San Pedro de Atacama, Chile - Day 1

So 2 other travelers, Oliver from France and Martina from Switzerland, and I made the 6-7 hour car journey together from Salta to San Pedro. We were on our way to San Pedro, the desert town in Chile's Atacama Desert. The town serves as a gateway to multiple outdoor activities, archeological sites, and natural wonders such as geysers and desert formations. It’s a popular tourist attraction for foreigners and local Chilean’s alike.

It was a fun talkative journey as we meandered our way through the mountains and salt flats until we got to the border crossing with Chile. We had been speeding most of the way to stay in front of a large tourist bus as we did not want to get stuck behind 80 some people for the border crossing formalities. But it didn’t matter because when we got there the line snaked around the building and we got caught in the quagmire. After some questioning, we found out that the power to the station just went out. Backup generator? Nope. Welcome to South America. We waited for 3 hours and during that time the office managed to process perhaps 15 people tops using the manual process.

So our driver goes to the front of the line and who knows what kind of deal he made with the man in charge but he ushers us to the front amid the stares and Spanish outbursts to “Respect the line!” After getting our passports stamped and hurriedly skirting out amid hostile glares, we got in our car…where we waited for 10 minutes while our drivers got…coffee. Coffee? UMM…were you doing something during our 3 hour wait in line?

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile - Day 1