No more red dirt

From the Bolivian border post we caught a shuttle down what seemed a never ending hill to San Pedro de Atacama.  The shuttle driver said San Pedro was “muy caro and muy touristic” (very touristy and expensive, especially after cheap as chips Bolivia) but still a nice place to spend a few days. It is an oasis on the edge of the Atacama desert with an impressive backdrop of volcanoes to the east. We took it pretty easy, sleeping-in in a comfortable bed and some nice interesting food for once. We did go sandboarding one afternoon which was fun but after a few times the 5 seconds boarding down wasn’t really worth the 10 mins walking up. You also get sand absolutely everywhere.

Being high in the mountains having clear skies and away from any big cities makes San Pedro a good place for observing stars. We visited a French guy who has about a dozen telescopes in his backyard and gives quite an entertaining talk about the universe, stars, constellations and history of star gazing. My favourite part was the story of the astronomy book from over a hundred years ago that suggested humans cut down trees in Siberia to write messages to the moonmen. Through the telescopes we got to see Jupiters moons, a butterfly shaped galaxy, coloured stars and twin stars.

From San Pedro we headed back up and over the Andes to another cold, windy border crossing this time with Argentina and then down another windy descent to Salta. Salta was the first time we had seen a normal orderly city in about a month. It was quite strange to see things like a supermarket and be able to walk down a footpath without it covered in stuff people are trying to sell. In Salta we went on a half day mountain bike trip in the countryside on the edge of the city.  It was nice to get out of the city and see what the surrounding landscape looked like.  But yet again, another mountain bike trip another injury.  This time an English girl in the group fell off her bike and badly dislocated her little finger.  So the trip got cut short while the guide took the girl to the hospital.

From Salta we took and overnight bus (20 hours) to Mendoza.  Surprisingly we both slept pretty well on the bus.  The Chilians and Argentinians know how to do buses well.  They are almost always on time and very comfortable.  For our bus to Mendoza we paid a bit extra to get cama (bed) seats, not quite beds but like big lazy boy chairs that recline a long way. 

One of the funny things we’ve found about doing a long trip like this is that you keep seeing the same backpackers at different places. I met Darren and Siobhan from Ireland while riding the death road near La Paz. After that we kept running into them everywhere; on the salt flats, sandboarding, bus to Argentina, Salta tourist office and finally we saw them walking down a street in Mendoza as we went past in a taxi about 3000 km and 2 weeks from when we first saw them. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see them again too.

In Mendoza we had an adventure day and a boozy day. The first day we headed out to an adventure activity place in the foothills of the Andes. Rafting in the morning and ziplining in the afternoon.  Although it was dry season the rafting was a lot of fun.  The rapids were a lot smaller than on the Kicking Horse River where we went rafting in Canada, however our guide knew of a lot of fun things to do and still managed to get us thrown around and very wet. The ziplining was also good fun, basically it is like a bigger version of a flying fox but with harnesses attaching you to the cable.  There were about 7 different lines with the biggest two being about 300 m back and forth across the river.

Mendoza is well known for its wine, so the next day we headed out to the edge of the city and hired bikes off ‘Mr Hugo’ to bike around some of the wineries.  We have done a similar thing in Malborough and had a really good day.  Here it wasn’t quite so pleasant, the roads were really busy with trucks and buses and instead of looking at nice countryside the route was quite built up.  Despite all that we had a good day, we went on an interesting tour of a winery, had a good lunch and maybe tried a few more wines. Mr Hugo was quite a character and after we returned the bikes gave us a free glass of wine which he dangerously kept topping up. It was quite a drunken trip back to the hostel and the first time in about 5 years I’ve resorted to MacDonalds for dinner.

After some complicated bus ticket buying where one bus company could drop us off but not pickup and another could bring us back but not take us there etc we left Mendoza and headed up to Puente del Inca, a small town high up in the Andes near the Chilean border.  Puente del Inca translates into English as “the Inca bridge”.  A natural bridge has formed over the river from the deposits of the hot springs adjacent to the river.  Staying in Puente del Inca turned out to be a bit of a mistake as we’d hoped to do some walking in this area and get a good view Aconcagua the highest mountain outside of Asia, however without a car we discovered it was a bit far to get to the start of the walks.  The next day we caught another bus to take us over the border to Chile.  The scenery crossing the border and coming down the Chilian side was pretty spectacular.  The road on the Chilian side zig zagged down a steep scree slope, with 29 numbered hair pin turns. The local skifield is on the same slope with the chairlift going straight up above the snaking road and even special tunnels so the ski run can cross over the road.

We arrived in Santiago to a sunny afternoon, this was not to last with the following days cloudy and drizzly. We were a bit confused as to what time it was as we thought that there was a one hour time different between Argentina and Chile.  However half the clocks said the Argentinian time and half one hour earlier.  We assumed that Chile had just changed over to daylight savings that weekend.  We were even more confused the following day when we discovered that almost all the shops were still shut at 11 am on a Monday morning and the Plaza de Armas almost deserted.  A quick check of our guide book confirmed that it was a public holiday and as a result all the museums, the information centre etc were all closed. 

The next day we did a day trip out to Valparaiso, the scenic port city about an hour and a half from Santiago. The city rises up from the port on the surrounding hills and as there seems to be some local bylaw that prevents you from painting your house the same colour as any other house in the neighbourhood it is quite a sight. It has some great architecture and many funiculars (cable cars) connecting the lower levels with the hill suburbs. We spent the day wandering around the city, checking out all the old buildings, riding the funiculars up the steep hills and for some reason being grumpy at each other but we got over it.

Actually a lot, lot, lot further south now but a couple of weeks behind with updates and no time to write more.