Have you been to Cuzco? Longest inhabited city on the Continent, founded on the navel of the Incan world, epicenter of empires, invasions, revolutions and counter-revolutions. Now it is best known as the start of the Inca Trail and base camp of Machu Pichu, and there are probably more white tourists in full treking gear (read: North face jackets, zip-off pants and floppy hats) wandering the streets than Peruvians at any given moment. It's enough yo make you think that you've walked right out of Peru and into a Backpacker's purgatory that unremarkably bookends the highlight of most people's trip- Machu Pichu. It's not to say that it is not a remarkablñe place with a facinating history and fantastic cultural life (it certainly has both), but I have to think of this place as a sort of Disneyland-rendering of the continent that formulates what most people take away from their trips, which in turn has caused me to reflect on my impression of the continent and which moments have shed the most light on the real tensions, tradgedies, and pulse that I have occassionally glimpsed.
There are four conversations, with complete strangers living in the places I've passed through, that showed me what this really ticking below the surface, and which will never be captured in photos.
On one of the first days of my trip, I was walking through a popular hiking trail in Santiago when a young forty-something Chilean man greeted me from the bench he was resting on. I had already been impressed with the forward amability that Chileans display towards foreigners and compatriots alike, and I quickly made myself comfortable and joined the man on the bench to pass the time. He appeared to be very familiar with the US, having traveled extensively on both coasts to work and visit family, and we spent sometime comparing the geography and climate of Chile to its northern sister, California. What really impressed me about this man was his absolute ease in his environment- he had no qualms whatsoever about passing almost an entire thursday morning under a tree shooting the shit with a total stranger with horrendous Spanish. I began to trust him so much, in fact, that I confided my own indecision about pursuing a girl I'd just met all the way to Rio (another story altogether) or if I should stick to my original travel plan and let the oppurtunity slide (as it was the oppurtunity slid away from me... but that's another story as well and beside the point). What he said in reponse both invigorated me and cut me to the quick- ¨You have to take advantage of every moment and opputunity, no matter how stupid or unlikely to succeed. Just do whatever you can.¨ Now, I know, it would be hard to string together more trite cliches in a single conversation, but he went on to tell me that he had just been diagnosed with cancer and beyond the point of effective treatment. He told me that he had to stop and rest almost every five minutes on the mild hill where we had met, that he was hoping for just one more trip to New York to visit his sister, and that he couldn't be happier, since he was totally at peace with talking his time, his very limited time, to enjoy everything froma conversation with a forigner to taking a difficult walk up a hill. With only months left to do everything he'd ever hoped for, this man was not rushing or stressing about anything, but savoring everything that came across his path without regret or reluctance to move on.
Several weeks later, I had another heart-rending conversation that brought into startling relief the sheer desperation and cultural abandonment of the poorest campesinos in Bolivia. I was in Sucre, Bolivia, drinking a blended juice ina restaraunt spectacularly situated on an overlook of the dazzlingly white city, when a small man that had been siting to the side chewing coca leaves for the past half hour began to cut the grass almost at my feet while muttering to me that there was no work. We soon began talking, and I was surprised to learn that his spanish was more foreign as mine- he spoke Quechua, the languae of the Incas, and his Spanish was a creole second language that could only communicate the most basic things, and even at nearly his mid-thirties he could not read or write. He taught me a few basic phrases (the language is a little too fast and closed to pick up quick, though), and asked me about my impressions of Tarabuco, his pueblo, during the Carnaval. The conversation took a drastic left turn, however, when he began to mumble about finding a family for his children. ¨Tengo que buscar una familia para mis hijos, me entiendes? No puedo leer or escribir, no hay trabajo, no hay nada para comer- busco una familia para mis hijos, me entiendes?¨ What he was implying was that I should adopt his children and take them to the states, so that they would have a family that could provide for them. I was shocked and told him that I couldn't and he quickly stalked off. It seemed that he haunted that viewpoint cafe looking for someone to take his children from him to better, western opputunities.
If that showcased some of the great tragedies of Latin America, I was assured that there do exist hopeful and proud communities in Bolivia that have survived and even thrived after hundreds of years of oppresseion. On Isla del Sol, which is on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca, I met a young man who told me all about the history of his people on the sland and their unique current community. Isla del Sol is the mythical island where the Incan race was said to be born, but it was previously and still to this day occupied by the much more pacific Ayamara peoples. The Incans enslaved the Ayamarans and attempted to exterminate their lanuage and culture, but the Ayamarans continued to keep the language and lifestyle alive in secret through over a thousand years of oppression under the Incans, the Spanish and the Criolla white Peruvian landowners. At this point, however, Isla del Sol is something of a tourist anomaly- although most tourists plan a visit there, they have resisted attempts to connect the island with a bridge or even install running water or solid electricity. They still rely more on fishing and agriculture than tourism, and most tourist accomodations are houses and small hospedajes that forbid you to shower (the water has to be brought up every morning by mule). Most interestingly, the community provided for other members, referinging tourists to their neighbors that offer the same service, or loaning people money or products, even governing the community based on the principle of respecting elders as leaders. The shadows of their past oppressors are almost oerwhelming- a huge spanish Manor overlooks the entire pueblo, and Incan ruins literally cover the island, but my friend still liked to joke that here in the ¨birthplace of the Inca Nation¨you can't find a Quechua speaker for a hundred miles, and the placid Ayamara still rule the day.
Finally, this morning I met a very interesting young Peruvian student right here in Cuzco. I was sitting on a bench in the Plaza de Armas in the heart of the city when he came up and asked permission to share the bench, and immediately began talking to me. In retrospect I realize that he was cruising and tryiong to pick me up, but I thought he was just an unusually outgoing Peruvian until he began asking me if I had a wife and then, when I asked him the same, said... ¨pues, a mi, no me gusta mucha las chicas, me entiendes?¨ It took one or two times for the message to really sink in, but then we began talking, of all things, about gay rights in Caliufornia and Peru, comparatively. Alan (that was his name) was from a small pueblo outside of Cuzco and had never traveled further from that pueblo than his current location here in Cuzco, and had no idea about the attitudes of gays abroad or even in a city like Lima. He had never told a Peruvian that he was gay and couldn't really see himself ever doing so because it would taint every relationship that he had. He told me that he wasn't even looking for a man, just some sort of community, in what turned out to be a classic country-boy-goes-to-the-city case of alienation and fear. I was not surprised by this attitude, nor the staunch conservative anti-gay aentiment that is all over Peru (Ironic, really, when Cuzco's flag is identical to the gay pride rainbow flag). What impressed me was that he came to me, expecting that only a foreinger and a stranger could relate to him, even though he was online an hour from the place he'd spent his entire life.
These are snapshots, not morality tales, but they make up, I think, some of the more interesting moments of my trip. I always joke that I could probably just google most of the places that I visit to get all the photos that I take while traveling, but these are unique snapshots of culture that are mine alone, really, and for that they make me feel that even in tourist-ready, backpacker-party-central Cuzco I can say I know something below the surface.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Adventuring for the Sake of it and Backroad Bolivian Gridlock
The Bolivian people have the remarkable national character trait of being quiet, closed, and almost imperturbable, and the reason behind this unique South American character remained a complete mystery even after two weeks of traveling in the Southern part of the country. One afternoon on a backroad local bus, however, it became startling clear to me that there passivity was grounded in necessity- to stay sane in this chaotic infra-structure void one must be ready to accept the cruelest absurdity with a disinterested smile.
A number of Bolivians had told me that if near Cochabamba, I absolutely had to visit the nearby rainforest6 region Chapares, famous for its startling waterfalls, rainforest ecosystem, and importance on the cocaine trafficing route. With this recommendation in mind I boarded a local bus with a new German travel companion bound for the pueblo Villa Turino and ended up with a crash course in Bolivian road psychology.
First, a word on bus travel in Bolivia- it is a chaotic adreneline rush that would put a rollercoaster to shame. The buses are typically cramped and full of seats in various states of disrepair, from being unable to lean back to having only sharp, rusty screws where an armrest should be. Luggage space may or may not be available below deck (most Bolivians bring their belongings aboard in shopping bags and leave them in the aisle) and most often bigh bags end up tied under a tarp on the roof. Furthermore, regional circuit buses like the Chapares bus do not depart from a terminal, they simply congregate on a chaotic street corner and have to fight with taxis, vendors, pedestrians and other cars to pull up to their starting point, so it can be an enorous challenge to know exactly which bus you're boarding. One of the strangest things, however, is how these distance buses operate on an unwritten and, to the uninitiated, utterly unorganized and improvised, local infrastructure. Buses will routinely stop to pick up hitch-hikers on isolated backroads, and the ¨bus stops¨ in certain pueblos are nothing more than an unmarked streetcorner where someone knows to wait for the long distance line bus at 3 in the morning. It is not uncommon to be on a bus as it stops at an unmarked forest house only to see the driver jump out, open the storage area, and hand off a large bag of something to the owner who seemed to be expecting him on a piece of side business. All legitimate, I hope. The roads themselves would satisfy any adreneline junkie. They are almost always a mixture of asphalt and dirt mixed with potholes and the occassional landslide. To make things even more interesting, even buses regularly pass slower traffic on the wrong side of the road over blind corners, even if only to get one car ahead in dead gridlock, and on this trip I even witness a van pass another sedan as the sedan was passing another car... and we barelñy made it back omn the right side before a truck shot by wailing on its horn. Horns here are not exactly for avoiding accidents, but for expressing anything from ¨Hi there, this is a lonely road, isn't it?¨to Ï am going to run you right off this road¨ or ¨Just in case someone is around, I'm still here.¨
On this particular busride to Chapares, we ran into a traffic backup in the middle of the moutain rainforest that seemed clealy not to be moving- most cars had turned off there engines and drivers were idling around outside open doors. After a few minutes stopped, however, most of the smaller vehicles, driving like true Bolivianos, simply began to press up on the opposite side of the road as if simply by crossing the yellow line they could overtake whatever road calamity lay ahead. After a moment`s hesitation, our bus, too, joined the forward press around a curve until we came around the next curve and found ourselves in total gridlock... both lanes full of honking cars at every angle not moving anywhere on a narrow mountain road without any shoulder. We spent three hours trapped right there, unable even to get back on the right side of the road because the complete congestion, in what could easily have been a nightmare of Orwellian proportions in thefast paced life in the States.I noticed something very odd, however. This crowded bus never receded into panic. People continued to murmur and laugh at precisely the same volume that they had before. No babies cried. Drivers and passengers were hanging out on the side of the road, joking with each other, peeing over the edge, shooting the shit. Nobody lost their cool, it was just an unavoidable obstacle on the rocky road of life.
When some people finally did begin moving, those in the streets converted into improvised traffic controllers who would direct trucks and our bus into unthinkable manuevers to allow opposing traffic through. When we did finally pass the accident several miles ahead, we found a gigantic boulder that had apparently fallen onto a large truck, and the hold up had occured while what must have been a ton of surrounding drivers pushed the rock to the side of the road in a pouring tropical thunderstorm to allow traffic through. No police or officials ever arrived, all of the organization and repair was done by people who happened to be on the road.
Overall, the 3 hour bus ride to Villa Tunari took us 8 hours, and we didn`t even end up doing anything there because it was raining so hard, but the whole experience taught me an awful lot about how this society operates almost without real government organization and infrastructure. There was a military checkpoint not 10 miles back that could have saved us hours, but they seemed only intent on checking for coca. People are left by the goverment to fend for themselves resulting in tons of informal, unliscened and somewhat successful systems that people create for transportation, business and nearly every aspect of their lives.
I got another 1st hand inpression of the road situation in the country yesterday when I took a downhill mountain bike tour of ´The World´s Most Dangerous Road," so named because up until it was shut down in 2006 it resorded the highest number of causualties of any road in the world.This beautiful, almost 60 kilometer downhill ride began in the Andean peaks above La Paz at 4700 meter, or nearly 15,000 feet of altitude, and ended at only 1300 meter! The road cleaves directly to the moutain hillsides for stunning beauty but also making it extremely susceptitble to landslides, particularly since on rainy days (like yesterday) the road actaully passes through waterfalls, making for some incredible biking but a terrifying bus ride. The experience was incredible but sobering, especially when we stopped at one particularly dangerous curve and the guide informed us that in 2002 alone 40 people died at that curve, making 2002 the worst year with over 100 deaths. It was a cross section of the extremes that Bolivia abounds- frigid alpine meets tropical heat, extreme poverty catering to a tourist frenzy, recreational sports occuring on the site of genuine human suffering at the hands of a brutal environment.
A number of Bolivians had told me that if near Cochabamba, I absolutely had to visit the nearby rainforest6 region Chapares, famous for its startling waterfalls, rainforest ecosystem, and importance on the cocaine trafficing route. With this recommendation in mind I boarded a local bus with a new German travel companion bound for the pueblo Villa Turino and ended up with a crash course in Bolivian road psychology.
First, a word on bus travel in Bolivia- it is a chaotic adreneline rush that would put a rollercoaster to shame. The buses are typically cramped and full of seats in various states of disrepair, from being unable to lean back to having only sharp, rusty screws where an armrest should be. Luggage space may or may not be available below deck (most Bolivians bring their belongings aboard in shopping bags and leave them in the aisle) and most often bigh bags end up tied under a tarp on the roof. Furthermore, regional circuit buses like the Chapares bus do not depart from a terminal, they simply congregate on a chaotic street corner and have to fight with taxis, vendors, pedestrians and other cars to pull up to their starting point, so it can be an enorous challenge to know exactly which bus you're boarding. One of the strangest things, however, is how these distance buses operate on an unwritten and, to the uninitiated, utterly unorganized and improvised, local infrastructure. Buses will routinely stop to pick up hitch-hikers on isolated backroads, and the ¨bus stops¨ in certain pueblos are nothing more than an unmarked streetcorner where someone knows to wait for the long distance line bus at 3 in the morning. It is not uncommon to be on a bus as it stops at an unmarked forest house only to see the driver jump out, open the storage area, and hand off a large bag of something to the owner who seemed to be expecting him on a piece of side business. All legitimate, I hope. The roads themselves would satisfy any adreneline junkie. They are almost always a mixture of asphalt and dirt mixed with potholes and the occassional landslide. To make things even more interesting, even buses regularly pass slower traffic on the wrong side of the road over blind corners, even if only to get one car ahead in dead gridlock, and on this trip I even witness a van pass another sedan as the sedan was passing another car... and we barelñy made it back omn the right side before a truck shot by wailing on its horn. Horns here are not exactly for avoiding accidents, but for expressing anything from ¨Hi there, this is a lonely road, isn't it?¨to Ï am going to run you right off this road¨ or ¨Just in case someone is around, I'm still here.¨
On this particular busride to Chapares, we ran into a traffic backup in the middle of the moutain rainforest that seemed clealy not to be moving- most cars had turned off there engines and drivers were idling around outside open doors. After a few minutes stopped, however, most of the smaller vehicles, driving like true Bolivianos, simply began to press up on the opposite side of the road as if simply by crossing the yellow line they could overtake whatever road calamity lay ahead. After a moment`s hesitation, our bus, too, joined the forward press around a curve until we came around the next curve and found ourselves in total gridlock... both lanes full of honking cars at every angle not moving anywhere on a narrow mountain road without any shoulder. We spent three hours trapped right there, unable even to get back on the right side of the road because the complete congestion, in what could easily have been a nightmare of Orwellian proportions in thefast paced life in the States.I noticed something very odd, however. This crowded bus never receded into panic. People continued to murmur and laugh at precisely the same volume that they had before. No babies cried. Drivers and passengers were hanging out on the side of the road, joking with each other, peeing over the edge, shooting the shit. Nobody lost their cool, it was just an unavoidable obstacle on the rocky road of life.
When some people finally did begin moving, those in the streets converted into improvised traffic controllers who would direct trucks and our bus into unthinkable manuevers to allow opposing traffic through. When we did finally pass the accident several miles ahead, we found a gigantic boulder that had apparently fallen onto a large truck, and the hold up had occured while what must have been a ton of surrounding drivers pushed the rock to the side of the road in a pouring tropical thunderstorm to allow traffic through. No police or officials ever arrived, all of the organization and repair was done by people who happened to be on the road.
Overall, the 3 hour bus ride to Villa Tunari took us 8 hours, and we didn`t even end up doing anything there because it was raining so hard, but the whole experience taught me an awful lot about how this society operates almost without real government organization and infrastructure. There was a military checkpoint not 10 miles back that could have saved us hours, but they seemed only intent on checking for coca. People are left by the goverment to fend for themselves resulting in tons of informal, unliscened and somewhat successful systems that people create for transportation, business and nearly every aspect of their lives.
I got another 1st hand inpression of the road situation in the country yesterday when I took a downhill mountain bike tour of ´The World´s Most Dangerous Road," so named because up until it was shut down in 2006 it resorded the highest number of causualties of any road in the world.This beautiful, almost 60 kilometer downhill ride began in the Andean peaks above La Paz at 4700 meter, or nearly 15,000 feet of altitude, and ended at only 1300 meter! The road cleaves directly to the moutain hillsides for stunning beauty but also making it extremely susceptitble to landslides, particularly since on rainy days (like yesterday) the road actaully passes through waterfalls, making for some incredible biking but a terrifying bus ride. The experience was incredible but sobering, especially when we stopped at one particularly dangerous curve and the guide informed us that in 2002 alone 40 people died at that curve, making 2002 the worst year with over 100 deaths. It was a cross section of the extremes that Bolivia abounds- frigid alpine meets tropical heat, extreme poverty catering to a tourist frenzy, recreational sports occuring on the site of genuine human suffering at the hands of a brutal environment.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Eastward, ho.
Bolivia continues surprise me at every turn with its unique stature amongst the countries of South America and its facinating, if subdued, culture. I have found that of all nationalities in South America, Bolivians are by far the quietest and the shyest. They walk with their faces to the floor, and if I casually say ¨Buenos Dias¨ while passing on the street they will only venture a timid ¨Hola¨ once they've already passed me... and this is bold by their standards. I heard a Bolivian joke that if there were no beer in Bolivia, there wouldn't be any weddings, friendships or families either, and I am begining to see exactly what he meant. My personal theory on this national trait is that it has it's roots in Bolivia's particularly marginalizwed history.
Bolivia, originally Alta Peru, was colonized by the Spanish in particular for its Silver mines in La Paz and Potosi (the highest city in the world, incidentlally. When I was there waiting for a bus I could get winded just telling a story). The mines were famous for their abominable conditions, which exist up until today in Potosi, which records up to 30 deaths a year. When South America-wide independence movement began to get moving in the early 1800s, Simon Bolivar, who was leading the independence movements of Peru, Colombia, and his own Venezuela, did not even support Alta Peru's independece beause he thought it would be too weak. To appease the general the new nation named itself after Bolivar and made him its first president, but his doubts slowly came to fruition as Bolivia lost territory to all 7 of its neighbors in three wars which it lost throughout the century. Particularly poignant was the loss of access to the sea after the War of the Pacific, which saw the loss of Bolivias only coastline to Chile, which clearly needed just a little more oceanfront... Bolivians self-depreciatingly say that the only victories that they've ever had were against Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (100 Bolivian Soldiers against 2 outlaws) and against Che Guevarra's expeditionary revolution (the Bolivian Army plus the CIA and Green Berets against 45 rebels).
At this juncture, Bolivia is the weakest nation in all of South America, and seems always to be dependent on the whims of foreign powers. For many years the United States had a very important role in the nation, but the agressive tactics of the War on drugs, including crop eradication and alleged human rights abuses on the part of the DEA led to the election of Evo Morales, the nation's first indigenous president, who expelled the DEA from the country and now relies heavily on Venezuelan support. Bolivians remain divided, however, on Evo (who never attended High School or College) because he has not improved infrastructure and instead gives money back to the people in tax breaks and grants, which some see as buying votes.
My experience so far has led me to Sucer and now top Cochabamba. Sucre, also known as the white city, was the Spanish colonial capital because it is close to the mines of Potosi but has a far better climate. It looks like a city right out of the mediterranean, but set in the cloudy foothills of the Andes. I made it to Cucre just in time for the Carnival of Tarabuco, a pueblo nearby, that commemorates a traitional dance specific to Tarabuco that features rattles and sheets of metal attatched to sandals that people use to keep time while dancing. The Carnival was a blast, as everyone and their mother in Sucre hops in the back of a pickup truck to make it out, and the entire crowd is driking Singani (a strong wine-spirit famous in the region) and chewing coca. At the main stage I was actually able to see Evo Morales from only thirty feet away as he made his vice president (a tall, white Bolivian of the old ruling class) don traditional garb and partake in an indigenous dance as the crowd laughed and cheered.
My other days in Sucre were much more subdued, as the only thing to do when out at night is go to any of the myriad Karaoke bars that seems to be an unusually popular Bolivian pastime. This was were I met some of the nicest people that I have met so far on my journey, as everyone wanted to give me there number to hang out or see the city. I left the karaoke bar one night having recieved three guys's phone numbers and having promises extracted to hang out... not sure what exactly to make of that, as I have yet to have the same luck with the girls here.
In Cochabamba, which famously has the best climate in the country, I me up with Carlos, who I found through couchsurfing.org, to stay with him and see the city. He turned out to be a marvelous guide, bringing me not only through the central square but also to a church soup kitchen to meet destitute elderly and sick Bolivians, which is an experience I will not soon forget. He also invited me to lunch with his family and try a popular dish here: fried cow stomach. Not bad actually, although a little tough and salty.
Finally, because Carlos actually did not have a ton of room, I spent the night at a Brazilian friend of his apartment, which is in a neighborhood made up almost exclusively of Brazilian medical students who come to Cochabamba in droves to study medicine for a fraction of the cost of Brazil, although they don't seem to bother to learn spanish on the way. Overall, Cochabamba has been one of the least touristy places I have yet to visit in South America and is something of a booming university town near the Amazonian side of Bolivia. Vamos a ver.
Bolivia, originally Alta Peru, was colonized by the Spanish in particular for its Silver mines in La Paz and Potosi (the highest city in the world, incidentlally. When I was there waiting for a bus I could get winded just telling a story). The mines were famous for their abominable conditions, which exist up until today in Potosi, which records up to 30 deaths a year. When South America-wide independence movement began to get moving in the early 1800s, Simon Bolivar, who was leading the independence movements of Peru, Colombia, and his own Venezuela, did not even support Alta Peru's independece beause he thought it would be too weak. To appease the general the new nation named itself after Bolivar and made him its first president, but his doubts slowly came to fruition as Bolivia lost territory to all 7 of its neighbors in three wars which it lost throughout the century. Particularly poignant was the loss of access to the sea after the War of the Pacific, which saw the loss of Bolivias only coastline to Chile, which clearly needed just a little more oceanfront... Bolivians self-depreciatingly say that the only victories that they've ever had were against Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (100 Bolivian Soldiers against 2 outlaws) and against Che Guevarra's expeditionary revolution (the Bolivian Army plus the CIA and Green Berets against 45 rebels).
At this juncture, Bolivia is the weakest nation in all of South America, and seems always to be dependent on the whims of foreign powers. For many years the United States had a very important role in the nation, but the agressive tactics of the War on drugs, including crop eradication and alleged human rights abuses on the part of the DEA led to the election of Evo Morales, the nation's first indigenous president, who expelled the DEA from the country and now relies heavily on Venezuelan support. Bolivians remain divided, however, on Evo (who never attended High School or College) because he has not improved infrastructure and instead gives money back to the people in tax breaks and grants, which some see as buying votes.
My experience so far has led me to Sucer and now top Cochabamba. Sucre, also known as the white city, was the Spanish colonial capital because it is close to the mines of Potosi but has a far better climate. It looks like a city right out of the mediterranean, but set in the cloudy foothills of the Andes. I made it to Cucre just in time for the Carnival of Tarabuco, a pueblo nearby, that commemorates a traitional dance specific to Tarabuco that features rattles and sheets of metal attatched to sandals that people use to keep time while dancing. The Carnival was a blast, as everyone and their mother in Sucre hops in the back of a pickup truck to make it out, and the entire crowd is driking Singani (a strong wine-spirit famous in the region) and chewing coca. At the main stage I was actually able to see Evo Morales from only thirty feet away as he made his vice president (a tall, white Bolivian of the old ruling class) don traditional garb and partake in an indigenous dance as the crowd laughed and cheered.
My other days in Sucre were much more subdued, as the only thing to do when out at night is go to any of the myriad Karaoke bars that seems to be an unusually popular Bolivian pastime. This was were I met some of the nicest people that I have met so far on my journey, as everyone wanted to give me there number to hang out or see the city. I left the karaoke bar one night having recieved three guys's phone numbers and having promises extracted to hang out... not sure what exactly to make of that, as I have yet to have the same luck with the girls here.
In Cochabamba, which famously has the best climate in the country, I me up with Carlos, who I found through couchsurfing.org, to stay with him and see the city. He turned out to be a marvelous guide, bringing me not only through the central square but also to a church soup kitchen to meet destitute elderly and sick Bolivians, which is an experience I will not soon forget. He also invited me to lunch with his family and try a popular dish here: fried cow stomach. Not bad actually, although a little tough and salty.
Finally, because Carlos actually did not have a ton of room, I spent the night at a Brazilian friend of his apartment, which is in a neighborhood made up almost exclusively of Brazilian medical students who come to Cochabamba in droves to study medicine for a fraction of the cost of Brazil, although they don't seem to bother to learn spanish on the way. Overall, Cochabamba has been one of the least touristy places I have yet to visit in South America and is something of a booming university town near the Amazonian side of Bolivia. Vamos a ver.
Friday, March 18, 2011
If the Moon, Mars and Peru Collided, You´d Get Bolivia
Sorry all for the lack of photos on this blog- I´ve taken hundreds, but I have yet to find a suitable place or manner of uploading them.... this continent isn´t exactly known for its technological wizardry. Tech advice would be appreciated. For now you´ll have to do with some description, and maybe google images if you need a visual aid.
So I finally arrived in Bolivia after several purgatorial days taking night buses through Northern Argentina. I spent two days each in Cordoba and Salta and would have to recomend that if you find yourself on the same trip, spend four days in Cordoba and skip Salta altogether. Cordoba is a facinating town, home to one of South America´s largest universities and a fantastic arts scene. Particularly outstanding was the modern art museum, which was hosting an installation exclusively composed of young artists (mostly from Argentina) who work in and around Cordoba. There were some wild video installations featuring a gay man dancing with a black actor (apparently Barack Obama) while fiery subtitles foretold the begining of World War Three based on the confederation of South America and an American proxy war with Venezuela through Colombia. More interesting, however, was the work of Charley Medina (here´s where you should google), which used cartoonish graphic representation to depict scenes of rampant crime, litter, and drug dependence in Latin America. His bio said that he was strongly influenced by Charles Bukowski, and it shows when you see how irrelevantly and provocatively Medina renders his paintings. You have to see his recreation of the classic ¨The Birth of Venus,¨ where he recasts Venus as a naked crack whore held by her sides by her pimp (wearing gold chains, stunner shades, and an Argentine futbol jersey) and an debautched priest in a tub of urine before a desolate landscape covered in trash. Powerful stuff.
But nothing could have prepared me for the shock of entering Bolivia after close to a month in uber-European Argentina. For starters, everyone is desolately poor and everything is unbelievably cheap, based on the fact that prices are roughly equal to Argentina, but the currency is almost half the value.There are mostly dirt streets, and you´d be hard-pressed to find a bathroom that has a toilet suit or even flushes, and expect to buy your TP at the door from a 5-year-old that can already exchange currencies from several countries. The most prescient issue for me, however, is that since Bolivians are by no means tall people, every doorway in the country is about 5 inches shorther than the international standard. This meant that for my not a day went by in Bolivia when I didn´t smack my forehead on a doorway whi9le passing into the next room (Dane, I´m sure you can relate). I crossed the border with Chris and Jelmer, an English and French duo that I met in Salta and hit it off with talking about everything from Engliah tax code and Literary Theory to Underground Hip Hop and the merits of Argentinian Women. They had a much easier time crossing the border than I did, since I had to pay a fee in American dollars (didn´t think I´d need those) for a Visa that only American citizens need. Reciprocity is a bitch. Nevertheless, together we bordered what may be the only working train in South America bound for Uyuni, and we sat back to see hundreds of miles of untouched scenery that looks as if it came right out of an old western. Think gorgeous sandstone canyons between green meadows strewn with yellow and purple spring flowers. As it turns out, we were passing by Tupiza, which is where the historical Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their end the hands of the Bolivian Army after robbing a bank in Tarija, and after seeing the landscape for myself, I´d guess they were happy to meet their end in the only place in the Southern Hemisphere that could be mistaken for Colorado.
I split paths with Chris and Jelmer in Uyuni when I left for a three day four-wheel-drive expedition to the famous Salar de Uyuni (HUGE salt flats) and through most of undeveloped Southern Bolivia. I ended up thrown in with a massive group of Isrealis who prefered Hebrew top English or Spanish, so I spent most of the time silently contemplating the otherwordly landscapes while listening to Isreali pop as we flew across the desert. The Salt Flats stretch as far as the I can see, and since the rainy season just ended, they are coated by a thin layer of water that makes them into mirrors that reflect the surrounding snow-capped Andean peaks. Most people take the oppurtunity to take perspective shots in which you make something look huge in the foreground and yourself tiny in the background. Like that I can appear three inches tall next to a beer bottle because the background is so homogenous and clear. I´ll try to get some pictures up at some point.
But Southern Bolivia has much more than this, as we spent the next two days traveling to Sulphuric Geysers, volcanic rock formations, and lagoons throughout the area. The lagoons in particular are spectacular since they change color depending on the mineral content of each one. One lake, the aptly named Lago Verde, appears as a super-saturated mint green color because of its Borax content, while the even more spectacular Lago Colorado was an unreal orange because of the micro-organisms that thrive there. Due to this algea and bacterial population, the lake also attracts massive flocks of Flamingos, which can be seen in huge groups almost anywhere in the knee-depth lake grazing on the micro-organisms that abide there.That´s right, Flamingos at alomost 1500 feet of elevation.
The undeveloped Southern part of the country is used almost exclusively for mining silver and other minerals such as Borax and Cobalt, but almost none of the money from these resources stays in Bolivia since Japanese and American companies own all the mines and it is all processed and shipped from Chile.Yet the landscapes here, from the lunar white surface of the Salar to the Martian red rock gravekl mountains that border orange Lago Colorade are enough to boggle the mind. ¨Unearthly¨ seems to be the only word fit to describe this hidden corner of the world devoid of development, wealth, trees, or adequate doorway heights.
So I finally arrived in Bolivia after several purgatorial days taking night buses through Northern Argentina. I spent two days each in Cordoba and Salta and would have to recomend that if you find yourself on the same trip, spend four days in Cordoba and skip Salta altogether. Cordoba is a facinating town, home to one of South America´s largest universities and a fantastic arts scene. Particularly outstanding was the modern art museum, which was hosting an installation exclusively composed of young artists (mostly from Argentina) who work in and around Cordoba. There were some wild video installations featuring a gay man dancing with a black actor (apparently Barack Obama) while fiery subtitles foretold the begining of World War Three based on the confederation of South America and an American proxy war with Venezuela through Colombia. More interesting, however, was the work of Charley Medina (here´s where you should google), which used cartoonish graphic representation to depict scenes of rampant crime, litter, and drug dependence in Latin America. His bio said that he was strongly influenced by Charles Bukowski, and it shows when you see how irrelevantly and provocatively Medina renders his paintings. You have to see his recreation of the classic ¨The Birth of Venus,¨ where he recasts Venus as a naked crack whore held by her sides by her pimp (wearing gold chains, stunner shades, and an Argentine futbol jersey) and an debautched priest in a tub of urine before a desolate landscape covered in trash. Powerful stuff.
But nothing could have prepared me for the shock of entering Bolivia after close to a month in uber-European Argentina. For starters, everyone is desolately poor and everything is unbelievably cheap, based on the fact that prices are roughly equal to Argentina, but the currency is almost half the value.There are mostly dirt streets, and you´d be hard-pressed to find a bathroom that has a toilet suit or even flushes, and expect to buy your TP at the door from a 5-year-old that can already exchange currencies from several countries. The most prescient issue for me, however, is that since Bolivians are by no means tall people, every doorway in the country is about 5 inches shorther than the international standard. This meant that for my not a day went by in Bolivia when I didn´t smack my forehead on a doorway whi9le passing into the next room (Dane, I´m sure you can relate). I crossed the border with Chris and Jelmer, an English and French duo that I met in Salta and hit it off with talking about everything from Engliah tax code and Literary Theory to Underground Hip Hop and the merits of Argentinian Women. They had a much easier time crossing the border than I did, since I had to pay a fee in American dollars (didn´t think I´d need those) for a Visa that only American citizens need. Reciprocity is a bitch. Nevertheless, together we bordered what may be the only working train in South America bound for Uyuni, and we sat back to see hundreds of miles of untouched scenery that looks as if it came right out of an old western. Think gorgeous sandstone canyons between green meadows strewn with yellow and purple spring flowers. As it turns out, we were passing by Tupiza, which is where the historical Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their end the hands of the Bolivian Army after robbing a bank in Tarija, and after seeing the landscape for myself, I´d guess they were happy to meet their end in the only place in the Southern Hemisphere that could be mistaken for Colorado.
I split paths with Chris and Jelmer in Uyuni when I left for a three day four-wheel-drive expedition to the famous Salar de Uyuni (HUGE salt flats) and through most of undeveloped Southern Bolivia. I ended up thrown in with a massive group of Isrealis who prefered Hebrew top English or Spanish, so I spent most of the time silently contemplating the otherwordly landscapes while listening to Isreali pop as we flew across the desert. The Salt Flats stretch as far as the I can see, and since the rainy season just ended, they are coated by a thin layer of water that makes them into mirrors that reflect the surrounding snow-capped Andean peaks. Most people take the oppurtunity to take perspective shots in which you make something look huge in the foreground and yourself tiny in the background. Like that I can appear three inches tall next to a beer bottle because the background is so homogenous and clear. I´ll try to get some pictures up at some point.
But Southern Bolivia has much more than this, as we spent the next two days traveling to Sulphuric Geysers, volcanic rock formations, and lagoons throughout the area. The lagoons in particular are spectacular since they change color depending on the mineral content of each one. One lake, the aptly named Lago Verde, appears as a super-saturated mint green color because of its Borax content, while the even more spectacular Lago Colorado was an unreal orange because of the micro-organisms that thrive there. Due to this algea and bacterial population, the lake also attracts massive flocks of Flamingos, which can be seen in huge groups almost anywhere in the knee-depth lake grazing on the micro-organisms that abide there.That´s right, Flamingos at alomost 1500 feet of elevation.
The undeveloped Southern part of the country is used almost exclusively for mining silver and other minerals such as Borax and Cobalt, but almost none of the money from these resources stays in Bolivia since Japanese and American companies own all the mines and it is all processed and shipped from Chile.Yet the landscapes here, from the lunar white surface of the Salar to the Martian red rock gravekl mountains that border orange Lago Colorade are enough to boggle the mind. ¨Unearthly¨ seems to be the only word fit to describe this hidden corner of the world devoid of development, wealth, trees, or adequate doorway heights.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Too much, too young
The week since my last post has maybe seen more shenenigans than the rest of my trip combined. Not only did I finally track down Julie Fair, Ewok, Allie Gates, and a huge contingent if the Beam Team, but I saw some of the world's most incredible waterfalls, got kicked out of the Brazilian Consulate, and rang in several nights of a Carnival that would be unforgettable if I could only remember everything....
To start at the begining, After I met up with Jules and the BF, we took off for three nights in Iguazu, home to some of the world's largest and most impressive waterfalls that straddle the borders of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. They are absolutely jaw dropping- it seems like more than fifteen or seperate falls have been crowded into a tiny river valley that shouls never witness that kind of water volume. And you can witness the sheer power of these waterfalls in the most visceral manner imaginable, since the falls are ringed by a complex system of elevated boardwalks that bring you so close to the falls that you'll be drenched. The whole park was so impressive that we went back a second day to see the exact same sites, this time including a motorboat trip up along the Brazilian side of the falls and quite literally as far under the falls as one could get without crushing the boat and all aboard. We couldn't have been wetter if we'd swum into the falls. And that wasn't the only soak spot of the park, since the falls are so powerful that even at the overlook at the highest poinht above Garganta del Diable (devil's throat, the highlight of the spectacular waterfall system), the spray from the impact of the falls reaches up higher than the waterfalls thenselves and consistently rains down, helping to create a local ecosystem that is entirely unique because of the level of water in the air.
This trip, howeverm will prove to be the closest that I will get to Brazil this trip... after two while days waiting around the Brazilian consulate in Buenos Aires, I was kicked out and told to get lost after the teller began to process my visa application and then decided that I wasn't worth the favor. Ot seems that Brazilian visas depend entirely on the mood of the embassy teller. I caught her on the wrong day, it seems. This meant, clearly, that it would be impossible for me to get to Rio for Carnival (NEXT YEAR!! Whose down?), so I dod the nect best thing and went with Julie and Evan down to Gualagueychu, which is just a little bit north of Buenos Aires, for the Carnical celebration there. This tiny town was so packed that we had to pay more than the cost of a budget hotel in BA to sleep in a tent in the backyard of an old woman with tons of dogs. So small, in fact, that the bus we took down from Iguazu wouldn't stop in town, dropping us instead, and I'm absolutely serious, on a grass median of a highway on-ramp 10 kilometers outside if the pueblo. Nevertheless, we managed to get into the Carnival and had what my pictures tell me must have been an epic night of dancing and drinking while massive floats, almost entirely nude dancers, and bands paraded down the center if the grandstands. Quite the party really, espècially when we were able to share it with so many of the Beam Teams all stars: Evan, Julie, J-Rob, Tara, Kevin, Amy, and an extremely excited Australian.
Unfortunately, the team was not complete the next day, and we had to spend several hours trying to track down Tara and J-Rob, who were in neither the tent or our rental car when noon rolled around the next day. We almost lost Kevin, who had been trying to sleep naked in the middle of the street, but we really had no idea what had happened to the two girls, who'd been last spotted with me at the afterparty in a club around 6 in the morning. J-Ron eventually arrived in the back of a moped with a young French student, and we ended up leaving without Tara after waiting four hours for her to get in touch. As it turns out, Tara, woke up in a field with several new scrapes (from hiping a fence, we later guessed) at 4 in the afternoon, by which time we had already left. She tried to take a bus back to BA, but she had absolutely no money and was almost at the point of hawking her camera before she found someone from the states willing to wire her 20 bucks.
The revelry continued on Monday night when most of the same group (plus other UCLA amigo and current BA resident, Allie Gates) went to an all night percussion dance party featuring La Bomba de Tiempo, an awesome local percussion collective that plays driving pan-american drum compositions that keep you moving like nothing I've ever witnessed. It just so happened that in the spirit of Carnival they were doing a six hour set starting at Midnight after there regular 2 hour monday residency. that totalled to like 8 hours and dancing our asses of in a sweaty, crowded warehouse. Then sunrise empanadas to top it off. After that much celebration and debauchery I have never felt so ready for the physical and ethic abnegation of Lent. I guess I could just call it detox (joking!) But all the same, time to slow it down and get back to nature, which should be just the ticket in Cordoba and Salta before heading into Bolivia.
To start at the begining, After I met up with Jules and the BF, we took off for three nights in Iguazu, home to some of the world's largest and most impressive waterfalls that straddle the borders of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. They are absolutely jaw dropping- it seems like more than fifteen or seperate falls have been crowded into a tiny river valley that shouls never witness that kind of water volume. And you can witness the sheer power of these waterfalls in the most visceral manner imaginable, since the falls are ringed by a complex system of elevated boardwalks that bring you so close to the falls that you'll be drenched. The whole park was so impressive that we went back a second day to see the exact same sites, this time including a motorboat trip up along the Brazilian side of the falls and quite literally as far under the falls as one could get without crushing the boat and all aboard. We couldn't have been wetter if we'd swum into the falls. And that wasn't the only soak spot of the park, since the falls are so powerful that even at the overlook at the highest poinht above Garganta del Diable (devil's throat, the highlight of the spectacular waterfall system), the spray from the impact of the falls reaches up higher than the waterfalls thenselves and consistently rains down, helping to create a local ecosystem that is entirely unique because of the level of water in the air.
This trip, howeverm will prove to be the closest that I will get to Brazil this trip... after two while days waiting around the Brazilian consulate in Buenos Aires, I was kicked out and told to get lost after the teller began to process my visa application and then decided that I wasn't worth the favor. Ot seems that Brazilian visas depend entirely on the mood of the embassy teller. I caught her on the wrong day, it seems. This meant, clearly, that it would be impossible for me to get to Rio for Carnival (NEXT YEAR!! Whose down?), so I dod the nect best thing and went with Julie and Evan down to Gualagueychu, which is just a little bit north of Buenos Aires, for the Carnical celebration there. This tiny town was so packed that we had to pay more than the cost of a budget hotel in BA to sleep in a tent in the backyard of an old woman with tons of dogs. So small, in fact, that the bus we took down from Iguazu wouldn't stop in town, dropping us instead, and I'm absolutely serious, on a grass median of a highway on-ramp 10 kilometers outside if the pueblo. Nevertheless, we managed to get into the Carnival and had what my pictures tell me must have been an epic night of dancing and drinking while massive floats, almost entirely nude dancers, and bands paraded down the center if the grandstands. Quite the party really, espècially when we were able to share it with so many of the Beam Teams all stars: Evan, Julie, J-Rob, Tara, Kevin, Amy, and an extremely excited Australian.
Unfortunately, the team was not complete the next day, and we had to spend several hours trying to track down Tara and J-Rob, who were in neither the tent or our rental car when noon rolled around the next day. We almost lost Kevin, who had been trying to sleep naked in the middle of the street, but we really had no idea what had happened to the two girls, who'd been last spotted with me at the afterparty in a club around 6 in the morning. J-Ron eventually arrived in the back of a moped with a young French student, and we ended up leaving without Tara after waiting four hours for her to get in touch. As it turns out, Tara, woke up in a field with several new scrapes (from hiping a fence, we later guessed) at 4 in the afternoon, by which time we had already left. She tried to take a bus back to BA, but she had absolutely no money and was almost at the point of hawking her camera before she found someone from the states willing to wire her 20 bucks.
The revelry continued on Monday night when most of the same group (plus other UCLA amigo and current BA resident, Allie Gates) went to an all night percussion dance party featuring La Bomba de Tiempo, an awesome local percussion collective that plays driving pan-american drum compositions that keep you moving like nothing I've ever witnessed. It just so happened that in the spirit of Carnival they were doing a six hour set starting at Midnight after there regular 2 hour monday residency. that totalled to like 8 hours and dancing our asses of in a sweaty, crowded warehouse. Then sunrise empanadas to top it off. After that much celebration and debauchery I have never felt so ready for the physical and ethic abnegation of Lent. I guess I could just call it detox (joking!) But all the same, time to slow it down and get back to nature, which should be just the ticket in Cordoba and Salta before heading into Bolivia.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Anarchy in BA
Buenos Aires is starlingly cosmopolitan. As in you can quite literally find yourself having facinating person interactions with a wider range of characters than you though existed in the world, let alone Argentina. My first taste of this was the first tango club that I found in BA- in the underground basement of an Armenian Community Culture center in the SoHo (yes, named after and thoroughly resembling the SoHos of NY and London) part of Palermo. That mix of cultures was already far more exotic than the Italian-Argentine mix that characterizes the rest of the country, but Buenos Aires, like the other great cities of the world, is a mixing point of culture from every corner of the world.
What I found on Friday Night, however, made me feel as if I had stepped right out of this area and into underground activist world of the 1910s. A Finnish girl from the hostel took me to a secret Anarchist library, bookstore, schoolhouse and meeting place that served as the center of a local anarchist community of Buenos Aires. We found it behind an unmarked door in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of the city, exhibiting at aevery corner the evidence of widespread crack addiction and petty crime. Several moments after we rang, a pair of eyes peeked through the peephole and demanded to know who we were. My Finnish companion had been there before, so she had only to show her face before the door swung open and a small woman in a cooking apron swept us in with kisses while offering food. Another older gentleman, one of the patriachs of the establishment, showed us around the facility, which occupied an old hopuse and included a regular circulation library, biblioteca especifico (which was under lock and key and contained only anarchist texts), a large meeting room, an area for in-house printing and publishing, and in a large attic above a gigantic Archive of Anarchist newspapers, flyers, and newsletter stored in cardboarrd boxes marked with their country of origin. The boxes occupied almost every inch of wallspace of the very large, dusty room from floor to ceiling except for a 6 by 10 foot painting of a voluptious woman, entirely naked except for a nun's habit, lying on her stomach and touching herself. We then spent several hours with the some of the Archivists going through there collections of Swiss, Norwegian, and Finnish publications, some of which dated as far back as the 1940s. The leader meanwhile described the tensions in the Argentine Anarchist community as well as their plans to create a cooperative clothing factory to sustain themselves in an anarchist community. They were truly some of the sweetest and most hospitable people I had met in the country, and appear to be entirely dedicated to the intellectual pursuit of anarchist ideas.
Leaving the bookstore in the middle of the night, we were on our way home when a homeless Uruguayan man who was making metal scultpures of crabs and spiders to sell stopped us to talk. He lectured about the importance of respect, the beauty of every moment, and gave me my horoscope (a cryptic "vas a sufrir mucho para amor") for a long time before he invited us to get a beer. Oddly, he'd been asking for money from all of the pedestrains, but here he was buying beers for us in a tiny slum bar down the road. We passed another few hours meeting the characters in this bar, who were an odd mix of local laborers and tattooed teens, at this bar, before leaving close to 4 in the morning and having to kiss every person in the place on the way out. Our uruguayan friend accompanied us as far as he park, gave the girl a wire crab scultpure, and admonished us "¡disfruta de la vida!" before finally letting us go. All in all something a little different from the standard tourist fare.
What I found on Friday Night, however, made me feel as if I had stepped right out of this area and into underground activist world of the 1910s. A Finnish girl from the hostel took me to a secret Anarchist library, bookstore, schoolhouse and meeting place that served as the center of a local anarchist community of Buenos Aires. We found it behind an unmarked door in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of the city, exhibiting at aevery corner the evidence of widespread crack addiction and petty crime. Several moments after we rang, a pair of eyes peeked through the peephole and demanded to know who we were. My Finnish companion had been there before, so she had only to show her face before the door swung open and a small woman in a cooking apron swept us in with kisses while offering food. Another older gentleman, one of the patriachs of the establishment, showed us around the facility, which occupied an old hopuse and included a regular circulation library, biblioteca especifico (which was under lock and key and contained only anarchist texts), a large meeting room, an area for in-house printing and publishing, and in a large attic above a gigantic Archive of Anarchist newspapers, flyers, and newsletter stored in cardboarrd boxes marked with their country of origin. The boxes occupied almost every inch of wallspace of the very large, dusty room from floor to ceiling except for a 6 by 10 foot painting of a voluptious woman, entirely naked except for a nun's habit, lying on her stomach and touching herself. We then spent several hours with the some of the Archivists going through there collections of Swiss, Norwegian, and Finnish publications, some of which dated as far back as the 1940s. The leader meanwhile described the tensions in the Argentine Anarchist community as well as their plans to create a cooperative clothing factory to sustain themselves in an anarchist community. They were truly some of the sweetest and most hospitable people I had met in the country, and appear to be entirely dedicated to the intellectual pursuit of anarchist ideas.
Leaving the bookstore in the middle of the night, we were on our way home when a homeless Uruguayan man who was making metal scultpures of crabs and spiders to sell stopped us to talk. He lectured about the importance of respect, the beauty of every moment, and gave me my horoscope (a cryptic "vas a sufrir mucho para amor") for a long time before he invited us to get a beer. Oddly, he'd been asking for money from all of the pedestrains, but here he was buying beers for us in a tiny slum bar down the road. We passed another few hours meeting the characters in this bar, who were an odd mix of local laborers and tattooed teens, at this bar, before leaving close to 4 in the morning and having to kiss every person in the place on the way out. Our uruguayan friend accompanied us as far as he park, gave the girl a wire crab scultpure, and admonished us "¡disfruta de la vida!" before finally letting us go. All in all something a little different from the standard tourist fare.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Argentina!! Of Wine and Bikes and Bus Accidents.
I left me shoes in Mendoza. Of all things to leave behind, I left the only shoes that have any arch and ankle support to help me with my 19 kilo backpack.
To start from the begining, my last day in Valparaiso was marked by an horrendous hangover and one of the coolest moutain bike races that I have ever witnessed. It consisted if a 2 kilometer course that began in the favela-like slums at the top of the hill and careened through the cobblestone streets of Valpo over twenty foot drop offs, wall rides, and table top jumps admist a racous crowd of porteños who cheered on every rider and made a party of the whole event. The layout of the race was incredible, including a final jump through small buildings and into the cental plaza, and one could see little old ladies, groups of chilean teens... basically the entire community cheering at the sidelines. Facinating juxtoposition of extreme sport and picturesque urban environment with a festival atmosphere.
I then arrived in Mendoza after an overnight bus from Valparaiso planning on storing my backpack at the trainstation and spending a tranquil day tasting wines until I took the last bus to Buenos Aires that night, but after an overnight bus ride throught Andes that left me exhausted at 6 am in Mendoza, I was ready for a night in a bed before continuing. As a result I got to spend a full two days exploring beautiful Mendoza, which is the heart of Argentinas thriving wine industry. The city itself is spacious and beautifully laid out, with a thriving artsy bar district and a fantastic public heart complete with a zoo and abandonded velodrome. I easily spent the first day wandering through the park and climbing Cerro de la Gloria, which had an emormous bronze and stone monument to the Army of the Andes at its peak.
The highlight of the city, however, is its winery "crawl" that most people tour by bicycle. I ended up with a group of fiove working our way down the main drag by bicycle stopping at wineries to taste their signature Malbec wines. Incredible variety of antique, ultra-modern, and even frech-owned wineries, though we weren.t riding quite as straight and clear on the trip back, and the policia seemed to be following us the whole way back....
Regardless, I came within minutes of missing my overnight bus to BA, and consequentially entirely forget what I was wearing on my own. Such is life. But Buenos Aires has proven to be an incredibly rewarding and intimitdating metropolis, being that I have had to find new places to sleep every night after wandering the city for hours and in its sheer size and complexity of public transport. We will see what it has to offer yet. Tango tonight, maybe even see Julie Fair tomorrow. Now where to buy shoes...
To start from the begining, my last day in Valparaiso was marked by an horrendous hangover and one of the coolest moutain bike races that I have ever witnessed. It consisted if a 2 kilometer course that began in the favela-like slums at the top of the hill and careened through the cobblestone streets of Valpo over twenty foot drop offs, wall rides, and table top jumps admist a racous crowd of porteños who cheered on every rider and made a party of the whole event. The layout of the race was incredible, including a final jump through small buildings and into the cental plaza, and one could see little old ladies, groups of chilean teens... basically the entire community cheering at the sidelines. Facinating juxtoposition of extreme sport and picturesque urban environment with a festival atmosphere.
I then arrived in Mendoza after an overnight bus from Valparaiso planning on storing my backpack at the trainstation and spending a tranquil day tasting wines until I took the last bus to Buenos Aires that night, but after an overnight bus ride throught Andes that left me exhausted at 6 am in Mendoza, I was ready for a night in a bed before continuing. As a result I got to spend a full two days exploring beautiful Mendoza, which is the heart of Argentinas thriving wine industry. The city itself is spacious and beautifully laid out, with a thriving artsy bar district and a fantastic public heart complete with a zoo and abandonded velodrome. I easily spent the first day wandering through the park and climbing Cerro de la Gloria, which had an emormous bronze and stone monument to the Army of the Andes at its peak.
The highlight of the city, however, is its winery "crawl" that most people tour by bicycle. I ended up with a group of fiove working our way down the main drag by bicycle stopping at wineries to taste their signature Malbec wines. Incredible variety of antique, ultra-modern, and even frech-owned wineries, though we weren.t riding quite as straight and clear on the trip back, and the policia seemed to be following us the whole way back....
Regardless, I came within minutes of missing my overnight bus to BA, and consequentially entirely forget what I was wearing on my own. Such is life. But Buenos Aires has proven to be an incredibly rewarding and intimitdating metropolis, being that I have had to find new places to sleep every night after wandering the city for hours and in its sheer size and complexity of public transport. We will see what it has to offer yet. Tango tonight, maybe even see Julie Fair tomorrow. Now where to buy shoes...
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