Mullets

When I first arrived in Buenos Aires and was hanging out with Eleanor and Jared, they pointed out to me the preponderance of mullets, a haircut that was popular in the 80`s/early 90`s in the states. If you don`t know what a mullet is, I strongly advise going to google.com and educating yourself. You may be sporting one and not even know it! Anyway, why the talk about mullets? Well, on the bus between Salta, Argentina (where I was essentially stuck for an extra day due to few-and-far-between departure schedules) and San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, a really sweet, young, Argentinian woman sat across from me. She definitely belonged in the mullet club. Then I realized that Delfin (from Spain), whom I had been travelling with for a few days also had a mullet which was always under a hat. It`s just funny to see how entirely arbitrary and subjective fads and fashions are. The newest and latest here could be a fashion faux pas in the U.S., depending on who you ask.

The ten hour bus ride to San Pedro de Atacama definitely had it`s highlights. Not even an hour outside Salta, the bus came to a screeching halt behind a line of traffic stopped in the road. As all of us passengers craned our necks to see what the problem was, we saw the road up ahead laden with a huge group of people on either side. Robbery crossed my mind, but from what I hear, roadside bandits aren`t usually so methodical. Protests are really common here, largely due to overt government corruption (as opposed to the generally clandestine manipulation and deceit of more industrialized countries). One of the best ways to get people to listen is to affect their lives: this is often accomplished by shutting down roads. Suddenly instead of 100,000 people who want to do away with poor wages for laborers, you`ve got 500,000. The young woman with the mullet asked some folks outside the window about what was going on, and I heard them report that a road slide had blocked the road (“Both sides?” she asked). According to the bystanders, the road wouldn`t be open until three p.m. the following day. Great. Just great. I`ve already burned almost two days in Salta, and now this! You never know, though. So I crossed my fingers and opened my book. Sure enough, twenty minutes later the bus kicked into gear and we were on our way. As we passed the conglomeration of people on the road, I searched for clues as to what exactly they were doing. Best I could tell, the ditch was some kind of homeless camp with people coming out in droves carrying their bags full of their belongings. Once again, I am quite thankful that I have the resources not to have to sleep in a ditch alongside the highway every night.

As I tossed and turned in my seat on the bus, I realized, also, how thankful I am for my size. Not so small that I lack the physical presence that makes me feel capable and safe, but small enough to fit comfortably (and in several positions) into the minimal spaces offered on buses and airplanes. Anyone with legs longer than mine would have died on this bus. The cheap ones always have less leg room. No problem for me, though. They also have no T.V. to entertain you with movies, which I absolutely adore. If I`ve got the light of the sun, I`d much rather enjoy the scenery and my books without the sound of Jim Carrey`s voice blaring from the speaker eight inches above my head.

Speaking of scenery, the landscape on way to San Pedro de Atacama was much like that of Cafayate, but less remarkable than what I had seen before and quickly gave way to desert-like conditions. In several places, the road when right through the salares… dried up saline lakes that have left the ground blindingly white. It was really interesting to me that we would drive right through and environment that is so unique, but I guess maybe it`s only unique to me and not worth the extra money to build around it.

scenery (or lack thereof!) around San Pedro

During the ride, I got to see my first baby llama! It was so CUTE! The llamas (I assume domesticated, but maybe not) were just hanging out alongside the roads like cattle. As we lumbered slowly uphill past them, they all got as far from the road as possibly (usually only 5 – 30 ft. in most places) and faced away from the bus. It was really strange. About half an hour later, we happened upon a building literally in the middle of nowhere. To my surprise, we slowed down and pulled in! I`m finding out that this is actually quite common. Buses are kind of like airplanes here in that the ticket usually comes with a meal or two (depending on the length of your ride) and each bus has at least one steward (always male) that turns the movies on and off, opens and closes the curtains and vents, serves the meals, and helps the passengers with their needs. Companies also often have their own restaurants in rather obscure locations, which explained our stop. We were here for our lunch!

I headed directly to the bathroom, where I once again wished I had my dictionary. There are always signs above the toilet telling you what to do with your toilet paper (in some places the plumbing can`t handle the paper and in others it can), but I never remember to look up the key vocab words. From the beginning, just to be safe, I was always tossing it in the trash in effort to avoid an embarrassing incident of a clogged and overflowing toilet. However, when I encountered a trash can with a sign on it indicating that you should NOT put your toilet paper in the garbage, I decided to break out the dictionary (thanks again, Kieran). Here you have it: inodoro = toilet, cesto = garbage can. No arrojar el papel en el cesto. Don`t throw your toilet paper in the trash. Check. More common, however, is, “Por favor, nunca tirar NADA ni papel en el inodoro.” Please, never throw ANYTHING, including toilet paper, in the toilet. One cultural hurdle down, ten to go!

At lunch, I met some other travellers. Funny to see how uncomfortable people are with difference. All the gringo travellers clustered at two or three different tables, and all the more local travellers formed groups at other tables. I met two young british women, both very nice, and an awful Australian. He had to be the most discourteous person I`ve encountered thus far. He had nothing but negative comments about the different ways of doing things in the countries he had travelled in, and complained incessantly and righteously about the bus company and the food (neither of which were particularly appalling). I wanted to tell him that if he was going to continue being so intolerant and narrow-minded, he`d be better off going directly back to Australia where he could bask in his undeserved privilege. Grrr! It`s really disappointing to meet people like this. When locals do have negative opinions of travellers, I think it stems from interacting with people like this guy. And speaking of local opinions, there is definitely a stereotype about young travellers. Nearly every hostel I check into sees fit to inform me immediately of parties that will be taking place, locations and closing times of the local dance clubs, and the nearest place to buy alcohol. I just have to laugh out loud; if I wanted to drink myself silly for six weeks straight, I could do it for a lot cheaper in the states. Why travel if you`re just going to live the same life and do the same things you`d be doing back home? Ack! Anyway…

When we left our lunch spot and headed back out across the plains, the paved road politely excused itself for the next several hundred miles. So much for reading. It was really strange to be humming along a stretch of bladed desert at 65 mph, for hours on end. We were gaining in elevation, though. The bleak, boring view out the window didn`t change, but the temperature did. Before I knew it, we were surround by snow patches in a landscape that resembled what Wyoming/Eastern Oregon might look like after getting hit with a nuclear bomb. To my dismay, I`m not invincible to the altitude. I first noticed it on the bus shortly before lunch. I was reading my guide book when I suddenly felt like I desperately needed air. The same feeling you get when you swim to the bottom of the pool and stay too long. It only had to happen twice before I realized what was going on. I can`t wait to see how I fare in LaPaz, Bolivia, the highest capital city in the world (12,078 ft.) or at the world`s highest geyser field tomorrow (14,190 ft.).

Salar Atacama – one of the many dried up saline lakes

When we finally arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, we had to go through customs before we could go into town. We had stopped about a hundred miles back at the Argentina exit point, but there had been no Chilean entry point. This is the first time the office hasn`t been right on the border, so it was a little strange. It was the same rigamrole as the last time I went into Chile. They are way more strict than any other country I`ve ever been too. They search everyone always. When we got off the bus, they had laid out a foam pad soaked with some kind of chemical. This was to be everyone`s first step. Thank goodness Chaco makes their sandal pads so thick. It would have been so nasty if the grimy liquid came spilling into my shoes. Ew! After the shoe cleaning and passport stamping, they brought a drug dog around. If the dog stopped at your pack, you were doomed to have absolutely every item taken out and looked out. Upon entry to the screening room I saw a young woman about my age who had suffered this fate repacking her bag. When I tried to get back on the bus after the screening, I found out that customs was also the bus stop, and arrival to San Pedro was by foot. Ummm…okay. That would explain the hostel hawkers. One guy was especially adamant trying to get me to go with him. I found the british women and invited them along for the ride, since there was no way I was getting into a car with this guy. Shortly thereafter, I found out by “come with me, I`ll take you” he meant, “I`ll walk you to the hostel.” Oh. Okay then.

The streets of San Pedro are really neat. It`s this great idyllic desert village with a very authentic feel to it. Lots of quaint little restaurants. The hostel was nice… more hotel-ish in that they didn`t have dorm beds. There were doubles and triples, all going for the same rate. At first I was disappointed that the british women weren`t keen on the idea of a triple (once I left, they`d be stuck with whoever the hostel chose to put with them). However, when I walked into my own private double, I was quite pleased with the way things had worked out. It was the first time I`ve had my own room in a place that WASN`T a total dive. Awesome! The showers were HOT, but quick. They don`t have much water in the desert, so conservation is a must. Also, the water is often heated by wood fires, which means that you`re consuming a huge amount of resources. It struck me how much I take for granted a nice, long, hot shower that goes for pennies in the U.S.

An Australian couple on their honeymoon had also just arrived at the hostel, so we invited them out to dinner. The two brits have a travel website that they wanted to update, so we spent some quality time in front of the computers before we ate. It was SO expensive! I swear, internet is the bane of a traveller`s existence, and yet entirely fantastic at the same time. When I get behind on journal entries, I start to get stressed out about it. Also, I have an unfortunate knack for detail, which means writing about a single day can take me upwards of an hour, sometimes almost two. I usually manage to relegate my usage times to days/hours when I`m just hanging out in a bus station waiting for a bus or when a museum sounds far less interesting than catching up on my journal. The upside to the internet is, when I`ve had a really rough go of it (i.e. having to face challenge after challenge alone with no moral support), it`s great to get to an internet cafÃ¨ and find messages waiting from friends and family. Very comforting.

We had dinner at the nicest restaurant I`ve eaten in down here (I usually stay away from the expensive stuff). They had a $1 cover per person for the FANTASTIC music, and a warm fire very near our table. I finally got to try the national drink, Pisco sour. It`s a white grape brandy mixed with lime juice, among other things. Like a margarita, only more acidic. It was good, but REALLY strong. It didn`t go all that well with my dinner, which was also a tale to be told. As I was scanning the cheap dishes on the menu (starting at $7), I came across “avacado pasta.” It was either pasta or pizza if I was going to keep from breaking the bank, so I got it. It was basically avacado purÃ¨ed and poured on penne. When I got to thinking about it, nutritionally it`s just like eating avacado on toast. While strange, it tasted great!

We were all beat after the long day of travelling, so we headed home. Walking in the front gate, Kirstin, one of the brits, said something about chocolate cake. Truly evil, I thought, and told her so. Much to my surprise, they were harboring a stash in their room and invited me to join them. Yum! After twenty minutes of travel talk, I retired to my own room. Thank goodness I had asked Xena for the time before I left; I almost forget the time difference between Chile and Argentina. I set my alarm for my necessary 3:45 a.m. rousing to go on the tour to the El Tatio geyser field, world`s highest, the following day. I can`t believe how fast time is going down here! My trip is almost half way over already!

Lucky to be alive!

I`m starting to realize that I`m crazy. From the moment I arrived in Buenos Aires, I`ve been meeting travellers. The first order of business, of course, is to exchange names, nationalities, and the amount of time that you`re travelling. Some the first folks I encountered told tales of anywhere from 4 mo. to a year and a half of travel. At first I was shocked that anyone would have the resources to travel that long. However, the more people I meet, the more I realize that I`m doing something almost entirely original. It`s completely common for travellers to find a town they like, spend four or five days eating, reading, sleeping, and exploring a little, and then move on to the next destination (which can be done relatively cheaply). Counter to that, my most predictable move is to read up on a town before arrival, decide what I`m going to do there and when I`m going to do it, arrive at the town, research onward departure times, find a hostel, have my planned adventure, leave. In fact, it`s a bit rare for me to spend more than one night in a town. I want to see as much as I can! People I meet think I`m insane, though.

Something else I`m learning about travelling, though, is that almost everyone I meet is travelling on an “around the world ticket.” Little did I know, there are conglomerates of airlines that sell tickets charging by the continent (not by the flight). Travel has to be completed within a year of your departure, and the ticket includes four free flights within each continent if you so choose to use them. Your route has to be set before the trip (i.e. Europe, Asia, Australia, U.S., Europe) and costs $75 to change. You pre-select your dates for flights between continents, but the dates can be changed, free of charge, as long as you don`t exceed your year of travel. The tickets cost around $3000. I really hope I am able to take the opportunity to do something like this while I`m young!

Now back to the travel stories. Winnie, Delfin, and I arrived in Salta after hailing the bus in the desert around 10 p.m. We were approached by the commonplace gang of hostel hawkers, which is always a bad thing when you`re in a group. What happens is this: each group member`s attention becomes occupied by a different vendor resulting in mass confusion along with continuing pressure from all the pamphlet wavers. AND we still needed to find out about onward tickets for the morning! Finally we told the group of travel maulers to hold while we searched. Winnie and Delfin found a bus that left for their next destination at 10 the following morning. Lucky me, it turns out departures to Chile, where I was headed, are only available on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday morning. Glory be, it was Tuesday night. As I waited for Delfin and Winnie to finish their ticket business, the disappointment of having to spend excess time in a city started to sink in. I cursed myself for not having the E.S.P. to know that this would happen so that I could have spent the extra time in Cafayate. I recovered quickly, however, as there was my delicious goat cheese purchase to be taken advantage of, along with the wine purchased by my travel-mates.

Delfin got us talked into a hostel farther away from the bus station than I wanted to be, but I acquiesced, given the hour. I decided I would look for my own the following day after I accompanied them to the station to purchase my ticket (my agency was closed upon our arrival). Ten minutes and one peso later (roughly 30 cents), we found ourselves in front of our hostel-to-be. The rooms and kitchen were standard. Our bathroom lacked a shower curtain, but I am told that is a common phenomenon in Argentina. And showers aren`t like they are in the U.S. In all the countries I`ve travelled in, the shower is merely a two inch depression in the floor with a curtain between it and the rest of the bathroom. So, if you can imagine this, you have no problem fathoming the sopping wet mess that results. Also, the hostel`s attempt at creating unique and defined spaces left most of the communal areas looking like they were under construction. Nonetheless, within thirty minutes we were happily enjoying our cheese and wine (and pizza that Delfin had ordered on the sly). After an extensive conversation about recreational drugs (turns out Delfin is quite the dabbler), I headed out to find a telephone office to make a sanity-maintenance phone call.

Breakfast the next morning was by far the most stellar I`ve seen in the way of palatable eats. For the first time at a hostel, I wanted seconds! And, I`m ashamed to admit, I keep getting lured into the coffee drinking business that goes on here. I`ve gone this long without getting hooked; I can`t give in! True to form (this holds true only for my travels here), I was the first one ready to go on account of my lack of luggage to be packed. Delfin and Winnie made their bus with a few minutes to spare, and I faced the music regarding a necessary 7 a.m. departure (the busses of both companies leave at this time) the next morning. That left me with 21 hours to kill. I made myself a to-do list which included a hostel search (closer to bus, please!), laundry, sunshine enjoyment, book completion, and internet, in that order. On my way to “Backpacker`s Hostel,” which I was referred to via a flyer from the night before, I had to trek past the town`s biggest park, San MartÃ¬n. Backpack on, purse dangling by my side, small map in hand, a bag of food trailing on my left side, and jeans rolled up to avoid my wet sandal straps (thank you shower), I plunged into the city, constantly scanning street signs and store fronts. I walked alongside the outer edge of the park for what seemed like ages. Finally, I glanced down to consult my map as I overtook an older couple on their right side. As I squinted at the tiny print on the map in hand, my world suddenly disappeared from underneath me. Some tree planting projects were taking place at the edge of the park, and my overtaking of the couple via a “mound of dirt” just off the side walk left me knee-deep in a slime hole complete with mud, clay, sticks, dirt, trash, and who knows what else! I let out a yelp as I realized everything I owned was about to be plunged into the murk and somehow managed a leap up out of the vacuum-seal muck onto the sidewalk. I quickly surveyed the damage, and to my dismay found that my rolled up jeans, my bare calves, my sandals, and my all ten of my little toes were covered in mud-slime. A man walking by had unwittingly become the victim of a few flying mud splatters and had the nerve to ask me what I thought I was doing. “Oh, sorry, sir. I was just enjoying my mud bath and free laundry service here in the park. I didn`t mean to disturb you. Thanks for helping me out of the tub, though.” Argh. I wish my Spanish was good enough to lay THAT one on him!

I found the hostel I had gone looking for shortly thereafter, and settled in after cleaning myself up. Laundry service was offered for a few pesos more than usual, so after scanning the availability (or lack thereof) of a lavendarÃ¬a within a few blocks of my new abode, I handed over my wash. With the sun shining and book in hand, I took off for the nearest plaza (a park with grass you can`t lie down on). I brought two books down here with me (thank you, Laurel, for the fantastic recommendations!) and was itching to get rid of the bulk of my 500-page novel. I found a bench in the sun, and slowly rotisseried myself as I devoured the chapters, wrote in my journal, and just stared at the trees and sky deep in thought. The plaza is an excellent place to spend time on account of the people, the pigeons, and the goings-on about the city. It`s really nice to be around the joyful and lively happenings that almost inevitably fill a city park. The pigeons cooing at my feet and the unbelievable amount of noise they make when they all take flight on account of a stray dog were definitely a plaza trademark. The synthetic bell that chimed the quarter hour all day served as a nice benchmark insofar as just how much time I was piddling away. A protest during the afternoon kept distracting me from my final chapters. The ice cream man (a commercially-supplied cooler strapped to the handle-bars of a bicycle made me feel like a kid again. It was interesting and educational to notice all the vendors constantly strolling by and peddling their wares. I`ve never really thought about how incredibly stable the economy is in the U.S. There are so many people down here who have to make their living by walking around with a box of strawberries, or pedaling around a basket of lunchtime delights. Their work isn`t done until they`ve sold the last drop after being rejected who-knows-how-many times and walking who-knows-how-many miles. Hence, the title of my e-mail. I started thinking about how truly thankful I am to have the means, financially, mentally, and physically, to live the life that I am living. I am so lucky to be able to afford to spend the entire day reading in the park instead of peddling strawberries or shoe-shines to feed my kids. I am so lucky to have two (almost normal) legs to climb the four sets of stairs at my hostel, two arms to tote all my gear, corrected-to-normal vision, normal hearing, a history of adequate nourishment (thanks Mom & Dad!). I am so thankful for the incredibly privileged life I have led.

As nice as it was to have an entire day with relaxing as the principle item on the agenda, I could only manage to enjoy about five hours of it before I felt utterly useless and slightly lame. By then it was too late to make my way to any tourist-draws, so I resigned myself (quite happily) to getting some groceries and making dinner. (Also thankful to be able to afford what ever I want at the grocery store.) After the creativity-free pasta dinner I made myself, I spent a little time online while listening to the desk-employee and his friends play soccer on a Playstation. Argentinians are INSANE about soccer… to the tune of killing a player who once scored the winning goal for the opposing team in some all-important game. To my chagrin, the acoustics in the room were abnormally impressive. Longing for the earplugs in my backpack back at the hostel, I cut short my typing after I couldn`t bear to hear another playstation-induced scream of protest or victory. I headed back to call it a night, repacked my bag with my fresh laundry, and awoke to the flip side of water shortages at hostels. Instead of only cold, I got only hot, scalding hot, water. No shower for me! Breakfast brought an offer of a taxi to the station with a young Dutch woman.

Chile, here I come! (again.)

Cafayate – a desert like no other

After staying in the roach motel in TucumÃ¡n and finally shedding the sentiment that accompanies living like a recovering heroin addict, I killed my bus-wait time by catching up with all this online business and making a belated “Happy Mother’s Day” phone call to my mother. I’ve decided that no matter where you go, food-wise, travelling sucks. In the states, it’s gross sandwiches fabricated who-knows-how-many weeks ago with potato chips to compliment the meal. Here, pretty much your only option in bus stations is pre-packaged food. I’m talking Saltines, Oreo’s, cookies… you name it. As long as it can be artificially flavored and persevered, they’ve got it for sale in a South American bus station.

Something that strikes me nearly every time I get on a bus is the big hurry that all the buses seem to be in. I’m not complaining but it’s just kind of nerve-wracking to feel the driver shift into gear before the baggage doors are closed. If you’re last on the bus, you better be good at surfing. It’s rough waters all the way back to your seat as the bus lumbers and sways out of the station faster than should be legal. Also, one of my biggest annoyances on the bus is that without fail, whenever I sit next to a male local, he always feels that it`s well within his right to worm his way into my space. Most of them are no bigger than I am, and so can`t pull the “I have long legs” card. It`s just somewhat humiliating to be outright disrespected like that. I know it`s something small, but when I have to hammer my leg against someone else`s just to help them realize that I`m a person and deserve space just as much as they do, it gets frustrating.

Moving on, I really appreciate the perspective I’m gaining while interacting with other travellers. I don’t realize that I’m sheltered in ways I never think to question. My most poignant example comes from casual conversation with Dan and some other Israeli folks I’ve chatted with in my travels. After talking about the skewed perspective that many people have about life in Israel (i.e. many think it’s terrorist central with the kamakazi crazies blowing themselves up at bus stops every 20 minutes), I thought (almost triumphantly, I am embarrassed to admit) that I’d kind of gotten the skinny that most non-Israelis haven`t. I put myself in my place, however, the next day. Dan, Liraz, Onit, and I were at the lake shore talking to the guy who rents out boats when the mid-day siren went off. The other three asked what the noise was all about. Their concerned stemmed from the fact sirens like that are used during war time in Israel to warn everyone to flee to safe houses when an air attack is about to happen. Whoa. I can’t imagine riding my bike around my neighborhood as an eight-year-old only to hear a siren like that of the Emergency Broadcast System and know it means I have to start pedaling furiously for my life. Reality check.

The country-side between TucumÃ¡n and Cafayate, at first, was very much like western Oregon. The rivers here are really dry, though. I don’t know if that’s because it’s winter, or if Argentina is having the same poor luck that much of the rest of the world is enduring in terms of precipitation. Once we started gaining elevation outside of TucumÃ¡n, the forest gave way to some crazy jungle paradise. It was unbelievable! The trees were so thick, and we followed this fantastic little mountain stream all the way and back down. I couldn’t locate it on a map to figure out what the area was called, but I think it might have been a cloud forest. What do I know, though? I’ll definitely not forget it. The road was really tight and windy… a two lane that shrunk to one in many places and didn’t have a center line for the whole ten hours on the bus. Craziness!
Next, the scenery gave way to something that reminded me very much of north eastern Oregon, or at least the way it looked when Nate and I drove through there in April, and finally we made our way into the prairie/desert that is the soul of Cafayate. I felt like I was on a bus headed for home! Except for the fields of sagebrush sparsely populated by 10-30 ft. tall cacti looking like petrified soldiers with too many arms, I was sure I was in Wyoming.

When we pulled into Cafayate, it was night time. Since I didn`t have a map of the city, I didn`t bother trying to cull a hostel out of my nearly useless Lonely Planet guidebook. The first hostel hawker who approached me was really sweet and cut me an awesome deal on a room. I`ve never stayed so cheaply! Also, I don`t know what happened, but by some miracle, I could understand every single word out of her mouth! In our conversations, she alerted me to two items I tend to forget in all my wandering. First, people often don`t know what to make of me because I travel with such a small pack. I`ve worked my way down to a medium sized purse (donated by Eleanor, along with several other items I now own second hand… thanks dear!) and a school-sized back pack. Since I don`t have the lumbering pack of a trekker, people don`t peg me for a typical tourist. However, I`m also a gringa (white) and my clothes are different enough to keep people from mistaking me for a local. It`s a fun little game for me. Item number two is I forget that I look very young. Ema, the hostel woman three years my senior, was shocked to learn my age and told me she wouldn`t have pegged me for a day over 18. Reminded me that I should be aware of what kinds of consequences this might carry (besides getting carded in the states all the time).

I had met two other solo travellers, Winnie (a Canadian) and Delfin (from Spain), on the bus and got chummy with them. We found some sub-par dinner at a street cafÃ¨: pizza with olives and bell peppers. The cheese was un-identifiable, the olives were rotten, and I can`t vouch for the bell peppers because I don`t like them in the first place. We chowed down anyway, and by morning I was no longer harboring the worry that my stomach was going to be torn to shreds. Breakfast, as per the usual, was an egg and some yogurt that I picked up at the mercado across the street. It`s a weird life. You`d think you could just eat in restaurants all the time, but it doesn`t work out like that for two reasons. One, it`s terribly unhealthy. It`s awfully hard to come by anything that isn`t fried and the rolled through the salt bucket. Two, the portions are not what the majority of you (the Americans reading this, at least) are used to. In a restaurant or hostel, “breakfast” is always white bread with jam (butter if you`re lucky), and coffee with milk. You couldn`t find a place serving anything bigger to save your own life. I`ll just cook my own, then, thank you. If I`m going to eat like a bird, I`m going to make it count nutritionally. Okay… food is a pretty boring subject, so never mind about lunch and dinner.

Winnie, Delfin, and I went on a winery tour in the morning to kill time before the Quebranda (desert gorge) tour in the afternoon. If I had thought to get up an hour earlier, I could have done the five hour hike to a waterfall outside town instead. C`est la vie! After this wine tour, I`ve had my fill of bodegas. Although, I must say the wine here is incredible. And disgustingly cheap! A bottle of GOOD wine runs anywhere between $2 and $7. Amazing. If it weren`t for the small pack I mentioned earlier, you could bet your bottom dollar I`d be packing home lots to share. I highly recommend Argentina, even if it`s just for the wine! At the second (of three) bodegas (wineries) that we visited, they were selling cheese, too. They had some for sample with the wine, and it was delicious. And if you`ve spent much time in the kitchen with me, you know what an incredible statement THAT is, because I`m about as close as you can get to hating cheese and still eating it. This stuff was so good that I had the guts to buy a whole package.

After the wine tour, we spent an hour eating white rice, fried chicken, salsa, and white bread at a street cafÃ¨. At least it`s cheap, eh? Then, we loaded up into one of the death-trap vehicles that I am becoming surprisingly accustomed to riding around in. Meant for 12 and hauling 15, we headed out for the desert with Pedro, one of the most animated guides I`ve ever seen. The Quebrada de Cafayate was beyond words. It`s miles of giant landforms eroded away by wind and water with colors so variant and plentiful that you can`t keep your eyes still. Everything looms above you, looking deceptively smaller than it is. When you catch sight of a person or a vehicle against the enormous engulfing background, it nearly takes your breath away. Pedro drove us from place to place where we got out and hiked around as he pointed out different plants and landforms. The colors, he says, come from the abundance of metals in the soil there which oxidize as they are exposed. He was also a wealth of knowledge on desert plants, pointing out one especially plentiful bush whose trunk and branches never came in any other color but neon green. Turns out the plant does most of its photosynthesizing in the trunk and branches: cool!

See the road? These landforms just LOOM over you!

As far as the company for the day, I have to admit there were some issues with a clingy guy from New Zealand. His name is Sam and he looks, acts, and talks just exactly like Napolean Dynamite. He turns what is normally a charming accent into fingernails on a chalkboard. The worst of it was, he decided that I was to be his pal for the day and so followed me practically everywhere. I kept dropping lines about my boyfriend and doing my best to be barely civil in the hopes that he would leave me alone. But, to no avail, I thought I had just escaped him and he`d be right there again. Nonetheless, I was still able to more-than-appreciate the glory of the Quebrada. The last place we went was called “The Ampitheater,” a small canyon, a maximum of 50 ft wide with walls looming well over 270 feet above our heads. Pedro, in his bantering way, sang us an amazing Spanish love song to demonstrate the acoustics from which the place gets his name. He had an incredible voice!

A view from the top – the valley leaving the quebrada

The sun had been sinking in the sky as we made our way to the turn around point on Route 68. Winnie, Delfin, and I all needed to go to Salta, which is farther along the same road, so we had decided earlier in the day to bring all our gear and flag down whatever bus or farmer we might to get us to Salta. Pedro knew the bus schedule and said it was best if we just waited for the bus coming from Cafayate. He stayed with us until it showed up and sent us packing with a smile. What an awesome day!

Roach Motel

I stayed in the grossest and lonliest hotel that I`ve seen thus far last night. I arrived in TucumÃ n at 11:00 at night. Dan had said his goodbyes and left me with the advice of being sure to take a taxi and not to risk walking to my hotel when I arrived in this unfamiliar city. 11:00 is early in Argentina, though. The restaurants are packed, people are still hanging out in plazas, and the bars are just opening. Given this, I was awfully tempted to avoid the taxi expenditure considering that I spent double what I was supposed to last week. However, after the security guard at the bus station looked at me like I had twelve eyes when I asked him if it was safe to walk alone at that hour, I went ahead and caught a cab. When I walked back here this morning, I was glad I had gone with the more expensive transport option. The three blocks closest to the bus station are a really bad neighborhood. It was bad enough in the day time. I would have been totally sketched out walking through there at night. Lesson learned.

My Lonely Planet guide book had recommended this specific hotel, so I headed straight for it after finding out as much as I could about getting to Cafayate the next day. Relieved that the cab driver hadn`t tried to take me to the hotel the long way, I walked in the front door and asked for a room. The cheapest is a shared bathroom, so I went for it. The guy showed me two rooms with the bathroom in the hallway in between. They were the dingiest, most lonely looking little rooms I had ever seen. The paint was peeling, the single lightbulb dangled from the socket, and the framed poster hung a few inches away from the wall at the top. I scraped my ankle on the metal trimming that was pulled back off the bottom of the door and thanked my lucky stars I have an up-to-date t tetanus shot. The toilet in the bathroom was missing the tank cover (I later found out that flushing it requires a Rube-Goldberg set up), the mirror was rusted over in places, the sink had come off it`s mounting, and 1/2 the tiles on the shower floor were missing. The only bug I saw, though, was an ant in the sink. The towels smelled clean, and the sheets weren`t stained, so I took it. I really wasn`t in any position to go looking for anything else. I set my alarm for seven so I could get up and walk back to the bus station to catch the earliest to Cafayate (which I found out was at 6). So three hours too late, I have no choice but to wait here until the two o`clock bus. So, I fed myself breakfast, did some reading, and now am catching up on my journal entries. Departure time is now t-minus 40 minutes, so I think I`ll have some lunch before I embark upon another eight hour bus ride and another night-time arrival in an unfamiliar place.

Cafayate is supposed to be wonderful, though! The desert up there is really well known for it`s gigantic sandstone landforms. Can`t wait to see it!

All you can eat! – $6

As soon as we arrived in Santiago (Chile), Dan, Liraz, Onit, and I bought tickets for the next bus to Mendoza (Argentina). We only had to wait about forty minutes, and we were on our way. The border crossing going from Chile to Argentina is MUCH simpler than the crossing from Argentina to Chile. It was nice no to have to spend an hour and a half at the border while everyone`s bags were searched.

The mountain passes, besides being nauseating, were also quite majestic. The mountains are so desolate, and yet so colorful. It`s amazing. For those of you from Wyoming, the whole road up the Chile side switchbacks just like the road coming out of the Bighorns on the Worland side. Only it`s 35 switchbacks instead of three. On the Argentina side, the leaves in the vineyards were all changing colors. It was beautiful, and also funny to see all these grapes growing right along side the cacti.

When we pulled into the Mendoza station and unloaded, I had one of those, “I`m so glad I`m travelling alone” experiences. I really like to do things my way, and I have pretty specific standards as far as how things should be done. One of which is reading your guide book BEFORE you get to a city and deciding where you`re going to stay and what you`re going to do so that you don`t have to spend an hour being hassled by the people awaiting the un-informed tourists at the station. The last time I was in Mendoza, I had stayed at a hostel that was wonderfully close to the bus station. Liraz and Onit, however wanted to stay somewhere that was a few blocks closer to the centro. So, while they tried to decide where they wanted to go and figure out how to get there, we were hassled non-stop by people wanting us to go to their hostel or hotel. Since I was the only one in the group who spoke Spanish, I had to listen to and present all the proposals to the the two women while I longed desperately for the shower that had evaded me for three days. Finally, I got them to agree to at least start MOVING towards the town. We stopped and checked out the place I stayed before, but the only space available was unacceptably crowded according to Dan, Liraz, and Onit. So, we went back to the bus station to find a woman who was offering space in her home. It ended up being a few blocks farther from the centro, but she was great and the house was really nice. She was so helpful and kind, and sent us to dinner at the cheapest, highest quality buffet I`ve ever seen.

For six bucks, you get all you can eat steak, pasta, salads, pizza, lasagna desserts, ice cream, fish, really anything you can imagine. They had chinese food, american food, more options than I could stomach (literally). It was SO good. Unfortunately, I ate too fast, and I have a pretty unique reaction to doing so. (If you get grossed out easily, skip to the next paragraph.) Most of you have seen it before. It started in high school… I think I have an extremely small esophagus or something. If I swallow a bite of dense food (meat and starchy foods will do it every time), it gets stuck. It happens really fast… almost instantaneous. It won`t go down, I can`t breathe, I can`t swallow, and it hurts like hell. I had thought about telling Dan about it in PucÃ²n before we sat down to eat our steak and pasta dinner, but decided to opt for the slow-eating method instead. The second my bite of delicious steak from the buffet got itself stuck, I regretted not warning them previously. It`s always so embarrassing whenever this happens. Because I can`t breathe very well, I can`t really talk, except to raspily assure all the horrified spectators that I`m fine before I go running to the bathroom to wait out the pain. Of course no one believes that I`m okay, so I am always trailed to the bathroom by at least one person who stands by, worried that I`m about to die or something, while I try by best to convince them that this is actually a completely normal experience for me, and they should just go back to enjoying their meal. Best case scenario, I puke and happily go back to eating. Worst case scenario, I wait for more than an hour for the food to painfully work itself down while spitting the saliva I can`t swallow into the toilet. This time was a cross between the two. It took me forever to assure Liraz that I was going to be fine (she barely speaks English), and Dan stood guard outside the bathroom door for over twenty minutes. ACK! Note to self: chew food thoroughly and eat slowly, no matter how hungry you are.

Have a bus ticket in my pocket for TucumÃ n in NW Argentina for tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. I`m actually headed to Cafayate to do some mountain biking in the desert, but am going to get into TucumÃ n way too late to catch any bus. Wish me luck!

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South America by bus

By Monday night, I will have spent over 46 hours on buses in a period of four days. Really, it`s not all that bad if you consider the distance I`m covering. Basically from the southern tip of Texas to somewhere in the middle of Canada via Chicago. I`m just glad I`m doing this at an age where my body can handle being almost completely immobile for 8-16 hour periods.

The ride from PucÃ²n to Santiago was relatively uneventful. It`s nice to share a seat with someone you know, who isn`t going to care if you rest 30% of your body weight against them when you curl up to go to sleep. Dan and I had the heater directly underneath our seat, though, which made for a slightly uncomfortable night of sleep. Better than being cold though, I guess. Also, to my surprise, the first time I woke up, I found that the curtains had been closed. Kind of scary for me, because if someone can lean across me to close the curtains while I sleep without waking me, I`m really in for it in Peru and Bolivia where people notoriously get their bags stolen while they sleep. Later that morning, as were pulling into Santiago, I realized the curtains had been opened again, also right under my nose. I`m gonna have to figure out a good security system for my pack.

Scariest day of my life.

Holy crap. Today was the most continuously dangerous day of my entire life. Amazing. And I have to show for it, among other things, my first glance at molten lava and the worst facial suburn I`ve ever had.

I just got back from climbing the Volcano Villarica, one of the most active in South America. I`ve never been more afraid. Jumping out of a plane is scary for a few seconds. Taking your first fall when you`ve climbed 100 feet up on a rock wall is scary for a minute. Getting struck by lightning is scary for half an hour. But standing on the edge of volcanic crater 200 feet away from the vent from which “an eruption is now long overdue” with smoke and magma shooting out and the volcano guides trying to get everyone immediately down the mountain is beyond heart stopping.

Our day started at 6 a.m. Dan and I managed to roll out of our beds with a little more time to spare than we had the day before. Breakfast wasn`t near as hurried, but still eggs, yogurt, and grapes. We headed for Limay tours and arrived among the chaos of twenty-some other people trying on boots, heavy duty pants, jackets, etc. After what seemed like hours (but couldn`t have been more than 40 minutes) we were packed into a decrepit van just as the sun cracked the horizon. We headed up the mountain, bumping along a gravel road and passing every vehicle we came upon. We swung toward a hitchhiker on the side of the road, and to my surprise, picked him up. Turns out he was actually one of our guides, Rodrigo.

We got stopped at a checkpoint on the way up the mountain: Chile`s Forest Service making sure everyone had the proper equipment. Funny, though, they only check two people from each group, and the guides always offer up two of the few who have all the proper equipment. I was one of the lucky volunteers, a paying customer complete with the sunglasses and helmet that half the people in our group didn`t have. The plan was to drive the old van up to the foot of the ski lift where you could choose to pay $6 to be carried to a closer ascent starting point. However, turns out a van meant for 8 and loaded with 15 doesn`t do so well on snow packed roads. After sliding backwards for 100 ft., the driver told us we`d have to walk the last 1/2 mile. Fine by me!

When we got to the foot of the ski lift, it was go time as far as a decision on the $6 ride or the extra two hours of ascent. Dan and I had decided, steadfastly, two days previous, that of course we would just walk. What kind of weenie takes the easy way out? It`s a whole different story, though, when you`ve got 9,000 feet of volcano looming in front of you waiting to be climbed. Not to mention that at 3:30, whether you`ve summitted or not, you have to turn back for the base. I reluctantly pulled out my $6 worth of pesos and handed it over as I skeptically eyed the welds on the lift that I knew had to be well over forty years old.

I should mention that guide service is owned by an Israeli guy, which means he gets most of his business from young Israeli`s who have just finished their mandatory stint in the army and have gone travelling. Long story short, the entire day I was surrounded by a cacophony of Hebrew, enough English to have brief conversations, and almost no Spanish. This turned out to be somewhat of an issue later in the day when our “bilingual” guides, who weren`t so bilingual, couldn`t communicate the importance of several safety issues.

Anyway, Hadar (a young woman from our hostel) and I took our turn on the lift platform and were soon creaking our way up the mountain. We conversed in broken English as I nervously eyed the deep crevasses conveniently located between the lift poles. At least 100 yards down at some points! Now, I don`t know how many of you have ever gotten off a ski lift without ski`s on, but it`s not near as simple as you think it would be. Especially when the lift is so old that it doesn`t slow down at the loading and unloading platforms like the newer ones do, and you have to deal with a healthy-sized pack complete with a climbing axe sticking out the side. Not to mention, upon your arrival at the unloading platform, there are four men shouting frantically in Spanish to try and keep you in the tiny safety zones and get you off the platform before the next chair arrives. We made it off in one piece and had a few minutes to admire the breathtaking views of the valley before beginning our ascent to the lunch spot.

The first hour or so was REALLY slow going. Initially, they failed to divide the groups into those who want to go quickly and slowly, so we ended up shuffling at the slowest pace I`ve ever experienced towards our lunch spot. Although I had applied sunscreen in the van, I could feel my face burning by the time I pulled out my sandwich and banana. Maybe my sunscreen is expired? I started borrowing from others, and one of the guides gave me his baseball cap, but it was pretty much too late. The damage had already been done. At this point all I could do was try and keep it from getting worse.

As we ate, the guides ran around putting on crampons for everyone. To my horror, I had been given crampons that were too small for my boots. GREAT! Now what? Am I supposed to cross an ice field without crampons? The guides assured me that I would be able to trade with someone else, but I my anxiety mounted as I kept hearing “tan pequeÃ±o” from all the guides. Turns out there were lots of folks in my boat. Thank goodness I was one of the first on the list. I got crampons that fit and was ready to ascend the last 6,000 ft. with the second group. Finally I was travelling in small pack of five climbers, all of whom wanted to move quickly. Our guide, Alvaro, who had given me the hat, spoke no English. Our group (four guys and Jema, as per the usual) spoke no Spanish, me being the exception. I knew we were in for an interesting day.

Consistent with the way things had been going, Alvaro neglected to be sure we had all learned how to use our ice/climbing axes. (It`s what you use to stop yourself if you slip and go sliding down the snow and ice covered slope). Thanks to Daniel, I knew how to use one and set straight everyone in our group. I only had to use mine twice, and only slid about 15 feet each time, which is more than I can say for the others in the group. By this time I wasn`t at all surprised that we also never talked about avalanche safety or crevasses, which made for a tense moment later in the day.

With Alvaro and I headed up the pack, with a Swedish guy hot on my heels. He spoke enough English to complain to me about the slow pace and the quality of the guide service nearly the whole way up the mountain. As we ascended, the volcano started to make noises it hadn`t made all day, and the ground started to shake. I assumed this was normal, but would later find out it wasn’t normal at all. You see, the week previous, I had met up with a couple in Mendoza who warned me not to expect to climb the volcano in PucÃ²n, because it was closed. “Closed?” I asked. “Yes, it`s been too active lately. Since you can`t get within 300 yards of the top, none of the guide services are ascending.” When Dan and I had arrived in PucÃ²n to find that the volcano had settled down enough to remove the safety restriction, I was pleasantly (and skeptically) surprised.

A few hours later, we were about ten minutes from the top. Alvaro pointed to a rock laying on the ground and said something I couldn`t understand. Then he pointed to several more and said the same thing again. Then I understood. All the little chunks we were seeing, consistent with the noises and rumbling the volcano had been making, were fresh chunks of cooled lava. We met two other groups coming down, one from our guide service and one from another. The guides started yelling back and forth to one another. The two guides who were coming down yelled to Alvaro that volcano was too dangerous today, and that the Forest Service shouldn`t be letting people up here. Both of them advised Alvaro to let us take our photos and get the hell out of there as fast as possible. Both the guides coming down sounded pretty frantic, so I begin to suspect that maybe I shouldn`t be standing on top of this “ready-to-blow” volcano.

We crested the top of the crater minutes later, and Alvaro shook our hands and told us that if we wanted to get any closer to the vent then the outside edge of the crater, it was our responsibility. He then settled himself as far away from the vent as possible where he could still keep an eye on us. I noticed that the two descending groups had been wearing helmets and wondered to myself why Alvaro hadn`t said anything about putting them on. I asked him if we were supposed to wear them. He said, “technically, yes, but it`s up to you.” Just then the vent started making this unbelievable noise, like a jet engine at take-off. You could see the heat waves being blasted from the center of the crater as the vent spewed smoke and lava rocks came raining down in the crater. Despite our healthy fear of the volcano`s unexpected activity (I think my fear was more healthy than the rest of the group`s), we tiptoed our way toward the edge of the crater as close as we could get to the vent. Then, we took turns daring to turn our back to the vent to be photographed in front of the spewing smoke. Every time that jet-engine noise started up, we ran like hell towards the outside edge of the crater. We`d only been there about five minutes before Alvaro told us we should walk to the other side of the crater, see the view of another volcano (Lanin) on the border of Argentina/Chile, and head down. I told the rest of the group, and they told me to tell him they weren`t ready. They wanted to eat, and the complainer from Sweden wanted to have himself a cigarette.

Fifteen minutes later, Alvaro and I had managed to convince everyone that for our own safety, we really should go. The boys were just strapping on their packs as the volcano began to make the loudest noise since we`d been there. It rumbled and rumbled and suddenly smoke, then rocks, and finally tons of magma came spurting out! It was INSANE. I could feel the heat from the blast on my face, and I stared open-mouthed as I watched the liquid rock spray everywhere. The color is something you can`t even imagine. You definitely have to see it to know. Somewhere between blood red and bright orange. That was the final straw for me, and for Alvaro. I wanted to get the hell away from the vent, pronto. The boys seemed to be almost completely unaware of the danger of being on the crater (probably due to the lack of Spanish speaking ability), and were pissed that they didn’t get pictures. They tried, in broken English, to finagle a few more minutes on top, but Alvaro wasn`t having it. I breathed a sigh of relief as we started our volcanic descent.

Alvaro was pretty fed up with the rest of the group, and apparently had decided he didn`t care if they got down or not, so he and I trekked at a quick clip down, down, down, leaving the others several hundred yards behind most the time. We passed a hip-high stick with a bunch of ice frozen onto and I asked him what it was as I approached to check it out. After three tries, I still couldn`t understand what he was saying, but his voice was getting louder the closer I got to the stick. Suddenly I recognized the vocabulary. “Crevasse,” he was saying. I stopped short, still a good ten feet from the marker, in disbelief at the significant lack of safety. I stayed there for a minute until the Japanese guy caught up so I could tell him not to go near it. I could only imagine the fate of the Swede and the two Israelis when they came upon it.

When we got to a place where crampons were no longer necessary, we waited for the rest of the group to catch up, apparently they had passed the crevasse marker without incident. I started to realize just how slip-shod this whole production was. Once we had packed away our crampons, I realized that there was no specific trail as my foot repeatedly came down on the wrong side of rocks buried beneath the snow. As we tumbled haphazardly toward the bottom, the Swede asked why we couldn`t ride the chairlift back down. It turns out my suspicions were entirely justified. The chair lift had been condemned, scheduled to fall apart any day now, and therefore used only for ascending. I was glad I hadn`t known that six hours earlier as I swung 100 yards or more above canyons of rock.

We reached the bottom of the volcano without incident where the vans were waiting to collect enough passengers to justify a trip back to town. I got in with the first load and did my best to hide from the now scalding sun streaming through the window. I was fried. Reminded me of the time Brandon Opfer had his driver`s license picture taken after a weekend of skiing only to receive the hard copy in the mail with an apology letter stating that he could have his picture re-done for free since there had obviously been a terrible mistake with the computer imaging.

After getting all the gear returned and changed into dry clothing, I went to check on bus-ticket availability. The plan was to head north to Santiago that night, but Dan and I had decided to wait to buy tickets in the event that we returned too late from the volcano to miss the bus. We didn`t figure seats would be hard to come by, given the small size of PucÃ²n, but boy were we wrong. By 5:30, Dan`s group still hadn`t returned, and there were only four tickets left to Santiago. I decided to give it fifteen minutes before I would settle on it being every woman for herself and buy one. The last group finally returned to the tour office, complete with Dan and two young women he`d been travelling with the week previous. They decided they wanted to go to Santiago with him, so they gave me their money and I ran to only bus company that still had tickets just in time to swipe the last four tickets. The guy in line right after me would have bought them all up!

We had dinner at an awesome restaurant, complete with the most delicious dipping sauces I`ve ever had, and jumped on the 7:30 bus to Santiago just minutes before it took off. What a day!

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Volcano or no?

After going to bed at midnight last night, then getting up with only 30 minutes to spare and still needing to pack, make breakfast, and prepare for lunch on the trail, we arrived ten minutes late to Limay Tours only to find out the weather still was too cloudy and rainy to depart for the volcano. So, we are waiting until noon to find out if it will clear up. If not, we try again tomorrow. If tomorrow doesn’t work, I say goodbye to PucÃ³n and head to Santiago where I will cross back over into Argentina.

We found a new hospedaje to stay at tonight. It’s two dollars cheaper, and the seÃ±ora is really sweet.

Yesterday, we rented bikes to pedal ourselves a total of 52km or approx. 35 miles, in hopes of seeing two waterfalls and a lake. It was a loop trail 1/2 on the highway and 1/2 on dirt road. We thought it was going to be pretty easy, but boy were we wrong. 1) we started on the dirt road, which seemed like it hadn’t been bladed in years. It was about as wash-boardy and pothole-ish as I’ve ever seen a dirt road. 2) Dan looks pretty athletic, but he’s a smoker. So, he had a hell of a time. 3) The entire way there was uphill, usually on about a 6% grade, but often closer to 13% for long stretches. UGH! I, thankfully, attached all my gear/food to my bike with plastic bags and duct tape. I taught Dan how to use “MacGyver” as a verb. 🙂

We pedaled for several miles before we reached the first waterfall. There was a house at the trail head, and we had to pay some guy a thirty-cent entrance fee to watch our bikes. The waterfalls were absolutely amazing The color of the water was this amazing color of blue. (see photo – one that I was actually there for instead of one I got off the internet!). We ate lunch and Dan spent about an hour taking photos of all the different waterfalls. (He’s a photographer.)

Look at the water’s color! Amazing!

We had burned up almost half the day, but we decided to try for the lake anyway. I stopped at the top of the first long hill to wait for Dan to ask him if he was sure he didn’t want to go back to PucÃ³n. He said, “It is hard for me, but we’ve come this far. We should keep going.” So up, up, up, up, up we went to the lake. It ended up being nothing to see, really. In fact, probably the least spectacular I’ve seen. So we turned our bikes around and stopped at the kiosk (like a small convenience store) to buy some chocolate to reward ourselves. While we were munching, a torential douwn-pour started. The woman at the store told us that if we waited 15 mins, a bus would come and we could pay $4 to get ourselves and our bikes back to town. Since Dan had about $4000 worth of camera equipment with him that should, under NO circumstances ever get wet, we decided to wait for the bus. We were afraid it wouldn’t show, though, so we decided to hail anything that drove by that was big enough to hold bikes. The first vehicle to come by stopped for us…a blue van made into a bus. The driver said he’d charge us $6, and we were in no position to bargain, so we loaded up. It seemed like we’d be the only ones on the bus, but school must have just let out. Because suddenly, a road that had been almost entirely empty on our way up was swarming with school children. Turns out all of them wanted to get on the bus/van, too. So before we knew it, we were piled into this van with 20 kids. It was nuts!

When we got back to PucÃ³n, we went to the lake and fed the ducks, which was really fun. They just come right up to you! Then we went and bought some chocolate’s called “volcanoes.” They’re about three inches tall and filled with dulce de leche – a creamy caramel substance that’s really popular here. I’m saving mine to eat at the top of Villarica (the volcano) assuming we get to go.

Dinner last night was the same as the night before, but still just as delicious. Got to spend the evening reading and relaxing and chatting with the other guests.

Keeping my fingers crossed for a volcano ascent!

PucÃ³n

It’s raining worse than cats and dogs here in PucÃ³n (in Chile), but the weather did us the favor of waiting until we were on our way home before it got really nasty. Today has been quite the adventure!

Last night I cooked myself dinner at the hostel in San MartÃn de los Andes. It ended up being terrible, because I didn’t have any spices and I misread the label at the grocery store. So what I thought was going to be delicious pasta with marinara sauce ended up being canned tomatoes and rubbery noodles. Mmm mmm good!! It was actually a really interesting experience, because the kitchen was really busy, but no one else was alone. And no one else spoke English. Attempting a social spanish conversation with another solo traveller is one thing, but thrusting myself head-long into a group of rapidly-speaking Argentinians is entirely another! As a result, I’m getting a lot of alone time by default. It’s good though, because that’s something I was expecting out of this trip. It’s nice to feel comfortable being alone and friend-less in a big group of strangers.

Speaking of my Spanish, though, it’s getting SO much better. I’m not picking up vocab near as quickly as I did in Mexico, but that’s because I’m not trying as hard as I did in Mexico. I’m sure if I looked up every word I didn’t know in the dictionary (I haven’t even cracked mine since I’ve been here! ) and if I asked more questions about words and phrases, I’d be pro already. Probably I will have an even easier time once I leave Argentina/Chile. The accents here are among the most notable in the Spanish world. Imagine teaching American English to someone that speaks Chinese as their first language and then sending them to England or Scotland. The accent is different, the vocab is different, thank god the nouns are mostly the same even though they’re often used differently. My biggest problem so far has been remembering which type of “excuse me” to use. There are three different versions. “Disculpa” means “can I bother you for a moment.” “Permiso” or “conpermiso” means “can you please get out of my way?” “PerdÃ³n” means “sorry I was in your way.” Well, the first one that comes to mind when I think, “excuse me” in my head is “permiso.” So, the rapid-fire translation that comes out when I wasn’t paying attention and am about to slam into someone is “can you get out of my way, please?” instead of “sorry I was in your way.” Oops!

Anyway, so this morning at 5:00, I rolled about of bed and got ready to trek through town to the bus station to catch the 6:00 bus from San MartÃn in Argentina to PucÃ³n in Chile. Sure enough, the gang of the brits, canadians, and the american were there, too. We ended up being on different bus lines, though, so I actually haven’t seen them since the station. Part of the reason is because the guy that sat next to me on the bus, Dan from Israel, is travelling by himself, too. He’s looking to do the same things I am, and I would rather hook up with another lone traveller than bust in on a group of six guys that have already been travelling together for a week. Especially when one of the six is such a huge drag. So, I’ve been hanging out with Dan ever since the bus. He’s super nice, really respectful, and I’m totally comfortable around him. Mature, I guess. An ideal travel partner! Alleluia!

Our bus driver came around right after the bus took off and collected all our passports, so of course we were all nervous about whether or not we were ever going to see them again. We didn’t get too far out of town before the road was no longer paved. I am realizing that the U.S. actually has an incredible highway system. Here, it is not at all uncommon for roads between places like Gillette and Wright/Moorcroft (or Lowell and Oakridge for you Oregon types) to be unpaved. And they’re just as frequently travelled, if not more travelled than the U.S. routes I mentioned. So, we bumped along this gravel/dirt road for about three hours before we arrived at the customs office, which was really just a little cabin in the mountains along the dirt road (The Andes are on the border between Argentina and Chile.) I felt like I was on a bus headed for summer camp the whole time. Well, turns out they collected our passports to compile a list to expedite the process when we arrived at customs. We got there at about 9 am. They proceeded to herd us all off the bus and into the cabin where we stood in front of two officers as the called us up to the front of the room, one by one, stamped our passports. By 10:00 we were back on the bus and headed down the road. Or so we thought.

Not two minutes later, the bus stops at another cabin. Then it dawns on us that the previous cabin wasn’t customs for Chile. It was the Argentinian departure office. Chile is known for being thorough with customs, so they took all the bags off the bus, made everyone bring all their stuff in the building, searched every single bag, and then reloaded the bus. We were counting our blessings by the time 11:30 rolled around and we were finally headed off down the Chilean side of the gravel road.

The mountains were, of course, spectacular. It’s fall here, so the hill are just blazing with red and orange and yellow. (Mom, you would LOVE it!) And there are more monkey puzzle trees than you can shake a stick at. The valleys are all very small and very dramatic. And it takes forever to cross the Andes because of the topography. You switchback all the way up a mountain and down the other side. Then you do three or five or ten more like it until you finally get through. Here, there’s no such thing as “the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.”

We finally arrived in PucÃ³n around 1:30. Dan and I had both had a specific hostel recommended to us by other travellers. However, the thing is, it’s new. So not a single PucÃ³n native could tell us where to go, and everyone we did ask wanted to tell us where we should stay instead. Finally we found a guy at a bike shop who had a vague idea of the hostel’s location. So, we went trekking off through town, walked one end to another without finding it. The nice thing is, PucÃ³n is exactly the kind of place I had in mind when I said I wanted a town small enough to learn the layout in 5 min. So one end of town to the other doesn’t take all that long. We never found the recommended place, and so settled on the first place we came to. It’s a hospedaje instead of a hostel, which means it’s owned by a family that also lives in the house. It’s nice to be in a house instead of a hotel-ish environment. Dan and I have our own room, which is great because we can leave our stuff laying everywhere. Usually, at hostels, you live out of a locker and have to keep it all inside.

After we got unpacked, we went to get Chilean money so we’d be able to pay. The first ATM I tried to use made a noise like it was giving me money, and then said “Thank you for using Redbanc,” but it never gave me any money. So I’m still watching my wells fargo account like a hawk to make sure some absurd amount of money hasn’t disappeared out of there. We also walked down to the lake, which was gorgeous… very storybook-like. Then we searched tourism agencies to find the cheapest and best trip up the volcano (you have to have a guide).

A view of Villarica (the volcano) from PucÃ³n

We bought groceries for dinner, breakfast, lunch, and dinner and breakfast again all for $20! We’re doing a really good job as far as food budget goes. Dinner was delicious. Dan made steaks and some awesome pasta, and this purple cabbage salad that I thought was going to be terrible, but ended up being absolutely amazing. I can’t wait to make it for myself when I get home! I guess dinner is what I get in exchange for doing all the Spanish communicating that we need to do.

After dinner we decided that since we couldn’t climb the volcano for another day at least, if at all, we were going to biking. So we found me some nylon pants, since all I have is a pair of jeans and skin tight long underwear. We went back down to the lake as a storm was brewing, which was SUPER cool. The clouds were almost black. It was amazing.

That’s all for today!

San MartÃ¬n de los Andes

Been hiking and driving all day today. Since my last entry, I’ve gone to dinner with a bunch of trekkers (they don’t call it backpacking down here) from Canada, England, and the U.S., watched “Team America, World Police” for the third time, seen a VW Golf bust through unexplicable terrain, seen an amazing series of mountain lakes and one really gorgeous waterfall, and hiked about four miles.

Dinner last night was at this great buffet place. Chinese foods, amazing deserts, sushi, mashed potatoes, any cut of steak you want, fruit, meats and cheeses, you-name-it, this place had everything. I went with the trekkers that had just arrived at the hostel. Dan and Ryan from Canada are down here on the same time frame as I am. They’re going to climb PucÃ²n (a volcano) in Chile on Wednesday, and I think I might do it with them. After all, this may be my one and only chance to climb a volcano. You never know! Alex, from Iowa, is definitely going, too, which is disappointing for me because he’s the exact opposite of Dan and Ryan. He’s probably the most pompous, womanizing person I’ve met. John, Chris, and Dave (from England) are going too, as long as they don’t have to miss watching their soccer match. 🙂

Today at the early hour of 7:30 a.m., Effie and Martin and I rolled out of bed to take the VW Golf we rented on “La Ruta de los siete lagos” (drive of the seven lakes). Peter was supposed to come with us (the scottish guy), but he stayed out drinking until 7 a.m., and so bowed out. Well, when we were at the car rental agencies looking for the best deal, I could tell this was going to be no less than an adventure. For the first 60 miles or so, the road is paved. For the last 60 or so, it’s “una ruta natural” (a “natural road”). The guy behind the counter at one of the agencies was showing us the map, and when I asked him what the road was like, I could tell by his carefully chosen words that we were really in for an adventure. The first 20 miles or so were fine. Just lots of potholes, etc. But then we entered the construction zone. They hadn’t made a new road for cars to drive on. You just drove right through the ripped up stuff. So here we are in our teeny little VW Golf rallying through 6-8 inches of mud for 20 miles straight. We were damn sure we were going to get stuck. It was absolutely insane. The good news is, we made it to San MartÃ¬n de los Andes safely. And we got to see some of the most gorgeous scenery. The drive really is worth it. All the lakes are just absolutely amazing. And we got to see this fantastic waterfall, probably 80-90 feet tall just off the road.

Martin and Effie headed back to Bariloche this afternoon, and I’ve been here ever since. They’re fun to travel with. It’s really interesting to hear the different words they have for things. For example,
windscreen = windsheild
half of eight = 8:30
four by four = four wheel drive
boot = trunk (of the car)

I bought a ticket for PucÃ²n (in Chile) right away when I got here. And I have a feeling that if I don’t run into the boys somewhere in town tonight, I’m sure to see them tomorrow morning on the 6 a.m. bus. San MartÃ¬n de los Andes is “nestled” (says the guide book) between two mountains on the shore of large lake. One of the mountains is supposed to have a great viewpoint a few miles up, so I decided to take advantage of the daylight that was left and hike my buns up there. About half way up, the natives that have lived on the lake since the dawn of time charge you a peso to pass through their village on the way to the top. A girl, probably only 9 or 10 was at the booth with her baby sister. They were really cute, and the little one kept asking me what my name was. Adorable. The view was incredible.

a view from the top – the town and the lake

I spent probably an hour at the top writing in my journal about what it’s like to travel alone as a woman. I am repeatedly and consistently relieved to discover that I am still safe and danger isn’t lurking in every corner. I think women, from a very young age, are warned and warned and warned about how scary the world is and how careful they need to be (i.e. not go remote places alone, not to be out alone at night). And “careful” really means dependent, because if you can’t go out alone, then by default you have to go with someone else. So I’m finding out every single day, over and over, that, despite what I’ve been told, it’s not dangerous to be independent. What a relief! Which is not to say that I don’t believe in being aware of your surroundings and concerned for your safety. It’s just really nice not to be scared to have rewarding, independent experiences.