Travels in North Chile (Part 5) - San Pedro, some archaeology, and the Ojos de Salar!

This is our second post on San Pedro de Atacama, the amazing indigenous town, and tourist hub, in the Atacama Desert. We spent a few days here with Struan's parents in the summer.

We mentioned last time that San Pedro is located at the edge of a salt flat, at the foot of the Andean pre-cordillera - historically a staging post for trade and communication between the indigenous inhabitants of the Altiplano, high in the Andes, and those of the coastal areas. We were fascinated by the pre-Spanish cultures and people in Northern Chile (well, all of Chile), and the idea of a pan-Andean culture, located in the highlands and lowlands.

To illustrate this idea of communication and trade, we saved some photos of some geoglyphs - rock pictures - that were actually taken outside Arica, a coastal city located where many indigenous settlements must have been situated. They fit nicely into this post.

These geoglyphs are basically pictures made by positioning rocks, darker than the ground on the hillside (or removing them), in the desired pattern. They can be seen from a long distance. One theory about why they were made is to guide or attract aliens - Chile is obsessed with UFOs. More sensibly, a mix of religious purposes, and to guide trading caravans to meeting points. In the picture above you can see a big arrow and a picture of a llama - "bring your llamas this way". 

In the picture below you can see the Andean cross, a pan-Andean religious symbol that we'll post more about another time.

a stripy llama

You may have to enlarge the photo above to see (click on it), but this has a llama and, most interestingly, to the left of the main cluster of glyphs, some sort of marine creature. This really depicts what was happening here - people were bringing llamas from the highlands and fish from the coastal lowlands, and trading. It's fascinating stuff, perhaps a real window into ancient commerce: "get your fish and llamas here", or maybe "swap your llamas for fish here". As we said, these weren't taken particularly near San Pedro, but they suggest nicely the way in which a place like San Pedro might come into being - everybody follows the signs to particular trading places, and after time those places become permanent settlements. The other limitations around San Pedro's location probably explain why it never became a proper city like Arica.

On those limitations, one of our friends asked us about the water supply in San Pedro. There's no rain to speak of, but there is water there, but it's underground - obviously that is another reason why the town is located where it is, it's a desert oasis. When we doublechecked this we came across an interesting fact - the water supply is a "closed system" (it comes from the mountains, but doesn't go anywhere except into the ground). It's fairly heavily contaminated with heavy metals like arsenic, and has to be filtered to be drinkable, but the local indigenous population appear to have, over thousands of years, developed an immunity to it. That was probably unpleasant for the first Spaniards who arrived here.  

the same spot, with Struan in it

A few nice pics of the vastness of the desert now. These were taken looking away from the geoglyphs - you can see there are no other hills for quite a long way, which must have made the geoglyphs very effective direction markers. 

Some more archaeology in a bit, but first let's go back to San Pedro. The town has amazing infrastructure for its location. There are all sorts of places to stay, apart from huge hotels thankfully, but there's certainly luxury available. We stayed in one of the best hostels we've stayed in, rooms set around a courtyard, with everything kept spotless by an army of friendly locals. 

Bonny and Anna in our hostel courtyard

some cool masks

Stuart and Bonny got a more luxurious option, one of the many excellent hotels in town, owned by a local archaeologist, with rooms designed to be like (if only in style) the local ancient vernacular atacameño architecture. Which you'll see shortly. Here's the modern version:

Bonny and her mud hut

interior

some of the other hotel rooms

Struan cooling off

relaxing on the terrace - sometimes it was really cold...

...like Anna wrapped up in the desert

We went to visit the actual buildings that inspire these hotel rooms, at a prehistoric site called Tulor, dating from when the climate in the region was milder.

bases of round-houses at Tulor

the roof inside the reconstructed house

While we're on the archaeology, here's some pics of the other site we visited while in San Pedro - the indigenous fortress of Quitor, which kept the Spanish at bay for a few years. The sun was brutal up there.

Excellent archaeology times. After all that, we'd better have some food:

Stuart and Struan with pork ribs

The photo above was taken on Stuart's "vegetarian day" - having overindulged on lovely meat for the first few days, and complaining of a funky tum, after some haranguing he decided to have a day of salad. Then Struan described costillar to him, somewhere between a rack of ribs and pork belly, juicy and delicious, and vegetarian day was over by lunchtime. To be fair, he did have it with salad.

hotdog - what's next?

OMG. That.

The Chileans can put together a good mixed grill, all done over an open fire. The classic is the Parillada Argentina - Argentinian Grill - but the Chilean version is more than enough to deal with...

we got one too

oops, another pisco sour

different night, but it started and finished the same way...

Here's something awesome, that wasn't meat, and showcases some of the great creativity in San Pedro's kitchens:

tomato, avocado, sweetcorn, and basil - yum, and beautiful presentation!

The photo above is Struan and Stuart watching the Arsenal-Barcelona Champions League second leg, or not - sitting down at 1-0 Barcelona, then having got really excited when the first Arsenal goal went in, then the second, it looked like a famous victory was in the offing. 2-1 again, surely not! It slowly dawned just before a local wandered in and confirmed it, this was a repeat of the first leg... even with internet everywhere it's still possible to lose touch of the outside world in San Pedro. 

Now for another trip into the desert. San Pedro is located at the edge of a large salt flat, in a bowl created by a long evaporated glacial lake - though there are some salty vestiges of that lake, called the Ojos de Salar, the Salt Eyes. We went for a float.

Struan and the guide - chinny chin chin

one of the larger "ojos"

The "Ojos" are basically small lakes (perhaps just ponds) of salt water, found in pairs, the last vestiges of the huge lakes that were once here. They are very salty, 75% saline, more so than the Dead Sea (we think).  

us floating!

see the salt at the edge

Bonny, staying dry

us floating again, Struan with really salty water in his eye - ow!

a wider angle

getting out, trying not to cut feet on sharp salt crystals on the bottom...

Struan sees his own reflection

Anna gets hosed down...

...here's why, salty, mmm

that white strip in the distance is a really concentrated area of salt flat

The other pair of "ojos" we visited were smaller, deeper, and considerably murkier. So we didn't get in - we were scared. We weren't convinced they were as salty as the others either, given the plants growing in them.

They're still nice to look at though, and interesting phenomena. It's not known (or at least our guide didn't know for sure) but apparently it is something to do with the way a particular glacier expanded. These photos below show why they are called "eyes": 

San Pedro, you were great. Chao!