I think we´re back in Quito, Ecuador. I´ll have to ask someone what city this is.
It really feels like a long confused blur. We were in La Serena 3 days ago (I think) and then Pisco Elqui and then La Serena again and then Santiago and now Quito. After a while it all starts to blend together and you can´t really put your finger on a particular day. Was it in La Serena that you had pizza for lunch or Santiago? Which town did you sleep in last night? What day is it today?
Flying (as opposed to taking a bus/train) further blurs the line between places. You don´t see any change in geography when you fly - you might be in a desert at 8am and in the middle of a city of 6 million people at noon. Proust would have articulated this intermingling of space and time way better and much more poetically, so I´d just leave it at that.
Speaking of blurs, it isn´t just in your mind. We had to take an 8am flight from Santiago, Chile to Guayaqui, Ecuador. We were up at 5.15am and by the time we were in line for immigration (for leaving Chile) it was almost 7.15am. I had a light dinner the night before and didn´t have any breakfast, so I was feeling really light-headed because of the hunger. We were in line for at-least 30 minutes and I was getting increasingly light headed. By the time we got to the immigration counter, I couldn´t see anything and could barely stand up. All I remember is getting my passport and tourist card out of my pocket and lifting my hand towards something. I swear I didn´t even see the immigration lady as she handed the passport back. And we still had to go through security! Lulu managed taking care of my carry-on baggage through security while I scrambled to a place where I could sit down. Granola and yogurt came to the rescue finally. Phew.
While at the airport in Guayaquil, Ecuador (waiting for a connecting flight to Quito), I came upon a KFC. I went in to get a bottle of water and saw several people eating what looked like lentils with rice and fried chicken. Whoa! KFC actually sells lentils that are cooked with Indian spices...who would´ve thought. They should start doing that in the KFCs in the US. Needless to say, I had a nice warm bowl for $1.10. The joys of traveling.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Back in Santiago
We just got back in Santiago today afternoon from La Serena. A wonderful almuerzo at El Naturista and a brief nap and we´re ready for onces now.
Elqui valley was a great trip. We camped at a campground called Los Papillos, which was nestled in the foothills of the grape-growing region with grape vineyards spreading out all the way across the valley. It was interesting (and surprising) to know that none of the grapes that are grown here are sold in Chile - they are all either exported or used to make pisco and wines - because apparently you can get a really good price on them if you´re exporting.
The valley was pleasant but sleeping in it wasn´t quite so. There was a huge campground right next to ours - Refugio del Angel - that was packed to the seams with party people. They started playing music - blasted through amplifiers - some time around 11pm on Friday night and it continued unabated and unmuffled until about 5.30am. I talked with the owner of our campground the day after and he said he only got about 5 hrs of sleep and that this happens every single day of the summer. He said he moved his campground up river from the party campers but it still is really loud. Same thing on Sat. night - except that this time the partying/music started at about 10pm and continued non-stop till 7.30am. We felt sorry for our campground owner..he seemed like a really nice guy. He gave us a tour of his little farm where he was growing corn, grapes, tomatoes, pumpkins, zucchini, onions...
Later on Sunday we took the bus to Montegrande (10 min ride from Pisco) and stopped at a very cool Zen art gallery. It was owned by a Santiago-an who had built it from scratch over 30 years ago. It was a neat little adobe-style hacienda with beautiful fig trees nestled in a very thoughtfully landscaped Zen garden. He made a living selling his paintings and natural essences made right in his home (which was just one little room with a fireplace, mattress and a small kitchen). One interesting trivia that he shared: (almost) all the wood that´s in use in buildings in the nearby town of La Serena is actually Oregon pine trees. Apparently, there used to be a flourishing trade between this region and Oregon - back in the 1500s, they would load ships with gourmet local sea salt and ship it all the way to Oregon and load the boats with pine tree logs on the way back. Who knew!
After the Zen gallery, we walked about 20 minutes on a dirt road that led to the Elqui river bank. This place is supposedly the belly button of the earth (according to hippie folklore) and there´s a lot of healing magnetic energy going around, depending on whom you ask. Healing energy or not, it was fun to take a nice cool dip in the river and enjoy guacamole-peanut-tomato sandwiches (put together on fresh locally baked buns with local avocados and tomatoes) for lunch. We bought the ingredients at a local almacen and it was probably the best meal I´ve had in Pisco!
We took the bus back to La Serena, dumped the mochilas at hostal El Punto (a very pleasant German-owned hostal) and headed out for dinner. That turned out to be one long quest. Surprisingly enough, there was a Chinese restaurant with a huge banquet hall (why do so many Chinese restaurants have large sprawling banquet halls?) and we enjoyed a nice meal with chapsui verduras - basically pasta noodles sauteed with elephant ear mushrooms, baby corn, cabbage, tomatoes and some mild Chinese spices - and deep-fried egg rolls. Yummy! Who would´ve thought there would be a Chinese restaurant in a little beach town in Chile?
Lulu was craving a fish sandwich (reminiscent of the one she had had at the beach in Punta Choros), so we decided to walk further down the avenida lining the beach. We didn´t find a fish sandwich stall but we did run into a sort-of sunday market with stalls selling handicrafts from all around the nation and rides for kids and plenty of roadside food. I never cease to be amazed at how late South Americans stay up. It was 11.30pm and the market was packed - nay, teeming - with families (including kids as young as 6-7 years old), joyously enjoying rides and munching on deep-fried chorizos. I can never imagine this scene in the US...
It´s 6pm and it´s onces time! That wonderful post-lunch/pre-dinner snack (which, in El Naturista, is a slice of cake, a pastry, ice cream, half a sandwich and a glass of juice) is beckoning, so I´ll leave you with these photos. Adios!
Elqui valley was a great trip. We camped at a campground called Los Papillos, which was nestled in the foothills of the grape-growing region with grape vineyards spreading out all the way across the valley. It was interesting (and surprising) to know that none of the grapes that are grown here are sold in Chile - they are all either exported or used to make pisco and wines - because apparently you can get a really good price on them if you´re exporting.
The valley was pleasant but sleeping in it wasn´t quite so. There was a huge campground right next to ours - Refugio del Angel - that was packed to the seams with party people. They started playing music - blasted through amplifiers - some time around 11pm on Friday night and it continued unabated and unmuffled until about 5.30am. I talked with the owner of our campground the day after and he said he only got about 5 hrs of sleep and that this happens every single day of the summer. He said he moved his campground up river from the party campers but it still is really loud. Same thing on Sat. night - except that this time the partying/music started at about 10pm and continued non-stop till 7.30am. We felt sorry for our campground owner..he seemed like a really nice guy. He gave us a tour of his little farm where he was growing corn, grapes, tomatoes, pumpkins, zucchini, onions...
Later on Sunday we took the bus to Montegrande (10 min ride from Pisco) and stopped at a very cool Zen art gallery. It was owned by a Santiago-an who had built it from scratch over 30 years ago. It was a neat little adobe-style hacienda with beautiful fig trees nestled in a very thoughtfully landscaped Zen garden. He made a living selling his paintings and natural essences made right in his home (which was just one little room with a fireplace, mattress and a small kitchen). One interesting trivia that he shared: (almost) all the wood that´s in use in buildings in the nearby town of La Serena is actually Oregon pine trees. Apparently, there used to be a flourishing trade between this region and Oregon - back in the 1500s, they would load ships with gourmet local sea salt and ship it all the way to Oregon and load the boats with pine tree logs on the way back. Who knew!
After the Zen gallery, we walked about 20 minutes on a dirt road that led to the Elqui river bank. This place is supposedly the belly button of the earth (according to hippie folklore) and there´s a lot of healing magnetic energy going around, depending on whom you ask. Healing energy or not, it was fun to take a nice cool dip in the river and enjoy guacamole-peanut-tomato sandwiches (put together on fresh locally baked buns with local avocados and tomatoes) for lunch. We bought the ingredients at a local almacen and it was probably the best meal I´ve had in Pisco!
We took the bus back to La Serena, dumped the mochilas at hostal El Punto (a very pleasant German-owned hostal) and headed out for dinner. That turned out to be one long quest. Surprisingly enough, there was a Chinese restaurant with a huge banquet hall (why do so many Chinese restaurants have large sprawling banquet halls?) and we enjoyed a nice meal with chapsui verduras - basically pasta noodles sauteed with elephant ear mushrooms, baby corn, cabbage, tomatoes and some mild Chinese spices - and deep-fried egg rolls. Yummy! Who would´ve thought there would be a Chinese restaurant in a little beach town in Chile?
Lulu was craving a fish sandwich (reminiscent of the one she had had at the beach in Punta Choros), so we decided to walk further down the avenida lining the beach. We didn´t find a fish sandwich stall but we did run into a sort-of sunday market with stalls selling handicrafts from all around the nation and rides for kids and plenty of roadside food. I never cease to be amazed at how late South Americans stay up. It was 11.30pm and the market was packed - nay, teeming - with families (including kids as young as 6-7 years old), joyously enjoying rides and munching on deep-fried chorizos. I can never imagine this scene in the US...
It´s 6pm and it´s onces time! That wonderful post-lunch/pre-dinner snack (which, in El Naturista, is a slice of cake, a pastry, ice cream, half a sandwich and a glass of juice) is beckoning, so I´ll leave you with these photos. Adios!
Friday, February 12, 2010
Trials and tribulations of a vegetarian in S. America
Funny how when you change geographic locations, you change your food as well. In Quito, Ecuador, we had some spicy Indian and Pakistani food, great guacamole sandwiches at a local chocolate co-op, yummy breakfasts with fresh croissants and freshly squeezed juice - in other words, there was no shortage of good plentiful healthy food. Later, when we went to Pampallacta, Ecuador (about 2 hrs from Quito), all I had for 2 days was white rice, fries and some frozen peas, carrots and corn.
Back to Santiago, Chile, we were in vegetarian heaven at El Naturista, which has some of the best non-Indian vegetarian food I´ve had. 3 days of bliss and then back in Patagonia with camping food: protein bars, protein shakes (which was actually just water and protein powder), pasta with tomato sauce and oatmeal. Back again to Puerto Natales and some great vegetarian food - quinoa with baked beans, walnut burgers, beet salad and kidney beans, gourmet pizza. Flash forward to Los Choros and I´m back to eating white bread, potatoes and butter for 2 days. Back again in La Serena and I´m rewarded with melon juice, whole wheat bread with yummy salsa, tacos with mushrooms, guacamole and lettuce and vanilla ice cream with caramel swirls and a waffle.
Lisa has a much more consistent time with meat being the universal currency out here but I´m at the mercy of some hippie souls in far-flung villages who choose to open wonderful little vegetarian restaurants when you least expect them. C´est La Vie.
Chileans love car camping
I mean they really really love it. They love to drive up in their cars all the way up to the camp site (even if the site is past a creek, for example). Before they leave their homes, they take out the mattresses from their beds, wrap them in plastic packaging, load them in their pickups and sleep on them in their tents. Along with their TVs, boomboxes, cooking grills, dolphin-shaped body massagers, towels and pòssibly a kitchen sink thrown in there as well, for a good even mix.
And the unofficial quiet hours in all campsites are from 3am - 10am. We discovered this the hard way when we saw people start cooking their dinners at around 10pm. No bueno.
We´re in Pisco, Elqui, which is a couple of hours north of La Serena. We spent the past 2 days camping at a nice little place called El Oasis - which, as the name suggests was an oasis in the middle of the desert. We went on a day long boat trip to Isla Choros and Isla Damas and saw several Humboldt penguins, dolphins, sea lions (when they fight, they are really really loud and aggressive), sea otters, pelicans, cormorants, lizards and then some more critters.
Here are some random photos from La Serena and Pisco.
And the unofficial quiet hours in all campsites are from 3am - 10am. We discovered this the hard way when we saw people start cooking their dinners at around 10pm. No bueno.
We´re in Pisco, Elqui, which is a couple of hours north of La Serena. We spent the past 2 days camping at a nice little place called El Oasis - which, as the name suggests was an oasis in the middle of the desert. We went on a day long boat trip to Isla Choros and Isla Damas and saw several Humboldt penguins, dolphins, sea lions (when they fight, they are really really loud and aggressive), sea otters, pelicans, cormorants, lizards and then some more critters.
Here are some random photos from La Serena and Pisco.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Dust to dust
We visited the cemetery at Punta Arenas today evening. Apparently, it´s a rather well-known cemetery, being mentioned in the guidebooks and all.
I´ve visited a few cemeteries but this is the first one where I actually saw what looked like coffin-spaces stacked on top of one another. Here´s what it looked like.
I guess the design of such structures was driven more by economic constraints of the deceased´s family, rather than aesthetics, since once you moved past these multistoried coffins, there was a whole another section with palatial coffin spaces - some families even had entire temples dedicated to their lineage.
This being Punta Arenas, it was windy and cold as ever; but it was bright and sunny, even at 6pm (there´s almost 18 hours of sunlight in the summer).
It felt strange to walk through the cemetery. One felt a rather comfortable distance between those under the ground and those above. It was a comfortable distance but it was still rather uncomfortable to be feeling that comfortable, if you know what I mean. Several spaces had photos, memorabilia (one had a wireless microphone and toy models of 4 muscle cars right next to a nativity scene and a photo of the deceased, all encased behind a glass door) and flowers - both natural and artificial.
Wildflowers grew in delicate abandon over the graves and fluttered in the cold breeze. Somewhere in the distance a Church bell rang to announce the time - 6pm. You could hear the waves of the beach also lapping nearby. It was surreal. One couldn´t help but wonder at how time passes and how it takes us in its sway. Wildflowers and weeds take birth and nourishment from our ashes and we complete the cycle by taking birth and cultivating flowers.
If one views death as the cessation of life and of all we know and experience -- rather than the continuation of our existence (albeit in a different form) -- visiting cemeteries can have a rather unsettling effect. (I guess it can have an unsettling effect regardless of how one views death...).
It makes you more attuned to life, more in touch with what matters and what doesn´t. Case in point: we did groceries right after the cemetery visit and the cashier forgot to give me $10 change back. She closed our sale and we had barely walked back from the register when we realized that we were short $10. We communicated to her in broken Spanish that she didn´t give me the $10 back and it took her and her supervisor about 20 minutes to ring up the entire register and tally up the totals with the money in her cash box before finally concluding that she had indeed forgotten to give me the $10 change. During the process, I couldn´t help but wonder at the futility of it all. $10! I started to wonder why I had asked for it in the first place. Over the long run...$10...really? And all those bills and calculators and registers ringing...what for?
I´ve visited a few cemeteries but this is the first one where I actually saw what looked like coffin-spaces stacked on top of one another. Here´s what it looked like.
I guess the design of such structures was driven more by economic constraints of the deceased´s family, rather than aesthetics, since once you moved past these multistoried coffins, there was a whole another section with palatial coffin spaces - some families even had entire temples dedicated to their lineage.
This being Punta Arenas, it was windy and cold as ever; but it was bright and sunny, even at 6pm (there´s almost 18 hours of sunlight in the summer).
It felt strange to walk through the cemetery. One felt a rather comfortable distance between those under the ground and those above. It was a comfortable distance but it was still rather uncomfortable to be feeling that comfortable, if you know what I mean. Several spaces had photos, memorabilia (one had a wireless microphone and toy models of 4 muscle cars right next to a nativity scene and a photo of the deceased, all encased behind a glass door) and flowers - both natural and artificial.
Wildflowers grew in delicate abandon over the graves and fluttered in the cold breeze. Somewhere in the distance a Church bell rang to announce the time - 6pm. You could hear the waves of the beach also lapping nearby. It was surreal. One couldn´t help but wonder at how time passes and how it takes us in its sway. Wildflowers and weeds take birth and nourishment from our ashes and we complete the cycle by taking birth and cultivating flowers.
If one views death as the cessation of life and of all we know and experience -- rather than the continuation of our existence (albeit in a different form) -- visiting cemeteries can have a rather unsettling effect. (I guess it can have an unsettling effect regardless of how one views death...).
It makes you more attuned to life, more in touch with what matters and what doesn´t. Case in point: we did groceries right after the cemetery visit and the cashier forgot to give me $10 change back. She closed our sale and we had barely walked back from the register when we realized that we were short $10. We communicated to her in broken Spanish that she didn´t give me the $10 back and it took her and her supervisor about 20 minutes to ring up the entire register and tally up the totals with the money in her cash box before finally concluding that she had indeed forgotten to give me the $10 change. During the process, I couldn´t help but wonder at the futility of it all. $10! I started to wonder why I had asked for it in the first place. Over the long run...$10...really? And all those bills and calculators and registers ringing...what for?
Friday, February 5, 2010
a few notes from lisa
south america, who knew??? :)
so here we are. struggling with español and in ecuador, the elevation. finding enough to eat has been challenging everywhere. there are fantastic vegetarian restaurants but then where is the yummy meat?! we have to choose at each meal time. we have eaten many many protein bars and hemp-whey protein shakes.
patagonia has been awesome, incredible blue lakes and glaciers all over. the penguins were certainly one of the highlights as well.
i did, in fact, refuse to go out on the glacier on cotopaxi. ¨glacier¨ should really read ¨verticle wall of ice¨ with pushy, totally comfortable mountain guides who can´t believe that you are afraid of heights, etc. and just gave up on me almost immediately. anyhow...i knew i wouldn´t get to the top but i did think that i would at least learn to use the crampons. maybe next time. i have been impressed with the trail maintenance and signage in both national parks. hurray for maintained trails!
we´ve met some cool other traveling folks. one couple who arrived in argentina and bought a used car and have been car camping all over. brilliant idea!!
so here we are. struggling with español and in ecuador, the elevation. finding enough to eat has been challenging everywhere. there are fantastic vegetarian restaurants but then where is the yummy meat?! we have to choose at each meal time. we have eaten many many protein bars and hemp-whey protein shakes.
patagonia has been awesome, incredible blue lakes and glaciers all over. the penguins were certainly one of the highlights as well.
i did, in fact, refuse to go out on the glacier on cotopaxi. ¨glacier¨ should really read ¨verticle wall of ice¨ with pushy, totally comfortable mountain guides who can´t believe that you are afraid of heights, etc. and just gave up on me almost immediately. anyhow...i knew i wouldn´t get to the top but i did think that i would at least learn to use the crampons. maybe next time. i have been impressed with the trail maintenance and signage in both national parks. hurray for maintained trails!
we´ve met some cool other traveling folks. one couple who arrived in argentina and bought a used car and have been car camping all over. brilliant idea!!
Hanging out in the twilight zone
This isn´t directly related to the trip but after 5 days of eating camping food, I started to hallucinate a bit - longing for good warm cooked food.
I was lying in the tent today morning when I thought about how my longing for food varies depending on the time of the day. In the morning - some time between 6 and 9am - I view with sheer disgust all unhealthy food. That would include pizza, (most) north Indian food, beer, decadent desserts etc. I can´t stand the thought of consuming any of those foods in that 6-9ish zone. I get stark visual images in my mind at the mere thought of eating any of that: globs of cheese hanging off pizza slices and getting deposited in the stomach in pretty much the same form and getting converted to oodles of love handles. You get the idea.
This is also the zone where fruits and vegetables reign. They revel in their freshness, in their wholesomeness and their promise of good health.
Then it gets to about 10am and the boundaries of the twilight zone start receding. This is when the aforementioned foods start making their way into my mind and the fruits and veggies are relegated to a cold unworthy crevice at the back of the mind. We all know how things go after that.
And, on that note, I´m about to go gorge myself on some not-so-healthy food. ´Cos it´s 7pm.
I was lying in the tent today morning when I thought about how my longing for food varies depending on the time of the day. In the morning - some time between 6 and 9am - I view with sheer disgust all unhealthy food. That would include pizza, (most) north Indian food, beer, decadent desserts etc. I can´t stand the thought of consuming any of those foods in that 6-9ish zone. I get stark visual images in my mind at the mere thought of eating any of that: globs of cheese hanging off pizza slices and getting deposited in the stomach in pretty much the same form and getting converted to oodles of love handles. You get the idea.
This is also the zone where fruits and vegetables reign. They revel in their freshness, in their wholesomeness and their promise of good health.
Then it gets to about 10am and the boundaries of the twilight zone start receding. This is when the aforementioned foods start making their way into my mind and the fruits and veggies are relegated to a cold unworthy crevice at the back of the mind. We all know how things go after that.
And, on that note, I´m about to go gorge myself on some not-so-healthy food. ´Cos it´s 7pm.
Back from Patagonia
It feels strange to be back to civilization after 5 days of being in beautiful (but crowded) wilderness. We just got back from a backpacking trip to the Torres Del Paine National Park in Chile. We did the ´W´ circuit - about 45 miles of hiking through some of the most amazing landscapes I´ve seen: Andean desert, Patagonian steppe, Magellan deciduous forests and glacial lakes.
The place was crowded. Teeming. Overflowing. But there were still times when you were given some solitude to marvel at the beauty of it all.
I´ll let a few random pictures speak for the place.
Off for a shower and some warm sit-down food now!
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