San Pedro de Atacama, Chile – The budget buster!

We left the beautiful ‘white city’ of Arequipa, Peru on Friday 1st February bound for Arica: Chile’s northernmost town. We could only get the bus as far as Tacna, a border town in the south of Peru from where we had to get a taxi across the border to Arica. The border crossing from Peru to Chile was very civilised and afforded us our first glimpse of the stark difference between Peru and Chile. Even in Arica (a town so close that it has at times belonged to Peru) we noticed immediately a wealthier population who meandered their way through the pedestrianised shopping centre with ice creams in hands or sat at pavement bars sipping expensive beers. Our hostel in Arica was lovely – the Lonely Planet doing us proud again, and although there was not much to see in the town itself, we had a relaxing day or so there.

From Arica we booked an overnight trip with ‘Turbus’ (Chile’s most reliable and most expensive long distance bus company) to San Pedro de Atacama. Although a great bus, a night of ‘semi-cama’ (reclining seats) never encourages the deepest of sleep and coupled with a few enforced stops where our luggage was searched at ridiculous times of the night, we were very relieved to finally arrive in this desert Oasis. Our hostel (Soncheck) is only a couple of blocks from the bus stop so we had arrived and checked in within a matter of a few minutes. Another Lonely Planet special, Sonchek is a great little place with several rooms, all made out of the red desert ‘adobe’ with thatched roofs, set around a sunny courtyard.

We had arranged to stay for three nights here and therefore needed to organise some tours pretty quickly to ensure that we could fit everything in. With a recommended tour operator provided by our hostel hosts we set about quelling our hunger first and after a wonderful hot shower headed straight out for breakfast. This was to be our first insight into the spiralling costs of visiting San Pedro (a subject which has pervaded a lot of our discussions while here). With a (delicious) breakfast of pancakes for me and fruit with yoghurt and honey for Simon, along with two coffees and two orange juices setting us back close to $20 (£!0) we were made starkly aware that our three nights and four days here were about to blow our budget beyond recognition! We had been warned that we would find Chile (and especially San Pedro) expensive after a couple of months in Ecuador and Peru but I must admit that I hadn’t really taken it on board until now. Rather than eating on a rotational basis (I eat lunch while Simon has to wait until dinner…) we’ve decided to stick our heads into the sand for a few days and hope that we can redeem our finances next week while in Ushuaia, Argentine Patagonia (more on that later).

There is a fairly long ‘must see’ list when visiting San Pedro de Atacama and with it firmly on the gringo trail (and more recently catering to wealthier tourists via swanky upmarket resorts) there are a myriad of tour operators and excursions to choose from. We’d narrowed it down before we got here so we weren’t too distracted while shopping around for the best deals. In the end we stuck with our recommended operator and wangled a bit of a discount for booking three tours with them. We signed ourselves up for a late afternoon trip to Valle de la Luna (The Valley of the Moon), an extremely early morning trip to the El Tatio Geysers and a full day outing to the Altiplano lakes and the Salar de Atacama (Atacama’s salt flats).

The Valle de la Luna is a beautiful landscape of interesting rock formations set among mountains and sand dunes. Best viewed at sunset as the light casts its final shadows we set off from San Pedro at about 4.30pm in blistering heat. Unfortunately Simon and I have a slight aversion to large tour groups (and this was a big one) and we felt a little herded from one mirador (view point) to the next which slightly destroyed the ambiance of what could and should have been a really magical place. Sadly in SP there really is no other way of seeing these places than with organised groups unless you have your own car. The next morning our alarm woke us at 3.45am for a sunrise trip to the El Tatio Geysers a couple of hours outside San Pedro. The desert at that time in the morning is very cold indeed (a real contrast to the extreme heat of the day) and I was more than ready for the sun to rise when it did. Having never seen geysers first hand before, I was pretty impressed with El Tatio (although I know that others in the group were a little disappointed having visited Yellowstone Park in the the US or the geysers in Iceland) and really enjoyed the trip even though I ducked out of the opportunity to swim in the hot springs (a little cold, no changing rooms and very green water…need I say more?).

Today we had a full day’s outing to the Salar de Atacama (the third largest salt flat in the world – after Bolivia and Utah) and the Altiplano lakes which was great. The salar was not as I’d imagined at all as it was very lumpy and grey/brown in colour. Having seen photos of Uyuni in Bolivia, I was expecting a shiny and crisp layer of glaringly white salt. In the middle of the area is a salt water lagoon which is home to both Chilean and Andean flamingos. This was a fabulous sight as we watched them feeding and flying between pools. The Altiplano lakes were breathtakingly beautiful and also home to an abundance of interesting wildlife. We watched Guanaco drinking from the turquoise waters and a wild fox posed for photographs as we wandered by. All in all a good day out. On the way back to San Pedro this afternoon we stopped at the Tropic of Capricorn and had the obligatory photo taken. With a photo at the equator and now one at Capricorn under our belts, will someone please let us know the easiest way from Chile to the Tropic of Cancer so that we can complete the trio!

Tomorrow afternoon we leave San Pedro de Atacama. I really like this little town but for us it’s been prohibitively expensive and we daren’t stay any longer. We catch yet another overnight bus (saves on the hostel bill) to La Serena, Chile’s second oldest city. On the coast with lots of sandy white beaches and a beautiful town too, we’re looking forward to seeing what it has to offer.