Trip to South America / Desert, Chaco, Pampa, Mountains and Glaciers through the Andes cordillera and Patagonia / by Ton van Zutphen.

December 2023 – February 2024. Round trip Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, Chile. Main stopovers included: Santiago de Chile, San Pedro de Atacama, Uyuni, Sucre, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Asuncion, Filadelfia, Puerto de Iguazu, Buenos Aires, San Carlos de Bariloche, El Chalten, El Calafate, Puerto Natales, Santiago de Chile / by Biya Han and Anton van Zutphen

Biya flew into Santiago de Chile from Seoul via New York, and I traveled from Amsterdam via Madrid. We more or less arrived at the same time morning of 20th December; perfectly coordinated! Then we took the ‘blue line’ airport bus to ‘Los Heroes’ metro station and walked, backpacks shouldered, to our B&B. 

A few comments on traveling through this vast region: the buses are luxurious by any known standard to me: spacious, aircon, and often with full reclining and wide seats ‘full-cama’. Not always cheap but worthwhile. 

We had three trips of more than 20 hours; the longest from Bariloche to El Chalten in Argentina, driving 28 hours with a quasi-permanent view of the Andes; though we did a lot of resting, looking and sleeping. No sweat! Then we took two flights: from Santiago to Calama and from Puerto Natales back to Santiago in Chile….with a company called SKY. Interestingly the cost of the one luggage item we checked in was much  higher, almost double, than the price of my flight. Will we ever understand how airlines justify such anomalies? Then last but not least, if one travels overland into Chile, one has to use a QR code/app and fill out a form on a smartphone and send it to immigration dept. What if one does not have a phone? All very customer-unfriendly new regulations. 

Anyway, what I did not know as a European is that many countries visited on this trip have waged wars against each other and still bear the scars of these in their (unfriendly governmental) relationships…haha Chileans do not like Bolivians nor Argentinians; Brazilians and Argentinians do not like each other (certainly not when one talks about soccer), and nobody seems to appreciate the Bolivians. We talked to a lot of Paraguayans but none of them ever traveled to neighboring Bolivia.

The picture above at the Bolivian General Consulate in Santiago was taken by a staff member who courteously let us in and explained that there were no 'scellos'/ stamps available to issue a visa. These two neighbors do not until now maintain relations at Ambassador level.

Essential wars that led to borders that are now kind of definite include:

1. The Pacific War (1879-1884) between Bolivia and Peru on one side and Chile on the other. Bolivia started the war over a tax issue for Chilean mining companies and was supported by Peru. But in the end, Chile won and took large swaths of Peruvian and Bolivian territory…cutting off Bolivia’s direct access to the sea. This very bloody war, fought in part in the hostile Atacama desert (now 150 years ago on horseback and mules as pack animals!) remains still in the memory of the people living in Northern Chile (many of them of Bolivian origin).

2. The Chaco war (1932-1935) between Bolivia and Paraguay; also started by Bolivia that wanted a piece of a potentially oil-rich region in the North West of Paraguay and finally access to the Atlantic Ocean by river. Again in the end Paraguay, against all odds, won this ‘war of thirst’ in the harsh and dry Chaco region. The Bolivian army advanced as far as the town of Filadelfia where the Mennonites just before had settled from Canada and Russia. 

3. Argentina and Chile had many disputes over their Andes border in Patagonia and nearly went to war in 1978 over the ‘Beagle Canal’. Then Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982 and got a serious drubbing from Lady Thatcher. Nevertheless in the constitution of Argentina these Islas Malvinas are firmly enshrined as part of the country (although the British established themselves on the Falkland Islands from 1833). 

The road to independence for all these countries from Spain was a long process taking three centuries during which the Spanish conquistadors and their off-spring decimated the native population. Over the years, slowly a new class of mestizo / mixed race and an educated citizen cohort developed that stood up against the Spanish regime. Hundreds of nationalists, both indigenous and in part with Spanish blood in them fought local wars like Tupac Amaru II, Simon Bolivar, Antonio de Sucre, to name a few of them. And all countries gained independence around 1825, or a bit later in 1852 in the case of Paraguay. Also the vast open spaces invited immigrants from Europe; many of these adventurers and mercenaries immediately after independence, with later more regulated immigration by laborers and farmers mostly from Europe (foremost Italians, Germans, and Spanish).

Tupac Amaru II; libertador in Bolivia and Peru
(1742-1781, killed by the Spanish)

Simon Bolivar, general and libertador from Venezuela
(1783-1830)

Antonio Jose de Sucre
First President of Bolivia from 1826 to 1828

No wonder that disputes between countries remained active for more than 100 years with some serious wars. In 1936 the famous and effective US President FD Roosevelt traveled by steamer to Brazil and Argentina, and in Buenos Aires he signed an ‘Inter-American’ document during a peace-conference that stipulated that from now on all over the Americas a pact of non-intervention was to be adhered to. It meant that any third country would not intervene when two countries went to war……including the USA. It was indeed a visionary document. And this, only one year after the Chaco war had ended and the Argentinian diplomat/mediator Carlos Saveedra Lamas was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to this peace in 1936. And indeed as far as I know wars between two American countries have not been openly/officially supported by the military of a third country. Slightly different but the USA did come close to waging wars on South American regimes openly such as with….Noriega in Panama, Castro in Cuba, Allende in Chile, Ortega in Nicaragua, others? Then, the US administration has never admitted its official role for example in the case of the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba (1961) or the overthrow of elected President Allende in Chile (1973).

Enough history; now travel highlights such as

The Atacama desert in Northern Chile with a visit to the Valley of the Moon and a bike ride to the Laguna Cejar. This desert resembles the Algerian desert with its hills and rocky mountain peaks. Extremely dry with areas not having a drop of rain in a year. Touristic, yes, with young travelers from around the globe. San Pedro de Atacama is kind of a hippie place with many shops selling locally made and ‘quasi native’ knick-knacks. Small restaurants, many hostals and competing travel agencies. And with a nice atmosphere.  Our Christmas service was in the cozy village church but there were surprisingly few attendees. In addition the priest celebrated the mass as if it was just a normal weekday morning mass. Biya and I utterly failed to understand this. Then we did notice that churches in Chile were not particulalrly inviting...doors locked during the day, not well maintained, some kind of a near desolate atmosphere around them; certainly around the cathedral in Santiago.

Nativity scene with lamas in San Pedro church

San Pedro gets its water supply from far away Andes mountains and it remains scarce. A hot hot place around Christmas. We dared rent a bike and plowed through the gravel, a 20 plus kilometers stretch to Lake Cejar. And dipped into the salty water just like in the Dead Sea. Then a shower prepared us for the 20 km back.  Hot, dusty, difficult and tiresome riding on the washboard gravel road. We did it and Biya surprised me with her riding skills. I was a bit scared of getting a flat tire as we would not have been able to repair it. In that case hitchhiking would have been the only option. For me it was a good exercise because the bus rides really make your body stiff as a plank.  Most bike riders only went one way and took a pick-up taxi back and loaded their bikes onto it. Back at the bike shop we both felt that such activities create comradeship and are the secret of a successful day!

Biya on the dusty gravel road at 40 degrees C / Atacama desert

After waiting overnight outside of the bus station in the company of many friendly street dogs, we caught the bus from San Pedro to Uyuni in Bolivia. Biya had to fork out 130 USD cash for her visa at the border. The Bolivians appear to have split up the world into those who support socialist countries and freedom movements, and those who do not. South Koreans and US citizens pay high visa costs and for Dutch the entry is (still) free. Impossible to get a visa in Korea or even at the Bolivian General Consulate in Santiago. Reason was that they had no stamps! The border crossing is in a God forsaken place along the railway line that takes out the silver ore and other minerals from the Potosi/Uyuni area to Antofagasta on the Chilean coast about 1.000 kilometers away…..grrhhhr, to think about the railroad men who built this track through the desert 150 years ago. In Uyuni we visited the famous locomotive cemetery as it was cheaper to import a new locomotive all the way from England/France than the repair costs so far away in the desert. 

The salt flats around Uyuni should be on your bucket list. We took an organized day trip and zoomed in a wide bodied, new (and expensive) Nissan Patrol V6 four wheel drive across these flats at high speed and with much comfort. Lunch and a wine apero were provided by the driver/photographer Mariscal and we spent an hour walking in the extraordinary oasis ‘Isla de Incahuasi’ amidst giant, meters high, cactus. What an experience! 

Having fun during the raid

Finally I had Biya in the palm of my hand

These salt flats cover an area as large as the Netherlands. Hundreds of tourists participate in these raids, every day. And all that for just 30 bucks per person/day. I do not understand the business model here. I estimate we drove some 250 kilometers that day, six tourists, …how can they make money? Bolivians working with foreigners complain a lot about their socialist government and about the manner in which they let foreigners pay for their stay in-country. But for a pensionado/jubilado like me Bolivia is bottom cheap; with top nice people. Perhaps some ‘coca’ related money seeps into the tourist industry here. I saw small farm coca plantations all along the road from Uyuni, to Potosi, to Sucre. And was offered some on the bus; I chewed on it, it tasted not bad. A bit bitter and I understand that a good chew shall get you soon in a wonderful modus of blissful happiness. Later on in Paraguay (be careful at the border town of Mariscal Estigarribia, named after the famous general from the Chaco war) our bus was routinely checked on ‘coca/cocaine’ by sniffer dogs. What in Bolivia is openly accepted will get you many years in prison in Paraguay! 

Bolivia in 1988 legalised coca cultivation under certain conditions
but cultivation is now quasi nation-wide and over 50% of the production
escapes government control

Bolivia has a lot of charm and the towns we stayed in like Sucre and Santa Cruz de la Sierra gave us this nice ‘colonial’ atmosphere like many towns in Mexico with a central Plaza de Armas. 

We trucked on, crossed the endless Chaco in Paraguay, drove into Asuncion and were welcomed by Monica Kneup-Villa Alba, the online Spanish teacher that Biya twice weekly skypes with. We had planned to do 10 lessons to improve our Spanish with Monica and were invited to stay in the cozy villa of her darling  mother Esther who is a former music professor with her dog Callomera. 

'We love Asuncion' on the boulevard of the Paraguay river
Esther and Biya

The whole family looked very well after us, took us to church and town, to Fernando, her husband and his anniversary party and even to a Burger King resto! How fortunate Biya and I always are! By the way I was upgraded for my Spanish to level B!! Then we met Monica’s friends in the settler’s town of Filadelfia another 550 kilometers westwards in ‘Mennonite country’ in the central Chaco area. The Mennonite family Friedbert and Regina Loewen took us to their farm….a pasture of some 400 hectares with 400 cattle. Wow, there is still land in the Chaco and cattle roam around free without serious predators and sicknesses. Now and then a puma, but no animal related epidemics like we have in Europe with our (labor) intensive animal farming. A picnic overseeing the pastures in the Chaco while the sun goes down, that is what we enjoyed! A pity the Mennonites do not drink beer! Menno Simons (1496-1561), a Catholic priest from Friesland, NL turned into a fervent Protestant and created his own peace-oriented form of Protestantism and he/his followers had to flee all over the world until the end of World War II. Mennonites are serious workers, love the land they till, keep traditions and large families and refuse to bear arms. Many of them emigrated to Canada and the USA and even to Siberia. Under Stalin they were prosecuted and a few hundred of them reached Paraguay from Russia via Harbin, Shanghai, Marseilles, Le Havre and Buenos Aires in the 1930s…then settled in hostile Chaco-land and built up the still German-speaking towns/villages of Filadelfia, Neuburg, Fernheim and Orloff to name a few. I spoke German with them and hope to meet with the Loewen’s family again in Europe. We were offered a family dinner with a focus on grilled buffalo Chaco meat….and potato salad: home cooking and charcoal roasting. Yummy!

from left to right: Biya, Anton, Monica, Esther (daughter and mother)
Friedbert, Regina (husband and wife)

‘Einmalig’: the Iguazu Falls. Possibly the Spanish conquistador Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca (cowhead) stumbled as the first European on these marvelous horseshoe-shaped falls in 1541. He may have thought he had discovered a kind of ‘Eden’. Indeed, these falls are the most beautiful falls I have seen in my life. Colors, gurgling water masses, rocks, the wild vegetation: fascinating that nature can be so overwhelming. You can visit the falls from three countries: Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. Dead easy, just ride a bus, pay some entrance fee into the national parks and walk around for hours getting as close to the falls as 50 meters. A ‘Mecca’ for photographers as one can take pictures from all angles and from tens of specially built ‘miradors’. I reckon the Argentine side offers more variety. There is a serious  risk of bad weather, so bring a raincoat. Biya and I wandered for some eight hours over two days along the routes bordering these falls. And never got tired of admiring this wonder!

Iguazu Falls, Brazilian side

Here is a list of arguably the 7 most beautiful/impressive water falls in the world:

1. Plitvice Falls in Croatia / visited in 2023

2 Niagara Falls in USA/Canada / visited in 2005

3. Iguazu Falls in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay / visited in 2024

4. Dudhsagar Falls in Goa, India

5. Yosemite Falls in USA

6. Gullfoss in Iceland

7. Victoria Falls in Zambia, Zimbabwe / visited in 1976

We arrived in Buenos Aires after a long bus ride from Puerto Iguazu. And settled in a small apartment, in the center of town. I immediately felt comfortable in this city. Looks very European, lots of small shops and restaurants, hustling and bustling, and plenty of monuments and sights to see. And steaks for a nickel and a dime! Plus nice people. Definitely the place to visit as nr. 1 capital on this trip. So what did we do for four days in Buenos Aires apart from eating large quantities of beef in a restaurant called ‘Parrilla Lo de Tuca’? 

Everything Anton likes is on the menu!

Here are some of the sights not to miss:

Cemetery la Recoleta, Plaza de Mayo, Florida street / hawkers-hustlers-money changers, Museum Bellas Artes, mass at Iglesia del Pinar, Catedral Metropolitana (where Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio celebrated before becoming the Pope), the Museum General next to the Casa Rosada (interestingly without information about the period of the Dictators Galtieri and Videla!), a walk along the boulevard bordering the swamp-like Rio de la Plata, and sipping good beers like Quilmes and Schneider!

A Buenos Aires hair cut done professionally for 3 US dollars

Here is a list of famous Argentinians:

Carlos Saveedra Lamas      / Diplomat, Nobel Peace Prize 1936

Juan Manual Fangio           / 5 times World Champion formula 1 car racer in the 1950ies  

Jorge Luis Borges              / Poet, writer (1899-1986)

Juan Peron                         / President (1946-55 and 1973-74)

Eva Peron Duarte (Evita)   / Wife of Juan Peron; died of cancer in 1952 age 39   

Che Guevarra                    / Professional Revolutionary; killed in Bolivia by the police in 1967 

Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi / soccer players and national heroes for ALL Argentinians

Francisco                           / Current Roman Catholic Pope

Messi #10, Biya #1
I guess 1 million Argentinians walk around even today in this Messi-shirt.
Hit the ball girl!

Juan Peron was an exceptionally talented populist leader who could not get Argentina out of the economic morass in the 1950ies. He developed into a Dictator and ‘lover of young girls’ later in his life. His 2nd wife was Eva Duarte, a nightclub dancer whom he fell in love with. She won the hearts of the masses because of her empathy and work for the poor.

Juan-Eva official portrait. And Eva's grave memorial at La Recoleta cemetary which is the most visited one; still people crying at her grave when we were there.

Juan Peron himself was notorious for protecting and employing Nazis that sought refuge in Argentina after World War II.

The Dutch soccer team had two most serious encounters with ‘archrival’ Argentina: in 1978 the Dutch lost the final against  host Argentina in Buenos Aires; we should have won…but could we have won against 80.000 shrieking Argentinian fans? And in 2023 we lost the semi-finals against Argentina after a penalty shoot-out.

I have always been interested in German history and read many books about the World Wars it started and fought, including the horrible holocaust it caused. Until today some Paraguayans believe that Adolf Hitler escaped and was sighted in a hotel close to the railway station in Asuncion. Then as of late 1945, he disappeared to never be seen again. Too weird a story to believe. Then it is true that hundreds of Nazi officers, many of them members of the SS and Gestapo escaped via Italy to Buenos Aires and found some sort of organized welcome in Argentina and Paraguay. Presidents Peron and Stroessner actually enlisted some of them as advisors…all of this was known to the Allies and Israel.  Incredible that Nazis like Mengele, Eichmann, Priebke, Kutschmann, and the Croatian ‘Ustase’ leader Pavelic were not extradited. Mengele finally died in a swimming accident in Brazil and Eichmann (who worked for Volkswagen in a factory in B. Aires!) was kidnapped by the Mossad out of Buenos Aires and hanged for war crimes in the Ayalon prison, Ramla, Israel. Only when Carlos Menem became President of Argentina in 1989, Nazis like Priebke were extradited to Germany or Italy. Priebke lived under his own name for over 40 years in the pretty town of ‘Bavarian/Swiss-like’ Bariloche.

Anyway this kind of chapter can be definitely closed! The war is now nearly 80 years behind us and I reckon none of these infamous characters are still alive.

We spent a few days in San Carlos de Bariloche, a bigger town than I had expected. We needed a good rest before moving to El Chalten another 600 plus kms further South. There is a famous hotel at the end of bus line 20 called Llao Llao and from there several hiking paths start. We just had an expensive cup of coffee (Vienna style with a glass of water and small sized chocolates), and enjoyed the view over the lake. 

A long bus ride took us to El Chalten where we hit the first bad weather…cold rain  and heavy winds. Lots of tourists come here to walk the FitzRoy trail but for us the weather was too bad. The hostal manager of Complejo Don Joel advised us definitely not to go because of the adverse weather circumstances that had turned the paths into muddy and slippery trails. We walked just to the close-by falls and the next day Biya went up a bit further and spent a day in the rain walking whilst I read an old science fiction classic ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ by Robert Heinlein. We stayed in a dormitory of four and Biya cooked her first ever chorizo steak. Nice with some good red Malbec! I think the dormitory wasn’t that clean because the following days Biya got skin rash all over her body from bites we could hardly locate. She suffered from itching day and night. Fortunately, it was over after a week. It is always Biya that gets bitten, never me. Anyway, ‘dorms’ are the usual place where mites, fleas, lice and other bugs do well! 

Our final destination in Argentina, a country we had started to like more and more, was the town of El Calafate close to glacier ‘Perito Moreno’ and its lake. We walked and even took a boat that brought us as close as 40 meters to the blue ice wall of this glacier. Impressive and stunningly beautiful. Now and then a couple of tons of ice broke off and created some waves; it being summer and warm in Argentina this was a normal sight.

End of glacier Perito Moreno;beginning of the lake/river

We had checked into an apartment that had a surface of more than 130 square meters with two large bedrooms, an open kitchen/bar and enough space to invite a football team. I had found an excellent butcher and knew what kind of part of the cow was best: either chorizo or quadril. We had not known it was that large a lodging and immediately thought of inviting ‘Heymook Sunim’, a Korean lady monk we had run into at the bus station. She, Heymook (65 years young and surprisingly well preserved!) had recognized Biya and they had engaged already in a long conversation. These situations occur regularly and I am ok with such. I just back down and let the waterfall of words go on for a while. Heymook understands some English and I found out that she entered the monastery when she was 20 and spent more than 40 years meditating/working. I called her a ‘zen-monk’ as she behaved so cool and balanced. No wonder of course when you are used to getting up at 3am every morning then pray/meditate 8 hours during the day, work another 6 and study the rest of the remaining time. For 40 years. She walked like a young lady and acted very sure of herself….not speaking any Spanish and having little money. She just radiated confidence and humility. Wow! I had cooked a lot of meat (by order of Biya who by now devoured the Argentine beef!) and we shared a bottle of red…it was only the second time in her life Heymook drank alcohol. Then I filled up her glass at least three times and it seemed to have no effect on her. She also enjoyed the meat and ate all that was served. She appreciated this once-in-a-lifetime privilege to leave the monastery to see the outside world and its crisp and unspoiled nature. Then we had a wonderful photo session; all laughing and acting funny! I hope we can visit her sometime in the future at her monastery in Kuang-ju in Southeast Korea. 

Heymook Sunim and Anton

Then into the bus again and cross into Chile on our way to Puerto Natales. We had booked a one-day trip only to the Torres del Paine park as we were running out of time. I had not planned to stay for over one week in Bolivia nor had we planned a long trip into the Chaco in Paraguay. Now we had to make ends meet and cut short our stay in Southern Patagonia. After all, our total trip was going to be 49 days out and back together, in Seoul. If ever I, or Biya, and preferably together will get another chance to visit Torres del Paine again we shall do the three or four-day walk and stay overnight in the refuges (pre-booking essential!).

Classic picture of Torres del Paine massif in Chile

Then Patagonia must offer many extraordinary sights. It was 30-40 years before ‘discovered’ by the wealthy so-called ‘eco-barons’ like Ted Turner, Luciano Benetton, George Soros who  bought vast tracts of lands and fenced it off (to protect against overgrazing…) True or not. Even the leisure clothing company ‘Patagonia’ did many years ago acquire an area as large as Switzerland and was later accused of moving people out of its new property. Then handed it over to the Argentine government which turned it into a new national park with an environmentally friendly program. Depending on the location a hectare of Patagonia was as cheap as 10 USD (some 15 years ago). 

From Puerto Natales which has little to offer we flew back to Santiago de Chile. Unfortunately, this capital also has few sights worthwhile for tourists so we spent the last day in colorful and bustling Valparaiso, a town I could live in for a few months. We got caught by a severe forest fire, then the bus driver decided to drive through it. This fire was indeed a biggie. World news. We were surprised that the fire departments did not close off the main roads. In the end, nothing happened to us but thousands of homes and shops were destroyed and perhaps as many as 500 people died around Vina del Mar.  We still feel very sorry for the Chileans.

Rich-Poor: the case of Argentina.

Argentina from about 1880 onwards throughout 1940 benefitted from huge and qualified immigration and cheap production costs of its export products mainly meat and grain. It was considered a rich country in 1940 even by European standards. Then…huge borrowing for dubious investments, subsidies, and increasing labor-related costs turned the country into a debt-ridden client of the International Monetary Fund. Near bankruptcy and many tough devaluations caused a poverty increase that can be seen in the streets of Buenos Aires: ramshackle apartments, old cars, many bagmen, beggars and addicts in the streets. We learned what to say to the numerous beggars ‘no tenemos plata’. A sad story that has been ongoing for more than 50 years now. The recently elected President Javier Milei wants a hefty change: fewer subsidies, a change to a stable USD economy and privatization of numerous public budget guzzling state corporations. Example….a (subsidized) metro ticket in Buenos Aires today costs 20 euro cents…in Amsterdam it is about 3 euros (15 times more!). For starters he devalued the peso with 50% around New Year. When we arrived in Argentina a week later we did not notice any serious manifestations. Probably tough on the majority of the working class but hardly to avoid; and that is what many Argentinians may believe now as well. The story goes that if all Argentinians took out their hidden US bucks away from under their mattresses and put these into the system the crisis could be over soon. We shall know more and perhaps better by the end of 2024! Success Milei; he may be an unusual and sometimes crazy politician but maybe that is what is needed now for Argentina! Give it a try! Biya and I changed our ‘blue dollars’ into pesos in the street which is openly done by all foreigners and Argentinians who have access to foreign currencies. So the country turned out to be as cheap as Bolivia with the best meat money can buy in the world. Far better than Zimbabwe or South Africa! 

What did we miss…..Visit Uruguay, Walk up to the FitzRoy track, Peek into the Potosi silver mine in Bolivia, Ushuaia town, the Beagle Canal, Puerto Arenas in Chile, Salta town in Argentina, Tango in Buenos Aires, 

Relevant music:

‘Roosevelt in Trinidad’, a calypso song performed by Attila the Hun in 1937 and covered later by Ry Cooder (1970) and in an extravagant way by Van Dyke Parks (1972). Roosevelt was a calypso fan (a ‘calypsonian’) and visited Trinidad on his return from Argentina in 1936.

‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’, sung by Madonna

Relevant books:

The Motorcycle Diaries/trip through South America by Che Guevarra (1953) with a movie based on the book in 2004 

Pablo Escobar; a biography by Nico Verbeek, in Dutch only (2015)

A Quiet Flame / a  well researched detective novel about Nazis in Argentina in the 1950ies by Philip Kerr (2008)

Relevant movies:

‘Missing’ by Costa Gavras about the overthrow of the Allende regime in Chile (1982)

‘The Mission’ by Roland Joffe about the Jesuit missions in South America (1986)

‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ by George R. Hill about two American bank/train robbers with other outlaws ‘the wild bunch’ (1969). They fled the USA by steamer from New York to Buenos Aires in 1905. And remained for years in the Chubut region of Patagonia in Argentina where they bought a large farm close to Cholila of over 6.000 hectares but continued also  their criminal work. We passed the hotel where they once stayed when they planned to cross into Chile. The hotel 'Parador la Leona'' is on the Ruta 40 which runs from the south of Argentina all the way up to Bolivia.

Possibly Butch and the 'Kid'  were shot in Bolivia but their bodies were never identified. More recently DNA checks have been done on bones in assumed graves around Potosi but all results have remained negative. Increasingly, experts now believe they returned incognito to the USA to live happily ever after….

Hotel Parador la Leona, border Argentina-Chile

‘Evita’ film-musical by Alan Parker about the life of Eva Peron (1996)

‘The Settlers’ by Felipe Galvez-Haberle about the genocide on the Indian population (in particular the Selknam) in Southern Patagonia, Chile (2023)

Museums to be visited:

Sucre: Casa de Libertad offers a beautiful collection of paintings depicting the history that led to the signing of the independence of Bolivia. As a matter of fact Sucre remains the constitutional capital of Bolivia until today.

Filadelfia: the Mennonites community built its own museum in the center of town with artifacts elaborating the identity of this religious community, historical documents and a volunteer who explains it all in detail. Impressive! 

Filadelfia: a few kilometers outside the town we visited the exposition/museum created by the government that focuses on life in the Chaco region, its native people and history.  

Buenos Aires:  Cemetery La Recoleta, which offers a detailed insight into how the rich and famous buried their families. Incredible architecture.

Museum Bellas Artes  offers paintings, many from European masters including Goya, van Gogh, Picasso, Cezanne, all collected during the period Argentina was still wealthy

Museum General offers the history of Argentina but focuses mostly on its leaders and their paraphernalia.

Puerto Natales has a beautiful intimate museum that is managed by a local association; it tells the history of the settlers from Europe and the sad disappearance of the local Indian cultures.

Animals spotted on the road were fox, hummingbird, nandu (ostrich), lama, vicuna, owl, vulture, rose flamingo, green parakeet, plenty of predators like falcon/hawk but we saw no condor.

PS. Biya and I were together for 49 days; practically each day 24 hours. This went very well. Haha and true to the bone, we did have arguments that we realize are part of our character and culture and way of doing things like planning. Biya wants detailed planning including the seating in the bus (a window seat in bus and restaurant please, a room with a view). I am more easy going. Things will not fall apart once the general picture is clear. Then I am very security conscious and she is not…really. Now, writing this blog in Seoul 12th March I realize and acknowledge this/we/us/she and I are a fine couple!