Laguna Cejar, San Pedro de Atacama Chile

Salar de Atacama is the worlds largest and purest active source of lithium. A short drive from San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, 27% of the world’s lithium reserve base creates this amazing landscape. A few posts back, this is the same area we went to the Valley of the Moon.

We left  San Pedro on three different days for separate tours. There are really one two ways to drive out of town, yet by the end of the day, no matter which way we drove we’d end up viewing completely different landscapes.

This day we were on our way to Laguna Cejar, a sink hole in the Salar de Atacama. The salt concentration here ranges from 5%-20%, which is at the higher end of the Dead Sea levels.

Like in the movies, we’d be driving along through the desert with no noticeable features for as long as the eye can see. Then bamm! We’re were upon this sink hole that everyone got to swim in for about thirty minutes. As quickly as we all arrived, just like that, everyone piled into all the cars and buses and were gone.

Then we got to see the salt flat.

The salt flat encompasses about 3000 km2/ 1200 mi2.

It’s about 100 km long and 80 km wide.

It is the third largest salt flat in the world.

Different areas of the salt flat had such various textures.

Look at these lines.

The average elevation was 2300 meters above sea level.

This photo reminds me of a version of the artic.

There were no drainage outlets.

Us on the salt flat.

Darn Chris and those long arms.

Together again.

In the distance, large volcanoes dominated the landscape.

We all stood out on the salt flat to watch the evening come to a slow end.

After a day out in the desert salt flats, we got back in our little buses and drove away and hardly a soul would know we had ever been there.

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If you go:

Lots of buses coming and going from Calama to San Pedro. Try to plan it so you don’t have to stay in Calama.

Buses from Calama to San Pedro ~$6000 sole pp

We stayed at Jama Hostel which was $20,000 sole per night for two people. Lodging prices are super inflated, so if you can book ahead it’s a good idea. We wandered around a long time looking for a reasonably priced place.There are good enough markets for getting what you need and restaurants to eat at. A lot of the hostels did not offer cooking facilities. You have to buy all your water – there is no potable water because the water is so mineral heavy.

For the tour, we went with a place called You Know Chile. There are tons of tour operators all basically offering the same thing. We paid $55,000 sole pp for three days of activities: the geysers, laguna cejar, lagunas altiplanicas and valley of the moon. All of these places were amazing and if you are making the effort to go to this remote desert, you might as well spend some time and see these different landscapes around the San Pedro.