We arrived in Arequipa, Peru, this morning after two overnight buses from Ecuador. The first thing our taxi driver, David, asked us when we jumped in was if we were headed for Chile. We said yes. He then explained the horrible 8.8-magnitude earthquake that ripped through Santiago, Chile’s capital, early this morning.
I learned the Spanish word for “earthquake”, terremoto. He told me the newspapers would have information about it tomorrow morning and to keep and eye out.
An American kid sitting next to us in an Internet cafe earlier today asked if we heard about the earthquake. His family sent him repeated e-mails warning him to stay away from the beaches because of possible tsunamis and making sure he was well-away from the danger.
Josh and I are fine. Our plans are, and still may be, to travel into northern Chile Monday morning, staying in San Pedro de Atacama for a couple days before going into northern Argentina. We hoped to work our way down the northern part of Argentina, in several days, then over on the Trans-Andes Highway from Mendoza, Argentina, to Santiago, Chile.
We will see if it is still possible to travel from Santiago down to Puerto Montt, Chile, which looks like it is through the epicenter of the recent earthquake.
For updated information on the earthquake and related tsunami warnings, NY Times is regularly updating stories.
We’ll post more as we travel closer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/world/americas/28chile.html?hp
