San Pedro II - Chile

9/14/05
The bad weather remained and again the trip got cancelled because of snow on the pass.
We took our time to visit the Museo Arqueologico Gustavo Le Paige de Walque in the Universidad del Norte. The museum holds the status of being one of the most remarkable and interesting museums in South America. It has an extraordinary range of Indian artifacts and remains. There are natural mummies, that actually bodies preserved due to the arid salty soil, ...





... including a child buried in a pottery urn and skulls which show malformation.



Another surprising thing was the paraphernalia for preparing, ingesting and smoking psychedelic plants and mushrooms used by the natives thousands of years ago. The tabs used to lay the drugs and the pipes to inhalate are pure art masterpiece.

The museum is small but it is dense in information; it covers the period from the early tribes of the area until the Incas raise and fall to the Spanish.

At the end of the day we wandered to the limits of San Pedro; this is the road on which we arrived a couple of days ago.



At dawn we had a fantastic view of the Licancabur (Note how it is covered in snow now). Just for a few minutes, with the last beams of sunlight, the sky became pinkish and the arid dusty desert with snow capped mountain on the background and the moon high in the sky as bright as a lamp composed a scene that we had never come close to imagine.



The following pictures should have been published on the last post. It is actually the view from the top of the mount where we visited Tulor.





9/15/05
One more morning of waking up early and of waiting. Again the guide showed up to let us know that nobody would go since the weather was still bad and the road could not be cleaned due to very heavy winds.

With so much free time we ended up finishing our books, so the mission of the day was to find a new one. This is a very common practice throughout Asia and South America; in lots of hostels and Internet cafes you can exchange your book for another one for a dollar.

[Cambodia Flash-Back
I want to recommend here the book I've just finished reading about the atrocities in Cambodia, First They Killed My Father, written by Loung Ung, and it tells her own story through these tragic years of the Khmer Rouge regime. It is really interesting because she was only five years old when the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Phen and the narration is from a kid's point of view in the middle of the mess. But if you couldn't watch Schindler's List to the end, don't go for this book, because it is much harder.]

Now back to Chile, in the newspaper we read about a group of 14 Chilean tourists that went to climb a volcano around San Pedro and ended up trapped there. The army was looking for them but had no news yet. A second group was trapped somewhere else.

Because the winds were too strong and the sand was flying around, it was not really enjoyable to walk outside on this day, so we went back, read a bit and worked on the blog. It was the first time during the trip that we stayed so long in the same place without doing much. At least we were rested by now!!

9/16/05
It was unbelievable but true, the trip was cancelled again, Angie was steaming by the ears. We cancelled the tour with the agency and looked for another, the biggest one in town. Indeed, it was the only agency offering the tour starting the following day through a different route by skipping some of the attractions usually visited.

The alternative route added around 500km of crossing the desert to reach a lower pass in the Andes, but it was the only practicable road since it was still snowing in the highest part of the mountain. We booked with them for the following day even though we would miss the classical colored lakes (Laguna Verde e Laguna Colorada) of the altiplano with the flamingos. In the other hand we could not wait forever....

The second group of tourists had been rescued but the 14 people that went to climb the volcano were still stuck somewhere up there. At least the Chilean army made contact with them via radio and everybody seemed fine. Some soldiers brought them food supply but stayed with them since it was too dangerous to go back down. Imagine you go for a one day walk on your vacation and end up stuck in a basic shelter for a week in a snowstorm!!!

For us the day was more interesting than we expected though; San Pedro was getting ready to celebrate Chile's Independence holiday and there were lots of festivities happening.

During the day students paraded through the dusty streets of San Pedro ending at the main square where many other presentations happened.



Every one was dressed typically from kids to grandmas.









Empanadas (baked dough filled with meat, onion and olives) and sodas were distributed to every one for free.

A folks group played the cueca, the national dance, ..







... and adults and kids were dancing on the square. It is a couple dance in which the girl waves a piece of white cloths in front of the guy, while they get closer and distant again.











At night we had much more; many tents were set for the party that usually goes on all night long. We saw the official opening by the local authorities, the mayor and the father.



Of course there was a speech, but then surprisingly the funny father started dancing cueca with the mayor in the middle of the crowd inviting everybody to join.



It kept going on with some patriotic songs. After a while there was not only one group playing, but many, and two 'saloons' were set up with live music (in good Portuguese: um verdadeiro bailão) plus small groups playing outside.



We enjoyed everything but missed the chicha, a fermented corn drink highly appreciated around here.

It was quite cold though and we had to start our tour to Bolivia the following morning at 7 a.m., so we went back to our room early.