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Concepción (Paraguay), 9 February 2004

Buenos Aires, Ushuaia, Perito Moreno Glacier, Torres del Paine and the Chilean Fjords

Odv
2004-09-15 11:19:59

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Coming from Bolivia, San Pedro was somewhat disappointing, just a couple of tree-less dirt streets, extremely expensive (especially by Bolivian standards), no ATMs, bad exchange rates for the US Dollar, even worse ones for the Euro and Internet so slow as not to be really usable. It surprises me that the Lonely Planet guide speaks so well of this town, since who likes to get road dust kicked up by passing cars on their overpriced pizzas? The nice thing about San Pedro is what is outside the town, surroundings such as the Moon Valley or the, nearly impossible to reach, hot pools.

After having failed for the 3rd day in a row to find out which tap in the shower had the promised warm water, we finally left for Santiago, by overnight bus. The best bus we had taken until then. The seats were spaced out, 2 on the left side and 1 on the right, with enough space to incline our king size seat nearly horizontally. We managed to catch a good night`s sleep until the bus unfortunately broke down at 07:00. One hour later a more conventional bus from the same company picked us up for the remainder of the trip. Upon arriving in Santiago, customer service, gave us a significant refund. Amazing! Was this still South America?

Still traveling with Erik and Chisako, we were fortunate enough to again be offered a multi-room apartment just for us, located just outside the center of Santiago. We decided to explore the city and enjoy the nightlife this city had to offer.

Again, we seemed to have arrived on a different continent, Santiago, is more like a well organized and relatively clean European city than like anything else we had seen in the Americas so far. A subway system is usually quite telling, Santiago`s is efficient and clean.

Our days in Santiago were limited, as Erik and Chisako had to catch their flight from Buenos Aires on Christmas eve. Therefor we crossed the Andes by bus to Mendoza, the heartland of Argentinian wine, ...