Atacama Viajero

TRIP TO MEXICO: OVERVIEW AND POSTSCRIPT

2011-04-13T15:32:00.000-07:00

Myself in front of Pancho Villa's

Statue on Cerro La Bufa, Zacatecas.

NOTE: For some reason many of the pictures here got rudely cropped when I published this post. So I suggest that you click on each one to see the full version....

I just got back home yesterday following a veritable whirlwind visit to Mexico. It actually was a pretty amazing journey, and it never would have happened were it not for the efforts of my Mexican Revolution research friend, Juany Gutiérrez and her husband Leo, who put together a truly demanding itinerary and then followed through with it practically to the letter, including a very adventurous trip by auto to the city of Zacatecas.

Now I am charged with the task of composing a complete overview of this remarkable week-long journey through the heart of Mexico. I'd have liked to have done regular trip reports as the days went forward, but this was really not possible, given the realities of following Juany and Leo's rather rigorous schedule.

Anyway, I arrived in Mexico City at about 3 p.m. local time on April 4th, on a direct flight from Salt Lake City. Passing through Mexican customs went a lot more smoothly than I had expected, and sure enough, once I passed through the last passport check and emerged into the waiting area of Benito Juárez International Airport there in Mexico City, there were my hosts Juany and Leo both beaming smiles to greet me.
After a meal in one of the airport's restaurants my hosts brought me to the adjacent bus station and we got tickets for the next bus departing for their home city of Pachuca, in the Mexican state of Hidalgo. Pachuca is some 130 km northeast of Mexico City, so the bus ride took us less than two hours. The above picture was taken shortly after my arrival and shows my hotel, which is the bright orange building. It's known as the Hotel Ciros, and boasts of a three-star rating. It was definitely comfortable and quiet. I ended up staying there a total of five nights, out of my total of seven spent in Mexico, so I suppose that you could call it my "home base."

Now, the reality of this trip happened to be meant for Mexican Revolution historical research, and one thing that Juany had concentrated on when she put together our itinerary were crucial visits to important resource centers like the one pictured above, which houses the famed Casasola Photographic Archives. Agustín Victor Casasola had been perhaps the most prolific of all the photographers to document the events of the Mexican Revolution, and his reputation in that regard is every bit as significant as that of Mathew Brady during the United States Civil War. The archives that today bear his name house countless images of Mexican history, including the revolution, and Juany had made arrangements for us to pay an extended visit there starting at noon on Tuesday, April 5th.
The above picture shows the entrance to Casasola, an older building in Pachuca which had originally been a convent. We were duly signed in and were then assigned an agent who led us through the specific photo archives we had requested on a computer monitor, and we noted specific pictures of interest to our project. Specifically, these were, archival photos of Felipe Angeles, and we announced that we were looking for photographs that we could later ask permission to publish in a biography of General Angeles, which is more or less the goal I have set for myself - to eventually publish a new biography of General Felipe Angeles in English.
In the end, the Casasola people gathered together the 37 images Juany and I had chosen and put them in order on a CD in low resolution, complete with identifications and with specific archive catalog numbers, so that when I would make my final choices in writing, then they would be able to send me high resolution copies with the permission to publish included. It was a very good start to my first day of research in Mexico.

That night, Juany's husband Leo took us to the new Rotonda de los Hidalguenses Ilustres, a monument that had only been dedicated last November - which was the Bicentennial of Mexican Independence and the Centennial of the Mexican Revolution. The Rotonda is a memorial to the twelve most illustrious people in Hidalgo's history, and the earthly remains of all twelve - eleven men and one woman - have been placed beneath their appropriate headstones in a semi-circle. Included here are the remains of Felipe Angeles, whose headstone is shown in the following photo:

The idea of honoring the twelve most important citizens of the state is worthwhile, but in this case, I think that the government of the state of Hidalgo really made a mistake when they decided to place the Rotonda in the middle of one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city of Pachuca! That's right, this "hallowed" monument is not located in some revered spot like a state cemetery but is surrounded by automobile (and taxi, bus, and truck) traffic...certainly not a place for reflection or meditation!
Well, on Wednesday, the 6th of April, Leo, Juany and I took a trip by auto into the heart of the state of Hidalgo, driving northward from Pachuca to visit the towns of Zacualtipán (pop. 25,000) and Molango (pop. 10,000). Zacualtipán was the birthplace of Felipe Angeles, and while there we visited the municipal building where Juany had arranged for the town's chief administrator to dig out the original Felipe Angeles birth certificate (which Juany photographed) and then we went to the site where he was born. The picture below is of the statue of Felipe Angeles which is located at the entrance to the city, and both Juany and myself took multiple pictures of it from various angles.

From Zacualtipán we continued northward en route to the town of Molango, where Felipe Angeles had spent some time in his childhood and youth while his father, Colonel Felipe Angeles Melo, had been the town's political chief. Juany had contacted the current municipal manager before our arrival with document information she had already so that they could pull out the documents she wanted. These were: (1.) a marriage certificate for Colonel Felipe Angeles Melo and Maria Martinez (dated 1883), and (2.) the death certificate of Colonel Felipe Angeles Melo (dated August 29, 1899).
Before we left Molango, we got the town's archivist to allow us to rummage through their archival boxes in ther basement, and we found a whole host of municipal documents (1884) signed by the elder Angeles - these were documents that their archivist didn't even know existed! In that endeavor, Juany and I were pressed for time, as they were to close in 15 minutes! So while I flipped the pages, Juany frantically photographed what we'd found. Tragically, she was plagued by failing batteries, so much of what she had photographed turned out blank. She will return to Molango one of these days and do a much more thorough search through that basement archive.
Anyway, it is interesting to note that in the town plaza of Molango, there are only two statues: one of them is General Felipe Angeles, and the other is his father, Colonel Felipe Angeles Melo...

Statue of General Felipe Angeles, in the plaza of Molango

Statue of Colonel Felipe Angeles Melo, in the plaza of Molango

As we were leaving Molango, Leo stopped the car to take some pictures from the vista point above the town. The below picture of me was taken by Leo, with Molango in the background...

On our next day (April7th - Thursday) Leo had to work, so Juany and I took the bus into Mexico City where we visited Mexico's Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), which is housed in the historic building that once was the infamous Lecumberri Prison, also known as "The Black Palace of Lecumberri." This building is seen in the following photograph:

The old Lecumberri prison had been originally dedicated by General Porfirio Díaz in 1900, and it housed a number of famous inmates including Pancho Villa. Villa, by the way, was one of only two persons ever to escape from the place, the other being an American named Dwight Worker, who had been convicted of cocaine smuggling and had excaped in 1975. Perhaps the most significant historic event associated with the Lecumberri prison took place during Mexico's most lamentable time - the so-called Decena Trágica, or "Tragic Ten Days," when the just-deposed President Francisco I. Madero and his Vice President José María Pino Suárez were murdered while en route to Lecumberri.
It was decommissioned as a prison in 1976, and in 1980 it became the new home for Mexico's national archives.
Juany and I spent most of the afternoon at the Archivo General del la Nación, but most of the time was spent getting ourselves registered and in their system. When the lengthy process was finished, they gave each of us an ID card with our photos included. These ID cards are good for five years, so if I want to return sometime, I will not have to spend two hours re-registering.
We did get to finally see some documents, and Juany photographed a few of them, and I suppose that she will be sending me copies of those documents when she can find the time, but for the most part, for me, it was a lot of effort for few results (it's not the first time I have spent a whole afternoon perusing documents in vain).
Afterwards, Juany took me to see the famous Zócalo, which is the main plaza in Mexico City. The trip there was by taxi, and our driver took us through some very narrow streets, which also happened to be clogged with people (Mexico City, its super-metropolis being something like 20 million souls, is like the fifth largest megalopolis in the world, behind places like Tokyo, Sao Palo, Mumbai and the like). When we were dropped off in the Zócalo, it was the only time when I felt a tug of fear, mainly because it was such a crowded place! Below is a picture of the Palacio Nacional, in the Zócalo:

On Friday, April 8th, we set out on what would be the most adventurous part of our itinerary: The drive northward to visit the city of Zacatecas (pop. 135,000). In June 1914, Zacatecas was the scene of Pancho Villa's greatest victory in the Mexican Revolution. His fabled División del Norte virtually decimated the federal army forces who defended the city, and the victory essentially broke the back of the usurper General Victoriano Huerta's army. The victory stands out also as General Felipe Angeles' greatest triumph as well, because he was the strategic mastermind behind the defeat of Huerta's forces. Because of the significance of the victory, Mexico erected a stunning monument to the battle on the top of the Cerro de la Bufa, or La Bufa Peak, which was where the hardest fighting took place, and which overlooks the city. Included in the monument are three spectacular statues: the first one is of Pánfilo Natera, the commander of the División del Centro, who had been besieging Zacatecas when Villa and Angeles arrived; then there is the striking statue of Pancho Villa (seen in the first picture, above) and also the statue of Felipe Angeles. In the following picture you can see both the Angeles and the Villa statues - Angeles in the foreground, and Villa farther back. Partially obscured is the Natera statue, on the far right:

Here I am, on the crest of La Bufa, with the city of Zacatecas spreasding out below me:

Here is another view of the statue of Pancho Villa:

-And here is a better view of the statue of Felipe Angeles:

Well, besides these amazing statues, La Bufa also is home to the superb Museo de la Toma de Zacatecas, or "Museum of the Capture of Zacatecas," which presents artifacts and photos from the famous battle. It was worth the long drive to get there, especially since both Juany and I are actively researching the life of General Felipe Angeles. We will now be collaborators in our historical research, and I know we will be sharing much in the future.

Anyway, the Zacatecas trip was pretty much the high point to a very busy and demanding week of discovery. It took one full day of travel by car to get there, and another full day to get back to Pachuca, which we did on April 10th. Then on the 11th, Juany accompanied me once more on the bus from Pachuca into Mexico City, where I caught my flight back to the United States - and home.

FROM A CASUAL CHILE TRIP INTO THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION

2011-03-27T23:41:00.000-07:00

There it is, La Toma de Zacatecas (Capture of Zacatecas), one of the most notable mural paintings of an event in the Mexican Revolution that wasn't done by Diego Rivera. Honestly, I've done a thorough search to try to find the name of the artist online, but to no avail - vexing, to say the least.
Regardless, I am sure that this image will cross my path again when I make my special one-week historical research junket to Mexico. I took it from a Mexican Zacatecas website, which assures its users that they are allowed to use the image, so I took their word for it and posted it here for all to see.

As many of you know, for over a decade now I have been spending my own money to make extensive research trips to scores of libraries to research the life of Mexican General Felipe Angeles, who was perhaps the most enigmatic of all of the major participants in the 1910-1920 Mexican Revolution.
In 1914, he was Pancho Villa's artillery commander and chief strategist. He is depicted in the idealized image above mounted on horseback on Villa's left side. Directly behind them are Panfilo Natera, from Durango, and other aides.

Anyway, I'm posting the above painting to celebrate my imminent pending trip to central Mexico, invited by a wonderful pair of young Mexican professionals who have been doing research as I have on the life of Felipe Angeles.

Of course, I've already posted notice of this trip here on my blog, but now as the actual trip draws near, I felt it only right to add details.

General Angeles and an aide, ca. June 1914

(Library of Congress)

I will be flying to Mexico City on April 4th, and will be met by a young professional couple who will be my hosts named Leo and Juany Gutierrez, who live in the city of Pachuca, in the Mexican state of Hidaldo, which is northeast of Mexico City and is the historical home of Felipe Angeles.

Juany and Leo have laid out an incredibly impressive itinerary for my week in Mexico:

4th April:

Meet me at the airport in Mexico City and bring me via autobus to Pachuca, Hidalgo where they will see to having me booked into a local hotel. Dinner afterwards.

5th April:

After breakfast, a visit to the famed Casasola Library of Revolution pictures, which is in Pachuca, and then a visit to the Rotonda de los Hidalguenses Ilustres, where the remains of Felipe Angeles are interred. Following that we will examine files at the University State of Hidalgo.

6th April:

After breakfast we will travel to Zacualtipán, which is the town in Hidalgo where Felipe Angeles was born. We will visit the home of his birth as well as the town hall to see his birth registration.

Then we will head out further up the road to the town of Molango, Hidalgo to visit its town hall and also the tomb of Colonel Felipe Angeles Melo (father of General Felipe Angeles who fought against both the USA in 1847 as well as against the French intervention in the 1860's).

7th April:

We will travel into Mexico City to access Mexico's Archivo General de la Nación. Juany tells me that I can have access to the archives simply with my passport. It ought to be an engaging day, to say the least! Of course, we will return to Pachuca by bus in the late afternoon.

8th April:

We will go together by car to Zacatecas, a full day's journey.

9th April:

We will visit the "Museo de la toma de Zacatecas" (Museum of the capture of Zacatecas), which commemorates perhaps the single most significant battle of the Mexican Revolution, which happened in JUne, 1914. We will also be visiting the "Cerro de la Bufa", which was the small mountain on the city's edge where the artillery of General Angeles broke the resistance of the federal defenders in the Battle of Zacatecas. There we will see the huge statues of Pancho Villa, Felipe Angeles and Panfilo Natera, the three heroes of the victory.

10th April:

Drive back to Pachuca from Zacatecas.

11th April:

Possibly visit some local sites of interest in Pachuca before Leo and Juany get me back to Mexico City for my flight back to the USA that afternoon. The picture below shows my dear Mexican hosts, Juany and Leo...

-PICTURE REMOVED BY REQUEST-

SANTA CRUZ YESTERDAY, SANTIAGO TODAY, FLY HOME TOMORROW

2011-03-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

And now, the final act in this all-too-short trip to Chile is set to play out. Today Andres and I drove back to Santiago for a final night in a high-rise hotel in El Centro, and tomorrow afternoon Andres will drive me to the airport so that I can catch the long flight home.

But in our last day at our base in Pichilemu, we took a day trip over to the city of Santa Cruz located in the heart of Chile´s rich wine-producing Colchagua Valley, where we had lunch and then visited an absolutely amazing museum. . .the Museo de Colchagua, which is an incredible find in itself. Above is a picture Andres took of me photographing the valley as we entered it from the coast, following a well-graded "ripio" dirt road which saved us perhaps 10 km on our drive.

Anyway, back to Santa Cruz. This town of some 16,000 residents has become something of a closet tourist destination because of the celebrated (and expensive) tour of the wineries, aka La Ruta del Vino, which is the main reason why accomodations there are more costly (and why we made it a day trip as opposed to an overnighter). Of course, the presence of the museum adds something extra to the tourist draw because its exhibits are so special. Besides, the contents were so great that we simply couldn´t take everything in! One of my guide books recommended at least a two-hour visit, but in reality one should plan a good half day, or four hours to do it justice. From the entrance, the visitor initially passes through the incredible exhibit of fossils (Andres´ favorite of course) and then proceeds into the palentology wing, where the visitor encounters the bones of extinct mammals (including megatherium and saber-toothed tiger) plus the most extensive private collection of amber in the world, the fossilized resins of which contain many examples of insects and plant matter frozen in time that goes back some 45 million years.

Beyond the paleontology exhibit the visitor enters the Precolombian Cultures wing with an incredible display of pottery, tools, weapons, clothing remnants, and even mummified remains from nearly every Precolombian American civilization, from the Mayans and Aztecs to virtually scores of ancient South American cultures. Then it is on to the wing dedicated to the Spanish - including both the conquest and colonial periods, with too many artifacts to recount. One unique item is Bernardo O´Higgins´ elegant upright piano from 1810. O´Higgins is considered to be the George Washington of Chile - the father of the country who lives on as the character on practically every denomination of Chilean coin.

The museum continues on and on and on...Chilean history continues with the Independence and the Republic wings, including a special section on the War of the Pacific (1879-1884), Liturgy and the Catholic Church and then on to more modern times. There is a particularly fascinating wing dedicated to the Huasos and their gear (Chilean cowboy culture) and then a special wing devoted to an immaculate collection of horse-drawn carriages. Then there is the wing dedicated to automobiles, which includes some very special antique vehicles of local Chilean interest, plus old racing cars and a few examples of early gas station pumps from Chile too.

I never even made it to see the wine cultivation exhibit or the exhibit of ancient firearms and weaponry or the Railroads of Chile display, and I could only walk through the exhibits of vintage farm implements and machinery, and sadly, the Charles Darwin wing was closed for remodeling. In reality, I couldn´t give this extra special museum the royal treatment it deserved because we had to head back to our base at Pichilemu. Regardless, if I should be able to return once again to Chile, visiting this museum again will be a priority, and I highly recommend it to anyone going to Chile.

Now on a more sober note, I´ll close out this blog post tonight by noting that in many places we visited, there was still ample evidence of the destruction of the massive 8.8 scale earthquake that happened here just over a year ago. In this picture above, which was taken from right next to where we had parked out rental car in Santa Cruz when we went to the museum, you can see one example of the damage done, even a full year later. And there are many buildings like this in Santa Cruz, many of which looked to have been historic buildings, but now await an uncertain fate.

For now, this will be my final post from Chile since by this time tomorrow evening I will be boarding my flight to go back to the USA. I am not sure yet if I will be posting a post-mortem on this trip, so let me just say that I´ve had a grand time once again visiting here, and especially having the opportunity to spend part of this trip with Constanza, Matias and Cristobal - Andres´ three wonderful kids. And of course, it has been a blast to tour around with Andres. I also think we saved some major $$ by deciding to make Pichilemu our home base and then to do a variety of day trips rather than relocating every couple of days. In the end, the venerable Hotel Asthur kind of became our "home" on the road, and it was even kind of sad to leave it this morning...

Now my NEXT adventure will be coming up in just about three weeks! I am announcing here and now that I will be visiting Mexico for the first time in nearly 20 years, going as an invited guest of a young woman who has been researching the life of Felipe Angeles (just like me) who lives in the home state of General Angeles - Hidalgo, Mexico. Her name is Juany Gutierrez and she has done some graduate studies on Angeles and she found me on the internet a couple of years ago and we have been in correspondence ever since. She and her husband Leo will meet me at the airport in Mexico City on April 4th, and then they will bring me back to their home in Pachuca, Hidalgo. Then they will take me to all of the pertinent sites and museums there, plus a research trip back into Mexico City, and finally, a drive north to they city of Zacatecas, where General Angeles engineered his greatest military victory when he masterminded Pancho Villa´s defeat of the traitor General Huerta´s federal Mexican army in June 1914. At one point I argued against the Zacatecas trip simply because of logistics of it all...it will be a 10-hour drive there, and another 10 hours back to Pachuca. But Juany and Leo said that they really wanted to take me to Zacatecas so I finally agreed.

The Mexico trip will last only one week, from April 4 to 11, but I´ll try to post images and stories here as best as I can - so stay tuned!

Cheers!!

ON THE ROAD LITERATURE: READING MATERIAL FOR THIS TRIP TO CHILE

2011-03-12T15:26:00.000-08:00

As many of you who have been following my South America travel blog for some time know, I usually dedicate one blog post on each trip to the reading materials I´ve brought along with me. Since late last year I have been busy writing essays and doing translations of materials relating to the Mexican Revolution - which of course is one of the most significant events in Latin American history (one only needs to check out the link I have on this blog to the Mexican Revolution study group which I run to learn more), so I decided to bring along a trio of books that deal directly with this epic historical event, which also happens to be in the midst of its own ´Centennial´(1910-1920). For the sake of improving my own Spanish abilities, all of these books were written in Español...

Alejandro Rosas: Charlas de Cafe Con Felipe Angeles (2009)
Published in 2009 with the intent of being one of a series of books commemorating Mexico´s Independence Bicentennial as well as the Revolution´s Centennial, this surprising little book also manages to illuminate the life of one of the most enigmatic and least-understood major characters of the Mexican Revolution, General Felipe Angeles. And just in case you didn´t know it, I myself have been working on and off on researching the life of General Angeles for about a dozen years now, so I feel that I am qualified, to some degree, to review this book.

The outline of Felipe Angeles´ story is unique in the annals of the Mexican Revolution, having started out as a career officer in the Mexican federal army of Porfirio Diaz and then with the coming of the revolution, becoming the trusted friend of revolutionary President Francisco I.Madero and eventually Pancho Villa´s most trusted advisor, tactician and artillery commander. Then, after suffering serious reverses on the battlefield, Angeles found himself in exile in the United States, remaining an exile there for over three years before making his final quixotic return to Mexico in a futile attempt to salvage the mess that his country had turned into only to be executed by firing squad after a sham trial on November 26, 1919.

Rojas has constructed his book as if it really is a series of conversations held with the near-mythical Mexican General, or at least with his soul. The concept may sound a bit absurd, but Rojas has pulled it off regardless, displaying a deep understanding of the major events (while utilizing many bits of minutiae as well) in the life of Felipe Angeles. I personally felt that he had captured the essence of the General´s ultimate philosophy as it had evolved through the smoke and fire of the revolution and on to his final trial and execution. If one is rating the book, it should earn five stars.

Paco Ignacio Taibo II: Temporada de Zopilotes (2009)
One of the most prolific of contemporary Mexican writers working today, Paco Ignacio Taibo II surprised everybody with an eye towards the historiography of the Mexican Revolution back in 2006 when he published his monumental biography of Pancho Villa - a book which nobody had expected, especially since the late, great historian Friedrich Katz had published only a few years before what many felt would be the final word on Pancho Villa for at least a generation with his Life and Times of Pancho Villa.

Many have judged Taibo to be a mere writer of fiction, but he actually cut his teeth on an acclaimed biography of Che Guevara and shortly later, a political novel commissioned by Subcomandte Marcos in 2005 entitled Muertos Incomodos.

This new work is a worthy addition to his list of acclaimed works as it is perhaps the best narritive history of Mexico´s Decena Tragica, or "tragic ten days" when the relatively new and truly democratically elected government of Francisco I. Madero was rudely overturned in a coup détat with culminated in the assassinations of both President Madero and Vice President Jose Maria Pino Suarez, leaving the presidency of Mexico in the hands of the traitor General Victoriano Huerta.

The book flows along like an espionage thriller, which, in a sense, it is, albeit as a horribly true story. Taibo has studied his material well, and he has woven the resulting piece into a gripping history which needs to be read by anybody with an eye toward understanding the crux of the Mexican Revolution.

Alberto Calzadiaz Barrera: Gral. Martin Lopez: Grandioso Dorado de Pancho Villa (1968)
Okay, so this is the book I´m currently reading. Unlike the other two above, this one is not a contemporary effort, but rather, a book written by one of the primary original historians of the Mexican Revolution, and a man who was alive to witness the event first-hand. Calzadiaz Barrera is best known for his multi-volume Hechos Reales de la Revolucion, whose three main volumes chronicle the birth, the success and glory, and finally the agony and defeat of Villa´s fabled Division del Norte, the rebel army which made him famous and vice versa.

This effort is a corollary to those other books in thew sense that it is a biography of the young Martin Lopez, who was only a teenager when he signed up with Villa´s band in 1911 to help fight for the cause of Francisco I. Madero, and who stayed with his chief through thick and thin until he ultimately was mortally wounded in a skirmish in the closing years of the armed struggle in 1919. Lopez was, of course, one of Villa´s favorites, and he treated him like a true son. Right now I am only up to the point where Villais fighting alongside Victoriano Huerta against the anti-Madero revolt of Pascual Orozco, so I´ve gor a lot of territory to cover between now and when I get home in a few days. Regardless, one of the most interesting things about the book are the first-person accounts of revolutionary veterans Calzadiaz Barrera uses throughout. It is an oldie but a goodie...

CAHUIL, MATANZAS AND LA BOCA

2011-03-11T10:34:00.000-08:00

Andres and I maintained our base at Pichilemu for the past couple of days, opting even to stay once again tonight and likely tomorrow as well after finally deciding to cut short the driving and concentrate on the goal of simply taking it easy for these last couple of days before a return to Santiago to prepare for my flight home.

CAHUIL:
But for the moment, let´s take a look at our most recent excursions. On the day before yesterday we took a drive a short way south - to the coastal village of Cahuil, and inland to the Estuary Nilahue and the Laguna de Cahuil, where we saw salt evaporation ponds. Many of the older ponds were either inactive or had been abandoned years ago and thus, had become prime wetlands where we were able to appreciate seeing a significant number of water fowl, like these Black Neck Swans shown below:

Those two pictures were taken by Andres, as are all of today´s posted images. Since he has become the semi-official photographer for this blog, at least for this current trip, he´s got me in way too many pictures. . .but sure, I agree with him that posting pictures of the blogger works to personalize the posts and connect with the reader. So here I am, caught in the act of trying to photograph some of the water fowl in the estuary...

WEDNESDAY NIGHT PISCO SOUR LESSON:
Anyway, that evening, I had my own "pisco sour preparation lession," taught by Andres, and assisted by Guillermo, who works as the handyman here at the Hotel Asthur in Pichilemu. This next picture shows Guillermo preparing the blender while I look on. . .

In the end, Andres and I had concocted enough pisco sour to put us both away for the night. But before we consumed the product, we gave it a salute, photographed by Guillermo:

THURSDAY TRIP TO MATANZAS AND LA BOCA:
Yesterday Andres and I decided to drive about 90 km north of here to explore the coastal regions around the mouth of the Rio Rapel, which represents the boundary between the Chilean V Region (de Valparaiso) and the VI Region (del Lib. Gral. Bernardo O´Higgins). The views were supposed to be spectacular, and Andres had understood that there was good fossil hunting along the cliffs overlooking the ocean.

The drive took us somewhat inland, away from the coastal fog, and through some colorful pastoral country which included the towns of Las Damas, Litueche, Rapel, Navidad and finally, the small balneario of Las Matanzas, so named, I understand, because of an old slaughtering of sea lions which happend there centuries ago. Here in this next picture, we get a view of a unique cultivated plant known as proteas, with distinctive red color. I have no idea what it is cultivated for, but here´s the image:

Now the bush directly in front of the fence in the above picture happened to be a wild Chilean blackberry, and its berries were, for the most part, ripe enough to eat, so I sampled a few. Fairly tasty berries, although a bit smaller than the similar sort of thing one finds along the roadsides in California and Oregon.

The next picture shows the view of the ocean from an overlook just a couple of kilometers from Matanzas:

We had lunch at a small cafe in the town of Navidad, and then continued on northward until we reached the town of La Boca, so-named because it faces the very impressive mouth of the Rio Rapel and its so-called Desembocadura del Rio. Here´s several views, courtesy of Andres:

Here Andres captured me in the act of photographing the statue of San Pedro de Rapel, erected in 1942, overlooking the Desembocadura. . .

After absorbing the views over the mouth of the river, we traversed our way down through La Boca and onto the seashore. There Andres had stumbled upon a real treasure trove of fossils and proto-fossils, so he dug out a good sampling of specimens. And while he was doing that, I took the opportunity to get my feet wet in the waters of the Pacific... That´s me in the lower right hand corner.

More later, my friends.. By the way, remember that you can click on any one of these images to get a slightly larger version of that particular photo.

ON THE PACIFIC COAST AT PICHILEMU

2011-03-09T07:25:00.000-08:00

The drive from Santiago to the coast of the South Pacific went smoothly - Andres and I started out heading southward on Ruta 5, the Carretera Panamericana, eventually torning westward on two-lane paved roads that led through the Chilean towns of Peumo, Pichidegua and Marchihue before our arrival at Pichilemu, a small city with perhaps 13,000 inhabitants. Since I have stayed here before, and because I´d enjoyed and appreciated my old accomodations at Pichilemu´s Hotel Asthur, I recommended this quiet and comfortable 2-star hotel to Andres. Now we have been here for two nights, and plan to stay again tonight before heading out tomorrow for a still undetermined destination where we will locate for our last three nights before making our return to Santiago on the 13th - to settle in and make preparations for my return flight to the USA on the 14th (arriving in Salt Lake City on March 15th).

For today´s post, I am using photos exclusively taken by Andres. The above image shows me out on the balcony on the second floor of Hotel Asthur, where Andres and I occupy two separate rooms. The view from the balcony is quite nice - to the left, one can see the wide expanse of the black sand beach; while to the right one can see the northern part of the town with the surrounding hills in the distance, as shown in the following image:

Pichilemu is known as the Chilean "capitol of surfing," and here they hold the annual Campeonato Internacional de Surf between October and December. And even though the competitive season here is over, there are still plenty of surfers in town. Of course, they do a lot of surfing at the westernmost point along the city´s principal beach, but the surf´s even better about 6 km south of town at a place called Punta de Lobos, where the strong left swells can carry the more ambitious surfers quite a long ways.

Yesterday Andres and I visited Punta de Lobos, and that is where the following pictures were taken:

Yesterday was cloudy, so the above images might seem a little grey; regardless, they should give you a little idea of things here. Today we might be going a bit further southward, to a small settlement known as Cahuil, also on the coast about 12 km south of here. Andres is still lusting after finding fossils, and he says that there are supposedly good places to look for that sort of thing in the vicinity of that village. It is also where there are some wetlands present along the so-named Nilahue Estuary and the Laguna de Cahuil, which would make for some decent viewing of bird populations. Cahuil is a small place with a population of around 400 or 500 people, many of whom work as fishermen or in sea salt extraction at the salt ponds located a bit up the estuary.

Later on this evening Andres is going to give me lessons on how to prepare Pisco Sour. Although I already know how to prepare this mixed drink, a lesson from an expert still won´t hurt; and it will give me cause to bring some pisco back with me when I fly home...

MORE SANTIAGO, THEN CAJON DEL MAIPO

2011-03-07T06:11:00.000-08:00

It seems as if my travel itinerary, connected as it is this time to the itinerary of my agent and friend Andres Gabor, is offering me little time to post accounts of my travels here in Chile. Before the weekend, Andres and I spent our time in Santiago. And Andres was surprised that I had never been on the subways of this great city even though this is my sixth visit to Chile.

So, he suggested that we take the subway from here in Santiago Centro to Providencia, where we could find a decent place for lunch.

Here comes the subway train...photos by Andres.

In a typically crowded Santiago subway train - Andres said it was far from the most busy time of day...

In Providencia, which is a particular district in Santiago, we arrived at the Bar/Restaurant "Liguria," which had the day´s specials posted outside...

Having another pisco sour, this time with a sweet basil leaf included for flavor. I am sampling a nice Chilean tomato and cilantro salsa on a cracker while awaiting my sandwich...

Finally - a monster sandwich with beef strips, onion and mushrooms, plus a large cerveza. Very nice!

On Friday, Andres had his kids join us for the weekend. They had started the first days of the new school year earlier in the week, so this would be their first weekend after classes. With the addition of three more bodies to our group, we rented an extra single apartment which I moved into for the night, and then in the morning, we headed off for the Cajon del Maipo (Canyon of the river Maipo), where Andres had booked us into a "cabaña."

Following roads that led through the southeast part of Santiago, including the Florida district, our route followed the Rio Maipo into the foothills of the Andes. Soon the city was far behind us as we ventured further into the pre-cordillera and beyond, to where the sheer scale of the mountains defies belief.

Since this trip into the Andes was intended to be a fossil hunting expedition, we stopped off while en route at a roadside rock hound stand. Here Andres bought a beautiful little fossil - but just as a prelude for what was to come...

Okay, so those two pictures are meant to give you an idea of what the countryside looked like as we drove further up the canyon. Here´s more...

We came upon a water pipe that was channeling snowmelt water onto the road - so we took the opportunity to wash off the dust...

At a certain point we came upon a massive glacier atop one of the mountains. From looking at one of the canyon maps we had, I surmised that this was the so-named "Glaciar San Francisco."

Well, we reached our cabaña, and immediately had second thoughts as it was not a cabaña at all but rather, a single room in a larger building with one double bed and a triple decked bunk bed. The ceiling joists showed that building codes (if there were any) had been ignored. There was no electricity (they only turned on the juice -generator powered - from nightfall until 1:30 a.m. None of the electrical outlets worked, so Andres was forced to connect his computer in the host´s cafeteria so that he could upload his photos.

The food was okay, but the beds were not. one had some kind of "droppings" in it - so Constanza slept in her sleeping bag. Then there was the bathroom - terrible! Leaky water, cold showers (advertised as "agua caliente") and dark. In short, we were not pleased, and left after breakfast...

But everything considered, after we bailed out of the lousy cabaña (aptly named "Cabañas Chicos Malos"), we went out to do more fossil hunting - and believe it or not, little 7 year-old Cristobal found the best specimen of our whole weekend! I guess it was beginner´s luck.

On our way down the canyon on Sunday afternoon, we stopped at a roadside restaurant where I offered to buy lunch for all as my treat. For sure, I will not be seeing Andres´ kids again for a long time as they will be back in school now that the new week has started. I will maybe be coming here again at Christmas. Regardless, they all posed for me to take this very memorable picture:

Ooops! I forgot to post a couple of other photos...This first picture is from a side trip we took on late Saturday afternoon - to the reservoir known as Embalse El Yeso, which represents the water supply for Santiago.

And finally, here is the view (views) from where we did our fossil hunting yesterday (Sunday).

Today Andres and I will change rental cars and then drive to Pichilemu, the Chilean surfing capitol, where we will relax for two or three nights. More from there...Cheers!

ON THE GROUND IN SANTIAGO

2011-03-03T06:36:00.000-08:00

So it´s Thursday morning and here I sit, typing away on my friend Andres´ laptop. Getting here to Chile of course, meant having to go through the ordeal of the overnight non-stop red-eye flight from an airport in the USA: this time it was Dallas on American Airlines, but sometimes it has been Atlanta or Miami. Regardless, I´m here now, and after resting and napping for most of the afternoon yesterday, it was nice to get together with Andres´ kids and have a wonderful dinner at a superb restaurant - El Aji Seco, specializing in Peruvian cuisine.

Here´s a picture (taken by Andres) of myself sitting at the table in El Aji Seco, sipping a superb Peruvian pisco sour and enjoying mariscos con arroz (seafood and rice) while I chat with Andres´kids. Just so you know who´s who, they are (clockwise, from me) Constanza, age 17; Matias, age 15; and Cristobal (age 7). It was a great meal and the kids were great company.

Gosh, it´s good to be back in Chile.

Today will be spent entirely in Santiago Centro - after a lunch with Andres, I will be on my own, with only the most simple of duties to perform: getting Chilean pesos from an ATM and then shopping at my favorite Chilean bookstore, Ferias del Libro, over on Huerfanos. I´ll be staying this night here in this apartment while Andres has to go out to his father´s farm to take care of some business. Then this weekend, the plan is to go fossil hunting in the Cajon del Maipo, a favorite weekend retreatfor Santiagueños in the foothills of the Andes.

Stay tuned - I´ll be posting more later...

NEW TRIP TO CHILE: MARCH 2011

2011-02-28T15:16:00.000-08:00

Wow, I've been away from this blog site for almost a year - and it appears as if Blogger has been busy doing updates...
Well, maybe in the next couple of weeks I can re-familiarize myself with posting here, as I am leaving IN THE MORNING on my first trip to Chile in two years (Hooray!)

Anyway, before I go any further, I just want to say to the many blog followers who were disappointed that I took an extended hiatus from blogging about my South American travels that I am sorry to have abandoned the site. The reason was, purely and simply, that I was growing too "homesick" for Chile and Argentina because of the writing process - It was so intense for me as to be actually depressing, because a year ago my finances were so bad that there was no way I would be able to pull off another trip down, even as doing such intensive writing about my travels was making me want to go back to those places so badly.

Well, suffice it to say that I am not about ready to jump back in and resume writing that retrospective on my first trip to South America in 2002-2003 (sorry) but will instead come to this blog on occasion while I am traveling there in these next two coming weeks!

Yes, my financial situation markedly improved at the end of 2010 - partially because I started to draw my Social Security benefits, and also because I finally sold off my commercial property in Salt Lake City.

So now comes, at long last, my new trip! It has been two full years since I was last in Chile, so I am very glad now that I can pull off this quick visit after brooding over my inability to do so for so long. Then just perhaps I can muster up whatever is needed to make another epic journey down there in November or December, for two to three months of vagabonding.

This is a short two week jaunt. I'll be spending the first half with my agent and friend Andres Gabor and also with his kids, and then my second half will be a solo trip in a rental car up to and including the day of my departure, which will be March 14th. Stay tuned, folks...

INTERLUDE

2010-04-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

Just a quick, short message to those here who are following my RETROSPECTIVE: I am working on installment five but do not have it ready as of tonight. In the morning I am taking my dog Frida and will be going on a spring camping trip now that my income taxes have been filed. Getting my paperwork all put together and then taking them into Salt Lake City to present to my accountant was one thing.

But waiting on him to put it all together into something coherent and correct ended up being a nail biter this year, so now I am going to take a few days to go into escape mode, and will be running off to spend a few days unwinding in lost solitude somewhere in the Mojave Desert below Las Vegas, likely across the California state line in the general vicinity of Cima Dome. I can't be more specific than that, nor do I want to.

Now, just so this post shows some connection to the purpose of this blog, here I am posting a copy of the original post card I sent out to friends in the autumn of 2002, announcing my plans to run away for three months to Patagonia...

My next post here will likely be sometime next week after my return, Wednesday or Thursday. Please stay tuned.

Saludos,
The Atacama Viajero

THE ATACAMA VIAJERO - IN RETROSPECT

2010-04-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

FIRST JOURNEY PART FOUR:

ON THE ROAD AT LAST

DESTINATION PICHILEMU AND THE SOUTH PACIFIC

December 4, 2002: 8:00 pm - Hotel Asthur, Pichilemu, Chilean coast - So finally my departure day had arrived. I got my day started fairly early as I needed to re-pack all of the things of mine that I'd spread out in the apartment during my initial stay in Santiago as well as the laundry I had taken into the cleaners on the previous day.

Once I had that all pretty much taken care of, I went over to Andres' office to check on the rental truck. For the record, I would be touring Chile and Argentina in a white 2001 Nissan D21 four-door 4x4 pickup truck with a camper shell and two spare gas cans and two spare tires. Andres had my notarized 90 day permit that would allow me to take the rental vehicle across the border into Argentina, and his handyman Luis had the full rental contract set for my signature once we had made a final inspection of the truck including notations of all anomalies such as minor bumps and scratches so that I wouldn't be held responsible for these pre-existing conditions.

Once all that was completed, I was technically all set to get out and onto the road.  Luis took me back to the apartment in another vehicle so that we could load my bags and then bring them over to the roof of the parking terrace and loaded everything into the Nissan. Then I went back downstairs to the office once more to say my farewells to Andres and Consuela. Luis then drove the Nissan down to the main exit of the parking terrace, and handed the keys over to me.

"So okay," I thought. "Here I go off for the first time out on my own, driving in a South American country."   I'll admit now that I was a bundle of nerves. My first urgent task was to somehow navigate myself over to Ruta 5, aka the Panamericana, or Pan-American Highway, which would lead me out of Santiago and on to points south. Thankfully, Patricio had loaned me a superb set of road maps, a set of the anually updated and fabled Turistel maps and guidebooks of Chile (in Español), so I could find my way around.

I waved my last good-bye to everybody and lurched out onto Avenida Miraflores, the busy street in front of the parking terrace, and suddenly, I was off. Andres had given me specific instructions as to where to turn to get to the highway entrance point, so I figured if I could just do everything a step at a time, I'd be fine. But traffic on the feeder route leading to the Panamericana was thick and congested, and there were a lot of agressive urban drivers out there. I recall forming sort of a vague mental image of it being like some sort of a destruction derby stock car race, but in reality it was just a prelude to what was to follow momentarily, when I found myself suddenly following a choked feeder lane, entering a totally crowded highway going southbound, in the midst of choking exhaust fumes, clanking metal, and all sorts of grinding engines from all sorts of vehicles, going from beat-up old sedans to smelly garbage trucks and freight carriers. I mean, I was totally caught up with the uncertain flow of the human menagerie, which measured itself as literally bumper to bumper.

I began to get my bearings as the hoard of vehicles lurched forward.  The Panamericana was under construction on this stretch that was slicing through the heart of the city, so the clanging of rebar and steel beams accompanied by the occasional machine-gun like staccato of jackhammers added to the mad chacophany of the moment. I looked down at the odometer, and then to the gas gauge. To my sudden shock I grasped the fact that this truck's gas gauge arrow was just a hair's breadth above EMPTY!  "Damnit!" I cursed. "Luis sent me out into this odious highway nightmare with an empty gas tank!" So it was freakout time, but I could not do anything more for that moment than navigate the Nissan step by step over into the right-hand lane and then hope that whatever exit I might find would lead me to a petroleum station...

Patricio had told me to watch for Copec stations. He had saidthat they were the best for the money because of their amenities. Well, once I got off of the highway I must have driven for two or three kilometers before a gas station came into view, appearing in a lot that fronted on the road across the opposite lane from me. There was a divider which would not allow me to make a left turn, so I was forced to go another half-kilometer before I could turn around and double back.  At the moment my circumstance seemed more harrowing than it was...in fact, I should have been celebrating my discovery of a gas station and the fact that now I would be able to finally fill up my tank, which I did in short order. I don't know what the kid who was the attendant who pumped my gas must have thought of me - a nervous and anxiety-filled gringo, but he was pleasant and I suppose, mostly reassuring. I paid him and tipped him as well, thanking him for the gas, while in reality, I think I really wanted to thank him for being there.

It was a calming moment. And with that business taken care of, I took a moment to go over the Turistel maps to get my bearings. I got back onto the Panamericana and proceeded on my way south, and things seemed to settle down considerably after that. The farther away I got from the center of Santiago, the more ordered things seemed to get, on this southward trajectory I was following. Road signs were for Rancagua, then Rengo, and then Pelequén. Once I passed the north exit for San Fernando I told myself to watch for my own exit, which would come up on the south end of that town. Even this far south of Santiago (I'd come some 140 kilometers already) the highway frontage was fairly urban, with an emphasis on tire repair shops and mechanic's garages, interspersed with fruit and vegetable stands all crowding for exposure to all the traffic moving down the highway.

It didn't take any time at all once I got off of the Panamericana and onto the two-lane highway going west-bound past the outskirts of San Fernando for everything to start turning rural, or as I would like to say, pastoral. I was entering the famous Colchagua Valley, one of Chile's prime wine producing regions.  As I drove on I passed many lush, green vineyards.  The locals call that road the "Ruta del Vino," and indeed, the Turistel mapbook showed something like eight different wineries between San Fernando and the town of Peralillo, which marked just the halfway point on this beautiful drive to Pichilemu from San Fernando.

Eventually out of the wine country, the road I followed coursed through mixed forests and ranching country, and finally, as I rounded the ultimate gradual turn, the horizon opened up and the contour of the land dropped away in front of me, revealing a most appealing panoramic clear view all the way to Pichilemu, with the shimmering waters of the South Pacific beyond, brilliant in the afternoon sun. That's the view in the picture I inserted at the beginning of today's post.

As I approached the town center I spied a tourist office to my immediate right, and figured that it would be a good bet for me to inquire about lodging so that I could get myself settled in and start to relax. I figured I had at least a couple of days that I could devote to this place, and after the drive I was more than ready to find a place to settle in. There was a very pleasant young woman who was on duty in this tourist office, and she was most cordial and welcoming when I came in. I asked her about a recommendation for a nice place to stay for a couple of nights, and she said "oh, by all means you should check out the Hotel Asthur! They have clean and comfortable rooms with private baths and hot water, a nice patio and restaurant, secure private parking with breakfast included, all for 9,600 Pesos Chilenos (which at 2002 rates came to about $13.25 USD per night - quite a bargain)." She pointed to the hill to the south and said, "There it is - Hotel Asthur, run by Don Enrique Romero, one of the most trusted businessmen in Pichilemu."

Okay, so that was easy. She gave me a town map and highlighted Don Enrique's Hotel Asthur for me. Located on the top of the hill on Avenida Ortuzar it was easy to get to. I drove up and parked in front and went to the door, which was locked, so I rang the bell. A maid came and opened it and I asked her about a room for at least a couple of nights. She let me in and led me to a small office that faced the lobby. It was an interesting office, all enclosed with glass, so practically the entire hotel interior was visible from there.

This was Don Enrique Romero's office. The maid told me to wait there while she went to get Don Enrique. In a minute an elderly man came through one of the doors to the restaurant who walked slowly and deliberately. He introduced himself as Don Enrique and as we shook hands he motioned for me to take a seat. He was calm and spoke quietly in a Spanish that was quite clear and understandable, and he seemed to be comfortable with my halting and quite imperfect effort to converse with him as I made my request for lodging. He was clearly in his sixties at least, if not past seventy, but clearly in good health no matter what his age. His appearance was fairly nondescript, save for the fine clothes he wore, which suggested a man of some substance. I was most struck by the fact that he seemed to be a man quite at peace with himself and his surroundings, and he honored me by addressing me with a few sentences in basic English. He called the maid back and had her show me the room he would give me, which was located on the far right of the lobby with a nice window to the outside, a comfortable double bed and private bath. Very clean. I came back to Don Enrique in his office and told him that the room was superb and would gladly take it. Then we went through the formalities of getting the Nissan parked behind the high wooden fence which concealed any and all from outside onlookers, and I was given the keys to my room.

Okay, so I figured that now I was really here. I got my things stowed away in the room and then went out onto the patio with it's nice view towards the "playa principal," or the main beach. I was pleased that the room and the lobby are so charming and I was very pleased with the view into the north end of town from that patio. I kind of figured that the peacefulness of Don Enrique was reflected in the peacefulness of his hotel. With the sun sinking low and the gentle cool evening breezes surrounding me, I was happy to be where I was. The next two pictures show a couple of views from the patio:

But a couple of hours later as dark descended I came to realize that in my rather anxious and nervous departure from Santiago, I had completely forgotten my nice warm flannel shirt and my winter coat in the closet of the apartment. I worried that they might be possibly lost forever, but hoped that Andres would recover them since it is his apartment, and keep them for my return.  That meant that somewhere down the road I would have to buy some warm clothes for my trip south to Patagonia.

I got a bit frustrated that first night with the Hotel Asthur because the "restaurant" never opened up that night, and furthermore, there was no sign at all on the outside that there was a restaurant, and the security door remained locked.  There was nobody in the service area even to do any cooking so I resigned myself to eat some of the snacks I had - I had plenty, including some of the fruit that had been given to me upon my arrival in Santiago days before, so I hunkered down with my books and maps for the night, hoping that in the morning there would be somebody there to serve the promised breakfast.   Then, before I turned in it dawned on me: The reason why the hotel was practically empty, and why the kitchen wasn't even occupied was because the tourist season wouldn't even begin for another four weeks. That's just the way it is.

December 5, 2002: 7:45 p.m. Hotel Asthur, Pichilemu - The morning greeted me with sunshine, and the hotel people greeted me with smiles. Indeed there was a typically modest Chilean breakfast coming for me, served promptly at a single table by the window in the restaurant at 9 a.m. by a very nice and friendly maid.  As I sat there eating my "pan con queso" (toast and cheese) with instant coffee I realized I needed to be a bit less judgemental, and moreover, I needed to be more open-minded and receptive to my host's ways. After all, this was their country and their culture, and I'm the visitor.

After that modest breakfast I set out on my first stroll, and I headed straight for the long, smooth volcanic black sand beach. I found a nice sandbar right at surf's edge where I sat down in the warm morning sun to gaze at the ocean. What a pleasure. I ended up watching the endless succession of waves crash down on the sandy beach in front of me for well over an hour. I took my boots off and sunk my toes into that black sand. I was in no hurry and I liked where I was.

Eventually I put my boots back on and pulled myself up, figuring it was time to walk the length of the beach over to the rocky point known to the locals as La Puntilla where the waves were coming by at a clear angle - enough to create a perfect left rolling swell which was attracting the surfers. I must have spent another hour over there watching them catching waves.

One of the kitchen assistants back at the hotel had told me that tomorrow morning the Chilean surfing championships would begin here and run through the weekend, so I contemplated hitting the road then to avoid any surfer madness, but in the end I figured I might find it sort of fascinating to watch.

On my walk back from the rocky point I came to the park grounds known as Parque Ross, which is adjacent to the old mansion which was once the home of the 19th century land baron, railroad king and entrepreneur Agustín Ross Edwards, who had built up Pichilemu in the late 1800's and had promoted it as both port and vacation mecca for the well-heeled of Santiago. The old mansion, called the "Palacio Ross" in its heyday, was notable for housing Chile's first casino, and once must have been really something to see. What I saw however, was an obviously historic structure in a state of mild disrepair that was functioning as sort of a municipal museum, open to the public but with no attendant on duty and little to display to the curious visitor. The casino was long gone, but I was impressed with the place even though it appeared to be the victim of decades of benign neglect.

But the same could not be said for the adjacent Parque Ross, which was obviously being impeccably maintained and groomed by the municipal groundskeepers who also kept the other town parks in superb shape.

On my way back to the hotel I stopped into the local supermercado where I bought some bread, cheese, bottled water and a variety of other things so that I could make myself a sandwich for my dinner. I communicated pretty good with the locals too, with my gringo Español. Back at the hotel, I spent the rest of the day relaxing out on the patio and reading.

December 6, 2002 8:05 p.m. Hotel Ashtur, Pichilemu - I ended up deciding to stay another day and do nothing in particular because of Pichilemu's tranquility. I walked back down to the beach and more or less reprised my meditation by the waves from yesterday and then later strolled back to the supermercado to buy some things for the road. I ran into a Californian gringo surfer who was camped a bit south of town at a place called Punta de Lobos, a rather stark and treeless promontory which attracts surfers because of its waves, which make for one of the longest and most consistent left points on the continent. His Spanish was very bad, so I helped him order some cheese from the market's butcher.

Other than that, there's little more to be said for my last day in Pichilemu, except for the fact that it was, for me at least, a very pleasant, laid back beginning to my epic journey. After perusing over my maps and guidebooks, I decided that I'd continue working my way southward, and that my goal for the day would be to try to find a place to camp at or near the towns of Curanipe or Cobquecura, both coastal villages, roughly 150 kilometers from the hosteria of El Rincón, just north of Los Angeles, where I had reservations for a room and a Spanish class on the 8th...

THE ATACAMA VIAJERO - IN RETROSPECT

2010-04-09T10:45:00.000-07:00

FIRST JOURNEY PART THREE:

THE LAST DAYS IN SANTIAGO

BEFORE HITTING THE ROAD FOR REAL

The above map shows that part of Santiago Centro where I spent most of my time when I was not off touring with Patricio or on some other order of business. The black arrow I inserted to show the exact location of the apartment Andres had given me for my first few days of acclimatization to Chile. The address was Mosqueto 562 Apt. 102, Santiago Centro. 102 meant it was the second unit on the tenth floor.

Above the arrow is the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, which is in the midst of the Parque Forestal. Both of which I described in Part One. Then directly above that is an orange band which represents the toll highway Costanera Norte, which in reality now is a subterranean thoroughfare that runs under the Río Mapocho, but which was, back then in 2002, under construction.

To the south of the arrow, the larger green area, is the park that surrounds the historic Cerro Santa Lucia, which is notable for being the place where Conquistador of Chile, Don Pedro de Valdivia, came on December 13, 1540, the date of his arrival into the valley of the Río Mapocho. He camped at the base of the hill, which was called Huelén by the Indians, and he re-named it Santa Lucia, in honor of the date of his arrival, which in the Catholic calendar is the día de Santa Lucia.

So, with all that said, now I will resume with a recounting of my last two days in Santiago, from my travel journals...

December 2, 2002 - 10:40 p.m. entry: Nothing spectacular to report for today. I took a taxi from Andres' office on Miraflores to the U.S. Embassy to register my presence - the only time I would bother with that formality - and after meeting and chatting for a few minutes with Robert Jennings, an embassy official who was a friend of Robert Runyard (the American Chile travel veteran who had given me many travel tips before my departure), I decided to set out on my own on foot to return to El Centro. The embassy was on the banks of the Río Mapocho, east of downtown, and it seemed that it would be an appealing walk through the parkways of the extended Parque Forestal. I walked in the full warmth of the day - it was sunny and peaceful with birds chirping and everything in bloom in the parkway.

The walk would have been more pleasant except for the fact that I'd made a mistake of not trying to find a men's room back at the embassy, and I realized I really had to pee! All along the parkway there were beautiful public areas with kid's swings, fountains, park benches and commemorative statues, but no public bathrooms that I could discern. It became something of an uncomfortable situation. I would have loved to have been able to settle in on some park bench to take in all of the activity and the beauty of the parkway but I was pushed on by an ever growing urge...

I made it back to Andre's office without incident. It was located on the ground floor of a downtown parking terrace, but all of his vehicles, including the one I was set to rent were parked up on the roof, which was his space, where Andres' man Luis was busily putting the finishing touches on making my 4x4 rental pickup truck ready for my departure. I paid Andres the full amount of his rental fee for the three months I'd be using it and then also accepted a cell phone from him for a flat $50 USD charge for the duration. I considered it to be an emergency-only item except for a call I was going to make to Patricio and then later on a contact call to Sonia, the lady Robert Runyard had connected me with down in Osorno, who would help me to make arrangements for my ferry trip into Chilean Patagonia.

In the late afternoon I toured Cerro Santa Lucia, which was only a few blocks away from my apartment. I've already mentioned that it is an historical site, but it is also a botanical garden, so it was really quite charming. And the views of the city from its summit were very nice. Luckily there had been a gentle but steady breeze so the air was cleaner, and the views were mich clearer. That meant that today's pictures would be clearer than they had been yesterday when Patricio had taken me up to the top of Cerro San Cristobal.

Above I've posted a good picture of the view towards the Andes from Santa Lucia, and below there's more...

The picture to the left is of a statue of Pedro de Valdivia which is on Cerro Santa Lucia, and below is another shot of the statue, taken from the top of the hill...

Now something a bit more mundane. I found a laundry around the corner from the apartment and Decided that it would be in my best interests to drop off what I had that was dirty in the morning so that I could get everything washed before my departure on the 4th.

December 3, 2002 - 10:45 p.m. entry: I walked into Andres' office in the afternoon to check on the truck, but everybody was either busy or gone, except for Consuela, the office secretary who brightens things up in that otherwise drab car rental office with her youthful charm and beauty. She seems to be the one who manages the day-to-day workings of all of Andres' business ventures.

I was somewhat surprised to find out that she actually can speak some English - but this only came out when she perceived how stressed my brain was becoming from the virtual assault it was taking from the sudden Spanish immersion I'd been dealing with since my arrival and found myself at a loss for words and unable to communicate.

At that moment Consuela asked me in English, "John, why did you come to Chile?" And even with sensing the sudden opportunity to mix the languages with her in reply, I found it difficult to give her an answer. I think that was because my brain was still in a state of language overload. But that's okay. I've found her to be a pretty cool head. I think she's figured it out, because following that, we got into a good discussion about deserts - she was saying that I ought to go north instead of south when I left in the morning because she thought that the Atacama Desert was blooming right at that time, which is truly a rare thing to behold.

Now here's my soliloquy from that night's post:

"I will be glad to get on the road at last and leave Santiago behind. It is time to escape from the big metropolis. No, I'm not going to Valparaiso or Viña del Mar now, nor am I going to Zapallar or Papudo - oh, I want to get out to the latter two later on, but right now I want to start heading south. First to the ocean yes, but also south...bearing in mind that I need to get to El Rincón [a hosteria outside of Los Angeles in the Río Bío Bío valley] where I have reservations and am scheduled to begin a weeklong Spanish class on Sunday, December 8."

"I've opted to drive to Pichilemu, a place that's noted in the tour guides for its' faded grandeur and which is usually quiet on weekdays, but with some decent beaches. And that most who do come there do so to surf, but it is no mecca. And you know, Andres wouldn't really understand my reasons for going there [likely he does now, after five visits to Chile] but I think Consuela would."

"And that kind of gets me back to her question of, why Chile?"

"In a way, I'm a bit disappointed in myself for not at least giving my hosts a better idea of who I really am. I've been trying too hard to accomodate my being [unsuccessfully] into their culture - by wearing all my new, nice clothes and all..."

"Oh, all that will continue, I am sure, because I do not want to come across as an ungracious or unkept guest. So I suppose that I really shouldn't be making an issue about that and should rather just accept that as being a part of something bigger, and thus, rather trivial."

"It all gets down to my basic desire to get out there - to see and hear and feel all the power of this natural world alive and in action - like it will be on that beach when I get there, and like it will be when I am alone in the empty interior of the Argentine Patagonia, and also when I am baking by day and freezing by night alone out in the Atacama Desert."

"That's why I came here - it's all spiritual in a not-religious existential sense...surrounded by it all in this place of my choosing - a place which has always fascinated me and drawn me closer from the first days when I could start to read maps...."

For the record, I had a nice lunch with Patricio in the afternoon at another restaurant in Bellavista called Ahi Grande. I had Cazuela de Ave, or Chilean chicken soup, notable because it has the chicken meat still on the bone and all of the vegetables are whole, not cut up - like a whole potato, a whole carrot, a section of corn - still on the cob, and a big slice of squash. Patricio is a great fellow, and I am very grateful to him for taking me under his wing. He taught me much about his country in our two meetings, and I am very grateful for it.

[Note: I'd planned to re-connect with Patrick again later on during my journey, but the reality was that when I came back to Santiago, he was out of town. I later on tried to re-connect with him on my 2nd South America trip, but my contact info was out of date and it never came to pass. I simply couldn't find him. That's sad.]

Now in closing for today, here are a couple more views from Cerro Santa Lucia:

THE ATACAMA VIAJERO - IN RETROSPECT

2010-04-07T15:22:00.000-07:00

FIRST JOURNEY PART TWO:

MEETING PATRICIO SCHMIDT CORREA

MY FIRST GUIDE TO THE SIGHTS OF CHILE

December 2, 2002, Santiago - Yesterday (Sunday, December 1) I met up with Patricio Schmidt Correa for the first time. My cowboy friends Ron Kane and Meghan Merker had suggested to me that I look him up once I got to Santiago. Patricio is a very well-known and successful architect in Chile who also happens to be in love with the life of the cowboy in the old American West.

If you can imagine a man whose life is defined by twin passions, in his case the genius of architect Frank Lloyd Wright on one hand and the legendary cowboy writers Will James and Bruce Kiskaddon on the other, you might be able to appreciate Patricio Schmidt.

That's him, in the above picture, on the patio of the riding stables he brought me to see on that sunny and warm Sunday morning - a stable which happens to be located on the skirt of the Andes Mountains overlooking the valley of Santiago.

Anyway, I was lucky enough to get ahold of Patricio immediately following my arrival in Santiago and he had already made plans to show me as much as he could in a day. He picked me up early on that morning at my apartment in Santiago Centro and took me out to see some of the city. First he took me to the Parque Metropolitano, which is located just northeast of the Barrio Bellavista, where Andres had taken me to lunch after my arrival. This park's dominant feature is the Cerro San Cristobal, essentally a foothill spur of the Andes Cordillera which rises up directly to the east. On the summit of the ridge is an outdoor church, and it happend that at the time of our visit, many of the faithful were there celebrating Sunday Mass, and right alongside of the open air ampitheater there is an impressive large statue of the Virgin Mary, pictured above.

But Patricio had not taken me up Cerro San Cristobal to attend Mass, but rather, to give me a chance to take in the marvelous view of Santiago, and especially of the city's barrios of El Centro, Bellavista and Providencia, which extended out from the base of the hill. The view was great except for the certain amount of haze which often occupies the valley. The picture on the left shows part of that view - looking directly at Santiago Centro with Barrio Bellavista in the foreground.

From there Patricio took me to see the compact campus of the Escuela de Archetectura (School of Architecture), which was closed up for the weekend. Since Patricio was one of the principal faculty members, he had a key to open up the locked gate so that I could see the courtyard and some of the buildings there. It was a calm and peaceful compound, and Patricio had said that before urban expansion had surrounded the school, it's principal buildings had been the living quarters and working offices of an "estancia'" or large ranch. Here is a glimpse inside the compound, on a quiet sunday... Patricio says that on weekdays, the courtyard is usually filled with students.

We left the schoolgrounds after our short visit and Patricio then took me to visit his own home, which is located over in the next valley, I think into the neighborhood on the bench known as La Dehesa, nestled against the foothills. His home was secluded and gated in front, but in back it had a charming yard which overlooked a small creek that flowed out of the canyon to the left. There I met his wife and daughter and two of their sons, all very charming, and quite good English speakers, as of course Patricio was as well.

They had a marvelous almuerzo (lunch) prepared for me, with fresh fruit and a seafood salad and plenty of vegetables, which was really appreciated by yours truly. Unfortunately, before we sat down to eat, I had a run-in with their dog, who had just given birth to a litter of puppies five days before. Patricio had brought me over to see the little pups, and we were all caught by surprise when the mom lunged at me and bit me! Of course Patricio and his wife and daughter were all horrified that their special guest had been bitten (on the back of my right leg), but thankfully it was not a serious bite, and I could understand why the mom dog had done it - since I was a total stranger, she just wanted to protect her brood.

Inside his house, Patricio showed me his basement, where he had many items he had collected from his numerous trips to the U.S., where he often went during the Chilean winter to be a working cowboy on various American ranches. It was on one of those working trips when he had gotten to know my friends Ron Kane and Meghan Merker. He had racks of books by the aforementioned Will James and Bruce Kiskaddon, as well as by numerous other western writers. The walls of his basement were righly adorned with artwork by the likes of western artists like Maynard Dixon and Frederic Remington plus all sorts of relics from the old west and vintage trappings of cowboy ranch life. In a way, it was kind of hard to imagine I was in Chile, and not in Tuscarora, Nevada...

Afterwards, Patricio took me to visit his riding stables, which are located above the 1,000 meter elevation on the skirt of the Andes, and which are thus outside of the area designated for urban development. It was quite a picturesque spot, but surprisingly, there were no people around when we arrived - siesta time, Patricio told me. The picture above shows the setting, and Patricio told me that he has taken one of his horses from the stables and ridden way up above and across the ridgeline and peaks in the distance. The picture to the right shows Patricio comforting one of his horses in its stall.

"Okay Smokey, let me take you up into the mountains," he said, adding "I think you'll like what you see. We just keep driving on the road that brought us to these stables, right up into the Andes. It's the road that leads to some of the famous Chilean ski resorts."

Well, I wasn't going to refuse that offer. Patricio drove me up on the spectacular drive that leads up through the canyon of the Río Mapocho and cuts across the Santuario de la Naturaleza Yerba Loca and eventually, after something like 32 numbered switchbacks, arrives at the ski resort country, of which one can access several via this route. Patricio opted to take me to the one known as La Parva, although once up in the mountans there are a number of options. The view in the picture to the left presents the view back towards Santiago (as defined by the haze), and also illustrates some of the narrow switchbacks on this road into the mountains.

Eventually we got to La Parva which was basically all closed up since the ski season was long over and the slopes only displayed patches of snow. There were plenty of ski lodges at the base of the lifts, but again, no people. The picture to the right shows La Parva as seen from a short distance away.

From La Parva we turned to drive back down the mountain, following the same route back. Up there the air was cool, almost chilly, because the clouds were blocking the intense rays of the sun. When we got to a certain ridgeline before starting the switchbacks again, Patricio stopped the car. "Smokey, this ridge is known as La Loma del Viento. It is quite a notable place where you can see off into both canyons on either side. Take a minute to appreciate it."

The picture to the right shows the view to the south from the ridge of La Loma del Viento into the next canyon, I think of the Río Molina and Valle Nevado, another ski resort off in the distance.

From that vista point we turned and headed back down the mountain. I remember being so in awe of the depth of the canyons, but maybe it was more the displacement vertically from the bottom of those deep canyons and on up the steep slopes to the summits lost in the clouds. I said to myself, "THESE are mountains! Such incredible dimensions! They test the ability of any and all to take it all in, and cameras can do them no justice!

In the evening after Patricio had dropped me off back at my apartment, I went off and had a sandwich at a nearby cyber cafe. I tried accessing my emails online. I could do so, but I couldn't get their computer to send anything. I wanted so much to tell friends about my big day but was only able to spend a frustrating hour laboring away with nothing to show for it.

Anyway, here's one more image taken from my first drive into the Andes, east of Santiago...

Incidentally, in case you didn't know...you can click on any one of the images I've posted to see a larger version.

I'll be posting more here really soon, so stay tuned!

THE ATACAMA VIAJERO - IN RETROSPECT

2010-04-03T22:57:00.001-07:00

PHOTO GALLERY: HERE IS REALLY WHY I LOVE SOUTH AMERICA

Okay, so I call him my agent, but he is really my dear friend - perhaps ,one of my best friends in this life, my amigo Chileño, Andres Gabor. He sent me this series of pictures a couple of weeks ago because he thought my definitive descriptive blog on my South American adventure needed to have pictures of me, not just pictures of the places I'd visited or people I'd met...

So, here is a small gallery of photos, compliments of my friend Andres, showing (mostly) me hanging out and enjoying life with Andres and his wonderful family...

That's a picture of me with Andres, taken in 2007, with his young son Cristobal sitting on the rock behind us.

Above is Andres with his beautiful kids: (L-R) Matias, Andres, Cristobal and Constanza

Here I am with Matias and Cristobal in the cabaña Andres and his girlfriend Cecilia (aka Chica) had rented in the coastal resort community of Maitencillo, just north of Valparaiso.

Here I am, outside of the same cabaña in Maintencillo. The red pickup truck to my right was to be my touring vehicle that year.

From Maintencillo, we all went together to visit an interesting coastal site known as the Cementario de Zapallar. Here is a picture either Andres or Chica took of me photographing one of the landmarks of the cemetery.

Next image above was shot by Andres. It shows me on the left, with his kids and girlfriend in front, heading for the walkway that leads to the rocky coastline below the cemetery.

Another image of me - this time photographing a particularly interesting gravesite.

Andres, Chica and Cristobal - on the rocks above the shores of the Pacific Ocean at Zapallar.

Andres' daughter Constanza (L) and Chica watching the waves roll in at Zapallar.

Here I am, with Constanza (L) and Matias (R) walking back through the cemetery from the rocky Pacific shoreline, with Andres in the background. Taken by Chica.

Here I am at the placid harbor of Papudo, a rather posh coastal resort just north of Zapallar, at dusk.

I think this shows me with Andres' lovely daughter Constanza on a rock above the harbor at Papudo, just celebrating being there.

Again with Constanza, likely back at the cabaña in Maitencillo.

An earlier time, and an earlier trip to South America, found me as Andres' guest at the resort known as "Las Dunas," just south of La Serena, in northern Chile. Constanza and Matias are alongside on the railing overlooking the sea with me.

Here's a last picture sent by Andres. I'm taking in the place and the ambience at Zapallar.

Now a note. Maybe this will not come as such a surprise to many of you, but I am once again beginning to contemplate actually moving to Chile. Yeah... Earlier tonight I discussed this idea with my daughter Sara over the phone, and she really believes I would be a lot happier living there...it is a complex idea and I will want to consider it further, and will keep all who visit here informed.

In the meantime, I apol;ogize for not continuing so rapidly with my actual retrospective. I've been a bit distracted of late, especially with the process of preparing my 2009 income taxes. I will hope to re-convene with my dialogue on my late 2002 adventures in the next few days. In the meantime, I do hope that all who visit here will enjoy these fine and warm photos sent by my friend Andres Gabor...

THE ATACAMA VIAJERO - IN RETROSPECT

2010-03-11T13:57:00.000-08:00

FIRST JOURNEY PART ONE: FROM NEVADA TO SEATTLE

AND FINALLY, SANTIAGO CHILE

NOVEMBER 20-30, 2002

On the surface it would not surprise me if the image I've created of my actual departure itinerary as laid out in this first chapter's heading seems illogical to you. In truth, it ended up being even crazier because of flight complications between Seattle and Santiago.

Actually, I've got a logical explanation as to why I first went to Seattle. My daughter Sara happened to be living at the time in Bothell, outside of Seattle, where she was enrolled in a school of floral design while at the same time she was working as ship's attendant on the Victoria Clipper, a popular tourist ferry that ran through Puget Sound between Seattle and Victoria, B.C. I'd arranged for Sara and her then-boyfriend (now husband) Kurt Dunning to take care of both my car and my dog for the duration of my first South American trip, so driving up to Seattle made perfect sense.

And the timing for my trip worked out perfectly in another way. I'd scheduled my flight out of Seattle for the day after Thanksgiving, so it gave us a good chance to spend a couple of days together as family before I flew out.

Before the drive up to Seattle from my digs in rural Nevada, I'd been busying myself with a veritable mountain of preparatory details before I headed out - but it would really exhaust me to try to recount that whole process for you here. Just figure that I had to make arrangements to secure everything at home, including arranging for a caretaker to collect mail and watch over my house and to prepay bills for a full three month's absence. And I'd made meticulous arrangements over a period of time for my arrival in Chile.

After doing a rather extensive online search I settled on making a three month rental of a sturdy 4x4 pickup truck from a fellow named Andres Gabor, who operated a tourist outfit which he called AbsolutChile, and who would also make arrangements for my first few nights' accomodations in Santiago to get settled in before I headed out on the road for real.

So that's a rather succinct summary of everything pre-departure. Sara did a superb job of cooking up a fine Thanksgiving dinner, complete with all of the trimmings. At the end of that evening I logged in my journal that there was so much going through my head that I was not so sure I'd get much sleep, which turned out to be an accurate assumption. My narrative will now switch over into journal mode, beginning with my recollection of my trip from Seattle (departing on the morning of November 29) to my first day in Chile (as entered before retiring in my temporary apartment in Santiago on the night of November 30).

November 30, 2002 - 11:15 p.m. Santiago, Chile

Here I am, in Santiago. I have finally reached South America.

Starting out from Sara's, the journey to Seattle's airport in post-rush hour traffic was uneventful. Kurt drove us there, and Sara accompanied me into the terminal, helping me with my bags. Kurt then drove the circle around toe parking terrace and back up to curbside where he assumed he'd be picking Sara up. There was a little problem which happened following my check-in however. Since my bags were ticketed for an international flight, he baggage people had indicated that I should stand by while my bags cleared their inspection, so Sara and I found ourselves waiting there for some sort of signal, which was not forthcoming, while Kurt found himself driving around in circles - multiple times. Finally Sara flagged down one of the baggage people to see if there was a problem with my bags, and the woman said, "My goodness, his bags cleared our inspection ten minuites ago - he can proceed to his departure gate. I'm sorry." Even with that little snafu, Sara became flushed and she teared up, giving me a tearful goodbye hug and sent me on my way. It's a good thing - Kurt was late for class.

Anyway, I had the good fortune to find myself sitting next to a cheerful woman from Colombia on the flight from Seattle to Dallas/Ft. Worth. She was thrilled to learn I was flying to Chile and she took it upon herself to work a little with my Spanish as we took off. It was a good impromptu language lesson, which continued off and on for the entire journey, even continuing on past our touchdown in Dallas as we found ourselves with an additional two other Colombian women riding on the same shuttle van that would take us to the faraway departure gates for our next connecting flight to Miami.

If you are familiar with the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport, you are aware that it is something of a sprawling monster, so it might not surprise you that the shuttle barely got us to the Miami flight departure gate on time. And it turned out that this flight was also loaded with South Americans, since it was a connecting flight with a final destination of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Why was I flying to Miami when Delta Air Lines ran regular, non-stop flights to Santiago from Dallas? It turned out that the airline made those flights six nights a week, and unfortunately, I'd booked myself onto the seventh night. Okay, so maybe if I'd done a little more checking I could have avoided that lateral flight across the Gulf of Mexico, but it turned out okay regardless because it was one of those crystal- clear cloudless nights, and the in-flight screen was showing the itinerary map of where we were flying. Once out of the Dallas/Ft. Worth airspace, the flight tacked to the southeast past Lake Ponchartrain and out over the waters of the Gulf. Remember, this was a night flight so I couldn't see the water below, but I could see all the lights of the communities stretching out like a diamond necklace along the coastline. And with the flight itinerary map on the screen, I could tell exactly which Gulf community was which. Mobile Bay and Pensacola glided past, and when the flight reached the Gulf's Florida shore I could clearly make out Tampa Bay and even the inland swamps and wetlands. Viewing Miami as we approached in the darkness was simply a spectacular sight. I guess I should add that I'd lucked out to have secured the window seat, so the whole flight to Miami was an amateur geographer's night-time delight.

The Miami layover was something like two hours. It gave me time to ponder what was ahead: a true "red-eye" flight that was departing at 11:40 p.m. Eastern time and would represent the first time I'd cross the equator in this life. I remember wondering if they still made a big deal about passing into the Southern Hemisphere like old seafarers used to do (they don't), and also wondering how I'd do with such a long flight - some nine hours non-stop to Santiago.

Unfortunately there would be no window seat for this one: I was assigned to the left-center aisle seat, and there was the advantage of not having to climb over a fellow traveler to get out to stretch in the aisle or to go to the bathroom - and by the time we'd been flying until dawn I was grateful for that.

Anyway, the flight seemed to go on forever, and naturally I found it impossible to "sleep" in the cramped, semi-jacknife position of a passenger flying coach, so by the time we were starting our approach in full morning daylight my sleep-deprived head felt like hell with a day's growth of stubble on my face and a grubby body yearning for the shower I would not be able to take for several hourws more. Regardless of that, The person who did have the window seat had pulled up the blind to take in the view of the Andes Cordillera as it rolled past. It was a veiw I had dearly wanted to take in, and by straining my neck I could at least take in the basic view, which was superb.

There they were, the Andes - which out the portal presented stacked layers of snowy ridgelines, ruggedly serrated with sharply jutting peaks rising up into the vivid light of a crystal clear austral springtime morning. If that sight didn't cause me to forget my travel fatigue, it at least made it a bit more tolerable as the plane neared Santiago.

I should mention that I was grateful for the flight attendant's service, which, considering that this was a long international flight, seemed to be quite a bit better than what I'd come to expect on domestic flights. We were served snacks and drinks and then were given warm towels at one point to cleanse our hands and faces. Then at 1 a.m., a full dinner was served, accompanied by more drinks. The activity didn't die down until about 2:30 or 3 a.m. when everyone had become too bleary-eyed and the cabin lights were dimmed down to the minimum so that all could try to catch some shut-eye for a time. Then as the dawn was approaching, coffee was offered up, with more warm towels, and finally, breakfast in the last hour before touchdown.

We landed at about 9:30 a.m. Santiago time, and the disembarkation was completely uneventful. At least it was until we reached the customs point in the terminal where all U.S. citizens are assessed a one-time "reciprocity fee" by the Chilean officials, payable in cash only. This is done because for some reason, U.S. customs charge Chilean visitors an entry fee so the Chilean government feels it only right to reciprocate. Thankfully I was well aware of this charge and the important fact that first-time American visitors must pay it in cash, but I was a but disappointed that recently the fee had gone up from $61 USD to $100 USD. Such is life.

Getting my baggage through customs was not difficult but once I'd cleared everything, I had a heck of a time finding Luis, who was Andres Gabor's employee who he'd sent to pick me up and bring me into Santiago Centro to meet Andres and to get to the apartment he had waiting for me. The receiving gallery of Santiago's airport is crammed with cabbies and agents who are looking for their charges whenever the international flights come in. There's lots of shoving and shouting, and many cabbies trying to get the just-arrived visitor to ride in their cabs. It's quite competitive, and makes it hard for one such as me who has already made pick-up arrangements to find their drivers.

After a few minutes of confusion, I finally spotted Luis, who was holding up a chalk board with my name on it. He was a short fellow, with bushy short hair and a stocky countenance. I was reassured by his cheerfulness, but as he only spoke Spanish, I needed to respond in kind. It wasn't perfect, but we understood each other and he led me out of the terminal to the pickup truck that would soon be my rental vehicle and got my bags loaded up so that we could proceed to make the drive into the heart of Santiago. Along the way, Luis pointed out landmarks here and there as we came into the city, eventually bringing me into El Centro along the route known as Alameda Bernardo O'Higgins, or more usually, simply the Alameda.

We reached the offices of AbsolutChile, which was located in a street-side entrance to a metropolitan parking terrace on Miraflores, not far from the Cerro Santa Lucia, the museum known as the Palacio de Bellas Artes and the beautiful tree-lined Parque Forestal, which fronts along the Río Mapocho.. The office was officially labeled as Lys Rent A Car, which was part of Andres' operations, and would be the firm I would be renting the pickup truck from in a few short days after getting somewhat oriented to being in a new country.

Meeting Andres Gabor for the first time was a memorable moment. It's funny how you find yourself creating an imagined impression of somebody you have been in contact with but never have seen or met, and I never realized how inaccurate such predetermined impressions could be. I'd really expected Andres to be a short and squat middle-aged Chilean businessman, maybe with a pot belly - but the man I met was nothing at all like I had expected. He was fairly tall and built solidly, almost like an athlete, but clearly not at all like I had imagined. Most of all, I was struck by his relative youth, and was captivated by how fluent his English was, which was the result of considerable time spent years earlier living in the United States.

Andres really took me under his wing and bent over backwards to make me feel welcome. I think that he might have been a little bit surprised to find out that I had come to Chile with no traveling companion, but he paid that no mind and proceeded to show me that famous Chilean hospitality. The first thing he wanted to do was take me to lunch in a fine restaurant named Eladio, across the Mapocho in the Barrio Bellavista. He suggested I try "Bif a lo Pobre," which turned out to be a huge succulent steak (boneless) over one inch thick, which sat upon a mountain of french fried potatoes and onions and topped with an egg cooked sunny side up. It was preceeded by an elegant cooked Argentine cheese appetizer and followed by a rather decadent pastry dessert. It was almost overwhelming although I will add that it was nice and very welcome despite the fact that I had been trying to get away from eating meat up until them. The message was clearly: don't try to be a vegetarian if you are going to spend time in Chile!

When we got back to his office, Andres had Luis and another employee, a fello named Juan Carlos, take me over to the apartment he would be putting me up in during my stay in Santiago. They had laid out the apartment with all sorts of welcoming fixings, from fresh cut flowers to a bowl of fresh fruit on the dining table. All very nice. When Luis and Juan Carlos left, I finally was able to unwind and take my much-needed shower and then rest for a spell before finally venturing out on my own to take in a bit of my surroundings.

I took a short walk over to the Parque Forestal and was pleased to take in the warm air of late speing in this nice downtown park in Santiago. I took a few pictures, which I'll attach here. First is a photo of a rather eccentric statue entitled "Caballo," which was crafted by a Colombian artist named Fernando Botero in 1992 as a gift to Santiago. It sits in the park behind the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, which is the next photo. Then finally, is a picture of the Río Mapocho, which at the time was being channeled while the city worked on a rather adventurous project of building a highway underneath the river. That highway, incidentally was finished a few years ago and became known as the Costanera Norte. I'd be curious to know how it fared in the earthquake.

SEBASTIÁN PIÑERA SWORN IN AS CHILE'S NEW PRESIDENT

2010-03-11T09:47:00.000-08:00

While a series of seven ominously powerful earthquake aftershocks shook central Chile today, multi-billionaire and Harvard-trained conservative businessman Sebastián Piñera was sworn in as the country's new president. Today's aftershocks (the biggest with a magnitude of 6.9, downsized from an earlier estimate of 7.2) caused the Chilean navy to issue a new tsunami warning, and seismologists said that now Chile can expect to feel aftershocks from the aftershocks. As a precaution, authorities evacuated the congressional building in coastal Valparaiso where the inaguration took place following the ceremony.

Piñera, shown above with his wife Cecelia in a 2005 presidential campaign flyer which I picked up in December of that year when I saw him in person at an outdoor political rally in downtown Los Angeles, Chile, was defeated by Michelle Bachelet for the presidency back then. Now he has come back, handily winning the new election held in January with the promise to "make Chile the best country in the world." Of course, now his number one priority will be to engineer the reconstruction of a badly damaged nation.

He is Chile's first right wing conservative president since the leftist coalition took power at the end of the Pinochet dictatorship twenty years ago. His election victory now puts Chile's relatively small business elite in direct power, a fact that encourages many Chileans who look to him to create jobs for the people. However there are some in Chile, particularly many in the labor unions, who promise to initiate crippling strikes if Piñera carries out the partial privatization of Codelco, the nation's massive state-run copper conglomerate, that he had promised during the campaign. Since he lacks a legislative majority he will likely find it necessary to compromise with the left to move forward. The center-left coalition for its part, has moderated its tone since the devastating earthquakes and has said that it will support Piñera's reconstruction programs.

The AP photo at right shows Piñera wearing the Chilean presidential sash at today's swearing-in ceremony in Valparaiso, Chile. Personally, I hope that the new administration will prove to be a successful one for Chile, and I extend my most sincere congratulations to President Sebastián Piñera and wish him all the best.

[Note: I originally had said I would now go forward with my retrospective, but I felt that today's presidential inauguration deserved some comment. I will resume my retrospective with my next post.]

THE ATACAMA VIAJERO - IN RETROSPECT

2010-03-07T16:10:00.000-08:00

PREFACE: THE BIRTH OF THE DREAM

[Note: So here at last begins my oft-promised retrospective on my multiple South American adventures. I'll begin by attempting to describe what got me into this wild sort of solo adventure travel, and then I'll go from there, back to the year 2002...]

When I was a boy I started dreaming about the farthest reaches of South America. As a matter of fact, I think that my curiosity about this land which stretched out below the equator began to form almost as soon as I came to realize that there was such a place. I have fond memories of a wonderful jigsaw puzzle our family had of North America which I enjoyed putting together over and over. It went from Alaska all the way down as far as Panama, and that beyond that small, semi-twisted appendage of land was the start of a whole other continent, beginning with a country labeled Colombia, but which sadly extended beyond the borders of the puzzle, so everything beyond the edge of the board was a big mystery. Sure, this is all fairly fanciful stuff for a little boy in nursery school, but I really do believe that North America jigsaw puzzle was the first thing to get me intrigued about South America.

Through the next dozen years of schooling I'd learn about the various countries down there, but I have to admit I found most of the materials we had to study to be pretty boring and ultimately forgettable. But when I was in the seventh grade, our social studies teacher gave us the opportunity to show a little creativity with one assignment, and I eagerly chose to make a salt-relief map of South America. Now I know that I have already posted the picture my dad took of me hard at work on that map, but I think it is worth posting here as well, so here it is.

Even though that modest little project was completed nearly fifty years ago I can state that I still have vivid memories of each step in the process of constructing a somewhat accurate three dimensional re-creation of the entire continent, and can still recall how fun it was. At last, here was a real hands-on experience with the otherwise turgid geography lesson, and I loved it. My recollection of whatever grade I had earned (it was an A) pales greatly next to the sheer pleasure I had experienced in creating my map.

Unfortunately, time and the elements would not be kind to this little personal masterpiece, and my South America map fell victim to a fatal case of mildew which attacked and destroyed it where my parents had stored it - down in our flood-prone basement. So now I am left only with the above little black and white photograph and with the memory.

Then the years passed. I grew up and left home to go off to college and eventually graduated with a bachelor's history degree. In time I got married, started a business, and had my two children. Any conception of a "dream" to go to South America didn't really seem to exist. At least not then.

But a little over twenty years ago the dream was born. That was the time when my marriage was irreconcilably crashing on the rocks. I knew I needed to get away from it all, even if for just a short time. No doubt the madness of the moment had effected my thinking when I made the fateful decision to load up my camping gear in my sturdy Toyota Landcruiser and go with my dog Molly as my only travel companion on a real adventure journey - to drive as far down Mexico's Baja California peninsula as I could. Before that trip, I'd ventured into Mexico a couple of times, once just to buy some tequila across the border, and once to camp out overnight on the beach at Puerto Peñasco (Rocky Point), but never anything like this. It was my first real penetration into a part of Latin America, and although I couldn't speak even a word of Spanish, I felt like I was discovering a whole new world. And as I drove farther down that incredibly long peninsula, I started to imagine what it would be like to go ALL the way down - all the way to Tierra Del Fuego!

The above three photographs were taken on that eventful three week journey down the Baja Peninsula. In the upper right, a self-portrait taken on the shores of Bahia de Los Angeles on January 16, 1990. Then the small shot on the left is the spectacular sunrise on the morning of January 17 at Bahia de Los Angeles. Finally, the larger picture shows my dog Molly and my Toyota Landcruiser at my camp in the boojums, not far from Cataviña.

Anyway, so that's where my South American dream was born, on that trip into Baja California in January, 1990. Even though I was alone, I felt that I'd had the time of my life on that journey and that prompted me to start learning Spanish. More Baja trips ensued, and and then one big drive far down the west coast of mainland Mexico, as far as San Blas and over to the city of Tepic to buy Huichol art works, camping where I could.

But the dream would take years to come to fruition. I remember in April 1996, while attending the annual Lubbock Arts Festival in Texas, there was a South American Andean folklore ensemble performing named Markahuasi whose music was absolutely infectuous. The band's charango player happened to be from Valdivia, Chile. I can recall having an extensive conversation with him about South America. I told him that I really wanted to go there, and he replied to me that if that was so, then I had really better make plans to go and not to let anything interfere with that dream or I just might not make it. I never forgot his message, but still it would take me another six and a half years to make my dream become a reality, when I finally made it at the end of November 2002.

And so next up on this recounting of my South American adventures will be part one of the story of that magnificent first trip of discovery. Stay tuned, my friends.

CHILE, FIVE DAYS LATER - A PARTIAL UPDATE

2010-03-03T17:52:00.000-08:00

Here is a partial overview of the situation in Chile, five days after the massive, 8.8 magnitude earthquake.

Today the central Chilean coast was rocked by a pair of powerful aftershocks (5.9 and 6.0 magnitude, respectively) which provoked false tsunami warnings and sent frightened coastal residents running for high ground (see AP photo, from the Chilean city of Constitución, right).

The outgoing president of Chile, Michele Bachelet, whose term expires next week, has been soundly criticized for her government's response to the disaster, and NPR reports that some have said that the impending power transition to the incoming administration of president-elect Sebastian Piñera has complicated the government's handling of the disaster.

One of the strongest criticisms of Bachelet's response has been her hesitation in sending in troops of the Chilean army to augment the carabineros (police) to help to restore order in the worst-hit areas. President-elect Piñera has been careful not to interfere with Bachelet's efforts as current president to deal with the crisis, but he has made it clear that he would have sent in the army immediately. Piñera, who is one of the richest men in the world, will assume the mantle of the Chilean presidency next week.

Regardless, Bachelet says that her administration has been working closely with Piñera's transition team. Piñera, for his part, says that "this is not a time to assign blame but rather for all Chileans to work together to solve the country's huge current problems.

Today President Bachelet spoke about how severely the economy of Chile had been hit by the double whammy of the massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake and the ensuing tsunamis, which had killed, by the most current count, over 800 people. She listed multiple major sectors of the Chilean economy that had been severely impacted, including agriculture, trade, mining, industry, building and tourism. "The rail system is not working, neither are some industries such as the Huachipato steel complex due to serious damage." She also reported that the Huachipato industrial port "was unusable."

Bachelet also said that much of the fishing industry and wood processing plants "were also paralyzed." By today, she had dispatched some 14,000 soldiers to patrol the worst-hit areas.

An ABC news report today concentrated on the economic impact, stating that the tsunami that had demolished the major port of Talcahuano, near Concepción, had thrown huge 50-ton fishing boats onto dry land and obliterated smaller fishing vessels, effectively wiping out the ports' lucrative anchovy and sardine fishing business.

Inland from Concepción, the important national artery, the Panamerican Highway (Ruta 5, which is the nation's only north-south highway) had suffered the collapse of scores of bridges and suffered countless numbers of gaping crevices splitting apart the asphalt, effectively paralyzing the lifeline for numerous industries, including the nation's renouned farm-raised salmon industry. Some of the salmon fishery executives were trying to figure out a way to possibly truck their fish over the Andes and into Argentina for transport to Buenos Aires in an attempt get their product to market and keep from losing a fortune. ABC warns that the U.S. consumer should expect higher salmon prices at the market.

And the significant wine industry was especially hard hit. It is grape harvest time in Chile, and with the roads busted up so badly there will be problems trying to get the grapes from the vineyards to the wineries, plus the telecommunications system still is very badly damaged, so vintners are having trouble reaching employees by phone or internet to discuss the harvest. The damages to many vineyards will translate into higher production costs, which will likely be reflected in cost and availability issues in the retail markets. Some vineyards have had casks burst and bottled product smashed, so this significant Chilean industry will be significantly affected for some time to come.

Financially, Chilean stocks saw their losses accelerate today after the reports came in of the strong aftershocks from Concepción. Chile's IPSA equity index fell 1.5% to 3,705. The index has fallen more than 3% since Monday's opening, following Saturday's quake.

Still, some glimmers of good news have emerged in today's news. Chile's Public Works Minister Sergio Bitar reported today that"port activities are recovering." And an article posted on Bloomberg.com said today that the important central Chilean Port of San Antonio (near my favorite resort town of El Tabo) has returned to 80% capacity and that now the main port of Valparaiso is operating normally. Both ports had closed immediately following the earthquake and tsunami on Saturday. Ships carrying grains are currently being given priority over incoming and outcoming vessels at San Antonio, where port authorities are still running tests. However the heavily damaged ports closer to the earthquake epicenter still remain closed.

The Bloomberg.com story also reported that Chile's copper industry is also back to work today. Codelco, the world's largest copper producer, returned to full output, although the industry giant hasn't started shipping copper to San Antonio. Regardless, that mining news was reflected in a 3.45 cent rise in copper futures for May delivery, a full 1% climb, to 3.446 a pound on the New York Mercantile Exchange's Comex Unit.

A story by Laura Bly published today by USA Today mentions that electricity, phone service and public transportation have been restored in Santiago, and now some flights have resumed at the capitol's airport. While the terminal has suffered damage to its customs and ticketing sections, some activities have been temporarily moved into tents, and that 24-hour international and domestic flight schedules will resume on Friday. LAN Airlines, the country's biggest carrier is currently operating at 30% of its flight schedule.

The resumption of air service will fit in nicely with the fact that much of the country's tourism infrastructure is coming back together and that many of the usual attractions like Chilean Patagonia, the Atacama Desert and Easter Island suffered little or no damage. Turismo Chile reports that popular tourist towns like Pucón, Puerto Varas and Puerto Montt in the Chilean lake District are operating normally, as are places such as Torres del Paine and San Pedro de Atacama.

So that is a partial update on the most current conditions in Chile. I will admit that the disaster has brought a corresponding change in my plans to begin my retrospective report that will go back to my initial extended adventure trip to Chile and Argentina, which began right after Thanksgiving in 2002. But that delay will finally be finished when I write my next post in the next day or so. That means that, barring some new clamity from South America, I'll be taking you all along with me as I reprise that wonderful journey of discovery - so check back soon!
Chao, amigos!

CHILE: THE PASSION AND THE PAIN - AND NOW A NEW PERSPECTIVE

2010-02-27T17:44:00.000-08:00

In the midst of sitting in rapt attention watching the unbelievable news coverage of the massive Chilean earthquake on TV today, I got a phone call from my daughter Sara, who works as a professional florist for the hotels of the MGM casino empire in Las Vegas.

"Dad, I'm calling you partly because I haven't talked with you for some time and have been thinking of you a lot. I'm also calling you because today I went to the dentist and had a couple of cavities filled, and all the talk there in the dentist's office was about the earthquake in Chile. And you know, Dad, it made me think a lot about how much you love Chile, and at this moment I just wanted to tell you that I'm so glad you're not down there in Chile right now."

I paused for a moment to take in what Sara had said. Then I replied, "Well, I guess I'm glad that I'm not down there in Chile right now either."

Those are words I never could have imagined uttering - not until now. In retrospect, thanks to my multiple extended visits to Chile and Argentina during the past decade I really have come to love these two countries of the so-called "Southern Cone" of South America. I particularly know that this is a love for not just the land but also for the people of both countries, while acknowledging the subtle cultural differences which give definition to the national identies of citizens of these two neighbors.

I still have not received word from friends of mine who live in Santiago or from others who live in the valley of the Río Bio Bio, not far from the city of Concepción. That bothers me, but I can imagine that they are dealing with things much more basic right now and that they likely have not, or cannot go online presently.

My friend Robert Runyan, who now lives in the small Chilean hamlet of Puerto Bories, located near the town of Puerto Natales, which is in the far southern Magallanes region (Chilean Patagonia) has responded and says he is fine, at least for now. But even as far away as he is, Robert's activities will certainly be affected by the devastating hammer blow that this earthquake has made on the infrastructure of Chile. (Incidentally, you might find it worthwhile to check the link I have to Robert's blog here on my Atacama Viajero page.)

No doubt the extent of the devastation of this new gigantic earthquake (tentatively catalogued as being the fifth worst in recorded history) will transform my beloved Chile, and I suspect that it has also perhaps transformed the telling of my own story of these landmark trips of personal discovery - which I see as being a good thing. That's because now what I will be telling you will carry a more direct and powerful message - telling every reader how I came to love these marvelous and beautiful South American countries. Much of what I was working on and had been saving in draft form will now be dumped, and I will take this event and turn it into my jumping off point to tell of my adventures down there in such beautiful lands before this most recent grave tragedy.

But as I prepare to tell that story I want to remind everyone that time and again throughout history Chile has suffered greatly. But the Chileans have proved themselves to be absolutely resilient in the face of all kinds of adversity. Today they will need our prayers and our help. But I have no doubt that with perseverance and hard work they will recover.

Therefore, I'll dedicate my blogging retrospective to these fine people and their wonderful countries, and share with you how I came to love them and their spectacularly beautiful lands.

TREMENDOUS 8.8 MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE HITS CHILE

2010-02-27T00:24:00.000-08:00

Wow. I was just about to post here when the news of a new massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake in south central Chile 200 miles south of Santiago flashed across the screen.....!!!!!!!

Chile of course is one of the most susceptible places on Earth to this sort of thing. During my various sojourns through that most beautiful country, I experienced various temblors ranging from mild to moderately scary, including one quick and frightening one which I had the "pleasure" to ride through while relaxing in my second story hotel room in the Chilean city of Valdivia on Christmas eve 2005. Valdivia, by the way, was the most unfortunate of all cities in the world back on May 22, 1960 when it was ravaged by an incredible 9.5 magnitude earthquake, which destroyed much of that city's remarkable historic buildings and actually managed to re-orient the lay of the land - dropping the land level a full three meters, causing the town's waterfront to drop below the level of the estuary and to turn surrounding farmland instantly into wetlands. That terrible earthquake is regarded as being the worst in recorded history, and it sounds as if this new one could be nearly equal to the 1960 Valdivia quake.

This new massive earthquake appears to have its epicenter just 115 km (about 70 miles) from the major Chilean city of Concepción, which is located on the coast about halfway between Valdivia and the capital of Santiago. Preliminary reports I have seen say some buildings in Santiago have collapsed.

I have written to friends who live there expressing my concerns and sending my own good wishes but I know that as the morning arrives they will have more immediate concerns to deal with rather than to respond to me.

Beyond this I would recommend the reader to access their most trusted news source to ascertain the latest regarding this tragedy.

I will of course resume my writing project sometime, but for now I am more concerned with the safety and health of friends who live there, not only in Santiago but who live near the Chilean city of Los Angeles, in the Bio Bio River valley...

These are wonderful people who live in a very special and beautiful place. I pray for them and will ask you all to do so as well.......

THE ATACAMA VIAJERO - IN RETROSPECT

2010-02-08T09:01:00.000-08:00

A whole year has passed since I was last in South America - and a whole year has passed since I've taken the trouble to write about it. One could call it a simple sin of omission, but in more real terms I think it has been more like I have been carrying a huge chunk of lethargy on top of my shoulders ever since I returned from that last rather short two week visit over New Year's of 2009.
And speaking of 2009, I'd venture to say that overall, the year ranked as one of the more forgettable years in recent memory save for the celebratory "graduation" of my son Peter from college back in June. Other than that, I'd say it was a year in which I truly lost my focus and drifted aimlessly, rudderless on a bleak, gray sea.
At least in the last couple of months I've recognized that my path, as it was, was going nowhere, and that the soultion was to take charge of things and get back on track.

SETTING A COURSE

Back last autumn, when tickets for the 26th annual National Cowboy Poetry Gathering first went on sale, I saw in the brochure that my friend Teresa Jordan was going to teach a three-day nonfiction writing workshop at the beginning of Poetry Gathering week. Teresa is one of those rare artistically gifted people who seem to actually live to create. As a result of her natural inner drive, she has established her credentials as both an author and as a visual artist. I have always admired Teresa, and the fact that I've known her for quite a number of years made easy for me to make the choice to sign up for her workshop, which took place from January 25th through the 27th of this year at the start of the Cowboy Poetry Gathering over in Elko, Nevada - in other words, it took place just two weeks ago.

Now why did I bother to post all that? First of all, I saw that the workshop could provide me with a decent means to finally shake that awful weight of lethargy off of my shoulders and get me pointed back in the right direction. Secondly, I figured if Teresa was worth her stuff as much as a teacher as she was as a writer, then I'd come out way ahead on my investment represented by the actual cost of the workshop in time and money because I would have gained a good amount of insight into the writing process and the tools one can utilize in following such a pursuit. Finally, there was the hope that being there and interacting with other writers could jump-start my own dormant creative juices, which are painfully symbolized in my own mind by the number of unfinished research and writing projects languishing away in countless files - both in my computer and on my bookshelves.

And so this current endeavor is now a big part of the jump-start I just mentioned. Aside from my other projects, one of my most fervent wishes has been to finally put down on paper the definitive narrative of my five (so far) South America journeys.

Many years ago, when I was just graduating myself from the University of Utah, I can recall my father telling me that whenever I set out on a substantial journey, it would behoove me to keep a running journal as I went along. That way, he said, things that would otherwise pass from my memory over time would not be forgotten. Back then I was about to set out on a hitch-hiking adventure to discover the Oregon Coast, and thankfully, I took my father's advice and kept a journal of the entire trip. That was 40 years ago. If I hadn't kept the journal, I'd say that now at least 98% of that experience would have blurred beyond recognition in my memory. But I still have it, and I open it up from time to time and start to read...and suddenly I am carried back to those youthful days, thumbing my way down the coast, vicariously re-living that old adventure.

On each of my South America trips I diligently kept up a journal. And I also knew that by taking copious amounts of photos as I traveled on and noting exactly when and where each picture had been shot in a companion photo logbook would also prove to be quite valuable. Also, once I started to make blog posts I recognized thay they would also become priceless resources, and although my original blog no longer exists online, I managed to burn my posts onto a CD before closing it down. And before the advent of blogging, for my firts trip especially, I was wise to print out the best of the individual emails I had sent out to friends, thus preserving the words of my own voice on my initial trip - which was the real journey of discovery.

So I would like to welcome you all, friends and visitors, to come along with me as I initiate the grand retrospective, starting with a prologue in which I will attempt to explain my initial motivations for going in the fall of 2002 in the first place, and then to dive in and go forward with my narrative. Those great adventures have profoundly shaped me and changed me, and perhaps if I can write my story out good enough, you, the reader, will come to see a bit of that remarkable change. Watch for new and continuing posts right here, with maps and photos included. Cheers!

STROLLING AROUND SANTIAGO CENTRO

2009-01-12T08:35:00.000-08:00

Considering that this is the end of my fifth trip to Chile, I would normally not be making a special trip around the city madly shooting snapshots of famous landmarks, but considering that there might be several of you who are checking into this blog who might like to see such photos, that´s exactly what I did on Saturday, with the plan to post a half-dozen pictures here for general consumption.
This first picture was taken along the Alameda Bernardo O´Higgins not far from Cerro Santa Lucia. It shows the front building of the Universidad de Chile. Strolling a bit further down along the Alameda one eventually comes to El Palacio La Moneda, which is the Chilean Presidential Palace, shown in this next photo:

La Moneda is the seat of Chile´s government, the place where current President Michelle Bachelet has her offices. It is also the scene where the martyred former President Salvador Allende lost his life during the Pinochet golpe de estado which happened on September 11, 1973, a date which marks Chilean history like no other. The next picture is of the memorial statue of Salvador Allende, which is in front of the Justice Ministry and faces La Moneda:

This next picture shows some of the striking buildings in Santiago´s financial district. The streets are fairly quiet because it was Saturday. Otherwise, they would be humming with activity:

Now we come to the famous Plaza de Armas, and this next picture shows the grand Iglesia Catedral, which fairly dominates the view to the noorthwest from the heart of the plaza:

Finally, here is a picture of the statue of the Conquistador of Chile, Pedro de Valdivia, located in the northeast corner of the plaza:

Well, there you have it. I quickie glimpse of some of the landmarks of the city of Santiago. Now, my flight back to the USA leaves here tomorrow night at 10:30 local time. The flight is non-stop overnight to Atlanta, GA, where I will be changing planes for a flight to Salt Lake City, UT, where my car is parked. My scheduled arrival in Salt Lake will be 10:30 a.m. on the morning of the 14th, and I will plan to go from there driving westward to my home in Wells, Nevada.

Actually, I am thinking that this will be my last post for this time around from South America. Tomorrow will be a bit of a touchy day since I have been having a number of communication connection problems with my friend and agent Andres Gabor. There seems to be a bit of a problem with the cell phone network, so I will be spending most of my time trying to get through to him to ensure that I make it alright tomorrow night out to the airport.

Regardless, it has been a good time, and I do hope that you have enjoyed following my monologue here once again. Chao, amigos!

LOS TRES CABALLEROS

2009-01-09T14:30:00.000-08:00

So here´s the three hardest working obreros at Las Siete Cabañas. The little guy on the left in the sleeveless muscle shirt is Carlos. I can remember how crazy he got singing Beatles songs on New Year´s Eve...he had the words down perfectly even if he didn´t have the slightest idea what those words meant. On the right, in the green Jameson´s Whisky shirt is Orlando, who actually happens to be one damn fine guitar player. And finally, the big guy in the middle is none other than Diego Parada Savignone himself, crew leader and manager of the cabañas.
Actually, I snapped this photo only minutes before leaving El Tabo for my return drive into Santiago. These three characters were, along with Diego´s wife Luisa, my best friends for the eight days I spent there, and I know that they are hopeful that I can muster up another trip to Chile and a posible return to El Tabo in December, but that´s another story.
I made it back into Santiago without incident, and actually feel a bit of pride in the fact that I was able to navigate the highways and easily find Andres´new office in the barrio Los Condes. After I got back, he put me up in his apartment in El Centro on Calle Mosqueto, and so today I have been taking in once again the sights of this superb downtown.
Unfortunately I have been having a bit of a task trying to re-connect with Andres, and since he forgot to get me a cell phone I have had to frequent one or another of the so-called "Centro de Llamados," which are glorified telephone booths, usually doubling as internet cafes as well to try to call Andres. I did get ahold of him this morning, and, thinking that we would be getting together for almuerzo (lunch), I was a bit surprised when he told me he would be too preoccupied and for me to call him after 7 p.m. because he was going to make arrangements for us to get together this weekend for a barbecue. Well, that sounded nice, and I did my part - waiting until after 7 p.m. to call him. But all I got was his voice mail, so I figure that things are particularly insane for him right now as he is taking in his kids this weekend and will be shopping for food etc. So I just told his voice mail I´d try again in the morning.
So Santiago is hot. Yes, HOT. I mean temperature-wise. Like it is almost 8 p.m. as I type this in the internet cafe, and the temperatures must still be in the upper 80´s (F). And there´s no end in sight for the heat until I get on my return flight home to the cold winter in the USA.
Anyway, I´ll try to shoot some photos of some of the major city landmarks here in El Centro Santiago for my next post. Until then, amigos...

BOOKS ON ON THE BEACH 2009: RIDING WITH THE CAVALRY

2009-01-07T06:26:00.000-08:00

Okay, so everyone knows that when I take up residence in a place like this for some hard-core R&R, I usually bring along half a suitcase full of books. Well, this time, with my stay here at Las Siete Cabañas set for only eight days (today is my last day), I only brought along a couple of titles, so the suitcase is lighter. But I´ve still been able to while away plenty of hours reading, and I would like to tell you a little bit about this trip´s chosen books.

It is not by coincidence that both books relate to the exploits of cavalrymen in battle, because a few weeks before my departure I had been investigating the war poetry of the late, great British poet Wilfred Owen, who wrote some really incredible verse describing his experiences in the trenches during World War One. Unfortunately, Owen was killed in battle shortly before that war concluded, but not before he had written his war poems. Anyway, I purchased a copy of the Collected Works of Wilfred Owen, but that is not one of the books I will be writing about today. You see, my investigation on Owen brought to my attention the work of another writer, one who wrote prose instead of poetry, but whose literary efforts were superbly poetic in their own way. That author happens to be a Jewish Russian war correspondent (like Vasily Grossman, whose sprawling epic Life and Fate had captured my imagination when I was here on the beach last January) who is now considered to be a giant of 20th Century Russian Literature, Isaac Babel. Babel´s place in the pantheon of great Russian authors grew out of a vast body of work, and particularly out of his early masterpiece, the Red Cavalry cycle. Now I will get deeper into Babel shortly, but first I want to discuss another book, El Húsar (The Hussar), by the noted Spanish author, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, which I was inspired to bring along with me as a cavalry "companion" to the Babel book, specifically to read here on the beach.

El Húsar. by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. (Written in Spanish)

I originally bought this book in October 2005, at the FeriaChilena Del Libro in Santiago Centro. This book was Pérez-Reverte´s first attempt at authorship, written in1983. It is set in Andalucia, Spain in the year 1808, in the midst of the Peninsular War, also known as the Spanish War of Independence, in which France fought against Spain, Great Britain and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The novel follows the exploits of Fredric Glüntz, a young, 19 year-old sub-lieutenant in Napoleon´s vaunted light cavalry, specifically, in the 4th Regimento de Húsares, at the time posted to Spain and about ready to engage the forces of both the Spanish army as well as the much-feared partisans known as guerrilleros (the English word for partisan fighters, or guerillas came from these very fighters).

Before I left on this current trip I could recall having been fairly blown away by how this book unfolded when I first read it back in 2005, and decided that I´d like to perhaps read it again with an eye towards perhaps someday translating it into English, so I tucked it away in my suitcase along with Babel´s Red Cavalry, to be read again, here in El Tabo.

Actually, I did a bit of fact checking on the works of Pérez-Reverte to see if in fact an English translation of El Húsar indeed exists, and my preliminary search came up fairly inconclusive. I did learn that the 2005 Spanish edition I was reading had gone out of print, but also learned that the author had originally refused to let any of his works be translated into English, although he had later allowed several of his works to be translated, including his famous The Fencing Master and Flanders Panel (which won France´s Grand Prize for Dectective Literature). Apparently his most popular book to date, Captain Alartriste, has not been translated, but I found mention of an English translation of El Húsar, but no availability whatsoever.

Anyway, the story follows sub-lieutenant Glüntz, an idealistic new hussar in the ranks, as he and his companios prepare for a major battle on the fields of Andalucia. The author applies painstaking detail in his descriptions of the cavalrymen, their uniforms and equipment, and while he concentrates on Glüntz, he also spends significant time developing his companions, especially his best friend, another sub-lieutenant, Michel de Bourmont. The story evolves through the course of one day, starting at before daybreak and moving forward towards the enivatible climactic cavalry charge folowing early skirmishes and concluding with the grim reconciliation of the story in which young Glüntz´s wide-eyed idealism and dreams of the glory to be gained in this war in service to the Emperor is utterly crushed beneath the sheer horror of the actual combat. I cannot begin to replicate the power of Pérez-Reverte´s narrative but will say that it comes at you like a sledge hammer, hitting with full force as the story unfolds. The reviews I read regarding this extraordinary first effort by Pérez-Reverte state that this is far from his best work, but the seeds of the greatness that came to flower in The Fencing Master and in Captain Alartriste are fully contained within the pages of El Húsar. If I do not go forward to attempt to translate this work, I will certainly want to follow up this second read by obtaining at least the above two novels for future reading.

Red Cavalry. by Isaac Babel (Original Russian translated into English by Peter Constantine)

Isaac Babel was born in Odessa in 1894. He started writing in 1916, although his primary output came in the years 1923-1924. His basic genre in all of his writings appears to have been the short story, which is where his "Red Cavalry" stories all fit. This series of stories was based on Babel´s impressions of the 1920 Soviet military campaign against Poland by the Red army led by GeneralBudyonny (later to become a Marshall of the Soviet Union). Babel participated in this campaign, which was largely fought on the plains of Volhynia (now straddling the present Polish-Ukranian border). In late May of 1920, the First Cavalry of the Red Army rode into that province as part of the Soviet Government´s first foreign offensive, aimed at spreading the doctrine of World Revolution to Poland first, then to Europe and finally to the entire world.

Babel´s stories are loosely linked together cobble together a number of stories which follow the initial successes of this offensive in the summer of 1920 on through the increasingly bitter defeats which led to the Soviet retreat that autumn. The stories were originally published in various magazines and newspapers between 1923 and 1926, and according to the introduction to the present edition, the reading public "was torn between delight at Babel´s potent new literary voice and the horror at the brutality portrayed in the stories," which were actually a blend of fiction and fact.

The grim quality of Babel´s literary genius is evident in story after story. Consider the line, "The orange sun is rolling across the sky like a severed head," which comes from the first story, entitled "Crossing the River Zbrucz"; or this, from "Dolgushov´s Death": "The POles had advanced to the forest about three versts away from us, and set up their machine gunssomewhere nearby. Flying bullets whimper and yelp; their lament has reached an unbearable pitch. The bullets plunge into the earth and writhe, quaking with impatience."

Actually, the stories tell a lot more than about that ugly little war. They also paint a valuable picture of what must have been a dynamic mix of cultures - Jewish, Ukranian, Polish and Russian in that part of Eastern Europe in 1920. And sometimes the stories are laced with a rather engaging form of gallows humor which is hard to resist appreciating. I would dearly like to insert one story called "Konkin" in its entirety here, but I think I might run into copyright problems. So in that regard, I will simply post a quick excerpt:

"Me and Sprika Zabuty ended up riding off a ways from the forest. We look - and yes, two and two does make four! - no less than a hundred and fifty paces away, we see a dust cloud which is either the staff or the cavalry transport. If it´s the staff - that´s great, if it´s the cavalry transport - thats even better! The boy´s tattered clothes hung in rags, their shirts barely covering their manhood.

"Zabuty!" I yell over toSprika, telling him he´s a son of a whore, that his mother is a you-know-what, or whatever (I leave this part up to you, as you´re the official orator here). Isn´t that their staff that´s riding off there?"

"You can bet your life it´s their staff!" Sprika yells back. "The only thing is, we´re two and they´re eight!"

"Let´s go for it, Sprika!" I shout. "Either way, I´m going to hurl some mud at their chasubles! Let´s go die for a pickle and World Revolution!"

Anyway, as the book´s notes remind us, the Soviet Union wanted to forget this disastrous campaign. Babel´s Red Cavalry stories, however kept the fiasco in the public eye in both the Soviet Union and abroad, ever since. Sadly for Babel, his work eventually came to be deemed politically incorrect at a time when Stalin´s purges were ravaging Russian culture. On May 15, 1939, agents of the Soviet secret police burst into Babel´s house and arrested him. In the process, they also gathered up many stacks of unpublished documents in his posession. Immediately he was to become a non-person, his name blotted out and removed from official publications. They nexecuted him in 1940. It took until 1954 for his name to finally become officially exonerated, but for a long time thereafter, his books were only published in censored form for many more years. Now his reputation has recovered significantly, and his writings are again being praised, both inside and outside of Russia. The small picture, above is a photograph of Isaac Babel.

So there you have it, for this trip. Today is my last day here in El Tabo. MY friends Diego and Luisa have invited me to enjoy a final dinner together with them and two of thier workers, Orlando (the guitar player) and Carlos. The food´s on them, while I am obliged to provide the wine...

COOL AND CLOUDY ON THE CENTRAL CHILEAN COAST

2009-01-05T08:00:00.000-08:00

The weather since my arrival here on the central Chilean coast on New Year´s Eve has been mostly cool and cloudy - more typical to the December weather patterns than the usual January sunshine. That´s not been a problem for me, but no doubt it has meant a disappointing weekend for many vacationers from Santiago, although they seem intent to make the best of it regardless.

The map I have provided here shows the central coast between Valparaiso to the north and San Antonio to the south. If you click on it you will be able to see a larger version, and you will be able to see exactly where I am: El Tabo, just below the center of the map on the coastal road from Algarrobo and El Quisco to Cartagena and San Antonio.

Here is a larger map which shows the various routes one can take from Santiago to reach the central coastal region. My usual route heads west from Santiago on the Costanera Norte, which feeds into Highway No. 68 just past the international airport on the extreme west of the city. I follow that route through the two major tunnels (Lo Prado and Tunel Zapata) to the turnoff just east of Casablanca, whyich is signed to Algarrobo0 but which I turn off of on the side route to Tortoral, a small rural village. That route leads me directly into Isla Negra, the famous site of the poet Pablo Neruda´s famous coastal home, which is only a couple of kilometers north of El Tabo.

Anyway, there is not much happening here today, except that I am spending plenty of time reading and taking in the views overlooking the South Pacific.. In my next post I will venture to give some small reviews of my beach front summer reading. Chao...

THE NEW FACE OF LAS SIETE CABAÑAS

2009-01-04T07:31:00.000-08:00

Here it is January 4th and my planned stay here at El Tabo´s Las Siete Cabañas is already half over. Time flies when you don´t have very much of it, and this time, a good portion of that time has been consumed while construction workers have been pounding and hammering away.

The top pictures show cabaña no.4 and no.5 (the one I´m staying in) with new rough wood exterior siding as well as one photo showing the view overlooking the residential zone of El Tabo as seen from the unfinished swimming pool.

The next series of pictures show the rather striking pavilion that was recently finished. It was under the roof of the pavilion where we celebrated New Year´s with a midnight feast.

Here is a photo of the unfinished swimming pool and next to it is a picture of four new mini-cabañas, which will likely be used by weekend tourists. They are tiny (one room, plus bath) and do not posess kitchens like the larger, free-standing cabañas have.

Actually my own cabaña was still in need of work when I moved in on New Year´s Eve. Therer were several windows that were missing panes of glass, and Diego covered these with a temporary covering of plastic sheeting. This morning I finally got my final glass panes installed - in the bathroom.

Now I don´t know if I mentioned this in my last post, but once again, I have been plagued by fleas, which no doubt came from that pesky little dog El Negro and his partner in crime, Lorenzo. Diego says that both dogs are again infested with the little buggers, and no doubt the dogs had been able to freely enter the cabañas at will while the workers were busy re-doing the kitchen and bathroom in cabaña no. 5 before my arrival. I recall that El Negro really liked to climb up to sit on the living room easy chairs last year before I banished him. Anyway, the bites are already fairly numerous, and they itch like hell.

So yesterday I went into town and bought a cannister of Raid, and returned to spray down the cabaña. And during my absence, Diego had a couple of his workers spray insecticide around the approaches to the cabaña. Even so, I think I had a few new bites when I woke up, so I stripped the bed and sprayed that as well. Hopefully that will take care of the problem, but you never know. As I recall from last year, when I had this same problem, these bites take some time to stop itching, so I suppose that I´ll still be feeling some of that when I fly home on the evening of January 13th. Que mala suerte!

BACK IN CHILE ONCE AGAIN

2009-01-02T06:32:00.000-08:00

I Know, New Year´s has already come and gone, and only now I am getting to the point of posting my first blog entry while on this new but relativels short visit to Chile. Figure that the delay was necessary because once my long and tiring flight landed in Santiago, ending 17 hours of near non-stop travel, things quickly became complicated. To begin with, my friend/agent Andres has had to deal with some dramatic changes in his own business and life, largely due to the difficult economy (yes, Chile is suffering too).

He had to close down his office in Santiago Centro (the Lys Rent-A-Car office on Miraflores) and also found himself a much smaller apartment out in the non-tourist urban high-rise barrio of Vitacura. He consolidated his car rental business (after selling off all of his cars) into a partnership with a friend who runs another car rental business, ironically-named "Free Rent-A-Car." Of course, the cars aren´t free...don´t ask me why the name...

The two pictures on the right present a couple of views of the urban canyons of the high-rise district in Santiago´s barrio Vitacura, and were taken from the north-facing window of Andres´apartment.

My first night in Chile was spent in that apartment, and since Andres had to work in the afternoon, I too advantage of the solitude afforded by being left alone in his apartment to sleep for most of the afternoon. That evening, however, I went with Andres to pick up his three kids and we came back to the apartment where he staged a small welcoming party for me with lots of party nibbles and of course, Andres´very special recipie for pisco sour. His girlfriend Cecilia (better known as "Chica") came by and joined the gathering.

The next day (December 31) I got my rental car from "Free" Rent-A-Car and made my way onto the Costanera Norte, which is the commuter highway that runs under the Rio Mapocho and through Santiago Centro to Carretera No. 68, which leads past the airport on the west side of the metropolis and then through a pair of tunnels en route to the coast and the cities of Valparaiso and Viña Del Mar. Of course Ruta 68 is a busy highway on most days, but this was the day of New Year´s Eve, and hordes of Santiaguenos were on the road driving out to Valparaiso for the massive New Year´s celebrations there. The traffic reminded me of the worst excesses of the L.A. Freeways on any given Friday afternoon, but of course, these Chilean highways aren´t free...at regular intervals there are mandatory toll booths, in Chilean, known as Plazas de Peaje, where all vehicles are obligated to pass through and pay the road tolls. Of course, these toll stops are common throughout the major improved Chilean highway system, and usually the stop to pay is a fairly seamless excercise. But on this day, it almost reminded me of a crowded U.S. customs station on the Mexican border.

Luckily I only had to pass through two of these rather significant impediments before taking the turnoff to Algarrobo, a decent two-lane highway with many fewer cars. The turn left to the pueblito of El Tortoral followed quickly, and soon I was passing through Isla Negra and again past the Casa de Neruda and finally, El Tabo and my digs at Las Siete Cabañas. There´s a picture of the view from my good old Cabaña No. 5, where I once again settled in, just like a year ago, but this time, for only a stay of eight days, and not four weeks.

My reunion with Diego and Luisa and their two teenage kids, Diego hijo and Conie, was warm and wonderful. We all were glad that I had returned for an encore visit (my third stay here) and after I´d gone into El Tabo Centro to get groceries, we go9t together for one of Luisa´s fine almuerzos (lunch).

For New Year´s, we got together again under the new outdoor pavilion roof and had a marvelous cena (dinner) at midnight while watching the fireworks over Bahía Cartagena to the south. Once we´d finished our meal we kept on, dancing and partying far into the wee hours of the morning, which is the custom here on the Chilean coast. For many Chileans, the drinking and making merry over New Year´s continues until dawn, but I could only make it to 4:30 a.m. before I had to excuse myself to drag myself back to my cabin where I collapsed into bed for a ragged sleep.

You can imagine that New Year´s Day for me didn´t amount to much. It didn´t for Diego and Luisa either, as everyone pretty much slept through the morning ans then spent the afternoon quietly resting up for the onset of 2009.

In my next post I will say a bit about all of the construction going on here at Las Siete Cabañas, which is in the midst of a major facelift and overhaul. Hopefully, I)´ll get that posted tomorrow. Until then, I´ll wish all who visit here a Feliz Año Nuevo, or a Happy New Year!

A NEW TRIP TO SOUTH AMERICA

2008-12-23T10:47:00.000-08:00

That's right, once again I go to South America...and considering that this will be my fifth trip down there in six years I'd have to admit that I seem to be hooked on the place. As usual, with the surroundings here enveloped in the typical cold and snow of late December, the knowl;edge that summer has just begun in the lands below the equator always seems to drive my desire to return.

But now there is something else that drives me, and that is the accumulated friendships I have made in Chile and Argentina over the course of my previous four adventure journeys. Of course, my arrival will be welcomed as it always has been in the past by my good friend and agent in Santiago, Andres Gabor, who will be putting me up in that great city and will once again supply me with a decent rental vehicle. Then I plan to hit the road - only a short drive this time - to go back out to the coast of the South Pacific to stay once again in Cabaña Numero 5, at Las Siete Cabañas in El Tabo, once again reunited with my friends Diego and Luisa, their two kids Diego Jr. and Connie, and (I suspect) the dogs El Negro and Lorenzo...

Sadly however, the current severe economic recession has eaten into my financial reserves with a vengeance, leaving me with less to travel on, so I have forced myself to limit this trip to a mere two weeks in Chile - eight days on the coast and six days in Santiago. But at least I can "service" my South American obsession to some degree, and hopefully I can plan a more ambitious trip for a year from now.

Speaking of it as an obsession has always made me speculate as to how long it has been a part of me, and I confess that a part of me has always felt a yearning to wander down there and go exploring. I have saved an old photo that my father took of me - which I believe was taken when I was just in the 7th grade. It shows me putting the finishing touches on a rather striking salt-relief map of South America which was a project for my social studies class. I can remember how much care and diligence I put into making that map, and I also recall how much pride I took in the finished project. Here you can take a look at that old picture..

Anyway, I will be flying out of Salt Lake City on Monday, December 29. The first leg of the journey will put me down in Atlanta, where I will change planes and make the overnight non-stop flight to Santiago, Chile. My scheduled arrival will be in the morning of December 30. I will overnight with Andres and then the next day take a rental car, a Fiat, I believe, and drive out to El Tabo and settle in - in time, I figure, to celebrate New Year's with Diego and his family, and watch the fireworks at Midnight over the bay to the south as the residents of the port of San Antonio celebrate the advent of 2009.

Then after enjoying a week's worth of beachcombing, reading and just relaxing, I will drive back into Santiago to hang out with Andres and his family and to take in the sights and the food in the big city before my return flight leaves on the evening of January 13th. The return should get me back to Salt Lake City at about 10:30 a.m. on the 14th - which will give me plenty of time to drive home to Nevada.

So there it is. I encourage you all to visit this blog whenever you wish during my absence as I will again try to post regular updates as to my whereabouts and what I am up to...so you can vicariously come along with me!

FAREWELL TO FRIENDS, FAREWELL TO THE COAST

2008-01-16T07:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I said my farewells to my friends Diego and Luisa Savignone, who are the caretakers who run the quiet and peaceful little collection of cabins known as Las Siete Cabañas on the central Chilean Pacific coast at El Tabo, the modest-sized resort hamlet just south of Neruda´s Isla Negra and due west of Santiago. It was the end of practically four full weeks of rest and relaxation for yours truly, and a sad moment for all as we bid adieu before my final drive into Santiago. During that time, I´d enjoyed the full gamut of the famous Chilean hospitality from these two wonderful hosts, especially the many good times spent chatting, joking and laughing over morning coffee, during Luisa´s famous almuerzos (lunches), or just out and about on the grounds of Las Siete Cabañas.

It was also my final goodbye to that little dog, El Negro, as well as to Diego and Luisa´s daughter Connie and her boyfriend Bastien, and goodbye to my own Cabaña No. 5, which had been my home for the entire time since my arrival on December 19th. Unfortunately, I was not able to take a last look out to view the waves crashing on the long sandy beach belowthe cabañas, because the morning fog was so thick yesterday morning. But that´s okay.

I did spend a bit more time with Luisa, as she took advantage of my return to Santiago to hitch a ride along with me for free so that she could see a doctor about some muscle problems in her hand. She rode along with me as far as my friend Andres´ office here in Santiago Centro, from where she took one of the city buses to her son Alvaro´s apartment, where she is currently staying until Friday.

So today I am ensconced here in Santiago, taking full advantage of my full access to the web on one of the computers here in the offices of Andres´ businesses, ChileCellRent, Lys Rent-A-Car and AbsolutChile, his travel agency. It looks as if my last few days here, staying in one of Andres´ apartments over on Calle Mosqueto (on the other side of the block here in Santiago Centro) will be peaceful and completely uneventful as I enjoy the food, sights and sounds of the Chilean capitol during the lingering days before my flight back to the USA leaves on Saturday night. Whether or not I will be posting anything more here on the blog before my departure will depend on if, for some reason, something worthy of writing about occurs. But I have my doubts.

It´s been a different sort of trip, of course, largely thanks to that nasty explosion that happened back on December 11th. If that had not happened, I´d have gone forward from San Pedro de Atacama and crossed the cordillera into Argentina to experience whatever sort of adventures I´ll never know of now. But I would not have been able to spend such quality time with such fine people as Diego and Luisa Savignone. Memories of that time spent will stay with me forever, and will certainly stand out as the highlight of this, my fourth visit to South America.

RUNNING OUT THE CLOCK

2008-01-09T06:50:00.000-08:00

Here on the central Chilean coast, time passes by slowly, defined mostly by the ebb and flow of tourists coming out to spend a few days relaxing on the beach, usually for a well-deserved break from the stresses of an urban life in the metropolis of Santiago, which is only a couple of hours drive inland from this modest-sized resort town of El Tabo.
But for yours truly, this stay has been something a bit different. By the time I will finally depart from here on my final return to Santiago on the 15th of January, I will have spent the better part of a full month (four weeks) enjoying the peace and quiet of my rented cabaña here at "Las 7 Cabañas."
Now I suppose that some people might think I´ve retreated from the original expressed intent of going off on another adventure, and they´re right. But when one takes a look at the way things are here currently, especially in regards to the costs involved in continuing to drive great distances across the length or breadth of the so-called "Southern Cone" of South America, then the picture takes on a different hue.
One factor which really stands out in my mind has been the dramatic slide in the value of the U.S. dollar in relation to the Chilean peso. When I came here for the first time, in November 2002, one dollar could buy 735 Chilean pesos. Now, as of this morning´s currency exchange rate, a dollar will only get you 487 pesos, and that´s down from the 505 pesos it could buy back when I arrived here in late November, 2007. A big reason for this fall has been the continued rise in the price of copper (which just went up by a stunning 5% at the beginning of this week), and Chile is just about the world´s leading producer of copper, which is one reason why Chile´s economy is surging. Add to that the whole myriad of factors which are depressing the value of the dollar, and you can see that making a trip like this has become a very expensive proposition.
Another factor has been the stunningly steep price for gasoline here, as elsewhere. When I started out on my drive northward from Santiago back on the 1st of December, I immediately was shocked at the much higher price for fuel from what it had been back during my last trip of February-March 2007. Now, as most of you know, my plan had been to drive north as far as San Pedro de Atacama and then to cross the frontier into Argentina, and then work my way gradually back south. Well, the explosion in the pickup truck on December 11th effectively ended that plan, but I still had a long way to drive - to get back to Santiago by retracing my steps instead of touring through NW Argentina. What I am saying is that even though I didn´t do Argentina, I still consumed the gas. The long drive up to San Pedro and back (3600 km, or about 2232 miles) cost me a total of 243,550 Chilean pesos. Converting that to U.S. currency at the 500 pesos per dollar rate, that´s $487 dollars spent just for gas, to travel that distance. And if you are wondering, my calculations, converting pesos to dollars and liters to gallons, indicate that my average price for gas was a stunning $5.33/gallon. To me, those are fairly sobering figures to contemplate. . .
Anyway, as I´ve said, for me, the December 11 explosion effectively ended this trip. But I still had over five weeks left until my flight back to the USA was scheduled (and I had a no-change clause in that contract), so my choices were limited to: 1.) buying another ticket entirely, a pricey one-way ticket; or, 2.) make the best of it, and spend as little as possible. In reality, there was only one choice, then. I remembered having enjoyed the tranquility of my two previous stays here in El Tabo, and since I was not wanting to spend oodles of cash for gas nor did I want to encounter any more unexpected setbacks, it was an easy call to return.
And the Savignones (the caretakers here) also had pleasant memories of my previous stays, so they graciously rented me their cabaña no. 5 for approximately four weeks duration. Also, they gave me a price break, giving me the place for the cheaper December rate of 20,000 pesos/day ($40 USD) instead of the standard January rate of 30,000 pesos/day ($60 USD).
As far as most of the time here, I´d say it was a great choice. But there has been one unfortunate development. That little street dog´I´d made friends with, "El Negro," unfortunately had a bad case of pulgas (fleas), and quickly that became a problem for me, too, as some of the buggers climbed off of Negro and started giving me some very itchy bites! I had to get out the Jungle Juice and apply it daily to my torso while at the same time it was necessary to de-bug the cabaña with a strong dose of Raid. Even a bath couldn´t rid poor Negro of his nasty little buggers, so I have had to chase him away whenever he has come around, and if he stops to take a nap on the porch of the cabaña, I get the Raid out and give the porch a thorough dousing. Thankfully, after treating the cabaña and exiling Negro from my premises while also keeping him at a distance, I am no longer being bitten. It´s sad, because he is such a friendly little dog, but the fact of the matter is, you do what you have to do.
Anyway, regardless of the fact that I´ve had to stop being friendly with little Negro, I am continuing to enjoy this time here. But there´s only six nights more before I return to Santiago and spend a final few days there before the flight home. So it is.

BOOKS ON THE BEACH: THIS TRIP´S MOST NOTABLE TITLES

2008-01-02T06:58:00.000-08:00

As usual, when I am on an extended South American road trip like this, I do a lot of reading. And my expressed purpose for this post will be to highlight some of the books which have caught my attention and as such, have captured my imagination.
But before I get into that, I just want to say that my days spent here in El Tabo have been, despite the fact that I am no longer "touring" as in previous trips down here, have been most rewarding. And the rewards have been of a different sort - also because on the surface it might appear as if I´ve simply given up and gone off to do beachcombing instead of going on with my exploring...
These rewards have come from my ongoing daily contact with the Savignone family, Diego and Luisa, and their children Diego (the younger) and Constanza, aka "Connie," as well as from Luisa´s extended family who joined us for a real whopper of a New Year´s Eve celebration. These people have become very good friends, and I am amazed now at how much my Spanish-speaking abilities have grown through my daily contacts with them all. So in addition to the friendship, that´s a real reward - something to treasure. But it will certainly require me to try to find a way to keep that broadened Spanish ability nurtured, which won´t exactly be easy once I am back in the United States.
But now, on to the books. The first one I want to speak of actually was a gift - given to me by the younger Diego Savignone upon his return from an end-of-school-year trip to Brazil. In my previous stops in El Tabo I´ve always gotten into some lintersting and lively discussions with this bright young man, and these discussions have often reached into the realms of intellectual discussions, at least as far as my limited Spanish would allow. But this time we really got to talking, and the topic quickly turned into a discussion of great Latin American writers, and it eventually became a discussion about the work of the amazing Argentine author, Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). Eventually, Diego said to me, "Tio, I have a book for you to read. It is written by a Chileño, a fellow named Waldemar Verdugo, entitled En Voz de Borges (which would translate roughly to "Borges in his own Words") The above picture shows the cover of this book, and the small image shows the book´s author, Verdugo, reading to Borges himself, who in his later years was quite blind.
Yes, in his later years Borges went blind, in sort of the same ironic way that the great composer Beethoven went deaf. That, of course, is a fact, but it is not the subject of this remarkable little book. Verdugo had the good fortune to get to know Borges fairly well back in the 1970´s, and he later gathered together the materials for this unique biographical revelation of the life and work of this cerebral Argentine writer and got it published, initially in Mexico in 1981, and finally, re-published in 2006 in Chile. The book delves deeply into the mind of Borges while at the same time it examines his various writings. As such, it could be seen as the perfect Borges primer for anyone interested in the poetry, stories and essays that he wrote during his lifetime, but even more than that, it opens up for us a very precious window into what exactly made Borges become the visionary writer who is today so revered in literary circles, in Latin America and in the world at large.
Verdugo brings us close to the great author´s prime influences, and elaborates on these various people, movements and subjects so that the reader can have a much better idea of the man Jorge Luis Borges. One of the people most influential on Borges had been his father, who early on had impressed upon his son the idea that, "...of all the diverse instruments created by man, the most astonishing one has been, beyond a doubt, the book. The others have been simply extensions of the body. The microscope and telescope are extensions of our vision; the telephone is an extension of our voice; the wheel an extension of our feet; the shovel and the plow are extensions of our arms...but the book is quite another thing, the book is an extension of our memory and our imagination." If time and space would permit, I would go on with the rest of that quote, but here in a cyber café time is money, and I do expect that I will need to move on as well to try to cover some other books.
But still on the Borges book, Verdugo goes into other influences, including Argentina and its culture, including the city of Buenos Aires, its poor neighborhoodsand their glorious offspring, the tango; 0ther Argentine authors and publishers, including Alfonso Reyes, Aldofo Bioy Casares (who collaborated with Borges for a time), Victoria Ocampo and others. He also delves into the books that so moved Borges, such as Dante´s Divine Comedy as well as the works of scores of other great authors, many of whose works were available to Borges at a very young age in his father´s massive library.
The book looks at how Borges worked for a time as a film critic in order to earn his daily bread, and how deeply enchanted he had become with the actress Greta Garbo and the films she had made, while he came to believe that the "Western" genre of film was something of this era´s real epic art form, such as the fabled greek epics from Homer and other writers in ancient times because the Westerns brough back the concept of the "hero," which Borges felt had been an essential literary device which had been largely abandoned by contemporary writers.
And in that vein, Borges eschewed much of the current writing from many authors who sought to write in deep, dark, and largely obscure modes, "forgetting that clarity, besides being a form of the truth, represents a courtesy to the reader."
Verdugo also goes deeply into Borges´views of life, loove, women, politics and all manner of similar essential parts of this life, but now I must reconsider my space and time and conclude by saying that I found the book to be almost electric in its imagery, and as such, I simply devoured it. It was (and is) a very special gift from young Diego.
Now another book I have been reading (I´m not finished yet) has been a veritable epic of Russian Literature: Life and Fate, by Vasily Grossman (1905-1964). Grossman was a Russian Jew who was one of the greatest Soviet war correspondents during World War II, covering both the battle of Stalingrad and the battle of Berlin. After the war, he molded his intimate experiences at the front into this book, which Verlyn Klinkenborg of the New York Times has described as being "arguably the greatest Russian novel of the 20th century."
Now I could go on and recount the drift of this massive (871 pages) work in my own words, but I think that the summary on the back cover of the New York Review Of Books edition will give a much more concise overview:
"A book judged so dangerous in the Soviet Union that not only the manuscript but the ribbons on which it had been typed were confiscated by the state, Life and Fate is an epic tale of World War II and a profound reckoning with the dark forces that dominated the twentieth century. Interweaving a transfixing account of the battle of Stalingrad with the story of a single middle-class family, the Shaposhnikovs, scattered by fortune from Germany to Siberia, Vasily Grossman fashions an immense, intricately detailed tapestry depicting a time of almost unimaginable horror and even stranger hope. Life and Fate juxtaposes bedrooms and sniper´s nests, scientific laboratories and the Gulag, taking us deep into the hearts and minds of characters ranging from a boy on his way to the gas chambers to Hitler and Stalin themselves. This novel of unsparing realism and visionary moral intensity is one of the supreme achievements of modern Russian literature."
It is a work often compared to Chekhov, and bears a structure loosely based on Tolstoy´s War and Peace. What I am feeling as I move towards the conclusion is a powerful feeling that I am in the midst of reading a work of clear genius - filled with great warmth and power.
As I close out this post, I would at least like to mention one other book which I´ve read on this trip, and that is Noam Chomsky´s most current offering, entitled What We Say Goes, which is a scathing visionary look at American foreign policy and how successive U.S. governments have seen fit to throw their weight around the entire planet, as if it belonged to the USA. It is a highly disturbing and sobering essay, but it so enthralled me that I found myself reading it twice, before giving my copy away to my friend and agent in Santiago, Andres Gabor.

SETTLING IN ON THE CENTRAL CHILEAN COAST

2007-12-28T07:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went into the port of San Antonio, Chile with my friend Diego Savignone, who is also the caretaker of Las 7 Cabañas where I am staying in El Tabo here on the central Chilean coast. Our purpose was to buy some fresh fish right off of the docks for upcoming meals. The image above shows some of ther activity going on yesterday on the dock that extends out from the main fish market there in San Antonio, with a freighter of South Korean registry in the background.
As I´ve been saying, of late I have largely come to eschew the idea of going out on another long, extended drive into another part of this continent, and now I have come to the decision that even going on some smaller excursions from this rather stable base on the shores of the South Pacific would most likely just be excercising an option that now seems to be an unnecessary use of funds and energy while at the same time departing from a decidedly good thing which I´ve found right here.
So what all that means is that I like it here, and after all, this is supposed to be a vacation and not something meant to be unsettled or stressful. So, I´ve talked to Diego and his wife Luisa about extending my stay at Las 7 Cabañas in El Tabo right up until 15 or 16 January when I am supposed to be bringing my rented 4x4 pickup truck back to Andrés and his company there in Santiago. They are quite happy with having me stick around, as they have come to really enjoy my presence, and have welcomed me into their home as sort of part of their extended family. And their two kids have started to call me "Tio," which is Spanish for uncle.
It is the sort of thing where I´ve come around to understand that there really is no chance, in the scant three weeks I have left to be able to find anything better than what I´ve got right now, and with the heavy tourist season set to begin immediately following New Year´s, I´ve decided it is in my best interests to simply stay put, and enjoy where I am.
Watch for a new post in a day or two about some rather rewarding reading I´ve been doing here in my digs in El Tabo. Until then, I´ll say chao, amigos.

LA IGLESIA EN EL CAMPO

2007-12-24T07:20:00.000-08:00

Yep, that´s "La Iglesia en el Campo," or The Church in the Field, in English. This time I´m using the Spanish, because I think it has a much better sound to it. Back on Saturday, my friends Diego and Luisa Savignone, the caretakers of this group of oceanside cabañas I´m staying at, invited me to a big family reunion at the very impressive country estate their family owns at an agricultural community known as Codigua, which is about 80 kilometers from here, inland from the sea and about 20 kilometers from the agricultural town of Melipilla (80 km SW of Santiago). To say that this church, located out in a pasture, and with no congregation whatsoever, is an anomaly is an understatement. But what an impression it had on me when I first saw it!
Actually, the church is an exact replica of another church which exists on the Chilean island of Chiloé, about 1200 kilometers south of this estate, where this copy was built six years ago.
I am including photos of the interior of the church as well as several views of the estate, to give you a better idea of this beautiful and quite pastoral place.

This picture to the right shows the main house on the estate as viewed from the church, complete with a pasture full of horses whose owners pay to have grazing rights in these pastures.

Here are some images of the interior of the church, which show that the structure´s interior has also been replicated with an eye towards accuracy, right down to the posting of the Stations of ther Cross on the interior walls. The dark photo on the right was taken on the upper level, showing the ladder that leads up into the steeple (sorry, no church bell, however).

The image to the right shows the altar and some of the pews.

The above image shows Diego at the church, and he told me that in the winter months when there is little work at the cabañas, he spends quite a bit of time down here at Codigua, working on maintenance projects to preserve both the church and also the main ranch house as well as the guest house (seen below and to the right) and the rest of the estate.

Now, I have posted many of these pictures in "small" size in order to get them onto the blog with a minimal use of space. Remember, you can click on any one of them to view a larger image.

This last image I´ve posted here is of the pond which is also a part of the estate. There are ducks that have nests there, and the waters are stocked with trout as well.

Anyway, Saturday was a special day spent with Diego and Luisa and their family. Ther almuerzo was superb, even though everybody ate too much. But the real joy for that day was discovering such a beautiful and peaceful place, and enjoying it in such good company.

RELAXING ON THE COAST AT EL TABO

2007-12-20T07:50:00.000-08:00

After spending five idle days in Santiago, I finally resumed my travels, albeit on a much less ambitious course. To be specific, I drove more or less due west, in a return to the rustic cabins at El Tabo where I had spent time at the end of my trip last March. The resort is called "Las 7 Cabañas," and is located about one kilometer south of the center of town of El Tabo, and only a few kilometers from Pablo Neruda´s famous ocean-front home at Isla Negra. If you go back through my archives to my posts from March 2007, you will see images I´d taken at the Neruda compound.
Anyway, the above picture shows cabaña No. 5, which I am currently occupying. The big windows (my bedroom windows) look out upon a variety of dwellings down below the slope

and feature a superb view of the South Pacific.

In keeping with my resolution to cut back on driving and to spend more time relaxing and taking in wherever I am at, I´ve booked myself into this place through the holidays, with my scheduled departure for points south down the Chilean coast set for January 3, 2008. I expect that this will be a time for introspection and reflection. I´ve already gone for one really nice beach walk, an activity I am assuming will be part of my daily routine as I while away the days between now and the New Year.

The following pair of images hopefully will give you a little better impression of this quiet place. Incidentally, I also stayed here at the start of my 2005 Chile-Argentina trip, which was when i first found these cabañas. But during my visit last March, I´d learned that the place was up for sale; and now the caretakers have informed me that it has, in fact, been sold, and that the new owners have decided to transform it into a spa. At the end of this year´s tourist season in march, they plan to raze the cabaña I am occupying as well as cabaña No. 4, and in their place they are planning to erect a new "dormitory" which will become the primary residence for business executives and other upwardly-mobile types whom they intend to target at their principal clientele. The cabaña below mine, No.6, will be gutted and turned into a massage parlor, and the cabaña that is currently functioning as the residence of the caretakers as well as the office will be completely remodeled and used for other spa-related functions. The caretakers will remain, but will move into the cabaña up by the coastal highway. Naturally, from my point of view, these changes are a big disappointment, because it means that it is the end of this place as I´ve known it. Perhaps the one good thing about "progress" is that it follows the dictum that nothing stays the same; and all things must pass.

So I am looking at this time here in El Tabo as being my opportunity to enjoy this place for one final time.

Now, I need to introduce to all who visit this blog to my newest friend - a mellow little Chilean street dog who has taken up semi-residence here at Las 7 Cabañas and goes by the name of "El Negro."

El Negro showed up at my cabin door at about 8 p.m. last night and immediately took a liking to me, hanging around until I finally turned out the lights at 1 a.m.. But even then he didn´t want to leave, choosing to scratch at the door until i let him back in. Well, I turned the lights back out and El Negro came up to my bed and tried to jump up on it. I didn´t let him, and he proceeded to set himself up to sleep on one of the chairs in the living room, where he still was this morning. While I cooked my breakfast, I gave him some bread and cheese, as well as a slice of turkey sandwich meat, which he really loved. Actually, he has become fairly inseparable from me, as he joined me for my morning beach walk, and is currently waiting for me to re-emerge from the caretaker´s cabaña where I am writing this post. So I´d figured I´d be experiencing some relaxing solitude here at this time, but it appears that this time around, I won´t really be alone, with my little pal, El Negro, keeping me company.

ASSESSING THIS TRIP AND FIGURING OUT WHAT´S NEXT

2007-12-17T07:05:00.000-08:00

Yep, that´s a map of central Chile, borrowed some time ago from the website of Turistel, which is no doubt the foremost Chilean publisher of tour guides for the country. I´ve posted it here because it illustrates where I will soon be going once I finally take my leave of the capitol city and venture out again on the road.
Since I finished my "forced march" drive down from San Pedro de Atacama following that very unfortunate explosion inside the pickup truck, I´ve been doing quite a bit of thinking about what to do next. Part of the task has been to make a study of the current realities I´m facing, and that includes looking at my costs so far. When I left Santiago back on the first of the month, I kept note of my gas purchases, and it turns out that the drive up to San Pedro and back cost me nearly $500 USD. Gasoline, as some of you know, is quite expensive in Chile, with the rates for the "regular," or 93 octane running between roughly 625 and 670 Chilean Pesos per liter, depending a number of factors. When you convert liters to US gallons and pesos to dollars, in my case, and then figure out the "average" price I paid for that run up to the north and then back, it came to about $5.33 USD per US gallon. And you thought YOUR gas prices were high!
Realizing that I spent nearly $500 for gas to drive that distance in a period of only two weeks is really kind of humbling. Add to that my own sudden aversion to spending so much of my travel money on fuel and so much of my valuable time left on this adventure behind the wheel, and I can start to see myself stepping back from going on another extended drive into some as-yet undetermined hinterland but rather opting for something much less ambitious, so that I can spend more time enjoying where I am at and less time getting there.
In more precise language, I am now leaning much more heavily towards heading due west from Santiago, out to the Pacific coast, to try to rent a cozy little cabaña for something like two or three weeks and spend my time reading books, meditating and beachcombing. Another reason why I am thinking this way is that I am still fairly shell-shocked by the explosion and the attendant hassles and fears which arose from that incident, (NOTE: If you are logging into this blog for the first time in a while, I suggest that you go back a couple of posts and start reading from there) and, as my fellow vagabond amigo Roberto told me, "it´s at times like this when the calming sound of ocean waves lapping on the beach is much desired." -Of course (to you, Roberto) those weren´t his exact words, but it was his sentiment, exactly.
So, I have in mind going back to the same little cabañas I´d stayed at back in March of this year, at the end of my last South American trip, just 2 km south of Isla Negra, where the late, great poet Pablo Neruda is buried, on the grounds of his fabled oceanfront home. at the moment, their name escapes me, but that´s not really important. What is was the fact that when I stayed there the last time, the housekeepers told me that they were for sale, and were about to be sold, so now my chief concern is, what changes have the new owners installed, and, considering that the real tourist season hasn´t quite started yet, if they are even open for occupancy?
I guess I´ll see soon enough. But for now, I´m spending another couple of days here in Santiago as the most welcome guest of Andrés in his third floor apartment over on Calle Mosqueto, on the other side of the block from his office, where I stayed this weekend. I´ll post more here soon, so stay tuned.

BACK IN SANTIAGO - WITH A QUICK CLARIFICATION

2007-12-14T08:03:00.000-08:00

I got into Santiago about two hours ago after making the roughly 1700-kilometer drive in little more than two day´s time. Sure, my head is still swirling around in circles regarding the explosion and how that curtailed my trip up north, and I´ll try to get into describing a little of that a bit further on, but right now I need to make a distinction, or if you will, a correction regarding one specific fact: originally I had said that I believed that a fire extinguishor had exploded; in fact, it had been a different sort of cannister - it was one of those emergency "Fix-a-Flat" tire inflators which exploded. Initially all I could tell was that it was some sort of pressurized canned accessory, and looking at the mess of debris I could make out the can shell, some valve apparatus, and a hose mixed in with bits of shrapnel, shredded papers and the drying slime goo that was all over the place. I instinctively figured it was the fire extinguisher. I didn´t even know that the truck was equipped with an emergency tire inflator, and certainly didn´t know it had been placed in the upper glove box, which opens up on the top of the dashboard.
Anyway, I was able to piece together some of the shredded label for that device, and could read that it warned against storing the object anywhere the temperature might reach 50 degrees C., and that the contents were extremely flammable. Considering the latter little bit of information, I guess I should say that I was lucky that the explosion didn´t ignite, and cause the entire vehicle to become engulfed in flames. And I´ve done some rather amateur physics analysis during my drive back to Santiago, and I figured that originally, the can had been packed and pressurized somewhere near sea level. So I figured that driving the vehicle to a significantly higher elevation (San Pedro de Atacama is 2,470 meters, or 8,100 feet above sea level) could cause the critical temperature level to correspondingly drop, as the pressure inside the can increased with the elevation climb.
Anyway, as I drove the long road southward, my mind kept playing over and over the frightening "what if scenario" in which the can didn´t blow until I was off on my drive over the top of the Andean cordillera, the Paso Jama, which reaches a height of 4,600 meters, which is over 15,000 feet, in a couple of places, and the entire ride from San Pedro to Susques, in Argentina, is over 4,000 meters. What if the cannister exploded while I was driving the truck at that elevation, with the blazing hot tropical sun blazing down through the windshield and onto that dashboard? Would I even know what hit me? It would have been like my own personal car bomb blast, a la Gaza or Baghdad, except that it would be happening in a very remote spot. Perhaps it would have caused me to have a heart attack. Maybe my eardrums would be blown out. Shrapnel could have ripped my flesh, and the whole vehicle could have been engulfed in flames, while hurtling down the road at 100 km/hr, careening off the pavement like a real fireball.
So I suppose I should not try to dwell on that scenario so much but rather, to count my blessings instead. I left San Pedro de Atacama with a severely damaged windshield on the day before yesterday. I knew that it would be impossible to drive all the way to Santiago with such impaired vision, and of course, the Carabineros would have stopped me for sure and directed me to the nearest town for repairs.
Well, that´s exactly what I did. I drove straight back down the hill and back to Calama, where I was familiar with the work of the Leo-Loa Parabrisas (Windshield) repair shop. They´d fixed a broken camper shell door for me on my 2005-2006 trip, so I knew that they did good work. And this time was no different from the first time, they had everything changed, a new windshield with all the inspection stickers and registration tags neatly transferred, as well as the all-important auto-toll reader that is required for vehicles using the highways in Santiago. All done in a little over two hours´time. Cost: $170 USD, which I will expect to get reimbursed once Andres has had time to assess the damages.
With the new windshield I was again legal, so I set off from Calama on my concerted drive south, making it back to Taltal before nightfall. Then the next day I figured I´d really have to push myself so as to get into Santiago in prime working-hour time so Andres and his staff could take me in, assess the damages and get me put up for a weekend in the city. So I left Taltal as early as I could, and then proceeded to push south, eventually making it all the way to Los Vilos, a forced drive of nearly 900 kilometers, but only 225 km from Santiago. It meant that today´s drive was a piece of cake.
So now I am soon heading with Andres to lunch and to take my bags to the apartment. I´ll plan to talk to him more about what happens next, and once I know that, I´ll share the news with you.
So that´s it, for now.
Chao.

EXPLOSION IN TRUCK WRECKS JOURNEY

2007-12-11T14:44:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I wrote earlier today that I´d reached the high desert oasis of San Pedro de Atacama, where I was going to stay for three nights before heading up and over the cordillera and into Argentina´s Jujuy Province and a planned stop for Christmas and New Year´s in the town I´ve come to really love on the past two South America trips: Cafayate.

Well, I got myself settled into the nice Hosteria

Incahuasi (I recommend it to any one of you who are considering traveling to this part of South America, especially with the new management) and took a siesta during the heat of the afternoon.

But while I was sleeping, there was an explosion in the truck, which was parked just outside of the Hosteria. I didn´t know it yet, but there was a fire extinguisher that Andres´mechanic had placed in the glove box...and as you can imagine, with all the intense heat from a sun beating down from virtually directly overhead (yes, this is thr tropics here), plus the pent-up pressure from being at high altitude, and BOOM!

It not only blew out the right side of the dashboard (and possibly vaporized the vehicle registration papers) but the force of the blast shattered the right side of the windshield (although it is mostly still intact).

Well, there is no place here in San Pedro where I can effect repairs, but I do know of a place in Calama where I can get the work done at least to replace the windshield - but regarding all the safety and emissions inspection info and the Santiago auto-toll device, all of which are attached to the windshield, I do not know what will happen. Actually, I REALLY do not want to have to go back to Calama. I´m hoping that I can dodge the Carabineros all the way back to Santiago and then drop the rig off with Andrés.

But one thing is for sure, I will have to turn around first thing in the morning and start on my way back to Santiago, to bring the truck back to Andrés, and to see if he can get me some kind of vehicle to salvage something of a trip.

I know, there´s a phrase for this sort of thing...Sh*t happens. Shucks.

JUST ARRIVED IN SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA

2007-12-11T06:27:00.000-08:00

Hola, everyone, this time I`ll just be making a quick post to let you all know that I arrived in the high desert oasis town and hip little tourist trap known as San Pedro de Atacama. Sorry, no pictures yet, as I`ve only been here for less than an hour so far and have not booked myself into any accomodations as of yet.
But I am planning to spend the next three nights here, and then will set out to cross the cordillera into Argentina on the 14th. One thing I would like to say at this moment is that it sure was good to get out of Calama this morning. I have never liked that rather grimy city, which is the main population center here in this corner of Chile with about 125,000 people, many of whom are connected in one way or another with the huge open pit copper mine of Chuquicamata, which lies just a few kilometers north.
Anyway, my drive across the Atacama to Calama went smoothly enough, but there seemed to be a disproportionate number of trucks on the road hauling hazardous materiels, like radioactive materials and sulfiric acid - that sort of thing.
After I get settled in here and snap a few photos of San Pedro, I`ll log back on here and post something before heading out for Argentina.
My best to you all. Cheers, the Atacama Viajero.

HIKING THE CERROS OF LA PUNTILLA

2007-12-09T06:20:00.000-08:00

Three kilometers south of the city of Taltal the rocky promontory known as La Puntilla juts out into the deep blue waters of the South Pacific.

Its rugged permanence defines the southern limits of the Bahía de Taltal,

and its presence helps to preserve the relative tranquility of the Taltal waterfront. From there one can appreciate a unique view of the town itself across the bahía.

Every year, in February, Taltalinos use the chapel and shrine on this promontory for a series of ceremonies in Taltal´s annual Fiesta de la Virgen de Nuestra Señora de Lourdes, a spectacular religious and dance festival that draws hundreds of participants from Antofagasta, Calama, and from other communities in northern Chile, many of whom camp out at La Puntilla during the fiesta.
Pictured at left is the shrine where these ceremonies take place.

Yesterday I made my own pilgrimage out to the promontory, which is currently unoccupied, and hiked around on the cerros (hills) which help to define the character of this small peninsula.

The following images will give you some kind of an idea of the beauty of La Puntilla.

I hiked out about as far as I could and sat down to enjoy a sack lunch I´d packed along, and looked out onto the farthest rocky extension, a guano-covered islet which contains a lively (and loud) sea lion colony, which along the Chilean coast is known as a "loberia." Form my vantage point high above the loberia, I could see several fishing boats operating in the shoals surrounding the islet, and it seemed that their presence was very disturbing to the sea lions, whose agitated barking and growling seemed to be met by similar guttral utterances coming from the fishermen. No doubt there is little love to be found to exist between the two - as the fishermen likely see the sea lions as little more than competition for the fruits of the waters.

This last image looks southward from La Puntilla to the Bahía Tegualda and Punta Verde and also the coast extending further south. Here too, the waters seemed to be alive with fishing boats busily working to extract their harvest of fish for the day.

Last night this little city rocked out with a "Reggaeton" music extravaganza, an event which didn´t even begin until 11 p.m. It then ran through most of the night, finally concluding at close to 5 a.m. this morning. The music was loud enough to be heard throughout the town, with driving, pulsing rhythms undoubtedly thrilling an eager audience of the town´s youth, who could frequently be heard cheering the musicians. I suppose if I were a few years younger, I´d have gone to it, but as it was, I tried my best to sleep through the heavy reggae and rock beats of the performing groups. So I didn´t sleep so well last night, but hey, it was put on as another fundraising event, linked to Chile´s annual "Teletón." (Remember, I´d mentioned Teletón in an earlier post?)

Today is going to be my last day in Taltal, and I am planning to get on the road early following breakfast heading up to the northeast, bound for an overnight in the city of Calama before heading on to the desert oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama.

Incidentally, I am looking into making some changes further on in my journey. After my time in Argentina, I see that I might be able to shorten my route considerably if I re-cross into Chile further south, at Paso del Agua Negra (east of the Río Elqui Valley) instead farther north at Paso San Francisco (east of Copiapó). Consider that this change is highly a highly probable alternative to what I´d originally posted.

NOTE: Perhaps you will have noticed that I´ve altered the layout for this blog page a bit. I did that because for some unexplained reason, My Profile, my site Links, and the Archives of this blog had slipped down to the bottom of the page, even though the template layout6 seemed to show that they should be at the top. Anyway, yesterday I tried all sorts of possible fixes for this problem before I decided I needed to change the layout. Now, at least, visitors can (hopefully) see My Profile when they access the blog, instead of having to scroll down to the bottom. I hope that this fix doesn´t get undone!

Next post will likely not be until San Pedro, so have patience.

Chao, amigos.

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT TALTAL

2007-12-06T06:10:00.000-08:00

So here I am, once again spending some quiet time here in this very tranquil small coastal city of some 15,000 people known as Taltal. Considering the fact that this is one of the few places I´ve spent time in during each of my four trips to Chile ought to say something about what my feelings for this place are. It´s quiet (usually, but not always), laid back (all the time), clean and scenic. Still, my friend/agent in Santiago, Andrés, sort of thinks I am a little off my rocker to "like" sich a place, and choose to spend days and days here rather than in some real tourist centers such as La Serena or Viña del Mar. But hey, people who know me recognize that I eschew crowded places and prefer to spend my time a little bit off of the beaten track.

Such sentiments fit, for me, here in Taltal. Above you can see a view of the nicely-shaded town plaza from Avenida Prat (1st picture); and above, a glimpse of the view northward of the Pacific shoreline looking north from the waterfront park. The structures on the right side of the picture are historic, going back to the late 19th century when Taltal was Chile´s third most important nitrate shipping port.

Anyway, that thougtht brings me to write, as the title of today´s blog reads, "a little bit about Taltal."

Taltal was founded in 1858, originally established as a port that would serve the emerging copper mining industry in Northern Chile. With the treaty of 1874, Chile ceded everything north of the 24th so. parallel to Bolivia, so for a time, Taltal was the northernmost port in Chile. Then, when the possibilities for exploitation of the huge nitrate resources began to change the face of the Atacama Desert and transformed its economy, the Chilean government looked toward developing Taltal as a major port to serve this dynamic new industry. In 1876, with the emergence of scores of "oficinas salitreras" (nitrate mining settlements) in the desert inland, Taltal began to grow exponentially.

Then the War of the Pacific (1879-1884) happened, and Chile was victorious over the combined forces of Bolivia and Peru, wresting territory from both, leaving Bolivia a suddenly landlocked country, which it remains today. The territorial adjustments effectively gave Chile the bulk of the extensive nitrate beds of the Atacama Desert (spoils of war?) and Taltal continued to grow, as the Taltal Railway Company linked the port to the nitrate mining settlements in the interior. Antofagasta and Iquique also grew as a result of the war´s outcome, and the fabled "Nitrate Clippers" sailed across the seas from Europe to load up with this precious raw natural resource to haul it to the world´s markets, to make both fertilizer and munitions.

At the end of the 19th Century, Taltal´s population was approximately 20,000, but that figure would shrink once the lucrative nitrate mining business was crippled by the eventual technological breakthroughs which allowed for the manufacture of synthetic nitrates. But thanks to the fact that the ocean provides for a lively fishing industry and the fact that the interior remains a source for other minerals, such as copper, silver and iodine, Taltal has survived. And now the city is looking to develop the potential for to serve an expanded tourist presence, basing their efforts on sandy beaches both here in town as well as a few kilometers south, at Cifuncho, plus the pleasant climate. So Taltal is growing, gradually.

These three pictures are just a few taken from a series of murals that have been painted on the walls of Taltal´s primary schoolyard by student artists. The first one is entitled,¨"El Paso del Teniente," or the Path of the Lieutenant.

The second image is entitled,

"Mujer de Piedra," or the Woman of Stone.

And here, the final one is entitled,

"Matador de Tiburones," or The Shark Killer, and depicts the bay here at Taltal.

Of course, as always, you can click on any one of the above images to see an enlarged version.

DRIVING INTO NORTHERN CHILE: THE LAST FOUR DAYS

2007-12-04T13:37:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I´ve got a lot of traveling to put up on the blog, and I´ve uploaded a bunch of pictures to help give you an idea of what´s up here. The above photo was taken last night b efore the sun went down at the place I ended up camping at. I´ll tell you more about it when I get past today´s images from the road

So today I arrived at Taltal, which as some of you know, is about my most favorite places on the north Chile coast. The image to the left is of a line of stunning, chocolate-ribbed hills that lie just east of Chañaral, right near km 1000 on the Panamericana (Chile National Route 5). It´s about 150 km south of Taltal.

Now, the image to the right (if this sequence holds up is of tanker truck - but this tanker truck is a beer truck! Now, of course it is a common sight to see beer trucks, but they are always carrying the finished product - bottled or canned beer - either to a distribution warehouse or to a retail outlet. This was the first time I´d ever seen a tanker truck...Crystal is one of the most popular of the Chilean beers...

Now the next photos come from my campsite, where I stayed last night. The first picture is of a young red fox - when I woke up and climbed out of my tent I was surprised to see this little one curled up awaiting my emergence - only about 10 yards away from me. I immediately took his picture, and then commenjced a very interestin g morning as this fox was joined by another, slightly larger one, and they both seemed to be intent on watching my every move. It turns out that despite being in such a remote place, these foxes have figured out that wherever humans are, there is food. Well, they were totally passive towards me and I never felt that I had anything to worry about from them, so I eventually shared my breakfast with them...a piece of bread, some water, a slice of cheese for both, and part of my banana, which was hogged by the bigger fox. They stuck around and watched me pack up my sleeping bag and tent, and then I waved good-bye to my little fox friends, although I know that theywere probably only disappointed that I wasn´t leaving anything behind for them to tear apart.

Here is a picture of my camp. It was up in the dry mountains at the site of an abandoned silver mine known as Chañarcillo, which once upon a time apparently had been a real monster producer of this precious metal, and was significant for providing much of the early wealth to the biggest city in the region, Copiapó. The silver at this mine was discovered in 1832 by an entepreneur named Juan Godoy, and the city which sprang up at the base of this mountain came to bear his name. In 1860 the town of Juan Godoy was the second largest in the region, after Copiapó, boasting a population of 14,000 people.

But as many of these sorts of places go, the boom was folowed by bust, and I understand that the mines closed forever in 1888, once it was determined that the caverns had flooded with seeping groundwater.

The picture to the left shows the remains of perhaps what was the most striking mine shaft on the mountain. Known as the Pique Dolores, built after the discovery in 1832, it still shows the massive rock wall buttress that once held up the smelter and various outbuildings on the slope of the mountain. Now the buildings are gone, and the buttress holds up what is now the precarious roadway that winds up and around to the top of the mountain.

The image to the left shows one of the many deep and un-fenced mine shafts that drop straight down into the heart of the mountain. When I approached this view, I was struck with the most frightening sense of vertigo I could imagine. To take the picture I found myself dropping down onto my hands and kn ees to approach the opening to take this fleeting glimpse into what I would clearly call the abyss...

Now, these two shafts are right next to the abyss, and even though they open up to the front, the dark interiors suggested both mystery and danger. Best to take the pictures and be on my way, I figured.

But before going to camp at the mine at Chañarcillo, I´d spent my first two nights in Vallenar. That´s the plaza in Vallenar to the left. I´d originally planned to spend one night in Vallenar, and two in Huasco, which is downstream from here on the coast, but by the time I´d got to Vallenar on my big push up fro m Santiago, there was plenty of daylight left, so I decided to drive straight out to Huasco. When I got there, I could not find a single accomodation that was open for business. It was frustrating, but hey, I was going to need a room somewhere. So I doubled back and returned to Vallenar, and booked myself into the Hotel Puerta de Vega, a nice, clean place, but pricey!

Well, I was booked in to Vallenar for a quiet and peaceful Sunday after putting something like 770 kilometers on the odometer of my rented Nissan 4x4 the previous day. So I slept in, and then, when I felt like it, I took a leisurely stroll through town. Vallenar has a nice park set up along the banks of the Río Huasco, which flows down from the snows and glaciers of the high Andes through here to the sea. The above picture gives a glimpse of this modest river which gives this arid valley its life.
The image to the left gives another view of the Río Huasco, downstream from Vallenar. I stopped for a moment on my ill-fated drive down to the coast, in my attempt to find accomodations in Huasco. But such is life, here on the road.

But there was one pleasant surprise waiting me on that otherwise forgettable drive down the river to the coast last Saturday: Totally by chance, I stumbled upon a floklorico dance that was in progress in the town of Freirina (pop. 3,200) . It was in conjunction with the big national "Teletón," which is exactly like the Jerry Lewis Telethon in the USA. Chile holds this big fund-raiser every year on Nov.30-Dec.1 (except in election years), and many local communities hold special events in their plazas while most of the major TV networks carry the pledge drive feed to draw in the most money possible. Well I stopped for maybe 15 minutes at most. I donated 1000 pesos, roughly the equivalent of $2 USD. But I was extermely impressed with these young dancers, pictured above.

Now I will be here in Taltal for several days - actually I won´t likely leave until next Monday. So I´ll be getting around and about this town of some 15,000 people, and maybe I´ll post something about the local scene here.....

So stay tuned!

Cheers,

JMK, The Atacama Viajero

IN VALLENAR - AND SET TO REACH THE DESERT

2007-12-03T04:02:00.000-08:00

Okay, so my schedule has already been altered somewhat. Here I am in the city of Vallenar, where I spent a lazy sSunday strolling along the banks of the Río Huasco and taking in a soccer game which the local team lost 2-0. I´d said I would be staying in Huasco, which is out on the coast, but it turned out to be a bust - I couldn´t find any accomodations that were even open for business, so I turned around and headed back inland to stay at the rather pricey Hotel Puerta La Vega, anbd I am set now to check out in a few minutes.
I´ve got some good pics from the region but no time to upload then now, so maybe ((or maybe not) I will do so later, once I get to Taltal. But for now, I am ahead of schedule by one day so I am thinking I will spend it camped out in the desert somewhere north of here, outside of Copiapó. There might be even more pictures from that little bit of diversion.
Well it´s time to go finish packing my bags and get on the road...
Saludos, amigos
The Atacama Viajero.

TENTATIVE TRIP ITINERARY

2007-11-29T07:11:00.000-08:00

During the last couple of nights, as my preparations for an imminent departure from Santiago move forward, I have constructed a rather basic trip itinerary, which, by necessity, must be labeled as tentative only, owing to the fact that invariably, unforseen events will determine thye actual trip as it unfolds. Already I have delayed my departure for one day as we finish up with the necessary maintenance works for the Nissan 4x4 while we still have not located my camping gear and will presently be searching through the storage closets here at the office for the tent, backpack stove, and cooler.

Regardless, here is the plan:

Nov. 30: Leave Santiago, overnight in Los Vilos (229 km total)
Dec. 1: Drive to Vallenar (432 km)
Dec. 2: Drive out to ther coast at Huasco (57 km only) - stay for two nights
Dec. 4: Drive up the coast to Taltal (490 km) - stay for five nights
Dec. 9 & 10: Camp out on the So. Pacific coast - near Paposo (north of Taltal) or at playa Cifuncho (south of Taltal)
Dec. 11: Drive to Calama (213 km NE of Antofagasta)
Dec. 12: Drive to San Pedro de Atacama (103 km) - stay for three nights
Dec. 15: Cross over Paso Jama and into Argentina to Susques, Prov. Jujuy (280 km - high points at 4600 meters elev. over the Cordillera de Los Andes) - stay for 4 nights, with hikes into the back country planned
Dec. 19: Drive to Salta, capitol of Salta Province, Argentina (approx. 260 km) - stay for two nights
Dec. 21: Drive to Cafayate, southern Salta Province (185 km) -stay for five nights, including Christmas
Dec. 26: Drive up the Valles Calchaquies from Cafayate to Cachi (158 km) -stay for two nights
Dec. 28: Drive down the Valles Calchaquies from Cachi to Angastaco (89 km) - stay for two nights.
Dec. 30: Drive back to Cafayate from Angastaco (74 km) -stay for two nights, including New Year´s eve.
Jan. 1, 2008: Drive from Cafayate to Belén, Provincia de Catamarca, Argentina (243 km) -stay for three nights
Jan. 4: Drive to Tinogasta (82 km) - stay for three nights
Jan. 7: Drive from Tinogasta to Paso San Francisco (200 km; elev. 4748 meters) and cross back into Chile. Camp overnight at Laguna Verde, just west of the pass
Jan. 8: Drive to Copiapó (291 km)
Jan 9: Drive back to Vallenar (146 km)
Jan. 10: Drive from Vallenar to Pisco Elqui and Río Elqui Valley (546 km) - stay three nights
Jan. 13: Drive back to Los Vilos (339 km)
Jan. 14: Return to Santiago (229 km)

I suppose that some of these places might not exactly ring a bell for you, so you might want to look them up in an atlas. But in a more basic way to explain my route, I can say that I will first be driving north from Santiago with numerous stops in Northern Chile and in the Atacama Desert before crossing into Argentina near the Bolivian border. Then I will be going southward through Northwestern Argentina as far as Paso San Francisco, where I will cross back into Chile once again, and then spend a few days in Pisco Elqui before returning to Santiago.

Of course, now my truck rental will give me until January 16 to return to Santiago, which gives me some kind of a cushion to fall back on with the above tentative itinerary, but regardless, my flight back to the USA will be leaving Santiago on the evening of January 19, so I will have to be back by then. Anyway, I hope that you can return to this site to read my trip reports, which will begin with my next post here. Cheers to all...

John "Smokey" Koelsch
The Atacama Viajero

BACK IN SANTIAGO AGAIN

2007-11-27T10:46:00.000-08:00

So once again I am here in the grand capitol of Chile. It is springtime here, and the trees in the parks are providing ample shade from the blazing sun, while flowers of all sorts are in full bloom. The temperature here today is likely in the mid-to-upper 80 degrees (F.) with a slight feel of humidity. They are saying that it will be a hot summer here in Chile, and I am just about set to absorb what it has to offer between now and my scheduled return to the U.S.A. on a flight that will leave in the eveninf of January 19, 2008.

Anyway, speaking of flights, my arrival yesterday morning capped off an extremely long day of travel, which began at 3 a.m. in Portland, Oregon, and included a long layover of over seven hours in Atlanta, Georgia. I´d planned to spend a part of that time getting out to explore that city (I´ve never been to Atlanta before) but the weather was awful - raining all day. But of course, considering the severe drought there in the SE U.S., I suppose that the folks there were sort of figuring that it was the answer to their prayers, so I guess I shouldn´t be feeling bad about the fact that I didn´t get to go out as planned.

The long non-stop overnight flight down from Atlanta to Santiago was uneventful, but surprisingly it had plenty of empty seats, so I was able to stretch out my coach accomodations a bit in the always vain attempt to find some sleep. That´s right, I never can sleep on such flights, but at least my neck and back didn´t hurt as much as usual once I got in.

My agent/friend Andrés had sent his old office hand Luis to pick me up, and he brought me right into Santiago Centro, where I was destined to spend the next eight hours waiting for some other tourists to leave my appointed apartment over on Calle Mosqueto, which is on the other side of the block from Andrés´office. I finally got in there at around 6 p.m., and after spending a couple of hours resting, finally got in my shower and pronounced myself good to go.

So today I got out and walked around a little bit, refreshing my memories of the sights and scenes of Santiago Centro, or the downtown district in this city of nearly six million people. The photo to the right shows one glimpse of the park at Cerro Santa Lucia, which is only a couple of blocks away from this office. And below is a photo of a statue of the poet Pablo Neruda which is located on Avenida Agustinas, just down from Miraflores.

So far, I´ve been to lunch twice with Andrés, yesterday to Café El Alemán, and today to Café Nuria. Then, after the almuerzo, Andrés took me to an interesting place, I think it was called Icarabú, to introduce me to "Café con Piernas," which is another unique aspect of Chilean culture. If you want to know more, do a google for "Café con Piernas Chile."

In the next couple of days, before my planned departure for points north of here, I will hopefully be recovering the camping gear I´d left here when I departed back in March. I´m also hoping to get to visit two of Andrés´three children (the third, Matías, is currently on a student exchange program visiting Mexico for a couple of weeks.

So it is good to be back here in this sunny and warm country. Quite a change from the cold weather that is settling into my digs back home. And my message to all of you, my friends and family, is to check back here often. I will be posting things on this blog as much as possible as my journey unfolds.

ON THE EVE OF DEPARTURE

2007-11-18T18:16:00.000-08:00

Finally my time of departure has come, and I suspect that this will be my last post until I have arrived in South America. Today I finished with the last few odds and ends that relate to making this new trip, and I must say that it is a relief to have taken care of all those little things and can finally start to concentrate my thoughts on images like what you see above - which is a glimpse of the countryside along Argentine Ruta Provincial 16 east of Susques in remote Jujuy Province, in the far northwest corner of that country.

Being out in such a wide open place has always held a special appeal for me. It gives me such a sense of space, much like I also find in the many empty parts of my own state of Nevada, which I suppose is one reason why I ended up living in rural Elko County. But of course, there are differences as well, not the least of which is the fact that Nevada is on the cusp of ste start of another winter, but down in the other hemisphere, it is springtime, and soon another austral summer will be commencing. So I go, and can only feel good about getting back into this other realm, to travel and hike, soaking in the warm rays of the brilliant sunshine of the long days ahead.

I have chosen to again journey northward after spending my first few days in Santiago, which means that I will return once again to the driest place on earth - that strange and oddly wonderful place known as the Atacama Desert. Along the way, of course, the familiar and the absurd will be revisited in the guise of certain landmarks - such as La Mano Del Desierto, which pokes out of a small rise in the terrain in the midst of the barren valley traversed by the Chilean Ruta 5, also known as the Panamericana, about 70 kilometers south of Antofagasta.

My vagabond amigo Roberto sent me a preliminary Chilean highway report that describes the principal stretches of routes that sutained damage in the earthquake of November 14th, and it appears that the route I have chosen, which will go north from Santiago to the Antofagasta turnoff and then to go east to Calama, San Pedro and the crossing into Argentina over the cordillera will miss the bulk of the damages, which are for the most part, from Maria Elena and on north to the approaches of Arica, on the Peruvian frontier. All of that is further north than where I will be going, so that is a relief.

I'll also be hoping to re-connect with some friends I've made on some previous journeys. Here you see Eugenia, who was managing the hotel and resturaunt known as Pastos Chicos, outside of Susques, in Argentine Jujuy Province, along with Elizabeth, aka "Ellie," who is her best employee. Now I'm not sure that Eugenia and Ellie are still there, because I know that the work was hard and the pay was less than it should have been. When I was there in February, Eugenia was saying that she didn't think she'd still be there too much longer, and Ellie said that she'd go too if Eugenia left.

I could tell that the tasks of running the place were wearing Eugenia down, but I also was impressed with Ellie's energy and how much of a help she was for her immediate boss. Of course, Pastos Chicos has an absentee owner who lives in nice, big house in the city of San Salvador de Jujuy, some 150 kilometers away. Well, I'm still going to go back to Susques, and I do hope that these two friends are still there.

But you know, even though I am leaving home tomorrow, I won't be getting down to South America for another week. That's because I will be driving up to Ashland, Oregon first, to cook a big Thanksgiving dinner for my son and his friends. Then I'll travel up to Portland next Saturday, for an early morning flight to Atlanta and a 7+ hour layover before my long, overnight, non-stop flight to Santiago.

Anyway, it's time to be "on the road again."

Cheers to you all...

MAJOR EARTHQUAKE HITS THE ATACAMA DESERT

2007-11-15T07:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning, Northern Chile was rocked by a major 7.7 magnitude earthquake. The fact that the epicenter was located some 37 miles below the surface limited the destructive effects of the quake to some extent, although least two deaths (both in the coastal city of Tocopilla) and significant property damage (in the cities of Tocopilla, Arica, Antofagasta and Calama) have been reported.

The accompanying maps come from the USGS, and give much better detail than the fuzzy-pixeled versions one finds attached to most of the web news reports of the incident. Please click on the images to see the full-size versions. The first one illustrates the relative location of the quake epicenter while the second map presents an image of the varying intensity of the shock
within the general region.

From the first map, one can get a general idea of how volatile
the area is by observing the incredible number of volcanoes
that run the length of the Andean cordillera in this part of
South America.

The link to the USGS website which I have included below will give you a general overview of the quake and its effects. If you go to the site, click on "Summary" for a report of the quake and the relative rankings of the intensity level of the shocks reported from different locations in this part of South America.

Now, this new earthquake instantly becomes a factor for me in this trip I will be taking in literally a few days because it happened right where I will be going. Of course I expect that there will be travel disruptions, and I would not be surprised if there will be parts of the highway that will have been busted up by the tremors, and there will also be the possibility that basic services I would normally expect to depend on might not be available. No doubt the relief efforts directed toward the victims who were injured or who lost their homes will also be clearly evident. As I understand, some 1000 homes in Tocopilla alone were destroyed yesterday, which meant that thousands of residents slept out on the streets last night. Accomodations in the cities might be at a premium, so I will possibly be camping out a lot more than I had planned during my time in this part of Chile

But considering the offhand chance that there might be another major seismic event during this period I might reconsider my plans to camp on the shores of the Pacific at Los Hornitos, north of Antofagasta. I'd camped there in January 2006 and didn't think a thing about it, but now I have a nagging apprehension tugging on my mind about the possibility (albeit remote) of being washed out to sea by a tsunami...

Anyway, this earthquake will no doubt cause me to pause and to reflect on the mysterious forces of nature at work on this earth, and what their potential consequences are for us, the inhabitants. So here is the link to the USGS site. Remember to click on the "Summary" to read more...

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2007jsat.php#details

A New South American Adventure Imminent

2007-11-06T21:06:00.000-08:00

Hello once again to all my amigos y amigas,

Yes, it has been months since I've posted anything here, but now I want to let you all know that the silence ends here. I've decided to once again return to my vagabonding ways with another Argentina/Chile adventure tour in another one of my friend/agent André's sturdy 4x4 extended cab pickup trucks.

I will leave my home here in Nevada two weeks from now to drive up to Oregon, where I will do the Thanksgiving holiday with my son Peter. Then, after we have somewhat recovered from gorging on turkey and dressing, we drive up to Portland from his home in Ashland for a bleary-eyed 6:30 a.m. flight on the morning of Nov. 25 to Atlanta for an overnight non-stop connecting flight back to Santiago, with my arrival there scheduled for 8:35 a.m. Nov. 26, Chilean time.

I'll admit that before I made the decision to make this new journey, I spent a big stretch of my summer grappling with dark personal issues relating to the pros and cons of doing a 4th extended South American journey a mere eight months after my return from the last visit. And although I consider myself to be a very private person who does not make a point of broadcasting my personal situation in general, I have to admit that for me, the year 2007 after my return from the last trip im March has not been a time of brightness. But it is not worth dwelling on all the discouraging personal issues here on this public forum because that is not the purpose of the blog here. We all have good years and bad. Now I am looking forward to this new adventure with anticipation and the sort of measured excitement of a relatively seasoned South American gringo traveler.

As I've noted, I'll be arriving in Santiago on the morning of November 26th. I'll be spending my first days again enjoying the friendship and hospitality of my buen amigo and agent, Andrés Gabor, there in the Chilean metropolis with his family, before heading out on the road on the 29th. I admit that after purchasing my ticket I grappled with the question of whether or not I would aim my rental truck south or north, but finally to go north won out, and I am sorry if my decision was a disappointment to my friends in Patagonia, who had received a preliminary message from me saying I was going to go that direction.

I will miss seeing them. But in the end, I decided I had to decide what would be the most meaningful direction for me, and in the end, I have to say, that the parts of Chile and Argentina that I have connected with most profoundly have been to the north of Santiago: meaning the northern Chile Atacama desert and the trans-cordillera route into the most northwestern provinces of Argentina, namely Jujuy and Salta, especially the towns of Susques (Jujuy) and Cafayate (Salta). I also think that this time I need to book some significant time in the city of Salta (not just traversing through to get to Cafayate this time) because it is such a cultural hub, and I remember it was originally going to be my "point of rendezvous" with my then-long-distance South American traveling friend, the wine expert from Holland, Claudia Van Dongen back during my 2006 mega-trip. But on that journey I found myself logging in an extremely long drive from the northernmost Chilean city of Arica (on the Peruvian border) to Salta for that planned reunion, but before I got there, she e-mailed me to tell me that she had seen enough of that city and was heading on to Cafayate to check out their vineyards.....

Well, that meant I had to do a couple hundred extra kilometers to re-connect withn her, but in the end it was worth it. Of course, It was great to reunite with Claudia, but even more so, in retrospect, it was worth it to discover the wonderful town of Cafayate and to experience the beauties of the region there. So you can be damn sure I am going back there! Watch for stories and images from there and other ports-of-call from now until my return to the USA on January 20, 2008.

So now that I have this imminent pending trip on tap, I am hoping that you can take some time to visit this blog once again to see where I am and to read about what I am up to. I welcome you aboard for a vicarious jump, once again, into the lands far below thre equator, where spring is happening - right now!!!

Cheers,

John M. "Smokey" Koelsch

The Atacama Viajero

RECUERDOS DE SUDAMÉRICA II: TRAVERSING ARGENTINA'S PROVINCIA BIOGEOGRÁFICA DE LAS YUNGAS

2007-04-03T06:47:00.000-07:00

A month ago, as I was on the road heading southward through the heart of northwestern Argentina, I crossed through a very specific and fascinating sliver of jungle which runs along the slopes of the mountains of the geologic transition zone east of the Andes (see my entry of March 1: "ROLLING ACROSS NORTH CENTRAL ARGENTINA"). I knew it was a unique biogeographic region, but at the time I didn't know that this thin strip of terrain is actually considered to be an austral expression of the greater Amazon jungle region, which cuts southward through Bolivia, extending down into this part of Argentina.

The map to the right illustrates the two strips of this narrow biogeographic province, which cut down through the northwestern Argentine provinces of Jujuy and Salta, and then across Tucumán and into Catamarca provinces. The image came from the Argentine www.surdesur.com website.

On my drive south from Cafayate, in Salta Province, I cut through the southern end of the Valle Calchaquíes and over the top of the pass known as Abra del Infiernillo, on Ruta Provincial 307 to the picturesque town of Tafi del Valle, which lies in the valley of the same name. There is a reservoir below this town, and beyond the dam, one passes through the narrow defile known as La Angostura, which represents also the entrance into the Selva Las Yungas, which is our narrow strip of Argentine jungle. The road here narrows and winds as it conforms to the contours of the mountain canyon of the Río Los Sosa, and many of the sharp curves ahead are blind.

That's a glimpse of La Angostura to the left. Below that point Ruta Provincial 307 enters the compact and sinewy Reserva Natural Los Sosa, a stretch of some 18 km in length which parallels the road with an average width of 1 km with the idea to preserve and protect the diverse biosphere of this narrow stretch of territory that lies between the high plateaus to the north and the plains of Tucumán and the extension of the Chaco to the south and east. It was established in 1941.

The microclimate of this narrow band of jungle is wet and frequently clouded, but unlike its more tropical realms to the north in Brasil, there can be snow here in the winter. Since the zone occurs on the slopes of the mountains, the vegetation types change with the relative elevation. The most prominent of the many trees in the zone is the laurel, which is most common on the slopes between 500 and 1200 meters elevation, but also accompanied by a host of other species such as the horco molle, a diverse collection of cedros, plus nogal, mato and horco-mato. Three types of forests predominate at the upper elevations (pino del cerro, bosque de aliso and bosque de queñoa) and the lower realms are thick with a profound variety of trees, including palo blanco, palo amarillo, and especially tipa blanca, pacará and cebil colorado.
As for the fauna, the jungle is home to dozens of mammal species and at least 50 different types of birds.
This photo here shows a pair of memorial shrines, or "animitas" which are alongside Ruta 307 at an extermely sharp curve known as Fin del Mundo, which is about mid-way through the territory of the reserve. Currently, Tucumán Province has been studying a plan to improve the roadway here in this most treacherous stretch, where the via twists and turns around the countless bends in the mountain, often through thick fog and rain. There are parts here where the canyon walls are so steep and the jungle so thick that they say the sun never shines, but regardless of that, it is something special to experience. But there are obvious environmental issues concerning this narrow zone of jungle, and that is why these 18 kilometers were designated as a natural reserve many years ago. The government of Tucumán has published an extensive environmental impact statement which asserts that their highway improvement project will not impact adversly this relatively small and fragile biogeographic strip, but the truth has always been that Las Yungas has suffered through the years from human impact. Nonetheless, some improvement here is necessary, since this is the only route from Cafayate and Tafi del Valle connecting those communities with the main route to the cities of Tucumán and Catamarca. I do hope that the Argentines proceed with care in this endeavor.

When I drove through the Reserva Nacional Los Sosa, back on the last day of February the weather alternated between thick mist and true rain. I suppose I could have been disappointed that I could not see the canyon of the Río Los Sosa better, but actually, I think that the moist conditions are normal, along with the accompanying heat and humidity. Actually, once I had passed out of the mouth of the canyon and effected my linkup with the busy Ruta Nacional 38 running southward from Tucumán to Catamarca, the rains turned torrential, and remained so until just before I reached the latter city, where I managed to find a decent hotel to put up for the night.

Incidentally, the two pictures above show more of the selva, or jungle, there in the Reserva Natural Los Sosa, on the left is a re-presentation of the picture I originally posted back on March 1, and the other is one view of the Río Los Sosa. If you click on them you can get to see an enlarged version.
In the coming weeks, when the spirit moves me, I hope to post more from my travels - details that just could not be covered adequately while on the road. So please do check back from time to time.

RECUERDOS DE SUDAMÉRICA I: THE IMAGE OF MARTÍN FIERRO

2007-03-15T11:00:00.001-07:00

During my just-completed South American journey I discovered a rather remarkable piece of art hanging from a pillar inside La Escalera, which is one of the most thorough gift shops in the Argentine city of Cafayate, in Salta province. This piece is a solid piece of wood planking nearly 1" thick and measuring roughly 18"x24". The above image is mounted on the wood base and comes from a vintage 1937 calendar that had been published by the Argentine textile giant, Alpargatas Textil (aka the Sociedad Anónima Fábrica de Alpargatas, founded in 1883), who specialize in gaucho clothing, and especially the manufacture of the distinctive rope-soled gaucho sandals, known as alpargatas.
The verse that accompanies the image comes from the epic gaucho poem Martín Fierro (1872), by José Hernández, and the subtitle to the image itself is "El Boliche de Virtú," which translates into the "little shop of virtue." The four phrases included are excerpted from canto IV of the poem, and relate to the relative importance of this little business for the goods (drinks and items to consume as food or medicinals) the pulpero serves to his clients.
The mounted piece appears as a truly striking work of art, and although I could find out little on the original artist, whose signature on the image is "Lavattaro," a name of Italian origin, the artist who mounted and laminated the image is a Cafayate local named Hector Habrhan. Later editions of the calendar published by this same textile company were illustrated by the famed F. Molina Campos.
Anyway, even though it was a piece of relative substantial size and substance, I could not resist buying it and bringing it back with me. As it was, the package barely fit inside the larger of my two suitcases, so I was lucky in that regard for not having to pay an exorbitant fee for shipping. Instead, it took up quite a bit of luggage space while making that particular suitcase even heavier than it had been at the time of my departure.
My purpose with this piece of art is not to further clutter up my already over-full wall space in my small home but rather, to be a donation to the Western Folklife Center, which is the organization which puts on the famous National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, held every year in Elko, Nevada. A couple of years ago they featured the work of several gaucho artists, and last December they sponsored a folklife exchange visit to Brasil and Argentina.
It is my intention that this piece will be sold at the Silent Auction, which takes place every year during the Gathering as a means of generating funds that go towards the continued operation of the Folklife Center. And for donors such as myself, in this case, it becomes a tax-deductible donation.
Anyway, I should say that from time to time I will plan to post additional materials here on this blog that might pertain to some aspect of South America, either something that came directly from my travels, or perhaps something of interest that relates to the region in general. In other words, even though I am home now, I will try to keep the blog going, so please, feel free to visit from time to time. Chao, amigos.

CHILE-ARGENTINA 2007: A FINAL WRAP

2007-03-09T09:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I am sitting in front of the computer in the office of LYS Rent A Car in Santiago Centro. Andres´main office assistant is off to his almuerzo (lunch) so I´m going to just have a little fun with some images I´ve culled from the internet and put up some final thoughts on this very

successful third trip through Chile and Argentina. I suppose that I could try to give ID´s to images where appropriate, but the formatting of this blogging system might not make for really accurate notation. Anyway, to the left is a classic old tango image, I think from maybe about 1920?

And below is a copy of a lithograph of one of the head Libertadores himself, the Argentine San Martín, who is credited with liberating both countries, back in 1818, when he, along with his Chilean counterparts under Bernardo O´Higgins, routed the Spanish in the Battle of Maipú.

Now here is the map of the route that led from Paso de Jama into the Northwestern Argentine Province of Jujuy. I drove part of that route this time around, past Susques and to the edge of the Salinas Grandes, where I turned southward on the unpaved dirt track that cut across that emptiness in the direction of San Antonio De Los Cobres and my rather unplanned accompaniment in that double vehicle rescue over the summit of Abra Del Acay and failed attempt to reach Cafayate in a timely manner. Now here´s more Tango, for those of you out there who are total music history freaks: That´s the immortal "founder" of the tango, the great Carlos Gardel, whose music still reverbrates loudly down in these parts, especially in Argentina.

And of course, if you dig the sort of real gaucho folksinging, here is a photo of another immortal but still dead Argentine musician, Jorge Cafrune, whose gritty and soulful music is at least as gutsy as anything that Woody Guthrie or Ramblin´Jack Elliot ever sang. Too bad his music is not better known outside of Latin America. He was incredible, and Todo Argentino!

More Gaucho culture here with the artwork of the great Argentine artist and illustrator F. Molino Campos, with this little gem that came from the website at www.folkloredelnorte.com.ar

Lastly, in order to prove that this is not all meant to revere the soulfulness of the Argentines, here is an image of the great Chilean songwriter and martyr, Victor Jara, whose incredibly creative life was rudely snuffed out during the September 11, 1973 Golpe Del Estado in Chile, which was the military coup that ousted the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, and installed General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte as the head of the military junta that would rule the country with an iron fist for the next 17 years.

Oh, did I just finish traveling here, you bet I did. And now I will officially declare that there is a good chance I will be back again, perhaps as soon as this coming December. So stay tuned, my amigos, there could soon be more adventures to come for the Atacama Viajero.

LAST DAY AT ISLA NEGRA: LA CASA DE NERUDA

2007-03-08T07:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I thought it appropriate to once again visit the famed house of the late, great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda during my last day in Isla Negra. The image you see above is of an elderly gentleman gazing out of a glass door that stands next to a large mural of Neruda, in the reception hall of the main building of the Fundación Neruda, next to the poet´s house. This building houses the offices of the Fundación, as well as the bookstore, a cafe, and the registration desk for tours of the house.

Now I didn´t go in for the tour, choosing instead to just walk the grounds and buy a book in the bookstore, Neruda´s Canto General, which includes one of his most famous poems, "Las Alturas de Macchu Picchu."
Now, the more I read Neruda, the more I am struck by the power of his imagery. And although I consider my command of Spanish to be limited, I have enough under my belt to appreciate how his Castellano can be so precise and carry such magnitude. Canto General is considered to be one of his essential works. It contains 15 chapters, beginning with "La Lampara en la Tierra" and followed by "Las Alturas de Macchu Picchu." These first two chapters embrace the majestic natural beauty of the South American continent before the conquest in some of the most expressive poetry I have ever read. But the third chapter is entitled "Los Conquistadores," which I finished reading last night in my cabaña. You can imagine that such a master of the language could lay out the most precise and chilling indictment of the conquistadors as one could ever expect to find, and in fact, he does so with such a natural skill that I, for one, was astounded. Neruda holds no quarter for the likes of Cortéz, Pizzarro, Valdivia and their fellows, so now I am anxious to begin my reading of the fourth chapter, "Los Libertadores."

Anyway, a short time ago I arrived back in Santiago, and I delivered that trusty Toyota Hilux that had carried me along across Northern Chile and Northwestern Argentina for these past four weeks to my agent here. This time there were no sorrowful incidents like that time in February 2006 when I had the collision with the llama in the remotest parts of Argentina´s Jujuy Province. . .this trip actually ended up being nearly flawless, for which I am certainly thankful.
Perhaps tomorrow I will try to post one more piece here, to put a final wrap on this third trip through the countries of Chile and Argentina. So check back, my friends.
Chao.

ACROSS THE ANDES AND BACK TO CHILE

2007-03-06T08:22:00.000-08:00

So once more I pushed my trusty rented 4x4 Toyota Hilux up across the high Andes, on the route leading west from Mendoza, Argentina and back into Chile. Actually, the above image is the view of Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere, as seen from the vista point only a couple of kilometers from the Chilean border.

But Aconcagua is not the only mountain of note on this very aerial crossing point. The above image shows another very high peak, seen from a distance through a high, lonesome quebrada on the Argentine side of the border.

The third picture will give you a bit of perspective on the depth of the valleys (or the height of the peaks, with the road visible at the bottom of the frame. This last shot was taken on the Chilean side, after passing through customs.

Anyway, It was a long, slow traversal of the mountains, partly due to the presence of many trucks, each one laboring up (and down) in their lower gears on the narrow, winding two-lane highway. Also, the highway departments of both countries were busy making road repairs. The other thing that made the drive go so slowly were the numerous (TOO NUMEROUS) police check points on the Argentine side of the pass. Such repeated (and in my mind, unnecessary) authoritarian incursions tends to be intimidating (at least it is for me), and I really got to a point where I wanted to just tell one of the Gendarmes to "stuff it," but my better self told me that such a negative act would only serve to land me in a very messy situation, so politeness was always the rule.

And thanks to my sense of restraint, I am now here on the Chilean coast, renting a cozy little cabaña in Los Tabos, a sleepy little resort town just down the road ( maybe 4 km only) from the late, great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda´s fabled ocean home at Isla Negra. Actually, I stayed here back in November, 2005, at the start of my last South American adventure, so I feel it is right that this one, my third excursion, ends up here. I will be staying here until the morning of March 8th, strolling the beach and doing little of importance before making the 120 km drive back to Santiago on that date. So this will likely be my last post before returning to that city, and then perhaps I will try to put up one last blog post from there to put a wrap on this journey. Remember, I fly out from Santiago on the evening of March 10.

So until that last post from the road, that´s it from here.

Chao, amigos.

THE GRAND CITY OF MENDOZA

2007-03-04T06:08:00.000-08:00

So there´s time for one more stop here in Argentina - the grand city of Mendoza, best-kown as the place where 80% of the country´s wine is produced. Besides the great wine, Mendoza prides itself in the stately appearance of its broad avenues, many of which are shaded by long rows of tall and stately London Plane Trees. The centro is full of fine outdoor cafes and elegant shops catering to the more unique tastes of the tourist crowd. The impressive Plaza Independencia (shown in the above picture) fills up on the weekends with booths run by the local artisans of the region.
It is the comercial and administrative center for this part of Argentina as well, and for many visitors it is the perfect jumping off point for visits to the high Andes and Cerro Aconcagua (6962 meters, or 22,836 ft. elevation), sometimes called the "roof of the Americas" and the highest point in the hemisphere.
Anyway, I got in here yesterday afternoon after spending my previous day at Villa Dolores, where I met the father (Dr. Domingo José Martino) , brother (Sebastiano), and best friend (Hugo Tello) of my old Argentine pal Matías Martino, who unfortunately could not be there since he happens to be going to the United States tomorrow on a work assignment.
A word should be said about the good time I had in my short visit to Villa Dolores and the fine hospitality of Dr. Martino, who fed me and put me up in his home. Also, Hugo took me for a fascinating tour of some of the local outdoor highlights in the region, including a hike in the mountains that separate that valley, known as the "Traslasierra," from the city of Córdoba.

This photo here shows the view from the vista point on the trail that looks down into the Río Mina Clavado, near its source. Its waters flow out from these mountains to invigorate the agrigultural pursuits in the area around the town of Mina Clavado and Villa Dolores. Hugo and I hiked there to see the waterfalls that pour down from the heights and are considered to be the source of the river.

We were planning to go further to check out some more views, but the winds picked up and became something of a force to be reckoned with, as witnessed by this shot of some pampas grass being bent by the force of the wind. I asked Hugo if these winds were a normal occurrence and he said they were very extraordinary, that usually it is calm. It even became a thing of concern for driving on the winding mountain road, so we cut our tour short and returned to Villa Dolores. So it goes.

When I left Villa Dolores yesterday morning I was thinking that I had enough time left before I am scheduled to return the truck that I was going to cross back into Chile and then drive southward as far as Los Angeles, to visit again my German friends Winfried and Elke at the Hosteria "El Rincón," but when I got into Mendoza I decided that I would have to at least spend one day taking in this city, so now I am planning to cross back into Chile tomorrow, and just drive out to the coast, likely near the late, great poet Pablo Neruda´s famous home at Isla Negra, to rent a small cabaña for my last couple of days before my mandatory return to Santiago on March 8th. Then It will be time to bid South America good-bye once again, when my return flight to the USA leaves on the evening of March 10.

But don´t think that this trip is over yet. I still have to cross those Andes. . .

ROLLING ACROSS NORTH CENTRAL ARGENTINA

2007-03-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

Considering how difficult traversing the vast expanses of this rather huge and beautiful country, I was amazed today how quickly I was able to cut across the flat but thickly-vegetated regions south of Catamarca. But before I go forward with that, let me just mention the lead photo I posted, which came from the rainy crossing of a very spectacular canyon that cuts right through the Selva Subtropical Yungay, which is north of Catamarca. Looks like a real jungle, doesn´t it?
Anyway, the Ruta Nacional 38 below Catamarca is a long and straight road - and in surprisingly good condition too. I felt I was rolling along just as rapidly as I did when I went north on Chile´s portion of the Panamerican Highway a couple of weeks back.
But the road passes through a vcariety of ecological/vegetation zones, from the near-jungle in the above picture to a near-Paraguayan Chaco-type of thick brush, sticky heat and the nastiest flies you can imagine. I stopped at a hermitage dedicated to a priest where I managed to take a few pictures (not shown here) before my truck got filled with a voacious bunch of biting flies! I had a heck of a time getting rid of them.

Anyway, a bit farther down the trail from the buggy hermitage I encountered a typical cemetery in SE La Rioja Province. These photos of a few of the mausoleums will show that once upon a time, these people had the money to be interred in style, but I think it is all old Argentine money, as the faces on the tombs all looked like their prime was in the early days of the 20th Century. The town this particular cemetery is located is known as Serrezuela, and is located just west of the Córdoba Provincial boundary. I thought it was also interesting to note that there were almost as many mausoleums in the cemetery as there were houses in the town...

Farther south still, I reached the point where Ruta Nacional 38 connects with Ruta Provincial 15 (Córdoba Province), which is my road that will take me into Villa Dolores tomorrow. As I followed this route, I got another good blast of rain (see photo of the storm) which was enough to wash off all the dead bugs from my windshield. The river in the photo was also from the same spot as the cumulus cloud picture - just looking down off the bridge instead of up to the sky.

Anyway, like I said, I got farther today than I had expected, finally booking a room in a nice hotel in the somewhat tourist town of Mina Clavado. But now that it is March 1st, tourist season is past, so I think I can enjoy the somewhat mellow atmosphere, and will continue doing that for a time in the morning, since Villa Dolores is only 50 km away.

When I pull in there around noon tomorrow I will be meeting the father of my friend Matias Martino for the first time. I am planning to stay there through March 3rd, and then will start my way back to Chile on the 4th.

Stay tuned, there is still plenty of territory to cross on this one, which means numerous potential adventures.

Chao, for now, amigos.

SAN FERNANDO DEL VALLE DE CATAMARCA

2007-02-28T13:56:00.000-08:00

Okay, no photos, no maps, just a short post to let all know I have arrived at this major Argentine city after a long day on the road, which was made longer and more complex thanks to the fact that that last partiers to leave Cafayate after their annual Serenata de Cafayate drained the gas pumps dry at the only station in town...actually, the person in line in front of me got gas, but maybe it was diesel. Regardless, when the attendant tried to pump mine (with nafta, as they call the unleaded stuff here) the reservoir was all tapped out. They then told me that I would have to wait until mid-day tomorrow (yikes!) for their tanker truck to arrive...
Well, all that was just too dismal to contemplate, so I considered my options. I asked the attendant how far was the next station south of there, and she told me I could get gas at Santa María, a gritty little city about 70 km south. Well, I knew I could make 70 kilometers, so off I went. Trouble was, it was off my planned route, and once I got there I had a heck of a time locating the town´s mgas station. But at least the attendant there was able to accurately describe for me how to get back onto the highway I´d made the long detour from to buy the precious fuel.
Then for a time the drive became spectacular, going up into some impressive mountain terrain with vast stands of huge Cardón Cacti and then a surprise once I got up to the summit overlooking the valley below with its attractive town of Tafi del Valle sitting like a pearl at the bottom - but alas, the valley was socked in with a thick cloudbank, which would prove to be the leading edge of a rather nasty storm front, which meant that I had to maneuver the Toyota through a massive rainstorm for much of the afternoon. It got quite treacherous when I made the connection with Ruta Nacional 38, which rolls through north-central Argentina in a large arc and which I will be following practically all the way to Villa Dolores, my planned destination for the day after tomorrow.
But the rains subsided as I approached Catamarca (Officially named San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca), and when the clouds broke, the heat settled in. I´ve done my share of sweating in this intense subtropical heat, which is of course augmented by the humidity from all the rain...Actually, the rains started last night when I was settling in to my last night in Cafayate. It was an impressive sustained downpour, complete with all the thunder and lightning, and I do believe there has been some flooding, especially in some of the places I drove through this afternoon when the rains were filling many of the rivers.
Anyway, I made it here, safe and sound, and will be planning to get a decent start in the morning. I want to at least get to the city of La Rioja, but will probably get past there, maybe as far as Chamical, east of the Sierra de Los Llanos, or even to Castro Barros, out on the Salinas Grandes. I am not so sure that either one of those potential destinations will afford me the opportunity to report in to the blog as they are not much on the map, but they will get me well within striking distance of Villa Dolores on March 2nd.
So whenever I can, I´ll be back here, posting new stuff, and hopefully some new pics. So stay in touch, amigos.

NORTHWEST ARGENTINA ADVENTURES

2007-02-26T07:01:00.000-08:00

And now, as promised, here follows a rather lengthy recounting of the adventures of the last few days, primarily during the time while I was out of contact with the virtual world and deeply connected with the real one, at least as it exists here in this most spectacular and vast corner of it. In yesterday´s post I had already posted a self-portrait taken while I was out on my hike on the 23rd of February, taking in the stunning landscapes there in the remote realms of Argentina´s Jujuy Province. The above picture will give you a sense of the terrain and its raw beauty. That was the spot where I stopped to enjoy the snacks I had brought along and re-hydrate myself with fluids.
It was, as you can imagine, a sublime day spent communing with the Pachamama (Earth Mother) spirit, which is still much revered by the Quechua peoples there in the Susques region, the anciuent, indigenous predecessor to the Catholic Church which also claims the loyalties of the locals.

The next day I left my convenient accomodations at Pastos Chicos, which is really the only place to stay in Susques. I was determined to make it all the way to the marvelous little city of Cafayate, which is in neighboring Salta Province.

Knowing that I had my options as to which route I should take, but also that the paved route that goes through the cities of San Salvador de Jujuy as well as the metropolis of Salta itself, I opted to go once more on the shorter (and presumed faster) unpaved route that would lead me back up onto the heights of the mountains east of San Antonio de Los Cobres, and the treacherous high mountain pass known as Abra del Acay, which my antiquated Argentine guidebook (published by Argentina´s YPF) calls the highest motor pass in the world, some 4970 meters above sea level (which translates to about 16,300 feet altitude!) The above image shows one view from that summit.

Now as my luck would have it, I became an unintentional collaborator in a rather tedious two-vehicle recovery effort which involved:

1.) A Hertz rental car that some American tourists had rented in Salta and had foolishly tried to take over the high Abra del Acay summit - a 2wd, low-clearance car, which is literally crazy considering that all guidebooks warn that only high-profile 4x4 vehicles should attempt the pass.

2.) A tow truck belonging to Auxilio, a mobile auto repair outfit that operates out of Salta, who advertize that they will service anything "within 500 miles of Salta," which had broken down on its attempt to reach the abandoned Hertz rental car that the gringoes had left half submerged in the raging mountain river that the route crosses a half-dozen times.

Anyway, to make this very long intro a bit shorter I will say that once Hertz learned that Auxilio´s recovery tow truck had broken down, they sent out their own recovery team to try to extract their rental vehicle from the river, while Auxilio sent a second tow truck, with two drivers, to try to salvage both their own broken down truck and also the lost Hertz vehicle. I came into the picture as I happened to be driving into the route from the north, and soon found myself coming along behind the Auxilio recovery tow truck. In front of them was another vehicle, a pickup truck driven by a businessman from Cafayate and acompanied by his girlfriend. They were out for a drive in the country, ostensibly to avoid the crowds in Cafayate that weekend for the town´s annual "Serenata de Cafayate," a huge folk music festival. They suddenly broke down, and the Auxilio guys were thus forced to lend assistance to try to fix what turned out to be only an empty gas tank (the Cafayate businessman luckily had somme spare gas in an auxiliary can).

Anyway, he stopped at the summit while the Auxilio team and I continued onward down the south slope to the point at which their broken-down rig was. I stopped with them, knowing that it would be foolish to continue on this narrow road knowing that the abandoned Hertz vehicle would be blocking my passage. So I offered to lend a hand to the two Auxilio mechanics. They sent me out on foot to do reconnaisance of the route below where they were laboring on the clutch of the broken-down tow truck. The route ahead was ugly, and I reported back to them that I felt that either of their vehicles might not make it past a very narrow and washed-out stretch some 500 meters down from us. Anyway, that grim fact was dismissed when the Hertz recovery team came along, slugging their way uphill with their abandoned rental car (obviously undrivable) in tow. Once they reached our place in the road, the job became one of fixing and extricating the damaged tow truck as well as the inoperable rental car.

We then formed a rather impromptu caravan, as the chief of the Hertz crew, a fellow named Pedro Foa, strongly advised me to abandon my plans to try to go on down through the most ruggewd part of the road, which is the part where the road crosses the rampaging mountain river some half-dozen times. Okay, so I was going back these guys, and would loise a day in my quest to get to Cafayate.

Once the Auxilio guys had fixed the clutch on their tow rig, the next problem would be how to turn the massive vehicle around on the narrow canyon road. It was not hard for me to turn my pickup around, and they Auxilio guys were also able to turn their recovery tow truck around, but this original tow truck was just too long to pull it off. They ended up using the recovery tow truck to tow the bigger truck sideways while we all pushed on it, to swing it around without it going over the edge! Once that was acomplished, we set out in tandem to go back over the summit and go back to San Antonio de Los Cobres.

We determined that the two damaged vehicles should be front and back, with the good tow truck and me in the middle. In that order we inched our way back to the summit, where we stopped to tke part in a rather crude but rewarding "lunch break."

This picture shows the two Auxilio drivers saluting me while Pedro Foa of Hertz looked on.

And the next picture shows our caravan as it was parked at the summit of Abra del Acay. Considering the treacherous nature of the road still before us, it would take us another two hours to get our vehicles down the mountain and make

the 45 km drive back to San Antonio de Los Cobres.

So the next day I set out on my second day´s attempt to get to Cafayate. In retrospect, of course, I wished I would have thought to have taken Ruta 51 from San Antonio de Los Cobres in the direction of Salta instead of trying that awful mountain road, but naturally I didn´t know. But what I encountered was another spectacular bit of impressive Northwestern Argentine
scenery, which made the lost day seem even more bittersweet. This picture here shows just a small glimpse of some of the rugged beauty on this route, with a forest of Cardón Cacti populating an arroyo in the very beautiful Quebrada de Toro, which the route follows for a long distance.

Farther on the vegetation becomes more lush, as one can see in this shot which looks up the quebrada and back at the small-gauge railroad bridge that crosses the Río Toro. It was a very beautiful drive, and I was so glad to finally make it into Cafayate yesterday at around 4 p.m. Buit of course, the place was mobed with people, as it was the last night of the Serenata de Cafayate set to begin. Although I would have loved to have gone to take in some of the music, I was more preocupied with some more pressing and certainly more plebian necessities: namely finding lodging and then getting some food and water into my system. Then, once that was taken care of, I could finally go out and enjoy some of the finest wine produced on the planet: Organic Malbec wine, locally produced at one of the several great wineries located here in Cafayate.

So that´s my story, and you should now consider yourselves all brought up to date. Today I am getting my laundry done, and then I will be here for one full day to relax, tomorrow. I will then set out on a rather urgent push to get to the town of Villa Dolores, far south of here, and west of the major city of Córdoba. They used to call such a long haul "ballin´the jack," so I guess that is what I will be planning to do on the last day of the month. I am scheduled to arrive ion Villa Dolores on March 2nd, the guest of the family of my friend Matias Martino whom I met on Tierra Del Fuego back during my first trip down to South America in 2002-2003.

CAFAYATE, ARGENTINA, or BACK IN "CIVILIZATION" AFTER EMERGING FROM REMOTE JUJUY PROVINCE

2007-02-25T16:00:00.000-08:00

Okay, so here I am, safe and sound after some time in that most remote northwest corner of Argentina - a veritable modern day "terra incognita," if you will. Oh, I´ve had some adventures, so I´ve got some stories to tell, but that will have to wait for tomorrow´s more substantial post, complete with extensive dialogue and significant photo coverage. I invite all to come on board in 24 hours to check it all out.

For now though, just be aware that I am alive and well, but of course my original travel plans have had to be changed following the events that took place up in the more remote parts of Jujuy Province. Incidentally, the above "self-portrait" was taken by yours truly while on an extended hike outside of small pueblo of Susques, and the shot below was taken yesterday, on the road to San Antonio de Los Cobres, en route to the mythical high mountain pass, Abra del Acay.

Today I have finally reached Cafayate, a full two dasys behind schedule, but that´s not an uncommon thing on trips like this. I will be in Cafayate for three nights, and then comes a big push to get to the city of Villa Dolores, west of Córdoba on February 2nd, before going on to Mendoza and back to Chile. But that is still all so much in the future, you know anything can happen before then!

Anyway, so please come back tomorrow for a fully detailed account. It ought to make for some interesting reading...

Saludos, amigos.

SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA TODAY, THEN ON TO ARGENTINA TOMORROW

2007-02-21T07:26:00.000-08:00

Today I have reached the oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama, my last stop before crossing over the roof of the continent at Paso de Jama and on into Northwest Argentina, with a projected one night stay tomorrow night in the Quechua Indian pueblo of Susques before continuing on to Salta and Cafayate. The computer at this internet cafe has a painstakingly feeble internet connection, so again I am posting maps instead of photos, ostensibly to preserve my camera batteries from wholesale drainage.
The map above is of the town of San Pedro, which is not only an oasis in terms of agriculture here in the higher reaches of the Atacama Desert, but is also something of a neo-hippie bohemian outpost in a very remote but beautiful part of Chile. To the northeast, the Bolivian Cordillera reaches upwards toward the skies, dominated by the immense snow-covered Volcán Licancabur. Tomorrow I will drive past Licancabur and up onto the high altiplano and on to my planned routes south through Argentina.

Te above map shows the tenuous route I will be following across Northwest Argentina from Paso Jama on the far left, and finally into the strikingly scenic Quebrada de Humahuaca and Argentine RN 9 which will lead me through The cities of San Salvador de Jujuy and Salta before my arrival in that wonderful little gem of a town known as Cafayate. AS a matter of fact, I do not believe I will be able to post anything here until I have reached Cafayate, which will not be for a couple of days. For those of you who recall my adventures in this part of Argentina back in February of 2006, you will remember that this stretch of highway east of Susques was where I had my fateful collision with a llama, which was the saddest and most effecting moment in that whole 3½ months of touring.

This last schematic illustrates the elevations (in meters) of my climb up onto the altiplano and then the eventual descent into San Salvador de Jujuy. The highest points are real rarified air excursions - 4600 meters equals about 15,000 feet elevation! Breathe deep and move with measured efforts...

I´ll catch you all on the other side.

Chao, amigos.

PREMIERE TALTAL LANDMARK DESTROYED BY FIRE

2007-02-18T06:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I arrived here in the sunny and laid-back town of Taltal (pop. 15,000) which has, by the very pleasant nature of its ambience, become one of my favorite places in all of Chile. After getting settled in to my usual digs at the frumpy little Hotel San José, I was determined to get the post put up here on the blog about Parque Nacional Pan de Azucar, but my feelings in that regard were far overshadowed by the shocking discovery I´d made upon my arrival that Taltal´s beautiful Catholic church (built in 1890), the town´s premiere landmark and staging center for the annual religious festival, had burned to the ground back on January 6th, 2007.
The tragedy could have been worse, but for the fact that the town´s fire station was right next door to the church. Still, the structure was completely destroyed, and the rectory and church offices alongside the church were similarly gutted, which prompted the city fathers to conduct last weekend´s festival services in the plaza across the street from the ruins of the burned buildings.
I would post a picture but it would show only a vacant lot of charred flooring joists as the only reminder of the former glory now gone. Instead, I´ve posted my Turistel map of Taltal, on which you can see the plaza slightly left of center, with the "Iglesia" facing it across Avenida Arturo Prat, the town´s main street.
Anyway, since the church was sort of Taltal´s "flagship" landmark featured on all of their tourist literature, they are already planning to rebuild it. So perhaps on some future visit to this fine little outpost of tranquility (22 km off of the Panamerican Highway on the coast) I will be able to see the landmark restored.
Incidentally, I will be here in Taltal until Tuesday morning, when I leave for Calama. MY agent Andrés is supposed to be sending my permit to cross to Argentina in his rented 4x4 pickup truck to the Chile Express offices in Calama on Tuesday. Without the permit, I cannot go into Argentina. So we will see if he comes through. I suspect that he will.

PARQUE NACIONAL PAN DE AZUCAR

2007-02-17T13:33:00.000-08:00

Here´s a veritable little gem of a park, Chile´s Parque Nacional Pan de Azucar, and now that I´ve visited it, I am scratching my head wondering why in the world I never took the time to visit it during my first two visits to Chile. Well, my Agent Andrés insisted that I needed to go there, by saying that he is "always looking for new places for you to explore."

Pan de Azucar was created in 1985 with the intent to preserve and protect the natural ambience, as well as the unique flora and fauna of this specific coastal region in the Atacama Desert. One feature is the striking small island, Isla Pan de Azucar, which lies right off the coast from El Soldado campground and is the home and nesting ground for a population of Humboldt penguins. Locals offer boat rides to the island for tourists to see the penguins as well as the other maritime animals such as a local herd of sea lions. The above sunset photo shows the proximity of the island to the mainland.

Here is the view from the fabled Mirador, which gives the visitor a better appreciation of the coastline in the park as well as offering a wonderful opportunity to see and appreciate some of the native plant species that have become adapted to survive on the mists from the ocean fog, as it hardly ever rains here.
The scenery here in the park is as varied as it is spectacular. Golden sand hills give way to stark chocolate bands of sediment on jagged escarpments. In all, I would say Andrés was right when he insisted I visit this park, and I only regret that I did not have more time to explore it further.. But I guess that only means I will need to do so on a future journey.