Getting the Gringo Fist

Trip Start Nov 01, 2006
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Trip End Mar 26, 2007


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Flag of Chile  ,
Saturday, December 2, 2006

After having spent a spartan few days chilly few nights around the Salar de Uyuni it was a nice change when we descended 2,000 metres and crossed the border into Chile and the town of San Pedro. This is a small twee little place catering solely to tourists coming off the salt flats and the prices were definitely of the gringo variety. Even bearing in mind that Chile is a far more developed country than Bolivia (they don´t expect you bring your own toilet paper!) it was still a bit of a shock to be charged prices closer to what you´d get at home rather than the smoothie for 20 cents and 4 bananas for 10 cents Bolivian prices. Having said that it was a nice place to chill out (or warm up more to the point) for a few days as we waiting on a bus to Salta in Argentina which wouldn´t leave till Sunday. The hostel was nice with a garden and a table tennis table which we were the only ones using. After several hours practise there were rallies of at least three shots taking place... As well as catering for the more upmarked tourist (mainly French and German) San Pedro seems to make a deliberate effort to cater for the sober ones San Pedro Church
San Pedro Church
 . After having a beer each with the Americans from out Uyuni trip we then cooked some grub (for the first time on the trip) and were hsaring a bottle of wine when we were told that excessive drinking wasn´t allowed in the hostel and we´d have to continue outside. Now okay it was a 1.5 litre bottle but come on!. We retired to our room to finish it and stuck the radio on with the itrip at a low volume. A few minutes later we were told ´silencio´ so decided to head out. We bought a bottle of beer and were drinking it in the street before deciding where to head when a lad told us to be careful because we couldn´t drink in the street. Okay, so we went to a bar and ordered beers. They brough them down accompanied by some token pasta and told us they had to serve food with alcohol (just like the chille con carne in club sarah back in the day!). That was okay. Ten minutes later the cops accompanied by some health inspectors raided the place.... at that point we decided that it wasn´t going to be a mad night and went to bed. Party town in aint!
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