I had grand plans for what I would write about my trip to
South America last summer, and have achieved none of them. After that five-week
adventure, I began another that was unlike any I’ve been on before – moving
across the country to pursue a relationship. Adjusting to sharing my life with
another person (and to life in Alberta) has been uniquely challenging and
rewarding, and has moved the writing of blog posts a few steps down my priority
list. So this post is less involved than I would have liked. But it is at least
something, before the memories of last summer’s trip become so covered in dust
as to be unrecognizable.
My time in South America began with a week alone in Santiago, Chile. Two classmates from Dalhousie would be joining me later. That gap was mostly a result of more
ambitious trip plans that I had reduced, but it also gave me time to adjust to the
new surroundings on my own. As the most experienced Spanish speaker of the
three of us, I needed some time to revive my knowledge; as the instigator of
this trip, I wanted to be somewhat comfortable before they arrived.
I had never been to Latin America, and despite my well-worn
passports, most of my travelling has been in first world/OECD/developed
countries. I’m ashamed to admit that I had something of a siege mentality for
that first week in Santiago. I walked everywhere, partly to see the city but
partly to avoid the challenge of taking the subway. I didn’t make much small
talk. I think my worst fears were that Santiago would turn out to be like
Marrakesh, the only other second-world/non-OECD/developing city I’d visited. It
had been impossible to avoid hawkers there, and asking questions just meant
being hassled for money before long.
My fears were baseless. Chile is (I believe) the most
developed country in Latin America. I walked through crowds of people with no
one batting an eye at me, most of them too busy on their smartphones to notice
that I was not from there. Santiago is Chile’s largest city, but it’s hardly a
tourist hotspot. That gave me a comfortable level of anonymity as I wandered
around.
Each week of this trip deserves a separate blog post, but
here are three highlights/observations about Santiago:
It’s mostly flat, but a couple public parks had excellent
views of the surrounding Andes. Walking on Cerro San Cristóbal was particularly
memorable for the chapel/amphitheatre at the hill’s summit; it was also there
that I noticed just how many tourists to Santiago come from other Latin
American countries.
A large area of Santiago’s downtown is pedestrianized, which
made us three urban planners wet our pants with excitement. During business
hours, the pedestrian malls were packed
with people of all stripes: vendors, customers, people-watchers, chit-chatters
and checkers players.
It was not until after I left that I realized how polluted
Santiago is. It’s hardly surprising, given its glacial traffic. But I learned
later that I had spent my first week walking through smog so dangerous that
children and the elderly had been advised to stay inside.
After a week in Santiago, I was ready to move on when my
friends arrived. Luckily, they quickly were too. We hopped a bus to Valparaíso,
on the coast. It was one of the few destinations in Chile I was aware of before
researching for this trip. Three quick highlights:
Valparaíso is made up of nothing but hills (42 by some
counts). Therefore, elevators make up an important part of the public transit
system. The elevators are old, still mechanically operated and are dirt-cheap
to travel on.
Almost every surface in Valparaíso has art on it; murals are
especially popular. There is a thriving arts community that benefits from the
city’s tourist industry without catering exclusively to it.
Valparaíso is also a major port and the main headquarters of
the Chilean navy. The port, the hills and the arts community made me think of
both San Francisco and Wellington.
Our visit to Valparaíso was probably too short, but one of
my friends was only staying for nine days, and sights had to be seen. In the most
complicated travel day of our trip as a trio, we took a bus from Valparaíso to
Santiago, another bus to Santiago airport, then a flight to Calama and another
bus to San Pedro de Atacama. If you’ve heard of the Atacama Desert, you may
know that it is the driest place on Earth. Being right next to the Andes and in
the Atacama, San Pedro is in the middle of some pretty dramatic geography. We
did our best to see as much of it as possible via organized tours. Three quick
highlights:
Just west of San Pedro is la Valle de la Luna (Valley of the
Moon). Reminiscent of Tatooine, it was an aggressive reminder that deserts are
more than just flat sand and hot sun. In that extreme setting, it almost feels
like you can watch geology happen. The wind was overwhelming.
The salt flats near San Pedro are among the largest in the
world (Uyuní, just over the border in Bolivia, is the largest). A visit to el
Salar de Atacama gave us the chance to go swimming in the saltiest water any of
us will ever see, taste, or frantically wash off when it starts to crack skin.
It was also freezing cold – it was winter, after all – resulting in this
memorable picture.
We also got super high when we were in San Pedro. 4,320
meters high, to be exact. The Tatio geyser field in the Andes looks its best at
sunrise, they said, meaning we woke at 4 in the morning to get there. The
combination of waking early, altitude, and freezing temperatures made for a
physiological roller coaster. Jumping in a thermal pool right when my feet lost
feeling was a welcome relief.
After waking at 4 in the morning, we spent one final afternoon in San Pedro before flying back to Santiago. One of us flew home; the remaining two prepared to cross the Andes by bus. The journey we took on July 20, 2016 deserves its own blog post. Stay tuned.
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| Add llama to the list of animals I've eaten. |
