Chile...Reflections

As we enter a chaotic period of travelling with three flights and four countries in eight days plus crossing the international date line, it also marks the end of our time here in South America.

It was a very rare treat with an Argentinian farewell of filet mignon, lemon trout and a bottle of Malbec, before boarding the spectacular return flight back across The Andes to Santiago, Chile.  We were met with temperatures of a stifling 34 degrees centigrade making it a little hot in our room which was basically an understairs cupboard with no fan, but unsurprisingly cheap.  

Santiago, Chile. Our last stop in South America.

Although we’ll be sad to leave after spending three months here, we feel ready to do so as Vanessa is so bored with the food that she almost became a carnivore and to be honest, we’re sick of Spanish and don’t really care if we never hear it spoken again.

We never planned to stay in Chile for more than a couple of days as we just couldn’t do it justice because of the high prices but somehow we managed to spend 11 days here. From the moment we set foot inside the country it turned into a bit of disaster with the bizarre flooding in The Atacama Desert and then being unable to cross the border again to continue our intended route through Argentina. However, we’ve loved our unexpectedly long stay in Santiago and it’s fitting place to end our stay in South America.

DAYS SPENT:   11

TRANSPORT:  1 plane, 7 buses, 2 taxis, 3 undergrounds

NUMBER OF PLACES WE STAYED:  4 hostels, 1 night bus

ITEMS LOST/BROKEN:  none

FAVOURITE EATERY:  Peztoro in Santiago

WILDLIFE SPOTTED: mangy dogs

TOURS TAKEN:  Death and Moon Valley in San Pedro de Atacama

BEST VALUE FOR MONEY:  bus ticket to Santiago just to get us out of San Pedro

 

Argentina...Reflections

Vanessa before the wine took control

It was a hot and sunny Valentine's Day when we finally managed to leave Santiago in Chile and return to Argentina, a spectacular 45 minute flight across the Andes to the city of Mendoza where 70% of the country's excellent wine is produced. It’s therfore an absolute crime not to hire a bike and cycle off to some local vineyards to sample the goods.

Many tour companies offer these local trips and our particular favourite was the seductively named Wanka Tours who have the fabulous strapline, ‘we’ve got everything covered’. We clearly couldn’t book it through them for the fear of laughing too much when they came to collect us in their big Wanka minibus.

Three wineries were on our list and and several glasses passed our lips before thankfully the bikes were strapped back on the back of the van as everyone’s cycling was becoming a little too erratic.

Mendoza itself is a sizeable city with not much to do but it does have many wide, tree lined avenues which make it a great place to stroll around and spend a few hours in one of the numerous street side bars and cafes. As we sat in one of these particular establishments one hot, balmy evening, Vanessa tucking into a cheese omelette and me with a slab of steak, we were continuously being disturbed by 12 beauty queens who kept parading up and down whilst feeding us grapes. Quite bizarre and of course, very annoying.
 

We’re in a strange period at the moment of 24 continuous days in bustling, hot cities so we’re making the most of the small pool at the hostel and the hot weather to relax and reflect upon our trip so far, particularly as South America is coming to an end with a week here in Mendoza and a final couple of days back in Santiago.

Argentina has been a bit disjointed as we couldn’t get back into the country from Chile very easily and like many of the more developed countries, it’s been surprisingly frustrating at times, particularly with food and places closing and opening at the most random times. However, the people have been incredibly friendly and the weather hot and sunny so we couldn’t do anything but enjoy every minute of it.

DAYS SPENT:   14

TRANSPORT:  1 plane, 3 buses, 3 taxis, 1 bike

NUMBER OF PLACES WE STAYED:  4 (3 hostels, 1 hotel)

ITEMS LOST/BROKEN:  none

FAVOURITE EATERY:  Don Mario's in Mendoza

WILDLIFE SPOTTED: llamas, vicunas, mangy dogs

TOURS TAKEN:   Salt Flats/Purmamarca, Bike & Wine Tour in Mendoza

BEST VALUE FOR MONEY:  Chimbas Hostel in Mendoza with great facilities to cook for ourselves and know what we’re eating

Chile Hot

The old and new of Santiago, Chile

From struggling to escape the desert due to too much water, to arriving in the capital city of Santiago and having no water, Chile has not exactly gone according to plan so far.

Thankfully Santiago has been far from chilly since our unplanned visit so the blue skies and constant warm sunshine quickly lifted our dark mood when initially everything was closed and we couldn’t even have a shower.

The city itself is very modern, clean and European-like with many grand old buildings, museums, parks, street cafés and even an underground but unfortunately it’s not where we want to be or should have been.  It’s very expensive which was the sole reason for us not wanting to spend much time here and we refused to spend our last week in South America eating crisps, bananas and pizza. They laughed at us at the fish market when we said we couldn’t afford the £50 they were asking for snow crab.

However, we have made the most of the free museums, in particular the Memories and Human Rights Museum which is a fitting memorial to the thousands of civilians who lost there lives under the brutal General Pinochet dictatorship which incredibly only ended in 1990.

Our intended route out of Chile remained blocked so there was no option but to call upon emergency funds and invest in a return flight to Mendoza in Argentina where we originally planned to visit. It’s going to be steak and wine at least once before we leave.

 

The Driest Place On Earth!!!

We based ourselves in the city of Salta for a couple of nights but before heading any further south in Argentina we decided to make a small detour which turned out to be quite an extraordinary decision.
 

Death Valley in the Atacama Desert

A long but spectacular 12 hour bus journey across mountain passes, salt lakes and finally the Argentinean border, we arrived in Chile’s Atacama Desert, the driest place on earth.

After being dumped at the border we finally checked in to our pre-booked accommodation in the small, dusty desert town of San Pedro only to discover that the idiots had let our room to someone else although they never admitted it. They did however, give us a lift to a cheaper alternative place which we were grateful for as prices are stupidly high and this was a typical example. Noisy, dirty and no better than camping but we were happy to tolerate this in order to see the stunning surrounding landscape. We had just enough time to dart into one of the many ‘gourmet’ restaurants who charge gourmet prices but lack one vital ingredient, gourmet food.

Next morning we booked our return bus to Salta and our tour for that afternoon before settling down in a café for a few hours. Unbeknown to us, this was the calm before the proverbial storm.

The spectacular stom over the driest place on earth

Along with our Canadian guide we headed out just a few kilometres in beautiful sunshine to Death Valley and the lunar landscape of Moon Valley and it was here that a storm began to close in on us which was a pretty rare event considering where we were. It was spectacular as thunder and lightening, hail and rainbows lit up the unique scenery around us. Somehow we managed to remain right on the edge of it but it was then that a Park Ranger explained that we couldn’t go back as the road behind us had been washed away.

We continued to the main road heading back towards San Pedro where from a vantage point to watch the sunset, we noticed ‘snowdrifts’ of hail and rivers flowing across the desert that weren’t there just a few hours previously. The locals explained that they’d never seen this before and then the police arrived to tell us that the road ahead of us had also been washed away and we were to join the queue and await rescue.

Our bizarre rescue

Yes, we were in the driest place on earth and had to be rescued due to flooding!!!

Along with fifty or so other abandoned vehicles we joined the queue of people who the fire-fighters were helping to climb down a steep and by this time very muddy gully to negotiate a massive 30 foot deep hole where the road used to be. When we reached the other side we were met by the tour owner who explained that San Pedro had bore the brunt of the storm with some houses being washed away, three feet of flood water in places and no power.

Slowly we trudged through the streets of thick mud in complete darkness, everything closed apart from candlelight coming from the mini supermarket who was serving the line of people buying up the final remaining scraps of food and water. As we entered our room we feared the worst but luckily everything was bone dry.

For the next two days there remained no power but a few restaurants slowly began to open until unbelievably another thunderstorm hit the town but with far less rain this time.This delayed the opening of any roads in or out which meant we couldn’t return to Argentina.

Suddenly rumours began about a gravel road opening to the Chilean town of Calama just two hours away where there was a bus depot and airport. We quickly reserved two seats on a minivan and after a further two hour delay, a convoy of one hundred or so vehicles started to ship people out. Our plan was to catch a bus to the capital, Santiago, and cross the border back into Argentina from there as Chile is so expensive. Luckily there were two seats on the next departure to Santiago and we felt strangely elated despite the prospect of the next 21 hours sat on a bus. A few films later and ironically a far better night’s sleep than we’d had the previous three nights, we arrived in civilisation. Or so we thought.

We had two objectives before doing anything else. Book a bus to Mendoza in Argentina where we originally planned to go and to have a desperately needed shower as we were pretty disgusting by then. Santiago is not only a capital city but it’s supposedly the most ‘European’ city in South America so we were stunned to find out there was no running water due to contamination so everything was closed and the final straw was the one and only road to Mendoza was blocked indefinitely.

As we lay our dirty, unwashed bodies on the bed, we contemplated our next move from this expensive place that we had no desire to be in.

We didn’t have a clue.

Images of Peru (a bit late)

Vanessa at a bone chilling 5000 metres

View of Cuzco and its main plaza

Cuzco's main plaza

The perfect pose

Beautiful old Peruvian lady

A couple of very rude llamas at Machu Picchu

Tango and Omelette

At one stage we felt ready to exit Bolivia earlier than planned but with such a great finish to our month there we were reluctant to leave in the end, but leave we did with a typically and inexplicably slow border crossing into Argentina as we continued our journey in South America.

Vanessa's lost more weight than we thought

The land of the gaucho, the tango, arguably the best steak in the world and some of the finest wines await us but unfortunately the prices are much higher, particularly the accommodation, so we may be limited to a couple of cheeky glasses of Malbec once in a while. Our first destination was the small northern town of Humahuaca, a pretty place with cobbled streets and one resident mosquito which obviously knew that Vanessa was visiting as it had a midnight feast on her forehead.

Just forty minutes south was the lovely little town of Tilcara, situated in the foothills of the Andes Mountains. Warm sunshine and blue skies made this the perfect place to stay for a few days but the strange thing was that despite booking a large, comfortable room, the  hotel owners were identical to the family from ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. Eating the stale bread roll and indescribeable jam for breakfast whilst being overlooked by the ‘family’ was an uneasy experience but somehow we summoned the courage to ask for more coffee and thankfully still managed to walk away with all our limbs.

The coloured hills of Purmamarca

We’d noticed a significant drop in the amount of English spoken so with the language difficulties we decided to adopt the Kiwi nationality for the next few weeks just in case we encounter any unwanted attention regarding The Malvinas which interestingly have ‘Argentina’ printed in brackets after them on their national maps.

We struggled to book a tour of the surrounding area but were really glad that we persevered  as we were  driven along a breathtaking mountain road to Argentina’s salt lake for more stunning photo opportunities before heading to the picturesque town of Purmamarca which sits amongst the most vivid, multi coloured hills. We were intrigued by our last stop which had been described as ‘an unmissable cemetery’ but our driver misunderstood this to be ‘a missable cemetery’ and drove straight past the turn off. We just couldn’t be bothered to get involved in another bout of gesticulating so we headed back for an evening of llama cooked in dark beer with quinoa, Andean potatoes and a cheeky glass of vino tinto. Vanessa had an omelette.