Chile – San Pedro de Atacama & Santiago

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San Pedro de Atacama

The contrast in temperature between the Bolivian side of the desert and the Chilean side was insane. When we got dropped off at the bus terminal it was boiling and stayed that way the entire time we were in San Pedro – it didn’t even really get cool at night!

From the bus station it was a 10 minute walk to our hostel, Backpackers San Pedro. We ended up really liking this hostel, it was small and rustic but the staff were so lovely and its really easy to meet people. The check in process was extensive with them explaining every tour and you get to try all their traditional Chilean herbs and sauces. As a lot of the tours involve going out into the desert (which we had just done) so we didn’t book any apart from the hot springs. The prices ($30 for a 30 min transfer!) were also a shock to the system after Bolivia! On our first day we had lunch at La Troja, which was actually lovely, had delicious fresh lemonade and was relatively inexpensive for Chile. Then as the hostel had 4 kitchens we went to the supermarket to grab stuff for dinner, breakfasts and lunches.

That evening the hostel put on some Pisco lessons and then we all went out to a club called Lolas. This was actually a really fun night and we would have stayed longer but we were so tired from the 4am wake up that we bailed at 1am.

The next morning we had a long lie and then went to a sports bar (ChelaCabur) to watch the Scotland-Wales six nations game. This bar played heavy rock music but actually had a great selection of beers and ciders – I found an Argentinian cider I really liked! In the afternoon we got cash and a SIM card and then had more piscos in the hostel. I got a 30 day, 40GB Movistar SIM for £5, it was very easy. Everyone was a bit tired from the previous night so we just chilled in the hostel that evening and got fried chicken and an empanada from Girasol Food Truck round the corner, delicious!

On our second full day in San Pedro, we went to a French backey called La Franchuteria. They had fantastic coffee, croissants and sandwiches – one place you 100% need to go to. We made some packed lunches with a baguette back at the hostel as we were heading to the hot springs in the afternoon. Now, these are more ‘warm springs’ around 30 degrees, but as it’s so hot you’re thankful for some coolness! We went to the proper paid for springs (Puritama) but you can go to free ones. We decided to go to these as they have a picnic zone, changing rooms and there are 8 different pools you can go in connected by small waterfalls – its really pretty! We had heard the free one is quite a walk from the car park and is much smaller. The tour was expensive (30 for the transfer and 35 for entrance) but as we weren’t doing loads of tours we thought it was worth it.

That evening the wind was insane and there was dust and sand everywhere so a lot of restaurants shut really early. Thankfully we had bought food from the supermarket to cook! We were supposed to go star gazing but it was cancelled because of the cloud cover – this was the one thing we really wanted to do and it had been cancelled every night since we got to San Pedro.

The next morning we got up early, hired bikes and cycled to the Devil’s throat (Cartarpe Valley). This is a stunning canyon and you can cycle all the way through it until you get to a view point. It’s about a 20 min hike uphill to the viewpoint but it was so worth it! The whole trip took about 3 hours and only cost us $15 each ($7 for the biked and $5 for entry to the park).

It was getting hot by the time we were back in town so made a bee-line to Babalu ice cream shop. The ice cream there is banging, I got a Menta chip and Chanar Chip (a local fruit) and Lewis got a fresh lemon juice.

In the afternoon we ended up booking a trip to Easter Island! We weren’t planning to go because its quite a way out the way (a 4 hour flight from Santiago) and expensive, but there were forest fires in Valparaiso where we were planning to go after Santiago so had to have a change of plan. Also, its a once in a lifetime trip right?

After a small empanada dinner at Empiro Andino (they have the best empanada and milkshakes!), the hostel had a beer night – basically free tinnies in a bucket but we’ll take it! The star gazing was also finally went ahead! They pushed it back later in the evening to 10:30pm as the sky seemed to be clearing later on than usual. We went with the proper star gazing tour by the Meteor museum even though it was quite expensive ($30), it was worth the money. They take you out into the desert where they have a small observatory centre. There were comfy pallets you could lay down on while they explained the constellations with lasers, they then take your picture with long exposure to get the stars, you get a coffee/hot chocolate and a snack and then you look through 2 different telescopes. One of the telescopes was insane – we looked at one of the ‘stars’ in Orion (actually a nebula) and you could see all the gas in different colours, it almost seemed fake! You also get a picture of this nebula on the night you were there to take home. You get back just after 1am and it was straight to bed for us.

On our final full day in San Pedro, we went back to the french bakery for a coffee and a croissant and then spent the rest of the day at Hostel Lomas Sanchez where you can use their pool for $6. In the evening it actually rained which is insane for somewhere that gets less than 1cm of a rain a year! We got a take away pizza from Pizzeria El Charrua, a bottle of wine and watched a film. We spent the next morning getting ready to head to the airport. The best way to get there is the airport transfer which costs $15pp, your hostel can help you book it or you can do it directly online here. If you are getting the transfer, my advice would be to book it quite early as it can get full and if it is full, you’ll be paying $70-$100 for a private taxi!

San Pedro de Atacama Summary

  • Length of stay: 2-4 Nights
  • Where to stay: We really enjoyed our time at Backpackers because it was really social and easy to meet people but it is basic. The are other hostels closer to town and some with pools but I didn’t hear of any being better than others.
  • Itinerary: Day 1 – Explore the town, try out bars and restaurants, Day 2 – Desert trip (Moon Vally, Vallecito Magic Bus or Catarpe), Day 3 – Water trip (Balitanche Lagoon or the Puritama Hot Springs.). Try to do the stargazing every night in case its cancelled!
  • Top tip: There are so many more tours you can do, but if you are doing the Bolivian slat flats a lot of it is very similar (the desert landscape, lagoons (although you can’t swim in them) and the geysers) so pick wisely. Also, if you have a group of you, it’s a lot cheaper to hire a car and pay entrance fees instead of individual tours, West Rent A Car seemed to be the best one in town.

Santiago

We arrived late into Santiago so jumped in an uber to our hostel. Top tip: If you’re getting an Uber from Santiago airport, go to Expreso 1, Floor 2 and message your driver in app – otherwise you will be looking for them for ages!

We stayed at Hostel Providencia which was great, it’s a huge hostel but they have events on every night and 2 kitchens. On the night we arrived they had a man making crepes in the courtyard and were just about to go out to a club – I got a crepe for my dinner but passed on the club.

The next morning we went on the walking tour with ‘Tours 4 Tips’. They run a ‘off-the-beaten track’ one at 10am and a ‘Highlights’ one at 3pm, as we were up early we went to the 10am one. Both tours start at the Art Museum and they are really easy to spot as they are wearing ‘Where’s Wally’ tops.

Our tour included exploring the Esmeralda Neighbourhood (the poorer side of the city), local markets (Tiso de Molina and Le Vega) and the cemetery which we went to via metro. The cemetery was really cool as it’s like a city within a city with these crazy graves. It was also really helpful that they took us on the metro as they showed us how to buy and load a ‘Bip!’ travel card and getting round on the metro is super easy. Overall the tour was good but I do wish it had included more of the main sites, we know we could have also gone to the 3pm tour but one walking tour per city was enough! The guides were good though and everyone tipped 10,000-20,000 Pesos per person.

After the tour we got the metro to the Museum of Memory and Human Rights but before heading in, we needed to find food. We ended up at Fuente Mardoqueo which was an apparently classic lunch spot, it gave weirdly German vibes and what we didn’t realise was the size of the sandwiches. If you go, get one to share and dont get mayonnaise – the chicken & avo sandwich was smothered and it was very ofputting, I only managed a quarter of it.

Now solidly in a food coma, we walked into the museum. I would recommend going to this museum as it discusses the military coup, the dictatorship and forced disappearances. It’s quite a somber experience and a lot of it is in Spanish (I just used a translate app on my phone), but its a really important part of Chile’s history. That evening, we had a couple of Piscos at the hostel bar and went to bed when it shut, I was still so full from lunch I couldn’t stomach any dinner (or going out!).

As our previous day involved a lot of walking in baking heat, we wanted to do something that wasn’t so sweaty. We decided to get the funicular up San Cristobal hill – you can see the figure towering over Santiago. There is actiuallly loads you can do here, we only got a return journey on the funicular which was nice enough in itself, boasting great views fo the city, but you can also get a cable car, there are pools and a zoo… you could spend the whole day here is you wanted!

We had planned to go to Santa Lucia hill afterwards but seeming as we felt there wasn’t much more we’d be able to see from there, we instead stopped in the cool bar area of Bellavista for a drink. We went to El Palacio de la Chorrillana which do delicious frozen lemonade, they really hit the spot. That evening we finally went out with the hostel! They had a bar crawl on which was free drinks for an hour and then a free shot in each of the 4 bars/clubs you went to. There was a huge crowd as lots of other hostels comes to Providencia for the bar crawl – it was actually a lot of fun! My only advice would be to get an uber back after dark, Santiago isn’t the safest of cities.

As you can imagine, our final day in Santiago was a chilled one. We mainly spent the day getting ready for our flight to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) which included going to the supermarket as we had been warned that food on the island was expensive and we were trying to do this on the cheap! We were supposed to go our for a nice dinner in the Barrio Lastarria area which is supposed to be really nice, but ended up getting a McDonalds instead.. sorry!

Santiago Summary

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