Atacama and Patagonia, part 1: The Atacama Desert.

Driving through Reserva Nacional Los Flamencos.

Rather than muster up forced cheer during Mila's first birthday, D and I decided to get out of Dodge this holiday season.  We spent two and a half weeks in Chile and Argentina, avoiding the big cities and instead rolling into remote towns sitting alone among vast deserts and on the doorsteps of Patagonian national parks at the end of the world.

It was beautiful.

Sunset over Valle de la Luna.

After several hours of travel and stops in Phoenix, Dallas, Santiago, and Calama, we began our journey in the Atacama Desert.  The Atacama Desert is a 600-mile long plateau west of the Andes, consisting of active volcanoes reaching 20,000+ feet in elevation, rich copper mines, salt lakes, sand dunes and canyons, and packs of guanacos and vicuñas.  It is the driest non-polar desert in the world, with some areas getting less than a hundredth of an inch of rain each year.  We stayed in San Pedro de Atacama, a tiny town perched on the cusp of becoming a serious tourist destination.  It sits at 7,900 feet in elevation, is filled with adobe buildings and packs of very polite stray dogs, and has beautiful pink sunset skies.

Flamingos in the Tara Salt Flat lakes.

The daylight hours were long.  We spent them driving down two-lane roads and across roadless desert expanses to visit the Monjes de Pacana and marshy lakes of the Tara Salt Flats; biking against the wind in the shadow of the volcano Lascar to float effortlessly in salty Laguna Cejar; and listening to the cracking and shifting, quieter than the wind, of the unstable sand structures in the barren Valle de la Luna.  Besides some domesticated llamas, a few vicuñas, and an affectionate ranch donkey, we saw precious little life.  We'd bike for miles along dry roads and pass a lone tree, the sole shady oasis for miles around.  The wind would whip plumes of sand into our exposed arms and legs, and we'd later find grains crunching between our teeth and in our ears.  We ate a little bit of the Moon Valley.

At Valle de la Luna.

In the evenings we'd relax and catch up on the internet and sometimes TV before a late dinner.  While we were in the Atacama, The Colbert Report aired its last show.  Knowing it was ending made me a bit sad.  Last December and January, watching Stephen Colbert was one of the very few things that made me feel more normal.  For a long time nothing could really make me laugh, but sometimes the show got me to crack a rueful smile, and I could feel it helping to settle and rearrange the disarrayed things in my soul, just a little bit.

Once the sun went down we'd head into town to eat pollo asado and drink piscolas, and looked up at the moonless sky.  As our eyes adjusted to the darkness, the high, clear, dry atmosphere opened our view to an eternity of stars, clusters, comets, and planets, spread as if with a liberal hand from horizon to horizon - a nightly reminder of how small we are, and how huge and encompassing the space through which we move.

The starry southern sky.

Related posts:
First birthday.
At the end of the world.
Atacama and Patagonia, part 2: Torres del Paine.
Atacama and Patagonia, part 3: Argentina.
Atacama and Patagonia, part 4: Our trip in lists.