Gringolandia

This post has me frightened for several reasons. It is the first one I am writing from home; home being Minneapolis. Which means that this log is crossing the line from being a way to share photos and stories from my time abroad, to being more of a journal, or a place to air my thoughts in hope of them becoming more clear in the process of written down. It also means I'm veering ever nearer to the line which most blogs cross, that is, becoming self-indulgent diaries based on the assumption that the writers life is interesting and important enough to validate putting in the public realm for all to see and read.

As I said, I've returned home. It was almost 11 months to the day that I was away, and up to this point (I've been home for 24 hours) the fear I was feeling when leaving Santiago was unjustified. At one point I spent about 20 minutes telling a mormon girl in the airport how it should not be allowed that a person may return home after so long away in plane. A much more kosher and sane way would be to go in boat, or in car. That way the person is prepared for the return be physically entering their country, city, neighborhood, street and house/apartment. Whereas, with a plane one gets in an airport in one part of the world and gets out of the airport on the other side of the world, with a few in flight snacks and prepackaged chicken bits in between.

Aside from more keenly noticing the uniquely "gringo" qualities of the people I have talked with and being able to laugh at the fact that I now understand everyone, the culture shock I was so anxiously, almost egotistically, awaiting has not come. After all of the pride I felt at divorcing myself from my gringo roots and immersing myself in another way of life, the transition back has been a smooth one.

The are several reasons which I feel are important to note, not only for my one sanity but as observations on the greater human community. One: The differences between chileans and americans are details when one zooms out for a minute and considers that we are both capitalist societies based on production and consumption and were originally established by europeans at approximately the same point in history. Culturally, yes there are differences, but in the end any changes that occurred within me are alterations to my way of living and personality that are made over a base which I in part maintained and in part shared with the chileans. Two: This could be a grace period in which I'm still buzzing on being home and having lots of things to do. Projects are always a good way to keep ones mind from focusing on what is happening on a deeper level. There I would have like to say al fondo but there are still some phrases I don't know how to translate. Another is menos mal. I would love to have a translation for that. At the same time, its nice not to, and to be able to have them for myself.

What I've gathered from the questions people have asked me about my time in Chile is that on a whole americans are an ignorant lot. This I already knew. However, at this moment it seems to me that the majority of the world hates americans, and by association americans. I spent a lot f time in Chile trying to force the point that there is a difference between a government and an individual. I agree the american government can be a hateful thing but it is a hateful thing acting on principles that have been fundamental in America's development ever since its founding. A sense of national pride and at time a sense of egotistical superiority. Elbowing and pushing to get its way and climb to the top, and a fierce protectionism of national interests. These are the same things that we have been doing for over 200 years, the problem is the rest of the world is changing. The problem of this change comes back to american ignorance. It is not that america hates the rests of the world or wants to break them in half to get their way. Americans just want to be comfortable and are ignorant of the rest of world. It is very easy to force change on a thing you do not understand. It is much harder to force your will onto an entity, such as a state, for which you feel compassion or empathy.

This series of facts compliment each other very well, and create a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. The american government acts in the will of the people. What the people want more than anything else is a continued and growing feeling of comfort and success. America is over-developed. For America to continue to grow above and beyond the levels of the rest of the world, certain regions must be kept artificially underdeveloped. Thus, the "American" will is exerted over weaker nation-states (ie, the rest of the world). The rest of world resents this power and sees it as unjust. Thus hating the american government and the people that government is representing. If any one of these things were to change, the system as we know it would collapse and be forced to change. An increase in education would drop american consumerism and tank the inflated world economy, a change in government policy would infuriate the american masses while uniting the government with the rest of the world, most importantly Europe. A change in the world opinion towards the US could further the spread of capitalism and consumerism pushing al the more quickly towards the breaking point of our natural resources, and creating more and more reaching the threshold of development maintained by the countries in power which those countries currently developing will never be allowed to pass, by virtue of instruments such as tariff barriers, agricultural subsidies and migration laws/brain drain, not to mention the digital divide, which is further widening the disparity between those who have and those who have not.

I do not hate americans. I can not hate a person who is acting without hatred and with all good intentions based on the best of their knowledge. The rage that boiled up in america after 9/11 was a knee-jerk reaction whose flames were fed by ignorance and the media. There are many people in america I do not respect and feel the world would better without. These people are those whose actions are based on a hatred formed from a combination of ignorance, lack of self-confidence, and the need to blame some "other" for the problems surrounding them. This combination of factors is not new and has been often exploited by governments in the past. Hitler is a notable example. It is hard to hate those who act with good intentions out of ignorance, however it is hard not to hate those whose actions wreak havoc on an entire planet.

Some encouragement may lie in the knowledge that on a geologic time scale we have been but a blip and with luck may end as a dash, on the timeline of the planet. Any good or evil we may perpetrate, and any damage done to our earth will in time be forgotten and possibly recreated by the next group of moral-rational beings who come along.

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3 Days in Jeep

All right...after saying in the first post that I would put up pictures of Bolivia, I've finally gotten around to it. These photos are from our trip into Bolivia from Northern Chile. We left San Pedro de Atacama for a three day tour in Jeep that ended in southern Bolivia in a town called Uyuni on the edge of the largest salt flat in the world. I picked a few shots to show some of the highlights and mishaps...

Here is the entrance to Bolivia. I think we are already at around 4000 meters. For the entire trip the landscape is what I would imagine mars to be like, and the roads are just ruts that have been established by the Jeeps over years of use. At any given time there may by three or four jeeps all weaving in and out of some seven braided tracks cutting acros the altiplano.

This is one of the more impressive sights that we had along the trip. THis lagoon is at 5000 meters. We spent our first night at a refugio on its coast. During the day the lagoon turns due to a combinaiton of the microorganisms that live in it and the wind agitating the surface. When we woke up the next morning it was calm and the lagoon had a more vlue-green appearance. On top of the amazing color, its filled with flamingos. The guide told us that there are three varieties of flamingos that inhabit it, and that its one of the only places in the world where that happens. He could be full of shit, but its a nice story either way...

It didn't take long before we ran out of gas. The extra tanks were on the roof and our guide pulled out a hose to start funneling it into the Jeep. Bostjan offered to help and told war-stories about how "growing up in Yugoslavia we did this all the time!" He jumps out ofthe Jeep grabs the hose and starts pulling gas down out of the tank.

Appearantly, in Yugoslavia they don't keep their gas reserves on the roof because Bostjan got a mouth full of gas before handing off the hose to our guide to try his luck.

Success. After the gas clamied Bostjan's mouth as its first victim, it struck our guides mouth and eyes! Bostjan steps in to save the day and fill the tank while our guide rinses out his eyes, claming to be totally fine to keep driving....

This is a photo of the not-so-elusive Viscacha. Its like a strange cross-breed between a rabbit, a rodent, and a squirrel. It live in the altiplano and eats whatever you throw at it. They sometimes take on a green tint and bounce up and down these rock faces like spring-loaded mountain goats. They're used to the tourists and come right down from the top of the rock when they hear the Jeeps approaching, looking for some kind of handout.

Local kids from a town on the edge of the salt flat. Its a tiny village and a herd of gringos walking around attracts everyone's attention. We were all hesitant about taking photos at first, but they had obviously seen digital cameras before and were insistant about seeing themselves on the view screen. It was pretty sad and our first exposure to the kids begging in Bolivia. We were to find out that they were in every city, town and village and dealing with them never got any less uncomfortable. I don't like giving handouts and you don't always have spare food handy, so it was pretty hard to know what felt right most of the time. To justify their begging with money or stand by the belief that its better to discourage their begging by not giving. It the end, I don't think not giving does much, as the only other alternative is child labor. And as we saw, the child labor in Bolivia often turns from slling gum on the stret to going to work in the mines pretty quickly.

Part of group after a hike up one of the rock formations we encountered along the way. The terrain wasn't like a desert, as there was not much sand, but rather pure rock. Some times we crossed areas where the rocks were smaller, and some times larger, but always pure rock with little or no vegetation, save for the plants that found a crack in a rock where they could root themselves.

The group playing around on the Salar de Uyuni. In the front is Sarah, with Bostjan and Freddie in the second row, followed by Han, Dino and me in the back.

The far edge of the Salar near the town of Uyuni. You can se how they harvest the salt here to be packaged in the nearby village. The salt miners work every day of the week ankle deep in water shovelling salt into mounds to later be shipped by truck off of the salt flat.

Large parts of the falt were covered by a thin layer of water. It was incredible to be in the middle of it and feel like you were driving across the ocean. Here is bus leaving Uyuni and heading for god-knows-where. I have no idea how the drivers were able to navigate their way across the Salar as thee were no roads and it took a good seven hours to make it to the other side.

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Perks

Another benefit of getting to spend time at ECLAC is the huge amount of conferences they hold here. Its one of the main venues for political and economic conferences in South America, so that after a few months here one gets the chance to see a lot of different themes discussed.

Here Sarah, Adrian, me and Bostjan are waiting for a seminar to start. The dark figure in back with white pants is Michael.

The little bald dot in the background is the President of Chile, Ricardo Lagos, about to give a press conference on Chile's progress in environmental issues and sustainability. The venue is the smaller of two conference rooms at ECLAC, Sala Raul Prebisch. Both are located inside the tower.

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Lunch Time

Lunchtime is undeniably the best part of any working day. With the hour and ahalf we have, combined with the lawns and the tower, there are a lot of ways to take advantage of having time outside of the office...

View of ECLAC and Vitacura in the background from the top of the tower

Julia, Sarah and Carol relaxing at the tower.

Matt, Kan and Bostjan overlooking Parque Bicentenario which although one day may be beautiful, is right now a long strip of dirt and mud...

The lawn next to the pond is where most of the time is spent. Whether is be to talk or nap...

...or just spit some game. Bostjan chooses the later with Janine and Carol

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A weekend in the Andes

From here you can see, more or less, the route we took to make it up Cerro Provincia, cross to Cerro San Ramon, and then drop back into Santiago. I've got to thank Andrew for the annotated photos, it makes this whole narrative thing much easier.

From the top of Cerro Provincia we got our first 180 degree view of the Andes. The other 180 degrees were looking over Santiago towards the coast. This was equally impressive but in a more disgusting, polluted, "damn this country is thin" sort of way. In the lower left corner of the photo you can see one of the cairns that we were following at various parts of the trip. Its a rounded rock with a red stick-figure painted on it, supported by a short mound of rocks. On our way down we were following them for several hours down a ridge, assuming we were being led over the snow until we arrived at a path. How wrong we were...

The ridge got more and more dodgy until we reached a point where we were butt-sliding down a narrow break in the rock with the next little red man no where in sight. It was at this point where I cursed all of the little red men on the mountain and we abandoned them to make our own trail, and walked down the snow field on our left. It was most certainly the right decision.

We woke up on sunday morning to a beautiful view of the Andes and a vestibule full of snow and ice. It was the first time I had gone winter camping. You can see the ice axe and poles in the foreground which we used to dig out a spot for our tent from the meter of snow that had piled up on the ridge. We had forgotten the shovel and ended up using our cooking pot to bale the snow that we broke up with the axe. It was exhausting at the time, and pretty fun and hilarious in hindsight.

Here I am walking down the ridge between Provincia and San Ramon. If you lok closely on the right side of the snow drift in the background you can see a set of tracks. After some fact-bargaining we arrived at the a concensus and declared them to be Puma. We saw them the whole distance between the two mountains and were often frustrated by the shortcuts that damn cat was able to take. Three gringos with packs didn't prove to be as agile.

Here's Chris and I on top of San Ramon. We had a beautiful day on Sunday that made it even sweeter to have had left Santiago and gone camping.

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Volcán San José

That bump in the distanc is the Volcán San José. Its the peak that Anders and I summited in January. That little black line of blurry characters says that the peak is at 5800 meters. The round-trip takes five days from the end of the road in Cajon del Maipo. The way up isn't especially challenging, but the altitude is a bitch. It was my first time at altitude like that and the only peak i've ever done. Even though it was the middle of summer we spent most of the way up on a glaciar. Ironically, it was the last part of the ascent that was over rock. Besides the altitude the wind so strong you can't breath when you're facing into it. This is the highest mountain at this latitude so the winds whipping around the (much diminished) distance around the world at what i think is about 33 degrees south, hit the face of the volcano at full-force. The cone of the volcano has caved in but still spits out a nice sulfur stink and the inside is convered in the yellow and green deposits of the sulfur.

On our way up we ran across a group of Argentines who were coming down, one of whom was obviously in bad shape. One of them was far ahead of the others and told us the guy struggling was french and had been trying to summit solo when his strength gave out. He sat down to take a rest at about 5.400 meters and woke up four days later in the tents of the argentines severly hypothermic and dehydrated. They told us they kept him in the tent for three days wrapped up in all of their clothes, and gave him sips of water and bits of food until he was strong enough to walk down. On the way down the ranger told us they had carried him out the part on horseback and that he would be fine. Goes to show what altitude can do to you. Anders and I spent the last afternoon in the tent at about 5000 meters so messed up from the altitude that we couldn't eat sleep or get up. The result was a mix of incoherent conversation, silence, and fruitless attempts to motivate the other to cook. We were only able to understand how ridiculous it was when we had come down the next day to a reasonable altitude.

I'll try and find some more shots of the trip, I'm sure I've got them somewhere...

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Stop-Frame Santiago

Just after sunrise, smog building in the distance...

In the afternoon. Are those clouds in the valley? Think again...

Near sunset. Where did the city go? The smog thickens and settles into a nice grey-brown carpet...

Sunset. The smog makes itself useful...

The contrast of the city below and the beginnings of the Andes

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Cajon del Maipo

Here's the rental car. For four people and one night's worth of gear, it was just right. Although that opinion changed pretty sharply once we got on to the dirt mountain roads in a rain storm. In the back is Carol and Sarah. We're on our way to Pirque here to picnic at a national park and then go to a party at someone's country house. I'm still not really sure who the owner is.

It doesn't take long to get away from the filth of Santiago. After about a halfan hour we were already out in the campo surrounded by cacti and huasos.

Not much explaination needed here. Beautiful hot day in the South American Fall with clouds moving over the Andes.

Carol, Sarah and I in the park rolling through like argentines with the mate in hand. There are few things better than an afternoon in the wilderness with a picnic and a warm gourd of mate. Actually, the day could be shit, you could be out of food and sitting in your basement apartment in maipú and it would still be alright with some mate by your side and some friends to share it with...

Sarah and I in the park. i wish I could remember its name. Either way it was out in the chucha of Pirque towards the frontal range. There were thousands of cacti and a beautiful clear river running through it.

The sun setting as seen from the national park which shall remain nameless.

After a night of partying and sleeping in the tent we were off to the Cajon del Maipo to soak ourselves in the natural hotsprings. Beofre we could take advantage of that ultimate relaxation however, he had to get there. Which proved more exciting than anticipated. It was raining and the dirt road had turned into a mud road. It wouldn't have ben a problem except that our transportation more resembled a golf cart than a car and the tires were most certainly made for Fischer Price Powerwheels.

When we got to the first steep grade our golf cart crapped out on us due to the unbearable weight of the four obese passengers. On second thought, maybe it was the six horsepower engine. Either way, I, in an attempt at chivalry, offered that Bostjan and I would get out and push. As you can see from the photo, the girls didn't feel like stopping and Bostjan was none too pleased about walking.

Nearing the hotsprings we had to cross a few streams. It only made the arrival at the hot springs that much sweeter. And the car managed it valiently.

I found out later that crossing the stream in the golf cart may have been easier than on foot...

We finally arrived and while the cold rain was falling we sat in the hot springs and covered ourselves in mud all afternoon watching the fog roll up the valley, over our heads and finally settle down over us. It was a great weekend and ended up being the perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon. On the way back we stopped a a house on the side of the road where they were selling empanadas and sat down to enjoy our lunch/dinner and drink mate for awhile while the rain blew up the valley and the sky started to clear.

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La Serena

In March I took a trip up to La Serena with Bostjan, Sarah, Gabi and Cristian. We stopped on the way at Fray Jorge national park. Its a mountain in the desert that manages to trap enough moisture from the clouds that collide with it to grow a lush forest growing on its peak with nothing but sand and cacti for hundreds of kilometers in any direction. Pretty impressive. This picture is of me playing in the wind on the way up the mountain., with our rental car in the background. Thanks to Sarah's driving and nothing short of a miracle we made it up the mountain without having to get out and push (a common experience for me and Bostjan on the previous weekend's trip to Cajon del Maipo)

Here's Cristian and I at the top of the mountain standing in front of the park ranger's motorcycle. I debated getting on it for the photo, but decided against it when we saw him walking towards us. Apparently Cristian has never seen "Easy Rider"...

SMALL CHILDREN AND THE WEAK OF STOMACH, SHIELD YOUR EYES!!

Yes, its a dead sea lion, and yes we appear to be walking calmly past. Photos can be deceiving, we're in fact fleeing the smell and looking for a place where we can enjoy the beach and the sunset without being swarmed by flies and smell of...well, you get it. We were pretty surprised to arrive at the beach everyone had recommended to us as the most isolated and beautiful and find this sea lion washed up on the shore. The most discouraging is that it didn't seem that anyone minded. Kids were touching it as their parents looked on, and families moved past with a nod and a "look at that. Huh, how sad." So we moved down the beach and Gabi, Cristian and I drank our beers while Sarah and Bostjan practiced capoeira. I think they pulled the short stick...

After La Serena we made our way up the Valle del Elqui, where most of the Pisco comes from. We also picked up two friends of Bostjan, Uli and Carmela. We were now seven and had three hours to drive to get to the campsite at the end of the valley. As you can see, the car was a bit cramped...We ended up camping just above a town named Cochiwaz (I think) where we watched the moon rise over the mountain, drank mate and rickly pear juice with the hippy owners of the campground, went swimming in the stream, and slept in the hammocks by the river. The region around La Serena, especially in the valley and north, has some of the clearest skies in the world and for this reason some of the most important observatories. i don't know much about stars, even less about southern stars, but the sky that night was one of the most beautiful I've seen. On top of which we had a full moon. Not a bad weekend escape.

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La Última Cena

Just ran across this photo in the depths of my computer. THought I should share the comedic genious of the minds of ECLAC workers. This was a gift for Kan (the one with Jesus's body) at his going away dinner prepared by Filipa and Bostjan (I think)...

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The Office

Well, I've changed my mind. Bolivia will have to wait until I'm finished with life at ECLAC. The photo above was taken from a rooftop restaurant by a friend of mine, Matt Broscio in Vitacura, an easern part of Santiago. From where the photo was taken my apartment is fifteen minutes on foot in one direction, while the office is fifteen in the other. The upside to all of the contamination in Santiago is the spectacular sunsets. The light refracts off the smog sometimes for almost an hour lighting up the sky in all varieties of oranges, reds and yellows. If you're lucky you may even see a smogbow. Thants right, replace rain with smog and you still get refraction- just don't breath in too deeply.

Here's a view of the main building with the pond in the foreground. You can see the top of the tower as well. Standing on the tower you have a great view of the frontal range of the andes as well as the skyline of eastern Santiago. The bird swimming around in the pond is a Black-necked Swan. They are all over southern Chile, especially in Valdivia. Recently, a paper mill opened and due to all of the toxins they dump into the swan's habitat about half of Valdivia's swan population has dies or migrated to other parts. But that's another story...

Picture taken of the flags of the member countries of ECLAC from our post-lunch lounging session. The lawn was our escape every day from the daily grind and wewere sometimes joined by the ECLAC ducks or the tai-chi group. I prefer the ducks, at least you can quack at them.

Adrian and I taking advantage of the 1.5 hour lunch break with the bell of peace in the foreground.

A view of the pond with the fountain in action. In the distance are the skyscrapers of Vitacura. The grounds serve as a great escape from the chaos of Santiago. There are even peacocks, although their romanticism wears off quickly after listening their ear-splitting squak...

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