San Pedro de Atacama
After three relaxing days in Iquique I headed to San Pedro de Atacama with Niyat, the German girl I met at my hostel. San Pedro is a small village in the Atacama desert (the entire town had a power outage for an hour right after I arrived), known as a backpacker mecca; in other words, kind of touristy. It's really lovely land though, with lots of options to go biking, trekking, sandboarding, etc.
Unfortunately, I am feeling a little burned out on the tour options, and am forgoing the salt lake trip that I considered last week. I will probably rent a bike this afternoon and ride out into the Valley de la Luna, but that may be the extent of my desert exploration. I'm back in some altitude (2700 meters), and it's getting to me a little; plus I think after the last few weeks I am ready for a big city. So I have a 20-hour bus ride that leaves Monday evening for Santiago. As this town is aimed for tourists, everything is rather expensive, though there are some lovely restaurants.
Speaking of food, I am staying at a hostel that doesn't include breakfast. I don't mind though; most South American breakfasts I have experienced are instant coffee and white bread with butter, jam and dulce de leche. I am so tired of white bread. This morning I slept through breakfast though, I was a bit sleepy from last night, when I met some people from my hostel and we went to sit in a field and look at stars while drinking cerveza and pisco under an old tree. Conversation as entirely in Spanish, and Chileans talk very quickly and swallow their words, so I didn't get everything that was said but it was still a lot of fun.