Day 11 Over the Andes to Chile by Bus

Read Day 11 from top down.

We caught the 1:30 CATA bus today for our trip to Santiago. We had read about how beautiful the trip is, as well as being a nail-biter. Well, right on both accounts.



During the beginning of our ascent, the scenery was exquisite. Rugged mountains and pristine, brilliantly turquoise lakes. We didn´t know which way to turn our heads......there was so much to see every way we looked, as we were dwarfed by the Andes.



Peeking through the top of the mountains in Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas and highest outside of Asia, at over 22,000 feet. We were lucky to be sitting on the right side of the busy to see it.



Here are our new friends from Mexico. They were immensely helpful to us, as none of the announcements were in English......and were pretty funny, besides.



After going through customs (which took 2 1/2 hours) and entering Chile, the ride was all downhill from there. The driver took it slowly down this series of 24 hairpin turns, some of which you can see here. Unfortunately, not everyone was as good a driver. As Hank was taking pictures of the road, he witnessed the tanker in front of us flip over on one of the turns. The trunk was still sliding when he took the photo below.



After we passed the tanker, our bus driver stopped to check on the truck driver. He appeared to
be alive but, needless to say, we were all a bit shaken up as we continued the ride.



We made it to Santiago without further incident. The bus station in Santiago was swarming with people, but we finally got to our hotel at 11:00 and were taken to our wonderful little apartment where we will spend the next 5 nights.