Difficult decisions in Chilie and Argentina

Dec 20/12/16- Jan 8/1/17

San Pedro in Chilie is a small oasis town with a quirky hippy feel where I could easily have immersed myself there for at least a week. The town was full of little boutique shops selling handmade or fair trade products and lots of restaurants with amazing food lining the main tourist street. Just outside the main town was Moon Valley ; the rock formations really do allow your imagination to believe that you are on some other planet. To finish off the day in the desert we watched the sunset from one of mountains with about 200 other tourists. before arriving in Chilie I had wanted to go Stargazing in the desert and San Pedro was famous for this with a world famous observatory. Thousands of twinkling lights shinning down on me as I stepped off the bus just about rendered me speechless. I don’t know much about astrology but our guide was very knowledgeable and showed us all the constellations and star formations, planets and how it all works, a big highlight was to finally see shooting stars and the Milky Way clearly. We had the chance to look through some powerful telescopes at different stars and things like gas clouds with dead stars in them. The only downside to the stargazing was we got back at 2.30am and had to be up at 5am for a long drive to Salta.

The border crossing into Argentina was a bit brutal, it took about 2 hours, we had to stamp in and out but we also had to take all our bags off the truck and have them scanned. We arrived in Salta Christmas Eve, most things were shut, as Christmas Eve is celebrated in South America but we found an ATM and an open restaurant. Christmas morning we had breakfast and did our secret Santa gifts. I went for a swim and used the sauna in the vain hope of trying to get fitter again after my illness in Peru and Bolivia. We went to a hostel outside of the city for lunch, which consisted of a chicken BBQ, everyone made an effort and wore there Christmas hats, the guides even dressed up as elves and Santa clause. It was a nice day but no patch on a Christmas in the UK; I will just have to make up for it next year. Staying at an Estancia with real life gauchos was a fun experience. I haven’t been horse riding for at least 10 years and my thighs definitely felt that the following day, I was trying my hardest not to do a John Wayne impersonation for the next 3 days. The cowboys sure knew how to feed each and us lunch consisted of a Steak BBQ with all the trimmings. I can honestly say that the reputation of good steak in Argentina did not disappoint!

We arrived in Mendoza for New Years Eve, which was another BBQ at another local hostel. The food was terrible and I wasn’t in the mood so left about 11pm and slept through New Year, I really hope its not a sign as to how 2017 will pan out. I will make up for this appalling effort next year.

Driving towards Santiago we drove through the Andes and passed the snow capped Aconcagua Mountain, which is the highest mountain in the southern hemisphere. The scenery was beautiful and it lead us straight to the border to re-enter Chilie. Now I said the last crossing was brutal, well I was grossly misinformed and this one took us 6 hours to get through. What amazes me is the border office just shuts up for lunch regardless to the 5-mile queue that was quickly backing up the road, I can only imagine what the daily mail would say if it happened in the UK. We finally made it through and headed towards the city. This was to be my last drive on the truck; I made a painful decision on the drive that day to leave the trip 8 weeks early. There have been many ups and downs on this trip but ultimately I’m not happy, I am devastated that I am leaving before reaching Patagonia and Brazil but I do not want to be in an environment that is causing me to be to be so unhappy. I don’t have the money to be able to carry on independently as it all went on the overland trip, so my options are to head back to the UK with my tail between my legs or see of I can get to my internship earlier. So I booked into a hotel in Santiago for a few days and started planning my options.

Santiago is a great city, its very cosmopolitan in feel and not dissimilar to a European city with its historical past but modern life including sky scrappers, lots of different areas for different things and a metro system. Para Le Tierra replied straight away and amazingly said I could head to my internship straight away but I needed to change the clothing in my pack for more summer clothes. I decided to brave the metro; my hesitation only from not speaking the language but the man at the hotel ensured me that it was simple and safe to use. He was right I managed to get to the shopping mall without any major issues. The shopping mall was bliss; there were lots of British shops there, top shop, H&M, Gap, Oasis etc. and to top it all off a lush! I could get my face cream and hair conditioner it really is the little things that keep me happy. I received some devastating news from home that food could not be sent into Paraguay so my care package that was being sent out with marmite and salt and vinegar crisp could not be sent. With a little bit of research I found a little shop in the posh part of town that sold imported food including marmite and salt and vinegar crisps, I could have cried when I walked in. I must be crazy though as I happily paid £6 for the jar of marmite, my only regret being that I didn’t buy 2 jars. I was one of these shameless tourists that took their jar of marmite down to breakfast and proper English breakfast teabags, but I’m not even slightly embarrassed.

More drama getting to Paraguay. I got to the airport and my flight was delayed which resulted in missing my connecting flight in Buenos Aries, I was moved to a later flight which when I got on the plane the heavens opened and we had to sit on the tarmac for 2 hours. There was a moment (a long one) where I was tempted to just book a flight back to the UK, I’m just not sure how much drama I can take. The flight with connections should have taken 5 hours but in total it took 17 hours. I arrived at the hotel at 4am, I had booked a really fancy hotel for 2 nights just because I could, and I literally melted into the bed and sleep soundly for a few hours. I spent the day just resting and recouping before heading off into the unknown of my internship.

Arriving at the bus stop there was a hive of people rushing around and busses coming and going. I found the stop but surprise surprise the bus was not there. I hovered around and then a local came over to speak to me, he spoke good English. He told me he learnt English from the peace corps that volunteered in his town, we were getting the same bus and it was nice to chat with someone. On the bus I had seat number 51 the seats went up to 30! I sat next to my new friend but half expected to get turfed off the bus in the middle of nowhere but thankfully I managed to get to Santa Rosa 5 hours later as expected. I arrived at the field research center to the views of a beautiful blue lake and white sand beach. There are worse places to be I guess, the only problem is it’s the height of summer at the moment and temperatures hit 35-40 degrees most days the only hope is a bit of rain to cool things down. My first week at the reserve was getting acclimatized to the area. I am still struggling with the effects of Giardia and my first day going out to do field work did not go so well, I had some grave reservations about staying in Paraguay due to my health. Speaking to the intern supervisor it was decided I would change projects to a less strenuous one. I will be spending the next 3 months identifying and cataloging butterflies of the reserve, which will involve me heading out most days to catch butterflies and go through the collections. Although its very different from the original plan, taxonomy is something I have done very little of so it will be nice to develop a new skill. I have also made a decision that I will be returning to the UK in 12 weeks rather than head into Brazil. I’m going to postpone my plans for Brazil until next year when hopefully my little parasite friend will be gone and I will have a new camera lens (mine is not working, not good when there’s lots of things to photograph). I’m going to sign off from the blog whilst I’m here at my internship, I am going to be quite busy and the Internet connections are pretty poor to get it on the website. So as they say, to be continued…