Erik's entry:Uspallata (oos-pai-shah-tah). Nope, I'd never heard of it, either, but apparently it's where they filmed "7 years in Tibet." I'm not that weird kind of film nut who seeks out shooting locales, and I've never even seen the film, but the fact that the terrain is so varied and beautiful that one might mistake it for Tibet was enough to sell me on a short sojourn there. Besides, it was on the way to Chile, where we were heading anyway.
Unfortunately, our timing killed us again. It was prime winter holiday, and Uspallata is a prime skiing location. There was not a cheap hotel room to be had in town. Luckily, just out of town was an affordable and very clean hostel. Not the "partying hippie backpacker" type of hostel, but one filled with families trying to make a skiing vacation affordable. It was comfortable, on beautiful grounds with a goose/duck pond in the middle, and the Andes dominating the background on one side, and the "cordillera" (foothills, but don't tell them that, they're huge) on the other. It was really an idealic setting, except for that walk into town. Only 15 minutes, but it was COLD and we had to walk along the major international thoroughfare leading to Chile, so we had huge trucks and buses wooshing past us all the time, in deafening rushes of noise, wind and dust. We tried not to walk into town too often!
Despite the temptation to hit the slopes, though, I opted against it, as my knee has been iffy since the Moskitia, and our budget was stretched thin in Argentina as it was. Instead we just hung around the next day, taking in the spectacular scenery. Besides we were very eager to get to Chile, and finally get a little variation in our diet (oh, yeah, and meet new people, see a new country, all that stuff...). Chile has seafood, and Talor loves seafood.
The trip across the Andes into Chile was the most beautiful bus ride I'd ever been on. In the course of a few hours, you see desert, multi-red-hued foothills, dramatic cliffs, snow-topped, jagged peaks, ski slopes etc. On the Chilean side as you descend, the ski slopes give way to hills draped in vineyards and valleys green with produce. It was really an amazing ride, except for the 2+ hours we had to spend in customs. Line after line after line. We were a bit anxious going through customs as well, as we'd heard that there was a new $131 "reciprocity tax" for Americans entering Chile. (Reciprocal, as they only instituted it in response to the US charging that for Chileans entering our country.
) We really didn't have $262 to just throw away, but we heard a rumor that they only enforced it at the airport, not at road frontiers. So we were biting our nails a little as we handed over our passports, but not only did they not charge us the huge fee, they didn't charge us anything at all - the first time in all our travels we'd been allowed into a country for free. Woohoo! They did make us eat our bananas before we crossed the border, though. Fair enough...
) We really didn't have $262 to just throw away, but we heard a rumor that they only enforced it at the airport, not at road frontiers. So we were biting our nails a little as we handed over our passports, but not only did they not charge us the huge fee, they didn't charge us anything at all - the first time in all our travels we'd been allowed into a country for free. Woohoo! They did make us eat our bananas before we crossed the border, though. Fair enough...Photos of Uspallata and the Andes passage: http://picasaweb.google.com/erikandtalor/Uspallata
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