South America Trip

This entry contains the links to my blog entries for the fall 2006 trip to South America, in chronological order from oldest to newest.

For readers who have been following along in my travels, you can revisit the entries up to Pucón to see pictures, which have been added. For those who didn't follow along, you'll have to read on to find out why there aren't more pictures than that.

I've also edited the old entries to have navigation links at the bottom of each page.

• Arrival in Cusco


• Ranting about museum curators


• Native Dancing in Cusco


• Socksy Wahmun


• The Inca Trail


• Touring the Sacred Valley


• Arequipa


• Colca Cañon and tour group logistics


• Some Pictures!


• The road to Chile


• Not feeling well in Arica


• Missed connections


• Santiago, the first time around


• Pucón, a nicer version of Lincoln, NH


• Parque Nacional Huerquehue


• Sliding down a volcano


• South American buses


• Springtime in the Andes


• South American buses, again


• Ya know that bad feeling...


• Ice cream (or should I say "helado")


• Just another day in Santiago


• Lima, and Home Sweet Home

Home sweet home

My time in Lima was, well, somewhat uninspiring.

Lima is a difficult city to navigate. There is no subway; there are no organized, documented, bus routes. Taxis are risky; gringos are likely to be scammed, and you have to negotiate prices. I had arranged transport to the hotel ahead of time (the round trip costing more than one night's hotel room), and the driver described how people were often charged as much as $100 for what should be a $10-15 ride.

This is the cost of not preparing (knowing what things ought to cost).

I walked from the hotel in the upscale, fairly safe, Miraflores area of Lima to nearby San Isidro, where there is a pre-Inca ruin called Huaca Huallamarca. This is basically a first-millenium pyramid made of mud bricks. The guide did a good job describing the site and its uses, as a political and religious center of the peoples there at time.

From there I went on what turned into a longer-than-intended walk up to the center of Lima. I should have taken a bus, but the bus system is confusing. Buses have locations, which are usually street names, but sometimes place names, printed on them. If you know where the roads go, you can know which bus to take to get where you're going. I was a bit gun-shy, so decided to walk. And walk. And walk. After 1+ hour, I reached Lima's Museo des Artes, which features some pre-Columbian pottery, textiles, and metal work, and a larger array of paintings from the colonial period to modern times. Lighting was not always great, and there were spotty English descriptions of the older stuff.

Another 40 minutes of walking, which included passing by some nice colonial architecture, brought me to the center of Lima, the Plaza de Armas, which is the typical Latin main square, full of bustle, and a surrounded by old buildings.

A few short blocks from the plaza is the Monastery of San Francisco, which reminded very much of things that I saw in Spain last year, except more run-down. Tile work (probably using tile from Spain) and woodwork were very similar to the Old World things I saw. The neat part of the tour was the catacombs, where archaeologists have cataloged bodies going all the way back to the early colonial days -- the monastery crypt was one of the first burial grounds of the colony.

Back near the plaza, I finally decided to brave the buses and caught a bus that dropped me (after about 45 diesel-choked minutes) near my hotel.

The next day (yesterday!) brought an early start to reach the airport, and an uneventful pair of flights home.

There's no place like home.

 

It was a day yesterday

I think I will remember yesterday (Sunday December 10) for a while. It's not often that you get to observe people celebrating the death of their former dictator.

I spent much of yesterday just enjoying the parks of Santiago, since I didn't have much else that I really wanted to do, and I had an evening flight to Lima. At around 1:30 I was in Parque Bustamante, which is south of Plaza Italia. From there I headed through Plaza Italia to Parque Forestal, which is northwest of the plaza, and near the hostel where I had been staying, and my bag was waiting for me.

Let me wind the time back a bit further. I had also been in the Parque Cerro Santa Lucia earlier, where I had been accosted by students doing fundraising, and trying to raise awareness of the high costs of tuition, and apparently graduation. Small student protests have also been a fairly regular feature of the landscape in Santiago, which has a large number of academic institutions.

Back to Parque Forestal. Around 2:30, I start hearing cars honking in rhythmic ways I have learned to associate with protest or other political activity. I figure the students are at it again. I am sitting 2 modest blocks away from the Plaza Italia.

Around 3:30, I decide to return to the hostel, which is on a quiet street, to have some relative peace before I embark on the travels of the evening. On the way there, I meet (on the street) the girl who's been minding the hostel. She tells me that Pinochet died (2:15 local time, 12:15 for you East Coasters), and a crowd was gathering at the Plaza Italia, and that we should stay away, it could be dangerous.

Crowds, dangerous? Whodathunkit?

We go into the hostel. Local TV coverage is on the scene, reporting on that and other aspects of the event. After I while, I decided (cursing the camera thieves) that I might as well be nearer the scene. I find a safe place to watch, as police with riot gear deploy, mainly to help traffic continue to flow through what is one of Santiago's main traffic intersections. In the hour or so I was there, the crowd grew from a few hundred to well over a thousand. While I could not understand all of the chants, I think they were mostly celebrating Pinochet's death, not his life.

Sidebar: There are very mixed feelings about Pinochet amongst Chilenos. Most will say that his human rights abuses were wrong, but they have been generally supportive of his economic policies (lifted almost straight from the ideas of the recently-deceased Milton Friedman) which made Chile the strongest economy in South America today.

I finally left the proceedings around 5 PM since I did have a date with an airplane. On watching news on arrival at the hotel in Lima, I see that they did eventually break out the water cannon, although CNN's video coverage really doesn't show much good footage.

Coming home tomorrow!


  

Ice cream (or should I say helado)

The ice cream in Chile (and Argentina) is pretty good. While it's not up to the very best that Boston and Italy have to offer, it's pretty close. And the portion size for the price is also pretty good. For about US$1.50 I get a "small" which is about the size of a typical New England small cup -- somewhere between 1 and 1.5 cups of ice cream.

But they have flavors here that we don't see often in staid New England. Lucuma? Papaya? Chirimoya?

It's nice tasting relatively exotic fruit ice creams.

  

Ya know that bad feeling ...

I went to Valparaiso today. While it is a city with a certain charm, I was not as taken by it as some people (like, say, Pablo Neruda) have been. It has a charm similar to that of, say, Venice. It's a place that was once great, but no longer is. There are buildings that predate a 1906 earthquake that are beautiful. The city is full of colorfully-painted, if poorly constructed, houses that are draped up and down the hillsides.

But none of this has to do with that bad feeling in the title.

My guidebook warned that Valparaiso was, shall we say, not entirely safe. So I went with a paranoid mindset.

It didn't help, but the damage was somewhat contained.

My first observation was that through the 6 or so hours I spent there, I felt entirely safe. I had seated myself in a park full of families, children playing with soccer balls and such. I was resting against a palm tree, enjoying the scene. Behind me (behind the tree) were temporary booths used for hawking Christmas goods -- these were the backs of the booths, and there was no way for someone to come up behind me.

Or so I thought. I never saw the guy myself. You see, his pal asked me for the time, and then we had one of those typical hard exchanges where I can't understand what they say. However, the way the guy signed off the conversation left me with the aforementioned bad feeling...

I turned. The bag is missing.

He and his pals are moving away. I can't see my bag in their possession.

I chase. Someone nearby points out that my bag is on the other side of the tree I was sitting at. I give up the chase, retrieve the bag.

The only thing missing is the camera. It is, of the things in the bag, the only thing other than my passport that Really Matters (and I did have to bring it, of course).

However, gone with it are at least 10 days worth of pictures. If the CD made in Pucón is no good, they're all gone.

The moral of the story: keep your bag in sight.


  

South American Buses, again

So yesterday's objective was to get to Santiago from Bariloche. This was accomplished by almost reversing the buses taken to get to Bariloche in the first place.

The first bus, leaving at 9 in the morning, took the same pass over the Andes as the one going the other way, only it left me in Osorno instead of Valdivia.

I can report that Osorno is even more boring than Valdivia was. I was there for 7 hours, and the best they could do for entertainment was a band playing mostly Christmas music (but also some standards, like Brazil) on the plaza.

Then there was the night bus to Santiago. In my previous entry on buses, I alleged that the semi-cama service was pretty good. For some reason, this time the "semi-cama" service was not large seats. It was a bit tighter seating (4 across instead of 3), which made getting comfy for sleeping difficult.

The net result? About 4 hours sleep. Thanks, Tur-Bus.

Tomorrow appears to be a public holiday here in Chile. I'm planning to go see Valparaiso.

Hasta luego!

  

Springtime in the Andes

It's really pretty here.

On Sunday morning I caught a late-morning bus to a small satellite community called Colonia Suiza. This is basically a strip of mostly tourist-oriented things (campgrounds, restaurants, artsy shops) along a dirt road. For me, it was the jumping-off point for a 5-hour hike up to a mountain refugio called Refugio Italia, next to a mountain tarn called Laguna Negra. The first 3.5 hours were along a mountain stream with gently increasing elevation. The woods were generally similar to what I encountered in Parque Huerquehuay in Chile, only the coigues trees were generally smaller. After those 3.5 hours, I reached a small campsite, and could see the falls.

Going up probably 200m.

A Canadian hiker coming down had told me to expect snow. As the trail wound its way up the side of the mountain on one side of the falls, there was snow. I tell ya, crossing snow fields that descend steeply for 30m is not always fun in the springtime. If the snow decides to slip, you go with it. To the rocks (usually) below.

But the refugio was reached without incident.

Those of you who have been in White Mountain huts will know what sort of service those provide: large dorm rooms, a staff of four or five, hearty dinner and breakfast, all for about $60.

This was not that. There was, at the time, only a young lady from Buenos Aires as caretaker. The capacity was about 60. Dinner and lodging cost A$38 (about US$13). The place was poorly heated (one central stove that madam caretaker did not feed too much), but it was shelter from nearly-continous 15mph winds. There was me, the caretaker, and an Argentine couple. An American couple popped in to say they were camping (!) nearby. I saw where they put their tent, but I'm still wondering how easy it was for them to cook dinner, given the winds. The caretaker said that the high moutain routes were still snow-bound and generally dangerous due to spring avalanche-like conditions. This did not stop one Aussie clown from making such a traversal (I passed him on his way down near the refugio, decked out in full snow/ice gear.)

Laguna Negra was still mostly frozen over. The temperatures at night were probably above freezing, but not by much. I was toasty warm in the sleeping bag, with the usual I-don't-want-to-leave-it problem in the morning.

Morning was actually relatively wind-free. I took about 90 minutes to explore the shoulder of one of the nearby peaks that seemed attainable without winter or mountaineering gear. It wasn't, but I got a great view of one of the other local peaks, which is named Cerro Catedral for a very good reason. Since my pictures were stolen , you can look at another traveler's pictures to get an idea.

The hike down was uneventful, if a bit rushed, as there are few buses going through Colonia Suiza each day.

The day yesterday was capped with one thing I like about Argentina: a three-course dinner with 1/2 bottle of wine for about $15. Yum.

Today is a relaxaday, hanging about Bariloche. Tomorrow begins the slog back toward Santiago (requiring about 16 hours in buses, with about 7 hours of layover in Osorno Chile).

Hasta luego!

  

South American buses

South America probably has the best buses in the world. Really.

They have more-or-less perfected the art of long-distance bus travel down here. When I rode the bus from Santiago to Temuco (on Turbus), I took a class of bus called "semi-cama". Imagine for a moment a first-class airline seat -- wide, reclines way back. Add pillows and blankets a la night flights. Add bad, cold, airline food. (I didn't say it was perfect, did I?) In Peru, where theft on the night buses has been a problem in the past, add a variety of security measures, including videoing bag searches and seated passengers prior to departure.

Now, consider instead the traditional cattle-car bus operated by Greyhound or Trailways in the US. These don´t even exist down here. All the longer-haul buses have reclining seats, a foot rest that folds from the seat in front to the base of yours, an attendant who serves snacks every once in a while (he's actually the backup driver), and a bathroom (chemical toilet, not for the faint of stomach, but it´s there).

Oh, and price. That nice bus ride from Santiago to Temuco? About $35 for an 8 hour bus ride. The cattle-car bus I took from Valdivia to Bariloche, Argentina today (a daytime trip that should have taken 6 hours) was about $20.

Tomorrow (Sunday) I go hiking in the parks near here. Next update will be Monday.

Hasta luego!

  

sliding down a volcano

So yesterday I ascended Volcán Villarrica. I went with a group of 4 Aussie lads, 2 Israeli lasses, and a crusty German guide named Klaus (who brought skis). There is a ski area on the volcano, to whose base we were driven. We then took the ski lift (for an extra CLP5000, about $10) to a height of about 1800 meters. From there we began trekking uphill, through snow, in a long, occasionally broken chain of ants.

Did I mention there were about 200 other people on the mountain?

We stopped about once an hour for a break. The edge of the caldera is about 2870 meters, and each hour we covered about 250 meters of altitude, at a fairly slow pace. (It felt slow to my leg muscles, which like to go faster, but about right for my lungs, which usually complain.) Early on, we had a brief lesson in how to use the ice axe we were each given. Given that the mountain (especially at higher altitudes) is cone-shaped, there aren't many features to stop you from falling a Long Way.

The views on the way up, and on the caldera edge, were outstanding. We did not go to the actual summit (which was on the far side of the caldera from where we came up). But we got a really good look partway into the crater, which was deep enough that no lava was visible. But the steam wafting up from the crater did come with its own peculiar, umm, stench, which generally set people coughing.

The descent was a ride. Near the top, conditions were very icy, but once we got a bit further down, we did a series of progressively longer slides on our butts. Imagine you are in something resembling a water slide. Your means of control are (1) your feet, and (2) your ice axe. Both provide some means for controlling speed and direction.

The sliding was most fun higher up on the mountain, where the snow was firmer. As we got lower and lower, the snow got more and more slushy, and we ended up pushing a lot of it down the mountain with our butts.

Total time of ascent: about 3:45. Total time of descent: about 1:45.

Wheee.

Today I caught a bus to Valdivia, which is near the coast a bit further south than Pucón. From here, I plan to go to Bariloche in Argentina, and then on to a smaller place a bit south of there.

Hasta luego!


  

Parque Nacional Huerquehue

Parque Nacional Huerquehue is a smallish national park not far from Pucón (see previous entry). There are three buses a day -- 8, 1, 4. Courtesy of problems in acquiring a tent, I missed the 8 bus, and ended up on the 1, which reached the park about 2:15. There is a campground in the center of the park, a five-plus hour hike from the gate. While I had originally planned to spend two nights there, I opted for discretion and stayed at the campground near the gate.

This turned out to be a Good Thing, for reasons that shall become clear. This campground had wooded sites, and was located near Lago Tinquilco, a smallish lake partly within park boundaries. I had the entire grounds to myself, and enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the lake.

The next day I hiked up into the higher grounds of the park, where there are more small lakes and waterfalls. This was an absolutely beautiful area -- wooded, with native trees abounding. There are several types of trees here that have trunk diameters in excess of 10 feet. I think it makes doing trail work here exciting...

The highlight of the day (and the next day too) was Lago Toro, which is a picture postcard waiting to be sold.
Someone else's picture

Late in the afternoon I arrived at the other campground, at which point I really appreciated my decision to stay in the other one. This one was essentially a hunk of pasture (complete with cow pies, but this has been experienced before...), with little redeeming character. They claim there is a "refugio" here, but all I saw was a very low leanto that on a good night might allow 3 people under it. They also claim to have an outhouse. The sad excuse of an outhouse was in a sad state of neglect, being full of trash, and generally unusable. Fortunately, there was a shovel-head in the camp leavings nearby, which I was able to use for dealing with things normally done in an outhouse.

I spent the evening in conversation with an Italian woman who was spending several days at this godforsaken campground, whose only benefit is its central location, so that she could fully explore the park.

The next day (which would be today!) I made a brief early-morning excursion to a small lake nearby, and then hightailed it back the way I came, more-or-less, to eventually return to Pucón.

Tomorrow I climb a volcano.

Hasta luego!

  

Pucón, a nicer version of Lincoln NH

After wandering the city of Santiago yesterday (including a very nice visit to the summit of Cerro Santa Lucía, and also to Parque Quinta Normal, two of the nicer parks in this city of parks), I made my way to one of Santiago's four bus terminals (go figure), and took a night bus to Temuco, a roughly 8-hour drive. Temuco was just a bus-changing point for me on the highway -- about 20 minutes after arriving around 6 AM I was on a bus to Pucón. (That's "poo-kon'" to you.)

The countryside here reminds me of rural upstate New York. Finger Lakes, say. But they have a somewhat distinctive architectural style here. Lots of wood and stone. Think, oh, Adirondack meets Swiss chalet. It works pretty well, and they seem to flog the style in the stores here, just like in the Adirondacks.

Pucón is a small town, completely dedicated to outdoor fun. The main town is fairly compact (can be walked in less than 10 minutes), but is full of an array of restaurants, shops, and outdoor activity operators. The hot item these days seems to be going on ropes through tree canopies, judging by what's being flogged. Also available: white-water rafting and kayaking, lake tours, park tours (more on that later), and volcano climbing.
 

Volcano climbing. Uh huh.

This is in what is known as the Lakes region of Chile. Pucón is on the shores of Lake Villarrica. Looming overhead is 2980+ meter Volcán Villarrica, one of Chile's more active volcanos. As I sit here typing, it occasionally puffs steam.

And you can climb it. With guides. Just about every day. And see the lava bubbling in the crater.

OK, there are a few issues here. One, I've never been on a volcano. That close. Two, I've never done ice axe and crampons. The touts say this is a non-technical climb, don't worry.

So I'm not. That's Patience's job anyway.

Before I go (or try to, conditions permitting), I will be spending a few days in Parque Nacional Huerquehue (whose name is impossible to pronounce correctly) camping. It has lakes and views and camping, oh my.

I'll next check in on Wednesday. Hasta luego!

  

Santiago, the first time around

Santiago is a large, fairly cosmopolitan city. It reminds me a lot of large European cities -- mostly clean, rough spots here and there, a nice downtown (with pedestrian zone and the obligatory Plaza de Armas),
 
tony neighborhoods (Providencia), and a clean, apparently-well-working subway.

I spent yesterday mostly walking around the city some, but also fussing about travel arrangements, since I had to book a night bus (part of the way) to my next destination. Tonight's target is Temuco, in the lakes area south of here. But it is only the transit hub en route to Pucón, a smaller town near unto the lakes and mountains.

But I digress.

I also went into one of the local history museums, and discovered how much Spanish I now seem to be capable of reading. It's amazing what limited English contact will do, even if I sometimes make the TV work against that. The museum had a reasonably nice presentation of Chilean history, from the earliest native settlements until about the turn of the 20th century. (The 20th century galleries were undergoing revision, err, renovation.)

Near the center of Santiago is a small mount that has been turned into a very pretty city park, full of follies and 19th-century charm.
   
  

Happy trails!

  

Missed connections strike again

So my plan for today had been to catch a bus to the mountain town of Putre. The lady at the tourist office told me it left at 7. I get up early, I'm there shortly before 7. Bus has been gone for a while.

Qué?

Turns out it left at 6:30. Arrgh. I am not spending another day in Arica. It's nice, but I feel like I've explored it well enough, thanks.

So I grab a cab to the airport. A few too many dollars later (not to mention sitting in the airport for a few hours) I'm on a plane bound for Santiago. I get to sit next to two older Aussie ladies, the first native English I've heard in almost 4 days. We trade reading material -- one Asimov's SF mag for a murder mystery set in Baxter Park Maine. It's a page turner -- three hour flight, 3/4 finished.

My consolation is that when a similar thing (missed bus) happened to me in Spain, I didn't have any really good alternatives lined up. I must be learning something.

I'm staying near the University of Chile in a small area known as Paris-Londres. It was developed in the 19th century as a sort of "Paris, small streets" area. Very pretty on the outside. The interior decor of this hotel is more cheap-70s wood panel, though. One place that was booked full had a really nice old-hotel look to it. I may try to stay there on my way back...

Time for dinner! Hasta luego!

  

When one isn't feeling well

The best thing I've found to do when not feeling well is to check into a better hotel. It takes the sting out of being sick. I decided I was unwell enough that I delayed going to Putre (up in the Andes from Arica) an extra day.

The traveler's malady struck again, this time with enough force to convince me it was time for the Serious Medication (i.e. antibiotics). I've also been having cold symptoms, which may or may not be related. The antibiotics seem to have had a fairly good effect on the tummy rumblings, but I'm still running sweaty and coughing. Maybe a return to altitude will help.

Arica is a nice place, but there's not much to do, even if I'm spending most of my time in the room.

There's some sort of traditional dance/music festival in Putre this weekend -- I may try to hang around for it.

Hasta luego!


  

The road to Chile

Once again, I had an early start. This time it was to catch a 7:30AM bus from Arequipa to the Peruvian border town of Tacna. This went without a hitch -- the bus left pretty much right on time. We got to see several movies on the bus, including The Terminal, which I had not seen before (Spielberg directs Tom Hanks as a Bulgarian stuck in Newark Airport's no-man's-land). Also some silly surf movie, and another silly teen romantic comedy. Rah. The movies were a welcome respite from the landscape, which was basically piles of sand. Seriously. In the desert Southwest of America, there is life in the desert. The desert here looked like it was completely devoid of life.

Upon arrival in Tacna, the hucksterism for transport to Arica in Chile began the moment I got off the bus. I daresay it happened before I even got out the door.
I paid 18 soles (about $6) for a "collectivo" taxi to Arica. I should have haggled, but was sick and tired of haggling to save $1-1.50. There are buses that make the run, and there are these collectivos, which are mostly decommissioned US police cars (or their near twins). I highly recommend taking the collectivo, even though it costs more than the bus, since you clear border formalities more quickly. One traveler who had crossed this border took a bus, and it was delayed over 1 hour because some idiot had drugs, something neither side looks kindly on. My collection of 5 passengers went through Peruvian formalities fairly smoothly, but the young couple from Ecuador were stopped at the Chilean border (for reasons unknown to me, my Spanish isn't good enough to follow what the driver told the others), so we went on without them.

The entire drive, including border formalities, from Tacna to Arica took a little over 1 hour. This was aided by the driver, who drove really fast down the straight 2-to-4 lane road. How fast? Dunno, his speedo was broken.

I booked into a place recommended by my Rough Guide, but I don't like it, a bit of a dump, and they shut off the water at night (which didn't help when my traveler's disease resurfaced early this morning...)
  

Hasta luego!