El Fondo del Mar

We slept well into the following morning before taking the opportunity to get to know central San Pedro de Atacama more. In the middle of town, at one corner of the central plaza sits the famous white San Pedro church made from adobe walls and a cactus roof. In fact most the buildings in San Pedro de Atacama are made from their original adobe walls and are heritage listed to the annoyance of some locals who want to renovate and extend, but much to the pleasure of the tourists.

After a nice lunch under the shade of restaurant trees we joined a tour to visit some of the many nearby lagunas. Our first stop was Laguna Cejar where you can literally float in the water for all the copious amounts of salt. You can't stick your head under though for obvious reasons. The crystal blue water was quite cool under the burning desert sun and we enjoyed the very strange sensation of effortlessly floating. When we did decide to get out, the salt soon crystallised on our bodies, leaving a thick white mark.

We followed the water's edge of the neighbouring (reserved) laguna, which had a thickly coated rim of salt around its edge. It actually looked like snow had settled upon the grass. At the far side a group of flamingos were feeding, while little lizards ran between our feet.

We crammed back in the van and drove a short distance to another laguna, this time not so salty. Instead, it was situated deep into the ground and apparently continued on for another 20 metres. We jumped high into the water and felt its icing fingers grip our body. I got out as fast as I got in; it was so cold. At least, all the crusty salt was washed off our bodies. We took the time to then take allusion pictures of ourselves; one person standing close to the camera while the other goes far and looks tiny in comparison. Apparently it's what all the tourists do at this particular laguna and we had loads of fun following this trend.

Last but not least we drove a little further to another lake, this time much bigger than the ones we had been to previously. The thing about this lake though is that you can walk right into its heart, giving off the allusion that you are walking on water. The lake is absolutely saturated in salt and is very shallow hence the Jesus-like allusion. We watched with rose-coloured glasses as the sun sunk beneath the mountains and the colours of the landscape dramatically transformed. Again we enjoyed a Pisco Sour for the special occasion.