Argentina Part 2

I´m writing this from a desert town in Chile called San Pedro. I'm off sandboarding shortly which finishes with a sunset in the lunar valley... sounds cool. The scenery here is the main attraction and most of the tourism here is based around this. These photos were taken on the bus journey over here...

Tomorrow, a group of 6 of us are doing a 3 day tour to Bolivia, which goes past volcanos, geysers, lakes and salt flats. Its pretty tough as its high altitude. Even here, the nights get very cold, so sleeping above 4000m on the tour in a place with no heating is going to be a feat.

The sky here is also very clear so the area attracts a lot of astronomers. Last night we did an astronomy tour of the sky... the planets, milky way and constellations were all totally visiable which was amazing. It was also just about a full moon, so we got a pretty impressive shot through the telescope...

I almost didn't make it here as it was my birthday the night before a 7am coach departure from Salta. After getting to the bus station with 1 minute to spare after virtually no sleep the driver refused to let us on as he thought we were drunk. After a bit of persuasion we made it... there would have been no more buses for 3 days! I spent 3 nights althogether in Salta, in the North of Argentina. Its a big stopping point for travellers going to or coming from Bolivia so its pretty busy with a good night life... hence a good place to hang around for my birthday.

Here's a viw of the city from a cable car accessed mountain....

Before Salta I was in Puerto Madryn... a pretty dull city as it was off season and freezing cold. The only reason people go there is to se the Whales (see pics below) which were awesome....

I also spent some more time in Buenos Aires. Went to a Boca Juniors match which was crazy. The fans are like animals in that place... and the tourists have to be sectioned off...

It was also Argentinas first day of Spring so there was a big party all over the country. Everyone dresses up and stays up partying til dawn...

That's all I have to report for now... got to dash for my sandboarding lesson. The next post will be Bolivia.

Hasta Luego.