==================
The trip from Mendoza, Argentina to Santiago in Chile crossed the Andes. The border crossing was very chaotic, with many people travelling as it was just before the New Year. It took about 3 hours to clear immigration, but the wait was worth it on the ascent down the Andes to Santiago.
New Year's Eve
===================
We were lucky enough to be staying in a 25 storey apartment complex in the centre of town. We were able to get onto the roof of the building for the New Year's Eve fireworks that were taking place about 2 blocks from where we were. They lasted about half an hour or so, and we could see and hear parties continuing in our building throughout the night.
Museum of Memory and Human Rights
============================
The ex-President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, was one of Augusto Pinochet's many victims. Although she survived his prison camp, many thousands didn't. Just before she left office in 2010, she was the driving force behind a new museum in Santiago - the Museum of Memory Human Rights. This documents the coup against Salvador Allende on September 11th, 1973, the aftermath of the coup, the prison camps, the disappeared, and the search for justice. It's a great memorial to all those who suffered during the dictatorship.
The miners
=======================
Chile is famous for its mines - copper in particular. We spent half a day in a city called Copiapo, near where the Chilean Mining Incident happened in 2010, where 33 miners spent 69 days underground before being rescued. We met a taxi-driver who had worked in that mine before that incident. He told us the work was hard and that he's too old for it now, but that for many people the salaries offered are relatively high by Chilean standards. On the way to the Atacama Desert in the north, where there are lots of mines, we were in buses with lots of miners on their way to work. They got off at various stages of the journey and were picked up in trucks - off to start another stint underground.
The Atacama Desert
===========================
The Atacama Desert is the driest place in the world. We travelled for about 7 hours through the desert and saw nothing but hard sand plains - it was one of the most amazing sights we've ever seen. Desert scenes in films do no justice to the real thing! The reason for our journey through the desert was to get to a place called San Pedro de Atacama which is a small town on the Chilean/Argentinian/ Bolivian border. We wanted to take a stargazing tour with a French Astrologist that is located there. He owns an ELT (extremely large telescope), as he calls it. San Pedro de Atacama gets 360 clear sky nights per year and is one of the best places in the world to see the stars and planets in all of their glory, however, as Murphy’s Law would have it we arrived during a full moon and we brought the clouds with us so the notice on the door spelt it out......All tours cancelled!!!
Geysers
==========
All was not lost when our stargazing tour was cancelled - it gave us the opportunity to take an early morning tour to see the highest geysers in the world at 4,300 metres above sea level. With the landscape having received a battering from the rain the evening before, we set off in a transit van on a fairly hair raising journey to the geyser fields. What a sight to behold at 6.30am - steam gushing high into the sky from bubbling pools of water surrounded by snow covered mountains with wandering llambas spread about the place - and the temperature at minus ten. The power of nature is something else! We both felt a little woozy from the altitude as we ate our geyser cooked boiled eggs and drank our naturally warmed chocolate milk. We finished it all off by taking a dip in the thermal spring - it's a tough life!
