From Santiago to Mendoza: Crossing over the Beautiful Andes and saying Hello to Argentina and Goodbye to Chile

Sept 29, 2009
Now experts on the Santiago International Airport, we quickly obtained some more Chilean Pesos and found the cheap Centropuerto bus that goes downtown near the hotels/hostels. We decided to look around for a place to stay different from our previous hostel. The cheap price and proximity to the bus station drew us back to our original hostel.

Because it was late, we were exhausted, we were ravished, and there wasn’t much open, we ate chicken at Burger King! We definitely prefer the local cheap chicken places. Afterwards we enjoyed some street vendor bread with carmel sauce - very common there.

Sept 30, 2009

The next morning we had limited time before our first “long” bus ride to Mendoza, Argentina. We decided to use that time to run to Santa Lucia, a famous place in Santiago - one last thing we wanted to see there. Because it was early in the morning, we weren’t able to go inside so we just took pictures.
In normal Rumi/Justin fashion, our little morning excursion caused us to be cutting it close to our departure time. Bags half-hazardly in hand, we ran down the main Alameda street. We weren’t going to make the bus in time, so we decided to take the metro for the first time. Luckily, it was easy to navigate and we popped out right by the bus station.

The trip over the Andes was phenomenal, an adventure in itself. You can see the snowcapped mountains from downtown Santiago, but they almost appear as a fictional backdrop.

If you drew a straight line from Santiago to Mendoza, the distance would be minuscule compared to the hours it takes to traverse back and forth up the mountains. The mountain climbing began by skating a road cut out of the side of the mountains following a parallel path to a beautiful river. Due to the heavy snows of the winter, a substantial part of the road is covered by tunnels on the outside of the mountain.
As the ascent gets to the upper peaks of the mountains where snow is meters deep, the road simply traverses upwards like a slinky. No guard rails gave bus riders an unimpeded view of the path they were climbing. A really interesting sight was a ski resort intertwined with the road. The ski lifts hauled skiers right above the roads while the ski lanes stayed to the outside of the road. Shortly after the ski resort we caught a great view of Mt Aconogua, the highest mountain in South America. It didn’t look too far to the summit from where we were, but it takes a well organized trek to ascend the peak.

Shortly after we started to descend on the Argentinian side, we went through Customs. The Customs building looked like a permanent circus tent, maybe to prevent heavy snow buildup on the roof? The process was very efficient, especially considering the number of bus passengers filtering through. The officials were very impressed with our Isla de Pascua (Easter Island) stamps, too.

The landscape for the rest of the ride to Mendoza was beautiful. We saw some vineyards and small Argentina towns, all having a casino despite their small size. On the way, Argentina military service members would hitch rides to and from their many roadside posts. Our Chilean drivers acted as if it was a common thing.

We arrived to Mendoza in the afternoon, but we didn’t have any Argentina money to pay for a ride to our hostel. Fortunately, we found a bank and were able to call the hostel - they informed us they would pay for our taxi.

Mendoza was a very pretty city with gigantic trees, cobblestone streets, and deep street drainage gutters. It was large enough to have anything we might need, but small enough to navigate by foot. The hostel was very nice, cheap, and had a great Argentina feel to it with an accompanying courtyard. It reminded us of a maze too. By the time we got settled in and did some much needed laundry, we decided to head out for a very late dinner.

Most places were closed, but we stumbled upon a late night Argentina Barbeque, or Parilla place. We ordered the Parilla para Dos con Pollo. Not expecting much for the 12USD price tag, we received an entire platter of grilled steak, sausage, lamb chops, chicken, and some…intestines. With the exception of the organ meat, it was awesome. Glorious meat would be the 1st of the 4 Argentina food groups we would enjoy.

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