The South American Scoop

Mountain of shrimp anyone? Florianpolis, Brazil

2009-06-14T22:57:00.000-04:00

Hostal Lagoa 5 minutes from the Lagoa de Concepcao bus platform.

Floripa (as it's commonly referred as), a small island about 20 hours south of Rio de Janeiro, is the quaint vacation destination of southern Brazil. We decided to stop off here because there are about 40 bus hours between Rio and Montevideo, Uruguay. After our recent marathons, we shouldn't be phased... but honestly, I'd rather sleep on a bed of nails than spend that much time on a bus again. We decided to stop off at the ever so talked about Floripa.

It was really just a quick 2 day leg stretch, but very peaceful and stomach-filling.

After a little aimless wandering (with our heavier than ever backpacks) we found our hostal and an all you can eat buffet. Perfect! Soon our backs and bellies were very happy.

We've learned during our travels that we are "Extreme Girls." Not meaning that we do extreme things (remember my surprise when Lori suggested a horse back riding tour), but better said: we do things in extremes. Allow me to explain. We panic when we realize we haven't eaten fruit in a few days and wolf down a pound of grapes each. Bad idea. We don't have a lot of money so we don't eat for 12 hours stretches of time. Hungry, bad idea. We find a good party scene so we do it up for 2 weeks straight. Sleepy, bad idea. We cook enough food for 5 people, we're only 2. Full, bad idea. We decide not to shower for 4 days. Smelly, bad idea. Things like this.

At the moment we were at extreme levels of weight in our backpacks and extreme levels of hunger (nearing the point when our personalities change.) After the all you can eat buffet, we were at the other extreme, extremely full to the point of possible sudden explosion. We unbuttoned our extremely tight pants and went for a not so extreme walk.

Floripa was quaint island with a lake, Lagoa de Concepcao, around the corner and other various rinky dink places. It was quiet. We had missed the Easter Weekend crowds by only a few days.

The next day we checked out the quiet, waveless beach on the otherside of the island, Barra de Lagoa. Continuing our extreme streak, we ordered Sequencia de Camarao (The Shrimp Sequence, whatever that is...) at a beachfront restaurant. Our waiter explained "Oh yeah! It's enough food for 2 people, don't worry!" So we splurged. To our surprise, not just two plates of shrimp appeared on our table, but 5 heaping plates of full bodied shrimp - heads, legs and all.

We beheaded, delegged and gobbled down as much greasy shrimp as we could handle... but really, they weren't all that good and all their eyeball corpses were just staring at us. We had to call it quits after an extreme shrimp eating frenzy. I still can't think about shrimp in the same way.

From there, on account of our extreme fullness, we made the extreme decision to walk back to our hostal from the beach. Once again, we unbuttoned our pants, said a prayer (being that the hike was slightly highway-like) and trudged 1 hour back to our hostal, cursing those greasy, leggy, eyebally shrimp the whole way.

The last noteworthy event, which wasn't really all that noteworthy, was our trip to the bus station. Ready to leave our hostal to check out bus times for the next day, I take one small step outside and note it's raining. Ñ¿*%Ç!!! Our raincoats are rolled up in the bottom of our bags which are crammed under our beds which is a pain in the butt to get to... blah blah blah. We turn around. Mission: Raincoat Retrevial.

Now, I don't want to seem ungrateful for a gift from my mom, but my raincoat is bright yellow (it's meant for biking or highway construction maybe?) and I feel ridiculous wearing it (hence the backpack location.) I'm hemming and hawwing to anyone who'll listen about my stinking raincoat. "I look so ridiculous! Why do they make them in such silly colors? I look like a duck, don't I look like a duck? Why don't they make them more normal looking? I look ridiculous. Seriously, do I look ridiculous?" This and that. Finally, we're all suited up and ready to weather the storm, which by now must be torrential considering all the time it took me to complain and joke and unbury the jacket. I step outside, with only my eyes exposed to Mothernature and... the sprinkler in the front lawn. What a knucklehead.

We brave the 20 sprinkler drops with our rubber lined bodies and then tumble over with laughter for the next hour about my idiotic confusion.

I think it's about time we get out of Brazil :)

Rio 'Did I Miss Something?' Janiero

2009-06-03T17:46:00.013-04:00

Overnativa Green Hostal Rua Bento Lisboa 83A, near the Catete Subway Stop, (stay there!)

We did miss something, Carnival. That's when all the magic happens in Rio de Janiero; streets filled with loud music, girls in small costumes with big feathers shaking their perfect bods to samba, parties that go day and night, drinking, dancing... high prices, more robberies, violence...etc. Okay, so we didn't mind missing Carnival. Salvador was just about all the partying we could handle, but we were still expecting something special from Rio... and when we got there, it was just a normal city. There did seem to be a higher number of gyms and in consequence, a higher number of muscular bods, but no, not all Brazilians are tan, fit and beautiful. The beaches were spectacular with crystal clear water... We of course caught a rainy afternoon when we checked out Copacabana, thinking, at least we have finally reached the place that inspired Barry Manilow to write the famous song, Copacabana!!

'At the Copa (CO!), Copacabana (Copacabana)
The hottest spot north of Havana (here)
At the Copa (CO!), Copacabana
Music and passion were always the fashion
At the Copa....they fell in love'.

We later realized while analyzing the lyrics more closely that we weren't north of Havana and Lola the showgirl actually lives in New York.

Rio does have some notable sites; Sugarloaf Mountain, an oddly shaped peak that you can reach by cablecar for a view of the whole city and the 30 meter statue of Christo, one of the 7 wonders of the world. We spent a laughter filled day visiting the Cristo with two, should be professional British comedians, Rob and Adrian. While at the top, clouds rolled in and out giving us a peak of the amazing panoramic view of Rio including the favelas (slums) in the distance.

The favelas that surround Rio are known for being some of the most dangerous slums in the world. Check out the extremely powerful movie, City of God for a shocking and horrifying view of the favelas... the Brazilians we met said that the movie is not an exaggeration.

We then pondered what is so wonderous about this 'Wonder of the World'... We were able to think up a list of more wonderous things in the world. So we decided that it had to be political... a need for more tourism in Rio when carnival isn't happening... maybe a pull from the Catholic church? Hmmm, for now it remains a mystery.

While in Rio our quest to hear, understand and dance to all kinds of Brazilian music continued. One night we went to Bip Bip, a hole in the wall with live music, supposedly where many Brazilian stars started their careers. We found ourselves amongst a serious crowd of old men who told us not to talk and not even to clap. ooook.

We also spent an evening dancing forro at a big club with a 1970s feel. We watched girls in cute dresses float and twirl across the dance floor, led by handsome partners... seriously, did we go back in time? We too gave forro a try, but there was less floating and more embarrassed laughter.

Of course there was more samba and we watched, still amazed as girls and guys alike shook it all night long. We then decided that we just can't possibly learn every South American dance.

After a couple of days we made the good decision to change hostals in order to avoid being moved into the 15 bed, mixed dorm, with a group of guys that our British friends referred to as, the prisoners. We ended up in a small, quaint hostal run by Dida, one of the kindest Brazilians we'd met. Actually everyone we met at the hostal turned out to be cool.

We celebrated Easter by going to one of the most interesting Catholic masses that I've ever attended. There was minimal talking during this mass. Basically everything was sung.

We stayed in Rio a day longer than planned, just so I could buy a nut agogo... an instrument usually made with two metal bells, but mine is all natural. The extra day turned out to be worth it, not only so I could take home another strange instrument, but also because we found a big crafts market, the most interesting and creative one that we had ever seen. Brazilians really know how to recycle. They turned what might be trash to most people into some really cool wall decorations, purses, shirts, etc.

We drank one last acai (strange fruit, drink, meal... supposedly very healthy) and chose our next destination Florianopolis, 20 hours South by bus. That would be our last stop before cruising straight on to Uruguay.

Get ready... it´s a long one! Salvador, Brazil

2009-04-20T20:51:00.039-04:00

Albergue Brasil Hostal Rua Recife and Rua Florinapolis in Barra, Salvador
30 reais a night, great staff and good breakfast

A friend we met while traveling told us he liked Salvador during Carnaval, but afterwards he had a hard time finding music... where ever we were in Salvador, he mustn't have been. We spent 8 unforgettable, music-filled, food-filled days in this huge coastal city. One of my personal favorite cities that we've visited so far. Unforgettable for so many reasons. It was our first real Brazilian experience with so many differences from other places we visited.

We literally got off our airport shuttle bus in the middle of a huge concert crowd. With our huge backpacks and bags we battled our way out of the crowd and hunted for our hostal. It was an abrupt welcome to Salvador but was softened when we asked around for our Hostal's street and some guy went out of his way to bring us to it's doorstep. Expecting nothing in return, he patted us on our backs, wished us luck and was on his way.

When we arrived we immediately met Edison, a Brazilian from Porto Alegre (a city farther south.) We humorously battled with the language barrier trying to communicate with our first Brazilian friend throughout our entire stay in Salvador. Later that night, we returned to the concert, back pack free and hungry.

In our quest to fill our stomachs we passed a million shish kebab stands and finally Lori spotted a different food stand. Little did we know we had stumbled across acaraje, Salvador´s famous local food. We ordered two of whatever concoction the lady had in each pot and watched as she slapped mushy something, a different mushy something, shrimp and a spicy sauce on a big fried dough thing. We both stood there, utensil-less with a $1 shrimpy mess as big as our heads and thought "How the hell do you eat this?" Some how, we ate it up and after, decided it wasn´t our favorite new food. (To give it a fair chance we tried it again after a few days, at a different place only to arrive at the same conclusion.) We also ate $1 shrimp shish kekabs. These are not peel and eat shrimp my friends. Only the shrimp head is removed and you eat the whole crunchy shrimp. Lori decided it was too leggy looking and we chuckled as Edison talked to us with a little shrimp leg stuck, hanging out of the corner of his mouth. He laughed too when we told him.

To top off our first few hours in Salvador, we entered the crowd and did a little dancing... but more people watching in this new land. We noticed that there we no rules. People danced wildly, flailing their arms, moving their feet at lightening speed, hips in every which direction. It was amazing. No dance move was off limits. Not even our gringa ones. Here is where we noticed our skin color that seemed so different from everyone around us... we seemed to be the only ones to notice though. Very few people even batted an eye.

Salvador is the heart of Afro-Brazil. Many years ago, Salvador was one of the main ports where slave ships from Africa made their stops. They say some 1.5 million slaves (double the number sent to all of the U.S. That´s alot!) were shipped to Brazil´s state of Bahia (where Salvador is located.) Because of this history (and there´s alot more, as you can imagine), African everything is unavoidably present everywhere. People, music, dancing, clothes, food, you name it and there´s some story. They say Salvador has the most well preserved African culture in South America. (For more information on the history of Salvador, Bahia go to http://www.bahia-online.net/history-bahia.htm)

There was an amazing thing present in this city that we haven´t felt in other places, including the states. Without a doubt, we were the minority here, but our skin color occurred to us two times in the 8 days we were there. It was amazing how much no one cared about our skin color. We went dancing (with our rough attempts at Samba) and no one looked at us with the "Let´s watch the gringas dance" critical face that we´ve gotten so many times. The vibe here was so tranquilo and indifferent to our skin color. We were surprised at how much we differed, but no one seemed to care. It made us realize how much The States needs to progress.

We found Brazilian music and dancing everywhere we went. Saturday we visited the neighborhood Pelourinho, 15 minutes away from Barra where we were staying, and effortlessly found a capoeira presentation in the street.

What is capoeira? It´s a type of fight dancing done to music. The music is an energetic harmony of loud drums, tambourines and the birimbao which is a unique instrument. From afar it looks kinda like a fishing pole, as you can see from the picture.You play this instrument by holding it in your hands and hitting the metal wire with a little stick. You make a vibrating type sound by putting a stone against the wire after hitting it. You can also make a different sound by pressing the hollow fruit against your body while playing.

Ok, let´s review... in capoeira we have drums, tambourines, the birimbao, clapping, singing that alternates between a leader and the group, and dancing. Wow!

The history of capoeira is that the slaves were prohibited from fighting, so they created a style of "dance." It seemed as if they were dancing, but really they were practicing self defense. The idea in capoeira is to move with your partner but never touch him. When a pair is moving with the same energy, seemingly connected it´s amazing how close they can come with spinning kicks, flips, etc, skimming their partners face practically... but never making contact. We joined the circle of observers, watching partners switch off, clapping for a few hours ("These two girls are clapping more than you guys, let´s get going!" proclaimed the animator of the group... we think :) and watching the show. It was great!

Here we met Sebastian, an Argentian whose brother is studying at Brown University in Providence (WTF!?!?) He is crazier than us (our parents will be thankful.) He´s been traveling two years through practically all of South and Central America... hitchhiking. He plays his guitar, sells his cds and makes his survival that way. Having practically seen it all, he spent a few days in Salvador with us, but was headed to Mexico. He had fallen in love with Mexico and decided that´s where he wanted to stay for a while.

The next day, Edison and Sebas went with us to the local beach. We relaxed, ate more shrimp shish kebabs (the most delicious in the world with lemon juice, garlic sauce and a spicy sauce all prepared with care by passing vendors) and tried some hot cheese. Apparently cheese roasted on an open fire is all the rage. Vendors walk around with hot coals in a can (I did not approve of this when I also saw vendors walking through a crowded street full of dancing people, coals a blazing!!) and a tupperware container full of blocks of cheese. When you ask for one they start up the coals and put your sticks of cheese, dipped in oregano, on the fire. Hot cheese coming up!

On the beach, Sebastian tried to sell some cds to pay for his hostal and food and life. He said he had some trouble, people didn´t seem to want to buy his cds. We later found out why people were closed to helping him out.

We went to Pelourinho a few times at night and the quantity of people selling anything and begging in the streets was mindblowing. Children asking you to buy them food, mothers begging for your loose change, old tired women selling plastic necklaces, men giving you a "free" gift to buy some beads, people askance for some of the food your eating, people sleeping on every bench in the plaza and in every dark corner they can find. It was unlike anything we had ever seen in our travels. Everyone asking for money, wanting something, selling something. You felt heartbroken and helpless. Which one are good people, which ones are not? Is this 10 year old boy going to trade in the powdered milk and crackers for drugs, like they say? This pregnant woman selling peanuts for a few cents... what will she do in a few months? How will she survive? How do all these people survive? Poor people and stray starving cats crowded the streets of the party neighborhood at night. Beggars side by side with partying tourists put a real perspective, a dark shadow over the party scene.

This is why people ignored Sebastian. It seemed everyone wanted something, including him. This was the second time in 2 years this situation had come up.

Pelourinho (Pelo) was the party place. Any and every night you could find music. Restaurants with a two man band jamming away (Sebastian stole the microphone for a moment) capoeria school practicing their loud percussion and cd stores blasting a little of everything.

Our friend Fernanda, a spectacular, perfect english speaking, we-were-friends-in-a-minute Brazilian, arrived just in time to go with us to Music Tuesday in Pelo. Every week Pelo organizes music groups to perform all over the city. We danced our hearts out with Edison and Fernanda to every possible type of Brazilian music. Our favorite being the drum circles slowly traveling around the city. You can join the crowd of dancers doing their African/aerobics type dancing or hang back and do your own thing. It is so high energy and contagious that you can´t help but move your feet... and hands... and shoulders... and everything!

There was music not only on Tuesdays in Pelo, it seemed every night hosted various live music events. We, Fernanda, Edison, Lori and I, danced our pants off a few nights to Forro (pronounced Fo-ho) which is more of a rock/polka type music. It originates from the north of Brasil. They say there was a bar up north called "For All" and it started this music. The people said the name in english, eventually smushing the two words together and creating the nowadays Forro :)

We also saw a Samba show, which we now know isn´t only high energy, women-dancing-half-naked-in-the-streets-with-feathery-costumes music. It also can be more chill. We really enjoyed the samba band we saw, as well as the impressive mom who shook her money maker like I´ve never seen before. Unfortunately, all our staring caught the attention of her sons, who were not so impressive. So what´s your mom´s name anyways? :)

Being that Salvador is a beach city you´re never more than a 10 minute walk from the water. We frequently took advantage of this after our nights on the town and jumped in the well lit ocean at 4am. We walked back in the rain feeling like superheros coming back to an abandoned planet after battle. Walking home, in the middle of an empty city street with nothing but our bathing suits. What a sight!

During the day we had to relax (and sleep) from our nightly fiesta. We visited Arembepe, a beach an hour and a half from Barra, where we were staying. They say there´s a hippy colony in Arembepe created by Mic Jagger and Janis Joplin. Strange. More than just hippies, Arembepe was a beautiful, deserted beach. Edison, Fernanda, Lori and I were the only people in the water and the people on the beach could be counted on your fingers. There were more palm trees I think. We relaxed, enjoyed the pristine ocean water (Surprisingly, Lori more than anyone else. I´ve never seen her swim like such a fish!) and headed back, pooped.

In Salvador, we did some other touristy things, shopping at the market where there was an array of brightly colored, unique, African inspired souvenirs. We visited one of the churches in Pelo which had every square inch exquisitely decorated in golden angels and leaves. We also visited the Afro-Brazilian museum, which explained where in Africa, more or less, the slaves came from and had an amazing display of the African saints, which are a big part of people´s faith in Salvador. The interpretation of the saints were carved beautifully in wood and awe-inspiring.

Almost done!

Last but not least, we must mention the people of Salvador, who were more than friendly. From the moment we got off the bus and the man made sure we made it to our hostal ok, to a few other people who went out of their way to show us the city and make sure we were having fun. Salvador´s people are amazing accommodating. The man in the market took 30 minutes explaining to Lori how to play all his strange, new instruments. The man in the music store was in no rush, playing every entire song on the 20 cds we were trying out. The taxi drivers patiently wait 5... 10 minutes for you to say bye to your friends and hop back in. Another guy we met took us to meet his mom and give us a personal tour of his neighborhood. He also told us all about his carnaval stories and his preparations for next years carnaval. (They say carnaval in Salvador is better than Rio´s!)

Our last night, for a grand finale, what we thought couldn´t be a more memorable city, was finished with a cherry on top. A local guy who worked at our hostal, invited us out with some of his friends. Fernanda, Lori and I climbed into his friend´s small car and off we went. First to a jazz show that finished just moments before we arrived. Then, to a forro show that played two songs before packing up. Deciding our fate would be to go to places and events that were ending, we tried again but this time the party was in full swing. You might say 20 parties all at once were in full swing. We arrived to a big parking lot with a huge painted sign saying "Noise pollution is prohibited! Law 319" I tried to tell Lori and Fernanda about it, but it was impossible to hear me due to... the noise pollution. Cars with huge speaker systems crowded the parking lot, blasting whatever crackly music they could find. While people hung out dancing and partying behind the cars. We decide that they must be deaf. At least we felt like we were. Every step was like changing the station on a roaring radio. It was dizzying. As we passed car after car, we arrived at the end. We were stunned. How could... what... why... can´t someone... the buzz in our ears and brains was too loud after passing the 30 or so vibrating speakers.

Just as we thought it couldn´t get better, the cops arrived and slowly as they passed each car and the sea of people parted, speakers turned off. Finally, the cops stopped, jumped out, grabbed a guy by his shirt, yelled and wrestled with him for a few minutes, put him in the back of their car and... music back on! No one missed a beat. It was something you´d have to witness in person to truly understand.

Our last stop of the night with our friends was to a plaza where surrounding restaurants had their tables set up in the streets and a local capoeira group was singing and playing everything and anything that could be made into an instrument. Fernanda helped us practice our terrible samba steps and here we decided we should just stay out and not sleep before our 7am, 26 hour bus ride to Rio.

Yawning and puffy eyed, we hung out with Fernanda until the wee morning hours. It´s amazing how you can have a connection with someone from half way around the world. We sadly left our good friend Fernanda and fell asleep on the bus so fast we didn´t even notice it pulling out of the terminal.

Hasta luego! We´re off to Rio de Janeiro!

Curitiba: An Intro to Brazil

2009-04-17T19:54:00.007-04:00

Hotel Maia directly to the right, across the street from the bus station 25 reais a night

Due to a lack of time and funds, we decided to only make two main stops in Brazil. We wanted to get a good taste of this new country in little time, so we chose the most distinct cities; Salvador da Bahia and Rio de Janeiro.

Our first stop, Salvador: To get there, we would take the first flight of our trip. The bus ride from Iguazu to Salvador Da Bahia would have taken an unbearable 35 hours and been just as expensive. So we opted for a 10 hour ride to Curitiba where we would catch a flight.

We spent 24 hours in Curitiba, long enough to realize a few things... Brazilians come in all shapes, sizes and colors. It´s a huge country, so that makes sense. The irony of it all: we´d finally reached a place where we could blend in and we couldn´t speak a word of the language. Throughout our time in Curitiba, people would mistake us for Brazilians until they picked up on the confused look on our faces. Even ordering dinner had become complicated again.

Curitiba is known for being one of the cleanest, most modern and most organized cities in Brazil. We were met with skyscrapers and streets neatly lined with businesses and restaurants. We didn´t have time to do anything in Curitiba besides look for plane tickets and eat at a $2.25 all you can eat buffet. After a day of traveling and an overload of Argentinean ham and cheese everything, we couldn´t have found this at a better time! Beans, salad, rice pudding!!! We hadn´t seen these things in so long!!

After enjoying some food, spending an annoying 12 hours trying to buy plane tickets and a quick trip the the local mall, with the biggest, most extensive food court we´d ever seen (yes more food!), we were out the next morning, headed to Salvador Da Bahia!

Reaching Brazil

2009-04-14T22:30:00.007-04:00

Within our first few minutes in the country we started wondering if what Adrian had told us would prove to be true. "There´s just a lot of little things about Brazil that will really piss you off," he had said.

Crossing the border was pretty irritating because we had to take three buses and in each one they insisted that we pass through the turn style, even though this involved taking off all our bulky bags and heaving them across, then tyring to gather our scattered belongings, falling over and breaking my sandal while wondering if the driver had ripped me off in the peso/reais exchange.

Once in the bus station the ATM wouldn´t´t accept my card and we were forced to show our passports to someone new every step of the way to a point that seemed excessive. (Put it way, take it out, put it away again...)

We tried to look at the bright side; We were enjoying the new challenge of trying to communicate with people who speak Portuguese, using our Spanish skills to scrape by and surprising ourselves by how much we could understand.

The minute we crossed the border, I could feel Brazil all around me. There was a new sensation in the air. Two women in brightly colored clothes walked towards me and a young boy, dark skin, handsome face, baseball cap, who could have been in any one of the Brazilian moves I´d seen, was hanging around the bus stop.

Once on the bus to Curitiba we were surrounded by farms and small country homes framed by endless green fields and fluffy white clouds painted almost too perfectly in the sky one after another. The excitement of unexpected lands and unknown adventures overwhelmed me.

Welcome to Brazil.

Ode to Jamon (Ham) and Cheese

2009-04-11T11:47:00.011-04:00

This is our Ode to Jamon (Ham) and Cheese dedicated to Argentina where we ate and still continue to eat ham and cheese prepared in every possible way.

Ode to Jamon (Ham) and Cheese
By Lori and Laura

Argentine: I am Argentine
I am Argentine
My name is Hercules.

L&L: That Hercules!
That Hercules!
We do not like
that Hercules!

Hercules: Do you like jamon and cheese?

L&L: We do not like them, Hercules.
We do not like jamon and cheese.

Hercules: Would you like them on some bread?

L&L: We would not like them on some bread
We would not like them with my neighbor Ned.
We do not like jamon and cheese.
We do not like them, Hercules.

Hercules: Would you eat them on a bus?
Would you eat them on a sandwich with no crust?

L&L: We do not like them on the bus.
We do not like them on a sandwich with no crust.
We do not like them on some bread.
We do not like them with my neighbor named Ned.
We do not like jamon and cheese.
We do not like them, Hercules.

Hercules: Would you eat them in an empanada?
Would you eat them, a little or a lotta?

L&L: Not in an empanda
Not a little or a lotta.
Not on a bus.
Not on a sandwich with no crust.
We would not eat them on some bread.
We would not eat them with my neighbor Ned.
We would not eat jamon and cheese.
We do not like them, Hercules.

Hercules: Would you? Could you?
Baked or fried?
Eat them! Eat them!
Don't you hide.

L&L: We would not, could not, baked or fried.

Hercules: You may like them.
You will see.
You may like them as much as me!

L&L: We would not, could not as much as you.
Not baked or fried! There's nothing you can do!

We do not like them in an empanda
We do not like them not a little or a lotta.
We do not like them on a bus.
We do not like them on a sandwich with no crust.
We do not like them on some bread.
We do not like them with my neighbor Ned.
We would not eat jamon and cheese.
We do not like them, Hercules.

Hercules: 5 times a day!
5 times a day!
Could you, would you,
5 times a day?

L&L: Not 5 times a day!
Not the months of Jan, Feb, March, April or May
Not baked or fried! Hercules! Not any way!

We would not, could not, in an empanda
We could not, would not, a little or a lotta.
We will not eat them on a bus.
We will not eat them on a sandwich with no crust.
We will not eat them on some bread.
We will not eat them with my neighbor Ned.
We would not eat jamon and cheese.
We do not like them, Hercules.

Hercules: Say!
On the bus?
Hey on the bus!
Would you, could you, on the bus?

L&L: We would not, could not, on the bus.

Hercules: Would you, could you, in a casserole?

L&L: We would not, could not, in a casserole.
Not on the bus. Not in Hawaii or the North Pole.
Not baked or fried. Not 5 times a day.
We do not like them, Hercules, if we may.
Not in an empanda. Not a little or a lotta.
Not on a bus. Not on a sandwich with no crust.
Not on some bread. Not with my neighbor Ned.
We will not eat them here or there.
We do not like them anywhere.

Hercules: You do not like jamon and cheese?

L&L: We do not like them, Hercules.

Hercules: Could you, would you, in your soup?

L&L: We would not, could not, in our soup!

Hercules: Would you, could you, by the chicken coop?

L&L: We would not, could not, by the chicken coop.
We'll really throw you Argentinians for a loop.

Iguazú, Argentina: Let Me Hear You Roar!!!

2009-04-07T12:17:00.028-04:00

Hostal Marco Polo, across from the bus station, 40 pesos

We got off the bus and tested out legs; luckily they still worked. We were neither sleepy nor well rested, so we opted to spend the day by the pool in our hostal. (Yes! our hostal had a pool!)

As the day went on we slowly met the four characters we´d be sharing our six bed dorm room with; Andrian, a talkative, quirky Brit with a dry sense of humor; Bart, a young guy from Connecticut with a story to tell about Afghanistan and who´s driven by my house off of Rt 6 countless times; Jesús, a friendly, easygoing Spaniard (in fact the 1st Spaniard we´ve met on our whole trip); and the old Norwegian philosopher with a kind smile who took a moment to share some of his ideas about life with me. "Nothing you do in this life is wasted," he´d said. "If you want to be a pianist in you next life, start preparing now." At night the 6 of us ate a mediocre parillada (Argentine barbecue), but with some exceptionally good conversation.

On our second day in Iguazu we had one main goal, get a Brazilian visa. We´d heard horror stories about this process involving yellow fever vaccination papers, entry & return tickets, proof of finances, etc. To our utter amazement, we didn't have to deal with any of this; one small picture, an easy form, 520 pesos ($130, twice as much as all other nationalities pay) and less than two hours later it was done. We can definitely attribute this to some great advice, get the visa form Iguazu, not Buenos Aires. Perfect!

On the third day we were the first ones at breakfast, ready to beat the usual bee invasion around the breakfast table and the crowds that would swarm to the famous Iguazu waterfalls. We packed our lunches to avoid the 45 peso buffet, hopped on a bus and arrived within 30 minutes.

While entering the park we met Nick, an Italian-American, jazz musician from New York whose grandfather´s name is Nick and his uncle´s names is Nick... his cousins, etc... (sound familiar?) We hit it off right off the bat, as if we were hanging out with an old highschool friend. The three of us teamed up in our quest to see each of the 275 cascades from every possible angle, height and distance. We took Adrian´s advice (which he´d given us about 10 times) "start at the point closest to the entrance instead of the other end like most people will do. You´ll avoid the crowds!"

He was right. For the first half of the morning we ran into more ring-tailed raccoons than people, as we worked our way from the top down and the front inward, each time getting a closer look at an even bigger waterfall.

The view was so picturesque that it was hard to believe it wasn´t some sort of man made attraction. All of this natural beauty, discovered in 1541 laid out right in front of us. The oohs, ahhs and wows didn´t stop, as we gazed at one fall after another, trying to absorb the peace and tranquility of the thundering waters.

We took a two minute ferry ride to Isla San Martin where we cooled down from the unbearable heat in the refreshing water and ate our lunch in the company of several lizards just before the heavy, but welcomed rain came pouring down.

We hurried, sopping wet to the trolley that would bring us to the ´Garganta del Dibalo´, the biggest and most famous part of Iguazu. When off the train, we followed the path leading to the fall stopping along the way to snap photos of colorful butterflies, that fluttered around us proudly displaying their blue, red, green and magenta wings.

As we approached the Garganta del Diablo, I was taken aback by the unmatched power and beauty of this natural marvel. While looking over the edge at the gigantic roaring beast, I felt how easily this magical cascade of crashing waters could swallow me. We stayed long enough at the fall to see a rainbow just as the sun started peaking out again.

One more night in our hostal and we were shipping out the next morning. We had a new destination before us; Brazil.

(Moms, Dads, we all remember this face, now don´t we?)

On the road again... bussing to Iguazu, Argentina

2009-04-02T10:18:00.000-04:00

Talk about covering some serious territory in little time. We did it alright... By "little time" I'm talking 33 hours on various buses. At least I can say this might have been the most entertaining busing we've done yet.

2am-7am on a bus to arrive to Tucuman, Argentina and spend a few hours in the bus station waiting for another bus to Iguazu. We were to arrive there about 20 hours later. It started off fine, a heartwarming movie "Los Hijos de Francisco" about a poor Brazilian family that loves music and after sacrificing everything, finally makes it big. A million times better than any Chuck Norris or Jean Claude Van Damme flick :)

From there it was smooth sailing, until it was announced "The bathroom's closed because someone pooped." Great, only about 18 more bathroom less hours... Thankfully that got fixed, but the real kicker was when the bus stopped in a line of traffic and the attendant announced "We might be here for a few hours so we're gonna open the door and you can walk around... but don't go too far because in the trees there are big spiders and snakes." What the hell is going on!?

A few hours? What!? We get off the bus and someone explains that the local soy bean farmers are protesting, something with the government. The road should open up at 8pm... or maybe 10pm. It's 6:30pm... we'll just... you guessed it... wait :) We're good at this. "Let's take out the barbecue and go hunting!" was a funny joke until the hours passed and we thought we might actually have to do it. As the hours slowly rolled by and the conversation dulled to the topic of the weather, we pulled out our last trick and provided some entertainment with our music and dancing. Being that we're in more tropical climates, the show ended shortly after a bug zeroed in and landed in Lori's armpit while she was playing.

We retreated to our air conditioned bus, chatted with our neighbors and finally around 9:30ish we were rolling again. Our 22 hour trip now extended to 25.

The next hours passed quickly because of a long, hilarious game of bingo that Lori won. In her moment of bus fame, she was given the microphone and told to sing "Arroz con leche" (ummm... how exactly does that tune go?) Thankfully some other woman volunteered to sing it and the whole bus chimed in. Lori and I both thinking we would have never guessed the tune in a million years. The assistant kindly gave her her prize broom :) and then a bottle of wine. We'll be opening that right now thanks!

Iguazu is so close I can feel the splash!

Hi and Bye Cafayate, Argentina

2009-04-02T09:51:00.013-04:00

Hostal El Balcon Pasaje 20 de Febrero 110, 35 pesos x person

We really had a world wind tour of the small, rocky town of Cafayate. We arrived at 11:30pm and left the next night at 2am.

Cafayate is known for it´s beautiful rock formations. We were told by our friends in Tilcara "You´ll want to kill yourself in Cafayate because everything is so beautiful and you can´t get out of the car!" It was true, the rock formations were amazing. And by now, rock watching is second nature!

Instead of our usual frustrating wrestle with public transportation to visit tourist attractions, we opted to take the 3rd tour of our trip.

It was worth it. It´s really amazing when you can just get in a van, go into a daze and poof! arrive at your destination! It was definitely worth the $15 :) Usually we do our own, cheaper, more of a hassle, what should take one day really takes 2 or 3 tour. We don´t mind, we have time and we don´t have money. And we´re practically South Americans by now, waiting hours calmly for a bus that may never come. We´re cool with it. We´ve learned from relaxed professionals. In South America, nothing happens in one day... or a week... or many times a month :)

Anyways, our easy as pie tour was breathtaking. After visiting Purmamarca, I thought "I´ll never see more colorful rocks for the rest of my life!" Until Cafayate... Fernando did us well recommending us to visit this beautiful, rocky part of Argentina.

Rocks of all shapes, sizes and colors surrounded us. The most breathtaking being a hike-cito through a canon with a rainbow of colors. We walked past walls of brown, yellow and green rocks and arrived at our destination called "Quebrada de Cafayate." Here layers and layers of colorful rocks are stacked on top of one another. We had seen postcards of this phenomenon, but to see up close was awesome. Brown, green, red, orange, white... all so clearly "painted" on top of each other. Amazing!

We finished up our tour visiting La Garganta del Diablo and the huge, acoustically perfect, naturally made theatre, where they have a microphone-less concert once a year.

We arrived back to our hostal, snuck in and occupied the couch watching HTV with some new, hilarious American girls we met. The quote of the night being from our new friend Tiffany, "You´re a Gassy Lassy? So is Emily!" We´ll be sure to meet up with these girls again in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

2am, time to catch our bus to Iguazu!

Tilcara/Purmamarca/Humahuaca/Iruya, Argentina: Rock in the Mawning

2009-03-30T10:57:00.020-04:00

Hostal Los Molles, on the same street as the bus station, (go straight past the plaza, it´s a white house on the right), 30 pesos for a dormitorio with breakfast and an incredible view!

We continued on north to Tilcara, getting even closer to Bolivia than we thought we´d ever do again. Although it still had something of an Argentinean feel, we were so close to Bolivia that we could practically taste the saltenas. Tilcara turned out to be one of the most relaxing and beautiful places we´ve visited. From our hostal we had a breathtaking view of the Quebrada (a long, stretch of rock formations between Salta and Tilcara.)

While sitting outside taking in the view, we met Joke (said, Yolka), a smart, giggly girl from Holland. It was late in the day, but we wanted a peek at Tilcara so we took a 3 km walk to the `lagoon` which was in fact more like a little pond full of yellow and blue beaked ducks. We were surrounded by rocky mountains, cactus and scenes that looked more painted than real. We walked down a woodsy path past small, clay houses where dogs chased rabbits up the rocky slopes and we watched the sky turn pink all around us.

Back at the hostal we met Edgardo, Lisandro and Juan, 3 guys from Pigue, (in the province of Buenos Aires), who turned out to not only be the nicest Argentineans we´d ever met, but also the most hilarious. In two quick days with their wit, humor and just really cute personalities they would change my previously conceived ideas about Argentineans forever.

Apparently, they´d bought too much meat, (6 pounds to be exact!) and didn´t know what to do with it, so they invited us to their barbecue. The food was great, minus the tomato and onion salad that Laura and I made. (We haven´t quite figured out the Chilean salad secret yet.) However, the death-by-onion jokes started rolling and we knew right way that the six of us would be great friends.

After dinner the laughs continued with a silly card game in which we learned that the guys had some amazingly funny and complicated dance moves and that never has Juan ever driven a blue car.

The next day Laura and I went to Purmamarca to see the famous ´Cerro de 7 Colores´ (Hill of 7 Colors). We found the town to be really touristy, the hill to be beautiful and the one hour walk around the hill to be much more impressive. We discussed why Purmamarca is famous for the hill of 7 colors when it could be famous for the valley of a thousand colors!

We took our time walking around exploring the layers of rocky hills, dark gray, behind green, behind brown, reds, oranges...smooth, knobby, jagged, wavy, etc; one more incredible than the next. We sat down for a while and enjoyed the view while I banged on my drum, listening to the distinct echos in the distance.

The next day we got up bright and early to travel four hours to Iruya with the chicos. Juan drove us to Humahuaca where we hopped on a bus that took us right into Iruya. The ride between Humahuaca and Iruya was astounding as we wound up and down mountains surrounded by (more) rock formations and snowy peaks. The boys hopped from side to side of the bus in giddy excitement, taking moment by moment footage of the high altitude landscape.

Once we arrived to Iruya, we hiked to the mirador where we had a view of the tiny town and the beautiful rocky hillsides. We then ate a huge milenesa (typical, Argentine breaded chicken or beef) lunch followed by a walk down to the river. On the way we ran into an old woman selling medicinal herbs. While Laura contemplated buying the cure for her cough, I decided to snap a quick photo of the old senora, something you should never do without asking first. I´m not sure why in that moment I thought I´d get away with it, but the flash went off and the woman got angry. She made me promise I´d send her a copy of the picture, so I sheepishly wrote down her name (apparently there are no street addresses in Iruya) and sincerely promised Petrona Burgos that her pic would be in the mail asap. (I´ve already sent it.)

The ride back to Tilcara seemed longer and much bumpier than the ride there... maybe because we only wanted to sleep, which was entirely impossible. Plus the river had risen, so we had barely gotten rolling when the bus and truck in front of us got stuck right in the middle of the muddy, rocky waters. 30 minutes later, with the help of the passengers and drivers, everyone was through. No one seemed to mind the wait though, since they were more interested in taking pictures of the laughable situation.

All in all, we had had a great day! It ran so smoothly that we were shocked it had been planned by the guys. Laura and I often joke about what we call the `man plan´... obviously planned by men: no money, no tickets, no communication, no clue. Lisandro, Edgardo and Juan defied all odds with a flawlessly organized day.

Once in Tilcara we summoned up our last ounces of energy and danced the night away at the little, local bar in town where we made up 6 of the 12 people there.

The next morning after a few, last laughs with the guys, we said our goodbyes to our favorite Argentines. We were headed for Cafayate.

Let´s party like it´s 2009 :) Salta, Argentina

2009-03-28T13:51:00.013-04:00

El Andaluz Cordoba 191 http://191www.hostalelandaluz.com.ar/ 28 pesos x person

The city of Salta is way up north and practically on the border of Bolivia. It definately has that Bolivia feel. Upon our arrival to Salta, after a 20 hour bus ride, we stretched our legs and were bombarded, in a nice way not the Ecua way, by hostal representatives from all over the city. Unknowingly, we chose the party hostal. Little did we know we´d be convinced, obligated and kindly dragged to the Salta party scene every night. We´ve never been to a hostal where there´s actually an entertainment coordinator.

Our party connection, Diego, cooked barbecues, took us dancing (us and 15 other hostal-ers he convinced), organized a visit to a peña (a dinner-music show), provided lots of wine and funny tourist stories. He was Mr.Fun. Which was great, except he made us feel like old ladies - a little peace and quiet anyone? :)

The Arg. party scene is a little bizarre. It starts at 2am, yes, 2am. Clubs and bars open at 1am-ish and are hopping at 2am until 6am. We weren´t and aren´t used to this type of partying! Doesn´t anyone want a decent night´s sleep? :)

Being dragged to the party was fun of course, but coincidentally made the next day start about 6 hours later than usual.

Salta is a beautiful city. All the places we´ve visited in Argentina have been beautiful with lots of trees and a small town feel, even in bigger cities. We visited the food market, which finally felt like the market we know and love. Dirty, smelly, raw, loud, cheap, perfect! We also visited the handicraft market and our eyes glazed over from the heat and poncho overload. Can you really consider anything wool when you are standing still and sweating? Lastly, we went to another handicraft fair which felt more like the Scituate Art Festival than the Juan Leon Mera Market. Here there were few wool ponchos and lots of jewelry... now we´re talking!

Of course, lets talk about the Argentinian barbecue. We could relate it to a Mayer Seafood Pigout, but with meat. We´re not talking hamburgers and hot dogs... no, no, no... we´re talking chorizo, blood sausage (just close your eyes and chew, it´s not so bad I swear!), tripe (intestines, see blood sausage instructions, but chew longer), steak, ribs and a million other cuts of meat that I have no idea what they mean but are common parts of Arg. conversation. The serving tray never seemed to empty nor did our glasses of wine. It was one of the most delicious nights of my life. We chatted it up with some Porteños (people from Buenos Aires) from the neighborhood of "Flowers." They cutely explained that it´s right next to the neighborhood "Little Horse." We chuckled at how ridiculous it sounded in English.

We also chatted with some funny Germans who explained that their town in Germany is known for being the most organized and for putting "lay" on the end of words to make things nice and little. Their example to us "sausage-lay," simply meaning "a little, cute sausage." Thank you for that fine example.

After the BBQ... of course, we went dancing.

The last highlight of our Salta stop was the peña. Maybe you remember peñas from Peru? We went to an amazing music and dance show in Lima, Peru and wrote about it in the blog. Here it was different dancing and music, but just as great. It consisted of live music and traditional Arg. dances. We were wowed by stomping, dancing Arg. cowboys and twirling girls with frilly skirts. We ate llama empanadas, rocked out folklore style and received a free bottle of wine for my fake-birthday celebration.

And of course, after... we went dancing.

We enjoyed our combo Bolivian-Arg city. We felt more at home than ever. We´re heading closer to the Bolivian border to check out some famous rock stuff. Chao!

ps: the pictures in this blog are not ours, we were too hot to take pictures. They are borrowed from the internet. Thank you anomous picture taker!

Mendoza, Argentina: Let the Wine Floooow Flow Flow Flow

2009-03-23T13:59:00.012-04:00

Casa Pueblo Hostal, Pellegrini 377, two blocks from the bus terminal 35 pesos for a dormitorio

Mendoza is one of the biggest wine producing capitals in the world. We unknowingly arrived just in time for the Festival de la Vendimia (annual wine celebration). We also unknowingly arrived at the hottest time of the year and were momentarily paralyzed by the heat. During the summer it's so unbearably hot that everything closes between 1 pm and 5 pm. This did not work out so well with our usual wake up late schedule.

Mendoza in my opinion is the most beautiful city in Argentina. It's big, but feels small; cute and elegant restaurants, cafes and ice cream parlors line the streets; and there are more than 5 main plazas to relax in. Apparently anyone (including foreigners) can study at Mendoza's public university for free! I could definitely live in this city.

I might sum up our time in Mendoza with one word: WALK. During our 7 day stay we walked everywhere, partly by choice and partly because we couldn't really get a handle of the public transportation.

We made our first usual stop at the mercado artesenal where we met Sebastian, a sweet, but spacey guy selling duck puppets and moldable faces. He was kind enough to fix Laura's sandal with his puppet glue. At that time we didn't know that he'd pop up over and over again during our stay in Mendoza.

At night we went to Plaza Italia for the Italian Festival where we listened to opera music and waited in looooong lines to try food from different regions in Italy... polenta, calamari, tiramisu, cannolis... mmmmm (It definitely made up for all the bad Italian food we've eaten while in South America.)

The next day our walk-a-thon began with a trip to the zoo. We spent about 4 hours working our way through the winding paths lined with various species of lions, monkeys, birds, etc. Our favorites being the hippos. ("I said, you're huuge, you're funky...") Really this zoo was neverending.

At night the Festival de la Vendimia began with an impressive parade during which the candidates for the queen of the Vendimia threw gifts to the spectators. The whole city had gathered to see this event which is why Sebastian, the puppet guy, tried to explain to us that if you go in the crowd, "te toca"... in other words, something will happen. We weren't really sure what that meant, but we did think entering the crowd could be dangerous since some of the girls were throwing melons! (Knocking someone unconscious with a melon doesn't seem to be the best way to get elected, but what do I know?)

The next morning while eating our bread with dulce de leche breakfast (mmm), we met Gabriel, a free-spirited, hipster Colombian, who can best be described as "buena honda" (a term used for people who give off a really good vibe or energy). Gabriel, Laura and I chatted our way back to the second day of the parade, ran into Sebastian again and watched horse after horse trot by. Then came the chicas again, this time throwing grapes and just apples into the crowd (maybe their aim was better than with the melons...)

When the parade ended, we hopped on a bus with Gabriel headed for the vineyards. We got off a little too soon and what looked like a two block walk on our map turned out to be more than an hour in the scorching heat. When we arrived, the vineyard was closed. So we walked some more, arrived to another vineyard where the rudest host ever showed us our wine tasting options and limited food options... ( A sandwich or....No that's it. A sandwich...) We finally sat down with a bottle of Malbec and our sandwichazos (huge sandwiches) which turned out to be more like a big, juicy piece of meat with bread.

Getting back to the city ended up being almost as complicated as our arrival. Gabriel had a bus to Buenos Aires to catch, but with a small miracle and our police car, bus, taxi combo, he made it without a minute to spare.

At night back in the hostal, we met two people who'd play a large role in the rest of our Mendoza days; Hiya, a funky, adventurous girl from England and Negro, a quiet, but intriguing Argentinean. After a few beers the 4 or us decided to test out the Argentine nightlife. Going out in Argentina is a commitment; it involves having a lot of energy and knowing that you'll probably do close to nothing the next day. Clubs open around 1:30 a.m. and don't get hopping until 2:00 a.m. So we put on our dancing shoes, left the hostal around 1 a.m. and rocked out until almost 6 in the morning.

Next day: recovery.

On Monday we went with Negro to the repetition of the big vendimia fiesta which really happened on Saturday, but was much cheaper and just as good on Monday. Our expectations where low when they told us there would be a play about wine making. (We pictured a few guys running around on stage stepping on grapes...) However, our mouths hung open as 500 + dancers did a dramatic, artistic reenactment of the wine harvest complete with lights, fountains and countless costume changes. This was followed by one of the most impressive firework displays I've ever seen in my life. Then 2 famous Argentine singers performed, Kevin Johanssen and Javier Calamaro (less famous than his brother Andres, probably due to his fashion sense.)

Our last day in Mendoza was a perfect finale to the time we'd spent there. We decided to head back tot he vineyards in hopes of having a more successful experience than the 1st time. We hopped on a bus with Negro (unfortunately, the wrong bus) and somehow ended up closish to the vineyards where we wanted to be, only to find that it was closed, again... We were not off to a good start.

We then walked in circles for a couple of hours while everyone gave us contradictory directions until we decided to take a break and eat the biggest ice cream of our lives in the plaza with a fountain that spurted out wine colored water. With a new sense of determination we got on another bus and finally made it to where we wanted to be, Familia Di Tomasso, the oldest winery in Mendoza. We got an interesting and informative tour for only 10 pesos, followed by a wine tasting.

We then went back to Tempus Alba where we originally tried to go with Gabriel. The winery was completely different than the first, with modern technology, lots of steel and everything computerized. After a tour, we sat on the balcony with a view of the whole vineyard and shared a bottle of wine and some incredibly delicious, fresh made grape juice with the crazy, exceptionally friendly server who seemed more interested in Negro than in us.

After a long ride back, we continued the wine tasting in our hostal accompanied by some good food made by our own chef, Nego.

The next day we said good-bye to our new friends and comfy hostal, but not before meeting a Rhode Islander who had just arrived the night before. We laughed for a minute about Newport and Del´s and said we'd see each other at McFadden's in Providence.

We couldn't have loved Mendoza more!!!

...We were off to Salta... another 20 hour bus ride.

I´m melting to the seat El Bolson, Argentina

2009-03-15T20:31:00.009-04:00

The cabaña on the corner of Feliciano and Anden. It has a sign saying "Cabaña por dia." 40 pesos x person.

We have arrived to Argentina in the middle of summer. They say the heat was worse about a month ago (with temperatures reaching 100 degrees ) but what we caught of the heat was enough for us.

"I think I´ve melted into the seat" That´s what I said as we pulled up to the one room bus station in El Bolson. We were in a microwave on wheels and had become part of the bus seat from our 2 hour tanning booth quality direct sunlight.

El Bolson is a nice little town in the lakes district of Argentina. It´s full of sparkling rivers and lakes, dark green forests, dry rocky mountains and a bosque tallado (a forest full of trees sculpted by artists), cold lakes and a $10 all you can eat buffet, which we took advantage of our first night.

In our many days in El Bolson we spent most of them catching up with our Copacabana friend Fernando, hanging out in the full-of-hippies-and-handicrafts central plaza, movie watching (because of the intense heat and later rain) and cooking.

Maybe you remember our friend Fernando (he´s one of the interesting, spiritual, gem and nature loving hippies we wrote about in our La Paz & Copacabana, Bolivia travels.) He has been traveling around selling rings and other fine jewelry treasures at handicraft festivals around Argentina. He´s been traveling south in Argentina and we´ve been traveling south in Chile. It worked out just right to reunite and catch up in El Bolson. He acted as our more-or-less helpful tour guide. Though due to his and my bad orientation, we did do the forced march in 90 degree weather for a few hours before deciding we had passed what we were looking for and decided to head back. We revived ourselves from the heat by dipping our feet in a nearby river. :)

The central park/plaza in El Bolson was really the place to be any time of day. At whatever hour you could find clown performances, crazy dancers, jugglers, slow motion yoga demonstrations, independent writers passing out their newest creations, rock bands, drum circles and Lori playing her drum. We spent some serious time here doing rigorous people watching.

We had a nice cabaña for the three of us which, as Fernando had been in Argentina for a while, was very uncommon. It would be our first and last non-dormitory style lodging. (Dormitory meaning lots of beds in one room occupied by different people each night.)

Being that we had the whole cabaña to ourselves, we tried all 5 of the recipes we know (our Ecuadorian rice and eggs plate would be recipe 6... we won´t count that.) This included experimenting with our version of Mr.Nardacci´s famous meatballs, which though they didn´t come out very ball like, were 5 star. Definitely up to Mr.Nardacci´s taste standards.

We decided to continue our travels in the North of Argentina and Fernando on his way south. hopefully our paths will cross again. In the mean time we boarded our mobile home for the next 20 hours and got ready for Mendoza.

First Stop... Bariloche, Argentina

2009-03-13T14:38:00.004-04:00

Alojamiento Familiar 68 San Martin, tel: (02944) 424864 with a crazy but well intentioned lady :)

Though it has a reputation for being a touristy, shopping destination, they fail to tell you that all the shops that line the streets of Bariloche are... chocolate shops! Yes, it´s a chocolate (and hiking) lovers paradise. What better way to celebrate after a long hike around Bariloche´s as-far-as-the-eye-can-see, frigid lake than with yummy pieces of chocolate.

We only spent one delicious, chocolate filled day in Bariloche (I mean how much chocolate torture could we take?!?) With my bus monitor detection in tip-top shape (Lori always makes fun of me for my bus monitor ways), we found a lost cell phone on the bus (and phoned "Dad," promptly returning it to it´s owner), helped an old lady adjust her bus seat, opened bus windows for struggling passengers and saved a woman´s bag of chocolates she had left... on the bus. Phewf! Among all our busy bus responsibilities, we did find time to dip our big toes in the lake (instantly turning to ice) and meet some nice Americans.

Americans! Wowzer! It´s been a long time since we´ve met any Americans! Thanksgiving was our last encounter. Our excitement rose, our voices rose, our giddy laughter rose... it couldn´t have been a more welcomed and comfortable meeting. Our friends-for-a-day, Erika, Zack, Tim and Kenton, made us laugh with their funny, exactly our type of humor jokes. They told us about their spanish learning difficulities: Manjar (a type of South American caramel) was their first -AR verb (Example: She was really manjaring those cds we were about to buy.) We laughed while hearing stories of getting robbed at screwdriver point in Argentina (no, it´s not a pier in Argentina, as I thought. It´s actually the equivalent of getting robbed at gun point, but with a screwdriver.)

We shared our three bed hostal room with our four new friends and a big, funny misunderstanding of our hostal woman. ("Did you hear what I heard... I think she said we have to shower together?") Thankfully she was actually talking about sharing keys, not showers.

And lastly, we discussed how exactly you would make a citizen´s arrest in the states (Do you have to talk in a deep voice? Need to have handcuffs on hand? These are all important things to know.)

One day was enough time for them and us in Bariloche. They were headed deep in the Patagonia and we were off to meet our Copacabana friend, Fernando, in El Bolson.

Bye guys!

From Puerto Mont to Bariloche

2009-03-09T14:45:00.004-04:00

The border crossing into Argentina was a piece of cake. There were no pick up lines (like at the Peruvian border), no visa applications or angry officials (like at the Bolivian border) and no tedious, time consuming baggage searches (like at the Chilean border).

Just a stamp on the passport aaaaand... a minor push of the bus...

"Come on in!!! Welcome to Argentina!"

...well, thank you... think I will. =)

Chile In a Nutshell

2009-03-09T13:29:00.004-04:00

In conclusion to our travels in Chile, we'd like to share this list of things that really floated our boat:
75% chance of toilet paper in bathrooms. Ají. Beach sunsets. Caramel popcorn. Cheese stores. Chilean Salad (tomato & onion). Chochoca. Close to the beach always. Cord stores. Credit cards accepted. Electronics. European musical instruments (the harp!). Everyone thinking we're gypsies. Fashonable knit clothes. Fish (resembling fish and chips). Funky capri pants. Headbands. Hot dogs (El completo). Internet in hostals. Kuchen. Legroom on buses. Milcao. Most common response to where we're from: "Barak Obama!" Most popular music: Oasis, Reik, Julieta Venegas. Mote con huesillos. Mullets. Music with 2 or less accordions. Nectarines. No cumbia. No more electric showers TTZZzzz. Nuts 4 Nuts and Nuts 5 Nuts. Pablo Neruda. Paved roads. Peaches. Scarves. Seafood empanadas. Similar sense of humor. Something green and fibrous on our plates. Sweet, old lady hostal owners. Subway. Sunset at 8:30 p.m. TV in rooms. Variety of religions. We almost blend in with Chileans. Wind up music box men with a parrot.

and this list of things we could have easily lived without:

Americanized culture. Begging backpackers who blew their money on booze. Boring beaches. Chilean diet: 1.5 meals a day. Chilean slang (sí po). Closed tourist attractions. Cueca (traditional Chilean dance). Difficult exchange rate. Disgusting overuse of mayonnaise. Emo fad. Fanny packs. Half dreds/half something else. High prices. Humitas. Markets didn't exist. Music with 3+ accordions. Noise ordinances. Quieter people. Rat tail hairdo (1990s style). Sedated dogs.Thin ozone layer. Weather (really hot, really rainy).

Chiloé, Chile: Smells Like Home

2009-03-04T14:19:00.019-05:00

Hospedaje Su Casa, Los Alerces 841, www.chiloe.cl/sucasa, hospedajesucasa@gmail.com, Highly recommended!!

Chiloé, an island off the coast of southern Chile, immediately reminded Laura and me of a small New England town. The climate was sunny and cool, the people friendly, the ocean close and the scenery incredible. We arrived to Chiloé by a short ferry ride. While crossing, we saw several sea lions and luckily just as a little girl burst into tears, "Buuuut daddy, I want to see a dolphin!!!" we saw one.

We spent most of our time in Ancud, a city in the north of Chiloé. When we arrived to Ancud, the usual hostal search began. A man approached us and energetically tried to convince us to go with him to his hostal... several times, but his insistence turned us away and we refused his offer... seeeveral times. We continued going from hostal to hostal asking for a room to no avail.

Everything was full, but one lady made a few calls for us, found a place and told us someone was on their way to pick us up.

Who pulled up?? Same guy. "Ha haa! I knew it," he proclaimed. Laura and I were embarrassed, but we had no choice other than to go with him.

Su Casa turned out to be the best hostal we'd ever been in. His wife was very nice and personable, the house immaculate, and the breakfast overflowing with kuchen. We did catch one rainy day in Ancud, but we were more than happy to stay in our comfy room with cable TV and our usual art projects.

We spent a day exploring Ancud from one end to the other; an old Spanish fort, equipped with cannons, a peaceful look-out point, a small rocky beach. We collected sea glass and other junky treasures and stopped to chat with an old painter who although said, he'd be making room for another painter in the world soon, still had a youthful glimmer in his eye when he told stories about his past.

Ancud seemed to be full of funny characters, which we later discovered was because a Chilean circus convention was being held that weekend. We had the chance to see a free concert hosted by clowns and including various musical groups. We particularly enjoyed the tuba, accordion, tambourine trio rocking out gypsy music (hep hep hep!) and Mandrago who brought down the house with English, Canadian and Irish folk music, among other things. The girl sung so beautifully in English that we were shocked to find out that she wasn't a gringa. She sure fooled us!

We also took a day trip a little further south to Casto, the capital of Chiloé, which was having the annual Festival Custombrista showcasing Chiloé's traditions. We saw demonstrations on how to build a boat, make apple chica (liquor), de-wool a sheep (not sure what the technical term for that would be) and put on a horseshoe. All things that will be very useful in our future...

We of course made our rounds, eating; our favorite thing being chochoca (mashed potatoes flattened and rolled with meat in the middle.) We sat for a while and watched a fashion show that had real women (not super models) showing off the simple but elegant, cream colored, linen, Chiloé fashion. This was followed by traditional music such as the cueca (cousin to the salmacueca, a Peruvian rhythm and dance, but less interesting) and a group of 4 accordion players which seemed like too many (if you ask our opinion).

We left Chiloé content that we got to see something really beautiful during our time in Chile. Unfortunately the city leading to the border crossing we'd originally planned was annihilated 6 months ago in a volcanic eruption and days before we were about to cross the volcano had woken up with a few firey burps. So we needed to take another route. We discovered to our despair that we would have to go back to Osurno, an unattractive, dirty, commercial city, for the third time. (We had to stop there to get to Frutillar and then got stuck there for a full day while trying to get out of Frutillar.) But we had no choice, so we bit the bullet and hopped on a bus to Osurno. From there it was smooth sailing right to Bariloche, Argentina

Frutillar, Chile: For that German Feel

2009-03-01T18:05:00.014-05:00

Hospedaje ? (It's a big red building across from the bus station) On the corner of Carlos Richter and Arturo Alessandri, 5000 pesos a night

Visiting Frutillar, Chile would be like visiting Scituate, Rhode Island. It was quaint, quiet, and nothing was happening. We missed Semana Musical (an annual concert event) by a couple of weeks. So by the time we got to Frutillar everything was back to normal. We were reminded of Copacabana, Bolivia; "Every day's a normal day," as one señora had told us.

Frutillar sits on a beautiful lake with an immense snow-capped volcano looming in the background. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), we caught three rainy days and were never able to see it. We did take a few long walks down to the the lake, checked out the handicrafts (stall after stall of warm, knit scarves, headbands, sweaters, etc.), played some music and took a long nap under leafy trees.

We stayed in a nice family hostal, the owner, like almost all the hostals we stayed at in Chile, a sweet, old lady. Frutillar was so tranquil that we had time to catch up on our art projects... (sewing and macrame made for two of the most uneventful nights we've had so far.)

The real highlight of our time in Frutillar and what this small town is famous for was the kuchen, said kooHen (it's German). We made it a personal goal of ours to eat as much of this pudding like cake as we could.

When we had had more than our fill of kuchen, we were off to more southern shores.

A little rant... Temuco, Chile

2009-02-25T09:23:00.015-05:00

Hostal 525 Zentero 525 5,500 pesos per person

The Lakes Region is just south of the middle of Chile. There must be 10 National Parks, all stock full of lagoons, volcanos, forests, stuff to make your jaw drop. Everyone, and we mean every Chilean, tells us, "Wait till you get to the South of Chile, there the landscapes are spectacular." We were really pumped to be leaving the city life and entering a National Park filled paradise.

To comfortably visit Chile, or at least The Lakes Region, you should really have one or all of these things:
-a budget of $40+ a day
-a week per destination
-a car
-a tent

We have... none of these things, making Chile a little more difficult and frustrating than the other countries we´ve been in. We haven´t really done anything special, eaten anything special or seen anything special here in Chile (I mean, I´m exaggerating a little... but only a little.) Still, we blow through our budget like nothing. We continue with our Chilean diet (waking up late, so our 1.5 meals gets us through the day) to no avail.

This has left us a little resentful. In The Lakes Region there are magnificent places to see. Temuco is a city near a few of them. The real biggie being Parque Nacional Conguillo which boasts impressive lakes, a volcano and amazing old, huge trees. Let´s go check it out we say!

Not so fast... Our excitement is squashed as we find out there´s no public transportation to the park, and we have no car. Without it you have to walk 10km just to the entrance, making a day trip impossible. There are no hostals in the park and we have no tent. No this, no that... blah blah blah... How can you promote tourism of national parks and have no way to get there, nowhere to stay and no way to get out.

A car, a tent or more than $40 would be very handy right about now. How many times have we said this while visiting Chile?

Being that we have none of these things... we opt for the park´s cheaper, easier to access, less famous, neighbor Reserva Malalcahuello. Visiting this park was relaxing and without a doubt an escape from the city. We saw a volcano, tons of little woodland lizards, huge araucaria trees, a cute mouse and best of all, took an undisturbed nap in the sun. We definately had peace of mind. It was a very enjoyable experience. But the fact that it´s superstar neighbor seemed so close but so far away, haunted us.

We´re sure Chile is a beautiful place to visit, without a doubt it´s amazing! We´ll have to come back when we´re rich and famous. For now, we´re scraping by on Arabic street performances.

In our lastest performance, we invited our always present, Number 1 Fan to come and do a little number with us. Yup, you guessed it, our token drunk man. Since the crowd seemed more interested in his stumbling dance moves, I called him over to share the stage. It was a real crowd pleaser :) and all good fun until, when giving us his 20 peso tip, he drooled in Lori´s drum case (we use it for the coins.)

Show´s over folks! Off to Frutillar!

:) Santiago, Chile

2009-02-22T08:25:00.018-05:00

Terra Extremus Vicuna Mackenna 38, 1 minute from the Baquedano subway stop 7000 pesos x person

Santiago greeted us with an exhausting 3 hour hostal search in suffocating heat. Great, just great. We suffered silently with our behemoth backpacks as we were told time and time again "No room." We were ready to scream. Actually, I think melt would be a better word. Apparently there was a 10,000 person HerbaLife convention in the city (ask Lori about her existing views on HerbaLife) so we went door to door with no luck.

Pooped and dripping in sweat, we stopped to eat and stretch out our breaking backs. We wolfed down our food and when we paused from our food coma, we noticed musicians at our neighboring table. We started chatting. They were dorks alright, good ol´ orchestra boys. A french horn player, a trumpet player and the first chair violin player, all in the Symphonic Orchestra of Chile. They were just coming back from a week long tour in another Chilean city. They seemed nice, harmless and best of all - music geeks just like us.

We told them our sad story about hostals and asked if they knew of any places around. At that point we would have taken anything. They thought for a second and then one said "I mean, I have an extra room in my house. You guys are welcome to stay..." A few moments of silent conversation between Lori and I (thanks to Lori´s new sign language knowledge, we have the basic signs down pat) we decided to take our new band buddies up on their offer. Band Camp 2009 here we come!

With our new friends Hector, Italo, Wiston, Rodrigo and Cristian (are there no girls in the orchestra?) we lugged our body bags to Wiston´s house outside of the city. His house was like a nerd fraternity. We sat around cooking, watching "Amazing Mozart" videos on YouTube (internet in a house!! wow!!), taking dips in his backyard pool and of course, doing what we do best - playing music and dancing. Our new friends set the Chilean cool standard!

One day sort of rolled into the next with a midnight BBQ followed by a day of performances. We tried to hop around from one show to another... live cumbia, jazz (Cristian is a famous Jazz musician, who knew...), accordions, guitars... as we repeated many times, we were with the coolest nerds in Chile :)

Finally, 3 nights later, we decided to mature and move into a real hostal. (What do dead people and guests have in common? They both stink after a few days.) We thanked Wiston for his hospitality and got our own place (which turned out to be awesome and brand spanking new - so new that we celebrated their 1 month anniversary during our stay there.) The owners, Rodrigo and Alex, and other travelers at this hostal were also stellar.

During our last few days in Santiago, we visited the other 2 houses of Pablo Neruda. "Isla Negra" was right on the beach and the other "La Chascona" was about 5 blocks from our hostal. Both of which were beautiful with Pablo´s spirit but neither of the two outshone the house we visited in Valparaiso. Now, we´re Pablo Neruda experts - just try us!

The last noteable event of Santiago happened while taking the subway to the bus station to head off to Temuco. In our half full subway car, Lori suddenly yelled "Tomaste algo, amigo?!" (Did you take something, buddy!?) in a very angry voice. Now tomar is a funny word in spanish because it can mean to take and to drink. I didn´t realize she found this grimey man´s hand in her pocketbook. I thought she was cracking down on the drunks in Santiago. Maybe she had secretly turned vigilante of the Santiago drunks. Watchwoman Lori, cleaning up the streets one drunk at a time.

But no, he was actually robbing her. Thankfully, he was unsuccessful and didn´t take or drink anything. She got everyone on the subway car all riled up. It was great (and funny now in retrospect). Gringa power!

Anyways, on a brighter note, the people we met in Santiago really made this regular hustle and bustle, big time city, stand out above the rest. Our hostal friends and orchestra friends were by far the best things that had happened to us in Chile :)

Jewels of the Pacific Viña del Mar and Valpariso, Chile

2009-02-18T13:16:00.023-05:00

Hostal with no name 147 Batuco 5,500 pesos a night if you stay more than 3 nights. It´s a fantastic home environment because you´re literally in their house

Viña and Valpo (the Chilean slang... yeah, we´re cool :) have reputations of being colorful and exciting, they definitely lived up to their name. We didn´t even leave the bus station and the fun began.

In the bus terminal we met Antonio and Diego, our first Chilean friends. They proved to be different than anyone else we´d met and they were cool... for one day :) They turned out to be pretty uninterested in... us and kinda everything. But they were friendly enough. They were very serious guys - our jokes weren´t funny and it seemed they stopped listening to our stories after a minute or two. Nothing seemed to make our serious friends crack a smile (except for a foto or two.) They did want to do a show with us, which we agreed to after eating a Chorillana (a typical Chilean dish of meat and french fries.)

From there we took our hard earned lucas (Chilean pesos) and tore up all of the 4 gigantic dance floors at the biggest night club we´d ever seen, funnily named "The Egg."

Still uninterested and smileless (though we did have fun) we said bye to our first Chilean friends.

The next day, we stumbled upon an art festival in the park and a dance show in the theatre. The conversation at the entrance of the Viña Theatre went something like this: "So, what´s happening here today?" "Looks like a Ballet company." "What time does it start?" "Says 8pm." "What time is it now?" "7:55pm" "I mean, we wanna go?" "Sounds good..."

We were wowed by impecable coal mine dances, flawless traditional dances from various South American countries and live music played to perfection. It was an unexpected, jaw-dropping surprise!

A few days later we bought tickets for a bellydance show that was also in the Viña Theatre. Unfortunately, our mouths dropped open because it was so... bad. It was an unexpected, sad disappointment. In fact, Lori went to take a picture of a dancer and I thought "I really do not want to remember this for the rest of my life." The one part of the show we did enjoy was the crazy old lady who, in her I´ve-been-smoking-for-40-years voice (she´s in the background of the photo), introduced each dancer with veils, swords and crazy hats. She was definitely the highlight :)

Another big highlight was Pablo Neruda´s breathtaking house in Valpo. Pablo is a famous Chilean poet and a hero of Lori and me. His house left us inspired with a whimsical energy you can´t find just anywhere. His boat-like house was decorated to a T with an unobstructed panoramic view of the entire city and ocean. With his collection of colored glass bottles, furniture from every corner of the world, rock murals and 3 wives, it´s easy to see where his magical inspiration came from. It was something we won´t soon forget.

We said bye to Viña and Valpo, we were off to Chile´s capital, Santiago.

***La Serena

2009-02-18T13:07:00.002-05:00

After leaving La Serena an anonymous source informed us that our "Arab friend", Samir, is not exactly who he says he is. He actually isn't at all who he says he is. If you want to hear the whole ridiculous story, you'll have to ask me about it when you see me. =)

La Serena Chile: "And You Sang to Me..."

2009-02-14T22:19:00.005-05:00

DAY 2

After our quick trip to Pisco Elqui we were back in La Serena, ready for our 40 minutes of fame. Thanks to our Arab friend, Samir, we had mics, speakers and the best spot in the plaza.

The show went well. We had the biggest audience we'd ever had and walked away with 21 lucas (21,000 pesos chilenos), much better than the 4,000 we'd made two nights before.

The night didn't end there though. We went with Samir to a discoteca where he wowed the ladies by singing an Arabic song and we did one last performance. There was a little time left to get some of our own dancing in. We were just so happy to be out of the land of cumbia and back in a place where reggaeton rules the dance floor.

The next day we just took some time to explore La Serena and do some more people watching. La Serena is truly a city full of art. Everywhere we walked there was a young violinist, a folkloric group, a mime gathering a crowd big enough to stop traffic, or our favorite "the tunas".

Tunas are groups of usually men, who play various string instruments, sing romantic music and wear tights with short pants. This particular day there happened to be an International South America Tuna Convention. As we were crossing through the plaza, we were approached by a group of young lads who didn't want our money, they just wanted to sing to us. Laura and I felt famous again for a minute while a group of 7 nerdy, but handsome guys (yes, wearing tights) sung just to us in the middle of the plaza.

We then decided to check out the local beach. It was a typical Chilean beach; really cold water, lots of people playing paddle ball and a sun hot enough to give me a strange pocketbook burn line.

At night we thanked Samir for all his help, said good-bye and hopped on a bus headed for Viña del Mar.

I think I might melt Pisco Elqui, Chile

2009-02-14T21:55:00.015-05:00

Hostal with no name Calle Centenario, at the top left corner of the plaza principal 7,000 pesos and a nice man who really knows how to cook

We visited Pisco Elqui (about 2 hours from La Serena) for all of 24 hours. This small town sits in Elqui Valley and is known for it´s green vineyards and papaya groves. During the nauseating trip there (does anyone know how to drive not like a wacko in this continent??!) we passed a bright blue lake and miles of green... everything in this dry, brown valley. It really was stunning.

But... the 9000 degree punch in the face as we got off the bus, was not so stunning. We decided immediately we wouldn´t be staying long. The heat was so stifling, we honestly couldn´t move until sundown. We parked ourselves at a local restaurant, listened to live harp music (WTF?) and drank/ate our mote con huesillos.

One lap around the plaza, a walk long enough to be told "There´s only private property around here." and a quick inquiry at the Mistral vineyard ($10 a tour. They make the Chilean liquor, Pisco) we stayed the night but decided we didn´t have enough money for this town. The next day, just as the morning sun started microwaving this small town, we hopped on a bus and enjoyed the equally breathtaking bus ride back to La Serena :)

If you don´t have alot of money or tolerance for oven-like heat, make Pisco Elqui a day trip.

La Serena, Chile: Every Day is a Circus Act

2009-02-14T21:37:00.006-05:00

Hostal Alameda: Aguirre y Los Carrera 6ooo pesos chilenos (a really sweet, old lady is the owner)

DAY 1

Within our 1st hour in La Serena our suspicions about Chile proved to be true; a hot dog and a coffee is a perfectly acceptable breakfast and the mullet is all the rage here. Believe it or not, Chileans actually make it look pretty cool and stylish.

La Serena was in fact very serene. We spent our first day catching up on Internet stuff and exploring the city just enough to meet Samir, an Arab from Tunisia, who sells all things belly dance related. He convinced us to do a show in the plaza at night, but we refused his offer of microphones and speakers.

We later found out that we would be competing with about 10 other acts that regularly perform in the plaza ranging from ranchero singers, fully costumed jazz dancers, several clowns, robotic man, the spinning, dancing backwards-playing drum quartet, all bigger and louder than little ol' us.

We managed to gather a small crowd, but we weren't making enough noise to get the attention we needed. When Samir (the first Arab we've come across in our travels so far) came over during our show to see us, I got so nervous that I stopped playing. I was embarrassed, but not as embarrassed as Laura had been after the cane throwing incident during our performance in Bahía Inglesa.

We did of course have our usual #1 fan, the harmless drunk man. After an hour, we took our $7.50 and called it a night. It wasn't over though. We were already devising a plan to give those other groups a run for their money. We'd be back.

The Chile, ahem, Chilly Carribean, Caldera & Bahia Inglesa, Chile

2009-02-01T14:37:00.004-05:00

Residencial Yanina on the principal street towards the plaza, entering Caldera from the highway. 6,000 x person

Now that we´re on new turf, there´s lots of people watching to do. All the Ecuadorian investigation we´ve done over the past 2 years has to be put aside. New places, new faces. We´re serious about this :) It´s been quite a noteworthy culture shock.

First, we´d like to note that life does not start here at 8 or 9am. From what we´ve seen, life starts a little later in the day, maybe because the sun doesn´t rise until about 7:30am. Who wants to wake up at 7am in the dark? Well, if the sun rises so late, for sure it sets late. We´re talking still light at 9:30pm folks. It´s pretty nuts.

While observing real, live, European looking Chileans in action, we´ve noticed lots of things. Nope, we´re definitely not in Ecuador, Peru or Bolivia anymore. No more indigenous people and not too much dark skin (I imagine we´ll see more as we go more south.) No more pedestrian targets (We swear in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia drivers earn money if they run you down) and no more restaurant dishes that consist of a piece of chicken and 3 portions of carbs (rice, potatoes and pasta... no, not your side options, they´re all on your plate.)

We relaxed on our first real beach since Mancora and took in the sights and sounds. Lots of reggaeton and religious parades (How to play Chilean religious music: two groups of people playing one note recorders, alternate "toots" between each group. Group 1 "toot," Group 2 "toot," Group 1 "toot", Group 2 "toot", etc. Same note, different group. Continue like this forever while slightly lifting first your right leg, then your left with each "toot.")

It seems the "Emo" look has just arrived and is in full swing here in Chile. Possible hair-do options: Shaved on the top, loooong on the outside. Maybe you´d like a reversed bowl cut? Or the always popular mullet (which isn´t as scary as the 80´s in the states.)
A coffee and hot dog smothered in avocado and mayo for breakfast is a popular breakfast choice.

People are no longer rolling in the sand for the natural speckled sunscreen look, sunscreen is neatly applied to all body parts (they are European looking, so sun burns are more common.) And beach towels! We hadn´t seen people lying on beach towels on the sand in years! (We never visit a beach without our RI beach sheet, which many have commented that we stole off our hostal bed. But no, it´s actually straight from the Scarborough shore.)

The Chilean accent is a tough one, it´s fast, slurred together and makes us feel like gigantic idiots (the ol´ 30 second processing delay.) Enough observations... we could be here all day. But they are fun... :)

Our daily routine in Caldera was pretty basic and beachy. Eat yummy seafood, walk around a little bit and relax on the beach. They say Caldera´s beach, Bahia Inglesa, is Chile´s own piece of the Caribbean. It was very beautiful, when the sun was out... but much chillier than the Caribbean.

Being that everything is much more expensive here, we decided to get working. We had a day of street performances during our stay. Everything went fine until I threw my cane into the crowd accidentally (it slipped due to sunscreen slime, hahaha) and some lady who enjoyed letting her dog bark and bark and bark at a close range at Lori and her drum playing. I would have hit her with my cane, but it was in the crowd... :P Otherwise, we were pleasantly surprised with our $60 earnings!

We took our can, heavy with coins (and possibly qualified as a weapon), ordered two yummy shrimp, scallop and cheese empanadas and planned our departure to La Serena :)

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile: Sssssshhhh!!!!

2009-01-27T15:35:00.009-05:00

Hostal Vilacoyo One block from the main plaza, 7000 pesos x person

Well we definitely weren´t in Bolivia anymore, the prices had risen, the temperature had risen, the number of laws had risen.

First, we had to get used to the new currency $1 = 600 Chilean pesos. What?! The hostal costs 7,000 pesos!!! (oh wait... just give us a moment to get out our rusty math skills).

Regardless, things were expensive. We definitely weren´t going to find any $3 hostals there. We knew right away that the moment we had crossed that Bolivian border, we had entered a new world.

San Pedro was hot, desert like and had zero cheap forms of entertainment. We tried to make our own entertainment but first got reprimanded in the hostal for talking too loudly at 10:30 p.m. and then, the following day, almost arrested.

Apparently, our drumming in the plaza was not appreciated by everyone. The local police promptly arrived on the scene and while one rudely questioned us and told us to follow him, the other flirtatiously winked at us (real professional, the ol´ good cop, bad cop routine).

Unfortunately, we couldn´t leave this expensive tourist trap as quickly as we had hoped due to a lack of buses. However, we did make the most of our time there with our new friends Sarah (England) and Rachel (New Zealand), a bottle of wine and funny, girl gossip.

Salar de Uyuni-Day 3: Adios, Ciao, Au Revoir Bolivia!

2009-01-27T15:19:00.015-05:00

At 4:30am we robotically dragged ourselves out of bed after a sleepless night. We got in our freezer, I mean tour van and were off. First stop: the geezers, excuse me, geysers. (Our British friends kept saying "We´re going to see the geezers!" Laura and I couldn´t stop laughing at this pronunciation confusion... eccentric, old people? what? :)

As the sun rose in the distance, we shivered our way around the steaming pools, trying not to inhale too much sulfur. The smelly steam being shot out of the ground gave the appearance that we were on Mars. It was actually really incredible, smelly, but incredible.

We then made a stop at the hot springs (5000m above sea level!) where no one felt brave enough to peel off their warm clothes and get into (besides, of course, our own fish, Laura.) At 6 in the morning, maybe the water was hot, but the air was frigid!

The last stop on the tour was the green lagoon, my personal favorite. The two snowy mountains looming in the background are reflected in the water. Truly amazing.

After a rushed breakfast, we flew to the border and jumped in a different van, headed for Chile. What a finale to our month in Bolivia!

Salar de Uyuni-Day 2: We're Not In Kansas Anymore

2009-01-27T15:15:00.023-05:00

The second day was a beautiful follow up to the first. Laura and I got to ride up front with our tranquilo tour guide while we rose to more than 4000m above sea level.

The day consisted of drive, stop, get out, walk around, use the natural bathroom, take pictures, get back in the van, drive some more. But honestly, we weren´t bored for a second. We saw lagoons in all shades and colors, with flamingo sprinkled shores, Vicuñas (relative of the Llama) playing in the hills, one volcano after another and a lot of beautiful nothingness.

The nicely paved road was about 7000km east of us. The path (which our driver was inventing) was strewn with boulders and bumpy enough to bring back childhood memories of unstable Rocky Point amusement park rides. Rocky would be one word to describe it.

One of the most interesting things we saw that day was a gigantic rock formation in the shape of a tree. How did that get in the middle of this desert?

Our second hotel was "basic" as our guide told us, no shower, no hot water, no electricity, dorm style rooms and it was cold enough to produce flashbacks of our Syracuse and Vermont days.

We survived the blustery evening with a stroll around the Laguna Colorada (we did not take a picture of this lagoon, we stole our blog´s last picture :) and an informative, but dull peek at the mating habits of llamas. At first, we could have sworn they were just cuddling to survive the cold (we thought they had the right idea... but wait...:) Anything was better than sitting in our Antarctic-like room.

At night we ate terribly disappointing spaghetti (Dad, where are you!?!?) and drank wine with some talkative Argentinians. Although freezing, we took a moment to view the clear and mystifying sky before going to bed. The Milky Way had never looked so bright.

Salar de Uyuni-Day 1: Welcome to a White Paradise

2009-01-27T14:44:00.019-05:00

Salar de Uyuni 3 day tour, all included - 560 Bolivianos plus 45 blv for park entrance fees = $85 Colque Tours 54 Potosi - Highly Recommended. Tip: Bring a few bananas to snack on in between meals.

We showed up at 10:45 a.m. to meet the rest of our 11 person tour group: 2 English girls, a Swedish couple, 2 Brazilian chicas and 3 guys, and of course las dos americanas (that´s us.) We hopped on our tour bus headed for the Salar. (The Salar was a salt water lake that dried up and left an impressive, salt covered expanse of 12,000 sq. km.)

First we stopped by the train cemetery which our tour guide prefaced by saying "It´s just a heap of trash, but it´s part of the tour, so we have to stop." We actually thought it was pretty cool and took the opportunity to take some creative photos.

We then moved on to the entrance of the Salar which isn´t completely dried up, so there is still shallow water that you can stick your feet in. The salty bottom was surprisingly warm and massage-like on our feet. (Everything is so white and blinding, you almost expect it to be snowy and cold!)

From there we made various stops over the course of 5 hours, around the massive, white paradise. Everywhere we looked was a glistening, never-ending white horizon. Our group got a little carried away with the picture taking. There were plastic dinosaurs, Brazilian flags, a furry llama and an Arabic drum that all made an appearance on the Salar. Since the Salar is a huge, white desert, there is nothing to measure depth. Therefore, you can take some pretty wild and amazing pictures with a few amateur tricks.

Due to our group´s picture taking frenzy, we didn´t make it to the designated lunch spot, but instead had a much more spectacular lunch, sitting in the middle of our white universe.

The next stop was the Isla del Pescado (Fish Island) where we walked through paths lined with gigantic cacti. From the peak of the island we had a beautiful view of the out of this world landscape. (Yes... more white!)

We arrived to the hostal around 6pm and went outside with our drum and riq (Arabic tambourine) to make some noise. This is when we met Hiro (our hero), an Asian dance teacher, easily identified as Japanese by his "funky hi-tops" (according to our new British friend, Ianthe). While I drummed out Arabic rhythms, he busted out techno, Japanese, break dance moves, while some curious onlookers watched from a distance. He eventually begged us to stop playing because he literally couldn't keep his feet still while we played. It was almost as amazing as the Salar ("Not the coolest thing we´d seen all day, but absolutely the coolest human thing we´d seen all day.") Ianthe said it was definitely better than watching TV.

We spent the rest of the night chain tea drinking with Ianthe and Holly (our new British friends) and laughing like old friends while discovering some funny differences between American and British English. When the electricity went out, we joined in on a Brazilian-led sing along with of course, a few Arabic intermissions which continued on through the night.

Tumbleweeds and short showers Uyuni, Bolivia

2009-01-26T12:25:00.005-05:00

Inti Uyuni near the bus terminal, 25 Bolivianos x person, includes a 4 minute 59 second shower

There´s not too much to say about Uyuni. Honestly, I expected a cowboy to swing through some tienda doors with guns ablazing and his fine steed waiting for him to run off into the dusty sunset.

We stopped here long enough to eat some street hamburgers, meet 2 girls from England and 2 more from Brazil (a tour group, perfect!) and plan our trip to the Salar de Uyuni (The Uyuni Salt Flat.)

We had the shower Nazi from hell, timing our shorter than 5 minute shower and yelling a lot.

Nothing to see here folks... off to the Salar.

The Bus: Part 2

2009-01-26T12:25:00.002-05:00

It would only make sense that we left Tupiza the way we arrived... The bus trip from Tupiza to Uyuni was shorter, but equally as painful. The road was also so bumpy that we thought the windows might break. Of course there was no bathroom, no leg room and it was raining again... in the bus. The best part of this trip however was the music; cumbia, blasting at full volume the entire time. (As one Bolivian told us, "Without cumbia there is no life." We let him know that we have surrvived 25 years of our lives just fine without it.) If you don't know what cumbia is, you should look it up and you'll quickly see why Laura and I almost threw ourselves from the bus half way through the trip.

All that and a bunch of rocks! Tupiza, Bolivia

2009-01-26T12:17:00.003-05:00

Hostal Tupiza Florida and Pedro Arraya, 25 Bolivianos x person

After the bus ride from hell, we fought all urges to flop in our beds like a bag of rocks and sleep the day away. We made the usual rounds: main plaza, market, internet and mirador. Beautiful, as always. (In California we always said "Another beautiful beach." In Germany I imagine my parents said "Another beautiful castle." We have our South American version :) We also organized our (upon Lori´s request) horseback riding tour for the next day.

Horseback riding? Lori? You´re confused. So was I.

One "must see" in our guide book is the rock formations around Tupiza, which you can visit hiking, biking, jeeping or horseback riding. Lori surprised the pants off me by suggesting we check out horseback riding prices. We decided that the next day, we´d take a 3 hour tour (possibly 5 hours, depending on the pain in our butts.)

Bright and early, we met with Milton, our 19 year old, conversational, friendly, "Have you ever had a boyfriend for 3 hours (or 5, depending on our tour choice)?" tour guide. Although every chance he got, he tried to convince us to do a 3 day tour, he was a great, harmless guide.

We saw amazing, mysterious, dark red colored, clay, rock formations, in literally all sorts of shapes and sizes. We visited visited La Puerta del Diablo (The Devil´s Door), El Valle de los Machos (The valley of rocks shaped as male reproductive organs), El Cañon del Inca (The Inca Canon) and finally, El Cañon del Duende (The Elf Canon.) It was amazing that this little hole-in-the-wall town housed such natural wonders. It was a chill, rocky day.

Through all the rock sightseeing, we did pick up the pace and nervously gallop a bit, pretending we were in a western movie with John Wayne. Little did we know, Tupiza was nothing compared to the tumbleweeds and wild wild west we were about to see in our next stop.

The Bus: Part 1

2009-01-26T12:10:00.008-05:00

What I remember about Bolivia from 5 years ago (when I made a quick trip through while living in Argentina) is mostly the buses. Old, leaky, cramped, uncomfortable, really hot or reaalllly cold... Surprisingly Laura and I hadn't encountered any of this while traveling through Bolivia. Our trips had been mostly pleasant, well, up until Sucre that is.

So what happened from Sucre to Tupiza? What was supposed to be a 10 hour bus ride, turned out to be a 13 hour trip from hell. First of all, the seats were so small that we could feel the knees of the person behind us digging in our backs all night. We tried to ignore this and just fall asleep, but it was so cold that even with our blanket we couldnt's stop shivering. It was also raining (yes, in the bus). By the end of the trip our stuff that was on the floor was all wet. Not to mention, we were traveling down a dirt road (buMP bUMP BUUUMMP!) However, our "favorite" part of night was probably the ONE bathroom-less rest stop that we made in the whole 13 hours. (Nope, no bathrooms here.) We did eventually doze off for a while to wake up around 4:30 a.m. and see that we weren't moving at all. Drifting between awakeness and sleep for the next 2.5 hours we wondered why we were parked somewhere. When the sun finally came up around 6:00 a.m. we could see the looooong line of buses and trucks stopped in the road because one bus had slid in the mud and blocked the entire path.

When we FINALLY made it to Tupiza, we made a mad dash for the bathroom; tried, cranky, but glad to have our feet on the ground.

Giddy Up! Sucre, Bolivia

2009-01-16T21:48:00.005-05:00

Wasi Masi Urcullo 233, 50 Bolivianos x person, private bathroom!

Though we spent little time in this big village/little city, we wanted to spend more! But, capucha, it´s been a month and we´re still in Bolivia- we need to giddy up!! :) Sucre was originally the capital of Bolivia until one president, way back when, decided to move himself and the congress to La Paz. The supreme court still lives in Sucre but as you can imagine, as La Paz is much bigger and has the president, there is always the argument as to where the "real" capital of Bolivia is.

We arrived in our fancy bus cama (bus bed, where the seats recline alot, practically into a bed.) Lori wasn´t impressed, but I was loving it! With an entire window to ourselves, it was like having a big screen TV in my bedroom (and lots of strangers... that part was weird.) It was Discovery Channel live... we had a full moon that was so bright that I thought I could touch it. I imagined a guy with an Australian accent describing the lightening and thunder storm happening behind the mountain range in the distance. People pay lots of money for TVs this good, I paid 60 Bolivianos (and it´s a gamble, usually we get uncomfortable seats and a window glued shut :)

Sucre was quite charming. In the market (our usual first stop in a city for some quick, cheap grub. Ask my mom about the market in Baños, Ecuador. Not the classiest of places but always a treat) the women were so friendly and helpful. What a nice change!

We packed a lunch and headed up to the Mirador (a high spot where you can get a nice view of the entire city.) We arrived and started preparing our favorite Lori Andrea sandwiches when we were approached by an artesano, "Volleyball when you finish?" "Sure!" Then a little girl comes over, "These cookies are for Laura." "What?!?" We look over and see a familiar face- Daniel the (inexperienced) other drum player from La Paz when we performed in the street! (see entry La Paz III.5)

We finished our delish sandwiches and joined Daniel and his friends for the rest of the afternoon, bruising our forearms with 2 and a half hour volleyball game and a terribly hard ball. After the game, Daniel invited us to his house for cookies (his mom is a cookie maker) and tea. The most innocent request we´d heard in awhile, we accepted and hung out at his house with his funny nieces and some dumb American movie about Oktoberfest and an international beer drinking competition. Do we really miss the states? :)

Pooped, we headed back to our hostal and bathed ourselves in our fancy, private shower (with hot water and everything!) Done and done.

The next day we decided to visit Ñucchu, a pueblito outside of Sucre. In a very unhurried, South American fashion we waited on the corner at the cemetery, with no sense of urgency, for 2 and a half hours for the one bus a day to bring us to Ñucchu. How we´ve changed from our fast American ways.

Finally, a tagless, empty van passed, we flagged it down, the driver mumbled something. "Fine, lets go... wherever..." "I´ll take you a quarter of the way, half way or the whole way for 5 bolivianos..." the driver told us. I guess we´ll go... the whole way? How about for a quarter and a half of the way? :)

Finally, we arrive at Ñucchu. Our driver drops us off at a lonely river, "Cross the river and when you want to go back to the city, come here. There should be transportation. Chao!" No time to decide, he abandons us at the river.

We wade across the river and across a bridge to a town. It seems that, besides the two people working in a field far away, a few chickens and a pig- we´re the only life here. We crossed town (in 5 minutes and 32 seconds) and laughed and laughed and laughed at the "tourist attraction-ito" we had just visited.

We finished our last supplies of Lori Andrea sandwiches while practically being plowed over by herds of cows and spent the afternoon watching the red clay colored river pass us by (which apparently is good for the skin.)

After about an hour, we slowly crossed back through town again. This time there are signs of life (though minimal.) We wade across the river again and thankfully, transportation is ready to take us back to Sucre (a small miracle.)

That´s enough adventure for one day. Tomorrow to Tupiza.

Cochabamba, Bolivia: 10 Pounds Heavier

2009-01-16T21:14:00.009-05:00

Residencial Familia 25 de Mayo, between Colombia and Ecuador, 35 bolivianos x person

After a quick stop back in La Paz, Laura, Sergio and I were finally moving south. First stop, Cochabamba: known for its warm climate, good food, breathtaking scenery and tough women. These things all proved to be true.

Our flip flops made an appearance for the 1st time since Arequipa, Peru. We could go outside without a jacket. Amazing!

As for the food, we starting eating our way through Cochabamba. The first night we ate in the market. (The place we once feared most has become our favorite eating stop; one after another, open stalls, long benches and tables you share with strangers, generally very large women with several pots calling out names of dishes you've never heard of, where most customers are called "mamita" or "papito". The hygiene might be questionable as they often put the food on your plate with their bare hands, but the market is so crowded that the food must be fresh. You just have to look past the partially skinned cow heads and hanging intestines on the way in.)

The nice thing about eating in Cochabamba is that the food is meant to be shared. The same plate might have a 20, 30, or 40 boliviano option depending on how many people are going to eat it. Laura, Sergio and I spent one afternoon eating duck. 3 people, 2 ducks, perfect. While at the restaurant we saw several cats and one dog go in and out of the kitchen... (They must have been the hunters.) We also shared Pique Macho, a typical Bolivian dish heaping with meat, sausage, chicken and potatoes and Silpancho, more meat, eggs, and potatoes.

Another day we went to a small town, Punata, outside of Cochabamba where we ate chicharron, fried pork.... mmmmm, after eating humitas, a corn filling cooked inside a corn husk and banana juice. We ate a lot of food that day, but it was probably the chicha (corn liquor, typically drunk by several people from one, dried, squash-skin cup) that put us all to sleep on the ride back to Cocha.

Although eating was the highlight of our time in Cochabamba (at one point, even Laura said, "I'm never going to eat again!"), we also visited some spectacular sights. One being "the biggest statue of Cristo in the world" of course on a mountain, 1200 stairs to the top. The view of Cochabamba from the top was fantastique! Plus we needed the walk after all the eating we'd done.

We spent one afternoon at the botanical garden (where we ate...ice cream), a very romantic place actually, which apparently created the need for a large sign outside asking couples to abstain from "obscenities" in the park. (Too toot! whistle blows)

Another day we took a combis (van) up to a beautiful park 1 hour outside of the city. There was a big river and it was so quiet and peaceful you could fall in love. No wonder it was also full of young couples... doing obscenities (there was no sign to prohibit it, like in the botanical garden.) More impressive was the walk down from the park through a green farm village; corn fields, cows, little kids playing, people selling homemade liquors (of course we bought a bottle from some lady's back yard). It was almost story book like.

As I said, Cochabamba lived up to its reputation: nice climate, good food, beautiful surroundings and as for the women of Cochabamba...why are they so tough? Well, if you just take a look at them, they're not exactly tiny... That's for sure. But more importantly, history says that when the Spanish invaded Cochabamba, the men were off at war and the women were the ones who protected the town and fought the Spaniards out. In fact, the women won hands down. Nowadays women seem to run the show in Cochabamba. The men just do as they're told. (Hmmm sounds good to me).

The Tranquil land of Tranquilidad, Sorata, Bolivia

2009-01-16T21:02:00.002-05:00

Residencial Sorata (at the top left corner of the main plaza) 20 Bolivianos x person shared bathroom

Before heading South in Bolivia, we escaped with our friend Sergio to warmer, greener lands. It doesn´t get much more peaceful than here. Sorata is sort of between the mountains and the jungle, so it´s steep and green. A beautiful get away.

To get to Sorata you start in Copacabana and go north, crossing the Cordillera Real. What is the Cordillera Real? Something you can´t miss - this long string of snow covered mountains is mesmerizing as you see them across the green plains. Basically the idea is: South of the Cordillera = cold (Copacabana), North of the Cordillera = nice and warm (Sorata)

Our hostal was an amazing labyrinth of rooms with gardens, humming birds and mountain views everywhere (as well as a few friendly ghosts, as our guide book said.)

Sorata´s claim to fame is La Gruta de San Pedro which is a big, underground cavern about 4 hours walking distance from the town. The walk there was beautiful (and downhill) with green fluffy mountains for as far as the eye can see, a little humidity and the occasional stop along the way to sit and relax (could we possibly do more of this?!? :) We played a little music with invented woodland instruments we found along the way. Marayka (a traveler from Holland we picked up along the way) was scared but interested as we picked up sticks and twigs and jammed out our rickety songs.

We arrived at La Gruta, ate some signature Lori-Andrea Sandwiches (invented by our very own Lori Andrea: Avocado, tomato and cheese sandwiches. Mmmmmm good!) and entered the 75% humidity cavern, 3000m underground (claustrophobics, relax... I swear.) As you dodge low hanging rocks for a few minutes and descend lower and lower and lower, you eventually enter a huge cavern. You can hear the bats overhead squeaking in their bat language. Following the path you see sparkling, crystallized rocks and a lagoon (where they say some Japanese scientists entered looking for the bottom and never returned... oooohhhh...)

After about 40 minutes of heavy air breathing, we left satisfied with our hike, music break and cave discovering. Regular Indiana Jones´!

Tomorrow back to La Paz and off to Cochabamba!

No Vacancies!

2009-01-14T22:41:00.002-05:00

When we arrived back to Copacabana after a night on the Isla del Sol, we went to find a hostal. What we thought would take...mmm... 5 minutes, ended up taking 3 hours. Apparently all of La Paz had arrived to Copacabana while we were gone and everything was full. We started getting a little nervous around the 39th, "NO, there are NO rooms!" We should have taken the room with the trash bag covering the gaping hole in the door, we thought. But by then, it was too late. Someone else had scooped it up. One woman told us that she could rent us a mattresses... for 5 bolivianos (that's approximately 71.4 cents...) Well that was an option....better than sleeping in the plaza.

Eventually we just started asking around if anyone had an extra room in their house that they could rent us for the night. Finally, a Yes! Just around the corner, the cholita told us. Just around the corner, ended up being about 10 blocks away. The room turned out to be... basic. Two hard, square mattresses put together, no sheets... 7 blankets. Where's the bathroom? Ahhh, there isn't one, but I can give you my new pot. ooooooook.

We had some visitors in the night. A few cats dashing from one room to another, a dog chorus outside the window, a possible rat stepping on a bag in the corner. Somehow we slept. The morning couldn't have come soon enough. We gave the cholita 30 bolivianos, thanked her for saving us from sleeping in the park and went on our way.

Back to Copacabana...

2009-01-12T16:48:00.004-05:00

Hostal La Posada - Isla del Sol (right off the boat) 20 bolivianos

Somehow we ended up back in Copacabana to celebrate the coming of 2009 Bolivia style (yes that's right, we went backwards, not forwards.) Overall New Year's Eve turned out to be a familiar celebration of drinking beer and dancing our hearts out. However, for a little Bolivian culture we did try to swallow 12 grapes whole at midnight, filled our pockets with lentils (for good luck in money) and put on our red underwear (good luck in love). We didn't run around the block with our suitcases (travel luck) since we seem to be doing okay so far and we also opted to skip the naked egg fight which our taxi cabdriver told us about (not really sure what that should bring...chickens?)

We stayed a few more days in Copacabana and decided to revisit the Isla del Sol. They say it's truly a magical place... (perhaps Bob was absorbing all the magic on the first trip.) This time with our adventurous, and nature loving friends, Fernando and Sergio, it proved to be much different. We found a little beach that looked like it had never been touch by other humans. Actually, we're not sure if it would still be there if we looked again. =) We also climbed to the top of a small peak on the island and watched an amazing sunset and rainstorm coming in. It was so mesmerising that we stuck around too long and ended up getting soaked to the bone in a freezing, slippery hour walk back to our hostel in the dark. It was well worth it.

La Paz, Bolivia Part III.5

2009-01-06T20:11:00.001-05:00

Part III.5 The Tubo Plays On

When Lori was Christmas shopping for me, she met some artsy-hippies (more hippies!?!?) Luz, my Christmas present maker, has a Darbuka (the Arabic drum, what!?!?) and is one of the nicest people we´ve met on our trip for sure. She explained that she has the drum, loves the drum, but doesn´t know how to play it. No problem, Arabic Drum Teacher Lori to the rescue! :)

While Luz made my Christmas watch, they chatted about music and decided to meet up, play, jam and talk about a thing or two about Arabic music. Our last two days in La Paz, we met up with Luz, jammed, danced (rather, I danced... we have strict rules, Lori´s the hands and I´m the legs :) and played Arabic Music. We loved every minute being that it´s been a long time since we´ve jammed with other people!

The last day, we met up with Luz and continued playing, jamming, dancing for 4 more intense hours before finally deciding that the 5 of us (Luz, her 2 friends, Lori and I) should take to the street and see if we could make some moola.

We were quite a sight. With Lori amazingly leading this discombobulated bunch, another (inexperienced) drummer, Luz on the tambourine (also inexperienced), a dog pooping (experienced), a drunk man cheering us on (and stepping in the poop from the dog), 3 other dogs who were ready to attack me at any moment and the best part, Julio the tube blower. If you´ve never heard Arabic music with a continuous, monotoned tube being blown in the background... well, you missed your chance.

After about an hour, exhausted (after playing and dancing for 2 days straight), with hunger like never before and 12 bolivianos a piece ($1.50), we called it a night, thanked our spirited musical friends and were ready to leave La Paz.

A very musical finale.

La Paz, Bolivia Part III

2009-01-06T20:08:00.012-05:00

Part III Walk this way...

The next part of our La Paz visit, we put on our visiting shoes and saw some sweet museums and other sites.

The Instrument Museum (as you can imagine, Lori and I were in heaven) had everything you could pluck, blow, hit, strum, toot, whatever! 5 sided guitars, 1 stringed banjos, charangoes make of armadillos, gigantic rain sticks and a 100-holed flute (I don´t know, I lost count.) Amazing!

Continuing our music day, we went to the nicest and quietest concert we´d ever seen in our lives, Savia Andina (they perform folklore music.) Think of the two radio ladies from SNL way back in the day. In the smallest voices ever, 6 men whispered to us why there we so excited about each song selection. Though softspoken, the moment they picked up their charagoes (small Bolivian guitars) they really tore it up, it was enchanting! The first and definitely not the last folklore music concert for us.

We also visited the free ethnographic museum filled with old weavings ("This one is from century... ummm, 5..."), amazing masks used in parades and festivals around the country and beautiful feather headdresses from the Jungle region of Bolivia. Being from the Jungle, the feather headdresses were mind blowing with their exotic colors and amazing designs.

Lastly, we visited the Coca Museum, like the coca used to make cocaine, but this is straight from the Bolivian bush. (Coca + chemicals = cocaine) While you´re reading about the history of Coca (yes, the Coca they used to put in Coca-Cola) it´s almost impossible not to want to try the mouth numbing, appetite suppressing leaves, coffee, cookies, etc. A super cool museum and our after Christmas diet plan :)

During our Culture Quest, we met some nice hippies, Sergio and Fernando, who showed us some amazing valleys outside of the city. We visited the Valley of the Moon and the Valley of the Spirits with these fine gentlemen. It was awesome to get out of the city, fabulously accompanied by some interesting, spiritual, gem and nature loving hippies :)

With our spiritual hippie friends we went out dancing one night to a classy place called Jackie Chan´s. Here I found one of grossest bathrooms I´ve ever seen and a girl who incessantly hugged me before allowing me to use the stall. The second night, we really did go to a classy place. We watched in awe as fellow Bolivians danced energetically and proudly to their hometown music (you won´t find any Rod Stewart here.)

La Paz, Bolivia Part II

2009-01-06T20:05:00.003-05:00

Part II Fantastique! (in a French accent)
Hostal Señorial Yanacocha (across from Hostal Austria, near La Comercio) 60 bolivianos for a double

When Bob left, we changed hostals, washed our clothes, painted our nails, bought cheap Christmas makeup... anything and everything to start new and get ready for our amazing Bob-free Christmas. We met a nice French guy, Sebastian, who didn´t send us into mindless zombie mode with his endless talking and was really easygoing - impecable! (in the words of Sebastian) We spent Christmas with him, delicious food and a few wonderful gifts. (See Feliz Navidad Bolivia Style) It was a very Merry Christmas!

La Paz, Bolivia Part I

2009-01-06T20:02:00.005-05:00

Hostal Milenio 860 Yanacocha, 27 bolivianos x person

At 3600m and one of the hilliest cities yet, we for sure have the nicest butts around. Hiking up and down and up and down this city will make you cold, breathless and sweat at the same time. But, well worth the chilly sweat, it´s a beautiful city.

Our 2 week stay in La Paz is made up of 3.5 distinct parts.

Part I What About Bob?
We spent our first week with a special traveler. We tolerated him, everyone else loved him. Remember the movie from the 80´s, What About Bob? We were Dr.Leo Marvin. When we met in Copacabana, Bob seemed tolerable. When he said he was going to La Paz like us, we said ok, fine. But after 96 hours straight of endless, mindnumbing talk (on his part), staying in the same hostal and spending every waking hour together, Lori and I panicked. If we continued like this (as Christmas approached) one of the three of us wasn´t going to make it out alive.

In a moment of desperation, while touring a church, Bob commented "I have to leave La Paz, but I can come back to spend Christmas with you guys!" My mind raced, my palms began to sweat and my legs became shaky with the thought of spending Christmas with him. Exasperated, I hastily blurted out, "But... (my mind racing, panicking)... but, Christmas is a time for... Don´t you want to spend Christmas with your family?" I didn´t have the heart to tell Bob that if he returned for Christmas, I might have to drink heavily alone in my room to get through it.

Thankfully Bob didn´t return. Lori and I festively painted our nails in quiet celebration.

Follow Our Travels in Bolivia

2009-01-06T18:02:00.008-05:00

So far it´s been pretty simple, Copacabana and La Paz :)

FELIZ NAVIDAD!! Bolivia Style

2008-12-26T17:50:00.004-05:00

We set up in the kitchen, prepared for a Bolivian-American-French feast (we met a nice French guy, Sebastian, who´s traveling solo, so we adopted him.) When suddenly, 8 Koreans stroll in with 90 bags of groceries and a much more efficient cooking system than ours. We enjoyed a few bites of their spicy food, took a few shots of Korean liquor and got down to business. If anyone knows Lori´s and my experience with cooking, you know this is a recipe for disaster :) Well, kinda.

Our feast was to consist of chicken cutlets, a sweet potato dish, green bean casserole, apple crisp, tomato-basil-mozzarella-vinegar things (you know what I mean) and shrimp. We would have a feast!! (And really, with a few modifications, it was excellent. We´re still eating it day 2 and all is good!)

The only big problem is that necessary ingredients in the states, don´t really exist here. We started by asking for a super market. The nice woman at our hostal told us, go here, turn here, one block, up here and you´ll find a super market. Ok, great. Only it wasn´t a super market, it was a super street market. The ol´choose your chicken from the unplucked ones hanging by their feet and nothing is refrigerated super market. I mean, it was super big and super Bolivian. But not a super market. We bought what we could find; mozzarella cheese, vegetables, milk stuff and avoided the hanging chickens with hopes of finding a real super market (Super Stop n Shop, where are you??)

Thankfully, the next day we had only a few more things to buy and we found a real super market. The super market was, by far, our best Christmas present (though, if need be, Lori did volunteer to de-feather the chicken :) As amazing as our new found super market was, we quickly noted we would not be celebrating our feast with the necessary US ingredients. Apple pie filling (for the apple crisp) was replaced with regular apples to be peeled (does a peeler exist in this country or only butter knives?) Pecans (the topping for the sweet potato dish) were replaced with oatmeal. Brown sugar (also for the sweet potatoes) was replaced with unrefined white sugar (Is it really the same?) 4 cans of French Cut green beans (for the green bean casserole) were replaced with 2 huge bags of fresh green beans, which for a moment caused us to panic, thinking we had bought 2 huge bags of pea pods. (While cooking the green beans, I asked our French friend if he would cut them for us. I mean, the "French Cut" must come naturally to him? I bet there´s a whole factory of Frenchmen cutting beans in the states.)

Pre-church Christmas Eve, we chowed down on some delicious shrimp prepared by Sebastian. They were great! After a little partying with our new Korean friends, we were off to midnight mass at the big cathedral in La Paz. The only unique thing we noted here was that everyone had baby Jesus dolls that they brought with them to church. We had forgotten ours. There was also one blubbering drunk man harassing the poor people sitting in our row of seats. "Christmas is about love." Thanks for the wisdom!

After church, we celebrated with a sort of dry, apple crisp. The next morning, we set up shop again to start french cutting the beans and finish up the chicken cutlets, sweet potato dish, green bean casserole and tomato-basil-mozzarella-vinegar things. Honestly, everything was going well until we discovered the mozzarella cheese we had bought at the super street market, had probably been sitting in the sun for the past 2 years. What´s chicken cutlets and tomato-basil-mozzarella without mozzarella!!

We survived our cheese less Christmas with the rest of our improvised successes, exchanged gifts, took naps... and of course, made the much needed phone call home to hear all about the family festivities in RI. Thankfully, we celebrated our first Christmas away from home with the one person who practically is home. Not many people have this unique opportunity. Being far from home, one can´t ask for anything better.

We really missed our families. Next year, waking up Christmas morning and opening our presents surrounded by our families will be that much more special.

Happy Quarter Century Birthday to Me!

2008-12-22T12:04:00.005-05:00

We celebrated my birthday fabulously on a swan paddle boat in Lake Titicaca. We were well prepared with so much of Bolivia´s famous snack food (which resembles exploded Kelloggs Corn Pops) that we were a little nauseaus from our unruly swan in the open lake and an overload of sweet cereal.

It was a great, crisp (like cold) birthday with an amazing sunset! Looking across the lake at Peru, seemed like we were looking across the ocean. It was incredible.

But of course, that was one of 3 days of celebration (not including our sweet trip to the Isla del Sol). Day 2, I recieved a nice necklace from a friend and a strange statue thing from a very nice guy we met in a cafe. I blew out a candle at a bar and had a few drinks. Lastly, Day 3 (in La Paz, Bolivia) I ate 3 salteñas (scrumptuous Bolivian empandas) in one day. As my dad always says about lobster, I say about salteñas - The first one is always as good as the last one.

Do you want our money or not? Copacabana, Bolivia

2008-12-22T11:58:00.003-05:00

Alojamiento Emperador Calle Murillo 235, 15 bolivianos (this place is clean with hot showers, but do not leave money, passport, etc in the room... we think they have sticky fingers and you might end up with a fake bill or two.)

At 3800m above sea level, we panted and wondered why we decided to save the 50 cents and hump our backpacks to the hostal. We´re still getting used to the exchange rate and the ridiculously high altitude.

We realized right away that Copacabana was NOT the Copacabana with Lola the showgirl, nor was it the hottest place north of Havana. It is actually its much colder, more laid back and similarly named twin. Did I mention it was cold? But still, we enjoyed this little hole in the wall place.

In Copacabana, it was just a normal day, as one señora explained to us. Everyday is just a normal day with colorful blessings of cars at 11am in the church square (new cars off to La Paz, Bolivia) and people who won´t sell you half a block of cheese... or really anything! They only sell these massive hunks of cheese. Are we seriously the only ones who don´t want enough cheese for 40 people?

Customer service was, at it´s best, iffy and unfriendly. My saying about Ecuador stands true here. The customer is always wrong.

Copacabana is famous for Lake Titicaca (heehee... you know you want to chuckle a little) Titi in Aymara (an Inca language) means cat. And caca... well, no one really explained it to us. It can´t possibly mean cat poop :)

Lake Titicaca is where the Incas began. Supposedly, an Inca God and the first Incas, Manco Capac and Mama Huaca, mystically appeared out of the lake. And thus beings the legend of the Incas. It is a huge, amazing and beautiful lake (and cold... did I mention that yet?)

There are two islands in the lake, The Isla del Sol (The Island of the Sun) and The Isla de la Luna (The Island of the Moon). The Isla del Sol has about 5000 pretty much self sufficient people living on it. The Isla de la Luna is much smaller, less visited and I don´t think anyone lives there.

We took a boat ride and visited The Isla del Sol (despite the freezing rain. Of course, Copacabana has beautiful weather 10 months out of the year. Guess which two months are rainy? :) We visited (more) Inca ruins, saw where a temple existed in Lake Titicaca but as the lake rose, it was eventually swallowed up and finally, we took what should be a 3 hour hike in 2.5 brisk, sweaty, sun baked hours from the north end of the island to the south end. It was absolutely gorgeous! It was a fabulous way to get away from civilization and begin my week of birthday celebrations!

The last part of our Lake Titicaca tour, we visited mini floating islands. The floating islands are communities that were created hundreds of years ago for people to avoid the war hungry Incas and Collas. The islands are made of reeds called totora from the lake. Hundreds and hundreds of thick layers of reeds create these floating islands. They are able to support communities of people. Pretty impressive! We only saw little mini replicas, but on the Peru side of the lake (Lake Titicaca is split between Bolivia and Peru) the islands support hundreds of Uros people. Everything is made of these reeds: houses, churches, boats, food (no... kidding.) The mini´s were pretty cool, I´m sure the giant ones are a triple wow!

Thanks Lonely Planet for the technical information in this blog entry.

From Cuzco to Puno to Copacabana

2008-12-22T11:21:00.002-05:00

$1 = 7 Bolivianos

Bolivia has been described as, "Simply Superlative... It's the hemisphere's highest, most isolated and most rugged nation. It's one of earth's coldest, warmest, windiest and steamiest places. It boasts among the driest, saltiest and swampiest natural landscapes in the world. Although the poorest country in South America, it's one of the richest in terms of natural resources. It's also South America's most indigenous country..." -Lonely Planet.

From the small amount we've seen so far, we would have to agree.

The border crossing into Bolivia was distinct from Peru. This time, the immigration official didn't want our phone numbers; he just wanted our money. Come to find out, U.S. citizens need a $135 visa to enter Bolivia. We are one of the two countries that has this requirement. (Thanks Bush!)

While everyone else on our bus skipped happily, cost-free through immigration, then sat patiently on the bus waiting, the dos americanas filled out visa applications. Apparently we also needed to show proof of a yellow fever vaccination. Since we didn't have that, they squeezed another $10 out of us. (One guy also told me he needed a copy of my credit card! Even if I had arrived to South America yesterday, I don't think I would have fallen for that one.)

Before giving us our visas, one of the officers gave us a speech about how much Bolivians pay ($180 ?) for a 30 day visa to the states. (hmm ok, he has a point there.) We finally took our newly stamped passports and crossed the border; with a lot of good memories behind us, happy to begin a new adventure.

Is Machu Picchu Overrated?

2008-12-22T11:18:00.008-05:00

"Machu Picchu is overrated!" was written on the train tracks on the way to Aguas Calientes. Really? We thought...(worried that it wouldn't live up to our expectations.) After 3 long days, we'd have to... disagree! (You'd have to decide for yourself...)

Overall, the experience was amazing! Machu Picchu itself is really breathtaking and we definitely got lucky sharing the experience with two irreplaceable friends, Dan and Peter. We told them they're our favorite Swedes (they are also the only Swedes we know). Regardless, we're sure that whoever we meet next, Swede or not, they'll have some big shoes to fill!

Do you guys want to see something real? Machu Picchu, Peru

2008-12-18T11:00:00.014-05:00

Hostal Caminantes when you enter Aguas Calientes, right off the train tracks 10 soles x person

We opted for the cheap option to visit Machu Picchu, which involves not-so-comfortable buses, waking up early to hike a lot and sharing rooms :) But it was amazing!

Day 1
5:20am Wake up. Lori and I are sharing a bed because it´s soooooo cold in Cuzco. 6am Leave Cuzco Hostal, eat a rice, egg and french fry breakfast in the market (which our Swedish friend Peter said "I can´t eat french fries this early, and definitely not without Rhode Island Sauce!"
7:20am Arrive at bus station (too late... the ol´ hurry up and wait trick)
8:30am Leave for a windy, unpaved trip to Santa Maria
8:40-8:42am Listen to man telling his sad life story and selling candies
8:43-9:00am Listen to different man (similar sad story?) selling all healing, all curing, all natural Peruvian cream. 4 soles to cure every problem we could have? I think it even promises you´ll find true love or something.
9:01am Lori says "I have all those problems he´s describing!" (Especially the love problems.)
9:02am We buy the miracle product anticipating the activities we have ahead of us.
9:05-10:05am Listen to different man selling math books, science books and Spanish dictionaries. We lose his trivia questions (Percentages were invented in the 1600s, not the 1500s... why do we need to know this?)
10:05am Peace and quiet finally!
10:06am-2:00pm We try our best to keep our breakfast down (at a pee stop, I have to say that I´ve never seen so many people pee squatting (in their long skirts), pee standing and vomiting... great.)
2:00pm We arrive to Santa Maria. Phewf!
2:10pm We board a van to the Hydroelectric Plant about 2 hours away.
2:11pm I chat it up with the driver as we fly around death defying curves on the edges of cliffs.
2:15pm Lori tells me to shut up and let the man drive. Yeah, I was just going to do that.
4:00pm We arrive at the Hydroelectric Plant, we pray for a moment, thanking God that we arrived in one piece.
4:15pm We start walking the 7km hike to Aguas Calientes (Walking on train tracks isn´t as much fun as it seems in the movies.)
6:30pm It´s getting dark. Is that a tunnel ahead? Thank God for our two valiant Swedes! As we are leaving the second tunnel (and I´ve practically peed my pants from fear) Peter tells me he was glad I was there with him because he felt safer. He doesn´t know me very well :)
6:45pm We arrive to our decent hostal and pay 10 soles each to share a room between the four of us... Eat... Sleep.
3:30am I wake up Dan with my mindless sleep talking. This time it´s a caveman pick up line. "OK, here we go. You´re a good looking male and I´m a good looking female." And they say Americans are to the point... no... :) I think that wins the award for the Best Nerd Pick Up Line ever. What was I dreaming about?

Day 2
4:20am After one alarm clock beep, Peter springs out of bed, proclaiming "Good Morning!" Lori and I are shocked, we´ve never in our lives woken up in this prompt manner.
5am We´re in line to buy bus tickets. Why is this so chaotic? Isn´t this a Wonder of the World, shouldn´t this be more organized??!?!? Wait... It´s Peru and it´s 5am... EVERYONE RELAX!!
6am We arrive to Machu Picchu.
6:01-10:10am WOW! Our mouths hang open in awe. We spend these hours admiring in amazement how this beautiful place could have been constructed! Lori incessantly videotapes "the edge." Fear of heights maybe? :)
10:11am We being the climb to Wayna Picchu. Our mouths are still hanging open but mostly from the panting and heavy breathing from the steep, exhausting climb.
11am We arrive at the top of Wayna Picchu (2600m) to find more ruins. We´re on the top of a tiny, steep, jutting mountain folks... how can these ruins be here!?!? Lori´s still thinking about the edge :)
12pm We begin the climb back down. Did the Incas have really small feet? These are the smallest, steepest, highest stairs we´ve ever seen. Pee-your-pants material my friends.
1pm Pooped with a capital P, we eat lunch. Thankfully we brought our own lunch, but we did have to breakdown and buy a 10 sol bottle of water (Aren´t we paying 10 soles for our hostal?)
2:30pm We start the hike back to the hostal with our spaghetti legs.
3:45pm We arrive at the hostal. Shower. Nap. Eat. Drink. Sleep. Oh, that was real good!

Day 3
5:40am Alarm clock doesn´t beep because Dan set this time for 5:30pm. No, it can´t be! It´s toooo early!! Even Peter doesn´t jump up. Are we in hell?
6:30am We´re back on the train tracks. 7km to the Hydroelectric Plant.
9am We squeeze into a crappy station wagon with 8 other people (including some friendly Brazilian hippies)
9:30am We´re back on Death Road. No distractions this time, I´m sitting in the back of the wagon between Dan and some backpacks... asleep.
11am We arrive to Santa Maria.
11:02am Yipee! Here comes the bus! They don´t let us on. What?!?
11:03am-2pm The ol´ hurry up and wait trick. We eat breakfast, talk sleepy nonsense and wait for the next bus. We play a card game we learned from our Thanksgiving American friends, Dan and Paul. Wait. Invent a card game. Wait. Talk nonsense (Didn´t we do this already?) Wait.
2:40pm Bus comes! We get on and happily begin our trip home.
2:50pm People come on the bus with tickets for our seats. No problem, we´ll stand for a bit.
3:30pm We´re still standing. We´re sure a seat will open up any minute now.
3:35pm We meet some nice (also standing) Polish guys. We share interesting conversation.
4:10pm Lori´s feeling nauseous. Still no seats. Convo with Polish guys becomes dull.
5:00pm Road gets windier. Lori feels sicker. Still no seats. Polish weather discussion begins.
6:00pm Our legs have locked in the standing position.
7:00pm I´m thinking about punching someone for a seat.
8:00pm $?!Ñ¡*!!!!!!!!!
9:00pm Off the bus, in a taxi. We have to keep the doors open because our legs won´t bend due to excessive standing. (Just kidding.)

Back to hostal. Shower. Eat bad hamburgers. Go dancing (I don´t honestly know how we´re still using our legs.) Sleep.

Machu Picchu $100 (Not including celebration drinks or a massage :)

3 days of amazingness and fun with Peter and Dan, priceless :):)

Cuzco, Peru: Do You Want a Massage Lady?

2008-12-18T10:16:00.005-05:00

Hostal Huiñary (or something like that...) - Saphi Street, 10 soles a night (includes breakfast with hard bread and pancakes!)

Before putting on our trekking shoes and heading up to Machu Picchu, one of the 7 wonders of the world, we spent a couple of days in Cuzco relaxing and getting to know the city. We arrived in Cuzco with our new Swedish friends and we followed them to a cheap hostel to meet their Brazilian friend, Livia. The hostel turned out to be a Hebrew hostel and the 5 of us, the only non-Israelis there. The place was nice, had a cozy feel, although, it was actually so cold that Laura and I had to sleep in the same bed in order to avoid freezing to death at night.

Cuzco turned out to be less annoying than we had imagined, since everyone told us it was sooo touristy. We did get tired of people asking us if we wanted massages. They were even selling Swedish Massages to Swedes who had never heard of such a thing.

The food in Cuzco wasn't the best we had eaten, but we did try alpaca (similar to a llama) burgers. Tasted like a hamburger to me!

We spent one afternoon hiking up a zillion stairs to a giant statue of Jesus Cristo, of course on the top of a big hill. When we got to the top it was raining and so muddy that we literally slid to the feet of Jesus.

While in Cuzco we did learn a few important things. Livia taught us a cheap and off--the-beaten track way to get up to Machu Picchu. Most tours that take the Inca trail cost anywhere between 200 and 500 dollars. We spent $100. Almost equally as important, we learned that there are no Swedish Fish in Sweden! (What?? How can this be? Have the candy companies been deceiving us?) However, although the Swedes didn't know what Swedish Fish are, they told us that there is this really popular thing in Sweden called "Rhode Island Sauce" and that french fries are not complete without it. (Ummm... Rhode Islanders out there... have you heard of this??)

Cuzco is definitely a really beautiful city, probably the most beautiful we've seen so far, except Quito of course.

Arequipa, Peru: Does It Smell Like Christmas?

2008-12-14T20:51:00.010-05:00

Home Sweet Home - Rivero 506 y Ayacucho
20 soles (shared bathroom, breakfast including yummy crepes)

Arequipa is called the "White City" because of the off-white volcanic rock used in most of the architecture. There isn't too much happening in the White City, although it is very beautiful. The ride to Arequipa wasn't exactly beautiful however...(why haven`t we left the desert yet?)

The highlight of our 3 day stay in Arequipa was Museo Santury where "Juanita, the Ice Princess" can be seen. Juanita was a 14 year old girl from the Inca period (around 1400-1500 AD), most likely royalty. She was sacrificed at the top of Nevado Ampato Mountain, after having walked for 3 months to get there. Her death was meant to calm the angry gods who "punished" the Incas with natural disasters. (Well, Arequipa is at the base of several active volcanoes!!!) Her body was almost perfectly preserved in the snow, until she was discovered by a German some years ago. Although Laura expected the site to be creepy, it was actually a very fascinating, but equally sad, window into the past.

While in Arequipa, we thought we should try the traditional food. The lunch was good (except the pigs feet!), but not worth the 700 soles that they waiter tried to charge us! (Just as we were thinking... "we have to wash dishes," the waiter brought us the correct bill, oops!!!) We particularly liked the "rocoto relleno" (stuffed pepper). The folkloric music in the background was...nice, although the musicians appeared lost at times. We ended up with so much food that we had to eat it for two days!

On the last day we met 2 guys from Sweden, Dan and Peter. We had a good feeling about them when Dan asked Peter if his Mexican food smelled like Christmas. (Do they eat refried beans for Christmas in Sweden?) Little did we know, this was only the beginning of an entertaining week and two, great, new friendships...

ET or The Incas?... Nazca, Peru

2008-12-09T10:07:00.004-05:00

Hotel Nazca 25 soles for a double, Av. Lima (it´s such a small town, all taxistas know where it is)

After leaving Lima we headed South to Nazca, Peru which is a hole in the wall town. We spent some funny 28 hours here. We discovered Slovenia, a country we didn´t know existed until we met Ivan, our new Slovenian friend ("I don´t know all the 50 states, you don´t have to know all the countries in Europe"). We knew we´d be friends right off the bat when we took a picture together (after meeting for 2 minutes) and he proclaimed "It´s like we´ve been friends for months!"

We visited the famous Nazca Lines which are mysterious geoglyphs (straight lines and geometric images) in the desert sand. How they were created, no one actually knows. But theories say that maybe aliens created these lines, maybe early Incas. Who knows? But what we do know is that up above, in a 4 seater plane, is the only way you can see these lines. A 4 seater plane in Peru... does this make anyone else nervous? Yeah... we know what you mean.

We quickly bonded with Ivan, while we all bravely fought bouts of nausea from our flipping stomachs. The pilot told us, as he made three stomach jumping rotations around an imagine, "The tip of the plane wing is pointing at the humming bird (as we feverishly looked at our pamphlet and then the desert sand, searching for similarities)" I´m thinking, Should the wing of our plane be perpendicular to the ground? I´m sure Jay (my cousin) does this every time he flies... if he can do it, our nice Peruvian Pilot surely can (As he tells us to "Get right up close to the window ladies!" Lori and I have already fogged it up with our nose prints.)

All in all, the impressive desert lines made our jaws drop. "Magical" as our Israeli friend described them. Be it that they were created by ET, the Incas (in approximately years 200 BC - 600 AD) or the government (to up tourism, Lori´s theory), they are mind-boggling. More or less 300 hundred figures cover about 400 square miles of the Peruvian desert. $50 will get you in a tiny, bouncy plane to see about 20 of them. That was all our stomachs could handle. It was pretty amazing.

Some other funny things happened during our 28 hours in Nazca with our Slovenian friend. (Remember... simple minds, simple pleasures.) We were looking at some postcards of the Nazca Lines in a souvenir shop and one was terrible quality. (I can see Jeffy P saying "You have to take this minuscule image and sttttrrrrreeeettttcccchhhh it.") I´m ranting and raving, "Look at this garbage! This is terrible quality! Does anyone even know what this is? I mean, it´s all pixilated and everything. You can hardly make out what it is! It looks two llamas or something... they expect to sell this junk?" We turn over the postcard and the caption says "Two Llamas Nazca Lines, Peru"

We were figuring out which bus company to take to Arequipa, Peru (our next destination). Ivan showed us a brochure from Cruz del Sur, a fancy bus company that we´ve never traveled in but heard alot about. I´m looking at the brochure and read one of the perks, BINGO. "Ivan, this bus company is the best! You guys even play BINGO!" We definitely have never played BINGO on the buses we take. We´re just lucky no one steals our stuff. BINGO... hmmm... definitely a selling point.

Then I read another perk, Musical Instruments. What the?!? "And they give you musical instruments?" I ask Ivan. He replies "What are you talking about?" Lori says "Gimme that thing... let me see..." Ah yes, minor error... Instrumental music. Now that makes more sense. We laughed and joked for the next 5 hours about musical instruments on the bus. Imagine, bus attendants handing out musical instruments to passengers... one gets an accordion, another maybe a trombone (and he´s hitting the guy in front of him in the head), a flute, cymbals... the whole marching band. We were laughing soooo hard, we were crying. Just thinking of a bus full of rich tourists with their instruments all playing them terribly and loudly at the same time. Someone with a harp, another with the pan flute, the trumpet, drums... think about it.

10pm, please return your instruments to the nearest bus attendant. Music time is over, lights out, time to sleep.

Off to Arequipa :)

The Home of the Cajòn: Chincha, Peru

2008-12-06T21:09:00.009-05:00

Chincha, a city slightly to the south of Lima, is the city where the cajòn peruano originated and is really the home of afro-peruvian music. In August of 2007 much of Chincha, Pisco and Ica (two nearby cities) were destroyed by an earthquake that registered 7.9 on the Richter scale! Although we didn't make a stop in Chincha, the sights we saw while passing through were despairing. The damage done to the city over a year ago is frightfully apparent. Hopefully this place that holds so much culture, a real Peruvian treasure, will be brought back to life again.

What is the Cajòn Peruano?

2008-12-05T20:18:00.009-05:00

The cajòn (said, cu-hown) peruano is an instrument that has developed over the years since African slaves were brought to Peru. When the slaves arrived, they had no musical instruments which is problematic in a culture that relies so much on music. So what did they do? They started using whatever they could find in order to make music. Originally they used giant pumpkins or fruit crates as drums. The crates eventually developed into what is known today as the cajòn (literally, "drawer" in English); a very diverse instrument with a really beautiful sound, that to most people looks like an ordinary box with a hole in the back. In Peru, the cajòn is used mostly in two types of music: creole (mix of European and African) music like the Peruvian waltz and Afro-Peruvian music with rhythms such as Landò and Festejo. Festejo is always accompanied by a happy, flirtatious dance (between men and women) that involves a lot of exaggerated hip moments and shoulder shakes. (Ask Laura for a demonstration when she gets back!)

Another instrument that developed in the same way as the cajòn is the "cajita" (in English "little box") which is in fact, exactly what it sounds like. This instrument, like the cajòn, was developed from a household item.

Probably the most surprising is the "quijada de burro", (donkey`s jaw bone). This instrument is used by striking the wide end of the jaw with the side of your fist. It has a really unique sound. (Do you think I could get one of these through customs?)

Peruvians are really proud of their culture, especially their music, as they should be!

If you're interested in Peruvian music look for Eva Ayllòn, currently one of the most popular Peruvian artists (mine and Laura`s personal favorite). She now lives in New Jersey.

Did you know....

2008-12-03T22:36:00.002-05:00

Lima, Peru is the second largest desert city in the world? Wild! What is the first largest?

LimaLimon

2008-12-03T21:50:00.003-05:00

So we´ve been trying our best to put on our tourist shoes.

On Friday, we visited the noisy, bustling, smelly, interesting center of Lima. Here we visited the Museum of the Inquisition, which explained all the things that happened to heretics, rebels and non-catholics in the 1900s in Lima... creepy, but interesting.

We also visited a church which has an altar with a famous painting of the crucified Christ. It was painted 350 years ago by a Peruvian slave. Soon after being painted, there was a huge earthquake and basically everything in Lima was leveled. This wall was the only thing left standing. A church was built around this wall. It is an impressive, miraculous painting (from afar at least).

At night, we went to a Peña, a live, Afro-Peruvian music show at a fancy bar. With Lori´s cajon interest (a cajon is an Afro-Peruvian drum, more on that later) and my dance interest, we were totally wowed by De Rompe Yoraja´s show. The music was amazing, the dancers were stupendous and the show in general was reeeeally funny (and we only understand about 20% of all jokes in spanish). Definitely worth the $10 cover. I did sign Lori up for something. (Three days of birthday celebration isn´t too much is it?) Come to find out, she had to go on stage with all the other birthday girls. I thought she would kill me as the singer sang to the group. But then, I thought maybe she´d kill me using the torture methods from the Museum of the Inquisition when they made her dance in front of everyone. I could see her sending me the look of death. At the end, she recieved a small cajon for her participation and at that moment I saw her hatred for me instantly disappear. Thank God. No seriously, I was (and still am) literally thanking God.

The next day (Saturday) we took an Israeli friend from our hostal to the hospital. She got star treatment at the hospital where her doctor was also Israeli. She even got to speak in Hebrew to him.

From there we went to some classes that we heard about for the cajon (the drum, for Lori) and for Festejo (an Afro-Peruvian dance, for me). We left 3 hours later with swollen fingers and an aching back (Lori) and jello legs that could hardly walk (me). They were impressed with these talented gringas! Lori asked intelligent cajon questions (women don´t usually play the cajon and definitely not gringas) and I, thanks to the other two, left-footed students in my dance class, learned quickly how to shake my money maker. (the other two people were completely lost, i think they were actually country line dancing...)

Anyways, we stumbled back to the hostal... tired, smelly and with swollen fingers but forced ourselves to take advantage of the last opportunity to see live Afro-Peruvian music and went to another Peña with our eyes sleepily, half open. We did one more cheers to Lori for her birthday and decided we are not cut out for this party life.

Sunday we visited our friend in the hospital and thought about asking the doctor if maybe he could check out our blotation devices. Is it normal to seem like you have an orchestra in your stomach? Our friend was much better.

We went to the quiet but impressive museum of Pedro Osma. He collected colonial art, furniture and silver stuff. It was beautiful. At approximately 7pm we called it a night.

That´s LimaLimon in a nutshell my friends! :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

2008-12-03T21:43:00.003-05:00

So we´re a little late. Actually, it´s a wonder that we celebrated on the correct day because the not-so-famous, famous columbian musicians told us Thanksgiving was the 20th of November. We thought we missed it altogether!

We celebrated Thanksgiving with some new American friends, Paul and Dan from Long Island. These guys are our heros. They were visiting Peru because one day they were talking nonsense and said "Let´s go to Peru!" and eachone was waiting for the other person to say the trip was a crazy idea and couldn´t happen. But as the weeks passed, neither one did. So they bought plane tickets and came for a month. Paul, to get a month off from his job, actually had to quit his job and concequently move back in with his parents. Talk about a life decision. Paul and Dan made our Thanksgiving very happy with their Long Island accents, lack of pick-up lines (there were a few bad ones when we visited the Love Park in Lima, but mostly from all the pressure of the romantic poems written beautifully on the walls) and frequent beer-pong references. We´d forgotten about these days.

We went to a restaurant owned by Americans and ordered Philly-cheese steaks and other American joys. After our meal, the owners surprised us with a plate of turkey (with which we immediately thought "Is someone robbing us?" :P)

Later that night, again with our blotation devices, we went to, see Cyndi Lauper in concert. Some friends of ours in Lima told us she´d be in concert, they invited us. What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving Day than by singing Time After Time with good ol´ Cyndi!

We celebrated the day of thanks in the most American, South American way possible... in Lima, Peru with Cyndi Lauper and Philly Cheese steaks :)

Feliz Cumpleaños

2008-12-01T18:38:00.006-05:00

No more cold showers! What a way to celebrate turning 26 on the 26th of November!

Hostel Friend´s House 368 Capac y Colon, 24 soles per night, includes a breakfast of eggs, bread, butter and jelly! (This is rare in South America.) We´re in heaven!

Here we are in Lima, Peru. The first question we asked the woman at our hostel before agreeing to a room was, are there hot showers? We quietly endured about 5 days of the ol´ ice-cube shower in Trujillo.

Lima turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Most people don´t even bat an eye at our presence, which is amazing (or maybe we´ve gotten less beautiful since Trujillo...) We´re in Miraflores, the nicest part of this huge, 8-millon-person city. We´re basically between downtown Lima and Barranco, the night life-bar district.

We arrived on my birthday and celebrated with our most expensive meal yet, $20 a person, in a beautiful Italian restaurant known for it´s homemade pasta (honestly, nothing compared to my dad's, but it was good for South American Italian food.) From there we walked with our bloatation devices (expanded stomachs... we coined the phrase after the eating effects on my birthday and Thanksgiving) to eat Italian ice-cream which was well worth the $6 and by far the best ice cream we've eaten in 2 years.

We then checked out a part of town called "Pizza Street" (there was a lot of pizza and also annoying people jumping out of each and every door, trying to convince us to enter their restaurant bar). We were tried and full and really just wanted a drink or two, so we didn't feel like old fogies going home at 10:00 on my birthday. Everything was going smoothly until a group of Colombian guys started dancing with us. They told us they're in a famous band (not impressed), they sing vallenatos, which is romantic music from Columbia (still not impressed), and that the minute we walked in the door, they knew they had found their future wives (hmm even less impressed). One of them asked Laura if anyone had ever been so forward with her before. Only 95% of the men she's met in the last 2.5 years, she told him. They invited us to their show the next night. We didn't go.

Little did I know, this was only the beginning of my birthday celebration that would last for 2 more nights...

Chao Trujillo!!!

2008-12-01T15:07:00.013-05:00

We left Trujillo Tuesday night (November 25) to go to Lima. I must say... we were happy to leave. Trujillo was definitely not our favorite place so far, but it did have one saving grace; art, specifically street art. Every time we passed through the main plaza something was happening: a play with a crazy drunk man as the main character, a humorous reenactment of the history of Peru, a small musical group involving several men wearing tights, some drummers and a dramatic portrayal of slavery, an art exhibit about the flooding over the recent years in Peru... (perhaps an Arabic dancer?) It seemed the government was doing everything possible to promote the arts. Laura and I did have a taste of fame when we were asked to perform at Thursday Cultural Night and Friday Neighborhood Cultural Night. They even paid us (not exactly a hefty sum, we prefer to think of it in soles, the currency of Peru, than in dollars.)

Although our experiences with the people of Trujillo were not the best, we did meet two quirky, old ladies (sisters) that were kind enough to invite us to lunch one day and entertain us with their funny, but odd stories and their ability to eat A LOT of food (more than Laura!) This was our introduction to Lomo Saltado; a Peruvian favorite (beef with onions and tomatoes, rice and a heap of french fries), not exactly a lite meal, but in Peru and Ecuador you can never really eat too many carbs. They explained to us that they had decided to never get married, because they have seen that it only results in pain. (Oh and one of them is allergic to... cold; meaning she can't drink, eat or touch anything cold... hmmm interesting...) The other lady, Maria Ester, was so impressed with Laura`s dancing that she called it a dream. I would agree.

We did visit a few sites while we were there. A strange toy museum (we accidentally stumbled upon) that housed old toys and dolls dating back to 1900. We found the first room with dolls of all sizes and colors hanging from the ceiling to be a little disturbing, but not as weird as the odd puppets which we found later.

We spent one day visiting Chan Chan, the largest adobe brick city in the world, built in the year 1300 AD by the Chimus (before the Incas). We were able to visit one of the temples which has been restored. There are practically no remaining treasures from the temples, because it was looted and everything was stolen years ago. The structure itself was really impressive however and we met two nice French Canadian girls who we spent the day with. (We knew we would be friends immediately, because they were the only two other people who opted to take the cheap city bus to the site, get out and walk down the loooong dirt road to Chan Chan, rather than get in a nice tour van like the rest of the tourists.)

The next day we met up with our new Canadian friends again and went to visit the Huacas de la Luna y del Sol (where we had un up-close encounter with the famous "Peruvian Dog." A dog which is completely furless/hairless, besides a little tuff on the head and tail- not pretty!) The Huacas de la Luna y del Sol, built during the Moche period are 700 years older than the Chan Chan temples. We were able to enter the Huaca de la Luna which has been preserved in a much more natural state than Chan Chan. While Chan Chan has received several touch ups, La Luna still contains the original paintings and designs on the walls. It's diffcult to explain the feeling of being inside, but it's really incredible to think that almost 1500 years ago a completely different civilization inhabited that space and people stood and even died right where we were standing! We saw the exact place where they did human scrafices and years later found the decapitated remains of many people. We also learned that in most of these cultures when the leader died, his wife and all his other women (usually much younger than him, in their 20s) were also scraficed. (Now that doesn`t sound very fair.) Due to the position in which the remains were found (the women appeared to be trying to sit up), they have concluded that they were usually buried alive.

On Tuesday, after a visit to Huanchaco, the local beach, we said goodbye to our Canadian friends, rushed back to the hotel, grabbed our things, and in the chaos of almost missing our bus to Lima left our towels behind. We happily waved goodbye to Trujillo, more than ready for the next stop.

Trujillo Day 3

2008-11-22T19:15:00.002-05:00

So the other day I said to Lori (and her infinite stomach problems) "You know... I´m carrying around about 5lbs of stomach medicine for you and you haven´t even had one problem yet... I mean, I was counting on you to have at least 2 or 3 by now and really lighten my load of pepto, immodium, etc." Well, she really took it to heart. I think she licked the sidewalk... yesterday we lightened my load of stomach medicine (honestly... I think she could have done better than one dose of Pepto and a few pills).

Trujillo, Peru: Day 2

2008-11-20T15:48:00.001-05:00

1:00 a.m. - Loud knocking at our door. Two girls from Piura who we had never met, want to invite us to their room to drink wine....(ummm... what??)

10:00 a.m. - Shower in ice cold water

11:00 a.m. - Guy stops us on the streets to warn us about 2 guys known as "Gringa Hunters" who try to take advantage of foreigners. We had already met them the night before. (Good eye, chicas!)

11:30 a.m. - Run from one municipal office to another trying to get permission to do a show in the plaza. Everyone seems to have a different answer and interpretaion of our question... permission for what? where? are we speaking german?

12:00 p.m. - A taxi cab driver has fallen asleep while at a stoplight. Everyone else is beeping.

12:12 p.m. - Mom teaches her young son to pee on the open road. This site, although not a first, will never cease to amaze us.

12:15 p.m. - Loud screaming out of a car window (while waiting for taxi driver to wake up). Yes, that was directed at us.

3:30 p.m. - Trying to think positively about this city...

Trujillo, Peru

2008-11-20T15:11:00.005-05:00

Trujillo: Hostal La Fortuna (30 soles = $10) for a double bed. Calles Almagro y España

After an unexpectedly long stay in Chiclayo, we finally arrived to our next destination, Trujillo. The 1st night was... eventful. We took a taxi to the cheapest hostal in our guide book ($6 a night per person) to find that the place our cab driver described as Dracula's home had closed down. We then began a trek across the city with our backbreaking bags to a hotel recommended to us by a tour guide who we met in the street. He told us the place was nice and the price comfortable, but when we arrived we found a dark, dodgy place, no hot water, closet sized room, odd smell, one bed, no windows, and a creaky, diaper-like, springy mattress that Laura and I would share. Our backs couldn't handle any more wandering around. "We'll take it!" we said.

Then the search for food. We prowled the streets of Trujillo noting the impressive colonial style architechure; doors big enough for a giant to easily enter. After eating a mediocre, but cheap ($1.33) meal (called churrasco: beef, rice, salad, potatoes, juice), we began the search for a new hostal that we could change to the following day. The cheaper places all seemed to have a strange vibe; something creepy about the men working there, or the over abundance of mirrors, junky locks on the doors... I don`t know. We did find some really nice places...waaaaay our of our $5 price range. Our dingy little room was starting to look better and better; at least the owner, a kind, old man, gave the impression that he wasn`t going to steal all our stuff.

While looking around a guy approached us to ask if we needed help (did we look lost?) He started explaining where we could find a hotel and that he could show us if we wanted. There was another guy standing farther back. I suddenly recognized them. We had passed them a few blocks back, where they were talking to two other foreigners. Something had called my attention to it. A feeling of uneasiness set in (I doubted these guys were just being nice...patrolling the streets, concerned for the well-being of lost foreigners.) "I don't trust them," I said to Laura in English and we calmly made an excuse as to why we had to go. Before leaving one of them made sure to say something in perfect English (just to let us know he understood me...) I felt bad...maybe I had been wrong?

An hour later while walking around we saw them talking with 2 more foreign girls. I was glad I'd followed my gut instinct. As Laura summed us up: she'll get us home (I have no sense of direction), but I'll get us home safe, creep free (Laura could easily talk to a rock.)

We also met a small 7 year old boy selling candy in the street. It was 9:00 p.m. He followed us for about 20 minutes asking for money. We generally don't like to encourage the exploitation of street kids, but when he told us that if he didn't help his mom, they would lose their house, we started to break down. (He also told us the schedule of his entire day, wake up, help mom, make breakfast, go to school, go home, make lunch, do homework, go to "work"... etc.) So after a short, but inspirational speech by Laura about why education is important and a pinky swear that he would study hard, we gave him a few coins. He said that he wants to be a professional in the future. We wonder if he'll ever have that opportunity...

We ended the night testing local desserts. We're still trying to figure out why South American desserts aren't as delicious as they look. (Maybe they're lacking the calories of U.S. desserts?)

Trujillo- Hostal La FORTUNA: FORTUNATELY, we won't be staying here for too long.

Chiclayo, Peru - The City of Friendship :)

2008-11-20T14:02:00.003-05:00

Hostal San Lucas 15 soles/$5 (Aguirre y Carrion)

We arrived to Chiclayo, Peru with the intention of meeting the family of some Peruvians we know in Quito, Ecuador. They would show us around a day or two and off we go. BUT our new friends were so nice, we stayed a whopping 9 days. Honestly, there´s not that much to see in Chiclayo, but the people are very nice, at least our friends were. Here´s a quick run-down of what we did!

Sunday - arrived at night, met our nice friends, ate chicken, told funny stories, arrived to our Mexican nunnery hostal, said "Phewf!" that our new friends were totally cool, sleep. Were introduced to Cumbia music (a popular type of music) and Grupo 5 (a cumbia band popular in all of Peru, they are from Chiclayo).

Monday - visited the central market where a man tried to sell us a potion for 20 soles that would give us good luck, good health and good love... and lots of money. I tried to tell Lori it was a bargain. She´s so unrealistic! :) We ate the most delicious Peruvian ceviche in existance and finally a bird pooped on my head (don´t they say it´s good luck? I didn´t have to pay 20 soles for that). South America has made us so sceptical, I mean when a bird poops on your head is it normal to think immediately "Someone must be robbing me!"

Tuesday - visited a festival in our friend´s hometown, just outside of Chiclayo. Visited a house made completely out of rock and finally, partied to cumbia music and Grupo 5 until 6am. Are we still in college or something?

Wednesday - slept all day and practiced our arabic dance show in the park with lots of support from passersby. Danced to Cumbia music and Grupo 5 all night. Are we in Peruvian college or something?

Thursday and Friday - we continued practicing in the park with various audiences (mostly elementary school kids). Most everyone watched our talent and then wanted to share theirs. We had traditional Peruvian dancers, a flute player (where did he pull that flute out of?), stilt walkers, some clowns dressed as woman etc. Friday night we performed for a group of Engineers in Chiclayo. We´re still trying to decide if their silence meant they enjoyed it or were horrified :)

Saturday - we (finally) put on our tourist shoes and visited The Museum of Señor Sipan. Señor Sipan was a king of the Mochicas in the year 600ad. The Mochicas had their empire right outside of Chiclayo. This museum is dedicated to all the archaeological findings in his tomb. It was absolutely amazing. These people had more gold than they knew what to do with. Lori, Martin (our friend) and I were wowed. At night, more discos with more cumbia music and Grupo 5.

Sunday - we visited a beach near Chiclayo, Beach Pimentel. It was chilly and had some cool fishing canoe things where people were selling fish. Can´t get much fresher than that! It´s a shame South America doesn´t value a good clean, trash free beach. Other than that, who doesn´t love the beach?

Monday - still with our tourist shoes on, we visited that actual archaeological site of Señor Sipan where you can see where his tomb and others were actually found. We met a nice Peruvian American from New York. We knew we would be friends because when the men operating the bus gave it a running-pop-the-clutch-start, our soon to be friend told us "That´s the Peruvian way" which conveniently is also the Ecuadorian way and probably the Bolivian way and the Chilean way... etc... :)

Tuesday - we visited a museum that has a little bit of history from each empire that inhabited Peru at one time or another with our friend Cesar. With beautiful photography (see black and white photo to the left... the crazy looking one is the founder of the museum :) and enough 2,000-year-old ceramic pots to fill a swimming pool, we´re experts on Peruvian history :) Come on, try us! We also witnessed a little boy fall in the street. His dad helped him up and I started dying laughing. Lori looked at me like "I can´t believe you´re laughing at that little boy!" After telling her he had slipped on a banana peel (which I thought only happened to elephants in cartoons) we both practially peed our pants.

Wednesday - we said a teary goodbye to our good friends, the dog (Mocha) from our hostal that we had grown to love (the fact that she scratched on our door daily to say hello, told us we had probably been in Chiclayo, the City of Friendship, too long). I believe cumbia and Grupo 5 were playing in the background. :)

Chiclayo, we love you!

Mancora, Peru

2008-11-20T13:58:00.010-05:00

Hostal with No Name 20 soles/$6.50 (brick building on the beach across from "Club de Angeles")

Lonely Planet: "Mancora is Peru´s worst-kept secret, a laid back, sandy paradise."
Laura and Lori: "Mancora is Peru´s most over-rated secret, a noisy, mosquito infested, animalistic macho-Tarzan-lookalike magnet, drug addict paradise."

We arrived to Mancora to find all the cheap hostals full, so we decided to spend the extra dollar and stay at a classy place. The first night, after realizing there was no water, we met the diverse welcome committee: a few large cucarachas, 10,000,000 mosquitoes and 1 mouse trying to support his family of 5 under our bathroom sink. In a mosquito swatting, cockroach squashing frenzy, I broke the sink pipe. Not to worry - still no water.

We did enjoy the beach, the windiest beach we´ve ever been to. Although, getting pegged int he face with sand decreased enjoyment (as well as the fat man who took off his bathing suit in the ocean).

The second night, we had the routine down pat: bathroom light on (scare away cockroaches), bedroom light off (no mosquitoes), mosquito repellent body soak, special mosquito repellent incense and a sheet snuggly covering every square inch of our bodies. We looked like a shiny, human sacrifice.

We did meet two friendly (and a little crazy) men from Lima, Peru (see motorcycle pics... ) who turned out to be good company and Tarzan-lookalike repellent.

Mancora - it´s a mediocre time! :)

Piura, Peru: Home of the... taxi

2008-11-10T13:46:00.004-05:00

Hospedaje California, Calle Junin: 15 soles a night = $ 5

The much feared border crossing into Peru (see picture to left) really couldn't have gone any smoother (minus the customs officer who was more interested in giving Laura his phone number than stamping our passports. Not really surprising.) The trip from Loja, Ecuador to Piura took about 8 hours in the bus, so we were crossing the border at about 4 a.m. We got into to Piura at 7 a.m. (our Irish friend still accompaning us). At that point we needed a long nap because due to the winding, bumpy roads and frequent stops it was nearly impossible to sleep. (Laura however managed to snooze for the ENTIRE trip. This angered the Irish bloke and me.)

We spent the day exploring Piura, a small bustling city. It had a nice vibe (we've found that to be the case with most coastal cities; the people are happier and there's more movement in the city.) In terms of tourism, there isn't much to see in Piura... a small gold museum (the highlight being a lifesize, golden, cat head, belt buckle), taxis (more than I've ever seen in my life, all junky), a nice park (where we met the former mayor of Piura from about 1965, a friendly, old character who says he doesn't know how he became mayor, but he's sure that the only people that voted for him were ladies), several ceviche restaurants (a Peruvian seafood specialty), and a few discotecas (all, unfortunately playing cumbia music).

We actually really enjoyed the day. The next morning we parted ways with our Irish friend and got on the bus to Mancora, a small beach town that is all the rave in Peru. He continued down south to Lima.

Piura, a noisy, hot, friendly introduction to Peru; worth ONE day of your time.

Welcome to Peru!

2008-11-07T09:49:00.004-05:00

Hello everyone! We arrived in Peru a few days ago. Lori will update everyone on Piura (our first stop, still with the Irish bloke :) I just wanted to post a map of Peru so you know where we are. We were in Loja, Ecuador (at the very south of Ecuador) last and after a sleepless overnight bus and some stupid pick-up lines from customs officers at the border (so professional this continent) we arrived in the first big city/town. Piura, Peru which you see at the north west of the map.

miss you all!! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Loja - Cleanest city in South America

2008-11-05T20:39:00.005-05:00

Loja - Hotel Londres (Sucre and 10 de Agosto) $5 saggy beds and creaky floors. Just like the book says :)

First, we just want to say that we gave a little yelp of happiness to know that Obama will be the next president :) I just heard from my new Irish friend that 140 million people showed up to vote. The highest since 1908! Wow! I also hope that my good friend Loxi Ellingwood won whatever it was that she was running for (the only other familiar name I saw on the ballot when I voted on my "Emergency Ballot" during my visit home). Loxi, I´m not gonna lie, I didn´t have any idea what it was you were running for... but you had my vote hands down! Of course, if you had some signs to put in the front yard to show our support for you, we would have done it (in Ecuador too!).

Right now, we´re in Loja (see Lori´s entry, after about 19 hours on a bus, we arrived to find Loja closed). So, Monday we didn´t do anything. We walked around only to be hit with extreme exhaustion midday and took a nap. Everywhere we went "It´s closed because of the holiday", "It´s not working because of the holiday", "It closed early..." we know. Because of the holiday. We then went to the movie theater (which was more expensive... guess why...) and saw what we thought would be a mediocre movie and turned out to be soooooo great! How often can you say that? It´s called "La Misma Luna". You should all see it. It was a great, sad movie. Lori and Laura give it two teary-eyed thumbs up.

Tuesday, we went hiking in the National Park Podocarpus (named after the tree Podocarpus which is all over the place in this Park). Well, we only visited a small part of the park, because it is enormous! (1462.8 square kilometers) It was beautiful! We saw cool flowers, lizards (mountain lizards of course), amazing views, mountain stick bugs and lots and lots of... mud. We must have trudged through the mud for 2 of the 3 hours. Today, Lori´s and my legs are killing us.

Today, we met a grand Irish bloke (with lots of policital statistics :) and we went off to visit Vilcabamba. Weird name, old people. They say that the oldest people here in Ecuador live in Vilcabamba. They live so long, rumor has it, because of the water. Which, oddly enough was off today in the entire town. So, we couldn´t get a taste of this fountain of youth (or flush the toilets or wash our hands...) Bummer... nor did we see alot of old people, they were hidden away in someone´s basement we think. No, I´m just kidding!! But seriously, they say the people live until 100 years old or something! To say that time went by veeerrrrryyyy slowly in this town, is an understatement. It was soooo chill, one hour felt like 3 (in a good way). We spent the day like Irishmen and, since there was no water to be had (note dry fountain behind us), appropriately we drank beer :)

Tonight - Off to Peru!

Bus It

2008-11-03T21:02:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone, Lori here. (Finally!) When people are traveling I always wonder, well sooo what are you doing everyday? What is a typical day like? So I thought I'd give you a quick summary of day 3... this is how it went down:

-Leave Tena
-Get on a bus
-Sit in front of a drug dealer who keeps insisting (to the point of screaming to the bus driver) that I take my glasses off, because my eyes are like butterflies...
-There seem to be an unusually large quantity of smelly people around us
-The bible man is sitting near by asking to watch Titanic because he's a romantic man, which is a ridiculous request...(refer to Laura's Jean Claude Van Damme blog)
-After 7.5 hours we arrive to Riobamba
-Take our approximately 50-60 lbs of luggage each off the bus and try to find food. (Is someone going to rob us?) It's Sunday night. Nothing is open. We settle for bread... our only nourishment for the day.
-Get on another bus to Loja (11 hours). This bus was clearly made for midgets. (What is that smell? Did someone bring their trash on the bus?)
-Arrive to Loja 7:30 in the morning... to find out it's a holiday and everything is closed.

Lesson`s Learned:
1. Check our you surroundings before sitting on the bus (you dont want to get stuck with a high drug dealer, or preaching missonary for 7 hours... you definitely don't want the combination of the two.)

2. 19 hours of traveling is too long. Plan better.

3. Don`t visit Loja during a holiday.

Tena - Fun in the Jungle Sun

2008-11-03T20:38:00.007-05:00

So Tena was beautiful and hot (a shame there was no beach).
Some highlights:
Hostal Saharait $6 (near the boardwalk), better hostal Brisa del Rio (right on the boardwalk)

- Mango allergy (see post below & Will Smith picture)
- We watched the crowning of Miss Tena 2009. The new queen is named

Jenniferth (no mistake, just interesting translation...) AND the crowning of Miss Indigenious Tena 2009 (because there are tons of indigenous communities in the jungle near Tena) Lori and I liked this competition much better. The girls seemed much more smarter ;) No really, the girls were beautiful and had a show of their traditional outfits made out of seeds and coconuts, etc. We were totally wowed. Drum roll - Miss Indigenious Tena 2009 Jenniser (I repeat, no mistake, just an interesting translation. Lori and I say that, in honor of our love of South America, we´re going to name our kids Juama and Diegflo.)
- We went to a Jungle Park to do some hiking and pet some animals. We learned about medicinal plants, saw plants that when you touch their leaves they close up (Little Shop of Horrors... but on a much smaller scale :) and had a little Warthog type animal (like Pumba! but no horns) licking my legs all afternoon. They say they like salt and since I was sweating like a... well... warthog, we were instant friends. (Mom, do I make you proud?) He followed us around all day. We think he´d make a much cooler pet than a dog. Our guide told us the pig´s name is Samba because he has hair like mine. I thought his hair seemed rather straw-like. Thanks.
- Jungle Park continuation, we had a monkey climbing on us like we were a jungle gym. He had these little soft paws. Also the best pet, because you can´t drop him! Even if you try to throw him (Lori tried... ) he tricks you by holding on with his tail. Tricky little fella. And a cute little robber!

Tena - Two Thumbs waaaay up!

Latin America, Jean Claude Van Damme & Chuck Norris

2008-11-01T20:08:00.006-04:00

Can I just ask - Why does Latin America love Jean Claude Van Damme?

I know, he is a thing of the 90´s in the states, but in Ecuador, this man is raking in the dough. (well, not really, because most of his movies are pirated... lol) But seriously, Jean and Chuck Norris, their careers are in full swing here in Ecuador. Everytime, and I seriously mean EVERYTIME, I ride a bus any long distance for sure they play one of Jean or Chuck´s famous "we never die no matter how many times you shoot us" movies. This one "In Hell," in my honest opinion, was one of his better ones. I really connected with him. We´ve seen quite a few (even a few movies that stared Chuck and his brother... an honor) but really, "In Hell" was better than "Inferno," "Universal Soldier I, II & III" and "A Tale of Two Titans" but not as good as "Street Fighter." Yup, we´ve seen them all ;)

Since we{re going out...

2008-11-01T19:51:00.004-04:00

So yesterdays mango experience (see my friend Will Smith{s picture, no really.... that was me) made Lori and I happily think about Brian Regan (a hilarious comedian. Thanks Gymnastics Joe, since you introduced him to us, our lives haven{t been the same!!) This is how Lori{s conversation with me went yesterday (the Brian Regan version)

Lori: So, Laura.... you know how your face normally looks? Of course you do.... (small chuckle) Well, you look a little different. So.... I was thinking, since we{re gonna go check our email later, maybe we could just swing by the hospital on the way? What do you think?

Laura: (with a lisp from a slightly swollen tongue) I think I{m just gonna lay down for 10 minutes. Then, if my throat is still itching, we can go check our email and swing by the hospital.

One of those moments that is funny now and wasn{t at the time.

TENA here we are :)

2008-10-31T19:48:00.002-04:00

So we made it to Tena. Everything´s good. It´s been an eventful few first hours. While sitting on the boardwalk, I ate a mango (without washing it... STUPID!!!) and after a few minutes, I said to Lori... my palms feel itchy (not knowing that itchy palms is the number one symptom of an alergic reaction) Well... a few Benadryls later, my face is less swollen and my palms no longer itchy. I look like a face in EXTRA (those of you from Ecuador know what i´m talking about)... with swollen eyes and lips... but everything´s cool. Don´t worry, we took pictures :)

Day 1 Lesson of the Day: Don´t eat unwashed fruit.

The Plan, as it stands

2008-10-30T12:20:00.005-04:00

So I want to pass along a map of Ecuador so we´re all on the same page :) After leaving Quito, we´re off to Tena (which you can see a little South East of Quito). Here, it´s part in the Jungle, part not. They say there are amazing adventure sports! And little did we know, it´s the celebration of Tena independence or something for the next two weeks. Sweet!

Then, we´re off to Loja (reeeaaaallly South) and Vilcabamba (the oldest people in Ecuador live there, they say because of the water or something and Rachel reccommends it, so it must be good!) to a huge national park Podocarpus, to visit a Petrified Forest in that area and finally, to Peru.

Check out the map!

Banking In Ecuador: The Customer Is Always... :)

2008-10-30T11:38:00.007-04:00

So we´re pretty much all packed up and ready to go :) Just some last minute things...

Since I got back from the states (I had a secret, quick trip to the states at the beginning of October, if you are surprised to hear this news... I was like Batman, I just appeared under the cover of darkness and left the same way :) about one week and a half ago... We´ve been basically doing the same routine (Lori´s been doing it since the beginning of October, she´s a saint!) Wake up, eat breakfast, go to the bank and wait in line to be attended, eat lunch, do some other little things to pass the time, stop by the bank one more time (just to say hi, maybe bring coffee, in case they missed us) go home, repeat.

Ecuador is an amazing country... amazing in beauty and... the processes you have to do to get anything official done. Especially in banks, because there´s so much fraud, that employees are extra careful (and sometimes just lazy... which doesn´t help)

I´m going to tell a bank story. That really sums things up. About two months ago, my job tells me Emergency! "Laura, we opened a second bank account for you by accident. You have to go down to the bank and close it." I go to the bank. Bank: "You can´t close it, your work opened the account, they need to close it" Ok. So I go to work. Work:"We tried to close it and they told us they need you to do it" I go to the bank. Bank:"Ok, you can close it but you need a letter from your work saying you have permission to close it" I go to work. Work:"We sent the letter, they have it somewhere" Bank:"We don´t have it, you have to bring a printed copy for us" Work:"But we sent it, it´s confirmed, they have the letter, we need special signatures. They have it!" So I go to the bank (Imagine each part of the dialogue is one full day) and I´m about to cry. The woman says (without looking or making any effort, maybe she lifted up her daily planner just to emphasize some sort of "looking" motion) "We don´t have the letter." I say, "Can´t you ask your co-workers, maybe it´s somewhere else?" Woman:"Lucy, do you have any letters?" Lucy (filing her nails, without lifting her head): "No" Woman: "Sorry, we don´t have it. You have to go back."

So, I move to an empty seat to call the secretary at my work. We talk, she says she doesn´t know what to do. Meanwhile, the employee, whose desk I´m sitting at, comes back from lunch and sits down. "Can I help you?" Me "Yes..." and explain my story. Woman:"I mean, it´s your account, you don´t need a letter to close it. It has your name on it, if you want to close it you can." Me (glaring at the first woman who did the crappiest job "looking" for the letter) "THANK YOU SOOO MUCH" i wanted to kiss her. I sign some papers. I leave. I celebrate.

So that is a short-ish synopsis of what happens when you have ANY sort of problem with the banks or any sort of office in this beautiful country. My motto here "The Customer Is Always Wrong" and that´s the truth.

To get out of here, Lori and I were waiting to get paid for September. I check my account before I leave for the states, no money. They didn´t pay me. I tell my boss, he´ll look into it. I leave for the states, still trying to pay me... no money. I get back from the states, still no money. I talk to the bank to see if i have any other secret accounts maybe where my job is depositing the money. Nada. So I talk to my boss. "Henry, are you sure they are depositing money into this account" and I give him my bank card. He runs down to some important person, they realize the bank was depositing my salary into the account that I closed two months ago (see above story) and that is why I wasn´t getting paid. Just take a breather.

The past Friday, I get paid. To get my money out of the ATM (the only way to get it out) I can only take out $200 a day. This is 3 more days we have to stay in Ecuador. Then, 1 more day to close my account, now we´re at Tuesday. Yesterday, Wednesday was my good friend Javier´s birthday (how can we leave one day before my best friend´s birthday! We´ve delayed this long!) and today we´re just waiting for Lori´s bank account to be finally closed (after transfering funds from her account here, to the states) Then... we leave :)

anyways, sorry... this was a big vent about banking in Ecuador. Don´t do it unless someone is holding a gun to your head (which could very well happen too! I´m just kidding... relax...)

Thanks for checking out my nerd site!

2008-10-27T08:55:00.003-04:00

More exciting stuff to come (sorry, to my estudiantes lindos in Ecuador... this will all be English, so you can practice :) A mis amigos, quienes no hablan ingles... que usen algo para traducir :) les quiero mucho!

Getting Started

2008-10-26T19:51:00.004-04:00

Well hello all! I hope everyone is well! We are well, still relaxing in Quito (well, not really relaxing). Resolving the million things that we need to do to finally get outta here! :) We had our 3rd going away party, hahaha.

Luckily, staying a few more days (or weeks... or... I mean, what was the original plan exactly?) has let us enjoy the famous guaguas de pan (pronounced wa-wa de pan) and colada morada. These things are (respectively) bread in the shape of dolls filled with jelly and a thick, hot, raspberry/strawberry drink. Together, to make my mom proud, I´d say it is "Soooo delicious." But no really, the combo is so delicious! (see foto of me with Guagua) We eat these to celebrate The Day of the Dead. Does it seem ironic to you too?

What more... Today Jose and I went to a soccer game, which if you all remember a few years ago, "Soccer Games" was the first thing I emailed home about. I hadn´t been since (can´t seem to remember why... haha). But reliving it was good :) It was the same as I remember (but less life threatening this time around). I think I had the smallest Liga fan at my side, with all of her two months. Maybe her first game (maybe not... haha). There were a few fights and everyone yelling cheers at the top of their lungs. It´s interesting, there have been very few times in my life that i´ve seen young, old, fat, thin... yelling "We´re the champions M*!¿ F;=!" I mean, yelling. Everyone. It was exciting, as always. (I mean, you have to imagine, like, Memere yelling that at the top of her lungs.) Anyways, no tear gas or running from the police this time. I´d call it a success :)

As one (of my many) finale to my Ecuador fun, Jose and I went to eat Chugchucaras last night. What exactly is this strange sounding thing? It is a plate of every delicious food in Ecuador. All in one convenient spot! I wish I had discovered this before, I wouldn´t have had to go from one restaurant to another in one night trying to eat all the delicious things! With Fritada (fried pork), empanadas (like a calzone... kinda), popcorn (it wouldn´t be complete without), potatoes and mote (like exploded corn) with chicharron (little pieces of fried pork), it was a great discovery. My students used to make fun of me, saying that when I said the word "Chugchucara" I sounded funny. I always wanted to tell them, "Well, when you speak english, you sound funny!" Another "Must-Eat" checked off the list :)

Over the next few days, we´re really trying to wrap things up. We plan to be out of here by Wednesday. We´re off to Tena, which is the white water rafting capital of Ecuador. We´ll see what happens!