Monday, February 4th - chilling in Chile!
Had a very early departure today. This was our second tour with Cruise Specialists, our travel agency. They are a little more dedicated to the experience, and provide us with little radios with earbuds so we can hear the tour guides whether in a museum or the middle of the desert!
Arica, Chile is in the northern most tip of Chile. They have had a lot of rain recently which caused mudslides that made it impossible/impassible for us to see the geoglyphs. When I say a lot of rain, I mean 20 mm in 4 hours, and this is compared to their usual annual rainfall of 9 mm! So ... no worries. Our guide was a young woman named Claudia, who is the about the same age as our daughter, Melba Jean! She was a cracker jack guide, and knew everything about all things Chile! We used to kid Melba when she was a girl about being the best "guide" as she raced along smoking volcanoes in Hawaii! No more had we bragged that she fell on the broken, rain-slickened, lava-covered volcano pothole and got contused and scraped!
We began the tour at San Miguel museum. There, we saw lots of artifacts, and specifically mummies (no daddies, observed LeRoy!). The ancient people here mummified all their dead, not just kings or aristocracy. They then would live with their mummies. They did not bury them, but just had them with them wherever they went. So if grandfather died, he would still be at his usual place, just in the form of a mummy! Claudia said they cannot turn a spade of dirt here without unearthing a mummy. It's sort of like in Franklin, when it rains hard, relics from the Civil War turn up. Only difference is that ours date to 1865. Theirs date to 5000 BC!!!
It is either barren desert here or tropical lushness. The water that comes from the mountains is very precious and very expensive. There are beautiful banana trees, pimento trees, beautiful flowering bushes, and the produce is gorgeous! Our guide, Claudia, took us to the local market, and it was amazing to see all the different kinds of fruits and vegetables they have - so very exotic looking - think Farmer's Market x 100 with a Chilean flare! They have lots of olives here, by the way. The Spaniards brought them back in the day, and now there are olive groves everywhere in the fertile parts of Arica.
Later, we went up into the foothills of the Andes, up up up, we went .... We were truly in the middle of the desert, the Atacama desert - the driest desert in the world we were told. In the middle of this desolate area were some statues called the Presencias Turelares. They were done recently (mid-90's) by an artist named Diaz Fleming. He did them "to break up the monotany" of the desert plains. While there, a little band played while some very colorful costumed dancers did some traditional dances.
Our final stop was the little square across from where our ship is docked. A beautiful Colonial style church called San Marcos (1876) is there. It felt welcoming and quaint, and it reminds me of our little Trinity church at home (1865), other than it is made entirely out of metal! The fun observance of the day was a dog asleep in the back left pew on the floor (Bro. Will surely wasn't preaching!)
Got back to the ship at 1:00 which was a good thing. Had a lot of work to do before we head out to sea at 6:00. We are heading to Easter Island which is 2,250 nautical miles from Chile! It will take a full week of sailing before we arrive on Sunday .... not too much wi-fi in the middle of the Pacific, I bet!
As always, thanks for taking the virtual tour with us, and ever thanks to those who are covering for us at home!
Arica, Chile is in the northern most tip of Chile. They have had a lot of rain recently which caused mudslides that made it impossible/impassible for us to see the geoglyphs. When I say a lot of rain, I mean 20 mm in 4 hours, and this is compared to their usual annual rainfall of 9 mm! So ... no worries. Our guide was a young woman named Claudia, who is the about the same age as our daughter, Melba Jean! She was a cracker jack guide, and knew everything about all things Chile! We used to kid Melba when she was a girl about being the best "guide" as she raced along smoking volcanoes in Hawaii! No more had we bragged that she fell on the broken, rain-slickened, lava-covered volcano pothole and got contused and scraped!
We began the tour at San Miguel museum. There, we saw lots of artifacts, and specifically mummies (no daddies, observed LeRoy!). The ancient people here mummified all their dead, not just kings or aristocracy. They then would live with their mummies. They did not bury them, but just had them with them wherever they went. So if grandfather died, he would still be at his usual place, just in the form of a mummy! Claudia said they cannot turn a spade of dirt here without unearthing a mummy. It's sort of like in Franklin, when it rains hard, relics from the Civil War turn up. Only difference is that ours date to 1865. Theirs date to 5000 BC!!!
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| Looks like Vi's friend's baby nursery at the hospital |
It is either barren desert here or tropical lushness. The water that comes from the mountains is very precious and very expensive. There are beautiful banana trees, pimento trees, beautiful flowering bushes, and the produce is gorgeous! Our guide, Claudia, took us to the local market, and it was amazing to see all the different kinds of fruits and vegetables they have - so very exotic looking - think Farmer's Market x 100 with a Chilean flare! They have lots of olives here, by the way. The Spaniards brought them back in the day, and now there are olive groves everywhere in the fertile parts of Arica.
Later, we went up into the foothills of the Andes, up up up, we went .... We were truly in the middle of the desert, the Atacama desert - the driest desert in the world we were told. In the middle of this desolate area were some statues called the Presencias Turelares. They were done recently (mid-90's) by an artist named Diaz Fleming. He did them "to break up the monotany" of the desert plains. While there, a little band played while some very colorful costumed dancers did some traditional dances.
Our final stop was the little square across from where our ship is docked. A beautiful Colonial style church called San Marcos (1876) is there. It felt welcoming and quaint, and it reminds me of our little Trinity church at home (1865), other than it is made entirely out of metal! The fun observance of the day was a dog asleep in the back left pew on the floor (Bro. Will surely wasn't preaching!)
Got back to the ship at 1:00 which was a good thing. Had a lot of work to do before we head out to sea at 6:00. We are heading to Easter Island which is 2,250 nautical miles from Chile! It will take a full week of sailing before we arrive on Sunday .... not too much wi-fi in the middle of the Pacific, I bet!
As always, thanks for taking the virtual tour with us, and ever thanks to those who are covering for us at home!
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