New Blog

OK, folks, this is it. We sold the van. We are renting property in North America. I think it's time to move on to a new blog.

If you want to keep up with our adventures in LotusLand (Vancouver), please follow these links for Kim and Douglas, respectively.

http://kwool.blogspot.com/

and

http://theworldlikeadog.blogspot.com/

I hope to see you there! I like keeping in touch this way. Please leave comments if you're still reading, so I know you're out there.

sweet home Carolina

We're back in NC, after a few more delicious days in Buenos Aires. After we left Brazil, we planned to spend our last few days in Uruguay before heading back to BsAs to fly out. We took exceedingly comfy night buses to Colonia, which was founded by the Portuguese to smuggle goods into Spanish-colonized Buenos Aires. It still has its cobbled streets and loads of lovely old colonial buildings, and we had a good time wandering around. The siren song of Buenos Aires' coffee and delicious food called us back early, though. We could smell the goodness as soon as we stepped off the ferry. Luckily, we arrived back on the right day for the famous antique market in Plaza Dorrego, in the San Telmo neighbourhood, just a few steps away from our favorite hostel, Residencial Carly (highly recommended).

The square was packed with antique vendors selling everything from 150-year old lace, pocketwatches, glass seltzer bottles (we got a green one), working Victrolas, amazing huge old padlocks that you would expect to see on the back of a 1800's paddywagon, piles and piles of family silver, art nouveau tiles, and everything in between. There was also lots of art - our favorite was the figures made out of silver forks - you could get guitar players (playing a spoon), court stenographers, marathon runners, bike riders, you name it. The square was packed with vendors and people, and the stalls spilled out onto the pedestrian streets north of the square. The crowds extended for 20 blocks - there were people filling the street for as far as we could see. It was like a Grateful Dead concert meets the Antique Roadshow - there were marionettes, art, street performers, kaleidoscopes, 10-piece orchestras (including a piano!!), hippy jewelery, and handmade shoes. We wandered up and down the streets for hours, had delicious ravioli and pizza in a streetside cafe, and ended the night watching tango shows in the square. First there were the professionals, all in black and tophats. When dusk fell, they were done, but they left the dancefloor and music equipment set up, and the square filled with local tango enthusiasts. Their outfits were great - from stripey track pants, to swishy tango dresses. One tall woman with short platinum blonde hair was wearing glittery green shoes with brown legwarmers. Picture the Breakfast Club all grown up and dancing tango. It was fantastic.

The trip back was long but totally uneventful. We were a little worried that the US immigration folks wouldn't let me back in the country as a visitor, but the official only asked us one question and waved us on through. We didn't even have trouble bringing back our yummy Argentine salami. The customs guy asked us whether or not we had any meat, and we said we did. He asked us whether we'd bought it at a deli, or killed and skinned it ourselves. We said 'er, deli' and he waved us on through.

Now we just have to reorganize our stuff (it was all packed and organized for Ireland...), visit all of our friends and family, get the car, and head to Vancouver!

Two for One

For the lazy readers out there, this entry will be a winner, two countries for the cost (in eye wear) in one blog.

We finally managed to find an agency to ship the car back to the USA, a company called Transpack in BsAs. It would seem we are the first people in history to do such a thing and it took two full days, mostly waiting and having transpack do yet another inventory of the car. This was very frustrating and Kim spent most of the time calming me down. But enough of inificiency, the cars having fun on the high seas and with luck will arrive in Norfolk, Virginia in a month.

We left Buenos Aires on a boat for a town called Colonia in Uruguay and then hopped on a bus for Montevideo. In BsAs we had tried to get Kim's visa for Brasil but were told it would take the rest of the week at a minimum, so we figured it couldn't take any longer in Montevideo. And, as we had already seen so much in BsAs, figured Montevideo would be a better place to spend the days waiting. I won't get started on the idiotic political visa thing, but be assured that its very stupid.

Montevideo is a pretty grey town, and after being spoiled by the amazing Argentine coffee and pastry botiques we almost starved to death. It did however offer lots of walking around and even a dead guy in a box gaurded by 2 very serious soldiers. Artigas was the 'founder' of Uruguay and not only was his wee box of ashes in a tomb in the middle of town, there's a statue of him at about every corner.

We found a great little hotel to stay in, most notable for its wonderful marble staircase and bed sheets with more holes than cotton. The proprietor was completely zany and proper mad, amusing us at every turn.

There's also lots of antique shopping in Montevideo. We did a fair bit of browsing but having sent the van on its merry way didn't have any way of carting back all the beautiful stuff. We've managed to pack super light for this short leg up to Brasil and are trying to keep it that way.

From Montevideo we caught a bus to Porto Alegre in Brasil. A really different bus trip, we left our passports with the driver and woke up, unmolested, in a different country. Wow. And talk about comfy, the seat reclined to almost horizontal and there was dinner and drinks and breakfast served. Wow. As my Dad was off vacationing himself, we found our way to his new house in Santa Cruz do Sul. Gabriel met us and showed us around town and took us to Kim's first Churrascaria, a distinctly Brasilian way of cooking. She hasn't stopped talking about it since. The meat just keeps on coming.

Once my dad got back we immediately started making plans for a trip around the south. We decided to head to Cambara do Sul. This is where the highland fall, quite precipitously down into the Atlantic. Cambara is a sleepy cowboy town on the virge of a tourist explosion for its rustic charm. We stayed with a family sitting around the wood stove eating pinhão and drinking Chimarrão (mate). You should certainly follow the previous links to learn more about this. The pinhão is a seed from the huge pine trees and are either boiled or roasted on a fire. Both are delicious. Erva mate is a green tea that one make in a gord and drink through a metal straw. Most every Brasilian, Argentinian, and Urugayan has one of these gords in their hand and a thermos of hot water in the other.

We saw Fortaleza, a beautiful canyon where the river has cut into the flat prairie all the way down to the Atlantic and then on to Itaimbezinho water falls. This is where David almost died as he was washed over the edge before I gallantly saved his life. Well, OK, I was nearby. Its too hard to describe what a beautiful place this was so you're going to have to wait till we can upload the photos.

From there we decended to the coastal town of Capao de Canoa for the night. A wonderful Brazilian beach town with multicolored tile covered condos and fisherman with bamboo poles and fish dangling from their bicyles handlebars.

Finishing out our tour we passed through Porto Alegre for lunch, another churrascaria. We all got just the buffet bar, a common precursor to the onslaught of butchered animals. This works great for me as a vegetarian. Poor Nevia called over a waiter with a huge skewer of meat and said to him "look, I'm stuck with all these vegetarians, won't you do me a favor and slice off a chunk of meat for me". Poor woman, she almost went one whole meal without meat.

It's hard to believe that tomorrow we will begin heading back to BsAs and from there fly north to North Carolina on Monday. We are amazed that what took us 5 months to drive will be over in 12 short hours. We are sad too. We are happy too. We are excited to get home and see Saira and everyone else. We are more in love now than before we started. This was predicted by many, well, in the context of "you'll either be more in love, or divorced" at least.

Buenos Aires!

Here we are, in Buenos Aires, the destination of the trip. We made it! We arrived the day before Douglas´ birthday (he´s now officially old and decrepit) and have been enjoying this wonderful city ever since. We had a bit of a hard time finding parking at first, and driving here is scary (8 to 10 lanes of tiny zooming cars, lots of complicated traffic patterns), but once we parked the car, on Carlos´ recommendation, we were very relaxed.

We have also booked a spot on a northbound boat for LaTortuga. I think she´s looking forward to the hard-earned rest! A vacation at sea for the van. We found a company on the web called Transpack. They are based in BsAs and ship cars and the contents of homes wherever you want to go. We met with them, they gave us a quote for putting us on a boat next week, and that was that. They were very professional and the process looks like it will be simple. They do the customs paperwork in Argentina, and we will pick up the car in Norfolk, VA in 3 weeks!

We can´t quite believe that´s the end of our Latin American travels with the van. We still have two weeks, in which we´ll pass through Uruguay and head northeast to Douglas´ dad´s place in southern Brazil for a few days of visiting. Then we have to come back to BsAs to fly home on June 11 - plane tickets from here to Miami were less than half the price of tickets from anywhere in Brazil!

Right now we are at the home of an Argentinian VW enthusiast, Carlos, who contacted us by e-mail and offered us to stay at his home. Tomorrow he´s having a get-together of the BsAs VW club!! We´re very excited to meet everyone, including Cris and Barbara, who wrote Guapo´s blog and helped to inspire our trip.

We´ll be posting more entries on our travels in Argentina just as soon as we get a chance.

Argentina!

We are in heaven. Cancel your next faraway vacation plans and come to Argentina. It could not be better than this.
As soon as we crossed the border from Bolivia, things were different. The roads were paved. The officials were friendly, and didn’t ask you to stop your car and come into their dark little office by the side of the road. Amazingly, a customs officer looked inside our car when we were crossing the border (not necessarily a good thing…but the first time on the entire trip, and we’ve crossed 10 international borders) but he was very friendly also. He opened two cupboards full of food, some of which was contraband, shut them, and asked us if we had anything we shouldn’t. We both answered a rather weak ‘uh, no…’, he asked us how fast the van goes (we were worried this was a trick question and lowballed it), and sent us on our (paved!!!) way.

We drove for a few hours through some spectacular desert scenery, and arrived in Tres Cruces, a small town on the side of Ruta 9 south. The gendarme at the customs waypoint asked us where we were going, and we replied “uh, we’re not sure, maybe here?” He told us we could certainly sleep in the middle of the town, no problem, so we parked next to the church and then went looking for food in the little kioskos surrounding the central square.

This was our first clue that we were not in Bolivia anymore. The stores actually had something other than rotten fruit! We were overjoyed. We found tomatoes and garlic, some KitKatlike chocolate bars called Rhodesia (what Zimbabwe was called before independence, and we couldn’t resist – they were pretty good), and even some delicious sausage. Cecile and Alexandra would have been impressed – small salamis, juicy inside, covered in a very fine coating of white mold. Absolutely delicious, and we’re hooked. Douglas may have even tried a bite or two when I wasn’t looking. We’re debating how many we can store in the black ammunition box bolted to the bottom of the van. Should we write “400 Argentinian salamis” on the customs declaration? Maybe not….

The next morning we drove through the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a collection of absolutely gorgeous red and green (the ROCKS are green, not the vegetation) hills. We especially enjoyed the road signs and the fact that there were LINES on the road, something we haven’t seen since leaving North America. The windy track dropped us down several thousand feet in altitude, and we arrived in the charming town of Salta.

How to describe Salta…they really love their cake. We saw 8 shoes stores in a single block (Nathalie, these are your people). I even found some cute little shoes that fit my strange feet, brown with flowers embroidered on the sides. The central park is surrounded by cafés with outdoor seating, and lined with orange trees. People strolling in the park pick the oranges, for eating. There’s a very social vibe, and we enjoyed sitting in a café with WiFi, eating things with dulce de leche (caramel) on them and watching the people go by. Saltenos are into their beer, too – we often saw pairs of middle-aged women eating sausage and drinking beer at 11am. What a life. While eating French fries on the pedestrian mall, we decided we could live here, and that we were going to come back and work here for a spell. It is just too fabulous.

Unfortunately, we were having another car problem – the clutch slave cylinder was leaking, and the leak was getting worse. It all started in Quinta Lala, and we’d just been adding extra fluid until now, but in Salta the leak got worse, and we decided we needed to do something about it. So, the goose hunt was on. That’s what we call it when we go out to look for something we need but are pretty sure we won’t be able to find, like a clutch slave cylinder for a 1982 Vanagon. Inevitably, each store tells us they don’t have it, but the store 3 blocks away will have it for sure. This patterns proceeds for several iterations until we end up back at the first store.

We got a cabbie to take us to a VW repuestos place, and sure enough, he told us we’d have to go to Chile to find the part. But, of course, he gave us a closer option, too – the store down the road would certainly be able to rebuild the part for us. We set off in search of shop number two. The hunt was on. 3 stores later, Douglas boldly called an end to the hunt, removed the part on the side of the road, and took it inside. And lo and behold, they had just the right gasket to repair the leak!! He put the part back in, we bled the clutch, and were back in business.

We set off down the road (devoid of mummified dogs, washboard, and van-permeating dust) in search of the next place to stay. After a few more hours of brake-squealing scenery (lots of picture-taking) and some nice pottery craft homes on the side of the road, we arrived in Cafayate, a small wine-producing town in a landscape that looks surprisingly like California wine country. I guess wine country is wine country. We circled the central plaza along with lots of old Ford Falcons, Renault 3CVs, some unidentifiable but really old (and possibly homemade) small cars, and hordes of classy bicycles. We think there are perhaps more French cars here than in France. They’re well-maintained, though, and for probably the first time on this long trip, I don’t taste diesel in the back of my mouth from all the truck and bus exhaust.

At the south end of town, we found a campground (!!it’s hard to say how nice it is to be camped at an actual campground, instead of on the side of the road, or a chicken-filled parqueo, or a noisy central square) and then biked into town, to find a café that served wine on the sidewalk. We found one, and settled into several small bottles of delicious local wine, along with a spread of bread, cheese, olives, salami, ham, and chips. We watched the bicycles and old cars go by, and savored the social evening life – folks heading home with an armful of bread, or meeting friends in the square.

The next morning was lazy. We slept late, ate breakfast at our picnic table, and then biked into town to check e-mail, go to the bank, and look for more wine. We took tours at two bodegas, and one cheese making place, and came home laden with cheap, delicious wine and cheese, then settled into a nice dinner at our campspot.

There is something magical about the light here – or maybe it’s the friendly people, or the very relaxed ambiance. Maybe it’s the lack of body armor and razor wire…I’m not sure, but we feel very peaceful and at home. I’m feeling so relaxed at being in a place that has the trappings of civilization that I’m practically floating above the landscape. It’s still different and interesting – you can still buy coca at the corner store – but things work, there is the infrastructure people need to go about their daily lives, the food is good, and the wine is better. I don’t feel like people are scrabbling every day just to keep it together. Every country we’ve been to has been a great adventure, and glorious in its own way, but getting to a place with familiar infrastructure feels like a reward for completing an obstacle course - it’s very relaxing.

Tupiza

After a few more hundred km of washboard, we arrived in Tupiza, a southern miracle of a town nestled in a red rock river valley where Billy the Kid met his demise after robbing a bankroll train. We stayed parked in the yard of a cute little hotel in the middle of town (after I did some pretty fast talking – they didn’t want to let us stay), and had a nice time wandering around eating Saltenas (dough pockets filled with various yummy stuff, like chicken or olives or eggs), circling the central square, and generally soaking up the nice small-town ambiance. I’m really going to miss the Latin American central squares. They’re always full of people in the evening, taking a stroll after dinner, making out on park benches, eating ice cream, watching people go by. We would have liked to spend more time here, but were anxious to cross the border to Argentina and make our plans for the remainder of our trip. I did take time to visit Hotel Mitru’s fabulous book exchange, though - one of the best we’ve seen.

Dust

Once we left the salar, we grew back to our normal size, and lost our powers of super-high jumping. It was fun while it lasted.

We set off south, and passed through the town of Uyuni, that subsists solely on tourism. We have seldom seen a bleaker place. Everything was made of mud, brown and dusty. We bought what few things were available in the market, had the car washed to get the salt off, and then turned our tires southward, for Tupiza, and the border with Argentina.

We had heard that parts of the “road” from Uyuni to Tupiza were tricky, and we were a bit worried about the van making it. We had read about the infamous km 33 in Guapo’s blog, but forgot that it was just south of Uyuni, or we wouldn’t have attempted it so late in the day. In the distance, we saw dunes, and 4 big trucks, all stuck. As we got closer, we saw that the dunes lapped over the road, and the guys driving the trucks were trying to dig them out. We stopped and watched 2 trucks, a big orange Volvo and a beige petrol tanker, dig their wheels out and then power through the sand, driving as fast as they could, fishtailing the whole way. The sandy patch was about a foot deep, and probably 30 meters long.
There were 2 more trucks stuck at the other side, and we were still waiting and watching and trying to decide what to do. One of the newly-liberated truck drivers urged us to “go, go, go, now, now, now, while it’s light and there are people” who would have to help us, he said.
So, we did. Douglas gunned the engine and Tortuga powered through the foot-deep sand for about 5m. Then our low-hanging engine caught on the high-piled sand in the middle and acted like a brake. We were stuck, but good.
While we were thinking about how to extricate ourselves, we had to wonder why doesn’t someone do something about the road??? EVERYone got stuck, from big trucks to families in 4x4s. Everyone would get out to push, including grandmas in traditional dress (she did take her hat off), leaving the 12-year old to drive. He did great through the sand, even though he couldn’t really see over the steering wheel, but once he got to the road he stalled it, and someone bigger had to take over. Even the big commercial trucks were stuck, or at least waiting behind someone else who was stuck. This was everybody’s problem, clearly.
We know from Guapo’s blog that it’s been like this for at least 5 years – probably forever. Why don’t they build a wall to keep the dunes off the road? Or move the road? Or save up and buy a town grader and clear it now and then? But no. And that’s just one of many instances where we’ve seen the people here living with a stupid situation that could be fixed with a little ingenuity. Part of the third world, I guess, part of the adventure we came looking for.
In the end, the oncoming truck drivers didn’t offer to help us – they asked us to back up and get out of their way so they could get through. They did help us back up, and then they powered through and drove off into the sunset, leaving us on the side of the road. One small blue 4x4 opted to head off the road into the desert, going around the dunes, and he got through fine.
So now what are we to do?? We’re stuck on the side of the “road”, the sun is about to set, and we have 30m of dunes in front of us. We were planning to wild camp on the side of the road anyhow, so we considered staying where we were. But we didn’t like the thought of being right on the side of the road, or of waking up with the dune crossing staring us in the face. We thought about going around through the desert like the 4x4, but we weren’t sure we wouldn’t get stuck out there far from the road – worse than being stuck in the middle of the road, because no one has a reason to help you because you’re not in their way. Douglas wanted to go for it, and spend the evening digging our way out. We had 2 10’ long planks, and could have laid them out for traction. I, of course, was thinking about dinner, and didn’t want to spend an unknown number of hours digging in the sand in the dark. Not a fun day at the beach. We eventually agreed to go back up the road and look for a campspot, and tackle the sand in the morning, when there might be people to help.
As we were going back up the road, we saw the small 4x4’s tracks, emerging from the desert. We thought – what the hell, if we get stuck, we’ll camp there. We scouted it out on foot, and it seemed firm enough. We cautiously nosed the van down the 45 degree sand bank at the road’s edge, and into the desert. And the sand held us up!!!! We stomped and whistled and did little victory dances in our seats, then drove another few km and pulled off the road on someone else’s tracks to camp…
It got COLD that night, and we woke up to ice crystals on the insides of the windows, and a 2inch long icicle hanging from the tap. No water. Douglas started the car to heat it up a little, and it died after a few minutes. (Just a note – I would NOT want to attempt this trip without a mechanic!!!) After a couple of minutes he figured out that the fuel filter was probably clogged, took it out, and saw actual CHUNKS of gunk inside it. Luckily, he had presciently bought one just 2 days ago, so he popped it in and we were off.
We had 200km to go to get to Tupiza, and we were guessing it would take us 2 days. *2 days* to go 200km. That’s 120 miles. We weren’t choosing the crappiest road just for the fun of it – we were taking the “main” road from Uyuni to the Argentine border. The main track inevitably gets washed out, or too washboardy, so there are many alternate tracks. Several times we were driving along on one of the tracks, and then saw that we were being passed by another vehicle on a different track, just a few meters to one side, on a different and totally unreachable track. The thorns and soft sand in between usually prevented us from switching tracks.
On the way, we got lost – we had been following a riverbed south from the town of Atocha, and when the track split, part of it continuing with the riverbed, and part of it crossing over into the mountains on the other side, we kept following the riverbed. The “road” deteriorated, and I discovered that I kind of like off-road driving (driving on the road in Bolivia is pretty much like driving off-road anywhere else) and am kind of good at it. We also saw a lake full of pink flamingoes, which made the unscheduled detour worth it. Eventually we arrived in a small mining town named Atasi, and were told we had missed the ‘detour’ many miles back and should turn around. The old road, marked on our map, has been phased out and they’ve made a new one. This is easier than it sounds, to be sure, involving little more than driving a 4x4 back and forth a few times and naming the resulting signless track the “road”.
So, turn around we did, retracing our steps with comments like, “o, there’s the mummified dog we saw earlier” and “it looks like the flamingoes have left their lake” and “aha, the llama herd, we must be on the right track.”
I keep calling Bolivia a wasteland, but Douglas clucks his tongue at me and says we’ve only seen a tiny corner of it. He’s a perpetual optimist. And he’s right. But this tiny corner is a wasteland. Every breath tastes of dust. Every possible nook and cranny of the van is covered in a thick coating of fine brown dust. I don’t think we’ll ever get rid of it all. The roads are washboardy dirt tracks through the empty desert, if you’re lucky – otherwise you just follow everyone else’s tracks through the riverbed. Towns of 200,000 don’t have supermarkets, their tourist offices are closed and full of broken furniture, and you can’t buy bottled water in jugs larger than 2L. Every time you ask for something, the answer is “no hay” (there’s none), usually accompanied by a scandalized look, as if to say “why would you think that was available??”
The one thing Bolivia has in abundance is silence. Every night we have found a little spot off the road to park the van, angling it so its new shiny reflective tape (Peruvian law) won’t catch passing headlights and attract unwanted and possibly unfriendly attention. We’ve seen pink flamingos and emus. Our ears are ringing from the silence. And that’s nice. We think maybe Bolivia is the kind of place that takes time and patience to appreciate. Maybe next time.

Bolivia Blur

Alas, we can see the bottom of our pot of gold. Every country we’ve visited has kept us longer than we had planned and now we need to book it to Buenos Aires to get the van and us back to North America (to start saving up for the return to the countries we’ve missed). Our plan from here is to stuff the car into a box in BA, travel by bus through Uruguay and on to my Dad’s house in Southern Brazil. Then we’ll fly to NC to meet the car, pack our stuff into the trailer and visit folks on our way to Vancouver. Of course Moab is on the way – anyone interested in meeting us out there?

Upon crossing the border into Bolivia it was immediately apparent that the pace of things here are just a bit more relaxed. I had to wake up the border guard to get the car paper work done. Probably a boring job considering everyone just went around the other side of the building with all their goods piled high on the trici-taxis. The large sign proclaiming the need to declare your goods was an amusing detail. Then a local policeman tried to charge us for crossing the bridge, which we had already paid someone on the other side. On the advice of the immigration guys we just drove by him, he gave chase for about 20 meters on foot until we disappeared around a corner. Had he run a bit further he would have caught us stuck behind a parade that covered the entire street with people in amazingly colourful indigenous regalia, gold and red and yellow, playing pan pipes and dancing.

We soon get to our first police check point. This is a gate across the road and a small building. We sit in the van for a spell waiting – nothing. Finally I get out and walk over to the building, this is apparently how its done! He says I need to pay a voluntary amount of 10 Bolivianos. I say that’s too much, half distracted by the porn calendar posters hanging up behind him, and end up giving him the 1USD. On the smaller roads the local traffic would just drive under the raised gates, and upon seeing us the cop would walk out, lower the gate, and walk back into his shack, evaluating how much of a donation we are worth. By the time we got to Tupizza, in the south, Kim gets into a very un-Canadian argument with the cop about the terrible condition of the roads and the lack of signage and that she’s just not going to pay. Actually, I guess that’s very Canadian, expecting every thing to be in order and just so.

The paved roads in Bolivia are excellent, much like Peru’s. Unfortunately the main attraction that I wanted to see is the largest salt flat in the world, the Salar de Uyuni, and it is not on a paved road. A quick squiz at the map and the Salar looks bigger than lake Titicaca and the 500km of secondary road was no deterrent. The pavement ends just south of Huari. The beginning seemed much like any other dirt road and we decided that the reports of needing a 4x4 were exaggerated.


We spent the night near the road just south of Rio Mulatos after a long day of washboard and river crossings.

The sunset was great and then there was the silence. All you could hear was the blood running through your ears. I just sat for an hour listening to the silence. While eating breakfast after a great night in the altiplano I said ‘hey look, emus!’ Kim, the biologist, looks up sleepily from her oats and says, no, those are just llamas. Then she looks again, drops her oats and lunges for the binoculars. Emus!

Then came THE detour. A sign said ‘this way for the direct route to Uyuni’ Here the road started following river beds, this would be the case for a quarter of the trip to Uyuni, and deteriorated into tracks across the desert and river crossing that created bow waves that washed up onto the windscreen. This is when the joke ‘this looks like the main road’ started, Kim would say this anytime we were on a track that looked like it had been used in the last year. At a high point we actually pulled out the binoculars trying to see anything at all. We spotted a village in the distance and headed for it. Upon arriving a guy comes running out to greet us. It turns out he’s been waiting for days for a ride to Uyuni, and he knows the way. He says its just three of them and I see two kids next to their packed bag. Sure I say, that shouldn’t be too much extra weight for Tortuga. He’s practically kicking up his heels as he runs back to collect his wife, mother in law, everything they own, and the two kids (I guess kids don’t count). They fill the entire back of the van. Thank god for the new air-springs! This is when Tortuga really came through, climbing slick rock, ploughing through hundreds of meters of soft sand, climbing impossible ravines. It really reminded me of a 4x4 trip to Moab with David – except we didn’t have any beer with us here. I know if David were here that would never have happened!


The Salar didn’t so much appear, as the ground in front of the distant mountains disappear. Then the horizon started turning white. I knew the last two days of goat tracks across the dessert would be worth it. We deposited the family on the main road in Colchani, the entrance to the Salar. The Salar isn’t like the salt flats in the US, its actually the remnants of an ocean and is still 100 meters deep with a ½ meter crust of salt on top. There’s the danger of going through but we decided if we followed other tracks we should be OK on our way out to Isla Pescado an island made of petrified corral and covered in huge cacti, pretty surreal, 70km across the salt. Getting onto the salt is reportedly the tricky part although everything was nice and dry for us and it was pretty easy.



Right at the edge there are guys piling salt into neat little piles to dry, by hand of course. Driving on the perfectly flat salt with its hexagon pattern is amazing. We kept wanting to call it ice. Arriving at Isla Pescado, thank golly for GPS, we parked on the shore on the opposite side of the tourist area thinking this would be free. It’s not, 10 Bolivianos each that goes into a fund for the local community, this year its for electrification of the village

We spent the evening riding bikes, cooking, listening to the silence, enjoying one of the best sunsets of the trips and watching the Salar change colours with the changing light. And we ended this wonderful day in a very decadent way – watching Battlestar Galactica. Thank you Darcey for giving us the idea to download them through ITunes.

Turbo Liberation

Arriving at the Lima airport (very nice flight on an Airbus 319) I haggled a cab down from 40 Soles to 25 Soles (10USD) to take me to DHL. On the way there he tells me that today is a national holiday and they will be closed. This, in addition to the fact that DHL was across the road from the airport did not put me in the best spirit. After calling him a thief he offered to take me anywhere I wanted to go for another 15 Soles. I asked him if he understood what I had just said, about him being a crook and all. Being in the middle of an industrial zone I decided to have him take me to Miraflores. This is a suburb of Cusco reputed to ‘not be in Peru’.

Once I got settled in at a nice hostel in Miraflores I set off exploring. Everyone was right, the convertible Lexus’s, Land Rover Disco’s and Limo’s made me feel like I was in Cary. And then there was Vivandas. It’s a Whole Foods, only with nicer produce (in addition to the SA fruits) and it’s 24hrs. Not Peru.

The electric fences around every house and private guards with Uzzi’s on every corner affirmed that these people were uncomfortable with their wealth in a country dominated by poverty.

The beaches are stunning. Comprised of stones about fist size, the receding waves make a magnificent sound. I spent several hours just sitting and listening.

Then I stumbled across LarcoMar. A very upscale mall, complete with a Starsucks. I took in a movie.

The next morning, I arrived at DHL at 8:30 and waited for over an hour for Milton Velasquez. I don’t think his employee manual translated the “express” in DHL Express. I was then told I needed to go and plead my case with Customs (window 14 he tells me). At the customs house I started the standard goose hunt. Window 14 only does packages over 50 kilos, you need window 7 I was told. No, you need window 4, actually, you need Jorge Torres in window 2. Jorge didn’t let me finish telling him about how I’m on honeymoon and my wife is in Cusco before he sprang to action. He called over an assistant to pull my paper. Run run he said. He called DHL and told them to release the package to me within the hour. He begged my pardon and yelled to a DHL employee in the customs area to have him take me in the DHL van back to the DHL building. By this time he was speaking such fast Spanish I didn’t catch most of it but before I knew it I was back at DHL. Milton dragged himself down to meet me, obviously post verbal lashing by the guy in a suit behind him. This guy apologized profusely for the hold up and sent me out the door with the brand new turbo. There was supposed to be 150USD import duty but no one said anything about it. I sprinted around the first corner.

I walk across the street to the airport and had missed the last plane to Cusco by 10 minutes. Drats, another night in Lima with no Kim. The next flight was at 4am. OUCH. I booked a seat on it and headed back to Miraflores. My plan was to watch a late movie and head back to the airport and practice my juggling until 4.

As luck would have it, Spiderman 3 opened at midnight. I could occupy my entire evening strolling the wonderful parks of Miraflores and watching movies! Not to spoil it for my readers, but the guy next to me in Spiderman slept with his head on my shoulder through most of it.

A cab got me back to the airport just in time to check in and get on the flight. I had been very careful with seat selection so that I could see the wonderful Andes from the other side of the plane. Walking onto the runway in the dark made me realize this was all for naught.

Flying back over the countryside we had driven a month ago was like Cliff Notes. The desert leading into green valleys leading into snow covered peaks. Wonderful!

I’m writing this parked on the main square of Chuquito next to the police station. There are 2 marching bands consisting of two drummers and 10-15 guys playing pan pipes dueling it out! Pan pipes!! These aren’t the guys you see in tourist restaurants, playing ABBA for Europeans and North Americans. These are guys in jeans, with backpacks on, and maybe a beer in their hand, stomping around in the square with their neighbours and friends, rocking out on their pan pipes. This is fantastic.

Or, it would be, if after two hours they’d played more than one song, over and over and over…!

SNAFU

We have been really enjoying a lot of the things that make the third world the third world - the markets, the riotous colors, the anything-goes attitude. Of course, there is a flip side to that coin, and right now it is staring us in the face - the corruption, the brainless bureaucrats, the ENDLESS hassle.

We decided to have the turbo shipped to us from the US, at great expense, because the van won't go without it. Well, actually it will, but it will only have about 25-30 hp, and we would be driving to Argentina at 20 mph. That wouldn't be any fun, and we still have thousands of miles to go before the end of our trip.

So, we found a turbo, and had it shipped to us by DHL.

On Monday, yesterday, it arrived in Lima. This is where things got $%^&#$ed up. We got an e-mail saying that they couldn't import our package into the country because importation of used car parts isn't allowed.

First, the turbo is brand new. Our shipper didn't mark the box labelled 'used' on the DHL label. So we don't know why they think it's used. Doubtless some nasty bureaucrat is trying to line his pockets and make our lives difficult.

Second, we're not trying to import the part - we're in transit, and will be leaving this backwater as soon as we can put it in our car and drive away.

Sigh. There was no convincing anyone of this over the phone, so this morning, Tuesday, May 1, Douglas got on a plane to Lima, on a mission to liberate the turbo from the dastardly customs agents. He has a real flair for convincing government officials that they would rather help than hinder us. I think it's his cute smile.

Unfortunately, we didn't realise (and the folks we talked to yesterday at DHL didn't tell us, even though we said he was coming to Lima today), that today is a national holiday and EVERYTHING is closed. So poor Douglas is stuck in Lima by himself, waiting for customs to open so he can argue with corrupt bureaucrats. Lima's not exactly a nice city (to put it mildly) - it's huge, dirty, and has more than its share of crime and corruption.

That's all for today - I'm off to make voodoo dolls of witless customs agents.

o, and keep an eye out for new posts from a while ago - I'm working on catching up on our blogging from while Beulah was visiting us. I'll post them in the order they occurred, so the new ones won't always be at the top.

Ay, Caramba

The roads have been hard on poor la Tortuga, and the turbo is broken.

The little thing inside that spins is supposed to have .5mm of wiggle, and it has 4mm!! So we’re stuck in Cuzco for a few days at least (we hope not more) waiting for a part. It’s Sunday the 29 of April, and we’ve been here for…2 weeks already.

Luckily, we couldn’t be stuck in a nicer place. Quinta Lala is a haven. It has everything we need, is right in a wonderful city, and is chock full of friendly and interesting travelers. We’ve probably met more people here than we have on our entire trip. We’ve been having a great time exchanging stories, places to camp, road recipes, and drinking boxed red wine. Apparently in Chile, all the wines come in boxes as well as bottles, and the quality is the same. It probably has something to do with the roads, and the impossibility of transporting glass bottles intact on terrible dirt or gravel roads. We certainly appreciate it!!

Douglas has been making friends by fixing everyone’s trucks – so far he has fixed Colin and Liz’s Ford (twice – that’s Ford for you) and two Land Rovers. We’ll see who’s next.

In the meantime, we’re taking advantage of the time to organize our lives. We have 6 weeks of travel left, at which point we’ll ship the van from Buenos Aires (assuming we make it there!) to the east coast of the US, where we’ll pick up our dog, Saira (she decided she didn’t want to come on this trip – too much time in the car). The van will be 3 weeks in transit, and we plan to spend that time visiting friends in NC and Boston, then we’ll pack everything in the van and drive over to Vancouver, where we’ll settle.

In the meantime, here’s an update of where we’ve been this year, and how long it’s taken us:

USA, NC to Texas: 2000 miles in 4 days
Central America, Mexico to Panama: 4000 miles in 2 months
South America, Ecuador to Peru: 3000 miles in 1 month

So far we’ve traveled 9000 miles, and we think we have between 2500 and 3500 miles to go, depending on which way we go, and what the roads are like. We hear they're pretty bad in Bolivia, but quite good in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil.

And, yes, people actually say ‘Ay, caramba’ here. It’s my new favorite curse. I don’t know exactly what it means, but the taxi drivers say it whenever something goes wrong.

Altiplano and Sillustani Ruins

On our way back to Cuzco, we decided to stop at the Sillustani ruins near Puno. We turned off the main ‘highway’ onto a small road that wound its way through a bewitching altiplano landscape.



At one particularly beautiful adobe compound, we stopped to take pictures, and the friendly family living there waved us in to see more. The kids were all wearing multicolored hats, and one of the women was wearing my new favorite type of hat, a tiny brown bowler perched at an angle, with a little tassle.



They showed us around their home, composed of several small round adobe buildings surrounding a courtyard.



In the back was a small pen for guinea pigs, a local delicacy. In this picture you can just see that there is a small hutch at the back for them to hide in, with a hole as a doorway. One of the guinea pigs was too fat to fit through the doorway anymore – we figured he was going to be lunch!!



When they were done showing us around the rest of the house, they took us into the weaving room and showed us their wares. Of course. Everyone’s gotta make a living. We bought one weaving made of llama, rather than the usual alpaca. Llama fiber is usually used for ropes, and has a coarser texture. It was actually quite soft, though, and reminds me of raw silk in its combination of strength and suppleness. The undyed llama wool had a really lovely shading of colors from palest cream to warm brown. One of my favorite textiles. I wish I had a picture of it to include, but I forgot to take one before I sent it back to NC with Beulah – she generously offered to take some of our extraneous junk home so we could have room to move in the van again!

Finally, since we will be passing through this way again (if we ever get our car part and get to leave Cuzco), we took some family portraits, promising to print them and give them to the family on our way back through. They were quite amazed that they could see the picture immediately on the screen of our digital camera.



Next we headed over the Sillustani ruins, which are pre-incan funerary towers.



I also got this nice picture of a woman spinning by the side of the path:



And just before we got back to Cuzco we passed through a small town fill to the brim with Sunday marketgoers in all their finery. The hats are just splendid.

Lake Titicaca

After seeing Machu Picchu, we took a rest day and then headed south to the other main attraction in southern Peru, Lake Titicaca, home of the famous floating islands. The drive through the altiplano was stunning, with big snow-capped mountains on either side. We only made it as far as Pucara, unfortunately, and ended up staying in one of the eccentric “Turistic Hotels” that are so plentiful in Peru. We took off early the next morning for Puno, and arrived early in the day. We got Beulah settled into a hostel, and we found a parqueo run by a friendly family, then grabbed a taxi to see some of the small towns scattered along the southern shore of Lake Titicaca.

We went first to Chucuito, which is famous for its Temple of Fertility. As soon as the taxi pulled into the central square of the sleepy little town, two small kids approached and offered to be our guides. They of course had finger puppets on, hoping to make a sale. They were quite the young entrepreneurs, and even had a sales pitch worked up where they spoke in unison in sing-song voices. We were a little weirded out at the thought of having the Temple of Fertility explained to us by 5-year olds, but decided that they were old pros, and so we hired them.



The Temple is an old Inca site where women would come to make offerings of coca, hoping the gods would favor them with children. The central part of the temple, which no longer has a roof, is filled with carved stone phalluses, some as big as 4 feet! The older guide told us most of the story, then poked his business partner in the side to get her attention, and they ended by saying “and that concludes the story of the Temple of Fertility” in unison. They were pretty cute. When we paid them, we asked them who got to keep the money, and they said it all went straight to their mother, so we paid them with some chocolate, as well.



On our way back to Puno, we stopped at the tiny lakeside village of Chimu, where they are famous for making the reed boats. It must have been the wrong season or day, because we didn’t see any boat building, only reed-drying. Luckily, there was one small house that doubled as a museum and boat souvenir store, so we stopped. We first looked around the museum, where they had a spectacular collection of replicas of local birds and animals, and a large reed boat carrying the Inca King and his wife. It was pretty impressive, so we resolved to buy a small boat or two.

When we went downstairs, some of the boatmakers came out of their boatmaking room/living room to answer our questions, and to ask questions of their own about where we are from, what it’s like, etc. It turned out that one of the boatmakers was also a boat racer, who regularly takes part in (and wins!) the annual reed boat race on October 22.

The next day we took a guided tour out to the floating islands. The boat was typical for here, and only had one speed. When they wanted to start or stop it, the captain would leave the wheel and head to the back of the boat, lift a wooden cover on a hatch, and fiddle with the engine. Typical, yes. Safe, maybe not.

We arrived on the floating islands to see a veritable army of locals ready to greet us and sell us things. Our tour group sat in a semicircle to listen to the story of the floating islands, and to taste totora, the reed used to build both the boats and the islands. How multipurpose can you get?



Totora is extremely rich in fluoride; here is a picture of Douglas and Beulah getting a full day's worth of fluoride in one bite:



The folks who built the Uros Islands speak Aymara, a different language from most of the indigenous people in Peru, who speak Quechua. They are originally from the Amazon Basin, if I’m remembering correctly. They were persecuted by other nations in the area, and began living on floating islands to evade conflict with their neighbours.
The islands are built by first cutting free a big mat of entwined totora roots from the edge of the lake. This mat floats to the top, and successive layers of totora reeds are laid on top. Every so often (depending on the season, as often as once a week) new reeds are laid down. After 20 years or so, the islands are so thick that they touch the bottom and have to be abandoned because of danger of flooding in the rainy season.

The boats are built out of totora reeds, as well. Originally they were made of pure totora reeds, and would only last for 3 months. Nowadays, though, the builders incorporate layers of plastic bottles, and the boats last for 2.5 years.



Overall, the visit to the islands was a bit of a mixed bag, and we have debated a fair amount about what to make of it. On the one hand, it was incredibly touristy, almost Disneyfied. Each island was essentially a floating souvenir shop, and we felt not just that these folks’ lives were impacted by the tourist trade, but that their lives were shaped by and for the tourist trade and almost nothing else. They were like a living museum exhibit.





On the other hand, they have found a way to preserve their unique way of life. Their community seemed fairly intact, and we didn’t get the impression that many families were split up because the husband (and maybe the kids, too) had left to work in a big city. They also seemed to be doing fairly well. The proceeds from the tourist visits are shared among the community, and have been used to build a big school, and to provide amenities like solar panels and international telephones on the island. In that respect, at least, the development was positive – the money is really going back to the community, and is being used productively.



Still, I don’t know if I would want to live in Disneyland, even if there were solar panels and good schools.

Enough seriousness - here is a video of a trici-taxi ride we took on our way to eat delicious cake in Puno. And a photo of the trici-taxis, which are quite common, and very fast!!

Machu Picchu

This amazing archeological site is often the highlight of many folks' trip to South America, and we are no different. Yes they bludgeon you as a tourist with a ‘special’ $73 US train ride and $12 bus ride and $40 entrance fee, BUT, the moment the sun rises above the site, producing a magical double rainbow behind the caretakers hut that all becomes irrelevant.

We started the journey on the 7am train from Cuzco and four hours later arrived in Aguas Calientes. Many paint a dismal picture of this town but I went in thinking of it like a ski resort and found it charming. The food and lodging was actually reasonably priced. We even had a magnificent 3 course meal at Indio Feliz, carefully prepared by a French chef and served by his attentive wife. All for $12. And of course we had to go back again for another round of the amazing desert.

In order to see sun rise, and avoid the crowds, we caught the 5:30am bus. We hired a guide, Ernesto, whom I wouldn’t recommend, and began the tour by climbing to the caretakers hut. This is where the Inca trail enters the site and from where the classic MP photos are taken. From there we descended to the main entrance, more wonderful rock work. I could go on and on for hours, but the pictures in the MP album may be more useful.



After the tour, my Mum headed back to Aguas Calientes and Kim and I climbed the narrow stairs to Wayna Pichu, the astronomers hang out high above the city. This was very well worth the hour hike and the clouds cleared just long enough for us to snap a couple photos of MP below.



Some of the coolest things about MP: Built around 1400 it was basically a university. The terraces were used to experiment with crops facing different directions and encompass multiple microclimates as they climb the slopes.



The water works are amazing! Channels carved into the rock with 16 water falls. The first water fall is ceremonial and the next 15 are for getting clean drinking water.



The round carved stones used to tie the roofs on and hold the doors closed.



The incorporation of the natural stone outcroppings into the buildings.



When we arrived in the morning it was drizzling rain and we feared the weather may not cooperate for us. But just as the sun rose the clouds parted a bit presenting us with a rainbow and a mystical Machu Picchu. The weather held all day with some light drizzle from time to time. We couldn’t have asked for better weather or a more wonderful day.



The train ride home was pleasant. I especially enjoyed the zigzag rail as you enter Cuzco. To overcome the steep climb out of the city, the train tracks zigzag, with an operator jumping out and switching the track at every zag, very similar to the Nariz del Diablo in Ecuador.

Pisac Market and Ruins

Once we had looked around Cuzco a little bit, we decided to head to Pisac for its famous Sunday market. There are also some Inca ruins nearby (there are ruins everywhere in this area – a 5 minute walk from our campground there are some small, unmarked ruins). The market was the usual mixture of touristy crafts and everyday things for the locals, and we very much enjoyed looking around at everything. Beulah and Douglas tried out some choclo, which is local corn with HUGE kernels, very tasty:





We decided to pass on the local remedy for joint and muscle pain, though:



After we had had a good look around the market, and sat in the shade to drink some coffee, we decided to take a short taxi ride to the Pisac ruins. The site was divided into two major parts, the agricultural part, and the ceremonial part. There were numerous curved terraces for growing crops in the agricultural section.



And there were ceremonial baths where pilgrims could purify themselves before entering the ceremonial section.



The site was sprawling, and involved a lot of climbing along narrow winding paths that hugged the steep cliffsides.

Cuzco and Sacsayhuayman

So we arrived in Cuzco the day before Beulah was due to arrive and settled into the wonderful campground of Quinta Lala. It’s run by a Dutch couple, Gonna and Helmie, and is just perfect. It has everything an overlander needs, including lots of other overlanders to talk to!! And, my favorite, just about every morning a herd of alpacas comes in to graze the lawn.



Beulah arrived the next day, quite early in the morning. We picked her up at the airport, then got her settled into the one small room at Quinta Lala (usually reserved for campers rained out of their tents).

We went first to Sacsayhuayman (it sounds a little like sexy woman), the Inca ruins that are right next door to our camp spot. They are built on a ridge that overlooks the city of Cuzco, and the stones used in the construction are absolutely gargantuan. It was our first sight of the famous Inca stonework, and it was truly impressive. The largest stone weighs more than 350 tons, and some of the join work defies the imagination – one stone can have as many as 30 angles! These gargantuan stones fit together perfectly, with not even enough room to slide a piece of paper between them.



The Incas were engineers, all right. Their constructions were remarkably earthquake-proof, as well, and have survived a number of large earthquakes that leveled most other nearby buildings. All of the walls have a slight angle, between 8 and 14 degrees, that makes them more stable. They are also built on a foundation of small, round stones, so that when the earthquake hits, the walls can shift on their rolling foundations without collapsing. Amazing.



We had a guide to explain the site to us, and we really enjoyed hearing the extra information. Otherwise it would have just been another beautiful pile of rocks. We wouldn’t have known that Cuzco is built in the shape of a puma, and that Sacsayhuayman is the puma’s head, since it was the ceremonial site. Nor would we have known that the Incas carved their stones with meteorites, and slid them into place on huge leaves of aloe, which then served to help glue the stones together.

The name Saxsayhuaman means satisfied falcon. The site was renamed when the Spaniards slaughtered hundreds of Incas here, and their bodies were left out for the falcons to eat.

After dragging poor Beulah around this pile of rocks (she had come up to 3300m from sea level, and was feeling the altitude) we decided to take a turn around Cuzco and see what we could see. The city is absolutely gorgeous. Tiny river stone streets wind their way in between lovely colonial buildings, some of them with remnants of Inca stonework at the base. The buildings off the central square have elaborately carved wooden balconies. And mountains ring the city, giving you a sense of distance and space whenever you look up from the lovely architecture. Here is a picture of the narrow streets:



It is, of course, VERY touristy, and every time you step into the square you are swarmed by folks trying to sell you finger puppets, postcards, or dinner in their restaurant. Beside the expensive restaurants are stores that sell jewelry and fine alpaca sweaters for hundreds and thousands of U$. But somehow it’s still a nice city.

Another tactic often used to part tourists from their dollars is to dress up in traditional garb, pose with a well-brushed llama or alpaca, and ask for money for taking photos. We took some funny pictures of these two boys with their llamas.



And as we were walking down a central street, looking for coffee and cake, an indigenous woman in full regalia stuffed a baby goat into my arms, and then demanded money for a photo. The goat of course started to poop, and I nearly dropped it. But we got a photo anyhow, and Douglas helped me pick the little balls of goat poop off my clothes afterwards.



After some cake, to revive us, we headed over to a local craft cooperative called the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cuzco. Here they try to preserve the weavers’ art by selling really fine woven goods for fair trade prices, and encouraging children in villages to learn spinning, dyeing, and weaving from their grandparents. In the center of the store, surrounded by the beautiful and varied types of weaving produced by different village traditions, were four weavers using backstrap looms. All the thread is hand-dyed with natural materials, hand-spun with drop spindles, and then woven into intricate patterns. It was incredible to watch – the amount of time needed to produce a single row of weaving was impressive. Here is a video of a weaver at work:



And I can't close this blog entry without mentioning that sweet sweet Beulah brought us the porta potti we've been looking for in every city since Antigua. We are both pleased as punch. Here is a picture of Douglas testing it out: