3/8 looking back on the last few days

Two days ago we were in Coquimbo (coh-kweem-both) Chile.  We took a drive-around tour of, mostly, the city of La Serena.  Each city has about 210,000 residents and stretches over miles and miles of high-density housing.  It seems one heck of a lot of non-residents keep summer homes there.  It was a pleasant tour.  The guide understood how to show something vaguely boring and explain it in a way that sparks interest.

Day before yesterday we docked in San Antonio, took a shuttle through a small but intensely industrial part of the port, boarded a bus, and drove into the countryside to a winery.  The hills, the edge of The Coastal Mountain range (think of it as the foothills of the Andes) was scrubby and somewhat forested.

 'Somewhat' because the native forest has been logged.  The native trees were replaced by Eucalyptus.    Heavy drinkers that, since then usual heavy Winter rains have stopped happening, are needed for erosion control but are doing their part to increase desertification.  The wine had a great nose.  The buffet luncheon was delightful.  If ever we get a stable internet connection, I will download a few photos.

Yesterday was a sea day.  Nothing Much happened save for rumors about the ship's noro outbreak.  As an inherent researcher I traced various rumors (future ports are refusing to let us dock, half the crew is ill - that's why service is so poor) all appear to be just rumors (the port cities need tourist money, the service was iffy before the outbreak).

Today we are somewhere else doing something else.  With luck, the scenery is lovely.

With luck we keep an internet connection.......not too many satellites zooming around this far South.

3/6 Quick Update

When last I reported in, I mentioned the ship is sick.  Passengers and crew continue disappearing.  Cabin doors are blocked by big yellow tape Xs to keep the sick away from the fed.

One woman, who vanished for 48 hours, told me the ship doctor told her so many sick passengers are refusing to respect quarantine that she had 2 choices: be taped into her room or be escorted off the ship and left to find her own way home.  She said she crossed her wrists and said bondage sounded like a great idea.......then sprinted the loo.

Thus far John and I are healthy as.......gosh, what's a good analogy for someone who is running around on excursions and generally being amazingly amazing?

Tomorrow is a sea day.  Traveling against a major oceanic current, it may resemble a roller coaster ride.  But I have some cool pictures to share.  

Hint: Chilean geese are just as bossy as geese from the Northern Hemisphere.

Nighty-night.

3/4 Sea Day On A Sick Ship

Several passengers mentioned having experiencing gastrointestinal 'opportunities' yesterday.  So I was not completely shocked this morning when the usually silent captain activated the loud speakers to report we got trouble in river city.  In the olden days ships kept outbreaks kind of stealth.  New CDC rules: if more than 1% of the ship complement (passengers and crew) report the same symptoms, everyone onboard must be notified and everywhere must be closed & sterilized.  Some places (like the library and the laundromat) must be closed until 72 hours after no new symptoms / illness is reported.

Wish I had done laundry this morning (of course, I already have several books - ship libraries tend to be fascinating).

So, today we sailed.  Watched schools of dolphins cavorting.  Sailed.  Noshed.  Sailed.  Napped.  Talked.  Rocked and rolled mildly as we fight our way South through the Humbolt Current.

I might be wrong, but I suspect a certain amount of drinking may have happened.......might still be happening.

I worked on a presentation I am giving to the community in a few months.

Except for the people losing unplanned weight, it was a pretty good day.

3/3 Iquique (eee-kwee-kway), Chili

If you listen to the wind in Iquique, in the temporal distance you can hear Tennessee Ernie Ford singing 'You load sixteen tons, what do you get?.........'

In this case, you get Iquique.  And saltpetre (what do gunpowder and fertilizer have in common?) mines.  The mines were isolated high in the mountainous coastal desert.  Each town (AKA mining business) had it's own theater, swimming pool, school, and economy.

Really, economy.  Every mine paid the workers in unique tokens.  Shops in each town only accepted local tokens.  The only legal currency was in the hands of, thank you Ernie, the Company Store.

Not that it mattered.  Working sixteen hour days probably made traveling, read 'walking' between towns over Atacama desert mountains kind of ain't gonna happen.

The old part of the city was greatly reminiscent of California gold rush towns.  Mine owners lived in opulent, expansive homes.  Mine workers didn't.

All gone now.  The last mine closed about 1960.

Travelers today board theoretically comfy buses to explore 20 million year old fossils (giant armadillo, saber toothed tiger, towering tapirs - Disney's Ice Age series got it right), relics from the mining age, casinos, and - duty free shopping.

I say theoretically comfy buses because, well, if a bus sits all morning closed in the summer sun with broken air conditioning, 'comfy' is not quite the definition précis.

When the tour group re-boarded said bus after the first stop, Nancy - whose body temp does not regulate well - departed to walk to the ship's free shuttle.  John, who is well-trained in dealing with Nancy's sense of direction, departed to shepherd me to said shuttle, then rejoined the tour at the casino.  From which he also shuttled back to the ship.

In fact, I started the diaspora: everyone on the tour found alternative ways to get 'home'.   And almost everyone on the tour generously took time to let Oceania know what they thought about paying to be sautéed in a bus.

We are waiting to hear what Oceania has to say about it.

May your days be merry and bright!  And may all your daydreams go right!

3/1 Pisco Peru, Paracas National Preserve, and a - distant sound of The Twilight Zone Theme - mystery

Okay, it is really Friday, 3/2 and I'll get to that excitement in a moment.  First, lemme tell you about yesterday.

We docked in Pisco and I took a tour of Paracas National Preserve.  Although many of my fellow-excursionators had no idea there was anything in Peru except Machu Picchu, maybe a few jungle-y trees, and a few high hills named Andes, there is more to Peru than that!

There is desert.  And I do not mean a something sweet to eat after dinner (although there is plenty of that).  Did you know Peru is the world's largest exporter of asparagus?  Third largest grower, but #1 exporter because, to quote my excursion guide, 'those other countries actually like to eat it!!?!'

The desert is coastal.  The Nature Preserve is coastal desert and, where the land crashes into the ocean it creates some pretty spectacular scenery.  On average it gets less than, sometimes significantly less than, 2 ml of rain/year.  Paracas means rain of sand.  Which rain apparently makes those uni,pressive Saharan sandstorms look like brief and dusty afternoons.  (Have I mentioned I really like the Peruvian people I have met?  They are enthusiastic, positive, and just downright interested in everything they encounter.) .........

Which brings us to the mystery.........    

I got great photos of the famous and infamous nonazca lines!  

 These mysterious shapes in the sand can only be seen if you happen to be standing, flying, or jumping over them!  They appear to have some inexplicable meaning (more about this later).

 The 'lines' on the right appeared as if by magic one morning.  No one understands where they came from......although the locals refer to them, in their picturesque language as 'dang dune buggies are destroying this place'.  No one has been able to interpret the meaning of this complex phrase.

😸 Okay, that was fun.  Lots of passengers did fly over the Nazca lines.  Lots of passengers got really airsick 'cause the planes zipped through the air with the leastest of ease.

Of, photo #1.  As far as the tiny fishing village on the coast was concerned those lines really were inexplicable.  But, when NASA built roads and used that inland desert to test the early versions of the Mars Rovers, the villagers welcomed the company.  Then went back to fishing and concentrating on survival. 

Today, 3/2 we are docked at Arequipa (AKA Matarani).  Which multi-named city is approximately 70 miles or a 3 hour desert bus ride away.  When we booked excursions we noticed the shortest was about 8 hours.  We stayed 'home' at a tiny industrial port.  John has taken a 30ish minute shuttle ride to Mollendo (a small village until John returns with better info). 

I took a nap.

For anyone interested Arequipa is going to be part of the InterOceanic Highway Peru and Brazil are building together to connect the Pacific and Atlantic via a land route.

I'm going to look that up now.

3/1 At Sea, brief recap of key learnings from the last two days

1) They grow some really interesting trees in Lima.

2)  Where ever you go, just look East and the Andes are waving at you

3) No photo of this one.  DRIVING IN LIMA PERU IS A CONTACT SPORT.  The only rules I was able to figure out are:

• Lane lines are used to keep your car centered.
• The number of lanes on a given road cannot exceed the number of cars stretched across any given point on the road divided by .8792
• The number of lanes in a roundabout cannot exceed the number of cars in, or about to enter, said roundabout.
• It is strictly not allowed to add more than two lanes to any given road shoulder.
• Turn lanes are for losers.  If you plan to turn, make sure you are in a lane marked 'straight'.
• If you are riding a motorcycle or a scooter and planning to turn, make sure you are in a lane behind a turning car then cut deeply inside that car's turn radius.  Coming out of the turn in front of the car is extra points.
• If any human being steps into a crosswalk ALL drivers on the road immediately stop, smile, and wave the pedestrian across the street.  Noblesse happily obliges.
• I never saw an accident, not once.  But watching the driving was really exciting.

Okay, now I go figure out where the photos from today's excursion ended up......cause they sure didn't arrive in MY email!