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We stayed in a nice hostel in Santiago. The guy who ran the place reminded me of a young Rupert from Survivor. We arrived at 8:30 pm, and immediately went in search of some pesos. All the banks were closed of course, so we were back by 9:30. One of the other backpackers let us in when we rang the bell, and I guess the guy who runs the hostel didn't know we were back, and woke up repeatedly through the night worried about why we weren't back, and if he should call the police, or go out looking for us, etc. poor guy! My birthday fell on a night that he was already planning a BBQ, so that became a good reason to celebrate. A BBQ here is just beef and booze. That's it. Loads of beef and booze!! No potato, no veggies... Just beef. Supper starts around 10:00 for locals. The restaurants don't even open till 8:30. The BBQ was suposed to start at 9. It really began at 10:45 with sausages for appetizers, and the steak didn't start being cooked until close to midnight! Here you cook the steak, and keep cutting off chunks of meat that is done, and handing them to people on the end of a fork. People eat the bits of steak with their fingers. The only utensils used are the cooking tools. Interesting. They sang happy birthday in 3 languages. Kinda cool. There was a nice couple there who had been traveling in this manner together for 10 years off and on and were on an 8 month honeymoon. She guessed my age as 30 something, and said I was superwoman for being on a trip like this. Hahaha! My birthday present I guess!!!
From Santiago we took a bus across the Andes to Mendosa, Argentina. The Argentinians are a very relaxed people. The border guard "searched" my bag by touching it as he walked past. Lol - the mountain pass we went over was spectacular!!!! Very high and just plain gorgeous!! The mountains here resemble the rockies, but have more volcanic rock, and have reds and greens (copper) in the rock as well. Beautiful! We went up a series of switchbacks that had 29 curves!! It looked like ribbon licorice all piled up from the top. The border is at the very top of the pass. I was too busy taking pictures on this bus ride to sleep, even after the midnight BBQ!!
Mendoza is a beautiful city in springtime!!! The trees are huge and the entire city is under a leaf canopy. It gets very hot here in summer, so they value their shade. There are trees here that are covered in lilac colored blooms. So lovely! Getting money was no problem, but it was the first city where we felt uncomfortable with our SLRs. They seemed conspicuous, and people kept warning us about making sure they were around our necks all the time. We just stopped carrying them. No need to make ourselves a target! The city is a mixture of new and old. We were on our way around a traffic circle, and passed a horse and cart on the traffic circle too!! That was an unexpected sight!! We went to a natural hot spring today. Really nice, and very relaxing! It had been developed in a very natural way, and the area was in a canyon next to a river. The bus picked us up at our hostel, then went to several other locations to pick up other people too. At one location, no one was there to get on the bus. The driver went to the house, but no answer. He called their phone #. No answer. We were sitting next to an older lady who started argueing with the driver - she wanted to leave, and he said we should wait. We waited 15 mins. And she argued the whole time. Then the whole bus started chanting and clapping saying "move the bus" "we want to go" in Spanish. Very funny. The driver finally left, and she scolded him for the next half hour!! Very entertaining. You could tell exactly what she was saying even though it was in fast Spanish. Last night we had another coffee adventure and got cappachino with Brandy.... Today we had a great cup of coffee at a little sandwich place. Yeah!!!!! Tomorrow we river raft bright and early, so no more typing - sandwiches to make.
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Lorraine Happy birthday Cheryl! a memorable one, eh? You guys are going at break neck speed. So many things to see so little time! While you are rafting I am sitting in my sunny kitchen procrastinating on everything I need to do. Thanks for the distraction.lol