mendoza to santiago

our journey back to santiago was yet another adventure. we were in this little van instead of a normal bus, which definitely had its pros and cons

pros:

about $20 USD cheaper

there's only about 15 people on it, so getting through border control is exponentially faster than if we were on a huge bus because you have less people to wait for. this is especially beneficial during holiday weekends (in this case, semana santa)

vans can pass cars, large buses can't. hence why it only took us 6.5 hours to get from mendoza to santiago in this van, and 10 hours to get from santiago to mendoza on the bus.

cons:

fear for your life, if you have a driver that will stop at no costs to pass every vehicle possible. 50% of the time i felt like we were driving on the opposite side of the road towards oncoming traffic

no bathrooms

we are clearly way past the yellow line. 

crossing the border back into CHILE!

the security getting back into Chile from Argentina was WAY stricter. they actually put everyones luggage through the security xray devices and were also suspicious of of my camping pack, for some unknown reason. i literally only had clothes, toiletries and mayybee some alcohol. all completely legal! they made me take apart my entire bag while i just kept insisting "no tengo nada!". they were especially inquisitive about my toiletry bag, so i just told them it had my toothbrush and makeup and then things got pretty awkward and the security guy told me i'm too pretty and don't need to wear makeup. he repeated that i shouldn't wear makeup at least 5 times. creepy much?

trying to fix mah hurr

our dinner - 12 argentinean empanadas de carne. these were definitely way better than the traditional chilean meat empanadas - empanadas de pino. props, argentina. 

sad because we are leaving mendoza

pretty views from the drive!

Mendoza

going through la cordillera de los andes 

really interesting rock sedimentation. at times like this i wish i was a geologist because how the heck are the rocks suddenly BRIGHT yellow?

found a ski lift! there were tons of little deserted ski resorts as we passed over the mountains. in the winter this place has got to be covered in snow

i had andre nickatina's "ayo for yayo" stuck in my head the whole 6 hours after seeing this truck

ridiculous caracola (spiral road). driving this without snow was crazy enough  (especially since we were still passing cars on the way down). i can't even imagine what it would be like in the winter

i'm still wondering what this animal is

almost back to santiago and we were greeted with a majestic skyline. these were the first real clouds i'd seen in a LONG time.

goodbye summer, fall has finally arrived!