Sweet no mas.

La Paz. I am in one of the craziest, most chaotic places yet. I left Anne in Sucre on Monday and took an overnight bus to here by myself, a little daunting because I haven{t traveled alone in what seems like forever (two weeks). I was a bit of a stress case when I was at the bus station in Sucre because I didn{t see them bring down my backpack (stashed in a huge potato bag, because here they sometimes put your bag on top of the bus and you never know, unless you{re checking at every stop, whether someone{s stealing your stuff). Once I got on and arrived at the city at 6 am in the morning, I couldn{t find the Swiss couples I had been with on the trip to Uyuni who had taken a different bus. So I took a taxi to my hotel and actually couldn{t find it, and ended up at a different one recommended by the Lonely Planet. Outside were two guys waiting for the hotel to open.
Turns out I was lucky to meet them. They were Israeli, looking for an alternate place to stay at because they said they always end up at the Israeli hotels. So of course, in the end, we did go back to the Israeli hotel, heh. I was the only Asian in the place for sure. But it wasn{t a problem. I{ve never met a group of people so damn friendly. I was in heaven, so to speak, because they took me to some great Jewish restaurants where I had hummus and tried some new foods. My next trip has to be to Tel Aviv, because apparently that{s where the best restaurants are. And why are Israeli backpackers so good looking? You can spot them down the road. Thanks to them, I have learned the special characteristics -- the long hair, the designer shoes -- that make an Israeli and Israeli.
Back to La Paz. You definitely don{t come here for the aesthetics. The only worthy museum I{ve been to so far here is the Museum of Coca, where I learned the actual cost of producing cocaine and its market value is 10 times more. The UN doesn{t allow Peru or Bolivia to produce cocaine legally, but yet the U.S., France, Belgium and a soupy slew of rich Western countries can, for pharmeceutical purposes. It{s really unfair to these poorer countries. The UN put restrictions on them because of the war on the drug trade but it doesn{t stop the illegal production. The coca leaf has tons of nutritional value in its pure form. A study conducted in the 80s showed that people who chewed the coca leaf regularly didn{t have much of a difference in terms of fat, proteins, etc. than the ones who didnt consume the (other) mighty leaf.
Today was hectic as hell for me. Despite being in Bolivia, where it costs $4 for a bed and $4 for a good meal, I am beyond my budget. Chile and Argentina really killed me. To make it worse, LAB, the only international airline in Bolivia, is going under, so I have to take a detour to Paraguay on Tuesday in order to get to the Falls of Iguacu, the 8th wonder of the world. The falls straddle the Argentinean-Brazil border and are larger than the Niagara Falls, though most people don{t know about it. Anyway, to get to it, I was planning to fly back to Buenos Aires and then take a bus to the falls, but going through Paraguay is much faster and a little cheaper, at $317 for the flight. The only catch that I caught while at the travel office is that I need a visa to enter Paraguay, if only for one night. So off I went to the Paraguaian embassy to cough up $45 for an overnight stay. AGH. I was so sad about it. My original itinerary was to land in a border town 20 minutes away from the falls, but from what people have been saying, it{s a dangerous place. So I{m stopping in Ascension instead, which is 5 hours away, and it aint supposed to be the best place either. I{m landing in the early evening with is something you should never do in a Third World country. What can I do? So I was stuck. I am annoyed that I have to get Paraguaian money out for one night, but this all comes along with traveling. I am rolling with the punches.
Tomorrow I{m heading off to Copacabana on Lake Titicaca, at which point I will take a ferry to an Inca island called Isla del Sol, Island of the Sun. It{s where the Incas believe the sun was born. There is some light trekking to do and ruins to visit, and I will be enjoying the time away from the city.
I also am trying to get off this sugar kick. When I was with Anne, we had dessert at least two times a day. Really decadent cakes and ice cream and pie. They were the only things I could keep inside of me longer than 3 hours. And I ventured so much as to eat a saltena -- a elaborated empanada filled with a spicier sauce and potatoes and olives, and meat of course -- from a Bolivian restaurant that seemed clean. Wish me luck.

It don´t stop.

Easy day today in Sucre, burning photos onto CDs and staying near a bathroom. I was so weak this morning that I almost fainted walking back from the grocery store, but the French girl was with me to help me out. I am still shitting liquid. No pain or fever still, thank goodness. Some mild cramping and enough gas to power Manhattan though. Not very nice but the subject is on the top of my list right now. Anne has had her first solid shit and I was very happy for her. I´m still -- ahem -- behind. We ran into a Swiss group about an hour ago that went with us on the trip to Uyuni, and two of them had diarrhea during our 3 days on the road. Can you imagine that? When the only bathroom you have is behind a rock. The girl in the group said she´s had diarrhea for a week and a half. So looks like I am in for it...
Tomorrow we are off to Tarabuco, which is a large market with vendors hawking indigineous crafts including jewelry and swaths of colorful fabric the Bolivian women use to wrap their stuff in and carry across their backs. Apparently the color and pattern of the fabric denotes something about the woman, but we haven´t figured it out yet.
I haven´t had my coca leaf fix today. It does get addictive. You chew the leaves with an alkaline catalyst made from ashes of plants (it tastes as bad as it sounds), and your tongue goes numb. You don´t get the same feeling as coke obviously, but you are supposed to become immune to pain, cold and problems. I´ve used it to calm my stomach, but it hasn´t helped as much as taking a good, wet crap right after I eat.
Hope you enjoy your lunch today.

From top to bottom, really.

I{ve had the most incredible past few days of my life, living the most intense sensory experiences ever. I am aware of life and it feels great, despite the bout of traveler{s diarrhea I{m having right now (more on that later).
I spent last weekend caravaning with 11 other travelers through Chile and into Bolivia for 3 days. Our driver, who also functioned as our cook and mechanic, took 6 each in a Toyota Land Cruiser and we traversed a gregarious multitude of terrain. Rocks shaped into trees by the wind, geysers that bubbled lava and billowed sulfuric smoke, a desert called the Dali Desert due to its uncanny resemblance to the artist{s surreal paintings... I have never seen such beauty! Flamingos feeding from red lakes, white lakes that turn green when the wind kicks up because of the air{s reaction with the minerals underneath, watching bolts of lightning strike the ground from miles away, seeing the Milky Way for the first time in a decade... I could definitely forget the first night when we stayed in a refugio, a place with very basic quarters (i.e. no hot water) and the shittiest bed I have ever slept on, and fighting altitude sickness at 4800 meters above sea level. I chewed coca leaves throughout the trip while we sang aloud to A-Ha (the driver had only one tape, so depending on the way you look at it, we were in heaven or hell). I{ve also perfected the art of peeing outside in a mid-squat.
But the highlight was the last day. We stayed in a hotel made from blocks of salt but didn{t have much time to enjoy it because we had to get up at 4 am to get ready to catch the sunrise over the much'hyped salt lake here in Bolivia. But when we woke up, it was raining! Dammit! We had to wake our drivers up because they were still sleeping at 5 30 am, the appointed time we were supposed to leave. Couldn{t blame them for sleeping in though, they were continuously working for us, either cooking or working on the car (I{ve never seen anyone change an alternator so fast. We ran out of gas once in the middle of the first salt lake, which was dry, and they were able to fill us up quick). We were expecting we wouldn{t be able to cross the lake in the 4 by 4. I hopped into the passenger seat for the best view but soon regretted it when we were slipping and sliding on the road. The driver crossed himself twice. The windows kept fogging up and we couldn{t see jack. But an hour later, suddenly, the lake. All white and shiny. Christ. We hopped out for the first few photos. The best time to see the lake is when there are some clouds in the sky, because the water reflects the clouds beautifully. No such luck this morning, but I was stunned anyway. The water didn{t go past maybe 7 inches from the bottom of the tire. The rain stopped. The cloud cover was still thick, but started to break. That{s when we all shut up. To begin to explain what this GIANT lake looks like under these conditions is really impossible, but I will try. As far as you could see, the sky went on and on. It met the horizon, but as the hours progressed and the clouds started to clear out, the sky merged with the ground. You did not know where the horizon was. It was a mirage. It felt like you were floating, or in a sailboat, or on a plane. But there was the slight tangibility that you were on top of hard ground. It was the most incredible thing I have ever felt and seen in my life. Drugs could never take you to where I was those two hours. And when the clouds cleared to reveal the mountains, the range was reflected, creating a more intense illusion of floating.
After that experience, I joined up with two others from my group, a German guy named Axel and a French girl named Anne, and we headed out that evening to Potosi, the world{s highest city at 4000 meters. By then my altitude sickness had waned (it only came alive at night, so I didnt sleep throughout the trip). I was looking forward to Potosi because I already fell in love with what I had seen of Bolivia. The traditional dress of the women with wide, colorful skirts, their long, long braids, wide'brimmed hats and brightly colored cloths filled with essentials tied behind their back in a type of sling style... this was really something different for me. And they were all friendly. Very good thing after being in Argentina, where the people aren{t as open. So in Potosi, we arrived at 3 in the morning instead of 1, and stayed in a hotel that I{d rather not ever stay in again. I have to keep reminding myself I{m in a third world country, where hot water and cleanliness are not priorities. After a fight with the manager at 4 am about whether she could keep our passports overnight or not (we lost), we went to bed for 4 hours, setting the alarm for 8 30 to wake up and repossess our passports. So thus began another sleepless night for me. The altitude sickness came back and I had trouble breathing all evening.
When we got up at 8 30, Axel and Anne signed up for the city{s main attraction, the mining tour. You don protective gear and visit the mine on the edge of the small city, but conditions in this mine are very bad. It{s supposed to be claustropobic as hell, kids work in it and the safety conditions are very bad. I didnt plan on experiencing this shitty side of humanity, but the curious writer in me changed my mind at the last minute. Our guide was supposed to come at noon, so instead of going back to sleep, we went in search of food and sightseeing.
Potosi is busy for a small town, and there were street vendors everywhere selling juices, empanadas, candy, souvenirs and general crap people need, like batteries and socks. Axel had already been in Bolivia so introduced us to the Bolivian version of empanadas. I had 2 really tasty tomato and onion ones from a street vendor. Then had banana and papaya juice mixed with milk and sugar. All of this cost less than 50 cents. Bolivia is ridiculously cheap. You can get a meal for $3 easily or even less if you eat at the market (which was too gross for me to experience by the way. Meat hanging everywhere, next to fruit, ugh. No eating at markets for me).
So our tour guide came and we headed to his house to put on our protective gear. Ours was a private tour, in Spanish, but the two amigos were translating for me. We put on gray nylon pants and jackets and boots. My helmet was too big for me because of my flat head in the back, so I had to keep pushing it up. We hopped into a taxi and stopped in a store to buy gifts for the miners, which is what you{re supposed to do when you visit these mines. We had already bought cigaretts, but the guide insisted that coca leaves and soda are really what they want. No problem for us. The coca leaves keep them awake and the soda is to quench their thirst. They also drink 96% alcohol, which is essentially rubbing alcohol. Sad, huh!
We got to the mine and started walking into the dark tunnel. It was slippery as hell and I almost fell down a few times. As we were going in deeper, the air got less and less and the temperature slightly higher. We came across miners along the way and gave them our gifts and talked to them a little bit. They showed us what they mine -- zinc and silver, which is hard to get out of this mine because they are mixed in this particular one -- and I even got a piece as a souvenir (their gift to us). So things were damp and creepy and dark, but things got hairy when we started going in deeper and started climbing a tall ladder. Keep in mind that safety conditions are virtually nonexistent in the mind. These ladders were rickety as hell and we were climbing 30 steps into darkness. The headlamp didn{t help too much. When you got to the landing, you saw that there really was no landing -- just a few planks of wood propped across the hole leading into another tunnel. The first tunnel we climbed into was friggin scary. I haven{t been scared in a long time, but my heart almost stopped. I couldn{t breathe. It was a crazy feeling. Dust was floating in the air, so you couldn{t see very well either. The air felt like someone had vacummed it out of the tunnel.
We kept walking. During the tour, I learned so many disturbing things about the miners here, such as they earn 50 bolivianos a day for 8 hours of work (about $6), some miners spend 3 months in teh mine without seeing daylight because they are so far deep inside, it is bad luck for them to have women -- indigenous ones at that, not tourists -- inside the mine, there are 16 levels to this particular mine, with each one getting progressively hotter and hotter, the hottest being so almost unbearable that the miners work in the nude... so many unbelievable things that are in fact, true. And here we were, tourists, walking through this dangerous thing. If you didnt watch your step, you{d easily misstep and fall into a deep hole, which I almost did a few times. There was more climbing and more threats of an onset of a panic attack for me, but it reached a climax when we ran into two guys setting up 15 dynamite sticks to go off. There we were, cramped in this tiny passageway, with one of the guys vaccumming dynamite powder into the rocks above us and the wicks of the dynamite sticks coming out of the wall like hungry eels. I wanted to get the fuck out of there, I was so scared. The guide kept assuring us everything was fine and safe, but how would he know, really! He told us they{d be going off while we were in teh mine, but since they were so far above us, nothing would happen. Christ almighty. We continued on, climbing and descending.
At one point he asked us if we wanted to go higher but we felt like we had had enough. By that time we had been in there for a few hours. So it was time to go back down. Down, though, was a trip in itself. We had to climb down a series of 6 or 7 ladders, but they were long. In the beginning you had to walk a narrow plank no wider than your foot and hang onto the sides of teh tunnel in order to reach the first ladder. If you lost your balance, you{d fall god knows how far ... I couldn{t see the bottom. The guide helped each of us along the way down by providing step by step instruction, and it being a miracle for me since my Spanish is so bad. Some of the ladders were missing steps, or half a step, or the rail was coming off. This was really unbelievable to me that they let tourists -- 16 a day, about -- come in here.
When we finally got down to the floor we began on, the guide took us into an area of the mine where we could sit down. That{s where we ran into the guy organizing teh dynamite and another miner who sits and hammers in small hole all day. We started hearing taps. Someone was tapping. That was a sign to all the miners that the dynamite was going to go off. SHIT. I didn{t think I was going to die, but there was a fleeting thought related to being buried alive. Suddenly, BOOM! A distant but very tangible BOOM, somewhere above our heads. My teeth rattled. The mine rattled. The floor shook. The guide saw we were visibly shaken so he tried to calm us down by telling us that the boom is music to the miners ears. Yea, OK, but I{m not a miner. Then came the second one. Then third. All the way to the 10th. Then silence. Waiting. Silence. Where the hell was the 11th one! The dynamite guy had just taken off all his gear by then, so he started putting it back on. He had to go back up and check to see what was happening. After assuring us again that all was safe, the guide led us to a special part of the mine.
This special area is basically the living room of the miners, where they hang out. It{s also where they have their statue of Pachamama, a devil with a giant erection. Underneath is his friend, a guy named Uncle George or something like that. I didn{t catch all the meaning of Uncle George, but the devil represents their god below ground. Above ground, when they{re out and about with the rest of society, it{s God. So there is this mix of religion that I found very interesting. Around the devil were empty beer cans, coca leaves and decorations. The big erection is to represent fertility rather than machoism. But these miners can{t have kids or families due to their work. Its a really hard life. No girlfriends, nothing. They all eventually die from the cancer they get from inhaling all that silica in the mine. Its really hard for me to understand why they do this.
So as we{re talking, BOOM! Then 4 more. Then silence.
After this experience, I needed to take a shower badly. No such luck -- the hot water was turned off at 6. I was going on my 3rd day without a shower, but who cares, right! I was still trying to understand what I had just experienced.
Dinner was not so good. I ordered chicarron de pollo, which I suspected to be chicken parts and not chicken nuggets as the menus translation had informed. Axel later vaguely confirmed it the next day. But by then I had already had diarrhea in the morning. I didn{t think much of it because I have gotten diarrhea a few times here, but it would just be a bout for a few sessions, nothing too bad.
But when we got to Sucre, a lovely town for hanging out in, I had it again. OK, no big deal. Then yesterday night all I heard in my stomach was gurgling. I felt an atomic bomb go off in my stomach. OK, no big deal yet. When I got up to go to the bathroom, my ass exploded. I have never pissed so much through my ass. Just all water too. Sorry for the graphic detail but this is just another experience you{re all reading my blog for. So for the next three hours, I drank water, and it would come out like a gurgling fountain. I was able to get some bread down but for today I need to be near a toilet just in case. I ran into a girl from San Diego I met yesterday, who is in the Peace Corps working in a village 5 hours from Sucre. She got an amoeba once and told me this morning when I saw her that I might have it. Christ! It was definitely something I ate in Potosi. No more street food for me, nor hole in teh wall Bolivian places. Im not keen on Bolivian food anyway. The meat is very bad and quite unclean, as I{m seeing more and more. I just saw two guys with plastic crates of raw chicken, dragging them along the cement. I just had to laugh. Culture shock, right!
The French girl has been very sweet and is taking care of me, trying to allay my fears with words of sympathy because she had a similar rite of passage to South America in Argentina a few months ago. One more day of this and I will be heading to the doctor or tapping into my antibiotics. The good thing is that I{m not throwing up or having cramps... it all just goes through me, a sign of an amoeba.
As for Sucre, it{s known as the chocolate capital of Bolivia, but the chocolate in general here is not like European chocolate. Its a university town thats definitely more modern than Potosi. The architecture is neo'colonial, so it{s very much like Europe. Im glad to have a rest here for a few days while I recover from this sickness, and also gorge myself on tofu and other food I haven{t had since I left. Wish me luck. Am going to look up info on amoebas now. God, I love street food and to not have it sucks!
Also, no photos for awhile. Connection way too slow here...

Valpo to the desert.

I am in love! And with a Chilean, who are hotter than Argentineans BTW, and its name is Valparaiso. It´s a city an hour outside Santiago, and the houses are built up the steep hills. The place is rampant with outdoo murals and other artwork, and the houses -- god, I am really considering buying something there. Old mansions overlook the harbor and the poor and rich mix... there´s no outight delineation. YOu can only reach some of the houses by stairways, which are in every crook and cranny. Other places you use these rickety 200-year-old elevators that look like Angels Flight in L.A. Valpo is also the home of famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, whose house I visited high up in the hills. He was an eclectic collector of knickknacks and was quite an important historical figure in the country´s history, which explained his friendships with Picasso, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. I can´t upload photos due to the torturously slow connection I´m on right now in the desert, so you´ll have to wait.
So yes, I´m in the desert of San Pedro de Atacama, where all the buildings are slung low and built out of adobe. It´s a really strange place. My barebones hotel only has hot water from a certain time and all the roads are sandy. I´m heading to see Moon Valley later, which is supposed to look like the surface of the moon, and then wake up at 3 am tomorow to head to the El Tatio Geysers and take a thermal bath. This place is really in the middle of nowhere. So Internet connection is also expensive, so I´m getting off right now. I´ll be on the road in a few days to Bolivia, so I won´t be able to write until I find an INternet connection in Uyuni.
Signing off while Depeche Mode plays overhead...

Crank it up.

Someone turned up my crank-o-meter today. I checked my Pill pack today and nope, I{m not supposed to be on my period for another few weeks. I{m annoyed at all the German backpackers (can{t escape them, and Im especially annoyed at the certain type of German guy who is bright blond, wears only shorts and flip flops and thinks he{s Australian). German is really the worst sounding language on earth. My farts sound better. Also annoyed at having to always explain the same story about how long Im traveling, etc., to every new roommate I have. Its so hard to develop deep relationships when on the road. Tired of smelling feet (my own and others) in all the hostels. Tired of getting leered and stared at by men. Tired of eating cheese at every meal, can{t avoid it.
Tired, period.

Eureka! Photos!

So here, they call these SD card readers "reader" in Spanish. I cant believe it. It´s been that simple. I am adding photos to my Yahoo album, and will send the address over email after I finish.

Sleepless in Santiago.

I don´t know where to begin. The beginning, right? I am loving Santiago! I can´t bear to leave just yet.
My flight from Punta Arenas to Santiago with two stops was eventful. First, the vicious wind. Turbulence kicked all of us around the cabin, inciting prayers and last rites. While we waited on the tarmac to unload and load new passengers, the plane was shaking like it had Parkinson´s. I had been talking with a mathematics professor from UNC while we were in the airport in Punta Arenas, and the poor guy sat next to a woman who had obviously flown for the first time. It´s not quite an uncommon thing I guess, because plane tickets are so expensive here. She was sick the entire flight.
I got dropped off at my hostel, an old 19th century mansion, in the early evening. If anything, my first impression with Santiago is that it looks even more like Barcelona in some places. Cobblestone streets, old buildings meeting new society. I was starving so headed off on the metro to the Bellavista part of town, where all the restaurants live.
The main street in Bellavista was already packed by 10:30, the time I arrived. All the sidewalk tables were overflowing and I was a bit intimidated to find a seat among the crowd, and plus I was in search of Middle Eastern food anyway since I heard this was the place to find it. I did finally stumble across a Turkish restaurant and had one of the best Doner Kebaps in my life, and have been eating at the place every day since then! I didnt talk to anyone, but there was great entertainment outside. An older woman with her husband and kid had passed out in her chair at an outdoor table near mine, and it took two waiters to carry her, in the chair, to a waiting taxi. The woman was so huge that they first couldn´t figure out how to get her out of the chair into the backseat. One lifted her around her belly and backed into the cab, but he tripped and in he went, backside first and her on top of him. Keep in mind during this entire time, she didn´t even stir. Everyone watching burst out laughing, it was the funniest thing I´ve ever seen. So there he was, trying to wiggle out from under her. He finally managed to push her onto the seat, but this time she was facedown on the seat, knees bent on the pavement. It took the two of them again to push her in farther, but then her legs were sticking straight out. Finally after an interminable time, they got her in a sitting position in the backseat, and off the taxi went with her kid and husband. Lord. Hilarious.
After dinner I went in search of a drink, in particular the specialty of Chile, a pisco sour. Pisco is grape brandy and the pisco sour drink is made from it, sugar, lemon and egg white (yea, i know, but it´s surprisingly good). I ended up at a ridiculously hip place where you had to ring a doorbell to get in, with loud deep house playing from the DJ booth. I was so in need of some house so it was the music that drew me in. I nursed my drink for about an hour, people watching. I found it amusing that people were paying these insane prices for Asian food. And being the only Asian in the place at the time, you can understand why I was enjoying myself so much there.
Took a cab back to the hostel and conked out around 3 a.m. The next day, I went sightseeing. But the city was DEAD. Who knew that such a major place as Santiago keeps its Sunday tradition like the smaller towns? Goes to show you how Catholic this place is. But I was heading to the museum anyway. On the way, passing La Moneda, where the president´s office is located, I discovered I had missed some huge parade with la presidente. That´s right -- la. Chile´s president is a woman, and moreover, a divorced woman with kids. It´s quite a departure from the usually conservative population, as I came to find out later.
The Museo de Bellas Artes was an interesting museum. They had an exhibit on a Chilean artist named Pilar Ovalle who creates these intricate, time-consuming works from wood. I was so impressed. There was also a Botero statue outside, of a voluptuous horse. Beautiful. There´s a swathe of park that runs horizontally alongside one of the major boulevards in Santiago, so with this backdrop, the museum really stands out, stately and elegant.
I walked to Cerro Santa Lucia nearby, a tall hill that´s been turned into a lush park. Got a panoramic view of the city and then went in search of lunch. Ended up at a chic place with a lunch special of lasagna, fresh juice and espresso (i had it changed to a cortado, which is espresso with milk). The lasagna was decent but it was too cheesy and the pasta was cooked 5 minutes past al dente. I ended up talking to a guy at the table next to me named Juan Carlos. He was telling me about the more sinister side of Chile, which I was quite enjoying. As a tourist you don´t really get to know these things till you talk to a local. That was the beginning of my information lesson.
Juan Carlos was telling me about the rich here and how they live. He wasn´t nice about them, but his sarcasm made him so fun to listen to. Apprently the rich here dress in Tommy Hilfiger and think it´s quite smart, but they don´t donate to the arts or culture, and the women all dye their hair blond. He was telling me about Santa Lucia, the neighborhood we were in, and how he likes it so much because it´s the gay neighborhood of Santiago. He told me about his exboyfriend in Paris, how he wants to leave Santiago soon because he doesn´t like its ways. He took me on a tour of the center, telling me so much: about the president, his old misogynistic boss who has a happy family on the weekends but has no qualms sleeping with prostitutes on the weekdays, the history of Santiago and how the former president Allende committed suicide in La Moneda rather than be killed by Pinochet during the latter´s murderous coup in 1973, the specific church that used to deal in slave trade, his friend who is part of the Hilton family, the place of a memorial plaque to anotehr former president, Allessandrani, who was rumored to be gay because he never married, the gay-club mecca of Santiago in Bellavista, the city´s library, the best place to get a good salad, the tourist open-air market versus the locals-only one... for 6 hours we hung out and talked about politics, Chile and life. I love traveling! OK, but then you have to deal with shit, like the freak who grabbed my hand and hip when I was passing him on the way back from the Turkish restaurant to the metro. The mofo and his friends just laughed when I shot him the dirtiest look I could give. What the hell is up with men here? I´ve been getting so annoyed at the attention, which I still can´t figure out if it´s because Í´m getting checked out or that they´ve never seen an Asian girl before. Which is strange because the city is swarming with Chinese restaurants.
In the evening I met up with Gustavo near my hostel. He took me on a drive to a bit outside Santiago, to -- get this -- a strip mall that looks like it was transported right from the ´burbs of America. He wanted to show me the other side of Santiago as well, so it looks like some people here have a really cynical view of the city, a view I always enjoy hearing about because the gloss of a city gets boring. But this mall, I swear to god, had a Tony Roma´s, a TGIF, a Haagen Daaz and a STARBUCKS. Just to make the experience even more weird, we got drinks at Starbucks. Christ. It was exactly as if I were at home. The place had the same look and smell. I´ve been in McDonalds all over teh world but still, this was really eerie. The menu was the same, but in Spanish. Same fonts, same colors. I started to ask for nonfat milk and no whip cream but realized I didn´t know how to ask. No problem though. When I started to stutter, the clerk knew what to say. "Nonfat milk and no whip cream?" I was so flabbergasted that he knew what I was going to say that I asked him if Starbucks taught them that Americans order their Starbucks drinks like that. He said no, but I really dont believe the guy. Starbucks has really trained their employees well.
Gustavo took me on a ride up to Farello (or something like that), which is part of the Andes. The curves were vicious climbing that mountain. Instead of deer on the side of the road, it was cows. We were having a lucky night -- the moon is almost full, so you could see how high up we were getting. During winter the place turns into a ski resort, but it´s so expensive that it´s something most Chilean´s have never experienced. Going for a day is basically the same price as Mammoth, and with the low wages here, you can see why it´s an inaccessible sport for the population. Gustavo and I shared stories about our mutual friend Davide (Davide, now I know that I am not the only one who thinks you´re crazy. We think it´s the pasta that does it), told me about his work (he´s an architect who designs churches... in the next year they are planning 14 new ones in the expanding city!), his girlfriend who is a lawyer for the gov´t, Santiago in general, traveling and other things so interesting of course I forgot them already. We finally got to the top and whew -- amazing view. Santiago was a series of tiny dots. If it were daytime I might have gotten vertigo. You could see the stars. Amazing.
So, the happy news is that I was able to change my ticket back home. I actually had a year from my departure! But I extended my trip to only a few weeks later, to July 31. I´ve got a bit more breathing room and it´s such a relief! I think 6 months is all I can take not sleeping in the same bed for more than 2 or 3 days...

Breaking wind.

Going off schedule is a great thing. Otherwise I wouldn´t have been able to experience Torres Del Paine, a garguantuan of a national park with monster mountains. Cyn, Paolo and I got up after the best rest we´ve had in months (the beds didn´t sink in the middle!) at the buttcrack of dawn to get on a bus to Torres del Paine. We opted to skip out of the cave tour, a prudent decision because Chile is already expensive compared to the cheap prices in Argentina, and forked over US$20 to enter the TDP. Our driver took us, with a bunch of other people, to turquoise lakes, waterfalls and apocolyptic landscapes, with one of the highlights among them the glaciar at the end of the trip and getting up close to foxes. To get to see the glaciar though, we had to endure winds strong enough to break bird legs. I know I´ve mentioned the wind factor a few times already, but really, in Patagonia it´s an cruel mastermind of Mother Nature. It was near impossible to take photos at the top at the vista point because the wind was so strong you couldn´t hold your camera steady, much less yourself. We ended up taking a few quick shots and then scurrying back down the hill to get to level ground. Then crossing the lake, which was a gray slate of pebbles that fills up with water in storms, we took about 40 minutes because the wind was against us, beating our legs while we tried to move forward. I fell over into rocks at least 10 times. Really incredible. The ride back was similarly eventful. Our driver/guide drove like he only knew there was him and the passenger next to him in the van. We were being thrown around the car like rag dolls. Totally fun, with bruises to prove it. I though I was getting used to the dirt and gravel roads in Argentina, but there´s always more...
Traveling in South America so far has been really different than my previous experience stomping through Europe. Most of the places are a thousand times easier to see if you hop on a day tour, so most backpackers do it, and going off track to small towns isn´t always worth it because there´s absolutely nada to do. I´ve found in the smaller towns, people aren´t always as inviting as the more popular destinations -- not that they´re unfriendly, they´re just less outwardly and immediately so. You try to strike up a conversation and they kind of just stare at you. Of course, I come to this observation after only traveling through Argentina, so I´m thinking things will be different come Brazil.

I´m really going to miss hanging out with Cyn and Paolo, who are really great, sincere people. I´ve gotten used to hanging out with them and them with me. We´ve exchanged information, and they are for sure two people I know I´ll be keeping in touch with. When traveling, I find that sometimes the people you meet far outweigh the places you visit! Total mush thing for my antisocial ass to say, but being away from home, I can escape my neurotic personality and really be free. It´s friggin wonderful.
People have been asking me about the hotness factor of Argentineans. Obviously this is a subjective thing, but so far, the best looking Argentineans are in Buenos Aires. It´s not surprising though, since I find you generally find the hottest people in major cities all across the world. Every time, after a long time being away, I drive up to L.A. I am reminded how the city is positively slobbering with hotness. The girls and guys in B.A. aren´t as drop-dead as they are in Rio though. I haven´t seen anyone to drool over yet, but you know me, I´m weird (this is in no way any offense to the people I´ve dated).
On that note, I should shut up. Next post will be from Santiago. I´m supposed to meet up with a Santiago native named Gustavo, who is a friend of my Italian friend Davide (thanks Davide).

Muy Chilly in Chile.

It´s about 2:30 pm here in Punta Arenas, in southern Chile. As my first introdution to Chile, it´s not a bad place. The Italian guy Paolo, the Spanish girl Cynthia and I got here yesterday at 5 pm, with lots of rain to greet us. I was so glad to get off the bus. A very pleasant Argentinean gentleman sat next to me and talked my ear off for the whole trip, minus the last two hours when I fell asleep, but the outcome is that my Spanish has been further improved. Miracles happen when you are forced to communicate! And the two border controls passing from Argentina to Chile were easy.
The hotel I had made a reservation in promised to pick me up from the bus stop, but alas, we were so early arriving that we took a taxi. That´s when the Lonely Planet, yet again, disappointed me. We got dropped off in front of a hair salon. Whoops, the place moved. So the taxi driver drove us around and found us a place, which lucky enough, is in the center and a little cheaper. And I got to have my own room! I´ve been waiting and waiting patiently these past few weeks, looking for an opportunity to get some privacy.
We changed into warmer clothes (which didn´t really help much, I was still freezing despite my 5 layers of shirts!) and went in search of food. Places dont serve dinner until about 8 at least so we were screwed. I ate chocolate to fill that empty hole in my stomach. To procraastinate until dinner time, we walked around our neighborhood, which is small city but quite busy. It´s also modern, with crosswalk signals that count down how much time you have until the light changes, so we didn´t feel like we were in such an unfamiliar place. Then I regaled Cynthia and Paolo with stories about how sometimes people here (and in Europe too) when passing by me -- all of them men so far -- bow and say "Konichiwa" or "Arigato." It´s a really annoying thing I deal with when I travel. It´s also a hilarious thing. Cynthia found this happening to be so funny she laughed for about a full 3 minutes. So how do I react, she asked. Well, it usually happens so quickly that I don´t even have time to respond, I said. I see it two ways -- these guys think they´re being cheeky, but at the same time they´re trying to be welcoming. I have learned to brush it off, but its always on the tip of my tongue to correct them, which is really difficult when it takes me a minute to gather my Spanish before I can make a complete sentence. Next time!
I haven´t been too impressed with Chiliean food so far. We went to a highly recommended (from our hotel), nontouristy place (one of the guys standing next to the owner was picking his nose like he was reaching for buried gold from a heap of silver) and had fish. It was tasteless. Then, today, after I went to the duty free zone to find a calculator (I have become terribly inefficient at math since I´ve gotten here), I got pizza that was half cold. On it floated the ubiquitous jamon y queso, ham and cheese, that I haven´t been able to escape from since I arrived in Argentina. I swear, I cannot bear to eat any more processed cheese and plastic ham meat! The Chileans also eat something called completo, which is a hot dog drenched in mayo and other sauces. Sounds like an instant and guaranteed coronary to me. I can´t wait to get to Santiago because I plan to eat non Latin food. I am really missing Indian, Vietnamese, Thai, Middle Eastern... food I take for granted living in L.A.
One of Punta Arena´s highlights is its cemetary. It´s a quite peaceful place, with mausoleums bumped up against smaller graves. I´m skipping the penguin reserve, since I already got to hang out with the fine feathered friends in Puerto Madryn, but to make up for it, I´ve changed my plans slightly and will be heading on a 2 night, 1 day tour with Cynthia and Paolo to the Torres del Paine nat´l park, probably the number 1 or 2 backpacker destination in S.A. It´s more suited for trekkers who want to camp throughout the four'day hike in gorgeous scenery, so that´s why I had decided to skip it. The moutains and landscape are supposedly mind-blowing, with glaciars and turqoise lakes. I know I won´t be getting too deep inside the park with this tour, but it will suffice for me. I´m really enjoying the break from hiking for now.
I stayed up all night watching cable TV in my room. Watched CNN, an Indian drama, MTV, a Woody Allen film... I can´t even remember what else. It was all fascinating. About a third of the channels was dedicated to American tv imports, but subtitled in Spanish. There were your usual telenovelas and cheesy talk shows for balance too.
So far I´ve been noticing that people love, love, love covers of songs here. For instance, in this Internet cafe, there´s a CD playing of monks singing covers of Simon and Garfunkel (I swear to god). In Argentina, I heard a reggae version of Strawberry Fields Forever. Covers of Blondie? Check. I´m still waiting for covers of Madonna...

PC will eat itself.

When you have a day off from traveling, you{re apt to find things to occupy yor time. In my case, it{s eating. I have been gorging all day. Chocolate, submarinos, salad, more chocolate. I also had my last bit of beef before I take off to Chile tomorrow. Where{s the beef? It{s in my thighs and the inner tube i{m wearing around my stomach right now. I have eaten so many steaks in the last few weeks of Argentina that I might as well look like a cow. I{m ready to experience the Chilean cuisine, so bring it on.
I went to the Maritime Museum today, an interesting big place in a former prison. Saw old cartography, learned about the different ships that set sail to discover new lands, read about penguins and sea lions, and took photos with the funny*looking mannequins of infamous prisoners, such as the 16-year-old kid who tortured and killed dozens of minors, either through strangling and-or beating them. And other really nasty ways to murder someone. He even burnt the eyelids of some neighborhood baby but escaped from the mother right after she caught him. He died of a hemorrhage in prison as an adult.
Some more nonlinear observations: I have been hearing Madonna nonstop here. And Alanis Morisette even more unfortunately. The Rolling Stones and U2 played here a few weeks ago and people can{t stop talking about them. Argentineans don{t make much money. I was hanging out with my Argentinean roommate today and she was telling me teachers make 300 pesos a week, which is about US$100. That{s insane. There really is a large division between the poor and rich here. Bush is well hated here. You see so much anti Bush graffiti on the walls in every city. I find the hatred so strong and strange at the same time...it{s as if we, in the States, were to put anti British or anti Italian sentiments everywhere. People here do feel that strongly about our gov{t. And I was shocked to hear the Spanish girl tlel me that people in Europe think we all support Bush. I had to correct that opinion right away.
Colleen, I think you would love trying out some of the cakes and cookies here. Start in Patagonia. Dianne, the Argentinean fries here are listed on the menus as Spanish fries, which is odd.
I have to get packing now, have a 5:30 am bus to catch! Will write from Chile.

Nearly at the end of the world.

My Spanish must be getting better. I just reconfigured the browser -- all written in Spanish -- to allow cookies for Blogspot.com so I could get into my account and make this posting. It{s a small step for mankind but a huge leap across the continent for me!
My first night here, I sat down at a table in the dining area of the hostel and joined in on a game of international Scrabble, and came out pretty well in the end. The other players were an Italian guy and Spanish girl (traveling together) and another guy from Puerto Williams, the official southernmoast city in the world. Ushuaia claims it but it{s just a motto to attract naive toiurists. I got along so well with the Italian and Spanish taht we{ve been spending the last few days together, trekking.
One of those treks was through the Tierra del Fuego naational park, a forest with beavers, old layers of dead leaves and other organic material called peat bogs (i{m pretty sure there{s a mistranslation in the name here, which happens often in the English version of brochures), green lakes, lush mountains and hills and all sorts of wildlife I haven{t seen before. We started on a 1 hour trek to the border of Chile, then headed south to Lapataia Lake. To get to Lapataia Lake, you hike around picaresque lakes and rivers. The scenery is prime of course, but I was more impressed with all the wild bunnies running rampant. Hundreds of the furry mofos. Combine that image with hectares and hectares of short, mossy-like grass carpeting the landscape, and you{ve got something out of a storybook. A weird fantasy land. It was at best surreal. I heard some Americans behind me remarking about the same hard-to-grasp reality of it all and it really brings up the fact taht so far, most of the Americans I have met on this trip compare landscapes, experiences, etc., to movies. I find myself doing it too. For instance, when I was at the Perito Moreno glaciar, I told an Italian girl walking with me that the giant iceberg looked like the ice cathedral that cointained kryptonite from the Superman film. The woman from Houston knew exactly what I was talking about. So there I was again on this hike to find beavers, in that predicament, of having nothing better to think of when faced with that resplendent scenery than to think it looked like we were on a Hollywood set. Goddamn L.A.! But no sooner was I basking in this golf-course heaven did i realize that we were walking through a lifetime of rabbit shit. Pellets everywhere. You couldn{t avoid them. In some areas, where apparently the grass was tastiest, you couldn{t even see the green underneath because it was covered in a blanket of rabbit poo.
After that highlight and an undescrible amount of more walking, we came to the beaver colony. But no beavers! We later found out they were hard at work sleeping.
Today we almost made it to another glaciar. After walking at a steep ascet for at least an hour during which time we got blown over by the crazy-strong wind a few times, we came across what was an impassible section. The trail suddenly went alomst vertical. So when you{re counting in mud, wet conditions and the wind factor, you turn around. And that{s what we did. SO close, but so far! On the way down, my knees almost gave out because of the steepness of the trail. Halfway to the entrnce, we got relief from the cold and stopped in a refugio, which is essentially a refuge for climbers. There we had soup and bread and warmed up next to their wood stove. I would have liked to stay there for days.
I take it back what I said about the weather being warm. The temps have dropped significantly. It{s almost freezing at night and on the trek up the glaciar today, the temp was 4 degrees C. I have been bundling up and looking like the little brother from A Christmas Story (there I go with the movie comparisons again).
I was lucky and got a ticket for a 12 hour bus ride on Wednesday to Punta Arenas, in Chile. I was worried I{d be stuck in Ushuaia until Friday. There are only a few buses that leave to Punta Arenas and as happens when you{re backpacking, you{re likely to be on the same itinerary as say, 200 other backpackers, so the buses fill up quick.
I am hoping I{ll get some time to spend in the north of Argentina. As much as the south of Argentina is beautiful, it{s quite touristy, and moreover, expensive comparatively. The Argentineans I{ve spoken to complain that every since the value of the peso fell like Humpty Dumpty a few years ago, it{s too expensive for them to travel much, so they{re relying on tourists to come to the country. That realization has made them become a litte less snobby than before.
Off to the market now to get some food.

Ushuaia.

Wow. Second time on the Internet in one day! I am lucky.
And I{m lucky to be here in Ushuaia. Just got finished walking around the small town, getting my bearings. I love the hostel I{m staying in -- I{ve got a place in one of four beds in the only loft in the building. From my window I can see all of the Beagle Channel and the surrounding mountains. Sunrise, anyone? The view is gorgeous. I can{t leave this place till Wednesday anyway because of the spotty bus schedule, so it{s a good place to catch up on my sleep and take it easy after some day hikes in the Tierra del Fuego national park nearby.
I was thinking on the plane here about all the details I keep forgetting to share. Like the dinner I had with an Italian girl, a woman from Houston and a very handsome former pro Argentinean rugby player who{s now an architect. Like the fact I{ve been so constipated over the past week because of all the steaks I{ve been eating. No one eats vegetables here! (This constipation problem is quite a common one apparently; every backpacker I{ve talked to who{s been here for at least a few weeks haasn{t shat in days! The world stereotypes our American diet as meat and potatoes, but in nowhere else but Argentina does this actually apply!). Like everything I see here reminds me of one of you, my friends (Yan, the steaks here are amazing but I can{t compare them to the Brazilian BBQ! Carlos, I need your Spanish help. Dan, El Bolson is a place I see you in. Lisa, if you opened a Firecracker here it would do stupidly well. Claudia, I want to buy all the clothes here... everything is super cheap. Lorae, I can{t tell you how many times the mosquito net has saved me a night of attacks from those night bombers and the ensuing itch that would have come. Patrice, we really need to meet up in Guyana or Brazil). Like the details of my US$8-$10 dinner meals including the best wine. Like all the other assorted travelers I{ve been meeting. Sigh.
So yea, Ushuaia is pretty hip. The streets are teeming with restaaurants and sport boutiques. For being one of the places closest to Antartica, it{s not very cold right now. I{ve been walking around with a fleece jacket but had to abandon that layer after about 5 minutes in the sun.
A girl in Bariloche gave me her copy of the Kite Runner, about an Afghan kid who grows up with a pretty sad secret and it actches up with him in his adulthood. I couldn{t put the book down and highly recommend it. In fact, I love it som much that I{ve been shlepping the thing around, waiting for a good trade. A guy yesterday tried to exchange his book on spirituality for my book, but I quietly put his book back on his bed. The Kite Runner has really made me miss reading. When you{ve got the Lonely Planet weighing 10 pounds in your backpack, you always think twice about what else you{re going to add to the bag.
Speaking of which, I have been getting nonstop compliments on my packing ability. People have been so impressed with the size of my bag and the fact I{m living for 5-6 months out of it. Believe me, I{m friggin impresssed too. Every time I pass a clothing store, I yearn for just one new shirt or a pair of non-cargo pants. Then i go through the process of dragging myself from the window and fight the urge to turn my head. I must keep walking, I tell myself. And then the desperate feeling passes.
I will be sending around a copy of my itinerary shortly and would love to meet up with friends. At this point, it{s still very loose, i am thinking right now that i{ll be spending more time in Brazil than i had planned for and maybe even skipping Colombia. Either way, I will be doing the Galapagos Islands and then Machu Picchu on June 26... if any of you are interested in either please let me know. Ive got my Machu Puicchu trip booked with a company called LlamaPath and it{s cheap.

Photo prob.

Sorry, no photos. I didn´t bring a cable nor have I been able to find one of those card reader things that you plug into the computer... yea, I know I´m lame...

Pinguinos II, bad washing, etc.

What a last few days! I haven´t been able to get on the Internet for too long because the connection here sucks. So unfortunately I can only give a quick rundown. Here goes.
Went to a penguin reserve in Puerto Madryn and was very impressed with the Magellanic penguins walking around the place, curious with the tourists as much as we were with them. Going into the reserve, you drive thru and must be careful to not run any of them over. You get within touching distance of them and some of them are really brave and come up to your feet. I got chased by one and another annoyed one bit my shoe.
Driving in Argentina is kinda crazy. Not as much as in Buenos Aires,but there are practically no rules here whatsoever. I drove for two days without incident (thank god), but really, in Puerto Madryn there were times in which I would just press the accelerator down and just go. On the freeway, we were flying at 150 km/h...really exhilirating. The German guy sharing the rental with me was really pushing me...
Last day in Puerto Madryn was drama. Got my laundry done but they accidentally washed a permanent marker with my clothes! So now I´m half smurf. I´d love to share more but I just want to forget about the whole thing.
I´m in El Calafate right now,about toleave on a plane for Ushuaia which is at the southern tip of Argentina. In the last few days I´ve visited a glaciar and watched slabs of ice crack off and tumble into the water, hiked to another glaciar and ate glaciar ice from a lake and seen the truly magnificent and imposing Fitz Roy mountain range (part of the Andes).
More soon!