South America #1 - Santiago, Crossing the Andes & Mendoza

And so to South America for the (unless anything crops up in the meantime, which I won´t rule out) last part of this big trip. I´ve long had something of a fascination with South America, so it´s great to be able to get back here for a decent amount of time and really see a few places. I went to Brazil for a mate´s wedding about 4 or 5 years ago and was blown away by it. I was only there for 2 weeks and only saw a few places, but it still grabbed me in a way that no other place had before.

My friend married a Brazlian girl in Florianopolis, south of Sao Paulo, and I was sitting in the back of a speedboat on his wedding day when we went wakeboarding, just looking around me and feeling kind of overwhelmed. People have said to me how much they liked NZ and how beautiful it was to them, and I was always a little flippant about it, knowing that NZ is beautiful without really understanding what they meant. Until the I saw the natural beauty of a little corner of Brazil. None of which is to say that I don´t find NZ beautiful, but familiarity breeds, well not exactly contempt in this case, but more like taking it for granted. Anyway, I had to come back, so here I am. I don´t have any specific plans for the next few months, other than I reckon I´ll love Argentina generally, and I´d like to see and do a few things like some glaciers in Chile, Machu Picchu, some time in Punte del Este in Uruguay (said to be the Ibiza of South America), Carnavale somewhere maybe in Brazil, a downhill bike ride in Bolivia, maybe Colombia, Equador and Angel Falls if it fits too. Other than that, she´s an open book, and here´s the first chapter.

November 18: Auckland - Santiago

I´m stoked to be spending the first 3 weeks of South America with my brother Ed, after which he´s off to Antarctica with our Mum for Christmas (as you do...) and I´ll wind my way back up north to wherever. As luck had it, we were on the same flight out of Auckland, to Chile´s capital.

Santiago sits around halfway up that long country, not on the coast but nestled between there and the Andes to the east. I wasn´t sure what to expect from Santiago, but it´s a great city. At around 4.5 million, there are as many people in this city alone as there are in NZ, but you wouldn´t think so when you walk around it. The streets are wide and have a very relaxed, European feel and look, the old mixing effortlessly with the new. You can see the Andes peeping out in the distance, through the haze, which makes them unimposing despite their size and scale.

The public transport system here is impressive, with the metro system easy to use, cheap, clean and arriving in what seemed like never more than a 2 minute wait. Bizarrely the metro trains run on tyres as well, so the carriages don´t rock from side to side so much like they sometimes do in London. In some cities you get the usual uninvited "services while stuck at traffic lights - people selling flowers, washing windscreens etc. Not here. No, they go for the acrobatic routine. Fantastic.



The people seem unhurried and are friendly towards tourists without being pushy or aggressive in any way. It´s said that this is the most welcoming of the South American capital cities, and it feels that way, which makes it the perfect place to fly in to from afar.

Our hostel was fantastic, not too expensive, well located and staffed by a group of Germans in Chile working and learning Spanish. At first I wondered why they would want to go to Chile, which is more expensive and maybe has less variety than Argentina, but on reflection I can easily see why. I don´t think Buenos Aires will be as friendly or relaxed as Santiago, but we´ll see. Ed´s mate Craig joined us on the 2nd day, and we´re all traveling together for about 3 weeks, mainly in Argentina. We were only in Santiago for 3 days, before heading to Argentina. On the basis of my time in Santiago, I´ll almost certainly get back there and elsewhere in Chile at some point when I´m flying solo.

On our first night, before Craig arrived, we sampled for our welcome drink a concoction called Pisco Sour, which is a citrus liquer of some sort and big in these parts. Kind of Margarita meets Fairy lemon washing up liquid, but very tasty. Then it was off for our first meal in South America with another dude at the hostel, YK. We went to an area called Bella Vista which is good for a feed and a drink, and sat ourselves down at a streetside cafe. For the price of a starter in London, I had a massive helping of steak with chips, sausage, onion and the (for me) obligatory 2 fried eggs. I was chowing down for a good 20 minutes and had long passed the point where eating for need becomes gratuitous eating, and I still couldn´t see much of my plate. If this is how the next 4 months are going to work out I´m going to need a doctor waiting for me at Heathrow.

The next day we went for a wander up one of the 2 main elevated walks in Santiago, Cerro San Cristobel. Well that´s not entirely true - we got a gondola 2km to the summit and got some great views of the city, and walked down. When we arrived back at the hostel Craig had checked in, so we cracked on with another Pisco Sour or 2 then went back to Bella Vista for another meal and some drinks with 2 of our hosts, Anna and Mattias. They suggested a club for us to go to afterwards, which we inexplicably failed to find but we did stumble on another small club called El Tunel which was very amusing. As the only gringos in the joint, we were well looked after and never short on a chance to try out some of our bad Spanish on locals (okay, local girls), who were keen to practice their English with us. Ed put in the hard yards with one girl who was lovely, and then somehow got it into his head at the end of the night that she was a hooker, so politely declined her invitation home. Naturally, he was regretting such a train of thought in the cold light of day. If Argentine girls are as friendly (whether or not in the sense of being possible to pull) we´re in for a good trip, but somehow I reckon this is more of a Chilean feature.

Our last day took us on another walk up the other elevated area in the city, Cerro Santa Lucia. This is apparently well known for being a favourite place for the locals to engage in PDA, which South Americans generally are not shy about from what we've seen. We didn´t see anything too full-on and did get some nice views of the city from there also. As well as being propositioned by a young local girl. We were feeling a bit jaded after the 5am finish the previous night so it was a relaxed dinner and an early night for us, ahead of an early bus the following morning.

November 21: Santiago - Mendoza

Buses are the main way to travel around South America, with varying degrees of comfort. Some bus journeys can take longer than a flight from London to NZ, so I will be keeping my fingers crossed that they´ll generally not be too uncomfortable. Our first experience was a relatively short 7 hour bus over the Andes, from Santiago to the small city of Mendoza, nestled at the foot of the Aregentine side of the mountains. The crossing was magnificent, taking us through some incredible scenery. We headed slightly north of Santiago, then hung a right and headed towards the Andes. When you reach the mountains, you start winding up, and up, and up, and up, and..... negotiating several hairpins. As you can see, the view back down of the hairpins you´ve just come up is kind of remarkable.

And so it was goodbye (for now) Chile.....

....and hello Argentina!

Just after the passport control point near the summit of the crossing, you pass on the left Aconcagua, which is the highest mountain outside of Asia, at a shade under 7,000m. The Argentine side of the Andes is much straighter and affords great views of sweeping valleys surrounded by imposing slopes of multi-coloured rock with varying degrees of growth, and a rust-red river snaking along the floor. There was a narrow railway line that followed the course of the road, but it looked as if there had been some landslides in places which have rendered the tracks unusable.

Exiting the mountain range, we pulled into Mendoza in the late afternoon and went on what turned out to be a bit of a mission to find our hostel. We´d booked it the previous night on the basis that it had a pool, so were disappointed to find there was no such thing when we arrived. They had a barbeque that night that we paid for but didn´t really end up getting involved, as the music was enough to burst anyone´s eardrums and consisted of 3 or 4 beats of some track or other followed by a god-awful intrusion of noise, repeated ad nauseum, which made the whole repertoire sound like nails down a blackboard, on crack. Craig wasn´t feeling too chipper, so he turned in while Ed and I sat outside chatting to a couple of other barbeque-goers who, like us, didn´t partake in the conga. I went on a tour of the city with one of them late into the night too, which was fun.

Next day we got the hell out of there and checked into another hostel across town which was much more in keeping with what we wanted. Our host, Arial, was a very genial guy, and quick to help with suggestions of things to do around the area. Plus he had a swimming pool, which was great and provided much hilarity with his portly 7 year old son giving us many demonstrations of his unorthodox diving techniques.

In some ways it´s difficult to see why Mendoza is so popular, as there seems to be a disconnect between its status as a ¨must see¨place in Argentina and how much there is to actually see and do. It´s pleasant enough, and we enjoyed it, so don´t get me wrong - I would still recommend it as a place to come for a few days to relax and do a couple of things, and the array of mullets on show was very impressive. We wondered what the collective noun would be and reckoned on a Mendoza of Mullets. The city is absolutely choc full of trees and has several beautiful parks and plazas, which lends it a relaxed feeling. With relatively little rainfall you wonder at first how the city can be so green. There are irrigation channels running alongside all the roads, which water the trees, a system devised originally by the Incas. On our last day there was a big hailstorm out near some wineries, with hail stones the size of tomatoes. Apparently car windscreens were being smashed - you wouldn´t want to be caught in it. Apparently when it rains hard in Mendoza the irrigation channels fill up and the roads are covered with surface water, and the gringos fall into the channels. I'd love to see that. Luckily it didn´t happen to us.

You can do all sorts of trekking and rafting stuff here. We opted for hanging out in the picturesque Parque General san Martin one afternoon and heading back to Aconcagua for a wander on another. Our last night we went to a restaurant called La Barra which had been recommended to us by my mate Toby (of NZ roadie fame). The owner, Enzo, cooks while you watch and drink some of Mendoza´s beautiful red, the signature wine around here being Malbec. The food was incredible too; meat cooked to perfection and with tasty bits and pieces to go with it. And again, inexpensive.

It´s hard to believe I´ve only been in South America for a week. My Spanish has improved slightly, to a level of ¨less shit than it was¨and I´m enjoying whipping out the phrase book to bumble my way through situations. Tonight we´re heading south on a bus for around 17 hours, to a place called Bariloche.

If you're familar with my blog from eastern Europe, you´ll know I like to snap a sign if it has a friend's name on it. So Dani, this is for you...

Hasta luego amigos.