San Pedro de Atacama: Staging Grounds for Bolivia

After a couple weeks in Santiago, it was time to move on. I wanted to explore more of Chile, so I booked a 24 hour bus ride to San Pedro. I thought from there I could do some day trips to places in the Atacama desert and maybe go to an observatory. The Atacama is home to the driest place on earth and has little cloud cover. I believe it has the most powerful telescopes on earth too. None of this is relevant, though, because I didn't do shit while I was there.

I'm sure San Pedro de Atacama could be a lot of fun. A great place to experience a lot the region has to offer. But they say write about what you know. And what I know is that this place mostly sucked for me. So that's what this post is about.

Things were bad from the start. I botched my hotel reservation by not accounting for the overnight bus ride. So I wound up with one less day there than I had planned but still payed for the three nights. $70 a night for a place that should have cost about half that. And the only reason it should have been that much is that everything is expensive in the SPA. It was worth about $20, I'd say. It was nice to have a private room, but there were private rooms closer to the town center that were cheaper and boasted wifi and satellite tv in the rooms.

Basically my days were filled with bad food and nothing to do while I waited for my trip to Bolivia. A prime example of this is as follows. I found a vegetarian restaurant, which is a big score in South America, because they have such great produce that is inexplicably left off the menu at most restaurants. It will make you feel so much better to get some fresh fruits and vegetables after not having any for a while. One of the specials was a veggie burger with fries and fruit juice. Sounded perfect. When I ordered, the lady asked if I wanted the sandwich. I just said yes and sat down, thinking what the hell else kind of hamburger is there. Apparently the hamberguesa con papas fritas did not include a bun. The bun, which is what makes it a sandwich, replaced the fries. The bun was interesting. It was big, flat, and circular like a frisbee. It was hard like a frisbee. And it tasted like dirt like a frisbee (that's been in the dirt). The only thing close to redemption this place got was the avocado. All avocados in Chile are ridiculously delicious. So this place gets no credit for doing something so good, but so obvious that they would have been morons to not do it. Then I had some disappointing ice cream and got sick for two days. Then I went to Bolivia and everything got better.

Yes, I know this post sucked. But, I had never been to San Pedro de Atacama and felt it deserved a spot in the annals of SuperTrippin' for being my gateway into a country that had once denied me entrance, more or less at gunpoint. Here are some pictures of this mostly dirt colored town.

p.s. - My hotel wouldn't except credit cards and my bill was $200. Ridic. So I had to go to the ATM in the dark at like 10 pm. Not dark as in the sun went down, but dark as in, there are no street lights and I almost fell in a hole walking across no-man's land to get to the ATM. The only ATM I knew of. The one that gave me money the day before. The one that wouldn't give me money the night I needed to pay my hotel bill. I walked back to the hotel to find out where another ATM was and then back to town to finallyget the money and back to the hotel. Also, the morning I left I had two minutes of cold water and then none at all in the shower. Not so uncommon for crappy hostels, but I expect more for $70 a night.