San Pedro de Atacama is aptly named as its located in the Atacama Desert. The Atacama Desert covers 1,000 kilometers west of the Andes and is the only true desert to receive less precipitation than the polar deserts. It is a quirky, hippy town full of dust and all sorts of travelers. We witnessed one protest through the town where locals were protesting the increase in cost of public transport. The colorful checkered flag seen in the photo is the flag of the Andean Indigenous people of Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, and Peru.
While there, we tried sandboarding which is basically snowboarding down the sand dunes.