San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

There are two cash machines in San Pedro and they only work sporatically. We were lucky as when we got there the machines were in the process of being fixed, so after two hours wait we were able to actually get cash out. Unfortunately we tried to get too much cash out and the ATM ate some of our money. Long story short, we found the idiots who were fixing the other ATM and asked them to come back and get our money. Our cash was jammed in the ATM and we watched hopefully as they took it out, unfortunately however they had some lame idea that our transaction would not go and therefore refused to give us the rest of our money. After multiple attempts to speak to them calmly our spanish gave out and we left, leaving it to HSBC to sort out. We are not the only ones that this happens to as the cash machines always jam, funnily enough tourists get 5000 notes and locals get 10,000, we think this may be a great money making venture for the local banks. After that we couldnt do too much in the fear that we ran out of money. Phil, Kelly and Steve did however go sandboarding in the nearby sanddunes. They had a fantastic time although were knackered at having to walk back up the sanddunes after sandboarding down. Phil is still finding sand in his ear, shoes and other orrifices after caning out at one point.