(new) Instant karma’s gonna get ya.

the only photo for this post cuz it's another sickness and bitchiness one.

As we’ve been traveling, Adrian and I have practiced something we like to call travel karma. When we can help out a fellow traveler we do, even if we have to go a little out of our way. Our hope has been that we’ll build up some good travel karma so that when we need some luck or a miracle, we’ll get the help we need. Of course, we hadn’t really seen any dividends for our investment. And today we fell a little off the wagon.

Since there was no pool at the hotel, there was really nothing left for us to do in Iguazu. So we decided to leave a day early. After breakfast, Adrian went to check out and pay the bill. There was some confusion and the clerk appeared to be asking us to pay for another night as per our booking. She didn’t really speak English and Adrian’s sh-sh-sh language wasn’t really working. I stepped in to try and solve the problem but I was a little angry and lost it on the clerk, telling her just how unhappy we were with the accommodations. I told her that we were leaving today because there was no pool, no bar, no computers, occasional wifi, and intermittent air conditioning. And I told her that we were not paying for another day because tonight we were going to Cordoba. At the end of my rant, something clicked and I realized that she hadn’t been asking for payment but only confused that we were leaving since we were in the computer for another night. But I didn’t apologize because I was cheezed off about the accommodations. That was bad karma.

When we went to catch our deluxe bus, it wasn’t as deluxe as we had hoped. The seats were the lie flat which was good. But the advertised champagne, beer and whiskey never materialized and we only got wine because I asked for it – it was never offered. The food was marginally better and there was more of it, but there were a lot of cold cuts which I’m never a fan of. However, I will say that the sleep was much better with the flat seats although I’m not sure I’d pay for the upgrade again. We woke up feeling more refreshed, although in my refreshed state I noticed that my stomach wasn’t feeling very good. At first I thought it was some sort of motion sickness brought on by sleeping flat on a moving bus. And when we got off the bus in Cordoba, I thought maybe it was some weird sort of reverse motion sickness brought on by no longer being on a moving bus. Whichever it was, I thought it would go away with some fresh air and solid ground. However, the urge to throw up seemed to be getting stronger so I told Adrian I wanted to take a taxi to the hostel. Of course, I’d forgotten to print out the address of the hostel and its slightly generic name – Le Grand Hostel only confused the taxi drivers when we asked if they knew it. I would ask for Le Grand Hostel and they’d ask which grande hostel I wanted and I’d reply Le Grand Hostel and they’d ask again. It was a traveller’s version of Abbot and Costello’s Who’s on first and I decided that we would go look up the address rather than continue the comedy routine. Luckily for us (and my stomach) there was an internet café in the bus terminal. I believe there was also a place to buy household appliances and get a mortgage but we didn’t need either of those. The hostel was only 6 blocks away and we decided to walk, convinced that the fresh air would make me feel better.

It didn’t.

When we got to the hostel which was indeed a big hostel, we discovered that the prices posted on their website were a mistake. But I was in no mood to argue. We checked in quickly and once in the room, I christened the bathroom with contents of my stomach. I didn’t see much besides the bathroom for the next two days. And although medically speaking I can blame the stomach on the cold cuts from the bus, my heart knows it was the bad karma I got from yelling at the blameless hostel clerk that was now biting me in the ass.

And it just got worse. Checking my email I discovered there were still no reply to my email asking for info about our missing tickets to South Africa. Since I wasn’t able to go anywhere with my dodgy stomach, I took advantage of the hostel wifi and downtime to get in contact with South African Airways. I used Skype to dial the South African number and then spent 51 minutes on hold listening to the greatest hits of Ladysmith Black Mambazo and repeptitve “your call is important to us” message before I finally got to speak to a person. The end result was that our tickets had been “auto cancelled”. She didn’t explain what that was but it meant that we had no tickets. So I had to purchase them again over the phone for a more expensive price. Grr. Well at least we have our tickets now. Well not quite, the woman on the phone said. I’d have to call back tomorrow to ensure that our credit card had been accepted and then our tickets would be issued. What a pain in the ass. I thanked the woman and then promptly channeled my crankiness into a terse email to the SAA’s customer service department letting them know what I thought of having to call South Africa to remedy a problem I had with their international website booking. If I didn’t have Skype that call would have cost almost $40 US – even with Skype it cost almost $7 – or a small fortune in Skype-land.

I joined Adrian on a short walk to the nearby mall – once again in a beautiful old building (photo above). What is it with Argentina and all these palacial malls? After eating nothing but popsicles for the last 24 hours, I decided to try Adrian’s tried and true remedy of McDonalds. It seemed to hold for the time being so we continued a few blocks into the heart of the old colonial city. What was left of the 400+ year old buildings was a compact area mainly comprised of a university and some churches and they were all lit up nicely in the evening. It didn’t take long to see them and just as well because I didn’t want to be far away from a loo when karma decided to bite me in the ass once again.

(new) 1+1=2 except online.

Dealing with airlines is never easy, is it?

Today was another official do nothing day. We hadn’t planned it that way. But we were still stinging from the cost of yesterday’s tour, and still tired from all the traveling we’d been doing. So both our bodies and our wallets told us to stop. It was good thing. It allowed us to get down to planning our next phase of traveling. Now that we’ve definitely decided not to go to Brazil and getting close to the end of Argentina it was time to look to our next continent, Africa. So we spent the day looking at the cost of hostels and bus travel. After the last month, we don’t need any more sticker shock.

Then it came time to book our plane tickets. We’d been on the South African Airways site a few times over the last few days. But we’d never been able to commit to purchasing the tickets. It felt a lot like when we were getting ready to by our first tickets to Mexico City almost a year ago. We knew we were going but it took almost two weeks of hemming and hawing before we could press that glowing buy now button on the screen. I don’t know why – butterflies, I guess. Today, however, we were going to do it. But first some more playing around with all the flight options. Yes, I admit it was more procrastination. But hear me out, this was good procrastination. Just for kicks I clicked on the return flight option. Back in Mendoza, Dan and Jillian had suggested buying a return ticket if the price wasn’t much more. You see, South Africa is one of those countries that require proof of exit in order to enter. Technically many other countries we’ve been to have required it only Panama demanded it. But it’s not the border officials that are the problem it’s the airlines who are sticklers for the rules. They won’t let you get on the plane if you don’t have the immigration requirements, sometimes forcing you to by a ridiculously hard to refund, last minute ticket in order to get on board. Better to be safe than--- wtf?!? A return ticket is $500 cheaper than a one way ticket? That’s right for $1200 we could fly there and back or for $1700 we could fly there only. Confused? So were we, for about two minutes before we rushed to buy the return tickets, thinking it was a mistake that would be taken down asap.

Faster than you can say “faster than you can say”, we filled in our info and hit buy now. The site thought and thought and then flashed a dreaded error message. We’d had some trouble with the card back in Chile so Adrian placed a call to Visa to find out if there was an issue. There wasn’t. Okay best to try again. The too-good-to-be true prices were still online. We quickly filled in all our info and once again hit buy now. The page thought and thought and… nope. There was the error message again. Crap. It must be the price; it was a mistake and it was crashing the system. Or so we thought. Oh well, on to looking at hostels. The plane tickets can wait until we’re in BsAs (what the lazy cool kids call Buenos Aires) tomorrow. Or so I thought.

I opened up my email to send a few hostel enquires and there in my inbox was a flight confirmation from South Africa Airways. Judging by the time stamp, it was a confirmation was for the first attempt. Now I had a horrible sinking feeling. Did we just accidentally purchase two tickets twice? It really was a good thing we were in BsAs tomorrow to straighten it out. I jotted down the address of the South African office – it was only a few (less than 10) blocks from the bus station so we could stop in as soon as we arrived, provided we got in on time and provided they weren’t closed for that silly Argentinean siesta.

The rest of the afternoon was just hanging around the hostel and chilling before our long bus ride to BsAs. We said goodbye to Deirdre and the lovely staff and trundled down to the bus station. The bus was 15 minutes late – never a good sign – and a little worn around the edges. We were two of 6 people on board but the ayudante was a super nice guy and very attentive – even if communication was strained. He spoke the most heavily accented Spanish we’ve heard since Colombia. But managed to communicate that we had our choice of wine with dinner, as well as offering us whisky before bed. And to top it off, they had a movie other than The Bucket List. Wow, I didn’t think it was possible. Goodbye, Puerto Madryn. Hello, Buenos Aires.

(old) It’s chilly in Chile

GOOD MORNING ADRIAN! I tested the severity of his hangover but was disappointed that he was fine this morning. I guess passing out at 9pm will do that. That meant we could get going because we’d seen everything Mendoza had to offer. Adrian whinged that he wanted to do another wine tour but I ignored him. Why the hurry? Well, despite the discount we’d asked for the hostel was still one of the most expensive ones and the prices didn’t look much better for the rest of South America. Plus, we wanted to do the NaviMag Patagonia ferry and November 1st the prices went up for high season. So we were going to have to move it, if we wanted to save those pennies. We checked out and told Molly we’d be back if we couldn’t get a seat on a bus to Santiago. But at the bus station we easily got tickets, quickly picked up some food at the station for the ride and were on the bus and on our way out of Argentina. Don’t worry, we’d be back.

The bus took us through the flat wine country and then began the trip up and up and up and up into the Andes. Soon we were surrounded by snow and rocky mountain tops. The landscape reminded me of that movie Alive! and I realized that we weren’t too far from here that those Uruguayans had survived the plane crash by eating each other. Luckily, our bus driver was a huge improvement on his Bolivian counterparts so there was no fear of a remote crash. Plus we had our food supplies just in case. Although the food wasn’t really necessary. I’d forgotten that they fed you on buses down here. Besides food, the ayudante also passed out immigration forms to everyone and even helped us to fill them up. Soon we were passing ski lifts just closed for the season. Although it was warm on the bus, I was glad I’d wisely worn pants. We’d gone from 30º to 0º in just a few hours and we’d go back to 30º when we got to Santiago. So I had pants on but a t-shirt and sandals not a problem on the bus but when we got to the border post I noticed lots of people in front of us milling around outside in the windy mountain pass. I dug out our Bolivian woolly hats and mitts But we sat in the line up of buses and waited. It was Friday and there were two full buses ahead of us and two behind us waiting to be processed. To the right was another line up of fancy cars that were taking part in some sort of cross border rally. Between all the bus passengers, their luggage and all the paperwork for the cars, the border was severely backlogged. Not that I was in a hurry to stand outside in the cold. After an hour, the ayudante led us into the hanger-like border post where we stood in line for another hour. Now it was cold, freezing even, and I stamped my feet to try and keep warm. Two little girls in front of me were very bored and driving their mother crazy. But they held still when they saw me and then started giggling. It was my silly Bolivian hat – they thought it was the most amusing thing ever, probably because it looked like something a child should wear. So I let them play with the dangly bits which kept both of us amused while waiting. We eventually passed through the Argentinean exit and on to the Chilean entrance. Then it was another hour wait while all our luggage was examined. After three hours we were finally back on the bus. And in Chile.

Despite the long wait it was one of the easier borders. We didn't need to change money since we still had some Chilean pesos left over from our time in Iquique and would need our Argentinean when we returned. But now it was time to get back down the mountains. This proved to be tougher than the trip up as the road wound its way down the precarious road. It twisted and turned but that barely slowed the convoy of huge trucks carted goods across the border. The bus had to hug the road to make room for them as they made their way up giving us all a good look of the sheer drop down (photo above). We survived and were soon in the lush green vineyard and farm land of Chile. Thanks to the border delay it was getting late in the day and by the time we finished with the suburban stops it was late by the time we got into Santiago. We were given a light dinner on the bus. Now we didn’t have to worry about finding dinner and could just concentrate on getting to the hostel.

We were definitely in downtown Santiago but I didn’t recognize any of the surrounding street names from the guide book map. We looked around for a subway station but in the chaos of dozens of buses and hundreds of people (and just as many taxi drivers) we couldn’t find it.So we gave up and grabbed a taxi. I gave him the address and the cross streets and even then he overshot the location and had to double back a couple of blocks. Of course he then asked for more money but I refused and despite my basic Spanish I understood a couple of the epithets he muttered under his breath. Hmm, not quite as friendly as the Argentinean taxi driver. But who cares we had arrived at the Moai Viejero Hostel. We didn’t have a reservation and they didn’t have a private room so we grabbed two dorm beds and crashed. Discovering the charms of Santiago would wait until tomorrow.

(old) Beat by the meat sweats.

There’s nothing glamourous about the night bus. Maybe the first time it’s a bit exciting because it’s new. But the excitement is soon replaced by worry about the comfort of the seats and security of your belongings before dread sets in. Just how sore am I going to be in the morning? And in the morning, you will be stiff and covered in a layer of what I call bus slime, a charming mixture of sweat, grime and other people’s breath. It was in this condition that we got off the bus in Mendoza just before 9am. Thankfully, Danny and Jillian were in a similar state as we sat down at café in the station to really get acquainted over coffee and medialunas, Argentina’s version of the croissant (think less butter, more sugar). While we’ve been traveling a very similar route at the same time, we still had lots to talk about since they were brave couchsurfers. If you’re not familiar with couchsurfing check out the link, but here’s a basic rundown. If you’re looking for a bed, couch, piece of floor or similar place to crash in a strange town, you hook up with hosts on the site and for free get to stay with a local. Some will act as tour guides as well. Very communal and I did look into it (you know I like free), but decided that it wasn’t for Adrian and I. It takes a lot of planning – you have to email or call the hosts a lot and know where you’re going to be and when. And frankly, Adrian and I don’t always have our sh*t together enough to know that stuff. But Danny and Jillian were super organized and had managed to couchsurf about half of the time on the road. They lots of neat stories about their experiences, enough that it made me want to finally get my sh*t together. They were couchsurfing once again in Mendoza so once we were finished our light breakfast we headed out to catch our cabs – them to their host’s and us to the hostel. Just before taking off, we made plans to plan a biking and wining tour together before heading off in opposite directions.

Our taxi ride was entertaining. As soon as he found out we were Canadian, he launched into a flowing tribute to Canada (I’m surprised with all the Canadian love in Argentina, particularly since it was a Canadian bank that sorta helped destroy the economy in 2001. Maybe the locals don’t know this and I’m certainly not going to be the one to tell them). His daughter was married to Canadian and his grandchildren were Canadian and he loved Canada. When he found out we were from Toronto, he ecstatically said that’s where his daughter and grandchildren lived. But he stopped himself from asking if we knew them. He was originally from Sicily and remarked that there were many Italians in Toronto. I told him there were a lot of Italians in Argentina too. “And now not so many left in Italy,” he said with a smile. When we got to the hostel, he dropped the price of the taxi. “You’re part of my Canadian family,” he said, “You don’t pay tourist prices.” The first time that has ever happened to us. Maybe this was karma’s way of evening out the whole border bus scam. We weren’t even money-wise but it was the nicest cab ride we’d had and the gesture was definitely appreciated.

We hoped our good luck would continue with the hostel. While we’d heard great things about one place, a little research revealed that without a reservation we could find ourselves sleeping in a hammock so we’d chosen another place that was new, a bit more expensive but located in the city centre and had wifi. Inside we were greeted first in Spanish until the girl behind the counter saw we were Canadian. She then switched to Californian. Molly was a super friendly American who’d been working here for the last few months and did her best to make us feel welcome. We even negotiated a bit of a discount for a three-night stay. The hostel was new-ish and full of amenities but it seemed to be empty and a bit more sterile after our time in Salta. But that wasn’t Molly’s fault; she certainly tried and the room was quite nice. We left her to jump in the shower and get rid of the bus slime and hopefully wake up a bit so we could explore the city.

The shower did the trick and we decided to head out and explore the city. We headed to the city museum. The route took us through the pretty tree-lined streets, the shade a necessity in the warm climate. Mendoza was pretty but like the hostel it lacked the charm of Salta. Despite being another old city, it was more spread out and didn’t have many remarkable buildings – it felt almost new. The museum was an exception. Set in a pretty park, it was a copy of an old colonial building. This was the location of the original main plaza which had been destroyed by an earthquake in 1861. Underneath the park was a cavern where one could visit the foundations of the old city but it was closed today so we settled for a visit to the free (my favourite) museum. I was right, the building wasn’t an original but like the park in front had been built over the original foundations which had been excavated inside. The museum was small but well done and gave a nice overview of the history of the city explaining how the earthquake had basically wiped out the entire city. Just outside across the park, one of the few colonial buildings half-stood. The original cathedral which had once stood on the main plaza was in ruins, held up by scaffolding. In the park, an engraving (photo above) showed what the city had looked like before the earthquake. Stupid mother nature and her stupid earthquakes. But people don’t come to Mendoza to see the city. They come to see the area around the city. Or more specifically, the wineries around the city.

Mendoza is the capital of Argentina’s wine industry and a major tourist draw. It was the reason we were here. For months and months I had refused to let Adrian order overpriced wine (just thinking of the budget and his liver), promising him as much as he could drink when we got to Chile and Argentina. So tomorrow was the day he been looking forward to forever. But tomorrow was still a day away. So we puttered around town taking in the ambiance. We stopped by the market to get some food. It was a lot like the St. Lawrence market in Toronto – not so much a fruit and veg stand but a place to get local gourmet treats. However, most of the stalls were either closed or a little beyond our price range. Although they did look tasty. We opted for the “gourmet” hot dogs instead. I can only hope that in this land of meat, that there was a little less mystery in these wieners and more meat.We’d run out of things to see so we headed back to the hostel, past all the fancy cafés and chichi hotels. Although Mendoza, the city wasn’t visually remarkable, there was a good vibe and I imagined it was one of those cities that would be great to live in even if it wasn’t the most beautiful one.

Back at the hostel, I tried to contact Jillian and Dan about the bike tour. But email isn’t the most effective way to make plans so I wasn’t optimistic that we’d actually connect, although I did keep my fingers crossed. Instead I told them that we were going to book through the hostel tour company and hoped that they’d be somewhere nearby. Adrian watched TV and I uploaded some more photos and attempted to catch up on the blog – now only 3 months behind. And that helped pass the time until dinner time, and by dinner time I mean Argentinean dinner time. You see, here dinner is something eaten at 9pm or later and most restaurants don’t even open until 8. So between 5 and 8 if you’re hungry, you’re also SOL. We’d eaten late and light in preparation for this though. Tonight we were going to indulge in a real Argentinean asado at a tenedor libre (that’s bbq at a “free fork” or all you can eat buffet). After weeks of soup, rice and chicken/fish and the last few days of hot dogs, we’d definitely earned it. The folks recommended a place within walking distance of the hostel that they said would be a good price for good food.

We arrived at Caro Pepe just after 8pm, and since we were the only ones there, I’m guessing they had just opened for dinner. The price was a lot more than our hot dogs (perhaps $12 each) but definitely much more appetizing. Since we hadn’t had much to eat we were ready to make the most of it. We skipped ordering wine and instead headed straight to the salad and veggie bar. I swear I’ve never been so excited to see spinach (first corn flakes and now spinach, oh the exciting life I lead). But I was one of the few to do so. The locals who were now trickling in, skipped this area or passed through to pick up some of that mystery sandwich meat before lining up at the asado counter. It’s amazing. Argentineans seem to eat nothing but meat and more meat, at these late hours, washing it down with cups of coffee and bottles of wine. Yet they look far healthier than any North American. It’s another of those great unsolved mysteries of the world that I wish Robert Stack would get to. But I digress. When we felt full of vitamin goodness, it was time to move on to the meat part of the show. Half of the buffet area was taken up by a large barbecue area where entire animals were being charred before our eyes. Now I’m not a big meat eater but I had to try some of the famous Argentinean beef. At the counter I ordered my small steak to which the chef ordered half a chicken and another pile of various meaty bits. He motioned to the bowls of chimichuri sauce to the side and I slathered on a couple of varieties. I’m sorry Ayngelina, but there are no pictures of this food. I was too selfish to remember my camera.

I got through about half of what the chef had piled on my plate when the meat sweats began. I have to say this is the first time I’ve ever experienced them and it wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience. Adrian seemed undeterred and went back another load while I felt my pants expanding in the seat. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to move for another hour. Eventually, the sweats subsided enough and I was able to get out of the chair. We settled up and rolled back to the hostel where we promptly passed out from our protein overdose. From this morning’s bus sweats to this evenings meat sweats, we’d come a (very) full uncomfortable circle.

(old) Oh, the people you will meet.

sorry no photo of the festivities. but here's a photo from around Salta, appropriate because I was feeling a little penitent the morning after most of my nights in town.

What makes a good hostel, good? Sure there are the amenities (wifi, comfy beds, hot water and a clean kitchen) but there are also the people. And oddly enough, the hostels with the most amenities don’t always have the best people. So it’s rare when you get to a place where you have both packages. This hostel had everything. Perhaps it was because the owners, German and Eduardo, actually live there and actually made you feel like guests in their home. But the good company was the reason I wasn’t feeling so great this morning. Because of Tasha and Silvie, we had gone through the wine we’d meant to drink over our entire stay. But they were also one of the reasons we weren’t in any hurry to move on.

German tried to tempt us out with a visit to the small town of San Lorenzo. And even though most folks come to Salta to check out the surrounding countryside, I didn’t feel up to it. Besides we’d just come from the salt flats and seen all the rocks and desert we needed to for the moment. But Tasha and Silvie, those troopers, were all for it. They headed out while it took Adrian and I a little longer to get moving. But we did have to move. Thanks to an unfortunate incident with a wicker chair on the Isla del Sol, I needed a pair of pants and shorts to replace the convertible pants that were now shredded. Of course by the time we finally made it out to the pedestrian shopping area, it was siesta time in Argentina. We discovered that although it was Monday, all the stores were closed between 2 and 5. Yes, all of them. The imposed break gave us a chance to scope out our best bets for cheap shopping for clothes that might fit. And even walk to the bus station to buy our tickets to Mendoza for tomorrow. Then we camped out at the department store and as soon as the shutters were lifted we stormed in. In the uniform section we found a pair of good quality guide shorts that fit. However, the convertible pants were sold out in my size. Too bad, I was just getting into this shopping thing.

When we got back to the hostel, Tasha and Silvie were back and there were a few new arrivals. A couple from Singapore traveling with their young daughter, two French girls and two 30-something Brits, Del and Andrew. Andrew immediately tried to chat up the French girls in French but that seemed to drive them into their room for the night. Undaunted the Brits headed out to the grocery store to get food returning with little food and three bags of alcohol. Adrian was holed up in the lounge watching NFL highlights on the computer and I went to join him but they insisted that I, Tasha and Silvie stick around for a few drinks. They were only here for two nights as part of their two-week whirlwind tour of South America so they wanted to make the most of it. Uh-oh it was going to be one of those nights. They were good fun and even brought out the 8-year old Singapore girl early on. No, she didn’t drink with us. But she did enjoy mixing weird concoctions from Andrew's equally weird collection of alcohol that he actually drank. Fortunately for Andrew’s liver, she soon had to go to bed. But then it was time for German and his girlfriend Fabianna to join in. They had some time to kill while the suckling pig they were BBQing cooked. German brought out all the bottles of assorted alcohol left over by previous guests. A couple of sips into many of the bottles, and we had figured out why the liquor was left behind. Most of it either tasted of cough syrup or paint thinner. At this point, German thought it would be time to introduce all of us to the joys of Fernet, Argentina’s favourite liquor. Tasha and Silvie had already tasted it so they were excused. But Andrew, Del and I hadn’t. I tried to beg off but Andrew insisted I try it since it was so tasty. I should have know when he reached for his camera that I was in trouble. Somewhere out there in the cybersphere there is a video of me gagging as I spit-taking a tall shot of straight Fernet – a drink traditionally mixed with Coke.

I begged off any more drinks but hung around with the gang until 1am. I have no idea how late they went and I have no idea how the lads managed to get up for their early morning salt flat tour. But they did. When Adrian and I got up they were gone, as were the Asian family and the French girls. We just caught Tasha and Silvie as they headed out for a day of horseback riding and said goodbye. They were all a good laugh and it was too bad we were heading in opposite directions. That’s the problem with backpacking – you meet people whose company you enjoy and then you’re off, probably never to run into each other again. Of course if you run into people you don’t like then you’re happy about it. But we liked Silvie and Tasha and it was too bad we wouldn’t see them again. And as for Del and Andrew, well tomorrow they were headed to Rio and then Peru before running back to the UK. That was probably good thing, or so my liver told me.

Just after noon we checked out and headed to the bus station, grabbing a sandwich on the way. I’d heard so much about the comfort of Argentinean buses and was slightly disappointed to discover it was the same old type of bus we’d been on for the last few months. But then again we’d refused to pay $100+ dollars for the executive class upgrade. What was different about the bus ride, was the ayudante who was more like a cross between a flight attendant and Julie the cruise director from Love Boat. He led us in a game of bingo for a prize bottle of wine. It was good practice for our Spanish numbers but after last night’s festivities I was glad neither Adrian nor I won. Then it was dinner and movie time. I have to say the food was pretty good, except for the mystery sandwich meat. Just before it was time for bed, the bus pulled in to the town of Tucuman and Adrian and I hopped out for a cigarette break. Looking up from the ground, I saw a familiar face. At first I couldn’t place the guy, but I knew I knew him. And then it clicked, I actually had never met him. Him was Danny and beside him was Jillian. They were another couple I’d been emailing back and forth with ever since we discovered we were taking almost the exact same route through the same countries at the same time. We’d tried to meet up a few times but had kept missing each other. Now here we were, in a small town about to be on the same bus heading to the same time. We briefly chatted before we were hustled on board. Unfortunately their seats were at the opposite end of the bus. But we made plans to chat when we got to Mendoza the next morning. That’s the good thing about backpacking, you never know who you’ll run into or when.

(old) Tell me why I don’t like borders. Tell me why.

because my battery was dead no photos this one is courtesy of flickr user Emi ♫ and used under CC license with much thanks

If you’ve been reading along (first I should say thank you, and second apologise for the huge lag between posts), you know I hate border crossings. It’s not the bureaucracy but the touts and scams that drive me nuts. Ever since the horrible crossing between Ecuador and Peru that dread has just gotten worse. My new plan to counteract the dread and disorientation has been 1. make sure you’ve not spent hours getting to the border, 2. get a good night’s sleep before hand and 3. exchange as little money as possible when you get there. Waking up today, I’d already broken the first two of these new rules. It was almost impossible to get much rest on the train. Between the uncomfortable seats and constant early morning stops, I think there were only about 3 hours of actual sleep. So once the sun was streaming in the windows, I decided to stop the charade of sleep. Adrian was in a similar grumpy frame of mind. But we consoled ourselves that we were heading to Argentina – not know for its pushy touts and tourist scams. Perhaps this time it would be different.

We still had an hour or so before our arrival at Villazon – the Bolivian border town – so we headed to the dining car for breakfast. It was included in the price of our first class ticket and I suppose was where the extra money went. But I can’t say it was worth it. Breakfast was eggs, breads and crackers and café con leche. Better than nothing and it helped pass the time until we pulled into the station relatively on time – perhaps our German friend from Santa Cruz had already brought the Bolivan Rail Service up to German efficiency standards. The platform was packed. Most appeared to be touts selling overpriced bus tickets to groggy tourists. A little bit of research in Uyuni had revealed that most (maybe even all) of these tickets were horrendously overpriced and that the same tickets were available just across the border for far less. So we barreled through the crowd, swatting the pamphlets that were thrust in our face and went to fetch our baggage. Here we had to fight with the locals. We could see our bags within reach but weren’t allowed to grab them without handing our tickets to the baggage handler who ignored us until he had helped every local first. When every local was gone, he turned his attention to us. We pointing to the two bags in front but he ignored us and he went looking in the baggage car coming out empty handed with a shrug until I once again pointed to the two in front and began to pick them up. I thought he was going to slap my hand for touching the bags before he had checked the tickets. And then went through the whole performance of cross referencing every number on our tickets with the tags on the bags. I guess with our lack of sleep we looked kinda shifty or something. Or perhaps he was just trying to save us from the touts because most of them had left to chase the other gringos down the street. We hopped into a cab and for $2 we were let off metres from the border post.

The street was lined with money bureaus and we backtracked to the nearest one and converted our Bolivianos into pesos. The rate was almost the real rate and it looked real after our quick examination (gently used, water marks security bands etc.) So far, so good. With cash in hand we retraced our steps to the border and joined the line up of gringos waiting to get stamped out of Bolivia. There were no locals waiting and there wasn’t another line up for Bolivans or Argentines which was a bit odd. The line wasn’t moving very fast and some pushy gringos thought they could bypass the rest of us by heading directly into the office. Now, nothing upsets a Canadian or a Brit more than ignoring a perfectly good line up (or queue if you prefer). We’re folks that pride ourselves on the orderly nature of a line up and would go to war to defend it. There were three Brits in front of us, about to join Adrian and I in our battle against the interlopers. However, bloodshed was avoided when an official with shiny boots and a gun headed them off and waved them to the back of the line. The tourists didn’t give up and pretending not to understand the official’s Spanish tried to continue into the office. But the Border guy dragged them to the end of the line which was now ten people longer than when they arrived. The three girls laughed and celebrated the victory with us. The line suddenly sped up and we were soon at the counter getting stamped out. Even better, the line slowed to a trickle as soon as we were done and the pushy wannabe queue jumpers had barely moved. Now that’s my sort of travel karma.

We walked with the girls across the bridge to the Argentinean border. There was an old rail bridge that ran parallel to us, left over from the days when the Bolivian train used to continue on into Argentina. It was fenced off but it wasn’t deserted. No, this was the way the Bolivians and Argentineans apparently crossed the border. There was a steady stream of locals carrying huge bags hopping the chain link fence and crossing the border without showing their papers. It looked rather illegal but since there were watchful border guards everywhere I guess it was fine. As we got close to the shiny new Argentina border post, I have to admit getting a bit nervous. I don’t know whether it was lack of sleep or excitement over stepping into Argentina but the heart was definitely thumping a little faster and harder. Perhaps it was the fear of the unknown – Would we be forced to produce proof of exit? Would we have to pay some outrageous entrance fee? Or would they want to tax our electronics as imports? All these questions were going through my mind. And all for nothing. The crossing was painless and even the customs guy waved us through without searching our bags once he saw Adrian’s Canadian flag, proclaiming his love for Canada in perfect English. Okay, perhaps I’ll stop teasing Adrian (the immigrant) for the stereotypical flag on his backpack.

But the easy part was behind us. Now we had to go catch a bus to Salta. Rather than take a taxi I believed the guide book which seemed to indicate that the walk was a short one. Short only if you’re not carrying 25kg in luggage on your back after sleeping upright on a train. As we got close to the bus station, I was lagging behind Adrian and when I eventually caught up to him, he was already in line to buy tickets for the bus. He was trying to purchase the tickets with his non-existent Spanish. The ticket man was asking for 60 pesos for the tickets which appeared to say 30 on them. So I asked him again. The chaos of the lineup and the ayudantes telling us to hurry because the bus was leaving made it hard to hear, and now it sounded like he said 80. So I asked him to repeat it and he said 180 for the 2 of us. Behind us the ayudante grabbed our bags and was throwing them on the bus. I chased the bags while Adrian paid for the tickets. The bus was now beginning to pull away but before we could get on the baggage guy now wanted 2 pesos before he’d give us our claim tickets. I gave him a nasty look and asked him why and he told me to give him the money unless we wanted to miss the bus. So we had no choice but to give him the cash. And it got worse when we got on the bus. I looked at the tickets and discovered that this "direct" bus trip was in fact two bus trips on two different companies. And worse, the price on the tickets read 30 pesos for the first and 24 pesos for the other for a total of 54 pesos not 90. Scammed in our first hour in Argentina. It was a shock after Bolivia where we’d had a few moments with touts but had mostly been left alone and untouched as we traveled through the country. It was one of the reasons we’d loved it so much – cheap and hassle free. Now here we were in Argentina and people were demanding cash bribes from us and skimming money from our bus tickets. Wow, Argentina you have changed.

The gringo sitting across the aisle from us asked me what was wrong. I told him what had happened and he looked at his ticket. He’d paid 60 but was upset that he’d been over charged 54. But when he heard what we’d paid, he started asking other people on the bus what they’d paid. Apparently we’d all been charged different prices. Some Americans paid 75 others 70 but we’d gotten ripped off the most. Dmitri (yes, he was Greek) immediately called over the ayudante to complain. The ayudante was sympathetic and told us to complain when we got to Salta where we could get our money back. Dmitri was adamant that we all do that particularly when the ayudante told us the price should have been 25 for the first half of the trip and 24 for the second half. But to me, it didn’t make sense – the company in Salta would be a different from the one that sold us the tickets and probably weren’t even aware that this other company was reselling their tickets. There was no way we’d be getting our money back. But now I had 4 hours to stew until we had to change buses. Actually it was 5 hours because we were stopped at a customs check just outside of town because another passenger apparently had enough gold on her to raise the alarm. We were forced to wait for an hour while they questioned her and charged her an import fee. During this break, the South Africa couple behind us tried to make us feel better. They had just been in Argentina for 3 months and this was the first scam they’d encountered. But I wasn’t worried about Argentina I was just angry that we’d gotten ripped off at another border.

When we finally got to Jujuy, the other bus was already there. We had just enough time to grab our bags and put them on the new bus not before being asked for another 2 pesos from yet another baggage guy who had just lifting our bags one foot off the ground and on to the bus. Once again I refused to pay and luckily this guy gave us our bags without demanding the money. I was commenting on the cash grab, when the South Africans informed me that in Argentina it was customary to tip the baggage man (although the refusal to give us the ticket until we’d paid was unheard of – it was a tip after all). Oops, I almost felt bad but then I remembered that some joker had already gotten an extra 70 pesos out of us today and we had to recoup it somehow.

This second bus was nicer than the first and arrived in Salta on time. We immediately went to the Flecha Bus office to make our complaint. As predicted it was the El Quicacena company we should have complained to but the fact that they were selling tickets for Flecha bus was enough to anger the Flecha bus attendant, let alone that they were ripping people off in their name. We filled out a complaint form but since it was the weekend we couldn’t get much further. They gave us a formal receipt and the number of the head office. They were very nice and apologetic which was enough to make us feel better but I knew I wouldn’t be calling the number and wouldn’t be getting our money back. The amount we lost wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things – about $20 I think – and we wouldn’t have paid it, if we didn’t think that was the price for 7 hours on the bus. Plus, just having someone who appeared to care about a customer complaint was enough to make us feel better.

Now it was time to find the hostel. We needed a shower and to relax. Lucky the hostel was close to the bus station and even luckier that there was room available, albeit one with shared bath. The hostel was great. It was a converted house and it felt just as welcoming. The staff were super nice and made us feel very welcome. We jumped into the (hot water! high pressure!) shower and washed away the crankiness of the day. We’d survived another border crossing.

(old) Beam us outta here Scotty.

Tonight we were off on the night bus to San Pedro de Atacama so it was time to put our affairs in order. Not because we feared for our life or anything so melodramatic but because San Pedro was a small town on the border with Bolivia and where we hoped to join a Salt Flat Tour back into Bolivia. That meant we might not have internet for quite a few days. The hotel here in Iquique supposedly had wifi but I had been unable to connect to it and their desktop in the lobby was so slow that after 20 minutes it had yet to load up the home page. I hoped that this was just the hotel connection and not a sign that the internet had taken the holiday off as well. Ivan and Catalina had told us that where they were staying was full of posh restaurants and hotels and we set off in that direction beach combing for a coffee shop with wifi.

We packed up all our gear and checked out of our room leaving all our bags except for my pack and computer in their storage room. Then it was time to walk down the beach towards posh Cavancha. Today the waves were huge and the water was full of surfers taking advantage of the swells. But they weren’t the only ones. The beach was absolutely heaving despite it being what we considered a bit too chilly to be sunbathing. The surf competition was still going on and with the big waves the experienced surfers were battling it out so we pulled up a rock to watch the action. Beside me Adrian continued to chant one, two, three, chum pretending to jump up on his invisible surfboard in some sort of imaginary competition with the pros. I didn’t ask him if he was winning but did tell him it was time to go when the backpack and computer got too heavy.

At the far end of Cavancha was a totally different world from downtown Iquique. Here it was nothing but those shiny condos and five-star hotels and restaurants that were way beyond our price range – or at least that’s what the linen table cloths and wine glasses said to us. But most of them looked closed anyway. There was no sign of a coffee shop with or without wifi. We considered heading downtown where we had seen a place with wifi but doubted that it would open today. So we kept walking all the way to Playa Brava. All though it was a wide beach it was empty because the waves here were deadly. Not even the surfers were brave enough for Brava. There wasn’t much in this area and we were starving and headed back to Cavancha to try and catch a bus into town. However, on our way back through the condos and hi-rises we took a different turn and discovered a bunch of restaurants that were open. One even advertised it had wifi so although it looked quite pricey we decided to give it a go. The prices were steep but we decided to just enjoy the ambience and the wifi and order anyway. I had my first Peruvian ceviche (albeit in Chile) and a salad while landlubber Adrian stuck with steak and potatoes. While we ate I used the wifi to upload some photos. It was a shot upload session since there was no plug and my weak battery quickly drained. There was more bad news when I used the little power I had left to look up some info on San Pedro. The hostel prices were ridiculous - $40 for a room with shared bath!?! I just hoped that we’d be able to find a tour out of town as soon as possible. We sipped our drinks as slowly as possible and just before dark we headed back to the hotel to get our bags and head to the bus station a few hours later.

When we bought our tickets the helpful clerk had spoken slowly and repeated everything so I could understood but I was still not 100% sure if I had understood it all. I was still puzzled by the fact that she had said the bus would stop in the middle of the night so we could get some sleep. That seemed weird and when we got on the bus I had trouble drifting off wondering if we were going to be woken up and forced off the bus to wait for a connection to San Pedro. When I finally decided just to sleep and figure it out when we got there, sleep was made difficult by the bus temperature. There were no blankets on board so Adrian and I alternated between sweating and freezing as the driver clumsily adjusted the heat throughout the trip. But we must have fallen asleep and indeed sometime in the middle of the night the bus did stop because when the sun came up, I woke up to discover that we were parked in the Calama bus company office with just Adrian, myself and a couple of other passengers left on the bus. The bus was locked up tight and so was the onboard bathroom. That was the most distressing since I now had to piss like a racehorse. It was also freezing now which did nothing to help my bladder issues. I thought I was saved when the driver opened the door and came onboard. I asked him to unlock the bathroom but he said no and directed me to the bus company office. I quickly ran off the bus only to discover the office just opening up and told by a clerk that the bathroom was across the street in the shipping office. It of course was closed for another hour. I set the world record in pee-pee dancing on the street waiting and hoping that some keen worker would turn up early for work. He didn’t but my bladder held until he showed up. Feeling 10000 times better I boarded the bus as the rest of the passengers filed on for the trip to San Pedro.

It was a 4-hour drive through the desert to the small dusty town of San Pedro. When the bus stopped and as we got off it felt like we’d traveled back to Bolivia already. We grabbed our bags and headed into town to search for a place to stay. The first place had a room for $60. And the next had a dorm that was going to cost us $20 each. Both were more than we wanted to be paying so we continued on to the HI where they at least had a room with shared bath for $40. The price wasn’t great and neither were the facilities but we were sick of walking and after a night on the bus just wanted to shower. However we were told we had to pay upfront and we didn’t have enough cash on us. So we set out once again through the small town in search of an ATM. The first machine we found only took Mastercards and our bank cards are Visa. We were directed to another machine on the other side of the thankfully small town but it was out of service. Now we had to find an internet café so that I could go online to look up our Mastercard PINs that I had stored in my email. But first we decided to stop for breakfast using the bit of cash we had. Breakfast was more expensive than we’ve paid so far and was mediocre like the rest of the town so far. But just next door was an internet café so I was able to grab our PINs while we waited for the food. Then it was back to the ATM which was now only giving out $100 at a time. I took this as a sign that our time in San Pedro should be as short as possible and after paying our hostel bill and showering in the lukewarm dribble they called a tap, Adrian and I went out to search for a tour that was leaving tomorrow.

San Pedro appeared to be a town that existed only for the tourist. The streets were pretty in that generic cookie-cutter sort of way and they were filled by alternating tour companies, cafes, and gift shops. It was like a Disney version of Spanish Colonial South America but at least it made it easy to do some comparison tour shopping. The guidebooks and fellow travelers warn that the tour companies in San Pedro were hit or miss and all somewhat mediocre. We tried one recommend by the Aussies we’d met back in Costa Rica. The rep there told us that the accommodations were basic; they only had dorms and there was no hot water (way to sell) and they cost more than we’d hoped to pay. So we walked down the street to another place that I’d seen reco’ed elsewhere. Their price was 10% less and they showed us pictures of their private rooms and promised hot water. But more importantly they took credit cards without adding a service charge. It was kind of a no-brainer and we booked with them to leave tomorrow. With our escape plotted we walked around the town but just saw more of the picture perfect white washed adobe buildings, souvenir markets, generic backpacker cafes and more pricey package tour restaurants. One of these had wifi so we decided to abuse their facilities. We ordered copious cups of coffee while I finished uploading the photos from the past week. The connection was rather slow and when the restaurant closed between lunch and dinner I thought they would kick us out. But they didn’t and four hours, and $20 worth of coffee later I got all the photos up.

We stopped to pick up snacks and water for the three day tour and then went to find a place where the locals ate for a cheap meal. Our search led us out of town to a not so pretty suburb. The homes were still adobe but were no longer painted and there were no more leafy trees lining the streets. It was amazing that this totally different village lay right next door to a tourist mecca. I thought for sure we’d find a place to eat but the streets were deserted and we saw nothing that looked open. You know in those Western movies when the stranger walks into town and all the locals close up pretending to have moved away hoping to avoid him? Well, that’s it what it felt like as we walked through this side of town. We were the outsiders looking for a meal (not a shoot out) and the locals were all locked up tight inside hoping we’d just go away. It was eerie and unnerving. I know the locals ate somewhere but we couldn’t find it. Instead we ate at the first place we came to back in San Pedro. But being on the edge of town, food was cheaper than what we’d seen elsewhere. It wasn’t the best but at least it cost less than our coffee. The best part came when we left the café. The sun was setting and thanks to some low-lying clouds it was the most unbelievable sunset ever. It was apocalyptic and I expected a space ship to appear out of the clouds (photo above) at any moment and blow up the church in the plaza. And when I looked down the street I wasn’t the only one that felt that way. Every other gringo stood motionless looking up at the sky. Before all of us zombies were beamed up, the sun dipped below the horizon breaking the spell. But I took it as a good sign that we were leaving tomorrow to be beamed up into the other world of the salt flats.

Desperately seeking Uyuni

If there’s anything I’ve learned in the last 7 months of traveling, it’s that you have to be flexible and patient. Things don’t happen they way they do back home whether it’s a bus trip that takes twice as long as scheduled or dealing with taxi drivers. The best way to deal with everything is to just relax. Over the next three days, I had to learn this lesson all over again.

Our last stop in Bolivia was supposed to be Uyuni, a small town that’s the jumping off point for tours of the famous Bolivian salt flats. After a good scrub and a good meal last night we booked our bus tickets to Uyuni. After she sold us our tickets, the clerk warned us that the bus hadn’t been running the last few days because of a blockade. Apparently, the entire town of Uyuni was blocked off by protesting locals so no buses were getting in or out. When I asked her when she thought the blockade would be cleared she said Mañana. Adrian and I crossed our fingers and hoped she meant that literally (meaning tomorrow) but prepared ourselves if she meant it the typically Latin way (meaning some vague time in the future) Of course, the next morning after we had packed all our gear up, the clerk notified us that there would be no buses to Uyuni today, the blockade was still up. We checked back into our room for another night and hoped that tomorrow would be our day. Just in case we discussed a plan B.

The next morning, the buses were still not running. Bored of Potosi (and maybe wanting to put as much distance between us and Julio) we decided to get out of town and head to Oruro. There was a train to Potosi from there and we hoped perhaps that it would get in, even if the buses couldn’t. Oruro was a big town and hopefully, there’d be some more information about the blockade and something to do while we waited. It was also fairly close to Potosi so we were able to catch a bus that got us into town early afternoon.

Oruro was not very impressive, actually it was ugly, particularly after Sucre and Potosi. It looked like a huge jumble of bad wiring and dusty cement blocks. We bypassed the hostel across from the equally ugly bus terminal and headed to a small hotel downtown. The hotel was full of convention delegates but the super nice owner had a room with shared bath still available. We checked in and told her that we were trying to get to Uyuni. She hadn’t heard about the blockade but wasn’t surprised because they happen all the time. She handed us a train schedule and pointed out that one was scheduled to leave tomorrow. We followed her directions to the train station only to find a room full of empty chairs. A lone clerk came out from a backroom. Before we were able to complete our request he pointed to a notice board. There were no trains due to the blockade at Uyuni. Great.

We caught a bus to the bus station and confirmed that there were no buses to Uyuni. We had just a handful of days left to stay in the country and the one place we wanted to visit was closed. Do we go back to Sucre? Maybe but we’d have to find a place to stay. What were our other options? La Paz? Too far. We looked around at the different schedules and found a bus going to Iquique, Chile. That would solve our visa issue and with just a slight detour we could still do our salt flat tour starting at Chilean end rather than from Uyuni. That would send us back to Bolivia with a new visa and down into Argentina. That wasn’t our original plan but the other option was staying in Oruro. There were 5 different bus companies all going across the border the next day and all around the same time. So we planned to come back tomorrow and buy tickets for whatever bus was leaving first.

There was really nothing to see in Oruro. The main attraction was the carnival but that wasn’t on until February. The woman at the hotel told us we’d have to come back to see it. And as much as I wished we could, I knew we’d be long gone by then. Instead we headed out to the most highly recommended restaurant in the city. It was a posh place with linen tablecloths and bow-tied waiters ready to attend to our every whim. Adrian order the che’'s speciality which turned out to be the biggest plate of lamb ever while I stuck with rice and chicken. It was tasty but our choice of beer spoiled it a bit. Adrian had spotted an unfamiliar brand he had to try. But on first taste we realized it was more of a sweet malt drink than beer. Imagine sweet guiness and you’ll have an idea of what it tasted like.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel. It was a simple continental one but the bread was fresh baked with real butter, the sweet bread came with dulce de leche, and there was juice and real coffee with real milk. And it was included in the cost of our room. We still had some time before the buses to Chile were leaving so we headed to the internet café to find out a bit about the new country and city we were heading too. Our first shock was the prices. In Bolivia we would think twice before spending $20 on a room but in Chile it looked like we were going to have to spend that much each. I hoped that was just my bad math and picked out some cheaper options close to each other for us to check out when we got into Iquique.

Even taking our time we arrived with lots of time to kill. We bought our tickets for the 11 oclock bus and then found two seats to read and wait. As we were sitting there, a German couple approached us. They had been to the train station already trying to get tickets to uyuni and were turned away. They only had three weeks to try and squeeze in a salt flat tour, and northern argentina and were a little panicked. They asked us what we were doing. I told them about our plan to do the salt flat tour in reverse hoping that the blockade would be over by the time our tour arrived in Uyuni. But we also let them know that Sucre was really nice if they wanted to visit another city and wait. They thought for a moment and decided to take the bus with us. They bought their tickets then headed back to their hostel to get their bags. I hoped that it was going to be worth it since we had no idea what Iquique was going to be like.

Bastien and Anita turned up with their bags and some provisions for the 8 hour bus ride. They had bought some beers and a jealous Adrian took off to get his own supplies. I reminded him that the bus may not have a toilet which scared the couple but didn’t stop Adrian. With beers in hand we boarded the bus and began our border run. There was a toilet and it worked. And the roads were some of the nicest ones in Bolivia. So far so good. I was even optimistic that we might make it to Iquique before dark. That didn’t last long once the bus turned off the highway and onto a sandy road through the desert. The driver barely slowed down sending huge plumes of dust over the bus. In an attempt to keep the dust out of the bus (and our lungs), we all closed our windows and the ayudante locked the bathroom door much to Adrian’s chagrin. He squirmed with his very full beer bladder for 30 minutes before I told him to just ask the ayudante for the key. It worked and he was able to enjoy the ride to the border.

I had no idea which border we were at. Once we left the highway, the map I was following was useless. We were at some minor border post just before immigration, the bus stopped to let us off to exchange money. Adrian bought a minimal amount of Chilean pesos and then got back on board. Just a few minutes down the road was a shiny new immigration building. In the midst of the Bolivian desert it stood out and quickly reminded us that we were leaving the third world for first world Chile. The building held both Chilean and Bolivian immigration so it was easy. The only hiccup was the customs inspectors. Chile has a very strict import policy. All grains, fruits, veg, dairy and meat were forbidden. They xrayed all luggage and the mostly indigenous passengers were a bit confused. Many of them had their quinoa and bread as well as other grocercies they were carrying with them. When we’d all been thoroughly checked and stamped we were allowed back on the bus.

The difference between Bolivia and Chile were immediate. Although the landscape looked the same, on this side of the border the roads were paved. Notice I didn't say well-paved however, the endless construction signaled that would soon be fixed and take more than a few hours off the trip. Unfortunately, at the moment the road was a little treacherous and at one point we had to stop when we came upon a crash. There was a bus overturned on the side of the road. As we got closer we saw that there had been a collision with a truck. There were no emergency officials and all the passengers appeared to be okay as they stood at the side of the road waiting for someone to pick them up. They climbed on a truck ahead of us to the nearest town while we were waved through the accident zone to continue our journey. I noticed that our driver reduced his speed after that. Well I thought it was because of that, as we chugged along it became apparent that the bus was having issues. The driver plodded on though the mountains getting us to the highway where he alternated between trying to make up some time and stopping to work on the bus. We may have been in a new country but it was the same old story when it came to buses.

Around 9pm the bus got to Iquique, or so I thought. It was a big sprawling town full of stoplights and modern buildings. But in fact this was Alto Hospicio, the suburbs of Iquique. I only realized where we were when the bus reached a cliff. Two kilometers down a steep series of switchbacks lay Iquique all bright lights and tall buildings that hugged the coast of the Pacific. It was an amazing sight but as the bus got to the city the awe of the lights changed to a turned up nose. The city looked grotty and rundown. Unlike old Bolivian towns which were just the victim of ugly architecture and building materials, Iquique looked rundown. The buildings were better built but were now grotty giving the town a very seedy feeling. In the midst of this the bus pulled over on a street and let us off. We had no clue where we were. The Germans managed to find a cab to take them to the hostel in town they picked out. We were headed in the opposite direction so we said goodbye and wished them luck. Now it was our turn to find a taxi. We lugged our bags to a busier road where we eventually flagged down a free taxi to take us to Cavancha beach where the hostels we had chosen were located. It was a good choice, as we got out of the centre of town, the homeless people disappeared replaced with landscaped lawns and palm trees. Our first choice of hostel was booked up. They recommended another place 4 blocks away but we couldn’t find it ending up at a small hotel described as a surfers’ hangout in our guidebook. It wasn’t great but it would do so we dumped our bags, grabbed a quick bite to eat across the street before heading to bed. It didn’t matter about the accommodation, all that mattered was we had escaped from Bolivia, for now at least.

Saved by Sucre

Despite our exhausting day previously, sleeping in was not as easy as we hoped. The owners of La Posada were lovely but their rooms had the thinnest mattresses ever. This was particularly disappointing since we were off on a night bus to Sucre tonight and had been warned that even the first class buses weren’t that comfortable. The owners’ good nature unfortunately didn’t extend to the hotel bill and we had to pay for a half day to keep our bags in the room (and ourselves out of the cold) until the bus left that evening. They had however reserved our bus tickets for us so left the hostal for a bit to pick them up. We also got a good look at the town in the sunlight. There was a small church, a shady square lined with balconied buildings and, oddly enough, a phone both shaped like a parrot. That was it. So we stopped in at a surprisingly fast internet café to confirm our reservations, and check out where to renew our visa. It was hard to believe but we’d already been in Bolivia three weeks and had just 10 days until our visas were set to expire so there was a chance we’d need more time to see everything on our list. With that done we decided to catch an early dinner at the dutch café we’d just found in town. Dinner was tasty and a change from the soup and chicken/fish and rice we’d had a lot of lately but it took a bit longer than we expected so we had to rush back to the hostel to grab our bags. Luckily the owners gave us a lift to the café on the highway where we were to catch our bus. They even gave us a goodbye hug and wished us well on our travels. Nice people shame about the mattresses.

The owner of the café had warned us that the bus was always late but we didn’t know how late it would be. Waiting gave us plenty of time to empty our bladders multiple times, especially since we’d also been warned that there was no toilet on the bus and we had a 15 hour ride ahead of us. As the minutes passed, other buses pulled up and stopped but none were ours. Finally 1.5 hours after we arrived a bus slowed down. It appeared to be the right company but it didn’t stop so Adrian went to flag it down while I confirmed with the guy at the café that it was the right one. The waiter nodded “si, si” and told us to hurry. Meanwhile the ayudante was calling at us to hurry up but he was stopped 600 metres down the dark highway and our packs were heavy. I got to the bus and they shoved my pack down below but made Adrian take his on the dark bus where it blocked the aisle and trapped his leg. Oh well, at least the bus was warm (I had been scared it wasn’t going to be heated) even if it wasn’t very comfortable. At the next town the bus stopped for a leisurely dinner break where all the passengers but us got off, stumbling over Adrian’s pack and giving us a bunch of dirty looks. It was a good thing we didn’t stop for dinner as I’m sure the other passengers would have told the cook to spit in our food. Then the bus began the painfully slow trek through the mountains. Don’t get me wrong, slow was good for safety, it’s just that it was bad for comfort.

At sunrise, the bus was supposed to be close to our destination. I lifted my eye mask and saw nothing but road and mountain. The bus stopped and most of the passengers began filing off. It was a pee break. But there were no washrooms, just a narrow road and a sheer drop off to the valley below. That didn’t stop anyone. The indigenous women in their voluminous skirts were able to discreetly squat in the road while the men whipped it out wherever were. I had neither option available to me so I just crossed my legs and hoped we’d get to Sucre soon.

It was another 3 hours before we pulled into the city, only 3 hours late. And not a moment too soon. I ran off the bus to use the terminal toilet before Adrian and I grabbed a taxi to our hostel. After roughing it for the last week, the La Dolce Vita hostel really was the sweet life. Not only were the French/Swiss couple, Olivier and Jacki, in charge lovely, they really went above and beyond. On check in they sat us down with a map and went into great detail to explain what we could see and do, where we could eat or buy groceries. There was so much to do – more than we had thought – and we had only booked two nights. Unfortunately, the hostel was very popular and they were booked solid. So we would just have to try and squeeze the town sights all in, in our limited time. Although we were totally tired, we took quick showers and helped ourselves to the free oatmeal another guest had left behind before heading out to see the city.

Sucre is the capital of Bolivia. As is La Paz and as is Santa Cruz. You see, despite being a tiny country with no resources, Bolivia is capital-rich. There’s Las Paz, the geographical capital, Santa Cruz, the business capital and Sucre, the official capital. And now we’d visited all three. Out of the three I have to declare the winner Sucre even though I think it has the least pull. Everywhere we looked were old colonial buildings and none of the ugly modern concrete we’d seen everywhere else. The main square was lined with some of the prettiest ones and we stopped to just enjoy the view and indulge in some more fresh squeezed orange juice. But the rest of the streets were just as nice.

We walked to the textile museum which both the owners of La Dolce Vita and some folks in Samaipata was well worth it. Textile museum. Sounds boring, doesn’t it? Well that what Adrian (and admittedly me too) thought but with so many a thumbs up he was convinced to at least give it a look. The museum was still closed for lunch when we got there but a woman let us in and told us to help ourselves to some coca tea. We paid our entrance and she told us we could start walking around when we were done. Unfortunately before disappearing she didn’t give us a ticket or inform her co-workers who arrived a few minutes later to open up. It took a while to explain and convince them that we’d already paid and even then I’m not sure they were convinced. But they reluctantly gave us tickets and a English-translation book of everything on display.

It was soon clear that textile museum was a bit of a misnomer. The museum was more like a living ethnographic foundation that supported the preservation of two main indigenous groups, it just happened to explain and support them through their textiles. The textiles weren’t just pretty fabrics but a way of passing down the history and customs of the local groups. And as we looked at the pretty fabrics we learned about them too. The different colour combinations symbolized different stages of life and time periods. For example green was death. While the different patterns went into detail – the who, what, where, etc. The foundation kept the traditions alive and gave the weavers a way to support themselves financially while simultaneouly supporting their culture. And it was successful. In fact it was so successful that the men of the communities insisted on learning the craft so they could make so money too. But in order to keep their machismo intact they only did the most complex and special fabrics. And it was the women who provided the demonstrations. Too bad that the fabrics on sale in the shop were way out of our price range. It was really interesting and well worth it and just the right size for our sleep-deprived brains. Even Adrian thoroughly enjoyed it, and he meant it. Sucre was making up for sleepy Samaipata and the icky bus ride it took to get here.

All dressed up with someplace to go.

After our overnight bus rides in Peru, the overnight bus to Santa Cruz was interesting. There were no more comfy pillows, no fuzzy blankets and no meals served to us at our seats. Instead we cowered under our jackets and woke up with kinks in our necks. Instead of breakfast, the bus stopped somewhere along the highway in the middle of the hot humid Bolivian jungle where we all got out at a little roadside open air café. While the Bolivians all tucked into the bowls of soup made out of big cow bones, slurping hungrily on the marrow, or knocked back heaping plates of rice with a chicken stew, Adrian and I made do with a cup of super sweet coffee. The one other gringo on the bus, joined us in our choice. She was a young English girl just wrapping up her four month trip and travelling to Santa Cruz to catch a flight to Rio where she would be enjoying some sun before heading home to grey England. When we arrived at the Santa Cruz bus station, we split a cab with her. Well we paid the same as if we had taken two cabs, but there is something comforting about sharing a taxi with someone else after arriving in a new city. Our hostel was located in a residential area just outside of the downtown area and although I had given the driver the address and shown him where it was located he still managed to get slightly lost until I pointed him in the right direction. But it was his loss since we were paying a flat rate no matter what route he took. We said goodbye to the English girl, gave her address to the driver since she spoke even worse Spanish than I did and checked in.

We’d chosen this hostel for its promise of free and fast wifi and great website (I know, we’ve been burned before). The hostel had once been a large house and it felt homey, clean and full of all the good things that make us happy (for me wifi, for Adrian a big screen tv with satellite tv). All good except for the fact that it appeared to be empty. Despite this the only room available was the most expensive. Since we didn’t feel like searching for another option we took it - after all the pool awaited. Yes, I forgot to mention the pool. Santa Cruz was stinking hot and humid and after sleeping on a bus in our clothes we were looking forward to a refreshing dip. The wifi was much better than the La Paz and while we paddled around the pool, the remaining hundreds of photos uploaded which made the hostel 100x better already.

There was a grocery store nearby and while Adrian went to stock up on some grub, the other guests started trickling in, among them Stuart and Max two easy going lads from England, lovely Pauline from Ireland and Linda, a perennially happy German girl. In just a few hours we’d gotten to know more people than we had in our three days in La Paz which is why I like small hostels. And we all had a lot in common – we were in Santa Cruz. No really that was important. The city doesn’t appear on most travelers agendas except as a place to catch an international flight (the airport here is bigger than La Paz’s), or on their way to Brazil to visit the Pantanal. Stuart and Max had only meant to pass through on their way to the rest of Bolivia but had found themselves drawn to the town. Likewise Pauline who had now been here for weeks volunteering at a school. And Linda, well, she was a sweet, giggly student who’d just arrived to start an internship. I immediately assumed it was something to do with international development. But no, she was studying transportation and logistics and her internship was with the Bolivian passenger rail service. I wasn't the only one who found this funny – the notoriously slow and undependable Bolivian rail service would get a free injection of notorious German efficiency, but poor Linda wasn’t going to learn much to help except frustration. Good thing she was the happiest person I’ve ever met – and I wondered if we’d be able to pass through in 6 months time to see if she still was after her intership.

The next day, we left our new friends to explore the city we’d found ourselves in. Santa Cruz is actually Bolivia’s richest and most prosperous city – rumour has it that most of that wealth came from drugs. But whatever the reason, it was now its business centre. Having read that, Adrian and I had high hopes for it. So we walked the 10 minutes into town, finding a French café on the way. I was skeptical when we walked in – French food in what was eseentially the middle of the Bolivian Pantanal - but I was pleasantly surprised by the fancy décor and to hear the two owners speaking French to each other. So we stopped for an authentic French lunch of quiche, coke and éclairs for just 15Bs and then started walking to the sights listed in the guidebook.

Our walking tour didn’t take long – there wasn’t much to see in Santa Cruz. The plaza, the old church, a handful of colonial buildings amongst the typical cement structures and a bunch of shops that sold clothes more expensive than our budget. There was definitely money in the town but it wasn’t being spent by us or on the city. The one exception was a park nearby (photo above) which consisted of an artificial pond ringed by some grass and a handful of palm trees and a large stone pathway/patio. It stood out for its newness. And in fact it was so new, that the ethnographic museum built on an island in the middle of the pond was still being constructed or set up and was closed. Including the time we took for lunch, our tour had taked an hour and a half. So once we’d seen all the buildings it was time to go shopping, but only if we could find something cheap. After 6 months of traveling some of our clothes had started to unravel and threadbare but replacing mine was going to be a bit of a struggle. Not only our women in Latin America at least a foot shorter than me but their also about a foot skinnier. They also like to wear a lot of shiny things – sequins, lame, and crystals – which aren’t really my style. At a large department store, I was lucky to find a pair of khaki casual pants that fit on the sale rack. I have a feeling they may have been maternity pants but they were about $8 so who cares. However, since the rest of the clothes looked more suitable for salsa dancing than hiking, that was the end of my shopping.

Back at the hostel, many of our new friends were back and were now joined by Brenno, a Brasilian on vacation from his job at a hostel in Bonito. Within 5 minutes of talking to him, he’d sold us on stopping by his place and even promised us a discount. It looked and sounded fabulous and hopefully would still be in the two or three months we figured it would take us to get to Brazil. He was a super nice guy – actually they all were. And we got to know each other better at the hostel bbq that night. It was all you could eat meat and all you could drink alcohol. I think it was that last freebie that had us agree to join Brenno to the feria later on. “It’s the biggest one in Bolivia” “It’s a big party” “Everyone goes there on the weekend” were just some of the things he told us making it sound like a nightclub yet it was the local agricultural fair, like the CNE. Max, Stuart, Adrian and I were game (making sure to leave our cameras and wallets at the hostel). And with a bit of prodding I convinced Pauline and Linda to join us too so I wouldn’t be the only girl. But with so many of us now going, we had to take two taxis: the girls (and Adrian) in one and the boys in the other, which meant we never saw the boys again. Little did we know that there were 8 different entrances to the fair which was the size of a small city. No worries there was plenty to keep us occupied without them.

We walked around the displays which were more like trade show booths selling tractors, cars, cell phone plans and giant cows to a mixture of local indigenous folks, partying young people and super-blond, old order Mennonite families. If that wasn’t an odd enough combination, each booth was populated with beautiful Bolivian models two feet taller than any Bolivian I’d met so far and decked out in their designer best. We thought for sure we’d find the boys near any of these women but no such luck. As we continued to wander, we stumbled across some sort of Miss Bolivia contest where 50 even more beautiful women were strutting the stage in bikinis under the watchful eye of a slightly letcheorus emcee. We searched amongst the families and men holding up their cellphones to record the contest for the boys and then decided to just watch the crowning, except the contest was not a contest. There was no winner just an endless succession of beautiful Amazon women, however, none of the men in the audience seemed to mind. I wonder if they were staring because they were wondering the same thing I was – where did they find these giants in a country of munchikin? Um, probably not. And not surprisingly, as soon as the models left the stage the huge crowd dispersed in record time. We still hadn’t found the boys and decided to give it one more shot. I told Linda to practice her Spanish by asking some of the young folks where the party was so we could find the boys – but those she asked just pointed all around. I told Adrian to put his “think like a boy” cap on and he said to follow the women. So we did. Most headed to the trade show booths that were now functioning like night clubs. Beefy bouncers were guarding the entrance while the beautiful people wearing the fancy clothes I’d seen for sale in the shops danced, dranked and partied on the otherside. Unfortunately all of us in our backpacker finest couldn’t even pass off ourselves as cleaners. We figured the lads were somewhere in one of them and in good hands so we did another lap of the exhibits then decided to leave. It was probably for the best as the all we could drink alcohol started to catch up with us.

Learning to drive in La Paz

It was 4:30am and I was wide awake again and didn’t get back to sleep until 6:30. I guess I shouldn’t have gone to bed at 9:30pm again (teehee whoops). But getting out of bed was much easier when we did finally get up – particularly because there was heat in our room and the bathroom was just a short trip across the hall. We took full advantage of the endless hot water shower and then treated ourselves to breakfast at the hostel. But in a comedic miscommunication Adrian ended up with 3 eggs rather than three pieces of toast when he used his sh-sh-sh sound and motioned to his plate. I was just grateful that it wasn’t me who ended up with all those eggs. We checked out and then headed down the hill one last time catch the bus to La Paz.

There were plenty of tourist shuttles trying to tempt us onboard but we bypassed them. Not only did the tourist shuttles not leave until the afternoon but they were triple the price of the public bus. So we followed the locals to the square where a small bus was waiting for us. We were two of just four gringos onboard but despite all the jokes about Bolivian public transport, we were disappointed to discover the rest of the passengers were human not feathered or four-legged.

The bus ride was just another bus ride with one exception. To get to La Paz from Copacabana, all traffic has to cross Lake Titicaca. There was no bridge but there was a ferry, you can call it that. At a narrow straight, the bus stopped and let us off and then continued on to a floating raft that looked like it was barely able to float (photo above). I was glad that we didn’t have to join it until I saw how we were getting across. There was a small passenger boat much like the one we had taken yesterday to get off the Isla del Sol. Impossibly it looked even less sea-worthy although, unlike the Isla del Sol boats, I did notice the presence of two life jackets that could be fought over by the 20 passengers in case of emergency. We all piled onboard and then waited and waited so more until a cranky and impatient old man, yelled at the gabbing captains that we were cold and weren’t getting any prettier which got the attention of one of the captains. He jumped onboard and started the boat, smoking while hanging over the motor that smelled of leaking petrol. I noticed that there were no fire extinguishers.

But in the end, we made it to the other side without incident. The only problem was we had no clue where to catch out bus. Neither did the two other gringos. Tomas and Chris were also on their way to La Paz and to the same hostel we were going to. We decided to stick together in the square and hope that with the four of us gringos grouped together and standing heads and shoulders above the rest of the crowd (literaly, Bolivians are tiny) that if we couldn’t find us the bus would at least be able to find us. They offered us some of their Andean popcorn. I’d seen the giant plastic bags of it for sale around Copacabana for mere cents but hadn’t tried it yet. Each piece was the size of Styrofoam popcorn but it tasted like Cracker Jacks. I passed on more after two pieces because unlike Cracker jacks there was no prize for finishing this stuff. Our plan to stick together worked as the bus honked at us and we turned in the direction of the sound to discover it parked a block away on a side street and the driver motioning to us.

We had all heard that the bus trip to La Paz could take up to 6 hours but we managed to get to the city limits in just 2.5 hours. I have a feeling the tourist shuttle companies try to scare folks by claiming the local bus takes 6 hours because our driver certainly wasn’t speeding or driving like a Colombian. Well not a first anyway – as we snaked through La Paz, his driving did take on a certain flair. At first La Paz seemed to be a big stretch of flatness with lots of wide (although crowded) streets. This was a surprise because I had read that La Paz was hilly. Then the bus made a turn and I realized that we had been in the suburbs. The bus was now on the edge of a precipice that was home to La Paz. The city lined a canyon-like gash in the flat altiplano and to get to the bottom now required the bus to begin an almost completely vertical descent.

Unfortunately for the driver, his normal route was blocked by a huge parade that was winding its way up the side of the canyon. Every street he turned onto had a roadblock at the end of it. Finally, he approached a road block but with no parade in sight he ignored the police motioning him to sop and turned down the parade route in an attempt to cross town. Eventually he was stopped by traffic and the police surrounded the bus. They forced their way on the bus and demanded to see his license while asking him which part of “stop” and “do not enter” did he not understand. They ordered him out of the bus but there were no guns and a quick look at their holsters revealed that they were only armed with pepper spray anyway. However, the driver didn’t want to get out. You see we were on what felt like a completely vertical street and he didn’t want to take his foot off the brakes. With his hands up in the air, he tried to explain as his ayudante scurried outside to put some blocks under the wheels of the bus. He tried to argue about his responsibility to his passengers but now the cops were questioning the roadworthiness of his vehicle and were threatening to impound the bus. Now the driver got a little worried and he tried to get out the bus to show the cops that there was nothing wrong with the bus – of course, now the bus lurched forward and sitting in the front seat, we noticed that the road we were on turned sharply right just 30 feet ahead but the bus was now heading straight and over a cliff. Luckily before we all went plummeting to our deaths, the driver jumped back into his seat ad pumped the brakes to stop us. The police continued to yell at the driver until a senior police office came on board. He was about to say something to the driver when he saw Adrian and I sitting in the front row. Instead, he told the driver to be more careful, not to do that again and sent him on his way. Being a gringo has its privileges.

Now that we were free, the ayudante brought the blocks back on the bus and the driver carefully navigated the sharp turn away from the cliff and continued down into La Paz. He pulled into a bus station across from the cemetery and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was home to the passengers of other not so lucky buses. And then of course both Adrian and I couldn’t stop singing Morrisey’s song “Another sunny day so I’ll meet you at the cemetery gates.” Tomas and Chris joined us and we decided to share a taxi. It was only a two dollar ride but it was a long ride as the driver had to take multiple detours to snake around the parade route. He told us that all weekend there was a big fiesta but he wasn’t sure for what since there seemed to be a fiesta every weekend. It took 20 minutes to go just 2 kilometres but he didn’t raise his price when we arrived at the Loki hostel and more importantly he got us there without any more drama.

The hostel is probably the first big hostel we’ve stayed at. It used to be a hotel but was now part of the Loki chain that dotted Peru and Bolivia. It was huge and young and a bit of a party hotel. We were given ID bracelets to wear at check-in, the same as those that are worn at resorts and told about the bar upstairs, the oxygen bar on the roof and the free wifi and computers. I’m pretty sure we were at least 10 years older than every other guests. But it was oddly comforting, perhaps because half the staff have Mohawks which make me feel at home until I remember that I haven’t had funky hair in 15 years. My how time flies. Yet, it was very efficient and they were even able to tell me that our courier package had arrived. However, they had had to turn it away because the courier company needed to collect $150 in duty. Gulp. I guess we’ll sort that out on Monday.

Instead we spent the rest of the day catching up on the usual – laundry photo uploads and blogging – before having the lasagne dinner at the hostel. The kids staying at the hostel had other ideas and we could hear them partying well into the morning while we were sleeping. Our introduction to Bolivian driving had been all the excitement we needed for our first day in La Paz.