¡Bienvenidos a Chile!

It’s hot. Very hot. The kind of mind-twirling, throat parching of hot. We’re in the touristy desert oasis of San Pedro de Atacama. Northern Chile. We made it!

How did we get here? It began with an early morning Monday October 27 Cruz del Sur bus from Arequipa to Tacna. Uneventful bus ride except that we had to disembark before the end of the movie. I hardly noticed the landscape change into sand dunes.

In the Tacna terminal, we were surrounded by pushy taxi drivers figuring that they could trade us a ride to Arica for 15 soles. Think again. We banded together with an Irish couple and set out in search of unbiased transit information. Good luck!

We hopped into an honest cab for the train station. Closed. A disappointing lunch in the center of town til the ticket sale frenzy began. I say frenzy, but it was quite underwhelming. The excitement began when we got the Peruvian exit stamps and took our seats aboard the hunk of metal on wheels they called a train.

The sunset hour-and-a-half journey was a gabfest between us and the Irish couple. We exchanged stories (their Peruvian nightmare sounded a lot like our Ecuadorian trip… a whole lotta terrible) and antidotes.

By the time we arrived in Chile, we had crossed two hours worth of time zones. We were peso-less and I was thoroughly confused by the rapidfire Chilean accent. We found an atm and a cab to our hostel. A friendly, eccentric, proudly socialist, French man opened the door and offered us two rooms. Dinner was cheap and of mercado origin.

Tuesday October 28.

We woke up to CNN (in English!) with our all-we-could-eat bread breakfast. News about the US election dominated the headlines. We’re all getting giddy for the 4th.

Hustled to the bus terminal to buy our overnight bus tickets to San Pedro de Atacama. Whew. The rest of the day we did errands.






Nate was WAY overdue for a haircut.








Tada! The haircutter was.. um… very friendly.









Chile. Are we really in South America? People in trendy outfits and highlighted hair sipping espresso beverages in outdoor cafes.

After an overpriced, very sweet lunch and JENGA!, we checked out of the hostel and headed to the beach. Nate, Padraig and I shivered in the chilly Pacific while Caroline lounged in the sun. We must have spent hours on the beach. No amount of sunscreen could have saved our skins.

Ice cream and junglegyms were in order when we realized that we were roasting. Dinner was delicious pizza. Nate had a 4-person pie to himself.

The four of us narrowly avoided a knife-attack and scurried to the bus station. The 12 hour bus ride was the best I’ve ever had. Except for the 4am security bagsearching check point, we slept relatively well until we arrived at 10am on Wednesday October 29 in San Pedro.

One difference between Chile and Peru (and there are many!), the people trying to sell us stuff aren’t pushy. They’re respectful. When you say no, they smile apologetically and proceed to leave you alone. Amazing!

We shouldered our packs and faced our sunglasses and set off into the sunbaked San Pedro. It was hot. Very hot. It was only 10am.

We were all sunburnt. Caroline was the worst. She was bright redpink and limping. We finally found a cheap hostel and sighed out of our bags.

We had all day as a designated RESTday. We oriented ourselves around this tourist town and poked our heads into a few grocery stores. Nate and I whipped up a not-too-fancy-but-definitely-filling lunch for the four of us.

San Pedro is a dusty road kind of town. The clay buildings reflect the hot sun. Everything simmers from 1-5pm. The heat and the nightbus caught up with us and we cowered in our rooms resting until well after sunset. Nate and I, taking clues from a French couple, fashioned our own tomato sauce to go with fettuccine and garlic bread. Wish we had salt and pepper. And more garlic!

Cooking for four people is cheaper than for two. And we were stuffed!

Competitive cardplaying kept us up past our bedtime. Nate was unusually giggly. I think it was the chocolate.