Fear and loathing in San Pedro de Atacama

Je ne suis pas un lapin heureux...

The bus got here about 9:40am. It´s hot as hell (and I´m wearing a jacket, because I didn´t want to pack the thing, at least it keeps the sun off my arms), the streets are covered in dust and rocks and I spent an hour (by the clock) dragging my suitcase up and down (I need an offroad suitcase, this one doesn´t have sufficient ground clearance for the streets here) the main street trying to find the "centrally located, 5 minutes from the bus station" hostel according to some pathetic directions I had copied from their web site. Eventually a guy asked if I needed a taxi and I paid CLP4,000 with tip. He had to stop three (or was it four?) times and ask directions to find it. (While the directions on the web were complete bollocks, to be fair, it probably is 5 minutes walk from the bus station if you know where it is. Next time I am going to dig up GPS coordinates for my hotel/hostel on Google Maps before I set out. Assuming you can do that on Google Maps. Which you probably can´t.)

Then when I got to the hostel, they had no trace of my "confirmed booking" via hostelworld.com, the first and possibly the last time I have used the site. (I came here to the internet cafe primarily to blow off a little steam by sending them a strongly-worded e-mail. I hear pissing in the wind helps too.) Fortunately they had a room free anyway. It´s shared bathroom here (I knew that anyway), the place has a very young backpacker feel and I don´t feel very much like I´m going to fit in. I can see myself slinking in at 3 or 4am after a few beers trying not to attract attention from everyone partying in the courtyard.

Oh, and the "free internet" at the hostel turns out to be a laptop in some room off the main courtyard with a 3G dongle attached to it. No wi-fi. To be fair, this is "free internet" as described on the web site, I was just hoping for wi-fi. I have come down to an internet cafe in the centre, I can´t sit there using some crappy laptop and no doubt blocking everyone else from using it. At least here there´s more than one PC and I´m paying to use the service so I feel entitled to stay as long as I want. Also, looking on the bright side, they actually advertise the ability to put photos from USB stick or SD card onto DVD here, so this may finally be my chance to clear some space on my SD cards. Good job too, since I can´t upload any photos while I´m here.

To give the staff at the hostel credit, the woman showing me round did say I could use the dongle on my laptop. I´m sure that would make me really popular too. And besides, what are the chances of it working on my Linux netbook? Maybe not nonexistent, but I´m wouldn´t hold my breath, even if I were going to try it, which I´m not. (For that matter, what are the chances of it working on a random Windows laptop? I would have assumed you'd need to install drivers anyway.)

And of course I have to do god knows how many bloody tours to places of interest from here. I´m sick of all this "unmissable" stuff. I am already booked on one (via the hostel) for 4pm this afternoon to go to Valle de la Luna or something like that. That, according to my guide book (which I now hate with a passion, it completely failed to include my hostel´s street on its map), is *the* obligatory trip from here. The woman at the hostel mentioned something about a trip to some lake with a high salt concentration, but I can´t see myself going there as it would naturally involve going into the water (I won´t say "swimming", the woman pointed out how you float very well, presumably Dead Sea-style) and I ain´t doing that, especially not with a massive group of 20-something-year olds.

I also saw something about a sandboarding trip, which obviously I can´t do but knowing that kind of option exists just makes me feel even more than I´m not having as much fun as I ought to be.

Massive amounts of swearing out loud in English as I tried to find the hostel. I probably looked like the drunk/mentally impaired people you sometimes encounter on the streets in London. I ate yesterday at about 7pm but I wonder if lack of food is somehow responsible for my extremely bad mood. (I bought an ice lolly and a big bottle of regular coke while wandering around, partly to see if the sugar would help and partly as a pretext to ask for directions. Neither the food nor the directions helped. I almost felt physically sick while drinking the coke, I have no idea why.) I slept as badly as usual on the bus, to start with I was teetering on the brink of falling asleep but about three times in a row I sort of ´jerked myself back´ to wakefulness for no clear reason. Then I woke up feeling disoriented a couple of times during the night. No idea what time(s) I woke up or anything as I didn´t feel up to getting my phone out of my pocket. I had a bit of a thirst on when I woke up but after a couple of hours they served breakfast, which included a generous 190ml measure of warm pineapple juice in one of those ´stick the straw through the hole´ cartons which always remind me of packed school lunches. Ah, the carefree days of youth when I had never heard of the Atacama desert.

Anyway, onwards and downwards. I should be allowed to check in at the hostel about now, but I might see if I can find something to eat first. As long as I eat before the trip I should be OK.