Point, Grunt, Laugh, Smile… (whatever it takes!)

Although I don ´t believe in traveling in foreign countries with expensive things like video cameras, sometimes I really wish we had one.   Because it would be *so* funny to show everyone back home what it ´s like just to try and get a meal or god forbid… check into a hotel when you don ´t speak the language.   Hilarious!

Example – yesterday, after we left the internet café, we happened across an ice cream vendor.   YUM!   I ´ve decided it ´s best to start each interaction with “Não falo portugês.   Você fala inglês o espanhol?” – I don ´t speak  Portuguese.   Do you speak  English or  Spanish?   Usually whomever we are speaking to gets this sort of “oh-crap-I-don ´t-think-I-can-help-you” look, and I just start speaking in  Spanish and hope they get what I mean.   However at the ice cream machine, next to the woman serving, was a young man on the sidewalk.   He jumps up and starts shouting/blurting out random things in English: “You no speak Portuguese, eh!?   Ha ha ha ha!   You like!!  *gestures at ice cream*   Good, good!   Hey!   This kind!   *gestures towards syrup flavors*    Hey!   Hey!   Mmmm!!!   You like!   Ha ha ha ha ha!   Okay!   One Reais (their currency)!   Ha ha ha ha!   One!   Chocolate!!!”     SO funny… we laughed for the next block.   And the ice cream was delicious!

That night we decided to hunt for the grocery store for dinner.   We found our way, but it was located in a shopping center.   We passed a Sushi place first and ended up each  indulging our Sushi-tooth.   After puzzling over the portuguese menu for four or five minutes, the waiter walked up.   This kind of situation is always a panic moment for both of us; we know we won ´t know what they ´re saying and won ´t know how to tell them that.   So they say, “asdfij aklsdnmf lçiha sfnaw ioçdhjtoij”   And we say, “uh….”   Turns out the guy spoke excellent English, explained the menu, and hooked us up with some incredible sushi AND free beer!   It was *so* good, and cheaper than the U.S.   Still out of our budget range, though, so we made up for it the next day by eating eggs, bread (not toast), and liquid yogurt for both breakfast and lunch.

Today was the day of getting up early, researching trip options, and further exploring language-school options.   The first place we found, the receptionist only spoke Portuguese, and a resident spoke both Portuguese and Spanish, so we had this really funny chain of translating going on.   The receptionist would tell Hosana, Hosana would tell me, and I would tell Pat.   Then Pat would tell me, I would tell Hosana, and Hosana would tell the receptionist.   The second place had a guy who spoke (and taught) English, so that was much easier, and they gave us a better price.   Next week is going to be a major brain blow-out.   We are going to spend all day from 8-8 studying, going to class, and doing homework.   It ´s okay to go to school all day when you study different things.   I hope we can handle the same subject for 12 hours!

We ´ve moved hostels.   The last place we stayed at – Pousada dos Franceses – was about $5 more a night than Hotel Joamar where we are staying now.   The bonus was the Pousada had a kitchen where we could cook our own meals (usually cheaper), but hardly any dishes/pans and they weren ´t very friendly.   I think it was more of a residential place, because people had their names on shelves and lockers and there were lots of signs telling you not to use a certain frigde or cupboard or bathroom or set of dishes.     “For Pousada Only” ~- which we finally understood meant “do not use” after the lady picked up Pat ´s bread cutting dish and put it away three times.   Joamar is cheaper and really ritzy – the bathroom is glorious… all 12×12 tile floor to ceiling with a real shower!   And the room is really nice as well.   And the front desk people are really nice.

About the shower bit – my experience is that showers in South America in general are very different than showers in the U.S.   For one, they usually don ´t have curtains.   Most the time it ´s just a shower head coming out of the wall/ceiling with lukewarm water.   In the case of the Pousada, the Bathroom was a tiny 3×5 room.   To take a shower, you stood in front of the toilet like a man would, made sure the toilet lid was closed, and then turned on the water.   Of course the whole bathroom gets soaked.   Fortunately you have a convenient squee-gee in the corner to push all the water towards the drain.   Really, now that I think about it, the bathroom was more like a large shower stall  complete with toilet.   Fortunately for Pat, most of the shower heads are mounted really high up on the wall or in the ceiling.   He ´s 6 ´7″ and doesn ´t fare well under most U.S. shower heads, to say the least.

Last but not least was our farmer ´s market adventure.   We were hunting down a hotel recommended to us by our language-school and after ten minutes of searching with our packs on our backs through the bustling city (we were moving hostels) we decided to give up.   On our way back, though, we saw this market full of delicious fruits and vegetables and somehow ended up getting talked into three mangos and two pinhas.   I don ´t know what a pinha is either.   But this vendor just kept barking at us in Portuguese and handing us pieces of fruit to try.   Meanwhile another guy is trying to edge in on the sale by dangling grapes inches in front of Pat ´s face.   The first vendor could tell I sort of understood him, so he just kept shouting out different bargains – telling me to tell Pat the prices.   We kept saying no, and he kept going lower and shouting in Portuguese, “Tell him!   Tell him I say 5 for 15!   Tell him!   5 for 15!   Should be 20!   Tell him that!   Should be 20, I say 15!   Tell him!   Tell him!”   The pinhas are a really exotic, but awesome fruit.   So delicious, like a mix between mango and pineapple with a fuzzy texture.   They look like an artichoke but the skin is sealed and tough/leathery – kind of like an orange peel.   There are fat black seeds – like a giant watermelon seed and each is surrounded by a glob of fruit.   Okay… I found a picture!   They were mondo bueno!

a giant bowl of pinhas. I wonder if you can get them in the U.S.

Anyway… our plan for tomorrow is to go to an Asian market in the Liberade district (the biggest population of Japanese outside of Japan) and to start studying the tools in our Brazilian Portuguese phrase book to prepare ourselves for class on Monday!

Madness (and Serenity)

So we arrived yesterday morning and finally got to our hostel at noon.   I ´ve never really experienced jet lag before, but holy crap was it bad.   We set the alarm for 1:30 and didn ´t wake up until 6.   **oops!**   We thought after that, we ´d only need five or six hours that night.   Wrong again.   We meant to get up at 6:30 (yes, a.m.), but somehow managed to sleep until 10.

And this not-knowing-Portuguese stuff is just not going to fly.   We ´re limping by on those who speak English and my Spanish, but both Pat and I are desperate to get some language under our belts.   And yet, instead of finding a language school, we ´ve spent most the day touring the city and seeing the sights.   I ´m having a great time, and it ´s really fun watching Pat ´s reactions to the city.   I ´ve been in several big cities and  am finally comfortable with the hustle/bustle/smells/lights/honking/subways/jumble of foreign language, but watching Pat reminds me of my first time in a huge foreign city.   It really makes your head spin, and it ´s really stressful because you ´re always on high alert and kind of scared.   It ´s hard to slow down and be excited when you ´re trying desperately not to get lost.

Last night was *really* funny – perfect reason we need to learn Portuguese.  We went out for dinner with no real direction.   We were just going to find the metro for the next day and stop at an eatery.   Well, the food place we picked wasn ´t a restaurant.   After observing the crowd and getting stared at for five minutes, we finally figured out that you pay at one counter and then take your ticket to the other.   The hitch is that no one waits their turn – at the second counter you just thrust your ticket at one of the workers, say something in Portuguese, and they take it and get your food.   Well, of course we didn ´t figure this out for awhile, and we were incapable of asking anyone what was going on, so we just kind of stood there while 10-15 changing faces milled around us.   Finally we got up the nerve to get one of the workers to take our ticket, not really sure what was going to happen next.   The end result was two delicious sandwhiches, but getting them was hilarious.

Today, like I said, we slept in four hours past the alarm, so there went the game plan of checking out cheaper hostels and moving to the centro before our noon check-out time.   Instead we just checked out cheaper hostels – we found a way nicer hotel for $5 less (which is a lot on our budget) in the centro, so we ´re moving tomorrow morning.

Next we battled the language barrier to get lunch and try to find our way up to the Banespa Tower to overlook the town.   The elevators were broken (or at least that was my estimation of the translation to Spanish and then English), so we ended up just going to the two beautiful churches.   São Bento Church was the prettiest (I thought) – with an organ containing 6,000 pipes!   The Metropolitan Cathedral was incredibly majestic   – but I didn ´t think the interior was as beautiful or as ornate.

catedral metropolitana - really amazing architechture

We have talked about moving on to a smaller city to take Portuguese lessons to save money (everything is more expensive in cities), but it might be easier just to stay here and ride the subway everywhere.   Also – I hope we don ´t have to wait the whole weekend to arrange lessons.

Tomorrow… who knows?   Maybe we will rent bikes and go ride around their version of Central Park?   Or maybe we ´ll get on a bus?   Or maybe we ´ll spend five hours in an intensive Portuguese class?   Can ´t wait!

Goodbye South America!

After I took the ferry from Colonia to Buenos Aires with the California couple, I found a hostel near the bus line I would need to take to the airport the next day. My last night was fun and full of lots of Quilmes, a strange underground club experience, and lots of getting-to-know-you conversations with strangers. Before I left to catch the bus to the airport, I discovered my rain jacket had been stolen. A real bummer because it was perfect. Ultra light, minimum features, non-breathable (the breathable stuff has gortex on it, which wears off in a few years and leaves you in need of a new jacket), perfect fit, pit zips… this thing had it all. Karma, I guess.

I arrived in Portland early morning and decided to Greyhound it back to Eugene. Why not? After a month and half on buses, what’s another three hours on a bus. (Those of you who know the area… yeah. THREE hours. Is that not ridiculous?) I had a few free days to get things in order and get stuff packed into my car for my journey east.

My family showed up a little before  graduation  and stayed until a little after. I had fun showing them the sights and introducing them to all my favorite places. Then I visited Jerri Moro in eastern Oregon… the Wallowa area definitely deserves a shout-out, not to mention a return visit. It’s gorgeous there, like the Tetons minus the four million tourists. I can’t wait to go back!

Then, FINALLY, I pointed myself due east and finally got to see Nate for the first time in almost three months. Planted a garden, almost got to see a tractor pull (!!!), and have just been enjoying myself, in general. I hope the summer has lots more where that came from!

Last Minute Adventures

So here I am at this truck stop trying to gauge just exactly which of the doors on the building is the proper entrance. I take my pick and head for it, a giant rack of cow hides curing in the back ground, and fresh sausage and meat cuts vacuum-sealed in plastic hanging off a rack outside the front door. The flies swarmed everywhere as I stepped into a carbon-copy of any commercial truck stop in the U.S.

Bright plastic signage, gleaming white countertops, shelves of tacky  souvenirs   coffee brewing in the corner, florescent light bulbs shining bright… it was weird. I walked up the the forty-something woman behind the counter and explained to her that I had no idea what was going on or what I was doing, but I needed to get to Gualeguaychu if she could please help me. It was rocky, but things worked out, language barrier and all. I have found that usually, if I re-explain to them what I think they’re telling me, confusion quickly gets cleared up.

After our conversation, this is what I understood: the turn-off to Gualeguaychu was back down the road a few miles. (THAT’S why it takes and extra 35 pesos to go there! It’s not on the way!) I should go out and stand by the divided highway and watch for a remis (taxi of sorts) to go by. There is a turn around about half a mile up the road. So, once I see it go by, I should cross the giant divider between the two sides of the highway and hitch the remis back to Gualeguaychu. I tried, apparently unsuccessfully, to explain to her that I wouldn’t know how to tell a remis from any other car. She assured me this was no problem, as one of her employees would help me. She sent me to wait out front, so I sat outside on the cement steps underneath the meat rack watching cars drive by on the road 30 yards away wondering how many rides I was missing.

After ten minutes of waiting for something to happen, I went back inside to tell the woman that I STILL didn’t know what was going on. She grabbed the closest staff member, a teenage boy, and sent me out to the highway with him. We stood there with a navy guy who was trying to hitch to Buenos Aires and chatted until I saw a local bus stop down the road from us. “Couldn’t I ride that into Gualeguaychu?” I asked him. He said I could but that I would take at least an hour and that it would be shorter to wait for a remis. Somehow I doubted it, and I knew the bus would be cheaper, so I told him I’d just get on the local. He helped me by making sure the bus was going my way and asking the bus driver to drop me off at the main bus terminal. The driver asked the store clerk if I even knew Spanish, to which the young man responded, “Yeah, she understands a little bit.” A LITTLE BIT! Grr! Well, I suppose I’d rather have people expect too little than too much, but still. A little bit?! No. I know plenty of Spanish, I just don’t know how I ended up at a truck stop in the middle-of-nowhere!

Anyway, the bus driver was really nice. Much of the ride was just he and I, and we spent half an hour hanging out in the city’s industrial park. He was full of information about the products coming out of each of the factories, which was neat, and he even went off his route to drop me off at the city’s bus station! From there, I caught a bus across the border. I ended up in a town that had almost nothing to offer in terms of sightseeing, etc. (i.e. when I asked for a town map, they directed me to city hall, the department of architechture and city planning, and they gave me one of their maps.) So, after some difficulty finding a place to change money, the scorching (winter!) heat, and a double scoop ice cream cone, I decided to just head for Colonia, my ultimate destination where I would catch the ferry to Buenos Aires.

The trip to Colonia was on local buses, and the guy who sat next to me took 1/2 an hour to figure out that I wasn’t Uruguayan. Meanwhile, he talked my ear off about all sorts of things. Between his rapid Spanish and the Uruguayan accent, I think I caught about 3/5 of what he said.

We got to Colonia at night and I immediately got turned around. A port guard pointed me in the right direction, so I hustled through the rain to the hostel. The place was nice although thoroughly damp. I had a dorm room all to myself, and it smelled like a cave. The showers were hot (finally!) and they common room was great. I met more Americans there than I had in any other part of my trip. I gave a couple from California instructions to free camping and hotsprings in Yellowstone and watched more T.V. than I have in the last 10 months (it rained the whole time I was there). It was definitely a wake up call for how totally out-of-the-loop I am when it comes to television. The shows we were watching were all at least three or four years old and most of them I had never even heard of.

Colonia was quaint and definitely a place I’d like to stay a little longer next time around!

Iguazu Falls

The waterfalls today were absolutely incredible. Amazing. I couldn’t believe it. I got up early for the first bus, and made it.  Unbelievable  because I am in the terrible habit of procrastinating always. We got to Iguazu Falls just as it opened and I made my way immediately to the showcase display, the Throat of the Devil.

First, I should explain. Iguazu Falls is not a single waterfall, but a plethora of waterfalls with trails leading to upwards of thirty viewpoints. Imagine you are in a medium size river, heading upstream, when suddenly it splits into two gorges, each at least a mile wide. At the head of each gorge is a wall of gushing cataracts forming several different waterfalls. This is Iguazu Falls. Not one, but over 100 different waterfalls, each its own paradise right in the heart of the Amazonian outskirts.

"The Devil's Throat" nearly impossible to capture on film

“The Devil’s Throat” nearly impossible to capture on film

I went for “The Devil’s Throat” first. My guide book had it right when it said that “to even the most hardened of waterfall yawners, this is more than your ‘gee, isn’t gravity neat’ experience.” True. SO true. Wow. If you’ve ever seen the Neverending Story (who knows which one), I remember a scene when he has to jump off the biggest waterfall I’ve ever seen in an image. That’s the closest I can come to describing it. Water poured into a bowl from three sides cut out by hundreds of years of wear. When I was within half a mile, the sound  reverberating  from the falls pounding into the pools below shook my bones. It was like 1,000 elephants storming across the Serengheti. As I wound my way through the catwalks that hopped from river island to river island, the anticipation grew. Finally I caught my first glimpse of the falls; at a distance they are like seeing a tiger in a zoo. When I arrived at the viewing platform, I kid you not, right on the edge of the falls, I couldn’t breathe for sheer amazement. This was like being in the jaws of the tiger, adrenaline, fear, and who knows what else pumping through my veins.

I darted back and forth around the viewing platform trying to catch the falls from every possible angle while getting soaked to the bone and barely being able to breathe. Then I headed back to see the much-less-breathtaking but equally spectacular waterfalls of the park. It was so incredible to spend the day in the quasi-jungle of waterfall paradise.

the view from the head of the second gorge

the view from the head of the second gorge

I caught an afternoon bus back to Iguazu so I could catch my early evening bus. I was headed for Uruguay, but in sort of a tricky way. I had intended to travel to a city on the border of Argentina and Uruguay, cross the border, travel to a Uruguayan city on the coast, and ultimately take a ferry across the miles and miles of water to Buenos Aires for my flight out. The problem was this: it cost 35 pesos more for a ticket to a town on the WAY to Buenos Aires than it did just to get a ticket straight to the big city. Luckily, I ran into the guy from the station when he was off duty, and he advised me just to buy the ticket to B.A. and then tell the bus driver that I wanted to get off early. I heeded his advice, which turned into yet another adventure!

First of all, I bought a regular ticket, like always. Usually first class is downstairs on busses and coach is upstairs. This was opposite, which bummed me out because I love the view from the top. Then, the color and volume on our single coach T.V. was out of whack, it was freezing (they had the A.C. on and couldn’t turn it off!), and the lights didn’t turn off. We stopped at a checkpoint and I snuck upstairs to first class where there were plenty of empty seats. It was striking to see the difference in passengers. Below, I was sitting with all the locals and was the only gringa in the bunch. Above, I was with all tourists and everyone was white. It was sad to see that one of my fellow passengers from would probably not be able to successfully enjoy first class for free, because none of them could ride on the shirt-tails of being white. It’s so shocking to notice how little I realize how many benefits automatically come with being white and how many disadvantages can affect you if you’re not.

After several good movies, free wine, and excellent dinner, and plentiful pillows and blankets, I decided it was time to alert the bus driver that I would be jumping off in Gualeguaychu. I broke the ice by asking how much farther it was to the town. When I told the driving team that I wanted to get off there, they looked at my like I had just grown a third eyeball. “Are you sure?” they asked me. “Umm… yeah.” So with the same “oh-my-god-she-has-a-third-eyeball” look, the agreed to let me off in the border town. A few hours later, shortly after sun-up, one of the stewards came and asked me if I still wanted to get off in Gualeguaychu, to which I enthusiastically responded in the affirmative. “Okay, well, then get your stuff together so you can get off.”

I headed back down to coach to snag my bag and waited by the door (located about 1/3 way back, not right next to the driver like buses in the U.S.). The bus rolled to a stop on the shoulder of the highway just outside a solitary trucker’s gas station. “Gualeguaychu??” I asked. My brain was being rapidly steeped in confusion as I began to rapid-fire problem solve. I had expected to be dropped at a bus terminal in a city, and now these guys are pushing me off at a truck stop in the middle of a bunch of farm fields. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea? Maybe I should just get back on and ride to Buenos Aires and give up my Uruguay exploration? No. No way. I wasn’t going to spend three days hanging out in Buenos Aires (where everything is way more expensive) just because I suddenly find myself at a truck stop near the border. I asked the bus steward just exactly what I was supposed to do if this was Gualeguaychu. He told me to go inside and ask the cashier to call me a taxi or to hitchhike. Here goes nothing!

Bus Brain

I just calculated, and I have been travelling for over fifty hours from the Pacific Coast in Chile almost to the Atlantic in Argentina! Ugh. I know I’m lucky that I’m not stuck somewhere, but those two days of doing nothing in Chile really ate into my time.’ Suddenly I find myself with five days worth of stuff to do and only three days to do it. 🙁 Guess that means I’m going to have to come back! 🙂

Right now, I’m in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina. Tomorrow I’m going to see the Iguazu Falls. Our bus didn’t get in until 11:30 today, and the bus out of here leaves every night at six, so I opted to spend all day tomorrow instead of ten seconds today at the falls. I also learned that my hopes of going to a Natl. Park in Argentina where they have all sorts of cool wild life (monkeys too!) were quickly to become a pipe dream. Once again, they way it looks on the map isn’t always (is rarely!) the way the buses go. I thought I could hit the park on my way down to Argentina, but turns out I have to pass the park (as the crow flies), then take a bus that loops back on a different road. Anyway… I’m suddenly wondering where all the time went and can’t believe that I only have four days left until I will be in an airplane chasing the sunset!

Desperate times call for desperate measures!

Okay, so when I got to the bus station in Salta, it was midnight and I found out the next buses departed at six a.m. I`m pinching pennies like crazy… I`m nearly out of travel cash, and I cringed at the thought of paying for a night at a hostel when I wouldn`t even be in the building for longer than five hours. Then it  occurred  to me that I could just stay at the bus station! So I did. It was an interesting night spend among all of the people who can`t afford a place to sleep. Definitely eye opening. I`d do it again, even though I had to fight to stay awake (and not miss my bus!) towards the end.

I was about to board a 27 hour bus to Puerto Iguazu on the NE tip of Argentina. The trip was divided into two tickets, but the man at the ticket counter assured me it would be the same bus the whole time. When the bus rolled in, I was NOT happy about that last detail. I was travelling with a nice and fairly expensive company… the only one that sold tickets all the way to Iguazu… but the bus must have been the first one they ever purchased. It`s not so much the lack of frills, but just that I had consoled myself when handing over the absurd fare by thinking about all the little extras I was paying for. Now it was clear I wasn`t going to get them either! Ack.

I got on the bus and FINALLY went to sleep. Next time we stopped, my eyelids were so heavy I couldn`t open them if it killed me. When we stopped for our hour layover, I hung out where a bunch of teenagers were plugging quarters into the television (they have them like payphones. It`s really weird. Put in a quarter to make it go, and drop in your pennies, dimes, and nickels to keep it running. You can even channel surf, but it`s just sitting outside). To my absolute glee, when the bus pulled back into our platform after fueling, it had transformed into the Andesmar standards I was accustomed to. I breathed a sigh of relief and scurried on board for the next 23 hours.

Viajando, viajando, viajando.

Just as I expected, getting out of bed for the bus today was pure torture. I am the most apathetic, illogical person when it comes to putting my feet on the floor in the morning. Despite the fact that I would be totally screwed, I still am not at all inspired to move. Not to mention that my intestines where whining about yesterday’s poor choice (churro? avocado?) that made my stomach churn like the sea.

I did make the bus, however. “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac has been keeping me entertained in my down-time since Cuzco. He is teaching me a great lesson in passive voice which my writing has always been riddled with. Perhaps a direct reflection of my speech pattern? His musings about life among the poor in the 50`s also serve to remind me that poverty exists everywhere. Even in the states, there are families living eight bodies deep in a one room shack. When I wasn`t reading, I admired the landscape which was finally gaining a bit of personality. At first, 7:30 a.m. outside Antofagasta, desolate coastal mountains engulfed the landscape with their depressing grey-brown. By 10:30, Calama made the change of pace. Tumbleweeds, and only tumbleweeds, begin their careers here. By 11:30 the desert finally became a glorious thing again with grooves and peaks and valleys and rainbows of earthtones – brown, tan, red, orange, pink, purple, yellow, scattered across everything in bleak contrast with the blue sky and the occasional chalk green desert plant. The white sand that provided the canvas for everything else was anxious to reflect every color the sun had to offer. I hear it’s gorgeous here at sunset! My ears endured the agony of yet another Andean descent and the moon hung eerily in the sky as we descended on San Pedro de Atacama where the fences are made of mud bricks formed into steeples at the top. Weeds and cacti grew atop the fences, nature`s barbed wire! By 3:00, the tough yellow grasses of the eastern Atacama appeared, and white/grey clouds took the sky by storm.

We stopped at the Argentinian entry point, and I did a triple-take as I found myself singing to the song playing in the back ground. One of my favorite country songs (I LOVE country music!) about enjoying all the wonderful little things life has to offer was pouring out of the speakers somewhere. “Raise a little hell, laugh til it hurts, put an extra five in the plate at church, call up my folks just to chat, It’s time that I make time for that, Stay up late, then oversleep, show her what she means to me, catch up on all the things I’ve always missed, I won’t break my back for a million bucks I can’t take to my grave, Go for a walk, say a little prayer, take a deep breath of mountain air, put on my glove and play some catch, It’s time that I make time for that, wade the shore and cast a line, pick up a long lost friend of mine, sit on the porch and give my girls a kiss.” I was so happy I almost cried. Weird, I know. I think it was just suddenly having one of my very favorite pieces of home that reminded me of all the wonderful things I have to look forward to in life.

I figured out that the music was coming from the television… welcome to satellite t.v.! One of the customs guards, gun, bullet-proof vest and all, noticed me lingering and invited me to sit down and listen to the music. “Today, you work for Argentina!” he said with a wink and smile. I translated the song for him and explained to him how funny it was that I loved that song and really dislike the singer (Toby Keith). Those five minutes seriously made my day.

We arrived in Salta only to be greeted by  hordes  of hostel hawking folks, and I trudged through the crowds in search of the morning departure for the other side of Argentina. I only have five days and still lots to do!

Antofagasta

I am horrible at getting up in the morning. Just ask my mom, who used to regularly pour glasses of water on me to get me out of bed, or my physics teacher who kept me out of detention all through high school by never reporting my daily tardies, or my roommates who have endured countless hours of me hitting the snooze every nine minutes. No matter what great aspirations I have the night before, come morning, nothing short of a miracle will get me to plunk my feet on the floor right after the alarm goes off.

This being said, at 6:30 in the a.m., I suddenly had very little interest in finding out if there was some miraculous Friday border bus available. I managed to drag myself to the phone in the hallway to call the company, but when they didn`t answer, it was right back to my nice saggy bed. I put a few more hours on the clock and headed back to heaven. The next time I awoke, I realized that tickets probably sell out fast being as there are so few departures. I called the company to find out just how fast, and they told me there were only a few seats remaining. I washed up as fast as I could under the dribble of water they called the shower and ran to change some cash. When I got to the station, they had four tickets were left for the Sunday salida. And, to my great disappointment, they also had a 7:00 a.m. Friday departure. Ack!

The woman who sold me my ticket was super nice, and very interested in hearing all about what it`s like to travel alone. She thought I should stay in a hotel closer to the station (I was six blocks away), but I told her I was paying less at my current abode. She wanted to know what it was like, and turned her nose up at the thought of sharing a bathroom with strangers. I realized that, in my country, I`d probably have the same reaction to the idea of staying in a broken-down hotel with saggy beds, creaky water pipes, dirty corners, and shared bathrooms. It was interesting for me to suddenly note my immediate dissolution of all expectations upon entering another culture. I mean, I already knew that I aspire to be open-minded, but it was funny to see just how clean I wiped the slate when I got off the plane in Buenos Aires. I have definitely seen a huge spectrum of places and lifestyles on this journey, thanks to my “go-anywhere, do-anything” attitude.

Because my bus ticket and three days of hotel had flung me well over my budget border-line, I prepared myself for some serious penny-pinching. I stopped at a fruit stand and bought up breakfast and lunch for the next two days. If you have to sustain yourself on fruit, avocados are more than tolerable! I headed for the plaza with the intent to read and journal away the afternoon (after all, it`s free!). The main plaza here is by far the prettiest I`ve seen in all of South America. There are fountains everywhere, climbing flower vines on trellises, an old clock tower, and excellent ambiance. Antofagasta is a great place to be stuck! The city has a great feel! It`s funny, because I wasn`t all that excited about coming here. The place is practically  condemned  by Lonely Planet as a chaotic and hectic stop-over, to be avoided if at all possible. Number one, that description doesn`t even come close to describing the city I experienced. Number two, since the world`s most popular guide book doesn`t recommend it, there are VERY few tourists there. It was so great to spend a few days feeling like a person instead of walking cash-machine. No tours, no craft vendors on every corner… what a breath of fresh air!

That evening, I went to the central market to try and find an empanada (meat in a sealed bread pocket) for dinner, but had no luck. On my way, I found a group of people setting up a stage in a public area, reminiscent of Pioneer Square in Portland. A concert! Awesome! I decided to buy dinner from the grocery store and then hurry back to see whatever it was the stage had in store. Winnie, a traveller and nutritionist from Canada whom I met a few weeks ago, had recommended the cheap dinner of tuna and salsa if I was ever broke and in search of a healthy meal. She swore up and down that the garlic and onion in the salsa killed the fishy-taste.  Two dollars and twenty minutes later, I sat down in the square to watch the concert set up and try the tuna/salsa combination. One thing, though. I couldn`t find salsa at the grocery store (guess it`s a mexican/american thing), so I bought italian tomato sauce that had onion and garlic listed in the ingredients instead. I had some flat-bread to spread it on, and soon crunched into my first bite. Uhhh… okay. Not bad, honestly, but I wouldn`t really call it good, either. Maybe the salsa would make the difference. I`d be willing to give it another go if I found real salsa, but my advice as it stands it not to eat tuna and tomato paste on bread. Even if it only costs a dollar.

While I was eating, an little girl, age 8 or 10 maybe, approached me to find out where the strange woman with the bag of bread and cans of tuna, tomato paste in front of her was from. She also wanted to know if we had tomato paste where I came from, if I had a house in Antofagasta, and where I slept if I didn`t have a house. Her bold manner was adorable. Just like that, she took the hand of the little girl that had been trailing behind her and “ciao!” took off across the square. After feeding the tail end of one of my tuna/paste/bread concoctions to one of the many homeless canines, I took a walk and returned to find an orchestra warming up. Cool! The conductor talked so fast I could only catch every tenth word, and the sound system sounded like something from the 70`s, but it was really fun to be part of an audience at a cultural event. Antofagasta rocks! I love it here! I went to bed that night with the joy of knowing that, for the first time in my entire trip, I didn`t have to set an alarm! Wheee!

Saturday brought even more fun and relaxation. I really needed this break. Or, at least I am really enjoying it. After arising mid-morning, changing more money, and enjoying an avocado/tomato brunch to the sound of jazz on a pedestrian walk-way (this city is amazing!), I went to explore a new section of town. I ended up in a dead residential section, and enjoyed my banana/peanut lunch on the steps of a church. I wound my way back to the main thoroughfare (according to the map) keeping an eye of for internet and finally stumbled upon the park my guide-book had promised. I watched kids and their parents playing in the afternoon sun for awhile before pointing myself back in the direction of my hotel. Not two blocks later, the glint of the ocean caught my eye and I saw some of the biggest waves of my life rolling in from the vast Pacific, more green than I`ve ever seen ocean water before. I was immediately overcome with the joyous giggling and laughter that inevitably accompanies the first sighting of the ocean waves (at least in my world). I watched, almost mesmerized, as corny as that sounds, as the green slowly darkened almost to blue right before the wave crashed onto the rocks and sometimes up and over the short concrete barrier between the sidewalk and the ocean. I wanted desperately to stick my toes in the sparkle and glitter, but the waves pounding the rocks not ten feet from my post on a wagon-wheel bench kept common sense close at hand.

After I got my fill of Chile`s ocean beauty, I made my way to one of the loudest internet cafès yet, a result of the proprietor playing internet war games. His computer was connected to the surround-sound. Cool. I was craving food, and let myself get talked into buying a churro full of dulce-de-leche (caramel) in the main square. I knew it was a mistake by the third bite, but I kept right on crunching because of this weird psychology I have about not wasting food or money. I procured dinner, yogurt, avocado, and some bran cookies, and then went to catch up on my journal entries only to find that the website was down. Horrible timing! Finally I have the opportunity, when I can`t afford to do anything else, to catch up on my entries and I get shut down. Ack!

I walked the streets nursing my growing belly ache. Bastard churro! Or maybe it was my over-consumption of avocados. That can`t really be good for you. Despite my digestive issues, I managed to enjoy the awesome vibe of the evening there. Because of siesta, people are on more similar evening schedules. The whole town was out in droves! It felt like the county fair or something, with everyone wandering around and all the shops open at 8:30/9:00 at night. People milled about chatting and laughing and I just soaked it all up. I think in the states, we all start our days on basically the same schedule, but there is no official cultural pace. So, come 4:00 in the afternoon, some people are dying to call it a day, some people are just eating lunch, and a few oddballs are just getting up. The only time I`ve ever seen anything that compares to this kind of social situation is the Main Street Festival in Gillette in July, or the Saturday Market in Eugene. But it`s like that every day here! Neat!

I`m going to bed early tonight so that hopefully the morning won’t be such a struggle. I absolutely cannot miss my bus tomorrow!

Dèjà vu

After only 3-4 showers a week, most of them lukewarm at best, the value of a hot shower has increased ten fold in my book. Somehow, on the day of my planned expedition out of Bolivia, I was lucky enough to get up to my first hot shower in over a week. It was strange to spend the first hours of the morning having no idea what the day would bring (i.e. cross the border? road blocks have me stuck in Copacabana? walk 10 kilometers under the hot sun to border?).

After hearing that the Perú/Bolivia border was a go (gracias a dios!), Caroline and I spent the morning scrounging up food for our trips (she to Arequipa, Perú, me to Perú/Chile). I had run out of Clif bars, so I decided to stock up on a less-healthy emergency energy source (emergency as in on the bus in the middle of the night with a screaming stomach and the next food opportunity several hours off). Snickers bars run about a buck a pop down here, but slightly less in Bolivia, so I stuffed a couple into my pack. We also picked up some bread after finally realizing that the price everyone was quoting us was per kilo, not per ea. Funny. 🙂 We thought bread might as well have been gold at first.

Colectivos for the border depart from the plaza, so we nabbed a spot in the sun to wait for a car to be full so I could get on with my journey (Caroline had a bus ticket for later). I made a commitment to one driver, and twenty minutes later there still weren’t any other passengers. Then, all of a sudden, a car rolls by almost full shouting out the name of the border town and I go from zero to sixty, say a hurried goodbye to one of the coolest women I’ve met, and toss myself and my luggage in an old Ford station wagon. Inside, I found myself among a bunch of locals who were all smiles. Finally some friendly folks! The driver had a bunch of glittery bumper stickers hanging all around in the car, most of them oozing with sarcasm. My favorite was right above my head, “No pida velocidad, pida seguridad.” Don’t ask how fast we’re going, just ask if you’re safe. At we topped out at 110 (mph, NOT kph!!!) in a car with no seat belts, I realized it wasn’t exactly the joke I took it for at first. Yikes.

He dropped us at the Bolivian exit office, and I once again encountered the burden of figuring out transport. After going through all the legalities, I found myself on the Peruvian side looking for the colectivos going to Yunguro. Well, come to find out, there are no colectivos collecting folks at the border. You have to get into the next town and take a ride from there. All of this is explained to me by the driver of one of those three-wheeled taxis (remember the photo?), and I end up as his fare. I tried to center myself over the rear axle before we took off towards town, bouncing the whole way. Crazy! A small bus, almost full, was calling out my destination as soon as I stepped out of the cab, so seven minutes later I could finally relax for a bit about how I was getting to the next point. To my pleasant surprise, three Brazilians I had met the day before on the way out to the island were on the same bus. Score! On the less fortunate side of things, the awful, albino Australian that I had met weeks ago in the desert on my way to San Pedro de Atacama was also on the bus. He was complaining in full force, true to form. Ack!

We finally rolled into Puno two hours later. Not the most comfortable ride, with too much stuff on my lap, the Australian making all his judgmental pronouncements, and last-minute passengers standing in the aisle for the whole trip. As is common with any large group (bigger than two!), there was mass confusion as the five of us (Brazilians, myself, and the Australian) got off the bus downtown and tried to make a group decision about priority number one. With taxis practically crawling down our throats to give us a ride, ticket sellers coming out of the woodwork to offer us passes to various destinations, and vendors calling out various items for sale, we finally managed to get underway to the bus station. We took turns watching the bags as everyone bought their onward ticket. I found an especially cheap seat to the Perú/Chile border, which made my day!

The plan had been to go out to eat, but the Brazilian’s bus was leaving too soon, so we lunched at the station. Fine with me. The less time I had to spend with the Australian, the better! Lunch ended up being chaotically entertaining, with three wrong orders, two spilt sodas, and plenty of group photos. I was sad to see them go, but I split from the group as soon as we left the restaurant. I wasn’t about to get sucked into an afternoon of enduring the Australian’s caustic comments.

Instead, I thought, what better way to spend wait time than in an internet café. I went in with five hours to spare, a pocketful of change, and several emails waiting to be responded to. I thought for sure I’d use up three hours at most, but four and a half hours later, the young woman at the counter was yet again warning me that I was about to consume yet another hour. A bit sheepishly, I told her I was well aware, and kept clicking away at the keys. When I was done, my butt was numb, my brain was numb, my eyes were numb, and I was ready for the night-time bus ride ahead. I had been getting sick (a cold?) and could definitely use the sleep.

We stopped ten minutes after leaving the station, before we were even out of the city, to pick up more passengers. After much confusion and arguing, it became clear that seats had been oversold. After being offered free passage, a few finally acquiesced to sitting in the aisle instead of vying for the seat they had purchased. Heat on the bus was unpredictable as usual. At first, it seemed there wasn’t going to be any heat at all. To protect myself from getting even more sick, I broke out my sleeping bag and curled up for the night. I awoke later to a thick build up on ice on the inside of the windows; that’s how cold it was! Finally, in the middle of the madrugada (as they would say here) the heat kicked on and the chattering of my teeth was replaced with the shedding of as many layers as possible.

When I woke up at 6:30 as we were rolling into Tacna, I was startled to see that my seat partner had gotten way too close for comfort. Then I realized that it was my hair, not my neighbor’s, lying on my shoulder. The sun has started to work its magic, and my hair seems to be dying (no pun intended) to work its way to the blonde end of the spectrum if I keep spending all this time in the sunshine.

Although Tacna has three terminals, our bus company didn’t see fit to drop us at any of them, so I threw in with a couple of Australians (Nick and Jessie) to get myself to the international terminal. They were crossing into Chile as well, but because of the early hour, we still had a bit of a wait before our colectivo was full. The colectivo driver cut us a deal on the fare, though, so we didn’t mind. On the way to the border (this would be their first land-border crossing) I told them stories about my last experience at this border crossing and about how strict the Chilean customs people are. After my story about a drug dog at one checkpoint, Jessie got really scared. She confessed that she and Nick had bought some mary jane in Cuzco and had no idea what had happened to it. He was certain that it wasn’t in their bags, but she wasn’t so sure. “Great!” I thought. “Just what I need. Guilty by association, I’m sure. Oh well! No turning back now!” Counter to what I had expected, the border crossing went quite smoothly, minus my alarm going off while I was standing in line to get my exit stamp. Because I don’t have a cell phone, or pager, or any other electronic, noise-making device that frequently and unexpectedly elicits a response, I had no idea it was me making all the racket. As a result, I stood there for literally five minutes getting annoyed until I realized the beeping was coming from MY bag. Ooops!

We made it to the Chilean side of the border just in time to miss all the early morning departures to Antofagasta, Chile. Judging by the maps in my book, it looked quicker to cross the Chile/Argentina border from there versus the location further North that I had used last time. Jessie and Nick said their good-byes and went in search of a hotel while I spent the next few hours waiting for my departure. After I had already bought my ticket, I noticed an office that I hadn’t spotted before. It was the same company, Geminis, I had crossed the border with the first time. I began to suspect that perhaps there was only one place to cross the border, and that maybe I had chosen to send myself several hours further south than necessary. About ten minutes before the departure, my brain doing a rapid-fire trouble-shooting of all potential situations, I ran to the Geminis office. I waited in line for five minutes while the customer in front of me shot the breeze with the counter guy, and finally gave up in the interest of making onto the bus I had already paid for.

After paging furiously through my guide book and giving the bus steward the third degree, I confirmed my recently developed suspicions. I was going too far south. However, I also recollected that border crossings by bus were only on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday mornings. The buses originated in the city I was headed for, so really, no big problem. But wait. It was Thursday. I felt like I had suddenly been attacked by the bad luck bug. I resigned myself to two extra days on the Chilean (more expensive) side of the border and dug into my identifiable (!) lunch of turkey and mashed potatoes while puzzling over the road-building scars left all over the desert. I never realized the reclamation done alongside roads in the states. Here, it’s painfully obvious, especially in the desert, that reclamation is not a priority. I could see the ghosts of every single push made by track dozers as we crossed miles and miles of the wide ranging Atacama desert, driest in the world.

the view out the window never changes

the view out the window never changes

As the sun set, the stars came out and I caught my first glimpse of Orion since I’ve been down here. It’s so funny to see the constellations I’m so familiar with be upside down! And also neat to see a whole sky full of stars and patterns that I didn’t grow up with. I’d give anything to run into someone familiar with the southern skies while I’m down here. So far everyone I’ve asked can only tell me the southern cross, just like most people on the northern side of the equator can only point out the big dipper. Sad. 🙁

the scenery is like a broken record

the scenery is like a broken record

After spending all day on the bus (and really, I hadn’t seen a hostel/hotel for two days), I was grateful to finally get to Antofagasta. I went to the cheapest place recommended by my guide book only to find it was charging three bucks more than I was planning on paying. Thanks to my lack of luggage, I went in search of something cheaper without much hassle. The desk clerk had directed me to a place around the block that she thought might be cheaper. I walked in the door, unknowingly launching myself into the chaos of some kind of blanket making/bedding extravaganza. The rooms were about the same quality and price as the last place, but I wasn’t a fan of the party going on right outside my door. I hightailed it back to the other joint and came to terms with the fact that I was just going to have to break budget for a few days. I thanked my lucky stars that at least I’m financially secure enough to afford these kinds of unexpected expenditures. I figured if I went any cheaper, I’d have to deal with roaches, on top of the fact that my bed sagged badly in the middle and tilted downhill to the left, the water faucet groaned a complaint every time I tried to use it, a metal cabinet posed as my bedside table, the walls and light fixtures were bare, and the shower in the shared bathroom barely dribbled a stream of water. It’s the good life!

I headed out to catch a bit of internet time before the shops closed. As I passed topless bars, one after another, I realized that, consistent with the appearance of my hotel, I wasn’t probably in the best area of town. That doesn’t bother me now like it would have a month ago, though. One ice cream cone and four hundred pesos of internet later, I made my way back to the hotel to indulge in some hard-earned shut-eye. I set my alarm for 6:30 so I could run to the bus station in the morning and see if, by some miracle, there was a Friday departure so I wouldn`t have to spend the whole weekend and half my cash in Chile.