A conversational travel vlog by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting a day road-tripping in the Atacama Desert. The couple drive a rented car (which struggles at higher speeds and stalls uphill), spot desert wildlife (a large tarantula, flamingos on salt flats, and a herd of llama-like animals), visit high-altitude lakes via a checkpoint, have a lakeside picnic, and worry about low gas and cold/windy conditions on the return. The footage mixes scenic wildlife segments, practical travel challenges, and light-hearted banter.
Chapters
It is a beautiful morning in the desert. It's actually kind of chilly. Our Airbnb host rented us his car, and so now we're going on an adventure.
Figure out to work this thing. I don't think we need the windshield wipers.
Off to a good start. Off we go.
We successfully got gas. The sun is coming up over the mountains. The morning's off to a good start. The only problem so far is that when I start going above 60km an hour, the steering wheel's like.
So you have to drive slow.
Just made our first turn, and that's it.
End of the pavement. Insane. We have been driving for, like, 45 minutes and seen a total of five cars.
Whoa.
What? I think that might have been a tarantula.
Where?
There it is.
What's happening?
So I just saw something crawling across the road. I have no clue what it is, but it might be a massive tarantula. So we've gone back. I'm gonna get out and check it out. I hate spiders.
Oh, I think it is. Oh, it is.
Oh, my gosh. How did you see that?
It was that big.
Oh, my gosh. That is so terrifying.
You think it's alive?
Yeah, I saw it crawling.
Mom's coming for you.
Oh, my gosh. Oh, that's so terrifying.
That was so nuts. I cannot believe you saw that it was that big.
That's why I love having my own car, because you can stop and see crazy things like that.
We've spotted humans.
Good job. And Nate, thanks. Looks like you might have to pay to walk out to the middle of the desert.
I'm so excited. This is so cool. We are in the middle of the desert, and there's just this huge salt flat with all these flamingos.
Sa.
Oh, my gosh.
This place is incredible.
Unbelievable.
We just spent, like, the last hour taking pictures and videos of flamingos.
They're so cool.
I can't believe this place exists.
I felt like I was filming a show for National Geographic.
Everything is so peaceful and beautiful. Like, I feel like I have to whisper. It's just so calm.
There are quite a few people here, but, like, it's not bad. Like, it doesn't feel like. Yeah, super touristy. It is kind of hard to get to. Yeah.
Worth it, though.
I could stay all day and video the flamingos, but we have a lot of other places to go, and the roads aren't exactly conducive for getting there quickly, so we need to get a move on.
Our car doesn't go anywhere quickly. We are back on the road, the lakes that we're going to are about an hour drive away. Probably two hours in our car.
Sam.
How'S the job going? Nate?
This is probably the point where we should turn around, but we're like so close. The car has died three times going up the mountain. Currently in first gear, just crawling and our gas just crossed below the halfway line. The way that I'm justifying continuing is that we've driven uphill almost the whole entire time. So like the way back should be downhill. So I'm thinking we'll do a little better on the gas mileage. And we are not turning off on like the dirt road where we went to see the flamingos. Hopefully I'm not making a terrible decision.
There's a little checkpoint at the top of the hill before you drive down to the lakes. Nate just went inside to grab the tickets to favorite ticket.
She says the lakes are only one more kilometer, which is good since we're running out of gas.
It is so windy up here.
It is cold. I need my jacket.
I'm pretty cold. I'm hoping the wind is not so fierce at the bottom.
This is amazing.
We've been told about these herds of these llama like animals. The they're not llamas, but we don't know how to say what they are. And we see some down by the water.
Well, I don't know how high we are right now, but we did drive up like the entire way. And hiking as the seal.
I can definitely tell we're getting ready.
For Patagonia and Machu Picchu and La Paz and the Bolivian salt flats. We better get used to this. It's like not affecting me except when I'm bending over trying to get shots. I get really light headed. And hiking up this hill.
There'S a whole herd of llama. This is awesome. They're running. We can go on this road right here.
The great migration of llamadieres just happened right in front of us. And there's a little baby one too that I have 7,000 pictures of them on my camera.
That made my day. I was hoping that we would see the llamas. And then they ran right in front of us. I had the camera set in slow motion. I can't wait to get back and watch all of this footage.
The big van spooked them all and we were just in the perfect spot and they all ran right in front of us.
I could go home.
So we drove like a minute to another lake. It's got a little picnic area. We brought some snacks. So we're about to have a picnic in one of the most beautiful locations I've ever been to in my entire life.
We kept it simple with some tuna and tomato sandwiches and tostitos.
The weather is so perfect. The sun is shining, but the breeze is just enough to not be too hot. I could stay here all day.
We couldn't leave without checking out this lake from one more viewpoint.
Okay, for real, we're hitting the road this time. I think we're done hoping that we make it home with our exactly half a tank of gas.
I think we'll be fine. It'll be a fun story if we run out of gas and have to walk through the desert.
We've had too many fun stories recently.
Yeah.
We have about this much water left.
It wouldn't last long out here.
We didn't bring big jackets. It was freezing this morning when we woke up. We're gonna be in trouble.
It's so crazy. It's like one second I'm sweating when the wind stops, and then it picks up and I'm, like, freezing.
The desert is so fascina.
Thanks, mike. Let's go.
Pavement.
It's all smooth sailing downhill from.
This is what the road feels like when there's no stabilizer on the camera and there's no music playing in the background.
The views are really good. The actual road is not very beastly.
