Hi again. I’ve covered a lot of kilometers since the last entry. At that time I was pretty far south of Santiago and the center of Chile. From Valdivia I went all the way up to Valparaiso, a port city west northwest of Santiago. As is common for me, I bagged the big capital city. Everyone says that was pretty much a good idea. Valparaiso was nice. It reminded me a lot of Lisbon. The buildings are about the same vintage, and very European, and it’s hilly. The flats aren’t very wide. Then it goes up. If the views were good, I´d post some pictures, but they aren’t. You see a big port, for the most part. The picture below is of the street where I stayed (my place was about halfway down the block on the left), and it’s pretty typical of the views.
Some of the ascents are pretty steep. Most people who aren’t driveing go up on ascensors like the one below. Some date from the late 19th century. They were steam powered then, but are electric now, though some of the carriages are original
Other than that, I don’t feel like my pictures are that interesting. But take my word for it, Valparaiso was an enjoyable place to spend a three days.
About an hour south of Valpariso is an old whaling village, Quintay. The Japanese were whaling around there until 1967 when Chile joined the international community in outlawing whaling activity in their waters and the processing on Chilean soil. There is an interesting museum, with grisly pictures of dozens of dead blue whales strewn everywhere in various phases of their processing. Here’s the village now, definitely less active than in the old days.
The coastline along there is nice. There is a lot of this along the coast of South Africa.
From there is was to Pucon. Pucon is about looking at and climbing an active volcano. Unfortunately for me, the weather was inclement so nobody could climb the snow capped volcano. Here it is from town, though, puffing smoke. I have many pictures of some of the 60 active volcaoes in Chile, but really, if you’ve seen one you’ve about seen them all.
From there it was a two day, 20 hour bus ride up to the Atacama desert area of northern Chile. San Pedro de Atacama is the local backpacker ghetto there. It’s not too bad, considering. The streets aren’t paved or anything. The thing to do there is take in the desert scenery. It reminds me of Namibia, though generally not as dramatic. One area called the Valley of the Moon is like around Swakomund in Namibia.
There are rivers and creeks flowing through this otherwise desolate area. Along them are villages. Here’s one pretty one.
There are widely spaced settlements in the Atacama. They are mostly pretty dull, but it’s beginning to look like Bolivia once you get up there. I have many cute church pictures. Here are the best of the bunch.
The Atacama has the kind of desert beauty that, even if you’ve seen a lot of deserts, is distinctive and beautiful in it’s own way that you don’t feel like, ho hum, I’ve seen this before. It’s a little of Namibia, a little of the American southwest, a little of Egypt, a little like Ladakh in Kashmir and, yes, a little of the rest of arid southern Argentina. Like southern Argentina, there are ravines and washes, lakes, and seasonal ponds. The water comes down from the Andes and forms habitat for many animals. Before this trip I didn’t even know there were fresh water flamingos. Down here, they are quite common.
That obviously isn’t so much a flamingo picture as one of the typical settings you see them in. Many people prefer the green and wetness of southern Chile. Obviously, the people who prefer the desert have a point.
Right now I’m in Salta, Argentina, a day’s bus ride from San Pedro. I came here because I was told Americans need a visa from a consulate to enter Bolivia. Salta has the nearest consulate. It turns out Americans can get a visa at the border, though they still have to pay 130 USD for it. So, I could have gone to Bolivia by way of the Uyuni salt flats from San Pedro. The border is only a couple of hours from there. But I’m glad I came. Salta is not photogenic, but it is historically interesting and the ride was very nice, through snowy passes with dramatic, bare landscape above the treeline for much of the way. After a couple of nights here, I am going to Jujuy today to look at the sights around there. My guess is that I’ll get to Bolivia in about three or four days.
I bought a ticket to Korea for June 22. I had hoped to maybe stopover in northern California for a bit, but the flights I got amounted to about 700 USD less than if I went another way. It goes through Ft. Lauderdale to LA. Then another airline takes me nonstop to Korea. It involves two red-eyes and an overnight in the LA airport, yuk, but it is cheap. There wasn’t even a way to stopover in LA and resume a couple of weeks later without that several hundred dollar difference. I think it has to do with after June 22 the peak summer season fares kick in.
So this phase of my travels is winding down. I’d like to go up to Equador, but I don’t think there is time. Maybe if Bolivia doesn’t work for me, I’ll go. I look forward to seeing Myung. She isn’t situated there yet, so I don’t know what is in store. We may work for a while, or work indefinitely. Or at least she plans to work. I’ll see what looks like a good thing to do. The course of our future has yet to unfold.
That’s about it for now. Be well, all of you.
