Already the next day I drove to the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world. But it was not as hot as one would expect.

All tourists in one place

In my hostel I was surprised to meet the 2 Brazilians again, whom I had already encountered in Santiago, Montevideo and Buenos Aires. They surely started to believe that I was following them, even though that was of course not the case.

All tourists are accommodated in the small village San Pedro de Atacama, so the prices for the hostels are respectively high. Anyway, it was a very nice hostel. But I didn't take part in tours, they were too expensive for me and I preferred to do everything on my own.

Moon like landscapes

I rented a mountain bike and rode into Valle de Luna, the moon valley, which had wonderful moon-like landscapes. Everywhere the ground was covered with white substances that looked like snow but in reality it was salt, of course. I drove to another viewpoint and overlooked the surreal looking Atacama Desert with the ice covered peaks of the Andes in the background.

The next day I rented a bike again and rode to the lagoon Cejar. In former times it was possible to swim in it, today not because of the high sulfite content found.  On the way back to the village I had a flat tire. Barely I made it into the village.

Watching the stars via telescope

In the evening I finally made a tour, a star observation tour, where you could see some astronomical formations (nebulae, constellations, etc.) with the telescope. The Atacama Desert is famous for its clear starry sky, thus here are 2 of the largest telescopes in the world (ALMA, VLT).

The rest of the time I spent to get a tour to the neighbouring Bolivia through the Salar de Uyuni. Since I booked the tour at short notice and spoke Spanish, I was able to get a cheap price at a local company.

Summary of my stay in Chile

All in all I had a good time in Chile despite the infected insect bite. Scenically the part of Chile I visited offered little change. I did not want to go to the south, to Tierra del Fuego, because it was too expensive and I did not have any really warm clothes with me. Chile also has a noticeable European influence, although not as strong as Argentina or Uruguay, but much more than in the other countries of Latin America. Chile (especially Atacama) is also in the upper price range compared to the other Latin American countries