San Pedro de Atacama

The town of San Pedro is an interesting place. There are paved roads leading up to it and leaving it in all directions, but in the town itself, all of the roads are dirt. This leads one to the conclusion that it was done on purpose. Certainly, San Pedro would not exist in it's current form if it were not for tourism. We were told to expect steep prices and an abundance of Europeans. This is exactly what we encountered. You can't get a meal for less than the equivalent of ten dollars (often more), but they actually know what it means to be vegetarian, thanks to the tourists.
If you happen to find a North American, they're more likely to be Canadian. The Germans seemed to dominate the European population, and there seemed to be more Brazilians than Chilean tourists, but there was also numerous Israelis (just as in the south). All of the tourists speak English though.
One more note, don't just bring lot's of money and sun screen to San Pedro and think you'll be alright. Bring lots of money in Chilean pesos and if you think you're going to go to Bolivia get Bolivianos (the currency of Bolivia) before arriving in San Pedro. Before we left to Bolivia we had to get some Bolivianos and we got about half as many as we should have. I can only imagine its the same from dollars to Chilean Pesos. So instead of $10 meals expect to pay $15-$20.

Most of the buildings are adobe (a good use of local resources wouldn't you say?)।

Most of the streets near the center are crowded with backpackers and bicyclists all day long, with hardly any vehicle traffic।

If you want to add security to your place just grow briars on top of your adobe wall or implant dead briars।

The repair work doesn't look too difficult.

We arrived at the end of one street and didn't expect to see this! This green field is in such stark contrast to everything surrounding it that it almost mesmerizes you। A horse was kept in this field.

This is the room we stayed in. Lodging is fairly inexpensive compared to the US. But considering in the US you can get a clean single room at a motel 6 with a private bathroom, a tv and free internet for as little as $35, you may be disappointed to spend $20 to $30 on the room below even if it accomodates two people.

This is the outside of the room।
This is the courtyard of the place we stayed. It doesn't look all that attractive yet, people managed to keep it filled with drunken noisiness the whole night.

We were lucky to have one of the shared bathrooms right next to our room।

I was so impressed with how clean the interior of the bathroom was compared to the dinginess of the room that I took the following 3 pictures।

I took this picture the morning after our first day in San Pedro। You can see the sun coming up. At this hour the town is so quite; you only hear the noise of the shuttle buses driving around picking up people to go on tours. That's what we were waiting for (a shuttle to take us to the Bolivian border).