Wine and desert!

After finishing the Salar de Uyuni tour I was dropped off at a little outpost in the desert, which was the Bolivian border, to wait for a mini bus to take me across and into Chile. For some reason you can’t take fresh food or flowers across the border so there was a growing pile of produce outside the little office that travellers had left behind.

The bus took us down from the high altitude desert in Bolivia to the low altitude desert of San Pedro de Atacama in Chile.

Arriving at the immigration office and customs control in Chile, San Pedro just looked like a shabby little muddle of low rise dwellings built out of just about anything, from mud, straw, glass, wood, corrugated iron etc. We had to queue for a long time in the baking sun for our turn to get our passport stamped by the one official on duty. A coach load of people from Paraguay were ahead of us. A weirdly mixed bunch with quite a few Mormons, all identically dressed in pristine black dungarees, pastel short sleeve shirts and baseball caps. The people in the Southern parts of South America are much more western looking. Often fair haired and fair skinned, I was no longer the only blonde on the bus and aside from my back pack could blend in quite easily. After a couple of hours we made it through immigration and completed the short drive to the centre of San Pedro. On the way I started to notice signs for increasingly boutique and swanky hotels nestled behind adobe walls. The centre of san Pedro was really smart red and white clay buildings that gave way onto shaded courtyards and restaurants full of people drinking chilled wine and eating gourmet food. I was surprised to say the least.

I found a nice little hostel tucked away for 20,000 pesos. That’s about $40. Not cheap, luckily I was only staying one night. I had met a couple of 18 year old on the bus, Ross and Joanna, so we had decided to go for lunch and hang out. Being at a much lower altitude it was noticeably hotter.  About the only thing I wanted to do in San Pedro was a night time tour to an observatory in the desert, where I had heard that due to there being no light pollution, you could see the stars brilliantly and that they had about 15 telescopes you could look through, whilst a professional astronomer explained all about the planets and the solar system. Unfortunately the English tour that night was booked out. There were spaces on the French tour and against my better judgment, Joanna persuaded me to part with $25 to go…..It was turning out to be an expensive day. We spent the evening first of all watching a local cultural performance in San Pedro’s main square, eating take away grilled chicken and chips and drinking red wine, before joining the tour at 11pm to go out to the observatory. The sky was a blanket of stars, it was really impressive. The astronomer guide had a laser light that he could point to individual stars of constellations as he was explaining about them. Sadly most of it was lost in translation as neither Joanna nor I speak much French!

Early the next morning Joanna and I boarded a bus to take us to Salta in northern Argentina. About 16 hours through the desert and another border crossing. Thankfully this one was a lot quicker than the last. I spent one night in Salta and then got a bus four hours south to the wine region of Cafayate. The journey was stunning. I had a seat right in the front to of the bus, next to a young lady who was from the region, but studying in Europe, and just returning home for her best friend’s wedding. She was a great source of information and interesting conversation about Argentina, its history and politics. The scenery was amazing. We were driving through a red rock desert. Sandstone carved over time by water and wind into the most unusual shapes and textures. After 4 hours we emerged out of the hills and down onto the hot, dry valley floor that made up the majority of the vine yards. I spend 4 days in Cafayate, cycling around the vineyards, hiking up to waterfalls and generally just relaxing. It was boiling hot in the day time and it was necessary to go inside to escape the heat. It was definitely siesta country. The little town had wide tree lined avenues, South American colonial architecture and horses and donkeys just roamed around, with the odd Groucho trotting up the road too.

After Cafayate I bussed down to Tucumán and then connected straight through to Cordoba. Argentina’s second city. It was still uncomfortably hot. I spent 2 nights in Cordoba, where thankfully I met a nice English guy to go out for meals with.  When I had arrived at the hostel the Argentinian B team for American football were also staying there. It was a bit over whelming. The whole place was full of these gigantic men all shouting at each other in Spanish. They had a game the day I arrived, which they won, so sprits were high to say the least!

Finally I arrived In Buenos Aires! Wow what a city! I was only there for 24hours but had a whirl wind guided tour and was really impressed. It was much cooler and windy. The city reminded me a bit of Barcelona and east village in New York. There were wide avenues lined with plain trees and lots of quirky little shops and restaurants. The area I stayed in was called Palermo and if I had known how nice it was I would have skipped Cordoba and headed straight there.

The next morning I was on my way to the domestic airport to get my flight to Ushuaia to meet Julie and Kimberly. I felt quite excited. Since finishing the tour in Bolivia, I felt like I had just been wasting time in the cities and I was really looking forward to getting out in the hills again.