Mercado de Hechicería - La Paz, Bolivia

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

We´ve been cruising through Bolivia the past month enjoying the sights, sounds and scents the place has to offer. On this day we wandered over to the Witche's Market to see what was on special for the day. Apparently it was Llama fetus's. All different sizes and colors. Dried out and ready to place on your mantle to bring good luck to your home. They also had beautiful tapir, puma and, ocelot skins that I don't believe would be legal to sell anywhere else in the world. Endangered species maybe???? The shops were interesting and the ladies selling their wares were really sweet. We ended up with some tiny Puma carving´s to protect our home.

Waves

Here are a few of the waves I´ve been lucky enough to surf the past couple of years.

Between Waves

Here are a few of the moments between waves from the past two years of travel. It's not always a vacation. Not that I'm complaining....

Tarabuco - Bolivia

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

This lovely small town in the hills near Sucre has a great Sunday market with people from all over the surrounding area coming by bus, car, truck and donkey. Seriously, they had a donkey parking area just on the outskirts of town. The locals are amazing to watch as they buy and sell what they need. Everyone wore a hat. Some wore leather versions in the style of the conquistadors who came though 500 years ago. Others wore knitted beanies, precariously perched upon their heads. But the hat of choice was a fedora-like version made of felt that was bent, twisted and worked into whatever stylish shape the owner was in the mood for that day. We had some fried chicken in the central market, walked all the lanes and appreciated the authentic traditions still being lived today. Not much Castellano spoken here. Nearly everyone spoke in Quechua.

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

Driving across the Salar de Uyuni is mesmerizing. The landscape goes on and on in a never ending blue and white horizon. The scale is difficult to describe. Islands of coral and cactus rise up out of the expansive white horizon far in the distance. I lent Jorge my shades so he wouldn´t suffer from the snow blindness and fall asleep at the wheel.

Altiplano lake, Bolivia

This was the final lake we visited on day 2 during the trip to the Salar de Uyuni. The lakes are filled with different micro organism´s that the Flamingo´s live on. The micro organism´s also give the various lakes their unique colors as well. Hedda has some great photos of the lakes here.

North by Bus - Chile

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

This may be a little mundane, but I thought I´d write this to remind myself later about how this sometime´s works. I haven´t had any hassles the past few months loading my boardbag into the storage areas of any south bound buses. As soon as I started heading north, the gringo taxes began... Leaving Valparaiso I was asked for 2,000 pesos. Then 3,000 pesos. I got off the bus and went into the office and was told by the manager, the bus driver, the luggage assistant, the ticket taker, even the guy selling hot dogs on the street that I had to pay extra for the boards. I kinda have a problem with this since everyone else is bringing wide screen TV´s, Ice chests with frozen shrimp, dried seaweed snacks and all kinds of other crap without being charged anything anything extra. So with the silence of the other passengers giving me strength, I maintained my position of not paying extra. I held out till the bus was pulling out of the terminal. We were already ten minutes late because of my stink. Well they asked once again if I was going to pay. I said, "no." They actually reversed the bus at which point I caved in and paid them 2,000. $4 bucks isn´t really worth missing the bus for....

Next up was La Serena. They wanted 2,000 straight up. I held firm with my desire not to pay. I was told we were going to the Policia and laughed at em. "OK, lets go". I´ll pay them before I pay you! Well I was a little nervous when we pulled up to the Policia checkpoint. Will they drop me and my boards here in the middle of nowhere? Is all this really worth $4??? In the end the bus inspector got off. The driver took the wheel and the ticket guy came over and quietly asked how much I´d be willing to pay. I gave him a buck and the rest of the 12 hour trip he was my best friend. He even played "Resident Evil" for me in English. Ummm, thanks. I guess. The photo is of a police checkpoint in the Atacama.

Mamalluca Observatory - Chile

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

The place where it never rains. You don´t have to be a genius to understand why most major countries interested in Astronomy have observatories built here in the southern reaches of the Atacama desert. Mamalluca was purposefully built for tourists so, unlike the professional observatories where you can look but not touch, here you can use small telescopes with a guide to see all kinds of cool places far, far away.... I was able to see Saturn and its rings, Mars, Alpha Centuri nebuli and a few others whose names I´ve already forgotten. Something like CRG-1224. I can also pick out at least half a dozen constellations in the southern hemisphere so whenever you´re down here with me next I´ll show em to you. Saw heaps of shooting stars as well.

What I found most interesting was finding out what the Mapuche and Inka´s thought when they looked up at the stars. European´s always focused on the bright stars to create their constellations and create their myths and legends. The South American indigenous people instead found images in the dark areas between the light. These dark area´s are called carbon nebula. They block out much of the light in some corners of the night sky. When our guide pointed these images out they seemed so obvious. A large Inkan snake winding through the sky. A huge llama just below the Southern Cross. The last image we saw was a Nandu, a large flightless bird from South American. Aboriginal´s in Australia called the same shape an Emu, a relative of the Nandu. I love that thousands of years ago, people half way across the world shared the same celestial aesthetic.

Valparaiso ascensor´s

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

We had a bit of fun and saved our legs from destruction by using the ascensors whenever we could. There are about fifteen scattered throughout the hills to help you gain some elevation around the really steep spots. Most were built about 100 years ago and I believe they´re still the original parts. The wood box car creaks and shakes violently as it´s quickly yanked upwards a few hundred feet.

Valparaiso - Chile

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

Valparaiso is a city suffused with history and art. It breathes an inspiring cityscape of paint, sculpture and music at every turn. Our hotel is next door to an Academie de Musica so we breakfast with the sounds of classical music and opera filtering in through the windows. Tiny, windy streets twist, climb and sharply drop. They criss-cross and weave their way over the countless ridges and canyons the city has grown into over the many years. I feel at home with the many precariously placed homes that teeter on the edges of the hillsides. So much like the Canyon in Sierra Madre.

Grafitti is everywhere. Mosaics of tile and mirror glass cover street embankments. Peering into alleys you may see paintings of fang toothed kittens attacking bunny eared girls, or a couple of people kicking back on a non-existent back porch. Rich and I wandered the city for hours soaking it all in, tripping out on how extensive and fine the qualityof art was wherever you looked. This is no town for a tagger.

Pablo Neruda´s House - Valparaiso

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

Pablo Neruda´s home is a condensed version of the city itself. His eclectic tastes are laid out as if he just wandered down the street to pick up some knick-nack in one of the cool antique stores downtown. The four storied house is simply one modest room stacked upon another. The top room was his study and has stunning views of the city and harbor. The stuffed Penguin in the bar was my favorite. Don´t think you can pick those up too easily these days...

Valparaiso ghosts

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

Rich and I were sitting in a little cafe sipping on a beer and resting our legs after trucking up and down hills all day when Rich notices this guy pulling out cans of spray paint from his satchel. We´re thinking he might start tagging at rush hour. Since there´s so much graf everywhere, maybe no one cares what or when you spray down here... So we watch for awhile and this guy is jumping on and off buses, sticking his head into taxi´s and bumping into people on the street. Seems he´s a spray paint dealer. Instead of chicklets and bad watches though, he´s making sure the youth of Valparaiso can get their tools for the weekend assault on the cities walls. We watched as he made a couple of sales, pulled more stock out of his bag, and then drifted off into the night.

Parrilla down south

The fellow surfers we ran into down south were a good crew. Some good international surf cross-pollination going on in the photo above. On this night Larry somehow convinced everyone to jump into the back of a pickup truck and head 20 minutes up the road to the local discotecque. We arrived to find a raging party for a 90 year old lady. She´d blown her candles and headed home a couple of hours before, but her younger friends in their 80´s were keeping the karaoke singer in business. We had a few piscola´s, danced to Chile´s top 10 dance songs of all time and ruined ourselves for the next morning´s surf.

Down south in Chile

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

The pace of life is moves a little slower down here. The chilly mornings and the vino tinto being consumed most nights might be part of the reason. When we arrived Rich and I ran into Ian who said it´d be a miracle if he got into the surf before 10am. Rarely have I ever been so lazy but here, there´s just no need to rush. The left points are protected from the south wind that blows, and there´s no one here. This is a fishing village at heart. Eating a dinner of Paila Marina with the locals watching the futbol. No menu here. If you want to eat you´re served a beautiful seafood stew out of a huge steaming pot. A few pieces of buttered bread and beer. What else do you need???

One afternoon Rich and I walked out to surf the point in town. The fishermen were keeping busy folding nets and checking out their boats. As the sun began to drop to the horizon we were having a blast catching wave after wave, running back up the beach and jumping back in at the top of the point. After one wave dropped me off halfway down the point, I noticed the fishermen towing one of their boats out to the shorebreak with a team of oxen. It was crazy as they managed to coax the oxen into the shorebreak and through breaking waves to launch their boat. They launched about 20 boats with the oxen as Rich and I stopped surfing and watched. There is no harbor here. No breakwall. They go right through the surf. These guys are truly hardcore watermen!

Central Chile

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSShhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........................

Central Chile - Sunset set

30 seconds of perfection. This wave was incredible! Only and handful of guys out this evening. Rich and I were so tired from our 3rd surf of the day we came in, lit a fire, cooked up some lentils and rice and crashed out. Ready to go again the next day.

Central Chile

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

Rich knocked on the door at the Happy House in Santiago fresh off the plane from California. It was great to see him. It´s been nearly a year since he came out to Bali and Sumbawa. He was loaded down with a boardbag, books for me, (Haruki Murakami, my favorite author, so finally I wouldn´t be scrounging around the hostels hoping for something decent to read), and fresh baked cookies from Mom. We had a couple of coffees and breakfast while catching up.

By midday we were on the bus south to Pichilemu. There we had a decent surf at Punta de Lobos. It was good to get in the water after a month of trekking in Patagonia. We spent the next day organizing transport north and shopping for supplies for the next week of camping. The following afternoon we were on the bus to Litueche. Once there we bargained for a taxi ride to the Rancho. The driver dropped us at the clifftop overlooking the point. We´d been told it was only 30 minute hike down to the point. I later discovered there are a few different roads out there and this taxi driver decided to drop us at the point most convenient for him, not us. The view from the cliff revealed perfect lines of swell wrapping around the wind protected point. Wave after wave following in each others path. The taxi driver collected his cash and was quickly off. We were looking down an extremely steep and rutted out one-way track that would eventually lead us to the point. We grabbed our packs and then took turns letting the boardbag drag us down the hill. After 30 minutes we were down on the flat near the village. At this point Rich and I heaved the boardbag up and over our heads and finished the last hour hiking across a sandy track behind the surfline. We arrived just before sunset and quickly made a fire, cooked up some pasta and then crashed out in the tent to the sound of a rising swell.

The next week the surf didn´t let up. The point offered up variations of perfect surf everyday. Surfable through the tides, but low being by far the hollowest and most lined up. Camped directly in front of the surf. It was basically surf, eat breakfast, sleep, surf, lunch, read and then surf again before dark. I watched Rich catch a wave late one afternoon that looked more like backlit, green Padang Padang in Bali than any other wave I´ve ever seen. Not a huge wave, but he pulled in on the take-off and was perfectly slotted for about 4-5 seconds through two separate sections, just barely getting pipped at the end. Every night we lit fires with wood gathered from up the hill and warmed up under a starry night sky. There are some photos of the surf here.

Perito Moreno Glacier - Patagonia

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

Last stop in Patagonia....

This has been an amazing month down on this end of the world. There is still debate in South America whether this is bottom or the top of the world. I kind of enjoy the idea. How does anyone really know... The glacier was impressive. 5 KM´s across and an average of 60 meters high. That´s wider than Sierra Madre is and almost twice the size of our dam in the canyon. The weather was perfect. We took a boat trip in the morning and saw the first of many large pieces of ice break off and come dramatically crashing down into the water.

The Italian style on the boat was pretty crazy as well. Fur head wraps, knee-high leather boots, and wild animal print matching tops and bottoms. Trippy to see all that after we d been so dirty hiking most of the past month.

In the afternoon we made it over to the lookout directly in front of the glacier and with the day getting warmer more and more massive chunks of ice crashed into to lake. Its pretty difficult to get a sense of the scale, but when some of the ice splashed down it sent spays of water almost 80 feet into the air. That must be a big piece of ice to do that....

All the wild horses - Patagonia

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

I shot this photo just as we pulled back into El Chalten after 4 days hiking around the Fitzroy Mountains. I was fascinated to see the modern day Gauchos running their horses and cattle around the Estancia's. Although the Gaucho culture that Darwin and other early traveller´s experienced while visiting the Pampas has hasn't existed for many years, the modern day Cowboy seems to have a strong sense of history and pride in his occupation. The nomadic lifestyle the Gauchos lived was effectively destroyed the moment the land was divided and fenced in.

We finished setting up our tent in the free camping on the edge of town and watched the gauchos herd about 30 beautiful horses down the dusty road as the sun went down. They still had about 18km's to the Estancia.

Cerro Fitzroy - Patagonia

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

Sunrise from the mirador this morning was stunning. I can't believe how lucky we've been to catch this kind of weather in one of the most notoriously bad weather zones in the world. The hikes around Fitzroy are a breeze as well. The trails aren't too steep, except for the mirador which of course is done in the dark. An hour uphill in the dark along with a little boulder hopping gets you to the top of the lookout where you look down on Laguna de Los Tres, the lake this glacier drains into and straight up at Cerro Fitzroy. I love it here.