Saturday 28 September 2013

Arriving in South America

I have finally arrived in South America. I flew to Santiago from Los Angelos arriving at 5am in the morning. At first I could not understand why everything was closed in Santiago as I had forgotten that it was September 18 is Independence day and is cause for big celebrations and holidays in Chile.

Santiago 

Luckily the bus station was open and I was able to catch an overnight bus to go to Osorno and then on to Bariloche in Argentina to go and visit my friends Carina and Mark. This was quite a mission as I had my bicycle and my backpack both of which weighed 23kg each. I am not sure if the bike has survived the plane, bus trip and immigration from Silver City, New Mexico to Bariloche as I have not unpacked it yet but by the end I had things falling out of the box as it started to come apart.

As my bus did not leave until 6pm I had a day to explore Santiago. The city is surrounded by mountains and is a mixture of old and new. There are lots of nice murals in the city but also an awful lot of graffiti.

Santiago

On  the bus to Osorno I sat next to Maria Cecilia who was very kind and talked to me even though my Spanish is embarrassingly bad. She did not speak English so it was the only way we could communicate. When we got to Osorno at 5 am in the morning I had a 5 hour wait for my next bus. So she took me home to her parents house where she was visiting, gave me breakfast and let me sleep which was extremely kind considering I was complete stranger.

The trip to Bariloche is over the mountains. Unfortunately it was raining so I did not get any view except to see lots of snow on the ground. However once we arrived on the Argentine side the sun came out and the view over the lake to Bariloche, which is surrounded by mountains, is amazing. Carina and Mark and their two children Emily and Mateo live about 20km outside Bariloche. I have not seen them for over two years when they moved back to Argentina so it was fantastic to be able to visit at last and thanks for looking after me so well.

Bariloche


On my first night it snowed which was a bit of a shock after coming from a North American summer. During my stay I visited the town of Bariloche which is famous for chocolate and ice-cream - so of course I had to sample both. The town is touristy and quite run down but most people just visit the more glitzy main street. Mateo who is only 11 years old made an excellent guide, translator and Spanish teacher during my visit to the town.

After only three days in Bariloche (I will be returning again in December) I again returned to Santiago by bus to meet my Mother, Sue, who flew from New Zealand to join me for two months. In Santiago we stayed with my friends Paulina and Lucho. Like Carina I met Paulina while working in a clothing factory in Christchurch some years ago. They now have an eighteen month old daughter Amanda and have a very nice apartment near to the city center. As we only had two days in Santiago it was a whirlwind tour. Paulina and Lucho took us to visit the port town of Valipraisso which is a two hour drive away. This used to be a very important port in South America until the opening of the Panama Canal. The town is built on steep hillsides, and in fact they have very ancient cable cars dotted around the city to get up and down. Lucho did make the  comment that the people who live there ¨have very good legs.¨ The buildings were very colourful and the streets are like a labyrinth so we were glad to have our guides. We also visited Vina del Mar next door to Valipaisso which has a very nice golden sand beach and is a very popular holiday spot.

Lucho, Paulina and Sue

Valipraisso


The highlight of our visit to Santiago was the walk up Cerro an Cristobal. Well Sue cheated and caught the cable car. There are great views of the city and the mountains from here. Also a big thanks to Paulina and Lucho for being such fantastic hosts.

The next morning we flew to Calama in the north of Chile and caught a shuttle to San Pedro de Atacama. We are now in the desert and it is so different here - in fact it is a bit surreal. We have visited lagoons, geysers and hot pools. The geysers here are the highest in the world at 4300metres and the third largest. Many years ago the government had started a project to build a geothermal plant at the site but luckily this did not go ahead as it would have destroyed the area. To go and see the geysers we left at 5am in the morning. The temperature at that altitude did not get much above 0 degrees celsius. I bravely went for a swim in the hot pool which we were told were 32 degrees Celsius. In fact they were luke warm so it was a very short dip and absolutely bone chilling getting out.

As a result of our trip to such a high altitude we are now feeling the effects of some minor altitude sickness. We have another couple of days to acclimatise before we head off to explore the Salar de Unuyi in Bolivia for three days and where we will be going as high as 5000 metres.

Atacama desert
Laguna Solar de Tebenquiche. The white in the picture is from the salt that covers much of the desert.

The Atacama desert (pampa) is surrounded by volcanoes some of which are active
Valle de la Luna (Valley of the moon) so called because that is what the landscape resembles. Biked 6 hours that day to visit this valley and the Valle de Meurte (valley of the dead)
Laguna de Chaxa