The South America Chronicles - Dieciséis & Ultimo

It’s taken me a while to post the final blog for the South American Chronicles, but it is so exciting being back in NZ it has been hard to find the time. OK, that’s not true, but lets get back to those last fond memories….

It was our last night in Argentina, and what else could possibly be on the agenda than one final Argentinean steak. Though, after treating ourselves to such fine food over the past couple of days, we restricted ourselves to sharing one (massive) Bife de Chorizo. And we were very pleased with our last steak, as it was one of the better Bife de Chorizos we had had.

After a bit of a late night – we only stayed out to 4am, but the bar at the hostel we were staying at, that we were told closed at 2am, kicked on to 6am – we had to get up in the morning to say farewell to Argentina and face the border crossing with Chile once again. And if we thought it was bad three days earlier trying to get into Argentina, it was much worse going the other way. In all, we spent a ridiculous five hours at the border, most of that just sitting in the queue. It was so bad that I actually saw they had a big news bulletin on it the next night. Despite the slowness of the passport control queues (you have to go through both the Argentinean emigration and the Chilean immigration), it is the baggage check that Chile goes through that really slows you down. You would think that with it being the last day of a long weekend where half of Chile went over to Mendoza they would put more than one person on to check all the bags of people traveling on buses and minivans! And then the bag check is ridiculous anyway, as I forgot that I had my backpack at my feet and it never got checked - so what’s the point if they are going to be so useless about it? The only one who looked like he had any brains in the whole outfit was the one with ‘Detective’ on his jacket – and that was the drug-sniffer dog. So after a frustrating day spent waiting high up in the Andes we finally made our back into Chile, the only benefit of the delay being the sunset over all the vineyards as we headed towards Santiago.

Generally, Santiago itself isn’t talked up much, and we only had the one night and the next day there before we flew back to NZ. But after our short time there, we think it doesn’t deserve its bad rap. We found it to be a pretty cool and chilled out city, one where you could easily relax in the good restaurants, bars and cafes that are about. Our last day was beautifully sunny and hot – which always helps – and we had a casual day wandering around the city. There aren’t a lot of tourist sites, but there are plenty of nice areas to just hang out. In the morning we climb up the Cerro Santa Lucia, a 70m high cone of volcanic rock right in the heart of the city, offering superb views of Santiago’s setting right at the base of the Andes, surrounded by mountains and hills and peppered with these volcanic cones of differing heights. Santiago also has some very impressive architecture (Mike, you would be creaming your jeans around here), with what seems to be buildings of every era amidst some impressive skyscraper design. On a high from a Starbucks coffee (sounds lame I know, but it seemed an oasis when we spied it across the road) and sushi for lunch, we had a casual afternoon, not doing too much except taking in the city.

This last afternoon finished most bizarrely however. After spending three months backpacking around South America, we found ourselves relaxing in the plush surroundings of the Santiago Ritz Carlton. By way of explanation, I had been in search of a particular beer – those of the Szot microbrewery – which are the highest rated of Chilean beers. Oddly, the only place to have them in Santiago seems to be either the Sheraton or the Ritz Carlton. So there we were, sitting back in leather chairs in our shorts and sandals, me sipping on the delicious Szot beers and Anna on her Pisco Sours, listening to the sweet sounds of 80s music....I heard more 80s music in Chile and Argentina than I had in a long time. I’m not sure what the fascination is, but it is difficult to picture these Salsa and Tango dancing South Americans grooving away to Simply Red and Tears for Fears (I think I’ve heard enough of that Mick Hucknall to last me a lifetime!).

Our last night in South America finished much in the same spirit of the previous few weeks – gorging ourselves on food and getting drunk. Probably not the best preparation for a 13 hour flight, especially when that flight is delayed five hours! Yes, our ‘luck’ with flying continued right to the end – I worked out that of the 10 flights we had in our journey, only 4 actually went as per schedule (one never left at all). So our last few hours in South America were spent lounging in the Santiago airport, not even being able to make the most of the free food and drink as we had topped out earlier that evening. The only relief being watching the fiery Latin Americans have a go at the poor guys behind the counter and then at each other, and finding out that The Killers were on our same flight and then watching them get more and more pissed as they walked back and forwards from the bar to the smoking lounge.

The flight itself went very smoothly and it probably wasn’t a bad thing touching down back in NZ at 9am rather than 4am. Especially for Tom who came to pick us up! The first few days have felt very strange – made much easier by catching up with Rae & Tom and lots of drinking. We’ve also caught up on all those NZ goodies like Fush’n’Chups, Munce Pies, and the great cafes. We still walk around thinking “where are all the people” (but then see them all sitting in their cars on the motorway). Everyone is so friendly (except when they are in a car again) and we even know what they are saying to us, and the weather has been great. We now just have the fun tasks of finding somewhere to live and returning to work….

What a great three months it was traveling through South America – so many fun times. I can't recommend it to anyone more than enough, especially Argentina, which now battles away with Italy as being our favourite country. I certainly hope we make it back there again.

From my extensive Spanish vocabulary of eight and a half words, this is the South American Chronicles signing off….
Adios