South America Adventure 2009: (Detour) Chile

So we decided to take a detour into Chile from Mendoza. There is a 8hr bus route that goes from Mendoza to Santiago Chile over the Andes. It only cost us 40 bucks US and the bus has seats that recline all the way back. The buses in Argentina are really nice and cheap.

This part of the Andes contains the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere, it would be the highest in the world if not for the Himalayas. Mount Aconcagua

Mount Aconcagua (we think that is it in the picture) at 6959 meters (22000+ feet). We passed a sign on the way near here that said route Aconcagua so I am assuming this is it in the center. The Andean Plateu is very high in this region which makes the mountain seem like an easy climb since you don't have to ascend that far to reach the top. However the oxygen deprivation and bad weather claim lives here every year. This year has actually been pretty bad something like 6 people died since January trying to reach the summit.

At this point we are coming over the pass. We are in Chile now, the border into Chile was just a little before this a lot of hair pin turns to get down, but it wasn't that bad. They put in Wedding Crashers (the English version with subtitles yay) for us to watch probably to distract everybody.

Our first meal in Santiago Chile Sea Bass flambe!
One interesting thing to note is the exchange rate, it is 570 Chilean pesos to 1USD. That sounds pretty good except that there currency is super inflated and that there comparable one dollar bill is 1000 pesos (anything under 1000 pesos is reflected in coinage). So the sea bass cost 13000 pesos or 13.000 as they like to write it which is actually almost 26 USD. Yikes! And I was wondering how such a nice restaurant could be so cheap Doh!

There is Cerro (Mt.) San Cristobal, a hill in the city's most popular park near where we stayed that has a very good view. Santiago is huge, with 2/3rds of all the people in Chile living in Santiago.

The Virgin Immaculada statue on the top of the hill with built in terracing and benches so that masses can be held on the top of the hill.

This is another way to get to the top of the hill, the locals call them the “eggs of death”. We took a different way on a locomotive that chugs up the hill by a balanced cable system – they call it a “funicular”.

This is the capital building in downtown Santiago Plaza de Armas.

big cathedral in the plaza also – guidebooks highlight the Spanish colonial architecture that makes up this whole area.

A view of the Plaza de Armas – where people come to protest, or just hang out on break from work, or play chess.

Santiago has a major subway system with 3 levels. It is very very easy to get around Santiago and even Chile that matter the buses are cheap nice and go everywhere.

Since we were so close to the Pacific ocean after all our time away from it, we decided to go see it. We took the metro to the bus station and went 75 miles to Vina Del Mar in under an hour and a half. It cost only 5000 pesos total (10USD) for both of us! We found a nice hostel and got a great view.

This is on all the post cards in Vina Del Mar the “Reloj de Flores” or flower clock, it works!

Ahh the Pacific, haven't seen you in a while. The buildings in the background is the Valparaiso area which is the main city, we didn't have time to explore.