South America Day 41 - 43

Day 41 - A drive day today from Mendoza, crossing the Argentinian/Chilian border at Los Libertadores on a snowy mountain pass (near to Aconcagua) to Santiago, Chile.  When we woke though we were told the border crossing was closed due to snowfall the previous day, all the rain we had yesterday fell as snow on the high mountains.  There were a few panicky people as some had flights to catch home from Santiago the following day.  All turned out OK though, we were told the border had reopened and we could get on our way, just one hour later than planned.
We stopped just before the border to take photos of Aconcagua.  We reached the border at 3pm, we left at 5:30pm, a slightly shorter visit than our last border encounter!  

Descending the mountain pass we drove down a very windy road with loads of s-bends, it looked like a race track.  We arrived at our hostel, Happy House Hostel in Santiago around 8pm.  Another leg of our tour ends in Santiago thirteen people were leaving (seven of us continuing) so Me, Nigel, Ken and Haydee who are continuing with the trip went for a lovely meal first with Sadie, Tony, Lorraine and Franco who were leaving then joined the rest of the group back at the hostel for goodbye drinks.  We also met Oli, a new trainee crew member for Dragoman who is joining Vikki and Eoin, so we now have three crew.

Day 42 - We had a free day in Santiago, Chile's capital.  After breakfast we had a wander around the city.  A very modern city but it had a laid back feel for a capital city, there were lots of men in suits wandering around or drinking coffee at coffee bars, not appearing in any rush to get anywhere.  We stopped for lunch at an Italian cafe where we were served huge portions again of cannelloni and lasagne.  The portions sizes were huge last night too, one meal could serve two people.  We returned to our hostel for an afternoon siesta then at 6pm we had a trip meeting for the next three week leg down to Ushuaia and meet all the new passengers.  After the meeting we all went out for a meal.

Day 43 - We had a long drive day again today to Pucon, 700km, combining two days drive into one so we get an extra day in Pucon.  Amber was poorly again though, a clutch problem that keeps getting fixed then breaks again, we think there must be some underlying problem not being picked up by the mechanics.  Eoin and Oli stayed behind in Santiago to get Amber fixed, the rest of us with Vikki got a public bus to Pucon.  A really comfortable double decker tourist bus, with reclining seats, TV (films were in Spanish though), toilet etc. we might not want Amber back!  We hope Eoin and Oli can get Ambers problems sorted, she's breaking down too often now, the crew are not happy and we've all been very patient so far but many more problems and peoples patience will start running out.  We don't think the newbies are very impressed, a broken truck on their first day!  

We arrived in Pucon just after 10pm and were picked up by mini bus by our hostel owners and driven the short distance to our hostel, Backpackers.  After settling in we headed out again to the Backpackers office a short walk from the hostel where they run adventure trips.  Although we arrived late a lot of us had booked to climb Volcano Villarrica leaving early the next morning so we needed to get fitted out with gear then go food shopping for some packed lunch.  It was 1am before we got to bed.