Last Days in South America

We are now back in the UK, having travelled from Uruguay back into Argentina, flown to Belgium via Spain, attended a wedding in the Netherlands and returned home via Belgium (again) and France. Therefore, this will be our last blog post about new places, although we do have some summaries lined up.

Tree-lined avenue in Colonia del Sacramento

I'll pick the story up in Uruguay, where we had just arrived in Colonia del Sacramento. This is one of the oldest towns in Uruguay, originally founded by the Portuguese in 1680, but changed hands between them and the Spanish continuously (much like the country itself) until Uruguay's independence in 1830. Some of the cobbled streets are from the original Portuguese settlement and the historic centre is a UNESCO world heritage site. The tree-lined avenues and old buildings are very beautiful, especially when illuminated by colourful sunsets.

Lighthouse, built inside an old monastery in Colonia del Sacramento

Although Colonia is just over the Rio de la Plata river from Buenos Aires, and there is a rapid ferry connecting the two cities, we wanted to visit Carmelo before making the crossing. This town is famous in Uruguay, but unfortunately not the world, for its wine - especially the tannat variety. We visited a small, family-run bodega, which was superb. It was started by the current owner's grandfather and his brother, but they then had to sell a lot of the land in an economic crisis. It's now been bought back and they've started producing wine again, hence the name 'El Legado' - 'The Legacy'. Not only were the family very friendly and excited about their wine, but we got to enjoy several refills and even drew a glass from a barrel using a large pipette.

Pipetting wine from the barrel

From Carmelo, we returned to Buenos Aires via a short ferry ride across to the northern suburb of Tigre. This time, we stayed in the upmarket area of Palermo to get a different feel for the city to the more touristy San Telmo. The area is a lot greener, with lots of big parks, and also with many cafes and bars. We met up with a friend from home who has been living there for nearly a year, so it was good to get a more local perspective of the rewards and the challenges of living in Argentina.

The Floralis Generica sculpture in Buenos Aires - opening and closing with sunrise and sunset

This was our last stop in South America, after spending nearly 16 months on the continent. We flew back to Brussels via Madrid and spent a night in Bruges. This was a good stop before crossing into the Netherlands for the wonderful wedding of one of my best friends, before taking the ferry from Dunkirk back to Dover. For all of these stories, you'll just have to meet up and speak to us.

Wine Tasting (and a Run In with the Police)

We had been looking forward to visiting Mendoza for a while, for several reasons. Firstly, we'd arranged to reunite with our London friends Ralph and Shehnaaz there. Secondly, we hoped the climate might be a bit more forgiving - it's been pretty cold and grey for us recently but Mendoza is known for its sunny skies and lack of rain. And thirdly, it is of course Argentina's capital of wine. Buy any Argentinian wine in the UK, and the chances are pretty high that it's from Mendoza (and that it's a Malbec)! Arriving in the city in the late afternoon, alas, we were to be disappointed on the second of these counts - it was 8 degrees and tipping it down with rain. Ah well. Unfortunately, this weather continued for the majority of our time round Mendoza, but this did not impact too much on our enjoyment.

Wine tasting at Tempus Alba winery, in Maipú

Ralph and Shehnaaz met us on our first evening in Mendoza - we'd not realised they were intending to stay at the same hostel as us, so were surprised to hear familiar English voices downstairs! It was great to see them again and exchange stories of our very different last three months or so since we were last together in Colombia. While we'd been making haste through the Guyanas, Brazil and Paraguay, Ralph and Shehnaaz had spent the majority of their time driving through Patagonia in a van they'd hired and then converted themselves into a camper van. We had a look at the inside of the van (very impressive) and even had a ride in the back several times, slightly illegally!

We spent a day in Mendoza itself, wandering around chatting and avoiding the enormous holes in the road. Mendoza has huge drainage channels going down either side of its roads, and they aren't covered at all, so you frequently find yourself having to jump quite a distance to avoid falling in! There isn't actually a lot to see or do in the city - it's a pleasant enough place, with tree lined avenues and lots of squares, but few major sights to see. We did climb up to the top floor of the city hall, where there was a terrace with a view of the city. This was nice despite the grey skies. While we couldn't see much of the surrounding mountains (we're assured they do exist!) the view of the city itself helped to emphasise just how green (well, more yellow, orange and red, in this season) Mendoza is - there really are a lot more trees than your average city.

The two wines we managed to taste in Trapiche winery, Maipú

Of course, Mendoza's main draw is the surrounding wine growing region, and we duly spent most of our time in a couple of nearby towns that had plenty of bodegas for wine tasting. We made a point of avoiding the ridiculously overpriced tours that most people take to visit wineries near here, as it is perfectly possible to go independently to a lot of places. Our wine tasting adventures began with a day trip to the Maipú area (not to be confused with Chile's Maipo valley, also a wine region) an hour or so outside the city. Kev and I took the bus, while Ralph and Shehnaaz drove. Our hostel had recommended a winery called Trapiche, so we headed there first. Unfortunately, the man at the gatehouse told us we couldn't go in until 3pm, even though we only wanted to do a tasting, not the scheduled 3pm tour. We sat eating lunch in the back of the others' van for the required half an hour, and on entering the winery were told, oh, you only wanted to do a tasting, you could have come in straight away! Slightly frustrating!

A flock of geese in the grounds behind Trapiche winery

The winery was lovely, with a cool glass floor through which you could see barrels and barrels of maturing wine, some of them absolutely enormous, on the floor below. But sadly the tasting experience wasn't so good. The guy who'd let us in showed us to a table, plonked 2 bottles of wine and some glasses in front of us, and just left us to it! We weren't offered any information about the wines or the winery whatsoever, and both wines were straight out of a store cupboard so the white was too warm and the red too cold. We were a bit disappointed as we'd hoped for a better tasting experience here than in Cafayate, but again it seemed that staff could not really be bothered at all... unless you'd paid twice as much to do the guided tour as well as the tasting. We saw a group finishing their tour, upon which they got to try three wines, all well kept, with pourers on the bottles, and all introduced beforehand by a member of staff.  Still, maybe this was just bad luck, we thought, and drove on in the van to a different winery a few km down the road.

The next winery we tried was called El Cerno, and we arrived just as a lady from the winery was welcoming a tour group. The four of us stood awkwardly at the back, and were completely ignored by the staff - it was as if we didn't exist! Rude, we thought, and eventually decided to go across the road to a different place, leaving the van at El Cerno. This third winery, Tempus Alba, was much more of a success. We got to try six different reds, including a Merlot, Syrah and Tempranillo, which are a bit more unusual in Argentina. We had fun trying to identify them in a blind taste test, at which we all did surprisingly well. All the wines were very good, although the staff again just poured out the glasses and left us to it!

Autumnal vineyards under cloudy skies in Maipú

When we returned to El Cerno just before 6pm we had a shock: as we walked down the drive, we saw all the staff standing outside in their coats, clearly waiting for us to come back. Worse, we were overtaken on the drive by a police car! The winery closes at 6pm, and the staff, not knowing where the van had come from, had called the police. It seemed, to us, a bit premature to call them before it was even closing time... but there you go. Embarrassed, we did our best to explain (in Spanish of course) that we'd planned to come back for a tasting here and hadn't known it would be closed. The staff denied ignoring us when we first arrived - a complete lie! Luckily, the police seemed more amused than anything else, and we were able to leave with no problems (Kev and I thought it wise not to get in the back of the van this time though!).

Ralph and Shehnaaz camped in their van that night, while we returned to the hostel in Mendoza, and we reconvened the next day in Tupungato, in the Valle del Uco area. Lonely Planet, in typical style, states that the Valle del Uco is 'best visited on a guided tour' - or you can rent a car 'if you've got the time and patience'. It neglects to mention that there are frequent public buses from Mendoza to Tupungato, which is a town right in the heart of the region! We stayed in the appropriately named Hotel Chardonnay, from where it was easy to organise a taxi for winery visits.

Vineyards and the snowy Andes, from Tupungato on a sunny day

By this time we'd had enough of being treated like second class customers for only doing tastings, so we decided to push the boat out and go for lunch at Domaine Bousquet, an organic winery - in fact the 'world's most awarded organic wine producer', according to their website! This turned out to be an excellent plan. For less than £30 each, we feasted on a 6 course lunch, each course served with a paired wine. All of the wines were fantastic, and the food was pretty good too. To my surprise, my favourite wine of the day (and possibly of the whole Mendoza region) was the Pinot Noir from here. I normally find Pinot Noir to be nothing special, a bit light for a red, but this one had been aged in oak for a year and was amazing! Best of all, the service here was so much better. We ran out of time to visit any more wineries in Tupungato, but we drank plenty more of the local wine that evening at our hotel!

The next day, feeling slightly the worse for wear, we spent a relaxed morning around Tupungato, which turns out to have one of the most incredible settings for a town we've seen since Patagonia. That day, the sun had finally come out and suddenly we could see the Andes! In the distance behind the town, there were snowcapped mountains stretching for miles and miles. It was beautiful, especially with the vineyards in their autumnal colours all around too. Ralph and Shehnaaz had to leave that afternoon to begin their journey towards Santiago, where they needed to drop their van off in a day or two. We had a great time with them, and will now not see them again until we both return to the UK in a month or so.

And another beautiful view from Tupungato

Kev and I stayed another night in Tupungato before returning to Mendoza. The weather was still nice and we were excited to be able to see Aconcagua, South America's highest peak (6960m), from our bus! We had thought about going south for one more look at Patagonia, but in the end thought the 18 hour bus and the forecast of rain and snow down there made it probably not worth it. Instead, we took a nightbus from Mendoza to Córdoba, Argentina's second city, where we will spend a week or so before heading towards Uruguay.

The Fertile Valley in a Desert

We left Cafayate, having a vague plan of heading south towards Mendoza. We had a list of places we might want to stop at to break up the journey, but none sounded that appealing. Instead, we decided to try and make it all the way down to San Juan, just 2 hours north of Mendoza. Importantly, it's a decent base to make a trip to Ischigualasto Provincial Park, a UNESCO world heritage site.

The 'Submarine' - one of the famous rock formations in Ischigualasto

After our 5 hour bus journey from Cafayate to Tucumán, we bought our tickets for the next leg - 11 hours overnight to San Juan. Despite buying the tickets from a company called AndesMar with plenty of time to spare, we still nearly missed it. We stood at the terminal, staring at a lone FlechaBus, thinking that our bus had been delayed. Luckily, I went to find out if anybody knew where our bus was and was told that it was the one that had been sitting there all that time. We should probably have realised that the FlechaBus at the same time, going to the same place and at the same price was ours!

The 'Sphinx' in Ischigualasto

We'd heard about Argentinian buses serving wine with dinner, but hadn't experienced it until now, so had begun to think it was a bit of a myth. We can now confirm that this actually happens! We were served a meal as good if not better than in most restaurants here, with proper metal cutlery and drinks options including red and white wine. The journey was quite comfortable, with large seats that reclined almost horizontally.  But however comfortable a night bus is, we still find that they leave us needing to catch up on sleep the next day. We hadn't booked anywhere to stay and, after looking at a couple of abominable hostels, found a hotel to check in to. Annoyingly, they wouldn't match a price on our favoured hotel-booking website, so we used their wifi while in reception to make a reservation before checking in. This didn't seem the most sensible business decision, as they would now be paying 10%+ commission to the website.

A field of balls in Ischigualasto

San Juan didn't hold much of interest for us, so we soon set off to San Agustín de Valle Fértil. We'd hoped to hire a car, as we knew that it was impossible to get to Ischigualasto park with public transport. Unfortunately, we'd been in San Juan at a weekend and most businesses in Argentina don't open on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday. Luckily, the incredibly helpful owners of the place we were staying in San Agustín helped us to organise a reasonably priced taxi to take us there.

The lake in San Agustín

The park was worth the effort. The main sights are quite spread out, so the standard thing to do is to drive around in a convoy following a guide, then stop at several points to appreciate the landscape from closer up. The park is home to the oldest dinosaur fossils that we have yet discovered, from the Triassic Period around 250 million years ago. The desert-like landscape is sculpted by rain and wind, creating incredible shapes in the layered rocks. Palaeontologists don't need to dig here - they just wait for a rain shower and see what's been uncovered by the erosion.

Layers of rock, just waiting to be eroded to reveal the next dinosaur

After Ischigualasto, we were driven back to San Juan by our hosts, from where we took a bus down to Mendoza. We should be meeting our friends Ralph and Shehnaaz there to explore the famous wine growing region together.

Manoeuvre, Mirror, (Maybe) Signal

Driving in Argentina is ...interesting. While not as crazy as, say, Colombia (let alone Asia), we have quickly learnt that things are quite different here than at home. Firstly, normal road rules don't really apply. At roundabouts and so on, the general rule seems to be whoever goes fastest, or is most pushy, has the right of way. And for Argentinian drivers, it isn't the usual mirror, signal, manoeuvre, but manoeuvre first, then have a look in the mirror and signal if you feel like it.

Galloping horse and llama! On the way to Cachi

Secondly, nearly all of the towns in the country (and in fact the whole continent) use a grid system of roads, but there are virtually no traffic lights. So every time you come to a junction, you have to slow down dramatically in case something comes shooting out in front of you. It's quite frustrating! Instead, the authorities opt to put traffic lights at seemingly random places where they are totally unnecessary. We got stopped at 10 different sets on a 5km stretch on the way out of Calilegua, all of them interminably long and completely redundant!

Roads / rivers, from the top of the pass going to Cachi

Thirdly, Argentina is FULL of police checks. We've noticed this on buses before - every so often, your bus will be stopped and police will come on board, search the bus, ask a few people for ID, etc. In the car, we realised just how many police stops there are! Literally every few km there would be police in the road, signalling at us to slow down. On 90% of occasions, they would wave us straight on again just as we'd nearly come to a halt, obviously recognising the standard tourist rental car (everyone renting a car here has exactly the same one - a Chevrolet Classic). We got stopped properly twice, and only once asked for any documents. The silly thing is, they didn't even want to see Kev's driving licence, only the rental car stuff and his passport! We met another English couple who'd shown the police their UK licences and been met with total confusion and asked for their passports instead. It would doubtless have been fine for me to drive then!

One of the many little chapels we passed along the roads in the north

The even more stupid thing police-wise is that at siesta time (roughly 12.30 - 4pm),  and any time after 7pm, the police all shut up shop and the roads are totally clear. It would thus seem obvious that if you were planning any dodgy dealings, you would just need to drive at siesta time or at night. How many drug smugglers, or whatever it is they are looking for, do they actually catch with these checks? We wonder why they bother with all this at all - perhaps it is just to provide lots of people with employment as roadside police officers!

Colourful mountains and lots of cacti! In Los Cardones National Park

Another issue that has made driving interesting, of course, is the road surfaces. A lot of places we've wanted to visit have been down pretty dodgy, unpaved gravel roads. On a couple of occasions, we heard a loud clank and got out, fearing the worst - massive dent, burst tyre, etc. One time we drove through a huge patch of mud, and the mud then gradually dried and came off the wheels, making a continuous spattering noise so we were we convinced we'd got something stuck in the wheel. Another time, we noticed a petrol smell inside the car, and after two days of this thought we must have got a small hole in the petrol tank. We took the car to a mechanic, who said it was just that the petrol tank had been overfilled. Phew. And on our last day with the car, we suddenly noticed two little clear marks, like water drops, on the windscreen, that weren't coming off with the windscreen wipers... Alarm bells rang - we were convinced we'd managed to chip the windscreen! Fortunately, when we got out to look, we discovered they were in fact just some tree sap that we could clean off. Big relief! The car is being picked up today, and as far as we can tell has survived its time with us unscathed. Let's hope the rental company agrees.

Pretty butterfly in Calilegua National Park

Enough about driving. What about the places we have visited in our last few days with the car? When Kev last wrote, we had just left the spectacular Quebrada de Humahuaca region, in the far north. Our next stopping point was Calilegua National Park, down at only 600m altitude and a totally different climate to the cold and aridity of Humahuaca. Calilegua encompasses a large, protected region of cloud forest and we had been looking forward to some hiking there. But alas, when we got to the national park, only 4 of the 10 hiking trails were open. The rest, including all of the longer ones, had been closed due to flooding a few weeks ago. We were disappointed, but made the best of things by doing a short walk linking together a couple of the trails that were open. Calilegua is a haven of biodiversity, especially with respect to birds - there are over 250 species here, and birdwatchers come from all over the country.  We heard plenty of birds, but saw very few in the park itself. Ironically, we saw more birds in the town that is the base for the park - several toucans and parrots in the trees!

Cactus filled plain and colourful mountains, in Los Cardones National Park 

From Calilegua, we drove all the way back down to Salta, and spent a night there before continuing on to the small village of Cachi, out to the west on the way to Cafayate via the scenic route. This was mostly along a paved road, luckily, with only 20-30km unmade. The road wound up to a 3500m pass, through fantastic scenery that began quite green and became more arid and desert like as we got higher. We passed through Los Cardones National Park, named for the Cardón cactus, of which there were loads! At one point it was just a huge plain, covered in cacti, and framed by the mountains in the distance. Pretty cool. Other parts of the journey took in some quite volcanic looking landscapes that reminded us of Pali Aike National Park in Chile.

Little cemetery in Cachi

Cachi itself was a very pleasant little village, extremely quiet during low season. I think we met most of the (5 or 6) tourists there on the first afternoon as we strolled around the centre! It's hard to say what was so great about Cachi, but we really liked it - it had an amazingly relaxed, sleepy feel, as well as being very pretty with its traditional adobe buildings and lovely little square. We didn't do much there, other than a couple of walks, one to get a view of the subdued, purple coloured mountains behind the village, and the second to a nice viewpoint of the village itself. It was beautiful seeing the bright green squares of some of the fields of crops down by the village, against the barren backdrop of the hills all around.

Pretty avenue in Molinos, en route from Cachi to Cafayate

In Cachi we met an older English couple on holiday, bemoaning the terrible state of the road from Salta. We didn't dare tell them that the roads got a lot worse in the north! We met them again in another small village, Molinos, the next day, on the way south to Cafayate. This trip from Cachi to Cafayate looked on the map like it wouldn't be too arduous - it was roughly the same distance as from Salta to Cachi (160km). However, we hadn't quite realised just how bad the road was. This was 160km down the Argentina's famous Ruta 40, which stretches all the way down the west of the country, nearly 5000km in total. We'd read plenty of horror stories about Ruta 40 when we were in Patagonia, but been pleasantly surprised - most of the road down that end had been paved since our guidebook was published.

On Ruta 40 heading towards Cafayate

Sadly, the same could not be said about this end of Ruta 40! While the road began in not too bad a state, it got progressively worse after we met the English couple again in Molinos, which is about 40km south from Cachi. The middle 60km or so of the road was dire. This was the section where we heard several loud bangs and feared the worst, and where we got mud all over the car! We actually passed a machine that was meant to be flattening the road surface, but all it was doing was pushing all the sand and stones into a heap in the middle, forcing you to remain on one side of the road at all times regardless of how bad it was.  Hmm. Still, the state of the road was mitigated by the absolutely breathtaking scenery, and eventually we made it to Cafayate, in a total of 6 hours. Everyone else we'd met in Cachi had also survived the road with their rental cars, so things could have been a lot worse!

Crazy rock formations along Ruta 40

Cafayate is famous for two things - wine, and a spectacular canyon (the Quebrada de las Conchas). We duly took advantage of both these things. On our first full day Kev had a break from driving and we spent the afternoon winetasting. Sounds idyllic, but was actually a little frustrating! We went out at around 1.30pm, and found ALL the wineries in town were closed for siesta until 3 or 4. The Argentinian siesta is a bit of a joke - it happens everywhere in the country, regardless of the weather (it's about 15 degrees in Cafayate at the moment) and regardless of any thought for business. Cafayate is a very touristy town, the tourists come to visit the wineries - but do they think to open the wineries all day? Nope. Only 10-12am and 3-5pm. They must be missing out on a ton of business.

El Esteco winery in Cafayate

We did eventually make it to 3 different wineries later in the afternoon. The wine here is excellent, especially the Malbec (for which Argentina is famous, obviously) and the Torrontés, a white grape variety we'd not come across before. The wine tastings though, were less excellent - the people working at the wineries clearly didn't care in the slightest about our being there. There was no enthusiasm, no information, no anything really! Just 'here's your wine, drink up'. There was also a bit of a lack of knowledge. We were sampling a Torrontés in the first winery, and I commented that it was quite dry and tasted similar to a Sauvignon Blanc. The guy looked confused, and, I kid you not, said that he had never heard of Sauvignon Blanc, and the only white wine they made there was Torrontés. How can you work in the wine industry and not have heard of one of the most famous varieties of white wine worldwide?! Pretty funny, we thought.

Pretty scenery our hike near Cafayate

We also did a nice hike a few km out of town, up a small canyon passing several waterfalls. It was great fun - more of a rock climb in places than a walk! We were advised to get a guide, but decided to go it alone and enjoyed it all the more for the challenge of trying to work out where the path went. We also drove through the big canyon, the Quebrada de las Conchas, admiring the otherworldly landscapes. The scenery round Humahuaca was unbelievable, but this was equally so! Amazing formations of red sandstone, looking so much like slightly eroded pillars, pinnacles and other man-made features that it was hard to believe they were natural. The highlights were two huge hollows carved out of the rock, with layers upon layers of twisted rock forming two massive spaces like amphitheatres. The acoustics were incredible!

The Garganta del Diablo formation, in the Quebrada de las Conchas

We are still in Cafayate, planning to do another wine tasting or two today before we head south tomorrow. Where to is still to be decided. The problem is that none of the buses from Cafayate go where we want to - so we are going to have to rethink our route a little. We are still ultimately aiming for Mendoza, where we hope to reunite with our London friends Ralph and Shehnaaz in the next week or two.

Another lovely view in the Quebrada de las Conchas

The Nazca Lines - One Of The World's Great Unsolved Mysteries

We arrived in the desert city of Nazca with one intention - to see the famous Nazca Lines. These are a complex series of ancient lines, geometric shapes and stylised motifs, all drawn in the desert and encompassing a huge area. The figures include several designs based on animals and plants, including for example a monkey, a hummingbird and a spider. They are on such a large scale that they can only really be appreciated from the air  - most of the animals are 50-100m long, while the lines are often several km long and 1-3m wide.

The hummingbird figure

The Nazca Lines were created by the Nazca culture and its predecessor, the Paracas culture, between around 500 BC and 500 AD. It would have been a huge undertaking. All the figures and lines were made by clearing away the top layer of dark pebbles and revealing the whiter ground underneath. The lines are so straight that they must have been painstakingly planned and measured - some even theorise that the Nazca must have had hot air balloons to be able to create such precise designs that only become clear from the air. Despite being so old, the geoglyphs have remained in good condition due to the extreme aridity of the desert environment.

Our tiny plane for the Nazca Lines flight

Kev had always wanted to take the flight over the lines, but I was less sure and was very nearly put off by the horror stories of poor safety, horrific air sickness and general very bad organisation! At the last minute I decided to go for it, and was very glad I did. The flight was simply incredible: one of the top experiences of the trip so far. We were in a 6 seater plane with another couple plus pilot and co-pilot. The pilot flew round 12 of the most famous figures, banking first left and then right so that people on both sides of the plane could see. We had amazingly clear views of every figure and could better understand their layout and the sheer immensity of the lines. And no air sickness!

A pair of hands - also sometimes known as the frog

While various theories have been propounded, the purpose of the lines remains unknown. Most experts agree that they probably had some religious significance, perhaps intended as symbols to be seen by the gods above: archaeological evidence shows that ceremonies and festivals may have taken place along them. Other theories link the lines to astronomy and some suggest that they were used as some sort of huge celestial calendar. They could also have been paths leading to water sources - vital when living in such a dry environment. One of the world's enduring mysteries.

In the Cantalloc aqueducts

While in Nazca we explored some ruins from the Nazca civilisation. Firstly the Cantalloc aqueducts, a sophisticated system of subterranean water channels that the Nazca designed for irrigating their crops. They look like interconnected terraces, spiralling down to wells at the bottom, and are still used today. Next the slightly gruesome Chauchilla Cemetery, a burial site from the later Nazca period, still containing mummified human remains in open graves. Interestingly, many of the mummies had headdresses or very long hair styled like dreadlocks. We also visited Cahuachi, the remains of an important ceremonial centre and pilgrimage destination for the Nazca. The ruins here were in excellent condition despite being built of mud bricks, again thanks to the extreme conditions here.

Nazca mummies in the Chauchilla Cemetery 

From Nazca we moved on to the small coastal town of Paracas. We had a long walk around the desert peninsula, admiring the beautiful marine scenery and seeing more flamingoes than anywhere else we've been. The next day we took a boat trip out to the nearby Islas Ballestas, 'the poor man's Galapagos', as many descriptions put it. The wildlife here was stunning - the sky became thick with birds as we approached, and the islands themselves are simply covered in colonies of cormorants, Peruvian boobies and Inca terns, among others. They're also home to Humboldt penguins, sea lions and pelicans and we saw all of these at close proximity. Not the Galapagos, but a pretty good alternative for now!

Playa Roja (Red Beach) - part of the Paracas peninsula 

While in Paracas we happened to be discussing what would happen if a tsunami hit .. and lo and behold the next day after the earthquake in Chile there were tsunami warnings throughout coastal Peru. Fortunately we'd moved on by then 60 km inland to the desert town of Ica, where we enjoyed some wine tasting. Yes, Peru's major wine region is in the desert! There's no comparison with Chilean wine, but the 2012 Petit Verdot was surprisingly good actually. We also visited Ica's excellent museum, and will leave here tonight heading for Ayacucho, up in the central highlands.

So many birds! Peruvian boobies at the Islas Ballestas

Smog, Coffee with Legs, Pinochet and Wine Tasting

Santiago is not the most picturesque of cities. Viewing it from the window of our 13th floor AirBnB apartment, or from the top of the nearby Santa Lucía hill, the main impression is of ugly, high rise concrete tower blocks and the all pervading smog. Yet as we have explored the city from the ground, we've realised there's more to it than we'd first perceived and it is actually an interesting and lively place to be.

The entrance to Santa Lucía hill 

We have spent much of our time here checking out the city's highlights with Louise, my friend who is in South America for a few weeks. On our second day here we did a free three hour walking tour around the city centre. This was well worth doing; our guide took us not only to the obvious places but to some more interesting ones - some of the city's most famous street art, for example. Perhaps the weirdest thing we learnt about is a popular style of coffee shop in Santiago - 'café con piernas'  or  'coffee with legs'! Type 1 of these cafés look like normal coffee shops. They are open from 9-6, and don't serve alcohol... but all the waitresses are dressed in exceedingly short skirts and high heels. Type 2 is a step up - they are still open daytime only and don't serve alcohol, but have blackened out glass and loud music playing. As we stood outside one of these listening to our guide, one of the waitresses emerged and waved - let's just say they were somewhat more scantily clad than type 1(bunny ears wouldn't have gone amiss)! As for type 3 - you don't get them in the city centre...

Smoggy view from the top of San Cristóbal, with the Andes just visible

We've also taken the funicular railway to the top of Cerro San Cristóbal, the highest hill in Santiago, from where you get a great, if hazy, view of the city. We could even see the tops of the Andes emerging from the smog. Nearby is La Chascona, one of the three homes in Chile of the nation's Nobel prizewinning poet Pablo Neruda. Neruda built the house in 1953 for his secret lover, Matilde Urrutia and named it after her (Chascona means dishevelled hair, a reference to Matilde's wild red curls). The house has been left much as it was and is evidence of Neruda's quirky taste and his love of the sea: the long, narrow downstairs dining room and bar with low ceiling are designed to look like a ship.

Walking up towards the Immaculate Conception statue at the top of San Cristóbal hill

Kev and I visited the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Musuem of Memory and Human Rights), which was an absorbing insight into the 1973 coup, the death of the socialist president Salvador Allende and the following Pinochet regime that lasted until 1990. Some of the images of the torture and human rights abuse that took place were shocking, as were the figures we learned as to the impact of the dictatorship on the Chilean people - over 3,000 deaths, nearly 40,000 people tortured or imprisoned and 200,000 people exiled from the country. Controversy continues today as to the legacy of both Allende and Pinochet.

Wine tasting at Emiliana winery, in the Casablanca Valley

We escaped the city for a day with some more wine tasting in the Casablanca region, an hour or so away. Getting here by bus and then walking to three wineries was easy and a lot cheaper than all the advertised tours. We sat in the sun sampling wines and admiring the beautiful vineyards. Casablanca is known for its whites and the Gran Reserva Chardonnay at Quilmay winery was my favourite of the day - the reds were pretty good too!

The Lengths We Will Go to See a Waterfall

We'd decided that we wanted to spend a day seeing the waterfalls in the Siete Tazas (Seven Cups) National Park. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be that easy - there is only one bus there every day and it leaves Molina at 5pm. It returns at 7:30am the next morning. Therefore, to have time to actually see the park at all, we would have to spend two nights there.

The Velo de Novia (Bridal Veil) waterfall, close to the national park

As we were in Talca, we would first have to get to Molina for the solitary bus at 5pm. We were told that there were regular buses there, so we turned up at the bus station at just after 3. However, this happened to be the only gap in the schedule - there wasn't another bus until 4. We sat impatiently on this one and might just have arrived in time, if the bus hadn't got a puncture just outside of Molina. In desperation, we tried to hitchhike into town, and the first thing that arrived was another bus. It rattled ominously and struggled to get out of second gear for the rest of the journey. We arrived at the bus station 10 minutes too late.

The 20m Salta de la Leona (Lioness) waterfall

Molina is not a town geared up for tourists, but we did manage to find a dirty, but dirt cheap, guesthouse and, amazingly, a place selling craft beer. We got up early in the morning as we had been advised that there was a bus that would take us some of the way towards the park, and then we could hitchhike the rest of the way. The bus part went successfully; the hitchhiking part started less well. We stood shivering on the roadside in darkness until the sun rose an hour or so later. Only two cars passed in two hours; neither stopped. Eventually, a pickup truck did pull over for us, threw our bags in under the tarp and on top of the goat, and we were off. For some of the way. They seemed to be delivering the tied up goat to their friend, just 7km further down the road. Soon after though, we were picked up by a visiting Chileno family and taken the rest of the way. We'd made it! And the seven waterfalls were fine.

The Siete Tazas waterfalls, and their cups - the object of the arduous journey

From the national park, we had to be up before dawn once again for the one morning bus back to Molina. It was somewhat surreal walking by torchlight into the pitch black village and seeing the bus materialise out of the darkness. From Molina we took another bus to Curicó and a final one to Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is the heart of the Colchagua Valley wine region and, although difficult to get to, the vineyards produce fine red wines. Particularly of the full bodied variety we're both most keen on. We enjoyed some lengthy tasting sessions, even if one was interrupted part way through by a small earthquake sending a jolt through the room.

So much wine!

We've now moved on again, up to the capital, Santiago. We're hoping to see some of the cultural sights around here but mix it up with some more wine tasting in the nearby Casablanca and Maipo regions.

Wine Tasting, Stargazing and a UFO Landing Site

After a busy few days of long hikes near Curacautín, we thought we needed a break and have spent the last week or so based in and around Talca, the capital of the Maule Valley wine region. The Maule Valley is known for its red wines, particularly Cabernet Sauvignon, and some of the wineries are fairly easy to access by public transport; on our first day we took local buses to check out a couple of the nearest ones.

Hiding among the wine barrels

The first winery we visited, Balduzzi, offered a tour in English at a reasonable price, including four tastings. We enjoyed seeing all the machinery used, for example in pressing the grapes, removing stems and so on. Our favourite section was the huge room where the reserve wines are left to mature in huge barrels - the powerful scent in here of oak mixed with wine was quite intoxicating! We tasted two reds and two whites, one more of a dessert wine. All were fine though not spectacular; the spicy Carménère was the pick of the bunch.

Enjoying the sights at Gilmore winery

The second, Gilmore, was more out in the countryside, very picturesque and much less visited by tourists. We didn't bother with a tour but sat outside in the sun with our wine, admiring the vines and the beautiful Mediterranean style garden. The wine here was also better  - we only tried two types but the Merlot here was much more full bodied and satisfying than either of the reds at Balduzzi. The measures were large enough that two tastes was plenty! Gilmore made its own artesanal beer as well as the wine; obviously we purchased a bottle for later.

Volcanic formations at Altos de Lircay

Despite our designs on a restful time, we couldn't come to Talca and not visit the nearby Reserva Nacional Altos de Lircay. We duly caught a local bus at 7 am and after a couple of hours bouncing along in the cold arrived at the reserve (actually 2 km outside it - the bus can't make it all the way down the road). We walked through forest and then steeply uphill for some hours, passing huge formations of solidified lava in outlandish shapes and colours. The culmination of our efforts was reaching El Enladrillado, an incredibly flat plateau made of massive volcanic stone slabs in a very ordered layout - it is popularly rumoured to be a UFO landing ground! From the edges there were stupendous views: a panorama of snow capped mountains in every direction, with the far away river just visible down in the valley. One of the nearest mountains was Volcan Descabezado, or the 'headless volcano' - the summit is so wide and flat it really does look like its top is missing.

Looking over the canyon from the Enladrillado, towards Volcan Descabezado

We headed out of Talca to spend three days in a hostel right out in the countryside, Refugio Tricahue. The Belgian owner has found a pretty stunning setting - the hostel is right next to the Rio Maule, with steep, tree covered slopes rising sharply on the other side of the valley. We had a great time chilling out here, venturing out on some short walks but mostly sitting out in the sun enjoying the quiet and the lovely scenery. The highlight though was the night sky. The lack of light pollution here, together with the glass ceiling in our room, meant we had the perfect conditions for stargazing. I have never seen so many stars. Falling asleep gazing up at the Milky Way was really something special.

The Maule valley, from the Tricahue park