Activity Summary
Friday 27th October - Day 388 (continued)
Chilean border control
Drive to San Pedro de Atacama
Lunch at Pizzería El Charrúa
Bank - BCI has fee of CLP8k
Eng Arg rugby game at ChelaCabur
Dinner at Franchuteria
Saturday 28th October - Day 389
Lunch at Sol Inti
Walk around town
Book bus tickets to Calama
Watch rugby World Cup final
Dinner at Restaurant El Diablillo
Sunday 29th October - Day 390
Lunch at Jardin Meraki
Coffee & admin afternoon
Monday 30th October - Day 391
Bus to Calama
Fly to Santiago
Summary
San Pedro de Atacama
It was like stepping into a desert town in the US. It had a really nice calm feel to it, safe and was a nice place to be.
It did however sky rocket in terms of price. All the nice food came with a price tag akin to Europe and the accommodation was spenny, probably as a result of it being in the middle of nowhere with very little water so it can be forgiven really.
The tours are super expensive here. For £60 we didn’t really think any of the tours seemed worth it given the Uyuni experience we had, so we passed on forking out and saved the money for elsewhere.
Transport
San Pedro de Atacama
Uyuni salt flats tour from Uyuni to San Pedro de Atacama
Car drop at Bolivian border for customs and passport stamp
Change to van to drive to Chilean border for bag scan and passport stamp
Drive to San Pedro de Atacama
Accommodation
San Pedro de Atacama - Hostal Open House
Number of nights - 4
Price per night per person - £19
Positives:
Nice big room
Decent breakfast
Negatives:
Two bathrooms for the whole place was a serious underestimate. Always a queue at throughout the day
Expensive but everywhere was worse
Far from town but so many other places were further
WIFI non-existent - thankfully we had decent mobile data
Kitchen tiny and didn’t seem inviting
Recommend?
It was the cheapest we could find and it was fine for that reason
Diary
Friday 27th October - Day 388 (continued)
The form we needed to fill out prior to the Chilean border suggested it was going to be one of the more full on transitions we’d had for a while. In particular they needed a declaration about having herbs, dried fruit and seeds which was interesting.
In reality it was pretty easy. There were no questions at passport control and the forms were barely looked at when our bags went through the scanners. The bus was then re-loaded with everyone and their luggage and we continued on the nice well paved road to San Pedro de Atacama.
Once in town we walked to our hostel and checked in. The accommodation (and everything else it seems) in Atacama is savagely expensive and it would take some getting used to after the rest of South America if it continued. For a lot of money we had a decent room but the two toilet/shower rooms were a constant fight for access and we have never had to wait like this to use the toilet. It was infuriating.
We had to wait a fair while to check in, despite having already paid for the room the night before due to the booking being inflexible and Nicola requiring an additional day in Sucre.
Once in the room we went for lunch at Pizzería El Charrúa. Half decent pizza and certainly sizable enough to quash any hunger.
Elsewhere in town we took cash out at BCI which attracted a huge fee of CLP8k (£8) on a CLP200k withdrawal. There are limited options in Atacama but everywhere takes card so we just sucked it up and will try to hold on to the cash for as long as possible.
Post eating we freshened up at the hostel and then entertained Luke’s desire to watch the Eng Arg bronze medal rugby game at ChelaCabur bar. Beers were alright but again, really expensive and even decided to throw a 10% tip on without asking. The stream quality was awful and in turn meant Luke had zero desire to return the next day.
The game sucked and we spent most of the time trying to avoid some overly aggy Argentinian men on the table next to us shouting all sorts of shit, none of it English friendly. All a bit over the top and hilariously the main guy shut up when some females turned up and he went on the impress offensive. He was an unappealing man.
On our way back to the hostel we had dinner at Franchuteria, a bakery / restaurant that was so popular at lunch we couldn’t get a table. So instead we went for dinner in the fading light and had really good, really expensive salmon sandwiches.
Saturday 28th October - Day 389
At half 1 in the morning Nicola had a rather unpleasant 20 minute sit around the bathroom. Despite knocking on the door multiple times, a fatty fatty fat fat guy (he was seriously obese) decided to take his sweet sweet time demolishing the bathroom and in the meantime Nicola began getting cold outside of bed, waking up and couldn’t sleep once relieved. A rather annoying experience.
We’d opted for a slow day and our morning was spent in the hostel, Luke watching the Arsenal Sheffield game (love a VPN to the US) and in turn forcing Nicola’s hand. The hostel breakfast however was pretty decent.
The restaurants in Atacama were consistently all heaving by lunchtime on a weekend and after trying our hand at a well rated place, finding a table ahead of some others who seemed to be cutting in front of us and then kicked off because there was a waiting list we left with a huff. Down the road we had lunch at Sol Inti which provided a substantial menu del dia spread for CLP7k.
In the afternoon we had a walk around town, exchanged the last of our BOB and booked bus tickets to Calama to get to the airport on Monday.
A lot of time was spent going around the tour offices in the town, of which there are too many and all very well rated. In one of them we got chatting to Jack and Felis who we had last met in Huacachina as they were travelling 24 hours to Cusco. It was a nice catch up and after talking about tours we ended up deciding against doing any. All were about £45 plus a £15 entry to somewhere for geysers, floating in salty pools or seeing landscapes akin to the Uyuni tour. Nothing really spoke to us and therefore decided to use the money elsewhere given we are running over budget.
Back in the room Luke used his O2 data and iPad to get the rugby World Cup final stream that ran infinitely better than the bar the day before.
We had dinner at Restaurant El Diablillo, a nearby restaurant because we could be bothered to walk into town and deal with waiting lists again. It was, however, overpriced for essentially chicken and chips.
Sunday 29th October - Day 390
Day 2 of a chilled San Pedro de Atacama trip had the morning fly by without us leaving.
Once up and out we were going to go for a menu del dia somewhere, first getting a drink at Jardin Meraki but the setting proved to be lovely with a live jazz act playing so we were very happy getting lunch here and chilling. The burger was not great mind.
For the afternoon Luke began the arduous process of CV writing. Yay.
When the sun dropped and it got colder we hit up the pretty decent supermarket in town and had basic b ramen in the room.
Monday 30th October - Day 391
Our bus to Calama town, in order to get to the airport, was at 7.50am from the nearby bus terminal. It was a simple walk, stashed our big bags in the hold and rode the double decker an hour and a half to the town.
There was the typical taxi man rush at the bus doors but this time Luke took one up on his offer. Probably should have ignored him and gone for a legit taxi, as he walked us to a non-branded taxi car and had 3 working windows so it was bloody freezing. For £7 it was also a pretty expensive 10 minute ride but we survived it, although Nicola was incredibly stressed the entire time.
We had some time to kill at the airport so sat in the chairs waiting for check in to open, went through security all fine and on to the plane to fly to Santiago.
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