Back to Chile
Another morning departure, another slightly rushed exodus from my hostel, and annoyingly this time I forgot the sarong which serves as my travel towel. Whoops. Just to improve my mild irritation, the bus was then late, and when it came time to get on, it turned out that the person supposed to be in the seat next to me had passed out on the floor in front of our seats and was sticking out into the aisle. After poking in the shoulders and knees, and stepping several times on his feet, I eventually practically shouted in the man's face. At which point he finally awoke somewhat, looked around in confusion, responded to my suggestion that he get off the floor and pick which seat he would occupy by rolling into the seat by the window, put his seat back as far as it would go, threw a towel over his head, and went back to sleep. This would be the state in which he would remain for pretty much the whole trip, apart from when the staff woke him up for the border crossings. Worryingly, I realised during one of these stops that I had actually met him before - he'd been in my hostel in Bariloche, but showed no signs of recognising me.
At any rate, having proved thus unable to converse with my neighbour, I ended up chatting with a German lass from a row in front called Simone, as well as enduring a certain amount of teasing from most of the rest of the bus, all of whom found the initial way I'd found him incredibly funny. At any rate, we went back over some of the ground from my day-trip out of Salta, before carrying on to the far side of the salt flats and thus on up towards the Jama Pass itself, providing yet further opportunities for me to attempt landscape photography from the window of a speeding coach. Our passage through Argentine border control was pretty straightforward, and from there we actually carried on right through to San Pedro de Atacama, as the Chileans had (relatively sensibly) decided that there was no point in having a border post out in the desert in the middle of nowhere when you can instead just put it on the edge of the first town you come to, especially as this allows you to use the same post for the Bolivian border as well.
Chilean immigration unsurprisingly took a bit longer, with the usual searches for any foodstuffs we might be illicitly importing, though I was lucky enough to be near the front of the queue due to being near the front of the bus. Hence, when I came out of the immigration centre with my bags, the driver happily informed those of us who'd made it that far that we could wait about 45 minutes or so for the whole bus's baggage to be checked if we wanted, or we could walk into town, which was only about 5 or 10 minutes. Given I was supposed to be meeting a friend from earlier in my travels that evening, I opted for taking Shanks' Pony into town, and so set out in the company of Simone, who'd also decided that exercise beat boredom at this stage.
Once we reached town, Simone and I went our separate ways as I got checked into the Residencial Vilacoyo, where I had the unfamiliar luxury of a room with a single bed, for less than I'd been paying for some of my dorm beds down south in Chile. I took the time to explore town a little bit (it doesn't take long in San Pedro!), getting some information from a few of the companies that run the trips across the salt flats into Bolivia, before going over to the square to meet up with Molly, my friend from Valparaiso, who was in town before heading north on one of said trips the next morning. We had dinner at a little local place where I indulged my liking for chacareros (Chilean beef sandwiches with tomatoes, green beans and chilli), before walking back across town to meet up with Hubert, a Frenchman Molly had met the previous day and agreed to have a drink with that evening. And a pleasant evening it was, fuelled principally by Pisco Sours and Caipirinhas (San Pedro is not a cheap place, but most of the restaurant/bars have a 2-for-1 Happy Hour promotion for much of the evening on some of the more popular cocktails....), before it was time to bid Molly farewell and bon voyage.
At any rate, having proved thus unable to converse with my neighbour, I ended up chatting with a German lass from a row in front called Simone, as well as enduring a certain amount of teasing from most of the rest of the bus, all of whom found the initial way I'd found him incredibly funny. At any rate, we went back over some of the ground from my day-trip out of Salta, before carrying on to the far side of the salt flats and thus on up towards the Jama Pass itself, providing yet further opportunities for me to attempt landscape photography from the window of a speeding coach. Our passage through Argentine border control was pretty straightforward, and from there we actually carried on right through to San Pedro de Atacama, as the Chileans had (relatively sensibly) decided that there was no point in having a border post out in the desert in the middle of nowhere when you can instead just put it on the edge of the first town you come to, especially as this allows you to use the same post for the Bolivian border as well.
Chilean immigration unsurprisingly took a bit longer, with the usual searches for any foodstuffs we might be illicitly importing, though I was lucky enough to be near the front of the queue due to being near the front of the bus. Hence, when I came out of the immigration centre with my bags, the driver happily informed those of us who'd made it that far that we could wait about 45 minutes or so for the whole bus's baggage to be checked if we wanted, or we could walk into town, which was only about 5 or 10 minutes. Given I was supposed to be meeting a friend from earlier in my travels that evening, I opted for taking Shanks' Pony into town, and so set out in the company of Simone, who'd also decided that exercise beat boredom at this stage.
Once we reached town, Simone and I went our separate ways as I got checked into the Residencial Vilacoyo, where I had the unfamiliar luxury of a room with a single bed, for less than I'd been paying for some of my dorm beds down south in Chile. I took the time to explore town a little bit (it doesn't take long in San Pedro!), getting some information from a few of the companies that run the trips across the salt flats into Bolivia, before going over to the square to meet up with Molly, my friend from Valparaiso, who was in town before heading north on one of said trips the next morning. We had dinner at a little local place where I indulged my liking for chacareros (Chilean beef sandwiches with tomatoes, green beans and chilli), before walking back across town to meet up with Hubert, a Frenchman Molly had met the previous day and agreed to have a drink with that evening. And a pleasant evening it was, fuelled principally by Pisco Sours and Caipirinhas (San Pedro is not a cheap place, but most of the restaurant/bars have a 2-for-1 Happy Hour promotion for much of the evening on some of the more popular cocktails....), before it was time to bid Molly farewell and bon voyage.
posted by Pat at 12:00 pm
<< Home