Santiago and the Valle de Elky

There I was-sitting in the bus with destination Santiago de Chile. One last time Chile. I found out that also men can have charm influencing business. At the bus terminal of Buenos Aires you have about 2.000.000 providers offering services to Mendoza and Santiago. As Santiago is in Chile I went to the international section to buy my ticket. I found a company offering me Cama (which is normally more expensive as Semi-Cama) for 167,40 Argentinean Pesos without me even asking for a 10% discount. After I found out that Semi Cama would only cost 150 AP to Mendoza I went back and now I did ask, if she could do something for me. The lady behind the window smiled at me and said she could if I paid cash. So I got an amazing service for the cheapest price. After two hours we needed alone to get out of Buenos Aires we received a brownie and coffee. Dinner was lasagne, a tortilla, salad, and of course desert. At 5a.m. they served breakfast-croissant, bread, jam, butter, and of course a coffee. I was impressed yet I still wished that I could be in Buenos Aires hanging around a little bit more with Andrea and Vera.

We explored the city, its cafes, malls, and waterfront. Buenos Aires is a great city! Millions of poeple, parks, old houses, new houses...Amazing. After two days of heavy sight-seeing we decided to take the other days a little more slow, doing almost nothing but talking, cooking...

Early in the morning after I arrived in Mendoza-which is close to the Argentinean border-I had to unfortunately realize that I had to go with my beluved sucky bus company Andesmar to Santiago. Good busses but baaaad service...After another seven hours I arrived in Chile's capital. I met up with Ina straight away to go and get my yellow fever shot for Bolivia and Peru. After I found out on the bus to Santiago that in Buenos Aires the vacination is for free, I was quite pissed off that I had to pay 25 Euros. I stayed at a couchsurfer's place and was very close to believe that it might be my second couchsurfing disappointment. She was not there. Once she arrived 45 minutes later she told me that she just forgot about me...But after all she was a very good host with a huge apartment. I did not really do much in Santiago. Nobody could tell me where to go. I thought it to be rather strange. I met up with Ina + friends, chilled in cafes, climbed the Cerro xxx and just before I left for La Serena also the government building. I had a good time eventhough I first though that Santiago is nothing like Buenos Aires. It is not but I had to find out that it also got its charm. Really, there is not much more to tell-I slept a lot. On Sunday night Moira, the cousin of Cri (who married the Chilean guy in September) and I borded the bus to La Serena. All busses going directly to San Pedro de Atacama where fully booked but it gave us the option to split the 23-hours bus ride and to visit the Valle de Elky. We slept about five hours the most on the bus. Semi-Cama and little space-welcome to the world of TurBus. A little exhausted we gave in our backpacks and took another bus to Pisco at 7a.m. The bus ride was two hours and took us deep into the valley where grapes are cultivated to produce Chile's hang over giving national drink "Pisco". More fascinating than the vineyards were the huge cacti and the colorful flowers growing on the wall of the houses. It was hot and now I knew that the desert was not very far away. Moira and I walked a lot and took in the landscape. We hitch-hiked to a river which was more than freezing. We met a French dude and a Chilean woman both living in France. From here on I was to meet a lot of French speaking Spanish and even German-I was confused. We hung out with the two of them. We were lucky to find a ride very quickly to take aus to Monte Grande, from there another to Vicuña, and then a camion taking us to La Serena bus terminal. Luckily, there was a mall-modern-next to the terminal and so we used the toilets there to brush the teeth and clean up a little. Before our bus left to San Pedro at 21:45h-TurBus of course delayed-I bought this 350gram Nutella glas cheering me up whenever I need it ;)