Because the Horn is there 2023

Posts

Last day in Santiago

February 11, 2023

Through Trip Advisor and Viator (after a fair amount of hassle) we went by a private car to the Maipo Basin where there is a dam and huge lake which supplies about 80% of Santiago (7 million population). It was about a 2 1/2 hr drive there. We had an excellent English speaking guide called Cristian who was very knowledgable about Chilean politics. He had been born about 100 KM north of Santiago where his father was a mining engineer. Mining is a huge part of the Chilean economy - particularly mining for copper. Agriculture, particularly wine growing is another major part of the economy. We ascended up a gorge to the valley of the reservoir and were surrounded by the Andes mountains. Fortunately most of the smoke haze had dissipated up at altitude. To begin with the day was pleasant - about 25C but on the way home our driver and guide’s vehicles air conditioning stopped working and the temperature was up to 33C. Christen was an excellent guide. He did have a somewhat right wing vie...

Hop on Hop off bus

February 11, 2023

There are about 20 Million people in the whole of Chile. About 7 million live in Santiago. It is a vast city and has some very prosperous areas. We wanted to go to the large park, the Parque Metropolitano which is accessed by a cable car and by taking a hop on hop off bus we were able to include a ticket for this. An extra attraction was that Hugh wanted to go for a swim which is near the top of the mountain. We then rode down a funicular. Unfortunately the smoke haze was mostly obscuring the views of Santiago which we could have seen. Amazingly we met on the bus two Presbyterian priests from South Carolina who had been on Oceania Marina. The above picture was taken with 15X Zoom on my Iphone 14 pro.

Another bicycle ride

February 09, 2023

We had to get a taxi to the bicycle ride starting point. We were fortunate to have a German immigrant who spoke very good English but more importantly had studied Sociology and Political science in Germany. His insights into Chilean politics and the reality that at this time they are still trying to revise their Constitution to better fit the ideology of the current “Liberal” government. The present Constitution is still the one put in place by the military dictatorship of Augusta Pinochet. Chile today is considered a “full democracy”. We spent the second half of our bicycle ride in the public markets. The largest has more than 1000 stalls. Observing the people, the supply chains, the amazing amount of food etc on sale was fascinating. We were treated to a strawberry drink before returning our bicycles. We then had a hamburger at a restaurant were by coincidence we met eight Canadians who had been on the Oceania Marina and were flying out that evening to Toronto. On the 36 minute ...

Eric Shipton

February 09, 2023

I had downloaded to read on my Kindle “The Untravelled World: The autobiography of a pioneering mountaineer and explorer” by Eric Shipton. I spent about a month at the Outward Bound school in Eskdale when I was about 17. Eric Shipton had been the director there for a short time. Alpine Club friends may recognise him as being one of the early British Alpinists who did many first ascents in the 1930 of the Himalayan Karakorans. Because of this during WWII he was a British colonial officer in Kashgar in India near the Tibet border. In 1950 he was again a colonial officer in Kumming before it was taken over by the Chinese communists. He was on several pre Everest planning expeditions and was at one time going to be appointed leader the the successful 1953 Everest expedition in which Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing were successful about two days before Elizabeth II’s Coronation. After being turned down to lead that expedition he then went climbing and exploring in Patagonia an...

Museums in Santiago de Chile

February 08, 2023

We were a bit late to book a hop on hop off bus tour or other local tour as they were all booked up. Therefore we ended up going to two museums and were able to walk to them both. My watch recorded 6.5 KM walking. The first museum was Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino. There was a remarkable collection of art objects from the whole of South America from Mexico south including the Caribbean. From an archaeologist and anthropologist perspective one could have spent hours there but after a while one gets informational overload. We then had lunch in an open air cafe. Masses of Chilean people on the street - it may be summer holiday time. Unfortunately in both Argentina and Chile there is very little in the way of classical or other music performed during the hot months of January and February. Hugh has been using Google translate that is useful to interpret menus and communicate with staff. The second museum was Muse de Bel Arts. It was not advertised on trip advisor. Perhaps b...

Santiago de Chile

February 08, 2023

We managed to get a minibus for the hour and a half trip from San Antonio to Santiago de Chile. The cost was $40 USD each which was quite reasonable compared with the offered cruise ship transfer to Santiago. We were dropped off at the AirBnB. The AirBnB is about ten minutes walk from the middle of the city. It is small and has all our needs, including high speed internet except it does not have air conditioning. The outside temperature is getting up to 33C. The banks in Chile will not allow currency exchanges to those who do not have accounts. However on the first afternoon we were able to find a currency exchange and were able to load up on Chilean pesos with USD and get rid of our Argentine pesos. We walked three minutes from our AirBnB for dinner at a local Italian restaurant. Very nice atmosphere. Everyone singing happy birthday in Spanish for a young child in the restaurant. Jamie had suggested a Piscosour cocktail should be tried. Much enjoyed and afterwar...