SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA

January 10, 2026

Eltoconar Atacama
San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

Chilean Route 5

After leaving Cerro Pintados, we continued south, passing more geoglyphs along the way. The land was devoid of life, although we saw more scrubby trees growing in certain places. We followed Chilean Route 5 south for 200 kilometers before turning east on Route 24 and beginning to climb. Quickly, we began to see tufts of grass and small shrubs. We even saw one animal that must have been a guanaco. We climbed towards the top of a ridge and suddenly came to a complete stop behind a long line of cars. 

                                                                                

Road Closed for Blasting

We stopped at 14:50. When we had not moved by 15:30, we asked another traveler who had walked to the front of the line what was going on. She told us there was construction and the road would be closed until 17:00. We got out and walked up to the barricade, where we discovered that they were blasting. The sign said the road was closed from 12:00 to 17:00, Monday through Thursday and Saturday. Being Saturday, we were stuck. The traffic started moving about 16:05, shortly after we returned to the car, but we did not get far before we stopped again and waited until 17:00. We crept over the ridge and still had another 100 kilometers to go before we reached San Pedro de Atacama.

The Road to San Pedro de Atacama

Before we left Cerro Pintados, we had used their Starlink to message our accommodation to let them know that we would arrive between 17:00 and 18:00. I told them that we probably wouldn’t have signal during our drive. I had downloaded offline maps while we had signal, so we proceeded to the location indicated on Hotels.com. The gate was locked and, when Sally squeezed inside, she was told that it was a private residence. We had no signal, so we drove around the area and asked a couple of people, but no one had any idea where to find Casa Turis. We didn’t have a signal, so finally gave up and returned to the town of San Pedro de Atacama, where it was nearly impossible to park. When we finally managed to park, restarted our phones, and got signal, I called. No one answered my call or text on WhatsApp and, while the number was on WhatsApp, it did not appear to belong to Casa Turis. We finally had to give up and book another accommodation, ironically practically across the highway from where Casa Turis was reputed to be located.

Eltoconar Atacama

Eltoconar Atacama was not easy to locate, either, but we did find it behind a large, unmarked gate. The room was basic, but new, spacious, and comfortable. We had bought a bottle of wine on the way and finally settled down to munch on bread and cheese and enjoy a glass of wine. It was 21:00 by the time we settled in and we were quite glad that it didn’t get dark any earlier than that.

January 13, 2026
Hotel Andalucia
Arica, Chile

The Plaza in San Pedro de Atacama

We got up the next morning and drove into the center of San Pedro de Atacama to find some breakfast. We ate in an unassuming place right off the parking lot where they brought us three fried eggs and a large hunk of the local bread, along with hot milk with instant coffee to put in it. Sally had found us a nice hostal with two bedrooms for the same price as our motel room, so we decided to move. To fill the time between breakfast and check-in time, we explored the plaza, bought a few trinkets in the artisan market,

This Church Burned Three Times

checked out the church, and compared travel agencies. We ended up buying a package of four tours for 100,000 Chilean pesos (about $110.) The package included a tour of the Valley of the Moon, an astronomy tour, an early morning tour to El Tatio geysers, and an afternoon tour to the lakes of the Atacama Salt Flats. This seemed like a good, if busy, way to fill our two days in San Pedro de Atacama.

The Church in San Pedro de Atacama

After spending some time enjoying a cool drink in the plaza, we drove out to our new hostal and checked in. Hostal Don Felix was very nice and we were able to spread out a bit. At 16:00, the tour van arrived to pick us up. It was very hot and we were in shorts and sleeveless tops. We had told the travel agent that we had a car and would want to change to warm clothes before the astronomy tour and would drive ourselves into town because the astronomy tour ended at midnight and they wouldn’t be bringing us home.

Hostal Don Felix

Everything went alright, at first. We enjoyed the tour of the Valley of the Moon. Disney had filmed The Mandalorian in the dunes there. The Valley of the Moon is located in the Cordillera de Sal. When the Andes and the coast range where uplifted as two tectonic plates collided, the soft layers of salt in the interior basin folded dramatically, creating the red rocks of the Cordillera de Sal. It is easy to see the layers of sediment that were deposited when the area was level. Harder layers created ridges like the spines on a dragon’s back. The wind sculpted dunes were a different color because the sand had actually been blown there from the Domeyko range. We climbed to the top of the largest dune to survey the scenery and take pictures. We were blasted with blowing sand. From there, we could see another formation that looked like an amphitheater.

Dragon Spines

Dunes in Valle de la Luna

The Amphitheater

Salt Crystals

Our guide took us to an old salt mine where we could hear the salt crystals cracking in the afternoon heat. Then we visited some fanciful eroded rock formations that resembled things like a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a cat with a frog on its back. Finally, we stopped at a scenic spot where we were served pisco sours and a nice buffet of appetizers. We did not return until 20:30. This was a problem because they were not going to take us back to our hotel. Our travel agent had not told us this. We lived a few kilometers outside of town and needed to change and get our car before the astronomy tour began at 21:00.

The T-Rex

As soon as we had learned we weren’t going to be taken home, we had contacted the agent. We had no way to get home at midnight without our car and would have been cold in shorts, outside, in the desert night. We had originally been told the Moon Valley tour ended at 20:00, so we thought we’d have time to change and drive into town. We attempted to problem solve with the agent, but she stubbornly refused to help, not even allowing us to postpone the astronomy tour until the next night. She insisted that all tours had to begin with a pickup at our hostal, even though we begged to be allowed to meet the tour somewhere in the center of town. Then she stopped answering and went home. We were livid. Finally, we abandoned the idea of going to the astronomy tour. We couldn’t even find a cab to take us home and ended up walking for an hour on unlighted roads in the dark, not arriving home until after 22:00.

No sooner had we arrived home, than I received a message from the tour company taking us to the geysers in the morning. They were happy to meet us at the spot where we had been dropped off at the end of the last tour. We were not happy with our travel agent.

January 14. 2026
Comarca Valparaiso
Valparaiso, Chile

El Tatio Geyser Field

The next morning we got up at 3:30 so as to meet our driver at the Plazoleta Apacheta at 4:40. We picked up a few other passengers and then drove for about two hours up into the Andes, arriving at El Tatio geysers about 6:30. The sun was just coming up about the time everyone returned from the toilet stop.

The Geyser Field

The El Tatio geyser field is the third largest in the world, surpassed only by Yellowstone in the United States and the Valley of the Geysers in Kamchatka. Located at 14,170 feet (4320 meters), El Tatio is the highest geyser field in the world and features abundant eruptions, although none of them are very tall and we only saw one that was predictable. Geysers form when water interacts with the magma below and begins to boil. If the steam is not constricted, only a hot spring will form. When constricted, the steam will build up pressure until it blows. El Tatio has eighty active geysers, although most are quite small. There are also many fumeroles releasing steam. The geysers are most active and visible in the early morning hours, hence our painfully early departure.

Colorful Mineral Formations

El Horno

El Jefe

Sunrise at the Geysers

Our guide, Robinson, walked us around the field, offering explanations in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and English. The most common nationality of the tourists we met was Brazilian. We visited geysers with names such as “The Shell”, “The Oven”, “The Old Man Crying”, and “El Jefe.” Despite suffering from overtourism, the site was still impressive. The dawn over the Andes, combined with the steaming geysers, was memorable. While I am not a fan of video, I couldn’t resist taking videos of some of the geysers. Each was unique and many had created strange and beautiful mineral formations.

Fearless Andean Gull

Vicunas at Breakfast

Our guide was operating as both guide and driver and seemed a little scattered at first, but he was very knowledgeable and we gradually came to see that he gave us a better tour than the other guides. After the geysers, all of the tours stopped somewhere to serve a nice breakfast buffet. Robinson drove us farther into the wilderness than the other guides and we got to eat breakfast in the company of vicunas and an Andean gull that showed absolutely no fear when begging for food.

As we descended towards San Pedro de Atacama, we stopped to look at flamingos. Farther along, Robinson became very excited when he spotted a rare Andean condor. We stopped to watch it fly and I managed to capture it with my camera. Between that stop and the village of Machuca, we also saw wild burros.

Andean Condor

Chilean and Andean Flamingoes

Wild Burro

The tour stopped at Machuca. We were only supposed to stop for fifteen minutes, so we didn’t have time to visit the church. Unfortunately, some of the members of our tour went, anyway, so we were stuck there for over half an hour. Vendors were selling grilled llama meat. Having eaten a lot of llama and alpaca in Peru and Bolivia, I wasn’t interested.

We got some more great shots of flamingos at another lake down the mountain, including some of flamingos in flight. We were quite late in returning, but the time had been well spent.

While on the geyser tour, I had managed to communicate with our travel agent, asking if we could meet our afternoon tour at the plazoleta where all the tours ended (and where we had parked our car.) She told us it would be better if we met at the tour company office, which was fine with us. We ate a pizza across the street and had plenty of time to arrive at the office by 15:00.

One of the Ojos

Ducks at Los Ojos

We drove over the Cordillera de Sal we had visited the day before and out into the Salar de Atacama (Atacama salt flat.) Our guide, Tomas, first took us to Los Ojos, two twin freshwater sinkholes that were interconnected. Back in the 70’s, someone had accidentally allowed a car to roll into one of them, polluting the water. Today, ducks have returned, indicating that the water is once again clean.

Lago Tebenquiche

Stromatolites at Tebenquiche

At Tebenquiche, we went for a short walk along the shore of the salt lake. This lake contains the formations know as stromatolites, believed to be similar to the first life on earth.

Lizard at Luguna Cejar

Laguna Cejar

We then visited Laguna Cejar and Laguna Piedra. A nice park has been developed beside these lagoons.  It offered a shaded viewing platform at Laguna Cejar and beautiful showers and dressing rooms at Laguna Piedra so that visitors can easily float in the extremely salty water that provides extra buoyancy. Swimmers are only allowed to stay in the water for 20 minutes to avoid burns from the salt water.

Floating in Laguna Piedro

The water was cold, at first, but felt good on a hot day once we got used to it. We encountered a woman named Coral that we had met the previous day in the Valley of the Moon and had our pictures taken with her. After showering and dressing, Tomas took us to a spot with a little shade and served us pisco sours and some nice snacks. They returned us to the plazoleta near where we had parked and we were able to drive back to our hostal and fall into bed.

January 15, 2026
Comarca Valparaiso
Valparaiso, Chile

We were up at 5:30 and left San Pedro de Atacama before 7:00. We did not want to get stuck in another highway closure. We drove as far as Calama and then stopped for gas. We considered looking for breakfast, but just ate the last of our cookies and kept going. I was the driver and we had 700 kilometers to cover. I drank half a bottle of flat Coke Zero and pressed on.

We Couldn't Resist a Selfie

There were a couple of stretches of unpaved road where we had to wait for flagmen, but the road was open. We got over the mountains without incident and turned north. Sally was on the lookout for a restaurant. There are almost no services along Chilean Route 5. There was one roadside restaurant that serviced tour buses, but no one was around and the locals told us it wasn’t very good. We took a selfie with a humorous sign and continued on. We had driven for about six hours by the time we reached Pozo Almonte, just shy of the turnoff for Iquique. We stopped there for lunch. Sally had an egg and cheese sandwich that could easily have fed two. I had soup, a very nice butterflied chicken breast sauteed in garlic, and a pile of spaghetti that would have fed a family of four. I was incredibly thirsty and downed a bottle of Coke Zero even though I don’t like the stuff. Then I was awake.

Restaurnat in Pozo Almonte

Back on the road, we passed the turnoff for Iquique and headed for Arica. At the Mirador Chiza, we stopped to admire some very clear geoglyphs. The road ascended steep hills and then dropped into deep canyons. The only vegetation was in the oases in the bottoms of the canyons where water ran down from the mountains.

Geoglyphs at Mirador Chiza

We reached Arica about 17:00 and stopped to refuel the car. Our little diesel Citroen had been amazingly efficient. We returned to the Hotel Andalucia, drank the last bit of our bottle of wine, and retired early.

ARICA AND IQUIQUE

January 6, 2026
Hotel Andalucia
Arica, Chile

View from Our Hotel in Arica

We got up at 2:00 in order to meet the 2:40 Uber that would take us to the Santiago airport. We had a 4:24 flight to Arica. Everything went smoothly and we landed in Arica shortly before dawn. By the time we got some coffee and picked up our rental car, it was 8:30. We drove straight to our hotel where we had arranged to leave our bags until the 14:00 check-in time. The scenery was desolate and the neighborhood of our hotel on the edge of town was rather unattractive. Nothing in Arica opened until 10:00, so we arranged to eat breakfast at the hotel, made a reservation for a tour to Parque Nacional Lauca the following day, and set off to do a little sightseeing.

Indistinct Geoglyph

We drove twelve kilometers out of town to look at the geoglyphs on Cerro Sagrado. There was a small parking lot and well marked path at the first stop, but the geoglyph was not very distinct. We climbed a long way up a hill to view it and were more impressed with the parched and desolate landscape. The main activities seemed to be gypsum mining and the cultivation of tomatoes in large, dust-coated shade structures. It was difficult to see the geoglyphs past the fences and shade structures lining the road.

Early Chinchorro Mummies

We continued on to San Miguel de Azapa, where the university had established a small but excellent archaeological museum to house the world’s oldest mummies from the Chinchorro civilization, some of which were 5,000 years old. The oldest ones were quite elaborate, with the flesh being removed and the bones wrapped in vegetable fibers and then coated with clay, painted black, and finally adorned with a mask. It is speculated that these mummies may have been kept around the house to include them in daily life. The mummification process changed over time, with the most recent ones having simply been wrapped in fabric and dried in lifelike positions. The climate and mineral content of the soil served to preserve them. Even miscarried fetuses were mummified and buried with their siblings.

Later Chinchorro Mummy

The museum was located on a former olive plantation and the olive grove and massive tool used to press olive oil were also on display, along with Chinchorro, Aymara, and Inca artifacts.

Olive Crusher

On our way back to Arica, we took a fruitless drive through Alto de Ramirez and then stopped along the road to snap pictures of some of the clearer geoglyphs.

Geoglyph of a Llama in Azapa Valley

Geoglyphs of Humans and Llamas

El Moro in Arica

Upon our return to Arica, we aimed to drive to the top of El Moro, but ended up at the former island and fort of Alacran, which is now a lighthouse and has been connected to the mainland by a causeway and breakwater that forms a sheltered anchorage for pleasure boats. We walked around the island and then stopped for a seafood lunch in a waterfront restaurant on the way out.

Fort Ruins & Lighthouse at Alacran

Pleasure Boats Anchored at Alacran

Although we were dragging, we left the car in a downtown parking lot and walked around downtown Arica to see the Cathedral San Marcos and former customs house designed by Gustav Eiffel. The cathedral was more elaborate than the Eiffel church in Santa Rosalia in Baja California, but the side panels were very similar. Both had been prefabricated in Paris. The customs house was a stone building and the only ironwork was a canopy over the front door.

Cathedral San Marcos by Eiffel

Arica Customs House by Eiffel

We explored the main shopping street. We were in need of money, but most of the Chilean banks would not accept our ATM cards and the Scotiabank ATM was out of order. The currency exchange places had all closed before we got there.

It was nearly 17:00 by the time we returned to our hotel and we were quite ready to relax and retire early.

January 7, 2026
Hotel Andalucia
Arica, Chile

None of the tours of Parque Nacional Lauca that I had seen on the internet were running on the day we needed to go. I had almost admitted we were going to have to make the 3.5 hour drive 4500 meters up the Andes in our own car when we spotted a flier at our hotel. The guide was willing to take us and the price was about $45 less than the other companies.

Our guide, Freddy from Suma Inti Tours, picked us up promptly at 6:30. There was only one other passenger – a young woman from Belgium. We headed towards the Peruvian border and then made a right turn to follow Chilean Route 11 uphill towards Bolivia. Route 11 is the main truck route between Bolvia and the port of Arica. Trucks toiled up the steep and narrow highway at a very slow pace, requiring cars to pass in maneuvers that would have scared my socks off had I been driving.

Oasis by the Rio Lluta

We followed the Rio Lluta, which flows from Lago Chungara (the world’s highest lake) down through the world’s driest desert to Arica. Arica gets its water from wells, but the river water is used for agriculture along the Oasis Rio Lluta and the Valle Azapa. Onions, garlic, and corn are grown in the oasis. The contrast between that greenery and the completely lifeless mountainsides is striking. There is no rainfall at all in that area and the slopes are smooth because no rain means no animal trails and no gullies. The only erosion is from wind, which tends to fill imperfections with blowing sand. There were geoglyphs along the southern slopes, but the light was too dim at that hour to see them.

Candelabro Cactus

We climbed steadily. The sun cleared the peaks about the time we reached the zone where enough rain fell to support a type of cactus called candelabro, a cactus with a straight trunk topped by a wild tangle of snakelike branches. We stopped to take some pictures.

Freddy Imploring the Sun

Freddy was ethnic Aymara and insisted on teaching us a traditional love song in Aymara. He sang nearly the whole way up the mountain. At the Pukara Copaquilla overlook, we stopped to implore the sun to give us good weather by making an offering of alchohol and coca leaves. Freddy dressed us in colorful ponchos and led us in a short dance. The vegetation became gradually more abundant as we climbed. We were passing through the zone where guanacos (a larger, wild relative of the llama) roam, but we never saw any. We could see the town of Putre below us. Soon, the volcanoes of Parinacota and Pomerape rose above the horizon and we started to see vicunas (a smaller, wild relative of llamas.)

Pomerape and Parinacota

When we glimpsed our first flamingos, we had to stop. We took a short walk towards the laguna where the birds were feeding and were lucky to see vicunas and vizcachas (a large rodent related to the chinchilla) along the way.

First Flamingo Sighting

A Vizcacha

Our next stop was Lago Chungara, where we saw Andean geese and were fascinated by the large, taguas gigantes that were nesting in the lake. The adults continued to add aquatic plants to their nests while the juveniles watched. The scenery was magnificent. We could see other volcanoes across the border in Bolivia, including one that was smoking. We stopped at two viewpoints but were prohibited from walking along the shore between them because a wrecked truck had leaked fuel into the lake and a clean-up operation was underway. Men in hazmat suits were using neon orange absorbent booms to remove the diesel from the water. We really enjoyed watching the birds and even saw an Andean egret, which Freddy had never seen there before.

Tagua Gigante Nest with Juvenile

Lago Chungara and Volcan Parinacota

Egret at Lago Chungara

We turned around at Lago Chungara and headed back towards Putre, stopping to take pictures at Tambo Cotacotani, a picaresque series of lagoons. Our next stop was the abandoned village of Parinacota, where we visited a church constructed in 1700. The highway followed the route where silver was once transported from the mines of Potosi in Bolivia to the port at Arica. Today, ore travels by train and everyone has moved to the cities in search of employment.

Tambo Cotacotani

Vicunas at Tambo Cotacotani

The Church at Parinacota

The church had a roof made from the wood of the scrubby local trees, lashed together with llama rawhide and then covered with grass. Inside, there was a table chained to the wall. Legend has it that the table used to wander around the town. Supposedly, the table appearing in your doorway was a harbinger of death. The people chained it up in the church to protect themselves.

Parinacota Church Interior

Baby Alpacas

Newborn Alpaca

Between Parinacota and Putre were pastures full of llamas and alpacas. We came across one baby alpaca lying in the middle of the road and saw others playing. One had just been born and could barely walk.

 

Lauca Canal

Putre Plaza

Putre was once a thriving place, but now is occupied by only about a hundred people. We stopped there to eat lunch and drop off our fellow passenger to planned to stay there for a few days. After lunch, we wandered down to the square, which was still decorated for Christmas. We passed the Lauca Canal which carries water to the olive groves of Valle Azapa where we had been the day before. The banks of the canal were planted with colorful flowers.

Our last, quick stop was at Poconchile where the Church of St. Jerome was built in 1680. Behind the church was a fascinating cemetery where colorful mausoleums bordered the churchyard like miniature apartment buildings.

Cemetery at Poconchile

Closer to Arica, we passed several groups of geoglyphs depicting humans, llamas, pumas, and condors. They were easier to see from the highway on the other side of the valley than they had been from the road to San Miguel de Azapa because the fences and shade structures along that road had blocked our view. We were able to capture clear images of them.

Geoglyphs Near Arica

Geoglyphs of Humans, Birds & Puma

It was 18:00 by the time Freddy deposited us at our hotel. We were somewhat brain dead and didn’t have the energy to go in search of dinner. After eating my last peach and a granola bar, I had just enough energy to write.

The "Guardian Presences"

January 9, 2026
Hotel Terranort
Iquique, Chile

We left Arica right after breakfast and headed through the desert towards Iquique. The landscape was entirely barren, with not a sign of life anywhere. A short distance later, we saw some tall figures in the distance and turned off to investigate. Some artist had constructed huge “guardian presences.” They towered over us and others were visible in the distance. It was a very impressive installation and we would have appreciated more information about it. After taking a few pictures and pondering how and why the sculptures came to be placed there, we continued on our way.

The Road to Iquique

We saw nothing but rock and sand for at least 100 km. We climbed up and then plunged down into canyons. A couple of the canyons had oases in the bottom where streams ran down from the mountains to the east. Three hours or so into our drive, we came to a grove of dry and scrubby trees that survived inexplicably in that environment. There was not a blade of grass or single shrub among the trees.

The Giant of Atacama

Our first planned stop was the “Giant of Atacama”, a geoglyph that has the distinction of being the largest human figure on the planet. The Cerro de Unitas sits alone on the otherwise flat plain, about 14 km east of Chilean Route 5 which we were following to Iquique. Dust devils swirled across the plain, but generally dissipated when they crossed the road. The hill was decorated with other geoglyphs, although their forms were hard to discern from below. After documenting our visit, we returned to the highway and headed south across the shockingly blank landscape.

 

Ghost Town of Humberstone

Lacy Rusted Siding

After another hour, we came to the ruins of the Humberstone saltpeter works. At the industry’s peak, the saltpeter mines in that area supported a community of 10,000 people. The company towns are now deserted and have been converted into a museum. We wandered through the former employee homes, now housing artifacts such as toys and crockery from the period. The boss’ house was a large craftsman style bungalow. The industrial buildings were constructed from corrugated metal that, in some places, had rusted to the point where it looked like lace.

Power Plant at Humberstone

The ore, called caliche, was loaded into carts and transported to the plant where it was crushed and conveyed to the next stage where water was added and the mixture was boiled in giant cauldrons to extract the saltpeter. This liquid was then poured into large trays where the water evaporated off to leave the pure saltpeter.

At the height of the industry, Chile produced 60% of the world’s saltpeter. World War One interrupted trade with Europe, marking the beginning of the industry’s decline. The German’s invention of synthetic saltpeter in the 1930’s dealt the industry another blow. By the time the operation was shut down in the 1960’s, Chile produced only 3% of the world’s saltpeter.

Company Store at Humberstone

The ghost town was fascinating. Blocks of employee housing surrounded a large square. There was a large company store selling all the necessities and a theater that seated 800 people. The store had been converted into a museum so extensive that we finally gave up on seeing it all. We had thought our visit would take an hour, but we spent more than three hours at the site.

In 1907, the employees went on strike. The Chilean army herded the workers, along with their families, into the Domingo Santa Maria School. They were given one hour to disband or be fired upon. The workers stood firm behind their demands and the army opened fire with machine guns, killing between 2,000 and 3,500 people. This was not the only masacre of striking workers in Chile’s history. Between 1891 and 1987, there were sixteen such masacres.

Outside Humberstone, we entered the toll road that quickly led to Iquique. The traffic on Route 16 was heavy, due to detours, but we eventually dropped down off the desert plateau to the port city of Iquique. Our hotel claimed to offer parking, but we were unable to find it. There wasn’t room to stop on the narrow street, so after circling the block twice, I dropped Sally off and made another circle. The parking was on the opposite corner, but the entrance was on a one way street that, of course, went the other way. We had to make quite a large circle before we encountered streets running the proper direction and we were afraid the hotel clerk would give up on us before we arrived, but she was waiting patiently when we arrived. The garage was tight, with a dirt floor, and I had to block in other cars to park. I left my keys with the clerk and hoped for the best.

Hotel Terranort in Iquique

The Hotel Terranort was basic, but comfortable enough. The location was good. It was only a few blocks walk through the downtown area to the main plaza. Both of our banks were located near the plaza, but none of the ATMs were working. We must have tried six banks, but all were closed or out of order. The same had been true in Arica. By that point, we were nearly out of Chilean pesos, so we had to be sure the restaurant took credit cards before sitting down to dinner. Finally, we chose an Indian restaurant and feasted on naan, palak paneer, rice, and pakoras. I could barely keep my eyes open by the time we got back to the hotel. I couldn’t even stay up long enough to write and was asleep by 21:00.





January 10, 2026
Eltoconar Atacama
San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

Our Car (Dark Gray) Was Trapped

We had intended to take our car to go visit the Cerros Pintados on our day in Iquique, but the parking attendant was nowhere to be found and our car was buried in the back corner of the garage.  After waiting for some time, we gave up and decided just to spend the day in Iquique, which we liked better than we had expected.  

Wooden Buildings in Iquique

The Regional Museum in Iquique

We walked down to the pedestrian promenade and checked out the old, wooden buildings.  The regional museum was an unexpected treat with many artifacts and some Chinchorro mummies that were easier to see than the ones at San Miguel de Azapa.  The upper floor featured colorful contemporary art that we enjoyed.  We followed the promenade back to the main plaza and then walked across to the port.  

The fish market was a bustling place.  Located on the site of former salt peter warehouses, the modern design incorporated corrugated metal panels reminiscent of the buildings we had seen at Humberstone.  Behind the market, the fishmongers dumped their scraps into the bay where immense sea lions waited to gobble up the scraps.  These were very lazy and well-fed sea lions.  They had grown to monstruous sizes.

Immense Sea Lion

The Fish Market in Iquique

Sea Lions

Replica of the Esmeralda

After spending some time watching the sea lions, we continued along the seafront to the replica of the Esmeralda, a Chiliean ship sunk by the Peruvians during the War of the Pacific.  Tickets to go aboard were expensive, so we decided to pass.  Across the street, sat the former customs house and a monument to Charles Darwin.  

The Customs House in Iquique

We reversed course and returned to the square, finally managing to get some money out of an ATM.  We stopped for lunch at the fabulous Casino Espanola, with its ornate polychromed interior.  I had a marvelous scallop stew over rice.  Then we returned to our room to rest.

The Casino Espanola in Iquique

We got up early so as to be able to leave right after breakfast. We had told the front desk to have our car ready to go at 8:30, but it was still buried in the back corner of the garage when we were ready to leave. Fortunately, this time, the parking valet was available and we were able to extract our car from the garage. At 8:30, the traffic in Iquique was not too bad. We drove across town, climbed up onto the plateau, and set off south toward Cerro Pintados.

When we arrived at Cerro Pintados, they could not take the entry fee in cash. The ranger station had Starlink and we had to log onto their WiFi and pay online. Unfortunately, the website would not work on either of our Samsung phones, even though one was English and the other Mexican. We tried for some time, but could not get it to work. The ranger let us through, anyway. It later occurred to me that the problem was the browser. We managed to resolve the issue on the way out by switching to Chrome. I told the ranger what to do in case anyone else had the same problem.

Endangered Lizard

We were the only people at Cerro Pintados. We parked at the museum and observed several supposedly endangered lizards scampering across the parking lot and walkways. The museum was small and partially subterranean to keep it cool. The path across the salt flat started behind the museum.

The Museum at Cerro Pintados

Chunks of Minerals on the Salt Flat

While the salt flats in Bolivia had been very smooth, these looked like they had dried rapidly, leaving big chunks of minerals. The chunks looked brown, but were still white once you scratched the surface. A path stretched for a kilometer along the base of the peninsula of hills that jutted into the desert from the coast. A trade route from the Andes to the coast had followed these hills and the caravans had left the geoglyphs as signposts and religious symbols along the way. A much more recent mine was carved into the hill below the symbols. From the color of the rocks, it looked like they had been mining sulphur.

Sally on the Path for Viewing the Geoglyphs

The path led across the salt flat at the perfect distance for viewing the geoglyphs. It was very bright, but not excessively hot at 10:00. We took our time, enjoying the figures on the hills and taking photographs. Some of the more puzzling figures appeared to depict a man on a surfboard and a shark.

What is a Shark Doing in the Desert?

A Row of Humans

Varied Geoglyphs at Cerro Pintados

A Bat Geoglyph

Is That Guy on a Surfboard or Skis?