Antofogasta, Chile

Following are a few selected pictures of Antofogasta where our ship has been docked since early this morning.  The attraction here is the Atacama Desert, which is the driest place on earth.  After some degree of agonizing, Tom and I chose not to go on the organized expedition because of the 4 1/2 to 5 hour bus ride each way.  Yes, we wimped out.  The folks who did go--about two-thirds of the ship--will return to the ship around 11 tonight, but I've already received a text from Gwenna that the tour is a wondrous one, so we will live to regret our decision.  

Ah, such is life. At the moment we are relaxing in our suite, with a martini and some foie gras (the real stuff) that Ronaldo, our butler, brought us a little while ago.   This morning we took a city tour of Antofogasta, a Northern Chilean port city of 400,000 with some lovely coastal views. We visited the cathedral, a museum explaining the long history of the Chilean people, and an old train station which once carried passengers but now is just used for freight.  Afterwards, we drove twenty minutes or so out of town to see La Portada, a huge natural rock formation.  

The main square in Antofogasta

The Guide called this a "locomobile", I assume he met a locomotive, but I'll leave it to you antique train buffs to identify.

This man was selling his art along a pier we visited.  What an expressive face and hands!

Colorful boats in the harbor

And a frolicking sea lion right next to the pier.  This guy was big.  He dove to the bottom and snagged a trash-filled plastic bag, brought it to the surface and then cast it off when he saw it didn't contain anything good to eat.   

La Portada

Ariquippa, Peru: from Sea Level to 7,780 feet

One of the astounding features of our beautiful world is that it is not always beautiful.  And I’m not even talking about the dreadful things that man inflicts upon man—that’s a topic for another day—I’m referring to the simple physical appearance of the terrain.  We have stood in the majesty of the Muir Woods, as awesome as the finest cathedral; we have overlooked the rice paddies of China, our breath taken away as the sun glistened on the flooded terraces; we have seen the heart-stopping beauty of the fjords of Norway, surely evidence of God. So many rave-worthy sights. Sometimes they bring you to tears, other times they simply make you smile with delight, like driving on a rural road in France and suddenly coming upon an old country church with a graveyard that tells a thousand stories that go back for centuries.

Of all the places we've traveled, we have not found Peru among the most beautiful.  What we have seen is mostly brown, rocky, sandy, arid and covered in a layer of dust.  The archaeological sights are fascinating of course, but brown has been the predominant color.  The other day we boarded early buses for a tour to Arequipa, gateway to the Andes and high above the port of Matarani.  A city of almost a million people, Arequipa was the center of the Incan Empire 500 years ago and then a major city during the Spanish occupation.  Our expedition was to see the Ice Maiden, an Incan mummy discovered in 1995 high in the Andes and to visit a Dominican convent that was founded there by the Spaniards in the 1500s. But the 2 ½ hour bus ride is my focus at the moment.

I was not looking forward to a long bus ride with who-knows-what as its reward.  We left the port of Matarani, a dirt poor town with flat-roofed store fronts and a small market, dismal manufacturing facilities and hovel housing and began to climb.  The guide said that we were in an outer extension of the Atacama Desert which is on our itinerary in a couple of days, and the terrain may be the ugliest I have ever seen.  Volcanic rock, jaggedy cactus, ragged hills and brown arid soil as far as the eye can see.  Sometimes a settlement of small square shacks which appeared to be uninhabited, some seeming to be newly built, others ramshackle and falling apart, and even a pack of roaming dogs, at least eight of them scavenging through an empty field.  Nothing green, not even a weed.  And yet I was strangely fascinated and couldn’t look away.  Up and up we climbed—I was checking my Altimeter App—one thousand, two thousand, three thousand feet—hairpin curves, trucks hurtling at us from the other direction and backed up behind us.  The road is excellent, though there are no guard rails to protect against hurtling over the side.  The excellent road is to facilitate the cargo that is trucked in abundance throughout the country, but everything else is desolate beyond description.  Four thousand feet, five thousand...

There were almost no people along this highway until we approached the city, almost two hours and close to 8,000 feet later. 

A small settlement on the way to Arequipa, square uninhabited hovels surrounded by brown hills and some inexplicable writing in the background.

Some more of the rocky terrain with a little bit of green finally appearing.  There are some agricultural settlements as we got closer to the city, and a river. 

The outskirts of Arequipo, mostly ghetto like conditions...

...with a few spots of opulence.

The main square in Arequipa, La Plaza de las Armas, quite lovely with its palm trees, fountains and statuary...

And an honest-to-God Peruvian woman, not selling anything, amid the shorts and capri-clad tourists.

The Basilica Cathedral of Arequipa, dating to 1544 and fully restored after an earthquake in 2001, stretches the whole length of the plaza with two soaring towers on either end.

Inside the Santa Catalina Convent, a Dominican monastery built in 1579 and still inhabited by about 20 nuns today.

Stucco walls of vibrant reds and blues, potted geraniums and re-created interiors show how the nuns lived.  Monastic yes, but not so bad considering the alternative--being married off to an older man and having ten to fifteen children.

Conducive to prayer and contemplation, si?

Before we toured the convent we visited the Museum that houses the Ice Maiden Juanita, the most famous mummy in the world.  You may remember when she was discovered on an Andes mountain at an elevation of 20,000 feet in 1995, frozen solid and perfectly preserved for more than 500 years.  Bill Clinton quipped at the time that she was so good looking that if he weren't married he would have asked her out on a date.  The Peruvian scientists sniffed that the comment was in poor taste.

The security at the museum was very strict and we couldn't take cameras or cell phones into the place where Juanita sits in repose, but you can see a picture of her here.  They keep the room at a very cold temperature and the lights are very dim so as to preserve Juanita, as well as important artifacts which were found buried with her and are displayed in adjoining cabinets. Juanita was found in 1995 by Johan Reinhard and his archaeological team buried in the fetal position having been taken at the age of fifteen or so up the mountain to be a human sacrifice.  She had been chosen possibly before birth for this honor and some believe she was an Incan princess.  She is remarkably preserved. Considering...

After lunch we boarded the buses for the trip back to Matarani and I was just as fascinated by the bleak, stark, ugly, and endlessly interesting terrain.  I had noticed on the way to Arequipa that along the road were small shrines like the ones pictured below, obviously commemorating loved ones lost in accidents along the treacherous highway.  We have them in Colorado as well.  There are hundreds of them here from simple to elaborate, but no people for miles and miles to tend them.

And graffiti in the oddest of places.  I'm not sure if the one below is a political statement, an advertisement to sell something, or simply someone's whim.  If my Spanish speaking loved ones can translate please let me know.

There were definitely lots of political statements, some quite colorful as is this segment of a plug for the current president of Peru, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, which was writ large across a huge rock. You see PPK 2016 everywhere along this highway.

Me and the Pelican

Coming back to the ship we walked over to an outdoor market with some colorful restaurants and lots of shops selling the usual junk.  These pelicans were there and when I tried to get a picture two hustlers blocked my way and indicated that we would have to pay, so I sat myself down and Tom took the following pictures with my Iphone.  There was a pelican on either side of me but the second one didn't make it into the pictures.  Lots of wing flapping. The owners would flip a bit of food into their mouths to keep them under control, lucky for me or I could have been pecked to death. All this for a dollar.

The Nazca Lines

Class, you disappoint me.  Not a single one of you has admonished me for calling a flock of Pelicans a flock of Penguins in an earlier post.   I would hate to think you are not paying attention.  More likely, you are probably too polite to point out the obvious, so you are forgiven.

I promised to tell you about the copious cuisine we are being treated to on board the Explorer, but first a word about yesterday.  After tendering on sturdy boats to the lively port of Paracas, we boarded buses for a short ride to Pisco airport where we were treated to a fairly rigorous security check (I even had to take my shoes off) and then boarded ten seater-Cessnas for an air cruise to visit the Nazca Lines, a World Heritage site about 400 km south of Lima along the Peruvian coast.  These ancient gleoglyphs were apparently drawn by the Nazca people between the first and sixth centuries AD and only discovered by a pilot from the air in 1939, although they had been studied from the ground for much longer.  A series of lines and shapes are permanently etched into the earth and have not disappeared in two thousand years. There are two sets of shapes: geometric shapes such as spirals, rectangles and triangles, and natural figures, such as animals, insects and birds.  Some of the figures are up to 300 meters long with perfectly straight lines and proportions.  No one knows the meaning of the figures.  Were they ritualistic? Water related? Part of an astronomical calendar?  Some have even proposed that they indicate that the ancients believed they had been visited by aliens from outer space.  But they are clearly yet another example of the ingenuity and cleverness of these ancient people.  The tail of the hummingbird points exactly to true North. 

A window seat for each person on the hour and 45 minute flight.

If you can enlarge this picture you will see etched into the ground a large hummingbird with wings, tail and long beak pointing to true North.  This whole area is barren, arid, mountainous and bleak.  During our flights we did see agricultural ranches or farms with green crops.  With practically no rainfall in Peru (we were told it rains for a half hour a year, but this may be an exaggeration), the irrigation comes from well water which is becoming more and more scarce with each passing year.

In the center front of the picture is the spider, I think!