Chao, Punta Arenas!

The last few days have been “wrap up” days.  Saying hello and good-bye to teachers we know, who are coming back to work from their summer break, meeting with school and city officials (the mayor here is awesome), securing our boarding passes and taking one last trip out to Isla Magellanes to visit the thousands of penguins who call the barren spot home for the Chilean summer.

We took a ferry out to the Isla Magellanes a couple of days ago, and I can’t resist posting a few photos I took of the penguin colony there.  There are thousands of penguins, kelp gulls and other birds, but we were only allowed an hour on the island (from 7-8 pm).

Penguin colony, Isla Magellas

Penguins getting ready to settle in for the night.

The birds are quite hearty, because even in the summertime, it is dang frigid out there.  If I were living there, I’d be in my hidey hole right after the last fish came in!  They then leave in April to take the long swim through the Straight of Magellan to the south of Brazil for the winter.  They are “carbing up” on lots of salmon right now!

We’ve been hanging out with Maria Angelica Mimica, the director of the Miguel de Cervantes private school, and one of the primary contacts for the Bellingham Sister City Assn. down here.  Angelica started the school with the namesake author in her heart, 27 years ago.  She is thinking about stepping down, but leaving quite a legacy.  I’m doing my best to be a good diplomat down here, and our calendars have been quite full.

Teresa & John in Plaza de Armas, Punta Arenas

Just about every place we’ve visited on this trip through South America deserves another look, we both think.  Certainly Patagonia. The bus ride we took from Ushuaia took us through part of the Tierra del Fuego, but as we have discovered, there is so much more to explore in that region!

We’d love to form a strong relationship with Teddy Romero Mendoza, our excellent guide through the Sacred Valley in Peru.  He wants to strike out on his own business someday, and would love our participation bringing students or scholars down to know the region.  And certainly, Quito.  If I ever came close to tears because a place was tugging at my heart, it was the Ecuadorian Andes and the consummate artists  who reside there!

So there you have it, faithful readers.  If you ever step out into the southern hemisphere in the Americas, give me a call and I can recommend the must do’s and don’t do’s.  Chao!

Chao!

Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales

Bellingham, Washington has 7 Sister Cities around the world, and one of the longest standing relationships is with Punta Arenas, Chile.  For several years now, teacher, student and other community exchanges have stoked the fire of this friendship.  I have long wanted to visit Patagonia, so my position as the Punta Arenas chair on our Bellingham Sister City Association provided a perfect venue for investigating travel to this region.  As John and I charted our path through South America, we honed a plan that had us ending our journey in Patagonian Chile.

Punta Arenas, Chile

We met with Maria Angelica Mimica, director of Miguel de Cervantes school in Punta Arenas, and as we had planned with her prior to our visit, we spent a couple of days getting oriented and enjoying her home.  Punta Arenas is not exactly what one would think of as a “tourist mecca”, but it is clean and friendly, located on a port on the Straights of Magellan.  At the turn of the last century, many of its citizens became prosperous with wool exports and shipping in general.  But the development of synthetic fabrics and the opening of the Panama Canal created a stagnant economy for many years.  Now Punta Arenas is fairly prosperous, with well-maintained streets and homes.  The weather, even in the summertime, is hardly ever above 60 degrees Fahrenheit and my Bellingham rain jacket has hardly been off my back since we arrived.

John and I left Maria Angelica for 4 days to travel to Puerto Natales, the gateway to the Torres del Paine (Blue Towers—Paine is a native word meaning “blue”) National Park.  Puerto Natales sits on Fiordo de Unltima Eseranza (the fiord of Last Hope), named by the early settlers here.  It is a dramatic location, surrounded by water, and glaciers, and is a trekkers’ paradise.  I think I’ve said this before, but we could literally have spent our entire trip in Patagonia and hardly scratched the surface.  But we were able to get a couple of decent hikes and some tours that provided us with a sample of the spectacular scenery.

Los Torres del Paine

Serrano Gralcier

The first day we took a bus into the National Park and got fairly close to the “towers” for some photo ops.  Yesterday, we got on a boat and went up the fiord to visit 2 huge glaciers, cormorants, and condors, and ended the day having parrilla (barbeque) at an estancia (ranch) located on the shores of the fiord.  John got some incredible photos of this amazing part of the world.

Our meals here have been awesome!  We’ve had king crab, lamb, and some of the freshest fruits and vegetables of our trip.  But tourists pay for it!  Patagonia is not an inexpensive vacation, and I wonder how the young people, who abound here, finance their adventures.

This afternoon we return to Punta Arenas for the last leg of our adventure.  We’ve had some amazing experiences, and I’m ready to start prepping for the return home!

Party at the end of the world

We flew from Cordoba to Ushuaia, Argentina a couple of days ago.  I don’t think I’ve ever been on such a rough plane ride as our descent into the Ushuaia airport!  John kept assuring me that everything would be OK, but I’ll tell you, I was a puddle of sweat sitting there on that plane.  I understand the winds are frequently like that, and for the life of me, I don’t know how those flight crews do it day after day!

The rewards were very worth the sacrifice, however.  We were greeted with unbelievably magnificent craggy peaks and glaciers

Martial Glacier, Ushuaia

surrounding Beagle Sound at the end of the world.  Ushuaia is actually the southernmost town in the world connected to an access road.

Our temperature in Cordoba reached a sizzling 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and when we reached Ushuaia, the weather could best be described as a “pleasant winter day in Bellingham, WA”.  We woke up our last morning with fresh snow on the surrounding hillsides—quite lovely, and very much a change from the center of the country.

We checked into a darling little B&B close to the town “center” and took ourselves on a walking tour of the marine area and downtown.  For dinner, we had king crab soup and king crab salad!  Our second day, we celebrated our 38^th wedding anniversary by hiking up to the Martial Glacier and then having dinner in a great French restaurant overlooking the town and the channel.

Tierra del Fuego, Chile

Crossing the Straight of Magellan

We left Ushuaia on a morning bus, passing through dramatic mountain passes and forests, to eventually follow the eastern coastline along the windswept Patagonian pampas, full of guanacos (cameloid animals slightly larger than llamas).  Our bus just crossed the second border checkpoint, and we are now in Chile again heading for the Straight of Magellan, which we’ll cross today into Punta Arenas, Chile.

Cordoba, Argentina

Cordoba sits between Mendoza and Buenos Aires (closer to Mendoza—maybe an 8 hour car trip, or an hour and a half flight).  My recommendation to travelers:  if you have to take the bus make sure you get the “Express”, not the “milk run.”  Suffice to say, 12 hours later, we landed in Cordoba, from Mendoza.  Fortunately the Amerian Hotel (you can buy very reasonably online) is first class, a good recoup, and right downtown in Cordoba, close to museums, theaters, and shopping.  It’s a perfect locale to people-watch—all the gorgeous young men and women who look like they just walked off a film shoot!  The average age must be 35.

Our Laguna Larga friends

We used the time there, day one, to visit our Argentine Fulbright friends, and get out to Laguna Larga with Raquel and Jorge to lunch (Facundo’s asado is right up there with Smokin’ Joe’s) and visit with their families.  John also got to meet Stella and Juan’s family and gifted some jazz great CDs before they carried us to the airport.  A great way to see sights is to have local contacts.  It seems everyone we know who has come to South America, has contacts here that need to be maintained.

Inglesia Catedral

We were in South America during the end of a 4-day weekend—Carnival, of course!  Nothing like Rio De Janeiro, but still holiday, and no one was working.  On Wednesday, everyone went back to work, so we wandered the streets of this colonial city, replete with cathedrals built in the 1500’s and unmarked by earthquakes.

During my first visit to Argentina, I remember the women walking the central plaza in Buenos Aires, mothers and then, grandmothers of the “desaparacidos” (disappeared ones).

In Cordoba, this time, we happened onto two “exhibits”, if you will, that are not mentioned in any tourist guide, but mark a very dark period in recent Argentine history.  When I was in my 20’s, trying to figure out my life plan, so were many young Argentineans’.  Those young people had the misfortune of growing up in a country where a military dictatorship removed these people, their partners, and children, from their homes, families, and universities with impunity.  They were locked up, tortured, and “disappeared”, with no consequences for the perpetrators.  The Argentine government is slowly uncovering the details, as well as the names and families of those affected.

Our first “huh, what is this?” occurred as we came out of the gorgeous, golden, Ingelsia Catedral, in the heart of Cordoba.  We stumbled on a street labeled “Museo de la Memoria”.  Along this narrow alley, next to the most auspicious cathedral in the city, was the jail where, beginning 1976, young “dissidents” were held without trial or recourse, tortured, raped and killed.  It was a chilling reminder of what can happen without democratic process.  John and I remarked how similar it seemed to the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia during that very same time.

Then, we wandered up the museum district, and after lunch, visited the Ferrerya Palace, where Carlos Alonso’s works about the same epoch were on display.  Only artists can document so well the best and the worst of humanity.  If you want to read more:

http://statecrime.org/online_article/art-and-the-wounds-of-the-argentine-dirty-war-deepening-resistance-by-documenting-horror-and-preserving-memory/

Reporting from Patagonia tomorrow (or the next day).

Ah, Mendoza!

Ah, Mendoza.  City of eternal sunshine and the wines to show for it!  We landed in a darling boutique hotel that our friend/tour guide, Betiana, set up for us, then set out on a city tour.  John and I have both visited Mendoza before, in fact, this was my third visit.  But I never tire of the tree-lined streets, parks, shopping, and oh, did I mention the wine?

Parque Central de Mendoza

We pretty much drove or walked the entirety of the main city area.  The streets are wide, clean, and safe.  Mendoza is pretty much a walkers’ dream-town.

Argentinian, San Martin and his army crossing the Andes to liberate Chile in 1813.

In the 1550’s, the Spaniards were pretty much eco/geno jerks, when it comes to South America.  I mean we all heard about their “conquests” in school, right?  But, not the minor details.  Like, the indigenous people in the Mendoza area were so much more pliable, meaning they didn’t put up a fight, like the guys and dolls in Chile.  So hey, can’t win ‘em in Chile, just make slaves of the ones in Argentina (but it wasn’t Argentina then), and send them over the Andes to fight brown skinned ones they’d never met.  Did anyone ever call bullshit on these guys?!  Just askin’.

The current open and appealing environment in Mendoza has much to do with a devastating earthquake the city suffered in 1861.  The 8.0 quake leveled the city and killed 8,000 of it’s 12,000 residents (can you imagine?!).  When the rebuilding began, a collective unconscious desire to have wide-open spaces in order to escape, underscored the redesign of the city.  There are no high rises, and lots of pedestrian space.

Mendoza is the jumping off point to the highest mountain in the Americas, Aconcagua.  We were hoping we’d get a glimpse of it as we crossed the Andes, but if you’ve been following the blog, you know we didn’t get to do that because of the mudslides that closed the road.  Anyhow, there are lots of outfitters for the mountaineers that attempt the mountain (my Lonely Planet guide says it takes 13 days).

Mendoza is also the 5^th largest wine-producing region in the world.  We’ve become very spoiled by the inexpensive, quality wines produced here.  The region is perfect for grapes because of lack of bugs, mold, and other ailments that plague other wine regions.  And also, the God-given water that streams from the Andes into the vineyards.  Our final night was spent with Betiana’s family in their bodega, enjoying her dad, Andres’, malbecs, champagnes, and chardonnays.

Andres and John enjoying the world’s best malbec!

He told us that, although Argentinians produce so much wine, not much of the world gets to enjoy it, because they drink almost all of it here!  We spent a wonderful evening with 3 generations of Betiana Antonietti’s family, great food, and chatter in English and Spanish.  If you decide to visit Mendoza, I’ll share her contact information with you.

Today we are taking a CATA (cross country) bus from Mendoza to Cordoba, and old colonial city where I was based during my Fulbright time.  We plan to connect with a couple of exchange partners we’ve kept in touch with over the years.  More to come!  Thanks for hanging in there with us!

Santiago to Mendoza

Money Issues

No, this isn’t one of those “I’m stuck in Milan and someone took all my money, and I need to get home.  Please send me $1,000”, but it easily could be!

Por favor!!  The money we have spent in the last 3 days would float me at Gary’s for a year.  Here’s how the tariffs work.  One spends not a dollar to enter or leave Ecuador or Peru.  We have flown LAN the whole way, but I really don’t think it matters which airline you fly as to whether there is a country entry fee of not.  However, get to the southern part of the continent (I.e., Chile and Argentina) and the scenario changes radically.

Entering Chile:  Oops!  Permiso, sir, but you have to pay $160 (US) per persona to come here.  Sorry you are surprised.  OK, bite the bullet. It’s only money, right?  According to our local sources, whether there is a country entry fee and how big it is, depends largely on how the foreign visitors are treated when they come to the US.  Probably Brits get paid to come to the US, while Chileans pay royally (their currency is the “real”, so the pun is intended!).

One can’t control or even predict the weather, right?  We have made every effort to make our odyssey, crossing the Andes mountain range in a bus to Mendoza.  However, the best laid plans of mice and Zeus–…  We woke up this morning in Santiago, fully anticipating our overnight bus to Mendoza this afternoon.  I checked email and our wonderful tour coordinator, Betiana, in Mendoza, informed us that there was a horrific mountain storm, and the highway over the Andes will be closed for at least 3 days!  Upon meeting us at the airport this afternoon, Betiana told us that huge mudslides have covered the road, and it will be many days before it will be passable.  They have been airlifting people out who were caught up there.

Betiana managed to get us tickets on Areolinas Argentinas for this afternoon (another $640 US, please).  Some were paying as much as $900 US to fly across the mountains!

However, we did not get our boarding passes in Santiago without another surprise…(drum roll, please!).  When we checked in with the airline, the ticket agent looked at John’s passport and asked him here his Argentine entry stamp was.  Hello?  We’ve been joined at the hip practically this whole trip, especially at border crossings, and I was quite sure any “stamp” I got, he also received.  Turns out, I must have paid the Argentine fee in 2010 when I was here with Fulbright, and he didn’t come.  So the ticket agent’s manager took us into the “entrails” of the airport, and duly issued John his Argentine entry, another $160.  I told John that traveling between Chile and Argentina is going to make our Machu Picchu tour look like a bargain, pricewise.

Oh well—I think I said earlier, it’s only money and we can’t take it with us, right?  Especially if you are paying $4.5 reales for the dollar (Chilean), or $2.5 soles for the dollar (Peruvian).   According to Google, one US dollar is 5 Argentine pesos.  That should be easy to convert.

Time to go drown our sorrows in a good Malbac!!!

Santiago, Chile

Our Santiago apartment was waiting for us when we disembarked from our plane from Lima.  Somehow, we’d gotten upgraded to business class on the flight, so we felt quite pampered all the way down, beginning with champagne  the moment we boarded the flight!

Valparaiso homes

Yesterday we donned our tourist garb and took a bus to Valpariaso and Vina del Mar, two seaside towns about 100 kilometers from Santiago.  Valpariaso was a busy seaport, holding ships that had come around the Straight of Magellan during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.  However, when the Panama Canal was built in 1917, the coastal town

Valparaiso window looking out at the Pacific

struggled and is now coming back as a haven for writers and other artists.  The Nobel winning poet, Pablo Naruda, built his home there in the mid-1900’s.  We enjoyed the sunshine, taking photos of houses literally build hanging from the 42 hillsides that surround the downtown, and the great seafood.  Today we are going out to explore Santiago before climbing aboard our bus that will take us over the Andes mountains into Mendoza.

John in Vina del Mar

Leaving Machu Picchu

Augas Calientes River

“Hummingbird” orchid

On Tuesday, we left Aguas Calientes, the little town at the foot of Machu Picchu, on PeruRail, retracing our path along the Urubamba River back to Cusco.  I may have mentioned before, but we had incredible luck with our weather for the 3 days we toured many Incan sites from Cusco to Machu Picchu.  While it wasn’t sunny, the weather was dry and warm.  We left Aguas Calientes this morning amidst a downpour that didn’t look as though it would let up today. Yesterday we had a bit of rain as well, but we were touring an orchid garden in the middle of the rainforest, so the dampness seemed apropos.

People live along the tracks in this raging river gorge, and we have passed small schools, cornfields, and Quetchua people carrying large bundles somewhere.  Peruvians are now quite proud of their Incan heritage, a distinct difference from the discrimination that I saw 40 years ago in Peace Corps.  Now the native language is taught in schools, ancient traditions are practiced by shamans and others, and certainly, the government is putting a boatload of tourist dollars into the reconstruction of the Incan ruins.  However, abysmal poverty still exists, largely among the indigenous people, with the same maladies that our poor experience in the US: lack of health care, and inadequate education.

Our train took a stop about a half hour into our journey to wait for the luxury rail, the Hiram Bingham, to come through.  The HB comes all the way from Cusco, with white linen tablecloths, crystal glassware, chandeliers, and other amenities.  It reportedly costs $500 round trip!  While we were waiting, the attractive porters on our train gave us a fashion show of some very high quality alpaca clothing (SOL Alpaca) that is marketed only through Peru Rail.  I resisted!  We enjoyed a lovely last evening in Cusco, taking in the main square, the lights that sprinkle up the hillsides surrounding the town like a princess necklace, and of course, Peruvian ceviche!

Machu Pichhu

Talk about a perfect day!  Here we are, smack dab between the Peruvian cloud forest and the rain forest (think Amazon) up in Machu Picchu in their summer, i.e., rainy season, and every day has been bright, if not sunny.  Today was no exception—our guide, Teddy, was ecstatic!

We left Ollantaytambo this morning, where we had spent the night last night (about 2 hours out of Cusco).  We’d had a quaint little room with wood beam ceiling posts, and a friendly family helping us get settled.  We listened to the rushing river outside our bedroom window as we drifted off into a deep sleep after all day of hiking ruins between Cusco and Ollantaytambo.  Best night sleep we’ve had since arriving in Peru.  Now that we’re acclimated, it’s hard to think about leaving in a few days!

This morning, we boarded the train that runs about every 2 hours between Ollantaytambo and Aguas Calientes, a small town at the foot of Machu Picchu.  What a ride!  The train runs for an hour and a half right on the banks of the River Urubamba, through cornfields and huge granite canyons.  Teddy told us that river guides do not run that part of the river, and you can see why.  One bolder, and you are fish food.  An amazing journey in itself.

Once we arrived in Aguas Calientes, we consolidated our 2 backpacks to 1 day pack (with raincoats, sunglasses, extra sweaters) and boarded a bus for a half hour of hairpin turns straight up the side of Machu Picchu.  I just figured if it is our time, it’s our time—I mean 2 thousand feet straight down.

As for packing for the day—sweaters and coats—NOT!  It was probably 65 degrees or more, and we were hiking constantly.  John got some fabulous photos, which our slow internet won’t let us post right now.  We hiked with one other couple from Chicago, a great thirty-something duo, and we’ve had just a super 3 days with them.

Jill, Teresa, Teddy & the 2 Johns

The Incans built Machu Picchu over 3 generations back in the 1400’s and it actually was never “discovered” by the Spanish.  The demise of the 800-population culture was probably due to syphilis, brought in by their own Quetchuan countrymen, probably from Central America.  While the locals knew about a “city in the clouds”, an American by the name of Hyram Bingham brought the site to the attention of the rest of the world back in 1911.  (He was actually looking for another site and was disappointed with Machu Picchu—ala, Christopher Columbus?).

View from the upper trail at Machu Picchu

Cusco at Last!

We’ve finally got our “mountain legs” and woke up yesterday to take a hike around the periphery of Cusco with our guide, Teddy.  (I asked him what his given name was, and he said, “Teddy”).  The very upside to this tour is that it is just one other couple, plus us, and we managed to get out in front of the crowds.

We toured several very significant ancient sites around Cusco today, so even more remarkable in some ways than the Machu Picchu.  Saqsayhuaman has, beyond doubt, the biggest boulders that have been moved by man alone to create the fortress and temple that protected the Incans from, the then local, foreign invaders.

Quetchua boy with his llama

Cusco was indeed, the center of the Incan, then Santo Dominican culture.  We had a great conversation tonight with Mallku, our friend, Bill Shanks’ shaman, and got a very distinct perspective on the intersection of the Incan and western cultures.

I think we are not in the “high” tourist season.  Although we see plenty of westerners, we are largely out numbered by the locals.  I know this is THE place to buy alpaca clothing, but for the life of me, I can’t think of what I’d do with it when I get home!

I do have to say, if you do this trip, ask us about how to do it on your own.  Tour companies are so expensive.  This is the only leg we organized through a tour (and a good one at that), but not needed at every juncture.

I’m following up on this on Saturday because our internet service everywhere has been abysmal.  I don’t have all night to wait for photos to load, and John is having trouble with FB.  So dear friends, we’ll share the wonders of the Andes, with photos, when we return.  Hard to do it from here.  Maybe a few “crumbs, when we reach civilization in Santiago.

Tomorrow we reach Machu Picchu and we are very excited to see the ruins there, although I have to say, everything we have been viewing, photoing and just breathing in, the past 2 days have been amazing.  I’ll try to post more photos later.  Cheers!