Agra Hotel and Mall

Our hotel in Agra was definitely the nicest one of the trip but it came at a price, although it was still cheaper than the price we paid on our first night in Delhi.






This room had an interesting feature. You had to put the key in this slot in order for the electricity in the room to be turned on. It seems like a good idea, you can't leave the TV or lights on when you're gone, but it is actually kind of hard to find this slot at night, with just the light of the hallway, plus the refrigerator is rendered mostly useless as it is not on while you're gone.




The hallway was pretty fancy with marble floors, but an oddly low ceiling.

Across the street from our hotel was this mall where everything was as pricey as things in the US.

Where we stayed in Rudrapayag

These are some pictures of where we stayed and the view from the hotel on the second night of our journey. It was just outside Rudraprayag. It wasn't anything special and we couldn't turn on the AC, which didn't seem like such a big deal since we thought we were only paying Rs 1200 ($25) for the room. Then later we learned we were paying Rs. 1500 ($31) and we regretted not having something nicer. It doesn't seem like much of a difference but in India this is huge and you can expect a nice clean AC room for around Rs 1200 (unless your in Delhi or another big city where the prices are higher).

Despite the nonfunctional AC, the views were pretty nice and we were already starting to get an idea about how vastly different the views on this part of our trip would be from the views we became accustomed to seeing in India.

Salt Hotel

Where as the hostel in which the tourists stay the first night is not even mentioned in the sales pitch for these tours, the second nights stay is advertised as one of the attractions. It is a hotel made out of salt.

This place was a lot nicer than the the place we stayed the night before. The people who hosted and cooked for us were friendlier and also much cleaner.

Here Sita is sprawled across the bed enjoying a short rest before we journeyed out to see the area before it became dark. She didn't get to rest that long because I was really excited to go and visit the Quinoa field I featured in the last post.



The beds were similar to the beds the night before with a futon sitting atop a hard surface which in this case was, salt, of course.I think in the process of making the bricks the other minerals settle into these brown lines which are prevalent in all of the salt bricks.
The hallway. We were able to stay in our own room this night and somehow we were the only group that stayed at this hotel that night. It was quite and nice. Notice the floor is even comprised of salt. The Canadian and I agreed that while this was aesthetically pleasing it was impractical as the grains of salt would enter you're shoes or stick to your feet if you were barefoot, plus there was already evidence that they were having a hard time keeping it clean of debris.
The stairs leading up to the Salt Hotel highlighted by cactus skeletons.
A view from the outside.


The Bolivian Flag.


The hills behind the salt hotel.
This is Sita enjoying the vast open space which leads to the Salar de Uyuni (the largest salt flat in the world).

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).