The weekend after Pucon, we got to go to San Pedro de Atacama with CIEE. SAn Pedro is in the north of Chile, and its technically the driest desert in the world. To be honest I was expecting a place like Tucson, but it was so much more desolate than Tucson. There were hardly any plants at all (but there are specific animals that live there: alpaca, condors, flamingoes, etc).
The town is this really interesting deserty, adobe, indigenous looking town (except that now its VERY touristy). But it was still very quaint and beautiful (and dry)! The first night we all had dinner together at Cuna restaurant (I would suggest it to anyone, very tasty).
The first full day we had in San Pedro, most people went on a bike ride to see some ruins (which I heard was really great), but I chose to take it easy because I was feeling sick. Jennifer and I spent the whole morning exploring the town and we made two great Peruvian friends. They both had tourist shops, but we were able to talk to them and it was really exciting to just learn about them and hear their opinions.
Later we went to La Valle de la Luna, which is a part of the desert that is so interesting and strange looking (but entirely natural made) that it looks like the moon. It was amazing! We got to see the sun set to which was so beautiful. Then that night we went to an observatory and looked through telescopes to see all teh stars. We saw the surface of the moon, saturn and yellow, blue, and red stars. It was really neat but VERY cold.
The next day we went to salt flats that had 3 different species of flamingoes. Salt flats, to be honest, are not very interesting. Then we got to go to a more secluded indigenous village, where i met an indigenous woman who invited me to her little shop and house to pet a baby alpaca!!
Later that day we went sand surfing! It was difficult and fun and also interesting becuase we ended up veryyy sandy!
One really great thing about SAn Pedro was that there were some really fun restaurants that had outdoor seating with fire pits.
I would suggest to anyone to got to San Pedro!
