Valparaíso, Chile

For about the past ten days, I´ve been in Chile´s second largest city, Valparaíso. It´s an amazing city, built next to the ocean and surrounded by cliffs. Kind of reminds me of a Chilean San Francisco, but much smaller.







There are a lot of brightly painted buildings, meandering paths and stairways, and tons of murals and graffiti.









Pasajo de los sueños (Passage of Dreams)



Part of an outdoor museum. Twenty or so famous Chilean artists designed murals and university art students painted them.



Everything gets painted here









In case you´re too lazy to walk up the stairs, you can take an ascensor up the hill for between $.20-$.40



Naval building



Strange statue



In one of the small plazas



They even have pelicans here! My first since Australia

Crossing the Andes

In order to get from Argentina to Chile, I had to take a bus that winded it´s way through the Andes Mountains. It took over eight hours, including customs, which took at least an hour and a half.







The chair lift goes over the road! I´m not sure exactly how skiers get to the bottom.



Luckily, this was as curvy as it got

Travels in Argentina - Mendoza

Mendoza was my favorite city in Argentina. The weather was fantastic, the people were nice, and it was a lovely end to my travels in Argentina. We spent almost a week there and it was hard to say goodbye.

We stayed at a hotel for one night before moving to a hostel so we could use the kitchen. Our hotel was on a street that used to be divided by railroad tracks. The tracks are still there but no longer in use, all vacant land or parking lots.



This city had a supermarket that was so big, they had a special bus that picked people up and took them there.



There was a huge park which we visited at least three times. It was a great place for a walk and a picnic.

Fountain in the park





This park also allegedly contains a big hill--Cerro de la Gloria (the Hill of Gloria) with a monument to the independence of Chile and Argentina on top. This was supposed to be about a 5K (3 mile) walk from the entrance of the park. The first part of the walk was along a nice tree-lined street, which soon gave way to unshaded gravel and then to the shoulder of a highway seemingly in the middle of nowhere. We had asked the information lady and she pointed the way and gave us a map, which indicated that we were going the right way. After a long hot walk, we found the zoo, and then the stairs up the hill. The monument was not particularly impressive but it gave us something to do for the day and a picnic spot with a nice view. (Unfortunately, my camera card was full, so I´m waiting for René to send me the photos.)

All throughout the city and the park were canals. Somedays they were full and other days just a trickle of water ran through. They also had a system for diverting the water into the preferred direction.

In the park



In the city



Mendoza also has a very nice Central Plaza. My favorite thing about it was the Grape Juice lady. She sold small cups of juice for about $.30 and large ones for $.60. I think it tasted like raisins and René thought it tasted like non-alcoholic wine. Anyhow, it was great and I had some every day except the last, when she was closed =(



There´s a big fountain in the Plaza but I didn´t get a photo of it when it was on.



At night, they turn on the neon! This is a giant (at least three stories) crest of the province.



Plaza España was my favorite because of all the tile work.





We took a day trip to thermal baths about 1.5 hours outside of the city by public bus. Argentines of every shape and size filled about seven pools of varying depth and warmth. The unheated wavepool and "flowing river" features were almost completely vacant. It was really nice to get out of the city and into the water; my first swim since Guatemala!

Our favorite coffee place. It was absolutely lovely until we got the bill, $14 for two coffees and two slices of cake! (usually it would be about $6)



Havanna, the Starbucks of Argentina.



Bank protest



We also took a day trip to Maipu (pronounced "my poo"), at least partly because we wanted to say that we visited Maipu. No one ever outgrows body humor =)

Maipu, the best place to live



Central Plaza flower clock





The main reason most people go to Maipu is for the wine. Most of the wine in Argentina comes from this region. Unlike in Cafayate, most of the vineyards are quite a ways out of town, but we walked to two close to the center and had some tastings.

Travels in Argentina - Quebrada de las Conchas

In order to get to Mendoza, the final stop on the trip, we went back up to Salta, as neither of us could stomach the idea of eight hours on the crappy bus back to Tucumán. And we decided that the best way to get there was by taking a tour through the "Canyon of the Conch Shells", the one thing everyone we met in the town was insisting we see.

The tour consisted of us, an Argentine couple from Córdoba, a German guy, and a French guy, as well as our guide, who it turned out had only been giving tours for about a month. There were about five stops along the way where we all got out of the van, hiked around, and took photos.







Tiny cacti



And even tinier ones









This kind of plant has chlorophyl in it´s branches and only has tiny leaves for a few weeks during the rainiest time of the year









At the end of the tour, the van dropped us off on the side of the road to take a bus to Salta. It sounded a little sketchy but luckily, the driver waited until it arrived and we saw other people waiting to. When we finally made it to Salta after over three hours on a dark and windy road, we found out that we missed the last bus to Mendoza by at least two hours. So we had to spend another unexpected night there.

But at least it gave me the opportunity to take some photos I´d missed leaving town the first time. (Taken from the bus window while leaving the second time.)

Another strange statue



Every province has its own beer