San Pedro de Atacama

After a 23 hour journey straight north we made it to the Atacama desert oasis of San Pedro de Atacama.  Unfortunately an Australian traveler had his bag stolen right from under his feet when he was sleeping - it had his passport in it.  Unlucky guy.

San Pedro is famous as the touristic center for the Atacama desert, as well as being the base for Chile´s largest archeaological sites.  Because it is so dry everything is very well preserved.  In the weeks prior to our arrival they had torrential rain, which occurs every 30 years or so, which meant that some of the roads had been flooded out and made some of the normal attractions either unavailable or hard (read expensive) to get to.  We settled into a hostel run by a some french people that catered to francophone tourists, recommended to us by Marc and Anja all the way back in Sucre.  While there I got some chess lessons from one of the owner´s boyfriend and played as much as I could - perhaps a new hobby in Inuvik.  The town is alright, with a chill vibe and lots of mud coloured/made buildings on streets meeting in a central square.  It has a great museum describing how Atacaman culture developed and was eventually influenced by the Tiwanakan culture out of Bolivia.  However, it was all a bit overun with tourists and gift shops and was also pretty expensive.

The view from the central square.  Typically there isn´t this much snow on the volcanoes surrounding the town, but because of the rains we were surrounded by about a dozen snow capped mountains like this.

The courtyard at our hostel, where we would read and I played some chess.

We spent two days exploring the surrounding area including visiting a pre-Incan fortress called Pukara de Quitor and then rented bikes to go into the Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) - we had the whole place to ourselves for several hours as we got up early to make the 16km ride out of town.  We really enjoyed the scenery, perhaps not the sore butts.  It was all pretty breathtaking, and because of the recent rains there was a layer of salt on the hillsides that looked just like a powerdering of snow.  I didn´t really know what to expect from the Atacama desert but count it as one of the highlights of the trip so far.  It was pretty great scenery and a lot of fun getting out of town on our own. 

The Quitor fort, outside San Pedro de Atacama, is over 700 years old.  

To the east we saw snow capped volcanoes, one of which appeared to have smoke coming out (look at the right).

Welcome to San Pedro.

One of the bikes we rented.

Elise in the middle of some salt crusted hills.

From the top of a hill in the Valley of the Moon.

 
Probably the coolest thing we did while in San Pedro was visit a private observatory some 7km outside of town to star gaze.  Because of its high altitude and dry skies the region is perfect for excellent star watching.  Our explanations were all in spanish so we caught about half of what the guide told us.  She showed us constellations like Orion´s Belt and the Southern Cross,  two other galaxies called the Magallenic Clouds, Alpha Centauri (the closest star to the world), the bright stars Sirius and Canopus as well as Saturn and Mars.  It was amazing seeing Saturn through a super powerful telescope - you could see it´s rings!

Saturn´s rings through the telescope.

A cool time lapse photo with the milkyway in the background.

After San Pedro we were on our way back to Bolivia, traveling again through the Andes mountains.  We had to spend the night in Calama, Chile, where the dust from the world´s largest copper mine is visible high in the sky from town. Unfortunately tours were booked almost months in advance.  I got my haircut instead.

The third haircut of the trip.

While we enjoyed our time in both Argentina and Chile we were told the two countries are anomolies when compared to the rest of ´Latin America´.  They both have incredibly beautiful things to see and are fairly well organized, especially compared to Bolivia.  We were eager to get back to a little ´chaos´ in Uyuni once again and eventually to Peru and Ecuador.

Santiago, Chile

After traveling for 29 hours from Bariloche, through Mendoza, we arrived late in Santiago, Chile.  Again we were amazed at how fast the weather and vegetation changed on the west side of the Andes.  It is much more lush and humid on the Chilean side.  The country´s infrastructure is also very different from Argentina as Chile is sandwiched between the 20,000ft high Andes and the Pacific Ocean, sometimes just 70km seperating the two - Argentina has lots of wide open spaces between communities whereas in Chile we pretty much passed communities every ten minutes or so.  Santiago is home to 1/3 of Chile´s 18 million people, is enormous and is the country´s economic and government centre.  It is also considered the safest and most air polluted of South America´s big cities.

We had decided long ago that when we finally reached Santiago, the first big city since Buenos Aires in November (it was February 19th by this point), we would spend some airmiles and stay in a Best Western for a few nights.  It was great to stay in relative luxury for a while - guaranteed hot showers, king size bed, fresh linens, cable TV and room service!  We had pisco sours every night.  What a great drink.  After three nights at the Best Western we changed to a really great, chill, hostel that Mike and Kat had recommended.  What great meals!  While in Santiago we met up with Aussies Kat and Mike again for a delicious meal at the fish market (Mike and I agreed it was getting a bit weird bumping into eachother so much), took a city bus tour, I bought new shorts at an uber modern mall (with tears in my eyes - I loved those old shorts), dodged all sorts of young people making out, laid down in quiet municipal parks, ate at sidewalk restaurants, watched old fellows playing speed chess in the square, saw the fine art musem and generally enjoyed spending time in this fairly modern city in a comfy hotel and hostel.

We were struck with how efficient the city is (unlike Argentina all the bank machines gave you money and store owners didn´t hassle you for change) and how prosperous it all looked - there were building cranes all over the place.  It was much more American than any other place we´ve seen so far, with Starbucks and Burger Kings all over the place.  We also noticed lots of american music being played in people´s cars during rush hour.  At first we kind of fell in love with it however, during one conversation with a Guatemalan guy we found out that Chile might be a little too western for most South American tastes - ¨none of my friends from Latin America want to live here.  They come for school, then leave, it´s too boring¨.   Perhaps after chaotic Bolivia and ´slow´ Argentina Santiago felt a little like home to us?  We didn´t venture out of the center at all and perhaps we would have seen a different city altogether.  Chile is meant to be one of the continent´s most stratified in terms of income and has a lot of poor.

This will be Chile´s tallest buildling once built -  some 90 stories high.  Construction sites like this are all over the place in what they call ´Sanhatten´.

A little bit of home in Chile.

Tossing out my old shorts.  Look at how happy Elise is.  Look at how bemused the ladies in the back are.  

At the fish market.

At the main square

Same.

After five nights in Santiago we headed out on a night bus to the world´s driest place, the Atacama desert, which ironically enough had been suffering from floods in recent days.  Go figure.

Northern Argentinian patagonia

After saying goodbye to Kat and Mike, Elise and I said goodbye to eachother for a couple of nights.  As of that point we had been together 24 hours a day for five months and needed a bit of a break.  Quite normal we think. Elise went to Bariloche and me to El Bolsen before meeting again in Esquel, which are in Argentina´s northern patagonia region.  Elise will write about her time in Bariloche a bit later.

Entering Argentina the weather and vegetation immediately went drier than in Chile.  At points there were also lots of patches of ash on the ground from recent eruptions in Chile´s volcanoes.  As an Argentine told us months earlier ¨Chile has the volcanoes and we get the shit¨.  It looked like snow, complete with ashbanks on the sides of roads.  El Bolsen is described as the ´hippy capital´ of Argentina so I was expecting to see lots of dreadlocks, guitars, flutes and baggy cotton pants, and no surprises, I saw lots.  The town is in a mountain valley next to a fairly dirty river.  I spent two nights there camping, and one day hiked up the mountain to a refugio pretty high up.  It was a gorgeous hike, on a brilliantly sunny day.  I figure I walked over 30km that day so my legs were pretty hurtin´ a couple of hours after returning to my campsite.  After El Bolsen I happily rejoined Elise in a city called Esquel which was originally just supposed to be a one night stay to wait for Buenos Aires friends of ours to make it to their mountain home.  Well, apparently the day they were leaving, in fact the minute they were leaving, Guillermo broke his foot falling down their attic stairs, so they weren´t coming for at least another three weeks.  However, Guillermo got in touch with a friend of his who, with his wife, have a ranch in the mountains pretty near the town of Corcovado.  Raul and Ele were more than happy to not only host us but to come and get us.  So our one day stay turned into two in Esquel.  We hiked up to the local lake which is in a beautiful setting but wasn´t so enticing for swimming.  We stayed in a really nice hostel in Esquel and we were the only two guests there.  I think the owner, a 30-something guy from Buenos Aires, is feeling the pinch.

The view near El Bolsen, on the way up to the high refugio

At Laguna La Zeta, near Esquel.  It was nice to see Argentine families hanging out by the lake.

The day we got a ride from Esquel to Raul and Ele´s Ranch called ´Poncho Morro´ started with a surprise as a beat up Russian pick-up truck came to the hostel and a man with what appeared to be an eye patch got out to meet us.  Turns out the ´patch´ was one lense of sunglasses because he had just had some eye surgery, and the truck, well apparently they can´t be beat for cheap offroad vehicles.  We hopped in and some hours later we arrived at Poncho Morro, high up the mountainside near Corcovado.  The main house is under construction but one bedroom with ensuite bathroom was ready for us.  We were treated to incredible views from our room (especially the bathroom!), walks in the woods to a pond and waterfall and excellent homemade food.  We can´t wait to make empanadas when we head home.  The only bad part was when we walked over a bee´s nest and Elise got two stings and I one.  They itched like crazy after a couple of days!  The place has no electricity so nights were spent reading by candlight and getting astrology lessons from Ele, who is a passionate amateur physisist.  We spent three nights there before getting a ride back to Esquel and a bus to Bariloche.  We spent two days in Bariloche in the rain (saw Merryl Streep as ´The Iron Lady´ - great!) and then took a 29 hour journey to Santiago, Chile across the Andes mountains.  Along the way we passed the highest mountain in two hemispheres (south and west) and drove along one of the craziest switchback roads I have ever seen down into Chile from the border.

It´s hard to see, but one of Elise´s two stings.

A waterfall near the ranch.  We walked for about 2 hours with two local guides to get there.  The trail wasn´t clear so...

...the guides beat it out with machetes (they let us hold them but that was about it).

The candlelight dinner table at the ranch.

The incredible switchbacks down into Chile from the border near the top.  We left Argentina for good here.