The Pendleton Odyssey

I was massively excited about coming to Rapa Nui (mostly as a result of reading the excellent Jared Diamond book Collapse). It's sort of like the Galapagos of anthropology, as well as (possibly) being a microcosm of the way we are treating the world. And, weird and isolated as the place is, it definitely hasn't disappointed.

I mean, this place is reeeally isolated. Chile is 3700km to the east; Tahiti in French Polynesia is 4000 km to the west. It's so isolated that we don't believe it was colonised until the first millennium after Christ; and even then once it was colonised we don't think that the islanders had much contact with anyone else until the European era. Which meant that, unfortunately, when they cut down the last tree on the island they were a bit screwed: no wood hence no fires, no canoes (for fishing), no ropes (for building/transport/fishing nets), no tree cover for birds to live in... oops. And nobody to trade with. Which led to a bit of an apocalypse-type scenario. Anyway, more on this later.

The island today is home to about 4000 people, roughly half of them of Rapa Nui stock. It's small enough to drive around in a day easily, but there is only one town (Hanga Roa), where 95% of the people on the island live. The rest of the island is devoted to rebuilt statues and ceremonial sites, ruined sites, and the ground up bones of former ceremonial sites which have been used for walls to pen livestock in. The whole place is like a giant open-air museum. With wild horses walking around everywhere. We had a guided tour around several of the sites, the most important being the quarry where the giant stone heads - called moai were produced. This place was one of the most amazing sites we've been to on the trip - everywhere you look giant heads are poking out of the ground in all states of disrepair. As the ecological catastrophe developed on the island, they (sensibly) took the step of producing more and more bigger and bigger heads - there are about 400 in various states at the quarry, compared with only 900 found on the island at large. Quite an inventory...

The next day we hired a quad bike and took off ourselves around the dirt tracks. The bike came with lots of helpful safety warnings, like

1 - DO NOT USE on public roads
2 - DO NOT USE with more than one person

which filled us with confidence as you can imagine. Turns out that they're a pretty efficient way to get around when the roads are poor, we managed to fill in most of the gaps on the island that we hadn't seen the day before, including the beautiful crater lake.

The building of the larger and larger heads unfortunately but inevitably coincided with the cutting down of the last trees, leading to the ecological collapse which in turn led to a fairly vicious civil war as the sustainable human population adjusted itself. There was also a shift in the belief system away from the moai (which were all toppled and broken during the war) towards awarding respect as part of the Birdman contest. This basically involved, once a year, all the dozen or so tribes nominating a champion from amongst their young men, for a test of strength, fearlessness, and all that good stuff. The young braves would have to climb down the (fairly sheer) cliff at the side of the Rana Koa crater (a 300m drop to the sea), get past the crashing surf into the sea, swim a couple of hundred metres out to the motus (a couple of offshore rocky crags), avoiding the sharks while they did so, not get dashed to pieces on the far side, climb up onto the rocky shore, and wait there (for up to a month) until the black terns migrated back and laid their first eggs. Then, they would take the egg that they have found, strap it to their foreheads in a load of padding, and reverse the process! Including the 300m cliff climb. The first guy to bring back an undamaged egg would be top dog for the year. Obviously, a little bit gutting if you get to the top of the cliff and you've smashed your egg...

We also managed to fit in a couple of days diving, which was c-o-l-d, but interesting to see the different endemic fish (fun fact - islands generally support isolated populations of fish as well as land fauna, as most fish just hang around reefs or areas of interest, not cruising the ocean at wide) and on the last day diving around one of the motus we had 60m visibility! Which was pretty amazing. On the penultimate night we had a traditional dinner/dance combo - normally something we would have run a mile from as there is nothing more depressing than a load of really depressed people doing a dance but this was great fun, everyone seemed to be really enjoying it (probably because they were professionals and had taken the dance around the world already!).

We also met a man in a yellow sleeping bag (see link to the right). More on him when I can figure out how to upload pictures to a Mac...

We are in Rapa Nui, the navel of the world. Although technically part of Chile it definitely feels like we´ve left South America and arrived in Polynesia. The grass is green, the sun is shining and the sky is blue.

We haven´t done too much so far but initial impressions are of crashing surf, wild horses and the eponymous stone moai heads everywhere. Tour (and more excitement hopefully) tomorrow!

Jon

Another day, another bus ride over the Andes. We had only a couple of days to kill in Santiago; excitingly enough, it´s winter there and the mountains are very close... Close enough that you can do a day trip out there. We spent a day at Valle Nevado, which was fun to keep our hands in, but the snow wasn´t up to much and it all ended up being unbelievably expensive as we had to rent EVERYTHING. A Bailey´s and a hot chocolate to put it in came to $16!!

(and I forgot the camera, again. Sorry)

We managed to fit in some more good food as well; a great sushi joint, a PROPER curry house (Kiran please note), curiously located in a Best Western hotel; and a wonderful seafood restaurant called Puerto Fuy. A little bit too posh for scabby travellers such as us but lovely food. We started off with the best clam we´d ever tasted, encaged in a cheese gratin with some slightly sweet tomatoey stuff inside

and a selection of sea urchin prepared 5 ways, which had Angi in raptures

and then for mains, an interesting comparison of sea bass VS chilean sea bass. Didn´t even realise they were different fish, but although the chilean sea bass was very nice we preferred the sea bass, it was one of the nicest, meatiest, umami-est fish dishes I´d ever tasted. Nummm.

Finally the dessert was enlivened by a more-than-slightly-silly misting of an alcoholic beverage of your choice from a selection of mini perfume sprays. Pretentious? Yo?

And that´s it for South America! Next stop Polynesia: sunny skies & grass skirts (we hope)... So long Americas, and thanks for all the carbohydrates!

Jon

p.s. lots more bolivia/argentina/chile photos have been posted... unfortunately this bloody site keeps on losing the names. Sorry. Will update them all when I have a spare day or two...

Since the whole Macchu Picchu debacle we have stepped up our pace a bit in an effort to get to SE Asia and with it, curry and diving. Unfortunately this has meant that we have had to give very short shrift to Chile and Argentina, while fully recognising that they are both two wonderful countries. We´re planning the next trip back to Argentina already, positive that it´s a lovely place (especially if you can bring some wine back). These countries (or the major metropolitan areas thereof anyway) are pretty much first world countries now - I have to say it´s quite nice to be back somewhere familiar after 3 months in significantly more challenging places.

San Pedro de Atacama is, as the name suggests, on the Atacama desert, and hence is one of the driest places in the world. As its also pretty high up this makes it perfect for doing astronomy, hence why some of the worlds biggest land based telescopes are based here. We did a nighttime observatory tour (very cold), seeing the Moon, Jupiter, nebulae, binary stars, star cradle regions... all sorts.

From here we got a 23-hour bus south to Santiago de Chile. The food ration we received over this time totalled

1) HALF a ham and cheese sandwich (one sandwich, not two)
2) a carton of pineapple juice
3) four custard cream biscuits
4) a small pot of orange juice

Turbus, if you´re reading, you´re a disgrace.

We are flying out of Santiago to Easter Island in a few days but the lure of being so close to the Argentine border was too strong. We took another bus trip to Mendoza - 9 hours each way going right up into the alpine Andean passes, then passing through the beautiful, huge, craggy foothills laced with tiny vineyard freeholdings both sides. We were only in Mendoza for 36 hours (or to put it another way, two steak dinners and a steak sarnie for lunch) but it was worth it.

The first night we relied on the oldest trick in the book for tracking down the best example of a fairly prosaic type of food typical to a city (i.e. if you needed the best chippie in London, etc) - we asked the cabbies. Two separate cabbies confided in us that the best parrilladas in town were at the corner of Peru and Sarmiento. We randomly chose the Florencia.

At first it seemed like a bit of a "family" restaurant - not a good thing in the UK or the States as we feed our children crap generally, and the first impressions weren´t improved by one of the surly male waiters (not one of whom was under 40) shutting the door on Angi. The waiters turned out to be absolute gems though (I guess when you pay people more than minimum wage they start to take some pride in their jobs), steering us away from a tripe-heavy parillada set menu and bringing us instead a pair each of tasty chorizo and black puddings, two ENORMOUS chunks of ribs and what I think might have been the best bife de lomo steak we´ve ever had the privilege to have put in front of us. It was perfect. Crispy and slightly browned on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside with nary an inch of fat or wastage. We fell on it like a pack of wolves, pausing only to pad our stomachs slightly with garlic chips and wash it down with a fine bottle of malbec. And this all cost probably a third of what the same meal in London would have been.

The next day we spent very aimlessly and pleasantly wandering around Mendoza, on a beautiful clear, temperate winter´s day. It´s nice to be somewhere that feels like home, with a touch of winter sharpness in the air but still with the sun shining, and shining a little lower in the sky than the burning equatorial regions as well! Plus, weird as it sounds, it´s nice to experience a day that´s not strictly divided into 2 12-hour day/night periods. OK, OK, I´m just a homeboy far from home I guess...

[img=http://photos.travellerspoint.com/168448/P1050307.jpg thumb=http://photos.travellerspoint.com/168448/thumb_P1050307.jpg

The next night we took a taxi across town to another parillada called Don Mario. This joint was a little more civilized, and as we hadn´t been to a vineyard we decided to rise to the occasion by treating ourselves to a very nice bottle of Luigi Borga Malbec (thanks to my cousin Jack for the recommendation). We started off with some perfectly cooked sweetbreads - slightly crunchy on the outside, soft and almost rude on the inside, grilled with half a lemon over them. Nummy. For mains the waiter encouraged us to cast our vote on an epic contest - Bife De Lomo vs (half a) Chateaubriand! The meats were both, again, exceptional - today the lomo was a little saltier with a wonderful little layer of fat around the outside, while the chateaubriand, according to Angi, "tastes like babies". Again we ate until we could eat no more, and then toddled home.

(i forgot the camera - sorry. They did look pretty similar though; two pieces of beef the size of two clenched fists!)

And that was the end of our Argentina experience! This time, anyway.

Jon

We spent about 2 weeks in Bolivia, which I´m going to have to compress a little because we´re so behind on this blog and i´m determined it not feel like hard work. Finding a reliable computer & internet combination in Bolivia is something of a challenge.

From Titicaca we got the bus to La Paz. No, not Gareth, silly, that would be El Paz! La Paz is the highest capital in the world - and if the 3660m+ altitude doesn´t have you gasping for breath the fact that it all appears to be built out of 45 degree angled sections of pavement will. We spent a night here, excited at the fact that we found the Star of India, a so-called "British Indian Curry House". Fantastic, we thought! It´s felt like forever and a day since we had a curry. Unfortunately the manager was a div, the poppadums were minute and fishy and the madras was average, strangely potato-ey and gave me the trots something rotten for a week.

However, before I was aware of my impending stomach-related trouble we were on a plane to Rurrenebaque in the north of the country, which is the gateway to the Bolivian Amazon. This was one of the occasions where the journey was an experience in and of itself, as we flew with TAM (Transporte Aero Militario), which is essentially a Bolivian low-cost airline flying on decommissioned military planes from working military bases. Entertaining watching the squaddies march around carrying chairs and luggage for the plane but we weren´t really sure if we could take pictures of them without being shot for sedition or something! Also quite refreshing to have no pre-flight briefing, no security, no X-rays... less so being locked in a small room for 45 minutes pre-embarkation.

Anyway, we got there in the end, and signed up for a 3-day tour of the pampas. This turned into a bit of a Heart of Darkness experience for me due to aforementioned issues, which I shall now gloss over. The tour itself was OK, unfortunately it rained stairrods for most of the second day, but we got to see alligators, capybaras and pink river dolphins, and fish for pirañas! Angi caught a huge red piraña which we then ate for dinner. That´s the food chain in action for you. Just before asking us if we wanted to have a swim our guide informed us that they can strip a human body of flesh in 5 minutes flat. Nice...

Coming back the rain had meant that TAM had cancelled all their flights for the next 4 days. This was because the heavy military airplanes couldn´t land on the soft grass runway! So we ended up having to pay and extra $100 to fly the 300 km to La Paz in a minuscule 6-seater Cessna. We were absolutely terrified at first, as the plane was significantly smaller than a lot of cars we´d been travelling in, but it ended up being a fantastic ride once we realised we weren´t about to die.

Back in La Paz we decided to try and end our recent spate of bad luck by buying some good luck charms and having our fortune told by a magic man. Apparently, Angi is bad and I have an enemy (allegedly not Angi, someone from my work - I think I know who...). We will have lots of money but only one son. A couple days later we had our fortunes read by a pair of trained yellow and white budgerigars, who told us that I was a single young man and that Angi was a little girl who should play the lottery on terminals 3, 2 or 6. Not sure which one I prefer really.

From La Paz we headed south to Potosi, a dusty little colonial mining town with the distinction of being the highest city in the world. The main draw here is to do a tour of the working silver/zinc/lead mines. This was quite an eye-opener for me as I used to trade these commodities from a desk in London. We started the day getting togged up in waterproofs, wellies, hard hats and headlamps, had a brief tour round the processing plant (which was very basic and full of pools of noxious chemicals used to separate the ore from the scrap, sulphates, mercury and cyanide anyone?). From here we went into the mine itself. The tunnels started out high enough to walk through but before long we were sliding around on our bellies. The interchange between "floors" in the mine involved a scramble up/down a 45 degree rock face, with no guide ropes, no steps, no toeholds, walls and ceiling covered in asbestos, while wearing wellies which were at a minimum 2 sizes too big. The lower floors got hot too - 30 degrees plus, with no ventiliation and tasting the clouds of particles in the air. We talked to a couple of miners that we came across, mostly sitting in the dark on their own chewing coca leaves to keep them going. The most shocking was a 13-year old boy, working alone as his dad was too hungover, just at the start of working a 23-hour double shift, with almost no breaks and no food during that time. All this for a random but generally small amount of recoverable ore per day, not always enough to keep them above the poverty line. Sobering stuff - must remember not to complain about working conditions in the office. We were very glad to see the blue sky again after 3 hours entombed. Then at the end of the trip we goofed around with some live dynamite which was exciting, to say the least!

-this is me holding two live, lit dynamite bombs which exploded 90 seconds after this picture was taken. No shit!

From Potosi we caught an overnight chicken bus to Uyuni, another 1-horse desert town. The attraction here being the proximity to the biggest salt flats in the world - the size of Northern Ireland! We loaded up into a 4x4 the next day and were off. The flats are amazing - perspective crushes distance, and it seems like the only things in the world are the blue sky and white ground. Also some pictures here (er... at some point) from the Isla Pescados, a rocky outcrop of fossilized corals covered in ancient cacti. The rest of the tour was a little bit of an anticlimax, being a whizz around some coloured lagoons and high geysers (new Pendleton record - 5020m above sea level). The most notable thing about the latter days were the extreme bitter cold - down to minus 20 degrees C at the worst point. The last morning we got up at 4.30am and I was wearing 2 t-shirts, 2 longsleeves (1 thermal), 1 alpaca jumper, 1 hoodie, 1 waterproof, 1 pair leggings, 2 pairs socks, 1 pair jeans, 1 pair trekking trousers and a hat. Angi, as you can imagine, was wearing about double that and looked like the Michelin lady, but not smiling as much.

We were left at the border and caught a collectivo bus to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, our third country in a fortnight.