Hey.. I’m writing about today! This is amazing! Well the bus trip started off just fine. I snapped lots of pictures as we made our way through the Andes. Along the way we kept stopping to pick up the Military Policia and move them to new posts along the way. At one point one of the guys sat next to me. I chatted with him a little bit, but couldn’t do well enough with my Spanish. It was funny because sitting on the somewhat cramped bus I could feel his gun sitting right against my hip. Kinda funny, but I never really thought too much about it. As we got closer to the Chilian border the mountains became even more majestic. At one point we went through a tunnel that actually went right through a mountain. It was really cool. Shortly after we were at the Chilean border. I went through all the border stuff, managed to not get my stuff searched, saw Amy and Kristen from Mendoza as thier bus to Santiago stopped too, and then headed back on our way. The roads on the Chilean side were really cool. Narrow and steep switchbacks that went down about 10 times to drop enough altitude. Our bus driver was crazy too and was passing everyone. He did really well and probably made up some time. The chilian countryside was georgous. Mountains everywhere with farms and fields. Really nice. At one point we came to a construction zone and traffic was backed up. After further investigation little pickup had rolled over on the overpass and lost his load of carrots. We were there for about half an hour as a backhoe flipped the trip and all the highway workers helped the guy load all his carrots back up again. Another couple hours on the bus and I had arrived In Valparaiso. The coastline was completely stunning, and the blue waters were beautiful. The city is incredible. Its a whole bunch of hills and the city is built up on them. There are little ascensors (gondola elevator things) to take you from one street to another because everything is so steep. After some searching I managed to find my way to the hostel. I had to bargain with the lady at the ascensor to take an american dollar instead of Chilean pesos because I didn’t have any yet. When I got to the hostel the guy here gave me some pesos to get me through the night. I went for a walk around the city and took a bunch of pictures. I decided to give empanadas another chance as well because they were pretty cheap. After that i pretty much called it a night. We’ll see what kind of trouble I can get into tomorrow and Wednesday.
The Andes and Valparaiso
Advertisement
