San Pedro de Atacama

San Pedro de Atacama is the main touristic town in the Atacama desert, and where most travellers choose to stay. It has plenty of hostels, restaurants and tour agencies, and it's about an hour away from Calama airport (20000 pesos for a return transfer). My boyfriend and I chose to stay there, and managed to find a cheap hostel in the town centre quite easily.

The main sight in the town is the church, which is said to be the second oldest in Chile.

                                       

From the town, there are also nice views of volcanoes including Licancabur, which borders Chile and Bolivia.

We did tours to other places in the area during our first two days there, and explored San Pedro more during our last day. There are plenty of gift shops where you can buy artisan products such as knitwear made with llama wool! It's also easy to rent a bike to explore the area, which we did. 

We went to the meteorological museum as well, which was really interesting. The Atacama desert is an area where lots of meteorites have landed, and it's possible to see them and even touch them in the museum.

The three days we spent in the Atacama desert were brilliant, and there will be a few more posts coming all about the amazing places we went to!