San Pedro de Atacama Day 1

After we left Walberto at the border in Bolivia, we got in our minivan and began our trip into Chile.

About 10-15 minutes into the trip across the border we stopped at a warehouse style building. A long line of vans built up behind us. After about an hour, the next three vans, including ours, moved into the warehouse. One van by one, the passengers emptied, got passports stamped, and then had to put luggage through an x-ray scanner. It was definitely our most intense border crossing yet, even with me being anxious crossing into Bolivia!

It was another 45 minutes down 2,000 meters to San Pedro de Atacama where we are spending the next few days. After a bit of confusion getting dropped off (resulting in a longer walk) we made it to our hostel. I wasn't feeling well, so I was thankful to be stationary and near the bathroom.

Once our room was ready, Allan had some things to do for Aconcagua, so I looked into Santiago for us after we leave here and before he goes to Mendoza. After many hours, we headed back into town for some food, running into Meg and Chris while we were out. Speaking to them about the airport transfer prompted us to really look at how to get to Santiago, and it looks like it'll be another 24 hour bus like Cartagena to save us the big bucks.

We had a nice dinner at a restaurant in town doing a set meal for 8,000 Chilean pesos and we even splurged on happy hour and for a cocktail each, a Rica Rica pisco sour. Rica Rica seems to be an aromatic herb native to Chile and pisco is also famous here as well as Peru, so it seemed like a good choice for our first night in our FIFTH South American country. Czytaj więcej