Tierra Atacama, Chile, Hotel Review

Could you see yourself riding a bike 11 miles to a salt-crusted turquoise lagoon, where you can wade in and float? Would a five-hour horseback ride to the Salt Mountains sate your craving for adventure, or do you prefer a more contemplative pursuit, such as a high-altitude walk with a view of a rainbow-colored valley?

These are the kinds of questions my guide, Paola Silva, asked me when I checked in to the newly reopened Tierra Atacama, a 28-room lodge in northern Chile’s Atacama Desert. The property just received a year-long, $20-million refresh, which revamped the spa and restaurant and added a lounge and wine cellar. The renovation also brought four new suites, each created by combining two smaller rooms, with luxurious features like hanging indoor gas fireplaces and private outdoor plunge pools. Guests staying in these suites are also set up with a dedicated guide.

Silva walked me through all the options before gently steering me toward activities that would excite me without giving me a heart attack. No to scrambling up the slippery rocks of Las Cornices trail; yes to a scenic stroll at 11,400 feet to soak in eight hot-spring pools, some with waterfalls. I also walked on lunar-like land formations at Valle de la Luna and ascended to a staggering 14,170 feet to see El Tatio, one of the highest and largest geysers in the world.

Tierra Atacama—part of the Baillie Lodge collection, which includes Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge, in British Columbia, and Southern Ocean Lodge, on Kangaroo Island, Australia—works with local communities, while limiting guest impact on the people and the ecosystem.

This same ethos comes through when dining at the resort, as executive chef Andrés Donoso Cancino works almost exclusively with Chilean producers and grows fruits in the hotel’s garden, including pomegranates and figs. After a lunch of creamy pea soup and yellowtail—caught on Chile's west coast about 60 miles from the resort and pan-fried with parsley, beet greens, and quinoa—I enjoyed a refreshing cactus ice cream.

Though I spent my days adventuring off site, I returned each evening to creature comforts like a humidifier in my room that eased the dryness from the desert air and tea made with rica rica, a Chilean medicinal herb that can help combat altitude sickness. 

Every night at turndown, I also found a homemade gift on my bed—a handcrafted doll, soft hand-knit slippers—all made by Indigenous Chilean craftspeople. I found that, after sky-high experiences, it was the little things like these that kept me grounded. 

Here, my full review of Tierra Atacama.

The Rooms

Tierra Atacama has 28 rooms, including 22 standard rooms in two configurations, Oriente Rooms with private terraces overlooking the Licancabur Volcano and the Andes mountain range, and slightly larger Poniente Rooms with Cordillera de la Sal (Salt Mountains) views. There are also four suites (during the hotel renovations, two standard-size guest rooms were combined to form each suite); and bi-level apartments with three beds and three baths. I stayed in one of the brand-new 753-square-foot suites, with a king-size bed, a large living room with a grey metal suspended gas fireplace, modular sofa, and multipurpose desk/side board, plus an oversized bathroom with a double sink, soaking tub, and indoor-outdoor rain showers. I could turn on underfloor heating throughout the room, with a wall-mounted thermostat (which I did, to stay cozy at night).

The colors of my room, and the other rooms throughout the hotel, reflected the Atacama Desert, with the bed frame and desk reminiscent of the blue-black Atacama night sky and tile floors evoking desert sands. All the furniture was created by Chilean artisans, and some of the artwork has a very fitting constellations theme. The bath products were created by a local company, Vera Cosmetica, and use ingredients from around the region, including rica rica.

The absolute selling point of all the suites, and some of the standard rooms, are the floor-to-ceiling windows with views directly onto Licancabur Volcano and Cerro Toco in the Andes. None of the rooms have TVs; they're unnecessary with all the nature and night stars on display. My suite also had a large outdoor patio with unheated plunge pool—a bit too cold for me to partake in—plus a day bed and chairs to enjoy that stunning volcano view during the daylight, when the roof covering retracts, or at night, when I started up the gas fireplace to stay comfortable in the chilly desert air.

Food and Drink

There’s only one restaurant at Tierra Atacama, where I dined every day for breakfast, lunch during the two-hour break between half-day excursions, and dinner. Breakfast is a rather basic buffet (plus the chance to order hot dishes), but the kitchen really shines with the multicourse lunches and dinners, when chef Donoso Cancino and his team whip up new three-course menus each day with meat, seafood/fish, and vegetarian options. Though the menu repeats each week (and is entirely revamped twice a year), most guests—including myself—stay an average of four nights, so you’ll never see the same dish twice. Cancino also swaps out items on a moment’s notice if, say, the rockfish is fresher that day than the sea bass.

My favorites included the creamy soup duo of avocado and corn served with flowers of the season and the marinated northern oysters with seaweed, a spicy, citrusy acevichada sauce, and yellow pepper. I especially loved that local herbs and plants appear in desserts at least once a day; my top pick was chañar ice cream, made from the fruit of the deciduous chañar tree, with an addictive caramel flavor. And though most days I came back to the hotel for lunch in between my morning and afternoon excursions, I got a special treat during my full-day excursion to the geysers: a picnic lunch spread, complete with Chilean wine, set up by my guide at a remote, scenic spot along the route filled with grazing, playing vicuñas, the adorable cousins to alpacas.

I also got to try a Fire Night, held twice a week, where the kitchen staff prepare meats outdoors on the enormous grill. I highly recommend the lamb, sourced from the surrounding area, served along with delicious locally cultivated couscous.

There’s a bar off the lobby area, where I’d highly recommend sampling the aforementioned rica rica sour. While it stays open late, you may be the only one drinking, because this is an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of place. The robust wine list leans toward mainly Chilean with a touch of Argentinian and Uruguayan, with a number of choices available by the glass; many nights I opted for Chile’s sweetheart wine, Carménère.

Activities and Experiences

Each excursion is rated by the hotel as easy, medium, or difficult. Most last for a half-day and some, like the Tatio Geysers and Piedras Rojas (Red Stones), for a full day. And you can choose your mode of transport—walking, biking, or horseback riding—depending on the activity and your comfort level.

I loved each of my excursions because they showed off the varying scenery of the Atacama, and gave me glimpses of the three mountain ranges that surround it: the Andes, the Salt, and the Domeyko. The guides do a phenomenal job of matching you up with the activities that meet your interests and fitness level. They also program the excursions to help you better acclimate to the altitude over the days of your visit, which is why I started with the 7,556-foot salt flats and ended with the 14,000-plus-foot geysers.

If your visit coincides with clear enough skies for the stargazing excursion (i.e., no full moon), it’s truly a can't-miss event. You drive about 15 minutes out into the desert at 9 p.m. and gaze at the sky for about two hours using high-powered telescopes. The hotel plans to open an on-site observatory this summer to make it even easier to see the gorgeous constellations without leaving the property.

Since most guests head out early on excursions, usually at 8 or 9 a.m., and go to bed right after dinner (or stargazing), there aren’t many other activities offered on-site. But I did try a yoga class, held every day at 6:30 p.m., which focused on gentle stretching and was thoroughly relaxing after my go-go-go day.

The Spa

The 5,380-square-foot Uma Spa makes for a lovely place to relax after an active day of adventuring. I started with a signature Ckapín Massage in one of the three treatment rooms (two for individuals and one for couples), a combination deep massage/relaxation treatment that soothed my sore muscles and stimulated my senses with an aromatherapy mixture of almond, lavender, and orange oils. Then I moved on to the heated indoor pool before a spell in the sauna and steam room and, finally, the outdoor hot tub. (I skipped the outdoor pool, since it’s not heated and is better suited to warmer daytime temperatures.) I had the place to myself, since many people were eating dinner, but I’d also recommend visiting in the daytime, when you have wondrous views onto the volcano.

The spa also includes a newly built gym with all the bells and whistles: treadmills, bikes, and ellipticals, plus free weights and weight machines. It’s a lovely space, and I’m a bit of a gymhound, but it was hard to fit it in around the other abundant activities, unless you can manage to rouse yourself at an early hour.

Family-friendly Offerings

Tierra Atacama only allows kids 10 and over, and during my visit, there were a handful of families with kids in the tween and teen age range. Honestly, the excursions may either be too boring or overly challenging for younger kids, and at the hotel itself, there is no kids’ club, child-focused activities, or large swimming pool. That said, the guides recommended some activities that might be more interesting yet still suitable for active children, including walking the Rainbow Valley, biking the Devil’s Gorge, or going down the sand dunes at Las Cornices.

For the most comfortable stay, the two apartments are best suited for travelers with children; in addition to the primary bedroom, there are two bedrooms each with two single beds, along with multiple bathrooms and extra space for a family to spread out without getting in each others’ way. Suites could also work with cots added to the room.

Accessibility and Sustainability

A solar panel/battery hybrid system supplies 60 percent of Tierra Atacama's energy needs. They also have their own water system with a reverse osmosis plant to treat it, so they don’t need to use water from San Pedro de Atacama’s supply. The hotel doesn’t use single-use plastics in guest rooms, and every guest gets a Tierra-branded water bottle in the room—a great gift to take home with you—with refillable water stations by the bar near the lobby. Filtered water in glass canisters is placed by the bed during turndown each night.

Tierra Atacama complies with the Chilean law regarding ease of use for wheelchair users. They have a room adapted for wheelchair users that has wider doors, both to enter the room and the bathroom; a lower sink, for easier access; grab bars and a pulldown chair in the shower; and an adjustable mirror that can be moved to adapt the angle for wheelchair users. There are ramps everywhere within the main building, and the Oriente rooms are on ground level for easier access. There is also a specially adapted bathroom near the lobby with a wide door and grab bars.

That said, Tierra Atacama does not have vehicles that are adapted for wheelchair users (no lift at the back, for example), nor a lift to help people in and out of the pools or jacuzzi, so guests do need to be somewhat mobile or travel with people who can help them. I personally would not recommend the hotel or even the destination itself for people with mobility issues, unless they want to spend a significant amount of time at the hotel, since most of the excursions—which are the meat-and-potatoes of an Atacama visit—are not accessible.

Location

To get to the Atacama Desert, guests can fly into El Loa Airport (CJC) in Calama, Chile. Two-hour direct flights from Arturo Merino Benitez Airport (SCL) in Santiago leave many times a day on LATAM Airlines, Sky Airline, and JetSMART. From Calama, it’s about a 90-minute drive on barren stretches of road (punctuated by lunar landscapes and magnificent rock formations as the road progresses) to San Pedro de Atacama; the hotel provides free transfers. Once at the hotel, guests have access to guides and transport to see all the sights.

Tierra Atacama is located on the outskirts of San Pedro de Atacama, an ancient town with dusty streets and adobe buildings. It makes a fine stop to shop for jewelry, especially pieces created with local lapis lazuli stone, and to try a refreshing ice cream at Heladería Babalú made from local ingredients like chañar and ayrampo.

How to Get the Most Value Out of Your Stay

Tierra Atacama is part of Priceless by Mastercard, which offers exclusive benefits to Mastercard cardholders. Nightly rates at Tierra Atacama, including all meals, drinks, and excursions, start from $1,870 in the low season.