San Pedro de Atacama Day 3

This is our last proper day in San Pedro de Atacama. We spent the morning looking at the buses to get to Santiago. Looks like it'll be another brutal trip, just like Cartagena. After looking and debating times and companies, we went to book online, but couldn't do it without a Chilean phone number. Frustrated, we got some shoes on and walked 10 minutes to the bus station.

By the time we arrived at the bus station, a lot of offices had closed for lunch around 1. We got there just after. Luckily, there was one bus company still open selling tickets to Calama where we would get a connection to Santiago. After to bough the San Pedro to Calama ticket, the bus company for our next bus was just coming back from lunch. Lucky indeed! We managed to get our next bus bought to Santiago too. When we got back to the hostel, we made some lunch and did a couple things before we got picked up for the Valle de la Luna tour.

While we were going through the valley, we were again reminded of Wadi Rum. There were rocks and cliffs as well as a lot of sand. The valley also has salt in different stages of crystallization. We saw salt just sitting on the surface of rocks, but also hard, crystals that were set into rock faces that people used to use dynamite to get out. That salt was then sent to Calama to help separate copper in the largest copper mine in the world.

After some walks and exploring, we took a short drive outside of the national park. We stopped and had some Pisco sours and a huge spread of assorted snacks (it ruined our appetite for dinner later). We then took another short drive to a sunset spot. It was nice, despite all of the other tourists that were there too. Once the sun went down we were whisked away back to town. It was a shame because as we left, we could see the sky and clouds turning red. It would've been a beautiful sky.

Once back in San Pedro, Allan ran off on an errand and then headed to the hostel to start boiling water for dinner. I went grocery shopping for food to take on the bus. Super long bus journeys are made easier when you can snack 😋.Okumaya devam et