San Pedro de Atacama via Calama
Trip Start
May 27, 2008
1
12
26
Trip End
Sep 06, 2008
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Calama,
Chile
Thursday, July 3, 2008
After a long bus ride by day this time, we arrived at Calama 7.30pm and decided to get a bus straight to San Pedro de Atacama as there was one in the next hour. This last part of the journey took about 2hrs and by the time we got there it was dark and we still had to find somewhere to stay. I couldnŽt believe how cold it was when we got of the bus, San Pedro is 2400 above sea level and you could feel it! We checked in to a bit of an upmarket hotel for us hoping it would keep us warm. Went out grabbed some food, which was delicious I had a type of soup for starters that had onions and tomatoes and sother bits and goats cheese melted on the top, then a creamy spaghetti pesto it was all lovely, I have no idea what Bushy had I was to busy enjoying mine! lol! Anyway after dinner we went back to the htel to warm up, which kinda worked eventually!
The following day we had a proper look around, it kind of reminded me of a themepark type town, especially built for tourists etc... but it was still nice with some great shops (selling the kind of clothes you find at a festival!) we booked 2 trips one to go up and check out the El Tatio Geysers at sunrise the next day and we also booked our 2night, 3 day 4x4 trip to Uyuni in Bolivia we went with a company called Estrella del sur (who I would highly recomend). We decided to go back to budget accomodation after the posh hotel didnŽt keep us that warm, and stayed at Hostel Katarpe which although it didnŽt have heating it managed to keep in some of the days heat.
So the next day we were up at 3.30am to be picked up by the tour group for El Tatio Geysers, the guide we had spoke brilliant english and knew what he was talking about, we arrived at the Geysers around 6.30 all absolutely freezing cold and sat in the van to warm up while our guide sorted out breakfast which included eggs and milk boiled on the geysers! Once weŽd eaten he took us on a walking tour around the geyser field, it was pretty interesting although hard to concentrate sometimes because of how cold it was! The geysers are 4900m above sea level so definately the highest IŽd ever been before.
After the geysers we set of back to San Pedro but went via a little village where you could go and chat (if your spanish was good enough!) to the indiginous people that lived there. They also had a BBQ going with fresh Lhama meat kebabs which were really nice and the guys wife was in the house making fresh empanadas which are yummy pastry snacks deep fried with a choice of filling usually meat or cheese. Love them! We got back to San Pedro about midday and because of how cold we were at 4am this morning we decided we needed more warm clothes for doing this jeep trip, so shopping it was!
Thats pretty much it for San Pedro as tomorrow (6th) weŽre off on our adventure!
