salta y mendoza
i finally made it across the bol-arg border and hung out in a town called salta, which was a nice change from the bolivian towns i got used to. i had a salad and did laundry for the first time in like a month as well, which was awesome.
from there i made my way to mendoza, where i had plans to meet with liz. can not describe the feeling of happiness when i saw her at the hostel! we went horse back riding the other day and it was nice and relaxing… yesterday, i did the wineandbike , where you hire bikes and then visit wineries for tastings. it is 39· here and my friends and i got lost before we even started drinking, so we all were sweating and pedaling really slow…we must have looked so funny to all the cars passing by. there are no sidewalks either and it was really scary since the semi´s come really close…i swear some cars wanted to run us off the road.
since my knowledge of wines is carlo rossi burgandy, i felt i must have been enlightened sometime during one of the tastings cuz liz said the bottle i bought and brought back to our hostel was really good. go malbec!
oruro
from there we all traveled to ororo for carnaval. every town and country celebrates it in its own way, and oruro celebrates with a week long celebration of a goddess. the dancers start at one end of the town, and end up in the cathedral, where they get blessed. this dancing, drinking, and pegging people with carnaval foam and water balloons went on for 5 days straight. not kidding. we went to bed a 6 one morning, woke up for breakfast (it was free at our hotel, so ofcourse we set our alarm) at 8, and the dancers were still parading through the streets. daisuke, one of our new friends from japan, also brought an outfit( vegeeta from dragon ball z ) from japan so it was hilarious to see him dancing around…although we were prime targets for water balloons.
getting to the bus station was also tricky because we had all of our bags and could not move as fast, but we made it out alive…
from there we said our goodbyes since i needed to head back south to bs as, and i spent another night back in potosì. well, more like another day in a hostel, since it was carnaval here as well, but there were more kids dumping water off their roof, as well as drive-by super soakers…
salar de uyuni
since rodrigo and i were both heading off to uyuni, we decided to go together, and met up with his friend andy there. the uyuni salt flats are amazing! we were in a 4 x 4 for 4 days with a french couple and a japanese girl, so our conversations were ridiculous. i spoke to rodrigo and andy in spanish, and to izumi in japanese, and then we all kinda spoke english…but it was great to be able to practice japanese before my trip! since it had been raining a bit the first night, the salar looked like we were driving on top of water…we also saw things like flamingos, llamas (they are everywhere) huge cactus’s like 30 foot tall, awesome rock formations, pretty lakes, and geysers.
we decided to go cheap and bargain with all the tour companies, and so of-course the one we went with ended up to be pretty non-catering. our driver was also the cook and tour guide, and our car was shit so he was a mechanic most of the time…haha.
potosi
from there, the guys left for salvador, brazil, and i to potosí, which is a little mining town south of la paz. they have coal mining caves that you can visit, and so rodrigo ( an argentine guy from my hostel) and i decided to do the tour. the tour takes about 4 hours, which i thought would be a long time to spend crawling in a closed dusty place. but it went by fairly fast and i kinda imagined myself like the dwarfs in snow white…
i still can not believe the conditions that these people work in. most of the workers work ten hour shifts, and make less than one dollar a day…and the average age of the workers is 20. we bought coca leaves, cookies, and dynamite to give to the miners, because this is what keeps them going throughout the day. lighting off the dynamite was cool because it was risky but i thought i lost hearing for a bit…
la paz (san pedro prison)
after cusco i ended up spending another week in la paz, and got another chance to visit the san pedro prison. the san pedro prison in la paz is famous because there are different rankings of prisoners, and so some live in shithole cells and some in like hotel suites. tourists used to be able to visit until a few years ago, when there was a riot and it was clear that is was unsafe for foreigners. anyways, i heard of people getting in and the guys i was with really wanted to go in, so we decided to try. it was actually really sketchy, because you have to know someone in the prison, (long lost friend, relative..etc) but ofcourse when you have me and three aussie guys that don´t speak spanish, they guards knew we are lying.
so we waited across the street for some guy to come over and hand us a sheet of paper that had a spanish guy´s name and number to the jail. the number is 2131454 in case you know of anyone that is gonna go…just ask the guard for ernesto. his full name is ernesto sello, and he said he has been in there for the last 3 years and has 10 left. we thought it would be cool to hear his story. so we used the payphone across the street and called for him. the guard put him on the phone, and then ernesto he told us to bring him some coke and cigarettes in a grocery bag, and that we should put our names and some money for him to bribe the popo so that our names would be down on the visitation list.
well…it was kinda intimidating because there are all the prisoners with their arms through the front jail gates and i was the one that had to go in there and hand ernesto the bag. it was also sketchy because the guards were like, yea, YOU can go in. i was like, ¨HELL NO¨ not with out my friends. we then had to call ernesto back from the payphone and arrange a time for us to meet. the guards were watching us the whole time, and i can not imagine what they were thinking. probably something like…weird stupid gringos. anyways, we arranged for a time but then went out with a bunch of the guy´s friends from melbourne that night and missed it the next day. so, all that for nothin. haha.
we didn´t get to go in to the different rooms of the jail, but got to see the courtyard, eating area, gift shop, and talking area from where i gave ernesto our goods. so it was enough for me. and yes, they have a gift shop where the prisoners can sell their crafts…
cusco, aguas calientes y machupicchu
from there, we caught a bus through puno to cusco. cusco is the biggest touristy town i have been in so far. this is the town where hikers for machupicchu usually start at, so things were a little bit more pricy. but the clubs were fun, and you can still bargain with the restaurants because of the competition. getting to machupicchu with an agency costs like $300 to do the whole inca trail thing, we decided to do our own thing and we ony ended up spending about $40! the alternate route and specific directions was sent to us by enda’s friend from home who was recently there, so it was something we could all rely on.
we started our trek by taking a bus for a few hours to a town called santa maria, where we crossed a river in a little pully and then walked along a rail road for about 6 hours. we saw some ruins on the way, as well as a glimpse of machupicchu. we finally got to a town called aguas calientes, which is at the base of machupicchu. we then slept for a few hours, and woke up at 4:30 to hike up to the entrace, because the gates open at 6. we also wanted to avoid the tourist companies who shuttle people up the hill in the morning.
well..it ws pouring rain but we went up anyways, and by the time we got up the hill the gates were open and the sun was starting to shine. i have seen at least a hundred photos of it in restaurants here, but seeing it person was incredible.
there is a hike up winay picchu that allows a limited number of hikers a day, and we were fortunate enough to be one of those. at the top is a beautiful view of the machupicchu ruins!!! we spent another day in aguas calientes, and then back to cusco, where we got one hour massages for 15 pesos! (5 dollars)
carnaval has also started, which means crazy parties but also water balloons being thrown at everyone and anyone. you walk down the street and can not escape a stand trying to sell water balloons or super soakers. walking down the street means you are always looking behind your back. we didn´t know this on the first few days of it, and made the mistake of walking up an alley where we saw a bunch of mischievious looking kids. the first girl had a bucket of water, and was like, ´”do you want some water?” we were like, no…and then saw boys with super soakers and water bottles/balloons. as soon as one balloon hit, the rest came towards us, and we have never ran up hill that fast in our lives.
copacabana y isla del sol
enda, randall, and i left for a little town called copacabana, which is a little port town on lago titicaca a bit later. it was a good place to stop over on the way to peru, because we got to relax and was also there on a sunday, where the town brings their cars in front of the main church to get it blessed. confetti, fireworks, and little trinkets were everywhere, but it was also kinda funny to see people shaking and spraying pepsi all over their cars.
then we made our way to an amazing island on a boat ride that should have taken 15 min but took almost two hours. we were going slower than the speed we have to go in the no wake zone on lake washington….ridiculous. the max. capacity for the boat was about 25 people and we had atleast 40 PLUS backpacks. but it was so worth it and we stayed for two nights on an island called isla del sol on lago ticicaca. it was the coolest island ever. even though there is nothing on the island, there are quite a few hostels, and so as soon as we got off the boat the little kids swarmed us asking if we wanted a place to stay. these little kids are great salesmen, as they are so persistent! everywhere we went, there were kids trying to sell us things…we could not escape.
anyways, the lake is so grand and gorgeous that you would think it was the ocean, and the weather has been great for us as well. and the tricky thing about the island though, is that you have to climb up hill for like 45 min to the hostel with our backpacks. this was one thing that was omitted from anything we read. but i suppose it is not in there for a reason…..with the thin air, my lungs were not having it. the island also had a water problem, because people that ran the hostel/restaurants could only have the donkeys carry up so much water….so that was interesting, to say the least. i am sure we all smelled awesome.
la paz
i then made my way back to buenos aires and am currently in la paz. bolivia is beautiful! i have been here for the last week with in la paz are really dark skinned and indigenous looking, and there are a lot of homeless people. it is completely different from buenos aires and uruguay, where most of the locals were of european decent. the women here wear traditional garb with bright skirts, and this hat that looks like a top hat rested crookedly on the top of the head. it is also so busy here but busy in a different way than a city like buenos aires or tokyo….hard to explain.
there are also a million stands along the road where you can buy everything-clothes, underwear, batteries, knives, phones, cd´s candy, water, tv´s. and all for super-cheap. i have been able to stock up here, and was also able to buy a charger for my phone for only $2! i have also not seen a convenient store yet…
it took me two days to get acclimated to the high altitude ( the highest city in the world!), but i am doing fine now. the city is literally in a bowl, so there is A LOT of walking up and down the street. i swear we walk like 5 miles a day, but i don´t seem to be losing weight. dammit. yesterday we climbed up the city hills and drank beer watching the sunset. it was so so so pretty.
it was also ´”the day of abundance” on the 24th, and the whole country celebrates by buying things like miniature cars, houses, fake money, etc that they wish to have. they then have it blessed and hope that it comes true in the upcoming year. there were like a billion little stands selling the same things but some of it was actually really funny. the funniest has to be a little ceramic guy with an alpaca beanie, with just tons of luxury items around his neck, while smoking a cigarette. it is just ridiculous looking. you can also buy llama fetuses for good luck to put under your house. maybe i will try and smuggle some back home!
there are also a billion police and guard men in uniform, so it is kinda intimidating to walk around. we were at the sand pedro prison yesterday, and took a picture of the guards. we thought we did it stealthily, but i guess not because a guard carrying the biggest gun i have ever seen came over and told us to erase it. there have not been any riots while i have been here, but i am kinda excited for one to happen. i haven´t had anyone hassle me for my passport, documents, etc, but i do walk around with a bitchy face. i have heard some horrible stories of people getting robbed,. but i think it can happen anywhere… but i guess if we get robbed, we get robbed, and there is nothing we can do about it. so we are being careful.
punta del diablo y la paloma
my favorite town came next, and is called punta del diablo. there were only about 500 people in the whole town, and i liked the small town feeling of it. here, an argentine couple and two german guys and i were able to rent a cabaña for a week on the beach for about $15 each! it is a huge hippie town and most of the houses were tin shacks or made of adobe (ours was) so i liked to tranquilo feeling. nothing over two stories high. since it is a fishing town, there was always fresh fish, and one of the local fish is cazón, which is baby shark. take that sharks! it kinda tasted like a mix of mackeral and flounder…i also spent two days in a town called la paloma, where we went to an outdoor bar/club that was as big as a stadium. it was cool cuz they had different music playing under different tents but since the place was so big, the music didn´t blend and you could pick the kind you wanted to listen to.
colonia y montevideo
i decided to take a boat over to uruguay, (buquebus) and ended up in a little town called colonia. it is only an hour or so away, and all of the streets are cobble stoned,super small and windy. very cute. but there was nothing really to do there except for ride around town on the scooter, so i decided to head east to montevideo.
the city itself is boring, (especiallysince i arrived from bs as) but the people in my hostel were really awesome…and i ended up spending a few extra days there. it was also an interesting experience cuz none of the backpackers really spoke english ( most of the backpackers in uruguay at the time were from brazil or argentina). the ‘beach’ here is nasty…i have never seen an ocean look dirtier than a lake. but i still went in, because hey, a beach is a beach. but the water is so dirty, that going in the water meant risking a color change of your swim suit. haha too bad i did not realize this till after i got out. lying around on the shore was cool, since there was a uruguanian rock concert we were able to catch. i had no idea what they were saying but it was still fun to listen and enjoy the sun!