South America - a wee look back...

THE GOOD

ice-cream for 6p, beer for 25p in Bolivia
mojitos and salsa dancing in a La Paz club in the wee small hours of Ne'erday 2007
celebrating in the main square as Cusco beat Lima to win the Peruvian league
ablando Espagnol con las personas sympathicas (todos!) de Sud America
floating for hours across the mirrored surface of the Bolivian salt lake.
dancing to Blur and the Chemical Brothers in a Cusco club on boxing day
La Serena, Chile - home to the most beautiful people on earth (except if you're from Argentina)



THE WEIRD

kissing a Peruvian ass
stern-gazing und beir trinken mit Constance und Regina unter unheimlichen klaren lugen
loopy lupin loping ladies of La Paz
drinking (inventing) mine-shaft - a wicked combination of 96% miners' alcohol (65p per litre) and sprite
Peruvian rail's surprise cabaret and fashion show
deja vu - every day, everywhere - what was that all about?

THE UNFORGETTABLE

• looking down on Machu Piccu through the mist
• whisky and redbull on Christmas morning, in a tent, 15000 feet up in the Andes
• walking across the island of the sun on Lake Titicaca
• spotting a pair of Condors circling on the thermals over the Bolivian altiplano
• mining...
• giving out hot chocolate to the kids of Quishirani and Cuncan - sacred valley, Peru.
• cabaret and jazz clubs and night clubs and watching the sun come up all in 24 hours in Santiago
• appearing on Bolivian tv and having to redo the interview because the reporter couldn't understand my Spanish

Easter Island - La Isla Pascua - Rapa Nui

When I originally booked my flights for this trip, back in July, the most logistically challenging part of the journey was the route across the Pacific Ocean. Flight availability is notoriously difficult for the Pacific legs of round-the-world trips and even that far in advance, I was more or less compelled to commit to 6-days on Easter Island, which seemed to me a long stay for what I assumed would be an exotic curiousity.

In fact, the island was so much more than just a history lesson and an opportunity to take some nice photos. I hadn't imagined that, in addition to the spectacle, atmosphere and mystery of the statues there would be great surfing, clubbing until 6am and one of the best dives I've done in my life.

The island has (left) a great beach and (right) impressive volcanic craters.

My first interest was with the statues so I hired a moped and sped off to see some of the sites. There seems to be a cliche that you leave Easter Island with more unanswered questions than you arrived with. That's understandable, as there doesn't seem to be an undisputed answer for any of the big questions about the Rapa Nui statues...

No-one knows where the people came from (South America or other pacific islands), no-one knows when (though possibly around 1500 years ago) and no-one knows why they built the incredible maoi.

Perhaps the biggest question though is how. And its a question I found myself asking again and again and with increasing disbelief as I toured around the island.
There are three tiny islands off the south of Easter Island. The top island in the picture is where i went scuba diving. Visibility was incredible - up to 50m - and the dive was an incredible experience. You can also see engravings depicting the 'birdman', a cult which became important to the island's people in the 18th century after the statue building phase had ended.

The statues weighed up to 70 or 80 tonnes and can be up to 10m in length. How a soceity of a few thousand people could create the statues, move them miles across the island and then erect them on ahus (ceremonial platforms) invites speculation but no convincing explanations.

The most impressive site on the island for me was the quarry itself. This one small site was the source of the stone for every moai on the island. And what stands in the quarry today gives an atmospheric and chilling impression of the 'end of days' for the statue makers and their way of life.
I love this photo, which I got when I went back to the quarry at sunset. Great effort is made on the island to ensure that tourists do not touch the statues, for fear of erosion, but when no-one else is around the horses obviously like to use the statues as scratching posts for their backsides.

There are literally hundreds of statues in the quarry in various stages of being carved, cut out from the rock or erected for transportation to the coastal platforms. We know that production of the statues ceased completely prior to European discovery in the 18th century. But it seems that there was a last frenzied burst of activity before all production mysteriously stopped. The best guess it that it was the amount of effort and resources that the islanders spent on production that resulted in catastrophe. Timber was used to transport the moais from the quarry to their platforms and as more and more trees were cut down some critical point was reached where fishing and farming on the island became unsustainable. The islanders were most likely victims of their own cult.

One further mystery surrounds the final fate of the maoi. By the 19th century, every maoi on the island had been torn down (those standing today have been re-erected in the 20th century) and its not clear why. One possible answer is that the islanders turned against the gods for whom they had originally erected the statues. Over-population and over-use of the tiny island's natural resources most likely led to ecological and social disaster. There is something haunting about seeing the fallen figures. A lot of local people are convinced that Easter Island contains a message for us all about the fragility of the planet and its resources.

Even after 6 days I had mixed feelings about leaving Rapa Nui. As the most remote inhabited place on earth, it is never going to make it on to everyone's travel wish-list. But I can't recommend it enough. As far away as it is (and it's a 5-hour flight from Santiago alone), there is a magic about the place that clearly affects every visitor.

Chile, But Getting Warmer (Part 2)

Tricky photography by the fireside - note the unexplained goulish skull above the fire!!! (sorry Caroline)

Up until Chile, South America had failed to meet my expectations in one important respect. After such a bad dose of the runs in Roatan (aka the Hondurance Endurance), I expected at least a few ´bouts´down here in S America.

But things had been fine and my immodium supplies remained undiminished until I got on the truck for the two hour journey from San Pedro to Calama.

I have an interest in religion without feeling committed to any traditional concept of a supreme deity (bear with me, i know this seems like an obscure change of tact). Also, I do consider myself to have strong moral values, but without having derived those from divine inspiration (getting back toward the point now, honestly). But I can tell you that there´s no such thing as an atheist with the runs travelling on a truck in the middle of a flat featureless desert.

And I can resolve many an ecumenical argument by confirming that my prayers were answered when I arrived at Calama without calamity, with seconds left to sprint to the supermarket loos.

As well as divine intervention, I think music was a great help - in particular, a few listens of KWS - "Please Don´t Go", and at my moment of greatest need, i took great comfort from Wilson Phillips "Hold On For One More Day". (Graeme - over to you...)

Luckily i was able to put a cork in things for the next stage of the trip - bush-camping.

One of the biggest problems camping in the desert is getting wood. Being a responsible guide, Dan organised a scavanging hunt at the side of the road on our way to our desert camp.

24 burgers between 7 people, erm including 2 vegetarians. Who sent Caroline and Calum shopping?

Luckily, Ali got so much wood that we had to help him carry it back to the truck. At the same time, one other possible danger is getting too much wood, which can keep you up all night if you´ré not careful. A bucket of water is a handy cure to have to hand.

Our last stop before Santiago was the seaside port of Valparaiso.

Santiago itself was a real revelation for me. I hadn't been expecting much but personally i found the place to be really lively and cosmopolitan. So my last 48 hours in mainland Chile were a real adventure. Jazz clubs until 2am, clubbing until 4am, staying up until 10am and beyond... and a special hi to my Chilean friend from Santiago Camila. Next stop Easter Island.

Chile, But Getting Warmer (Part 1)

Me, on the top of a huge sand dune in the Valle de La Luna.

Chile´s geography is bizarre and counter intuitive when written in figures. 4300km long (Norway to Nigeria) but just 200km wide, it seems to defy sensible design. But once you´ve seen the looming wall of the Andes marching endlessly south, it becomes clear that Chile´s shape and separation from the rest of South America is natural and irrefutable.

So physically the border is as solid and tangible as any land border I´ve crossed. And quite appropriate too, as the transformation from Bolivia to CHile is a shocking one. The difference in wealth, prosperity and westernisation wasn´t fully shown up until our visit to the shopping malls of Calama, but even in the sleepy tourist town of San Pedro, the increased price of beer (painful) and appearance of western music (joy - you can definitely overdose on panpipes) are telling.

We have 2 days and 3 nights in San Pedro and I´m glad of the chance to recharge my batteries, both literally and figuratively. I indulge in a fair amount of sunbathing (with the drop in altitude, the temperature has soared), emailing and website updating and sorting through some of the 2,000 photos I´ve taken in South America.

I also meet and make friends with some great people. This has happened on this trip whenever I´ve been in any place for any length of time - maybe the best thing about travelling.

The Atacama desert is the driest place in the world - some parts have never recorded rainfall. Ali, Dan and I mountain biked it to the Valle de La Luna one afternoon. A bit less grey than the moon i reckon - not that I´ve been to the moon yet - but I can see the resemblance.

Thanks to its clear weather and incredibly transparent skies, the Atacama desert is also famous for star-gazing. The world´s largest telescope - the Very Large Telescope - will soon be over-shadowed by the currently under construction Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (OWL).

However, Constance, Regina and I found that we were able to make a number of astronomical observations with nothing more than the naked eye and a few litre bottles of Chilean beer.

Bolivia to Chile

Even aside from Lake Titicaca, La Paz, Potosi and Saler de Uyuni, I could write pages and pages about Bolivia. What a country.

Our last two days were a long drive across the uninhabited high plateau of South-East Bolivia.

Though I was still exhausted by altitute-induced insomnia, and though we spent 75% of our time on the truck, this part of the trip was something special - time to reflect, and time to absorb some incredible scenery.

Flamingoes take flight as I approach them in the vast emptiness of the Bolivian altiplano.

There are no roads across this part of the altiplano and just a few intrepid tourists venture here typically on guided tours by 4x4. For a 16 tonne truck the going is slow and our crew needed the assistance of an experienced local guide.

Here´s just some of the unbelievable views from the truck on the last day in Bolivia.

My last night at altitude (4100m) was as restless as any other added to which was a hitherto unexperienced coldness that went right to the bone. The reward in the morning though was a picturesque landscape dusted in snow.

Our last stop in Bolivia was Laguna Verde, a mineral and metal rich lake at the foot of the giant volcano Lincancabur, which straddles the Chile/Bolivia border.

The last few miles to the border took us right to the edge of the Andean plateau. 1800m below us and only 20 km away was the small town of San Pedro de Atacama and around the town in all directions stretched the Atacama desert.

Laguna Verde with Lincancabur in the background.