Sand Salt Stone and Scenery

One more wonderful overnight bus journey sees us arrive at San Pedro de Atacama at 7.30 am. One of the benefits of arriving so early in the morning is that you awake to see the landscape emerge out of the dawn. I think that I had always thought of deserts of being big sandy things - but this one is more a massive expanse of shale that has been ground down by who knows what forces. This is the only benefit of arriving in a new town so early as it very cold and it seems as if any place for a cup of coffee is shut down until doomsday.

San Pedro isn’t that high up, only about 2500m, but it is between 2 main mountain ranges that rise to over 4000m. It almost never rains here, but it does manage to get some water from the snow melt and underground springs off the mountains. So, from time to time you come across some wonderful small oases or patches of very fertile valleys.



But most of the time it is very desolate.

The main town is a delightful grid of very traditional adobe houses. Some of them are whitewashed, whilst others are the colour of the natural clay that they use from the ground. The outside of the houses tend to be very stark on the outside - almost forbidding - but give on to wonderful courtyards. Once again there is no heating in any of the buildings other than fires that are lit at night.










During the day it is beautifully sunny and quite warm so long as you stay in direct sunlight. Indeed, you even have to be careful not to burn. Both Brett and I are managing to get back a bit of the tans that have become less and less obvious the further South and into the winter we go! But it is absolutely freezing at night and we are VERY grateful for the fact that our B&B has electric blankets on the beds.

We are only here for a couple of days so we press on and arrange to join a couple of tours into the desert and up into the mountains. I really want to go to see the geysers, but as this is a dawn outing Brett declines to accompany me (which is just as well as it turns out).

Our first trip takes us out for the day to visit the salt flats in the valley. In the way back whens, the tectonic plates shifted and pushed up the two mountain ranges with a valley in the middle. The sediment and water that settled in the valley soon evaporated in the unrelenting sunshine and left a salt flat 100km x 80km in the middle of the desert.

Salar de Atacama (Salt lake)

The only things that manage to survive on the flats are 3 species of flamingo (which makes it a flamingo nature reserve), a couple of rodents and a few micro-organisms that they all eat. It was fascinating to walk across the flat and to see the thick layer of salt that is there. There are a few mining companies that take borax, lithium and potassium out of the salt; but in the main it is left for the tourists to appreciate.






Away from the salt flats there is a bit more life to be seen and we pass llamas, vicunas, different birds and there are some Alpaca lurking but we didn’t see them.





We meander higher into the mountain until we reach a couple of lakes that are amongst the highest in Chile. The air is so clear and the colours and perspectives are so breathtaking that my camera doesn't even begin to do it justice.

It's not frozen yet - but it soon will be.



At this height the snow never completely melts. This snow is still left over from last year's snowfall as it hasn't snowed here yet this winter.

Not quite the top of the world - but it sure feels like it.

As we are now over 4500 metres from sea level we notice the lack of oxygen in the air and even a short walk takes an inordinate amount of energy. It is amazing that people live a this altitude - but they do.

Some even manage away from the villages.

Farming at 3000m+.

Room with a view?

In fairness, there aren’t many villages and the populations are quite small, but they are thriving communities in their way, although it is difficult to see how they make a living. There is some land that has been organized for agriculture, but the landscape doesn’t lend itself to mass production. The llamas and alpacas provide wool, milk and meat as well; so in the main life here harks back to earlier times.

The next day I leave Brett snoring gently at 3.50am while I lurk on the street waiting for a minibus to pick me up for a dawn trip to the geysers at Tatio; apparently, they blow best at dawn. Which is a pity because they are 98km away and this means a 2 hour trip in the bus starting at 4.00am. Although it is cold when I get up, this is nothing to how cold it gets as we once more climb over 4000m. The bus trip is a dark, shaky, noisy and uncomfortable experience that Brett would have found unbearable. The only reason that anyone does it is to be able to see the Geysers, and even so I get close to wondering if it is really worth it!

However, arriving at Tatio just as dawn breaks is amazing. Located in the crater of an inactive volcano, there are little jets of steam that get bigger as the sun rises, and you can hear the geysers begin to bubble louder and louder until they start to steam and run over the ground - melting the ice that has frozen overnight. The limescale that has accumulated over so many years as the geysers erupt makes little mini volcanoes everywhere and the limescale patterns in the rising sun are quite beautiful. The guide tells us that they are just about to turn this area into a thermo-power station. I suspect that the gain of power will more than compensate for the loss of this tourist attraction because at the moment locals are very dependent on a very limited and inconsistent supply of electricity. Having something more reliable and local should help their future development no end. (They might even have enough energy to put some heating in their homes at last!)

Just beginning to steam before the dawn.


Soon they are in full blow.


Once the sun is fully up they settle down again.


Beautiful limescale patterns.

Anyone for a nice volcanic mud pack?

Once the sun comes up it is just about warm enough to strip down to swimming costumes and jump into the thermal pool that is fed by the same source as the geysers. It is a very strange sensation swimming about in a pool as little jets of boiling hot water bubble up from the bottom. If you aren’t careful and your feet happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time then it can be quite uncomfortable; although not as dicey as having to get out of the water to get dressed as the temperature only just begins to hit 0 degrees.

At around 9am we head back down the mountain. This time it is daylight so now I can at least see how bad the road is that we are driving down. I use the word ‘road’ very loosely as it is really only a dirt mountain track! Our driver is very good at pointing out various bits of wildlife so I can see some more llamas, birds and the funniest little rabbits that you can imagine - because they eat the cacti that are the only things that grow at this height they are GREEN. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself.

Notice the green hue?

Wild llamas.

Ice-walking birds.

One more village at 4000m+ is very traditional. With the houses all made from local stones and straw roofs. I suspect that they are not equipped with many of today's mod cons.





4000m+
Tourists come through this pueblo every day so I wonder if this helps them to be viable? There doesn't seem to be much else keeping to keep them going.

Even at this height the church takes pride of place.

The bus that made it up the hill one last time.

Gathering water from the mountain stream.

We get back to the town at midday and Brett is just about awake enough to enjoy my tale of the morning and to appreciate the fact that he didn’t come along for the ride.

The afternoon sees us join another trip that takes us into the Valley of Death and Moon Valley! I never really did understand why the first bit was called the valley of Death because it was really just a very, very desolate valley that was a bit of a cheat really as it had been man-made by some bloke who needed a road into his mining works. It was amazing to be able to see the layers underneath the rocks that are all around - and there were a couple of great dunes in the middle of it. I am sure that it wouldn’t be the cleverest thing to get stuck there in the middle of a summer day - but Death Valley felt like an overstatement.













Moon Valley is so called as the landscape is supposed to be as desolate as it is on the moon. I haven’t been to the moon (maybe for our next trip) but it could be pretty close to it. There is a lot of quartz here and, if you stand quietly enough as the sun goes down and the temperature changes, you can hear it crack.

I have never been to the such a place before - it is truly breathtaking most of the time.

Despite this we feel that it is time to move on from Chile and decide to make a break for the border tomorrow. We take the shorter bus ride to the closest town, Calama, in the hope of being able to take a day bus to the border. Unfortunately, there aren’t any buses leaving until the evening and so we have an 8 hour wait in one of the sorriest looking towns you have ever seen. It is predominantly a mining town, so there is some money here, but it is very shabby and could almost be Bedminster; only in the desert and 4 times as big which prompts Brett to rename it Calamity. We do manage to find the local shopping mall and thank our stars for globalisation as we sink into some very comfy cinema seats to while away a couple of hours watching Gran Torino (which, by the way, I found very depressing even if Clint did have a great time making it).

We have to take the bus to Arica which is 16km south of the Peruvian border. From there we are squeezed into a collective taxi with 2 other people and driven to Tacna which is 20km the other side of the border. Although it feels a bit strange traveling this way, in fact it works really well because the driver knows exactly what everyone has to do at the border and he patiently takes us all through so that we are soon whizzing our way through our first bit of Peru.

The Sky's the Limit

The further you get from Santiago, the more rural the towns become. It is only now that I am seeing the type of south American life that I had expected before we arrived here.

La Serena, some 350kms (and 8 hours on the bus!) further north, is a small town that we stay at so that we can get off the main road and see some of the countryside. We had quite a nice tour here which meant that we got to see most of the valley and some of the smaller mountain pueblos.
Cowboys still live on.



The mainstays of Chilean life ... shops...homes...churches.











Although tours can often be local factory visits interspersed with a bit of the local history and culture, this one wasn’t quite so bad and it meant that we were able to see quite a bit of the valley and a couple of the local pueblos. Our guide was very knowledgeable and we certainly learnt more than we would have just driving along by ourselves. We learnt how they make the national drink of Pisco which is a very young brandy made from fermenting and then distilling high sugar content grapes that are grown particularly in this area due to the consistency of their weather (practically always sunny without temperature extremes) and the amount of sunshine that they get (10 hours a day every day). If you want very sweet grapes look for the ones that come from Chile - apparently Germany has a particular penchant for Chilean grapes.

The pisco distiller.

There is a wonderful microclimate here that produces a stunningly fertile valley amid what is essentially just a desert. It is really amazing to be going down the road and coming across acres and acres of vines, fruit trees and lush water grasses amid the arid mountains. It practically never rains here, but early morning mists and some underground springs provide enough water in the valley to grow enough produce for the central country’s needs plus valuable export produce.
The beautiful valley nestles in amongst the mountains





Higher up the mountain all you get is cacti.

As part of the tour we are taken to a restaurant that, we are told, only uses sunlight for its cooking. I foolishly take this to mean that they use solar-powered energy, when in fact it means that they have a series of glass sun-boxes in the sun that they put the food in to cook. This means that what is on the menu is mainly braised stews of chicken or goat. They do 'bake' their own bread but the result of this is really a lump of half-baked dough. Still, you gotta give it to them for trying and they did manage a great baked rice pudding that is perfectly suited to the slow cooking method.

Anyone for goat stew?

Group catering available

Solar powered tea?


The other major attraction in this part of Chile is that it is the location for about 6 major observatories because of the fact that they have an average of 320 clear sky nights per year. We had managed to find one that was open to the public for viewings at night rather than just a day tour of the facilities and so we were very pleased when we were able to book a place at short notice. This was another reason for booking a tour rather than hiring a car - because driving at night is so hazardous that it is always best avoided. The observatory tour didn’t start until 9pm and I really didn’t fancy having to find my way back down through the mountain roads so late at night.

For both of us the visit to the observatory has been one of the highlights of the trip. Although it was, uncharacteristically, a bit cloudy and the moon was half full, it was really amazing being able to see some of the stars and planets up close with the telescopes. Because the moon was so apparent we were able to look at it really well and even managed to get a picture of it through the telescope.

Note how the moon shines backwards here!

We also learned to identify some of the constellations of the southern hemisphere - in particular the one for Brett’s zodiac sign of Sagittarius - that we hadn’t seen before. We had a little peek at Saturn with its rings, and a close up of some star clusters in the Milky Way. I can’t wait until the moon goes dark again so that we can see some of the constellations more clearly for ourselves - but that won’t be for a while yet.

We moved on from La Serena to Copiapo further up the coast, hoping to get into the Atacama Desert to see the salt flats and more of the mountain terrain. The best advocados in the world

However, we hadn’t banked on the fact that it is now so close to the winter that the tourist accommodation is now closed and you can’t camp without serious winter gear - and a lot more experience of roughing it than either of us can lay claim to. Brett would prefer us to just push on to the desert further north, but I have set my heart on trying to see some of the local penguins so I manage to persuade him that it would be a good idea to hire a car for a day or two so that we can drive out to the Pan de Azucar (Sugarloaf) national park.

The round trip of close to 400kms takes us through the most stunning landscape that I have ever seen in my life. Unfortunately, words really cannot describe the vibrancy of the colours or the sheer immensity of the landscape that we travel through. Initially, we drive up through the bottom end of the Atacama desert, which is just kilometer after kilometer of parched rocks, dunes and sparse scrubland. It is for good reason that most people live in or very close to the towns and cities, because there is nothing to be had from the land around. From time to time a small way stop for lorries and cars means that a few families can survive far from anywhere. Every 100km or so a small fishing village will manage to nestle amid the rocks on the coast, and further inland some mining towns manage to dig themselves into the landscape. But for the moment, there is nothing but open road and a lot of dust.

We stay in Chanaral, a small mining village that has seen better days. It has a few small market shops that hark back to days gone by - with great big old weighing scales, biscuits in jars and the eggs in baskets! It is the off season and we are the only tourists here that we can see. This is also because there isn’t anything here of much interest to tourists. The town has a lovely old town hall and it is trying hard to pose as a place of historic interest. The only reason to stay here really is because it is too far to drive to the national park and back in one day - and the only place to stay in the park is in cabanas or in tents which will be freezing at this time of year.
The sights of Chanaral!



The following day we drive into the national park and we are awestruck by the beauty and magnitude of the landscape. The main road takes us past the 1000km (!) marker from Santiago and on through the mountains until we branch off onto a dirt road that threads through more rugged terrain.



The road in ...

This takes us down to the shoreline and a tiny little fishing village.


The village relies on fishing and tourist boats out to a small local island that is home to northernmost Humboldt penguins - and this is why we are here. We arrive at the bay to the sight of a pilot whale swimming about 2m from the shore; slowly up and down the beach.

It was really amazing. Apparently she comes here every year to have her baby.

Unfortunately, there aren’t any other tourists in sight so we have to fork out for the whole boat ourselves. At this time of year there is apparently a 50% discount, but it we still have to swallow hard before we hand over 50,000 pesos for the privilege.
Our trusty sailors.

Brett has bought a new hat!

However, a privilege it really is as the trip allows us to see these beautiful creatures in their natural habitat, alongside different species of cormorants and fantastic sea lions. Plus, we are using the same boat that the BBC used a couple of years ago when they came to make a documentary about the vampire bats that live on the sea lion’s blood!! So that must be worth something.

We take the small dirt coast road back to Chanaral to pick up our bags from the hotel. The coastline is really beautiful in a desolate sort of a way. We can certainly see what brings so many people to Chile.

This is apparently delicious. They dig out the molluscy bit and eat it with lemon.


The road out ...

We don’t have too much time to stop and stare, alas, as we are trying to make it back in time for a night bus to San Pedro de Atacama. Our next stop is the driest desert in the world some 12 hours and another 500km away.

The Day the Salami Died

Oh, my word. What’s to be said about Chile? It is one of the most stunning places that I have ever seen in my life. I read in one of the guidebooks that Chile is such a weird size and shape that it is difficult to think of it as a ‘proper’ country. It is 4000km long but only about 120km wide at any given point - and most of the width is taken up by the mountains, so there isn’t that much space for the rest of what usually goes on in a country.

Chile’s towns aren’t much to write home about at all - but the countryside is truly breathtaking.

We arrived in the capital Santiago by way of a bus over the Andes from Cordoba in Argentina. We had managed to book our favourite seats on the top deck right at the front - so we had a panoramic view the whole way over. We weren’t too sure that the bus company was going to take us along in the beginning because the swine flu epidemic had started to reach Argentina and they were being careful about traveling Americans. When we explained that we had been in South America since before it started they did relax and let us stay. It took us just over 2 hours to reach the Chilean border checkpoint, climbing higher and higher into the Andes until we had reached the snowline. This year’s snow hasn’t really arrived, but I could see some stray mounds left over from last year that hadn’t melted yet!!!

In the way of these mountain roads it was bumpy and twisty - but each new bend brought another fantastic vista into sight; the river winding through the floor of the valley, the lone train track that has long been abandoned but still stretches through the mountains and along the valley. Two or three abandoned villages still remain on the Argentine side of the border but mainly the only life is the army’s mountain brigade camp and the odd resort hotel waiting for the ski season to start.

We had been primed by the bus conductor for the Chilean customs because they are VERY, VERY, VERY strict about not allowing any animal or plant products into the country. This posed Brett with a dilemma because he had bought a delicious salami in Mendoza but hadn’t had time to eat it yet. He decided to risk it, arguing that it wasn’t fresh meat and we could always plead ignorance if they found it. This seemed like a reasonable way forward given how often we bring things back to the UK that we aren’t technically supposed to.

However, this strategy began to feel distinctly dodgy when we were actually at the border. There were these massive signs warning about the fines and penalties if you got caught with anything. Plus, they had x-ray machines for everything and sniffer dogs all over the place. Brett (being Brett) decided to stick with the plan. They have a great technique for intimidating you throughout the whole process. First of all they get you to line up with your hand luggage beside the x-ray machine. Then they come along the line and ask you for your customs declaration form and, looking you straight in the eye they ask you AGAIN, “do you have any animal or vegetables with you?”. I was able to answer quite honestly - but when they got to Brett he caved in and said “no, but I do have a salami - isn’t that OK?” The poor customs bloke nearly took a fit - demanding where it was and telling Brett he now had to complete a completely new customs form declaring it. Then we had to wait for his bag to finish going through the machine before he could hand it over.

When the offending salami was unearthed the customs man said to Brett - I show you what must happen - and he pulled out a bottle marked with the skull and cross bones and POISON and slowly poured it over the salami and sloshed it all around.

Well, that certainly broke the ice with our fellow passengers and we heard the myriad stories of their own, their relatives, and their relatives-relatives-friends-second cousin’s Chilean Border stories. Then, in the way of grieving over a loss, we both managed to spend the next 2 hours of the trip laughing over ever-increasingly ridiculous salami jokes and word play. Which was just as well, as what had been promised as a 5 hour journey stretched out to become 7 hours. The journey back down the mountain was just as interesting as on the way up - with an incredible stretch of 25 switchback bends just after the border. There isn’t a lot between the Andes and Santiago - just a couple of really desperate-looking ‘spa’ towns.

As we arrived quite late into Santiago it wasn’t until the next day that we could really get a good look at it. While it is a big, cosmopolitan city it doesn’t have the grandeur of Bs As.

A bit of colonial grandeur.

The Chilenos here certainly have a very good standard of living, with lots of expensive restaurants and bars and shops etc. There isn’t an enormous amount of things to see outside of the pre-requisite Cathedral, Plaza de Armas (I.e the central square) and a few colonial buildings. We did take the teleferico and cable car up to the top of XXXX which gave us a good view of the smog that tends to shroud the city most of the time.

I am sure that there are some interesting corners that could be found, but I was anxious to get out of the city to see more typical Latin American life so we were quickly on our way again.

My first ever shoe shine (50p a go)

The guidebooks and various locals were keen to point us in the direction of a small seaside town called Valparaiso so we made that our next stop. It is a port town that used to be the first city of Chile but is now a cross between a port town and a seaside resort. Most of the resort bit of it is 10 minutes up the coast with various high-rise hotels. For the rest, it is a town that is built into the hillside as the mountains reach down to the sea at this point. We had pre-booked a B&B up on one of the hills which meant that we had a great view over the town. The building was a great original wooden structure that the owner had lived in for 16 years and had restored quite beautifully.

Some of the houses in the town were perched quite spectacularly on the hillside - and those that had seen far better days looked as if they could come down at any given moment.




Out of town the houses are all built into the hills

Faded grandeur.

The 'real' Valparaiso

While there were a few picturesque streets in the centre - that had been prettified for the tourists - in the main Valparaiso was a dirty, congested and fairly squalid place that we were quite happy to leave behind. Not least because it was so blooming cold at night. Chile is lucky in that most of the country has quite clear skies most of the time - which means that it is lovely and sunny during the day - but once the sun goes down it quickly gets very, very cold. We were surprised that there was no heating in our B&B (which we now know to be the case EVERYWHERE). They did rustle up a big gas heater for our room, which was just as well otherwise we would have frozen to death. We did ponder the pros and cons of potential carbon monoxide poisoning versus certain hypothermia briefly before we sparked it up - but in the end we went with having some heat at night. However, I think that meant that we had pinched the heater for the breakfast room because everyone had to eat breakfast wearing their coats as it was so cold in there in the morning. Ah well, can’t have it all I suppose!!!

Note the 'fire escape' coming out of this children's nursery!

The transport system here was an introduction to what was to become the norm for us and consists of hundreds of ‘collectivos’ which are shared taxis that ply specific routes through the city and ‘micros’ which are small minibuses that do the same for a slightly lower fare. The collectivos are a bit more expensive as they only take on 4 passengers whilst the micros do stop more often and squeeze in as many people as they can. Transport costs here are amazingly cheap; about 35p for the bus and 50p for the collectivo. If you really want to live it up you can get a private taxi and even these are only ever about a pound for an average journey. From the balcony of our B&B we could watch the steady stream of the collectivos winding their way up and down the adjacent hill; which was quite a sight at times particularly at dusk as there was a snaking line of headlights winding around the bends.





We had been hoping to find some of Chile’s famed sea food by the coast - but we were bitterly disappointed. The first night we were here we found what might have been a lovely little local restaurant which was physically only 10 metres from the sea. However, the food was fairly dreadful. Brett ordered fish soup which, while it was chock full of mussels, clams, prawns etc. was so devoid of taste that it was like eating boiled sock snippings!!! We did look for other sea food restaurants in the town, but the ones we found looked like they all came with health warnings so we gave them a wide berth.

Another integral part of life here is the dogs. Most of them seem to roam freely - consequently you need to be very vigilant where you put your feet! It seems that everyone feels the need for guard dogs, which often leads to surround-sound barking from dusk to dawn. Sometimes you come across a big pack of dogs which is a bit scary, plus you often have dogs chasing the cars down the street even in the centre of towns. All in all, it seems like a problem that no-one really wants to address. Many times we wondered how long it would be before someone was seriously hurt.
This local dog decides to try to get a better view of whichever mutt he is barking at!

It is hard to visualise just how limited the space available for living is here. Most people live in the relatively few big cities within 30-40 kms of the coast. All in all, our stay here was confirmation of the widely-held recognition that Chile’s towns and cities are best avoided by tourists except for using them as transport hubs into the countryside.

BUENOS AIRES-EUROPE IN THE NEW WORLD

The meaning of “new world” makes more sense when in Argentina and in Buenos Aires in particular. The Spanish may have had a presence here since the 1500s but the majority of the current architecture and culture took hold only in the late 1800s and it very much resembles what was being built in continental Europe during the same time period. I read a statistic that at the beginning of the 20th century, over half of BA's residents were Italian immigrants and a majority of the city's architects. The local slang still retains a lot of Italian words and pronunciations (a quirk other South Americans like to make fun of). After a number Italian-like buildings went up, some officials then decided that French architecture was more classy and so a Parisian style is also evident. So, picture a city with a mix of Rome, Paris and Madrid, placed on a new continent, and you start to get a picture of the city.

Like other great cities, BA is a collection of distinct neighborhoods. We explored quite a few in the two weeks we were there but I suspect one could keep on discovering new niches for months on end. One of the neighborhoods most in transition is Boca. Once upon a time, the bluest of blue collar areas, with a thriving port which then went into decline. Now re-born (gentrified ?) as an state sponsored artist colony with cafes holding tango demonstrations, a modern art museum and a “found” sense of history. Not as bad as it sounds really ! What does help keep it honest is that it is home to BA's football (soccer) team the Boca Juniors (you can't miss the stadium). The Boca fans are insanely passionate about their team and Maradona is a deity in this city. For the Americans reading this blog, soccer is still considered a blue collar sport, even if the players are paid gazillions of Dollars/Euros/Pounds...

We rented two different apartments for a week each (about $300 a week) in or near the San Telmo neighborhood. This area is good for taking in BA's “cafe society” with loads of places in eat, people watch, listen to music and view some of worst (best ?) kitchy antiques. The area is also close to the city's main squares, and with the South American's penchant for strikes and demonstrations, this meant marches and parades almost every day (official or not...).

Another neighborhood we visited turns into Argentina's version of the Wild West each Sunday. The shops there cater to the “Gaucho crowd” selling tack, saddles an other cowboy supplies. And on Sundays, there are stalls selling produce and bands playing music from that region of the country. Adding more flavor are the horse races and other contests taking place on the city streets. The Sunday fair is crowded with Argentinians rather than foreign tourists. As the country is so vast, this may be the only chance the city dwellers get to have a taste of their own frontier cousin's lives...

If you like the big continental European cities (and I do), then it's very easy to like Buenos Aires. It has good food (probably the best steaks in the world, but I'll reserve final judgment on that until I've had one in Texas !), great wine and coffee, very cheap and reliable public transportation, loads of art & music venues and a lot of very friendly people. All that at prices about half of what they'd cost in a European city ! I'd have no problem returning for another, and hopefully longer, visit sometime in the future.

Brett

Uruguay Of Yore Or How Many Vowels Can I Fit In One Blog Title ?

People have whimsical, romantic or just plain silly reasons for wanting to visit a particular place; something in a postcard they once saw, or a scene from a movie or maybe a passage from a favorite book. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to reach these places, if they exist at all, and sometimes it's the journey to get there that ends up being more important than the destination.

I've always wanted to visit Uruguay. I've met (maybe) a total of 5-7 Uruguayans my entire life but every one of them has been friendly and fun to be around. (If Kitty Odell is reading this, she'll remember Udo...). My old Argentinian friend Alberto used to talk about how his father would travel every month to Montevideo for a week, “transporting” goods, then return to his life in Buenos Aries. As he forbid his family from ever visiting or contacting him there, there were of course suspicions that a second family existed, or at the very least a shadow life... So, I wanted see this country of friendly people and mysteries for myself.

Some places are so unique that they can't be compared to anywhere else, and other places that are so bland and without character that they could be anywhere (and no-one would care !), but Montevideo, Uruguay is a city that reminds me of many, many places.

Perhaps if one lived in Montevideo for a time, its own specific character would appear but my lasting impression will be of a city that kept triggering memories of other places and other eras. The city's main theater would be very at home in central Italy and in the town hall's square, there is a copy of Michelangelo's David. Many buildings have the “crumbly chic” look familiar to anyone who's been to Genoa or Florence. The language, cultural attitudes and general rhythm of life are from Spain. Slanted cobblestone streets with “heavy buildings” brought memories of Vienna and Budapest, not to mention the “career waiters” in its cafes. And because of all the financial turmoil that Argentina's been through (Buenos Aries is only 3 hours away), there is a section of the city filled with swanky international banks, ala Switzerland, where wealthier (and wiser) Argentinians have gone to deposit their savings over the years.

Some sights even reminded me of things I saw in New York as a child in the late 60s, when there were still just enough old timers and “old ways” to have left an impression. Things like real soda bottles (the type with thick glass and a gas canister on top), and a few horse drawn carts piled high with sacks.

So, it would seem the mystery of Montevideo is that it can be so many cities and still itself. The Uruguayans can't even agree on where the city's name originated ! And yes, the people are some of the friendliest and laid back you're likely to ever come across...

Brett

THE WILDS OF SOUTHERN COSTA RICA

I've been thinking that there should be a scale for the “wildness” of places. At the top of the scale, (or the bottom depending on your point of view), would be ultra organized modern cities and gated retirement communities. Not far removed would come the entirety of The Netherlands. The only so called wild in that country is the aptly named “Den Bos” (The Woods), which in other places would barely qualify as a large park. Not so surprising in a country where even the grass meridians separating roads on the highways are used to graze sheep...

At the opposite end of the scale would be the jungles, deserts, tundras where humans have had little or no influence on the environment. National parks and protected wildlife areas would follow closely. Although, despite the very real wildness that exists in such parks, the signposts letting you know that “Ye have now entered the wild, DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING”, does somewhat dampen the excitement of being in untamed territory...

Southern Costa Rica would appear towards the wilder end of the scale. The place is not totally wild, there are roads (mostly unpaved) with villages that have some version of modern amenities. But, my impression is that the human population there is borrowing space from the natural surroundings rather than imposing their will upon it. This lack of development could be due to the challenging nature of the environment but I suspect clever design is a more likely explanation. Back in the 90s, the Costa Rican government decided that most of country's future income should come from tourism. Even the Costa Rican currency, whose notes up to that point displayed pictures of their main exports, coffee and tobacco, were then changed to “eco designs” showing indigenous animals, fish and plants. And, to Costa Rica's credit, eco tourism is now a huge business.

The organized “eco adventures” we took part in were fun but it was the unplanned and random encounters with nature that brought the most pleasure. Outside our cabin in Dominical, nighttime brought out hermit crabs the size of pool balls. And during the day, iguanas would swagger through the brush and run up the trees. These scenes only a 2 minute walk from a Pacific beach with some of the hugest surf I've ever seen....

We heard and saw howler monkeys in a number of places. “Howling” doesn't begin to describe the sound they really make. Their calls sound more like a jet when flying low and directly overhead. We saw pairs of macaws in flight. (They say that macaws mate for life, and from the way they constantly squawk at each other while flying, I expect that bit of information is true !) Other birds we observed included flocks of brown pelicans and flying beasts so pterodactyl-like it was scary. Not too surprising that Jurassic Park was filmed mostly in the Drake Bay area of Costa Rica.

And, it was a boat trip we took when leaving Drake Bay that was my favorite bit of wildness so far. Access to the area is possible by road but slow and difficult so most people arrive/leave by charter plane or water taxi. This “taxi” is in fact a speed boat that first zooms across the bay, then turns up the Sierpe river to drop you off at a location where there are more buses and better roads. The trip would be worth it even if no practical reason was involved ! The Sierpe river is full of immense and dense mangrove trees. While there is no ground as such above the water, the roots of these trees are so huge and thick that one could walk across them. You wouldn't want to though... If there was ever going to be a convention held for venomous snakes, poisonous plants and just about any mythological beast a mind could conjure up, this would be the place. Major spooky !!

But, the apex of the trip is when the boat leaves the bay for the river. The Sierpe is a large and fast flowing river and it meets a part of the bay at the rim of a very strong Pacific ocean. To watch this natural conflict of relentless ocean waves pushing against a powerfully emptying river would be exciting enough from the shore. But, seeing it from the “inside”, on a small speedboat, is adrenalin incarnate ! How they even teach the boats' “drivers” to navigate this passage is beyond me. We literally had to thread our way between two surges coming from opposite directions, pausing long enough to get past one swell but not so long as to let the water push us back into the bay. In the middle of this maneuverer, there was the illusion of the waves moving backwards....

It would take pages and pages to describe all the natural sights, plants, insects and animals we came across. But, to quote a surfer, who was hanging out in a hammock talking to a friend on his cell phone, “Dude, you wouldn't believe this place ! Get off the phone, get on a plane and get down here now...”

Brett

Yes ... we do know the way to San Jose

The way to San Jose is inevitably by bus! We climb up into the hills from Quepos, going through a lovely town called Arenas spread out along the crest of the hills. You can see SJ as soon as you start to descend because it is a sizeable city spread out throughout the whole of the plateau.

Technically, I think San Jose is just a small part of all the towns you can see. I read today that a third of CR’s population lives on this plateau. But as there are only 4 million people here perhaps that is not so many. It is colder than we were expecting and I find that I have to break out the fleece in the evening. I have adapted too well to the heat again and anything less than 24 degrees feels cold. (I can feel the waves of sympathy from here!)

There isn’t any sense of SJ being particularly crowded because it is so spread out. We have heard many stories about how dodgy it is here and we arrive suitably paranoid about losing all our belongings within half an hour of our arrival. However, either we get lucky or it is a lot better at the moment, because we don’t get any bad vibes from the place at all. Even the notorious downtown bus station area feels relatively harmless - there are certainly metro stations in NY, London and Vienna that we have found more threatening. Maybe the thugs here were getting ready for Easter.

We didn’t see any of the highrise development here that you see in other capital cities - mainly it is 2-3 storey buildings. Some of these are more traditional wooden or concrete with balconies etc. Some are probably from building works in the 70s. There are just enough examples of some Art Deco architecture that I wish I had been able to visit in the 50s or 60s, when the city was probably gorgeous and there are a few indications that they are trying to beautify the city with some restorations and new sculptures.

We are only staying for a couple of nights so we just have time to visit the used book shop to swap some books, wander through the central market, and shuffle around the one museum that they have here. The market is interesting because alongside the tourist tat there is a lot that the locals find indispensible.

You gotta have a machete,

Tuna shampoo,

and , guess what we´re bringing back from this trip!

This bloke was very insistant that I take his picture. He was selling herbs and dried flowers etc. that are essential for various potions.

And this bloke was thought his parrot was very funny.

Fancy a piñata? I quite like this cheeky chappie.

They LOVE their cakes, which is a very good thing because I haven't had chocolate since we left the UK and cake almost makes up for it.

I found the gold bit of the museum here quite interesting as they had some lovely examples of pre-Columbian gold artefacts which also gave me a bit of the history of the settlement patterns and cultural symbols. They also had an exhibition of their currency down through the ages. Most of it was similar to the development of any given currency really, but there were one or two snippets that were intriguing. For example, at one time they were worried about people with leprosy and those in the mental asylums contaminating others, so they drilled a certain type of hole in their coins and no-one else was supposed to use them. At other times, if they didn’t have enough of their own currency to circulate then they would stamp some coins from other central American countries and these would then be allowed to be used in CR. A very enterprising lot.

The main reason we are in SJ is so that we can fly … yes, I know, a plane isn’t a bus. Yippeeeeeeee. We decided to treat ourselves to fly up to La Fortuna where we will spend Easter. It is one of those 20 seat propellor planes, and the flight is only 20 minutes (as opposed to 4 + hours by bus) which is a great way to see a bit more of the topography. SJ lies in the basin of one set of mountains and La Fortuna lies just North of the outer rim of those mountains. The mountains are the cause of the time that driving takes here because, although the main roads are quite well maintained really, they are very narrow and windy and the buses are very old and can't manage the hills well at all. If, as is often the case, you also get stuck behind the mammoth trucks that use the roads, then you have no hope of overtaking and just have to literally crawl along.

La Fortuna is the stopping off point to visit the Arenal Volcano, which, since 1968 has been one of the most active volcanoes in the world.

The 'cloud' you can see drifting from the top right hand side of the volcano is actually steam and gases from the volcano.

The grey wisps bits around the side of the volcano is lava flow.


As night falls you can see that the wisps are actually red hot lava
You know who on the bridge at Arenal Lake, which has been dammed and is now used for generating electricity.

It used to be a small, dusty town until only 10 years or so ago, but they have really pushed their tourism because of the Volcan and now it is a bustling little town. However, it is ALL centered on catering for tourists and there isn’t much of interest in the town itself other than places to book tours or to eat and drink. The tours are very expensive so we decide to hire a car for a couple of days and to go exploring on our own. Everything of interest is within 10kms so it is easy to pootle around and it is very scenic as the main road takes you around the base of the Volcano.

We were a bit worried about things being closed because it is Easter weekend, which is their primary faith holiday here, but we needn’t have bothered because just about everything is open. Some of the business owners have shut up for the weekend, but the majority of things are open as usual. One thing that we didn’t get caught out by, is the fact that they don’t sell any alcohol in Costa Rica on Holy Thursday or Good Friday. We had read something about this in one of the travel forums before we arrived and asked when we were in SJ. So, Brett had sacrificed his spare socks and a hankie or two so that he could pack some wine to tide us over.

The really funny thing was that although you couldn’t buy any beer, the local supermarket and the bars were selling wine! One of the locals told us that normally this isn’t allowed, but it seems that in tourist town they had decided not to impose the total ban. He reckoned that it won’t be long before they don’t bother with the restriction at all here. Personally, I suspect that it is something that is strictly imposed in most other places - not least because nothing is usually open. When we left SJ on Thursday morning we couldn’t even get a cup of coffee because nothing was open.

On Friday morning we decide to try out a local canopy tour, which is something that we have been hankering after for a while now. This consists of being attached to various zip lines and zooming through the treetops! It was great fun and we now feel that we have to do another one, so that this time we can actually get to see what’s going on in the treetops rather than just holding on for dear life while anxiously checking that you’re not going to crash into the next landing platform.

The weather is unusually clear today and we get a rare view of the top of the volcano, as it is usually shrouded in cloud.

It is awe inspiring to see it steaming away and the next day when we have the car, we manage to get around to the other side, where the lava flow is and see how active it actually is. The lava flows pretty constantly in fits and spurts. Not huge eruptions but certainly a steady flow. It is hard to get a good picture because during the day it just looks like steam coming down the mountain and in the evening when you can see the red glow of the lava, the light conditions aren’t that great for the automatic focus. Still, it is amazing to see. We had driven around that afternoon, and found a good viewpoint at a local village football pitch. The tour companies charge an outrageous $25 - $30 dollars per person to take you to a bridge at the side of the road - when in fact you can stop anywhere see it for yourself for free - you just have to be able to get to the right side of the volcano.

The other favourite tourist activity is to go to the thermal springs - a mere $25 per person! We were lucky as another local told us how to get to the river that feeds the springs before they get to the resorts. It is an open secret for all the Tico visitors but very few westerners get to know about it. It certainly isn’t advertised anywhere. As you drive along the main road it is difficult to miss all the cars that are parked by the side of the road, and all the Ticos wandering off into the bushes in their bathing suits with their coolboxes! This isn’t so strange as there are many rivers around here and the locals will stop anywhere and just set up at the side of the road for the day. If you didn’t know why they are here you certainly wouldn’t be any the wiser.

We duly follow the crowd and find this amazing sight of 40-50 people lounging in various pools and sitting in an amazing weir, with the hot spring water flowing and cascading everywhere. Even having all of them staring at us like we’re from another planet doesn’t detract from the fantastic experience for me. I have a fleeting thought that they are silently thinking, “Oh no, now the gringos know about it they’ll be all over the place” but we‘re not telling.





Another foray we make is into a nature reserve that has put in some bridges across the various ravines, which means that you can walk amidst the treetops and have a bird’s eye view of the canopy.

We don’t spot too much wildlife - but it is fascinating all the same.



The hummingbirds love this purple plant



It is amazing how humid it is lower down in the canopy, even though it doesn’t rain that often.

I read in the guidebook, that there is a particular type of fungus that breaks down the foliage which probably accounts for that really musty smell that pervades the air. Apparently, where it takes up to a year for a leaf to decompose in North American forests, here things would only take a month.

I have tried to be a bit clever with the photoshop for this one - didn't quite get around to cropping it, but such is life.

On Easter Monday everything is open and back to normal here so we are on the move again. We are heading to the Nicoya peninsular in search of a beach where we can swim; as opposed to a beach where the surfers can surf. Our research suggests the bottom of the peninsular should be OK as the Pacific is slightly offset by the gulf so it is calmer. We are aiming for a place called Montezuma and hope to finish our stay in Costa Rica there as it will be ‘autumn/winter’ further south and we suspect (with shock, horror and dread) that it will be our last beach stay on this trip.

Unless something spectacular comes up I don’t aim to blog again until we get to Uruguay and our South American blog will begin.

Bye for now …