Right now we are sort of stuck in de desert of San Pedro de Atacama at an altitude of 2400 meters.
But now first how we got here:

In Mendoza we really had a great time in de hotsprings (got terribly sunburned though). Really a great day of complete relaxation!
The wine tour was great as well

We also tasted rose Malbec. We never tasted this before.
Que rico! The bus trip to Santiago was great as well, crossing the Andes. Really impressive.

But the most impressive was Santiago! All travelguides and a lot of people rave about Buenos Aires. How great it is. And Santiago mostly get`s mild reviews. But we do not agree! Au contraire!
Santiago is great, better than Buenos Aires. More beautiful, much better food, nicer people, more relaxed, better metro system, everything can be done by foot.
So we spent three full days in Santiago, crossing the city on foot, eating, drinking real coffee, seeing musea, relaxing in the parks. We visited La Chascona, the house of Pablo Neruda. What an impressive life story this writer had. Wealso walked one afternoon with a guide through the city, and discussed many subjects likeChilean food,movies, and cities but also ´heavier´ subjects like politics. It is amazing how openand wise young people we met talk about the Pinochet era. And his influencecan sadly be noticed until today!

We also had lunch in the famous fish market of Santiago were we tried the famous paila marina (vis pannetje). A soup with all kinds of seafood, which we could point out afterwards in the market. I don`t know what we ate actually, some sort of seacucumber and a few other things which I really could not give a name or place. But an experience it was!
In between we visited Valparaiso, a real harbour town 2 hours from Santiago.
Valparaiso is build onmany hills. There are 15 funiculars that can bring you up and down the hills. Up on the hills you have great views of the city and the bay.
The old harbour district is really run down. But some other barrios really have a great vibe, with nice coffeeshops, artisan workshops (go linkse hobbies go!)restaurants, shops and galleries, nice colored houses. Also the markets are really a treat to walk around on.
We had a really great time in Santiagoand were really sad that we had to leave. We really recommend Santiago to everyone (over Buenos Aires).

In Puerto Natales we deceided to book a flight from Santiago to San Pedro de Atacama. In stead of a busride of 24 hours. Actually we flew to Calama and than took the bus for 2 hours to San Pedro de Atacama.
San Pedro is really a different world. A real desert town. The center of town is actually quite nice with lots of restaurants, cobbled streets, handycraft stores and white adobehouses. (The pictures in the picturegallery of the streets of San Pedro are actually of the backstreets.)
We spent three days doing all kinds of trips. To the Moon valley, salt lakes and the Tatio geysers at 4200 meters. Getting up at 3:30 hours in the morning! Stargazing at 1:00 hours at night. Seeing Saturn and it´s rings through a telescope. It was really fantastic, until we got back from the geysers.
Suzan got a light form of altitudesickness. So to be safe we deceided not to proceed into Bolivia at this time. A great part of Bolivia is around 4000 meters above sealevel.
We will spend 2 more days in San Pedro for Suzan to get well again and then head down to the coast again.
All plans thus change drastically, but that´s the challenge! New destinations, new things to see and discover

And we will try to conquer the hights of Bolivia later. Better prepared, with quicker options to get back down to lower altitudes.

Let´s find out what Iquique and Arica (beach-boy-beach-babe towns) have to offer. Surf´s up!