Nate's Biggest Travel Blunder | Santiago to Atacama Desert

I'm gonna miss this view.

Let's go.

Do you need your suitcase?

Yes.

Adios.

It is a little after 7am this morning. We are heading to the airport to fly to the Atacama desert.

We are so excited. But I'm really gonna miss Santiago. We've really fallen in love with this place.

I'm gonna miss our view from the 25th floor.

It's been a good week.

And the food. Hopefully the food's just as good up north.

Yeah.

Alright. Too early to be talking. I know seven is not that early, but when you stay up like editing till one in the morning, it feels pretty early.

Yeah, our schedule is stay up late and sleep in because there's not much to do in the mornings anyways when you're traveling.

Before we started traveling, I was like one like get up at 5:30 or 6 in the morning type of people. So I feel really lazy Acting like 7am is early.

I was trying to get into the subway. Nate went first and then I used the Bipcard and it had just like almost enough. It needed a few more cents to get me through. And this man heard my card get declined and he let me use his to use the subway one last time so I didn't have to refill my car. There are just some really good people in the world. That was just a really great start to this travel day. In other really good news, I fit my new boot in my backpack. It's a miracle.

Made through security. This is a big moment because last time we were in an airport we thought we had access to a lounge and it turned out priority pass was only available for like two hours of the day. We haven't had breakfast or coffee. Really hope this lounge lets us in.

Hopefully we're welcome at all hours of the day.

This lounge doesn't have the best food, but it has tons of fun drinks.

This one's like a pineapple slushy.

We are heading to our gate. I think it's probably a good thing that we couldn't get into that lounge. Last week in Montevideo made us much more grateful for lounges.

Yes.

I think have we have been able to get into that one. When we were in that lounge, I would have been like, ah, this is mediocre. Nothing to write home about. But I was like, awesome. Yes. Free coffee, triangle sandwiches. This is so great. All right, we're going to the desert.

Our strategy worked again. We booked the two outside seats and nobody could go to the seat.

Just landed.

Feels super weird flying a domestic flight.

I'd Say that's one of the roughest flights we've taken since we started traveling the way down. We just, like, felt like the plane was just, like, dropping out of the sky and you're losing your stomach. I thought I was gonna have to use the bark bag there for a min.

We are in the desert, so I've.

Messed up booking our travel once again. Remember the other night when I said I booked, like, multiple flights, hotels, Airbnbs, and a rental car? Well, it turns out I don't think I actually finalized my booking with the rental car company. So we're here at the airport. I thought maybe, like, I just hadn't gotten an email, and when I got here, I'd give Budget my passport and say I had a reservation. And they did. So they told me that we cannot rent cars at the airport. They have to be reserved in advance. So I'm currently on my phone trying to book a car. They said they don't have any more left, but it says I can book it online, so I'm gonna try that.

Oh, I'm a mess. According to Kayak, we have a car in it. I'm gonna go see if the people at the desk agree.

She said they don't have any cars, and she doesn't know why Kayak let me book the car. O.

I mean, I didn't give Kayak my credit card, so I don't think it'll charge me, but that doesn't solve our issue. God, I just, like, know I booked.

So frustrating.

It really is.

Fill me in on the last two hour.

It's actually been two hours since we landed. This is probably the biggest travel blunder that I've made so far. It seems that there are no rental cars available. All of our plans for the next seven days hinged on having a car. So.

Yeah, we've been using wi fi that takes, like, five minutes to load a webpage to try to figure out how we can get a car for the next seven days. And then we just found this cafe that has WI fi that's hopefully faster. So we bought some French fries so we could use their WI Fi.

Yep, that's. That's where we are right now. Stuck in the middle of the desert, but at least in a pretty nice airport. If we have to be positive. It feels really good.

So we landed in the city of Calama, and our Airbnb is in San Pedro de Atacama, which is, like, an hour and a half away. So, like, going to our Airbnb and just getting this sorted out isn't really an option at this point.

So.

Hope the french fries are good.

Great news.

Some of the best french fries I've ever had. It is 5pm which means that we've been here for over three hours. There's now a bus leaving that goes an hour and a half to San Pedro. So we're getting on it, and we're gonna try to figure out the rental car thing once we get there. I'm just so disappointed in myself. Disappointed in myself screwing up the rental car in the first place and then spending three hours and still not being able to figure out something better.

So we have a little bit of good news. We were about to book a bus that was gonna to the bus terminal, and it was a little bit cheaper. And then we were gonna have to walk to our Airbnb. And then Nate learned from the nice lady that that bus didn't leave for an hour. And then he offered her the money that he did have for the private bus that takes you straight to your place, and she took it. So we get to go straight to her place now. Go, Nate.

At least one good thing.

Yay. And we're really trying not to complain. Much worse things could happen. I just know Nate was really about having our own car. Driving through the desert and apparently running a car in.

San Pedro.

Is, like, twice as much as it is here, so it's kind of a bummer. We still haven't quite decided what we're going to do about it. It'll be okay, though. While we're just sitting here pondering, thought this would be a good time to update the vlog. Why? We don't talk behind the camera as much as we used to. Our new mic is a shotgun mic, and so it only picks sound of whatever it's pointing at. So, like, you can hear me. But when Nate talks, say something in a normal voice.

I'm talking in a normal voice.

You can, like, hardly hear him, which is so funny because sometimes I'll respond to what Nate says, but you can't hear him in the first place. So I just seem like a crazy person talking to myself. So I crop it out of the vlog. This is what it sounds like without our new mic.

Don't tell me you can't hear a difference.

I'm sure it'll be windy and terrible.

This is the reason we're using a shotgun mic.

Can you hear me, though?

I bet they can hear you now.

Yeah.

Sound terrible.

It's so windy here. We have a really good view. Check out the mountains.

So many rental cars.

Yeah. Who's using that rental car and that rental car and that Wrong car in that wrong car.

We made it.

We seriously drove on one straight road an hour into the Atacama Desert. It was so beautiful, but just crazy how in the middle of nowhere, I feel like we are right now. We just got checked into our Airbnb. It's this really cute little house. We're renting this room with our own bathroom. And our host seems really nice. He told us we're, like an hour or not an hour. We are a kilometer walk from the main road. There is one main road in this town, and I don't think any of the roads are paved. It's gonna be really interesting. So we're gonna go try to find some food and hopefully a rental car, because, like I said, there's only one road, and we would like to go on some adventures while we're here.

But I just spent all of our pesos, so now we have to figure out how to get money again.

This is the road that we're staying on, and we're surrounded by mountains with snow.

Heads up. You're gonna run over my bike.

Yeah, I think we've hit the main road due to all the people and the buildings, which we saw neither of on our way here. We're just gonna see what's here.

All right, so we have succeeded in getting money. We've talked to a couple tour operators to just, like, check out the prices, and we have attempted to find a rental car place here. As far as we know, a rental car place does not exist. But we did talk to our Airbnb host, who is willing to rent us, I guess, his car. And so far, it's looking like that's going to be the best deal. So now we are turning our attention to finding food.

Let's go.

Garrett's been wanting to do that for a while.

We missed it. We heard about this super local place to eat. Obviously, it's, like, outside of town, and we came all the way out here, and they're closing down. So we're going to go try to find a lady that was selling empanadas up here on the street.

Feel like today's vlog is a lot more depressing than usual. I'm sorry for that.

She is on a mission to find empanadas.

I am so excited right now. We just got four massive empanadas to share. We got dos pino, which is, like, the typical onion and meat mixture. I think there's egg in there and do. What was the other one we got no corn. I don't know. She was out of the one we wanted, and so we just got the other one. But check out how huge they are. This is one. We got four, but I think we deserve it. After this day, we'll have a snack on our walk home.

So I couldn't figure out what's going on because I have two. Like, they don't. Oh. And then I figured I'd just have an extra length.

So all the weight that I gained from eating my empanadas, I'll still be able to fit my seat belt.