My spouse and I stayed at
Awasi Atacama for 3 nights in early April 2017. We booked our stay online using
the Relais and Chateau website, but we also had extensive online contact with
our personal Awasi reservationist Elaine, who was based in New York. Elaine
patiently answered our many questions via email as she coordinated our stays
between the Awasi Atacama and Patagonia properties. Awasi sent us a pre-arrival
questionnaire that inquired about our interests regarding excursions, food
allergies, flight arrival and departure information, and so on, and they also
sent a follow-up questionnaire after our stay to review our experience.
Awasi provides transportation
from the Calama Airport to meet any flight at almost any time; the drive to San
Pedro de Calama takes about one hour. Besides the beautiful property and
accommodations, one of the main attractions to the Awasi brand is the private
guides and vehicles. Your private Awasi Atacama guide leads your excursions, but
you usually also have a separate driver for most activities. The intention is
to retain the same guide throughout your entire stay; however, our initial guide
Mari grew ill after our second day, and two other substitute guides had to
pitch in to fill her spot for our remaining excursions, but the management
handled the situation well and tried to provide continuity of service. The
lodge offers a detailed printed guide from which you can choose various
excursions, but your guide will also make suggestions and help craft a
comprehensive program.
The Awasi Atacama property is
located in the town of San Pedro de Atacama less than a 5-minute walk from the
main pedestrian street. The property spans two sides of the street, with the
five round rooms (of two different sizes), the swimming pool,
lounge/fireplace/fire pit areas, and bar/dining areas on one side of the
street, and several rectangular rooms on the other side of the street near the
reception office. We have seen questions posted online regarding whether it is
an issue to stay on the opposite side of the street in the rectangular rooms,
and in our personal opinion, we would not hesitate. We did not find the street
to be busy with traffic, and the distance to cross it is much shorter than we
envisioned prior to our stay. We visited the other side of the property upon
checkout to have the general manager print our boarding passes, and although we
did not observe the rooms, the theming and décor of the auxiliary spaces
resembled the main common areas.
Both sides of the property are
contained behind locked/gated terracotta walls, and no one can see in from the
street or access the properties without a key. (At Awasi, you will use an
old-fashioned key to access both your room and the property itself; there are
no electronic keycards here.) The outdoor swimming pool is surrounded by about
10 reclining cushioned lounge chairs as well as two double-wide platform beds
shaded by umbrellas. Foliage and trees provide shade for other chairs.
Restrooms and a shower are located near the pool. The property offers several
semi-outdoor lounge areas that are covered by a roof but open at the sides;
however, some of the areas contain roll-down canopy sides that staff unfurls in
cooler weather. (You are definitely in the desert: hot during the day, and
cool/cold at night.) The common areas contain at least four fireplaces and one
outdoor fire pit, all surrounded by different types of furniture (sofas,
chairs, wood, metal, fabric) made of varied materials. The outdoor covered bar
is flanked by an outdoor oven and an outdoor grill. (If you visit on a Thursday
evening, you will enjoy a fancy barbecue [grilled meats] for dinner.) The
dining areas are semi-outdoor (with roll-down sides), where you can choose your
individual table. A partially open exhibition kitchen provides the backdrop for
the breakfast buffet, with a cook creating plated hot entrees. The food at
Awasi Atacama was excellent; for lunch and dinner, we ordered from a varying
daily menu that offered three or four selections for each category of
appetizers, entrees, and desserts. Meal and drink service was outstanding, far superior
to what we received at sister property Awasi Patagonia.
This Awasi Atacama property
offers three types of accommodations: rectangular rooms (600 square feet),
regular round rooms (430 square feet), and superior round rooms (670 square
feet). We were assigned #3, which was one of the larger superior adobe rondavel.
Our large room consisted of several areas: the main round sleeping area had a
high palm-thatched ceiling, with a king-size bed abutted by two nightstands
(each of which held a reading light and a wicker water pitcher; do not forget
to drink more water than normal because of the dry climate; as another
compensation, staff also attend to a humidifier placed in each room), a padded
bench at the foot of the bed (which could hold luggage), a large desk (that
held a coffee service), a sort of divan/long reclining bench, and some other
decorative items and furniture pieces like a small bureau (that held a small
wooden box or “treasure chest”, where staff left us a souvenir/memento every
night) and a shelving unit. A sort of walk-in closet area was located up a few
steps from the bedroom in a kind of offshoot of the room. The only thing
missing from this room was a ceiling fan, although it seems that some rooms
have them from photos that we saw. Our room had air-conditioning that worked
well, for it was hot during the day yet our room remained comfortable. The
second area of our unit was the enormous bathroom, separated from the bedroom
by two double doors. The main area held the long tiled vanity with two sinks
and a variety of L'Occitane toiletries (soaps, shampoo, conditioner, bath gel,
body lotion, lip balm), a chair, a wicker stand with drawers, and three little
offshoot areas: one for the soaking bathtub, one for the huge tiled rainforest
shower (with a bench seat and beaded shower “curtain”), and a separate room for
the toilet. (Because of the sensitive sanitary system, do not flush the toilet
paper; used the covered trashcan provided for this purpose.) All the offshoot
areas had their own small window, and the bedroom area had several windows as
well, so there was plenty of light in the room when the curtains were open. We
also had a small private outdoor solarium area accessible through a door in the
bathroom, which held an outdoor shower and a padded reclining lounge chair so
that one person could sunbathe in privacy, if desired. Our room shared another
outdoor lounge area with the adjacent room, where there was a sofa, two chairs,
and a glass-topped table and chairs. Our accommodations did not lack for places
to sit down! We had good internet access in our room as well as throughout the
property; however, there are no TVs in guest rooms.
We loved our large round room
at Awasi Atacama – particularly the luxurious bathroom with its adjacent
private outdoor solarium. The entire property was gorgeous, and service was exceptional.
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