Awasi Atacama

Style

Incan-descent cabanas

Setting

Cactus and condor country

Desert awakenings needn’t involve a saltgrass-cushioned sleeping bag; Chile’s luxurious Awasi Atacama lodge assigns each of its adobe cabanas a multilingual (spirit) guide of its own. Learned in history, flora, fauna, astronomy, and with an internal trail map and a four-wheel drive at their disposal, your guru will enlighten, educate and ensure your boots are cleaned on your return. Soul food also takes the form of fire-pit-lit pisco sours and surprisingly varied desert cuisine: steak and seafood with sweet chañar fruit and algarrobo (carob), paired with Chocalan syrah and other rich reds. Less ‘walkabout’ than ‘be driven about’, here you rest and realign, with no tumbleweed moments.

Facilities

Rooms

12 suites.

Checkout

Noon, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 4pm.

More Details

Rates include all meals and drinks (including the hotel’s range of Chilean wines), a private guide and use of a four-wheel drive, daily excursions, and return transfers from Calama. A three-night minimum stay is required.

Hotel Closed

The hotel closes during the third week of September each year (from 15 to 22 in 2017).

Free Internet Access

Laundry

Pool

On-Site Restaurant

Room Service

At the Hotel

Communal courtyard lounge, free WiFi in the main building only. In rooms: personal guide and four-wheel drive to use during your stay, private furnished patio, solarium with outdoor shower, alpaca blankets, water bottles, a torch, walking sticks, underfloor heating, chachacoma tea (to help acclimatise guests to the altitude) and Awasi’s signature bath products, including lip balm.

Our Favourite Rooms

The Round Rooms and Suites have an authentic air: built using adobe (mud bricks), river stones, wood and thatch they evoke dwellings in neighbouring historic villages. However, they have been reinterpreted for modern audiences, with the addition of comfy king-size beds, marble-lined bathrooms and elegant wooden furnishings. The Rectangular Suites, set across a road from the hotel’s main plot, have more floor space, so are better suited for families.

Poolside

The pool is better suited to cooling dips than Olympic laps; sunk into the hotel’s stone courtyard, it’s within ordering distance of the hotel’s bar. However, staff will happily ferry chilled cocktails or glasses of red to your sunlounger. Couples can get cosy on two-person day-beds or seek a little privacy in a cabana.

Spa

There’s no spa on site, but therapists skilled in all manner of massages, reiki and reflexology can be summoned to your room on request.

Packing Tips

No matter how many Bear Grylls shows you’ve watched, you’ll need gear suited to great adventures. Pack smartly: light quick-drying layers (including a sweater and waterproof), gloves, sun-protection and boots made for walking, hiking and possibly llama-riding.

Also

The hotel’s open-air restaurant and courtyard offer ample opportunity for stargazing – try to book when the moon is waning (full moons make for lighter nights), and keep your fingers crossed for a meteor shower.

Children

The terrain makes this hotel unsuitable for mini Smiths, but the hotel does accept teens from 14 years old and above. One extra bed (charged at 50 per cent of the adult rate for under 18s) can be added to the Rectangular Suites, subject to availability.

Gallery

Food & Drink

Top Table

As with the restaurant menu, there are no bad choices when it comes dinner tables. For drinks, settle into a sofa by the fire pit.

Dress Code

Killer queen of the desert.

Hotel Restaurant

Awasi’s chef Juan Pablo Mardones would be handier than a backpack of flares in a desert-expedition entourage: as you hack away at a cacti for a dribble of water, he’d be grinding humita to make fresh tortellini, spearing sea bass and assembling a parfait with freshly plucked lúcuma fruit. He’s spent years honing his skills and his keen eye for ingredients that thrive in the world's driest desert. A menu of beautifully plated, sophisticated fare – steak with a sweet chañar fruit sauce and a wine reduction, rica rica-laced pasta, and octopus causa (a Peruvian-style terrine) – is testament to his creativity. Breakfasts (a spread of fresh juices, pastries, breads and fruit with a selection of hot dishes) is equally tempting. Guests dine in the open-air courtyard.

Hotel Bar

A hefty percentage of the wines on Awasi’s impressive list have been bottled in neighbouring valleys. Drinks are included in your room rate, so you’ll likely be an expert on Chile’s smoothest export by the time you check out. Staff mix a mean pisco sour too, and are happy to take requests. Nurse a glass on your private terrace, in a shady bit of the courtyard, while dancing around your room in glee: wherever you wish…

Last Orders

Breakfast is served from 7.30am to 10am, lunch from 1pm to 3pm and dinner from 7.30pm to 10pm.

Room Service

Dishes from the restaurant menu can be brought to your cabana during serving hours; at other times, salads, sandwiches and burgers are available on request.

Planes

El Loa Airport in Calama is the closest to the hotel. International flights connect via Santiago; from there El Loa is roughly a two-hour journey and there are frequent short-hop flights. Contact the Smith24 team if you’d like us to arrange travel; private return transfers are included in your room rate.

Automobiles

Sit back and relax: all guests are assigned a personal guide and use of a off-road vehicle during their stay, so there’s no need to take the wheel, unless you really want to. The drive from Calama could best be described as pleasantly post-apocalyptic, with miles of mountain-backed scrubland, but further into the desert you go the more its true colours are revealed.

Worth Getting Out of Bed For

You call the shots here, and you’re assigned your own guide and off-road vehicle to allow for ultimate flexibility. Guests can choose from a full-day excursion (with a picnic lunch) or two half-day trips. Trek through lunar valleys and canyons on foot; see geysers blow their tops; gaze over otherworldly salt flats; decode ancient petroglyphs; spy flamboyances of flamingoes, dainty vicuñas and desert foxes; bounce over dunes in a buggy; rise above it all in a hot-air balloon; ride horses or llamas; conquer peaks; hike through rivers; and watch the stars dance across the sky. Back on site, slow down the pace as you swap stories with fellow thrill-seekers in the hotel courtyard, as you sample Chile’s most-sippable vineyard picks.

Earn or Redeem Points with World of Hyatt

This Mr & Mrs Smith hotel participates in the World of Hyatt loyalty program. As a member, you can earn and redeem points and enjoy exclusive benefits for qualifying nights. .