Sucre, fluent espanol now...

Still here in Sucre. We will boost tomorrow. Its a nice city, but neither of us are really city people. And I have clearly learnt all the Spanish i can handle.. (well maybe..)

Tomorrow will be lesson 5. I now have a pretty good grasp on the grammer. I understand most of what i read, but when in conversation get a bit lost. (they talk too bloody fast over here..) It can only get better. (I keep on saying that... to myself..)

So after a week we/I have:
-tried 3 different hostals.
-faffed about getting yellow fever shots, malarials, and rabies shots (How exciting).
-spent 3 hours a day in a classroom sitting at desks made for very small children.
-spent more hours in various hostals doing homework.
-went to a localy made movie ¨who killed the little blond Llama, which didnt make a lick of sense.
-posted our cold weather clothes to La Paz. 12kg!!! We will pick them up when we ascend from the lowlands in a few weeks.

Tomorrow the final insult will be a 14 hour overnight bus ride to Santa Cruz. Cant wait....

lesson 1

My first Spanish lesson today. Despite appearances from the photos in the previous post, I was sober as a judge when i turned up at 10am today. Did 2 hours with Maria the tutor, one on one, and it felt pretty good. Then spent most of the afternoon practicing with Sara.

How hard can it possibly be?? (!)

the mother of all beers!!

I had to show you all this... The biggest glass of beer in the world! The photos will tell the story better than words can. Think 3.5 litres in a glass and you´re there. Its called a ´re-balon´. (Just so you know what to ask for when you get here)

And for 35 Bols ($6.50NZ) it was a bargain!

OK.. THE PICS ARE A BIT STAGED... BUT IT WAS ONE HELL OF A BEER!

getting serious in Sucre

OK; I have had enough.

Of not being able to communicate effectively in Spanish that is. So despite Sara being a qualified language teacher, I have decided to get some lessons thru an more impartial tutor here in Sucre. I had hoped to start today but it wasnt to be. After checking several schools and picking the one i like most, i will begin tomorrow. At $5US/hr it had better be worth it!!

What was worth it today was getting our yellow fever shots here, instead of back home. In NZ it was going to cost $100. It also meant going to Queenstown, cos the docs in Wanaka couldnt do it. Here it was free!! Well, getting an internaional card to prove we had it was supposed to cost 100 Bols ($19 NZ). The doc got a bit confused when we presented our yellow books, then realised that he would not have to use his supply of numbered and catalogued certificates. This meant he could pocket the money himself, so he only charged us 50 Bols each!!!

We also visited the dinosaur tracks on the outskirts of town. The truck ride out there was amusing, a woman driver who must have just learnt to drive. She cut off everybody, groaned up hills in the wrong gear, and made take offs when she did have to stop a rocket ship experience..

Now the cliff covered in giant tracks was pretty cool. What wasnt so cool is the newly opened ´Jurassic Park´which is now used for viewing. Until only a few weeks ago you could get close to the wall and marvel. Now you have to pay 30 Bols to enter a theme park with actual size models of the dino´s, and look at the prints thru binoculars... Not the best..

Back onto health issues we also found some malarials at the chemist. Doxycycline at 1 bol per pill. I am pretty sure this is cheaper than home. I just hope they are not fakes...

lower at last

Thin air gets a bit frustrating after a short while. And after a week of short breaths, we´d kind of had enough.

Our bus ride to Sucre was like going to a different world. Three hours of almost all downhill (wish I had my bike) and at a height of 2,800m the air was warm, and the fields were green. Nice.

Getting out of Potosi was a bit of a drama. We turned up at 12.55 for our prepaid 1pm bus. It had already gone!!! Since when do things in Bolivia run early???

So we got tickets for the next bus, and were hit with an extra 2 bol fee for boarding from the terminal. Once we did leave (40 mins late) the bus drove out of the terminal gate, and picked up the rest of the pax who escaped the 2 bol fee!!

You learn something everyday!

Sucre has some seriously nice old architecture, and again, a relatively modern feel. Finding accom that was a balance between cheap and respectable took a while (the worst place coming in at 35 bols/$6NZ, and STINKING of piss), but we got there in the end.

We also found the orange juice sellers had carts with a cool peeling device.

I think we might stay here for a while.

Entering Hell, in Potroi

So 2 days ago, 24 October 2006, I entered hell. Literally. I even sat by the devil..

I had been looking foward to being shocked by a tour into the mines for months. And I can tell you right now, I was shocked. Seriously so.

The tour started nicely, getting given overalls and helmets etc. We visited the ´miners market´and bought some coca leaves as present for the miners. We also bought some dynamite.(!) More on that later.. We then proceeded to the seperation plant where the good minerals are removed. It stunk of noxious chemicals. At least the workers were in the sun though.

It was time to go in.

Without bragging (or the opposite) I can say I have visited some genuine shitholes around the world, and seen some bloody awful conditions for work, or life in general. While I am still sticking to my earlier assertions about Bolivia being more develeoped than say, Eastern Indonesia, the life the miners endure here is just unbelievable.

As I mentioned in my last post, most miners are dead within 15 years from the silica dust they inhale building up in their lungs. And most of them start when they are only 13. What a way to grow up...

We went in wearing masks, and even these werent enough. Luckily I had a bandanna in my pocket, and using that with the mask was bearable.. just. The miners themselves dont wear any cos they are doing such physical work and get too hot. Me, personaly.. I prefer hot over dead, but as our guide told us, these guys dont bother to look further ahead than dinner that night. They have nothing to look foward to.

The tunnels themselves were tiny. We were crawling a lot of the way. When it was time to descend or ascend a level it was sliding and scuffling time. I watched in horror as two 14 year old boys repeatedly crawled up and down one of these sloped areas carrying 40kg sacks of ore on their backs. Ascending was actualy the hardest part for us too. Involving more excertion, and still at 4,000m ASL we were sweating like beasts. Not nice.

Most of the photos I took didnt come out well, cos the massive ammounts of dust reflected the flash. This again reminded me how grim it was down here.

The miners cope by crewing HUGE wads of coca all day long, which gives them energy and fends off hunger. I certainly chewed my fair share today, but it didnt help that much.

The locals are mostly catholics here. They reason that as God is above, then the devil lives underground. In keeping with this concept they had made a statue of the devil, and regularly gave it offerings. I sat next to the devil, but offered him nothing. We were at the end of the trip at that point, and I just wanted out. An offering might have been misinterpreted as wanting more... no thanks

Once out I realised oince again just how lucky I (and indeed you reading this) really are. It makes me feel embarrassed, literaly, that we piss and moan about trivial bullshit like there not being enough sugar in our latte´s, when others have to deal with this.

And what is their reward? Apart from early graves, the miners usualy make around 1500 Bols per month. Thats less than $300 NZ per month. And get this, thats considered good money over here. Hence 14,000 miners doing this 8 hours a day.

The finale of the tour was nice at least. Once we had regained our senses, we got to set off some dynamite, which we had purchased at the market earlier. ($3NZ for stick, fuse and accellarant, anyone can buy it-cool.) After unwrapping it (it looks like green play dough), rewrapping it with the accelerant,and setting the fuse, the matches came out. Having a stick of lit dynamite in your hand is quite an experience. One of the other travellers freaked out and threw his like a grenade. This pissed the miners off, as one of them had to go and fetch it, cos he´s thrown it somewhere sensitive! It was still lit of course...

I placed mine where directed, then we ran away... real fast. And the bang was pretty loud. I took a video clip of all this, but the file is too big to attach to this blog.

Being driven back to town I reflected on what IU´d just experienced, and decided I needed a beer. The bus driver obviously thought the same thing, and picked up a glass from a couple of lads selling on the street side. He drank as he drove, not seeming to notice the looks he was getting from all the foreign passengers.

Only in Bolivia...

up again, to Potosi

I´m liking Bolivia more each day.

We ascended again, to the world highest city no less- Potosi. (At 4,070m) The drive took 5 hours along a gravel road with more beautiful views. Despite being a main road, we passed all of three tiny communities along the way. the sheer isolation, and unproductivity of the high lands takes some getting used to.

Potosi itself is beautiful. Its had a mad history;for 300 years it was the world richest silver mine and the architecture here reflects that past glory. The silver is all but gone now, and other minerals are being mined instead. the selling price of these minerals is at an all time high, so again the town is flush with cash.

Tomorow I will be going into the mines. These trips carry a serious ammount of danger, cos these mines are far from modern. Most miners are dead within 15 years from getting dust and shit in their lungs. Cave-ins are far from uncommon... I was fully aware of all this, but was somewhat shocked that i had to sign a waiver!!! In Bolivia???? What the..?!

I will post tomorrow about the experience. In particular I am looking foward to buying some dynamite at the markets and making a bang....

the badlands in 4 great days

So, away we went. In a jeep. With a driver, a cook, and three Frenchies. I dont know what the draw card is in France, but it seems half their population is here in SA. Everywhere else I have travelled, I´ve never met any, but they have outnumbered other nationalities by 4 to 1 over the last few weeks. I have no idea...

Anyway, our crew was solid. The two lads who ran the show, Hector and Hulio, were good value. Their jokes were in Spanish, but I got the idea. Hectors cooking was fantastic, especialy given the limited facilities he was using. Hulio´s driving was a bit ropey at times, but we lived to tell the tale... and here it is..

Our trip went thru the outback of Bolivia, ending in the famous salt planes near Uyuni. We had four days to cover over 1,000km on shitty single lane rutted roads. Our first night was spent at 4,200m ASL. The second night was at 4,800(!!) then we descended to 3,600. All this talk about elevation makes you think... Mt Cook in NZ stands at 3,754m ASL, so going up to 5,000m is slightly above the average Kiwi´s comfort zone. We had coca leaves at the ready, but more about all that later.

Day1. Up and up we went. And once up high we got the first real understanding of just how isolated we were. Middle of bloody no where doesnt even come close. But of course some (poor) souls had to live up there. The only town we passed thru during the day had a permanent population of around 15, including the kids who were well trained in smiling nicely for the tourist´s cameras, then asking for money. They actualy seems a bit surley about the whole deal, I could just imagine them rushing back to their satelite TV´s, the dish being hidden from our eyes. The lazy sods werent even in traditional costume!

The further on we drove, the more amused i was about how our driver knew the way. We went thru quite a number of intersections, but not one was sign posted. This amused me the most, cos the tourist sites back in the outskirts of Tupiza, all had signs, despite them not being necessary.. Here they might have come in just a little more useful..

The scenery was amazing. Lagoons of all different colours, along with multi coloured mountains in every direction; the colours showing the various mineral deposits, which are ubundant up here.

Our nights accomodation was basic, as promised, in a tiny town called St Antonio. There were 250 residents; 2 men, 124 women and 124 children. The men had all travelled to Argentina and Chile to work illegaly and try to buy their families out of there. It seemed like a tough existence, but as a passer by I was blown away by the sheer magnificence of the views as the sun went down, and the very pleasant sound of total silence. For some reason it looked what I immagine Mongolia to look like(?)

A couple of local kids challanged us to a bit of 2 on 2 basketball. Now let me tell you, its not fun getting beaten by 2 girls who dont stand as high as your waiste! But at 4,200m up they had a serious home advantage. I havent panted so hard in years!

I took a sneaky photo of one of the local women, clad in traditional regalia, as she spoke to Sara. She heard the noise of my camera, and (naturaly) demanded money. I changed my camera settings to silent right there and then. The clothes people wear in this country have intrigued me since our arrival. It seems all the women over 30 wear the same old stuff. Long socks, sandals, six skirts, and four jumpers. Hair extremely long and platted into two tails, which are joined at the base. The younger ones all dress like we do. Progress??

The night was cold. Of course. Our roof was thatch. In fact all the houses were, except for the school was sported a flash steel roof, courtesy of the very socialist governement over here. We were in bed early, trying to keep warm, but when i went outside for a midnight tinkle I was treated to one of the best starry nights I´ve ever seen. Mind blowing.

On the subject of needing a tinkle... being at altitude soes some funny things to the body. All the pressure on your innards turns you into some kind of fountain. We all noticed it and commented. Pissing like a draft horse every 30 mins, day and night might sound like every little boys dream but is kind of frustrating after a while..

Day2. A 5am start. And today we went even bloody higher. Right up to 5,000m. We chewed the coca like it was going out of fashion(it tastes pretty average by the way), but it was still easy to get into a dizzy spell if you walked more than 10 steps. Sara is still fighting a chest infection, and found it really hard. She was literaly rescued by another traveller who had an asthma inhaler. Pretty scary stuff.

We saw more and more mult coloured lakes, swam in a natural hot pool, and saw thounsands of pink flamingoes. They might as well have been ducks though. Every time we tried to sneak up on them they´d run/fly away.

There were some geyser and hot pools right up high too. They were really blowing hard, and reminded me of Rotorua when i was a kid. Now a days the Roto hot pools are pretty tame, and are surrounded by (gay) safety fences. The concept of safety, let alone safety fences hasnt been thought of over here, so we trundled right up to them. I had my slightly cautious hat on. The guides looked like they were reay to jump in!

The nights accom was a real money spinner for the local geniuses who had built there. It was literally a purpoes built series of cabins in the middle of high altitude hell. Every jeep departing Tupiza or Uyuni was staying there, so money must have been flowing in nicely. The cost to the land lords though was actualy having to live there. F*/k that.. We were told that during the winter it regularly dropped to minus 35, and winds would blow over 100km/h. Tonight it was only minus 10 or so...

day3. Today was a long drive. Too long. Again the views were fantastic, and the silence when we stopped was so dramatic. The others got all excited about an active volcano we passed, but having seen others much closer up I didnt really feel too moved. (sorry)

As the day wore on we had a decision to make. The standard hostel on the edge of the salt planes, or shelling out $10Us (serious coin over here) each to go to the ´Salt Hotel´. I fely pretty ambivilent, but the group wanted to ¨do it once, do it right¨and go the Hotel. OK, it was made of salt bricks, but that was about the only improvement over the cheapie as it turned out. They both has salt bed bases, and both stung us another 5 bols for a hot shower. The cheapie actualy struck me as more impressive, with salt crystals for a floor.

Anyway, we had a nice night at the hotel drinking some pretty grim local red wine and talkinf shit in 3 different languages. (well just one for me). I even snuck into the showers for free just to confirm my backpacker roots..

say 4. The day started badly. We were to leave at 5.30 to catch the sunrise. But our promised wake up call came at 5.25, so we literaly ran out the door, still feeling a bit salty ourselves. Five mins later we got stuck in deep mud. As the sun rose,we spent time doubled over trying to dig it out. It was actualy kind of funny...

The salt planes though, were pretty impressive. Just enormous. Evidently you can discern them from outer space.. (how our Bolivian guide found that out I can only immagine). We drove for ages on total flat, white lunar surface, then came to an island. It was totaly surreal walking around a tiny island looking out to sea, when the sea has jeeps driving along in the distance. Very cool.

And then, it was all over. We got to Uyuni around 1pm, and said our good byes. Uyuni is a shit hole. It looks exactly how I´d immagined Bolivia to be like. Rubbish everywhere, dusty streets, and crappy mud brick buildings. It was alomst tempting to catch the night bus to Potosi, but we were knackered, Between the early starts, lack of sleep and oxygen deprivation, bed was calling.

We found the cheapest hostel we could see and were asleep within minutes. A happy sleep though.. the 4 days had been a cool journey

Tupiza, sundancing kids

Tupiza still sits at 3,000m ASL. So we figured we´d spend a couple more days here to aclimatise. We leave on a 4 day jeep tour tomorrow to the salt planes, and will be crossing above 5,000m! Also sleeping at 4,800...

You learn something every days really dont you? Who knew that the (in)famous Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid made it all the way to Bolivia?? Not me... But yes, they did. And they also got shot to death here. Its a long way from Utah, but the landscape certainly looks the same at least...

We jumped in a jeep, drove to 4,000m and were shown their last stand. In a canyon no less. The history was Ok I guess, but the scenery was breath taking. Walking up a hill at 4,000m was also... breath taking....

So back in town we visited the local market (called the ¨black market¨... cos you can get ¨anything¨there...) The locals use coca leaves to help deal with the altitude. Yes, this is the base ingredient of cacaine. And yes, it is legal in Bolivia (and Peru).... But no, it does not give you a great buzz (boo)...

Our driver today made the magnimonious quote ¨coca is good... but cocaine is bad¨. He really seemed to mean it too.

They say it gets easier as the days go by.... 5,000m here we come!

Triathlon in Tupiza, bloody great fun!

Yesterday might have been the best day of our trip thus far. Similar to travelling in NZ, it was genuine ¨you wanna play you gotta pay¨but quite frankly we paid bugger all and played a lot.

The day trip is known as the triathlon cos it invloves mountain biking, 4 wheel driving and horse riding, (then more mountain biking.) Using the 3 methods of transport we got to see all around the area, including getting into canyons and up high on cliffs.

The bikes were admittedly a bit average, OK for on the flat morning ride.And the 4wd drive was fun enough. Some spooky canyons, and Mordor like rock features.

The horse riding though was AWESOME! Having only ridden around 20 times, and on old nags (the other day in Taffi del Valle being a perfect example), my experience with horses has normaly been the horse on auto piolt and me having to really kick it to get any speed at all.

Yesterday however, I was put on my first Ferrari... Damn this beast didnt want to stop galloping. In reality I was more holding on for dear life than actualy riding, but it certainly got my heart pumping!Evidently the secret is feeding the horse grain and barley instead of hay. This also means that the horses stomach is not so inflated, and you can actualy get your legs around.This is kind of helpful when racing!

Sara was stokeds that I could ´finaly´see fun in horse riding (her words), and I have to admit, I could really get into it if future horses were of a similar high standard.

Our last mission of the day was a downhill Mountain bike. The views from the top were amazing. Especialy the cactus´s which grow wooly hats above a certain altitude!

The ride down was a rutted gravel road. The old bikes made it both frustrating and exciting at the same time. I couldnt ride anywhere near as fast on my bike back home (which I´ve been thinking about quite a lot recently).. but anticipating it falling apart underneath me at any moment kept my heart in my mounth!

All this for 175 Bols each, ie $33 NZ... try to get that sort of value in Queenstown..... hmmmm

Bolivia, nicer than expected!

We crossed into Bolivia this morning. It was all too easy really. A very comfy night bus to La Quica. A short walk over the bridge. Immigration and money changing took less than 5 mins, and as we walked up to the bus stop, there was a bus going to Tupiza right that moment. Even that ride only took 1.5 hrs, when we were expecting 3.

The only other foreigner on the night bus dissapeared pretty quick though. They had two enormous bags each, which they could barely even carry! It was almost funny to watch, and reminded me again to always travel light. My bag right now is 35L and weighs around 12kg. A lot of this is warm clothing, cos we expected it to be a lot cooler than it has been.

Climbing to 3,000n as we had I expected to finaly get to use some of these clothes. But no, its still bloody hot!! I am actualy dreaming about the day we hit the lowlands of Peru and will post them home. Then my bag should weigh about 6kg, which is a bit more like it..

Anyway, first impressions are usualy wrong, but here goes...

Bolivia seems a lot more organised, developed, relaxed and wealthy than I had ever immagined.OK the roads between towns today were all gravel, but not overly rutted. THe bus itself seemed to tick over fine. For lunch we went to a restaurant where we were the only foreigners. It was packed and all the locals were well dressed and smiling. This could have been because its sunday..

So I know that everything I just wrote will prove wrong,but those were my first impressions...

Also, its cheap here! We got the nicest room yet, including a TV with cable (from Peru) for all of 70 $14NZ, which is cheaper than most we had in Argentina. More precisely, it was 70 Bols, which is 27 Argentinean pesos. (We usualy paid 35-50 pesos in Arg)

I can tell I´m going to like Bolivia...

final thoughts about Argentina & bus geeks!

We are again killing time writing this blog before our late night bus later on.

I like Argentina. It has all the creature comforts of NZ, but is just that little bit more lawless. Open canals which you watch for while walking the streets. Rediculously cheap beer. ($1NZ for 1L at supermarkets!)

and cool busses. I am not a bus geek, but clearly my time driving them has had an impression, cos I actualy took photos of a few features that Kiwi Ex´s fleet would be proud of. Tyres which can be inflated on the go! Headsets for each pax to listen to movies or DVD´s.! Seats which really recline way back! One bus even had two sets of front wheels!!!!!

(Note to self) .. settle down, you sound like a bus geek! Your name is not Royal. OrPumbaa!! Bad!!!!

But for the sake of historical accuracy,here are some pics...

Salta, hot and bloggy

Salta is a nice city. i think. Well it could be...

We have been here for 2 days now. It s been so damn hot we decided to hide in internet cafes for the midle of the day. Hence this blog begginning. Its been 4 hours to get this far, and hopefully from now on it will be written in present tense. This move to writing my diary online is a bit of a step for me. I have been keeping a hand written journal for 13 years now, mostly cos I move around so much. But I prefer to type than hand write, and these entries are probably more secure than a diary book I could lose at any time. On that note, I´d better post it home..

THere is a cable car in town which is OK. It climbs the hill in town where there is a pretty neat waterfall setup. THis is all the more impressive, cos there sdoesnt seem to be any other water in town. THe parks are literaly dust bowls.

We found a vegetarian restaurant which got Sara prett excited. The next night we found the best steak restaurant which got me pretty excited. Its hard to admit coming from NZ, but this steak fillet, though thin, was pretty damn tender. Its bloody rediculous what gets you excited when on the road!

We leave for Bolivia tonite, catching a night bus at 1am. Its ´carma´seats again, ie business class, so i really hope to sleep...

Cafayate, deserts and dehydration

from 10-12 Oct 06

It felt a bit sad to leave Tafi. The road to Cafayate, a wine growing town in the middle of the desert was beautiful. Going up to 3,050m ASL then down to 1600m thru gazzilions of huge cactus trees. For a reason we couldnt figure, there was a police check point in the middle of nowhere, where sniffer dogs checked the bags and we got our passports checked. Only Sara and I got checked though, obviously looking dodgy.

The bus conductor also wore a gun. But not in a holster like so many other uniforms you see in this country. It was simply stuffed into his belt, in the back of his belt to be precise. It looked all a bit gangsterish really...

Cafayte is small, and calm. It didnt seem too impressive, except for the bloody stifling heat.

The next day we (ie Sara) decided to visit the local multi coloured rock formations in the desert. The sensible way to do this would be on a tour, but instead we hired mountain bikes and took them on the local bus out to the rocks. (This costing the same as a tour would have..) This was piss poor planning at best... The rocks were 46km out of town, it was stupidly hot, we had all of 1l of water, a tin of tuna, and had eaten one piece of toast for breakfast...

It was about now my recent observations of how different Argentina is compared to other cheap countries I have visited were confirmed. I have climbed live volcanoes in Indonesia, just to find some 10 year old kid selling cans of coke at the top. Yet out here in the desert, where every single tourist in town was going to visit, there was only a few simple craft stalls, and not a cracker of food or weater to be purchased.

The rocks were cool. The sun was not. After about 15km we found a gypsie lady who could sell us some water. I can only but guess what she was thinking about lunatic tourists cycling out there with no water- She didnt look impressed. Thank God, by 35km we found another gyspie selling goat cheese(?). By the time we got back to town I was damn near ready to die. Or eat a whole cow. Or both.

By next morning i was OK again though, and we hit a couple of wineries. Torentes being the local winner. A white variety between a sav and a chardonnay, not overly nice.

As if to make our ¨wine discovery of SA¨even less impressive, some local madman has ccreated wine ice cream. Seriously. I tried another Torontess, in extra cold form. And you know what? It too tastes like shit... Yet the Lonelyplanet & rough guide reckons they are great.

It was time to get out. and off to salta we went, in the back of a transit van driven by a goose who didnt quite understand changing gears or entering corners smoothly.

mountain paradise, Tafi del Valle

from 7 - 10 Oct 2006

No sooner were we off the night bus (with pins and needles despite the big recliner seats), and we were on another. Heading up to around 2000m ASL. What a beauty of a wee town. Kind of similar to Wanaka in fact. Green grass, surrounded by huge mountains, and a slow pace of life.

We were touted (very gently) at the bus stop for hostels, but instead got flagged down by a lovely older lady who rented out a bungalow at the back of her house.

That eve we met an interesting Englishman on the streets and enjoyed a most umsing dinner with him. At 73, he was riding a motorbike from Mexico to the Bottom of SA which was pretty impresive I thought. Our dinner was Parilla (of course) with a magiciam do9ing tricks and comparing some songs too. we were the only 3 foreigners there and just blended in. Nice

We visted a very inspiring organic farm .very small with mostly crops, a few donkeys and Lamas. The couple who ran it bought the land 7 years ago for all of $10,000 Ozzy. He was local, she was a Kiwi. I took a few photos and found it all very educational.

Being on the top of a hill I noticed that maybe the money wasnt flowing quite so fast out here. Every vehical going down the hill did so in neutral to save petrol. It reminded me of my teenage years actualy... (we called it ¨Maori overdrive¨..)

Another day was spent horse riding. A full day for $40NZ each including a massive lunch felt very cheap compared to NZ tourist prices (ie $60 for 2 hours, and certainly no food.) We climbed up to 3000m, and it was still bloody hot. Lunch was of course a BBQ (what else). We only got the horses past walk speed once or twice, but the scenery was great.

My stiff legs at the end of the day were not..

But dinner that night was halerious. Sara was getting well and truely sick of meat, meat and meat. Our restaurant of choice for the night served pasta as well as BBQ, so she ordered a bolognase. We joked that it would no doubt be covered in thick meat sauce. But no... when it came out, it had an entire steak sitting on it! A real mastercard moment!

St augustine and national parks

from 5 Oct - 6 Oct 06

despite being surrounded by desert since entering Argentina, we had constantly been in oasis type towns where impressive water chanels keep everything green. We were now to head out to the actual desert and a couple of supposedly ´must see´ national parks.

I´m pretty over deserst in general. A bit of time in the Middle East will do that to you. The lack of colour becomes as depressing as living in London during winter. (Also devoid of colour). But hey the National Partks were actualy pretty cool. Our hostel in St Augustine was simple, but at $10NZ for us both who were we to complain. We ended up doing a ´tour´ina small car with an Ozzy couple and a slighly mad driver. He must have been in his seventies and kept cracking jokes.. in Spanish which Sara then had to interpret. He got a bit upset when he stated with riddles, and i knew the first one straight away.)The oldie about a CHICKEN laying an egg on a border, and which country the egg belongs to)

Tampallaya reminded me of Petra in Jordan, but without the amazing carvings. The massive canyon walls were cool, and some of the ancient petroglyphs were pretty amusing. Especily the one depicting a hunter, and his MASSIVE middle leg.. (see photo on left!)

Ischigualasto (the moon valley) was a bit of a let down ,except for the amazing colours in the rock faces. Reds, green and even brown.

The old boy tried to pull a fast one at the end of the day. He was to drop us at a bus stop (a cafe in the middle of no where) where we would wait from 6 till the 9.30pm bus. At 5pm he mentioned another bus would be at the stop at 5.30. To catch it we would have to miss the museum and rush there. We smelled a rat, but went along with it. Sure enough we had ¨just missed¨the bus and would have to wait till 9.30. We got the last laugh though, cos in his haste to get away he forgot to collect the money for the park, saving us a grand $13NZ each. We figured the best way to utilise these savings was to pass the time drinking beer. And at $1.50NZ for a one litre bottle we didnt even come close to spending it all.

Beer it would seem makes me a bit more multi lingual though. I generaly find languages a bit difficult, always feeling that I make them sound bloody awful (English included), but with a few beers in me I had a good ol yarn to the bus driver when he arrived. I think i told him that i was also a bus driver, but in honesty the details are a bit blurry..

once on board i passed out, so sleeping on a bus was uncharacteristicly easy.

It was a relatively short sleep(coma) though cos we got to La Rioja at midnight. Deciding to continue to Tucuman asap we bought tickets for the next night bus (at 3am). With 3 hours to kill we wandered into the town centre.

And what did we find...! A full on death metal gig in the town square! Well not that full on, just a few moshing teens really. But the music was bloody loud and the whole thing sent me back about 16 years... for better or worse.

At 3 we jumped on our flashest bus yet, like business class on a plane no less, and again crashed hard

San Juan, wine and fossils

from 4 Oct -5 oct 06

San Juan seemed just that little bit rougher than Mendoza. Not in a bad way, but not as many reastaurants and young folk out enjoying themselves. We tried our best by heading out to the local wineries on a public bus. We somehow made it to where we actualy inteded, and walked to a couple. The locals all though we were mad, it seems all other tourists do a loop of the wineries by taxi.

We also lucked onto a very cool find at the local museum. We had gone there with all bad intentions. Our guidebook had mentioned a taxidermy area with a giant stuffed St Bernard which sounded pretty amusing. Instead we got a private tour where a team of archiologists were cleaning dinosaur skeletons recently unearthed in the nearby desert. Pretty cool. They also had a bloody huge live tarantula as a pet. Sara just about hit the roof-despite it being in a jar, and behind a glass window in the next room..

the central tower in town gave a view of... well nothing really.

We did find a huge supermarket, which had some deals in it. They even had Kumura there- and only 30c NZ per kilo!!!!!

My most resounding memory of San Juan will not be the wines or the fossils, but a bloody rediculous jingle being played from a car doing laps around town. All in spanish mind you, but the title boomed in a loud deep voice MUULTIII MUUNDOOOO I just cant get out of my head...

Mendoza -too bloody nice really

from Sept 28 - 3 oct 06

We checked into our prebooked hostel around 8pm. This whole ida of pre booking hostels via internet is all a bit foreign to me.. I am so used to being bombarded by touts at bus stations, haggling like hell, then being taken to the door. It seems that might be a thing of the past. there were no touts at all! We had prebooked (to avoid any hassel at the border) at Hostel Lao.

This was done via hostelworld.com... a little tip we discoved by fluke... enter ¨1234¨when they ask you for a membership number and they dont charge the $2US booking fee.. tehee

Anyway, the place was run by a pleasant young couple, him English. This meant i could actualy ask him questions directly instead of relaying them thru Sara (which is already driving me mad..) I found it quite interesting that we were locked in thru 2 doors/gates, and had to ask to be let out each time we went to leave. Again, all the windows in town had bars over them too.

Feeling quite alive we went out for a drink. There were pubs everywhere! Full too. So much for any economic depression in Argentina! All young people, enjoying the warm eve air and cheap beer. (I´m going to like it here, I can tell already..) Quite amazed at how late everybody drinks and eats here though, dinner was still being served to punters at 2.30am! It was only the next day we realised that Argentina is an hour ahead of Chile and our watch had been out. It was actualy 3.30am and dinner time!

I am always interested in the flow of local money when I travel. For better or worse, it does make the world go around, and trying to understand a local economy is really trying to understand the driving force of any nation. Last night the bars were full. But the next morning we passed an ice cream shop which was conducting interviews. It was literaly teaming with young uni aged kids trying to get that lucky break. They all looked pretty anxious to be the successful canditate. It reminded me of how difficult it was to get a job in NZ in the early 90s, when i was that age. Oh how things have changed!

Mendoza again struck me as modern and easy, not too unlike NZ. The key thing I noted was the impressive irrigation system that keeps the city so green, despite being in the middle of the desert. This involved open waterways, like mini canals along every street. They were maybe 40cm wide and 60cm deep, but I couldnt help but think that such a sytem could never be used back home or in Europe. Some drop kick would trip into one, stub his toe and blame the council for negligence. In Europe the same git would successfully sue the council for millions. I like being in places where you actualy need to use the slightest bit of common sense..

The next few days we went biking thru the local wineries. Mostly Malbec, a varietal not that common in NZ.. and for good reason in my opinion. Think an aroma of tar, charcoal, wood, ash, and a taste to match. I think I´ll stick to Pinot noir when on the reds in future.

The size of the tastings deserves a mention too. Back in NZ you get a taste. Literally. Here, they fill your glass half up. This would be great...if the wine was nicer.. oh well

The food here is simple, ie MEAT. The concept of vegetarians (aka ¨weirdo´s¨) is clearly unheard of. There is meat in EVERYTHING, and quite frankly I´m not complaining. The real highlight was an all you could eat resataurant, where several beasts were cooked right in the front window for all to see. For less than $6NZ you could (and I did) eat till it hurt, and then go for pudding too,which I am sure had beef in it somewhere.

the local zoo was a surprsing highlight in Mendoza. There were some cool local animals, and it was very well stocked with at least 4 of any given species,including those from far away. Tucans, Pumas, Armadillos, Condors, monkeys, Lions and elephants. I particularyly liked the 2 hump camels from central Asia. A lot more expressive than ol 1 humps from Egypt and India.... See what I mean?

crossing into Argentina

from 28 Oct 2006

We decided to leave Chile today. We will come back and see it properly another time, including the south, patagonia etc. So our bus to Mendoza Argentina left at 2pm.

We thought we were going to miss it, but actualy got there on time after lingering around the central markets for too long. Particularly fascinating, though slightly creepy were some shell fish that looked like live birds trying to escape their nest-tiny beaks coming out and moving from side to side.

The bus was pretty flash. we had been told about the beautiful busses, and sure enough it had loads of leg room, a set of headphones for each passenger to watch the dvds they put on, and a waiter brought is drinks and snax!

As we climbed into the mopuntains the views were truely impressive. I was most impressed with the Portillo skifield which had a ski run actualy going over us as we drove thru mini tunnels! THe ski lift to get back up was also overhead and we went thru the thirty something switch backs. I couldn´t help but think how fun it would be to sit up there and wave at people in cars below.(or maybe throw snowballs at them..)

The border crossing was easy enough, it actualy felt a bit silly being lined up as they searched our bags though.

Upon arriving in Mendoza around 8pm i realised i had been robbed! Nothing at all major, just a couple af carribenas that had been hanging on the side of my pack. But i was pretty pissed off. I had fully expected to be robbed at some point over here, but crabs just seemed petty. And the only plcae they could have gone missing was at the border as the guards put it thru the x ray. I guess i was more surprised than anythig-this was supposed to be the ´safe´part of our journey..

arriving in santiago

from Sept 26 2006

The flight seemed to go all too quickly really. It wasnt too pleasant of course. Tiny seats. 11.5 hours, and only limited movies vailable. But we arrived in Santiago at 2pm sept 26, as promised.
Getting the bus into town was easy, where we experienced our first taste of ´mucho-ism´in SA. The boy who pointed us in the right direction would look at me, and only me, despite Sara doing all the talking in spanish, and me standing there with an idiotic look of miscomprehension...

Our hostel, the Green House, was nice enough. A three story building with all windows strongly barred up. this sight became pretty apparent within minutes actualy.. bars everywhere.. on the windows that is.

Lots of smog. My eyes actualy hurt, and we couldnt see the mountains, which are only a 30 kms away, and the second highest in the world, after the Himalayas..! Even climbing to the top of the highest hill in town they could only be seen in patches where the wind might blow open a temporary gap.

We could have been in any European city really. This was what we had expected so that was fine. In fact it could almost have been Auckland, apart from every sign being in Spanish. So much for culture shock!

One amusing difference was just how wired up the city was for internet. It seemed every shop or cafe advertised a free wi-fi connection. Our hostel had a free ADSL connection, and there were internet cafes everywhere-full to the rafters!

Things were certainly cheaper than NZ, except our first rookie mistake of chosing to dine at a restaurant reccommended by the Lonely planet. This was something I would never have done in SE Asia for the exact same reason, but indeed we went to Ocean Blue seafood restaurant in ´bohemia´. The place was fantasticly kitted out, looking like the inside of a pirate ship. They had all sorts of marine memorabillia, almost to the point of being tacky... almost. Maybe we should have walked out straight away, but to cut a long story short we ate some pretty average seafood, whcih cost us $74NZ. Our daily budget for the two of us is $100NZ, so this was a mistake not to be repeated...