He visto zorro, pero no castores

31 Aug After cooking off last night, we got up and going this morning. Our room doesn't have an individual thermostat. The thermostat is out in the hall and somebody had pushed it all the way to the right, so the heat ran all night. I did get up an open the windows, but there was an obnoxious noise from the street that caused me to close the window. Hopefully the same won't occur tonight. We rode the Tren de Fin del Mundo (End of the World Train) and toured the Parque Nacional de Tierra del Fuego. We got to the end of the Pan Am Hwy within the park and now have our "official" been there picture. It is a grey winter day, so the pictures probably won't do the area justice, albeit accurate. There hasn't been a lot of snow this winter and climate change is having it's impact on the ski industry in Argentina. There's been very little snow throughout the country and making snow really doesn't occur. The park is about a 20km drive from Ushuaia, so we hired a Remis for about 5 hours to get us to the train station, pick us up at the end of the line, and drive us around the park. Our driver only spoke Spanish, but he spoke slow enough for us to understand him despite his Argentine accent. The roads consist of hard pack muddy gravel. Roger is so glad he wasn't driving the RV, because it would have been challenging since our car slid around on the road. We saw one truck stuck in the mud as well. We saw two zorros (red foxes), but no castores (beavers). Foxes and beavers were introduced in Tierra del Fuego as part of the fur industry. There are no natural predators, so they soon became a nuisance especially when the fur industry died out. Now foxes are used to people and like people food, despite their digestive issues. They routinely get into garbage cans (think racoons) and are rather large in that they look like little wolves. Beavers continue to clog local waterways with their dams, and just pester the ecology. A lot of Ushuaia is closed on Sunday, probably 80%. The internet wifi was down at our hotel, so we went walking for a restaurant that had free wifi. Just noticed street signs have latitude and longitude on them: 54 48' 32" S and 68 18' 52" W.

Travel day to Tierra del Fuego

30 Aug Walkabout in Buenos Aires on Florida St, the pedestrian street. It was very different from the last time I was here. Argentina has had a financial meltdown over the last 18 months and the exchange rate for the Argentine Peso has gone from 3 to 1 USD to over 8 to 1 USD. As a tourist I was hoping for some deals, but instead the country is seeing two digit inflation as it is the victim of a global economy. It seemed like every 20 feet or so, there was a guy trying to "cambio" or change money for our USD. This was not the case when I was last in Buenos Aires. There were a lot of vacant store fronts (including Harrod's) on Florida St and every store had 'discuentes hoy" or no cuotas for 15 months, which means that payments are made over 15 months without interest. This was to move appliances and TVs. It appears that Argentina is suffering from a population that is fiscally over extended like the folks in the US. The advantage for the people in the US is that there are a lot more people to support the financial collapse that we've been slow to recover from. We left the hotel and headed to the national airport. We will be flying through Buenos Aires AEP for all the trips in country and then will have to switch to the International airport EZE, for our flight to Bogota. It was a little over 3 hours to fly to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. The landing was one of the roughest I've been through in a long time. The last time it snowed was over a week ago and they got 20 cm in town, and more on the mountains. It is ski season, so the taxi driver said that it was good for their business. The high today was 40 degrees in town, so it wasn't too cold for us thin bloods. Tomorrow there's a 50% chance of rain at sea level and about the same high temperature. The taxi driver said that it can get really cold, but most of winter the temperature hovers around freezing and doesn't get too cold. Our room is clean and basic. Because it's ski season and the weekend, there were a lot of hotels sold out. We skipped the high end places and just went for comfortable. We will explore the area for three days before moving north to warmer Iguazu Falls. PS We did see Manu Ginoboli in the Buenos Aire airport!

Buenos Aires

29 Aug No roosters or barking dogs to awaken us this morning, and we still woke up before 6. Spent the morning looking for hotels for the rest of the trip. It was odd having to look for hotels, since we have gotten so use to traveling with our own bed. We walked to the airport and dropped off our suitcases. Then we moseyed on to a quiet area, where we just surfed and read. Eventually nature called and I discovered that in the Santiago airport women must have square rear ends, because the toilets are square, not oval or round. I peeked in another stall on my way out just to confirm that my toilet wasn't unique. Just something to ponder as you continue to read. Eventually it was time for our flight and there was a repetitive message that was asking for passengers from Australia, Canada, and North America to see the gate agent. The first couple of times the statement didn't make sense to me, because isn't Canada part of North America? And wouldn't the announcement say United States, if they wanted to talk with US passengers, after all they were saying Canada and Australia? Anyway we were told that we had to pay a entry tax for Argentina. This was confusing to us, because how did we get a ticket if the tax wasn't collected. The gate guy treated us like simpletons and told us to go to the LAN Connexcion desk to across from Gate 17A to pay the tax. We went there and didn't find the LAN Connexcion desk, so we went back to our gate (23A) and asked again. The guy told us to use the levetor to go to the desk. We did not understand levetor, and after he repeated it about 6 times, somebody said elevator. So we went back to 17A to find the elevator, which took us down to the VIP salons and not the LAN Connexcion desk. We took the stairs back up to level 3 and looked around for another elevator and found one, but it was out of order. (Can you hear Murphy laughing at us?) We then went around the corner to find an escalator that wasn't working, but enabled us to go down to level 2. We had to leave the security area to go around the corner to get to the LAN desk. We paid the $320 reciprocity tax for both of us and hurried back to the gate. The gate guy wrote our names down and we were able to board the plane. (At this point we thought we would have provided Murphy enough humor for the day.) Well, Murphy wasn't finished with us. Our flight to Mendoza was late in arriving and Eeyore was concerned that we wouldn't make our connection, especially since we had to go through Immigration and Customs. Fortunately we were seated in the front of the plane so we got to Immigration quickly and got through that with no interest at all in our individual $160 reciprocity tax papers. Since Mendoza is an international airport, we also had to pick up our luggage and go through Customs. This wouldn't have been a problem, except that the flight was late and the luggage conveyor belt was broken. After standing around waiting for 45 minutes, I left Roger to get our big bags and took our backpacks through Customs, because I had to go to the bathroom. (Mostly I wanted to see if they have square toilets in Mendoza.) After I finished in the restroom, I went to stand in line at the LAN counter. I did this because we were told we would have to turn our luggage in there after clearing Customs. Roger eventually came with our bags, after apparently a free for all occurred when the baggage handlers just started chucking bags through the little conveyor doors and people started scrambling for their bags. It was a good thing I was already in line, because the line just got longer behind me and I hadn't moved at all while waiting for Roger. Also it's a good thing Roger is tall, because he was able to see over people to find me in line at the LAN counter. Once our luggage was rechecked we got in another line to clear security again and board our flight. This line didn't move for about an hour, despite numerous announcements that our flight was boarding through gate 2. We eventually got on our flight an hour late, and headed to Buenos Aires. Murphy continued to have with us, as far as our getting off the plane. The flight crew would not open the doors until the passenger buses had arrived. This took about half an hour. We went down old fashioned metal stairs about 50 feet to a bus on the left only to be driven about 100 yards to the right. We had to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Our hotel room is nice enough for the price in downtown Buenos Aires. However the pillows on our bed resembled youth pillows and I had to ask for two more, which they promptly delivered. I now know having our own pillows in the RV was a definite luxury. Now that you've read all this, I know you are curious to know if the toilet was square or oval. Well the hotel's toilet also matched the Mendoza airport's toilet in shape. Roger said that the toilet merits a picture, as he's baffled by their square design. He even admits not having much of a rear left, a square toilet seems odd.

Off to Santiago

26 and 27 August were much the same as Monday, since we were still trying to get our RV shipped and getting nothing accomplished other than a lot of frustration. The excuse we were given was that the Shipping Broker in New Jersey's internet and phones were down. We finally talked with a super helpful Alejandra and things started looking promising for Thursday. After business hours our shipping documents finally arrived in my E-Mail, so we had hope for Thursday. 28 Aug We went to sleep last night with the usual cacophony of barking dogs and were awakened by a very confused local rooster, starting at 3 am. Eventually we surrendered and got up, after debating on what would be the best way to serve up the local rooster. As soon as we could, we moved the RV over to the port location and parked in a little different spot, because our "usual" place was taken. We then found an open Internet Cafe and printed out our shipping documents. The paperwork said that AJ Broom was going to be the local agent, so we walked over there with the documents. The ladies at AJ Broom were not helpful. They told us that they were the shipping agent, and had nothing to do with arranging cargo. They told us to go back to Ian Taylor and talk with them. So we walked back over to Ian Taylor, where we had spent the last 10 days trying to get things resolved. Ian Taylor said that AJ Broom was the right agent and told us to go back over there. So we did. When we arrived the second time at AJ Broom, the lady finally decided to be somewhat helpful. She eventually worked it out with the company in Santiago and Ian Taylor. So we went back over to Ian Taylor and finally things got moving. Eventually we had to go to Customs, because when we entered Chile, the RV was associated on Roger's passport. This meant that the RV had to be removed by Customs off his passport, so when we fly, the RV isn't on his passport. After a lot of bouncing around, and an several trips to different ADUANA offices, Roger now has several pieces of paper indicating that the RV was left in San Antonio, pending shipment to the USA. The RV is going to be shipped to Galveston TX, departing San Antonio on 12 September. We left enough paper and Benjamin Franklins with Ian Taylor, that it is our expectation that they will make sure the RV ships on 12 September. We were dropped off at the bus station, and took a Pullman express bus from San Antonio to Santiago. The buses go fast and the trip took about an hour, cost was about $15 for both of us, then another $6 to get us to the Santiago airport. For simplicity we opted for the Holiday Inn, which is right across the street from the air terminal, walking distance. We couldn't get a flight to Buenos Aires today, as the only flight leaves at 14:40 daily. The Santiago airport is not that big for a capital city, but the population is less than 4 million in the greater metropolitan area. We did get all our tickets within Argentina arranged, which was great. We were having problems finding flights that made sense and with good connections, so it worked out using a kiosk at the airport. So tomorrow afternoon we'll be flying to Buenos Aires, then Saturday on to Ushuaia, capital of the Tierra del Fuego (southernmost) region of Argentina. It is the southernmost "city" in the world. There are a couple of hamlets/villages further south, but nothing that qualifies as a "city". Time for of few days of some warmer clothes. Average September high is 40 degrees. Average low is 31 degrees.

Groundhog Day

25 Aug Nothing changed, despite being told that we'd have some news on Monday wrt to shipping the RV. The weather was nice today, clear blue sky and 65 degrees. Roger soothed his savage beast with the amazing discovery of Bluebell Ice Cream in San Antonio. Unfortunately it just wasn't the same as found in his San Antonio. Oh well... Tomorrow's another day.

Uneventful day

24 Aug Today was uneventful, nothing earth shaking after yesterday's 6.4 earthquake. I also read that northern CA also had an earthquake as well, global forces in action. It stopped raining about noon, so we headed out to take care of some domestic business, as our tanks need dumping. We headed north only to discover it is one little town after another. The road got narrow, so when we could we turned around and headed back towards Santo Domingo, to the same spot we've used before. Once we got back to San Antonio, we moved the RV to a more level spot. Thank goodness, since the last couple of days Roger has been rolling towards me during the night and I've had to fight for mattress space. We are very level where we are right now, but will definitely have to move first thing tomorrow morning, as cars get parked where we are. Juan Eduardo stopped by to check on us and to feed the dogs. There are 6 dogs that hang around and so he feels like he should feed them. Regardless they all come running when he shows up. Right now we have sunshine, the first we've seen in over a week. This has help improved Eeyore's attitude somewhat, so he's trying to be more optimistic about tomorrow. I contend that Murphy will get the best of us, since we dropped off laundry on Saturday for a late Monday afternoon pickup. Only time will tell... We went back to Juan Eduardo's restaurant for empanada's del pino. They were just as good today as they were yesterday. I had my Mom fix today. I called Trent, because we hadn't talked with him all trip. We had skyped with Reid, so I was overdue to chat briefly with Trent. He's in Mississippi at his last off site. He says he's trying to do some studying for his boards, but they don't happen for a while. In the meantime he was missing Jenny and Turk. I expect to have blog worthy news tomorrow. I can be optimistic about the prospect...

Un tremor

23 Aug Another weekend in Chile. This morning's task was to get a complete inventory of the contents of the RV. Sandra had to submit an inventory to ADUANA (Customs) in Arica, so we figured we'd do an inventory just in case the same applies in Puerto de San Antonio, but so far that hasn't been the case on any of our shipping efforts. It took us all morning to do the inventory, which was OK since we had nothing more pressing to do. As I've stated before, Chileanos are very nice and helpful people. Today the owner of the parking lot where we've been staying stopped by and talked looking at Roger, while I conversed with him in Spanish. Sort of odd, especially since Juan Eduardo speaks sort of fast and Roger had a dazed look on his face trying to follow the pace of the conversation. Anyway, Juan Eduardo is quite the business man. His day job is an executive position at the Santander bank. He also owns the parking lot and La Florita restaurant. He told us we must eat lunch at his restaurant, because only on the weekends do they serve empanadas de pino. I asked him to write down directions to his restaurant and he did, just so we wouldn't get lost. Juan Eduardo also offered us his car to use, in case we wanted to go to Santiago. I told him we greatly appreciate the offer, but Roger doesn't like to drive much in the rain especially in somebody else's car in a strange place. You would have thought I said something wrong, because he said that if Roger could drive our RV from the USA, he could surely drive a borrowed car. We thanked him profusely for the offer and he left us to finish our inventory. Around 1 pm, Juan Eduardo stopped by again and insisted that it was time to go eat lunch at his restaurant. Coincidently, we were getting ready to walk over to his restaurant so he insisted that he drive us there as it was drizzling. Funny thing was that where he had to park his car, was almost as far as our walk would have been, but he insisted that he escort us to his restaurant. The restaurant isn't all that big, as it was on the second floor of a street front building. We were seated and Juan Eduardo wanted us to try his pisco sours drink as an aperitif. The drinks were a strong lime based concoction. He then ordered for us his favorite local dishes. We both had empanadas de pino, which were delicious. Empanadas de pino have a slice of hardboiled egg, one black olive, and ground beef with onions. It is served with aji, which is sort of a salsa, just thicker. After the empanadas our main course arrived. I had a beef caldo and Roger had a white fish with vegetables. The beef in the caldo was the most tender beef we've eaten out and it had chunk of acorn squash, piece of corn cob, peeled potato in a broth. Roger said his fish was good too. We found out from Juan Eduardo that the local fishermen try to catch squid and conch, because the Japanese market demand pays well for these two items. Most of the edible fish that Chileans eat, come from the southern part of the country. We were intrigued by this, because there are a lot of small fishing boats in the harbor. After lunch we wandered back to the RV for a siesta, because we both ate too much. After our nap, we had to go back out for some thing to nosh on for a light dinner and breakfast tomorrow. With that accomplished we came back and futzed around. Roger was running the generator to charge the house batteries, when all of a sudden the RV started shaking and rolling. I immediately turned off the generator and Roger went outside to see what the problem was. The problem was a 6+ magnitude earthquake. The guy running the parking lot asked us if we felt the "tremor." It lasted a couple of minutes and it caused all the dogs in San Antonio to start barking, as well as countless car alarms went off. Juan Eduardo stopped by to check on us, to make sure we were OK with the tremor and understood that these things happen periodically in San Antonio. But because the ground is softer than other coastal regions in Chile, the tremors aren't as bad. He also mentioned that if we heard the tsunami warning that we should go up the hill past the hospital. In the 40 years that he has lived in San Antonio, he's never heard the tsunami warning signals, other than their required tests. Roger had never felt an earthquake before, so it was interesting to him to actually have been in one. I had experienced one when we lived in California. Made for a blog worthy experience. It rained most of the day, so we did not do any exploring of the surrounding area as we hoped to do today. Rain is probable tomorrow as well, so we will have to see how things go. The parking lot is closed on Sunday, but the owner gave us a key so we can enter and leave as needed tomorrow. The people we have met in Chile have been some of the nicest, most helpful people we have met ANYWHERE we have traveled on this planet. We like it here.

Arrrgh

20 and 21 Aug Once again we tried to get our shipping resolved. Yesterday after numerous E-Mails and phone calls nothing got sent to us. The E-Mail said that the information was being inputted into the system and we'd get something soon... Today, we left our overnight parking at 8:30 and moved the RV closer to the port. We still didn't have any paperwork, so we decided to walk to an Internet Cafe in hopes of having something worth printing by the time we got there. We should have realized that Murphy was going to prevail today, because when we got to the Internet Cafe their system was down. While there we did get some paperwork in. So we had to go find another Internet Cafe to print the paperwork out. Once we had the paperwork, we headed back to the harbor and went in search of the booking company. The first Maersk office said they only make containers, try the office around the corner. The second Maersk line said they aren't shipping agents try Ian Taylor SA, by ADUANA. So we walked over there. We then had to take a number and wait, and wait. Eventually Andes came out and asked us how he could help. We showed him the paperwork and he said that we didn't have a Bill of Laden or vessel name. Andes was very helpful, he made some phone calls and talked with Carlos, who was the POC on our form. Of course both places closed for lunch and we were told to call Carlos' office later after lunch. We called after 2pm and Carlos told us that we had the wrong office, because he only deals with importation not exportation. This despite the fact that the paperwork with Carlos' name on it said we were shipping from San Antonio to Houston. Carlos told us I needed to speak with Francesca, who was out to lunch and to call her after 3. So I called after 3 and talked with Francesca. She started asking me about our VIN, color of RV, etc. I told her it was all on the forms that we had received earlier this morning and the same forms that Andes had E-Mailed earlier as well. She told me that she need the basic information and so I tried sending it to her again. I spoke with her one more time today and she said that she was working on it and to call back later. I called at 5:55 and was told that she was on the other line and she would return my call. At 6:03 I called her office again, and apparently nobody answers the phone after 6, because it just rang and rang. In case you are wondering, I am extremely frustrated and annoyed. Somebody has had our money since Monday, and so far we don't have any valid information as to how to get our RV turned over for shipping. Murphy's Law prevails, or Ground Hog Day tomorrow? Only time will tell. Please keep your fingers crossed for us that it all works itself out tomorrow. Since we are tired of Puerto de San Antonio.

Dogs

19 Aug Roger and I starting to get frustrated with the whole shipping process. Puerto de San Antonio is a small port, and so far we don't have any information as to when our RV is going on a ship. Every time we ask, there's another form that needs to be completed, not necessarily by us, but by the shipping agent. We don't like not having control over the situation. We did stop by ADUANA (customs) to ask what paperwork we needed to have. The man asked if we had the form for our RV when we entered the country, which we did. He told us that it would be an Express process, no more than 10 minutes, since we had the entry form. Hopefully this will prove to be a fact, because so far nothing has bee Express. We are perplexed about the work hours here. For example the ADUANA opens at 8:30, closes from 2-3, and is open from 3-5:30. It's just hard to get use to places closing from 1-3 in the afternoon, with no consistency as to which hour is taken. It varies from store to store. In the meantime it feels like we always get to the place right during the mid-afternoon close window. Some random thoughts about dogs: - There's no animal control in the towns or cities we've been in. There is no neutering program in place from what we've seen, anywhere in Central or South America. - Puerto de San Antonio is the barking dog capital of South America. The stray dogs in El Centro, bark constantly or else they are asleep right in the middle of the sidewalk, strategically placed amongst their minefields. - There's one dog we've seen that only barks at black taxis. It stands on the edge of the Main Street and ignores traffic until a black taxi comes along. Then it barks until it has passed by. - Stray dogs must be born with highly tuned traffic sensors, because they get in the streets and know just when to move when an oncoming car approaches that merits their effort to get out of the way. On occasion the dog appears to be offended by traffic's need for it to get out of the way. - The majority of stray dogs are of the larger variety. So far these dogs don't look like they are suffering much from their free roaming lifestyle. So right now we're in a holding pattern, until we can get the RV shipped. I've defrosted and dried out the freezer and refrigerator. We are eating canned goods for meals, which I still had from when we left Garden Ridge. Of course there's also PBJ for lunch, no refrigeration necessary. Tuna's what's for supper tonight. Hopefully we'll get our paperwork tomorrow.

Back to San Antonio

17 and 18 Aug Yesterday was a quiet day parked by the boardwalk in Santo Domingo. We Didn't even move the RV. Roger and I spent the day relaxing, reading and walking the boardwalk. Today we left Santo Domingo and went back to Puerto de San Antonio. We parked the RV and went looking for the bus terminal and found out that a bus leaves for Santiago every 10 minutes. At the main terminal in Santiago we can catch another bus to the airport. With these questions solved, we walked to the mall to get the phone recharged. Cell service is different than in the US. For our needs we need a prepay plan, but there's nothing written down to describe the various plans or costs. We wanted international calling, so we could talk with the shipping agent in NJ. However I had no idea what plan my original purchase was in Arica. At the first kiosk, the lady could not tell me how many minutes x number of Pesos would buy, or how many GB's of data (navigation). She told me to go to the main store on the second floor. At the main store there's a lady at the entrance who helps define your need and assign a waiting number. When I told her that I wanted to recarga she told me to go the the caja, which is the payment window. I stood in line and when it got to be my turn, the man told me that their system was down. He told me to go to La Polar and that they would be able to recarga my phone. The two ladies at La Polar, told me that they couldn't recarga, because they didn't know what type of plan I had. They told me to go up the street to the other Claro store. In the interim, we stopped at Entel, which is Claro's competition and tried to get service. Unfortunately Entel requires you to be a Chileano or resident to get service. So we stopped in two more places that said they were Claro recarga places with no luck. We then decided to go back to the mall to see if the main store's system was back up. On the way to the third floor I stopped at the very first kiosk and asked the lady if she could recarga my phone with 20K pesos. She said yes and gladly took my money. I now think I'm recarga with enough time to last until we leave Chile. At least I hope so. From the mall we crossed the street to the Oficina del Tourismo and asked about where we could park our RV. The lady told us there were several estacionamentos up the street and we found one where we could park the RV off the street, and hopefully in a safer place. So we walked back to the RV and moved it to the parking lot and went back to mall for Roger to get some well deserved ice cream. After all that wandering back and forth I decided I needed some retail therapy. I bought some socks, leggings (for underneath my jeans in Ushuaia, and shoes. Everything had a discuenta, because Winter is almost over here. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I changed my shoes out and threw away my tired socks once we left the mall. From the mall we went looking for the probable shipping company. We think we found the company, but until we have the shipping paperwork nothing can be done. We are impatiently waiting for that email from the shipping company in New Jersey that is setting it up. In the meantime we're back at the RV, periodically checking E-Mail to see if our shipping paperwork has come in. We are also waiting to make follow-on travel reservations until we know we can turn the RV over to the shippers and leave. As a side note, the weather in San Antonio today is heavy overcast and foggy, and quite cool. We have plenty of propane for the heater and hot water heater. We turned the fridge off today because we are out of food that requires refrigeration. Truly an exciting day...

Santo Domingo

16 Aug We had a very peaceful night parked in beach parking last night. We got up and took a walk down the boardwalk, had it mostly to ourselves except for the guys busy sweeping the boardwalk and picking up trash. When we got back there were two men looking at our RV. They were brothers from Santiago and we talked about how nice it was in Santo Domingo. There's a lot of money here, just based on the size, style and location of the homes. Muy tranquillo. They were both stock brokers on the Chilean stock exchange. One brother owns a vacation house in Santo Domingo, the other was just down for the weekend. I told them we were trying to sell the RV and he took our number thinking he might have a buyer. I just think he was being polite. They both said "que linda, su casa rodonte." Mid-day we went for a drive to find another beach, just to have a change in scenery. Unfortunately, Las Brisas is a gated community, despite being on the national roadmap. So we turned around and headed back to Santo Domingo. This time we parked further down the beach and found cell signal. It's interesting to note that Claro had the best reception in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. However, the brothers told us that it is still too new in Chile and Entel has better reception. Live and learn. Today was a relaxing day to just get the RV organized for ship transport early next week. Roger and I also did some reading, which is quite a switch from long hours on the road.

Roughin' it

15 Aug We left Paine, which was 46 miles south of Santiago and where Ignacio had his RV lot. We decided to drive to San Antonio, where the port is that we're working on getting our RV shipped out of to Houston. Today was a Chilean holiday, so we'll be waiting until Monday to get more of the specifics on our RV drop off. While in San Antonio, we changed our cell service to International to make sure the shipping agent could get a hold of us, and that we were able to call him. Since I wanted to test the service change out I called Mom from San Antonio. Of course this was confusing to her, part of my keep her on her toes plan. I straightened her out by saying I was calling from San Antonio Chile. It was just good to touch base with her, although brief because the phone beeped and a I thought it might be the shipping company, which it wasn't just a bothersome Claro text. It's odd how getting comfortable with Verizon all these years can throw me a curve when I'm using an unfamiliar system. It took us awhile to find a parking space in San Antonio, probably an hour of driving around. I spotted a gas station with a side street that had a bus parked on it and Roger asked the driver if it was OK to park behind him. We used this space to walk to the central mall that was listed as having an open Claro store. The strip along the fishing section of the port was busy with people enjoying a Friday afternoon off. When we got back to the RV, I asked Roger if we could drive to Santo Domingo to see if we could find a nicer spot. Roger humored me and we parked in a lot right next to the boardwalk near the Rocs de Santo Domingo. We took a walk to check for any no camping or overnight parking and all we saw was no tent camping on the beach. It is so much better of a place than where we were in San Antonio. It's just nice to have a serene place to park. The only downside to where we're parked is that there is no cell signal. How will we ever survive?

Now we're just getting frustrated

14 Aug Our newest friend, Ignacio, called his POC in Miami. Right now his POC in Miami doesn't have any shipping information for us. I have some information from a shipping agent I found on line and tried to call him and couldn't get the call thru. Add to this our search for a laundromat, and things have been rather frustrating in Santiago. The good news is that Ignacio is super friendly and helpful. He even let us borrow his car to go to the laundromat that is no longer in business. I happened to see a laundromat from the highway, as we were coming back from Buin. However, it was not an easy place to get to. Then I made a bad call on exiting the autopista before we got to CasadeRuedas, so that meant we had to circle around and try again. I hate getting lost. On the bright side we were able to drop off our laundry for a 7 pm pickup tonight. This particular laundry service counts out 12 items per load, we had 2.5 loads. In other places I've paid by the kilo. Regardless I'm just happy not to have to bucket wash clothes for a change. Ignacio's wife would really like to buy our RV. However she knows that it is outside their budget. Regardless Ignacio went over our RV looking at various things to see what he needed to carry as far as spare parts for his business. He was really intrigued by the external refrigerator monitoring system that Roger has. We'll be sending him one when we get back home, along with a Camping World and Crestview catalogues. The catalogue he is working from is 2010 and he asked us if we could send him a new on. Sure no problem, because we routinely get them in the mail and they end up in the recycle bin.

Vamos rapido a Santiago

13 Aug After Roger suffered through driving in the dark last night, he has received his just rewards. This morning, once we got on the other side of La Serena, we were greeted with a 4-lane, divided highway with "estaciones y miradores". Rest areas and scenic viewpoints are a pleasant change of pace. The highway is just inland of the coast. It is interesting to us how little the coast is developed especially where there is actual beach front and only a day's drive from Santiago. We suspect it all has to do with the lack of infrastructure, as there's a need for potable water and electricity. We've passed through several small windmill sites and the land has finally greened up with scrub bushes and cacti. The soil still looks sandy and in need of irrigation to grow crops. We did pass some olive orchards and one small grape vineyard (?). To date our biggest cash expense has been tolls. The Pan Am Hwy is either a money pit or maker for every country we've been in. We hit a gridlock 84 miles from Santiago. But, eventually, past construction, we had easy going on 4 lanes again We spent time chasing our tails trying to find a lavador para camiones. The first place we stopped was using the truck wash for repairs, the second and third place weren't taking any more vehicles. We stopped at a fourth place and the equipment didn't appear to be working. Finally Roger attempted to get the grunge off using 5 gallons of water and his brush. We eventually did find a lavador de camiones south of Santiago, so Roger was very happy to help the worker wash the RV. The cost was a little high, but water is high in all of Chile. While Roger was busy washing, I talked with a guy. I could see the western ridge of mountains with some snow and the guy told me that what little rain they see in Santiago, puts snow on the nearest mountain caps. The snow does not last the entire year, and melts in Spring/Summer when it gets hot in Santiago. He said if we wanted to go skiing we'd have to go further south and inland. He didn't recommend doing this in our RV, because a lot of the times the roads require 4WD. Next we decided to head further south to see if we could find the two RV sales places that I found on line. We couldn't find the first, which was supposed to be right on the highway. The second place we almost drove past, but I saw it in the nick of time. We waited for the owner, Ignacio, only to be told that he couldn't buy it because our unit is too expensive and too new for him to afford. He told us that RV's aren't selling, because the people who would have bought them are being cautious with their money because the Pinochet government is a problem with the economy. This was not the first time we've been told that there's a disgruntled population with the national President. [The local population elects a regional President and then those guys select a national President from amongst themselves. This way the local population has a say in their national politics.] However, Ignacio has a shipping POC in the USA, and said that he'd help us find a cheaper shipping price. Apparently ships come into Chile full with imported goods and leave empty. Hopefully this is the case and he can get us a bargain, because the current price we have quoted is 20% of the value of our RV. Only time will tell. In the meantime, Ignacio allowed us to spend the night at his RV lot. He has quite the inventory that he tries to rent out during the summer. The problem is gas is so expensive that people don't necessarily want to own an RV. He did say if ours was diesel it would be a different story. Roger then explained the problem with low sulfur diesel in the USA and Ignacio now has a better understanding why he shouldn't get diesel units from the USA. Tomorrow is another day, and things will work out.

A Long and Winding Road

12 Aug Today was a long day. We left after sunrise and drove through the Desierto de Atacama. It is the highest, driest desert in the world. For miles all we saw were distant mountains on each side of the road, with sand, rocks and no vegetation. There is a lot of mining activity in the eastern mountains, which consequently brings a lot of heavy equipment and Crystal beer trucks. It's a good thing our gas tank is large, because from the time we left until 3 in the afternoon, we did not see a gas station. The distance, coupled with the high cost of gas, is probably why there are very few individual cars and a lot of cross country buses. I thought we were going to stop in Copiapo, but it was still early and we had a divided four lane highway, so on he drove. The interstate like highway stopped at Vallenar, and that's where the ongoing construction started. Roger had an almost full tank of gas, so decided to go as far the end of construction. We never did find the end of construction and ended up driving after dark, because we never came across a place where we could stop. There's a whole lot of nothing in the western foothills of the Chilean Andes. We made it to La Serena on the coast again, and stopped for the night. Roger was exhausted from driving. I am exhausted from watching him drive. We did come across an interesting section between Copiapo and Vallener. There's a native flower that blooms magenta, and covered several of the lower foothills that we passed by. There were also some light blue wildflowers as well, but they didn't change the land color significantly like the magenta flowers, which were very low to the ground. We've got some research to do tonight to figure out our game plan for Santiago. Santiago is less than 600 km away, so we'll get there tomorrow. The RV definitely needs a washing, before we take it to any dealership, as well as some re-organizing. We found out today that there are no car washes in Northern Chile, because water is too expensive to waste on washing the car. Sounds like San Antonio to us.

Baches

11 Aug Happy Birthday Timothy The word for the day is baches. We spent the morning in Arica getting a few things accomplished. We talked with a guy from Santiago about helping us sell our RV. He was impressed with the RV and said he might have a friend. We don't know if he was being polite or serious. Next accomplishment was getting taking a collectivo to el centro to get a SIM card and service for the phone. [A collectivo is a group taxi as oppose to private taxi. The driver can pick up to 4 people and drive them to a general vicinity, such as El Centro.] Additionally, we were able to change our Peruvian money for Chilean money. Our final task was trying to find "Se Vende" signs for the RV, no luck. We also inquired about a lavador for the RV and were told that only car washes were available in Arica. One thing we learned about Arica, and apparently Chile in general, is that most stores don't open until at least 10 am. This included the Claro store. We left Arica about noon and headed towards Santiago. We slowly passed through the construction zone that had closed the road yesterday. The road was single lane with a lot of fallen rocks on the righthand side of the road. (Could this have been the result of Sunday's blasting?) Once past the construction zone we climbed to another pampa, which I'm now mentally defining as high desert plain. The road was good for most of the day, except for we're guessing about a 10-20 km stretch of road construction. There was a sign that said "BACHES" which means potholes or ruts and the sign wasn't lying. This knocked our speed of advance down to 25 mph. Roger played "dodge bach", for the entire way. Once past the work zone the road for the most part was very good. The terrain on the high plain is very diverse without major vegetation. You could easily tell where there was a water source, because vegetation would appear. We drove through a large area of salt flats, very similar to Death Valley. At mile marker 1861, approximately 19.5 degrees south we saw off in the eastern distance our first snow capped Andes mountain. I have no idea how far away the peak was, but it was a huge mountain to be seen from the distance we were at. The traffic that we saw on the PanAm consists largely of tankers and Crystal beer trucks. I counted 6 Crystal trucks, once I started actually counting. The cars that we did come across were the typically overloaded vehicles, that had countless mattresses stacked on the roof rack. I think there's an unwritten rule that if one is going to travel far, one must overload the vehicle. There are no gas stations between Arica and where we stopped for the night, which is close to Maria Helena. We're parked along side of the road in an estacion, which is a designated parking area. We saw a beautiful sunset and it was finally clear for us to see the southern stars. However we don't know where the Southern Cross is. I'm sure we saw it. It's really dark outside and we can see Maria Helena off in the distance.

Easy day's drive

10 Aug Had to turn the heat on this morning to take the chill off inside. It was nice knowing we had a full tank of propane at our disposal. Hot water was also heated last night for our shower, which is only the third time all trip we've needed to heat the water. We only saw a little neblina this morning, maybe 45 minutes, and then the fog lifted up enough to be off the roadway. The drive to the border was easy for Roger, with only short periods of rough road. Looking at the map, I was afraid we were going to have several winding mountain climbs, but in reality it was just climbing up to the pampas, or climbing down to them. We finally found an area in Peru that didn't have a lot of trash alongside of the road. There were several changes in the color of sand, from light brown, to dark brown, to reddish orange. Then there were huts out in the middle of nowhere that made the drive very different. At the Peru border, we parked went to some guys standing outside the building to get a form and filled out his log. Next, we went inside to get our passports stamped for departure. I was organized and easily found the 2x3 form that we received when we entered the country, that also had to be turned in. After getting our passports stamped we left the building and turn the corner to the left and went inside to get the paperwork for the RV. The guy came outside and viewed our RV (from right outside his office to where our RV was parked in the Auto section, not with the trucks or buses). He stamped our paperwork and we left. At the Chile border, we parked over to the right and walked inside to get our passports stamped and filled out a form that was stamped and returned to us and will be collected upon our departure from Chile. Next we were told to drive the RV up to the inspection lanes. (All the cars had to be emptied of all luggage and the luggage x-rayed.) PDI ran the drug dog through the inside of our RV and outside it. Next I was given a vehicle form and told to fill it out. Roger had to go with a guy to go get the RV X-rayed, since we couldn't empty the entire contents for small security x-ray. Roger writes: The whole-vehicle x-ray was a new experience. They have a Chinese-made truck with a huge x-ray scanner that drives slowly past the length of our RV with an upside-down U passing over and down both sides of the rv. Very unusual to watch. It identified three areas they wanted to visually inspect; one was a plastic box with a six-pack of Clorox wet wipes; second was all the kitchen appliance gadgetry under the sink in the kitchen; and third was the fresh water tank "hidden" (read 'installed') located under the bed. I happily opened up compartments, the slide-out, under the bed, etc. I think they were curious about the design in general as it is not something they see with any frequency. What little vehicle camping there is here is truck campers and some small "VW Vanagon" camping vans. We have not seen any camping trailers. In fact, trailers other than semi-trailers are very rare. The whole process of immigration/emigration, customs exit/entry, and vehicle x-ray inspection took about an hour and a half. Border traffic was quite light. Driving is a completely different experience during our first day in Chile. 1) People drive somewhere close to the speed limit; 2) Drivers YIELD to pedestrians, 3) Drivers are courteous, with only one car in each lane, instead of up to three; 4) Drivers adhere to traffic lights/signs; and 5) Drivers to not drive with one hand constantly on the horn, beeping at everyone and thing they see. I LIKE CHILE ALREADY and I haven't seen hardly any of it. We walked to a "Lider" store in Arica Chile to restock food supplies. Lider is Walmart's brand store in Chile (think price 'leader'). It was very busy and there were lots of shelves that had empty spaces. It's always a challenge to go to a crowded store that you're unfamiliar with. Glad we walked, as parking for our size vehicle was non-existent. Afterwards we left with the RV to go buy water to fill the tank. Water came in a container larger than a 5 gal jug, and we needed 6 costing us about $21. Filling the tank with jugs requires two people, a ladder and a funnel. I climb the ladder with the jug, while Trinora holds the funnel and tries not to get wet with the pouring water. Most of the time we've been able to get free water, but occasionally we just can't find it. We both like to have fresh water in the tank, and empty black and grey water tanks.

Neblina

9 Aug Oh, how I despise you, neblina. And I especially loathe "zona de neblina". The day started out just fine. We left Nazca and were making good time until we got stuck in fog. It was treacherous. Trucks slow down to a crawl and cars still don't have the patience to wait behind slower moving vehicles. Some of the passing we saw was crazy. Fortunately, Roger actually demonstrated some patience and waited until the visibility was such that passing was possible. He really likes the get up and go of our engine, despite it's gas mileage. We routinely pull into gas stations knowing that we want gas and the attendants think we really should be using diesel. For this reason alone, Roger is very glad that he bought a locking gas cap. The road from Nazca begins inland and drops back down to the coast. I miss guardrails too. Just seeing partial guardrails with big gaps, makes me want complete rails. The drive was a gray, dreary day, but it's winter so I guess that's what I should expect. Think California coast, only sandy, brown and with a lot more hairpin turns and coastal drop offs. I just wish oncoming trucks would stay in their lanes on sharp turns. Roger had to stop our progress several times to avoid getting hit. I love my "conductor"! I also had to cover up the pet window, because I didn't like seeing the drop off, despite trying not to look. From Camana, the road heads inland and that's where we encountered fog again. We finally got above the fog and were on the Pampas de Sihuas. I do not know what pampas translates to, but to us it means "wide open dry desert that Peru Hwy 1 crosses. There is farming where there's irrigation, but other than those locations it is like a dust bowl. Virtually no plant life. The road takes a southward turn near Arequipa, and we passed over some more mountains, thru two very narrow tunnels, and ended up on Pampa de la Yoya. We've stopped at a Grifo (gas station brand), we asked permission and the owner said yes and that his station is very safe. He also told us that the police routinely patrol the streets, so it's muy tranquilo. The station owner said that we should leave later tomorrow and take a look around his town, Cocochacra. It looks brown to us, with a few random cacti. Hopefully we'll be in Arica, Chile tomorrow evening, if we don't see neblina again.

Fog, to mist, to flying skies

8 Aug What a yucky way to start the day. Around 4 am, truck noise woke us up. We were planning on getting up at 5:15 to be on the road by 6, so there was a lot of tossing and turning for over an hour. Once Roger decided it was almost light enough to leave, we headed out. The first trick was to make a U turn across a semi-divided highway. Roger got lucky and executed it with no problem. Then his luck ran out for a while. Within 15 minutes of leaving we started climbing and the mist turned into fog. It was very thick fog, plus the driver's side windshield wiper started to malfunction. Roger was bending over to get a clear spot of the windshield while I was telling him left curve or right curve depending upon the road signs. (Mom, I'm writing this so it means we made it out of the fog.) We were told that it should be an easy drive to Lima by the Police yesterday. Ha! Once we got down to the coast closer to Lima we hit traffic starting at Callao. The PanAm Hwy does not go thru Lima, but the traffic didn't know this. The road actually goes east of central Lima, but the geographic area of Lima is probably the same size as the geographic size of Jacksonsville FL. Roger took on the little taxis with skill, as well as cars that refused to travel in their respective lanes. At times a marked three lane road had 5 cars across. For a while we had a bus run interference for us, but we lost Marco Polo at a toll plaza. Yes, people pay money for the aggravation of random lane traffic. We were finally south of Lima by 8:30 and Roger was a relieved "conductor." The rest of today's drive was very uneventful when compared to how our day started. Around 3 pm we pulled into the Nazca airport. We had a bucket list item to see the Nazca lines. We took a half hour plane line to see 13 out of 20 of the lines. Way cool. There are several different theories, as well as legends, as to how the lines were formed and why. Regardless the general thought is that the Nazca indians created the lines around 0 AD, give or take a few years. We're spending the night at the Nazca Airport, one of the few nuggets we got from Norm as to where to stay. He was the King of withholding useful information. Anyway tomorrow is yet another day south. In case you're curious, we're approximately 15 degrees south, 75 degrees west. Since we're "camping" at the airport and finished early, Roger pulled the windshield wiper off and is going to Sailor rig it to hopefully fix the problem. Regardless, he'll be swapping his side for my side. I just hope it works.

Gray day with lots of sand

7 Aug From a very peaceful night in Pacasmayo, we drove all day and arrived in Chancay, which is about an hour north of Lima. The drive today was through more desert-like terrain, although not labeled on my map as a desert. Occasionally, we drove close to the Pacific, but today was a gray dreary winter day. By the end of the day, we've both come to the conclusion that it is time to shift from shorts to long pants. Oh how I'll miss shorts, because I have no idea how we're going to wash Roger's long pants. Where there was irrigation today we saw more sugar cane, corn, carrots, onions, cabbage, and asparagus fields. Yes, fields of asparagus. Around Huacho there were buildings between the highway and the coast. As we got closer, we realized that these buildings were chicken ranches. Then we passed a couple of feather bearing semi-trucks and were convinced that all the chicken was headed to Lima. Regardless, the population of Peru eats a lot of chicken. Finding a safe place to spend the night was a challenge. The first place we stopped the man told me to go back north towards Huacho or Barranca. Of course, there was no way we were going to back track. Then we decided to look for the hospital or police station in Chancay and Roger missed the turn. Roger saw a National Police pickup on the side of the road and flagged them down. We both got out and asked the Police (there were 3 in the truck) where to spend the night and they told us to follow them to a Grifo where they knew had an overnight lot parking. When we got to the Grifo, we ended up giving a tour to the three police and the Grifo lot owner. One cop said to another cop, that our RV was nicer than his house. This makes us feel bad, because we have passed a lot of housing that do not have running water or electricity. I did ask the Police about driving around Lima (and not through). They all said to stay on the PanAm Hwy, which goes east of Lima. They also said to leave Chancay no later than 6 am, because traffic is terrible in Lima. Random thoughts: - The P count for today was 4 - Things I miss most about home: Regularly talking to my Mom and stopping by to see George and Luree My washer and dryer!!! - Gas can be bought with a credit card probably 95% of the time. Roger always has to show his passport when he uses a credit card. A paper copy of his passport works just fine. I've secured his passport for obvious reasons. Gas more expensive in Peru than the USA. How we miss the gas of Ecuador.

Success and Sand

6 Aug

We finally got the propane tank empty around 8:30AM so we could take it over to Gasnort.  They removed our USA valve and sent it over to the machine shop to have an adaptor made.  While we were waiting we took advantage of the time and had the filthy exterior of the RV washed.  Roger was happy to see a clean vehicle again, as opposed to the black dirt sides that were a result of a brief drizzle we encountered on the road.

When we got back to Gasnort, the part wasn't ready but there were three new guys that had questions about our travels and RV.  We conversed with them for a while and then I asked about places down the road that they thought would be safe places to camp overnight.  Unilaterally they recommended Pacasmayo.  We got our custom brass adaptor around 11:30, then had to go to the gas station to get the tank filled.  When we got back to the shop, I had to light the stove top to check and see if everything was OK. Success! Fortunately it was, so Roger paid the bill of about $70 for our custom adaptor and we left town.  We can now get propane at most gas stations in Peru, and according to the guys at GasNort, it will also work in Chile.  Best of all, our US fitting is also still fully functional

After we left Piura, the road bisects el Desierto de Sechura.  The color of the day was shades of brown, from light beige sand to dark brown scruff trees.  At the northern end of the desert, Roger was able to use the cruise control; something we haven't been able to do since we left the USA.  However, about one third of the way through the wind picked up and regrettably the cruise control was turned off.  We went through several Zona Duna (Sand Dune Zones), and the sky was sandy blue.  It was interesting to notice the terrain, sometimes there were small mounds of sand evenly place and other times there were larger spread out mounds of sand, and then we'd come across a flat area of sand.  Regardless Roger's clean RV now has a sand dust coating.

Roger drove about 200 miles today, despite our midday start.  We made it to Pacasmayo and found a place to park.  The police cruised by and did not stop so we thought we were OK.  Later another truck stopped by and Roger went out to talk with them, as it was dark.  They told Roger that it would be safer if we parked in town and took him to where they wanted us to park.  Roger went with them and left me behind in the RV.  About 10 minutes later Roger came back and we moved to where the officials wanted us to park.  It is in town a half block from the police station adjacent to a town square.  Suits us just fine.  Note:  Roger's Spanish is improving daily.  He can get his point across and when he doesn't understand what's being said to him, he comes and gets me.  We're never too old to learn.

Random thoughts:
-  Gasnort has a 6-day work week.  They convert 20 cars to propane a week and 10 cars to natural gas a week.  Business is great.  It costs about $1000 for a basic car.  The reason why people want the conversion is that the fuel is cheaper than gas with a 25% savings per gallon, despite a reduction in miles per gallon.
-  We have seen frequent signs:  Zona Urbana, and are left wondering how many dwellings constitute a Zona Urbana, because one place looked like there were less than 10 dwellings.
-  Street vendors will use any stop to try to sell their wares.  They especially like long construction delays and toll plazas.
-  Our current peeing on the side of the road count is two digits now.  Guys will pretty much stop anywhere to mark their trail.
-  So far all construction sites have had at least one guy willing to show his plumber's crack.  Sometimes there are multiple exhibitions at the same site.
-  The combination of free GPS software that Roger downloaded and my purchased maps of South America seem to help us navi-guess our way without too much frustration.  The good news is that there aren't that many major roads.  It gets dicey when the PanAm hwy goes through a town and there are absolutely NO road signs indicating turns to stay on the PanAm hwy.  Our basic guiding principal is just head south.
-  It is frustrating to have to get a new data plan when you change countries.  First you have to get a SIM card and then you have to buy pre-paid service.  Sometimes this can't be done at the same place.  Claro has the best coverage, at a price (just like Verizon.)  Voice and text are in the same group, navigation is separate and generally sold in blocks of just 100M.  Routinely I request the largest available mobile data plan.  I also have learned that text and voice are grouped together, so when you use any voice it impacts on how many text you can send.  I learned this yesterday when Sandra called.  I'll have to get my phone "recarga", just to be able to send her texts.  The phone I'm using has 3 data speed levels.  E, H and 3G.  I can't use the Internet on E speed.

Cooking off

5 Aug

Since we woke up early, what's a couple to do while waiting for 8 am?  Laundry.   We have a 5 gal bucket that we've been using to painstakingly do wash in.  How I miss my washer and dryer, but Roger makes a heck of a wring man.  We string a clothesline inside the RV and drive on down the road, since we don't have a rear window to worry about.

At 8 we went to Taller de Roy Hidalgo, who converts cars from gas to propane.  Apparently this is a good business in Peru.  Unfortunately the guy who had the keys to the parts bin that might of had the right adaptor didn't make it back last night from an offsite job.  However Roy made a phone call for us to his brother's shop in Piura to see if he could help us.  After we got the info, we left for Piura which is about 3 hours south of Mancura on the PanAm hwy.  It would have been an easy drive, except for the rough roads for about 40% of the time.  The drive starts along the coast and then goes through mountain desert that reminded us of the terrain around El Paso.

Once again traffic was crazy in Piura.  The motorcycle taxis and small taxis don't like to honor lanes, but Roger skillfully drives around all the pesky taxis.

We got to the recommended Piura taller, and the guys there were very helpful.  Unfortunately we have too much propane and our tank has to be empty before they can swap out the valve.  The plan is to change the valve to Peru/Chile valve and keep the USA valve.  That way we can get propane in Peru/Chile and hopefully will be a key resale item for attracting a buyer in Chile.

While Roger was dealing with the RV, I took a taxi to downtown Piura to get a SIM card for the phone and service.  This took a while, no surprise, and after I paid I realized I didn't have any small bills for the taxi ride back.  The Claro guy told me there was a bank a block away, so I was in the process of walking to it when I passed a Maxi grocery store.  I went in and bought a six pack of beer for Roger and was able to break the large bill.  Funny the ride back cost me 40% less than the ride to downtown.  But the taxi I took back was held together with bailing wire and chewing gum.

We have to empty the propane tank, so we're burning the stove top, heating water, and have the heater on.  I now know how clothes feel in a clothes dryer.  Hopefully we'll get the change out done first thing tomorrow morning and be back on the road tomorrow.

Peru

4 Aug

Left  Santa Rosa Ecuador at 7-ish and drove to Bella Vista where the guys from yesterday told us the propane plant was.  We were bounced around to 4 different guys and the conclusion was they couldn't fill a permanent tank, only exchange tanks.  So we headed for the border.

At the border, we didn't see the left turn access to the bi-country border services, so we drove across the bridge to Peru.  At the bi-country border services there, we were able to get our immigration done, but couldn't get permission to enter the RV because we lacked the departure stamp from Ecuador.  You would think that the bi-country border services would be a one stop place, but we were told we would have to go back to Ecuador to get the departure stamp.  So we drove the 2km back to the Ecuador buildings to wait in line for a stamp.  It took less than 30 seconds to get the stamp and about 15 minutes waiting our turn.

We then went back to Peru and it took 3 people plus their supervisor to complete the computer work.  The challenge was the manufacturer of our RV, Thor, was not in their database.  This, coupled with the fact that the VIN is a Ford VIN for the chassis and motor, provided a lot of confusion.  Then Roger presented his International Driver's license (without his TX one which is required on the back of the form in English) and this caused more confusion.  Luckily the address matched the address Roger had hand written in his passport, plus the address section on the title matched the International Driver's license so it eventually was accepted.

It took a while to get through the border, solely from an administrivia perspective.  The two South America border crossings so far have been better organized and more efficient (???) than Central America.  The only disadvantage of the E/P border was there were no money changers, which meant we had to eventually find a place to change dollars to Nuevo (New) Sol's, the Peru currency.

The first Peruvian city you come to is Tumbes.  It was crowded and had lots of traffic down the PanAm Hwy, plus no parking.  So we drove on through without getting cash changed.  In Zorrito, a slow beach town, I happened to see a bank on the PanAm, so we stopped on the side of the road to get sols.  The exchange rate is 2.75sols to 1USD.  After we had money we drove on to Mancora.   We stopped at a gas station that had GLP (gas, liquid, propane) hoping to get our tank filled.  The owner of the station was extremely helpful.  The GLP nozzle at the pump did not match our propane tank.  He called a guy and found out that the guy was out of town until tomorrow.  He then took us to the guy's place of work to talk with the guy's boss to see if he had an adaptor that would work.  The boss didn't but said to come back tomorrow at 8 to see if his employee had an adaptor.  So the gas station owner took us back to the station.  We were riding in a motorcycle taxi to do this running around.

When we got back to the gas station we asked about hotels with secure parking and high entrances.  The gas station guy turned us over to a man who was working there and also had a motorcycle taxi.  This man said he knew of a couple hotels that might meet our needs, so we got into his taxi and he drove us around for their inspection.  The first hotel didn't have room and wouldn't just let us park there.  The second hotel had a terrible entrance and there was no way Roger could drive the RV up the apron to get into the parking lot.  The third hotel was down on the beach, had a room, but ended up saying we couldn't park the RV even it we got a room.  Also there was a high probability that the RV would catch overhead electrical wires down the streets we would have had to drive to get to the hotel.  So after playing Goldilocks we ended up back at the gas station and were given permission to park overnight.  The station has a security guard that comes on shift at 7 pm.  Roger introduced himself to the guard.

After all the running around, Roger and I took a taxi to Plaza de Armas to the Claro shop to get a Peru phone SIM card.  The lady there could have sold me a SIM card, but couldn't initiate service.  She told me that would have to be done in the big Claro center in Piura, so that's where we'll be going tomorrow.  We stopped at an Internet cafe to get directions and try to log on to E-Mail; however gmail and hotmail have security questions that couldn't be addressed on an Internet cafe's terminal.  We then went walking down to the beach side.  There were several restaurants, so we stopped and had dinner.  Roger ordered fried fish fillet which was OK.  I ordered langoustine with criollo rice and it was very good.  Roger dumped his white rice and enjoyed sharing my criollo rice.  We also had ice cream, with 3 of the 4 flavors being excellent.  We then walked back to the gas station, and did some housekeeping (an endless task wherever you call home.)   We have a game plan for tomorrow, and hopefully third time is a charm with the GPL.  Then we'll be off to Piura and points further south.  We estimate a week or so to transit Peru, then on to Chile.

Up and down, with hairpin curves

31 July

The drive from Santa Rosa de Osos was our first independent day.  We elected not to stay with our guide, Norman Yelland, as life is to short to be frustrated by a con-artist.

Roger said that it was the nicest day of driving we had despite the first two thirds being challenging with slow moving traffic, getting passed by people who don't want to share the road, and generally uncivilized.

Santa Rosa is north of Medellin and we drove to south of Cali.  Getting through Medellin wasn't too bad, except that we went around the round about three times before we figured out that southbound was the second turn not the first.  We stopped twice to confirm we were headed in the right direction after we got out of Medellin because traffic had dropped so significantly.  Yes was the answer both times, which was a good thing.

Once we got to Pereira, we had autopista until the outskirts of Cali.  We took the bypass and ended up in the sugar cane fields and had to watch for trens de canero.  The cane trains are pulled by a heavy duty truck, with four loaded trailers behind.  I took some pictures, but you'll have to wait until we figure out how to upload them because the laptop is sporadic now.

We drove to Villa Rica, thinking we could find a paquero which we did based on the map.  However the map doesn't indicate how quaint the overnight parking lot is.  It was sort of a truck stop, but without any trucker services.  Gas and parking.  It was also near a neighborhood, so we got to listen to somebody's loud latin music.  I think there's going to be a whole generation of deaf folks in both Central and South America based on how loud they like to play and share their music.

Random thoughts:
- The majority of women aren't flattered in their rear view when sitting on the back of a motorcycle.
- The majority of motorcycle drivers are male.
- We saw lots of unteathered cattle and horses grazing on the side of the road.
-  Do not travel slow or close to a diesel truck, for a long t

No quick way to Ecuador

1 August

When we left Villa Rica this morning we thought we'd have less than a 9 hour drive to Equador.  Not.  We are still in Colombia after driving almost 12 hours.  There were countless stops due to construction, rough road where there wasn't construction, and then just traffic in general that made the transit slow.  Of course throw in that we had several ups and downs in altitude it made for a "delightful" day.

Villa Rica is about 1000m in altitude, then up to Popayan at 1730m, then down to Patia at 1300m, then up to Pasto at 2,560m, then down to Pilcuan at 1900m.  Roger drove most the day in either second or third gear because of the climbing, or using the engine to brake when we were going down.

We had our first Army stop today.  All the guy asked me was what were we transporting?  I said nothing in our casa rodante, and he waved us on.

We were going to stop in Pasto, but didn't come across any parqueros (places to park).  We also tried to get gas a gas station, but they didn't have any gas.  We then noticed almost all gas stations didn't have fuel and the ones that did had lines on the street, which we wouldn't stop for because of the traffic on the roads.  In fact the traffic and pollution was so bad in Pasto, our CO detector went off.  That's some wicked pollution, but can be expected with all the motorcycles and high sulfur burning Diesel engines in a congested area.  When we finally came across a station that did have gas and a place for us to wait in line, it took over half an hour to get up to the pump.

We're about 25 km from the border.  It will be our first independent border crossing, so hopefully it will be easy and won't take too long.  Quito is about 300 km from where we're spending the night.  We paid an almost toothless, and half blind Colombian 3000 CP ($1.60 US) to spend the night in his closed gas station.  We can hear a creek or river running out one window.  The other window is closed due to road noise.  It is surprising to us that in Colombia, traffic continues after dark, not like in Central America.  Fortunately, if traffic continues earplugs come in handy.

Scenic beauty

3 Aug

We left Quito and went the long way around the city to avoid going through the city. We didn't feel that guilty due to the price of gas.  Roger thinks it was back in 1979 when he paid less than $2/gal.  From Quito we headed south towards Ambato, through the flower district.  There were lots of greenhouses throughout the area, and  numerous shipping warehouses.  I suspect the Quito airport is busy shipping flowers, because truck traffic wouldn't get flowers exported in any shape.

From there the agriculture turned to potatoes, onions, broccoli, and several long grasses that I didn't recognize.  It was interesting to note that people or trucks carried produce as opposed to horse or donkey carts in rural Colombia.  It is a lot colder in Ecuador than the mountains of Colombia.

We started heading west at Villa la Union and crossed over the Cordillera Occidental  and began our descent into the coastal area of Ecuador.  It was fascinating viewing the changes in terrain, from arid high country, to greener lower high elevation, to more tropical vegetation, to finally banana and sugar plantation land.  The first half of the drive was through mountain rises and descents, the third quarter through high country valley, and the last quarter through rougher low country roads.

We thought we were going to stop in Machala, Ecuador and drove through town looking for a place to park.  After getting through town with no luck, we headed further south and stumbled across a restaurant that was gated.  We asked the staff if we could spend the night since they were closing and the head lady called the owner.  The owner said it was OK if it was OK with the night guard.  While we were waiting we talked with three senior citizen motorcycle riders from Machala.  All were interested in the RV and glad to talk about their rides.  Roger was quite impressive with his Spanish and hand signals to get the conversation across.  These men were also very informative about propane gas.  They told us where the plant is, so tomorrow we'll be heading first thing to the nearby plant to see if we can get our tank filled.  We've been looking for a plant since Quito, so hopefully we'll be lucky and be able to get our tank topped off first thing tomorrow.  Right now we've only been using propane for the refrigerator, but as things get cold, having hot water for showers is a nicety as well.

Roger got to use his EMT skills today too.  One of the motorcycle guys (who happens to be 81) tripped on a curb and fell directly on his face.  He bled from over his eye, his cheekbone and nose.  Roger patched him up with butterfly strips and neosporin.  We gave him a couple of tissues for his nose and eventually he stopped bleeding.  He was very embarrassed, but at least Roger had his small first aid kit.

Tomorrow we will head into Peru if the propane quest doesn't take too long in the morning.

Searching for a spot

2 Aug

We continue to enjoy being "Norm-free" and feel sorry for Sandra.

We drove from just north of Ipiales, Colombia all the way to Quito, Peru.  But I'm ahead of myself.

Roger and I accomplished our first border crossing "all by ourselves."  First we had to get our passports stamped leaving Colombia, and turn in our customs paperwork from Cartagena on the RV.  We kept a copy just in case.

Then we drove across the bridge to Ecuador, where we had to get our passports stamped entering the country.  After that we had to wait for the color copy place to open, so we could get color copies of our title, Roger's (driver) passport picture page, and Ecuador entry page, and his International driver's license.  It's a good thing we had our International driver's license, because Roger lost his driver's license in Cartagena at the shipping company.  Fortunately somebody found it and turned it in, so the shipping company sent it to Bogota to Jaime to keep until we get there.

Once we had the required color copies (annoying because we had black and white copies of all the paperwork, but Norm never told us that color was required.  He's still getting us in absentia.  The Customs lady from Ecuador came out to the RV to verify the VIN, license plate, and to take pictures.  The only cost was for the color copies, so after that we were on our way.

The government of Ecuador subsidizes the price of transportation fuel, so the price of gas is $1.48 USD and diesel is $1.02!  The monetary unit of Ecuador is the US dollar, so it's easy math.  Although change is interesting, because it can be either in US coins or Ecuadorian coins.

We drove through some very beautiful country in Ecuador, despite the hairpin turns, and curves.  Every acre of useable land is either farmed, or grazed, or lived on.  The drive from the border to Quito was scenic despite the complete cloud coverage.  Somewhere around Guayllabamba we crossed the equator.  We were expecting at the very least a sign, but didn't see anything.  The only reason I know why we crossed was that I was watching the map for it.

We fumbled around for some time in Quito trying to find a safe, level place to spend the night.  Too bad RV camping isn't in existence yet, there is some tent camping but we're vertically challenged (too tall) to make it into a lot of places.  We ended up spending the night in an airport parking lot, that turned out to be really nice because the cost was $5 and we were able to fill up with fresh water on our way out.  It's the simple things...

Random thoughts:
-  We're operating under a "trust but verify" mode.  The only map we have is a map of north South America.  GPS is loaded with South America as well.  However there are times where the two don't necessary match with route numbers, so we've asked several times now very helpful people if we were going the right way.  Today's kudo goes to the toothless man, who was extremely useful confirming our suspicions.  I think it made his day to help us out as well.  So far, everybody we've asked has been more than helpful.
-  Pollution must be an issue when toll takers are wearing respirators.
-  Roger is developing "right lane fear".  Buses routinely stop on the right side with or without a lane.  Cars sometimes pass on the right side for no apparent reason.  Cars can be parked on the right side of the road for no apparent reason.
-  Trucks and buses routinely have "religious protection" on their vehicles or ask for religious guidance while they are driving.
-  Colombia has more motorcycle riders than Ecuador in the countryside.  Ecuador has more car drivers, usually packed with stuff and people like Colombia does.
-  Why can't the USA use the $1 coin, like Ecuador does?  It's the same legal currency.
-  We have yet to see the police or military presence in Ecuador than we did in Colombia.