Cuzco, Sacred Valley, and Machu Picchu

As predicted, this thing is slowing down!  I’m still committed to finishing it up though, and there are only a few chapters left (coastal Peru, the Galapagos, and Ecuador).

The bus from Arequipa to Cuzco was only 1/3 full, which has gone against just about every bus experience I’ve had so far in South America.  Not to say I wasn’t happy to have an empty night bus.  It was just a little strange.  Then again, maybe the reason for the ghost town was that it arrived in Cuzco at the convenient time of 5:30 in the morning.  Luckily enough, most hostels that know their stuff will have their doors open around the clock for newcomers.  The one I chose didn’t have any beds open, but what they did have was a TV room outfitted with ~500 comfortable pillows on the floor.  My sleep-addled brain made the connection with those ball pits they’d have at McDonald’s and I had a brief temptation to dig myself in and flop around in the sea of pillows like a 6-year-old.  Fortunately for the other arrivals, the temptation to crash out was stronger.

That morning also happened to be my 26th birthday.  Sanna and Jani from Finland, who I’d been travelling with in Bolivia, had been in Cuzco for a couple of days; we decided to get a late breakfast to celebrate.  Jack’s Cafe was a well-known gringo joint, and we were all craving a (north) american style breakfast.  We ended up splitting a “gordo” plate (eggs, bacon, hash browns, beans, sausage), and somehow I was able to fit in an order of french toast on top of it.  After so many weeks of eating sparingly, this bout of gluttony shocked the system something fierce and gave me a wicked itis.  For continued birthday celebrating I stayed in the hostel bar and participated in a pub quiz, where our group finished in a close second.

Through the trip so far, I haven’t run across many of the stereotypical gringo tourists.  By and large, it has been mostly backpacker types, with the majority being from countries like England, Brazil, Australia, Israel, or Germany.  Granted, I’ve met a good number from the US, Canada, etc, but by and large they have been the minority.  This all changed in Cuzco, though.  Whether it’s the close proximity of the ruins, the fame of Hiram Bingham, or the ease of which you can get from the airport to Machu Picchu without any difficult hiking, old white folk were out in droves here.  Because of this, Cuzco streets contained some of the most persistent, omnipresent street vendors of all the places I’d been so far.  The sad thing was that they’d either be selling the same cheap sunglasses, the same cheap water bottle carriers, the same cheap hats, or the same cheap deals for massages.

Well, all the touristy stuff must have rubbed off on me, because my first bit of activity was to take a tour of the nearby sacred valley.  As much as I don’t care for being carted around in a tour bus, it was a cost effective way to get a feel for the surrounding area.  Just north of the city, the valley was a strategic location for many incan settlements, and is still an agricultural powerhouse for the campesinos living there.  The first stop was the mountaintop fortress of Pisaq.  The common thread of incan structures seems to be that they were all built from heavy stones and located on the tops of mountains.  Considering the stonework involved and the high altitudes, it’s no wonder that their engineering feats are lauded.  At the top, a musical group of campesinos were filming a performance.  No idea whether it was for a commercial of some sort or a promotional tourist video.

Fortress of Pisaq

Campesinos jamming away

Another stop was the still lived-in city Ollantaytambo, which has retained many of the original inca construction, including stone-lined irrigation canals, city walls built of boulders, as well as the well preserved mountaintop temple similar to Pisaq.  Our guide pointed out the quarry where the stones were retrieved from… on top of a mountain all the way ACROSS the valley from the mountain we were on top of there.  Some determination they had.

That night we went to a restaurant on a mission for some traditional Peruvian food.  Since time immemorial, people from this region have eaten guinea pig, or cuy, as it is known.  It’s easy to care for, their preferred food grows readily in the Andean soil, and they reproduce like any rodent.  Every eatery serving them will have a pen out in front, where I’m guessing a diner can pick their meal just as they would a lobster.  Of course I had to try one.  Overall impressions: a little gamey and not too much meat on their bones.  Also, a little distracting to eat them with the faces still intact and pseudo-staring at you.  During the time I was in Cuzco, the festival of Corpus Christi was taking place.  In countless stalls of street food, roasted cuy was being served by the bucket.  Many places would stuff cherry tomatoes or peppers in their mouths (or other orifices…) for a miniature suckling pig effect.

Eat, my pretties

Another nearby archaeological site was the fortress Saqsaywhuman (“sexy woman”).  Apparently these ridges of monolithic stones were the location of the Cuzco Inca’s last stand against the conquistadors after being driven out of the city itself.  It used to be nigh impregnable, but over 500 or so years of looting, the fortress is full of breaches and overrun with tourists.  Still it makes a very impressive site, though I wouldn’t exactly call it sexy.  Another feature of Incan architecture was the judicious use of solid forms that tapered upward.  Methods like that have made Incan constructions stand the test of time through many strong earthquakes in this tectonically active region.

Several boulders were bigger than my car

The Incas had a thing for awesome views

Most backpackers going through Cuzco are aware of the world-famous Inca Trail trek going to Machu Picchu.  For many thousands of hikers a year, it is a spiritual experience to take this path through spectacular valleys, glaciered mountains, and other Incan ruins and arrive at Machu Picchu as the sun rises.  Honestly, it sounded like a pretty cool time.  Unfortunately for me, the Inca Trail requires a reservation for a certain date be made several months in advance.  Due to the fuzzy nature of this trip’s scheduling, putting a bottleneck on a certain date right in the middle of things might have been too much inconvenience.  Luckily enough, there are several great alternatives to the Inca Trail.  The one I ended up with was the Lares Valley trek.  Rather than go straight along the sacred valley, it treks up another glacial valley nearby, ascending to a mountain pass at 4750m (around 15,800 ft!), and descending through the Lares valley, where it ends at some thermal pools.

Children in one of the rural villages we hiked through

This was some incredibly beautiful terrain, with sheer rock cliffs, a gushing river, misty waterfalls, and occasional idyllic meadows.  I decided to spring for one of the pricier trekking companies that had a reputation for excellent meals, and even though it was getting into the high season our group only consisted of three tourists (myself included), our guide Javier, four porters, and four horses for carrying cargo.  With the smallish group that we had, and the fact that it was one of the less popular routes, we really felt like we had the valley and wilderness to ourselves for the majority of the trip.  Everyone who takes one of these guided treks can’t ignore the hard work put in by the porters and cook on these trips.  Every stop, they would set up a full camp, complete with a meal tent, sleeping tents for the guests, and latrine.  They would start tearing it down after the guests started hiking to the next destination, proceed to catch up with and quickly pass them, and have the camp set up by the time the guests were huffing and puffing their way in.  They’d also do all this while wearing leather sandals and carrying 30 pound packs.  Hardcore guys, they are.

Valley scenery

Campsite for the first night, approx. 14,000 ft

After a surprisingly comfortable sleep for the first night, we proceeded to climb and climb slowly and steadily up to the saddle point.  I’d never done much strenuous hiking at this altitude, so progress was slow and breathing was heavy.  All the time spent in Bolivia beforehand must have prepped my system well, because there were no headaches or lightheadedness… just a furiously pumping heart.  Our group must have been awesome, because we arrived at the pass an hour ahead of schedule.  It was a barren place, with several high altitude lagoons, many rocks, and a few glaciated peaks nearby.  A tradition that Javier told us about for trails such as these is to carry a rock from the bottom and stack it at the top as an offering to the mountain gods.  The larger a rock you can carry, the more manly you are and the more bragging rights the mountain gods give you… or something to that effect.  Not wanting to be shown up, I schlepped a fist-size piece of granite with me.

Lagoons near the pass

Looking back down the valley from whence we came

Trekking group poses at the top

Looking down the other side

After a day and a half of constantly climbing switchbacks, it was great to head downhill once more.  The other side was a different landscape entirely, with jagged crags of volcanic rock replacing the monolithic flat mountains of the previous valley, and placid lagoons taking the place of the last valley’s rushing river.  There was a bit of rain, but we’d been briefed to pack rain jackets and ponchos.  After a few hours of crossing this rugged high-altitude terrain, we popped into another rivered valley’s farmland and made our way through a few small rural villages.  Making our way necessitated crossing through many livestock pastures, where llamas, alpacas, goats, sheep, and other animals were grazing.

One of many sacred mountains of the area

These stone walls have likely been here for hundreds of years

After a lunch stop, our group decided to skip the planned night camp and hoof it straight to the hot springs in the town of Lares, since we were making such good time.  This consisted of walking through more and more rural land, with things getting gradually more developed as we descended to a lower elevation.  Eventually we made it to a dirt road and arrived at the thermal baths.  After covering so much ground on foot, we were glad to be spending the night here and having the opportunity to soak for a while.

Sadly, the only photo I have from the hot springs is this gigantic bug I came across there. For reference, the book is "East of Eden", which is about 3 inches thick. I mean, look at the size of that thing!

The drawback to the Lares Trek is that instead of arriving at Machu Picchu on foot like the Inca Trail, you have to be picked up by a van in Lares to be taken to Ollantaytambo, where you ride the train in to Machu Picchu.  That said, it was a beautiful ride, though the road is a little sketchy in places.  Due to the recent flooding of the Urubamba River, part of the railroad was damaged, so a bus from Cuzco to Ollantaytambo is necessary to get there, as opposed to a train all the way from Cuzco.  After a long day of vans, busses, and the train, we arrived in Aguas Calientes, the touristy city of hotels where visitors to M.P. usually stay the night.

The next morning, our group agreed to wake at 3:45 in order to climb up the staircase going to Machu Picchu and hopefully beat the less motivated up to the top.  The climb itself was strenuous, since the old staircase had stairs that were some 3 feet of height different from each other.  But since this was in a cloud forest (aka, slightly higher altitude jungle) the high humidity made for tough going and caused us to sweat buckets.  We didn’t count the steps going up, but it certainly felt endless.  Another reason for showing up that early is that we’d get first selection for which time slot we’d want to go on the Waina Picchu trail in the park.  This trail also contained a ludicrous amount of stairs.

After waiting in the surprisingly long line at 6 in the morning, they opened the gates to the park, and we had our first look at the famous landmark.  With all the mountains of hype over Machu Picchu that’s been heaped on over the years, I was expecting a little bit of letdown.  Fortunately, this place does not disappoint!  The scale of the incas work on top of the mountain plus the winding river way below, plus the surrounding sheer mountains made it a magnificent site that has retained its grandeur, even after several years of tourist traffic.  To be fair, we did kind of luck out with tourist traffic for that day.  Apparently a transit strike (those things happen all the time here…) had stranded a bunch of tourists from visiting that day, and we were blessed with a Machu Picchu that only had a few moderate crowds of people, rather than the zoo that usually comes through.

First glimpse of Machu Picchu with Waina Picchu in the background

Crop terraces shortly after sunrise

As per the usual methods of the Inca, the stonework is phenomenal.  Each boulder was carved precisely to fit in its spot.  In several locations, the fitted stones sit perfectly amongst the larger boulders that were naturally there.  Because of this, each Inca site follows the natural contours of the mountains they’re built upon, rather than aggressively terraforming a foundation to build things straight and level.  One striking example of this is the Temple of the Condor, where a carved stone beak and two gigantic boulders as “wings” form a natural condor, facing in the direction of the rising sun.  Also because of the natural contours, there are many many stairs.  Between the stairs leading up to Machu Picchu from Aguas Calientes, the stairs leading to the summit of Waina Picchu, and all the stairs in Machu Picchu itself, I believe this was the most vertical distance I’ve climbed in one day.

Unbelievable stonework underneath the Temple of the Sun

Fancy steps carved from one boulder

Temple of the Condor. Can you see it?

Waina Picchu looms

Chubby little chinchilla wasn't very fazed at all

After milling about Machu Picchu proper for a while, it was time to climb some more stairs to the top of Waina Picchu (that tall mountain you see in all the typical shots of Machu Picchu).  The path consists almost entirely of shady steps dating from the Incas.  Step height is usually very inconsistent, and a chain or rope is the only thing protecting you from a sheer drop to the bottom of the valley.  Still the Inca found it in them to build more temples on the top of this peak, which has a fantastic view of the river circling around it below.  This trail would not be for the faint of heart or those with a fear of heights.  Not having either, I loved it.

Can't tell very well from this picture, but these staircases were STEEP

At the top. The gray mass on the right is Machu Picchu

Long way down

Alas, it was time to head back to Cuzco and start planning out the next stage.  While I was expecting a calm and pleasant ride back in the train/bus, things didn’t end up as such.  Remember the transportation strike earlier?  Well, it turned out things weren’t conveniently cleared up by the time I was ready to go back.  The train ride went without incident, but the bus transports were a different story.  First of all, there were only a limited amount of scab drivers the train company could hire, so every bus was full to the brim with people trying to get back.  Second, the strikers had decided that nobody could use the roads since they went on strike.  To make sure of this, they had dragged lines of boulders, broken glass, and even tree stumps into the middle of the road to barricade it off.  Over the course of the day people had punched through sections of it, making it possible, though very difficult and swervy, to drive down the road.  This all was happening around 1AM, and from what I could tell, our driver was very tired to begin with.  Swerving delicately around road obstructions with a sleepy made for one of the most nerve-wracking, surreal bus rides on my trip so far.

We did make it back without incident, somehow.

And the shot that everybody takes

I Bolivia it is Time to Leave That One and Peru-ve Myself

One month behind, but I haven´t given up on this blog yet!

As a bonus for this installment, I´ll do a section on transportation in South America, making this probably the largest post yet.  Enjoy!

Gettin´ Around

It´s a little better than this now

If you haven´t figured out from my posts so far, transportation is one of the more interesting aspects of day-to-day life in much of South America.  In Europe, it is a relatively painless experience to take trains across the continent, as many countries have made a great effort to make that method of travel as seamless and efficient as possible.  While you can´t really say the same for the US´s rail system, the superhighways are at least direct and high-capacity.

It can´t really be said that South America has either thing going for it.  While there are various rail systems throughout the continent, they are mostly disjointed and by-and-large used for industrial and freight purposes.  US writer Paul Theroux, in his book “The Old Patagonian Express”, made an attempt to travel from Boston, MA to Esquel, Argentina using only rail travel (the book is worth reading, but Theroux sometimes comes off as a bitter, curmudgeony old man).  Really, he does a pretty good job overall, but several routes he took were either out of service, low-capacity narrow gauge routes with many delays, or sections he skipped over entirely by bus or plane.

"World´s Deadliest Road" outside La Paz, Bolivia

The roads aren´t too much better.  Especially in the andean regions, roads wind through harsh terrain in varying states of condition.  Bolivia especially has a large number of unpaved, shady roads.  An exception is the Panamerican highway that runs through most of Chile and Peru, which is a mostly direct link going up the coast.  Since many south americans live below the poverty line, car ownership is not nearly as prevalent.

These factors combine to make busses by far the most used means of conveyance.  And just like other forms of transportation, they come in all shapes, sizes, and levels of comfort.  Here´s a basic rundown, starting from most expensive and going down in cheapness (since really, the cheap ones are the most interesting).

Full Cama

This guy knows what´s up

Used primarily for long-haul trips, these busses usually go direct from station to station over long distances.  The first class seats are arguably better than first class on an airplane, with seats that fold flat for a comfortable sleeping surface.  Depending on the carrier, they might have very nice meals, and some even serve alcohol to their passengers.  Movies are played on the entertainment systems, with varying quality.  Generally it´s the latest releases from hollywood (probably bought for cheap at one of the many pirated DVD kiosks).

Semi Cama

Sort of like this, minus the asian characters

Comparable to seats on a train, though a little more space than plane seats.  These are the bread-and-butter of distance travel in South America, as they are affordable and reasonably spacious.  They don´t usually have food, but will still play movies for the passengers.

Local Busses

That guy in the door is constantly yelling out the destination

Typically town-to-town transportation, with varying levels of quality.  On my experience with these, I was sometimes the only gringo on board, so these are a good way to really bump shoulders with the locals.  Instead of movies, they usually blast indigenous music.  As they are significantly cheaper, the operators will stop to pick people up on the street to fill up with as many riders as they can.  Consequently, things usually get very crowded as passengers fill up the aisles.  Occasionally small animals ride.  Much of the time, people carry incredible amounts of baggage.  A loud, crazy, interesting way to go.

Chicken Busses

The chickens on board may or may not be alive

And here is the cheapest of the cheap.  They´re overall similar in feel to the local busses, but with everything turned up to 11.  The busses themselves are a big part of it; many are converted older school busses, with creative modifications and bright paint jobs.  Riding them is a very loud, shaky, rattly experience, and stuck open windows, exposed engines, or missing mufflers are not uncommon.  Music is blasted to deafening levels sometimes, and the drivers are usually young, fearless, and tend to treat their heavy bus with fatigued suspension like they would a Formula 1 racer.  The few gringos that ride these are forever changed afterwards.

Copyright infringement all over the place

I shouldn´t leave taxis unmentioned, since they fill such a crucial role in south american transportation.  They range from the usual city taxis you´d see in big cities like Buenos Aires and Santiago to the army of Daewoo econoboxes in smaller cities to the motorcycle tricycles seen so often in rural parts.

An army really is the best way to describe it

Anyhow, onward to the travel blogging.

Copacabana – Arequipa

I couldn´t leave Bolivia behind without at least one more interesting bus experience.  I had decided to get tickets for my ride from Copacabana to Puno and following transfer to Arequipa.  Unfortunately, the transfer bus wasn´t nearly as nice as the one they sold me a ticket for.  They promised a bus cama, but instead it was a typical local bus, jam-packed with families and occasional animals.  What made it more interesting was that my seat was in the middle of four campesino (trans. “country people”) women and all the STUFF they bring with them while travelling.  This consisted of one heaping pack of things for each, which was distributed in every nook and cranny around them.  Of course this included my then-empty seat, so I had to request that a space be hollowed out for me.  They created a token opening, and it was up to me to squeeze the rest of the way in.  The 8-hour bus ride was completed with me sitting with one leg propped way up, my left arm elevated to an unnatural angle, and both knees wedged into the seat in front of me.  Fortunately the iPod was there to blast some Stooges and complement the absurd situation.

Finally in Arequipa with much needed recovery sleep under my belt and delicious ceviche in my belly, I hit the town for some good ol´touristy sightseeing.  My first stop was the University of Arequipa´s public viewing of the Inca Ice Princess.  Those who read National Geographic will probably recognize Juanita´s face.

Her mother would probably love it if she weren´t dead

An inca sacrifice to their mountain gods, Juanita was discovered on the summit of a nearby volcano along with a number of artifacts.  The museum told the story of her life as best as archaeologists could put together, along with showing the princess herself in a vacuum sealed freezer container.

The next stop was La Compañia cloister, a still-functioning nunnery, which has mostly been opened up to the public.  The facility is basically a city within the city, surrounded by imposing walls and containing private cells and kitchens built together into a private community.

Halls of the nunnery

It was pretty calming to walk through its many-hued hallways.  Various additions through the years featured different styles of architecture, with some interesting decisions made as to where they intersected.

Many loaves have come from here over the years

The cells themselves were incredibly spartan, with stiff short beds, shrines, and minimal kitchens attached.  For how simple they were, the pamphlet they gave for the self-guided tour said that this cloister was one of the more luxurious in the new spanish colony.

With limited time, I decided to do a one-day tour of the nearby Valle and Canyon de Colca, which are commonly visited in several-day treks.  Unfortunately the tour I went on (called the “japanese tour” by another traveller) consisted of some 6 hours riding in a bus, with about 3 hours of walking around and picture time.

Valle de Colca

This wasn´t so bad.  It was a beautiful area, but I like to take a more active part in travels.  Sitting in a bus with mostly other gringos and waiting for the next place isn´t much of a cultural experience.  We were fortunate to have a good long time at the viewing point for Andean condor sightings.  Sorry to those back in California, but the Andean variety is larger.

Condor sighting in Colca Canyon

The Colca Valley has been continually farmed since the Inca times for greater than 1000 years.  The many terraces of the valley were installed by them way back when and still resist earthquakes extremely well.

Terraced valleys

Our last stop on the tour was the volcano viewing point for nearby volcanoes Misti, Chachani, and Pichu Pichu, close to where Juanita was uncovered.

Volcanoes around Arequipa

My time in Arequipa was a little limited, as I´d been a little behind on my trip´s schedule and didn´t want to shortchange Cuzco, my next destination.  With another night bus, it was onwards to the Inca capital!

Note: I´m currently in Lima with about an hour to go before the taxi takes me to the airport for the journey back home.  This is the last entry actually written IN South America.  Rest assured though, I do plan to actually finish this blog!  It just won´t have that immersion aspect going for it.

Out of the Comfort Zone in Bolivia

The blurb in my Lonely Planet book summarizes Bolivia as “simply superlative”.  It has the highest average altitude, the highest cities, largest salt flats, most plentiful raw materials, but also the highest poverty of South America and a shaky infrastructure (you might have heard of the http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2006/11/most-dangerous-roads-in-world.html running from La Paz down to the Amazon).

Nevertheless, the plusses were greater than the minuses, and I was soon paying my visa fee in Uyuni.  Rather than requesting any bank statements or other official documents like I´d heard about from Brazil and other such countries, Bolivian customs officials were pretty content just to take my cash and give a glance at my passport.  As mentioned in my previous posting, I entered the country via the Salar de Uyuni and was technically illegal for the three day jeep journey.

Uyuni – Lonely Town, Lonely Street

The city of Uyuni was a big change from the relatively developed roads of Chile.  From sources that I read, Chile and Argentina are some of the more modern countries of South America, and that the dirt roads and lesser developed infrastructure found in Bolivia is more of the “traditional” services indicative of the continent.

That said, Uyuni largely exists because the tourists on the Salar tour need a place to crash for the night after being dropped off.  It´s a pretty bleak place, consisting of hotels, train and bus stations, and a few gringo-populated pizza joints.  As fun as it would have been to stick around, I purchased a ticket to Potosí for the next day.

Potosí – I Wanna Take You Higher

Things got an interesting start when I woke up the next day in Uyuni and it was snowing heavily outside.  Our hostel hostess said it was the most snow the area had gotten in 12 years.  Lucky us for seeing it, and lucky tourists who decided to see the salar that day!

Busses in Bolivia aren´t affected by weather; that is, they don´t have chains to put on, and a single tarp is usually good enough for cargo lashed on the roof.  Some drivers might go a little slower, but then again, most wouldn´t.  It was a lesson I learned pretty quickly: Bolivian travel requires a little suspension of disbelief… a little stepping out of one´s comfort zone.

Like this first bus ride, for instance.  90% of the way from Uyuni to Potosí was unpaved mountain roads, and of course the first big pass through the Andes was right outside of Uyuni.  The bus climbed without incident for the first half hour or so, but after the snow had a chance to pile up on the road, we could start to hear the wheels slip a bit.  Eventually the driver was gunning the engine with no forward progress.  There was some side progress though, and maybe because it was towards the 300 foot drop to our left that I decided to exit the bus.

About half of us decided to wait out in the snow, while the others chanced it back inside.  After a few minutes of unsuccessful wheel-spinning, the crew emerged with four shovels and set to work clearing a path.  Seeing the driver among them, I looked back in the cab and noticed a boy, not older than 7 years, sitting in the driver´s seat and keeping the engine spinning.  “Is he… is he going to drive us out of here?” asked one of the british guys I was travelling with.  “This is about par for the course in Bolivia”, answered an irish guy we met that day, as he lit a cigarette.

With shoveled earth to roll on the bus was able to get momentum again, that is, after leaving us a half mile down the mountain or so.  Huffing and puffing in the thin mountain air, we half-jogged back to it.  The seven-year-old (who thankfully didn´t end up driving) and his brother were waiting for people to arrive back to pelt them with snowballs.  Of course we had to wing a couple of our own back.

On the road again, I learned another lesson of Bolivian travel.  Never, ever sit in the front row on a locals bus.  They stop to pick up everyone on the side of the road, regardless if there is room on board or not.  The result is a swarm of people standing/sitting in the aisle.  Because they also let people off all through the ride, there is a constant stream coming and going, pushing and shoving over each other, and you end up right in the midst of it.  Several times I had elbows taking my head space, and a couple people sitting on my lap as they waited for their stop.  The worst were those who chewed coca as a substitute for brushing their teeth.  Glad I had the experience, but I will be choosing window seats towards the back of the bus from now on.

Cerro Rico dominates the Potosí skyline

Potosí used to be one of the largest and most developed American cities in its heyday.  The streets were “lined with silver” and anything said to be of great value was worth “half a Potosí” or so.  It´s hard to see this from looking at it now, but such is the way of history.

Though the wealth of Cerro Rico was known to the indigenous, they believed that it was there for someone greater or more deserving to extract.  Well it´s not our place to judge whether the spanish conquistadors were greater or more deserving, but they were more than happy to march in and start mining what became the richest vein of silver in the world.  Known as the highest altitude city of its size at 4060m, it makes sense that Potosí would only be built that high for a very good geographical reason.  This bankrolled the colonies for many years, but as is wont to happen, things started to dry up eventually.

Today, the “mountain that eats men” is a shadow of its former self, but it still looms over Potosí, and people continue to extract minerals from its endless tunnels.  Miners will work 6 days a week, 10/12, or sometimes even 24 hours at a time in medieval working conditions with few safety provisions, meanwhile breathing a melange of silica dust, sulfides, and crystallized asbestos.  Once starting to work in the mountain, it is rare for miners to continue for more than 20 years or so before silicosis sets in.  A popular way that some mining co-op companies have found to raise money lost from the decline of silver is to host tours for willing people to have a look at the lives of the miners and walk through the same tunnels and mineshafts.

I wouldn´t describe the tour as “fun”, as much as it is eye-opening.  The guides and miners you meet all share a healthy sense of humor, but scrambling through claustrophobic passages, rickety ladders, and seeing the dusty air you breathe makes it a very uncomfortable experience.  Many of the hallways were around 4 feet tall, so walking long ways hunched over was the worst part for my 6 foot 4 frame.  All of the tours started out at the miner´s market, where our group proceeded to purchase gifts for miners we met and talked to underground.  Gift options included dynamite, ammonium nitrate, and fuses (no background check required… it was strange and kind of fun to be walking nonchalantly down the street with explosives in hand), coca leaves, juice, and the local rotgut, a 96% liquor.  We were given a bottlecap-size shot of the latter before suiting up in miner gear and heading off to the mountain.  Boy, did it burn.

Just about all of the miners pay a strange homage to Tio, the god of the underworld.  The funny thing is, most of the miners are devout catholics when not in the mines.  However, they believe the godly influence can´t reach into the deep mountain, and that they fall under Tio´s jurisdiction to keep them from harm.  Thus, in each of the estimated 200 or so mines of the mountain, there exists a shrine to “Tio” where miners shower it with alcohol, coca leaves, and offer it cigarettes to give them protection from landslides, runaway carts, poisonous gasses, and other hazards.

Our offered cigarette must have done the trick, because we were soon in daylight once more.  The last item for the day?  Dynamite!

Because I and the aforementioned irishman each bought a stick to detonate, our guides decided it´d be a fun idea to pull the casings apart and mash the (stable) nitro-glycerine into one powerful double-strength stick.  After lighting (with a three minute fuse) each person in our group was able to snap a dramatic picture of holding a lit piece of dynamite in our mouths before our guide rushed it to the middle of an empty field.  Yes, a picture exists of me holding a piece of lit dynamite in my mouth.  Promise to load it on here when I get a hold of it!  Needless to say, it was a very satisfying boom.  That said, after a few hours of inhaling silica and other sorts of dust, my voice sounded like I had smoked four packs of cigarettes.  Doing this sort of work day in, day out, for 10 hours at a time is unfathomable.  Much respect for the miners that work here.

Next stop was the capital city of Sucre, at a thankfully much lower 9,000 ft in elevation.

Sucre – I´ve Been Everywhere Man

I guess you could call it travel fatigue, but by the time I reached Sucre, I was pretty content to not venture out much and take it easy between the city itself and other lazy matters such as sleeping in and such.  Sucre still has much of the colonial architecture put in place by the spanish, so walking around its downtown has a very historic feel to it.  There were still plenty of the streetside vendors and markets that Bolivia has so much of, but somehow Sucre felt a lot tamer than most of the other locations I´d seen so far.

Plaza de Armas of Sucre

Trivia time: Sucre is one of Bolivia´s two capitals.  It used to be the only one, but the eventual growth of La Paz plus a civil war turned La Paz into the political capital, but the courts still convene in Sucre.

So after a few days of nothing in particular, it was on a bus to:

La Paz – Welcome to the Jungle

It claims another high-altitude honor for Bolivia: highest-altitude capital city in the world, and does it with some style as well.  La Paz is dramatically built right on the walls of a canyon, so in addition to the already high altitude, there are plenty of hills to make sure you´re huffing and puffing.

Hills can´t stop them

Of course, you can´t really talk about the high altitude Andean regions without mentioning the natives.  First thing you might notice: they´re short! (then again I´ve never been to Japan).  Second thing: they´re ripped!  Over the generations they´ve adapted to the high altitude.  The shortness means the circulatory system works more efficiently.  In addition, the many years of being so high up means their blood is much more concentrated for transporting oxygen than us sea-level dwellers.  Many of them (especially the women) carry incredible loads on their backs, especially the farmers.

Back to La Paz, the city thrives on chaos, though a different kind than, say, Buenos Aires.  Of course there is crazy traffic, but that´s about a given in any latin-american city.  La Paz´s chaos is shown in the labyrinthian corridors of its outdoor markets, different layered eateries, and the colonial cobblestone streets juxtaposed with the ad-hoc power lines going everywhere.  There were many-colored signs advertising world´s deadliest road bike rides, woman-on-woman boxing matches, and other interesting attractions.  It was a place where you could purchase llama fetuses and love potions, should you have the desire for it (the fetuses are supposed to be buried under the porch of a new house to provide good luck for the new owners).  Described by a fellow traveller, La Paz was “exactly as chaotic as Bangkok”.

Volcan Illimani looms in the distance from La Paz

I didn´t exactly get much sleep in La Paz, but it doesn´t seem like it´s the place you´d go to catch up on it.

Also, I don´t have too many pictures from the big cities in South America, because I was wary about flashing my SLR around.  One of the places I did get a lot of photos, however, was the Museum of Instrumental Music, which contained a great collection of classical instruments (and some slapdash concoctions like a one-string guitar made from an Armour Meats container).

And this Andean saxophone

But it was soon time to board another bus and head off to the nearby Lake Titicaca for…

Copacabana – I´d Walk Five Hundred Miles

(or at least it felt like that)

On the shore of the lake, Copacabana is a favorite jumping-off point for the nearby Isla del Sol and Isla de Luna, sites important to the Inca creation myth.  I met some other travellers from Finland on the way over, and we decided to stay one night in the town and take the ferry over to Isla del Sol the next day.

The city of Copacabana wasn´t too remarkable itself.  There was a pretty nice church, but the remainder included many tourist shops, restaraunts, tour agencies, and a boat port.

Copacabana harbor

Our plan for the next day was to take a boat to the northernmost port, hike across the island to the town on the south side, stay a night in a hostel there, and ferry back to Copacabana.  The light rain on the ferry over to the island should have been seen as a sign that things would be harder than they seemed.

Starting out on Isla del Sol

The hike started innocent enough.  We climbed up through farmland that people had been using as such for many hundreds of years.  Twice on the way we were stuck behind ladies herding cattle up the trail.  That said, it was a beautiful area that seemed to be stuck in time.

Typical house on Isla del Sol

These little kids were crafty enough to ask to be paid AFTER I took the picture

Yes, it started as a pleasant little walk, but then we had to head south.  9 kilometers doesn´t seem like very much distance.  But when combined with many ups and downs (the incas built most of their roads over the very tops of every hill) and the 13,000 foot altitude, the hike became a bit of a death march after a couple hours.  So as not to sound whiney, it was still very beautiful, and we even managed to see some pretty neat inca ruins on the way.

Ruins on Isla del Sol

The arch is still standing, at least

Finally we arrived at the south end of the island, and checked into a hostel that was serenaded by two donkeys, some howling dogs, and plenty of chickens for the night we were there.  Ah, to be out in the country!

The next few days would take me out of Bolivia and its interesting (though very cheap!) ways.  I´m going to miss this country.

A Whole Lotta Salt In One Place

Now that we were all acclimatized, it was time to leave the relatively high development of Chilean infrastructure behind and venture in to the more barren and high altitude world of Bolivia.  The first step in this journey was to take a 3 day journey via Toyota Land Cruiser across the Bolivian altiplano, one of the most remote touristed areas I´ve ever seen.

Our Chariots

Things got off to an interesting start when I discovered I´d lost my tourist card at the Bolivian border crossing.  Contemplating the idea that I might have to spend some time in a latin american holding cell until things were squared out, I was surprised when our guide slipped me a pre-stamped tourist card and told me to fill in my information más rápido.  Bureaucracy operates in strange ways in South America.

The Andean altiplano is a massive plateau of flat land thrust up from the tectonic plates colliding.  It encompasses parts of northern Chile, practically all of western Bolivia, and southern Peru.  As we drove along its flat expanse, with periodic volcanoes poking up, it was a little humbling to imagine that we were nearly always at a higher elevation than Mt. Whitney, back in the states.  For instance, we spent most of our driving time above 4,000m, with some stints up to 4800-5000m.  Luckily enough, I managed to escape altitude sickness (with a little help from the sacred coca leaf).

Take that, DEA!

Through the first day, we saw a number of altiplano lagoons, which were home to numerous flamingos and brine shrimp.  Their remote location and bizarre colors gave them a very alien appearance.  Through most of the driving, it felt like we could have easily been on another planet.

Strange, strange landscape

Flamingo in Laguna Roja

We stayed in a guesthouse at about 4600m, where the walls were paper thin.  Luckily enough, they rented sleeping bags, and I had the forethought to pack a down jacket which I was able to use for the first time.  It was a damn cold night, and several others in the group weren´t able to get much sleep from the cold and altitude.

Weariness aside, we pressed on across the desert in our caravan of Toyotas.  After so many identical dirt paths, I came to respect our guide Ambrosio´s sense of direction as we passed innumerable forks in the road.  Side note: Ambrosio only brought two CD´s of traditional Bolivian music to listen to for the trip.  Unfortunately the ipod connection was busted.

Drivin´

Strange rocks in the altiplano

Fellow travellers in the back

That night, we stayed in a hotel constructed from salt blocks of the area.  Luckily the beds were still cloth.  Also notable was the one hot shower we were allowed as part of our tour.

The next day we set off around 5 AM to see the famous Salar de Uyuni during sunrise.  Known as the largest salt lake in the world, the Salar truly took our breath away with its sheer immensity as the sun started to fill it in around us.  The pictures can´t really do its sheer flatness justice, but it could certainly make anyone unfortunate enough to be marooned in the center of it insane.

Making our way across

Big and flat and flat and huge

After some 30 minutes of driving at highway speed, we arrived at one of several volcanic “islands” in the middle.  The hike was taxing from the altitude, but the top afforded a righteous view across the salt ocean.  Plenty of the cacti on Fish Island were over one thousand years old.

Fish Island

Fish Island cactus

Out to sea

Salt, salt, everywhere

Following our environmental shock, we had time to do some goofy warped-perspective photos, as was popular with tourists in the area.

Long night

All about balance

He swiped it from a wedding we came across

Of course the trip was not without its difficulties.  Twice our Land Cruiser stalled out, and our guide plus another had to fiddle with the idle adjustment to get our car operational again.  Luckily this happened in populated areas, so we didn´t have to push our way across the desert for miles.  On the last day we ran out of gas, and it became my job to siphon some fuel from the tank on front into the tank.  Of course this resulted in gasoline splashing all over my hands, but I didn´t swallow any!

Before leaving the Salar, I managed to tag a salt-built souvenir shop with another LCOGT sticker.  This leaves two more, for Peru and Ecuador!

LCO flamingo observing the Salar de Uyuni

Expanded view

Lonely windwane

Our last destination was the creepy locomotive graveyard outside the town of Uyuni.  Full of rusted hulks dating back from the 1800´s, the area reeked of delapidation, but in a cool way.  There was plenty of graffiti, as might be expected, but most of it was pretty creative at least.

Next installment will consist of the sum total of Bolivia, since I don´t have too many photos from the area, for some reason.  This will almost catch me up… but not quite =P

Burning the Atacaman Candle at Both Ends

Even though San Pedro de Atacama is the gringo hangout of all gringo hangouts in Chile, its unpaved roads, adobe buildings, and middle-of-nowhere location still retain much of the charm that have brought people to this desert oasis (damn, that sounded straight out of Lonely Planet).  As per usual, my stay began by arriving on an overnight bus and stumbling my way to the guesthouse.  Best intro to a place you can get, especially with a meager bus breakfast in your stomach.

Streets of San Pedro de Atacama

Rather than get some winks, I signed up for a tour to the nearby Valle de Luna that was leaving from the guesthouse some 2 hours after I arrived.  I didn´t realize it then, but this would begin a streak of high-octane sightseeing where I wouldn´t get a full night´s sleep until arriving in Bolivia.  Here´s a little rundown on each one:

I.  Valle de Luna

We boarded a microbus to visit Valles de Luna and Muerte just outside of town.  The elements had eroded the land in these areas into strange alien shapes.  The Valle de Muerte of San Pedro reminded me a lot of Death Valley in California, both in the name and feel of the place.  After hiking around a while, our group assembled on a ridge to watch the sun set over the valley and take in the exotic palette of colors.  Definitely one of the more impressive sunsets I´ve seen.  Following this, I wished I´d brought an extra layer… amazing how cold it can get in the desert!

Sand dunes outside San Pedro

Which dinosaur does this most look like?

Valle de la Luna at sunset

Sunset over the desert

All sorts of pretty colors

II. Atacama Salt Lagoons and Altiplano Lagoons

Silly me, thinking I would have a lie-in the following day.  I was lucky to join on to the plans of an irish bloke and two brazillian sisters.  The sisters had a much shorter trip through Chile, and as such had every part of their stay in San Pedro mapped out.  This was fortunate because, in addition to being awesome travelling buddies, I probably would have only seen and done half the things that I did if I didn´t hitch on with them.

That said, the second day´s tour ventured out to some of the nearby salt lagoons on the Salar de Atacama, home to three species of flamingo.  After a lunch break, we climbed up the altiplano to another lagoon in the Andes at 4500m elevation.  What was most surprising to me was the amount of truly open, flat space out here.  It was similar to the deserts of the US southwest, but everything was a couple thousand feet higher in the air.

No barefoot walking over Salar de Atacama

Our daytrippin´group

Andean Flamingos in flight

Our brazilian travel buddies

Altiplano lagoon

III.  Night Sky

That same evening, we drove out from the lights of the city to the area´s tourist observatory to admire the southern sky from the middle of the desert.  Though I´d gotten a taste of it in the Elqui Valley farther south, it was just as awesome to see it again.  The Milky Way´s presence right in the middle of the sky was incredible, as was being able to see the southern cross, Magellanic Clouds, the Centauris, and other unique things to the southern hemisphere.  In addition, this excursion had seven seperate telescopes in the yard pointed to various points of interest.  Another cold night, but they gave us hot cocoa.

IV.  Geysers

Maybe it wasn´t the best idea to do some drinkin´the night before.  The geyser tour left town at 4 AM for a 3 hour bus ride along very bumpy dirt roads up to 4600m elevation.  Not the best place to nurse a hangover.  Nevertheless, we somehow made it in one piece.  Horrible bus ride aside, the destination was beautiful.  The temperature was freezing, but maybe it was the hot gasses of the earth that made things more tolerable.  Seeing the sun rise through the steam of geysers and fumaroles was spectacular and made the early wakeup worth it.

Geysers at sunrise

Making our way back down the mountain, we stopped in a tiny village/llama farm.  The big draw here was to try llama meat grilled as a kebab.  It was a little tough and gamey, but I´d try it again.  Also there was one-week-old (allegedly) baby llama Pepita, who required one thousand chilean pesos to photograph.  I must admit, it did feel a little strange petting the baby llama while eating one of its older relatives.

This...

...used to be this!

Well, I think it´s progress

V. Salar de Atacama and Salt Lagoon Swimming

The brazillians had to take off, but I was able to go on this excursion with a group of canadians that showed up.  We started off visiting another section of the Salar de Atacama, which consisted of a flat plane of bone-white salt stretching off into the horizon.  Though this would pale in comparison to the scale of the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, it was still a very impressive marvel of nature.  Like the Bonneville salt flats, it used to be a salty lake long ago.  As it evaporated, it left behind an almost perfectly flat expanse of salt, and some goofy photo ops.

More Salar de Atacama

Obligatory jumping shot

Photo fun

Yup...big and flat

The Salar

Following this, we donned swimming gear to go swimming in the frigid, ultra-salty waters.  Similar to the Dead Sea of Israel, it was difficult to do anything there but float.  I tried diving under a few times, but the lagoon was having none of it.  A very strange, yet entertaining experience.  As a side effect, my swimming trunks and towel were both stiff with the amount of salt in the water.

No treading water necessary in the salt lagoon

…and just when I thought I´d have a day of recovery after this, I signed up for a three day 4×4 tour on the next day to take me into Bolivia!

No rest for the wicked, I suppose.

Seeing Stars

I´m aware I´ve been slacking a bit on updating this thing (as I suspected might happen), but a very full schedule, plus the mind-numbing effects of 4000m + of altitude, plus the generally sketchy internet access of the altiplano region have made it difficult.  Fortunately I´ve found some time in the city of Potosí, Bolivia to fill in what´s been happening 2 destinations ago.

The sleepy town of La Serena was a nice change from the bustle of Santiago, and made for a great place to take care of errands and kick back for a couple days.  Again I was one of a handful of people staying in my hostel, which I didn´t mind so much for this area.

Unfortunately I didn´t realize that May 1 was the international labor holiday.  Very few restaurants were open, and the ones that were charged an extreme tourist markup.  Luckily there were others to commiserate with, and alcohol was found.  Luckily for us, the night brought in a huge thunderstorm, which we had the pleasure of watching from the rooftop terrace with wine in hand.

For several less than notable days, I wandered the city, visited the beach, and patronized a couple museums.  The first was celebrating the life of a famous politician born in La Serena.  The first floor contained several historical artifacts from his life, but the second was a cornucopia of random archaeological finds, paintings, modern art, and propoganda.

La Serena Plaza de Armas

Non-functioning lighthouse

A lot of maps of Chile make a point of including their Antarctic claim as well

Maoi from Easter Island in the Archaeological Museum

The city only had so much interesting things in it though.  A big draw for people in the area is the nearby Valle de Elqui, a hotspot for wine/pisco production, as well as being a world-class astronomy site.

City of Vicuña in the Elqui Valley

On one day I was talked into going on a horse ride by Kirsten, a friend I met in Santiago.  Not content to do the typical tourist plan, we elected to do a 4 hour journey into the tops of the hills around the town of Pisco Elqui.  It had been some 10 years since I had last ridden horseback, and this journey definitely kicked my ass.  Our guide, Ramón, took us high up into the hills on some trails I wouldn´t have been comfortable walking myself.  That said, it was beautiful and fun to see the area in a rustic way.

Me and Diamontado

Kirsten and Ebba

Ramón

City of Pisco Elqui from up high

Post horsey-riding steak was one of the best I´ve had

One of the main reasons I came to La Serena was to visit one of the scientific observatories the area is known for.  More specifically, the Cerro Tololo International Observatory.  Why this one in particular?  My last job at Las Cumbres Observatory (www.lcogt.net) is building observing sites around the globe, and one of the planned locations is at Cerro Tololo.  But being a nerd for things like that, a true scientific observatory was very interesting on its own rights.  I was lucky to secure a tour with the guide Kadur, and after an hour long bus ride to Vicuña and another hour long taxi ride up the mountain, I was at the top.

Approaching the summit

There are sites with much larger telescopes, but CTIO´s 4m and 1.5m are still able to do important scientific work, as the site boasts some of the best seeing in the world.

4m Telescope Dome

1.5m Telescope

More 1.5m

The 4m telescope dwarfs all around it

For a free public tour, CTIO is pretty generous.  The two of us on it got to check out the telescopes and instrumentation up close, as well as watching them slew around.  As I was working in that field of engineering for the past three years, it was a big treat to see how the other side made telescopes.

Optical Tube Assembly with Technician for Scale

Looking up

At my request, Kadur took us down to the LCO site.  The foundations are in and utility lines have been laid, so all that needs to show up are some domes and telescopes!

Future LCO site!

Immediately later that day, I jumped on a bus to the backpacker mecca of San Pedro de Atacama.  Since I´ve technically already been there and left, I won´t ruin any surprises for you.  Rest assured it was a very packed 5 days in one of the most inhospitable and beautiful terrains I´ve had the pleasure to be in.

Until next time!

Bonus! The name of my guest room in La Serena

Movin´on up

Being the tourism low season in South America, my stay in Pucón was very quiet, and for most of the nights there, I was one of two or three guests in the places I was staying.  Heading into Santiago, you wouldn´t guess that most of the rest of Chile was like that.

The barrio of Bellavista, famous for Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, has vibrantly painted buildings, universities, fine dining, and countless nightclubs, as well as being close to much of the historic city center.  Walking around, there were a few examples of damage from the recent earthquake off the coast of Concepción.

Earthquake Damage

As sad as it is to say, one of the first things I noticed arriving in Santiago was the amount of pollution in the air.  There´s no doubt it could put LA to shame in that regard.  To be fair, it does have geography against it.  The Andes are nearby and wall the smog in.  There would be some pretty spectacular views if the sky wasn´t so brown all the time.

Nothing but clear blue skies here

Pollution aside, the city was pleasant to walk around, and felt a little like a less chaotic, more manageable version of Buenos Aires.  Another traveller from the US, Bob,  accompanied me around town to orient me and seek out some seafood.  While it isn´t exactly a port city, Santiago has access to some of the world´s best seafood.  The mercado central, while full of little touristy eateries, has a wealth of fresh fish of all shapes and sizes, with or without backbones.  Each little restaurant has a person competing for your business in front.  Not content to let you take your time and make a decision, they try to get your attention and whisk you in before you have time to react.  Gringos beware.

Mercado Central. Not my picture

Among other touristy things to do, I went to the Museo Arte Precolombino, which has a large collection of art pieces from prehistoric indigenous cultures in South and Central America.  Along with countless pieces of pottery, there were mummies that had been preserved some 2000 years before the egyptians went at it.  There really wasn´t that much left, though.

A bit of gold that wasn´t melted by the Spanish

Itty-bitty mummy

Funerary Procession Statue

As part of a little goal for the trip, I´ve brought five LCOGT stickers along with me to deposit in one of each country I´ve visited or plan to visit (Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador).  The Argentina sticker I left in a locker in Bariloche.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture.  The Chile sticker, however…

Representing LCO in Santiago!

For the time I was in Santiago, I joined others for some long nights of clubbing.  While I haven´t made a habit out of that, it was fun to stay out till 6 in the morning with some fun people… even if my waking schedule was pretty screwed up for the next couple days.  Even though the nightlife isn´t QUITE as insane as Buenos Aires, clubs were still open until 4:30/5 in the morning.  One night, after stumbling out of a nightclub at 4:30, I ended up walking across town back to the hostel with a couple Brazillians, Bruno and Tatiana, who were staying there as well.  One of the countless community dogs decided to follow us all the way home for an hour and a half, thinking we had food.  Seeing his dedication about halfway through the journey, we decided to name him Pablo, as it was the only Chilean name we could think of at the time.  Sadly, Pablo couldn´t come inside with us.  Hoping he´s doing well, wherever in the streets of Santiago he might be.

One of the following days, in a bit of a hungover-sleepy daze, I walked around the Cerro Santa Lucia park.  For a manmade hill, it was a very serene part of town, and gave a good view of the city (at least as far as the haze would let you see).  All in all it was a great way to kill a couple hours.

Metal Art in Santiago Bank

Cerro Santa Lucia Park

More Cerro Santa Lucia

Monument to the Dogs of Chile

Fountain of Neptune

After Santiago, I headed up to the coastal town of La Serena, where I am currently.  It´s been a relaxing time of enjoying the sunshine, clear air, and heading to the nearby Elqui Valley for hiking, Pisco tasting, and stargazing.  People from LCO might be interested to hear that I will be touring the Cerro Tololo International Observatory tomorrow, soon to be a functioning node of the global telescope network.  Will update again following that.

Ciao!

Volcan-oooh yeah!

Showed up to my current hostel at 7 in the morning, and check-in´s not until 1:30.  Luckily, they let me use the internet in the meantime!

Crossing into Chile from Argentina marked the southernmost part of my trip.  As much as I would like to go to Tierra del Fuego at some point, it´s getting colder and more inhospitable down there as the austral winter approaches.

My first stop was the German colonial town of Puerto Varas.  It´s a pleasant enough town, if a little touristy.  Luckily it was the low season, and hordes of tourists were replaced by a trickle.  It wasn´t quite as lively as it could be, but it made a great place to take care of business and catch your breath.

Sunset at Puerto Varas with volcanos in the horizon

I seem to be traveling against the phase of everyone else because for the last three hostels, I´ve been one of a handful of guests.  It would be much more dynamic to have more faces around to swap stories with, but on the other hand it´s nice to have the benefit of a single room while paying the dorm rate.  During my stay at Compass del Sur in Puerto Varas Fui from Malaysia and I (well, mostly her) managed to fix up a pretty good dinner despite being the only customers there.

Up the lake a bit from Pto. Varas is the even more touristy town of Frutillar, famous for its quaint german architecture and artisan shops.  They had a german colonial museum which was neat for a little diversion, and the city made for a pleasant walk, though I wouldn´t plan a trip around it.

The touristy little town of Frutillar

Post-rain flower in Frutillar

Plenty of old music and radio equipment in the German colonial house

And again

The moustache was held in much higher regard back then. Much more effort in the grooming of it as well.

Pastoral German colonial museum

Much like Argentina, there are friendly, seemingly well-fed canines roaming around everywhere.  Many are obviously panhandling for food, but I´ve met a few that just wanted to play.

One of many friendly street dogs in Chile

And another. This one just loved to play fetch.

Even more dogs in the national park

On a day that wasn´t raining, I took a bus to the end of line in the Parque Nacional Vicente Pérez Rosales, which contains the two volcanoes seen from Puerto Varas.  Had a pleasant hike in the foothills near Volcán Osorno, made easier by a conveniently placed hiking stick.  Almost got turned around by some incredibly dense forest, but made it out on the other side well enough.  One thing I didn´t take into account: the distance I´d have to walk back to the bus stop on the outlet of the trail.  Luckily, this was mostly downhill and a very scenic area.  The thought of hitchhiking back to town crossed my mind, but I decided to hoof it in the end.

Volcán Orsono with the Petrohue river

More Volcán Orsono

Conveniently found wise-man staff for the hike

The travel beard is getting longer and scragglier

Trail waypoint

More Volcán Osorno

Volcán Calbuco with Lago Llanquihue in the foreground

 Returning to town again, rain clouds had started to gather.  From the sunset, we got a pretty spectacular double rainbow.  Not sure what the technical designation of it is, but I thought it was pretty neat.

Big rainbow in Puerto Varas

And what better way to end a day of hiking than by imbibing some local beer?

Sampling some Chilean brew

Following my time in Puerto Varas, I headed a little bit northward into the adventure tourism mecca of Pucón.  Normally a quiet little town, the city explodes with visitors in the summer, as there is plenty of hiking, climbing, rafting, etc to participate in.  That said, it was a quiet little town for me.

The main attraction of Pucón is easily to climb the looming Volcán Villarica.  Hearing that it would be good weather following the day I arrived, it seemed like jumping on it then would be my best chance.  Why the hell not?

A local guide company outfitted me the necessary gear: jacket, pants, boots, helmet, gloves, ice-axe and crampons.  The upper slopes of the volcano were coated in ice, so the last two items were essentials for the climb.

Above the cloud layer on the slopes of Volcán Villarica

Villarica is one of the four most active volcanoes in the world, and one of few with an active lava lake in the caldera.  Its last eruption was in 2008.  Great idea to do the hike, I know.

The morning of the climb, we were a bit concerned about all the clouds over Pucón.  After driving up to the departure point all worries vanished, as the sky was clear all around.  Just had to feel sorry for the poor suckers down below.

This used to be the ski lift station before it was damaged and abandoned by an eruption in 1971

Playing some air geetar with the ice-axe

Even though this is a relatively easy mountain for mountain climbers, it was definitely one of the more strenuous hikes I´ve done.  In the span of 5K´s (I think), the climb ascended some 5000 feet towards the summit at 9,500 ft.  I was huffing and puffing a good bit on the last push.

Hiking up towards the summit

Once we hit the top, the scent in the air made it clear: this thing is live!  Visitors to Yellowstone or Lassen will know the scent.  Sulfurous, with plenty of other acrid gasses mixed in.  Whenever it blew in your face, it stung the eyes and made you cough.  The rocks everywhere were stained yellow, and no snow stuck to the ground around the caldera.

Repping Cal Poly with my jacket and pants

The crater

Looking down, lava would periodically spout up.  I was told by some people who had been in the town for months and done the hike long ago that there had been no lava visible when they went.  We thought the recent earthquake might have jogged something way down in the bowels of the earth.  I counted myself lucky to have witnessed such a cool spectacle.

Proof it was active

And again

A fellow traveller at my hostel managed to capture some video as well:

Getting down was a lot faster and much more exciting than climbing to the top.  Several chutes had been worn into the snow, and we got to slide down them (in a controlled fashion, of course).  I was told this is normal for mountain climbing.

More volcanos in the distance

Surrounding view

Pretty cold at the top

Starting the descent

Icy up there

Sort of a rest spot

Getting down the mountain consisted of sliding down makeshit slides like this

I would heartily recommend active volcano climbing to anyone who gets the chance.

That said, I didn´t get much sleep on the night bus to Santiago, I need a shower, need to do laundry, and I´m hungry.

Pata-Gonna-Freeze

After saying my goodbyes to the sprawling, loud, flashing, sometimes smelly, but always entertaining mass of Buenos Aires, I boarded a bus for a 22 hour ride to the Andean mountain gateway town of San Carlos de Bariloche.  One thing to note- the long-haul busses here aren´t like the typical Greyhounds.  The nicest ones are two stories and let you recline the seats to near flatness, give you meals throughout the journey, and play movies on a video screen.  Our offerings for this ride was Spark of Genius and a badly-dubbed and obviously bootlegged Pirates of the Carribean.

The town of Bariloche from the shores of Lago Nahuel Huapi

Bariloche sits on the shore of a glacial lake, and is a popular Argentine destination for skiing in the winter, and hiking/other activities in the summer.  The architecture and climate are very similar to alpine Europe, so it´s no surprise that a large part of the population consists of German, Austrian, and Swiss immigrants.  This area was actually one of the more popular destinations for nazis to flee to after WWII.

The day I arrived, the sky was perfectly clear, and the climate pleasantly mild.  After checking in, it turned out there was a storm system coming in, and things were going to be a little windier and rainier.  Great timing.  Nevertheless, I had come prepared with cold weather gear, and I wasn´t about to let my stay in this beautiful area be hijacked by a little wind and rain.

The surrounding area is very well connected by bus lines, and practically everybody riding the routes was sporting some manner of cold weather jacket and hiking boots.  Even from walking around the clothing stores and outfitters downtown, you can tell this city revolves around the outdoors.

If you stay in Bariloche for even a little bit, you´ll notice many stray dogs throughout town.  Not one that I saw looked malnourished or showed any aggression to me, though.  Even better, the same dogs would be lying down in front of the same stores from day to day.  Maybe they chose their people?

My second day I took the recommendation of long-time Hostel Patanuk resident Ruth and did a hike around Lago Gutíerrez to the South.  In one of the more surreal moments of the trip so far, I was hiking through the forest of the area and listening to someone ripping it up on a soprano saxophone somewhere off in the woods.  My path never intersected with the mystery performer though, but that just makes it all the more bizarre.  And how hippyish is that?  Jamming away on a sax in the middle of the Andes… kinda makes me wish I brought my alto along to join in!

Lago Gutíerrez

Another note about the hostel I stayed in.  The owners had refinished it from what was a battered hulk of a house on the outskirts of town.  The interior was completely finished in wood, and there were many artistic touches from someone with an obvious art/design background.  And of course the location was right on the edge of the lake.

And this was the view!

A very mellow canine resident of the Hostel Patanuk

The next excursion consisted of a small group of us driving out to Colonia Suiza, a small Swiss community that boasts a weekend art fair and a quaint pastoral feel.  Well, it must have been too rainy for the artisans, because there were only a few booths set up.  However, I did have what I think is one of the best cups of cocoa ever.

Susana, Tal, and Ella

...and Diego, our chauffeur

Had to take a bit of a detour...

View just down the road from Colonia Suiza

Us venturous souls

That evening, most of the hostel decided to pitch in for a giant feast.  There were pizzas, chicken, empanadas, salads, soups, ceviche, and even hummus, all homemade.  Of course this was quite welcome after a day in the cold.  Several wine bottles were consumed, and a great time was had by everyone.

...and this was only about half of the food

On my last full day in Bariloche, I decided despite the warmth and comfort inside the hostel to take the bus to the end of the line and do a Lonely Planet recommended hike from Bahia Lopez to the famous Hotel Llao-Llao.  I met Katrine from Germany on the bus over, who had a very similar plan to mine.  Seeing how cold, rainy, and windy it was, we decided to join forces.

On the shores of the Bahia

Berries in the sunshine, berries in the rain

Really damn cold

Katrine stuck it out

It was a nice walk, even with the getting cold and wet.  Pleasant conversation definitely kept our minds off the frigid surroundings.  The lakes region in Argentina and Chile is very beautiful, and I can imagine it´d be even more spectacular with clear skies.

We ended up at the often-photographed Hotel Llao-Llao and decided a fancy cup of tea and more hot chocolate was a well-deserved treat, however expensive it might be.  And damn, was this place posh.  You can really see why the Argentine VIPs might choose this place from the ornate decoration inside and dramatic location.

Hotel from the back

Just a little underdressed

Heading back into town, we chanced by the civic center to find it painted up with what we guessed was a memorial for people who had disappeared during the “Dirty War” of only a few decades ago.  Politics in South America is evident everywhere, and many of the citizens carry strong passionate views, unlike much of the USA.  It´s interesting to see the variety of protest everywhere.

Argentines certainly know how to make a political statement

As I got on to the bus taking me away from Bariloche to Puerto Varas in Chile, OF COURSE there were blue skies and calm winds.  So it goes, eh?

Picture Post Part II!

It is quite cold, windy, and rainy in Bariloche at the moment, so I´m just holed up in the hostel.  Thought I´d post pictures from Iguazú.

About to get drenched

First speedboat glimpse of the falls proper

One of several hundred individual falls belonging to the whole

A ton of water in one spot

There were a lot of rainbows that day

Garganta del Diablo

There was no hiding from the mist

None

And that´s all for now!