Month: December 2024

From Mendoza, we fly south to Puerto Madryn. It’s evident that we are now much further south. Long pants are required.

(Historical note: who knew that the Welsh once had colonial aspirations in the area? And ‘Madryn’ itself was the name of a castle in Wales.)

Even though the climate is cooler, the beach is still inviting on a sunny day.

Maria and Pete brave the frigid waters of the Atlantic.

The major draw here is the Valdes Peninsula, a UNESCO-designated heritage site.

You don’t have to go far out of town before you feel the isolation.

The landscape is largely flat and unpopulated.

On the pebbly beach, we are visited by a very bold loica. He’s obviously used to mooching off of humans. But we don’t give in.

Our accommodation has a parrilla-style grill. Pete builds up the fire as we prepare for a home-made churrasco.

The main attraction of the Valdes Peninsula is whale-watching, but this is not the season. It also boasts an enormous colony of elephant seals, but we don’t see any. So it goes.

We do, however, see a mara. I’ve never heard of these creatures. They look like a cross between a deer and a hare.

We also see a rhea and its young. ‘Ostriches live in Africa. Emus live in Africa. Rheas live in South America.’ This is one of the many arcane facts we used to learn in the third grade that seem to have been dropped from the modern curriculum.

We think there may be some elephant seals around, but they are beyond the range of our binoculars.

We stop in the quaint village of Puerto Piramides, where the inhabitants seem to be outnumbered by whale-watching companies.

(Interesting note – a bit of research reveals that this was the site of mysterious submarine activity in 1958 and 1960.)

Next day, we take a long drive in the opposite direction to the Punta Tombo penguin reserve. Everybody loves penguins.

It’s quite astounding. Thousands of penguins build their nesting burrows here.

There is a well-built boardwalk 1.5 kilometres long that lets us see the penguins close up.

Many of the burrows are far from the sea. It’s strange to see penguins waddling a kilometre or more from the water.

Of course, the seaside is the most popular gathering spot.

These are Magellanic penguins. According to Wikipedia, they are named after Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who spotted the birds in 1520. (We also learned about Ferdinand Magellan in the third grade.)

These look a lot like the penguins we saw in South Africa.

It’s encouraging to see the efforts Argentina is making to keep these little guys safe.

There are other animals around as well. Guanacos graze calmly among the penguins on the move.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Back in town, we splurge on a meal at the Matilde restaurant. In the front window, entire lamb carcasses are slow-roasted over a wood fire.

We walk home, in an effort to work off our surfeit of roast meat. Judith still has room for some ice cream.

A brief entry about our stay in one of the world’s great wine regions.

We change countries, from Chile to Argentina. Our first stop is Mendoza. Mendoza lies at the foot of the hills that become the Andes. It’s a desert, so the extensive agricultural activity depends on a system of canals.

Mendoza is a pleasant city of tree-lined streets and squares.

Our first wine visit is the bodega of Tierras Altas.

It’s all about the malbecs.

We get to serve ourselves from the oak casks. Well, one cask anyway.

The next day, we go on a tour of three bodegas, The first is the Cecchin winery. They make organic wine.

Our guide spent a lot of time in Austin, Texas, so his English is fluent.

It’s always a novelty to see Christmas decorations large and small in a climate of no snow.

We also stop off at an olive oil producer, PasRai.

Of course, there are many types of olive oil.

Maria examines the biggest rosemary bush we’ve ever seen in the herb garden.

Our last stop is the Casa Corbel winery. We begin by sampling some whites in the olive orchard.

Then we move on to sampling reds in the cellar proper.

Casa Corbel has several resident dogs, all very friendly. One is named Rambo. This must be ironic, because he’s the gentlest creature imaginable.

On our last evening in Mendoza, we go on an Argentinian beef blow-out with a dinner at the Don Mario restaurant. It doesn’t disappoint.

Sight or Insight of the Day

How did we get to Mendoza? We fly from Calama in the north of Chile, spend overnight in Santiago, then next day take a bus over to Andes to Mendoza.

So the ‘sight’ of the day is easily the spectacular journey through the mountains.

We are torn between admiring the scenery and watching ‘Cruella’ on the onboard entertainment screen.

The ‘insight’ is the discovery that Argentine government inefficiency is still a thing.

We spend four hours(!) at Argentine customs as they leisurely process a dozen busloads of travelers.

Many decades ago, I did this trip in reverse (east to west). I’m sure the stop at customs didn’t take more than an hour. So much for progress.

This part of our Chile/Argentina journey is all about the desert. I’ve mentioned before that there are few things we enjoy more than a good road and a desert. From Iquique, we drive to San Pedro de Atacama, almost 500 kilometres away.

We were hoping to visit the Chuquicamata mine, which was at one time the world’s largest open-pit copper mine. There used to be tours available, but these have been discontinued.

It’s hard to decide which of our many desert photos to use. Also difficult to come up with catchy descriptions. So we’re just going to provide generic labels for our many desert shots.

San Pedro de Atacama is essentially an oasis. In these parts, towns are only found where water is available.

San Pedro is the base for most desert activities. Its adobe-bedecked walls give it the look of a frontier town.

We stay a few kilometres out of town. Very difficult to find, for the uninitiated. (In fact, we still have trouble finding it after several excursions into San Pedro.)

It’s a self-contained unit on somebody’s rural property, with cooking facilities.

Our first stop is the Valle de la Muerte. (Or Valle de Marte – it’s complicated.)

One thing we like about hikes in the surrounding desert – they can be accomplished in an hour or two.

There’s no need to gear up for a multi-day ordeal, like hiking the Grand Canyon, say.

The Atacama Desert is the ‘driest nonpolar desert in the world’, according to Wikipedia.

It’s easy to see why the area has been used as a good site to test Mars rovers.

On the same day, we visit the Valle de la Luna.

This is even more spectacular than this morning’s hike.

Maria, as usual, sets the pace.

There’s a world of difference between the solitude here and the hubbub we experience in Santiago.

You can depend on having blue skies every day.

The walks are easily doable, even for those of le troisième âge. 

For some reason, I can’t get the song ‘Horse with No Name‘ and its inane lyrics – ‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain‘<cringe> – out of my head.

On another day, we visit the Laguna Cejar, a colourful mineral lake with two claims to fame. One is presence of many flamingos.

The other is the extreme salinity of the water. This provides a Dead Sea-like ability to bob like a cork without effort.

In the afternoon, we take the two-hour drive to the Laguna Chaxa flamingo sanctuary.

Because of the clearness of its skies, the Atacama Desert is a hotbed of astronomical activity. (If such a thing exists.) We pass by the site of the ALMA astronomical observatory. I’d like to visit, but according to their website, tours are for schools and fellow-boffins only.

There are indeed many flamingos in the flamingo sanctuary.

They are quite far away, though. They’re hard to photograph in this flat landscape.

The lake itself is scenic and isolated.

The flamingos thrive on the abundant brine shrimp in these salty waters, which adds to their pinkish hue. 

If you are an ancient person who read comic books as a kid, you may remember brine shrimp in a former incarnation as ‘sea-monkeys’.

On December first, we celebrate Judith’s birthday with wine, coca-leaf tea, and passion-fruit cake.

Before dawn, we make our way into town for an organized tour to the El Tatio geysers.

The altitude here is a dizzying 4,200 metres above sea level.

It is extremely cold here before the sun rises. That’s my opinion, anyway.

I think the idea of being here for dawn is that the steam is more impressive in the early morning.

All of this impressive fumarole activity is produced by the high temperatures deep underground.

At last the sun comes up and brings some relief.

On the way back to San Pedro, we see more flamingos.

Some of these can be seen quite close up.

We even manage to catch some in flight.

On the way back to Calama for our flight to Santiago, we come across some vicuñas grazing by the road.

Sight or Insight of the Day

In Chile, it’s common to see roadside shrines dedicated to, presumably, the victims of traffic accidents. They range in size from dollhouse size, to doghouse size, to this full-blown dedicatory extravaganza.

We wonder: is the young man in question entombed in the car itself?

At least that’s what the name means, according to Wikipedia.

From Valparaiso, we bus back to Santiago and fly 1,800 kilometres up the arid coast of Chile to Iquique.

We pick up our rental car and drive the 40 kilometers or so along the coast into town.

Iquique occupies a narrow strip of land between the desert and the sea. Our accommodation is an Airbnb located on the 23rd floor of an apartment building facing the Pacific.

Our first excursion here is to the fascination ghost town of Humberstone. Saltpeter was mined here from 1872 to 1960.

In the developed world, people would not be allowed to roam at will among tons of jagged rusty metal and collapsing buildings, thus reducing the fun factor of visiting a ghost town.

We have a thing about ghost towns . We last visited one in Namibia. Later, we saw it used as a location for the popular post-apocalyptic TV series Fallout.

The next day, we remain around town. First stop is the Esmeralda Museum. This is a full-size replica of the ship Esmeralda, sunk in an engagement during the War of the Pacific.

Iquique has a pleasant square and walking street.

The fish market is always a big draw. We enjoy a lunch of fresh grilled tuna steaks.

A pack of sea lions huddle at the base of the market, waiting to feast on dumped-out buckets of fish entrails.

They’re huge.

Our rental car, which we eventually drive for 1,500 KMs, is surprisingly roomy for 4 people and their luggage.

There’s something soothing about driving in a desert, especially if the road is good and the traffic is sparse.

Our goal is to see the Atacama Giant. It’s the most famous of the many geoglyphs in the area.

Pete searches for a t-shirt with this iconic figure on it. We don’t find one. Pete hopes to be able to order a t-shirt with the Giant printed on as a special graphic.

Here’s a graphic you can use. Merry Christmas, Pete!

It takes us an hour or so to walk around the Cerro Unitas.

We pass a ziggurat-like mountain. A bit of research reveals that it’s a recently-abandoned BHP copper mine.

After driving through empty desert on Ruta A-65 for an hour or so, we come to the remote village of Mamiña. It has a hot spring in the middle of town.

It has a pleasant little square to wander in.

On the return to Iquique, the last few kilometres are steep. Looming over the city is a gigantic sand dune.

Sight or Insight of the Day

We enjoy beautiful Pacific Ocean sunsets from our balcony.

One morning, we are enjoying our coffee on the balcony when we see something in the sea far below.

About 30 metres offshore is a whale, diving and surfacing. It’s an orca!

It’s unusual to be 23 storeys high and watch a whale dive and surface. Luckily, we all have good binoculars.