ANDEAN ADVENTURE - Part II

The trip began promisingly. We left Uspallata on a road bordered by ancient trees, some of whose trunks three of us could not have gotten our arms around. Less than a kilometer along the road was partly blocked with signs. “Danger!” “Rough Road” Wiser heads would have turned around. We did not.

Soon after I spotted a group of shrines on the hillside and, having told our friends, Susan and Wayne Hidalgo, about the three "popular saints" of Argentina--Gaucho Gill, the Difunta Correa (dead courier), and Ceferino--here suddenly were shrines to two of them: Gil and Correa (see their stories in another post).  

Less than two minutes after leaving I saw something I had been seeking for five years: a shrine to Ceferino Namucurá, the son of a Mapuche chief in Argentina who went to Italy to study for the priesthood but, tragically, died of TB at age 18. Ceferino is the only one of the three with any relation to the Catholic Church and was declared venerable by Pope John Paul II in 1972—the first Latin American to receive this honour. This was a lovely shrine with interesting gifts--one a giant, stuffed Snoopy. 

After Ceferino the road alternated between decent gravel surface, occasional pavement (very briefly) and washed-out areas of the road that forced us to follow existing tire-tracks and occasionally make our own.  David is nothing if not determined and we drove 28 kilometers until we came to a wash-out that we could not ford. For much of the way, we were in the Villavicencio Nature Reserve, as signs periodically reminded us. 

 

We're lucky we weren't arrested.

Along the way I kept wondering where the guanacos were and we were finally rewarded. First a group of four, then a herd of almost a dozen. We would later see a female with her baby, too far away for a picture. 

We also passed a mine—apparently in active operation because of the new signage but with no evidence of activity and a few dozen meters further along a stone frame with two wooden sluices jutting out.  

 At a cross road we encountered a Via Crusis--Way of the Cross--with giant crosses planted in the ground stretching over a half-kilometer. In the opposite direction was what seemed to be an observatory--but pictures revealed to be a large microwave transmission station. 

Further on I spotted a red blob in a tree--a Zorro--one of the magnificent raptors that grace the Andes. 

Then there was a wide, dry river bed—with a red car half-buried in the sand. It did not survive the flood. 

 As we were making the decision to turn around, two pick-up trucks appeared, one with Argentine the other with Chilean plates. They carefully but easily crossed the washout--emphasizing the impossibility for us.  I went to ask about the road and, alas, they had been forced to turn round by an impassable wash-out.  I asked if we could accompany them back, driving between the two trucks...just in case. They readily agreed and we made a U-turn.  Little did we know how fortuitous the arrangement would be. 

The cyclist is a Brazilian who thought he could make it all the way through. Wrong. He, like us, is on the way back to Uspallata.

The two middle-aged men were jolly, outgoing, roll-with-the-punches sorts. A young man was nice and charming. There were also two women and two children.  We couldn't figure out the relationships but more pressing issues developed.

The first was that thee lead truck took a wrong turn and found itself around a bend it had difficulty backing out of.  We had followed and got half way around the bend, then had difficulty backing out.  We finally made it with a lot of help and direction from our friends. I told them the Pisco Sours were on us when we got back to Uspallata.  The truck took longer because the narrow road made it difficult to turn.  But, finally he did and we were on our way again.  

Wayne Hidalgo directing traffic.

Until.... David swung too far to right and plowed into a small berm left by a recent Caterpillar. David's later comment: "He must have been drunk when he plowed this road." It took two of us shoveling out dirt from around the front right tire, then three men and one of the women pushing as David put it in reverse to free the car.  "OK," I said, "it's up to 10 Pisco Sours!" Everyone laughed. And we were back on the road. 

No more near disasters befell us and just outside Uspallata the lead truck pulled over and stopped.  I got out and went over to the driver's window and asked them if they had time for a Pisco Sour.  "I never had one!" he said, laughing., "but I'm willing to give it a try!"  

We found a restaurant on the highway in Uspallata (there are several) and pulled enough tables and chars together for what turned out to be a party of eleven.  And what a party.  We all introduced ourselves. It was two brothers and their wives with the young adult son from one family and two pre-teens, a boy and girl, from the other.  

To our astonishment. the restaurant didn't serve Pisco Sours.  But, not to worry.  Between the great Malbec wine that Mendoza produces and Quilmes beer, no one went thirsty. Introductions gave way to riotous banter about our adventure and travel in general. 

One brother and his son are architects, practicing in Córdoba.  At my request Simón, the son, gave us the names and location of three museums in the city--where we will be in two days.  The other brother, his wife and two children live in Santiago because his work took him there three years ago.  We hope to see them on our next trip to Chile--just two months from now.

So, a trip we had thought would take seven hours ended up taking 13. We fell into bed exhausted, but still grinning over the extraordinary encounter that came out of an ill-considered road trip.

David’s pronouncement at the end of the day:  We will never again drive on an unpaved road in anything less than a 4x4. Lesson learned.

Andean Adventure--Part I

Our day in the Andes is in two parts.  Events demand it. We left Mendoza about 09:30 and headed south, then west toward the Chilean border--the same route we would have taken had our bus trip from Santiago not been abruptly cancelled by a landslide on the Argentine side. 

An hour and a half later we passed by Uspallata (oos-pie-YAH-tah), probably the western-most municipality in Argentina but by then we were already well past the front-line and into the Andes.  

Although this was not my first trip along this highway—the first time was 30 years ago when I was a Fulbright professor at the Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires and came to Mendoza for several days—I felt I was seeing the Andes up close for the first time.  More recently, five years ago, we traveled from Santiago to Mendoza by bus—the trip we hoped to repeat this year but didn’t, thanks to a landslide that closed the highway on the Argentine side for three days. 

 The sheer size and power of these mountains is stunning. And there were other things that gave us pause.

--There is far less snow on the mountain peaks than we remembered from our last visit five years ago.  We were forcibly struck by this when we stopped at the one place on the highway that offers an unobstructed view of Aconcagua, the highest peak in the western hemisphere.  five years ago the top one or two thousand feet were completely snow covered. Now there are broad patches and streaks of black all over the peak.

--This lack of snow is reflected in the low levels of the large reservoir and the level of the Rio Mendoza.  Before we saw several rafting parties on the river: this time there were none.  Only short stretches of the river are deep enough for rafting: new islands--with vegetation--have appeared. 

One of the many tunnels on the road with the Rio Mendoza on the right-

 --As we journeyed on we were forcefully hit by the startling colours of the mountains. No solid black or brown but reds, oranges, yellow, cream and, most surprisingly, green. There has been a lot of rain this summer (and we were forcefully reminded that, when it rains, even deserts bloom. So, there are green swaths across the mountains and flowers here and there. The peaks and jags of the Andes led our friend, Susan Hidalgo, to comment, "This looks like the Grand Canyon on speed!"

---This is vacation time in the Southern Cone and people are traveling across the border.  Landslides put a crimp in the flow.  Actually more than a crimp, it's a major backlog of traffic both personal and commercial.  The first reminder of this reality is an enormous parking lot for tractor-trailers--several hundred of them parked in neat rows at a customs holding station about 20 km. from the border.  The second was the hundreds of private vehicles queuing up--many in a separate holding area next to the immigration building a few kilometers from the border. This clearing centre is very efficient for those entering Argentina: Chilean and Argentine officials sit a few meters apart; you leave Chile, walk a few steps, and enter Argentina.

The highlight of this part of the trip was a stop at the Puente del Inca, a natural bridge where highly mineralized water pours out from underground springs and, over millennia has built up thick, multi-coloured layers of mineral deposits. It's a great tourist attraction with the requisite shops selling everything from sweaters (probably from Peru) to figurines made from--it looks like--placing ceramic figures in a place where they are coated with the minerals.

 We also discovered that Mendoza produces wicked chocolate and we bought three varieties to sustain us in the following days. Little did we know that we would make a major dent in the chocolate before the day was out.

Back in Uspallata we found a restaurant flying several national flags, one of them Canadian. David decided that was a good sign so we dropped in. Empanadas and pizza were served by Axel, who is studying to be an English translator and hopes to spend three months in the USA soon on a "work and travel" visa. 

We wanted to take an alternate route back to Mendoza and asked Alex about the condition of the road.  “No problem,” he said.  “It's gravel and you’ll see guanacos.”  That was enough for me so we headed north on a road that is shown on the map as an arch or upside-down "U". Axel did not know what he was talking about--except for the guanacos. That's Part II of our adventure.  

ADVENTURES IN COQUIMBO

On our fourth visit to this twin town--the other being La Serena, 13 km. north, we were happily surprised when we got word that we would NOT be tendering but would dock along side.  A tsunami last September destroyed much of the infrastructure along the shore, including in the port area; only the outer shell of the small but attractive terminal is still standing. 

One block up the street, Scotia Bank survived very well, thanks to a solid wall facing the shore and along the street up which the tsunami traveled.  Coquimbo is built on hills and we could see destruction at least a third of  the way up the hills--collapsed houses, landslides, vacant lots.  This damage, however was the result of unusual and heavy rains (this, after all, is the southern end of the Atacama desert, the world's driest) that caused poorly built houses to collapse and land to head toward the sea.

We walked up to  the central square, which has a lovely metal tribute to Pablo  Neruda and Gabriela Mistral, Chile's two great Nobel laureates in literature.  Mistral was born in Vicuña, about  50 km. inland from Coquimbo in the Elqui Valley and is much celebrated in these parts.  We were looking for WiFi when a young woman stopped and--in almost perfect English--asked if we needed directions.  This led to a conversation about the tsunami, an introduction to her mother and sister, and an offer to take our picture in front of the Mistral-Neruda memorial.  Then I offered to take her and her sister's picture--with a broadly smiling David. 

She then told us that there was WiFi in the bus terminal, 2  blocks away and the family walked us part-way. Unfortunately, while there is WiFi and several routers, no one had a password.  We walked outside and a taxi driver offered his services.

Nicolas is a heavy equipment driver for a mining company who has been laid off because of the plunge in copper prices.  He's back home in Coquimbo driving a cab until he's recalled.  I asked about the tsunami and Nicolas related his family's story.  His mother has a kiosk in the market that stretched along the waterfront, three blocks from the central plaza.  Thee earthquake struck at 5:00 p.m. and the Chilean Navy almost immediately sounded the alarm, a piercing siren that sent everyone running up hill.  Nicolas had just returned from the mine and had left his backpack with  his mother.  Everyone escaped and only three people died--all of them "indigents" who lived on the street near the waterfront.  The next day Nicolas went  back to see if he could find his backpack--and found it two blocks away with its waterlogged contents.  It was all salvageable, he said, except for the pictures of his children.  His mother lost everything but has reopened her kiosk.

Nicolas dropped us at the restaurant where we are meeting Peggy and Jim Stewart, friends from the Whitby Yacht Club.  Their son is a mining engineer, married to a Chilean.  They have two children and Peggy and Jim are down for a few weeks to get to  know their newest grandchild.

Unfortunately, the restaurant where we were to  meet has no WiFi but the one next door does--two in a line of restaurants facing the sea.  The signal, however, was very weak and it was impossible to upload blog posts and photos--another frustrating day with Internet connections, or lack thereof. 

Still, our encounters with the Chileans we have met today forcefully reminds me of a comment heard long ago:  "Los Chilenos son los simpaticos de América Latina."  Chileans are the nicest people in Latin America.