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Published: February 6th 2006
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Old and new Santiago
The money shot! Just thought we´d copy all the guide books. We finally left Patagonia and felt like we were starting on the next stage of our adventure. And it shall be called the "Hot City" stage.
Mendoza was a pleasant enough city, but most importantly we were in beds again. After spending half of our time in Patagonia camping we were saying goodbye to our tent, and hello to space and new clothes. That was the plan anyhow, but the Argentinian post office had other ideas. We tried to post the tent in Bariloche first, and after a mere hour of queing were told that we couldn't post it on that day; only packages of less than 2kgs were allowed. We checked when we could post and if it was the same for the whole country and were assured it was possible the next day. Our first mission in Mendoza was to post this box, but we didn't allow for the siesta. Deciding that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em we went to sit at a pavement cafe and sat out said siesta. We were almost prepared for the immortal word; "Mañana." Apparently customs only work in the morning in Mendoza, obviously. Three days later (and lets pretend that
Tsunami mitigation...
... if you see a big wave coming towards you RUN AWAY rags were not lost) we posted the package after it was inspected (poked) by a man for all of 2 seconds.
Relieved of our burden, we went to hire bikes and visit the wineries for a day. You might now be imagining romantic rides through vinyards and frequent wine tasting stops, after all Mendoza is the wine capital of Argentina. What we got was a 50 kilometre bike ride in 38 degrees celsius, through city and along busy roads with big trucks. We made one winery and cycled back. Our plans to do lots of exciting things were handed in with the bikes and we became city toursits.
We would now like to thank Hans for ending our last day jinx. Hans, from Holland, had a penchant for midnight icecream, which was consumed in copius quantities as we interrogated him about the north and he did likewise with us for Patagonia. Since each day was hotter than the last, a day at a water park seemed like an excellent plan, as was for half the population of Mendoza: all buses were full. Down but not out we tried to find another pool and spent a day at a
A happy Paul at the tennis
This is a Chilean celebrity apparently. Lido type thing. At 41 degrees celsius it was a good day, despite being forcibly removed from the kiddys' pool. Twice. The next few days have seen us take on chameleon like qualities as we turned red and lost our skin.
The bus ride to Santiago took us past Aconcagua and into a whole new landscape. The lush greeness of the South was gone and by the time we were in Chile, cacti were the plant of choice. After an extremely thorough border crossing we made it to Santiago and met our friend Paul, who was taking a quick break from teaching in Korea.
With the heat, a couple of days at the beach seemed like a plan; off we went to the premier beach resort of Chile, Viña del Mar. By the following morning it had clouded over and a surreal day at an ATP tennis tournament followed. Paul was very happy as the best way to advertise something is to stick a skinny girl with big tits in little clothes and have her walk round and smile all day. We were happy as we had a slighly more successful wine tasting session. A company gave away
free wine all day, so we worked our way through the full range - to be able to appreciate the differences of course. We did also manage to see some tennis!
Returning to Santiago for a few more days, we did the usual tourist things, met Paul's family and saw Chile from a Chilean's perspective. The highlights were viewing Santiago from the lofty heights of Cerro San Cristobal, where a giant statue of the Virgin Mary resides, visiting museums and sampling the nightlife.
We're now pushing north to Peru, where hopefully we'll find some respite from the high prices in Chile. Two successive whole-day bus journeys to the uninspiring cities of La Serena and Antofagasta (where the only thing of note is a replica of Big Ben erected by a British mining company), and we're "looking forward" to another 7 hours on a bus this afternoon.
To the majority of Chile we would like to say "get a room!" as public - I'd like to say kissing but it won't suffice - full on lip-smacking tonsil tennis is rampant. Not pleasant, especially when it's the seat in front of us for 8 hours. And to Paul and
At the top of Cerro San Cristobel
We decide we were more interesting than the virgin Mary that keeps watch over the city. Just pipe in your own constant choral music blasting from loud speakers for the full effect. his family, thankyou very much for looking after us and showing around for a few days.
Ciao for now,
Jim and Mel
xx
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WOW! I can't wait to get down there. You're lucky to have seen Paul... I miss him... :(