San Pedro de Atacama to Salar de Uyuni in a 4x4

The ride from Salta to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile was only 8 hours, but no one told me that we go on a road that brings us up to over 5,000 meters elevation. I couldn't figure out why I had a migraine the whole ride and couldn't lift my head more than an inch off of the pillow. We got to San Pedro, and I'm not sure what I was expecting but I felt like I was in a scene from a western movie from decades ago. The bus let us off in a dusty parking lot. There wasn't a bus station, and there was a main square but nowhere in my eyesight. Luckily I met Esther and David, who were staying in my hostel, and we found the place together. Minus the odd fact that the hostel owner had 7 cats running around the place, it was decent, with hot showers from 6 am-9pm, which seems to be all it takes to get me excited these days. My first night I went out to this place where a cool French astronomer shows you different stars, planets and constellations with these giant telescopes. It was amazing how clear you could see the sky from the middle of nowhere. When he was naming all the constellations, I couldn't figure out why I didn't recognize any of them but I realized it was because I live in the northern hemisphere, so the sky i see is actually beneath my feet here. Which made me feel sad and far from home. Luckily that night I met really nice people from my hostel, and we sat around by a fire and I felt less sad by the time I fell asleep.

Day 2 of San Pedro I had to cram in a thousand activities because I decided I wanted to go on the salt flat tour the following morning. There were enough activities to keep you busy at least a week, but the town is super expensive so I didn't want to spend too much time there. In the morning I went sand boarding. The day before my friend from the hostel said their group had 16 people and they shared the dunes with other groups. When I went it was me, a German girl and our pervy tour guide and that was it.  It was really cool having the whole place by ourselves. My first couple of times down I was scared, but the sand hurt less than cold snow would on a snowboard, and since we were in the middle of cool rock formations in Death Valley I was too busy having fun to realize that i was actually pretty good. Of course I managed to split a hole in my leggings and thought my sandboarding days were over, but luckily the German girl had a spare pair and we finished our 3 hours of boarding on the dunes.  I got back to town, rented a bike and set off to try to squeeze 2 days worth of site seeing into the 5 hours I had left until the sunset. I made it to the ruins  in Pukara de Quitor, and then set off for the Moon Valley, which has more crazy rock formations that look like craters like you're on the moon.
I ran into my friend from Salta, and the group rode around the moon valley until it got close to sunset. I had been warned to hurry back before sunset because the roads got pitch black and it gets cold at night. I started rushing everyone, and of course on the way back it was super steep and rocky. My friend Sofja and I were in the middle of saying that we wishes we had worn helmets because this was really scary, and we turned a corner and saw that one of our friends Andrew was laying on the side of the road, off his bike covered in blood. We were in the middle of nowhere, about half an hour from the town and no way to get Andrew there. A tour guide found us and said he called an ambulance, but no ambulance ever showed up. Thank god a tour group was coming through to see the sunset at the valley, and they had a doctor on board who helped Andrew and the van brought him back to the hospital. Turns out he had to get stitches, surgery and his teeth replaced because he knocked them out. It was an awful experience and thank god he was okay. I swear I will always wear a helmet from now on. We raced back to town just as it got dark and made it back to safety to prep for our morning tour.

Our group, with the tour agency Atacama Connection, had 18 people in total, split up in 3 4x4s and 3 drivers. The guides all spoke Spanish , which was good for me to try to make sense of what he was saying. I had a really good group in the car and we got along amazingly for the 3 days. On the first day we stopped at a million lagunas, all different colors because of the minerals in the water. There was a white one, green and multi-colored lake that had flamingos living in it. It was all so beautiful, but the wind that day was insane so we had to keep running in and out of the car so we wouldn't get blown away. We had to get to the hostel early because driving through the desert, there aren't lights so we can only drive during daylight hours. The hostel was a few rooms made of big cement bricks with hay for a roof held down with rocks. Once the sun set, the temperature dropped to about 5 degrees below freezing. I literally thought I was going to die that night. I already lost my winter coat so I've been only wearing a wind breaker jacket and lulu hoodie, which was not enough to survive this cold. Combined with the fact that we were now eating Bolivian food and at an elevation of 4,900 meters, I felt like I was going to die. I took all of the extra blankets from the spare beds, took a sleeping pill and eventually stopped shaking enough to fall asleep.

In the morning it was just as cold, but as we set off and the sun came out it got more tolerable.
We went to see some rock formations that people say look like a Dali painting (I didn't see the resemblance), more lagunas and a volcano. We stopped in a village where we were able to buy beer made from quinoa and twix. I didn't realize how excited I would be to see American candy so far from home, but when you're this far removed from warmth and civilization, it's the little things that count.  The 2nd night we slept in a hotel made of salt. The floor, the walls, the beds - the whole thing was SO cool. Unfortunately, no warmer. But for 10 Bolivianos, they gave you  hot water for the shower. I think I spent more money on bathrooms and hot water than I did on food for these 3 days. We played travel scattegories (clutch purchase) until we were too cold to be awake, and froze to death for the second night in a row. This night I couldn't take a sleeping pill, because we had to be up at 6 for the sunrise, so I don't think I actually fell asleep that night.

On day 3, still cold, sleep deprived and suffering from altitude sickness, we set off for the salt flats. This was the whole reason for the journey, and it did not disappoint. The salt flat extends for 12,000 square miles. It's insane how you can look around for miles and only see blue sky above, salt below and nothing else but the other jeeps on our trip. We took the traditional salt flat pictures, which came out SO cool. I still don't understand how it works so luckily other people knew how to do it. After we played on the flats for a few hours, we headed off to Uyuni. About 10 minutes from our destination, the back tire on our jeep came flying off of the car and rolled away. Our car fell into a ditch, and we were completely stranded. Our tour guide was such a trooper and was able to fix the whole thing somehow, using flat stones to hold up the jack high enough to get the at lifted after we scoured the road for the missing bolts. By the time we got to Uyuni, I was now sick from the constant weather changes, altitude shifts, lack of sleep and now sunburn from sitting on the side of the road while our car was mended. I decided against spending the night in the town, or continuing to the mines in Potosi, because I needed recuperation time before Melissa gets here on Sunday. I splurged for the nicer bus, which meant I had heat and it didn't break down on the side of the  road, and made it to La Paz in time to check in to my first private room and relax for the first time in weeks. The salt flats were an awesome experience, but definitely one of the most difficult things to survive.

Directions, or lack thereof

The spanish word for left is izquerida.
The spanish word for right is derecha.
Now when someone tells you to go straight, the expression is ´sigue al derecho.´
I learned this from my Rosetta Stone during the directions lesson, and find of assumed that ´sigue al derecho´ meant ´follow to the right´, since sigue = follow and I couldn´t think of what else this could mean.
I was told that the word for straight is actually derecho. Now, why would you do this to me, spanish? Why would you make the word for straight and the word for right only one letter apart.  A letter, no less, that usually determines if a word is masculine or feminine.
Now add that to the fact that people talk 4 times as fast as New Yorkers. I have accidentally gone to the right instead of straight and vice versa more times than I would like to admit.

Aside from the language barrier, there are signs. Sometimes you will be looking for something, for example, a nature reserve as I was today. I see no signs anywhere identifying where said reserve may be. So I stumble across a sign with a picture of what I think might be a penguin. Now, no, I don´t think to question why on earth there would be a penguin in Northwest Argentina on a day that´s 70 degrees. But there´s no other sign, so I follow the arrow. And end up at a church. The ´penguin´was actually a nun.  Oops.

I think that´s still better than my experience looking for the zoo in Budapest last summer. I took a bus 45 minutes to where this major zoo was supposed to be. When I get off the bus at the stop the driver told me to, I see nothing. I start walking down this trail that looks like it leads to nowhere, for about 30 minutes.  When I get towards the end of the trail, I see a picture of a bumblebee with an arrow. I don´t know if that means ´this way to the zoo´, or bumbleebees, this way!´ Since I don´t think bees are a popular zoo attraction, and I am not a bumblebee, I was pretty sure I should run the opposite direction. But there was no other way to go, so I pretended I was a bee and went the way the arrow pointed. Eventually I did find the zoo (where there were no bumbleebees to be found), but that sign always amazed me.

Last stop in Argentina - Salta

After another 22 hour bus ride from Iguazu, I arrived bright and early in my last stop in Argentina, Salta. Over the past 7 weeks I´ve been popping around between Argentina and Chile, but in total I was only in Chile for 9 days, and the rest was in Argentina. It´s been amazing, but I would be lying if I said I wasn´t excited to move on to a new country.
Salta is in the NW of Argentina. It´s a smallish town which is most known for it´s proximity to a lot of the smaller towns in NW Argentina, like Jujuy and Cafayate.  There are some beautiful colorful churches, and a mountain (San Bernardo) that you can climb up, similar to San Cristobal in Santiago, to get a view of the city.  On my first day, I set off to the mountain and climbed the 1,070 steps to the top. Since I´m neurotic I spent the whole way up counting the steps to see if they were accurate (Becca, didn´t we do this at that church in Venice?)  I´m not sure if I miscounted or they miscounted or maybe numbers are different in spanish, but I got to 1,088.

After that I found a mall, which would be exciting if I wasn´t still banned from buying things.
When I went back into town I went to this museum called MAAM (Museo de Arqueologia de Alta Montana). In 1999 these 3 Incan children´s bodies were found on top of Llullaillaco volcano, preserved from they think the 1500s.  The volcano is at 6,739 meters above sea level. To give you a comparison, Potosi in Bolivia is the highest city in the world, at 4,090 meters. Cuzco, which they tell you you need 2 days to acclimate to the high elevation, is at about 3,500.  So this volcano is really high, and was able to preserve the children because of the low atmospheric pressure, low humidity, and low termperature.  They think the Incan children were used as sacrifices, and this museum recreated the conditions they were found in so you actually see one of the children. When I went the boy was on display (7 years old). The other two children are a 6 year old and 15 year old girls.  It was really creepy and I was only able to stay for a couple minutes because I felt like the boy was going to open up his eyes and look up at me.  There was a market 45 minutes outside of the town that I ventured out to, but by this point I´ve already decided I was waiting  until I got to Bolivia to buy anything so it was more just for something to do.
On my second day, I took another ridiculously long bus trip to go to Cafayate.  After the 40+ hours roundtrip to go to Iguazu I don´t know what possessed me to get on a bus, but I did. 3.5 hours each way to go to a town called Cafayate.  It was a beautiful bus trip (the part I was able to stay awake for was, anyway.)  The mountains adoring the road are all pink and have canyons in them made by water.  When we got to the town it was really small, which was consoling because I had thought about spending time in these smaller towns but realized I would have been bored out of my mind. It was good for a few hours - wine tour in spanish, lunch, chocolate, pictures and back on the bus.  On the way back the guide surprised us and pulled over so we could feed llamas!  There was a baby one there and I was, of course, ecstatic. Right next to the llamas they were selling different kinds of salami, including llama salami, which I thought was just wrong. I´m not vegetarian anymore but, I mean, I won´t eat a cow either if he´s standing right next to me watching me dig into his brother with a fork and knife!

Back at the hostel I ended up in a deep conversation with my dorm about this end of the world nonsense.  Turns out everyone there was an athiest, which turned into a bigger discussion about religion, which I felt uncomfortable being involved in because the truth is, I don´t know that much about it. I am a Jew by birth, but  a non-practicing one. I had a brief stint after Israel where I felt closer to having some sort of religion again, but I didn´t carry on any traditions which I think put me back at square one.  For a while I considered myself agnostic, belief in a god but unaffiliated with a particular religion, but after my aunt Rhona died I was kind of lost again, because if there was a god how and why would he take someone as amazing as her?  I don´t want to say I´m athiest either, though, because I do believe we all came from somewhere, and maybe it is through evolution and the bible is just a story but that brings me back to my original statement - this conversation makes me uncomfortable because I really just don´t know enough to have a firm opinion on the matter.  I am going to read Richard Dawkin´s book The God Delusion, which has been on my Amazon wish list for a while now, and maybe then I can participate more in the next conversation.  It´s 4:17 pm here so if the world does indeed end in an hour and 43 minutes, this will be a moot point anyway.

On my last day I took a bus to a neighboring town, San Lorenzo. There´s a nature reserve where you can go hiking, so yet again I ventured out of Salta to do another excursion. The bus ride was relatively smooth, minus not having coins to pay (who knew). A nice man swiped me with his card and didn´t even take my 2 pesos.  I saved 50 whole cents! Sweet!  When I got there, after getting mildly lost trying to follow signs, I find the reserve. There are 4 employees there to check me in. When they sign me in the book, I see that there are 3 names before me, all from yesterday.  The last person had checked in at 10:30 am.  This was now around 11am, so I was the first, and most likely ONLY person going there for the day.  Why they need 4 people on staff baffled me, since my admission price was only $4.  Hopefully more people came after I left but I was there about 2 hours and didn´t see a trace of another human being.  The walk was pretty, with a million more butterflies. Nothing else really to see, but I think I got spoiled after all of the amazing hikes in Patagonia.  I realized I had completely managed to do this entire city in less than 2 days, so spent the remainder of my day wandering around, getting my last tastes of Argentinean food (bye bye Freddo ice cream and dulce de leche!)
After my 7 weeks here, I can say, these are my favorite things about Argentina & Chile:
Town: Bariloche
Activity: Toss-up between the Perito Moreno glacier and Iguazu falls.
Restaurant: La Cabrera in Buenos Aires. Hands down.
Ice cream: Anything from Rapa Nui in Bariloche
Chocolate: Dulce de leche chocolate covered bon bons from Cachafaz
Drink: terramoto
Best hostel: I think the Che Legarto in El Calafate. Decent location, good breakfast, and a shower IN my room. That never happens!
Bus company (and yes there were many): Expresso Singer
Worst part of my trip so far: Toss-up between having to get passport pages added due to 6 exit and re-entry stamps into Argentina, and almost getting robbed at the Retiro station in BA

After Salta I head out tomorrow morning (7am bus. Awful!) to San Pedro de Atacama, to do some sanddune surfing and see the Valley of the Moon.  Just a few days, then into the salt flats in Bolivia!!

If a picture´s worth a thousand words, what is a song worth?

My friend Marlene gave me a book she had just finished reading in her book club called "Love is a Mix Tape". The author, Rob Sheffield, tells the story of how he and his wife were brought together by their common love of music, and the role that same music took for him after her sudden death at the age of 31 from an embulism. The book got me thinking about how music has played a role in my own life. How certain songs have come to represent certain periods in my past, and some that remind me of specific people and events. There are songs I've shared with ex boyfriends that still need to be skipped past when they come up on shuffle on my iPod, and even though I'll never listen to them again I need to know they're there. Because if the memory disappears, well... That's all I have left. And then there are others that bring a smile to my face and never get old, no matter how many thousands of times I've heard it and sang along because it brings me back to some place in time that I'll never see again, but during the 4 minutes and 30 seconds the song plays, I'm right back there.
So I've put together my own little list of the songs that seem to stand out to me, in tribute to friends, times, and my adolescence. In no particular order:

-Sublime 40 oz to Freedom. Entire album. Summer of 1997, Bedford Park. My first summer of freedom, 15 years old. I'm pretty sure that was the only song we listened to that entire summer.

-Collective Soul, Run. There was a little trail on Albany's campus that led behind Indian Quad to the road behind campus. I think I stumbled across it looking for my first job at the undergrad admissions office. No one ever seemed to be on that path, but I used to love to walk it with my discman when I wanted to be by myself for a while. Yes, discman. These were pre-iPod days. And since there were no iPods, I had in my possession one CD, my modern-day version of a mix tape, with some random songs I burned from Napster. Oh, how I miss the technology from the beginning of the millennium. All I remember being on that CD was this Collective Soul song, and whenever I hear it I'm 18 again, back on that trail where my little rabbit Trixie went on to carry out my legacy when I was forced to set her free at the end of the semester.

-Sweet Caroline. Senior year of college. I don't remember why a Neil Diamond song was as popular as it was in 2004, but every time we went to T's (our senior year bar) this song had to come on the juke box at least 3 times during the night. And the whole bar sang along, everyone chimed in at least for the Bom Bom Boms.

-ABBA, Dancing Queen. Cjap, the summer before I left for college. I don't know why this song makes me think of you but it had something to do with Seaside Heights. Do you remember?

-Here Comes the Sun, The Beatles. Summer of 2008. Melissa and I were heading to Margate on the shore for July 4th weekend to meet our new friends from Israel. It was taking a long time to get there. We spent a night at her parents house in Long Branch to break up the driving, and on our way out the car ran out of gas and Melissa had to walk to the gas station to get more. By the time we got there we were a little bit irritable that it took so long, so we threw on our bathing suits and went to the beach to start having fun. Someone put this song on, and suddenly everyone was happy, the sun was shining,  our friends all appeared and kickstarted off an amazing weekend. Whenever I hear this song I know I'm going to have an amazing day.

-Boston, Augustana. The summer before my brother went to college we took a trip up to Bear Mountain to do some hiking. We got a little bit lost on the trail, it rained and we slipped and thought how awful it would be if we died right there and Adam never made it to college (Emerson is in Boston, hence why this one reminds me of him). We did make it out alive, and on the car ride home Adam told me this was the song that was getting him ready for his journey, the next step in life. Now it's my song for him, and my memory of that awesome day at Bear Mountain.

-Too Big To Fit in Here, from The Sweetest Thing soundtrack. Danielle and I always have to jump around and mimic this song and accompanying dance whenever we hear it, or put it on when we're getting ready to go out.

-Secondhand Seranade, Vulnerable. Okay, this is one that belongs in the skip when you hear it batch, but it's one I can't skip over. My ex sent this song to me randomly at 3am weeks after we broke up. No note attached, just the song. Whenever it pops up I try to listen to the lyrics to make sense of what his purpose was in sending this, but to this day I've never been able to figure it out. One of my personal enigmas I'll never know the answer to.

-So Happy Together. Pimp Daddy Stu Kess took me for a father daughter day to 6 Flags when I was about 10 years old. This song came up in the car, and he told me a story about how he first met my mom, and this was their song. Gail claims this isn't true and was never their song, but when it played on the radio in the car we sang along, and I always think of him, their happy marriage, and that day at 6 flags with my dad. I also nearly rode my first roller coaster that day, the Great American Scream machine, but after making him wait online for an hour, freaked out when I got to the front of the line and refused to go on the ride.

-Blink 182, What's My Age Again. Freshman year of college. I don't know if that's when this album came out, but I know it's all the bars played that year and I still associate it with that time.

-I'll Be Missing You, dedication to Biggie. Summer of 1997(?). It's all everyone listened to once it came out. But for me, most specifically, I remember taking the bus out to Rockaway beach, which was a pain in the ass to get to, but Liz brought along her boom box so we could blast it on repeat all day at the beach.

That's all I got right now. This was a fun little activity/trip down memory lane. Especially when I'm gone almost 2 months already, it's nice to have things that remind me of home.

Celsius 451

Maybe they're not burning the books, but South America as a whole seems to be hellbent against me picking up any English books. I did buy a kindle for the trip, which turned out to be an amazing purchase since I've blown through 11 books already in less than 7 weeks. There are certain books, however, that for some reason Amazon doesnt let me download.

Motorcycle Diaries, for example. When I got down here, I thought it would be nice to read books native to certain areas. I read "In Patagonia" when I was traveling down south, and read Lost City of the Incas when I decided I'd be making a trip back to Peru. Motorcycle Diaries seemed to be the next logical choice. There are very few bookstores that carry English books, and when i do find one MD is never there. I assumed at the Che Guavara museum they would have it for sure, but no such luck.
 In the entire city of Cordoba, not a trace of it.
I finally found it in a bookstore in Uruguay, with no price. I excitedly carried it to the register and when I asked "cuanto Cuesta", the woman behind the counter laughed at me. Normally I would assume this meant that my Spanish was off, but i know for sure I can ask for prices.
The lady told me it was 760$ uruguan pesos. I did the math in my head - $40 USD? That couldn't be right. The book is only about 180 pages! I doublechecked on my iPhone calculator, and there the numbers didnt lie. $40.  There isn't a book in the world I would spend that on, so I walked thinking there must be some mistake. Sure enough 2 weeks later I found it again in Salta, with a pricetag of $20. Still more than twice what I would pay at home for a paperback book!!
I honestly can't figure out how a complete steak dinner with a million sides costs $20 and a book costs $40. If anyone can clue me in, please do! For now, I'll have to hold off on reading my beloved Che!

2 countries, 250 waterfalls, 1 amazing experience

So for me to take a bus 20 hours to stay somewhere for only 2 days just to get on another 23 hour bus, that place had better be well worth it. There's probably about 2 places I would spend that long traveling to do this for. Machu Picchu is one, since that's the place that changed my life. Iguazu is obviously the other.

Iguazu is located at the very northeast part of Argentina, bordering Brazil and Paraguay. Iguazu national park, where the falls are located, span both countries. The Argentinean side has a network of catwalks that take you over the falls so you get more of a birds eye view. Brazils side let's you go way up close. Both sides are amazing, and luckily my visa is good for 3 more years so I did get to see them both!

The Argentinean side day I showed up at my hostel sick, exhausted and dirty. I showered, downed 3 cups of bad coffee, and popped the rest of my meds and took off. The park is really spread out and there are lots of activities you can do inside. I opted for the upper and lower view of the falls, a walk around an island in the middle, a boat ride into the falls, train ride to the Garganta del Diablo (devils throat), and 6km walk on a nature trail that had no nature whatsoever.  The boat ride was the coolest but scariest part, only because I heard a boat capsized 2 months ago from the pressure of the water and everyone died. So the whole time I was thinking, "this is amazing. Please let me live to tell about it!". You get completely soaked, which is ok because iguazu is the one place I've been thats actually hot all the time. Needless to say my boat did not capsize, and I made it back to land in time to run through all the activities. This was one day that I was actually really glad I didn´t have anyone with me, because I was running around like a crazy person so that I didn´t miss anything.  The nature trail I mentioned called Macuco was the only part of my day that sucked - they close the trail at 3pm so I had to rush to make it there, and when I walked through it (in my flip flops, which I thought I was being smart wearing since I was doing the boat ride til I realized I was now on a hike and that was the opposite of smart) I saw absolutely nothing. Not even the little anteater racoon creature or butterflies that I saw at the falls. 

For day 2, the Brazilian side, the lovely people of Iguazu are nice enough to let me pay another 100 pesos to cross over through their country.  These 2 people on my bus actually didn´t have visas and weren´t allowed to cross the border because they didn´t have the right visas. I was so glad I did my Rio trip because I wouldn´t have paid $130 just to cross this once, and the Brazilian embassy actually makes you do it from the US and not here so I would have been screwed anyway.

The people in this hostel were all in a group and not very friendly, so I intended to have another day at the falls myself.  Except when I got to the bus stop I ran into my friend Tom that I met on the volcano in Pucon, so not only was I not alone but I had someone I already knew and had hung out with 2 full days in Pucon! This is actually the 2nd person that I met on the volcano that I´ve run into since.  We got to the Brazilian side which reminded me more like Disney World with their monorails everywhere. The Argentinean side was walkable once you got to the park, but the Brazilian side you had to take a bus to the front, then another bus to get to the falls, to the safari, to all the things there. So we took the bus down and I saw the difference in the sides, and it´s basically from Brazil they set up their platforms to let you get up close and personal with the falls.  There were rainbows everywhere again and it was just as beautiful as it was the day before. 

This time I was kind of rushing because there was a 2:50 bus and then a 5:00 bus, and there is a point downtown in Iguazu that you can see Brazil and Paraguay from Argentina and I wanted to get there before the sunset and I couldn´t find it.  So I skipped the safari walk, but I did manage to squeeze in this bird park that I thought would be lame because I usually hate birds, but was actually really cool because it was all in a giant garden and you felt like you were walking through the jungle as you got to each exhibit.  You even got to go in to these caged areas and get up close to the parrots and toucans! Really cool.

I made it back to town, changed into sneakes (I learned my lesson) and ventured off to the 3 country point. I met a really nice couple from Bristol, UK and ended up trekking there with them, and discovered that when I order vodka sodas here, just like at Japeanese places in the US I am given a full glass of vodka and a can of diet coke. Which actually makes 2 drinks, so for about $7 I am set for the night!  I treated myself to real dinner since I knew I was getting on a 23 hour bus in the morning, and discovered my 2 new friends will be in both Bolivia and Peru the same time as me! 

Last stop in Argentina, Salta. Then it´s off to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile and onward to Bolivia!

Current issues with Argentina

I got really sick my last day in Buenos Aires, and had a 18 hour bus ride that turned into over 20 when 1) our bus randomly broke down right when we left BA, and 2) we stopped to pick up passengers every 13.6 seconds along the way. So that might be the reason for my current rant, but either way, I have some reasonable qualms with this country to get off my chest!

1) There is no need for every Argentinian man to speak to me when I pass in the street. Sometimes I know its harmless and maybe even nice. Like, I know the word lindo means beautiful, so I´ll take that one as a compliment. However, the slurping sounds when I walk by? I´m not sure if that means you´re hungry, I look hungry (I probably am, food sucks again in Iguazu), I look like I taste good, you want to take me to dinner, or you want to eat me. None of the above are acceptable, so please don´t slurp or chomp at me when I walk by. Especially when, at times, it really doesnt even make sense, like this morning when I was 2 days unshowered, hair in a bun, and wearing sweats. And not even my cute lulu ones. Baggy, boy sweats. Even speaking to me then is puzzling.

2) Don´t sell me a sandwich when you´re serving me dinner 10 minutes later. At the bus stop at 8pm they let these men on with sandwiches, which I proceeded to buy since I assumed we weren´t getting dinner. Not even 10 minutes after the bus left, and I ate my bread since the dude gave me the wrong sandwich - I dont eat breaded noname meat - they gave us our dinners. Thanks for the heads up, Expresso Singer bus man.

3) Dont give me the wrong currency!!! Because of someone giving me Brazilian money today, I had to promise the guy at the Iguazu Falls boat station my first born and a kidney to get him to let me slide by being short one peso, which I would have had if someone hadnt given me a Brazilian coin, or I hadnt bought the unnecessary sandwich on the bus last night.

4) Know where you live. Your town has 10 blocks, citizens of Iguazu. How do none of you know where San Martin street is?? Why, when I ask for a supermarket, you have no idea where I can find one when I stumble across it on my own by turning the corner and walking 10 feet. If someone asked me where 2nd avenue was, or the nearest Trader Joes, I could tell them every single place they could buy a loaf of bread in a 20 block radius.

5) Iguazu Falls, like Uruguay, does not sell my beloved puffed sugar corn cereal. Probably for the best, since I was living on that stuff. But I do miss it, Salta better have some!

On a happy note, Iguazu Falls was one of the best things I´ve seen on this trip so far, but more on that next entry when I´m not doped up on Sudafed :)

3rd time in BA is the charm

My third time back in Buenos Aires has proven to be much better than the first 2 trips. My first day was spent at the US Embassy, but I still managed to get in a run, be reunited with my corn puff sugar cereal (Uruguay didnt have it and I was going through major withdrawal), go to the botanical garden, find the frozen yogurt place (it's no 16 handles, but it's healthier than the gelato I've been getting from Freddo and Voltra every day!). I walked around Palermo, which is one of the prettiest neighborhoods I've ever seen. There are beautiful restaurants and cafes on every weeping willow tree-lined block, each one completely packed by 10 pm. I could spend months trying to fit them all in. There was a street called Cordoba that I remember a French girl telling me had the most amazing shopping so I ventured over there. To my utmost dismay, I couldn't even find a store worth going into. I don't know if it's because I don't have any room in my backpack to put anything, or because I'm trying not to spend my nonexistent money, or because I'm from New York and simply have better taste than these stores have to offer, but I walked home completely empty handed. I met a guy from Sweden who is headed to a yoga retreat 2 hours away. It's a 5 day retreat, I wish I had the time to do it, but I'm on a strict schedule now to make sure I get to Bolivia in time to meet Melissa. Day 2, my friends Marlene and Alex, who I met on birthright 3 summers ago (wow, I can't believe how long it's been now!) got to BA after coming from Machu Picchu. We spent the day exploring the city and it was so nice to spend time with familiar faces, especially since I hadn't seen them in so long. We realized that including the airport at Newark when we boarded for Israel, this is now the 3rd continent we've hung out on!! Even though there were some more shady creatures that were definitely eyeing our bags, I felt more comfortable with them and we had a great day, unharmed. I even got back on the metro, and I think to reward me for overcoming my fears, I found money twice while we were walking around!!!
It started raining and got ice cold during the day, the one day I chose to wear shorts, but luckily we ended up in a mall that had cheap sweatpants which I'm much in need of anyway.
For dinner we had a reservation at La Cabrera, the steakhouse I've been hearing people talk about for the last 6 weeks now. I was SO excited, which usually leads to my expectations being high and then ending in disappointment. Well, this was not one of those times. I can't even begin to explain how amazing this place was. I have never seen so much amazing food in front of me in my life. I ordered a half portion of the tenderloin, which came as 3 giant pieces of the best steak I've ever bitten into.

It came with a million sides - spinach, mashed potatoes, pumpkin purée, onions, carrots, bread, a salad - and just as i thought there was no room left on our table a man came around with garnishes to add to it. Artichokes, mozzarella and sundries tomatoes - it was insane. And besides this being the best food ever? The meal was $20 for the steak!! In total, with the cover charge (the fancier restaurants charge a cover charge for the table, bread, etc. I actually thought it included tip also but I was wrong this because our bill clearly specified that the tip wasn't included), the $4 soda (yea, the soda cost 1/5 the price of the steak. Go figure!) my total dinner was like $35. And I had leftovers for the next night!! Alex liked it so much he made a reservation to go back again before they head back to the states, before he even finished eating!). When we left around 10:45, there was a million people waiting outside to get in, filling up on the complimentary champagne.
The only bad thing about this experience is my body isn't so used to eating this much red meat, so I had to skip out on the bike ride to Tigre I wanted to do the next day. It's okay though because i slept past 9 for the first time in weeks, and decided to have a relaxing day while combating the cow growing in my belly.  I found the rose garden while I wandered the Palermo parks, went to 2 museums (MALBA and the National Bella Artes museum), played at the Recoleta and Palermo markets, got a haircut and a massage, and found more froyo. All with stopping every half an hour or so because I´m starting to get sick and my body isn´t handling all of the walking and no rest. Tonight I´m going to go to bed early with some Tylenol PM and wake up with crossed fingers that I´m better for my 18-20 hour bus ride tomorrow!
I actually saw so many nice things at yesterday´s markets - artwork, clothes, sculptures, leather, etc. So many things I wanted to bring back for souveniers, but most was breakable and won´t last in my backpack, even if there was room. I´m still saving my souvenier shopping for Bolivia, the halfway point in my trip, so that I can send things home in one swoop. After Bolivia it´s Ecuador, Colombia and possibly Panama, all warmer countries, so I can get rid of some of the warm clothes too. And the alpaca ponchos I know I´m going to stock up on in Peru.
Ok, off to the market to get enough comida to last my long bus ride. Pray for me that I don´t get sicker and die on this bus. I want to get to Iguazu and see the falls, not the inside of my dorm room!!

Luck's turning around - thank you Uruguay!

After my 2 bad experiences in BA, I decided to escape town for a few days to recover. I tool a morning ferry (express, only 1 hour!) to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay  the boat itself made feel better because it looked like a cruise ship inside and since the tickets are $50 each way I knew i wasn't in danger of being robbed. At the terminal I made friends with a guy Justin who waa from Boston and recently moved here, so his Spanish helped tremendously. We spent a few hours wandering around Colonia. It's a tiny town but super cute  it's supposed to look like a Portugese town from the 1600s.

All cobblestone streets and old buildings. I learned that no matter how good your spanish is, there will always be something that will surprise you. When we went to lunch, one of the menu items was tortuga, which translates to turtle. Justin never heard of that being a Latin dish but it turns out tortuga is what uruguayans call a certain type of sandwich bread. We still refused to order it, just in case. In the afternoon we took a bus 3 hours to Montevideo, and just as i thought things were going smoothly, a rock came plummeting through my bus window, shattering glass all over the both of us. My first thought was that people were attacking the bus, but it was Actually some idiot, prob a teenager, who pelted a rock at the window to be stupid.
In any case, we got to Montevideo with just a few shards of glass remaining but everything else intact, to find out that the buses and taxis were on strike. A taxi driver had been killed on Saturday night by 3 guys and since the government wasn't doing anything about it, the transit system went on strike. This meant we had to walk the 45 minutes to the old city. Thank god I had Justin there, who was pissed because he had his entire bag with him (my bag was in buenos aires so I was traveling light). The city was safer, I made it in one piece, and was happy to be somewhere new. My friend Joel was also in Montevideo so we met up the next day and toured the whole city. There is a lot of old buildings by one side of the port and the rest of the city is surrounded by the beach. There was a Carnival museum that had some cool costumes and the history of Carnival but all in Spanish so I dont really know what they were saying.

We walked the perimeter, and even though it wasn't beach weather we walked on it and pretended we weren't so abysmally off season. We even found a movie theater that plays English movies! Unfortunately all that was playing en ingles was the Fast and the Furious part 4, so no movies for me quite yet. Hopefully Harry potter will be there in English come July.
Montevideo was an okay city, I can imagine in the summer it's a really cool beach town but I wasn't super impressed with it. The food was not nearly as good as Argentina with the exception of their chocolate and dulce de leche, but then again they pretty much just copy Argentina with that anyway. They did have one dessert there that I loved, it was a chocolate covered ice cream cone filled with dulce de leche. Amazing. Punta Ballenas was their famous brand, which I´m pretty sure translates to Dolphin Point, but as long as no animals were harmed in the making of this product, I´m happy!
I met another interesting person at my hostel. The man was probably about 60 years old. Originally from London, moved to Canada and was an aspiring actor. Wasn´t working for him in Canada, so he decided what better thing to do than to get on his bike and ride to South America.  He´s been traveling for 2 years, went down through the states through Mexico and down the west side of South America, all the way to Ushuaia. He said that to save on accomodations there were times he slept on the side of the road in Patagonia. I mean, I wouldn´t even do Torres del Paine down there because I thought it was too cold in a tent and sleeping bag. The longest he went sleeping outside was 12 days. Sometimes he asked firehouses or gauchos if he could pitch tent in their front yard. He paired up with this guy who used to be in the French military, who told him certain places in Patagonia were too dangerous to sleep because there were land mines all over. When Argentina and Chile fought over the land decades ago, they put land mines down to get the opposite side away. Now that the boundaries are all established, the land mines are still there and obviously can´t be dug up because they would explode. They send mules out into the fields to try to clear a path, and when a mule flies up in the air after setting one off, they know they found one. Crazy!! He said there were times he ran out of water, and the wind was too strong to light his gas stove to cook, but it was part of the experience. I wonder if I´ll ever feel able to let go of everything like that. The dude looked happier than anyone I´ve ever met. Maybe he lost his mind somewhere along Route 40. But it was amazing listening to his stories. I tried to encourage him to write a book, because he was also a fascinating story teller. Maybe that will be his new calling when he finishes riding home up the east side of SA.
I'm glad I went to Uruguay and got another stamp in my nearly full passport. I made it back to Buenos Aires in one piece, and even managed to walk the 30 minutes back to my hostel at night without getting robbed, killed, raped or sold on the black market.

I went back to my non-shady San Telmo hostel (dinnerless, since I managed to find about 2,000 calories worth of chocolate and dulce de leche at the bus station in Montevideo to tide me over) and went to sleep in my private room!  I woke up in the morning nice and refreshed, hopped in a cab to the US embassy, and got more pages added in my passport all within about 4 hours (and $82 later). Now I can travel for 26 more pages worth! Dont worry, it wont be all on this trip, promise!!!)

I now have another 3 days in Buenos Aires, and 2 of my friends Marlene and Alex come in tomorrow! I can´t wait to see them!!

Buenos Aires Take 2 rant

Everyone has told me horror stories about BA. All I saw when I was here for my brief stay the first time was beautiful buildings and parks, amazing steak and chocolate, and friendly backpackers. This time, however, I was assaulted at the metro within minutes of stepping off my bus from Cordoba.  I was with 4 other girls, and these stupid Argentineans did every trick in the book to try to steal our backpacks. One asked me for the time and I ignored him. A second splattered something on one of the girls bags and then people were coming at her with tissues to clean it up (a trick that gets you to stop, take your bag off so they can steal it). Then a guy went to a third girl and was trying to pull her bag out of her hand. He luckily didnt get away with it. Then I felt my small backpack fall down off my bigger backpack, and realized someone opened up 2 of the 3 places it was attached.  I grabbed it just in time before it fell, and he reached in and grabbed what he could out of the pocket. Moron got away with just a deoderant, so I hope he smells powder fresh at least. I was so frazzled because there were 5 of us and it was 8AM in the middle of a crowded train station. I am traumatized from taking the Metro again.
Robbery attempt 2 happened at the hostel. I met the friends I made in Valparaiso and Mendoza at the Garden Hostel near San Telmo. The first night went smoothly, but some of the people said there were locals staying at the hostels who were friends with the owners and a little shady. In the morning, 3 of our friends were checking out, so they left their bags in the other 2´s private room, which locked but didnt have a locker inside for passports and all. One of the local guys went to escort us to the market, and was being REALLY odd. He walked off to make phone calls, and when 2 of the guys were getting suspicious that they thought he was calling back to the hostel to tell his friends we were far enough away, he was asking where they were going, why they had to leave, what was going on. The whole thing was just so weird. We all ended up running back to the hostel and the locals were looking at us funny and seemed surprised we were back. We made an executive decision to lose the $ from the hostel and just change to a different one in San Telmo. I am happier here but still on guard about everything. I´m nervous to take taxis too because my friend just told me that in La Paz his friend got held up at knifepoint, robbed and dropped of on outskirts. It makes me want to cut my trip off and come home, but I know its just a bad couple of days and things will go back to being wonderful again like they were for the last 5 weeks. On a happier note, I had a really nice day in San Telmo today at the street fair, watching live tango and crazy pieces of artwork. If I wasn´t staring every potential robber in the street down it would have been much nicer though :) Tomorrow I had to Uruguay where it has to be safer than here!!

Cordoba

Week 4 in Argentina. So many cities to see, each one a little different from the next. Our overnight bus experience was amazing in comparison with the border holdup bus. We had executive cama, my seat went all the way back and they gave me an alfajore for breakfast. Cassie got really sick when we got here, so unfortunately she had to sit out the first 2 days in Cordoba. The first day me and Kenzie went to a town 45 minutes outside of Cordoba called Alta Gracia, which is the town where Che Guavara grew up. I didn't know too much about him aside from his picture on revolution shirts and that he wrote motorcycle diaries (which by the way thanks a lot Kindle, i can't read until it comes along with a friend from the US!). The house he grew up in was turned into a museum and showcased photos and stories of his life, the famous motorcycle and letters exchanged between him and Fidel Castro. It was really interesting and I wish he hadnt been killed in Bolivia because he was an incredible, motivational person. Day 2 Kenzie and I went to the Condor national park 2 hours outside Cordoba. So basically since I got here all I did was go to other places. The hike was okay, we spotted some condors and vultures and I was told by a group of 12 year olds on a class trip that my Spanish sucks and Bin Laden isn't really dead. That was an interesting convo. I was supposed to go paragliding the last day so I extended my stay another night but it turned out that it wasn't windy enough to go. I'll have to save that activity for Bolivia where I'm sure it will be cheaper anyway. We spent day 3 exploring the city, went to a cool modern art museum that had a cafeteria that doubled as a club, and found the bicentennial park with 200 multicolored rings to represent the last 200 years since I'm supposing something must have been founded in 1810. Since we extended our stay and they had no more rooms, we got upgraded to an apartment downstairs with a guy from Germany, Stefan. We cooked and had pirates of the caribbean movie night and for a minute I remembered what it was like to have an actual place to call my own, not a bunkbed surrounded by 10 other drunk people coming in and out every hour. 

I was even able to do exercises in the morning which was necessary since I've been enjoying Argentinean chocolate way too much. Thank god I'll be in Bolivia soon lol. On the last day i managed to play Frogger through the streets on my 3rd failed attempt at a run. Way too many people, cars and stray dogs. Cassie and I took a bus to a Super Walmart I passed on the way in, which i was way too excited about! It wasn't nearly as good as the ones in the states but they did give samples :)
I managed to get fit in for a massage at the only place in Cordoba which was always fully booked, and got to relieve some of the stress of wearing my ginormous backpack every few days. Sadly, this was my last night with Cassie and Kenzie until Bolivia, so we bid farewell at the bus station and now I head back to Buenos Aires (and hopefully Uruguay) for a week or so. I'm nearly done with Argentina, after BA I have Iguazu and Salta, and then off to the Atacama Desert/Salt Flats.

Mendoza, the town of wine, wine and ...vino

Back in Argentina!
Our lovely overnight bus ride from Valpo turned into the biggest nightmare ever - we got held up at the border for over 5 hours, because the border closes at night and then we were the 4th bus to be let through. By the time we got to Mendoza we were complete zombies, and passed out. Woke up totally refreshed, explored a little and took it easy. Love being back in Argentina, the food in the supermarkets is better and I found amazing salads, no fried food, no empanadas - a little taste of home again!

Our first full day in Mendoza about 15 people from the hostel all went out to rent bikes to do a bike ride tour of the vineyards. It was SO much fun. The wineries are about 45 minutes outside of Mendoza, and you ride to one, do a tasting, get back on the bike, ride to the next one, shot of absinthe (nice surprise!), back on the bike, etc etc for the whole day long. The people from our hostel were great, and I had an amazing time. I am not even a fan of red wine, but it is the main thing in this region and I found a few I really liked!  On the tour I did a tasting at the museum, then a olive oil/chocolate/absinthe tasting, then rode to a fancy vineyard that I think was called Taluche, then to a beer garden for lunch, and then to one last winery. 

The next day, we went on a sunset horseback ride. I had a beautiful horse that I named Maurice that had no interest in listening to anything I told him to do. It was cool going through the mountains, the only rides I´ve done have been on the beach or on camels at the Bronx Zoo.  After the horse ride we went back to a lodge and had my first Argentinian asado. It was every type of meat imaginable, and even though I usually turn my head at pork, I tried everything because I think its considered rude not to. We had giant vats of wine, and we drank and drank and then our guide, Diego, took out a guitar and we all sat around by the fire and sang for hours. It was a perfect night, and despite the weather still being on the cold side, I really enjoyed the whole experience. We had a night bus on the last day, so we spent the morning wandering Mendoza and drinking our little complimentary bottles of  wine from Empedrado Hostel.

The town of Mendoza itself surprised me, because I was expecting a quaint little town with wineries on every corner. The town was massive, with lots of junk stores that looked like they were selling used clothes everywhere, and all of the major activities are outside of the town. But the people I met were great, and the excursions we did were fun and while I didn´t feel like I needed longer than my 3.5 days in Mendoza, I had a great time.  It´s getting harder to write in the blog as the trip goes on. I´ve been taking more night buses and passing out for the night (or sitting up at the stupid borders), and at the hostel I´m with people and then too tired to write at night. After the next town my friends Cassie and Kenzie that I´ve been traveling with are heading up to Salta and I head east back to Buenos Aires and Uruguay, so possibly I´ll have more time to write again although I´m going to miss my travel buddies!!