Day 5: On the road again

Today was the ultimate test of patience and perseverance. Last night we found a perfect solution- an overnight bus to Arica and from there we would catch a 40 minute flight to La Paz that would put us there only 5 hours later than we had originally planned (a miracle, considering we were getting so desperate we started looking up flights back to Santiago...)

Sounds perfect, right?

Problem #1: We couldn’t book the tickets for the bus online because our cards are foreign. Imagine that, foreigners in Chile wanting to travel and book a bus from a hostel computer? The audacity! Nevertheless, we ran into similar problems in Santiago, and always resorted to going to the Tur Bus office to pay in person. Luckily we knew there was a Tur Bus office in San Pedro, so we were able to go right there to pay. Okay, fine, problem solved.

Problem #2: SKY (a South American airline based in Chile) ALSO wasn't accepting our cards BUT we used this airline to book our Buenos Aires trip that was less than a month ago. Some people in the hostel lamented that they had similar problems, but we couldn't figure out why! Calling them via the hostel phone wasn't an option because, apparently, they can only call in the San Pedro region. The girl working at the front desk overheard us though, and was nice enough to let us use her personal net-book to Skype call SKY. From this we learned that after 72 hours prior to the departure date- you cannot pay for a flight with a foreign credit card online. So, basically, if you are a foreign traveller like we are, and have to make a quick plan B (SKY has by far the cheapest rates!) you are screwed unless you can get to an actual SKY office. Thankfully, we were able to get to one by bus....two hours away in a town called Calama.

Problem #3: We made it to Calama fairly painlessly and with sufficient time to return back to San Pedro and pack before we had to catch the overnight bus. But when we went to pay for a return ticket to San Pedro,there was only one left. You have got to be kidding me. Deirdre bought it anyway as we knew the overnight bus stopped in Calama on the way to Arica. We figured I could wait here and she could somehow find a way to lug both her stuff and mine on the bus (a difficult feat- I was relatively packed but my bag is HEAVY...I'm still practising this whole "packing light" thing.) Seeing our panic stricken faces as we approached the bus, a worker approached us. We explained the situation- hoping we could plead our way to convince him to let me on the bus, even if it meant standing. He told us not to worry and relax (an increasingly common response from South Americans to us stressed out gringa's). He assured us that it wouldn't but a problem because the buses never fill up and that when the ticket collector comes around I can just pay in cash. I was still a little hesitant, but boarded anyway, and sat in an empty seat. Twice I had to move because I was in someones actual seat, and I held my breath as I moved in to my third seat which also happened to be the last empty seat on the bus. I breathed a sigh of relief once we exited the town- I assumed we wouldn't be picking anyone up in the middle of the desert.

And that has kind of been the theme of this entire trip, and in general, how I try to cope with stress in my life: just get to the next step. One step at a time.

Thankfully when the ticket collector came around he was more than happy to take cold hard pesos, but motioned that he would be right back, as he continued collecting tickets from the back of the bus....but he never did. When I exited the bus upon arrival he was nowhere to be found. I guess my luck was starting to turn around!

We made it in time to catch the overnight bus and we smoothly transitioned to the airport, which is where I sit now, scribbling in my notebook because reading when I am tired (whether it is early morning or late at night) puts me right to sleep. We should be in La Paz in a matter of hours, and I hope this city will bring us luck for the rest of our trip!

Day 4: Back to San Pedro

Unfortunately, Deirdre was still in no condition to roam through the desert, so we pleaded with the guides to bring us back, and after some confusion/reorganization, they very kindly obliged.

Such is life though- you can have everything planned to a tee and things can always come up. You have to roll with the punches, but also be your own advocate for your health, especially when you are travelling, and especially when you are, quite literally, in the middle of no where, miles and miles away from any sort of medical facilities.

I don`t know if this was the culprit for D, but keep in mind elevation when travelling. It is also essential to always have bottled water, tissues, medicine, and plastic bags, just in case!

We are working on Plan B tomorrow that will hopefully put us back on course to La Paz!

Day 3: On the road, er, desert, to Uyuni

So far no peanut butter in Uyuni but then again, we havent exactly been in civilization. Essentially, I`m writing this from the desert  where it is FREEZING cold right now.

Yes, I`m under several blankets, but of course, like always, my feet, despite the two pairs of socks I`m wearing, feel like icicles. I`m starting to think they have a personal vendetta against me. Yes, I get it, my entire body weight is on you all day, but you were covered in two pairs of socks and rain boots! (And yes, the irony that I was wearing rain boots in the desert was not lost on me, but it was easier than shoving them in my duffel). If anything my hands should be cold- they were exposed all day- but they`re nice and toasty.

I got so desperate I pulled out the hand-warmers (see feet, they`re not even for you!!!) that are at least five years old, as that is the last time I went skiing, which is a whole other kind of depressing...

Also, I`m not 100 percent sure if this IS the desert, because all we have seen so far.... is lakes. But maybe that is why they are special...they are oases? I think I read that somewhere...I really should know more about my current location...

...whatever, I`m blaming my memory loss on the altitude.

ANYWAY, we have seen many beautiful lakes and mountains but the real attraction will come at day 3 of the tour- the salt flats in Uyuni. Which means wifi and hot water! It also means the lovely 135 USD reciprocity fee we have to pay, as Americans, to enter Bolivia. If you ever plan on travelling to South America, be sure to check out how much it will cost you to enter each country. It is killer if you are American, but travellers from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have to fork over some cash, too. Here is how/why/how much: http://travel.state.gov/visa/fees/fees_3272.html

Deirdre isn`t feeling well at the moment, but I am praying it is just altitude sickness and she will be better tomorrow!!!

....and then this happened:





(photo coming soon!)

Day 2: San Pedro de Atacama

As I scribbled away in my notebook writing this post, I had the following saying in my head as I wrote "desert": only one "s" in desert, because you only want to go there once. two "s"`s in dessert, because you always want seconds! While I`m always up for dessert, it`s funny, I would certainly love to go back to this particular dessert.

We drove through this beautiful desert on the bus the way to San Pedro and to my surprise, promptly pulled into a bus station. We`re here!? It looked like a site for a tour, much less a town. Seeing no taxi`s, we lugged our gigantic duffel to our hostel- San Pedro Backpackers. It was hard to believe any type of establishment could exist in these small adobe-like buildings, but we found our hostel with no problem.

Check in was not until 12:30, so we locked up our stuff (travel tip: invest in bike locks to secure the duffel/backpack/suitcase to a larger nearby object, such as a bed, and use a gym lock for the zippers to close the bag. Look for ones with codes to memorize so you don’t have to worry about keeping track of keys).

We then walked into town to change money. Can you believe we spent nearly two hours trying to find Bolivianos (Bolivias currency, which we would need for our next step of our journey) in Santiago with no luck but nearly every place in teeny tiny San Pedro sold them.

We walked around an artisan market which never fails to suck me in. The colors! The wool! The ALPACAS!!! It is incredibly difficult not to buy every gorgeous hand made product you lay eyes on. Some of you though will reap the benefits of my shopping spree!

We got settled in our rooms and had a delicious salmon lunch followed by ice cream. I chose a flavor called chañar, mainly because it was the closet thing that resembled chocolate. However, I later learned at a museum that it was a very useful fruit for the indigenous people of the Atacama region.

We booked our three day tour to the salt flats of Uyuni that would commence the following day. We purchased the necessary supplies: toilet paper and three 10 galleon jugs of water (that`s right, we`re not in Santiago anymore- no drinking the tap water here!) and to my outrage what do I see but PEANUT BUTTER. Are you kidding me?!?! Do you know how hard we tried finding it in Santiago?! We eventually found it and stocked up before the trip, but I never imaged in a million years to see several giant sized Great Value brand peanut butter here.

If I see it in Bolivia I`ll just die.

Day 1: Bus to San Pedro

Annnnnnnd.....we`re off! After weeks of late night planning, our backpacking adventures through South America finally arrived!

First step: 24 hour bus ride.

Last time I did one of these I was a young and sprightly sophomore in college, on my way to do Katrina relief in Biloxi, Mississippi (ironically, the connections from that trip is what got me here). I was ready to be social the whole time, getting to know my fellow volunteers. This time, I had a different "s" word in mind: sleep.

And oh did I sleep!

It was like the past four months of running after buses and exerting energy not to explode while on crowded subways finally caught up to me. We were off on an amazing adventure and I knew lack of sleep would soon be in my future again, so I caught as many z`s as I could.

I partially saw the following movies: Jack Reacher, The Hobbit, and two others that I don`t remember. Definitely no the most exciting day, but it was a much needed break.

Buenos Aires

BUENOS AIRES

I’ve heard its been said that Buenos Aires is “the Paris of South America.” I can’t fairly judge that statement because I’ve never been to Paris but I can say that it was both a gorgeous and amazing city. My first impression upon arriving was that it reminded me a lot of Santiago: typical urban metropolitan with lots of traffic, tall building, and small parks amidst the roads. However, this view was also at about 5 a.m when we were on our way to our hostel, so my observational skills at the time were minimal at best. When we awoke from our “nap” around 8:00 a.m, we had the beautiful view of the Capitol building nearby to remind us, we certainly weren’t in Santiago anymore!

However, exploring the city had to wait until that afternoon- as we had a very important adventure to attend to. Nearly 3 months ago, Deirdre’s sister Erin sent her a link on Facebook about this absurd zoo that lets you pet, yes pet, lions and tigers. It seemed like such a long shot at the time, yet here we were: tickets in hand, on our way to Lujan Zoo. To pet tigers. And lions. And feed bears. Have I mentioned that I used to be afraid of dogs? And that I leave the room when my house cat looks at me weirdly?

Needless to say, my heart was pounding when we were in line to pet the tiger. But then I remembered that animals can sense your fear, and that inspired a whole new wave of panic. My internal conflict sure made time fly though, because before I knew it there we were. Petting the tiger, and posing with it for pictures like it was the Easter Bunny.

With adrenaline pumping through me, we headed to the next line- this time snow tigers. It wasn’t as scary because they were asleep, but that also required kneeling down, and the images I had in my head of accidentally tripping, falling on them, and the subsequent sounds of teeth sinking, flesh ripping and screaming weren’t pretty (I have dreams, no, nightmares about these things as it is!!). Thankfully my feet didn’t betray me and I left the cage alive and well.

Next up was the lions, where we strolled with Mufasa and posed with Sarabi. The wait for this one was super long, and the crazy thing was, that by the time we did such strolling and posing, the novelty that I was touching these animals, let alone in an enclosed space with them, began to ware off. It felt pretty routine at this point. Okay Deirdre you go first, then switch cameras, Amy your up. It stopped feeling like we were doing anything remotely dangerous, but I guess to everyone else, the pictures speak for themselves.

We had a bit of a reality check with the baby lion cubs however. They were much less willing to cooperate, and thus many of our pictures included a worker coaxing the lion to sit still by offering it a piece of chicken. One of them actually tried to take a little nip at Amy, but other than some snot on her sweatshirt, she was completely fine. Gross- but how many people can respond to the question “What’s that stain?” with “oh, just some baby lion boogers.”

Baby tigers were next, and they were every bit as cute and slightly more cooperative. We also were able to feed a BEAR and elephant, and ride a camel. Llamas frequently strutted their stuff past us, and the geese serenaded us with song (aka screeched constantly).

We had some time to rest and explore a little before the next event: a tango show! Our original show had to be canceled but the company we booked with got us tickets with an even nicer (and would have been more expensive!) venue and we were charged nothing extra. We also received dinner before the show, which consisted of an appetizer of our choice, delicious steak and steak fries, dessert, and complimentary wine! I wish I could have taken pictures of the show, because everything, the dancers, the music, and the singers was beautiful.

With music still playing in our head, we set out to find a “Milonga”- essentially a tango club where everyday people come to dance the tango. Unfortunately the leads we had from the hostel weren’t open that evening, and though we found a 40+ club, we settled for a typical dance club (that we were oh so generously allowed to enter in for free, #gringaprivilege) that was OPENING at 1 a.m as we were passing by. We took advantage of a few two for one specials and danced the night away.

The next day we slept in a little and did a walking tour of the city at 11 a.m. We saw some great historical sites including the Capitol and Casa Rosada (the “pink house”- the equivalent of our white house).

 Our tour guide was great- if you ever travel abroad definitely look into whether there are free tours. These guys operate solely on tips and are always great; I’ve only done a few but I’ve yet to be disappointed! It was interesting in particular how proud yet humble our tour guide was about Argentinian’s. For example, she talked about Avenida 9 de Julio- supposedly the widest avenue in the world. However, she told us with a smile the Brazil has the actual widest road, but added jokingly, that it’s a highway so it doesn’t count!

After the tour I stopped for a bite to eat, and then went to the Museo de Bellas Artes (fine arts museum). It was much smaller than I though it would be, but had some great pieces (no photos allowed though, sorry guys).

We ended the day with an evening night tour. This one went to a few more sites in the city, but focused heavily on quirky cultural facts.  Some interesting facts include:

-The people of Buenos Aires are called “porteños”, because it is a “port city”

-Their health care system offers the option for private and public health care (hmmm, imagine that!). Interestingly though, the private companies offer a host of benefits – among them, one free plastic surgery a year. I’m sorry, what?! On a more practical note, they also offer free psychological services, so the stigma about going to shrink is nonexistent, since everyone goes to the psychologist. Interesting. I’d love to research the effects/benefits of this. No wonder people seemed so happy there!

-The story about Evita’s body….is too gruesome to post here. It’s a pretty twisted story, but I’ll gladly tell you when I’m home!

-Going out for coffee is a social event- not something to take to go. Our guide guaranteed us that if we saw someone with a coffee in one hand on the street, he or she would either have a map or camera in the other. And this is exactly what Amy and I had done the previous day. No wonder all the vendors kept approaching us offering tours!

-If you want a hot chocolate, ask for a “submarino”. You receive a glass of warm milk and a little chocolate bar shaped like a submarine that you dunk in the milk. So much cooler than Swiss Miss and their fake little marshmallows.
-There is a clock tower in Argentina nicknamed by some “little Big Ben”, because it resembles, though to a much smaller degree, Big Ben, and was given to Argentina as a gift from the British

 -If you drink from a fountain that was given to Argentina from Spain, you will supposedly return to Argentina

-This one I found out the previously night, but wine is ridiculously cheap- even cheaper than Santiago! I purchased a bottle for around  the equivalent of a dollar.

Before we called it a night, Deirdre and I couldn’t help it- we wanted to see a gosh darn Milonga….even if it meant watching 50 year olds dance. But man, they were good! No one missed a beat- they started together, stopped together, and watching both the men and women subtly and silently communicate their desire to dance with each other was like watching an animalistic mating ritual. And every single woman was wearing heels. They certainly put me to shame, sitting there in my flat boots with visions in my head of curling up into bed. But I couldn’t take my eyes off them. It is certainly something you seldom see in America, but I think that’s quite unfortunate because it was beautiful to see such culture incarnate. Plus they all just looked so happy.

Our last day in B.A we were up bright and early, ready to explore El Tigre, a tourist town located on the Paraná Delta. We had signed up for a tour that included a boat tour, an asado, and two “adventure activities” of our choice (for us- horseback riding and rowing). There were some complications throughout the day in the form of misinformation/scheduling (the boat “tour” was actually just a boat “taxi” [which on another note, is kind of cool. It picks people up along a river and takes them to whatever dock or port they need to get off at] to get to the site, and left hours later than we thought it would), but we made it there and back in one piece. As cheesy as it sounds, it was so nice to get away from the city for a day and just enjoy nature. Having grown up in a suburban/rural area, I’ve been dying to live in a big city. And while I’ve enjoyed Santiago immensely, it was nice to have a touch of home.

We took another little “nap” when we got back, got ourselves up and to the airport by 4, and made it back to Santiago by 8:30 or so, and still made it to our classes on Monday. What can I say, we’re pros.

Having said that…check in with me after 28 days straight  of traveling that commences in ONE WEEK…and then I’ll reevaluate that statement again!