San Pedro de Atacama

(for all of the pics I took, check out my facebook album: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30863153&l=9c7eab82fd&id=1255890018)

We had our third and final long weekend this past weekend. Everyone decided to go up north to get a little warmth and sun. Up north, as I've mentioned before, is the Atacama Desert. It takes a couple of hours to get there by plane and 23 hours to get there by bus. I chose bus (partly because it was cheaper, but mostly so I could see more of Chile). I actually had to leave a day earlier (and skip my Spanish class on Thursday) so my trip up north and the 23hr bus ride wouldn't be wasted.

Wednesday night:

I was excited I didn't have to go to class the next day, but alas, I had a paper due is Spanish. I grocery shopped for bus snacks, packed, and finished up my essay.

Thursday:

My bus left at 11am. I woke up a little before 9 so I could eat and shower and pack the last minute essentials. I ended up leaving the house a little after 10. I bought sandwiches, and met my travelling buddy, KC, at the metro station nearest the bus station. I didn't trust her to get there in time so I lied and told her our bus left at 10:30. Luckily, she got there just before 10:30 and we found the bus station/bus.

After boarding the bus, we settled in. I got the window seat. We talked for a while, they turned on the movie, we passed out. This was our next 23 hours...

Friday:

We get to Calama, our almost final destination. We got there 5 minutes too late to catch the bus to San Pedro. This meant, we had to venture into town to find a bus that would take us. We bought tickets, ate, and wasted time at an internet cafe (Where KC ended up forgetting her NorthFace). Finally, the bus left. Another hour and half on a bus...

We got to San Pedro and after a few minutes and a little bit of asking, we found our hostel just in time. We dropped of our things and joined our classmates on the trip they had organized to La Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley). This is the one thing I most wanted to see so I was very excited we made it just in time.

Valle de la Luna has it's name because it is supposed to be the only place on Earth that resembles the moon. NASA tests out all of the machinery they send to the moon here. Also, because this is the driest desert on Earth, many meteorologists calibrate their systems here.

Valle de la Muerte:

it's called this because this is the only place on Earth

where there is absolutely no life of any kind at all

Valle de la Luna

The volcano in the background is in Bolivia!

Salt Cave

Valle de la Luna

It was really windy, therefore sand got everywhere, especially in our shoes.

Later that night, we went star gazing. It was beautiful. I tried to take a picture but my camera isn't that talented.

Saturday

KC and I rented bikes and rode around San Pedro (an activity our classmates did the day before, before we had arrived). It was great. We were looking for ruins but got lost and had a good time. I even got some of my Spring tan back!

ICE! because deserts get so cold at night...

That afternoon, we walked around San Pedro and showered (we were covered in sand from the day before and our bike ride. We took it easy for our long bus ride the next day. This is when things started to go wrong...

Our bus left at 8am Sunday morning. We had to find a way to get back to Calama to catch our bus, however, but nothing ran that early in the morning. We asked the lady who had taken us to Valle de la Luna and she agreed. She was ripping us off though, charging us $20 each, a rate she charged for transfers to the airport, which was twice the distance from San Pedro then the bus terminal. We wanted to pay with credit cards but she didn't let us. We had to go find an ATM and take money out, and by the time we returned to pay her she was gone. We figured we could pay her in the morning because she let us pay for the Valle de la Luna trip afterwards.

That night, we just hung out with our classmates (Ben taught me to play Euchre!!) and went to bed.

Sunday

We woke up at 5:30 am to wait for the lady (we had agreed to meet at 6am). She never showed. We frantically tried to wake the hostel people up and find any means we could to get to Calama to make our bus. Alas, we did not. We waited in the freezing cold for 2 hours (because deserts get really cold at night as the ice picture shows) before the hostel people could let us back into our room. We had to buy new bus tickets back to Santiago. We did not leave until 2:30pm.

Monday

We got home at 1:30pm. I missed a Public Health meeting I had that morning (luckily, most of my group was there to explain what had happened and why I couldn't make it) and I also missed my Spanish class that day. At least I made it back to Santiago safely (albeit, with considerably less (and almost no) money left to my name.

While the trip did not end in the best way, I still had a good time. However, I must advise people who go to San Pedro to use Turbus and to not go to the Hostel/Restaurant Chiloe. They work with the evil tour people that treated us all horribly, the hostel service itself wasn't that great. Infact, most Atacamians were mean and tried to rip us off. They were also very discriminatory against Mexicans. Besides all of that, I really enjoyed Valle de la Luna and our bike ride.