Santiago

As we make our way down South America, our bodies have slowly but surely adjusted to the rigors of long bus rides.

We drink less water and eat less, thereby trying to eliminate the need to visit the toilet. (There's usually one on board the bus, and it's usually clean, but only for the first 10 users! There's usually no running water in the sink though. Irritating.)

Long bus rides are usually better taken at night, though. We surrender our safety to the driver's wakefulness, and sleep through the ride. It's not a particularly comfortable sleep, and we do keep waking up, but we get enough rest to tide us through the next day. Also, the savings of not having to pay for another night at the hostel makes night-riding a lot more worth it.

Sometimes, though, we have no choice. One example is our Mendoza-Santiago ride. Whether it is due to safety reasons (the route is through a mountainous range) or operational reasons (Mendoza is in Argentina, and Santiago is in Chile. We need to get through Immigration and Customs, which might not be open all the time), we are not sure. Maybe a mixture of both.

But one thing is for sure - this is one of the more scenic bus rides we have taken in recent times!

Snowy mountains against a blue, blue sky

The combined Argentinean/Chilean Immigration & Customs building. Wouldn't you like to step out of the office to see scenery like this?

Bridge over Argentinean waters

Headed into Chile for our third and final time, we made a 4 day/3 night stop in Santiago, the capital of Chile, and checked ourselves into a hostel run by a crusty old man named Scott. Okay, okay, Scott seemed crusty only to me. He seemed pretty nice to the wife though. I suppose he doesn't get to see pretty Asian women often. ;) Hmph. After all, he complained to me that we made his kettle and stove oily with our cooking on one ocassion, but on another ocassion, invited the wife out of the hostel to look at the moon with the telescope he set up.

I spy with my little eye, something beginning with the letter J!

Of course, the wife asked me to go out with her, and we not only checked out the moon, we checked out Jupiter too! It was really cool to see Jupiter - not only could you see the planet itself, but if you squint and look really hard, you can see the moons around it too! Fierce.

Apparently, the telescope was left behind by another traveler who somehow got a windfall, and part of the condition to benefit from the windfall was to get other people interested in looking at the stars.

By the way, did you know that the days of the week are named after planetary bodies in Espanol?

Monday - Lunes - the moon
Tuesday - Martes - Mars
Wednesday - Miercoles - Mercury
Thursday - Jueves - Jupiter
Friday - Vienes - Venus
Saturday - Sabado - Saturn
Sunday - Domingo - this is the only exception... the word refers to 'prayers'.

Anyway, the very next day, when we were doing our minimum-30-minute-walk to the city centre, we found some strange-looking Jupitan freakazoid staring at us too!

The Chileans were celebrating 200 years of independence with their version of the Marina Bay wishing spheres

Oh.... and we saw a protest too. City life is so fun! :)