Journal

Something of a tourist trap, but nicely managed and remarkably clean, San Pedro proved an intriguing place to wander around once the days had cooled. The dogs were remarkably well tempered. And the graveyard is nicely kept and surprisingly playful, if basic.

Friends in Berlin sent us this link to a stunning celebration of the Fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago. The short video is highly recommended. It’s amazing how much this world of ours can change in around a third of the Biblical lifetime.

Fernando, Tere and I were driven out of San Pedro this morning to some hot springs around 45 minutes away. The Termas Baños de Puritama are at somewhat higher altitude, over 3,400 metres, so I busily chewed coca leaves at one point where I was feeling the effects of the climb – though they were nothing to complain about.

The series of pools formed by the hot springs are invisible from above, from where you can only see a jagged, linear rent in the earth. Having driven through cactus-dotted hills en route, the idea that there were would be verdant growth here seemed far-fetched.

The track in is probably the bumpiest track I have been on in two decades, but as we walked in it felt as though people had been there for quite a while. And they had: there were reconstituted stone ruins to show where their huts had been.

I read later that the Atacameño people used the waters for medicinal purposes – and they are now recommended for a range of complains, including stress and fatigue. No wonder I felt I was in heaven, though one had to keep a wary eye out for biting insects rather like horseflies.

Fabriola, our guide, walked us in and ensured we had a wonderful lunch. Before that, Fernando and I savoured several of the pools. They proved to be remarkably warm and the cascades give you a thorough massage, if you tuck yourself in underneath them. Disconcerting, though, to feel the earth (or at least the pond floor under your feet) move.

Nice to see little fish swimming around in the hot water, alongside a range of birds ducking in and out of the pampas grass and lunch tables. Plus a number of brilliant blue dragonflies – which I was told are called helicópteras in Spanish. When I looked them up later, I found a more common term is libélulas, or (more exotically) caballitos del diablo.

Was also fascinated by the hot spring algae. Recalled planning to write a novel decades ago based on the work I was doing as Editor of Biotechnology Bulletin. And intriguing, too, that Paula, our guide around the Valle de la Luna yesterday, was once a marine biologist who researched red algae for commercial applications. There’s something bubbling up in my mind here.

This is an out-of-sequence blog entry, largely because when we went to the Los Flamencos National Reserve here in the Atacama Desert yesterday afternoon, in the middle of the great Salar de Atacama, I forgot my camera – and felt bereft for much of the trip.

Then I recalled that I had my BlackBerry, so took some pictures with that, through the quality is significantly lower. Am posting the images before doing the rest of the sequence on the Chile trip so that I can free up the minuscule memory on the phone.

We learned a good deal about the hydrogeology of the Atacama, adding to what we had been told by Paula in the morning when we visited the Valle de la Luna. What sticks in my mind particularly is the fact that the Atlantic and Pacific once met in this area, before the Latin american land mass began its inexorable rise, thanks to tectonic subduction.

The salt-flats of the Salar are wonderfully monotonous, though the landscape is broken by occasional bright green trees – and even a ‘forest’ planted some time back by the government.

In the distance , on the flanks of the Andes, we saw the base camp of the extraordinary ALMA project, with its 66 antenna observatory. In San Pedro last night, we discussed the planning controls here that minimise light pollution – something other countries and regions could learn from.

Apart from the flamingos, I saw a variety of birdlife, a number of what I imagine were Darwin’s leaf-eared mouse and a green and red lizard that I was told had only arrived in the area some 20 years ago.

The wind picked up markedly as the sun set – and then we went out behind the visitor centre to see the mountains pick up the reddish hues of the sunset. Some time after 20.00, a Full Moon popped its head over the Andes, and then rose majestically into the night sky.

The ride back was enlivened a woman who decided that her passport had been stolen from her bag while we were at the reserve. Silence settled. Fernando slept on the back seat. Then a vicious swerve as the driver steered around a wayward burro in the night. And then the missing papers were found in the woman’s bedroom.

After a late dinner, we sat out, around a blazing fire pit, and watched the Moon gradually ascend into the heavens – albeit drowning out many of the constellations it would have been good to see in more detail.

Wonderful conversation with a Swiss couple from Zurich, he apparently a very successful architect, she raised in the UK, and the family of four doing a 2-month trip around Latin America. Next, at least for them, is Easter Island. Given that I also learned yesterday that Easter Island is on the sub ducting plate, so will eventually collide with Chile, I said I would probably wait for the island to hove into view.

An amazing visit today to the Valle de la Luna. It’s appropriate, given my use of an image of Daniel Craig as James Bond a few days ago at the Recycla Awards ceremony in Santiago, that part of the Bond film Quantum of Solace was filmed here.

For a change, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, though one thing is perhaps missing here. Fernando filmed me as I ran (only the distance from where the photo is taken to the group in the distance in the 13th photo here) back to the group – even though I had complained that the altitude was getting to me …