San Pedro

A month earlier, when I visited Machu Picchu in Peru, many people were asking their tour guides why the Incas would build such an elaborate citadel in such a remote area of the Andes Mountains?

I found myself asking the same question about the town of San Pedro de Atacama in the middle of the Atacama Desert in Chile. The town appears as a surprise out of the driest desert on earth. About ten blocks of one story adobe buildings, many dating back to the 1500’s and earlier.

Once it was a mining town. Now it is a tourist destination with more hotels opening every year, name brand shopping and trek guides selling half day adventures into the desert and across the border into Bolivia.