Day 278 - San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

Mendoza turned out to be a bit of a gem. When we first arrived I was a little put off by its initial appearance as it isn't the prettiest place in Argentina but after walking around the place for an afternoon it sort of grows on you. The first thing we did was to go and sit in the park with some bread, cheese, chorizo and a bottle of wine that Rich won in a bingo game on the bus. What a great way to pass a couple of hours, it really felt like a holiday again rather than just ticking places off of a list.

After more walking we found a shop that made ice cream from the locally produced wine and indulged ourselves. Big Style! It took us about forty minutes to work our way through the big tub of ice cream and it was great just sitting around in the cool shade and watching the world go by.

The following day we took a bus to Maípu where we hired a couple of dodgy bikes and cycled around the vineyards, olive oil producers and a chocolate factory. Of course, there was some serious tasting involved which made the 24Km round trip a little more interesting, especially when two of the spokes popped out of my bike's front wheel and threatened to throw me headlong over the handlebars. Getting back to Mendoza city centre however was a nightmare as we had no change for the bus ticket machine and it's virtually impossible to get any from anywhere. After asking about half a dozen people I eventually got some from a woman running a small winebar. She clearly found my inept Spanish and gushing gratitude funny by the way she was babbling away hysterically and didn't stop until I'd left the bar.

We left Mendoza early the next day and made our way to Valparaiso in Chile. Again, the bus was good but it was only a short journey of about eight hours. Crossing the border between Argentina and Chile was a painless affair, only marred slightly by being asked for a tip by the customs handlers. The cheek of it!

Valparaiso is an odd little city, split into two distinct halves. The lower section, at sea-level, is called "El Plan" while the rest of it, and most interesting part, stretches up along the hills around the bay. It's a strange collection of little buildings, painted bright colours and often perched precariously on stilts on the side of the hills. There is graffiti everywhere but it's not the naff, amateur pseudo-political crap you often see around some other cities; some of this is really quite good and cheers up the place in a really unusual way. The view of the sea is brilliant from up in the hills and just slightly let down by the cobweb of phone and electricity cables that seemingly connect all the buildings together. The place reminded me a lot of St. Ives in Cornwall but on a much bigger scale and a lot more run down. It has a definite feeling if faded glamour and somewhat of a tarnished reputation because of the number of tourists that are mugged there every year. Luckily we didn't experience that thrill.

We stepped into a cafe one evening and decided to try the popular local dish called Chorillana. It sounds fairly exotic with it's Chilean name but is in fact just a massive plate of chips topped with fried eggs, fried onion, fried pork and cheese. It is cardiac failure on a plate but is excellent when served with a couple of ice cold beers.

Another evening, after a city walk, we stepped into a bar for some refreshment and ended up staying far longer than we imagined mainly due to the great 80's British music they were playing. We only had about five beers but I made the mistake of being persuaded to sample the barmaid's special cocktail. She wouldn't tell me what was in it but I'm guessing toilet-duck and lemonade as I was as sick as a dog for the next two days and could hardly manage to keep anything down for more than three minutes. A great way to lose a bit of weight but a bit drastic. She seemed a bit upset when we left the bar, chasing after us and asking why we were leaving so soon. It's lucky we did otherwise she may have been mopping the floor a bit more than usual that evening.

During my marathon hangover we took a walk into Viña del Mar which is only a few kilometres from Valparaiso. It was a nice walk along the coast, especially seeing the sea-lions hanging around the pier by the fish market for a few scraps. It was a bit more upmarket than 'Valp' but only just.

We are now in San Pedro de Atacama which was a 25 hour bus journey from Valparaiso and only just tolerable. Thank heaven's for those reclining seats and a dose of immodium. We arrived here at about 23:30 in the pitch black but were still greeted by touts trying to get us to stay in their hostels. We'd pre-booked one though so made our way there trying to look like we knew where we were going and not to attract attention. The map we had though was rubbish so we ended up walking around in circles and had to ask someone in the end.

We've done a few trips while we were here, the first one of which was to Valle de la Luna or Valley of the Moon. It really does look like the moon because it is so desolate and dusty, really interesting though. On our bus was a group of about six blonde twenty-somethings whose collective voices were high enough to shatter glass. The only superlative that they new was 'Amaaaaaazing', and so everything they saw would be described thus. An older Australian bloke on the bus with hair dyed jet-black and a dolly bird from Santiago would translate what the driver was telling us (as best he could). He also made an attempt at translating the Spanish descriptions in the museum but I could've done a better job myself. Not that this bothered the gaggle of giggling girls, he could've told them anything and I'm sure they would have still told him what an 'amaaaaaazing' job he was doing. As they were flocked and chattered on the back seat of the bus, they started slagging off one of their 'friends' who happened to not be on this particular trip with them and they were horrified at the fact that she 'got off with someone who was about forty'. Being my 40th birthday today I couldn't help but laugh as I realised what a relic I must have appeared to them.

We were up early yesterday at 03:00 in the morning as we had a sunrise trip to go and see the Tatio Geysers which are the highest thermal vents in the world (apparently). These things were great though, especially in the morning when it was so cold as the difference between the air temperature and the hot water gushing out of the vents made them really spectacular. They are at about 4200m above sea level (nearly 13000 feet) so the water actually boils at around 85 degrees. Some of the tour companies were boiling eggs in the hot springs to give to their guests for breakfast and at first I was a little put out that ours didn't. I was glad in the end because he told us that because the water isn't at 100 degrees it doesn't kill the salmonella in the eggs and bacteria from the water can leach into the egg through the shells. Apparently, some people have been quite ill.

One of the other great things there are the thermal springs and we went for a swim in the lovely hot water. Just before that though the guide recommended that we stay about 2m from the edges as the ground is quite thin there. Some people have been boiled alive where the crust has come away and scalding water has cooked them while they swim. Nice!

We leave Chile tomorrow after having been here just over a week. We're heading off to Bolivia on a three day trek by car and staying in some sort of salt hotel at some point which will be an experience. It gets really cold at night in the desert so we're going to have to dig out our thermals and coats again. I'm hoping that Bolivia will be cheaper too as Chile and Argentina have been so expensive up until now. Rich makes a point of saying (in his usual loud voice) how expensive everything on the menus is whenever we go into a restaurant. It's starting to get on my nerves a bit now as it's no longer a surprise and we just need to accept it if that's the going rate. There's nothing the waiter can do about the pound being so weak at the moment.

Not sure when I'll get a chance to write another entry as Bolivia is going to be a little less advanced than Chile. Bye for now...