We had a long bus ride between Iquique and San Pedro de Atecama....actually it ended up being a two day journey.

On our way to San Pedro, the bus had to make a stop in Calama to pick up and drop off passengers. As our bus drove into the city, both Devan and I agreed that we were thrilled to not be staying there. It was a sort of butt hole town with not much to do. This we could tell from just looking out our windows. When we got to the station, we hopped off to ask the bus attendent how much time we had to kill. He told us we had three hours (from 8-11 PM). With this information Devan and i decided to grab our packs and head down the road to find a beer.

We walked about 20 minutes in one direction following a map that was apparently outdated. After realizing that most of the street names had changed since the map was printed, we stopped to ask a local where the nearest watering hole was. She told us to walk back PAST the terminal a few blocks. There we would find the centro with plenty of cafes, bars and restaurants. So we strapped in and headed back towards the terminal. We must have walked about 20 more minutes before we found a bar. We walked in, and grabbed a table. As we were eagerly reading our menus a waitress came to the table. When she opened her mouth the speak to both assumed it was to take our orders. But no, it was just to tell us that they werent open and wouldnt be serving for another couple of hours. Hopes of a beer were dwindling. We gave up on the thought of finding a bar and walked back to the terminal where we found a chinese restuarnt. There, we grabbed a table, and ordered up some spring rolls and brews. We finished with still an hour of time before our departure. So of course, we split another beer. After paying our bill, we grabbed our tickets only to find out that our bus had actually been schedule to leave 45 minutes earlier. We missed it. SUPER LAME! We walked to an over priced motel to crash for the night. Our night in Calama was clearly a bust. Not only did it take forever to find a brew, but our water purifier broke, my (sara´s ) ipod was out of bateriest, and we had to buy NEW tickets the next morning. We were left broke, dehydrated, musicless, and stuck in this lame town that we both had earlier thought we were so lucky to just be passing through. The next morning our alarm didnt go off, and we almost missed our second bus. However, we came to realize that we are both REALLY quick at packing up our bags and heading out. We practically ran to the terminal and made it just in time. The Calama catastrophy, im sure, was just the first of many glitches to come......Off the San Pedro at last!