Chile: Valparaiso, Atacama Desert & Bolivia
November 4 – 19, 2023
As our summer season was sadly coming to a close, Francis and I were looking at options to get out and away from the rain until winter arrives in the coastal mountains. We considered a variety of options as one does when travelling internationally for the first time with their partner, but we eventually settled on a short trip to Chile, using up the last two weeks of Francis’ yearly vacation.
Before everyone asks (since everyone did), no, this is not a climbing trip as much as we’d love it to be! We didn’t have time to wait 4 months for a weather window for Patagonia climbing, and although there are many beautiful crags and interesting rock throughout Chile, we didn’t want to find a place to store our expensive climbing gear when doing adventures that were not climbing. So for these two weeks.. just hiking and exploring!
Valparaiso
After landing in Santiago, we immediately boarded a bus to the coast, arriving tiredly in the city of Valparaiso in the early afternoon. This city is particularly known to tourists for it’s colourful art covering almost every wall, with many elaborate paintings and murals everywhere. After a quick check in to our hostel, we spent the afternoon wandering all these interesting alleyways, admiring a new piece of beautiful art at every turn.Â
Our hostel on the left 🙂
Looking down a pretty yellow street to the ocean!
After a few hours of wandering, we grabbed our first dinner in a local restaurant and settled down for an early bed time – still exhausted from travelling.Â
Food in this city is pretty luxurious, and the prices definitely match that. We assumed for some reason that Chile would be fairly cheap, and while being cheaper than Canada, it certainly has comparable prices for meals. That said, we had some lovely brunches, and I had the best Italian food I’ve eaten since actually being in Italy!
For our second and only full day in Valparaiso, we decided to check out some of the beautiful coastlines and head up towards Viña del Mar and Concon for some sandboarding! I’d read online that it’s a pretty chill walk to get to the dunes, and so we bussed out of Valparaiso to walk along the seawall. The busses in Valparaiso are entertainingly chaotic, going near full speed and hardly stopping as people jump on while running. They are as colourful as the city itself, filled with bright seats and fun stickers all over. The drivers seem to play their own tunes, setting whatever vibe they want as they speed through the city.
We successfully got the bus to stop for us, and jumped off to walk toward the beach. The seawall and beach walking was beautiful, and we enjoyed the changing architecture as we moved between city districts. However after a couple hours of walking, the sand dunes were still suspiciously far away. In fact, google maps confirmed it was almost another 12km before reaching the beginning of the sand dunes. We’d been seriously misled by whatever review I’d read! We decided to grab some lunch, and bus the rest of the way there. Thankfully busses are fairly cheap.
Once arriving at the dunes.. it was actually deserted (lol). We were practically the only ones there and there was definitely no sign of sandboarding anywhere. That said, it was still really beautiful, and we enjoyed sliding around the soft and very warm sand. Just as we were about to leave, we spotted a massive school of dolphins performing some huge flips out of the water! Although we didn’t get our sandboarding, it was still a worthwhile adventure.
Some ocean views
more ocean views..
Sand dunes and a view of the city
Looking the opposite way
Ridgelines along the dunes
San Pedro de Atacama
Now for the real adventure! Although the city was beautiful and it was fun to be somewhere new, we were most excited to get out of the city and head into the desert for some amazing landscapes. Our travel day was long and hardly worth writing about, but the moment we arrived in San Pedro we knew we’d arrived somewhere pretty special. Although it was the middle of the night, the town was quiet and felt really lovely and safe. We’d selected a hostel just outside of town called Aji Verde which was the only one with a pool, and we treated ourselves to a couple nights in a private tent with our own garden! It was so lovely and we crashed almost as soon as our heads hit the pillow.
Dinner in Calama waiting for our bus. Looks like a scene out of a movie!
Night bus to San Pedro
Our cute tent at the hostel
Our first order of business in the morning was breakfast and then exploring the town. I got lucky to stumble on the best bakery EVER, called Franchuteria, which was maybe even better than what we have at home! They have a lovely patio with trees and little birds fluttering around, and the menu consisted of fresh baked baguettes, pastries and coffee. Although it was a little more on the pricier side, we returned multiple times throughout our stay.Â
The town of San Pedro is bustling during the day, but pretty much only with tourism! Walking down the main street, there are mostly tour companies, which funny enough all have exactly the same offerings, for exactly the same price. Interspersed among these companies are a few restaurants and local shops for goods. We arbitrarily picked out a random tour company, and organized to have a laguna tour for that same afternoon. I knew that although these businesses are a tourist trap, it is definitely the easiest way to see some of the surrounding parks with very little effort, and support what seems to be a main part of their economy.
Franchuteria. Our favourite.
The town of San Pedro
San Pedro’s main square
The very very very cute resident cat in our hostel
By 2pm we were off in a sprinter van, cruising around the desert. Our tour guide thankfully spoke some English and he explained some of the natural history of these gorgeous salty lagoons. At the end of the tour was the real treat though: we got to swim in a lagoon so salty that our toes floated out of the water!Â
First of the lagoons, and our first flamingo sightings on the trip!
Crystal clear lagoon reflections..
Bathing in the salty lagoon! SO fun!!
The next day, we decided to tackle the Valle de la Luna. I say tackle, because it was a much bigger adventure than anticipated, totaling almost 40km of biking in the heat! The bike rentals were cheap from our hostel, and we set out in the early morning with full water bottles. This was my first time on a mountain bike, and the bumpy roads out of town had my giggling like crazy. I was so amped up for a day of fun and cool sights!Â
When we arrived at the entrance of the park, we were given a map with the route we could bike, and all the main sights to see. Unfortunately we couldn’t take any side trails with the bike since it’s a protected area, so we ended up biking out on the dirt road where all the tour busses drive. That said, it wasn’t so bad since there was almost no one on the road, and we enjoyed some beautiful expansive views with the wind in our faces as we headed into the desert.Â
Our plan based on the map was to bike to the end of the road, and then decide which viewpoints to see based on how tired we were. The bike ride ended up being around 7km each way, but the heat was so relentless that by the end of the road we were both almost out of water! This posed a challenge, and meant we had to take it somewhat slow and easy on the way back. We stopped at only a couple of the viewpoints, but found that was totally fine since we saw most of what we came to see from the road. By the time we got back into town, we were more than ready to down a liter of water each and hop right into the pool.Â
Me absolutely giddy when we rented bikes
Biking out on to the main highway. There really are not many cars here!
A seemingly endless stretch of road heading to the park.
Heading into the desert
Made it to the end of the road!
A salty section of the desert.
One of the viewpoints along the way
The long road out framed by Cerro Toco
Biking back out
Bolivia: Desert Landscapes & Uyuni Salt Flats
On recommendation from some friends of ours that had visited this area, an important part of our trip was to do one of the guided 4 day tours into Bolivia. These tours are surprisingly cheap with food & accommodation covered, and they take you all the way up to the Uyuni salt flats in 3 days, with a fourth day to drive back to San Pedro. We booked one of these tours through our hostel, and with a very early morning, we were picked up in a big van to start the drive to the Bolivian border.Â
Much to our surprise after dozing off on this drive, we awoke to a full on blizzard at the border! Apparently this is a rare occurrence, and staff at the border were pretty stoked about it. Thankfully I’d brought my warm puffy jacket! We went through a hilarious amount of checkpoints (I think we counted four?), before finally setting off into the Bolivian desert.Â
The Bolivian border. Lol!
The vehicle we transferred to in Bolivia thankfully has snow tires!
The loooooooonng drive began, on a very bumpy and washboarded road. There was some chatter among our small group, but I found it hard not to doze off despite so many beautiful things to look at. We stopped every 20mins – 1hr or so to see some beautiful views, and to get out, stretch our legs and take nice photos. It was a relaxing day overall, but by the time we got to the first hostel I had a pretty big headache from all the bumps. We also gained quite a bit of elevation on this day, passing into the 4000m range, and on Francis’ advice (who has some experience at elevation after Aconcagua), we drank lots and lots of water to offset the altitude sickness.
A stop at some hot springs with views of flamingo lagoons!
Very impressed with these expansive landscapes!
On the second day, Francis and I were feeling in need of some exercise before another long day of driving. Despite an 8am start time for the group’s breakfast, we decided to get up even earlier at sunrise around 5:30am and hike up the small mountain that overlooked the town we were staying in. I don’t think this peak has an official name, but for the sake of peakbagging, Francis found out from locals that they call it “Cerro Villa Mar” after the name of the town.Â
It was an easy hike, but with a starting elevation of 4100m, we slowed our pace down much more than we usually would. As we started up the road to the mountain, we were lucky enough to be joined by two very cute local doggies, who decided to take this opportunity to get a free morning walk! It absolutely made my morning watching them dart all around us in the tall grasses as we made our way up. I think most of my photos on this hike are of them, despite the views from the summit being really lovely.
Walking through the small town, our two little friends in tow 🙂
Francis wondering if they really are going to follow us all the way up!
Would you just look at that cute face???
Looking back down at Villa Mar
Omg can I take him home? Pleassssseeee???
After returning for breakfast with the rest of our group, we were given some time to explore the rest of the town while our guide figured out permits for the day. I’d spotted a valley that had so many llamas, and so we led our group up through the hills towards that area. It wouldn’t be a proper South America trip for me without llamas, so I was excited to finally see some wildlife!
A local llama in town!
His nose was as soft as a horse… I love him.Â
Llama valley right from town!
and the lady keeping watch on them
So here I am thinking this is the coolest thing ever, but my mind was about to be blown on this day. It was a full day of seeing cool rocks, and absolute llama paradise. Every stop was something new to see, and we saw so much wildlife that the smile hardly ever left my face.Â
First stop with a small “city” of rock formations.
So many shapes and textures.
Classic archway pose lol
Wish I had my climbing gear on this day! So many amazing cracks.
Next stop was Llama heaven.
They must be so happy out here!
The “hidden” lake
So pretty
Happy Llama 🙂
Our lovely group: we got so lucky with these people!
(In the back, L to R: Matthias, Cedric, me, Francis, and Rachel & Kate in front)Â
Of course the photos don’t do it justice but we were blown away by the expansiveness of this view and all the birds around!
What our guide called “Llamasutra” lol.
A typical part of the drive.. Straight through rivers in the 4×4!
Our final day on the Bolivia tour was spent exploring the Uyuni salt flats: which is the biggest in the world at almost 10,000 square kms. We started our day at 3am, driving out into the middle of the flats to catch all the colours of the sunrise. It started with stars reflecting off the thin layer of water, and we watched for hours as the colours changed around us, perfectly reflected under our feet. We were so lucky that the flats were even flooded at this time of year, and that there was no wind. We were able to see the perfect mirror effect that everyone dreams about, and it was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Our whole group was in awe and even after the sun rose, it was hard to leave the beautiful spot.
We had a quick breakfast on the flats, and then were given the chance to explore the “cactus island,” which randomly sits in the middle of the salt flats. It contains all sorts of coral, cool fossils and towering cactuses: remnants of a time when the entire area was under the ocean. It was beautiful, and very unique to be surrounded by an ocean of white salt, rather than blue water.
Our final stop on this day was to take the cheesy salt flats photos that of course you need to bring home as a tourist. With endless horizons, a popular activity is taking “perspective” shots where you can make anything look huge or small depending on where you stand. Our particular tour company’s logo is a person riding a toy dinosaur, and of course we all took turns doing so in an enthusiastic photoshoot with our guide. There were lots of laughs as he directed us all into silly poses to create funny looking photos. Some are just too silly to share but I will post one here for reference.Â
Breakfast with our fraaands
Touring the cactus island
The cacti are tall!!
Rachel looking out at the endless salt flats
Francis and I on the “summit”
Cacti and cacti and cacti!
The beautiful white salt flat
A silly perspective photo Francis & I took
Our lovely group!! We got so close to these folks spending so much time together, and it was hard to say goodbye at the end of the tour!
The drive back into San Pedro was incredibly boring. In a single day push, we did the same amount of driving that we’d done in the previous three days on the road. I made sure to come prepared with advil, and with my headphones on I managed to sleep through a good chunk of it. Back in San Pedro, we opted to return to the same hostel since we loved it so much, and we even convinced two of our new friends from the tour to switch hostels and come hang out with us!
When Cedric and Matthias arrived, they brought with them a rental car which allowed them to do a bunch of tours unguided. They took us out one evening to see a lovely sunset over the Valle de la Luna, and because we had our own vehicle, we were able to stay long after sunset when the tour busses left and enjoy a beautiful moonrise all to ourselves.
Matthias, Cedric, me and Francis at sunset
Looking over at Cerro Toco- lit up pink!
Soooooo many tour vans!!
Valley de la Luna at sunset
Light fading on the road back to San Pedro
Stopping to see the moon: a super cool inverted crescent shape
One of our final adventures around San Pedro was renting bikes again and heading north of town to the Diablo Valley. This cool bike ride took us through a slot canyon, where we really did get some real mountain biking. It was mostly uphill on the way there, and at the end of the trail we parked our bikes and hiked over to a summit Francis had found. Getting close to the summit though, I began to feel quite ill, and so sent Francis off to do the summit alone. He took off at a jog, clearly no longer phased by the elevation, and I watched him disappear as a little dot toward the summit. Standing in a small valley, I decided I wanted to get some views myself, so I hiked up a random hill to see what was on the other side. To my great surprise, I found a summit cairn, a clear indication that I’d accidentally found a summit of my own! I could see Francis over on his summit and I waved to him, but I don’t think he was able to see me. We met back down at the col, and had a fantastic bike back out through the canyon and back into town in time for dinner.Â
Francis biking into the diablo valley
Me on my surprise-summit!
Francis biking into the diablo valley
Me biking out of the valley: all downhill, I am stoked!
Going through a short cave section
A shady rest stop on the way back to town 🙂
Sunset around dinner time in San Pedro
Incredible pink sunsets for our last few days!
For the last few days, we really wanted to do some hiking, and we looked at many options for tours to take us to interesting volcanoes. However they were incredibly expensive for what they were: many were a few hundred dollars for them to take you up an essentially 4km walk. Eventually with some advice from our friends, we managed to find a reliable rental car company with decent prices which would give us much more flexibility in our options.
This turned out to be the best decision of the whole trip. With the roads all being unpaved even in the town, the rental company doesn’t particularly care where you drive, and it seems neither do the locals! Once you exit the San Pedro, the desert is totally flat, and you can essentially drive anywhere you want across the plains. We only had a 2WD vehicle, but this posed no issues for us as we drove right to the base of a few hikes over the next couple days. We joked that we could really drive to the summit of some of these mountains since the incline was so minimal, but of course we avoided that to preserve the local flora.
The hikes themselves were incredible. We were surrounded by volcanoes that probably had at least 800m of prominence each, and the desolation of the place was pretty wild: there was barely even a road you could make out despite being able to see well into the distance. The mountains were also super unique, and with all the volcanic rock, there were many beautiful succulents, crystals and stones to look at on the hikes. I was truly in paradise.
On the first day with the car we hiked two summits: Cerro Jorquencal and Cerro Mellizos. Both were fairly short, but it took us a full day with our snail pace at elevation. It was impressively hard to breathe up at 4800m, and I felt quite sick on the summit until we were able to come down again.Â
On day two we tackled only a single, but slightly bigger objective: Cerro Peña Negra: standing at a whopping 5200m elevation. The hike was only a few km long, but with slippery scree and low oxygen, we took our time again. It was also incredibly windy, and as gusts hit my face at full speed, it felt as though nature was slapping the air into my lungs. The final push to the summit was especially difficult, and at one point the wind was so strong that it actually swept up under my jacket and lifted me onto the summit. At this point we’d surpassed 5000m elevation, and despite being on the summit, I curled into a boulder out of the wind and began to cry. I’m not sure what it was about this experience that was so overwhelming, but Francis came over and gave me a little nudge, reminding me that there were LITERALLY 5 more steps to the summit cairn. We laughed at my bout of frustration, and finally pushed to the summit where we rested for a couple photos. It was so beautiful up there, and the images of that scenery will be imprinted into my mind forever. I’d never hiked above 5000m before, but I decidedly committed to memory that elevation is NOT for me. A very cool accomplishment nonetheless!
Day one: our “Geely Coolray” parked in the desert
Me heading up to our first summit: Jorquencal
Francis heading up to the summit cairn
Summit # two
V nice grasses..
Beautiful landscapes
Summit selfie 🙂
A typical “road” through the desert
Just randomly leaving the car anywhere lol
Pretty succulent 1
Pretty succulent 2
Views while on the hike up were incredible.
Hiking up, trying to hide from the wind!
Checked the map: officially my first 5000m!
Looking up at the summit block
Heading up to that summit block.
Francis and I on the summit. Triumphant / totally wind blown.
Francis waiting for me while I empty scree from my shoes..
(screw it, endless scree in my shoes, I’m going back to the car!)
This wrapped up our time in San Pedro de Atacama, and with our trip coming to an end, I felt quite sad flying back into Santiago. We had a full day to kill there just in case there was an issue with our flights, so we decided to find one last hike above the city. On recommendation from our friend Matthias who happened to be born in Santiago, we headed for a peak called Cerro Manquehue. I always find these types of hikes especially enjoyable, because sitting up on a peak overlooking a city as expansive as Santiago, you feel like you’re on top of the world.Â
This hike was easily accessible by transit, and was a very well marked trail with lots of locals heading up for some weekend exercise. We were surprised to see a group of horses grazing along the trail as we made our way up. Being back down at lower elevation after San Pedro, we were feeling much more energetic, and made it to the summit with no issues. There were some very cool glider planes circling the summit, and we stopped for awhile to enjoy the views and watch them fly by. Francis explained to me the mechanics of how other planes with engines drag the gliders up in the air and then release them, and right as we were chatting we saw it happen right in front of us!Â
After our lovely hike, we declined offers from the hostel to join some Santiago parties, and instead opted for a pizza and a good night’s sleep. The next morning, we flew out of Santiago.. sadly finishing our incredible trip in Chile.Â
Walking up from the bus stop, Cerro Manquehue is the leftmost peak in the back
Starting the hike on well travelled trail!
Horsies!
Token lizard
Pretty meadows 🙂
The trail near the top was soooo slippery with loose dirt!
Near the summit, so many cacti!
Looking back down over Santiago. A great way to cap off an awesome trip.