Chile & Argentina Part 1: Red meat, White wine, Blue skies

After spending several weeks above 3,000 meters, we left the altiplano and descended into San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. Country #14 of the trip. And by descended, I mean descended. Ike put Sweetcakes into 4LO and we engine-braked our way down the long, constant descent to the desert... from nearly 5000 meters the day before down to a mere 2400 meters (7900 feet). Side note: it's cute that Denver is considered “high altitude” at 1600 meters.

The long descent into Chile

At the bottom of the descent, we had the pleasure of experiencing Chilean customs for the first time. Welcome to Chile, please dispose of all your delicious foodstuffs here. All fresh veggies/fruits/meat, dairy, uncooked eggs... yup, they can go right in the garbage. Luckily we had been warned by other travelers about this, so had tried to consume most of perishable food before the border. The customs agents asked us to bring all items from our car into the building to pass through the scanner, but after informing them that our car was jam-packed with stuff, they were happy to do a visual inspection of the vehicle. Easy peasy. Just had to wait around a bit as the workers finished their Sunday siesta.

We had been warned by other travelers that Chile was expensive, but it was still shocking to roll into our hostel and have to pay US$11 per person to camp at a hostel in San Pedro. Sheesh, is the toilet paper made of gold or something? (Spoiler alert: Nope) These were prices we hadn't encountered since the US and Canada. We sauntered into town to fill up on expensive Chilean gas, exchange the rest of our Bolivians to Chilean Pesos, and attempted to find a laundromat to wash our mountain of dirty laundry (at $15/load, we opted to wait...). We spent the night licking our wallets' wounds, basking in the hot shower, making friends with a French couple traveling through Chile in a rental truck, and soaking up the sweet, sweet internet.

The next morning we hopped back on the road, climbed back up into the altiplano and through the Paso de Jama, and arrived at our second border crossing within 24 hours. Bienvenidos a Argentina! Please remove all your belongings for the customs inspection. Yes, all of them. After going through immigration and taking care of all the paperwork, we rapidly unloaded all of our gear from Sweetcakes in a record-setting 5 minutes. The customs manager then turned around and saw all of our crap siting on the sidewalk and said “no mas, no mas!” Well, we warned you we had a lot of stuff. He did a cursory review of our items, then offered to help us load everything back into Sweetcakes. Thanks, but we got this.

Well...they asked for it!

We continued on through the beautiful scenery, multicolored mountains and down into Purmamarca, at a meager elevation of 2300 meters. I had visited Purmamarca and the 7-colored mountain back in 2007 during my study abroad in Buenos Aires and it was fun to return and see the changes to the small, touristy town. We spent the night enjoying wine for the first time in months. Oh, and on the way there, our skid-plate came loose again, so we miraculously found a scrap piece of wire along the shoulder of the highway and wired that baby back up along the side of the highway. #Scavengers

At least the roads are paved! 

 Approaching the 7 colored mountains.  Switching back and forth and back and forth and....

Our silk sleeping bag liner finally ate it.  RIP Mummy sheet

Several of the 7 colors visible

The next morning we continued south towards the city of Salta, one of the largest cities in NW Argentina. En route we were stopped no fewer than three times by Argentinian cops during random police checkpoints. Each time we were a bit nervous, as we've heard stories of corrupt Argentinian cops, but we had absolutely no problems. After a quick review of our documents and verification of where we were headed, the police wished us “buen viaje” and we were on our way.

Our main reason for visiting Salta was to change some of our US dollars to Argentinian pesos on the “blue market.” Argentina's economy is in crisis mode and their currency is very weak. It's difficult for Argentinians to obtain foreign currency (especially dollars and euros), so many of them try to obtain it through unofficial markets and convert their savings into US $100 bills or large euro denominations. Hence, the “blue market”... not quite the “black market,” but not entirely... how do you say.... legal. We had heard from other travelers that you can just go to the main plaza in Salta and ask around about changing dollars and locals will point you to “the guy.” If you know Ike and I very well, you know that we are a couple of fairly straight-laced kids, so this was a bit of an uncomfortable situation for us. We approached the main plaza, looked around for a bit, spotted a guy carrying a large canvas wallet/bag and thought perhaps he was “the guy.” So we nonchalantly sat down on a nearby bench and observed “the guy” talking with a tall, blonde woman. Then they disappeared around the corner. Hrm, maybe they went off to take care of “business” in a more private location? We didn't ask questions. 

We stood up and walked to the other side of the plaza and down a side street where we saw some official money exchanges. A dozen or so middle-aged men stood along the sidewalk, leaning up against the exterior walls of the buildings. We awkwardly stood across the street observing the situation (heaven help us if we ever try to do legitimately sketchy business deals...), and eventually Ike noticed one of the men explicitly holding a wad of cash out. We sheepishly approached him, asked the rate, and proceeded to count out US$1000 in Argentinian pesos. At an exchange rate of 12.6P:$1, we had to use both sets of fingers and toes. Ike's wallet wouldn't close, so we shoved the cash into several pockets and anxiously walked back to Sweetcakes to stash our cash in the lockbox.

Cash. Money.

After running a few more errands we made our way to the municipal campground. Argentinians are big on camping, and we've found that many towns and cities have official municipal campgrounds. Something we haven't seen since the US. Having an official campground, with hot showers, mediocre wifi, and all the other amenities was nice. But this one was fairly run down, and full of some apparently long-term residents, which made for some awkward walks to the bathrooms. One night there and we were ready to move on.

 So, these drives aren't that bad....

throat of the devil.  Clever names! A little terrifying, but clever!

 View from one of the wineries outside Cafayate

Next stop: Cafayate, one of Argentina's wine regions. Rolling into Cafayate was pleasantly uneventful. We found the campground easily [one of several] and parked Sweetcakes. Hopping out, we started making our way back towards downtown to run several errands. First we wanted to find a mechanic to get the tailpipe welded, as well as the skid-plate bolted back in, despite our totally rad baling wire job. Walking through town we got distracted as we found the local hardware shop. The nice guy behind the counter got us what he could [but not all we needed], and directed us further down the street to the moto repair shop to find the fuses we wanted for the fridge electrical plug. We were able to get what we needed, then meandered over to the mechanic's shop that was listed on our GPS map. Strolling up, we were equal parts confused over not seeing anyone there and amazed by the incredible overlanding vehicle / tourist vehicle that was parked next to the shop.

 Remodeling idea for us back in Madison?

 Would drive. 

“$1000 for it as is!” yelled a man to us from across the street. Intrigued [sorry Sweetcakes!], we went up to him and asked if it would be possible for us to get work done on our vehicle at this shop. The man told us of course, and we scheduled time for the following morning. Dusting our hands off and slapping each other on the back for hard work done [scheduled?] we proceeded to start the important part of our time in Cafayate: wine tours. (Also, we're basically wine tasting pros. We were in Napa in September, prime harvest time, and now March in Cafayate, also prime harvest time.)

 Not a bad $3. Torrontes is our new favorite white grape!

Our first stop was the Hermanos Domingo winery three blocks from our campsite. We strolled in, and hopped into the first tour that was going on. It reminded us of Napa, particularly the part where we made our way to the front to buy wine and saw the prices: 12, 25, 50. And then we remembered the price was in Pesos, so we should divide by 12.6 to find the price in USD. Bottles of wine for $.90? I'll take it! We settled for just a couple of bottles since we needed free hands for wine tastings at the other wineries we were heading to.

 Hahahhha those prices!

So America....why don't we do 5 liter wine bottles more often???

A short time later we were having trouble holding all the wine and were making our way to another shop when we hear a sound off to the side of the alley. Walking over, we found the cutest little black kitten sitting next to a concrete pipe mewing away. Bethany was instantly in love: petting it, hugging it, cradling it, asking me if we could keep it. “Where's its mommy?!?” she kept asking me. I convinced her that it had just snuck outside and that we should leave it so it could go home. We visited the next winery up the street, and Bethany had to broach the issue with the man there. He unfortunately informed us that people do indeed leave pets at wineries in Cafayate, hoping they'll have a nice home, but the wineries can't keep them because it's not hygenic. Bethany promptly wrapped things up so we could go find the kitten again. Luckily [thankfully?] it was nowhere to be found, hopefully back with its family.

 Bethany's bestest friend.  

Our last winery stop had us outside the front, wondering if we wanted to wait around for the last tour of the day. “What else are we going to do?” Bethany asked me. “Great point” came the reply from the other man standing out front biding his time. Amit told us he was from Ireland, but with the Irish accent, we initially thought he said 'Arlington' with a southern drawl. Le sigh, we're so American. The tour was nice and we continued trying new wines, touted in Cafayate because of the high altitude: 2300 meters, or 50% higher than Denver. This leads to very vibrant colors and strong flavors, not to mention the high alcohol content (some were 15-18%!). We discovered Torrontes and Tannat to add to the Malbec spectrum of amazing Argentinian wines.

 Blocks of pressed grape skins and seeds

That evening we made our way to a nearby restaurant that did Argentinian grill. We rolled in at 8:45 pm and were the first people in for dinner. Bethany and I have a long ways to go until we're used to the schedule here. The food was incredible, though, and we found ourselves loving the seasoned intestine, and wondering how feasible it would be to fry it up back home in Wisconsin.

 Argentina, I like your spirit.

The next morning saw us at the mechanic's shop; “we'll be ready in 15 minutes!” we were told at 10 minutes after 10, after being told to arrive at 10am. 45 minutes later they told us they weren't equipped to do welding, and would show us another shop in town that could do it. Turns out that was fine, though, as the new mechanic not only was happy to do the work, but after finding out about our trip wanted to talk about all the amazing places in western Argentina we could [should; WOULD] visit. He also explained that he would have to remove the muffler to do the welding work so the gas tank wouldn't go, “Boom!” (All this after what appears to be the standard Argentinian shake-down: How old are you? What were your previous jobs? [sidenote: it's not fun to try to explain healthcare IT and energy efficiency consulting in spanish] You don't have kids?!?)

 Never a dull moment with Sweetcakes! Although she sounded like a monster with this off.

Mechanic at ease; his assistant looking quite formal.

 Anything to get rid of squeaky bushings!

Several days and numerous wineries later, we were ready to leave Cafayate, but only after Bethany verified that the kitten couldn't be found and scuttled away with us. We also had filled our fridge completely with wine [11 bottles or so], and it was with grins that we drove away along Route 40, through beautiful valleys and mountains and....right into a road block.

 $9 for the tasting...but it's waived if we buy a bottle of wine for $5? I....I think you guys are doing it wrong.

 Life is good

 Wine making being in family? not a bad idea....
FYI, these three lines are sold in California. Keep your eyes out for 'em!

The road we approached was blocked with a half-assed cone and sign. In America, this means the road is closed. In South America, this means, “You look brave. Don't chicken out. Also, we're not liable.” We looked around ,but no one was there to verify for us, so we soldiered on as we saw another vehicle a mile or two ahead climbing into the mountains. Driving up, we appreciated the view and couldn't figure out what the deal was as the road was nicely paved tarmac. Then it turned to loose gravel and one lane construction. We passed a motorcycle coming down and stopped him to verify we could go through. Pausing, he looked at Sweetcakes dramatically, and then said we'd be fine. We continued on, through the construction zone and the sheer cliffs. We then pulled up short behind the vehicle we'd seen meandering up the road ahead of us. Three vehicles were pulled up short waiting. Hopping out, we asked what the deal was, and found out the road was closed and wouldn't open until the next morning at 7 am when the construction workers returned. “The road looks good over there!” we said, pointing around the next bend. We found out it was indeed good, but that they'd blocked the road with a pile of dirt to keep people from using the road on the weekend so they didn't need to keep people there to guide traffic through the one-lane construction zone.

Several people from the truck we'd been following were petulantly kicking rocks and half-heartedly moving some of the larger ones out of the way along the roadside, implying they still wanted to get through. FINALLY THE PREPARATION WAS COMING TO FRUITION. Striding back to the vehicle, I pulled out the trenching shovel we'd purchased for our bug-out bag and came walking back purposefully. I then started heaving dirt out of the way. The effect was immediate: everyone else jumped in, helping remove rocks to make it easier to shovel dirt, taking turns shoveling. 20 minutes later we felt comfortable to try and get a vehicle across....but we were going to be the test case since we had 4x4. Putting it in 4LO and coming up to the entrance, one of the bystanders waved his hands and started yelling advice to me in Spanish. I turned to Bethany, confused. “He...he says make sure to use 'double traction'.” she said, confusion and hilarity in her voice. “Oooo...oook.” I replied. DOUBLE TRACTION ENGAGE [said no one ever.] We made it across to cheers and clapping. Next up was the guy in the FWD mini cargo truck. With assistance from people pushing, he made it across as well. We loaded up, washed our hands, and hopped back on the road.

Teamwork! Comradarie! Anything to stick it to the construction workers!

We made our way towards the mountains and the Paso de Agua Negro, the highest pass between Chile and Argentina, at just over 4700 meters. Near the base we stopped at Argentinian migration, checked out, and were told we'd be stopped again in 40 km's for customs. Customs came, and with it a pretty intense questioning from the bored guys working there, not so much interested in what was in the vehicle but more in our setup. They also quite enjoyed sniffing things in the car, like the pipe tobacco and the lavender air freshener we had left over from Monica's wedding in September. The pass itself was fantastic; great views greeted us, with a fun drive that wasn't too nerve racking. Or rather, no longer nerve racking by our new standards of insanity.

And...we'll be going right up and over those huh?

Life at 14,000 feet

Can't help feeling a little intransigent with that background behind our dinky little man-made border.  Feels kinda arbitrary.

Coming out of the pass, we made our way towards Pisco Elqui, a valley along a river that ends with a village famous for it's Pisco [a brandy made from Moscato grapes] The valley itself is surrounded by desert, but the water coming down off the mountains provides enough for irrigation out of the steam, so the valley itself is quite green and plastered with vineyards.

The villages through the valley had numerous campsites [Chile and Argentina seriously love camping], but the first place we stopped at we were turned away because the owners weren't returning until tomorrow. But the gate was left open. Bravo team. We found a nice place tucked down a small street that was a converted farm / hippie commune. It had a natural pool [too cold to swim in] and nice facilities. We strode out into town that evening for dinner, first going to an empananda shop...that was closed for the day. No one was out...and all of the restaurants appeared closed. We found a place that was open to tourists though, and went inside. The food was extremely expensive. I got exactly what I ordered....which wasn't what I thought it would be. Dried beef was quite literally a small bowl of shredded jerky. We finished our food, angry at the price, the low quality, and how hungry we still were. Most places didn't even open until 7:30, so we figured we'd stop by the empanada place again now that it was 9pm and see if they were open. Huzzah! They were! We promptly ordered 8. “They're quite big” the woman advised us. “That's fine!” we replied, thinking of all the delicious leftovers. The variety she had was quite good, and we excitedly ate two, one of which seemed like an odd combination: Queso and Choclo. Chocolate and cheese seemed odd, and it was! Choclo is actually the word for corn kernals, so it was a bit of a surprise as we bit into that one.

We awoke the next morning excited to visit the Pisco distillery, but instead we had a flat tire. Thankfully it was one of the old tires, and after taking it off, we attempted to plug the hole using our plug kit. We did this with a puncture way back in Mexico during our second day in the country, but this hold turned out to be more of a split and less of a puncture. Despite cramming two sticky plugs into the crack, the air continued to hiss out, so we threw in the towel. We put the full-size spare on and proceeded to try and wash the copious amount of caked on mud off the tire. The pisco distillery was open, but we were an hour out from the next tour...and the cost was over $10 per person with a tasting. So we decided to skip the tour and buy a couple bottles of pisco instead. Checkmate, distillery.

Wine's so cheap here we use it for finding holes in tires!

Several hours later we were along the coast. Chile is skinny. We rolled into the city of La Serena and found a shop that did tires, but naturally they were closed for siesta. They reopened at 3, and we were first in. The woman helping us was nice, but it seemed like it was her first day on the job. Eventually, we had the paperwork done, and went out to have the vehicle worked on....but a big truck had just pulled in blocking access to the car ramp. “How long until they're finished unloading tires?” Bethany asked. “45 minutes.” was the reply. WOOOOOF. But thankfully they took a quick break to get another car off the ramp and ours on. After the balance and swap, we attempted to put our spare back up under the car....and the retractable wire got bound up on itself in it's mechanism. “We seriously can't get 5 minutes without something breaking,” we exclaimed. The mechanic attempted to lube it and get it back in, but we just weren't having luck. Eventually one of the side walls of the box for the wire to wind up into broke off and allowed Bethany to look into it. From there she could tell what we needed to straighten out a kink in the wire, and with the assistance of the mechanic we got it fixed.

A couple hours later we were back along the coast and out of the mountains. Ioverlander didn't have many camp options, but our GPS has several listed. The first place we checked out was charging $80/night for camping. Laughing, we turned around and left it, not at all surprised it was empty. We passed several other places for camping, clearly in a tourist zone. Most were closed however, but upon finally finding an open one, we rolled in and parked before we could hear differently. Walking up to the admin building....we found no one around but an open bottle of wine with perspiration on it. Figuring they'd be back shortly, we took a stroll over to the ocean and took a long walk along the beach, thereby fulfilling the prophecy as intended.

Returning, no one was still around. I took a walk around the campsite to see if we were actually on an abandoned Indian burial ground, and at the back found a house with a light on. Seeing someone through the window, I waved and they came out. Asking if they were open, I received the answer that they were not, but the lot across the highway was, and was part of the same park. We thanked them, and as we walked over to the other side, I told Bethany we weren't moving the car until we verified they were open. “Why'd you have to go poking around?” Bethany asked. Seeing no one on the other side, we crept back to our vehicle and decided we would plead if needed, but keep a low profile and hope we weren't bothered again. And that's exactly what happened. We happily took off the next morning, pleased at our stealth camping success.

The next day we arrived on Pichicuy beach bright and early. We drove past the town of Pichicuy to the open beach, sparsely populated with a few fisherman. Stopping, we aired down our tires like we had for the salar in Bolivia, but this time actually taking them down to sand level: ~14 PSI down from 36. Nice and squishy like, we made our way out over the sand and found a nice spot hidden behind some dunes. The day was a rough one of reading and listening to waves and music.

After relaxing on the beach, we made our way into Valparaisio along the coast again. As we approached the city, we kept wondering when we'd begin the descent, as we were getting awfully close to the sea...but still were over 1000 meters. Then we crested the hill:

Going down?

We were thankful yet again to have a small [by overlanding standards] vehicle, as the narrow steep roads wouldn't have been fun to navigate in anything bigger. We wound our way down, eventually finding the hostel we had been looking for, and the bonus was they had secure onsite parking! We pulled in, checked in, and snapped a picture of the great view we had.

From there, we celebrated being in a city by asking where the sushi restaurant was that was on the bird's eye map of Valpo. “Oh it's right up the street!” came the reply from our sassy young hostel boss. We stepped outside and started up the street; immediately stopping because the sushi place was literally next door. With a successful lunch under our belts, we read away the afternoon and built up a strong appetite, making our way to Cafe del Pintor for dinner. We basically stumbled to the place because we once again were trying to get dinner too early. It worked out quite well though, as this place had a friendly owner who spoke English and a set menu that KILLED. Smoked salmon fettuccine for me and lemon rockfish with mushroom risotto for Bethany. Love the culinary options in real cities.

I call this: Thursday

I loved all the street art and couldn't stop taking pictures. Here are a few of the inspiring scenes we found while roaming around the city.

Valpo is full of steep stairways, but thankfully the have acensores (funiculars) sprinkled throughout the city. They are a cheap and easy alternative to navigating the city's inclines.

Even their port is spunky.

Well this is just the best thing in the history of ever

The view afforded us the opportunity to look out over the densely packed houses and spot the cats frolicking on the roofs

Going down!

Beautiful sunset overlooking the port.

We'd thought about spending another day in Valparaiso, but there weren't a ton of "sites" to see. The charm in Valpo is walking around, soaking up the grungy/artistic atmosphere. We could have easily stayed another night, but Patagonia was calling.  The real kicker though was being able to get our reservation for the hotel in Santiago updated to 5 nights for the cost of 4, at the cost of all the remaining points we had. We didn't care though, and rushed towards Santiago, stopping in Casablanca valley to do some additional wine tours en route since we had time to kill. We were in for a rude awakening.

After what amounted to a background search trying to get into the winery, we quickly strolled into the lobby to try and catch a tour the security guard told us was just starting. “Do you have a reservation?” “No, but we hear a tour just started?” “Yes, sorry, you'll need to wait two hours without a reservation.” “Ooook? How much for a tour?” “Without a tasting, $12. With a tasting: $20 or $30 depending if you want the reserve wine or not.” It took every fiber not to burst out laughing or say, “Great! I'm looking forward to trying wine that's thirty times better than the Torrontes in Argentina- oh what's that – it's not you say? GOOD DAY MA'AM!” Instead we politely told them we'd return in two hours, driving past a BMW and people arriving to taste in suits. I don't think we were a good fit for them anyway.

Instead we gave Sweetcakes a quick bath at a gas station to get the seaspray off, and again found ourselves trying to contain laughter when the attendant told us their oil change service was $50 and didn't even include enough oil for our vehicle. We parked next to our hotel in Santiago, making our way over to the mall area and people watching with our ice cream. It felt like any mall in the states, which was a little weird after the rural areas we'd been in the last few weeks. Moseying over to the hotel at check-in time, we were ecstatic to hear about the exec lounge on the top floor we'd be spending our time in, as well as the access to the lounge for breakfast and cocktail hour. We were going out with a bang! We found ourselves leaving the hotel twice over the next 5 days: for a lunch one day and a dinner downtown another.

Bethany in planning mode.  When you have a bed, take advantage of it!

 Breakfast at the hotel can be unintentionally beautiful

 Wine flight; sure, we could have made our own, but this is good too.

"You are in one of the 25 best ice cream shops in the world." It was indeed pretty tasty. 

With that time finished, it's now time to head back out into the world and see if we forgot how to camp or not. It's going to be a whirlwind couple of weeks though, as we push towards Ushuaia before it gets much colder. The chase is on!