Santiago, 29th May

At home I joked about maybe spending my 70th birthday snow bound at the top of the Andes. How prophetic I was. Although we didn’t get that far. The Andesmar bus checkin informed us on reaching the  terminus that the pass would be closed to Saturday at the earliest. Funny, I had been looking at the forecast and chances of snow were low before and after the 29th, but on that day 200mm of snow was predicted.  An option would have been to bring our journey forward a day but not knowing the effect of snow on the pass it would have been something I think we would have decided against.

So here we are, at the Ibis Hotel next to the bus terminus catching a very expensive  LAN flight tomorrow morning. It’s just one of these things and there should be a good chance of getting something back from the travel insurance crowd. It’s a pity as we were able to secure seats at the front of the bus for a panoramic view of the Andes as we went over.

The Museum of Pre-Columbian History has just undergone a major expansion and the exhibits now are excellently displayed with English alongside the Spanish descriptions. Well worth the couple of hours spent there yesterday.  In the afternoon we took in another museum showing more info on the Pinochet era. Very descriptive and touching especiallly the display where Chileans told their stories of the torture they suffered on  a  video screen below which was an iron bed frame with cables and electrodes draped over the side running to a meter box where intensity of the pain could be regulated. In another area, a wall maybe 8 metres tall was covered with photos of those executed. A display in front of the wall allowed you to look up the details of those killed.. Again, very moving.