Archeological sites around San Pedro de Atacama

Today is archeology day. There are a couple of remains around the Oasis and we start with Aldea del Tulor. The remains of this 500 to 800 B.C village are the oldest trace of settlement in the valley. They face issues with the renovation, because it’s now 90% covered in sand, and if there were to dig it up, it would further damage it. Instead, there is a little museum ( unfortunately with only Spanish explanations ) in reconstituted round huts. As you walk to the actual site of the settlement, they have rebuilt two huts for you to visualize how it looked like. The very surprising fact is how cool you feel inside. 

A small plank walkway brings you around the actual remains of the village and you can see the foundations.

This visit took us 45min, with the drive, no more than an hour. It’s very close to San Pedro.

Next we wanted to go to the old fort: Pukara de Quitor. It’s on top of a big hill with impressive views of both oasis and the Catarpe valley. There is a winding path that brings you along the remains of the village on the side of the hill and to the very top where the fort was. The Spanish destroyed it and replaced it with a Church. Nothing much remains of all these. You mostly hike up for the views. There are a few explanations panels in English and Spanish along the way. It took 45min to go to the top and possible 25min to come down.  

I had seen that from the Fort entrance, you could continue to drastic ravines and along the river in the Catarpe valley. That is what we did. The entrance of the Catarpe valley is barely 5min drive.  There is a walk to do through a gorge and ravine to a view point. It’s famous for the Devil’s throat – a narrow section of the ravines with many overhang and mini caves.

We drove a little inside the valley until the parking spot. From the entrance to the Mirador at the very end, it takes about 1h walk. And the most interesting part is indeed the narrow passageways. The end section is open and very hot, without really any noteworthy sights.

At the very end of the valley is a super small church. Driving there takes another 15min. It’s a nice sight of green valley grass and red cliff mountains. It’s the contrast that make this section interesting. The church at the end, not so much. For the ones who are doing all of this on a bicycle, don’t bother going there.

We had planned to go see the altitude lagunas and lake tomorrow, but booking online the tickets isn’t working and the past 2 days , two out of 4 spots were closed. We also couldn’t book the Valle de la Luna tickets online. It’s annoying. 

Because we had finished the day fairly early ( about 3pm), we decide to go downtown to the tourism office on the main square to get more information. As we get to town – it’s Monday – and we discovered it closed. Nevertheless, we had done some research on the Uyuni tours and found a travel agent we felt was the one actually delivering the tour and not a reseller.

It’s called Cruz Andina and we get to their office to book a 3 days two nights Salar de Uyuni. It comes to about 200 usd per person, and we have a private room. Let’s hope we made the right decision.

We drive back to our hostel around 4pm and decide to chill. I take advantage of the hammock and the friendliness of the local cat. Cat + hammock in the shade = a perfect afternoon combo. 

As the night creeps in, so does the cold and I had to abandon my comfy retreat in quest of food. We decided to try Jardin Meraki, because they didn’t seem to have loud music. Many restaurants in town, we found, are too noisy. The food is so so but the atmosphere of the in-door garden is nice.