Random Rambles

I know we aren’t quite up to date on the blog. Just wanted to let people know where we are in Real Time this December 24th.

After seeing off our friends Pete and Judith at the airport in Buenos Aires for their return flight to Canada, we catch a flight back to Santiago. We spend a few days there before flying here, 3,500 KMs across the Pacific from the Chilean mainland.

Easter Island’s claim to fame are its giant statues known as moai.

We are here for a week before returning – again – to Santiago.

Happy holidays, everyone! Stay safe.

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 28th 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 28 storeys high and watch a whale dive and surface. Luckily, we all have good binoculars.

The next stop in our Chile journey is the port city of Valparaiso.

Our accommodation is in the historic Old City.

This part of town is built on steep hills. It’s known for its colourful murals.

It’s a treat to walk these streets.

Many houses perch precariously at a cliff’s edge.

Just under the house you can see two disused ascensores. These were used to travel between neighbourhoods separated by steep cobblestone streets. There aren’t many left in working order.

Valparaiso is the home of the Chilean Navy.

We are fortunate to see a submarine – the Chilean Navy has four – out in the harbour.

One day, we take the train up the coast to Viña del Mar. Viña was once a playground for rich and famous South Americans. It’s looking a bit more seedy these days. But still a good place to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Sight or Insight of the Day

We visit ‘La Sebastiana‘, the Valparaiso house of Chilean poet and diplomat Pablo Neruda.

Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He had three homes that are now museums.

This one is at the top of a hill overlooking the harbour. You get a great view of Valparaiso.

From Fernando de Neronha, we fly to Santiago, Chile, via São Paulo.

We meet our friends Pete & Judith at the airport. This is our second trip together in faraway places, the first time being a pre-COVID meeting in Sri Lanka in 2019.

Once in town, we check into our lodgings and venture out on a walking tour of the neighbourhood.

Our stroll takes us around such landmarks as the La Moneda Palace and the Plaza de Armas.

Our first morning, we take the funicular up San Cristóbal Hill.

A great view of the city. The tall building is the Gran Torre Costanera, the tallest building in South America. (For now, anyway.)

We try a local drink, mote con huesillo, made from wheat and peaches.

This is a close-up of a mote.

At the top of San Cristóbal Hill is a sanctuary dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, with a 22-meter statue of the Virgin Mary. A wall displays the thanks from people for whom wonders have been worked.

Besides the explosion of graffiti that is a sad fact of the modern world everywhere, Santiago is covered with interesting, well-executed murals.

Lunch one day consists of completos, which are basically hot dogs loaded to the brim with yummy toppings. They are very messy to eat.

We indulge in a wine tour to the Santa Rita winery.

After taking a collectivo from the city, we’re ready for our private tour.

The winery also has a museum specializing in pre-Columbian artifacts. A well-behaved school group learns about their heritage with more attention than a Canadian teacher could command.

The grounds are very nice.

The tour takes us to the original cellars.

Of course, the highlight of the tour is the wine tasting.

We are provided with a tasty cheese plate to accompany our vino.

Our next stop is port city of Valparaiso.

Sight or Insight of the Day

I last visited Chile over 40 years ago, during the Pinochet dictatorship.

Things have changed, as expected. After a transition to democracy, Chile has seen a lot of unrest over the past few years. It’s still safer and more prosperous than other countries in Latin America. There has been an influx of people fleeing Venezuela and elsewhere.

There are more people eking out an existing by selling stuff on the sidewalk. But it’s still an interesting destination, as we’ll see.

Sometimes it seems as if this trip is turning into a checking-off of bucket list destinations. We have wanted to visit Fernando de Noronha for a long time. (For one thing, we like islands.)

It’s about 360 km off the northeastern coast of Brazil. Noronha is an aspirational destination, kind of like a Hawaii for Brazilians. Not everyone can afford it, and it’s more expensive than the mainland. But almost everyone would like to go.

(We can imagine in five years or so, Noronha being featured in the weekend edition of the Globe and Mail as an ‘undiscovered gem’.)

We spend nine days here. Our accommodation is modest but comfy and conveniently close to ‘town’.

The ‘town’ is Vila dos Remédios, more of a village. The full-time population of the island is a little over 3,000.

A big deal is made about Noronha being closer to Africa than it is to São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city. True or false? <Checks Google> Distance from Fernando de Noronha to São Paulo: 2,670 km. Distance from Fernando de Noronha to Cabo Verde (another former Portuguese possession): 2,489 km.

Really, the main attraction of Noronha is its beaches.

After a few excursions, we’re happy to go to a different beach each day and do nothing but relax and sip caipirinhas.

I remember years ago, Morrissey recorded a song in his signature angst-ridden style called The Lazy Sunbathers. In it, he berates vapid, selfish people pursuing a useless activity (non-activity?) while the world faces serious problems.

While walking, we meet one of Maria’s yoga buddies (see below). We are swarmed by her trio of mutts.

Our island tour takes us to Praia do Sancho.

To descend to beach level, you have to clamber down a couple claustrophobia-inducing ladders.

This is one of several Noronha beaches voted by Trip Advisor as the ‘Best In The World’. We are immediately wary of ‘Best In The World’ claims.

Still. they are very nice.

We stop for lunch at a ‘shark museum’. We can’t resist this mermaid-tail photo – it’s so appropriate for Maria.

Many places on the island are closed to people because they are being rehabilitated for wildlife. After all, most of the island is a national marine reserve.

We see the fuzzy young of some kind of seabird, very low on the branches of trees and ignoring the attention of people.

One day, we take a boat excursion to Sancho Beach.

On the way, we’re accompanied by troops of show-off spinner dolphins.

Another view of the ‘two brothers’, the island’s iconic rock formation.

On our last full day here, I set up shop on Praia da Cacimba do Padre. I close my eyes for a minute or so, and when I open them, there’s a black dog lying quietly at my feet. He stays with us for four hours.

We may have to change the name of our site to ‘The Global Dog Blog’.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Maria likes to participate in yoga sessions whenever she gets the chance. While here, she gets to attend sessions in three special places.

1. On the beach overlooking the Baía dos Porcos.

2. Another at a nearby pousada under the full moon.

3. Inside the 18th-century fortress that overlooks the ocean

So here we are, at the fazenda Barranco Alto.

This place is very special. Its founding family were Swiss. The management and administration of the fazenda passed down through several generations. The current patroa is Camilla, a former music teacher (in Switzerland) who leads the farm staff in stretching exercises at the daily morning meetings.

There’s a prevailing laid-back, gentle vibe. The lodge staff are interesting hybrid European-Brazilian mixtures. By default, there are no locks on the room doors. We’re too remote to attract criminals.

A life-saver for the fazenda during COVID: an extremely popular telenovela was made about the area, called -aptly – Pantanal. Many of its 167 episodes were filmed on location, providing work for the surrounding farms, lodges, and transport companies.

The fazenda also provided meals and accommodation to firefighters during the recent wildfires.

Our accommodation is half of a spacious duplex with a beautiful flame tree – an African import – outside.

You don’t have to go far to see wildlife. This crab-eating fox saunters casually outside our door in the morning..

Guided excursions are included, using different methods of transport. One morning we go upriver by canoe. Yes, those are caimans on the shore. There are thousands of them around here.

Caimans of all sizes are everywhere – on the shore, in the river, crossing fields and forests, walking down the dirt tracks. The Brazilian Portuguese word for ‘caiman’ is ‘jacaré’.

Here’s one munching on a catfish.

The long-sleeve shirt and pants are necessary to avoid being devoured by mosquitos. Lucky for us, they only seem to be a problem after a heavy rain.

The most common animal on the river – after caimans – is the capivara. (Capybara in Spanish. And English.)

Capivaras always seem so relaxed as they spend their days dreaming by the river.

There’s usually a dominant male around. He has a gland on his snout that he uses to mark his territory.

I have some capivara-skin shoes in my closet at home, from an earlier visit to Brazil.

We also see some resident giant otters. They’re hard to get close to, so no photos. And ‘giant’ is a relative term – they aren’t house-sized. Just larger than normal otters.

The Pantanal is a Mecca for birdwatchers. The stars of the show are the hyacinth macaws.

We don’t have a telephoto lens, so there are no dramatic close-up shots. Fortunately, the fazenda has a shelf full of high-quality binoculars for the use of the guests.

Hyacinth macaws spend a lot of time on the ground, looking for seeds and nuts.

There are many, many birds in the Pantanal- 656 species, according to WWF Brazil. Our guides seem to know the names and characteristics of all of them.

Here are a few other birds that we come across.

There are toucans around as well, but seldom close enough to photograph.

An alternative way to go is on horseback.

Maria, being a gaucha, knows her way around a horse.

I can’t make that claim, but manage to stay in the saddle.

There is also the option of going for early evening safari drives. Sundowner drinks are included.

Our Belgian fellow-guest, Jasper, is an academic at the University of Ghent. Besides having a great sense of humour and being a keen hiker and birdwatcher, he’s one smart cookie. He contributes to scientific papers with titles such as: ‘SpliceRover: interpretable convolutional neural networks for improved splice site prediction‘, and ‘Few-shot Learning Using a Small-Sized Dataset of High-Resolution FUNDUS Images for Glaucoma Diagnosis‘.

We figure he’ll win a Nobel Prize one day. In a world in which large swaths of the population of Western countries don’t believe in vaccination, and barely-functioning idiotic sociopath Donald Trump holds a Svengali-like sway over an army of the unthinking, it’s refreshing to know there are a few bright sparks in the darkness.

We are fortunate to see a tapir. Tapirs are often elusive. We track him on foot at a distance.

Tapirs always make me think of the opening scene in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. They look like some creature from times long past, even though – nerd alert! – tapirs are found only in South America, not Africa.

A creature that is really elusive is the jaguar. Like most ambush predators. We see very fresh tracks several times, but not the big guy himself. (One of the staff says ‘You might not see a jaguar while you’re here, but there’s a good chance a jaguar has seen you!’) They show up regularly on the fazenda’s wildlife cam.

In consolation, there’s a very friendly tabby cat on the premises named Spike,

Sight or Insight of the Day

It’s a fact that the main reason there is so much wildlife here is because of its remoteness. It’s a challenge to get to, and a challenge to get back to civilization.

Because it has so few people, it has lots of animals. As soon as humans begin settling in an area, every other form of life dwindles.

And according to WWF Brazil, it’s still under threat.

In this country, as in many countries in the world, people with the right connections could buy the entire Pantanal and turn it into a parking lot or a shopping mall. We hope this doesn’t happen for a long time.

We have wanted to come to the Pantanal for years. Decades, actually. Probably the biggest inhibitor is the considerable expense of visiting here. But we feel it’s time to bite the budgetary bullet.

The Brazilian Pantanal is a unique wetland, one of the world’s great ecosystems, brimming with flora and fauna.

Like many places, it has suffered grievously from the changing climate. After years of severe drought, it was ravaged this year by extensive wildfires. (More info here.) This takes a sad toll on the abundant wildlife.

We arrive from Porto Alegre (via São Paulo) at Campo Grande airport. We like these tropical airports where everything is al fresco, including disembarkation from the aircraft.

Campo Grande isn’t on many people’s list of must-see cities, but has its attractions. One is the aquarium in the Campo Grande Biopark.

It claims to be the largest freshwater aquarium in the world.

Brazil used to have public telephone booths known as ‘orelhões‘ or ‘big ears’. Like most telephone booths worldwide, they are nearly extinct. We find one – minus its phone – in the shape of a hyacinth macaw.

Did we mention that our hotel has an enormous dog named Thor? He spends most of the day trying to cool off on the tiled floor.

We visit the Dom Bosco Museum, which has artifacts from what used to be the local indigenous people.

The most fascinating is this collection of funeral masks. The description says they are rare because the ritual is no longer used by the people involved, and that they used to be burned after use.

An interesting cultural note: Campo Grande was at one time the home of a coterie of Japanese immigrants. As a result, soba noodles are a local specialty.

Another local delicacy is pastry filled with alligator meat. (More accurately, caiman meat.) We try one at the mercado municipal.

The adventure begins. We wake up at five AM for the grueling five-hour 4X4 drive to our fazenda. On the way, we are blocked by a sea of the regional cattle.

These are wrangled by the local cowboys known as Pantaleiros. They aren’t quite as fancy as the Gauchos in Rio Grande do Sul.

On the drive in, we see a giant anteater far off in a field. They look as if they’re wearing very comfy pajamas.

After hours of bouncing around like dice in a cup, we arrive at Fazenda Barranco Alto. We first heard about this place from a very interesting and well-traveled Hungarian woman we met while visiting Bhutan in 2019. She had nothing but good things to say about it.

Sight or Insight of the Day

This is going to be a short one.

A few days ago, the people of the United States of America inexplicably voted for Donald Trump to be their President.

May God have mercy on our souls.