San Pedro de Atacama 2

I woke up around 7:30 and got ready for my next tour which was suppose to leave around 8am. The tour was to the Altiplano Lakes. It was a really interesting tour.

We started out by going to an oasis in the desert. It had many different trees with different fruits. It also had the largest clumps of pompous grass that I had ever seen. I am sure that my dad, who is always trying to get pompous grass growing in our backyard would have been extremely jealous. It was really interesting to see what a difference a little bit of water in a stream can make in the desert. The area literally only had a little stream of run off water from the mountain, but this little stream allowed a lot of flora and fauna to grow in this oasis. In the oasis, we also saw some drawings from ancient peoples on the rocks. It was quite interesting and hard to see at first, but after taking a picture of the rocks and studying them for a little while, I could make them out. I will have to put the pictures up on this blog.

After the oasis, we headed to the Chilean National Reserve for Flamingos. This is located in the salt flats. This was one of the most interesting parts of the trip. We saw an entire flat covered with salt rocks, literally all salt. It was very interesting and unlike anything I had ever seen before in my life. The geological formation is created when water seeps into the ground from snow melting on top of the mountains. The water goes into the ground and eventually settles into the flats where it mixes with the ground and pushes upward forming salt rocks in the flats. It was absolutely amazing. While at this site we also had the opportunity to observe three types of Flamingos. These birds are some of the most awkward and odd shaped birds I have ever seen. At the same time their pink bodies were absolutely stunning. As we sat and observed the flamingos, we were told about the flamingo nests, which are built in the middle of the 'lakes' because it protects the eggs from fox and other animals who may want to eat the eggs. Flamingos are very romantic birds. Flamingos pick a mate for life and never change. When one flamingo dies, its mate soon follows because the mate essentially commits suicide by not eating. That is really love even after death us do part. Flamingos can also be gay. A woman on this trip told me that a couple of Flamingos were brought to a zoo in her home country of Germany and they were both males. They ended up being mates for life. Supposedly they tried and tried to have an egg, but they couldn't, so the Zoo designed a wooden egg and gave it to the flamingos and they have been happy ever since. Crazy huh? Maybe people need to take a lesson from the flamingos in both acceptance, understanding, love, and devotion. During our tour, we saw flamingos fly above us a couple of times. It really was a neat experience.

After the salt flats we drove to the Altiplano lakes. On the way we stopped at a very small town to make reservations for lunch at a little cafe. We arrived at the lakes and it was really nice. These lakes were beautiful, but I actually ended up being quite disappointed. All we really did was look and take pictures at the lakes which were, as I said absolutely beautiful, but that was it.

After the lakes, we returned to the town to eat lunch. We had some really good soup, chicken, and potatoes. It was really a good meal.

After the meal we went to a town south of San Pedro de Atacama, that was named Temuco. It was a very small town. It had three tourist attractions. The church, the church bell tower both built in the 1700's before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and a llama that was in a small pen so tourists could pet it. Quite the little town.

We returned to San Pedro de Atacama, and I needed to get money from an ATM. What a hassle this was going to be. I went to both ATMs in town, and both were out of cash. I needed cash for the entrance fees for my tours the next day. So, I found two Chileans, who were in the same predicament. We talked for a while and we decided, that what I could do, was go to get a couple drinks and food with them, and then I could pay with my credit card and they would pay me in cash. It was a good idea and the girls were very nice and helped me with my Spanish, so that is what we did. We went and I got 2x1 Pisco Sour drinks, a pretty good deal. It ended up working out that I had money, two friends, good conversations, and good memories by the end of the night.

After having a couple drinks with these girls, I went back to the hostal to go to bed, but instead, I found three guys, one Chilean, one Dutch, and one American chilling in the dorm room. We started talking about things, mostly they talked about women problems they had and they offered to let me have a beer with them. So, I said sure, they poured me a small glass --- which was fine with me, and I listened to their complaints for a little longer, before I realized that listening to sap stories about women wasn't my thing, so I retired for the night.