Hypertravel with Hardie #1: Far South America

Hi y’all. I’m Hardie and I welcome you to the first installment of my new YouTube Channel called Hypertravel with Hardie, all about the trips I’ve taken in my life, and especially the last seventeen years or so, which were the most intense. ‘Hypertravel’ is the same name I used for my previous travel journal called Hypertravel: 100 Countries in Two Years, which I wrote and published in the year 2012, and which will serve as a template for at least the first few videos of this project. Because this will be a little bit different from most “vlogs”, in that they will consist of my previous trips from that Hypertravel era but told mostly from the photographs that I took then and there and which number in the thousands. I will narrate those trips and regions to the best of my memory as we go, the goal being to inspire you to visit that city or country if you think you might find it interesting. So, some of these videos will be organized by the trip and others by region. Times for a specific region might be continuous or spread out over several different years, making it something like ‘time travel’. But my main interests are geography, language, culture, and music, so that’s what I’ll concentrate on mostly. I still travel overseas at least once a year, as I have for fifty years, and just returned from a three-week trip that included Japan, Thailand, Bhutan, and Hong Kong. Welcome to my world. This first video will concentrate on the first leg of that Hypertravel phase in the year 2008 when I was 54 years old and decided that it was time to get serious about travel. I’d spent most of my life traveling around the world to buy and sell handicrafts from the traditional peoples that I encountered, but at that point it still totaled only about 50 or so countries. Now it’s 155 countries. Are you still with me? Let’s go! This first trip was to the region of southernmost South America, which I’d never visited, even though I did business in Bolivia for many years, buying and selling alpaca wool products, even after doing business in Mexico and Guatemala. And it’s no accident that these are the Latin American countries with the greatest percentage of indigenous population. So, in late 2008 I booked a free flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and took it from there, figuring to do a literal round trip to Paraguay, Uruguay, through Argentinian Patagonia, and over to Chile, then up that long narrow country before crossing back to Argentina, overland, Bolivia optional, and flying back out before the Christmas rush. So, that’s what I did, the trickiest part first. That meant scooting up to Paraguay, before I got too bogged down in other things. But the trip started in Buenos Aires, Argentina. And Buenos Aires was okay, but Chile would be better for my American tastes, further down the road. Buenos Aires is more European, late breakfast meaning coffee and a hot sticky bun, if you’re lucky, and don’t forget the butter. Paraguay was very different, and worth it for the novelty, if nothing else, Latinos speaking Guarani’ just because they like it, I guess, since most of them aren’t really indigenous in any way, though the original Tupi tribes certainly were. The big thrill was catching a taxi from the Paraguay-Brazil border and going all the way to the Brazil-Argentina border without ever getting out of the car, much less officially entering the country of Brazil. I’d never done that before–or since. I guess it’s some kind of ‘free zone’, but I’m not sure. The driver even offered to take me to Iguazu’ Falls, for a price, but I politely declined. You can do that on the Argentine side, also, and all on public transportation. But the Argentine town on the other border was nice, Puerto Iguazu’, so I stayed there a few days, before hoofing it back down to BA. Buenos Aires and Montevideo, Uruguay, are almost twin cities, so that’s an easy hop, or river cruise, as the case may be. I liked it, too, if for no special reason other than its sentiment and charm, certainly nothing too exciting, unless you’re a tango fanatic. I didn’t see much of the country either, but that’s okay. I DID see a percussion festival, and Patagonia was calling me further south, as the weather warmed up for the coming South American summer. I didn’t make it to Antarctica, unfortunately, but that’s not because I didn’t want to. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of thinking that Puntarenas, Chile, would be an easy alternative jumping-off point to Ushuaia, Argentina, but that is not the case. Actually, more boats probably leave from Buenos Aires to Antarcticta, but that’s a longer discussion. Suffice it to say that if you want to catch a trip to Antarctica at the last minute, then Ushuaia is probably the better bet, even if it means crossing more borders. Puntarenas is nice, though, even if it’s no farther south than Edmonton, Canada, is north, so not too exotic, and neither is Ushuaia, for that matter. But that’s the closest connection to Antarctica, if that’s your goal. Puntarenas is something of a dead end, also, since from there, you either go through the fjords by boat to the north or hop over it all by plane. I lucked out with a cheap flight north to Valdivia and loved it there. I even caught a concert there, so very cool. Unfortunately, a puppy dog fell in love with me down by the seal docks, but I couldn’t take him with me, so that was sad. But the seals were cool, hanging by the riverside and smelling to high heaven. Santiago the capital was an anticlimax, even if I was staying in a whorehouse, haha, but Valparaiso was better. To some extent, the price of the room heavily dictates the nature of the experience. Vina del Mar would be better on the way back, also, but there were the desert cities of La Serena, Antofogasta, and Iquique up ahead on the road to the north, all of which were nice, but not too exciting, unless Gypsies excite you, so far from their traditional homes down there (up there?) in Iquique, while looking and acting so much like Gypsies, too. The smell of curry added to the drama, but I hadn’t studied enough Hindi at the time to make any broad predictions. And then there’s Calama, celebrated entry to the high desert. It’s high and cool, true, but too cool for my school, so I beat a hasty retreat. That’s the way to Bolivia or North Argentina, also, but I’ve got a date down south at Vina del Mar, with a film festival soon to start. Vina’s okay, too, much more famous than Calama, but not nearly so pretentious by my standards. Or maybe I just don’t like to be reminded of my hippie roots. I’d rather be reminded of my film school roots. That doesn’t last long, though, and soon I’m on the midnight run, over the Andes back to Argentina. Mendoza was okay, too, and the Buenos Aires Chinatown is certainly worth mentioning, but my allocated six weeks were almost up. Other events of note were some indigenous dances somewhere in Chile and a music festival in Argentina, but I can’t remember the locations exactly, so I’ll leave them with a bare mention. Unfortunately I was just warming up as a still photographer, so the number of photos is a bit scant. These photos from Colombia and Peru were later, and separate, but serve to fill out the feel of South America, especially Peru, where I spent several months in 2022-3 and which is my favorite country in all of South America. Colombia was only a brief stopover from Portugal back to Mexico, in 2022, if you can believe that, the cheapest route, if not the shortest, especially during a pandemic and the sometimes onerous regulations associated with airline travel in that era. Asia was locked down tight for two to three years, and that’s been my main stomping grounds for the last thirty years, after much time in Latin America. So South America was a nostalgia trip, and a welcome revisit, long after the Hypertravel era. If you liked the pictures, then consider the book, available from Amazon. The next installment will visit the Caribbean, including Cuba. Stay tuned. And don’t forget to like and subscribe. It will help with my ultimate goal, which is to convert all this to VR, Virtual Reality. It’s a different world there. Thanks for watching.