Beth y Mike's Gran Viaje

That's all folks

2005-06-21T10:53:00.000-04:00

Thanks so much for reading the blog and keeping up with our trip - I think this worked out as a great way to tell people about what we were doing as well as to keep something of a journal for us to keep.

Hope eveyone enjoyed what they read...

Mike and Beth

Coming Home

2005-06-21T10:43:00.000-04:00

We finally did it. We made it home (albeit 2 weeks ago - I'm a bit delayed on the post writing)! We can officially declare the trip a successful, incredible, and amazing experience. With the exception of the banana protesters, which really wasn't that huge a deal, we had no real problems on the trip. We both only had a stomach problem once and had no problems with robberies, late or missing busses, major delays, shady characters.... nothing! Its amazing - you barely live in the US for 4 months without having some issues. I don't even know that we ever felt like we were walking into shady territory - no danger issues at all.

Anyway, the flight home was relatively uneventful. We had a quick flight from Quito to Guayaquil, a large city on the coast where most international flights seem to take off and leave from... that flight was scheduled for an hour and we landed 30 minutes early! After an hour or so layover, we took off for New York on time and landed early enough that we made it through customs and were leaving the airport by the time the plane was scheduled to land. Not a bad way to end the trip.

We got home Wednesday the 8th at about 11pm and proceeded to do things like take hot showers, drink water straight from the tap, open the fridge and eat some of the abundance of food, and speak with locals in English - all novelties after such a long trip. We woke up the next morning and got Beth down to her parents house (I unfortunately missed Matt's graduation from Harvard Law) in time to pack and get down to school by Sunday. She started Arch classes on Monday - only 4 days to decompress and reflect, certainly not enough. As for me, I have been hanging out at home, planning out how to move our stuff from Cali to VA and other assorted things like that. I leave tomorrow for a trip to VEGAS, which should be excellent, although quite different from our trip to SA.

Anyway... that's about it. We're done!

Chao,
mike.

Back to Quito

2005-06-15T12:59:00.000-04:00

We returned to Quito on Sunday (June 5) to spend our last days relaxing, tying up loose ends, and of course, visiting the ecuator! We stayed at a hostel called The Secret Garden, a very gringofied hostel, but a nice way to finish up. The roof is a giant deck looking over Old Town Quito and the hostel has figured out all of the things that make a hostal nice (free purified water, clean bathrooms with soap and TP, nice breakfast of eggs, etc...). We spent Sunday travelling from Otavalo and then just walking around the city a bit.

Monday was a bit more interesting - we went to the ecuator, which was quite an experience... cheesy, but really interesting. We took a few local busses to get there - a total ride of about an hour and half. There is a huge park at the site where the French calculated the site of the ecuator hundreds of years ago... the park has a huge monument, a number of small museums, and LOTS of craft shops and restaurants. After spending about an hour in the park, we left to go to the site of the REAL ecuator (the french were off by 300m, but they don't tell you that in the main park). The real ecuator park is pretty small and is behind... but what they lack in glammour, they make up for by having cool science experiments. You get to test the coriolis effect, balance an egg on a nail head, and see all sorts of sun clocks. We also got to see a shruken head and a poster with the 10 steps to shrink a head.

Our last full day in Quito was pretty uneventful - we walked around Old Town Quito for the morning and then went to a Turkish bathhouse to steam and sauna and jacuzzi for the afternoon. And thats it. Our last day!

I'll write about the flight home a bit later.

mike.

Leaving the Farm and Otavalo

2005-06-15T12:53:00.000-04:00

We left the farm on Saturday morning (June 4th) and took the bus back to Otavalo... the ride was pretty uneventful, except for the fact that I had to stand for about an hour and I was a freaking giant. I was next to a few indiginous people who must have been at most 5 feet tall. It was definately good for my self esteem.

Anyway, Otavalo was a pretty great town. On Saturdays, they have this giant crafts fair there... and I mean giant. They actually have other stuff for the locals - animal and food markets - but we spent most of our time at the crafts fair. The town itself is known for its weavings, so you see lots of sweaters, tablecloths, hats, etc... And everything is gorgeous. We probably spent about 3 hours wandering around the stalls and topping off our souvenirs - we still had a few family members to buy for. We spent the rest of the day in an internet cafe, catching up on the 3 weeks of email that we missed while on the farm... its amazing how 3 hours of emailing can get really tiring.

We grabbed a quick bite to eat before falling asleep pretty early (hey, we were still on farm time)...

mike.

Our life on the farm

2005-06-04T18:43:00.000-04:00

Life on the farm was good - no complaining from us!

First, we lived in this amazing house on the farm that the owner (Jose) had Patricio build for him. It is a more or less circular house, built out of wood with all of the structure exposed on the inside. There are two levels, on with living area and a bedroom with bunkbeds and an upstairs with a large bedroom and balcony. The whole place was very bright and open - a great place to relax after work. The only complaint about the living was the fact that there was a veritable roach motel in the place. It was infested with cochroaches.... that and the shower was cold, but that wasn't bad as it was pretty hot during the day.

The days weren't too bad - our daily schedule was something like this:
7:30 - breakfast
8-12 work
12 - lunch
12:30-1:30 break time (its too hot to work in the day - that and lunch is huge! and you need to digest)
1:30-4 work
4-6:30 free time
6:30 dinner
7 on free time

We usually went to bed by 9 and woke up between 6 and 7 with the sun, which was really nice. Beth did yoga for an hour or more most mornings, which made her really happy.

In terms of work, we did a little of everything - they were good at keeping things varied so we didn't get bored - we weeded small plants, we weeded with a hoe for bigger plants, we planted yuca, we picked oranges, we dug holes for bamboo supports, we made a bed to plant bamboo plants in, we put compost on plants, we built a garden, we picked and cleaned coffee, we shucked beans out of a pod (1000s of them), we rebuilt a dirt wall that had collapsed in the rain, etc... Everything. Some days were pretty darn hard, leaving us exhausted for the rest of teh day, while some others were pretty chill, with not much harder than weeding small beds of plants and picking oranges.

The food was amazing - we are both amazed with Irma's cooking considering where she lives, what she has to cook with (in terms of food and pots), and her variety in recipes with 5 base ingredients. Breakfast and lunch almost never repeated - breakfast was anything from fresh milk and fry bread to avena to tea to empanadas, lunch was usually rice and beans of some sort, sometimes with a bit of meat (chicken, usually), with a side of fried plantains or a salsa or salad of some sort, while dinner was always a soup. Even the soups varied - some with yuca, some potatoes, some with carrots or onions, etc.... and always with ají (chile pepper).

When we had time to relax, we generally read and played cards - I read every book we had, including some terrible books in english that were already there. Beth, luckily, reads a bit slower than me and still had a bit left in a good book when we came back... Beth also drew, wrote in her journal, did yoga, etc...

The only really notable story from the farm is that Irma got sick for a few days and the two of them had to leave for a few days, making us the caretakers. We had to chase the pigs into their pens and feed them, we had to make food for ourselveds (which was far harder than it sounds), etc... it was quite a few days. Luckily the farm never burned down!

Anway, my butt is starting to hurt from sitting in front of the computer for too long.

More later!

mike.

The farm...

2005-06-04T18:29:00.000-04:00

The farm itself was amazing in many ways. It was in the middle of a cloud forest in the Andes, which means that there was often afternoon clouds just over our heads (think San Francisco), we were in the mountains, and you can grow tons of tropical fruits. The farm itself was also in the middle of nowhere - the closest phone to make international calls was 1 hour away by bus - the one time we went there, they only had 2 $5 phone cards and that was it.... After that, the next phone was 4 hours by bus. Talk about being out there!

Generally speaking, the farm is owned by Jose Cueva, who lives in Ecuador and works with organic farms in general, although we never met him, so I don't know exactly what he does. Day to day, the farm is run by Patricio and Irma, who live on the farm, work there, oversee the workers (when there are any) and the volunteers.

The farm is pretty small - 17 acres in all and 100% organic. They mostly grow fruits, but have a little of everything there:
Pineapple, oranges, mandarins, pitahaya (I don't know what this is either, it wasn't in season), coffee, mangos, papaya, yuca, beans, canaballa (used to fertilize other plants), corn, plantains, 3 pigs, 3 cows, chickens, and guinnea pigs.

In terms of work, Patricio and Irma were the only permanent workers... Patricio in the fields and Irma handled the cooking, animals, and anything around the house. For the first week we were there, some cousins were there to work, but it sounds like they only come for a few weeks here and there, several times a year. Aside from that, the only workers are volunteers. While we were there, there was one other volunteer... the day before we left another showed up. It sounds like they have at least one volunteer about 50-70% of the time.

Needless to say, there are basically no power tools on the farm with the exception of a weed wacker - all tilling, plowing, weeding, etc... is done by hand and sweat. Also, I would say that most of the food that we ate on the farm was grown there. They did buy some vegetables from the truck that came around once a week, but mostly we consisted on what they grew there (and rice and beans).

thats about it for description of the farm... now for a description of our work there...

mike.

Getting to the farm

2005-06-04T18:21:00.000-04:00

So getting to the farm was one of the better bus adventures that we have had. We stayed in Quito for a night, taking a 7:30am bus out the next morning to Otavalo, a small city about 2 hours north of Quito (more on Otavalo later - it has an amazing crafts market). As soon as we got to the bus station, we bought a ticket for the 10am bus to Garcia Morena, the closest pueblo to the farm. Well... we got on the bus and we really went into the middle of nowhere.

The bus wound its way through the Andes on a dirt road, dropping about 3000 feet over 4 hours... We went through one or two small pueblos over the course of the trip - really nothing at all but mountainous farmland.

Our directions to the farm were something like this: take the farm towards Garcia Moreno, get off at "La Playa de Garcia Moreno", just before you start going uphill to Garcia. There will be a small store there painted red, with a coca cola sign. Take the road to the left, walk 1km and you will find the farm through a bamboo gate. If you get lost, ask for Jose's farm. Wow. That's pretty rough, considering there are random stores every 5 to 10 miles and all of them have a coca cola sign. The bus was also packed with people in the aisles, on the roof, etc... and we were in the last row of the bus. We only made it there by the kindness of a lady sitting next to beth who pointed our stop out to us (we would have never found it!)... and the bus was so packed, that we had to open the window next to me and climb out the window to get out. Talk about an entrance to the farm.

Sure enough, when we got off the bus we asked for Jose's farm and were pointed in teh right direction! What a trip though... clibming out the back of a bus in the middle of no where at the store with the coke sign.

mike.

Off to the farm

2005-05-14T15:21:00.000-04:00

This will probably be the last post for a while ... early this morning we arrived in Quito and we plan to leave for the farm early tomorrow morning. Don't know how accessible internet will be from there, but I'm assuming it involves a mile or so walk and possibly a 4 hour bus ride. Our official return date to the US is Wednesday, June 8.

We should be harvesting coffee in a matter of a few days!

Hasta luego,
M & B

Cuenca, Ecuador - the unexpected stop

2005-05-14T15:20:00.000-04:00

So we fled to Cuenca following our banana protester incident, the third largest city in Ecuador. It's a good sized city in the Andes, with lots of colonial Spanish architecture, very similar in appearance to Cuzco but minus the irritating tourist-stalkers selling post cards or shoving restaurant menus in your face every 10 paces. Hence we really like Cuenca.

We stopped at a good hostal called El Monestario, which had a great city view from the kitchen and cable TV in the rooms, although so far the beds in Ecuador have been more like slabs of plywood covered by a sheet. That afternoon we just did some shopping, got rubber boots for the farm, etc. We ate a great Quechua cultural center, the indigenous people of the Andes in this area, where they served a 3 course native lunch for $1.50 each. We then went to an enormous local food market with produce and meats - walking the rows of the meat vendors always gives me the creeps - heads of pigs, cow hooves cut off at the ankle in stacks, unidentifiable organs ... the best was the lady selling 'cuy' which is a local delicacy, spit roasted guiney pig, complete with head, tail, and little guiney pig legs. About the least appetizing thing I've seen - it pushes the limits of my curiosity to try new foods. We got a bunch of produce (at gringo prices I'm sure), and we made a great veggie and rice stir fry for dinner.

The next day we packed up from the hostal and spent the rest doing errands - the highlight was visiting a Panama Hat factory. Apparently Cuenca is the center of the Panama Hat trade in Ecuador - we got to see each step, how they are woven by hand (the finest ones take months to make just one hat), bleached, molded into shape, etc. Really fascinating. Later I got my ice cream fix from an enormous sundae and we had 'New York' pizza for dinner - not a bad attempt but nothing near the real thing.

All in all it was great to be detoured to Cuenca - we would have otherwise missed a great city!

Beth

Getting Stuck in the Middle of Nowhere

2005-05-14T14:51:00.000-04:00

After Machu Picchu, we basically had to get up to Quito, Ecuador as soon as possible so that we could spend the rest of our trip volunteering on an organic farm near there. To get from Cusco to Quito, you more or less have to get to Lima first and then get to Quito (even if you fly, you fly through Lima). To avoid several 30+ hour bus rides in a row, we decided to fly to Lima, which only cost about $100 and then bus it up to Quito.

The plane ride went smoothly - we said goodbye to Rebecca at the airport and then grabbed a bus straight from Lima to Quito the next afternoon - it was scheduled to be about 36 hours, our longest yet. (A side note - the bus company that we took, Ormeño, has 2 guinness book records for the longest scheduled bus routes, both >100 hours and through 3 or 4 countries). Anyway... everything was going fine - we hit the 24 hour mark or so with little problems except for sore asses. We crossed the border and started to make our way into Ecuador when suddenly the bus backed up about a half a mile. The driver came into the back and explained that there were roadblocks and that we couldn't pass unless everyone paid $10. We debated this for a while, but before we actually had to pay, the army showed up, opened up the road for everyone and we got to pass. The roadblock was basically a huge pile of rocks covering 3/4 of the road and a truck covering the rest... I guess the truck moved when you paid.

So we passed two roadblocks like this before hitting the small town of Cambio... and this was a really small town... a main square, a few stores (internet and telephone places, of course) and restaurants, and that was about it. There wasn't too much going on in this town. When we hit the town, the driver stopped, said there was another road block and he didn't know when it would open. We should just chill out until things blow over, which could be in an hour, could be in a day, or could be in a week. Shit. This was about 5pm, 27 hours into the trip. So we ate dinner, used the internet a bit, read in the park, chatted with our busmates (we were the only gringos there), etc... Finally, we hit the sack (or tried to, but people talked on the bus the WHOLE night) in the REALLY REALLY REALLY hot and humid bus (no AC when the bus is off).

We woke up at 7am with nothing much doing in the way of clearing the roadblock and the driver still knew nothing. At this point, Beth and I decided to take some sort of action and took a cab to the local airport to see if we could fly out. The airport of course was jammed and the only way you could fly was by hiring a local pilot and a 5 seater - right... cross that option off. We then tried to walk across the roadblocks, but they had moved by the time we got there and would have required about 3-4 miles of walking with all of our stuff and uncertainty throughout. So we found a hostal in the local city (Machala) and holed up for the night. We actually had cable tv, which was great, and had some good chinese food nearby (go figure). By the next morning, the protesters had reach a settlement and the roads opened up. We grabbed a bus to Cuenca, a city in the mountains just in case protests started again on the way to Quito.

The protests, it turned out, were from the banana workers, who thought they weren't getting paid enough per box picked. The scant details we heard were that the boxes are sold for $5-8, but the workers are paid <$1 per box. We never heard what the settlement was.

Anyway, we are safe and sound now, but man... 40+ hours on the bus sucks!

Chao,
mike.

Machu Picchu

2005-05-14T14:49:00.000-04:00

So it is true what they say - seeing Machu Picchu really is a unmatchable experience, but I think so almost moreso for the natural setting than for the city itself. The mountains are green and jagged, and very dramatic, shooting up at steep grades all around the city. The city itself is built on the granite outcroppings at the top of a mountain, and each stone was literally carved out of the quarry right there. A few of the roofs have been reconstructed to show how they were during the period (thatched with a strawlike grass) but most buildings are roofless. The first closer view we had after the Sun Gate is from the Guard House, which is the famous view immortalized on every Peruvian postcard.
After the obligatory group photos, our tour guide Ozzy took us on a few hour tour through the ruins. He really loves to talk - a few people in the group could have done without quite so much commentary but I think it was interesting. I guess after hiking for 4 days straight you don't really want to listen to 2 hours of lecture! But we learned more about the history of the Incas, the different construction methods, and we saw various items of note like a 'sundial' like calendar and compasses made precisely out of stone. The terracing down the sides of the mountain was unbelieveable - and apparently only 60% of the city if actually uncovered. The rest is covered in forest, but they have decided not to uncover it as the forest aids in erosion control.

Some brave souls from the group went off for another 2 hour trek up Huayni Picchu, the small peak just behind the ruins. It is supposed to be a really steep, hairy climb which I would have been the first to do, but since I was still recovering from whatever bug I picked up along the way, we chilled out at the ruins instead. We incredibly ran into Vivienne Slack - a girl from the UK that we got to know in our language school in Santiago! It's a small world no matter what part of it you're in.

We hopped a bus down the mountain to Aguas Calientes, a town whose only purpose is to cater to Machu Picchu bound or returning tourists. There we had a final lunch with the group, Mike and Rebecca took a dip in the hot springs while I rested, and at 4pm we all took a 'Backpacker' class train 4 1/2 hours back to Cuzco. Only on a train full of hungry post-hiking gringos can you sell a can of Pringles for $6 US and get away with it!

That night a bunch from our group, no doubt led by the Irish contingent, met at the local gringo Irish bar to complete the 24 hour stretch since the 4am rise that morning. Mike and Rebecca made it out, and of course Rebecca shamed everyone with her stellar late night rallying for which she is famously known.

The sick one,
Beth

Inca Trail Days 3 and 4

2005-05-11T16:39:00.000-04:00

Day 3, we woke up 6am for another up and down hike. We had already hit the peak of our hike at 4200 meters, but we still had to start the day with a climb from 3600 meters to 4000 meters and then some up and down before decending from 3600 meters to 2700 meters at the end of the day. After some coca tea and a nice omlette breakfast, we headed up the first part of the hike. Luckily, Beth was feeling a bit better this morning (although still not great), so we made it up the first pass without much of a problem. The views from the top were pretty spectacular - you could finally see towards where we started and you could begin to see where the hike ended (although that was still around another mountain). We hung out at the top of this pass for a while, waiting for the back of the group - after hiking off of the pass, we saw the best Inca ruins we had seen to date - Sayacmarca. This site was pretty incredible, mostly because of its location on a granite outcrop on a steep cliff. We spent about 30 minutes here talking the location, the probable use of the site, the architecture, etc....

After the ruins, we hiked about 15 minute to another incredible lunch (sauteed eggplant for the vegis!) before heading off to the second pass of the day. Getting to this pass wasn't such a rough hike and it gave us our first views of the Machu Picchu mountain, although you can't actually see the city until you are there (the mountain next to the city is named Machu Picchu, the city itself is named the city of xxx). The end of the day was pretty rough - we decended 900 meters (almost 3000 feet) in about 4 miles, which was a pretty steep and rough hike - we were all pretty exhausted by the end... the porters, on the other hand, RAN down all of the stairs and amazingly didn't get the slightest bit of hurt. These guys were incredible.

After making it down to the last campsite - know as the Trekkers Hostal (hot showers, beer, etc...), we took a quick hike over to Wiñay Wayna, another Inca farming area - this one had a huge number of farming terraces dug into the mountain - another good warm up to Machu Picchu. We spent the rest of the evening chilling out in the tents, getting showers, drinking a few beers, etc.... before dinner. Immediately after dinner, we had the porter ceremony, where they FINALLY introduced us to the guys that were doing everything for us. We all put in together an gave them a nice tip for all of their help. I only wish we could have been introduced earlier.

Day 4 - after a night of boozing (most people hit the hay early, but some stayed up pretty late), we had to get up at 4am. Of course the wake up call was met with coca tea (can you start a day without it?). After a quick breakfast, we were off... we hiked about 1.5 hours to the Sun Gate, the classic hikers entrace to the park. The gate itself wasn't that interesting - I think it is only a good place to be during the two solstices, when the sun goes through the gate and hits the Temple of the Sun in the city before hitting anything else. For us, it was a nice viewpoint, but a bit far away. After a bit of sunrise watching, we headed down to Machu Picchu itself for picture taking, a tour, etc... We have some amazing shots that I can't wait to share with people. We'll write a bit more about Machu Picchu itself in another post.

Chao,
mike.

Inca Trail Days 1 and 2

2005-05-11T16:26:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone - I've been slacking and letting Mike do all of the blogging lately. So here's a female take on the Inca Trail.

We started on Tuesday morning by leaving our hostal at 5:30am to meet the rest of the hikers at the tour office at 6am sharp. The night before we had a briefing of what to bring, what the hike would be like, etc. We loaded into a bus - there were 16 total hikers in our group which is apparently the maximum size, including 2 guides. (That doesn't include the team of 22 porters and cooks who came along with us.) Our lead guide was named Oswald (Ozzy) and his assistant was Henry. And get this, the cook's name was Boris. All native Peruvians. We asked and yes, all the names were original given names, not just changed for the ease of tourists. Boris?

Ozzy studied tourism and learned English in the UK so he had a very interesting accent somewhere between British, Australian and Latin American. Turned out that he was a fabulous guide, extremely knowledgable and very concerned for everyone's well being. It was a very professional guide service in general, although more pricey than many of the others.

We drove about 2 1/2 hours to the trailhead, called Kilometer 82. Of our group, only 4 of us planned to carry our own packs instead of hiring porters, so the porters loaded up with everyone's gear and we headed off hiking. A quick mention for the porters - these truly are amazing men - they carry over 25 kilos (50+ pounds) each with makeshift backpacks out of rope and rice sacks, and they hike in sandals. And because they have everything set up for us before we arrive at camp (dining tables, tents, etc.) they quite literally run past hikers on the trail. Here we are huffing and puffing our way up a steep pass and a porter whizzes by you carrying a full propane tank on his back.

The first day of hiking was quite easy, about 10 km in all and about 6 hours of hiking. We stopped for lunch along the way and had our first taste of the bounty of food that we would get at each meal. There was a mess tent set up for us with tables, chairs, and yes, tablecloths. And the platters of food just kept coming - soup, veggies, rice, pasta, meat, bread, dessert, and coca tea. Truly unbelievable. We moved on to camp for the night and made it in just before dark, and of course our tents were already set up for us.

The unfortunate turn of events is that after Mike recovered in time from his bad chicken experience, I got sick on the first day of the trail and continued to be in bad shape for all 4 days more or less. Not sure what I ate, but I'm definitely more paranoid now than before with food. I had to sit out on dinner but the cook made me a natural remedy tea of mint and celery for stomach problems. That and a lot of Pepto got me through the rest of the trip, although I ended up hiring a porter to carry my pack for days 2 and 3 of the trail. That just hurt my pride more than anything else!

Day 2 of the trail is the infamous one - there is a pass called 'Dead Woman's Pass' (only because the mountain is shaped like a woman laying on her back, nothing creepier than that) that rises 1200 meters above camp, to a total of about 14,000 feet in elevation. It takes about 5 hours to ascend and is known for winding even experienced hikers. Not a good day for me to feel out of sorts. But we made it to the pass about one hour after the rest of the group, rested at the top for another hour, and took pictures. The view from the pass was amazing - we had views of some of the 6000 m snowcapped peaks in the area. After the rest we then descended for another 2 hours or so down steep stone steps into camp. Most of the group had made it in and had already taken cold showers - I'm very amazed with people's dedication to cleanliness in the woods! I skipped the cold shower in lieu of more resting in my warm sleeping bag. That night apparently the group tried to get the cook drunk on a bottle of whiskey that some of the Irish hikers carried up.

A few words about the group - with the exception of one, we were team USA (specifically team San Francisco) and team Ireland. There were 5 Irish on the tour, 10 Americans who either live or lived at one time in SF, and one Swiss girl as the neutral party. Team Ireland certainly won points for volume of alcohol consumed and jokes told, but team USA carried more of our own packs and took less showers. Wussy Irish.

Beth

Inca Trail, background

2005-05-11T16:13:00.000-04:00

First a little background: The Incas (actually Quechuas, but everyone refers to them as the Incas) were the last culture around in the Andes before the Spanish came and took over South America. One of the things that the Incas did when they conquered much of the Andean region of SA is they created a large number of roads between their cities, now collectively known as the Inca Trails. The most famous section of the Inca Trail is the section that runs from near Cusco to Machu Picchu (more on Machu Picchu in a minute)... this 49 kilometer section of trail is a very frequent tourist destination - generally groups hike the trail over 4 days, 3 nights. To keep the trail clean, etc ..., you have to hike with an organized group, which usually means that you are paying a lot and are in a group of 10-16 people. Also, there are 500 other people on your section of trail every day (500 people may start everyday, so there are about 2000 people hiking in al). The big advantage to going in a group is they organize and carry just about everything for you - a huge team of porters ( >1 for every hiker) carries all of your gear and food up the mountain, sets everything up for you, cooks for you, and cleans up the campsite after you. I can't say enough about how hard these guys work.

Anyway - the goal of the hike is Machu Picchu (pronounce Ma chu Peak Chu - apparantly ma chu pea chu, the common pronunciation, means little penis in Quechua), the "lost" city of the Incas. As far as we understand, when the Spanish were invading, the Incas abandoned Machu Picchu so the spanish wouldn't find it (and turn it into a spanish colonial city, just like every other city here!)... In 1911, an archeologist from Yale heard rumors of the city from locals and through persistent exploring and asking around, re-found the city for Western culture (there were a few people living in parts of the city still). Today, it is one of the most visited archeological sights in the world, etc.... It really is an amazing place to look at (especially after hiking for 4 days).

Thats it for background - now read the posts!
mike.

The arrival of Rebecca!

2005-05-08T18:39:00.000-04:00

Rebecca (beth used to work with her at Deloitte) came down on Sunday to hike the Inca trail with us. Unfortunately, with my sickness we really just hung out around the hostel for 2 days and walked around the main area a bit... I was too out of commission to do much else. Anyway, we'll write more about the Inca Trail soon...

(Rebecca actually left with us today (I'm writing from Lima at this point) - it was great to see her for a few days, being that we aren't heading back to SF when we get back).

Did I ever mention that we are going to UVA again this fall for Law and Arch school?

Chao,
mike.

Pollo Malo

2005-05-08T18:36:00.000-04:00

Yuck... the first bad bout of sickness finally hit us... I woke up last Sunday at 5am puking my guts out. As far as I can tell, I got food poisoning, and a bad case of it. I was out of commission all day Sunday and felt pretty bad most of monday. The worst part about the whole thing is that we were scheduled to start the Inca Trail (a 4 day hike to Machu Picchu) on Tuesday. Luckily I got better before the hike and had no problems.

We're chalking up the illness to bad chicken.

mike.

Rafting

2005-05-07T19:57:00.000-04:00

We took a full day rafting trip on the Uribambi river, just outside of Cusco... the trip was excellent! We left at about 9am with our guides, an Israeli family, and a guy from England. The car ride took about 2 hours, including getting stuck in a huge mud pit and getting some local people to bail us out with a tractor. We finally got on the river, wet suits and all, at about noon. The rafting was tons of fun - we had 7 people in a large raft with another raft in front of us in case anyone fell out along the way. We navigated class 2 and 3 rapids for about 2 hours, switching places a few times. I headed to the front of the boat for about 40 minutes and got more water on me than I bargained for - every wave you hit SOAKS the person in front.

The driver met us at the destination with a nice lunch - we lounged by the river for about an hour eating and soaking up the sun before returning to our hostel to chill for the evening.

Chao,
mike.

Cuzco, part I

2005-05-07T19:46:00.000-04:00

We got to Cusco (I don't really know how to spell it properly - it is different everywhere) at about 6am and took one of the many fighting taxi drivers to a hostel. After napping for a while, we poked around the city, which is quite amazing. It makes Salta, Argentina look like it doesn't have that much colonial architecture - all of the buildings in the main area are a very beautiful old spanish colonial style - many with balconies and slate roofs. The Plaza de Armas (main square in every latin american city) is beautiful, with several amazing churches and tons of other buildings. Just off of the plaza, you start to see the Inca influence - Inca walls are everywhere here (Cusco was the capitol of the Inca empire) - they were amazing masons, apparently. The walls that they are most famous for are those of religious buildings and other buildings for important people - the construction is masonry without mortar... they cut the stones so well that they just sit on each other perfectly and are held in place by pressure. In some cases, they actually cut the stones to hold in place with tongue and groove construction, which is pretty amazing for stonework with or without power tools.

It is hard to describe the city without pictures - indeed, the city is all about the Inca walls, narrow streets, hills, etc... that can only be understood without words. There are quite a few hills here, which adds to the beauty, as you can see much of the city from one spot. There are many really narrow hilly streets with stairs along the sides to get up.

After eating breakfast in a local bakery (amazing food!) we looked around and found a new hostel - about the same price, but more central and with AMAZING views of the city. We are at the top of a very steep hill look over the entire main area and out towards the south eastern hills. We actually have a 10x10 balcony on the front of the room as well - not bad for $10/night. We spent the rest of Thursday and Friday doing not much of anything - just wandering around, reading, taking pictures, eating in local picanterías, etc... Being on vacation is a beautiful thing.

Chao,
mike.

3 Days in the (2nd) Deepest Canyon in the World

2005-04-29T11:25:00.000-04:00

While in Arequipa, we decided to take a several day trek into the Colca Canyon, the 2nd deepest canyon in the world (2nd only by about 500 feet). The canyon is about 2 times as deep as the grand canyon, although the views of the grand canyon are far more spectacular, as the canyon is so wide and the rim seems so flat.

Our hike wasn't terrible difficult - we really only hiked 3-4 hours per day, but what we saw was spectacular. On day one, we took a 6 hour bus from Arequipa to a Cabanaconde, a town on the rim of the canyon. The drive out there was spectacular in itself. As we started to drive into the valley that is at the head of the canyon, we saw miles and miles of spectacular terracing in the mountains to grow crops. It is difficult to descibe, but picture a fairly narrow and steep valley that is 100% terraced for farming... Another great part of the trip was by the end of the bus ride, there were about 4 gringos on the ride and about 30 women in native dress. Once we arrived in the town and had some lunch, we hiked down about 3000 feet, from the rim of the canyon to the bottom... we then crossed the river at the bottom and hiked up about 300 feet to a little (and I mean little) pueblo where we stayed for the night. This pueblo was spectacular enough in itself - it had no electricity and no roads - the only way to reach the modern world was to hike out the way we came, which people did about 1 time per week to get supplies. We stayed at "La Casa de Roy", a local guy who set up a hostel in this little village. His land was pretty spectacular... it wasn't too large, but had an amazing view of the canyon. There was a small kitchen house, a bathroom (with a flush toilet!), a few cabins for visitors, and then their little sleeping area. He and his wife lived there with his mother, 2 kids, and a lamb. After settling in, we had some !popcorn!, which was amazing, and then relaxed a while before dinner. Beth and I talked to Roy for a while who showed us how he was building a new cabin, combining some old techniques with some new ones (like plastic on the roof to save on thatching material). Dinner was a nice corn and vegi chowder and then some rice, lentils, and soy meat for dinner. After dinner, we headed to bed at about 8pm (it had been dark for 2 hours already) and slept until 7am the next day.

To our surprise, breakfast the next morning was pancakes - does it get any better? We left at about 8am and walked to our next spot in about 3 hours - mostly flat hiking along the lower portion of the canyon. We went through two more tiny towns - both amazing in the same remote way. It is unbelievable that people still live so cut off for modernity still. And as far as I can tell, most of the people want to live the way they are... they are poor in terms of money standards, but they have quite a lot. For the most part, they grow everything they need and only buy housing supplies (tin for the roofs, etc..) and coca cola from town. Anyway... back to the hike. We ended the hike for the day by dropping back to the river and to "The Oasis" - an area made solely for hiking tourists, but excellent none the less. There were 2 swimming pools filled with waterfall water (although relatively warm), a number of huts to sleep in (just bamboo and dirt floors), and a few buildings to cooks, sell water from, etc.. We hung out for the afternoon, swimming, eating, relaxing, reading, doing yoga, etc...

The next morning, we woke up a bit before 3am and were hiking by moonlight, up the canyon wall, by 3am. The hike out took just over 3 hours - pretty rough hiking, but short enough to make it bearable. We ended the trip with some breakfast in Cabanaconde, a trip to an Andean Condor lookout, and a bus ride back to Arequipa (7 hours in total - yuck!).

We chilled out for a few hours before getting back on the overnight bus to head up Cusco... and here we are now, in one of the most amazing cities we have seen! More on Cusco later.

Oh yeah, and I should mention that we did the hike with a couple from Ireland - Michael and Sandra - great people that we hope to run into again up here in Cusco.

Chao,
mike.

Into Perú

2005-04-23T17:48:00.000-04:00

So we made it into Perú. You probably figured that out already...

After arriving at 7:30am in Arica, Chile, we hopped a local bus across the border. The border agent in Peru was probably the fastest stamper in the South... he didn't even look at people's documents, picutres, etc... he just stamped us away as fast as possible. I guess it is a boring job. The 2 hour bus ride took us to Tacna, Peru. We don't know much about the town, because we stayed in the bus station for our three hour stay (with the exception of a taxi ride to an ATM and back). We purchased some bus tickets to Arequipa and then had some "breakfast". This time, instead of bread and jam for breakfast, we had chicken, rice, and a salad of some sort.

Of course, this first meal in Peru started the brains working. "Hmm... can't drink the water in peru... is it okay to drink from a glass that is still a little wet from washing? What about soup? Tea? Vegis that were peeled by someone else?" We have spent way too much energy thinking abuot things like this, although after 2 days we have become pretty relaxed about food, while still avoiding raw fruits and vegis and tap water.

We jumped a 12:30 bus to Arequipa and arrived at about 7pm... 24 hours of travel total from San Pedro de Atacama, in Chile. A bit tiring, but worth the push. We found ourselves a great hostel right near the main plaza ($14/night total, with private bathroom), grabbed some mexican dinner, and off to bed.

More on Perú in another post.

mike.

Eating here

2005-04-23T17:32:00.000-04:00

We thought we were in for 4 months of terrible eating, but boy were we wrong. In Chile and Argentina, fruits and vegis abounded at every meal (less so in Argentina, but you could always find a salad), especially with our family in Santiago. I think we were both expecting rice and beans every day with no ability to eat anything green - thankfully that hasn't panned out.

We were also ready for phase 2 of our trip - entering Peru and Ecuador - countries where the motto has to be: peel it, cook it, or forget it. You can't drink the water here - you can't even use it to brush your teeth. Again, we were expecting nothing but rice and beans for 2 months and again we were wrong. We went to the grocery store yesterday and found more fruits than you can imagine. And there were a very large number that you can peel, so we are living large again. We made a great fruit salad the other day of pineapple, chirimoya-like fruit (see earlier post), kiwi, and orange. We had zucchini for dinner. I don't really know what I was thinking coming to a tropical food paradise and expecting rice and beans all of the time, but I was sure wrong.

Spit Beer
We had another interesting food experience today. We went to a local restaurant and got some local food - a pork stew for me and a stuffed avocado for Beth. While we were eating, the hostess came over and explained that there was a local drink that we should try that was made from fermented corn juice. It turns out that the beer (Chicha) is made first by having people chew the corn and then spit it into a big vat to start the fermentation.

So we drank andean spit. Does that make us bad people?

Chao,
mike.

One for Kim Gillis

2005-04-23T17:27:00.000-04:00

When we were in Chile we kept eating "Chirimoya" yogurt and ice cream but never actually saw the fruit - we were told it was out of season. Well... we finally found the fruit in Salta, Argentina in a farmers market. I bought one and brought it back to the hostel and asked the people there how to eat it, but they had no idea. We decided the best thing to do was to peel it and cut it up.... it was EXCELLENT - I don't know why they don't have them in the US. Very sweet with a bit of an odd texture. They are pretty ugly, but man do they taste good.

We found another fruit that is a relative of the Chirimoya here in Peru that tastes great also. I can't think of what it is called anymore, but be on the look out for a large ugly green fruit with spines and a white inside.

Chao,
mike.

The sights around San Pedro

2005-04-22T13:28:00.000-04:00

Our first night in town we ate at the cheapest place we could find (because of the tourism, it is more expensive to eat and stay here than in Santiago believe it or not). The next day, Monday, we took a tour of the Valley of the Moon (Valle de la Luna) in the evening. We stopped in a few places along the way, including some enormous sand dunes to run around in where a lot of people were sandboarding. At sunset we hiked a short way up some more sand dunes to an incredible panoramic lookout over the valley to watch the sunset over the desert - the colors and the view were indescribable.

We debated doing a multi day tour into Bolivia which is very famous (and infamous) for many reasons. It is called the Salar de Uyuni, which is an expansive salt flat just over the border from Chile that is supposed to be unreal - when there is water covering it, there is a perfect reflection of the sky as far as one can see. You also visit some naturally vivid colored lagoons, flamingo colonies, and other crazy things. The infamous part is that the trip is 4 full days in jeep, is a really rough ride, at very very high elevation, and people commonly get very sick. There are also horror stories about poor service (guides falling asleep at the wheel, not taking people down if they have elevation sickness, and being stingy with food). So in the end we decided to skip it and just spend time around San Perdo, which would be less stressful too.

Tuesday we did something really cool - we rented mountain bikes and a tour guide (just the 3 of us) and we rode 18 km out to a natural salt lagoon (called Lagunas Cejas) like the dead sea, so salty that you can float. The ride was beautiful, through the desert landscape (riding through sand was not my favorite). We got to the lagoon around noon and took a swim. It is so salty that nothing lives in it, and it is surrounded with extremely sharp salt crystals (we all got a few cuts getting in and out). The best part was that there was absolutely nothing and no one there - no trash, no tourists, no kiosks selling Coke - it was completely pristine. Our guide explained that no tour groups go here because tourists have no interest in it - who would want to work so much to visit some pools? He asked. Much better for us then!

Wednesday was our final day in San Pedro, and also one of the best tours - we woke up at 3:30am to take a bus 3 hours into the mountains to the highest geyser field in the world, called Geysers Tatio. We got there just in time to see the sun rise over the Andes and the geysers, really an amazing sight. It was also crazy that we were allowed to walk among the geysers - you definitely would be fenced off at quite a distance in the US. Some of the tour groups cooked eggs in the boiling pools in fact. Most of them were just gurgling water or shooting off steam, but there were stories of tourists getting too close to take pictures and falling in. You sometimes wonder who these stupid tourists are ...

On the way back to San Pedro we stopped at the smallest pueblo yet, only 5 families live there, and they live off of tourists visiting the geysers. We tried fried bread (sopopilla) and llama kebabs, which was the best meat we have either tried in our lives. The rest of the day we lazed around town and visited the museum before boarding (another) overnight bus to Arica, in the very northern part of Chile to cross into Peru.

Going back to Chile - San Pedro de Atacama

2005-04-22T13:12:00.000-04:00

The morning after the horseback riding ('cabalgatas' en español) we got up really early to do the border crossing into northern Chile from Argentine. If we haven't explained before, we altered our plans for the trip based on some protests that are currently happening in Bolivia, so we decided to spend more time in Argentina and none in Bolivia. Things aren't dangerous there, there is just the possibility of being held up for a long time on the bus due to roadblocks in La Paz. So we decided to cut across northern Chile to go north into Peru.

We crossed over to a pueblo called San Pedro de Atacama. The ride was 7 hours during the day (border crossings have to be during the day), and we reached an altitude of almost 15,000 feet in the highest pass. A few people on the bus were sick from the altitude, including a mother and her 3 year old next to us (barf bags abounded), but we both did okay which is a good sign for our future hiking endeavors. The landscape was amazing - the town is nestled in the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the entire world.

We got to the bus terminal at customs, and the driver told us, 'Go ahead into town, you are here.' Well there was not much of here to go to - this was by far the smallest and most rural place we have been. The entire town has 5000 inhabitants, is made completely of adobe with thatched roofs covered with corrogated metal, and the 'downtown' area is about 4 blocks square. They turn off the streetlights at 1am, and the water at about 7pm until the morning. There is no hospital or bank. Yet with all of this said, there are about 10 internet cafes and international call centers! In fact, the sad thing about this town (and perhaps it is not so sad for some) is that it is completely oriented towards tourism - from the internet cafes, grocery stores, restaurants, and tourist agencies. The main street was completely lined with these places one after another, along with someone standing in front of each to usher you into their respective agency, restaurant or hostel. After a while it gets very annoying - you learn to say 'No, gracias' as a reflex whenever someone starts talking to you. Even more amazing was that quite literally, you saw more gringos walking the streets of the town than locals.

But all in all the town was an amazing place, really just a jumping off point for some incredible eco tourism. We stayed in a nice hostel in town, although the owner was quite stingy with kitchen access and washing our clothes there - of course he has his own services for all of this if you are willing to pay a pretty penny!

Beth

Todo es posible con Enrique

2005-04-21T12:41:00.000-04:00

We decided to go horseback riding for an afternoon in Salta and it turned out to be one of the best 1.5 days of our trip. We found a poster in our hostel for Sayta Cabalgatos - the afternoon, including transportation, some food, and riding for 4 hours was to cost about $15 per person, so we figured what the hell. Well, we didn't know what we were in for.

We arrived at Enrique's farm at about 3pm... he sat us down, gave us a bunch of wine and goat cheese, and started to chat us up. We bullshitted for about 30-40 minutes before a few other people arrived and we all went off riding. We rode around the pueblo and surrounding farms for about 3.5 hours - the area was beautiful - a huge valley surrounding by 10000-15000' mountains, mostly growing tobacco for the US, but also growing other things like corn, alfalfa, etc... Perhaps the best part of the trip was talking with Enrique - he is the kind of guy with that passion for life that you rarely find. He was mostly passionate about horses and the natural world (especially sex), but had a philosophy for everything. When we got back, we met his amazing wife and sat down for more wine, tea, and some snacks. As the day was ending (around 9pm), we decided that we had such a good time, we should come back the next day for a full days ride.

The next day was more of the same, but this time the ride was just Beth, Enrique, and me. We rode around town for the morning before scarfing down more empanadas than I have ever eaten in my life (and some of the best), more wine, and then back to horse riding. In the afternoon, we went into the mountains, stopping in a magnificent field for a rest and then returned. I think we rode about 20 miles that day, which was pretty freaking tiring for me. When we got back, we hung out with Enrique for another hour before returning to our hostel.

I can't talk enough about Enrique or explain him, but he was one of the more memorable men that I have met on this trip and in general.

I won't even mention how sore we were that night and the next day!

Chao,
mike.

Salta

2005-04-14T19:22:00.000-04:00

Another day, another overnight bus. We took the bus from Córdoba to Salta - the ride wasn't bad, but the overnight buses do get a bit tiring. We made it in at about 9am and started our grand seach for hostels, although it was made a bit ¿easier? because the second we entered the terminal, three hostel reps bombarded us with flyers and promises galore. We took one of them up on their offer and got a free cab ride over to a hostel. The hostel wasn't bad, but our room wasn't ready, so we took the opportunity to check out some other places... in the end, we ended up switching hostels and had to pay for the free cab ride (only $.75, so no biggie).

Our hostel is a bit strange, but great... it is a block off of the main plaza, only costs $10 per night total, we have a large room with a private (and VERY clean) bathroom, and there is lots of space for beth to do yoga. The strange part is that there are very few people there. The hostel is huge, but there are only 2 or 3 other sets of guests there, whereas the other hostels we saw had about 10 people hanging out in the common room only, let alone staying there. Drawback is we don't get to meet people, but the advantage is that the place is quiet and everything else listed above. Not too bad if you ask me.

The town of Salta is amazing... the guidebook said it had the best preserved colonial architecture and they weren't kidding. We thought that Córdoba had great old buildings, but it was nothing compared to this town. Practically every other building in town is an old and amazing looking building. We did the usual walking around and going into churches yesterday and made dinner in the hostel to save some money.

Today, we decided to head out of the city and hike a bit. We took a bus to San Lorenzo, about 5 miles away, and found our way to a gorge that we hiked up and got some beautiful views. Only problem was that the ecosystem was something of a cloud forest, so it was VERY muddy and we are really dirty at this point. We'll have to do a bit of sink laundry tonight after dinner. After the hike, we came back to Salta and "hiked" up the large hill here (1070 stairs, or so says the sign) and sat and watched the sun go down over the town and the surrounding mountains. Really beautiful. We took the gondola (teleferico) down the hill and are getting ready for another steak dinner. Can't wait!

chao,
mike.

Córdoba

2005-04-14T18:36:00.000-04:00

We have started our slate of overnight bus rides to get from Buenos Aires to Cusco, Peru in about 2.5 weeks. We started by taking the overnight bus to Córdoba, a city about 600 miles northwest of Buenos Aires.

After walking around for an hour or two looking for a hostel, we finally settled in and wandered around the city. The architecture was pretty amazing. The oldest church in Argentina sits on the main square... the first church on that site was built in the late 16th century, but it and the next two churches on that site fell down in the next 100 years (I guess God was very angry with the Spanish) and the current church is from the late 17th century. We took an hour tour of the church - it was absolutely amazing! We also saw another church in the same town whose inner domed roof (which was shaped like the hull of a ship) was made without any nails - only wood and raw cowhide as a fastener.

We finally met our first Israelis that night in the hostel (actually about 8 of them)... supposedly there are a ton travelling in SA with their post-army money, but we hadn't met any yet.

On day two in Córdoba, we took a local bus about 2 hours to a little town called "La Falda", which sits right at the base of some mountains. The ride was beautiful as was the town. We took a hike to a set of waterfalls, which was a bit disappointing, although beautiful enough. On the walk back to town (about 1.5 miles or so), it started raining... luckily an older couple that we met at the falls saw us and picked us up. Their spanish was REALLY difficult to understand, so the car ride was a bit comical. They kept insisting that we join them while they drove about 40 miles to another town and then were going to return to La Falda. We had a bus to catch in a few hours, so we told them no, but the woman kept insisting. Finally they let us out of the car, but it took quite a fight.

We took the bus back to Córdoba, ate some dinner, got our packs on, and then got on another overnight bus headed towards Salta. More on Salta in another post.

chao,
mike.

Coming soon to a street (and bathroom) near you...

2005-04-13T19:23:00.000-04:00

Argentina seems to be blazing new paths in three places:

1) Sponsored Street Signs: believe it or not, most of the street signs we have seen are sponsored... including all of them in Buenos Aires that we saw. There is a regular street sign with a logo of a company across the top of the sign. Will advertising ever stop leaking into our lives?

2) Plastic Toilet Seats: Many of the toilet seats here are plastic... and I mean really light, really cheap plastic. I guess it is better than having no toilet seat at all, but it makes this king feel like a bit cheap.

3) Major Intersections Without Any Sort of Traffic Signage: The latest city we are in has very little in the way of signage at major intersections. A few do exist with traffic lights, but for the most part, you have two major streets crossing with no sort of yield or stop signs in any direction... it is crazy! The basic rule seems to be, if your direction has established a right of way, you get to keep it until someone is crazy enough to drive in front of your car, thus giving them the right of way. I'm surprised we haven't seen an accident yet!

Chao,
mike.

New Feature!

2005-04-13T19:22:00.000-04:00

Beth is taking a nap, so I took a few minutes to put a new feature on the blog - a travel map. Hope you enjoy it... it is pretty simple, but it makes it easier to follow where we are in SA.

mike.

Feria del Matadores

2005-04-12T19:47:00.000-04:00

Sunday was our last day in Buenos Aires ... we took an overnight bus to Córdoba Sunday night. Sunday ended up being one of my favorite days in BA - we took a bus for one hour (still in the city but on the complete other side) to a local gaucho fair called Feria del Matadores. It was fabulous because it was much more authentic than the usual tourist magnets, with local crafts, great food stands and music groups. The best part was the locals who danced Flamenco to the live music.

After the hour long bus ride back, we saw a great movie in Spanish called 'Seres Queridos' which was an Argentine version of Meet the Parents, except much funnier and featuring a Jewish family from Spain whose daughter brings home a Palestinian that she plans to marry. I understood about half of the words but 95% of the plot. We ate dinner at the same parrilla (grill) that we did when we first started off in BA and got the obligatory picture of the cook posing with the spits of beef.

The overnight bus to Córdoba was better (10 hours) because I took a whole sleeping pill this time. I was out like a light the entire time! Huzzah for Americans and our drugs.

Beth

Tigre and the Delta

2005-04-10T10:50:00.000-04:00

We went to Tigre on Friday, a smallish town about an hour north of Buenos Aires by train ($0.30 each way!). The town was pretty nice - there was a fairly large fruit and vegetable market that we wandered around wishing that we were staying long enough to make it worth buying all sorts of spices and interesting vegetables. Along with the vegi market, of course, was also a huge area of artisenal markets with everything from incense to furniture to random wicker baskets and stuff. I say of course because almost all interesting things are accompanied by a crafts fair of some sort... usually pretty established and often selling a lot of tourist junk. But I digress...

Back to the town. The really interesting thing about Tigre is that it is the gateway town (no, gateway towns are not like gateway drugs Peter) to the delta region - an area with enough rivers and streams that there aren't roads to get around, people just use canoes and power boats. It is more like the Mississippi Delta than Venice, with all of the houses up on stilts, floating hospitals, churches, and convenience stores. A boat powered mailman, etc... (some pictures)

We found ourselves a canoe tour of the area, which was spectacular. We met the guide at a local boat club and got into a really beautiful old canoe. The canoe was more of the crew shell sort than the ones that I used when I was little.... they had three seats - one that faced forward for the person that was steering/resting, and two facing the other way for the rowers. The two facing backwards were on wheels and slid, like the rowing machine in the gym. Anyway... we toured around the area for 2.5 hours, and saw all sorts of houses, both tiny and bigger vacation houses, great scenery, and lots of other boats going to and from work, etc... We chatted with the guide about Argentine history, Perón, the dirty wars of the 80s, Chileans, etc... it was really interesting.

We walked around the town a bit more after the tour and then headed back on the train to BA for some dinner at a really funky local restaurant where they have guitars, mandolins, etc... that you can borrow and all sorts of people were breaking out into song throughout the restaurant, playing great music and belting over everyone!

¡whew! that was a bit long,
mike.

Barometers

2005-04-10T10:43:00.000-04:00

Peter V maintains his barometer of the poverty of a country is measured by the number of unmarked holes in the sidewalk. In Chile, I didn't really know what he was talking about, but in Argentina, it is becoming more clear.

Here, there aren't holes so much (there are a few) as there are missing tiles in the sidewalk or really loose tiles. You really need to watch your step when you walk around so you don't fall flat on your face. You also have to keep your eyes down to watch out for all of the dog crap on the sidewalk. It is amazing the amount of crap in the middle of a sidewalk in a really nice or touristy or businessy part of town. Lonely Planet warned us to watch out for piles and tiles and they were right.

I want to add to Peter's barometer with the number of people on public transportation selling stuff. It is pretty bad here as well, although not as bad as in Santiago. We took a train ride the other day and 5-10 different people must have walked up and down the train selling something or other, including one guy that was the worst guitar player I have ever heard.

Chao,
mike.

The Beer Here

2005-04-10T10:38:00.000-04:00

I have been pretty unhappy with the beer here. None of it is really very good... mostly in the ilk of beers in hot countries - very light with not very much flavor. I did have one good beer the other night, but it was a local brew and I haven't been able to find it again. Maybe in Peru or Ecuador, but I have heard that the beer stinks there as well! Oh well.

mike.

Back to life in Buenos Aires or Wandering Around the City

2005-04-09T17:53:00.000-04:00

We spent Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and today (saturday) more or less just wandering around the city. The city is pretty amazing - all of the architecture is old European architecture, with lots of marble, giant columns, etc... Everything is really grand if not a bit on the dirty side at times.

We went to the Colón Opera house and took a really cool tour - we saw everything from the rehearsal areas, to the opera cobbler's shop, to the presidential booth. Quite a performance hall, even compared to the Met or others like that.

We also wandered around some of the more posh neighborhoods like Pomero and Recoletta... they reminded me of Las Condes in Santiago, although with a bit more soul and style... In Recoletta, we stopped by Eva Perón's grave - it was quite an affair, complete with throngs of people checked the place out. We also went to the zoo, which was pretty different from US zoo's... you could buy food there and actually feed any of the animals, which was completely bizarre if not a bit worrysome. There were also peacocks and other birds just kind of wandering around the zoo with no cage. Very Odd.

Today, we went down to San Telmo and La Boca, the Tango district and the "colorful" area. Not too much to report - both areas were really interesting with lots of interesting older buildings, cobblestone streets, etc..., minus the big box stores and shopping malls. It was a bit more of the real city flavor. Except in La Boca, where there were street vendors galore around the fisherman's wharf like area... an area with lots of really colorful old metal housing that has since been converted into stores.

Thats about all for the wandering... more later.

Chao,
mike.

Catching up a bit

2005-04-09T17:47:00.000-04:00

I think we forgot to blog about our last few days in San Martín de los Andes, so I'll give a quick recap of our last few days:

we lazed by the beach and walked around the town
we went out to dinner with Jeff and Allison for Allison's birthday... we ate at a really nice restaurant there and Allison's parent kicked in for their food and the wine, which was a nice treat.
We took a hike from the town part way around the lake. The hike was really chill, with lots of nice views. We also strayed from the hike and wandered around an area where a good number of indiginous people live
We cooked a really good all vegi dinner. Its great to still be able to eat vegis!
We had a fire and drank a few bottles of Argentinian wine. Everyone raves about Chilean wine, which was good, but Argentinian wine was great too... keep a look out for the grape type called "Malbec"

Thats all... we're all caught up with that part of the trip.
mike.

Lomo y Helado

2005-04-06T23:04:00.000-04:00

Today was much improved in the realm of food. We realized that we simply need to stick to the specialties of the country - which are grilled meats and ice cream. Yes, we ate a steak tonight, and yes, it is as wonderful as everyone says it is in Argentina. They are also known for their ice cream, which is more like Italian gelato. Muuuuy rico.

The unfortunate fact is that outside of grilled meat and ice cream, there is not much variety in the way of food here. Nearly every single restaurant or cafe has various offerings of meat or very mediocre pasta dishes. Strangely enough, Argentinians supposedly consider themselves very Italian, which is the reason for all of the pasta. But no one ever taught them how to make good pasta it seems. So either we eat a lot of meat for the next few days, or subsist on a diet of white bread and ice cream. I vote for ice cream.

Beth

20 Horas en Bus

2005-04-06T22:51:00.000-04:00

Monday we took our first 20 hour bus ride, the first of what will be many I think. It was definitely not a bad way to travel - we had the front 2 seats on a double decker coach, so we had 270 degrees of window to see the countryside along the way. The seats were huge too, called 'cama' or bed seats, about 4 times what you get in economy class on a plane. Still, I couldn't sleep even with a little help from the Sudafed for my cold. I am insanely jealous of Mike who seems to be able to sleep in any crazy position no matter how bumpy the ride.

We arrived in Buenos Aires at about 10am on Tuesday morning, and although we were very prepared with 3 different hostels picked out to visit, we still had to trek around the city and the subway ('Subte') for 2 hours before we found someplace to stay. The first hostel only had dorm beds, no private rooms, the second was just a little too musty although really cheap (the shower was just a showerhead in the middle of a 2 foot by 3 foot bathroom that sprayed all over the toilet and sink), and the third was brand new, but as a result completely overrun with crazed young travellers. So we finally found a place that is pretty chill - surprisingly, everyone here actually speaks Spanish, not English. We have to walk up 2 very precarious flights of stairs to get to our room, but so far they haven't fallen apart.

The first day in BA was a wash, because I was so beat from not really sleeping on the bus. So we just walked around the Plaza de Mayo and saw La Casa Rosa, the presidential palace with Evita Perón's famous balcony. We ate some really bad food, watched a movie in Spanish at a theater for $1.50 US each (did I mention that Argentina is cheap?), and ate some really bad food again for dinner. We didn't fare well in the realm of food yesterday.

Beth

Meeting ourselves in South America

2005-04-02T15:02:00.000-04:00

I am beginning to think that there are only a few types of personalities in the world which are shared by many different people. So far on the trip, we have met a number of people who are carbon copies of our friends, it's really amusing. Peter V - we met a guy in Santiago who is practically your twin, somewhat in looks (he's strikingly handsome of course) but moreso in humor (apparently he too is funnier over email). So of course Mike was quite happy with the Peter-esque banter for the weekend that we travelled with him.

Then in Pucón I met a Gregor Patsch, tall, chill dude from Oregon who is a Kayaker. Again I got to hear jokes and philosophy Gregor-style in the van all the way to and from the hot springs that I visited the last night in Chile.

The wierdest is that we just met ourselves - the couple from Montana here in San Martin de los Andes has practically the identical story, from going to college in the east, moving out west to work, quitting work to travel in South America, and going back to grad school in the fall. And they look just like us too. Spooky ...

San Martin de los Andes

2005-04-02T14:51:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we made our first border crossing into Argentina, to a small town called San Martin de los Andes. This little place is incredible - there is an enormous Swiss influence, so it feels just like a little alpine ski town complete with chocolate shops, fondue and A-frame cottages. We hit pay dirt for the accomodations - we met another American couple on the bus, from Montana, and the four of us decided to share a 2-bedroom cabaña. This place has 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, and a fireplace, 2 stories, a maid every day, and is completely brand new. And it costs 70 pesos a night, which is the equivalent of $23 US split between 4 people. By far the cheapest and nicest place we have been so far! Absolutely incredible. Argentina is definitely the place to be travelling right now.

Today we are just chilling around the little town, lazing by the lake, checking out eco tours for tomorrow. Tomorrow we might go climbing for half a day, and we're planning to schedule massages for Monday morning - $16 per hour. Don't cry mom, it really is too good to be true. We also bought bus tickets for Buenos Aires for Monday, which is a 20 hour bus ride from here. But the bus is 'Executive' class, with fully reclining beds, 3 meals served, and is less than $40 a person to go over 1000 miles. Please excuse my repeated quoting of prices but I am still in sticker shock, in a good way.

Beth

Bus ride from hell!

2005-04-02T14:35:00.000-04:00

We took a bus from Pucón, Chile to San Martín de los Andes, Argentina yesterday and it goes down as one of the roughest of my life! The ride was only 6 hours, but they were the bumpiest and dustiest 6 hours! And having a cough didn't help too much.

The ride was pretty though... we rode through a pass in the Andes and saw another large volcano. Much of the ride was through the foothills of the Andes on either side of the border, with more pampas in Argentina (and better roads). You would think that a road that crosses a border would be paved, but you would be wrong. The Chilean side was a rocky, dirt road and the Argentine side was a packed dirt road that was a bit smoother, but REALLY REALLY dusty.

We did have a few funny border crossing stories:

1) First, there are two customs houses 1km apart... First the Chilean to leave the country and then the Argentine to enter that country. Just to be difficult, they couldn't put them right next to each other. You have to go to one, get back on the bus and then go to the other. What a pain!

2) When we entered Chile, we were supposed to be given some papers explaining how long we would be in the country, etc... We didn't. When the border guard asked why we didn't have them, we said "Because nobody gave them to us." "Well, why didn't anyone give them to you"... "I don't know!". Of course it didn't matter because it was just paperwork for the sake of paperwork.... they gave us a new copy and let us fill it out again.

3) When we entered Argentina, the border agents took the bus list and called the passengers off one by one to check their passports, etc... Problem was, about 1/3 of the people were foreign and the guy couldn't pronounce their names. Americans, brazillians, swedes... It was pretty great to watch the guy just give up by the end and half pronounce first names and not even try with the last.

We did meet a nice couple on the bus, whom I'm sure beth will mention in her post about the town that we are in.

Chao,
mike.

I got sick!

2005-04-02T14:27:00.000-04:00

One of us finally got sick for the first time, although it is just a regular cold type of thing, nothing to do with the food. I climbed the volcano and did the bike ride feeling a bit under the weather... but the night of the bike ride I came down with a full fledged cold and fever. We spent Thursday doing a whole lot of nothing - just wandering around the town, writing post cards, etc... and I started to feel a bit better at night.

2 days later and I'm still sick, although mostly better. I still can't do anything really active, but for teh most part I can hang out all day. Hopefully this is the worst thing that happens to me down here!

mike.

The reputation of Americans

2005-03-31T09:56:00.000-04:00

So apparently Americans are known among the travelling community for having plentiful drugs on hand (the legal kind of course Mom and Dad ...) We have had more than a few people from the UK tell us this, which is really funny. Yesterday a gal from Ireland was telling us how she was dreading her overnight bus ride to Santiago because she didn't have any sleeping pills. Of course we have tons, so I gave her one. She was elated - she said 'I should have known to ask you two, Americans always have tons of drugs with them.' Apparently it is nearly impossible to get travel drugs (including sleeping pills like Ambien or Valium) in the UK for some strange reason. On top of this, Americans are also known for popping pills and the slightest sign of an ailment, like a headache or sore muscles. I guess this is true, but I can't speak for the entire population of the US. ''Yeah, you Americans are always taking pills when you don't need them, right?''

It is truly eye opening to travel as an American, for a lot of reasons. You almost feel that you are carrying the collective guilt of the entire country with you down here. Politically, nearly every single person that you meet (Americans included) vehemently oppose the Bush administration. And we have gotten into many interesting discussions about Iraq, trade, immigration, etc. involving the US, and usually we are in some fashion the bad guys. If nothing else, it really makes you stop and think how we are affecting the world, good and bad. I also realize how isolated Americans are about what is happening in the rest of the world - I have met so many Germans, Chileans, Brits, etc. who watched the last US election with more interest than their own, and who generally follow US politics regularly. How many Americans know what is happening in Chile's next presidential election? (There are 2 women competing for the position, which will be the first in Chile's history.)

So in the end, we Americans are pill popping oppressors with bad Spanish accents. ¡Que bueno!

Beth

Pucón Day #3 - biking and refried beans

2005-03-31T09:38:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was our third day in Pucón, and surprisingly we had enough energy after hiking the volcano to do some biking the next day. We slept in until late (8:30 is now sleeping late for me) and rented some mountain bikes for the day for only about $8 per person. We didn't have a lot of energy, and Mike was starting to get a cold, so we took it relatively easy. And of course I am not a regular bike rider, so I couldn't do anything too hard to begin with.

We got a map from the rental place of some country backroads around the town that takes you through a bunch of farms and across rivers. There were incredible views of the volcano, so we got some really great pictures, including a movie of Mike harassing some turkeys on one of the farms. After about 2+ hours of riding we came to Los Ojos del Caburgua, a group of pools and waterfalls that you can hike around and have picnics, etc. Nearby was Laguna Azul, some more pools that were the most vivid color blue - it looked almost unnatural, like something you would find at a fancy resort hotel in Hawaii or Cancun. We took a catnap on the rocks at the top of the waterfall - I felt like a lizard sunning myself, it was fabulous.

The trail looped back to the highway and it was about 12 miles back to Pucón from there. All in all I think we did about 20-25 miles, not alot for people who do this kind of thing, but it was tough enough for me. That night we made our first meal in the hostel, quesadillas with canned refried beans. Mmmm Mmmm good. The hostel here is great, although everyone speaks English of course because all of the travellers are either from the US, England, or Ireland it seems. People weren't kidding when they told us that we wouldn't get much Spanish practice after we left Santiago!

Beth

Pucón

2005-03-30T08:45:00.000-04:00

We took the overnight bus on Sunday and got into Pucón on monday morning at about 9am. The bus was surprisingly comfortable (I think Chile is going to spoil us)... We went with Classico, the cheapest bus option, but the seats were amazing... they reclined 3 times as much as an airplane seat, so we both got to get a bit of sleep.

Pucón is something of a tourist town in the Lakes District of Chile. It is probably 300 miles north of Patagonia, but is the start of some amazing geography. The main features of the town are a giant lake (Lago Villarrica) and a huge active volcano about 10 miles away (Vocán Villarrica). Both are gorgeous... the area actually reminds me of Lake Tahoe in the summer... there are a lot of adventure type activities to do here - climb the volcano (we did that yesterday), go rafting, canoeing, mountain biking, go on zip lines - as well as some more resorty type activities - hot springs, a casino, etc... All in all, the town is very nice - it isn't too built up and resorty like it could have been.

Yesterday, we headed up the volcano. We paid $65 each to have a guide, all our gear (ice axe, crampons, etc...), and transportation to and from the volcano for a trip up. The price was a bit steep, but we were by far the smallest group out there (only 5 as opposed to 10-20) and we had an amazing instructor. In past jobs, he had been a NOLS guide (an Outward Bound type company that leads 2 month trips into remote areas of the world) so he was EXTREMELY knowledgeable as well as very cautious.

The weather couldn't have been better, which is excellent, because Monday the weather stank (sleet and rain up on the mountain) and today it looks pretty gross as well. We started our assent at about 8:30am... there was a ski lift to take you up the first 1000ft of vertical climb, but our group opted to hike up the first instead. We hiked for about 2 hours in all before we hit the glacier and had to put on our crampons. At this point, the hike got a lot steeper, although the views also continually got more and more incredible. We could see the Andes to the east (including argentina) and had amazing visability to the north and west as well... We could basically see everything for hundreds of miles. As we got towards the top of the hike, the glacier disappeared due to the heat of the Volcano (did I mention it is an active volcano) and we started to hear erruptions, see plumes of smoke, and see rocks flying in the air. After about 4 hours of hiking we finally reached the summit of the volcano... a really large crater (probably 800 feet across) inside which was a tiny little hole (probably 20 feet across) that had lava in it. The rim of the crater that we were standing on was about 200 feet above the lava hole, so you had a great view into the hole.

The entire time we were standing up on the rim, it sounded like you were at the ocean. Every 5 seconds or so, a bunch of hot gas would push out of the hole and let out a sound like a wave crashing. Every minute or so, some rocks would fly out of the hole as well... and every 5 minutes or so, we were treater to an explosion of sorts, with lava flying out the hole... it was amazing. During one explosion, the lava went about 300 feet in the air, well above our heads!

After sitting at the top for abou an hour watching the explosions, we headed down. A lot of the groups glisaded down (sit on your butt and slide on the ice), but we weren't allowed to. Our guide told us a story of a girl who recently got out of control glisading and impaled her leg and stomach and required 4 surgeries to fix everything. We did get to glisade on our feet, which was also fun, but far more controled.

After a long, long day, we got back to the van at about 5:30, thoroughly exhausted. When we got back, Beth took a two hour nap and I vegged in the hostel, talking to the other people that are staying here. All in all, an amazing day.

here are some generic pictures of the volcano...
http://www.geocities.com/conoce_chile/fotos/09/villarrica.jpg
http://www.andes.org.uk/andes-information-files/villarrica-lava.jpg

Chao,
mike.

Our last weekend in Santiago

2005-03-28T18:31:00.000-04:00

We left Santiago last night... the beginning of the rest of our trip. We are done with language school and we are done living in a nice apartment with a wonderful family in Santiago. Now we start to move around the continent for a few months before working on a farm in Ecuador.

Our last weekend was pretty mellow - we spent Friday and Sunday doing errands, wrapping things up in Santiago, and chilling out. We had a really nice last dinner with Carlos and Patricia, including some Pisco Sours (the national drink) to help us sleep on the bus ride.

On Saturday, we headed to Cascada de las Animas to do a little hiking and generally get out of the smog of the city. Getting there was quite an adventure - our guide book (and some of the metro station agents) had some misinformation about where to catch a bus to the park, so we ended up riding the metro for about 2 hours before we finally got to the correct metro station to pick up the bus. Then we had a 2 hour bus ride in a little city bus through the country side... it wasn't the most pleasant trip in the world.

When we got to the park, the day was starting to clear up... we met a Mexican couple and hiked to the waterfalls with them, speaking spanish the whole time... the greatest part about it was that the Mexican accent is FAR easier to understand than the Chilean one, so we understood everything they said to us and had a really nice conversation on the walk. After the hike, we ate a late lunch at the restaurant there, overlooking the Rio Mapocho... the food was excellent! We then waited at the "bus stop" (really a dirt patch) for about 20 minutes and caught a REALLY cramped bus back to Santiago. The first 30 minutes of the ride was so packed that there were people standing in the stairwell. When we got back we were pretty pooped, so we just ate a quick dinner and went to bed early.

It was a good last weekend, although a bit sad to say goodbye to our family there, our classes and teachers, etc... Hopefully we'll be able to head back to Santiago in a few years to say hi to everyone.

Choa,
mike.

Thefts

2005-03-27T14:07:00.000-04:00

We haven't had any trouble with theivery here (knock on wood) yet, but we have a few friends here that have had some troubles.

1) A friend of ours from England (blond, female, travelling alone - not a great combo) was studying in a part notorious for Gypsy robberies. She had her bag around her shoulder and neck, but it was opened. Three women (and a baby) came up to her and starting speaking very close to her face. She knew what was happening, so she tried to gather up her stuff and leave, but one of the women stuck her hand in our friend's bag and grabbed her wallet. Luckily, the wallet was connected to her bag, so she only grabbed the cash. Unfortunately, our friend had gone to the bank the day before and took out about $500, but forgot to leave it at home. In the end, the story is a bit better... her travel insurance is going to replace about half of the lost money.

2) The next day, the same girl had another issue, although this one not as bad. This time she was studying at a cafe when a woman came by trying to sell her something (plastic flowers or something cheap). Our friend said no thanks and kept studying. The woman selling stuff got really pissed (she was about 30, by the way), grabbed our friends homework, ripped it up, and threw it on the ground. Some luck.

3) A guy that was staying in the same apartment as us for 2 weeks also got robbed, although I would put a lot of the blame on him. He went to the bank and took out about $200. He then placed the cash in his back pocket (not in a wallet, just in the pocket) and got on the metro at rush hour. When he got home, all of the money was gone. He was a fairly absent minded guy, so I don't really wonder about this one.

4) A friend of a friend was in a Salsa club taking salsa lessons. For whatever reason, she had EVERYTHING important in her purse (passport, wallet, credit cards, travellers checks, etc...) that she brought to the club. During the last song, a guy asked her to dance... she left her bag in the corner. When the song was over... no purse! Everything was gone. Man... that has to be awful!

we've felt very safe here so far... no problems at all. I hope things stay like this!

Chao,
mike.

Cafe with Legs

2005-03-27T14:04:00.000-04:00

There is a phenomenon here in Santiago called "Cafe con Piernas" that we have yet to experience, but I want to check out... Basically there are coffee shops where the waitresses are all young women wearing little clothing (just lingere in many cases). It is basically a strip club without the alcohol and without the stripping. There are a lot of them in the main downtown area, although most of them are pretty seedy looking.

Perhaps before we leave....

Needing a dose of caffeine,
mike.

Gringos

2005-03-27T13:56:00.000-04:00

Aound here, we are refered to as Gingos... it isn't an offensive term at all in Chile (although I think it is a bit negative in Mexico), it just refers to a white foreigner from Europe or the US. We did here a good story as to where the word came from, although it turns out to be untrue.

The basic story we heard is that there were American soldiers protecting salt mines in the northern part of Chile. The locals didn't like the American economic imperialism which, of course, caused a lot of tension. During protests and uprisings, the locals would should "Green Go!" to the soldiers (because they were wearing green uniforms).... eventually the word morphed into Gringo which is now used as a normal descriptive term.

I just looked the word up on wikipedia, however, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gringo, and found out that this isn't really a true story - that every Latin American country has a similar story. The word aparantly really decends from the word Griego (greek).

I like the fake story bettter =)

mike.

Chilean potpourri

2005-03-27T13:55:00.000-04:00

More interesting factoids:

(1) We learned that the phenomenon of the 'spelling bee' does not exist in spanish speaking countries ... One day in class, our teacher was telling us that she saw an American movie about the US national spelling bee, and that she just didn't understand the concept. It makes perfect sense, because spanish is a completely phonetic language - each vowel only has a single sound, and each word is pronounced exactly how it is spelled. There is no mystery to how a word is spelled if you hear it pronounced, unlike English, which has nearly no rules at all. Hence the futility of a spanish spelling bee! Being here has also really made me realize how incredibly difficult it would be to learn English. Words like: beard, bird, bear, beer, etc. are nearly impossible for native spanish speakers to differentiate!

(2) You know how when English speakers 'play speak' a different language, like Italian? We just add 'o' or 'io' to the end of every word. Well we learned that here, when the kids are 'play speaking' English, they add '-zation' to the end of their words. (Apparently we use a lot of -ation words ... globalization, etc. The Chileans particularly like the example 'Californication'). So instead of 'lapiz' which in spanish means 'pencil', they say 'lapiz-ation' ... etc.

(3) There are tons and tons of Brazilians in the school here, and they all speak a dialect coined 'Portuñol' by the teachers. It's a mix between Portuguese and Spanish, and because the two languages are very similar, many Brazilians think that they are speaking very good spanish, when in fact it is really a bad mix of the two. I think as a result often Brazilians are not the best students, because they talk sooooo fast and often that the teachers can't get in a word edgewise to correct them!

Every day is a new adventure.
Beth

Valparaiso and Viña del Mar

2005-03-24T14:08:00.000-04:00

We spent this past weekend in Valparaiso and Viña del Mar... two cities about 50 miles from Santiago, along the coast. We spent the weekend with three friends from the school - Kaddy, Beni, and Carey...

Valparaiso
Valparaiso is the second largest city in Chile, but only has about 300,000 people. In the past it was very important as a port city (still is, but less so today becuase of the panama canal). Now, the port is still active, the government is there (moved there by Pinochet), and the city has a decent sized commercial district, but seems to be mostly residential. The city reminds me a lot of San Francisco - it is right on a bay, is EXTREMELY hilly, and was destroyed by earthquake in 1906, so the architecture is similar. To get up most of the hills, you can walk or take 100 year old furniculars that creak, shake, and rattle the whole ride.

We got ot the city at about 11 in the morning and went right to our hostel (more of a B&B really) on Cerro Conceptión. The view from the hostel was SPECTACULAR! You could see the entire bay, much of the city, etc... After dropping our stuff off, we tooled around the hills of Valparaiso, checking out the old architecture, the views, etc.. We went to another of Pablo Neruda's houses (great views, but Isla Negra was the best of the 3), walked around the "Open Sky Museum", a collection of murals throughout one neighborhood and ate quite a few times. After some dinner, wine, a nap, and drinks, we went to sleep.

Viña del Mar
The next day, we woke up and took a short bus ride over to Viña. Viña is _the_ beach to go to if you live in Santiago, but in reality, it was really just another modern beach town... nothing special. There were a lot of condos near the water, your typical beachtown restaurants, and not much else there. It was nice to lay on the beach for a little while, although the water here is colder than in San Francisco, so we didn't go in. We ate lunch on a pier (fish and chips, more or less)... afterwards, beth got a Mole con Huessos (spelled wrong), a very strange, but popular drink. Basically it is very sweet peach juice with pieces of grain and corn soaking in it... they grain and corn has no taste, but an interesting texture. I guess it is a version of Pearl Tea.

After hiking around Viña, we jumped on a bus home (only 1.5 hours each way) and were home by 7. Quite a weekend!

Chao!
mike.

¡We found a farm!

2005-03-18T16:55:00.000-04:00

We finally found a farm to work on while we are here!

We have been trying to find volunteer work on an organic farm while we are here through an organization called WWOOF (http://www.wwoof.org). There are only a few farms in Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia (that belong to WWOOF) and none of them seemed to need help or just flat out didn't respond to us. Ecuador is packed with WWOOF farms, which works out well as we are flying out of Ecuador in June. We decided that instead of working in the middle of our trip, we can end our trip with farm work. We wrote to two farms in Ecuador and finally heard back from both of them.

The farm that we are going to work on is in the northern Andes region of Ecuador. It is a bit northwest of Quito (about a 5 hour bus ride) on the western slopes of the Andes. The farm is in a Cloud Forest at about 1200m (3600 feet). They grow everything from pineapples to coffee to oranges. They also have a small number of animals there. As far as we can tell, there are other paid workers there as well as the possibilty of one other WWOOFer. We will live in a small house on the farm, eat with the other workers (the food is made for us) and have access to a kitchen and any of the food that is produced on the farm. We'll probably work 30-40 hours/week for 3-4 weeks.

We're both really excited.... the trip is starting to solidify in terms of the start to finish plan. We finish up here in a week... go to the south of Chile for a week. Next, we take 2-3 weeks to head through argentina and see Buenos Aires and then on to Peru and Bolivia. We have booked a trip to hike the Inca Trail up to Machu Picchu for May 3, so we have to be in Cuzco, Peru by then. We're not sure how much time we'll actually spend in Bolivia becuase there are widespread protests there righ tnow. We'll have to keep an eye on the situation.

After Machu Pichu, we'll have about a week to get to our farm, where we'll spend most of the rest of the trip. Thats about it.... hope everyone is well!

Chao,
mike.

So you want a divorce....

2005-03-18T16:45:00.000-04:00

South America in general is very Catholic. Something like 90% of the people in most countries are Catholic, although I think the percentage in Chile is only 70% or so these days. It has some interesting effects on the country. For one, Opus Dei (http://www.mond.at/opus.dei/) seems to have a very large part in the country. They are a large supporter of many of the older politicians here. As well, they own El Mercurio, the largest and oldest newspaper here, a large University, and a major TV channel. Bascially, they control a lot of the country and a lot of the news.

Because of this (and I'm sure many other factors), there are some very conservative laws here. The worst of which (and this was a non-law, in actuality) was that until 3 months ago, you could not get a divorce here. Not at all... they didn't exist. Finally, about a year ago, a law was passed that allowed divorce. It finally came into effect 3 months ago. Apparantly the first day of the law saw thousands of people file for divorce.

And I thought the US was conservative!

Chao,
mike.

Buying stuff on the bus...

2005-03-18T16:39:00.000-04:00

The wheels of commerce spin even on the bus here, where you can often buy anything from candy to barrettes. About half of the times that we are on the bus, at least one person will get on the bus trying to sell stuff and then will get off at the next stop. I have seen this in the NYC subways as well... nothing particularly new... however, they do it a little bit differntly around here.

Usually, someone will get on the bus with a bag of something (gum, poems, candy, little trinkets, etc...)... They walk through the bus and hand one trinket to EVERYONE on the bus. You can refuse, but surprisingly enouhg, most people don't. After everyone has an item, the seller goes to the front of the bus and gives a short speech. Sometimes just the price, sometimes a story, and one time a guy recited an entire poem. After that, they go and collect the items from the people that don't want them and money from the people that do. A surprising number of people buy each time.

mike.

5.10c

2005-03-15T16:44:00.000-04:00

We found a climbing gym - huzzah! Pretty big with a great bouldering area. We're meeting some people from the school there tonight. Now there is a whole new vocabulary to learn - rope, wall, rock, belay (don't know that one yet!)

For those interested, here is my latest status on grad schools - I've been accepted at Maryland, Parsons, Texas, and Virginia since I have been down here!

Beth

A visit to the Andes

2005-03-15T16:17:00.000-04:00

This past weekend we again joined the school's organized 'excursion', this time to the Andes. The original destination was las Termas de Pluma, a group of natural hot springs in the mountains that requires a 3+ hour drive over pretty rugged terrain. First, we stopped along the way at a small farm, very very very rural, where our guide bought some fresh goat cheese, and we all snacked on the cheese with coffee and tea cakes. It really is quite unbelievable to see how some people are living - these were conditions that I would say only the heartiest of souls could withstand. The house was roughly built of stone with dirt floors and a tin roof, two large rooms (one living and one sleeping). There didn't appear to be any bathing facilities at all and the barn with the horses and chickens was about 5 feet from their front door. Far from the Ritz.

Thanks to the heavy rain that we got on Friday, the roads were transformed into small canals of mud. We made it fairly far after about 2 hours of driving, but we came to a point where a bunch of other people were apparently inspecting the condition of the road to see if it was passable. People were sinking ankle deep into the mud, so we started hiking along side the road. We were much too far from our destination, so we planned to walk up to a reservoir instead, about a 2 hour hike. At last a 'maquina' (read = bulldozer) came along behind us and cleaned up the road, so we were able to make it a little further via van, but it was too late in the day to make it to the Termas. I wouldn't have wanted to swim anyway because it was snowing! For one girl on the trip from Paraguay, it was her first time seeing snow. She had people take her picture rolling around in it - hee hee.

The Andes were amazing - unfortunately (in spanish = desafortunadamente, my longest word so far) there was a lot of cloud cover so we couldn't see the tops of the mountains, but it was nonetheless breathtaking.

On Sunday we walked around a new barrio (Barrio Brasil) and went to a museum in the oldest church in Santiago - Iglesia San Francisco (circa 1500s). Bascially it was a collection of catholic ... er, stuff. Paintings, statues, lots of the Virgin Mary etc. There was a collection of 54 enormous paintings (something like 10 ft x 6 ft each) depicting the life of Saint Francis (San Francisco), and only 2 of them could be attributed to specific artists. Supposedly it is one of the rarest collections of art of this nature in the world.

We decided to lighten the mood by catching a movie in the afternoon, so we saw Million Dollar Baby, which turned out not to be so light. I think we got about 50% more out of the movie than everyone else in the theater because the Spanish subtitles were so bad.

Beth

Intercambio

2005-03-13T14:52:00.000-04:00

This past wednesday, we went to our language school's "intercambio"... an evening where students of english and students of spanish (us) get together for 2 hours. Half of the time is supposed to be spent speaking in english together and half of the time is supposed to be spent speaking in spanish. As it turned out, we spoke english for most of the time, but it was really fun nonetheless.

I was paired up with a guy from Santiago name "Sergio"... he was quite good at english, so I was mostly correcting him on expressions rather than helping him with grammer. We were given a paper with 10 "situations" (all of which were bizarre: you are sitting in your lawn and look over to your neighbor's house only to see a naked man hanging out the window. what do you do?)... I read the situations to him and he responded to them. The first funny thing was that the situations were written in terrible english - without major revision, the sentences made no sense... that was the first problem. The next was that the questions were a bit bizarre, so the converstaion tended to be a bit bizarre. Luckily, I had a very funny partner. He told me that when he started learning english, he came upon free "lessons" from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. As you can imagine, after 2 lessons, they were trying to convert him, so he left. He then asked me my religion... I told him I was Jewish and he started to sing a hebrew song from Schindler's List... it was a bit bizarre, but he was a good singer. At one point, he asked me what the word "Ye" means in english... I had no idea, so I asked where he came across the word. "A hymn book," he told me. Ah! Ye. I tried to explain that the word isn't really used anymore... only in song books. He was a bit confused, but satisfied. At one point, he also said "that's all folks"... ala porky pig.

After the english portion, we did a similar exercise in spanish, but it was far shorter....

chao!
mike.

Pinochet

2005-03-13T14:43:00.000-04:00

I keep forgetting to write about this... I noticed it 2 days into the trip and have noticed it even more since then: I can't tell you how many times Pinochet comes up in conversation... or at least a reference to Sept 11, 1973, or to "The military government". It comes up not every night, but at least 2-3 times per week at dinner. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinochet

We have had several conversations about the desparacidos and about Pinochet now and about the injustice of the justice system. We have also talked about the degredation of the country under Pinochet. I don't know our family's connection to that period, although I assume they weren't socialist (they seem to be fairly well off) so they probably didn't have any _close_ contacts that were kidnapped. Interestingly enough, I haven´t heard Allende´s name come up yet.

mike.

JUMBO

2005-03-09T17:13:00.000-03:00

I went to a store yesterday called "el Jumbo"... and it was a perfect description. Basically the Chilean version of walmart. Not much to report about it, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.

mike.

Sweet food...

2005-03-09T17:09:00.000-03:00

Beth may have written about this already, but all food here is SOOOOO sweet. A few examples:

1) A chilean breakfast food is called "pie de limon", which is basically a REALLY sweet lemon merengue pie. Too much for breakfast.
2) Patricia (our señorita here) peels here peaches, plums, and grapes because they are sweeter that way.
3) Patricia thinks that we are amazingly strange because we don't put any sugar in our tea (where will you get energy for the day)?
4) The national drink, the Pisco Sour, is a really really really sweet fortified wine mixed with lemon juice and egg white (for foam) tastes like a really really sweet margarhita with a little bite.

mike.

Standing on my head in Santiago

2005-03-09T17:03:00.000-03:00

Yesterday I took another yoga class at the studio near my house in Las Condes ... this one was Ashtanga primary series so I was right at home and nice and sweaty. And I didn't fall out of my headstand and knock over everyone else in the room. ¡Que bueno!

Two funny stories -

So I was talking to mi madre de casa (Patricia) over breakfast one day about that poem that kids say when they have to choose something from a group - you know, eenie meenie miney mo etc. She told me that there is a poem just the same in Chile. She asked me to write the poem down for her grandchildren, so I wrote it in both english and translated it into spanish. As you all know, there is a line that goes - Catch a tiger by the toe. For background to the non-spanish speakers in the crowd (I include myself in this category), the verb for catch in spanish is coger. But ... this is the meaning of the word in Spain, not in South America. Here, coger is slang which means to f&%k (Tori, cover your eyes!). At the time of the writing I didn't know this yet, so in short, my translation of the poem included the molestation of a tiger. Poor tiger.

Funny story number two. Yesterday was International Woman's Day (is there such a thing in the US?) and Mike being the charmer that he is bought our house mother some flowers. This morning at breakfast, she said "Mike is great, he is a 7!" Not a 10 we asked? No - apparently in Chile, the scale for rating things goes from 1 to 7. Very strange these Chilenos.

Oh before I forget, thanks to everyone who is reading these entries and sending us notes. It's nice to know that we are missed!

Big shout outs for my brilliant brothas who are getting into grad school everywhere - Alex for UMD and UVA, and Seitz for Duke and 55% of Cornell ...

Beth

Neruda Take II

2005-03-09T17:01:00.001-03:00

To start, here is a link to Pablo Neruda's life story: http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1971/neruda-bio.html (thanks to my mom for sending the background link).

We went to another of PN's houses - it is right next to the school that we are attending here. Again, the house was just as bizarre as the last one. It is shaped to feel like a ship, so there are low ceilings and doorways, narrow rooms, the house flows in such a way that you have to walk through every room to get to the next one... there are no rooms next to each other, and much of the exterior is painted blue to feel like the ocean. This one even had a stream running through a courtyard in the house so that the sound of water was omnipresent.

Again, more collections, although less bizarre here... glasses of different types, books, paintings (mostly of himself or his wife), "pop" art furniture from the 50s and 60s, etc... And again, there was a mold of his wife-s hand on his desk so she would always be near him. The guy was a nutjob! The first house we visited was a bit more interesting - the views were better, the house was a little bigger, etc... but this one was well worth it as well (how could it not be - it was "free" in the sense that the school pays for it).

My observations on Chile

2005-03-06T12:22:00.000-03:00

Here are my observations thus far on Chile:

1. Chileans find it inhumane to neuter their pets. Therefore there are packs of stray dogs running all through the streets - the guide books weren't kidding. None actually are emaciated, they are all pretty fat and happy. Strange, there is every kind from cocker spaniels to german shepards.

2. Chile is not an Atkins-friendly place. White bread and sugar abounds. Every morning for breakfast we have fresh white bread rolls (you can find wheat - called 'integral' - in the stores but I don't think anyone eats it). Also, everyone adds sugar to everything. Our host mother is incredulous that we don't add sugar to our tea or fruit. "How do you get your energy for the day?" she asks ...

3. Chileans don't use consonants. In particular, they drop their esses when speaking (buenos dias = bueno dia) which makes understanding them nearly impossible. Who knows what I might have agreed to thus far? But I did have a breakthrough the other day when a woman at the bus stop asked me if we had been waiting long (¿Ya mucho esperon?) and I understood ...

4. Everything in Chile is SUPER! Spanglish is common with this word ... everything is SuperBien, SuperRico, SuperBueno! Funny funny funny.

Ciao -
Beth

Viña Veramonte, Isla Negra, and San Antonio

2005-03-06T11:51:00.000-03:00

Yesterday we joined the school excursion to Isla Negra (one of Pablo Neruda's former residences) and a few other places along the way. The trip was a bit expensive (around $30US each for transportation and breakfast), but was definately worth it. We left Plaza Italia at about 8.30' in the morning with 5 other students and the guide and his family (the guide works at the school as well: Jorge). We started the morning off by driving to a vinyard... again, I can{t comment enough on how much the land here looks exactly like northern california.

So... wine at 10.30 in the morning... the amazing thing is that the vineyard was packed. We toured the vinyard and had two tastings for about $3 each... The vineyard was very new - it was beautiful, but not in the way that some of the older (or older looking) vineyards are in Napa.

After wine tasting, we went to El Quisco (or something like that) - a beautiful beach about 80km east of Santiago. We hung out on the beach for about an hour before heading off to Isla Negra, the home of Pablo Neruda (or, one of three that are still around). The house was compmletely bizarre - it is on a bluff overlooking the water, so the views are amazing... the strange part was the Neruda was aparantly a bit eccentric and liked to collect LOTS of things... he has a collection of bugs, of shells, of maidens from the front of a ship, of colored glasses, of ships in bottles, really of everything that you can imagine. Another odd thing about the house ' aparantly Neruda always wanted to live on a ship, so the house was built to look like a ship on the inside. All of the doorways are low, the ceilings are in the shape of an arc (like being inside a tin can, I guess), and many of the views look out onto the water (of course). Among other things, he had a mold of his wife's hand on his desk so her touch would always be near him. Very strange.

Next we went to San Antonio - probably the fisherman's wharf of the area. There was a huge fish market, tons of restaurants, sea lions and pelicans, and of course people painted all one color who only move when you give them money. Where would a tourist attraction be without those people. We had lunch here - I had a fish soup of some sort and beth had salmon...

Finally, we went to a Polmaire, a small artisinal village just outside of Santiago that is basically a big "mall" of locally made pottery. It was very cool, although it was a bit suspiscious after you went to 20 little shops and they all had the same exact stuff. THey must make all of the stuff communally and then spread it out among the stores.

We finally got back at about 9pm and took the bus home, had a bit to eat, and went to bed. A good day, all in all.

A new student is coming to our house today.... he is french canadian... Just what I need, another language in the house. If I start hearing french as well as spanish, my head might explode.

Anyway, that's all for now.

mike.

Classes, etc...

2005-03-02T16:43:00.000-03:00

We have now been through three days of classes - 3 hours in the morning and 1.5 hours in the afternoon. It is a pretty tiring but I think we are learning a lot of spanish. We just went over a few of the past tenses, so things are all a bit confused in our head - suddenly you learn 2 or 3 new conjugations... whenever you speak, you have to sit there and think about which tense to use, how to conjugate the verb, etc... Its very difficult. I{m sure though, that after 4 weeks, we{ll have this down =)

Beth just went off to take a yoga class - there is a studio pretty close to our apartment. She is quite excited, although we both think the class will be difficult because everyting will be in spanish - and who knows the words for "lift the pelvic floor" en español?

Tonight, dinner and more studying....

mike.

The food

2005-03-02T16:39:00.000-03:00

The food has been fantastic so far. In Chile, we are able to eat all of the food and drink the water if we want, so we have been able to have lots of fruits and vegetables. Our host mother is an excellent cook - we have great meals for dinner - usually a bit of meat of somekind (generally chicken), some sort of starch - potatos, rice, etc.. and then a huge salad.

Last night, we ate a fruit called "tuna"... it is the fruit of a type of cactus. It was excellent, although a bit strange. There are so many seeds in it and the flesh is so soft, that you don{t actually chew it - you squish it against the roof of your mouth with your tongue and eat everhything, including the seeds. I thought it was great (I ate 3), but Beth didn{t like it as much.

mike.

Dogs, dogs, everywhere

2005-03-02T16:36:00.000-03:00

There are stray dogs EVERYWHERE. They are all over the city... it is pretty crazy. None of them seem to be rabid, per se, but they are all pretty emaciated and follow you around for a bit looking for food. I haven't seen any of them get aggressive, but nonetheless, it is a bit unsettling.

mike.

Our first day of class

2005-02-28T17:14:00.000-03:00

I want to start by saying that it is really difficult to type well on a foreign keyboard. Everything is in the wrong spot - or at least none of the punctuations are where I think they should be.

We had our first class today. We took the bus from right in front of our apartment to Plaza Italia. The bus is CRAZY... the front door stays open the entire time and the bus never really 'stops' in the american sense of the word.... really, it just slows down and people jump on and off. Sitting in the middle of the bus is probably the safest place to be, but nonetheless, I wouldn{t be surprised if one of us falls out as some point!

We got to class around 9.30 (it takes about 30 minutes to get there) and we started almost immediately. We are in the same class along with 5 other people. Amazingly enough ( or maybe not, because this is Chile), the majority of people in the school are German. In our class, 3 people are from Germany, 1 from Norway, and one from Holland.

We have 3 hours of class in the morning, from 9.30 - 1, with a 30 minute break in there at some point. We then have 1.5 hours of conversation class in the afternooon. The level of the class is really good... we are both learning a lot already. Every monday, there is a little 'fiesta' for the new students - we drank some wine and had empanadas and chatted with the other students in our class. All in all, there are probably 50 people in the whole school, and most of them came out for the fiesta. After the fiesta, we had our conversation class, and since then, we have been on the computer, chekcing email, etc...

Thats all for now.
mike.

The eagle has landed

2005-02-28T16:52:00.000-03:00

Hola everyone ... well we made it with only a small delay in the schedule! Our flight took off about one hour late and was smooth sailing from there. It took 7 hours to get to Lima and another 3 to Santiago. We picked up the shuttle at the airport (after paying $100 each to enter the country!) and arrived at our family's apartment in barrio Las Condes. It is definitely the most affluent neighborhood in Santiago - feels alot like walking through parts of California - palm trees, manicured patches of lawn, pomegranite trees, and lots of tall buildings and fences. It's only a short walk to the metro (about 1 mile) and (luckily for me) a fabulous yoga studio. I'll have to give it a try if I can get myself up at 6:30 am and drag myself away from my host mother's incredible and bountiful food! About our family ... we are staying with Patricia and Carlos Sanchez, a wonderful couple that has 4 children (all grown and out of the house). Also there is a chica from Sao Paolo, Brazil staying with us that will be at our school for another week. Patricia is overwhelmingly nice ... cleaning up after us and stuffing us with vegetarian food (¿quieres una fruta? constantly ...) Meals are especially interesting and a bit tiring because we sit and talk with them for hours at a time - which means they do the talking and Mike and I nod and smile and try very hard to pick up on a few phrases here and there. But ... this is how one learns a language. And we are told that if you can understand Chilean spanish, you can understand spanish anywhere ...

Over the weekend we just explored the city and the other barrios - we went to el Centro (the center of the city) and walked through a bunch of parks. Sunday we took a fernicular up Cerro San Cristobal, a 3000 ft hill in the center of the city with an enormous Virgin Mary statue at the peak - definitely the Fisherman's Wharf of Santiago! The weather is muy bueno - sorry to everyone we left behind in the snow! This reminds me again why I want to move back to California!

Ciao,
Beth

How much to pack

2005-02-24T19:24:00.000-03:00

Here we are with our stuff, just before leaving for the airport. We both are carrying our frame pack and a small backpack with us. Most of the stuff in here is toiletries and medicines. Geez!

We're Leaving Today..... Hopefully!

2005-02-24T12:35:00.000-03:00

Today is the big day. We've finally checked everything off of our todo list, have everything in a big pile and are ready to pack. We are supposed to leave tonight, arrive in Santiago tomorrow afternoon and go to meet our host family.

Unfortunately, it is supposed to snow like crazy today... hopefully that doesn't delay or cancel our flight. I guess we may be leaving for Santiago a day late. In the grand scheme of a 4 month trip, it isn't that big a deal, but disappointing nonetheless.

-Mike and Beth-

Slight change of plans...

2005-02-10T16:29:00.000-03:00

We had to make a slight change of plans to our trip. We were supposed to leave today, but we were overwhelmed with school applications, financial aid forms, vaccinations, etc... and decided to push the trip off a few weeks. Our new flight info:

New York (JFK)
Depart 10:30 pm
Terminal 4

Lima (LIM)
Arrive 6:25 am +1 day

Duration: 7hr 55mn

Flight: 531

Economy/Coach Class ( Seat assignments upon check-in More Information ), Breakfast, Boeing 767-300

Lima (LIM)
Depart 7:15 am

Santiago (SCL)
Arrive 12:35 pm
Terminal I

Duration: 3hr 20mn

Flight: 531

Economy/Coach Class ( Seat assignments upon check-in More Information ), Breakfast, Boeing 767-300

Total distance: 5178 mile(s) (8333 km)

Total duration: 11hr 15mn (12hr 5mn with connections)

Fri 17-Jun-05

Quito (UIO)
Depart 11:45 am

Guayaquil (GYE)
Arrive 12:40 pm

170 mile(s)
(274 km)
Duration: 0hr 55mn

Flight: 517
Operated by: LAN AIRLINES

Economy/Coach Class ( Seat assignments upon check-in More Information ), Complimentary Liquor, Boeing 767-300

Guayaquil (GYE)
Depart 1:40 pm

New York (JFK)
Arrive 9:00 pm
Terminal 4

2986 mile(s)
(4806 km)
Duration: 6hr 20mn

Flight: 538
Operated by: LAN AIRLINES

That's all for now.
mike.

First Post

2005-01-18T19:10:00.000-03:00

We just set up this blog a few days ago to record our trip to South America. We finally have plane tickets:

we'll be gone from February 10th - June 10th.

We fly into Santiago, Chile and fly out of Quito, Ecuador.

The trip is somewhat structured - we're going to language school at Tandem Schools in Santiago, Chile for the first month. We'll be staying with a family while in Santiago.

After Santiago, we are supposed to volunteer through WWOOF but at this point, that hasn't worked at. If all goes well, we will volunteer for a month through wwoof in Chile and then move on to Bolivia, Peru, and finally Ecuador.

We'll keep everyone updated as we move. If you need to contact either of us, comment on a post here (theoretically we get emails when you comment) or email us: mikeh@alumni.virginia.edu or bethkahley@yahoo.com.

mike.