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Published: February 3rd 2008
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Well we arrived. After roughly 35 hours transit we touched down in Santiago at 6:00am monday 21st January. We easily negotiated the public transport system and by 7am were at our hostel - Che Lagarto. On arriving here we were quick to discover that unlike Europe not every second person speaks english, nor does every third, it is more like one in 20 at best. After confirming that we did in fact have a reservation we were told we could not have a bed on which to sleep until midday. So we stuck off into the city to kill time and found that Santiago is much like many other big cities around the world. Only instead of having 7/11´s on every corner like melbourne they seem to have chemists. By 11am we decided that we´d have lunch and then head back to the hostel. Unfortunately the combinations of not be able to speak spanish and being severly jet lagged meant that ordering and getting lunch was far more difficult than you might imagine. By the time our lunch came out which resembeled a cold pizza and the meat on which smelt decidedly dodgy we both were both looking at each other
thinking the same thing - what have we got ourselves into????
However after having an afternoon sleep and then partaking in the hostel bbq that night things were definately on the up. On day 2 we again headed out in to the city but this time we were armed with a place and first visted the pre-columbian museum and then rode a cable car to the top of the highest point in santiago where we could look out over the city that sprawls to accommodate 6 million people. The city itself is very nice and the inhabitants obviously take pride in it. Labour is very cheap and rather than automated street sweepers it is far more common to see people sweeping and even mopping the streets by hand. Unfortunately with 6 illion people there are also many cars and because the mountains block the wind smog hangs over the city constantly. At the top of the hill you could literally taste the fumes.
That night we had decided to have an early night. However upon returning from brushing my teeth i found 3 argentinian girls perched on my bed with a bottle of rum in one hand and
a bottle of coke in the other. They promptly informed us that if we went out with them that night they would give us free accommodation and take us out in Beunos Aires. So with this deal in mind we hit a club in Santiago where i made an interesting discovery....South Americans are short. I would say the average male would not be close to 6 feet tall, more like 5, 10 and the girls again are shorter than that. So as you can imagine, I am somewhat of a giant over here. We eventually dragged ourselves home at 4.
The next day we awoke at 10am with the hostel host knocking on our door telling us the bus for our day trip to the ski fields was here. Great. After throwing some clothes on we scampered out the door and onto a bus. This tour took us up the local ski fields to an elevation of 3200m. For the first time I was at an elevation where the air was noticably thinner and any exertion left me short of breath. There was a massive area of over 3200ha of ski slopes accessible on the mountain and the runs
are wide and the lifts long. The average annual snow fall is between 3 and 4 meters. It really looks like a great place to ski. The roads however are quite hairy and you have to negotiate 60 hairpins before you reach the summit.
Our next trip took us out to a coastal city called Vina Del Mar. The beaches so far have not held a candle to good Australian beaches with the sand being much coarser but the main difference is the water. Due to a major current called the Humbolt drawing water from the antartic and driving it up the west coast of south america the water is constantly cold. The bus from santiago to Vina Del Mar cost $8 one way and we met some Americans on the beach who despite being in Santiago a month have yet to engage the public transport system. They took a taxi the same distance which cost them $140 US.
After our time in Santiago we joined a tour called Pachamama by Bus which has taken us 2000km north to a place called San Pedro de Atacama, which is on the border of the Atacama desert. The Atacama desert is the driest place on earth with no rainfall recorded in some regions for over 50 years. I told the guide we have a similar place in Australia only we call it the Goulburn Valley. The desert is nothing more than a vast array of rock and sand with even the most hardly vegetation unable to survive. The landscape is bleak and almost depressing. It is beyond me how the little communities that exist ever sprung up and how they continue to exist. There is literally nothing there. Within the desert we travelled over a massive salt flat the covers 320,000ha. This landscape is almost lunar in appearance with sharp salt crystals rsing 2-3 feet out of the ground. In this environment there were also some small pools of water in which live tiny krill. These krill feed a local population of flamingoes which are amazing to see.
San Pedro de Atacama is a samll town of around 2000 people that unfortunatley has largely been destoyed by the influx of tourists. The streets are lined with overpriced cafes and resaurants, tacky souvenier shops and travel companies all trying to get your business. It looks as though the town has tried to gro too fast to accommodate the flood of tourists and unforunately in some areas basic services such as power and running water are missing. Never the less the surrounding attractions are phenomenal.
On one day here we arose at 4am and headed into the Andes to an elevation of 4300m to a geyser field. Upon arriving at 6:15am the temperature was around -10 degrees. At that altitude my first feeling were nausea, breathlessness and lightheadedness, however after an hour or so standing around it became much more bearable. While at this elevation we also took the opportunity to swin in a local hot spring. Getting in was no problem but getting out was a much different proposition. IN the 5 minutes it took me to get chnaged my wet boardies had semi frozen in the freezing air. As the sun rose over the Andes though the view of this area was truly amazing.
The current bus trip finishes in a couple of days and we are looking forward to getting back to travelling on our own. The highlights on the tour have been too infrequent and our pot smoking guide is new in her role and still needs a little more experience.
Our destination over the next 3-4weeks is to head south of santiago into the lake distict before crossing the chilean - argentinean border and heading south to Patagonia. ONce here we will be able to walk on glaciers and through unspoilt national parks which should be a great time.
Hope all is well in the wide brown land of Oz.
Cheers
D
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Kel Robinson
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Great Story
Hi Happy, Im Mels sister and just wanted to say thanks for a great read you write well and educated me on a part of the world Im yet to see! Keep having fun and say hi to Hughie Kel and Jo