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Here's Mum on her birthday with John and Scott and all her cards. She looks very happy doesn't she?

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The Last Post

Tuesday 28th November 2023

For those non-family members who are wondering why there has been radio silence for a few days, I'm sorry to inform you that my sister called me early on Sunday morning, while we were still on the 10 hour night bus to Pucon, to tell me that Mum had died unexpectedly during the night on Saturday 25th November.

Apparently, it was peaceful and she'd celebrated her 85th birthday the day before (24th) with visits from some of the grandchildren and lots of cards, presents and calls from everyone reminding her how much she was loved. Fortunately, we had managed to call her on her birthday and she sounded well and happy.

Obviously, we immediately cut short our trip and, after 2 days of frantic travel, got home at 7pm yesterday evening.

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Our hotel and 2 views over the main square from our window. 3 pictures of "the colourful, pretty houses", 3 views from the top of the hill.

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Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside!

Saturday 25th November - Valparaiso

We caught the Turbus from Almeda bus terminal in Santiago (Universidad de Santiago stop on the Metro) to Valparaiso yesterday morning. The route took us through the famous Maipo Valley wine region which was interesting, maybe we should have stopped there and tasted a few wines.

Valparaiso is billed as "a pretty seaside town with brightly coloured houses on the hillside rising up from the beach". This must have been written by an estate agent who describes a shed as "a bijou, character property with potential to extend"!

For "seaside" read port, for "brightly coloured houses" read covered in graffiti!

Valparaiso was clearly an important and elegant town at some point. There are some lovely period buildings with obvious French architectural influence in the centre. However, many if these are decaying and most are surrounded by scruffy, ugly 1950/60's style boxes. It was known as the most important port in South America in the mid 1800's when it was the closest port to the Magellan Straights, linking the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. The opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 put paid to the prosperity of the city when the need to pass through the Magellan straights disappeared.

Once we arrived at our hotel overlooking the main square we dropped our bags in our room. Our plan was to go out into the town to explore but suddenly all hell let loose. There were sirens and horns blaring with numerous fire engines, ambulances and police cars speeding down the main roads towards our hotel. There were also 2 big wagons with "Bomba Espana" written on the front standing just opposite our window. "Here we go" I thought, "MM's done it again, she's stashed some dynamite from that bloody silver mine and now she's on Interpols most wanted list". The sirens etc continued for about 30 minutes but no one broke down the door or came for us. MM insisted that she was "clean", but there was a little glint in her eye that made me wonder. The same glint that she had in Melbourne when she managed to sneak 40 fags past the customs officers after they'd done her for smuggling another 200 - "ha, they didn't find these" was her triumphant refrain!

Anyway, disaster avoided (or postponed, time will tell), we set off to explore the old town, climbing the hill and roaming round the old, narrow cobbled streets. There are plenty of restaurants, gift and art shops and some pleasant views of the port and city but I think a day trip from Santiago would suffice, or, even better, visit the vine yards!

Not our favourite place to date, but unless you visit you never know.

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Our "hovel" in San Pedro, crossing the Atacama desert, some pictures of Santiago, MM polishing off an Aperol during "happy hour".

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Buenas dias Santiago

Thursday 23rd November 2023

Yesterday we travelled from our back packer hovel in San Pedro de Atacama to Calama to catch our flight to the Chilean capital of Santiago. The taxi to the airport turned up 45 minutes late so I wasn't in the best of moods as we eventually left back packer central behind and set off on the 60 mile trip across the Atacama desert to the airport at Calama. The Atacama desert is the driest non-polar desert in the world and has been used as a practice area for Mars landings as it most resembles the Martian environment apparently! Some of the scenery on the journey was spectacular, as were the views from the plane as we flew over the spine of the Andes on our way to Santiago.

When we arrived in Santiago our plane was held out on the tarmac for over half an hour before we were eventually bussed to the terminal with me having to use my somewhat basic Spanish to respond to our drivers frantic calls demanding to know where we were as we were late. Despite the panic we eventually met the most miserable bugger we've come across since we landed in South America and he drove us to our hotel in the commercial centre of Santiago. Needless to say he didn't get a tip so I expect he was even more miserable when he got home!

The hotel is well located so we went exploring, had dinner and a few drinks and organised a city tour for today.

We were up and ready in the foyer of our hotel 10 minutes before the guide was supposed to pick us up at 7.50am. He eventually turned up at 8.30am and was very blasé when challenged about being late. "oh, you're in South America now. What do you expect?“. He'd already lost me by then, I was ticking. We then spent the next hour buggering about picking up other tourists from other hotels... tick, tick, tick. He then proceeded to take us very slowly round a few streets in the centre of Santiago. The slowest and most boring tour I've ever been on. Three Brazilians just left at one point, without paying, never to be seen again. I was feeling exactly the same but MM insisted that we stayed the course. At 1pm he said "that's it, finito". A young Australian girl said "what about Bella Vista". At this point his English suddenly became very poor and he appeared not to understand. The young girl persisted and I supported her - tick, tickeddy, tick, tick. Fortunately, a Canadian woman had the flyer with her that supported our position and it transpired that the lazy bugger had missed out about half of the tour. Tick, tick, tick - not happy. He now had nowhere to go, so he spent the next 2 hours doing the things he'd missed but he'd lost the crowd and the atmosphere wasn't great at all. The worst tour I've ever been on, can't wait for the feedback request!

Having said all that Santiago is a nice surprise. After all the 3rd world places we've been to over the past 3 weeks or so it's nice to be somewhere recognisable. Much more like a European city with proper infrastructure, cars that don't look like they've taken part in wacky races, traffic lights, pavement cafes and bars, parks and wide avenues. A pleasant change for a couple of days. It'll be interesting to see how the rest of Chile compares.

After the tour we took the metro red line (very clean, efficient and cheap) from Manuel Montt to Universidad de Santiago to book our bus tickets to and from Valparaiso on the coast, where we'll spend a night before returning to Santiago to take the 10hr overnight bus to Pucon in Patagonia where we'll spend a couple of nights before we head into Argentina.

Weather has been very warm so no need for all the cold and wet weather gear we packed yet.

It'll be good to see the sea tomorrow. We seem to have survived the altitude and the return to sea level reasonably well so hopefully the rest of the trip should be a doddle! We'll see.

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View from the Boundary - Bolivia

Wednesday 22nd November 2023

There is no doubt that Bolivia has it's problems. There is serious political unrest, corruption and severe poverty, although that has reduced a bit with the left wing actions of the former president Evo Morales. Morales seems to be a bit of a marmite politician, revered by many and detested by the right. He served as president until 2019 and, allegedly, tried to spread the wealth and invest in public services whilst in office. It was he who pushed through the cable car transport system in La Paz and any new buildings coloured blue, schools, airports etc were commissioned by Morales. He was succeeded by someone who ran with his support, Luis Arce, but, once in power. he started to change policies and reverse some of Morales' decisions. The situation is febrile and the President has 3 heavily guarded official residences so people aren't sure where he is to make assassination more difficult.

We found the people to be friendly and helpful but several told us not to go to certain places at night, and others even during the day (eg Alto in La Paz) as gringo's aren't really popular and are assumed to be American. Bolivian's hate Americans apparently.

Bolivia is considered to be the poorest nation in South America and it certainly feels like it. The cities that we visited, Sucre excepted, were scruffy, noisy, dirty, busy and unkempt. Sucre was a notable exception and well worth a visit.

However, out of the towns the landscape is absolutely stunning. If this landscape was anywhere else in the world people would be flocking to visit. It knocks New Zealand, Yosemite, Bryce Canyon out of the park. I would even debate putting it above the Taj Mahal and the Grand Canyon. But, it's Bolivia, who wants to go there? There's no nice, posh hotels, the cars all look as though they've spent 10 years doing banger racing, no one speaks English, the food isn't Michelin approved etc. All I can say is that you're missing out, it really is an experience.

Ofcourse the country could help itself. It could market itself as a tourist destination better. It is rich in minerals that could fill the public coffers but corrupt politicians sell concessions to foreign companies for a fraction of what they are worth for a big, personal kick back.

In summary, I can't say it's the favourite or most comfortable place I've ever visited, but it is one of the most surprising as has some real hidden treasures.

A true diamond in the rough.

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The Bolivian and Chilean border posts and the back packer town of San Pedro de Atacama.

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Some views of the Salar de Uyini and the High Plateau

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Who knew Bolivia has so much to offer?

Tuesday 21 November 2023

We've been out of Internet coverage for the past 3 days - wonderful. Obviously we've survived our 3 day adventure into the Uyuni Salt Flats and the High Plateau, but what was it like and did it live up to expectations?

I have to say that my expectations were fairly low as I'm a cynic and was fully prepared to be ripped off by travel companies preying on unsuspecting, naive tourists. Obviously, MM's expectations were sky high as she'd done her usual research and was ready to teach the poor guide a thing or two.

Our guide, Carlos, arrived promptly at our hotel in Uyuni at 10am with our driver, Luiz. It turned out that MM and I were the only people on this particular tour, so we had Carlos and Luiz to ourselves - lucky them! Our first stop was in the centre of Uyuni as Carlos said that there would be little or no chance to buy anything once we got going, so we purchased water, banana's and a few other things to eat between meals and on the last morning when we headed for the Chilean border and wouldn't get any lunch. Carlos stressed that we should not try and take food, banana's, apples etc across the Chilean border as this was against the law and we should make sure that we eat everything before we got there. Understood? Yep, understood, no foodstuffs to cross the border.

Fully provisioned, we set off for the train cemetery which is located just outside the sprawling urbanisation that is Uyuni. There is a track that runs absolutely straight from Uyini to Chile, but now it is only used for freight and only a couple of times a week. Until the mid 1980's trains were running regularly, transporting minerals across the high Plateau. Then demand and prices plummeted so the old steam trains were just shunted off the track and left to rust - tragic.

After that we headed onto the Salar de Uyuni, the salt flats. The first stop was the salt hotel, just as you enter the salt flats. The flats and the hotel were used in the Star Wars film, I can't remember which one, but it starts with the hero (Skywalker?) being found in the middle of a salt desert by someone who tells him he's a jedi. Anyway, when you see the flats it is other worldly and you can understand why they used it.

From there we drove into the middle of nowhere. You couldn't see anyone else, occasionally another 4 wheel drive could be seen in the distance, but basically you were on your own, surrounded by white salt and silence - incredible. Carlos and Luiz prepared a lunch of llama meat and vegetables which was interesting and then we drove to Cactus Island and climbed to the top of the crag for some incredible views. From there we drove 60km across the flats to Conquesa island where we spent the night as the only people in this unique hotel.

In the morning we had breakfast and headed up Conquesa mountain to see the Inca mummies, all buried in the foetal position and then headed south across the salt flats to explore the high Plateau. It's amazing to think that the flats and the High Plateau are sitting in the mountains at more than 4200m (c14,000ft). The scenery was amazing as we're the lagoons that were different colours due to different minerals and were home to thousands of flamingo's. The highest place that flamingo's can be found in the world. We stayed the night in a hotel in a room overlooking the lake and the flamingo's.

I should mention how the temperature changes. During the day it's really hot but as evening approaches the wind gets up and the temperature plummets, to the extent that the water can freeze overnight, even at this time of year (late spring).

This morning we were up early as we had quite a few things to see before heading to the isolated border of Hito Cajon. We saw volcano's, lakes, flamingo's, geyser's, eroding rocks, hot springs and a couple of broken down 4x4's.

I have to say, that as we'd been driving along on these dusty, rutted tracks I had wondered what would happen if our vehicle had a problem. The place is so remote and there's no phone coverage. Basically, you have to wait until someone comes along and they then get to the next point where there is a building and let them know that someone is in trouble. It can take hours to get picked up and in bad or hot weather that's no fun. I was just pleased that it wasn't us that had the breakdown.

At around 10.30am we reached the Bolivian border, and, as feared it was really, really remote - nothing there at all. No shops, no taxi's nothing. I was right to have been concerned. Fortunately, our Chilean driver was there to meet us as I'd arranged whilst we were in Uyuni, the day before we set off. We left the 2 apples we had left with Carlos and Luiz, transferred our bags into the Chilean van said goodbye to them and headed off for the Chilean border about 2 miles away, a big no-mans land. When we reached the Chilean checkpoint we noticed that the van in front was unpacking all their bags and putting them through an airport like scanner. There were signs everywhere reminding people not to bring food, explosives etc into the country. No problem I thought, we left the apples with Carlos and MM exploded her dynamite in the silver mine at Potosi. Why would I be so calm, I've lived with MM for donkey's years, I should have known. A little voice suddenly said "what about my peanuts, they're in my bag - if they scan it, they'll find them. And oh, what about that health food stuff I bought in Sucre, that's in my big back pack". This had all the signs of being another Melbourne 2016 when she got caught trying to smuggle fags in from Thailand! From looking very calm and unflustered we suddenly looked very shifty indeed.

As the bags went onto the conveyor belt I was wondering how I might make her life in a Chilean jail more bearable once I'd got back to England. I hadn't come to any conclusions when the officer just said "OK". That was enough we got our bags back in the van quickly, hopped in and off we went.

It was about a 45 minute drive down into San Pedro de Atacama, which, unsurprisingly sits in the Atacama desert. The road from the frontier was a proper road, something we hadn't seen for sometime. However, as soon as we entered the town itself the dusty, unmade roads reappeared as we made our way to our hostel. This is a real backpacking town, it reminds me of Luang Prabang in Laos, or downtown Hanoi - backpackers and back packer bars everywhere, very nostalgic.

To close, I have to say that it was a fantastic 3 day trip. We were fortunate in that we hardly saw anybody else at all. It was as if we had Bolivia to ourselves for 3 days. The views are just incredible, the landscape is spectacular, vast and unspoilt. It really is a hidden gem, visit if you can.

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Centre of town, map of the salt flats - we go north then head south to the very bottom to Hito Cajon (my nemesis), view from our hotel window

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Oops I've done it again!

Saturday 18th November

A very lazy day today as we wait to start our 3 day crossing of the Uyuni Salt Flats tomorrow. There really is nothing much to do in Uyuni, we've wandered the dusty streets a few times now to kill time but there's nothing to see or do. It's a one horse, scruffy town and it's only raison d'etre is as a jumping off point to the salt flats. You get the feeling that there might be a gunfight any minute, but we haven't seen one yet!

I feel that at this point I should make a confession. If you're still following this story you probably think that, despite the disruption that it MM, everything is pretty much under control and going according to plan. Well, the truth is that this little section of our trip has been giving me sleepless nights since we got here. Why?

Most people set off from Uyuni, travel round the salt flats and then return to Uyuni before heading off wherever. Not me, oh no, far to clever for that! I'd arranged for the tour operators to drop MM and myself off at the Chilean border at Hito Cajon so that we could then cross the Atacama desert, get ourselves to Calama and then fly down to Santiago from there. "Ooh, that's clever" you might think. I certainly did until I realised that the border at Hito Cajon is extremely isolated with no public transport, hotels or anything at all. Consequently, I asked the tour provider to quote for a transfer from the border to San Pedro de Atacama, only 35km away. "Ofcourse" they said "£205 please". I thought they were kidding so decided to sort something out when I got into territory. Whilst in Peru, I was contacted by a chap called Joseph who reckoned he could sort it all out for US$160. This still seemed very expensive, but I checked with a UK tour guide in territory and he explained that it was a very good price, but to be absolutely sure of everything because it really isn't a good idea to be stuck at the border as it's not a very safe place at all and there's no where to go.

Well that put the pressure on a bit so I have been constantly chasing Joseph who has been lax in responding and evasive when pushed for details. By yesterday, when we arrived in Uyuni, I was getting quite anxious, Joseph was not responding to messages, I couldn't get through to the UK salt flats tour provider because my phone mysteriously stopped being able to make or take calls, but was working on data, and the local Bolivian tour provider would not accept an order unless it came through from the UK tour operator. The hotel in Chile offered to help but, in the end, came up with nothing.

Today is our last day with data cover as we won't get any on the salt flats apparently unless the hotels have weak signals in the evening. As a last resort this morning I WhatsApp called young John and asked him to get through to the UK tour operator, explain the contact issues and tell them what I needed. Fortunately, he got through and we've now got it all sorted - hopefully!

I've started to breathe again now that I know I've done everything to keep MM safe for you all. The only other option would have been to return to Uyuni after the salt flats and then head south by bus to Chile - but I hate travelling backwards, don't you?

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Friday 17th November

Not much happened today other than our 4 hour bus trip from Potosi to Uyuni. The route was over the top of the Bolivian highlands and the landscape is like a desert scrub land as you can see from the photo's. Where the land is slightly marshy there are thousands of wild Llamas, as captured in one of the photo's. Although it is only late spring here, all the riverbeds are absolutely dry, it's a great landscape fora western film. The road we took just winds gently round the mountains, rising and falling occasionally. It's obvious why Top Gear or Clarkson, or whoever it was did a road trip over here, the road and the landscape are fantastic. The whole place has an inhospitable but rugged beauty.

At the end of the road you see Uyuni laid out before you. As you approach it feels like a wild west town, with wide dusty roads and ramshackle buildings. I don't think you'd want to spend much time here at all.

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2 shots of view's on the road to Potosi, 1st view of Potosi, the van that took us up to the mine shaft, MM and her new toys, view down the mountain from the mine shaft, MM about to enter the mine, MM scrambling down a shaft, MM the accomplished miner!

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Off with a bang!

Thursday 16th November

We got an early taxi to Sucre bus station and caught the 7am local bus to Potosi. It was a rickety old bus that had obviously done plenty of miles. The 3.5hr trip took us through and over the mountains on very windy roads, or tracks. The good thing about doing these bus trips is that you see a lot more of the country than just hopping from one city to another by air. I have to say that the life of a rural Bolivian looks tough. The houses are barely shacks and the land doesn't look as though it yields much. I have no idea how they scrape a living.

If Sucre was lovely, the first sightings of Potosi were more than disappointing, as were the 2nd, 3rd and 4th. In fact, every sighting just confirmed what a dump Potosi is! It is a proper industrial city of c280k inhabitants at 4090m that is dominated by the silver mines that eat into its' mountain, Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain) like a rabbit warren. The silver mined here was shipped back to Spain in astonishing quantities and at great cost to the lives of black and indigenous slaves. Even now, the mining methods are rudimentary and more than 300 lives are lost every year, mostly to carbon monoxide poisoning.

I had booked a trip to the silver mine for myself and MM but since booking several people had mentioned that the mountain is now like a swiss cheese with unchartered tunnels running everywhere. This was corroborated by Unesco who have decreed that mining must stop by 2035 because the mountain is slowly falling in on itself and will eventually implode and disappear if mining continues. Furthermore, the shafts and tunnels are extremely narrow requiring the miners (and visitors) to crawl on their bellies or slide on their backs with barely 6 inches of clearance - not good for anyone with claustrophobia like me.

Having considered the advice and my claustrophobia I decided that I would not descend into the tunnels. What about MM you might ask. Well, you know MM - never one to listen to advice, or anything else for that matter! Not only did she decide to go into the tunnels for 2.5hrs, when she discovered that you should take presents in for the miners she had a field day. The life expectancy of these miners is 45. The dust ruins their lungs and the 98% proof alcohol they drink to help their throats ruins their livers. The guides suggest that you take them water, pop, coco leaves, 98% alcohol or dynamite! Many of you will have been terrified by talking to MM in the kitchen when she has a knife in her hand. I keep well out of the way. The level of fear went up a notch when we visited the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam and she got her hands on an AK47 with 10 live rounds. However, imagine how I felt when she waltzed out of the shop and said "I've got a stick of dynamite, a roll of gelignite, a detonator and a fuse wire in this bag and it only cost me 30 boly thingamy's (£3.56)".

I was glad that I wasn't going with her, all I could hear coming out of the mountain for the next couple of hours was "not now MM"!

Somehow, she and her little band survived the experience, though I didn't get the impression that they'd enjoyed it very much. Very informative but very uncomfortable both physically and in understanding how these people live.

The more you travel, the more you appreciate how lucky we are to live in the UK and to have the lives we have.

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View from Recoleta, Black Cat street, the intersection of Black and Grey Cat street, the Prince's Park with its own Eiffel tower, central market, inside San Felipe de Nero and a couple of view's from the top terrace of San Felipes' (one with our blue rooftop bar in the background)

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Day of leisure in Sucre

Wednesday 15th November 2023

After a couple of beers in the roof top bar of our hotel looking over the capital city of Sucre we enjoyed a long sleep and woke up ready for a day of exploration. The weather was glorious, the breakfast good and our private guide, Noel, arrived at 9.00 to take us on a tour of this beautiful city. It only has 300,000 inhabitants and has the feeling of space, greenery and friendliness. We started in the main square, Plaza 25 de Mayo, which celebrates the independence of Bolivia. Noel knew his stuff and was able to give us chapter and verse on the history, the buildings and even the trees! It was very interesting and it really is a lovely centrepiece for the city. We then travelled up to the Recoleta viewpoint that affords some wonderful views over the city. This is considered a bit of a romantic area where couples meet and spend time together. It always was apparently, and when the Spanish were here the locals, knowing the young Spanish soldiers would be courting there would lie in wait, kill them and then "disappear into the narrow lanes like cats". Consequently, this is known as the area of the cats. It's all being renovated now with new restaurants and bars with the narrow streets called black cat, white cat and grey cat.

After this we were told the story of an extremely rich young local dignitary who purchased the title of "Prince" from the Pope and married his princess, Clothild. She loved Paris so he built a park to mirror the Champs Elysee in Paris, with its own Eiffel Tower, so she wouldn't need to visit Paris anymore. It's a lovely park but the visit was spoilt a bit as MM was convinced that she'd lost her phone in "the cat area". As it turned out, she hadn't, it was on the floor in the taxi fortunately.

From there we walked through town and the huge, central market back to the main square where our guide left us.

As Sucre is renowned for chocolate, we had a hot chocolate in one of the many chocolate shops and then went for lunch.

After lunch we walked up to the convent of San Felipe de Nero that also provides fantastic views of the city from it's terraces - we even found our hotels' rooftop bar.

Tomorrow we head off to Potosi and a visit to a silver mine. However, I'll be sorry to leave Sucre, it really is a lovely city and it's my favourite place so far. Will it hold this elevated position to the end of the trip, we'll see.