Resting our old bones

On the Wednesday, we had nothing planned, except to meet for lunch a student of Christine’s who is currently working in San Pedro. Therefore we decided we would have a very casual & restful sort of day mainly based around the hotel in the morning, and then into town for the afternoon.

We met Antonia at a cafe in the main square and sat and chatted for a while, she was very grateful for the chance to practice her speaking English. She is a geographer here in San Pedro for a year on a UN backed project, studying the impact of the regions many stakeholders on the hydrology of the area. As you can imagine, water is a very important subject around these parts, and trying to balance the needs and requirements of the local population, the mining sector, tourism, and many others, all while being sensitive to the indigenous peoples of the Atacama, is a key responsibility. Antonia was engaging, smart and ambitious, with plans to move to London when her year in San Pedro is up, and we felt sure that she was destined for great things in the future.

The first part of the afternoon was spent at the local Gustav la Paige Museum, which details the area’s many diverse ecologies and traces Mans journey through the region over the past 12,000 years.  Gustav la Paige was a Belgian Missionary who spent the last 40 years of his life in San Pedro, where he documented the region, its landscapes, its peoples, and its buildings, and collected and categorised many of the exhibits in the Museum. Well worth the hour or so wandering round.... We also visited the local church that has stood around these parts since at least the mid 16^th century, and boy, did it show its age...! They are in the process of restoring it right now, but I hope they don’t lose that vintage character.

The rest of the afternoon we spent lounging around the hotel & its grounds. It’s nice to be able to make use of the facilities, instead of just rushing in & out and using only as a place to lay our heads. We need to go out for an early dinner, as we were due to be being picked up at 4:30am the next day for a trip to see the El Taito Geysers, and we wanted an early night. We went to a popular restaurant called ‘Adobe’ and sat effectively outside in an internal courtyard sort-of affair, with a warming brazier, and

view above to the stars. I had a fantastic steak dish called ‘al pil pil’ which is apparently  of Spanish origin, and involved large pieces of meat & potatoes in a thick sauce made from garlic & chilli, and wow it was good, (my mouth is watering right now as I type this). We finished off the meal with coffee & dessert, which was altogether far too much and headed back to the hotel for an early night.

Tomorrow we visit the Geysers of El Tatio