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Published: April 5th 2006
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Statue in Bogota
Statue outside Bogota airport Hello All!
Here are some adventures from our first week in South America:
March 28 2006, 5:30 AM:
We were at the airport 3 hours early as required by our airline, Avianca. With their reputation for bumping, we figured we'd better comply. A 30 second panic when Paul realized that his money belt (holding all our money, airplane tickets, and passports) was missing. He found it on the ground.
8:00 AM:
After big goodbyes with Rachael, the 1st leg of our flight departed on time to Bogota, Columbia.
2:10 PM:
Despite friends´warnings not to venture outside the airport, we did... but stayed within sight of the airport, exploring a bit of semi-tropical Bogota. A big, lush, verdant change from late winter Vermont. The instant Spanish language immersion was overwhelming. And then back on a plane.
March 29 4:00 AM:
In Santiago, Chile after customs, we took the bus to our hostel, La Casa Roja (www.lacasaroja.cl/index.htm)...an international backpackers´ haven. Santiago is overwhelmingly crowded, polluted, and fascinating. The Andes loom over the eastern horizon. The day started out cool, and got hot. We wandered for hours, gawking. One
Santiago outdoor cafe
Note Ari in the foreground highlight... watching a millitary drill team and band in the courtyard of the president´s office building. As the soldiers marched stiffly, solemnly, a stray dog happily sniffed the soldiers´feet, tail wagging.
The people of Santiago appeared to be mostly of European descent, with indiginous people generally working the lousy jobs or begging. What a legacy for Columbus!
Lots of palm trees and American products, especially Coca-Cola. Santiago feels like a European city. We were happy to be there, but we prefer to be outside of cities and decided to leave the next day.
March 30:
We slept late and took a bus. The buses in Chile are comfortable and punctual. For double the price, one can get a seat that reclines to almost horizontal with plenty of leg room. Our bus landed at...
March 31 4:15 AM
...the beautiful city of Valdivia, Chile where 3 rivers meet near the Pacific. A fog covered the the city at that hour. It was wonderfully, silently asleep. We looked out over a river and heard a deep, growling/grunting which we later discovered were the sounds of sea lions. We walked to a nearby
university for breakfast and wandered through its amazing botanical garden. There were all sorts of plants of North and South America. We couldn´t resist picking a few blackberries which grew amidst exotic fruits, giant ferns, and palms. We then walked to an open air market where sea lions came right up to seafood vendors begging for food. Sea lions are lovable giants because they are dumb and sweet looking. Every so often they let out a rrrroaaarr! Later, we found our night´s resting place at Hospedaje Rios where we were in the wonderful hands of Eliana, an elderly but spry woman, and her family.
April 1:
A day in transit to Ancud, Chile, with the landscape looking more and more like Vermont, but for the giant peaks of the Andes to the east. The last leg of the journey included a ferry. Worried about finding a hostel for the night, instead the hostel found us. The owner of Hospedaje Don Luis approached us as we got off the bus. Her place was a wonderful temporary home for us that night.
April 2:
Ancud, Chile is beautiful. It is a small hilly city
on a large Pacific bay with a much larger gulf beyond the city. Beyond the gulf are the snow capped Andes. Ancud is at 42 degrees south latitude, about as far south as Boston is north of the equator. The weather of April 2nd corresponds to Boston on October 2nd; it is a pleasant early autumn day.
Our host at the hospedaje arranged for one of her friends to drive us to the Pacific Ocean where there are emerald islands just offshore that, from September to March, are home to penguin colonies. We hoped that a few penguins lingered there. The friend, Jenia, and her 8 year old daughter, Kenny, took us for a drive along a stunning, coastline cliffs´ edge road... then across a tidal stream and along a beach to a fishing village where Jenia arranged for a boat ride for the four of us. While we waited, we read Kenny´s school report on penguins. The men of the fishing village who took us out were great. They described all the wildlife in great detail in Spanish. We saw four Humboldt penguins, flightless ducks, cormerants (sp?) and many other birds, as well as a sea otter. We
Botanical Garden
Note that white pine, giant ferns, and palm tree are growing in very close proximity are sorry, our camera died on us at this point, so we have no penguin pictures.
April 3:
A travel day from Ancud to Bariloche, Argentina where we intend to spend a week at Spanish language immersion school (http://sinfronteras.buildtolearn.net/index.html). As we arrived, we saw through the bus window a man holding a sign saying "Paul and Ari." And one leg of our journey ended and another began.
In addition to the pictures shown here, we have a few more (with captions) on www.flickr.com . Our username is el.bolson.
If you would like to write to us, you can either add a comment to this blog, or write to us directly at eggsaucer@ecologyfund.net
All the best from South America,
Ari and Paul
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Jennifer
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perspective
Thanks for doing this blog, guys. It's fabulous to have a window into your trip. Good thing you needed some "perspective" for that fern shot. And I look forward to hearing more about that statue! Muchos buoenos voyage!