Chile and Argentina

CHILE

As anyone who´s flown from Europe to the USA knows, flying from East to West is no problem whatsoever, but flying back is another matter altogether; even though the time difference is only a few hours, you feel terrible. The flight from Auckland, NZ to Santiago de Chile must be one of the worst in the world. It's got just about every ingredient to make it a hellish trip: it's in the wrong direction, it's about 12 hours long and on top of that you cross the international date line for a time difference of 16 hours. All of this adds up to making you feel rather beat upon arrival in Santiago.


Santiago de Chile

Adding on to this awful state, when you get to Santiago in July, the winter is firmly tightening its grip on the Chilean capital, and my god does it get cold then. Chile has the most dynamic economy and the richest population of South America. On paper it all looks terribly civilized, but this is until you look at reality. Indeed, you quickly realize that what it really lacks are proper amenities, such as heating systems. Therefore, the inside of buildings never gets more than two degrees warmer than the freezing point. One could think that this applies only to the cheap guesthouse, but no, even classier place are chilly (sorry, no pun intended here). I truly believe some enterprising mind will rake in the big chips by putting affordable radiators on the market there someday.

Despite the cold, Santiago is a city I quite liked. I don't have a great deal to say about it since I spent most of my time just hanging out, not really doing anything else than getting my Spanish back on par. I didn't spot a lot of travelers as I got off the plane, and this is probably precisely because nobody here speaks anything but Spanish. However, considering the fact that your survival depends on it, Spanish is picked up rather rapidly. In a place deserted of the usual Euro trash travelers, the only sign that something may be a little odd is the amount of French people you bump into. I guess it is a result of their language sharing the same Latin root which makes it easier destinations for them than Australia or NZ.


Santiago plaza de armas





Santiago felt a bit like home due to the fact that my hotel was situated on the intersection between the London and Paris streets. These cobbled roads are flanked with very nice Parisian style 'Hotel de Maitre' buildings inside which pleasant cafes with relaxed and patient staff provide for a great and lazy getaway.




Another very nice way to kill time (for us men) is to spend an afternoon in one of the many coffee shops flocking Paseo Ahumada, the main drag. These places are not to be mistaken with their counterparts from Amsterdam ; although it is only a matter of time before one of my sleazier compatriots takes over the concept and spreads it across Holland. Let me explain what makes those joints so enjoyable. Well, not only do they serve quality cappuccinos in there, but they are also very elegantly decorated with art deco furniture. It is very popular with business men who invite customers there at lunch time in order to close deals. But what really makes these places so much better than any kind of Starbucks is not only the exquisitely tasting gourmet coffee, but the ladies serving them. These are usually pretty girls dressed in ultra tight tops and indecently short skirts who, with manners more suitable for a porn flick, serve you standing a couple feet higher then you, thereby granting you the opportunity to ogle their every feature while you are sipping your cup of Java. Altogether, this is not a bad way to spend an afternoon; and oh, of course, the coffee is stiff.



I wouldn't like to give the impression that all my time in Santiago was spent in these espresso bars though, since I also devoted a day to more cultural activities, such as a visit to a nice Latin American photography exhibit inside the old train station and a tour of Pablo Neruda's house in the Bellavista area of Santiago. For someone as ill-educated as myself, the name Neruda only vaguely rang a bell but I soon discovered that this is a fact better withheld from Chileans who admire the man with a passion. For the record, I'll point out that his character is played by Jean Gabin in the excellent film 'il Postino'.

This Chilean poet, and diplomat, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971 and the 'Legion d'Honneur' in France a year later. Neruda is the most widely read of the Spanish American poets. From the 1940s on, his works reflected the political struggle of the left and the socio-historical developments in South America. Neruda's poems have sold millions of copies since they first appeared. He was a devoted Communist and therefore spent a lot of time in the Soviet Union before having to leave on exile to Italy after Pinochet succeeded in his coup and took over the country.

He had to leave behind the three famous houses he had designed; one of them is located on the outskirts of Santiago, another one is in Valparaiso and the last on Isla Negra. The Santiago house was built on the metaphor of a boat and it comes complete with upper deck and all that. Some may not like it, but I felt very comfortable in the epicurean's home.


Valparaiso



The harbor city Valparaiso is located at 120 km to the Northwest of Santiago de Chile and declared as World Heritage by the UNESCO a few years ago. It is a city full of history and nostalgia, an urban and architectural curiosity built spontaneously by its inhabitants all the way up the hills. Valparaiso is also home to the Chilean Congress and it offers beautiful natural and urban landscapes, typical places, steep funicular elevators and all sorts of mysterious corners. The city has city prospered from Independence more than any other Chilean town. It was used in the 19th century by commercial agents from Europe and the US as their trading base in the South Pacific, but the later decline of the city was the combined result of the opening of the Panama Canal, the shift of banking activities to Santiago and the move from the wealthy class to nearby Vina del Mar.



The contrasting buildings and houses form an open air museum that look like colorful clusters challenging gravity and vertigo. Valparaiso is a natural bay surrounded by a cordilleran mountain chain that leads to the sea; it is a bit like an amphitheatre overlooking the Pacific. The place incarnates the cultural soul of the country and you quickly realize that Chile is an artist's nation where everyone seems to be remotely involved in things such as poetry, cinema, photography, literature or tango. I loved hanging out with a bunch of locals who rapidly became friends and under their guidance I spent a week exploring remote corners of town during the day before quite extensively sampling the nightlife in various salsotheques.

Juan Pablo, the guesthouse owner, was a very outgoing type and also a persuasive bloke. After a few glasses of home made Pisco Sour, he managed to convince me that there was no problem whatsoever with drinking tap water in this part of Chile and dared me into trying. This may sound very mundane to anyone who hasn't been spending more than half a year in the third world where you are paranoid that a few contaminated drops will rust your bowels. As I reluctantly gulped down the glass of tap water, I was wondering how much more stupid I could get and I anticipated spending the rest of my time in Chile on the toilet. But reader, I was wrong; to my great surprise, even a week later, I was still squeezing out solid pellets.

But let's move away from this grubby topic. The fact that I digress in such a way makes it damn clear that I didn't spend those two weeks doing much of interest. I did meet two interesting Frenchmen who'd just come from Northern Argentina and convinced me that it would be much prettier journey crossing the border to make my way towards Bolivia via Argentina rather than exploring the barren Chilean coast. I decided to follow their advice and the next morning I was sitting on a bus to Mendoza for an unforeseen early poke into Argentina.

ARGENTINA



The transandean road from Valparaiso to Mendoza in Argentina is a beautiful journey through some massive snow capped mountains. The oddity of it is that after you have wound your way up the Andes, you reach some kind of Chilean ski resort where you go through a tunnel carved right under the slopes. As you exit the tunnel, you drive into something that looks a bit like the resorts' parking lot. The bus suddenly stops; you get out. The parking serves as the customs office. Here the Argentinean officials' sloppiness is quite apparent straight away. They are, in fact, polar opposites of their counterparts in say, Atlanta or NYC and do pretty much whatever they feel like doing on that day, which I suspect is usually not much. I mean, when you hear them jokingly ask to whom the abandoned duffel bag loaded with drugs belongs, it is clear that they don't give a rat's ass about who or what enters the country. However, do not contradict them and don't say a word when they are about to stamp a page in your passport supposed to be left blank; you don't tell a macho type Argie official what he has to do even if it is damn wrong. Keep smiling to the stupid jokes, grab your stuff and walk a few paces towards the stall selling pancho sandwiches. Yes, that's it, you're in Argentina, and oh surprise, it looks just as barren and desolate as on the other side of the border.



Mendoza however, is one of the world's nicest desert cities I have ever seen. It doesn't have anything particularly outstanding to offer, but the whole place is planted with huge plane trees and so, unlike other dusty desert cities found elsewhere on the globe, Mendoza is shady and cool. It has very decent restaurants serving absolutely great food at very indecent low prices. Argentina is a very tidy and domesticated place with a population priding itself for being the Europeans of South America. They are inviting folks, who keep their heads up and their egos strong despite having had to readjust their lifestyles and cope with third world poverty since the country filed for Chapter 11, the economy collapsed and the currency lost 80% of its value a few years ago.

Mendoza doesn't feel like it's in the middle of the worst economic crisis in decades though and one of the possible reasons is that everyone still looks pretty stylish. Furthermore, every weekend several thousand Chileans shoot through the Andean tunnel to take advantage of the ludicrous prices.

Although meat is great everywhere, the best place to wine and dine and experience 'carne' is in one of the parilla restaurants easily recognizable thanks to the massive flaming grill out front stuffed with gargantuan quantities of meat being barbecued at once. It is a euphemism to say that Argentineans like their meat; they just love it so much and can't get enough of it; they eat it at every meal. It makes you wonder if these people will ever realize that such a massive land is not the exclusive property of cows and that it could equally serve to grow vegetables. For vegetarians, hell can only be a better place than this.

As everyone knows, Argentineans also manufacture wine which, although quite nice, is a bit over-hyped for my liking. However, the great thing in these parts is that everything is so cheap that you can live like a pimp and pig away with some 'all you can eat' deals served all complete with wine, desert and cappuccino; this works out at less than ten bucks. It is actually a bit embarrassing and you find yourself wishing they would overcharge you - just a little bit.

Mendoza is also the place where I first sampled the legendary beauty of Argentinean ladies.

So, are they pretty? My god yes! They are simply jaw-dropping... and they are genuinely friendly too, which is nice because you get the opportunity to have a decent chat with girls whom elsewhere you'd only meet on magazine covers.

But the women are not everything. Men from every walk of life are an incredibly sympathetic as well. One 'positive' outcome of the economic crisis is that there is no shame whatsoever in the type of profession one holds. Work is a prerequisite for survival, and here people are not picky about the type of work they do. The person serving you in a restaurant may very well have been an executive within a large corporation that went belly up a few years back. You see that everyone keeps this in mind and thus there is a lot of mutual respect amongst people who were quite clearly better off previously.

At this point my Spanish had improved to a level at which I could really interact with everyday people. This was a novelty in comparison to the types of conversations I held a few months ago in Asia with people running stores, bars, restaurants and guesthouses and spoke in funny broken English.

The conversations in Argentina are usually very moving and you really feel for these people whose life-long dream is to set foot on the worshiped European continent. They know perfectly well that, with a round-trip airfare representing almost a full year salary, this dream will probably never materialize. I was economical with the truth when telling them what sort of travel agenda I was on; I suspected that in their eyes, it would make me look somewhat like a spoiled brat.

Salta


From Mendoza, I headed north to Salta, and in the process broke my record for longest ever non-stop bus ride with an astounding 20 hour trip. This, as it turned out, would be one of many to come. However, bus rides are a comfortable affair in Chile and Argentina. With the bus/cama option, you get a reclining seat that looks as though it has been manufactured to accommodate a business class passenger on an airplane; on top of the comfort, the steward brings around drinks and food during the journey, so altogether it is quite a pleasant way to move around. I won't lie about the fact that it is a bit longish though, and this is mainly because I find it hard to keep my eyes peeled on a desert and maintain interest very long; but you do however get a sense of just how immense and barren the country really is.

At every one of the rare stops, I would throw a glance towards the driver's seat only to come to the frightful conclusion that there was no turnover there; it was the same guy who rode the entire way on an arrow straight and utterly boring road. Security standards are a bit lower in Argentina than elsewhere, but the bus made it safely to its destination.



Salta is a very quaint city which enjoys one of the best weathers in the world; it has a permanent spring climate which, after the biting cold of Chile came as something of a blessing. Indeed, in Salta you can hang out on the pretty 'Plaza de Armas' at night, wearing only a t-shirt and flip-flops. The people here are even friendlier than in Mendoza. This is the first place in the world where I ever got invited by the staff of a shoe store to join them for dinner. It ended up being an all night bar hop, after which one guy had to be rolled back to his place. It was also quite a laugh.



I really fell in love with the gentleness of Argies and make absolutely no apologies for having skipped Northern Chile altogether.

Salta is a great base from which to explore the north of the country. I did this on board of a car with a friendly lady from Buenos Aires accompanied by her daughter and a Spanish teacher from Yorkshire who spoke Spanish with the thickest accent I'd ever heard. On our way to Iruye, a little village close to the Bolivian border, we passed interesting places such as Purmamarca, Jujuy and Tilcara. We also crossed the Capricorn tropic line marked by an ugly monument (this suddenly explained the nice climate).


Capricorn

All in all, we drove through extraordinary landscapes within the Quebrada de Humahuca where I came to meet my first Gaucho (local cowboy) on this trip.



The Quebrada de Hummahuaca canyon owes its peculiarity to the fact that surrounding mountains are colored in bright red, green and yellow because of the minerals that compose them. You could hear me rave about the beauty of this scenery, or you could choose to look at the pictures which I believe would be more rewarding to you.


Quebrada de Humahuaca


Purmamarca






I was really happy with my unexpected 10 day foretaste of Argentina but at this stage I had the Salta box properly ticked, so I had to decide whether to make a beeline into the Chilean Atacama desert, or to head straight to the Bolivian salt plains in Uyuni. I did some research and discovered that San Pedro de Atacama in Chile was a very touristy town set in the middle of nowhere. I'm getting a bit more experienced with this stuff and I was convinced that the combination of isolation and tourism would result in a place overrun by traveler types in fisherman pants eating banana pancakes; not worth the 12 hour ride if you ask me.





I thus bought a ticket to La Quiaca and as I got on the bus, it became quite clear that if it wasn't for the German couple, I'd be the only foreigner on the coach. We reached the border at 4am, which bodes ill when the outside temperature is bellow freezing point and everything is closed. The two Germans and I huddled together to keep an eye on our stuff; Latinos are indeed notorious thieves, especially in bus stations in the wee hours of the day.

Another thing that made me realize why everyone sticks to the gringo trail is the fact that when there isn't much foreigner presence in a place in South America, things tend to become even more uncoordinated and chaotic than they usually are. According to the guide book, the Bolivian customs office would be open 30 minutes earlier than the one in Argentina so I decided that everything would work out just fine. However, but what the Footprint fails to tell you is that there is an unfavorable one hour time difference between Argentina and Bolivia. Considering I was with two die hard punctual Germans who 'vanted to be ze first in ze line' I had plenty of time to observe the Argentinean official very busy with non-work activities while we stood outside of his window freezing our better parts off. After the official had kissed everyone on the cheek and got his second serving of coffee, he finally gave us our exit stamps. We crossed the bridge and waited again for another half hour in front of a closed Bolivian office. Only when our hands and lips where blue did they decide that their morning ritual was over as well and that it might perhaps be nice to dedicate a minute of their time to actually work and get these three tourists into the country.



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