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Archive for June, 2006

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Monetary clusterf… coming out of South America

Tuesday, June 27th, 2006

After the boys left, I had two and a half weeks to get myself to Sao Paulo for my flight to Africa. There wasn’t much more that I wanted to see (or that I really had time to see), and I was kind of getting antsy. I stayed for another week and a half in Buenos Aires, and I can’t really account for much of what I did…I spent a lonely day in the apartment we had rented, mostly cleaning, picking cigarette butts out of the plants, scraping gum off the floorf and undoing the problem I created myself of stripping all the wax off the wood floors (which entailed some towels under my feet, loud music, and a lot of dancing). I searched my camera and the interent for pictures of the place in order to return the plants, statues and vases to their proper position. I did a drop off of all the extra beer and liquor in front of the local internet cafe, where I had become friendly with the owners. When the lady came to get the keys for the apartment, she asked me if we broke anything…oh no, no, no. And that was it…I got the deposit back and ran with my things down the street, out of sight. [read on]

Posted in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay | No Comments »

Bucleros’ Bash in Buenos Aires

Tuesday, June 27th, 2006

I had two days in Buenos Aires before the boys arrived. I spent most of my time wandering around, finalizing the last details for when they arrived and avoiding all the dog crap on the sidewalks. They say Buenos Aires is a very European city, and it is; the dog doo clinches the comparison for them. Even in cities where all the dogs are homeless and run around in little gangs there is not as much crap on the walkways. Those undomesticated dogs seem to have a little more respect for public areas than all the dog walkers (running around with sometimes 10 dogs) in Buenos Aires… [read on]

Posted in Argentina | 1 Comment »

A lovely bouquet of Argentinian beef and red wine

Saturday, June 17th, 2006

I can’t say all that much about Santiago.  I liked the city.  It’s definitely more cosmopolitan than what I had seen for a while.  I stayed in Barrio Brasil, the little bohemian neighborhood, which was cute, and spent the three days I was there walking around the city.  Almost the whole downtown seemed like a pedestrian walkway, lined with all sorts of shops, with music playing over speakers.  The only thing I lamented was not being able to see the Andes in the background because it was mostly cloudy the whole time I was there. [read on]

Posted in Argentina | 1 Comment »

Super Traveling Allstar

Friday, June 9th, 2006

After the girls left, I took the next bus to the border of Bolivia.  When I got off the bus, I was surrounded by bicycle taxis offering me a ride to the border.  “Why would I pay you to take me one block when I could walk it just as easily?”  They had no good answer for me.  I joked and talked with them for a little while, helping one with his English pronounciation, and walked my way to the border.  Once again, leaving Peru, I was stopped by the Peruvian police (this was a different border than I was at before, so the deal I struck for them not to check me next time didn’t apply.) [read on]

Posted in Bolivia, Chile | 1 Comment »

just perch yourself here on this large stone erection…

Thursday, June 8th, 2006

Our hotel in Copacabana was awesome – nice rooms overlooking Lake Titicaca.  I was excited that they had laundry service, and I took nearly everything I had to be clean, including all three of my pairs of socks.  I borrowed a not-so-dirty pair of Shelley’s, so my feet wouldn’t be cold, and found a nice piece of duct tape inside (used on the Inca Trail to prevent blisters).  Mmm…that was nice. [read on]

Posted in Peru | 1 Comment »

Circumventing roadblocks and the Peruvian border police

Thursday, June 8th, 2006

We took the train back to Cuzco that afternoon.  We had walked the Inca Trail, seen Macchu Pichu and were now drinking and celebrating April’s birthday, just having a great time; we had recruited some of our group members to go out with us that night.  All of a sudden, the train came to a screeching halt.  What had happened?  I talked with one of the train attendants, who guessed that we had hit a small animal.  Finally, as time passed, we came to learn that we had actually hit and killed a person who was apparently drunk and laying on the tracks (for whatever reason).  Being one of the few who spoke Spanish, I translated the news to the train car, not good news to have to relay to a group of happy vacationers.  Needless to say, this changed the mood of the group drastically.

[read on]

Posted in Peru | No Comments »

Birthdays on the Inca Trail and Macchu Pichu

Thursday, June 8th, 2006

So the next day we got ourselves up at something like 4am…as my alarm went off I could still hear some of the clubs in town pumping.  We got our things together and waiting out ont he cold dark street for our transport to pick us up.  Finally it came. We got on, picked up our porters on the way out of town and headed off toward the trail.  Of course, I slept most of the way there.  We stopped in the local town before the trailhead and had some breakfast (where we were the last ones to be served…please, please just bring us some coffee).  We bought some walking sticks from the locals and jumped back on the bus.  Finally we made it to the trailhead, where we took our obligatory group picture in front of the “Inca Trail starts here” sign, waited in line to get our identities checked and passports stamped, and then we were off…walking the Inca Trail.

[read on]

Posted in Peru | 1 Comment »

Seriously, though. No gracias.

Sunday, June 4th, 2006

The next day I sat laying by the pool and then headed off to Cuzco…the bus was late in departing and some of my fellow gingo passengers were antsy, although I’m not sure why, since it was an 18 hour bus ride.  What’s the hurry?  I befriended a Czech guy named Adrien on the bus, if that indeed was his name…he turned out to be a bit of a shady character.  I shared a hotel room with him for two nights to save on hotel costs, and he may have stolen money from me.  I say may because I can’t be too sure, but I do suspect it was him…either that or I lost it.  Oh well, these things happen.  To complete the story, I blame myself for not locking it up.  Now, however, I have lost a lot of trust in my fellow travelers, but have likewise learned a valuable lesson to always lock up my valuables (which I normally do, but it’s the one time you don’t…)

[read on]

Posted in Peru | 1 Comment »