When we last wrote, we were indulging in steak, ice cream and wine in the city of Salta in Northern Argentina. Since then, we have been very busy and put in a lot of time on the bus…..
From Salta, we rented a car and took a beautiful 3 hour drive through the Quebrada de Cafayate – a gorgeous valley of bright red rock formations. It was a fun drive through the winding valley (Marsh felt like a race car driver) and the views were amazing!
The Quebrada de Cafayate
Our rental car
We ended in the town of Cafayate, Argentina’s second biggest wine producing region with vineyards everywhere you look. We squeezed in 4 winery tours (and tastings, of course!) - a large industrial vineyard (producing over 6 million bottles of wine per year), a midsized winery, an organic winery, and a small family winery (producing only about 5000 bottles per year). The area specializes in a nice white wine called Torrontes, but also had wonderful Malbecs and Cabernet Sauvignons. After tasting over a dozen different wines, we went out for a delicious dinner at a local “parrillada” (a variety of grilled meats) and of course, more ice cream!
A vineyard just outside of Cafayate
Marsh at our first tasting
The "souvenirs" at one of the wineries
The next day, we headed back to Salta and regrouped before taking an 11 hour bus ride across the Chilean border to San Pedro de Atacama the next morning. San Pedro is a tiny town smack in the middle of the Atacama Desert (the world’s driest desert) in Northern Chile. Its location in the desert provides some great scenery and unique things to do.
On our first night in San Pedro, we went on a tour to a local observatory to look at the amazing night sky! There are no clouds or lights in the middle of the desert making San Pedro one of the best places in the world for astronomical research. We learned about some of the constellations and got to look at some very cool formations, planets, and stars through the observatory’s telescopes.
The next day, we rented bikes and sand boards and headed out into the desert to give sand-boarding another try. It was very tiring (you have to walk up the dune each time you go down) but very fun and the view from the top of the dunes was pretty spectacular too!
Shaina hiking up to the top of the dune
And the fun part on the way back down!
Marsh at the top ready for a run down the dune
Biking back to town with our boards
On our last day in San Pedro, we biked about 30 km through Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) – a desolate, rocky landscape with sand dunes and intricate caves.
The Valle de la Luna
Biking home from the Valle de la Luna with Volcan Licancabur in the background
From San Pedro we headed south on another long bus ride (16 hours) to the coastal city of La Serena. We spent three great days in La Serena. On day one we explored the city and spent the afternoon at the town’s Japanese garden. We spent our second day at the beach! We hadn’t been to the beach since Ecuador so it was great to relax in the sun! The weather was warm and sunny but the water was too cold to swim. The cold Humboldt ocean current travels north from the Antarctic along Chile’s coast – bringing lots of nutrients.
The Japanese Garden in La Serena
Our lunch on the beach!
The beautiful beach in La Serena
On day 3 in La Serena we went on a tour of the National Humboldt Penguin Reserve to see some of the Humboldt current’s wildlife up close. We saw tons of penguins, sea lions, sea birds, and even a pod of bottle nosed dolphins!
A Humbolt Penguin (they were much larger than the penguins we saw in the Galapagos)
Lazy sea lions taking in some sun
Penguins in the water fishing for lunch
The view from one of the Reserve's islands
Today, we were back on the bus and headed further south to Valparaiso (another coastal city in central Chile). We will spend a few days here before heading a couple hours inland to Santiago (Chile’s capital city).
Hello to everyone at home and we hope you are having a happy holiday season! It doesn’t feel much like Christmas time around here with the warm weather but we aren’t complaining.
Love Marsh & Shaina
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