Calama - Quite an adventure, hahah. I have told about few bus trips already, but we were going one again. This time the bus was great and the staff was really helpful. There is still one thing to say about the trip. I HATE MUFFINS! Not that I really hate them, but when you get two as breakfast, two with lunch and two as the afternoon snack, that is TOO MUCH :D The plan for the trip was to get from Salta to Iquique during one day. We bought tickets to Calama, Chile and the plan was to get a new bus there.

In the bus to Calama the staff helped us by taking us next to a terminal where three companies have buses to Iquique. We and about 60 year old grandpa got off the bus at Calama. He had same intensions as we did so he decided to walk with us and travel with us. Grandpa was from Argentina and his English name was John. He knew some English but we mainly communicated in Spanish.

We walked to the first bus company office together. We saw the price and found out that there are no tickets left. We had four hours of time so we wanted to compare the prices and walked to the next company. We had no idea what was happening when the old guy asked something at the counter. He told us that there are no buses soon and got instructions to the third ticket office that we quickly realized to be closed already.

We returned to the second office to ask again and while standing on the counter they ran out of tickets. The only option was the first company then. Walking back there didn't take long but then we had a new problem. We didn't have cash and they didn't accept cards. Grandpa had the same problem. Lady at the office reserved the tickets to us so we just needed the money.

Me and grandpa decided to walk to the ATM while Maiju was looking after our stuff. Walk there was interesting while it was totally dark already and I was walking on the streets with some random guy and talking in Spanish. Finding the ATM didn't take long, but that's when the problems actually started. There were two banks next to each other, so about seven ATMs. I tried all of them and so did granpa and we didn't get any money out… It was already late in the evening and the next day would be Sunday, so there would not be any money tomorrow either. Are we stuck again?

OFFICES CLOSED, NO TICKETS YET, NO MONEY AND WE HAVE TO HANG OUT WITH 60 YEAR OLD GRANDPA - Just a normal night, I guess.

Lots of random things happened on the way back to the office while the grandpa tried to figure out ways to get money. Visiting toy shop and ask for money exchange was one of them. Didn't work. I realized that I have some US dollars that we could change to Chilean money in the western union close. I went back to get the dollars, ran to the exchange and they told me that they are already closed and will open next time on Monday.. NICE. What next?

The lady at the ticket office told us about one more ATM a bit further away and I walked there again with grandpa, who was already suggesting hotel nights in Calama. I started to get a bit suspicious, haha. Nothing seemed to work, while the ATM was under maintenance. How can this be so hard? Finally we found some solution! Money exchange next to the closed ATM, yay! Grandpa changed his money first and got enough for the bus ticket. At the counter I realized that I didn't take all my dollars with me so there was no point in changing them. Back to the office AGAIN.

One more problem. After counting all the cash we had and when visiting the money exchange we soon understood that even we would change all the US dollars and euros we have we would not have enough cash for two tickets. The tickets were 24000 pesos and we would only have 21000. Grandpa understood what I was worried about and promised to pay the rest of the tickets for us. That was really nice of him, but would have been really strange.

This time I remembered a story that Sini told me about her cards not working in South America. I realized that I tried only one card and we decided to try again the ATMs. Maiju went to try this time with a different card. I stayed with our stuff this time. Quite soon Maiju returned and we were so relieved when she got money out from the ATM. We are not stuck! Yay!

Rest of the time in Calama went well. We went to eat to some small place close and waited for the bus at the small waiting room. Grandpa got really excited about his headphones and was playing all kinds of music to me every five minutes. Weird. His favorite was Abba.

The bus we took was definitely the best one this far. We had huge black leather seats that were like beds. Everything went well and we arrived in Iquique at five in the morning. More about the departure later… Great adventures, random things happening, but everything went well after all. Fun times!