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This morning we crossed the border into Chile. I exchanged all my Argentinean Pesos to Chilean Pesos this morning at the border. The US is still clearly the world’s reserve currency and the bid ask spread is much tighter for dollars than for Argentinean Pesos or Brazil Reals. They kept us at the border for a couple of hours and checked through all our baggage and made the group unload the entire bus. It was very cold waiting there for so long. They made us stand outside and wouldn't let us go in. Someone from the group got really upset and protested that we were being treated even worse than in Central Asia. It actually was fine - people were just cold. The break gave me an opportunity to call my mother and wish her a happy birthday.
I entered Argentina exactly one month ago on August 16th. Argentina is amazing but I still feel like I didn't get to appreciate its full beauty. That is because we didn't get to see what is considered to be the most beautiful part of the country which is the south. We have heard great things about Patagonia, etc... and from a personal standpoint I feel like it could have been a great place to experience first hand the effects of the climate change (with the melting glaciers). I did speak to a guy in one of our youth hostels who was in Patagonia and he said that the glaciers are retreating but nowhere near as fast as in many other places. Likewise, I would have loved to have seen the rainforest in Brazil and seen the destruction going on there and be able to better convey the urgency of the current situation. But you can’t see everything.
Chile is very cold, but beautiful so far. I am stopped at a gas station writing this blog post and have only seen 40 km of the country. The 40 km was awesome and all downhill as we climbed to roughly 3000 meters since leaving San Juan. During this morning’s descent we were underneath a ski lift and it was great fun navigating all the switchbacks. Tomorrow we get to Santiago and we will be back at sea level.
Yesterday was the opposite of downhill though. It was our steepest day of climbing. 70 km of straight up and I loved it! Since I was one of the first to arrive at our hostel in Puenta del Inka, arriving at around 11:30, I went and rented ski equipment and skied for half a day. I was the only one to do this as most people got in much later or opted to rest their legs. I was feeling so great from the beautiful morning that I wanted to enjoy the beautiful scenery and opted for skiing instead of watching TV in the hostel. The whole experience, lift ticket and equipment was only 50 pesos (12 bucks) and was good fun. I have some great pictures of the Andes that I am excited to load in Santiago. After skiing, I met up with some people from the group at a bar for some beers, burgers and foosball matches with the local people.
I have to go finish riding my bike today and get to my campsite in San Felipe not far from Santiago before dark. More downhill! More on the blog to come on my rest in San Juan, biking and Santiago.