yamwonsen

After a horrid Argie breakfast with the normal sweet croissant and some other cake, sweet as well, the piece de resistance was coffe made with a coffee bag, it tasted like brown water, how deep will the Argies fall before they realise that breakfast has to be more than sugar and wannabe coffee? In Chile you'd at least get instant coffee and eggs, still it was nice to be back in Argie, home away from home maybe? After another long days trek we finally arrive in Baires, I leave my little baby at her grannies flat and set of to my lodgings, chez Marisa and Jorge total hospitality and friendship to go, definitively a home away from home. I schlep my bag up to my room and go down to deliver an account of our ins ... read more

Santiago aka Stgo In Garmin we trust especially when it marks two routes going out of Valpo instead we trusted in common sense, ocean on the right hand side means that your nose is pointing south, said and done. The weather had returned to it's usual sullen self, grey and misty and cool to top it up, we've not been lucky with the weather on this trip, not one hot day so far. We're not alone on the highway going towards Chile's capital Santiago, loads of trucks with containers were on the road as well, laden with containers and whatever under tarpaulins. I think some of the trucks must have the smallest engine you can get for money, because uphill, which is was for quite a while, they went really slow some of them barely moving. ... read more

To keep matters simple I drove to Valparaiso, as Chile has like one road, the GPS has not been necessary and not been working very well but as we closed in on Valpo it started to work and thank God for that. We had found some places in the Bible and written them as well but none answered. So we went to the first one on our list , it looked more like a dump than anything else and now we're talking crummy big time; the place in San Pedro was like a palace compared to this. We asked the blokes at the hostel if there was another one close by, and yes, just around the corner. So we go there and get a nice spacious room with two french balconies and 3 m ceiling. Valpo ... read more

Double and treble assorted 4 -letter words my thingy just dumped 1100 words. Well I'll start again in for a penny in for a pound. Taltal was nice but the weather not so next stop was to be Caldera 300 or km south which is the only way you can go anyway, west is wet and east has no roads. The desert landscape seem to be losing it's enchantment, hills and rock and not a tuft of grass anywhere . VIVA CHILE!!! People out on the national highway picking up garbage, fantastic and good for Chile, cleanliness is next to Godliness. Driving through the desert reminds me of Americas song " Riding through the desert on a horse with no name" endless. Caldera is a bit of a dump nothing really to it, a mining port ... read more

Time goes by and no Wifi until now, yihaaaa!!!! Observations: In Argentina you queue up for an ATM and to get petrol, in Tilcara we waited 30 mins to get the tank topped up. The word disposable means that you take it with you in your car and throw it from the car window so as to scatter it the most, the amount of garbage is astounding! BUT in Chile we've seen people clean the roadside and the beach, wow. OK, travels coming up. The hostel in Salta was really nice we met a lot of nice people and maybe some future friends. Blabbing along as always I managed to invite three women to ride with us to San Pedro de Atacama, as long as they could fit in the backseat, the biggest problem was their ... read more