Footloose Scot (13 page)

I took a bus back to Quito and prepared to move on to the next country, Peru. I had been able to get a free airline ticket from Quito to Lima when I was working for a tour operator in Houston, Texas. This certainly saved me another long bus ride, and got me quickly to Lima's airport. I wasn't spending time in Lima, a city for which I have no great feeling. I wanted to visit Machu Picchu. I bought a plane ticket for immediate onward travel to Cuzco, from where I would take the train to Machu Picchu.

By any standards of world-wide attractions Machu Picchu is a gem: high in the mountain jungles, an architectural wonder, and a puzzle, discovered by accident. Why it was built remains something of a mystery. It was built in the 15
^th
century by the Incas, probably as a royal estate, and remained well hidden from the Spaniards. American explorer Hiram Bingham III was totally surprised when a local peasant farmer led him to the jungle-covered site in 1911.What he found was a complete Inca city located on the saddle of a high mountain with terraces falling away towards a river far below.

The extraordinary beauty of the site, the dramatic location deep in the mountains and the fact that the city had never been looted give Machu Picchu a huge appeal. I had been to Machu Picchu in 1967, almost by accident. I had stopped in Lima en route to Santiago,Chile. The Swiss manager of the hotel I was staying in asked how I was going to Macchu Picchu. I said that I hadn't intended to go there. He looked astounded. Macchu Picchu, he said, is the best site in all of South America. You should go there. So I did, and seemed to have the whole place to myself. I told the Swiss hotelier when I got back to Lima that I was in his debt. The experience had been exceptional. On this trip, my plan was to get off the train and spend the night in Aguas Calientes, a village on the river below Machu Picchu, a place of hot springs.

The trouble was that this time I got sick from the food at the guest house in Aguas Calientes. I was able to climb up the steep trail to the entrance to Machu Picchu and buy my entrance ticket. But when one is constantly calculating where the nearest toilet is, and when one might need to make a dash there, there is no time to relax, absorb the view or ponder its history. The magic of the place was still there, but I wasn't feeling it.

Such is the appeal of Machu Picchu that the Peruvian authorities have placed a limit on the number of daily visitors: 2,500. If I were to go again, I would arrive on foot after a hike along one of several trails leading to Machu Picchu. These trails are now safe again after a history of armed robberies. I would make sure I entered the site as early as possible, before the bulk of the day visitors arrived. This way I would hope to gain again some feeling of wonderment at the setting and construction of this stone-built mountain-top city.

I went back to Cuzco, and got ready to take the train to Bolivia. Walking back from the rail station where I had purchased my ticket, I heard two young guys who had come up behind me saying something, and one of them tapped my shoulder. "Mister," he said "Look at jacket." I looked at my jacket and saw some stains on the shoulder, like bird droppings.

One of the guys had a piece of rag and was starting to wipe off the mess. I sprang back, started shouting at them and pointing my finger. "Go away!" I yelled. They backed off, turned around and ran. I had realized I was under a pickpocket attack, one which I had heard about but never experienced. Two or preferably three guys are needed. The formula is: one squirts toothpaste or something similar on the back of a tourist. The other one comes forward and distracts the tourist by starting to clean off the mess. The first one meanwhile does the pick pocketing while the tourist is concentrating on the cleaning job He passes the wallet to the third guy who has just come up and whom the tourist never notices. Fortunately I had short circuited the process.

ARGENTINA

I love Buenos Aires. The avenues, monumental buildings and heroic statues suggest power and tradition in a European manner. But watch a tango in a night spot, or listen to a street singer, and you will know you are somewhere Latin outside of Europe. Or go to a sporting event between two teams and you will feel a different sort of passion.

I arrived from Iguassu Falls, the most memorable of the world's three major falls. Here one can approach the falls from either the Brazilian or Argentine side. Viewing points exists at the top from a walk way, or at the bottom, enveloped in mist. On the Argentine side is a grand hotel, where I decided to book the tour group which I would be bringing here the next year.

I visited a soccer match in an enormous stadium. I can't remember which teams were playing. I was at one end of the playing field, up high. The concrete oval stadium was filled with two rival sets of fans, separated from each other, each shouting, cheering, cursing, blowing horns or letting off fireworks. The whole upper section seemed to bounce from the movement of the thousands of people. There was no fighting between the fans, everyone was dedicated to urging his team to victory but the tension was palpable. The game seemed to be ending in a draw, so I left early to avoid the departing crowds.

In another part of the city I attended a rugby game between two school teams. Here the atmosphere was totally different from the soccer match. The setting was a green playing field, and the crowd, standing on the side lines, numbered in the dozens. The teenage players were smartly dressed in their school colors and played with a rhythm and skill which I could recall from my school days 40 years ago on a different continent. On the touchlines, school members, staff and parents urged on their team with muted cries and hand clapping. It was winter, and many parents wore sheepskin coats and scarves, just like in the U.K. It was a genteel occasion with none of the rowdy, raw character of the soccer match.

In downtown Buenos Aires fashionable ladies shopped in expensive boutiques. I ate lunch in the mid-range restaurant. A family of four was at the next table, each with a well-filled plate in front of them. Very few vegetables, just a lot of meat. The pedestrian streets were filled with browsing people and street entertainers including a well-dressed older man, wearing a grey fedora, who sang opera with a dramatic flourish. It was civilized and entertaining.

I visited an old friend from my college days in Oxford. The son of a Scottish engineer, one of those who had built the railroad network, he worked in the banking industry. He took me on a sightseeing tour, including the elaborate tomb of Eva Peron, a heroine to many working people in Argentina. He had lost some of his Britishness and was proud of having an Argentine passport; his background was Anglo Saxon, but his future was in Latin America.

I took a nineteen hour bus ride to Bariloche, a well known ski resort in the foothills of the Andes. On arrival I checked into a Bed & Breakfast, run by a woman with a strong German accent. Plenty of Germans immigrated to Argentina after World War II, and not just some top Nazis. I wandered along the main street and watched a shop assistant artistically arrange a pile of expensive chocolates.

I went in to a public toilet. There was no paper, so I looked in my wallet for some low denomination currency notes. The action completed, my mistake was to leave my wallet on a shelf. It was ten minutes later that I discovered I had no wallet. I raced back to the public toilet but the wallet was gone. Kicking myself metaphorically for such stupidity and distraught about the loss, I calmed down enough to take stock. I had mainly traveler's checks in the wallet; I still had some cash in my pocket. Suddenly, on a street corner, I saw a public phone which said "Call USA from here".

I called the American Express number which I had noted separately in my diary. I told the receptionist my problem, and she told me to wait a second while she put me through to someone who would help me. The woman who came on the line was the Lost Checks specialist, used to dealing with stressed tourists calling from around the world.

I was able to give her the number of the missing checks, another safeguard I had wisely taken by noting them in my diary. While she was checking their validity on her computer, she asked me what had happened. Her manner was businesslike and her attitude helpful. When she had checked that my check numbers were valid, and had not been previously cashed, she turned to helping me. I told her I had enough cash for three days.

"Where will you be the day after tomorrow?" she asked. "We have to hand your replacement checks to you personally, by one of our local representative. I told her I would be in Puerto Montt, Chile. She checked for the name of the American Express representative in Puerto Montt and gave me the address. She told me to go there and identify myself and I would be given replacement checks. And that is how it turned out. I was so impressed by the calm and reassuring voice at Amex that I wrote them. They told me that she received the Employee of the Month award. The moral of the tale is to take toilet paper with you when travelling.

I continued into Chile, by a series of bus and boat rides. I was entering the lakes region of Chile. Here the landscape was different, the topography of a long coastline and interior mountain range dictating the landscape. I got to Santiago, and found a small hotel downtown.

The woman at reception glanced at me humorously when I checked in. The place looked sort of smart, with a lot of red in the decor. But the price was right and I thought no more of it. The room had a large double bed with velvet curtains and seemed a little elaborate. But it was spotlessly clean. I heard various footsteps and doors opening and shutting, but soon I was asleep. The next day, rereading the guidebook entry for the establishment, it mentioned that the place was also used by couples renting by the hour.

Chile did not seem much like a South American country. The Andean countries have predominantly Indian populations; Argentina and Brazil both have distinctive ethnic characteristics. In Chile the facial features of the people in the street did not have such a different appearance; they would have fitted in any western society. Whatever their appearance, I was immensely glad for them. The population (only 16 million) had just gone through seventeen years of military dictatorship under Pinochet, during which almost 10,000 people died or disappeared. Now they were free from the evil influence, but they hardly seemed to believe it had finally happened.

I flew down to Punta Arenas en route to the Torre del Paine National Park. The plane landed in heavy rain, on a runway already pooled with water. It was the second day of a storm. I found a guest house. When the owner found out I spoke English, she asked for my help. She said there was an English-speaking woman staying with her, and she simply wanted to know how long this woman wanted to stay. I said I would find her, and ask.

In the guest house kitchen a sturdy young woman was making a big sandwich. She said she was from New Zealand, and was staying three days until she made arrangements to fly home. I asked her where she had been. She said she had got off a sailing boat in the Falkland Islands, and from there had flown to Chile. She was waiting for money to pay for an onward air ticket back home to Auckland.

I was curious about how she had arrived by such an adventurous method. She said she lived in Auckland with her husband, who was in the New Zealand army. They were both keen sailors and she happened to be in their boat one afternoon when a round-the-world solo yachtsman, a Scot, sailed into Auckland harbor. They got to talking. He said the next leg of his trip was across the Southern Ocean and around Cape Horn - a long and dangerous passage.

She said she had always dreamed of doing a trip like that, but did not have the experience. After some more talk (this all happened in one afternoon) the Scotsman asked if she would consider coming with him as crew as far as the Falkland Islands. She checked with her husband, who okayed the plan. I asked her what she remembered most of all about the hazardous crossing. She said the constant motion. Even in calm waters, the boat was never still. Now she had completed her adventure, was making plans to get home, and meanwhile was eating vigorously. I admired her courage.

I inquired about transportation to the Torres del Paine National Park, a good hiking destination just where the Andes taper off. I was told I was too late. The huts had all closed down for the winter, and there was no demand for transportation. I wandered around town, and down to the quay. A substantial yacht, maybe 50 feet long and flying the American flat was tied up there.

A guy in his mid-thirties on board saw me eyeing the boat, and called "Hi" to me in an American accent. I asked him where he was going, and he said nowhere. He said he had made money in real estate in Colorado and, realizing a childhood dream, decided to buy a boat and sail round Cape Horn. He had done a lot of sailing previously, and felt competent to go round the Horn. He bought the boat, sailed down to the Galapagos Islands, met an Ecuadorian girl and asked her to join him. She was in the galley making coffee.

His present situation was that he had run out of money. He offered to take me on a cruise around the Chilean fjords at a ridiculously low price. He seemed almost desperate for cash. The offer was tempting, but I felt that the conditions were not quite right. I was a little suspicious of the guy's background, and I also felt the threesome configuration might not be the best for maximum enjoyment. If I had been with someone else, then that might have balanced out the numbers. This way I felt I would be self-conscious with two crew, and just me as passenger. So I told him no and wished him good luck. Then I set out to find how I could cross in to Argentina.

From Puerta Natales I took a bus into Argentina. My destination was the coal mining town of Turbio. This was a bleak place and the weather, going into winter, wet and cold. Ironically, I was not too far from the scenic Perito Moreno glacier which I would later visit with a tour group. The glacier, a top tourist attraction in Argentina, is the world's third largest fresh water reserve, one of 48 glaciers fed by the South Patagonian Ice Field, and only one of three in the world which is growing. But for now I was stuck in Turbio, the southernmost town I reached in Argentina, whose name was oddly similar to the northernmost town I visited in South America, Turbo. On top of the ugliness and bad weather, I couldn't find a place to sleep and had to resort to sleeping in an abandoned house. The next morning I caught a bus for the long ride to Rio Gallego, then a flight to Buenos Aires. I took half a day to conclude arrangements with a travel agent in Buenos Aires who would make the arrangements for the tour group I was due to bring three months hence. Then a long flight, fortunately on a complimentary ticket with Aerolineas Argentinas, brought me via Lima, Peru to Los Angeles. My South America trip was over - until I returned as Tour Leader with a group.