Atacama via Puerto Montt and Antofagasta

Monday 29 August 2016 

Our next destination was the Atacama desert. It’s a four hour flight from Puerto Montt. Puerto Montt has a famous fish market, so as we had a bit of time we decided to check it out before our flight. 

Not much happening as it was a Monday – however we did see some wildlife.

Ok, so the camerawork is not so good… nevertheless… 

Puerto Montt Wildlife from Trevor Angst on Vimeo.

Our trip to the Atacama desert took us firstly to the city of Antofagasta on the northern coast of Chile. We flew in at dusk and by the time we picked up our hire car and drove into town the sun was setting. It seemed a bit of a dreamscape, something out of a science fiction movie. Unfortunately, as we were on the freeway and trying to figure out where our hotel was, we didn’t stop to get a photo. 

Our hotel was in downtown, right on the beach. We had a great view looking over the marina from our twelfth floor room. At this time of day, the city looked like a pretty hip and happening place, so we thought we would go out and check out the local restaurant scene. 

We asked the concierge for recommendations for restaurants. She said “we have a great restaurant here in the hotel,” sounded like she was drumming up business – she wasn’t. They had an excellent restaurant. Outside of the hotel – nadda. She recommended the pulpo (octopus). Trevor had an entrée of baby octopus and I had an entrée of BBQ octopus. Trevor said, “this is the best octopus I’ve ever eaten” and then I gave him some of mine. Both were excellent, but the BBQ octopus was particularly good – soft and tender and beautifully cameralised. But because we weren’t expecting much, we didn’t get pictures. Oh well. And our view in the morning. 

Even though it was on the coast, we discovered that the town of Antafogusta was waaaaay drier than San Pedro de Atacama. Here are some photos from outside the town:

 

With absolutely no agriculture, the biggest employer by far in this part of the world is the mining industry.  Just outside the city of Calama is the world's largest copper mine, but the whole region is dotted with large mines.  On the way we passed a number of mines, and here you can clearly see the green tinge of the copper leaching out from the mine tailings.