Day 18 - San Pedro de Atacama

The day before, we had already decided to rent another or additional car in San Pedro in order to be able to do the planned tours for the next two days. Unfortunately, the next larger variant was already sold out at the car rental station, so we had to resort to a Toyota Hilux. It cost more and was somehow annoying, but at least the bad road conditions should be no problem with it. The first test was the route from the previous day to the 'Lagunas Escondidas de Baltinache', which was passed with flying colors and triple speed. Shortly before reaching the destination, we were disappointed to find the barrier closed and the lagoon apparently closed. So we parked the car and walked the two and a half kilometers. The salt lagoons consist of seven pools with turquoise water, in which one can usually bathe, or rather 'float' in it due to the high salt content. However, since the showers were locked, we decided against bathing there and wanted to start the return journey.

Just before we passed the (still closed) ticket booth, a car rushed by with employees of the lagoon to open it after all. Apparently, today was the only day when the lagoon opened in the afternoon. But neither we nor about ten other people who were also standing in front of the closed barrier knew that. But well, we paid the entrance fee and quickly jumped into the salt pool ahead of all the other tourists. The showers remained closed, but an employee at least gave us a large water canister to roughly remove the salt from our bodies. A nice Chilean then took us back to the car, saving us the return trip in the blazing sun.

Since the travel time was drastically reduced with our new rental car, we also made our way to the 'Salar de Atacama', the largest salt flat in the Atacama Desert. However, there wasn't much lake to be found there, rather heaps of salt and many flamingos searching for food in the remaining water. Still, it was totally impressive how far the salt flat stretches and the partly snow-capped mountains and volcanoes tower in the background.

As we had to leave early the next day, we only went for two delicious pizzas in the town and then to bed.