Half Way

We finally bought our return tickets to the US on January 10th which happens to be the halfway point of our epic eight-month trip. On May 5th, we will fly the red-eye from Lima, Peru to Fort Lauderdale, FL then to Roanoke, VA to attend Niece Sophie's college graduation, after which my in-laws will deliver us home on May 7th.nt

Atop Cerro Santa Lucia in Santiago.

Things are looking up for us

We have been in Chile for ten days now. I find it to be the most overpriced country compared to its level of development.

• The exchange rate is 20% lower than when I was researching this summer.
  
• Being the summer high season and New Year, we have had a hard time finding rooms. Hotels and guesthouses are either full, way overpriced, or have way too small rooms that seem more like caves. It is disheartening.
• We bought first class bus tickets on the best bus company, Pullman. We had paid less for airplane ticket. When we showed up at the scheduled time, the bus turned out to be a phantom. As buses with other companies were full and we loathed to return to our not-so-friendly and haphazard guesthouse, we had to suffer the humiliation of taking another bus with the same company over two hours later, stuffed in the back of the bus. I want to cry.
• Chile is a tremendously long country. We wanted to stop in on cities every now and then, otherwise the whole country would seem like one long bus ride. So far, none of them seem particularly remarkable.
  

Valparaiso (Valpo) finally seemed like a reasonable city, but of course, being UNESCO World Heritage, it is expected to be a highlight for any tour of Chile. Finding a good room with a view helps, though it costs almost twice as much as our mostly expensive rooms of this trip. BTW, the Central Bank decided this week to drive down the peso. Good news for us!

Sun-Ling works on the next blog entry in our room at The Yellow House in Valparaiso.


The sun sets and the city lights come on.


Valparaiso claims to have the world's oldest electric trolleybus system.


Valpo is also famous for its hills and funiculars.


Street scene.


Mercado - Valparaiso.


The port.


More of the port.


Valpo has quite a few 20th century Art Deco and Art Moderne buildings.

Precious water

Since John last wrote about oasis, we have bused through another couple thousands of kilometers of desert and sand in southern Peru and northern Chile. We now think we understand what true desert is, maybe until we travel North Africa and the Middle East.

Whenever a river flows through the desert, then you can have a green valley. East of La Serena, the Elqui Valley is such a valley, much treasured and touted for northern Chile. Having been through countless such valleys in Peru, we were not so impressed. However, I liked the unusual blue of the storage lake behind the dam. Overall, we found our outing the next day to the port city of Coquimbo more interesting.

View of Elqui Valley from Cerro de la Virgen in Vicuña.


Another view of Elqui Valley from Cerro de la Virgen in Vicuña. That's a vineyard at left center.


The storage lake and dam as seen from a speeding bus.


Sharing this pint of homemade ice cream (half coffee, half chocolate) at El Cobre Soda Fountain was the perfect way to end our day trip to the Elqui Valley.


View of the coast at Fort Coquimbo.


The Cross of the Third Millennium in Coquimbo which soars 93 meters above the highest hill.


Felt pretty safe as we walked up the hills in Coquimbo, being that we were out of danger from tsunamis.


The bandshell on the Plaza de Armas in Coquimbol ready for The Feast of Epiphany.

Earthquake: it really happened!

When I was trip planning last summer and getting all worked up about armed robberies, John tried to calm me in his own way, "why aren't you worried about earthquakes?"

When the magnitude 7.1 earthquake centered at Temuco happened last Sunday, we were on the bus, hundreds of miles away, and clueless. But this evening I was sitting down at the computer when our room here in La Serena started shaking like a really really big truck driving by, I knew it was an earthquake. However John was scrubbing himself vigorously in the shower, did not feel a thing. Now he is really bummed that he missed yet another earthquake. Later we learned from the news, the epicenter of the 5.9 magnitude earthquake was less than 100 kilometers away.

There have been promises of activities ever since we entered Chile. No wonder the poor boy is disappointed.

With signage like this, one would think that tsunamis should occur fairly often, but no luck so far.

New territory

We have been traveling south for almost four months in the tropics, Iquique, Chile, being our last stop. Iquique, at 20-degrees south latitude, was a mere 2 degrees to the north of the sun on January 2nd; the closest on this trip so far. The nearly shadowless midday intrigued us (see photo below).

From Iquique we took a 19-hour overnight bus to La Serena (30-degree south). The sun is now to the north and we have left the tropics. While we should feel right at home outside the tropics, I suspect having the sun to the north might be disorienting.

No wells around, so this numbered parking place will have to do. The photo features Sun-Ling with round hat and backpack.


Iquique is known for it's beaches; Playa Cavancha is the most famous. This shot is from Saturday, January 1, 2011.


Iquique has some interesting architecture, the Central Market for example.