Swerin' Across South America
Just another WordPress.com weblogJungle Fever!
Wow…been a while. Our apologies. We’ll make this brief so hopefully you’ll be super jealous of all our activity by the whirlwind of evets…harhar
After the Canyon we stumbled upon another oasis and set up camp: Huacachina. It’s literally an oasis smack dab in the middle of sand dunes. I don’t know if you’ve been to the Oregon dunes, but these are more like sand mountains. Our hostel had a pool and a very friendly German and Dutch guys who we hung out with. This was a lucky place to be as Erin finally fell to the stomach bug after a gnarly hamburguesa (we assume after some deductive reasoning)…so don’t offer to take her out for good ol’ fashioned American burger and fries when she gets back…eww.
We finally pulled ourselves together and headed for Lima around the 12th. We stopped in Chincha which was supposed to have some stellar Afro-Peruvian roots…but turned out they just dumped us in a small town, no one was really friendly or encouraging, so we had lunch, watched the US world cup game and got on another bus for Lima.
Lima: big, cloudy, dreary city. But we saw Starbucks, Dominoes, KFC, McDonalds….que mas?….all around the plaza in the Miraflores district. The only thing of interest we did was a bikini wax (yes we’re excited for beach and planning ahead!)…after months of South American winter you can imagine how that experience went off. Then before Erin’s intestines could say “bano” we were on a plane to Iquitos.
Iquitos: June 14th….Welcome to the jungle!!! Hot hot hot! We caught a tut-tut cab to our hostel. Glorious fun in an open-air cab…the little things. The next day we drank smoothies and booked our tour through the jungle for the following day. Looking for a tourist info office we stepped inside “El Dorado” five-star hotel to ask directions. They proceeded to sell us on their tour. It being the cheapest offer thus far (and run through the golden five-stars) we coughed up the dough.
Jungle…?
We show up at the hotel the next day at 8am sharp as instructed and proceed to sit in the lobby for two hours. What? They’re not ready? At 9:30 the guide says he’ll take us on a “city tour” while we wait just a little bit longer. The city tour turned out to be crossing the street to the plaza and him pointing out buildings we’ve seen and known about for the last two days. We don’t expect much in terms of above and beyond customer service from agencies here, but when it’s attached to a five-star name and is obviously completely at a loss for valid excuses…where’s my champagne and strawberries???!!! ha.
Finally we head down to the river (did we mention we’re on the Amazons!!!) and get into a boat. We say to ourselves outloud, finally, “are we the only ones? Where’s the big group? Didn’t they sell us on that yesterday?” No go. Indeed this would be a Swerin-solo adventure. To sum up the rest of this first “day” in the jungle, it consisted of long waits, followed by repetitive “jungle hikes”, and visiting a “native tribal village” (but they forgot to prompt the “tribe” so no one was there, much less “ready”). As we head back to camp with our guide promising to find us more native fruit to munch on he shouts out to them to be there tomorrow at 10am…awesome.
Can you feel the “authentic” jungle heat, humidity and bugs yet? If this isn’t pure jungle madness, we don’t know what is.
The rest of the day and night is spent reading, drinking nescafe, and getting eaten alive by mosquitos and a number of other stinging buggers. However, there is a pretty spectaculor rain storm, and don’t let us make you think we were unimpressed…I repeat: we were still in the Amazons!
The next day started with a botched bird-watching hike, which would’ve been understandable (can’t control things in flight) had it not been along the same path that we’d already walked numerous times…ha. But alas, no amazon birds. We go back for breakfast and they give us a plate of wonderbread….! Seriously. We’re about to start shooting nescafe through our nostrils when they bring out fried eggs and butter. We laugh and enjoy our breakfast.
We return to the “village” to find the “village people”. They make us dance with them, which was walking around in circles for five minutes (quickly, mind you) while the younger girls kept trying to cover their near-exposed breasts (we think, “no need to make the girls uncomfortable just to appeal to what you think WE think is “jungle tribe”"…wow) — must be how they get people dizzy before anymore serious shaman ceremonies… Then we tried our hand at hunting with their blow darts: stick with Erin, she’ll keep you fed. Sara…? yea… Then they sold us their handcrafted jewelry. We went back to camp and waited for lunch then took a siesta.
This afternoon was lovely. We went to an animal conservatory and played with monkeys, then ran from monkeys as they tried to steal our sunglasses and climb on our heads, and played with sloths and tucans and glared at anacondas. Very cool. That night we went on an alligator hunt. Hopped in our little canoe and they rowed us quietly down river, gave us flashlights and we all kept quiet as we tried to get a glimpse of an alligator. Unfortunately no such luck, probably due to the clarity of the night, according to our guide. But it made for a gorgeous night boat ride. Gorgeous.
The next day we got up, went for another (more interesting) jungle hike, then headed back for Iquitos where we missed the coverage of the jungle trees as we sat in the heat of the day. It was near unbearable. That evening we hopped onto our next adventure.
Cargo boat down the Amazon river: Iquitos, Peru to Leticia, Colombia.
A 36-hour (two night) boat ride down the Amazon to the border of Peru, Brasil and Colombia. You string up hammocks and prepare to sit, or lay. Somehow we made it to the port, onto the boat, bought our passage, stored our big packs, hung our hammocks with ease and so waited to set sail. During this wait Sara wasn’t feeling to hot so she curled up for a moment in her hammock. Next thing we both know, her day pack (which was a lovely llama wool bag she bought in Bolivia) had been swiped. Little did the poor ladrones (thieves) know, they had stolen a change of clothes and facewash (and DIRTY clothes at this point…I mean, we’ve been in the jungle for a while and without laundry services in general for even longer). They were rewarded, however, with a bottle of rum and cookies, which we had bought to help ease the presumed discomfort of the trip. Which it was!
Hold on though, let’s not get too far ahead. First Erin, good girl, went and replenished our stock of goodies at the port….Ok.
Now we set sail. The bathrooms are scummy with drippy faucets overhead that make for showers and huge bugs and spiders making nests amongst the…you know. Ugh. But the people were friendly enough, mostly asking us where our “enamorados” (boyfriends/husbands) were. We found out that it’s quite bizarre for women to travel without some sort of male escort…hence the curiosity above and beyond our incredible paleness.
Story continues. We make it through the night. Not expecting it to be so COLD! But the wind was worse than the bugs. Luckily, time passes and at 6am they come around and serve us hot rice and milk with bread. Later, Sara decides to brave the bathrooms for her midday routine. She gets off her hammock, stoops to grab her chacos…..
Chacos? No chacos? “Uh, ha, Erin! Someoe stole my chacos!” We’re laughing that befuddled laugh as we look for them, look around, then stare puzzled at each other. Who steals shoes? Who would force someone to go to that bathroom barefoot, is a better question?!
Sigh…We make it through another day and night on the boat and disembark in Santa Rosa, Peru. From here we’re supposed to go through immigration to get stamped out of Peru, then take a little taxi boat across the river to Leticia to get stamped into Colombia. Little do the gringas know, it’s election day in Colombia and they’ve closed the borders! More waiting.
Luckily, the Brasilian town Tabatinga is right next to Leticia, so after some chicken and rice (again…lunch and dinner specialty of South America) we go across the river. Luckily there’s a World Cup game on and Brasil is playing! And as Erin likes Brasilian beer, we find a friendly open bar to watch the game. Brasil: GOOOL! An old man with few teeth rushes over and gives Sara a big smooch. She’s shocked, he sees and apologizes and then offers us a beer. No worries, mate, and thank you! He goes away. Brasil: GOOOOOOL 2! Old guy comes back, grabs Sara’s head and applies a “kiss” that is him basically trying to pry his tongue between her clentched teeth while she’s also pushing him back…but he’s got her pinned and the rest of the men in the bar like it. Funny how that works. Did you enjoy that image as well? Sara’s first semi-sexual experience with a latin american stud is with an old, drunk, toothless man (Paul: named Raul…getting warmer? ha). From Sara to you, cheers in recreating that image!
Somehow, after all this we hop on motortaxis (with our big bags yes, so we look like little bugs clinging to men on motorbikes) and make it into Leticia. Find a hostel, although we’re baffled by the currency $2000 pesos to $1 dollar so we keep shorting people and giving them “how much?!” looks. The next day we make it to the airport to enter “officially” into Colombia, and book a flight for that same day to Bogota.
And we’re here! Bogota! Erin’s mom and Wes have joined the shenanegins. We’ve explored the city, the famous Monserrat church and sculture of Christ, eaten and drank coffee, etc. etc. Erin has just left with the folks to start her vacation on the beach in Cartegena and Sara is heading to Manizales and then Mendellin to tap into the coffee country (shocker!) before meeting up on July2nd for Erin’s last week of glory in Colombia.
We’ll report from there but hope you’ve enjoyed this longer than anticipated recap of our trans Peru-Colombia epic. Catch ya beachside!
Volcanoes, Canyons and Colca Sours
It´s a small world. Smaller when you´re a traveler.
Erin conquered a Volcano: Misti 5,825 meters! One of three (out of six total) who made it to the summit! No big thing…
Sara hung around Chivay in canyon country. Did a nice hike around the area and by surprise met Erin at the same hostel in Cabanaconde (where we were to meet to begin our canyon adventures, but Erin caught an earlier bus. nice suprise!).
Colca Canyon is one of the deepest in the world, and we conquered it! Descending 1000meters in 2 hours, then climbing 200m, strolling past two little towns, then descending another 200m into the “Oasis”. No, seriously. A beautiful patch of green, much warmer and with natural pools to play in. As we enter our pre-Colombian paradise (tease), we see a familiar face…Pinche Paco! Nice girls that we are, we feign ignorance and excitement at bumping into him again. Did we say small world? Figures we´d run into him.
The next day we lounged by the pool, both as a treat and as procrastination…The return climb was visibly etched into the canyon walls on the hike down and we weren´t terribly thrilled about the feat. Pablo (not Paco), the hostel owner, proceeded to ask us to stay and help him out “at the oasis”. We found work in Peru! We were severely tempted. Drat the return flight plans that we´ve already made! Somehow we made it up the the big, deep canyon walls and congratulated ourselves in Cabanaconde with cold showers and Pisco sours (national drink…yum!). In search of a good dinner deal, we ate spaghetti with alpaca meat (yes, llama) and meet Pablo´s brother. This family practically owns Cabanaconde with three hostels (or something like that). Brother (never quite catch his name) takes us to his bar makes us Colca sours (very funny, acidic, green fruit with lots of sugar and Pisco, the liquor) and crepes. What a pal. Also tells us about what a gag Peruvian “guides” are at Machu Picchu or anywhere in Peru, making up bogus stories and pointing out phoney “Inca faces” in rocks. He congratulates our mode of travel and gives us very detailed plot descriptions of his favorite American movies. Interesting Peruvian hippie. Good times.
So now as we wait for our bus to Ica (heading up the coast towards Lima) and half expect to run into more acquaintances, we wish you a happy Tuesday and an early Happy Father´s Day!
An Original Inca Trail
Where to begin such a long story…
Lake Titicaca was amazing…one of the highest naviagable lakes in the world. Very clear waters (although not Tahoe clear), warmer weather (no sunbathing on beaches like we hoped), and some good days of hiking around Isla de Sol (the lake´s largest island). Our Machu Pichu story really began in Lake Titicaca, in Copacabana in a hostel over breakfast. Swerin was about to leave for a 17km trek around the coast of Lake Titicaca to a town a little closer to Isla de Sol when a friendly Spaniard, Paco, approached inquing if we wanted to do the trek. Swerin explained that we were in fact planning on doing it so we decided to hike together, ideally saving money once we had to catch the boat to Isla del Sol. We spent two lovely nights on Isla del Sol, saw Inca ruins, had one wallet eaten by llamas or donkeys (at least that´s what Swerin assumes happens after a wallet fell out of a pocket), and managed to catch a bus to Puno, Peru.
Once on the bus Paco (the Spaniard), introduced us to two of his “friends”, a Brazilian- Belgium couple (who spoke portuguese together). Over dinner and drinks we realized that interestingly enough we had no common language. Paco speaks english and spanish, the Belgium dutch, english and portuguese, the Brazilian portuguese, Sara english and spanish, and Erin english, portuguese and a little spanish. We enjoyed the banter of portañol and english deciding to travel together for awhile.
In Puno we saw the famous Isla de Uros, the floating islands. Albeit horribly comercialized and toursity the visit to the floating islands was still fascinating. The islands are man-made out of blocks of soil with roots that happen to float. The islanders make their islands by adding meters of reeds to the islands and then constructing homes upon them. Each island has about 10 families living on it. At one point the families hunted and fished, now they pretty much depend on tourism to survive. At the end of the tour the local women proceed to sing in Spanish, Quechua, Amayra, Hebrew, and English. A little “It´s a Small World”-ish if you ask Swerin.
Swerin plus the Spaniard, Brazilian and Belgian took a night bus to Cuzco and the group decided upon arrival that instead of taking a tour to Machu Pichu or taking the extremelly overpriced train we would rent a car. By renting a car we would have the flexibility to see the Valle Sagrado (the Sacred Valley), and take an alternative 15km trek via Santa Teresa to Agua Calientes (the town at the base of Machu Pichu).
Agreement at the beginning: Rent the car for two days, spend one night at Aguas Calientes, see two other ruins on the way to Aguas Calientes (Pisac and Ollentaytambo), Paco drives the dirt part of the road and is in charge of communicating with the car rental people.
Begin our first misadventure. We will try to condense an interesting three night, four day adventure into as few paragraphs as possible.
Day 1: Rental car arrives at 7am and Paco and Swerin are ready to go. 45 minutes after we are supposed to leave the Brazilian and Beligan are ready to go. First argument, Brazilian wants to stop for coffee but Paco says we are on a tight time schedule so we don´t stop. First stop, Pisac. Much larger than we realized we spend at least an hour and a half there. At this point we think that the town we need to get to is 4 hours from Cuzco. Drive to Urubamba and decide to take a detour to Mayara, another set of amazing ruins. Paco and Swerin ready to go, B/B couple take another 45 minutes. We don´t get to Ollentaytambo (the next set of ruins till 3pm). We decide to keep the car for another day, skip Ollentaytambo until after Machu Pichu. At this point we think that Santa Teresa (where we need to get to start our 15km trek) is an hour away. After 1 hour we ask how much further and are told 2-3 hours, after another hour we´re told the same. Winding roads, getting dark, getting lost, dirt roads, dead ends…finally Santa Teresa at 8pm. A jungle oasis. Tension over dinner as a group we decide to spend the night in Santa Teresa, wake up early and walk to Aguas Calientes.
Day2: Swerin ready to go by 9am, Paco by 10am, B/B couple by 12. Erin is getting very fed up. Start the hike to the hydro-electric plant during the heat of the day. Hike is gorgeous, following a rarely used railroad line and a beautiful river. Look up and see Machu Pichu from below–incredible! Arrive in Aguas Calientes, have another tense dinner with the group. Swerin realizes at this dinner that the Brazilian is extremelly rude–(chato for those who know portuguese). Unfortunate because Swerin really likes his girlfriend. Thank goodness the waitresses don´t speak portuguese. It is decided that we will leave the hostal at 3:30am (Brazilian´s idea) to try and beat the crowds up to Machu Pichu (most people leave at 4am). It is also decided that we will all make it back to Santa Teresa that night, no matter what time.
Day 3: Wake up at 3am, meet the group at 3:30am. Stop by the 24-hour coffee shop to get a coffee to go. Brazilian decides to sit down and order sandwiches for breakfast. We wait half an hour for him. Not thrilled to be doing this at 3:30am. Hike to Machu Pichu is amazing, dark, hot, and sweaty! Sara´s knees survive! Thank you surgeon for the great work! Machu Pichu is incredible, awe-inspiring, breath-taking, mystical, basically everything we hoped it would be and more. We get to climb the next summit (Wuayna Pichu)…Sara´s knees still survive! An even more incredible of a view. Run into the Brazilian on the top of this amazing mountain only to find out he doesn´t want to be tied down to schedules and is not going to come back with us. Doesn´t offer any money even though we had agreed to a third day with the car together. Paco argues, Swerin continues on trying not to let the experience be spoiled by awful people. Paco has to go back to Aguas Calientes to pick up his bag and eat (not sure why he didn´t prepare better…) so Swerin walks straight back to Santa Teresa munching on energy bars and apples bought in advance.
The fun conclusion: Swerin enjoys a beer with local cab driver and then a well deserved lunch. Unfortunately this treat is followed by another 3 hour wait on Paco. He arrives (finally) looking like death warmed up. Paco somehow managed to get food poisoning between Machu Picchu, lunch in Aguas Calientes and the 14km walk back to the beloved 4×4. He can´t drive. We graciously agree to stay yet another night listening to his dry heaving and shits all night long. We wake up…ready to hop the first cab out of there, but Paco insists he can hold up his part of the bargain. We drive. We hit pavement and Swerin takes over the wheel. weeee! Miraculously, when we arrive in Ollataytambo, Paco is feeling much better and asks to be dropped off, leaving us with a car to whose owner we have no connection with. Glad he´s perked up, but we decline his offer to be ditched yet again. Paco, upset, but willing to go to cusco with us. Once in the outskirts of this magnificent city, Paco starts to freak out about what type of gas to fill up on and how to drop off the car. Assuming he had clarified this seemingly simple end to the trip, Swerin tries to reassure him that all´s well that ends well. At the same time we´re keen to plan the next phase of our trip (sans Paco), so agree to look up bus schedules and meet him at the hostel.
Unfortunately, our timing is slightly off (shocker) and just miss each other going to and from hostel. Although we leave Paco a note, hostel staff doesn´t recognize him or us or the situation. Regardless, we have a lovely evening only to wake up the next morning ¨de-friended¨by sir Paco (facebook vocab). We do our best to stalk him online to try and reconnect, but no such luck. We have been slighted…online no less! wtf. Oh well…the rest of Peru calls!
Fortunately this story has a happy ending. There´s a big fiesta going on for Corpus Cristi. Swerin eats guinea pig in central market, dons Ïnka Kola¨(national limegreen, bubblegum flavored soda…yum) paper hats, and runs into our beloved Aussie twin friends amidst the crowds of Cusco! Yayyyyy!
All is right in the world. We succesfully plan and implement our way out of Cusco and are currently detailing to you our story from Arequipa. Tomorrow? Erin climbs a volcanoe…wooo! And Sara heads to some thermal waters near a canyon. Life doesn´t get much better….or at least anymore entertaining. We´ll report on this phase when we get to Lima. 10 days until the Amazons!!! Think the piranhas are biting??? Probably, but we´re prepared as we at least nicked some malaria meds off of a poor English bloke back in La Paz. Cheers!
Two gringas in Bolivia
What’s better than a gringo in Bolivia? If they’re female, blonde AND like to don woven sweaters with llamas on them! We are NOT AFRAID of looking ridiculous! Actually…we prefer it. We can spot fellow gringos from meters away…not even by skin or hair color or by height, but because we all seem to adapt our wardrobes to the same silly costume through the countries of Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. Meh! Once we hit to Colombia it’ll be our special South American bikinis, so for now we’re content to cover up and rock the alpaca!
The other day in La Paz we passed a witch’s market that sells everything from “polvos” (powder concoctions) to boost your libido or cure your hangover, to llama fetuses. Yes, don’t be jealous. Actually…I don’t know the purpose of llama fetuses, but it MUST be for something powerful.
We made it to La Paz from Potosi. Potosi is one of the highest city in the world (4090 meters, 13,420ft — we were certainly huffing and puffing and now blowing anything down); a hussling and bustling city. Amazing, cramped, dusty and beautiful city on a hill. We went for a tour in mines (first and foremost a mine city…though it’s been pretty much raped of it’s resources, it’s still the main option for employment in these parts). We crawled down four dusty levels of the mine, avoiding passing trolleys, watching men work, helping them shovel and talking with our guide about mining and the state of Bolivia. Basically, as in many latin american countries (unfortunately), Bolivia is hugely rich in resources, but due to colonization followed by both slow and corrupt politics it has no control over the use of said resources, reaping few of the benefits and failing it’s public in basic needs such as education, health, employment, as well as failing to support (or rectify) indigenous and Spanish cultural histories. It’s fascinating! And we could hardly speak due to all the dust, after only an hour underground. We were certainly impressed by the mining history and what these people do to survive.
We then made a quick stop off in Sucre. Beautiful city, but dead on Sundays. Erin enjoyed a rousing South American bike tour race in the morning and we spent the remaining day strolling…
La Paz: Sweaters!!! Fruit juices in the mercados and excellent street food. Made a stop by Valle de la Luna. Mastered the “micros” (buses aka. minivans taking you wherever your little heart desires in La Paz…try doing it with backpacks stuffed with sweaters!!!).
Coroico: Via the worlds deadliest road. This road was built by prisoners back in the day, and now you can tour it on shady mountain bikes. We were game and ready to rally until we heard the outrageous price of $700 Bolivianos (alomost US$100). That and an Israeli girl died on the tour fairly recently. You´re welcome, Sara and Erin´s moms! But don´t get us wrong, it was mainly the pricetag that deterred us! Instead we took a bus over it! Ha. No worries, a newly paved, less deadly version. Well worth the $15 Bolivianos each way! Coroico lay ahead, glorious and glittering atop a valley! We spent three glorious days hiking down to rivers, across coca fields and eating fried chicken (from the streets of course). Highly recommended (town and food).
Which leads us to an important theory developed while in Bolivia and solidified here in Copacabana (on Lake Titicaca). The cheaper the food, the more¨”street” the food, the better! We´ve tried many a gringo standby: pricey and unimpressive. So far the fried chicken, the gyros, the lomitos, the jugos and now the delicious trucha (trout) stands by the waterfront are by far the best. Thus said Swerin.
Catch ya after a few days trekking around Lake Titicaca and when we stumble into Peru. Much love and cheers to all you gringos (or non gringos alike)!
The Salt Flats
Ridiculous! In a good way. Four day, three nights through Bolivian southwest countryside…yeah. And we mean four-wheeling, off-roading, climbing 2,000 meters (roughly 6,000 ft) in 30 minutes, sleeping and driving at altitudes of 12,000ft. We´re not normally tour people but if you´re scheemish about traveling to South America (or not – hard to see this place any other way) you should GO! So here´s our world through pictures, cause pics speak louder sometimes (and we have a lot of time to catch you up on!):
uhh……………………..life IS better through pictures, but sorry folks. We´re having technical difficulties over here.
So…the Salt Flats. We arrive in Tupiza (Bolivia) and all the tourists run around trying to find an agency at the best rate and then scramble to find 2 to 3 extra personas to fill their jeeps. Swerin took a little breather from this and went for a horseback ride. For those of you unfamiliar Tupiza area is made infamous by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid…yes, they ran from the law this far and further. So we get our 15′year old guide (seriously…one thing we´ve realized is that either the US really Disney´s up their tourist attractions with animated guides, or Bolivia/S. America is lacking: “here´s a tree, here´s a volcanic formation, now we have lunch, listo chicas? vamos.”). So though neither Erin or Sara has had much horse experience, our “guide” did at least let us loose and we got to gallop our horses. Oh, forgot to mention that the agency gives you chaps, a hat, AND a bandana! That´s right…we blended in for sure! But when your horse takes off in a gallop and your hanging on for dear life at the same time that you find a little rhythm, dig it, giggle a bit, then yell, “Ay! Ay!” All is well in the world and for a glorious second we felt like Bolivian gauchos.
Sore asses….
Play the “price is right” game with agencies and show up at 9am (still toting sore asses) to meet our jeep-mates: An older Polish couple who relocated to Australia 30 years ago, Andrew and Eva; and an Australian biologist (woman) who specializes in penguins! We were nervous, but intrigued…
Off we went! Our driver, Edgar, and our cook and companion for the week, Nilda.
Day one: serious altitude climb. Serious views of countryside. Impressed by drivers incessant coca leaf chewing (coca leaf is big here – not to be associated with processed and illegal cocaine – and most workers take it like chain smokers would to cigarettes). Highlight: We pass through rock formations that jut out of the ground in a very (no other way to describe, really) phallic way. Nilda all of a sudden says to the driver, “Look! Looks like a penis!” Little did she know that our Spanish abilities could interpret such foul observations and we busted up. Edgar let us out to take pictures with the pen…I mean, rock formations. And Nilda giggled at our poses (sorry no pics, folks!) the whole time then gave us lollipops as a snack…..hmmmmm.
Day two: Wake-up-call is 4:30am. Happy day. We drive to ruins beneath a major dormant volcano. Picturesque. We enter a national park and pass through two pueblos and visit about four lakes…BEFORE lunch. Worth it though, lunch is at some hot springs. We take a dip, get a good meal (these traveling cooks are amazing! Cooking full meals from their own hot plate and gas tank…crazy). Edgar tells us to pack up and we visit Laguna verde while the lighting is still good. Amazing green waters below another volcano that you can actual trek up (Erin has lots of schemes for this!) and there´s an even better green lake in the crater (highest fresh water lake in the world). Then we head back through Dali´s Desert. Named for the surrealist painter AFTER realizing one of his works looked exactly like this desert (with piles of rock that are ancient lava dumps…literally….from nearby volcano). Pretty fitting: surrealism. We stay the night in another freezing hospedaje at about 12,000ft feeling a little light-headed.
Day three: Lazy 7am morning. Check out Laguna Colorado, a red laguna. Usually filled with thousands of flamingos, it was not as impressive during this near-winter season. But still gorgeous. Then we drove past four or five more lagunas, all interesting colors and smells due to their high mineral content (Borax, mostly). Ate lunch at a stinking lake that had “poison and no smoking” signs…scary. And they used recycled bottles to help prevent erosion. We drove past the rail line from Bolivia to Chile, where our partner jeep ran over and killed a dog. We heard the story after we past our first salt flat, but an unimpressive mixture of salt and earth according to our driver. But we could see some weird “floting islands” to the north and realized that´s where the promised land was. We stopped at a tiny town for folks to reload on Coca Cola, beer and cigarettes, regail us with dog killing stories, and off we went to our salt hotel for the last evening. Literally, this place is built out of bricks of salt, then (for touristic effect?) they sprinkle the floors with crushed salt. Bed platforms, tables, chairs, not to mention walls and structure are pure salt. We enjoy a glorious last supper of spaghetti, then checked out the stars. We thought Tahoe was good. When you´re at 12,000ft and in one of the most arid climates on earth, star gazing is something else. It´s also pretty spectacular to look at a sky and just see stars without recognizing constellations, etc. Learned how to spot the Southern Cross and how to identify where due South is. Is it possible that the Big Dipper does exist down here, just in a different spot and upside down?
Day four: Salar de Uyuni! You hear about it, but never really now until you´re there…amazing. The salt is like ice, ten meters thick in most places, and holds water and petroleum underneath. We were up before the sunrise, drove to the middle of this ancient dry lake to take pictures of the flats. It looks like the patterns of a cracked, dry desert, but is pure, white salt. Shortly after sunrise we hit the jeeps and head to Isla de Pescado which is an old island of coral…yes, coral. However, as the lake´s been dry for ages, there´s also cacti (the oldest died at 10,00 years), so we were walking on coral with cacti, looking out over an ocean of salt. Incredible. We had a delicious despedida breakfast of cake and dulce de leche and coffee and cognac (para calientarse). It was COLD! Then we headed back out to the middle of the flats where tourists make fools of themselves taking crazy pictures. Because the flats stretch for so long you can take picture that look like someoue is sticking out of a Coke bottle, or about to step on all their friends, etc. We have a few! If you´re good, perhaps we´ll be able to show you one day.
Sadly, the story must end and we were dropped off in Uyuni to catch some zzz´s before heading to Potosi. First we visited an old train cemetary just outside of town. Very eery and cementary-ish, but cool photo opp. Then our Polish friends invited us to get smashed on Coke and whiskey before a gourmet pizza dinner (even Erin drank whiskey and liked it!). At dinner our Polish friends told us their engagement story:
Andrew: “Eva told me one night…”
Eva: “You must know it was after MUCH to drink!”
Andrew: “She said, I don´t really love you, but I want to marry you.”
Swerin was busting up with laughter and impressed at the same time! A very cool couple.
Now we are hear in Potosi, gearing up to go into the mines tomorrow. Walking up a hill is strenous due to it being the world`s highest city. We had a yum yum lunch for $15 Bolivianos (about $2). We really do have some impressive pictures for you and were hoping to regail you, but alas our wordy version will have to do. Until next time, Cheers!
Final Argentinian days…
Well, we made it to Salta! (Northwest region of Argentina). By this weekend we´ll be in Bolivia causing a ruckus! Mendoza was pretty stellar with it´s wine and bicycles and sitting in parks drinking more wine, etc. etc. We said goodby to our Aussie travel buddies in a cute little town called Uspallata (where they filmed part of Seven Years in Tibet….fun fact). Beautiful. We had a blast talking about the Spanish language as well as English differences. Apparently the only thing Sara can say with a proper Australian accent is ¨Dingo stole my baby!¨ But here´s Sara´s Australian recap: Met Rachel and David in Cordoba and we all got on really well. Went up to Cumbrecita where it was quite fresh, but we enjoyed the time anyway. Since both travel groups were keen to the same route, we struck up a friendship and couldn´t be bothered to part even if doing fuck all….(how´d I do?)
Anyways. Most recent wonder was Aconcagua. Amazing! Highest mountain peak outside of the Himalayas and we found out. We stayed in a tiny town that´s merely an access point to Aconcagua. We couldn´t get much further than the park as they shut down access in the winter, but every view was pretty spectacular. After that we headed back to Uspallata where we said goodbye to the Aussies, but then treated ourselves to a hike up a ¨small¨mountain. We could see the entire valley as well as a the rising wall of the Andes…amazing. We´re hoping to do more hiking these next days on our way towards the Bolivian border where it´s almost like preparing for a separate trip. Much more ¨backpack¨vibe, on the go, different culture, etc.
After another fabulous night bus (this time with leather chairs that were more like armchairs than bus seats) we arrived in beautiful Salta.
Our busy day in Salta (May 2): Sara´s version.
Spent a lazy morning feeling like unas jubiladas (retired folk) as we mapped out our day over coffee. Set out to climb Cerro de Bernardo…1070 setps later we got a gorgeous view of Salta and surrounding land. Went back down. Walked to bus stations to check our schedule, headed back into town to checkin with family at a cafe, walked around the peatonales (pedestrian paths), had a coffee in the plaza to rev up. Walked to a park and swang on some swings with an 5 year older and her dad. Finally stumbled back to the hostel to make dinner and entertain ourselves with some drunk Brits.
Erin´s version:
Woke up and had a lousy breakfast at the hostel. Two pieces of day old crusty baguette doesn`t compare to eggs, hashbrowns and bacon. Oh well. Washed some clothes and headed to the Cerro de San Bernardo, passing a woman making homemade empanadas on the street. Looked fabulous but I decided to ignore my hunger, knowing that lunch on the top of the Cerro would be fabulous. We made it to the top to have a delightful picnic. Salame and cheese sandwhiches with tomatoe and avocado, granny smith apples with leftover cheese and dulce de leche. yummy. We headed back down the hill and stopped by the ice cream parlor near our hostels. Devoured huge ice cream cones which were only 6 pesos. Ran some errands, and went to a park. By this time (7pm ish) I decided to buy a lovely empanada only to be told that i couldn´t buy it since i didn´t have exact change (I had 2 pesos and the cost was 1.50…just ask us about trying to get change in argentina!) Went to another stand where he let me have one. Phew! Went to the supermarket on our way back to the hotel and had a delicious dinner of a greek like salad.
Does that sum up the way we view the world differently? Good thing we`re together or we might miss something!
Today we are in Tilcara. Staying in a cute hostel, Casa Colores. The only problem is we can´t figure out how to flush the toilet and we waited too long to ask so we start every morning with a scheme to find (and use) an operating toilet. It´s a glorious and rewarding adventure! After our morning “chores” we´ve toured some ancient ruins, hiked up massively steep Garganta de Diablo with another friendly street dog as our guide (we called her Sombra because she was black and usually prefered walking behind us), and saw the Cerro de Siete Colores (7 colors). Tonight we wrap our brains around Bolivia as we catch a bus mañana por la mañana. Wish us luck as we cross the border!
As we move north the internet has been getting progressively slower and our days progressively fuller so please excuse our infrequent bloging…we´re trying 
Busy bees…!
What you don´t know:
- Montevideo: Sara got a head cold crossing the Rio de Plata, stayed with an amazing woman and her friends (who organize an “Up With People” cultural exchange/personal empowerment school for Latin America), She (Jeanette) toured Swerin around Montevideo and we finally partook in really bitter mate…mmmm….
- Colonia: Cute little colonial town on the Uruguayan coast where Swerin made friends with some street dogs who protected us all around town including into the bus terminal.
- Iguazu Falls!!!! Wow. After a 17 hour bus ride Swerin drops their bags in a hostel, and gets four passport stamps in one day going to the Brazilian side of the falls. Next day Swerin headed to the Argentinian side for a boat ride and longer excursions through the park. The boat ride was FUN and WET! Literally took us under some of these massive falls. As the now official Goddesses of Rain, we were almost dry walking towards the famously awesome upper view of the mouth of the falls (Devil´s Throat) when another deluge of rain strikes! Jealous? We made a brief American friend, Brian, who watched us skip through the rain and offered to take us road tripping on his Harley once back in the states. Interesting proposal…!
- Cordoba
We´re here! (Well, leaving here). We haven´t been able to warm up since being drenchd for a good ten hours that glorious rainy day at the falls. And another strenuous bus ride, this one 22 hours (stepping up the game, folks), brought us to the cold, dry and gloomy cultural capital of South America, Cordoba. Fortunately we met up with a sunny pair of Aussie twins who agreed to be our friends until Mendoza. We trekked up to a cute little Alpine town called Cumbrecitas in the Sierras of Argentina. We saw a little waterfall-that-could up in that stone cobbled, very Swiss-like locale and indulged in a bottle of wine…shocker. We asked a kind lady the temp: 4 degrees Celsius (you do the math). But we stood fuerte in our chacos, yes we did! All in all it´s about the people you meet and the beauty of the place is just the cherry.
We cooked our first homecooked (hostel-cooked) meal. Yum!
Tonight we´re off for Mendoza where we´ve started a pool for who will fall off their bicycle first as we tour Argentina´s wine country. Erin is very excited and most have come to the consensus that Sara will be the first to stumble off the bike.
More on that to come! Check out new links to our photos.
Buenos Aires: Tango and motos and moscas…oh my!
Holy Moly time flies when you´re having fun! And wears you out when (re)learning a language! Swerin arrived in Buenos Aires last Wednesday and spent the next two days exploring the San Telmo area and the centro. San Telmo is the home of the tango, so has that old bohemian charm. It was once a pretty wealthy barrio (neighborhood) until some unrest inspired a move by it´s dwellers (to Recoleta…more on that when we go there tomorrow). So San Telmo fell into the depths of the lower class who gave it culture and grunge and unrequitted love (tango). Now it´s being revitalized a bit, so is what one man called the Village of Buenos Aires.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Look at the third column for more photos–we´re posting them on snapfish so you might have to signup for an account to see them–sorry!
Now…we are staying with Maria! A friend of Paul´s and a complete treat! It is our mini home stay. We ¨moved in¨on Friday after an hour and a half long cab ride …traffic, Friday, Buenos Aires, what? She immediately welcomed us, refused to let us sleep anywhere other than her bed, and invited us to go out with her and her friends. We said…Thank God! We went to a peña (traditional food and folkloric dance from the interior of Argentina)….delicious empanadas and really good, thick, hearty, salty, stew. Yumm – O! It was PACKED due to its 50th anniversary so it was quite a show! Later that evening (which is 1am in BA time), we stopped by a birthday party at a very chic bar. So we enjoyed the best of old and new Argentina! glorious! Were in bed by 4am (early by BA standards…uh…yeah!)
Now for the BESTEST part! We rode Harley Davidsons!!!!!!!! For 200 kilometers! FUN!
Maria has some friends who happen to have some Harleys, who happened to want to go to an “asado” (BBQ of sorts). So…you´re thinking motorcycle gang, right? And it´s true, it was a gang of about 80 dudes with bikes. However….this is no speed taking, beard wearing, old guy drug scene…THIS is the sophisticated rallying of the young and upwardly mobile gents of the burbs of Buenos Aires (with leather, of course!). Hilarious! Imagine: standing amongst the gang, waiting for you moto to arrive, people watching, and you notice two older burley-lookin men chatting, then – leather and all – they swap a traditional Argentinian peck on the cheek, hop on their bikes, and roar away…amazing!
So I said BBQ, right? Well Swerin and Maria were expecting a river and grill and “argg”…manly things you know? But no. We roll up 100 k later, to a po-dunk pueblo que se llama Lima, where there is absoluetly nothing except for a grand restaurant! So the entire Harley gang sits down in this restaurant for a nice meal and a glass of wine before hitting the tar once again…amazing!
Don´t get us wrong, clinging to a leather clad Argentine, with the wind blowing your helmet near-off (not the best part of the adventure), going 150kmh is quite a rush!! Maria laughed that it wasn´t quite a traditional Argentinian pasttime…but when someone offers a Harley, you go! So yes, we will repeat! We rode Harley Davidsons through the countryside of Argentina! What?! Jealous….?
The next day we lounged poolside, clinging to any portion of conversation we could understand. It was a long day…! But fun! Nuestra español está mejorando mucho y nos caen muy bien Maria y sus amigos. Si fuera posible quedarnos acá por unos mesas más sino por unos dias…asi es la vida, eh? Erin is doing well with her Portoñol (Portuguese/Spanish) as well! It´s all in good fun that we stumble around! Though Argentinian Spanish is RIDICULOUS with its accent, pronunciation and different uses for addressing people, etc. Very different, but very beautiful!
Yesterday (Monday), Maria got a break from us and went back to work (as a kindergarten teacher) and we went to El Tigre. It´s a town that gives you access to the Delta of the Rio de la Plata. Swerin took a train to El Tigre and hopped a boat that toured us through the waterways. We hopped off the boat and walked around, having a cerveza in a German restaurant (cheers Mom!) and getting eaten alive by mosquitos! It was beautiful though! And the boats were so cool! They´d put-put around and then all of a sudden stop, back up, and then were off again! In one swift motion, they´d stop like that to drop of mail, or groceries, or pick someone up from their dock. Very neat.
Today is rainy…ha. So check out our pictures (via links in the third column) and we´ll head to a museum. Tomorrow looks like better weather so we hope to check out the cemetary at Recoleta (neighborhood) AND we´ve gotten Maria and her friends pumped up to join us for an outing to a Milonga (tango dance hall) that should happend Wednesday night. Friday we leave for Montevideo, Uruguay to stay with friends of Erin´s family and check out the happenings before continuing on our way to Bariloche (or Iguazu Falls take 2…vamos a ver).
Much love! Enjoy this long-winded chapter of the Swerin adventure!
Alive in Buenos Aires!
Just a quick hello! We are in Buenos Aires…andamos por todos los partes. Tonight we´re going to stay with Maria…friend of Paulard´s thank you! We´ll write more later but wanted to let you all know we survived the floods and are in Argentina!
Newsflash
Rio is flooding so we’re heading to Buenos Aires early….tomorrow.
Check out this BBC article. Don’t worry, Swerin is safe and dry.
