Lagunas Baltinache, San Pedro de Atacama

Very interesting ride. The place is beautiful, all made of salt, and in the middle are formed ponds. In one of them it is possible to enter, due to the high concentration of salt does not sink, equal in the Dead Sea, but with higher salt concentration. The only thing though is that the water is VERY cold. It's worth it.

The Lagunas de Baltinache, but better known as Hidden Lagunas (are the same thing!!), are basically 7 neighboring lagoons formed by the rainwater that is stored in deep holes in the ground, these holes that still do not know how they were formed oO. They are located in the Cordillera de Sal and, therefore, the whole place is covered in salt and the water is extremely salty. All white in the pictures is salt! But a type of salt that cannot be ingested, because, as informed by the Guide in my visit, there are the presence of other chemicals that can do very badly. It is this high concentration of salt that causes the water of the ponds to be 8x more salty than the Dead Sea. This feature ensures that you do not sink or at all! When hiring the tour to the Lagunas de Baltinache, I realized that this is a place not yet widely explored by the tourism agencies in San Pedro de Atacama. Not all offered this tour and the way it is offered varies greatly from agency to agency. Some offer you in the morning shift, others in the afternoon shift (in this option you will have the opportunity to accompany the spectacle that is the sunset in the desert) and even as a full day tour. I did it at the end of the afternoon, leaving San Pedro around 13:30h and coming back after sunset. I liked this time, because, as I visited the Atacama near the middle of the year, the climate at this time is quite cold in the morning time , warming up a bit in the afternoon. Well, as the Lagunas are 60 km from San Pedro, you will take around 1 hours for displacement on an "endless Highway". But relax, as in all the tours in Atacama, the landscape seen by the window is rewarding. Depending on the agency, other desert sights can be included in the tour. In my case, the contracted agency acted practically as a roundtrip transfer from San Pedro to the hidden Lagunas. Coming to the place, you will come across an amazing look! (See photos). I hope your camera is properly charged, because the pictures will be many. In May/2019, the rate charged to access the area of the ponds was 5000 pesos. On site there are bathrooms, Locai...