We arrived in Asuncion in desperate need of a bed and a shower. Luckily, the bus attendant we had befriended during hellish border experience was from the area and walked us to a nearby hotel, and even helped us to negotiate the cheapest rate in town. We ended up in a room with a rambunctious Irishman and a bizarre Swede. After taking a much-needed nap, we decided to check out the town. Little did we know, all of downtown Asuncion shuts down on Sunday. We walked the deserted streets for a solid hour searching for some kind, any kind of open restaurant, finally finding some mediocre burgers.
Later on that evening, we met up with our friend Camilo, our Paraguayan friend whom we know from Virginia. He took us around the Asuncion bar scene, which we discovered is pretty laidback, well, pretty much dead, on Sunday nights. It was great to see one of our Charlottesville friends after such a long time away from home! We agreed to go sightseeing around Paraguay during the week, but to make our way back to Asuncion in time for the weekend. So, the next morning, we drudgingly packed up our bags to hop on a bus to Encarnacion with our new crazy Irish friend, Alan.
Encarnacion is a relatively large city in Paraguay right on the Argentine border. It is Paraguay´s prime tourist destination because of it´s close proximity to the Jesuit reducciones, or missions. The Jesuits came to the Southern cone of South America to ¨convert the heathens¨and save their souls. While they were certainly guilty of their fair share of colonial abuses, they are famous for their efforts to educate the indigenous peoples. Eventually, the Spanish crown kicked them out because they had grown too influential in the colonies. This sparked mass uprising, but the rebels did not succeed in reinstating the Jesuits. Instead, their massive settlements remained abandonded…of course, these ruins have been converted into a tourist attraction. Paraguay´s Jesuit missions are among the world´s least-visited UNESCO sights. We spent the day hitching and exploring the various sights. Due to a near total lack of public transportation, there weren´t any other tourists at the ruins. This meant we got to climb all over the reunions, conducting various fake religious ceremonies and taking goofy pictures. Score!
The next day we hopped on another 6 hour bus to Ciudad del Este. For the first time since our arrival in Paraguay, our bus was no more than 1 hour late! We found this absolutely thrilling. Upon arrival in Ciudad del Este, we were struck by the poverty in which the majority of people lived in there.
We´re going to the airport soon to go to Mexico for Tori´s cousin´s wedding but will finish updating the blog soon.
xoxo,
see you soon.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Che Guevara and the Chaco Crossing
We last posted while waiting in the bus station in Potosi. Stew had a fever and we were feeling short on time, so we decided to skip our planned activities and went directly to the bus terminal. We waited seven hours for our 20 ish hour ride to begin, which was probably the worst of the trip. Thankfully two weeks has lessened the memory of that awful ride (which highlighted in being dumped at a bus terminal at 5 in the morning in our shorts and informed that the word ¨direct¨meant ¨not in any way direct and you´re all screwed til another bus shows up in a few hours when we open.¨
Eventually, we got to Santa Cruz, the largest city in Bolivia. The climate is much more like Central America: hot, muggy, and beautiful skies. It was nice to be in a place with palm trees and fruit trees everywhere, but the town is basically boring. We did manage to get our Paraguayan visas with complete ease: we showed up, filled an application, deposited money in their account, and returned in three hours for the visas. After a quite mediocre art museum, there was nothing else to do in the town, so Tori was forced to go clothes shopping.
The next morning, we hopped on a local bus to Valle Grande. It is a town of about 6,000 people in an incredibly remote part of Bolivia. It is only 200 kilometers from Santa Cruz but takes between 6-8 hours in bus. There is even less to do here than in Santa Cruz, but it is an important historical site. Che´s body was brought here after he was executed in a small schoolhouse in La Higuera. The photos that went out to newspapers confirming his death were taken in the laundry room of the hospital before they took his body (and those of his comrades) and buried in them in unmarked mass graves. These were later found underneath the runway of the local ¨airport,¨ which is still unpaved. There is also a monument to Che which is somewhat ironically closed to the public and you have to pay $50 for a tour. Alternatively, you can pull up the chain link fence and sneak in...
Pretty much everyone in Valle Grande wants to sell a tour to La Higuera because there is no public transport there. After being disgusted with the prices people were trying to extract for the 35 kilometer journey, we split a taxi with two indigenous ladies for about 1/10 of the price. We assumed people were lying when they said the trip lasts 3 hours and that they were just trying to justify their prices. It actually takes 3 hours because the roads are so bad. Actually, we had to get out and walk along side our cab for a while because the road was impassable with our weight.
La Higuera is a tiny tiny village of about 5-10 families. There is a hotel, but the person who runs it was gone. Lodging and food were provided by the wives of the farmers. They all came up to us and tried to convince us to stay or eat with them because we were the only visitors. We ended up lodging in the school house along with the visiting Cuban doctor (part of the MercoSur alliances ´ ¨oil for doctors¨ program with Cuba). This got weird in the morning when there were children playing soccer while we were brushing our teeth. The main activities in La Higuera (possibly the only activities) are hiking to La Quebrada del Churo or Churo´s Ravine and visiting the old schoolhouse. The schoolhouse is just a plain concrete room about the size of a college dorm room but completely decorated with relics from Che´s life and various homages to the revolutionary. The ravine where Che was captured is a beautiful hike through pastures, rivers, and forests. We visitied the house of the old lady who fed the band and put them up for their last night. It would have been too small for even Tori to stand up in.
It took a full day of travel to get back to Santa Cruz: 3 hour taxi, 1 hour wait for the bus, 8 hours in the bus. We were too exhausted to get on the bus to Asuncion, so we had to spent all of the next day waiting. There really is nothing to do in Santa Cruz, so we stocked up on groceries and read in the park. Not really a bad way to spend a day. We were really glad we had bought so many snacks when we got to Paraguay, too.
Leaving Bolivia was more difficult than we expected. At 4 in the morning, we get kicked off the bus to go through immigration. We had left in 90 degree weather and it was now about 40, so our clothing was a little inappropriate. The guard starts calling out nationalities and telling them to get back on the bus. Ours is not one of them, but fortunately we´re at the front of the line. Stew gives him the passport and starts screaming ¨Are you from the American government?¨Stew was a little confused and thought ¨yes, we are associated with the U.S. Government....we´re citizens.¨ This was wrong and the guy started screaming ¨CIA! SPIES!¨ This is not a good way to wake up. He demanded all of the receipts and proof of our actions while in Bolivia. No one had told us this would be necessary, so we were a little confused. We didn´t have any receipts and couldn´t think of any way to get them either. Fortunately, Tori had the WIFI password written on the back of a piece of scrap paper that happened to have the name of a hotel. This, ridiculously, convinced the roided bureaucrat that he had done his job and he let us pass.
5 hours later we get to the Paraguayan side of the border. Does that confuse anyone else? I lost lines had no width. We unloaded again and put all our luggage in a line for the dogs to sniff. They were not interested in our bags at all, which we´re sure contain interesting smells. Everyone´s bags were fine and we all got back on our bus. And then we waited. And waited. And ate lunch...and waited. Eventually, someone told us that there were people on our bus with drugs and we had to wait for them. They had swallowed cocaine and the cops had to get it out of them. Finally, we go again, but stop five minutes later outside of the main immigration office where soldiers come and take all of the Bolivians off the bus and check everyone´s passports again. Hours pass and people start coming out and getting hand cuffed to the police trucks. 12 people have been taken from our bus and seven from the bus next to us. A woman that works at the Bolivian consulate in Paraguay is on the bus and starts taking the information for the prisoners to send to their families. Apparently they had each swallowed 300 grams of cocaine and were ratting each other out. One guy had looked nervous and his eyes were really red so that tipped off the authorities and they had x-rayed all of the Bolivians. One rich Bolivian got interrogated much more harshly because he didn´t have any coke and they thought he was the ringleader. He came back looking horribly shaken with two black eyes and a fierce temper. The Brazilian transvestite never came back. Finally, after 12 hours, they put all of the prisoners back on the bus and we all drove together to the jail with soldiers pointing their machine guns at the handcuffed people. We didn´t get dinner or breakfast, and our trip went from an estimated 18-20 hours to an actual 36 hours. Fortunately, we made friends with Alan from Ireland and Viktor from Sweden who entertained us.
Eventually, we got to Santa Cruz, the largest city in Bolivia. The climate is much more like Central America: hot, muggy, and beautiful skies. It was nice to be in a place with palm trees and fruit trees everywhere, but the town is basically boring. We did manage to get our Paraguayan visas with complete ease: we showed up, filled an application, deposited money in their account, and returned in three hours for the visas. After a quite mediocre art museum, there was nothing else to do in the town, so Tori was forced to go clothes shopping.
The next morning, we hopped on a local bus to Valle Grande. It is a town of about 6,000 people in an incredibly remote part of Bolivia. It is only 200 kilometers from Santa Cruz but takes between 6-8 hours in bus. There is even less to do here than in Santa Cruz, but it is an important historical site. Che´s body was brought here after he was executed in a small schoolhouse in La Higuera. The photos that went out to newspapers confirming his death were taken in the laundry room of the hospital before they took his body (and those of his comrades) and buried in them in unmarked mass graves. These were later found underneath the runway of the local ¨airport,¨ which is still unpaved. There is also a monument to Che which is somewhat ironically closed to the public and you have to pay $50 for a tour. Alternatively, you can pull up the chain link fence and sneak in...
Pretty much everyone in Valle Grande wants to sell a tour to La Higuera because there is no public transport there. After being disgusted with the prices people were trying to extract for the 35 kilometer journey, we split a taxi with two indigenous ladies for about 1/10 of the price. We assumed people were lying when they said the trip lasts 3 hours and that they were just trying to justify their prices. It actually takes 3 hours because the roads are so bad. Actually, we had to get out and walk along side our cab for a while because the road was impassable with our weight.
La Higuera is a tiny tiny village of about 5-10 families. There is a hotel, but the person who runs it was gone. Lodging and food were provided by the wives of the farmers. They all came up to us and tried to convince us to stay or eat with them because we were the only visitors. We ended up lodging in the school house along with the visiting Cuban doctor (part of the MercoSur alliances ´ ¨oil for doctors¨ program with Cuba). This got weird in the morning when there were children playing soccer while we were brushing our teeth. The main activities in La Higuera (possibly the only activities) are hiking to La Quebrada del Churo or Churo´s Ravine and visiting the old schoolhouse. The schoolhouse is just a plain concrete room about the size of a college dorm room but completely decorated with relics from Che´s life and various homages to the revolutionary. The ravine where Che was captured is a beautiful hike through pastures, rivers, and forests. We visitied the house of the old lady who fed the band and put them up for their last night. It would have been too small for even Tori to stand up in.
It took a full day of travel to get back to Santa Cruz: 3 hour taxi, 1 hour wait for the bus, 8 hours in the bus. We were too exhausted to get on the bus to Asuncion, so we had to spent all of the next day waiting. There really is nothing to do in Santa Cruz, so we stocked up on groceries and read in the park. Not really a bad way to spend a day. We were really glad we had bought so many snacks when we got to Paraguay, too.
Leaving Bolivia was more difficult than we expected. At 4 in the morning, we get kicked off the bus to go through immigration. We had left in 90 degree weather and it was now about 40, so our clothing was a little inappropriate. The guard starts calling out nationalities and telling them to get back on the bus. Ours is not one of them, but fortunately we´re at the front of the line. Stew gives him the passport and starts screaming ¨Are you from the American government?¨Stew was a little confused and thought ¨yes, we are associated with the U.S. Government....we´re citizens.¨ This was wrong and the guy started screaming ¨CIA! SPIES!¨ This is not a good way to wake up. He demanded all of the receipts and proof of our actions while in Bolivia. No one had told us this would be necessary, so we were a little confused. We didn´t have any receipts and couldn´t think of any way to get them either. Fortunately, Tori had the WIFI password written on the back of a piece of scrap paper that happened to have the name of a hotel. This, ridiculously, convinced the roided bureaucrat that he had done his job and he let us pass.
5 hours later we get to the Paraguayan side of the border. Does that confuse anyone else? I lost lines had no width. We unloaded again and put all our luggage in a line for the dogs to sniff. They were not interested in our bags at all, which we´re sure contain interesting smells. Everyone´s bags were fine and we all got back on our bus. And then we waited. And waited. And ate lunch...and waited. Eventually, someone told us that there were people on our bus with drugs and we had to wait for them. They had swallowed cocaine and the cops had to get it out of them. Finally, we go again, but stop five minutes later outside of the main immigration office where soldiers come and take all of the Bolivians off the bus and check everyone´s passports again. Hours pass and people start coming out and getting hand cuffed to the police trucks. 12 people have been taken from our bus and seven from the bus next to us. A woman that works at the Bolivian consulate in Paraguay is on the bus and starts taking the information for the prisoners to send to their families. Apparently they had each swallowed 300 grams of cocaine and were ratting each other out. One guy had looked nervous and his eyes were really red so that tipped off the authorities and they had x-rayed all of the Bolivians. One rich Bolivian got interrogated much more harshly because he didn´t have any coke and they thought he was the ringleader. He came back looking horribly shaken with two black eyes and a fierce temper. The Brazilian transvestite never came back. Finally, after 12 hours, they put all of the prisoners back on the bus and we all drove together to the jail with soldiers pointing their machine guns at the handcuffed people. We didn´t get dinner or breakfast, and our trip went from an estimated 18-20 hours to an actual 36 hours. Fortunately, we made friends with Alan from Ireland and Viktor from Sweden who entertained us.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Minerals on our mine
Pardon our complete and utter disregard for the space-time continuum here, but in our last post we somehow forgot to mention the fabulous CHOLITAS WRESTLING SPECTACULAR we attended in El Alto, a primarily indigenous suburb high in the mountains outside of La Paz -- before we went to Copacabana.
Fighting/wrestling is a tradition among Bolivian highland communities, where women and men duke it out in the ring for leadershop of their groups. The more blood spilled the better, as all that falls is seen as an offering to Pacha Mama, the mother earth deity. We thought we were going to see some traditional fighting, but it turned out that we saw the city-fied version of the traditional fights (read: WWF-style). First up was El Tigre and The Shocker, both in hilarious spandex outfits that we strongly suspect were made by their Mamas. Things only got better after this: ninjas and midgets joined the fray! There were also several girl on girl fights, and they all wore traditional bolivian dress. This means their skirts went flying up when they soared through the air. That´s right, huge throws were a big part of this wrestling extravaganza.
Another key component of the event was audience participation. When the crowd disapproved of the fighters´methods (ie: breaking a wooden crate over the head of a fighter who was down) they threw food and garbage at the fighters. The fighters responded in kind, spraying water and sprite, and throwing garbage back at the crowd. We were in the front row, so things got a little messy for us. It was sort of like a cafeteria food fight, with costumes and punching.
Now, back to the program:
We arrived in Uyuni early in the morning, but tour operators were open for business. We were hounded by about 10 different agencies, and finally chose the one that offered us free coffee. It was 7AM, freezing cold, and we had just spent the last two hours of our bus ride listening to a crying baby (Stew groggily woke up with the baby´s cries, and muttered ¨voy a comerlo¨). We decided to be an ambitious and book a tour for that very day, starting at 10:30 AM. Our time is running out, so despite our extreme tiredness (beyond the crying baby, the bus ride was so bumpy that sleep was pretty fitfull for the two of us for the entire trip), we decided to push on.
We showed up at the tour office in plenty of time, stopping for breakfast at a stand on the street that sold some of the most delicious chicken sandwiches we´ve ever had. It was basically an elderly woman and a table with a platter of whole chickens and half a pig, some raw onions and hot peppers, and some of the most delicious hot-bbqish sauce you´ve ever tasted. They were such awesome sandwiches, we had them again the next day.
The tour ended up starting late, and that would be a theme for the rest of the day. Despite waiting around at every stop for our driver or whatever member of the group was currently missing (Ahem, Tori), we managed to see it all. Our first stop was the train graveyard, where at least a hundred decommisioned trains were rusting in the desert. We got to climb all over them and take cool photos. It was basically hunks of metal in the middle of nowhere. Pretty cool. Next, it was off to the small salt refining town of Colchani, where nothing much was happening except a few people selling artesania. Luckily, Tori found the rainbow wool hat she has been lusting after for half the price as those in La Paz! Stew found dice made out of salt. We are hoping they survive the Virginia humidiy when we return, they are so cool.
After all this putzing around (we signed up for the tour for the salt, people), we finally made it to the salt flat. We stopped first at the very edge of the 4,086 square mile, 100 ft. deep salt flat. There is some table salt production at the edges, which basically involved shovelling the salt into small, pyramid-like mounds to dry, then sifting and crushing it. Next, it was on to the salt hotel. It is made from bricks of salt that have been compressed. All the furniture inside the hotel is also made of salt. It´s hard not to want to lick everything.
After the salt hotel, we took a long drive through the empty, barren plain of salt to a volcano in the middle of the salt flat. As we´re approaching the dry season, the salt had begun to crack and turn a stark white that contrasted sharply with the bright blue sky above. It looked like the moon. We stopped off at the volcano for lunch, at which point Tori got confused about where every went and ended up starting the climb up the volcano. It was an awesome view -- the salt flat extended as far as you could see in every direction. Unfortunately, this hike wasn´t actually in the protocol, and Stew and the guide were forced to come looking for her. Lunch ended up being about 2 hours late, though it wasn´t entirely Tori´s fault: two other group members got seriously lost, and we were waiting longer for them.
On our way to the next stop, Isla Incahuasi, we jumped out of the car and took some cool pictures. There is no sense of perspective on the salt flat because you don´t have any reference points, so you can take funny pictures where it looks like a toy dinosaur is life-size, and gobbling up Tori and Stew. We also took ones where it looks like we are sitting on mountains. Incahuasi was a little lackluster - a mound of cacti and rock in the middle of the salt flat - but it was still an awesome tour overall.
We eschewed the night bus to Potosi for safety reasons (yes, we do think of safety!), and jumped on a 10 AM bus the following morning. It was every bit as bumpy as the ride from La Paz to Uyuni, but this time we got to listen to modern takes on traditional Bolivian classics at full volume the whole way. We booked a tour of the famed mines of Potosi first thing, and then slowly strolled around the town -- at 13,420 ft, it´s difficult to do anything too fast.
Our tour of the mines began with a visit to the miners´market, the only place in the world where dynamite is widely and freely available. A twelve-year-old could walk up to any stand and load himself up with enough dynamite to take the whole mine out. This is necessary, because twelve-year-olds also work in the mines. Also for sale at the miners´market are coca leaves and fruit drinks, which we bought to give to the miners as gifts. The miners have to buy all of their own working supplies because there is no mining company in Potosi, instead it is basically a cooperative. Only members of the cooperative can hire their own employees, so profitsharing doesn´t really happen. As there is no company to finance modernization of extraction technologies, the only real improvement since the colonial era is dynamite.
The next step was to put on bright yellow plastic pants, jackets, boots, and helmets. Tori´s were so big on her she was tripping over them, but they fit Stew like saranwrap on a burrito. Makes sense- they were the same size. We then drove up another few hundred meters to the mine entrance, where we all had to duck to get in. We began winding our way through the dusty, cramped labyrinth, with our guide, a former miner, stopping at intervels to explain the support structures in the mine and the various mineral formations. Sometimes we had to run to get out of the way of oncoming carts filled with minerals. The carts were propelled by running miners, and had so much momentum that they couldn´t be stopped. We had one hairy situation in which one of our fellow tourists practically leaped into Tori´s arms on the side of the tunnel to evade the racing cart. The tunnels got more hot and it became more difficult to breathe as we journeyed further inward. This was due to an increase in chemicals in the air, specifically arsenic, and the absence of any form of ventilation.
We stopped for a talk at the Tio of the mine, or the miners´deity. He is called the Tio because when the Spanish arrived, the Incans could not pronounce the word ¨Dios¨, meaning God, and wound up with Tio. The Tio is a syncretic deity that looks an awful lot like the Catholic devil, horns and all. Given that the devil is the God of the underworld, the miners took him for their own. Whenever they come to work, they make an offering to the Tio of pure alcohol (96 percent pure hellfire known as Bolivian whisky), coca leaves, and cigarrettes. We made an offering of our own, which involved pouring a bit of the whisky on the ground and then taking two sips each. Our guide admonished us not to wince when drinking the liquor, or it would offend the Tio. This proved challenging, but somehow we smiled. At least we learned something in college.
After our visit to the Tio, we went deeper still and saw some actual digging at the veins. Stew took his hand with the shovel, but Tori wasn´t allowed. No women are allowed to work in the interior of the mines. Legend has it that the mountain (and all mountains) itself, Cerro Rico, is a woman, and that she will grow jealous and hide all of the minerals if a woman attempts to mine. It wasn´t until 20 years ago that women were allowed in as tourists. To be fair, the womens´lib movement should not bother fighting for the right to work this awful job. The work is punishing, as it entails heavy manual labor in a blistering hot, unventilated area around harmful chemicals and explosions. The average life expentancy after entering as a worker can be as low as seven years. Really, some kind of liberation movement for the workers´in the mines should be organized....but there isn´t really any other industry in Potosi, so we doubt that this will happen.
When we left the mines, we were taught how to use dynamite and got to blow up a tire! We mixed sodium nitrate (we think) with nitroglycerine (dynamite) and it went off way better than any roman candle we´ve seen. The tire went flying 200 meters in the air and landed high up on the side of the mountain.
Although the tour was, for the most part, physically and emotionally draining, we´re glad we did it.
Today we are off to Santa Cruz on a 20 hour bus ride. Thank God we have 2 ambien left.
Love,
Tori and Stew
Fighting/wrestling is a tradition among Bolivian highland communities, where women and men duke it out in the ring for leadershop of their groups. The more blood spilled the better, as all that falls is seen as an offering to Pacha Mama, the mother earth deity. We thought we were going to see some traditional fighting, but it turned out that we saw the city-fied version of the traditional fights (read: WWF-style). First up was El Tigre and The Shocker, both in hilarious spandex outfits that we strongly suspect were made by their Mamas. Things only got better after this: ninjas and midgets joined the fray! There were also several girl on girl fights, and they all wore traditional bolivian dress. This means their skirts went flying up when they soared through the air. That´s right, huge throws were a big part of this wrestling extravaganza.
Another key component of the event was audience participation. When the crowd disapproved of the fighters´methods (ie: breaking a wooden crate over the head of a fighter who was down) they threw food and garbage at the fighters. The fighters responded in kind, spraying water and sprite, and throwing garbage back at the crowd. We were in the front row, so things got a little messy for us. It was sort of like a cafeteria food fight, with costumes and punching.
Now, back to the program:
We arrived in Uyuni early in the morning, but tour operators were open for business. We were hounded by about 10 different agencies, and finally chose the one that offered us free coffee. It was 7AM, freezing cold, and we had just spent the last two hours of our bus ride listening to a crying baby (Stew groggily woke up with the baby´s cries, and muttered ¨voy a comerlo¨). We decided to be an ambitious and book a tour for that very day, starting at 10:30 AM. Our time is running out, so despite our extreme tiredness (beyond the crying baby, the bus ride was so bumpy that sleep was pretty fitfull for the two of us for the entire trip), we decided to push on.
We showed up at the tour office in plenty of time, stopping for breakfast at a stand on the street that sold some of the most delicious chicken sandwiches we´ve ever had. It was basically an elderly woman and a table with a platter of whole chickens and half a pig, some raw onions and hot peppers, and some of the most delicious hot-bbqish sauce you´ve ever tasted. They were such awesome sandwiches, we had them again the next day.
The tour ended up starting late, and that would be a theme for the rest of the day. Despite waiting around at every stop for our driver or whatever member of the group was currently missing (Ahem, Tori), we managed to see it all. Our first stop was the train graveyard, where at least a hundred decommisioned trains were rusting in the desert. We got to climb all over them and take cool photos. It was basically hunks of metal in the middle of nowhere. Pretty cool. Next, it was off to the small salt refining town of Colchani, where nothing much was happening except a few people selling artesania. Luckily, Tori found the rainbow wool hat she has been lusting after for half the price as those in La Paz! Stew found dice made out of salt. We are hoping they survive the Virginia humidiy when we return, they are so cool.
After all this putzing around (we signed up for the tour for the salt, people), we finally made it to the salt flat. We stopped first at the very edge of the 4,086 square mile, 100 ft. deep salt flat. There is some table salt production at the edges, which basically involved shovelling the salt into small, pyramid-like mounds to dry, then sifting and crushing it. Next, it was on to the salt hotel. It is made from bricks of salt that have been compressed. All the furniture inside the hotel is also made of salt. It´s hard not to want to lick everything.
After the salt hotel, we took a long drive through the empty, barren plain of salt to a volcano in the middle of the salt flat. As we´re approaching the dry season, the salt had begun to crack and turn a stark white that contrasted sharply with the bright blue sky above. It looked like the moon. We stopped off at the volcano for lunch, at which point Tori got confused about where every went and ended up starting the climb up the volcano. It was an awesome view -- the salt flat extended as far as you could see in every direction. Unfortunately, this hike wasn´t actually in the protocol, and Stew and the guide were forced to come looking for her. Lunch ended up being about 2 hours late, though it wasn´t entirely Tori´s fault: two other group members got seriously lost, and we were waiting longer for them.
On our way to the next stop, Isla Incahuasi, we jumped out of the car and took some cool pictures. There is no sense of perspective on the salt flat because you don´t have any reference points, so you can take funny pictures where it looks like a toy dinosaur is life-size, and gobbling up Tori and Stew. We also took ones where it looks like we are sitting on mountains. Incahuasi was a little lackluster - a mound of cacti and rock in the middle of the salt flat - but it was still an awesome tour overall.
We eschewed the night bus to Potosi for safety reasons (yes, we do think of safety!), and jumped on a 10 AM bus the following morning. It was every bit as bumpy as the ride from La Paz to Uyuni, but this time we got to listen to modern takes on traditional Bolivian classics at full volume the whole way. We booked a tour of the famed mines of Potosi first thing, and then slowly strolled around the town -- at 13,420 ft, it´s difficult to do anything too fast.
Our tour of the mines began with a visit to the miners´market, the only place in the world where dynamite is widely and freely available. A twelve-year-old could walk up to any stand and load himself up with enough dynamite to take the whole mine out. This is necessary, because twelve-year-olds also work in the mines. Also for sale at the miners´market are coca leaves and fruit drinks, which we bought to give to the miners as gifts. The miners have to buy all of their own working supplies because there is no mining company in Potosi, instead it is basically a cooperative. Only members of the cooperative can hire their own employees, so profitsharing doesn´t really happen. As there is no company to finance modernization of extraction technologies, the only real improvement since the colonial era is dynamite.
The next step was to put on bright yellow plastic pants, jackets, boots, and helmets. Tori´s were so big on her she was tripping over them, but they fit Stew like saranwrap on a burrito. Makes sense- they were the same size. We then drove up another few hundred meters to the mine entrance, where we all had to duck to get in. We began winding our way through the dusty, cramped labyrinth, with our guide, a former miner, stopping at intervels to explain the support structures in the mine and the various mineral formations. Sometimes we had to run to get out of the way of oncoming carts filled with minerals. The carts were propelled by running miners, and had so much momentum that they couldn´t be stopped. We had one hairy situation in which one of our fellow tourists practically leaped into Tori´s arms on the side of the tunnel to evade the racing cart. The tunnels got more hot and it became more difficult to breathe as we journeyed further inward. This was due to an increase in chemicals in the air, specifically arsenic, and the absence of any form of ventilation.
We stopped for a talk at the Tio of the mine, or the miners´deity. He is called the Tio because when the Spanish arrived, the Incans could not pronounce the word ¨Dios¨, meaning God, and wound up with Tio. The Tio is a syncretic deity that looks an awful lot like the Catholic devil, horns and all. Given that the devil is the God of the underworld, the miners took him for their own. Whenever they come to work, they make an offering to the Tio of pure alcohol (96 percent pure hellfire known as Bolivian whisky), coca leaves, and cigarrettes. We made an offering of our own, which involved pouring a bit of the whisky on the ground and then taking two sips each. Our guide admonished us not to wince when drinking the liquor, or it would offend the Tio. This proved challenging, but somehow we smiled. At least we learned something in college.
After our visit to the Tio, we went deeper still and saw some actual digging at the veins. Stew took his hand with the shovel, but Tori wasn´t allowed. No women are allowed to work in the interior of the mines. Legend has it that the mountain (and all mountains) itself, Cerro Rico, is a woman, and that she will grow jealous and hide all of the minerals if a woman attempts to mine. It wasn´t until 20 years ago that women were allowed in as tourists. To be fair, the womens´lib movement should not bother fighting for the right to work this awful job. The work is punishing, as it entails heavy manual labor in a blistering hot, unventilated area around harmful chemicals and explosions. The average life expentancy after entering as a worker can be as low as seven years. Really, some kind of liberation movement for the workers´in the mines should be organized....but there isn´t really any other industry in Potosi, so we doubt that this will happen.
When we left the mines, we were taught how to use dynamite and got to blow up a tire! We mixed sodium nitrate (we think) with nitroglycerine (dynamite) and it went off way better than any roman candle we´ve seen. The tire went flying 200 meters in the air and landed high up on the side of the mountain.
Although the tour was, for the most part, physically and emotionally draining, we´re glad we did it.
Today we are off to Santa Cruz on a 20 hour bus ride. Thank God we have 2 ambien left.
Love,
Tori and Stew
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Bo-livin´ it up
After several days in La Paz partying and eating delicious ethnic foods (every ethnic group but Bolivian), we hit the dusty, bumpy, rocky road in a crowded bus to Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca. It was pretty similar to most bus rides in Bolivia or Peru: cramped, old bus that smelled funny and took way longer than the map (and the tour bus agency) would indicate. The one surprise came when they made us all get on a boat (!) and cross a lake without any of our belongings. We figured out what was going on when we saw our bus on a tiny raft crossing next to our boat. What a goofy sight...a bus on a pallet with water up to its wheels slowing motoring across a sacred lake.
Copacabana is a quaint little lake side town high (12,500 ft) in the Andes with a gorgeous basilica. The main industries appear to be hat selling, yelling about hats for sale, hat making, and tourism. There is also good Bolivian food (a thousand types of trout for each of your hats) and very inexpensive hotels. Like most people, we spent little time in Copacabana and got on the first ferry out to Isla del Sol (Sun Island).
Isla del Sol is, according to the Incan creation myth, the place where the sun god gave birth to the first Incan people. As such, the island is sacred and there are many Incan temples across the rocky, terraced mountainous island. In some nooks, there are beautiful white sand beaches and shallow turquoise waters for swimming. Given the altitude, we suspect the water is quite frigid most of the year. We had a big hike planned from one end of the island to the other, and thus had little time for turning our toes into icicles.
The main businesses on Isla del Sol are subsistence farming and tourism, but the tourism aspect can be particularly annoying. As you hike across the island, you are stopped by one person selling a ticket to get on to the trail and four people who subsequently check the ticket. No wonder it costs 8 bolivianos! Later, more people try to sell you tickets and then check them. Some of them are valid (and you have to pay or incur the wrath of the non-existent police force) but others are simply fakes sold by opportunists. Seriously annoying.
We had to come back to La Paz after only two days in Copacabana in order to keep on our now hastened schedule. We´re finally running out of time after 8 months on the trail and still have so much to see! Thus, we came back to La Paz and got on a plane to Rurrenabaque in the jungles of Beni, Bolivia´s largest department. We arrived in Rurre (as anyone in a hurry calls it), grabbed a hostel, and relaxed by a pool drinking piña coladas. The next morning, our tour through the flooded grasslands (Pampas) started at 9 a.m. We chose to go on a Pampas tour over the actual rainforest tour because we´ve both already been twice to various parts of the Amazon and in the Pampas there is a much better chance of seeing wildlife. Specifically, we were on the hunt for anacondas (Tori wants to wrestle one) and pink dolphins (Stew wants to cuddle one). From Rurre, we sat in the back of a sketchy white van for three hours (oh, how we reminisced about college) before we got to a river. We then took a canoe with an outboard motor for two hours and saw lots of wildlife. There are many alligators, black caimans, stinky turkeys, herons, eagles, hummingbirds, tucans, squirrel monkeys, turtles, red howler monkeys, capybaras, and the uber spectacular pink dolphin. We even got to swim with pink dolphins. Apparently, dolphins do not like to play with alligators or caimans and will kill them if they try to chill by their pool (much like the surfers in Point Break) which means it is safe to swim wherever the dolphins are.
The lodge was budget and we experienced some of the worst beds of our trip, but after the exhausting tours, they seemed amazing nonetheless. The only bad part was the rat poop over our mosquito nets, which appeared to have been dropped by a capybara (the largest rodent in the world, after Dick Cheney). The food was great and more or less plentiful, the bathroom worked and had a seat, so there were no real complaints. Except, of course, for the rowdy Brits hollering until all hours of the night with the MIA fueled parties. Wish we´d been in that tour group...
The main activities were anaconda hunting, dolphin swimming, and piraña fishing. They were all fun and increasingly succesful. This is easy when compared to the utter failure that anaconda hunting was. The day we went was cloudy and the anacondas (particularly lazy creatures) were chilling on their couches in a much warmer place. Still we battled the thigh, or for Tori, eye brow high grasses. We waded quietly through the swampy waters searching under every bush and copse for anacondas, but found only frogs, eggs, giant snails, and baby birds. I suppose it wasn´t a complete failure, but it was far from a success. We came back muddy and disappointed.
That afternoon, we went swimming with dolphins. Dolphins are known for being playful (especially with themselves) and they seemed to be having a good time with us. They would come up to the surface invitingly and play around with each other. As soon as we jumped in the water they´d swim a little ways down the river and then disappear. We´d follow, only to see them surface a hundred meters in the opposite direction. We all got pretty tired trying to keep up with them but Stew thinks dolphin cuddling only occurs on their terms. Nonetheless, we got very close to them and saw lots of their tiny little pink bodies. They rule.
Piraña hunting went well: we all caught lots of pirañas, electric stinging cat fish (fo´real, they exist, and are no joke. Also, what a great name for a band), and sardines. We couldn´t eat them because we were in a protected part of the river. They were all very little and it´s better for the environment to leave them in the river anyway.
We took the boat back, then the van, relaxed in Rurre for a day with our Finnish friends, and then waited 5 hours for our delayed plane. This happens frequently because the airport has a grass landing strip, so any rain throws a wrench in the works. This despite the incredible reputation of the Fairchild aircraft we were flying on. Due to our delay, we missed our bus to Uyuni and spent another night in La Paz. Today we´re going to the rest of the museums and taking the night bus to the salt flats. W00t!
Copacabana is a quaint little lake side town high (12,500 ft) in the Andes with a gorgeous basilica. The main industries appear to be hat selling, yelling about hats for sale, hat making, and tourism. There is also good Bolivian food (a thousand types of trout for each of your hats) and very inexpensive hotels. Like most people, we spent little time in Copacabana and got on the first ferry out to Isla del Sol (Sun Island).
Isla del Sol is, according to the Incan creation myth, the place where the sun god gave birth to the first Incan people. As such, the island is sacred and there are many Incan temples across the rocky, terraced mountainous island. In some nooks, there are beautiful white sand beaches and shallow turquoise waters for swimming. Given the altitude, we suspect the water is quite frigid most of the year. We had a big hike planned from one end of the island to the other, and thus had little time for turning our toes into icicles.
The main businesses on Isla del Sol are subsistence farming and tourism, but the tourism aspect can be particularly annoying. As you hike across the island, you are stopped by one person selling a ticket to get on to the trail and four people who subsequently check the ticket. No wonder it costs 8 bolivianos! Later, more people try to sell you tickets and then check them. Some of them are valid (and you have to pay or incur the wrath of the non-existent police force) but others are simply fakes sold by opportunists. Seriously annoying.
We had to come back to La Paz after only two days in Copacabana in order to keep on our now hastened schedule. We´re finally running out of time after 8 months on the trail and still have so much to see! Thus, we came back to La Paz and got on a plane to Rurrenabaque in the jungles of Beni, Bolivia´s largest department. We arrived in Rurre (as anyone in a hurry calls it), grabbed a hostel, and relaxed by a pool drinking piña coladas. The next morning, our tour through the flooded grasslands (Pampas) started at 9 a.m. We chose to go on a Pampas tour over the actual rainforest tour because we´ve both already been twice to various parts of the Amazon and in the Pampas there is a much better chance of seeing wildlife. Specifically, we were on the hunt for anacondas (Tori wants to wrestle one) and pink dolphins (Stew wants to cuddle one). From Rurre, we sat in the back of a sketchy white van for three hours (oh, how we reminisced about college) before we got to a river. We then took a canoe with an outboard motor for two hours and saw lots of wildlife. There are many alligators, black caimans, stinky turkeys, herons, eagles, hummingbirds, tucans, squirrel monkeys, turtles, red howler monkeys, capybaras, and the uber spectacular pink dolphin. We even got to swim with pink dolphins. Apparently, dolphins do not like to play with alligators or caimans and will kill them if they try to chill by their pool (much like the surfers in Point Break) which means it is safe to swim wherever the dolphins are.
The lodge was budget and we experienced some of the worst beds of our trip, but after the exhausting tours, they seemed amazing nonetheless. The only bad part was the rat poop over our mosquito nets, which appeared to have been dropped by a capybara (the largest rodent in the world, after Dick Cheney). The food was great and more or less plentiful, the bathroom worked and had a seat, so there were no real complaints. Except, of course, for the rowdy Brits hollering until all hours of the night with the MIA fueled parties. Wish we´d been in that tour group...
The main activities were anaconda hunting, dolphin swimming, and piraña fishing. They were all fun and increasingly succesful. This is easy when compared to the utter failure that anaconda hunting was. The day we went was cloudy and the anacondas (particularly lazy creatures) were chilling on their couches in a much warmer place. Still we battled the thigh, or for Tori, eye brow high grasses. We waded quietly through the swampy waters searching under every bush and copse for anacondas, but found only frogs, eggs, giant snails, and baby birds. I suppose it wasn´t a complete failure, but it was far from a success. We came back muddy and disappointed.
That afternoon, we went swimming with dolphins. Dolphins are known for being playful (especially with themselves) and they seemed to be having a good time with us. They would come up to the surface invitingly and play around with each other. As soon as we jumped in the water they´d swim a little ways down the river and then disappear. We´d follow, only to see them surface a hundred meters in the opposite direction. We all got pretty tired trying to keep up with them but Stew thinks dolphin cuddling only occurs on their terms. Nonetheless, we got very close to them and saw lots of their tiny little pink bodies. They rule.
Piraña hunting went well: we all caught lots of pirañas, electric stinging cat fish (fo´real, they exist, and are no joke. Also, what a great name for a band), and sardines. We couldn´t eat them because we were in a protected part of the river. They were all very little and it´s better for the environment to leave them in the river anyway.
We took the boat back, then the van, relaxed in Rurre for a day with our Finnish friends, and then waited 5 hours for our delayed plane. This happens frequently because the airport has a grass landing strip, so any rain throws a wrench in the works. This despite the incredible reputation of the Fairchild aircraft we were flying on. Due to our delay, we missed our bus to Uyuni and spent another night in La Paz. Today we´re going to the rest of the museums and taking the night bus to the salt flats. W00t!
Sunday, April 18, 2010
High in La Paz
We arrived at the Bolivian/Argentinean border on a Sunday, and when we arrived the Argentine immigration officers assured us that as long as we had 135 dollars each, we would easily enter
Apparently, the man in charge of issuing visas had decided to call it a day long before we even arrived. The 15 year olds made a few phone calls at the old man's behest, and we settled in to wait. As the minutes ticked by, and upon realizing that we could not reenter
Crossing the border into
We arrived in Tarija early the next day after a freezing, bumpy, semi terrifying ride. Bolivian buses are a lot more like the old school buses that we rode in Central America than the luxury liners of
Tarija, the so called Andalusia of the
After Tarija, our next stop was
Our first day in
After a full day of rest, we decided we were up for a little nighttime sightseeing. We walked down to the Witches’ Market, a section of the city where old women in various stages of decay sell dried llama fetuses (among other things) in various stages of decay. Also for sale were dried monkey heads, various multi colored powders, amulets, charms, and cheap touristy crap. We wandered the streets both in awe and grossed out. If anyone is in dire need of a llama fetus…there’s no way it’s going in our bags.
Craving a little companionship, we moved from our ultra cheap hostel into a backpackers’ hostel. It’s called Adventure Brew, and though it’s a little pricey, it rules. You get one free microbrew per day, and they’re tasty! The crazy Texan brewmaster is quite a gem. Our first day at Adventure Brew we got as much tourism in as possible. First we visited the Coca Musuem, where we learned all about Coca and Cocaine production in
We also went to a contemporary art museum, and attempted to go to an archaeology museum. With our luck, at least one museum we desperately wanted to see had to be closed…Instead of visiting the archaelogy museum, we walked around
That night for dinner, we treated ourselves to some absolutely scrumptious Indian food. We had to wait a while for a table, which led to much beer drinking, which is always dangerous at high altitude. By the time we could order, we were ready to eat pretty much everything on the menu…which we did. Don’t worry, Moms, there was enough left over for a full lunch for 3 the next day!
The next day was Stew’s 21st birthday, which we were determined to celebrate in high style. We eschewed the dorm and booked our own private room, had a pancake breakfast, and slept in. Our first real activity of the day was the beer spa, which is a bathtub above a fire filled with beer. The bar manager poured beer all over us while we sat in the tub. It was righteous. The beer spa also included a free pitcher (five pints) of beer, which we enjoyed in our beer bath tub. This was clearly the right way to start the day. Then, we partied.
Yesterday, the day after Stew’s birthday, we did nothing but watch movies and recover. After the previous night’s activities, we felt we had earned a day of rest. Today, we will go to watch an all female traditional wrestling tournament, the battle of the Cholitas.
Love,
Tori and Stew
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Visitors from another hemisphere
While back in Buenos Aires for the fourth and last time for at least a couple months/years, we met up with Mike and Claire for a rousing night on the town. We had yet to do BA nightlife properly and were determined to stay out at least until the party started at 3 a.m. Little did we know that the law had recently changed and bars now had to close at 5 a.m., making the notorious ¨party till noon¨scene a little less raucous. Most bars weren´t taking it seriously yet, though, and we managed to have a great night, eventually making it home just after dawn.
We started by meeting up with Mike at the world´s worst hostel: Tango Backpackers. We were murdered by bed bugs in this hostel a month ago and had found different accomodations. Mike still worked there so we drank some beers on the roof while eating takeout chicken dinners. Claire had crossed the border into Uruguay in order to abide by the terms of her visa (unlike Mike) and met up with us at the bar later in the night.
We started our party at a bar called Dada, with art that lived up to the name, including tasteful toilet sculptures next to the tables and menus made out of old Playboy magazines with random pictures pasted over the women (for example, a models head, a man´s chest, and a bicycle for legs). We continued to several other bars, none of which was particularly ground breaking but fun nonetheless. At last call, we got a bottle of champagne and some redbull, which we somehow thought was a good idea. To be fair, we were under the impression that the party would continue till noon and, given that it was 6 ish (who knows??), the red bull seemed necessary.
The next day, we left our hostel early to go meet up with Tori´s mom and sister. Their plane ended up coming in late and sans luggage, but this gave us some time to rest from our big night out. Lacking clothes, Ellen and Tori decided it was as good a time as any to go shopping. Stew tagged along and we all ended up with new outfits. Stew now has the most fashionable clothing of his life, his new waxed jeans having surpassed his previous fashion high of YSL sunglasses courtesy of Alex Clifford.
That night we went to dinner at another Frances Malmon restaurant called Patagonia Sur. The food was spectacular, as could be expected, and surpassed the previous night´s takeout chicken. Upon returning to the hotel, we watched Stew´s movie which Liz and Ellen had brought (courtesy of Stew´s family and Bruno Elias). We were really happy to finally see the movie and think it turned out really well. Eventually, it will be on the internet and all of you can watch it, too!
The next day, we flew to Salta. We met up with Adolfo who would be our driver for the next week and began the arduous trek to Maimara. The northwest of Argentina is the least developed region of the country and has notoriously poor roads. Imagine going to Montana and then heading as far into nowhere as possible...that´s where Maimara is. Thus, our two hour 60 mile journey wound up taking 3 hours. Still, we passed a fantastic dike, went through a rainforest, summited mountains, and generally enjoyed the scenery. The town of Maimara has little to offer on its own but the canyon (Quebrada de Huemaca) around it is comparable to the fabulous rock formations of the American Southwest. We had dinner at the open restaurant (the other was being renovated) and listened to not one but TWO folkloric bands performing Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel covers. Take that, culture appropriaters!
Much of the following day was spent driving through the canyons, admiring the rocks and occasionally climbing on them. We also visited an Incan ruin similar to the one we had seen in the nearby Atacama, though this one was fully restored and demonstrated how the houses would have actually looked. In the town of Tilcara, we grabbed a traditional lunch (except for Stew and Liz who shared a pizza). Stew napped while Tori, Liz, and Ellen went shopping.
While Tilcara is only a little bit bigger than Maimara, the quality of lodging and dining is much improved. We ate dinner in a great restaurant with the worst waitress in the world. After an incredible meal with great wine (none of it what we ordered), Tori confronted the waitress and manager in a hilarious and expert bout of Spanish swearing. We still had to pay, but Ellen learned a few new Spanish words.
Sunday was Easter and we woke early to watch the parade. Having been misinformed, we arrived three hours early for the parade, but still managed to see some people beating drums on their way to mass before the parade. Lacking the patience for mass (or maybe we were just in protest!), we walked away from church on Easter sunday and began the long trip south to Cachi. We had to completely backtrack and then continue another hundred kilometers past Salta. We stopped at the airport to look for Ellen´s luggage, but the airport was unsurprisingly closed. Adolfo sprang into action, calling all of his homies that worked for the airline, and managed to get the bag the next morning. Adolfo: more powerful than American Express and Argentinian Airlines combined.
We stayed the night at a place called Finca Santana. It was a beautiful house with excellent food and wine, but the aristocratic women that lived there were off the walls ridiculous. We enjoyed the delicious empanadas, which they made with paprika in the dough and stuffed with hundred dollar bills.
With morning came another long drive (all of these drives are less than 150 miles, but take an absurdly long time because we averaged 20-30 miles an hour), which we broke up by stopping to look at artisan crafts along the way. Much was rejected, but much was bought nonetheless. Ellen became enthralled by the tapestries produced by an artist named Mario, and returned the next day to buy him out.
We spent the next two nights in a vineyard/hotel combo named Colomé, which has a museum designed specifically for James Turrell´s light exhibits. We thought they were cool, but a little silly. The pool, the patio overlooking the vineyards, which doubled as a condor viewing area, and the rooms were all amazing. It was nice to stay in the same place for two nights. We went on a great wine tour with the wine maker and got to taste wine out of the barrels and tanks. Particularly cool were the comparisons between malbec from low/high altitude and new/old vines. We both have decided we don´t like spitting wine and that it belongs in the belly.
Cafayate was a nice re-introduction to society, as we stayed in hotel that was accessible by paved road. We had a great lunch at a boutique winery called San Pedro de Yacochuya, where we all wound up with a little too much wine for 1 p.m. Fortunately, there was a spa in the hotel to help alleviate the stress this caused us. Nothing like a massage to work out those tanins. Come dinner time, we were all too stuffed to eat, and compromised on another pair of wines.
Feeling refreshed in the morning, we set out for a vigorous day of wine tastings. COme 9:30, we were back on the circuit with the production manager of the winery (the wine maker was busy with the harvest), who let us taste wines that were only a few days old. It was more like juice than wine, which reminded Tori of drinking grapejuice at Passover. We stopped in town to get some famous empanadas with 12 different varieties (they came with a free bottle of Torrontes!) and some wine flavored icecream (cabernet sauvignon and torrontes).
Then it was on to the next winery. Once again, we got the special treatment, as this winery is not even open to the public for tours. Ellen works some magic. Here we realized that, while malbec is great, bonardo is the money grape.
Salta was our last stop of the Argentinian Northwest. We arrived early and spent a long day shopping and museuming. We saw mummies and ice children. Creepy and reminiscent of Peru. Ellen and Liz had to (sadly) leave this morning, and we miss them already. It was great to have someone from home come visit and we look forward to seeing them in Mexico in a few short weeks. Tomorrow, we will hopefully be in Bolivia, though by writing that we may have jinxed ourselves. We´re not sure if they give out visas on Sundays, so cross your fingers for us.
Love,
Tori and Stew
We started by meeting up with Mike at the world´s worst hostel: Tango Backpackers. We were murdered by bed bugs in this hostel a month ago and had found different accomodations. Mike still worked there so we drank some beers on the roof while eating takeout chicken dinners. Claire had crossed the border into Uruguay in order to abide by the terms of her visa (unlike Mike) and met up with us at the bar later in the night.
We started our party at a bar called Dada, with art that lived up to the name, including tasteful toilet sculptures next to the tables and menus made out of old Playboy magazines with random pictures pasted over the women (for example, a models head, a man´s chest, and a bicycle for legs). We continued to several other bars, none of which was particularly ground breaking but fun nonetheless. At last call, we got a bottle of champagne and some redbull, which we somehow thought was a good idea. To be fair, we were under the impression that the party would continue till noon and, given that it was 6 ish (who knows??), the red bull seemed necessary.
The next day, we left our hostel early to go meet up with Tori´s mom and sister. Their plane ended up coming in late and sans luggage, but this gave us some time to rest from our big night out. Lacking clothes, Ellen and Tori decided it was as good a time as any to go shopping. Stew tagged along and we all ended up with new outfits. Stew now has the most fashionable clothing of his life, his new waxed jeans having surpassed his previous fashion high of YSL sunglasses courtesy of Alex Clifford.
That night we went to dinner at another Frances Malmon restaurant called Patagonia Sur. The food was spectacular, as could be expected, and surpassed the previous night´s takeout chicken. Upon returning to the hotel, we watched Stew´s movie which Liz and Ellen had brought (courtesy of Stew´s family and Bruno Elias). We were really happy to finally see the movie and think it turned out really well. Eventually, it will be on the internet and all of you can watch it, too!
The next day, we flew to Salta. We met up with Adolfo who would be our driver for the next week and began the arduous trek to Maimara. The northwest of Argentina is the least developed region of the country and has notoriously poor roads. Imagine going to Montana and then heading as far into nowhere as possible...that´s where Maimara is. Thus, our two hour 60 mile journey wound up taking 3 hours. Still, we passed a fantastic dike, went through a rainforest, summited mountains, and generally enjoyed the scenery. The town of Maimara has little to offer on its own but the canyon (Quebrada de Huemaca) around it is comparable to the fabulous rock formations of the American Southwest. We had dinner at the open restaurant (the other was being renovated) and listened to not one but TWO folkloric bands performing Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel covers. Take that, culture appropriaters!
Much of the following day was spent driving through the canyons, admiring the rocks and occasionally climbing on them. We also visited an Incan ruin similar to the one we had seen in the nearby Atacama, though this one was fully restored and demonstrated how the houses would have actually looked. In the town of Tilcara, we grabbed a traditional lunch (except for Stew and Liz who shared a pizza). Stew napped while Tori, Liz, and Ellen went shopping.
While Tilcara is only a little bit bigger than Maimara, the quality of lodging and dining is much improved. We ate dinner in a great restaurant with the worst waitress in the world. After an incredible meal with great wine (none of it what we ordered), Tori confronted the waitress and manager in a hilarious and expert bout of Spanish swearing. We still had to pay, but Ellen learned a few new Spanish words.
Sunday was Easter and we woke early to watch the parade. Having been misinformed, we arrived three hours early for the parade, but still managed to see some people beating drums on their way to mass before the parade. Lacking the patience for mass (or maybe we were just in protest!), we walked away from church on Easter sunday and began the long trip south to Cachi. We had to completely backtrack and then continue another hundred kilometers past Salta. We stopped at the airport to look for Ellen´s luggage, but the airport was unsurprisingly closed. Adolfo sprang into action, calling all of his homies that worked for the airline, and managed to get the bag the next morning. Adolfo: more powerful than American Express and Argentinian Airlines combined.
We stayed the night at a place called Finca Santana. It was a beautiful house with excellent food and wine, but the aristocratic women that lived there were off the walls ridiculous. We enjoyed the delicious empanadas, which they made with paprika in the dough and stuffed with hundred dollar bills.
With morning came another long drive (all of these drives are less than 150 miles, but take an absurdly long time because we averaged 20-30 miles an hour), which we broke up by stopping to look at artisan crafts along the way. Much was rejected, but much was bought nonetheless. Ellen became enthralled by the tapestries produced by an artist named Mario, and returned the next day to buy him out.
We spent the next two nights in a vineyard/hotel combo named Colomé, which has a museum designed specifically for James Turrell´s light exhibits. We thought they were cool, but a little silly. The pool, the patio overlooking the vineyards, which doubled as a condor viewing area, and the rooms were all amazing. It was nice to stay in the same place for two nights. We went on a great wine tour with the wine maker and got to taste wine out of the barrels and tanks. Particularly cool were the comparisons between malbec from low/high altitude and new/old vines. We both have decided we don´t like spitting wine and that it belongs in the belly.
Cafayate was a nice re-introduction to society, as we stayed in hotel that was accessible by paved road. We had a great lunch at a boutique winery called San Pedro de Yacochuya, where we all wound up with a little too much wine for 1 p.m. Fortunately, there was a spa in the hotel to help alleviate the stress this caused us. Nothing like a massage to work out those tanins. Come dinner time, we were all too stuffed to eat, and compromised on another pair of wines.
Feeling refreshed in the morning, we set out for a vigorous day of wine tastings. COme 9:30, we were back on the circuit with the production manager of the winery (the wine maker was busy with the harvest), who let us taste wines that were only a few days old. It was more like juice than wine, which reminded Tori of drinking grapejuice at Passover. We stopped in town to get some famous empanadas with 12 different varieties (they came with a free bottle of Torrontes!) and some wine flavored icecream (cabernet sauvignon and torrontes).
Then it was on to the next winery. Once again, we got the special treatment, as this winery is not even open to the public for tours. Ellen works some magic. Here we realized that, while malbec is great, bonardo is the money grape.
Salta was our last stop of the Argentinian Northwest. We arrived early and spent a long day shopping and museuming. We saw mummies and ice children. Creepy and reminiscent of Peru. Ellen and Liz had to (sadly) leave this morning, and we miss them already. It was great to have someone from home come visit and we look forward to seeing them in Mexico in a few short weeks. Tomorrow, we will hopefully be in Bolivia, though by writing that we may have jinxed ourselves. We´re not sure if they give out visas on Sundays, so cross your fingers for us.
Love,
Tori and Stew
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Beach Bums: Back on the Atlantic!
After working hard at the farm in Tacuarembo, it was time for some serious relaxation. We headed down south to check out Uruguay´s famous Atlantic coast. It felt pretty awesome to finally be back on the East coast -- we´re starting to feel like we´ve come a realllly long way from Virginia.
We opted against the famous and flashy beach town of Punta del Este, known as an international beach resort town, and instead went to Punta del Diablo, which isn´t known. There aren´t any hotels there, just a few hostels and a lot of cabañas (one room huts). We switched around frequently, trying to find the best deal -- prices began to go up a few days after we arrived because of Semana Santa (Easter week).
On our first day on the beach, we practically had the entire coastline to ourselves...besides the other couple a hundred feet away sunbathing in the nude. Things never really picked up from here. Everyday was pretty much the same. In fact, the only thing that really differed were the super delicious dinners we prepared. The basic plan was to wake up, eat our hostel´s breakfast, lay on the beach and play in the ocean, eat salami sandwiches, play in the ocean, take a beachside nap, play in the ocean, and spend a few hours preparing dinner. Tough life.
One night, we made veggie pasta for 15. Another night, mashed potatoes, mac n cheese, and daquiris. We spend one afternoon making a traditional Uruguayan asado (read; massive bbq) of chicken, steak, chorizo, fish, and veggies over a wood grill. Luckily, we made friends with a bunch of other travelers from all of the English speaking countries of the world to help us eat eerything. It was a little strange to speak so much English after 2 weeks of solid Spanish at the farm.
Our first night we stayed in ¨La Casa de las Boyas,¨ or the house of the buoys. It has a great kitchen, practically beach front, swimming pool, and friendly staff...but the room we slept in was seriously infested with mosquitos. We discovered how difficult it is to sleep with ¨muzzies¨ (that´s Aussie for mosquitos) buzzing in your ears.
The next day, we bounced across the street to El Diablo Tranquilo, or the Chill Devil, which had a great outdoor bar area, tiny albeit mosquito free dorms, and a semi-functional kitchen. It was also 2 bucks cheaper than the previous hostel, score! Our dorm room did have a great fan, but Stew forgot he was 5 ft in the air in a bunk bed when he got up to pee one night...the fan broke his fall quite well. Don´t worry folks, Stew escaped unscathed. We cannot say the same for the fan.
After two nights at Diablo, we stumbled into renting a cabaña while looking for a campsite. We got a cute little lime green hut with a full kitchen, private bathroom, and even a bed with a box spring! We couldn´t remember the last time we had a boxspring, so this was pretty exciting. That night we through a party in our cabaña and made all of the food we had been really craving, because it was actually possible to make baked macaroni and cheese in our functional oven (these are a rarity in hostels). As Semana Santa had begun, our cabaña was actually cheaper than the dorm, which had jumped from 10 bucks to 22 bucks a bed. However, the cabaña was only available two nights, so we had to find new accomodation.
By now, there were considerably more people at Punta del Diablo. Mostly vacationers from Buenos Aires, Montevideo and other parts of the countries, but some international surfers showed up for a surf competition. The beaches became more crowded but because they were so long, it was possible to avoid the pack by just walking further down the beach. It´s kind of remarkable how lazy people are: rather than walk an additional twenty minutes down the beach to get to the really beautiful parts, they all clump by the entrance. The ridiculousness of this was compounded by the two dead sea lions that had washed up at the entrances to the main beaches.
After leaving the cabaña, we decided to camp on one of the secluded beaches. Other people were doing the same thing, but there was probably a kilometer of beach in between each of us. Normally, walking a couple kilometers down a beach at night with a pack on would be a real bummer of a way to end it (packs on beaches are a difficult combo), but we convinced our group of friends (who roll 15 deep to everything) to walk down with us and have a bonfire till 3 in the morning. The sun rose shortly after, leaving us exhausted and asleep under the heat.
We returned to Casa de las Boyas (where rates had risen a much smaller amount) and took our group of friends with us. All of us had been at Tranquilo, but were frustrated with the increasing rates. The two of us had nonetheless been usin their facilities the entire time, using the cover provided by all of our dues paying friends. Thanks guys! Stew even managed to sneak in an illegal shower, though we found out later we were supposed to be paying 10 bucks a day for this privilege. Suckers...
Our last night, we took a free trip offered by the owner of the hostel to a far out point on the beach which included one of the gnarliest truck rides we´ve ever taken. There were 6 of us in the back of his huge pickup truck which he used to climb boulders, speed down the beach, ski down sand embankments, and generally go nuts. It was worth the butt breaking ride for the view of the secluded beach. Even cooler was the Laguna Negra (Black Lake) that we saw, where the sand is perfectly white and the water dark black. The sunset and full moon over the lake were spectacular.
When we got back, we made bacon and blue cheese burgers with Col (our dredlocked Aussie friend) and Clemmie and Anna (our kiwi ¨not lovers, not sisters¨) before watching tv and passing out early. All that beach can really wear you out.
We caught a bus back to Montevideo where we tried to spend the rest of our pesos. Our waitress told us she felt no need to go to the U.S. because everything Uruguay had was in the U.S. and she had already seen all of Uruguay. While this demonstrates a failure to comprehend set theory, it does give a good idea of the corporate modernity of Montevideo: there is no shortage of malls, McDonalds, or other classic icons (even a World Trade Center) of the U.S. All of the hottest American brands have stores here, though their names can hardly compete with the likes of ¨Tits¨(a women´s clothing store) or ¨Fucking Invierno¨(winter clothing).
Now we´re back in BA (fourth time is a charm) and will be heading up to Salta with Tori´s mom and sister soon. Huzzah!
We opted against the famous and flashy beach town of Punta del Este, known as an international beach resort town, and instead went to Punta del Diablo, which isn´t known. There aren´t any hotels there, just a few hostels and a lot of cabañas (one room huts). We switched around frequently, trying to find the best deal -- prices began to go up a few days after we arrived because of Semana Santa (Easter week).
On our first day on the beach, we practically had the entire coastline to ourselves...besides the other couple a hundred feet away sunbathing in the nude. Things never really picked up from here. Everyday was pretty much the same. In fact, the only thing that really differed were the super delicious dinners we prepared. The basic plan was to wake up, eat our hostel´s breakfast, lay on the beach and play in the ocean, eat salami sandwiches, play in the ocean, take a beachside nap, play in the ocean, and spend a few hours preparing dinner. Tough life.
One night, we made veggie pasta for 15. Another night, mashed potatoes, mac n cheese, and daquiris. We spend one afternoon making a traditional Uruguayan asado (read; massive bbq) of chicken, steak, chorizo, fish, and veggies over a wood grill. Luckily, we made friends with a bunch of other travelers from all of the English speaking countries of the world to help us eat eerything. It was a little strange to speak so much English after 2 weeks of solid Spanish at the farm.
Our first night we stayed in ¨La Casa de las Boyas,¨ or the house of the buoys. It has a great kitchen, practically beach front, swimming pool, and friendly staff...but the room we slept in was seriously infested with mosquitos. We discovered how difficult it is to sleep with ¨muzzies¨ (that´s Aussie for mosquitos) buzzing in your ears.
The next day, we bounced across the street to El Diablo Tranquilo, or the Chill Devil, which had a great outdoor bar area, tiny albeit mosquito free dorms, and a semi-functional kitchen. It was also 2 bucks cheaper than the previous hostel, score! Our dorm room did have a great fan, but Stew forgot he was 5 ft in the air in a bunk bed when he got up to pee one night...the fan broke his fall quite well. Don´t worry folks, Stew escaped unscathed. We cannot say the same for the fan.
After two nights at Diablo, we stumbled into renting a cabaña while looking for a campsite. We got a cute little lime green hut with a full kitchen, private bathroom, and even a bed with a box spring! We couldn´t remember the last time we had a boxspring, so this was pretty exciting. That night we through a party in our cabaña and made all of the food we had been really craving, because it was actually possible to make baked macaroni and cheese in our functional oven (these are a rarity in hostels). As Semana Santa had begun, our cabaña was actually cheaper than the dorm, which had jumped from 10 bucks to 22 bucks a bed. However, the cabaña was only available two nights, so we had to find new accomodation.
By now, there were considerably more people at Punta del Diablo. Mostly vacationers from Buenos Aires, Montevideo and other parts of the countries, but some international surfers showed up for a surf competition. The beaches became more crowded but because they were so long, it was possible to avoid the pack by just walking further down the beach. It´s kind of remarkable how lazy people are: rather than walk an additional twenty minutes down the beach to get to the really beautiful parts, they all clump by the entrance. The ridiculousness of this was compounded by the two dead sea lions that had washed up at the entrances to the main beaches.
After leaving the cabaña, we decided to camp on one of the secluded beaches. Other people were doing the same thing, but there was probably a kilometer of beach in between each of us. Normally, walking a couple kilometers down a beach at night with a pack on would be a real bummer of a way to end it (packs on beaches are a difficult combo), but we convinced our group of friends (who roll 15 deep to everything) to walk down with us and have a bonfire till 3 in the morning. The sun rose shortly after, leaving us exhausted and asleep under the heat.
We returned to Casa de las Boyas (where rates had risen a much smaller amount) and took our group of friends with us. All of us had been at Tranquilo, but were frustrated with the increasing rates. The two of us had nonetheless been usin their facilities the entire time, using the cover provided by all of our dues paying friends. Thanks guys! Stew even managed to sneak in an illegal shower, though we found out later we were supposed to be paying 10 bucks a day for this privilege. Suckers...
Our last night, we took a free trip offered by the owner of the hostel to a far out point on the beach which included one of the gnarliest truck rides we´ve ever taken. There were 6 of us in the back of his huge pickup truck which he used to climb boulders, speed down the beach, ski down sand embankments, and generally go nuts. It was worth the butt breaking ride for the view of the secluded beach. Even cooler was the Laguna Negra (Black Lake) that we saw, where the sand is perfectly white and the water dark black. The sunset and full moon over the lake were spectacular.
When we got back, we made bacon and blue cheese burgers with Col (our dredlocked Aussie friend) and Clemmie and Anna (our kiwi ¨not lovers, not sisters¨) before watching tv and passing out early. All that beach can really wear you out.
We caught a bus back to Montevideo where we tried to spend the rest of our pesos. Our waitress told us she felt no need to go to the U.S. because everything Uruguay had was in the U.S. and she had already seen all of Uruguay. While this demonstrates a failure to comprehend set theory, it does give a good idea of the corporate modernity of Montevideo: there is no shortage of malls, McDonalds, or other classic icons (even a World Trade Center) of the U.S. All of the hottest American brands have stores here, though their names can hardly compete with the likes of ¨Tits¨(a women´s clothing store) or ¨Fucking Invierno¨(winter clothing).
Now we´re back in BA (fourth time is a charm) and will be heading up to Salta with Tori´s mom and sister soon. Huzzah!
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