Losing it in Latin America

Valle de La Luna bathed in the light of the setting sun 

Myself and the aussie couple, Andrew and Megan, booked ourselves onto a two night/three day 4×4 trip across the Altiplano of Bolivia, but before heading off the next morning we hired out some bikes and cycled across the edge of the desert to the Valle de La Luna (Valley of the Moon). This proved to be a curiously strange place with the weirdest rock formations (photo soon when I next have the facilities). We stayed for sunset and then set off on the return trip to try to beat the darkness setting in. Not only did we fail, but it also rained on us a little – in the desert, what?! Nice day though, rounded off with a good meal and a few beers in a restaurant with a big open fire pit and live music.

What the fuck are you looking at?

The trip across the desert proved to be one of the best things I´ve done in ages, well probably since early Patagonia. The three of us were joined by another couple, Catherine and Simon, as well as our driver Edwin and some other random guy who we dropped off in the middle of absolutely nowhere so he could hitch a lift elsewhere (not the sort of place with passing traffic mind).

Red Lake where we stayed on the first night

The changing landscape was astounding, as I found out pretty quickly leaving San Pedro in shorts and flip-flops only to arrive at the Bolivian border check one hour later covered in snow. I won´t ramble on about the tour as the descriptions of the landscapes just don´t touch it, but I´ve taken a shitload of photos so I´ll add a couple highlights to this entry when I find somewhere with facilities. Check back through the last couple entries as I´ve just added some more photos to those.

Rock Tree

The last day of the tour took us across the salt flats of Uyuni (Salir de Uyuni) before dropping us in the town of Uyuni itself. Didn´t feel the need to hang around here so I said farewell to my travel companions, who headed off in different directions, while I took a bus straight up to the mining town of Potosi to play with dynamite.

Catheryn, Simon, Megan and Andrew on the Isla de Pescado with the salt flats in the background

 
Plaza España in Mendoza

I spent my last couple days in Argentina in the heart of wine country in a place called Mendoza, in the east of Argentina level with Buenos Aires. It was a very beautiful and comfortable cosmopolitan place with a massive park area out one side of town, and plenty of opportunities for watching life go by on the many pavement cafes. However, as I`ve spent so much time in Argentina by now I felt the itch to move on. Argentina has been a very easy place to travel through and spend time in, but due this and it`s European feel I felt I needed a change and needed to start pushing on towards Bolivia.

Before Bolivia however, I had some unfinished business with Chile. Jody and Steve, a couple of dodgy northerners I`d met previously were there already so I headed over to Santiago to meet them. After only seeing remote backwater towns in Patagonian Chile, I needed to see what it`s capital could offer. It didn`t disappoint!

I arrived friday night and was immediately sucked into the Santiago nightlife scene. Staying in Bellavista, a somewhat bohemian area frequented by artists, musicians and general freaks proved a good move, as it not only offered close proximity to the centre, but also a wide range of restaurants, cafes and fairly dodgy bars. The combination of a good alternative music scene and a good hostel (Bellevista Hostel) meant I was ineveitably going to get stuck here.

On friday we drank in a couple bars before hitting a club called Batuta, which was a fairly small club with a live band on stage giving way to a DJ playing a good range of indie, punk and alternative rock later on. Saturday this was topped by a club out in the Barrio Brasil district called Blondie. Descending into this medieval subterranean castle type place we found a pretty hardcore techno DJ trying to demolish the foundations of the room below. The boys we`d dragged there were not impressed. However once we`d negotiated the gurners and went through another tunnel it opened out into the main room, which was huge. Another live band was playing to a packed house of a couple thousand people. Once again the DJs after the band played a similar mix of music to the previous night, so that combined with the local drink of Pisco (dodgy spirit) and cola called Piscola – I kid you not, everyone was happy. Sunday morning daylight awaited outside.

It could be said that my time in Santiago was not exactly a cultural feast, but I consider getting to know the city and it`s nightlife fairly essential cultural elements of a place. Midweek was taken a little easier before my final blowout night on the following friday where we went out to a club miles out of town called Aeropuerto for it`s grand opening night. Good music, many bars, lasers and skantily-clad dancers etc – a wonderful but messy night.

A female Kraftwerk cover band – popular with Chilean amputee fetishists apparently

There`s a definite alternative feel to Santiago, where in Buenos Aires people played it very cool and trendy and the clubs were generally dance music, Santiago had a more rock-orientated scene where black is the in colour (black is the new black) and the artwork around town was certianly subversive, twisted or both. I get the impression that after years of oppresion from Pinochets`dictatorship, the people are letting go and expressing themselves to the maximum. It makes for a very vibrant city, one which is often overlooked by travellers who stay for a day after a connecting flight there, but that`s their loss.

I`ve finally dragged myself away though, and after a 24 hour bus ride (I can feel the envy from you all the way over here) I`ve now landed in a place called San Pedro de Atacama, a little dustbowl town on the edge of the Atacama, the driest desert on earth. I`ve hooked up with an aussie couple and tomorrow we`re heading off on a tour across the salt plains  into Bolivia, before arrving in Uyuni, Bolivia on Friday. Today I`m eating dust, tomorrow I guess it`ll be salt. Mmmm.