More from South America

A little more from my trip to South America:

The hotel in Arequipa, Peru was Hotel Libertador Arequipa.  It was super nice, more like a vacation hotel then work.  This was the "backyard" of the hotel.  We always ate breakfast on the patio right next to the pool. Between the trees was a great view of one of the volcanoes (the great view didn't come through in this picture).

They had alpaca's and a giant turtle in the "backyard".  I did try alpaca meat, it's tasty.

The view of the volcano through the trees.  Peru and Chile are part of the Pacific Ring of Fire so there are three pretty large volcanoes around the city.

In Peru they serve Cuy (Coo-ee) in some resturants; this if fried guinea pig (see right side of menu, 4th down).  And in case the Cuy doesn't sound appetizing, how about some Mashead potatoes (right hand side about half way down)?

We ordered Cuy as an appetizer to share one night.   It tastes kind of like dark bird meat but very greasy.

A closer view...good thing I didn't look at him too closely before eating.

In Calama, Chile (the place that looked like the moon) there where roadside memorials every mile or so.  I assume it is for people who have died along the road.  Some where small and some were really large...like double carport size.  They provided something to look at on the 1 hour ride to the mine.

Calama also has some volcanoes near by.  The small black bump is the lower left of the picture is (so I'm told) the smallest active land volcano in the world.

Proof that I was working:

Chile seems to be a very patriotic country, there where flags flying everywhere.

A pause in the park after dinner for a group picture in Copiapó, Chile.  Steve, Jeff, Gary, me, Karl

On the final day we went to a beach town, Caldera, for lunch.  It had beautiful views but was a little windy and cold since it was winter.

I thought this would be my last trip to South America, but it turns out I will be going again at the end of January.  Maybe I'll be able to do a little more sight seeing this time...

South America - Trip #3

My first trip to South America was in May, I went to Santiago again in August for one week and then spent two weeks in Peru and Chile at the end of September.  All three of the trips were for work; a project I am involved in.  

The 3rd trip was for our "go-live", which means the labs would start using the database.  The trip involved LOTS of working and LOTS of flying.  For just over two weeks I spent every day either flying or working...even weekends :(  During the course of the 2 weeks I was at three different mines, 1 in Peru and 2 in Chile.  The routes to get to the towns by the mines was crazy!!!  The map of Chile and Peru will help me explain the legs of the trip.

A = Lima, Peru
B = Arequipa, Peru
C = Calama, Chile
D = Copiapó, Chile
E = Santiago, Chile

15th = Flew from the LA to A, then from A to B.
19th and 20th = Flew from B to A, then from A to E, then from E to C.
24th = Flew from C to E, then from E to D.
28th = Flew from D to E, then from E to Dallas.

Some of the cities aren't too far apart but it is not feasible to drive between them quickly and there are not flights between the cities so all of the flights had to hub through Lima or Santiago.  Flying from Arequipa to Calama is comparable to needing to get from Denver to Kansas City but flying from Denver to San Francisco to New York City To Kansas City.  It is a time consuming way to travel but on the bright side it means more frequent flyer miles.


Arequipa, Peru
In October General Conference they announced that a temple is going to be built here - yeah for Arequipa!  It it a fairly large city and the traffic is insane.  They are very aggressive drivers but it seems to work because traffic moves along pretty well and I never saw any accidents or dented cars.  It took about 1 hour to drive to the mine and one morning during the commute we ran into a traffic jam on the edge of town because of some cows being herded down the street.

Peru is still a developing country so the middle of town was very modern but along the outskirts it got a little more rustic and 3rd world.  It's a little hard to see in the picture but they love to paint their houses/walls/etc. with vibrant colors, it was fun to look at.

There is a lot of agriculture around Arequipa.  I know they grow tons of green onions, although they weren't included in any of the food I ate so maybe they are mostly for export???.  This man was harvesting his field...leeks maybe?  All of the field work was done manually, there were usually at least 5 people working in most fields.


All of the crops made it very green and pretty.

Calama, Chile
Very much a mining city.  We were told there are around 50 mines within 100 km of Calama.  Wow!  A lot of people fly in to work their shift and then fly back to their homes on their days off.  I understand why.  As soon as you leave the town the landscape looks like this:

It is a little like driving on the moon.  I think I did see around 10 plants by the time we got to the mine which was an hour drive.  Needless to say, they don't have any agriculture in Calama.

Copiapó, Chile
Around Copiapó they grow a lot of olives and grapes.  At all of the restaurants there would be Copiapó olive oil at the tables.  I think there were also plenty of local wines...I don't know about that but I do know about juice in South America, it is fantastic.

All of the hotels were full so we stayed at the company owned "compound".  It was a nice gated area with about 12 3-bedroom houses.  I stayed in a house by myself and made sure that none of the dozen or so cats wondering around outside didn't get in.

Hola Santiago

From May 7 - May 12 I went on a trip to Santiago for work.  Don't be confused by the flags, it was Chile.  I'm not sure why they flew Brazilian, Canadian, and Chinese (not in this picture) flags beside the Marriott and Chilean flags at the hotel.  My best guesses are there were dignitaries from those countries staying at the hotel or those are the countries they were feeling most friendly toward that day.

I LOVE traveling, especially when I don't have to pay a dime!  The flights down and back were during the night but I got was able to get a decent night sleep because I get to fly business class for international work travel (one thing I would never do on my own so I am grateful for every minute of it).

Santiago is a very modern city with a lot of condo living, pollution, and small cars.  The driving is a little crazy with very narrow lanes and very defensive drivers, but there does not seem to be any road rage or honking.  One day my taxi driver was competing with a bus and another car for the right to this one lane...it was hilarious.  I was a little disappointed by the smog because I really wanted to see the Andes. You can almost make them out in the background.

Across the street from the office was this earthquake proof more-resistant building.  As I am no architectural engineer, I can't explain how it works but it looked neat.  The bottom was very narrow and it got wider as it went up.  (Mostly I included two pictures if the building for the benefit of a certain B.R. in Florida who loves concrete.)

The food in Chile was pretty good.  My favorite item was Chirimoya, it is a juice.  I am not a juice drinker regularly but this was to die for!  Chirimoya is a fruit down in South America; David says it is really good and it must be because it makes delicious juice.  I liken it to pear juice because it is white and has the same grittyness, but it is sweeter.  The empanadas were also good; they are like small hot pockets with either cheese or meat in them.  They also serve bread at every meal with butter and picante (salsa).  It seemed weird at first but it is really good.  One thing I did not like was albacore pot pie.  It was a fishy, salty, burnt mess and I mostly just pushed it around my plate so it looked like I ate some.  Dinner in Chile doesn't start until at least 8 or 8:30.  One night we went to dinner at 7:00 and the restaurant was deserted but when we left at 10:30 it was jam-packed.  I guess they must not go to be until at least midnight on a regular basis.

On Friday we worked until 2 and then took a late lunch to a Peruvian restaurant, El Otto Sitio.  It is in the left middle of the picture.

Peruvian food is so good!  They had a yellow pepper dip for the bread (instead of picante) that was a little spicy but very tasty.  I got a chicken stew and it was awesome.  I highly recommend Peruvian food.

On Saturday our flight wasn't until 8:30 pm so we did some sight seeing.  Luckily one of my co-workers speaks fluent Spanish so we were able to get around the city without getting lost.  First we rode the subway to the city center.  This building is called something like the President's Mansion.

While we were at this building a group of people running a race ran by and there was a pack of dogs running with them.  I didn't notice too many stray dogs in Santiago, but there are at least 30 running the race.

In the city center there were some beautiful old buildings,

and a really pretty cathedral.

Right outside the cathedral was a city park, the no-grass kind.  People were selling all sorts of crafts, music was playing, and there were hundreds of pigeons.  Some people were letting them land on their heads, gross.    

 And, in my defense, I didn't notice the sculptures at the top of the fountain until just now.

After the city center we went over to this hill in the middle of the city.  (There is this 8 or 10 km tunnel under the hill, it was an extremely long tunnel).  You can ride a tram to the top or stop half-way up at a zoo.  

There were a lot of trees around the track so it blocked the view on the way up but from the top you could see most of the city.  At least I anticipate you could see most of the city on a not-so-smoggy day.  Once again, my hopes to see the Andes from the top of the hill were ruined.  I'm hoping that it won't be so smoggy in July when I go again so I can actually see the Andes, but I'm not holding my breath.