Salar De Uyuni: Bolivian Salt Flats

The Salar de Uyuni is what remains of an ancient sea that once covered the Altiplano region of the Andes some 40,000 years ago. Now it's one huge plain of salt, the largest of its kind on the planet. Before 1969 it was virtually unknown as a tourist destination until Neil Armstrong noticed it from space. He made a note and after returning to Earth he visited the flats as the first tourist. Since then Uyuni has been attracting people from all over the world.

The above photo was taken from Isla del Pescado (Fish Island), a small "island" in the middle of the 4000 sq km salt flats. Once completely submerged beneath the ocean, it's now covered in giant cacti, some over 1000 years old, and coral fossils.


Uyuni is a magical place that's not easy to reach. From La Paz it's a 12 hour bus ride over rough roads and then another half day journey just to see a portion of the flats. We booked a 3 night tour, including one night in a beautiful salt hotel.


We also toured the Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa (Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve) and enjoyed an outdoor onsen (hot spring)...

Valparaíso: Bohemian Paradise

It's easy to understand why poet Pablo Neruda had a home here - La Sebastiana - the city is an urban masterpiece. In a cruel twist of fate it was also the birthplace of former President Salvador Allende and the general who would eventually become his murderer in the 1973 coup, Augusto Pinochet.




Valparaíso is about 100 kms west of Santiago, Chile and it's one of the finest artistic enclaves I've ever encountered. Every free space is splashed with colour and musings on the past, present and future story of this country. We had one of the tastiest seafood meals at an a rundown restaurant near the 150 year old central market along the waterfront.


It was a beautiful day at the end of July when we arrived in Valpo, or "Paradise Valley". The city is built on a series of hills with numerous funiculars scattered throughout designed to make it easier to get around.


The closest I could compare it to would be Monterey, California - think Steinbeck's Cannery Row or Tortilla Flat - or maybe a few neighbourhoods in San Fran.


We wandered all over the hills snapping photos and watching the movements of the Chilean navy in the harbour. Some say it's become increasingly dangerous but we never felt at risk and took the same precautions we would anywhere else in the world.

La Paz to Isla Del Sol: Inca Origins

Here we are on our way from La Paz to Copacabana on Lake Titicaca, mythic birthplace for the Incas. We'd just spent a few days in La Paz at 3500 meters and were looking forward to visiting the Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun).



It was a gorgeous day and the ferry took about 2 hours each way...

Rapa Nui: In The Grey Presence Of The Moai

We were dining with the Moais on the Pacific Island of Rapa Nui (Isla de Pascua/ Easter Island) a few weeks ago. It was by far one of the highlights of our trip to South America and a genuinely exhilerating experience.



Rapa Nui is approximately 180 km2 and is the most distant point in the world from any mainland. Some 4000 people currently live on the island and it´s supported almost entirely by tourism. Seventy per cent of the island is a National Park designated as a World Heritage Site in 1996. There's also a movement underway to achieve some semblance of autonomy from Chile. The local community negotiated and passed its own constitution, but it was rejected by the Chilean parliament. The struggle continues...

Isla Negra: Pablo Neruda

Yuko & I visited Pablo Neruda's first & last home at Isla Negra, about a 1.5 hour drive from Santiago. It's a fantasy home built only a few meters off the shore and filled to the ceilings with items Neruda collected from all around the world.

The Night in Isla Negra

Ancient night and the unruly salt
beat at the walls of my house.
The shadow is all one, the sky
throbs now along with the ocean,
and sky and shadow erupt
in the crash of their vast conflict.
All night long they struggle;
nobody knows the name
of the harsh light that keeps slowly opening
like a languid fruit.
So on the coast comes to light,
out of seething shadow, the harsh dawn,
gnawed at by the moving salt,
swept clean by the mass of night,
bloodstained in its sea-washed crater.

- Pablo Neruda

Nazca Astronaut: Come Fly With Me

"Come fly with me, let's float down to Peru
In lama land, there's a one man band
And he'll toot his flute for you"

This is a photo Yuko shot to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing. It's the Nazca "Astronaut" from southern Peru predating the 1969 Apollo landing by about 1500 years or so...


Everywhere you go, everyone wants to fly!

Eduardo Galeano: Dangerous Memory

"There is no frontier between past and present when you can revisit the past and make it alive again..."

Memory can be a dangerous thing, especially when it's kept alive by incendiary writers like Eduardo Galeano.


By simply retelling events without ostentation or adornment, Galeano illuminates the injustices that still ravage the present. As he has said, "Reality is a great poet...roses don't need perfume." It was his classic book, Open Veins Of Latin America, that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez presented to President Obama last April at the Summit of the Americas in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad.


Galeano shifts perspective from the usurpers to the usurped and succeeds in presenting history as a moral imperative with human rights at its core. It's a searing intro into the exploitation South America's indigenous and later populations suffered at the hands of European/Yankee gringos. As a Canadian I can relate when Galeano says, "We are America also...the name 'America' has been kidnapped by the United States."



Yuko and I are flying to Peru this week and then traveling on to Chile and Bolivia. I've packed my Neruda and Vallejo, downloaded Victor Jara's songs to my iPod and have reread the accounts of Túpac Amaru's Inca uprising near Cusco, Peru and Che Guevara's last stand in Bolivia. Galeano provides the context, if not the rationale, for all these and the other revolutionary struggles that have originated in America del Sur.