We continued down the west coast of South America into Peru and Chile. But before I start – it’s time for the next “bar bet” opportunities.
1) Name the CONTINENT that contains the driest area on earth in terms of annual precipitation.
Wrong.
2) Name the country with the second driest area historically.
Wrong again!
The first is a bit of a trick question. Dry Valleys in Antarctica supposedly hasn’t had precipitation in 2 million years. Don’t ask me how we know that, I thought there was one sprinkle in there somewhere. The second driest area is Atacama, Chile with an average annual rainfall of .03” – THEN comes Libya, Egypt, then Peru. (But be careful with that second bet – this October, El Niño caused record rainfall in the Peruvian and Chilean deserts, creating a rare blanket of flowers.)
I guess I slept through the relevant geography class, but I learned that much of the western coast of South America is desert, hemmed in by the Andes Mountains – the second-highest mountain range after the Himalayas. The coast actually looks a bit like that of Namibia, Africa. The combination of desert and mountains creates some odd climates. Lima, Peru is cloudy for 9 months of the year. Santiago, Chile is in a bowl between mountains and often is hazy from trapped pollution. Unless you go up or over the mountains, the weather is not at all what you’d expect for a coastal region at the equivalent latitude of the Caribbean. The temperature throughout the region is consistently moderate – often cool if the sun isn’t out.
We had a nice visit to Lima, Peru and found some great ceviche. In Pisco, I was introduced to the famous “Pisco Sour” drink – yummm! Pisco is a strong liquor, a bit like vodka, made of grapes by the early missionaries as they were not allowed to make wine – the law of unintended consequences. We also took a wild ride over the desert dunes and had a local meal under the stars. I then went on a flight to see the famous Nazca lines. In an area of 200 square miles, thousands of lines and hundreds of drawings – some over 800 feet wide – were etched into the desert by removing a surface layer of red rock 2000 years ago. While theories abound (including one that space aliens were involved because one of them looks like an astronaut), there is no consensus. Debra passed because the flight was rumored to include wild left and right banking to let those on both sides of the small aircraft see the figures – but it wasn’t that bad (or good depending on your thrill quotient).
We finished the month with a spectacular Thanksgiving dinner amongst good friends on our front deck as Debra tried out our new kitchen for the first time. Thank goodness the appliances all worked (except for the dishwasher – ouch!)
D & D Adventures 