We are planning to take this bus ride after 5 nights at San Pedro de Atacama, right now on October 25.
At border crossing
Salt Lagunes at 5,000 meters
The mountains at 5,000 meters
A Link to a great story and pictures of the trip San Pedro de Atacama to Salta
Click Here for the Story and Pictures
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
‘The Spectacular Bus Ride from San Pedro de Atacama to Salta’
Link to the Blog below from (a page from my Travel Journal) Keith Jenkins
Link to the Blog below from (a page from my Travel Journal) Keith Jenkins
“Hurry, hurry…,” the man said to me, “the bus
is leaving in a few minutes”. I was sure I was going to miss my bus to Salta. I
arrived at the travel agency, as instructed when I bought my ticket, at 10:15am
and to my horror, it was shut and there was no one around. I was already out of
breath after the ten-minute walk from my hotel with my bloated suitcase and
ditto hand luggage x 2 – at these high altitudes, everything required more
energy. There was no one in sight and I had no idea what to do. A man walked out
of a nearby shop and I asked him (in my best Spanish) about the bus. He hadn’t
the slightest clue either but told me to check with the shopkeeper. I ran
inside and the shopkeeper looked at his watch and shook his head. That was not
a good sign, I thought. He gave me the directions to the bus station and
shouted “Run, run” after me. I hauled my suitcase as fast and hard as I could
over the rough-hewn cobblestone road which soon turned into a dirt road and
prayed that I would make it. If I missed this bus, the next one to Salta was in
three days and the whole village of San Pedro de Atacama was fully booked! I
got to the bus station in the nick of time, leaving a cloud of dust behind me.
The lady was standing at the door of the bus as I approached and she shouted,
“Kehyt?” when she saw me and I nodded to the resemblance of my name and she
signalled me to hop on right away. The bus left as soon as I was seated. Phew!
Volcan Licancabur
(left)
The bus drove a few hundred meters and stopped
and we had to get off to clear Chilean immigrations. When everyone was back on
board, the bus continued on its journey…..and what a journey it was! If you’ve
read my post on San Pedro de Atacama (‘A desert full of wonders‘) and seen the photos, you’d have an
idea of the geography and geology of this region. Lunar landscapes,
multi-coloured rock faces, gigantic volcanoes, dark blue lagoons, lush oases
and towering sand dunes more or less sum it up. The 10-hour bus ride from San
Pedro de Atacama in Chile, across the Andes, to Salta in northern Argentina
brought us past all these features AND MORE! There were times, as I looked out
the window, that I thought I was watching some sort of science fiction movie as
the bus sped along, as the landscapes were so surreal, so unearthly.
Altiplano lagoon
Upon leaving San Pedro, the bus drove in an easterly direction
along the flanks of the spectacular Volcan Licancabur, skirting the border with
Bolivia. Up and up we went until we reached the Andean altiplano (Andean
highland plateau). As we ascended the Andes, we were treated to awesome views
of the Salar de Atacama (Atacama salt lake) and Volcan Licancabur. The scenery
changed as we drove through the altiplano. This plateau, about 4,000m high, is
a barren plain with just rocks, sand and prickly shrubs and surrounded on all
sides by the brownish-red peaks of the Andes. It resembled the surface of Mars
really. Absolutely amazing scenery.
Pink altiplano
At the end of the plateau, just as we thought we couldn’t get
any higher, the bus embarked on another ascent which brought us to another
plateau, about 4,500m high. The scenery kept getting more and more bizarre.
While the earth on the previous plateau was ochre, here it was a reddish-pink
colour with occasional traces of yellow, ochre and brown. As we cleared the
mountains, the first of a series of stunning lagoons came into view. They were
all in different colours, some green, some blue while some had white edges. We
were already pretty high up in the Andes but another series of mountains
awaited us! My breathing was getting heavier and heavier and I could feel my
head start to pound. The American guy sitting next to me who was fast asleep
woke up suddenly, gasping for air!
Salar Grande
The scenery changed again dramatically as we entered this last mountain
range – this was the Paso de Jama (Jama Pass) into Argentina. We reached an
altitude of about 5,000m before descending. The border control, where we
stopped, was just beyond these mountains in the middle of nowhere. By this
time, my head was spinning and I was desperately trying to focus on my
breathing. The scenery was out-of-this-world but I couldn’t wait to get down to
a place closer to sea-level! The bus continued on its journey through a barren
plain and soon we reached the Salar Grande, a huge salt lake that was
completely parched. I thought it looked like a magnificent work of
art. The parched surface of the lake stretched out for miles into the distance.
At the end of the Salar Grande, another set of mountains came
into view and soon we were climbing again. The road curled its way up into the
mountains – the panoramas of the surrounding mountains and the altiplano below
were just breathtaking (literally!) – and we were soon in the clouds. The
visibility dropped to just a hundred meters approximately and the bus driver
slowed down as we cleared the highest point…. and I was really thankful that he
did. While the ascent was rather gradual, rather like a lazy curl up, the
descent was steep and full of sharp hairpin bends.
Curly ascent
Every once in a while, gaps in the fog revealed the steep drop (at
least a few hundred meters) beside the road!! This was the La Cuesta de Lipan
or the Lipan Slope which is famous throughout the country; the road that was
built to navigate this slope is considered an engineering marvel. And indeed it
was. The road cut its way through the dramatic slopes in a series of
hair-raising curves, giving us unbelievable views of the massive mountains with
their incredible variety of green, grey, ochre and reddish hues. Absolutely
stunning stuff! Far below us, we spotted verdant valleys and little adobe
(mud-brick) huts. As we descended, the flora gradually changed from little
shrubs to cacti.
Lipan slope
We soon arrived in the charming village of Purmamarca at the
foot of the La Cuesta de Lipan. Purmamarca is a green oasis with many holiday
homes and fruit orchards but it is most famous as the site of the Cerro de
Siete Colores (Mountain of Seven Colours). We passed that stunning
multi-coloured mountain (couldn’t quite count seven colours!) and soon
discovered that the gigantic slopes of the mountains in this area all had those
amazing stripes. Check out the photo and see if you can count seven colours!
Can you count seven
colours?
We continued through the valley and, wonder of all wonders, it
began to rain… a phenomenon I’d not experienced in a while! It took about 45
minutes to get to Jujuy (a large, rather uninteresting-looking town) from
Pumamarca and then another hour to get to Salta. By this time, the scenery had
changed dramatically. It was very green and inviting, even the mountains were
covered with trees, and I spotted many palm trees along the way – indeed,
certain areas of this region are classified as sub-tropical. It was a stark
difference compared with the dry, inhospitable Atacama desert! Another good
thing: we were a lot closer to sea-level which meant my breathing was back to
normal and that pounding in my head started to subside.
That bus trip was probably the most spectacular I’ve ever
experienced. The most amazing thing: the dramatic changes in the scenery kept
me captivated for the most part of the almost ten-hour ride. I can certainly
recommend this trip to anyone visiting this region.
No comments:
Post a Comment