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Gardens of San Lucia
this little castle was a breeze to climb... Carly arrives! I´m taking over for a little.... So i arrive in Santiago, and the first thing that hits me is...the smog. Even from the plane you can see giants wisps of white, combing over the wide red hills, but from the ground it is thick and overcast. On our first full day together we decide to tackle the 2 lookouts of the city, San Lucia and San Cristobal. Even from the top of Lucia, an old stone castle and gardens, you can barely see the outline of the Andes towering over the city...but the view is fantastic. Looking up to the bigger and more forested San Cristobal, with a tiny faraway statue at the top, I don’t really feel like the 6km upward climb (and neither does Greg, but he tries to hide it!), so we take the cart. The huge grid of la ciudad looms away before you, and at the top the white marble Virgen is a lot bigger than before. We get lost trying to find the path back down, and end up at a overgrown little garden with creepy broken chessboard tiles...very Alice and Wonderland. The sun sets through the smog as we trek down
Into the smog
on the way up San Cristobal, the easy way the mountain, following the many confusing paths with no signage...it’s a wonder we got back at all! And that one was tame....
Greg wants to get out of Santiago, he says ´´you’ll love Mendoza, it’s cheaper, and it’s wine country!´´ Im sold to that, but first I want to camp in Chile, see the mountains. We catch the metro, and then a little blue 72 bus packed with workers and schoolkids travelling back out to their villages from the city. We got many a weird stare, trying to stuff our huge packs into that tiny space! The bus started to wind its way beside wide whitewater river beds and grey rocky outcrops. It was blue and cold, but the little flat towns of San Juan and San Gabriel seemed warmer with the children running about the streets and people in every doorway.
We tentatively ask the bus driver to drop us off at Cascadas de las Animas, which looks totally deserted at this chilly hour (it´s not really tourist season at the moment in Chile). Our little patch of rocky ground turns out to cost us 6.000 pesos, which translates to about AU$17, each! We were not happy
gringos, as we were paying nearly the same to stay at a hostel in the city! But to make the best of it, Greg tries to warm us by starting a campfire (he had to cheat by using the gas burner to start it), all in the pitch black before we discovered that our little hut had a light! In the morning we followed our trusty tour guide to the lookout over the river, and then to the huge suspension bridge, where he let us go on our way. Las cascadas were pretty ordinary, but it was great to get out into the fresh Chilean air.
OK it´s my turn now..... Leaving Chile behind us it was off to Mendoza, getting there however was interesting. Did we humble passengers realise what we were getting into? The (unofficial) International Bus Race between Chile and Argentina was on and we were stuck in the middle. Who would get to the border first? Us in the Argentine “Andesmar” and those in the Chilean “Turbus”, reputations were at stake and our mad-cat driver did not disappoint. We had front row seats to our own destruction, but our man stayed cool, and pushing the
Fransisca the nun
we were too afraid to use the flash in case she pounced on us envelope as he did we all survived and made the border first place.
Mendoza had much more in store for us. After a tip from a guy selling crazy wire robots at the Plaza Independencia markets, we booked a table for a midnight play at a place called ´´La Reserva´´. From the poster on the window we had a sneaking suspicion that on seeing a timid-looking straight tourist couple, he might have been having us on. We turn up at 12 and have front row seats to see ´Fransisca´, a vibrant (i.e.hypo) Argentine drag queen, who entertained us for over an hour with a lightning fast monologue that of course we couldn’t understand one bit! We were certainly entertained, dirty jokes and all, obvious even for the non-Spanish speaker.
Our next adventure was the crowning glory of Mendoza: the wine tour of the Maipu region. Deciding to make it a little harder for ourselves, we went to ´bikesandwines´ and ended up on one of those double-seat bicycles, much harder than it looks! Starting out wobbly (and ending wobbly after the wine tasting) we rode through dusty streets and dry orange vineyards as far as the eye could see.
Whimsical bike riding
Standing straight at the first Maipu winery It was after grape-picking season, so the vines were bare, but when it is really dry they open up canals that flood the place with water from the highest mountain in the Americas, Aconcagua. A flat tyre ended our trip at the last vineyard, we were too stuffed to ride anymore anyway. Los vinos - muy rico, muy bien.
Now we are off to Buenos Aires, where many adventures await...but first some more bus bingo! Bueno chicos xx
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