Feeling Chile

The bus ride to Mendoza is both through the night and through the Pampas, so it's not the most scenic bus ride I've ever taken - until the very end.

Suddenly there was a gap in the early morning fog and there they were, snow-covered and rugged, the Andes. Directly in front of us, stretching north and south as far as you could see. Just begging for us to come and explore them - and, beyond them, hugging the edge of the continent like a really skinny child about to be pushed out of bed by a really fat one, Chile.

So close ... all of a sudden, I could hear myself saying it, really off-handedly: "Yeah, I've gone over the Andes and crossed the border into Chile." I mean, how cool would it be to be able to say that? At one point over the weekend we were "hiking" (strolling) around a park and we started talking about how we would trek over the mountains, what we would need (couple of hot guides) and so on, and while it was all half in jest it really was only half. I've got the bug. I've gotta go.

Maybe not TREKKING over them, let's be honest, quite apart from the fact that winter is rapidly approaching we all know I'm no trekker (though really, I helped sail a ship across the ocean, why not a trek over the Andes?). But realistically, the better option is the one Joe told us about - the bus to Chile. It climbs up and up, he said, until it can't go any higher and you lose your breath every time you look out the window, and then it disappears into a tunnel through the tops of the mountains. Chile on the other side. Santiago is nice enough, he said, but the reason you go is for the bus ride.

And Becca just happens to have a cousin in Santiago ...