South America Trip D91_97

http://picasaweb.google.com.tw/cshum2009/Santiago#

Date 91 28 Jan 2009 Mendoza

9:00 a.m. breakfast
9:30~10:30a.m. Say hello to everybody and photo taking
10:50 a.m. ~ 12:30 descend to the plain
12:30~17:30 Plaza de Confluencia
8:40 p.m. park entrance 11 hr walk
12:50p.m. back to Hotel Huentala in Mendoza

Date 92 29 Jan 2009 Mendoza

I slept at 3:30 a.m. and waked up at 9:30a.m. to have breakfast. I went to bus station to buy ticket to Santiago ($90) at 2:00p.m. after packing the luggage. Phone call ($1.5) was made for the reservation of hostel in Santiago. Pizza ($24) was taken as lunch. We booked a wine tour ($45). Laundry was $32 for 2 loads and Argentina cup was $24. We returned equipment at 7:00p.m. and the celebration dinner was at 9:00p.m.

Date 93 30 Jan 2009 Mendoza

It did not have anything to do in the morning. The tour bus picked us at 2:00p.m. in the hotel. The first wine tasting was "Lagarde". The explanation was in Spanish. The facility was rather old. Au brought a 1942-wine (US$ 300). The second place was also a winery. But it was an organic plant. The factory was small and the price was cheaper ($15~$35).

The third stop was the Olive Oil Farm and the explanation was simple and short. The final place was Dolce Factory. The explanation was amusing although I did not understand. 45$ was value for visiting 4 factories with 4 different talks.

Date 94 31 Jan 2009 Mendoza ~ Santiago

The bus set off at 9:50a.m. to Santiago. The bus passed through the Aconcagua Park again and I could see the top on the right hand side. We arrived at the border at 1:00p.m. and waited for clearing for about 2 hours. Finally, we arrived at the Santiago bus station at 6:00p.m. I took MTR to hostel and went outside walk after shower.

Most shops were closed as it was Saturday. It was hard to find a Chinese restaurant to have dinner ( 雲吞+雞肉+牛肉+炒飯) costing $10,000. Our hostel name was "Residential Condres" which was an old fashion mansion. The ceiling had more than 4 metres.

Date 95,96&97 1 Feb 2009 Santiago ~ Hong Kong

We had a free morning time as the flight was 7:00p.m. We stored the luggage in the hostel and went outside walk. I wanted to take bus but it did not accept cash. So we took MTR to the end of line L4. The cost was about $HK 4.8 and the ride took about an hour.

Lunch (fish + salad ) was taken in a local restaurant. We strolled around a shopping mall and missed Au after toilet. I waited for an hour and was back to hostel alone. I left a message after waiting another hour in the hostel. But I saw Au when I left hostel. I did not know whether Au missing was purposely or not. Anyway, we took taxi ($13,000)to the airport.

The flight was Santiago to Toronto (11hr) and from Toronto to Hong Kong(15 hr). The dream travel ended on 3 Feb 2009 ( 97 days all together).