San Pedro de Atacama, Chile to Salta, Argentina Aug 1st.

TUESDAY 1st August 

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile to Salta, Argentina.

7am alarm. 8:15 walk to the bus station.

The 9am departure turned into 9:30. Another comfortable bus. A double decker with four seats across. We scored upstairs one row from the front so we had good views.

We climbed out of San Pedro de Atacama back up the road that we came out of Bolivia on and we were soon back up at 4000 plus metres.

Three hours later we reached the border.  At least the Chileans and Argentinians talk to each other. The exit and entry stamps were acquired in the same building.  That doesn't necessarily mean that it was by any means streamlined or efficient but it was a step up from our previous experiences.

However.... they can only accept one bus load at a time and there were two buses in front of us. 1 hr 45 later our bus moved into the customs area and we walked into the customs hall to queue.  The line moved fairly quickly. At the first window we received our exit stamp and then back in a second queue and at the second window, right beside the first window we received our Argentine entry stamp.  Now back out to the bus where one of the two drivers had been unloading all our luggage.  Grab the bags.  Back in the same door and around the corner to queue for the X-ray machine.

No paperwork at this border to declare or not declare contraband. One quick sweep through the X-ray and outside again to find that our bus had moved two bus lengths forward and was now firmly established in Argentina.  Re load the luggage and all aboard.  The whole process for about sixty passengers took 45 minutes.

Total time at the border 2hrs 30.  This border outpost was once again high up in the Andes at 4400m.  One hell of a place to work.  At least there was no sign of corruption here, unlike the Bolivian border.

On our way again and about five hours later we were finally leaving the Andes as we started a slow descent to below 3000m.  We descended through an amazing gorge. Many hairpin turns which continued for a total of over 2000m down.  It reminded me of the roads in the movie The Italian job but twice as steep.

We put our clocks forward an hour and arrived in Salta at 8:30 pm.
We checked in to quite a nice wee hotel.  Our room had a king bed and a single bed.  I managed to talk Lindsey into having a bed mate as the bed was "just" big enough!