March 19, 2005

10:01:49 pm Final Observations on South America  

March 18, 2005

In our last week in South America, we began a post summarizing our experience there. We never finished it then, but will attempt to do so now as we are about to depart New Zealand.

South America is an unknown continent to most Americans, who never think of going there. We encountered more Europeans than Americans, the former being more adventurous in their choice of travel destinations. We do think as a generalization that South American countries do a poor job of promoting itself as a travel destination to English-speaking Americans. Europe and Asia are more front of mind to Americans desiring a foreign continent vacation. Europe is an understandable destination given the heritage of the US, but Asia is further in distance and history, although closer to us economically. We do think Asia has a slight lead over South America in prevalence of English and availability of tourist facilities that match US expectations. This lead is only slight at most, however, and may be more in our imagination than real. Anyway, this slight lead ought is counterbalanced by the closer location of South America.

Whatever the reason why Americans don't go to South America in large numbers, they should. The array of fantastic natural and archeological sites to see tops North America in our opinion. Most Americans could name the Amazon (which we have not been to) and some are familiar with Machu Picchu, but no one seems to know Iguasu Falls (the best waterfalls in the world, making a mockery of Niagara); the Calafate Glaciers (Alaska and New Zealand's glaciers do not begin to compare); or the beauty of the Lakes Region of Chile and Argentina. (As an aside, we observe that New Zealand, which we consider to be one of the most consistently beautiful and outdoorsy countries, has nothing that matches the beauty of Iguasu, Calafate, and the Lakes Region.) The landscape of Rio is as beautiful as any city in the world, but most Americans will see San Francisco and think they've seen it all. The Galapagos Islands (and to a lesser extent Easter Island) are far away places that many Americans want to go to, but never do, opting instead for more expensive, less interesting, and further away places such as Tahiti and Bora Bora that travel agents push them to (never underestimate the power of exotic sounding name, which, when combined with a personal recommendation, becomes irresistible). To top it all off, South America is cheap, cheap, cheap--one of the most affordable places you can travel to. So go.

One question that intrigued us throughout our travels in South America is why North America has prospered while South America has not, given that both were settled in the 16th Century by European powers. The early advantage was to South America over North America as it had more developed indigenous cultures and was generally settled a bit earlier by the Spanish than was North America by other Europeans, primarily the English. So what went wrong?

We have identified three contributing factors. There are likely other factors we've missed and we will not attempt fully justify the ones we've identified, but in any event, here they are:

- Simply stated, the English were better colonialists than the Spanish were. While each kept colonies for economic gain, the English did more to develop the colonies and make them a better place to live in terms of education, infrastructure, and institution building. The Spanish invested little and took much. The best comparison we can think of is actually not in the Americas or even involving the English, but we think it illustrates the point well. The Philippines were a Spanish colony for roughly 400 years and later an American colony for roughly 40 years (the only colony the US has ever had). If you consider the American colonial period in the first half of the 20th Century a surrogate for how the English would have operated, you have a fair comparison of one nation under two different colonial rulers. The Spanish were there for 400 years, but today few people in the Philippines speak Spanish and there are no significant ties between Spain and the Philippines. The one legacy the Spanish left is Catholicism. The Americans in contrast built roads, established mass education, built democratic institutions, and voluntarily handed over power. Today, English is the unifying language of this island archipelago, even though it was not commonly spoken a century ago.

- The pervasiveness of the Catholic Church in Spanish colonial society and government was so great as to be a negative. It did not have a parallel in England, which broke with Rome in 1534, and in the US, which had a clear vision of separation of church and state based upon firsthand experience of religious persecution in Europe.

- The US had figures like George Washington as a role model. He and our other founding fathers generally put the countries' interests ahead of their own and designed a brilliant system of government that properly checked the natural bad tendencies of men in power. South America had a series of those bad men, unchecked, and in power. Instead of George Washington, they had caudillos like Juan Manuel de Rojas of Argentina who lusted after power for personal gain, not for the patriotic good, and did whatever it took to achieve it, crushing all opposition. Rojas ruled Argentina as a dictator for roughly the first 30 years of its founding and set the example for future generations of leaders.

On the last point, it's worth noting that there is a South American figure, Simon Bolivar, who is called the South American George Washington. Inspired by the American Revolution, Bolivar's vision was the confederation of Gran Columbia, consisting of present day Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Bolivar and his right-hand man General Sucre (continuing the analogies to the American Revolution, perhaps Sucre could be called the Alexander Hamilton of South America) fought to achieve independence from the Spanish for these countries in the 1820s and then unified them. Gran Columbia collapsed in 1830, though, as leaders of the respective countries could not put aside personal differences and competing ambitions for the greater good. This failure is a stark reminder that it was never preordained that the US colonies would unite and form one great country instead of 13 minor countries that most people in the world would have trouble placing on the map. We forget that the colonies were not unified at the beginning--they were independent, competing, often squabbling, separate entities. We are so fortunate that the politicians of the 1770s and 1780s were able to reach compromise for the common good. Consider what the US and Gran Columbia each might have become had they taken the path of the other.

The Gran Columbian countries today have a population of nearly 120 million, but we suspect its size would be tens of millions higher had they remained united, as European and Central and South American immigrants would have been attracted to the most dominant Spanish-speaking country in the world. Who knows, maybe Mexican migration would have flowed south to the Gran Columbia juggernaut instead of north to the US. With a large domestic market and its language advantage over Portuguese-speaking Brazil, Gran Columbia would be the giant of South America instead of Brazil. Instead, "we are an insignificant country today," said our Ecuadorian tour guide Ruben, lamenting that the Gran Columbia Revolution did not share a common path with the American Revolution. "And you," he continued, "have become the most powerful country in the world."

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February 09, 2005

07:32:08 pm Peru  

Lima, Peru
Sunday, January 30, 2005 - Tuesday, February 1, 2005
Capital and largest city in Peru
City population: 6 million in metropolitan area

Cusco, Peru
Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - Saturday, February 5, 2005
Capital city of the Inca empire, 15th and early 16th centuries
Launching point for trips to Machu Picchu
City population: 275,000

Aguas Calientes & Machu Picchu, Peru
Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - Thursday, February 3, 2005
Aguas Calientes is the village at the base of Machu Picchu
Village population: 5,000 (guess)
Machu Picchu is the lost city of the Incas, the premier archeological site in South America, discovered in 1911

Peru Country Background:
Population: 29 million
Per capita GDP: $5,000
Size: slightly smaller than Alaska
Currency: sol, 3.25 per dollar
Independence: 1821 from Spain
Language: Spanish, Quechua both official languages. Aymara also spoken. Quechua and Aymara are indigenous Indian languages.

Itinerary
LAN flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Lima, Peru (around-the-world ticket)
LAN Peru flight from Lima to Cusco
Peru Rail train from Cusco to Aguas Calientes / Machu Picchu (4 hours)
Peru Rail train from Aguas Calientes / Machu Picchu to Cusco (4 hours)
LAB flight from Cusco, Peru to La Paz, Bolivia

Two nights at Sheraton Hotel, Lima
One night at Hostal Centenario, Cusco
One night at Hostal Presidente, Aguas Calientes
Two nights at Hostal Centenario, Cusco

Lima Activities
City tour (best part was catacombs under San Francisco Church, with thousands of bones, and hundreds of skulls--see image gallery)
Visiting downtown art museums: Museo de Arte Italiano, Museo de Arte
Shopping for a camera memory card to replace the one Nick lost in Calafate
Walking around downtown plazas
Visiting Larcomar shopping and entertainment complex on the ocean

Cusco Activities
Museo de Arte Precolombino (small museum of artifacts from Inca and earlier societies--highest quality museum we have seen so far in South America, US standard, with all descriptions translated to English, recommended)
Santo Domingo / Temple of the Sun - Spanish baroque cloister built around Inca temple featuring exceptional stonework)

Machu Picchu Activities
First day: general exploration of the site, cut short by steady rain
Second day: hike to top of Huayna Picchu, mountain overlooking Machu Picchu, three hours roundtrip, including resting time at the top and stops for pictures, highly recommended.

On Sunday, January 30, we headed north to Peru, the seventh country we entered in January. For the next three weeks, we would be in Peru (6 nights), Bolivia (5 nights), and Ecuador (11 nights, including 7 night in the Galapagos Islands). These three countries are less developed than Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile, the South American countries we visited to date. Thus, we expected the next two weeks before the Galapagos Islands to be rougher traveling than what we've seen to date. An ever-present reminder of this is that Peru is the first country where we could not drink the water. We look forward to drinking from the tap again when we return to Chile in late February.

Lima and Mexico City headed the two viceroyalties that the Spanish established to govern their American colonies. All trade with Europe had to go through one of these two capital cities, making Lima a very important place, and a resented place from the perspective of Buenos Aires which chaffed at not being able to trade directly with Europe. Later, the Spanish divided the viceroyalties; promoting Buenos Aires to similar status as Lima. With its closer access to Europe, Buenos Aires surged past Lima in stature and economic terms, and has maintained relative superiority ever since.

Patterns of trade determine the fortunes of countries and cities throughout history. If goods become relatively more valued, an area proficient in producing those goods is going to prosper. If goods become less valued, an area producing them is going to decline. If artificial barriers to trade are removed, look for an area to benefit and possibly another area to be hurt. This pattern happens over and over and over again, yet repeatedly people are surprised when it does happen. There is no law that says an area must remain on top or bottom. Entire cities and countries disappear over time.

Our trip, only a few weeks old, has already seen several examples of this. Removal of a barrier to trade could be the addition of infrastructure (new airports in Liberia, Costa Rica, Calafate and Ushuaia, Argentina), making it (more) possible to visit places that were relatively inaccessible before. Or it could be the elimination of trade restrictions, which allowed Buenos Aires to supplant Lima as the main Spanish-speaking city in South America. Our trip to Bolivia will visit a city, Potosi, which was the richest in the world 400 years ago, and bigger than London or Paris. Today, the city has about the same number of inhabitants as Des Moines, Iowa, and most people today have never heard of it. What happened? The silver, the source of the city's wealth, ran out. Modern spectacular cities such as Dubai, with its oil-based wealth, should heed this lesson, and diversify their economies now, while the times are good. When the oil runs out in some future decade or century, it will be too late to begin thinking about where the money will next come from. People will leave and the top hotel will no longer be charging $1,000 per night for a room.

However, we are jumping ahead to destinations we have not yet been to (we arrive in Potosi on February 7 and Dubai in late July). Lima did not fold when it lost its trade monopoly in 1778. 6 million people live there today and it remains the dominant city of Peru. Overall, though, we would not recommend it for an extended stay. You likely have to go there, though, to get to Machu Picchu, as international flights arrive in Lima. We found it somewhat run down and grimy. Deanna's throat burned from auto exhaust fumes from the moment we arrive until the time we departed. In this regard, it's no different from most capital cities in emerging countries, and it's probably better than many. The US gets a lot of crap worldwide about its pollution emissions, but one needs only to travel the world to observe firsthand that when it comes to pollution, the US has cleaned up its act far better than most countries, including most developed countries.

Lima does provide one compelling lesson itself on cleaning up. Its public plazas and squares, many of them nearing 500 years old, are in great shape. The buildings have been cleaned and restored; the public spaces are well maintained, full of flowers, with a visible security presence. Graffiti does not exist in these areas (it is present elsewhere). We don't know the history of these spaces, but it is apparent that city government has the willpower to maintain these areas. This is in stark contrast to the public spaces of Brazil and Argentina, where it seems no one is willing to lift a finger to preserve. And not surprisingly, the public spaces in Lima are full of people, while many public spaces in Buenos Aires were relatively empty.

We think this illustrates that most public policy issues have simple solutions (e.g., keep public spaces clean) which are difficult to enforce (e.g., employ a constant maintenance and security presence that never lets down its vigilance). In contrast, we think many policymakers fail by getting it backwards. They reject the simple solution for an overcomplicated one, and then once satisfied with their overengineered design, they don't pay enough attention to the implementation of the solution, which is in fact where success or failure is determined.

The leaders of Buenos Aires and Brasilia probably assume either that they cannot combat graffiti or that it is too difficult or expensive to do. They should fly to Lima and see what a country poorer than their own has accomplished.

Lima had a more American, less European presence than Argentina, Brazil, or Uruguay. Peru is physically closer to the US than those countries and is harder for Europeans to get to. There are few if any direct flights from Europe to Lima, for example. (More common are flights to Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, or Santiago from Europe.) Eating times in Peru, while still a bit later than in the US, are much closer to the US than the midnight dining times common in southern South America. We also found more variability in costs. In Buenos Aires, for example, things are inexpensive across-the-board. In Peru, we paid over US$20 for one taxi ride to the airport (relatively expensive), but then also paid US$0.40 per hour for Internet access in one location (completely cheap). A global law of pricing is that the more Americans there are in proximity, the higher the prices are. Peru is small enough, and its middle class is small enough, that the American-proximity factor can significantly increase costs, whereas in Argentina the American factor is relatively smaller and the Argentine middle class relatively bigger, so prices tend to be more uniform.

Peru's people look significantly different from the population of Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. Those latter countries are predominantly European in origin, with a relatively small indigenous population. However, in Peru and Bolivia, the indigenous Indian population is roughly one-half of the population.

Cusco was the capital city of the Inca empire in the 15th and early 16th century until the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. Today it is the launching point for trips to Machu Picchu. We took a four-hour train ride from Cusco to Aguas Calientes, the village at the base of Machu Picchu. As you arrive in Aguas Calientes, the train lets you off at the side of the tracks and you walk along the tracks into town. The tracks run down the middle of the main street, which actually is no street at all, just railroad tracks. Railcars run up and down these tracks throughout the day, with the railcars brushing against the merchandise in the vendor's open-air stands. This backpacker-oriented village reminded Nick of Yangshuo, China, with its alley-like streets featuring one restaurant and shop after another, all pretty similar. Unlike Yangshuo though, there did not appear to be much nightlife in Aguas Calientes. That could have been due to the rain the night we were there, or due to it being off-season, or both. Although it is the South American summer, it is the rainy season in Peru, so the peak time to visit Machu Picchu is around June, the South American winter, when it is dry and the temperatures are still comfortable.

Although it rained the first day and night we were at Machu Picchu, the weather was perfect the second day, allowing us to climb Huayna Picchu, the mountain overlooking Machu Picchu, in the morning (see image gallery for pictures taken from Huayna Picchu). Near the peak, we met Simone and Bob Pritchard from Katherine, Australia, about 180 miles south of Darwin. After hearing of our world tour, Simone promptly invited us to stay with them in Australia. Australians are like that. Nick had a similar experience in Bali 15 years ago, where a family he met at his hotel invited him to stay with them four months later when he traveled through Melbourne (which he did). We hiked back down the mountain with Simone and Bob and had lunch with them. Toward the end of lunch, Bob's Star Trek fanaticism asserted itself, and he and Nick entered another dimension of conversation while Deanna and Simone rolled their eyes. We weren't planning to travel through Katherine, but upon hearing of Bob's full DVD collection of all seasons of all Star Trek shows, we just might have to make a detour.

Later that evening we talked with Michael & Denise Moys from Johannesburg, South Africa who sat next to us on the train back to Cusco. They provided us with a wealth of information about sites to see in India and the pros and cons of safaris in different African countries. One of the best sources of travel information comes from the people you meet. Guidebooks are useful, but too often they rave about everything, as if there is nothing not worth seeing. You can't see it all, so you often need a better filter than what guidebooks provide. Conversing with fellow travelers, you can immediately drill into what are the one or two must see sites in a given country, or which country is best for safaris, Tanzania, Kenya, or Botswana. (Originally, the recommendations favored Tanzania, but the two most recent and two strongest recommendations favor Botswana, which is coming on strong in our minds for where we may go in December.)

Machu Picchu itself is spectacular, simply the best archaeological site we have seen in the world. Even if we change our opinion on that by the end of this year, Machu Picchu is sure to remain one of the top sites we visit. It is unthinkable to us how the Incas built this city on a mountainside. Even today it is hard to reach. From Chicago, you fly to Miami and then on to Lima and then on to Cusco. From Cusco, you take a four-hour train or bus ride to Aguas Calientes and then it's 25 minutes by bus up the mountain to Machu Picchu. And the Incas built a city and lived there over 500 years ago! If you want to climb to Huayna Picchu, which itself has Inca buildings at the peak, it will take you another 90 minutes from the moment you get off the bus. Most of this is hard climbing up steep paths with narrow steps.

We took turns catching colds in Peru. Nick caught one on the flight to Lima. After two days of denial, we went shopping for Sudafed or the next best thing in Cusco. We didn't find the Sudafed, but we did find some kind of antihistamine miracle drug. Two pills and that was the end of his cold. On the Huayna Picchu climb, Bob Pritchard was suffering from a head cold, so Nick gave him his remaining medicine. We told you Aussies are a trusting bunch, accepting drugs from total strangers. As luck would have it, within two hours of Nick forfeiting his pills, Deanna developed cold symptoms. Later that night after the train arrived back in Cusco, we took a taxi straight to the pharmacy we visited two nights earlier to purchase more miracle medicine. Once again, two pills popped and the cold was stopped.

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