Donkeys, Drama, and a Sky Full of Stars.
Day 24 – From Ancient Graffiti to Rainbow Rocks (and One Sassy Donkey)
This morning started at what now counts as a “reasonable” hour… 6:00 a.m. Funny how travel resets your sense of normal. I used to think living in Vilaflor, the highest village in Spain (yes, I bragged about it every chance I got), was something special. We’re perched at 1,600 metres there. Here? That’s barely a foothill. The average altitude around San Pedro is 2,650 metres. Perspective, people. 😂
Today was all about the colourful heart of the Atacama, officially the driest desert in the world. As someone who lived in the Sinai Desert back in the ’80s
(when hair was big and Wi-Fi wasn’t a thing), I thought I knew what “dry” meant.
Well, forget everything you know. Turns out “driest” only refers to rainfall, and the Atacama totally cheats; it gets a constant underground refill from Andean snowmelt.
So yes, technically dry, but with rivers, greenery, and enough wildlife to make a nature documentary jealous.
On our drive, we spotted guanacos, the larger, more photogenic cousins of my beloved vicuñas, and wild donkeys trotting around like they owned the place.
Which, frankly, they do.
Our first stop: Yerbas Buenas, home to 6,000-year-old petroglyphs and pictographs. Prehistoric rock art is proof that ancient people also liked leaving doodles behind. Some carvings even showed monkeys, which don’t exist anywhere near here. Our guide, Denny, shrugged and suggested they might be ancient graffiti by
bored teenagers. I can totally believe that.
What struck me most was the reminder that once humans stop worrying about survival: food, shelter, sabre-toothed cats, they start making art and searching for meaning. In a way, not much has changed. We still scribble on walls; now we just call it street art or hashtags.
Then came the showstopper: the Rainbow Valley. Imagine nature as an overexcited artist throwing every pigment she owned onto the desert: deep reds, pale greens, purples, oranges, all sculpted over millions of years.
That’s when Denny gifted us with “The History of the World in Three Minutes.” With nothing but a stick and a few rocks, he reenacted the birth of the Andes, the clash of tectonic plates, and how all these layers got their colours. Like a TED Talk hosted by a Chilean Indiana Jones, and I understood every word (in Spanish, no less!).
The hike was stunning: quiet, vast, full of colour and light. We could have stayed all day, but fair-skinned redheads have a limit to how long they can stay in the sun.
So we retreated to the van… only to find a herd of wild donkeys waiting to greet us. One of them, clearly the local celebrity, posed perfectly, head tilted,
mane catching the breeze. I’m convinced he’s on the tourism payroll. Naturally, I took a selfie.
Another magical day in a desert that keeps rewriting the rules of what a desert should be.
*****
Day 25 – Grumpy Guides, Frustration, and a Dash of Grace
Well, it had to happen eventually. You can’t expect every day of a once-in-a-lifetime trip to be postcard-perfect. Today was… one of those days. Not because the views weren’t breathtaking (they were), or because anything terrible happened (it didn’t). It was just a “humans messing up a perfect day” kind of day…
and spoiler: I was one of the humans.
We started at 6:00 a.m. and were told we’d be first to be picked up. Ten minutes later, a message pinged: actually, we’d be last. By the time the minivan arrived, our guide was already grumpy and clearly behind schedule, which, to him, was a cosmic tragedy.
First stop: breakfast in a tiny village, where the guide and driver worked magic again: coffee, bread, eggs, and a tablecloth that looked ironed by elves.
Fuelled up, we drove to Chaxa Lagoon, home to the flamingos of the Los Flamencos National Reserve. Mirror-like salt flats, glimmering light, pink feathers in slow motion…
Now imagine missing the entire explanation because you’re stuck in the world’s longest bathroom line. By the time I emerged, the guide had given up and was waving vaguely toward the flamingos like a teacher abandoning a hopeless class.
But here’s where my Spanish saved the day. I trotted after him, asked a few questions, and, boom, he lit up like a Christmas tree. Turns out he loves flamingos, geology,
and the desert’s ecosystem. I got a passionate private mini-lecture while everyone else snapped selfies. A personal TED Talk on birds with pink legs.
Next stop: Piedras Rojas, the Red Rocks: stunning, surreal, sculpted by the gods of erosion. We had 20 minutes. Twenty!!!
I felt like a sheep being herded through paradise.
Then the altiplano lagoons: Miscanti and Miñiques, shimmering turquoise mirrors cradled by snowy volcanoes. Pure magic, but tensions on the bus were brewing hotter than a desert kettle. People were muttering, someone was annoyed at the guide, and honestly, I was right there with them.
Then came the drama. One passenger exploded, demanding “just five more minutes,” which somehow became forty. The guide refused, the man shouted as if auditioning for a telenovela, and the whole bus cringed.
That’s when it hit me. I looked out at those majestic lagoons glowing in the thin Andean air and thought: what am I doing? Here I am, in one of the most stunning places on Earth, letting someone else’s mood hijack mine. Nope. Not today. Gratitude rebooted.
Lunch helped, another miracle meal conjured from nowhere, delicious and eaten in the middle of the desert. Humanity restored.
On the bumpy ride home, I had time to reflect. These rushed tours aren’t entirely the guides’ fault; they’re giving people what they think we want: quick visits,
photo ops, a box ticked. It’s like supermarkets selling shiny, tasteless fruit because that’s what most people buy. We shape the system in travel, in food,
even in medicine. We ask for speed, not substance. Relief, not cure.
Deep thoughts for a dusty road. But even a not-so-perfect day can hand you a little truth, wrapped in flamingo feathers and desert dust.
*****
Day 26 – Starry, Starry Night…
Our last day in San Pedro was blissfully, unapologetically lazy. No 4 a.m. alarms, no frozen geysers, no guide barking “¡Cinco minutos!”
The only plan was happening well past our usual bedtime… stargazing.
San Pedro is one of the best places on Earth for it, and while I live in Vilaflor, itself a stargazing superstar, I thought, how different can it be? Oh, naïve me.
Completely different, it turns out. For starters, there’s no North Star. None. Gone. So how do people navigate? They follow the Southern Cross
and the Magellanic Clouds, which, let’s be honest, sound more like cocktails than constellations.
By 10:30 p.m., wrapped up like burritos, we stood under a sky so full of stars it looked Photoshopped.
We peered through telescopes and took photos “with the stars,” basically me squinting into the cold, pretending to be an astronaut.
My fingers froze, but honestly, what wouldn’t you do for a chance to catch a star?
The next morning: an early start, a flight to Santiago de Chile, and the next chapter of the adventure. Stay tuned…
