The Atacama Desert is not easy to get to, specifically the place that exists as a tourist town in the middle of all the main sites, that being the city of San Pedro de Atacama. In fact, it is so tough to reach (quick note, I'm somewhat exaggerating this) sitting about an hour from the closest reachable airport in Calama, that we decided to not only spend this entire day traveling from Brazil to the Atacama, but didn't even end up reaching San Pedro de Atacama. Technically, this was more the fact our flight was scheduled to land from Santiago at 9:41pm at Calama airport, and the rental cars all closed between 9-10. So we audibled a bit last minute and got a hotel that night in Calama. I'm skipping to the end a bit because there is really not much to say here.
We took Sky Airlines from Rio to Santiago, and then after a four hour layover, from Santiago to Calama. Sky Airlines is a low cost carrier, but I'll give them credit for having slim-line seats that while a bit hard, to offer a bit more legroom in return vs some competitor low cost airline economy seats. Also to my shock they served a sandwhich to everyone on the Rio to Santiago flight. It wasn't a good sandwhich, mind you, but something that was free, unlike awter more than a sippy cup a amount.
Santiago Airport's international terminal is lovely, though their domestic terminal is a bit sparse. It is nice, and the new concourse area is quite well maintained, and they're actively renovating parts of it, but that is all still very much a work in progress. What Santiago also needs to focus on a lot is the staffing level of their immigration area - the cues are ridiculous. Even with my parents qualifying for "priority" lanes all over South America due to them being over 60, we had to wait about 30 minutes becuse the priority lanes were manned by one agent. A second came in maybe two families before us. The main line was no better, and in February (there I go again referencing that trip...) it took an hour arriving at a very similar time. Santiago is amazing in many, many aspects, as I will undoubtedly extol a bunch to come, but for now they really need to fix immigration.
Finally, the Park Hotel in Calama is farily basic but tries hard which is nice. They have lovely art, paintings, a Christmas decoration, a kitchen open until 11:30 (and quite well attended when we arrived at 10:15 and ordered at 10:45). The rooms have super comfortable beds and air conditioning units that blast the shit out of that thing. It's also quite basic, and the bathroom is small (though clean). In the end, it deserves its quite high rating on Google or Booking.com and worked well for what we needed it for: a pit stop on the way to bigger and better things.
