San Pedro de Atacama

  San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
Sunday, May 6, 2007

San Pedro de Atacama is a little town in the middle of the desert in Northern Chile.

As part of our Bolivian Salt Flat Tour the agency dropped us off in the middle of the town. The lads we were on the trip went to their accommodation and once again The Whites did a mini hike around the town with our backpacks attached searching for accommodation. Quickly we realised... Chile is really really really expensive when coming from Bolivia!!! For instance, accommodation, we went from paying an average of €9 in Bolivia to close on €30 in Chile... ouch... daily budget blown! However, the standards of accommodation and food in Chile are on another planet when compared to Bolivia!

08 View through arch of San Pedro´s Church

San Pedro has to be possibly the "funkiest" town weŽve ever seen. Every single one of the bars/coffee shops were just FUNKY!! Nearly all of them had open fires in the middle of the room... I mean open... no fireplace or anything, the Irish fire regulation chappies would shut the entire town down.

So, what did we do in San Pedro de Atacama ?
Our first night in the town we met up with the lads from the tour.... then.... well, weŽll just say... it all went nutz! We went to a bar.... drank beer, were merry and then came closing time! The bar staff invited us to a Private Party in someones house! The party was one of the coolest ever. There we were, with about 40 Chileans, ourselves and the lads from the tour out in someones backyard in the middle of the desert.... MENTAL!!!! There was a blazing fire (the owner ended up cutting down the garden shrubs to keep the fire going), cool music blaring and most importantly... a bar!!!! We ended up leaving the private fiesta and saying goodbye to the lads from the tour at about 5.30AM!

The rest of our time in San Pedro (a day and a half) was spent in bed recovering !!

Cool town... a great time was had but finished up with really bad hangovers!!!

Rock on Chile!