Travelogue
Chuquicamata - Red Gold Fever - 11 March 2011
Copper accounts for almost one-third of all Chile’s foreign trade. At one time the figure was a massive 75 percent. These days Chile produces about 450,000 tons of copper per year.Not for nothing then is copper known as “Chile’s salary”.Mines come complete with their own cities to house the workers, their own water and electrical plants, schools, stores, railways, and even in certain cases their own police forces. Miners worked for the company, shopped with the company, were housed by the company, and the kids got educated by the company. If you lost your job with the company, you were screwed.The biggest mine of them all is Chuquicamata, which despite being worked for over 90 years has produced 29 million tonnes of copper. The mine is a conventional open pit operation with truck-and-shovel on a massive scale. After Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah, “Chuqui” is the biggest hole in the world.The owner, Codelco, organizes bus tours that give a glimpse of this industrial masterpiece. Nearby Calama is the jumping off point for the mine. Calama is one of the driest cities in the world with average annual precipitation of just 5 mm, so the only reason to bring a coat is for the cold desert climate given the town’s elevation.The town of Chuquicamata which housed the miners was dismantled in 2003. Conditions were grim, disease was rife, and mortality high. Twenty thousand lived in dour terraced houses shrouded in sulphur dioxide, and poisonous reservoirs dwarfed by
Valparaiso - It's By The Sea - 5 March 2011
Two hours drive by bus from Santiago is the port of Valparaiso, until the early 1900s Chile’s first city. Testament to its former glories, Valparaiso was home to Latin America’s first stock exchange and the oldest continuous Spanish language newspaper in the world. Valparaiso once served as an important stopover for ships sailing between the
Santiago de Chile - The Avenue of the Basques and the Irish - 24 February 2011
Flying west into Chile’s capital Santiago from Argentina is an interesting experience to say the least. The route taken brings you inevitably down through the Andes, the pilot having to negotiate mountain passes and vicious cross winds.You cannot make this journey without thinking of the film Alive about the Uruguayan rugby team, which
Argentina - It was the Land of Opportunity - 20 February 2011
La Boca is the working class district near the docks, famous for its narrow cobbled streets and brightly coloured houses. If paying a visit it pays to be cautious. It’s a fairly rough area and tourists are sometimes targeted by petty criminals. I found the area remarkably small, largely consisting of a single street, so I had trouble working out
Diego Maradona - What A Player I'd Been If I Hadn't Done Coke - Part II - 17 February 2011
Maradona arrived in Belgrade on a private jet with film director, Kustinica . It’s unclear who the jet belonged to, whether a charter or Maradona. Given his run-ins with the authorities over the years and prodigious outgoings supporting a decadent and opulent lifestyle, not to mention those of his numerous hangers-on, how much money Maradona
Buenos Aires - Paris of the South - 30 January 2011
My plane to Buenos Aires was late, very late. So late in fact, that it had yet to arrive in Auckland to go to Sydney to return to Auckland, for the journey back to Buenos Aires. According to the staff at the Aerolineas Argentinas check-in desk, the schedule had been disrupted by “unexpected volcanic activity over Patagonia”. This utter
Diego Maradona - What A Player I'd Been, If I Hadn't Done Coke Part I- 26 January 2011
To get an insight into football, and Argentine football in particular, you can’t go past the documentary ‘Maradona’ by Palme D’or winner Serbian, Emir Kustinica. Filmed over two years from 2005 to 2007, it includes archival footage and interviews with the great man himself at home with his family in Buenos Aires, and on a trip to Belgrade
Wellington's South Coast - Plunderers, Poachers and Shipwrecks - 8 January 2011
The South Coast near Wellington on New Zealand’s North Island is an inhospitable stretch of land at the best of times. The winds are sometimes extreme with gales from the north and the south. The only time there’s calm is when the wind is changing direction. However, the barrenness belies a tapestry of life, death and history to beguile the
Christchurch - Red Sticker City - 3 January 2011
New Zealand’s second-largest city has 400,000 residents but big country town feel. Just a few streets from the CBD and you could be in a small regional town with one-tenth of the population. It’s noted for the picture postcard idyll with the Southern Alps’ backdrop complete with earthquakes but with other less inviting undercurrents.On 4
