San Pedro de Atacama, Salta and Mendoza

We arrived at the Chilean border tired and grumpy after the 5am start whilst still on the Salar tour. Our entrance into Chile was via the Atacama desert, known as the driest desert in the world.

The town is an oasis in this sprawling expanse and is pleasant enough with whitewashed buildings and a tree lined square. Because of many contributing factors (high altitude and crystal clear desert nights being the most important) San Pedro is an ideal place to go stargazing. We booked on a tour and at 9pm boarded a bus out into the darkness.

Snail

The location of the stargazing was just outside town and our guide to the night skies was an enthusiastic Canadian astronomer. Now that the light from the town had petered out it was possible to see clearly the star strewn skies above. The moonlight was very strong, but even with this to contend with there was an abundance of stars. Our guide spoke about the history of astronomy and then began to point out planets and galaxies with a really cool laser pointy thingy. Then the best bit began… telescopes! There were around 10 to choose from each focussed on a different astral object. My two favourite were those pointing at the moon. It was so bright and the telescopes so strong that you could see crevices and valleys and mountains very clearly on the chalky looking ground. Our guide took a picture with our camera through the telescope! I swear to god that is the bona fide moon you see below!

La luna

After a couple of nights we left San Pedro to cross the border bound for Salta, Argentina. The bus was during the day and wound its way around the mountains, slowly descending from the heights of Atacama. Once we crossed the border things began to change, the little houses made with mud bricks were now replaced with concrete structures, there was more traffic, road markings and rubbish. On coming into the moderately sized city of Salta it already seemed more European, more familiar.

Down down down down

Our little hostel was really friendly and we had a fun few days adjusting to the new country and chilling out with the staff and other guests. The main thing that shocked us on arrival into Argentina was the price of everything. With an unofficial (but undoubtedly real) annual inflation rate of around 25%, our two year old guidebook was totally out of date regarding prices. Time to increase the budget!

Not letting this put us off we went out for our first steak dinner, and realised that most of the restaurants in Salta also include a Peña, a show of music and dance for customers while they dine. Unfortunately the dinner wasn't great, but the Peña was excellent! 

Singin' and dancin'

After a few days, we carried on south to Mendoza, the sunny heart of the main wine producing region in Argentina. I expected a small town with a pretty square and vineyards all around but after another 18hour bus journey I quickly realised the city is practically the same size as Dublin!

We booked onto a wine bicycle tour. Even though drunk cycling sounds like a mental idea, this is the typical way to see a few vineyards in a day because the distances are not that great. It turned out that the group consisted of just us two and a lovely Swiss guide so we had a private tour, noice!

Still sober, we started at an old bodega that no longer produces but has a beautiful collection of French oak barrels (including the mammoth below).

In bodega Giol

After this we had our first tasting of red, white and dessert wine and wobbled along on the bikes on to bodega Lopez, a huge wine producer a few kilometres away. I drink a lot of wine but I'm ashamedly lacking in knowledge on production, and it was great to learn a little more. For example the skin of the grape goes into making red wine and that renders it full of anti oxidants.. ergo drinking red wine is good for you! Yippee! A lunch of empanadas was followed by a trip to another vineyard, where they produce organic wines. This was a much smaller operation in a beautiful setting.

Already a bit wobbly

The reason the Mendoza area is so well disposed towards wine production is that the area is in fact a desert, but receives irrigation from a glacier nearby. Therefore the soil is very dry and there are low night time temperatures and high day time temperatures, all of which result in hardy vines that rarely get any diseases.

Yum yum

After some more wine we wobbled back to get a lift home and en route I fell off the bike. (It had to happen eventually.)

On our last day in Mendoza we spent a very relaxing few hours in a thermal spa soaking up the last bit of sun going. Next stop Bariloche and the beginning of our Patagonian adventure!