After the excitement of the various deserts and salt flats we visited in Bolivia and Northern Chile, it was time for a break by the seaside. We’d decided to break our journey south to Santiago – from where we’ll be flying to Easter Island at the end of September – in a couple of places: Bahía Inglesa (a small town close to Caldera) and La Serena. We may yet also visit Valparaiso, if we have time, but that remains to be seen.
We arrived in Caldera by a 12-hour bus ride on Thursday evening: we left at 7am from San Pedro de Atacama and arrived at 7pm in Caldera.
We expected the journey to be a lot worse than it was: it turned out to be quite relaxing and enjoyable. It’s the first time we’d travelled with Tur Bus – one of the main Chilean bus operators – and it’s generally a more relaxed way to travel than we found with Flechabus in Argentina: in both cases you can get your tickets online – selecting your seats, etc. – but with Tur Bus everything’s a…