On The Road Again (Mon 3/29)

Stats:
- 1 long bus ride
- 1 view of Acongaua
- highest border crossing ever (for us)

Today was all about the bus. From Mendoza, we headed south before turning west. Once westbound, the landscape grew increasing desolate and yet more dramatic.  The bus drove into the Andes.  The mountains were extremely steep, jagged, and rocky. The largest plants were tufts of dried grass about ten inches high and a few cactus of the same stature. It was barren. The roughness of the terrain looked like the glaciers left only yesterday or that the mountains were pushed up just last night. The road followed the Mendoza River. Of course, we scouted rapids from the bus.  A few days ago, we talked to a rafting company about kayaking the river. Once someone told us it was a 30 minute run, we decided it was too much overhead (van time) for such a short run.  Now, having looked the river over, we confirmed that it was a good decision to not paddle. The rapids were not that interesting. Plus, to be honest, I wasn't fully sold on paddling 47 degree water in someone else's gear and no nose plugs.  Our bus was a double decker and our seats were upstairs (yes, you have assigned seats like on a plane).  We sat so high above the road that one could get a bit of vertigo looking down the steep drop offs. 

Near the summit of the pass, we had our one view of Aconcagua. It tops out at almost 23,000 feet and is now the highest peak either of us has ever seen. Knowing the border crossing was ahead, I decided to use the bathroom on the bus. The light in the bathroom is through a window. Well, part way through my "business", the bus entered the seven kn tunnel. Lights? What lights?  Now, there were lots of handrails getting through the bus and down the stairs to the bathroom. Inside the bathroom, nada. I mean zip, zero, nada handrails. So, here I am hanging onto the door knob, peeing, in the dark as the bus drives through the tunnel.  I managed to finish the job and wash my hands in the dark. I felt my way out of the bathroom to the handrails up the stairs. Once upstairs, I took an open seat and waited for the bus to exit the tunnel before working my way back to where our seats were.

The pass topped out at roughly 10,000 feet. To cross the border, the bus was in line with a sea of trucks. It was a bit freaky to be sitting up higher than a semi-tractor trailor truck!  Between road construction and border delays, it took nearly two hours to cross. We wondered, was this factored into the seven hour estimate?  I will answer that now --- no.

Once through the border check, the road turned downhill. It was a white knuckle road with 28 switchbacks. We dropped 2000 feet in the first 9 "curvas".  They actual had signs posted numbering the curves. This was a very popular ski area with the Chileans. The road made several turns underneath the ski lift!  Maybe this gives you a better idea of the steepness of the landscape. It was wild watching a line up of trucks and buses driving super short and tight switchbacks down a black diamond run. The road dropped down to what I can only describe as a hanging valley. The far side of the valley was a steep drop and we couldn't see the road. Once the bus reached the end of the valley, we looked down what appeared to be more of a cliff that a place to put a road. Still, the road was a set of tightly stacked turns down the cliff. Do you remeber the game Mousetrap?  This looked more like a ramp for rolling marbles downhill that driving huge semi-trucks and double deck buses. On one side of the "drop", there was a small creek. It was so steep that the creek was entirely white water!  Eventually, we were down the pass and into the Aconcagua Valley. It is a wine and fruit growing region in Chile. As the bus rolled into Vina del Mar, we began to see signs of the earthquake. In several buildings, windows were broken and covered with plastic.  Others were wrapped in plastic police-type tape reading, "Peligro" --- danger. A few buildings lost sections of the roof. After leaving Vina del Mar, the bus headed 6 miles down the road to Valparaiso. Along the water, we passed a few old warehouses that collapsed during the quake. Once off the bus, we found a taxi to take us to our hotel. The driver seemed very surprised to see two Americans. He said all the tourists left the day after the earthquake and they have not returned. His question was, "Tiene miedo?" In other words: are you afraid?  We explained that we lived in San Francisco for many years and lived through a big earthquake. Secretly, I think he thought we were a bit crazy. Valparaiso is a long way from the epicenter of the quake (several hundred miles).

Our hotel is a small inn and the rooms are mini-apartment lofts. The woman that checked us in made us pisco sours before we left to have dinner. She is a lawyer and studied at Northwestern for her last semester. She couldn't imagine growing up in the cold Chicago winters. She is from Santiago. In Chile, lawyers are required to do six months of pro-bono work before they begin their law career. She is in Valpo doing her six month stint. She said she slept through the quake, but when she turned up at the inn all the guests were in a panic. Everyone checked out that day and headed to Santiago. Let me see if I have this right --- the morning after an 8.8 quake they got in cars and buses to drive over roads in unknown conditions to reach a location closer to the epicenter. Hmm...now might not be a good time to admit what I did after the 7.2 in San Francisco. 

Our dinner was close by and we both had fish. It was okay. The best restaurants are all closed on Monday night. Figures.