DAY 7
SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA
Since we had the morning free, we decided to go into San Pedro and visit the Museum del Meteorito. (The hotel van drove us over, but we walked back which took about 45 minutes.). The museum is small, two tent-like domes and was surprisingly high tech. 
With an audio guide (in English), we made the circuit around the larger dome and heard about the meteorite artifacts that were in glass cases. Below each case was a video screen with a clip about what was in the case, how it got there and how meteors form and what their significance is for planet Earth. There were also wall-mounted posters in both Spanish and English with some of the same information.
The level of detail was almost that of an undergraduate course, but we did learn a lot and, at the end, got to touch some meteorite fragments which were explained to us by a resident guide. 
We then walked along dusty sandy, Tocopilla, the main thoroughfare in this town of 10,000 people. Here you find restaurants, shops, hostels, a gas station, and a very attractive church. It’s obviously the hub for anyone wishing to explore the desert who is not staying in one of the hotels or resorts on the edge of town. Just outside the business district is a section of homes for residents; like everything here, they are made of adobe, sometimes it’s adobe bricks, other times solid adobe walls, and even round adobe stones. 
We came upon several people in the process of adding tent-like upside down V’s to the top of their adobe wall. This tent shape is used to represent the nearby volcano.
Locals can have water delivered to square areas in their yard for their gardens, and if they don’t have their own wells, they may get water delivered to their own storage tanks or they purchase bottled water.
CUISINE
You might wonder what we’ve been eating the past few days. Overall, the food is creative and tasty. Breakfasts here are done buffet style with the full range of hot dishes (scrambled eggs, bacon, cooked vegetables), an endless variety of breads and pastry, fresh fruit (usually pineapple, watermelon, kiwi, bananas, and cucumber melon, sort of a cross between cucumber and cantaloupe), and cold meats, cheese, and smoked salmon.
Lunch and dinner are a set menu with typically three choices for each course—an invitation to overindulge! One main course is vegetarian. The soups are very good (cream of broccoli, cream of mushroom, vegetable with razor clams, e.g.), and we’ve had plenty of fresh fish such as corvina and swordfish plus baby octopus, fresh crab, and shrimp. The Chileans tend to eat more salads and fish and less beef than in neighboring Argentina, so we’re told.
Today at lunch, the Chief Penguin and I both tried a special Chilean sandwich. It consisted of shredded beef on a hamburger bun slathered with mayonnaise sitting on a tomato slice, and topped with rings of chile pepper and thinly sliced green beans. The beef was tasty as were the accompanying potato wedges, but less mayonnaise was in order.
For dessert, there’s always a special cake of the day (carrot or Black Forest, e.g.), ice cream and sorbet, a cheese plate, and usually some fruit. Today the fruit was a thick slice of grilled pineapple in a syrup with saffron served with a scoop of a tropical sorbet.
Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved). Header photo is a patch of green on the outskirts of San Pedro de Atacama.
