Season's Greetings

LATE! LATE! LATE!

About a year and a half ago, I stopped adding to Merican Musings.

Why? Well, I was unable to update the blog to the internet since I was on a boat. I could have picked it up when I got on shore or back at home, but I had lost my rhythm of writing.

What’s brought me back was reading http://werejustsayin.blogspot.com/ by Iris and David. Now those two are real busy! In the past month, I know that David has been on the road from Washington to China to Colorado to who knows where else, never mind how busy Iris is! I understand that the two were together in Colorado.

With all their travels, being that busy and they can put out a blog, so what’s my excuse?

So, no more excuses, no year and one half gaps, back to Merican Musings with a few more points of view about the state of things I see as I travel.

Santiago, Chile-Out of my window

Easter Island/Rapa Nui

I saw a picture when I was 5 of a stone head Moai stuck in the ground. Easter Island was somewhere far away in the South Pacific. Then at the Calvin Coolidge school, they showed a film in by the noted anthropologist /adventurer Thor Hyerdal, about this lonely treeless island and the mystery of the stone heads.

I never thought I’d get to Easter Island. Not that it was impossible, it was just a long way away from Boston even by today’s standards. You have to get to Santiago, Chile, that’s about 12 hours flight time, then a 5 hour flight to this spot in the ocean.

Like anywhere else in the world, Easter Island or Rapa Nui, it’s Polynesian name, is different than it was 60 years ago. There’s a monthly supply ship, not annual one, passenger jets arrive with fresh food and visitors several times a week. There are trees, paved roads, telephone, TV, internet, a few hotels, restaurants, cars, cows, horses, dogs and cats, the usual trappings of modern life.

But everywhere, there’s evidence of the prior civilization. The Moai are the most obvious, but there are foundations of houses, altars for the statues, caves that bones are buried in as well as everyday items like fishhooks, arrowheads, and beads all over the island.

During our 4-day stay, we managed to make several hikes visiting numerous places. One hike was where the Moai were made. Some of these behemoths are still half finished stuck into the mountainside. Others are hundreds of feet below, some upright others lying down.

We had a long hike along the shore. There where remnants of village after village abandoned hundreds of years ago. The wind blowing from the ocean waving the high grass that covered broken Moai, foundations and altars made me feel a little creepy. This had been a thriving community, now it’s a ghost town.

The demise of the Rapa Nui civilization is thought to have been caused by a number of factors with overpopulation being the greatest. The oral history tells of very destructive wars, starvation and sickness, that swept the island. In the end, they abandoned their practice of making the Moai, knocked them over and buried them under rocks.

Easter Island/Rapa Nui is a peaceful place, visited by many annually. Tourism has helped the Rapa Nui decedents to have a good modern life. The local population is growing. When Hyerdal visited in the 50’s there were about a thousand residents, now there’s over four thousand with about fifteen hundred children in the schools.

As the jet took off for Santiago I wondered if we all have learned the lesson that happened on this little island. Could we suffer a similar fate.

Views of Easter Island

Wine Country

A Thousand Bodegas

Mendoza is the wine capital of Argentina. Up until a few years ago, most of the wines produced here stayed in this country. Then, malbec, the wine made from that hardy grape was re-discovered internationally. Mix together the low cost of land, labor and a good quality product and you have the formula that encouraged the international wine buyers and producers to start coming here. Presently, 80% of wine production is drunk in other countries, the bulk in the USA.

When you go around this area, you notice a boom in new construction. More people have newer cars than other areas of the country. The streets are cleaner and the busses are newer, and people are dressed better than in cities like Salta or even Buenos Aires. This boils down to one thing, money and a lot is due to the success of the wine industry

We came here early, after leaving the north due to illness and rainy weather. I’m glad we did. During our 5-day stay, we’ve managed to go to 7 wineries, eat at some very nice restaurants and sample some of the best wines this area has to offer.

On two successive days we had wine tours, one arranged by our hotel and the other by a private organization. With over a thousand wineries in the area, you can’t try them all, so finding people who know what is worth seeing is important.

During these tours we were able to see how each company produced their product and taste wines from small simple operations to one of the largest in the country. Each successive winery or in Spanish, bodega was better than the previous. We’re even staying in a bodega and have to walk past the grapevines to get to breakfast. Wine on the hoof.

My favorite wines came from a company called Enrique Foster. This establishment was founded only a few years ago by a successful New York lawyer who got the wine making bug. Their 3 wines, all Malbecs, cover the price range from low to moderate. The best, I thought, was a 2003 Malbec Reserva. Wendy voted for the 2002 limited edition, a very good year all around in this area for wine. Both wines had great color, bouquet and a wonderful flavor. Great with food or just sipping while playing cards as Wendy and I did the other night. She won, again.

This is our last stop in Argentina.

We’re now on to Chile and Easter Island.