Reaching the Heights of Chile

 San Pedro de Atacama

Early Thursday morning we fly from the lush Pacific coastal mountains to the Chilean high altitude deserts. A little north of the Santiago, the Andean range turns reddish brown, with vast, treeless flat land between the now sparse peaks. Enormous open pit mines are visible 30,000 feet below. With this geographical change, Chile's wealth also changes from fruits and vegetables to minerals, especially copper and nitrates.

We land at Calama and bus to San Pedro de Atacama, one hour north over boundless stone deserts. Just before entering San Pedro we see the sculptured landscape that has transformed San Pedro from a sleepy desert oasis into a backpacker's paradise. San Pedro resembles a 19th century western frontier town; small adobe shacks on narrow, dusty, wind blown streets; crammed with twenty-something migrating backpackers. Every store is a conglomertion of money exchange, adventure touring, and bike rentals. Pringles and Escudo beer seem to dominate the backpack's diet.

We spend the next three days mountain biking through the exotic landscapes that millions of years of wind and rain have moulded into astonishing vast, open-air, masterpieces, best captured in pictures, not words – enjoy Simon's photographic gems - the most impressive of which is the great wall in Valle de la Luna at sunset. We arrive by bike at the moon-like valley as the sun hovers low in the sky.

The enormous stone walls reflect a curious, reddish, luminous light over the valley.

We bike up a steep hill, with the setting sun in our eyes. Suddenly human-like silhouettes, appear from the crest of this desolate hill, silently walking towards us. In the sun's glare, these blackened figures of all shapes and sizes appear as zombies from the 'Night of Leaving Dead'. With trepidation, we pick-up our pace to pass them quickly. Over the summit, we spot the tour bus that had deposited our bike-eating spooks. Relieved, we dismount to enjoy nature's brilliant spectacle.

Because of San Pedro's famously clear skies and high altitude, the area is home to the world's second largest scientific project, ALMA, after CERN's Large Hadron Collider. When completed it will consist of 66 radio telescopes synchronized within one millionth of a millionth of a second to produce the equivalent of a 14,000 metres wide telescope.

We decide to take a layman's astronomy tour. We leave at 10pm to a remote site just out of town. As we approach, the bus lights are extinguished and we are guided by landing-strip lights to the darkened observatory.

A glorious, bright sky opens above us. With a powerful laser pointer that seems to reach far into the universe our guide describes the night sky's stars and planets; and how our ancestors used and fretted over their movement. We then move to a garden of 11 optical telescopes pointing to the stellar highlights above. Through one, we see Saturn, its ring and moons astonish us. Others peer deep inside the Milky-way and distant constellations. After a welcomed hot chocolate, we leave, enriched and inspired by the unfathomable distances and beauty that surround us every night. It has now become our new custom to wander every evening from the artificial light to rediscover the gifts above us.

Our Bolivian High Altitude Adventure

On the 4500 m. plateau, with peaks over 6000 m.

The Diamox Shuffle: It's two days before we leave for our 4-day excursion to the the high-altitude Bolivian desert. With elevations above 5300 meters, altitude sickness is a serious concern. We all had come with a hefty supply of Diamox, a nasty diuretic designed to reduce any potential swelling in the brain. However, it comes with a serious regimen and annoying side effects. It requires drinking 4 litres of water everyday. That, along with its diuretic effect, means frequent facility stops – not very attractive when you spending the next 4 days driving through the desert, crammed in a Jeep. After an exhaustive debate, we choose the modern medical approach, buy the 30 litres of water and try not to think about the approaching consequences.

We quickly discover another minor side effect – the high cost of Diamox consumption in 3rd world countries where any visit to the facilities involves a monetary exchange. On the first night, in our primitive adobe hostel, full of twenty-something-olds, Annice yells out to Esther, 'Don't forget to take the pill!', puzzling our young co-adventurers. Our Diamox dilemma ended quickly. On tour 3rd night, the hostel's one and only bathroom is located across a dark, rock-strewn, dirt lane-way. We look at each other and instantly ditch the Diamox.

The Bolivian Desert

 

Snow-covered smoking volcano

Geezers and geyzers

Active volcanoes blow white whiffs of smoke in the distance. Extinct, snow-capped volcanoes come in all shapes and colours, tinged with the red and orange of iron ore. Here, everything is elemental – base metals and salts. Life is desperately hard; complex-life rare. Rain falls once a year. The sun scorches the earth during the day, the night brings subzero cold. By mid-afternoon, the winds begin their assault, howling incessantly and making outdoor activities very unpleasant. Often, we would begin our day as early as 6am to avoid the afternoons. Rock and sand stretch to the horizon, through which, tough, determined shrubs intermittently struggle. Isolated, strangely metallic coloured lagoons stride the base of tall snow-capped mountains. Steaming geysers remind us that under this tranquil, lifeless landscape lie potent, dangerous and impatient forces.

Un flamenco

Life begins with the microbes and algae that bloom in the lagoon waters. Flamingos, in flocks up to 12,000 follow, feeding on this rich watery food. Vicunas, nimble llama-like animals, surprisingly also make a living in this Bolivian desolation.

Muchos flamencos

Vicunas

Vicunas belong to the camelid family.  They are wild ones, cannot be domesticated, and so are guanacos which you may remeber we met in Peninsula Valdes and Torres del Paine.
The llamas are domesticated cousins, but herds roam freely in the desert, decorated with colour ribbons to identify the owner. The main thing the owners do for them is use them as pack animals, shear their wool, and slaughter them for meat, which apparently is very tasty (we didn't try it).

Simon helping a baby llama

Their other domesticated cousins are the alpaca (famous for their wool) which we didn't see because they live in the very north of Chile and in Peru.

Quinoa grows in the desert with no irrigation

At times, the distant landscape suddenly turns bright green, yellow and white – fields of ripening quinoa spring from the desert dirt.





One of the desert highlights was visiting the famous salt flat, The Salar near Uyuni, which I talk about separately. The rest is best understood through Simon's pictures.

Visitor flags at the salar. Note the central one

Travelling in Bolivia is unquestionably rough for westerners. That is why it attracts young backpackers and Israelis – Hebrew could be seen and heard everywhere. We were told to bring water, soap, towels and toilet paper. They, however, forgot to tell us about toilet seats and billy-boots for the bathrooms.

Salty geezers

Salt hotel. Warning self explanatory

Tourism ...

The two main industries of the salt desert. The most lucrative one however is not in the pictures. It is lithium, extracted from the salt.

... and salt

Watch for crossing llamas...

 The approach to small villages is signalled by local llamas calmly vacating the road; while the approach to larger towns is announced with fields of blown plastic bags and other garbage, small roadside memorial shrines to accident victims and more llamas.

I warned you!

The adobe houses have either collapsed into piles of discarded rubble or are abandoned half-built.

Rock holding the corrugated metal roof

The few habitable homes have roofs held down by large rocks to fight the desert winds. Even for a Quebecker, the roads seem impossible. The main road into a town often requires wading through a stream of unknown depth. Drivers constantly create new paths around old, rutted main routes. Steep, rocky, bumpy, virtually impassable paths became our familiar road. Yet despite all this, we loved the adventure and beauty that accompanied us throughout the 4 days.

The Salar near Uyuni (or will Bolivia become the Saudi Arabia of the 21st century?)

Mountains floating on the salt desert

A visit to the salt desert is the highlight of any trip to Bolivia. For us, it was also an opportunity to learn about the history and politics of Bolivia. The salt flat covers over 10,000 square kilometres and is 8 meters thick, formed by a transformation of pre-historic lakes. We drove onto the flats that extend to a 360 degree white horizon. Workers, at the edge of the flat, shovel salt by hand onto trucks.

The hostess in our hostel

Morales, Bolivian's socialist president has nationalized most industries and proclaimed that the salt will be for Bolivians and not exported. (With a population of 10 million that much salt will kill the entire nation rather quickly). More importantly, lithium – the main component of 21st century battery technology - has been found in the salt, up to 70% of the world's supply. But because of the Morales' anti-capitalist position, few companies are willing to invest in the huge infrastructure needed to exploit the resource.

On our return drive to Chile, we spot Chilean soldiers digging in the dirt near the Bolivian border. We learn that they are looking for land mines leftover from their 1879 war with Bolivia. In the war, Bolivia lost the nitrate, copper-rich areas that are now booming in northern Chile as well as its access to the sea, impoverishing the Bolivians for the last 150 years. During the First World War, British access to Chilean nitrates (key ingredient of early 20th century bombs) was a major contribution to its success.

Leaving the North:
After 10 days in the dry, harsh northern deserts we head back south to the seaside city of Valparaiso - Valley of Paradise - about 100km east of Santiago. It's a major port dating back to the Spanish colonization in the 1500's, and where ships of gold dreamers would rest on the way to the California gold rush in the mid 1800's. Stay tuned as we spend 4 days exploring this crazy, boom and bust city built on 44 hills. 

Reflections

This time we are taking a break from describing our journeys and adventures in order to look back and share some of the reflections that this travel evokes.

The Discreet Charm of Rough Tourism (Esther)

What I thought were the advantages of backpacking and rough tourism in my 20s –a more adventurous, less expensive way to see the world—have broadened in my 60s to include something even more precious: access to untouched natural landscapes and a window on local cultures and customs not yet americanized or blasé by meeting visitors who are clearly from another world .

We have seen so many beautiful places in the last weeks, so awe-inspiring, that we often turn to eachother to say how lucky we are. And indeed we are. But much of the beauty we have seen is precisely because it is vast and unpeopled and uncluttered by the volumes and infrastructure of mass tourism and economic development.

Peninsula Valdes, Chiloe Island, and the high Bolivian and Chilean Andes have particularly touched all four of us. Mostly we were alone among glaciers, gigantic sand dunes, snowcapped volcanoes and lagoons inhabited by flamingos, or salt water rivers created when entire forests were sunk during the last earthquake. Often we each found a small corner to enjoy the solitude that makes a spectacular landscape something more personally meaningful, even spiritual. And so, the same glacier or desert geyser experienced alone or shared with thousands of others becomes a different experience. One is nice, another life-altering. Which brings me back to backpacking and the pleasures of rough tourism.

In many ways backpackers are the thin edge of the tourism wedge. Mostly (very) young—20s and 30s with a few geezers thrown in – they thrive in shared dorms, showers and stories of rugged adventure. Lack of mass tourism infrastructure from hot water, toilets, and paved roads, to hotel and restaurant chains is catnip to them, ensuring only the hardy show up. Meals are found in common hostel kitchens or in the hospitality of a local family that makes rooms available in homes that range from rustic to falling apart.

Many of the places we hiked, kayaked or biked through had no powerlines for thousands of miles. Because of their beauty, within 20 or 30 years many will undoubtedly have flush toilets, WiFi and heavily roped off areas to protect the tourists as much as the delicate environments and animals. Access for all types of tourists will be available, but something will have been lost.

That´s why we are so grateful to be here. When we are biking uphill on the rockiest roads we have ever seen, or are faced with a meal that is not particularly recognizable, we know we are experiencing the area´s first experiments with tourism. Each time we are brought for the night to an adobe hut with rattling tin roof, broken or no toilet and a cold-water shower, we tell ourselves this is the price for access to some of the most beautiful, spare and lonely places on earth. And in the end, it is a very small price

A reflective moment (Annice)

One of the joys of this trip has been the natural beauty we have taken the time to sit, roll or walk through. So many memories come to me as I sit on a rock at the edge of the Laguna Colorada in Bolivia. In my minds eye I recall walking along the beaches of Peninsula Valdes marveling at the cliffs composed of crushed shells. Sitting by the glacial waters at the base of Fitz Roy and Torres del Paine, and kayaking around Grey glacier, and being in awe of the colours particularly the deep blue. The numerous sunsets, and occasional sunrises, especially kayaking at dawn on Chiloe island. The simplicity of standing on the deck of the ferry as it moves through the fiords. I feel the wonder of cycling along beaches and in the desert with no traffic, only the stillness of the vastness. At this moment the lagoon is red and thousands of flamingos pink and white are spread over the red water. Our altitude is over 4000 meters and there are no trees. The mountains in the background look as if they are carpeted in green and brown. In the distance there is a line of white salt, marking the edge of the water. The flamingos slowly walk, making a duck like sound, their images reflected in the clear water. Occasionally one flies by exposing the blackness at the bottom of their wings, making their flight an exquisite thing to watch. This is an ideal place to reflect on the beauty of this trip.

On travel photography (Simon)

As the chief photographer of this expedition I end up thinking (and talking) a lot about photography in general, and travel photography in particular. Many (most?) of our fellow wanderers snap a lot of pictures. Most carry small point-and-shoot cameras, some shlepp big and heavy packs with DSLR cameras and 2 or more lenses. I recently bought a nice Nikon DSLR with an additional large telephoto zoom lens, but before departure got cold feet, thinking about carrying it on the treks, in all weather, and in cities known for tourist predators, so I bought a much more compact Canon (not DSLR), with a lens too long to hide easily, but with a very powerful zoom, which I learned is very difficult to use without a tripod.

As a relative beginner and a learner I have to put  lot of thought and effort into trying to get the pictures I want, without disrupting too much the rhytm of our activities. My fellow travellers are mostly patient with me, and I hope they are rewarded by the visual memories of some remarkable views and moments we have shared.

Hummingbird

I find capturing images of animals (and particularly birds) in nature especially challenging, so I rarely pass by an interesting bird without trying to snap it, often without success, but I'm learning and slowly becoming better in overcoming the camera's and my limitations.

There is a lot I want to say about travel photography, but at this point I'll just use the opportunity to show our readers some samples my version on the birds of South America.

Vulture at dawn

Imperial cormorans

Petrel, I think

 

Chiloe Island - the last two days of our adventure

Just Hiking in the Rain:

We wake to our first overcast Chiloe day. Our hosts suggest that there may be some slight afternoon showers. We would later learn that ¨ slight showers¨ on Chiloe is relative to the usual tumultuous downpours that regularly batter its Pacific coast. So although we had come prepared, we decide to leave our serious rain gear behind for our day-long hike. (A big mistake) Eduardo arranges a water taxi at our dock to take us down close to the Pacific mouth of the Chepu River. On the way, the driver slows down and points out to us the different birds.

The clouds ominously darken as we reach land. Our starting point is a remote section of the Sendero de Chile, a Chilean dream to a have a continuous hiking trail spanning the country. We quickly reach the ocean and start crossing a 8km bay. Like our bike ride across Cocotue Bay, the beach is completely deserted except for the abundant sea life left by the receding tides, and the birds that feast on a soggy smorgasbord.

Geezers feasting on seaweed

Birds eating seaweed

A sea lion close to shore swims along with us, sharing a mutual curiosity. Then out of the mist we see a giant, beached steel hull. We would learn later that the ship was part of an unwelcomed Pilipino flotilla that had come to harvest local trees but the native sea gods had crashed the boat - but that is another story for another time.

As we leave the beach, the rain, which we had beaten back, decides it is time. We close our rain jackets and pull our hoods up, while Annice and Simon don their Nepalese ponchos. So far; so good. The trail begins to follow the area’s well-used cow trails. We carefully side-step their large aromatic,textured markers. We soon meet head-on herds of wary bovines. As a very large bull becomes quite displeased with our presence, Esther carefully removes the red towel tangling from her backpack.
We survive the cows as the trail heads deep into the rainforest that dominates the coast. Trails are now muddy, steep and slippery. The mud and cow dung become one raging confluence. Our previous careful dance of sidestepping it gives way to just hanging-on. We are amazed that cows easily negotiate this treacherous landscape.


Each time the trail leaves the relative protection of the trees, the full force of the Pacific rainstorm lashes out. We are utterly drenched but, in spite of the cold and wet, the beauty, solitude, and challenge we face keep us cheerfully moving on. We have a delicious and dry lunch, and by mid-afternoon return to meet our water taxi.
 Arriving back at our eco-camp, our hosts stoke the fireplace and get us dry and fed. We felt like superheroes!

A Magical Predawn Ride: A unique tradition of the eco-camp is an invitation to kayak the Chepu river before dawn. The night before, Fernando prepares us for the next morning ride: lectures about what to do, fitting us with cold weather gear, and most importantly how to mentally approach this eccentric trip. That night, the full force of a Pacific storm rages over us - our cabins shake with fierce winds and torrential rains.

At 6am when we rise, the storm seems to have moved on. We don our wet suits and by 6:15am, in total darkness, we are lovingly launched into the river.

A large, black cloud hangs over the sunken forest in front of us. Just as we turn our kayaks upriver, a shooting star streams through the clouds, leaving a luminous glow over our kayaks.








A bright night sky to our right shows us the way to Fernando’s Station A – where, in silence, we begin to attend to the awaking river. We move to Station B and we watch a dream-like sunrise dance on the waters around us.

We move up river and a perfect rainbow, fitted to the river, appears just for us. Then within seconds, it begins to pour, followed weirdly by hail. We turn our backs to the wind and soon, brilliant sunshine chases the hail away. We head back and just before we reach shore another rainbow appears followed by another downpour. A smiling Fernando is waiting to pull us ashore. We rush back to the eco-camp’s cozy lounge-dining room. The fireplace is fully stoked. Hot coffee and a hearty breakfast await us as we reflect on our strangely wondrous, mystical ride.

Eating with a view

With Amory and Fernando on the terrace

We all had an amazing 5 days. The biking, kayaking and hiking were all challenging with magnificent vistas-just the way we like them. The food was delicious, the accommodations spectacular and the people wonderful. Fernando's and Amory's place was truly paradise on earth. They were so caring and marvellous to us. Eduardo was a great guide and companion. He was delightful to be with and looked after all our needs.The trip was one of the highlights of our South American tour.

Our cabanas