Hey, Chile

We hopped aboard a bus headed for the border town of Tacna in south Peru. We planned ahead and bought tickets before leaving for Machu Picchu, but upon entering the bus we were surprisingly the only ones that had reserved the first floor.

Many of the distance buses in Peru have two floors or pisos. Each piso has a different price and can have different amenities such as meal service, DVD entertainment, wifi, 180° reclining seats, etc. I talked Rob into upgrading our seats because the trip time was 15 hours.

Our bus line Julsa didn't include any amenities other than 160° reclining seats, no meal, and no lights. The lack of light was ok until dusk when we started getting hungry for the sandwiches we brought. We accepted our loss when the bus took a sharp turn and we heard our fruit roll away into the dark.

Some 7 hours later just outside of Puno on lake Titikaka others boarded the first floor with us for the remainder of the trip.

5am we pulled into Tanca before sunrise and well before many of the facilities of the terminal were open. We hung out for an hour to charged up our cell phones next to the bathrooms which were manned by an attendant playing a radio much too loud for the hour.

Ears ringing, we caught a cab to the international bus terminal which is about two miles away for 6 soles. The choice was ours whether we took a carpool (collectivo) or a bus over the border. The carpool line had a sign clearly marking the price for 15 soles per person, however, the douche-bag drivers were charging tourists 20. We took a bus at the end of the platform for 12pp to Arica the first town over the border of Chile.

We tried Air B&B for the first time because hostels are around double the cost of hostels in Peru. We found the prices for both of us on Air B&B can be the same cost as one of us staying a night in a hostel. It turned out fine with our gracious host the Familia Avila, until I plugged in the power converter I purchased to use the European style plugs they have.  Sparks went flying, I went running, and the lights went out, all the lights...the whole three story building...  I failed to notice that the power supply was also 220 volts instead of the 110 volts that we use at home. Our host Carolina laughed it off and went about restoring the power.

The town of Iquique (EE-KEY-KAY) is a surf town three and a half hours inside the border of Chile.  It is situated on top of one of the driest deserts in the world the Atacambe.  The town is sandwiched between the coast and mighty dunes rising 1500 feet less than a half mile inward.  There are Tsunami warning signs everywhere because, as I found out a bit later, the threat of a serious event is very real in this systemically active area.

Right about midnight we were awoken by an earthquake measuring 4.6. Everything was rattling and moving. The family clearly had practice with these events because they all met in the courtyard within seconds. When asked at breakfast the following morning, I was quickly corrected when I said earthquake.  Carolina said, "it was nothing but tremors, you know it's  bad when the lights go out."

Chile is going to be a challenge. It seems they've invented their own Spanish. Slang is the norm. They shorten all words such as "graca" instead of "gracious".  We've become very good at understanding Spanish, but here were lucky if we get one word of the sentence.

Hey, We gotta get going!

We took our time getting back to Lima for our flight northward to Bogota. We skipped a tourist attraction about 45 min outside the city with the intention of hitting it up during our final days. We arrived late at night to the Hostal Internacional.  Remarkably, they had kept our piece of luggage for the entire four months we'd been gone.  Our coffers were full with last minute tourist souvenirs from Peru for family and friends. We needed the extra room that the suitcase provided.

Early the next morning we hopped on the bus northbound to the Plaza Norte to transfer to Zipaquirá.   We walked up the Camino de Sal through the atrociously touristy entrance. Vaulting above the entrance is a four story tall fake climbing wall in the shape of a tree, mazes, and other muses. Luckily we were there on a weekday and we would not see the fantastic crowds that take up the area each weekend.

We descended into the mine 1800 feet below the surface and found this:

Hey, Medical Tourism

Torres del paine is still haunting me, mainly my leg. We've shacked up in Arequipa for the week once again at the fantastic Arequipay Hostal. It's been nice not moving for a bit, there's plenty more to see but we'll save the other sights for another trip.

We're recovering from our vacation. I went to the doc for the most odd medical experience I have ever had. It started off as a stop at the pharmacy for some ibuprofen, the lady said a better course of treatment would be an injection. She led me out of the store, around the block to a clinic where she left me after a few words to the desk gal. I sat unsure of what was in store for me.

I was handed a sign in sheet that was oddly comprehensive including required spaces for my religion and blood type. I was ushered into an office for the typical hight, weight and blood pressure tests, but than shooed into the hall again and told to wait.

A doctor type figure came and collected me. He was a doctor I think...so said his poorly photocopied license from the University of Lima...if it was this guy's degree anyway.  He looked at my knee asked some questions which I clearly had no answers to due to my next to basic vocabulary in Spanish. From what I gather,  he said I had tendenitious and he scratched a prescription together and again shoed me away.

I was sent back to the pharmacy where they loaded a bag with needles, seringes, three types of medication for three days in small brown vials. They sent me back to the clinic, I think, anyway that's where I went for the administration of the prescription. A couple min later they had my pants down a bit and a huge needle in my butt cheak. They handed me the bag with three fewer vials and told me to come back tomorrow at the same time. Each day I would  walk to the clinic with my own drugs in hand, get stuck and limp back home.

Rob, on the otherhand, was tending to a broken tooth that suddenly interrupted his trip. He received a recommendation from Nancy at the hostel front desk for a dentist. He showed up at the clinic where they breifly diagnosed the break and amazingly said they could get started right away reconstructing the tooth. Rob chose lunch first, and slowly and painfully chewed with one side of his mouth the last of his solid meals in the week.

Later that day he went back to the dentist for the start of his tourture.

Hey, We're headed back north

Having traveled north to south on the Pacific coast of the continent, we begin a mad dash back North to catch our flight home from Bogota. Our first step was exiting Chile which means we must say goodbye to toilet seats, soap in bathrooms, printing our own produce labels, and high cost of living.

We flew back from Puente Arenas to Santiago after searching the city for a car wash that was open on a rainy day. Why you ask? After the long trip to the national park we'd caked on some crazy mud and we needed to get rid of the evidence that we'd probably not been their ideal customers. Plus, the rental company has a 45 dollar cleaning fee that also applies to getting the car washed.

We only had about ten hours in Santiago before we were again headed north. Courtesy of my former position the Holiday Inn Airport hotel was affordable and extremely convenient because it's right in front of the terminal.

Once again Sky airlines came through with an amazing deal. A bus to the Peru boarder from Santiago takes approximately thirty straight hours and runs about 45 dollars. Our flight took two and a half hours and cost 30 bucks plus tax. Clearly it was worth every dollar to spring for the flight to Arica and the bus across the boarder back to Tacna and onward to Ariquipa. Yes, to a certain  extent we're being guided by our stomachs. That Ricotto Relleno at La Mundial is so good that we've based our entire journey back north around a pit stop in Arequipa 😎.

Mondays mean chacque in the restaurants. This weird soup consists of a huge hunk of lamb, entrails, pumpkin and potatoes. Remarkably the resulting mixture was delicious, once you get over the chewy texture of the intestines. The bowls are brimming with a bountiful array of spices and just the perfect level of spicy. Rob made the mistake of taking a bite out of one of the chilis, and he quickly downed the rest of the chicha to put out the fire.

Back to the market we went for our nightly meals and even braved eating at one of the local restaurant stalls in the midst of all the bustling. These ladies mean business and they are quite cut throat with how they pull in new business. The server is tasked with herding business onto the sushi bar style stools in front of the chef. Rarely do you see a menu and often just point to what you want. You cant go wrong, they all have the same food.

Hey, We're Backpackers

I thought I knew beautiful landscapes until I came here.

Hostal Geminis was the cheapest hostel we could find in Puerto Natales, but it still commands a rate of 40 bucks a night which is double that of any hostel stay thus far for us too. The owner was exceptionally kind in working with us and changing our reservation from four to two nights without penalty so we could run up to the Torres del Paine National Park.

Mario and Mandy gave us the hot tip to checkout another hostel called Basecamp for their free orientation daily at 3pm. Basecamp has there sh*t together; recycling programs, gear rentals, training, guided tours, you name it. They talk about what to expect in the park including  shuttle times, ferry crossings, camp suggestions and many other valuable insights. We saved a some bucks by grabbing a few butane canisters out of the nearly empty box, some forks, a sleeping mat, and camp suds from their free box.

Hiking poles, a tent, sleeping bags and a stove we rented from our hostel. The rentals are typically free for the pickup day/night but differ  between companies whether they charge daily vs. nightly. On a per day basis we had three days, but we only had two nights.  Our hostel charged by the night which immediately saved us a day of rental (ie the drop-off day)!

We woke early in the morning with the intention of beating the crowd to the park who were taking the 730 bus. We took off at seven on a lonely road into the black of night. An hour and a half later the sun had risen and the pavement had stopped. Presumably because the official season had ended in March, the road crews had shut down the dirt road and built a very rough frontage road. Every bang and bump I feared a tire explosion, broken suspension, or other possible mishap.

Nevertheless, we made it in two and a half hours to the gate and turned toward the $800 per night Hotel Torres and our free parking, another half hour further. At the hotel we ditched our car and started walking up and up. Soon we realized that despite the cold that we were way overdressed for the trek. We found that long johns with tee shirts were the best to keep us from overheating. Mile after mile we trudged up the valley.

Autumn was in full swing and the trees had started to turn in preparation of the coming winter. Gold, orange, and red leaves greeted our every sight as we hiked through the valley. After six miles we reached our camp for the night and quickly set up our tent. A grueling steep trail leaves the trees from the camp into a boulder and scree field showing signs of last week's snowfall. We were knackered after the climb, turned a corner and there they were. From a height of 1000ft soaring to almost 3000ft instantly, stood three gigantic towers made of a white granite. A crystal blue pool mirrored the torres back into the heavens. Halfway up the torres massive base there's a small hanging glacier that every so often would crack sending car sized blocks of ice plummeting hundreds of feet down to the lake below.

Once again we woke early on the next day. Rob kindly let me carry the heavy rain drenched tent for the trek back down. We were in a race to get back to the car, around the park, and to catch the catamaran. This time of year the boat only goes once a day. The hike out was dreary and misting the whole way. We arrived soaked and just in time to the car to bolt around to catch the ferry in the nick of time.

Traditionally people take five days and four nights to complete the "w" trek. We had just two nights so we gambled on the completion of the first and the last segments of the W.

We started hiking immediately after disembarking the boat at Paine Grande toward Lago Grey. The hike started easy enough up a graveyard of burned out trees. Soon enough we started our assent and the trail became a bit more tricky. We arrived at the mirador in under an hourly for a magnificent reveal.

The appropriately named Lake Grey is surrounded by huge mountains on three sides and at the far end a blue glacier stretched out of sight. Dotting the grey water colossal icebergs bobbed in every bay we passed. The climb down from the mirador was a scramble down glacial scarred rocks to our destination at the Refuigo Grey.

The Refuigo is an interesting  mixture between a hostel and a hotel with a camping option as well. They range from 50 dollars per night per person for a bed inside the swanky lodge to 9 dollars per person for camping. Refuigos cater dinners, have bars, and general stores; however, the costs of these luxuries profoundly outweighed their value, except for cookies, they were a bargain according to Rob.

We set up our tent in a grassy field outside the Refuigo and took off to the glacier. We knew the view from the mirador could be improved so we scurried up a craggy rock for a closer view. The Grey Glacier is one of the poster child for global warming and for glacial recession, nevertheless what remains is a breathtakingly large expansive ice-field as far as you can see.

The wall of the glacier is over thirty feel tall on average and wraps around an island on two fronts. Thunderous cracking can be heard from camp and terrific splashes occur as the glacier splinters into bergs as big as houses. The blue icebergs are themselves a trip to watch. They float lazily while melting and will suddenly topple over because they got too top heavy.

Hey, End of the world

Ferdinand Magellan proved the existence of an ocean beyond the Americas. Terra del Fuego is where the oceans meet and is the furthest point south of any of the continents other than Antarctica itself. We flew from Santiago to Puente Arenas on Sky Airlines for the incredible round trip price of 110 bucks. Considering that the distance between Santiago and Puente Arenas is equal that of Denver to California, the bargain was impossible to pass up.

So here we are at the bottom of the world and winter is fast approaching. We got lucky though, weather forecasts look promising for the next couple of days. We unfortunately only have four days down here, which is two days too few according to our research post purchase. We'll make the best of it on our own with a rental car so we can avoid waiting for endless buses and transfers between locations.

Our first stop will be two and a half hours north in Puerto Natales which is the gateway to the infamous Torres del Paine National Park. We bought sweaters, hats, socks and gloves made of alpaca while leaving Peru and we hope that will help us survive a little bit longer in the nearly arctic conditions.

(Pictures to follow) it appears that the network down here was set up by a flock of penguins

Hey. Santiago

People are quite harsh while talking about Santiago Chile. They say its a boring, dirty place which I will attempt here to change its reputation. Though it is true that the Andes concentrate the cities pollution and you can barely see the moonlight through the smog, but the city beneath is very clean and is a striking contrast to the other major cities we went to over the course of the trip. On more than one occasion I've been shocked to hear Spanish because of how put together and organized the city is. The people are very diverse here too and brown hair isn't so unique. You kind zone out and feel that your in a major city in the US.

The city is equipped with an impressive metro system that snakes throughout most of the downtown area. The cars are packed to the brim at rush hour and if you plan wrong you'll have to see several trains pass before you can somehow squeeze into one. The metro is perhaps  the greatest reason to love Santiago because it makes sites from the entire city possible within a days agenda.

Many museums are free! We spent days exploring their treasures. The art museums were full of mostly contemporary art and have other works intermixed in a somewhat random manner.

National Geographic declared Santiago's La Vega market as the fifth best in the world. The multiple buildings extend for five acres or more. We went as often as we could because of the bargains on groceries and the hidden local eateries serving lunches at unbeatable prices for the quality. 

The market is a big family of sort that is often the first to load up a truck and to send emergency relief to disaster areas even before the government gets there. The unofficial motto of the market is dispues de dios esta la Vega which translates roughly to mean that the market picks up on providing for people where God leaves off. The sense of community echoes in a slightly jealous manner with the shop keepers. You pick your vendor for each good, and only go to that vendor for that good. If your seen by your tomato guy with tomatoes from someone else, he blocks you like on Facebook. Never again will you get his frequent customer good price.

2.5 million people are burred in the cities' cemetery which is absolutely huge. Here you can witness first hand the social stratification of the Chilean society. The graves range from modest to Moslem's. The majority of the larger ones are family plots and themed around an identity they want to relate the family to even past their lives. The families competed to use outlandish designs, symbols and architecture to reinforce their status or membership in a ethnic community. Italians built a ten story building for their communities departed.

One of the most somber areas of the cemetery is the children's area. Many kids starved to death during Chile's coup d'etat lead by the military dictator  Pinochet. The American CIA backed the truck drivers union in a strike that paralyzed the country and allowed the boil over of what was already a rising social temperature. Without the trucks, the food sat and rotted and the kids were the worst victims. 1973 was the start of 18 years of military rule, warrantless arrests, torture, paranoid interrogations, and disappearances.