Kepfram & Ellie's Travel Journal

San Pedro de Atacama is a dry, dusty, expensive, touristy town. We stayed there for 2 nights because we arrived on a holiday weekend (International Workers Day was Monday May 1st), and couldn't get a bus out until Tuesday night. Example of expense: the hostel we stayed in charged the equivalent of $10 per load to USE their washing machine & hang up your own clothes on the line......
The town certainly has some tourist attractions, but the price tags were quite a shock after our time in Ecuador, Peru, & especially Bolivia. We did take one tour - to see la valle de los muertos & la valle de la luna. We took this tour the afternoon we arrived along with the rest of our group from el Salar de Uyuni (Rafael had a night bus north, Franck & Charlotte took a bus north Monday night, and Yvan & Cécile stayed with us until Tuesday night to head south to la Serena). It was actually quite a good tour, with a unique landscape (lots of incredibly fine soft sand, beautifully warm weather, and incredible rock and salt formations), and a tour guide who gave us MUCH more information in a few hours than our Salar guide had given us in 3 days!!
We spent the next day killing time and Kepfram cooked up some great food in the hostal kitchen for our new friends. Because of dinner we didn't take the recommended star tour on Monday night (the constantly clear skies make this part of the world idea for star gazing), but if you ever go, it's supposed to be quite good...

Ellie