Summerized

Bus Over the Andes

We took a ten hour bus journey from Salta in the north of Argentina, to San Pedro de Atacama in the north of Chile, punctuated with just one stop. Bus travel is comfortable in South America though; this bus had fully reclining seats. Since there isn't a real train network or a discount airline on the continent, a lot of people get around by bus. Exhausted by the early start, we slept for the first hour or so. Some kind of loud Chinese comedic theater was shown on the monitors for the sole purpose of awakening us. Some of the journey was the same route as the "Truck to the Clouds," and the landscape was barren and beautiful for the whole trip. The Argentinian immigration building, above, in a featureless dusty landscape, was particularly lonesome. I had my first feelings of altitude sickness on the drive.

Cachi and Cacti

We took the Minitrack, a modified pickup truck, on another excursion, south of Salta.

Leaving town, we drove through a lush green valley, a rarity in northern Argentina. Then we climbed through a mountain pass, on a road almost as intricate as the "road to the clouds." The landscape got much drier, and cacti came and went.

We chatted with our fellow passengers, and the staff; everyone was really charming. There was a couple from Brazil, a couple from the States, and a man from Costa Rica who lives in California.

After some hours, we finally arrived at Cachi, a lovely and isolated town in a very dry landscape. Lunch was good, except Jason and I don't like goat cheese, north Argentina's specialty. Jason had a rabbit empanada.

For some reason, people always seem to put up bizarre, over-sized sculptures in the desert. Cachi was no exception, with this, um, lovely gazebo, fashioned from multiple cement llamas.

We wandered through the dusty little berg.

And saw the archeology museum.

In one corner was this alter to Pachamama, an earth goddess.

I bought some clay and wood mugs at a shop, continuing my delusional, high altitude rampage of gathering questionable souvenirs.

We moved on to a national park full of cacti, and not much else.

 

On the way home, we stopped at a gas station, and had a tailgate party of sorts, with beer, nuts and olives.

Truck to the Clouds

The Tren a las Nubes (Train to the Clouds) is a grand rail line that climbs from Salta into the Andes. It was engineered by an American, and is a really impressive piece of construction, with lots of zigzagging, tunnels and viaducts. Unfortunately, it's closed till later this year, supposedly.

So we took the Truck to the Clouds. A local German-owned travel agency has created some fascinating truck mods for such journeys. The "Movitrack" is a semi that's been kitted out like Scooby Doo's mystery van. In the lower part of the truck is a kitchen and writing table. Above, sixteen passenger seats have removable roof panels. Passengers stand on their seats and look out at the landscape as the truck makes its way up the mountains. This is a lot of fun, but also windy and cold. The Movitrack staff were great, and we enjoyed meeting some fellow travelers from England, Harjit and Dan.

Outside this adobe house, kids came to the truck, asking for our extra coffee, which the crew dispensed.

The landscape was really varied. Trees disappeared early in the trip, because of increasing elevation. Cacti disappeared at 3500 meters. The mountains themselves contain a lot of minerals, and are vivid red, purple, yellow, blue and green. Their forms look ancient and wrinkled.

We stopped at the tiny town of Tastil, whose museum has a mummy and some flattened skulls. Jason played a xylophone made from big rocks.

Outside, we bought some crafts from some locals. Looking at my stuffed llama collection now, I wonder if the elevation was getting to me when I bought them.

The truck kept climbing, and we arrived at a high, flat plain, the Altiplano. San Antonio de Los Cobres, a borax-mining town, sits on the plain, with its dusty old adobe buildings and Monopoly houses. We had a nourishing lunch there.

Vicunas and llamas roamed the plain, too far away to photograph. They are camelids, South American camel species.

Further along the plane are salt flats. It was surreal to drive over  a glowing salt lake, so white that hurts your eyes. Amazingly, some people live on the flats. At its center are swimming holes, cleaved in the wet season. They harvest salt from these holes. And some locals craft llamas and other tchotchkes from the salt.

The road's highest point was 4170 meters. We felt a little woozy from the elevation.

The road is well-built, and quite impressive. It zig-zags up and down the mountains, doubling back on itself.

After miles of unforgiving landscape, we arrived at the charming town of Purma Marca. The tiny burg was nestled between painted mountains, and had a few little streets of charming old buildings, and few posh lodges.

Our energetic guides fed us champagne and snacks to end the day. It was a several hour drive back to Salta.

Salta

Salta is a great little city in northern Argentina; in a valley, it's surrounded by foothills of the Andes. Salta has some of the best colonial Spanish architecture in the country, and we loved walking around the compact downtown area.

This is a detail from a building next to the above San Francisco church. The facade looked simultaneously Inca, Egyptian and art deco.

The cathedral resembled an ornate pastry on the outside, and had a massive baroque alter.

People were very friendly, though most spoke no English. Salta, Iguazu and Carlos Pelligrini are the first places we've seen very many Native Americans on our trip. There weren't many in Santiago, Valparaiso or Buenos Aires.

The local cuisine was delicious. It included tamales, humitas (tamale-like items), and locro, a hearty stew that includes veal, chickpeas and corn. Local white cheese with a quince-like preserved fruit are a traditional desert. We enjoyed the return to more rustic food, after Buenos Aires.

Near our B&B were many beautiful old colonial homes in local style. Salta´s architecture has a Moorish influence, from Spain, and there are lovely old tiles that reminded us of Spain or Istanbul. Enclosed balconies with wood screens continued the theme.

A tribute to General Guemes, one of Argentina's liberators, is at the base of a big hill on the edge of town.

Nearby is a fun little archeology museum with some board-flattened skulls and funerary urns for children. Climbing the hill behind the museum took us about half an hour, and we saw lots of local joggers. From the top, we took a Swiss-made gondola down to the center of town.

Odd ducks swam in the lake at the center of town.

Another archaeological museum, Museo de Arqueologia de Alta Montana, was really well curated and nicely designed. The highlight of their collection is three frozen mummies -- Inca child sacrifices found high in the Andes. The mummies are incredibly well preserved -- lifelike because of the freezing temperatures, and have been featured in National Geographic. Unfortunately, they won't be on display until September -- we were very disappointed. But it was interesting to see films on how they were found and preserved. And the (non-invasive) studies done on the mummies have ranged from finding out whether they were well fed before their deaths, and gathering DNA to contribute to migration studies. Clothing, headdresses, and ceremonial dolls buried with the children were interesting to see. There was some controversy locally as to whether it's appropriate to display the mummies.

While in Salta, we stayed at Bloomers, a wonderful B&B. It had a courtyard, like many of the old buildings there do. The hosts served elaborate breakfasts, including local Andean potatoes, dulce de leche crepes, and media lunas (crescent moons, or croissants), which are ubiquitous in Argentina.

Iguazu Falls

After seeing Iguazu Falls, Eleanor Roosevelt remarked, "Poor Niagara." Iguazu Falls is the largest system of waterfalls in the world. It's multifaceted, and impossible to describe. As with Australia's Uluru, photos don't do it justice.

We also saw coatis, raccoon-like creatures, though they were too quick to photograph well.

We were lucky to visit Iguazu on what started as a sunny day. After walking around the falls, we rode what might be described as a motorboat on steroids. Though the current was strong, and the water choppy, this boat could handle it all. The ride started with photo ops at various individual waterfalls. Then, the boat actually drove into the edge of one of the falls -- the one at the the very left of the above photo. It is hard to describe how tiny our boat was compared to the waterfall. We'd been told we'd get a little wet, but were as soaked as if we'd fallen into the river.

Vultures circle the falls.

Note the people standing at the edge of the cliff on the left side of the photo below. This gives some idea of the massive scale of Iguazu.

The day got colder, our pants were still wet, and things degenerated some from there. We were driven around in an open-topped truck through the rain forest, watched the Argentine futbol team lose to Germany, then a huge thunderstorm settled over Iguazu. It was time to go back to the hotel.

100 Pound Rodents!

We flew from Buenos Aires to a one horse town called Posadas, then rode a 4x4 over slippery muddy roads for five hours to arrive at tiny Carlos Pelligrini at 1am. Carlos Pelligrini is on the edge of Ibera, a biologically rich wetlands reserve. Opening the car door, a large muzzle snuffled at my face and bag. It was the resident donkey, named ¨Donkey.¨ We checked into a tiny inn, made from rough timbers, with great rustic furniture. Anna, who seems to be the manager, gave us some wonderful delicate slices of pizza -- one with carrots and one with potatoes. Then we went to sleep in a rather chilly room.

In the last two days, we've seen some amazing things. Looking out the windows of the inn, we could see many kinds of water birds, and some groundhog-sized rodents in front of a large lake.

We walked down a road, built through the middle of the large lake, to a nature reserve. Next to the interpretive center we saw a large group of capybaras, the world's largest rodents. They were grazing like small deer. The largest can top 100 pounds! South America is to rodent varieties what Australia is to marsupials - there's lots of variety.

A house cat-sized wildcat brushed against Jason's leg. It had beautiful black and white spots. It was striking to see the petite feline next to giant rodents.

We walked down a path through a forest of trees and vines and lots of lush plants. Jason spotted a beautiful golden monkey with a baby hitching a ride on her belly.

Back at the lodge, we were given some delicious corn cannellonis.

After lunch, we was a boat expedition into the marshes. Right away, we saw several caymans convalescing in the water. They don't move fast in the cold.

We sped across the lake, and I was glad to have my new, thick down coat.

The lake has lots of tiny floating islands called flotandos. Composed of a layer of dirt and matted roots, they're about a foot thick, and grass and even trees grow on them. The lake is about 2.5 meters deep, and the flotandos are floating in clumps on it.

This is the Giant Wood-rail, or Ipacaa, one of the most elegant birds on the lake.

What's amazing is the flotandos support big animals like capybaras and deer. We saw lots of capybaras on the flotandos, grazing, drinking water, squeaking, or sometimes diving into the water.

Walking on the flotando was a really strange sensation -- like walking in one of those inflatable houses for children that they have at carnivals. The earth was undulating under our feet.

The Southern Screamer is a large bird; this one was guarding a big nest, right on a flotando.

There were so many caymans. Once we saw a mother with many tiny, camouflaged babies amongst the grass. She hissed until we left.

Bird life was very diverse; large birds including storks, hawks and ibis. And many colorful species of small birds, several with bright red heads, and some golden.

Desert that evening was a fresh candied papaya with a slice of savory cheese.

Today, Jason rode a horse around the area, while I went back to the walking path. Mingo, a guide from the interpretive center, showed me around. I saw more of the monkeys, including juveniles, and a large black male.

Mingo pointed out some armadillo tracks, but they're nocturnal. Back at the interpretive center, the wildcat had returned, and was in the kitchen. They chased it out, and Mingo put it into my arms. Apparently, it's not that wild.

On our second boat ride in the afternoon, we saw different landscape, and lots of the same animals, including many deer.

Marco, the guide, pointed out fist-sized web sacs of baby black and red spiders. The adults must be quite large, because the babies looked big to me.

Then, unfortunately, our boat crashed into one of the spider sacs, and Jason and the front of the boat were covered in spiders. I was really glad it wasn't me.

Many vultures circled above. They congregated in this tree.

Animals we saw:

Marsh Deer, Carpincho, Black Howler Monkey, caymans, wildcat, White-necked Heron, Rufescent Tiger Heron, egrets, storks, ibis, Southern Screamer, ducks, Black Vulture, hawks, Giant Wood-rail, Pollona Negra, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, pigeons

Good Air

Paul Theroux says Argentinians have a "dampness of the soul," in "The Old Patagonian Express." Maybe it's all the winter rain.

Sydney was dark and rainy. Buenos Aires is cold and wet. We seem to have a habit of visiting cities known for their glorious summer sun at the wrong time of year.

Oh well. I really wanted to see B.A., and am very glad we did, although poor Jason was sick for half our stay.

Walking down the streets, you could be in New York at times. Recoleta and Palermo Veijo reminded us of the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side, respectively. Sadly, we found no equivalent for the Lower East Side. Tall, elegant apartment buildings looked Parisian. And of course, there's New York-style pushing and shoving.

For a real New York experience, we rode the excellent and cheap subway system, including some beautiful old cars that smelled like an antique shop.

Buenos Aires is a very relaxing city for a western traveler, and also very cheap right now. The boutiques and restaurants of Palermo Veijo could have been transplanted from Soho, with prices about a third of what you'd pay in New York. I thought the boutiques and fashion were great, and now have a shopping hangover.

Futbol mania was in full swing in Buenos Aires.

Though there were some dissenters...

We went to the San Telmo antique market one day, and to an ethnography museum. The ethnography museum's text had a liberal, self-critical bent, denouncing the European destruction of Patagonian cultures, and praising the Patagonian culture as one of the world's most advanced. Walking through, we made the observation that the museum's "voice" was opposite that of most museums we'd encountered on our trip. Many state-run museums in countries like Laos or French Polynesia don't acknowledge past foibles. And while this ethnography museum may have gone just slightly far in an opposite, self-flagellating direction, we appreciated their historical perspective, and great exhibit design.

Unlike the ethnography museum, B.A.'s history museum has the old fashioned, familiar exhibit style of portraits of old white military men and commemoration weapons. We didn't get as much out of the experience. We did, however, see Juan Peron's swinging sixties phone.

We also toured the local opera house, which is apparently one of the best in the world, acoustically. The general opulence of the opera house contrasts with the depressing 1950's-public-school-in-bad-repair aesthetic of the rehearsal spaces, and costume and set design workshops.

B.A. has a beautiful footbridge by Santiago Calatrava.

The Malba museum of art was fun. Each country seems to have had their own purveyors of cubism, abstraction, op art, pop art etc, and Argentina is no exception. Seems like people from every wealthy country traveled to Europe, learned some style, and brought it back home. There was also a Lichtenstein exhibit on.

Argentina being the land of meat, we had to try some steak. At La Estancia (The Farm), a traditional old steak restaurant, I had an enormous steak, which was quite good.

We stayed at a great B&B called Bed y Baires, located in Palermo Veijo, which we thought was the most fun neighborhood. The proprietors were very sweet. We were actually their first customers; this is a moody photo of Jason from the housewarming party.

One of the owners, Nora, took us to Tigre, a small town on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Tigre is where the yachting, boating and rowing set hang out, and there are multiple Princeton-looking rowing clubs. We also saw polo horses. Tigre is on the the Rio Plata, the widest river in the world. Looking out from the shore, we thought it was the ocean -- you cannot see across. They also sell mate cups made from hooves there, as Nora´s friend Grace pointed out.

Nora and family often drank mate, a local herby tea drink with lots of caffeine, while they were at the guesthouse. Apparently 90% of Argentinians drink mate.

La Boca, a shore-side community, once had many colorful little houses with zinc siding. The local people used the leftover paint from painting the ships, resulting in lots of different, contrasting colors on their little metal home. It was a rainy day though, and we didn´t stick around for long.

Buenos Aires is famous for tango dancing. Many people still do it, and there are lots of clubs. One night, we went to a tango show in a tiny little bar with an art nouveau interior. Entered the room, a grandmotherly type was belting out a tune; we were startled by the power of her voice.

A small band with a squeezebox played a few tunes, and two tango dancers came out. Their dancing was absolutely wonderful -- really nuanced (Jason´s photo).

Then, horror! The man asked me to dance, and the woman asked Jason. We did some kind of elephantine waltz for what seemed like an eon, while the rest of the audience looked on. Oy. After, tempering our humiliation with some wine, we listened to grandma do "The Girl From Ipanema." 

Chilean Graf

We enjoyed the Chilean graffiti, more than most officially sanctioned murals. Angry chickens in Valparaiso...

And upholstered kitties...

In Santiago, there was graf of a seemingly more political bent. Since our Spanish isn´t up to scratch, I thought I´d see what Babelfish could clarify. Not a lot, as it happens:

Er... something about alpacas?

No to the education of the market?

To Capitalism it is necessary to give him until it hurts.

I still don´t know what ¨loce¨ is... But it looks ominous.

And perhaps a party?

Valparaiso

Valparaiso is a coastal town, and hour and a half from Santiago. Before the Panama Canal, all ships passing Cape Horn stopped there; the city was quite cosmopolitan and wealthy at the time. As a result, it has lots of great Victorian architecture, as well as some art deco and modernist buildings.

And some wonderfully bizarre hybrids.

The town is built on a set of very steep hills by the ocean, and each of them has at least one funicular railroad.

Homes are perched on treacherous hillsides, supported by rickety-looking scaffolding. Many look like real feats of engineering.

Valparaiso is a bit shabby, but two of the hills have been cleaned up quite a bit, and have great restaurants and a few shops. There´s also a mural project; noted Chilean artists have painted outdoor murals in and around one hilltop. But we mostly preferred the unsanctioned public art.

The poet Pablo Neruda considered Valparaiso his home, and had a house built on one hillside. We went to the house/museum, called La Sebastiana, not expecting much. It was actually quite an amazing place. Neruda collaborated with an architect, Sebastian Collado, to create a home with nautical lines. Neruda apparently decorated the interior himself, and it´s quite an eclectic mix of styles and objects, ala Nest Magazine. A painting of Queen Victoria coexists with bright pink and white striped walls; centuries old maps of Chile; a wacky wet bar with tchotchkes; and a taxidermy bird, dyed pink. I´ll have to read some Neruda now. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed.

Like Santiago, Valparaiso has many large stray dogs. And, well, dog shit.

Santiago

Enormous, snow-capped mountains tower over Santiago. They follow you all over town -- sublime, snow-capped, and surreally high; a perfect home for the Abominable Snowman.

Santiago was a bit chilly when we arrived. Apparently it´s very hot in the summer. The architectural history ´was great -- lovely old colonial buildings, Victoriana, Tudor, hacienda-looking homes, art deco, and lots of other styles mixed in. Some parts are well restored, some shabby. A church near our lodging looked like pastel confections with white icing.

The visit began with a three-day Spanish language crash course. Jason is a "natural;" I am not. I suppose this makes up for his "special needs" scuba diving. Jason is now vaguely fluent; I am studying.

We visited Santiago's Museum of Pre-Colombian Art, considered the best on the continent. There were many more cultures on this continent than we'd realized, and the artifacts show diverse aesthetics. Unfortunately, some of the artifacts are a mystery, as the Incas and Spanish wiped out many of the cultures. We also saw our first human mummies -- apparently there are many more on display throughout the continent, which should satisfy our interest in the macabre. The tiny bony hands and fingernails were the most disturbing part.

Chile is the home of Pablo Neruda, so it was fitting that we ate at the Casa Nerudiana one day. The food was great, and I loved the interior. It had this great rough wood framework that looked hand-hewn, and the walls seemed to be made of packed earth. Big, rough wood planks made up the ceiling. Another day, we ate at a Bolivian place, with similar construction, and lots of yellow. The furniture was also rough-hewn, yet had a certain grace. Some old saddle made of a hide was part of the decor. Oh, and the food was wonderful. Another memorable restaurant was Patagonian, with similar construction, and antiques and old Chilean packaging ephemera. I could see this kind of interior design going over well in NYC.

It was at the Patagonian place that we had our dulce de leche revelation. For the uninitiated, dulce de leche is a gooey liquid caramel that seems to be used for many confections, and at breakfast, in South America. And it´s amazingly delicious and gloppy, especially if homemade. If Santiago is any indicator for the rest of the continent, we need to learn portion control fast.

Near our lodging was at an elegant 125 year old place that´s been lovingly restored, and recently reopened. The owner took to us, and came over to talk several times. He loves the US, and modeled the resto after Balthazar in New York. Jason's abalone chowder was divine. After dinner, the maitre'd took us downstairs to show off the private banquet room and large wine cellar. Did I mention the wine was great in Chile?

And I'll take this opportunity to mention we're also enjoying pisco sours -- a drink made with pisco, a local brandy, and sugar and lemon juice.

The Andes are so huge that regular mountains are just hills to Chileans. Santiago is built around several of them. We took a funicular (yes, a funicular) railroad up one called St. Cristobal.

From there, you can see much of sprawling Santiago, and a great view of the Andes. At the top is an immense statue of the Virgin Mary.

While searching online for an English-speaking chiropractor, I ended up writing a Santiago resident who offered her help to visitors on a travel website. We ended up chatting a bit via email, and she offered to take me to some shopping streets in Santiago. That was how we met Carolina, who was kind enough to show us around her city for a day. After checking out the Providencia neighborhood, she took us to her masseuse, as we were both feeling a bit broken. That evening we had traditional Chilean dishes for dinner -- comfort food. My pastel de choclo was so good -- like a shepherd pie made with cornmeal, olives, chicken, raisins and spices. We also had vaino, which is an eggnog-like drink made with wine. Mmmm. And we really enjoyed hearing Carolina's perspectives on Santiago, etc. that day.

The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes is a lovely building based on one in Paris. There was a good exhibit of a contemporary Chilean abstract artist on when we visited.

Santiago also has some chic little neighborhoods, shops and restaurants. It has a large number of people with the chunky, dark, rectangular glasses that architects wear. And large, docile stray dogs. And sweatered dogs of various sizes. And they like their penguins sexy.