San Pedro de Atacama- Day 2... Laguna Cejar and Salar de Atacama

Day 2 Found Justin rising early for a bike ride to nearby ruins... I'll let him tell you all about that later.
I spent the morning strolling around town and people watching in the town square. As I have a fondness for churches in any country I visit, I was eager to see the picturesque Iglesia San Pedro, the church in the main plaza. It dates from the 17th century, was built with indigenous materials, has adobe walls and a ceiling made from cardón (catus wood) and leather straps (no nails!). It was beautiful outside and peaceful inside as I was the only person inside for a time.

Lots of life-sized dolls on the altar...a little creepy.

Keep out!!!

I also visited the Museo Gustavo Le Paige, an octagonal museum packed with archeological paraphernalia. Unfortunately, the exhibit I was most excited about seeing, the Paleo-Indian mummies had been removed out of respect to the deceased. However, I did see a lot of interesting archeological finds including a whole section on shamanic paraphernalia for preparing, ingesting, and smoking hallucinogenic plants. On that note... mate de coca is everywhere here and apparently per my favorite t-shirt sold in local shops, "la hoja de coca no es droga."

Father Gustavo Le Paige, the Belgian priest and amateur archaeologist who came to San Pedro in 1955 and dedicated the next 35 years of his life to collecting ancient artifacts from the area.

When Justin returned from his bike ride, we had another delicious lunch, our new favorite...the menu of the day.

Our next tour adventure was to be the Salar de Atacama, which is the largest salt flat in Chile and the nearby Laguna Cejar, both just 15-30 mi outside San Pedro. The Laguna Cejar is a sink hole lake with 40% concentration of salt, which produces an effect of floating like in the Dead Sea. Our guide tells us that the salt concentration in this lake is even higher than that of the dead sea. We arrive at the Laguna first, excited to float in the water. Remember Justin's post about the frigid ocean water...this water is almost that cold. We do get used to the water and enjoy floating around... we cannot feel the bottom of the lagoon so we have no idea how deep it is, but that doesn't matter because your only option is to float.

We begin to notice the salt depositing on our skin and clothing. We get out and after a quick wash off by our tour guide, we head to a second lagoon.

This lagoon, the guide informs us, requires that you know how to swim because you won't float and it's very deep-so deep they don't know how far down it goes. The water smells a bit like sulfur and is even colder than the salt lagoon...but I decide I have to at least get in. A quick dip in is all I can take..and as soon as I get my breath back, I climb (yes, you have to climb) out of the lagoon and dry off. After that we watch as those braver than us plunge into the unknown depths.

go right ahead mister...no thank you i'll stay right here

 Stop number three is the salar de atacama, which our guidebook proclaims "looks for all the world like God went crazy with a stippling brush." It was beautiful and interesting to walk across the salt flat. We also enjoyed sunset and pisco sour (well...I enjoyed the pisco...justin...well you can see how he felt) with our tour group. Another beautiful desert sunset was a perfect end to day #2 in San Pedro de Atacama.