So far Chile has lived up to its name - Maureen and I have felt the cold for the first time in our holidays. We are using the oven in our apartment here to dry our clothes.
The trip over the Andes cannot compare to anything I have ever experienced. We deliberately chose a later trip so we could sit in the front "death" seats. The trip up was slow and laborious as the bus crawled up the Andes. It crawled so slowly that it actually stopped - for 2 hours- while we had to wait for another bus. (See panorama shot)
Having taken up seats again in a new bus, by this time we were all good friends even if we didn't speak the language. Mime is a wonderful medium. A truck over the side of the road with its wheels in the air like a dead dog didn't faze anyone.
The border crossing was cold and miserable as we waited at the Argentinian side, then the Chilean side and then to line up with the bags. My coca leaves were allowed, thankfully and a ham sandwich even though there were big pictures of hams with red crosses across them. (See picture of me at the border)
Once over the other side we waited for ages (again) as another accident meant "injun" (Tom Sawyer speak) file down the mountain. We crawled in our convoy down a most amazing set of 22 curves and switchbacks going down the mountain.
Have a look at the photo and you can see switchbacks as far as the eye can see. Amazing!! There was a curve countdown at each curve. Going down meant that sitting at the front you actually go over the edge of the mountains. (Good advice Steph) Another accident - a big semi had twisted the back off itself as it tried to turn 360 degrees. Further down another truck broken with shredded tyres and oily stuff coming out.
Sunset now and we are hopelessly late. Luckily when we came into our hostel in Santiago, they had kept our room.
Gotta go now. Going off now to a free pasta and wine night at the hostel and anyhow, I think Maureen has her head in the oven.
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