The Fool On The Hill

My first thoughts on arriving home was relief that the Trip was finally over. Three extra enforced days at the end all spent in a Lisbon hotel had pushed the trip out to 43 days. And while the decision to travel home via Lisbon would have severe financial consequences, the decision to have that last chicken salad at Buenos Aires airport would possibly be the cause of all these troubles.

In fact the whole tour has been a series of sick notes with coughs and flu-type aches not to mention the altitude sickness in La Paz. And with a two day dose of diarrhoea at the end just to finish it all off. But all this tiresome unpleasantness shouldn't overshadow the experience. I went to some wonderful places, saw some amazing scenes, meet some lovely people and overcame all obstacles. What more can you want?

But why is it called "Melancholy Misconceptions"? Seems a stupid name for a trip. Yes, you are right and it came to me on the day I was leaving. I got up as planned but I felt really tired and not at all excited at departing for foreign shores and promptly returned to bed for another quick kip. I eventually got up a while later and it occurred to me that it was Christmas and while everyone was telling me that they were going to spend the holidays with their family I begin to wonder what I was doing going thousands of miles away again. And then leaving Buster is always a trial and this time he seemed to know exactly what was happening and he disappeared when it was time to leave and I found him hiding away downstairs looking very sad and forlorn. Yes, the worst thing about holidays is leaving your dog.

Anyway, on to the Itinerary: we started in London with an overnight in Gatwick airport and then followed through Mexico-Peru-Bolivia-Chile-Argentina-Brazil-Portugal-Madrid with the obvious highlight driving down the Pan-American from Antofagasta in Chile to Santiago in 5 days.  

The Highlights

Hotel Meson del Marques.

I flew from London with a load of English tourists on Thomas Cook, all bound for the beaches of Cancun. I however, was going in the opposite direction. So after one night in Cancun near the bus station I caught the bus to Campeche and got off in my favourite town, Valladolid. How different was this one compared to its Spanish namesake. Hot, steamy and full of little brown people. Of course, in my eagerness to see the place I set off in completely the wrong direction and don't realise it until 10 minutes later. Well, at least I see these places. I turned around and 15 mins later I reach the main square of the town and there is the wonderful Hotel Meson del Marques.

The following day I caught another (freezing) bus to the famous Mayan  complex known as Chichen Itza. This pyramid is the main structure, called "El Castillo" and was built  between the 8th and 12th centuries and discovered by the Spanish in 1566 approx. It's 24 metres high and has 91 steps which multiplied by 4 and adding the top step gives a total of 365, the number of days in the year.

The picture shows the two restored sides of the pyramid, the other two are not so pristine. 

It has some inner chambers, now closed to the public and you can't climb it either as a woman fell off it 10 years ago. Fortunately for me my only mishap was forgetting the obligatory coat, blanket or anorak to compensate for the minus 20 temperature found in every Mexican coach.... So began a long week of sleepless nights, coughing and feeling ill. 

Lima Cathedral

Next stop was Lima, capital of Peru. This is the main square and displays some of the most remarkable colonial architecture that exists in South America. On the right is the Cathedral and next door is the Archbishops Palace. But strangely the whole city seems on the verge of a riot or serious demonstration as there are barriers everywhere and police vans parked strategically on every corner.

So on to the real tour highlight, crossing the Atacama Desert on the Pan-American. I did the first three days from Arica in the very north of Chile on buses and then hired a car in Antofagasta. As you can see it's a very good road, not what I had expected and very often dead straight and sometimes you have it all to yourself with not a car or truck in sight. 
And its not all completely flat as I expected but is undulating and varied because all the time you are surrounded by hills of varying colours of brown and cream. But it's all a bit surreal as there's no life around you of any sort and not a blade of grass to add a bit of colour. And until the third day when a couple of Posados (cafeterias) appeared  there's  nowhere to stop apart from a few empty rest areas, so you are forced to travel 300/350 km from one town to the next. So planning is essential as regards petrol and food and of course water.

There's always a few quick cars in a hurry to put the desert behind them but most people travel very
carefully at around 100/110kph and you often find you are in a convoy. So drivers seem respectful of this dangerous road because, although in summer it seems harmless, there are clearly times when it can be very hazardous. And the signs are everywhere! For every couple of miles there's one of these (right)....And it seems as if you have passed hundreds of them, all trying to outdo the last one in colours and style so they often have brightly coloured stones laid out carefully around the centre and frequently with flags flying fiercely in the wind to identify the spot. I've since spoken to someone who has driven this road in the Chilean winter and the weather conditions are the same as in summer, the road is just more empty. And it seems that I was mistaken, the memorials are not as a result of road accidents. But although some people believe its deaths from mining accidents, others will tell you that the memorials are for those people that have no grave, the "Desaparcidos".........


So journeying on we find, right in the middle of the Atacama Desert, the small town that most people aim for: San Pedro de Atacama. It usually has a couple of hundred people but during the summer another 20,000 turn up. Hippies and bohemian thirty-somethings all eager to see the last corner of the world. The nearest airport is a few hours away in Calama so you arrive by the regular transport ie Turbus coach or, if you're on a guided tour, on a real tourbus. And while travelling on the bus you pass one of the  remaining mining villages (Chile is rich in minerals), the strangely named Maria Elena, ( after the wife of a mining engineer ) and you get a glimpse of how the people live in the desert, amid dust and general desolation. And yes, it's a culture shock of wooden shacks and sand and you ask yourself how people can live in such terrible conditions. What a surprise then that when you arrive an hour later in San Pedro de Atacama to find that you'll be living in exactly the same one storey abode house with tin roofs and dusty roads twisting away into nowhere. What the hell am I going to do here for 4 days is your first thought.

The 'Hostal'

A taxi then, because you are never going figure out this dusty lanes without help of some kind. And we eventually locate our hostel, just a few hundred metres away from the bus station. It's clean and the hosts are friendly, well it is Chile.




And the owner presents you with a little map to guide you into the centre of the town and obviously your spirits rise when you see people, well tourists, milling about. But the first thing that catches your attention  are the hundred, yes 100, or so tour companies ready to offer you Tours to visit the sights of the area. Because, as you have read in your Rough Guide, there are many things to see here.



The nearest Tour special is Valley of La Luna, Atacama. Words are never enough for these spectacular places so here's some photos. And as one photo doesn't really do it justice, here's a couple.











A couple of hours away there's the Salt Flats, apparently the fourth largest in the world and here they are complete with flamingos. There's also the highest ( as in above sea level ) geysers in the world ( there's a lot of extinct volcanoes around there) where everyone gets their kit off and  goes for a swim.



So after leaving the delights of desert life behind you, another 3 days driving south across the Atacama you start to find civilisation and with it a two-lane road. We're now south of La Serena, the desert is slowly getting smaller and the many beaches are very enticing. This is one of the best, called, as you can see, Playa Chigualoco.




And of course I had to stop here, the quaintly titled "Bahia Inglesa"  named, so it is said, after the English pirates who sheltered there. I hope they weren't expecting to find fresh drinking water! What you can find these days though is a good meal and I had a rather nice chicken lunch in a restaurant overlooking the beach. And where I was helped in my selection by a friendly woman at the next table telling me that "Papas" was in fact potatoes. How helpful are the Chileans everywhere you go.


And the following day you finally reach the liveliest place in Chile. This is crazy Valparaiso! A city that oddly enough Chile is so ashamed of that they want to hide it away and its impossible to find. Well, not impossible but difficult. The main North-South Highway runs 50 km away but there are NO signs to point the way. All you get is a place called "Viña del Mar"; a rather tacky and very conservative seaside resort full of carefully manicured gardens and a lot of traffic lights which lies a couple of miles north of its more exciting neighbour. I read the other day that Viña del Mar have Juilo Iglesias concerts whereas Valparaiso would have the Rolling Stones. 

Valparaiso

Valparaiso in contrast is a port town with all that that implies. But the place clearly deserves several photos such is its appeal. Its a very colourful place and every wall seems a work of art with murals everywhere. There's loads of bars, restaurants, terraces, music in the streets and hotels of all sorts.
Its built on several hills so you have to be fit but as you can see there are several (working) funiculars (that yellow thing) to ease your pain.

Best Hotel
Ok, backtracking a couple of days and this is one of the best hotels on the trip. Yes, I did a Hilton and Typt or whatever its called but this place beat the pants off both of them.
It's in the small town of TalTal on the Chilean Pacific coast, a days drive (if you are my age) from the famous (!) Antofagasta. It's 4 o'clock in the hot afternoon on my first day driving through a baking desert which I hadn't planned properly, and another 80 odd km to my planned stop. No, I needed a break and TalTal was the only option. The town lay twenty kilometres away from the PanAmerican and on the coast, and it had the only decent hotel within a 100 km, according to my LP guide. And here it is - "Mi Tampi"....No, I've no idea but the beds were a dream and I had my best nights sleep for a fortnight and they reduced the price for me because it was higher than mentioned in the Guide. And just a short walk away was a nice open air restaurant with a sea view.


So tell us, did you have any problems? What was the worst time..

Ok, this is the scene approaching the exit Border Post at CHUNGARA, Bolivia......yes, rather similar to the Georgia/Russia road over the Caucasus, isn't it?

But no not really, because Chungara is much worse because there's over 10 coaches waiting as well as yours and because of Bolivia's obvious poverty, Customs officials are few and far between especially at a nondescript place on top of the Andes. This then is the main crossing into Chile and it's situated at 4,500 metres above sea level....And there is an awful lot of traffic.

So after waiting in your boiling hot, motionless coach for over hour you get to join the queue for something or other. You may think it's to check your passport but no for this is the place where you pay your 10 pesos Exit Tax. Why is it that the worst places in the world charge you to leave, (well, Poland don't I suppose).

Now this looks like an simple, easy transaction, doesn't it? And yes there are two windows but only one is open and it takes 90 minutes to get there because.......

This is an approximation of the size of the queue....yes, I know this is the UK but you get the drift and its without the bobby to keep the peace..



So after paying your tax you're a bit exhausted after all the standing around in the sun, drizzle and snowflakes (yes, its the Andes) and it takes a while for you to realise that maybe somebodies going to want to see your passport. And while you sit in your seat in the bus hoping we will soon get going, it slowly dawns on you that we are going nowhere just yet. Meanwhile the sight of a few people dragging suitcases behind them is not a good sign. So another long wait in the coach follows until there is a sudden panic in the rush to join yet another queue. But this time it necessitates dragging your luggage behind you and then fighting with the other 50 members of your bus to pass the things through the x-ray machine and then join yet another queue to get your passport stamped and all this in a building the size of my living room.

So please don't ever complain to me about queueing for an hour at Istanbul Airport or even the two hours it can take to get into Vietnam. This Headache lasts for 5 HOURS and 5 Minutes........

But hey you are on top of the Andes so the views are fantastic and the snow will cool  you down.

Mountain peaks at Chungara

Yes, I was surprised about one strange thing. Because one of the most pleasant things about San Pedro de Atacama are, surprisingly, the Tomatoes....