South America Adventure 2007

 

 

South America Adventure, September 23th to October 11th 2007. Chile, Lake District, Argentina, Bareloche, Buenos Aires, Brazil, Iguassu falls and Rio.

chris and sue jackson email

 

There was a time when admitting to travelling with SAGA condemned one the category of geriatric. Since those days however SAGA have relaxed the rules and now, folk as young as 50 can now join their trips. Well, OK so 50 isn't that young but it's all comparative.

Sue had never visited South America and was particularly interested in visiting the Iguassu Falls and Rio so we shopped around with all the major tour agencies, balancing cost against length of stay, places visited and means of transport. SAGA came out at the top of the pile, so we paid our money and off we went. We should have gone in April but I went down with a crippling dose of sciatica, probably linked with trying something I shouldn't have tried on the climbing wall, so we postponed it until September, when I mysteriously developed a chest infection which was to drag me down throughout the trip. Was someone trying to tell me something? In truth it was not that mysterious, Sue had been suffering from a chesty cough for some 2 weeks before I picked it up. As the old granny used to say, "Never sleep with a diseased woman". That must be what she meant, the old granny knew a thing or two.

Undeterred or perhaps fairly undeterred we showed up at Manchester airport and checked our luggage in, destined for Santiago in Chile. We had to change flights at London HR and Madrid so we were pleasantly surprised to see our luggage appear on the carousel at Santiago International after passing through 4 different airports. Here we met the rest of our group, we were 27 in total plus our SAGA representative Kathryn and our local guide Judith.

Santiago. We spent 3 nights at the Bonaparte Hotel here.

Day 3 of our holiday comprised a city tour and a visit to the Concha y Torro winery. The city, well, it's really just a city. During its history it has been burnt down once and fallen down twice due to earthquakes so there is little of great historical significance. The winery visit was also somewhat disappointing as I'd expected to be taken around the production machinery of presses and fermenting vats, instead we were introduced into the details of different types of oak for barrels. Still, there were a few free samples.

Day 4, a visit to Valparaiso and Viña del Mar which was some 90 minutes drive from Santiago. This was more interesting than Santiago, Valparaiso was once an important port and some of the dockyards still remain, otherwise the brightly coloured houses tumbling down the steep hillsides to the coast and the many ancient funicular railways are its main attraction. Viña del Mar was a pretty, rather traditional beach resort and popular with Santiago residents.

Day5, we flew to Puerto Montt which is the end of the road for the South America Highway and it's not possible to reach southern Chile by road from here without an excursion into Argentina. I was in Puerto Montt some 40 years ago after a climbing expedition in southern Chile, when myself and Dave Nicol one of the other members of the expedition started to hitch hike and use public transport for a trip that took us to Peru and Bolivia and eventually New York, but that's another story. From what I recall, Puerto Montt looks much the same, a slightly wild west atmosphere in a sort of Hebridean setting. Here we met our next local guide who was to take us through the Chilean Lake District.

Above, left - Santiago, right, downtown Puerto Montt

Day 6. The crossing of the Andes via the lake district is one of the classic trips of South America. From our hotel at Puerto Varas we took a coach alongside Lago Languihue to the settlement at Petrahue on the way to which we visited Saltas de Petrahue, beautiful waterfalls of crystal clear water with a backdrop of the classically shaped Osorno volcano, 2652m. See picture above left. From Petrahue we took to the ferry over Lago Todos los Santos to Peulla which seemed to consist of little more than the lovely Hotel Peulla where we stayed overnight. Next day we continued on dirt track by 4x4 coach to the Argentinean border at Puerto Frias where, after much shuffling of paper and stamping of documents we were allowed to continue by another ferry and coach to Puerto Blest on the shores of Lago Nahuel Huapi. The weather remained crystal clear and the views across the lakes to the Andean volcanoes were stunning. Picture 2 is our ferry at Puerto Blest. This last ferry of the day took us to the popular resort of Bariloche, wedged between the Andes and the Patagonian steppes to the east, and where we spent a couple of nights.  Picture 3 is the view from Cerro Campanario just outside Bariloche, looking NW. Picture 4, Sue negotiating the purchase of stamps in Bariloche. It was a lovely setting, a bit between seasons when we were there so there were lots of sales on. On a morning bus tour of the lakes we spotted some Condors.

Day 9. Bariloche to Buenos Aires the capital of Argentina, we took off in brilliant sunshine with amazing views out east over the barren brown steppes, and arrived in a very bumpy thunderstorm. Here, we stayed for 3 nights at the Amerian Park Hotel which was quite central. Buenos Aires is a huge city of 2.8m people, and unlike Santiago it has not repeatedly been rebuilt since its establishment in 1536 by Pedro de Mendoza and as such contains many historic buildings. It also contains some impressive shopping malls, huge squares such as Plaza de Mayo with the Presidential Palace (picture top) , Avenida 9 de Julio which may be the widest in the world which commemorates Argentinean independence in 1816. It's also impossible to visit the city without encountering the ghost of Eva Peron in some form even if it's only the balcony on the Presidential Palace. Other highlights were the Italian Boca district, pictures 3 and 4, and Florida (picture 2) a long pedestrian thoroughfare and the Costanera nature reserve and of course the almost obligatort Tango evening. We also visited the flood prone Tigra delta which sported many curious houses on stilts .

Day 12. Another airport, another plane. This one took us to Puerto Iguazu and the magnificent Iguazu Falls. The falls lie between Brazil and Argentina and are second only to the Victoria Falls which separate Zambia and Zimbabwe. Picture left shows the small train on the Argentinean side which gives access to a long walkway leading to the Garganta del Diablo - The Devil's Throat which is the highest continuous part of the Iguazu falls at 83m. Lower picture is a view from the Brazilian side looking into the Garganta. The end of the walkway was in outrageous position, jutting above the throat of the falls, and we were soon drenched with spray and deafened by the roar of the water.

Our hotel was on the Brazilian side of the falls at the Hotel das Cataratas and we spent 2 nights there. It was a lovely old hotel built in the Colonial style and for those lucky enough to have room on the west side, a view over the falls. The falls are more accessible from the Brazilian side and excellent walkways took us close to many of the falls. Picture top, some of the falls at sunset, lower, one of the local residents. This was a stunning place and it has to rank with some of the great views in the world such as Grand Canyon and Yosemite.  It just seemed impossible to stop looking at it.

L-R On the Argentinian side, Iguassy, Iguassu at evening, Toucan.

There were lots of things to do had we the time, and we undertook a motorised inflatable trip into the mouth of the main gorge which was quite exciting and very wetting. Other possible diversions were rock climbing, rafting, riding, trekking and helicopter flights over the falls.

Day 14. Once again in a plane. This time it was to Rio de Janeiro, though we had to change at Sao Paulo whose airport seemed to be full of excited students off on holiday. We stayed at the Sheraton Rio Hotel which overlooked Vidigal beach and was just a few minutes taxi ride from the more famous Ipanema and Copacabana beaches.

What can we say that hasn't been said before with such a short visit? It's a wonderful place, alive and vibrant, colourful and noisy. We took a two day extension to our stay in Rio and that still barely scratched the surface. Anyway, Top is of course Christ the Redeemer, the huge statue on top of Corcavado. Local engineer Heritor da Silva Costa designed the statue, it was sculpted by Paul Landowski, French monument sculptor of Polish origins and it was finished on October 12th 1931. It was Sunday, the queues for the train were enormous and there was a Mass in progress around the foot of the statue. It was still worth the effort. Next Sugar Loaf mountain which is reached by 2 cable cars was a bit less phrenetic and the views were just as amazing. Picture 2 shows the Sugar Loaf as viewed from Corcavado, picture 3 is the second stage of the cable car. Views were a bit hazy but we can't have everything.

Picture 4,, Copacabana beach, stunning beach as was Iponima but the water temperature was more reminiscent of Scarborough. Throughout Rio there were life-sized statues of cows decorated in the most bizarre of fashion by well known local artists. These cows were to be auctioned off with the money going to a local children's charity. Some of these were amazing. See the gallery.

L-R Christ the Redeemer, Rio from Corcavado, Rio Cablecar, Copacabana beach, Painted cows for charity.

L-R. Rocinha Favela, in the Cathedral, on a boat trip, Sue swimming, washing line, Sue by the pool.

With the home-going of most of our group, we also lost Kathryn our Spanish speaking SAGA representative. This wouldn't normally have presented a problem as our local guide made sure that we were at the airport in plenty of time. All went OK until our transfer at Madrid, when our connecting flight to London HR suddenly disappeared off the display boards. No information, no announcement. Chaos ensued as 100 people tried to find out what was going on. After queuing at one desk we were told to retrieve our luggage. We then queued at another desk for 90 minutes where they put us onto standby on an evening flight that 100 people were obviously not going to get on. When we failed to get on we were taken out of the airport, then back in to check in and queue for a boarding pass for the next day, on a plane with only 45 seats available!

Eventually, dizzy and clutching our boarding passes we were bussed off to a hotel. Thanks Iberia I trust that we won't meet again.

Conclusion.

Overall an excellent trip and we were well looked after (too well occasionally) and shepherded away from anything slightly risky. Rightly I suppose, some of our party were well into their '70s and just a little frail. Consensus was that the stay in Santiago was too long and the extra time would have been better spent in Rio and as such we wouldn't have felt the need to book those extra days.