May 2007

I´m sitting in an internet cafe in Uyuni, Bolivia, wearing my new Llama gloves, the ones that double as fingerless and mittens and I can´t write a whole blog but just wanted to let you know a few details of the past four days.

Jeep across the southwest - Tupiza to Uyuni.
Starting with the fact I just had my first shower in 5 days. Fact 2: tuesday, wednesdays nights were spent in mud huts, then one in a hut made entirely of salt (yes, I licked it to make sure) no electricity or fire, MINUS 15 DEGREES (okay, jump forward 2 days, I just found out it was in fact MINUS 25 DEGREES!!! I definately deseve a holiday in the Bahamas when i leave South America!)!! Fact three: I´m not a cold weather girl. BUT, the most important thing is this: today I had a breakfast to rival any eggs benedict on Lygon, Brunswick or Smith st. We got up at 4:30am and 2 Bolivians drove us across Salt Crops that stretch further than I could possibly see. Its like hard, cold snow, but its salt. Completely flat and a perfect blue sky, no horizon. They took us to the only thing that breaks it up, i tiny ísland´ almost completely covered in cactus. There we watched the sun rise and ate pancakes with Dulce De Leche on them, cold and so amazing. The strangest place I have ever been.

I also saw Gyesers (sic) (steamy puffs that spew out of hot earth like sulphery steam), Volcanoes, Laguna Verde (a green lake) the awesome mountains that Salvador Dahli painted (the red ones, and they actually look surreal in real life!!), I´ve gotten sick again (short lived this time thankfully) from deep fried Llama and spam and much more bizarre stuff. Bolivia really is nuts, from the first bus ride after crossing the border (which was easy, not like we were told. But really, who brings drugs IN to Bolivia??), its proven to be a most interesting place!!

Will write more asap, but the net here is rather shithouse, no promises when.

Love you all,
Bec.

Blog from May 16 to May 21
BsAs to Iguazu
From Buenos Aires we caught a 20hour bus to Puerto Iguazu. This is the town on the Argentina side of the Iguazu Cateratas (falls). The hang over both Brazil and Argentina. Just quietly, they blew my mind. A jeep through the jungle (that had ucalypts...crazy!) and then so much damn water, we were soaked (seemed we were the only under prepared ones) after the boat ride underneath them. Spent a day wandering around the trails that lead in and out of the falls and along the top. Awesome butterflies and the sun even attempted to come out a few times. Sorry again, photos are on the way, computers here in Bolivia aren´t quite ready for such technology.

Iguazu to San Miguel de Tucaman
From there we planned to go straight to Salta more north west in Argentina but instead I suggested to get off the bus after 20 hours (no food bar one ham and cheese sanger and the man had a very unfriendly disposition. Not to mention the todler who yelled Mama for 8 hoours!) and hang out in Tucaman, Argentinas equivalent to Seymour (immediately after getting off the bus we booked a way out to Salta at 8am the next day)! Alright, not that bad, but we did stay in a place that would´ve fallen down had it not been for the thick layers of mould on the walls! Good empanada, good wine and a massive hamburger (see i told you, Seymour!!) sweetened the stay.

Tucaman to Salta
Then it was 5 hours to Salta. nother bus, but five hours was a power nap after the past few trips, and they put us on the wrong bus so it was like 1st class QANTAS. No complaints!

Salta was cute. We met a couple of Aussie chicks and an English chick who´d hired a car so set off on a 12 hour day trip. Saw some amazing tiny towns nestled in the sides of rainbow coloured mountains in the middle of absolutely nowhere. The wind and cold is unbearable and gee, I never knew you could make so much out of Llama, as well as eat it!

Of course we got a flat on the way back and as much as I fancy myself as a bit of a handy man the jack wouldn´t stay grounded in the shit gravel and rocks. So after the car tumbled down 4 times we flagged down some local men who ´just hapened to have a crow bar and other tools´in their car, handy! The put the bung tyre unber the car and dug around it deep enough to put the new one on, no english here folks, great photo ops though! So I´ll spare you the rest but we got back late and proceeded to consume a lot of the most spectacular pisco sours (pisco, lemon and egg whites Leish!!). Had the best meal too, Locro, traditional Andean or Argentine (not 100%) stew. A very wide variety of meats (and fat and organs, I just didnt ask...) and legumes all stewed to perfection, tastiest ever. Very similar to Dads cassalette with the 8 different types of (quality) meats. Estaba Buenisimo!

The Meat Challenge
Prue and Dani, (two gorgeous ladies from Melbourne) and I have begun the meat challenge, a more updated version is till to come but a brief overview is: All the normal meats, chicken, beef, pork, other cuts of the same meat etc. Also, stewed and deep fried Llama, deep fried Spam, Goat, Intestines (probably cows), blood snags (all squishy, nothing like the ones at home, not that I enjoy them either). So I´ll keep you posted.

Found Rory a massage in Salta (the one place that didn´t do happy endings) to get rid of the head ache from all the buses and stayed in a great hostel that gave us clean towls EVERY DAY!!! I really enjoyed Salta but as it was not a huge place, we exhausted most of the activities and...

Salta to La Quiaca, walk over to Bolivia to Villazon mad bus to Tupiza and 4 days in a jeep (minus 25degrees, see next blog!)

Okay, by ´long stay´I mean it felt like an eternity at times.

So, from when I last wrote, I have done a fair bit, so sorry if it lacks detail (again) but heres the BA stay in a nutshell (a biggish nutshell). I think I can see a blog pattern emerging here...

We met up with cousin Brendan, top bloke. Showed us some local watering holes and shared our frustration with public transport, the busses here actually are trying to kill the public with no apologies. This city is MASSIVE. My head had some issues getting around the fact that every view from the 12th and 20th floors (i will elaborate soon) consisted of buildings, buildings and more and more buildings. Its a very different view to the one i had in Docklands just before I left Melbourne thats for sure. So many people and all in tiny tiny apartments EVERYWHERE! Also, when you get an address to go to it doesn´t say which Barrio (suburb kind of area thing) it just has a street and a number. Muy confundida for the newcommers from Melbs! Although points to the Argeninians they have one street with one name, not a hundred Victoria streets for example.

Anyway, thats all raingauges and shovels. We managed to get an apartment in Palermo at 1709 Medrano by answering a few simple questions via email:will there be children, how many occupants, do you need a lift from the airport? It was cute, in a perfect spot close to our favorite heladeria etc-we dubbed it the nth Carlton of BA. On the 12th floor, tiny (one room, actually only one room that was lounge, bed and dining etc) and a tiny bathroom with no hot water! This is where the trouble started. Our stupid landlord decided to fix it himself (while we were out, nice surprise to come home to) ending with the entire building devoid of ANY water. After 50 strange men who spoke no english wandered in and out of our apartment and various hours of the day and night (the fact I was alseep in my undies didn´t deter them) and 3 more days with no water, they moved us. To the landlords other apartment in the bronx of BA, awseom apartment, piso 20 (20th floor) but shithouse area, I wasn´t game to head out at night alone. Bars on the front of all kiosks and the subte stop smelt really really bad. From there I got sick (had to run out of a pub after drinking only half of my G&T so theres a gauge on the severity of the problem).

Buenos Aires Belly-Week 2 in this cazy city.
This bit I will try to keep short. After three days of bathroom ridden fun, I went to the Dr. At home he´d of said something like ¨No dairy or meat, only bread and dry biscuits¨ alas, not in Buenos Aires. Eat cheese apples dulce de leche (a milk jam, like a caramel condensed milk, Argentinas vegemite....). The next day I was 10 times worse so went to another Dr. Again, no english told me to eat grilled chicken and a steak with mash (what tha?). In tears I tried to convey the problem (you can imagine the charades). Then I finally worked out I had to give a ´sample´ at a pathology place in the hospital around the corner. NO ENGLISH, tired overwhelmed, crying with frustration and being asked in Spanish to compromise my dignity. I had an idea what they wanted me to do but the whole waiting room new exactly as they heard it 28 times said v-e-r-y-s-l-o-w-l-y and loud. So, I jumped that hurdle.

The next day, no improvement so I thought bugger this, went out ate an awesome meal of chorizo, Argentine Saganaki (provoleta), steak and amazing dessert (you get good desert if you say its someones birthday I learnt) and copious amounts of the best vino tinto-Malbec.
And, hey hey, the next morning-better than new (almost). Worst part about being sick-missing the soccer (see www.myspace/rorystories.com for the details)and going back to the Recoleta market to buy up big!

The Place
Although the illness thing really ruined my time in BA (we left 2 weeks before we planned to) I really loved the city. We went out a lot, gee they do stuff late here (again). Pre drinks at 11pm, dinner 12-1am and by the time you have a few at the pub, the sun comes up, weird but I think I like it. Brendan and a new friend Magic Ian (his name ís actually Kieran and hes from England but Magic-Ian stuck after a story he told us early on) we all went out a bit, met Brendans ´Boys´ and experienced their way of courting (see the photos).

one of my favorite things was the cemetary. Evitas grave was less than I expected, very unassuming and not a massive production but all the others basically were. Bigger than the houses here and so well maintained (again, see the photos). we accidentally crashed a funeral thinking it was a crowd gathering for the grave of Eva Duarte, but no, we were just insensitive tourists, cameras and all. Quickly faked tears and ran from that one.

The women here are stunning and the men are generally very metrosexual. Getting to know people beyond names and the general chit chat is near impossible as the language barrier is massive, not to say I haven´t been getting attention. Í found the attention a bit frustrating at first but have now learnt to ignore it. The frustration is not being able to tell someone off in a language I have a grasp on, so I ignore it now, the kind words of two chicks from Uraguay helped me....get over it, its the arrogante way they are, we all get it, you´ll get used to it!

Theres awesome grafiti everywhere and the politics of this country are sprawled on every spare wall or path, pretty impressive. Went to a lot of different areas, out in San Telmo, A BBQ (Parilla) in Martinez, job interview in Las Canitas (actually got a few jobs but all 1 or 2 hours a week, not worth our while) and checked out La Boca, the home of the team. However, I am now apparently a River Plate supporter (Rory bought me a guernsey and all!) ast they are the same colour as St Kilda! I did some Spanish lessons which helped heaps buts its all about practice, my memory for languages is shit I have learnt so i have to work extra hard (although it gets better when I pissed off, tired and/or drunk...helpful at the bar, not so much with important things though).

Theres so so much more but I can´t bore you much longer this has bee a bit of a lacklustre blog effort I can see. We are now in Iguazu, saw the most spectacular falls today and went practically under them in a boat, saturated an completely breathtaking (cliche I know, but I can´t find the words),walked around them and it blew my mind. They´d end our drought in a few seconds! I really like Iguazu, great locals and good food (yes, I´m loving the fact I can eat again!). But I´ll fill you in on that next blog. Time for a shower and a siesta, they all siesta in the country areas, God Bless´em!

Hope all is well back home and to you wherever you are, friends!

More soon I promise. By the way, as expected I´m having issues getting photos on this thing, so hang in there they´re on the way!