Mas y Mas

Still playing catch up here:

From Ushuaia, at the very bottom of Argentina we took a bus North and West to El Calafate. The route crossed through Chile for about two hours, and included a 45 minute ferry ride. Stunning scenery all around, so it seemed a shame to be sleeping, but we had not slept the night before, so there was little choice. The bus left at 5 in the morning, so we figured it' be easier, and cheaper just to stay up, and not pay for another night in the hostel. So we went to the casino. Doub won 80 pesos. Cap lost 100. i stood watch and sipped bourbon.

The main attraction of El Calafate is the Perito Merino glacier. At one point, we'd seen 4 different Patagonian glaciers in the space of about 10 days, but this was by far the most impressive. It was a massive, jagged wall of black and blue ice. Black from all the earth it picks up as it rolls down out of the mountains; translucent blue in the center where the ice is most dense. The contrasting colors, the ice, the verdant mountains on either side, the lake water a sublimely tropical color, and to top it all off, a rainbow struck across the blue and white sky combine to create a somewhat pleasing scene.




Next was Puerto Natales, about 6 hours south and into Chile. This is the most convenient jumping off point for journeys into Torres del Paine National Park. This park is all about grandeur. If Tierra del Fuego is small and sublime, Torres is enormous and untamed. Untamed, save for the 3 or 4 refugios strategically placed along the trekking route, where those folks not intrigued by tents can rent a bed and buy a hot meal or three. There are two options for dealing with Torres: the Circuit takes about 10 days, and as the name implies, is a big circle; the W took us 4 days and 3 nights. Again, as the name implies, the route requires climbing up and back down again, then across, up and down. At a rough estimate, we walked 70+ kms in those 4 days.




So I will refrain from describing in detail all the mountains and rivers and forests and glaciers which are standard fare for Patagonian National Parks. Cap and I camped for the first two nights, enjoying fine wine, playing chess and feasting on spicy beans and rice. Like this:


However, the third afternoon of hiking was rudely interrupted by gale-force winds and rain. Coming over a ridge, I stopped and with arms spread wide, laughed into the wind. A gust arose immediately, briefly loosening the agreement I keep with gravity, and suggesting that maybe I humble myself in the face of Nature and just hug a tree for a minute.

We arrived at the refugio/campground soaked to the bone. Dripping and dirty. We told ourselves we would wait an hour before pitching the tent, just to see if the rain let up. So we sat in the lobby, uncomfortable as can be, picturing ourselves setting up the tent in a puddle, then attempting to cook, and imagining ourselves pulling on the same soaking wet clothes in the ice-cold morning. Then I learned that the refugio accepts credit cards, and suddenly things were looking up. Suddenly we had beds, a heater to dry our gear, a hot shower, and a bar with a spectacular view, looking out over the lake.

We were sitting in said bar with our fantastic new friends, Tom and Hannah, from the South of England, when there was a clatter against the back of the building, followed by some scraping on the roof, and then, ahh there it is, a mostly set up tent flying away some 100 ft in the air, wafting and drifting in the merciless wind until finding respite under water, 200 meters off shore. It was only moments later that a young man and girl came running around the side of the building waving their arms in the air, eventually settling with their hands on their heads in complete disbelief. After witnessing this, and later hearing stories about rats who chewed through tents to gain access to peoples trail mix, we were happy to think of the egregious price of one nights lodging as money saved.

Thus we passed a fantastic evening sipping wine and rum, delving into the intricate depths of dental hygiene with Tom and Hannah (Tom is a dentist; Hannah an oral surgeon), getting Hannah riled up about how bad she is at checkers, and generally bemoaning the fact that we were irrevocably trapped in the unbearable midst of a full-on luau. Oh well.

Okay well I'm paying for internet right now, so I'm going to stop. Slowly, surely, we're getting back to real time here. I'll try to continue with my diligent updates. I still need to discuss the NaviMag, Bariloche and El Bolson, the volcano in Pucon, then this past weekend in Santiago and Viña del Mar/Valparaiso. We are at the bus station in Santiago, waiting for our bus to Mendoza. Time for chess, a truly cruel and pointless game that Cap and I have become quite obsessed with ever since we bought that little magnetized travel board in Uyuni, Bolivia.

Seems like a long time ago.

Touch and Go

This is a rare opportunity: free internet and time to spend typing. I'll start where I last left off, somewhere in Argentina. Cordóba, that's right. Cordóba is a college town in north-central Argentina. It manages to exude a laid-back vibe while maintaining its bustle. We spent two days cruising the streets, just trying to get back on campus. We were dead-set on getting a dorm tour, but were unable to find any willing guides, although they appeared to be everywhere. We went bowling in blacklight, throwing neon balls down the lane as fast as we could, since the pins simply had no pop. In such situations, it's all about ballspeed. A group of giggly too-young girls were in the lane next to us, and we fear they spoke more English than we had assumed.

What else, oh: Cappo bought a tie. In the process of reliving our days as mallrats, we wandered into several upscale clothing stores, intending to try on suits, or at least buy some cufflinks. It was only when Cappo saw this golden tie, really gold on gold, hanging from the neck of a window mannequin that we (he) saw something he absolutely had to have. But the salesgentlemen refused to sell it to him. They claimed that to remove the tie from the mannequin was above their paygrade, that they couldn't possibly replace it since they themselves could not tie a tie as neatly as is required for display in their prestigious window. And to be fair, seeing the state of their knots, we could not help but agree.

So anyway, we went back later that night (after bowling; tie shops are open late in Argentina) and spoke with the manager. He had been told the story of the gringos locos who demanded that one tie. We could not have possibly been interested in any other tie, for the gold was truly the only one worth buying, a class act all the way, brilliant with a simple black suit and white shirt. These are articles of clothing Cappo owns, as he continued to admire the mannequin saying, in all ironic seriousness, "I could have that look." So anyway, after battling through the language barrier by placing cashmoney on the table, the manager said that if we came back tomorrow, the tie would be ready for us. Short story longer than it needed to be, Cappo has a stunning new tie. But only after we went back 3 times! It appears to be amatuer hour in the sales department.

So that was Cordóba. Oh, also, we stayed in an American-owned and operated hostel, called The Turning Point, and it was a terrible error. There were long-term residents who felt they owned the place, and were offended by our mere presence in 'their' room. There was a half-assed tourist office whose knowledge of the local bus service was second-rate at best (our outdated Footprint guidebook was more well-informed), and, to top it all off, what really made us furious, was when they promised we could go skydiving, then we waited around the hostel all day, hearing reports of "20 minutes, 20 minutes, the guy will be here". Supposedly he came, but a group of Hawaiians jumped the line by sitting in the doorway, obstructing all entrance and exit, while we made the mistake of being merely in the lobby, and therefore clearly not interested in going. If the day wasted was not infuriating enough, it was made more so when the owners (who had been all buddy-buddy with us) asked us to pay for half-a-days stay. Clever fucks.

So we shorted them and skipped town to Capilla del Monte, three hours North. Capilla is pronounced Capeesha, and is the UFO capital of South America. It is a small town, set at the base of Cerro Unitorico, with a thriving 'mystical tourism' industry. They also boast lots of outdoor adventures (horseback riding, paragliding and the like), and have some of the best fruit available. We consistently feasted on plums and peaches beyond compare. So we went to the UFO museum and managed to transcend the language barrier with the owner-operator, agreeing that all we need is patience, and all will be revealed.


We visited the Pyramide Mysterioso, which turned out to be not so mysterious as we might have hoped. Then we got my aura read. Turns out I'm green and blue and live from my heart, but tend to brood over the scars this heart has accrued. Something about carrying a 'burden of love'. I blame it on the language barrier.

And then we climbed a little mountain. Cerro Unitorico is a nice little cliff they claim requires 4 hours to conquer. I believe it took us two. At the top we lunched on olives and Oreos, polishing off a bottle of Carmenere in the process. Then we ran down. We figure it takes more energy to fight against gravity than to just let it have its way with us. Risk divided by fun to the power of wine equals I broke my camera.



Okay so, after two days in Cordóba, and two more in Capilla, we were finally on our way to Buenos Aires, with promises of steak and dance parties, babes and Boca. We arrived on a rare Friday night when Boca Juniors were playing a home game. Our siesta ran a bit long, so we missed the train of friends we had arranged to meet, but we managed to finagle our way into the game through some nefarious means. Well, actually we still aren't sure.

Clearly gringos, a man sought us out and offered us entrance. He said nothing of tickets. He suggested that we give him 300 pesos for the two of us (regular tickets would have been 280), and that his friend, who happened to be walking up just then, would bring us in. His friend was decked out in Boca gear, so we figured okay, sure, porque no?

We passed the cash, and followed the Boca-clad man. We got in line at a turnstile, and as we got to the front, he gave the guard a look, then pointed at Cap and I. So okay, up we go, climbing nicely spaced stairs way way up, until we found seats at midfield, essentially providing us with the same view as you see on TV. When we first sat down, there was a game in process, just ending as a matter of fact, and we were shocked with the thought that we had misread the gametime, or failed to translate the time change accurately, and had just paid a stupid amount of money to watch 6 minutes of soccer. Oh, nevermind, that was just the junior squad. So we got to watch Boca snatch a draw from the jaws of victory with Estudiantes. 1-1. Boca made several inexcusable errors in the last 5 minutes, failing to clear their lines with any authority, and the Estudiantes fellow took the ball on the half-volley and buried it high to the far post. Brilliant goal, deflated the atmosphere a bit. The Boca fans did manage to sing nearly the whole time though. Really fantastic fan base, jumping up and down in unison to literally shake the stadium.



Then the next night was Paul van Dyke, a DJ most famous in Europe about 10 years ago, but still touring the electronica/trance circuit, pumping up the jams for all the party people in the place to be, and that sort of stuff. So we drank, and danced, got offered drugs, and were constantly disappointed by tension in the music, which was constantly building, but never dropping. They build it up, but refused to let it drop. No lo entiendo.

Great night. Ended at about 8 am with Cappo and me in a yelling match with the elderly owner of our friends apartment building because she refused to let us out. We were locked in, and she was standing there with the key, demanding to know which apartment we had been in. Before letting us even think about answering, she started buzzing the wrong apartment. Then she told her elderly husband to call the police, but he said something incomprehensible and she let us out. Great fun. But seriously, all over Buenos Aires, people get locked into buildings. Our hostel, this apartment, this other apartment, everywhere. Is this not a fire hazard? Are they not creating thousands of death traps? Seems crazy. Nice lady though, just hope we didn't get some random people evicted simply because we wanted to go home and sleep.

And then... and then... umm Oh we flew to Ushuaia on the 3rd of March. Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world, and the jumping off point for the vast majority of expeditions to the Antarctic. It has the feel of a little ski-town, maintaining a hefty dose of charm despite the fact that it is entirely oriented towards tourists. We stayed at the Freestyle Hostel, and recommend it highly enough to have purchased Tshirts. Hot showers, firm pillows, and a pool table with generous pockets. (Hint: the table is supposed to take pesos, but 25 centavo pieces work just as well). So we took a boatride out around Beagle Canal, saw some penguins, seals and cormorants, a red-and-white striped lighthouse on a lonely island outpost, and were treated to free beer the entire time.


Ellen, I found a quartz rock on a sacred island and pocketed it for you even though they told us not to. It was so obviously yours, it would have been irresponsible not to return it to you.



We spent the next day organizing future travel plans, booking our place on the NaviMag (to be explained later) and buying bus tickets North (nowhere else to go). Cappo and I then climbed up to the glacier that pokes its nose just over a mountain ridge at the top of Ushuaia. There is a chairlift available, but for 20 USDs we decided we could just as easily walk. I don't know why anyone would ever take the lift. You can either sit suspended, getting dragged up over destroyed forest floor at a snails pace, or you can take the path and walk for 20 minutes up a gentle slope, crossing a glacial river through evergreen forest and stunning scenery which you can simply spin around to see, instead of cultivating an unnecessary crick in your neck. Anyway, it was a spectacular stroll, and again, would recommend it highly to anyone who finds themself in Ushuaia.

Tierra del Fuego National Park is the most amazing place I've ever been. Hands down. It requires about a 2 hr busride from Ushuaia, but if you get up early enough, you have time to climb to the top (there is only one peak to climb) and hike some other tamer trails as well. We, of course, were not up early, and starting climbing at 2 in the afternoon. The sign says not to start after noon, so we hustled up, and were the last people on the summit that day. Alone, with a 360 degree view of Beagle Canal, ocean and the town of Ushuaia in one direction, lakes of at least five different blues below mountain ranges as far as the eye could see. We could see Chile, we could see.... everything. And to boot, there was a fox waiting for us at the top. Yeah, a fox. We just sat and looked at each other for about 20 minutes while we ate M&M's. Something profound about a mountaintop fox. I will refer you to Michael Cappo's Facebook photos for evidence of this event. I believe they are in the album named At Least The Maximum.




I have to go now. We are in Santiago, staying at the apartment of a friend we met in the Pampas in Bolivia. She is taking good care of us, and today we are headed to Valparaiso to see how big a party we can be a part of. Okay for now.

Quick One

Today is my birthday. Tengo 24 años. We are in Bariloche, Argentina. We are going to go go-karting and, seeing how the sun has been up for hours now, start drinking (but not necessarily in that order). Our next move is to the idyllic little hippie town of El Bolson, about 130 kms South of here. Then there is a volcano demanding that we conquer it in Pucon, Chile. Then we skip to Santiago (hopefully the roads are okay after los grandes terremotos) for a few days of couch surfing with the dozen or so Chileños we met in Bolivia and told us to come visit. Then Mendoza. Then back to BA. Then a few days seeing what life is like in Montevideo, Uruguay, from where I have a one-way ticket to Bogota. Life is hard...

Overdue Update

Okay so today is March. I've got a solid two weeks of events to describe, but soon the sun will come up and it will be Tuesday, our last day in Buenos Aires. We have been here since Friday morning, and expect to return after our journey down to Ushuaia and back up through Patagonia. However, I will start where I left off.
We spent one day and one night in Potosi.



We arrived at midnight, and Cappo set the alarm early to be sure we'd find a tour of the old mines. This is a place where all the miners are self-employed, selling what they personally find for personal profit. Apparently there were years upon years of tragic working conditions in these mines. With no canaries, the average expected life-span for a miner was 6 months. No kidding. Okay so sure, book the tour, no problem. We shared breakfast and bad coffee with another English-speaking individual who was going on the same tour.

Time to go, we stash our bags and go to the door, and what do you know, they left without us. There could not have been more than four people booked on this tour, and we were two of them, and boom, gone. The dude we ate breakfast with apparently neglected to mention that not everyone was there. We grabbed a cab and tried to catch up, but that was a wild goose chase, so we wandered through the market for a while, and watched a woman slapping the severed head of a boar with a dull knife. I politely asked for a picture, having practiced my sentence in Spanish with Cap first. But she said no, so we went back to the hostel and demanded to redirect our funds toward tickets on the next bus moving South out of town. It was at this time that Cappo traded his pop-fiction novel for L. Ron Hubbard's classic original, Dianetics.

To top things off, the clever guy at the desk who 'helped' us book the tour sent us to the wrong side of town to catch our bus. Luckily, we were still operating on Bolivian time (which is simply Bolivian time, except when it's not), so being 45 minutes late for our bus was no problem, right on time.

This bus brought us to Uyuni, a mostly nondescript town with lots of hostels and pizzerias, but the jumping off point for multi day tours of the salt flats and surrounding areas. Before attending dinner with 4 gorgeous Chileñas we encountered in our hostel, we booked a three day round trip tour. This basically meant 3 days sitting in the way-backseat of a Toyota LandCruiser, watching spectacular landscapes slide by. This area of southwestern Bolivia is otherworldly. The salt flats act as a mirror for the sky, and it is nearly impossible to distinguish between earth and horizon. The mountains in the distance appeared to float on air. We captured some miraculous photos of us levitating. Observe:






We found a hostel on the side of a mountain, and thank goodness they had many bottles of wine available for sale. Unfortunately, this was Bolivian wine. It seems that, regardless of proximity, there is no substantial import market for Argentinian or Chilean wines in Bolivia. Truly tragic, and acidic, and overripe, and, ugh... But yeah, so we played drinking games with some boring British girls, end of story. Got up to see the sunrise. Words fail. Two days followed, full of multicolored lakes and stunning mountainous landscapes. Our driver owned two tapes, one of painfully dull, repetitive calypso music, which was heavy on the pan-flute, and one of ancient American disco. Both of these were fine the first time around, but once the repeats got into the double digits, we started to go a little stir-crazy. Eventually it was revealed that he also had a tape adapter which could play an ipod. Ben Harper helped us home.




Back in Uyuni, we hopped a bus bound for the border. Villazon is on the Bolivian side; Jujuy is in Argentina. There is a fifteen minute walk from the Bolivian bus station to the bridge which is the border. It took us four hours to cross this bridge (it was Saturday), but it seems we might have got across much faster if we had been a bit more bold. There were people cutting the line left and right, and as soon as the border agents saw our US passports, they expedited the process and shuttled us right through, thrilled to see us. If only we had had the sense to claim we had a flight to catch, we could have cut our wait time in 4. Oh well.



Flavor country! First order of business was to find a steak. We have been eating as much steak as possible, since the state subsidizes it and you can seriously have a top-class steak dinner with wine for 12 dollars. The cuts are excellent, but the preparation, we have found, is amateur at best. They love to cook it brown, so much so that even when we ask for it rare, bloody, very little done, it comes out at least Medium. It is a bit infuriating because there is so much flavor available, and they just destroy it. This is not to say the steak is not delicious, because it is, but these cooks refuse to allow it to achieve its true potential. So anyway, Cap and I have invented a 20-point rating system in order to keep track of how much and how great our steaks are. Our highest score so far is a 15. We maintain the highest of expectations. We can't afford not to.

Salta is a 6 hr bus ride from Jujuy, and there is beautiful scenery to be found in the surrounding areas, but we were on a tight schedule, and were unable to go off for 2 days to look at multicolored mountains and such. These were rather tame days and nights.

Okay I have to sleep now, there is no other choice. After Salta it was Córdoba, then Capilla del Monte, then Buenos Aires. I'll try to cover it all soon as I can. There is a lot to say. Many things happen every day. Life is fun. I may never come back.

y después...

Checking in from Oruro, Bolivia, where Cap and I have just experienced one of the wildest carnivals one might attempt to imagine. Carnival Diablada involves an endless procession of exquisitely costumed dancers and bandmembers, parading around town for no less than 24 hours. Things were already in full swing when we crawled out of bed Saturday morning and found our grandstand seats at about 1030. This morning, we could still hear the singing of horns and fireworks at noon. Absolutely wild. Cappo took a picture with a girl passed out on the street when he went out to get lunch. I was still in bed nursing my violently upset stomach. Gotta watch out for the carne de la calle. That is all the detail I will provide about this aspect of my day.

One interesting side-note to add here: our friend Miguel, a Mexican from Texas, got arrested today for exposing himself to a police officer. He, along with the rest of us, raged it last night, but what separated him was his intent to slam 6 cervezas first thing this morning, and was thus stumbling about, attempting to make international phone calls and, having already dropped his trousers in front of our little tour group, seems to have done the same for the viewing pleasure of the Bolivian policia. They, apparently, were not so pleased as he might have hoped, and he is now in jail for the next 24 hours. This problem is compounded by the fact that his passport is back in La Paz. I truly sympathize, but am rather thrilled that it is not I who will be waking up from a drunken stupor in Bolivian prison.

This group that we came down here with is a collection of mostly Aussies and Scots. They are rowdy to say the least. I am attempting not to be too judgmental with them, suffice it to say that there is a serious lack of travel savviness in the group (they were shocked that they were expected to have their passports with them), as well as a serious lack of respect for the house where we stayed, and a complete lack of conscientiousness about the impressions they left on the locals.



Cappo and I have been discussing this phenomenon a lot, how the ugly-American stereotype most often applies to those gringos not actually from the US. There were many events where if it had been an American saying or doing the things that these people were, there would have been an uproar, but then, for example, last night, Cappo and I were shocked at the outrageous cover charge to this dance party we attended, and were attempting to negotiate a discount. We met with resistance, and the Aussie dude who was with us immediately undermined the whole process by calling us out for being cheap, and Americans with a sense of entitlement. I was wearing my Canadian flag t-shirt.

As if we didn't stick out enough, we had neon green t-shirts.


But still, party!

Note the poncho. There really were water balloons flying everywhere. Children and old ladies were not necessarily targeted, but they were certainly not spared.

Okay, but before Oruro we were in the jungle. We flew from the airport in La Paz (the highest in the world) to Rurrenabaque, a little town tucked amidst jungle-covered mountains that might have easily been featured in Jurassic Park. Our plane was just a little guy, with one seat on either side and no separation between the passengers and the cockpit. We chose the 45-minute sketchy-plane ride over the 20 hour sketchy-bus ride. So we take off, and I glance out the window to find a huge, snow-capped Andean mountain staring me in the face until we rose into dense clouds. Comforting. We landed on a strip of dirt in a clearing in the middle of the jungle. We truly enjoyed this.

Because our flight had been delayed, we missed the Sunday-start tour we'd signed up for. This turned out to be a blessing because we were then able to spend the afternoon hiking through the Amazon with a guy named Nelson and his two-toothed friend. After a trip up the river (scenes reminiscent of Apocalypse Now; I'll have to compare notes with my brother, recently returned from Vietnam), we trekked up into the mountains for maybe two hours, seeing ayahuasca vines, strangler figs, and chocolate fruit. Our two-toothed amigo somehow found a baby tarantula hiding in the depths of a cone-shaped leaf and provoked it to lunge out and attack a twig.


Eventually, we reached our destination, strapped on our harnesses, had a brief safety briefing, then clamped on to the wire and went zipping across the top of the canopy. This was brilliant, some of the best fun available as far as I can tell. The guides even gave us their super-fast sliders when they realized that the new ones we were using were crap.

Then we watched the Super Bowl in the Moskkito Bar. We had an average pizza and fruity drinks and played frustrating games of pool while we watched Peyton make but one crucial error. Towards the end of the game, a German missionary came and sat with us and asked us questions about how American football works. For various reasons, we chose not to trust her.

Next day we found our tour, and set off on a three-hour ride down a bumpy dirt road in the back of a Landcruiser outfitted with bench seats. Our group consisted of one Portuguese guy (who found it acceptable to ride up front while one of the 'guides' rode in back), two Israeli's (a guy and a girl, not dating), and three Chileños (two girls and a guy).

I will now attempt to summarize this three-day, two-night tour as succinctly as possible, in order to remind myself of stories I can delve into greater detail with later. Lunch involved a monkey, two little dogs and a cat, a huge stork-looking bird (not actually a stork), and melted popsicles to drink. We got out of the car to transfer to the boat, and we were introduced to our guide by a different guide, saying ¨This is your guide. He doesn't speak English. Help him load the boat.¨ No English is not a problem, as Cappo and I enjoy practicing our Spanish, but our guide apparently knew only two words in any language: Vamos? and, Tortuga! We spent most of the three days cruising around in our long, skinny boat, outfitted with folding chairs that flip down from the side. It was actually very comfortable so long as you had enough sunblock. So, we were in the pampas, which is basically a monstrous swamp, full of monkeys, toucans, turtles, alligators and river dolphins. The trees have taken root 5 ft under water. We swam with the dolphins (fun, anti-climactic, and dirty - there is a lot of motor oil floating in that stagnant water), hunted down an anaconda (asleep in the roots of a tree), and went looking for alligators at night.
These activities we did, but with perhaps half the success of the other groups, due to the profound incompetence of our guide. Whereas the other group got to pick up the anaconda, we went traipsing off on a wild goose chase, tromping through tall grass on a mission which, it was clear to us all, had no chance of success. Whereas the other group found many alligators, and even scooped a baby out of the water to hold and photograph, we failed to even see a single pair of red eyes glowing in the dark. We only got to see a sloth on the last day because we followed the other group. Sloths are awesome.






Anyway, no big deal, we still had fun, had some cervezas at night watching the sun set over the pampas. Again, I have pictures, but have yet to find an internet cafe able to deal with the upload. We met a Korean-Australian-Christian girl (part of the other group) who tagged along with us back to the Wild Rover in La Paz. Over the course of several meals, we had some rather intense discussions surrounding religion and eco-politics. Turns out what she was espousing was not quite Christianity, but do not under any circumstances tell her that.




The most exciting thing that happened back in La Paz was vindaloo. There's a little restaurant called Star of India, and they boast ¨the most dangerous vindaloo in the world¨, made with special Bolivian peppers from the foothills in the north. There is a t-shirt available only to those who finish the famous vindaloo, ie not for sale. Given this implicit challenge, Cappo and I had little choice but to accept. We took very different approaches, but ended up in the same place. Cap got the chicken, and scarfed 3/4 of it down without letting it touch his tongue (or chewing, far as I can tell). After that it was a matter of will-power to finish the little bit that was left. His biggest challenge was the amount of food, for it really is a sizable bowl of curry. I had the vegetarian style, and took the tortoise approach, complementing my vindaloo with naan and white rice, and really trying to enjoy the full flavor. My biggest challenge was the heat. I don't know if the meat soaks up more spice than the vegetables do, or what the issue was, but my lord, there was plenty of flavor for us. Two smoothies made of milk, honey and peach aided me greatly, as did a bit of agua con gas right at the end. Long story short, Cappo and I have new t-shirts. I will spare you the details of Revenge of the Vindaloo.

So now we're in Oruro waiting for our bus to Potosi. Potosi is an old mining town, where all the miners are self-employed, keeping whatever they find. Apparently the tours of the mines are not to be missed, and we can blow up our very own sticks of dynamite. We plan to be there just one day, before making our way further south and west to Uyuni, where we find the salt flats and many multi-colored lakes. This is supposed to be spectacular. After that, we have one week to make it to Buenos Aires. Looks like we'll go through Cordoba, and skip Mendoza this time around, planning to spend some quality time there on our way back north from Ushuaia.

I wish I had less stuff.

Estoy Aqui

It was a bumrush to La Paz. Flying into Arequipa at sunrise provided one of the more spectacular views an airplane window could ever hope to offer. I tried to take pictures but like usual, failed to do reality justice. The city is set in the midst of three enormous volcanoes (only one of which is active). On this bright and clear morning, they looked close enough to just step out and take a leisurely stroll to the top. This is one of those awesome airports where they let you off the plane, down the ramp and you walk across the runway to the baggage claim. I don´t know, I always loved that. Claimed my big green backpack, and wandered confidently into the cab pool, where I picked a cabbie on instinct. He spoke to me in slow Spanish and pulled over so I could take great pictures of the mountains in the morning (greatness of pictures yet to be determined).

So, Taxi > bus station > .50 soles to use a sketchy bathroom > wait until 830 am until boarding the bus to Puno... At this point I was at 24 hours without proper sleep. I hadn't slept on the plane from Atlanta to Lima because the in-flight entertainment was so entertaining. I watched This Is It, and was dancing in my seat, saw an episode of The Office I'd never seen (Jim and Pam's wedding, rom-com of epic proportions) and Funny People, where Adam Sandler is a dying comedian and tries to find meaning in life or something. Stupid but funny. Anyway, the point is, I didn't sleep. This will catch up to me.

Beautiful busride from Arequipa to Puno. About 5 hours up into the mountains, along windy roads with steep drop-offs. The driver took the corners with very little hesitation, which I liked, as I felt it showed confidence. Plus, our lane was hugging the mountain, so we were at least 5 feet further from dramatic death than the cars coming at us. And then you come around a corner and there's Lake Titicaca sprawled out in front of you. To say it is beautiful is expected, understood, assumed, but what is less tangible is the sense of magic surrounding the place. Can't say what it is, just something radiating out of that water.

The town of Puno is cuddled in a bay on the southern side of the lake where big jagged hills slope down into the basin. The town itself is not exactly attractive. The streets are tiny, the traffic uncontrollable, and many of the streets are dug up (presumably under construction); its picaresque location is Puno's grand redeeming quality, and it more than suffices.

So I got in at about 2 pm, and scheduled a tour of the Uros for later that afternoon. As I soon found out, the Uros are floating islands that indigenous people live on. I'll try to post some pictures, because it's hard to explain (and I´m getting impatient with my own writing; it's cocktail hour for chrissakes). But yeah, very cool. Six or seven families live on each island, maintaining it with grasses and fresh clumps of dirt that float by. They eat fish and keep chickens, and very rarely (if ever) go ashore. I met one lady who introduced me to her 92 year old mother who had apparently never been to shore. (I was later confronted with rumors that they don't actually live there, that they hang out and talk to tourists all day, then row home at night. I am in no position to either confirm or deny this, but I will say that upon reflection, the hut that I stepped inside did seem suspiciously clean.) They all had solar panels plugged into their thatch huts, so they had stereos and TV's. Good for them?




After the tour, I proceeded to walk about town and get quite drunk with some lovely Australian folks I'd met at the hostel. (For a country of 20 million people, Australians make up about half of the population of all the backpackers hostels down here.) Being at altitude, I was aware that the booze was going to kick in quick. So I started slow, was careful, and worked my way into a jovial state of mind. No problemo, right? Right, until the next morning. I was in bed at 330 feeling dandy, and awake at 6 carefully observing as my internal organs appeared to all be slowly shutting down. I had to walk half a mile down the hill to an ATM before I could buy water and check out. This was pure torture. I can only imagine the policeman washing his truck was pretty impressed with my appearance.

It seems an appropriate time to mention that this last paragraph begins about 8 hours after the last ended. I will explain this when the time comes.

Wait, okay. So. Down the hill, no biggie. Up the hill at 630 am, at 12,000 ft, more hungover than I knew was possible? Only one way to learn. Check out; taxi al Terminal Terrestre; OH and so I already had this ticket booked, so they knew me at the desk and were happy to take my backpack, tag it, hand me the sticker on my ticket, but then it disappeared and I said Oh, okay, I trust you? So I ask a series of questions in my ever-less broken Español, a que porte, y hay un tax de salir (para mi pobre Americano)? (Parentheses not actually spoken, no shit). But so yeah, pay the tax, get out Puerto Numero Dos, y there's seis o siete autobuses sitting there, all apparently going where I want to go and for the first time, there is not a conveniently (read: blessedly) placed individual there waiting to tell me precise where to go. Moment of Panic. Where is my bag? Where is my bus?

Okay, found it. Uncomfortable bus, fine. Forced to switch seats three times, okay. Fed to the head of the line at the border for being an American? Not as great as it sounds, since they only wanted my sweet sweet Dollars (no longer so sweet, I'm told). Novente dias en Bolivia costs us $135. (Already worth it).

So we walk across the border and re-board the bus for another 2 hour cruise to Copacabana, at which point we disembark, and half the gringos race to book their tickets to Isla del Sol (can't say I blame them), and the other half don't know whether to get back on the same bus or to grab their baggage and stand around in the mid-day, atmosphere-unimpeded sun for half an hour until someone wanders along who actually knows what the F is going on. (The latter won out, obviously). Board the new bus, and am surrounded by beautiful women. Seriously, on all sides, call it 8 of them, surrounding me, and all I can manage to muster is a meek Hola, buenos tardes, que pasa, que un dia tan bonita, no? And then the girl in front of me sinks her seat all the way back so here head is practically in my lap, and all the other girls giggle as I make a big show of taking a deep breath and smiling and use her chair (now trapping me tighter than a rollercoaster restraint) as an armrest.

Halfway through this ride, we disembarked once more in order to cross el Lago Ti Ticaca at a thin point. After the kind young lady left, I erected the seat in front of me in order to escape the confines of my seat, but have no fear, she reclaimed her reclined position just as soon as we had cruised across the skinny stretch of lake and found our bright white bus again. Deep breath. Tryambakam mantra x 3. Consciously create a cloak of white light around the entire bus. And send the prayer to she who confounds you: May you be safe. May you be happy and healthy. May you live with ease. Smile and try to sleep. But again, we were whipping around cliff-face roads pock-marked with grave-stones or memorials marking spot where one vehicle or an other careened off the cliff. I stayed awake and watched Titicaca rest amidst its protectorate cliffs, verdant in the late-afternoon mist.


Um, then what. Oh, okay, got to La Paz. The girl once again neglected to put up her seat, so I waited until everyone else got off before I was able to extricate myself from my cozy little ahh but it's fine. Found a cab immediately, brought me right to the hostel, they were expecting me, got a bottom bunk on the quiet side of this monstrously amazing building, wandered around in search of Cappo until deciding he would find me napping in my bed (which, by the way, is one of the most comfortable hostel beds I've ever known: Wild Rover Hostel, La Paz, owned by an Irishman, proper fun, tell ya whut).

And so he did. After half an hour of pure gratitude for my horizontal orientation, Cappo comes in, jolly-as-all-heaven, telling me about these people I need to meet, and soon enough about the soccer game we might>could>will>need to attend. So let´s say it's 7 pm at this point. Wednesday. How many hours of sleep have you counted? I give it 6 at best, but 3 of those necessarily came crook-necked on a bus, and the other three were in Puno where the alcohol negated any possible benefit. Whatever, what am I going to do, NOT go to the soccer game? Exactly.

Long story short, we bought tickets from the first scalper we met, who sold us perfectly legit tickets, but to the youth game that had happened an hour earlier. So we got ripped off for $1.50 US. Not the point, it's the principle of the thing. Found proper seats, front row of the balcony, and absorbed the atmosphere that only a South American country can create for two teams who, in all honesty, would benefit if they would let me start recruiting for them. Not to say I could have played (I could have), but I definitely know folks who could step right in and start scoring multiple goals a game, no questions asked. There were obvious runs unmade, lazy striker play, sloppy ideas followed by sloppy touches, and an infuriating lack of conviction when it came to finishing the football. Game ended 1-1, whatever. Good time.

Then I slept for 16 hours. Woke up after 8, continued to believe I might die, went back to bed. Got up, chugged water, went to an ATM, brushed my teeth, slammed some multivitamins and had a salad heavy on the avocado, and the world was brand new. All of a sudden there were wonderful people around, from all over the world, who already knew and loved Cappo and were excited to meet me, and well, it has continued from there. Most likely, I imagine that my mother does not want to read about the details of what has transpired over the last two days, but suffice it to say we have booked a 3 day trip to the Amazon, in Pampas, Bolivia, leaving this Sunday (so that during the Super Bowl we will be deep in the jungle, far from any mention of Brett Favre's future, or lack thereof) north of La Paz, and booked our tickets from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia, leaving on the 3rd of March. Also, we have tickets to see Paul Van Dyke in BA on the 27th of Feb. I'm imagining this to be an interesting event, to say the least.

That's all for now. I'm free to sleep now, and my body is greedily grabbing these hours of rest whenever it can, since it is now alert to the fact that they are on premium. Hope all is well where ever every one is.

Love and Light.
Dabeed

Plans

Okay, so here's a brief rundown of my itinerary so far as I'm aware to this point. Monday morning, the 1st of February 2010, I fly from Minneapolis, to Atlanta, to Lima, arriving in the Peruvian capital right at midnight. I then have a 4 am flight to Arequipa, arriving in plenty of time to find breakfast before my 08:30 bus departing for Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. As it turns out, the 2nd of February is the main day of the 18-day Virgin de la Candelaria Festival in Puno. From perutravels.net:

"The festival gathers more than 200 groups of musicians and dancers to celebrate the Mamacha Candelaria.
On the main day, February 2, the virgin is led through the city in a colorful procession comprising priests, altar boys, the faithful, Christians and pagans carefully maintaining the hierarchy. This is the moment when the troupes of musicians and dancers take the scene, performing and dancing throughout the city.
The festival is linked to the pre-Hispanic agricultural cycles of sowing and harvesting, as well as mining activities in the region. It is the result of a blend of respectful Aymara gaiety and ancestral Quechua seriousness."

Good timing, I guess. So it sounds like I might have to delay a few days in Puno and enjoy the festivities, but I have a sense of urgency about getting to La Paz, Bolivia because that is where I will meet up with Cappo. We're staying here: http://wildroverhostel.com/ It might be fun. Not sure yet.

So then the plan gets a bit more vague from there. There will be Spanish lessons involved; we plan to see the salt flats; but basically we'll just do what feels good, as that is the number one rule. Eventually we'll make our way down toward Buenos Aires. I would like to stop and see the Iguassu Falls, right where Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil come together. I've been told they make Niagara look like a leaky faucet. Only one way to find out. I also intend to find Mendoza and drink as much wine as possible, but that might have to wait until we head back north and west.

According to an email I just received from Cappo, it sounds like we'll fly from Buenos Aires down to Ushuaia, the southernmost city on the continent, sometime in early March. It looks spectacular down there, so we'll go as far south as we can, then work our way back north by bus.

That's all I've got for 'plans' so far. Of course, I'm planning to improvise, as always. I imagine I'll keep this space somewhat updated as events progress.