¿Its a what?

Nadja the apple smuggler got arrested while we were crossing the border back to Chile. What ensued was lots of laughing, lots of waiting, and some eyebrow furling.

It happened like this:

2:58 pm - Nadja X-rays her appleful bag at the Chilean border crossing
2:59 pm - a dog discoveres a half eated grilled cheese sandwich on our neighbor, and nobody cares
3:01 pm - The apples (2) in question are found in Nadja the apple thief's bag.
3:03 pm - The perpetrators (2 apples) get photographed and weighed (0.35 kg)
3:05 pm - We bid farewell to Nadja the terrorist as she is escorted to the interrogation room
3:33 pm - We laugh about the ridiculousness of the situation over and over again
3:35 pm - we laugh some more
3:46 pm - we stop laughing
3:52 pm- Nadja Bin Laden is released with a 25 Euro fine and lots of paperwork

We dont want apples entering Chile because there might be fruitflies in them which can close markets, lose millions of pesos and cause mass unemployment. I wish I was making this stuff up, but the large poster at the border did it for me.

The Next Post

I have never been so tired as the 2 days after Valparaíso. We finally reached Mendoza -Argentina's wine country - at 4:30 am after crossing the moon-soaked Andes that night. We actually slept until 6 or so on a bench at the bus terminal along with a bunch of homeless people with their hands in their pants (don't ask).

Since we had lugged our camping gear with us we had the bright idea to go camping in this city of 1 million people and started finding out how to do it. We finally took 2 taxis to the middle of nowhere- completely out of town, and, logically had them drop us off in the middle of the middle of nowhere, where we then had to walk 20 min to the campsite that was closed for the season making us walk another 20 min to another campsite which 60 schoolkids had rented out for the whole month. Tired, dejected, and pissed at ourselves we took a bus back to town which we couldn´t pay for cuz NOBODY IN THIS COUNTRY HAS CHANGE. So the bus driver told us to get off (in the middle of nowhere, of course), so we panicked and foraged together a few coins for our ticket.

We had no idea where the bus was taking us or where we needed to be, so we just picked a random moment to get off, and were never so happy to find a hostel at our feet. That's what happens when you get less than 4 hours of sleep for 2 consecutive days. We then slept and slept and did the park tour of European Mendoza that afternoon. People here are even more white than in Chile and there are basically no indigenous people left. That and everybody's last name seems to be Lombardi, di Tommaso, or Abruzzi.

Well, the next day could only be better. And it was. We rented bikes in Maipu (pronounced my-poo for those who are interested) and did a tour of this winemaking territory which resembled exactly that of Toscana or southern France. We visited wineries and degustated some good Argentinean wine as well as olive oil and chocolate liquor (Mmmmm).

Upon our return the superflously nice bike people invited us for a glass of wine and some laughter with their pet parrot. To end the day we watched a Maná tribute band play great covers at a Mexcian restaurant before tiredly settling into our beds.

Valparaíso

Valparaíso is not Viña del Mar, which also isn't Reñaca or Zappallar. Except that Viña del Mar is practically Valparaíso which then makes you assume that so is Reñaca when in fact it isnt.

This coagulation of names is THE Chilean seaside city where everyone comes to relax on the beach or party at night. I followed the group's directions and arrived in the crappiest looking plaza in the world on top of a distant hill full of burnt taxis (ok, so it was just one burt taxi). I then started to worry that my friends were [more] deranged [than they already are] and that had sent me to my death.

Well... no. It turns out they found a great little apartment with terrace, kitchen and all on this random hill between the two cities. So the days we spent here were even lazier than Santiago, waking up no earlier than noon and spending the next few hours watching TV and eating breakfast on the porch. Then at around 3 or so we'd walk around town, or go visit Monica's relatives´swimming pool in Reñaca, or the port.

The last night we made chicken and partied our hearts out in an empty club till early morning. That probably wasnt the smartest thing to do when we had to leave early the next morning, and our bodies made us suffer for it.

The next day we leisurlyly (my conjugation mechanism's off) woke up and took the bus to Santiago where we spent the day walking up Cerro San Cristobal for breathtaking views of the city while waiting for our 10pm bus to Mendoza, Argentina which reached at 4:30 am and started a catastrophic chain of events leading to us feeling stupid and losing $4. But I'll leave that for the next post.

Full Circle

Santiago is Europe. Its about as developed as much of the western world and it was a huge shock, especially coming from Bolivia - the poorest country in South America.

Santiago has large tree lined avenues, modern buildings, an efficient metro and, uuh... music in the streets. It was great seeing my birthplace for practically the first time, even though I've been told that its changed a lot. In fact in front of my parents´old apartment is the modest looking Santiago Ritz-Carlton. We found a groovy hostel in a huge old house for the first night, and spent the whole afternoon laying in Barrio Brésil's park, eating ice cream and reading in the grass.

The next day we added a 5th person to our travelling circus in the name of Nadja Jing. Click here for her blog. Yes, we now have 4 blogs for 5 people. That means you get to read 4 renditions of the exact same events 4 different times. And if anyone manages to do that and stay awake they get a free smoking monkey.

Now as I was saying, we were lazy for most of our Santiago stay, finding a great hotel with TV (we're TV deprived, ok.) and a garden. We spent most days waking up late and wondering the various parts of the city in search for tents and parks to lay in.

One day we randomely saw a soccer game after power-walking through most of the city looking for Moncia (who was in a meeting). We got to watch Chile vs Peru in the completely red national stadium surrounded by snow capped Andean peaks. Pretty cool. Chile beat a lethargic Peru 2-0 and we were satisfied.

Some time after (ok, so I lose track of days... you know time doesn't really exist anyways) the rest of the circus went to Valparaiso while I stayed back to track down some of my parents' old friends. I was able to meet them all and it was thorroughly enjoyable seeing them and hearing about my short childhood spent in Santiago.

Oh yea, and some time before we decided to be rebels and Tattoo and pierce ourselves. So SM got a lotus on her back, Nadja got a nose piercing, and I got a pokemon sticker.

Northern Chile

No, really. Its time to make sense. Snhkkkkk.

So as I was saying, we arrived in San Pedro de Atacama tired and sweatered only to find an adobe bricked little village in the middle of lots of sand. We were about to despair about the lack of hotel rooms when we found a nice one with a courtyard and picnic tables and in other news a French Baguette Guy. This makes no sense. Anyways, the next day we rented bikes and sandboards and did the dunes in style.

I have never had so much sand in so many places before. We spent most of the time walking up an enormous sand dune and the rest we spent falling down it. It was fun. SM did the best descent, going halfway perfectly and then falling in great style and rolling everywhere (see video below). Yes the little black dot is her.





The afternoon was spent watching France lose the Rugby world cup (hee hee) and the next day we took the longest bus ride OF OUR LIVES for 24 hours all the way to Santiago.

San Pedro de Atacama

After a grrrrrrrrrrryu we had some tea. n hkkk.

It was fun. the end.

Superlatives bath

I can now die happy.

In Bolivia we went on a 3 day tour of the biggest salt lake on earth and an extremely amazing national park. It was amazingly epostouflante. Like being on another planet... we went from bleak stretches of white salty infinity to islands completely drenched in cactuses, we drove through a 4ooo meter high desert, blood-red lagoons, emerald-green lakes pierced by towering volcanoes and populated by bright pink flamingos.

It was probably the greatest most mind-blowingly splendid fabulously incredible (etc, etc) trip I've done in my life.

We began our journey in Uyuni, a little western town in the middle of nowhere bordering this immense salt lake. We shopped around for a few tour agencies, and spent most of the day laying around in streetside cafes eating panqueques and.

We left late next morning in our 1985 Toyosa Land Cruiser with us 4, two British guys, our driver slash guide- Manuel and our cook. We bumped through the desert for a few minutes before reaching the train cemetary, where all the trains from the 1800s went to die. We then continued to the salt flats, first visiting a salt making factorty. The process is surprisingly simple.

1. Scrape salt off ground

2. Heat salt to dry it

3. Crush salt & add iodine

4. Package salt

The salt flats are 12 meters of solid salt resting upon a huge lake, which, in the rainy season becomes completely saturated with water resulting in 5cm of it covering the whole flats. After much ooohing and aahing at the salt, its flatness and infinity we visited a salt hotel and an island covered in thousands of cacti. We then drove off the salt flats and to our own salt hotel where everything from the beds to the tables and chairs were made of salt. And yet the food never had enough. Weird.

After playing an exhausting game of soccer with the village's children we sat on the bball court to admire the stars, with no electricity in the village nor a moon we got a great view of the sky- milky way and all. 5 am wake up call the next day and we drove off through variyng degrees of desert and towering peaks, stopping to take a look at a smoking volcano (from afar) then visiting at a series of lagoons filled with flamingos and surrounded by brown barren peaks. This whole place was completely devoid of life except for the occasional vicuña herd (like llamas) and the flocks of flamongos. or flamingos.

We bounced through some more bleak moonscapes of rolling sand hills and multicolored mountains till we reached a bunch of surreal looking sand-worn rock formations in the middle of vast valleys of sand. Then we stopped at a blood-red lagoon dotted with even more flamingos and llamas. And apparently the redness is due to some unpronounciable mineral found in there.

Next stop was a cold hotel in the middle of nowhere where we played cards, dirt rugby and gazed at yet more stars. We settled in our beds wearing every possible clothing item in our bags (I think I got up to 6 layers and it was waaay under freezing) and slept until the ungodly hour of 4am where we rolled out of bed and into the frosted dirt landscape to the geyser fields where we jumped out of the car, ran around and took photos until we coudn't feel our fingers anymore- then ran back into the car and started a swearing marathon at the cold. We did this 3 or 4 times until we reached the hot springs at around 6, where we decided it would be smart to take a dip.

Well it was great. The smouldering lake surrounded us with hot springs gnawing away at the night ice around them, all covered in the glow of the early morning sun. We sat in these boiling pools (37ºC) for a while until breakfast was ready and then got out and had some cold pancakes (at least we were warm from the springs). Getting back into the car we realized that it was still under freezing because our swimsuits were frozen solid onto the side of the jeep.

The last stop was the green lagoon- an emerald green pool with a perfectly conical volcano pearched just behind it made for an amazing view and lots of great photos before the hoards of tourists disembarked from their own land cruisers.

We then crossed the border into Chile going from this surreal bleak landscape to perfectly manicured roads and modern cars.

El Minero Del Diablo

Potosí was once the largest city in the world, surpassing both London and Paris in wealth and population. It once had the largest silver mine in the world, discovered by a llama herder who got lost on the Cerro Rico mountain at night and lit a fire to keep warm- only to see a trickle of molten silver form from under his fire. From then on Cerro Rico has been exploited for its mineral wealth, with an estimated 8 million. Million. slaves and forced laborers dying in these mines.

Nowadays the mines are owned by the Govt. and worked by mining cooperatives, with every group of miners selling their own produce and paying only a percentage tax to the state. This is good in that the profits go directly to the miners, and they can organize themselves as they want in respect to working hours and conditions. But its also bad because they have no uniform safety standards or regulations. Nobody regulates the mines except for the miners themselves.

The Cerro Rico is basically a mountain of red rubble perforated by hundreds of mineshafts and crisscrossed by dirt roads. The working conditions in these mines are among some of the worst in the world. They are heavily prone to cave-ins, there are often poisenous gases and minerals and the heat can be stifeling (more than 45º in some places). The dust inhaled by the miners gives them silicosis, which results in death. Most miners dont live more than 10 or 15 years after entering the mines. Most miners do this because there is nothing else they can do to survive.

That said, it is apparently good money, if youre lucky. In every mine is a statue of the Tio, or devil, which the miners worship when inside the mine, and a cross on its entrance to prevent the Tio from coming into the outside world. They have thin metal tracks running into the mouth of the mine all the way until the end where the drillers use their pneumatic drills to make holes for the dynamite, which they then blow in the afternoons, resulting in several tonnes of rubble that are then carted out on the metal tracks, dumped into a truck and sold to the town's various smelters.

Me and Charles visited one such mine, stopping at the miner's market first to buy presents of fizzy drinks and dynamite for the miners, in addition to the ubiquitous coca leaves. We then took the bus up to the mountain, stuffing ourselves with coca leaves like chipmunks before arriving. All the miners have a large bulge of coca leaves in one of their cheecks, chewing and spitting periodically. They are supposed to give you more stamina, help you breathe and work harder. I don´t know if they did us much good, but it did take us forever to fall asleep that night.

The mine passages were tiny. The ceiling was held up by a thatchwork of wooden planks. To descend to the third level we had to crawl on our hands and knees through thick layers of mud and powder dirt that got everywhere from our hair to our nostrils, making it hard to breathe. There is no ventilation, no escape route no regulations or guarantees. Despite, or because of these atrocious conditions the miners were surprisingly upbeat, all with a very unique sense of humor and often with smiles on their faces.

They day before we had watched a movie about a child miner in these very mines. The movie was very... direct/moving/harsh/depressing... a mixture of these words. But upon visiting the mines the reality of it sets in, and you realize that these people don't think about the chances of cave-ins or noxious gases, or the fact that they will die prematurely, they just think about doing their work for the day- and the comraderie and humor helps them get through it.

Potosi & Sucre

We left the chaos of La Paz on the very back row of a rickety green bus. I dont know what the others were complaining about, but I was comfortable in the middle of the row, with all the legspace I needed. I quickly fell asleep as we bounced through the outskirts of La Paz and onto the neverending altiplano, waking up only at 4:30 am, once we had reached our destination. We took a confused taxi to our hostel and, waking all the other sleepers, we settled into our uber comfortable bunks just in time for the sunrise.

Potosi was... lethargic. On a rien foutu. And we loved it. We spent the day moving from bench to bench, too tired or uninspired to see the few worthwhile sights (well, its not hard to be uninspired when the most popular attraction is the monetary museum). In the afternoon we watched a movie called ´Cocalero´ about current president Evo Morales´electoral campaign. Evo is Bolivia´s first indigenous president, campaigning for the poor, indigenous and for the coca. Thats the good part. The slightly worrying part is one of his preferred slogans: ´Muerte a los yanquis´. He also seems a bit single minded - not acknowledging the problems of cocaine in the country nor focusing much on how to improve the Bolivian economy.

Inspired by our movie - watching streak and the TV in the hostel we spent the evening watching the end of ´The Motorcycle Diaries´ and then, one of my favorite movies ´Requiem for a Dream´. We ended the night thorroughly depressed. but contently so.

The next day we took a swerving taxi to Sucre, the ´constitutional capital´ of the country. There's a terse rivalry between La Paz (where the president resides) and Sucre (where the supreme court is based) on who is the country's capital. So much so that the day we left La Paz there was a huge march through the city demanding that the govt. stay put in the city. Similarly, Sucre was full of banners and posters declaring it to be the ´Capital Plena de Bolivia´.

We took a much better liking to Sucre, the white city, even though we did nothing more than eat and bench around all day. We spent some time in the Joy Ride Café having the best coffee of the trip so far and then watching a hard-hitting documentary on child miners.

La Paz

La Paz is the messiest, ugliest, most alive city we've been to so far. Every street is chaos incarnete with the directionless traffic, the market stalls lining the sidewalks and the continuous streaming of people scurrying through the streets like ants to an anthill. I absolutely adore this city.

It probably has to do with the fact that I love the chaos and disorder of developing countries, the pure life teeming on the streets. You can tell right away that Bolivia is the poorest country on the continent, with the ever expanding capital bearing these marks in the no-frills buildings and modest boulevards of the city. We arrived from an ever expanding outskirt town with unpaved roads and bare brick houses, our first glimpse of the city was that of this photo, a massive bowl-shaped valley completely covered in red-brick buildings on each side.





The bus dropped us off at the cemetary with the crematorial smokestack looming over us. The traffic is as bad (if not worse) than Hanoi, with barely any traffic lights (or cops) in the whole city the cars and micros are free to roam as they want, with hoards of pedestrians frantically crossing the street and plugging the holes between vehicles.

Our accomodation is smack in the middle of the Witches Market- an area teeming with little stalls selling llama fetuses (to bring luck and prosperity) and an array of hundreds of potency pills and potions.

What I love the most about this city is that on its streets you can buy anything and everything imaginable. They sell everything from ribbon to hair, pots to cameras, iPods, fish, towels, shoes and hairspray. We passed areas that had a balls of wool in a rainbow of colors, limes of all shapes and colors, music from all the decades and all the plumbing equipment you could possibly want.

We then walked to the center of the bowl to the modest presidential palace with neighboring bullet-riddled buildings and down the main business street - complete with skyscrapers and ski-mask shrouded shoe shine boys. We even caught a movie (Lucky Number Sleven) in English in a cozy movie theater and went to an interesting contemporary art museum located in one of the last few colonial houses on the streets.

The Morning

The day we left the Isla del Sol was pure bliss - I have rarely had such a nice day.


The night before I had set my watch for 6:30 am to catch the Titicaca sunrise outside our bedroom window. I'd woken up during the night to a perfect half-moon and its reflection onto the lake shining through the window. I briefly woke up to a mediocre sunrise when my alarm rang only to then turn over in my warm bed and sleep an hour more.



At 8:30 I groggily opened my eyes and reached to my bedside table for a tasty breakfast of strawberry yoghurt and chocolate Oreo's (Mmmmm). The next hour was spent reading about Chile and planning the next month of our trip. After a warm shower and a paper plane making session with two local boys we set off down the hill to catch the 10:30 am ferry back to the mainland. The air was crisp and the breeze just enough to keep you cool.

I spent the ride talking to SM and admiring the shifting blueness of the lake. Once arrived in Copacabana we stopped for a delicious lunch of chicken fajitas and white wine on a sunny terrace with great music playing in the background. We basked in the sun while waiting for our food and then reluctantly picked up our packs and boarded the bus for La Paz, following the bleak landscape and lake contour for much of our 3 hour trip to the capital.




I have rarely been so relaxed and content as that morning, with the perfect weather, scenery, and company. And it hit me once again that I'm on the vacation of a lifetime.

Lake Titicaca

Yes, it has a funny name, but there's nothing funny about its grandeur. The lake is 6 or 12 times larger (one of the two) than Lac Leman in Switzerland and far more imposing. Its the highest navigable lake in the world at 3,400 meters above sea level. The days (in the sun at least) are warm and the nights are fridgid.

We arrived to the lake at Puno, one of the ugliest towns we've seen so far with all the buildings made of unpainted brick with metal beams sticking out of the tops. It has absolutely no charm or interest except for strangely manicured trees in its centra plaza. We came to Puno because its the port from which we can visit the lake's unique floating islands.

These tiny islands are made from the abundant reeds growing in the lake. The roots of the reeds are used for a base and then the reeds themselves are piled over each other and crisscrossed for extra strength. These reeds are the livelyhoods of these people - they can be eaten, used for their islands, to make boats, their houses and crafts. As the bottom reeds rot off they must be replaced twice a month to keep their islands floating.

These people moved out to the lake centuries ago due to fighting between their tribe and another stronger one, giving them the only choice to escape or be decimated. Nowadays these islands are very touristic, with the locals welcoming boatloads of tourists with their crafts ready to be sold, but they're still a very unique experience.

After visiting the floating islands we took the collectivo (a super-squished van) and then a sort of cyclo to the Bolivian border where a Peruvian border guard tried (and failed) to steal my money. We arrived in the Bolivian town of Copacabana at dusk and found the cheapest hotel in the world (1.3 USD) to sleep in.

Early the next morning we set off for the Isla del Sol, where the Incas supposedly sprouted from. That island is magical. It is the Mediterranean. Everything from the landscape, the crispness of the air, the blueness of the water to the olive trees and plentiful thyme growing in the arid landscape reminds me of southern Italian islands like Sardenia. The landscape set off a yearning for Mediterranean food in both me and Charles and soon we were drooling to the thoughts of a cold rice salad and fresh rosé wine. Unfortunately all we got for lunch was a greasy chicken sandwich and a melted chocolate bar, but that did just fine.

We puffed up a hill to find our hotel (its not easy to walk up hills at 4000 meters) overlooking the lake and we promptly set out to hike the island. Our mission was to get to the north side of the island, where they had the Inca ruins of the temple of the sun and their alledged sprouting point. Ledgend has it that a husband & wife (and brother & sister) came from the earth of this island and continued into the Andes to Cuzco where they established the beginnings of the Inca empire.

We stopped for lunch on a hill overlooking a beach and it was too nice not to take a siesta. So an hour later we got up and realized that these ruins were a lot farther than we had anticipated. Well, we finally reached the ruins (a bunch of stones piled onto each other) but were so happy with the hike that we weren't even dissapointed. We then walked through the nothern village in the hopes of catching a boat back to the south, which would avoid us having to walk 3 hours back in the dark.

Well the last boat had left 4 hours before, but we found a guy that was willing to take us. The lake was choppier than we (and the boatman) anticipated and we spent most of the ride dodging huge waves and watching water slowly trickle into the boat from the windows. When we finally arrived the boatman smartly positioned the boat paralell to the waves and with a fierce wave and an unbalanced deck it sent the boat flying sideways and Sao Mai tumbling into the water. What followed was a franatic effort to get SM out of the water and to catch the boat before it floated away (all of us were on the dock). We managed to get the boat back and recover SM as the toothless boatman hurridly jumped back in and set off back to the north.