Labour Day

Sunday 1st May 1988 Labour Day

Once again, we stayed comfortably tucked up in bed for most of the morning. Today was Labour Day in Chile and every radio station was broadcasting speeches from Union Leaders and politicians. Labor Day is also known as International Workers’ Day and May Day is a public holiday in many countries worldwide. It usually occurs around May 1, but several countries observe it on other dates. Labor Day / May Day is a public holiday. It is a day off for the general population, and schools and most businesses are closed.

In the course of my conversation with Gerrard last night I discovered that there was a mad Scottish cyclist staying at the Hotel Caribe so I went there to visit Jackie. He was still in bed at noon recovering from three days of frenetic sexual activity with an American dancing girl who had just left for Buenos Aires. Jackie came back to the Hotel Nuevo to meet the others and we all went out to see what Labour Day activities were going on in town.

There was a band playing in the Plaza de Armas which we watched as we munched hot dogs and slurped ice cream. The rest of the town was very quiet with no sign of the rumoured marches or demonstrations by left-wingers and students.

Our walkabout took us back to the Bellavista area and the Parque Forestal. Jackie and I returned to the main plaza for a beer and watched the nutters and the religious nuts who raved and sang around the outdoor tables.

At 16:30 hrs. we went to the cinema to see “Platoon” and “In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro”. The latter was a 1986 low budget version of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” with baboons instead of winged menace. The government and a mine owner (John Rhys-Davies) ignore a ranger's (Timothy Bottoms) warning about 90,000 starving baboons in Kenya.

In Oliver Stone’s epic 1986 film “Platoon” Chris Taylor, a neophyte recruit in Vietnam, finds himself caught in a battle of wills between two sergeants, one good and the other evil. A shrewd examination of the brutality of war and the duality of man in conflict.

We wandered down the pedestrian precinct passing clowns performing in the plaza and ended up in a small café close to our hotel. Here we had the Cubierto (set meal) while the geezer on the next table stood up for the Chilean National Anthem and told us what a good chap Pinochet was as he gave the presidential Labor Day speech on the black and white television. The other diners seemed less impressed.

Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of the Republic by the junta in 1974 and becoming the de facto dictator of Chile, and from 1981 to 1990 as de jure President after a new Constitution, which confirmed him in the office, was approved by a referendum in 1980.

Augusto Pinochet rose through the ranks of the Chilean Army to become General Chief of Staff in early 1972 before being appointed its Commander-in-Chief on 23 August 1973 by President Salvador Allende. On 11th September 1973, Pinochet seized power in Chile in a coup d'état, with the support of the U.S., that toppled Allende's democratically elected left-wing Unidad Popular government and ended civilian rule.

In December 1974, the ruling military junta appointed Pinochet Supreme Head of the nation by joint decree, although without the support of one of the coup's instigators, Air Force General Gustavo Leigh. After his rise to power, Pinochet persecuted leftists, socialists, and political critics, resulting in the executions of 1,200 to 3,200 people, the internment of as many as 80,000 people, and the torture of tens of thousands. According to the Chilean government, the number of executions and forced disappearances was 3,095. Operation Condor, a U.S.-supported terror operation focusing on South America, was founded at the behest of the Pinochet regime in late November 1975, his 60th birthday.

We went on to a seedy bar with the Texan hippy Robert and drank beer in the company of alcoholics and prostitutes until midnight. Back in our room I found another drinking party going on. We sat on the floor and drank wine until it ran out at 02:00 hrs. before getting into bed.

Cerro San Cristobal

Saturday 30th April 1988

None of us were conscious until about noon. We used the hot shower – brilliant! and lazed about listening to the radio. At about 14:00 hrs. we overcame our hangovers and apathy and set off in search of the artisan market area.

We found a display of modern art in a magnificent old building with a glass domed roof. This was probably The Santiago Museum of Contemporary Art which was created in 1947 and is run by the University of Chile Faculty of Arts.

There were some pretty bizarre exhibits and we met up with a few more travellers, including Gerrard from Dublin. He had a horror story to tell about Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. He and the eight others who had shared a rented apartment in Copacabana had been robbed at gunpoint by five drug-crazed men posing as policemen.

They took practically everything that they had, packing it into a couple of their rucksacks. They almost raped a Swiss bloke, pulling down his trousers and greasing up his arse, but presumably couldn’t get it up and didn’t manage to complete the homosexual act. “I thanked my lucky stars that I am ugly and they left me alone!” quipped Gerrard.

We walked through the Parque Forestal which is a large, narrow park with a wealth of statues dotted with numerous allegedly must-see locations in downtown Santiago. It borders the Mapocho River from Plaza Baquedano, also known as Plaza Italia, all the way to Estación Mapocho, a historical building and cultural centre near the Puente Cal y Canto metro station. Mercado Central, La Vega, and the Bellas Artes museum are some of the other major destinations located in or adjacent to Parque Forestal.

We continued up the Pío Nono to the funicular railway station at the base of the massive Cerro San Cristobal (San Cristobal Hill) which rises up from the centre of Santiago and houses the city’s largest public park. At the top of the hill are several spacious terraces and lookouts from which one can take in the breadth of the capital from the peace of the hill’s greenery, high above the hustle and bustle of downtown.

The hill is accessed from its base in Barrio Bellavista, from which one can reach the top either by car, via the road that winds up the hill, or the ascensor (elevator or funicular), which carries visitors up the length of the hill and offers a variety of views along the way. One can also opt to walk up the hill via the auto-access road, though this is not recommended as the road is not geared toward pedestrians and several points along the road are quite isolated.

The girls took the train up while the rest of us walked up the winding dirt track to the statue of the Virgin Mary on top. Once at the top of the hill, one can explore the many different vantage points for viewing the city and the Andes from the Terraza Bellavista, as well see the 14-metre-high Virgin Mary statue and adjacent outdoor church up close.

The city spread out into the distance below us, dimly seen through the haze of smog. At the base of the statue was a caged collection of memorabilia from Pope John Paul II’s visit in April 1987. Lower down there was a statue of the crucifixion scene.

We sat on the steps as the light faded and the temperature dropped. The city lights winked on as we walked briskly down and back through the evening crowds along the Avenida O’Higgins. A huge picture of Arnold Schwarzeneggar stares down from one of the cinemas which was showing “The Running Man”.

When we got back to our room we just lolled around until Gerrard, Robert from Texas and I decided to go out and get something to eat. It was practically impossible to find somewhere that did something other than hot dogs, hamburgers, fried chicken or mini pizzas.

In the end we gave up and took the special offer hot dog and beer package offered by all of the cafés. We walked on down to the Bella Vista area (Pío Nono) and after a perusal of the jewellery stalls, we sat at a pavement bar drinking pints of lager while a folk group hammered out local music on flutes, guitars and drums. Gerrard hopefully bought some chocolate for a Chilean bird (girl) on the next table but she wasn’t interested.

At 02:00 hrs. the bars closed, which was a relief as we were beginning to shiver with the cold. On our walk back we came across a crumpled car smashed into a shuttered shop front. A trail of blood drips meandered down the road away from the wreckage.

Back at the hotel I expected to find the others asleep but they were sitting around a candle surrounded by empty pisour and wine bottles, reciting Swedish nursery rhymes about frogs jumping through windows.

I nipped out and bought a bottle of red wine from a 24-hour café bar down the road and sat down to join them. Karin was giggling and babbling in Swedish for much of the time. We chatted and laughed into the small hours. The hotel staff seem to be up for “business as usual” all night long.

Hotel Nuevo

Friday 29th April 1988

Karin and I had a good long lie in while Bill packed and set off for Valparaíso on the coast. Eventually we got up and packed up our gear and moved to the cheaper Hotel Nuevo that Karin had found on San Pablo y Morandé. Karin had a mountain of gear with her, and I carried a carrier bag full of books for her, changing hands frequently because of the weight.

The Hotel Nuevo was a fairly dilapidated but friendly hotel which cost us 600 Chilean Pesos each. We joined American Preston Clarke Edwards and New Zealand Kathy McQuillan in a big room with five beds overlooking the street outside.

The ceiling paint was peeling, the wallpaper held on with masking tape and we had an in-house bathroom suite comprising of a washbasin and a bidet in a hardboard closet with a grubby curtain. The big double-windows with broken panes allowed the sun to shine into our room for most of the day. It was shabby but comfortable enough for four rough and ready travellers.

We had lunch in a posh restaurant which offered a cheap set lunch which was tasty enough but in tiny portions. We visited the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art looking at the usual collection of old pots and crude clay statues. A background tape played tribal chants and rhythmic grunts and there was an impressive collection of figures in mystic ceremonial costume and body paint.

The museum was founded by the Chilean architect and antiquities collector Sergio Larraín García-Moreno, who had sought premises for the display and preservation of his private collection of pre-Columbian artefacts acquired over the course of nearly fifty years. With the support of Santiago's municipal government at the time, García-Moreno secured the building and established the museum's curatorial institution. The museum first opened in December 1981.

The museum is housed in the Palacio de la Real Aduana that was constructed between 1805 and 1807. It is located a block west of the Plaza de Armas and close to the Palacio de los Tribunales de Justicia de Santiago and the Former National Congress Building.

We then stocked up with comestibles in the supermarket and returned to our hotel room where we met up with Preston and Kathy. The four of us then set off with the intention of watching the sunset from Cerro San Cristóbal, but once again we left it too late and had to settle for the nearer Cerro Santa Lucia.

We took the super clean efficient Metro for 45 Chilean Pesos to the stop outside the hill and walked up through the fountains and arches to the plazas around the summit. The idea to build an underground railway network in Santiago dates back to 1944, when new ways to improve the chaotic transport system were sought after the rapid population growth the city was experiencing since the early 1930s.

However, ideas would begin to take shape in the 1960s, when the government released an international tender for the development of an urban transport system. On 24 October 1968, the government of Eduardo Frei Montalva approved the draft submitted by the Franco-Chilean consortium BCEOM SOFRETU CADE, in which the construction of five lines with an extension of approximately 60 kilometres by 1990 was proposed.

On 29 May 1969, works finally began for the construction of the first line, which would link the Civil District and the area of Barrancas (current-day Lo Prado). On 15 September 1975, the first line of the metro was opened by Augusto Pinochet during the military regime.

We sat on the wall of the fort at the top of the Cerro Santa Lucia as it got dark. Several shady characters were loitering amongst the rocks around us. On the way back we visited David and Tony at the Hotel Londres. David was in bed with a cold, but Tony joined us for a visit to the cinema to see “9½ Weeks”.

9½ Weeks is a 1986 American erotic romantic drama film directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke. Basinger portrays a New York City art gallery employee who has a brief yet intense affair with a mysterious Wall Street broker, played by Rourke.

The title of the film refers to the duration of a relationship between Wall Street arbitrageur John Gray and SoHo art gallery employee Elizabeth McGraw. John initiates and controls the various experimental sexual practices of this abusive relationship to push Elizabeth's boundaries. In doing so, Elizabeth experiences a gradual downward spiral toward an emotional breakdown.

After the film we walked along the River Mapocho to the artisan area around the Puente Pío Nono. Several centuries ago the Spaniards led by the conquistador Pedro de Valdivia arrived in the valley of the river Mapocho. In 1541 they were given the order to found a new city in this place and thus appeared Santiago.

Here there are pavement cafés street musicians, venders of jewellery and hippy regalia plus a selection of clubs and bars. We walked around this lively area before finally settling at one of the umbrella-shaded tables for a bottle of wine.

Live music came from musicians on the surrounding tables with Tom Tom drums and guitars. At 03:00 hrs. we headed back swigging from a take-away carton of red wine as we walked.

Cerro Santa Lucia

Thursday 28th April 1988

We awoke after a good night’s rest for a change and had breakfast in the museum/stately home-like lobby outside our room. I sat down with the transistor radio playing to try once more to bring my diary up to date. I scribbled for a couple of hours while Karin debated what to do with her mass of excess baggage.

At 11:45 hrs. I went to meet Bill at the Argentine Consulate and collect our passports. We met another English chap at the Consulate, and he came with us to pick up Karin and change up some travellers cheques.

We went too a travel agent in an alley opposite the Burger Inn on Ahumada, which gave us 275 Chilean Pesos for cash and travellers cheques. We then went on to have a good set lunch in the “El Vegetariano”, a trendy vegetarian restaurant with modern décor.

I returned to the hotel after taking a few photographs and continued writing up my daily diary while listening to a radio station that played dreamy and romantic music all day long. Bill came back at 16:30 hrs., Karin had gone off in search of a cheaper hotel, and we set off to watch the sunrise at Cerro San Cristóbal (San Cristóbal Hill).

The sun seemed to be going down fast, so we settled for the lesser but closer Cerro Santa Lucia, which is a park built on a hill located in the centre of the city. At 69 meters high, this hill provides one of the loveliest views of the city and is a great place to spend an afternoon and watch the sunset.

This hill is actually quite the historical locale. First off, it is the remnant of a 15-million-year-old volcano. Secondly, the conquistadors used it as a lookout point when they were conquering Chile. It was atop this hill that Pedro de Valdivia declared the founding of Santiago in 1541.

In 1872 Governor Benjamin Vickuna Mackenna decided to turn the hill into a park to commemorate its significance in the city’s history. Since then, it has undergone many renovations. Today, it comprises 65,300 square meters, replete with bronze gates, metal stairways, and various fountains and statues.

Other than a few terrace areas, the park is essentially vertical. You’ll keep moving up and winding around the hill if you follow any of the various staircases. On each level, there is a place to pause, relax, and take in the view. However, to get the best shot of the city, you’ll have to head all the way up to the top.

A magnificent colonial building (arch) stood behind fountains and palm trees with stairs curling upwards on either side. At the top we watched the anti-climatic sinking of the sun amongst a group of school kids, amorous couples and people caught short. There were human turds and the stink of urine all over the place. A pall of grey smog masked the surrounding mountains.

We returned to our room in the Hotel Londres and Bill got dressed up for a night out with an old friend. I wrote some postcards and went out with David and another New Zealand yachtsman for a big meal in a Chinese restaurant and a couple of beers.

Above: Hotel Residencial Londres in Santiago de Chile.

We sauntered back via the Plaza de Armas, arriving back at the hotel as the pavement stalls were being dismantled at 22:30 hrs. Crowds gathered around clown acts playing in the main plaza and on the pedestrian precincts.

I got back to the room just before Karin who had been to the flicks (cinema). She hadn’t eaten so I went with her to one of the cafés on Avenida Santa Rosa. I had a couple of draft lagers while we chatted and watched one of the staff dismantling unsold pizzas to reuse the constituents tomorrow.

We dashed through the maniac buses across Avenida Libertador Bernado O’Higgins at midnight to get an ice cream on the way back to our room.

Santiago de Chile

Wednesday 27th April 1988

We arrived in Santiago de Chile just after dawn at 06:30 hrs. and walked out into the city through an eager mob of porters and taxicab drivers. Santiago, also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the centre of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region. The city is entirely in the country's central valley. Most of the city lies between 500–650 metres (1,640–2,133 feet) above mean sea level.

Founded in 1541 by the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia, Santiago has been the capital city of Chile since colonial times. The city has a downtown core of 19th-century neoclassical architecture and winding side-streets, dotted by art deco, neo-gothic, and other styles. Santiago's cityscape is shaped by several stand-alone hills and the fast-flowing Mapocho River, lined by parks such as Parque Forestal and Balmaceda Park.

The Andes Mountains can be seen from most points in the city. These mountains contribute to a considerable smog problem, particularly during winter, due to the lack of rain. The city outskirts are surrounded by vineyards and Santiago is within an hour of both the mountains and the Pacific Ocean.

Santiago is the cultural, political and financial centre of Chile and is home to the regional headquarters of many multinational corporations. The Chilean executive and judiciary are located in Santiago, but Congress meets mostly in nearby Valparaíso. Santiago is named after the biblical figure St. James.

We walked south to the wide Avenida del Liberador General B. O’Higgins and then east to the red San Francisco church and the Residencial Londres hotel on Calle Londres. Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme 20th August 1778 – 24th October 1842) was a Chilean independence leader who freed Chile from Spanish rule in the Chilean War of Independence. He was a wealthy landowner of Basque-Spanish and Irish ancestry.

Above: Inside the Residencial Londres hotel in Santiago.

Although he was the second Supreme Director of Chile (1817–1823), he is considered one of Chile's founding fathers, as he was the first holder of this title to head a fully independent Chilean state. He was Captain General of the Chilean Army, Brigadier of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, General Officer of Gran Colombia and Grand Marshal of Peru.

The city was a pleasant mixture of imposing colonial buildings and modern tower blocks. A multitude of buses sped along the wide Avenida turning the hazy air grey with their exhaust fumes. The Chilean people were of pale complexion, and it was difficult to believe that we had not been magically transported to Europe.

We left our bags at the Hotel Londres and were told to come back at 11:00 hrs. when our room would be ready for occupancy. It would cost us 1,100 Chilean Pesos per person. We had coffee on the pedestrian precinct of Paseo Ahumada, picked up a town plan at a Tourist Kiosk and sought out the main Post Office where I picked up a letter from Beatriz Dougal, a Chilean colleague from BP Research.

The Post Office was an impressive old pink building. The Central Post Office Building (Spanish: Correo Central de Santiago) is a historic post office building on the northern edge of the Plaza de Armas. It is adjacent to the Palacio de la Real Audiencia de Santiago and is located on what was the land lot originally owned by Pedro de Valdivia and where he built his house.

The site also was occupied by a building that served as Presidential Palace until 1846. Construction of the current building began in 1881 and was designed by Ricardo Brown. Its current appearance dates to 1908. It was designated a National Monument of Chile in 1976.

We then went on to the Argentine Consulate to apply for a visa for Argentina. We found it on Avenida Vicuña Mackenna (This avenue arose from the project of the mayor Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna to make a "waist road for the city".) and with a minimum of fuss we filled in a short form and paid 2,340 Chilean Pesos for a 10-day Transit Visa. A 90-day Tourist Visa cost twice as much.

We had to pick up our passports at noon the next day. We then went back to claim our room in the Hotel Londres. It is a fabulous, characterful heritage hotel with a wealth of dark polished hardwood and antique furniture. Today it would be badged a boutique hotel.

Our triple room had ornate wooden beds, a massive mirror-fronted wardrobe and a balcony overlooking the street which looked like one of the mews in Belgravia in London. We stocked up with goodies in the supermarket and had a picnic lunch in the Plaza de Armas. A pleasant bottle of Chilean red wine, with a cork that was reluctant to leave the bottle, cost only 119 Chilean Pesos.

The afternoon was spent in wandering the pleasant city streets between the Plaza de Armas and Avenida O’Higgins, changing money, buying camera film and enquiring at travel agents about internal flight costs in Argentina.

At 15:00 hrs. we went back to relax a bit at the hotel. I had a cold shower in the huge bathroom with its Victorian bathroom suite which included a bidet. In the evening we had chicken and chips on the busy Paseo Ahumada, washed down with a disgustingly sweet fruit drink before joining a massive queue at the cinema to see “Dirty Dancing”.

Wednesdays were half-price days at the flicks so the crowds rolled in. The film was an average “Saturday Night Fever” job, or could even be an update of an old Elvis film. Dirty Dancing is a 1987 American romantic drama dance film written by Eleanor Bergstein, produced by Linda Gottlieb, and directed by Emile Ardolino. Starring Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze, it tells the story of Frances "Baby" Houseman (Grey), a young woman who falls in love with dance instructor Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze) at a vacation resort in the summer of 1963.

After the film we walked through the still busy streets to a café for Coca Cola before returning to bed. People on the streets are well dressed in the latest Western fashions and the shops are all crammed with the latest consumer goods.

Antofagasta

Above: Our destination, Santiago de Chile.

Tuesday 26th April 1988

We got to the Bus Station at 07:00 hrs. and found that Bill had to buy another bus ticket. He got 10% discount using Karin’s student card, but it still meant for an expensive ride to Santiago for him. We left Calama at 08:00 hrs. on a comfy bus which quickly and smoothly conveyed us to Antofagasta where we had to change coaches.

Antofagasta is a port city in northern Chile, about 1,100 kilometres (700 miles) north of Santiago. It is the capital of Antofagasta Province and Antofagasta Region. After the Spanish American wars of independence, Bolivia claimed Antofagasta as part its territory. Despite having an overwhelmingly ethnic Chilean population, Chile recognised Bolivian sovereignty of Antofagasta in 1866, but in 1879 Chile recanted its recognition of Bolivian sovereignty citing a Bolivian breach of the latest boundary treaty. Antofagasta was captured by Chile on 14th February 1879 triggering the War of the Pacific (1879–83). Chilean sovereignty was officially recognised by Bolivia under the terms of the 1904 Treaty of Peace and Friendship.

The city of Antofagasta is closely linked to mining activity, being a port and the chief service hub for one of Chile's major mining areas. While silver and saltpetre mining have been historically important for Antofagasta, since the mid-19th century copper mining is by far the most important mining activity for Antofagasta.

We had twenty minutes before the 11:00 hrs. coach to Santiago de Chile departed so I spent the time making a monster cheese, tomato and raw onion roll for lunch. The bus was more like an aeroplane inside with overhead lockers for our baggage.

I started to read “City of the Dead” by Herbert Lieberman, a morbidly absorbing novel about a Police Medical Examiner doing autopsies in New York City, first published 1976. In the gritty seventies, Manhattan is a dark, dangerous, and threatening place. One of the bright spots in this decaying metropolis is Paul Konig. As the city's chief medical examiner, he has developed an impressive reputation for his skills in forensic pathology skills that will be put to the ultimate test when a dangerous psychopath kidnaps Konig's daughter.

Awakened by phone calls featuring his daughter's desperate screams each night, Konig finds his life unravelling, not only personally but professionally. Between the case of a serial killer who leaves a trail of severed body parts in his wake, an investigation into the forensic work on an alleged prison suicide, and a nakedly ambitious deputy medical examiner, he is at the end of his rope, and it will take every ounce of his strength to save his own life as well as his family's.

The scenery was a relentless vista of brown sand and low rugged hills devoid of vegetation. We stopped at lunchtime and Bill, Karin and I walked across some sticky grey drying mud flats to the Pacific Ocean.

The sun was bright. We got back on the bus and hurtled on southwards, stopping at a fruit fly control checkpoint during the afternoon. Our bags were searched to ensure that we were not smuggling forbidden fruit.

Towards evening a few patches of green grass appeared and soon some cultivated plots of land. The few towns that we passed through were small and looked pleasant with many modern buildings. We were served a dry cheese sandwich and a very sweet cup of black coffee before the lights on the coach were extinguished at 19:30 hrs.

The coach was half empty so we each had a double seat to sprawl out over to doze through the night.

Chuquicamata

Monday 25th April 1988

We got up at 08:00 hrs. and paid our hotel bill with some argument as to whether there should have been a reduction for the lack of hot showers. We walked out into the main plaza and almost immediately Evelyn, the Chilean girl from Santiago, who spoke English and Dutch, secured us a lift in a jeep to Calama.

Bill, Karin and I bundled into the back of the small vehicle trying to integrate our bodies with our substantial collection of luggage. We moved about occasionally to try and restore circulation to dying limbs as we hurtled along the black tarmac ribbon through the featureless desert terrain.

Only occasional road signs gave us clues to our progress. At last we arrived in Calama where we painfully expanded to our proper sizes and massaged cramped legs back into life. We walked to the TRAMACA Bus Station, checked in our luggage and bought tickets for the next available bus to Santiago de Chile.

We then went into the town and after a brief survey of the available hotels, we booked a triple room in the “Los Andes” for 400 Chilean Pesos per person. There was no hot water, “solamente agua pura y fria” (only water pure and free).

We bought bread, cheese and drinks and went for a picnic lunch in the main plaza by the bandstand. It was amazing how European the place was, after Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Clean shops with a wealth of varied goods, orderly traffic, people with pale complexions and a cosmopolitan air. We could have been in a town square in Germany.

The Tourist Office told us how to get to “the world’s largest open-cast copper mine at Chuquicamata, owned by the state”. Chuquicamata (referred to as Chuqui for short) is the largest open pit copper mine in terms of excavated volume in the world. It is located in the north of Chile, just outside Calama, at 2,850 metres (9,350 feet) above sea level. It is 215 km (134 mi) northeast of Antofagasta and 1,240 kilometres (770 miles) north of the capital, Santiago.

Flotation and smelting facilities were installed in 1952, and expansion of the refining facilities in 1968 made 500,000 tons annual copper production possible in the late 1970s. Previously part of Anaconda Copper, the mine is now owned and operated by Codelco, a Chilean state enterprise, since the Chilean nationalization of copper in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Its depth of 850 metres (2,790 ft) makes it the second deepest open pit mine in the world, after Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah, United States.

Copper mining has long been the most consistent of Chilean exports, and in the current day, it still accounts for almost one-third of all foreign trade. Yet that 33% is down from a peak of almost 75% in earlier years.

Copper has been mined in the land area between central Chile and southern Peru since Colonial times. Yet it was not until the 20th century that copper reached the importance of other mining exports such as saltpetre or silver. Before the first world war, saltpetre, collected in Chile from abundant deposits of caliche in the Atacama Desert, was the primary source of nitrates in the world.

After the World War I, because of the production of artificial nitrates, synthesized first in Germany by the combination of the Haber process and the Ostwald process, the world market for saltpetre, which was Chile's main export, collapsed. In turn, Chile's economy became heavily dependent on the copper industry. From that period, copper became known as "Chile's salary."

We took a yellow fixed-route taxi to the town for 150 Chilean Pesos each, and then a black cab to the mine Public Relations Office for 70 Chilean Pesos each. Here we sat on the steps opposite a statue of a miner with a shovel, a tribute to the mine workers, and a huge crane.

A group of gringos slowly accumulated until 13:30 hrs. when the door open and we were ushered in to fill in forms and to be issued with a green hard hat. We were taken into the mine works on a yellow coach while our guide delivered facts and figures in a well-practiced Spanish monologue.

We stopped several times at panoramic viewpoints over the enormous, terraced mine working and the various processing plants. Mammoth dump trucks swarmed about the site like huge ants. The lasting impression was the huge scale of the operation.

It seemed to be very well organised. We stopped by a safety poster which proclaimed that although a cat has only seven(?!) lives you only have one, so take care of it. From here we were issued with goggles to go with our hard hats and we were shown the hot dark interior of the Pyrometallurgy Operations Building.

Protectively clad men tended roaring cylindrical furnaces which occasionally spat out sparks and cinders. Huge crucibles stood cooling with slag or copper solidifying in them. We then returned to the main gate where we handed in our safety headgear.

A load of us bundled into the back of a pick-up truck which had been hired by a tall Swiss guy. We raced back to Calama, being stopped once at a police checkpoint. The cop seemed reluctant to condemn or condone a truck load of gringos and allowed us to proceed to Calama.

Back in town we bought some goodies for tomorrows long bus trip. The distance between Calama to Santiago is 1,618 kilometres (1,005 miles) and takes approximately about 22 hours. We then returned for a shower, more of a trickle, bien fria at the Hotel Los Andes. Karin failed to get a shower, cold or otherwise and returned to our room with a stream of Swedish obscenities issuing from her lips.

We relaxed for a while in our room, which overlooked the main street with a ramshackle wooden balcony. At 19:30 hrs. we met a group of other travellers who had been on the copper mine tour with us. We went for dinner in the Restaurante El Rincon Hipico which we had virtually to ourselves.

A huge German with a strong Irish accent kept us amused with his anecdotes as we indulged in the Chilean red wine once again. Bill had lost his bus ticket during the day so after the meal I went with him to the Bus Station to see if anything could be done.

Sadly it was closed so we walked back through the now deserted streets to the hotel.

San Pedro de Atacama

Sunday 24th April 1988

Dawn broke and the temperature became comfortable again and with a sigh of relief we arrived at Calama Station. It was 06:00 hrs. which was 13 hours late. We got up and stretched, loaded up our bags and squinted as we entered the bright sunlit day.

Together with a Dutch girl and her Chilean companion we all bundled into a taxi to the TRAMACA Bus Station. Here we checked in our baggage, found out that the bus to San Pedro de Atacama left at 11:00 hrs. and went out in search of some breakfast.

A brief walk-about ascertained that there was nothing open at 08:00 hrs. on a Sunday morning apart from a café that was serving “lunch”. We returned to the Bus Station for coffee and bought some rolls which we filled with our last tin of tuna.

There were only two tickets left for the San Pedro de Atacama but a huge number of gringos were accumulating and the company laid on another bus. Bill and I went for a walk around the town. It was very European in style with some delicatessens which we gaped at in mouth-watering awe.

We walked out to the dry, sandy outskirts where a distant column of smoke pin-pointed the huge copper plant of Chuquicamata. We walked back to the bus depot passing a place where the military were setting up speakers blaring out music for some event later that day.

Bill and I jumped on the 11:00 hrs. bus and dozed most of the way through the barren desert scenery to the oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama. The road was smooth and tarmacked, unaccustomed luxury!

It is said that the high quantities of quartz and copper in the region gives its people positive energy, and the good vibes of northern Chile's number-one tourist draw, San Pedro de Atacama, are sky high.

The popularity of this adobe precordillera oasis stems from its position in the heart of some of northern Chile's most spectacular scenery. A short drive away lies the country's largest salt flat, its edges crinkled by volcanoes (symmetrical Licancábur, at 19,409 feet/5916 metres, looms closest to the village). Here too are fields of steaming geysers, a host of otherworldly rock formations and weird layer-cake landscapes.

San Pedro itself, 66 miles (106km) southeast of Calama via paved Chile 23, is quite small, but it attracts hordes of travellers. Despite the high prices and tourist-agency touts, there's undeniable allure to this desert village with its picturesque adobe streets, laid-back residents and music-filled eateries.

We arrived at the village by the solid old white church beside the village square. Soldiers and 4-ton trucks were there in abundance, but they appeared to just be moving out. We booked into the Pension La Florida for 600 Chilean Pesos per person and reserved beds for the girls who were coming in on the 11:30 hrs. extra bus. When they all arrived we had a substantial almuerzo in the hotel restaurant, a four course feast.

In the afternoon Bill and I went out the check out the famous museum at the corner of the plaza. The Padre Le Paige (Father Le Paige) museum has around 4.000 skulls, innumerable mummies, weapons and utensils in exhibition. Its history is included with the arrival of the jesuita priest, Padre Le Paige, who was deeply interested in the study of the prehistoric atacameñan culture. He began a study in the places inhabited by this culture and got collected a great number of species of an incalculable value of great beauty and history.

Located towards a corner of San Pedro de Atacama's main square. It presents a complete exposition of the evolution of the atacameñan culture in its 11,000 years of history, selected between the vast collection that reach the 450,000 archaeological objects and 100 ethnographic objects.

The personality of Father Gustavo Le Paige occupies an outstanding seat of honor in the development of Chilean archaeology and particularly, in the directed workings to reveal the roots of the northern man of our country. He founded the Regional Archaeological Museum of San Pedro de Atacama on January 6th, 1963.

Housed in a modern hexagonal complex we browsed amongst the displays of Indian relics, stone age tools, materials and human remains which had been well preserved in the arid desert soil around this region.

There were mummies of Indians buried in a sitting position with their knees drawn up to their chests. They were wrapped in woven blankets and many sported head gear which reflected their rank in life. One was buried in a huge earthenware jug.

Most people took a photograph of “Miss Chile” who sat in her glass case resplendent in her headband and luxurious black plaited hair.

Back at the Pension La Florida I had just sat down to do some writing when Bill came in with a Spanish lady who was recruiting more people to make up a trip to the Valley of the Moon. In a few moments there were too many takers.

Eventually, seven of us clambered into the Tourist Office jeep for the sunset excursion for 1,000 Chilean Pesos each. We drove along a dirt road to an area where a few weird and wonderful shapes had been left by the erosion of the salt and gypsum mountains.

According to the tour guide we begin our journey with the blessing of the Three Marys of quartz and granite that guard the entrance to the valley. Around these sculptures, the salt hidden in the sand shines like fragments of stars and the absolute silence makes us believe at times that we are transported to the natural satellite that every night accompanies our sleep.

We walked about the crusty salt flat picking up clear blocks of crystalline salt. As the shadows started to stretch, we drove to a huge sand dune. Finally, eager to contemplate the Valley of the Moon in all its majesty, we head to the Great Dune.

We are lucky because we arrive right at sunset when the salt mountain range transforms into a dance of colours, shadows and lights that moves us deeply. We clambered up, sliding in the loose cascading sand to a high point on a sandstone peak.

From here we watched the sunset in an ever-changing contrast of reds, pinks and blue skies amongst the rugged desert mountains. We snapped away merrily with our cameras until it was too dark and slithered down the great dune as the last band of red sunset faded behind the black sawblade of distant hills.

We stood around the jeep and pondered the stars, the constellation of Orion and the Southern Cross being clearly recognisable in the clear sky. Eventually we drove back to San Pedro de Atacama along a rocky trail.

Back at the town square we were given a slide show of the other local attractions, geysers and the extensive salt flats of the huge Salar de Atacama. Bill and I were keen to try the famed Chilean wine. The press in the UK had said if Chile ever get their act together the French wine trade will suffer.

We bought a bottle of red wine to wash down some llama and onion pasties in a friendly restaurant on the corner of the plaza. Returning to our lodgings we couldn’t resist the temptation to indulge in another bottle. We drank this while chatting to the Irishman who was sharing our triple room.

We got in bed for an early night, the wine making sure that we fell asleep immediately after we lay down.

Ollagüe

Saturday 23rd April 1988

We had a long morning stop at Julaca Station while the local engine shunted some other carriages about. Julaca in the region of Potosí is a city located in Bolivia, some 199 miles or (320 kilometres) South-West of Sucre, the country's capital city. Then we got away to the border between Bolivia and Chile where we had to change trains.

Everyone bustled about in the usual unnecessary rush to disembark, only to wait for ages amongst the mountains of baggage for the Chilean train. Still at least is was a change from the carriage for a while.

A yellow train pulled up and there was a mad rush for seats, which was unnecessary because there was far more capacity than passengers. We then rumbled along to Ollagüe on the Chilean border where we all had to get off the train again.

Ollagüe is a Chilean frontier village and commune in El Loa Province, Antofagasta Region. The village is 215 kilometres (134 miles) northeast of the city of Calama, and has a station and marshalling yard on the FCAB rail line.

The Ferrocarril de Antofagasta a Bolivia (British company name: Antofagasta (Chili) & Bolivia Railway or FCAB for short) is a private railway operating in the northern provinces of Chile. It is notable in that it was one of the earliest railways built to 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) narrow gauge, with a route that climbed from sea level to over 4,500 m (14,764 ft), while handling goods traffic totalling near 2 million tons per annum.

It proved that a railway with such a narrow gauge could do the work of a standard gauge railway and influenced the construction of other railways such as the Estrada de Ferro Oeste de Minas. It was later converted to 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) metre gauge, and still operates today.

We handed over our passports as we got off the train and joined two queues at the Customs and Immigration buildings. It was 14:00 hrs. as we stood in line on the desert plain. There was a short queue of gringos and a long, ragged line of locals.

Baggage was heaped up near the locals and women with babies were allowed to sit in the shade. These mothers were the first to be processed after a half hour wait. Next it was the gringos (yahoo!). We were admitted one by one over an hour or so and our baggage and persons were searched.

The men were only frisked but women were stripped and searched intimately with the aid of rubber gloves! Apparently drug smugglers with cocaine had been caught on the train last week. We got back on the train and got a rice and fish meal for 250 Chilean Pesos while the Customs men dealt painstakingly slowly with the locals.

During the late afternoon I nipped into the adjacent town of Ollagüe, which was seemingly deserted. I crossed the army assault course behind the border guards station and walked along the main street which was deserted and silent save the sound of the wind swirling the sand.

I found the local shop in a low drab house amongst the other low drab houses and bought milk, yoghurt and bananas for dessert. The sun began to set and still a substantial group of locals stood in the lengthening shadows outside the border post.

At about 22:00 hrs. spirits lifted as we shunted a few hundred yards to the first railway station in Chile. Here we had to wait another two hours in which time we got increasingly worried that our passports had not been returned.

Finally, at midnight, we moved off again just as we were settling down to sleep. After five minutes an official walked through the carriage calling out something about pasaportes, and soon, like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, had a trail of followers.

We filed through the kitchen car, felt our way through a pitch-black carriage strewn with sleeping bodies and entered an ancient sleeping car which looked like a relic from “Murder on the Orient Express”. Here we queued up at a cabin where a young official feverishly filled in our tourist cards and returned our passports.

At last we could try to relax for the rest of the night. This train had more empty seats so we could lie out along several and snatch a little bit of sleep. It got very cold and a variety of hats, blankets and ponchos appeared.

Two Australian women loudly related their travel tales to Bill as the locals hissed for silence, an unusual turn-around.

On Train

Friday 22nd April 1988

I got up, packed and did a little bit more diary writing before it was time to leave for the station. I picked up a cold bag(!) of milk on the way as we trudged uphill in the hot sun laden with baggage. There was only one carriage in the station, divided into two halves, 1st Class and 2nd Class.

We found our seats in two facing couches which were designed, or at least numbered to seat six passengers. We defended our lot, keeping the six seat unit to the four of us, despite the onslaught of stout local women with sacks, boxes and bulky bundles wrapped up in blankets. Catering packs of toilet rolls seemed to be a favourite item of luggage. Perhaps there was a shortage of it in Chile?

We had one scare as our carriage was shunted out of the station while David was still in the bog (toilet) on the platform. Fortunately, it was only a dummy run and we soon returned to our previous position where we waited for two hours passed the scheduled departure time.

The train finally set off at 14:00 hrs. The scenery was a uniform wide flat plain covered with scrub grass and every so often a huge crusty white salt flat. The distant mountains seemed to start at the same distance on each side of the track, mauve and snow-capped.

Towns that we passed were low, uniform mud block constructions with peripheral fields of crops and grazing llamas. We read our books most of the time as we rattled monotonously along. Lunch was a major event with the excitement of making and eating tuna and cheese rolls.

Afternoon gave way slowly into evening with only the long stops at stations to interrupt our motion. Night fell and the temperature dropped. Karin produced a sleeping bag which unzipped into a huge square quilt, enough to cover the four of us. We dozed under it as the group opposite played dice, noisily rattling them in a plastic cup before each cast.

Almuerzo

Thursday 21st April 1988

David and Karin called for me at 08:00 hrs. and we went over to Bill and Pen’s hotel, the Rosario for a good breakfast of muesli and yoghurt. We then all trooped up to the railway station to get tickets for tomorrows train to Calama.

A huge queue snaked down the road by the station, each local with a large empty Gaz cylinder to exchange for a full one. We got our first-class train tickets for 55 Bolivianos and were told that the train would leave at 12:00 hrs. noon and arrive at Calama in Chile at 17:00 hrs. the next day.

We then went on a shopping trip to get supplies for this long train journey ahead. We found a covered collection of stalls and stocked up with tinned tuna, cheese and fruit juices. We then trouped around the Casa de Cambio’s looking for one that would firstly change travellers cheques and secondly that stocked Chilean Pesos as well as Bolivianos.

Karin decided that the best approach was to change travellers cheques for $US dollars cash first of all. This was achieved at a mysterious shampoo and sweet shop which was located on Calle Yanacucho to the right of the Farmacia Hispania.

Here Karin and David disappeared out the back to an office while Bill, Pen and I looked hungrily at the British and American confectionary on display. We went off afterwards to find a Casa de Cambio but by now we were in the “dead zone” when all of the shops were shut for a couple of hours for lunch.

We found a place for our own lunch which was popular with the local “white collar” workers and settled down to a substantial almuerzo which was also very cheap. Almuerzo is the most important meal of the Bolivian day, so much so that daily life tends to revolve around it. Long lunches are traditional throughout the country, so businesses and shops often close between the hours of 12 and 2 pm, so that the workers have time to return home for lunch.

A typical Bolivian lunch would consist of several courses, including a soup, a main course of meat, rice, and potatoes, then a dessert and coffee. Lunch is taken at a leisurely pace and is traditionally followed by a nap, the oft-cited siesta.

The bow-tied waiter did well, rushing around and taking numerous orders and getting them right despite not writing anything down. After lunch we still had half an hour until things started opening at 14:00 hrs. so we walked along the main drag.

Bill and Pen wanted to visit the American Express and VARIG Airline offices and we also checked out the cinemas to see what was showing and a what times. After a couple of Casa de Cambios which didn’t have Chilean Pesos or wouldn’t change travellers cheques I went off by myself, arranging to meet up with the others later.

I found the Sud Amer Cambios at Colon 256 and here I was able to change travellers cheques to the value of $70 US dollars for 55 worth of Chilean Pesos and 15 worth of Bolivianos at reasonable rates. There were 272 Chilean Pesos per $1 US dollar.

I then returned to my room to write up some of the backlog of my diary and run off some postcards. This kept me very busy until 18:30 hrs. when Bill and Pen came to call. While the others went to see another film, Pen and I went to see “The Last Emperor”. This was a fascinating film shown in a luxurious cinema with a modern sound system.

In this 1987 movie this sweeping account of the life of Pu-Yi, the last emperor of China, follows the leader's tumultuous reign. After being captured by the Red Army as a war criminal in 1950, Pu-Yi recalls his childhood from prison. He remembers his lavish youth in the Forbidden City, where he was afforded every luxury but unfortunately sheltered from the outside world and complex political situation surrounding him. As revolution sweeps through China, the world Pu-Yi knew is dramatically upended.

At the interval a couple of men with cardboard boxes sprinted to beat each other to customers wanting to buy their sandwiches for a Boliviano. I left Pen at the end of Calle Socabaya at 22:30 hrs. and sprinted uphill to the hotel and a welcome bed.

Chacaltaya

Wednesday 20th April 1988

I chucked my skiing gear into my Pro-Bears holdall bag and headed for Club Andino Boliviano with Karin and David. The receptionist chased us down the road, seeing our bags and assuming that we were moving out without paying.

We failed to find anywhere open for breakfast, so we had to settle for sweets and drinks from one of the numerous wooden stalls which are in all of the streets in La Paz. We met Bill and Pen and after a half-hour wait a battered but sturdy old red Toyota station wagon came to pick us up.

The driver was wearing an old frayed and torn boiler suit and an old yellow hard hat which appeared to be held together with cord. We got underway at 08:40 hrs., trundling along the atrocious roads of the suburbs at a snail’s pace while the driver continued with a monologue on life and politics which was to last all of the way to the ski resort.

The district got poorer as we ascended out of the city basin. Dogs chased the van yapping as we wove from side to side seeking the best way through the rubble and ditches. After an hour we were out in the countryside and the snowy peaks of the resort were visible across the plains of hardy short grass.

The road eventually hair-pinned it’s way up into the mountains passing coloured lakes and green vegetation giving way to brown, angular rubble and scree. We continued up to the snow line and walked the last couple of hundred metres to the Club Andino Club House perched near the top.

The Chacaltaya Ski Lodge was established by Club Andino Boliviano in 1939. It was the highest ski run on Earth at 17,785 feet high. (Since then, global warming had caused the glacier to melt by 2009, six years sooner than scientists had predicted, so no longer a ski run).

Here we got issued with our skis, sticks and boots, which happened to be the first comfortable ski boots that I have come across, and we sat down in the lounge to get ready. Half an hour later, fortified with salami and cheese rolls we set off out onto the ski piste.

Now I was not feeling so confident (only having been on one 2-week ski holiday in Andorra in 1987) but I thought “in for a penny, in for a pound”, and pushed off traversing the steep icy slope. Within a few minutes I was hurtling downhill on my back, separated from my skis. It took me about 200 metres to come to a halt.

David brought me the ski that had come to a rest higher up the slope and I set off again, this time doing a bit better and getting to the bottom of the piste. We had a lot of fun and frustration trying to use the drag list to get back to the top.

We had to carry a length of rope with a wooden bar at one end to put between our legs, and a metal hook on the other, which if you were lucky would snag on the continuously moving wire hawser and haul you up the mountainside. The pulleys over which the drag wire moved were tyre-less wheels.

Eventually we all made it to the top where I fell, slid and scrambled and sometimes even skied back to the bottom. On the third descent I tried to ski straight back into the club house which was halfway down the slope. I almost made it but fell and slid quite a way passed it. I took off my skis and walked back up, arriving breathless at the hut for lunch.

Everyone was exhausted due to the exertion and the altitude and slumped into comfy chairs while summoning the energy to fill some bread rolls to eat. At 15:00 hrs. I went out once more into the breach for a final hour of skiing.

This time I did better, but the air was blue as I tried to use the drag lift, swearing with frustration as my hook was repeatedly kicked off. It was a system that worked admirably once you got the knack, but it took me an infinity to acquire it.

I managed two moderate runs and on the third run I managed to make it into the Ski Lodge, slowly but without mishap. Tiredly we all got changed and invested in some fairly wanky sew-on Club Andino Boliviano badges as souvenirs of our day on the world’s highest ski piste.

We trudged down to where our car waited by a cross on the snowline. The driver could hardly wait to start talking at us and Pen, who was almost incapacitated by the altitude, was the ideal victim for a monologue on mountain sport and health.

The drive back was extremely slow with the driver rabbiting on and gesticulating, telling us that it was too dangerous to go faster. Dangerous to his talking as it was a distraction to drive while he was talking. It took an age to negotiate the roadworks and traffic snarl ups of the dusty city outskirts, but we eventually made it to the Plaza Murillo.

We disembarked, paying the driver and leaving Pen for him to continue talking to! The four of us had a good Chow Fan con Pollo in the Cathay Restaurant before returning to the hotel in a state of exhaustion.

I had a shower and bathed the grazes that I had gained from trying to brake on the icy slopes with my forearms, treating them with Dettol disinfectant. At 21:00 hrs. I slumped into bed for a surprisingly restless night.

Simón Bolívar

Tuesday 19th April 1988

I got up and found a note on my door from Karin Brann, the Swedish girl, and David Moss, a New Zealander. I went to see them in room 6. I went out to try and find a laundry with David but the nearby one given in the South American Handbook 1988 was not there anymore and we could only find Dry Cleaners.

We had breakfast consisting of chicken pasties and coffee in a small place before returning to the hotel. I washed some underpants and socks in the sink and then went out to investigate the market area with Karin.

There were a lot of people and video cameras, plus a huge Policia presence, in the Plaza Murillo where a big crane was replacing the bells in the tower of the huge cathedral. Murillo Square is located in the centre of the city of La Paz, it became the centre of political power in Bolivia after the transfer of the Executive Power to La Paz as a result of the Federal War of 1899.

This space was conceived 10 years after the foundation of the City of Our Lady of La Paz, on 20th October 1548, that is, in 1558 by order of the corregidor Ignacio de Aranda.

This square was designed on the other side of the Choqueyapu River far removed from the main square in Churubamba where Alonso de Mendoza founded the city. The design obeyed the ordinance of the Spanish cities delineated in the form of a checkerboard, with symmetrical, rectangular blocks of equal dimensions.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Plaza Mayor of La Paz was the epicenter of the power of the city and the main stage of public life. Around it were located the buildings of the main institutions, the Cabildo de La Paz was located in the southeast corner (in what is now the Government Palace), the Main Church in the west corner (current cathedral), the Royal Boxes in front of the Cabildo (today the Prefecture), while the Barracks was on the north sidewalk (today the Café París).

The residences of the most notable neighbours were also in this Square, such as the imposing Palace located on the corner of Comercio and Socabaya streets, built in 1775 as the home of D. Francisco Tadeo Diez de Medina. Later known as The Palace of the Counts of Arana and current National Museum of Art. Prominent citizens, merchants and important owners had shops and houses in the immediate vicinity.

We crossed the main avenue at the junction of Mariscal Santa Cruz and 16 de Julio, it’s central reservation dotted with statues, including the obligatory Simón Bolívar. This was fair enough as El Libertador, or Liberator of America, was a Venezuelan military and political leader who led what are currently the countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Bolivia to independence from the Spanish Empire.

We found an expensive touristy market by the plaza in front of the Basilica de San Francisco. The Minor Basilica of San Francisco in the city of La Paz, Bolivia, is a Catholic temple under the invocation of San Francisco de Asís. It is located in the city centre. It is part of the conventual complex that gives its name to the adjacent Plaza Mayor de San Francisco. It was built between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries in the so-called mestizo baroque style. The Franciscan convent is the oldest registered religious house in the city, appearing in 1547, before its foundation in 1548.

We continued up the hill on the other side of the main drag and entered an extensive area of street market stalls selling toiletries, nylon bags, imitation American clothing and all manner of plastic goods. There was also a small witchcraft market where half a dozen old indigenous Indian women sold mysterious coloured powders and dried plant and animal parts.

At 14:30 hrs. we went back to the Hotel Rosario, disenchanted with La Paz market. Here we met Bill Robertson from Scotland and Pen from New Zealand, the two older men that I’d previously met on the boat to Taquile Island on Lake Titicaca.

Together we all walked down to Club Andino Boliviano to find out about skiing at Chacaltaya, the highest ski piste in the world at 5,375m (17,634 feet) metres above sea level. There was a transport strike on in La Paz so it took a while to sort out how we were going to get there.

We sat in the Club’s Board Room while the Club Secretary phoned around. We eventually agreed on paying 20 Bolivianos each for a Toyota without seats plus 28 Bolivianos each for ski hire and petrol for the drag lift. We would leave tomorrow at 08:00 hrs.

We then went out shopping for tomorrow’s day out on the piste, trying in vain to find a supermarket. There was a huge procession with glum music on the main avenue. The base of a golden floral display seemed to be a coffin. If it was a funeral, it must have been for somebody famous.

On the way back I found the well-camouflaged Post Office and bought some postcards and stamps. That evening I went to see “The Living Daylights”, the last James Bond film with the new Bond. The Living Daylights is a 1987 British spy film, the fifteenth entry in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, and the first of two to star Timothy Dalton as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond.

Directed by John Glen, the film's title is taken from Ian Fleming's short story "The Living Daylights", the plot of which also forms the basis of the first act of the film. It was the last film to use the title of an Ian Fleming story until the 2006 instalment Casino Royale. Excellent escapism.

Surprisingly there were only a few other people in the cinema. Most of the La Pazians were queuing for the many liquidation sales along Jiron Junin pedestrian precinct. I had Chinese rice with chicken and a beer in the Catay Restaurant before going back for an early night at 22:00 hrs.

La Paz

Above: La Paz, Bolivia.

Monday 18th April 1988

I said “adios” to Anita and Reinhard who were returning to Cuzco by train and set off to get a colectivo from a point on Avenida el Ejercito, which was two blocks past the hospital. As usual we had to wait for a full complement of passengers before we could leave.

A Dutch couple made up the numbers at 07:30 hrs. and we set off along the southern shores of the great Lake Titicaca. It cost 130 I/- for the two-hour trip to Yunguyo along a bumpy road with good scenery, passing a number of brown mud brick towns. Fishermen plied among the reeds on rush canoes on the lake.

Yunguyo is a town in the Puno Region in southeastern Peru. It is the capital of Yunguyo Province and Yunguyo District. Yunguyo is located on a peninsula on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The border with Bolivia runs next to the town and a road connects it with the town of Copacabana located a few kilometres away on the Bolivian side of the peninsula.

At Yunguyo we found a tranquil pleasant town where stocky Indian women changed money from wooden boxes under big parasols. They weren’t too keen on changing Intis and only wanted $US dollars.

We had the usual wait for a full bus load in a dusty side street. I changed my remaining Intis into chocolate. At last, at 11:00 hrs. we set off for Copacabana. This cost 1 Boliviano, the basic unit of money in Bolivia; equal to 100 centavos, and there were 2.3 Bolivianos to the American dollar.

We were stamped out of Peru, some of us having to pay 5 I/- for a mysterious ticket which probably a contribution to the Customs Officers Beer Fund. We checked in at Bolivian Immigration and although an official said he would like to search our bags we ignored him, feigning non-comprehension of Spanish, and we jumped back onto the bus unmolested.

We bumped down an atrocious road into the Bolivian town of Copacabana, a pleasant looking place for a border town, and a quick dash and 5 Bolivianos got us the last three seats on the 13:00 hrs. bus to La Paz.

We had some makeshift collapsible seats in the central aisle, but it was better than standing for five hours for the 147.2 km (92 mile) road journey. Our fellow passengers were bowler-hatted women with babies wrapped in colourful blankets and sturdy Indian men in suits and trilbys.

The road was a pretty bad dirt track so it was a welcome break to get off the bus for the ferry crossing across the Estrecho de Tiquiña, a narrow constriction at the south east end of Lago Titicaca.

The Strait of Tiquina is located on Lake Titicaca on the Bolivian side of this, in the department of La Paz. It is a separation (or union), of the two bodies of water that make up Lake Titicaca, the largest part in the north called Chucuito and the smallest in the south called Huiñaymarca. It has a width of about 780 meters, which can be easily crossed by powerboat.

A passenger raft service runs through it permanently, and pontoons are used for vehicles. This route is part of the road that connects the city of La Paz and the coastal city of Copacabana on the border with Peru. We paid 0.5 Bolivianos for the bumpy trip across in a launch, while the bus was taken over separately on a flat landing craft.

On the east bank was a colourful statue of a Bolivian soldier bayoneting a Chilean. The legend promised that what once belonged to Bolivia would do so again in the future. This was a protest to Chile cutting Bolivia off from the sea.

We continued through nice scenery, the wide flat altiplano and the snow-capped bounding mountains. At 17:00 hrs. we came to the outskirts of La Paz, officially known as Nuestra Señora de La Paz, and also Chuqi Yapu in Aymara, which is the seat of government as well as the legislative and executive capital of the Plurinational State of Bolivia.

The city, in west-central Bolivia 68 kilometres (42 miles) southeast of Lake Titicaca, is set in a canyon created by the Choqueyapu River. It is in a bowl-like depression, part of the Amazon basin, surrounded by the high mountains of the Altiplano. Overlooking the city is the towering, triple-peaked Illimani. Its peaks are always snow-covered and can be seen from many parts of the city.

At an elevation of roughly 3,650 metres (11,975 feet) above sea level, La Paz is the highest capital city in the world. Due to its altitude, La Paz has an unusual subtropical highland climate, with rainy summers and dry winters.

La Paz was founded on 20 October 1548, by the Spanish conquistador Captain Alonso de Mendoza, at the site of the Inca settlement of Laja as a connecting point between the commercial routes that led from Potosí and Oruro to Lima.

The low mud brick buildings and rough alleyways looked like a scene from a “Mad Max” film. The traffic threw up trails of dust. Road works were underway, and the setting sun silhouetted the workers against the fog of brown dust.

The drive into the centre was painfully slow with numerous stops for people to get off and retrieve their anonymous looking sacks from the roof rack. The town was concentrated in a huge bowl amongst the mountains. Crude housing clinging to the outskirting highland descended to a central cluster of modern skyscrapers.

The dominating snow-capped mountain overlooking the city was turning red as the sun went down. Illimani is the highest mountain in the Cordillera Real (part of the Cordillera Oriental, a subrange of the Andes) of western Bolivia. The snow line lies at about 4,570 metres (15,000 feet) above sea level, and glaciers are found on the northern face at 4,983 m (16,350 feet). The mountain has four main peaks; the highest is the south summit, Nevado Illimani, which is a popular ascent for mountain climbers.

We got off the bus in a seedy side street and began walking downhill into the city centre. It was the evening rush hour and we walked down against the tide of workers who were homeward bound. The pavement was choked with squatting Indian street traders, their wares spread out on blankets, so we were forced to walk in the cobbled road alongside the impatient traffic.

I split from the Dutch couple who were going to a different hotel and found my way through a bustling pedestrian precinct to the Plaza Murillo. From here it was only a few yards downhill to the Hotel Torino on Calle Socabaya.

Above: Hotel Torino in La Paz.

I got a huge single room in this old convent (monastery?) for 5.50 Bolivianos in the cloisters overlooking the central courtyard. I threw in my bags and got the receptionist to put in a new socket and light bulb so that I could see.

I then went for a short walk around. I dined in the Catay Chinese Restaurant, just off Plaza Murillo and had my first Bolivian beer. The bottle had a colourful label, but it foiled all my attempts to get it off without tearing it.

My final walk around the locality revealed a very modern area of neon-lit shop signs and fast-food restaurants, cinemas and steep sloping streets. Army-like Policia stood in groups in ponchos on street corners with visible, business-like weapons and gas grenades. They looked very bored.

I returned to the Hotel Torino for an early night.