chile

So here we are in beautiful Bariloche, Argentina. For those of you with an itinerary you may realize that this is not where we are supposed to be, in fact its not even on the itinerary at all. Well we managed to cut a few days here and there in Argentina and a day from Chile and have come down to more southern Argentina and Chile. But first things first I should start back about a week or so.

Our first stop in Chile(and last blog) found us in the port city of Valparaiso. If you are following along on your map valparaiso is a city on the coast just north of Santiago(in the middle of chile). Valparaiso proved to be one of the most intriguing cities we have come across yet. It is a hodgepodge of thrown together houses and buildings of every color and shape clinging to the mountainsides. The streets are narrow and nearly every open surface has some form of grafitti. One of the unique things about valparaiso is the little cable cars that are used to climb up the steep mountains to the different levels of the city. And of course there is the bustling harbour that adds a different feel to the city. Just a few clicks north of Valparaiso is the city of Viña del mar, which is like valpo but somewhat higher class. We landed a great little hostel in valpo and enjoyed our days wandering the curving streets, exploring buisy markets and of course riding the cool cable cars. But our time came to an end and we had to head off to Santiago.

We caught a bus mid-morning and enjoyed a forested view outside our window as we rolled onto Santiago. Our entry to santiago proved to be somewhat of an adventure as the bus station was not where we had expected it to be, or not really a bus station at all. We were informed that we could take the metro(subway) to a station near our hostel. This was somewhat of a shock as we had all our luggage and had no experience on the subway. I should add that although Liana was confident my upbringing in Guernsey had not adequately prepared me for this metropolitan task. Well as we were at the ticket booth a lady approached us and in english asked if she could help. It was definately a blessing as she showed us where to go and we soon got a feel for the metro. We ended up using the subway quite a bit as it was a fast and inexpensive way for us to commute through the city.

So the first problem on entering any city is where to stay. This problem seems to be magnified with the size of the city as you have issues of good or bad areas, transportation, expense, and how spread out the hostels are. This is a bit of a deal as our packs have gotten overly heavy. This is an issue that we face every couple of days as every couple of days we are in somewhere new. So on the way in we searched our lonely planet and as the hostels were quite expensive we hit up one of the cheaper ones....it turned out to be quite a dive, but also cheaper than we had expected and so we took it, the hastle of wandering the streets for hours on end just seemed to daunting. Because of this we ended up spending alot of time out and about in Santiago. Santiago is a nice city circled by beautiful mountains (if you can see through the smog) and was quite a friendly city. We had only two days in Santiago but managed to see a good bit of the city. We went to the markets(of course), toured the downtown, went to some great parks and took this cable car up a mountain with a great panorama of the city. All in all it was a good time and we enjoyed our time there, but with southern Argentina in mind we decided to keep moving.

Since we planned our trip Liana and I had dreamed about heading to southern chile/Argentina, but just thought that there was no way we could fit it in. However as we rolled on down through Argentina we found we didnt need as much time in the cities as we thought and quickly put together a plan to make it down. From Santiago we took an early morning bus down to the city of Osorno, about 13hours. As we didnt have much time in Chile it was nice to take a day bus and see the Chilean countryside. We arrived in Osorno to yet again that age old problem of a place to stay. We found a place right close to the bus station and decided to hole up there for the night. It was again a bit of a dive but we threw off the gross blankets and pulled out our trusty sleeping bags(they have saved us a multitude of times). Then the next morning we set off mid-morning for Bariloche, about 7hours away. I should take a minute to write a quick blurb on Chile. Its great!! It is a land of beautiful green pastures, vineyards, orchards, friendly people, and is quite easy to travel. Even though our time in Chile was short we really enjoyed being there.

So once again we passed though into Argentina happy to see our passport pages filling up and continued on to Bariloche. Wow!!!!!! Now that was a beautiful drive. Unbelievable mountains, forests, snow covered mountains, rivers and lakes. There are these little towns with gorgeous log and stone homes dotted along the lakes. We pulled into Bariloche and were quickly hounded by bloodthirsty hostel hawkers(overly pushy people trying to get us to stay in their hostel). But having done a little research we navigated our way into the city via the bus which is much much cheaper then a taxi to this great hostel. It is awesome here, there is a nice big Jucuzzi (hot tub-private use 1 hour a day over looking the lake and mountains), spacious clean rooms, lots of hot water, and a great view of the lake and mountains. Needless to say we spent tonight soaking our sore muscles in the Jucuzzi and washing off 2 months of south american dust. WEll that is just about long enough for now as it is time for bed.