Advertisement
Published: November 30th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Our ride over the Andes begins.
The Andes as seen from Mendoza. Hard to believe we will be going over them in a double decker tour bus! Yeeeeeehaw! Bus Ride - Mendoza to Santiago
We asked for a 7:00 wake up call because we had to catch the bus to take us over the Andes into Santiago, Chile. The call came, and bleary eyed, we packed up all our stuff and waited for our breakfast. We waited and waited, annoyed because they were supposed to bring it at 7:30, and it wasn’t there, and we were going to be late. It wasn’t until we called downstairs to inquire, that we realized our wakeup call had been an hour early! Nice! At least it hadn’t been an hour late, I guess.
We got to the bus station early, and waited for them to check us in. We had seats on the top level of the double-decker bus. The most coveted seats are the first seats on the top level, since they offer a perfect view of everything. Unfortunately we had not been quick enough in booking our tickets, and they were already taken. We did get second row seats though, which were almost as good. We left Mendoza, and wound our way through the foothills, following a river that created a pass through the mountains. Gradually the landscape
changed, and the trees disappeared, and we knew we were getting pretty high up there. The Andes are lots like the Rockies - jagged and pointy, they must be relatively “new” mountains. They are so much higher than the Rockies though - There were huge boulders all around, gathering at the sides of the road. We gradually made our ascent, and somewhere near the top, we reached Chile. We had to get off the bus and go through customs. In addition, all of our luggage was taken off and we were expected to put everything through an old conveyor belt, promising that we had brought no vegetables or raw meat over the border with us. Darn it! Having passed inspection - I guess they hadn’t found the jarred pimentos we’d smuggled in from the wine country - we were on our way.
We figured we were on our way down when we noticed that the river we’d followed all the way up, was now running in the opposite direction. We expected that the ride down would be pretty similar to the ride up. Wrong we were! It seemed that there was no longer a gentle pass through which to
drive, so instead the road snaked back and forth across the huge mountain, the entire way down. The switchbacks were so tight that our gigantic double-decker bus had to all but come to a stop at each one, and creep around the turn, which had no railing and was a sheer drop-off on the one side. Being on the top level of the bus, and the very front, the angle was such that we were convinced every time that we would go hurtling off the edge. At one point on one of these perilous turns, we felt the bus slip off of the pavement and onto gravel, which we were certain meant that it was it for us. Thankfully it was not, and we’re still here to tell the tail! It was an intense ride to say the least, and fortunately Harold was brave enough to take pictures of the whole thing, as it made Molly completely ill to look out the window.
The last leg of the trip was a little trying. Once down from the mountain, the air conditioning on the bus seemed to have broken, and we were all stifling. We rode into Santiago during rush
hour on Friday, and were immediately swallowed up by gridlock in a less than desirable neighborhood. We sat and sat, as our bus slowly navigated small streets of run down neighborhoods, its top sometimes hitting the power lines that crisscrossed above us. Finally we arrived at the bus station, not a moment too soon. Lugging our (large amount of) luggage to the cab station, we hopped in a cab, relived. Until it turned out that none of the cab drivers knew where our hotel was. It being the last night of our trip, we had splurged and were staying at the Ritz Carlton, but none of them had ever heard of it. And for some reason, even after showing them the map from our guidebook, still no comprende! We finally had to call the Ritz and get them to explain to our cabbie how to get there. At last we were off, but the traffic was horrendous. There was no air conditioning in the cab, so we had all the windows down… which would have been pleasant except for the emissions standards in South America are not quite as stringent as ours in the US, so you would not believe
the exhaust coming out of some of these cars, and especially busses! It felt like we were in a solid cloud of black smoke. After about a 45 minute ride, we somehow arrived at our hotel, a little grumpy, a little sweaty, and probably with black lung.
However, all of this changed the moment the bellhop grabbed our luggage and ushered us into the hotel. It was a beautiful building, in the El Golf area, and we had no sooner gotten to the front desk than glasses of champagne were plopped into our hands. The perfect anecdote for the weary traveler ☺ We liked Chile already!
After relaxing and regrouping, and fortified with the bubbly, we decided to do a little exploring before dinner, since it was still light out. The area in which we were staying was very posh, but also very Americanized. Walking down the street we passed a Ruby Tuesdays, a Hooters, and tons of SUVs and jacked up pickup trucks. We were definitely not in Argentina anymore! Finally we decided we were hungry so we grabbed a table at one of the cafes and sampled the local Chilean beer, and embarrassingly, ordered a plate
Our trusty Andesmar Bus
Thankfully this thing handled like a Ferrari, hugging the curves, believe it or not! We had a bird's eye view on the upper deck. of potato skins. At least we were drinking Chilean beer.
That night we got a reservation at a sushi place we had read about in the New York Times, which, by the way, was a fantastic reference for restaurants, sightseeing, and hotels. We took a cab over to the Bella Vista neighborhood, which was described by our guidebook as a bohemian area that had recently been gentrified. It was perfect - lots like Palermo Viejo in look and feel, with tons of cafes and outdoor seating, and cool restaurants all around. Our sushi place was in a non-descript building with a tiny sign, so we didn’t know what to expect. But inside it was hopping, with a DJ spinning tunes and a bar that was half indoors, half outdoors in a courtyard. The fish was delicious, and ridiculously abundant. We ordered a small sashimi plate and got one with 4 different kinds of fish that would feed a group of six. We had read that seafood is to Chile as beef is to Argentina, which proved to be right on the money. It was an excellent meal - in fact, so good, that we rolled home to our hotel,
Vertigo
The road was one S-curve after another the ENTIRE WAY DOWN the mountain. to full to go out afterwards.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.185s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0538s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb