Latitude 25°16' S: The Friday morning Asuncion--Yanguaron, Paraguay local

February 27, 2010
Asuncion, Paraguay

Friday morning on the Asuncion--Yanguaron local. I'm bumping along on an ancient bus. Ramrod straight bench seats. It´s early in the day, and the temperature´s already 33º(92º) and climbing! Part of me doesn´t think I´ll survive the heat and humidity, and the whole day is still ahead of me.

Summer in Asuncion.

I sit at the back of the bus, next to an open window. Full view of the 37 km ride that will take 90 minutes just to see a church that was built in 1572. The journey is often more than the destination.

Only a few of us board at the Central Station in Asuncion. Gives me plenty of time to read some of the graffiti on the backs of the seats:

KOMANDO THOMSON
Marca (Dial) 0998 7864-4596 para las chicas!
Puto Alfonso! Oohkaaay Someone´s got a grudge.
Dios es amor!

Graffiti covers graffiti. I'd love to be able to read all of it.

The bus stops all the time. People get on, get off. No one stays on for very long. A group of high school boys get on, speak a rapid fire mix of Guarani and Spanish. Everyone´s bilingual--Guarani at home, Spanish at work and school. They check out every-tight jeaned girl in the back of the bus, look at each other, raise their eyebrows, then laugh. They´re fun to watch.
Two soldiers get on, automatic rifes slung over their shoulders. Not much chance of getting my pocket picked on this trip. The first time I saw this sort of thing was 30 years ago. 30 years ago! Israel, summer of 1980. Soldiers everywhere, each of them carrying their weapons. Public buses, long distance busses, every street corner, tops of buildings. Now I never even notice this sort of thing.

Vendors. I love public transportation in this country! All sorts of things to buy. Guys get on, ride for awhile, get off. Chipas. Everyone´s got chipas. It´s one of Paraguay´s great culinary gifts. Round rolls, baked, filled with yummy Queso Paraguay. I think it would impossible to replicate the recipe at home. I buy more than one.

Chocolate donuts. One kid is selling hot dog rolls. Fruits. Pargaguay is sub-tropical and everything grows here. Apples. bananas, sweet, sweet pineapple, mangos, papayas, plums, peaches. All on the bus.

One woman gets on with a wicker basket full of freshly killed chickens. Chickens! It´s in the mid 90´s for pete´s sake.

¨Oh, yes, I´ll have one chicken. Double wrap it in a refigerated bag, please.¨

Right!

Boys get on and off selling lottery tickets and newspapers. They´re 12, maybe 14. No more. Probably younger. Tuesday was the first day of the new school year. It´s 10:00 a.m. Why aren´t they in school? Things like that bother me.

There´s no end of things to buy. Kitchen towels. Who´d think of selling kitchen towels on a bus? Several guys have built carrying cases that resemble the kind cigarette girls carried in movies from the the 1930´s. It´s got all sorts of stuff: candy, cigarettes, lighters, sun glasses, gum. More than once I buy a few things. I´m still a candy addict.

One guys tries to peddle me a truss. A truss! He looks at me. ¨Tengo grande,¨ he says. "I´ve got a large." Gee. Thanks. I need to be reminded that I´m a large.

My window seat gives me a perfect view of what´s going outside. I get to study the exurbs of Asuncion when the bus stops. One house, not a bad looking one, has two sheep tethered to a tree. They´re munching grass. Sure beats mowing the lawn and it provides free fertilizer.

Another time I look down and notice a puppy. The poor creature has recently been hit by a car. It appears dead, eyes wide open, but its muscles still twitch. Life is cheap for many animals in poor countries.

In denser areas, there are rowdy morning markets selling shoes, pirated CD´s and DVD´s.

It´s hard to tell when Asuncion begins and ends. But after about an hour we slide into more and more open countryside. Cows, sheep, chickens, horses. I finally get to Yanguaron, visit the church. The museum I wanted to visit is closed. I linger a bit, catch another bus back to the city, but its an express and no where near as interesting as the one I was on earlier.

The church was ok, but this more about the journey than the destination.

Friday morning on the Asuncion--Yanguaron local.
It's been a great day!

Latitude 36°30' S : All the Rest: Puerto Madryn and Buenos Aires and

February 10, 2010
Buenos Aires, Argentina

After the bitter lemon/lemonade day we spent two delicious days at sea. I´d begun to take for granted that we were floating on the Atlantic, on calm seas, with no land in sight. There was no end of things to do on board the Norwegian Sun. We took tango lessons, I went to the gym,and walked the promenade as long as my knee would allow. (I´d torn the meniscus in my right knee in July and it was, at this point, very painful.) I spent way too much time at the casino and in the 12th floor bar. And I slept! The final round of antibiotics was doing the trick, but the effects of pneumonia lingered. I was tired often. And...because we´d rented an inside windowless cabin, it was dark as a mausoleum. Perfect for sleeping late and in the afternoon.

We spent one final day on shore in a lovely city called Puerto Madryn, at the far north end of Argentinian Patagonia. From there we sailed to Montevideo for a day then disembarked in Buenos Aires on a cloudy, deeply humid, January 31st.

We sadly bid farewell to Kirk and Marc, who had to get back to work.

Glenda and I spent the next two weeks living in the city, in Palermo, in an ultra-modern two floor apartment on the 8th floor of a high rise. I speak only for myself that the two weeks were easily unforgettable. I have this love/hate thing going on with BA. I love it because it´s modern and easily navigable, but I hate it because there is absolutely no diversity. One block is just like the rest. There´s more diversity in one square mile of Montreal than there is in the whole of Buenos Aires. I may return. I may not.

Glenda left for home on Valentine´s Day. After the buzz of four wonderful weeks with three great travel companions, it was hard to be alone. I shut down the apartment the next day and set off for Uruguay.

For me, this trip was only half over. There was still Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru in front of me before I´d leave on March 18th.

Latitude 51°40' S: A Basket of Bitter Lemons---the Falkland Islands

January 27, 2010
Falkland Islands
Day 11

Mile 1200

Shortly after rounding the Cape, we exited the Pacific and were now in the South Atlantic. Quite honestly, it was going to be difficult to top our magical days in Patagonia and the silent power of Cape Horn. But we were only half way through this cruise which would ultimately bring us to Buenos Aires, and there was still a lot to see.

We encountered our only disappointment on the morning of January 27th when were unable to disembark in Stanley, the capital of the Falkland Islands. I am an unapologetic collector of places, and the Falklands were high on my list. They´re very far from anywhere, and not easy to get to, so it can be understood how bitter the disappointment was when the captain cancelled shore excursions because of dangerously high seas.

The seas really were too strong for the ship`s tenders to transport precious human lives. "Safety first," announced the captain. We had been warned that the weather here is unpredictable. He was right, of course, but we had been handed a basket of bitter lemons.

Deeply frustrated, Glenda and I brought ourselves to the 12th floor observation deck just to look out at the island we`d not get to set foot on. We were close enough to see cars on the roads and the small, pastel colored houses Stanely is well known for. A punch of wind whipped the water all around us to a frothy white.

So close, but so far away.

The wind was formidable as we sailed off. Ominious dark clouds hovered to our north. Tiny Glenda was unable to walk across the deck for fear of being blow down. She clung to the railing in her attempt to take a few photos. The open deck really was not a safe place to be.

Still, the glass was more than half full and, despite the bitter lemons, it was time to mix up a batch of lemondade.

But first things first.

I went back to bed and slept until 12:30.

Glenda went to the casino and won $200.00.

By early afternoon I had pulled myself out of bed and worked my way to the 12th floor observation deck bar. By now I was on a first name basis with the staff. I`d bought the "super-deluxe-all-you-can-drink" Pepsi package for $6.00 a day and was determined to get my money´s worth! This would be a fine place to spend what had become a tumultuous day at sea.

The sky was dark. Everything around us was gray--gray water, gray swells, gray clouds. Masses of gray mist swirled,thickened and billowed while rain and wind poured down. The wind was so strong that the tops of the sea were blown off in streaks of white spume.

Gale Force 9 winds whipped the ship. Up and down it went in the great ocean swells--a powerful vibration of the sea. Sheets of spray crested off huge 15 foot waves. White foam and froth swirled off the waves to help create the next one.

I was conscious of an enormous release of energy as milllions of tons of water tugged at the ship.

It was wildly exciting, especially from the comfort of the 12th floor bar with its huge 180° rain coated windows. Despite massive rivulets of rain running down them, views were never impeded.

As the afternoon progressed, the storm lessened. By now the rain had stopped and the wind was moderate. We were sailing out of the storm. I met Marc around 7:00 pm for our nightly soak-and-chat in one of the jacuzzis and told him how Glenda clung to the railing prior to the great storm.

"Oh good, " he said. "We can attach her to a string and use her as a kite."

Marc is a quick clever wit and the easy compatibility of the four of us has made this a very pleasant voyage.

We were now heading north. The long southern summer white nights were coming to an end. What had also come to an end was the early tumult. By early evening we broke out of the dark into a pale blue sky. Sunset was earlier tonight--a dynamic, peach-ringed fireball that quietly slipped below the horizon.

During dinner in the lingering twilight, we marvelled at the rise and fall of the sea, more subdued than earlier, but still a powerful force. The Seven Seas dining room was located at waterline and we would always wait to have a table with a view. We were close enough to observe the multiple colors of the water--greens, blacks, blues, grays and blacks, often silvered with frothy spume of eight foot waves. Birds rode on the wind, fleeting reminders that we were hugging the Argentinian coast.

Much later, we stood on the top deck, a strong warm wind at our backs. We searched the sky for constellations we´d not see at home: the Southern Cross, Taurus, and Capricorn. Riding high against the equatorial sky was Orion, here a summer constellation. A brilliant three-quarter waxing moon rode low in the western sky.

Despite the morning´s bitter disappointment, the day had been marvelous: an exciting storm at sea, a subsequent clearing and a look at the night sky from the Southern Ocean.

What better glass of lemonade could possibly made with the lemons given us?

Latitude 55°58′ S: Rounding Cape Horn!

January 25, 2010
Day 9
Rounding Cape Horn

Mile 1086

This morning I needed no encouragement to get up early. This was going to be a day to remember.

We left Ushuaia the night before, passed the Chilean port town of Puerto Williams an hour later. Despite what Ushuia says, Puerto Williams is truly the southern most community in the world.

We were on Deck 12 early to stake out prime viewing spots. Today we´d round Cape Horn: this would be the absolute highlight of an already extraordinary journey.

¨Mystified¨is the word Genda used, and she was right. I´d seen fjords before, glaciers and dramatic mountains, but I´d never rounded the southernmost tip of the world. This was going to be great.

It was the 5th week of summer, but a frigid south wind pelted us, pinging bits of sleet against our windbreakers. Snow flurries raced past us on the sharp snap of wind.

We´d been sailing around the western end of Tierra del Fuego. This was a brittle world of half drowned mountain summits, a battleground where restless waters collided with the tops of the Andes which were here near the sea. Most of the land was bare and climbed from the water in massive curves and billows of glaciated stone. A few scrawny trees clung together in heroic clumps. The great swell of the Southern Ocean crashed on rocks, ledges and islets, flinging the shattered water high in the air.

We were wildly excited as the Cape came into view. It wasn´t much more than a remote and lonely rock, part of an isolated archipeligo in the Southern Ocean. But is was a fabled piece of rock, and... By now deck 12 was full and we were supremenly happy to have secured a prime viewing location. The wind was wild. Sleet alternately turned into a cold, light rain. The boat fought stiff winds. We were at the confluence of the Atlantic, Pacific and Antarctic Ocean and the seas were rough. What a thrill!

We watched Cape Horn climb to its highest peak--1,331 feet--and at its triangular, pointed cliff that tumbled into the sea amidst a jagged horror of blunt rocks and upset waters.
Shortly after we had passed the Horn, four brilliant shafts of light, spotlights from Heaven, slashed through the murky skies and beamed down on the cold, gray open seas. It was as if God was blessing the countless souls whose lives had been lost in their attempts to round this perilous point.

For me, my journey down the full length of Chile had come to an end. It had been two weeks to the day that I´d crossed from Peru into the northern Chilean town of Arica. I´d travelled through the driest desert on earth, along magnificent Pacific coastline, then through the glorious fjords of Patagonian. I`d passed dramatic snow-mantled peaks and finally exited the country as we rounded Cape Horn. More then once I´d been overwhelmed to tears.

We lingered on deck for some time. It had all happened so fast. Whether it was a vapor of wind or the flinty reality of Cape Horn, the Patagonian Channels were behind us. I had accomplished my goal: a transit of the Chilean waterways, a brief look at Tierra del Fuego and a fleeting look at the fabled and awesome Cape Horn.

A few hours later hundreds of us gathered poolside to be baptised as "Honorary Fuegians."

"May the chill be with you," uttered the Captain, as he dumped a bucket of icy cold Fuegan water on our heads. It was all great fun.

It had been quite a start to the day and nothing more on this cruise could equal those magic moments, early on a snow/sleet-filled summer morning, when we rounded Caped Horn--the southern most point on Earth.

Latitude 55º 88´S: Glaciers, Tierra del Fuego, Chile and ¨The End of the World¨

Day 8
January 24, 2010
The Beagle Channel

Mile 1000

The next morning I was still sick and could not bear the idea of leaving the room with Glenda at 6:45. The ship was scheduled to begin a transverse of seven glaciers around 7:00 a.m. "Text me," I foolishly told her as she left the cabin, and tell me all about it.¨

Stupid me. Here I´d come 5,000 miles to grab every last opportunity, and I was passing up this amazing chance. This was just another in the list of reasons I´d come on this trip.

I forced myself out of bed, showered quickly, grabbed my camera and dragged myself to the 12th floor. It didn´t take long for me to wake up!

We were retracing Charles Darwin´s 1846 journey through the Beagle Channel. He´d had a lot to say about these glaciers. and I would, too, after we´d slowly coursed out way southeast into the Collingwood Narrows. We were paralleling the southernmost spine of the Andes. The Norwegian Sun sailed its typical slow 14 knots an hour past massive, impressive ice blue glaciers. Growlers floated in the ice, intense blue water all around us.

Ice fields and glaciers, blue, jagged and enormous, stood out in front of us. Fissured blue ice extended upwards for hundreds of feet. Steams of icy water ran down the fronts. Pleated and striated crevices, on some of the glaciers, were an intense aqua marine hue. Despite being on such a huge ship, it was still possible to the hear the grumblng and grinding noises of these massive fields of ice.

A light, cold mist shrouded the high, snow-capped peaks of the Darwin Cordillera above us, some of which had been dusted with a new layer of snow the night before. This was a stunningly beautiful stretch of water and, despsite to uncooperativeness of the weather, a stunningly beautiful stretch of mountainous scenery.

In the end, in the course of little more than two hours, we passed five of these glaciers. Periodically, the mist would lift and we´d see dazzling flashes of snow in the distant mountains--a silvery brilliance in the ocassional brush of light.

And this was just the start of the day.

Glenda and I convened for breakfast and plotted the rest of the day. By noon we´d arrive in Ushuia, gateway to Anatrctica, at the bottom of Tierra del Fuego, the southern most city in the world.

Kirk, Glenda and I disembarked--their first steps in Argentina. We spent a quiet day shopping, roaming past pastel colored houses, whose gardens bloomed with muliti-colored lupine, shastas and Icelandic poppies.

We were truly at the end of the world--as far south as one could go and still be on an inhabitabe planet. That evening, as I waited for the boat to leave, I stood on the top deck and looked out at the magnificence around me. To the south lay Tierra del Fuego--the land of fire--and a scattering of small islands--one of which we´d pass tomorrow morning--Cape Horn. To the north lay a spendid jumble of shadowy high peaks, glaciers, jagged summits and swirling masses of clouds, all of which were softened by the the blue distance of a fading sun.

None of this was lost on me. I stood and gave great thanks for this mighty creation and for ability to see and experience it.

I was grateful beyond words.

Latitude 52°S: The Straits of Magellan, Chile

Days 6-7
January 22-23
The Straits of Magellan

Mile 900

During the night we crossed 50º South. This was why we had come on this trip. The next few days we´d slowly be crusing south within the long Chilean fjords that make up the Magellan straits and Beagle Channel.

We woke to moderate 2-7 foots seas, skies wet and grey, but with a cloud cover high enough to see an endlessly long string of snowcapped mountains ahead of us, sometimes enshrouded in drizzly clouds, other times dazzling in sunlight that would periodically break through. We were sailing in the heart of the Patagonian Andes. One snowcapped mountains would disappear as a huge glacier field would emerge high ahead of us. We were awestruck as this continuous visual drama unfolded. This was one time I wished that we'd rented a stateroom with a balcony, instead of the much cheaper inside cabins. It would have been wonderful to sit all day and watch this gorgeous ribbon of coastline unfold. Instead, we´d stand high on the top deck, or I´d park myself withing the 12th floor observation deck. No matter where I was, I wasn´t disappointed.

Because we were traveling a slow 14 knots, this coastline glided by as if were were in slow motion. The world all around us was still and quiet. There were no signs of humanity--no villages, no boats, no ships. Often, I´d want the ship to stop, let us disembark just so we could stand in this distant, rugged world for a few moments. Of course, that wasn´t possible. I´d just have to come back another time on the much smaller, far more exspensive, tour boats that navigate deeper into the fjords. For today, this would be enough.

Millenium ago, glaciers carved granite cliffs, ravines and canyons into the mountainscape. I was reminded of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. They were, after all, part of the same range, although thousands of miles apart.

The scenery was not all rock faced cliffs thrusting up to mountains. There would be dense thickets of beech trees that climbed steeply upward from the rocky shores. The land could also be low and partially bare with windswept trees in marvelous shades of green. The countryside was hilly and dark green and thick forests of trees and bushes reached down into the water.

Other times, forested walls rose steeply from the cold, dark waters. Abundant waterfalls ofen cascaded off steep, 200 foot cliffs.

It was easy to grow immune to all this. I´d stand outside for awhile until a cold, south wind pushed me indoors. Most of the day, though, I´d sit inside the huge observation deck on the 12th floor, reading, writing, staring outside, watching this fabulous panorama unfold through its 180 degree, 12 foot windows. This quiet sea day, sailing slowly down the Chilean fjords, seemed to go on forever.

Before dinner, Marc and I would meet in one of the four jacuzzis. By now, most people had forsaken the pool area. It was cold and often drizzzly, but the water in the hot tub was 98º and quite tolerable.

Over dinner, the four of us shared stories of the day. We muddled over which of the nice entree selections we´s choose. Sometimes, we´d order two. Once, I ordered one each of all five desserts just because I could. The only thing that saved me from growing fatter was the continued pneumonia that kept my appetite at bay.

The sun didn´t set until after 10:30, and twilight even longer.

Such a wonder for mid-January!

Latitude 45°27' S: Puerto Chacabuco, Chile Our feet are in Patagonia!

Day 4
Janaury 20, 2010
Puerto Chacabuco, Chile

Mile 857

We wake early to grey skies and drizzle. We´ve arrived in Patagonia and are excited to get off the boat, hire a taxi and get on our way. We don´t let the the weather hold us back. From the boat I can see daisies and lupine. Rain or shine, that´s enough for me.

Today we hire Oscar and, per usual, I sit in the front and attempt to communicate. For $140.00 for the four of us he will bring us on a four hours circuit out of Puuerto Chacabuco, hug the Simpson River and ultimately will bring us to the Patagonia Lake District town of Coyahique. I´ve asked him to stop often, let us take photos. I also give him permission to surprise us with places we never planned on seeing. Despite the weather, we´re not disappointed. The road we're on parallels the Simpson River. Because of the rain, water cascades off mountain cliffs in bridal sheets of cascade and waterfalls. The river runs swiftly. It´s a beautiful place.

At this latitude, identical to Plattsburgh, summer arrives late. It´s a month after the summer solstice, but the fields are still full of daisies, lupine and foxglove. Daisies: in January. I never stop marveling at that. And lupine in bright shades of blue, lavender, white, pink and periwinkle. Magic! All of it!

Our trip brings us from the port through the Simpson Valley. It rains, dissipates, then rains again. But we´re in a narrow valley and, despite the low cloud cover, we have marvelous vistas of low range mountains, some still snow topped, waterfalls, the ever meandering Simpson River... and daisies!

Oscar is polite and takes very good care of us. But he´s no Leticia. It´s very difficult to hold on to his Spanish. He drops consonants and plurals to the end of words. It forces me to another level. I miss a lot, but learn a lot too. (There are multiple Spanishes, just as there are mulitiple Englishes. His is just another challenge.)

He tells me in rains ten months of the year. (Not for me, although the place is lush and verdant and evident of this rainfall.) It can snow 30 inches at a time and schools close for kids here, too, but in June, July and August. He moved here three years ago from Santiago because it was a safer place to raise his children and there were more job opportunities.

I see lots of evergreens and ask him if they're used as Christmas trees. despite the abundance of a Patagonian variety of fir tree, he tells me no one uses them in their homes in December.

He tells me that there are lots of fox in the mountains, but deer are so few that they´re protected. It´s too cool and wet for home gardens, but the area is rich in lumber and salmon and these small communties are growing because it offers lots of jobs. Salmom are farm raised, 100,000 to a cage. The water is cool and clean, so my guess is if you´re buying Chilean salmon it´s safe.

We stop as often as possible to look at waterfallzs, the lovely Simpson River and verdant, snow capped mountains. We ultimately reach the town of Coyahique, as far as we´ll go before turning around. Kirk has been telling me he´s quite concern about the persistent cough. It´s persisted for days and has gotten worse again. He´s a recent graduate of the Albany School of Pharmacy. I ask Dr. Kirk to go into a pharmacy with me. He´s convinced I have pneumonia. My Spanish is pushed to the limit. The parmaciost pulls out several boxes of anitbiotics and Kirk points to the strongest of the lot. In many countries one doesn´t need a doctor´s Rx. Kirk shows his credientials and that is enough. Another $100.00 later I walk out with a two weeks supply. Days later I know it does the trick. What was affecting me lay deeply in the lungs, but a week on the new antibiotic does the trick. My stomach is still doing flip flops from something I´ve eaten the day before. There is a rumor onboard ship that there´s a lot of sickness. I'm not about to tell them that my parmacist, the good Doctor Kirk, thinks I have pneumonia. I´d be quarantined. Despite feeling lousy top to bottom, I refuse to let it stop me.

We linger a bit in this lovely town, listen to a group of Andean muscicians from Ecuador play pan pipes on the street, stop into a small restaurant, drink a coffee near a roaring fire. It´s summer, but quite cool. This is Glenda´s favorite town on the entire trip, she tells me much later.

On the way back to Puetro Chacabuco we laugh a lot. I keep shouting out, "Wow, look at the field of daisies. And there, more lupine. Look at them, climbing up the hillside." I do it so many times that Marc tells me to shut up. We laugh again. Kirk and Glenda never stop talking in the back seat. It´s still raining, but who cares. Marc is ready to kick me out of the car if I point out another field of flowers. This is a very compatible group and we´ve had a great time together.

By 5:00 pm we´re back on the ship. I take a nap for two hours. Sunset isn´t until 10:00 pm, so we wait until late to eat. We ask for a window seat, but the sky is a soupy gray so we never actually see the sun set, but twilight lingers until almost 10:45. We´re heading south, closer to the Straits of Magellan, and ultimately to Cape Horn--toward the long, white nights of a southern South America, to "the end of the world."

This, I know, is just the beginning of the deep magic.

Latitude 41° 28' S: Daisies in January!: Puerto Montt, Chile

Day 3
January 19, 2010
Puerto Montt, Chile

Mile 368

Fields of daisies--in January!!! I was in my glory.

Day three brought us to Puerto Montt, Chile. It is almost the same latitude as Northern NY so fields of daisies would make sense this time of year.

This was our first port and we had collectively decided against paying the exhorbitant fees Norwegian wanted for shore excursions. It was my job, therefore, to negotiate with waiting taxi drivers to take us on a tour that would best encompass what we wanted to see.

There was no dearth of drivers waiting for us. It was our very good fortune to hire the only female driver we´d have on this journey--Leticia. Late 20's, full of fun, easy Spanish to understand, she was the best ambassador that this part of the world could produce.

By now we had connected with Marc and Kirk. It had taken almost 24 hours for us to find each other on the megaship, but we did. They piled into the back seat and Kirk and Glenda hit it off immediately. Kirk is from Saranac, and Glenda taught there for almost 40 years so they had a lot in common.

Puerto Montt was nestled in the foothils of Llanquihur province, and our plan was to loop around the lake that bears the same name. We were in the Lake District of Chile, and we wanted to make the most of a relatively short day. We´d had a glimpse of the snow capped Osorno--the area´s largest, and still active, volcano which glistened white in the morning sun and still held snows from last winter. At 8,278 feets, it´s the most notable volcano in the region. It almost seemed artifical as it loomed so close and huge above the sea and landscape.

Other high Andean mountains stabbed the sky with towering spurs of stone that, even in these daisy-filled summer days, were frosted in white.

Leticia was a charmer. She loved American pop music from the 1980´s and would ask me my opinion of all sorts of artists. She and I just rattled along. She had as many questions about American culture as we did about Chilean.

My job was to sit in the front seat and translate our questions and let her know what we wanted to see. We had a plan, but she had one, too, so we combined the two. We were not disappointed when she brought us to a deep, clear mountain lake at the base of three volcanoes. We would love to have had the time to take a boat ride, possibly to connect via another lake to get to Argentina, but that would have to await another visit.

It was full summer in the famed Lake District. Fields were full of daisies, my favorite flower. (What a treat to be able to enjoy them twice in 2010.) Lupine, also, were in abundance, in hues I´d never seen. Tall and spiky, they splashed hillsides and gardens in reds, magentas and purples.

We were remined of home in June and July. Lake LLanquihue was reminisent of Lake Champlain and Lake George. It was a lovely deep blue and sunlight glistened off its surface. Kids were enjoying its beaches and boaters sailed its water. Summer! In January!

This area of Chile had been settled by Germans in the 19th century and many of their traditions lingered. There were chalet styled houses on the lake and small restaurants served German food. Tt was a neat and tidy corner of Chile--much like all the other German settlement towns I´ve seen in North and South America.

We would love to have lingered, take a cruise on the lake, hike its forests, but the Norwegian Sun would wait for no one.

I did pìck a bouquet of daisies. For days they graced our stateroom and reminded me of the beauty of the Lake district, our sun-soaked day in German Chile--a day filled with lush, wild-flower filled pastures, stunning volcanoes and the ever-pleasant Leticia. This was one place we were sorry to leave, the one place we all would have liked to have lingered.

Daisies in January. Life does´t get much beter than this.

Latitude 20º 32 S': Valparaiso, Chile: Here We Go!

January 17, 2010
Valparaiso, Chile

Mile 0!

It´s hard not to like Santiago in the summer. The days are long and it´s got a Mediterrean climate which makes it dry and hot during the day and cool at night for sleeping

It was Sunday the 17th--the day Glenda and I would set sail for our two week cruise around the southern tip of South America. It was also election day for a new president. We lingered long over breakfast, sitting in the garden of Casa Amarilla with a coupole from Sweden, and Maria who was filling us in on the current state of politics in Chile and the pros and cons of each candidate. I was not paying any attention to time. From previous experience, I figured it would take us less than two hours to get to Valpo, the port city from which we´d sail. We could leave by 11:30 with time to spare.

How wrong I was. I say all of this to provide background as to how we almost missed the boat.

When we got to the bus station, no seats were available until 1:30. What nobody had told me was that Chilean voters must return to the place were they registered. Lines were long and nothing was available that would get us to Valpo in time! What to do?

There really was no choice, but to hire a taxi for the 70 mile trip. In the end it was the best $120.00 we'd spend on this trip.

Traffic was heavy and there were lines at all of the toll booths. My only experience with getting to the coast was on a weekday, so this was new. When we finally got to the port, it was only logical to go to the ship, but we were turned around and sent to a processing area where we´d check in. To be quite honest, if we´d not hired this great taxi driver we´d never had made it in time. Each time he navigated us out of another potential problem, I´d pull out more pesos to give him as a tip.

In the end we didn´t miss the boat. And we did have some time to spare,although not a lot of it. OMG! How excting it was to look at this giant ship, The Nowegian Sun, and know that it would be home for the next two weeks.

I rarely get excited about anywhere I go in the world. But today, this was different. I could hardly contain the excitement. I rememebr my friend Mary who was taking her first out of country cruise. I called her on the way to NYC where they´d fly from and she told me she was "almost crawling out of her skin.¨ I felt that way, too, that Sunday afternoon as we waited for the boat to set sail.

At 5:00 pm sharp the ship quietly slipped out of Valparaiso. Below us were small tourist boats that I´d ridden almost a year earlier. Then I remembered looking up at the people on board thinking how unlikely it was that I´d ever be in their place. But here I was...here we were...watching the small boats in reverse and watching the city recede as we headed out to sea.

I´d wanted to see the waterways of Chile, cruise the Magellan Straits, round Cape Horn. I wanted to sail south to the long, white nights of an austral summer. I wanted to sail along the Patagonian Coast and set foot on Tierra del Fuego. I wanted to go the end of the world.

And I was on my way.

By 8:30 we were sitting oceanside in one of the two large dining rooms aboard the ship. The sun was beginning to set. It had been a marvelous day, and the sunset would be lovely.

After dinner, we went to the 12th floor observation deck. The night was perfectly clear. A silver of a crescent moon hung in the sky. Venus shown brightly above it. I´d brought Genda here to show her the Southern Cross. It was warm. The ship was sailing quietly through the night. I was still crawling out of my skin with excitement!

The adventure had just begun!

Latitude 20º 32´ S: Santiago, Chile: Two weeks from Lima to Santiago

Buenos Aires,Argentina
9 de febrero de 2010

From Ica I flew to the Chilean border, crossed to Arica, which sits smack on the Peruvian-Chilean border. It also sits on the edge of the Atacama Desert which is the driest place on earth. It never rains, which is fine with me. I would spend just a night here--to ground myself in Chile and to spend a day in the sun.

In the end, Arica gave me two gifts--a day at the beach, as planned, and a gastro-intestinal thing/pneumonia which would plague for weeks to come, which was not planned for.

Chile´s coastline is probaly the longest in the world. From Arica, where I crossed, its coast extends 4,270 kilometers south. On a map, it looks like a long ribbon reaching from the middle of South America's west coast straight down to the southern tip of the continent, where it curves slightly eastward.

My goal was to be able to say that I had travelled the full length of this ecologically diverse country. My journey would begin at 17° south and drop to 56° south. Half of it would be on land, the other half by water.

After a night in Arica, I bussed 4 hours to Iquique. It was the beginning of the weekend and three nights in the city would give me ample time to spend one full day on its black, volcanic sand beach and another at two UNESCO sites nearby--the abandoned ghost towns of Humberton and Santa Laura--saltpeter mines in the desert. Both of these towns, a good distance out of Iquique, lie in the dry Atacama and have thus been spared the ravages of time. In a place where it never rains or snows, these towns have retained the look and feel of what they were when they were developed in the 1920´s. Writing is still on the classroom walls; houses still look as if you could move right in.

Best, though, were a series of 1,000 year old geoglyphs carved into the sandy hillsides in the desert. Giant llamas and other animals have retained their shape in this dry zone for almost a millenium.

In Iquique I went to a pharmacist and got help for my stomach, but a cough was beginning to develop that would only get worse.

Another absolutely stunning bus ride, 95% of along the rugged, wild Chilean coast, brought me Antofagosta. It´s not often that I respond negatively to a place, but this was one town I´d get out of ASAP. It was cloudy, the city was dirty, I was sick and just wanted to leave. By now the cough was so bad that my back hurt from the non-stop brutal coughin. I went to the hospital, saw a fine doctor who was relieved that she didn´t have to speak English to me, although much later I´d wished that she had. More medicine to combat the ongoing stomach problem and an antibiotic for the cough.

I got out of Antofagosta as fast as I could, bought a top-of-the-line bus ticket for Santiago. How else to endure 18 hours! One of the best things about travelling in Chile and Argentina are the busses. Because distances are so long, bus lines are top notch. On the first floor are bus camas--wide seats that convert to a bed at night. Plus, on long hauls passengers get fed two or three meals--even a glass of wine before bedtime.

I relished this long ride. We slid through the Atacama Desert--its sands black, the sky a brilliant blue--a dry,lunar landscape on Earth. It was gorgeous! Day faded to night. The sky a pallet of silver. By noon the next afternoon I was in Santiago.

I´d booked a room at Casa Amarilla--a place I´d stayed before. Maria, the owner, is from Austria and during the school year her two adjoining houses are rented to students. In the summer, however, she opens it to tourists. I could cook my own meals, lounge in the spacious back yard, enjoy her friendly dog and do my laundry--all for less that $20.00 a night.

The days were magnificient--hot, dry and cloudless. I was enjoying my last two days alone for awhile. Santiago´s not the most exciting city in the world, but in the summer its public pools, high on a hill overlooking the city, are great places to hang out. I still didn´t feel great, but the medicine I´d been taking had at least gotten rid of the deep cough. It took several days for my back to feel normal again.

I met Glenda on the 16th of January. As exhausted as she was from a fourteen hour, overnight flight from Montreal, we spent the day touring the city--her only day in Santiago--seeing as much as possible, and enjoying the long twilight of a Chilean summer's night. She'd not be back this way again.

The next day the cruise we´d waited for for eight months would start. The coming of a dream come true.

Latitude 10º 16´ S: Lima, Peru to the Chilean border

8 de febrero de 2010
Buenos Aires, Argentina

It was so good to be back in Lima. This is not one of my favorite cities, but Miraflores, the suburb I stay in, is close to the sea. The weather´s a bit like San Diego´s--foggy but warm. It was the first week in January, the second week of summer, and I was a happy man.

I´d arrived in Lima after dark and the hotel had sent a driver to pick me up--a really nice thing after a long flight. We cut through San Isidro, one of Lima´s more exclusive suburbs, and their parks were nicely decorated with Christmas lights. All the iconography of Christmas was lit up in neon, setting on the green grass of urban parks--angels and santas, candles and Christmas trees. What a great way to enter the city. At home these neon atrocities look cheap and tawdry. Perhaps they were originally designed for warmer climates and designed to sit on snow free lawns. They certainly looked a lot better here than on trailers on Route 22 out of Plattsburgh.

After two days in Lima I wanted some sun. This is an El Niño summer and the city was warm and pleasant, but wrapped in a shroud of fog from the sea. I headed for Ica, three hours away, splurged on a hotel with a pool, and spent two nights in the city. Ica is famous for a large national park of towering sand dunes. I joined another group and hired a driver and his sand buggy for a tour up and down the dunes. The highlight was sand boarding from the top of three dune to the bottom. Of course, because I can´t snow board, I did this on my stomach--a much safer descent.

Th next day I hired a taxi for a few hours and he brought be to the oldest vineyard in South America dating to 1536. The guide said that Ica has 363 days of sun a year.

It was cloudy for the two days I was there!

But, it was also Janaury 6th--the feast of the Epìphany--often a big occasion in some Latin American countries. I was a bit disappointed that Peruvians don´t embrace this holiday the way other Latin Americans do, but there were small celebrations. A group of kids, along with their teachers, dressed in native Indian clothing, saw me and perfomed a great dance. An obvious tourist. Surrounding them were their mothers, many of whom carried small Baby Jesus dolls. This would be the official end of Navideña--the Christmas season. I was happy to be part of it in a small way.

Back to Lima for another day. I was not sorry to leave. I´d arranged to fly to the Chilean border--a 90 minute flight or a 28 hour bus ride. There wasn´t much of a choice. I wasn´t too concerned about seeing much of Peru. I knew that I´d return in March on my way back. From the north of Chile to Santiago would be a long, long journey, and January was all about Chile.