Leah and I are currently watching the Oscars right now. Mind you it started in BsAS at 11 30, so hopefully we will be able to stay awake. This is one of the clever, thought provoking conversations that occured during the best supporting actress presentation, where Goldie Hawn, Angelica Hueston, Whoopi Goldburg, Tilda Swinton and some other chick presented:
Leah: "Hey! There are two Goldies up there! What are the odds?!
Kelly: "Wait, who is the second Goldie?"
Leah: "Goldie Hawn!"
Kelly: "Umm...then who is the first Goldie?"
Leah: "Whoopi Goldburg!....oh wait."
We also would like to comment the cinematography on their racy decision to showi Angelina Jolie's face while Jennifer Aniston was screwing up her presentation. Clearly they were hoping for something scandelous.
And when James Franco announced the winner of best short film and clearly could not pronounce the winning name, absolutely priceless.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Tuesday morning, Leah and I catch a bus to Villazon, which is on the border of Bolivia and Argentina. Once we get there, we have to cross the border and change buses to get to Salta. We have been assured 6 different times by the crazy transvestite woman who works for the bus company that we have plenty of time to switch over, about 2 hours, and we should be fine.
Well. The bus left 20 minutes late. The lady forgot that Argentina is an hour ahead, so we really only had one hour to cross the border. And she failed to mention that Argentina is the most inefficient country on the entire planet and that it would take us 3 hours to get through a line of about 30 people. So our bus was supposed to leave at 2 30, by 5 30 we finally got through the line and entered Argentina. I think the most frusterating thing was that it only took Leah and I five minutes combined to get everything taken care of. So what was taking so long with the people in front of us? We had a sneaking suspicion that all the workers went on lunch for an hour or so, leaving us to bake in the sun.
So we are finally back in the great, grand, wonderful land of Argentina and head to the bus station. We were told we could turn in our ticket for a later time and we would be fine. We go to the same bus company that we went to in Tupiza. We explain our situation to the men working there. They proceed to tell us that their bus company does not exist in Bolivia, even though we saw two different offices in two different cities. When we told them that, they said we were wrong. I know that we were not wrong. The vision of the giant terrifying woman in Tupiza has been burned into my retinas forever. I even had to leave for a few minutes when talking to her, because she widened her bulging eyes at Leah over something and I thought I was going to burst out laughing, so I KNOW that office exists.
We decided to try a different company, who obviously honered our ticket right away. So with about 5 hours to kill, we began to explore the city. And by explore I mean look for a place to eat. Everything in the town was closed. EVERYTHING. After about wandering around famished for about 30 minutes, we finally found a place. The waitress there was kind of crazy. She pretended she couldn´t hear us or see us waving our arms when she didn´t want to serve us, but was very kind to the large group of argentines on the other side of the resteraunt. Oh well. We ate quickly and then killed 3 hours on the internet, searching for places to live.
We went to catch our bus at 11 pm. It´s supposed to be about 7 hours, so we will arrive in Salta at 6 am. This was quite early, but Leah and I truly believed that we would catch about 6 hours of well rested sleep and spend a morning in Salta before heading off to BsAs. We were such fools.
Now on the way to the bus, you basically get harassed by all sorts of people trying to sell you bus tickets. Leah kept getting harassed by this guy in a turtleneck and she finally just screamed at him WHERE IS THE BATHROOM! He backed off, made eye contact with me, and we both started laughing. He was like, "okay, sorry." We got ourselves all rearranged and went to load our stuff on the bus, when who should be loading our luggage? Turtleneck guy! He saw Leah and was like, "do you need to find another bathroom?" It was embarassingly hilarious. So we get on our very crowded bus and settle in.
About ten minutes after the bus started moving, all the guys who worked on the bus decided to go right by where we were trying to sleep and talk. They were laughing and just being really loud, but Leah and I decided it was still too early to complain and we would wait a little bit longer to ask them to be quiet. Well. They kept getting up and shoving my arm (aisle seat) and not to mention they all smelled terrible. So finally we asked them to be quiet. They just stared at us, then kept on talking. Finally, about 45 minutes later, the spread out and were quiet. But suddenly the bus stopped and someone came onboard and told us to get off the bus. I was very confused and woke up Leah. Neither of us knew what was going on, but we were the only ones on the bus, so we hurried off.
Turns out we had driven by an army base and our bus had randomly been chosen to be searched. This is about 2 30 am. We had to stand in a long line with all of our luggage and wait for it to be searched. We were getting kind of nervous, because these people were doing VERY thorough searches and well, we might have bought a few illegal dvds. Plus, my stuff was packed so tightly I had no idea how I would ever close my suitcase again if it was searched. We slowly made our way up, checking out the men in uniform, because some were cute, obviously being very awkward about it. We hoped the cute one wouldn´t open Leah´s suitcase and replay what happened at the border crossing, where the man searching her stuff picked up a bra and examined it for a little too long.
We get to the front of the line and I went first. I´m all ready to open my three bags when the man asks me for my passport. I give it to him, he looks at it for 2 seconds, and says,"okay, you can go." That was it. Apparently being from the United States makes you exempt from getting searched at 2 30 am in a weird army base. Same thing happened to Leah. So yeah, if you are from the United States and want to smuggle illegal things into Argentina, you have nothing to worry about. Go crazy.
So we are waiting to get back on the bus and unfortunately standing next to those assholes who wouldn´t stop talking. There was a dog (actually still kind of a puppy) that was wandering around. It was very cute, not bothering anyone, just playing with a stick. I went over and played with it for a while, it was a really nice dog, just sitting there. Out of nowhere, one of the guys who worked for the bus just went up and kicked the dog in the face. Now if you know me, you know I love dogs and that asshole doing that plus the way he acted earlier just set me off. The guy claimed the dog had bit him, which was a total lie since I had been watching the dog the whole time. I said some rude things, (the guy was really fat so it wasn´t hard to think up stuff), and the dog went and hid behind luggage. I´m still pissed off when I think about it, it was just such a mean thing to do.
So we get on the bus and the boys continue to talk. We and everyone else around them keep asking them to be quiet, but they keep laughing and talking until the bus pulled into Salta at 6 15. I think I might have gotten an hour sleep, maybe. But don´t worry. I filed a complaint. I´m sure nothing will be done about it, but it felt great to vent and go off on those jerks. So yeah, this was pretty much a terrible 24 hours, but the next ones were glorious, so everything is okay again.
Well. The bus left 20 minutes late. The lady forgot that Argentina is an hour ahead, so we really only had one hour to cross the border. And she failed to mention that Argentina is the most inefficient country on the entire planet and that it would take us 3 hours to get through a line of about 30 people. So our bus was supposed to leave at 2 30, by 5 30 we finally got through the line and entered Argentina. I think the most frusterating thing was that it only took Leah and I five minutes combined to get everything taken care of. So what was taking so long with the people in front of us? We had a sneaking suspicion that all the workers went on lunch for an hour or so, leaving us to bake in the sun.
So we are finally back in the great, grand, wonderful land of Argentina and head to the bus station. We were told we could turn in our ticket for a later time and we would be fine. We go to the same bus company that we went to in Tupiza. We explain our situation to the men working there. They proceed to tell us that their bus company does not exist in Bolivia, even though we saw two different offices in two different cities. When we told them that, they said we were wrong. I know that we were not wrong. The vision of the giant terrifying woman in Tupiza has been burned into my retinas forever. I even had to leave for a few minutes when talking to her, because she widened her bulging eyes at Leah over something and I thought I was going to burst out laughing, so I KNOW that office exists.
We decided to try a different company, who obviously honered our ticket right away. So with about 5 hours to kill, we began to explore the city. And by explore I mean look for a place to eat. Everything in the town was closed. EVERYTHING. After about wandering around famished for about 30 minutes, we finally found a place. The waitress there was kind of crazy. She pretended she couldn´t hear us or see us waving our arms when she didn´t want to serve us, but was very kind to the large group of argentines on the other side of the resteraunt. Oh well. We ate quickly and then killed 3 hours on the internet, searching for places to live.
We went to catch our bus at 11 pm. It´s supposed to be about 7 hours, so we will arrive in Salta at 6 am. This was quite early, but Leah and I truly believed that we would catch about 6 hours of well rested sleep and spend a morning in Salta before heading off to BsAs. We were such fools.
Now on the way to the bus, you basically get harassed by all sorts of people trying to sell you bus tickets. Leah kept getting harassed by this guy in a turtleneck and she finally just screamed at him WHERE IS THE BATHROOM! He backed off, made eye contact with me, and we both started laughing. He was like, "okay, sorry." We got ourselves all rearranged and went to load our stuff on the bus, when who should be loading our luggage? Turtleneck guy! He saw Leah and was like, "do you need to find another bathroom?" It was embarassingly hilarious. So we get on our very crowded bus and settle in.
About ten minutes after the bus started moving, all the guys who worked on the bus decided to go right by where we were trying to sleep and talk. They were laughing and just being really loud, but Leah and I decided it was still too early to complain and we would wait a little bit longer to ask them to be quiet. Well. They kept getting up and shoving my arm (aisle seat) and not to mention they all smelled terrible. So finally we asked them to be quiet. They just stared at us, then kept on talking. Finally, about 45 minutes later, the spread out and were quiet. But suddenly the bus stopped and someone came onboard and told us to get off the bus. I was very confused and woke up Leah. Neither of us knew what was going on, but we were the only ones on the bus, so we hurried off.
Turns out we had driven by an army base and our bus had randomly been chosen to be searched. This is about 2 30 am. We had to stand in a long line with all of our luggage and wait for it to be searched. We were getting kind of nervous, because these people were doing VERY thorough searches and well, we might have bought a few illegal dvds. Plus, my stuff was packed so tightly I had no idea how I would ever close my suitcase again if it was searched. We slowly made our way up, checking out the men in uniform, because some were cute, obviously being very awkward about it. We hoped the cute one wouldn´t open Leah´s suitcase and replay what happened at the border crossing, where the man searching her stuff picked up a bra and examined it for a little too long.
We get to the front of the line and I went first. I´m all ready to open my three bags when the man asks me for my passport. I give it to him, he looks at it for 2 seconds, and says,"okay, you can go." That was it. Apparently being from the United States makes you exempt from getting searched at 2 30 am in a weird army base. Same thing happened to Leah. So yeah, if you are from the United States and want to smuggle illegal things into Argentina, you have nothing to worry about. Go crazy.
So we are waiting to get back on the bus and unfortunately standing next to those assholes who wouldn´t stop talking. There was a dog (actually still kind of a puppy) that was wandering around. It was very cute, not bothering anyone, just playing with a stick. I went over and played with it for a while, it was a really nice dog, just sitting there. Out of nowhere, one of the guys who worked for the bus just went up and kicked the dog in the face. Now if you know me, you know I love dogs and that asshole doing that plus the way he acted earlier just set me off. The guy claimed the dog had bit him, which was a total lie since I had been watching the dog the whole time. I said some rude things, (the guy was really fat so it wasn´t hard to think up stuff), and the dog went and hid behind luggage. I´m still pissed off when I think about it, it was just such a mean thing to do.
So we get on the bus and the boys continue to talk. We and everyone else around them keep asking them to be quiet, but they keep laughing and talking until the bus pulled into Salta at 6 15. I think I might have gotten an hour sleep, maybe. But don´t worry. I filed a complaint. I´m sure nothing will be done about it, but it felt great to vent and go off on those jerks. So yeah, this was pretty much a terrible 24 hours, but the next ones were glorious, so everything is okay again.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Salt Flats: the remaining 3 days
So the second day I awoke with a stomach that seemed to be out to get me, which is nothing too atypical for Bolivia, but really sucks when you have 10 hours of offroading on your schedule for the day. The first day, we became acquainted with several traditional Andean musicians. And heard their CDs on repeat for the whole drive. Naïvely we hoped for a new selection the second day, but soon were disappointed to hear the same traditional Bolivian songs about 'La Patria' blaring. It was the same 15 songs over. And over. All. Day.
Our first stop was an amazing view, at almost 5000 meters. I wasn't really supposed to get out of the car because it was too cold and not good or something, but I hopped out long enough to take a picture. Then we visited a ghost town, which was very eerie, but again I pretty much slept through it. Apparently it used to be a mining town thought to be possessed by the devil, which was actually poisonous gases realized from the mines.
The desert was expansive, with towering mountains in the distance in assorted colors that made them look like sunsets. Llamas became more and more sparse as we got deeper into the arid landscape, but vicuñas still roamed and animals that be described no other way but as jackalopes. We came across another huge but shallow lake every few hours, always filled with clans of flamingoes and sandpipers hopping about. At one of these lakes there was a hot spring and we stopped for lunch, which I had to excuse myself from early to digest alone in the car after a single roll of bread.
After lunch I started feeling better, until we stopped at the geisers, which were more like giant muddy craters with soccer ball-sized bubbles bursting up...they looked like the awesome purple villain in the My Little Pony movie. The colors varied from crater to crater, depending on the chemicals, but they all smelled like rotten eggs and emitted thick, hot steam, which was painful in the cold, windy air. They made me absolutely nauseous, but by the time I realized I wanted to vomit, I was too far into the maze of walkable pathways through the geisers and I had to call Luis, the cook, to help me out.
Fortunately, I had time to recover in the unmoving car because just after leaving the site we got a flat tire. Kelly and I sat in the car while they changed it, while everyone else got out and looked around at the wind blown sand (and not much else). But our capable driver, hair as glossy as ever, handily fixed the damage and we were off, praying to not get another flat.
We drove through the Dalí desert, which looks just like his surrealistic paintings, minus the melting watches. Alien-like natural rock formations and rolling mountains against bright blue skies. It was beautiful.
That night we stayed in a similar-looking town, in that I wouldn't call it quite a town, in much more comfortable beds that were just as cold. The little girls in the town became attached to our group and sang us songs. Then they hammed it up for the camera with the adorable kittens roaming around town, the perfect photo op for our whole group. It's hard to imagine what it would be like living in such a remote area. We said goodbye to them in the morning and were off to the Laguna Colorada (red lake), one of the highlights of the trip.
The tour is known for passing by several colored lakes (from natural chemicals), the biggest being the red lake, where we started the third day of travel. Flamingoes were everywhere, clouds of pink and white over the red water. We also, during the middle two days, saw a green lake that looked like a giant opal, and a yellow lake that was the strangest color I've ever seen. We had lunch by the yellow lake, which was filled with 3 species of flamingo. Then we noticed that they were all pooping, little spurts that shot from their behinds whilst they continued digging with their beaks for food....it ruined the magic a bit.
At night we finally got to shower, though we had to pay for it. Our accomodations were made of salt - salt walls, floors, tables, chairs, everything. It was like living in a litter box, but slightly more pleasant. We played cards with another group after dinner, until they turned off the electricity at 10.
We decided to wake up for our last day at 5 so that we could see the sun rise over the salt flats. Our driver was less than pleased by our decision, but it was his fault for giving us the choice.
We drove out to the flats, where I imagined all the jeeps gathered for an amazing viewpoint of the interminable white nothingness that is the flats. I didn't quite realize how large the largest salt flats in the world would be, at 10,582 square kilometers. This is also the size of Los Angeles County.
The salt flats look like dry snow, if that makes any sense. The flats were formed 40,000 years ago with the explosion of a volcano and have the worlds largest lithium reserve and some 10 billion tons of salt (thank you, wikipedia). Water running underneath the flats forms small ridges crisscrossing the terrain and everything looks small and distant. Because it is. There are several 'islands' within the flats, basically big dead coral reefs covered with cactus. Several cacti had signs dating them: one was 900 years old, another died in December 2007 at 1208 years, may he rest in peace. We got to explore one island while our breakfast was prepared, and after breakfast we drove out to another desolate area (of which there are many to choose) to take the famed pictures as there is no perspective on the planar salt.
Conchita, Kelly and I took pictures for about half an hour playing with perspective, since you can make it look like one person is very small. Kelly was a tiny dancer in my hand, we walked on Conchita's back, etc. While we did this, the men all searched for ojos del agua (eyes of the water), which are salt crystals that you can dig out. After a half hour, Rene the driver told us that we were taking pictures in the wrong place. Awesome. So we moved to the better place, and Rene set up some excellent scenes, including Conchita driving a shoe with me flying off the back and me hatching out of a broken egg shell. Then he arranged us all in the ground in a circle to form a star. The shocking part was when he unexpectedly grabbed our ankles and spread our legs apart...I was so surprised that I said 'Oh!', which everyone was taken a bit back by. We all couldn't stop cracking up and making gynocologist jokes after that.
We made one last stop in Uyuni after the salt flats, and bought some souvenirs. We also happened to run into Kevin, our amazingly bearded friend who we met in La Paz and hopefully will see again when he comes to Buenos Aires.
For the car on the way back, Luis had bought new CDs, a godsend to us all. We had memorized by this point the words to such love-torn songs as 'Una Copa de Vino' and 'Ojos del Cielo' as sung in the traditional style with violins and panflutes. The first was an oldies CD, and we all gave our best for the Four Seasons and Diana Ross. Then was Michael Jackson, and then a mega-CD with 177 songs from the 80s. I think our best perfomance was of 'I Come from a Land Downunder,' making Luis officially regret his decision to cater to us with this purchase.
Our first stop was an amazing view, at almost 5000 meters. I wasn't really supposed to get out of the car because it was too cold and not good or something, but I hopped out long enough to take a picture. Then we visited a ghost town, which was very eerie, but again I pretty much slept through it. Apparently it used to be a mining town thought to be possessed by the devil, which was actually poisonous gases realized from the mines.
The desert was expansive, with towering mountains in the distance in assorted colors that made them look like sunsets. Llamas became more and more sparse as we got deeper into the arid landscape, but vicuñas still roamed and animals that be described no other way but as jackalopes. We came across another huge but shallow lake every few hours, always filled with clans of flamingoes and sandpipers hopping about. At one of these lakes there was a hot spring and we stopped for lunch, which I had to excuse myself from early to digest alone in the car after a single roll of bread.
After lunch I started feeling better, until we stopped at the geisers, which were more like giant muddy craters with soccer ball-sized bubbles bursting up...they looked like the awesome purple villain in the My Little Pony movie. The colors varied from crater to crater, depending on the chemicals, but they all smelled like rotten eggs and emitted thick, hot steam, which was painful in the cold, windy air. They made me absolutely nauseous, but by the time I realized I wanted to vomit, I was too far into the maze of walkable pathways through the geisers and I had to call Luis, the cook, to help me out.
Fortunately, I had time to recover in the unmoving car because just after leaving the site we got a flat tire. Kelly and I sat in the car while they changed it, while everyone else got out and looked around at the wind blown sand (and not much else). But our capable driver, hair as glossy as ever, handily fixed the damage and we were off, praying to not get another flat.
We drove through the Dalí desert, which looks just like his surrealistic paintings, minus the melting watches. Alien-like natural rock formations and rolling mountains against bright blue skies. It was beautiful.
That night we stayed in a similar-looking town, in that I wouldn't call it quite a town, in much more comfortable beds that were just as cold. The little girls in the town became attached to our group and sang us songs. Then they hammed it up for the camera with the adorable kittens roaming around town, the perfect photo op for our whole group. It's hard to imagine what it would be like living in such a remote area. We said goodbye to them in the morning and were off to the Laguna Colorada (red lake), one of the highlights of the trip.
The tour is known for passing by several colored lakes (from natural chemicals), the biggest being the red lake, where we started the third day of travel. Flamingoes were everywhere, clouds of pink and white over the red water. We also, during the middle two days, saw a green lake that looked like a giant opal, and a yellow lake that was the strangest color I've ever seen. We had lunch by the yellow lake, which was filled with 3 species of flamingo. Then we noticed that they were all pooping, little spurts that shot from their behinds whilst they continued digging with their beaks for food....it ruined the magic a bit.
At night we finally got to shower, though we had to pay for it. Our accomodations were made of salt - salt walls, floors, tables, chairs, everything. It was like living in a litter box, but slightly more pleasant. We played cards with another group after dinner, until they turned off the electricity at 10.
We decided to wake up for our last day at 5 so that we could see the sun rise over the salt flats. Our driver was less than pleased by our decision, but it was his fault for giving us the choice.
We drove out to the flats, where I imagined all the jeeps gathered for an amazing viewpoint of the interminable white nothingness that is the flats. I didn't quite realize how large the largest salt flats in the world would be, at 10,582 square kilometers. This is also the size of Los Angeles County.
The salt flats look like dry snow, if that makes any sense. The flats were formed 40,000 years ago with the explosion of a volcano and have the worlds largest lithium reserve and some 10 billion tons of salt (thank you, wikipedia). Water running underneath the flats forms small ridges crisscrossing the terrain and everything looks small and distant. Because it is. There are several 'islands' within the flats, basically big dead coral reefs covered with cactus. Several cacti had signs dating them: one was 900 years old, another died in December 2007 at 1208 years, may he rest in peace. We got to explore one island while our breakfast was prepared, and after breakfast we drove out to another desolate area (of which there are many to choose) to take the famed pictures as there is no perspective on the planar salt.
Conchita, Kelly and I took pictures for about half an hour playing with perspective, since you can make it look like one person is very small. Kelly was a tiny dancer in my hand, we walked on Conchita's back, etc. While we did this, the men all searched for ojos del agua (eyes of the water), which are salt crystals that you can dig out. After a half hour, Rene the driver told us that we were taking pictures in the wrong place. Awesome. So we moved to the better place, and Rene set up some excellent scenes, including Conchita driving a shoe with me flying off the back and me hatching out of a broken egg shell. Then he arranged us all in the ground in a circle to form a star. The shocking part was when he unexpectedly grabbed our ankles and spread our legs apart...I was so surprised that I said 'Oh!', which everyone was taken a bit back by. We all couldn't stop cracking up and making gynocologist jokes after that.
We made one last stop in Uyuni after the salt flats, and bought some souvenirs. We also happened to run into Kevin, our amazingly bearded friend who we met in La Paz and hopefully will see again when he comes to Buenos Aires.
For the car on the way back, Luis had bought new CDs, a godsend to us all. We had memorized by this point the words to such love-torn songs as 'Una Copa de Vino' and 'Ojos del Cielo' as sung in the traditional style with violins and panflutes. The first was an oldies CD, and we all gave our best for the Four Seasons and Diana Ross. Then was Michael Jackson, and then a mega-CD with 177 songs from the 80s. I think our best perfomance was of 'I Come from a Land Downunder,' making Luis officially regret his decision to cater to us with this purchase.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Salt Flat Tour: Day 1
The primary reason we came to Bolivia was to do the salt flat tour, a standardized 3 day trip that leaves from Uyuni in a jeep that inevitably breaks down in the desert during the journey and is led by a surly driver who doesn't speak English. But we were told that the trip, that is 10 hours a day of driving with minimal stops to get out and see rocks in the desert, was more than worth enduring all this. We were slightly confused as to why, but figured we should trust the general consensus and sign up.
Fortunately, we got the tip off that tours leave from Tupiza, and not just Uyuni (which is supposedly the worst town on earth with streets lined with nothing but tourist agencies competing to offer the worst salt flat tours possible). In Tupiza, there is one tour company, Tupiza Tours, and it has a good reputation for quality of food, drivers, jeeps, tour guides, etc. The only problem is, the tour is one more night. And more expensive. But we thought it worth it and we were (obviously) right.
We woke up the day of our tour and partook in the amazing free breakfast at Hotel Mitru. Then we were introduced to our tour group, first to Conchita, a Dutch girl traveling by herself. This was interesting because Conchita, in South American Spanish, is a rather strong euphamistic word (literally, it means 'little shell,' but it is understood to be a reference to female anatomy in the stongest term possible), and so her introductions to our driver and cook were fun to watch as they did double takes. Next we were introduced to Bob, who pronounced his name Boob but was really named Chuck (I still don't understand) and Daniel, American retiree friends traveling together. Our driver, Rene, was quickly commended by us for his stunning mane of hair, and then we met our cook, Luis, who was only 21. And then we were off for 4 days of unpaved desert roads.
We drove a few hours, then made our first stop for about 10 minutes to look out at some scenery. Red, candle-like structures as tall as mountains in canyons out into the distance. Then we got back in the car and drove for a few more hours...generally the theme of the trip.
We lunched by a vast pasture, surrounded by hundreds of llamas. Kelly and I entertained ourselves by chasing the llamas while the food was prepared. We then sat down to a fabulous picnic with lots of fruits and veggies and sandwiches. The main course were delicious tamales filled with, what else, but llama meat. They were fantastic, though the scene was a bit morbund.
After lunch, we passed lots of llamas in the fields. Who owns these llamas? That's what I want to know. But they all have brightly colored pompoms on their ears to mark them. We also saw a llama just giving birth, the baby not even able to stand yet. It was the cycle of life in action...and the cycle of my lunch. We also saw wild vicuñas, which are an animal similar to llamas and deer, with long necks, that are endangered and only found in the remote areas of the Andes.
The 'road' got even rockier and the constant bumping induced me to announce that my stomach was making a llama licuado (milkshake) which, hours later, turned into full on stomach sickness. But we can go more into that on day two.
At night, we stopped in a desolate group of houses (because I wouldn't quite say town) on cement beds. I have no proof but the pain in my body that they were actually cement. At night, temperatures dropped to about freezing, lower than those we experienced on the Inca trail. We had no sleeping bags, just some wool blankets, so we put on every article of clothing we owned and shivered through the night. Good times were had by all.
Fortunately, we got the tip off that tours leave from Tupiza, and not just Uyuni (which is supposedly the worst town on earth with streets lined with nothing but tourist agencies competing to offer the worst salt flat tours possible). In Tupiza, there is one tour company, Tupiza Tours, and it has a good reputation for quality of food, drivers, jeeps, tour guides, etc. The only problem is, the tour is one more night. And more expensive. But we thought it worth it and we were (obviously) right.
We woke up the day of our tour and partook in the amazing free breakfast at Hotel Mitru. Then we were introduced to our tour group, first to Conchita, a Dutch girl traveling by herself. This was interesting because Conchita, in South American Spanish, is a rather strong euphamistic word (literally, it means 'little shell,' but it is understood to be a reference to female anatomy in the stongest term possible), and so her introductions to our driver and cook were fun to watch as they did double takes. Next we were introduced to Bob, who pronounced his name Boob but was really named Chuck (I still don't understand) and Daniel, American retiree friends traveling together. Our driver, Rene, was quickly commended by us for his stunning mane of hair, and then we met our cook, Luis, who was only 21. And then we were off for 4 days of unpaved desert roads.
We drove a few hours, then made our first stop for about 10 minutes to look out at some scenery. Red, candle-like structures as tall as mountains in canyons out into the distance. Then we got back in the car and drove for a few more hours...generally the theme of the trip.
We lunched by a vast pasture, surrounded by hundreds of llamas. Kelly and I entertained ourselves by chasing the llamas while the food was prepared. We then sat down to a fabulous picnic with lots of fruits and veggies and sandwiches. The main course were delicious tamales filled with, what else, but llama meat. They were fantastic, though the scene was a bit morbund.
After lunch, we passed lots of llamas in the fields. Who owns these llamas? That's what I want to know. But they all have brightly colored pompoms on their ears to mark them. We also saw a llama just giving birth, the baby not even able to stand yet. It was the cycle of life in action...and the cycle of my lunch. We also saw wild vicuñas, which are an animal similar to llamas and deer, with long necks, that are endangered and only found in the remote areas of the Andes.
The 'road' got even rockier and the constant bumping induced me to announce that my stomach was making a llama licuado (milkshake) which, hours later, turned into full on stomach sickness. But we can go more into that on day two.
At night, we stopped in a desolate group of houses (because I wouldn't quite say town) on cement beds. I have no proof but the pain in my body that they were actually cement. At night, temperatures dropped to about freezing, lower than those we experienced on the Inca trail. We had no sleeping bags, just some wool blankets, so we put on every article of clothing we owned and shivered through the night. Good times were had by all.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Bolivia: smells like a llama fetus
So after Sucre, Leah and I headed to Tupiza, but before we could arrive we had a 10 hour bus ride ahead of us. After stopping at every bakery along the way to the bus station, we were fully prepared for this long ride. The bus was a typical South American bus, uncomfortable, and SMELLY. I have noticed that every bus we have ridden in Peru and Boliva has the same distinct, gross smell. When I asked Leah if she noticed, she said, "yes, its the people, and they smell like llama fetuses."
With that in mind, we tried to settle in for the long, probably uncomfortable ride ahead of us. As bad luck would have it, three asshole teenagers behind us proceeded to blast every current emo song from their cellphones for at least 2 hours, until the bus driver got sick of it and turned up the radio. Unfortunately, that music was no better and we had to listen to latin ballads that were so loud and painful that I couldnt hear my ipod over them. But enough of the complaining, we had plenty of baked goods from the bakery (think mini fruit tarts, SO GOOD) and were able to sleep for most of the ride.
Our bus arrived in Tupiza at 3 30 in the morning. We stumbled off into a bus station having no idea where to go, but knew our hostel was close. A women gave us confusing directions, and we were off. The streets were completely empty except for a few drunk people wandering around, due to carnival festivals. We were walking down the middle of the street when this dog on the sidewalk starts to growl at us and chase us. I was ready to swing my suitcase at it, but it backed off once we left its area. Then we realized there were no street signs, so we were pretty lost until a nice man, who kept telling us not to be afraid, took us to our hostel. We were pretty lucky, otherwise we could have been wandering around forever.
We walked into the hostel and realized it was more like a giant complex and it even had a pool. We were expecting to be showed to a normal hostel room, but were taken down a long hallway and shown into a ridiculous and quite frightening room. There were twin beds with scarily colorful bedspreads, weird wall patterns, and a terrifying and quite large picture of Jesus above the beds. The man was talking to Leah, but I was too horrified and fascinated by the room to pay attention. All I got was that we would be leaving the room the next day. When I asked her why, she was like, "Kelly, we are in the owners residence. This room, apparently, belongs to Grandma." What did that mean? Was Grandma sleeping on the floor in some other room? Was she dead? WHO KNEW?! Overall it was a very strange experience, especially when we were woken up the next day by 2 children running into our room, laughing, then running away.
After that we moved to a normal room and decided to explore the town of Tupiza, which to be honest, there was not a lot of. It seemed like every other store was a pizzaria, so we headed into a random one and ended up having a delicious lunch while watching the movie Pay It Forward in spanish. Believe me, its terrible no matter what language. Then we wandered the markets and went to the lookout point, which was obviously up ANOTHER mountain. If I never climb another mountain after this trip, I will be so happy. The lookout was quite beautiful, since the town is surrounded by giant red mountains.
After that we wandered around the square looking for internet. Then Leah got pegged with about 3 water balloons by local children. Its carnival time and in Bolivia, that means give your children water balloons. And for some reason, Leah is always a target. She got hit on the head in Sucre as well, so I blame her red hair. I take it as a compliment because clearly I am blending in with the locals.
For dinner we went to another pizza place and the food was TERRIBLE but the ambiance was amazing. It was all gringos and none of us were talking to each other, but we were all watching the awesome 80s music videos that were on TV. Then Lionel Richies "Hello" came on, and we all started laughing and hollering and some scottish guy knew all the words so of course we made fun of him. Then everyone began talking and we all continued to make fun of the videos. My favorite was when one with George Michael came on and he was kissing a woman. Someone shouted, "yeah right George, you arent fooling anyone!"
Then we decided to go to bed because we had a huge adventure ahead of us, the SALT FLATS, which we will have to tell you about later.
And as a special treat, some Lionel for you!
With that in mind, we tried to settle in for the long, probably uncomfortable ride ahead of us. As bad luck would have it, three asshole teenagers behind us proceeded to blast every current emo song from their cellphones for at least 2 hours, until the bus driver got sick of it and turned up the radio. Unfortunately, that music was no better and we had to listen to latin ballads that were so loud and painful that I couldnt hear my ipod over them. But enough of the complaining, we had plenty of baked goods from the bakery (think mini fruit tarts, SO GOOD) and were able to sleep for most of the ride.
Our bus arrived in Tupiza at 3 30 in the morning. We stumbled off into a bus station having no idea where to go, but knew our hostel was close. A women gave us confusing directions, and we were off. The streets were completely empty except for a few drunk people wandering around, due to carnival festivals. We were walking down the middle of the street when this dog on the sidewalk starts to growl at us and chase us. I was ready to swing my suitcase at it, but it backed off once we left its area. Then we realized there were no street signs, so we were pretty lost until a nice man, who kept telling us not to be afraid, took us to our hostel. We were pretty lucky, otherwise we could have been wandering around forever.
We walked into the hostel and realized it was more like a giant complex and it even had a pool. We were expecting to be showed to a normal hostel room, but were taken down a long hallway and shown into a ridiculous and quite frightening room. There were twin beds with scarily colorful bedspreads, weird wall patterns, and a terrifying and quite large picture of Jesus above the beds. The man was talking to Leah, but I was too horrified and fascinated by the room to pay attention. All I got was that we would be leaving the room the next day. When I asked her why, she was like, "Kelly, we are in the owners residence. This room, apparently, belongs to Grandma." What did that mean? Was Grandma sleeping on the floor in some other room? Was she dead? WHO KNEW?! Overall it was a very strange experience, especially when we were woken up the next day by 2 children running into our room, laughing, then running away.
After that we moved to a normal room and decided to explore the town of Tupiza, which to be honest, there was not a lot of. It seemed like every other store was a pizzaria, so we headed into a random one and ended up having a delicious lunch while watching the movie Pay It Forward in spanish. Believe me, its terrible no matter what language. Then we wandered the markets and went to the lookout point, which was obviously up ANOTHER mountain. If I never climb another mountain after this trip, I will be so happy. The lookout was quite beautiful, since the town is surrounded by giant red mountains.
After that we wandered around the square looking for internet. Then Leah got pegged with about 3 water balloons by local children. Its carnival time and in Bolivia, that means give your children water balloons. And for some reason, Leah is always a target. She got hit on the head in Sucre as well, so I blame her red hair. I take it as a compliment because clearly I am blending in with the locals.
For dinner we went to another pizza place and the food was TERRIBLE but the ambiance was amazing. It was all gringos and none of us were talking to each other, but we were all watching the awesome 80s music videos that were on TV. Then Lionel Richies "Hello" came on, and we all started laughing and hollering and some scottish guy knew all the words so of course we made fun of him. Then everyone began talking and we all continued to make fun of the videos. My favorite was when one with George Michael came on and he was kissing a woman. Someone shouted, "yeah right George, you arent fooling anyone!"
Then we decided to go to bed because we had a huge adventure ahead of us, the SALT FLATS, which we will have to tell you about later.
And as a special treat, some Lionel for you!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Travel buddies in Sucre
We have come upon a rather ironic travel situation in Bolivia, because the very same blokes whom we snidely criticized behind their backs for not being prepared when crossing the border happen to be our two new travel companions. We befriended them when they surprisingly showed up at our hostel in La Paz, and then we convinced them that traveling south to Sucre would be a good idea, and then we would continue on to the Salt Flats in southwest Bolivia.
We took the overnight bus to Sucre, on which they showed an amazing Wesley Snipes movie, Passenger 57, which entertained Kelly and me for a good portion of the ride. After the excitement of the movie, I found it impossible to sleep and therefore we spent a good portion of the day sleeping in the hostel once our room was ready. Since we got in so early (7 am), we had to entertain ourselves until check in at 11, which we handily did by watching House Bunny, a truly ridiculous movie that we bought during our binge purchase on our way out of La Paz (where DVDs are about 50 US cents).
Sucre has a classier feel to it than La Paz, with less women in traditional wear and more variety in stores and museums. We went to the history museum, which was a big disappointment as it didn't clear much up in terms of the revolution, and we climbed one of the hills to have a beautiful look of the city as its settled in the mountains. On our second night, we stumbled into a restaurant that turned out to be affiliated with the local university and our student cards got us a 50% discount on the whole bill. We ordered tons of food and fresh fruit juices and then went back for dessert and still didn't break $3 USD per person. This country is impossibly cheap.
After dinner we played ping pong and foosball at what I can only assume is a university sponsored locale and went to bed early. Today we planned to go see a dinasaur park, but it's raining too much so instead decided to move on to the next town and start our tour of the salt flats, the major destination in Bolivia. However, as our new traveling group couldn't agree on whether to start the tours in Uyuni or Tupiza (long story), we split up, and Kelly and I are heading tonight to Tupiza to do the tour, afterwhich its all back to Buenos Aires!
We took the overnight bus to Sucre, on which they showed an amazing Wesley Snipes movie, Passenger 57, which entertained Kelly and me for a good portion of the ride. After the excitement of the movie, I found it impossible to sleep and therefore we spent a good portion of the day sleeping in the hostel once our room was ready. Since we got in so early (7 am), we had to entertain ourselves until check in at 11, which we handily did by watching House Bunny, a truly ridiculous movie that we bought during our binge purchase on our way out of La Paz (where DVDs are about 50 US cents).
Sucre has a classier feel to it than La Paz, with less women in traditional wear and more variety in stores and museums. We went to the history museum, which was a big disappointment as it didn't clear much up in terms of the revolution, and we climbed one of the hills to have a beautiful look of the city as its settled in the mountains. On our second night, we stumbled into a restaurant that turned out to be affiliated with the local university and our student cards got us a 50% discount on the whole bill. We ordered tons of food and fresh fruit juices and then went back for dessert and still didn't break $3 USD per person. This country is impossibly cheap.
After dinner we played ping pong and foosball at what I can only assume is a university sponsored locale and went to bed early. Today we planned to go see a dinasaur park, but it's raining too much so instead decided to move on to the next town and start our tour of the salt flats, the major destination in Bolivia. However, as our new traveling group couldn't agree on whether to start the tours in Uyuni or Tupiza (long story), we split up, and Kelly and I are heading tonight to Tupiza to do the tour, afterwhich its all back to Buenos Aires!
Saturday, February 7, 2009
oh yeah
So Leah and I realized that we forgot to mention something that happened to us in Cusco and should probably be documented, because it was pretty funny. But definitely more funny to her than me. About 20 minutes after we returned from our horrific adventures in the jungle, I got trapped in the bathroom. That´s right, 24 year old Kelly locked herself in the bathroom.
What actually happened was that the doorknob broke, but we didn´t realize this until about 45 minutes later. Everyone just thought I was an idiot and couldn´t open the door. Leah went to the front desk, who called a maid, and apparently every maid in the 130 person hostel wanted to participate in getting that stupid american out of the bathroom. They used every key they had, but the door just wouldn´t budge. Time to call the head maintenance guy. Great.
Throughout all of this, I was just sitting in the shower listening to my ipod, feeling really stupid. I figured that the only way out was by using dynamite, so I tried to get as far away from the door as possible.
The guy came into the room and told me all I had to do was simply push a bobby pin into the side of the doorknob where there was a little hole, and the knob would unlock and set me free. Unfortunately, I saw no hole. About 15 minutes were spent with the guy telling me different ways to look for the hole, but I honestly saw nothing and felt like a moron.
Finally Leah had the brilliant idea to show me a brand new door knob, so she stuck her head through the opening above the door and showed me where the hole was. It turned out that the knob got jammed and the hole was covered and unreachable, so I was not as big of an idiot as we all had thought. The only thing left to do was to completely remove the doorknob. Even more great.
I had to stand as far away from the door as possible while the guy body slammed the door. Finally after about 15 minutes, the knob came off and the door opened. I was FINALLY free, after about an hour. I ran out of the bathroom and did a little dance and then headed straight for the bar. After 5 days in the jungle AND being locked in a bathroom for an hour, I definitely needed a beer.
What actually happened was that the doorknob broke, but we didn´t realize this until about 45 minutes later. Everyone just thought I was an idiot and couldn´t open the door. Leah went to the front desk, who called a maid, and apparently every maid in the 130 person hostel wanted to participate in getting that stupid american out of the bathroom. They used every key they had, but the door just wouldn´t budge. Time to call the head maintenance guy. Great.
Throughout all of this, I was just sitting in the shower listening to my ipod, feeling really stupid. I figured that the only way out was by using dynamite, so I tried to get as far away from the door as possible.
The guy came into the room and told me all I had to do was simply push a bobby pin into the side of the doorknob where there was a little hole, and the knob would unlock and set me free. Unfortunately, I saw no hole. About 15 minutes were spent with the guy telling me different ways to look for the hole, but I honestly saw nothing and felt like a moron.
Finally Leah had the brilliant idea to show me a brand new door knob, so she stuck her head through the opening above the door and showed me where the hole was. It turned out that the knob got jammed and the hole was covered and unreachable, so I was not as big of an idiot as we all had thought. The only thing left to do was to completely remove the doorknob. Even more great.
I had to stand as far away from the door as possible while the guy body slammed the door. Finally after about 15 minutes, the knob came off and the door opened. I was FINALLY free, after about an hour. I ran out of the bathroom and did a little dance and then headed straight for the bar. After 5 days in the jungle AND being locked in a bathroom for an hour, I definitely needed a beer.
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