Advertisement
After the rafting trip in Futelefoeeee we crossed the border into Argentina. We visited the hippie village of El Bolson. We went to the Italian farm, it was supposed to be a hostel run by Italians. After arriving it turned out to be a Israeli kibbutz. It was very cosy, many people sitting together and singing, there was life music. We ate some vegetarian dishes and drank some beers. After dinner we left because it was to noisy to sleep there. Next day we went to Bariloche, a town with a big lake. We had a amazing apartment with Jacuzzi (2x2m) near the lake. We stayed a couple of days, to relax after the bumpy south Chile. The car got a big overhaul, new shock absorbers in the front, brakes in the back and new aluminium transmission oil tubes. The tubes got wrecked in El Bolson...
After a week in Bariloche we drove on to the province called Neuquén, there is also a town and streets called Neuquén. We had some funny moments when asking the way here. Donde neuquen? Ah si, Neuquén!
In Zapala we stayed on the camping, there we met a German guy, with a land rover defender
imported from Germany. He travelled around for a year. We drove together to Mendoza in four days. The road from Zapala to Mendoza went through a very dry and desolate landscape. We saw many Guanaco's......again! In Mendoza we celebrated Easter till six in the morning in the casino with Hein en Ken from Holland and Bacardi cola! We won 300 peso, enough to buy some Easter eggs. Like all the other tourists we did the Maipu wine tour along different wine estates. We restocked the wine cellar in our car, it is next to the kitchen in the back of the car under the bed.
After Maipu we took the road to the Andes, we wanted to cross the border at the Paso de los Andes. On the way we came along the highest mountain of south America. It is called Aconcagua and it is 6959 m high. At the border we experienced a new show at the border theatre. It is the busiest border crossing, but nobody seems to care about anything besides, soccer games on tv, make up ,msn, downloading music, listening music. The people were very busy with their own things at work, it was hilarious!
There was a big row with people who wanted to enter Chile, but seven immigration officers were busy watching a soccer game and two female ones were discussing make up in a fashion magazine. Others had their own laptops with big dj headphones for downloading music and socializing on MSN with rest of the world.
The check for vegetables and cheese was fun to, normally they take away your cheese, honey and vegetables because it may contain unwanted organisms. We had bought very nice cheese in Maipu which we did not want to loose.
The customs guy checked our cool box and found the cheese. We said: “yeah it is cheese, but in Maipu they said it is not a problem!” The guy looked at us and said: “yeah but it is cheese and it is forbidden to take it into Chile!” So we repeated: “In Maipu they said it is ok”, and we took the cheese and put it back into the cool box. He did not want to argue with us and left the cheese in the cool box, funny how this theatre works.
Then we pointed at our kitchen and said there is the kitchen and
up here is the bed there is no food. So they only checked the kitchen….. Later the cheese guy found the cool box again in the car. He opened it again and said: “ it is cheese, it is forbidden to take to Chile” Unbelievable! We told him that he already checked the cool box and that the cheese is no problem. He said: Ah, si, and everything was fine……!” We wondered who makes the rules here!
From the border we continued in to Chile. The road went down from 4500m to 1000 m.
In Santiago we stayed in the area called Londres, it resembles London. On thing you notice here straight away is that the people must love dogs. They are everywhere!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.128s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 12; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0698s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
