San Pedro de Atacama, Chile - Day 16 - 17

salon carma seats!
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what can i say about San Pedro? i have ZERO idea what the town is about until i got there. I knew it was an option to get dropped off from the Salars de Uyuni trip in Chile and previously to the Salars i looked up for accommodations for San Pedro but there wasnt a lot of options. So i basically wingéd the whole thing. i didnt book any bed/room before gettting there and just hoped for the best hehe!

Our driver for the Salars trip dropped me and 2 other ppl off at the border between Bolivia and Chile. we waited for another bus and about 45 minutes later...we were in Chile and about to go thru immigration. another 20 minutes after that, we were in the town center of San Pedro.  I met Richard on the bus and knew he was going to a hostel so i went with him. Hostel La Ruca is pretty nice...i thought they had a pool (the lonelyplanet lied!) but the room was quite spacious and the bed was comfortable. The first day we had amazing lunch and dinner. We´re so convinced that we had llama meat for dinner (we went to a cute restaurant with a set menu for 6000 chilean pesos which included a glass of wine, salad, main course and dessert)...we had lomo something something...its kind of fun being adventerous with food because the meal was excellent!

more sand
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The next day, which was Xmas Eve, we hung around the town...all of 3 streets! the town is really really small...its basically 3 vertical streets and 3 horizontal streets with many adobe walls and houses and thats it...really! we must have walked up and down the main street several million times!  after crusing the many streets of San Pedro, we joined our tour for Valle de la Luna. we saw the chilean desert and mountain formations and watched the sunset at the sand dune...pretty cool experience. Later that night we met up with a couple from the UK for dinner...and had a few pisco sours (chilean cocktail) at a bar nearby.

completo
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Xmas day!!! a bunch of us from the hostel wanted to check out this swimming pool/oasis place near by. we took a cab to this place...but the place was kinda crappy. its basically a kiddie pool with sand at the bottom of the pool....haha! so we snuck into the hotel next to our hostel because we knew they had a pool. the rest of the afternoon was spent there by the water and getting sunburn. The rest of my xmas day was spent in my salon carma seat of TurBus. TurBus is a national bus company in chile that goes everywhere in chile. Richard and I bought these kick @ss seats called salon carma which is on the first level of the bus (only 9 in total). our seats can almost recline 180 degrees, foot rest, blanket, tv, radio, we can even charge our ipods, there´s food...omg it was sooo amazing!!! our journey was really long tho..24 hours...but it didnt feel like it at all! the bus is so great im even thinking about taking the bus back up to Arica in a few days cuz it saves me money and saves me the trouble of taking bus, then subway, then plane, then cab in Arica....we´ll see what the availablity is...i havent decided yet. anyway, we bought a ton of snacks for the bus ride - doritos, cookies, everything!! it was the BEST bus ride ever!!!

almost sunset
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As for San Pedro, it was a pleasant surprise. i had no idea what the town is about...actually after seeing a few other chilean towns, San Pedro is quite nice and has so much character. im so glad i went and met so many cool peeps there!! :)