We made it back to the ship yesterday afternoon in Valpariso. Fred says we just spent 2 days on the moon.
We have been to several places in the world that were deserts, but this one was something else. Our trip started in Antofasta with a bus ride fo 2.5 hours to Calama. Calama is where the largest copper mine in the world is located. The drive across the desert was across a very nondescript landscape. There was a stop at a ghost town that they are trying to restore. It was a mining town in the early 1900's when nitrate was the hot commodity. A war was fought between Chile, Peru and Boliva over control of the nitrate fields. Both German and English companies were doing the mining and Britain did not want German to control (this was during after World War I) so they came in to help Chile. Chile took over what was southern Peru and Western Boliva and the entire northern region of Chile was Bolivian teritory before the war. The camp was also used during the troubles in the 1970's as a concentration camp for political prisoners. It is still surrounded by land mines today. The earthquake of November 2007 did quite a bit of damage to the already abandoned buildings and you have to be very careful. They did not want us to go into any of the buildings except the theatre which lost its roof in the quake. Volunteers are trying to restore some of the buildings to show what a nitrate town looked like as well as to preserve some of the graffti from the prisoners.
We arrived in Calama about 6:00pm and at 6:45pm some of us who were interested were driven up to the mine. We could only drive through the two and around some of the mine dumps. The town is now abandoned..all the houses are empty, the school is closed, and the hospital moved. They have rebuilt all the employee housing, schools, hospitals, etc. down in the town of Calama as there is copper ore under the existing town. They will be completely removing the town so the space can be mined and used for more spoil piles. This is a large open-pit mine on the side of the mountains. However, the spoil piles don't look much different than the surrounding mountains. In this part of the Acama desert, there isn't any vegation except in the oasis so they don't have to worry about "restoring" very much. Just stablizing the rock piles.
The hotel was simple, but clean. There are only a couple of hotels in Calama and mostly they are there for the business people who come to work or visit the mines in the area. Monday through Thursday the hotel is packed but on the weekend (when we were there) they are mostly empty. Dinner was ok, nothing special.
Next morning we drove to San Pedro a very small village/town near the Andes. It was about a two hour drive across the most desolate landscape you can imagine. Most deserts we have seen have some vegetation even if just low bushes or very small plants. A large part of this one has nothing. No plants, no insects, no snakes, no nothing...except rocks. The elevation is high..Calama is at about 6000 feet and we drove up to 10,000 feet of the way to San Pedro. The mountains rise about the floor of the valleys but they are very brown and gray. The wind blows so much that a lot of the fine grained material has blown away leaving the ground covered in gravel. Since Fred is a geologist, he was having a grand time trying to figure out what kind of rocks we were seeing and the different formations.
Finally, as we reaching the highest point, we began seeing small bushes and catus. This was closer to the Andes and gets some moisture. We had clouds and our guide described it as "Bolivian winter". They do get some moisture in Janurary, February and March, but mostly in the form of ground fog. There is more moisure as we got closer to the high Andes. Unfortunately, for us, the clouds obsured the view and we never did see the volcanos except as dim outlines on the horizon.
San Pedro is an indigneous town that is mostly dedicated to tourism. It is an oasis on a river that comes from the Andes. It was running with water as they had had rain the week before. We visited a nice museum from the archeological digs in the area. They no longer display the human remains that have been found out of respect for the existing villagers who are their decendants.
We had a very nice lunch in a small hotel in San Diego that made the best Pisco Sours! They used fresh mint in the mix which gave them a different taste. Then off to visit some of the archeological sites (my spelling is terrible today) including a village 2600 years old buried in the sands and a ruin from the 1500's destroyed by the Spanish. Finally a drive through the Valley of the Moon. A valley of salt deposits that have weathered into strange shapes. Because of the rain the week before, the ground was covered in "fresh salt" which made it look like snow. It was interesting and Fred loved the rocks! Back to the hotel in Calama for dinner.
We flew out the next morning from Calama to Santiago and drove back to the ship (about a 2 hour flight and a 1.5 hours drive). We drove through the Casablanco Valley where all the vineyards are. The contrast was amazing to what we had seen the past two days ... on the moon as Fred says!
Dinner last night was in La Veranda. Wonderful lobster...this time with a side of butter sauce.
Today we are at sea on our way to Puerto Montt. It is windy and cool...no deck time today with a bit of a swell - 10-15 feet. Tonight is the Seven Seas Party and we have been invited to have dinner with Captain Afredo.
Food continues to be fantastic!
