March, 2011

Iquique (northern Chile)
We are late in updating our blog, but we haven't had a decent Internet until now, here in Iquique, in the hemisphere, where the seasons are opposite to yours. From Lima we motor-sailed along this incredibly arid coast and it took us one week to get to Arica, the first Chilean town, averaging about four knots (7.5 km/hr), against light winds and at times strong current. We didn't stop along the coast, since Peruvian authorities are extremely difficult to deal with and the fees are outrageous (entry and exit in any port in Peru, $900 US minimum). But what a dramatic, barren coast!, and although desertic, we have never tired from looking at it - the light changes during the day paint these hills in all spectrum of colour. From Arica we took a tour to Lauca national park and we reached 4500m driving through some stunning scenery in approximately three hours! which made all of us, tourists, quite queasy and breathless (headache, tired, loss of appetite), and although they served us nice “almuerzo (lunch)”, only the young ones were able to consume it. J-P didn't smoke the entire day - and that is something! After Arica we moved to Iquique with a day stop in the bay of Pisagua. Here in Chile it's an entirely different feeling from Peru, the authorities here are very cruiser friendly, with a well organized safety maritime control, which we had a chance to experience during the tsunami alert. We never felt a thing, since we spent it out at sea drifting with all the cargo ships and some fishing boats for 24 hr, but on our return were told, the sea raised by 2m and some of the fishing boats that stayed in the port suffered damage. We are presently in the driest desert on this planet, land of dust, rocks and steep hills, as well as by surfer friendly beaches with quite a cold ocean. From here we went to visit old nitrite mining towns, now ghost towns, with stops in oasis villages and by the slopes with geoglyphs from many years ago. It's quite unbelievable, that already from around 7000 BC this land was inhabited and cultures prospered for all these years in this inhospitable environment. Originally we were going to winter in Valparaiso, but after speaking with many locals, we were convinced to stay up north for this coming winter, since here we are out of the storm area and the sun and the warm weather is guaranteed all year long. So our plan for the next six months, with a base here, is to visit Chile by land, as well as Bolivia, Argentina and eventually pay a visit to Canada as well.

January, 2011

Yacht Club Peruano, Calleo (suburb of Lima)
At New Year we toasted all of you from Paita, Peru, where we anchored for a rest after zigzagging around Cabo Blanco for two days (two days - 60 miles – a new record in snail pace for Nikan!). This time the weather and the sea were much calmer, also it was considerably warmer than at our first attempt in September, which is winter in this part of the planet. After that it was mostly smooth sailing, motor-sailing, with a rest at Bayovar and Isla Lobos Afuera, a tiny taste of Galapagos, minus tortoises. Lima underwent incredible change for better since our last visit some 20+ years ago. Renewed urbanization amazes J-P, while I still can't get over how clean this city is with parks almost around every corner, the cleanest place since Cuba. Lots of outdoor cafes remind us of St-Denis or Crescent street – wow, what a treat, espresso machine in every one of them! The yacht club, where we secured a safe mooring, with water taxi at our disposal is a very friendly place, and is also located in a very safe area. Although we are not far from equator, and in full summer here, it gets quite chilly as soon as the sun disappears behind clouds or the horizon. Of course nothing like the brutal cold that awaits us in Canada, where both of us are flying to visit and take care of our parents. We will resume our navigation south around mid February, while it's still summer here, before autumn blows in even more cold air and harsh winds. Hasta luego, amigos!

December, 2010

Nikan's renovation is completed!
For the past two months I had been reminded of what I definitely do not miss from my working life, and that's an alarm clock, in my case J-P, who goes to bed and gets up with chickens! It's been quite hard to function in all the mess of renovation, and at the same time to have two more people around (in 33 ft boat), marine carpenter and his helper, who showed up at 8 a.m. exactly, 6 days a week (yes, people here work Saturday!), and took over the interior of Nikan, usually for the whole day. But now, all is done and we are very happy with the result. We are planning to be on our way by the 27th of December and will toast you all, hopefully from the calm sea, January 1st, 2011!

November, 2010

Nikan is 30 years old: now with a new interior!
After two weeks in Puerto Lucia, J-P woke up one morning and announced we are going to remodel Nikan's interior. (I knew something was brewing in his brain, since for days he has been staring at nothing and everything with a dreamy expression on his face.) Two months later, after six sheets of Formica, three liters of varnish, one liter of polyurethane paint, two and a half sheets of plywood, 30 linear feet of different shape moldings and hours and hours of sanding, Nikan's interior is starting to look as we imagined. Stewart Yacht Services provided us with the manpower: one very, very shy carpenter with slow, but golden hands (don't even have guts to take my camera out, let alone to ask him if I can take his picture!) and his helper, both of them working without stop, starting 8 am., half an hour for lunch, till 5 pm., no coffee breaks as we are used to, no brakes at all (majority of people don't drink here coffee anyway, even though it's one of Ecuador's major export - and if they do, it's an instant kind). J-P assists daily with various tasks, sometimes I pitch in as well, although my main function remains typical of a woman: meals preparation, vacuuming, swiping...etc. It has been busy, busy eight weeks. Unfortunately J-P has to fly back to Montreal, since his father is quite ill, so I'll try to step into his shoes as a project manager and we'll be on our way as soon as possible, since our visas are expiring shortly.

September, 2010

How we left for Chile and ended up in Ecuador, Puerto Lucia, Libertad.
Although being three months earlier than the recommended time to take this passage to Chile, we made a try by the coastal route. Unfortunately, the conditions around Cabo Blanco (Peru) with waves of 2-3 m, with interval of 3-5 seconds, with the cold Humboldt current (nights were freezing, had to put winter gear on, including warm hat!) and the wind against us as well, we didn't progress very fast, sometimes, loosing ground as well. After nine hours of patiently waiting for conditions to improve, we took the decision to go back 120 miles of 220 miles we already covered, this time with the wind in the back, which made for some really pleasant sailing. After five days at anchor, debating each day the departure, we decided to put into Puerto Lucia Yacht Club for three months and try again in December, when the sea is supposedly calmer, less wind and less cold, as this will bring us to the beginning of summer in this hemisphere. It's a very comfortable private club, with big swimming pool, well equipped gym room, everything we need close by. Salinas, few km away, is the summer playground of the wealthy Ecuadorians, right now quite deserted, as it's the winter season here. We will hit the road again, as there are many places in this beautiful country we still didn't cover. Overall, no complain from this crew of two!

August, 2010

Back to Bahia from Canada
It started with a phone call from the car rental office, where we left the car just minutes ago, before taking a taxi to the airport. They informed us there is a damage to the front of the car, although we didn't notice anything (and why didn't we walked around the car when we dropped the keys off??) Than close to an hour wait on the runway in Washington almost had us miss the plane from Bogota to Guayaquil, where we arrived just after 1 AM. Surprise! although we expected it - no luggage - so after filling up the claim form, we hopped on the taxi that took us to our reserved hostel. Another surprise - no room free, although our reservation was in their book, printed and clear, but somehow the hostel couldn't understand 1 AM doesn't equal to 13 hrs. After a short discussion, the guy at least called around to find us another hotel, returned our deposit, but of course no courtesy of paying us another taxi to our new destination. In the morning we awoke to our bed rattling like crazy. What's going on? Earthquake! Could the building collapse on top of us? After another trip to the airport, we discovered our luggage is still sitting in Washington! (Yes, they do expect you to go and pick up your luggage at the airport.) Finally, day 3 - our luggage arrives, we hop on the bus, get comfortable, when an hour later, in the middle of nowhere, another surprise! The bus breaks down. After sweating in the standing bus for an hour, a new one arrives - get comfortable again, movie is playing – oops – a filling from my tooth falls off! What else? Nothing. All ends well, we are back in Bahia. Nikan is still where we left it, a bit dusty, but no more surprises. We are cleaning and preparing to depart August 28, with the big tide to cross the bank here, direction Chile. It's going to be a tough ride, winds and current against us, could take about three weeks, if not longer...

June, 2010

Across Ecuador
We got the first glimpse of the spectacular countryside from the 8 hr bus ride from Bahia to Quito, also the first cool weather we had in a long, long while. The beautiful colonial city, the old town's narrow streets are full of restored churches, monasteries, plazas, also car exhaust fumes, yelling street vendors, streets full of people. It was fun to be in a city for a while, but Andes countryside was our favorite. And what a countryside that is, full of gently rolling hills in contrast to high volcanoes (mostly its' peaks hidden in clouds, although we did manage to see some snow), rivers, waterfalls. We were amazed, how the agriculture is carried out high on the mountains, amazed how farmers can work on such steep hills, where we got out of breath just hiking up for some spectacular view. We enjoyed steaming thermal baths in Banos, saw many, many waterfalls, and on the day we were leaving, Volcano Tungurahua surprised everybody with a first serious eruption since 1999, and when we arrived to Guaranda, over 100 km away, the whole town was covered in volcanic ashes, all face masks sold out, although at the end we managed to buy some. Air traffic was stopped from Guayaguil for several days and we just hope there won't be any repeated eruption and the wind won't carry ashes in the same direction, as that is the airport we'll be flying from to visit back home. I'll be leaving in few days, while I have to admit I am quite jealous of J-P's plan to go back to a beautiful Cuenca – the colonial jewel of the south (with international restaurants, art galleries, cool cafes and bars) - to take 2 or 3 weeks of Spanish course. We spent there several days, enjoyed some good food, and everywhere we went in Ecuador we really took advantage of almuerzos, which means lunch, where you receive big plate of soup, main dish, could be any meat or fish, or in case of Cuenca also vegetarian dish, juice and often a desert, all this for under $2!! We visited many colorful markets, where the prices are cheap and one can get any local craft, but we were disappointed in the materials they use for textile, mostly synthetics rather than natural fabric. But we weren't disappointed in the countryside and when we'll be back from Canada, we intent to explore this diversified country some more, before our visa here will expire.