demanding pace | 11 nights | from $4,380 per person
Atacama Vacation Package: 11 Nights at a Demanding Pace
Altitude is what makes this trip demanding, not distance. Several nights are spent higher than most people have ever slept.
What the days ask of you
This trip is filed as demanding. Everything below is measured, not adjectives.
- Walking on an average day
- two to four miles, which is deliberately short because distance is not the problem
- Longest stretch without a seat
- ninety minutes at the geyser field, at fourteen thousand feet, before dawn
- What is under your feet
- salt crust, loose volcanic gravel, and boardwalk at the reserves
- Climbing
- little. The trip is demanding because of where it sits, not how far it goes
- Altitude
- three nights above three thousand meters and one morning above four thousand
- Heat
- hot at midday and below freezing before dawn on the same day
- Times you move
- four, with two long drives on unsealed high roads
- Who this is not for
- any heart or lung condition, or pregnancy, and we will decline the booking rather than take the fee
What is included
- Eleven nights across four properties, all heated, three of them above three thousand meters
- All breakfasts, six lunches and four dinners
- A vehicle with a driver and a guide for the whole route, maximum eight travelers
- Oxygen carried in the vehicle throughout, and a guide trained to use it
- Two deliberately slow days at the start, at the lower altitude, which are not padding
- All reserve and park fees
What is not included
- International flights, quoted separately
- Meals not listed, and at these altitudes appetite is unreliable anyway
- Any medication for altitude, which is a conversation for your own doctor and not for us
- Gratuities
- The observatory evening, which is weather dependent and bought locally
- Laundry
What it costs
from $4,380 per person, on two people sharing.
That is the lowest figure we have actually placed this trip at in the last season. It moves with the month, the room or cabin grade, whether you travel alone and how far ahead you book. Flights are not in it unless this page says they are. The figure is confirmed in writing, with the operator named, before you commit to anything.
When this is worth doing, and when it is not
March to May and September to November. The southern winter brings closures on the high passes without much warning. January and February bring afternoon storms to the altiplano that shut roads for a day at a time.
Altitude does not care about fitness, and this is the single most important sentence on this page. Marathon runners are affected and sedentary people sometimes are not. If you have any heart or lung condition, or you are pregnant, this trip is not appropriate and we will decline to book it rather than take the fee.
What gets settled when you confirm
Your honest altitude history, which decides whether we sell you this at all. Whether the two slow days at the start are enough for you or whether you want a third. Room configuration, since the high properties have very few twins. And the departure, because the vehicle takes eight and the guide will not take nine.