Out Of This World

From soaring through the sky to crunching across expansive salt flats, Sarah Gilbert gets lost in Chile’s vast Atacama Desert.

The sun’s first rays brought about a dazzling transformation. The wall of still-smoking volcanoes turned from blues and purples to terracotta and ochre in quick succession. And between the roar of the flames, only the whistling wind pierced the silence.

I held my breath as I watched the shadow of the balloon track across the ground. Drifting towards Moon Valley, my bird’s-eye view gave its corrugated cliffs and undulating dunes an unmistakably lunar-like quality. It’s no surprise that its rocky terrain proved a good testing ground for NASA’s moon vehicles.

Eastern Safaris, the company that started out running balloon rides over the temples of Bagan in Myanmar, began operating Balloons Over Atacama last year. The world’s highest and driest non-polar desert, the Atacama’s otherworldly landscapes stretch for more than 1,200 kilometres across northern Chile.

At dawn, eight of us had gathered in the chilly morning air and watched over coffee and croissants as fire breathed life into our wine-red balloon. As it expanded, a golden alicanto bird, a mythological creature of Chilean folklore that glows with a metallic sheen, slowly appeared, wings outstretched.

Safety briefing over, we clambered into the wicker basket as a shaft of sunlight appeared over Licancabur’s perfect volcanic cone, before gently soaring into the rapidly lightening sky. Looking down, I could see unlikely patches of green among the barren landscape, a smattering of oasis-like villages fed by underground rivers and meltwater from the Andes.

After we landed, with barely a bump, champagne corks popped and we were invited to pay our own respects to the land as we poured drops of bubbly onto the sand to honour Pachamama, or Mother Earth.

I was staying at Explora Atacama, where the long, low buildings take their cue from the surroundings: whitewashed adobe, stone and wood, with blasts of colour from hand-woven blankets, and picture windows to take in the stunning views. Luxuries include a Hockney-blue pool set in a landscaped desert garden, a sauna and massage room, a top-notch restaurant turning local produce into gourmet fare and a well-stocked bar for sampling pisco sours and fine Chilean wine.

Explora sits on the fringes of San Pedro de Atacama, where the atmospheric, dusty streets throng with tourists, there for the handicrafts and cafés, the pretty tree-lined plaza with its simple Andean church and the excellent archaeological museum. But, less hotel, more luxe base camp, its extensive menu of explorations is designed to reveal northern Chile’s most spectacular scenery without the crowds: half- and full-day hikes, journeys by bike and horseback, plus high mountain ascents for those who’ve acclimatised, to go where the tour buses can’t reach.

From the air, I’d caught a white flash of the Salar de Atacama, the world’s third largest salt flat. Later that afternoon, I set out with a guide to explore its encrusted expanse, which stretches for more than 3,000 square kilometres.

At close quarters, the compacted salt crunched like ice underfoot as we followed a track to the shores of Laguna Chaxa, a startling sweep of vivid blue on the otherwise barren landscape.

Despite the extreme conditions, the salar sustains a surprising variety of birdlife, including three out of the world’s seven flamingo species, the Baird's sandpiper and the puna plover.

As if on cue, a flock of Andean flamingos flew overhead in strict formation. Others paced in the shallows, foraging for the microscopic but carotene-rich brine shrimps that give them their distinctive rosy hue.

As the setting sun dipped behind Licancabur, the salt turned to liquid gold and the volcano and its neighbours a fiery orange, until a sliver of moon appeared and a plethora of stars began to glitter in the darkening sky.

With its high altitude, clean air and lack of light pollution, the Atacama is one of the finest places on the planet for stargazing. The planets and stars of the southern sky are visible for all to see, including ringed Saturn and multi-hued Jupiter.

The area is a major hub for astronomical research and home to a number of cutting-edge observatories, including ALMA, the largest land-based observatory ever built. But I didn’t have to venture far; Explora offers stargazing at its own private observatory using a 16-inch Meade telescope.

With a laser pen, my guide mapped out the kiteshaped constellation Crux, as we zoomed in on the Southern Cross, from where you can track the south celestial pole – and the clarity was breathtaking.

The following day’s hike saw me crisscrossing a rocky but surprisingly verdant landscape dotted with hardy pre-puna vegetation. I arrived at the Puritama hot springs to take a dip in the reed-fringed, jade-green thermal waters Explora-style, in their own private pool, complete with drinks and nibbles.

Later, some guests chose a two-wheel option to ride through the scrubby, buff-coloured desert, taking in an ancient settlement of the Atacameños, a pre-Hispanic desert people. I chose four legs; Explora’s on-site stable houses more than 20 horses, perfect for novices to expert riders.

I rode out of the village with my guide, leaving behind the rough-hewn adobe farmhouses for an expanse of stone-strewn desert flanked by striated rock formations, sculpted by wind and time. The only cloud in the cobalt-blue sky was a distant plume of steam rising from a smouldering crater.

With more time, you can visit the mountainous piles of rocks at Yerbas Buenas, where hundreds of petroglyphs – images carved and marked with red pigment – were made thousands of years ago by nomadic herders. See the geysers at El Tatio, best viewed just before sunrise, spouting scalding water amid snowcapped volcanic peaks, and watch golden vicuñas, wild cousins of the llama, their fleece once worth more than gold, grazing on the Altiplano.

On my last evening, I stepped out into the darkness of Explora’s cobbled courtyard and looked up to see a silvery band arc across the sky: the brilliance of the Milky Way, so close I could almost reach out and touch it.