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Dried Llama Foetuses & Scantily Clad Coffee Hostesses

(November 20 - December 2, 1997)

We left off with us at the frontier of Peru and Bolivia. Our driver dropped us at the Peruvian border and we had to tote our luggage a half a mile across the ¨neutral zone¨. The other side, in Bolivia, was a dust-bowl strip of old wrecked cars and buildings. We eventually got a ride into Copacabana on the shore of Lake Titicacca, the highest navigable lake in the world at 12,000 ft. This was a great town. We stayed in an artsy Taj Mahal-like vegetarian hotel run by two wayward Europeans who spent their time doing silk screening and rock sculpture. We ate well there. Mostly trout from the lake - reputed to be the largest in the world. We think it was salmon though ...... but it was delicious.

On Sunday Copa came alive. All activity centered around the cathedral which housed a special Virgin Mary that was responsible for miracles. We sat in the church and watched the local people file in, each carrying a model of the miracle they hope for, a house, car, etc. These models could be bought outside the church gate , and they would be wrapped up in streamers and paper money before being taken into the church. One guy had a slinky! Go figure!?

Then the priest showed up in sneakers and a baseball cap and headed outside with a large urn of water. He sorta looked like George Carlin with a monks habit.

Every Sunday, people drive their cars and trucks and buses into Copa, decorated with flowers and colorful paper to be blessed by the priest. He shakes holy water in the interior of the car, under the hood, and then bops each owner on the head while dousing all other family members in the process. Afterwards, the family celebrates by popping open champagne and beer and spraying every inch of the car then adding confetti and several strings of firecrackers into the mix. One woman didn't wait for the priest to finish and accidently sprayed him with beer!! His muttered reaction was that holy water was okay, but beer was paganistic. There was holy water on sale in the church by the liter.

The next day we took a motor boat to the Island of the Sun - where the Incas believe the sun was born. After first checking in with the Bolivian (lake) Navy we had a beautiful, if not chilly, ride to the island. After we had climbed to the top of the island, we came back down to wait for our boat back to Copa. On the beach there was a brother (5 yrs) and sister (3 yrs) collecting their laundry on the rocks where it had been drying. They each made a big stack and wrapped the clothes in a cloth to carry back home. Well, the brother finished earlier then the sister and gave her no help but promptly trod off. Meanwhile the little girl could not tie her bundle or even lift the heavy load and started sobbing,. So Don and I walked over and picked up the laundry and asked her where she wanted it. She was amazed and pranced home with us in tow. We delivered the laundry to her mother and made a show of it in front of her brother.

After Copa we went to La Paz. La Paz is so high that the pilots must put on oxygen masks when they land at the international airport! This city had an interesting mixture of traditional Indian culture and modern society. There were so many markets. Near our hotel was the witches market. They sold all sorts of concoctions and llama fetuses. The fetuses are buried under new homes for good luck. We also were near a pinata and party goods market.

We also visited the Coca Museum. Until now, Don and I had been drinking coca tea and chewing leaves as a way to relieve the altitude sickness we felt. This is a traditional rememdy in Peru and Bolivia. At the Coca Museum , our guide talked about how local miners worked in the caves for days with just coca leaves and whiskey to sustain them. He also said that Western society had made coca harmful by adding chemicals and making it into cocaine. He had a mannequin of an American businessman snorting cocaine and another of a man in Bermuda shorts crushing the leaves in a clandestine cocaine factory.

That night, we visited another folklore show with much dancing and music. The masks the performers wore were pretty wild, ranging from giant pompon headdresses to masks that looked like ¨The Fly¨in neon. There was another venue, recommended by our hotel, which advertised ¨heydrogenically dessicated llama meat dried in a special solar oven¨ on their menu, but we gave that place a miss.

On to Chile...........

We are very happy here in Chile. Santiago is a very modern, cosmopolitan city. Fantastic seafood, ice cream, friendly people. There are a few strange things though. One is the way to buy something. We needed a bottle of water so we dropped into a market. I casually went to the cooler and grabbed a bottle - but not before two attendants pounced on me as if I was taking their job! I was. In each store you first choose want you want (everything is behind a counter) and get an item receipt, you then take this to the cashier and pay for it, you then take that stamped paid for receipt back to the counter person who wraps your purchase and gives it to the pick-up counter person. We have tried to cut steps but it was no use. This employment scheme has made Chile one of the most prosperous looking cities we have been to, but also the most expensive. We ordered a grilled cheese sandwich in a restaurant that was $5 ! no wonder, there were five cooks behind the counter that needed to be paid.

The other interesting aspect is the coffee bars. When we first arrived to Chile, we were dragging our luggage to the hotel and were very hot and thirsty. So Don said let´s get a drink in this cafe. I entered first and saw a line of business men at the counter (it is a stand-up affair at cafes here) and behind the counter was a women whose attire did not leave much to the imagination. Needless to say I pushed Don out the door and we didn't get a drink. Later I found out this is normal. Coffee bars here are a cross between Hooters and Starbuck´s . The next morning we tried again. This time the ladies were in stilettos and spandex serving our cappucinos from an elevated platform.

For Thanksgiving we ate at one of Pablo Neruda´s old haunts (Nobel Prize poet - see ¨Il Postino¨ film). The next day we went to Chile´s largest vineyard, Concha y Toro, for a tour. On the way, we took a taxi collectivo. This is a great idea. A taxi picks up different people all going to the same place and the cost is shared. It is very cheap. Unfortunately this time we got a driver of a old clunker who had toy ferrari cars glued across his dashboard and was under the impression his car could perform in the same vein. We spent more time off the road then on it. Anyway it was better than the taxi we had in Ecuador, where the driver´s seat was actually a collapsible lawn chair! Or in other instances when the taxi was a Toyota but the driver had somehow gotten hold of a Mercedes hood ornament or Lexus sticker and was none too pleased when I uncovered his ploy.

Today we have just returned from Valparaiso on the coast. This city was a large port until the Panama Canal opened. It is still beautiful though. We stayed on top of a hill (it looks like SF), in an old Victorian house. The couple running the hotel were so incredibly friendly. To get to the house we had to ride a funicular - there are 16 in the city! We bought wine and cheese and climbed up to the roof of the hotel and watched the sunset. The second day we took the local train to Vina del Mar which is a big beach resort. I thought the beach was very dirty, with broken bottles, etc. So we just walked along the boardwalk.

We then took a bus to Isla Negra, Pablo Neruda´s house on the beach, but the museum was closed. We walked down to the beach and found a stone carved to his likeness by one of his followers. Next, in no easy manner, we changed buses and got dropped off in the middle of nowhere, in order to work our way to another vineyard called Unduragga. When we arrived , tired and thirsty, we were greeted by a ¨gestapo¨guard who would not let us in (other tourists that came by special fancy air-conditioned pampered bus got in). He wouldn't even let us take a photo of the vines and Don challenged him on that one.. something about it not being a military installation. Oh well, we are back in Santiago and waiting for our ¨Schops¨to be served (that´s a mug of beer here). We leave for Rapa Nui or Easter Island tomorrow.

Love, Don and Karen

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