Background
In September last year, I went into the Himalayas and it rekindled a younger day passion for the mountains. It struck my soul deep and since then I was back to the Himalayas one more time and shortly after I went to the Andes with the ambition to climb my second 6000er ever in my life - Parinacota in the Bolivia/Chile border and I approached it from Bolivia.
This trip report was originally planned to include a Cusco to La Paz flight by Peruvian and then a La Paz to Uyuni flight by Amaszonas. However, I lost all the pics due to iphone issues and I was then left with my Santiago-Mendoza-Santiago flights to showcase here. The good thing is that these latter flights are the more spectacular ones. And within a short span of 40 minutes (123 miles) one journeys over the narrow but lofty spans of the Andes. In the Himalayas, we usually traverse along its sides, but the Andean peaks around Santiago are traversed directly over by almost all flights heading east of Santiago. Since Mendoza is just a short 180km away, the traverse is done at the minimum altitude and wow it was a spectacular journey where one feels almost like the flight is scrapping the tops of the great mountain range.
I will also be peppering this report with my travel pics of the surreal landscapes of the Bolivian Altiplano. It is like on a different planet altogether.
Flight: LA434
Type: A320-200
Reg: CC_BEG
Cabin: Economy
Seat: 13A
Load: 80%
The flight was a regular A320 flight in economy and as such I don't have much to show in terms of onboard product. There was not even a meal service on the short hop. Good that It did not because my eyes (and camera lens) were almost all the way transfixed at the window looking out to the majesty outside.
Latam flight 434 was a regular all-economy flight in standard 3-3 configuration. And I had an emergency exit row. The plane is newish and there are no IFE screens.
We pushed back in time.
And these are some plane spotting pics around SCL. Most of them don't come to Asia. Iberia and KLM on their afternoon departures to Europe.
Taking off .... The mountains were veiled in the background behind the haze.
I didn't expect that Santiago is almost perpetually covered by a thin layer of fog / smog
As we flew higher, the city disappeared beneath the haze, and the mountains appeared crystal clear in the distance. We were heading due south and the mountains were on the left hand side.
And then we veered left (eastwards)
And the following pics were taken over the next 20 minutes. We were cruising at 7500m and these white peaks were up to 6500m. The geography below was clearly visible from cruising altitude - every road (although there weren't many at at all), every rivers, lakes, and villages. We were almost literally scraping the top of the Andes.
The Andes then abruptly drops to the flat winelands of Mendoza, Argentina.
In September last year, I went into the Himalayas and it rekindled a younger day passion for the mountains. It struck my soul deep and since then I was back to the Himalayas one more time and shortly after I went to the Andes with the ambition to climb my second 6000er ever in my life - Parinacota in the Bolivia/Chile border and I approached it from Bolivia.
This trip report was originally planned to include a Cusco to La Paz flight by Peruvian and then a La Paz to Uyuni flight by Amaszonas. However, I lost all the pics due to iphone issues and I was then left with my Santiago-Mendoza-Santiago flights to showcase here. The good thing is that these latter flights are the more spectacular ones. And within a short span of 40 minutes (123 miles) one journeys over the narrow but lofty spans of the Andes. In the Himalayas, we usually traverse along its sides, but the Andean peaks around Santiago are traversed directly over by almost all flights heading east of Santiago. Since Mendoza is just a short 180km away, the traverse is done at the minimum altitude and wow it was a spectacular journey where one feels almost like the flight is scrapping the tops of the great mountain range.
I will also be peppering this report with my travel pics of the surreal landscapes of the Bolivian Altiplano. It is like on a different planet altogether.
Flight: LA434
Type: A320-200
Reg: CC_BEG
Cabin: Economy
Seat: 13A
Load: 80%
The flight was a regular A320 flight in economy and as such I don't have much to show in terms of onboard product. There was not even a meal service on the short hop. Good that It did not because my eyes (and camera lens) were almost all the way transfixed at the window looking out to the majesty outside.
Latam flight 434 was a regular all-economy flight in standard 3-3 configuration. And I had an emergency exit row. The plane is newish and there are no IFE screens.
We pushed back in time.
And these are some plane spotting pics around SCL. Most of them don't come to Asia. Iberia and KLM on their afternoon departures to Europe.
Taking off .... The mountains were veiled in the background behind the haze.
I didn't expect that Santiago is almost perpetually covered by a thin layer of fog / smog
As we flew higher, the city disappeared beneath the haze, and the mountains appeared crystal clear in the distance. We were heading due south and the mountains were on the left hand side.
And then we veered left (eastwards)
And the following pics were taken over the next 20 minutes. We were cruising at 7500m and these white peaks were up to 6500m. The geography below was clearly visible from cruising altitude - every road (although there weren't many at at all), every rivers, lakes, and villages. We were almost literally scraping the top of the Andes.
The Andes then abruptly drops to the flat winelands of Mendoza, Argentina.
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