San Pedro, Chile

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Our salt flat tour dropped us off in San Pedro de Atacama, and small town in the Northern Chile. As soon as we got off the bus, we met Simply Red, or, the owner (?) of Hostel Flordia. Yes, his name is Simply Red, he told us to call him that. Checked into the hostel and wound up spending three nights in this great little town.

On the first night, Esther, Lyndsey, Carol, Rhod (who we met on the salt flat tour), went out for dinner at La Casona (which Rhod and I discovered earlier in the afternoon when looking for a place to get some afternoon drinks at). Great little restauarant with a nice patio out back and a fire pit. After La Casona we headed out to another bar, called "Milagro" for some late night ice cream and happy hour drinks. I've decided that my spanish is coming along quite nicely, as they had closed the kitchen for the night but I managed to tell them that Lyn and Carol (these girls LOVE their ice cream) had been talking about having an ice cream all day (I left out that part about how we had already had one in the afternoon), and soon they were enjoying ice cream . . again . . haha.

The next day the five of us headed out to do some sandboarding. This was really exciting for me, as although I do enjoy escaping Vancouver's winter for a bit, I really, really miss snowboarding. Spent about 3 hours sandboarding, and had a great time. It was similar to snowboarding, but the sand seems much more dense, and harder to turn. On the other hand, its also possible to ride without being on an edge without the fear of falling - pretty hard to catch an edge on sand. Also had to hike back up the hill after each ride down - there's no chair lift to get back up there. At the end of the sandboarding tour, they took us out to see the sun set in the valley - absolutely amazing.

After sandboarding, we headed back to Milagro for an amazing dinner . . chicken and mushroom risoto! At dinner, the owner Cesar gave us tshirts from his bar, as well as told us a bit more about San Pedro.

The next day we left for Salta, Argentina. One of Cesar's friends from the restaurant even met us at the bus stop to say goodbye to us and give us some travel advice on our next destination. The locals in San Pedro are famously friendly, everyone we met during our time there was so welcoming and nice. I had a great time in San Pedro and would recommend it to anyone travelling to the north of Chile. Stop by Milagro and tell Cesar that Kat and Esther say hi!

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Photos

Simply Red!
Arriving in San Pedro and meeting the famous Simply Red!

Ice cream and cocktails!
A surefire way to get sick . . . .

Yay tshirts!
With Cesar.