TravelStream™ news feed for member mlc on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/mlc en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sat, 04 Apr 2009 01:33:58 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mlc/3/1224455400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mlc/3/1224455400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mlc/3/1224455400/tpod.html Sat, 04 Apr 2009 01:33:58 -0400 The rest of South America ...

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Puerto Lopez, Ecuador

 These are samples of some of my favourite landscapes
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Quito, Ecuador

QuitoQuito is the last of the Andean cities that we were to visit, at an altitude that makes it cool even though it is practically on the equator. It is well known for its churches which have been built on a quite grandiose scale - one is said to be covered with 7 tonnes of gold leaf. Spectacular though this no doubt is, and perhaps inspired by Inca excesses in the same vein, we resisted the urge to see it.However, we clambered around a gothic basilica through the spindly towers, along the walkway that runs between the roof and the ceiling, up into the belfry (which involves passing through the inside of the gigantic clock) for great views over Quito. It is the first truly gothic church we have seen in the entire trip and it made an interesting change. We decided to see the vivarium and the orchid gardens while we were in town. We started at the vivarium and spent an hour or two looking at pythons, vipers, frogs and the odd turtle. I think that the prettiest were the pythons, especially the bright green emerald tree python, but the most curious was a knot of boa constrictors curled up together. I counted three heads but it was impossible to follow head to tail, much worse than those children's puzzles where you have to choose the right path among various squiggly options. They had some nice frogs too, and it was interesting that they did not insist we leave the room while they returned the deadly equis viper to its vivarium (it's called equis because the stripes on its back form an x - equis in Spanish).The botanical gardens are practically next door and sport an amazing orchid garden. The variety and outlandish nature of these flowers is extraordinary. It is a very diverse family, and flowers range from the miniscule to things the size of a rose (and those just the ones in flower while we were there). We spent ages in one hothouse, were impressed, and then discovered another. Although we couldn't identify it, signs claimed that they had the orchid on display that was the original source of vanilla (and also that the Mayans used to extract the vanilla and drink it with their chocolate - clever people the Mayans). Then we left for the Galapagos Islands (see separate entry) before returning for a day of sightseeing, which took us to the equator.The equator has long been known to run through Ecuador (hence its name), and was fixed just out of Quito by the 18th century French expedition led by Condamine. The expedition suffered enormously (and one member was murdered over a woman, I think), but succeeded in pinning the equator. Or so it was thought for a long time. Now, any fool with a GPS receiver can see that they get it wrong by 7 seconds of latitude, which equates to about 240m. That doesn't stop locals and foreigners flocking to the mislocated monument. We went to the actual equator, and the bizarre museum there. The displays are a hodge podge of things. A few artifacts from the Guarani indians, anaconda skins, a shrunken head from the Shuar. You can try a blow dart gun, and a range of 'equator games' (balance an egg on a nail head, walk on the equator line with your eyes shut), admire the trickery of water going down the plug different directions on either side of the line. None of this serves any real purpose, but it is fun in a gimmicky way. It is supposed to be less touristy than the main complex in the wrong place, but it is hard to think how that could be.It is interesting to look to the ridge overlooking the tourist spectacles where you can just see an indigenous monument, a large stone circle bang on the equator.
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Valdivia, Chile

Valdivia is chiefly famous for having a fish market that draws parasites like sea lions, vultures, cormorants and caracaras. Shrewd marketing move. The market is on the banks of a river and the fish scraps are chucked over a fence onto concrete pontoons where sealions provide an efficient waste disposal service. They are assisted by various sea birds including the ever-present turkey vulture.Beyond this there isn't all that much going on in Valdivia, but we had a nice day. We tried some local specialties including some curious spiky fruit.We also went for a wander around the botanical gardens, which lie on the far bank of the river. They are very strict here: no games, no picnics and no sitting on the grass! We disobeyed these rules a little bit - sitting on the grass and eating too, and watched a sealion cruise up and down the river.
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Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala

AntiguaAntigua is the old capital of Guatemala, and was for a time the capital of Central America.  That significance gave it a great many churches, many of which are now decaying shells.  It has very bumpy cobbled streets, horse and buggy rides, and a bad reputation for violence. It is in the highlands as well and consequently has a very pleasant  climate that even gets cold at night.  I had to wear my fleece jersey in the evenings - not something that I had expected in Guatemala. Despite the reputation for crime,  Antigua sees a lot of tourists, many coming for an extended period  to study at the well established language schools. It is a beautiful setting, with three volcanoes rising from the valley and forming perfect cones when they are not obscured by the clouds.In this part of the world the Lonely Planet is full of warnings  along the lines of  'robbery and worse used to be common but things have improved'. Despite initial scepticism I think that these warnings are probably justified.  For instance, there is a short walk to a hill with a nice view of the city.  Armed police escort people there every day in a walking bus. This is not the sort of thing that cities do unless there is a problem.  Our guide on the volcano tour carried a gun, and private guards at the Kodak shop and McDonald's carried shot guns. So there is at least a perception of a crime problem. This may be common elsewhere for all I know, but I don't think  I have ever seen guards so obviously on display anywhere, not even Johannesburg (which I thought was kind of rough at the time because the hotels have signs requesting you to turn in your gun). That said, nobody in our group had even the hint of trouble.  Volcan PacayaThe volcano hike was another of these events that it is suggested you not do without a guide, not so much because of the risk of a fiery death (for which the guides are not that much use) but to ward off the hordes of bandits that apparently lurk everywhere in Guatemala. The hike is a pretty easy wander from the little town to the lava field at about 2300 m elevation. On getting off the bus, we were accosted by hordes of kids, not bandits, although they were after our money too, trying to sell us sticks for the tricky ascent: 'stick? Es necesario. Is good.' 'Light? es necesario, is good.' The sticks are not actually necessary but they can be used to poke the lava with which would be 'good'.  The lights are certainly useful but we had brought our own. Horses were available for the feeble, and anyone else, and, with excellent grasp of human nature, located at strategic points along the track as well in case anyone decided that it was harder than they had thought.  You would come around a bend to see two horses standing ready by the side of the track and a man crying out 'taxi?' They could have worked it a little better in one way though: the walk went at a very gentle pace; if they pushed it a bit more I reckon they could double the horse usage which would add to the profitability of the whole thing quite a bit.  The tour cost Q80, about US $7 to $8, and the horses were a further Q60.We emerged from the forest onto a ridge and into the teeth of a freezing wind, just as the sun was starting to set, but before full sunset.  The view was spectacular back to Volcan Fuego (fire) and Guatemala City.  From here the track descends into a large field of contorted lava and the volcano rises in a perfect cone, with one of its flanks glowing ever so slightly.I was somewhat surprised by the haphazard approach to the tour from this point on. Litigation obviously hasn't yet ruined the carefree approach to outdoor activities here. We started out across the lava field: 27 tourists and three guides (one of which was a girl who  looked about 12),  and pretty soon we were widely dispersed as people stopped to take photos or find different ways across the lava.  The next evening the group was at least twice as large, and many were still in the lava  field after night had properly fallen.  The lava we walked on was well set, but very fragile and provided pretty uncertain footing.  Frequent cracks revealed molten rock below. Bizarrely there was a mongrel dog up here, keeping the group company. I've no idea where it comes from and whether it lives up there on the marshmallows it can scavenge from tourists, or whether it makes the hike from the village every day, but either way it seems a pretty odd thing for a dog to do. His paws must be amazingly tough to cope with the hot rocks and, worse, the sharp rocks. The wind was still very cold above the waist, but around the legs it felt positively hot, warmed by the rocks we were walking over. At places rocks were encrusted with sulfur.  And the views across the valley to the volcano and other hills as the sun started to set were fantastic.We had been impressed by the glowing openings to the lava below, but that was all a preliminary to a  real live river of lava oozing out of a crack at the top of the field and cooling before our eyes. It was particularly spectacular as the light started to fade.  There seemed to be no rules up here.  You could poke the lava with a stick or roast marshmallows in front of the river; the guys who went the next day reported someone frying an egg on it.  Personally, I like this laissez-faire approach, but I can't imagine happening in safety conscious New Zealand. (The risk of  litigation is obviously very low  in Guatemala, as there wasn't even a waiver form in sight.)From here it was a short scramble back off the field in fast fading light, and, to be fair, there was an element  of safety consciousness here because the route of the lava followed much older rock where there was very little glow at all. By the time we were back on the ridge it was full night, and the field glowed beautifully, as did the summit, its reddish glow being caught in the clouds and then hidden by them.We had an interesting conversation with the guide on the way back (he spoke very little English but beautiful slow Spanish).  He was saying that the field had been very quiet that night and that sometimes there were ten rivers of lava, each 100m long. Nancy asked if it changed much from week to week, and he said it changed from hour to hour. New rivers open and others close off in the space of  10 minutes.  (This was confirmed by John who says when he was up there a river opened while they were on the field.) In 1998 the volcano erupted twice, coating Guatemala City in ash.As we finished the walk there was a very yellow full moon rising from the ridge.It was an excellent outing.  And  nobody got hurt.  As our guide said: you are safer on the volcano than in Guatemala City. 
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La Paz, Bolivia

TiwanakuThis is Bolivia's most important ruin, so it is a shame that so little is known about it ...This was the dominant civilisation in the Andes from 1500 BC to 1200 AD (actually various dates are given for the decline with the one I have given being the latest date), and from which the Incas may have emerged. No one knows why it disappeared - theories include dispersion caused by drought and dispersion caused by flood.  The site is 19 km from the shore of Lake Titicaca, from where they obtained stone and which they revered and no one knows why they built so far from  it. Perhaps the lake was larger then, but no one knows (surely a core sample would answer this question and the drought/flood debate).The site is poorly preserved and not much to look at now but features a 7 stepped pyramidal platform 18m high with a sunken cross in the centre; a sunken courtyard featuring 175 distinctive faces (perhaps representing dominated cultures); portals carved from single slabs of stone and very large stone monoliths. Some of the pottery unearthed has curious features leading to speculation about contact with Asia - unusual hats, faces with moustaches and vaguely Asian features.One curious feature is that all of the monoliths have the left hand (clasping a sceptre) carved backwards. No one knows why.  Theories include error (laughable really - how could you execute an excellent carving and make the same error at least three times) and desire to have both hands facing, say, east.It must have been a grand civilisation. The stonework that remains is very well executed and uses a technique I've not encountered before. Blocks would have a groove cut into the top resembling a 'T' so when lined up the blocks would meet with a groove like a cartoon bone. These would be filled with bronze, and no mortar was used. The bronze has all been looted now. It is an interesting site, still being excavated, but frustrating because it sounds like even the possibilities are no more than guesses, and that little effort has been made to find evidence.On the way we passed through the various desolate towns of the altiplano. These people scratch a living from the pretty infertile looking soil. It is cold here, 4000m high and bordered by snowy mountains. The houses are mud brick and tin and often incomplete. The roofs are often corrugated iron sheets weighed down with rocks. One of the bigger towns is Achacahilla (I think, the sign was illegible). It has a football stadium, complete with a grandstand. There was not a blade of grass on the field, and the far side was marked by a mud cliff. Women could sometimes be seen working in the fields. Men too, but mostly women.It seems a hard place, though beautiful, and makes Tiwanaku's achievements all the more impressive. The Spanish originally settled on the altiplano but abandoned it after three days for the more sheltered valley of La Paz.Post-scriptIt turns out that far more is known about this site than you would think from reading about it at the museum or talking to guides. For instance, the core samples I thought should have been done to settle the climate debate have been done. They are unambiguous. Both sediment samples and ice cores from the nearby glacier demonstrate decade-long drought conditions from about 1000AD. Lake Titicaca is prone to significant fluctuations in level. Within the last 12,000 years it is thought to have been 50 m higher than today, and as recently as 1985-86 its level rose by three meters in a wet year, submerging vast areas and destroying 11,000 hectares of crops. So that might be why Tiwanaku was built where it was.
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La Paz, Bolivia

La PazLa Paz is a marathon haul from Samaipata and our luck held true to recent form.<i>The tripBolivia has been wonderful so far, but not much has gone right for us since the toe incident in San Pedro. The trip to Samaipata was an ordeal (see earlier log for gory details). But we thought this trip might be better - neither of us was sick and there were no babies immediately around us. Excellent, we thought, until the woman behind us with bloodshot eyes started industrial level sniffing. Sniffing is really too mild a term. I've heard of breaking the morale of prisoners/ kidnappers by blasting rock music at them. She was in the same league. And she was a tease. Just when I thought she had died she would start up again, 'snargggrr'. She stopped or got off the bus&nbsp; at some point, but was replaced with an aggressive snorer. We hadn't gone far when the bus stopped to change a tire. Most people got off, but I didn't bother. Nothing happened for a long time, except the bus jolting forward a bit. I later realised that this must have been from trying to undo the wheel without access to a jack. After more than half an hour I got curious enough to have a look and I witnessed the ingenious solution. The bus had double wheels, so they laid a plank behind the inside wheel and reversed on to it, which took the weight off the flat tire. Soon we were moving again. Until we got to the roadworks, which required another wait of over 30 mins.In all, we arrived in Cochabamba 3 hrs late. But that didn't matter because the scheduled arrival time was 2.30am, and the bus lets you sit on until it gets light, deeming it too dangerous to wander around any earlier. No one got off when we arrived so I assume the threat is real. Once it was safe, we walked to the&nbsp;terminal. It was further than we thought, and it rained. But we arrived just as a bus was leaving, with enough time to get on (and, for the first time anywhere, have our bags weighed) but not to put on dry things. It is the first time we have got wet since Mexico. This was a high class bus, because it showed a movie: The good, the bad and the ugly'. Twice. The cityLa Paz surprises when you finally get there. After rolling along a plain for a very long time, you hit some buildings and then discover that you are way above (400m) the city proper. This is El Alto, the poorest part of La&nbsp; Paz and home to 1 million people. The view over the city to the plain on the other side is wonderful, with eroded mud cliffs and rock faces providing the only spaces not covered by houses that crawl from the valley bottom up the cliffs. An earthquake would be a major disaster here.We spent that evening wandering around, including through the witches' market which is far less interesting than you would think, apart from the dried llama fetuses. Apparently they bring luck. We caught a glimpse of a beautiful snowy mountain in the last yellow rays of the sun.Next morning we went to a mirador - a strange kind of children's playground which had good views of the city, and spent most of the afternoon trying to organise a tour to the Amazon with an hour or so at the coca museum.CocaThe museum claimed that the legend of the origin of coca was that it was provided to enable the people to bear hardships but that it would cause the white people only misery. Sounds post facto to me. They can trace coca use back 4500 years in Andean cultures, and it seems to have been prevalent throughout that time, across numerous cultures. But by 1551 the Church decided it was a problem and an obstacle to conversion. It was prohibited and the inquisition put in charge of eradication. It didn't work (sound familiar?) and by 1573 the Spanish crown intervened because of the role coca played in getting miners through the day (which apparently meant a 48 hr shift). Coca was back. And how. It was the key ingredient in many popular products, and is still used in coca-cola. The museum notes that since education about the dangers of cocaine began in Bolivia use has increased five-fold.If there was one theme to the museum it would be that coca is a useful crop, containing many nutrients and thriving in poor soils. It is&nbsp; a good thing in the Andes and only a problem in the west, as a result of pre-cursor substances produced there as well.GoldA local university runs four little museums. We were most interested in the precious metals, but had a browse through the rest as well. There was one to fashion which featured outlandish carnaval masks without much explanation, and showed 19th fashion said to be an amalgam of Spanish and Parisian styles. With the peculiar little hats and fluffed out skirts, it is clear that Bolivian fashion has not moved on much.Bolivia still actively mourns the Pacific War that it and Peru lost to Chile (1879-83) and which left Bolivia landlocked. Negotiations continue and I saw one headline to the effect of&nbsp; '120 years of talk without result'. The museum provided scant coverage of this conflict and is most memorable for the brass lettering on the wall 'Bolivia never has and never will give up its right to the sea' (or to that effect). It was yet another war triggered by taxes (imposed by Bolivia on Chilean companies in Bolivia).The main draw here is the 'Museum of Pre-Columbian Precious Metals' ie a collection of gold artifacts from Tiwanaku and Inca times. What interested me most was a 'libation bowl' (wood not gold) with a very long neck in a diamond pattern, just like the channels at el Fuerte. Tiwanaku was into sheets of gold, very thin and now generally battered. The most common item in the museum being diadems - gold plate centrepiece with lapis lazuli facial features and four rays of gold from the top and the sides. Also discs with llama scratched on. the Incas did the diadems as well but without the faces and seemed to prefer detailed models such as of llamas and Pachamama (earth goddess).We then left for Sorata. There is a hike to 5300m that we wanted to do and we thought it was best to tackle it while we were acclimatised.I enjoyed La&nbsp; Paz. It is much loss squalid than I expected, although the river smells like raw sewage, and has lots of energy (and about the standard Bolivian ratio of beggars, which is not that high). I even managed&nbsp; to find someone to fix my camera. On the first day some union was protesting about something. On the second there was a very large demonstration urging on the proletarian revolution, which the marchers felt that Evo Morales wasn't moving on with fast enough. It is curious to see such terms used in real life.&nbsp; The traffic pollution here is dramatic, a result of smoking vehicles standing still a lot. And downtown La Paz has many sinister youths wearing balaclavas and often camo gear. They are after your money, but only in exchange for a shoe shining.
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Sucre, Bolivia

SucreNamed after the independence general rather than the tasty additive to chocolate, Sucre is still described in the LP as a "sweet treat". It is nice - good market, nice plaza, nice places to eat but, fundamentally, it is just another town even if it is where they signed the Bolivian declaration of independence.The townWe spent day one exploring the town, which, as noted, is very pleasant. Nice leafy plaza opposite the cathedral, a market with lots of fruit (not to mention cheese, shoes, pasta, canned goods) and a bustling happy atmosphere. Sucre has lots of churches, although mostly they don't seem open and we have seen a lot already. But we were keen to have a look at the Capilla de la Virgen de Guadalupe which has a painting of said virgin encrusted with precious stones and apparently set off by Christmas lights. It sounded very Bolivian, but the chapel was impossible to find. We identified a possible door but it was very shut. So we tried later and eventually asked. It was closed for repairs.So we wandered up to the local hill and had a sandwich while looking out over the city. It is a beautiful view. Nancy decided that the best way to spend the afternoon was to go to a museum dedicated to preserving weaving as an art form, so she went off to do that. I stayed put and drank freshly squeezed fruit smoothies for the afternoon. I was saving my strength for Cretaceous Park the next morning.However, fate intervened again. A friend tells me that we are currently going through the crap phase of a trip where you are too jaded to enjoy things and start getting sick. I hope we aren't too jaded, but our luck has certainly given up on us. The toe incident in Chile laid us up for three days, Nancy was horribly ill with altitude sickness at Laguna Colorada, and has had a cold ever since which now evolved into one of those travel bugs. So we put off the dino park for a day. She was still ill the next day, so, showing my true colours, I abandoned her and went by myself.Cretaceous ParkThis is another of those 'only in South America' stories. 68 million years ago, what is now the Sucre region was a low lake region. Many dinosaurs used to wander across the muddy land to drink at the lake. There was much rainfall and rapid sedimentation. The Andes rose, lifting the damp region and twisting it lake bed 90 degrees. The result is that what was once muddy ground is now a mudstone cliff. It was mined for concrete, until they met some unhelpful deposits, at a layer that is coincidentally full of preserved dinosaur footprints. What luck! But, since it is obvious from the site that there are foot prints in earlier layers, I wonder how many were destroyed. And the destruction continues. Although the wall is no longer worked, it has absolutely no protection and the footprints are disappearing. Hope is on the horizon though, as UNESCO is set to world heritage list the wall next year and then will apparently cover it in plastic to stop the erosion.The wall is bizarre. It is vertical, and the footprints go straight up it, and sometimes across it. When you look at it, you feel as though giant flies have left footprints as they walked up the wall. You don't get within 100 m of the wall these days, being forced to look at it from the opposite side of the valley, but the prints are still clearly visible. I was told that the biggest is 88cm across,So, who crossed this area? It seems that lots of dinosaurs did, but we were told of four species. The fellows leaving the most common, impressive and sizable prints was titanosaurus. They reckon this beast grew to 36m long by 12 high on the basic plan of a brontosaurus, although the prints are thought to be by creatures no more than 20 to 25 m. They were here a lot and left big round elephant like prints behind.Next were prints from an animal that I don't think they even knew about when I was reading dinosaur books: carnotaur (in Spanish, so presumably carnotaurus in English?), the southern hemisphere's answer to tyrannosaurus. Same basic shape as t-rex but with boney protuberances above the eyes and even more residuary front paws. Curiously, the information centre sizes this beast both at 8m and 12m long (and t-rex at 10m). Either way, an impressive beast. His tracks run across and up the cliff from right to left but have been badly eroded.Next comes a favourite from the old dinosaur books: ankylosaurus, the 7 m long armoured tank of the dinosaur world.Finally there were the crested herbivores called (I think) lambeosaurs.This is not a fantastic effort, although the life size models of the dinosaurs are interesting and apparently they have planted the garden authentically with ancient species, but it still cool to gaze at real dinosaur footprints. It would have been nice to get closer than 100m though. Apparently, there is a hike to see, and stand in, footprints in stone somewhere nearby, but the access road was washed out when we were there. Even without that, Sucre must be the place in Bolivia to bring little kids.
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San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

San Pedro de AtacamaAn oasis in the middle of the Atacama desert, SPA has been an important stop-over for centuries and it is an unlikely magnet for travelers. But a magnet it is. It is a very small town of mud and adobe houses, most of which are tour agencies or hospedajes. Although it is an oasis, that just means there is some water - no beautiful lake with palm trees here. But the desert scenery is outstanding - utterly bare hills, snow-capped volcanoes and very flat desert, often completely bare but with patches of small hardy shrubs about a foot high.Valle de la LunaThe most popular outing here is to a desolate place to climb a sand dune and watch the mountains change colour as the sun sets. We decided to bike out with a stopover at the Valle de la Muerte.Muerte is a muddy canyon with grey sand dunes and striking forms gouged in the clay. It is an austere place apart from the sand-boarders.When we got to the Valley of the Moon we discovered that it is not just a place to view the sunset from, and we really hadn't time to see the sights. We had a quick dash through a narrow canyon and cave where the the mud has a drizzled look, and everything is more solid than it looks, and is deceptively iced with salt that looks like snow. Then we dashed off to view the sunset from the famous dune. The view is fantastic. Looking at the mountains across the Salar de Atacama (a salt flat) you have your back to the sunset with strange rocks to your right resembling petrified whitecaps. A flat salt-encrusted area is to the left and behind, while a rounded rise catches the last of the sun.&nbsp; The mountains did not perform their full colour changing repertoire this time, but it is still a lovely spot.The ride home in the dark was uneventful and I was pleased to find out that much of it was downhill which I had not noticed on the way up but which explained why I had found it quite hard going. I had thought that I was just unfit, but I barely had to peddle most of the way home. And I was grateful that we had thought to bring our head mounting lights - the bikes do not come with lights and it was very useful to be able to wrap our lights around the handle bars and at least be able to see the road.The museumThe local museum comes highly recommended for its display of mummies. But it has taken these out, deeming them disrespectful, and now has nothing to say on the indigenous population's cosmology, religion or burial practices.&nbsp; This reduces the museum to a straightforward display of artifacts and some history. The Atacameños were pretty conservative when it comes to material goods and their artifacts are not eye catching.But some facts for the record. Settlement occurred 11,000 years BP by hunter-gatherers who migrated with their camelid prey between the high altiplano and the more temperate lower altitudes. Between 5,000 and 1500 BP they&nbsp; settled into agricultural communities and were raising llamas. They produced professional but plain pottery, the main form of ornamentation being a face on the side of the pot.From 1500 BP they came under the sway of the more flamboyant Tiwanaku culture, but they held to their conservative styles. Their most interesting artifacts are the engraved tablets for snorting drugs, nicely worked with&nbsp; handles with anthropomorphic figures, monkeys and snarling heads that could be dogs, bats or big cats. The Incas arrived, and were soon displaced by the Spanish, and the site of the last battle is still well preserved by the desert environment.Laguna Cejar etcThis trip intrigued us with the chance to swim in an incredibly salty lake. It is not really like swimming at all because the water is extraordinarily buoyant. Minimising your natural&nbsp; buoyancy (ie 'standing' vertically) my shoulders were well clear of the water. You sink if you try this in the sea. You can sit as if on a chair. You cannot duck dive deep enough to get your feet under the water (and your nose, burning from salt, will punish you afterwards too). The typical reaction on first encountering this water is to burst into giggles. Afterwards, the salt dries so thick that it is visible. Nancy observed that it was like being the string in the science experiment at school where you make salt crystals.Afterwards we went to two sinkholes with comparatively fresh water, called the eyes of Atacama, and finished at a brilliantly salty salar to watch the sunset with a pisco sour, with a closer view of the mountains than from the valle de la Luna the night before, and this time there was a bit more colour changing going on. It was a good trip.Tatio Geysers and a minor hiccoughBut things were about to unravel painfully. The next morning we were to get a 4am tour to the highest thermal field in the world. Somehow both alarms failed us, and, running in bare feet in the dark to try to delay the bus passing our home, I tripped over some roots and ended up in a concrete ditch with two very badly skinned toes. I don't know how I managed not to break them.But we managed&nbsp; to get our tour (only because they made a second try to pick us up) and I heroically hobbled&nbsp; through the next eight hours of a pretty good trip to a field of fumaroles and geysers at 4,300 m. The geysers weren't up to much, and apparently are much more energetic in winter.&nbsp; But it was still a nice place, and on the way back we saw very shaggy llamas (some with bows), gorgeous graceful vicuñas, and little rabbit-squirrel crosses vizcachas. Back in civilisation and with the shoes off, the medical consensus was that the toes could very easily get infected and the best hing to do would be to lay up for a few days. They were somewhat disapproving that we had waited all day to come in as it was, but we only did that because it was so difficult to clean them - full of dust and glued to the sock with blood. They were very approving when I confirmed that I had not got into the hot pool at the geyser field; but I skipped that, not even thinking about the lively homes to bacteria they provide, but simply because I couldn't imagine getting my shoes off and back on again. I had been thinking that I could just wash them out, stick a band-aid on them to keep the flap closed, and head off. I was wrong.So once again, we were forced to spend longer than we had planned in a Chilean town. The excursion to Bolivia would have to wait.
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Vicuna, Chile

VicuñaDisappointed by our penguin encounter, we were not inclined to try other trips, but there was one activity we did want to sample. Chile is one of the best places in the world for watching stars - a combination of the driest desert on earth, clear skies and altitude plus low population densities (therefore little light pollution) have made it home to some of the flashest observatories around. You can't exactly use their equipment, but there is a custom made tourist observatory called Mamalluca. Tours go from La Serena but it is very simple, and quite a bit cheaper,&nbsp;to do it yourself.The bus trip up the Elqui Valley to Vicuña is interesting. This part of Chile is basically desert but the Valley is fertile and produces papaya and grapes which are mostly turned into pisco. I couldn't figure out where all that fertility comes from. The hills are bare and dusty, and the stream that runs through the valley looks insufficient to support a fraction of the production. But perhaps there is more water around than one would think, as the hydro dam just out of Vicuña is a fair sized body of water.The town itself is small enough, and must be thrilled to have the observatory so close. It shows rare entrepreneurial interest for South America. Pisco, pisco everywhereHaving arrived with plenty of time up our sleeves we opted for the free tour of the Capel pisco factory, a gentle 20 minute stroll from town. The tour wasn't actually free, but it was interesting and the samples at the end were fair. I was interested to learn that the grape&nbsp; is turned into a low grade wine, then distilled to about 80 percent alcohol, then watered down to comply with Chile's liquor laws, then left to stew in great vats made of local roble (I think, some local tree anyway) or American oak which hold 42,000 litres. Capel produces 40 million bottles of pisco (including pre-mixed cocktails like the delicious pisco sour) of which 97 percent is consumed in Chile. I'm sure that there is a big export market for this stuff waiting to develop. We asked if pisco was produced elsewhere in Chile. We were told no, but it seems that the real answer is yes, but outside Chile's second and third regions Chilean law prohibits it being called pisco. A stupid rule (as all these trademark rules are), particularly given that Peru produces the same stuff (with a stronger claim to originality) and there is no great knack to the production - the raw product is simply distilled alcohol and apparently flavourless.StarsAt&nbsp; 10.30 we hopped in the minibus to take us to the observatory, where we got to look through telescopes bringing the stars 100 and 200 times closer, and had a 'star formation for dummies' lecture. It was a very good outing.I was most impressed by the very first thing we did, perhaps because it involved one of the few constellations I recognise. Orion's sword has a very dim middle star. Magnified 100 times this 'star' is revealed to be a nebula containing four (in reality five, but you can't see that) little stars at its heart and at least another three in a line uncannily resembling Orion's belt. Even observation with the naked eye was fascinating. I have never before seen that the Milky Way (via lactea in Spanish) is not just a bundle of stars in the vicinity of the southern cross, but extends in a band from one horizon to the other. A patch of lightness so dim it looked like a cloud turns out to be the Magellan nebula - a whole galaxy (there is another one but it was drowned by light pollution). You may have noticed that the bottom right corner of the southern cross is particularly black. This is because there is a carbon cloud (an absorption nebula called the coal sack) blocking the stars behind.After amusing ourselves briefly picking out some traditional constellations (Orion, a bit of Cancer) our excellent guide taught us some others. It had never occurred to me that blank patches of sky can be constellations too but the coal sack formed the head of a black serpent for the Incas and they have a lovely couple of other black constellations too - the llama and the herder. Interestingly, where the Incas saw the head of a serpent, the Mapuche saw the body of a ñandu (an emu-like bird) and (apparently) aborigines saw an emu. I would not be surprised if the Maori saw a moa (and if anyone knows, drop me a note). &nbsp;After a quick lecture on the life history of stars we were back outside again to look at an open cluster (lots of stars without organisation), and then a globular cluster (Omega Centauri I think) where the stars are packed like a ball. we had a&nbsp;quick look at Mars, which looked surprisingly golden.Then we went inside to the flash 200 times telescope to look at Saturn and an open cluster known as the Jewel Box because of three coloured stars that line up - amber, blue (very faint) and green. Saturn looked like a kid's sticker or any black and white illustration you have ever seen - the band of rings were very clear looping around the planet at an angle of&nbsp;perhaps 30 degrees.All up it was a very good trip, setting us up well for our last stop in Chile - San Pedro de Atacama.
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Chaiten, Chile

ChaitenWe left Fu on Monday morning, completely ignorant of the status of our ferry 'booking' for Wednesday to Puerto Montt. We had originally thought it would be ok to spend a couple of days in Chaiten as there is a nice park there&nbsp; created by American millionaire (and hence resented by some). But now we wanted to get moving as it had taken us three days to get here, and our best case scenario was almost another three full days. Perhaps the ferry company owns all the accommodation in town? &nbsp;On arrival we went to the office. We were interested to watch the phone ring several times while we were there. The staff were unmoved, but they were dealing with flesh and blood customers.&nbsp; The upshot: we could go to Chiloé on Saturday, or Puerto Montt on Friday. By now flying was starting to look like a good option. Although the flights were delayed because of fog. Other people were in a similar state. We started to consider whether the ferry company got a percentage of hotel custom generated by stranded passengers, and decided that a bar next to their office would probably do very well. You could call it 'The Travelers' Lament' or the 'Myth of Chiloé' or similar.But before completely despairing, we stopped at a tour&nbsp; company, Chaitur, which said that we might be able to do a bus-ferry-bus option to Puerto Montt tomorrow. Extraordinary. It got stranger - we could even buy ferry tickets, and bus tickets too.&nbsp;So we did. The girl at the ferry desk seemed quite pleased to be able to sell something for once.This left us half a day to see Chaiten. Chaitur sold us on a trip to the thermal springs, dropping me off on the way for a couple of hours wandering in the gorgeous Parque Pumalin - which was apparently closed for some kind of health reason. Was I entering an anthrax/hanta virus plague zone? Surely someone would have mentioned something? So I pushed on, and I had it to myself.&nbsp; Still, my perennially guilty conscience had me wondering whether I was bringing some contagion back to town.Subsequent inquiry suggests that the closure is a politically motivated attempt to close the park and does not reflect any actual health hazard. It is a shame, because even the tiny bit of the park that I saw was lovely: Beech forest, fuchsia trees in flower, a pretty stream, views to snow-capped mountains and glaciers. It made me sad that we couldn't spend a bit more time there. &nbsp;The guy who took us is a real character. We couldn't get any coherent conversation from him until we had helped him adjust the brakes on a bike, and at one point on our trip back to town he pulled out a churranga (a bit like a banjo but not at all obnoxious) and started to play. He was very good, but it all seemed a bit random. But not as random as passing the body of an old passenger jet in someone's back yard. Apparently, the air force crashed it some years ago and someone decided to convert it into part of their home. &nbsp;Chaiten lives in almost constant fog, at least to judge by our experience, which disappears just a little inland. But when we got back into town, the fog had disappeared and we could appreciate the attractive rocky sea-shore with stranded boats (a theme around here), and a band of fog off-shore, making for a pretty sunset. We gorged at a restaurant on the beach with sunset views. It was the first time we had eaten out for a while, and it was fantastic. Salty fries have never tasted so good.
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