The long Road. Part 4 of 9: Argentina and Chile The crossing of the Atacama Desert After eight days of uninhabited high altitude desert and mountain landscapes of southwest Bolivia I was back in the inhabited world in San Pedro de Atacama. I walked with my bike through the streets lined with adobe houses, in search for a hotel. It was Friday night and almost all the hotels were booked. The desert town was packed with tourists.
Bike tours in the desert in the Valle de la Luna, jeep tours to hot springs on the Altiplano, ascents of high volcanoes in the Andes and surfing sand dunes in the Atacama Desert, the offer of the tour providers was versatile, but not cheap. The price level was ten to twenty times as high as in Bolivia. San Pedro was no budget destination. I myself lived on a budget though. That meant that tired of the heavy Salar and Laguna route I had to continue my odyssey for an affordable place to sleep.
After two hours of searching and asking I finally found a tiny room. Relieved, I laid down on the small bed. But I had not enjoyed my rest for a long time. The hotel owner knocked on the door. He explained that he had made a mistake. The next few days were already reserved. I was thrown out of the hotel unscrupulously. I was not fully recovered yet from the Salar and Laguna route of the last days and so I found myself looking for another overnight stay. Again I walked with my fully loaded bicycle in hand through the streets with adobe houses, looking for a new place to stay the night.
I walked past the hip cafeterias from the small desert town. Bizarre, alienating rhythms of trendy electronic music filled the streets. It was weekend and everyone had a good time in San Pedro. If not the Lonely Cyclist. After several hours of searching I still had no overnight. And so at twelve o'clock in the morning I still did not find a hotel and so I stood on the edge of the driest desert of the world, with my fully loaded bicycle, without supplies and without ideas.
To blow the story up to Biblical proportions: the Lonely Cyclist knocked on the doors of the houses of San Pedro, but the people refused to let him in and sent their guest without mercy in the desert. And so, I rode into the Atacama Desert in the hottest part of the day. A bit more than a hundred kilometer southwest from San Pedro is the major mining town Calama, where there are hotels again. I passed through pure arid landscapes of the Valle de la Luna.
