Puno & Lake Titicaca

After Iquique Dave and I crossed from Arica, Chile to Tacna, Peru. From the coastal boarder-town of Tacna we took another long bus ride, this time into the altiplano and the town of Puno, located on the shores of Lake Titicaca. I arrived in Puno with a fever and absolutely no strentgh. The days bus ride had taken us from sealevel to 3830m (12,565ft) and I was thoroughly dehydrated. Immediately upon arriving at our hotel I slowly struggled up the six flights of stairs and crawled into bed, where I remained for the duration of our stay in Puno. Fever, diarrhea and altitude sickness has scarred my memory of Puno.

My only views of Lake Titicaca were on the bus ride into town where we skirted the Lake for about an hour, and from the bus station at the departure. As we were driving along the lake en-route to Puno the evening light seemed to linger forever and from my window seat on the bus I had a surreal view of the land, shores and lake glowing in the last bit of daylight, perhaps enhanced by my fever. I´m not sure if it was the seafood empanada I ate in Chile before departing or the burger I had from a street vender in Tacna six hours later, but that evening I had the beginnings of a stomach infection. With the help of anti-biotics, anti-diarrhea medicine and lots of aspirina, I was feeling better by the time we arrived in Cuzco. At an elevation of 3326m the additional oxygen in Cuzco, almost 2000ft lower, eliminated my headache and all signs of altitude sickness. I was eating again and a smile returned to my lips. By Christmas (Feliz Navidad) I was completely healthy again and was looking forward to exploring Cuzco and the numerous Inca archeological ruins in the area, including Machu Picchu.

Shadow & Light: Iquique Revisited

One evening flying Alto Hospocio I captured these images, mostly of Dave flying his Gin Zulu.


Greg, Gerald and David.



Visible is the tip of my Gin Zoom Race as I fly next to Todd on his Airwave Magic FR. One can barely make out Gerald, the small blue wing (Omega 6) near the ridge.

Valparaiso

Valparaiso, Chile. This costal port town is a delight of hills rising above sea level covered with buildings. The buildings rise into the distance and the town makes me think of San Franscisco.


The city shimmeres as the buildings are painted in a large variety of colors. One of the most interesting aspects of Valparaiso are the ascensores, which are scattered throughout the city.


Unlike funiculars which are cog-wheeled trains found in the Alps, the ascensores of Valparaiso are are cable-pulled. Two cars sit on parallel tracks connected by a cable which loops around a bullwheel in the top terminal and is arranged so that one car is at the top terminal when the other is at the bottom. During operation the cars pass in the middle of the hill, and the steepness ranges from 20-55 degrees. At least one lift, the Polanco, was vertical, similar to an elevator. An operator works from the top terminal and through a combination of a motor and a large hand brake the speed of the lift is regulated.



The lifts rise 50-200m (160-650ft) up the hillsides and exist for the convience of the residents and visitors of the town. A ride is cheap, costing only 100 pesos. With an exchange rate of appx. 550 chilean pesos for $1usd, a ride costs about 20 cents (US). A ride on the ascensors was one of the only inexpensive things in Chile, as food and housing costs are much higher than in Peru or Argentina. Things in Chile were almost the same price as stuff in the United States.


The Polanco lift is accessed through a long tunnel carved out of the earth. At the end of the tunnel sits an attendant who collects fares. All the ascensores I rode the payment was collected at the bottom, before riding up or after riding down. Other ascensores have names such as Mariposa, Florida, El Peral, and Cordillera.


The street layout in Valparaiso is one of the most complicated I´ve ever seen. I think it would take a lifetime to fully know the layout of the town. Some streets are so steep that if a car stops it won´t be able to begin again. Because of the steepness of some of the streets and random angled and blind interesections traffic gaurds are needed in some locations. The traffic gaurds seem to work in pairs, separated some distance out of sight from eachother around the corner of an intersection or building communicating via whistles and yelling to control traffic. They prevent traffic from both below and above from meeting in certain intersections at the same time.



Art and music seemed to flourish in Valparaiso. There were several universities and a large part of the population were students. Many cafe´s were filled with art of local artists, and several murals were scattered throughout town.


After two nights in Valparaiso Dave and I took our third bus ride over 18 hours, this time the 24hr ride north back to Iquique.

Over the Andes

Sorry for the delay of updating the post, I didn´t want to publish anything until I was able to also post some images.


After the Argentine Nationals, Dave & I left Mendoza and took a bus over the Andes to Santiago, Chile. Mendoza sits at 600m (appx. 1950ft) and is just to the east of the highest peaks of the Andes.


The 5hr bus ride over the Andes from Mendoza to Santiago is quite amazing: fabulous switchbacks and glaciar-carved valleys are among the sights, and looming in the distance, showing herself ever so briefly, is Aconcagua, the highest peak in the world outside of the Himalya, with an elevation of 6962m (22,000+ft). I didn´t take any photos of Aconcagua as she stole my breath as we quickly passed. Wooden tunnels, now decrepid, were built to protect the train that used to run over the pass from falling rocks and avalanches.


We arrived early in the evening to Santiago and took a taxi to a recommended hostel in a supposed hip spot in town. Both the hostel and the part of town were disappointing, most restaurants and shops were closed and few people were out and about. Not wanting a hot dog we had to search for an open restaurant. I´ve determined hot dogs to be the national food of Chile, or as they call it, a completo. A completo comes with mayo, a completo completo comes with mustard, ketchup and an odd variety of sourcraut. For the ambitious order a gigante completo completo and you´ll get a true foot long that weights 20oz. Chileans also love mayonese and appear to put it on everything.


We wandered around and found a Chinese restaurant. You can´t go wrong with Chinese food, can you? Our meal was good but in Chile, as well as in Argentina, you must understand that there is a very different tolerance for spicy food. They don´t put pepper on the table. Salt, yes, but not pepper. ¨Isn´t pepper really spicy?¨ Unfortunately pepper is even too spicy for the palates of most. Our requests for ¨extra hot¨ did not produce spicy food, and at our later request we were told they had some extremely hot green chiles. ¨Great, bring them on!¨ we said. Dave grew up in Santa Fe and I´ve spent some time in New Mexico as well and we both enjoy very spicy dishes. I wasn´t too sure what would actually arrive but I was excited. We had a great laugh when out came a bowl of peperchinis.

Merlo, Mendoza, Merlo, Mendoza...

After the competition in Tucuman Gerald, David and I headed south through the night to the small town of Merlo, San Luis. Merlo reminds me of Taos, NM as it is tucked up against a long mountain range and to the west the flats disappear into the horizon with scattered volcanic peaks projecting skyward in the distance. Merlo is a quaint town popular with Argentines as a tourist destination. Eco-tourism seems to be the hit here, as there are numerous activites to partake in plus there is a sweet paved road that switchbacks up the mountains to an overlook named Mirador de los Condores which hosts a small cafe´and is the site of the paragliding launch.

Today is the last day of a month long XC comp. here in Merlo. Gerald won with a 162km flight and our 3 person team of Gerald, Mathew from France and myself was the winning team. Over the last 3 weeks we´ve travel 3 times from Merlo on a night bus for 7hrs to Mendoza as bad weather loomed here in San Luis.

Mendoza is a bustling lively town of over a million that sits just east of the Andes and below Aconcogua, SA´s highest peak. The town is filled with trees, plazas and sidewalk cafe´s. After today´s closing fiesta for the San Luis 2005 comp. we return to Mendoza for the Argentine Paragliding Nationals from 5-10 December.