Argentina and the Art of Giving Directions

How do I know we are in Argentina now? After walking across the Argentinian/Bolivian border, it wasn´t immediately apparent (after all, we walked only about a mile in all). However, needing to find a bank so we could withdraw some Pesos, I quickly asked a man on the street if there was one in town and where we might find it. Now, in Bolivia, a question like that would almost certainly generate an affirmative response (regardless of the truth), followed by mumbling and gesturing vaguely about 270 degrees--just to cover their bases. No definite distances, directions, streets, or even a general bearing I could following with a compass. TODAY, however, was different. The man smiled, greeted both of us and seemed enthusiastic to tell us how many blocks and which way to turn at each necessary junction...you know...like directions! Its good to know the art of giving directions exists somewhere in Latin America. Just being in this border town for a few hours while waiting for the bus to transport us 24 hours south to Mendoza, both Natalie and myself were struck with how much more friendly people seem. Not just towards us, but each other as well. All in all, the time spent in Bolivia was well worth it, however, its nice to be in a place where attempting to purchase food from a vender doesn´t seem to inconvenience them.

Speaking of directions, we did indeed get out into the campo around Tupiza (not Tarija as previously mentioned by another blogger) for Christmas. With not one, but TWO moderately insufficient, tourist maps in hand, we headed into canyon country, planning to spend two nights celebrating with our present to ourselves (a $6 bottle of wine) and trying to avoid flashfloods. The first day took us past La Puerta del Diablo, giant sandstone spires, and up a spectacular slot canyon--scrambling, climbing, and passing packs up waterfalls and over boulders. We found the area we sought for camping with only about 45 minutes spent trying to find the correct route into the canyon! Normally, that amount of time would have been greatly frustrating, but after our experience around Sorata, it seemed like we got off easy. This would be affirmed the second day...

Our desination for the second day was only a couple hours hike, so we had a leisurely and delicious oatmeal with trail mix breakfast and instant coffee (the coffee wasn´t in the oatmeal). About 30 minutes up the canyon from camp, we were faced with our canyon becoming more of a "drainage" and steepening enough to call it climbing, not hiking. It would have been challenging, technical climbing had the rock been solid and stable. Instead, it was bits of scree like shards embedded in soft clay--coming off in our hands or sliding under our boots. After a few dozen meters of this, I decided to leave my pack and scout ahead, as the route steepened. After climbing up the last 50 feet of the drainage, more scared than I can recall being, I realized there was no way we would make it up the same pitch with our packs. Being pretty sure this wasn´t the route we were supposed to take (you may ask yourself why this didn´t occur to me earlier as I clawed my way up the decaying "rock"), I continued climbing a nearby mountain to gain a better look of the surrounding area, hoping desperately to find our route, and hopefully a different way down for myself.

Spotting a trail the next drainage over, I downclimbed back to my pack, then and Natalie and retraced our steps to begin climbing up the other canyon. To make a long story short, we never found the other canyon which we sought and ended up about 7 miles further down the road than we wanted to be and 9 miles from town at 5PM. Rather than spend another minute using energy to search for water and camping we may never have found, we decided to eat our last can of tuna, two cookies, and set a fast pace back to town, hoping to reach it before dark. We struck our first bit of luck when we passed a house/tienda where we bought 5 pieces of bread with the last 2 Bolivianos we had (in usuable change). Spirits raised, and wishing we had time to join the drunken proprietor for a friendly drink, we continued down the dirt track, munching on dry bread. Our final bit of Christmas cheer came when a 4x4 truck approached from behind and gave us a lift the last 5 miles into town (after stopping to change only one flat tire).

At 4am this morning, we boarded a bus heading for the border and were welcomed into Argentina by 9am.

Happily,
Sam and Nat

PS While we have made note that Bolivia, on the whole, did not feel as welcoming or friendly compared to Peru (or our experience thus far in Argentina), we did meet many fantastic, generous, and kind people along the way.

Long Time Gone

....And we´re back. Since we last wrote from La Paz we´ve gone though numerable cities and towns, and several different environments. It´s been a semi-dizying and unprofitable search for trekking, but good traveling times nonetheless. From La Paz we went to Cochabamba, as an unimpressive city with an obviously large economic gap, it was very much our least favorite place in Bolivia. The highlights were the giant whipped cream-topped fruit salad sundeas at the market and a new street snack: ¨beer float,¨ which was a tasty as-dark-as-they-come beer poured over sweetend egg whites. Aiming to visit one of the many national parks that are ¨near¨(within several hours) of Cochabamba, we went to the small, warm and wonderfully humid town of Villa Tunari. Settled in the Amazon basin, it dropped us from 2700 meters to 270 meters, the lowest we´ve been (and maybe will be until we go to Chile) in well over a month. Villa Tunari was filled with big bugs, reptiles, stifling humidity and all the other wonders of the jungle environment (which felt like Southern Illinois summer home to me). We were not able to get to the national park, as nothing comes easy in Bolivia, but we were able to hike around a ¨bosque tropico humido¨ reserve not far from our hostel, where we really got to enjoy the variety of flora and fauna, especially the monkeys. After two days of sweating through the mornings and dancing through the afternoon thunderstorms, we took the longest, bumpiest bus ride yet to Sucre, a beautiful, white, colonial city. Again at a loss for trekking rather than touring options, we went for the standard city nature walk. It seems every Bolivian city has a hill (which is trashed because it´s also a party spot) with a decent overlook, stations of the cross, and a giant statue of open-armed Jesus. This hill also happened to have lots of very nice, tall eucalyptus trees and a cow. Sucre also offered our first taste of Bolivian wine, which is very important to me as part of our culinary experience portfolio. Micheal Orlando, nice, young man at our hostel befriended us late one morning, and coming from Tarija, Bolivian wine country, insisted that we try some of the wine. Because what he brought out came in a two gallon jug that looked like a gas can with a wine label on it, and the fact that none of us had set plans for the afternoon, the three of us spent a long and lovely afternoon drinking wine and enjoying conversation. The following day, Sam and I were very fortunate to have nothing to do besides ride the bus to Potosi. Potosi´s claim to fame is that it is the highest city in the world, and has been devistated by its silver mines. For us, it has the best salteñas (street snack that probably inspired the hot pocket¨) in Bolivia. Killing time before the night bus to Uyuni, we walked up the town hill with a couple of other travelers from Canada and Scotland. Potosi, unfortunately, lacks a giant Jesus, but it does have a large cross and a space needle-like tower, which cost three salteñas worth, so we did not go up inside. Afraid that we were going to miss the chance for the necessary culinary experience, I insisted we have llama for dinner that night. It was a bit tough and pancake flat, but had a tasty, meaty flavor. Ironically, llama was served for lunch on our sallar tour the following day. That brings me to Uyuni, where Sam and I set out on our first organized tour- of the salt flats, which were, not surprizingly (Mary), very flat, white and salty (yes, we tasted). On our tour, which was very much a photo tour in between jeep cruises, we checked out various parts of the amazing and beautiful salt flats, a train graveyard, wild flamingos, a volcano, and Isla Pescado. Sam and I were able to walk around the island in less than an hour, giving us a more secluded experience on the incredible ancient sea, and this island of uniquely layered volcanic rock and massive cacti. We found holes in the salt, revealing water underneath, and incredible and varying, angular patterns above and below the surface, due to the molecular structure of the salt. The one day tour was enough for us, and we hopped another long and bumpy bus ride through desert flats, pink sandstone formations, rolling hills growing to mountains, and finally the impressive canyonland of Tarija. Tarija is famous for being the area of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid´s last stand, and we are excited and prepared to get out into the canyons tomorrow. The trails are short for a trek, but we plan to camp out for the next night or two, spending Christmas Eve and Night under the stars. For Sam and I both, it will be our first Christmas in the desert, family and friends in our minds and hearts. Feliz Navidad! Love, Nat and Sam

Back on the Map

I lie awake. Now for at least seven hours without sleep in the tent. Natalie is sleeping restlessly next to me. All I hear are the snowflakes on the walls of our tent, almost inaudable against the pounding of blood in my head with each all too rapid heartbeat. As each flake lands, my thoughts drift to our steep, rocky, unmarked route home--now being covered in a blanket of white. We are camped just below what we think is Laguna Glacier at 16,500ft. It is the highest either of us has been, let alone slept. The two day trek up to the lake from Sorata was one of the most challenging either of us had experienced. Not only were we hiking at altitude with full packs, but the routefinding continually tested our patience. Both with ourselves, and more importantly, each other! Hiking and sleeping that high brought new backcountry experiences for both of us--namely headaches, nausea, insomnia, increased heartrate and breathing at rest, needing to prime to stove with pure alcohol, food taking a LONG time to cook, etc. I am now more convinced that high altitude mountaineering is an unneccessary sufferfest of mental and physical endurance.

Including the three day trek, we remained in the Sorata area for six nights, held by the beautiful mountains, friendly people, and a wonderful hostal run by a German woman. Sorata lies on the flanks for the Cordillera Real mountains, between the high peaks and Lake Titikaka. ...and I'm burned out on the computer, so here's Natalie...

Lucky for Sam, there's a microbrewery upstairs in this hostel. We are now back in La Paz, for a stopover night between awkwardly long bus rides. Oh, there's another story> the bus ride to Sorata. It was our first ride in a cambion, which is basically a twelve passenger van, which uses every last bit of space to fit as many people as possible, but certainly not less than fifteen. Needless to say, Sam not only lost all leg room, but also head space. We were certain that a group of rowdy young men in the back were going to make it a less than pleasant trip, as they started cracking beers almost immediately, but as the older couple next to me (who appeared to be dying when they got on, but they must have just been really hungover because they perked right up once they started drinking), and the another couple in front started passing beers back and forth, it was actually the jovens in back who kept the driver, the only one on the bus besides Sam and I, from drinking (which also almost started a bus brawl). Long story short, it was a long, interesting and less than comfortable bus ride. Sorata, however, immediately embraced us as a home away from home, with green mountain vistas all around. After we settled in to our hostel, we watched a community futbol match, and checked out the very small market. We hung out for an extra day to be entirely prepared for our three day trek, meaning that we had written instructions, topo map, extra rest and appropriate provisions. Still, it was very challenging, especially because of the route finding and altitude, but the scenery was incredible! After arriving back in Sorata, we took a day to walk seven miles each way to the San Pedro cave. The walk was more impressive than the cave itself, but I did get to drive a paddleboat around a lake inside the cave, and it made for a nice recuperation day for the sore but perpetually moving adventurers that we are. Tomorrow we're headed to Cochibamba, which is a smaller (than La Paz) city, surrounded by National Parks and mountains to climb. Additionally, it is known for being a city of good eating, which could be trouble of the very best kind....

Bolivia oh Bolivia

Seems like a lot has happened since Natalie´s last post, but mostly my time has been consumed with stove trouble-shooting. I´d have to say that I am f***ing burned out. I had to resist the urge multiple times today to launch my stove off the rooftop terrace of our hostal. I have spent pretty much our entire 1.5 days in La Paz jerking around with the stove...getting close enough, often enough, to keep me working. We had hoped to buy a new stove here in La Paz that is meant to burn the dirty auto fuel here (which is what caused the demise of my stove), but the MSR dealer doesn´t actually HAVE any stoves. The only camp stoves available for purchase are cheapies that require disposable fuel canisters, which are also hard to find and expensive. Finally, this afternoon, I talked an eccentric Suiss tour operator into selling me one of his used POS multi-fuel stoves (one that we´d hoped to find new) for $30, but it was so dirty from lack of cleaning that it took me another couple of hours to get that one running decent. Hopefully the used one will limp us along till New Zealand, or at least Santiago, where supposedly it will be easy to get a new MSR stove. Anyway, thats the update with that. I bet you were all on the edges of you seats, yeah?

Soooo, moving along, our day and a half trek on Isla del Sol was well worth sticking around Lake Titikaka for another couple of days. We didn´t arrive on the island until near dark, but were able to trek to about the middle of the island, away from any farms or villages. After making camp among the Eucalyptus trees, we hiked to a nearby knoll to watch the sun set over Peru. On the other side of us, to the east, towards Bolivia, towered the Cordillera Real mountain range, pink in the fading light. Before our water taxi back the next day, we had several hours to explore more ruins in solitude before the wave of tourists arrived.

Bolivia definitely feels like a different country than Peru, even just crossing into Copacabana. I´m feeling a little more comfortable here now, but the most stark and immediate difference I noticed was the women in the markets. One of my favorite parts of Peru was going to the market to buy food because the women were so nice and fun (for the most part). It could have just been Copacabana, but our experience there was that they weren´t even nice or friendly to each other. Oh! We did get ice cream cones for 1 Boliviano (about $0.14) on the bus the other day though! To enjoy this culinary and cultural experience yourself, follow these steps carefully:

1. Go to the store and buy a delicious looking box of waffle cones (the best you can find)
2. At home, scrape all the 5 year old frost out of the inside of your freezer (or your neighbors if yours is frost free.
3. Open the box of waffle cones.
4. Throw the waffle cones in the trash
5. Eat the box with your freshly acquired frost with a flavor you can´t quite place
6. Enjoy!

Tomorrow (hopefully) we start the 3 day Choro trek out of La Paz. Will try to upload pictures soon, but the computers here aren´t too reliable.

Adios,
Sam the stove man

¡Hola de Copacabana! It^s a sunny little tourist-ridden town with a beautiful view of the expansive Lake Titicaca. Yesterday, we hiked up one of the town{s larger mountains, with large cement crosses featuring the stations of the cross along the ascent. At the top were several vendors with soda, snacks, holy water, candles, and miniature cars and houses for an upcoming celebration in which there are parades and the prayerful make offerendas with mini objects with the hope (or faith) that they will obtain them in the following year. Interesting. Even more interesting was the incredible covering of grafiti over this religious site, especially Promo 2007 or 2008. We learned by unfortunate experience on a couple of very noisy hostel nights, that Promo is graduation, which is happening right about now, encouraging drunken celebration and travel among teenage Peruvians everywhere. I{m assuming by the grafiti and bottle caps that it{s similar in Bolivia, as well. Sam has spent probably the majority of our time here in Copacabana attempting to fix some serious stove problems. His patience is amaxing, but as of yet, no solution has been found. Being the amazing and determined go-getting trekkers that we are, nothing can get us down, no non-functioning stove can stop us, and we are headed to Isla del Sol for an overnight and some lovely island hiking. We{re leaving now- I mean now- so, you{ll probably next here from us in a few days from the great Bolivian city of La Paz or the beautiful mountain village of Sorata. Either way, until then.... Love, Nat and Sam

Goodbye to Peru

Natalie and I are holed up in a chilly, dark, yet somehow homey hostal in Puno, Peru, which lies on the western shores of Lake Titikaka, the worlds highest navigable lake. We arrived late last night after spending the morning in Arequipa, getting Natalie prescription meds also for the plague I passed along. Lets hope the antibiotics we got are actually full strength and clear this up with one course...

It is with fond memories and anticipating excitment of new horizons that we leave Peru tomorrow and cross into Bolivia. We´ll stay near the shores of this high lake for a little while and do some trekking on a large island on the south side of the lake. Before closing the page on this chapter, however, we wanted to leave you with a few key Peruvian observations:

First, for anyone who as traveled much in countries with taxis dominating the streets of cities, you know how ridiculously often the car horn is used. And I use the term "horn" loosely, because it could range anywhere from a standard beep beep, to more colorful tunes, to any range of extrememly loud car alarms rigged through the horn. Anyway, the lesson we learned here are the precise and exact uses for the horn, so as drivers all around are keyed in instantly to what any other driver may have in mind, as they weave through traffic, between trucks, through lights, past traffic cops, but always stopping before flattening the mother pushing a pram. The uses are as follows:
1. Coming through!
2. Go ahead!
3. Entering an intersection!
4. Exiting the intersection!
5. (and my personal favorite) Gringo! Beep! Do you need a cab! Beep BEEEEP! hmmm....maybe he/she didn´t hear and is in desperate need of a cab. Beeeeeep BEEEEEEP. (then as they pass within 1 ft) BEEEEEP "TAXI!!!??"
6. Hey buddy!
7. Asshole!
8. Hey hotstuff!
9. Get out of the road cow/llama/horse/burro/campesino!
.
.
.
.
1001. Any time the driver is executing a move that would make a stunt driver earn double-wages (ie passing a semi, which is already passing a tour bus, which has swung wide to avoid a combined herd of cows, llamas, pigs, sheep, and any stray dogs). At this moment it would be most appropriate for all vehicles to be have their horns engaged for a good 30 seconds. Just to be sure.

The final thought we´ll leave you with as we exit Peru is the scene of Sam and Natalie losing each other in a CROWDED city market in Arequipa. What Natalie quickly learned as soon as she began the search is that finding Sam in a Peruvian market is like a game of Where´s Waldo? Except you´re trying to find a tall, red headed, red bearded, caucaisan Waldo. Hmmm...that didn´t come out as clearly as I wanted. Point being, as soon as Natalie began looking, all of the women manning the stalls immediately started pointing her in the right direction as she made her way between mounds of cheese, nuts, butter, and giant avocados--maybe more like a game of hot/cold? I think you get the idea anyway...Sam blends into a Pervian market like a 10ft tall Waldo in Kenya.

Now, back to the room to try and finish the second worse bottle of wine either of us has ever tried. Second only to the bottle we tried earlier today. Final Peruvian lesson: don´t buy either $1 bottles or $5 bottles of Peruvian wine. Better yet, dont buy any Peruvian wine. Is wine supposed to be more brown than red?

Adios!
Sam and Nat