Day 173: Bus across the Andes Mountains
Friday, July 1, 2011
Seven hours later and almost without incident, we made it though the Andes Mountains and arrived in Santiago, Chile this afternoon.
I say almost because a Chilean drug dog hit on Elizabeth's purse. Oh she actually was smuggling, but not drugs. She forgot she had picked up two apples from our hostels as we fled out the door this morning at 7:30 am. The Customs officer scolded her for checking the box that said she wasn't bringing in any organic items. He asked her if should could read (yes it was in English also) and if so, why did she check "no". While the rest of the bus watched on, she had to fill our a new deceleration form with the "yes" box checked as they confiscated her precious apples.
Even though we picked the front two seats on our double decker bus, our view wasn't always that great. This was because it was so cold outside that keeping our windows free of frozen humidity was nearly impossible. But that's not to say that the views of the snow covered peaks weren't amazing. The Chilean border office was high in the Andes mountains and covered in snow. The building was big enough that the bus drove in while the passengers got off to visit immigrations and customs. The Argentinian side was a long gradual accent, while the Chilean side was 27 switchbacks almost straight down the mountain. We kept an eye our for any stranded Uruguayan rugby players walking out of the mountains.
Other then a giant smog cloud hovering over the city, so far we have been impressed with the area around our hostel. The streets, parks, and sidewalks have all been very well maintained, a stark difference to most of the same in Buenos Aires. We will be here for at least the next 3 days. We are going tomorrow to get fitted for our rental gear so that we can either go skiing on Sunday or Monday (July 4th!!)
I say almost because a Chilean drug dog hit on Elizabeth's purse. Oh she actually was smuggling, but not drugs. She forgot she had picked up two apples from our hostels as we fled out the door this morning at 7:30 am. The Customs officer scolded her for checking the box that said she wasn't bringing in any organic items. He asked her if should could read (yes it was in English also) and if so, why did she check "no". While the rest of the bus watched on, she had to fill our a new deceleration form with the "yes" box checked as they confiscated her precious apples.
Even though we picked the front two seats on our double decker bus, our view wasn't always that great. This was because it was so cold outside that keeping our windows free of frozen humidity was nearly impossible. But that's not to say that the views of the snow covered peaks weren't amazing. The Chilean border office was high in the Andes mountains and covered in snow. The building was big enough that the bus drove in while the passengers got off to visit immigrations and customs. The Argentinian side was a long gradual accent, while the Chilean side was 27 switchbacks almost straight down the mountain. We kept an eye our for any stranded Uruguayan rugby players walking out of the mountains.
Other then a giant smog cloud hovering over the city, so far we have been impressed with the area around our hostel. The streets, parks, and sidewalks have all been very well maintained, a stark difference to most of the same in Buenos Aires. We will be here for at least the next 3 days. We are going tomorrow to get fitted for our rental gear so that we can either go skiing on Sunday or Monday (July 4th!!)
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