Surprises in South America

Guarulhos Airport

Going through the immigration, baggage claim, customs, tourist information, to the bus stop, and then by bus to the closest metro station (Tatuapé) was one of the fastest and smoothest "leaving of the airport" that I've ever experienced, completely contrary to what Rough Guides and some travel podcasts claim.

View from the 41st floor of Edifício Itália

Edifício Itália used to be the tallest building in São Paulo. (Unclear, what holds the record now.) For 15 BRL one can walk outside of the 41st floor restaurant and view the city from every direction. The view from the Empire State Building comes to mind, but compared to NYC, São Paulo is much uglier, more disorganized, less colorful (e.g. there are no yellow cabs, the park (Ibirapuera) is not visible at all).

132 GB memory stick

People are selling large size memory sticks on the street for very cheap (e.g. 50 BRL). Is this a scam?

Ibirapuera fish

The ponds of Ibirapuera park are filled with swans, ducks and fish who all fight with each other over the breadcrumbs that people feed them with. I've never seen such concentration of fish before.

São Paulo buses

The buses are identified by a 6-digit number. Why so many? In the bus there is a ticket seller and a turnstile that both allocate a considerable space and make entering the bus a hassle, especially with bags.

Bixiga (Bela Vista)

Historical Italian district in São Paulo. Small colorful houses next to skyscrapers.

Long-distance buses

The long-distance buses (e.g. from São Paulo to Rio) are comfortable (AC, wide seats), reasonably fast (6h with a lunch stop) and cheap (62.50 BRL).

Aparecida Basilica

On the way from São Paulo to Rio (6h bus journey) passed a massive church. Later it turned out to be the Aparecida Basilica, one of the largest catholic temples in the world. The whole setting (the church, a footbridge leading to it, and a neighboring town) looked weird and out of proportion.

Jesus in the mist

Brazilian architecture

Brazilian architecture is dominated by big and ugly skyscrapers.

"Baboon"

Some guy tried to grab and run away with our photo camera in down-town Rio (reminding a bit a baboon who stole a pack of our biscuits in Livingstone, Zambia). The camera was attached to the camera bag which Cs wore around her body. So the "baboon" failed but created a nasty surprise nevertheless.

The structure of Vila Canoas

Vila Canoas (one of the smaller favelas of Rio) is a complex 3D construction covering a hillside. All its narrow streets, little squares, staircases, even rivers, are inside this construction.

"19A23"; "Rio de Janeiro x Belo Horizonte"

Our bus from Rio to Belo Horizonte was going to leave from platform "19A23". There were platforms numbered 1 to about 60, and grouped by letters (A, B, ...), about 10 numbers for each group. Platform "19A23" didn't exist. We tried but couldn't figure out on our own where we are supposed to wait for the bus. So we asked the tourist information. Turned out that "A" stands for – (ndash) in Portuguese (Brazilian Portuguese?), i.e. 19–23, i.e. the bus will leave from either one of platforms 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23. These platforms are all next to each other and are used by the same bus company.

In some cases an "x" is used to denote –, e.g. in "Rio de Janeiro x Belo Horizonte".

Igreja da Ordem Terceira de São Francisco

Many life size Jesuses, stone facade, ossuário, azulejo.

Glazed tiles (azulejo)

In the Carmo district of the center of Salvador, many houses are covered with tiles, making them look like bathrooms turned inside out.

Later it turned out that the tiles are even a bigger deal in São Luis, where even the traffic lights are covered with tiles (actually a tile-imitating wallpaper).

Carybé 27 panels of cedar wood depicting candomblé orixas of Bahia

Candomblé is a religion practiced mostly in Bahia. It mixes Christianity with African religions. Orixas are the candomblé deities. Carybé is a Brazilian artist.

Candomblé

I vaguely remember a description of a candomblé ceremony in "Foucault's Pendulum" (or maybe it was umbanda, a related religion, that was described there). What we got to see in a small terreiro in Pelhourinho was a lot more boring. A group of 5–7 people walking in circle in a small room singing, led by a drum beat produced by about 4 teenage kids in the corner of the room. After about 45 minutes, one of the walkers fell into "trance" (i.e. had difficulties walking, but seemed very happy). The ceremony then continued outside where everybody just watched the gentleman-in-trance. He was walking up and down the street, shouting and occasionally drinking from an half-empty bottle of whiskey. (Was his trance mainly fueled by the first half?) After a while everybody was asked to join in and circle around in front of the terreiro building. This seemed to mark the end of the event, but as we left, we don't know if it actually ended.

Bonecos gigantes de Olinda

Giant puppets used during the Olinda carnival were exhibited and demonstrated in a small museum at Mercado de Ribeira in Olinda. A bit scary.

Aquarium fish sold in Recife

About 100 meters of little shops selling aquarium equipment as well as fish. Fish are kept in plastic bags and small jars. Some were already dead.

Dunes and lagoons @ Parque National dos Lançois

The dunes are not so high as in Namibia and the sand is much whiter but there are blue rain water lagoons between the dunes. Little fish even live in them.

Jesus as a brand name

Drank a Guarana Jesus (2.50 BRL).

Tide

At 9 o'clock the view to the São Francisco skyscraper area was over an ugly mud field. Now at 14 o'clock the bay is all filled with water.

Birds

Black vultures fighting over food with each other in the ports of Belem, or just sitting on the roofs of the houses. They look dangerous.

A huge number of parrots flying from tree to tree in the Praça Justo Chermont in front of Basilica de Nossa Senhora de Nazaré (there are about 3 trees). The sound that they produce can be heard some three blocks away.

Hammock deck

The larger river boats that go e.g. from Belem to Manaus officially take about 500 passengers. There are very few cabins/suites on the boat (about 10), so most people travel on the hammock deck and sleep in their hammocks (a trip like Belem–Manaus takes 5 nights). The hammock decks can get very crowded as there doesn't seem to be any enforced limit as to how many passengers the boat accepts. I've tried to count a couple of times how many hammocks there actually are, but always gotten confused. There are no designated hammock slots, just a set of iron poles running from the front to the back of the deck where people can sling their hammocks, often on top of each other, or along the sides of the boat. This makes counting very difficult. The people are remarkably friendly to each other, I haven't noticed any form of aggression take place even though people have to travel for several days in such a compact form.

River people

About 15h from Belem upstream (on a slow boat) the riversides are covered by a jungle unlike seen elsewhere along the Rio Amazonas (where it's often ranches and small villages). There are occasional long houses on stilts and when their people see a boat approaching they hop into their canoes and paddle onto the middle of the river. The people on the boat throw clothes wrapped in plastic bags into the river which the canoe people then collect. Some of the river people hook their canoes to the boat (which continues moving without slowing down) and come on board to ask for donations (in the form of clothes). It is usually children e.g. one canoe contained three little girls who all successfully jumped on the boat like little pirates. Grown-ups sometimes come to sell their food products (palm heart, [BUG: what else]) on the boat. I guess their food is quite welcome as it provides some alternative to the daily rice+beans+spaghetti+chicken+farinha terror.

Flooded forest next to a sandy beach

Such visually nice contrasts can be found along the Tapajos river.

Pieces of 7000-year-old pottery all over the beach

Rubber production and its end-products

Henry Ford and Prince Charles

To ensure stable rubber supply Henry Ford established two rubber-producing towns close to Santarém — Belterra and Fordlândia. By now Fordlândia doesn't operate anymore but Belterra is still active. Both look like typical little American towns. Henry Ford never visited the Amazonas being afraid of malaria. (We did not visit these towns as both were hard to reach, especially Fordlândia. This info here is based on the "Rough Guide to Brazil" and our local guide.)

See also "The Ruins of Fordlândia" by Alan Bellows.

Prince Charles is for some reason interested in supporting the local communities along the Tapajos river, e.g. a few months before us he visited the Maguari community to officially open a computer/internet center.

Fish jumping into the boat

Small scorpion

Caterpillars on the tree

Meeting of Rio Tapajos and Rio Amazonas

Tapajos is transparent/turquoise, Amazonas has milky coffee color. Their meeting is clearly visible as a sharp change of color.

Glow worm (?) Fire fly (?)

Saw a glow worm (the bug with a blinking light in its butt) up close. Other bugs come to the boat as well, attracted by light, e.g. it's impossible to work with the netbook after dark as the bugs would cover the screen.

Meeting of Rio Negro and Rio Solimões (Encontro das Águas)

Negro is black and warm, Solimões has milky coffee color and is much colder (by 15 or 6 degrees?, different sources disagree). Their meeting is clearly visible as a sharp change of color, and if you put your hand into the water while the boat crosses the boundary then the change in temperature is clearly felt.

Sounds of nature at Pousada Uacari

An invisible source is roaring in the jungle. It sounds like a big monster but is actually a group of (small) howler monkeys.

The channel/river that the lodge is floating on is filled with pirarucu (pirakas kala). It's a 2m long fish that likes to jump partly out of the water creating a loud splash sound. This happens about once every minute.

Egrets preparing to sleep

Leaving the Mamiraua lake at sundown we passed by a couple of trees where egrets (huge white birds) were preparing to spend the night. The green trees were now rendered half white. The egrets stick together on the same tree for the night for security reasons. Other birds, e.g. the smaller snowy egrets and even cormorants are allowed to stay on the same trees as well.

UPDATE (2010-05-17): Such egret-trees are by no means specific to the Amazonas, e.g. passed by a similar tree on the Esplanade in Cairns, Australia, every evening when we walked to the Woolshed pub for the free pasta dish.

Arrival to Iquitos

Arriving to Iquitos from Tabatinga on a fast boat I expected another Amazonian town, something like Tefé but bigger. However, the contrast to Brazil was huge. The public transport is largely based on motocarros (3-wheeled modified motor bikes) giving the town an Asian feel; people are more aggressively selling their stuff (taxi service, jungle trips, T-shirts), reminding East-Africa a bit; the down-town area (around Plaza de Armas) has several establishments (hostels, restaurants, tour operators) owned by an American expat community.

Right after arriving in Iquitos we decided to take the moto-taxi to the main port to check for departures to Pantoja (border town to Ecuador). At the port we immediately attracted everybody's attention (children, beggars, drunks). The boat (Jeisawel) looked like a cargo boat, was small and run-down and was going to leave on "Saturday or Monday".

Market and the water city of Belén

Just a 10-minute walk away from Plaza de Armas is the extremely busy and crowded market of Belén where one can buy everything from radios and firecrackers to worms (which locals eat for snacks) and armadillo meat. One side street is dedicated entirely to medicinal plants (e.g. natural VIAGRA).

Walking down the staircase to the river one reaches the part of town that gets flooded during the wet season. The houses are thus built on stilts (there are schools, churches, hospitals), and even further on the river the houses are floating (there is an Amazonian tree [BUG: name?] with excellent floating properties, this is used as the foundation of the buildings). For 7 Soles a canoe man will take you for a tour around the floating city, including a trip to Victoria regia, the huge lily plant, that is growing in somebody's "back yard". The beginning of the trip, i.e. around the area where water meets dry land, is a disgusting ride among floating garbage and waste, Belém is very dirty.

Belén has 60,000 inhabitants (the total number of people living in Iquitos is 400,000).

Feeding the Amazonian manatees

About 8km from down-town Iquitos there is a manatee orphanage (free entry, donation expected). The project has saved 8 manatees from the local communities, GPS-tagged them, and plans to reintroduce them into the wild at some point. The manatees are kept in two pools — 4 older ones in a bigger pool (we didn't see them surface) and 4 smaller ones in a smaller pool. The smaller ones are curious and frequently stick their heads out of the water. They like to eat all the time but strongly prefer milk to the water lettuce that abundantly covers the pool. The guests are allowed to feed the manatees with milk from baby bottles. This is the highlight of the whole experience. The concentrated way (the little eyes closed) how the manatee sucked the milk was surprising.

This project is coordinated by the Dallas World Aquarium and is quite new (2 years) so that our guide books do not mention it. We have have added a section to the Wikitravel's article on Iquitos now.

A little known fact: the manatee is the closest living relative to the elephant and to the rock hyrax, see also Wikipedia: Paenungulata.

Weird animals in the Quistococha zoo

10km from down-town Iquitos by lake Quistococha is a zoo that displays the South American animals (puma, peccary, tapir, capybara, various monkeys (squirrel, spider, red uakari, capuchin), otter, cayman, river turtle, pink dolphin, coati, pirarucu [BUG: what's the Spanish name?], macaw and other birds). Most animals are kept in poor conditions in small and smelly cages. Surprising was a parrot that whistled and said "Hola!" (I haven't heard a parrot talk before) and an ant-eater who was roaming freely about the zoo. Also, got a better view to the pink dolphin. In Mamiraua, they only briefly showed their back. Here the dolphin stuck out his long rostrum for a longer period of time, expecting to be fed and also turned in the water, almost touching its tail with the rostrum. (Unlike other dolphins, the pink river dolphins have extremely flexible bodies, allowing them to effectively fish in the flooded forest.)

Big waves

The waves breaking at the Huanchaco beach were bigger than I had every seen before. People weren't really swimming in the water they were just jumping in the waves. Many people were also surfing.

The next day when we visited Huanchaco as part of the Chan Chan tour the waves were even bigger. There was a Canadian guy on our tour who had been surfing at home, in the cold Canadian waters. He said that these waves here are small, and that the better surfing beaches in Peru are supposed to be in Mancora (close to the border to Ecuador).

Moche (Mochica) culture and a Soviet cartoon

Before the organized tour to Huaca de la Luna, we visited the small Museo Arquelógico de la Universidad de Trujillo, a few blocks from Plaza de Armas. The museum focuses on the pre-Inca cultures found in this region of Peru, mainly Moche (approx. 100BC–700AD) and Chimú (approx. 900AD–1400AD). The Moche people had created a lot of pottery with painted figures on them. It was surprising to realize that I had seen these figures before, in a Soviet cartoon that scared/impressed me when I was a child.

I didn't remember much of the cartoon. I think it started with explaining the setup of the society of the characters. There were three levels: gods, people, the under water world. It was possible to move between these worlds, e.g. the gods descended to the level of people once, fisherman pulled out fish (or the other way around), etc. The cartoon then told a story, don't remember anything of it, but a central figure there was a snake-like animal (a negative character in the story) who at the end of the story was forced to live forever on the Moon. (That's why the Moon has the black spots, it is this animal.)

Huaca de la Luna is a temple/pyramid built on a hillside. Whenever a king died, he was buried in the pyramid, all the rooms filled with bricks, and a new layer built on top of the previous layer (now a tomb). This arrangement has made sure that all the rooms and their wall decorations are very well preserved, although there are marks of abuse by the conquistadores and the El Niño. (The nearby Huaca del Sol has suffered much more through conquistadores who diverted the Moche river to go through the building in an effort to destroy it.) So the visitor can see the real thing, the archaeologists have only removed a few original bricks to display the rooms of the lower levels of the pyramid and cleaned up the wall decorations. (In the historical Chimú site of Chan Chan it's different, there the old city is recreated from scratch, on top of the original foundation.)

The wall decorations showed only a very few characters (monster face, spider or crab, a snake-like figure, a warrior). The same figure was repeated multiple times. In the snake-like figure (that was described on an information stand as "lunar being") I recognized the cartoon character that was forced to live on the Moon. I had many questions to the guide — Has there any pottery been found at the huacas? Is this the main archaeological site of Moche culture in Peru? Did the characters have names? (I was sure that in the cartoon the "lunar being" was called something else.) Are the Moche legends known? — but he didn't really know or wasn't that willing to answer. Next to the temple a museum is being built, it will probably tell a more detailed story of the Moche culture along with displaying the pottery. When we where there it was still closed. So my efforts to find out more about the background and sources of the Soviet cartoon failed.

Finding more information about the cartoon on the internet was not straight-forward. It went something like this:

1. made an assumption that the cartoon was produced by Soyuzmultfilm, the main Soviet animation studio;
2. made an assumption that most information about this cartoon is found in the Russian-speaking web;
3. searched for "Союзмультфильм Перу", resulting in a lot of results, none of which seemed relevant;
4. searched for "Союзмультфильм Перу Moche", resulting in 2 irrelevant results, but both providing the Russian translation for `Moche';
5. searched for "Союзмультфильм Перу Мочика" and found "Братья-близнецы", an article in the journal "Вокруг Света" as the first result.

This article gives a full description of the cartoon along with pictures. I read it using Google Translate. The translation is linguistically poor but otherwise correct, or at least compatible with my memories of the cartoon that now come back to me. The main characters in the story are two brothers (some sort of semi-gods) who come to people to give them food, educate them and fight with their monsters. One of the monsters is the snake-like being Rekuay. Rekuay is difficult to fight but loses in the end and escapes to the Moon.

Later also tried to search for "Soyuzmultfilm Moche" and on the first results' page found a link to a blog entry "Video Mochicas" that embeds a 6 minute YouTube film that shows fragments of the cartoon (the full cartoon is 17 minutes in length). Also, found that the cartoon has an entry in the myltik.ru database.

[BUG: another video]

Bus security

When entering the bus your fingerprint is taken. After everybody has sat down a person comes in and takes a picture of each face with a small video camera. Remained unclear why this is necessary and how is the gathered data handled. This only happened on the way from Trujillo to Aguas Verdes (bus company El Dorado) but not from Lima to Trujillo.

Bus from Huaquillas to Quito

Bus (company?, your average Tallinn-Tartu bus, but used for long-distance). Duration 10? hours. Things seen during the trip:

• The altitude change from 0m to 2800m happened during the last couple of hours.
• Drove between large banana plantations on both sides of the road.
• Houses on stilts over a lake (swamp?) with long and unstable looking walkways from the road to the door.
• Police check 3 times during the trip.
• People preparing for the New Year's Eve celebration, e.g. by making/selling cardbord puppets, e.g. saw 10 Benders (the Futurama character) at one streetcorner.

Pululawa crater and fog

I naively hoped to see some bubbling lava in the Pululawa crater (depth: 200m?, area: ?), but instead it offered a view to a small village, as if on the palm of your hand, which was also surprising. The fog was pulling in, completely blocking the view, and then again revealing the village.

We were told that local children walk up and down along a steep path to go to school every day. There seems to be a bigger road as well at the other end of the crater to allow cars to enter the crater.

One can easily arrange a 2h trip to the Pululawa crater from the Cuidad de Mitad del Mundo. Most of the time on this trip is unfortunately spent in a weird Temple of the Sun, which seems to be nothing more than a personal project of some artist (Cristobal Ortega?).

Hummingbird at 4650m

Briefly saw a hummingbird at the top of the Pichincha volcano. Is this the high altitude hummingbird, genus Oreotrochilus?

Cock fight

After reading about an Otavalo cock fight in The Cock Fight by AndySD the event was not that surprising anymore, but still interesting. In our case the losing cocks did not die, although there was blood and lots of feathers on the arena after the fight.

The Otavalo tourist information claimed that cock fights in Otavalo have stopped (didn't understand the reason), but still pointed out the location where the fights used to take place (Lonely Planet mentions this location as well). When we were on our way there, a local policeman approached us in good English to find out if we are lost. We said that we are interested in cock fights. The policeman pointed out the location and highly recommended the event. Asking some locals, everybody confirmed that cock fights take place, but everybody was unclear when does it exactly start (6-8 pm). It eventually started around 10pm, we stayed there till midnight.

Basilica del Voto Nacional

Gothic-style church built around 1895 (?); climbing the towers; sculptures of South American animals and birds (puma/jaguar, iguana, monkey, anteater, cayman, turtle, frigatebird, hawk, pelican, duck), in addition to the more traditional gargoyles.

Weird village of Quilotoa

On the crater rim; the crater hosts a 250m deep lake; entry to village is 2 USD for tourists; very cold (unless it's midday and the sun is shining); every building is a hostal; everybody is selling small paintings depicting Quilotoa and Cotopaxi, they call them art naif (look a bit like African tingatinga paintings); children beg; lots of animals (mostly dogs, bus also llamas); all women (regardless of age, 5y or 85y) wear the same clothing (at all times): black shoes, white stockings, short skirt, blouse (?), vest, kaabu; the local people speak Quechua.

Volcanic eruptions

The Tungurahua volcano above the town of Baños has been more active since 1999, with a couple of major eruptions that have caused the whole town to be evacuated. Smaller eruptions seem to occur daily. A company takes people every night at 9pm to a viewing platform 400m higher than the town to observe the eruptions.

It was quite cloudy and I didn't think volcanoes erupt very frequently, so what we actually saw during approx. 1 hour on the viewing platform was surprising. There were about 10 eruptions — first a thundering sound then some red glow with some red dots. A couple of times the activity was bigger — the mountain (which wasn't otherwise visible because of clouds and darkness) was painted red, the red lava was flowing while more pieces of lava were thrown out of the mountain. Each sighting lasted for about 20 seconds before the lava cooled down and became invisible.

More volcanic activity

Now observed during daytime (15–16 o'clock) from the hillside across the river from Baños. Every couple of minutes a tower of thick smoke burst out of the volcano. With the binoculars one could also observe little stones (?) emerging from the smoke (i.e. they were little relative to the surroundings).

According to the advisory 12 Jan 2010 - 2318 UTC -- TUNGURAHUA 1502-08 ECUADOR that was issued for that period of time:

RMK: THERE HAS BEEN SOME STRONGER BURSTS OF ASH
OVER THE PAST 3 HRS AND THRU CLOUDS A PLUME CAN
NOW BE SEEN EXTDG W AROUND 100 NM.

See all the current advisories at Current Volcanic Ash Advisories Washington VAAC. It seems that the recent activity of Tungurahua has started only on the 29th of December. Before that it was quiet until June 2009.

Guayaquil cemetery

Crosses on a 40-degree hillside.

Swimming marine iguana

We had seen already several animals at the Puerto Ayora port (marine iguanas, sea lions, pelicans, etc.), but didn't expect to see a marine iguana swimming. The swimming resembled floating, as its legs did not move. Nevertheless the change of position was very rapid and directed. Darwin described it like this

When in the water this lizard swims with perfect ease and quickness, by a serpentine movement of its body and flattened tail — the legs being motionless and closely collapsed on its sides.

see The Voyage of the Beagle. Chapter 17 — Galapagos Archipelago.

Bahia Tortuga

Flat reflecting white sand beach.

Lava rocks: lots of marine iguanas and Sally Lightfoot crabs.

Two tortoises on the roadside

2km from Puerto Ayora, at the main (only) road from Puerto Ayora to Bellavista. Eating grass.

Tortoise eating a papaya

El Chato farm

Long lava tunnel

At El Chato. The tunnel is much longer than at El Mirador, some 100m.

Animal behavior

• Fish fighting over a piece of bread (next to the boat)
• Sea lions fishing (observed while snorkeling)
• Lava heron with a piece of crab
• Two male marine iguanas fighting

Walking on a lava flow

Santiago Island, across the channel from Bartolome. Flow from a 126-year-old eruption.

Animal behavior (observed while snorkeling)

• Penguins fishing
• Playful sea lion
• Sea turtle swimming
• 5–6 white-tipped reef sharks circling around you

Animal behavior

• Black turtles mating (observed from small boat)

Lighter

In the Machala–Piura bus, the bus driver woke me up around 4 o'clock in the morning and wanted to borrow my lighter. It took me a while to figure out what he wanted (not knowing the Spanish word for `lighter'). Why did he need one? How did he know that I have one? (I had almost forgotten that I carry it with me, having not taken it out from the bag for months.)

Pisco cemetery

Concentration of birds on Ballestas

I had not seen such concentration of birds before. On the photo, these are all birds, the large flying thing is a pelican, the black dots in the background are guano cormorants, in the middle there are probably peruvian boobies.

Nazca lines

The flight over the Nazca lines with Aero Condor lasted 35 minutes and visited some 15 figures and huge number of lines and trapezoids. You can repeat this flight in Google Maps/Earth (kml, map), there it is less noisy and does not induce vomiting.

I had never flown in such a tiny airplane (Cessna C172, 3 passengers and the pilot), so already this was surprising. The lines were less surprising than expected, there were many dry river beds, dirt roads, some graffiti etc. which made the lines less stand out. Also, as there is nothing else on the pampa, it is difficult to estimate/appreciate the size of the figures and lines. The Panamericana that crosses the pampa (and a few figures) helps a bit in putting things into perspective.

Cactus/worm/paint farm

The Cantalloc aqueducts were surprising but what surprised me even more was a small cactus field right next to the aqueducts. All the cactuses were half-white from some infection. I thought that locals have simply failed to fight this infection but the guide then told that the focus of this farm is not the cactus but a white worm called cochinilla, the cactuses are just its food.

The cochinilla worm, when crushed, reveals a surprisingly large quantity of red paint inside it. The locals have been using this natural paint to color their textiles — the color is said to be long-lasting and bright.

Riding down the longest slope on Cerro Blanco

Fiesta Patronal de la Santisima Virgen de la Candelaria in Cabanaconde

Arriving in Puno

People of lake Titicaca

The Uros people who live on reed islands. The knitting boys of the Taquile Island.

Llama fetuses @ Mercado de las Brujas, La Paz

Rain water flow from El Alto to La Paz

Mine visit

Buying dynamite, wasabi, 96-degree alcohol.

Crawling 30m to level 2.

Miners.

Salar de Uyuni

Geysers of Sol de Mañana

Had never seen geysers before...

San Pedro de Atacama

The change of environment was very rapid. We were at the Bolivian border point, empty and cold. And then just one hour later, having descended 2000m, we found ourselves in San Pedro, a cute little desert town, white houses, streets not paved, restaurants and tourist agencies everywhere, very hot. Everything is expensive.

Dogs and cats of Valparaiso

Large dog/cat food stores close to the bus terminal. There is some food for hamsters and humans as well, but the main focus of the stores is dog and cat food.

Photos of Yamana, Selk'nam, etc. indians

Saw them first in Puerto Montt, on postcards sold everywhere in town. Most surprising are photos of one of the last Hain ceremonies, photographed by missionaries in the early 20th century.

Pio XI glacier

It is large (the largest in South America and 3rd largest in the world), we approached it on sea (it descends into the Fiordo Eyre (?)), the color is very intense artificial blue (the only thing visible from the sea is the ablation zone which is 90% ice). We even saw a piece of it splash into the water with a thundering sound.

Pio XI is one of the few glaciers in the world that is increasing, as at the top (the accumulation zone) it is snowing non-stop. Our guide couldn't really explain why the nearby glaciers do not get the same amount of snow and are decreasing (the Chilean ice sheet here has 100+, maybe even 1000+, glaciers). Instead he told a story about Cachet (?), a glacier (and its lake) that disappeared, then reappeared, and disappeared again, all in a matter of a few days.

Wind

The wind that we experienced during the first day in the Torres del Paine National Park blew me away. We knew that Torres del Paine is going to be windy, but not that windy that it almost blows you off the path. It would actually be dangerous to hike over rockier parts of the Torres in such a wind. Fortunately, our first hike (to the Las Carretas camp) was over a plain area. (A couple of days later we hear of a hiker whose tent was blown into the lake.)

Mice

After the first night in the park we woke up to a nasty surprise: the mice had chewed large holes into one of our eating bowls (the bowls are made of some sort of rubber). We had left the bowls in front of the tent to wash them in the morning when there is light so that we can find the water source (we reached the first camp during sunset). We didn't actually see the mice, so maybe it was another animal (e.g. fox, puma, guanaco).

Patagonian landscapes

Perito Moreno

Mumm

Rio Gallegos, Juliaca, buffet restaurant, Chinese?, mumm (Buñuelo?)

Woodpecker pecking

Rabbits hopping all over the place

Landing in Buenos Aires

Domestic flights (e.g. Ushuaia-BA) land at the Jorge Newbery Airport which is almost in the middle of the city. Our landing took place after the sun had set and the lights in BA had been turned on. BA is a relatively flat city, didn't notice any hills. The lights extended to as far as eyes could tell creating a beautiful image.

Coatis of Iguazu Falls National Park

Galloping on a horse

Estrella is a female horse who was attacked by a jaguar 6 months ago. The bites are still visible on her back but otherwise she has recovered. Estrella is used to tourists, i.e. lazy, changing from trotting to walking whenever the guide is not pushing her.

For a short while the horse was pushed to gallop which was a new experience for me, felt like flying, almost slid off the saddle.

Computer science books in São Paulo

South America has not seemed like the best place for buying books. There are hardly any bookstores and very few English books are available. E.g. during the first 40 days in Brazil we kept looking for an English Lonely Planet about South America but couldn't find it anywhere.

A surprise hit me in downtown São Paulo, where close to Praça da Republicá we found a small bookstore selling science books, most of them in English. The selection of computer science books was weird — for example,

• Enn Tõugu. Knowledge Based Programming. (published in 1987, price now: 60 BRL)
• Christian Jacquemin. Spotting and Discovering Terms through Natural Language Processing.

The first book is by an Estonian author, and the second is a book that was relevant to me when I was writing my MSc thesis.