Upon arriving, it took me a few minutes of walking around and comparing prices and values to find a hostel, and set out on the town to find some food.
I immediately realize that this was a tourist town in all ways, and that was reflected strongly in the prices of accommodation, tours and excursions, food, water (because unlike the rest of Chile, the water there in the desert doesn't agree with my belly), and any other basic necessity. I ended up paying similar prices to those I payed in Central Europe.
I made a friend, Daniel, on the bus from Antofagasta to San Pedro de Atacama and ended up spending the majority of the time there with him. Now, one of the reasons I prefer to travel alone is that I like doing things my way, meaning being very $ conscious and adjusting my plans according, among other things. And I don't like constantly apologizing for not wanting to go out to eat every day, but rather wanting to go to the market and then cook, or for not wanting to pay $30 for a 2 hour tour to see a sunset plus another $5 entrance fee but rather recanting bikes for the day for $5 and riding around everywhere as well as seeing the sunset, etc.
Anyway, Daniel quickly realize that that was how I do things, and told me that he had been spending way too much and that he wanted to follow suit at least for the next few days we spent together. ...And then he soon became pretty dependent of me when he had an accident on our day biking around the beautiful desert roads...
On our second day there Daniel and I decided we wanted to hitch hike across the Andes to Uyuni, Bolivia to go see the Salar de Uyuni (a huge salt plane in southern Bolivia) so we started planning the details. We weren't far into our planning when our hostel manager told us that hitch hiking to Uyuni would be very difficult, if not impossible. Darn!
So, then we started looking into possible bus routes, and soon found that it would end up costing us over $100 an much haste to make the trip there by bus.
So, Daniel then told me he was going to look at the different tour options at the agencies in town, so I figured I'd join him just to get out of the hostel, but no way was I going to do "one of those". Since Daniel doesn't speak any Spanish, I was the translator, telling him his different options of 3day2night or 4day3night tours leaving San Pedro de Atacama and visiting various sites, meanwhile being completely enchanted by the photos promoting the tours.
We found the tour that made the most sense for him: 3 days driving around a Bolivian national park in a jeep with a Bolivian guide and 2 nights in simplistic Bolivian hotels, meals included, for $90,000.00CHP (about $150USD). Hmm. I realized it wasn't too bad considering the amount I'd be spending just continuing my travels northward through Chile and into Peru. But no, I couldn't do it! But YES, I wanted to!
Long story short I decided that this was the reason I was so stingey the rest of the time: so that when something a bit pricier caught my heart, I didn't have to make another (big) sacrifice.
So, at 21h on Jan 7th we bought 2 tickets for a "safari" in Bolivia leaving the next morning at 8h!
:) ...
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