visit in Chile with so much to offer from its incredible landscapes, saline lakes, high-altitude geysers, softly smoking volcanoes, lunar rock formations, tons of outdoor activities to explore and rows and rows of restaurants and bars! It has really all for everyone.

The town’s streets are dirt, and its houses adobe. The streets are occupied with restaurants, cafe, bar, craft stores and tour agencies. Its central area is very tiny but very peaceful and enjoyable to walk around. Probably have some drinks along the way to avoid the deadly afternoon sunlight. My friends from Phoenix, you know what I am talking about!

A Millionaire in Chile

Let us be straight. Chile is an expensive country for travelers, especially for budget backpackers like me. San Pedro is even above the Chilean standard! Maybe to emphasis the feeling of being expensive or to make you feel rich, they have HUGE bills…The exchange rate is 1 USD to ~815 Chilean pesos. So the first day I exchanged 300 USD dollars in turn I got a quarter of a million cash in my wallet?! Poor me, I was only able to count within 1000 in Spanish. I thought that was enough for me and proved I was wrong!

Tours and Activities

There are so much to do from San Pedro, from Atacama desert saline lakes, high-altitude geysers, softly smoking volcanoes, lunar rock formations to Salar de Uyuni. For outdoor adventurers, you can go sandboarding, 4×4 quads rides, mountain/desert biking, hot air balloon tour etc. For independent travelers, you can rent a car and have your own adventures in the area. Or for layback travelers, there are plenty of tour agencies for you as well.

Coming from Salar de Uyuni, I was done with salt flats, colorful lagoons, and geysers. Also, I did not want to torture myself under the deadly sunlight hiking/biking in the area. Yes, I am an Asian vampire! So I signed up for three guided tours in the area. All of them turn out to be SPLENDID!

Valle de la Luna

Remember the Valle de la Luna park in La Paz? Compared to this moon valley in San Pedro, La Paz’s park is just a toy!

Valle de la Luna Chile is located in the heart of the Cordillera de la Sal (Salt Mountain Range) in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. The valley includes 87,000 square miles (140,000 square km) of protected land under Los Flamencos National Reserve.

Known as Moon Valley in English, the valley gets its name from its otherworldly rocky environment. Wind and ancient water erosion over thousands of years have molded the salt, sand, and clay into strange formations that look like the surface of the moon. These rock formations combined with giant sand dunes make you feel as if you are not on planet Earth.

This was a half-day tour. We set off at 3:00 p.m to the Moon Valley! With a short-ride, we were dropped off at our first stop, the Big Dune trailhead! Although it was just a total of ~3km distance for round trip, it was somewhat difficult to finish it in a hour! You are hiking in the desert in a very hot weather! But the views were wonderful! OK, again, friends from Arizona, compared to landscapes in Arizona and Utah, also latter to Sarah, it was not that UTTERLY STUNNING. It was my first time to climb and see such a big sand dune.

After the big dune, we stopped at several other view points in the moon valley. Here is how ‘moon’ may be look like.

Our tour ended with viewing the sunset in the park.

Lagunas Escondidas - Let’s FLOAT

The Lagunas Escondidas de Baltinache (Hidden Lagoons of Baltinache) are a relatively unknown spot near San Pedro de Atacama. There lays a series of dazzling blue lagoons surrounded by shimmering crystals of salt. HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS TOUR!!!

It was another half-day tour started at 2:00 p.m. After an hour of driving on curvy and unpaved roads, we arrived the entry of the park, where we had the chance to change our swimming suits for the float! Then we followed the track that will take us by the lagoons that form this wonderful landscape.

The trek is completely made of salt, though looks like walking on the sandy beach.

The beautiful colors of the lagoon and crystals of salt!

Among the seven lagoons, you can go swim, or to be more actuate, FLOAT in two of the lagoons. Yes, FLOAT! The amount of salt in the water (400 grams per liter) creates the flotation effect like the Dead Sea. The water is relatively cold, at about 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius), but in the burning desert Sun, it feels refreshing. First check out the beach!

Among seven lagoons, only first and last are allowed to swim. Hold your instinct plunging into the first lagoon. The last one is much bigger and fun to swim! Also, you can take your chance for the first lagoon on your way back. You do not want to wear the salt layer on your entire body after the float and walk back and forth the trail. So here we come the floating time!

The much smaller first pool:

The bigger last pool:

And this is the extra salt layer on the skin all of your body after the float! But you will have the chance to take a quick shower at the entry before heading back to San Pedro.

This tour ended elegantly with a panic of wine, pisco sour, ham and cheese in the sunset! The best tour for me in San Pedro!

Disclaimer: not that the wine and pisco made me to rate this tour so high, but definitely they made a difference!

Stargazing Tour

Atacama Desert is the driest non-polar place on the planet making it the best place for stargazing! If stargazing is on your bucket list, plan your days in advance. Avoid full moon! Many stargazing tour do not operate for a six day period around the full moon. And according to my guide, the best time is new moon in winter. But it will be freezingly cold at night there!

So there are lots of agencies offering stargazing tour in San Pedro. The best is SPACE. They have the largest park of telescopes of any public observatory in south America (between 20 and 72cm diameter). If you want to take their tour, you’d better to book online in advance. Their tours, especially English tours, are fully booked EVERYDAY! Reservations are normally made online or at their office in San Pedro days/weeks in advance. Without reservation, your only chance will be visit their office after 3 p.m. to see if there is any open seats without payment for that day. I went there at least twice and luckily got one spot for the English tour on their last operation day before November’s full moon!

Why they are so popular? Check out their HUGE telescopes!

They have about 15 telescopes in the observatory. Although that night moon was very bright, I saw many stars including the Saturn with its rings, the most brilliant planet, Venus in the night sky, couple of star clouds. And I took a picture with my camera of moon using one of their telescope!

Extra Information on Tours in San Pedro

Costs

Lagunas Escondidas: 20,000 CLP (~24.5 USD) ~6h tour time, transport, entrance ticket, and picnic included
Valley de La Luna: 10,000 CLP (~12 USD) ~5h tour time, transport and entrance ticket included
Stargazing with SPACE: 25,000 CLP (~30 USD) for 2.5-hour tour everything included

Other Tours

For Valley de La Luna and Death Valley, you can rent a bike and have your own independent tour. Note, biking under the sunlight and in the desert area is quite demanding!!!

There are other tours to geysers, Chilean salt flats, volcanos etc. if you are interested.

For the saline lake, another popular spot is Laguna Cejar and Ojos del Salar. The two are commonly combined in one tour and you can also try floating in the salt lake in this tour.

Lastly, you can sign up Salar de Uyuni tour from San Pedro. However, the price may be higher than if you start from city of Uyuni.

Many more left for you to explore!

Food in San Pedro de Atacama

Yes, there are plenty of restaurant options in San Pedro. For my personal tastes, I did not really enjoyed the Chilean food :( In my opinion, even worse than Bolivian food, since the price was SO HIGH compared to other South American countries, almost close to eating out in the U.S. For the price I paid, I was not satisfied with the taste. Most of the dishes were quite bland and all pork had boar taint?! Why can’t you Chileans import some meat from Argentina and also learn how to cook meat from them?! Oh, one good thing was finally the Chilean rice tasted like real rice not the plastic ones!

While I had my own reserved opinions on their food and restaurants, many tourists seem to enjoy the food. Mostly importantly, at least they all have very good atmosphere! Things got even worse as I continued traveling in Chile. I believe I shredded some weight off in Chile :(

Note: the following meals were mostly the cheaper options on the restaurant menu!

Meal One: Asian Stir Fired Noodles (6050 CLP/~7.5 USD)