Ahh lovely Route 7.

After loading it up with everyone’s groceries, the bus from Mendoza shoots you south for about 20 minutes with the Andes to your right. On the early bus, the sun rises and blasts the eastern face of the mountains and gives you quite the wake up call; an appetizer. Soon enough, the driver points the nose west and heads you through one of the most stunning landscapes in the world. At this time of year, the first thing you notice is the snow. A few pockets here and there gradually turn into ski slopes. You are soon surrounded by snow and rock and earth and it’s pretty hard to take it all in. It’s wonderful. After you wipe the tear from your eye and realize that more people should experience//worship the mountains (Rockies or Andes, no importa) you gradually become aware of a beep that seems to be produced around every turn. The random occurrence quickly turns into predictable annoyance as you realize these beeps and clicks come from the four obnoxious Brazilians who have the best seats in the house. These folks were lucky enough to get right up front on the top level, lucky bastards. This alone would have been fine: first come first serve works well in an ecomony in shambles, but I could have slapped them. The beeps and clicks came from their cameras. Constantly. Holly and I estimate that they took roughly 1000 pictures over the 5 hour bus ride, each accompanied by its own proprietary focus beep and shutter sound effect, my bet is Panasonic and Fujifilm. I was surprised by the longevity of their batteries and how nearly I came to taking my own life. Here I was having a religious experience with the mountains and these people were yup-ing it up in the front. I wanted to smack them and yell “TAKE A LOOK AROUND!” It’s not for anyone to take home. It’s a privilege to experience the mountains like that, even if its only from a bus. Most people never will. But whatever. I guess the reason it bothers me is because I know they will get home and realize that their point-and-shoot didn’t do it justice, how could it have, and they’ll probably never look at the pictures again. I’ve done it before. I’ve tried my best to capture mountains like that. It’s impossible. The equipment is never good enough and the print would have to be massive. It’s hard enough just to be there, in that moment, and take it all in…

Anyway, the drive through was incredible, the boarder crossing was easy enough, and Chile takes no time warming up. You drive out of the mountains relatively quickly after the boarder, drop about 1000 meters over 10 or so switchbacks, and are quickly shuttled into lush desert. It is amazing how stark the difference is from the east and west sides. The west side obviously gets the water from the winds moving off the Pacific over the land towards the Andes. There is a ton of citrus, green trees, and grass everywhere. This is contrasted strongly with the snow covered peaks not 5 miles away and makes for quite the landscape. The drive from this point on mostly consists of realizing how grey Argentina had been and a growing anticipation for not wearing a jacket constantly. And then the bus picked up a guy to see if anyone wanted empenadas. Pretty standard really. Seeing as I was hungry and it was so ridiculous, I wanted to buy an empenada, but I didn’t have any Chilean money so no dice. After dropping the empenada man off, we continued on through your typical fringe into the city proper which was bustling. Getting dropped off at the bus station reminded me of getting out of an airport in the Bahamas. It was pretty hot, kind of loud, and there was just a whole palette of colors and people. A backpackers paradise. We hopped in a cab and got a quick tour of the city from our rather friendly driver who was happy to tell us where to get the good seafood, the expensive markets to avoid, and a good place for a beer. We got to the hostile in no time, paid the driver with the monopoly money that Chile uses (it’s awesome – very colorful and mostly plastic) and checked into our dorm.

Our hostel is in Recoleta, which is supposedly the bohemian heart of Santiago. I can believe it. It felt like walking out into a dream when Holly and I ventured out for a beer. Loud music poured out of crowded bars for about 6 blocks…on a Wednesday…at 3pm. We had no idea what was going on. We got some cheap empenadas and a pitcher of beer for $3900 (1USD=520 chilean pesos) and took in the locals, mostly young Chileans getting out of the local university for the day. Turns out Thursday was some holiday so all the youngsters were out in force. Good for them. After buying a new electrical adapter and eating a delicious but unhealthy dinner of bbq chicken and grease bucket fries, we called it a day and slept like rocks.

Rocks from the Andes, and without the god damn beeps.

Society

…..(holly) ok so I did take a few pictures….