January 2023

In January 2023 we travelled with our humans to South America. The primary objective was to explore Chile, and after visits to Buenos Aires in Argentina and Santiago in Chile, we were now going to fly to the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. Check out this Google Map to see where we went.

Click each photo to enlarge

We arrived the Calama Airport in the Atacama Desert. It was around 100 kilometers from our destination, the small town of San Pedro. The Atacama Desert is famous for being the driest place on Earth - rain has never been reported. Calama itself is a city of around 100,000 citizens and it's been built mainly to house workers from the open cupper mine nearby, the largest open mine in the world.

Atacama Desert, Chile, January 2023

As the coach approched San Pedro, it made a stop so we could get out and view the endless horizon. In the distance we could see the Andes mountains rise sharply, stretching all the way from the north to the far south.

Our humans had been provided with sandwiches for the drive. Some of the tour members made comments about the bread. Our photographer ate his lunch later in the day and it freed up some space in his bagpack.
"Thank God," said Tom, "Not only am I being squashed in a bag, but I've been sitting on a cheese and ham sandwich for 6 hours!"
"I heard that it took 12 km of desert road before our photographer managed to chew his way through the sandwich," McBear said.

We were staying at the Diego de Almagro Hotel in the middle of San Pedro. In fact, even though San Pedro is said to be a small town, it has lots of hostels and hotels; the beauty of the Atacama desert has become a major tourist attraction.

Soon after having been checked in at our hotel, we were on the road again, this time we went to see the Luna Valley just south west of San Pedro.

Toconao, Atacama Desert, January 2023

The next day we headed off to explore more of the Atacama Desert. The hotel provided the tour members with lunch bags. We stopped at a place up the mountains where a small river was flowing with melting water from the high Andes mountains. We crossed a bear sized bridge to the other side of the river.
"Wow, it's a suspension bridge," Roger pointed out.
"A wha'...? That's not a suspension bridge!"
"It is! It's suspended by stones..."
"You mean supported! Suspension is something hanging down..."
"Whatever. But we should design a suspension bridge for our garden..." Roger believed.
"A bridge is actually a good idea," McBear agreed. "We should build one from the kitchen door step to the lawn. That way, we wouldn't have to always be carefull not to tumble over used cat food trays, mosses or various pieces of garden tools..."
"Or pidgeon droppings," Roger added.
Roger felt inspired by his vision and discovery.

We stopped to explore the Salar de Atacama, a vast dry lake area of salt with ponds of salty water in places. Here, we are studying a small pond with lots of insects. Huge dragon flies were flying around us, wow!

We tried to catch up with the human group. They had gone ahead and it seemed they were like lost on an island in the middle of the salt flat.

While we were rushing ahead, suddenly a couple of Andean flamingos took to the sky. Wow, what a sight!

Further up the mountains we stopped for a break in Socaire, a small village. Some tour members got off to do... their business. Our photographer stayed on the coach. He noticed other tour members starting to eat the food from their lunch bag, so he thought it was time. Now, he did wonder why there were 2 large sandwiches in his bag. One sandwich would have been plenty. He didn't think there might be a reason, for example that the lunch bag was meant for 2 people. When tour members returned to their, seats, our lady human asked for her sandwich. Oops...
Now, the bears later discussed the crisis that they heard had arisen because of a missing sandwich.
"Someone told me our photographer was mortified," Roger told his fellow bears - and dog.
"Mortified is hardly the word," McBear added. "I heard, that things nearly escalated into an international dispute because some tour members believed the photographer got away with things too easy...
"Well, at least our photographer survived..." Roger noticed.
"Yeah, and he probably won't forget..."

We stopped at a lake, Laguna Miscanti. We got off the coach and lined up for a photo shoot. But Roger suddenly had disappeared. McBear looked around and found him lying on the ground.
"What are you doing?" asked McBear.
"A gust got me! It's risky business being a bear. Now, help me up and no further questions - please!"

On the way back to San Pedro, we stopped at this road sign: The Tropic of Capricorn, wow! Every year, when the sun is low on the northern hemisphere, it's high on the southern hemisphere. At around the 19th January the Sun will be at its highest point in the sky: right above the Salar de Atacama, and it's shining down perpendicular to the ground. After that, the Sun starts to travel north and is at its highest point six months later at Tropical Cancer, around the 21st June.

We stopped to have some additional lunch. Here, a couple of lamas lived and our guide gave them something to chew on. We asked if we could feed them as well, but no: imagine a lama taking one of us for an eatable piece of cotton yarn stuffed with hay!

Next morning we got up very early to head north to the volcano Tatio. We went up the Tatio volcano to 14,000 feet altitude, the equivalent of 4,300 meters. It was freezing cold. Here, there are geysors, and as the air temperature is low during morning hours, the geysors generate a lot of steam. Later in the day, when the sun heats up everything, the steam more or less disappears.

Some of the geysors could reach 50 feet vertically.

It was no wonder that tourists from everywhere wished to visit the Atacama Desert. The landscapes were incredible.

We stopped at a fantastic spot where guanacos, flamingos and wild geese were going around eating.

Many places we saw guanacos walking along the road.

Unfortunately, exploring the Atacama was soon over. We got up early the next morning and headed back to the airport in Calama. Here, we would catch our flight and this time fly to the very far south...