Weekend Guide: San Pedro de Atacama
The Red Jacket Weekend Guides are quick itineraries on how to make the most of your short time in a specific city or region, without breaking the bank. From the best sights and the tastiest restaurants, you can trust RJT Weekend Guides to provide you with the best possible experience.
San Pedro de Atacama
San Pedro is a town literally built out of the desert. It frequently runs out of water, there is no fertile land to grow crops nearby, and it frequently fluctuates between oppressive heat and bone-chilling cold. However, this little town persists because of the absolutely gorgeous natural beauty within 100 miles of it and I guarantee you won’t be bored during your time here because of everything to do here.
The Weekend Guide for San Pedro is different from previous weekend guides because many of the activities are through organized tours that you pick and choose the ones to do. Normally, I try to avoid tour travel, but it is a necessity in San Pedro (with limited exceptions) and it will enhance your experience as the guides are quite knowledgeable about the sights you go and see and speak English and Spanish.
Day 0
Most tours in San Pedro have to be booked either the evening beforehand for a morning tour or the morning of for an afternoon tour. The good news is nearly every tour agency and hostel in San Pedro (along with both ATM’s in the town) are located along the main Caracoles Street. So, the night you arrive, be sure to go out and “window shop” for a tour company for the Alpine Lakes and Salt Flats Tour. The tourism industry is very interconnected in this town too, so it could be possible to book a tour through your hostel.
Day 1
Tours in San Pedro start of early, so you’ll most likely leave your hostel between 6:30 and 8:30am. The first tour I recommend you do is a Half Day Alpine Lakes and Salt Flats tour, which will take you first to about 14,000 feet above sea level where you’ll see pristine lakes inhabited by birds and vicuna (an undomesticated llama), which really makes you think about how life really does find a way to survive. Also take notice of the snow on the ground when you’re up here and that, although this is one of the driest places in the world, precipitation does occur. Be sure to bring cash because you’ll need 5,000 pesos to get into the park.
Next, the tour will probably take you down to around 8,000 feet where it feels like you’ve entered a new world in about a half hour. The snow-capped peaks and crystal-clear lakes are traded in for gigantic salt flats and a flock of flamingos. These flamingos are probably the most surprising thing about this entire tour. Imagine driving for about a half hour in this absolute desolation of a salt flat, when all of a sudden, you park, walk for a little bit, and this flock of flamingos just appears in a small brine pool near the trail. It’s simply incredible and quite a juxtaposition.
After the salt flats, the half day tour will drop you back at Carcoles Street or your hostel around 1-2pm. Take this time to rest, avoid the midday sun, and then between 4 and 5 pm, your Valle de la Luna tour will leave, also picking you up from your hostel.
The Valle de la Luna, or Valley of the Moon, is an absolutely incredible place that you simply have to see to believe it’s real. It’s called the Valley of the Moon because it actually looks like the moon, something you’re just going to have to take my word on (or look at these photos). Be sure to bring cash on this tour as well, because you’ll need to pay another entrance fee to get into the park.
Anyways, the Valle de la Luna tour will last until after the sun sets, as the entire reason you’re at the Valle de la Luna is to watch the most incredible sunset you’ve ever seen (and may ever see in your life). Some tours mainly spend time in the van and cover more ground on the moon, but my tour went on a hike. If you can, I recommend going on a hiking tour because it’s a lot cooler to see a place like the Valle de la Luna on foot, and you feel like R2-D2 and C-3PO walking through the Tatooine deserts.
Regardless of which tour you do, your guide will let you out and allow you to enjoy the beautiful sunset over the moon. The binary sunset theme was going through my head the entire time (as you can see, I was in a very Star Wars-y mood when I was there and writing this guide). After the sunset is done, you’ll head back to San Pedro, where you can prepare for another fantastic day tomorrow.
Day 2
More adventure awaits in San Pedro de Atacama on your second day here. You’ll wake up fairly early again and head out to the Valle de Marte, translating to the Death Valley or Mars Valley (it depends who you ask), for your sandboarding tour. Another 2,000 peso entrance fee was needed to get into the park, but it was only a 10 minute drive from the entrance gate to the big dune for sandboarding. Even if you’ve never been before (like me!), I guarantee you will enjoy yourself and have an absolutely fantastic time.
Sandboarding, in my opinion, is easier than snowboarding, even though it uses the same general motions. Unlike snow, sand has a ton of friction, so unless you balance in the middle of your board, you’re not going anywhere. Also, when you fall (and you will fall), there’s a nice pillow of sand to catch you! Just be prepared to get sandy and leave any valuables in the van.
After your epic sandboarding adventure, take a shower and explore the town for some lunch. San Pedro is small and touristy, but there are plenty of restaurants to check out and try with your new hostel pals that won’t break the bank.
Next, you can either relax at the hostel, or rent a bike from a shop on Caracoles Street and check out Pukara de Quitor, the ruins of an ancient indigenous fort overlooking town. Although the bike ride is only a mile in each direction, it’s a bit difficult because of the rocky and sandy terrain, but that shouldn’t discourage any red jacket travellers from trying it. Pukara de Quitor is a cool place to see how people built a thriving civilization here long before San Pedro ever existed.
The bike ride should take about an hour to an hour and a half total, which means you’ll have time to rest, grab dinner, and then bundle up for an incredible night with the stars. Sometime in the evening, between 8 and 10:30pm, you’ll get picked up and head out to a compound 10 miles outside of town with telescopes and a small spread of snack foods, hot beverages and wine. San Pedro and the Atacama Desert as a whole is one of the prime interstellar viewing places in the world. The lack of precipitation means a lack of cloud cover, plus the high altitude and little civilization leads to some of the clearest skies in the world. Many of the world’s largest telescopes are built here, including ALMA, a joint astronomical observatory between Europe and six other international governments that contributed to the first ever photograph of a black hole, which was recently released.
At your stargazing tour though, you won’t use anything as powerful as ALMA, the telescopes you do use will provide some incredible views of extraterrestrial objects both inside and outside our solar system. The coolest thing you’ll see though has to be either four moons of Jupiter and the famed “Red Spot” or the rings of Saturn. Let me say that again, the skies are so clear that you can not just see features on a planet 500 million miles away, but objects orbiting that planet. Seeing the rings of Saturn and moons of Jupiter will absolutely blow you away and provide a fantastic end to your two days in the Atacama Desert!
