Random Rambles

It’s been a while since we returned from our South American trip last year. Spring, summer, fall, and most of winter have gone by. President Trump continues to spread peace and prosperity throughout the globe. Uncharacteristically for us, we spent the winter at home, enjoying time with family and friends.

But inevitably, it was time to dig the travelling shoes out from the back of the closet. First stop on this trip is Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan and the largest city in Central Asia.

This unassuming little building the the home of one of the world’s oldest Korans.

Tashkent contains a mix of Imperial Russian, Soviet-era, and post independence buildings. People are very friendly and relaxed.

Coming soon: the Center for Islamic Civilization. It is enormous. It’s scheduled to open later this month.

Our accommodation is near the Chorsu Bazaar. Run by a nice family. Close to a Metro station, but on a quiet side street.

Lots of the usual commercial hubbub in the market. We track down the Consumer Electronics sector, because somebody forgot to pack a power bar.

Typical of people in Muslim countries, Uzbeks are keen on sweet things.

They also eat a lot of meat here.

True story: on our flight from Warsaw to Tashkent, the flight attendant passes out sandwiches, which she says contain ‘meat’. ‘What kind of meat’, someone asks. ‘I don’t know. Not pork.’

Uzbekistan produces excellent ceramics. Too bad they’re bulky, heavy, and fragile.

Besides traditional designs, people also come up with unique pieces. I would buy this in a heartbeat if I had a way to get it home.

Like markets everywhere, there is always merchandise being freighted by unconventional means. This vintage Lada is delivering its weight in wood furniture.

On our first day, I make a new cat friend. We were just taking a rest when this kitty decides to climb into my lap for a snooze.

There are very few stray dogs around. People are generally nice to cats. We pass this cat hotel in the swanky embassy district.

In the same diplomatic ‘hood, we visit the Museum of Applied Arts.

Nice house. It used to belong to a Russian diplomat.

A Yandex (local Uber-type app) ride takes us across town, where we begin a self-guided walking tour at the State Art Museum. Cost of a 20-minute ride: less that $3.00 CAD.

The Romanov Palace was the home of exiled bad-boy Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich. Not coincidentally, he provided the original collection of paintings for the nearby Art Museum.

Many men here like to wear black clothing – like, A LOT of men. We ask a local if he can tell us why. He says ‘Really? I’ve never noticed. And I have no idea.’

On our last day in Tashkent we get a dump of snow. The previous day, we were lounging in a sunny park in our shirtsleeves.

Note the Soviet-era network of gas pipes in the background. Just like the Caucasus, as noted in earlier entries.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Tashkent is well known for its elegant Metro stations.

It’s the best way to get around town. Tashkent is mostly made up of long, wide, grandiose boulevards, a Soviet city-planning habit. Not very good for walking, though.

Each station has a theme.

The price for a ticket anywhere on the extensive system? A princely 19 cents Canadian. Just flash a Visa card at the turnstile and go. Beats the pants off the O Train in Ottawa.

This is a pet peeve of Colombians – people mispelling the name of their country. It’s as if people insisted on spelling ‘Canada’ as ‘Canida’.

We take a bus from Quito to the Colombian border, after overnighting in Otavalo, a town famous for its extensive market.

One uneventful border crossing later, our first town in Colombia is Ipiales. From there, we take an all-day bus ride to the city of Popayán.

You’re never far from a mountain range in Colombia. It’s very scenic.

Popayán is a pleasant small city with the usual colonial district.

We are surprised at how economical accomodation costs in this part of the world. In Popayán, for instance, we pay 26 dollars – Canadian! – per night for a private room with an ensuite bathroom. (Mind you, our standards are not very high.)

There are lots of churches. This one is the Basilica of Our Lady of the Assumption.

This church, among others, was severely damaged in a 1983 earthquake, an event depicted in a Fernando Botero painting. (Spoiler alert – we see this painting in the the excellent Botero museum in Bogotá.)

The Parque Caldas is the ever-popular centre of town. We have a great lunch, and people-watching from the balcony.

This is a Latin-America-wide custom: going for a leisurely paseo around the town square. Even the smallest village has one.

We are not surprised that Colombians are just as appreciative of Donald Trump’s comedic genius as everone else in the world. These posters feature The Donald and his henchmen.

Popayán is one of the oldest towns in Colombia. It was founded in 1537.

When we depart, we head for San Agustín, via a twisty, potholed mountain road. Lots of thick jungle, and few people. It’s easy to see how this used to be a hangout for FARC rebels in the not-so-long past. It’s only 130-odd kilometres, but takes five or six hours to get there in a minivan.

There is still lots of political violence in Colombia. (Much less than there used to be, but much more than Canada, which has essentially zero.) You have to pick your destinations carefully.

On arrival in San Agustín, we stay at the Finca El Maco. It’s run by Swiss people, so it’s very nice.

Colombia has these colourful buses known as chivas. They are for service in the more rural parts of the country.

We are near the source of the Magdalena River, the major river in Colombia. From here it flows over 1,500 kilometres into the Caribbean Sea.

The main draw here is the presence of relics from the San Agustín culture, mainly large stone statues and tombs.

We go by horseback on one day, escorted by a guide.

It’s a good way to visit the various sites, which are rather spread out.

Colombia, like Peru, has many interesting pre-Columbian cultures. Until fairly recently, it was unsafe to travel in many parts of the country, especially the remote parts where most archaeological sites are found.

Many of the statues are over 2,000 years old.

Some statues still have traces of the original paint. Almost all of the statues have what look like fangs. Apparently this is not due to an outbreak of vampirism in ancient Colombia – it’s meant to give the figures jaguar-like attributes. Jaguars were revered everywhere on the continent.

There are interesting similarities between many early South America cultures, even when they are thousands of kilometres apart. This tomb guardian shares characteristics that we found so amusing about the Decapitator in Tiahuanaco.

This statue is known as el partero, or ‘the birth-giver’ (but with a male ending, strangely).

We are fortunate to find a small stone replica of this one to bring home.

Next day, we visit the nearby small museum. Attached to it is a trail with statues brought from elsewhere in the region.

There are many tombs in the area. The San Agustín people (nobody knows what they called themselves, or what language they spoke*) were buried in stone sarcophagi, under large flat stones, and covered with earth. That is, eminent persons got this treatment.

* I’ve complained before about ancient cultures that didn’t have the foresight to come up with a written language, thus leaving we moderns in the dark about their motives for doing things one way and not another.

Probably the most beautiful butterfly I’ll ever see in my life. A bit of research tells us it’s a Periander Metalmark.

Here’s an unusually jolly-looking example.

We mentioned that guinea pig is a popular meal throughtout the Andean countries. This restaurant is named ‘the Little Oven’. I guess you don’t need a big oven – guinea pigs are pretty small.

Our next stop on the way to Bogotá is the Tatacoa Desert. Have we mentioned that we like deserts?

It’s a challenge getting out here. We have to take a tuktuk (!) from the nearby town of Villavieja to get here because the roads are impassible for non-4X4 vehicles. Our accommodation is basic.

It’s comfortable enough inside, with a fan and mosquito net.

It has one of these outdoor bathrooms that Maria really likes.

A guided hike is included.

Like many deserts, there is good clear sky for astronomical observations. We go to a session after dark and see things like the planet Jupiter and the Pleiades through a telescope..

Besides the ochre-coloured desert, there is a grey desert.

Our last stop on this trip: Bogotá. Bogotá may not be the most attractive capital city in Latin America. But we’re staying in the La Candelaria neighbourhood – everything we’re interested in seeing is within walking distance.

One misty afternoon, we take the cable car to Monserrate, a mountain overlooking the city. It’s over three thousand metres high.

There are also univerities and libraries nearby, so there are lots of cafes and restaurants around.

A must-see is the Museo de Oro. It contains hundreds – maybe thousands – of amazing pieces in gold that escaped being melted down by the Spaniards.

This exhibit really caught my eye. It’s a stylized jaguar, with emerald eyes and spots made up of dozens of individually-dangling gold bits.

Another must-see is the Botero Museum.

Besides Botero’s impressive personal collection of art by other people, the galleries are lined with his signature plump images. Even the vegetation and animals are plus-sized.

Because we are in Colombia, we have to take advantage of the coffee culture. In the fancy-schmancy Café San Alberto, we have a personal barista come to our table and make suggestions.

We visit the newly-renovated National Museum. The building itself is interesting – it’s a panopticon. This is a type of old prison design where a minimum number of guards can watch a large number of prisoners.

We have seen these before in a couple of places. One was in the notorious Port Arthur prison in Tasmania. Another was in Port Blair, in the Andaman Islands.

I finally satisfy my craving for a spicy chorizo from a street vendor. The proprietor insisted I sit down. I must’ve looked old and frail.

Speaking of meat – for our last dinner in Bogotá, we splurge on a rib fest at the La Siembra restaurant.

Sight or Insight of the Day

All journeys come to an end. We depart from Bogotá and fly home via Newark. Because of a severe storm, New York air traffic is stacked up. We have to land someplace in Connecticut to refuel. Finally, a short flight later, we arrive in Newark, where we’re told that our flight to Ottawa has been cancelled.

We spend the night in the airport Marriot Hotel (at our own expense).

We arrive home the next afternoon after five months away. It’s been a wonderful trip. But it’s great to be back in Canada – safe, clean, quiet Canada.

“Home is where one starts from.” — T.S. Eliot

The only disadvatange is that now we feel the full force of the threat from the Orange Menace, the madman across the border. As we said in an earlier entry, may God have mercy on our souls.

When I was younger, I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I’d visit the Galápagos Islands. They just seemed so remote and expensive for an impecunious backpacker. Just goes to show you that you never know where you’ll end up in this life.

But wait – we had to first fly from Lima to Quito, Ecuador. Our hotel in Quito is another heritage colonial building.

Ecuador seems very tidy in comparison to Peru. It doesn’t have the post-nuclear-war look of crumbling concrete, deserted buildings, and decaying, uncollected rubbish that Peru shares with so many countries of the global south.

Quito has a newly-minted subway that is – for the moment – at a Singaporean level of neatness and orderliness.

The old centre has many squares and churches, including the Jesuit church.

Our mission in Quito is to book some kind of tour for the Galápagos Islands. Our time in South America is nearing an end, so we don’t have time to simply wing it. We settle on an 8-day land-based tour, in deference to Maria’s pathologic motion-sickness.

The last day is cloudy and grey.

There is a gigantic basilica in Quito that looks out of place in a tropical Catholic country. Seems like it would look more at home in the north of France. Especially in rainy weather.

A lot of people don’t know this (see our mocking of Donald Trump’s favourite phrase a few entries back), but Panama hats actually originate in Ecuador. We visit the EBD Carmal hat shop.

Anyway, we’re off to the Galápagos Islands. After a couple of hours, we get our first look at our destination.

We arrive on San Cristóbal Island. It’s delightfully hot after weeks in the Andes.

On arrival, we are picked up by our guide of the day, Jorge, and driven to the highlands. This lagoon is one of the only permanent bodies of fresh water on the island.

Jorge is one of our good guides. In the half-dozen or so we meet over the next 8 days, some are less than helpful. (Our main complaint is that some just seem to be reciting from a script, using lame jokes, and not really having much passion for the job.)

One of the first creatures we see is the humble Darwin’s finch. It was his study of Galápagos finches that first got the wheels turning in his brain about the whole evolution business.

Way back at the beginning of this trip, we mentioned that Fernando de Noronha (in Brazil) had beautiful beaches. The beaches here are nothing to sneeze at, either. Powdery white sand, no trash, few people, bathwater temperatures, and clear visibility. When we go snorkeling among the rocks in the shallows, we are able to follow half a dozen sea turtles gliding around.

Probably the most representative beast on the islands is the giant Galápagos tortoise. Indeed, the name ‘Galápagos’ means ‘tortoise’ in an obscure Spanish dialect.

In one reserve that we visit, they have empty shells that you can crawl into for a unique photo opportunity. I consider this beneath my dignity. Maria has no such qualms.

Despite being on the Equator, a large part of the islands are arid rather than ‘tropical’. Cactus forests thrive.

Another creature seen everywhere on and around the islands are sea lions.

Besides being found on beaches and rocks, they take over waterfront benches like homeless derelicts.

We are booked on a snorkeling/scuba expedition to Kicker Rock. There are lots of hammerhead sharks here – an attraction for the scuba set.

In fact, there are lots of sharks everywhere here. Luckily, they are for the most part either small or non-threatening.

Most of our fellow passengers – a young crowd – go scuba diving. We and a few others simply snorkel and watch the blue-footed bobbies on the cliff.

These birds have gone up in my estimation. I used to think of them as glorified seagulls, but now we find them endearing. And not because they have the most snicker-inducing name – inevitably, souvenir shops everywhere on the islands feature t-shirts stating ‘I love boobies’.

And wherever there are rocks, there are crabs.

Another day, another island. We are on an excursion to North Seymour Island. Even though we opted for an ‘8-day land-based tour’, we still have boat trips between islands and on excursions. Maria copes very well.

In the harbour from which we leave, we spy strange, buoy-like devices belonging to the Unites States Navy. According to our guide, they are ‘ocean drones’ here for ‘maintenance’. It’s hard to say if this is true or not, as in our experience, guides seldom say ‘I have no idea’.

North Seymour island is uninhabited, but has lots of wildlife that ignores the presence of humans, like most wildlife in the Galápagos.

Dinosaur-like land iguanas roam the island.

A creature featured in every documentary ever made about the Galápagos: the frigate bird.

By happy accident, it’s breeding season, so the island is full of throat-inflating, wing-flapping, hooting frigate birds.

Many of the birds nest on the ground and, as mentioned, don’t pay much attention to human visitors.

Most of these excursions involve a snorkeling session. No surprise, the snorkeling is great. We see seahorses, sharks, different kinds of ray, and sea turtles galore. Sorry, no Go-Pro.

Another place we visit are Los Tuneles (the tunnels). This is a labyrinth of collapsed lava tubes through which channels of crystal-clear water serve as a highway for sea life to roam around in – sea turtles, sharks, and more.

This sea turtle glides gracefully past.

The tunnels are even more picturesque when they have cactus growing over them.

Yet another iconic species here are marine iguanas. Like the sea lions, they are as likely to be found in town as on a beach.

It’s also breeding season for the iguanas, so we see many digging holes in the sand.

Our final three days are spent on Isabela Island. Even though it’s the largest island in the archipelago, it’s sparsely populated. The main town, Puerto Villamil, is a sleepy, laid-back village. We enjoy great sunsets from the beach.

Our package includes bike rental for a couple of days.

There are sand roads that lead to other beaches.

We’ve enjoyed our Galapagos trip. Of the animals you expect to see, you see many. And so far, they seem to be doing a good job of combining conservation with being a tourist destination for the entire world.

The day we depart, we take a speedboat back to Santa Cruz Island, then north to Baltra Island for our flight back to Quito.

Interesting fact – the Americans had a base here on Baltra Island during WWII. (Which is probably why there’s an airport on this island in the first place.}

Sight or Insight of the Day

Charles Darwin really put the Galápagos on the map. That’s a lot of influence for a visit of only five weeks.

We have been to several places that Darwin visited on the Beagle voyage – the Blue Mountains in Australia, and the Chilean city of Iquique, for instance. But you really feel his influence here – there are statues of Darwin, streets named after Darwin, schools named after Darwin, even pubs named after Darwin. Since the 1960s, there has been a Charles Darwin Foundation Research Centre.

I heard someone describe Arequipa as ‘the prettiest city in Peru’. That isn’t exactly how we’d describe it. Like most cities in Peru (in Latin America, for that matter), there is a picturesque colonial centre surrounded by ugly rings of auto parts shops, junkyards, clogged roads and slums.

Still, it’s the second largest city in the country, so we stop in for a few days.

Many of the building are built of distinctive whitish stone called sillar.

Our hotel has a tortoise in the garden named Lolo. He is surprisingly entertaining.

In the background here is the El Misti volcano. The linked article gives way more information than any normal person would want to know, but what we find interesting are the Inca mummies they have found on the top. Human sacrifices, experts reckon, of children to the mountain. The Gods everywhere and in all times demand blood.

Of literary interest is the birthplace of Mario Vargas Llosa, a Nobel Prize-winning Peruvian novelist. The museum contains very well-done multimedia presentations of different epochs of the writer’s career. (All in Spanish.)

I remember in about, oh, 1980 I was in New Zealand and met a well-read South American. I asked if he could recommend a few Latin American authors. He provided the names Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia), Jorge Amado (Brazil), and Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru).

We do a day trip to the Colca Canyon. There are some really high mountains along the way.

This area is popular with climbers and hikers. This time, we opt for the one-day bus tour.

A brief stop in the village of Maca.

There are the usual ladies trying to thrust their baby alpacas into your arms. They don’t seem to have a problem if you simply take a photo of them holding the alpaca.

We stop in a place called the Mirador del Condor, where you might catch a glimpse of a condor, if you’re lucky.

It’s a long day trip that begins in the middle of the night. We are happy to be heading back to town.

Next stop is Nazca. Our go-to bus line in Peru is Cruz del Sur. They are super-safe and comfortable.

It takes about ten hours to get to Nazca, on the Pan-American Highway. There’s a lot of magnificent scenery along the way.

Much of the trip features the Pacific Ocean on one side and sheer, rocky outcrops on the other.

The photos are blurry because they were taken through a bus window. Sorry.

It’s a great shame that this marvelous scenery is marred by truly staggering amounts of garbage on the side of the road.

Late that evening, we arrive in Nazca. Nazca is the home of the famous Nazca Lines.

The only way to appreciate these is to fly over them in a small plane.

One of the more, um, original people on our flight is Peter, from the Czech Republic. He doesn’t speak a word of Spanish or English, but we manage to communicate using a combination of mime skills and Google Translate.

And so we take off. At least half of the clients suffer from air sickness.

Everybody manages to suffer without any actual vomiting, so that’s OK. The problem is, the aircraft has to do a lot of maneuvering so that both sides get to see the lines. (Or ‘geoglyphs‘, as they are known in Institutes of Higher Larnin’.)

I’ve been fascinated by these even from the ridiculous Erich von Däniken days.

They are unique and quite incredible. Who came up with the idea of making these creations, and why?

The truth is, nobody knows, although I’m sure many academic careers have been founded on theories and speculation.

To quote Wikipedia: ‘Determining how they were made has been easier than determining why they were made.’

There are over 700: we manage to see 23. No wonder for some people, studying these is their life’s work.

Pretty amazing stuff. We hope they can survive the – seemingly impossible-to-stop – onslaught of overpopulation that is beginning to encroach on the area of the lines

An overnight bus takes us to Lima.

Our accommodation is in the Miraflores neighbourhood of Lima. Both visitors and inhabitants flock to Miraflores rather than risk their lives in the increasingly run down, dangerous and impoverished historical centro.

There is civilized life in abundance here. In a park, people from all walks of life pair up and dance, just for fun.

Now this is the very height of civilization: Miraflores has a parque de gatos.

Scores of kitties are well looked after by volunteers.

We have our own resident cat in the hotel.

One day, we visit the Museo de Oro. Less famous than its namesake in Bogotá, it still has nifty stuff.

Besides its admirable collection of pre-Columbian artifacts, it also has thousands of weapons, armour, and military uniforms, unfortunately in a state of neglect and decay. That’s what happens when you bequeath your collection to the Peruvian government. (In comparison, see the magnificent Larco Museum below. We’re certain that the dead hand of government has no part in its excellence.)

Another day, we venture into the centro.

It’s safer in the daytime, with lots of people around.

There is some kind of fiesta going on, with groups representing, we guess, different barrios in town on parade.

We come across a Casa de la Literatura Peruana in a transformed train station. Very impressive. We should have one of these in Canada.

Another museum we visit is the Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI for short). It is unexpectedly well-curated, popular, and well-run, unlike the dysfunctional snake pit that is the National Gallery of Canada.

Sight or Insight of the Day

In Lima, we visit the incomparable Larco Museum. This museum is, at the very least, on par with the one in Santiago. Descriptions are given in half a dozen languages. The English is perfect. It’s obvious that there are powers beyond the Government of Peru at work here.

By far the largest number of exhibits are pre-Inca. Maybe it’s something in the water, but Peru had many cultures that had cities, surplus produce, and highly skilled specialists centuries – even millennia – before the Incas. Especially in ceramics and textiles, we’re talking about ancient Egyptian levels of perfection here.

For instance, the wrinkly guy portrayed here even has a nose that’s slightly askew for verisimilitude.

These ceramics are thought to be authentic portraits of the subjects.

Most of the items were found intact in graves. Fortunate that the Spanish never found them, otherwise it’s probable they would not have survived.

Other material goods are just as impressive. In comparison, the products of the indigenous people in North America often resemble the output of a pre-school art project. Maybe it’s the rarified atmosphere up here.

The Cusco area is home to one of the great wonders of the world: the fabled citadel of Machu Picchu.

Yeah, no – we didn’t go there.

In this day and age, you have to plan your visit to Machu Picchu weeks – if not months – in advance, such is its popularity. The only way to make an impromptu visit (we are told) is to wake up in the middle of the night, take a bus to a train to a bus and try to finely coordinate this with a pre-purchased visit timeslot. We don’t make plans that far in advance because our rambles are – Ta-dah! – random rambles.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter much for a couple of reasons. There is now a Machu Picchu Museum in Cusco itself. When Hiram Bingham first brought the world’s attention to Machu Picchu in 1911, he hauled a lot of artifacts back to Yale University. A century later, they have been returned to Peru.

Secondly, we have both been to Machu Picchu before, 40 years ago. (Separately, but who knows, we might have crossed paths at that time.) If a visit here is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, we’ve had ours.

There is plenty to see in Cusco itself.

Our hotel is in a colonial-era building. It supports a charity that benefits street children in Cusco.

There are lots of cobblestone lanes to wander around in.

We marvel at the ingenious Inca stonework that we see throughout the centro. You can’t slip a piece of paper between the joints.

Being such a tourist town, this means someone is always shoving a restaurant menu or a tour brochure in your face. And they don’t stop after you politely say ‘No, thanks.’

It’s a small price to pay for access to people-watching opportunities in town.

The Convent of Santo Domingo is built on the ruins of the Inca treasury temple of Coriconcha.

The Incas didn’t get to enjoy their empire for very long. From its founding to the Spanish conquest (1438 to 1533), they had less than a century of lording it over subject peoples before becoming subjects of conquerors even more empire-hungry than themselves.

The weather is coolish. For a change, we wear the heavier items in our limited wardrobe.

A common sight is the Inca Kola delivery truck.

Almost every street corner has women offering to let you have your photo taken with their pompom-bedecked alpacas. It’s hard to resist.

Cusco Cathedral is the most prominent edifice on the main square. It’s built atop the ruins of an Inca temple, like most churches in Cusco.

The Convent of Santa Catalina is now a museum of the monastic life. A few nuns still live here.

Not surprisingly, we see a lot of religious stuff in heavily-catholic Peru. This symbol appears above many doors. According to some, ‘IHS’ stands for ‘Iesus Hominum Salvator’, that is, ‘Jesus, saviour of mankind’ in Latin. According to others, the name Jesus, spelt ΙΗΣΟΥΣ in Greek capitals, has the abbreviations IHS (also written JHS, IHC, or ΙΗΣ).

Por qué no los dos?

Some kind of hubbub agitates a crowd of indigenous women in town.

A coffee break turns into indulgence in a fancy dessert, complete with edible flowers.

One day, we join a full-day tour of the Sacred Valley. It looks a bit like Austria from afar.

An instant improvement is to include ourselves in the photo.

The first stop is Pisac.

Pisac, like many Inca towns, is built on top of a mountain, surrounded by intensely-cultivated terraces.

You still see traces of these terraces all over the Andean region (that is, the former Inca empire.) Most of them are no longer used.

There was an extensive cemetery here that was looted by the Spanish. No great surprise there.

After lunch, we visit Ollantaytambo. It’s another steep climb. Our guide incentivizes us by telling us part of a story, then promising to reveal the result at the next level. It works.

When I was here last, we joined the Inca Trail here. I vaguely remember hiking up these steps with a full backpack.

These enormous slabs are said to be a ‘temple of the sun’. Our guide tells us that this is in doubt. That’s the problem with pre-literate cultures: without a written language to record things, all history is legend, old wive’s tales, and ‘oral tradition’ usually involving talking animals – nothing is concrete.

We read somewhere that each of these slabs weighs 50 tons.

Next stop is Chinchero, which like many places in Peru still has an active textile-weaving culture.

I’m personally fascinated by the Tom Mix hats that so many local ladies wear.

We get a demo on the production of textiles in the area. For more information on what looks like a dollhouse in the background, see the ‘Sight or Insight of the Day’.

There are also Inca ruins in Chinchero. As usual, a church has been built on top of the demolished Inca structure.

This method of stone construction proved to be good protection against earthquakes, which this part of the world has a lot of.

Sight or Insight of the Day

A lot of people don’t know this*, but in Peru, Guinea pigs are food, not pets.

*I’m borrowing this phrase favoured by Donald Trump. He uses it whenever he learns something new that he assumes nobody else knows either, even if it’s commonly known or obvious. There are many, many things that Donald Trump doesn’t know. Because he’s an idiot. Or should I say ‘A lot of people don’t know this, but Donald Trump is an idiot’?

This is true throughout the Andean region. Guinea pig, or cuy, is served up piping hot in cuyerias everywhere. We can’t help but see them as cuddly pets. Such is the strength of food prejudices the world over.

At one time, when much younger, if someone dared me to sample this, I would say ‘Here, hold my beer’. Being much older and a little wiser, that’s now a hard ‘nope’.

Lake Titicaca is the ‘highest navigable lake in the world’, according to some. (Have we mentioned our wry distrust of superlatives?) It’s shared between Bolivia and Peru.

We take a bus from La Paz to the Bolivian lakeside port of Copacabana.

At San Pedro de Tiquina, we disembark while our bus is ferried across a channel on the way to Copacabana.

We eventually arrive in Copacabana. What is the connection between this Copacabana and the more glamorous beach in Rio de Janeiro?

I’m glad you asked. After a bit of research, it turns out that this is the original Copacabana, involving statues of the Virgin rather than beachgoers in skimpy clothing. Huh. You learn something every day.

This is the Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana, where the good lady resides.

Stalls outside the church sell items asking Our Lady for relief from many ailments.

We take a two-hour boat ride to the Isla del Sol.

At the landing point on the island are some Inca ruins.

As soon as you step off the boat, you’re faced with a daunting climb up a seemingly never-ending set of steps. It’s been like this since we entered the Andean zone: puffing away like geriatrics, shuffling slowly uphill while trying to breathe the thinnest of air. (Isla del Sol sits at 3976 metres above sea level.)

Once you’re on top, you get good views of the lake.

This is Teodora, the host of our homestay.

I try to make friends with the local animals.

We walk to the Temple of the Sun, also known as Pilkokaina.

As usual, the learned guesses about the history and usage of this place are just that; guesses.

We see the boat we came in on heading back towards Copacabana.

When we return to town, we board a bus for Puno, in Peru.

Puno is a small city with a pleasant colonial plaza and surrounding streets.

Everyone in town is preparing for the Candelaria, which is apparently big thing in Puno.

Our plan is to visit the island of Taquile. Maria came here with her sister Lucia 40 years ago, when they were young and adventurous. (They still are, in many ways.) It was pretty rugged then, and is still relatively unvisited.

On the way, we stop off at the Uros Islands. These don’t strike us as some kind of cultural achievement.

We just find the floating island life to be poor and squalid. It doesn’t look like a good life, even from their viewpoint. We can’t wait to leave.

The most interesting thing: a floating general store arrives, and the locals line up to make their purchases.

After climbing yet another Hellishly steep set of steps, we are met by our homestay hostess, Dinah, who spins wool while walking and talking to us. Taquilenos are famous for their skill in textiles, and have some kind of UNESCO cultural certification to prove it.

We succumb to the magnetic pull of the local craft market.

People here speak Quechuan – the language of the Incas – and Spanish.

There are no cars on the island. Picturesque adobe houses line the pedestrian alleys.

The main square is the red-hot centre of the village.

There are Inca ruins at the highest point of the island. Of course, we have to go. So we plod ever higher until the trail runs out, wheezing and panting.

As usual, we’re rewarded with a spectacular view.

Plus, we get to take a long break.

On our final day, we find the beach. It looks like a fine beach, and Maria is eager to take a dip in Lake Titicaca, but we have to make it back to the other side of the island for the boat back to Puno.

The departing boats leave from a different location than the arriving boats.

Finally, the route to the departure dock is all downhill.

To ensure we don’t get lost, we are accompanied by our ten-year-old guide, Elisabet (Dinah’s daughter).

Sight or Insight of the Day

While departing from and arriving to the docks at Puno, we notice a large ship berthed nearby.

This is, like, an ocean-going vessel. We wonder how it got here, since there are no ship-building establishments on the lake. We can make out her name, ‘Ollanta’.

It turns out she was made in England – Hull, to be exact – in 1931. According to Wikipedia:

 “…they assembled her in their shipyard with bolts and nuts, marked each part with a number, and then disassembled her into many hundreds of pieces and sent her to Peru in kit form.” 

The pieces were brought to the lake by rail and re-assembled. She appears to be in pretty good shape for a ship that’s nearly a century old.

What do you think of when you think of Bolivia? Is it the final scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where Paul Newman and Robert Redford make their cinematic last stand near San Vincente, in the south of the country?

Or maybe Bolivia’s best-known agricultural product, the coca leaf and its derivatives? There’s even a coca museum in La Paz.

Coca is found in many everyday products here.

Of course, coca is important to other consumer products.

According to Wikipedia:

“When launched, Coca-Cola’s two key ingredients were cocaine and caffeine. The cocaine was derived from the coca leaf and the caffeine from kola nut (also spelled “cola nut” at the time), leading to the name Coca-Cola.

In 1903, the fresh coca leaves were removed from the formula. After 1904, instead of using fresh leaves, Coca-Cola started using “spent” leaves – the leftovers of the cocaine-extraction process with trace levels of cocaine. Since then (by 1929), Coca-Cola has used a cocaine-free coca leaf extract.“

Personally, when I think of Bolivia, I think of the pre-Inca civilization of Tiahuanaco, as exemplified in the iconic Puerta del Sol. Even though I’ve been to Bolivia long ago, I haven’t been to either Tiahuanaco or Lake Titicaca.

Before our day-trip to Tiahuanaco, we visit the National Archeological Museum in La Paz

La Paz is a big change from Chile. It’s definitely more third-worldy. It’s cold. And high (3650 metres above sea level.) And it rains a lot.

This is a statue of Christopher Columbus. It has to be fenced off to prevent destruction by irate mobs.

Poor Christopher. Like poor old Sir John A. Macdonald at home, in my lifetime he has been transformed from hero to villain. Manufactured outrage compels folks to prove their 21st century moral superiority over people who have been dead and gone for a long, long time by smashing public property. Statue-toppling seems like a pretty low-IQ endeavor in my book, but that’s just me.

In case you haven’t guessed, this is a personal bugbear of mine. It annoys me that statue-topplers always claim to be acting in the spirit of ‘social justice’, but it’s a sad fact that dumb people just like to break stuff.

While in La Paz, we visit a few markets.

The Mercado de las Brujas has all kinds of witchy ingredients.

There seems to be a market on every second street. This means things can get a little congested.

I remember these Blade Runner-ish conditions from my last visit. The population has probably doubled since then.

Indigenous women in Bolivia seem to be strangely, um, rotund.

We think that some kind of hoop device is worn under the skirt.

The demonym for someone from La Paz is ‘Paceño’. (We learn this after buying a local beer of that name.)

People sell handicrafts on every street corner.

The day arrives for our tour to Tiahuanaco. This was one of the remarkable pre-Incan (let alone pre-Columbian) civilizations that sprouted up on the continent.

This gate was used by Evo Morales at his inauguration. Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, Morales led the country from 2006 to 2019 and was extremely popular until he tried to bypass the constitution and seek – surprise! – a fourth term.

As usual for politicians everywhere, the rot sets in after a certain amount of time in office. Now he’s famous for impregnating underage girls and building himself a luxurious presidential palace atop a skyscraper in La Paz.

Back to Tiahuanaco: in the small onsite museum, we see a statue of the Decapitator Deity.

We were amused to learn about this Tiahuanacan deity in the Archeological Museum in La Paz. He is usually shown carrying around the severed heads of his victims.

The name reminds us of either a WWE wrestler or the next Schwarzenegger movie.

Some parts of Tiahuanaco have been restored, with mixed results.

It’s a cold, rainy day when we visit, but we make the best of it.

When we finally get to the Puerta del Sol, it’s a bit disappointing to see how small it is. I thought it was Arc de Triomph-sized (see photo of the Puerta above). It doesn’t help when we are pummeled by a punishing hailstorm in the few minutes we have in which to view it.

Lake Titicaca is nearby. In olden days, it came up to the city itself.

Sight or Insight of the Day

One major improvement in La Paz since I was last here: the wonderful teleférico network that crisscrosses the city.

Produced by a hybrid Austrian-Swiss company (not surprising, since those two countries seem to have a duopoly on the global market for ski lifts and cable cars), it’s the ideal way to avoid the chaos of terrestrial travel in La Paz.

It goes almost everywhere. It is safe, clean, comfortable, efficient, and quiet.

La Paz is in a sort of crater – a valley, really – so it’s a city of steep hills. You get a great view of the surrounding mountains from the rim.

You also get a bird’s-eye view of the street life below.

The system is quite new – it opened in 2014. It’s probably the most modern thing in Bolivia.

Ok, that’s a really slick piece of marketing. Robinson Crusoe, as most people know, is not a real person. He’s a fictional character made up by Daniel Defoe. That character was based on a composite of tales of survival popular at the time, one of which was that of Alexander Selkirk, who was indeed marooned on this island from 1704 to 1709.

The island is 757 KMs distant from Santiago. There are no scheduled flights. You have to leave from the private aircraft terminal with its hangarful of Learjets and Citations.

The departure area is suitably luxurious.

Our craft, however, is not a jet. It’s a 70’s-era Piper Cheyenne.

After a couple of hours, the island is sighted among all that empty blueness.

We are met at the airstrip for the transport to town.

This trip to the island is by special request – a gift for Maria’s upcoming birthday.

Then it’s a 40-minute ride in an open boat to the town of San Juan Bautista.

Along the way, we pass a rock formation known as ‘the gorilla’ to those with an active imagination.

We catch our first sight of San Juan Bautista, population 800.

We stay for a week at this hotel, La Robinson Oceanic, overlooking the water.

This is Rita, our very friendly host, with Chulita, one of two dogs on the property.

She gets a lot of attention while we’re here. (The dog, that is.)

Most people come here to fish or dive. We’re here to relax and do a bit of hiking. Parts of the trail are covered in gigantic Pangue plants.

There is a very rare red hummingbird, only found here. We’re lucky enough to see half a dozen of them flying from branch to branch nearby.

(It took many, many photos to catch this one sitting still.)

For the locals, fishing for lobster is a common occupation.

San Juan Bautista has suffered several tsunamis in the past, the most recent in 2010.

A ship arrives from the mainland every fifteen days or so, bringing essential supplies.

The inhabitants are very friendly. Of course, everybody knows everyone else. Islanders are very civic-minded: there’s virtually no trash or graffiti. The town plaza still has an unvandalized Christmas tree made up of crochet squares.

We hike up to the Selkirk Lookout, the highest spot on the island. It’s also where I took the photo mentioning Maria’s birthday.

It’s a stiff climb, but worth it for the different landscapes we go through.

Daniel Defoe took a lot of liberties with the Selkirk story. In the book, Crusoe’s island is in the Caribbean. And Crusoe is marooned for 28 years, versus four years and four months. And there were no cannibals and no Friday.

Still, the Robinson Crusoe story is one that virtually everyone on the planet is familiar with.

Besides the original, there was the Swiss Family Robinson, published inn 1812 and subsequently made into a Disney movie.

And then there was the Space Family Robinson – several TV versions and a comic.

There is a craft brewery on the island.

We visit for a tasting and dinner. There’s a great view from the patio..

Dinner is seafood ceviche, seafood empanadas, and beer.

One morning, Maria goes snorkeling while I nurse yet another cold at home.

Maria fetches some of these photos from the excursion company’s Instagram page.

There are seals everywhere here. They’re very playful and curious.

The seals hang out with the humans of their own free will – no bribery involved.

Another chapter of island history is the sinking of the German warship Dresden here in 1915.

It was fatally shelled by several British warships. One shell penetrated the cliff face near town but didn’t explode. Maybe someday.

There is a trail to the next bay over.

This is in fact the bay that Maria went to on her snorkeling expedition.

Our last day arrives. It’s another lengthy boat ride over choppy waters.

On our way to the airstrip, we are shown the only sandy beach on the island. It’s covered in seals.

The airstrip is on the only flat surface. There were plans to build a road to town, but I think that’s been abandoned.

So we say goodbye to our second Chilean island destination.

Sight or Insight of the Day

We didn’t mention our companions on the island: Roberto, Carlos, and Steven.

This is a trio of life-long friends, Colombian-Americans, all very successful business owners. All kind of eccentric.

They’re keen sports fisherman, and regularly meet up in the world’s more exotic locations to yank unbelievably huge fish out of the ocean and to rib each other mercilessly in English and Spanish.

(The island is probably most visited by fishermen and scuba divers.)

They accompany us on the flight to the island and back, and stay in the same accommodation.

Very interesting guys, generous and kind, but kind of high maintenance, like many people with lots of money.

Back from Easter Island. We have to wait until January 07 for the flight to our next destination, so we cool our heels in Santiago for the third or fourth time this trip.

Speaking of dates, in Real Time, today is January 10 – Maria’s birthday!

A brief roundup of our activities: we visit the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art. It is superb.

Even better, there are no self-loathing, groveling messages of apology and abject kowtowing to the Culture Wars that make many Western museums such repulsive places these days. Looking for examples of this peculiar self-flagellating folderol, I come across this article. Sheesh, just crawl into an alley and blow your brains out, already.

We stay in several different places. In one place, we meet a Belgian man and his teenage son. The evening is spent singing golden oldies on the son’s El-cheapo Bolivian guitar.

One day, we take another wine tour, this time to the headquarters of Concha y Toro.

Another day we ascend the Gran Torre Costanera. It’s the tallest building in South America (for now). According Wikipedia, it also ‘includes the largest shopping mall in Latin America‘. I don’t know, we’ve seen some pretty big malls in our travels.

The view from the top is, um, panoramic.

The Museum of Memory and Human Rights is about the history of the Pinochet regime.

It’s well designed for random wandering. If you want an idea of the kind of things that were going on at the time, the film ‘Missing‘ (1982) may be worth re-watching.

We like the way the building makes extensive use of copper – a material that Chile has a lot of.

La Chascona is the poet Pablo Neruda’s house in Santiago. (He also had one in Valparaiso, which we visited earlier, and another one on the coast, where he’s buried.)

It has, among other things, a painting by Diego Rivera. Considering the minimal security, I fantasize about stealing it.

Santiago has many lovely buildings and tree-lined neighbourhoods. Too bad it suffers from two serious problems: garbage and graffiti. At seemingly random street corners, small mountains of garbage appear overnight and begin to grow. The graffiti, I believe, is the result of an extended period of social unrest (that is, ‘riots’) that took place between 2019 and 2022. Which normalized the destruction and defacement of public property. Which is pretty ironic, considering Chile probably enjoys one of the most equal and financially healthy governments in Latin America.

Something we haven’t seen before: the Santiago Metro has 21 lending libraries in its system.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Speaking of the Metro…as we are taking the subway one day, we come across this travel poster.

It’s for the Juan Fernandez Archipelago – AKA ‘Robinson Crusoe Island’ – which happens to be our next destination.

We love Easter Island! It might be our favourite place on the trip so far.

Arrived here after one of the most comfortable flights ever (Emergency Exit row seats!) The aircraft is so new, it looks as if it’s just been unwrapped from the cellophane.

Mataveri International Airport has a quaint grass-hut terminal. We are greeted with floral leis on arrival.

Interesting airport fact: Easter Island had no useable airport beyond a dirt field until the Americans built a base here (1965-1970) and constructed one. In 1985, they came back and extended the runway to serve as a possible emergency landing strip for the space shuttle.

It feels like we’re on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific. Nobody here is in much of a hurry. Hanga Roa, the main (and only) town, has a population of around 7,000 people.

There is no deep harbour. There’s a small beach in the centre of town that regularly has sea turtles swimming leisurely a few metres from shore.

Needless to say, there are lots of friendly dogs.

Easter Island has an interesting and controversial history. In reality, much about the original Rapa Nui people is unknown, or guessed at wildly. A handful of proven facts:

• humans did not arrive on the island before the year 1200 AD
• Rapa Nui people are Polynesian people, as proved by DNA and linguistic evidence (sorry Thor Heyerdahl, they did NOT come from the South American mainland)
• Rapa Nui people underwent a lot of self-inflicted troubles even before the arrival of satanic Europeans – of course, it was no picnic after Whitey arrived, either

The main draw are the moai, the giant statues that you associate with Easter Island.

It also seemed like a good place to spend Christmas. It turns out there’s a song by an ’80s-’90s English band, Sad Lovers & Giants, titled ‘Christmas on Easter Island‘. The lyrics don’t seem to have much to do with Christmas OR Easter Island, but what the heck.

There are reported to be over 900 moai on the island. Some come in groups.

Some used to have eyes made of coral and obsidian. In this case, they have been restored.

Almost all have long ears, big noses, and beetling brows.

People may remember the comic strip ‘Sherman’s Lagoon‘. Sherman is a shark. He has a friend and preceptor, Kahuna, who is obviously patterned on the moai.

A specialty of the island that we have for lunch almost every day (in different locations): tuna empanadas. These are large empanadas stuffed with thick chunks of fresh tuna and melted cheese.

There are things to see besides big statues. One day we visit a couple of caves.

We visit Orongo, a Rapa Nui ceremonial centre.

These have been partially restored.

Orango is perched on the rim of Rano Kau crater. On one side is the wetlands on the crater’s bottom.

On the other side is the ocean, with the small island of Motu Nui, the site of the ‘Birdman‘ contest. This bizarre egg-hunt was extremely important to the Rapa Nui people.

How remote IS Easter Island?

• Its closest inhabited neighbour is Pitcairn Island, 1,931 km to the west
• Its closest point to mainland Chile is 3,512 km to the east
• Its closest point to Point Nemo – the furthest point in the ocean from any land – is 2,688 km

I’ve never even heard of Point Nemo. Apparently that’s where space-exploring countries try to dump their superannuated space stations.

Back to the moai: often, images show the figures standing on a grassy hillside.

These photos are often taken at this location, Rano Raraku. This is the quarry from which almost every moai on the island comes.

The many that so picturesquely cover the hillside are ones that hadn’t been delivered yet when moai production was suddenly shut down entirely.

An interesting note: moai are often shown facing the ocean like vigilant sentinels. But when put in place, they almost always faced inland, to protect ‘their’ community.

You can see several that were abandoned in mid-carving.

We go to the beach three times while here. There’s only one, Anakena. It’s clean and uncrowded.

A week is over all too soon. It’s back to Mataveri Airport for flight LA844 to Santiago.

Our flight back is even better than our flight here. For some inexplicable reason, we get to fly back business class! Five and a half hours of sheer luxury. We could get used to this.

A final comment…sad to hear that former President of the United States Jimmy Carter just passed away at age 100. He was a decent man. See you in another life, Jimmy.

I think Jimmy deserves another tip o’ the hat.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Another Easter Island mystery.

We rent a car for three days. While looking at Google Maps for interesting places to visit, We come across this intriguing feature.

Hmmm, an ‘Old NASA site’? It’s on the road to Anakena Beach, so we stop on the way.

What remains looks like something out of the TV series ‘Lost‘. (Which I’m rewatching at the moment.)

The facility opened in 1983. I manage to find some brief footage of its inauguration here (https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/223943/). We can’t find a closing date, but the site is clearly abandoned.

It’s interesting that in the film clip, the area is totally bare. Today, it’s surrounded by ranches and trees.