arrival!

well! we made it. we have arrived in mendoza and are basking in the sun. it is the middle/end of winter here, but the short days are sunny and warm. our moods are swinging up and being reminded of balance.

we arrived in santiago, chile last sunday, to quickly learn that the mountain pass over to mendoza was closed--so there was no bus riding that day. we bunked into a hostel that happened to be across the street, chatting with the skiers from Spain and the traveling girls from Germany.

the next day, the pass opened and we crossed without hassle.

here's a funny thing about visiting chile: we had to pay a "reciprocity" fee upon landing. and now, for the LIFE of our passports, we can come to chile without paying again. interesting.

the drive over the andes was nothing short of incredible. i kept trying to think of places it reminded me of, but I couldn’t think of any. It was absolutely outside of my realm of experiences. On the Chilean side, it looked a little like the low scrub brush of eastern Oregon, but with more trees and greener. The steep-steepness of the andes was astounding—and I’m just glad I wasn’t driving our bus (or at all, for that matter. We passed through this ski area that goes right over the road! At the pass, we had to wait around outside to first leave chile and then enter argentina. I think that means that for at least 30 minutes we were literally in no country at all.

The landscape shifted quickly after we entered argentina—less snow immediately and the land we could see was this startling red. The first time I drove south on 95 from Maryland to North Carolina, I was amazed by the red land, but it was nothing like this. The semi-scrub of Eastern Oregon returned, but this time without the trees.

Driving into Mendoza, we spotted a Wal-Mart Supercenter on our left. Wow.