Last Day in San Pedro de Atacama

On our last day in San Pedro, we walked up the road to the Pukara de Quitor, an old Inca fort. It's where the locals made their last stand against the Spanish. The pukara is on a high hill northwest of the city and the natives were able to hold out there for some time. Eventually the Spanish took the fort. They cut off the heads of the resistance leaders, and cut out the tongues of any who would not learn Spanish. The place for a long time after was known as the "City of the Heads" for the heads displayed on pikes around the hill.

The place is still beautiful and has a panoramic view of the valley and desert all around. It's a steep walk through the old dwellings to the top, where we came across a guy playing the flute. We sat and listened to the music and looked at the scenery, very filling.

We returned to town, got some snacks, empanadas, cookies, did a little gift shopping and went to settle our bill with Quinta Adela. It turned out that we had miscalculated the cost and were short by $60. Allison ran to the local bank machine to get cash, they don't do credit cards at Quinta Adela. Neither machine was working. We were worried. They said fine, no problem, gave us a deposit slip and said just put the money in the bank whenever you can. We were shocked, to put it mildly.

The family posed with us for a photo and we were sad to be on our way. At 4:45 we boarded the double decker coche cama bus bound for La Serena, a 17 hour trip. The German family we'd been seeing off and on since Arica were also on the bus. That's what you get on the gringo trail, when everyone navigates from the same travel book.