Last night, we only had 4 beds, so I had to use the same one
as Daniel, putting our sleeping bags next to each other. This normally would
not have been a problem, but he pulls the sheets. Since it was negative degrees
outside with no heating inside, even with the sleeping bags I woke up several
times throughout the night from the cold. Ugh. Waking up at 3:40am freezing
cold is not fun.
Nevertheless, we had breakfast and headed out. We stopped by
some geysers, but it was still bright and early with barely any light other
than the car headlights, and freezing cold. Ugh.
We then arrived at the hot springs. I was skeptical of them because it was below zero outside, but the alternative was to stay ashore and freeze, so I decided to change into my bathing suit (for the first time this trip!) and get in the hot springs. Turns out that was absolutely the right choice, because the water was warm and totally worth it! It felt amazing, but before long I was called by the other tour group, who would be my ride to the Bolivian/Chilean border. With them, I visited some other lagoons before the end of the tour.
The line at immigration on the Bolivian side was a lot longer than I expected, and I was nervous because I did not want to pay the 20 Bs per day over the 30 I had been given by my visa. It was made worse by other travelers behind me speaking in Spanish about how gringos have to pay an extraordinary amount for a visa because the Bolivian government is skeptical of us or something. Luckily, when I got in, the guy didn't even look at my entry stamp. He just found the page where my visa was, stamped it, and charged me 15 Bs like he did for everyone else. I later found out that the sum was actually a bribe of sorts, which explained why he told me it was okay when I was only able to produce 14 Bs before he shooed me away. Other people were pissed, calling Bolivia corrupt, but I honestly was just glad that I didn't have to pay something like 400 Bs for staying so long.
The bus ride to San Pedro de Atacama was uneventful as a whole, and I passed migration with no problems on the Chilean side. When I arrived into town, I could not for the life of me find any hostels that had people staffing them for maybe 10 minutes of walking around, which was extremely bizarre. I eventually found one with reliable internet and a really nice lady as the staff, even though it was a bit expensive. However, I basically have my own room, so I'm not going to complain too much.
I made my way to the city center later, and now understand what people mean that SPDA is ridiculously touristy. Basically everyone in the area, except for the restaurant, small market, souvenir shop, or tour agency staff, is a tourist here. The town is just a couple of blocks in the main area, and every single stall is targeted at tourists. Everyone is basically offering the same tour for different prices, and I spent more time than expected asking around. I only went to maybe 4 tour companies out of at least 20, but I decided to just go with what I have. I should have gone to the center earlier to have time for a tour this afternoon, but I found a great little tour company that offered me prices that were significantly lower than the others I got! Woohoo!
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