24 June 2010

Hello to anyone reading this!

I don't think I've previously mentioned that Copiapo seems to have a lunch time parade (or similar) every couple of days in or around the central plaza. With the office being only 100m or so from the plaza, you can hear the bands, chanting, or whatever is going on, with considerable ease. Sometimes they are so damn noisy, one has to close the office window.



Todays parade-associated noise started at about 10.30AM and featured a brass band, drums etc. Being the curious type, unable to see what it was about through the window, I grabbed my camera and headed off to the plaza to see what was going on. As I got closer, I could see that something unusual was going on, as there was an old horse-drawn carriage being pushed (minus the horses) into the plaza. I then spotted the source of the drums and music, and found that it looked rather like the local high school band. I snapped a few photos, then after they had all gone past, turned and to see where they had gone at the front of the plaza. It seemed that there was some local historical society thing going on, as there were a myriad of people in costume milling around, along with the band, the carriage, seating arrangements and all of that sort of jazz.








It turns out that it was some form of commemoration of the first railroad in Chile, which ran from Copiapo to the port at Caldera, taking the products (from the local smelters) to the rest of the world, wherever that might be.





There was music from the band, speeches by officials, school kiddies, food and craft stalls and so on. It was all pretty interesting. I took the opportunity to try some of the local foodstuffs for sale at the stalls, which were excellent.






From the left to right, we have;

1. Sopaipillas (pronounced something like "soap-eye-pee-yahs"), which are a flour and potato/pumpking kind of thing that is fried in oil. Vaguely like a fried gnocchi, I guess. Not too bad!
2. Milkao ("mill-cow"), another variant on the sopaipillas
3. Tortilla de Rescoldo, which is pretty much the Chileno version of good ol' damper.
4. Churrasca, which is a thin bread something like pita bread I guess, but thicker and cooked on the BBQ like the ones in other photos. They are best hot off the BBQ, when they are cut in half and lathered with pebre (the Chileno salsa thing that I've banged on about previously). Churrasca's are not to be confused with Churrasco's, like I was going to be, which is "grilled meat"!
5. There are some other meat-filled delights that I didn't bother with, something vaguely like a "chocolate covered something or other", and donut-like objects.
6. The bowls with spoons are the pebre.
7. The cake thing, spelt (from memory) and is pronounced pretty much as "que-que", although a quick Google didn't return much that was useful, so perhaps it is a bit wrong. Regardless, it is a type of cake, although the more usual word for cake is "torte", so I'll have to figure out what the difference actually is.

By the way, did you notice the dogs in the above photo's? I think I've also mentioned the abundance of dogs around the town. It seems a whole heap of them came out to see what was going on when the band was playing.

Best wishes to all!

A

22 June 2010

Back in Copiapo, things were fairly busy on the work front for a couple of days. My boss from the US was visiting in order to sign the JV deal with Mariana that would make my presence here "official" (for lack of a better description). There was also a mine visit to a large (and fairly famous) deposit just south of town called Candelaria, followed by project reviews of recent works and mapping out what the plan is for the next month or three.

The visit to Candelaria was extraordinary. The initial briefing and geological discussions were held in the geo's office, which is the largest and most spacious office for geo's that I've ever seen, by a considerable margin. It is definitely how it should be. The for the mine tour.

Imagine a VERY large mine, a couple of hundred metres below the original surface, tucked into a valley between some reasonable size hills (not huge, not small). Now imagine the mine and maybe 50m above it being filled with fog, leaving clear visibility of maybe 100m (at most). Now imagine that fog is dust. Hmmm. I have no photo's of the Candelaria mine because from the lookout, you can't see the floor of the pit, let alone the other side. You can hear a whole heap of machinery working amongst the dust below, but can't see it until it is quite close. Just amazing, and illustrates the differences that exist around the world in terms of standards. There's no way that it would be allowed to operate in Australia, but we're not in "Perth" anymore, are we Toto?

After that, we headed to the core yard, which was another fascinating experience. The core storage area was a bit different - fancy trying to recover some core for re-logging amongst that lot! Because they do a lot of core drilling, I was interested in seeing the core cutting facility. My eyes nearly popped when I saw it. Despite still using "brickies" type saws, the building was sound-proofed, dust/water extractors above the saws, the operators were in full aprons, dust masks, safety glasses, safety shields, gloves and so on. Very impressive, and even more impressive, when I asked to take a photo, he refused to have a photo taken without ALL of the gear being worn. Really good attitude and showed that there are plenty of things we can still learn back in Oz.

Regards

A

21 June 2010 - Santiago

In my first entry for 21 June, which was written over a number of days, I didn't write much about my activities in Santiago itself, hence another entry for the same day.

As I mentioned previously, I was asked to come down for meetings on Monday (21st). That involved flying down on Sunday morning, and playing at being a tourist for the rest of the day, before having to behave like a responsible grown-up the next day.

Getting to the airport involves a 40 (ish) kilometre drive. This is usually done with a private taxi, but in this instance, I asked Patricio (one of the fieldies) to come with me in the work ute, such that I could further practice my driving on the wrong side of the road. Pato's English is also very limited (about as good as my Spanish), hence he tries to communicate just about everything in Spanish, which is great for my learning. He takes every opportunity to try and teach me a bit more, corrects my grammar, pronunciation and the like. Therefore our drives/travels are mentally challenging, but fun at the same time.

So, we headed out on the highway, looking for adventure, or whatever came our way (or so the song goes - sort of). Lots of new words to try and wrap my tongue around, many involving the earthmoving equipment and general works involved in duplicating the road north to Caldera. Of course I've now completely forgotten just about all of them, but I've at least now heard them and used them a little, so when I hear them next time, perhaps I'll recognise them?

The airport continues to surprise me every time I see it. In some respects, it's not much more than a large shed in the middle of nowhere, but it is also a fairly neat bit of architecture with some pretty interesting design elements in it, particularly the very large, curved, wooden beams associated with the roof structure. After that, the check-in counters, car hire desks, cafeteria, security screening and waiting lounge are all fairly universal in their design and operation.

The other unusual "feature" of the airport relates to a small stall that sells a surprising array of frozen seafood. The coastline here is advertised, at least locally, as being pollution-free, home of excellent quality seafood and all of that sort of thing. Therefore the stall seems to draw quite a crowd of both arriving and departing passengers stocking up on all of their favourite fish, shellfish, crayfish, crabs etc. This happens to the point that a number of people travel with eskies! The downside is a slight fishy pong near the stall, but otherwise it is fairly inoffensive.

The plane to Santiago was delayed by just over an hour, which had the bonus of allowing a whole heap of people-watching. As I've mentioned before, Chilenos tend to dress very well and travelling on the plane to Santiago was certainly no excuse to go down-market. Despite my not being too shabbily dressed, I was still at the lower end of the clothing quality stakes. It's not a major concern, but also being the tallest and most conspicuously "non-Chileno" there, I'm keen to not give a bad impression of an Australian gringo. I'm still awaiting my stuff from Australia, so effectively I'm still living out of my bags of stuff I brought with me, and am looking forward to some "fresh" things arriving when they get here!

And while I remember, older teenagers and "early 20-somethings" travelling in groups by themselves (i.e. unescorted by actual adults) are still twats, regardless of which country you are in... I'm sure that my peers and I were nowhere near as self-absorbed and obnoxious as those going around these days.

During the ticketing process, I was asked whether I wanted a window or an aisle set. Not thinking too hard about it, and remembering the flight is only just over an hour, I said that I didn't care. Therefore the flight to Santiago saw me positioned in the aisle seat on the right hand side of the plane. This turned out to be a bit disappointing, as I reckon it was the clearest day I've yet seen here. To the left of the plane, through the usual small windows, glimpses of the many snow-capped Andes peaks stretching off to the East, were stunning. I say glimpses, because everyone else on the left side of the plane thought that the view looked pretty darn good, so the view out the window was frequently covered with the heads of those sitting closer to it. I had to make do with the slightly larger view out the Pacific coast side of the airplane. Also pretty stunning, but also partially obscured by the lady sitting in front of it who also thought it worthy of many photo's. Through my pidgin Spanish and hand gestures, I managed to convince her to let me look at the photos she was taking each time on the camera screen. A reasonable substitute I guess.

On arrival at Santiago, we all made our way to to the luggage carousel to get our bags, as per the normal practice. There I am, standing patiently, waiting, waiting, waiting. People are collecting their stuff and moving off, leaving fewer and fewer people to collect the fewer and fewer pieces of luggage circulating on the conveyor. Eventually, it was just me, watching the empty conveyor, wondering how on earth I'd be able to explain this with hand signals, and wondering how they might have managed to lose a bag on a flight with no connections or other landings. At that point, one of the LAN people came over and asked if I was still waiting for my luggage (started in Spanish, noticed my dazed look at how fast she managed to speak, and then fortunately switched to English). She got on the 2-way radio, read out my bag number on the stub attached to my boarding pass, and then happily reassured me that it was still coming and would be here shortly. For reasons unknown, my bag came via its very own special delivery arrangement from the plane. Hard to imagine, but it got there in the end, which is the main thing. As you can see from the following, the baggage handlers in Santiago have super powers. Perhaps the adventure of my bag was just a special treat?

Departure from the Santiago airport is an excellent process. You buy a ticket from the "official taxi" counter to your destination, they print out instructions for the driver, give you a receipt, and off you go out the door. Find a "tout" outside the door with the official taxi sign, hand over your instructions, and off you go, whisked away to your destination without fuss and bother. No being ripped off by a driver taking advantage of the loco gringo's either, but that's a story for later.

After checking in at the hotel, I headed for the Cerro San Cristobal (CSC), the Santiago version of Perth's Kings Park. I started walking, thinking that it wouldn't be too far to the tourist "hop on, hop off" bus route that circles around Santiago. When it turned out I couldn't get there by the route I wanted, Plan B kicked in. I headed to the business district for lunch (pizza, again) and then caught a taxi. The driver was a lovely man and was able to speak slowly enough and use enough simple words that we were able to have a conversation in Spanish. Hooray. Victory. Showed me I'm actually learning, which was a really nice feeling.

The main(?) entrance to CSC is via a suburb called Bellavista, which is has an arty/studenty type of feel to it. Not sure I can think of a suburb in Perth like it, but definitely an inner Melbourne (Brunswick Street) kind of vibe to it. Access is via funicular - one of those little train-like jobs that is pulled up a steep hill via a cable (or cables, depending on their attitude to safety). The ride to the top was punctuated by a small stop for those punters wishing to see the zoo that is on the side of the hill. Not being too enthused by that, I continued to the top. Once there, I was greeted by a flurry of activity from vendors of "stuff", mostly the usual tourist things you see elsewhere in the world (postcards, books of the city, ice creams, food etc). One surprise was the number of cooks aprons being prominently displayed. Not what I'd have thought if someone had quizzed me about what I expected to see for sale at the top! If only I knew someone who might be interested in one...

Turning away from the jostling people at the vendors stalls, the view of the city is stunning. The usual type of city-scape is punctuated by large high-rises seemingly all the way to the Andes, which were even more snow-capped than when I arrived a few weeks ago. There had been considerable rain in the preceeding few days, and while there was some smog, there was enough elevation in the CSC to be up above at least some of it, leaving the tops of the mountains relatively clear. The air was crisp, it was another one of those warm in the sun, but cool in the shade kind of days. Just glorious!

The rest of my time there was just wandering aimlessly around the various viewing points along the road to the bottom of the park (it appeared to be the done thing, with plenty of other pedestrians along the way), trying to keep out of the way of the crazy cyclists zooming down the hill at a million miles an hour (in the "tuck" position, of course) and the cars making their way down at a generally more sedate pace.

Once out of the park, I made my way back to the business district on foot along the paths next to the Mapocho River, which was a lovely walk, despite the large road adjacent to the paths. The suburb between the CSC and the river appears to be a very old one, with plenty of beautiful old houses. I imagine that this is where the Santiago "well-to-do" live. I was aiming for El Mundo del Vino (just to see what they might have), as well as a Starbucks coffee shop. Starbucks is wide-spread in Santiago and, so far, is the only place that I've been able to find a "chai latte" in Chile. I've "discovered" the fact that I love these only shortly before I left Perth and would be addicted to them, if only it was possible to get them here in Copiapo. I guess there's always the option of getting all of the jazz to make them myself, but that's less fun than going to a cafe and sipping on one.

So, now for the taxi story...

I jump in a taxi to go back to the hotel. Only a couple of kilometres, certainly much closer than the trip earlier in the day to the CSC from much the same departure point that cost CH$5000 (about A$12). The driver was friendly enough, started the meter, and we headed off, having much the same sort of conversation as the one I'd had with the driver from earlier in the day. Yeah, I'm getting into this chatting with taxi drivers thing. We pull up at the hotel and he announces the fare. As I've previously noted, I still struggle with understanding the numbers, as they are fairly large and spoken quickly. I look at the meter, just over CH$4000, so I give him the smallest note I have, CH$10000, and he hands me CH$1000 in return. I sit patiently, with a questioning look on my face, awaiting the rest of my change, he has his hand out, appearing to be waiting for MORE money. At this point, it degenerated into him speaking Spanish, me speaking English, grumpy at each other for not understanding, neither of us with a clue as to what the other wanted. There was no way I was handing over extra cash, so I really didn't care what he wanted. In the end , I shrugged my shoulders and got out, feeling suitably ripped off. Not that the dollar amount was really that large, just over A$10, but being stooged was not a good feeling. Apparently the drivers in the city are notorious for trying to rip off the locals, so I imagine those types that do it will have even less qualms about doing it to the gringo's. Live and learn I guess. Three taxi trips so far in Santiago, and the score is 2-1 (the gringo is ahead, but only just).

My evening involved dinner back in Bellavista, in a cluster of shops, restaurants, cafe's etc called Patio Bellavista. It was a lovely place to be at night and I imagine during the warmer months that it will be packed, given the amount of outside dining options that appeared to be present. I ate a "build your own salad from the list of ingredients" inside - much warmer!

Then it was back to the hotel. Taxi score was now 5-1 (gringo extending his lead), so I'm feeling less grumpy at the local taxi drivers :).

That was it, my half day of being a tourist in Santiago!

Regards

A

21 June 2010

Hola!

I write today from Santiago, having been asked to come down for meetings on Monday (today). This has neatly (or unfortunately, I can't decide which) coincided with Chile's second game for the world cup, against Switzerland. The local population is, as expected, completely enraptured with the prospect of the game. Local TV coverage is at near saturation levels, the streets are not quite deserted, but much quieter now the game is on than they were earlier in the morning. The hotel I am staying it has at least five large screen TV's in the foyer / bar / dining room area, all surrounded by varying numbers of hotel staff and guests. The staff are doing their best to look vaguely busy, but it is obviously a challenging exercise to polish the same three tables in front of the TV for the length of the entire game!

The centre of the city has (apparently) a large screen on which the game is being played. This has drawn a substantial crowd and what looked suspiciously like live TV footage of the area this morning featured smoke bombs, youth throwing stuff, a large police presence and all of that sort of stuff. It looks like there will be rioting if the team wine, lose or draw, so let's hope all ends well.

I appear to have three meetings this morning;

1. With my boss, who is down from the US to sign the final JV arrangements with Mariana. It will then be official.


2. With the lawyers who are handling my work visa


3. With the local Ernst & Young people, who are handling my local tax arrangements, whatever they might be. I was rather hoping to remain completely ignorant of all of their concerns and the machinations involved with international tax, but it seems I can't escape it.

The meeting with the lawyers will be interesting. I'm still waiting on one document from Australia - a transcript of my uni results. Not sure when that will arrive, having been ordered a few weeks ago, but I suppose it will get here soon enough. The original version I have is tucked up neatly in a box in my storage unit, safe and secure, and completely unable to be located without removing 80% of the stuff in the unit. Hmmm, not so smart after all...

Oops, looks like Chile have just scored a goal - only to be denied because three of their players were offside. No sound of wailing from the locals, although being on the 7th floor might mean that I'm insulated from that.

So, what else has been happening;

• Over the weekend I tried to end the drought of "dips" in my life by making hommus / hummus, whatever you like to call it. Searching the internet produced a couple of recipes that I thought I'd have a crack at, however there appeared to be two small problems. The first was that it required a blender. OK, so I can solve that one easily enough with a trip to the local Jumbo and make an addition to the "Thomas" family of appliances.



• Second appeared to be more fundamental. For those who don't know, a significant component to hommus is Tahini. Hmmm, trying to find tahini at the supermarket, looking, looking, but no good. Lizette thought that there should be some there somewhere, but it wasn't looking good. I managed to find sesame seeds and was going to make my own, but then, by sheer dumb luck, stumbled across an area of the supermarket that seems to be for miscellaneous stuff that doesn't obviously fit in any of the "normal" aisles. Lo and behold, there was tahini, along with nachos salsa, soy sauce, garlic paste, and a few other things I can't currently remember.
  
• So, ploughing ahead with the whole hommus-making thing, I was having a great old time with the blender until smoke started issuing from the base of it, which of course necessitated my frantically trying to find the off-switch. It's funny how, even when you know where things are, a little bit of panic tends to render all that knowledge a little less useful. It seems that I didn't have enough liquid in there - more of a thick paste was happening, which was all a bit too much for Thomas the Blender's little electrical heart to deal with. Live and learn... Anyway, once I'd sorted out the liquid side of things and cranked Thomas the Blender up again, we were away. The end result is OK - I think I overdid the tahini due to a lack of measuring devices, but it's probably fair enough that I didn't get it absolutely perfect first time around.
  
• So, now that I had some hommus, and still having plenty of chickpeas left over, what else could I do? While looking for the hommus recipe, I'd seen a related link to a recipe for "baba ganoush" - not currently 100% sure of the spelling of that. Basically, it is a version of hommus that contains eggplant. OK, on with the baba ganoush then. Nowhere near as much excitement with Blender smoke, and perhaps a reasonably similar outcome. A bit too much tahini again, but still pretty tasty.

Having finished with the cooking, I thought I'd venture into the outside world and go for a drive, this time heading north ('ish) of Copiapo. There is a road heading to the east of the main road that goes to Argentina, over the Paseo de San Francisco. Apparently the road is quite rough on the Chilean side, but as soon as you cross the border, it becomes a nice sealed road. I was never going to make it that far today, but thought that exploring a bit of the road might be interesting, particularly as I had recently discovered that there was snow on the mountains not too far to the east.

Heading along the road to the Pass, and it being relatively late in the day, I decided to save that adventure for another time and take one of the minor roads (definitely a road less travelled) heading to the southeast. From the dodgy map I had, it appeared that this road would ultimately take me the back way into the Nevado Tres Cruces National Park. Again, I was never going to get there on the day, but exploring part of the road on the way in looked like good entertainment, particularly if I could get bit of altitude and be amongst the snow.

As it turned out, the road continued up the ever narrowing valley, winding its way amongst the mountain spurs, me wondering whether I was on the right track, as surely the road would end shortly. I ended up chickening out when the track began to get really dodgy. No point being bogged in some remote valley at 5pm Saturday afternoon. I'll just come better prepared next time and keep going. As usual, the scenery is stunning in this part of the world, with my photo's being a relatively poor representation of what is really there. I'll keep trying though...

That will do for now. Regards to all.

A

16 June 2010

Hola again!

A quiet few days largely focussed on work have had a bit of a break today, courtesy of Chile's first game of the word cup, which was played against Honduras. I had been given a bit of warning about how excited the Chilenos are about their team "la Rojas" (the Reds), both verbally and from what I had seen in the local media.

Verbally, there was the suggestion that when the game is on;

1. don't expect to see anyone in the office with me
2. don't expect anyone to answer any phone calls

Further;

1. if they win, don't expect people to arrive in the office shortly after the game finishes
2. if they lose, don't expect people to arrive in the office shortly after the game finishes

In the media, there was a special liftout in the local newspaper (comprising about 50% of the whole paper) about what the team was up to nearly two weeks ago, and the World Cup component of the television news bulletins comprises approximately half of the bulletin. That isn't to mention the World Cup special programs and so on. The radio is less focussed on it, or perhaps that is just the radio station that Lizette has running in the background of the office, and perhaps she has it on that channel for exactly that reason!

And then there are the local shops and stalls etc. in the streets, many of which seems to have items for supporters to wear or otherwise decorate themselves with, advertising billboards of the team sponsors and so on.

Hmmm, it seems this soccer/futbol thing is pretty serious here.

It is some 12 years (I think) since the team was last in the World Cup and 48 years since they won a game. There are big things hoped for from this team, which is considered by the supporter (singular) that I polled, the best TEAM that Chile has ever had.

So, yesterday when I was told not to expect to see anyone in the office before about 10:30AM, I thought I'd take the opportunity to watch the game with the (Mariana) team at the "guest house".

The game started at 7.30AM, which must have been hell for a population commited to (mostly) not being out and about before about 8.30AM, except of course those in the service industries such as street cleaners, rubbish clearers etc. Unfortunately myself and Patricio, who had just arrived back from his break via bus, were still awaiting our lift to the guest house which did not arrive until 7.35AM. We raced (at the speed limit) to the guest house, listening intently to the radio, oohing, aahing and sucking in air between pursed lips as the commentators described the action. On arrival, we dashed madly for the lounge room and settled in to watch the action. Surprisingly, no-one had cracked a beer for the occasion, and my description the previous day of "chicken and champagne breakfasts" for big events (specifically the Melbourne Cup) had been greeted with complete bewilderment. i.e. "Why would you have THAT for breakfast?".

It is fair to say that I'm not a huge soccer fan. Sure, I can sit and watch a game with others if they are particularly keen on it, or if it is a special game, such as this one was. I can see things happening at a fairly broad level, but the subtlety's of the game miss me completely. My cries of "hand-ball" at one stage were politely, but firmly ignored, as replays showed it was nothing of the sort. It was fairly easy to get involved with the excitement of what was going on, particularly when Chile scored the only goal of the game. This even prompted one of the guys to grab a beer to celebrate with.

Half time arrived with the usual race for the bathroom that accompanies these sorts of gatherings. I'd already headed for the kitchen in the last few minutes of the half in order to get breakfast going, as I hadn't had anything apart from a banana at 6.15AM and was feeling a bit peckish. I'd brought along some eggs and tomatoes and was going make an omelette. It was all going well right up to the point where I tried to fold it in half, as you do, when it became apparent that the majority of it had stuck to the base and sides of the frypan, so there was no way it was going to be a thing of beauty. Further efforts began to destroy it, hence it became scrambled eggs with tomato and pepper. No tragedy in the taste stakes, but not exactly what I was looking for in terms of the aesthetics. Oh well, I have plenty of time to practice.

I'd also brought along my slowly diminishing stash of vegemite and was going to thrill the Chilenos with it, however by the time the omelette experience was finished, I was feeling a little full to be hooking into toast. I was also conscious of leaving a little bit of room for the "typical"? Chilean fare that is eaten in celebration of a win in the soccer which, I was advised, is cake. Therefore last night had required a trip to the supermarket to purchase a cake. I had no real idea what I was buying, other than this enormous cake, covered in cream, featuring a decoration of part of the Chilean flag and/or soccer jumper. It turned out well, with the cake being a multi-layered vanilla sponge, layered with cream, vanilla custard and a very thin layer of some kind of chocolate substance. The most important thing was that it tasted OK and there was enough left over to take back to the office for morning tea / lunch etc. Come to think of it, there is probably still some left for dessert tonight...

The second half of the game featured all of the same excitement of the first half (ooohing, aahing and sucking in of breath), minus the thrill of another goal. There was much joy at the end, minus hugging and kissing, which might have been a bit much local culture for me to deal with for the moment!

On the way back to the office, the excitement continued. There were cars everywhere tooting, flags being waved from the cars, pedestrians decked out in red clothes, hats, painted faces and the like (the photo's only hint at what it was like, as my camera was in the back of the car when we passed the main crowds). I'm pretty confident that Alexis, out fieldy, spent at least 25% of the time back the the office with the horn being sounded. Everyone seemed very happy and excited, which is fantastic to see. It is hard to imagine the excitement if they make it to the second round and win a game there.

Back at the office, we were prevented from entering by (apparently) a gas leak. By some magic, it seemed to clear up and we were allowed to enter. Not sure how real it was, given there was no-one attending other than the usual "guard" at the front door, no gas detectors or anything of that sort.

The rest of today has been fairly anti-climactic after that, and I'm looking forward to an early night after having to get up early. Not too sure if I've mentioned that I'm quickly falling into the local timeframes...

A

14 June 2010

G'day to anyone reading this,


Not much to report from the weekend in terms of dashing derring-do (or the like). It was relatively quiet for the most part, just a bit of cooking (egg and potato curry), cleaning the kitchen (the parts of the walls, cupboards etc. and the tops of things that Gloria, my cleaner, can't see or reach), watching the Socceroo's get flogged by those crazy Germans and having a little siesta in the middle of Sunday (my first over here!).

Happenings that were slightly (but only very slightly) more interesting were;

• Going for a drive along the Copiapo Valley to the south of town, for about 60 kilometres, to the village/hamlet (not sure what they are called in Spanish) of Los Loros. The valley is the one that you see on the internet when you search for Copiapo and find the grey coloured hills with no vegetation, and the vivid ribbon of green snaking along the floor of the valley. I was hoping to find the location that it was taken from and take advantage of the afternoon light and see what I could see, however the photographer must have just climbed a random hill, as I couldn't find anywhere remotely likely to get a similar shot from near the road. I didn't have enough time for too much mucking about either, as it was late in the day. It'll be a good excuse to go back and have another look later in the year.


• Los Loros itself won't feature highly on any scenic wonders shown on the internet. The main industry in the tiny town would appear to be servicing the local agricultural industry. It appears to be a very poor community and somewhat dirtier than any others that I've seen so far (which, to be fair, is precious little). I decided not to take any photographs, largely due to not wanting to raise the ire of the various locals milling about in the street, but also out of a feeling of not really wanting to record the relative poverty of the inhabitants (the dead, bloated dog in the gutter, passers-by unconcerned by its presence, hasn't left a pleasant memory). It just didn't feel right for pictures of that sort of thing to "thrill" over at a later point.

• Losing my bloody Blackberry. I was very torn about getting one before I came here, having seen them develop into an addiction for many who have them (hi Mike!). In the end, I weakened, concluding that it might be a good idea, however the problems I have had with getting the damn thing connected to the outside world are many and varied. Ultimately, then thing has disappeared from a pocket on my backpack at some point on Saturday morning. Whether I've been careless and let it slip out at some point (perhaps secretly desiring it to be gone from my life), or someone "light-fingered" has managed to lift it without me noticing is uncertain. It did give the opportunity for an inside look at the police station across the road from the office, so there was a "bonus" experience in the whole exercise! The poor young lad who had to fill out the report was the slowest to move, and perhaps the most junior, officer in the whole place. They say "it" flows downhill, don't they? He was not terribly excited at filling out the report...


• Having my shoes polished by the shoe cleaner man in the centre of town. It feels very decandent and paternalistic, but he provided a good service and had a constant stream of customers, so perhaps I shouldn't feel too bad about it. I was just pleased he didn't go to the extent of "spit and polish"...

• I managed to explore the town a bit more widely on Saturday, and found an interesting building (another church). Interestingly, almost all of the old churches are made from wood, rather than the abundant rock which litters the hillsides. Perhaps wood hurts less when it falls down during an earthquake?

And speaking of earthquakes, I still get a little adrenaline rush when I think about the earthquake over the weekend... Actually, I should correct that. I've been assured that this was only a "tremor" - earthquakes are the big things that are over a certain magnitude, but I can't recall the size.

Must go, dinner is awaiting. Not sure what I'm having, but I'll find something.

Chao.

A

11 June 2010

Hello everyone.

It's been a few days since I commited something to the aether, largely because it's been all the usual sorts of mundane stuff going on. There's been two days out of three in the field (I hesitate to use the word "bush", because there aren't any), the usual entertainment of braving the various shops around town, cooking for myself, ordering a pizza, wandering the streets etc.

As per previously, I've got a few learnings out of these experiences;

• My worries about becoming addicted to my Blackberry are proving to be unfounded, largely because it is proving to be impossible (so far) to get set up to receive emails. This is despite valiant attempts by Lizette and a bevy of Entel (a local telecoms supplier) personnel both at the local office and via the telephone. Thanks to everyone who has tried!


• There is snow on the Andes that is not too far from Copiapo! You only have to get a bit of elevation and you can see it on the mountains that are behind the mountains that are behind the hills surrounding Copiapo. Although it might sound a long way, it is probably less than 20 or so kilometres.


• Chileno's not only speak very fast, but they also mumble and leave off the ends of their words, making it difficult for gringos who "learn Spanish from a book" (remember Manuel from Fawlty Towers)...


• My attempts at translating a local newspaper into English, which seemed like a good idea at the time, have ground to a halt due to the rather despressing local content. Admittedly it is much the same sort of stuff as Australian newspapers, but I don't have any great interest in local politics or petty crime.


• I am quite confident the entire country will come to pretty much a complete halt whenever Chile play any games at the World Cup. That would be soccer, for those of you who don't pay much attention to these things. It seems that everyone is planning their lives around when the team will play. It will be really interesting to see how things go after each game, whether they win, lose or draw.


• Just because you rent a furnished apartment that comes with a stuff, it doesn't mean that it will actually work! I've discovered, (or, more accurately, Gloria - my cleaner - has discovered) that the vacuum cleaner doesn't work. Perhaps it was meant to be some kind of modern art or a weird kind of decoy? Anyway, I've braved Jumbo again and bought a vacuum cleaner. The brand name is "Thomas", and is rapidly becoming a favourite in the apartment. He joins his relatives Thomas the Kettle, Thomas the Hand-Mixer, and Thomas the Toaster. Yet again, I fell for a different type of questioning regarding the type of identification I'd be using with my Australian credit card, despite me having my passport out and waving it at the poor checkout chica. Both of us just ended up smiling and giggling at each other, and then asking "habla Ingles?" (do you speak English?) to all of the Jumbo staff nearby, all of whom refused to get involved. I had no idea what she was asking for - how does counting from 1 to 4 in Spanish add up to "What is you identification number?" Equally, she had no idea what the silly little blue book was about and why the crazy looking gringo was waving it about. Eventually one of the supervisors turned up and it all worked itself out, with "muchas gracias" all round! Perhaps they'll be famous last words, but "I'm not going to fall for it again"...


• I've managed to find the crispbread/biscuit thingies known in Australia as "Ryvita's". Not that they're called that here (of course), but the ingredients and picture are identical. Being a big fan of them, smeared with margarine/butter (thinly) and vegemite (thickly), I'll be a happy little camper.


• In the not-so-extensive cheese section of the much larger "refridgerated items" area, I nearly fell over to find Bega sliced cheese staring back at me. Hard to imagine why it's Bega cheese slices in particular that find there way here, but here they are.

The weekend ahead doesn't currently hold any great plans at present, which suits me just fine. A sleep-in is definitely on the cards for Saturday morning, and depending on the weather, a walk in the hills, a drive to a "local" beach, or a drive along the Copiapo River Valley might be in order. We'll see what turns up.

So, now that I've covered the last few days, it's time to spend a moment covering the most exciting thing that has happened so far. It happened at 11:55pm, Friday 11 June (local time). It lasted for 30-45 seconds. Nearly an hour later, I can still feel the buzz I got from the event. There has just been an earthquake! The building shook back and forth, one of the doors rattled, the leaves on the small potted ficus next to my desk shook, and I couldn't stop smiling. I initially thought "Cool!", then it kept going, then it got a bit stronger, then it slowed down a bit, then it got a bit stronger again, and then it faded away. Each time it got a bit stronger, the more worried I got. I got up and headed for the doorway at one stage and then pretty much decided that there would be no running for it from the 6th floor of a 7 storey building, so I'd just enjoy the ride. One of the things I was really looking forward to in coming to Chile was experiencing an earthquake, and now it has happened, I'm looking forward to the next one! I only hope that they are all like this - no damage, just a gentle shake - not like the one earlier in the year. I'm still smiling and my pulse is racing just thinking about it. Wahooo!

OK, so I'm a bit odd. Does that surprise anyone? Really?

Take care!

6 June 2010

Today was a momentous day - my first social outing in Copiapo. I was invited to a BBQ with the work gang at the "Guest House" where various people associated with the company stay when they are in town.

Lizette (office manager), her husband Mauricio, Alexis (one of the field assistants), Patricio (the other field assistant) and Alexis' daughter Pabla kept me entertained for the afternoon.

The first challenge was to come up with something to eat in a country of avowed carnivores. Easy choice - a spinach and sweet potato salad, plus some vegetarian kebabs, plus some corn on the cob smeared with butter and wrapped in foil.

The spinach and sweet potato salad was just about perfect, just missing the piece de resistance, which is a sprinkling of pine nuts. These do not appear to be able to be purchased in Copiapo, at least not in the four supermarkets that I searched through. Not a big drama. I also mixed in some pumpkin as well as sweet potato for something a bit different, as well as some feta. I get the impression that pumpkin and feta, perhaps as well as spinach, are not usual features in a Chilenos diet, but they all coped well and were polite enough to try it! Everyone also had a vego kebab, this time featuring eggplant, something that also doesn't appear to be common in the Chileno's diet. Not to worry, more for me. Everyone ate at least one and one or two had a second.
The Chileno BBQ featured at extraordinary amount of meat for 4 adults and one 9-year old girl. Two big slabs of beef, a rack of pork ribs and two large chicken hind quarters. The beef and pork was interesting. They cook it as big chunks on the BBQ and then slice it right at the end. Maybe I'm just ignorant, but I haven't routinely seen it done that way before.

And despite the numerous offers, complete with promises not to tell ANYONE, I stuck to my salads, corn and bread rolls, which were plenty delicious!

Lizette also made a salsa which is a typical part of most meals here (at least at restaurants), which comprises (at least) onions, capsicum/peppers, mushrooms, tomato, olive oil, cilantro (coriander) and vinegar. It is fabulous on a bread roll, and numerous other ways I'm sure. It also went very well on some boiled and peeled potatoes, in the same way you might smear butter onto baked potatoes.

Last, but not least was the wine. A very nice bottle of bubbly disappeared very quickly, followed by yet another tasty carmenere and a cab sauv/shiraz blend. All were from Chile and all probably cost now more than ten Aussie dollars. Bargains all round.

Oh, and as part of the cultural exchange, I am teaching interesting words to the Chilenos. Word of the day was "tipsy", which gained a bit of popularity as the day progressed!

Chao for now!

A

5 June 2010

Hola!

Mmmm, Saturday. My first free weekend in Copiapo. What to do with myself? Sleep in? Definitely! Woke up at 8AM. Apparently this is still early for Chilenos on workdays, let alone weekends. Probably explains why when I left my apartment at 9AM, the streets were still nearly deserted.

I thought I'd take the opportunity to check out the local motorbike shops and see what they have to offer. I know of two so far, each in the opposite direction from my place. Given that the shop was not expected to open before 10AM, I walked to it. On the way I learned that riding a bicycle along the footpaths will be challenging due to the locally broken / bent and generally damaged paving. Most of the paths are OK, but the other bits will challenge all but serious off-road riders. There appear to be plenty of people riding bikes, so I'll just have to pay more attention to where they ride.

The bike shop featured mostly new bikes. For those in the know, I'll consider a Suzuki VStorm DL650 or Yamaha XT660R from this place. They also had a couple of second-hand KTM Adventure 990's, but at twice the cost of the others, it'd be a big decision to go that way. I've got some time to think, as it seems I'll need to have my work visa organised before I could buy my own vehicle.

After my dodgy Spanish attempts in the bike shop, I headed back to the office to get the work ute, which I was allowed to borrow for the weekend. It is a Nissan Navarra, with a 6 speed manual gearbox. For those of you who have driven on the "wrong" side of the road, you'll appreciate how different everything seems. It is very hard to judge the width of the vehicle when (for example) driving through a gate! Not that I've hit anything, I'm just saying that it is a bit nerve-wracking. Then there's the complication of using the gears with the other hand. The physical layout of the gears is the same (to the left and forward for first gear, and so on), but again, requires concentration to get right.

Anyway, I collected the car, navigated my way through the narrow, one-way streets to the highway and headed north out of town. I was fortunate to be able to follow a fairly slow truck, which took all of the pressure off me being the one who was holding up the traffic heading in the same direction. With a few deep breaths, I was out of town and able to relax a bit more on the open road. The bright blue sky made for a beautiful day, however there was the usual low level haze obscuring the mountains and making photography fairly unrewarding. It seemed that the obscuring agent of today was dust. The more of the countryside I see, the more wind-blown sand/dust I notice on the hills. My sense of direction is still not great, but it seems like the south sides of the hills are the ones that are covered, some to the extent that they look like very large sand dunes. I'm tempted by the idea of some sand skiing, although this is tempered by the likely unforgiving nature of the "buried moguls" (rocks), so I might think a bit more about that first...

Heading north on the road, my objectives for the day were the towns of Caldera and its "sister resort" of Bahia Inglesa. My Lonely Planet guide describes them as "... Region III's most popular seaside retreats. While Caldera is hugely popular with vacationing Chileans, most foreign visitors will find neighbouring Bahia Inglesa to be more welcoming...". Yep, sounds OK and I was looking forward to seeing what they had to offer.

From the outskirts of Caldera, the vista it presents could best be described as "unattractive". Not looking good. As a result, I thought I'd keep heading north to see if I could find the Sanctuario de la Naturaleza Granito Orbicular. Beautiful rocks and something I've never seen "in the wild" before.

Of course, I then managed to drive straight past it without noticing it, but that simply presented the opportunity to find Puerta Punta Totoralillo, which is an isolated ship loading port. OK, ship loaders and ships are not particularly attractive, but the opportunity to get out and have a wander along a local beach was a good one.

Very different beach rocks to those you find in Australia, nicely rounded and all very serene (if you didn't look at the shiploader. Closed eyes, sun on my face and listening to the waves...

Snapped back to reality by a rumbly tummy (just like Pooh), I headed back towards Caldera for lunch and managed to find the very small sign indicating the Sanctuaria. The outcrop of the Granite covers only a few hundred square metres right on the beach, but is spectacular nonetheless.

The orbs/orbicules/nodules/"round bits" are up to about 7cm in diameter and fascinating. My memory is that nobody really understands why they form this way. Anyway, it was great to be able to see and appreciate the outcrop!

Caldera turned out to be better appreciated from within town than from the outside. It is clearly a tourist/holiday town, and this being well outside tourist season, virtually empty. The bay is quite pleasant (when viewed from the right angle), somewhat let down by the commercial fishing fleet parked in it and alongside the large jetty that juts out into the bay. The Lonely Planet also notes "... beach is slightly contaminated by gasoline from the nearby dock.", hence no swimming for me, although several foolish souls were braving the hydrocarbons and low temperatures.

There was also a fairly pleasant promenade and shopfront behind the beach, which it is easy to imagine being full of people slurping icecreams during summer holidays.

Lunch was a surprisingly good affair at the Restaurante el Teatro - greek salad and chips, although I still don't appreciate olives! The best bit was the entertainment. Javier de la Rosa is (apparently) "El troubador de Atacama" and something of a guitar maestro, according to the blurb on the back of his album that he peddled after one of his sets (A$6.50 - how could I go wrong?). Born in 1926, he is still going strong, strumming away and crooning(? - perhaps mumbling is a better description of it) into his microphone in 15 minute bursts. His breaks were punctuated by 1980's and 1990's rock "classics" in English. Odd.

My other entertainment was a pair of boys kicking a miniature soccer ball to each other just outside my window. Their objectives seemed to be to kick the ball as hard as possible at each other, hoping for a strike in either the head or the goolies (it's hard to effectively protect both at the same time!).

So, on to Bahia Inglesa after lunch and to be honest, I can't see that it was too much more attractive than Caldera. The bay was nice, but appeared to have a large fish/seafood processing plant on the edge of it, just around the corner from the main tourist part. I don't imagine their effluent going anywhere than back into the bay, so swimming would be out (again) for me. The promenade and beachfront was again fairly pleasant, but as it was getting late in the day and cloudier, not somewhere to hang out. It was also fairly deserted by tourists, however the locals manning their craft stalls were still mostly there. Shell jewellery seems to be the primary stuff being sold at these stalls, with smaller amounts of other South American jewellery and kitsch.

The journey back to Copiapo was relatively uneventful, apart from a reminder that it isn't all beer and skittles on South American roads.

Am off to a BBQ with the team tomorrow. It will be interesting to see how that goes.

Chao.