Saturday, December 31, 2016

San Pedro de Atacama

We arrived in San Pedro de Atacama yesterday following a short 2 hour flight from Santiago. This is a small dusty town, full of tourists. At 2400metres above sea level, it is the world's driest desert at altitude. This altitude gave us our first souvenir- a mild headache. However this passed quickly with medication and today we are fine.
Our 2 year old hotel is a 10 minute walk from the Plaza, down mostly unpaved roads. When the wind blows and cars pass on the road, we are covered in our second souvenir!
Looking beyond the tourist trappings, it is a tough life here in the desert. Irrigated crops of fruit & vegetables are grown in the valleys & we will see this tomorrow on a full day tour. The landscape is the main attraction with volcanoes as far as the eye can see. When the sun goes down the temperature drops immediately. As it is a dry heat we are not finding 29 C unbearable!
I have done a little sketching in the plaza. We have also visited the amazing meteorite museum and I am coming home with a small piece, cut, polished & set in a necklace. This makes me feel like an extremely
 small speck in the universe!


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