Chaska in South America

I just left Chile today and am now back in Argentina for a few days before heading over to Urugauay and Brazil. Matt and I spent two nights in Cordoba, Argentina before going to Chile. We had planned to make it to Mendoza, Argentina which is really close to the Chilean border, but bus tickets were sold out for several days, so we stayed in Salta an extra day and then decided to go to Cordoba instead. Since it’s summer here now, Argentineans are all travelling like crazy and transportation and accomodation are sometimes hard to get. Cordoba is a fairly large city, and while there we mostly just hung out and did “city stuff”, like went to the movies and walked around the center a lot. I liked Cordoba a lot, and like Buenos Aires, it reminded me a lot of Spain. At this point in our trip, I’ll have to say that I was really starting to feel the effects of travelling constantly for such a prolonged period of time. I honestly didn’t think it could happen, but I was feeling completely worn out from constantly moving and really didn’t feel like doing much. After two nights in Cordoba, we took a 16 hour bus ride to Santiago, Chile. My parents have some really good friends living there, so we were able to stay with them while there which was great. Santiago is a big city and is really modern…it actually is the closest to the U.S. of all the countries I’ve visited. A lot of really huge shopping malls with just about any American store or restaraunt you can think of, huge multiplex movie theaters, and a really nice modern metro system. It’s really expensive in Chile in comparison to other South American countries as well. The prices for food and stuff are just about as expensive as in the States. It was great that we were able to stay with my parents’ friends, because a week in Chile would have made us broke! We had a really nice time staying with the family there, and they took really good care of us! It was nice to just chill out for a few days and not be on the go. While there, we also went to visit Valparaiso and Viña del Mar, which are just about an hour and a half from Santiago. We stayed a night in Valparaiso. Valparaiso is a lot differnt from Santiago…a lot older and run down, but it also has a lot of character. I really loved Valparaiso because of all it’s character and thought is was a cool city. Viña del Mar is a city just next to Valparaiso, but it’s really different. It’s basically a beach resort style town with lots of big hotels and expensive restaraunts. It’s really pretty though, and it was great to lay on the beach for a day! Matt decided to leave Chile from Valparaiso and went to Mendoza, Argentina from there. I, however, decided to go back to Santiago for a few days and spent two more nights with my friends there. Today I left Santiago and met Matt here in Mendoza, where we are now. Mendoza is cool town, but it’s soooo hot here. It was super hot in Santiago also, but it’s definitely hotter here. Mendoza is famous for producing the majority of Argentina’s wines and there are lots of wineries around to go visit…however it’s so hot, I don’t know if we’ll end up doing any of that. The hostel we’re staying at has a pool (although it’s not much of a pool) and Matt spent the enire last two days he’s been here just hanging out at the hostel at the pool. We’re supposed to be in Brazil by early February, so we’ll probably end up leaving here pretty soon to try to get a little closer to Brazil. Here are some photos from our last week or so.

It turned out that we were actually really lucky that we had to stay in Salta an extra night. We found out that Boca Juniors and River Plate, the two biggest rival soccer teams from Buenos Aires were playing there that night. We went to the stadium and were lucky enough to be able to buy tickets at the last minute. We ended up in the River Plate section just because that was the only place there was room, but it turned out to be great because they beat Boca 3-0. The fans were absoulutely crazy, and it was so much fun to be there! We had been hanging out with these people while we were in Salta and went to the game with them…Lory (England), Hannah (England), Soren and Isben (both from Denmark), and Matt.

Here’s a really blurry picture of the game.

Each time River Plate scored a goal, the fans went SO crazy and started climbing up the fences and stuff. It was a lot of fun to be right in the middle of it all.

Here’s a plaza in Cordoba. Sorry, it’s a pretty boring picture, but I didn’t take hardly any pictures while there for some reason.

Here I am with Nelson (my parents’ good friend) and his daughter Camila. We had just arrived to Santiago, and they cooked a wonderful lunch for us. Ceasar salad and salmon…it honestly was the best meal we had had in a long time!

A street in the center of Santiago.

Another area in the center of Santiago.

Here’s a really nice park called Cerro Santa Lucia in Santiago.

This is Valparaiso. Similar to San Francisco, there are lots of hills there and a lot of really cool old buildings and houses.

There are several (15 still functioning I think) really old “ascensores” (elevators) in Valparaiso that take you up several of the hills and give you excellent views of the city. Here’s one of them that we went up.

Here’s the view from the top.

Up at the top, there were also great views of all the houses built on the sides of the hills. I loved all the old houses…some were super old and run down, others were well kept and really nice.

We decided to walk down the hill rather than ride the ascensor down. We were able to see a lot of really cute streets and cool houses and buildings.

Here’s Matt hanging out on the beach in Viña del Mar. It was kind of cool…while we were lying on there, this guy came up to me and asked if I wanted to get a free massage and be on the evening news. Of course I didn’t turn down a free massage! I got the massage on a chair right on the beach and then the evening news interviewed me. I didn’t get a chance to see if I made the cut for the news that evening though 🙂 .

Here’s another shot of the beach in Viña del Mar. As you can see, there are tons of huge hotels lining the beach.

Last night, I went out with Nelson and the family for my last night in Santiago. From the right is Camila, Nelson, Sergio (Constanza’s boyfriend), and Constanza. Nelson’s wife Carmen and his son Sebastian are living in the U.S. at the moment so they weren’t there. I had a really nice time in Santiago and am glad I was able to visit!

After being in a house for a few days and being able to rest a little, I feel a lot better and feel like I’m up for the next part of this big trip. As I said, we’re now in route to Brazil. One of Matt’s old roommates from Madrid lives on the border of Brazil and Uruguay, so we’re planning to stay with her for a few days when we arrive. I’m definitely looking forward to Brazil and all the beaches! It will definitely be a change for us with the language not being Spanish, but I’m excited to learn a little Portugese. I hope everyone’s well!!!

Matt and I spent almost a full week in Bolivia and managed to do a lot within this past week. We started off by leaving Peru on the 8th and first going to Copacabana, Bolivia, which like Puno is also on Lake Titicaca. It’s really beautiful there, and we lucked out and had really nice, sunny weather the whole time we were there. We stayed in Copacabana for two nights and pretty much just hung out and enjoyed the nice weather. We did take a trip to Isla del Sol while there, but we were really stupid and opted for a half day trip, which ended up only giving us like an hour on the island! It took us like an hour and half just to get there and another hour and half to get back…what a waste of time. There were TONS of Argentineans there in Copacabana and all over Bolivia for that matter…funny, because there were hardly any in Peru. There were also tons of hippies in Copacabana, which gave the whole town kind of a different feel from other cities in Peru and Bolivia.
After Copacabana, we went to La Paz and spent two nights there. La Paz is a big city with lots going on, and it was actually kind of nice to be in a big city after spending so much time in small cities and towns. We ate Burger King (I never eat that crap at home, but after 5 weeks straight of Peruvian and Bolivian food….), drank real coffee, and we saw a surprisingly really good Bolivian movie. We were also able to fix a big problem with our plane tickets…a much bigger problem than we even thought we had. Thank goodness we went to the TACA office there. I basically would have been stranded in Costa Rica without a ticket home otherwise because of a big mistake the travel office we went to in Argentina made. Anyway, now we’re free to skip our plane trip from Lima to Brazil and are on our way to Brazil by bus now instead.
After La Paz, we took off for Potosi, which was about a nine hour bus ride south from La Paz. Potosi is the highest city in the world, according to our guide book, and it was absolutely freezing!! We took an overnight bus from La Paz to Potosi and I thought I was going to freeze to death on the ride…I had like four sweatshirts and jackets on, a scarf, and gloves, and I was still freezing. We only spent one night in Potosi, but we did one of the coolest things I’ve ever done while there. We were able to take a tour of an enormous mine they have there called Cerro Rico. The mine is not modern at all. It’s probably what the mines in the States were like well over 100 years ago. It was an absolutely crazy experience. We spent over 3 hours underground, climbing through dark, narrow tunnels and down rickety latters. There were several times where we had to climb through parts on our hands and knees because the tunnels were so small. The brochure for the tour said in English “Not for wimps or woosies”…and they weren’t kidding! We were able to see the miners working and spent a lot of time just hanging out with them in the mine and talking to them…it was really interesting. Once out of the mine and back on top of the ground in the light, I couldn’t believe I actually spent all that time under there…it was really one of the craziest experiences I’ve ever had.
After Potosi, we took another wonderful South American bus ride to Tupizo, which is in the south west of Bolivia. The bus ride was over 9 hours long on unpaved dirt roads…more bumpy than you can ever imagine! We also had the luck of getting a flat tire on the way and then got dropped off way far outside of town so that we had to walk forever with our huge heavy backbacks to get into the center…what fun. Anyway, Tupizo was a really nice quiet town in scenery that looks just like the American Southwest.
Two days ago we took another super bumpy bus from Tupiza to the Bolivian/Argentinean border and crossed into Argentina. It’s really nice to be back in Argentina. We immediately went and had some awesome pasta once we crossed the border…the food is definitely much better here in Argentina than in Peru or Bolivia! We then took an overnight bus from the border city La Quiaca to Salta, where we are right now. The bus was a million times nicer than any bus we took in Peru or Bolivia and we were so excited to have a smooth, relaxing bus ride for a change…it didn’t end up being quite as relaxing as we hoped. We got stopped two seperate times by immigration officials and everyone on the bus had to get off and get all our luggage from the bottom of the bus and stand in line to be searched. It happened once at about 12:30 and again at like 5 am…needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep on the bus! Anyway, we’re now in Salta which is a really nice city. We really haven’t done too much…we’re kind of just resting from all the the travelling we’ve been doing. We plan to take off again tonight though to Mendoza which is about 16 hours away. We’ll then go to Santiago, Chile for a few days and stay with some family friends I have there. Then, it’s across Argentina and Uruguay to Brazil! Here are some photos of our time in Bolivia.

Welcome to Bolivia! We had just walked over the border from Peru.

This is the “beach” in Copacabana. The town has a real beach town vibe. There were tons of people out this day because it was actually sunny and not raining.

We arrived to Copacabana on Sunday, so we got to see this really funny tradition they have there. Every Sunday at the church they have a “blessing of the cars.” Everyone brings their car to the church and buys holy water to poor all over the car. They also buy a bunch of flowers and things to decorate the car with. All over the city there were decorated cars that had been blessed that day. They also sold beer and champaine and people poured that on the cars too…not really sure why.

Here they are buying the holy water to pour on their cars.

Even huge buses get in on the action!

We climbed a small mountain they have there in Copacabana and there were awesome views of Lake Titicaca. The water was an amazing color of blue…it was so pretty.

A beautiful sunset in Copacabana.

Here’s La Paz. The city is pretty interesting. It’s basically a bowl shape. The center of the city in the middle of the bowl and hills going up on all sides. The altitude makes the hills brutal!

Just a little section of a HUGE street market in La Paz.

Plaza Murillo with the congress building in the back. I really liked this plaza, it was really pretty.

A candid shot of Matt being asked if he wants a shoeshine. The shoeshine guys are really interesting in La Paz. Notice that his face is completely covered. It makes them look really scary, but I guess they cover their faces because shining shoes is looked at as one of lowest class jobs and they don’t want people to know who they are and destroy their family honor.

This is something we saw all over Peru and Bolivia that we thought was so funny. These guys sit in the street or sometimes just on a plaza bench with typewriters and type out letters or forms for anyone who wants.

This next little segment is dedicated to Anthony. He thought it was cool that I was going to Bolivia right after all the chaos that went on with their recent elections. For those of you that don’t know, Evo Morales, the first “campesino”, was just elected president there. Anthony thought there might be some cool action going on and told me to practice some “extreme photo journalism” if so. Bolivia was actually super calm though and Morales wasn’t even in the country when we were there. However, one day while visiting Plaza Murillo, there was a rowdy group of protesters. Not really sure what they were protesting, but then all of the sudden this police guy told Matt and I to get out of the way because there was a suspicious looking backback just sitting against a pole. They thought there might be a bomb in it. Here’s my “extreme photo journalism” for you Anthony :).

The bomb force inspecting the suspicious backpack.

They put the backpack in a container and then drove off with it in this red truck.

Here we are in Potosi, on our way to the mine. We first stopped at the “miners market” to buy gifts for the miners. The suggested gifts are dynomite, alcohol, cigarettes, and coca leaves. Here’s Matt and my contiribution to the miners–crazy strong alcohol (96% they told us!?!), unfiltered cigarettes, and a bag of coca leaves.

Here we are with all our gear on just about to enter the mine.

Here I am coming down a super steep part of a tunnel.

The photos don’t capture the actual feel of what it was like down in the mine at all, but here’s an attempt. It was so dark and dusty the whole time.

Some of our new miner friends chomping on some coca leaves and chatting with us.

This is us just after coming out of the mine. I don’t think I have ever been so dirty and sweaty. The tempertures were super high down deep in the mine, and it was freezing cold outside. My throat hurt like crazy and my voice was hoarse from breathing in all the dust and toxins…I really can’t believe the miners work downthere 8 hours a day and breath that. According to some literature we read most miners die after 10 or 15 years of working in the mine because of inhaling all the toxins, but we talked to several who had been working for over 20 years.

Here’s our bus drivers trying to fix the flat tire on the way to Tupiza. This was only one of the difficulties the awesome bus had along the way. It also had a ton of mechanical problems, and I kid you not we stopped about every 20 minutes to check on one of the problems…it was awful!

Here’s the main plaza in Tupiza. It was a really cute town.

Tupiza was surrounded by this really pretty red rock.

Yesterday, here in Salta, we had this crazy summer storm where it just started pouring all of the sudden. I was in a cafe at the time and waited for the rain to die down to leave. As I was walking back to the hostel, the streets were completely flooded and I was trapped. I had to wade accross several streets in water up to my knees. The streets seriously looked like rivers and there was just complete chaos with everyone trying to cross.

Here are some friends we went out with last night. All three of them were at our hostel in Potosi and we all just happened to be at the same hostel again here. The two guys are Danish, Ibsen and Soren. The girl, Hannah, is English. We are contstantly seeing the same travellers in different towns along our route…it’s funny.

My second week in Cuzco was a lot more quiet than my first. I've spent the past week just hanging out with my family in Cuzco and doing some stuff on my own...it's been really nice! New ... [Continue reading this entry]