CourtaInIndia

Delhi and Rajasthan... the beginning of my 3 months in India

courta104 — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:51:00 GMT

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Upon arriving in India, I had mixed feelings about the country and this has continued through to even this present moment, after almost exactly one month traveling. After exiting the airport in Delhi, I discovered people and cars everywhere! Also, that India is dirty, dusty, noisy, polluted, smelly, beautiful, cultural, friendly, religious, modern and historical… all at the same time.

Delhi was a sensory overload. Lucky for me however, I was greeted at the airport by the driver of a friend of mine. In the mass of people waiting outside the airport, it was such a sense of relief to see a sign with my name on it and to know that I didn’t have to worry about dealing with finding a taxi or a hotel. I met Udai in Argentina on my last trip and we became pretty good friends after we kept running into each other on an every other day basis for about 2 weeks. We kept in touch after my trip and when I told him that I was going to take a trip to India, he offered to have Jeff and me stay at his parent’s house in Delhi when we arrived. This was such a welcome invitation, especially after discovering how crazy India actually is.

We stayed in Delhi for a few days with Udai as our tour guide for one day. His family was so hospitable and his mother helped immensely with our travel plans, suggesting little known places to stop by and visit beautiful temples without all the other foreign tourists. And they fed us… a lot. I thought I would end up so fat if I stayed there for more than those few days because the food was awesome and it never stopped coming!

The first whole day, we spent in Qutb Minar, awesome ruins just outside Delhi. The next day we spent in the noisy, dirty, historical old city visiting many sights with the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid as our highlights. That night, Udai invited us to join him at the pre wedding festival of his friends. Indian weddings are really a spectacular event. They last about 4 days and every single day is a big, extravagant, wonderful party.

The third day in Delhi is when reality really hit us. We decided to leave and brave the chaotic Delhi train station to go to Agra. After we arrived, we were told to go to so many different places and we really didn’t know what we were doing there. Unfortunately, English is not as widely used as I thought it might be so we couldn’t read signs and the only people who really seemed to speak English were there to scam us. Somehow we ended up at a tourist office outside the station area where we ended up planning a trip to Rajasthan instead. This proved to be a really good thing and a really bad thing all together (which tends to be how everything in India really is). The plus side was that we didn’t have to worry about booking hotels, trains or tours for more than two weeks. The bad side was that we had a crazy man for a driver (his name was Kuku… go figure) and we probably spent much more money on accommodation and food than we planned.

Let’s start with Kuku and his Tata (the brand of fancy car here which is really just a piece of crap with wheels). The first night, after leaving Delhi, we were supposed to have a 5 hour car ride to Mandawa. This actually proved to be a much longer car ride (maybe 7 or 8 hours) and the fact that the car broke down on five different occasions didn’t help. Apparently, the tube connecting the coolant to the engine broke and the car overheated. We had to stop in every little town for the last 4 hours of the trip to fill it with water.

Then, when we didn’t make it to a town at around 3am, Kuku stopped the car, put his seat in the reclining position started to go to sleep. At this point, I was exhausted and pissed off and was not going to have any of that. I told Kuku that we were not going to stay on the side of the road, so he had Jeff get out of the car and push it so it would start… with the help of some random dude walking down the road with his camel. We finally arrived in our dilapidated car at our hotel at sometime after 4am (more than 12 hours after we started)… only to be woken up by the morning prayer of the Hindus chanting away. We didn’t get much sleep.

From here the Tata really didn’t hold up very well. Mandawa was nice little quiet town and we wandered around for a few hours before taking off to Bikaner. After we finally made it to Bikaner, Kuku had to take the car to get fixed so we had to find our own mode of transport around the town, even though the purpose of hiring Kuku was to take us around. We ended up being stuck in Bikaner for an extra day because the mechanic couldn’t fix the problems of the Tata in one day. Luckily Bikaner was an interesting place to get stranded. We visited the fort and palaces and watched a lovely show while drinking some terrible Indian wine.

The next stop was Jaisalmer, which is pretty much like a giant sandcastle. It is in the desert in Rajasthan close to the Pakistani border. When we arrived in our hotel, it was really magical looking out the window at the fort walls lit up with a backdrop of sparkling stars. Inside the fort itself was really incredible too as it is still a working city. Unfortunately, the fort and city within the fort at Jaisalmer may not be around for much longer because providing water for the growing population and tourists in the fort is destroying it… think of dumping water on top of a sand castle. From Jaisalmer we took a short car ride to Kauri where we went on a camel safari and slept in the desert under the stars. Camels are truly the least comfortable form of transport… especially when they run… especially if you are a girl…

After we left Jaisalmer, we started to run into some problems with Kuku again. For some reason he liked to take us on his errands with him rather than doing them while he was waiting for us while we were on our tours. So, we had to go to the dry cleaners and then the pharmacy and then he actually took us to the hospital with him to see a doctor because he was sick. After being at the hospital for almost an hour and realizing that we would be there for at least several hours more, we sat Kuku down and had a little chat with him about how he needed to take care of this business in the multitude of hours he had when he wasn’t driving us around. From there, things definitely improved and the only problem we had after that was a flat tire.

We finally arrived in Jodhpur, which at first impression was a stinky, dirty, terrible city. I thought I was going to hate it while we were driving through trying to find our hotel. Luckily, first impressions are not always right and I found that I actually loved the city and all the people I had met there. We had some great experiences including meeting a family that invited us in to have some tea and dessert with them. The fort in Jodhpur was probably my favorite of all the forts we saw in Rajasthan and the “blue city” was really a wonderful place to wander around.

From Jodhpur, we went to Udaipur, the city that my friend Udai was named after. Udaipur is really beautiful and magical. Unfortunately, something that would have been one of the highlights of the trip, eating a fancy dinner at the Lake Palace hotel, was not allowed and therefore we could only look at the Palace from afar. Udaipur was a great place to just sit by the lake and watch everything that was going on around you.

Next, we went to Pushkar which was a small, quiet town and a welcome break to all the big cities we had been to so far. I did some shopping and went for a nice sunrise hike to a temple at the top of a hill. I also learned how to make chapatti (a type of Indian bread).

After Pushkar, we went to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan. Even though this was a really big city with more than a million people, it was really somewhat pleasant with lots to see. We took our second chance with some Indian wine and determined that we probably won’t drink any for the rest of the trip. It’s not very good wine. We also went to yet another palace and then a strange observatory where maharajas experimented with time and the celestial world.

The last day of Rajasthan was in Ranthambore where we unsuccessfully went to see tigers. All that resulted from that trip was Jeff getting really sick off the side of our cantor and me getting pictures of deer and antelopes making faces at me… literally, every single picture I took was with an animal with it’s tongue sticking out. Overall the park was nice and it was good to see some nature… it was just a little bit of a disappointment.

After Rajasthan, we went to Agra and I’m just going to have to wait until next time to write more…

The Most Dangerous Road in the World!

courta104 — Sat, 2 Aug 2008 05:35:00 GMT

Sam and I took the bike ride down the most dangerous road in the world that we were supposed to do several days earlier with Rochelle and Gabe before I got sick. We started about an hour outside La Paz and descended more than 3,600m (11,800ft)in about 64km (40miles) on a one lane, dirt road along cliff drops of more than 1000m (3600ft). You can check out a video of the road on youtube.com at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqPJ6nLtQ5o Needless to say, it was a really awesome experience. I think the scenery was nice, but I'm not sure because I was concentrating on staying on the road the whole time.

The first part was paved for a little while. That was fun because you could go really super fast on the downhills and it wasn't really dangerous just yet. When we got to the gravel part of the road though, that's when things changed a little. The road was really bumpy and my hands really started to hurt after a little while because of how tight I was holding onto the handlebars. Only a few times did I really get nervous. When I looked off the road in front of me toward the drop on my left, I got really scared and when one of the guys from my group cut in front of me and almost caused me to fall, did my heart really start pounding. Other than that, it was a really great ride.

We finished outside a little town called Coroico at a wildlife refuge. We had an early dinner of homemade pasta and it was so delicious. Sam went back for a third plate. He and I decided to stay at the refuge that night because we were planning to take off in that general direction the next day. It was a great place to stay because we were able to go play with all of the animals that evening and the whole next morning, while getting a good night of sleep out in the middle of the wilderness.

I think that was the first encounter I ever really had with monkeys firsthand and I loved it. I sat down to watch them running around and one little one ran over and jumped on my lap and then started climbing all over me. At one point, when it was sitting on my head and playing with my hair, a spider monkey came over and curled up in a ball on my lap. Later that night, the same spider monkey came running over again when it saw me and jumped into my arms. I was walking around with it for a little bit when I felt something wet on my leg. I put the monkey down and saw that it had taken a crap all down the front of me... all over my fleece, all over my jeans and all over my hiking boots... gross!

The next afternoon, we went to the bus stop. It was really just a place on the side of the road with a couple of little stores and a whole bunch of people sitting outside waiting. The bus was supposed to come at 2pm, but I think finally showed up around 4:30... so typical. The bus was really small, also typical, and I was squished up against the window while Sam stretched his legs out in the aisle because he couldn't even fit his legs in front of the seat.

We continued down the most dangerous road, this time in the bus. I think it was a million times worse than being on the bike because I had control on my bike. The bus was really super scary because I had no control and because I could look out my window and only see sheer cliff dropoffs about a foot away from the tire of the bus. When we finally arrived in Rurrenabaque, I vowed never to take the bus again.

We got to Rurre at about 6am and it was completely black outside. There was no light from the moon and apparently they were without power that morning too. Sam and I starting wandering with our flashlights into the middle of town, about a 5 minute walk, and tried to find a hostel with some free rooms. When the sun finally rose, we succeeded and I crashed because I had not slept a wink on the whole entire bus ride.

Dirty, stinky, smelly... La Paz

courta104 — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 07:21:00 GMT

Upon arriving in La Paz, I immediately hated the city. It is a loud, polluted, crowded city. Sam, Rochelle, Gabe (a newbie to our group from Alaska), and I got settled into a hostel and took a nap because none of us really got much sleep on the overnight bus trip from Sucre. After sleeping most of the afternoon, we got up and started to explore the city. Even after finding some good restaurants and some nice shopping, I was still itching to get out of La Paz as soon as possible. I think because I hated it so much, that was the reason I got stuck there.

The next day, after having a delicious breakfast of french toast and fruit with real maple syrup, I got sick. We had just signed up for a bike trip down the most dangerous road and were clearing up all the details and I had to make my way back to the hostel where I stayed in bed for the rest of the day, making frequent trips to the bathroom. I had been sick several times already in Bolivia and I figured that this time would be a one day problem like all the others. Unfortunately, it wasn´t and I think part of it was because I was in stinky, dirty, smelly La Paz and not in some other beautiful city I would much rather be in.

At about midnight that night, I started having everything I had eaten from probably the whole week before come out both ends... sometimes at the same time. I was so sick, but I thought I would still be able to go on the bike ride the next day, even after the first hour. After the second hour, I knew I couldn´t go on the bike ride. After the third hour, I just stayed in the bathroom without even going back to my room and after the forth and fifth hours, when I couldn´t even stand up anymore because I was so dehydrated, I decided I should go to the hospital. I woke up Sam and Rochelle to ask them to help me and the hostel called a private doctor who spoke english. They sent me to a private clinic and lucky for me, Sam came with me.

Upon arriving in the clinic, I had to be hooked up to an IV because I was really dehydrated and I had a really high fever. I passed out right after they took the blood sample. I ended up being stuck there for about 30 hours while they kept me hooked up to an IV, putting antibiotics, antinausea and antidiarrhea medcations in me. I was lucky I was there, because I had heard stories of other hospitals in La Paz that were absolutely terrible. Sam told me that he went wandering around the area outside the hospital and decided that this was the Beverly Hills of La Paz. Apparently, there were tons of nice houses and fancy cars all over the place. He was actually happy about staying at the hospital with me because they made him meals and there was cable TV so he could watch the French Open all day.

After finally leaving the clinic, Sam and I stayed in La Paz for a couple of extra days eating only white rice and drinking tons of water the whole time trying to at least feel a little better. On the second day of being out of the hospital, we took the bike ride down the ¨Most Dangerous Road in the World¨!

Beautiful Sucre

courta104 — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 06:55:00 GMT

We got to the city of Sucre and Rochelle, Sam and I felt as though we were in some other country. Sucre is the other capital of Bolivia and it is large and busy like any other type of capital city, except that Sucre is completely whitewashed and clean with spanish style colonial buildings and it looks and feels like you are in some other city in some other part of the world... not in Bolivia. By the time we got to Sucre, Rochelle, Sam and I were definitely in need of some down time. We found a really nice hostel with a big open courtyard garden and we definitely took advantage of the sun and finally warm weather.

While in Sucre, Rochelle received the very good news that she finally got her Swedish working visa. So, we decided that it should be a celebration day. On our way to find a place to celebrate at, we found a chocolate festival... not by mistake... and after gorging ourselves on all the chocolate we wanted, we relocated at a restaurant on top a giant hill overlooking all of Sucre. The day was beautiful and Sam decided we should really make a celebration of the day so we ate and drank for about 6 hours ordering more food and drinks as the day progressed. It was a delicious day to say the least.

Unfortunately, we had made plans to meet up with other friends at 7pm at a different restaurant... only an hour after we left the first restaurant and were pleasantly full. We arrived at the second restaurant, not to find the people we were planning to meet, but the couple we had gone on the salt flats tour with. We ended up staying for more food and drinks and finally ended up finishing the day with a solid 15 hours of eating a drinking... not a bad way to spend a first day in a new city.

The next day was spent wandering around, checking out some of the beautiful architecture of Sucre and going to the Casa de Independencia. While there, our guide warned us of the impending blockade on Sucre by the angry farmers for that night. He advised us to leave Sucre as soon as possible because it was unknown how long the blockade would actually last. This was an ongoing problem from the week before when there were riots between the students and the farmers about the president going to visit Sucre. Apparently, the people of Sucre do not like the president very much and were protesting his arrival, while the indegenous farmers outside the city wanted to welcome him. This mess eventually caused and even bigger mess and we were there to witness some of it.

We were not able to leave that night and tried unsuccessfully to get bus tickets for the next night. When we woke up the next morning, we went outside our hostel to find a completely different city to the hustling, bustling Sucre. There were no cars at all on the street and most of the stores were closed. Little kids were playing soccer games in the middle of the street, which Rochelle, Sam and I decided to participate in for a little bit. All in all, it was just a very strange day and evening.

Lucky for us, at about 7pm that night, we received a phone call from the bus company telling us that there were three available seats for the bus going to LaPaz that night at 8pm and that the blockade had been temporarly lifted. We packed all our stuff, found a cab to the bus station, and literally got there as they were about to leave. I found out afterwards that people were stuck in Sucre for as long as a week after that because no buses were able to leave. After throwing all our stuff into the bottom of the bus, we finally got all settled in for the 12 hour bus ride to La Paz.

freezing cold in Potosi, Bolivia

courta104 — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 06:27:00 GMT

After Uyuni, Rochelle, Sam, Jesse, Pascale and I all went to Potosi. The bus ride was not so nice, but it gave us a preview of what was to come. Potosi is the highest city in the world at 4 thousand something meters. So, when we got there at about 1AM, we felt the frigid cold.

Potosi is a beautiful city with colorful colonial buildings overlooking a giant mountain. This giant mountain is the main source of income for the city and has been mined since before the 1500s when the Spanish started collecting silver from it. Rochelle, Sam and I decided it would be a really good idea to take a tour of the mines even though a group of scientists from the US said that it was supposed to cave in 7 years ago because it looks like swiss cheese and there have already been almost 30 deaths from caveins this year alone.

After getting dressed up in our mining outfits and the very important hardhats, we started to descend into the mines. Being a rather average height ¨gringa¨, I had to keep my head down for most of the beginning walk to avoid smacking it on all the lowhanging beams that if I were Bolivian, I wouldn´t have to worry about. As we began to get deeper into the mine and start to descend to the second level, Sam and the other half of our group chickened out and ditched us for daylight and fresh air. Rochelle, two others, our guide and me squeezed through the tunnel heading down and started to actually see the miners at work.

As scary as this experience was, it was well worth doing. We were actually able to see the terrible conditions the Bolivian men work in to earn a whopping $400 a month and have a 35 year life expectancy. They work for 12 hours a day in dark tunnels that are very likely to cave in at any minute, with no lunch break, chewing coca leaves to sustain their hunger and doing everything by manual labor. There are no machines in this whole mountain; everything is mined old school style, like they did in the 1600s. After spending about two hours in the mine, going as deep as the third level and witnessing the deplorable conditions of the workers, we were more than willing to escape the asbestos filled air and find daylight, never, ever again to go back in.

After we left the mine, we were allowed to buy some dynamite, legal buying age: 9, put it together and explode it. I just watched. :) And after a much needed shower, we had a feast of cheap, delicious food and Rochelle, Sam and I left for Sucre, the judicial capital of Bolivia.

Skipping ahead to Bolivia

courta104 — Sat, 31 May 2008 07:50:00 GMT

So, I know that I have missed a whole bunch of my trip... like a month through Argentina and Chile, but I wanted to write about stuff happening now.

I´m am currently in La Paz, Bolivia... not for too long though because I´m not such a big fan. I´ve been in Bolivia for about 2 weeks and have been all over the place already! Things in Bolivia are definitely much, much different from anywhere else I have ever been! It´s a nice change because this is the experience I was hoping for in my south america trip. Unfortunately, my stomach has been disagreeable since I´ve been here and it´s NOT warm even though I am pretty close to the equator now.

I made my way to Bolivia from Humahuaca, Argentina with a Kiwi girl I had met in southern Chile on the catamaran to start the ¨W¨hike and then ran into again walking to the same bus in northern Chile. I was so happy to have someone to travel with and we are pretty good travel buddies, so we are still traveling together! We made our way north from the border crossing to a town called Tupiza. The first bus trip was an experience and just became typical after the next few through Bolivia. The buses here aren´t too bad... they just don´t have bathrooms, so you have to learn to ¨hold it¨... for hours... They also play Bolivian music pretty loud, which would be cool and authentic and all if they didn´t keep playing the same songs over and over and over... also, there is some chick they listen to that sounds like the chipmunks on speed. Most of the roads aren´t paved so the rides are much slower than they are anywhere else and much bumpier.

The town of Tupiza is well known for several reasons. First, it is the starting point for a lot of tours to the Uyuni salt flats, so there are a ton of gringos walking around. Second, it is a really beautiful place in itself to explore. It looks a little like Sedona, Arizona with red rock mountains and dark green foliage. Third, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid hung out there for a little bit and eventually met their demise just outside the city.

So, the first day Rochelle (my Kiwi friend) and I arrived, we wandered around for a little bit to get a feel of the city, ate some dinner and checked some emails. At the internet place, a local guy sat down next to me with a Buffalo Bills jacket on!!! He was all thugged out ghetto style with his Yankees cap and a BILLS JACKET! It was crazy. When we got back to our hostel, we found that we had a new roommate. The funny thing was that it was another Kiwi woman and I had met her about a month ago in El Chalten! Crazy!

The next day, Rochelle and I went to the market and bought some food for dinner. I think it cost us about 3 dollars in total and we had 6 different types of veggies and quinoa. We made dinner that night and were so careful to wash everything in bottled water and peel everything... except the tomatoes!!! I was being a little reckless because I was super hungry and ate some of the tomatoes that were not peeled or cooked... I definitely felt it the next morning. I was so sick for the whole entire day and couldn´t leave the hostel! LESSON LEARNED.

I was feeling a little bit better the next day and we booked a tour to the salt flats for the following day. A frenchman that I had met in El Chalten joined us for the tour as well as an american couple from NYC. The next morning, we all piled into a 17 year old jeep and took off for the 4 day, 3 night trip through the southwest of Bolivia.

Overall, the trip was amazing! We only had a little bit of trouble with the car, altitude, car sickness... and we saw absolutely incredible sights from pink and grey flamingos on purple lakes, to bubbling grey geysers at 5000 meters elevation, to a bright green lake, to tons of llamas and vicuños, to brilliantly colored red mountains with other colors striated through the same mountain, to an absolutely amazing expanse of a salt flat. It was worth the flat tires, spending up to 12 hours driving around in a jeep, our jeep getting stuck for 3 hours in mushy salt, sleeping in near freezing temperatures... maybe even below freezing? and filling up our gums with loads of coca leaves to fend off the altitude sickness.

After we got back to Uyuni, we got out of the jeep just to get back into another vehicle to go to the highest city in the world, Potosi (4000 something meters high!). That bus ride was worse than any day we spent in the jeep. It left in the middle of the night and crawled through the darkness on bumpy roads next to giant clifs. It was the scariest bus ride I have ever taken and lasted about 7 hours, stopping only once for us to go find an alley to take a leak in. We arrived in Potosi at about 1:30AM in the freezing cold and eventually made it safe and sound into our nice warm beds about an hour later.

Potosi is a beautiful small city. It has no supermarket, almost like the rest of Bolivia and you have to buy everything from one of the several bustling markets located throughout the city. The architecture is in a beautiful, old colonial style and much of the important buildings in the center are painted bright yellow and there are churches everywhere... there are something like 80 churches in the city of Potosi...

More glaciers!

courta104 — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:14:00 GMT

The next morning, I took a bus to El Calafate and back to some more civilization. Alissa was on the same bus and we ended up talking just about the whole time up.

El Calafate is a beautiful, but really touristy and expensive town. I stayed in a really cool hostel that was recommended to me by a friend even before I got to South America. It is called America del Sur and after being there for about 5 minutes, I totally understood why it was so highly recommended. It was a very warm, comfortable place with a great staff. The floors were heated so everyone was running around in their socks and the rooms were so clean and warm. It was such a great change to what I had been experiencing for the few weeks before that.

That afternoon, I took a trip with Alissa out to see the Perito Moreno glacier. It is one of the fastest moving glaciers and calves pretty often. Unfortunately, I only saw one pretty decent size chunk fall off in the few hours I was there, but that was definitely worth the trip. When the ice falls into the water, the deafening sound is like a crash of thunder. It`s awesome. The glacier itself had some of the most beautiful hues of electric blue in it`s deep crevices. Needless to say, I took lots of pictures. :) That night, Alissa and I treated ourselves to a really nice dinner and a bottle of wine at her friend´s fancy pancy restaurant.

I was planning to leave the next morning to go to El Chalten, but I didn´t wake up until 9 and I decided it was a great day to chill out and enjoy Calafate. The city itself is really touristy, but it is clean and there are amazing views of the lake from the hostel. I ended up chatting with one of the guys who worked at the hostel for a little while and he invited me to go check out the cultural center in Calafate that he and his buddies have been working on for the last few months. It was a really cool experience and they have obviously put a lot of hard work into it. They took a few minutes to play some music and they tried to teach me how to play the digeridoo (sp?) so I could participate as well. It didn´t really work out too well...

I went out for a bite to eat with Alissa again and when I got back to the hostel, everyone was just hanging out drinking some beers and playing some music. What turned out after a few hours, was a full blown jam session with people who worked at the hostel and some guys from Ireland. There were a few people playing guitar, a few playing the digeridoo and one guy playing a blow piano thingy. It was awesome and I stayed up almost all night. Lucky for me, I made it up two hours later, just in time for my bus to El Chalten!

Why does it always rain on me...

courta104 — Mon, 5 May 2008 08:10:00 GMT

From Ushuaia, I went to Punta Arenas, Chile with a couple of people I met from my hostel. There wasn´t a whole lot going on in Punta Arenas, but we made some more friends and increased our traveling group to five. Our group was somewhat eccentric... something that could only really happen while traveling. There was another american, a german, an australian, and israeli and then me. :) Fun times!

Punta Arenas was cold and rainy the whole time we were there. I did wander around town though and tried to make the best of what was there. I climbed a whole bunch of stairs to a lookout point over the city and ocean, I found a rather charming cemetary that looked like a smaller rendition of Recoleta with trees and I unsuccessfully tried to walk along the waterfront.

Moving on, we went to Puerto Natales, which is the kickoff town for hiking in Torres del Paine National Park. It was absolutely terrible weather there. It rained for two days straight and it was even colder and windier than in Punta Arenas. I think it would have been a nice little town had we actually had some decent weather, but we didn´t. After two days of waiting for the crappy weather to subside, three of our group left and started traveling north. Brain, the other american, and I decided to wait another day and then just go to the park regardless of weather. We wanted to do the somewhat well traveled "W" hike.

When we finally got to the park, it was still gross weather, but we started trekking up the mountain anyway. Our plan was to spend five days in the park, camping in tents and cooking all our food with a little stove and a cup, lugging everything around in our heavy backpacks. After two days of this, Brian left. The weather in the park is completely unpredictable. We went to a talk before entering the park and the only off limit question was "what is the weather going to be like?" In the four hour hike up to the first campsite, it was sunny, it snowed, it rained, it got really windy and then it was sunny again. Completely unpredictable. The first night camping, it snowed... a lot. I think this was part of what drove Brian, from North Carolina, away from the park.

The result of the first hike was really cool though. The hike ended at Glacier Grey... my very first time ever seeing a glacier! It is an immense expanse of blue ice and it was soooo cool. There were little blue icebergs floating down the lake and the water was soooo cold, but it was so beautiful. The rain even subsided for a little while so that we could walk around and get some good views of the glacier. Awesome.

The next day, we woke up, got all of our stuff together and immediately started hiking. It was so cold and the last thing I wanted to do was hang out in more cold weather, especially after dealing with the Buffalo winter before getting to South America, but I was super determined to do this hike. When we got down to the bottom of the mountain, it started to blizzard. We had to take refuge in the shelter down at the bottom of the mountain where we ended up being stuck until the next day. That night, we had some mice issues and then the next day, I was stuck hiking alone... luckily only for a short time.

Soon after Brian left, I met a guy from NYC, Michael, who had some extra room in his tent and invited me to hitch along with him. This next day had some promising weather. The sun actually came out for a moment and it didn´t rain for the first three hours of hiking! Yay! We got to the next campsite and left most of our stuff there and then headed up to the top of the middle part of the "W", Valle Frances. On our way up, we ran into many, many people who had turned around about an hour or so in. It was snowing, cold and wet and the snow on the trail got deeper the further we climbed up. As soon as the snow was over my knees, I decided to turn around because I didn´t have snow pants or gators to keep the inside of my boots dry. Michael just kept going... crazy dude. Apparently, he made it up to the top, but wasn´t really able to see anything anyway. He was the first person in days to actually get up to the top though because there were no tracks in the snow before him.

That night, we had some more mice issues... the second night in a row that I found a mouse in my tent! But, an indian guy, Uday, who I kept running into every few days since Puerto Madryn and and american girl, Alyssa, ended up making there way to the campsite so we had a some good company.

The next morning woke us up with some blue skies and sunshine! This was the first time I had seen this since Ushuaia! Michael convinced me to hike back up Valle Frances, the same hike I had done the day before and I´m so glad he did. When I got to the top, it was one of the most stuning bits of scenery I had ever seen in my life. An Aussie dude, Harry, that I met on the way up and I were the only two at the top at this time. We were second, only to Michael from the day before to get up there. The snow was up past my knees in some parts and we got all wet, but it was definitely worth it. A little while longer, Michael came up (he was really slow to get his stuff together in the morning so I left without him on most of the hikes) and then more people, so then it was time to leave.

We hiked all the way back down the mountain to get our stuff and head to the next campsite. We were starting to run short on daylight and I hate hiking in the dark, so we rushed to get our stuff together and go. Of course, Michael was taking forever so I told him to catch up to me and I took off. The hike was beautiful and I got to the campsite just before it got dark... Michael never caught up to me. He ended up getting lost and wandering around in the woods for two hours before he finally found his way to the campsite. Lucky for me, this campsite had a really nice refugio with a big stove and hot showers. It was a great place to wait, especially because the Aussie guy, Uday and Alyssa were there too. When Michael finally got there, we all ate dinner and had some wine before retiring for the night.

That night, Michael had mice problems. We were extra cautious with our food because the night before, the mice attacked Uday and Alyssa´s food in a tree. So, we made sure we had it all tied up and hanging from a tree. My stuff was safe, but a mouse ate through one side of Michael`s really nice backpack, and out the other. Yuck!

The second last leg of the trek was really beautiful, but really super long. I walked in total about 7 or 8 hours that day. On the way to the next campsite, I saw beautiful horses running free through the fields of grass with gorgeous white-capped mountains and serene aqua lakes in the background. It was truly amazing.

When we made it to the next campsite, I continued up to the top of the hike that ended at the Torres. I got there just in time for the sunset so the lighting was really nice. Unfortunately, it was really cold and windy... the kind of wind to knock you off your feet so I turned around and started heading back after only being there for about 10 minutes. Harry was up at the top again and we hiked/slid down the hill together. It had snowed up there about 2 days before I got there so the snow was packed down and had pretty much turned to ice. I think the longest fall I had was about 15 feet down. I made it back to the campsite safe and sound and decided I definitely was not going to wake up the next morning for the sunrise to do it again.

The next day was an easy hike down to the main shelter where I met up with Harry, yet again, and an English couple, Gill and Peter, who I had seen several times through the hike as well. Together we hiked the next hour together to the bus stop talking the whole way. I found out that Gill is a teacher and Peter is a civil engineer in London, just like my pops, so that was pretty cool.

After the 2 hour bus ride back to the town of Puerto Natales, I took a much, much needed shower and then went out to a vegetarian restaurant to gorge myself with lots of delicious food! After I had eaten, Uday, Michael, Gill, Peter and Harry met me there for some yummy craft beers to celebrate our completion of the trek.

6 days and 5 nights of self-sustained hiking was a first for me and definitely one of the most gorgeous and rewarding exeriences of my life!

A long delay in writing... Ushuaia

courta104 — Mon, 5 May 2008 07:38:00 GMT

So, I didn´t realize that it has been about a month since my last entry! I´ve been down to the end of the world and back again in that time and have lots to tell...

Ushuaia is a beautiful city with lots to offer. It took me about 30 hours to get there by bus from Puerto Madryn, but we had a few problems along the way to make it such a crazy delay. There was a couple from Uruguay who were stopped at the border into Chile (we had 4, yes 4, border crossings to get to Ushuaia) because they had apples in their bag. Any type of plant or animal product is subject to hefty fines if brought into Chile, so we had to wait about an extra hour and a half for this couple to finally get all their stuff straightened out... I think they were fined about 800 pesos per apple (the total equivalent of about $800US). Craziness.

Then our bus blew a tire out somewhere in the middle of no mans land in Chile because the roads are all terrible bumpy gravel. Literally, there was no one around. I took a little wander and saw some sheep and I think one truck drove by in the hour that we were stranded there. Finally, we got to Ushuaia and stayed in a nice little hostel on the top of a hill (very, very bad idea to stay on the top of the hill) overlooking the amazing views of mountains and the sea.

I met a young german guy on the bus and the two of us took a lovely boat ride into the bay the next day to check out a little island with lots of indigenous flora and then to get super up close to some more sea lions and comorones (pretty little black and white birds that look a little like penguins from far away). The coolest part of the trip was when the captain noticed a school of fish under the water, somewhat close by our boat (the water is so clear!). He let us drift over to that area and we all had to be really quiet so as to not scare them away. All of the sudden, all of these sea lions started jumping out of the water and diving back in all over the place trying to catch the fish that scattered. It was truly amazing.

The next day, I went on a 7 hour hike through Tierra del Fuego National Park to the top of a mountain overlooking the city of Ushuaia and the surrounding waters and mountains with some people I met at my hostel. It was a beautiful, though very difficult hike, with a spectacular result... the first of many to come. Unfortunately, the top of the mountain was so cold and sooooo windy (the wind literally knocked me over while I was trying to take a picture) so I turned around soon after reaching the top.

The next few days of Ushuaia were spent eating delicious chocolates and wandering around the beautiful seaside... I was stuck there unexpectedly for a couple of extra days because of a holiday, but it was a wonderful place to get stuck.

Back on the gringo trail...

courta104 — Fri, 4 Apr 2008 08:05:00 GMT

After my experience in Viedma, which probably wouldn´t have been so bad if I hadn´t had steady company for a little while, I went to Puerto Madryn to check out the sea lions and penguins! The day I got to my hostel, I met a german girl who was going through the exact same situation as me. Her friend had just gone back to Germany and she was back on her own again. We became quick friends and went out for a cup of coffee to talk about our issues. Unfortunately, she didn´t want to continue her trip and had already switched her ticket to go back home a few days later. But, while she was there, we did lots together and I started to feel a little bit happier with my situation.

The first night in Puerto Madryn, I went to the brand new and very awesome Eco Museum. It was a whole lot of reading, but it explained a lot about the wildlife in the region and the Patagonian climate... and it was both in spanish and english! I learned that female sea lions are NOT pregnant for about 19 days a year, that Patagonia was under water on two different occasions and that Magellenic penguins migrate north to the Brazilian coast for the winter (they like it warm), among other things.

That night after dinner, I met some more backpackers and was finally able to talk a lot after a few days of only spanish. I actually met a girl from Toronto who knows a friend of mine from college... it´s such a small world.

The next morning, I went on a tour of Peninsula Valdes. The ride to see the wildlife was pretty bleak and uninteresting. I learned that the landscape of most of the eastern coast of Patagonia is similar to this... small brown shrubs, brownish, green tufts of grass and completely flat land. It´s really windy too because there is nothing to block the gusts of wind whipping through the peninsula. But, when we did see wildlife, it was really cool. While we were driving, a whole herd of guanaco (a type of llama) crossed the road in front of us. Soon after, we saw some giant ostrich-like birds.

The first stop we took was a boat trip around the bay to see the sea lions and some beautiful birds. The sea lion pups are just learning how to swim at this time, so they were splashing through the water and playing with each other. We were able to get really close to them on shore with our boat and I got some really great pictures! Unfortunately, we were a few weeks early for any whale watching. Our guide took us to some great viewing areas to see fossils and shells in the side of the cliffs. This was an example of how Patagonia was covered in water.

The next stop was to see orcas on the north coast. We waited around for about a half an hour and eventually someone spotted an orca swimming around near the shore. We were really far away, but it was still very lucky for us to actually see one. We waited around for a little while longer and actually saw the orca deliberatly beach itself and pick up a sea lion and then swim back out into the water! I was able to see it pretty well through my new, giant camera lense, but it still was pretty far away. We stayed for a little while longer to watch the orca do this two more times and then headed out to the next destination. Apparently, we were really, really lucky to be able to witness this. I talked to other people about it and found out that almost no one else actually even saw an orca while they were there.

Next, we stopped to see some penguins!!! and then some elephant seals. Unfortunately, I had taken so many pictures already that my battery ran out, so I didn´t get any pictures of seals. :( It´s ok though because they were not too exciting. They were just lying on the coast like big, lazy tubs of blubber.

This was a long day and by the time we headed back, I was pleasantly exhausted and very happy with how the day turned out.

The next day, I took a trip out to Punta Tombo. On the way there, we took a boat out to see these really cool looking black and white dolphins. We rode around in the freezing cold for about two hours and didn´t even see ONE! I guess I used up all of my luck the day before from the orcas. Our tour guide told us that this was the first time in a long time that they didn´t see any dolphins at all. :(

After, we did go out to see the penguins and that experience more than made up for the last. Punta Tombo is the largest penguin colony outside Antartica. There were hundreds of thousands of Magellenic penguins everywhere! Walking through the trails, you have to be careful not to step on them. They are such curious birds too. As you wander past, a lot of them will stare at you the whole way, twisting their head around backwards to keep an eye on you the whole time. Along the path, there was a guy taking a video of the penguins, and one very brave penguin approached him and tried to bite his cell phone out of his pocket! The trail ended at the ocean where there were thousands of penguins scattered all over the beach. Some were swimming in the water, others were laying in the sun... it looked like a Florida beach at spring break, but with penguins instead of college kids. :)

Overall, I had a great time at Puerto Madryn. I was sad to leave, but I was really looking forward to my next destination... the end of the world, Ushuaia!

Sad...

courta104 — Fri, 4 Apr 2008 07:55:00 GMT

Now, don´t get me wrong... I really enjoy going off the beaten track a little and experiencing things that other people don´t, but I was sad after Jeff left. I was all by myself again and leaving everything somewhat familiar all over again and I didn´t take to it as well as I usually would. I took a bus to Viedma and then a ferry just across the Rio Negro to Carlos de Patagones, a really pretty boring town that sounded interesting in my guidebook. It´s advertized as a colonial town with lots of history. Well, it seems like it has a lot of history and nothing else. About two blocks of the town had some nice buildings and the river was pleasant and that was about it. When I got there, it was the day of some holiday and no one was around and nothing was open, which made it seem even more desolet and terrible than it actually was.

I think I was definitely the only toursit in town and probably had been in a while because people were staring at me as I walked down the street with my giant backpack on. It was a really good opportunity to practice spanish though as absolutely no one spoke english there and I seemed to be somewhat of a novelty because everyone wanted to know where I was from and where I was traveling to.

The people were very nice. That´s about it. I stayed one night, ate some ice cream, sat by the river and read my book, wrote emails, ate some more ice cream, sat by the river and watched some kayakers, ate some bland Argentine food and then sat in the bus station until I finally left.

Mendoza with a short stop in Santiago

courta104 — Thu, 3 Apr 2008 02:03:00 GMT

Monday, March 17th, we had a flight from Buenos Aires to Mendoza. For some really strange reason, there are no direct flights from Buenos Aires to Mendoza, so we had to fly to Santiago first. We arrived in Santiago and had plenty of time before our next flight... or so we thought... so we got some lunch and a bottle of wine (Jeff wanted to drink Chilean wine in Chile). We were sitting and enjoying our meal when I had some strange inclination to check the time. For some reason, the time change in Santiago is really strange... or I really jus didn´t understand it. I realized that our flight was going to leave at that moment so I told Jeff to pay for our half eaten lunch while I literally sprinted to our departure gate. I got there just as our plane was leaving the tunnel and we missed our flight. I went back to the restaurant to see if our lunch was still there, which of course it wasn´t, but our bottle of wine was. :) So, we arranged for the next flight out... unfortunately, it wasn´t until the next morning... and we sat down with the rest of our bottle of wine, two paper cups and my guidebook to figure out what we should do for the night.

Jeff figured that since he was only in South America for a short time, he wasn´t going to stay in the airport for a night and he had really wanted to check out Santiago anyway. Unfortunately, since the United States charges foreigners a lot of money for everything, other countries do it to us in return. So, it cost us $100 each to leave the airport and go to Chile! Crazy.

We made it to Santiago and actually had a really nice time there. We wandered around this large park with a castle in the center of town and then found a nice pedestrian street with cute little bars and restaurants and did our own little bar crawl, continuing to drink Chilean wine... for Jeff´s sake of course. We also tried our first pisco sour (the national drink of both Chile and Peru), which was disgusting and I don´t think I will ever drink one again.

The next morning, we were running a little late... perhaps from the quantity of wine we both consumed, and almost missed our flight again! Luckily, we did make it and arrived in Mendoza where our luggage was waiting for us.

Mendoza is a nice little city with great restaurants and tons of bodegas (wineries) located in the countryside. Mendoza is where the majority of Argentina´s wines are made. :) It´s also a great area to do lots of outdoor activities and we definitely took part in some, the first of which was white water rafting. It took a little bit, but Jeff finally convinced me that I had to try it. I´m a little scared of the water and for some reason, I knew that I was going to end up in it at some point... which I was. We were heading down the river and when the rapids got pretty intense, our guide told us to duck in to help keep the boat balanced. Somehow, the boat almost flipped over and with it, everyone but our guide was in the water. It was a bit of a scramble to get everyone back in the boat... luckily I was first because I was closest to the boat and I was already in front of it, heading down the river through more rapids. I swallowed a lot of water.

After everyone was in and safe, we continued down the river. To lighten up the mood in the boat, our guide decided to use me as the brunt of a joke. He told me he really needed me to go sit in the front of the boat and he took my paddle. I thought, because I was the only girl, that he just needed me out of his way because there were some more rapids coming up. Really, he wanted me in the front because he knew I was going to get absolutely soaked... and I swallowed a whole lot more water. I´m not sure that I will go white water rafting again, but it was definitely an experience.

The next day, we went horse back riding. It was really nice, with beautiful scenery and delicious smelling wild lavender everywhere. We met some more americans that were actually going to the same school and Jeff´s friend. Everything went really well except that my horse, who looked like a donkey, kept trying to eat everything along the way. The guides kept telling me to pull back the reigns to keep him going and I was with all my strength, but he just kept walking over to the side of the road to eat more daisies and leaves. I wasn´t really able to take many pictures because of this, but it was still a great experience.

We did make a trip to a couple of bodegas and they were nice, but it was the same thing at each place... go see how wine is made and check out the facilities. Then go try a couple of wines. It wasn´t quite as nice as wine tours in the States.

After Mendoza, I was planning to head down to Bariloche, but Jeff convinced me to go back to BA with him. I think he was a little intimidated to go by himself because there are not very many people who speak english and he had already been ripped off by some. Buenos Aires was nice the third time around, but I´m not sad that I won´t be there for another four months. Having Jeff come down for a visit was really nice too. It was really happy to have someone to travel with consistently and actually talk to about things other than where he´s from and how long he´s traveling.

Problems from the start...

courta104 — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:35:00 GMT

I finally made it back to BsAs at about 8AM to find that my friend Jeff had just arrived before me. His South American adventures had already begun. He lost his passport within an hour of being in Argentina. So, we began the day with some breakfast and then spent the rest trying to get his passport. After breakfast, I tried using my ATM card that he brought down for me. To make a long story short, the day I left, my ATM card was eaten by the machine at the bank and I wasn´t able to get it back. My mom picked it up a week later and sent it to Jeff to bring down so I could actually get some money. No sooner did I have it back in my possession, did it get eaten... AGAIN! This time, in Buenos Aires... So, I went in to talk to the people at the bank that do not speak any english and they told me to come back at 3pm when the bank closes.

Then off to the US Embassy we went. I wasn´t allowed in because I didn´t bring my passport with me, so I sat in the park across the street reading my book for a few hours. Then Jeff finally came out and said he was able to get a new passport, but he had to get a picture taken. So we got his picture taken and went back and waited for a few more hours. I started to get a little nervous because it was quickly approaching 3... the time the bank closed. Finally Jeff came out with a brand spankin´new passport, which the lady at the embassy threatened him not to lose again... I guess this was the second one in two years that he lost and now he has lost his passport priveledges. He has to renew his passport every year indefinitely from now on.

We hop back on the Subte to go back to the bank which by then had just closed. We both sat there pounding on the doors until someone came to talk to us. (There were still lots of people inside, even though they were closed.) They told me I would have to come back that Monday to get my card back. Unfortunately, this was Friday and banks are not open on weekends here at all. Also, we had a flight booked to Mendoza Monday morning, so it would have been impossible to get my card on Monday. I tried explaining the whole situation to them and about an hour later, after arguing that I needed my card because I still have four more months in South America and I need to get money somehow, they finally gave me my card back. Customer service in Argentina is NOT like it is in the States.

So, after we spent the whole day trying to get things back to how they were at about 7AM before we even got to BsAs, we took a much needed siesta.

Jeff´s first weekend in BsAs was fun. The next day, we met up with his best friend´s little brother, Boo, who is studying there. We had some lunch at a really nice little cafe in Recoleta and then walked around the cemetary for a little while. We checked out the giant mechanical flower that opens and closes with the rising and setting of the sun and wandered around the hippie fair. This was also the "official" St. Patty´s day, so we stopped at an Irish pub and had some green beer and then we made our way back to Palermo to meet up with some of Boo´s friends. We had some dinner and went out to a bar... needless to say, this was not the same kind of St. Patty´s day that we have in Buffalo. We sat around and had some drinks for a few hours and then went back to the hotel.

The next day, we wandered down to Plaza de Mayo where the Casa Rosada is (their pink version of the white house) and continued down to San Telmo where there was another festival. We wandered through the cobblestone streets of San Telmo, checking out the tango shows that people were putting on in the hot afternoon sun and all the antique stuff that people were trying to sell. Eventually, we made our way down to La Boca where we went to the Boca Juniors stadium and museum. The Boca Juniors are the most popular team in Argentina. EVERYONE loves them. They are kind of like the Yankees equivalent to soccer. After that went wandered down to the Camineta to check out the colorful houses where tango originated and then made our way all the way back to the Centro. That night we had dinner and saw a tango show at the legendary Cafe Tortoni. It was a day packed with touristy Buenos Aires stuff that I didn´t really get to do last time I was there... fun times!

Uruguay

courta104 — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:15:00 GMT

I left the next day to go back to Buenos Aires and catch a ferry to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. I thought the trip to Iguazu was long, but this one was almost unbearable. The bus ride back to BA was almost 19 hours long. Luckily, the ferry ride was only about an hour and by the time I got to Colonia, there was still a little bit of daylight. I found my hostel ok and took a much needed shower. Unfortunately, at that time, all the banks were closed and I couldn´t exchange any of my money. So, I ate my trail mix that Dina and Christine gave me before I left for dinner.

At this time, I sat down at one of the computers and wrote everything that I had done since being in Villa General Belgrano. Twice. And both times, the computer deleted everything that I had written. Hence is why I´m finally starting to catch up on everything right now! Anyway, after giving up on it the second time, I started talking with some other travelers that were hanging out in the room and one guy from Boston offered to let me borrow some cash until the next day so that I could go out and get a real dinner with him. YES! The trail mix can only hold you over for so long.

The next day, I was finally able to get a sense of what Colonia was all about. This town is absolutely beautiful. It has a really interesting past because it was fought over by the Portuguese and Spanish for so long and the influence, especially of the Portuguese, is especially evident. The city is so well preserved and there are still a whole lot of original building and cobblestone streets. I spent the whole day walking up and down all of the charming streets taking pictures of everything.

At one point, I was drawn to a little restaurant by the riverfront because of the old jazz music they were playing. I was just poking my head in for a look and the owner came out and started talking to me. I couldn´t understand anything he said and lucky for me started speaking in english. He invited me to come in and wander around while he gave me the low down on the building. Apparently, the port used to be right in front of this building and the building used to be a whorehouse. "A welcome sign for anyone arriving at the port," he said. Anyway, now building is a really charming restaurant decked out in antiques with a whole bunch of small rooms with 1 to 4 tables in each.

After this, I decided that it was about time for an ice cream break, my daily ritual since I discovered how awesome ice cream is here. The place I went to in Colonia did not fail me. After walking around again and actually purchasing my first mate cup and straw, I decided to go for a run. This was one of the only places I have been since I´ve been down here in South America that actually inspired me to go out running. I ran along the river into the newer area of town while the sun was setting. It was gorgeous.

That night, I talked with one of my roommates and found out that she purchased the same bus ticket that I did into Montevideo and as luck would have it, she had the seat next to me... crazy, right? So, my new friend, Eva, and I took the bus together the next day and ended up spending the whole day in Montevideo together. There isn´t really much I can say about Montevideo except that it is another really big city. I didn´t get to see as much as I had wanted to because Eva convinced me to take a much needed beach trip to Punta del Este the next day. I wish I could have stayed in Punta del Este for a few days, but I needed to get back to BA to meet up with my friend Jeff who came to visit. YAY!!

So, I took a bus back to Montevideo and then yet another night bus back to BA. Lucky for people traveling through Argentina and Uruguay, the buses here are supreme. They have "cama" buses with seats that recline alomst all the way down into a bed and they are so comfy! It´s almost better to sleep in a bus than it is to sleep in a hostel. This is part of the reason why I have probably slept in a bus for almost half of my nights here. The other reason is that I don´t want to waste away my whole day in a bus when I can just sleep my night away in one. I usually end up in the next town in the morning, ready to find a new hostel.

Absolutely gorgeous Iguazu!

courta104 — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 07:42:00 GMT

The bus ride to Iguazu was looooooong, but entirely worth every hour. I arrived in Puerto Iguazu in the mid morning and took a taxi ride out to my hostel. I wasn´t too happy about being so far away from the town and the bus station, but EVERYONE told me to stay in this hostel, and as I had already made a reservation there, I decided to just stick with it. It ended up being a really good idea because this was probably the BEST hostel that I have stayed in ever. This place was more like a resort than a hostel. There was a big pool in the front with a beautiful landscape and a Tiki bar with 2 for 1 happy hour specials on beer and Caiparinhas (sp?)... which I definitely took full advantage of. I also ended up running into some people I made friends with in Rosario the week before. It was a fun time.

The falls themselves are one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. They are set way back in the jungle between the border of Brazil and Argentina. Unlike Niagara Falls that are surrounded by buildings and tourist attractions, Iguazu does not have a building in sight. It is just water spilling over rocks with lush greenery and flowers There are miles of catwalks that bring you around to different falls and views from the top and bottom. You can spend a whole day here and maybe not see everything. I took a little boat ride across the river to an island with some more awesome views and then decided to participate in a Maid of the Mist type of boat ride into the falls. They literally drive the boat under some of the lesser volume falls so you end up absolutely soaked and there are no ponchos provided like they do for the maid of the mist. It actually felt awesome to be wet for a few hours because it was probably 95 degrees and super sunny. After the boat ride, I walked back up the mountain and found the little train that takes you to the massive Niagara-like falls called the Garganta del Diablo (Devil´s Throat). AWESOME. I took a ton of pictures so I´ll be able to show everyone when I get home.

After the whole day spent walking up and down miles of catwalks and soaking up some sunshine, I thought some Caiparinhas were definitely in order and spent the rest of my evening comparing experiences with other travelers who had also visited the falls.

Hanging out with new friends

courta104 — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 07:24:00 GMT

Alright, I know I have a lot of updating to do. Mom, keeps telling me. :) I've really just been so busy moving all over the place, I don't have too much time to write too much stuff.

I think I left off at Cordoba and I have been to so many wonderful places since then, and even another country! So, after Cordoba, I took the night bus to Parana to visit my Argentino friends Lucas and Maxi. My bus got in at about 6am. Lucky for them, it took me about a half an hour to figure out how to use the pay phone in the bus station and even longer to tell the cabbie where I was going. It was still dark out by the time I got there though and I think Lucas was just rolling out of bed. We found Maxi and went to get some breakfast before the both of them had to go to work. Maxi's family owns the best bakery in Parana and I actually had a few dulce de leche cookies later in the afternoon to confirm this. He had to go start the ovens for the day and Lucas has a government job of some sort. So, after breakfast, I had lots of time to explore Parana on my own. Lucas went to a toursit stop to get a map and tell me what neighborhoods to stay away from and I was off.

I actually headed straight down towards the river to the beaches and parks that are down there and didn't really leave until it was time for me to meet up with Maxi. The riverfront in Parana is really lovely. There are rose gardens, parks and beaches and everything is really well taken care of. The city of Parana itself is somewhat small, though it is the capital of the state, Entre Rios.

After a few hours, I walked over to Maxi´s bakery and ate my yummy cookies, which I told him he has to send some to me in the US so everyone else can try them too! We spent the whole rest of the afternoon practicing english and spanish. Maxi is taking english classes right now, but his english is about as good as my spanish... needless to say, it was a pretty intense afternoon of practice. I thought my brain was going to be fried after that.

Lucas got out of work and the three of us had a really nice lunch together down by the river. We drove around for the rest of the evening showing me all the nice places and not so nice places of the city and then I hopped back on a bus in the evening to go to IGUAZU!

Let´s try this once again...

courta104 — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 02:42:00 GMT

This is only my third time trying to write this entry and it may end up being a whole novel because I have to keep adding things to it! Anyway, I am now in Montevideo, Uruguay. I haven´t checked out the city just yet, but the views from my bus look pretty good.

Since my last time writing, I had a stay in a little town outside Cordoba, Argentina called Villa General Belgrano. It was quite an interesting town... it looked like a whitewashed gingerbread village. The town was peaceful and quiet, which was something that I was really craving at that time. My hostel was absolutely awesome and probably my favorite part of the stay there. It was set pretty far back in the woods a little distance from the town. The people who own the hostel have a biodiversity farm at the hostel where they grow all of their own fruits and vegetables. They also raise chickens, cows and horses! So,needless to say breakfast in the morning was awesome. It was only about $2.50 and consisted of homemade fresh bread, with homemade jam and marmelade (made with fruit from their farm), homemade dulce de leche (which is waaaay too sweet for breakfast), homemade yogurt (made from the milk from their cow), cereal, coffee, milk (from the cow also) and tea. Awesome. I also had the best night sleep there that I´ve had since I´ve been in South America because it was so quiet! Loved it.

Because I loved it so much, I decided to stay one extra day. The second day, I went to an even smaller town called La Cumbrecita with my two roommates, Anna and Marcela. This place was similar to VGB because it had the same whitewashed gingerbread style houses, but this place was out in the mountains and had gorgeous waterfalls and awesome views. We spent the whole day climbing up mountains and through rocks to see these little waterfalls. It was awesome. I had another wonderful nights sleep and then left for Cordoba again the next morning.

When I got back to Cordoba, I ran into the old Canadian guy that told me to go to this village in the first place. He has a house there and lives there during the cold Canadian winters. Anyway, I told him about my observations of the town and he told me the history of the town, which now makes so much more sense. The story goes as follows: During WWII, a german ship was hit by the British navy and started to off the coast of Uruguay. The Captain brought the ship into port in Uruguay to fix it. When he realized that he couldn´t really fix it and that it really wouldn´t matter anyway (the British boats were waiting just outside Uruguayan waters), he sunk his boat! The Uruguayans were not too happy about this because they didn´t want to host a whole bunch of Nazi navymen, so they made a deal with Argentina to hand over the germans as prisoners of war. The prisoner camp was in VGB. After the war ended, the germans decided to stay in Argentina rather than go back to their own war torn country. This is why the style is so different. Good story, right?

I had to catch the bus later that night to go to Paraná and needed to kill some time. On my wanderings, I decided I had to try a fernet with coke (a drink that everyone in Cordoba drinks all the time). You know, a when in Rome kinda thing. Well, it was so disgusting, I thought I was going to be sick! Luckily, I found an awesome ice cream place to wash down the horrible taste. Speaking of ice cream, did I mention that Argentina has the best ice cream I have ever tasted? Well, this place was the best ice cream in Argentina that I´ve had so far and thus the best ice cream I have EVER had.

All this talk about ice cream is making me realize how hungry I actually am right now... I think I´ll continue this later. :)

More stuff about Argentina

courta104 — Tue, 4 Mar 2008 07:40:00 GMT

So, I´ve covered a little bit of ground since my last entry... hence the long period of time between entries. My last days in Buenos Aires I did a lotta stuff. I took two tango lessons (tango here is different than in the US so that was interesting). I went to a fútbol game where everyone was yelling puta this and puta that (a puta is a whore, bitch, just a generally bad word) and everyone was singing songs that I couldn´t understand, but there was lots of energy even in the HOT midday sun. I watched San Lorenzo play River Plate. Apparently, there were some guys from the Argentinian national team playing so that was pretty cool. I drank a lot of wine and a lots of beer with some locals and other travelers. A good bottle of wine here is about 10 pesos... about $3 and a liter of beer is usually about $1. It´s hard to pass up.

After Buenos Aires, I went to Rosario. There is really not much going on there. My hostel was cool with all the rooms attached to an outdoor patio and the people who work there are soooo nice! Other than that, I went to a crazy club called Madame until about 5:30 in the morning when I got too tired to deal with the ever increasing crowd that was still walking in. (I don´t think that I mentioned that people don´t go out until 1 or 2 AM here. They usually stay out until the sun rises and get about 2 hours of sleep. Even coming from Buffalo where I stay out until 5 sometimes, I have a very hard time with this schedule.)

Anyway, I hopped on the 9am bus to Cordoba with 2 hours of sleep under my belt the next morning. The buses here are actually pretty decent. They are soooo much nicer than the ones in Asia. And some of them even serve meals. Upon arrival in Cordoba, I knew I would like this city a little more. There are trees everywhere and lots of nice architectural buildings. After dropping off my bags at my hostel, I wandered around the city in search of a meal. That was not an easy task. Apparently, people take their siestas very seriously in this part of the country, so from noon until about 5 or 6, everything is closed up. I wandered past locked up buildings and closed reataurants for about an hour before I finally found a little pizza joint. On my way home is when things start to open up a little more and by 10pm the restaurants were jam packed. I had a few drinks with some new Canadian friends when I got back to the hostel and then crashed pretty early... I really don´t know what time it was because I don´t have a watch, but I´m thinking it was maybe 2 or 3am. I saw some of them the next afternoon and they said they didn´t get home until after 7! Crazy, right?

So, I got a bus to this tiny little town called Villa General Belgrano this morning. It is really nice and really clean. The clean part is something that´s been bugging me a little. I mean, I lived in NYC for 2 years and that´s a rather dirty city. The cities here are even worse. People just throw their garbage on the ground and there is dog shit all over the sidewalk. This is a nice change. It´s quiet too. I think I may actually be able to sleep through the night tonight! I´m planning to move again tomorrow to visit some Argentinian friends in Parana and then head up to Iguazu Falls. Hopefully I´ll be able to have access to a computer that works along the way to update this a little sooner!

First Impressions

courta104 — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 16:29:00 GMT

So... things are definitely different from my last trip. So far, I love South America. The people seem to be pretty cool, the city is absolutely gorgeous in most parts and I have had some really great experiences so far.

I think the greatest difference in this trip from my last is that almost no one speaks english. I feel like I have learned more spanish in the last four days than I did all through high school. At least in Asia, people know a little bit of english and you can get by. Here, if you don´t know any spanish, you are pretty much screwed. The interesting part is that not many people actually want to speak english. I don´t know if they feel that it imposes on their sense of culture and identity or what the reason is, but in Asia, people almost stalked you just so that they could practice their english. Here, they almost avoid you... not to say that they are a mean bunch of people, but that we might really just be a pain in the ass.

So, since I´ve been here, I have tried to keep a list of interesting and different things and then those that are similar. I can say that this city is so different from any place I´ve ever been, but then I can say that walking down some of the streets feels like parts of NYC or really just any other big city I´ve ever been in.

Things that are different include: this terrible keyboard, first of all... it´s got all these strange symbols (like ç, ñ, ª, ¿) and lots of other stuff is in the wrong place! Here, most rooms are dorm style... so every hostel you sleep in has 2-4 bunk beds... I know you we are going to stay in a nice place when you come, Shenanigans, because you really wouldn´t be able to handle this... But it´s cool because it almost forces you to meet people and become friends with them... unless you have no idea what they say like some of my Brazilian roommates. About half of the people traveling around are from South America... most of which are from Chile or Brazil. Football (soccer) here is like it is in the rest of the world and not in the USA. People get in fist fights over their favorite teams... here, La Boca Juniors reign supreme.

A major difference in culture that may drive some people to insanity is that things take some time here. For example, last night I went to dinner with some random women I met on the street. We went to a Tango show in San Telmo. We got all settled in with menus and then waited for the waitress to come over... for about 30 minutes. We ordered our drinks and then waited again... we got our drinks and then again, we waited. I think by the time we ordered, we were sitting at our table for over an hour. So, then we got our food and of course I didn´t get mine. Since I´m the world´s SLOWEST eater, that always happens. By the time, I got mine, everyone was pretty much done with hers. Lesson learned: Do NOT ever go out to dinner really hungy. THe show was great and the company was wonderful... overall it was worth the wait.

So on to the interesting things which include: well this is probably more gross than interesting but, I think that perhaps the only place in the world that picking your nose in public is not the cool thing to do is in the USA. I noticed people doing it in Asia and I notice it here too! YUCK... Buenos Aires has a subway system more complex than in Buffalo (almost every one is...) It´s called the Subte and I use it almost every day. A ticket is .90 pesos (a little less than 30 cents). Speaking of money, I can get a whole bottle of really good wine in a restaurant for about $4 or $5. It´s awesome....! Tonight, after having my delicious $5 meal (including a glass of viño), I came across a street festival... apparently Carnaval exists every Saturday and Sunday night for the whole month of February. It wasn´t the craziness and debauchery that one might think, but a common theme was to spray everyone walking by with shaving cream like foam. By the time I made it down the street, I was covered! The music and dancing was awesome and well worth the foam encounters. The Argentinians that I have met that speak english are awesome. I went out with some last night until about 4 or 5 AM and we had papas fritas y cervesas (french fries and beer). They told me all about lots of things from the kind of music they like to places to go to for some fun times.

All together, Buenos Aires is improving every day. THe more people I meet and the more places I go, the more interesting things seem to be. Tomorrow should be a really fun day with maybe a football game or a tango lesson in store!

Gallery: SEAsia

courta104 — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 03:29:00 GMT