San Pedro de Atacama

After an overnight bus trip, we arrived in San Pedro – the farthest north we’d be all trip. A small pueblo in the middle of the Atacama desert, San Pedro’s main industry is tourism, as there are some fantastic things to see around it. Unfortunately for us, the bus schedule struck again and we ended up only have one day in the desert. But during that one day we managed to have quite a few ups and downs. Top five:

5. Walking around the desert for an hour looking for our hostel:  We arrived in San Pedro at about 9 am, which in Chile means that NOTHING is open. And unfortunately I’d forgotten to download the directions to our hostel to my phone… which means we had no address or directions. Just the name: Iquisa. So we just started to follow the other people from the bus (as no one really knew where to go because there wasn’t a bus terminal, just a random drop off point for that bus company on the edge of town). Made it to the central plaza and looked around for a place with wifi. None were found. So we started to ask people directions to “Iquisa.” The first guy we asked in the square seemed to know where it was and gave us (really confusing) directions (which, an hour later, we looked back on and found they were actually spot on). So we set off trying to go where he’d told us, ending up out of town around (surprise) unmarked streets and people who now had no idea where or what “Iquisa” was.  At this point the desert sun was up and we were in pants and jackets (from the cold night and long bus trip) carrying all our luggage in backpack form. We finally came across another hostel in the area (Backpackers) and the lady was nice enough to let us in and use their wifi so I could check my email and get us directions. After that, it wasn’t too much longer (just a few wrong turns along the way, but if you haven’t noticed, that’s becoming a trend with us) till we found Iquisa, still outside of town, in an area MB described as “slumdog millionaire.” But hey, it was cheap.

4. Walking around for hours trying to figure out bus/tours: After getting to Iquisa, we basically dropped our packs, put on shorts, and went back to town (the owners didn’t really check us in or anything, but whatever). So our first mission was to figure out busses (made more difficult because there was no central terminal, only different bus agencies and various points around town) because we’d heard busses to Salta – our next destination – only left Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. After striking out at a few places, we finally found an agency that went to Salta, and only on those three days. Which sucked for us because that meant (as it was Saturday) we’d either have to leave the next day (Sunday) or stay two more days to leave Tuesday (and we were already quite behind our “schedule”). SO, we booked tickets for Sunday and then a tour for that afternoon/evening in the valley of the moon.

3. Meal plan: After our overnight bus from La Serena, our eating schedule was a bit off, and this was not helped by the fact that when we got to San Pedro, we wanted to get to the hostel and get bus tickets/tour tickets before doing anything else – and unfortunately this process lasted a very long time. On the bus, our dinner the night before had been two bananas and nutella, potato chips and a strange sandwich the bus company provided. For breakfast on the bus, a small cookie. After walking the desert for a few hours we were pretty hungry, so about noon we stopped at the first place with wifi and split a pizza. About an hour later we were still hungry and searched again for ice cream (which somehow, we’d been striking out at getting since Valpo) and ended up at a pasteleria splitting three large desert items between us. Then for dinner we started pregaming with some Pisco at our hostel and around 10:30pm we were starving again so went out to a restaurant, finally somewhat back on a regular eating plan.

2. Pisco sour: Although our dinner was great, and got us feeling better about our eating schedule, we ordered Pisco sours with dinner that somehow were unearthly strong. Like, after a few sips I was feeling drunk, and Mary Beth had stopped talking and was looking really wild-eyed. It was a nice restaurant, so the possibility we’d been drugged was low… but still. The drinks were really hard to finish and we were wasted when we left. One-drink wonders. We stumbled back to the hostel (to our slum) feeling a bit paranoid so we both carried headlamps (not too many streetlights) and I carried my knife in my hand the whole way. Probably not necessary, but again – wasted. Back at the hostel we passed out hard and I didn’t wake up when our roommates came in a little later, or when they packed and left in the morning.

1.  Valley of the moon: The tour started at 4pm and we loaded into a mini bus with about 16 other people and a tour guide named Pato (Patito!) who did the whole thing in Spanish and English. We’d drive for about 20 minutes into the desert and then he’d explain some geologic stuff and then we‘d get out and walk around for 15 to 30 minutes – and we did this about six times at various points of interest. Pretty cool desert, and of course, our bus was full of couples, so MB and I played the part and were the obnoxious American couple. Patito kept calling us the chicas locas because we’d skip down sand dunes and I tried to lick the salt rock at the mine. Our final stop was at a sand dune we hiked up for a view of the whole valley and the Andean volcanoes towards Argentina (all covered in snow) and we watched the sunset. Very romantic.

Couple shot

Lookin for salt in the mines

Climbing into the salt mines

View sunset in the Valley of the Moon