DAY 34 - TO EL NORTE : SANTIAGO TO SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA

Already excited to be going north, I haven't expected the aerial views of the Andes to be so spectacular.  It's a foggy day in Santiago so that the city, which sits in a bowl surrounded by the mountains, disappears very quickly.  The Andean peaks look as though they're lapped by the low cloud

with the crests giving way to the continuous stretch,

with pools, and villages in clefts or dips,

sometimes dusted or streaked with white.

Even some solar panels on the odd flat expanse

On arrival at Calama airport

we pick up our hire-car and set out 70 miles,

to San Pedro de Atacama

a rather dusty (and overly-touristy for my taste) but pretty town with traditional adobe walls and town square next to the church. It sits at an altitude of 2400m, between the desert and altiplano, on the edge of the Salar de Atacama salt-flats (of which more tomorrow) and Valle de la Luna (next day hopefully) but meanwhile here's a little of S.P.d.A.

  

(and its inhabitants!)

and welcome to our home for the next three nights ...