March 13 & 14 - Back in Santiago & Contest Update

March 13:
Another bus ride, and another adventure!   First, some background:  Long haul buses typically have a electronic (crawler) sign on the front giving the destination and the leaving time, which makes it easy for travelers to figure out their bus.  We were at the bus station at 0845, looking for our bus with the message "Santiago - Salida 9:10."  'Salida 'is 'leave.'  Multiple buses from multiple companies are heading to Santiago.

At 8:35 the 8:30 Santiago bus leaves.  So far so good.  At 8:40 a bus pulls up with the sign "Santiago - Salida 7:35."  Hmmm, not so good,  something is delaying the buses north of us as they come into La Serena.  People get off, people get on.  Another English speaking passenger and I go up to the driver and show him our tickets.  He wags his head 'No,' so it's not our bus.  Then he grabs us and tells us to follow him as he races into the ticket booth inside the terminal.  He takes our tickets, talks to the girl, gives her our tickets, and is given some money which he puts in his pocket and races back to the bus.  We follow and, luckily, get on the bus, and leave.

So, I dunno exactly, but I'm guessing the driver may be on some sort of incentive scheme, and we became passengers he picked up along the road.  We did end up on the bus manifest as the bus conductor came by our seats and registered us on the passenger list.

The bonus was that Laura and I got the first class seats instead of the regular seats, which made the 6 hour ride more comfortable.   It was disconcerting for a few minutes, however.

So, now we are back in Santiago.  

Laura wanted to do some shopping and was directed to the Costanera Center.  The place is huge.  A 6 floor shopping mall (the largest in South America).  There are 3 skyscrapers associated with it (two hotels and an office building. The tallest building (Gran Torre Santiago) is the tallest building in Latin and South America (300 meters).  Almost every high end shop is in the mall.  This is the Gran Torre.

In contrast to this opulence there was a lone vendor outside, trying to sell strawberries, blueberries and a few other trinkets.  Chile seems to have some of the same problems that other western nations face - a segment of very wealthy citizens combined with others in stark poverty.

Chile just re-elected a Socialist president, so she'll have a job to do.


Another modern building across the street.  The Canadian consulate is just down the street.  Hopefully, we won't need their services.









March 14:
We had a marvelous meal last night and are just kicking around town today. We go downtown and Laura finds a very busy market.  Yesterday we were in a high-end center and today it is a street market.  

We're back in the VilaFranca again, 3rd time for me on this trip.  Gloria gave us a big hug when we arrived and said, "Welcome home!" Last week, somebody actually wrote in the guest book "Mom, we're home!"  so  Gloria makes everybody feel this way.

Tomorrow Laura wants to go to a weekend craft market she heard about from a lady in La Serena.  Our other big mission is to repack all of our gear and get it down to two bags.  Also, how to pack a jug of Pisco in the middle of our luggage so it doesn't get broken.

Sunday the 16th is when the big silver bird takes off and we get back to Vancouver on Monday :(

CONTEST UPDATE:
JD, your guess of a token of some sort is correct but not good enough for the big prize.  I spent 6 hours on the bus and had to dash off somewhere as soon as it got into the terminal.  Where?  

And anonymous got the second item correct - it is a rice mold, or 'molde de arroz."  Identify yourself, so we can give it to you.

Unless something really exciting happens, that's about it for this blog.  

March 12 - Coquimbo

So, what's a Coquimbo?  It's a city just to the southwest of La Serena, sort of like Vancouver and Burnaby. You can't really tell where one ends and the other one starts.

We rented bikes for this tour, since it was the better part of 10 km away.  Getting through La Serena to the beach wasn't too bad and once on the beach there is a bicycle path adjacent the road.

Here I am, with my South American bike helmet.  Actually, helmet use by cyclists is pretty good, but they didn't offer them to us.  These bikes had the most uncomfortable seats imaginable.

Behind me are the endless beaches between La Serena and Coquimbo.  Most are "Playa non apta para bano," not due to sewage, but due to riptides.  Surfing is apparently OK.  You can swim at the beaches nearer Coquimbo.

I forgot to take a closeup of this, but it is (apparently) the largest monument to the Christian faith in South America.  83 meters high and 40 wide at the base.

We got to the Coquimbo waterfront, obviously a fishing port.  Loads of small boats anchored out and larger ones ties up to the jetty.

So, what the Heck is this???  It looks like a relic from Pirates of the Caribbean.  I asked the girls in our hostel about it - they hadn't seen them but assume they are "just for you tourists."  Oh, good!

There wasn't just one, there were two of the silly things.  Note the 'dead bodies' hanging from the rigging.









Back to the wharf.  There was a large fish market here, with all sorts of goodies from the ocean.  Outside the market, there were a number of people set up on the wharf, the sidewalk, anywhere they could find a spot.

Yummy looking critters, eh?

A number of the stalls were selling freshly made ceviche.  Laura wouldn't go for it, and I'll admit I wimped out as well.  However, consider this:  here you can see how they are making it - when you order it in a restaurant you can't see where they make it.  Hmmmm.....

Here's a question for you:  With all this fresh fish being cleaned, what do they do with the offal?  Why, feed it to the local sea lions of course.  It looks like these guys have figured out how to get an easy lunch.

Would you do this with a sea lion that must be 8 or 10 times your size?

And right across the street from the wharf was another market, selling everything from vegetables to clothes to hardware (I forgot to check the price of galvanized lag bolts).
The prices of the vegetables were cheap.








This trip was yesterday.  Today Laura and I kicked around La Serena again, visiting the local archaeological  museum and climbing a hill to where the 21st Infantry Regiment has its barracks.  Unfortunately, some twit forgot his camera.

La Serena is a nice little town and worth a visit.  But, if we were biking I wouldn't go 500 km out of my way from Santiago to come here (lazy slob that I am).

Last comment - nobody has even tried to guess the items in our contest.  C'mon and guess.  Some more hints:  Item 1 - What do you have to do after a 6 hour bus ride?  If you have to pay, how do you get through the turnstile?

Item 2:  Arroz (Spanish word)

March 10 - Around La Serena

Where are all the entries into our 'Identify the Stupid things Greg Picked Up" contest?   I'm going to have to give the prizes to myself (including eating the chocolate, Julie!).  Hints:  Item 1 is something that can be bought (among other places) in bus terminals.  Item 2 is used in the kitchen.

Onto today - we wandered around La Serena during the day.  My usual shot of the Plaza de Armas.











A typical street with the local cathedral behind.  La Serena is Chile's 2nd oldest city, founded in 1544 and then promptly destroyed by an uprising.  After being rebuilt and destroyed a couple more times it finally survived.  

It's downtown architecture is Spanisj Colonial or neo-Colonial.  Outside of downtown it has a combination of modern and older architecture.



Another street picture.  In the downtown area there are no curbs - the streets and sidewalks are all tiled and each flow into the other.  It's nice, but good to have the round lumps that mark the edge of the traffic lanes.









Somebody 'yarn-bombed' this place, too.  I have difficulty believing the trees are cold, given the climate.














As usual, Laura found the local market stalls, inside a courtyard. 

This was in the market - a free street piano.  I've seen at east 3 of these in La Serena - here, the mall and and ? (I forget).

A church with a rather interesting bell tower.  Apparently the church dates back to 1673, although I don't know how much of it is original.

This is the street our hostel (Hostal el Punto) is located on.  The hostel is starts at the sign beside the far tree and continues to the white building beyond.  I believe the owners have German connections as there are predominantly German folks here.

 Inside, the rooms are on the two sides of the property with a courtyard in the middle.

Don't let Kye see this picture - Laura is cuddling the hostel mascot "Canela" (cinnamon).

Chile's north, because of its dry climate, is home to 30% of the world's observatories.  We took an evening trip to Mamalluca, a 'tourist' observatory.  Vicuna, a town up the Elqui River, is home to the southernmost of Chile's observatories.   The larger observatories, where most of the astronomy work is done, cost too much to run to let a bunch of sightseers loose there at night.

We had a very enjoyable and informative tour.  We looked through a 40 cm telescope and were able to see some of the bands on Jupiter (Saturn was below the horizon until later on in the evening).  Outside, we saw the Southern Cross (it is large enough to see with the naked eye) and a very good explanation of how it was used by navigators in the southern hemisphere who can't see Polaris.  Then, we used a small telescope to see the moon's craters, and we all got to use our cameras to take a photo.  There's mine.

Quite an enjoyable tour, although we got back late.  One of the highlights was when the astronomer guide used a FREE piece of web software to view the sky projected on a wall of the observatory.  

I've already downloaded the software and installed it on my computer.
This is a screen shot of the night sky last night, with the constellation lines and art superimposed.  The Southern Cross is near the top, about 1/4 the way in from the left.  It is labeled "Crux."

Send me an e-mail for the link.  It's free software, and not too difficult to use.

Off to dinner now.

March 9 - Vina del Mar to La Serena

So what's with us and taxis? Another, albeit short, adventure this morning. Remember I mentioned the cycle race yesterday. Well, today was the ladies race and they blocked off the street just before we wanted to leave. No taxis allowed! In two different languages the clerk and I worked out a plan. I suggested we walk to the nearest corner where a car could access next to the race. Looking out the window of the hotel we could see the course and we chose a corner – two blocks away.

He called a taxi and arranged the pickup. Just as we were leaving he told us the taxi was grey. Not black? All taxis are black. Hmmm.

Off we went looking like a pair of overloaded donkeys. We got to the corner just as a grey car pulled up. We jumped in and made good progress to the bus terminal. Except he stopped two streets away and started talking, 90% in Spanish. After a bit of back & forth it dawned on me – he's not a legal taxi and can't be seen to being paid at the terminal. His last instruction – tell anybody who asks that we are with “City Tour.” I pay (a good rate actually) and we are dropped off without incident. I wonder if our driver was a relation to the hotel clerk. He certainly didn't look like Carlos from Mendoza!

I'm writing this on the bus to La Serena. The bus was a half hour late getting into Vina, and we are making a number of stops, so it will be a long ride.

Time for some bus window photos.  Just north of Santiago we make a couple of stops in smaller towns for pickups.  Then we're back on the main highway.

The scenery changes to very arrid and 'deserty.'  It looks dry & dusty.

Along the way are little ramshackle places.  I don't know what they are doing out here.  It doesn't seem  like a nice place to me.  There are a few farms - we saw small herds of cattle, sheep & goats.

We passed 3 very large wind farms (guess 100+ wind turbines each) on the way.  They are located in the middle of the 'boondocks,' although there were a few houses nearby one of them.  This area seems to be a natural location for this sort of power generation.

This caught my eye - a cactus fence!  Somebody has gone to the work of planting these, I would guess many years ago for them to be this size.  There were also stone fences along the way.  

Last photo of the desert.  Pretty typical of the last couple hundred km toward La Serena.  We crossed one river (Rio Limari) and all of a sudden there were green fields and a town.  A very vivid demonstration of how water can change an ecosystem.

We're in La Serena now.  It's Sunday and we have our typical restaurant problem - where is a restaurant that's open?  Answer - there aren't any.  So, we trundle down to the new mall in town.  9:00 at night and the place is fully open.  The food court is busy but every decent restaurant in town is closed.  Says something for the evolution of commerce, eh?  At 9:30 the place closed and at 9:31 it was dead.

A sad realization - this will be the last Sunday we have this problem as we will be leaving in a week.
A walk around La Serena tomorrow.

March 8 - Around Vina del Mar

I hope you like the funky place we are staying in.  I really noticed the smell of the sea when we checked in - rather enjoyable.  It wasn't too noisy overnight.  This morning there was no traffic noise as the street was blocked off for a men's bicycle race.  Here's the view from our room.  This is the Castillo Wulff.  It's an art galley now, currently displaying black and white sketches by local artists.

After breakfast we're wandering about.  Here's the local casino.  We went by again after dinner and the place was plugged - you couldn't fit a dinky toy into the parking lot.

The next stop was the Museo de Arqueologia with its moai out front.  Laura would make it up to this guy's shoulder.

The museum had a lot of the history and archaeological finds from Easter Island and there was enough English translation to make it understandable for us gringos.
The displays were all behind glass so most pictures didn't come out decently.










I figured I'd include this handsome(?) fellow.  He's a Conger Eel, of which I've had a few meals of his cousins.

This unlabeled display of butterflies was in a well lit lobby so the photo turned out not too bad.












Back out walking about - here's the local church.  We stayed outside as there was a funeral in progress.















A beautiful street - this one is kept especially nice as the presidential palace is just above it (out of sight).

Between all the walls around it and the plethora of policemen about, we didn't get a view of the palace.

However, we got a long shot of the castle just east of the palace.  I forget its name.

I suspect this hill, with some great views of the ocean, is where the poor people live. 

Last view of Vina today is the flower clock,  When I was here for a short visit in January it was cloudy, so here is a nicer shot.

It was unseasonably warm for this time of year according to the hotel desk clerk.  It was downright hot, with lots of people on the swimming beaches.

Tomorrow it is off to La Serena, 6 hours or so north of Vina del Mar.

Contests for Our Loyal Followers

CONTEST TIME: Today's contest – identify these things.  Item 1 is in the left; item 2 is on the right.  Two photos:

ITEM 1:   There are two pictures of it. It is about an inch in diameter. No hints today. In the edge view of it below, you can see it is obviously a piece of metal and folded a number of times.

I'll start giving you hints about this tomorrow.

The prize, you ask? I thought you would do this for the shear joy of the game. OK, there will be a prize. We thought about giving away Julies chocolates to the winner but decided that would be detrimental to familial relations, so Laura and I will give the winner an always to be treasured souvenir of Chile.

ITEM 2:  Again, two photos of the item.  This is the prize for identifying this item.  You must identify it in Spanish.

It's wooden and the first hint is that it is a kitchen item.

Have fun - put your entries into the comments of this post.

If you haven't posted a comment before, here are some basic instructions:

-Go to the bottom of the post and click on either the phrase "No comments" or "x Comments" if there are already some comments for the post.  Write your comment in the box that appears, with your name (no name = no prize). In the pull down box beside "Comment as" select 'Anonymous.'    

Then you click on 'Publish' and you have to prove you aren't a computer (follow the instructions).  Click on Publish once again and your entry hits the blog.

If you are comment challenged, then send us an e-mail.  However, comments on the blog win before e-mails.

Have fun and enter often.

March 7 – Mendoza to Vina del Mar

Travel day today. Six or so hours on the bus. We have front row seats on the upper deck so we should get a good view. This is the same route we did the other day, but we'll continue on further.

Last view of Laura as we escape the Quinta Rufino. Quaint place, run down, not much for breakfast, but it's OK.  Oh, I forgot to mention, Laura found a cockroach skeleton in the bed.

Some photos on the way to the pass: 

Looking to get off the freeway - no exit?, no problem. The freeway is level to the roads adjacent, so if you need an exit, just make one.

Very practical people, these Argentineans

On the way to the pass.  I took a bunch of  photos of the part we've already seen, but I'll only add this one.

Sorry Julie, but we blew right through the Inca Bridge and it's markets, so no snow globe today.   Cherish the photo from a few days ago :)

You can see the arch I talked about the other day.  The hill to the left is the windy one lane dirt road we went up.  It doesn't show up well in the photo.

New photos now.   These are the entrances to the 3 km long tunnels under the mountain - the highway on top and the closed railway tunnel below.

The Argentinian side of this pass is relatively gentle inclines, whereas the Chilean side is a set of crazy switchbacks.

This is actually 3 lane road.  It is being repaired so the road markings are missing.  I don't know if they have barrier on the open side - I didn't see any stockpiled.

 The bottom half of the switchbacks.  I saw a number of other tunnels going down, which I assume were for the railway.  The grades on the railway must have been hard to maintain - I wonder if they had to construct some spiral tunnels ( a Google research project for a rainy day).








I wonder if this guy regretted his decision to cycle this way???

Laura says she still wants to do it.  


The Chilean ski hill of Portillo is right here as well.  It is famous as a summer (June - September) training site for various nation's ski teams.  I had a hard time picking out the ski runs; they seem pretty crazy.  One of the lifts actually goes down the Chilean side and crosses over the switchbacks.

No pictures of Chile between the mountain and Vina del Mar.  It is perhaps a little more lush than the countryside south of Santiago.  Intensive agriculture of a variety of crops:  grapes corn, vegetables, etc.  A mixture of expensive, medium and inexpensive (read slum) housing. The road was good with a lot of it being freeway.  We made it into Vina del Mar in the late afternoon and checked into our hotel, the 'Cap Ducal."

This is it.  A good example of location, location, location.

Yes, it looks like a boat and yes, it is perched right on the rocks.  It's been there since the 1930's so it won't fall off unless there is a hell of a shaker.

View of the 'stern' of the hotel.  Our room is just below the penthouse, on the right side.  (For reasons of good taste I hid my just washed underwear that was hanging out on the balcony from view).

The view to the north from the 'bow' end.  The elevator is an old hydraulic type, with a cage door on the elevator and single wooden doors on each floor.  Two of us and our packs are a tight fit.

We ate in the seafood restaurant downstairs.  They make an awesome pisco sour and the meal was delicious.  I frowned when the waiter put my dessert in the middle of the table with two forks, so he very ceremoniously moved it to my side and removed Laura's fork.  If she wants dessert she can darn well order it herself.

Enough for March 7 - we'll wander around Vina tomorrow.