Mendoza and Santiago
Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006
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.
Ed