Antofagasta, Chile

This time we stepped out of the bus with a direction. We knew what hostel we wanted to go to and we had directions how to get there. Yes, light years ahead of our past efforts! For some reason it wasn´t that easy. We caught the bus looking for a plane crashing into the roof of a discoteque that is close to the hostel. We waited for over and hour and saw no crashing plane. We ask the bus driver and he said we passed it and drops us off in shanty town central. So here we are walking around this place where people probably never even seen gringos before and are licking their chops at the thought of mugging us. Once we finally found someone who knew what was what in the town we found out that we took the right bus but in the wrong direction and we were in the exact opposite end of town. So, we decided to have some Chinese food and catch the same bus. After a long bus ride we finally see the crashing plane and we walk to the hostel.

Turns out the hostel is owned by a guy from Squamish. Cool! It was a really nice place that was right in discoteque central. Once we got all setup we decide to grab some grub for a big O BBQ. We grabbed the biggest steak we could probably find. I don´t even think they had to cut the cow for this one. The owner of the hostel just made the BBQ himself and that day was the opening debut. We sure put it up to the test with this steak. I´ve seen smaller pieces of meat fill freezers. And it was one hell of a steak too. Haha, so why am I going on about this steak? Well, there was nothing much else to report about that night because it was good Friday and none of the bars are open in South America on that night. We got the memo late on that one.

The next day we checked out some of the Dunes with the hostel owner and his brother. We caught some great views and did some fossil hunting too. Antofagasta is a famous hotbed for fossils. I found some fossilized shells and what looked like mussels. No dinosaurs though…

We checked out the fish market later on and had some pretty tasty seafood empanadas. This place is apparently the place to be on Saturday afternoon in Antofagasta. It started out as a fishing village and now is more of a port town. The fishing roots are still strong though. Once Matt and I got back we found a brand new ping pong table. Oh snap, it´s on now! It was ping pong tournament till the late hours of the night. We even setup a flood light at night. Once that finally finished we checked out the night life of Antofagasta. Not impressed! The bar, the vibe and the girls. So close to Argentina and yet so disappointing. I have no reasonable explanation. Nuclear meltdown in an adjacent town?

The next day we got in as many ping pong games as possible and then headed for our bus to San Pedro. You have one last chance Chile!