Day 1...dedicated to the dearly departed...*sniff*

The first day was brutal as I have already said - we drove just under half of our total distance, close to 500km - no proper roads, only dirt and rock.

The place is DRY. You can see riverbeds, but there is nothing in them. This area only gets rain from mid to late December until March, then...complete deluge. But, afterwards the water slowly begins to evaporate - anything living in them will die. As a result the vegetation we saw was very sparse and tended to be small in size: odd circular tufts of grass, some cacti and weird blobs of moss that, I´m told, only grows 5cm a year..some I saw were well over 50cm in diameter.

It was at our first pit-stop (read: pee break) that it happened. It was the first day of the trip that I had worn them...my favorite traveling pants. I noticed I had split the, um, bum-ular area. It was still quite a small tear in the seam. I was sure I could fix it.

The amazing thing about this dry deserted place (apart from the place itself, of course) was that people actually live out here! We saw llama herds - you can tell they are domesticated because they have colourful bits of wool around their necks or little pom-pom "earrings" - so cute! We saw many llamas initially, but the farther we drove into the wilderness the less we saw of them and the more we saw their wild cousins the vicuña - they are smaller and more delicate, and their wool is very soft. Actually, it is one of the softest fibres known to man (the softest is some endangered bison I believe - yes, this is the kind of useless info that floats around my head) Anyway, you can well imagine how much a vicuña scarf can fetch - remember these guys are NOT domesticated animals...no, I´m not bringing back any vicuña thing.

Every time I got out of the 4X4 my pants ripped a little more...

The mountains in this area are still quite ferrous, like the ones in the quebrada de Humahuaca, so the reds and greens predominated but - maybe due to the lack of a main road (any road for that matter) - the place is more rugged , more arid, more wild than it was in Argentina.

As we were driving around, in the middle of nowhere, our car started smoking.

oh shit.

Andreas, cool as a cucumber, told us to get down (there go my pants a little more) and have a look around while he investigated. Some wires had burned in the engine - dunno which ones, but I´m pretty sure there are no superfluous wires in a car engine! Andreas, in less than 20 minutes, managed to Macgyver something with some spare wire, a plastic bag and some string. We were up and running! No more engine trouble to speak of for the rest of the trip...and let me tell you the 4X4s in this place work HARD.

We stopped in an abandoned village at one point (we stopped many times along the way) that was allegedly abandoned because of the devil! It wasn´t very old either - less than 75 years. Apparently, the villagers started killing each other for no reason..clearly the work of el diabolo. They eventually all decided to up and leave. It was also here that we saw our first viscacha (more about those later...so cute!)

We reached our first night´s stay at around 3:30 and our driver asked if we wanted to punch on or stay here for now and wake up at 4am....we voted to punch on - this is why our first day was long and hard.

We finally stopped for the night at 7pm. By then my back was aching, and my head was pounding....and my poor, poor pants were split down to the knee. And it was bloody cold. We had gone from 30+ to close to 0. Ideá our cook made us up a delicious soup followed by a biffe with potatos and veggies. Ideá is the queen of the perfectly cooked potato! After dinner I felt marginally better but my head still felt like it was going to implode. Andreas suggested a coca tea before bed and again in the morning...I gotta say the stuff works. The accoms were basic, we had electricity but no hot water, no heater but 5 thick blankets each.

The next morning all the puddles (created by people doing dishes, laundry etc, not rain) were frozen. Hot tea and buttered bread with dulche de leche sure hit the spot! Jon also gave me some of his coca leaves to chew...head was still pounding. Back in to the 4x4 for more outstanding views!

As for my pants, I was loathe to let them go. I tied the legs together; tightened the belt tie, then looped the long ends to the leg knots. Voila...I had a new bag.

Uyuni - Bolivia

Did you know that Bolivia is an hour behind Argentina? Me neither.

I got up at 7 so that I could grab some breakfast, which I did, and came back to the Hostal at 8. I was all packed and waiting in the lobby by 8:15. The guy at the front desk asked if I was checking out, and I told him that I was waiting for the tour at 8:30. He looked at the clock above my head and told me it was 7:15 in the morning and that the tour wouldn´t leave until 8:30...Argentina is an hour ahead of Bolivia, did you change your watch?
Oh.
I then remembered the impatient looks at my watch and the dirty looks at the driver yesterday...the bus actually left on time, it´s my watch that was fast.

When 8:30 finally rolled around I finally met the 3 other people who were going to spend the next 4 days of my life with me. We had: Jon from BC, Francine from Paris, and Encarna from Barcelona. Francine and Encarna had been travelling together for a few days and both spoke Spanish - this would be very handy as our guide and cook only spoke Spanish.

Tours are a funny thing - random people are thrown together and are expected to co-habitate in very confined quarters (ie a car). I guess because it´s a finite amount of time people manage to adapt to the group and the conditions. We had a 1982 Toyota 4X4 with 6 seats. Jon and I took the seats behind the driver/guide (Andreas) and cook (Ideá) and Francine and Encarna took the ones behind us. We were off.

We did a quick pit stop before leaving Tupiza - at the local coca shop. Andreas offered some to us and we declined (well, Jon had his own)...perhaps, in hindsight, this was a mistake - we were going to climb well above 4000m.

On we went into the Andes mountains. It was a bumpy ride. A very bumpy ride. A very, very bumpy ride. We were going to cross over 1000km of this terrain for 4 days. It was worth every dust encrusted nostril, every spine crushing pit, every head knocking swerve, every shivering night with aching head and body.

It was is spectacular.

My poor language cannot even begin to describe such magnitude and magnificence. We were tiny specs of nothing in all of this. The terrains we passed were so varied and unique...all we could say was, "Ahhhh"

I will post pictures - sadly the internet connections here are PAINFUL - once I get to Peru. Even then, they will be sad representations.

We saw some fuzzy creatures, and some mind blowing things - and on the last day...well, all in good time.

Laundry on the run

I had to do some laundry before heading out on this 4 day trip around the Uyuni province...leaving at 8:30 in the morning...yikes!
Both my long sleeve shirts were nasty and so were my....well, other things were too.
I did my laundry in the sink and then rinsed them as I took my shower. I tried to wring them out as much as I could and brought them into my room. Hmmmm, the only place to hang anything was the curtain rod and the coat rack. I did what I could and went to the internet cafe.
About an hour later I came back to my room to hit the sack - lord knows what kind of sleeping accoms these folks considered "basic" - everything was still pretty wet and I knew that they weren´t going to make it. Damn. Drastic measures had to be taken. I put some wet clothes on and went to bed.
Ok, ok...I know, I know...I´m the cleverest person ever. No? That´s not what you were thinking? Hey, the human body creates lots of heat - especially while under lovely thick blankets, it dries stuff really efficiently!
I woke up in the middle of the night and swapped with the rest of the wet stuff since what I was wearing was already dry (see, told ya).
Admittedly, it´s not the most comfortable initially, but you get over it quickly and it is effective.
The next morning I had fresh clean, if somewhat wrinkly outfit to wear...for the next 4 days.

Eating, snacking and lip smacking part 2

Alfajores- what can I say about these wonders? Think of all the wonderful (sweet) things that you could put together and it wouldn´t come close. Two shortbread cookies with a VERY thick layer of dulch de leche in between, now cover that in chocolate....aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh SO GOOD! I actually drooled while eating it! (don´t tell anyone) They make different varieties, covered in coconut, with different flavours...but...well....you know me and chocolate.



It was so good I almost forgot to take a picture!

Remember when I went to Humahuaca? Well, I had llama pie for lunch. Actually, pie is a misnomer, llama loaf would be more accurate. YUM-O! So, what does llama taste like you ask??

hmmmm I would say like a cross between pork and chicken. It´s quite a sweet meat, and it´s not red. Anyway, this loaf was magnificent - well seasoned (with what I have no idea), very tasty and not dry at all. Some of the others thought that "playing it safe" would be better, they ordered the vegetable risotto (fair enough one of them was a vegetarian) - pfffffft they got a watery, tasteless mush...and there wasn´t even any rice! HA on them...they looked longingly at my llama loaf...

and for dessert I got...Cayote. This stuff looks really, really gross. It´s brown and viscous with lumps...I had to try it - especially since no one could definitively tell me what it was made of (I eventually had to look it up...thank you Google!). It is made from a type of melon (cucurbita ficifolia) and it´s basically the jam you make from it. You spread it on your bread and eat it like you would jam. I had no butter, but MAN, I´m sure that would have ROCKED! This stuff is awesome! There was a French girl on our bus who said that Cayote costs a fortune in France - here it´s nothing. It tastes like a dark honey with a healthy kick of ginger. At first I ate it all on its own...that was a bit sweet, even for me, but on bread it´s fabulous!!

Ok, I don´t always like what I eat...big surprise, I know.

before...

After...

Tamales - I ate these on my night in Tilcara (you remember the waitress in the sweat pants?). I wasn´t particularly hungry on that night (probably due to that llama empanada I had eaten earlier) so I asked her to suggest something not too big. I got a tamale, con carne (it was that or cheese). I have heard of tamales, but I wasn´t quite sure what to expect. They´re like dumplings, wrapped in a corn husk - it came to me like a giant candy that I had to unwrap.

I got a llama and potato tamale....actually more like POTATO and llama. Sadly, it was dry and tasteless, there were no herbs or spices to speak of...and although it wasn´t big in size, all that dry potato just filled me up and I couldn´t finish it.

Pique Macho - This is a "traditional" Bolivian dish. It´s basically french fries with cut up hot dogs (they say sausage...but nah, they aren´t), sprinkled with fried onions, tomatoes, and boiled egg pieces...um, I give this one a miss altogether - it´s a bit of a weird mixture. You all know the above ingredients...make one at home and tell me what you think.

....one thing I found weird but nice was the french fries in soup. Yes, the Bolivians put french fries in their soup...like croutons. I guess they have more potatoes than wheat so it makes sense - and it´s delicious! (well, it won´t save a crap soup...but you know what I mean)

Bolivia Bound

After a nice breakfast with the girls I headed down the street to the bus station. While I was waiting a guy pulled up to a nearby store...on his horse! How cool is that!??

When the bus arrived, I saw that some bloody foreigner was in my seat! I had specifically asked for the front seat on the top level of the bus. When I mentioned to the offender that she was in my assigned seat, she grumbled, but moved. The guy sitting in the seat next to mine made sure no one else was coming before he reclaimed that seat. They were a group of 4 Germans.

During the course of the trip he took out some coca leaves to help against altitude sickness. They say that if you chew coca leaves (yes, the same plant that makes cocaine) it will stop you from getting altitude sickness. So, I´m watching him from the corner of my eye...he takes out his little coca bag; selects each leaf carefully, putting them in a little pile on his knee. Then he puts his little coca bag away. Then he takes each carefully selected leaf and carefully removes any stem that may be attached and puts them back into a little pile on his knee. Then he takes out some tissues and his spring water and starts to clean each leaf, front and back, carefully folding the tissue after every wipe and placing the leaves back into a little pile on his knee. Then he put his water away in his pack and put the tissues back into his pocket. THEN he carefully places one leaf at a time in his mouth and chews them individually for a few seconds..OMG can you say OCD!

...Other than that the trip was uneventful until we reached La Quiaca - here I had to get off the bus and walk to the border. It was 3 in the afternoon, the sun was hot, there was not a soul around, it´s 3400m above sea level, and I´m again carrying my pack (I´m SO glad I went with the small pack!!!)

After a 10 min walk I see it - a bridge; some flags; a giant ditch; lots of garbage; and a pig. The German team comes out from a street ahead of me and we all head towards the bridge.



The ditch



The line for customs seemed quite long so we hunkered down and waited. There were people though, who seemed to just breeze through - I don´t know if they were Bolivians or Argentinians, but it was a little annoying to have a constant stream of people passing by when your line only moved every 10 minutes...no, I´m not exagerating. I found out later that there were only 2 guys manning the station that day, maybe because it was Sunday, I dunno.

SO, we´re all waiting. One of the German girls looks not quite right, probably the altitude. Waiting. People passing. Waiting. Dogs passing. Waiting. Kids on bikes passing. Waiting. Moms with babies passing...this one stops next to me, holding her toddler by the armpits....the kid spews. Nice. The German girl looks like she´s gonna pop too - her friend tells her something and she quickly looks away, holding her hand over her mouth, dry heaving.

...People continue to pass, sometimes missing the vomit, sometimes not....the smell is over powering and I really hope the line will move a little faster.

It takes me about 2 min to get my stamp when I finally get to the window. The walk over the bridge is a bit weird - there are military guys on both sides. Then I have to go through Bolivian customs...there´s only one guy at this window...and he´s in his t-shirt and jeans. The room is tiny and there are heaps of people there, but it does go more quickly...then voila! I´m in Bolivia!



Villazon is the Bolivian side of the border...and as with most border towns it seems a little dodgy and nasty. My plan had been to stick around for one night and take the train the next day to Uyuni, but I´m not sure I can stay in such a place. As I walk by the bus station, which is just up the street from the border, a lady asks me if I want to get a bus to Tupizia. Hmmmmmm. I think about it for 5 seconds, while I watch the homeless man pick through the garbage, grabbing some chicken bones left behind by someone else. Yes, I would like to go to Tupizia - I know I can get a tour of Uyuni from there too. She tells me that the bus leaves at 5. It´s now 10 minutes to 5 - fantastic, I don´t have to wait too long.



Yeah, right. The bus finally leaves an hour later...and when I say bus I mean passenger van. They crammed about 20 people AND all their stuff in a van that seats 12! I had chosen the front seat; On one side is the driver, and on the other side a mom and her 6 year old on her knee. Oh, dear...I wonder how long this is going to take.

After dropping off people in the middle of nowhere (literally!) we arrived at Tupizia (2850m) an hour later. I randomly walk down a street and come across a hostal (Valle Hermosa) and wander in - single room, shared bathroom? $7. I love this country already.

There´s a 4 day tour of the Uyuni province leaving tomorrow, would I like to join? $190 ....includes driver, cook, accoms, meals.

I had looked at tours for this region before leaving and they cost, bottom end, $2000.

...guess where I went next...



Stay tuned for part deux of Eating, snacking and lip smacking...







Hippies, French chicks, and perhaps I should have gotten that rabies shot...

Having been dropped off at the edge of town, I had to find my way to a hostal and book my bus ticket for the next day. I knew where the bus station was from our visit in the morning so I stopped there first and got a ticket to La Quiaca, on the border.

The Routard guide recommended a particular hostal on the other side of the town - right on the edge and up the hill (remember what I said about hills?). Well, Tilcara is 2400m above sea level, it´s really hot, and I´m carrying my pack. After what seems like forever, I finally find this elusive place (up a very steep hill), and it looks fantastic - overlooking the town and valley, quiet...ahhhhh. I go in and ask for a bed in a dorm (trying to save money here folks!), those go for $18. The fella behind the counter has long grey hair tied in a pony tail, he yells out to the back and then tells me that there are no more dorm rooms, but I can have a single room for $42. Bugger.  I tell him thanks but no thanks and then drag my feet back outside.

Now what? Back down the hill and back into the village. Now, in Salta there was a hostal every 20 feet...here no such luck. I keep walking until I notice that I´m the only one on this side of the street, everyone else, including the stray dogs are on the other side...oh, that´s the shady side...duh! I cross the street towards the spot where a smallish dog is barking. I step up onto the curb (kerb for my Aussie friends!) and the little fucker bites me! Dogs never bite me. Dogs love me! wtf? Then he has the stones to try for another go! I stick my shopping bag in his face and walk on. Maybe I should have gotten that rabies shot after all....

The view from my bunk

I walk all the way back to the bus station and there, right across from it is a hostal....sigh. There´s a young girl tending the entrance, which looks more like a common room - there's a tv on and there are 2 guys playing darts. I ask for a dorm room and she says yep, $7...now that's more like it! She tells me that there are 3 other girls staying in the room and they're from France...but they're not in the room at the moment.
A note on bunk selection: Check the mattresses - they are not all created equally. I found out after a long sleepless night that my bunk had just a nasty old foam slab...and the other bunks had proper mattresses.
I drop off my stuff and off I go for a proper look around.

At the village square there's an aerobics class going on, complete with shake your booty moves - the dudes manning the stalls around the square are all sitting forwards in their chairs with their mouths open. Next up, the little kiddies doing traditional dances in traditional clothes...awww.

As I wandered around I got a distinct "wannabe hippie" vibe to the place...very weird.

By now I'm getting a little peckish, but it's too early for dinner and as I slowly wend my way back to the hostal I come across a empanada street vendor. An empanada is a cross between a meat pie and a calzone. Street food!!! I'll have one (40 cents)!!

mmmmm - llama empanada....

After a quick chat with the French roomies (all from the Toulouse region) and a short siesta, I go out to a "fancy" restaurant for dinner at 9. I say "fancy" because although the decor and ambiance are chic - the waitress is wearing track pants.  Ooooohhhh can it be another entry for that next food post? I think yes!

The hostal kitchen....oh my.

When I got back to the hostal, things are hopping - its 11pm. The girls had made themselves boiled potatoes for dinner and the people from the hostal felt sorry for them and so had taken over the dinner prep. There were a few people in the kitchen including the girl from the front desk and a bearded dude (Big Lebowski style)...who started chatting me up. He started to talk to me about the cosmos, destiny and I'm not sure what else, and every time I would tell him I didn't understand he would just try harder to explain it to me...in Spanish. He eventually asked if I wanted to listen to some of his music...uh - no. I finally convinced him that he should eat, so we joined the others in the back area where the girls had kindly saved me a single seat next to them - there was some olde tyme Black Sabbath playing for ambiance. The girls told me that the Big Lebowski had hit on each of them as well. Quelle surprise!

We stayed up for a while chatting and listening to some classic metal.

The next morning I had a bus to catch and the girls were going on a hike.

Quebrada de Humahuaca, crossing the Tropic of Capricorn, y Humahuaca

I took a tourist bus through La Quebrada de Humahuaca (pronounced oomawaka), I learned from the Cayafate trip that sometimes taking the tourist bus pays off because you get more out of what you´re seeing. First off, it stopped so that we could take our pretty pictures, and secondly our guide gave us some very interesting insight into this beautiful area.

La quebrada means the gorge and it separates 2 mountain ranges by the Rio Grande. The Rio, however, is not so Grande. In fact, its practically non existent. The river only comes from mid to late December to March...this is the mountain desert after all.

Our first stop was a small village called Purmamarca. This village has the beautiful painted mountains as a backdrop so heaps of tour buses stop there to take pictures. The mountain range from a white (limestone) to red (iron) to green (oxidized iron). The village also has an old church dating from 1778 which has some really cool cactus wood infrastructure..and a fantastic 700 year old tree just outside (well, they told me it was that old at any rate).

Onwards and upwards...The gorge itself is so breathtaking I kept taking pictures and finally had to come to terms with the fact that nothing could convey such massive beauty...(came to the same conclusion on my trip through the Uyuni province of Bolivia...)

That hole is the burial pit

Our next stop was Tilcara - here there were important archaeological digs which unearthed a village of the Humahuaca people, a pre-Inca civilization. At the site they had re-created the village so that we could see how these people lived. The poorer folks lived on the outside and the rich folks, higher up the hill...somethings never change - 10 to 1 the rich folks in your town live on the high points. Entire families would live in 3x2 sq/m with a courtyard outside, complete with family burial pit. The fantastic thing about these homes was that even though it was sweltering hot outside and there was no door on these places, the inside was quite cool. All the doors in the village faced either north or south, never in the direct path of the sun.


15 km outside of Tilcara we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn! WOOT! He had to hustle though because we had lunch reservations in Humahuaca...the bloody Pom and his German friend were 15min late coming back to the bus in Purmamarca...

AHHHHH what we had for lunch is to be saved for my next food update!!!

 

Humahuaca was a little bit bigger and the mountain folks were becoming more and more prominent. There´s an impressive statue dominating the hill here, its a celebration of the liberation of the Argentinian people. It was here that I started feeling the altitude -2 946m above sea level. When you exert a bit too much your heart begins to pound...its kinda like being out of breath but instead of just your lungs craving oxygen, your whole body is.

 

Just outside of Humahuaca there´s a fantastic little church built in 1661. When the Spaniards had this church built, they also commissioned local artists to paint pictures of angels. The locals had no idea what the heck an angel was so when they asked the question the answer they got was, "Well, they look like us, but with wings".  OK, seems straight forward enough. What the Spaniards got was angel paintings of them in all their Spanish glory: stylish fine lace, fashionable brocade, coiffed hair, breeches, wings....and of course guns.
Priceless. Sadly, I was not allowed to take pictures, so you´ll have to take my word for it (I can´t make up stuff this good, I assure you!)

Instead of going back to Salta with the rest of the group, I asked that they drop me back off at Tilcarra....which is where I had my next adventure...