A South American Adventure

The title of our organised tour of Chile, Argentina and Brazil was `South American Adventure` and so it turned out! In the course of just over a fortnight, we stayed in 7 hotels, did 4 internal flights (in addition to the two long trans-Atlantic ones on the way out and return) and made two land frontier crossings. It was indeed hectic, but with intervals for rest and leisure in between.

So what about the trip itself? One of Its highlights was undoubtedly the drive over the top of the Andes from Chile into Argentina which involved a complicated sequence of coach and catamaran rides over a couple of days. Its starting point was the 76 km drive from Puerto Varas into the Vicente Perez National Park, a region of outstanding natural beauty and scenic terrain. En route we stopped to visit the Saltos de Petrohue, a magnificent waterfalls on the River Petrohue. This was followed by a most exciting catamaran ride of one-and-three-quarters hours across Lago Todos los Santos, considered to be the most beautiful lake in Chile because of its emerald green water and densely populated surrounding woods. Our destination there was the port of Peulla, a charming village nesting in a serene mountainous setting surrounded by lakes and waterfalls. There we stayed overnight in a Swiss chalet style hotel, with full amenities and splendid views of the surroundings.

We continued the next day, again through a series of coach and catamaran journeys, involving the physical crossing of the border from Chile into Argentina at an altitude of some 3,000+ metres. That was not however where the frontier formalities were done, for both the Chilean exit and the Argentinian entry procedures had been conducted miles apart, well before and after the physical boundary had been crossed. The climb up and drive through the mountains here reminded me of Sikkim, North East India, where we had journeyed in 2007, except that here there was much more of a harmony between nature and human habitation, which was also different from the clean and clinical contrast with the Rockies of North America. We were headed for Bariloche, on the south shore of Lake Nahuel Huapi, a renouned mountain resort in Patagonia and a favourite holiday destination not only for Argentinians but also for Brazilians.

The other major highlight was the Iguassu Falls complex, straddling both Argentina and Brazil, at a point which also borders on Paraguay. We were lucky that there had been a great deal of rain there just a couple of days earlier, which meant that there was high density water, water everywhere. This is an area of exceptional splendour that is not much heard or spoken of in the world at large, but it compares more than favourably with the better known Niagara and Victoria Falls. On the Argentinian side we walked on fortified walkways far and deep into the complex, while on the Brazilian side we stood in front of a huge cascade gushing at a velocity and noise level that was deafening.

But to backtrack a little, we had started out in Santiago, an easy going modern city of some five million. Here we saw the President`s Palace, where President Allende was killed in the coup that brought in General Pinochet in 1973. Later we did a tour of one of Chile`s finest wineries, Vina Concha y Toro which, I was pleased to discover, was the home of one of my favourite wines, the Casillero del Diablo Caberne! But our most memorable outing was to Valpariso, the largest port city on Chile`s Pacific coast, with its undulating landscape of colourful and higgeldly piggedly buildings lining narrow streets at all kinds of angles and its picturesque harbour front. And here the local highlight was a visit to the house of Pablo Naruda, the celebrated Chilean poet, high up on a hill overlooking Valpariso`s water, valleys and skylines. It gave one an extraordinary insight into the home and working environment of one of the iconic literary figures of the 20th century. It was rather like a matchbox structure, intricately tiered on several floors, each of which provided disparate space for living, sleeping, entertaining and writing. It reminded me of Ernest Hemingway`s beautiful house in Havana, Cuba, also situated on high ground with magnificent views of its surroundings.

Valpariso`s importance declined when the Panama Canal opened in the early part of the 20th century, but until then it was a major and thriving port along the west coast of South America and the first place of call for ships rounding the Cape of Horn from Europe or other parts of the globe to the east. It was also the entry point for waves of migrants from Europe and some from the Middle East as well. The population of Chile is much more mixed, in terms of both European and native Indian blood, while that of Argentina is predominantly white. Brazil too has its ethnic dynamics, as it not only has a history of population conflations and conflicts but also continues to be an immigrant receiving society. In addition to the cultural and human diversity, all three countries have so much to offer in terms of natural history and science and a fantastic array of geophysical features that one can only guess at the extent of things not seen and experienced, only glimpsed superficially. As well as the many references to it in the tourist literature, the fact that Darwin had touched on Chilean soil and made some valuable discoveries about the habitat of the region during his epic voyage was proudly mentioned by our guides.

This was our first venture into South America. We have been creatures of the Anglo-American or African-Asian world for so long that it was a strange feeling at first to be confronted with a different rhythm of life, though it was still manifestly European and so not completely alien on surface. The people there are definitely polite and considerate; respectful and mindful of others. They also assumed that we were Spanish-speaking, not just because of our colour and looks, but also because that is their lingua franca and frame of reference. At airports and some tourist sites however all signs are in Spanish and English.

But the thought that kept on recurring was, how extraordinary that civilisation exists in Chile! Chile after all must be the remotest country on earth: it is a mere long strip on the west coast of South America, bounded on one side by the Pacific Ocean and on the other by the high mountain range of the Andes. So even in the South American context, it is pretty isolated. In global terms, its nearest landmass on the west is Australasia and on the east South Africa, both thousands of miles apart. And yet, even as far as we went down in the south (to the Lake District), all the infrastructure of the modern age that we take for granted is to be found there; ok, maybe not exactly of the same first world standard as in North America, but definitely in the upper stratum of the second - not third - world. Argentina has had a rough economic spell in the recent past, but even it is not that far behind. Brazil on the other hand is an up-and-coming developing giant, whose problems and possibilities and potential in the international trade and financial arena are fairly well known. Their currency values and standards of living seemed to be rising.

The day before we reached Rio (which was on Saturday 3 October), it had been announced that the next Olympics were going to be held there, and so a massive public celebration was planned for the Sunday night into Monday at CopaCabana beach. Sunday however was not a good day in weather terms; that was also the day we did most of our sight-seeing. Incidentally, that day I also deliberately chose to wear my Che tee-shirt and I must say it drew some favourable looks or comments from the locals and other tourists. Our hike up the monument of Christ the Redeemer was a disappointment because the statue was shrouded in mist while we were there and so that photo-op was a missed opportunity, except for a rather striking shadowy outline. But the rest of Rio was fine and we got some brilliant shots. Incidentally, Rio has a Mahatma Gandhi Square with a statue of the Mahatma! Once again, though, while Brazil is habitually lumped in with the African and Asian third world countries, its poverty and polarities are not that much different from what we see in the US, where too of course they exist. Even so, Brazil`s third world conditions nevertheless have an overall European orientation.

I forgot to mention Buenos Aires - a huge metropolitan city. Here we visited the city`s main squares (including the famous Plaza de Mayo, the political heart of the city where the "mothers of the disappeared" used to gather to protest about the fate of their children), cathedrals etc, and the famous cemetery where Evita was buried, and the Italian quarter of La Boca, where I had a picture taken with a Tango girl in the street. One evening we also went to a Tango performance, macho and stylistic, geared to arouse the senses but its artificiality somehow failed to do that. We also found an Indian restaurant in the centre of the business district where our hotel was situated, but much as we had wanted to eat there, that was during the one 24 hour period when I was struck down with a tummy bug, and so had to be content just to visit the place. We found out that it was owned by a guy from Delhi (hence `The Delhi Durbar`), and one or two of his staff were Bangla Deshi. But deshi food then would have been welcome, even though in Chile and Argentina in particular, the chefs in hotels and restaurants made special effort to cater to our vegetarian dietary needs; in fact there was too much food around everywhere. In Buenos Aires, they said they eat vegetarians - after all in the land of beef a veggie is a vulnerable specie!

In Buenos Aires in particular (but also to some extent in Santiago) what was so noticeable was that the streets were crowded with people briskly walking about purposefully, hurrying here and there, in huge numbers not - as we usually find in London, Paris or other big cities - during `rush` hours when they might be going to or leaving work from offices, shops, banks etc, or at lunch time, but outside of those hours, at mid-morning or mid-afternoon. There seemed to be rather a lot of them everywhere. To us this seemed quite extraordinary.

Well, there it is. Now we have been to every continent in the world, except the Arctic and the Antarctica; but that is all rather superficial really. If one could put the clock back, then I would have done it differently, like what our youngsters are doing nowadays - taking a year out to live and work there. I am conscious that I have not mentioned the socio-cultural aspects much, but from a tourist`s perspective, what one sees around is what one makes most of, and so it was in our case.

RAMNIK SHAH