Argentina Part 1: Wine country and the lake district

While taking the 8-hour bus from Santiago, Chile, to Mendoza, Argentina, we passed the highest mountain in the western hemisphere, Aconcagua, which is 6962 meters high (22,841 feet!). Unfortunately, we took a night bus, so we were unable to see it. We arrived in Mendoza around 7 am, found a hotel and went to the central market. Usually we spend our first day in a city just walking around and feeling it out, without actually looking for anything in particular. We decided that there must be a park, so we´d go to the market, get food and wine and have a pinic at lunch time. You can tell a lot about a town by visiting the central market and we made a habit of doing that. The Mendoza market was spotlessly clean - as was most of the city. We bought local sausage, cheese, home-made bread, green and black olives, grilled veggies, suckling pig, baguettes of bread, and red grapes. And don´t forget the wine- we bought a bottle of locally made Malbec (the Mendoza area produces 70% of all wine in Argentina). We found a beautiful little park, of which Mendoza has several, sat down and began our wonderful picnic. We weren´t sure if we could open the wine and drink it right there in the park, but the three policemen who came by and stood by us didn´t seem to mind. In fact, maybe they were protecting us.

Mendoza is one the most beautiful mid-sized towns I´ve ever seen. Devastated by an earthquake in the 1800s, the town decided to build wide boulevards in case the people needed a place to run from future earthquakes. The streets are all tree-lined with oaks and even maple trees, much like the east coast of the U.S. The center of town is filled with shops, restaurants, and bistros with chairs outside everywhere for serious people watching! It feels like Europe and it looks like Europe. Other attractive factors – it has many parks, and a huge one with a lake and a zoo. And of course the wine! If you want to live in Argentina, this would be the place. Prices are considerably less than in the U.S.

One strange thing about Argentina though, and we found this throughout Argentina, and something that would probably prevent me from living here..there is no indigenous culture, so there is no music. Yes, Argentina has the tango, but that is more of a show dance than a club dance. In other words - we did not hear a bit of Latin music anywhere, not in the restaurants, the clubs, the streets, the buses – nowhere! The Argentines are happier listening to American rock and country (they love Creedence Clearwater Revival!) At times, especially in the lake district, (you´ll read about that soon), I felt like I was sitting in the U.S. When we DID go to nightclubs, it was rock, rock and more rock. Even the live bands played our old rock songs. We DID hear one reggae band one night and felt fortunate about that. So…those of you who know me well and know that I go out dancing in Nicargua four nights a week to the sounds of salsa, merengue, bachata, cumbia and reggaeton, well you know how disappointed I am in the music here.

The next day we took a city bus to Argentina wine country. No tours for us! We rented bicycles and had the most fabulous day riding around from one winery to another—getting the scoop on how they made their wines and of course tasting! We liked one place in particular called La Rural. We saw their wines all over Argentina, but they don´t distribute their wine to other countries. Too bad, but if you happen to be in Stacy´s presence when she opens one of her two bottles of Collector´s vintage, you will be one lucky person! We finished up our day of wine tasting at a chocolate factory. Willy Wonka wasn´t there, nor was Johnny Depp (too bad), but fabulous chocolates, liquors, and marmalades were also ours for the tasting. We even had a liqueur made of rose petals, and drank Absinthe - that famous original French poison that is illegal in the U.S., Canada, and most of Europe today. We can see why - that stuff stings all the way down! When we went back to return our bikes, the delightful owner, Mr. Hugo gave us each three water glasses full of red wine. He also gave it to our new friends, four fellows from Poland who were also staying at our hotel. After a whole day of tasting a lot of wine, we all went back home together and decided to have a party on the roof! The Polish guys were there, Stacy, me, Josue and a couple from Chile. Everyone brought something and we had a feast of bread, grilled beef, beer and wine. Josue played the guitar for us and everyone was dancing ´til 4 in the morning! What a riot...wine country was certainly a hit! And I must say that the local people were extremely nice to us.

Next we decided to go to the Lake District of Argentina. Most tourists miss this area due to lack of time, but that is too bad. (I recommend a vacation of JUST going to Mendoza and wine country, skipping Buenos Aires if there is no time and selecting a few of the tiny cities in the lake district to visit.) Each small town is next to or affiliated with a lake and/or a National Park. There are wonderful hiking opportunities here. Walking between huge mountains through gorgeous flowering meadows. The towns reminded me of towns in the Adirondacks, or those in ski country in Colorado, or around Banff. In fact, I did feel like I was in the U.S. in these places, which may be a positive or negative depending on what you are looking for. Argentina is feeling more and more like the U.S. to me. Again, the American rock and country music ruled the roost and there were NO places to dance in these little towns. So we appreciated their beauty during the day and relaxed with long dinners with lamb and Malbecs at night. Yes, I have to admit, I was a little disappointed. NO DANCING! I was wondering if that was going to be the case throughout all of Argentina.

We did a lot of hiking during these days. I´m not talking about a one-mile easy hike to see a view. I´m talking about 10-15 mile hikes to a lake for a picnic, or a beautiful waterfall, through a forest from one end of a peninsula to the other. We visited the following towns: Neuquen, Junin de los Andes (and Parque Nacional Lanin for two days), San Martin de los Andes (and a dusty but spectacular hike to Mirador Bandurias to get a view of Lago Lacar), Villa La Angostura (to walk the Peninsula Quetrihue in Parque Nacional Los Arrayanas), Bariloche (to hang out and eat well at the largest of the lake cities), and El Bolson (the ¨hippie¨ lake town that had cheap hotels and a unique artist´s fair on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Opinions? We were most disappointed in Bariloche, which becomes a hopping ski resort in the winter. For some reason, this city built the tourist district in town, not near the lake. In fact, you can´t even see the lake from the places where you would dine or shop. When you go to the lake itself, which is a pretty lake, you see a sad little beach, government buildings and apartments. The city of Bariloche is just a regular city, not cute and homey like the smaller towns. San Martin de los Andes however, was a tidy, upscale town with a gorgeous lake at one end. Fishing, boating, and shopping in town at pricey, but perfectly decorated upscale stores might entice you here. This town was totally out of my budget, so we didn´t stay. Got on a bus to La Angostura, which was only two hours away. Took a beautiful hike there. Next to Bariloche. After a couple of days in Bariloche, we said good-bye to Stacy, as she left for Buenos Aires to meet her friend Paul and begin her adventure to Antarctica!

Josue and I made our way to El Bolson and lucked out on a place to stay. When we got off the bus an older woman came up to us and asked if we wanted to stay in a house. We don´t usually listen to the people who come up to us at the bus stops, but the price was very cheap and we decided to take a look. We said yes to this cute A-frame cabin complete with kitchen, dining room and TV for only $23 a night! We cooked our own meals, went to the artist´s fair twice. My only purchase was a hand-made mate cup, created from a gourd. Every person in Argentina has his or her own mate cup to drink mate. We bought some mate at the supermarket, asked people what you are supposed to do and tried mate for the first time. Josue didn´t like it. I think you have to get used to it and I am going to keep trying. We stayed in El Bolson extra time because the buses to the heart of Patagonia did not run every day. But El Bolson was a nice place to be stuck.

Our next destinations were El Chalten and the Fitz Roy mountain range, El Calafate and the magnificent Perito Moreno glacier, and then Tierra del Fuego and the town of Ushuaia, the END OF THE WORLD! Our first bus took 30 hours! There were a couple of stops along the way but these long travel buses are plush semi-bed, two level buses. They show a ton of movies and some are even nice enough to put the English subtitles on when I ask. All of the movies are from the U.S. Food is included and usually hot coffee. So imagine....this 30-hour bus leaves on Thursday night and gets to El Chalten on Saturday morning! Since the bus left at night and we had to check out of our cabin, we left all of our gear at the bus station, which they suggested we do so we could walk around town all day. One thing they DIDN´T tell us though, was that the bus terminal closed at 8 pm! When we went back there at 10:30 pm to pick up our stuff for our 11:15 bus ride, the place was locked up and our things were sitting there inside! We tried banging on the windows to trip an alarm or something, hoping the police would come by and help us out. But there were no alarms. We had already paid for our tickets and knew that if we missed this bus, we would have to pay again (and not cheap tickets because the ride was so long!). There was no way we could ask them to send our things on the next bus.....too risky. We just stood there until the bus arrived so we could ask the driver what to do. The driver was nice and told us that someone had alerted him that some tourists left their things at the terminal and someone would show up at 11:15 to open the terminal! And they did. That´s just how nice people are in Argentina! Now Josue and I were on our way to Patagonia!

Things you may not know about Argentina. I didn´t. (This commentary does not include Buenos Aires).

1. OK, you know this one by now. They don´t play Latin music except the tango. And they love U.S. country and rock.
2. Everything is closed during the week between 1 and 5, when they take their siesta. Everything is closed on Sunday until 6 pm, when the cities re-open for business!
3. When people DO go out to nightclubs, they don´t go to the club until 2 a.m.! That´s right. If a live band is playing, that is when the music STARTS. And I thought Nicaragua was bad because the people don´t go out until 12:30 a.m.!
4. EVERYONE SMOKES CIGARETTES! That is one other reason for not living here. There are no smoke-free zones. I think if the government tried to do that, there would be a revolution here! Internet cafes, restaurants, of course bars, offices, etc. Smoke, smoke smoke!!!!
5. You can´t find eggs for breakfast anywhere but the hotels for North Americans. The restaurants don´t have them. People in Argentina don´t eat eggs for breakfast!
6. Nothing opens until about 9 am in the morning, so don´t rush to wake up.
7. Since people from Israel seem to be the number 1 tourists in Argentina, signs are in Spanish and Hebrew ALL OVER Argentina! (And not necessarily in English in some places!)

Click here to see the photos for this section.

In and Out of Chile

We crossed the Peru-Chile border easily. There´s a trick. If you walk across, you often get hassled and it always takes longer. If you are able to take a bus or shared taxi ACROSS the border, the driver goes with you and makes the process simple. The immigration officials generally don´t bother you because they know a vehicle is waiting for you and the driver has already filled out all the necessary paperwork. It´s worth it! And that´s what we did for this border.

So...we went from Peru to Arica, Chile. Arica is not too far from the border, a lovely little beach town. Had a big bay, and OK beach (still not as nice as San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua)! We felt like we had left Latin America and walked into Europe! This town was very upscale. Our very first 15 second impression was that Chile was cool! Then we looked for a hotel. Dinner. A glass of beer. Whoa! Chile was VERY expensive compared to the countries we had already visited. As you know, we are backpacking and taking buses so we have a budget. Chile was way OUT of the budget. But Stacy was meeting us in Santiago on the 16th, so we had to make our way down there. We picked a couple of places to see on the way and hoped for the best. After spending the next day in Arica, with Josue playing guitar and singing on the beach while I tried to get a nice tan (WITH sunblock, don´t worry) and read my book, we decided we´d better start moving south to make sure we got to Santiago on time. It was very far away.

We decided to take a night bus since it was 13 hours to Antofagasta, the next place we were going to check out because it was on the edge of the DRIEST desert in the world! South America has lots of the ¨biggest, driest, wettest, highest, deepest¨things and it seems like Chile has most of them. About five minutes before we were to get on the bus, Josue took a bathroom break and in an instant, I turned my head,and in that instant someone had stolen my backpack with my most precious things. I can´t believe I didn´t have my leg threaded through the backpack straps, as I always do when it is on the floor. I even think two people were working together and one made a noise or something to make me turn my head. Whatever, they were very professional because I didn´t hear or see a thing! I lost my brand new IPOD and speakers, my portable hard drive and card reader (Wolverine) on which I had all of my photos of the trip AND an entire backup to my laptop, my SONY camera recharger and computer cable connection, my journal of the trip, my notebook of all the information I need while I´m gone (all phone numbers, all of my account addresses in the U.S., bill information, everything you can think of), and tons of souvenirs I had bought for different friends. I was devastated! Thank goodness Josue reminded me that they are only things, and that we were still fine. We weren´t too happy with Chile at this moment.

The view from the bus on the way to Antofagasto went from dry, to drier, to driest. Sometimes it looked like we were traveling on the moon! Hundreds of miles of hills and mountains with nothing on them! Once we got there we looked in our book and realized that Antofagasto is not really where we wanted to go! So we hopped on another bus (five and a half hours) and went to Copiapo. Near Copiapo was a National Park (Tres Cruces) that sounded so intriguing we had to go. The next day we tried to make our way to the park, we took a bus as far as the highway turnoff, but there was no transportation! No buses or taxis or anything going in and out. We went back to Copiapo and visited Hertz Rent a Car to find out our options. We had to rent a 4 x 4 because of the road. Our adventure started then. We were promised views of the driest desert in the world, herds of vicuna (a cousin to alpacas and llamas), an exquisite turquoise lake in the middle of the desert, the highest active volcano in the world (6893 meters, or 22, 614 feet!), a flock of wild flamingos, and glorious desert mountains. And actually, except for the absence of the herds of vicuna, we experienced everything else and more. We started driving through the desert. There wasn´t a soul there! And imagine this desert scene…..not a blade of grass, not ANYTHING on the mountains for hundreds of miles. Not a bird, a bug, NOTHING. However, talk about a painted desert. Every time we went around a bend, the view became more and more dramatic. Higher mountains banded in colors of gold, green, purple, burgundy, orange! We kept driving and driving and driving…seeing no living creatures of any kind, including humans. At one point we came upon an immigration office because we were about 20 miles from the border with Argentina. It was a drive up border, but no one came out and we couldn´t get through the gate. We got out of the car and went inside the building where we found the two officials in the middle of a heated game of ping pong! In fact, when we walked in, they continued playing out that hand. They didn´t ask us any questions, just opened the gate. So much for complicated county crossings! We were getting tired because honestly, the road was made of sand so it was a bit slippery, the edges of the road had no guard rails and the drops were spectacular because as we drove we were climbing UP! As we drove, we passed the highest active volcano in the world…Ojos de Salado (Salt Eyes). On this day it was snow-capped, monstrous, wild and breathtaking! We kept driving along and were wondering if we were ever going to see the beautiful lake and thought maybe it had dried up since everything was so desolate with no hint of water anywhere. Suddenly we went over a hill and oh my god, we both said at the same time… ¨Vale la peina!¨ translated roughly as ¨worth the pain!¨ In front of us was a pure, turquoise lake surrounded by mountains of all shapes and sizes. We got out of the truck to take a look and suddenly those little headaches we were both getting and the inability to breath very easily made sense. We were at 4,345 meters (14,255 feet)! That´s the highest I´ve ever been! We were both a little dizzy…altitude sickness? Also, it was freezing!!!! We forgot about that. We had some warm clothes, but not all of them. Also, some menacing black clouds were coming our way and we immediately thought…snow storm…not good. So we took our photos, and tried going down to a lower level. Well, I wasn´t feeling wonderful at that moment and started getting very sleepy. It was dusk and we thought there would be a campground, but there wasn´t. So we were stuck there…to sleep in the truck! As the sun faded behind the mountains, the temperature dropped quickly. It seems funny to us now, but we were pretty stupid. We had two oranges, a half a bottle of water, not enough warm clothes and we were having trouble breathing. We tried sleeping a dozen ways, but nothing was working. It was obviously too dangerous to drive at night…we´d drive right off the edge of the cliffs! Even though we didn´t say anything…a fleeting thought hit both of us that we shared the next day…could we die up here? Anyway, the ending is happy. It didn´t snow, we managed through the night, we left at first sun. We took a different route through the park, saw a lake with flamingos, wild horses, birds, bugs and small shrubs. The trip was great!

After Copiapo we headed for Valpariso. Up until this time, we had not really encountered typical Chilean food or music or anything. In fact, it seemed to us that Chile did not have its own culture, but sort of borrowed everyone else´s. It is notable that Chile loves American jazz, classical music and oldies (60s and 70s). When we went out dancing in Copiapo, they had videos going all night of old, old songs. Some Beatles, Olivia Newton John, Commodores, Herman´s Hermits, that kind of stuff. VERY strange! We had to go into the dancing room to here some of our Latin salsa, meringue, and reggaeton favorites.

Valpariso. We loved it! To be honest, Chile is SUPER expensive (yes, more than Argentina!) and we had a hard time finding the essence of the country. But we think we found it in Valparaiso. It is the first city where we found authentic food, including pastel de choclo (a pie of corn bread with chicken and vegetables mixed through it) congrio (a mild fish), humitas (like a tamale) and avocado sandwiches. They LOVE avocado in Chile and put it with anything…chicken, beef, fish and even mash it all over hot dogs! Rather than using the usual Spanish word aguacate, Chileans call it palta! We have been often confused on menus by words we have never heard before. From country to country the Spanish changes. Sometimes the natives don´t understand us either!!! It´s all interesting. Valparaiso is a bustling city, perhaps a little worse for wear, but we felt its heart. One startling thing…the street dogs were all purebreds! We saw huskies, golden retrievers (one even tried to adopt Josue as his new owner, but how could we take him with us?), German and Belgian shepherds, shaggy dogs. You name it, we saw it. You may be thinking…oh someone must own them. But no, they were filthy and hanging around in packs. But they were apparently fed well enough because they looked great. We really wish we could have chosen a couple of them to keep. There are many parks in this city and we found one near the hotel that came alive at about 9 p.m. There we spent a couple of nights watching the people, eating wonderful beef and chorizo shish-ka-bobs and downing a couple of good Chilean beers. We had wine too, but we were really saving our wine palates for Argentina!

After Valpariso we took a bus to Santiago, the capital, where we spent only one day looking for electronic equipment that might help me use my SONY camera again. We figured Santiago was big enough to possibly help us out. And it did! Josue found a portable hard drive-card reader and unbelievably, we found a camera recharger (not a SONY product!) that worked with my particular SONY camera. And it was very cheap! Suddenly I was in business again and that is why I´m behind in my blogs and photos, but now I can put them up again. So stand by for Argentina….

We were also in Santiago to meet Stacy. You remember her… my first travel companion, well, she´s BAAACK! Just couldn´t keep away from the crazy fun we´re having! She had no idea what our plans were going to be when she landed at the airport that night, but she knew it would be great! After spending the entire day in downtown Santiago (just a typical big city, really, all the U.S. products, restaurants and amenities) and cheating by having a fabulous sushi lunch (I´m a big sushi fan and have been craving it the whole trip), Josue and I went to the airport. Stacy arrived at 8 pm and was surprised to learn that three hours later the three of us were hopping on an overnight bus, passing one of the highest mountains in the western hemisphere (Aconcagua 6962 meters), and making our way the next morning to Mendoza, the wine making center of Argentina! Here we go…. Click here to view the photos from Chile.

Peru Part 2 Lima, Nasca, and Arequipa

We arrived in Lima around 3:00 in the afternoon. As usual, we had a list of hostels from our Lonely Planet Guide and had the taxi driver take us there. To make a long story short, we ended up driving around for almost 3 hours to find a hotel. Everything on our list was full! Luckily our taxi driver was very knowledgeable about Lima and we learned a lot. But I have to say that we totally lucked out on our best place ever! We stayed in our own little apartment in the home of a lovely woman who spoke English. We each had our own bedroom with private bath for $10 each a night. There was a little kitchenette with refrigerator and microwave so we could make our breakfasts.

We quickly learned our way around on the buses. It saves so much money. The only problem is that I arrived in Lima pretty sick. It started a couple of towns back, but kept getting worse and worse until it was clear I had parasites. We went to a pharmacy where they gave me a treatment of medicine that said kills ¨every amoeba, parasite and worm¨ known to man. It also has a few weird side effects, which I won´t get into, so I wasn´t at my best at this time. This first couple of days we did our city walks and learned about the areas of Miraflores (where all the tourists go), Barranco (the Bohemian area) and Chorillos, the beach. All beautiful. Miraflores is very upscale. We walked, ate great Peruvian food like Cuy (guinea pig) and goat, with all their special sauces. The Peruvian food is fabulous and quite different than all the other countries so far. They have a special sauce called aji, which is a little different at each restaurant, but basically a yellow, green, or red sauce that is spicy and tasty. (Talia, Shanna, remember the Peruvian restaurant near our house in San Diego that had the good green sauce?) We also shopped in the artesano markets with all the indigenous crafts from all over Peru. The markets were overwhelming! Too much to see, to much to think about, too much to buy. I´m on a strict budget, so I didn´t get much.

On Saturday night Stacy and I were going to the airport to meet Josue, my next traveling companion. We were told that the taxi to the airport was $40 USD, so we quickly learned how to take the bus for 75 cents each. Of course the bus was an hour and a half ride, but oh well. We waited for Josue for a long while because his plane landed at 8:20 in the evening, but he didn´t come out of immigration until 9:30!!! We were a little worried. Even though we got back to the apartment around 11:00, we quickly ditched Josue´s things and went to a restaurant in Barranco that we had visited the day before. At night they have live music and the restaurant is located inside a refurbished train car. We got some typical Peruvian snacks and I told the waiter that Josue was a musician. After awhile, they invited him up to play and he experienced his first ¨show¨ in Peru! The people were happy with his Nicaraguan folkloric guitar playing and singing and he was happy on his first night in Peru!

The next day we all did another first….we went paragliding over the cliffs of the beaches of Lima! How exciting! I was always afraid to do it in La Jolla, California. For some reason I am much more fearless in Latin America. What a beautiful experience. We went tandem paragliding, in other words, an expert was sitting behind us. But now I know how it feels to be a bird. It was a gorgeous, cloudless warm day with a brisk wind. Perfect for this sport and what a great way to see the city!
Of course we are also dancing our way through South America and Lima was no exception. I just want to comment here that we went for dinner before dancing, and it may not be funny to you, but the waiter told us that they only had chicken. So I said, I want the leg. When our food came we started eating it and it was clearly not chicken, it was pork! So we asked the waiter what happened, we ordered chicken and he said, ¨No, you ordered a leg. And I brought you a leg.¨ It made no sense at all and we were laughing hysterically so we decided to eat the pork. We never really figured out what happened. The three of us went to one of the popular discos in the Marina area and had a blast dancing to our favorite Latin songs. Yes, even Stacy has some now! After all this time visiting me in Nicaragua and traveling with me, she recognizes some of the Salsa, reggaeton and bachata songs. She also dances very well to them!

The night before Stacy left, we had a beautiful dinner hosted by Stacy at a fancy restaurant in Lima (thank again Stacy!). We ate alpaca (wonderful!), rabbit, chicken and pork. We had oysters for an appetizer and a bread basket that would rival any five-star restaurant! And….we had six different types of Pisco sours (the national drink) with flavors like basil, chichi morada (purple corn), maracuya (a fruit we don´t have). All very exotic! Wonderful, one-of-a-kind experience!

On the day Stacy left, Josue and I took a bus to Nazca to see the famous Nazca lines. For those of you who may not know, there are huge shapes in the Peruvian desert around Nazca. They are very old, no one knows who did them or why. But given the time they were made… it was pretty impossible to make such large shapes with such accuracy. And…you can see nothing from the ground, you can only see them from the air. So you go in a tiny 6-seater plane. For those of you who know me, yes, I had to take medicine before going on this one! The lines are amazing….they were made by taking the dark rocks OFF the white sand below and forming a shape, which makes them all the more strange. In the book ¨Chariots of the Gods,¨(which I read years ago and vowed to see these lines one day in my life), his theory were they were signals to the ships (yes, spaceships) that landed there. Who knows? There is really no explanation.

Next, we took a bus to Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru and a great place! Very colonial, great food like stuffed peppers with meat inside and a tasty, spicy white cheese sauce over it, or potatoes with greek olives and another spicy sauce. Peru sure likes its sauces! The first day we did our walking tour (always what we do on our first day to get acquainted with the city, the architecture, the views, the streets, etc. )

The next day we looked at the guide book and decided to take a trip that was not in our plans….to the deepest canyon in the world! We took a five and a half hour bus ride to Cabanaconde, our departure point. In the bus we saw snow-capped mountains for the first time since our trip started. The highest one was around 18,000 feet high. Not bad…

Since we left at 5:30 in the morning, we hadn´t eaten anything so we went to a restaurant in the main square to fortify ourselves! We had a great meal of alpaca (now one of our favorite meats) in red wine sauce with fresh steamed vegetables and the great Cusquena beer! We started our trek after that and made our way down into the canyon. Where we walked was not the deepest point of 4800 meters (if it was, I wouldn´t be here telling this story as you will soon see…). We decided walk to the first indigenous village, Sangalle. Already we were happy to see the local people in their colorful clothing, with their babies strapped behind them in blankets. We descended into the canyon. The trail was a mix of sand, little rocks, big rocks and it was pretty slippery. I was wearing sneakers rather than hiking boots and only fell down four times, once falling on a rock that punched me pretty hard in the kidney area. I think the walk took around 5 hours to go down to the bottom of the canyon. We were rewarded for our hard work by spectacular views of mountains everywhere around us! We could look down into the valley and see a raging river curving around the rocks. As we got closer we could hear it. Of course I was so thrilled about this hike that I didn´t stop to think about the fact that the next morning I would have to walk back UP!!!

We were so tired when we arrived at the bottom that we headed for Oasis, a little conclave of bamboo huts and supposedly a restaurant that had Alpaca steaks and Pisco sours, the national drink of Peru. We were ready for that! But no, there were no Alpaca steaks or Pisco sours. Nor was there good service. Some young men and teenage boys were running the place and told us we couldn´t eat until 7:00, two and a half hours later. It had started raining, so we were getting cold and there was no way to dry off. But we waited…

As we waited, tourists from various countries started showing up at the dining table. There was no electricity at this place, but they didn´t start cooking until dark. All of us were tired and hungry and the only available dinner was spaghetti with ketchup for sauce and a vegetable soup in which we couldn´t identify a single vegetable! It tasted like water broth! As you can imagine we were disappointed with the meal, but we had a lively table discussion for two hours with people from Holland, Brazil, France, Sweden and then us, me from the U.S. and Josue from Nicaragua. THAT was great! Everyone decided to speak in English since everyone could understand some level of English. It was a very nice (if dark…we only had one candle) evening.

The next morning we got up bright and early to make our ascent up the mountain. Who was I kidding? Walk up that mountain? Maybe it would take me 10 hours? 15?
We could not walk it in the dark because the path was narrow and the drop over the edge of the trail was probably 2000 feet! We took a few hours and walked up almost half way. Josue was wonderful…no complaining, no nothing, reminding me to drink water and then…he saw an indigenous man coming down the trail with two mules and he said, ¨Hey, how much to rent your mules to take us the rest of the way up?¨ It was very reasonable, about $10, so we said, why not? Well, it sure took the strain off my heart..to a point. The mules liked to walk by the edge, not on the inside by the side of the mountain. There were moments when we both felt that the mule was going to walk right off the cliff. Sometimes I looked over my right shoulder and could just see DOWN a thousand or so feet. But we made it to the top and it clearly was ANOTHER adventure.

Waiting at the top were the two people from Holland we had been talking to the night before – Harald and Marike. We decided to walk back to town together and grab a meal of – yes you guessed it – alpaca steak in vino tinto. We had a nice meal then found out that the five and a half hour bus ride back to Arequipa was sold out for the next few days and the only way we could get back was to stand the whole way!!! Well, we weren´t the only ones doing that, the whole bus was packed with people standing! But this is where the idea of bus travel suits me so well….the Peruvian people who were sitting in their seats made room on the arms of their seats, pulled down their suitcases so we could sit on them in the aisle, and did everything they could to make our ride as comfortable as possible. Everyone communicated in his or her own way and we had many nice conversations with some very lovely people. By the end of the trip, we had created a little ¨bus community¨ and it seemed that we were all good friends. We even took a picture of everyone to remind us of this remarkable experience where we saw just how kind the Peruvian people are and how nice they were with us. These are the experiences that I always remember. I feel so lucky to have this opportunity to travel the way I do…with the people of the country.

When we got back to Arequipa, we made plans to see Harald and Merike at 10:30 p.m. We met them at the Plaza de las Armas and went to a restaurant that had local food from Arequipa. Very tasty. Josue brought the guitar and played some nice songs for us. It is always great to listen to him play…he is also giving me guitar lessons! We had a nice time talking to our new friends and since they will be traveling for several weeks around Chile and Argentina, we exchanged emails and are in contact to see if we can meet again somewhere else. It´s terrific to make friends from other countries along the way.

The next day Josue and I were off to Chile…………. To view photos of this part of the trip, click here.

Peru Part 1, Down the Pacific Coast

The first thing I have to say about Peru is that I was shocked that the whole west coast is a desert, and often a desolate one at that….sand dunes, strong winds blowing the sand around, sometimes no vegetation AT ALL! It´s funny how you think of a place as green and lush when you don´t know it and then surprise!!! It´s not what you thought. Anyway, we decided to stop at places along the coast since we were on our way to Lima and we had enough time.

Stacy and I are both ¨beach¨ people, so we tried to pick beach towns. Our first stay was with a lovely couple, Vicky and Joe Vargas, who are the parents of a friend of Stacy´s in San Diego. Stacy had never met Vicky or Joe, but you would have thought that they had known each other forever! Such a gracious, lovely couple. We stayed with them in their beautiful oceanfront home for three nights and joked on the day we were leaving (and Joe said, ¨you can stay longer if you want¨), that they better not say that or we just might stay forever. That´s how comfortable it was. Not only that, but they lived a good drive from the bus station in Chiclayo and our bus was late and their car broke down, but with their son-in-law´s help, they picked up up at about 11 pm and even had dinner for us when we got back!!!! They toured us around Chiclayo, showing us the regular market and the witchcraft market (yes, I bought some more supplies....potions and things....hahaha) and dined with us at a beautiful Peruvian restaurant where we had our first Pisco Sour, Chicha Morado and other food I can´t even remember the name of, but you´ll see in in the photos. We spent a day at the beach, Joe figured out a way to get Stacy´s suitcase fixed GOOD AS NEW and we had a brilliant night learning a Peruvian card game, I think it was called Baranco. We played as partners and Vicky and I had an early lead, then Joe and Stacy started catching up. Vicky brought out her ¨magic bells¨to twirl over my head so we would win, but alas, Stacy had some awesome beginner´s luck and they won. All in fun. Thanks so much to Vicky and Joe for being such lovely hosts. We only hope we can each repay the visit in some way (don´t forget your open invitation to Nicaragua!).

From there we decided to go to another beach, this one on the surf circuit. It´s called Huanchaco and it´s a touristy place with lots of people to watch and lots of food to try. Candied apples (when is the last time you had that?), orange wheat and honey cakes, fresh strawberries with condensed cream, fried lima beans, tamales with chicken and raisins, you name it, we ate it! I´m not sure how many days we stayed there, but I remember great breakfasts, riding in a boat that was made of reed (see photos), and laying out on the beach one entire day on chairs under an umbrella just reading and watching people go by. Nice feeling, even if we are on a vacation. We usually never have time to just sit on the beach all day. We visited a famous ruin near Huanchaco called Chan Chan. Talk about fake! I don´t know how many of you know this, but many of the ancient sites are being ¨rebuilt.¨ In other words, they start with the ruins and then put them back the way they must have looked when they were whole! To me, this totally defeats the purpose! In Belize they use some kind of putty made of fiber glass, mud and cement. In Chan Chan they used mud to make the same bricks that were originally used. When they are finished, they will no longer be ruins, but a new place that looked like Chan Chan once looked. What do you think of that? I don´t like it. (See our photos of Chan Chan).

Next we went to a place that was NOT in our book and NOT on our map named Barranca. Why? Strange thing. In 2002 I was still living in Canandaigua, New York and I read a news report on a new ancient site that was discovered in Peru called Caral. I decided that WHEN I visited Peru to see Machu Pichu I MUST see Caral. Caral is 5000 years old! It is the third oldest civilization discovered on earth. The existence of Caral changes the way we must think about how we all got here, since until now, no one thought there were civilizations this big in the western hemisphere. So it is a really significant site. It is set in the desert, between high sand mountains, with a solitary river running alongside. It is so new that they are still excavating but I have to say it is the most ecologically-thinking, preservation-thinking ruin site I have ever seen! Hooray to the Peruvians! Everything built to support it (bathrooms, shops, restaurant) is build from natural materials, you are not allowed to walk ON any of the pyramids, but you can get close and take good pictures. We spent the entire day there, walked a lot, thought that the ruins were fabulous. It definitely is off the beaten path, but worth seeing.

The town that we stayed in to be near Caral is called Barranca. When we arrived there, the bus just dropped us off in the street because this town wasn´t on their route, they were just taking us to be nice and would get in trouble if the police saw them in town. So we got off in a hurry, grabbed a moto-taxi (we have lots of pictures of those funny little customized taxis) and told him to take us to the beach. We stayed in a nice hotel right on the beach. The beach was gorgeous and reminded us a lot of San Juan del Sur, where I live. It was a bay, it had a Christ statue on one of the cliffs overlooking the bay, had a lot of seafood restaurants lining the beach street and five (yes five!) discos! It was Saturday night so you know where we were headed. We danced up a storm at a couple of the local clubs and got back to the hotel late.

Next day, we decided to go and see a few ¨minor ruins¨ around Barranca. We took a bus out to the first one. They dropped us off, but we didn´t see anything. After asking a few people directions, we walked through the hot, sunny desert to find two monoliths in the sand. That was it...two monoliths and nothing more! No explanation, no nothing. In fact, the sign said that this was an ¨ïntangible ruin.¨ I guess that means that they found those two things there, but they had no clue why they were there. Well, we couldn´t figure it out either. Then we went to the second place our our map and walked around and around and around in this dusty, tiny, dismal little town. Again, after asking questions, we were directed to a pile of rocks. Yes, just a pile of rocks. We laughed again. The third place we went to involved a ride and then a walk down a lonely pathway in the country. When we arrived at the place, there was nothing there!!! Nothing...except a cool, falling-apart bridge that we just felt we had to climb. The bridge crossed a big flowing river and we must like to climb, because the materials weren´t great. The ladder to get up was rickety, the bridge itself had no guardrails and was very skinny, made up of wooden slats and pieces of metal strategically placed so you wouldn´t fall in. There were holes in this construction everywhere. We kept asking ourselves if we were crazy. I say yes! But, we crossed the crazy bridge over the river and neither of us fell in. We were a little disconcerted when a man dressed all in black with black cowboy hat and all crossed the river close by on a black horse (it looked like something out of a Western....the evil guy coming to start trouble) but he didn´t say a word or even come near us. We were more surprised by the two men who came to the bridge to cross it to go to work and carried their bicycles on their backs! If they could do that, we surely could walk across it. And we did! Yes, it was dangerous and yes we were crazy (see the pictures).

Went our for another crazy night of dancing in Barranca.

A couple of days later, we left and took our last bus to Lima, where the Peru Part 2 adventure begins. Click here to see the photos associated with this post.

Ecuador

Originally the plan was to go to Guayaquil, rather than Quito. But as soon as I got on the bus (which was going through Quito anyway), I looked at the two cities and it seemed there was so much more to do in and around Quito. I took a trip with my family to Ecuador years ago and it was going to be fun to do some comparisons. So Quito it was! We found a quaint little hotel in the Old Town section run by Jaime and his seven-year old son Mikey. It was a wonderful place with hardwood floors, our own bathroom with hot water (sometimes we don´t have one or the other) for $16 USD a night! The first thing on our agenda was a hot, hot shower to get rid of all the powder, paint and foam spray from that crazy fiesta in Colombia! We felt like new afterwards and celebrated by having our one and only fancy dinner on our vacation yet.

We will always remember Quito as the city of colonial churches, monasteries and convents and views. Every time you turn a corner, you look down the street to see an amazing building or park. We were blessed with good weather so our walking tours were full and exciting. Sometimes we left our hotel room at 7 in the morning and got back at 9 pm. (Then we´d shower, get ready and go out dancing!) There was actually a sidebar in our Lonely Planet Guide that listed the best views in Quito. That´s what we decided to do, see the views. Quito is about 8500 feet high, so there is a little bit of breathing challenge if you walk straight up or walk too fast, until you get acclimated to the height. One experience that stands out was the climb up the 315 steps of the Basilica, a gothic church built in the last century. It wasn´t the 315 steps that worried us, after all, we are troopers. It was the ¨type¨ of steps. They started out OK, but after the first 100, they turned into ladders. Each ladder got smaller and flimsier, until they were just made out of metal rods. Sometimes the distance between each rod was too small, sometimes too much. And we had our flip-flops on!!! Not a way to climb slippery metal ladders! The very last ladder to the top of the highest spire was made of rods about a half inch thick. And that´s not all. When you climbed up, you were on a wire platform, not a real floor and some of the wires were broken. If you didn´t pay attention, your leg could actually fall through and would be torn apart by the jagged wire. But that´s still not all. One guy disappeared outside a little window, so Stacy gets it in her head to do the same. She goes out on this tiny platform OUTSIDE the steeple so I can take a picture of her. Then she says, ¨It doesn´t feel so great out here. I think it´s dangerous.¨ Well I had to go out and check. Wow! On that platform with no ropes, ledges, nothing to hold you on there, if there were an earthquake (Quito has lots) or a rogue wind, that would be the end of you. I stayed out 5 seconds, long enough for a picture too. But that was a CRAZY thing to do. Food was interesting in Quito. It was generally good, and sometimes fanstastic, but I also had the worst meal I´ve had in my life when we accidentally wandered into a Chinese restaurant. I like Chinese food, so I don’t know what happened there, but I think I had two sips of my soup and said no. I went to sleep hungry that night. But another day we had an interesting soup made of tripe, potatoes, and avocados in a peanut sauce! It sounds awful, but it was great! Another night we ate at an upscale Ecuadorian restaurant and had a local soup dish, a meat dish, and four glasses of wine for $14.00. The food in Ecuador is really cheap.

One day we took the new cable car up the side of active volcano Pichincha – all the way to over 13,000 feet!!! That´s pretty high and it was VERY cold. During the days each of us had stopped at a store here or there to get warmer clothes, especially me since I only had my clothes from Nicaragua and Nicaragua never gets cold!

On Saturday we went to Otovalo, supposedly one of the largest markets in Latin America. It was beautiful! We went to the Artesania section, where the natives make beautiful woven wall hangings, purses, hand-made sweaters, everything very brightly colored. We stayed at the market the whole day and I did some great negotiating on wool sweaters, hats, gloves and other things to keep us warm in our upcoming countries. Great day! We went dancing that night and had a great time. Finally the club wasn´t filled with only couples, the problem we had in Colombia.

The next day we went to Baños. I had been there before, but I thought Stacy should see it, even if for only a day. I usually don´t like the more touristy places and this place is mobbed with tourists, particularly North Americans. But it´s a cute town, reminded me a bit of San Juan del Sur, only bigger and more upscale. Baños is a hub for extreme sports from ATV riding, hang gliding, white water river rafting, etc. Etc. Years ago when we were there and my daughters were about 8 and 9 years old, the town was so tiny that we let them wander around alone (there were only two streets). Now it has grown to a little mega town with Asian food, American food, and tons of hostals. Baños sits on the side of a volcano that is very active. In 2006, it exploded and wiped out a section of the town right below it. Luckily no one got hurt because each citizen has a backpack ready to go OUT THE DOOR when the sirens go on. Each citizen has a particular evacuation route and no Ecuadorian is scared about this volcano. And guess what? The taxi driver who took us from the bus terminal to our hotel (cute little place, $19 USD a night) was on ¨Volcano eruption call¨ and told us that the volcano had started erupting the day before and he would call us if that happened again. Well, the next morning, just as we were going to breakfast, we got the call. He said ¨Hurry, I´ll take you to see the volcano erupting.¨ Well, that sounded cool to us, so we went TOWARD the spewing volcano. We heard it rumble and grumble, we saw the thick clouds of poison gas coming out and we got some awesome pictures!

Next...we went to Puyo, supposedly a town on the edge of the REAL jungle! On the way we stopped at a beautiful waterfall that fed into a river in a canyon. Years ago I had walked across the swing bridge with my husband and my daughters, but now there was an aerial car that you can take for $1 USD and cross that way. It looked unsafe at first, but we did it anyway and it was great fun! Next, we went to another waterfall and hiked a bit to get to it. My daughters Talia and Shanna may remember this one...we hiked years ago through the dense jungle and had a little picnic once we reached the Devil´s Cauldron. There was no one there, no hint of civilization. But now a wide trail has been created, a restaurant is there and you have to pay to go in. Changes. Good or bad? I don´t know. More tourists, more jobs for the Ecuadorians. More tourists, less Ecuadorian culture. Same thing in Nicaragua. Good or bad? Both, I think.

We reached Puyo and couldn´t really see how it was a town on the edge of a jungle. We were disappointed with our hotel, and the fact that there was very little to do in Puyo. Also, the electricity went out the night we were there and abruptly ended a good Internet session. The next day we did the only thing we could find that was interesting..we visited a monkey farm. This farm had 51 monkeys of different varieties all running around loose and waiting for unsuspecting tourists to come so they can jump on them. See the photos, it was fun enough, though we were filthy from the mud and had to get right on a long bus ride after that!

We decided to take the road less traveled to Cuenca, against everyone´s advice. But how glad we were! Yes, it took 3 hours longer to get to Cuenca, but we saw some views of mountains that cannot be described and experienced some hair-raising turns on the bus where we looked out the window and were so close to the edge that we peered down a few thousand feet into the canyon!

Cuenca is a beautiful city and there´s quite a bit to do there. We had our cheapest hotel here, for $12 USD for BOTH of us! We also had our best, cheapest meal. While we were taking a walking tour one day, we happened upon a beautiful hotel-restaurant that had a fixed price lunch. It was hard to believe, but we went in and sure enough, for $2 USD you got a fresh tamarind juice, home-made onion soup, a beef and rice and cooked carrot dish, and bananas flambee for dessert. I defy any of you to beat that. Of course we ruined the budget when we each got a glass of wine. Each glass was $4 USD, the price of two lunches!!! Ecuador is VERY inexpensive. Other highlights: we had a couple of great dancing nights, I finally found the Panama hat I was looking for (for those of you who don´t know, ALL Panama hats are made in Ecuador!!!). We saw them in Panama, but they told us the same thing, so we waited ´till we got to Ecuador, where they were much cheaper. We enjoyed walking along the river and through the city. One day we took a trip to another little town, also called Baños. We arrived in the middle of a horse parade tribute to the Virgen, so we watched that outside of a brightly painted (blue) church! Then we walked down to some thermal baths, where we soaked away all of our toxins for a couple of hours. In Cuenca you can get books in English, very typical European and North American food, and anything else you are used to. And the city is beautiful.

Then we took the bus to Machala, where we had to get another bus to the border with Peru. After much research, and learning that Peru is much more dangerous for a tourist than Colombia is now, we decided to take a bus from Machala that takes you THROUGH the border and leaves you off in Tumbes, Peru. We were escorted (at night) through the whole immigration process which actually took about 5 minutes. On to Peru...... To see the photos for this section, click here.

Colombia Part 2 Cali, San Cipriano, Pasto and the border

Cali, salsa capital of the world! Also drug cartel cocaine capital of the world and previous kidnapping capital of the world (about 10 years ago). After taking a 20-hour bus ride a few days before, the 10-hour bus ride went so fast we hardly noticed it. Arrived in Cali late, at 10 pm. Did we go to sleep? Are you kidding? We jumped into the shower, got dressed, and took a cab to party central in downtown Cali. The entire street was hopping! There is one salsa night club after another, all the way down sixth street. They take salsa very seriously here. The clubs don´t charge a cover, so you can go from one to the other easily. We did some dancing, but honestly, even with all the salsa dancing I do, I sure don´t dance yet like they do here! Had fun though! The next few days we spent exploring Cali. We don´t go to museums per se, but the gold museum was beautiful! We checked out some more discos and discovered that not only do they just play salsa music (no meringue or reggaeton), but only couples go!!! So the dance scene was a little frustrating for us here.

We went to the bus terminal to try to get a bus to the border. We couldn´t! We are actually trapped in Cali! And this is why...it´s because of the bus system in this town. It´s ridiculous and frustrating and horrible (my opinion). Stacy and I waited in two different lines. There were several bus companies that have buses to the border. We had checked on some and they said there were no buses until January 5th! We couldn´t wait that long, so we were checking out some other companies. The line I was waiting in suddenly stopped moving when the one guy serving about 100 people abruptly got up and left for lunch at noon. Said he´d be back at 2! Everyone just stood there and said they couldn´t leave the line because they would lose their place. I asked many people if you can make a reservation over the phone. They told me that you can, but if there is someone at the window with cash in their hand, the company will sell your ticket! So it was better to wait and pay and have the ticket in your hand. After waiting in line for about two hours, Stacy and I suddenly found out that they were only selling tickets for that day! And we wanted to buy tickets for two days later! We left the bus terminal terribly frustrated and wondering why they did things that way. I guess Cali just didn´t want us to leave. We stayed two more days and that allowed us to visit the interesting town of San Cipriano.

As the bus pulled out of Cali, there were now military guards placed along the entire way to Cordoba. Sometimes one, sometimes many. While it may look like it´s dangerous, I believe that Colombia is trying hard to clean up its act and has used the army to keep the roads safer. The bus was never stopped, we just saw lots of uniforms carrying semiautomatic rifles. We got to Cordoba, it was raining a bit and we walked down the hill. The fun of this trip is that you go to San Cipriano by train. But not a regular train. Actually, there IS a regular train but you don´t take that one. On the same tracks, the natives have invented a new mode of transportation. It´s a few boards thrown together on metal wheels that fit the tracks and a motorcycle that is then attached to the boards and ¨drives¨the ramshackle vehicle down the tracks as fast as the motorcycle driver cares to go, which is sometimes very fast. The vehicle bumps, dips, knocks, makes scary noises as the wheels go around a curve and there is nothing really to hold on to. You are not strapped into the seat (if you can call three planks of board a seat) and the ¨seat¨ is not even attached to the body of the train. It´s free standing and free moving. All of this is on one track. What happens when trains are coming the other way, you ask? You hope that the two trains aren´t going so fast that they slam into each other. They both stop and by some unknown and impossible to figure out protocol one driver gets off, lifts the entire ¨train¨ (motorcycle and all) off the tracks so that the other ¨train¨can go by. On our way back, we had to stop five times. Twice our train was taken down and put back. The destination is San Cipriano which is a tiny town inside a forest reserve, which you wouldn´t really realize is a forest reserve because there are tons of restaurants, some hotels, and not a lot of garbage cans, if you get the picture. However, you arrive at a beautiful crystal clear river that has spots where you can swim. It goes up to about nine feet deep in some places. It was very nice, but we had forgotten our bathing suits. I went in the river with my clothes and Stacy sat on a rock in the river. It was all in all a great day. We got back to Cali around dinner time and had terrific skewers of chicken and chorizo and a special arepa, which was like a thick tortilla made of corn bread stuffed with cheese. Two good beers finished off the dinner.

The next day we did what everyone said we had to do if we wanted to leave Cali: go to the bus terminal at 4 am and buy the ticket when the windows opened. That´s what we did and we finally were on our way to the Ecuador border.

This time we took a cheaper bus and there was no bathroom, it was very small and we got bad seats (and not together). This was for another 10-hour bus ride, so we weren´t too happy. There were lots of little kids on the bus. Suddenly the driver asked for two volunteers to sit up front with him. I jumped up, yelled to Stacy and we got them! Over the next few hours we became friends with the bus driver and as we were driving along he told us of a strange festival in a town called Pasto, about two and a half hours BEFORE the border. This town has its Black and White festival once a year from January 4 – 8. It supposedly honors the ONE day a year when the white slave owners allowed their slaves to have a day off! On that day, the slave owners painted their faces black and the slaves painted their faces white to show that they were in accordance with the day. I guess it was supposed to be some kind of show of respect, but that´s hard to believe. Anyway, to honor this day, Pasto now puts on a 4-day festival and the day we were travelling it was in full force. The bus driver spoke so highly of the festival that we decided then and there to go to it and make our journey to the Ecuador border a day later. In fact, we decided that we would just stay up the rest of the day and night, not get a hotel, probably go out dancing and then just show up at the bus terminal at 4 am like we had done the night before and hop on a bus! Well, not everything is quite as we expected.

We got off in Pasto, did some Internet stuff and the man at the Internet place told us the parades and parties were just in the afternoon and now it was late and we had missed everything. We were so disappointed, but we´ve learned on the trip that not everything people tell us is true. So we decided to take the bus downtown and see what was going on anyway. Well the man was wrong and party central was going on exactly where we got off the bus. We saw everyone wearing lightweight ponchos, so we decided we should get them too so we would fit in. Most people were also carrying plastic cans of something and plastic bags of something else. Others had little bottles. As we got closer, someone came up from behind us and dumped white powder on our heads. The game was ON!!! The plastic cans were spray foam and the little bottles were different colors of paint! It was WHITE day at Pasto´s ¨Black and White¨festival! We heard a great live band so we went in that direction. When we reached the main plaza, there were thousands of people. They immediately started spraying us with foam so of course we had to defend ourselves and we bought our own cans. At first it seemed all in great fun, but it started to get a little crazy. People would spray your face, your hair, everywhere. We went to stand over by a bunch of police hoping to keep listening to the music without being sprayed when suddenly I got sprayed in the ear! We looked around and couldn´t figure out who did it so I could spray him or her back and found out it was one of the policemen who had a can of foam under his uniform coat. So I took my spray and got three of them. Like I said...all in fun. So I have the great experience of spraying three Colombian national police with spray foam and I´m living to tell the story. Didn´t go to jail and didn´t even get a reprimand. Imagine doing that in the U.S.! We wanted to sit down and get out of the way so we went to one of the outdoor places to get a beer. There were no seats, but a nice couple from Bogota (Carolina and Jaime) invited us to sit down with them and we spent the rest of the night with them. Everything was fine for a time, and then things got out of control. We stood up to hear the band and four teenage guys ganged up on me and sprayed me in the eyes, ears, nose and throat. I couldn´t breathe and I was down for the count...literally on the ground. Carolina acted quickly and got the medics who had a place set up right there for such occasions. Stacy, Jaime and the medics picked me up and dragged me gagging over to the temporary clinic where they gave me oxygen and made me relax (I was having a panic attack because I couldn´t breathe!). After that I was fine. We all looked horrible with paint, powder and foam all over us but I said it was time to go out dancing. We went to a nice place (don´t forget – we looked HORRIBLE- see the photos) where they were playing indigenous Andes music and we learned to do a new dance. After awhile our friends left and we made our way to the bus station. We had the great idea of staying up all night, remember? BAD IDEA! First, we were bedraggled and tired and the bus station was freezing! We had to take all of our warm clothes out of our suitcases (I had only one long sleeved shirt. Luckily Stacy was more prepared and gave me a turtleneck and gloves.) We toughed it out until we got our bus at 5:30 in the morning, but we were miserable. When we got to Ipiales, we wanted to see a special sanctuary that was built into the side of a gorge and so we contracted with a taxi driver to take us there and then to the border. The sanctuary was amazing and no one kicked us out for how we looked. We had to go to immigration on the Colombian side (one hour and five minute wait in line for no reason) to get stamped out, then we walked across the border into Ecuador and had to go to immigration (one hour and five minute wait in line for no reason) to get stamped in. But we finally said good-bye to Colombia and we´re in Ecuador!!!!!! Click here for photos of this part of our trip.

Colombia Part 1 Cartagena and Bogota

Colombia is FABULOUS! I could live here in a second….the first thing I want to say is that the danger factor is really overrated. Yes, it may be bad for those involved in the shadier things, but for regular tourists, no problem! We feel no different here than in any of the other countries we´ve been. The people here explained that the current president has done a lot to improve security in the country. Yes, we see military guards frequently on the roads, but they are there to protect and help. Also, the Colombian people here are fantastic! So helpful, kind and warm…as you will soon learn.

We DID have to fly to from Panama City to Cartagena because there are no buses. You can take a cargo ship (and one of my friends did, but we haven´t heard back from him yet), but they advise against it because sometimes the cargo ships run drugs and of course, if you happen to be on the ship when pirates arrive with their automatic weapons to take those drugs, well, just imagine…..I mean, we like adventure, but that´s a little over the top, even for us! So, I know what you are saying, ¨Bonnie just said that Colombia is not dangerous, yet she and Stacy wouldn´t cross the Panama-Colombia border by land.¨ I didn´t say Colombia was perfect, I said it´s fine for tourists. Of course it is not fine for tourists to wander into known drug trafficking areas. So we didn´t.

We arrived in Cartagena and Tia Monica was there at the airport to pick us up! Tia Monica is my ex-husband Erick´s aunt, both from San Andres island. (San Andres is a tiny little island in the Caribbean closer to Nicaragua, but owned by Colombia. Of course my Nicaraguan friends will protest that comment as it used to belong to Nicaragua.) A more wonderful person than Tia Monica you will never meet. She opened her arms and her home to both of us and treated us like queens! Tia Monica is an energetic 70-year old and the very first woman tour guide in Cartagena.

Cartagena…a gorgeous city sitting on the edge of the Caribbean sea, Latin music playing everywhere, smiling happy people. Colorful buildings, lots to do and see. Our first night we went to a birthday party in a relative´s house. We danced up a storm with the uncles and cousins at the birthday party and had a great time. The next day Tia Monica showed us all the sites, explained all the details and history. We even went to an Inquisition Museum that had all sorts of real torture instruments! Everyone in Cartagena knows Tia Monica and loves her. We got in free to every place because we were with her…what a treat! We went back, ate and went out dancing at a nightclub with Monica´s daughter Luz Marina and her boyfriend Gustavo. EVERYONE dances in Colombia. I believe there is not a man in Colombia who doesn´t dance! Children dance before they walk!

Another day we went with Tia Monica, her daughter Luz Marina and her granddaughter Monica to Playa Blanca, a lovely beach with warm, turquoise water. The adventure was not the beach. The adventure was getting there. After a 45 minute bus ride, we arrived in a small town called Pasa Caballo (I could live here!) to take a ferry. A ferry like we had never seen before! It seemed like just a slab of concrete. But cars, people, motorcycles and even buses could fit on the slab. But how was it going to move? It didn´t have any visible means of motion, not a motor, not an oar, nothing. All of a sudden we started moving! But how? At first we couldn´t figure it out. But then, behind us, we saw one man in a type of native canoe with a little motor pushing the huge ferry with a stick. I hope we have a picture of that, but I´m not sure. Once we got to the other side of the river, we hopped into a broken down, holes in the floor, pieces falling off truck from the last century that spewed gasoline and bumped and bounced and made horrible wrenching noises the next 22 kilometers to the......gorgeous, turquoise water, white sand beach lined with quaint restaurants. Stacy tried her first coco loco at this place and she was quite glad she did. I had tried them on San Andres island and insisted her trip would not be complete without it. For those of you who don´t know what a coco loco is, it is a real coconut, mixed with a lot of aguardiente (the cheapest liquor in the country), the natural coconut juice, and flavourings, in this case pineapple juice and strawberry syrup. They are really strong...but this one seemed to have no effect on Stacy. Not to get too carried away with one story ´cause we have so much to tell, suffice it to say we had a wonderful day here.

We had one especially exciting night in Cartagena. While Stacy was taking a shower, I was drying my hair. I don´t know if it was because I plugged my hair dryer into an extension cord or what, but suddenly I smelled and saw smoke coming from across the room. Next, my hair dryer stopped working! Then.....I saw flames! Stacy´s suitcase was on fire! I guess you never know what you are going to do in a crisis until you are in one, but I didn´t say a word, didn´t yell, nothing. I calmly went over to the fire and stamped it out with my foot. When Stacy came back, I calmly told her what happened. We turned her suitcase over and sure enough.....the fire had eaten a hole through it (fortunately not the most functional part of the suitcase). Good thing I was in the room at the time or the whole house could have burned down. But our gracious hosts took the whole thing in stride and actually told their friends and neighbors and were laughing about it. Speaking of suitcases, both of our roller bags are taking a beating. Stacy´s handle broke upon arrival at the airport. BUT, Luz Marina´s boyfriend, Gustavo, was able to break it more to make it operational, for now anyway.

We moved on to Bogota in a 20-hour bus ride. To be fair, these are not chicken buses. They are huge, plush vehicles where the seats go almost all the way back, you get to see four lousy movies and there is even a bathroom (which you don´t want to have the misfortune of sitting next to). But Stacy and I have learned to love these bus rides. We are finally able to catch up on our sleep because try as we might, they won´t let us dance on the bus! So these bus rides are a wonderful way of slowing us down. We read, we talk, we plan, we get to meet the native people (because we have not run into a single person from the U.S. here, nor many tourists from anywhere for that matter) who are wonderful and helpful and we view the unbelievably gorgeous countryside! Mountains, jungles, cloud forests, raging rivers, waterfalls, sunsets, smiling people in their humble homes, we´ve seen it all. We buy food before we get on the bus because it is never clear whether they are going to stop or not and sometimes they don´t! Supplies include fresh Delicious and Granny Smith apples from Washington state, fresh baked Colombian bread, cheese, coca cola and my little silver flask, which is conveniently filled with the local rum. (Still think Flor de Cana Gran Reserva from Nicaragua is the best).

Bogota is a fabulous place!!! We stayed in the old part of the city, with cobblestone and brick streets. With 9 million people, this is a major city. Nice mixture of old and new. Our little hotel room ($17.50 USD for two people) was a delight with hard wood floors, two little beds with FIVE blankets on each one! Yes folks, Bogota is about 10,000 feet above sea level and it´s cold. Did I bring warm clothes? One jacket, one pair of socks, one long-sleeved shirt and the rest tank tops and crop pants. Did I forget about Peru, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and especially Bolivia, where things are really freezing?????? Guess so. Stacy enjoyed the cool weather, but I will definitely have to buy some things to keep me warm in the rest of the trip. We spent some time in Bogota with my ex-brother-in-law Edgar, his wife Nancy and their adorable little one-year old Hannah. We took the bus to Edgar´s house and have to share this little story with you to show you just how kind the people are in Colombia. We gave the bus driver Edgar´s address, which was very far away. In fact, the bus ride took an hour and 25 minutes and we were in the city the whole time!!! The bus driver told us that when we got off we would have to walk six blocks to get to Edgar´s house. Understand that this was a regular, huge city bus. As the ride continued, the sun set and it got dark out. The driver finally announced that we were approaching our stop. However, he didn´t stop! The driver took the big bus off its route and dropped us off right at Edgar´s house! This is the second time in Latin America (the first time was in Granada, Nicaragua) when the bus driver just decided to drive us precisely to where we were going!

Edgar is part of a musical group called K-Y-O who is just becoming famous. I was once watching Latin MTV in my house in Nicaragua and who did I see on a video, but Edgar!!! Now touring all over South America and just finishing up their first U.S. tour in Florida, it was fun talking to him about his rise to fame and watching his music videos because I knew him, Billy and Sammy (the other guys in the band) 12 years ago when they were just young single guys on San Andres Island with a dream. A dream that is just now coming true. They took us up to Cerro de Monserrate, and I don´t want to keep using the words fabulous, wonderful, beautiful, marvelous, fantastic, but I guess sometimes there just aren´t words to describe a place or person. This location is the highest spot in Bogota, so you get to see the city spread out before you, with the mountains surrounding the city. On top of that, there is a church there and everything was decorated for Christmas in such a great way it just made you smile to see it. We went just before sunset, and saw a sky phenomenon we had never seen before. The combination of sun, clouds, shadows, etc. made a striped sky! Hopefully that photo came out. When the lights came on in the city and in the area where we were, it was magnificent! (See? There I go using boring words again.)

The next day we took a walking tour of Bogota by ourselves using our very outdated Lonely Planet guide. The food you ask? Mixed bag in Bogota. The first day we were in a hurry and ate at a local fast food place. We had a Mexican taco and burrito. They were identical. And they were both horrible. We went to another place that seemed to serve us chicken stew from a can, like the kind you buy from Hormell. However, we did manage to find a couple of great places. Right around the corner from our hotel was a French bistro that had a breakfast of eggs and ham, a fresh croissant, delicious Colombian coffee and fresh juice (made from Colombian fruits that we never recognized like Lulo). For our breakfast dessert we each chose a French pastry, from peach tarts to chocolate éclairs and more. All for $5.00! We also found a special place for lunch on our last day called Antigua Santa Fe. We had a typical Colombian soup called Ajaico Santafereno prepared with chicken, three types of potatoes, corn on the cob, shredded chicken, whipped cream, capers, and ¨guascas¨(green leafy vegetable that we couldn´t identify), and a unique hot chocolate that was laced with cinnamon and other spices served with cheese and butter cookies. Great food finally!

Everyone knows that Stacy and I like to go out dancing. Well, we found ourselves in the dancingest (now there´s a good word) country in the world! So we went out dancing the two nights we were there. But it´s our New Year´s eve we have to describe. I´m sure you want to know exactly what we were doing at midnight! Everyone told us that people from Bogota do NOT go out on New Year´s eve. Many, in fact, leave the city for New Year´s and go to Cali or Medellin to party. The others just stay home with their families. We couldn´t believe that people wouldn´t be out dancing on New Year´s. So we put on our fanciest party dresses and went to a place that had been recommended in our book. We got there and there were two couples. Only two couples. The place was big. OK. It was 11:15, surely others would arrive. The DJ was playing great music, the two couples and Stacy and I were dancing. Sometimes we´d dance all together. Then, lo and behold...the door opened and in walked four Colombian National Police, all decked out in uniforms! They stood there watching us, then two of them came over and asked us to dance. They even brought over their bottle of rum for us to drink! So....at the stroke of midnight, Stacy and I were dancing with two of Colombian´s finest....in Bogota! I asked if they were working, they said yes, but they were about to go off duty. They left after awhile to go change their clothes (they said), but we left shortly after and that was the end of that. At midnight everyone in the place (the two couples, the four police, the DJ and the workers all kissed each other and us Happy New Year). Even though we spent the evening with just a few strangers, we had a great, great time! Our theme song for the trip has become the Spanish version of ¨I know I want you, You know you want me, blah blah....Zoombah, blah blah blah Rumbah......¨ that wonderful reggaeton tune that gets everyone jumping!

Bogota is over and it´s off to Cali, working our way to the border with Ecuador. Click here to see the photos from this part of the trip.