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.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
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.
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