San Pedro de Atacama - A whole new world

No, not the theme song from Alladin, but yes, a culture shock all in its own...San Pedro was a nice little desert town, extremely hot during the day, and some incredibly clear skies.  We spent a night at Hostal Corvatsch the first night, after our border crossing adventure into the 21st century.  It was Danica, Juan and I, and we got a dorm style room for very expensive.  Luckily the place had a kitchen, and luckily we finished cooking about 9, because they hurried us out and locked it all up.

streets of San Pedro de Atacama

The next day, we decided to look for camping, and obviously something cheaper...Juan didn't have a tent, and he set off to find a cheaper hostel.  Danica and I found "Camping Los Perrales" just down the road from the center, and while still expensive to set up a tent, it was cheaper than a hostel...

Camping "Los Perrales"

We camped one night, and had a lot of fun.  Cooked, then Juan came and hung out with us at the site til pretty late, and we said goodbye to him, as he was heading to Salta, Argentina in the morning, and us to La Serena, down the coast.
 

Next morning, we got up and found a bus company, "Tur Bus," doing an overnight journey to La Serena, which was about 16 hours away.  We spent the day roaming around, and spending way too long at a cafe on the net, before trudging through the town that evening, in the heat, to find the bus station.

We boarded at 7pm, and headed north-west towards Calama, and into the sunset.  The Valle de la Luna was to our Port-side, and what an incredible sight it was.  Even coming from the Bolivian Salar, the Valle was impressive, with its massive desert rocky cliffs and red rocks.  We would wake the next morning in La Serena...