Nerenberg Sabbatical in Chile 2011-2012: Atacama Part 1

My Dad is visiting us right now and accompanying us on our adventures. Although not a blogger, he is a chronicler of his world travels. He usually sends out e-mails to friends and family detailing his adventures so I am using his e-mails as a starting point (in red) and adding some additional commentary.

At about noon, Sarah and I set out for the school to get the kids and go to the airport. Rob was going to meet us at the airport. About a mile from the apartment, we heard a noise, stopped the car and discovered a flat tire. Panic! But I looked around and found a tire store on the corner. The guy quickly came with a jack and put on the spare, after I intimated that I was a gringo on my way home. After arriving at the school, Sarah's cell phone rang and she was told to come to the infirmary. Elisa was there with a smashed finger. Twenty minutes before school got out, apparently Elisa tripped on a chair and landed on her ring finger. We happened to be at school early for pick-up because I always go early to find a parking spot (of course, I usually go even earlier but as my Dad said we got a flat tire on the way there). The nurse called me and after seeing the wound suggesting running to the emergency room. Of course, we had 2:45 before our plane took off so we were a bit panicked on several levels. Turns out that she broke the top bone on her finger and the nail came off – makes sense given the amount of screaming that she was doing. The ER Dr. didn’t want her to go on the trip but the school nurse and my pleading face got him to give in and bandage her up super well so that she wouldn’t get any sand/dirt in it and also gave her some prophylactic antibiotics. Sarah took a cab to the airport and we all successfully met there and are now on the plane on our way to Atacama after a general prophylactic course of Argentine matzah. Long story short we all made it here.

The boys

We drove an hour through the proverbial lunar landscape from the Calama airport to San Pedro de Atacama where we managed to spend 45 minutes looking for our hostel.

As we were driving from Calama to San Pedro de Atacama, here are some of the quotes from family members in the car:

Rob: I like the trees ;-) It’s desolate and not very inviting.

Jonathan: That was the smallest airport I’ve ever been to.

Renee: I like the landscape. I can see the horizon.

Success followed by dinner in the closest greasy spoon chicken place. By then Jonathan and I were the only ones who wanted to stay up and explore. So he and I walked 15 minutes to town, passed a barber shop where he refused to get a crew cut to surprise his parents (he claims the school is trying to get him to cut since he is serving as a bad foreign example to the local boys), and then had coffee and juice at a local restaurant. As we were walking home counting gift shops,the girls outside the bars were trying to get us to come in. I had to explain that he didn't drink much.

San Pedro de Atacama is the main “city” (population without tourists of around 2,000) in the region. Although we learned from the local history museum that it has gone through several incarnations, today it is the kick-off point for many tours in the region and the site of many hostels and any backpackers. It was finally confirmed when I walked by a small empanada “store” and Bob Marley was blaring out of it. We fit in splendidly!

We are actually staying at a hostel a bit out of town for the promised relative quiet and also to have a place with a kitchen to continue to make our fried matza and matza meal pancakes.

Take note of the bandaged up right hand :-(

Not all of us are pleased with declining the obligatory bread and pulling out our box of matza but it will all be over soon. The good news is that rather than survive on the cheap eats of pizza, hot dogs, and empanadas, we have gone to two good restaurants in town.

After dinner last night, we had to walk through some very dark areas of town to get to the hostel and Renee said “It looks just like a planetarium!” She’ll kill me for including that but Mrs. Craft (the teacher at her elementary school who brought them to the school planetarium once a month) would be proud of her constellation ID even in the Southern Hemisphere.

We spent the morning wandering through town and going to the local history/archeology museum where they had enough English translation, pictures, and icons to get the idea. Based on the reviews, I was expected a town full of cats and dogs so Renee was ready. Unfortunately, there were many more dogs than cats in the street but this little guy showed up at our hostel. Look like anybody some of you might know?

As would be expected, the hostel did not lend itself well to sleep and at least my #1 needs her sleep. Between groups getting up between 3-5am to go see geysers up in the mountains, groups coming in late, and my father getting up to take care of business several times during the night, it has been tough.

After resting a bit in the afternoon, we headed to Laguna de Chaxa in Reserva Nacional “Los Flamencos.” It is part of a large salt flat with lagoons south of San Pedro. It is most famous for being the habitat for flamingos and we were not disappointed. There are three types of flamingos that hang out here and in the surrounding areas – Chilean, Andean and James. I believed that we mostly saw the Andean but here are a few photos for identification Max! While where we were was really flat, the Andes with many volcanoes were always to the east and another smaller range is to the west creating this unique habitat.