Buenos Aires is huge, Huge, HUGE!!! Almost 20 million people they tell us. It is an exciting, edgy city with all the amenities you would ever want. Beautiful, upscale areas, fabulous restaurants, great public transportation including a subway and a train! It appears that a life in this city includes eating wonderful meat dishes, watching soccer games, drinking wine and spending time with friends. For those who love the tango, that is also included. What Buenos Aires also has is “traffic in crisis” (like Los Angeles at rush hour), significant air pollution and a helter-skelter rushing around lifestyle, also much like Los Angeles. And watch out for the dog poops that are left all over the sidewalks and the smoking that is allowed inside almost every building, including the guy sitting next to you at the Internet cafe. But don´t get me wrong...I´m just being honest here. We had a fabulous time in Buenos Aires. It is certainly a city to visit!
We were so fortunate to be staying with our friends Rodrigo (from Mexico) and Florencia (from Argentina) who I had met and befriended in my town of San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua. They describe themselves as a nomadic couple. They make gorgeous jewelry (silver, copper, macramé, etc.) and move around to different countries selling their pieces. They are seeing the world, making lots of friends from all over, and they are two of the nicest people I have ever met! Planning on just staying with them 2-3 nights, we ended up staying 8 nights, totally disrupting their work lives. But to them it wasn´t important. It was all about being with friends and they were wonderful hosts! They introduced us to the San Telmo area where impromptu tango abounds. Pointed us in the direction of a great disco (finally) that played salsa and reggaeton. Hooray! Florencia spent countless hours writing out instructions on which buses, trains or subways to take to get to certain places when they had to work. They were staying on the very outskirts of the city in an area called Liniers, which was an hour and a half by public transportation ($.50 USD by bus or train or a $30 USD cab ride) to the Buenos Aires city center.
And guess who else was there? You´re right! Stacy´s BAAACK!!!! This is the third time our schedules matched and there we were, together again. Stacy had just finished up her trip to the Antarctic and was going back to Buenos Aires to wait for her friends Lyn and Don to arrive. Lyn is also my good friend, in fact, the person who introduced me to Stacy 3 years ago! We thought we would be way past Buenos Aires by the time she got there, but we spent a couple of extra days here and there and arrived the day after she did! We couldn´t see Stacy every day because we were staying so far away, but we did manage to meet for dinner and spend the evening drinking and dancing to live Salsa music in San Telmo, a day and early dinner at a kind of Indian restaurant (I say kind of because it wasn´t exactly an Indian restaurant), and she spent our last day there at Rodrigo´s and Florencia´s for the wonderful famous Argentina Parillada (or grilled meats). I ate blood sausage and intestines!!! Stacy also had fun making new friends in Buenos Aires. Due to conflicting schedules, we were unable to meet any of the new people she met, but we know she had fun with them.
Back to Rodrigo and Florencia. I want to wish them congratulations – they got married on April 7th and unfortunately, we couldn´t be there as we had to move on. But we wish them everything wonderful and know we will see them again, somewhere. I had them make some beautiful pieces for me and the girls (you´ll see them in December Shanna and Talia!). We had the greatest time eating, drinking, spending time with them and getting to know them better. Thanks so much Rodrigo and Florencia!
What other things did we see in Buenos Aires? We saw the cemetery (I was wondering why I would go see a cemetery until I actually SAW the cemetery).... WOW! I´ve never seen anything like it...hope you can get the idea in our photos. We spent a lot of time in the San Telmo area where all the impromptu tango is, also great food. We saw Recoleta, Palermo, lots of parks and spent a whole day in La Boca, fascinating place. Lots of tango there as well, outdoor restaurants, colorful buildings. This is the artists´haven and there are many booths of jewelry, weavings, leather products, etc. Simply a very fun place to be. Colorful, exciting, quirky, my kind of place! We went to lots of artists´fairs, heard lots of music and visited with our friends. While I loved Buenos Aires, I wouldn´t live there because it has many of the exact same things that made me leave the United States. But I certainly see the allure.
While talking to Rodrigo and Florencia, we discovered that you don´t HAVE to go to the Brazil side of the border to see Iguazu Falls. We were avoiding this trip because everyone has to pay $135 USD each to cross the border into Brazil to see the panoramic view of the falls. But the falls are IN Argentina, and you can go to the national park there for an entrance fee of about $20 USD each. PLUS, there was an even more important reason to go...while Stacy and I were talking, we realized that we could be there at the same time! They were flying on the following Monday. We then planned to take the 30-hour train, the half-hour bus from the train station to the other bus, and then the 6-hour bus to arrive in Iguazu Falls ourselves! (Much, much cheaper....) Since Stacy was going there with her friends Lyn and Don, we decided to make it a surprise for Lyn. Daughter Shanna had visited Lyn the weekend before in San Diego and Lyn lamented that it was sad that she was going to Argentina and was going to miss me by only a few days. Originally we were supposed to go to Macchu Pichu together, but couldn´t because it was closed due to flooding. So, Stacy invited us to stay in their two floor apartment with them and we were going to check in first and surprise Lyn. Well, it all worked like a charm. You can´t IMAGINE how surprised she was (but I have a photo to prove it...wait ´till you see it)! We set up a little wine and cheese party to greet them and Stacy knew to let Lyn open the door. There I was on the other side with Josue. She had also heard a lot about him from Stacy so she was doubly happy. We spent the next 3 days with them and if I may speak for all of us, we had a FABULOUS time together! And Don, poor Don, didn´t know a thing about this either. I had met Don a couple of times briefly in San Diego, but I have to say he´s a great guy and I really think he had fun too!
We spent one whole day in Iguazu falls...incredible! We were lucky because it had been an especially wet rainy season and the falls were at their impactful best. Even San Martin was closed and the ecological boat ride because there was too much water. But we didn´t mind. We saw so much that day! The water in Argentina in most places is brown in color, not blue. It´s due to the color of the earth, not to dirt. We took the little boat ride under the falls and got soaked to the skin. You will see all of this in the pictures. We decided that the rather large coatis (kind of like a cross between a rat and a raccoon) that were so cute when we first glimpsed one, were more like pests after we had seen tons of them, sometimes a bunch together. They are too big for that! But the falls thrilled. The piece de resistance was the Devil´s Throat! It appeared to be a HUGE hole that the water rushed into with such force it didn´t even look like water! It looked like the water was going in slow motion, or as Lyn thought, it looked like fur. Whatever, it was spell-binding and the force of the water on that hot, hot day made you kind of feel like jumping in. Thank goodness no one did that, but the water going over the edge was very compelling. And the way the park has situated the catwalks, you are VERY, VERY close to the water. Exciting! We passed a place with a zillion butterflies. You´ll see the photos of that too. I´m not going to go into the details of Stacy´s bee bite, but Don was a hero, and Lyn and Josue and I (and Stacy and Don too) were laughing for hours afterwards! Ask Stacy about this story. She´s the only one who can share it properly. One night we sat by the pool drinking wine and talking. The next night we played a mean game of UNO for about 4 hours, also drinking wine. We thought the fight was between Don and Lyn, but a sneaky Stacy ran right by everyone and won the tournament. I don´t even think I scored. The third night we had a terrific dinner of grilled fish (the 4 kinds of river fish found in the area) and grilled meat (I just HAD to have some more of those intestines!!!). After that we found a disco that played Latin music! HOORAY!!!!! I know everyone was tired and that they stayed there for my sake, but we all danced and I think they all had a great time, even though they are not necessarily used to leaving the bar at 3:30 am. We left after they played my two favorite reggaeton songs, LOW and ZOOMBAH (that´s not the title..I don´t know what the title is, but Pitbull sings it). On Thursday morning we all sadly said good-bye to each other and they returned to Buenos Aires and Josue and I hopped on a 23-hour bus to Salta, Argentina for Semana Santa weekend.
The plan was to see some of Argentina´s lovely northern cities before heading into Bolivia. Salta seemed like a good place since it is one of the most popular vacation destinations for Argentinians. It IS a lovely city....tree-lined streets, great restaurants, lots of upscale shopping for clothes and local artist wares. Nice parks, great people, tons of hotels and hostals. Only it was Semana Santa weekend and we didn´t have reservations. We spent the first two hours after our arrival dragging our luggage throught the streets looking for a place to stay. Every place was full. We were starting to get worried when a dormitory (where we don´t stay unless we have to) said they had two beds. We took those and made the best of it. I guess I´m kind of past the dormitory days. At least it was really cheap. Now that we were close to indigenous Bolivia, suddenly we found that Salta had all sorts of Penas, or folkloric restaurant/bars, so we went out that night and saw a great show with dancers and a folkloric band. Finally!!! Music and dance that I came to South America to see. I told the manager that Josue was also a musician and he got to get up there and play and sing three of his Nicaraguan folksongs. The crowd loved it! We also had a chance to dance as the professional dancers asked us to get up and dance with them. What fun! If I´m dancing, I´m very happy!
The next day surprised us with rain, so we couldn´t go to Cachi and past three mountains that were 22,000 feet high! Everything was shrouded in fog. So I spent 5 hours at the Internet that day working on this blog and selecting photos. Our next stop was Jujuy. Suddenly we were in a different Argentina. In the rest of the country, people are tall, light-skinned and as I said, the place reminded me of the United States. Now, we had arrived at probably the only area in Argentina that had indigenous people. Prices plummeted (that was good), and now we had interesting food choices. We went out to dinner to have chicharron con mote (pig skin with big corn kernels – not the sweet corn we are used to) and peanut soup. Both good. The next day we hopped on a 2-hour bus to another little town, Humahuaca, a completely Quechua town. Now even the architecture had changed. Rather than homes made of wood, brick and stone, all of the structures were made of adobe, so the town has a walled-in feeling. We had a fabulous dinner that night of llama in creamed herb sauce, potatoes in some kind of Andean sauce and a terrific Andean salad....goat cheese, greens, walnuts, tomatoes and bulghur wheat (quinoa in Spanish), which is a big staple in northern Argentina and Bolivia. We weren´t spending a lot of time in these towns because we wanted to get to Bolivia, so the next day we took a two-day trip to Iruya (pronounced ee-ru-zha) because everyone we had met who went to this area recommended this city. The six-hour trip wound around mountains and was all pretty typical desert with saguaro cactus until the last curve. What a picture! Mountains, gullies, and the small town of Iruya tucked into a little valley. It was like we had gone back in time. The town had cobblestoned streets all leading UP, and at a pretty high altitude (of about 3500 meters), all Quechua people and a few tourists. It was a lovely city, but I have to say that there wasn´t much to do there. We had a great dinner of lamb stew and a huge salad and waited for the next day when we could go back to Humahuaca, where they were storing our luggage. Arrived back to Humahuaca the next day and got the bus to the border with Bolivia. All together, we had spent 6 wonderful weeks in Argentina! What a great country! Now let´s see about Bolivia...... To see the photos for this blog, click here.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Argentina Part 2: Patagonia, the END OF THE WORLD and penguins
Well, we took our 30-hour bus ride from El Bolson to el Chaltén! The longest bus ride so far! Crazy thing about the buses. You never know if they are going to provide food or not – even if you ask. The long-distance buses are not chicken buses. They are plush Greyhound-type buses, usually double-decker, with bathroom, fresh coffee (sometimes tea) and semi-cama (reclining seats) or full-cama (seats go all the way down), depending on how much you want to pay. In Ecuador and Peru, these buses were cheap. In Colombia, Chile and Argentina they are not. On some shorter buses (we always take them at night to avoid the additional cost of a hotel, and also to have the daytime to do things), they gave us a snack when we got on, a dinner, and breakfast the next morning. On this super-long bus ride, they gave us NOTHING!!! Thank goodness they made a stop in the small town of Perito Moreno (not the glacier) so we could get something to eat during that time, so we were OK.
We got to El Chaltén at 7 am, too early to get hotels and hostels to open, as we soon found out! And it was extremely cold – the coldest we had experienced so far. We waited out on a bench until about 8:30 am, when we finally got a hotel to let us in. El Chalten looks like a little Swiss village nestled in at the bottom of one of the most dramatic mountain ranges you will ever see – the Fitz Roy! The outline of these mountains serves as the logo for the Patagonia clothing line and was the inspiration of several scenes in The Little Prince, when Antoine Saint Exupéry worked in El Chaltén as a postal worker! Patagonia, and specifically el Chaltén, is known for its trekking opportunities. And we didn´t waste any time. With a few crackers to fortify us (because the restaurants and food stores were not open yet) we took off on our trek through the bottom of the mountain range and Lake Paine. The scenery was spectacular! We walked through grasslands, forests, passes a milky turquoise glacial river, all with unbelievable views of the famous Fitz Roy mountains (see photos). The hike was ONLY 17 miles round trip (yes! I did it!) We ran out of water and didn´t have food except for the crackers and some dulce de leche (caramel) spread. Not smart of us. And strange – we are always prepared! But we made it! Exhausted and with legs hurting us at the end of the day, it was still worth it! We celebrated with a great dinner of grilled chicken and lamb stew with half a pinguino! Pinguino is Spanish for penguin and in this case a pinguino is the house red wine served in a ceramic penguin pitcher.
Our next stop was Calafate, the cute little tourist town that you go to if you want to see the absolutely mind-blowing, more than spectacular Perito Moreno glacier. This is the largest stable (not receding yet) glacier in the world. I had seen plenty of glaciers when I lived in Alaska, but nothing like this!!! Words can´t really describe it and the photos are never as good as the view you see with your very own eyes. We did not go on the tour (we never do). We took the regular bus and spent almost 6 hours gazing at this phenomenon! Thanks to Josue…he managed to capture three great photos of the glacier calving. A huge skyscraper hunk fell off with a deafening roar. We witnessed about eight of those that day and about 50 small ones. The ¨tunnel¨that forms had recently fallen and this year has been declared an active year for the glacier. We brought a nice picnic lunch and so enjoyed our Malbec and sausage and cheese sandwiches with fresh apples and grapes while we continued to stare at this awesome thing. A little bird joined our picnic! Perito Moreno glacier was truly a highlight on the trip so far. Near our hostel in Calafate we found a bird reserve so we took the short hike there to see colonies of flamingos and lots of birds we didn´t know.
Next stop: the END OF THE WORLD, a town called Ushuaia. The hardship of this trip was that the bus left at 3 am! It left at this odd time for the crazy immigration thing that happens. The 13-hour bus ride passes through Chile for a very short distance – and you guessed it – we have to LEAVE Argentina, ENTER Chile, then LEAVE Chile and ENTER Argentina again. We even get a ferry ride with the bus on the ferry! This process (and hauling your stuff on and off the bus) itself takes about 2-3 hours. At one point in the crossing, Josue was called off the bus. We are always worried about his Nicaraguan passport because so far at each border crossing, people say they´ve never had a Nicaraguan cross the border! Every time Josue says he is from Nicaragua to ANYONE, they are shocked. So we didn´t know what they wanted. Apparently, they had not had a Nicaraguan pass through before and asked him where his visa was and where did he pay for it. Well, he doesn´t need a visa and the immigration officials didn´t even know it. They had to look it up! As soon as they realized that, Josue came back on the bus. But that wasn´t the only encounter with the immigration officials. We had bought a ton of food in Argentina and were told we couldn´t pass it through the Chilean border. So we ate as much as we could, but still had apples, peaches, packaged meat and cheese, etc. When we go to the border, I decided it was best to tell the truth. I told the Chilean immigration officer that I had the stuff and he said OK and kept going through the bus. The next thing I knew I was hauled off the bus by another officer and interrogated. I just explained that we had spend our money on food to eat for the trip and since we were going right back into Argentina – we should be able to keep it. They didn´t agree and opened my backback and confiscated everything. Someone was going to have a feast that night. At least they didn´t give me a fine or put me in jail (there was a huge poster of someone holding an apple in his hand while his hands were handcuffed together)!
We got to Ushuaia around 8 pm. It was FREEZING and really windy. We went to the first place we found – a dormitory! We had kitchen privileges, so while we were there we cooked and ate there. Except for one meal. We had tried lamb four times in Patagonia so far (Patagonia is famous for its lamb) and we liked it, but couldn´t say we raved about it. Lamb is SO fatty. But there was a restaurant in Ushuaia that specialized in lamb and served it 20 different ways. We had spit-roasted lamb in orange sauce. It was fabulous! The best we´d had so far! Ushuaia is a port town nestled between some mountains – not the highest we´ve seen so far. But the city is pretty and has one main tourist street and that´s it. Tierra del Fuego is actually an island below the mainland of Argentina and Ushuaia is on the bottom of the island if you look at a map. It is the southernmost city on the planet and is truly the END OF THE WORLD. We planned to trek in Tierra del Fuego National Park the next day, but a bad cold (mine) and a freezing, rainy day stopped us in our tracks. This was the first day of real rain on the whole trip so far, but it poured! So we had to go. At least I can say I went to the END OF THE WORLD.
We left Ushuaia and had to go back through Rio Gallegos in order to head up the east coast of Argentina. Rio Gallegos is the second biggest city in Argentina. It is a regular city, so there is nothing much to take note of except that there was a disco two doors from our hotel and it played Latin music! The first we had seen in Argentina!!! HOORAY! This disco, called Metropolis, only played cumbia and merengue, but hey! We were happy. Of course we couldn´t go until 2 am, so we had to sleep in the evening and wake up at 1:30 in order to get ready to go. Crazy hours! Had a great time dancing though.
After Rio Gallegos we headed for Trelew and the Punta Tomba penguin reserve. This particular reserve has the largest colony of penguins outside of Antarctica. It was the end of the season and just before the penguins leave for colder places, but we were lucky to see so many. Everyone supposes that penguins are cute birds, and we weren´t disappointed. They are! They seem to have personalities. Some of them didn´t like people and would waddle away when we approached. But others were more curious and would actually walk up to us and turn their heads this way and that to get a good look at us. We enjoyed our day at the penguin reserve. We also saw wild Guanacos (an Argentinian llama). After that, we drove to a small Welsh (that´s right!) town called Gaiman. This pretty place was known for its tea houses and high tea ritual. So that´s where we went…to have tea and cakes. Yummy, but way too many sweets! We were buzzing for hours after with all that sugar. The next day we boarded a 22-hour bus to Buenos Aires, where my friends Rodrigo and Florencia and (yep, you guessed it!) Stacy (who was returning from her trip) were waiting for us. Click here to see photos of this section.
We got to El Chaltén at 7 am, too early to get hotels and hostels to open, as we soon found out! And it was extremely cold – the coldest we had experienced so far. We waited out on a bench until about 8:30 am, when we finally got a hotel to let us in. El Chalten looks like a little Swiss village nestled in at the bottom of one of the most dramatic mountain ranges you will ever see – the Fitz Roy! The outline of these mountains serves as the logo for the Patagonia clothing line and was the inspiration of several scenes in The Little Prince, when Antoine Saint Exupéry worked in El Chaltén as a postal worker! Patagonia, and specifically el Chaltén, is known for its trekking opportunities. And we didn´t waste any time. With a few crackers to fortify us (because the restaurants and food stores were not open yet) we took off on our trek through the bottom of the mountain range and Lake Paine. The scenery was spectacular! We walked through grasslands, forests, passes a milky turquoise glacial river, all with unbelievable views of the famous Fitz Roy mountains (see photos). The hike was ONLY 17 miles round trip (yes! I did it!) We ran out of water and didn´t have food except for the crackers and some dulce de leche (caramel) spread. Not smart of us. And strange – we are always prepared! But we made it! Exhausted and with legs hurting us at the end of the day, it was still worth it! We celebrated with a great dinner of grilled chicken and lamb stew with half a pinguino! Pinguino is Spanish for penguin and in this case a pinguino is the house red wine served in a ceramic penguin pitcher.
Our next stop was Calafate, the cute little tourist town that you go to if you want to see the absolutely mind-blowing, more than spectacular Perito Moreno glacier. This is the largest stable (not receding yet) glacier in the world. I had seen plenty of glaciers when I lived in Alaska, but nothing like this!!! Words can´t really describe it and the photos are never as good as the view you see with your very own eyes. We did not go on the tour (we never do). We took the regular bus and spent almost 6 hours gazing at this phenomenon! Thanks to Josue…he managed to capture three great photos of the glacier calving. A huge skyscraper hunk fell off with a deafening roar. We witnessed about eight of those that day and about 50 small ones. The ¨tunnel¨that forms had recently fallen and this year has been declared an active year for the glacier. We brought a nice picnic lunch and so enjoyed our Malbec and sausage and cheese sandwiches with fresh apples and grapes while we continued to stare at this awesome thing. A little bird joined our picnic! Perito Moreno glacier was truly a highlight on the trip so far. Near our hostel in Calafate we found a bird reserve so we took the short hike there to see colonies of flamingos and lots of birds we didn´t know.
Next stop: the END OF THE WORLD, a town called Ushuaia. The hardship of this trip was that the bus left at 3 am! It left at this odd time for the crazy immigration thing that happens. The 13-hour bus ride passes through Chile for a very short distance – and you guessed it – we have to LEAVE Argentina, ENTER Chile, then LEAVE Chile and ENTER Argentina again. We even get a ferry ride with the bus on the ferry! This process (and hauling your stuff on and off the bus) itself takes about 2-3 hours. At one point in the crossing, Josue was called off the bus. We are always worried about his Nicaraguan passport because so far at each border crossing, people say they´ve never had a Nicaraguan cross the border! Every time Josue says he is from Nicaragua to ANYONE, they are shocked. So we didn´t know what they wanted. Apparently, they had not had a Nicaraguan pass through before and asked him where his visa was and where did he pay for it. Well, he doesn´t need a visa and the immigration officials didn´t even know it. They had to look it up! As soon as they realized that, Josue came back on the bus. But that wasn´t the only encounter with the immigration officials. We had bought a ton of food in Argentina and were told we couldn´t pass it through the Chilean border. So we ate as much as we could, but still had apples, peaches, packaged meat and cheese, etc. When we go to the border, I decided it was best to tell the truth. I told the Chilean immigration officer that I had the stuff and he said OK and kept going through the bus. The next thing I knew I was hauled off the bus by another officer and interrogated. I just explained that we had spend our money on food to eat for the trip and since we were going right back into Argentina – we should be able to keep it. They didn´t agree and opened my backback and confiscated everything. Someone was going to have a feast that night. At least they didn´t give me a fine or put me in jail (there was a huge poster of someone holding an apple in his hand while his hands were handcuffed together)!
We got to Ushuaia around 8 pm. It was FREEZING and really windy. We went to the first place we found – a dormitory! We had kitchen privileges, so while we were there we cooked and ate there. Except for one meal. We had tried lamb four times in Patagonia so far (Patagonia is famous for its lamb) and we liked it, but couldn´t say we raved about it. Lamb is SO fatty. But there was a restaurant in Ushuaia that specialized in lamb and served it 20 different ways. We had spit-roasted lamb in orange sauce. It was fabulous! The best we´d had so far! Ushuaia is a port town nestled between some mountains – not the highest we´ve seen so far. But the city is pretty and has one main tourist street and that´s it. Tierra del Fuego is actually an island below the mainland of Argentina and Ushuaia is on the bottom of the island if you look at a map. It is the southernmost city on the planet and is truly the END OF THE WORLD. We planned to trek in Tierra del Fuego National Park the next day, but a bad cold (mine) and a freezing, rainy day stopped us in our tracks. This was the first day of real rain on the whole trip so far, but it poured! So we had to go. At least I can say I went to the END OF THE WORLD.
We left Ushuaia and had to go back through Rio Gallegos in order to head up the east coast of Argentina. Rio Gallegos is the second biggest city in Argentina. It is a regular city, so there is nothing much to take note of except that there was a disco two doors from our hotel and it played Latin music! The first we had seen in Argentina!!! HOORAY! This disco, called Metropolis, only played cumbia and merengue, but hey! We were happy. Of course we couldn´t go until 2 am, so we had to sleep in the evening and wake up at 1:30 in order to get ready to go. Crazy hours! Had a great time dancing though.
After Rio Gallegos we headed for Trelew and the Punta Tomba penguin reserve. This particular reserve has the largest colony of penguins outside of Antarctica. It was the end of the season and just before the penguins leave for colder places, but we were lucky to see so many. Everyone supposes that penguins are cute birds, and we weren´t disappointed. They are! They seem to have personalities. Some of them didn´t like people and would waddle away when we approached. But others were more curious and would actually walk up to us and turn their heads this way and that to get a good look at us. We enjoyed our day at the penguin reserve. We also saw wild Guanacos (an Argentinian llama). After that, we drove to a small Welsh (that´s right!) town called Gaiman. This pretty place was known for its tea houses and high tea ritual. So that´s where we went…to have tea and cakes. Yummy, but way too many sweets! We were buzzing for hours after with all that sugar. The next day we boarded a 22-hour bus to Buenos Aires, where my friends Rodrigo and Florencia and (yep, you guessed it!) Stacy (who was returning from her trip) were waiting for us. Click here to see photos of this section.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, January 29, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, January 18, 2010
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.
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.
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