It's like a zig-zag here between Chile and Argetina if you want to see something.
After Carretera Austral in Chile we again crossed into Argentina to see San Carlos de Bariloche - which was just soooo boring and overfilled with tourists. Tried out the local chocolate which it's famous for, and while it was good it still wasn't worth to stay more than 2 days.
Thus the Argentinian Ruta 40 continued to kill our bike:
Some spots of Ruta 40 were nice tho:
Spotted this while we ate our lunch aside the road:
Our lunch wasn't that tasty anymore.
When we arrived to Valle Encantado ("bewitched valley" in translation), where some magical scenery had been formed due to volcanic activity. Click to enlarge the panoramas (and in a new window click again to see in full size, then scroll horizontally):
And panoramic views from Ruta 40:
Some cacti:
Till the Ruta 40 took us to Mendoza, the Argentinian wine capital. And for very obvious reasons, we had to try the local flavour:
Of course combined with BBQ. (PS: in fact this meat was ruined because 15 minutes later awful rain started leaving us with half-raw meat and smoking coal. Damn. )
Bought us our first souvenir - a gourd for mate in Souther-American style.
Seller was a nice bloke and a motorcyclist too - rides an Enfield:
Some 200 meters away was the Mendoza's central park, Plaza Independencia, burning in +32C heat. I picked up an ambience recording from there, along with deep-beats by some local junglists (click to enlarge the park panorama):
And exacly in the same spot, it sounded like this:
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(PS: those who're interested in our audios: I'd recommend they'd be listened with closed-type big (semi-or full pro-) headphones - close your eyes and you're basically there yourself. The stereo panorama is tuned exacly as human ears.)
Birds in the park.
By education, as a physisist-astronomer myself I wanted to visit the Argentinian main observatory near there, but only to be dissapointed because the beautiful mountaneous road leading there was closed just before the place.
Got some panoramas from the area which was nice:
And back to Chile again. Our Öhlins suspension needed a service and we hope to repair the video camera in Santiago, capital of Chile. (PS: we waited almost 60 days for the camera to be repaired in official Canon workshop, but the bits never arrived and our patience ran out after 2 months of waiting - so we're still video-less in our YouTube channel )
Road to Santiago was superb:
Just stunning colours - volcanic activity has formed and painted the mountain-ranges there, see the pics for yourself:
Yes, the colours were like this! (click to enlarge)
Aconcagua shining - the highest peak in Americas - 6962 meters!
And panoramas from the area (click to enlarge, and click again to see in full size):
And some strange railroad that was (intentionally?) fully covered, but the cover was badly damaged in some spots:
And then, through another hot +30C day haze - Santiago greeted us. A busy 6 million capital:
The moment I'm writing this we're currently in Bellavista area in Santiago, which is a very atmospheric place. Let me give you an example about couple of hundred meters to each side from the place we are staying:
(check the window reflection to come back into reality)
And mosaiques on the streets:
We went up for the hills to grab some of panoramas from Santiago (click to enlarge):
On the hill, there was also this Virgin Mary:
And decent palmy parks (click to enlarge the panoramas):
...and finally, the sounds of Santiago.
From the central plaza:
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Catedral Metropolitana.
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It was recorded exacly from this spot (click to enlarge the panorama):
And a "soundscape walk" through the big mercado (market), different places had different music and everyday-life going on:
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While you listen to this, some pictures from the market:
(click to enlarge)
That's it. It's all updated till the very moment we're writing this.
Next stop is Valparaiso in Chile till we get a stronger spring version for our Öhlins shock that the dealer recommends us, so we'll return to Santiago soon.
Good night, Margus & Kariina