Monday 12 October 2009
Salta, yum...
Sunday 9 August 2009
Chile!?!
I left valparaiso pretty quickly and took a day bus up the coast of chile, which was so attractive and constantly changing. Rocky cliffs to sandy plains, to little shacks on the beaches.
San pedro de Atacama, or sp if u will, is a tiny town of about 12 blocks hewn from sand in the middle of the atacam desert in northern chile. A lot of people go from here up into Bolivai on a 4 day tour to see the salt flats. Knowing how ridunculously freezing at night (it hits -25degs) it would be at that time of year, i decided instaed to see all the marvels of the area surrounding the salt flats as seperate day trips. Good decison. I saw some fabulous things, underground caverns, sand dunes, boiling geysers bursting from the ground, hot springs at freezing o clock in the morning (never taken my clothes of so fast, or put them back on so quickly after either, brrrrrrrrrrrrr) salt lakes and lagoons, desert for miles and a lake so salty, that when u swim in it, u float, because of the hifgh salt concentration, zero gravityesque and quite surreal. Plus my nipples nearly fell off from the cold, jesus. Painful is not the word. But worth it : )
I was with a good group of people as well, met some lovely quebecois girls and had many mini adventures, including the best hot chocolate i've ever had, and a mild flirtation with a hunky man in the coffee shop who talked to me about dostoevsky, all very refined...just like me...ahem. Oh and did i mention itr was f***in freezing! I built my first fire from scratch (go me!) just so i wouldn't succumb to hypo.
There was a mini adventure in the hostel where an 18yr old english boy was so wasted, he wet himself. I've told this story to others and it seems to be quite common... boys, come on. And the poor europeans and argentinians in his dorm room were horrified, he was standing there, swaying, covered in pee...
And then i left, replete with all the beautiful things i had seen, back to argentina, to my last stop there, Salta, a town near the border of Bolivia, winding all the way back, through the andes...
More Photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=137889&id=222304166&l=8da26936f9
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=137892&id=222304166&l=f4140c6d5d
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=137894&id=222304166&l=0730e573ce
Bbbbbbbbariloche, Bert and dulce de leche!
There's no TV for one thing, thank goodness, and there just a feeling of being home, which creates a wonderful atmosphere. Warm rugs and comfy sofas, huge kitchen and big sociable dining tables. And everyone who was there absorbs the vibe and enjoys the mellow style. We sat around drinking and talking, playing cards and listening to this huge argentinian red haired finnish looking rock giant delicately strumming the guitar with a local who always wore a cravat (jealous much, bruce?) We couldn't believe the giant was argentinian it was strange hearing him speak spanish when u expected him to always speak with at least a scottish accent. What a sweetheart.
And then i met chris. Oh christopher. English, soon to be army nutter who loves dulce de leche and hiking up hills with at least 20kg on his back and can eat more than anone i've ever met, he's literally my dustbin. I've had one io pretty much each city. Nils in BA, Toby in Bolivia, Will in Peru, but Chris is far and away the winner.( The most irritating thing, is all these guys are skinny as! Bastards! Clear male-oriented metabolic favouritism, cheers god. Grrrr.) Love him to bits, but absolutely mental. On a similar note, he never took a taxi in south america till he started hanging out with me.What? (I may have gone a bit nuts with the taxis though, cos they're soooo cheap, love it.)
We hired a car one day and 5 of us went driving all around the lakes. I'll be honest, by lake 5 i was pretty much done, but logan and chris took about a million photos, while miriam bert and i chilled out in the car. That's the other thing, chris has an abundant supply of energy...like a 6ft puppy...nutter. So while we lazed in the car, he was running all over the place. Gonna steal his photos on fb :) Miriam is a gorgeous dutch girl, with the cutest accent, the boys must go nuts for her. She tried to teach us this ridiculous dutch card game called tuper (spelling?) which was unecessarily complicated for a wine drinking session, but it trurns out i'm brilliant at it, even though i do not understand the rules at all. Brill. And then there's Bert. Such a character. He's a 40 something liberal catholic bostonian living in san fran, 1 of 11 siblings, pot-smoking, soon-to-be bar owner. He sold his house to pay for his travels, but instaed of selling all his furniture, TV etc, he just put it all out on the porch and put up a sign saying 'free stuff' ...what!?! Damn hippy city : ) PLus, he's taken so much pot, and more i imagine, he finds sitting still for too long quite hard, i think the car ride was quite tough on him, though he kept a constant flow of stories going the whole way. Funny guy.
(I must also mention that the skies and sunsets in patagonia and around are unbelieavable. There[s so much fklat land and i guess because we[re so far south, the skies...oh the skies. There's something special about the clouds too, u see feathery flurries draped across the sky and can be so transparent, yet catch the light in unexpected ways. Sunsets can seperate suddenly into blues and pinks and golds. Wow. )
I climbed a glacier!!!
Of course there was giant group of rowdy irish at the hostel, wasted 24*7 and one of them even peed on a sofa in the hostel while a girlw as sitting on it, none of them would fess up who it was, and they wouldn'[tlook everyone in the eye the next day, numpties...
And finally, Matt and Dan, who are sweethearts. They were on my bus to calafate. They`re english guys who were born and brought up in portugal, but u couldn`t tell at all. They`re good fun, and i`m sure dan is always getting them in trouble. When they were in Buenos Aires Dan managed to persuade matt it would be a good idea to `just see` what an argentinian brothel looks like. The moment they stepped in, they were surrounded by a gang of incredibly insistent hookers. Insistent that they hand over all their valuables ; ) With the 2 giant bouncers bound to be waiting in the foyer if they said no, they didn`t have much of a choice. Oh dear. They were going back to BA which was a shame, i wanted to take them with me : (
That blue is unlike anything else, and at the end of the trek, they take you to a little hidden dip in the glacier, where they have whisky waiting for you, with ice chipped straight off the glacier, with a pick, scotch on the rocks anyone? Unfortunately we were with a group of mexicans weho had come in the most ridiculous clothes for walking across a glacier. who wears pink fur boots to a glacier, seriously... so were walking at a much slower pace than we could have. Still, breathtaking.
Won[t be forgetting el calafte in a hurry...
More photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=137877&id=222304166&l=7ac5ca24df
Sunday 24 May 2009
The Maaaagical Land of Patagonia
My hostel is a cheery blue wood-panelled house, run by two lovely girls who are very patient when i attempt to say anything in spanish. It has heating, woo!!! And the view from my window is a little ridiculous. Snowcapped mountains in the morning are good for the soul, i`m sure of it! I imagine someone from parts of canada, or newfoundland, or even parts of scotland, would not as blown away as i was, but this is a first for me. And i`m like a child in my excitement. I have never been so eager to hike, or trek. And i hate being cold, but here, it`s different. You feel healthier just by breathing this air. And after the excesses of rio and BA, this is the perfect place for me.
I have never hiked with such enthusiasm as i did in the Tierra Del Fuego national park, where i encountered my french friend who loves the word squelch ; ) The park is just as gorgeous as the surrounding scenery suggests. Sapphire lagoons, amber forests, wild horses and green fields. And the whole time was there, i was incredibly lucky with the waether. Freeeezing, but sunny, so everthing was just that much more sparkling and beautiful.
(Roomate from the hostel, delphine, increeedibly french and veeery excited about everything. Hairdresser, who haggled here way across india before coming to south america, trained at nicky clarke in london, has worked on cruise ships, lived in dubai, and had a boyfriend once who told her that her french accent wasn´t sexy...moron. what planet is he on?)
I also, to my great pride (pride never precedes anything bad...right?) walked from town to the top of a mountain to see the glaciar. The Glaciar Martial in Ushuaia is basically not really a glaciar at all, but another snow capped mountain, and I maaaay have lost my way as i followed the ridiculously precarious trail...maybe. I spent a good extra 2 hours clambering around the top of the mountain trying to find a safe way down...if i`d slipped, i`m pretty sure i`d have been a goner. The Mountain`s across town, up a winding round that is about 10 km long and then, you have to walk to the base of the mountain, and then up it. Holy crap. 2 months in rio and BA did NOT prepare me in anyway for it, but i was fine. Really. I got tired when i got lost after hour x, but getting there, not nearly as hard as i thought it would be. I ydid it. Booyah for me : ) It wasn´t exactly that i lost my way, but more that i climbed up the mountain path, only it wasn´t a path, and pretty soon i was clambering up crumbly gravel and snow, trying not to fall and realising that there was no way i could gf back down the way i had come up...so i had to trek across the top of the glaciar to make it back down. Kind of exhilirating really. All the snow covers hidden rivulets running down the mountain, so every step was a bit of a gamble really. Good stuff.
The town of Ushuaia itself is not much to talk about, quite touristy and full of patisseries and chocolate shops. (i had a chocolate mousse pie filled with dulce de leche...mmmmmmm.) But the scenery, my god. I could wax on forever, but i won´t- I will however say that i truly wish that all of you could see it. I feel so lucky to be here...
Photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=137873&id=222304166&l=2293f13b2c
Friday 8 May 2009
Mullet-tastic
The hostel is staffed by a group of locals, who at first seem incredibly sleepy and not so warm. then you realise that they`re sleepy because they enjoy going out with us and showing us the `cool`places to go till 7am and then start work at 8... so we forgive them : ) Jenny took us out on maybe my 3rd night, to a local open air venue called konex, with huge stairs inside that serve as the stage for the percussion band that blows everybodys minds every monday night. It`s not just that they are excellent, spontaneous and surprising, but the crowd they attract is almost as good. It`s a pretty hippy vibe, everyone sharing round joints (1 joint for 10 pesos, bargain!) and sharing tumblers of fernet and beer bigger than my face! amazing. After the samba of brazil, which is excellent for the first 20 minutes until you realise they plan to play the same song for the next 4 hours, this band (El Bomba de Tiempo) rule the school. You´re never bored and i was sober for at leaaast the first 30 minutes, and they sounded just as good before the fernet kicked in, if not better!
I only intended to stay in BA for 2 weeks, but i got sucked in, just like in rio and was there for nearly 5. I was sick with flu for about 10 days of it, but apart from that, i refer you back to the blur... i did do a lot! Remember Roberto who i met in Rio and travelled around with for a while, the travel agent who never travels ; ) he`s from BA state, and lives in a pleasant breezy suburb in the north called san isidro, about a 25 minute drive from the city. I stayed with him one weekend and went with him and his friends to his holiday house in Tigre. (He has a cat, a kitten really, who just did not get that i was allergic to her. I kept pushing her off me and my stuff and yelling at her poor thing, but i think she thought it was some fun new game, yey. I slept on a mattress and despite barricading myself with pillows, when i woke up, she was fast asleep on my face...aaaargh).
A lot of residents from San Isidro and Tigre have a holiday house on the Delta River in Tigre. Its a long winding river that surrounds an island, the water`s a caramel brown, as the whole river bed is made of a deliciously schelchy brown mud. ( huge aside: met a french guy a few weeks ago, when we were trekking through mud, and he looooved the word squelch. He said it fit perfectly and would say it with relish whenever we encountered a particularly squlechy part of our trail through the woods, and frankly, you haven`t lived till you`ve heard a frenchman say ´squelch´)
When i worked at Starbucks, we had a huge metal tub of chocolate mocha mix for the hot chocolate we made. We would pump out the appropraite number of pumps for each size of drink, until the pump started squirting air, because it couldn`t quite reach the bottom of the tub. I would always volunteer to clean it, because there is nothing quite as gratifying as delving into that chocolatey goo at the bottom of the tub. Ìf it`s been a busy shift, we`ve gone throiugh the tuib quickly and the dregs are still warm and thick, and cling to your fingers. I`d have to wash it eventually, but for those few moments, i got to forget about my back breaking day. Standing in the delta river, the soft mud pushing through your toes, was just like that...except i was in a bikini drinking cuba libres : )
Thos were unfortunately the beginning days of my gross flu, so i slept a lot that weekend, but we also made asado, which is basically a combo of amazing barbequed beef and chorizo sausage, and had hamburgers, and drank and smoked and swam. His house has a pier where we spent most of our time...perfect. His friends were great, and federico, a graphic designer, tells the best stories, He jumps around and does kung fu actions to acompany all his stories. he say`s `fraaaa` a lot, his equivalent of pow, smack, or dishum (for all my indian homies out there),he`ll even smack himself in the face if he has to, he`s committed ; )
Apart from delta, there was a lot of going out, since BA is famous for it`s night life. Personally i think it tries too hard to be european. It`s built a new harbour that frankly could be anywhere in the world, how boring. And there`s a lot of electronic, house, dance etc. But i went anyway, when in BA and all that jazz. One of the clubbs, the museum, is just full of travellers and drunk argey men who bear hug u from behind and carry u off...not appropraite. I was with aurora when it happened, who`s tiny and was attempting to pull me down. I think I finally swatted him off and ran away, sticking to our boys for the rest of the night. Real meat market, where if you actually convince them you`re not interested, they just move onto the next girl. One guy silently grabbed my face with both his hands, slurred ¨Slumdog Millionaire¨, and slunk off...what? That was pretty much my breaking point for hearing people ask me about slumdog just cos i`m indian... And as for the music there, it`s basically stuff from your now 25 album you thought you`d never hear again, oh dear. The saddest part is that the building is beautiful inside, incredibly grand, with wrought iron balconies, designed by Pierre Eiffel, and is now decked with glitter balls and drunk western european girls.
I walked plenty around the city too, saw all the art museums and parks, went to a million flea markets and fairs, and generally had a fab time. The cemetery in recoleta is quite a sight, especially at sunset. It``s full of decadent tombs and not creepy at all...except of course if, like me, u stick your head in through a door that clearly should be locked, realise it`s full of cobwebby sinsiter broken coffins and peg it before you pee yourself. All the tourists are obssessed with Evita`s tomb, but there were much more interesting and curious graves to be found hidden away down the little alleys in the grounds. Some overly opulent, and some neglected and decrepid, as their remaining descendants have faded away...
The cemetery itself is embedded in a city that had grown around it, not forgetting it, but the blocks of flats throw a sharp contrast to the grandeur to be found within the cemetery grounds...
As for the rest of the city, it`s full of large open spaces, grandiose statues, all manner of styles of architecture, as well as narrow badly cobbled streets full of small markets and houses. The parks are beautiful and never empty, jugglers and artists, always some band playing, or a fair going on, and inevitably, full of lovey dovey adoring couples. South america for me so far has certainly not been a continent to be shy about romance. You know when a couple is a couple here, because inevitabley they`re either inhaling each other in a bus queue (rio) or caressing each other in that dreamy carefree way that couples do. You do not stay single here for long, and why would you. The whole city is weeping love.
(My brazilian friend Livia spent time in London and asked me honestly what is wrong in England, that people are so undemonstrative; ¨ how are u supposed to know if two people are together?¨ )
The plazas in BA tend to be more mellow during the day, but they come alive at night, full of street artists and buskers. There`s one guy puts on a song and then dances around throwing paint at a huge canvas swinging around huge squeegee bottles of colours, schmearing the canvas with his hands occasionally, and then suddenly, it`s a painting of the singer he`s dancing to. Incredible.
Couples dancing tango, the sound of that incredibly rounded italian-accented spanish spoken in argentina all around you, and light shining out of the shop windows open into the night. It`s such a warm atmosphere And I mosty felt safe in BA, though i`ve heard stories. At the most, i`ve had cars low down and windows rolled down. (and lets be honest, the little black and indian b-boys do that to me at home, so no sweat) But my god, the men in argentina are not shy. They lean in close and whisper waht i can quite safely assume, are not sweet nothings. And louder, nonchalantly, ¨aye querida, mamasita, bonita...¨ bluuuuurgh. Some of these men are clearly older than my father, and yet it`s part and parcel of the culture. What do they honestly think is gonna happen? Your older than my dad, mate. Seriously.
I really thought with my dark skin etc, i`d escape comment in european- loving argentina, but no. And there is a clear divide between the european descendants and the indigenous population. Like most societies, there`s a monetary link. I liked staying in san telmo because u tended to get an even mix of locals and gringos, which is the best u can hope for in a gringo central city like BA. I mean i realise now how ridiculous it was of me to see my trip as an adventure. There are travellers eeeevrywhere. I even bumped into someone who i used to get the school bus with about 6 years ago. He lives about 2 miles from my house at home, and i`ve never seen him. I had to come to BA to bump into David Siddall...the universe moves in mysterious ways. We were both in shock for a fair while, and didn`t even say hi at first, because it seemed too ridunculous to be true. Clearly not.
Staying in the hostel were a few `permanent` members comme moi, and then a rotating group of randoms, coming and going. Among them, werre murray and fraser. As we got to talking one day, it turns out they were walking behind me and my scandi group the very moment we got mugged in rio 2 months earlier. I was clearly too dazed to have even seen them, but they knew me from that night...what?!? Then there was Livia, lovely girl from Brazil who just couldn`t understand why everyone can`t dance the samba as easily as she did ; ) and Taylor from Tulsa Oklahoma, always sipping on the Mate (argentinian tea so full of stimulants, i didn`t know how argentinians drink it all day long, then again, they do stay out clubbing till 7am, so that probably does the trick.) My system can`t really take caffeine, but i chugged it back anyway, cos it`s the only way i can handle staying out so late. My routine was, nap from around 8 till 11, shower, coffee and off we go...to dinner! At home i`d be done by 2am, but in argy, they`re just wrapping up dinner and getting ready to head out...what! And the girls, they`re beautiful. Not in the Brazilian way, where they`re dark and enticingm slim and curvaceous and there`s a gym on every corner and workout bars on the beaches. Ot seems incredibly healthy. In BA however, they`re pencil thin, and aesthetically their faces are just right, and they`re well dressed, and i suspect they smoke more than they eat, and english guys go nuts for them. I`ve heard it`s the country with the world`s highest anorexia figures and i`m inclined to believe it.
And if you`re under the impression that the english are terrible binge drinkers that go on holiday to just drink and shag as many locals as possible, well... Not all of us by any means, but a lot. And lets not forget the irish, who have such immense staying power, i think there`s something in the water. Probably Guinness. No naming names, but let`s just say lifts were punched up, beds were wetted (?) and a girl and a couch was peed on. Saying that, one of the dutch guys was sick in Wim`s rucksack and we`re not sure, but we think he drunkenly ran it under the shower in panic. So Wim woke up to a wet dripping bag full of water vomit. And was incredibly calm about it all. He`s a brilliant guy, so good humoured, i love it...Someone was sick in his bag, man!
I was both relieved and bummed to leave BA. It definitely has something, I could easily live there, the locals are lovely, and don`t seem to mind at all as i butcher their language right in front of them. It`s not as pricey as Brazil and just a great city all round really. But was so excited about Ushuaia, i think leaving BA was only half as sad as it should have been. That`s one fantastic aspect of this travelling bit, even when i`m sad to leave somewhere, i know i have something unknowen to move onto, so even leaving great people behind is tempered with a bitter sweet flavour, instead of the heavy sadness of saying goodbye.
Saturday 25 April 2009
Monday 13 April 2009
Iguazu!
about to enter the waterfall...amazing
more photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=132489&id=222304166&l=d258fa50c9
Since i changed my plan last minute, i just randomly picked a hostel that i´d heard mentioned by someone in rio. I met a swedish girl (another one- i can´t help it, they´re everywhere- scandinavians have such a high cost of living at home, south america´s peanuts for them), Hanna, on the bus across the border to argentina, so we went together. Keeping in mind that in rio, for a tenner a night, u get an 18 bed dorm, with a tiny window and broken airconditioning, that stinks of hostel sex, (yey), this place, was a palacial resort. Inventively called ´Hostel Inn´, it was fuuull of western europeans sunbathing by the, wait for it...POOL! So clean and with it´s own tourist information, inside and outside bars, dance floor cum lounge outside, ping pong tables and dorms as well as cottages, it was riduuunculous.
We played volleyball in the pool, and drank piña coladas on deck chairs. And here, i met lola. The craziest girl from brooklyn, insane really, but intensely likeable and she just doesn´t give a damn about what others think. I imagine she´s pissed off her fair share of the population in her time, but she´s good people and always a good time. Got a world map tattooed on her back. Plays with street kids when she´s wasted, then has a wash in the morning when she´s sober and realises what she did : ) Has a lover in Buenos Aires that she can´t get enough of, and tends bar back in New York. Inexhaustible and a delight and brutally honest. Brutally. I also met the only other indian i´ve encountered on my whole trip so far. Indians as a whole generally don´t do the whole backpacking thing. Even indians brought up abroad like me. I think our parents usually think it´s a GIANT waste of time (not mentioning any names, cough *mum&dad*, ahem.) So this indian i met, he´s from atlanta, and he´s 33. Thirty-three year old Samir, who has worked in investment and consulting and is 33, has told his parents that he has a job volunteering in a hospital in argentina so they won´t worry. He showed me an email his dad sent him;
¨Samir, it has been one whole week and we have not heard from you. Why haven´t you sent us the details of the hospital you are working at yet? We are very worried. Please call us ASAP, so we know you´re OK.
Love, Mum and Dad¨
THIRTY-THREE! Poor Samir...
(and i know you whities were imagining that email in the voice of Apu from the Simpsons, but i forgive you, as he is a beloved character, and frankly, what other reference do you have? )
I met some incredible people at Hostel Inn, (including Max, who got jumped by some guys in buenos aires, and cut his jaw open- it´s that kind of continent unfortunately), and a crazy bunch of belgian and dutch guys. It turned out that they were travelling to Buenos Aires on the same day as me, so we all went together. But first we got drunk on happy hour at the hostel. Obviously. Then we got free wine on the bus. Oh boy. The bus waiter man did not like us by the next morning.
Please note that for this bus journey i took a giant hoard of benelux fellas with me for protection : )
Though not sure they were in any shape to be of any help. Anyway...
On the way out...
..........................
the scandies and me, post mugging, wey!
And i swear to god, the next morning our hostel actually did get robbed at gunpoint. Zaza and i missed it by about 2 hours. We came down to the reception, to find everyone rewatching the cctv footage of our tiny hostel owner being bashed about and slammed into a wall, as she refused to fork over the cash. That same week, two other hostels in rio were robbed by guys with guns. It was on the news at home i believe, because some english people were killed...zaza and i had been planning to leave that morning anyway, so we promptly checked out, and headed to aimees... (i have to say, at least 30% of people we met had some kind of mugging story to tell. Especially in Lapa. I heard this guy jamie having ´that´conversation with his mum. He had clearly struggled about telling her, but his girlfriend had persuaded him he had to...
¨no mum, there wasn´t anything i could do about it... yes, they took everything i have...i´m fiiine, honestly... i need some money...can you call the insurance company for me...no, i don´t want to come home, thanks...yes, i´m perfectly safe...no you don´t need to fly over here with dad...¨
All too familiar...