Tag Archives: Matarani

14 December 2019:
Matarani, Peru:
Gateway to the White City of Arequipa

By Corey Sandler

Matarani is the place we parked, but it was not the destination for most of the guests aboard ship. From the gritty mining and export piers here, a fleet of buses departed in the morning for the two-hour-plus drive up into the altiplano to Arequipa.

Matarani, home to about one million, is the deep south of Peru, a thin strip of desert with the Pacific Ocean to the west and the spine of the Andes to the east. In Peru, only Lima is larger–much larger–with nearly nine million inhabitants. We’ll visit that coastal port in a few days.

We’ve been to Arequipa a few times, and so we’re declaring a vacation day aboard ship. We have been on the move almost continuously since March.

Arequipa, about 75 miles or 121 kilometers from Matarani, is up in the foothills of the Andes,  at altitude 2,350 meters or 7,710 feet.

The trip follows a two-lane highway thick with trucks and buses and thin with asphalt and guardrails.

It’s a dramatic setting, and also about as close as many cruise passengers are likely to get to landlocked Bolivia.

And it’s not Mount Fuji in Japan, either, but it probably could pass for it in a movie background. Looming over the city is the El Misti Volcano, rising to 19,098 feet or 5,821 meters above sea level.

It is a stratovolcano, the type that is somewhat like a pressure cooker. It lets off a bit of steam every once in a while but mostly sits around in seeming quietude until it explodes violently.

And yes, it is still active, it last major eruption in 1985.

Here are some notes and photos from a previous visit.

ON THE ROAD

AREQUIPA: LA CIUDAD BLANCA

All photos and text Copyright 2019 by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ONE OF MY BOOKS, PLEASE CONTACT ME.

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Now available, the revised Second Edition of “Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession” by Corey Sandler, for the Amazon Kindle. You can read the book on a Kindle device, or in a Kindle App on your computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

If you would like to purchase an autographed copy, please see the tab on this page, “HOW TO ORDER A PHOTO OR AUTOGRAPHED BOOK”

Here’s where to order an electronic copy for immediate delivery:

Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession: The Tragic Legacy of the New World’s Least Understood Explorer (Kindle Edition)

9 December 2019 to 4 January 2020:
Valparaiso, Chile to Los Angeles:
Crossing the Equator on America’s West Coast

By Corey Sandler

We flew south all through the night from New York to Santiago, Chile. We left the wintry East Coast of the United States and landed in summery South America.

Viking’s Viking Sun will spend the next 28 days heading northwest and then north, calling at ports in Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, and then San Diego and Los Angeles in the United States.

This is just one month in a record-setting eight-month-long World Cruise. We will cross the Equator as we sail along the appropriately named nation of Ecuador. In fact, across the eight months of this cruise, this ship will cross the Equator four times heading south then north then south then north again. A hearty few dozen guests will be aboard for the entire journey, while others will partake of various segments.

I’ll be posting photos and comments here throughout this cruise. I hope you’ll join me here.

27 October 2017:
Matarani, Peru:
The Deep South of Peru and La Ciudad Blanca of Arequipa

By Corey Sandler

Matarani is the deep south of Peru, a thin strip of desert with the Pacific Ocean to the west and the spine of the Andes to the east.

Peru’s second largest city (after Lima) is Arequipa, about 75 miles or 121 kilometers from Matarani, about two hours up in the foothills of the Andes,  at altitude 2,350 meters or 7,710 feet.

It’s a dramatic setting, and also about as close as many cruise passengers are likely to get to landlocked Bolivia.

And it’s not Mount Fuji in Japan, either, but it probably could pass for it in a movie background. Looming over the city is the El Misti Volcano, rising to 19,098 feet or 5,821 meters above sea level.

It is a stratovolcano, the type that is somewhat like a pressure cooker. It lets off a bit of steam every once in a while but mostly sits around in seeming quietude until it explodes violently.

And yes, it is still active, it last major eruption in 1985.

I traveled today with guests up to the base of the Andes to Arequipa, on a two-lane highway thick with trucks and buses and thin with asphalt and guardrails.

Here’s what we saw along the road:

ON THE ROAD

AREQUIPA: LA CIUDAD BLANCA

All photos and text Copyright 2017 by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ONE OF MY BOOKS, PLEASE CONTACT ME.

SEE THE “How to Order a Photo or Autographed Book” TAB ON THIS PAGE FOR INSTRUCTIONS

————-

Now available, the revised Second Edition of “Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession” by Corey Sandler, for the Amazon Kindle. You can read the book on a Kindle device, or in a Kindle App on your computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

If you would like to purchase an autographed copy, please see the tab on this page, “HOW TO ORDER A PHOTO OR AUTOGRAPHED BOOK”

Here’s where to order an electronic copy for immediate delivery:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IA9QTBM

Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession: The Tragic Legacy of the New World’s Least Understood Explorer (Kindle Edition)

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ONE OF MY BOOKS,  PLEASE CONTACT ME.

SEE THE “How to Order a Photo or Autographed Book” TAB ON THIS PAGE FOR INSTRUCTIONS