Here are some fun photos taken on my phone from around San Pedro de Atacama.
The town is built mainly in adobe, which is effectively a mixture of clay-rich soil, straw, and sand. This is often mixed with stones, and walls are then rendered with a clay slip to finish and protect them. Adobe isn’t a material which lends itself to high rise building, so the majority of “SP de Atacama” (as abbreviated on road signs) are single storey.
The town itself is very atmospheric, feeling very much in harmony within its location in a desert oasis. The earthy ochre-coloured mud-built buildings feel like they have been extruded from the ground below, which in a way, they have. Shop signs are wooden, and modern roofs have been topped by reeds to remain in-keeping with the desert town feel. Most restaurants are heated by wood-fired chimineas, found here in their native territory, and totally in-keeping with their terracotta surroundings.
This first photo is a close-up of an adobe wall which has seen better days, to give you an idea of its composition.
(still travelling and posting from my iPhone, so no captions for now – sorryl!)
