General Adventuring

Tupiza

hercules — Wed, 4 Mar 2009 18:10:00 GMT

We left Uyuni at 12:30 on our 6 hour bus ride to Tupiza. Tupiza is actually quite close to Uyuni, somewhere around 200 km, however, the roads are all narrow dirt roads with rivers running through them in places. The bus alone had more clearance than any bus I`ve ever seen. The seats were easily 5 feet off the ground, and the tires looked like they belonged on land rover.

The bus needed to be sturdy, if it wasn`t it wouldn`t have made it out of Uyuni. Although the roads started out very flat and level, we quickly entered the foothills and then the mountians that stand inbetween the 2 towns. The scenery slowely turned more and more spectacular. The foothills gave way to mountains riddled with river cut canyons while towering red rock formations dominated the landscape. In many places the road was cut into the side of a mountain, and in others it descended down these cliffs in a series of switchbacks that would take the bus up to 5 turns to complete. The road eventually climbed up onto a mountain ridge overlooking a river valley. Red cliffs rising over 300 meters from the valley completed the scenery. It was easily the most beautiful bus ride of the trip.

We entered Tupiza and immediatly found the cheapest hostel in town. We even scored out and got a double room for the 3 of us. The hostel had a fairly large courtyard with fig and pomegranite trees beariung unripe fruit. From our hostel we set about exploring the town and recovering from our salar trip. Tupiza is a comfortable 10000 ft ablove sea level, and provided a nice transition area where we weren`t constantly gasping for breath yet still producing lactic acid because we couldn`t get enough oxygen to fuel our whole body.

We rested for the first few days and explored the town. Tupiza cannot be larger than a few thousand people yet has a large market and black market. Our first taste of Bolivian cuisine... and it would appear that most dishes seem to be made of hot dogs, french fries, and eggs, well, at least the dishes you can buy at a local resturaunt. Street food is another matter. They sell hamburguesas (a wafer thin strip of meat with mayo,ketchup, vegetables, and frenchfries inside) nearly everyshere, and chorizo sandwiches, and lama meat with corn and fried bread, and tamales. All in all, the most abundant and cheap street food i have ever seen. And lets not forget the empanadas. although small, they are filled with a tasty mixture of onions, potatoes, and meat; and at $0.15 US they are a tough deal to beat.

Tupiza is set at the base of the mountains, and it is an easy walk to several very beautiful hikes.There is one right outside of town that leads you to a waterfall, and strange vertical slabs of rock that seemto defy gravity. These plates may rise 50 or so feet in the air, yet some are only inches thick. If you`re willing to walk a bit further out of town you arrive at the adaquately named "Valle de los Machos". The canyon begins with greatvertical slabs or rock whose pointed shapes resemble the pback plates of some giant burried Stegosaurus. Further up the canyon and you arrive to the structures for which the place gets its name...a grove of giant rock phalli. The semblance is uncanny.

Tupiza also happens to be a great place to take horseback riding excursions for anywhere fromseveral hours to 2 days. As Nick and Laina are not real familiar with horses we opted for a 7 hour tour. We arrived at our tour company at 10:00 in the morning, loaded our saddlebags, and walked to the horse staging area. We received our mounts, and Nicks horse decided it was time to go. My horse had already decided that it was going to do the tour with or without me, but was forced to change its mind within 10 minutes or so. Unaccostomed to a rider who did not let him do what he liked, he became a bit tempramental. His heat cooled and he resigned himself to my control.

The ride was gorgeous. We followed the main road (keep in mind that most all roads in Bolivia - main or not - are dirt)and eventually turned off on a dry stream bed. The streambed led us to an interesting rivercut rock formation; however, the grandure of Valle de los Machos had jaded us a bit and we instead used the break to eat a bit of food and keep hydrated. Although Tupiza is a mere 2900 meters (9500 ft), our bodies still go through quite a bit of water and the intense sun of the area further frustrated our efforts. We remounted and followed the riverbed until it met with another road with wound up through canyons, and eventually dropped us in a river valley surrounded by giant cliffs and a spread of green grass. This is where we sould lunch. Our guide furnished us with homemade tamales stuffed with goat meat, with a side of bread, apples, and a desert of chololate. It was delicious and we spent the better part of 45 minutes lounging in the shade of a tree and enjoying our lunch accompanied by the reprieve from the sun.

After we had lunched we moved on across the valley and across the river. We followed the river for several miles making numerous crossings. I was thankful it was the end of the wet season and the river rarely reached to my shoes. I imagine that this section of the tour would have to be completed on a road. the river offered much more majestic and secluded views of the canyon, and the farms nestled in the river valley. All in all it was a scene of beauty and tranquility that could not have been enjoyed from a finer perspective.

We eventually had to leave that eden and move back onto the road. Luckily we didn`t stay long and moved instead to the traintracks. The trains only operate several times a day and we encountered no troubles although we followed them for several hours. At this point Nick was becoming more adventerous and tried to motivate his mount into a gallop or at least a canter. The grey mare still knew who was in control and Nick only managed a trot; but trot he did. We still fell about a quarter mile behind and I spurred my old gelding into a trot and then into a canter. I passed our guide and Laina and then heard Laina trotting after me. I thought she had become adventurous but her horse soon passed very close to me and a quick look at her told me exactly who was in control of her horse and I moved my leg just before her horse chomped down on my knee. Without her being able to control her mount I tried instead manuverinbg away, but every time her mount either intercepted me or cut me off or tried to bite. Naturally frustrated and slightly afradi of getting kicked I resigned myself to the back of the line and remained at a walk behind her horse the rest of the time. Apparently my mount wasn`t very well liked. Lainas horse later bit Nick as he passed near home... he was uninjured but I wish Laina would have had the gaul to keep her horses mouth away from us fellow riders.

We soon came to a canyon scene that looked like something out of The Lord of the Rings: a brioad river valley entrance that was flanked on either side by large red stone monoliths jutting out of the mountains at either side. The scene was spectacular and it was with some sorrow that we rode through the tunnel that the train tracks followed to the other side.

We took the following day off and spent some time working on the computer and planning the next leg of our trip. Carnaval started in several days and we wanted to be sure to be somewhere fun. Although we had originally decided on Oruro - according to all travelers it was THE place to be next to Rio - we opted for the cheaper town of Sucre. at 6:30 in the morning 2 days later we found ourselves in the White City itslef preparing for Carnaval.

Altitude Sick in the Salar del Uyuni

hercules — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 06:16:00 GMT

Once we got to San Pedro de Atacama we started looking for a company for our 3 day trip of the Salar del Uyuni. We ended up at the tourist information center reading reviews on the different companies. Most of the reviews involved the drivers starting drinking at 7:30 in the morning, there not being enough food, and the vehicles breaking down up to 25 times a day... then there was our shining star Estrella del Sur, they got nothing but good reviews. We booked our trip with them.

Our excursion began at 8:00 the next morning. We took a bus until the border crossing and ate breakfast on the Bolivian side. The Bolivian order station is the best one I`ve seen so far. It was a half completed mud brick shack with a burned out buss off to the side. When one of our female companions asked where the bathroom was the border patrol pointed to the bus. It was the only potential privacy for miles.

Once on the Bolivian side we changed vehicles to Land Cruisers and began our journey up. And we traveled up, and up, and up. Our first sight were 2 high alpine salt lakes full of flamingos. The lakes were quite large, but very shallow, and no flamingo was ever in water above their knee. The first lake was Lago blanco, and the second one was named Lago Verde. If I understood our guide correctly there is an abundance of minerals (I think I heard cobalt and arsenic mentioned) that oxidize under ultraviolet radiation and the lake actually changes color. When we arrived it was in the process, and the water was at first a pond-ish green, but when we drove up to the top the lake had transformed to a lagoon blue green. It was spectacular.

Next stop on our journey up was a hot springs. The pool itself was small, but the water was perfectly warm and the sun was out. Keep in mind this is not the nice Hawaiian tanning sun, but the high elevation, tropic, burn-you-up-in-no-time sun. I got burned and people saw Nick naked while he was changing behind a shed. I somehow managed to take off my boxers without taking off my boardshorts.

Once agian we traveled up, and up, and up until we finally reached the high poiint (in elevation) of the trip, the gysers. They weren`t really gysers but rather bubbling pools of mud uniquely colored bright blue! The guide warned us not to get to close because of the gases, but I didn`t listen. The wind was blowing most of the gases away and I could look right down the tubes into these bubbling blue mud baths. The steam even left blue residue on some of the walls. My colorblindness actually acted beneficially for once as the muc appeared a bright blue... I suppose in actuality it was a grey-blue. Between the fumes and the elevation, a staggering 5000 meters or 16,500 ft, i got pretty dizzy.

After the mud baths we started our descent across the alpine plains, which resembled the atacama desert. There was nbo life except for the spiky grass growing in the lee of some of the rocks... oh yeah, there were vicuñas! vicuñas are the only american camel species (the others being llamas, alpacas, and guanaco) that haven`t been domesticated. they look like spindly llamas and somhow manage to survivie in a place with only small spiky garass patches, and slatwater lakes... unbelievable.

The landscape was breathtaking. vast valleys wurrounded by gigantic mountains and volcanoes. I had to stoip and wonder just how high these mountains were as we were already at 15000 ft or so. You could see where the brown monotony was broken by a land slide, and the resulting destruction left a yellow stream of rocksdwon the gullies and canyons. They were the only rivers in this desolate region.

We slowely worked our way down to our hostel. The reader can only imagine how strange it is to find a hostel with full service staff in the middle of nowhere. This hostle can actually hold the claim to being in the middle of nowhere, it is a 6 hour 4 wheel drive across high alpine desert to get anywhere! And even that town is San Pedro with a staggering 9,000 residents or so.

We dropped off our luggage and drove to the nearby Lago Colorada, which is the largest alpine salt lake in the world! It`s over 60 kilometers in doameter, and has iceburgs of salt. There is a continual white mist blown off the water that is not made of water but of salt! We stayed and walked a bit around the lake where I managed to work my way to a small island where I found a dead pink flamingo. Using my CSI skills I determined that the unfortuinate animal had tripped over its long legs and snapped its fragile neck upon impact. The head under the body legs a-tangle position of the corpse confirmed my hypothesis. I tried to kiss it better without luck.

Hot dogs seemed to dominate the cuisine of the day and we ate an abundance at both lunch and dinner. Dinner was a gourmet hotdog and french fry cassarole served with Bolivias finest vino tinto. A large helping of this culinary masterpiece and 7 glasses of that fine vintage reserve satiated me before bed.

To anyone who has not been altitude sick before i can only offer this advice: don´t let it happen. i am willing to admit that I spent most of my second day altitude sick, but I will also defent myself by stating that it was exacerbated by poor judgement and a mild case of insomnia. I should have slep on the floor... I don`t know what I was thinking. The bed was miserable, and i didn`t get a wink of sleep all night. The 7 glasses of wine may ahve been a bad choice. these 2 factors combined with the fact that I was at high elevation (4200 meters) made for a very sick boy the next day. Spent most of the day sleeping.

Out of the 3 days the second day was the least interesting... not to say it wasn`t interesting. We first visited a forest of wind eroded rocks that would have made great bouldering had I not been feeling like I was having the worst hangover of my life. We visited several more lakes and had luch zat another one of those places that feels like it shouldn`t exist becuase of its isolation. I didn`t eat the potato dish they were serving, but slept in the cruiser. My stomach wouldn`t have been able to hold anything down anyway. We drove for the next 3 hours straight and I somehow managed to end up in the back of the cruiser without any room for my legs and no hope of sleeping, every time I places my head anywhere near the window a bump decided to move the vehicle, sending my head into the glass.

We finally arrived in a town for the night. I don`t quite remember the name, but It was very small. I still have trouble believing that these places actually exist, they are SO isolated and have almost zero resources... I immediatly passed out on the floor and got the night of rest I had needed all day.

I woke up the next day feeling refreshed, and with the exception of a minor headache, back to normal. The third day of the trip was the highlight of the journey, the actual salt flats. We woke up and 5:00 in the morning and got quickly underway to watch the sunrise over the salt flats, it was spectacular. The salt flats have to be one of the few places that meets the definition of unique, and I would be willing to wager that there is not another place like ti in the world. The flats in their entirety appear to be totally flat, and one has the impression of driving across a vast white ocean. I also had to wonder just where all this salt came from, not just the huge area (something like 20,000 sqkm)but it reaches depths of 120 meters! That´s a lot of salt.

Somewhere in the middle of this sea is an earthly protrusion that they call cactus island. It even appears to be correctly named, for the appearance of land in the middle of the salty void does in fact resemble an island, and it doesn`t take much stretch of the imagination to picture yourself at sail in a ship, and one is even tempted to shout "land ho!" when the island is sighted in the distance. The island is totally covered in cactus, and the scientific part of my mind has to wonder which came first, the island or the salt ocean, and if the salt ocean came first then how did the cactus get there?

After breakfasting on pancake dulce-de-leche sandwiches we began to take use of our surroundings to take pictures. Because the salt desert is totally white, and the horizon is so far away, 2 dimensional images (such as photographs) ahve nothing to give away scale, and you can take pictures that would normally only be possible with programs such as photoshop. The only limit is your imagination. You can give the appearance of being small enough to be held in somebodys hand, or stand on top of a giant orange, or even be falling out of somebody´s nose. We passed over an hour before we had exhausted our imaginations.

We next drove to another part of the salt flats that was broken by small pools of water. Apparently there is water just below the surface over the flat`s entirety, but in some places the surface is actually broken by small holes, some of which have no apparent bottom. While not unbelievably exciting in themselves, the holes provide an opportunity for treasure hunting! The water is super saturated with salt, and under the right conditions the salt falls out of solution slowely enough to form crystals!

We continued on our journey across the ocean of white and stopped at a salt hotel. I beleive it was the original salt hotel, and nearly everything in the hotel is made of salt. The walls are salt bricks with salt mortar, and the floor is one solid salt pour. There are salt carvings or llamas, and Bolivian mythological characters, salt tables and chairs, and salt beds. They have mattresses, and the floors in the rooms are covered in llama pelt carpets. One thing the salt fettished builders overlooked was the fact that salt absorbs odors. Over years of people staying overnight, most any fluid known to man has been spilled on the salt, and salt has a remarkable quality of absorbing odors. The whole place has a unique musk. The hotel is no longer open for overnight visits.

Nearly the entire third day was slat themed. between the salt flats, slat hotels, and we even saw salt collectors that processed it and used it for cooking and leather tanning, and then we visited a train graveyard. I would call it the low point of the journey, because you go from a totally unique location with sights and curiosities that I have never even dreamed of, and then we went to a trash filled train dump. After Chile stole the coastline of Bolivia there was a much smaller need for tains and train transport, and they just clumped all the old steam engines in a junkyard outside the town of Uyuni. On the brighter side, our guide had a special lunch of llama meat and locally grown quinoa made for us.

And in the town of Uyuni is where we ended out tour and officially entered Bolivia. The price for US citizens is steep: 135 US$. naturally the only ATM in town was broken, so we had to use a bank that charged us a 7$ tax to withdraw our money. The entry fee hurt the budget. Uyuni marks the beginning of our first true south american experiences. I believe I have mentioned that Chile and Argentina ahve a very first world feel to them, but Bolivia has nothing of the sort. Everything about Bolivia is different. The dress, the cuisine, and even the style of spanish they speak. Both Chile and Argentina have very distinct dialects, but Bolivia is very slow and clear and very easy to understand. They are smack dab in the middle of all these accents though, and they deal with lots of tourists who speak atrocious spanish, so they pretty much understand any form of bad spanish that is spoken to them. Not one of them speaks a lick of English though.

Uyuni is nothing more than a stopping point for tourists looking to do the Uyuni tour, so we head out the next day towards Tupiza!

Gallery: Random

hercules — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 06:13:00 GMT

pics from south america (more than just Chile)

Of Southern Ice Fields and Backpackers Wine

hercules — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 04:57:00 GMT

Wow I`ve been lazy with this thing... I believe I left off at Punto Arenas... Wow that was a while ago.

Ok, so we booked a ticket from Punto Arenas to Puerto Montt, which is about halfway between Tierra del Fuego and Santiago. The busride takes just over 30 hours, not just because there`s a good amount of latitude to cover, but because the region north of the Punto Arenas area is known as the "Southern Ice Fields", with a name of that magnitude it is no surprise that there are no roads through it. Look up that region on a map and you will see, it is composed of a partially submerged section of the Andes and is nothing but a bunch of islands. Although there is a ferry that goes north through these Ice Fields, US $500 or so seemed a little steep... So we took the thirty hour bus that takes you in a giant "C" into Argentina, not crossing back into Chile until we were actually North of Puerto Montt. It proved to be an interesting 30 hours as no matter where I sat (and I somehow managed to sit in 4 different seats) I was sitting right next to a very large woman who upon falling asleep seemed to deflate and take up 50% of my seat as well. It was a long 30 hours.

We decided to exit the bus early in a small lake town called Entre Lagos... What an amazing place! It was another of those places where we found that we were the ONLY foreigners. The town itself was quite small but clearly based upon tourism as it was situated on a gorgeous lake with crystal clear water that was the epitome of refreshing. The supermarkets here sold produce from local farms that was amazing! Especially the honeydew mellons. They tasted like they were made of pure sugar and made an excellent nightcap when filled with a white wine.

We spent 3 hours getting out of Entre Lagos and finally got a ride with an old guy in a pickup. I was in the back. He drove us straight to the bus station where we purchased tickets to Pucon... well, we couldn`t get tickets there that day so we settled on Villarica, which is only about 20 Km outside of Pucon. In my memory Villarica was much more interesting than Pucon though. We arrived there at about 9:00 at night.

I would have to say that Villarica has been my favorite town on this trip. The town itself is centered around tourism and has a very nice ski lodge feel, made all the more complete whith its background of a towering snow capped volcano. Although Tourism is clearly a large part of the towns income, there is also a large argicultural influence to the town, and we happened to arrive during some sort of farming carnival. The fair itself was amazing, complete with handicrafts, a small stock yards displaying the prized breeding goats, milking cows, and meat sheep. There was even a cow that made charges at its rickety enclosure in an attempt to protect its calf from anyone foolish enough to try and look at her baby. All this comprised only about half the fair, the other half was comprised of food, food, and more food. Lamb on a stake, legs of pork on the grill, and empanadas.

In Hawaii we have empanadas, but the empanadas that dominate the food market in America´s southern hempishere are very different. A far cry from thos delicious butter and sugar covered rolls available for $0.33 at the farmers market, South American empanadas are much closer to dumplings, only they`re about the size of your hand. They can be filled with nearly anything, and are either baked or fried. The deep fried ones are better, and develope a golden crispy crust that sits hard in your stomach. My favorite are the ones filled with salmon and cheese, and deepfried to perfection.

The animals weren`t the only thing on display. Once agian Lainick and I found ourselves objects of curiosity. This was another of those instances where we were porbably some of the only foreigners in town, and we were certainly the only ones at the fair. We were surrounded by a flock of niñas who would ask us a question or two and we would reply in our halting spanish, and then they would disappear in a fit of gigggles. They asked us easy questions so we could answer such as ¨what is your name?¨ ¨What is your birthday?¨ and ¨will you be my friend?¨ That last one sent them into fits of glewe at our positive response, and they quickly brought some of their friends, so they could be our friends too.

At the fair we also came across a stand selling local honey, and it rivaled even lehua honey in terms of sweetness and flavor. I still prefer lehua though. We also bought a 2 liter bottle of chicha. Apparently chicha seems to mean hootch, in any form. This particular variety was honey water that had just begun to ferment. This was the beginning of backpackers wine.

Argiculture had other influences in Villarica besides the fair, and there were stalls selling fresh fruit, eggs, and dairy. The fresh milk was clearly raw milk and was sold in old 2 liter soda bottles. It was whole and delicious. Sweet strawberries, grapes and fresh cheese also graced market stalls at prices chaeper than those of the supermarket.

We only spent one night in Villarica, albeit aunique and memorable one, before we headed further inland to the base of that majestic afformentioned volcano and the town of Pucon.

Pucon sits at the shore of Lago Villarice (Lake Villarica)and has a similar ski lodge feel to Villarica, but lacks the argicultural aspect. The town itself was cool, but was made unbelievable by our couch surfing hosts Kate and Tom. We met up with them in town, and they helped us get a Colectivo (kinda like a cab that will take you anywhere in town for one low price)back to their place. They showed us their abode and then took us to the beach to fly Tom`s kite. Now this isn`t a normal kite but a God among kites. Its a practice kite for kite boarding and is about 12 feet by 4 feet, and controlled by 2 lines on each side of the kite. The lines were attached to handles that you pulled to move the kite from one side to the other. I quickly got a feel for the kite, it felt like it was an extention of my body and I could feel the wind like it was a part of me. The wind slowly picked up and the kite quickly became more than a kite, but rather an agent of flight. The power band of the wind that day was about 45 degrees above the ground, and forcing the kite to fly though that zone earlier that day simply resulted in me being drug across the beach with my feet acting as skis. Once the wind picked up, a well timed move in and out of the power stip and a jump resulted in about 10 feet of air and 30 feet of horizontal travel. WHAT A RUSH!

Besides beaches and volcanos, Pucon also bosted good day hikes along one of the rivers. So, lainick on bicycles and myslef armed withmy running shoes we made out way to the river and enjoyed a good day hike. The river itself was beautiful, but not unlike rivers in the states. It was the massive amount of blackberries that surrounded the river that caught my attention and I wasted no time in gorging myself on fresh blackberries warmed by the sun. Throughout the hike we picked about 6 pounds of berries and brought them back to Kate and Toms place and made a mean blackberry crisp. We even flavored it with some of our chicha. Delicious. The blackberies that didn`t make it into the crisp were juiced, diluted, sweetened, and then completed with a bit of the chicha culture to start the fermentation. Mmmm... backpackers blackberry wine. While we were making this delicious brew we sampled out still bubbling honey wine... amazing!

We left pucon on another long bus ride up to Santiago, the capital of Chile. We found our couchsurfing hosts house, and went to meet one fo them (Philipe) for a lunch of the best fried empanadas I`ve had so far. We next went and explored the market to buy food for dinner for our hosts. Santiago has the cheapest food EVER! Ok, probably not as cheap as Bolivia, but $0.25 a pound for strawberries is unbelievable! Between this and the meat market (not as cheap as the produce, but still quite cheap) we got our food for dinner. That night I made a fruit salad and Nick made chicken schnitzel. The schnitzel was perectly thin and crispy, and I made a delicious pepper gravy to go along with it. Nobody in South America seems to have ever heard of gravy, and they treat it with skepticism until they try it. Then all skepticism is gone. The fruit salad is probably the best I`ve ever had. Not because the fruit was exceptional but rather because the salad was mostly strawberris and grapes. Very sweet and delicious.

Santiago also has a very large fresh fish market that is unbelievably cheap. Short neck clams work themselves out to $0.50 a pound, and whole salmon can be bought for about $2.00 a pound. In the middle of this piculant market are resturaunts all selling the smae thing at the same price, and all advertising that they are the best. Not only advertising it, but fololowing you around and harassing you to sit at their tables. When you decide to go to another resturaunt they get mad and shout obsenities such as ¨What!?!? You don`t like fresh?!?¨ The market was near total madness.

Long story short, we almost missed our bus out of Santiago. It was close.

We decided on another of those long busrides North where we would enter Bolivia. This bus ride included some of natures most spectacular scenery the Atacama Desert... oh wait, I`m sorry... by amazing I ment barren. The Atacama Desert of northern Chile is the driest place on earth and it shows it. There is NO life for hundreds of miles. Sand and dirt and rock dominate the landscape. There are no ne river beds, and even the very ancient ones show no signs of water. The only signs of life of any sort are tire tracks through the dirt, and the highway. Nothing else for hundreds of miles. Slowely the hills of sand give way to canyons and mountians, and in the distance you see a smear of green. That is the town of San Pedro de Atacama.

You quickly realize on the drive just how important water is to life. The desert has NO water, and there is therefore no life. In San Pedro there is a small stream, and consequently there is a town based around it. San Pedro marks the beginning of our actual travels. Chile and Argentina are essentailly first world countries, and they had either a European or American feel. They were different obvisously, but not that different. San Pedro marked the end to that and the start of something new. The whole town is made of mudbrick buildings that are sometimes covered in stucco and whitewashed. The town was much more like anything in Bolivia and nothing like Chile. The market there was intersting as well... people selling the normal fruits and vegtables, and others selling anything they thought they thought people would buy. Bathtubs, old coins, broken radios, corded drills without cords, cracked sinks. The town also had strict water regulatons. I felt that to be a little odd as we were in one of the driest places I`d ever been, and their policy of turning off the whole citys water at 10:00 was a little glutonous. We spent the day booking a trip north to the Salar Uyuni.

Bolivia here I come!

GO TEAM ISIS!

hercules — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 11:13:00 GMT

So... I believe I left off in Ushuaia just before we left...

We hitched back from Ushuaia to the next big city (ish) called Rio Grande. We had several stops to make as we left town, and after the 300 or so kilometers to Ushuaia we ended up getting into that wind capital of Tierra del Fuego, Rio Grande near midnight. We strolled into the hostel we had stayed in last time dead tired and with the intention of fixing a quick meal (the only one we had had time for that day) and hitting the sack. Plans change. We got caught up in the bustle of Hostel Argentino and ended up staying up until just past 2 in the morning. Among the people who managed to force us to tap into our reserve energy was an anorexic looking man from Nottingham who talked and smoked like a blow addict. There was no cocaine racing through hjis veins, he was addicted to fly fishing. Rio Grande proclaims itself to be the fly fishing capital of Tierra del Fuego, and has the 40 ft trout statue with appropriate plaque to prove it. The Englishman was down in Patagonia with the intent of writing an article for a sporting magazine once he was finished. ¨Most people think of fly fishing as a sport for old men, when there´s an air of excitement and spirituality that most people don´t see. I´m trying to show people that it´s not just for old men, but rather that the sport is full of energy and is not only a way of life but a religion as well.¨ The following said in a thick English accent that even replayed at half speed would still be to fast to understand.

Leaving Rio Grande we decided that it would be more economically efficient to hitchhike as buses leaving the island are very expensive. This is the part where I tell you why I gave the title of Wind Capital of Tierra del Fuego to Rio Grande, for once we got a bit out of town and began to hitch hike to wind was free to ravage us without the hindrance of any nearby buildings. The wind was blowing in gusts that exceeded 80 km/h and were strong enough to push us around like an elementary school bully. We stood and slowly froze in this weather for over 3 hours before we got a ride, and even that ride was to San Sebastion, the town right on the border of Argentinian Tierra del Fuego. I use the town very loosely here as a gas station, overpriced hotel, and military barracks can hardly count as a town or even a settlement. We decided that instead of wasting our hard saved money at the hotel we would pitch a tent in the junkyard that lay behind it. It smelled a bit, but luckily it was sheltered from the wind and spend a very comfortable night on a concrete pad with the tent tied to cinder blocks to help keep the racket from the wind blown rain fly to a minimum.

The next day we began our second attempt in money savings and tried to hitch hike from the border. Not as much luck as you would expect. We even had a couple in a truck tell us they would give us a ride if we met them on the other side of the gate (i.e. border), where, shortly after, they continued on their way without us. They were courteous enough to wave as they passed though.

Admitting defeat we purchased a discounted ticket on a bus bound to Punta Arenas. We were more than happy to pay the fare that went directly into the drivers pocket. Upon inspection of a map however, we discovered that if we wanted to do some trekking in Parque National Torres del Paines we would have to take another bus to Puerto Natales, about 300 km north of Punto Arenas. We asked the driver if there was any way we could be dropped off at the intersection (north to Puetro Natales and south to Punta Arenas) where we could continue our ill fated hitch hiking attempts. The bus drivers were kind enough to get in contact with another north bound bus that would take us to Puerto Natales at a fare of 100 pesos for the three of us. We only had 60. We made the transfer on the highway and boarded the bus without incident.

So we arrived in Puerto Natales and set up camp in a camping hostel where we spent the next 6 days. Upon further examination of our funds and gear we decided that a trip into the park would be out of budget and out of practicality. Lainick share a sleeping bag and it frequently snows at the camp sites in the park. We decided that it was in our best interest to try and leave for the north as soon as possible. So we quested out to find bus tickets for Puerto Montt and, to our horror, discovered all the buses were full for the next 6 days. We booked the earliest one we could and set ourselves down to wait it out.

It was a very relaxing wait. I think we all needed it as we had spent the last 2.5 weeks in a constant state of motion. I spent a few days running and trying to quench my insatiable thirst for exercise (although there was not a gym within 300 km) and made a piss poor attempt to study Spanish. I did read several good books in English though.

As far as towns go this was a very picturesque town to spend a few days in though. Puerto Natales sits on the southern coast of the last chance sound and gazes across that glacial carved body of water to the Chilean Andes, and 100 km distant you can see the Grand Torres. This colossal series of jagged monoliths is the highlight of the park and attracts people from all over the globe... especially Israelis.

Next update: Entre Lagos and beyond...

Here´s a couple of bits that I have forgotten to mention, and a few random observations:

Meat is Cheap. I Believe I have mentioned this once or twice. Most the Beef in any Argentinian Town is grown in the general vicinity which helps the cost and is probably one of the reasons for the exceptional flavor. Now in Ushuaia they don´t grow a lot of beef in the area, but rather a lot of lamb... and what exceptional lamb! Especially for the price. We bought a whole leg of lamb (just over 5.5 lbs) for US 10 dollars. In my humble opinion the only way to eat good red meat is raw... or very nearly so. Luca, the jovial owner of our hostel of choice in Ushuaia, accused us of not cooking it, I accuse him of possessing unrefined taste buds.

South American toilets are ideally designed to leave skid marks. I don´t know if this is intentional or not, but I don´t think I could engineer a john to bare those excremental badges any more efficiently than either the Argentinian or the Chilean sanitary engineers. We shall soon see if the Bolivian and Peruvian toilets meet the same standards...

Before leaving Rio Grande we decided that our clothes NEEDED to be washed. Anybody familiar with how long our clothes often go between washings will not take that statement lightly. While Laina was fulfilling her proper duties of washing Nick and my laundry, Nick and I went into town to run a couple of errands. Once in town we were like animals at a zoo. We were a great amazement, a cause for children to gape in open mouthed wonder and for their parents to give disapproving looks. Because we were doing laundry I was wearing the last few clothes that were clean enough to wear, which happened to consist of blue and yellow flowery boardshorts, a bright pink shirt, and flannel jacket, complete with bright red locals slippers and navy blue hat of the style commonly seen on hunters in the winter. I began to wonder as the fashion obsessed Argentinians shot us looks of pure violation, if they thought all Americans dressed as myself and Nick (similarly clad)on laundry day.

Who would have thought Usuaia was full of Israelis

hercules — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 01:17:00 GMT

Welp, a lot has happened in the last few days, so lets try and record it all and not get on any angry rants... Here we go.

When I left off we were leaving Las grutas and heading towards Usuaia. After a 22 hour bus ridewith less substance than an Arthur Miller class we arrived in Rio Galleros just in time to catch the last bus to Rio Grande, last stop before Usuaia. The distance between Rio Galleros and Rio Grande is not large, but the trip still takes 10 hours. However, in that 10 hours you cross the Straight of Magellan (complete Penguin and Commersons dolphin sightings) and go through 4 customs offices (one for leaving Argentina, then one for entering Chile, then one for leaving Chile and one for entering Argentina... whew). We arrived in Rio grande right before the last bus to Usuaia left, but upon further examination of our budget we decided that it would be wise to try and hitch hike the next morning.

Only one note of interest between Rio Grande and Usuaia: we had a small bag stolen. The bag didn´t contain much excpet for MY CAMERA! The story is quite long, so remember to ask me about it some time, preferably when I´m back in the states. Loosing the camera wasn´t that big a deal, but all the pictures it had on it! Basically all the pictures from my time in Colorado, and I had some killer shots of Las Grutas... Damn.

One hitch, two hitch, lost camera, Usuaia.

We made it to Usuaia in two hitches and were luckily able to find a hostle for the night, and make arrangements at another hostle for the rest of our time there. Usuaia is absolutly gorgeous, and is in the fist mountains I´ve seen since Colorado. These aren´t normal mountains though, they remind me of the mountains around Sitka but far more dramatic, but more on that in a bit.

Usuaia is slightly reminescent of a mountain ski town and is loaded with youth hostels and tourist shops, and an overall feeling of cozieness. From nearly anyplace in the city you can look across over the Beagle channel and gaze across history to Isla Navarino. We spent 3 days of rest in this town where I got over my cold (finally) and Laina caught it. She probably deserved it for being so small.

On a quick side note, Usuaia is crawling with Israelis. They nearly out number the Argentines down there. Besides Lainick and myself, the rest of the hostle was filled with Israelis. No, strike that, there was a dutch girl there too. But out of the 30 odd rooms, only 5 were non-Israelis. I have yet to meet another traveler from the states, but my Isreali count is up to 30 something.

After our period of rest and recovery/anti-recovery we decided to do a 2 day trek outside Usuaia called Valle de Andorra. In the words of our favorite Hostle owner, ¨Teirra del Fuego National Park is becomming a privalege.¨ The cost was absurd, so we opted for a free hike. A quick taxi ride later and we were at the enterance to the hike, which was literally some ranchers driveway. The trail veered off that within a kilometer, and we began the hike through the swamp that made up the first third of the hike. We camped after about 4 hours of boggy hiking and tried to fish in a sterile river. Not one bite.

We quickly began to gain elevation on the second day and eventually got above tree line, and out of the Alder forest that had been dominating the hike thus far. Once we left the woods we had full view of the mountains we´d only been privaleged with fleeting glimpses previously. And what mountains! We´d found ourselves in a mountain valley of the most dramatic peaks I have ever seen. Not the Hawaiian behemoths or even the majestic Rockies, these were something else entirely. The valleys were a deep green where there was forest, and once the mountains became too steep for forest, there was only grass and moss, giving it the appearance of a smooth spring carpet. Out of this Eden rose the tops of the mountains, the crags resembling the broken fangs of a prehistoric beast, their surfaces so sheer and menacing that no life could be found. However, life giving water collected on these montains and fell down in a myriad of waterfalls through the green and into the forest and valley below. The landscpe was so beautiful it actually took my breath away, and I was content to stand in the freezing wind and just look and awe. However, due to the absence of my late camera and the cadaverous state of Lainicks battery during this hike, there will be no pictures. No words could ever describe the picture, they simnply lack the necessary substance.

That second day we covered at least 20 kilometers, and ended up at a camping location outside of town. I worked out the budget for the previous 10 days and nearly choked. Travel was over half of what we had spent... just for an example we spend 5 times less on hostles and camping over 10 days then we had spent in 3 bus rides. Looks like we´ll be hitch hiking most the rest of the way from here on out. At least until we get a bit further north (i.e Bolivia). Next stop: Torres del Paines.

I wouldn´t expect an update anythime soon...

The Argentines do NOT speak spanish

hercules — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:35:00 GMT

The distance from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia is just over 3000 Km, or roughly 2000 miles for those of you who don´t do the whole metric thing. of those 3000 km, approximately 2900 of those resemble the plains of Nevada. There is NOTHING to see. I never thought I´d say this, but the drive to Kansas is more interesting. At least then my dearest Mother would exclaim "COWS!!!" every so often to break up the monotony. Even Mom would be bored on this drive.

While there was no need for scenic descriptions of the Atlantic coast of Patagonia, there are several aspects of Argentina that demand attention. For starters: I am in culinary heaven. The diet here consists of meat (asado style), bread, and wine. I was expecting food to be cheap down here, but the only cheap items at the supermercado are those aformentioned. A good cut of meat (i.e. tenderloin) works itelf out to 3-4 dollars a pound, and ground meat (carne picada) is actually cheaper than dried beans. Bread is sold by the sackful and usually runs about $0.80 a pound. This diet is definitely to my likings.

The Argentines do have one pequilarity that I was not expecting... they LOVE sweets. Everything down here is sweet. I had coffee this morning for the first time since I´ve been down here that was just black coffee, not the $2.00 US teaspoon of coffee flavored sugar syrup that everybody down here seems to drink. There are pastry shops on every steet that sell an item that has wormed its way into my heart. I don´t know the name, but I call it a godsend. Picture, if you will, one of those packaged icecream drumsticks you buy at 7-11. Now instead of an icecream cone, or the ever popular wafflecone, the outside is made of puff pastry with a sugar glaze, the filling is not factory made icecream but rather that necter of the gods called dulce do leche, and the top is still covered with chocolate and nut bits. As these treats are quite large, the dulce de leche filling probably amounts to a quarter cup or so. Cost = $0.75 US.

Between the sweets and the abundance of meat (I forgot to mention that even small convenience stores all have a meat section) David (the dark one) would quickly gain about 300 lbs, bringing him upto a staggering 320 lbs.

Another thing that has caught my attention is Argentine spanish. It is not spanish. It´s spelled like spanish, it even kinda sounds like spanish, but it most certainly is not. For starters the "elle" letter (double l for those f you not familiar with the language) is not pronounced in the traditional "ya" sound but rather in a "sha" sound. the word for "you" typically "tu" is "vos" and instead of "español" they say "spanish" castellano (remember that the ll is pronounced sha down here). Compounded with the fact that they slur and mumble giving the overall impresssion of speaking with a mouth full of seltzer water, and a vocabulary that mostly consists of slang makes it impossible for me to understand anything that is spoken to me.

For example: the common word for "to catch" as in "to catch the bus" is cojar, but if were to say "cojè el omnibus: I caught the bus" in Argentina you would be saying "I fucked the bus". Not exactly your standard translation.

Almost in Ushuaia...

Hopefully pictures will be up soon...

Arrival and northern patagonia

hercules — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:30:00 GMT

Ok, the goal of this little blog is to write the occasional story and keep my friends and family informed. I will hopefully be writing every other week or so... knowing me this will be my only little entry and I will forget the rest by time I´m back in the states.

I arrived in Buenos Aires on January 7th at 11:45 in the morning. My plane was only 45 minutes late and apparently on international travel they even feed you. not a bag of peanuts either mind you, but an actual meal of braised meat and mashed potatoes. The Argentinians accross the aisle were accidently given vegetarian meals.

Upon clearing customs I met up with Lainick at the airport, It was good to see ickles and the hairy one again. By means of the extreamly cheap bus and subway system we managed to find a friends house to store my bags in and let me change out of my freezing to death clothes from Colorado to something that would be a little more fitting in the 85 degree weather of Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires is HUGE! The main highway through the city is 26 lanes across and divided like the countings for a Don Ellis composition. The buildings themselves are a interesting mixture of young and old. You can see the old style columned government building backdroped by a mirror-windowed modern skyscraper on the same block as an old spanish influenced apartment building.

I only spent 3 days in Buenos Aires. After 5 weeks in Denver for Christmas I was ready to get out of a big city. On the afternoon of January 9th we departed buenos Aires by means of a bus for Las Grutas. The 14 hour busride went by in a flash (mostly due to the fact I slept nearly the whole time) and we saw a beautiful sunset just outside of Buenos Aires. Thje sky was a pallette of oranges and reds... definitely one of the preettiest sunsets I´ve seen in a while. We arrived in las grutas on January 10th to VERY hot weather and very strong winds. Although it is a popular tourist destination, we are the only foreigners here. EVERYBODY else is from Argentina. Las Grutas means the caves, and is aptly named. The beach here is trapped between the water and 20 foot cliffs that are riddled with caves where seabirds make their home. Especially common is a type of green parrot, and you can hear their squawk of complaint most anywhere in town. The tideal change here is truely impressive too. When we first arrived (shortly before high tide) the beach was very narrow in most spots, and non-existant everywhere else. Upoin returning to the beach after several hours of setting up camp however, the beach was 100 meters wide at its narrowest. the town itself is very beautiful, with multi-colored pastel stucco buildings that extend all the way to the cliffs and gaze out over the water. We leave tomorrow at noon for southern patagonia. Ushuaia here I come!