Early taxi at 7 am straight to the bus station. We arrived early enough to jump on one that left 15 minutes before our ticket. Slept most of the way to Santiago (only about 1 1/2 hour ride) and then boarded another bus to the airport. Being in the big city is awesome, as the usual 5+ snaking line of people to drop bags moved along so fast we were done in 45 minutes.
An hour and a half later, we were in the high plateau desert of Atacama, the second driest place in the world (after Antarctica). We hopped in our red truck and another hour and a half later, we were in San Pedro de Atacama, the dustiest, adobe built town I’ve ever seen, replete with backpackers hostals, more travel/adventure tour shops than I’ve ever seen, and the Terrantai Lodge, right in the middle of all of it.
Still pretty early, but we’d been going since before sun up, so we walked around town a bit, then settled into Las Delicias deal Carmen and had some thirst-quenchers. After yakking for a while, we ordered dinner (each enough for two people), then headed back for an early bedtime. Adventure time tomorrow!