Sunday, January 07, 2007
From New Zealand to Chile to Peru
We had been warned that the journey from New Zealand to South America was a tough one, but that turned out to be the understatement of the year. The flight from Auckland to Santiago took us across the international date line, one of those bizarre details that I vaguely remember from Geography class. We left Auckland at five in the evening on 3rd January, flew until night fell and then until the sun rose again on the morning of the 3rd January, arriving in Santiago twelve hours later on the same day. The children slept little on the flight and Ken and myself didn’t sleep at all, setting us up for some horrendous jet lag. Santiago was the only place on our itinerary that we had difficulty finding accommodation and we were glad to eventually get a room in an ‘aparthotel’ with five of us squashed into a small double and a single bed. When he learned we were Irish, Sergio, the very helpful concierge, recited all of the words to ‘Danny Boy’ which, he informed us, was the only song played at Elvis’s funeral.
Despite its persistent haze of pollution, Santiago is a pleasant enough city with a European feel. We stayed in Providencia, which seems to be quite an affluent neighbourhood, though I noticed that all of the women carry their handbags close to their chests, covered with one arm, and I quickly decided to do the same. The dreaded fast food chains were everywhere and, located in a single stretch, were two McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Dunkin Donuts and Pizza Hut. On our second night we caved in and broke our intention of no-fast-food-on-this-trip-if-we-can-help-it and brought the kids to Burger King. That night, no-one could sleep and we sat up eating fruit and biscuits at 3am, before having to rise at 5am for the airport. Even though we spent just two nights in Santiago, it felt endless because of the jet lag and incessant fighting between the boys. Between the long flight and the hotel room, they had been cooped up for far too long and what they really needed was to be let loose in a playground or park, but this was impossible.
The flight from Santiago to Lima was four hours long and I was surprised by a two-hour time difference between Chile and Peru - a reminder of the vast size of this continent. First impressions of Peru were similar to those of Thailand and Cambodia; people everywhere laughing and smiling at the children and stopping to shake their hands or ask their names. An abundance of coal black hair, high cheekbones, sallow skin and rosy cheeks, makes Peruvians very striking in appearance. We flew from Lima to Cusco, making the final approach to the airport right through the gap in the outstanding mountains. We were extraordinarily lucky, once again, with the accommodation we had chosen. Torre Dorada is a small hotel, located a few minutes’ drive from the centre of Cusco. The owners, Arturo, Oscar, Norma and Rosemarie, could not have been more kind or more helpful and did their utmost to make their hotel a comfortable home away from home.
Cusco was the capital city of the Inca empire, first settled in 1200AD. Despite its modern population of a million people, it is compact and attractive, with narrow cobbled streets, granite walls, impressive historical buildings and Quechua names. We were completely unprepared, unfortunately, for the altitude sickness or soroche. This is one of the highest cities in the world, located 3,400 metres (over 11,000 feet) above sea level, and it took some time before our sea-level bodies adjusted to this extraordinary altitude. In the short time we travelled from the airport to Torre Dorada, we were all breathless dizzy and tired. Rosemarie warned us that we would suffer unless we rested as much as possible on the first day and ate lightly. Bottled oxygen is on hand at the hotel for the more severe cases. Hazel was able to grasp what this meant but Robbie and Ivan, delighted to be finally in Peru, were deaf to our warnings and began their usual rushing up and down stairs and jumping on beds. All were ashen-faced and blue-lipped in just a few minutes and collapsed for the rest of the evening. This, combined with the persistent jetlag from the Auckland to Santiago flight, left us completely exhausted for at least another two days. We were glad to have the extra few days here and pitied the tourists who arrive in Cusco for the Machu Picchu visit without giving themselves time to adjust.
Despite the high level of tourism, Cusco still displays a fair amount of poverty. Outside of the tourist traps, prices are extremely low, yet it’s a fair guess to say wages are comparable. There is a very limited selection of food in the supermarkets, but I imagine that the majority of fresh food is purchased in the markets. As was our experience in Chile, everything that is processed is also sweetened. Butter is sweetened, cheese is sweetened, even bread is sweetened. We drank splendid freshly-squeezed juices in the (tourist) restaurants, but couldn’t find a single carton of juice in the supermarket that didn’t have added sugar. Ordering a coffee without sugar receives the surprised response “Sin azucar? Si? Nutrasweet? No?” After several dreadful coffees (I feel another blog entry taking shape on the topic coffee on our travels) we realised that it wasn’t the coffee, it was the milk. Ordering café con leche, even a cortado will get you a shot of espresso sunk into about half a litre of vile, sweetened UHT milk. It’s black coffee for the rest of Latin America for me.
Chile and Peru photos on Flickr
We had been warned that the journey from New Zealand to South America was a tough one, but that turned out to be the understatement of the year. The flight from Auckland to Santiago took us across the international date line, one of those bizarre details that I vaguely remember from Geography class. We left Auckland at five in the evening on 3rd January, flew until night fell and then until the sun rose again on the morning of the 3rd January, arriving in Santiago twelve hours later on the same day. The children slept little on the flight and Ken and myself didn’t sleep at all, setting us up for some horrendous jet lag. Santiago was the only place on our itinerary that we had difficulty finding accommodation and we were glad to eventually get a room in an ‘aparthotel’ with five of us squashed into a small double and a single bed. When he learned we were Irish, Sergio, the very helpful concierge, recited all of the words to ‘Danny Boy’ which, he informed us, was the only song played at Elvis’s funeral.
Despite its persistent haze of pollution, Santiago is a pleasant enough city with a European feel. We stayed in Providencia, which seems to be quite an affluent neighbourhood, though I noticed that all of the women carry their handbags close to their chests, covered with one arm, and I quickly decided to do the same. The dreaded fast food chains were everywhere and, located in a single stretch, were two McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Dunkin Donuts and Pizza Hut. On our second night we caved in and broke our intention of no-fast-food-on-this-trip-if-we-can-help-it and brought the kids to Burger King. That night, no-one could sleep and we sat up eating fruit and biscuits at 3am, before having to rise at 5am for the airport. Even though we spent just two nights in Santiago, it felt endless because of the jet lag and incessant fighting between the boys. Between the long flight and the hotel room, they had been cooped up for far too long and what they really needed was to be let loose in a playground or park, but this was impossible. The flight from Santiago to Lima was four hours long and I was surprised by a two-hour time difference between Chile and Peru - a reminder of the vast size of this continent. First impressions of Peru were similar to those of Thailand and Cambodia; people everywhere laughing and smiling at the children and stopping to shake their hands or ask their names. An abundance of coal black hair, high cheekbones, sallow skin and rosy cheeks, makes Peruvians very striking in appearance. We flew from Lima to Cusco, making the final approach to the airport right through the gap in the outstanding mountains. We were extraordinarily lucky, once again, with the accommodation we had chosen. Torre Dorada is a small hotel, located a few minutes’ drive from the centre of Cusco. The owners, Arturo, Oscar, Norma and Rosemarie, could not have been more kind or more helpful and did their utmost to make their hotel a comfortable home away from home.
Cusco was the capital city of the Inca empire, first settled in 1200AD. Despite its modern population of a million people, it is compact and attractive, with narrow cobbled streets, granite walls, impressive historical buildings and Quechua names. We were completely unprepared, unfortunately, for the altitude sickness or soroche. This is one of the highest cities in the world, located 3,400 metres (over 11,000 feet) above sea level, and it took some time before our sea-level bodies adjusted to this extraordinary altitude. In the short time we travelled from the airport to Torre Dorada, we were all breathless dizzy and tired. Rosemarie warned us that we would suffer unless we rested as much as possible on the first day and ate lightly. Bottled oxygen is on hand at the hotel for the more severe cases. Hazel was able to grasp what this meant but Robbie and Ivan, delighted to be finally in Peru, were deaf to our warnings and began their usual rushing up and down stairs and jumping on beds. All were ashen-faced and blue-lipped in just a few minutes and collapsed for the rest of the evening. This, combined with the persistent jetlag from the Auckland to Santiago flight, left us completely exhausted for at least another two days. We were glad to have the extra few days here and pitied the tourists who arrive in Cusco for the Machu Picchu visit without giving themselves time to adjust.
Despite the high level of tourism, Cusco still displays a fair amount of poverty. Outside of the tourist traps, prices are extremely low, yet it’s a fair guess to say wages are comparable. There is a very limited selection of food in the supermarkets, but I imagine that the majority of fresh food is purchased in the markets. As was our experience in Chile, everything that is processed is also sweetened. Butter is sweetened, cheese is sweetened, even bread is sweetened. We drank splendid freshly-squeezed juices in the (tourist) restaurants, but couldn’t find a single carton of juice in the supermarket that didn’t have added sugar. Ordering a coffee without sugar receives the surprised response “Sin azucar? Si? Nutrasweet? No?” After several dreadful coffees (I feel another blog entry taking shape on the topic coffee on our travels) we realised that it wasn’t the coffee, it was the milk. Ordering café con leche, even a cortado will get you a shot of espresso sunk into about half a litre of vile, sweetened UHT milk. It’s black coffee for the rest of Latin America for me.Chile and Peru photos on Flickr
# posted by Ruth @ Sunday, January 07, 2007 
