February 21, 2005

06:14:12 pm Galapagos Islands  

Sunday, February 13, 2005 - Sunday, February 20, 2005

In 1835, Charles Darwin sailed on the British ship H.M.S. Beagle and visited the Galapagos Islands. Here is where he was inspired to write his theory on the origin of species, which shook up the scientific world. Today, you can still see much of what he saw so many years ago.

The name Galapagos comes from the giant land turtles that early Spanish sailors found on the islands. The tortoises have giant shells in the shape of a saddle. "Galapago" is Spanish for saddle. The islands are an underwater volcanic range with the last volcanic eruption six years ago. Currently the archipelago includes 13 large islands, 6 minor islands, and more than 40 islets. In 1936, the Ecuadorian government established a national park on the islands, and today the park comprises 97% of the archipelago. In 1978, UNESCO declared the Galapagos a World Heritage Site. There are approximately 20,000 residents living on only four of the islands. The population is growing at a rate of 12% per year. Through tourism, approximately 70,000 people visit the island on an annual basis. The National Park District limits the amount of visitors to the islands trying to seek a sustainable balance between tourism and conservation.

On Sunday, we flew to Baltra from Quito via Guayaquil and arrived in time for lunch aboard the Aida Maria. The next eight days we would live on the yacht with eight other couples. Our room was four feet by seven feet with an attached bath. It was furnished with bunk beds with two drawers underneath, two shelves, and a bedside table. We were lucky because we were on the top deck and therefore, had windows that opened. This allowed for fresh air, and along with Dramamine, helped Deanna evade motion sickness. During lunch, there was threat of a mutiny by the European passengers (we were the only non-Europeans), due to the lack of wine onboard. Our guide Ruben quickly quieted the group by assuring them that he would find a supply by the next afternoon. His late night wine excursion provided a convenient excuse for him to visit his Swiss girlfriend on shore.

After lunch, we motored to Bachas where we saw flamingos, sea lions, and marine iguanas. Due to the major conservation efforts, most animals are fearless of humans. If our guide had allowed us, we could have touched most the animals we saw because they did not run away from us. After dinner, we motored to Isle Plaza and spent a rocky night in the cove. The next morning we headed out to explore the island where we encountered the more colorful land iguanas and watched more sea lions playing. We motored to Santa Fe and after lunch we went for our first snorkel trip where we swam with sea lions, turtles, and a white tip shark. We also learned that you could get too close to a barking male sea lion that is patrolling his shoreline.

The rest of our traveling would take place overnight while we slept. This was very difficult to get accustomed to at first. The movement of the boat resulted in a restless night's sleep but by our last night, we were sleeping like babies. Tuesday we explored Hood Island, including Gardner Bay and Punta Suarez. This was our first encounter with boobies, both masked and blue footed. Deanna's favorite were the blue-footed boobies (see image gallery). Boobies got their names from the English sailors who sailed with Darwin and thought the birds dumb or "a boob."

The next day we explored Floreana--including Punta Cormoran and Post Office Bay. We saw more flamingos here and explored a lava tube. Deanna learned that a flashlight is really called a torch and Nick learned to walk in the dark as Deanna had taken their only torch for her use. Sailors set up Post Office Bay long ago. Here they would leave letters to be picked up by other sailors who were sailing to where the letters were addressed. The system is still in place today. Visitors can leave a postcard (without postage) addressed to various places and future visitors pick up the postcards and mail them once they return to their home country.

Before dinner, we arrived in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island. Most of the crew is from here and you can tell they are happy to be home. We stayed in the harbor two nights. That night we explore the town and have caiparinas with a few of our fellow shipmates. Thursday morning we headed off to the Darwin Foundation. The foundation, along with the National Park, help to assure the survival of land iguanas and giant tortoises through breeding programs. The foundation is also the home of Lonesome George, the last tortoise of his species. To learn more on his story click on http://www.darwinfoundation.org/Restoring/george.html. Since attempts to have him mate with female tortoises most closely related to his species have failed, there has been a local effort to have him released back into the wild. The concern is that Lonesome George has been in captivity for 34 years and may not know what to do with his newfound freedom.

After lunch, we headed off to the highlands to see giant tortoises in the wild. Wow, what a sight! We were inches away from a tortoise that was as big as we were and weighed up to 300 kilograms (660 pounds). The only animals to exhibit any fear of us were the giant tortoises. They would hiss and sink into their giant shell. Since giant tortoises live to be over 100 years old, our guide suggested that maybe the tortoise remembered when man hunted them in late 1800s into the early 1900s. The tortoises were close to extinction due to this hunting and the destruction of their food source by goats introduced by man. Deanna's grandmother would be proud for she actually was able to talk tortoise to the turtle, bringing it out of its shell and having it walk towards her.

That night, being land lovers and wanting to give Carlos the cook the night off, we along with our shipmates went out to dinner with our tour guide Ruben. Ruben's girlfriend met us at the restaurant, which resulted in a great deal of Ruben razzing. Under intense questioning, Ruben confessed that marriage and immigration to Switzerland might be in his future, sooner than any of us, including him, expected. We all returned by midnight for that is when the Aida Maria set sail for Bartolome.

In Bartolome, we saw red sand beaches, grottos, and furry sea lions. While snorkeling we saw an octopus. During the night, we sailed to Punta Espinosa on Isla Fernandina. To beat the heat, Saturday, we departed the boat at 6 AM to walk up over 350 steps to view the pinnacle of Rabida. Americans used this island for bombing target practice during World Ware II when they occupied the Galapagos Islands as a strategic base. The view from the top is beautiful. We were back aboard the Aida Maria by 7 AM for breakfast. Before our first plunge of the day into the water, we walked through a mangrove cluster to the other side of the island where brown pelicans nest. We also encountered Galapagos penguins fishing. These are the only penguins in the northern hemisphere. This would be our last day for snorkeling. We did two different trips--one from the shore and one from the dingy. The marine life was very active. Along with the typical tropical fish, we saw a sea snake, stingrays, sharks, and a sea lion, which passed between Deanna's legs. It was a great last snorkel.

The next morning we arrived at North Seymour for our last excursion. We departed the boat again at 6 AM. We saved the best for last, as the saying goes. We saw a large sea lion colony, several blue-footed boobies doing their high-stepping mating ritual, and frigate birds in their mating area. The frigate bird is a scavenger that followed our boat the entire week, but it was not until North Seymour that we were able to see the red balloon of the male frigate bird and hear the call of the magnificent frigate bird. Wow!

On our one-hour cruise to Baltra we ate breakfast, packed, and said our goodbyes. What an incredible week! We highly recommend that the Galapagos Islands. It is a must see during your lifetime.

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11:47:34 am Ecuador  

Quito, Ecuador
Thursday, February 10, 2005 - Sunday, February 13, 2005
Capital and second largest city in Ecuador
City population: 1.4 million

Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
Sunday, February 13, 2005 - Sunday, February 20, 2005
Archipelago with diverse wildlife; Darwin's observations here helped him form the theory of evolution
Population: 20,000

Guayaquil, Ecuador
Sunday, February 20, 2005 - Monday, February 21, 2005
Largest city in Ecuador
1.9 million

Ecuador Country Background:
Population: 13 million
Per capita GDP: $3,000
Size: Between Colorado and Nevada
Currency: the US dollar replaced the Ecuadorian sucre as the official currency in 2000. Sucres are no longer used.
Independence: 1822 from Spain
Language: Spanish. Indian languages, especially Quechua, are also common in some areas.

Itinerary
TACA flight from La Paz, Bolivia to Lima, Peru
TACA flight from Lima to Quito, Ecuador
Three nights at Grand Hotel Mercure Alameda in Quito
TAME flight from Quito to Baltra, Galapagos Islands, stopping in Guayaquil (no plane change)
Boat tour of Galapagos Islands, 8 days/7 nights on the Aida Maria
TAME flight from Baltra to Guayaquil
One night at Hotel Las Penas in Guayaquil

Quito Activities
City & Equator tour
Museo Nacional del Banco Central del Ecuador
Museo de la Ciudad (Museum of the City)
Casa de Sucre (House of Sucre)
Quicentro Shopping Center
Cinemark movie theaters

Galapagos Activities
Hiking, snorkeling, swimming, boat cruising, visiting lava tubes, visiting Darwin center--one week of outdoor naturalist activities

Guayaquil Activities
San Marino mall and movie theaters
Laundry
Web site updating

Although the economic statistics in our Almanac do not indicate this, we found Ecuador to be significantly more advanced than Peru or Bolivia, the last two countries we visited. The reason for this was clear: five years ago, Ecuador dropped their own currency and switched to the US dollar as their official currency. A foreign investment boom from around the world accompanied this overnight increase in financial stability. Standard staples of Americana have made their way to Ecuador as early movers McDonalds, KFC, and Pizza Hut, are joined by Tony Roma's, TGIFridays, Applebee's, Dominos, and Papa John's. The newer sections of Quito and Guayaquil are quite Westernized with new car dealerships, shopping centers, and movie theaters. After rough conditions in Bolivia, we welcomed a chance to lounge around in our French-owned hotel, read an English-language newspaper (Miami Herald, International Edition, the first English paper we saw since leaving Argentina on January 30), and see three Oscar-nominated films at the movies (Finding Neverland, Closer, and The Aviator, each in English with Spanish subtitles).

Ecuador's politics are as unstable as any South American country. Its current president, Borbua, elected in 2002, was its sixth in seven years, including one removed for "mental incapacity." Borbua helped overthrow the previously elected president, Witt, in military coup in January 2000. The coup occurred four months after Ecuador defaulted on its debt, and was also in response to Witt's proposal to replace the sucre with the dollar. Nevertheless, two months after the coup, Congress did pass Witt's dollarization plan.

While we were in Costa Rica, Nick read a newspaper article about Ecuador that said one of the opposition political parties was seeking to reverse dollarization despite its clear-cut economic benefits. But according to Ruben, our Galapagos tour guide, "There is no way this is going to happen." Our Quito tour guide expressed the same opinion, describing how dollarization eliminated inflation overnight. With the sucre, he said, people lived month to month, never knowing what the basics of life--gas, water, bread--would cost next month. This is not to say the move was without controversy, and some people still bemoan the loss of their national currency. One concession the government did allow was to mint Ecuadorian coins--equivalent in value and denomination to US coins: 1, 5, 10, 25, and 50 cents. The change you get is a mixture of US and Ecuadorian coins. Thus the government could say that there is still Ecuadorian currency. But the bills are strictly US. If you wondered where all the US $1 dollar coins went (the ones with Lewis and Clark's Indian guide on it, introduced around 2000), they all seem to be in Ecuador, where dollar coins are as common as dollar bills, unlike in the US.

So with the elimination of inflation, increased foreign investment, a growing and stable economy, and greater economic opportunity, why do some still oppose dollarization? The reason is simple, and frustrating. Human beings everywhere around the world resist change for no good reason other than to be against something. It is one of the worst human attributes. For every bad idea prevented, two good ideas are watered down or stopped, and the pace of human evolution and progress is slowed for all. The worst presently in our view is the anti-globalization movement, as if globalization is undesirable or avoidable. Fortunately, in this case, globalization is an unstoppable force. The protestors might as well demonstrate against the daily rising of the sun.

This attribute is encouraged by politicians, who seek power by spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt about policies of competing parties, regardless of the merits of those policies. Even though the US is more open than most countries to change, this trait is ever present in the US. You can find multiple examples of it each day courtesy of your daily newspaper. Ted Kennedy, for example, seems to be devoting his remaining years in office to nothing else. But we digress. Deanna will add a log on the Galapagos Islands at a later time.

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February 09, 2005

08:42:56 pm Bolivia  

La Paz, Bolivia
Saturday, February 5, 2005 - Monday, February 7, 2005
Wednesday, February 9, 2005 - Thursday, February 10, 2005
Administrative capital and largest metropolitan area in Bolivia
Highest capital city in the world, altitude 3636 meters (12,000 feet)
City population: 1.1 million in metropolitan area

Sucre, Bolivia
Monday, February 7, 2005 - Wednesday, February 9, 2005
Legal capital of Bolivia and seat of judiciary
City population: 250,000

Potosi, Bolivia
Monday, February 7, 2005 - Tuesday, February 8, 2005
Largest city in the Americas in 1600, larger than London or Paris at the time
Highest city of its size in the world, altitude 4070 meters (13,400 feet)
City population today: 200,000

Bolivia Country Background:
Population: 9 million
Per capita GDP: $2,000
Size: Between Texas and Alaska
Currency: boliviano, 8.05 per dollar
Independence: 1825 from Spain
Language: Spanish, Quechua, and Aymara all official languages. Quechua and Aymara are indigenous Indian languages.

Itinerary
Lloyd Aereo Boliviano ( LAB ) flight from Cusco, Peru to La Paz, Bolivia
LAB flight from La Paz to Santa Cruz
LAB flight from Santa Cruz to Sucre
Private car from Sucre to Potosi
Private car from Potosi to Sucre
LAB flight from Sucre to La Paz

Two nights at Hotel Gloria, La Paz
One night at Hotel Colonial, Potosi
One night at Real Audiencia, Sucre
One night at Hotel Gloria, La Paz

La Paz Activities
Tiawanaku ruins archeological site (45 miles from La Paz; the Tiawanaku preceded the Incas and ruled a vast empire from roughly 1500 BC to the 13th century AD)
Valley of the Moon geological formations

Sucre Activities
City tour

Potosi Activities
Mine tour, recommended
Santa Teresa Convent tour

Bolivia is known for three things: losing wars and territory, overthrowing its government, and ambushing rebel cult figures. Bolivia lost its access to the Pacific Ocean to Chile in the War of the Pacific, 1879-1884, and it lost further territory to Paraguay in the Chaco War, 1932-1935. Earlier, one of its dictators sold off parts of its territory from 1865-1871. There were 65 attempted coups in the 1840s alone. The turmoil continues to this day, with presidents resigning in both 2001 and 2003. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were gunned down in Bolivia, as was Che Guevara.

We came to Bolivia for one primary reason and it is a bit of an odd one--to see Potosi. The Spanish discovered silver in Potosi in 1545, shortly after they arrived in South America. By the early 1600s, Potosi was the largest city in the Americas and was larger than London or Paris. It was known as the richest city in the world due to its mineral wealth, and according to our guidebook, "it's a Potosi" remains a Spanish saying to describe something extremely rich. The saying may remain, but the riches of Potosi are long gone as the silver ran out. The mines remain with tin, zinc, lead, and other minerals extracted, but the area is now the poorest region in Bolivia, itself a poor country.

We took the mine tour, where you don special clothing and descend into the mines (see image gallery). This tour is as authentic as you get as you walk, crawl, and climb into actual working mines--nothing is prettied up and there are no safety additions. Not for the claustrophobic or those not in good physical condition.

Why see Potosi? We wanted to see in person what a former world leading city looked like post decline. Our quest may have been slightly misguided, as it appeared to us that the Spanish exported (literally) most of the wealth back to Spain, with not much reinvested in Potosi. Visually, Potosi did not have the even the faded architectural splendor of other colonial hubs. While the city has plenty of Catholic churches, it did not appear that the Spanish developed the other cultural institutions you would expect given the wealth that once was there. It's almost as they knew the silver would run out some day, so why bother. Sucre has far more colonial charm even though it did not have as much mineral wealth as Potosi.

We also visited a convent and learned of the standard colonial practice of wealthy families sending their second daughter to the convent at age 15. The nuns would never see their family again, nor would they ever physically leave the convent, spending the rest of their years in a sort of religious prison, which apparently was a high honor. We thought afterward that neither of the two sites we saw offered an attractive lifestyle. We would not have liked to have been a miner or a nun.

The Bolivians were celebrating Carnival while we were there. The dates are the same as Rio's Carnival, but the customs and folklore differ. We didn't know at first what was going on. While we were still in Peru, a few days before the beginning of carnival, we observed packs of schoolchildren toting water guns, water balloons, silly string, and shaving cream. Like the US Independence Day, the fireworks start going off a few days before the actual event. But unlike the singular day of the Fourth of July, this is at least a four-day celebration, stretching from Saturday to Tuesday, not counting the preliminary activities a few days before Saturday.

The idea is to soak anyone you meet, or cover them in silly string or shaving cream. For Chicagoans who used to party on Lincoln Avenue, it's as if the whole city becomes The Big Nasty for several days. Adults and children don ponchos to protect their clothing, although wearing one is to invite attack. Children wander the streets packing Super Soakers like rebels wandering with machine guns through a city under siege. Multi-hour parades highlight each of the four days. Everyone seems to have a good time. In Potosi, the revelers repeatedly invited us to bless some object (the devil idol in the mines, the side of a building, a car) by dousing it with some form of grain alcohol. After the blessing, you are to drink the remaining alcohol, so we were sure to douse liberally and fortunately be left with an empty cup post blessing.

La Paz is visually spectacular as you drive into it from the airport. La Paz sits in a valley, some 1500 feet below the airport on a plateau in its twin city of El Alto (see image gallery). Flying in, there's no indication the altitude is so high as the high plains of the Altiplano stretch on with miles and miles of flat ground above 13,000 feet. Up close, La Paz is not as attractive as it appears at a distance.

According to our tour guide, El Alto split from La Paz 19 years ago, leaving each city with a population between 500,000-600,000. Fast growing Santa Cruz, where natural gas deposits exist, is now the largest city. La Paz may still claim the title of largest metro area for now, but Santa Cruz is poised to pass it. So the economic center of Bolivia continues to evolve, from Potosi in early colonial times to La Paz during most of the country's history, to Santa Cruz over the last decade or two. Economic change is a constant as time marches on.

Would we recommend a tour to Bolivia? The people are friendly, our tour guides were great, and the country is the most affordable we've encountered yet (dinner for three at one of the better restaurants in Potosi set us back US$7). Despite these positive attributes, though, what we saw is not enough to make the journey. However, we didn't see the main attraction, Salar de Uyuni, the world's biggest salt flats. If we had to do over, we would have spent at least a day at the flats. We didn't know much about them before our trip, but the pictures of them since arriving look spectacular--a blinding white where it's difficult to tell the difference between land and sky. The LAB in-flight magazine had an interview with the country's head of tourism who proclaimed she wanted to make Salar de Uyuni the visual image of Bolivia. Our advice--build an airport. Presently, it takes most of day to get to Salar de Uyuni from La Paz, and from what we hear there is not much tourist infrastructure there once you arrive. If you build the airport, more people will come, and the infrastructure will follow. We don't expect this to happen anytime soon, but if it does, look for a population and real estate explosion in the town of Uyuni.

This is No Way to Run an Airline!

At the Lloyd Aereo Boliviano ( LAB ) check-in area in Cusco on Saturday, February 5, the agent informed us that our names were not on the list of passengers on the flight to La Paz. Never mind that we had bought and paid for our tickets two months earlier. We had not reconfirmed our tickets, something we had not been told to do. Not a problem, we were told, the flight was not full. But in the future, we should reconfirm our flights. We pick up the conversation there:

Nick: We have two additional flights on LAB over the next few days. Can we confirm those with you now?
Agent: Yes, you should reconfirm them.
(Long pause)
Nick: Okay, we would like to confirm those two flights right now.
Agent: Yes, they need to be reconfirmed.
Deanna: How do we reconfirm them?
Agent: Yes, they must be reconfirmed!
Nick: (slowly) What do we do to reconfirm?
Agent: You must call the airline.
Nick: What number do we call?
Agent: I do not have that information.
Deanna: Can we reconfirm at the airport?
Agent: Yes.
Nick: Can we reconfirm with you?
Agent: No.

Eventually we found someone who could reconfirm our flights, and it was good that we did because our flight for Monday, February 7 from La Paz to Sucre had a time change. Not a 15 or 25-minute time change like you might expect, but a 5 hour 45 minute time change. Instead of departing at 3:15 PM, our flight now left at 9:30 AM. Oh, and forget about the short direct flight with an arrival time 50 minutes after departure. We now had a connecting flight and layover, so we would arrive at our destination 3 hours 25 minutes after departure instead of 50 minutes. Okay, whatever. Our return flight from Sucre to La Paz on Wednesday, February 9 also changed, but it was only two hours earlier and it remained a direct flight. So really that was just a minor change, hardly a change at all.

The next day, Sunday, we received a message at our hotel, that Monday's flight time had changed again, and would now be 6:45 AM. This was 2 hours and 45 minutes earlier than the last change, and a mere 8 hours and 30 minutes from the original schedule. No problem, we were actually looking for a reason to set the alarm for 4AM.

So on Monday, February 7, we were two of six passengers on the 6:45 AM flight. The flight crew outnumbered the passengers. Who would have thought that making multiple changes in the flight time, including one less than 24 hours before the flight, would affect the passenger count?

The flight steward, realizing it was an empty flight, invited everyone to sit in first class, a nice touch. Clearly he must have been on loan from another airline.

When we disembarked our first flight in Santa Cruz to await our second flight to Sucre, the airport workers had taken great care to set up a security rope so that the large crowd of six would not get lost on the way to baggage claim. We did not need to claim any bags as we had checked them through to Sucre, so we began to step over the rope. No, the airport worker chastised us, you must go downstairs, through baggage claim, and then back upstairs through security. Clearly, having just got off a plane, we were a security risk. The language and cultural barrier being what it is, it is just better to comply with silly requests rather than try to point out their silliness. So we went downstairs, upstairs, and through security. Having disembarked from gate 4, we now proceeded back to gate 3 for our next flight. Except that we could not get there because the security rope from our gate 4 flight was still in place. No problem, gestured the very same airport employee, just step over the rope and proceed to gate 3, which we did, our security status apparently no longer in question.

We had just settled into our assigned seats on the flight to Sucre, when the flight steward approached us and overpowered us with his Spanish. This would not be the same steward as on our first flight, as that helpful and thoughtful fellow had been replaced with a LAB employee. The conversation went something like this:

Steward: You cannot sit here!
Nick: These are our seats.
Steward: Let me see your boarding pass.
Steward: (disappointedly, after confirming we were in fact in the correct seats) Well, the plane has changed and you cannot sit here. (Haughtily) This is business class!
Deanna: (sarcastically, noticing the seats were identical to the ones in coach, and observing there were only 2 other people in "business class" and no more than 25 on the entire plane) So, someone else has these seats?
Steward: ahhh--yes--You cannot sit here.

So we slummed it back to "coach" and settled into identical seats, and enjoyed identical beverage service on the 40-minute flight, observing that our "business class" seats remained empty throughout the flight.

During our travels, we have collected a few pamphlets on various aspects of local culture. Here we present two such examples.

Bolivian Rules of the Road

Horn - use in place of braking
White line in middle of road - be sure to spend equal amounts of time on each side of line so that one side of road does not wear out more quickly than the other
Solid yellow line on your side of the middle of the road - opportunity to pass exists
Double yellow line in the middle of the road - take care as oncoming traffic likely to be passing at same time you are
Curve - if passengers are able to remain in their seats without bracing themselves, you are taking curve too slowly and should speed up
Bad road - since you can not travel as fast when the road is bad, it is important to speed up to mitigate the delay
Rain - similar to a bad road, it is important to drive faster when it is raining
Seatbelts - never use these; preferably they should be removed from the vehicle
Trunk - extra passenger space when needed
Driver's license expiration date - after this date you will need to bribe police when stopped. Do not renew license as that will cost more than paying bribes.
Guardrail - this safety feature greatly reduces the chance of running off the road, so abandon usual caution to compensate.

South American Waitstaff Tips for Drink Pouring Water or Coke

Use 6-ounce glass if nothing smaller available, but ideally a 4-ounce glass should be used. With great flourish, pour no more than 2 ounces into glass. The more time it takes to pour this amount of liquid, the better. Never leave bottle on the table, as this would make it convenient for customers to refill their own glasses. Place bottle in sight but out of reach of customer on another table. Do not make yourself too easily available to refill customer's glass, as this will encourage customer to drink too quickly and you may have the burden of having to fetch another drink for customer.

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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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06:30:44 pm Buenos Aires 2nd Time  

Buenos Aires, Argentina
Friday, January 28, 2005 - Sunday, January 30, 2005

Itinerary
Aerolineas Argentinas flight from Calafate, Argentina to Buenos Aires, Argentina, with a stopover (no plane change) in Trelew / Puerto Madryn (airport for Peninsula Valdes)
Two nights at Recoleta Guest House

Activities
Laundry
Updating web site
Stocking up on toiletry items
Buying English/Spanish dictionary
Goodbye dinner with Millers, Gian-Reto Cavelti

From Patagonia, we stopped in Buenos Aires for approximately 32 hours before leaving Argentina and heading north to Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. We spent our one final full day in BA mainly on domestic items such as laundry, shopping, and of course web site updating. On this our second visit to BA, we came to appreciate it even more. We were able to do all of the domestic activities listed above easily within walking distance of where we were staying. We discussed and agreed that if we had to choose a place to live for one or more years from among those we had visited to date in South America, BA would be the place. Its size and relatively modernity and sophistication made it the best choice for living. For a vacation, we'd prefer the beauty of Patagonia or beach lifestyle of Punta del Este, but to live our lives year-round, BA appears to be the best choice.

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