Welcome to the desert

The next day we flew from Easter island back to Santiago for a lay over before heading to the Atacama desert. The airport experience was something else, definitely in need of improvement. They had an outside gate (only one gate n.b.) which was nice though, first time seeing that. The on-board experience with Latam was on the other side excellent, probably the best airline we have travelled with. Good space, lots of entertainment and great staff on board. 

View from a bench at the gate in Hanga Roa

Anyhows our day in Santiago was a short evening where we had sushi with too much raw fish. Should have gone with only rolls. It was very fresh though. We made some necessary shopping and went to the airport at 1 pm next day. Nice to sleep in but not so much time to actually do something in Santiago. We booked a transfer with transvip at the airport in Calama to go to San Pedro de Atacama. We had read many many bad reviews of the different transport agencies over here, mostly when people were returning to the airport. Them not showing up, getting there too late, missing your flight etc. I can already now say that we thankfully didn't have any problem with our return either. Sure they showed up a bit late but it was standard with shares rides, up to half an hour window. We got to the airport with around 30 min to spend at the gate before boarding which is just enough. Maybe we were lucky or maybe they gotten better.

Anyhows we arrived to a very dry and harsh environment, a desert indeed. Chile got it all. So many different environments. The road from the airport to San Pedro must be quite boring to drive for the vans. The surroundings are nice but the road so very very straight.

The hostel was a nice surprise, very cozy. Next to it at the corner of the street was a cheap little fast food place that also served other stuff than bread. A dinner for two could be around 7 000 CLP here, finally a cheap place.

Welcome to the desert. Best WiFi on our whole trip in Chile.

Straight ahead

Hostel room

Outside our room (one of the doors at the left side) with the kitchen and comnon area in front

Pretty empty street outside our hostel, we lived 5 min walk from town

Hostel surroundings

Anyhows we got settled in and got some updates of our pre-booked tours for the upcoming days. A few weeks before we were informed that all tours would be cancelled at the 1st of January so we had a tight schedule on the other two days here. Two tours a day and once a day at high altitude. Well let's see how it went shall we?

Ttyl,
S