Setting the World on Fire?

When not on fire, Chile's Mediterranean landscapes resemble California's.

In the last stages of updating Moon Patagonia, I’ve just spent ten days in Puerto Varas, leaving my bedroom/office in a friend’s house mainly to grab lunch or, when possible, enjoy a more leisurely dinner at restaurants like Almendra or Casa Valdés. In the process, I’ve only paid minimal attention to what’s happening in the rest of Chile (and the world), but that’s become unavoidable. As I drove north yesterday, past the city of Chillán on the Panamericana yesterday, the smoke from  Chile’s worst wildlife season ever became a palpable presence.

On the highway north of Chillán, the smoke obscures the landscape

Living in California, whose Mediterranean climate is a mirror image of central Chile’s, I’m more than aware of the wildfire dangers. In October of 1991, the dramatic Oakland firestorm destroyed more than 3,000 homes—some barely a mile from our own rented house—and killed 25 people. That was at the end of a long hot summer.

Red sky at morning: a smoky sunrise at Talca

In Chile, though, summer has barely begun—normally, the warm and dry autumn months of March and April would be the time to worry. It seems, though, that at least some of the fires here are the result of arson. In the meantime, a red sun rose over Talca this morning, and my hosts here tell me that tourist traffic has fallen off in what should be peak season.

A Muslim couple go through routine immigration procedures at Buenos Aires's international airport.

I’ll be in Santiago until Friday night, when I fly back to California to face another disaster: the disgraceful executive order from the occupant of the White House that prohibits Muslims from certain countries—even permanent residents and others with lawful visas—from entering the country. There’s been chaos at US airports and immediate resistance from civil liberties lawyers, who have obtained some injunctions against the measure, but the damage to the country’s credibility will far surpass the fire costs to Chile’s heartland. And the White House fire, we know for certain, is intentional.

For Whom the Toll Beeps (Or, Playing TAG in Santiago)

In California, where I spend most of the year, toll roads are anathema. We do have plenty of bridges that collect tolls, but there’s a reason that many of our highways are, for better or worse, misleadingly called “freeways” (we pay for them but, except for the bridges, we don’t usually pay directly out of pocket to use them).

It’s different in Chile, where the Panamericana from La Serena south to Puerto Montt – a distance of roughly 1,500 km – has 15 toll plazas that exact a total of nearly 35,000 pesos (about US$70) from anybody who drives the distance. That’s not counting the cost of driving through Santiago, which is a little more complicated.

That’s because Santiago has its own electronic toll system that requires anyone who drives those roads to pay a distance-based rate that varies according to the time of day, with the morning and evening rush hours the costliest. Santiago drivers have gotten accustomed to the so-called TAG or Televía system and most, like me, have an electronic transponder that registers the tolls automatically. It can be confusing, though, to drivers from other parts of the country and especially those from outside the country, such as Argentines who frequently travel to Chile.

The TAG is not obligatory, but paying the toll is, even if you don’t have a transponder. Relatively few people outside Santiago do, and some of them go out of their way, when visiting the capital, to use surface streets rather than the limited access highways. A friend of mine from La Serena tried this when picking up someone at the international airport but, eventually, had to pay a fine when he found the alternative route too complicated and couldn’t avoid the toll road. Cameras record the license plates of every vehicle, so enforcement is simple if sometimes slow.

For those who need to drive in the capital, there is an alternative: approaching the city limits, they can purchase a pase diario (daily pass) for 4800 pesos (a little less than US$10) at any roadside Copec Pronto convenience store. Those who fail to do so draw a fine but, even then, it’s possible to purchase the pass retroactively up to 20 days later; after three days, the cost increases to 6900 pesos (about US$14). For overseas visitors, it’s worth adding that cars rented in the capital will have a transponder to record the tolls automatically (to be incorporated in the rental cost). Those rented elsewhere may not have one, though, and you will be directly responsible for the toll.

While Chilean vehicles may not be able to escape the Santiago tolls, foreign vehicles might. It wouldn’t surprise me if many Argentine drivers, either unaware or evasive, use the city’s highways without paying. If they get stopped by the Carabineros police, though, they could be in trouble.

The Panamericana is not Chile’s only toll road. There are others from Santiago to the port cities of Valparaiso and San Antonio, and between Chillán and Concepción. There’s also a new four-lane divided segment connecting the Atacama desert cities of Vallenar, Copiapó, and Caldera.

Let’s Choose (Moon) Patagonia! (Update)

To date, I’ve had only one correct answer on my geography quiz from the previous post, asking readers to name the Chilean volcano that affected travel to Argentine Patagonia prior to the 2011 eruption of Puyehue. Because of that, I’ll add a couple clues – the eruption in question took place in 2008, and required the evacuation of its namesake village.

If nobody else comes up with a correct answer by the weekend, I’ll postpone giving away the second copy of Moon Patagonia. Please send your answer to southerncone (at) mac.com, and not to the comment box.

Clearing the Air: Pollution in the Southern Cone

Earlier this week, the World Health Organization released a report on air pollution in 1,100 cities around the world, which it says contribute to respiratory problems and 1.34 million premature deaths per annum. Unsurprisingly, it’s cities in densely populated Asian countries, specifically Iran, India and Pakistan, that have the world’s worst air quality, due largely to dirty fuels that include firewood and coal, and poorly monitored motor vehicles.

The WHO calculates its rankings on the basis of airborne particles smaller than ten micrometers, with a recommended upper limit of 20. By that standard, the Iranian city of Ahvaz has the world’s worst air quality, at 372 grams micrograms per cubic meter. At the other extreme, Santa Fe, New Mexico, registered only six micrograms per cubic meter and Washington DC measured 18.

By these standards, Southern Cone cities, particularly those in Chile, come off not so good but less than catastrophic – at least compared with their Asian counterparts. Chile, of course, is a mining country and, on top of that, its geography is unfavorable: like Southern California, Santiago and other heartland cities lie in a basin between a coast range and the high Andes, which traps particulate matter. This gives Santiago (pictured above, after a winter storm has cleared the air) the country’s second-highest figure, with a reading of 69. Only Rancagua, about an hour south, has a higher reading, at 74; Rancagua not only has a similar geography to Santiago, but suffers from its proximity to the huge El Teniente copper mine in the Andean foothills to the east.

Most heartland cities are in a similar plight: Talca (pictured above) registered 49 and Chillán 52. Of the northern mining cities, the port of Antofagasta (pictured below) was the most polluted, with a reading of 55, while Calama measured only 50 – despite the presence of the gigantic open-pit copper mine at nearby Chuquicamata. The southern city of Temuco had a surprisingly low figure of 49, given that its residents use so much firewood for heating and cooking.

While all these figures are higher than desirable, they’re not alarmingly high like the Asian and all are below the global average of 79. The figures also can be misleading because they are not geographically specific – the air quality in Santiago’s poorer western neighborhoods, for instance, is worse than the richer eastern barrios. While that’s deplorable in terms of environmental justice, at best, it also means it will not affect most visitors. It’s those who have to live there that suffer most.

Across the Andes, things are a bit better. I’ve long argued against the clichéd depiction of Buenos Aires (pictured above) as the “Paris of the South,” but in one sense that’s true – according to the WHO, its reading of 38 is identical to the French capital. Across the Río de la Plata, Uruguay’s capital of Montevideo (pictured below) checked in only a little worse, with a reading of 39.

Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires in Millbrae (San Mateo County)

Thursday September 29 will mark the last of four digital slide presentations on the fourth edition of Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires, at various branches of the San Mateo Public Library. This event starts at 1 p.m. at the Millbrae Library (1 Library Avenue, Millbrae, CA 94030, tel. 650/697-7607). There will be ample time for questions and answers, and books (also including Moon Argentina and Moon Chile) will be on sale (at a discount).

Next month, I will be on the road promoting the new third edition of Moon Handbooks Patagonia. Most of the events will be in the San Francisco Bay Area, but I will also be appearing in Seattle and Bellingham, Washington; Vancouver BC; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Pasadena, California. Watch this space for details.

Post-Puyehue: the Southern Ski Season

It’s winter in Argentina and Chile, and that means ski season has begun on both sides of the Andes. That said, last month’s eruption of Volcán Puyehue has complicated matters on the Argentine side in particular. With that in mind, I asked David Owen (pictured below, in Argentina), who operates PowderQuest Tours and lives in Pucón, for an update on this season’s snow and skiing in the two Southern Cone countries. The photographs that accompany this post are his.

WBB: In general, what are the conditions on the Argentine side? Is it a matter of snow v. ash, or is there no snow?

David Owen: So far snow has been below normal on both sides of the Andes due to La Niña [climatic conditions]. In Argentina, Chapelco and Las Leñas are open, but with a thin snowpack. The good news is that La Nina apparently is tapering off, and the forecast for precipitation is showing a return to normal. Let's hope this happens quickly.

WBB: Which ski areas are most affected by the ashfall?

David Owen: Cerro Bayo [Villa la Angostura] has seen the worst of it. Cerro Catedral and Chapelco have seen much less ashfall.

WBB: Are the problems on the Argentine side a matter of logistics, i.e. airports and flights, or is it the ski areas themselves? What about ancillary services (hotels, restaurants)?

David Owen: Hotels and restaurants should be operating fine. Their visitor numbers are down 80 percent in June, but they are opening for the ski season. For Cerro Bayo and the town of Villa La Angostura, the problems are both deep ash and logistics. It is a huge mess over there. The Bariloche airport remains closed with a range of rumors that it could open as early as next week or as late as October.

As for Catedral and Bariloche, the issue is more logistics of getting there. I visited the ski area and it had much less ash than the city, and the resort claims they will operate normally. The main issue is the ash on the ground and the winds. When the Patagonian winds pick up, ash and sand gets everywhere including your eyes and lungs. I was there for two days and was ready to leave. I think IF you can get there, AND you can stay at the resort base, it would not be such a bad experience, but staying in downtown Bariloche would not be a very enjoyable experience.

WBB: How would you compare Villa la Angostura and Bariloche v. Chapelco? It sounds to me as if the prevailing winds pushed most of the ash east/southeast from Puyehue.

David Owen: Villa la Angostura got the worst of it. There was close to a foot of ash on the road when I drove over there and everything is covered. Bariloche received much less but nonetheless, when the winds pick up, it causes issues. Chapelco (open for skiing) received much less than Bariloche and the town of San Martin de Los Andes just a dusting.

WBB: Is there skiing at Esquel (admittedly harder to reach than Bariloche without flights)?

David Owen: They plan on operating normally once they have enough snow. I also read that there have been some flights going into Esquel.

WBB: Is Las Leñas, in Argentina’s Mendoza province, open? I presume it would be less vulnerable to the ashfall.

David Owen: Las Leñas is open, and like the Chile ski resorts, has not been affected by ashfall.

WBB: You told me you've moved all programs to the Chilean side. Will there be accommodations shortages because skiers will be coming to Chile instead of Argentina? If so, will this drive up prices? Will skiers have to stay farther away than usual, e.g. in the city of Chillán, rather than Las Trancas valley, for the Nevados de Chillán ski area?

David Owen: We moved all programs to Chile and Las Leñas after my visit to Bariloche last month. There will certainly be shortages in lodging, especially for July and early August and people doing late bookings might expect to stay further away from the resorts due to high demand. We have not seen prices go up at all.

WBB: Are flights into Santiago from North America operating normally?

David Owen: So far yes, flights are operating normally. There have been a few days with delays and cancellations, but more in Buenos Aires. Flights to southern Chile (Temuco and Valdivia) have been seeing cancellations when there is a wind direction switch to the west and north.

Update from Esquel
David briefly mentions Esquel above, but my friend Jorge Miglioli of Hostería Canela provided some additional information on the city, and its Cerro La Hoya ski area, from a few days ago:

“Fortunately we had no ashfall here. So far, we had a nice snowfall a few days ago but need another one to get La Hoya in prime condition. Today Esquel had TWO flights (an unheard of event) because one was bringing in Brazilians to Bariloche. They made the rest of the trip by bus, and it seems this season they will be doing this frequently (Neuquen airport is too far away, and the road is not as scenic and I believe there is still a lot of ash in some places).”

“If we are cut off from the north via airplane, we still have all those people from Comodoro Rivadavia, Trelew, etc. who used to travel by land to ski in Bariloche or Chapelco and maybe prefer to stay at our rather modest (in comparison) ski station instead.”

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From the Epicenter: Chile, One Year Later (2)

Among and around excursions to Talca’s stunning Andean backcountry, which I described in a recent post, I visited two of the cities most affected by the 2010 earthquake and subsequent tsunami: Talca itself, and the port of Constitución. Here, even more than in Concepción, the impact of the event is palpable, with vacant lots and damaged or destroyed landmarks, not to mention ordinary businesses and houses in a region whose traditional adobe architecture has been seismically vulnerable for centuries.

In the course of my week-plus in the Maule region, I spoke extensively with Franz Schubert of Trekking Chile, who used his Casa Chueca guest house as an informal base for relief efforts; in fact, his guests chose to forego the rest of their vacations to chip in with assistance. I recorded my conversations with Franz, which also touch on several other topics, but it will be some weeks before I’ll have time to transcribe, edit and post them.

Talca itself suffered more than any other place of its size that I’ve seen - there are many vacant lots, and in some places only segments of old adobe walls stand, with rubble still to be removed (demolition and debris removal appear to be the growth industries here). The landmark school near the new pedestrian mall, divided into separate wings for boys and girls, is due to come down; there is local sentiment to restore it, but it looks beyond repair - or at least beyond economic repair.

On a visit to the regional Sernatur tourist office, I spoke with my longtime friend Verónica Morgado, whose rented B&B crumbled in the quake, but she and her husband managed to get all their guests out safely. They are building a replacement, which they expect to open for next season at year’s end.

Verónica’s elderly mother was not so fortunate even if, in one sense, she was more fortunate. Out of town for the weekend, she avoided the collapse of her 19th-century adobe, but its psychological impact was even more powerful. She fell mute after the event and, failing to respond to therapy, died shortly thereafter. Obviously, this wasn’t a direct fatality, but the quake certainly appears to have been a contributing factor.

Still, Talca is rebuilding. Its most hopeful precedent may be the city of Chillán, whose massive 1939 earthquake (8.3 on the Richter) left the city’s face transformed forever - like Talca, Chillán lost nearly all of its historic adobes, and had to rebuild almost from scratch. A year ago, though, it got through the quake with little damage, despite the greater magnitude and its own proximity to the epicenter.

Constitución may have a longer road ahead. The port city, best known for its pulp plant, suffered a double hit. The quake flattened many of its older houses and toppled some of the walls of its landmark church, but here the human tragedy was even worse: as the tsunami worked its way up the Río Maule estuary, it swept away more than a hundred campers who were celebrating the end of summer on Isla Orrego, a small wooded island (pictured above). The waters even reached the Plaza de Armas but, astonishingly, spared the Hostería Constitución opposite the island.

A few km south, at the port of Maguillines, the tsunami wiped out several large warehouses and perhaps a dozen seaside restaurants, a couple of which have rebuilt. The winding road there, though, shows what Constitución still has to offer. Spectacular igneous stacks have resisted the ocean’s erosive force and one of them, Piedra de la Iglesia (pictured above), is covered with nesting pelicans, gulls and cormorants plus, on its lower levels, southern sea lions basking in the sun. Just beyond road’s end, Playa Maguillines features other granite outcrops - some vertical pitches would offer challenging sport to adventurous free climbers - and outstanding perches for ocean fishermen.

Win This Book! Chilean Bicentennial Update

Chilean liberator Bernardo O’Higgins (depicted above by the famous Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siquieros at Chillán’s Escuela México) would not be pleased. As of Wednesday evening, California time, we have had only two winners in the contest for four copies of Moon Handbooks Chile offered in Monday’s quiz. Another contestant actually came up with the correct answer, but did not follow the rules that stipulated sending the response to the email in the header above, and not to the comments section on the page. I don’t want to be picky, but I would hope that the person in question would resend her entry through the proper channels to claim her book; even if she does that leaves one copy available.

In any event, I’ll have to impose a deadline of Saturday the 18th, when 16 million Chileans will celebrate their independence, for the contest. If there are no more correct answers by then, I will have to withdraw the remaining copies for another day.