Although my Road to Rio wasn’t as much fun as Bob Hope and Bing Crosby’s, I got there anyway, at the end of a long three-and-a-half months of travel. It was a fitting capstone to my Latin American odyssey. Why? Because of all South American destinations, Rio de Janeiro was the most famous. It had figured in movies (Notorious) and song (“The Girl from Ipanema”). It had always seemed like a special place, one I had wanted to visit.
Author: Eric Farber
Argentina Part 2 — Iguazú
When I stepped off the plane at Puerto Iguazú, I was surprised at how warm and humid it was. A second surprise was that the airport was in the middle of a national forest and surrounded by trees. A taxi driver named Sergio drove half an hour along a dark tree-lined road to reach the Mercure Hotel where I would be staying. He drove slowly due to the risk of hitting an animal like a tapir that is large and heavy. Like the airport, the hotel was ringed by trees and referred to by the locals as a jungle but which to me felt like a forest.
Uruguay
My particular reason for visiting Uruguay was curiosity. As a sixteen-year-old high-schooler, my wife Kay went to Montevideo as an exchange student. Off and on, she’s mentioned what an adventure it was, how it boosted her self-confidence and had her experience a summer very different from one in Michigan. Kay has given me a good feeling about Uruguay, and I wanted to see for myself.
A note from Kay: After reading Eric’s write-up about his time in Uruguay, I read my daily journal from the two months I spent there as a summer exchange student when I was 16 going on 17. Up until then, I’d been a wall flower, or as my best friend in Montevideo put it, a “flower wall.” In Uruguay, I blossomed, living an active social life with the girls and boys in my school and others I met along the way. So many parties and other get-togethers! Lots of talk and dance, no alcohol but lots of cigarettes (my one puff was enough to convince me to never smoke). My first almost boyfriend. Looking back, I can see how the experience helped me become the person I am today.
Argentina Part 1 — Buenos Aires
I came to Buenos Aires prepared to like the city, and I did. What I had heard and read earlier in life predisposed me to expect a city influenced by European culture, one that conformed to my tastes and interests. Buenos Aires with its wide boulevards, many parks and monuments, and its historic opera house went a long way to meet my expectations, but to get there involved a turbulent flight from Santiago over the Andes. Jostled in my seat, I thought of the film Society of the Snow that dramatizes the true story of the young members of a rugby team whose plane crashes in the mountains just below me, one of the world’s toughest environments.
Chile Part 4 Easter Island
To board the plane to Easter Island — and by the way, there was only one plane a day operated by one airline — I had to fill out a form on the internet. I tried in vain to do so the evening before my departure when the system wouldn’t let me. Dragging my case to the airport the following morning without the completed form had me drag it back to the hotel where the system, then working, allowed a woman at reception to help me complete the form. Why the system worked in the morning and hadn’t the night before is one question. Why a form was necessary at all is another.
Chile Part 3
It was on January 10th that I flew from Istanbul to Mexico City to begin a long Latin American voyage. Now, at the end of March, I’d been on the move for more than two-and-a-half months. During that time, I had experienced a variety of microclimates — hot, humid, cool, rainy. April is autumn in South America, and there were days ahead in Patagonia that would feel like winter. It didn’t seem to rain much, though; the skies were often bright blue.
The four-day tour package I bought from the internet turned out to be less than that. It did include four days, but days one and four were transfers from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales and back. The only real tour days were two and three in the middle.
Chile Part 2
Valparaiso was founded in the 16th century as Santiago’s sea port. As such, it is close enough to Santiago’s airport that I reached my portside Ibis hotel by taxi in an hour. Ibis is a chain of budget hotels familiar to me from past travels. Valparaiso’s lived up to its economy standard by giving me the plainest accommodation since my poolside room in Tortuguero, Costa Rica two months before.
Chile Part 1
It was the Ides of March when I flew to Santiago, Chile’s capital and largest city from Lima, Peru’s International Airport. I had learned that flying to most South American destinations had to be done from the airport of a major city.
I won’t write too much about Santiago. Of the several large South American cities I experienced, this was was my least favorite. And yet, my photos from there do evoke some happy memories. Continue reading Chile Part 1
Peru Part 4 – The Last
From Arequipa’s Hotel Fundador, I went out walking using a map given by reception that took me past a couple of the city’s monuments to the stately Plaza de Armas, which is what every main square in Peruvian towns is called.
It was striking. The cathedral and other official buildings that surround it are made from sillar, a white volcanic stone, giving the city the name Cuidad Blanca.
Peru Part 3
Finishing my travels in Peru left me with a choice. I was intrigued by the country’s Amazon basin and would have gone there were it not for the fact that, at the time, it seemed to be raining every day. Instead, I chose to travel Peru’s South Coast from north to south, ending in the city of Arequipa. The amazon route remained the road not taken.
Saturday, March 2. I began exploring the coast with a bus from Lima to the town of Paracas. While no stranger to long-distance bus travel, in this one, operated by the company Cruz del Sur, I experienced a level of luxury totally unfamiliar to me. First, my heavy suitcase was checked and tagged, as at an airport. My air-conditioned window seat, wider and with plenty of leg room was more comfortable than on a plane, and a privacy curtain separated me from my seatmate. I couldn’t have asked for more.