South America Part 1 - Chile and Argentina

---

Hola everybody and thanks for visiting our blog!

We left New Zealand on 20th March and arrived in Chile five hours earlier on the same day! It felt wicked to step off the plane into a 'foreign' country again. Unlike Australia and New Zealand, we now had plenty of exciting and unfamiliar things to absorb - the sound of Latino music in the cab from the airport, the sight of the awesome graffiti plastered over every wall of the city, and the taste of that very first beer in South America - within an hour of arriving in Chile!

Santiago, Chile

Santiago struck us as a vibrant, lively place. Plenty of people around, lots of activity, but not suffocating and overly busy like some cities. And it has a really nice setting, with lots of old colonial buildings and the hazy outline of the nearby Andes overlooking the city.

Our hostel La Chimba was in Barrio Bellavista, an area of town known for its parties. From mid-afternoon, there were loads of tables lined up outside the local bars, packed with Chileans of all ages having a few cervezas...and by the evening things got pretty hectic. On our first night we went for a few 'quiet' beers and ended up chatting to a Chilean couple in a broken English-Spanish fusion for a few hours, and heading back to our hostel for a few more once the bars started to quieten down.

Waking up with a moderate hangover, we were met by our mate Damo who came out from the UK to meet us for a few weeks. After a bit of a wander around Bellavista, a few afternoon cervezas and a little siesta, we embarked on an epic messy night to mark our reunion with our mate from back home!

We started at a barbecue with free-flowing booze (in particular Pisco, the local drink) organised by our hostel, then headed on to another couple of random bars and then, once all the bars closed, got invited to an 'underground' party with some Uruguayan and Chilean guys we'd met. The bars in Chile have to close by a certain hour, so they have these after-parties hidden away in the backstreets - and when you get in there it's pretty much just someone's house set up with a bar, DJ booth and a dance-floor!

We stayed there until 7 in the morning for a few more drinks and some violent dancing...so violent in fact that Ori launched me into a wall and split my cheek open, with blood gushing everywhere! Cheers Ori! (Of course you'd say that Lee, you were so drunk you could barely stand up! And on the way back you and Damo were chasing and barking after street dogs remember?)

Needless to say the next day wasn't too eventful! After a couple of empanadas for breakfast, we strolled to the bottom of a hill (Cerro San Cristobal) which supposedly has a really nice lookout at the top, but decided that mounting the hill in our state was not possible, and so strolled slowly back to the hostel to vegetate some more!

Before leaving Santiago we did have a wander around the city and take in some of the sights. Like most South American cities, everything emanates from a gorgeous central square (Plaza de Armas), where people sit around passing time, chatting and eating and drinking from the random street food stalls. It was here that we tried the local drink of Mote con Huesillo - a weird mixture of sweet peach juice with bits of wheat floating in the bottom! We also visited the local markets to buy some food, and admired the graffiti that had been squeezed onto pretty much every spare space on every wall around Bellavista.

Valparaiso, Chile

Our first impression of Valparaiso as we got off the bus was a bit disappointing. We felt like we had left a big city to arrive in another big one. It looked crowded and massive, and there was a big industrial port which didn't help. But finally we got to the lovely Plaza Sotomayor and made our way up one of the numerous hills overlooking the city (Cerro Allegre) to find our hostel, and quickly felt under the charm of the city.

Up in the hills we discovered cobblestone roads, cute little houses, artisan shops and cafes, all very colourful. And there was a lot of graffiti on the walls, all very creative and tasteful - apparently the city actually pays artists to paint the walls of the various hills here. All of this gave the city a very bohemian feel. And from the top of the hill, the view on the city overlooking the sea was gorgeous. In fact, we came to love Valpo so much that we ended up staying there for a week, instead of a couple of days as we had originally planned!

We thought this would be the perfect place to take some Spanish lessons. We hadn't been in Chile for long but we had already met so many friendly locals that it had become quite frustrating not to be able to converse with them in Spanish. We wanted to make the most of our time in South America.

We settled into the Acuarela hostel, managed by a guy called Ivan. He was so friendly and relaxed, he was actually more like a housemate to us than a manager! And that hostel had the best terrace with the best view on the city ever! We spent plenty of time up there, practicing our Spanish and just generally relaxing with the other guys in the hostel.

It might be hard to believe but we were working hard. The classes were at 9 am every day and were intense and rapid. And we had plenty of homework to do each arvo. But we still managed to squeeze in a few walks up the hills. We went to Cerro Bellavista, walked through the Museo a Cielo Abierto (Open Air Museum) which was basically a collection of famous graffiti’s in the area, but to be honest there were better ones scattered throughout the rest of the city. We also tried a few ascensores, which are some really old elevators that are used to go up and down the hill. And we went to the Mercado Central a few times; once we had lunch there and drunk the strongest glass of Pisco ever. Walking back up the hill was a big struggle after this! We also went to the antique market on Avenida Argentina; they had some pretty cool old stuff, like old toys and football programs from the 50's, but the flea market next to it was rubbish.

Of course, we had a few nights out too - it's kind of hard to avoid them here in South America! In fact one of them was so heavy, we actually slept through an earthquake!

We went to a pub called El Canario, a tiny place but so crowded. They had a live band playing Chilean folk music - it was a great atmosphere and there were loads of friendly people to practice our Spanish with. We also learnt how to dance to an old school patriotic song - with hipchecks! I can manage that!

Another night, we ended up in a student club with a local guy (Rafael) we had met a couple of times . That was quite a late one too. So much that we only had 2-3 hours sleep before the start of our Spanish class at 9am! I (Ori) managed to wake up but lazy Lee stayed in bed of course!

Oh and I almost forgot - Lee and Damo had their best meal here, in a restaurant called Mastodonte. They ate the Valparaiso speciality "Chorrillana" (pronounced like Oriana with a ch!), a mountain of chips, sausage and cheese...filthy!

Pucon and Mt Villarica, Chile

After Valparaiso, we decided to head down to Pucon in the Lake District, north of Pantagonia in Chile. There, we met up with Iona, a Canadian girl we knew from our hostel in Valpo.

The trip from Valpo to Pucon gave us our first taste of long distance bus travel in Chile. We entered the bus to find broad, plush, deep leather seats that reclined to almost horizontal, with plenty of leg room. After a few minutes, a guy comes round to hand us a blanket and a pillow, then a few minutes later we were given some snacks. And then a film starts! Amazing! The journey was over all too quickly!

Pucon's a small little town, with not too much going on and overlooked by a mahoosive fuming active volcano. On our first day we went to Lake Villarica and chillaxed on the black sand beach for a while. We didn't do much else because the next day was going to be a tough one. We had booked a trek to the summit of the volcano Mt Villarica, starting at 4:30 am!

Outside our hostel at 4:30am, we waited and waited for our pick-up. After a while, we started to think they had forgotten us. We tried to call the agency, walked to their office, and finally a couple of hours later, we met the crew who had apparently been told to include us in the 6:30am trek! Gah! But it's not too bad as we got the tour for half the price in the end, which kind of made up for the two hour wait!

The walk lasted for 5 hours and was pretty damn steep. Steep isn't so bad, but to make things worse it was mostly sand/gravel for the first few hours and then rocks for the last couple, which made the walk even more difficult. It was a great challenge, and kept our minds busy as this was the day we decided to stop smoking!

We were extremely lucky with the weather and the view on the valley was very clear. It's not unusual for a group to have to turn back because of poor visibility. Or they might decide to carry on walking, like a group did a couple of months before, resulting in the deaths of two tourists...

As we were approaching the summit, we reached a glacier. We walked up in a line, crunching the ice with our crampons - it was the first time either of us had walked on a glacier - it was pretty awesome! Below us, we could see the numerous lakes making up the Lake District and a few other volcanoes poking their noses up into the air on the horizon. Above us, the top of the volcano was getting closer and we could now clearly see the smoke escaping from the crater!

A few hours later we were standing at the summit, right by the crater of the volcano. It was completely different to the volcanoes we had seen in New Zealand. The crater was maybe a hundred metres in diameter and a few hundred metres deep. Whilst we couldn't see the lava itself, we could hear some action from down below and see the smoke escaping from deep inside the crater. And the gases absolutely stunk, almost burning the back of your throat and sinuses when you breathed it in. But it was so impressive. It was just crazy to realise we were standing above some mega hot boiling lava that could as far as we know splurge into our faces at any moment. Luckily it didn't!

Needless to say the way down the volcano was a lot easier than the ascent! We just plunged down the sandy bits and even got to slide down the last bit of the glacier on our asses! What an awesome day! We topped it off with some massive burgers in town and a good night's sleep.

The next day we didn't do much but relax at some nearby hotsprings (Los Pozones) in the evening. It felt awesome after such a big walk the day before.

And on our final day in Pucon, the weather got worse and we ended up doing a jigsaw (yeah that's right! Ori's idea!) in the hostel whilst waiting for our bus to drive us back north where the sun was more likely to be shining.

Mendoza, Argentina

It was a long way to Mendoza but the buses in Chile and Argentina are so comfortable it actually went pretty quickly, especially if you've had a few beers and some cheap wine like Lee and Damo!

Mendoza had a real European feel to it. It is a pretty chic city with broad avenues shaded by trees, and a lot of plazas with classy fountains. We spent our first evening wandering around the craft market in the lovely Plaza Independencia. We then went for the Argentinian speciality - MEAT!!! I (Ori) had a sirloin (bife de chorizo) - it was without a doubt the best steak I've ever had. Lee went for a parrillada, containing a beef steak, a pork chorizo, a 'blood sausage' and intestines on a grill. And that's it. Just MEAT. Nothing else! It's not unusual actually to see Argentinians ordering MEAT only. Top that off with a bottle of Argentinian vino tinto, Malbec por favor, what a treat! (Except Lee felt ill for most of the night from MEAT overload!)

Mendoza is Argentina's biggest wine producing region, so the next day we embarked on a bike tour on Ruta del Vino with Damo, Varina and Vicky (two Bavarians), Dan (British) and Pia (Finnish). Basically the tour consisted of hiring some bikes and cycling from bodega to bodega, sampling wines from each of them. We also took a tour of an olive farm where they produce olive pastes, jams, pickles and liqueurs.

You might think it's pretty dodgy to take a wine-tasting tour on bikes, but luckily everything passed without a hitch (except when my (Lee's) bike broke towards the end and I had to propel myself along by stomping on the floor, skateboard style!). By the end of the tour we all had nasty red teeth and tongues, and were all pretty merry. We took the bus back to the city centre and tried a bit of 'bus tango' which would be hard enough when sober, let alone after a wine tour! After a few more drinks back at the hostel, and learning a few rude words in Spanish (if you're ever pissed off with a Spanish person, call them a "cara de verga!") we were well and truly ready for bed!

On the next day we went our separate ways from Damo as he headed off towards Buenos Aires and we headed North to San Agustin. This wouldn't be the last time we saw Damo on our travels though, as we planned to hook up again in Bolivia.

San Agustin and Valle de la Luna

Our next stop was somewhat out of the way and quite difficult to reach. We had to take a bus from Mendoza to San Juan and then another onto San Agustin. We finally arrived in San Agustin at around midnight and some helpful guy tried to assist us in finding a room...which proved quite difficult!

Little did we know that there was a big gathering in San Agustin over Easter weekend - they were holding the 'Miss San Agustin' beauty contest, and there were thousands of visitors to the town for it! So our helpful new friend took us from hotel to hotel asking for rooms, with no joy. Finally we popped into a campsite and asked if they had anywhere we could sleep - and we were offered the grottiest room you can imagine: a half-constructed room, with dust and rubbish everywhere, a knackered old oven in the corner, and two of the skankiest mattresses you could imagine! But what choice did we have?!

The next morning, after a very patchy night's sleep, we were picked up to go for a tour of Valle de la Luna - the main reason that we'd come to San Agustin. Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) is so called because of the crazy landscapes that you see there. It's spread over a massive area, with all sorts of weird sights. There were layered rocks which contained plant fossils that were over 180 million years old; bizarre rock formations sticking out of the desert sands - one that looked like a sphinx, and other massive rocks that seemed to be balancing on a tiny thread of rock underneath. There were multi-coloured, layered sand-hills; some weird 'natural balls' of rock that had been formed at the bottom of a river millions of years ago; and some massive red cliffs that had huge pillars naturally built into them through millions of years of erosion. Finally we had a quick look in the museum to check out some of the raptor fossils they had found there - the park is home to some of the oldest dinosaur fossils ever found!

After that tour, we tried to leave San Agustin...which proved pretty difficult! First off, the bus station was closed (pretty normal in South America - things close for hours during the afternoon for an extended siesta!) so we waited at the edge of town for a few hours to see if we could hitch a ride north. No joy. So we headed to the bus station to see if we could get a bus out of town that night. Again, no joy - because of the amount of people in town for the Miss San Agustin contest, all the buses were fully booked...for the next two days! So we took to the road to try and hitch a lift again...still, no luck!!! Grrr! Will we ever get out of this town?!?!

A total of five hours of hitch-hiking brought nothing so we ended up checking into a hostel for a night and luckily managed to get a lift out of town the next afternoon with the hostel's minibus to another nearby town, where we waited about three hours for a connecting bus to La Rioja...and then took an overnight bus onto where we actually wanted to go, Salta. What an epic journey!

Salta and Valle Calcaquiches

We arrived in Salta early morning. It took us a while to find a hostel – just ask the dog that followed us from the bus station up until Hostel Andino which we found a good hour later!

We slept a bit, exhausted from our long journey and went to the kitchen for breakfast. There we met a lady who worked at the hostel and with whom we shared our first cup of mate! Mate (pronounced 'mar-tay', not as in y'alright mate!) is a common beverage in Argentina. Every local owns a mate cup (traditionally made out of pumpkin shell) and a thermos. They fill the cup with yerba mate (some dried and chopped herbs) and hot water (there is a traditional way of doing this), and sip the strange concoction through a metal straw. There are all sorts of rituals and traditions associated with mate and everyone has their own personal way of doing it - for example don't put sugar in someone's mate cup if they don't take sugar - they'll kill you! For them, the mate cup takes the flavour of all the things that have been drunk from it in the past, so adding sugar will ruin the cup's taste. At first, it´s a very strange taste, like ridiculously strong tea. But you get used to it and it´s not too bad in the end.

In the afternoon, we wandered around town for a while, from Calle Buenos Aires to Plaza de 9 Julio where we stopped for an ice-cream (another Argentinean speciality!). Then we made our way to the MAAM (Museum of High Altitude Archeology), where we encountered the surprisingly well conserved mummy of a boy who had been sacrificed (along with two girls) 500 years ago by the Incas on the top of the volcano Llullaillaco at 6,730 meters. And this wasn't a mummy covered in bandages or anything (Egypt stylee) - the boy was naturally preserved due to the dry and cold conditions at the top of the volcano - you could still see his skin and hair! It was as if he had just gone to sleep 500 hundred years ago and changed very little since.

We learnt that sacrifices of children were common during Inca times. Children from the highest status in each community were 'chosen' and a marriage was organized. This was meant to reinforce bonds between various Inca communities. Then the children were sacrificed as offerings to the gods or as messengers to the 'other world' - food, shoes and other clothes and objects were also found buried next to them to accompany them in the journey to the next world. Apparently the children were given a special alcoholic drink made for the occasion and buried alive (but unconscious from the booze) at the top of the mountain.

The excavation of the mummies in 1999 was pretty controversial but once the location of the site was known, they couldn't really risk it being excavated by some random people and exploited in some way, rather than preserved in a museum as they are now.

The next day, we rented a car for a couple of days to go and explore the Valle Calchaquies region south of Salta. The first few minutes in the car were pretty stressful - driving on the 'wrong' side of the road, in a manual for the first time in a few months, with loads of traffic whizzing past the whole time, honking at us for hesitating or stalling or whatever. And at each crossroads, it appears that no-one has priority - basically just have a look and if there's space, go for it! But don't hesitate! Shit scary!

Once out of the city, we drove through a green lush valley and followed a dirt road up into the clouds. For ages, in the clouds, fine rain spitting onto the car. We were starting to think that we were wasting our time and money, renting a car just to ride through clouds and see nothing! But eventually we got out of the clouds to reach the Parque Nacional de Los Cardones - a massive desert plane (at high altitude) heavily populated with huge cacti. Some of them had pretty funky shapes - giving you the finger, or looking like meat and two veg! And our route through the cactus field was along the straightest road imaginable, based on the old Inca road that used to run through the area.

Our next stop was a small town called Cachi, with white-washed buildings, doors made of cactus wood, and a charming plaza and church next to it. We stopped there for lunch and then hit the road again, onto a dirt track to Seclantas, via the 'Ruta de Los Artesanas'. We stopped a few times to watch the artisans weaving shalls and ponchos from llama and sheep wool, and to speak to them about their work. After a brief stop in Seclantas, we carried on to Los Molinos where we spent the night in a cute little hotel. All of the small towns around here have a similar setup - a nice plaza, often with a few palm trees; a church, painted in a nice bright colour; a few shops; a school...and lots of street dogs! And that's about it!

The next day we drove to the unreal Quebrada de Las Flechas (Canyon of the Arrows). There were rocks sticking out of the earth up into the sky at crazy angles, for miles around, and the area gets its name due to the pointy shape of many of the rocks. We then stopped for lunch in Cafayate, where Ori ordered a local dish called Locro which she didn't like (so I had to eat it, as always!). There was a local folk singer performing in the restaurant over lunch, adding to the atmosphere!

On our way back up to Salta, we picked up a couple of hitch-hikers who were waiting in the rain (because we know how it feels to be waiting for a ride!) and stopped a few times to visit some more surreal rock formations including the Obelisko (a big phallus sticking out of the ground!); the Ampitheatro and Gargantua del Diablo (two similar places, with massive gaps that have been eroded into the cliffs).

Once back in Salta, we got soaked by the pouring rain and wandered to the central market for a massive plate of meat, rice, chips and salad for 25 pesos each (about £3.50!).

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

The next day we set off back to Chile. On the way, we were treated once again to magnificent scenery as we passed Purmamarca and its famous seven-coloured hill, and then climbed up into the Andes, past a salt plain and towards the border at a windy 4,200m in the middle of the desert, with volcanos dotted around!

When we got to San Pedro and settled into our hostel we went for a wander around the town and were pleasantly surprised as we'd heard it was a bit of a shit-hole! It's really touristy and every second building is a tour agency, but there's quite a nice atmosphere and no-one's too pushy trying to sell you stuff.

The only real activity we got up to whilst in San Pedro (apart from drinking, chatting and learning salsa in the garden of our hostel!) was a star-gazing tour, which was absolutely awesome! The Atacama desert is known for its clear night skies - it's at a high altitude and far from any light-polluting cities. Our guide had a mega-powerful laser pen which allowed him to point out stars and constellations for the whole group to see. He showed us the Zodiac constellations (the Scorpio one was especially good) and the Southern Cross (the equivalent to the North star for antipodeans) and also showed us our familiar Big Dipper, but it was upside down as we were in the Southern Hemisphere! And then we had a look through the telescopes and were able to see loads of clusters of stars with different colours, and also Mars and Saturn with its rings!

San Pedro was also our base for touring the salt flats of South-West Bolivia, which turned out to be one of the best things we'd done on our travels so far...but that's for the next blog!

---