Paraguay: Chapter 1

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.

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.

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

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!

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 Bolivia that night. When we got to the other side, and discovered that Bolivian immigration consisted of 15 year old kids playing video games and one very old man, we got a little worried.

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 Argentina for a full 24 hours, Tori got pretty nervous. Stew magically stayed cool, and sure enough, about 30 minutes before the immigration office was due to close, the visa man arrived. He barely glanced at our carefully prepared materials (passport photos, hotel reservations, plane tickets, ect), took our money, and waved us through. In all, it took about 10 minutes.

Crossing the border into Bolivia was like entering an entirely different world. Suddenly the streets were filled with vendors selling every type of plastic and woven crap you could want, the smell of street food (and, in some sketchy corners, stale urine) filled the air. We ambled up to the bus station and bought two tickets for the night bus to Tarija. The tickets only cost 5 dollars, and the trip was 7 hours.

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 Argentina and Chile. Alas, no wine service here. We spent an hour or so stumbling groggily around Tarija looking for accommodation. We opted for the place that our guidebook claimed had super hot showers. Its cold in Bolivia, and cold showers in cold weather are pretty miserable. Unfortunately, this place also ended up having an unbelievably wonky bed. Pobrecito Stew ended up sleeping on the floor that night.

Tarija, the so called Andalusia of the Andes for it’s Mediterranean climate and wine production, ended up being a pretty boring place. We struggled to find interesting things to do, especially since we were unimpressed by the wine and didn’t think a wine tour would be worth it. I guess it’s hard to be impressed by wine after Salta, especially if you’ve visited it with Tori’s mom!

After Tarija, our next stop was La Paz, the highest capital city in the world. We’d heard that La Paz has a raging night life, and being that Stew’s 21^st was mere days away, we hopped on another (equally if not more freezing) night bus. We found incredibly cheap accommodation on arrival, which, of course, made us very happy.

Our first day in La Paz was spent acclimatizing. At nearly 12,000 feet above sea level, most tourists that come here experience some form of altitude sickness. Neither of us got it too bad, but perhaps that is because we followed local advice, which is to eat little, do little, and drink little. We also took good ol’ Western medicine, Diamox. Nonetheless, walking up La Paz’s many hills left us embarrassingly winded.

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 Bolivia and the world. We learned that United States is responsible for 50 percent of cocaine consumption in the world, and still produces one ton of cocaine per yer, legally. We also learned that while the pope has condemned cocaine usage, he fully supports the production of cocaine infused wine. In fact, it deserves a medal. Hmmmmm….

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 La Paz’s famous plazas, and saw the Presidential Palace, which is still riddled with bullet holes from Bolivia’s last 3 coups. Also, we discovered that all of the traffic cops in downtown La Paz wear animal costumes. This means a zebra, cow, elephant, or virtually any other creature, ventures out into the street in the crazy traffic to wave pedestrians across.

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 21^st 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

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

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!

Tac-where?-embo

You have to know, at this point, that when we don´t update for a long time, it is generally because we have been off somewhere in the wilderness having an adventure. While we weren´t on remote Patagonian trails, this time, we were in one of the most remote parts of Uruguay. Uruguay is, on its own, a pretty remote place to wind up in. For those looking on a map, it is the blip on the Atlantic coast between Argentina and Brasil, which people usually just swim around rather than dealing with the customs and immigration officers. We managed to find the most remote part, where people dress like gauchos because they ARE gauchos, rather than merely people dressing up for tourists (other parts of Argentina/Uruguay can be almost like colonial Williamsburg in this regard). Tacuarembo is about the size of North Dakota and fairly similar (we imagine), which made is a great place for us to go learn about organic farming in Uruguay.

The farm we worked at is called BIO Uruguay (www.biouruguay.org Batovi Instituto Organica Uruguay). It is funded by grants from the United Nations, as well as the proceeds from the farm´s produce. The mission (in our words, but if you read spanish you can find their words on their website) of the organization is to educate local farmers on sustainable organic methods which are economically viable. Thus, the offer classes, seed banks, a laboratory, library, and demonstrations of farming techniques on the Abambae Farm which supports the school. There are a series of Faros (translates roughly to light house) which are supposed to bring the ideas taught at the school to areas even more remote across the country. It was founded by a group of people, most notably Doctor Alda Rodriguez (Agro-Engineer from Tacuarembo but educated in Montevideo, Havana, and Coroico, Bolivia), for whom we worked.

Our chores began at 8 a.m. when we fed the chickens, bunny, and pigs and watered the plants, sheep, horses, and cows. After this, we were assigned a task that changed daily. The variation was crucial: any task is miserable with repetition. Somedays were worse than others: hauling liculo (a fermented pig waste liquid fertilizer) and removing thorn bushes were considerably less fun than herding cows to be bred, capturing loose chickens, or cutting corn with a machete. We learned to make our own bread, which became a frequent and necessary activity. Given the relatively narrow range of ingredients, we had to get a little creative to avoid boredom in our daily meals. Onion and garlic bread, eggs every way you can imagine. caramelized onion and garlic spread, hot sauce without anything that was actually spicy, honey and flax seed bread, peanut sauce on noodles, flan, rice pudding, and spicy macaronic and cheese were big succeses, though the grilled cheese sandwiches using only farm raised ingredients were pretty good, too. On special days, we got to eat with Alda and her family, which meant we ate things like: sheep from the farm, ravioli, apples in various desserty forms from the neighbors farm, spanish tortillas, and delicious crepes with ricotta and ciboulette. We worked till noon, had a two hour lunch/nap break, and then worked for four more hours. Then we made dinner, washed clothes, made bread, played cards, and fell asleep as early as possible.

We lived in an ecologically friendly house, which means the construction was spotty at times. Our straw roof was fine most of the time, but during the intense thunderstorm on the last day, we found out that it was not entirely waterproof. The semi-permeable walls (probably unintentional) let in lots of critters from outside. There were probably 10 species of tree frogs which came into our house as very welcome guests and ate all of the bugs. This was especially nice because the ants around the farm, while small, left these giant zit-like welts which hurt for days.

The bathrooms at the farm were much nicer than the last farm. Rather than just a wooden box over a hole in an open field (to be fair, it was the nicest bathroom view in the world), we had four stalls with complete walls, doors, and toilet seats to choose from. It was a composting toilet, which is good for the environment but we were glad that the job of cleaning it was a once a year thing...and this wasn´t the time of the year. The showers could be heated, if one made a fire. We did this twice and realized the fire did very little to heat the water and that it was better to just take a cold shower. Thus cold showers are doubly good for the environment because one does not waste fuel heating the water and, moreover, it is impossible to take a long cold shower. Realistically, though, we just didn´t take that many showers. Perhaps the best thing about the showers were the colonies of frogs that lived in them. At first, we didn´t realize they were there, but when the water hit them in their hiding spots, they would jump across the shower or over the walls into the adjacent stalls. Pretty hilarious to have a frog land on your head in the middle of a shower.

One of our favorite parts of the farm were the beautiful dogs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimarr%C3%B3n_Uruguayo (info about the breed)
http://www.gopetsamerica.com/pets/img/perro_cimarron.jpg (a really cute picture that is representative of the breed)

They are called Uruguayan Cimarrons and are generally used as hunting dogs, but Alda´s partner whose name is (phonetically) As-Drib-Bull had trained them to round up chickens and hold them (albeit aggressively) so they wouldn´t run off into the fields. We learned how to round up chickens with and without the aid of the gorgeous dogs (named Cimarron and Francesca. Cimarron, whose name is the height of boring, we decided to call Big Macho instead because he weighed 100 pounds and was very very macho). The two campesino ladies the worked on the farm taught us to chase the chickens with brooms back into the cage, but if there is just one chicken, you can corner it and grab it. In general, chasing is easier than catching but there is so much reward in catching a chicken. For the few that escaped our brooms, the dogs rounded them up and held them on the ground while we ran frantically to make sure that they didn´t kill the chickens. Afterwords, we were told that the dogs wouldn´t hurt them, but we didn´t know that at the time.

This led to the most exciting part of our stay on the farm. Everyone had left and it was just the two of us working in the field. We had come in to do our evening chores (the same as morning with the addition of collecting eggs and protecting the eggs from the thieving dogs) when we realized the latch on the chicken coop had broken and all of the chickens had escaped. Using the techniques taught us, we managed to round up the majority of the chickens. Stew chased them with a bamboo stick while Tori stood by the gate and opened it to let them in when they came near. One escaped and the two free range babies were outside. The dogs, having forgotten that these two babies are always outside, started bringing them down so we could put them back in their cage (where they did not belong). Stew, seeing the two dogs pinning the baby, tackled Big Macho and pried the dog´s mouth open so that Tori could grab the baby and throw it over the fence into the coop, where it would at least be protected. We then chased the other baby at the same time as the dogs, but we got it first and protected it from the dogs.

However, the fence was not designed for chicks, and they escaped under the wire netting from the coop. We realized this while we were eating dinner and heard a horrible squawking. Apparently the excitment led to the dogs to forget their training and they managed to kill one of the babies. The other was still alive, but in the mouth of Francesca. For the second time that day, Stew had to reach in a hunting dog´s mouth to stop it from eating the baby. Tori fended off the dogs with angry yells of ¨Stop¨and ¨Go away!¨ while Stew ran to put the baby back in a more secure cage. We didn´t think it would live through the night because one wing was torn off from the back, but five days later when we left, it had mostly recuperated (though it will never fly). The lesson here being that even though dogs are useful for bringing home stray chickens (the one that ran off to the field was recovered by the dogs safely, along with several others we didn´t even realize had escaped), a hunting dog still has hunting dog instincts and, unless extremely well trained, will probably want to eat some baby chickens every once in a while. They did not, fortunately, make any aggressive moves toward either of us and only wanted their delicious chicken meat. Fairly reasonable demand, actually, but not permitted on our farm.

Now we´re in Montevideo where we intend to do errands (new bathing suit and boots for Stew, VISA´s for both of us, internet, eat some American food, etc), visit some sites (Artigas´s ashes, first World Cup Stadium, beaches) before we head up to Punta Del Diablo which is a tiny beach town of 700 people and hopefully deserted at this point. Though you should probably also realize that whenever we announce our plans on the blog, they do not show up in the next entry. We have a history of changing our plans.

Dirty South

After El Bolson, we took our longest bus yet (and hopefully this will remain the record) to El Calafate. It was a whopping 27 hours, though we spent 30 minutes at a security check in view of our destination. Moreover, this bus ride did not include any food or drinks, which came as a surprise after we had become accustomed to the champagne service provided on other Argentinian buses. Bummer.

El Calafate is a boring tourist town whose architecture looks like it was selected out of a catalog of generic ski style buildings. Ironic because despite being near the end of the world, it rarely snows there. Nevertheless, we found a cheap hostel (this time without bed bugs), got ¨witnessed¨by an evangelical hostel owner (we´re still in Kansas?), and made plans to see one of only two glaciers which are expanding.

Perito Moreno (not Perrito Moreno which would mean Brown Puppy) is a glacier named for a 19th century explorer. It is massive and spectacular. Every few minutes, in the summer, huge chunks of ice fall of the glacier into the lake below and sound like the crack of a rifle. Despite all the ice falling off, it expands even more in the winter leading to a sum growth each year. We hung out for about two hours tramping around the various viewpoints and enjoying the spectacle. There were also lots of goofy tourists to check out in ridiculously overgeared outfits. It is, after all, handicapped accessible and makes hiking poles and avalanche gear seem excessive. Still, we got gear envy.

In the evening, we jumped on a bus to El Chalten, commonly known as the ¨Trekking Capital of Argentina.¨We arrived after sunset and had a bit of a hard time finding a hostel, but eventually found a reasonably priced place. It ended up being even more reasonably priced because there were insufficient beds and we got a mattress on the floor for half price. We had to convince the owner to let us drink a bottle of wine we had brought with us: apparently this was an evangelical place too and there was no alcohol allowed. Why does this keep happening to us? (It didn´t make the blog but we have been approached and detained by Mormons twice in the last few weeks, as well. Sadly, never while wearing our Nietzsche: 1 Mormons: 0 shirts)

The next day we planned to start a 4 day trek but had no clean clothing and split up the trek into a day hike and a 3 day trek instead. El Chalten is great because all of the trailheads are accessible from the town: when the roads end, there are stairs into the hills and trails start from there. Our first day we headed up to Laguna de la Torre (Lake of the Tower), a fantastic glacier and lake underneath a giant Mordor style mountain peak. Compared to the stuff we did in El Bolson, the hike was not difficult but the glacier was much more impressive.

Our trek began late in the day: we had errands to do in order to get back to Buenos Aires when we returned from the trek. We decided that plane tickets were imperative because a 50 hour bus sounded hellish. These tickets cost considerably more than the last tickets we bought to Guatemala. By the time we got started, it was threatening rain but we stuck it out anyway and were rewarded with a pleasantly cool trip up the mountain. We even managed to get our tent set up before it got really cold and rainy. Somewhat hilariously, we laid down and fell asleep for three hours in the middle of the day when we had intended to continue hiking for the same amount of time. This was an accident, but not a big problem.

Tori woke Stew and Mike up early to prepare for a day of summiting glaciers. A quick breakfast of pastries, now squashed, and we were on a skree laden trail to Laguna de los Tres. We assume the name is in reference to the three lakes in the area, though it really looks to be a lot more like 2.1 lakes, the third being more of a pond. The view was incredible: the Fitz-Roy peaks stood in the background of two glaciers, connected by a 100 foot waterfall. We re-filled our waterbottles directly out of the top of the waterfall and enjoyed the fresh and very cold water. It is the best tasting water you can get.

We returned to our tent for a quick lunch of hearty wheat bread and aged cheese before continuing on a hike called Piedras Blancas (White Rocks). More marble than Marion Barry´s preferred white rock, the hike ended in a field of massive boulders that obscured any sort of trail. We all just ran and jumped between the rocks until we got to the lake where we were right below another huge glacier, this one with considerably more icebergs. We were once again astounded.

That night, we ate white rice and lentils (much like our previous dinner of white rice and white beans). Generally when we camp, we bring white rice and boullion cubes to add flavor. This time, we messed up and had one third of the required amount of flavor. Thus, our dinner ended up blander than Coldplay. We vowed to go to a Tenedor Libre upon descension. Tenedor Libre, by the way, translates literally as Liberated Fork, which is a much better name than All You Can Eat.

We slept in late the next morning, and Stew woke up sick. We had a somewhat less enjoyable descent, as a result, but made it back to El Chalten with plenty of time before our bus to El Calafate. The tenedor libre was everything we hoped it to be and a lot more painful. We split a leg of lamb, ate about half a cow, a brace of chickens, and a real festival of sausage. In addition, we filled the cracks with ravioli, fried pastries, empanadas, pig in a blanket, and canned fruits (how did they trick us into thinking canned fruit is dessert?). We never wanted to eat again. Just kidding, Moms, we ate salads.

Yesterday was our last day with Mike so we went to a museum. It looked crumby, so we waited outside while Mike wasted his money. Stew had forgotten his jacket in El Chalten, so we picked it up from the bus station (isn´t it great that hostels will do things like this?) and then jumped on our plane back to Buenos Aires. We had a lay over in Ushuaiia, which we regret not being able to visit, but honestly it looks like the colder version of Puntarenas.

We spent all day today trying to get to Uruguay, but failed. Tomorrow, we will take a ferry and hopefully make more progress than today. By the way, El Tigre, chupanos. We´re going to Bio Uruguay to try WWOOF again...hopefully it will go better than last time.

And it´s been a while...

since we last updated-- we´ve been to Carnval in Guayleguachu, back to Buenos Aires, and way down south to Bariloche and El Bolson.

Carnaval in Guayleguachu was a blast. Guayleguachu, reputed to be the center of Argentina´s Carnaval festivities, is a small town on a beautiful river deep in the Pampas. They have a mini-Carnaval celebration every weekend of the summer, which we didn´t quite put together until we were going up there, but we enjoyed ourselves in spite of (perhaps because of) the hordes of Argentinean weekenders that gathered there. We camped out with Claire and Mike, two of Stew´s buddies that happen to be in Argentina, which was a bit crowded in our tent, but we cuddled and made it work AKA Mike slept like a puppy at our feet. The Carnaval parade was like an acid dream. Picture lots of feathers and even more nipple tassles, not to mention body paint -- all aboard african-inspired floats (elephants, bones, temples, ect.). It was out of this world. The scene at our campsite was equally outrageous. Who doesn´t love 24 hour cumbia music at 100 decibels?

From Guayleguachu we went back to Buenos Aires, where we hit up all the tourist attractions we had yet to see (that weren´t closed for restoration in preparation for BA´s 400th anniversary) -- many beautiful albeit mosquito infested parks (we have coined a new term: dengue den....Go to Buenos Aires for the fiesta, but stay for the dengue) ; the tango district of La Boca, where we saw couples tango as we ate a great dinner; and the port of Puerto Madero, which houses a 1903 vessel which once saved Norwegian explorers in Antarctica. The coolest exhibit we saw was in the Musuem of Latin American Modern Art, and charted Andy Warhol¨s career, including all the dark scary little details....as we said, most everything we really were pumped about was closed, but it still was great to explore the touristy aspects of Buenos Aires. We also got to see our friends Zach and Megan, whom we met in Panama, which was great! It´s pretty cool to meet up with someone that you met earlier in the journey.

Thanks so much to Claire for letting us crash at her apartment in Buenos Aires, she is a fanstastic hostess! We had a ton of fun cooking dinner and hanging out with her in Belgrano, one of BA´s hippest neighborhoods. That´s right, we can hip.

From Buenos Aires we headed down South with Mike, whom Stew met while studying abroad in Peru. Our first stop was Bariloche, about a 23 hour bus ride from BA. We sprang for the cama (bed) bus, which meant wine was included! We all slept well :) We arrived in Bariloche just in time to book a room for the night and visit a fantastic chocolate shop. We also saw a totally insane Scandinavian chick swim in the bitter cold -- ie: hailing, snowing, raining, unbearable cold--and then sunbathe. This only confirms our prior beliefs that all Scandinavians are at least a little bit off their rockers.

Bariloche is in the Lake District of Argentina, which is disputably a region of Patagonia. At any rate, it is situated picturesquely on Lake Nahuel Natuapi, in the middle of a national park -- a perfect place for hiking. Our plan for day 2 in Bariloche was to take a bus out to camp ground, then do a day hike up to waterfall. We somehow managed to screw this up: we hiked up a mounain each with 50 pound packs to a refugio on stony plateau at the side of a lake. Even though going straight up hill for 6 hours with WAY TOO MUCH weight on your back is a killer, the view made it totally worth it. Plus, camping at the refugio was free, so we saved money! Yay! Also, we didn´t bring enough food, so we lost some weight. At this point, that day may sound miserable to you all, but it was nonetheless magnificent to us.

Upon returning, we intended to get to El Bolson as quickly as possible. The first stop, however, was lunch. Thus, we ended up missing the bus out of town, but we didn´t care at this point. We re booked our ridiculous (continue reading!) hotel in Bariloche and went looking for bus tickets, wine, and a (closed) chocolate factory. Success on two fronts is still a good day. Later, we went down to the lake to take pictures of the sunset, swing on the playground, drink beer out of plastic bags, and eat delicious venison, trout, and bife de chorizo, which is a cut of steak prepared in a way that makes it very tender.

When we got back with our boxes of wine (sorry, parents...) we sat down and conversed with the owner of the hotel. Tori retired quickly, which turned out to be a good move. The owner quickly drilled Stew and Mike about Minnesota, Scandinavia, The South, and Australia. Only later did we realize these were The Whitest Places in the World, and the guy was in fact a Nazi. As the evening grew later, his Nazi tendencies and our extremely anti racist tendencies became clearer, the night got more awkward, but more wine was consumed, thus creating a general equilibrium. Still, it was hard for us to hold our tongues which was necessary to maintain our increasingly desirable beds. Anyway, go to Bariloche for the views, chocolate and wine. Don´t talk to any locals unless you´re really into the Aryan Nation. (This may be harsh but it reflects our experience)

The next day we bought a bunch of yogurt and bread and ate in the street beside a supermarket. Aren´t we classy? Then we got on a bus to El Bolson. It is known as a hippie town with beautiful hiking in the very near vicinity. Both are true and fantastic. Hippie towns can be obnoxious at times, but this one embodies all of the positive stereotypes of hippies and moreover is located in a valley between two ranges of gorgeous mountains. From town, you can do many hikes, which we took advantage of. We´re camped at a great place called Ni Nada (Nor Nothing) which is an organic farm with camping and a cabin-dorm which we are staying in. It is so cheap, we can afford the dorm and do not have to camp every day.

Our first day we took a hike to El Bosque Tallado or The Carved Forest. While generally underwhelming, the area around it is overwhelming and there are a few sculptures made out of dead trees which are fascinating. On the other hand, how surreal can you get with a dead tree before it just looks like a lumber yard in a hurricane?

The next day, we set out for a three day trek up to Hielo Azul and Lago Natacion (BLue Ice and Swimming Lake). The trek up was hard: 5 hours straight up if you´re Tori and 6 hours if you´re Stew and Mike and get lost and spend a long time running up and down looking for Tori only to realize You´re the one that is lost. Props to Tori for being right and a big WTF to Stew and Mike. Legend has is that they got intentionally lost in order to eat their turkey sammiches early. The lake was gorgeous and there were glacier capped mountains above our refugio (a sort of hostel at the top of the mountain usually spaced about a day apart and complete with campsite, kitchen, expensive food, and beer). If you camp and bring your own food, its the same as a US shelter but nicer.

The next day, we took a hike over to the glacier at Hielo Azul (the refugio there has a very nice bathroom). THe trail is basically straight up a mountain and full of scree for 3 hours, but the view is absolutely worth it. Unfortunately, the glacier is now melted and much more of a green lake than blue ice. Nonetheless, the ice is magnificent and there are icebergs floating in the lake. Hurry: supplies are limited.

Today, we came down just in time to catch a bus back to town where we came across a fair. After days of rice, we treated ourselves to fair food: empanadas, matambres (hunger killers which are steak sandwiches), milanesas (country fried steak sandwiches), and pizza. Afterwards, wine and apples. Tomorrow, we leave for Calafate on a 26 hour bus. There we will see the only glacier in the world that is expanding.

Yeehaw and off to bed.

Love,
Tori and Stew

Arrrrgentina

So Malargue was kind of a bummer. We couldn´t find a reasonably priced room and ended up spending 40 bucks on a room with a leaky toilet. The next morning, we got all our stuff together to go hiking only to discover that it was going to be an $80 journey to the park, plus $20 a person to camp. This was unreasonable and we left Malargue with a final finger in the air and headed up to San Rafael. We had read about a canyon there and thought this might be a better place to hike.

San Rafael is, by the way, lame. Don´t go there, dudes, except to pass through it on your way to Cañon Atuel/Nihuel. The canyons are beautiful polychromatic (though mostly reds) striated rock formations that have been flooded due to a recent dam. Below the dam is a rushing river famous for its rafting, though the rapids looked pretty tame to us. A girl on the bus recommended a campsite to us that had a swimming pool, though it turned out that you had to pay $10 to enter and an additional $5 a person per day. This is, by the way, more expensive than camping at the Grand Canyon which is definitely cooler. Whoever said Argentina was cheap was a lying foo´. CAmping here was more expensive than camping in the Atacama desert in Chile (an allegedly and confirmedly expensive country) and there are zero natural resources in the Atacama except for sand and heatstroke.

Nevertheless, it was great to hike through the canyons and take pictures of the lakes within. Also, we met really nice Argentines in the campsite on the two nights we stayed there. We have heard that Argentinos are stuck up and egocentric, but we have not found that to be the case at all. They were lots of fun and very generous: the first night our neighbors gave us pork chops and the second night our new neighbors bought us beer, munchies, and gave Stew a cup when they found out about the tragic thievery in Guatemala that claimed so many of his belongings. Everybody gave us great advice about what to do in Buenos Aires, in which...

We arrived on Superbowl Sunday after a very long bus ride from San Rafael. Our bus got in at 9 in the morning, it was raining, and we couldn´t find a hostel. Thus, we sat down and ate chorizo and drank wine until the rain stopped. It didn´t stop but we didn´t care anymore and walked our way to Tango Hostel. Stew´s friend Mike works here and recommendedly strongly against staying there. It was the only place we could find a bed, so it seemed like a good idea. Our room was great, if eccentric. We had a spiral staircase to a lofted bed but nothing but a chest on the ground floor. The need for the elevated bed was unclear but who cares as long as it is comfortable.

We went to a gringo bar with Mike to watch the superbowl. The bar could have been any sports bar in the states: plasma screens, pricey beers, no Spanish, and fans from New York being tools. There was, fortunately, a feed in English which was great because the commentary in English makes much more sense than in Spanish. Most importantly (to Tori) we saw the American commericals. Most importantly (to Stew) we ran into one of his friends from Semester at Sea in the bar which was completely random and fortuitous.

We´ve spent the last couple days walking around the city, seeing the sites and experiencing the culture.
Recolletta Cemetary is the bizarre resting place of Argentina´s dead elite, housed in truly opulent mausoleums. They look like mini mansions of the creepy dead. We saw Evita´s grave which was also weird (the whole idea of walking around people´s blinged out coffins is weird) because everyone was so solemn about being there while they took their tourist photos. We can only imagine them later saying, ¨This is me in front of Evitas coffin, isn´t that awesome?¨as if this isn´t bizarre.

Casa Rosada is a pink palace with catacombs that are open the 3rd sunday after a blue moon when it is also a prime number, the same as every museum in Latin America. This day, they were closed for renovations, which is also a common occurrence.

Epic statues and architecture that define the micro center (actually quite large) including one of San Martin´s bucking horse while he waves a speared flag in the air. Totally epic.

Nearby, we saw a protest for social justice and better living conditions. These are more common than coins in Argentina.

A formalized drum circle that is a big tradition among the locals here, who are apparently huge hippies, and a bunch of tourists. Great beats, better people watching. Australians love tank tops, Germans love them more, and some body (not sure who), likes dancing shirtless.

Yesterday, we met up with Stew´s friend Claire at her apartment in Belgrano (a neighborhood of BA) and hung out by the pool in her building. Later, we went bowling. We were refused bumpers on the ground that we were too old to need them. Everyone else in the building had them which made us jealous of all the sub 12´s around us. One of Claire´s friend was going back to the States today, so we all went out for a fabulous mediterranean meal which included: falafel, hummus, pitas, schwarma, beef stuff, and a great Malbec. All in all, a fantastic meal that fulfilled one of our cravings. WHERE ARE YOU SUSHI??

We moved out of our dorm today because bed bugs minus airconditioning = suck. Tomorrow we go to Carnaval in Gualeguachu with Mike, Claire, some new friends from Australia, and maybe our friends from Panama that have just moved to Buenos Aires.

Amor,

Esteban y Victoria

Valparaiso to Mendoza: Peace out Pacific Ocean!

We ended up spending 4 days in Chile´s far-out coastal city of Valparaiso, sneaking in a quick side trip to Viña del Mar, just a short metro ride away. The coolest thing to do in Valparaiso was to hike up it´s many hills to catch epic views of the huge port and colorful houses the city is famous for. Full disclosure: we did get a little lazy 2 times and take an ascensor, a type of tram/elevator. There are about 20 ascensores all over the city, most built in the late 19th century, and many Valaparaiseños use them to commute to work and whatnot, so riding them is a bit of a cultural, historical experience in it´s own right.

At the tops of Valparaiso´s cerros (hills), there are typically tourist attractions like musuems, overpriced restaraunts, hippies doing tricks, ect. As usual, most of the attractions we were most excited to see were closed...so, we opted for a more free-form, city exploration strategy of touring: walk up everything and around everything that looks pretty. We found some really cool stuff we never would have seen otherwise! First on that list is Pablo Neruda´s house (okay, finding this one was a little less free form), which we adored. We got a great audio tour, which helpfully detailed Neruda´s wild drinking habits while we gazed upon his well-equipped art deco bar, recited poetry for us in his smoking-lounge style study, poked fun at his bizarre china collections, and, in general, made sense of his particularly quirky house. It definitely lent us greater appreciation for Pablo Neruda. He is the man!

A highlight of Valparaiso is the street art -- the city is covered with mural-like graffitis that, stylistically, range from cyberpunk to old-school surrealism. We stumbled into a really cool photo exhibit in a museum dedicated to Admiral Chochrane, some swashbuckling british dude that helped the Chileans say ¨step off, Spain!¨. The musuem didn´t say much more than that about the admiral, but it did have an exhibit on a photo competition of pictures of Valparaiso. While we didn´t quite agree with the judges picks, they might know a little more about capturing the spirit of Valparaiso than we do.

Add in a few more art galleries, funky cafes, and glasses of delicious wine (love that carmenere!) later, and you have our experience in Valparaiso. As mentioned earlier, we also spent a day in Viña del Mar, which is known as a beach town. Unfortunately, we managed to show up on an exceptionally cloudy day. We walked through the city, which is not nearly as charming as Valparaiso, more like a classed-up Ocean City, MD, though Viña does boast a pretty colonial palace. We despaired, running out of things to when our big plan had been to go the beach, but miraculously found our way to an artisanal brewpub! In the time it took to sample their tasty beers, the weather brightened, we headed to the beach to catch some rays, and take some naps.
After Viña del Mar, we both decided it was time for something new...a new country! Chile is fabulous, don´t get us wrong, and there´s probably more to see there. but it´s also a little pricey...plus, Stew and Tori have developed quite a bit of wanderlust, and we yearned for the next adventure. And our ride to Argentina was quite the adventure....it was a doozy. We were told the bus from Valp to Mendoza, Argentina, would take 8 hours. This time estimate was correct, only it failed to include SEVEN hours waiting in line at the border from 1AM to 8AM. Also, for the entire time we waited in this line, our bus driver kept the lights in the bus illuminated. By the time we arrived in Mendoza, we were exhausted and starving. After 18 hours without eating, we ordered an enormous Roquefort, ham, roasted red pepper, and olive pizza. It was even more exorbitant that we exected it to be. The ham and cheese weren´t sprinkled, per se, they covered the entirety of the pizza! We know, not typical Argentine food, but we were starving and pizza was the first food we found. After this, we napped contentedly.

Mendoza is &!*·% awesome/hot! That´s hot in terms of temperture, folks. While we never did manage to stay in a hostel with air conditioning in our 4 days in this fantastic city, we had a great time...and drove off any potential thieves with our rank odors. In Mendoza:
-- we went for a walk in a giiannt park in the middle of the city, tried to climb Cerro Gloria (in the middle of said park, we failed to locate it), later returned to Cerro Gloria with Chilean tourists who had a car (A security gaurd got Stew in trouble for climbing on the monument),
-- went to one of the most famous zoos in South America (children harrassed monkeys, monkeys got back by escaping. No security guards yelled at anyone.),
-- went on a wine tour of the Lujan Valley, including visits to Clos de Chacras, an itty-bitty super old botique winery where we tasted malbecs and merlot; Terrazas de los Andes (Chandon), a muuch larger vineyard where we tasted torrontes, malbec, a cabernet sauvignos, and a ¨new world grand cru¨, had lunch at Ruka Malen -- five courses with wine pairings!; and, lastly, visited Susana Balbo´s winery, famous for its Crios line. She is also one of very few female winemakes in Mendoza. She is badass. It was a fantastic, gluttonous, and mildly intoxicated day.
-- went to the fabulous restaurant 1884 Francis Malmon in a antique vineyard (thanks to Tori´s Mom for a pimpin´ Channukah present -- the best meal on this trip!)
-- Got interviewed on Mendoza radio, where we may or may not have publicly made fools of ourselves due to difficulties deciphering the Argentines´ crazy accents


Mendoza was fabulous, and we are seriousy considering coming back in a few weeks for the wine festival. We may even rent an apartment here for a month, we liked it so much! Now, we are on our way to Malargue, where we are hoping to do some serious hiking after such a luxurious time in Mendoza.

Love,

Tori and Stew

Mora-ns

When we left you last, we said we were going to be volunteering on an organic blackberry (aka mora) farm for two weeks. We´re back and because there was not a time warp, we clearly dipped out early.

The first leg of the journey to the farm (and it was a journey), was a bus ride south from Santiago to Molina. Actually, we took the metro all over Santiago trying to find the right bus terminal. Our directions said it would take 30 minutes. 3 and half hours later, we arrived in Molina with just enough time to make the last bus to Maitenes. While our directions did not mention we had to change bus terminals (and the second hardly counts as a terminal), we bumbled through the town until we found someone who had heard of Maitenes and could confirm the town existed, but was not able to provide directions. Through a stroke of dumb luck, we walked into the bus just as it was preparing to leave. Hooray! We ate a sausage salad we had made earlier in the morning and enjoyed our ride through beautiful wine country of the Andean foothills.

When we got to the end of the line and were the last people left on the bus, we realized we had missed our stop. The bus driver, who was turning the bus around, was kind enough to tell us when to get off the second time around. We jumped off at the Maitenes school, but found no one waiting there, as had been planned. Wandering unsuccesfully around the town took only about a minute before we realized we were rather screwed and asked a nice old lady if she knew where our farm was. In another stroke of dumb luck, as we were beginning on the trek to the farm, she saw the farm truck coming in the distance and told us to wait at the school again. Whew.

The farm is 40 hectares of diverse crops which are united by their insufficient water supply. Thus, it is a dusty farm and showers are rare. Fortunately, there is a river just one sweaty mile away and you usually smell much better after bathing in the river, at least for the first half of the return trip. We woke up most days at 7:30 before diving into our 8 a.m. carb underload. Just white bread and jam. We choked down awful pate (spam in a tube) some days so our stomachs would stop growling for a little bit before we started work. Once we started working, the adrenaline of black berry picking sated our hunger. Actually, it is really boring and that was a total lie. Stew satiated his constant hunger by picking the most berries but delivering the fewest. Editor´s note: More than 2 kilos of blackberries per day is harmful to the digestive tract.

The blackberries were haphazardly planted, overgrown, thorny, and poorly organized which certainly made the picking more difficult. Also, the sun will burn anyone not wearing a rice paddy hat into a crunchy critter. The only things in shorter supply than water, were instructions and diretions. We made up our own style of berry picking (free styling, if you will) as we wandered through the fields. This was fun for the first hour after which we started playing word games. After thousands of games, we will no longer be playing word games and are discussing this blog entry using hand signals.

Lunch break was a welcome respite at 1 p.m., even if it was a little underwhelming in nutritional value. You know what regenerates tired muscles? rice potatoes and carrots. Wait, not at all. This became our main impetus for leaving: acquire a decent meal and feel full. The afternoons were free but so hot that any activity above sleeping or swimming was impossible. Also, we were swarmed with massive horse flies almost all the time. One amazing chicken, Dandy, would eat them off of you but poor Dandy was incapable of overwhelming the droves of winged horses.

After the break, we returned to the fields for more work which was, unsurprisingly, very similar to that of the mornings. The unwelcome addition of more flies was the only real change. Some days, we would work on other tasks like: digging holes for an unfinished outhouse, watering the garden, cutting flowers, raking hay, watering the ground (¿WTF?), feeding pigs, burying piglets, collecting plums and making juice out of them, and this sort of thing. Mostly, the time was spent in the blackberry fields. We learned little and felt like...morans.

Our boss was something of an alcoholic but not the fun kind. He would get drunk and mean but not share any of his seemingly endless stock of awful wine. He also was the only person we´ve met capable of finding bad chilean wine. How do we know how it tasted? Stew sliced his hand open on a poorly put up roof (how high should we make this roof of very sharp metal? How about 4 feet, that´s safe right?) and while Tori was carefully wrapping Stew´s hand in gauze and medical tape, the farmer consoled him with wine. Hell, it´s better than nothing. His injury prevented him from finishing his much needed pet project of an outhouse (the other one has about a foot of use left) and all he succeeded in completing was a 6.5 foot deep hole.

Our last night there, Stew helped take the blackberries to town to sell. All the berries are sold to the same family that owns a small store. Every local comes here every other night with their harvests. After selling berries, the men all gather around the store and drink until the store runs out of beer. Picture 5 old drunk chileans and some of their children recruited to help carry berries sitting in a dirt road. As we tried to leave, our boss backed up to try to turn around, but apparently did not see the bridge he was trying to turn on, thus dropping one wheel over the edge of the bridge. Stew had to climb into the river and, with the help of the one remaining 70 year old farmer, lift the car high enough that the other wheels could get traction and pull the car forward. Thank God we left the next day. This guy was crazy.

Yesterday, we woke up at the farm and got ready to leave. We packed our tent, filled out water bottles, and hit the dusty trail. We couldn´t wait to get on the road again, but first we had to walk through a neighbor´s field, cross a stream over two downed trees, climb a hill through an apple orchard, and hop three barbedwire fences. Then we were at the dirt road and just a kilometer away from the gravel road. We hitched a ride down to a Saint´s shrine where we waited for an hour until our next ride came and took us 2 hours down another dirt road to a town called Cumpeo. Here, we ate a much anticipated meal.

Since this blog is more about food than travel, here you go:
Cazuela de Vacuno is a hearty beefy stew of beef. It also has corn, squash, potatoes, cilantro, and rice. Our meal was served with a cucumber, onion, and tomatoe salad dressed with salt, lime, and oil. We got bread which we barely noticed as we inhaled it whilst sitting down. (side note, we left the farm in such a hurry we didn´t eat breakfast and only had some cookies and candy bars for the various hike) Dessert was sliced cantaloupe. Stew ordered a ¨cerveza grande¨and was surprised when the bartender gave him a look of disbelief. It was, after all, two in the afternoon. Apparently, in this restaurant, a large beer is two liters. There have been more unfortunate misunderstandings.

Next we took a collectivo taxi to a town an hour away, then a bus to Santiago 3 hours away (shorter this time), then got on an unexpectedly cushy, airconditioned, leather seated, bathroom working, bus to Valparaiso. Now we are here and digs are better than at the farm. It is a beautiful city, reminiscent of San Francisco. There are many impressive murals in public places (some sanctioned, some freestyled), interesting local theatre productions, beautiful fountains and statues, colorful buildings, and an all around strong art community that lends the city a bohemian vibe.

Interested in seeing some pictures from our adventure? Tori´s mom has posted an album of our pictures from the first half of our journey! Enjoy: http://picasaweb.google.com/EllenKirsh/ToriAndStewPics#

Santi-again

Friday morning, we flew back from Punta Arenas to Santiago with Stew´s parents. While they checked in for their evening flight back to the U.S., Stew ran down to the lost luggage area and retrieved the back American Airlines had lost the week before. This is one of the great conveniences of naming giving your child after yourself. Unfortunately, (or perhaps at this point it was fortunate), our cheese and trail mix had been taken and destroyed by Chilean customs. While we were bummed that we didn´t get to eat them, we appreciated that our bag did not smell like moldy cheese. We did get some cheese and lox that Stew´s parents had brought in their carry on, so we weren´t without the luxuries of home.

We caught a cab back to the Eco Hostel where we had stayed the week before and where our bags were stored. We sorted through all of our new clothes and switched them out for old ones (yay! like going back to school!) and also picked up a new library (also like going back to school!). All of the books that we got looked great and we are very excited to have new real literature to read, but our bags just don´t have space for the 30 or so books we wound up with. Nonetheless, thanks to everyone for the books: it was great to have so much variety to choose from.

Afterwards, we went out for a final dinner with Stew´s parents. The restaurant was in the courtyard of a museum and we ate beneath a grafitti covered section of the Berlin wall. Outside the restaurant were scores of used book salesmen (hmmm...), artisans, and clothes shops. Amazingly, we looked at all of the stores and didn´t buy a thing even though Santiago has a distinct, hip, independent fashion scene. Then, Stew´s parents left for the airport. It was great to see them and we had a fantastic time traveling with them. We miss them already!

The last two days have been spent rather lazily (our most active pastimes include strolling through Santiago´s many parks and wandering through musuems) because we are waiting to go to a WWOOF blackberry farm. We will be there harvesting blackberries for the next 2 weeks. The bus to the country,( the farm is located in the heart of the Maipo wine region!) only leaves on Mondays, so we didn´t have much choice.

Today were the elections: Piñera, the conservative candidate, won and there are parties in the street but no alcohol for sale anywhere (except our hostel - apparantly they fly under the radar). It seems like every car in the city has hit the street to honk their horns and fly Piñera flags. The main road through the city is blocked off for a huge rally. Entire families - the stroller and wheelchair bound included - were carousing in the street, banners and flags in hand. By the time we came back to the hostel, we were covered in confetti.

All in all, it´s been nice to relax: we fixed many of our clothes, packs, etc., ate latkes, and read part of our new book store. Tomorrow we go to q blackberry farm and may be out of contact for the next two weeks. Sorry avid readers but adventure calls!

From the Atacama to Patagonia: EPIC!

Our first three days in Chile were spent in San Pedro de Atacama, a tiny frontier mining town that has transformed into a tiny tourist center in the past decade. It´s in the center of the Atacama desert, which we have learned is the driest desert in the world. You can tell this simply from walking around town: the buildlings and roads are covered in dust, water is scarce, and the sun is mercilessly hot. Still, the town is quaint and has a mellow hippie vibe.

On our first full day in San Pedro, we woke up early to hike to sights outside of town: an Inca fortress, el Quitor to Pucara, and a narrow gorge called ¨La Quebrada del Diablo.¨The scenery on the way was spellbinding. Red desert rocks forming towering mountains, dried up riverbeds filled with scrubby plants, and cloudless blue skies. Unfortunately, we both underestimated the sun a little bit and seriously burned our necks.

That afternoon we took a tour of the Atacama´s nearby salt flat and salt lake, el Salar de Cejar. This place was unlike anything we had ever seen before. First we bathed in one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world, la laguna de Cejar. It was so salty we were forewarned against dunking our heads underwater or even splashing -- medical injury to the eyes could result. Swimming with these restrictions might sound lame, but trust us, it was awesome. You could float with absolutely no effort in the water, in fact, we couldn´t go under if we wanted to. If you tried to make yourself vertical in the water, the salt gradually flipped your body so that you were floating on your back or your stomach with your feet in the air. Awesome! After the lake, we jumped in some nearby less salty water to rinse off. Nevertheless, we remained crusted with salt for the rest of the day.

The actual salt flat was ubeliveable -- imagine miles of salt thickly crusted on the soil. The biblical story about Lot´s wife becoming a pillar of salt suddenly made more sense. The salt had literally turned to a rocky topsoil, which we tramped over eagerly.

The next morning we started at 4 am to make it to the 3rd largest geyser field in the world, los Geysers de Tatio. It´s also the highest altitude geyser field in the world and the most active in the Southern hemisphere. Neither of us had ever seen a geyser before, and we were definitely impressed. The journey there, however was a little bit of a let down: it took 4 hours when it was meant to take 2 beacuse our driver showed up to pick us up with a flat tire (it was 1 of 8 tires, but this still was problematic). Our guide´s response was not to change the tire, but instead to clunk all the way up the mountain. Apparantly this is reasonable behavior and not a cause for complaint in Chile...we beg to differ.

We may have been a little cranky on the bus, but once we stepped off and saw the geysers, all negative feelings were left behind. It was spectacular! We saw 64 different active geysers (ie: water sporadically shoots out of a hole in the ground, timing varies by geyser) plus a host of other geothermic activity: boiling pools, fumaroles, and thermal baths. We were amazed.

After the geysers, it was a quick dinner of empanadas and then back on the bus. For 25 hours. Yowza! This was by far our longest bus ride yet, but it proved much more enjoyable than anticipated because we met some super fun brazillian guys to chat with along the way. Before we knew it, 25 hours and thousands of kilometers later, we were in Santiago metro-ing our way to our hotel.

The next day, the plan had been to meet up with Stewś parents when their flight got in at 10 AM. Unfortunately, it was delayed 12+ hours, so we didnt get to spend the day in Santiago with them. We decided to go to Chileś National History Museum, where we got better acquainted with one of our very favorite Latin American heroes, the Spanish butt-kicking powerhouse Bernado O Higgins. We also checked out Cerro Santa Lucia, a hill in the center of the city with epic views. The walk to the top features beautiful marble fountains, a castle, and well-maintained gardens.

It turned out that Stewś parents didnt arrive until 3 AM that night (you are hereby forewarned against ever booking with American Airlines), so much for a day of sightseeing with them in Santiago! After meeting up with us, we hope, the trip got much better for them :)

The next day we all hopped on a flight down to Punta Arenas, a city in Patagonia. It is one of the southern-most cities in the world, and home to the southern most brewery in the world (sidenote: yes, we are finally in a country which produces both good wine and good beer!). After a brief lunch of sandwiches, we hopped on a bus to Puerto Natales, the gateway to Torres del Paine, one of Patagoniaś most famous national parks.

Our hostel in Puerto Natales was one of the coolest places we have stayed in our journey. It was a cozy little home adorned with handmade wool textiles and warmed with gas ovens. It was incredibly warm and cozy, plus the owners were extremely helpful with everything we needed. If you find yourself in Puerto Natalaes, and you should because the town is delightful and Patagonia is awesome, be sure to stay at La Amerindia.

After an amazing breakfast (Tori sends many thanks to her parents for sending down lox and cream cheese with the Pollocks!), we set off for Torres del Paine. We found out they are not named for the towering revolutionary zeal of Thomas Paine (to Stew and Mr. Stewś disappointment), but because Torre means Tower in Spanish and Paine means Blue in a different language. Thus, the set of giant rock pinnacles appear as blue towers in the Patagonian mountains (not the Andes at this point but something else).

Torres del Paine is known for being staggeringly beautiful as jutting snow peaked mountains jut through the pampas and glacial lakes pool at their bases. The numerous lakes take different colors based on their sediment content: those formed by deep underwater springs, millenial glaciers, or the run off from snow melting in the peaks and carrying deposits from the rough (and steep) sides of the Mordor-like tectonic upheavals. When viewed in proximity, it looks like a paint chip of blue shades lacking its captions of aqua marine, glacial ice azul, gel deodorant blue.

The wildlife is also worth note, if not entirely wild or alive. First, we saw a milodon and its cave. The cave was pretty cool: like a 10,000 year old empty hot pocket of the earth. Settlers found the bones of a milodon (giant land sloth) here and promptly took them to London. Now, there is a statue of a milodon, complete with giant, slothenly descending huevos. Outside, we saw baby owls, generally recognized as one of the cutest things that one cannot have as a pet. Later, we came across a herd of guanacos which are basically llamas but are not (to our knowledge) domesticated. However, if an animal lets you get within five feet of it, we do not think it really counts as wild, either. Also on the list were condors, flamingoes , rheas (ostriches but a little different), foxes, and maybe more!

After a delicious lunch of salami and laughing cow cheese (Thanks again, Kirsh-Cliffordś!), we took a hike to see glaciers and ice bergs in their natural habitat (a really cold place). We only had an hour to do the hike, so we ran our hike. ¿Have we mentioned how awesome we are? The icebergs and glaciers were impressing and, thus, we were impressed. Itś difficult to describe them, but cold, icy, big, intimidating, jagged, blue not white...these are beginnings.

The next day, we went to see more glaciers. (Sorry...after the previous failure to describe glaciers, this must seem to be an inauspicious beginning for a whole dayś entry). This time, we were aboard a speed boat. We knew the day was going to be good when half the activities were eating and one was drinking whisky. Most of the day was spent boating out to our main destination, but along the way we saw various frozen and flowing waterfalls of a kilometer or two in length (height?) with fleets of condors that seemed to be frozen in the air, relaxing on the air currents and maintaining their positions while looking for delicious dead animals. Being a scavenger has got to be good in an environment that is basically the worldś biggest walk in refrigerator. We also saw a colony of cormorants (flighted) chilling on the side of a cliff. Nifty.

Eventually, we got to our glacier hike. Slow pokes on the trail inhibited our new love of running hikes. This glacier was much bigger and scarier. Scary because the nooks of crannies of the ice were clearly visible (it is summer), but one can understand how in the winter it would look flat and appear passable. This is not the case, however, and a wrongly placed foot leads to a hundred foot fall into icy water. Standing in the driving hail over the water next to a giant icy english muffin, we gained a healthy respect for natureś frozen wonders. Floating in the water below, one could see ice bergs that had, due to global warming, broken from the glacier. While these melting chunks breaking off are probably only the tip of the iceberg of global warmingś effects, they remain massive. True to form, the majority of their mass is concealed beneath water but they still appear titanic.

As a prologue to lunch, we were served whisky over millenial ice. Technically, the ice is decamillenial given that the glacier was formed in 10,000 b.c.(e). but since it is not clear if this is the correct formulation of the latin root, we can forgive the tour guide. Nonetheless, a noon oclock whisky is an excellent segue into a two hour antelunch nap. When we woke up, we hiked up to an agroturism destination: one of the southern most ranches in the world. We dined on lamb that had been spitted and smoked in halves over a fire in front of us. Also, they gave us wine.

Today, we rented a car and headed south toward Punta Arenas. We stopped along the way to see a huge colony of penguins. The colony consists of 10,000 infants, adults, and offspring ("¿why do infants not count as offspring?", one may ask, without resolution). Apparently, we came at a bad time and many had run off to important meetings and lunches, all dressed up in their cute little tuxedos. Nonetheless, we saw about 1,000 relaxing on the beach like hung over highschool boys still drunk from prom. Others were waddling along the beach as only sea animals (and the rotund) can do. A particularly cute one nipped Toriś shoe, Stewś mom got all up in oneś face as they got to know each other better, we all saw a mating dance, and Stew stepped in penguin poo. Also, because this was allegedly a busy time (when the penguins go out to fish), it meant that we were the only tourists at the park and (as they say) "ïf you have seen 1,000 penguins, you have seen a lot."

Now weŕe in Punta Arenas and are flying back to Santiago tomorrow. Stewś parents have to get back to square old cold north hemisphere and we have to go to work on our warm black berry farm. Yippee, though we will miss Stewś parents. We will also miss the amazing beer of Patagonia (which we toured today, at the factory and the bar).