Patagonia

Rumor has it Magellan named Patagonia for the relatively tall natives inhabiting the land, after the giant Patagons of myths and stories.  Even if the original occupants of the region have been killed off by Europeans and sundry, the geography of the place is enough to inspire the awe one might have in the presence of a colossus.

That is to say, the mountains are huge and scary.

Honestly, it's the holidays, school is over, and I think I've just about had it with all the rhapsodical rhetoric.  I'll probably want to get mushy wrapping this whole experience up later, so I'm going to keep it pretty bare-bones here.

Guy, Jon, Murph and I flew to Punta Arenas on the Straits of Magellan.  We met up with Gina and her brother Matt and took a bus north to Puerto Natales.  There were lots of sheep.  From Puerto Natales we took a day-long car tour into Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, the main tourist attraction of Patagonia, where hiking trails encircle a series of jagged peaks and glaciers.  We came back to our hostel and shared an asado set up by the owners, a pair of rambunctious brothers who then stayed up all night with Guy and Murph.  The next day, Gina, Matt, Murph and I went fishing.  Murph caught a trout and fried it for lunch.  We rented camping equipment.  The next day we took a bus back into the park and began a three-day hike.

By the time the hike was finished, I was almost out of money.  I spent the next four days laying low in Punta Arenas, walking around town taking in the sights and museums.  I met an Australian, an Englishwoman and a Swiss fellow and we shared a hostel and had dinner together.

I flew home to Santiago, bought some last-minute gifts, met up with Guy, Jon and Murph at Basic Bar for a few farewell beers, then went back to Ñuñoa and stayed up all night with my host family drinking more beer and frying empanadas.

I went to bed at two and woke up at four to catch my cab to the airport.  My final goodbyes to the Arevalos were a night of greasy fried food and tipsy cheerfulness, which I think is the best possible way to do it.

After 36 hours on five planes in five countries, I got to Milwaukee International at two in the afternoon, caught up with my mom, and we drove home.  We met up with friends and drank cider with brandy and played liar's dice.

Christmas morning, I woke up early to wrap gifts which were quickly unwrapped.  I shaved my beard and my mom cut my hair.  The family came over and we exchanged yet more gifts, and stayed up late singing and drinking.

Behold:

Wreckage on the Straits of Magellan in Punta Arenas

The asado at the hostel in Puerto Natales

Peaks in the Parque Nacional Torres del Paine

Glacier Grey in Torres del Paine

Parque Nacional Torres del Paine

52 Pick-up

USAC was good enough to take us out for a cena de despartido last night. I suggested we make it a semi-formal affair (why not?), and the results were mixed. It was a hell of a time.

Take a look for yourself if you don't believe me.

There are worse things in life than living in a bustling foreign capital with fifty-ish like-minded, adventurous, and friendly kids.

The truth of it is, I'm starting to wonder if there's anything better.

Today I'm finally taking the bus west to Casablanca to visit Orlando, a friend of my father's from his California days. After that, a long weekend of worrying about finals, followed by finals, followed by Patagonia. On Tuesday the 23rd I'll board a flight from Santiago to Milwaukee by way of Peru, Ecuador, Miami, and Charlotte, awkwardly and hesitantly closing the Chile chapter of my life.

I guess readers can expect posts to be infrequent from here on out, if present at all. I hope this has been as enjoyable to read as it was to write, but fat chance enjoying it as much as actually being here. I am a little curious who's been following, so if you feel like it, post your name in a comment. I think my first-grade teacher might have gotten ahold of the URL, so, if you're out there Mrs. Chrisman, hello.

I'm sure I'll post some phenomenal, stunningly enlightened finale, probably on Christmas day.

Chiloé

Time is getting a little tighter with final exams looming in the coming week, so the entry on Chile's southern island of Chiloé will be a direct transcription from my notebook.  A few things to know: Chiloé is at the top of Patagonia.  The largest island in Chile, it struck me as almost the polar opposite of San Pedro de Atacama- small, perpetually cloudy, drizzly, misty, with rolling hills and colorful houses.  The island is reached by ferry from mainland Chile.  One guidebook remarks that the currents in the surrounding waters are too strong to submerge electric lines in, so they're suspended from towers across the channel.  The isolation of the island is said to have fostered the strong mythologies present there.  A brotherhood of male witches, a ghost ship, goddesses and other creatures are omni-present in restaurant names and street kitsch stands.  Curanto, a hodge-podge of seafood, is the signature dish of the island.

11/22/08

9:00 a.m.

On the bus through Puerto Montt

5-year-old Amari asks the woman sitting next to me if I am her son, and she replies yes- my name is Filipe.  When the woman leaves, Amari's attention turns to me.  We don't get far before she realizes, with the help of her mother, that I speak "malo."  She gives me a kiss on the cheek, pulls off my glasses, hands them to me, then turns to her mother and says, "vamos!"  Gabriela may be right about Chilotes.  Gabriela's mantra for travel anywhere in Chile: "cuidado!"  She repeated it when I told her about my Chiloé trip plan, but then corrected herself.  "Actually," she added, "you don't have to worry too much in Chiloé.  The people there are very friendly."  We pass a storefront with a pile of anchor chain amassed in a corner.  The buildings are low, shallow-roofed, colorful.  The vegetation is dewy and lush, nurtured by the precipitous overcast.  Birds of prey cut wide aimless swaths from the sky.  Amari is back and tells me her (surprisingly anatomically correct) doll is named "Bebe."  79 kilometers to Ancud.

The coasts of Chiloé

10:30

Across the ferry, on the Island of Chiloé

Browns, greens, yellows meld together like a painters pallet, rich with the moist fog.  Dead trees bloom with moss and lichens.  The surf is a smokey dull green.

12:30

Ancud

Ancud smells like a spent shotgun shell.  This is the result of the widespread use of wood-burning stoves for heat.  A model with holes for cooking on top was for sale at the hardware store where I bought my poncho.  An unwelcoming, driving rain relented an hour after my arrival.  Misty's hostel recommendation and a very unfriendly tourist assistant have said there are no cars to be rented in the city, so I'm off to Castry where a brochure advertises a 2-door Chevrolet Corsa "Swing" for $20.000 a day.  If I can rent it with my debit card, I think I will.

Castro's "Palafitos", houses on stilts

3:10

Castro

The rental places are all closed today.  The tourist information kiosk in the plaza de armas is closed as well, despite their open sign.

3:45

Lunch at Mary's Restaurant.  No curanto, but the waitress suggests something which turns out to be a large wooden bowl of mussels and clams, with two baked potatoes and a longaniza and a bowl of cilantro soup.  Nothing remarkable.

5:15

Something about Castro's fiordo shores is beautifully depressing; enchanting and haunting.  The stasis of the anchored boats underneath the seemingly perpetual clouds is outdone only by the rotting hulls on the sand.  There is a glimmer of hope in the functional-looking boats dry-docked on stilts, but the purgatorial waiting emanates its own dismay.

The Karolina, in disuse

9:15

Ancud

Exchanged my Monday overnight ticket for Sunday.  If I'm lucky, I won't miss all of class.  The hostel has the same stove the one in Pucon had.

10:20

Restaurant Kuranton

I just spoke Spanish without needing to think about it.  Nothing impressive: "solo quiero curanto," I just want curanto.  I didn't need to work it out in my head before saying it to the waitress, who seemed a little put out that I was coming in so close to closing time.

10:55

Kuranton's curanto was outstanding.  Unlike Mary's, all of the mussels were open, but they also tasted much fresher.  I surprised myself by eating almost all of the food supplied: the imposingly large bowl of mussels and clams, the potato, the longaniza, the single beef rib, most of the chicken drumstick, all of the strange, boiled-dough seeming things, and the soup.  With the Royal Guard lager, it was the perfect end to a weary day.

11/23/08

11:30

Hostal Mundo Nuevo's breakfast of fresh baked wheat bred, apples, yogurt, fresh jam and a strange instant coffee-like beverage with a picture of stalks of wheat on the can was wonderful  Now tramping around Ancud in the sun and breeze.  Falcons hang on the ocean winds and swallows zip low to the ground.  The coast is high cliffs, and islands punctuate the horizon.

The cliffs of Ancud

Epilogue

Ruined

After we got back to Cuzco, we booked tickets to Puno, starting our way back to Chile.  By this time, Ezra and I were all that remained of our original foursome- a pickpocket and a family emergency split our other companions off to their own obligations.  We decompressed on the tranquil, six hour ride- the same ride that took 24 hours in the other direction.

In Puno, we caught a few sights on Lake Titicaca before moving on to Tacna for the border crossing.

The Yavari, Peru's English-made gunship, 

150 years old and originally fueled by llama dung

(you can't make this stuff up)

Yavari to aft

A recipe for disaster

After Puno we caught a very luxurious overnight to Tacna for the border crossing.  Everything's cheap in Peru- just before the bus left, we got tea, bowls of soup, and plates of rice and chicken for all of 50 cents, U.S.  Our bus tickets were about the same price we were used to, so we were surprised when we climbed onboard to find huge, leather chairs with footrests which reclined almost flat.  Nice work if you can get it.

In Tacna we caught up with our bad luck: now the cabbies were striking, and the scab who eagerly sought us out to take us to the border got an earful from his compadres, and a few (hopefully) playful whacks on the side of his car as we pulled away from the picket lines.  Still, we made it to and through the border without trouble, and caught a Chilean cab from customs to Arica.

Arica is touted as an unknown hotspot for warm beaches in Chile- the Humbolt current which flows up the coast from Antarctica keeps most of Chile's shores too chilly for swimming, but it's supposed to veer off into the Pacific before reaching the northern sands.  Ezra and I didn't find this to be true, but we did have a pretty fun day kicking around the city.  Arica has a huge hill, El Morro de Arica, at the water's edge which was the site of a decisive battle of the War of the Pacific with Peru (another prideful museum boasts the country's victories).  Just getting back from hauling our weary bones all over Machu Picchu and Waynapicchu, I found it ironic that one of the first things I did was climb to the top, but the view was formidable.

Arica's harbor from the top of El Morro

The next morning we caught a cheap flight back to Santiago, making the longest-distance trip of our spring vacation the shortest in duration.  It had been tumultuous, terrifying, and sometimes agonizingly boring on all those buses, and one of the most exciting experiences of my life.

A few highlights from my notebook over that week:

Copies of Tiwanaku art from the Padre Le Paige Archaeological Museum:

A prestigious culture from modern-day Bolivia, the Tiwanaku established heavily-used trade routes south.  They were peacefully incorporated into the Inca empire.

"Carved and burnt drawing in a wooden beam"

"Tiwanaku influenced textile"

Rubbing of the brass plaque on the captain's chair in the Yavari

Rubbing of the fabrication plate on the Yavari's engine casing

Machu Picchu's agricultural sections from Intipunku, the "Sun Gate" to the south-east

Machu Picchu's agricultural sections from Waynapicchu

And the quirkier moments on Machu Picchu:

Making friends with the locals

Photos courtesy of Ezra Riley and Joe Neiman.

Part 4: Machu Picchu

Outside the bus terminal, we asked a taxista the fare to the Plaza de Armas, which he inattentively gave as three soles, but taking a better look at us fumbled it up to four.  Through the narrow, Inca-walled pedestrian streets drug dealers eagerly offered their wares in whispered staccato bursts, "weedcharliecokepills..." and restaurant employees agressively pursued patronage from the tourists passing by.  We found a hostel in a colonial building run by a sad-faced man who seemed perpetually exhausted, and reveled in the warm showers and clean sheets.

In the morning we set off in a search for passage to Aguas Calientes, the tourist town at the base of Machu Picchu.  Having only a few days, we ruled out hiking the Inca trail, which left us with the train.  We booked tickets for the following morning and spent the rest of the day exploring Cuzco.

Credited as being the oldest continually inhabited city on the continent, Cuzco radiates a dignified antiquity.  The cobblestone streets are asymmetrically laid out and lined with heavily-columned colonial buildings.  Near the Plaza de Armas are a succession of town squares connected by narrow pedestrian alleyways.  The Incan walls are composed of colossal stones which would inspire claustrophobia if you weren't so busy being awestruck.  In an effort, perhaps, to outdo the Incans, the Spanish architecture in the city is similarly impressive.  On the camino Santa Clara there remains a large gateway which frames the hills beyond it, and two large churches dominate the Plaza de Armas.

Incan walls, 500 years young

Santa Clara arch

Iglesia La Compañia, Plaza de Armas

La Cathedral, Plaza de Armas

Cuzco's infastructure far surpasses those of the cities we passed through, maintaining a confident and sturdy atmosphere.  However, it is abundantly clear that this atmosphere exists for the benefit of tourism.  The influence of tourist dollars can be seen on every block, and it is difficult to find the honest and un-contrived Peruvian culture underneath.  Still, the city is a remarkable destination.  I met two nurses from Colorado who had been dispensing medicine on the Amazon.  They shared their trail mix with me, remarking that Cuzco and Machu Picchu would be their recommendation to those having to choose a single destination in Peru.

The following day we rose too early for our hostel breakfast and purchased fruit and bread from Cuzco's central market.  We wove through the throngs of travelers in the train station across the street and boarded with our provisions.  The train rattled out of the station and crawled up the hills on switchbacks east of the city.  Slowly, the track evened out into a gradual, winding path, and eventually straightened to an easterly heading.  I struck up a conversation with a Dutch couple sitting across from me who were less enthusiastic about the early hour, and shared small bananas with a Japanese man in the next seat.

It took four hours to get to Aguas Calientes where hosteliers competed viciously for our business.  We settled on a room costing one third that of ours in Cuzco, left our bags behind and sought out the bus to the ruins.  A 20 minute trip up the mountainside left us at the entry gate to the city.  I played the theme to "Indiana Jones" on my iPod as the ancient ruins came into view and my eyes teared up with excitement.  We presented our passports at the gate, receiving this stamp:

On several plaques within the site North American professor Hiram Bingham is credited with discovering Machu Picchu, but many knew of its existence before him.  It was Bingham's enthusiasm for Incan culture which brought about public knowledge of the ruins- his second expedition to the city was supported by the National Geographic Society.  The ensuing fervor for the attraction has caused, some claim, catastrophic erosion on the mountain.  On Waynapicchu, the peak just north of the large site, only 400 visitors are allowed per day to combat the gradual degradation.  Rules are laid out at the entrance and appear strict and rigid.  No food, no large backpacks, no smoking, no garbage.  No walking sticks except for the elderly.  Do not climb the walls nor write on the floor.  Inside, sentries stand on peaks and scan the crowds, but can only blow whistles at infractions too distant to address.

A path to Intipunku, the sun gate, leads south-east away from the ruins and up a gradual slope.  From the path's terminus the agricultural fields of Machu Picchu allign with the view and the site seems to stretch out toward Waynapicchu.  From Waynapicchu the elements of the city are laid out as though a diagram, and visitors would stop and sit at length to dissect its intrigues and digest them to their satisfaction.  The Incan empire, a flash in the pan, spanned a great deal of would become Peru, Northern Chile and Western Bolivia, but lasted only a hundred years.  The function or purpose of the city remains under speculation.

Machu Picchu from Waynapicchu

The western and eastern urban centers, from L to R

The urban centers with Waynapicchu beyond

A closer look at Waynapicchu's ruins

(click on picture for a slight enlargement)

We marched up and down the ruins for two days before returning to Cuzco filthy, aching and exhausted.

Photos courtesy of Ezra Riley

Part 3: Northward into Peru by Bus

"Cuzco or bust," I replied to the gringos, and they laughed at our casual ambitiousness. We had met two Estadounidense at the bus station in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, northward bound like us. One read The Economist in the seat ahead, the other chatted with me about the Steinbeck book I´d brought. "It´s a shame I never read him in high school, I wish I´d paid more attention," I said, pondering the strange things you find yourself regretting. "Imagine what you´ll regret ten years from now," he replied, and I began calculating how much class I could stand to miss in the coming week.

"No, sit down, please; sit down!" Two days later, the Peruanas on the bus were desperately worried that the protesters would see us. Four white tourists onboard would not make a sympathetic case. Though we certainly wouldn't refer to ourselves as such, to the mob outside we were undeniably wealthier in material goods, and a direct affront to their cause. Days later we would reunite with a pair of European tourists, a woman with impossibly straight hair and a less memorable man who had been on the bus ahead of us that day- the bus which, unlike ours, had been allowed through the roadblock. The woman did all the talking: They achieved the feat by hiding under blankets while protesters examined the elderly and the weeping babies onboard. Had we only exercised such cunning discretion, ours might have been an equally short drive from Puno to Cuzco, one-time capital of the Incan empire.  

In a happy accident, studying abroad in Chile for the "American" fall semester means you effectively get two spring breaks in one year. Three of my fellow students and I took advantage of our week off to have a go at Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas. Already in San Pedro, a desert oasis half-way between our Santiago school and the northern border of Peru, we could think of no more opportune time. We boarded a series of buses ferrying us to Arica in the North, where a taxi hauled us through customs and up into Tacna, where the Beach Boys' "I Get Around" played on the radio. We exchanged pesos for soles and began inquiring with bus companies how to get to Cuzco, the oldest continually inhabited city in South America and staging area for all visitors to Machu Picchu.  

"No es possible," was the reply. Ezra, the closest thing we had to an interpreter, could get no more information than this: roadblocks in Moquegua were blocking all traffic north. Either Ezra´s Spanish was faulty, or, what seems more likely, the company representative was unwilling to say. So the nature of these roadblocks, be they natural or man-made, civilian or government-imposed, went unrevealed. A man approached us as we milled disenchantedly through the bustling terminal, and with a smile of rotten peanuts where his teeth should have been, he said hopefully, "Arequipa…?"  

In a national park there, "andean condors regularly swoop low above pedestrians´ heads," reads the Arequipa section of Lonely Planet´s South America on a Shoestring. The price was right and the bus was leaving shortly. Peanut-Teeth arranged our tickets and departure tax and hurried us on to the clean, professional-looking double decker coach for a meager tip of one sol (about 33 cents, U.S.), and we set off northward. Sure enough, on a bridge in Moquegua, a battalion of riot-gear-clad police stood in a phalanx, swiftly separating to let us pass. Whether this was a government roadblock or a government's response to a civilian roadblock we could not tell, but we went on to Arequipa without another sign of trouble.  

From Arequipa to Puno the scenery changed drastically. Jagged and unaccommodating Peruvian desert gave way to rolling, yellow-brown hills. More and more frequently, our driver would honk at vicuñas in and beside the road. Into Puno's Terminal Terrestrial after dark, we heard a familiar report. several companies announced with nonchalance that service to Cuzco was interrupted indefinitely. Our spirits fell with the news, and our nerves frayed under the oppressively shrill calls from ticketers hawking the final seats on their coaches, "ArequipaarequipaarequipaarequipaaaaaAHHH!"  

It was here we first met the European woman with impossibly straight hair and her unimpressive counterpart. They were carrying their bags with a determination which inclined us to ask where they were headed; "Cuzco" was their reply. We followed them to a ticket counter in a far corner of the terminal which would have done little to inspire confidence but for the crowd of patrons assembled nearby.  

Peruanos, it would seem, employ bus travel for all means of cargo transport, and it is not uncommon to witness large sacks of seed or produce being dollied, hauled, or otherwise dragged into stowage compartments under the coaches. There was a memorable instance where I witnessed a small, splintery, wire-bound wooden crate containing an indeterminable but very alive creature on a woman's luggage in a terminal. In Puno that night, humans comprised the only live cargo our bus would haul, but the sacks and blanket-wrapped parcels in piles by the counter gave the very real impression that our foursome could be in Cuzco by the following morning.  

"She says it'll take twelve hours instead of six," Ezra reported. We conferred, agreeing that to depart immediately on a 12-hour bus seemed more prudent than waiting indefinitely for a six-hour trip. The bus departed not from the terminal, but from a low-lit side street a block away. The night had grown drizzly and obscure. We were the only gringos among seats of Peruanos, mostly heavyset, blanket-clad women, faces creased with endurance. With a shudder, the aged and fraying coach rumbled off indeterminably; northward, we could only hope.  

I awoke chilled by a draft coming through the window and rose to gather extra shirts and coats from my bag. The bus stopped at the side of the road and we debarked to relieve ourselves. Women walked a few feet off the pavement to hold their skirts up in bunches. Setting off again, we slept until dawn, when the coach stopped abruptly in a small village. There was a buzz of rumor.  

Debarking, we met the straight haired European coming from the bus ahead. She expressed offense at the piles of rocks in the road impeding our travel. "The government wants to build a hydroelectric dam, and the people don't want it because it will stop their water," she explained with distress. Villagers wrote their politics on the windows of our buses with chalk and soap. "I don't know what they're doing. What does this have to do with us?" she said, furrowing her brow. A man from our bus who the other travelers referred to as "Professor" discussed the situation with men from the village. He returned with a leafelet and we were allowed to pass.  

We encountered another roadblock near Laguna Pomacanchi at noon. Flamingos stood on their heads in the shallows nearby coaxing brine shrimp from the sand, and crowds of chanting villagers filled the narrow street, rolling enormous boulders onto the asphalt. It was here I stood to better view the situation outside, distressing the other passengers. Our Professor had abandoned us for the bus which had been allowed through, and our remaining negotiators surrendered to the impermeable fervor of the mob. We reversed the length of the waterfront.  

South of the laguna, we turned onto a road which led up a mountain on the Western edge of the water. Again we encountered boulders in the road, these having originated in a rockslide. The four of us and a young Dane helped workers clear the obstructions. Beyond the rocks, villagers were clearing the mountainside below of firewood, and had been stacking their bounty on the road all morning. We continued to march ahead, pushing felled trunks and split wood as close to the mountainside as possible, while the bus puttered behind, sometimes with less than ten inches between the edge of the road. Some of the tree cutters aided us, some continued their work, and one held out his hat for soles. Beyond the mountain the road was paved and level. We passed through a few small towns, clearing away piles of smaller rocks presumably left behind by the protesters converged at Pomacanchi. One barricade consisted of logs bundled together with wire, which I helped our navigator displace. After the bus passed through, she waved me over to return it to its original condition.  

Further north, we reentered the perilous Andean roads, our driver deftly engaging the switchbacks, climbs and descents. Our speed never exceeded 25 miles per hour; no faster would the rough-hewn dirt road allow. On two occasions did we meet vehicles coming from the other direction. One was a dump truck far too wide to pass us, and we had to reverse a quarter of a mile to allow it to pass. The other was an ambulance which took fifteen minutes to navigate the outside edge of the road around us. The children of the mountainside towns we passed through would run alongside the bus, smiling and shouting, and occasionally wearing a look of bewilderment. More than once did the passengers debark to cross, single file, a bridge of questionable integrity. The bus would then line up with the structure and shoot across in a burst of speed. Darkness fell as we passed through Rondocán, and it was near midnight when we emerged from the mountains into Cuzco.

Part 2: San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

DAY ONE, OCTOBER 24

At 4:00 a.m. the USAC students muster before a grocery store downtown and board a bus to the airport.  An hour later, inside the security checkpoint and awaiting our 7:00 flight, we ransack free samples of chocolate and coffee in the overpriced airport shop.  At nine minutes to seven, we're taxiing south to the runway.  I'm in the window seat, facing the black Andes and the dark-blue dawn rising behind them.  Without warning, I recall the verse to "50 Ways to Leave your Lover."

At the airport in Calama we debark onto the tarmac.  Inside the one-building airport, the other students wait for their baggage.  I borrow Murphy's skateboard and take it back out to the runway for over 45 seconds before an attendant politely tells me to stop.  We take more busses.

San Pedro and environs

At a ridge we stop to examine San Pedro from a distance.  180 degrees from north to south are mountains and one active volcano, and everything on the ground is sand except the wet-green oasis, our destination.  San Pedro is longer than it is wide, and vegetation which isn't trees is scrub brush.  Dry irrigation ditches sport rusting sluice gates and sheep herds bleat irately at passers-by.  People flourishing here before tourism arrived with enough money to be worth the trouble is not easy to picture.

At the hotel keys are doled out for shared rooms, ours lodging six.  We shed our luggage and clothes, donning swimming trunks and rallying at the pool.  After an abbreviated dip, we're back in our civvies and exploring the town.  I book an 8:30 reservation in a stargazing group, arrange my scarf into a kaffiyeh and set off on a walk to find the boundaries of San Pedro.  I stop where the road leaves the oasis and cuts into the desert for a while, then make my way in the other direction.  The back road follows scrubby expanses I would hesitate to call "pasture," but wool fluff in the brush indicates that this is indeed where the sheep graze.  I spend a while sitting in the shade in one of these, play my harmonica to myself and hope I'm not trespassing.  After some time I return to the group, again congregated at the pool, and we wait for dinner.

Brenda makes the rounds with a cautionary announcement: "Only if you are very brave should you go out tonight and drink... a Fanta."  Ours would be an early start in the morning, and San Pedro's altitude could adversely affect the imprudent, particularly in the neighborhood of hangovers.  From Brenda and Luis's concern, we assume this had caused problems with groups previous.  

They seat us at two long tables and bring out the meal in courses, bread, soup, lasagna, desert.  As they finish, students break off for evening activities of their own organization.  Finding my trip cancelled on account of clouds (San Pedro claims 330 clear nights a year), I resign myself to another walk.

At the edge of town, I can barely make out the stars, but on the way back I pass a low-ceilinged adobe building with smoke pouring from the chimney, radiating the considerable volume of a good time inside.  A man lets me through the latched gate and I slide in the side entrance to order a beer.  I choose a can over a bottle, for there is no tap, and the bartender looks at me sideways when I ask for a glass.  I find the only unobtrusive spot I can, against the ochre-painted wall, and watch the band.

The frontman appears to be the one playing the 12-stringed ukulele, but it's difficult to tell who exactly is leading the 9-piece group: also present are pan pipes, a flute, a floor-tom drum with cymbal, a larger conga-looking instrument, a six-string acoustic guitar, an electric bass, and others with unidentifiable hand-percussion.  Their current tune attracts a good deal of singing-along, and the song rises to a crescendo then falls, carried by the flute's melody.

Above our heads is a woven ceiling from which paper lanterns conceal hanging bulbs.  On the picnic tables are plates of simple-looking food piled high, and flames roar in a clay fireplace in the center of the room.  With the beginning of the next song, a rush of enthusiasm washes through the crowd and many leave the benches to dance in front of the band, swaying imprecisely, still singing.  A small dog takes one of the now-vacant seats and watches the spectacle.  After another number I ramble home to bed.

DAY TWO, OCTOBER 25

We begin the day with a visit to the Padre le Paige Archaeological Museum, a repository of Atacaman and Incan artifacts.  After an hour or two of unattended milling about we visit Pucará de Quitor, a pre-Incan fort near the city.  Built on a formidable hillside, the climb is arduous under the heavy desert sun, but the view from the top is considerable.

The imposing Pucará de Quitor

From there we see the Valle de la Luna and witness the effects of the climate on the geography: wide-cut swaths of canyon into which we march like ants.  At one stop, appropriately monikered the "Amphitheater," our guide elicits a solid minute of silence during which we listen to the cracking of the minerals in the canyon wall.  Sitting at the bottom of the imposing rock face, closed in by the surrounding canyon, I imagine standing in a giant garage below the grill of a skyscraper-sized Buick, listening to the radiator clicking as it cools off.

The ever-clicking Amphitheater

Roommates

We end the day with a slow march to a high ridge to watch the sunset, and file back to our tour buses for a sleepy ride home.  Dinner is an unimposing pork chop with canned strawberries for dessert.  Later, a number of us assemble blankets from our rooms and hike to the edge of town for amateur stargazing and a bit of group-singing.

Sunset at la Valle de la Luna

DAY THREE, OCTOBER 26

Our buses take us to the Chaxa Lagoon and National Flamingo Reserve, a large and rusty puddle in the middle of the salt flats.  The flamingos mill about and pay us little attention.  A bumpy and long ride further out into the nothingness culminates with a spectacular and surprising view as we come over a hill.  Miscanti and Miñiques lagoons, high up in the altiplano shine a bright gem-blue among surrounded by the tan sand.  We sit and gaze in awe, and Vicuña gallop far down at the water's edge.  On the way home we are treated to lunch by USAC, stopping in a wide-open one-room community building where students are drafted to ferry plates of hot food and bus dirty dishes back and forth from the kitchen.

One of the two high-altitude lagunas

Altiplano fauna: the flighty Vicuña

We return to the hotel for more pool-lounging.  Dinner is a chicken breast, dessert, jello.  We scatter and again congregate at the edge of town for more stargazing, this time with a bag of communal chocolate passed around, and all agree that life could hardly be better.

It is this afternoon that David, one of my roommates, tells me of Ezra's plan to bus north to Machu Picchu the following day.

DAY FOUR, OCTOBER 27

We rise for yet another simple and fulfilling breakfast and pay a visit to a nearby home where a local explains the habits and idiosyncrasies of Atacaman life.  That afternoon, David, Ezra, another classmate named Joe and I set off for the San Pedro bus station and caught the two o'clock to Calama, beginning our journey north into Peru and, eventually, Machu Picchu.

Photos courtesy of Vigdis A. Qvale and Lauren Richmond.

Part 1: Mendoza, Argentina

The first action I took upon reaching Argentina was to pee on it.

The border crossing between Chile and its beef-loving neighbor is high in the Andes.  A lower atmospheric pressure, combined with mandatory tipping in the customs building restroom compelled me to skitter outside and dash to the edge of a mountain to piss.  My foot sank seven inches into a snowbank on the otherwise dusty-red peak.

Murphy and I returned to customs after hucking a few obligatory snowballs at each other.  There the rest of us were shoving oranges, bananas and apples into each other's mouths, unable to carry them into Argentina.  Shortly, we were back on the bus, speeding through the country, not making heads or tails of a Pelé documentary playing on the TV monitors.

At the terminal in Mendoza a fat young man with a mullet elucidated the many delights of his boss's hostel, convincing us with the offer of free transit there and all the wine we could drink.  The boss arrived in a shiny grey van and hauled us in two trips to a clean and homely building with a ping pong table and swimming pool.  Present was a boy of eight or nine who referred to the owner by his first name but appeared in all other mannerisms to be his son.  Other notable mannerisms included whistling at the girls in our group, cursing proficiently and flipping us the bird whenever leaving the room.  On occasion, he would pass such offensive gas as to make us concerned for his health.

The wine flowed from large glass jugs with plastic handles, and wasn't so bad that you couldn't drink until it tasted good.  We set off in search of dinner, my head dancing with rumors of Argentine steak.  Arriving at Las Tinajas, a buffet recommended by fellow hostel patrons, and finding it packed, the gang surrendered to a Chinese buffet a block away.  Murph and I, ensnared by the siren call of the asado, remained behind, and were admitted within ten minutes to a table for two.  The "tenedor libre" style restaurant entailed paying a fixed price for as many plates of whatever we liked.  The layout was a single open room, ceilinged two stories above, full of tables, people, and livelihood.  We marched off to retrieve plates, and I dutifully reported to the asado.

Argentina, unlike Chile, is fat and flat.  The fruitful plains sustain beef of unimaginable quality, and the locals have expertly harnessed Prometheus's gift of fire to take full advantage of their superior steer.  The Argentine asado employs not flames, but embers to cook meats with a patient and even heat.  Beside the grill is a separate area where specifically-chosen firewood burns recklessly into glowing orange nuggets which are then shoveled out underneath the meats nearby.  The chefs tend this arrangement with an unyielding hand, constantly adjusting the heat and the height of the meat above.  I watch with the primal reverence of a neanderthal to his chief.

"Bif de chorizo?" I ask hopefully.  The chef shakes his head.  "Que es rico?" I substitute, and he turns silently to the grill, removes a large cut and slaps it on the counter before me.  With a deft hand, he chops off a few ounces, slides them onto his knife and then my plate.  I smile gleefully and restrain myself from running all the way back to my table to begin.

Most astonishing is not the texture, though the cow led a placid life on perfectly flat ground, nor the moisture, though the epochs over a gentle, caressing heat have facilitated more juice retention than a glass pitcher.  It is simply the flavor that defines the meat.  The fat is rich but not salty.  The beef is simple, natural, and inescapably... beefy.  It tastes like an animal should, and satisfies a primal yearning that has never before been entirely fulfilled.

After four plates, I settled in to the only line I'd waited in that night- the crepe station.  Bananas and sorbet, flambeed with rum.  I returned to the table with my caramelized bounty to find an envoy from the Chinese buffet group rushing Murph along: they were ready to continue on to the bars.  After much urging and crepe-sampling thwarted by a persistent wait staff, I threw my napkin to the table and settled the bill, knowing I would return.

At the bar I nursed a single glass of beer, reveling in my gastronomical satisfaction.  The night ended early and the sleep was deep.

I spent the following day on my own wandering through Mendoza's many plazas and tree-lined streets, sampling a bif de chorizo vastly inferior to anything Las Tinajas had offered me.  That night, we did our best to make the "all the wine you can drink" offer un-cost-effective.  Guy, unable to palate any more, pleaded with Murph to skate to the gas station with him to buy beer, and I announced that I wanted to come.

"You don't know how to skate, Ben," Guy argued concisely.

"I'll show you who doesn't know how to skate," I replied obscurely.  I made it all of the ten blocks there and back and didn't fall once.  Thus ignited a passion in yet another "-boarding" activity which has endured into my sobriety (interestingly, my balance has not).  Also purchased from the gas station were all the Kinder Eggs on display.  Kinder Eggs are candies of German construction which contain delightful toys which our hosteler's son tried unsuccessfully to steal.

Our final day in Mendoza consisted of a three-hour horseback riding trip into the Andean foothills where I discovered myself to possess what I suppose is an innate TeRondean affinity toward the equine.   Our gaucho guide wore a seasoned and sweaty leather hat, and a wide leather belt with a knife stuck diagonally in the back.  He saddled a white and brown piebald and motioned me toward it.  "Sabes?" he asked, and I lied to the affirmative, uncharacteristically confident in my hypothetical knowledge.  "Es un poco loco," the gaucho warned, and I shrugged it off, swinging myself into the saddle.  As he saddled the rest of us, I familiarized myself with my equipment, and shortly after we hit the trail, found myself leading the group.

We took it slow through the scrub, single file on narrow paths.  We climbed gradual ridges and descended through the infrequent gully, breathtaking views abounding.  Shortly we reached the cabin of a friend of our gaucho.  He invited us in and we shared mates and were impressed with the gaucho's story of killing a puma.  "Men use the knife and the dog; only the women use the rifle," he explained, and we were humbled further.  Outside, we met the dog, Achilles.

Back in the saddle, we headed down a wider road back to the ranch.  The gaucho and our guides were entertained greatly with the sport of trying to keep the gringos behind them, and eventually gave up and we took great galloping strides toward home.  The gaucho told me I hollered like a cowboy.

We embarked on an overnight bus back to Santiago that night and got home with time enough to shower before class.

NEXT

PART 2: SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA, CHILE

World-weary

FORTHCOMING:

Recollections of two weeks and three countries of South-American travel.  An adventure of odyssean proportions, presented in four parts.

SOON.

Coasting

The USAC trip to Valparaiso and Viña del Mar went off without a hitch.  Our intrepid program administrators Luis and Brenda bussed most of the Andres Bello gringos out to the coast two Fridays ago to experience the country's playground on the Pacific.  We took in a South American art museum, wandered aimlessly, absorbed the seaside lifestyle, and visited an inexplicable dollop of sand dunes north of the cities.

Palacio Vergara art museum, Viña del Mar.  Its original 

inhabitant was Blanca Veragara, the son of Viña del Mar's founder 

José Francisco Veragara.

Tomfoolery on the dunes.

Yours truly, in flight.

Several of us elected not to return with the group, and stayed in a hostel in Viña for the weekend.  Most of our time was spent lazing around the city or on the beach.  At night, we'd retire to the hostel for beers (the bottle store across the street magnanimously allowed us to haul our purchases in one of their crates) and singing on the roof.

Sunday morning came around and, by the time I'd woken, Guy, Murph, Jon and their Chilean friend Sebastian had already returned from an early-morning surfing trip.  Sebastian, normally among Chile's more tranquil citizens, is prone to fits of vigorous elation, and upon arriving at the shore became so exuberant that he couldn't resist throwing his Suzuki Samurai into gear and executing a quick donut in the street.  The Samurai, a tiny-but-tall Jeep-ish vehicle, couldn't bear the excitement and flopped down on its side, exhausted, on the asphalt.  Unharmed and not so easily defeated, the boys debarked, rolled the car back up on its tires, and commenced surfing.

Checked out of the hostel, most of the USACers took morning buses back to Santiago.  Ian and I checked our bags in at the station and stalked off on reluctant legs, exhausted from the night's festivities but determined not to waste a day.  We rode an ascensior, an ancient and calamitous elevator car which hauled us from the seaside up the hill to Valparaiso's naval museum.  The exhibits, while somewhat haphazardly arranged and smacking of jingoism, were thrillingly devoid of "no tocar" signs.  The artillery pieces, which swiveled in their mounts and had operable cranks and levers, were particularly diverting.

Call to arms outside our hostel.

Tour boats in the harbor at Valparaiso.

Valparaiso's inclined coast.

An order of fresh ceviche at a restaurant next door to a fish market (a safe bet, I thought) provided cheap and delicious sustenance, but not quite enough to fuel more sightseeing, so Ian and I called it a day and returned to the bustle of Santiago.

This past weekend was spent in Mendoza, Argentina, eating slow-cooked Argentine beef and riding quick-tempered Argentine horses in the Andean foothills.  Details to come.

Photos courtesy of Eric Goldschein and Shannon Seeley.

The Trip Turns South

As is becoming an amusing habit, I decided on short notice to spend this weekend with the Reno Bunch in Pucón, ten hours south of Santiago.  According to wikipedia, Pucón is within the boundaries of the coveted Patagonia region, which comprises the bottom of South America and is synonymous with Christmas morning for adventure tourists.  Far more exciting, however, is Pucón's volcón Villarrica, a docile but active volcano which intermittently burps tufts of smoke into the sky.  Not only is Villarrica a spectacle unto itself, but a thrilling snowboard destination: not many amateurs are able to spend their third outing slicing along the sides of former lava flow ravines.

Adopting Guy, Jon and Murph's travel itineraries, I bought overnight bus tickets leaving Friday at quarter to midnight and returning Monday morning at eight.  Also coming were Rene, Melinda and Jenna, ski enthusiasts from Reno, Missouri, and Michigan, respectively.  The ride was considerably more comfortable than one would expect for only $25 U.S., and saved us an extra night's rate at the hostel.  Our coach dropped us off at a little before ten Saturday morning, we walked five minutes to a recommended hostel, and unburdened ourselves of our luggage.

At a grocer's down the road, Guy and Jenna collected a bag full of eggs, tomatoes, onions, cheese and sausage, which were combined on the hostel stove into a communal hobo-omelette, ravenously put away with the help of bread, milk, and tea.  Plates clear, we donned our snow clothes and doled out a hefty sum to our hostel proprietor for transit up the volcano.

At the lodge, Guy, Jon and I decided in favor of hiking over shelling out an additional fortune for lift tickets.  We ascended the aforementioned lava flow for about 45 minutes before the Brothers Eriksen found a "kicker," a ramp made of snow erected and abandoned by an earlier party.  I borrowed Jon's board and goofed off on the sides of the ravine while they used Guy's shovels to augment the ramp to their satisfaction, then spent a while photographing the brothers' impressive jumps, flips and twists.

At around five o'clock, we assembled to make our way back to the lodge, Guy accommodating me with a piggy-back snowboard ride down the slope.  We plopped back into the van and returned to the hostel where I humbly accepted Melinda's dry flip-flops, tossing my soaked shoes onto a sunny rooftop.  Guy and I hoofed it into town for an ATM visit and came back to find steaming bowls of soup-from-packets and pasta on the kitchen table.  Eating our fill, Guy and I washed up and poured the leftovers into rinsed-out milk cartons to save in the fridge.

Guy, Jon, Murph, Jenna and I equipped our swimsuits and paid another egregious fare for transit to volcano-fueled hot springs nearby, which turned out to be worth every peso.  The stone-walled pools of steaming, jacuzzi-temperature water, gently illuminated by sparse lampposts effectively reversed the results of a day's tramping through snow and butt-sliding down ravines.  Our driver, using one of the best job-perks I've ever witnessed, donned shorts and joined us in the steaming baths.  Exhausted, we returned once again to our digs and I resolved to dry my dripping shoes over the wood-burning stove which warmed the building.

The following day began similarly, minus the epic omelette.  From a friendly Israeli couple I received some bread and the remainders of a Nutella jar, eagerly consumed.  At the volcano, on the advice of the lift-pass buyers from the day before, we resolved to hike once again to the second lodge: after the first lift, none of them were asked to show their tickets.  Sweating and panting, having shed our coats and hats, we made it to the second lodge contemporaneously with a fog bank, prompting a well-deserved breather in the cafeteria.  I decided to lunch on ketchup packets instead of ten dollar cheeseburgers, to which Guy deftly responded by getting me a glass of boiling water.  Thirty five well-squeezed packets later we were sharing sips of steaming and surprisingly delicious tomato soup as our hats and gloves dried off on the radiator.

After an hour of waiting, we set off into the incessant fog, riding up the second lift without so much as a glance from the operator.  Unable to see more than one chair ahead, I was respectfully terrified of beginning my third snowboarding adventure, and my demanding we institute a buddy system was heeded by the group.  My fear turned out to be unfounded- all seven of us stuck within the 25 foot visibility radius of each other, and swept down the slope with ease and, interestingly enough, privacy.  Being able to see no one but my friends imbued me with a powerful confidence and, in turn, I performed amply.

We zipped up and down several more times before retiring to the kickers from the day before, slowly traversing beautiful scenery in the relenting mist.  Another hour of playing and we were all spent, and this time I got to descend the ravine on a board of my own, sliding up the sides as I went, dodging volcanic rocks jutting up from the powder.

Having checked out of the hostel, we subtly changed clothes behind a garage and left our bags and gear with the front desk.  We sauntered around town for a while, dining from the grocery store and chatting with a group of kids planning to hike to the volcano's crater the following day.  Unable to resist their offer of a free couch to sleep on that night, Guy, Murph, Jon and Renee exchanged their bus tickets for the following night.  If all went to plan, they spent this very afternoon peering into Villarrica's cavernous maw, foaming with lava.

Jenna, Melinda and I pulled back into the Santiago bus station this morning at eight.  In a possibly foreseeable twist of fate, my heretofore lucky streak was dealt a blow on the metro ride home: mashed into the subway car with no room to move any part of my body, I found upon debarking my digital camera had been delicately removed from my backpack.  In light of this disappointing turn of events, pictures of the weekend South will have to be postponed until I can post those of my companions.  I hope my irritation will subside with a good, long night's sleep.

This Friday is our class trip to the port city of Viña del Mar, where, if my luck returns, I might see some penguins.

Essay on Manjar

I never quantified exactly what it was I anticipated most in coming to Chile, but if I had to hazard a guess, "the food" would be among the top three.  I haven't been disappointed.  Gabriela deserves executive producer credit for most of the better victuals I've enjoyed at this point, one month into the program.  These include:

Porotos: a stew named after the beans which constitute its thickening and star ingredient, which she claims is a national dish.  The namesake does its job; the stew is hearty and heavy, aided by spinach and noodles cooked to a sublime consistency somewhere between "al dente" and "mush."  Often accompanying are longanizas, somewhat similar to bratwurst, though a little less rich and a little spicier.

Anticuchos: The kind of kabob you might end up with after tossing a javelin into the deli section at the supermarket.  Sparing few beasts of the land, these include different sausages, beef, chicken, prosciutto, and a vegetable or two, strictly for color.

Cauliflower fritters: Exactly what the name implies, these mounds of fried vegetable open a portal to a twilight zone where Cauliflower is not only palatable, but damn near irresistible.

Completos: The Chilean answer to U.S. hot dogs, these wieners obey two fundamental truths, as far as I can tell: always do they come in a toasted bun, and always is the sausage outweighed by the condiments (guacamole, diced tomatoes, mayonnaise).

Cauli-fritters, on right.

These are just the things I remember the names of.  Fish, beef, and chicken variously prepared have led many meals, as have delicious soups (Gabriela is fond of the egg-drop inclusion), often accompanied by a salad of some or other composition, be it avocado, tomato, lettuce, beets, or any combination thereof.

But the idiosyncrasies of Chilean cuisine are not confined to the kitchen at 1653 Rep. de Israel.  Milk here comes in cardboard-carton liters, and though Gabriela assures me that it is the lesser-fat variety, it tastes more like half & half, and leaves a coating which obscures glass you drink it from.  Needless to say, chocolate milk here is reminiscent of liquified cake frosting, and one can down a carton of it with terrifying ease.  On a similar wavelength is manjar, referred to elsewhere in South America as dulce de leche.  Best explained stateside, it's carmel sauce the viscosity of toothpaste.  Comes in foil sacks weighing up to one kilogram (I'll save you the trouble: that's 2.2 pounds of caramel).

In the neighborhood surrounding Universidad Andrés Bello, cheap food abounds, though a far cry from the "fast food" that infects U.S. campuses.  Shops hock Cellophane-wrapped sandwiches various in composition: tomato, avocado, mayonnaise is a common and cheap vegetarian staple.  Chicken salad with red pepper finely chopped in is another inexpensive and common variety.  Popular among the USACers is the chicken cutlet baguette, a particularly long affair adorned with guacamole.  The tough, presumably old bread demands devoted and attentive chewing, amplifying the satisfaction of finishing the sandwich (or, conversely, compelling the mastication-weary to save half for later).  This accommodatingly priced lunch is especially responsive to aji, a pepper-sauce which has a hefty flavor slightly milder than Tabasco, which can be found in bottles almost everywhere.  

In an effort (I can only assume) to produce jobs, the process for purchasing these and many other items around town is as follows: ask man 1 for item, receive paper slip; take slip to man 2, pay, receive stamp on slip; take slip to man 3, exchange for item.  Working along with these employees is at least one chef who assembles the more complicated food items.  On one occasion, I had to go through no less than five personnel for the meager purchase of a phillips-head screwdriver.  It is no doubt a curious and elaborate arrangement to we Norte Americanos, some of us having already grown accustomed to ringing up and paying for our groceries all by our lonesome.

And, of course, there are the empanadas.  In varieties limited only by the imagination of the chef, these pasties come fried or baked and sized between a child's fist and a medium-sized purse.  The more exotic to make my list have been asparagus and cheese, a delightfully flaky affair I got in the arts-district, and a disappointing seafood version from Pichilemu which exhibited less discerning selection that I would have liked.  The standby is piño, stuffed with beef, gravy, olives, hard-boiled eggs, onions, and occasionally, something which may have been an apricot.  In a jury-rigged shopping cart parked daily outside class, a woman used to fry cheese empanadas as well as sopapillas (fried dough discs), but she has lately been replaced by a younger man whose product is less satisfying.  Word is the lady was arrested, which may be true: new guy can often be seen scanning the streets in all directions with a worried look, presumably watching for carabineros.  Regardless of who operates the cart, the salsa is consistently satisfactory, and the sole variable setting the woman and her replacement apart from other vendors in the neighborhood.  Dished out with a plastic spoon from a tupperware container, the thin, bright red sauce is an emulsion of tomato and sprigs of cilantro and is just shy of being unbearably salty.  My preferred method is to bite a hole in the empanada and ladle the salsa in, turning the pastry to coat the insides.

In other news, the Casablanca trip was postponed.  In its stead, I spent another Saturday snowboarding.  Having overcome the initial excitement of my ability, I was more aware of my own mortality this time, but I enjoyed myself regardless.

More to come.