Salta to San Pedro De Atacama.

I have read blogs about people travelling this route but i cant find a bus company anywere that does it, can anyone give me any information about a company that may do it or where i need to go to get to san pedro, thanks

I'm not speaking from personal experience, but I did some asking around and it appears there basically 3 options:

• book an organised tour of the San Pedro region, and arrange to get off at a place on the Argentine side with some transport options. This will require some knowledge of Spanish, though, to make absolutely sure that you won't get stuck in the middle of nowhere on your own...
• there is a company called Gemini that is said to run a service to Jujuy along ruta 52 several times a week. From Jujuy, you can get to Salta easily
• there is frequent truck transport along that same road; you can ask for a ride at the border station, near Paso de Jama. Alternatively, there might be options along ruta 51 leading to Salta directly, but since that is a dirt road, there is likely to be much less long-distance traffic

Good luck, and please post back your itinerary and experiences.

[ Edit: Edited on 01-Feb-2009, at 11:09 by bentivogli ]

Thought i would post back some information just incase other people were wondering to. 2 bus companies run the route Salta - San pedro - Calama - Arica, they are Pullman and Geminis. They run on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, however from my understanding (and frustration) Niether company runs the full route to Arica on thursdays. Meaning that you either travel to San pedro or Calama and get a connecting bus. Companies that run this route are TurBus and Condor, although im sure there are others. They seem to work nicely together as these buses dont depart until a few hours after the ones from salta have arrived.