TravelStream™ news feed for member chiapoe on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/chiapoe en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:22:49 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1245791619/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1245791619/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1245791619/tpod.html Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:22:49 -0500 Into the Great Wide Open

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Ilha Grande, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

June 13-23, 2009: Paraty, Trindade and Ilha Grande, RJ Province, BrasilColonial Charm in Paraty and Jabaquara BeachMary and I left Rio on June 13 to head down to Paraty on the Costa Verde.  South of Rio, the Costa Verde is the appropriately named coastline of small fishing villages, colonial towns and power and energy-related towns that is marked by the rolling and verdant rainforest-covered hills that meet the white sand beaches of the Atlantic Ocean.After taking the local bus to the Rodoviaria (bus station) in Rio, we took the A/C bus run by the Costa Verde company four hours south to Paraty.  En route, we passed through Mangatariba, Angra dos Reis (which is the liftoff point for Ilha Grande) and a couple of company towns created for the massive nuclear power plant facility run by ElectroNuclear.  We arrived in Paraty in the late afternoon and set out to find our pousada (guesthouse) that we had booked online.  Paraty is a charming colonial town that is adjacent to the long stretch of sand known as Jabaquara Beach.  Our guesthouse, we would find after a sweaty 30 minute stroll with our bags, was at the very end of Jabaquara, the furthest thing from the town!  The Pousada Praia Serena is a lovely, but overpriced, guesthouse run by Simon, an Englishman, and Helena, his Brasilian wife.  After paying an arm and a leg for hostels in Rio, it was nice to get a private room with private bath, A/C, TV and a fridge.  That evening, we checked out the Saturday night fesitivities in the old town and grab dinner at a nice Italian restaurant.  The old town took me back 400 years, to the time of roughly cobblestoned streets, horse-drawn carriages and beautiful tropical whitewashed colonial buildings with ornate windows and lamps.  That is, when I avoided looking at the touristy stores and such around the old town.  Another treat of the town (another pun intended), were the myriad sweets carts on the streets.  These entrepreneurs of sugar, basically offer a rolling cart full of bake sale treats, and we were loyal customers.  The following day, after several days of foul weather in both Rio and Paraty, the sun came out with its warmth and glowing brilliance.  After a wonderful breakfast spread that included fresh mangos and OJ, we parked ourselves by the pool to soak in some rays before hitting the old town by day to check out the little stores and to take pictures of all of the beautiful buildings.  Cachaca, the liquor used to make the deadly caiparinhas, is native to Paraty, so there are several massive cachaca-only liquor stores that are lined floor-to-ceiling with the elixir.  Helena, though Brasilian, is a very good cook of Indian food.  Simon and her eat Indian food nearly six days a week and this was one of the main reasons why we chose the hotel.  After a 24-hour battle that resulted from eating sushi in Rio, my stomach, Mary and me were ready for some great home cooking.  We both love Indian food and I have been fiending for my parents' great South Indian vegetarian cuisine.  Well, Helena did not disappoint.  We enjoyed a chicken masala curry (that would have been spicier if the Irishman staying at the pousada wasn't eating as well), a great okra dish, channa masala that tasted nearly as good as Mom would make it and were given sides of raita and chapati.  It was heaven.  While their pousada is not centrally located and is on the pricier side, it is a very nice place with great people and great food.  Nearly One Month and Counting DownAll great things must come to an end.  Well, as we were enjoying our time on Costa Verde, this was at the forefront of my thoughts.  With my acceptance of the NYC Civic Corps position, I now had an end date to my travels and will return to the US on July 21.I tried to think back on being 1-1.5 months into the trip and to what my mind was thinking.  Towards the end of my time in India and in China, I was thinking about all the countries ahead of me.  How anxious I was to see SE Asia.  How excited I was to see Angkor, Borobodur, go SCUBA diving, visit Brasil for Carneval and do the Ciudad Perdida trek in Colombia.  Well, I did all of those things (except for Carneval; plans are meant to be changed) and so much more.  At that time, South America seemed to far off in the distance as though it wasn't to be reality.  Now, I have been in South America for three months and even being in Argentina and Bolivia seem like quite some time ago.  Asia seems like years ago and the crucial summer of 2008, when all my big decisions were made and executed, seems like a lifetime ago.  The perception of time, while traveling, is an interesting concept as it simultaneously flies by as well as seems to slow down and take forever.  In total, I will have traveled for 10 months.  In experiences, I have traveled for a decade or a lifetime.Needless to say, while enjoying the beaches of the Costa Verde, I was equal parts thinking about every little detail of returning home, my emotions upon arrival and upon living in NYC again and was, to a certain extent, detached from my travels.  Since our arrival in Brasil, I have felt like I was now on a vacation/holiday rather than in long-term travel mode.  I want to spend as much time relaxing, processing my thoughts and getting recharged and ready to go back, as I do experiencing things.  At the beginning of the trip, there was no sense of going back.     Trindade:  Where the Mata Atlantica Meets the SeaAfter a couple of days in the colonial-town of Paraty, we hopped on a local bus headed towards the nearby fishing village, hippie town and beach escape of Trindade.  As we entered the town, we saw a sign that said (in Portugese) "Trindade: Where the Mountains Meet the Sea".  This sign captures the area perfectly.  The verdant green Mata Atlantica (coastal mountain rainforest) tumbles down in a jumbled mass of vines, branches and leaves onto the white sand beaches of Trindade.  The sea is rougher down here than in Paraty, so there is a wonderful natural soundtrack of the cadence of waves crashing on the shore.  This was my kind of beach town and was exactly what we were looking for.Reminding me of some of the sleepy SE Asian-beach towns, there was basically one street that ran through town, parallel to the shore, that was lined with tons of pousadas, small restaurants, some craft stores and mini-markets.  Everywhere we walked through town, we could hear the ocean breakers.  We stayed at a nice pousada that was only R$60 (USD15) per night with our own bathroom, fridge, balcony and was a two-minute stroll to the beach.  Finally, we found something relatively cheap in Brasil.  With dwindling sunshine on June 15, we quickly scampered down to the perfect sandy crescent known as Praia Rancho and basked in the sun's glory and the refreshing and cool Atlantic water.  We were completely alone.  There are a few kioskos towards the end of the crescent, but we felt the wonderful euphoria that arises from being on a deserted tropical beach.  That evening, we had dinner at a pizzaria called "Crazy Madmen" while being serenaded by Whitney Houston.  The guy who worked at the restaurant was an extremely nice dude (we ate there a couple of nights) and he loved his diva hits.  After dinner, I went for a walk through the small town and observed a couple of things.  Firstly, we were in a safe place.  By this point, I had been conditioned to be overly cautious everywhere in Brasil, but in Trindade, walking around the dimly-lit streets and along the beach at night, I never felt uncomfortable.  The second thing I noticed was the relative affluence of a seemingly sleepy beach tourist town.  Most of the restaurants, pousadas and homes in town had flat-panel TVs.  The food in all of the restaurants, including the beach kioskos, was really quite expensive.  Clearly the Costa Verde in Brasil is not nearly the same as a comparable looking tropical beach town in SE Asia.  We began the next day much the same way as when we arrived the day before, relaxing on Praia Rancho.  As the sunshine turned into a cloudy sky - it was winter after all - we decided to hike over to the Caixa Dassou natural pool.  Our hike took us around the point at one end of Praia Rancho to two other pristine white sand beaches: Praia do Meio and Praia Caixa Dassou.  Separating Meio from Caixa Dassou is a steep rainforest trail over rocks and tree roots.  We went from The Beach to an Indiana Jones film in a matter of minutes.  What a spectacular place.  After crossing the long and flat white sand beach of Caixa Dassou, with the jungle rising to the right and the ocean crashing to the left, we disappeared into the jungle foliage.  We followed a trail through the dense jungle, where day turned almost to night from the cover of the canopy, and eventually came out at the natural pool.  Protected by a ring of rocks from the ocean, we went swimming in a calm jungle oasis that is right in the ocean.  I put my mask on and saw a few fish as I snorkeled around the pool.  I live for moments like this.  Unfortunately, the sun went on a holiday the next day, and if there was no sun, there wasn't much point being on the beach, so we left the beach, packed our bags and left Trindade in the morning.  After a couple of local buses on Colitur (the cheapest way to travel the Costa Verde, R$10 or USD5) via Paraty, we arrived at Angra dos Reis.  Angra is an insignificant town except that it is the port city to get to the paradisical rainforest-covered island of Ilha Grande.  Ilha Grande:  Hiking, Diving and Swimming on an Island ParadiseHiking up Pico de PapagaioWe took the 3:30pm ferry (R$6.50 or USD3.25) from Angra and arrived a couple of hours later at the main town of Abraao on Ilha Grande.  Ilha Grande is the third largest island in Brasil and has about 5,000 inhabitants, slightly more than half which live in Abraao.  The large and mountainous island is covered by rainforest, just as all of the Costa Verde, and there are gorgeous white-sand beaches in front of turqoise-blue waters around the island.  The island, only a two-hour bus and two-hour ferry from Rio, is a place where cariocas and tourists come to hike, dive, surf, swim, relax and party.    Given it was low season, at least when we arrived, the town and island were very quiet.  The millions of pousadas, bars and restaurants were all mostly empty.  As a result, we could negotiate a discount at our pousada since we were staying for nearly a week and the place was empty (Pousada Ilha Grande, R$50 or USD25 per night).  However, we found out that there was a music festival coming for the weekend, in a couple of days.  One of the biggest events on the island, the festival is meant to encourage music and ecology, but in reality is an alcohol-fueled three-day party, with a poor lineup this year, that was started by the local businesses to create a revenue spike during the low season and has little to do with preserving the environment and more to do with resembling a US spring break party.  The festival also brings a shady element to the island, turning it into a city-atmosphere more than the safe and trustworthy island atmosphere.  We did our best to avoid most of the festivities and enjoy the natural attributes of this lovely island.We walked around the town on our first night, checking out a few of the artisan stores, hearing reggae playing from nearly every establishment, and pigging out at a R$16 (USD8) churrascaria, where the meat just kept coming until we had to be rolled out of the restaurant.  That evening, we made the error of signing up for a guided hike the following day to Pico de Papagaio, the highest reachable point on the island at 982m (3,200ft).We were supposed to meet our guide for the hike at 9:30am on July 18.  However, we were jerked awake promptly at 7am to the shrieks of children playing hide and seek.  Like a grumpy old man, I returned from the street, where I went to gather some intelligence, muttering "there's a preschool next door".  I swear I love kids.The hike up to the Pico was beautiful.  Despite a sunny day, we were bushwalking through dense jungle - trapsing through mud, over huge stones, logs, through thick and wet brush, and completely in the shade of the canopy until we ascended to the top.  It was a sweaty, steep and challenging walk.  Such green color was everywhere, which is truly impossible to capture in any lens except for the human eye.  The vibrant greens of the rainforest are only captured by nature.  I thought of nature's palette; it is impossible to replicate the colors of nature (blues of water, greens of the forest, all the colors of flowers), which is why the age-old technology of natural dyes are still the best.  There were many birds on the walk, a few flowers (though the many orchids were out of season and not flowered), but we saw few animals.  However, we could hear many of them, including a howler monkey that sounded like a terrifying and menacing creature with its deep and booming yell.We reached the peak in about two hours and were gifted with the low-lying clouds clearing just as we arrived at the summit.  The actual summit ascent was a near vertical climb up some rocks and there was a very precarious massive boulder on the summit.  It was beautiful to watch the fast moving clouds clear the sky as if it were the fog rolling back over the hills of San Francisco.  From high above, we had perfect views down on the rainforests, of several white sand beaches and their calm and blue coves they protected and of Abraao far below.  It was quite a climb!  On our descent, I was mired in reflection on returning home to the US.  I am excited, but it is going to be very unreal, being home after nearly a year away and a world away in terms of lifestyle.  This reflection consumed my thoughts and I knew that these thoughts would only get more intense and frequent, reaching a climax when I board that plane from Bogota bound for Miami at the end of July.  Once we arrived back in Abraao, we grabbed our suits and enjoyed the dwindling sunlight at Praia Preto as I was in need of an ocean swim after a sweaty hike.Splash, Getting Back Underwater  With the hike complete, it was time to get underwater again.  Ilha Grande offers some of the best diving in central and southern Brasil and it had been far too long since we had breathed compressed air.  We signed on with Dive & CIA, which was the cheapest dive shop on the island (R$135 or USD65 for two dives) and also had some really nice divemasters (DMs) who spoke good English (Luiz and Cuye).  Our gear was loaded up on the small dive boat and we set off on the morning of June 19 for our first dives.  Instead, we got a gorgeous boat tour around the northern part of the island, with tremendous views of the peaks, rainforest and beaches, as our boat died in the middle of the water.  There was massive engine failure and we were literally in the middle of the open ocean.  Nonetheless, we had stopped next to Laguna Azul, it was a beautiful and sunny day and I was able to swim in the ocean, so we didn't complain.  Ultimately, the boat needed a new part, so we were towed all the way back to the harbor by the owner's much older and smaller boat.  With essentially an entire day shot, Luiz offered us a free dive that day and we would return for our original planned dive sites the following morning.  Three dives for the price of two!  With sea birds all around us in hunting mode, swooping in and out of the water with their prey in their mouths, we splashed next to Ilha de Meio for our first dive since March.  There were some Discovery Divers (uncertified) aboard, so the DMs kept referring to us as "Divers", which was very official and expert sounding.  We had previously only dove in the warm SE Asian and Australian tropical waters.  The Atlantic Ocean is quite a bit cooler - 22 degrees Celsius (72 Fahrenheit) - so we had to wear full 5mm wetsuits with hoods.  It was like wearing a suit of armor back in the Middle Ages, motion was incredibly difficult and the suits were really heavy.  We looked like Frogmen with our hoods on.  The visibility was terrible on the first dive as were spoiled by the diving we had done in Thailand.  However, it was interesting seeing marine life amongst mostly rocks and not coral reefs and we saw some really interesting life: sea spiders, fake flyer fish (that reminded us of the Dilophosaurus that killed Newman in Jurassic Park because of its splayed pectoral fins), a freely swimming white morey eel and gigantic boxed starfish.  It was also good to practice, I was a little rusty with my breathing and buoyancy, and we had a nice hour-long dive.  That evening, we relaxed in our room and Mary watched Scarface for the first time.On June 20, we went diving for real.  The boat worked, the sun was out for most of the day, and we would dive our first shipwreck.  The wreck was the Pinguino, which was a commercial ship carrying flammable palm wax from Panama to Buenos Aires that sank in 1967 with no casualties.  A massive explosion in the starboard hull was triggered from a fire in the engine room that was fueled by the wax.  The ship is 68m (210ft) long with a 10m (30ft) beam.  The ship lay on its port side, with the bottom at 18m (60ft) depth and the starboard side, with the gaping hole in the hull, at a depth of 7m (20ft).  While not a particularly interesting ship as compared with a sunken warship, it was so awesome to be amongst a wreck.  I felt like one of the Shadow Divers.  We followed an anchor line down to the ship and first circumvented the vessel at the bottom in order to orient ourselves.  Despite the good visibility at the shallower depths, the sediment kicked up by fins and the rust flakes in the water created a near zero-viz environment on the bottom.  I was at the back of the four of us (Luiz, Mary, Steve and me) and could barely see anything.  Much like pass-throughs, I had to constantly monitor in all directions - not just 360 degrees - as there was rusted steel parts everywhere.  It was eerie seeing the mast disappear into the blue waters.  Once we had circumvented the vessel, we entered through the aft superstructure to explore the inside of the ship.  This was incredible - seeing the portholes, the cargo area, the steel beams and the inner skeleton of the old ship.  I could clearly picture what the vessel must have been like when it was in service.  There was even an extremely toxic air pocket inside of the cargo hold, so we were able to "surface" about 40ft underwater!  We spent the rest of the dive exploring around the starboard side and top of the boat, where the visibility was near perfect and where there were some fish swimming around.  I hovered for a while in the blasthole and just pictured what actually occurred on that fateful day in 1967.  I love diving wrecks and look forward to seeing some more interesting vessels, like old warships in the future. Our second dive was a long, beautiful and relaxed one in shallower waters.  Our bottom time was an astounding 70 minutes!  Prior to diving the Atlantic, my longest dive had been 53 minutes.  We swam around the rocks in a relatively small dive site that allowed us to explore virtually every nook and cranny.  We saw tons of the fake flyer fish, one of my favorites, an extremely puffed up pufferfish (reminded me of Finding Nemo), a translucent blue trumpetfish and a couple of soles (sand dollar types of fish that camouflage with the sandy bottom).  Although it wasn't the Similan Islands (little is), it was still a great day of diving.  We had another great pizza dinner and tried to relax that night, but were kept up from the thumping club music playing across the street until 9am!  As I said earlier, the chill island atmosphere is destroyed by the music festival.Ferried by Boat to Lopes MendesAfter a few days of hiking and diving, it was time to relax on the beach.  We took the R$15 (USD7) roundtrip ferries that run frequently over to Lopes Mendes.  The boat ride took an hour, we thought it was a much quicker ferry, but it was a beautiful day and nice ride that provided us with views of a different part of the island.  Once we docked, we had a 20 minute hike over a steep hill through the rainforest to arrive at the perfect long crescent white sand of Praia Lopes Mendes.  En route, Mary saw a snake.  The island is wonderful and it would clearly be amazing in the heat of summer, but I would be so terrified hiking these rainforest trails during the warm season!  The beach is the surf spot on the island and there were many surfers, boogie boarders and bodysurfers out in the water (I was one of those bodysurfers).  The waves are created from a shore break as there is an extremely long sand bar that creates shallow waters far into the ocean.  At one end of the beach are tons of rocks to scramble over, where I took many OCR photos.  The beach is framed by palms and fruit trees upto the sand's edge and with the towering rainforest-covered peaks on both sides.  It is absolute paradise and greatly reminded me of some of the wonderful beaches in Thailand.  We spent our time at Lopes Mendes playing paddleball, swimming and bodysurfing and going for walks and runs along the long stretch of sand.  From the eastern-most point of the beach, I looked up and saw Pico de Papagaio.  The water was that perfect azul color and calm on this end of the beach.  While there were several other beaches we could have hiked to (minimum 4-6hr roundtrip), we liked the luxury of the cheap ferries and spent two full days at Lopes Mendes.  The old fogues we are, we spent our evenings curled up in bed watching movies (Invincable, The Bear, Good Night and Good Luck were the good ones) as the festival came to a close in town with trash absolutely everywhere.  They shouldn't even pretend that the festival is in the promotion of ecology and conservation.  It is such BS.  While I could have spent another week or longer hiking the trails, diving and exploring beaches, it was time for us to return to Rio as we had several more things to check out in the city and we intended to take another sidetrip before leaving Brasil in about a week.  So, on June 23, we packed our bags, played paddleball on the beach at the harbor as we waited for the ferry, took the 10am return ferry to Angra, walked a long and sweaty way through the heat to the bus terminal and boarded a Costa Verde bus back to Rio.  After connecting via a local bus, we were back in Ipanema at Franklin's place.  He was so happy to see us and showed us the new set of pots he had bought for us to use in the kitchen (we were the only ones who cooked basically every night).  All of our old friends had moved on in the last 10 days, so the place was much quieter, but there were new people there who would become new friends in the coming days.  Fiending for a home cooked meal as we didn't have access to a kitchen while on the Costa Verde, Mary cooked up another delicious Mexican fajita feast and we relaxed back at home, which is how Franklin's place felt like to us.  It was good to be back in Rio.       
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Potosi, Bolivia

April 28-May 1, 2009: Potosi, BoliviaSi a la ConstitucionBefore I introduce you to the formerly mighty colonial city of Potosi, let me take a minute to bring you up to speed on the recent events in Bolivian politics.  Bolivia is a democratic republic, with high power in the center and no federalism.  The departments, or states, of the country have very little power.  To fully understand this picture, one needs to understand the demographic and economic makeup of the nation.  The east is largely formed of people of hispanic descent and is dominated by the energy resources industries as well as capitalist and liberal democracy supporters.  The west, mountainous, altiplano and farm growing regions, are dominated by indigenous people who are largely campesinos, of which a large percentage formerly grew coca.  Class distinctions are very much drawn along ethnic lines with the indigenous people being marginalized and impoverished since the days of the Spanish conquistadors.  Coca, a sacred plant to indigenous people is also the plant which includes the active ingredients that when processed produce cocaine.  However, do not believe for one instant that everything related to this plant is evil.  It is akin to relating tea leaves to a line of straight caffeine.  They are wholly different substances and a line of caffeine is a helluva lot more addictive and jittery stimulative than a line of cocaine.  The coca plant is phenomenally healthy, providing more fiber than any grain, more protein than any bean and more minerals than any vegetable and is a plant that is highly associated with any religious, spiritual and cultural practice of the indigenous people that live in the altiplano.  It is also a plant that has been scientifically proven to increase red blood cell count, minimize the production of lactic acid and prolong the period of exertion at altitude.  It is, in a matter of words, a magical plant that has been used as a tool of slavery and is, unfortunately, inextricably tied to a highly illegal narcotic nowadays.  The governments of the 1990s endorsed the US-led (the single largest consumer of cocaine on the entire planet by a huge margin) policy of coca-eradication and privatization.  I should disclose that I am one of the largest opponents of the US drug war and the largest proponents of drug liberalization and de-criminalization.  This has nothing to do with being a proponent of cocaine.  The drug is extremely harmful and addictive.  However, the current drug policy of the US is both supportive of crime and thoroughly ineffective.  Large amounts of cocaine have been seized without affecting both supply and the street price of the illicit narcotic.  Meanwhile, countless people have been murdered as a result of cartel and inner city violence and innumerable coca farmers continue to suffer under indentured servitude to the cartels.  This is not opinion, this is fact.  While I do not know how the transition would occur, if citizens of the US drank coca tea as they drank regular caffeine tea or coffee, there would not be the severe addictions or violent crime associated with cocaine.  Just ask any tourist who has traveled amongst the high altitudes of Peru or Bolivia how safe and non-intoxicating chewing coca leaves or drinking coca tea is.  Needless to say, the coca-eradication program of the early 1990s had a twofold effect, it produced little net reduction in coca and cocaine production in Bolivia and it resulted in violent protests in La Paz and the migrant and campesino hub (or barrio, which is actually larger than La Paz in terms of population) of El Alto.  The privatization programs lined the government coffers and transferred substantial control of infrastructure assets to foreign companies, but did little to improve the efficiency and maintenance of these assets.  Substantial corruption within the government meant that the increased revenue stream was not invested wisely or spent to improve the lives of Bolivia's citizens and taxpayers.  Yet, the economic expansion of the 1990s was witnessed in Bolivia and most citizens did not object to this missed opportunity.  However, the collapses in Argentina and Brasil, the reduction in prices for commodities for export and the growing unemployment of coca farmers (there was a successful police-led eradication program in the late 1990) was a devastating economic and social blow for the country.  The governments were under pressure from the economic woes and high unemployment at the beginning of this decade, but it was ultimately violent protests related to water and natural gas that led to the current presidency of Evo Morales.  In 2000, violent protests erupted over the proposed privatization of the water supply, a formerly municipal-provided resource in a country where most of the poor indigenous people are campesions or farmers.  Access to water is necessary for their livelihood, but the privatization of this resource is a controversial issue.  As discussed previously, farmers use a disproportionate amount of this resource.  Subsequently, in 2003 and 2005, extremely violent protests erupted over the further privatization and pillage of Bolivia's natural gas resources.  Bolivia has the second largest reserves in South America and they all lie in the lowlands of the east where hispanic people live.  The indigenous people in the highlands of the west feel that the benefits of this resource belongs to them as well.  This culminated in the election of Evo Morales as President of Bolivia in 2005.  Morales, the first indigenous President of Bolivia (he is Aymara) and a former coca campesino, nationalized the country's natural gas resources in May 2006.  Evo, as he is affectionately called, is a leftist President who is often seen and associates with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.  He is immensely popular in the western and indigenous part of the country and loathed in the lowlands of the east.  Disputes between the departments of the east and the central government of La Paz continued and resulted in the drafting of a new constitution.  The new constitution would grant greater powers to the central government and indigenous peoples in Bolivia.  The opposition parties, all of whom draw support in the lowlands of the east, were finding hard for greater autonomy and the creation of a federal republic.  Underpinning this battle was control of the natural gas assets.  With greater autonomy, the departments of the east would have direct control of the natural gas royalties.  The new constitution was put to a vote in January 2009 and was approved, denying autonomy to the eastern departments.  Throughout Villazon, Tupiza and north in La Paz, I saw graffiti that was all in support of Evo and the new consitution: "Si Evo, Si a la Constitucion", "Evo Cumple Bolivia, Cambia Bolivia".  In Potosi, which is approaching the judicial capital of Sucre and the beginning of the eastern departments, I began to see graffiti against Evo and the new constitution.  Adding to the tension in the country, in late April there was a foiled "assasination" attempt on Evo.  Evo was in Venezuela and not in the country.  An Irishman, a Hungarian-Bolivian and a Croat-Bolivian were all killed by the army or police in a hotel room execution style and in their underwear.  No one knows for sure if these were murderous plotters or if this was simply another example of a totalitarian government eliminating opposition supporters.  The Irish government demanded an investigation, which the Morales government only reluctantly conducted.  It was a very dirty mess and indicates how there will continue to be violent political controversy in a country that is very ethnically divided.Potosi, El Ciudad de AlturaPotosi is a large central Bolivian city that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is a colonial wonder.  It is shaped in a big bowl, like the capital of La Paz, with the dominating Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain) in the background everywhere you go.  The city was built in 1545 following the discovery of silver in Cerro Rico and quickly boomed to rival London and Paris.  They said the streets were paved with silver.  Accordingly, the colonial center of the city is charming with cobblestone narrow streets and old and beautiful churches everywhere. The city is also billed as the highest city in the world, at 4,060m.  While I have no idea what qualifies as a city (as there are clearly higher towns and pueblos), the altitude is lung busting.  Having come from the Salar de Uyuni and traveling between 4,000 and 5,000m for several days, we all thought would be acclimated.  However, the pollution in the air from the micros (local minivan buses) and walking amongst the hills of the city was incredibly taxing.  We took it very easy and still found ourselves completely winded just walking from the main plaza to our hostel.  The main attraction of a visit to this city, other than the town itself, is a visit to the mines in Cerro Rico, but given our poor acclimatization, we decided to take a day to get adjusted before we descended underground at altitude.  Our first night walking around town, on April 28, I noticed a public health exhibition in the main plaza.  However, this exhibition was run by young people and was exclusively focused on sexual health - there was a giant inflatable condom as a mascot and there were tables on use of various contraceptives and other aspects of practicing safe sex.  This is a Catholic country.  I was blown away and thrilled to see that health triumphed religion, particularly in a part of the country where there are a lot of young mothers.  I began our spare day, April 29, by walking through the main plaza and this time saw a sports exhibit set up in front of the cabildo (town hall).  There was boxing equipment, futbols, basketballs, ping pong tables and other items available for the youth of the city and the demonstration was meant to encourage sports amongst citizens living at altitude.  While the prospect of playing basketball at 4,000m left me short of breath, it is a very worth cause as I learned from one of the directors that there is a high incidence of physical ailments and illnesses associated with limited exercise amongst these people that live at a lung-busting altitude.I spent the afternoon drinking mouth-watering fresh squeezed orange juice from the street stalls for 2Bs (USD0.25) and walking the narrow streets of the City.  I saw school kids running around in their uniforms and made my way through the crowded and choked streets to the mercado central.  The neighborhood was throbbing with a labyrinth of markets and stalls and I replaced a pair of lost sunglasses for 15Bs (USD2).  I came upon a street, like one in Tupiza, littered with abrogados (notary puplics/lawyers) and photocopias.  Apparently, everyone in Bolivia is constantly in need of copying notarized documents.   After a quiet pizza dinner by myself, I needed some time on my own after constantly being around my tour mates for several days, I walked through the main plaza and saw a crowd gathered around and some music blaring.  I had arrived at a performance for Dia Internacional de la Danza.  A festival to encourage dancing as an effective means to deal with altitude, combat cholestrol and stay active, I saw many wonderful different forms of dance performed by local youngsters.  The dances varied from traditional indigenous dance to various dance forms imported from the Spanish.  The strong community feel was quickly destroyed as people hounded and tore apart the free posters that were handed out after the performance.  Despite its former affluence and dominance as a world city, Potosi is now nothing more than a large city in an impoverished country.      Mines of Cerro Rico: Eight Million SoulsThe silver in the mines of Cerro Rico bankrolled the Spanish Empire for more than 200 years from its discovery in 1545.  The formerly meaningless colonial outpost in Spanish America became the greatest city in the New World.  While the Spanish paved the streets of Potosi in silver, Quechua speaking indigenous people and African slaves toiled in the subhuman conditions of the mine.  The gods of Cerro Rico demanded a steep price for the pillage of its plunder, an astounding 8 million people have died in the mines in the last 450 years.  There are almost 10 million people in Bolivia today!The  mines have long dried up their silver deposits and zinc is the greatest mineral extracted from the mine today.  On an average day, they haul out eight tons of rock from the mines, 60% of which is composed of minerals.  Most of the shafts in the mine are 20 to 30 years old, with little to no structural reinforcements.  The conditions and safety of the mines are much worse than most others on earth.  All of the shafts from the days of the Spanish have long since collapsed, as the summit of Cerro Rico has fallen from 5,000m to 4,700m.  The mine has been nationalized and the miners work in collectives.  As a result, there is no machinery or organization one would find in a developing counry mine operated by a multinational company.  When there is a new discovery, the mineros dynamite their way there as soon as possible almost like a land grab in the frontier of the Western US.  There is no rhyme or reason to the process, which frequently leads to collapses and adds to the death toll of the mines.  Bolivia, with its excellent safety standards and basically "if you want to do it and pay for it, go ahead" has companies that run tours of this mine.  The opportunity to blow up dynamite and go deep into the earth and see the working conditions of such an old and important place cannot be passed up.  We signed up with Andean Salt Tours, a company run by former miner and where all the guides are former miners and were on our way.  First, we were outfitted in a full mud suit, buits and helmet with lamp.  Given the poor air quality in the mines, we were advised to bring along bandanas to cover our mouths.Before entering the mine, we stopped at the miners market to buy gifts for the miners as well as some spare materials for ourselves.  The miners don't eat as they chew copious amounts of coca leaves.  Back in the days of the Spanish, the coca leaf was originally banned by the church as it was associated with pagan beliefs.  However, once they realized it would allow the miners to work for longer and harder hours, they reversed the ban and began paying and taxing the miners in coca leaves.  Today, the miners are not slaves, but continue to eat solely coca leaves and perhaps drink soda or other sugary drinks.  The average miner chews two large bags of coca leaves per day (10Bs or USD1.50).  Additionally, we purchased dynamite for the miners.  You read that correctly.  It comes in a plastic grocery bag with the nitroglycerine, fuse and detonator all within inches of each other.  A dynamite package costs 20Bs (USD3.00) and lasts three explosions for a miner.  We also purchased some spare dynamite for ourselves.  Other gifts include cigarettes and booze, but I did not want to add to the already short lives of the miners.As we rose in altitude up Cerro Rico, we had wonderful views of Potosi and its colonial quarter and found a nice spot to blow some stuff up.  For about USD5.00, we purchased a bag of dynamite, a giant pumpkin and a can of beer.  Steve was packing nitroglycerine in his hands as though it was playdoh.  The two miner guides packed the dynamite into the pumpkin and beer can, carved a jack-o-lantern, we all took pictures with massive explosives in our hands and we hit the deck as the guides set the dynamite about 30m away from us.  An entirely safe distance, it was incredible to see the explosions and feel the blast wave that blasted through us.  This is one of the coolest videos I have ever taken.  Finally, after the fun and games, it was time to enter the mines.  Still an active mine, only 4,000 miners work on a given day.  At the peak of mineral prices a couple of years back, there were 15,000 miners working.  Most of the miners begin when they are very young, 15-18 years old.  There is supposed to be an excellent film, The Devil's Miner, about their lives.  One of our guides worked for one year at 18, he is now 25.  The other guide, a guy in his 30s who looked a couple of decades older, worked for 14 years in the mines.  The average miner lives until his late 30s.  There are no women working the mines.  Some of the miners were quite friendly and willing to talk about their work and lives, while others ungratefully demanded our gifts and moved on.  I can appreciate that some of these miners are quite frustrated to see tourists parading through their place of work and where they may have seen friends perish.Despite the seemingly horrid conditions, this is one of the best jobs in Bolivia.  The families of miners benefit greatly from the toil of the mineros.  Average earnings are 30-150Bs per day and the miners work 9am-4pm.  It is incredibly hard work, but remember that the average earnings are 550Bs a month for a Bolivian.  All of the work in the mines is done manually.  Before electricity, the miners worked by candlelight for 40+ hours straight.  Now, there are compressed air tools in the mine to aid with the work, but the one-ton carts are pushed on the rails by three men, all of the rock is manually chipped and collected and raised out of the mines.  It is incredibly dark, cold and damp in the mines.  Remember, we had to go up in altitude from Potosi in order to go down into a mine.  Some of the mines stretch several kilometers under ground.  There are massive and terrifying holes everywhere with loosely held planks as the only crossing.  It is also a very tight squeeze through a lot of parts, as this is not a place for even the remotely claustrophobic.       At several points within the mine are shrines to Tio, the god of the mines.  Tio is the devil god according to the Quechua and he was formerly given the face of a Spaniard because only slaves and Quechua worked in the mines under Spanish rule.  Eventually, rather than being demonized as a conquistador, Tio assumed a talisman-like quality and was worshipped as a god because it was believed he was mates with Pachamama (Mother Earth) and this bond enriched the veins of the mines with minerals.  In keeping with tradition, the miners have a weekly offering to Tio of cigarettes (Tio actually puffs on the smokes adding to the mythic personality), coca leaves and the 96% alcohol beverage the miners drink.    Wandering Potosi and ChurchesIt was another cold day at 4,060m in Potosi when we returned from our mine tour.  I reflected how tough Bolivianos living in the altiplano are.  Most don´t have hot water or heaters and it is perpetually cold at such altitudes.  Both men and women toil in hard labor and lug around their heavy satchels to and from markets.  The indigenous residents of the altiplano bear weathered and beaten faces, a testament to a tough life.  After our mine tour, I showered and walked down the hill to the bus stand in the new town to arrange my tickets to La Paz.  It was great to see how most of the residents of this large city live and I watched a local soccer match en route.  Next to the bus stand (and the Homer Simpson burger joint, Bolivians love their Simpsons as much as Argentines) was a wonderful and large mural adorning a wall along the sidewalk.  The mural depicted the Quechua from their glory days under Inca rule to the enslavement and death marches into the mines under the Spanish all the way to the current enslavement by foreign corporations and under the US sphere of influence.  It was a powerful city mural.  Murals and graffiti are a source of expression and political activism everywhere, but this sentiment is especially felt throughout South America.  Rather than being viewed as defaced public property, they are a very important forum for expressing political dissent. I returned as the sun was setting and decided to visit the two main churches in town.  The main catedral has a tremendous bell tower that was built in 1807, before the independence revolution against the Loyalist army.  The campana is the largest in Bolivia and from the belltower I had tremendous views of the town, the colonial tiled roofs and sunset against Cerro Rico.  I chatted with the manager of the church in Spanish, though he spoke English, regarding my fiance, Bolivian culture, my family in India and its culture and on President Obama.  I was able to convey to him, in Spanish, that we were only a 100 days into the Obama Administration and it was too early to tell how well he has done or what the future would hold.  I was proud of how good my Spanish was getting!  With enough light remaining, I scrambled over to the Convent de San Francisco, one of the most beautiful churches in Potosi and with a famous tiled and domed roof.  The tour includes walkways all along the roof, where the oldest parts were constructed in 1545.  The ceiling on the inside of the church is made from brick and there are religious paintings of the life and death of Jesus Christ that are done in Spanish style by local artists in South America:  The Romans are depicted as Spanish conquistadors as the paintings were all made after the War of Independence.  Once again, my personal tour by one of the Sisters was entirely in Spanish and I understood most of what I was said!     May Day EpiphanyMay Day is the international day of rest and protest for labor.  A huge holiday in formerly socialist nations, it is equally celebrated in Bolivia where organized labor loves any reason to cause unrest, rally attention to their cause and, most importantly, not work.  So, while most of the city was completely shut down, the internet cafe remained open and this is where I killed most of my time before taking my overnight bus north.  During my day on the internet, I looked further into the NYC teaching incentive programs for career changers.  I developed the same zest and excitement for entering the teaching profession as I did when I decided to join the Peace Corps.  I need to start teaching now.  From around this time onwards, not a day would pass where I wasn´t thinking about different teaching methods and creative motivational techniques to use in class and about how I would make my mark as an inner city high school math teacher.  May 1, 2009, my decision was made not to go to Africa and to return to NYC.  Game on.As I reflected on my decision in the brilliant high altitude sun while sitting on a bench in the main plaza, a charming old man in his finest suit, hat and tie sat next to me and we started chatting.  Bolivianos are so happy to hear that it s my second visit to their country.  He said that Potosi was very quiet compared to his home of Cochabamba, which I would have to visit when I return to this country (easily my favorite in South America).  He asked whether Obama was a campesino and what the US thought of Evo.  It´s funny how Obama is perceived around the world; to a Bolivian, a minority man of color who surpassed all the odds to win the US election must be a campesino as would be the case for a politician of a similar ethnicity in Bolivia (like Evo).  I explained that Obama is a pragmatic and patient man who is willing to work with all and hear all opinions.  He is a man willing to shake the hand of anyone who is willing to engage in open discussion.  I also explained that while he is rags to riches, he is not a campesino and is a very wealthy individual, to which the man replied "negro?"  Point made, he is a minority and has struggled in life.  We ended with the familiar refrain, there are a lot of problems at home, Obama hasn't been on the job long and we will see how he and the country does going forward.  I wandered through town, saw a fusball arcade, where there were tons of outdoor tables and kids playing up a storm (they spin, clearly they wouldn't last at the Chi Psi table) and eventually gathered my bags and made my way to the bus stand.Because it was May Day, there were no direct buses to La Paz, so I had to transfer through Oruro, four hour south of La Paz.  I boarded a local bus, not at all comfortable, for a freezing cold ride.  There was this one absurdly drunk dude on board who had the bus stop several times (Bolivian bus drivers rarely stop for bathroom breaks and even less for drunk dudes to puke out of fear of getting hijacked in the middle of nowhere) and almost fell on me each time.  I kept waking up suddenly expecting a pile of vomit to greet me in my lap.  At one point, I had to force the bus driver to stop as I had to relieve myself and with no city lights around it was the most beautiful starry sky I have ever seen while going to the bathroom.  It was not a fun ride and I didn't sleep a wink.  We arrived at Oruro at 5am and, thankfully, there were buses instantly leaving for La Paz.  I wasn't sure if my luggage would be jacked as Bolivian bus stations in the middle of the night are not good places to be.  It all worked out and I was thrilled that the entire road from Potosi to La Paz was paved, it was the first asphalt that I had seen in Bolivia.  We pulled into La Paz at 9am on May 2 and I eventually got checked into the Loki Hostel and killed the day back in a city I love and in anticipation of meeting Mary again later that evening after nearly a month apart!            
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San Gil, Santander, Colombia

July 4-6, 2009:  San Gil, Colombia Reflections on Central ColombiaMary and I left Villa de Leyva on a microbus to Tunja, along the main road from Bogota-Bucaramanga.  While we waited for our four-hour minibus north to San Gil, I argued with the ticket salesman who was about to let some Colombian passengers ride for less than we paid.  Eventually, I got my way and it felt great to fit in like a local, conversing entirely in Spanish.  Central Colombia, as I was certain that the costeno culture of the Caribbean coast would be entirely different, has a very authentic Latin American feel in many respects.  Outside of the crowded cities, the countryside is composed of family farms and tiny towns.  Life in the towns or villages is centered around Catholocism, family and community.  Colombian communities are vibrant, with a love for music and a loquacious spirit.  Because everyone's ethnicity is a relatively homogenous hispanic (mixed European and indigenous descent), there appears to be little racism.  I was curious what this would be like on the coast, where there are large populations of African and pure indigenous descent.  I observed, in both Bogota and Villa de Leyva, that most people give to the poor. The countryside is also so ridiculously lush and green.  It seems like the entire country is blessed with tropical forests over rolling hills that have been clearcut for grazing land.  It reminds me a bit of the road to Rurrenabaque in Bolivia or the mountainous north of Cambodia and Laos, except with the key improvement of nicely paved roads.  Colombia is not a wealthy country, but infrastructure is excellent throughout the country and relative poverty seems low as compared with some other countries I have visited.  I imagine that absolute poverty and sickness is more prevalent in the desolate Amazon Basin region, but at least there is a sparse population and there are abundant resources there.   Small Town Charm of San GilWe finally arrived in San Gil in the late afternoon of July 4.  San Gil is a large settlement with a small town feel and old world charm that is only three hours south of Bucaramanga.  The city is built along the steep hills that rise from the river banks at the bottom of the valley.  We mainly visited to participate in some cheap adventure sports, but San Gil is a wonderful example of an average town that gave us a sample of normal Colombian life outside of the major cities and the coastal tourists spots.  Climbing up the steep cobblestone streets, I had flashbacks to the lung-busting climbs of La Paz.  Thankfully, San Gil is not at 4,000m!  We checked into the Macondo Guesthouse (which I would soon find, upon completion of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's masterpiece, 100 Years of Solitude, was in homage to the mythical town of Macondo and the Buendias) for a grand total of C$26,000 (USD13).  While the Macondo is cheap and a wonderful guesthouse for travelers looking to arrange adventure sports, we unknowingly had also finally found the backpacker scene of Colombia that we had so far successfully evaded.  Nonetheless, once we left the guesthouse, we also left the gringo trail behind.  Thankfully, tourism development surrounding adventure sports has not yet exploded to the level that the original feel of the town has been irreversibly altered.   Life in San Gil revolves around the large and beautiful Plaza Mayor, directly at the bottom of our hill.  In between the Macondo and the Plaza Mayor was El Camino Corte, a row of about eight hairdressers, which would provide my last cheap haircut in the developing world for this trip.  On one side of the Plaza Mayor is the old two-towered Catedral.  Given it was a Saturday night, pretty much everyone in town was out in the Plaza - drinking with their friends, cuddling on a bench or getting ice cream for their kids.  I enjoyed a kebab (C$1,000) of the finest street meat I have had in the entire world, while Mary grabbed some mango and we walked the square, passing vendors, shoeshine men, kids riding old Powerwheels-for-hire and everyone sitting around the central fountain, colored by lights.  Reminding me of botillon in Spain, the youngsters were boozing up in large groups, while strumming guitars and chasing after each other.  In celebration, and based on someone's recommendation, we enjoyed some massive and delicious Trintario burgers (C$8,500 or USD4.25).  What a way to spend our 4th of July! Torrentissimo = Rappelling Down a WaterfallThankfully, our fanless and hot room cooled down and we woke up to a wonderful view, from our bedroom windows, of the entire city and Catedral below.  There were not enough people for whitewater rafting, so we decided to go torrentissimo for C$35,000 (USD17).  We were supposed to leave at 9:30am and go rappelling at 10:30am, an hour away.   In typical South American fashion, it was an adventure getting there.  We were told we just missed the local bus that took us to the waterfall.  We waited for an hour in the Plaza Mayor and returned to pick up the next bus.  We were then told that it was not running because the road was closed.  No one seemed to know exactly why the road was closed or when it would open again.  We walked away dejected, but I thought of an alternate plan and ran back to ask them a question.  Somehow, in the matter of five minutes, the road had opened once again and we were told to board a micro leaving in 15 minutes.  One hour later, we were on our way, although Mary and I definitely paid gringo prices (2-3x what the locals paid), which I hate because it was unofficially, shadily and inconsistently charged.  It wasn't until about 1pm that we actually reached the spot for torrentissimo.   We had to hike about 30 minutes through lush jungle in order to reach Cascada Juan, where we would do the torrentissimo.  Warm and sweaty while walking, we noticed the change in weather from higher and cooler Bogota and Villa de Leyva.  I would soon realize that this was nothing as compared with the Caribbean coast.  The area may as well have been called Valle de Mariposas as there were beautifully colored - blues, purples, yellows, oranges - butterflies flying everywhere.  Deep into the wide jungle canyon the the massive Cascada Juan tumbles in multiple sections in a splayed bridalveil of water.   Joining Mary and I was a middle-aged man from Bogota and his Ecuadorian-American teenage niece and nephew.  This was the second time the uncle had rappelled down the waterfall and I was impressed with how fearlessly all three of them did the activity.  The 12-year old girl was very cute, talkative and friendly.  After chatting during our hike up the jungle hillside taking pictures of the beautiful top bridalveil section of the falls, it was time to gear up and plunge.  It is truly a crazy sensation dropping over the lip of a strong waterfall.  We would plunge 70m (230ft) down in three stages.  While descending, there is water absolutely everywhere.  This may sound idiotic, but imagine doing an intense activity below the strongest shower you can imagine.  This puts Kramer's shower head to shame.  I was a bit scared at first, staring all the way down (I couldn't even see the bottom as my view was obstructed by the lip of the middle stage) and with my feet constantly slipping on the slick and mossy rock.  While it was exactly the same technique as normal rappelling, it was also entirely different experience.  Soon enough, I was focused on the task and ensuring that my technique was efficient and my progress down the rope was smooth.  Before long I reached the end of the first stage and looked down the sheer vertical waterfall towards the bottom.  I brushed my fear and worry under the carpet of focus and didn't even notice the water crashing on me unless I looked up.  The final portion was an overhang, so I slid down the rope in midair and touched my feet at the base of the falls.  As soon as I was down, I wanted to do it again.  What a rush.  What trust in the equipment.  What dad would certainly not approve of this one either.   Cruising the Hills of San GilAfter a refreshing Coke and snack, we caught the bus back into town and decided to hike up to the one of the many crosses dotting the high points and lookouts of San Gil.  We moved away from all of the tourist infrastructure and even away from the city center, observing the varying levels of affluence and housing in town.  Although we were tourists walking through poor areas of town, we did not receive any dirty looks and the residents were really helpful.  The poorest folks lived towards the top of the hill, just as with many South American cities and contrary to most of the developed world.   We reached the cross and shrine at the top of hill, guided by stone sculptures depicting the 13 stages in the Crucifixion of Christ.  We were joined only by some local youngsters and couples.  We waited out the short rainstorm with gigantic pellets of rain before heading down for dinner.  The daily storm, which is pervasive through most of Colombia, is refreshing and nice as Asians can attest during monsoon season.   With such a memorable experience, we returned to Trintario for dinner.  The owner was thrilled to have us and we both indulged in bruschetta while I ate a melted ham, cheese, olive and eggplant sandwich of deliciousness and Mary double-downed on the burger from the previous night.  I met some of the people at the hostel and recruited them for rafting in the morning.  There would be no cancellation this time.   Rafting down El Rio SuarezI said a temporary goodbye to Mary the morning of Jul 6 as she was returning to Bogota to meet a couple of friends visiting from the US and stay with the family of one of the girls.  I was sad to see her go, but was ready for some independent travel and would see her again in about a week.   There were 11 people going out rafting that day and we all met at the hotel.  There was a group of 6 Irish girls (including Avril the redhead who would ride behind me), Dan (Oz) and three friends, Chris (Col), Diana (US) and Lisa (Holland), who I had met the night before.  Most of my fellow rafters were going rafting for the first time, so everyone was quite nervous.   The Rio Suarez is known for its serious rapids (many class 4, 4+ and 5), danger and intensity.  It is a river like none I have rafted/kayaked, where the entire river is almost one uninterrupted rapid with differing intensities of white-water.  We went with Colombia Rafting Expeditions, who were as professional as it gets in terms of experienced guides who communicate well and are proficient in all safety techniques.  Caesar, who would ride in the support kayak, gave the safety demonstration, which was long and intimidating to the neophyte rafters.  Basically everything culminated in the following said in a strongly-accented English "When you fall the boat, hold the rope!".  My past Boy Scouts experience came in handy (once again), as I was the resident expert, translation and re-explaining all of the safety procedures and commands to the other rafters. Chris and I were put in the front of our boat, with four girls behind and our guide, Nestor, commanding us from the back.  The other boat had Dan up front with four girls and their guide.  Nestor, an incredibly ripped, good and fun guide, watched our backs all day long and thank god he was with us.  As we began, I introduced everyone to the concept of boat wars while rafting.  What ensued during any remotely calm (ie not a massive rapid) stretch of water were insane splashings of each other.  We quickly practiced our commands and were off.   These were serious rapids.  On every river I have been on, there is risk and danger, but I have never been ordered to sit on the inside of the boat.  Also, while it is important that we all paddle, I generally have felt that if we all failed at our tasks, our guide could steer us through a rapid without a problem.  On this river, Nestor was constantly screaming at the top of his lungs "Left Front, Right Back", "Forward, Forward Forward!", "Backward, Backward!", "INSIDE, INSIDE, INSIDE!".  It was intense, requiring tons of focus and stress.  On several occasions, Avril, playing the concerned mother, almost yanked me inside the boat when I was late responding to an "Inside!" command and was still paddling.  It was awesome and it not having deadlines or the stresses of regular life, it was nice to require focus.  Perhaps, this is one reason why I love all of the adventure sports, treks and other activities that I have done on this trip.  I have frequently heard surfers describe their addiction to their sport as driven by the intense focus their sport requires.   It was also an extreme amount of fun.  The river carves through some beautiful country, which we barely glimpsed in between averting chaotic disaster through the rapids.  Many of the waves were at least one-story high and we would pitch up and down, as though the raft was a seesaw with the fulcrum at the middle, getting absolutely drenched in the process.  One of the coolest feelings on earth is paddling hard at the front of a raft that is barreling down in a near vertical nosedive towards the base of a rapid!  At one point, the raft ahead of us was stuck in the counter-current of a rapid with us slingshoted at full speed by the rapids towards them.  Both of the guides did their best maneuvering to avoid a collision, but the other raft lost one of their passengers in the process.  As Dan later explained to me: "I saw someone floating down river, so I looked back to my guide to await further instruction and go pick up our fallen comrade.  I then realized that it was him who had fallen out!"             After a great riverside snack served up on Caesar's impromptu-table/overturned kayak, we hit the river and prepared to navigate the Class 5 rapid.  This is the highest class of navigable rapid in the system; any higher and it is Niagara Falls.  It was absolutely epic is the way to describe it.  I have never seen so much water stewing, foaming and breathing in multiple directions.  It was an endless rapid, not just one quick, but tough stretch.  We somehow all made it through intact, but there was one time where the entire boat almost got flipped on a rock and several times where we almost got tossed from the boat!  The commands were no joke here and were absolutely necessary to avoid serious problems.  If we weren't paddling, Nestor would be able to do nothing to avert a disaster.  Despite the danger and fear level, I wanted to run it again immediately after we had passed through the rapid.  Unfortunately, our expedition ended far too soon (as time usually flies when you are having a blast) where the two rivers converge and continue flowing all the way back through San Gil.  What a great time; if you haven't done a ton of rafting in the past, make sure you hit the Rio Suarez (C$120,000 or USD60).   Immersion is the Best Way to Learn a Language On our ride back to San Gil, I rode up front with Chris.  A 19-year old psychology student from the upper class of Bogota, I enjoyed an incredibly engaging and intelligent discussion that was both mentally stimulating and an excellent pseudo-exam in conversational Spanish.  There is simply no better way to learn a language than immersion.  Entirely in Spanish (albeit with Chris humbly accepting my busted Spanish and terrible conjugation), we spoke of our girls, the beautiful girls of San Gil (just because you are on a diet doesn't mean you can't look at the menu), work and his interest in psychology.    As with any conversation with me, the topics shifted towards politics and economics and began with a lengthy discussion of President Alvaro Uribe, his past, the country's future and his popularity.  Chris pointed out that there has been a great reduction in violence throughout the country as compared with the previous 50 years, which is incredibly important and laudable and a source of massive popularity for Uribe.  However, with the guerrilla problem much smaller than it used to be, Colombia needs to focus on her other problems and Chris mentioned that many Colombians feel there is too much money spent on policing and military and not enough spent on education and other social programs.     Quid pro quo, meant that I explained the popularity, appeal and reality of Obama as President of the US and the tough problems he has to deal with.  We discussed climate change and the need for a sensible renewable energy policy and the problems related to the price elasticity of demand for gas and oil.  I learned that it costs less than USD1 to fill up a tank of gas in Venezuela; supporting my point that low gas prices returns consumption to unsustainable levels.  This would have been a great discussion in English and I was so proud to have had it entirely in Spanish without ever formally learning the language. Upon return to San Gil, Chris, Diana, Lisa and I enjoyed a traditional Colombian meal of grilled meat, plantains, rice and potatoes while continuing our discussion.  Now in English, I spoke in great detail about my experiences and thoughts on India, her beautiful qualities and her myriad problems.  The discussion of India brought us to our views on beggars and how they should be treated.   Lisa just had an experience in northern Colombia where she was scolded by others at a restaurant for offering food to a young boy who was begging.  They all called the police and asked Lisa to decide what to do with the child.  The government of Colombia started a program several years back where impoverished children can enroll in a fully-subsidized boarding school.  While this is a great program, several problems have emerged including tearing children away from their families to the detriment of both (psychological for the child and economic for the family that just lost an important earning resource) and abuse of the social welfare system. There are always risks with social welfare programs and rewarding begging in general as it can be psychologically dangerous since it creates dependence.  I shared stories of my experiences with beggars in India and some of the countries from SE Asia.  I don't believe that it is innate for human beings to be dependent as we originally had to fight for survival either on our own or amongst a small family or community.  Empowerment and teaching are much better "welfare" programs than pure handouts (which is what the Colombian system is trying to achieve) as the handouts don't solve the root causes, but simply put a bandaid over them.  The ineffectiveness of the Zero Hunger program in Brasil is an example of a poor social welfare program.   Unfortunately, all great conversations must come to an end and I said bye to my friends and killed some time on the internet at the hostel as I waited to catch my bus.  Chris, the good guy that he is, sprinted back up the hill to give me my correct change from lunch.  I hope to see him again.   I took a cheap taxi to the bus stand and engaged in bitter negotiation over my bus fare.  Thankfully, I received intelligence from the Irish girls on my rafting trip that the bus fare from San Gil to Santa Marta is C$55,000.  When I arrived at the ticket counter I was offered C$85,000 (USD43).  I eventually paid C$60,000 (USD30) and my ticket said C$50,000 (USD25).  I have no problems with different prices or foreigner prices, but make it explicit and post it on a board.  I also have no problems negotiating for things, but there are places where that is not appropriate.  I believe bus tickets are one of those, but alas, I am in South America!   I knew immediately that I was bound for the Caribbean coast as half my bus was of African descent.  The 13-hour ride was relatively comfortable and soon enough I would be on the sweltering coast.  
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1247174768/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1247174768/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1247174768/tpod.html Mon, 24 Aug 2009 00:14:01 -0400 Into the Great Wide Open

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Taganga, Colombia

July 7-8, 2009: Taganga, Colombia Life in a Small Hippie Village on the CoastI arrived in Santa Marta, a large coastal city, on the morning of July 7.  My original plan was to immediately leave for a six-day trek to Ciudad Perdida, but I found it the trail could be done in five days, allowing me another day on the coast, so I bailed on my reservation. From the bus stand, I grabbed a C$1,200 (USD0.60) micro to town, intending to go to the trekking company, TurCol, office, but inadvertently ended up in the small fishing and diving village of Taganga, a mere 5km away from Santa Marta.  Good fortune was on my side as this was my intended destination since there is nothing really to see in Santa Marta and the beaches are not very nice in the big city.   Taganga is set amongs the arid and cacti-covered hills immediately on the Caribbean Sea.  To the east and south of this small and dry enclave, lie verdant jungles that stretch high up in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (where I would hike) and all the way down to the sandy beaches of the coast.  It was really nice to see the sea, knowing that this would be the final stretch of beach and diving time on this amazing around-the-world odyssey.   As I disembarked the micro, I was slapped in the face by the oppressive coastal humidity and heat.  Once again, I hadn’t seen anything yet.  I was going to call TurCol from the internet café, but the nice girl there walked me through the heat to the local office in Taganga.  Though TurCol would end up being a great tour company, I was a little put off at first as I handed C$500,000 (USD250) to a 10-year old kid in a tiny and shabby office and “reserved” my trek for five days.  Wanting to hike in five days would be an ongoing problem, but you can read about it in the next entry on the trek itself.   With the trek sorted, I checked into the relatively expensive though nice and clean Casa Holanda (C$60,000 or USD30) and quickly changed into beachwear – trunks and a soccer jersey – and checked out the town.  Taganga is a sleepy and small town that is nothing more than a few main streets.  Most are dusty dirt roads, but there was street paving and concrete work while I was there.  Taganga will not be the same in a few years as it is exploding from tourism.  The former fishing-only village has been transformed with tons of accommodation, tourist-related restaurants, fishing tourist operations and dive shops springing up over the last several years.   One of the trademarks of Taganga (and really the Caribbean coast), enjoyed by tourists and locals alike, are the ubiquitous fruit juice/smoothie stands.  They are amazing entrepreneurial operations run mostly by women mixing the old world charm of a street merchant with the modern advantages of a regular power supply and industrial-strength blenders.  My daily diet, while on the coast, would include three of four of these smoothies a day.  Don’t worry, the wallet was spared as they cost only C$2,000 (USD1) and reminded me of the joys of cheap fresh orange juice in Bolivia and Thailand.  My favorite was orange and pineapple, though any conceivable concoction is possible with the myriad tropical fruit available (Mary would fall in love with their ice coffees when I met her a week later).   After shopping around the dive shops and setting up a couple of dives for the following day, I hit the beach.  This area of the coast is a magnet for hippies from all over Colombia.  As a result, the beach and the main beach drag in the evenings is covered with artists, jewelry makers and jugglers.  Late into the evening, drum and guitar circles can be heard singing and be seen dancing on the beach.  While there are gringos, there are equal amounts of Colombian familities on holiday and domestic hippies.   At sundown time, after the local kids had finished playing futbol and chatting with foreigners, a bunch of them started doing crazy gymnastics floor routines into the water.  The older kids were teaching the young kids.  Additionally, an older rasta drummer was hanging with a bunch of teenage kids.  While drinking, no one was unruly, and all of the teenagers were harmonizing with each other and dancing on the whim.  The rich sense of community and pure joy brought on by the music was infectious and beautiful to watch.  Seeing this caused me to reflect on life back at home.  Fun with friends back in NYC generally involves spending money at restaurants, bars, etc. and I have often forgotten about the simple and cheap pleasures in life.  The kids on the beach in Taganga reminded me fondly of Ocean Beach bonfires or camping with friends when I was younger.   As I strolled the main drag in the evening, I came upon another landmark of Taganga, Arepas Con Jose.  My man Jose, runs a little cart and serves up fresh cheese (C$1,500 or USD0.75) and chicken/chorizo relleno (C$2,500 or USD1.25) arepas loaded with salsa and guacamole.  They are made Venezuelan-style, the way I love them and I hadn’t seen guac in forever.  With the fruit juices and Jose feeding me at night, I was in heaven and all for less than USD5!    Fear of Returning HomeWhen I was in college, the conversation always started with “What’s your major?”  In traveling, the conversation always starts with “Where are you from?  How long are you traveling for?”  Given I am at the tail-end of my odyssey, every recent conversation has involved my return home, which has caused me to reflect deeply.   It’s weird.  I cannot believe I am almost going home and how fast the journey has flown by.  That being said, Sept 2008, when I left, seems like eons ago.  With days left in my trip, I was beginning to get freaked out about the reverse cultural shock and the boredom of routine and regular life.   I think it will be good to be productive and working towards my eventual personal and career goals, have hot showers, be grounded in the same bed, see friends and family, etc. but I am also equally worried.  I am worried about not relating to my friends and everyday discussions.  I am worried of always referring to my trip, which can be quite alienating.  My fears were similar to those I had when returning to the Bay Area after I had moved to NYC.  It seems like I have to constantly remind myself that life goes on while I am away and I know most people (myself included) follow the “out of sight, out of mind” mentality.   Diving the Caribbean SeaI lazily woke up on Jul 8 (since I had a crappy sleepless night before on the bus) and barely made my dives.  Thank god everything runs on Colombian time, so while I was 30 minutes late, we didn’t leave until 20 minutes later.   My dive shop, Nautilus, is one of the oldest in Taganga, but they are also the cheapest (C$100,000 or USD50 for 2 dives).  We set out in a tiny speedboat for the waters surrounding the Parque Nacional Tayrona, where all of the dive sites are located.  My DM was Philippe, a young Colombian who dove without a wetsuit.  Most of the DMs here speak only Spanish, but this is a great job for a young guy like Philippe. However, he wasn’t the greatest DM at pointing things out.  Our first dive was near Isla Aruja and I was impressed.  I expected subpar conditions and marine life, akin to the Atlantic Ocean, but the diving was on par with what I saw in Gili Air, Indonesia.  Visibility was good (6-12m) and the coral was healthy and colorful.  We saw a morey eel on the first dive, but it was just great to splash again and be breathing underwater once more.  We picked up the other three divers – an Instructor, his useless girlfriend and an OWD – and enjoyed a delicious snack on a small beach.  It was weird for me to have beach and shore access while diving and the OWD course is all on the beach and open water, no pool.  Things are certainly different in Colombia.   Our second dive was much better, with great visibility, coral and a large pass through.  We saw some moreys, large lobsters and the stonefish – which is a cross between a scorpionfish (and just as harmful) and a fake flyer fish.  They are beautiful and I had never seen one before.  However, while I was glad I dove, there were some major frustrations surrounding the Instructor and his girlfriend.  My DM was a junior guy who listened to the instructor, so both of my dives were extremely short, so that the Instructor could get back home.  Additionally, we all were diving together on the second dive and he harassed underwater life and ignored his student to guide his girlfriend around.  What you pay for is what you get!  The more I dive around the world, the more I appreciate the professionally-run dive shops in Thailand (Buddha View on Koh Tao and South Siam Divers in the Similans). A Quick Stroll to Playa GrandeWith a whole afternoon left, I bid farewell to my DM, grabbed a juice and made the 20 minute stroll on the rocky trail over the hill to the adjacent bay and Playa Grande.   Walking down to the beach, the water is a clear blue and still as glass.  The beach is far nicer than the one in Taganga.    I went for several long open water swims, without waves or currents to beware of, and snorkeled to my hearts content.  What a wonderful day – diving in the morning, sunbathing and swimming in perfect Caribbean sunshine and water in the afternoon.  I finished up Clive Cussler’s Flood Tide (perfect beach reading) and by sundown made the walk back to town. After showering up and checking my email, I hit up Jose for a double arepa special and packed up my belongings and tried to get some rest as I was both nervous and excited for my trek the following morning to Ciudad Perdida.  I have looked forward to this moment since first hearing about the trail in August 2007.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1246569878/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1246569878/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1246569878/tpod.html Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:14:52 -0400 Into the Great Wide Open

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Villa de Leyva, Colombia

July 2-4, 2009:  Villa de Leyva, ColombiaWhat a Gigantic Plaza MayorMary and I took a Libertadores (C$17,000 or USD8.50) from Bogota two hours north to Tunja.  In transit on the extremely comfortable bus with reclining seats, Mary was eagerly cheering on Liam Neeson as we watched the Spanish-dubbed action flick, Taken.  Tunja is a state capital, but it is a standard middle-sized South American town without any charm.  We quickly transferred to a collectivo (C$5,000 or USD2.50) and within an hour or so, we arrived in the colonial town of Villa de Leyva.  Unlike most other buses I had been on throughout the world, we were the only gringos on both legs of transport.  Collectivos (or micros/minibuses) are such a trustworthy way of travel as passengers are picked up and dropped off wherever they want (you just flag down the bus or tell the driver to stop) and it is a pay later system.  This was a far cry from the local buses in Brasil where there were turnstiles immediately upon boarding.  The outskirts of Villa de Leyva, a small town set amongst the dry and arid hills that straddles desert and forested areas, are nothing special.  However on a five minute walk down the road from the bus stand, our feet suddenly had to adjust to the rocky terrain as the modern town was replaced by rough cobblestone streets, old city walls and uniform whitewashed adobe houses with Spanish-tiled roofs, double-doors at the intersections of streets, wooden balconies and curvy metal lights.  We soon reached the Plaza Mayor, which is enormous; especially for such a small town.  Unlike other Plaza Mayors, there were no park benches, gardens or lawns, but a massive and open square loaded with cobblestones that preserves the plaza for its initial purpose:  a large space for public gatherings.  We checked into a cheap hospedaje (C$30,000 or USD15) just off the Plaza and, tired from a long day of travel, skipped dinner and relaxed with a movie before passing out.Lazily waking up on the morning of July 3, we went for a lazy walk around town, checking out the little storefronts and the several bakeries (we visited one French bakery three times the following morning) and grabbed a breakfast of arepas and chorizo.  While good, they just are not the same as Venezuelan arepas.  A visit to Caracas, in NYC, is my first order of business upon my return.There are numerous sites surrounding Villa de Leyva and the best way to see them is riding bicycles (or motorbikes if they rented them; oh, how I miss SE Asia).  The rental shop was on a siesta break, so we had to call the owner to come down as we didn't want to waste precious hours of daylight waiting for him to return.  In most Colombian towns, small signs outside of a kiosco (bodega) advertise "Minutos: C$150", where you pay to use the storeowner's mobile phone.  In Bogota, people stand in the plazas with cell phones literally chained to their belt loops while holding "Minutos" signs.  Too bad every single person in the US has a cell phone otherwise this would be a great extra source of income.  The lady who let us use her phone was so sweet and nice and warmly welcomed us to her country once she found out we were Americans.  A familiar theme during my time in their country, Colombians are some of the friendliest and most loquacious people in the world. Raindrops Keep Falling on my HeadWith raindrops threatening the entire afternoon, Mary and I set off on our mountain bikes to ride through the hills and check out a few of the sights.  For some reason, everytime I go riding bikes through a pastoral setting, I always think of Butch Cassidy.  However, this was no ride in the park.  We set off on a loop through the desert region, so it was hot and arid (despite the clouds).  Our ride did not get off to a good start as we kept riding up a steep hill along the wrong dirt road through a village.  Finally, on our third trip back to the gas station just outside of town, we asked for directions and were on our way.  After pumping up a steep hill (with some joyriding teens blowing by on their motorbikes), we arrived at the Pozo Azul.  A couple of natural mineral pools, they are the proverbial oasis in the desert with crystal clear blue-tinted waters.  A horse wrangler kindly helped us out with directions for the rest of our circuit and we chatted with some young Colombianos hanging out at the pool.  One of the girls had spent some time in NYC and glowingly said "me encanta!".  Nearly every visitor in Villa de Leyva was a Colombian or a Colombian ex-pat on vacation with their family.  It was great to be in a country that few foreigners visit, at least for now.  It reminded me of Kabak Valley or Patara on the Lycian Coast in Turkey.  Because of the few foreign travelers, the Colombianos, just as the Turks, are so happy and proud that we would choose to visit their country and are quite keen on speaking with us and giving us travel tips.  Almost immediately, I fell in love with Colombia and I had barely seen any of it!We next rode down the hill (yes), got lost again, and eventually arrived at El Fossil.  This area was a prehistoric inland sea and is rich in fossils.  Amongst fossils of many crustaceans and mollusks, there is a well-preserved fossil of a kronosaurus, a massive crocodile-looking dinosaur.  I absolutely loved dinosaurs and studying the prehistoric world when I was a child, so I unleashed the child within, but the museum is definitely more geared for children than backpackers.  With daylight dwindling, we rode hard up a windy asphalt rode, flew down the other side (the only good thing that comes from riding up hills) and back into town.  The natural pool was definitely the highlight, but it felt good to get some exercise and ride a bike again.  I was given the new nickname of Pizza by Mary that night since I always am in the mood for the world's greatest food.  You can imagine what we had for dinner that night.  After a relaxed morning, we left on July 4 for the adventure-sports town of San Gil.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1246569318/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1246569318/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1246569318/tpod.html Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:36:03 -0400 Into the Great Wide Open

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Bogota, Colombia

June 30-July 2, 2009: Sao Paolo, Brasil; Lima, Peru; Bogota, ColombiaThe Airport Mary Loves to HateFrequent readers will remember the cheap airfare required us to fly roundtrip from Lima to Sao Paolo. So, to get to Bogota from Rio, we had an arduous 24-hour journey that included an 1-hour ride to the Rio bus station, a 6-hour bus from Rio to Sao Paolo, a 4-hour wait in the airport, a 5-hour flight from Sao Paolo to Lima, a 3-hour wait in Lima, a 3-hour flight from Lima to Bogota and a 1-hour cab ride to our hostel in Bogota. We didn't want to pay for a hostel in Sao Paolo since we had to be at the airport at 3am, so we took an 8:30pm bus out of Rio, which was incredibly painless and safe, despite arriving at 2am at Sao Paolo's bus stand. I was concerned about finding a taxi to the airport or having some sketchy dudes take our bags as we were trying to exit Brasil. I heard one traveler's tale where an Australian kid had everything, passport-included, stolen as he was on his way to the airport after a year of traveling. We began our three-country and three-airport hop by waiting in Sao Paolo's International Airport very early in the morning and blowing the rest of our BRL on McDonald's and random stuff. Mary gleefully enjoyed a 4am breakfast of an ice cream Flurry! I later found R$1.20 in my bag, which would have allowed me to buy a large fries. Damn! The airport was also noteworthy as I enhanced my contempt for airport security. They took away the half jar of peanut butter (impossible to find in most of Spanish-speaking South America) and paddleball. These people are totally useless. They don't find anything when it needs to be found and they take away things that <i>may be used as a weapon. I have twice boarded planes accidentally carrying a 6-inch knife and not gotten stopped. Yet, paddleball is a threat. I hope that lady's child can't speak because he has a mouth full of peanut butter (Aaron Burr!) and smacks himself in the head with the paddle. According to the logic that drove them to take away our beach toy, they should have taken my pens because I could have stabbed someone, my Lonely Planet book because it is pretty heavy and could knock someone out and me because I could threaten to punch someone. It is an extremely broken and wasteful system that exists solely to create jobs. My contempt rose in Lima as the careless security officers almost broke some rock statues and souvenirs I had bought in Bolivia. This was the fourth time that Mary had visited Lima's not-very-interesting International Airport. The first time, she was there for something like 10 hours. This was the third time she had to pay the egregious USD31 Departure Tax for international flights. This was, hopefully, the final time she would ever set foot in this airport. I expended the remaining Neuvo Sols I had from when we were in Lima a month earlier and enjoyed one of the greatest simple pleasures in life: having a balance of zero in local currency upon departing a country. This time, I did it twice in two countries in the same day. Great Success!Brief History of Colombia:&nbsp; The Truth is More Frightening Than Any MovieAfter arising from a comatose state on my flight to Colombia, my observant mind was set into overdrive as I saw a suit in the customs line carrying a training manual for INSAS, which is a simulated weapons training program.&nbsp; Colombia is a relatively small country in South America, though it is well known throughout the world, particularly in the US.&nbsp; Other than literary great Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Shakira, when most people think of Colombia, they think of armies, weapons, cocaine, Pablo Escobar, FARC.&nbsp; Essentially danger and warlords.&nbsp; Here is a description of Colombia's torrid history.Armed insurgencies have been a part of Colombian life since the 1960s.&nbsp; The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo (FARC) and Ejército de Liberación Nacional(ELN) are the two major insurgency groups, with the FARC having a decidely Marxist tilt and the ELN having more of a liberation tilt.&nbsp; Both of these organizations (as well as the other minor ones) have financed their heavily militant operations through extortion, ransom kidnapping, foreign aid (the FARC was allegedly financed by the IRA, barring Irish Nationals from entering Colombia until recently) and since the 1980s, drugs.&nbsp; Most kidnappings were of wealthy Colombians, foreign aid workers and journalists in the major cities.&nbsp; The ELN would kidnap individuals in the areas they controlled in return for ransom, dubbing the practice war taxes.&nbsp; The coca plant is grown only in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia, with most production coming from Colombia.&nbsp; It was a small farming crop until the explosion of cocaine use in the US (and to a lesser extent Canada, UK and Europe) in the 1970s.&nbsp; With one of the largest markets for a consumer good in the world (nevermind that it is illicit), the cocaine industry in Colombia was one of the largest business enterprises the world has known, and definitely the largest within Colombia.&nbsp; The cartels, controlled all levels of production from the farm plots to the processing "factories" (tarpaulin-tents in the jungles where the chemistry took place) to transportation/smuggling and end-line distribution.&nbsp; They were vertically integrated and organized like the most respected behemoth companies of the world.&nbsp; The main players, at the peak of the industry in the 1980s, were Medellin and Cali Cartels.&nbsp; The Medellin Cartel , controlling 80% of the global cocaine market at its height, earning an astonishing USD60mm per day and worth anywhere from USD10-100bn, was run by Pablo Escobar.&nbsp; Escobar was, controversially, listed in Forbes Top 10 Richest People in the World in 1989.&nbsp; Cartel money turned Miami into a major boontown in the 1980s, with an unbelievable explosion in S&amp;Ls, construction and luxury goods dealers.&nbsp; The rise of murders and violence in Miami-Dade County led to Reagan declaring a War on Drugs, the creation of the DEA, the eventual reduction in the amount of drug-related criminals and a catastrophic recession in Miami.&nbsp; Check out the documentary Cocaine Cowboys for more on this.&nbsp; But, I digress.FARC, and other insurgency groups, controlled much of the land where coca was grown and generated massive revenues from the padded pockets of the cartels.&nbsp; They used this financing for purchase of weapons, training and execution of their violent and criminal acts.&nbsp; The army attempted to strike back, but was quite ineffectual.&nbsp; A unified right-wing paramilitary group, Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), originally existed to combat the left-wing insurgents, but themselves became violent and crooked drug-financed terrorists.&nbsp; Whoever it was, the FARC, the army or the AUC, there was violence and the citizens of Colombia suffered miserably.The US and Colombia agreed to an extradition treaty, which meant that suspected cartel members were not safe on Colombian soil and could face Federal criminal charges in US courts.&nbsp;&nbsp; Simultaenous to the violence and chaos created by the insurgency groups, the Medellin Cartel declared all-out war on the Colombian government in the early 1990s.&nbsp; Assassinations of key political and legal figures became the norm, including the infamous attack on a passenger liner (that killed several hundred passengers) because it was carrying a judge.&nbsp; Colombia had the highest murder rate in the world in the early 1990s.&nbsp; Bloomberg had a monthly index of kidnappings in Colombia that was in the several hundreds at its peak.&nbsp; A man started an incredibly successful business of bulletproof luxury clothing (suits and such).&nbsp;&nbsp; It was crazy for me, driving through the streets of Bogota, to imagine daily terror of cartel and insurgent-created violence and kidnappings.&nbsp; There were no assurances you would make it through a day or that it was safe to be somewhere on the streets of Bogota or Medellin; even if you weren't the explicit target.&nbsp; It is equivalent to walking the streets of Baghdad, Mogadishu, northern Sri Lanka, China during the Cultural Revolution, Argentina during the Dirty War, Pinochet's Chile, etc.&nbsp; Yet, it was not an explicit war or government purge, as in most of the examples mentioned.Thankfully, things have changed.&nbsp; Arms, security and training contractors have long had a massive market in Colombia.&nbsp; Long before the Blackwaters of the world began training and rebuilding Iraq, US companies have made massive profits from the drug-financed civil war in Colombia.&nbsp; Colombia is the top recipient of helicopters from US defense contractors.&nbsp; Plan Colombia was started in 1998, which is a direct agreement between the US and Colombia on shared intelligence, training and equipment, with the sole objective of reducing drug smuggling into the US.&nbsp; The main effects of the program have been widespread eradication of coca crops and reduction in territory controlled by and the size and effectiveness of the insurgency groups.&nbsp; Unfortunately, 80-90% of the program's funding has been dedicated to military efforts with little money pledged to support of farmers.&nbsp; Some farmers are encouraged to grow crops that are not economically feasible.&nbsp; I wonder when the US government will stop throwing police/military at problems associated with drugs, rather than tackling core issues: using tax revenues from controlled legal substances to reduce demand and legitimate crop-substition for the growers.&nbsp; Peter Tosh's "Legalize It" comes to mind.&nbsp; Apparently, we have learned nothing from Prohibition.&nbsp; Once again, I digress.&nbsp; Despite myriad problems, the Alvaro Uribe-government, with a huge helping hand from the US, has eliminated the AUC, reduced FARC to the fringes of the jungles at the borders with Venezuela and Ecuador and made Colombia a far-safer place.&nbsp; Kidnappings are significantly down, violence is reduced and foreign investment is up.&nbsp; It is tough to know if/when Colombia will be able to fully govern her sovereign territory as finding FARC in the dense Amazonian jungles lacking in roads and other infrastructure is like trying to find and defeat NVA troops and the Vietcong.&nbsp; We all know how (un)successful that was.&nbsp; However, a couple of years ago, a senior FARC leader was assassinated near the Ecuador border and the raid turned up evidence that the FARC receives funding from Hugo Chavez (which he has vehemently denied).&nbsp; And so it goes; hopefully the trajectory will continue and Colombia will be a safer place.&nbsp; Additonally, this progress will allow the government to focus on other pressing social and economic issues in the country that, one could argue, were at the root of the insurgencies in the first place. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Thoughts Upon Entering Colombia: Perception is not RealityBased on the above, Colombia sounds like a terrible place.&nbsp; It may have been, but it no longer is.&nbsp; Do not fear traveling here; it is not worse than any other Latin American country.&nbsp; Dispelling prejudgements is one of the main reasons to travel to a place and see for yourself.&nbsp; Shortly after arriving in Colombia, I realized that perception is not reality.&nbsp; We drove from the airport, in Bogota DC (Districto Capital, though District of Colombia would be entirely appropriate), in a cheap pre-paid taxi (C$20,000 or USD10) for the hour-long journey it took to get to the La Candelaria part of town.&nbsp; I saw police presence everywhere.&nbsp; It is quite common in Colombia for law enforcement to patrol the streets carrying large assault rifles.&nbsp; While guns usually make me quite uneasy, they are pretty comforting here.&nbsp; The streets of Bogota were filled with nice and large cars of all the major international manufacturers.&nbsp;&nbsp; Downtown was bustling like any major city center, with vendors on the streets, business people chattering away on their phones or typing on their mobiles, cafes full of customers and buses streaming by.&nbsp; There are tons of people with mobile phones chained to their belt and signs that say "Minutos C$200".&nbsp; These are payphones.&nbsp; What a genius concept.&nbsp; Mary is going to start a business like this in Times Square for the tourists out there without cell phones.&nbsp; The former mayor of Bogota (who is now counseling SF), executed an ambitious project to reduce auto traffic and pollution in the city, including the widening of sidewalks, creation of many bike lanes, restrictions on auto traffic and the creation of the TransMilenio bus service.&nbsp; The express TransMilenio buses are effectively a surface metro, with their own lanes, fixed stations and far-reaching service throughout the city.&nbsp; After watching some TV at our hostel (C$45,000 or USD22 for private bath and TV), in the old part of town, and going to a few shops, I realized how much Colombia is within America's sphere of influence.&nbsp; TV shows, movies and consumer products are all American exports.&nbsp; Fox in Colombia basically shows the Los Simpson 24 hours a day!&nbsp; Unfortunately, the dubbed voices were too terrible for us to enjoy the world's greatest TV program.To be fair, I didn't give Bogota a shot, but it is basically a congested, modern and somewhat rundown Latin America city.&nbsp;&nbsp; In a country of 45mm people, nearly 1 out of 5 lives in its capital (8mm).&nbsp; It is not a particularly attractive or unique place.&nbsp;&nbsp; There are supposed to be some nice museums and the night life is supposed to be exquisite, but given we just came from a great city (Rio) and had less than three weeks in Colombia, we decided to bolt the next day.Following Brasil, we were glad to be back in a relatively cheap country.&nbsp; Internet is C$1,000-2000 (USD0.50-1.00) per hour, a bottle of water or Coke costs C$2,000 (USD1) and food is cheap.&nbsp; Speaking of food, we had entered the land of arepas.&nbsp; Anyone who knows me, knows that ever since I met my close friend Franklin back in college, I have loved arepas (go to Caracas on E7th and 1st Ave in NYC).&nbsp; Colombia arepas are slightly different style than the Venezuelan wonders, but they are still delectable.&nbsp; And damn cheap.&nbsp; Mary and I stuffed ourselves for C$4,000 (USD2) a piece.&nbsp; We were also given a very spicy salsa that was much more Mexican-influenced than any of the foods of the rest of South America.&nbsp; I immediately sensed the great mixture of influences Colombia has being the bridge country between Central and South America, particularly in her food and music.&nbsp; It is reminiscent of the cross-cultural influences felt in Turkey.&nbsp; Unfortunately, my stomach was jacked once again that night.&nbsp; When will it end!&nbsp; This is one sense in which I am looking forward to being back in the US without the stress of my old life.&nbsp; The morning of July 2, we grabbed a delicious and fresh falafel lunch at a place downtown that could have easily been a gourmet lunch shop in NYC.&nbsp; It was nice to have a Middle Eastern meal again.&nbsp; We grabbed our bags from the hostel (I was packed in my small luggage for the rest of my time in Colombia and happy to leave Big Bertha behind in Bogota) and hopped on a collectivo to reach the bus stand.&nbsp; The collectivos (or micros/minibuses) in Bogota are hysterical space-age looking vans that resemble a cross between the Car Designed by Homer and Shaggy's van in Scooby Doo.&nbsp; It was also only C$1,200 (USD0.60) for the 10km journey to the bus station!&nbsp; Bogota's bus stand is insanely well organized.&nbsp; There are three terimals:&nbsp; Norte, Sul and Oriental/Occidental.&nbsp; Bogota is geographically situated at the center of the country, so basically every long distance bus goes in and out of the city.&nbsp; It couldn't get any easier for a traveler.&nbsp; We were heading north to Villa de Leyva, so we walked into the Norte terminal, bought our tickets for C$17,000 (USD9) a piece and within five minutes were on our way.&nbsp;
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1246396443/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1246396443/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1246396443/tpod.html Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:05:04 -0400 Into the Great Wide Open

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Rio de Janeiro, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

June 24-30, 2009: Rio de Janeiro, BrasilNote:&nbsp; Pictures will be uploaded in about a week, sorry to those who want to read it now.Sugarloaf Yes, Hanglide NoMary and I were back in Cidade Maravilhosa and staying at Franklin's Hostel New Ipanema again. It was great to be home. We had 7 days left in Brasil before we had to leave. We planned to stay in the city for a few days, check out another place for a couple of days, and return for our last few days in Brasil. As I have said many times, plans are meant to be broken. The sunshine we enjoyed in Ilha Grande had followed us back to Rio. However, there was supposed to be rain all weekend. With no guarantees of good weather during the rest of our time in Brasil, we had ambitious plans to hanglide in Rio and spend the afternoon and sunset on Pao de Acucar (Sugarloaf Mountain) on June 24. We arose bright and early and were ready to go hangliding on a beautiful and sunny day. Well, the dude showed up an hour late. Then he told us the conditions were not good for hangliding, so we would go paragliding in a suburb of Rio, much further away. Then, we waited another hour, waited on the side of the road, got petrol, and waited another hour at another hostel as they screwed up and were bringing along more customers. I think they got a call in the morning that more people wanted to go later that day and they made us wait in return for more business. After an entire morning wasted and the lack of professionalism, we made a judgement call not to go paragliding. It was expensive, we were pissed off at the company and would not have fun and we would not have had time to go to Sugarloaf. Anyhow, people say it is a great experience in Rio, just don't sign up with Big Fly. The upside was they had driven us from Ipanema to a few blocks away from Copacabana Beach, which we had not visited yet. Much more crowded seedier than Ipanema, we had to see it as Copa is THE world famous beach of the city. Feeling safe enough to walk around by day, Copa is a massive 5km (3mi) long crescent with the Pao de Acucar rising on the northern end and the point of Apoador separating Copa from Ipanema on the southern end. Just as with Ipanema, there is a wonderful bike and running trail along the sand, just as in Santa Monica. The sidewalk is a cool mosaic of black and white tiles set in a wavy motion, as though it were the waves of the sea. We walked across the sand and Mary bought some earrings from one of the beach vendors. They thought we were from BA, and then wondered why so many Americans speak Spanish? While Ipanema is a better beach, the one unique thing about Copa are the sand sculptors that make palaces along the border between the tiled sidewalk and the beach. These ornately detailed castles,down to every window, nook and cranny, are probably 7-10ft in height and occupy the same surface area as a car. They work for tips, are truly artists, take 1-3 months for a sculpture, and was possibly the most impressive "street" art I have seen in the entire world. After eating lunch back at the hostel (thank god for Franklin's kitchen; without it we have been broke in Brasil), we hopped on a local bus for Urca, the neighorhood with the Pao de Acucar.With plenty of sunshine left, we went for a walk along the Claudio Coutinho (coach of the 1978 World Champions) Caminho that is a paved nature trail circumventing below the mammoth rocks of Morro de Urca and Pao de Acucar and running through the last remaining coastal rainforest in Rio. The jungle, with tiny monkeys with racoon-striped tails jumping around like mad, literally goes up to the ocean breakers in the middle of one of the world's largest cities. I remarked to Mary that Cariocas (citizens of Rio) have absolutely no excuse to be unhappy, unhealty and indoors people (assuming they have a job, home and food which 25% of Brasilians don't). The work culture is much more relaxed than Sao Paolo and the western countries, there are beaches/trails/rainforests everywhere throughout the city and there is great weather essentially 365 days of the year. Mary even observed that fat and old folks were still running along with the fittest Cariocas on the beach trails every evening. The mammoth boulders and rocky mountains on the peninsula at Urca were formed the same way as Corcovado, where Christ Redeemer stands, and the other coastal mountains that separate Rio from the inland plains. Pao de Acucar arose from exploding magma that resulted from the continental convergence that adjoined Rio (then part of the African continental shelf) with South America in the time of Gondwana and before the continental drift that exists today. Because of the sheer volcanic rock faces, the area is also the mecca for rockclimbing and bouldering in Brasil. One of the largest climbing areas in the world, there are an astounding 270 routes up the rocks in the area. As we walked along the trail, we saw boulder problems everywhere, signified by the chalk marks all over the rocks. We allowed the sun to make its way to the horizon line by playing paddleball at the beautiful Praia Vermelha, which is adjacent to the teleferico (cable car) station that leads to the top of Pao de Acucar. The teleferico is the third oldest in the world, originally constructed in 1912, and has been the mainstay of tourism in Rio for basically the last 100 years. Just as with Christ Redeemer, this tourist attraction hits the wallet hard at R$44 (USD22). We ascended up to the interim station atop Morro de Urca before taking the second leg up to the top of Pao de Acucar at a sheer 396m (1,300ft).It was unbelievably windy at the top of this massive granite peak. Despite freezing in our beach clothes, the view and sunset were sensational. We saw planes taking off and landing at the domestic airport across the Gloria Marina. With sun setting behind the city, the long shadows of the buildings slowly crawled across the water that was colored fire orange from the sun's reflection. It was awesome to see the reverse view of Rio; looking at the beaches in the foreground, the city in the middle and the mountains with Christ Redeemer's warm embrace in the background. It is akin to the views of SF from Twin Peaks versus from Treasure Island or the East Bay. In a reminder of Darjeeling or Cambodia, the crowd cleared out as soon as the sunset, without waiting for the encore. We leisurely made our way home, heated up some delicious fajita leftovers and I learned that pigs had flown that day ("Will you be writing that check sir? I'd still rather not"): The US Soccer Team advanced to the finals of the FIFA Confederations Cup with a victory over the #1 FIFA-ranked Spanish National Team. One of the biggest wins in US Soccer history, the Brasilian media was making fun of the US the following day as the cover of the NY Times Sports page had a picture of A-Rod hitting a home run in a regular season Yankees game with only a small sidebar titled "US Soccer Shocker". MJ: The Day the Music DiedOur plan was to leave for Teresopolis, two hours inland of Rio, after the second semifinal in the Confederations Cup between Brasil and host South Africa. Everyone at the hostel gathered around for the game in the afternoon, the fridge was loaded with beers and Franklin, the proud Brasilian who doesn't really follow the team closely, was boasting of a 3-0 victory. Catching a glimpse of what the atmosphere at next year's World Cup will be like, the TV cameras constantly panned the manic South African fans in the stands - eyes wide, mouths open in huge smiles and bodies shaking vigorously as though they were in a trance. Well, the South Africans came to play, as Franklin backpedaled to 2-0 and finally 1-0 in predictions. However, a monster free-kick goal from late-sub Daniel Alves in the 87th minute crushed the dreams of the partisan crowd and ensured we could watch Brasil play in a major tournament final while in Rio. With a festive mood in the air, we decided we would leave in the morning for Teresopolis. With our new friends at the hostel, including David (UK) and Chris (Oz), we began downing pitchers of Mary's homemade caiparinhas. While we were drinking and eating a pizza, one of the guys on the computer turned and told us that Michael Jackson had passed away. In the blink of an eye, a person who was completely out of mind swarmed my emotions. MJ. The King of Pop. All of us immediately dismissed the freakshow Jacko that we read about in the last decade and instantly were nostalgic of the MJ that coincided with our upbringing. "He made Thriller man... Thriller." The guy was beyond legend. He transcended music. He was as iconic as Elvis, Bob Marley and the Beatles. He was the epitomy of the tragic rise and fall of a lifetime star. Everyone loves his hits and not a soul on this planet, save some tribe on Papua New Guinea, doesn't know Billie Jean. Franklin and all of the other Brasilians at the hostel were instantly on the verge of tears. Moreso than us, who have almost replaced our memories of the old MJ with memories of all of his scandals, folks in developing countries still revere and remember him as the King of Pop. While MJ played to sold-out crowds in the US, it was his mammoth crowd gatherings in the Bombays and Rios of the world that were unbelievable. I remember one of Shashank's proudest moments of his childhood in Bombay was seeing MJ live. As I walked the streets just after his passing, I heard his music blaring from every single shop and restaurant and every person speaking about MJ and singing his tunes. Overnight, MJ occupied the top 15 Bestsellers and like 30 of the top 50 on Amazon.com. We paid tribute, as most people in the world, by tuning into one of the channels replaying all of his classic music videos. Just as with the passing of Princess Diana (Midtown NYC near NBC HQ with my family), I will never forget where I was when MJ died. The King is dead, again. RIP Michael Jackson. After recovering from the shock, we set out for another wonderful night of live music in Lapa. At Semanche, Gabriel Improta, with the same bassist on the upright and a different drummer, blew me away again with his guitar playing. We ran into our old friends Chris and Olie (both Oz). Mary was absolutely feeling the music, which I really appreciated, as she was mesmerized by the emotions, joy and body language displayed by the drummer. Not having learned any instruments (yet), she was astounded at a drummer's ability to do different things with all four appendages. I am in an absolute trance when at a wonderful performance, with a silly ear-to-ear grin on my face, so it brings great joy to me when someone else can share in the appreciation of good live music. Wandering Santa Teresa and the Steps of LapaFriday, June 26, we finally abandoned any hopes of leaving Rio for Teresopolis. There was so much for us to see and do in Rio in our last few days in Brasil and we knew we would return to explore the rest of this vast country. Franklin, though extremely happy to have us around longer, laughed at us and remarked that we never leave or arrive when we say we will and always say "one more night". Unfortunately, this dude had booked the private room for himself, so we were relegated to the extremely comfortable, but distinctly lacking in privacy, 4-bed dorm. We decided to visit Santa Teresa that day and hopped on the Metro. Not quite. We took the surface portion (Metro Superfice) from Ipanema to the current terminus in Copa. The Metro will eventually be extended south through Ipanema and all the way to the new development of Barra de Tijuca (more on this place later). The Metro costs R$2.80 (USD1.40), flat fare, and is an amazingly fast, clean and safe system. It uses the same technology and trains as the BART system. Disembarking at Carioca station, we were finally standing in Centro. We never visited the city center until our 10th day in Rio! The two most dominating features of this part of Centro are the Rubik's Cube-looking Petrobras HQ and the spaceship-looking Catedral Metropolitan. The cathedral is beautiful only to the lovers of modern architecture as it is built in the same spirit as the Grace Cathedral in SF. Not what I would expect for the main Cathedral in a former major Portugese-colonial city. We realized that this was also right next to the Arcos de Lapa, where we went to see live music; it is always interesting to see a city by day as compared with the tunnel vision of visiting neighborhoods at night. Santa Teresa is an old neighborhood reaching to the top of the hills above Centro filled with old Portugese mansions, cobblestone streets and now many artisan shops. It is reached by foot, car or bus, but the more traditional route is to ride the ancient Bonde (cable car, like the ones in SF). Costing R$0.60 (USD0.30) to sit or free to stand, the ride is quite rough and not as romantic as it sounds. There's also a reason standing is free. I thought it would be cool to hang off the side as in SF, however I almost had my foot removed and got clipped by a fence pole as we crossed over the Arcos de Lapa (which used to be an aqueduct carrying water from the Rio Carioca). The locals were pros, skating their feet over parked cars and dodging tree branches as though they were evading linebackers. The cable car very slowly made its well up the steep and windy hills, screeching horrendously around bends and abruptly stopping in the narrow street to avoid smacking into an oncoming bus or car. We reached the top and decided to walk all the way down. While retaining the charm in its buildings and streets, the neighborhood is now much poorer and I didn't feel entirely comfortable walking away from the main street. There were several cute shops, which we enjoyed browsing through and it was quite a picturesque walk with wonderful tiles and murals decorating the old mansions. The residents also have phenomenal views overlooking the city. The neighborhood is separated from the flats of Centro by a favela or community housing barrio. There was a cute little kid sitting on top of a doorway at the top of one of the epic stairways that are ubiquitous in the poorer neighborhoods. I wanted to take a picture of him, but thought otherwise when it dawned on me that he could be the lookout for one of the drug gangs; these are the positions of young recruits. We finally descended the hill from Santa Teresa and found ourselves amongst some seedy and uncrowded streets of Lapa. I knew where I was, but felt a little sketchy as something could easily happen to us on the empty streets. Thankfully, we quickly reached the Escadaria Selaron, where there were tons of tourists around. The "Stairway to Heaven" is an ornately-tiled urban stairwell of 250 steps that was begun by the Chilean-born artist, Selaron, as a tribute to the people of Brasil. Eventually, he transformed it into an ongoing work of art, incorporating and changing tiles on a regular basis from fans and friends around the world. The main themes are yellow and green on the stairs that are lined by red tiles on the sides. We saw pictures of the transformation and what was formerly a stairwell that no tourist would go near has been converted to a beautiful work of art. The planters on the sides were begun with bathtubs. Selaron is a visionary, albeit eccentric social artist, who celebrates pregnant women with fervor in both his paintings and the tiles of the stairwell (because of personal circumstances) and the communities in favelas: "Living in a favela is an ART. Nobody robs. Nobody hears. Nothing is lost. Those who are wise obey those who give the orders." The stairwell features in the "Beautiful" video by Snoop Dogg, a U2 video and in the Edward Norton "Hulk" movie. We greatly enjoyed this public art, stopping to read each individual tile from various cities and places around the world. We took pictures in front of our favorites, including the mini-Guernica tile and the SF and NYC ones. I have found it quite common in many large South American cities for beautiful architectural grandeur (usually of colonial heritage) and beautiful public art/murals to be juxtaposed with poverty, rundown and decaying buildings and poorly-graffitied and dangerous streets. This captures Rio's Centro perfectly. I am glad that we visited during the week, when there are some people around. Following the steps, we waited for the minibus from below the Arcos de Lapa, while watching a cable car trapse across the top. Given we were staying in Rio for the duration, we stocked up at the grocery store, though we still ended up going there at least once a day! It was Mary experiment night. The result was a wonderful eggplant sauce with whole wheat pasta and salad. I am lucky, because she keeps my belly full (but me hungry!). Tijuca: Urban Rainforest and Thoughts while Riding Through BarraGiven we weren't hiking near Teresopolis, we decided to check out the Parque Nacional de Tijuca on June 27, which is a massive rainforest in the mountains surrounding Corcovado (Cristo Redentor) with excellently marked trails. The place is simply remarkable for what is essentially an urban park. Entrance to the park is free and there are everything from roads and mini-trails for families to check out to serious climbs to the various peaks and miradors (lookouts) throughout the hills. As I walked through the trails, in lush, wet (it was a cloudy day) and misty Mata Atlantica (coastal rainforest), I thought I was deep in the jungles. Instead, I was merely a local bus ride away from the heart of Rio. From all the miradors, the buildings of the city crept right up to the bottom of the forested hills. I met a couple of young guys from the nearby Alto de Boa Vista neighborhood who were just out for a fun afternoon of hiking. This is the life. This was easily the most impressive natural urban park I have ever seen in the world. While the park was beautiful and it was great to get sweaty while hiking, my mind was equally occupied processing thoughts surrounding some neighborhoods we passed through. To get to the Tijuca forest, we took two local buses. The first was bound for Barra de Tijuca, which is a massive development cum suburb about an hour and a half from the city center. Barra de Tijuca is a recently built area, housing most of the recently young urban elite. The area is full of massive shopping centers, where Cariocas from all over the city come to shop, and nicely planned neighborhoods. It is in close proximity to Sao Conrado, another one of these areas, which houses convention centers and the InterContinental. This area greatly reminded me the new skyscrapers in the far northern part of Istanbul. In close proximity to Barra are several favelas in the hills. Most favelas (squatter neighorhoods) exist very close to rich and rising neighborhoods as the favela citizens are the ones who work in the service and construction jobs in these areas. As we connected to the local bus that took us into the hills, we passed through Alto de Boa Vista, which is a very poor community (though not a favela as people own their homes). The stark contrast between these various neighborhoods in close proximity and technically within the city limits of very wealthy Rio is shocking. They also serve to illustrate two themes I observed in Brasil. The first is the incredible inequality of citizens of Brasil and how it is a vicious cycle because of the education system. There are myriad empirical economic papers that say education is the only driver of long term economic growth. In my own view, sans detailed econometric studies, education is the only sustainable way for a family and a community to rise out of poverty for generations to come. My family is testament to this theory. Thus, despite the current gap between rich and poor in Brasil, one would expect changes in generations of the future because of public investment in education. Property taxes, which fund local school districts, are absurdly low. We heard from an American who bought a property in Copa that he paid R$500 for a R$200,000 apartment; that's 0.25%. While have issues with the great disparity between public schools in the US, it is nothing as compared with Brasil. The public schools, horrifically funded, are overcrowded disasters where children attend for maybe 4-5 hours per day and in shifts; some kids attend from 5-9pm. Class differences are also enhanced as no rich person sends their kids to the cesspools that are the public schools. Tracked from a young age, children that attend private schools their whole lives are also those that earn most of the seats at the country's universities. This seems to me to be the definition of a broken system without the prospect for change. The second thing observed and discussed is the Americanization of Brasilian culture. The city is full of massive shopping malls with name-brand stores and mammoth food courts, such as those I saw in Barra de Tijuca and few days later when I bought my Brasil futebol jersey at the massive six-floor shopping center at Rio Sul in Botafogo. People drive in nice and large cars. People eat tons of fast food - not just McDonalds, but even local chains and types of cuisine. Consumerism and materialism are pervasive everywhere in Rio. People shop like crazy. It reminded me a bit of Singapore. Pop culture and media is pervasive as most television programs and movies are American imports (except for Caminho das Indias, which is a Bollywood-esque Brasilian-made soap opera that is absurdly popular. I spoke with a guy my age, from Belo Horizonte (#3 city in Brasil), who loved Transformers, American and British rock music and told how this was a problem with Brasil and why he desired to live elsewhere. The Americanization of developing country cultures is often mistaken for globalization. Significant improvements in standards of living and the worldwide market for goods, services and labor is a good thing, though not unequivocally. I wish development could mean greater lives, liberties and choices without necessarily meaning the import of American materialism and brands and the slow destruction of local cultures. There is a happy medium that can be found in places. While samba music and football are the souls of the Brasilian people, their actions are those of any old American consumer. The key question is whether people truly desire and demand all of these things or whether they are persuaded as victims to the marketing machine of multinational consumer goods companies? I hope it is the former, though I believe it is a mixture of the two. Dia de la FutebolIpanema has a Sunday "Hippie" market in one of its large plazas and given it was our last Sunday in Brasil, we had various gifts we needed to buy and we were approaching the end of our trip and could afford (both weight and money-wise) to buy some goods, we decided to check it out.It is awesome. I was expecting some sort of kitschy garbage or standard touristy souvenirs that are sold at far too many market stalls around the world. The market in Ipanema was grand, surrounding all four sides of a massive 3x1 block plaza, several rows deep. Criss-crossing the inside of the cordon of stalls were many art dealers selling beautiful canvases. The market contained the usual jerseys, jewelry, clothing and carvings typical of an artsy market, but also leather goods, hammocks, furniture, glass candleholders and dishes enclosing colorful Amazon beans and fruits, newspaper-made trays and trivets, instruments, batik-cloth paintings (should have got it in Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia where it would have been cheaper and where it is from originally), sculptures, etc. It was all relatively affordable and the art of bargaining was well received. I had gone soft on hard bargaining in the last several months and it was invigorating to roll up my sleeves and duke it out with the vendors again. I was reminded a bit of the great night market in Luang Prabang, Lao. If we lived in Rio, we would outfit our entire apartment with really nice, but affordable furniture and decor from this market. Check it out if you are there (especially if you need gifts for home). We went wild, with multiple trips to the market, and amassed an impressive collection of stuff back at the hostel (without the faintest idea how we would ship/haul it onwards). Following the market, it was futebol time. The afternoon was spent watching the Confederations Cup Final between USA and Brasil. Unbelievably, the US went up 2-0 early in the first half. Would they shock Brasil? The streets were eerily quiet as people were nervous. However, the score was misleading, as Brasil was attacking like crazy. Neither squad had strong fullback performances and the Howard, the US keeper, was playing out of his mind. The second half saw the "Beautiful Game", the artistic attacking onslaught that is the best of Brasilian futebol. The game ended, with a late goal by captain Lucio, 3-2. We had a late feed, so we heard the nieghborhood erupt in the 87th minute and I immediately knew the winning goal for Brasil was in the bank. Brasil could have easily won 5-2.With a party atmosphere throughout Rio, it was time to attend the main event. Fla-Flu: The derby between Brasil's two most successful and Rio's crosstown rival futebol clubs, Flamengo (31 titles) versus Fluminense (30 titles). The game takes place at Rio's shrine, Maracana Stadium. The world record for attendance at a club football game was 194,000 at a Fla-Flu game in 1963. I acted as tour guide, taking a bunch of folks from the hostel to the game: Mary, Chris (Oz), David (UK), Jess and Mike (NZ). We opted not to take the R$70 tour that is offered through the hostels and instead ended up spending R$25 (USD12.50) - tickets for a never soldout stadium were R$20 and the bus/metro was R$5. NEVER TAKE THIS TOUR!The atmosphere was riveting. Not as good as BA in my opinion as the stadium is too big, but much more exciting than the Botafogo-Fluminense game we saw a couple of weeks earlier. There were tons of empty seats still, but the 45,000 fans were raging with the samba drums and cheering clubs in full effect. We ended up in the Flamengo section, which was much more animated and crowded than the Fluminense side. Someone claimed there are 35mm Flamengo fans (Brasil is a country of 200mm people). It sounds a little high, but it is possible. The first half was quite boring, but we were enjoying the atmosphere in the Flamengo section. The crowd went wild during halftime as their two-time champion basketball team paraded the field with their trophy and medals. I like the concept of one club team with many sports, which we don't do in the US. The second half was really exciting with endless scoring chances and end-to-end action. We saw Emerson and Adriano play brilliantly (though Adriano is a fat man just like Ronaldo and Ronaldinho; what is with the laziness in the talented Brasilians?). The game ended 0-0, robbing us of witnessing the celebration after a goal, as Adriano missed a point-blank and wide-open net in the 88th minute! We safely made it home via the metro, with absolutely no issues at all in and out of the stadium. It was much more sketchy going to the River Plate game in BA. I would have expected the opposite. In attending two games in Rio, I found the fans to be happy and passionate without violence. In general, in a month in Brasil, we had only a couple of minor hassles on the beach, with patethic attempts to take our bag, on our second to last day. Of course, things can happen to anyone at anytime and we were lucky, but the horror stories told by all travelers don't necessarily happen on 100% of visits to Brasil. My conclusion was to be cautious and vigilant at all times, but that the country wasn't any more overtly dangerous than a lot of other places that it should prevent travelers from visiting. I was anxious to see, given its historic dangerous reputation, Colombia would fall into this same category of countries that are safer than they seem. Adios Rio, Thoughts on BrasilWe spent our last two days in Brasil, June 29-30, at the beach in Ipanema and taking care of last-minute errands, shopping and exhausting our food supplies at the hostel. We were gifted with two mostly sunny days as we enjoyed our last swims, paddleball games, and walks on the beach in Rio, for now at least. In fact, our last day in Rio, the thermometer read 30 degrees Celsius (86F), by far the warmest day during our entire stay in Brasil. Rio has the most accessible and best urban beaches that I have seen inthe world; even better than Sydney because they are in the heart of thecity. While on the beach, I finished The Road, Cormic McCarthy's apocalyptic book that tells simultaneously both of the degradation and humanity of mankind when everything falls apart. It is a great read by the same author who wrote No Country for Old Men. Franklin couldn't believe that we were actually leaving, but we had a flight from Sao Paolo, so it was for real this time. He was quite sad to see us go, considering we had spent nearly two weeks at his place. He generously gave us the private room for our last night, even though we had only paid for dorm beds, as a parting gift. We will see him when we come back!In my last couple of days sitting on the sand, I thought a lot about Brasil and her future. I didn't see enough of the country to come to any fair conclusions; my time was spent in Iguazu and the relatively-affluent Rio de Janeiro State. I need to travel to the North and the Amazon Region to really assess the future for all her citizens. Without a doubt, this massive landmass is incredibly resource rich. Shut off from the world tomorrow, Brasil could take care of herself. Despite a fast-growing population and incredibly high rate (80%) of urbanization, there will never be land-shortage, water or resource issues as India and China will likely face. However, Brasil has high rates of depletion of her natural resources (the tragedy of the Amazonian rainforests is nothing new and Petrobras will in the coming decades have to tap into deep ocean proven oil reserves that are much more expensive to extract). Simply from observation, I imagine that natural resources industries account for a much larger share of GDP than manufacturing or services sectors, which are both more sustainable and labor intensive. However, poverty in the heart of the favelas in urban areas is dire, illiteracy and unemployment are high and education is poor, particularly in the favelas. The vicious cycle of burgeoning inequality seems on an irreversible course absent massive social changes. Additionally, there are significant racial and class-based divisions and undertones that creep through all of society; reminding me greatly of the caste-based binds that keep Indian society from truly progressing to an egalitarian and meritocratic-based society. The country came to near collapse as it was shut off from foreign creditors after halting interest payments on its external debt in the early 2000s. Concurrent with rampant inflation, Brasil was seemingly on a disastrous course of default, just as with her neighbor, Argentina. At the time, Brasil did not generate tons of foreign currency from export sales. High domestic inflation means that internal revenues (such as taxes), are worth less and less and cannot support debt that is denominated in a foreign currency. Lula, one of the most popular Presidents in South America, a leftist and former trade-union leader, came to power in 2002. Foreign investors thought this spelled disaster as he would enact unsustainable spending programs for the power at the cost of international investors.On the contrary, and to the shock of everyone, Lula has been a fiscal conservative. Brasil repaid her debts to the IMF quickly, Lula enacted strict cuts in fiscal spending in order to reign in inflation and with the rise of commodity prices in recent years (though I don't know if this currently holds in 2009), Brasil has become a net creditor (lends more than it borrows by way of greater foreign currency reserves generated from export sales than the amount of interest and principal it owes on its foreign debt). The investment climate is very good as reflected in its lowered borrowing costs, investment-grade sovereign credit ratings, currency appreciation and robust stock market. Lula's prime piece of social expenditure has been his "Fome Zero" program, aimed at erasing hunger in Brasil. With good intentions and no doubt some positive results, there is significant criticism of the program that it is being used as a propaganda tool, ineffectually managed by the bureaucracy and not permanently solving the root causes surrounding Brasil's poverty and inequality. Lula has acted prudently in reversing the country from the brink of economic collapse to one of the formidable BRIC countries. As an aside, this is an overused acronym as it was created by a Goldman Sachs economist not to express similarities between the countries, but the fact that they are large (25% of world's land mass and 40% of its population), fast-growing and are likely to eclipse the size of the world's currently wealthiest (as measured by GDP) countries by 2050. Brasil, Russia, India and China are vastly different countries with different drivers of growth, different investment climates, different balance-of-power goals and different impediments to social, political and economic progress. However, it will be interesting to see if Lula, the leftist and unionist, will drive the necessary social reforms that are needed to overturn the massive inequality in this country with careful consideration not to disrupt economic growth and wealth creation. Brasil is gifted in people, resources and wealth. It will be up to her leadership to implement effective institutions - beginning chiefly with mammoth investment and focus on education of the poor - and support a business environment that is free of bureaucratic restraints, is open to investment and creates jobs in an environmentally-friendly and sustainable way. This is no small task, but it will be an awesome one to watch over the coming decades and one of many reasons for me to revisit this incredible country.Ole, ole, ole, ole... Brasil... Brasil... Aite mais tarde!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1244810967/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1244810967/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1244810967/tpod.html Sun, 28 Jun 2009 09:58:04 -0400 Into the Great Wide Open

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Rio de Janeiro, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

June 5-12, 2009: Rio de Janeiro, BrasilFirst Impressions of Cidade MaravilhosaMary and I arrived in Rio de Janeiro on June 5th and after arriving in Ipanema from the bus terminal, we checked into the Bonita Hostel for the night.&nbsp; Rio is expensive.&nbsp; We paid R150 (USD75) for a private room in a hostel with a shared bath.&nbsp; The place was nothing special at all and was actually kind of dirty.&nbsp; This might have been the most we have paid in the entire world for a private room in a hostel.&nbsp; Rio is expensive.&nbsp; Rio de Janeiro, with 11mm people in its metro area, is the second city of the country after Sao Paolo, but in many respects is the center of the Brasilian universe.&nbsp; It was formerly the capital and is dubbed Cidade Maravilhosa (Marvelous City) by all its residents and millions of visitors.&nbsp; It is the host of the 2014 World Cup and vying to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.&nbsp; The city is nestled at the mountainous edge of the Mata Atlantica (coastal mountain rainforest).&nbsp; Towering cliffs sprout out of the ground very close to the beautiful white-sand beaches and wonderful surf.&nbsp; It is easily one of the most picturesque cities in the world.&nbsp; It is as though a massive metropolis was dropped on the shores of Maui or Kauai. &nbsp;&nbsp; Like Sao Paolo, it also contains extreme income inequality and the neigborhoods vary from upscale Ipanema all the way to down to the favelas (poorer slum neighborhoods).&nbsp; Interestingly, both because of transport issues and desire to be next to the highly valued beaches, all of the favelas are high up in the steep hills where the residents of the sardine-packed houses have the finest views of any poor neighborhoods on the planet.&nbsp; The most valuable real estate is down in the flats, albeit close to the water's edge.&nbsp; Rio is a narrow and long North-South city that is framed by the ocean in the east and the Tijuca rainforest and mountains in the west.&nbsp; As a result, it is fairly easy to get around and to not get lost as nearly every bus passes through all of the main neighborhoods going from south to north:&nbsp; Leblon, Ipanema, Copacabana, Flamengo/Urca, Botafogo, Lapa/Gloria/Santa Teresa and Centro.&nbsp; Making things even easier for the visitor is the best street sign system I have ever seen.&nbsp; Every single intersection - regardless of the affluence of the neighborhood - bears street signs on all four corners.&nbsp; These street signs not only very clearly bear the street names, but also provide some historical fact (every single one of them) and have the neighborhood name at the bottom of the sign.&nbsp; The bus system is the way to get around town as there is a constant flow of AC buses (R$4), local buses (R$2.20) and minibuses (R$2) going through the streets.&nbsp; In most South American cities - Lima, La Paz, Sao Paolo, Rio, BA - there seems to be a constant flow of buses going to all destinations.&nbsp; I have never waited more than five minutes to get on a bus.&nbsp; This is in stark contrast to the US, even NYC.&nbsp; There is also a metro system in Rio, which is very clean, fast and functional (they use the same trains and track technology as the BART system in CA).&nbsp; However, just as Georgetown is off the metro grid in Washington, DC, Ipanema is not connected to the metro in Rio... yet.&nbsp; There is a surface bus route that connects Ipanema with the metro stop in Copacabana.&nbsp; Copacabana, the neighborhood adjacent to Ipanema contains an equally wonderful (and far more famous) beach, but it is a much seedier neighborhood with prostitutes and people from the favelas intermixed with the residents and tourists.&nbsp; There is currently a metro stop being built in Ipanema.&nbsp; We found out from some locals that they don't necessarily view this as a good thing as they fear (just as folks in Georgetown) that the public transport link will bring in some of the seediness of the rest of the city.&nbsp; There are buses that connect the seedy parts of the city with Ipanema, so I think that is BS; all it would mean easier and quicker access to Centro. &nbsp; Despite the great public transport, one of the things I noticed during my first few days in the city was Petrobras and specific cars.&nbsp; Petrobras is everywhere.&nbsp; This company is an absolute behemoth.&nbsp; Petrolero Brasileiro is a semi-public company that has a near energy monopoly on oil and gas production, refining and distribution in Brasil.&nbsp; It is a major world player in the industry.&nbsp; The company has comparable proven reserves, production capacity and years of production to the US giant, ChevronTexaco.&nbsp; Domestically, the Rio-headquartered company is basically the only player.&nbsp; There are pretty much only Petrobras fuel stations.&nbsp; There are Petrobas platforms, storage facilities, tankers and whatever else the industry has by way of PP&amp;E everywhere.&nbsp; Basically every futbol team in Rio (which are the most followed in the country) is sponsored by some brand name of Petrobras.&nbsp; I have NEVER seen such conspicuous dominance by any one single company in any country I have visited.&nbsp; Also of note, every single Petrobras petrol station offers two distinctly different types of fuel: gasoline running for about R$2-3/liter (USD1-1.50) and ethanol for R$1-2 (USD0.50-1.00).&nbsp; Brasil, the largest producer of sugarcane, is also the largest producer of and a major consumer of ethanol.&nbsp; Something like 25% of all vehicles in the country are run by ethanol.&nbsp; There is a huge rivalry with the US in this regard as the US government greatly supports corn farmers who also produce ethanol.&nbsp; On the other side of the petrol pump, I also noticed the dominance of a few brands of cars (Fiat, Chevy and VW) and the obvous lack of another (Toyota).&nbsp; VWs are popular in many markets, which wasn't particularly special, but there are several models (Brasilia and Gol) that are branded solely for Brasil's market.&nbsp; I don't think I have seen many (or any) brand models of cars marketed solely to one country except for in the massive US automobile market.&nbsp; More shocking to me, was the prevalence of Chevys everywhere.&nbsp; It is a HUGE and successful brand in Brasil.&nbsp; Probably 1 out of every 4 cars is a Chevy.&nbsp; And 2 out of 4 is a Fiat.&nbsp; Fiat is THE car company in Brasil.&nbsp; I don't think I ever saw one Toyota, which is incredibly odd.&nbsp; I wonder if there are some restrictions on Toyota manufacturing and sales as I assume Fiat and Chevy manufactures the cars in Brasil and that there are no import tariffs.&nbsp; So, in Brasil, a huge and growing market for cars, conventional knowledge is completely wrong.&nbsp; There is hope yet for GM and Chrysler/Fiat!&nbsp; Ipanema is one of the poshest neighborhoods in this city and is, accordingly, one of the safest neighborhoods as well.&nbsp; It is for this reason that many backpackers will be walking the streets amongst the tiny poodles with little shoes and the various boutiques and fine restaurants.&nbsp; Walking the neighborhood, one could easily feel they are in a nice part of Miami, NYC or Beverly Hills.&nbsp; Every single residential building is heavily protected by high fences, securitygates and CC cameras.&nbsp; There is a strong military police presence throughout the neighborhood and the city for that matter; everywhere except for in the favelas, where the police are the enemy and are not trusted by anyone, even the most law abiding citizens.&nbsp; They are kind of like the inner city ghettos of the US.As soon as our bags were down at our hostel, we were in our suits and heading for the beach.&nbsp; Ipanema Beach is the stereotypical Rio beach.&nbsp; It is everything one pictures from the bronzed and statuesque bodies everywhere, to the futbol jugglers and volleyball players, to the tiny speedos on every single male, to the wonderful surf, to the perfect white sand that crunches under your feet like some fresh powder in the mountains, to the postcard shots of rainforest enshrouded mountains that have crawled up to the ocean and are overwhelmed by the favela houses as though they were a turtleneck sweater.&nbsp; It is paradise.&nbsp; I suppose it is like a mix between the Miami/Venice Beach culture and a truly spectacular natural sight.&nbsp; As I mentioned, Ipanema is also relatively safe.&nbsp; We heard nothing, but horror stories about crime in Brasil and Rio is particularly legendary for its share of armed muggings and robberies.&nbsp; We were constantly warned and conditioned to not bring any valuables with us, which was a big problem for me as I love to take photos of everything.&nbsp; The first couple of visits to Ipanema Beach we left our valuables (except for change for a drink or snack) back at the hostel.&nbsp; Thankfully (knock on wood), we never once had an incident, nor did we ever feel unsafe or threatened at the beach or in the neighborhood.&nbsp; Quite frankly, we never felt threatened in any neighborhood during our entire stay in Rio, though we were definitely much more cautious and vigilent than I had been in almost any city and we only brought what was necessary with us at any time.&nbsp; It was a weird feeling to feel semi-scared and overly watchful always, especially when I was anywhere around Centro or walking around anytime after sundown.&nbsp; I, for once, got a sense of what it must be like to be a woman almost everyday. &nbsp;&nbsp; Frankie's: Our Home Away From HomeOur first hostel sucked, so after visiting the beach on June 5, we went hostel shopping.&nbsp; I also had to find a Skype connection as I had my interview with the NYC Civic Corps (a pilot AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer program in NYC).&nbsp; We found a hostel courtyard on Barrao do Torre, just three blocks from the beach, and came upon Hostel New Ipanema.&nbsp; Run by a 27-year old Brasilian, Franklin, it is a small hostel with a compact living room and kitchen that provides for a strong community atmosphere.&nbsp; The private room was also R$100 (USD50) with a hammock and balcony.&nbsp; Dorm beds go for R$30.&nbsp; He also has free internet (normally costs R$4 per hour) and Skype.&nbsp; Sold.&nbsp; We made a booking for the following nights and we would not stay anywhere else while essentially living in Rio.&nbsp; My Civic Corps interview went extremely well; I was almost certain I would get the offer (and I did in a matter of days, there were tons of applicants, 700 interviews and basically 50 offers made), so Mary and I went out to celebrate locally (after grabbing some cheap sandwiches and burgers at Beach Suco, the local juice stand) with our first Brasilian caiparinhas.&nbsp; I felt like Frank the Tank ("Once it hits your lips, it tastes so good").&nbsp; We met a nice interior decorator from NYC, Monica, who recently bought an apartment in Ipanema.&nbsp; She informed us of a neighborhood called Lapa where there was great jazz music.&nbsp; I would soon realize this was one of the best recommendations I got while in Rio.&nbsp; We capped our first great day in Rio with a nice pizza dinner and eagerly looked forward to moving over to Franklin's hostel and the rest of our open-ended time in Rio.&nbsp; The morning of June 6, we relocated and quickly got to love Hostel New Ipanema and our new community.&nbsp; As I said, it is a very small hostel, so everyone quickly gets to know each other and constantly hangs out together.&nbsp; With the living room downstairs, I was reminded of when I lived in NYC and had Tunde's Cafe del Bar downstairs as the local community hub.&nbsp; I met Caspar (US), a fellow Bay Area native who was biking on a Kawasaki 650cc througout South America (he previously biked roundtrip SF-Costa Rica after graduating from Cal Poly).&nbsp; We enjoyed some great conversations on music, biking, travel, California, sustainable farming and living and other such topics.&nbsp; We also met Rico (SUI), who was an incredibly nice surfer and Olie (Oz), who was working at the hostel but is a musician and was a good source of info because he had spent nearly four months in Rio.&nbsp; The community would only get stronger as the week wore on.With beautiful weather and a major itch for beaches, we parked ourselves for another day on Ipanema Beach.&nbsp; The beach is absolutely spotless, which perplexed me as this was an urban beach.&nbsp; In other developing country urban beaches, I have found tons of garbage and neglect (ie Bombay and Madras).&nbsp; The beaches are lined with entrepreneurs (such as our man Arthur) who have setup umbrella/chair/volleyball/paddleball rental and refreshment stands.&nbsp; These individuals have a stretch of beach as their territory and they take care of it as their place of business.&nbsp; As a result, multiple times daily they clean their stretch of beach and the city provides garbage collectors who come by and pick up these piles of trash.&nbsp; The net result is a prosperous business for the rental guys as customers are keen to enjoy a day at a perfect white sand and garbage-free beach.That evening, per Monica's recommendation and Olie's endorsement, we headed out for our first night of Lapa music and partying.&nbsp; Saturday night is one of the big nights in Rio and Lapa is one of the best neighborhoods to sink it in.&nbsp; Anyone can find a party to their liking in this barrao as on one block you can find a Brasilian jazz trio, a barrao funk hall (favela funk which is really funky and heavy hip hop/dance music), a pena/folkloric music joint, a mammoth three-level and line-out-the-door club, and a local pool hall/neighborhood pub.&nbsp; Fridays and Saturdays are also the nights of the street parties, where numerous street meat and caipirinha stands take over.&nbsp; Barrao funk blared on the streets while I stuffed my face full of R$3 (USD1.50) caipirinhas and kebabs.&nbsp; We checked out a couple of jazz performances, but I would have to return to Lapa for the blow-me-away-I-haven't-heard-great-musicians-like-this-in-a-long-time music.&nbsp; We also hit up a barrao funk party, which was awesome as Olie and I got our major dance on while the young black Brasilian men and women were grooving to the rhythms.&nbsp; It was a great party.&nbsp; We felt totally safe, I was able to take pictures without fear and we safely got home on a R$2 local mini-bus, to cap off an excellent night.Maracana: One of Futbol's Greatest ShrinesAs I witnessed previously in BA, futbol is madness in South America.&nbsp; Brasilians love few things more than the national sport, particularly when their 5-star bearing national team takes the pitch.&nbsp; We were fortunate that CONMEBOL World Cup qualifying and FIFA Confederations Cup games were going on while we were in Brasil.&nbsp; However, to get the real sense of futbol in Brasil, a visit to the Estadio do Maracana is required.&nbsp; The gigantic 90,000-seat stadium in the Maracana neighborhood was built for the 1950 World Cup (in which the host Brasil was stunningly upset by Uruguay for its second World Championship), in which 200,000 paying fans saw a game between Brasil and Uruguay!&nbsp; The capacity has since been reduced for safety reasons and the stadium is mainly used by the four major Rio teams:&nbsp; Flamengo, Fluminense, Botafogo and Vasco de Gama.&nbsp; On June 7, Botafogo and Fluminense played in one of the oldest derbys in Rio.&nbsp; We were stoked.&nbsp; Not knowing the safety of the stadium or the buses to and from the stadium, we paid R$70 to go with an organized gringo tour.&nbsp; Big mistake.&nbsp; We won't make the same error when we see the mammoth Fla-Flu derby at the end of the month.&nbsp; We were quite shocked when we entered for two reasons.&nbsp; The first was the absolute size of the behemoth stadium.&nbsp; Constructed similarly to the Rose Bowl with a very flat bowl shape, there is not a bad seat in the monstrous house.&nbsp; The second reason we were surprised was the stadium was virtually empty.&nbsp; I expected a near sold-out match with crazy fanfare as we saw in BA.&nbsp; Despite the very empty stadium - there were less than 20,000 fans - we were seated in the Botafogo fan section amongst the Furia Jovem fan club.&nbsp; These guys are a role model fan club as their emblem bears the three words (in Portugese): Etiquette, Respect and Attitude.&nbsp; There was no alcohol-fueled angst or aggression as is common amongst European Futbol Club firms.&nbsp; On the contrary, there was a massive samba drum band (just as we saw at the 2006 World Cup in Germany) in the stands that were reminiscent of hopped-up and far more rhythmic Oakland A's drummers.&nbsp; The members of the fan club, who privately finance their activities, hand out balloons and song lyrics to all of the fans, including people like us who were just sitting in their section.&nbsp; There was an all-inclusive community atmosphere, which was very endearing.&nbsp; Hala Botafogo! Unfortunately, the game did not work out in our favor as Fluminense scored the go-ahead goal in the 90th minute to win 2-1.&nbsp; With rain falling on the stadium, all of the fans had cleared the exposed lower level, which meant that the Fluminense fans had lots of running room to go absolutely crazy and dance like maniacs upon their go-ahead goal.&nbsp; Despite a very empty feeling stadium, we experienced the wonderful atmosphere that is Brasilians and their futbol. &nbsp;&nbsp; Christo:&nbsp; Wonder of the World?There is a great whirlwind tour for tourists in Rio run by Brazil Expeditions, but we had plenty of time in this great city and did not want to rush through anything.&nbsp; As a result, we set off on a local bus to Corcovado on the morning of June 8 to visit Rio's pride and joy, Christ Redeemer.The R$2.20 (USD1.10) journey on the bus was beautiful as we went through basically all of the major Rio neighborhoods visited by tourists, including long stretches along the water that provided us with beautiful views of Pao do Acucar (Sugarloaf Mountain), which is the famous peak that soars high above the northern end of Copacabana Beach and the southern end of Flamengo.&nbsp; Christo is visible from absolutely anywhere you are in the city.&nbsp; It makes for a great landmark and is truly a comfort for Cariocas (Rio citizens) to feel his warm embrace wherever they are.&nbsp; Christo as well as Sugarloaf are the two main milk-the-tourists-for-lots-of-money attractions of Rio along the lines of the Empire State Building in terms of an outrageous entry fee.&nbsp; There is a toy train that sells tickets including entry for R$36 (USD18) that takes visitors from the base all the way to the top of Corcovado.&nbsp; We opted to hire a private taxi right next to the station for R$40 (USD20) as this included a couple of other stops at beautiful lookouts in the Parque Nacional da Tijuca (Mata Atlantica coastal rainforest high in the mountains and that formerly extended all the way to the beaches of Rio before the construction of the city).&nbsp; It was well worth the extra R$4 as we got some beautiful views of the Christo statue with the surrounding jungle-covered mountains.&nbsp; Once at the top, we realized the great racket that was the taxi and toy train duopoly; the actual admission for visiting the statue is only R$5 (USD2.50)! &nbsp;&nbsp; It was a gorgeous day atop the peaks and we could see all of Rio.&nbsp; Just as with all the great lookouts I have seen (Twin Peaks in SF, Pylon Lookout in Sydney, Rockefeller Center in NYC, Centre Pompidou in Paris to name a few), the bird's eye view provides a greater orientational tool to the city than an actual map.&nbsp; The northern and more industrial end of the city greatly resembles a view from the Oakland Hills down at the Port of Oakland with the cranes in the water and a tight cluster of skyscrapers.&nbsp; There is even a bridge that looks identical to the San Mateo Bridge.&nbsp; Of course, the views to the South are just mind-blowing, with the perfect semi-crescent bay of Flamengo nestled next to Pao do Acucar, which then leads to the neighborhoods of Copa, Ipanema and Leblon framed in by the Lagoa to the west and the ocean to the east.&nbsp; We learned that Rio's unique beauty, of large and steep coastal mountains enshrouded by rainforest, was a result of when Gondwana was formed, following the breakup of Pangea (Mary's favorite).&nbsp; Rio was originally a part of Africa and the range that divides the city from the rest of the Brasilian landmass was a product of the colliding continental shelves.At one of the cafes towards the top, while we were relaxing with our picnic lunch of PB&amp;J sandwiches, we met a nice couple from Houston, Anne and Matthew.&nbsp; In their late 30s and with two young kids at home, they were greatly envious and really interested to hear about a couple of backpacker's tales.&nbsp; Given our engagement, we also talked about the greatness and challenges posed by having a family.&nbsp; As African Americans who are involved with charitable foundations, we also got into a great discussion on inner city education, the success of some charter schools (like the Harlem Children's Zone) and programs like KIPP.&nbsp; To keep in the memory banks for down the road, they told us of a great cultural exchange program run by the Rotary Club where non-members get a funded trip to a foreign country in exchange for giving talks on their communities at home.&nbsp; This was how Matthew traveled to Brasil and Anne traveled to France the year before.&nbsp; This will be valuable when Mary and I are both earning teacher's salaries!&nbsp; Christ Redeemer is impressive.&nbsp; It is a gigantic 38m (120ft) tall art deco masterpiece at the top of a peak with one of the most beautiful views of Rio.&nbsp; Christ's embracing arms extend 30m (98ft), which is a key element that enhances the feeling of the statue's superiority.&nbsp; It is a must-see for anyone visiting Rio.&nbsp; However, what it is not is one of the 7 Wonders of the World, as it was awarded in the contest run by a private company last year.&nbsp; The Temples of Angkor were left off the list in the vote-based contest as Cariocas were encouraged by the city to vote for their pride and joy; mobile companies didn't charge for text messages related to voting for the statue as more than 100mm votes were cast.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; That evening, Mary cooked up a mexican fajita feast (I wouldn't say we cooked, that is just not fair, though I always do the dishes!) at Frankie's place.&nbsp; It was a nice pattern we were developing while we essentially lived in Rio.&nbsp; Late afternoons, Mary would go for a run along the the beaches, we would go down to the supermarket together, she would cook dinner, we would eat together and I would clean up while Mary drank her cup of wine and kissed me on the cheek.&nbsp; We cooked some in Australia and Argentina, but we really got a sense of what domestic life would be like between us while at Hostel New Ipanema and it was great.&nbsp; The Vast and Verdant Jardim BotanicoAfter a day at the beach that ended in a cloudy evening of eating leftovers and blogging, we set out to walk around the large Lagoa and visit the Botanical Gardens on June 10.&nbsp; The Lagoa reminded me of the Jackie Onassis Reservoir in Central Park.&nbsp; It is large, there are a couple of ritzy country club and spas along the side as well as bike rental places, skate parks and tennis courts.&nbsp; Also on the way, we saw the headquarters and practice facilities for Flamengo, the most successful club in Brasilian futbol history, including the prominently displayed trophy case. African Brasilians originally migrated from the coffee plantations of the north to the large cities of the south in search of work and a better life.&nbsp; There has been so much interracial mixing in the 400 years since the African Slave Trade that it is very difficult to tell who is and isn't an African Brasilian.&nbsp; However, for the most part, the darker skinned Brasilians tend to be in the lower rungs of society.&nbsp; They generally have the least skilled jobs, they form the greatest percentage of homeless people and therefore are residents of the favelas.&nbsp; Interestingly, one of the niches of upper society that I found them working in were as the various athletic coaches in the richer neighborhoods of Ipanema and Leblon.&nbsp; They were the tennis and beach volleyball coaches.&nbsp; I can't think of one African American tennis pro working at a country club I have ever played at when I was playing USTA tennis when I was younger! &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; I expected to see the botanical gardens when we followed the signs towards Jardim Botanico.&nbsp; I didn't realize that this is also a neighborhood name!&nbsp; Jardim Botanico is an extremely nice residential neighborhood that doesn't have the haute couture stuffiness of Ipanema, but feels incredibly safe.&nbsp; The verdant tree-lined streets have many beautiful gardens full of tropical trees and plants and the neighborhood has a heavy artsy and cafe culture.&nbsp; We asked for directions from a waitress once we were totally lost and an incredibly nice Brasilian woman, walking with her young daughter, emphatically helped us.&nbsp; She spoke English, thankfully as our Spanish was not working with the Portugese-speaking waitress, as she also lives in Phoenix.&nbsp; She was so happy to hear that we were visitors to Rio and loved the place.&nbsp; She said there are a lot of problems, crime being the biggest, but she was honored that we would take time to visit her city.&nbsp; She made us feel like guests in her country, which is one of my favorite things about traveling.&nbsp; I feel there is an unwritten pact; I act as an ambassador of the US, dispelling the false pretenses many citizens of other countries have of my country, and they, in turn, make me feel like a guest in their nation as though I was invited to their home.&nbsp; For the most part, I have found Brasilians to be some of the friendliest people with a great joie de vivre amongst the various countries I have visited.&nbsp; The actual botanical gardens are sensational.&nbsp; The 200-year old gardens are massive, organized like a city with detailed maps and named streets criss-crossing through the park.&nbsp; Frequently, while walking through a palm grove or a perfectly replicated South American or SE Asian jungle, I looked up and saw Christo looking down upon us.&nbsp; The highlights for us were the gigantic bamboo trees, the bromeliad greenhouse and the olfactory-satisfying aromas produced by the gorgeous orchid greenhouse.&nbsp; We saw a massive school field trip and the painful patience exacted by the teacher's in maintaining order amongst the energy-filled children.&nbsp; Observing this scene once again reaffirmed my desire not to teach young children as though it would be a joy to see the dramatic changes as they move up the learning curve, the job is just a bit too much of babysitting. After walking for about 3-4 hours, we were exhausted, but had an enjoyable walk home through the neighborhood of Gavea.&nbsp; There was a main boulevard that was littered with beautiful graffiti murals, as I have seen elsewhere in South America, which is such wonderful public art.&nbsp; Public murals should be supported by all city governments as they are expressive and add color to otherwise drab concrete walls.&nbsp; Favela Rising:&nbsp; Visiting RocinhaAs we walked passed the flashy stores of Leblon on our way back from the botanical gardens (such as the Apple Store where an iPod will run for R$1,000-1,500 or USD500-750), I pondered (as I did many times during our visit) how an average Brasilian affords to live in this country.&nbsp; I understand that the average Brasilian is not doing all of the tourists things and visiting all of the places that went (as is frequently the case in most countries I have visited; my parents have never seen the Taj Mahal yet I have traveled extensively through India), but living is equally absurdly expensive.&nbsp; Rents, food and gasoline are really pricey.&nbsp; The minimum monthly wage is R$420 (USD210) and median income is R$500-600 (USD250-300).&nbsp; Clearly, the cost of living up north and in the smaller villages is much much less than Rio.&nbsp; Yet, 30mm people live in Rio and Sao Paolo's metro areas, a quarter of the country's population lives in the top ten largest cities and 80% of Brasilians live in urban areas.&nbsp; We would find out the following day that even life in the favelas is not cheap by developing country slum standards.A favela is a Brasilian shantytown.&nbsp; Originally established as Barrao Africanas (African neighborhoods), following the mass urban migrations that resulted in many homeless and jobless families, they have since evolved to be the self-sufficient and fully functional free housing (everyone living in a favela is a squatter) communities of all large cities in Brasil.&nbsp; Cidade de Deus (City of is a favela that was made famous in the film by the same name.&nbsp; The favelas of Rio are distinctive with sprawling poorly made multi-storey brick and concrete buildings packed in a haphhazard fashion on the steep hills.&nbsp; Similar to the location of public housing complexes in NYC, the favelas are immediately next to the nicer neighborhoods of Rio.&nbsp; It is common for people from the favelas to work in the lesser skilled jobs that serve the richer residents of Rio.&nbsp; It is also common for favela kids to be playing futbol on the beaches with tourists.&nbsp; In this sense, the citizens of the communities are not marginalized by society.&nbsp; It is much worse as they are repressed, forced to serve the lower functions of regular Rio society without receiving any of the social benefits of participating in society (good schools, healthcare, infrastructure, etc.).&nbsp; Life in the favelas is fascinating as there is very little petty crime because of the incredibly strong and organized sense of community, yet they are also phenomenally dangerous.&nbsp; Life for a young man in the favelas usually ends abruptly and early as most are drawn into the numerous drug-financed and violent gangs that police the neighborhoods.&nbsp; Just as with many urban communities in the US, the police are incredibly corrupt and not trusted by anyone in the favelas and the drug-running gangsters serve as the community watch.&nbsp; Police that enter the favelas will be gunned down.&nbsp; When there is an outbreak of violence associated with a gang turf war, Rio sends in its specially trained uber-SWAT force to quell the violence.&nbsp; The craziest movies of mad drug violence represent reality in the favelas.&nbsp; There is an excellent documentary, Favela Rising, that is about Anderson Sa's phenomenal musically-driven social movement to break the cycle and extend the lives of youngsters in the most violent Rio favela by turning them to music instead of guns.&nbsp; I personally witnessed the success of Anderson's efforts as I saw him perform with 80 favela kids at NYC SummerStage a couple of years ago. &nbsp;&nbsp; On June 11, looking for an adventure, Joao (BRA/GER), Olie, Chris (Oz), Mary and I set out on our own to visit Rocinha and get lunch.&nbsp; Rocinha, with nearly 200,000 inhabitants, is next to Gavea and Sao Conrado and is the largest favela (or slum) in all of South America.&nbsp; The massive residential neighborhood wraps around a mountain in a complete collar.&nbsp; There are favela tours, which we would later take, but we wanted to go on our own and experience it for ourselves, sans gringo protection.&nbsp; We left all of our valuables behind and hopped in a R$2 (USD1) minibus to Rocinha.&nbsp; We arrived at the base of the hill and hopped on the back of a moto-taxi for a ride up to the main market area of the favela.&nbsp; Moto-taxis are THE mode of transport up the insanely steep hills and we were help supporting some favela residents trying to earn a living.&nbsp; My first impression of the favela was how it wasn't a slum by my conventional definition of a developing country slum (except for the free housing).&nbsp; I have see Dharavi in Bombay, slums in Yogyakarta in Java and pictures of shantytowns in Africa's large cities.&nbsp; By way of comparison, Rocinha was a fully functional, albeit poor, developing country city.&nbsp; Everyone had electricity, running water, sewage and plumbing.&nbsp; There were no homeless on the streets.&nbsp; Most people had clothing and shoes.&nbsp; There were businesses everywhere - hairdressers, supermarkets, banks, restaurants and open-air market stalls.&nbsp; At one point, there was a McDonalds.&nbsp; If I were dropped in Rocinha, I would guess I was in a middle class city in a developing country.&nbsp; Everyone had TVs, motorcycles and white appliances.&nbsp; Nobody was rich, but nobody was destitute poor as I assumed would be the case in South America's largest slum.&nbsp; After a phenomenal R$9 (USD4.50) meal of a mega-plate of meat, rice, beans, fries and a Coke, we walked around.&nbsp; As I said before, things were not absurdly cheap.&nbsp; Basic staples like a large bag of rice or beans at the supermarket was affordable for a family, yet meat, clothing and any remotely luxurious consumer good was quite expensive; and these prices were at stores in the favela.&nbsp; As we we walked down the street, we came to a corner where my eye was immediately drawn to a 12-15 year old kid calmly standing with his back leaned up against the pillar.&nbsp; Why?&nbsp; In his hands was a massive M-16 assault rifle.&nbsp; As I said, the gangsters are community watch.&nbsp; Our minibus back to Ipanema took us all the way to the top of the hill and through the entire Rocinha community (where I saw more gangsters with rifles in the narrow and steep staircases that are ubiquitous in the favelas) before returning back to the flats in Leblon and Ipanema.&nbsp; A Night Out in Lapa and the AftermathThe previous night, a new crop of people arrived at the hostel as there was a large community feast (we joined in the socializing, but had our own little feast of Mary's wonderful brie and turkey toasties and mac&amp;cheese; it had been far too long since we had some good mac&amp;cheese).&nbsp; Some of the newcomers were Chris (Oz), Robben (Holland) and Olivia &amp; Syrena (NYC).&nbsp; Well, the following evening, everyone at the hostel pre-partied with some caiparinhas.&nbsp; Have I mentioned that I love the community vibe of Franklin's Hostel New Ipanema?&nbsp; Stay here!&nbsp; After many many pitchers and several bottles of cachaca, it was time to head out to Lapa for a night of great music.&nbsp; Mary stayed behind, feeling quite tired, so I set out with Olie, Chris, Robben and the two New York girls.&nbsp; We headed to Semanche, right next to the Arcos do Lapa, for one of the finest nights of live music I have heard in my life.&nbsp; The group was made of a trio on guitar, bass and drums and was jazz with heavy Latin influence.&nbsp; The guitarist and drummer were simply world class.&nbsp; All of the musicians were just in a state of absolute joy, constantly smiling at each other and displaying ecstatic body language.&nbsp; The musicians were joined by an electric mandolin player for several tracks, but the real special guest highlight was when a tall and dread-locked African Latin man got up to the mic.&nbsp; Singing with a beautiful rasp and with full emotion behind the lyrics, the grandson of Ibrahim Ferrer (of Buena Vista Social Club fame) entertained us.&nbsp; Adding to the experience for me, we were sipping our caiparinhas less than three feet away from the musicians.&nbsp; After a magical music experience, I took Chris, Robben and the girls just down the street to the club we had previously visited that blares the barrao funk.&nbsp; Olivia and Syrena absolutely loved the music and all of us were getting our major groove on.&nbsp; Fully inebriated and tired at 3am after a great night, we hopped on a minibus back to Ipanema, went for a late night beach stroll (which is generally not advised given the danger of walking on the beaches of Rio at night) and passed out.&nbsp; What a great night.However, with all great nights comes the price that is paid the following day; the vicious hangover.&nbsp; Thankfully, it was as though the Gods were sweating bullets the way the rain poured on June 12.&nbsp; We nursed our hangovers with a hostel movie day.&nbsp; About 10 people were piled on the couches as we watched Mary's great selections: the Ridley Scott CIA thriller, Body of Lies and Tom Cruise's greatest role in Tropic Thunder.&nbsp; I enjoyed my first ice cold acai that day, which is a smoothie type of drink made from the delicious and nutritious fruit.&nbsp; That night, Mary and I treated ourselves to a sushi meal, which was relatively affordable and quite delicious at the time. &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; Unfortunately, I paid a price for this fish meal the next day; the second consecutive day of suffering the consequences of the previous night's activities!&nbsp; My sore stomach, Mary and me made our way via bus to the town of Paraty, on the picturesque Costa Verde.&nbsp; We would spend the next chunk of our time in Brasil on this wonderful coast before returning to Rio.&nbsp;
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1244606400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1244606400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1244606400/tpod.html Sat, 27 Jun 2009 19:38:10 -0400 Into the Great Wide Open

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La Paz, Bolivia

May 8-15, 2009: Huayna Potosi and Cordillera Real, near La Paz, BoliviaCordillera Trek Day 1Mary and I left La Paz the morning of May 8 for a six-day test of high altitude trekking and climbing through the mountains.&nbsp; Just outside of La Paz, separating the altiplano (high altitude plains) from the yungas (cloudforests that plunge 4,000m down to sea level and the eventual Amazon Basin), lies the magnificent Cordillera Real mountain range.&nbsp; It is a short and compact range, only 125km (75mi) in length (running north south).&nbsp; These towering peaks are gorgeous, snow and glacier-capped and reach up to the clouds.&nbsp; Six of the 22 summits rise above the magical 6,000m barrier.&nbsp; The mountains were sacred and mystical places according the Andean peoples that lived in the altiplano.&nbsp; They are stunning and begging to be trekked through and climbed.&nbsp; We signed up for a guided 3.5-day trek through the range, in order to acclimatize ourselves to the rarefied air, in advance of our 2.5-day climb of 6,088m (19,974ft) Huayna Potosi.&nbsp; That morning, we said goodbye to Sarah, who was going straight up the mountain.&nbsp; Mary was not feeling great that morning, so while we were packing up the car, the guides offered to shorten up our trek.&nbsp; We both emphatically said no way!&nbsp; We set off through the migrant hub of El Alto, stopping at the worst public bathroom in all of Bolivia, to pick up supplies and meet our guide/cook during the trek, Jorge Alvarez.&nbsp; As we left town, we were gifted with magnificent views of Illimani (6,400m).&nbsp; Both of us fell asleep during our two-hour ride to our trailhead and I woke up to see the entire Cordiellera Real up close.&nbsp; What a magnificent sight!&nbsp; It really hit me that we were embarking on the real deal high altitude trek.&nbsp; I had previously hiked to 4,200m, and that was only the high pass on the Inca Trail.&nbsp; I had been upto 5,300m, but not walking my way up there.&nbsp; During our trek through the Cordillera Real, we would be walking between 4,000-5,000m, reaching a 5,000m pass at least once everyday.&nbsp; After this, we would climb from 4,700-6,088m.&nbsp; I was quite nervous.High altitude exertion is incredibly taxing and dangerous for several reasons.&nbsp; At an extreme, ascending too quickly in altitude can lead to pulmonary (HAPE) or cerebral edema (HACE), which can be fatal.&nbsp; More likely, humans at altitude are at risk of Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS).&nbsp; AMS is one of the worst illnesses out there as it is unlikely to kill you, but it basically screws with all parts of you.&nbsp; Those suffering from AMS cannot sleep well, will constantly have a headache, will have dizziness and general confusion, will not have a great deal of energy, will not have appetite, will have major issues with their stomach/nausea, will have absurd pins and needles in the extremities, will have difficulties adjusting to cold temperatures and, of course, will have great difficulty breathing.&nbsp; Frequently, those suffering from AMS will also be suffering from dehydration, attentuating many of the symptoms.&nbsp; The only cure is to receive oxygen or descend in altitude.&nbsp; All of the problems we have arise from the thinner air at altitude.&nbsp; It is the exact opposite of the effects of SCUBA diving; rather than greater air pressure, there is less air pressure at altitude, thus you are breathing in fewer oxygen molecules, which the body doesn't like.&nbsp; Of course, apart from these illnesses, it is simply damn tough to exert yourself at altitude because the air is thinner and you feel as though your lungs are busting out on all climbs.&nbsp; One way to minimize the effects of altitude is acclimitization.&nbsp; The body gets adjusted to the altitude, producing more red blood cells to better oxygenate the body that is breathing in thinner air, allowing for more normal body function and exertion.&nbsp; Those who live at altitude are permanently far better adapted to the higher altitudes.&nbsp; We had both been at altitude for a couple of weeks and our four-day trek would better acclimate ourselves for the subsequent climb.We unloaded our gear in the tiny 15 person village of Tuni, at 4,500m, which would serve as our trailhead.&nbsp; The village sustains itself completely based on tourism, providing guides and pack-mules for trekkers.&nbsp; One of the cholas in the village, and her daughter the cholita, who owned the donkeys would follow along with the animals, allowing them to graze and making sure the stubborn beasts would meet us at camp!&nbsp; The donkeys were so cute and we were constantly quoting Donkey from Shrek.&nbsp; Jorge, cook extraordinaire, served us up our lunch before we set off hiking, which was a great meal of cooked veggies, steamed rice and chicken.&nbsp; In an act of cannabalism, the large and nasty chickens running around would eat the leftover bits of our lunch!&nbsp; Jorge is one of the greatest men on the planet.&nbsp; At 55, essentially my father's age, he still is guiding trekkers through the mountains after more than 20 years in the trade, despite having a terrible hacker's cough from too many years extering himself at altitude.&nbsp; He is a machine.&nbsp; He is also a proud father of three kids with his second wife and all of his children are in school.&nbsp; He has scaled all the peaks and trekked all of the routes in the Cordillera Real multiple times.&nbsp; Jorge is a tireless, hardworking machine who is one-man wrecking crew - walking, setting up camp, heating water, cooking food, etc.&nbsp; It was a much different experience than the Inca Trail where our 10-person expedition was supported by 23 guides, cooks and porters.&nbsp; Some unique animal life exists up in the mountains.&nbsp; There are marmots that eat grass, trout in the lakes, ducks and hens that eat the trouts in the lakes, condors and birds of prey patrolling the air, llamas, wolf-like dogs and these ubiquitous and idiotic caterpillars everywhere.&nbsp; I mean absolutely everywhere; millions of them.&nbsp; Most of them get trampled or freeze to death, abiding by the law of large numbers survival theory.&nbsp; Though, in the spring, their metamorphisis leads to thousands of butterflies everywhere, which would be a beautiful sight.&nbsp; The trail on the first day was mostly over grassy altiplano hills and around the large and blue Lago Tuni.&nbsp; We both felt really good taking the climbs quite slowly, step by step.&nbsp; We reached camp in 2.5 hours; Jorge was proud of us as most trekkers normally take 5 hours.&nbsp; We had beat the mules by more than an hour and normally the mules arrive and all the tents are pitched prior to the trekkers arriving in camp!&nbsp; I preferred it this way, Mary and I pitched and took down our own tent, the way it should be.&nbsp; The campsite was the first of three amazing nights under the stars, with basically no one around, a crystal clear blue-green lake in front of us and Cerro Condoriri immediately in front of us, with its mirror reflection in the water.&nbsp; Despite the mineral waters fed from glaciers, enough light reaches through the clear water to sustain plant and animal life in the lakes.&nbsp; This was different than the lifeless turquoise lakes of Torres de Paine.&nbsp; We were starving and Jorge cooked up a stellar meal of hot soup (it is absolutely and absurdly frigid once the sun goes down) and pasta with vegetable sauce (grilled up onions, tomatoes and peppers) and cheese, however trouble lay ahead.&nbsp; I suffered a bit of AMS when on my jeep tour in southern Bolivia, but nothing serious.&nbsp; On our hike during the day, I had a small headache and some tingling in my extremities.&nbsp; However, that night, a mixture of AMS and a bad stomach reaction to the food conspired to destroy me.&nbsp; In the freezing cold, I had to leave our tent multiple times and park myself in the outhouse, a 200m icy walk away from where we slept.&nbsp; It was horrid and I barely slept a wink as I had a throbbing headache and cold chills while in my sleeping bag.&nbsp; However, there was a beautiful full moon that night that provided some gorgeous ambient light for the mountains and the lake.&nbsp; I wasn't sure what was going on with my body and whether I was in for a week's worth of stomach issues, with five days of hiking and camping to go.&nbsp; I contemplated backing out while we were still close enough to get back to La Paz easily.&nbsp; Mary felt really bad that she couldn't do anything to help me or even comfort me as we were bundled up tightly in our individual mummy bags.&nbsp; Cordillera Trek Day 2I felt horribly embarassed in the morning as my digestive system was the topic of conversation over breakfast.&nbsp; I hate being the weakest link, especially if my symptoms were AMS.&nbsp; I was well acclimated and in good fitness entering the trek, but AMS does not discriminate in selecting its victims.&nbsp; Jorge offered that we hike the easier route during the day because of how I felt.&nbsp; Despite the discomfort I would endure, I opted for hard, no questions.&nbsp; As they say in Vegas, Go Big or Go Home!&nbsp; With my stomach full of pepto tabs and popping lemon candies (both coca leaves and sugar hard candy are great ways to prevent suffering from AMS), I trooped up a tough climb out of camp on very loose shale.&nbsp; The "trail" was thin and cut onto an incredibly steep mountain, so one bad step would lead to a horrendous fall and a rough climb back up to the trail!&nbsp; At the top of the first climb was a tremendous glacial lake and mirador of Condoriri, right in front of us.&nbsp; It was a spectacular sight.&nbsp; I couldn't believe that we would soon attempt to summit a peak higher than what we were seeing!&nbsp; After a short break came an incredibly challenging rock scramble over and around some precarious cliffs with deadly sheer drops off the edge.&nbsp; It was the first of many times when I remarked "my Dad would not approve of this!"&nbsp; We continued, up, up, up more challenging, loose rock trail until the high pass of 5,000m.&nbsp; The col had amazing views: behind us was the lake far below where we previously stood, to the left was the massif of Condoriri (including the main peak, the Cabeza de Condor) and in front of us was another lake and our campsite and in the far distance sat the big beauty herself, Huanya Potosi.&nbsp; It is a tremendous-looking crag and I don't think either of us could still believe we were going to summit her.&nbsp; It was a tough climb and we were both tired from our steady pace, but we both felt really good.&nbsp; I had way better acclimitization and fitness than when I did the Inca Trail in August 2007.&nbsp; While climbs are tough, the descent is always tougher as it ravages the knees.&nbsp; This case was no different as the trail basically went straight down, on very very loose shale, all the way to the valley with the lake and our campsite.&nbsp; I kind of skied down the hill, gliding with the falling shale, and in no time we had arrived at camp.&nbsp; Once again, the total hiking time was 2.5 hours while the average trekker takes 5-6 hours.&nbsp; Jorge was proud of his kids.&nbsp; Thankfully, my stomach also felt really great.&nbsp; Our burros, which took the easy trail, arrived at the same time as us and we quickly pitched our tent and promptly passed completely out for two hours.&nbsp; Following our nap, Mary talked me into going for a walk around the lake, which was delightful.&nbsp; We passed the time on our walk playing the Rock n Roll game, where the objective is quid pro quo of music artists that begin with a certain letter.&nbsp; We returned to camp just as Jorge had prepared dinner, ate at 5pm, were in our sleeping bags by 7pm (as soon as the sun dropped, the valley became frigid) and after reading and writing passed out by 9pm.&nbsp; Trekking turns even the youngest and wildest into old people - up at dawn and in bed by 9pm!&nbsp; Cordillera Trek Day 3I woke up fully recovered from my stomach ailment and barely feeling AMS - I basically had a lingering headache and tingling in my fingers the entire time in the mountains.&nbsp; After breakfast, as we were taking down camp and loading up the burros, we met two alpinists - Jean-Francois (French living in Switzerland) and Kieran (Irish/Swiss) - who were trying to find a burro to lug their gear while they walked to Huayna Potosi.&nbsp; Serious climbers with pounds and pounds of technical equipment, they had just climbed a nearby peak and abandoned a summit ascent of Condoriri as one of their Chilean climbing partners had fallen 4m into a crevasse the previous day and was pretty shooken up from the near-death experience.&nbsp; As I said before, we were doing some real-deal trekking and climbing.&nbsp; We were heading in the same direction as them and we asked them to join us as we headed over to Huayna Potosi over the next couple of days. &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; JF and Kieran are great guys and we loved hiking together.&nbsp; They are hard-core climbers who have climbed peaks all over Europe, Nepal and the frozen waterfalls of Chamonix.&nbsp; I was reminded of Eiger Dreams, a book of climbing essays by John Krakauer, and JF had read it as well.&nbsp; We shared a great laugh over the chapter, "Being Tentbound", one of the greatest essays I have ever read.&nbsp; JF, a industrial biologist, and Kieran, a finance professional, had both left their jobs in Switzerland and were traveling throughout South America with a sole purpose, to conquer peaks.&nbsp; JF is also keeping a great blog on his travels, ascents and on sustainable alpinism, Beyond Peaks.&nbsp; We talked a ton about climbing, alpinisme, the technical aspects of serious climbing, trekking, travel, economics, teaching, politics, etc.&nbsp; It was wonderful to have in-depth discussion of the current global affairs, in between heaving for air as we were ascending 5,000m cols!We powered up to the high col of the day, at 5,000m, feeling so good when we got to the top that we basically ran up another 20m of vertical elevation to a giant cairn and another 360 degree view of the range!&nbsp; I no longer felt nervous about climbing Huayna Potosi - I knew it would be a good challenge, but I felt that we were ready.&nbsp; We made our descent to a gorgeous lake, where we had a delectable - and I mean I would eat gallons of this stuff - and well deserved lunch of pasta and tuna.&nbsp; Man, that stuff was great.&nbsp; I gave Jorge the Halls I was carrying for his cough, and we continued on through the valley of caterpillars.&nbsp; That's at least what I called it, a lush grassy valley because of the various streams, it was chock full of those idiotic fuzzy caterpillars.&nbsp; It was also quite slick and I fell flat on my a$$, drenched all over.&nbsp; Thankfully we were at dry altitude, and the pants eventually dried.&nbsp; We continued through the flat valleys, past mines (and mercury-poisoned lakes), non-toxic and beautiful lakes and with non-stop views of the tremendous peaks.&nbsp; Before long, we reached our campsite, right next to the gnarly western face of Huayna Potosi.&nbsp; We were basically at the mountain and it capped a day of tranquil moments feeling humbled in the presence of such magnificent and daunting peaks.&nbsp; With my trekking crew ahead of me as I slowed my pace to take an absurd amount of photos, I had my moment of zen with Huayna Potosi in front of me and Condoriri off the in the distance in the background of the meadow I was walking through.&nbsp; Mary walked up to me; without saying a word, I put my arm around her and we both basked in the mountain's glory.&nbsp; We setup camp with our tent door facing the peak, had our final dinner with Jorge and I kept myself occupied playing with JF and Kieran's gear, learning all about the various tools of the trade and discussing the finer details of hard-core climbing.&nbsp; The next morning, we would hike to the base of Huayna Potosi and begin our assault of the peak!Cordillera Trek Day 4 / Huayna Potosi Day 1We all arose and took down camp early and quickly on the fourth day for our relatively easy four-hour hike to the base camp of Huayna Potosi.&nbsp; Our trail took us all around the mountain, from the western to the southern to the eastern face, which is where the two main routes up the mountain exist.&nbsp; The beginning of the hike was beautiful as there were portions of the trail (Jorge was more of a bloodhound blazing trails across all of the terrain knowing exactly where to go despite us walking seemingly at random across hills and valleys) that gave us views of everything we had seen on our trek: verdant grass plains with little streams with dry hills in the background while llamas were eating with Huayna Potosi rising in the background.&nbsp; On this day, our burros were exchanged for the modern equivalent: motorcycles.&nbsp; These Honda knockoffs motored along the roads, heavily weighed down with everyone's gear, passing us at one point.&nbsp; The last portion of the trail, we alternated between following the road (the base camp of Huayna Potosi is connected to La Paz by gravel road and is on the power grid) and taking shortcuts through the hills.&nbsp; In view were the heavily mercury-poisoned lakes that surround Chacaltaya (formerly, the world's highest ski resort at 5,300m before the glaciar atop melted to its current level of 7% of original size) close to the now abandoned gold mines.&nbsp; By midday, we reached base camp and relaxed waiting for our mountain guides, gear and Justin to arrive from La Paz.&nbsp; Mary and I ate lunch with Jorge, JF and Keiran, said our sad goodbye to Jorge who was returning to his family La Paz and said goodbye to the boys who were hiking up to high camp that day.&nbsp; They would ascend the summit the following morning with their Chilean friends.&nbsp; A brief note on the psyche of those who choose to climb high altitude peaks for fun.&nbsp; There are three common traits amongst all trekkers and climbers at altitude:&nbsp; they smell horrifically, they love mountains and they have a healthy dose of being masochistic.&nbsp; There is some sick pleasure attained from pushing the body to the limit and robbing it of the most basic survival need - oxygen.&nbsp; All climbers curse the world and their decision-making skills while ascending a tough mountain.&nbsp; It is the most illogical decision of all-time, to willingly put oneself in frigid, dangerous and tough conditions.&nbsp; However, once the summit has been accomplished and, maintaining the focus required for the descent, all climbers would gladly do it again.&nbsp; We are sick people. &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; Our group from La Paz finally arrived, three mountain guides - led by Helarion and Felix, and four other climbers.&nbsp; We were expecting Justin, but Benoit (French) and two Israeli girls were joining the quest for the summit.&nbsp; Helario, Felix and all of the other guides of the Cordillera Real mountains are ceritifed by International Federation of Mountain Guides Association, a European-based outfit that is THE globally recognized certification group for guides.&nbsp; They are not only amazing climbers, but incredibly knowledgeable on all things related to mountain safety: helping injured climbers down, pulling climbers out of a crevasse, etc.&nbsp; There are roughly 20-30 such guides in La Paz and they are amazing people who can save your life if you run into problems.&nbsp; What is amazing, is getting professionally guided up a dangerous peak is incredibly cheap in Bolivia.&nbsp; The program for the afternoon was to hike a short while away from the base camp to the base of the glacier at the bottom of the snowline of the mountain to practice using our climbing gear.&nbsp; From this base glacier, we could see all the way up to the high camp and the summit of the peak.&nbsp; We knew what was in front of us and it wasn't going to be a walk in the park!&nbsp; We strapped on our harnesses, winter clothing, plastic climbing boots (like ski boots, terrible mobility), crampons and our ice pick (all of which were provided by the trekking agency).&nbsp; Helarion introduced the various ascending and descending techniques, depending on the steepness of the slope, from walking up the ice to full on climbing using the toe picks of the crampons and an ice pick.&nbsp; It was so much fun, we learned (and immediately forgot) how to tie a pulley system to get someone out of a crevasse and how to stop ourselves if we were falling out of control down the mountain.&nbsp; Crampons and ice picks are remarkable pieces of technology that provide awesome traction; we were like Spider-man on a slippery and near vertical wall of ice!&nbsp; Huayna Potosi Day 2The objective of the second day was a relatively short, but steep hike from base camp at 4,700m to the high camp at 5,100m.&nbsp; The trail was mostly steep and rocky and we were loaded up with our packs and ALL of our equipment.&nbsp; The climb up Huayna Potosi is one of the easiest 6,000m peaks in the world in that it is not supremely technical, relatively safe and accessing the base camp is fairly easy from La Paz.&nbsp; As a result, it is an ideal summit attempt for fit and acclimated individuals without technical climbing experience.&nbsp; However, it is billed as an easy peak for all tourists and thus many backpackers show up to La Paz and immediately make an attempt on the summit.&nbsp; Two of these individuals were these royally useless Israeli girls who never made it more than 200m from either camp.&nbsp; One of them dropped her pack as soon as we left base camp at 4,700m and refused to carry it.&nbsp; Not wanting our guides (not porters) to carry all the load, I carried some of her gear up the mountain.&nbsp; This same girl was stubborn, would not eat even though we were telling her to carbo load, collapsed 100m away from the high camp on the morning of the ascent, didn't listen to the guides who said they had to leave for their summit attempt promptly at 1am, and failed to carry her pack back down the hill after her failed summit attempt.&nbsp; She was loud, obnoxious and a disgrace to trekkers and climbers everywhere. &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; Mary, Justin, Benoit and I tore it up on our hike to high camp.&nbsp; What usually takes climbers 3-4 hours took us only 1h45m.&nbsp; We saw JF, Kieran and their Chilean friends packing up camp after their successful summit attempt that morning.&nbsp; They said it was a good challenge and wonderful.&nbsp; Despite all of their mountaineering experience, this was their first 6,000m summit as well!&nbsp; We made plans to meet for dinner in La Paz upon our (hopefully successful) return.&nbsp; Just in front of the high camp, we saw the steep trail through the snow that would lead us to the summit.&nbsp; Adjacent to the beginning of the trail was a rock cliff that was begging to be climbed, so Mary, Benoit and I made our way to the top for some great views while Justin stayed behind to study microeconomics.&nbsp; That was not a typo.&nbsp; The poor soul had to take a micro exam as a prerequisite for his grad school program and lugged a 5-pound book up the trail to high camp!&nbsp; I, the happy econ nerd and teacher that I am, was happy and excited to help him out and teach him some concepts.&nbsp; As much fun as I have made of my Dad over the years, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree!&nbsp; Freezing cold at 5,100m and with fierce winds, the only place to kill time was in the attic of the high camp lodge, which was the "dormitory".&nbsp; It was a bunch of old mattresses tossed down on the floor like a crash pad.&nbsp; It was crowded and unbelievably smelly.&nbsp; The fine odor was closest to the football pad room at a high school locker room.&nbsp; Outside, there was a distinct smell of human waste as there was no proper bathroom and people relieved themselves everywhere.&nbsp; I can only imagine how disgusting the tent cities at the base camp of Everest and Denali must be.&nbsp; We had an early dinner around 5pm and retired to attempt some rest by 7pm.&nbsp; We all had early wake up calls the subsequent morning for our summit attempt. &nbsp;&nbsp; Huayna Potosi Day 3 - "Vamos a la Playa"We "awoke" at 12:30am.&nbsp; For me, I simply got out of bed at 12:30am as I didn't sleep for one minute.&nbsp; Of all days, my stomach gave me issues again that night, and I was quite anxious for the climb.&nbsp; There was also a complete whiteout as we went to bed the evening before, jeopardizing our summit attempt, so I was constantly peering out the windows to see the skies somewhat clear up and see the lightning in the distance from the thunderstorms over the humid yungas.&nbsp; Feeling like absolute crap, we put our gear on in darkness and set off on one of the longest, most challenging and amazing days of my life.That day on the climb, Mary and I developed a dry hacker's cough that we wouldn't lose for about a week until we descended into the Amazon Basin.&nbsp; Violent coughs at altitude while you are struggling to breathe are a heinous affair.&nbsp; On top of this, I had a constantly dry nose, mad mucus as we were climbing, I felt like my chest was going to explode out of my rib cage and we were constantly freezing.&nbsp; But, it was fun! We left high camp at 1:30am.&nbsp; Everytime we left for any hike/climb, our guides would emphatically shout out, "vamos a la playa (let's go to the beach)!"&nbsp; Working as high mountain guides in a landlocked country, we had to appreciate their enthusiastic attitudes, and we shortly found ourselves screaming the same slogan.&nbsp; We were assembled in rope teams of three:&nbsp; Helarion, Mary and me and Felix, Benoit and Justin.&nbsp; The three of us were tied together, trying to leave around 2-3m between each other, mostly for safety more than anything else.&nbsp; Quite frankly, being tied together in such a tight rope team actually poses more of a danger because if someone were to fall in a crevasse, we would likely all go down.&nbsp; Under the ambient light of the moon, we had no need for our headlamps, as we could see well enough to walk.&nbsp; Walking up the mountain in darkness, with no sounds in the air except for our breathing and the crunch of snow under our crampons, with faint views of surrounding peaks and the summit target, and with the starry sky above was simply breathtaking (quite literally).&nbsp; We entered into a good measured pace, not rushing ourselves and conserving as much energy as possible for the tough high altitude summit push.&nbsp; The path set out straight up from camp and then we levelled off at a 5,400m high traverse over to Campamento Argentina.&nbsp; Formerly the location of the high camp prior to the construction of the high lodge, it is a large plain on the mountain.&nbsp; We would take occasional and very short breaks to try to catch our breath, but we kept a pretty steady pace.&nbsp; The first major challenge was encountered at 5,630m: a roughly 30 degree grade for 70m of vertical elevation up.&nbsp; It was the first time we had to use our technical skills to climb up the ice wall.&nbsp; It was tiring, but we succeeded quite well and reached the ridge at the top at 5,700m.From here on out, the climb entered the next phase, where it became absolutely brutal, body destroying and mentally demanding.&nbsp; We were breathing far less oxygen into our lungs at such heights.&nbsp; My body began to breakdown with every step.&nbsp; I was excruciatingly exhausted.&nbsp; My legs ached, my lungs were exploding out of my chest cavity, my head ached, my stomach was wrenched, my brain and body were tired and I constantly wanted to just lie on the ground and take a nap.&nbsp; While Mary was singing albums to herself to keep her going, I was having hallucinations of Coach Walsh (my influential and motivating high school cross country coach) and his myriad Walshisms of encouragement.&nbsp; I was, out loud, pushing myself, telling myself to keep one leg in front of the other.&nbsp; It was the Little Train That Could come to life.&nbsp; We would take short breaks to drink some water and eat chocolate, which provided a small boost.&nbsp; However, the energy boost was short-lived and quickly the exhaustion seeped back in and I had to resort to my mental strength.&nbsp; I don't think, even in my days as a long distance runner, that I have ever had to muster that much inner strength.&nbsp; All physical parts of me wanted to quit and go home.&nbsp; It was a tremendous test of will.&nbsp; There are cliche statements about climbing mountains transcending to other parts of life, but it is all absolutely true.&nbsp; It is a great challenge that tests the strength of one's heart and mind to overcome a serious obstacle.&nbsp; This power can be applied to all parts of life and it was an incredible personal experience. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; The most difficult part of the climb, of course, had to be the very last part at the highest altitude!&nbsp; Shortly before reaching it, we literally jumped across a crevasse.&nbsp; Looking deep down into the abyss was terrifying and I was really nervous about hurdling the gap.&nbsp; The challenging part was a 300m vertical climb separated us from the summit top.&nbsp; I could see it from the plain below and while it was so close, it was also simultaneously so far.&nbsp; This technical part was up a 45 degree grade and was shattering.&nbsp; Upon reaching the top, where I had nothing left, I saw the final obstacle that separated me from the summit: a 1.5 foot-wide knife-edge ridge with death looming on both sides.&nbsp; A minor misstep and the three of us would have gone tumbling 500m or more straight down the rocky and snow-capped mountain.&nbsp; This was the most terrified I have ever been.&nbsp; I was shaking, my heart was beating like mad and I had to make sure that I kept breathing.&nbsp; Once again, "Dad would not approve of this one". &nbsp;&nbsp; Finally, we reached the steps of the summit, just as the sun's rays were rising over the horizon at 6:30am.&nbsp; Five hours to the summit.&nbsp; The greatest mental and physical challenge of my life.&nbsp; Pure beauty.&nbsp; I stared death in the face a few minutes earlier.&nbsp; The beauty and sheer size of the forbidding land that I had scaled.&nbsp; Emotionally overwhelmed and physically drained, my only reaction was to burst into tears as I set foot at 6,088m (19,974ft).&nbsp; We did it.&nbsp; Around me was a 360 degree view looking down on mountain tops, Lago Titicaca and La Paz in the distance and just to the east the cloud-covered rainforests.&nbsp; I couldn't say a word to Mary, and with tears streaming down my cheeks, I hugged her and gave her a kiss.&nbsp; We made it.&nbsp; I was so proud of us.&nbsp; 10 of the 13 people that set out for the summit that morning made it.One of the most beautiful moments of my life, I wanted to take tons of photos.&nbsp; However, after taking like five photos with my gloves removed, my fingers basically froze off.&nbsp; It was sunrise at nearly 20,000ft.&nbsp; It was the coldest I have ever been.&nbsp; I didn't regain feeling in my fingers for at least 30 minutes.&nbsp; All of my sets of gloves were wet and frozen from the climb.&nbsp; Luckily, Justin took a ton of photos and gave them to me!&nbsp; After about 20 minutes at the summit, we were more than ready to begin the descent.&nbsp; It is funny that we spent nearly six days getting here and, because of the cold and exhaustion, I was eager to get out of there as soon as possible!&nbsp; We were the first team off the summit and I was the first person.&nbsp; The whole way up, Helarion was at the front, preparing us and telling us which side to keep the rope on and what was coming ahead.&nbsp; Now, I had to lead the way down the knife-edge ridge.&nbsp; I wasn't following anyone, I was the first person off the summit.&nbsp; My god, this was even more terrifying than on the way up. &nbsp; Most mountaineering accidents happen on the descent because people are exhausted and loose focus.&nbsp; I very carefully began taking small steps down the ridge with my crampons.&nbsp; Shortly, we had descended the technical steep top, I hadn't lost my mind, and we began our rapid descent back to camp.&nbsp; With daylight, we could see the beautiful mountain, icicles, crevasses and glaciers that we hadn't been able to notice when ascending in darkness.&nbsp; Illimani loomed closeby.&nbsp; It was simply beautiful.&nbsp; We made it back to camp in two hours, tore off our uncomfortable plastic climbing boots and gear and promptly crashed until the rest of our party made it down and we had lunch. We were not done yet.&nbsp; After lunch, we slowly and with heavy packs and absolute exhaustion, descended all the way back to base camp along the steep and rocky trail.&nbsp; The trail seemed so much longer than on the way up as we had been awake and walking for the better part of 12 hours by the time we reached base camp!&nbsp; After lunch and saying goodbye to our great mountain guides - we will come back and climb Illimani (6,400m) with Helarion next time - we were transferred back to La Paz.&nbsp; Unfortunately, the sorely needed nap did not occur back at the hostel, and we made our way to Yussef for a tired, but much deserved feast of Lebanese food with our climbing friends:&nbsp; JF, Kieran, Victor (Chilean), Justin and Benoit.&nbsp; On our way out of the restaurant, I ran into Rory, one of my friends from my jeep tour through the south!&nbsp; We briefly caught up and he walked with us back to our hostel.&nbsp; On the way, I was describing the psychotic drivers that have no regard for pedestrians and how I wondered how many people got hit or had their feet run over.&nbsp; Literally, the second I said "or had their feet...", a car ran over my foot!&nbsp; Thankfully, I was totally fun - no broken bones or even a scratch.We got a wonderful night of rest as we were exhausted, had been up for nearly 24 hours and had summited a 6,000m in that time!&nbsp; We relaxed the next day to nurse our colds, coughs and sore bodies, before taking off for much needed warmth down in the rainforests and the town of Rurrenabaque.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1244119725/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1244119725/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1244119725/tpod.html Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:03:44 -0400 Into the Great Wide Open

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Puerto Iguazu, Litoral, Argentina

May 31-June 4, 2009:&nbsp; Foz de Iguacu, Brasil and Puerto Iguazu, ArgentinaArriving in Foz de Iguacu, BrasilMary and I arrived in Foz de Iguacu around noon on May 31, a Sunday, after an uneventful and comfortable 17-hour bus journey from Sao Paolo.&nbsp; We hopped on a cheap local bus, where we had to pass through the devil turnstiles with our large backpacks, which was not easy, into town.&nbsp; We checked into the El Shaddai guesthouse (R$40), which was a nice, clean and cheap place, albeit with poor hot water.&nbsp; It was nice to be spending less money again after a couple of days in Sao Paolo.&nbsp; Given it was Sunday, Foz de Iguacu, which is a town of 250,000 people, was completely shut down.&nbsp; There was one Turkish kebab restaurant open and the only "store" in town was the mini-mart at the gas station.&nbsp; We were not in a rush to see the falls, so we took the day to read and relax, buying bottles of cheap wine from the gas station, eating kebabs and grabbing a pizza for dinner once the few restaurants opened.&nbsp; Mary ran into a British nuclear decommisioning scientist, Jen, that she had met in Santiago, seen again in Peru and who had seen Sarah at the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia.&nbsp; It is a small gringo trail world.The Dominance of Iguazu FallsIguazu Falls is a misnomer as it is a series of 275 waterfalls that tumble from the upper to the lower Iguazu River on the border between Brasil and Argentina.&nbsp; The lower Iguazu flows out into the Rio Parana, where there is a border with Paraguay.&nbsp; It is kind of like the Golden Triangle of SE Asia (Laos, Thailand, Burma) with waterfalls instead of opium poppies.&nbsp; There are viewing platforms on both the Brasilian and Argentine sides of the falls, both of which must be seen.The Falls are some of the world's greatest and are frequently compared with the other great waterfalls of the world.&nbsp; It is like Niagara Falls on crack and in a tropical rainforest.&nbsp; The nearby Guaira Falls were formerly more dominant than Iguazu Falls until they were flooded to build the massive Itaipu hydroelectric dam, second to the Three Gorges Dam in China in terms of generating capacity and that provides 90% of the power to Paraguay and 20% of the power to Brasil.&nbsp; Iguazu is 275 discontinuous falls spread over 2.7km, with an average 65m height (210ft) and max height&nbsp; of 82m (270ft).&nbsp; At peak flow, the surface area of water falling is 1.3mm ft, the volume of water falling is 6,500 cubic m/s and the mist rises 30-150m (100-500ft) above the falls.&nbsp; By way of comparison, Niagara has a surface area of 600,000ft and a volume of 2,800 cubic m/s.&nbsp; The 1.6km wide Victoria Falls in Zambia/Zimbabwe are greater than Iguazu at a surface area of 1.8mm ft, a volume of 9,100 cubic m/s and a mist that rises an astounding 300-600m above the falls!&nbsp; However, Vic Falls don't offer the same viewing pleasure as Iguazu because of the narrowness of its canyon.&nbsp; But, enough of the stats.&nbsp; I will attempt to describe the Falls and our experience and my pictures will attempt to give the reader an idea of their majesty.&nbsp; However, I have to be honest.&nbsp; Despite taking some beautiful pictures, I am humbled by nature.&nbsp; Just as with the greatest views and buildings in the world, pictures do not do it justice.&nbsp; You have to visit Iguazu, take in the views, see the rainbows, hear the raw power of tremendous water falling and get wet from the mist to really soak (pun intended) in the Falls.Visiting the Brasilian Side and the Parque do AvesFoz do Iguacu is a short 30-minute local bus ride from the Falls.&nbsp; Rather than road signs indicating roads and towns, all of the signs around there say "Paraguay", "Argentina", "Itaipu Dam" and "Cataratas (waterfalls)".&nbsp; It's pretty funny as we drove by the Argentina border crossing on our way to the falls on June 1!&nbsp; Given the proximity, we decided to leave our bags at the guesthouse in Foz do Iguacu and would return and make our border crossing to Argentina after visiting the Brasilian side of the Falls.&nbsp; It all sounds much more confusing than it is.&nbsp; We paid the R$40 to enter on the Brasilian side of the Falls.&nbsp; The first reaction was how huge and massive they are.&nbsp; I had seen pictures of the Devil's Throat, the center of the Falls, but they stretch for two miles around the watery canyon.&nbsp; There were hundreds of falls, some with heart-stopping rapid and thick curtains of falling water and some that were solitary bridalveil falls enshrouded in the rainforest.&nbsp; At times, I felt I was an explorer coming upon some lost falls deep in the jungles.&nbsp; The volume and sound of water falling was simply terrifying in parts, and we hadn't even stepped inside the Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat) yet!&nbsp; The Brasilian side of the Falls gives a good panoramic view of what is on tap, but the main catwalk is pretty far away from most of the waterfalls.&nbsp; We went to the end of the platforms, took pictures and got a great aerial view from the high tower.&nbsp; It was also a cloudy day and we were fortunate to have better weather from the Argentine side.&nbsp; After visiting the Falls for a couple of hours, we made our way across the street to the Parque do Aves (Bird Park), which is a bird preserve established to rescue endangered and harmed tropical birds.&nbsp; There are tons of toucans, parrots, macaws, flamingos, turkeys, herons and other animals from the area.&nbsp; The aviaries are brilliantly set up, so that we could walk openly through them, with the birds flying everywhere.&nbsp; Throughout the park was the incessant and loud chatter of the macaws.&nbsp; In one of the aviaries, this toucan was standing right next to me on the handrail and took an interest in the straps of my backpack and the zipper on my fleece.&nbsp; It was so cool!&nbsp; The toucans are beautiful and their beaks are fascinating; they are so large and so lightweight that they look plastic and completely artificial.&nbsp; After thoroughly enjoying the Parque do Aves and our first day at the Falls, we hopped on the public bus back to our hostel, made our way across the border into Argentina painlessly and shortly arrived at our great hostel in Puerto Iguazu.&nbsp; Back to Empanadas, Vino, Parillas and EspanolWe were completely lost in Portugese-speaking Brasil.&nbsp; Portugese is a different-enough language than Spanish, Brasilians speak with a strong accent and they use enough unique expressions that we found it incredibly difficult to understand their Portugese.&nbsp; Thankfully, Brasilians seem to understand our Spanish, so one-way communication was possible.Needless to say, by crossing an imaginary line, we had returned to Spanish-speaking South America.&nbsp; Additionally, we could once again purchase our beloved Argentine packaged food, the empenada.&nbsp; Finally, cheap Malbecs and huge steaks were accessible.&nbsp; We love Brasil, but it was nice to enjoy the pleasures of Argentina and actually be able to communicate with people for a few days.&nbsp; One of these pleasures was the parilla, Quicho del Tio Querido in Puerto Iguazu.&nbsp; This place cooked up the best steak I have had in South America; better than the one we had in Mercado de Puerto in Montevideo!&nbsp; Accompanying us was Nuevotiempo, a three-man band of an old man singing and playing guitar and two younger guys on the keyboards.&nbsp; They were slightly heinous, but they loved what they were playing and were good at the tunes they played.&nbsp; They even had a lighted sign with their photos on it in front of the restaurant.&nbsp; We both enjoyed a giant mixed salad (it had been some time since we had a large fresh salad), pepper and mushroom-sauced steaks the first night we were there, along with the requisite bottle of Argentine red wine.&nbsp; Notice I said the first time we went there.&nbsp; We ate there three straight nights while in Puerto Iguazu.&nbsp; We were officially on a steak moratorium once we left town.&nbsp; The second and third time we were there we enjoyed this combo platter for two, which was an absurd and delicious quantity of food.&nbsp; Everything came in large sized form:&nbsp; grilled vegetables (peppers, onions, tomatoes) and two slabs of steak, a platter of creamed spinach (which was unique as most parillas don't offer the sides that a typical US steakhouse offers) and a platter of potato balls.&nbsp; Man, I would fly back to Puerto Iguazu simply to eat at this steakhouse again!&nbsp; The steak special was only ARS84 (USD22) for both of us!Visiting the Argentine Side of the FallsOn June 2, we visited the Argentine-side of the falls in Parque Nacional Iguazu.&nbsp; This national park is the largest in all of Argentina and would be the fourth one that I had visited (Nahuel Huapi in Bariloche, Los Glaciares near El Calafate, Los Cardones near Salta).&nbsp; The place felt like a natural Disneyland as it is so well organized with pathways and metal catwalks, snack shacks, a little passenger toy train and well-marked signs and trails everywhere. &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; Our first order of business was taking the toy train out to El Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat), which is the heart of the Falls.&nbsp; It is the main point where the upper Iguazu River meets the canyon that is where God (or someone with very large hands) ripped out a massive chunk of the earth.&nbsp; This is the place with the greatest flow of water, the highest mist, the most deafening sound and a thick curtain of water.&nbsp; The catwalk crosses over the calm Iguazu River, with no sight at all of the Falls.&nbsp; If I didn't know where I was going, I would think was in the wetlands.&nbsp; In the distance, a cloud of mist hovers above the waterline and the low buzz increasingly gets louder and louder.&nbsp; We turned a corner on the catwalk, walked up to the railing and there it was.&nbsp; My heart nearly stopped.&nbsp; My jaw dropped.&nbsp; I got that fuzzy and funny feeling inside when I see something great, awe-inspiring and humbling.&nbsp; A giddy laughter overcame me and in that moment it was just the waterfall and me.&nbsp; The power of the water thundering down 260ft is simply awesome.&nbsp; The sound is absolutely terrifying.&nbsp; The water disappears into the thick white cloud of mist like the worst San Francisco fog.&nbsp; There is no bottom of the falls as far as the eye can tell.&nbsp; There was a former catwalk, 15ft higher than the current water level, that was previously destroyed in a flood.&nbsp; I cannot even fathom what the Throat must look like in those conditions!&nbsp; At the center of the horseshoe, I could peer through the mist as the canyon widens out and the thick curtain of waterfall turns into individual jungle bridalveils.&nbsp; Staring deep into the heart of the thick and wide curtain of the Falls, in its white and jungle river brown clors, it started to appear surreal, almost like the brush strokes in an Impressionist painting or a magic-eye picture.&nbsp; And we were close.&nbsp; Scary close.&nbsp; Those men who built the catwalks are absolute psychopaths.&nbsp; People have gone over Niagara in a barrel, no one could make it over the Throat and survive.&nbsp; This was definitely one of the greatest natural moments of my life and it surpassed all of the lofty expectations that I held.&nbsp; Every citizen of this world must visit the Falls if given an opportunity.&nbsp; After seeing the Devil's Throat, we took the toy train back and hiked along the Upper Circuit, for views of the tops of hundreds of falls.&nbsp; We walked along the catwalk over the top of several dried out waterfalls and saw the precipitous rocky drops.&nbsp; I couldn't believe that some of these falls go dry.&nbsp; It was beautiful to see the arch of falls near Isla San Martin and Salto San Martin (the other large waterfall).&nbsp; On our way out of the park, we walked along the Sendero Verde, which is a nice nature trail through the rainforest.&nbsp; We saw South American racoons, look like anteaters with racoon tails, running around everywhere.&nbsp; As we neared the exit, I bought a couple of dark chocolate Havanna cookies for both of us (one of the world's greatest cookies) and we returned to town for some late afternoon empanadas before we headed back to the steakhouse.&nbsp; The morning of June 3 was our third and final day visiting the Falls.&nbsp; Parque Nacional Iguazu in Argentina allows entry for half the price (ARS30 or USD8) on the second consecutive day visiting the park.&nbsp; We weren't tired of seeing the Falls yet.&nbsp; Honestly, I could spend an hour day everyday of my life!&nbsp; We tackled the Lower and Middle Circuit, which provided us unique vantage points of the bottom of the Falls.&nbsp; With a brilliant sunny day and the mist kicking up from the bottoms of all the waterfalls, there were rainbows everywhere.&nbsp; We probably saw 15 of them and nearly everywhere we turned was a postcard-perfect setting of green trees, rocks, thundering bridalveils and a rainbow cutting across the sky.&nbsp; And on this picture perfect day, I forgot to charge my camera batteries and was down to a little juice on my sole charged battery!&nbsp; Nonetheless, my battery conservation method was successful and we were able to snap photos of every angle we needed.&nbsp; Once we completed the circuit, we hopped on the short boat ride to Isla San Martin, which is a rainforest-covered island in the middle of the lower Iguazu river and with basically 250 degrees of waterfalls surrounding it.&nbsp; As soon as we disembarked, we went on a tricky rock scramble around the island to specatular and unique views of the thundering Salto San Martin and the other waterfalls.&nbsp; The views reminded me of being a jungle explorer or of scenes from Jurassic Park.&nbsp; Dare I say that these views were perhaps more beautiful than the Devil's Throat?&nbsp; It is an unecessary and unanswerable question.&nbsp; As we left our rock scramble, we were stopped by a national park official who was about to radio us in.&nbsp; We thought we were going to get booted out of the park!&nbsp; He told us it was forbidden to climb the rocks, understandable given the liability, but there were no signs anywhere.&nbsp; We explained that where we came from, unless a park puts up a sign that says no entry, we are allowed to walk where we please.&nbsp; Thankfully, we were let go without any punishment.&nbsp; We did the quick circuit of Isla San Martin, including visiting the mist-soaked platform that is basically in the mighty Salto San Martin and dried ourselves off under the warm sunshine while eating our picnic lunch on the sandy beach of the island with a panoramic view of jungle-enshrouded waterfalls around us.&nbsp; It was certainly tough being us on this day.&nbsp; With some time to spare before sundown, we headed back to the Devil's Throat, for one more glimpse of the powerful and thunderous heart of the Falls.&nbsp; The mist was much greater on this day, soaking us after a few minutes on the platform, and providing for a full 360 degree circle rainbow in front of our eyes.&nbsp; I have never seen anything more than a semicircle rainbow in my life.&nbsp; It was magic.&nbsp; Heading to Rio de JaneiroOn our way back to the hostel, we met a few BU MBA students who were taking a trip after a study abroad program.&nbsp; They explained how maybe 2/3 of their class does not have job placement and explained that things weren't that much better at the elite business schools.&nbsp; Tough time to graduate after spending USD150,000!&nbsp; We continued our daily routine of enjoying some empanadas upon our return from the Falls and chilled out ahead of our last meal at the parilla.&nbsp; The staff at the restaurant and the band, Nuevotiempo, recognized us as soon as we walked in!&nbsp; In three days we had become regulars.&nbsp; Our 22-hour bus to Rio left at 1pm on Jun 4, so we took care of some errands in the morning (like buying a little Homer Simpson toy wearing an Argentine futbol jersey and drinking a Quilmes beer).&nbsp; The bus was incredibly comfortable, though expensive and without food, and we watched some good (Valkyrie, though why Americans like Tom Cruise and British were acting as Nazis I do not know) and bad (the latest Indiana Jones) films on the way.&nbsp; While the bus ride was painless, I had some trouble exiting Argentina.&nbsp; Once again, I had immigration issues trying to leave a country!&nbsp; The Iguazu border is a highly trafficked one and a relatively painless one, yet I was standing at the counter while an immigration official gave me an uncertain look and walked away to a back room with my passport.&nbsp; I remained calm, but had no idea what was going on.&nbsp; Everyone else on my bus quickly filed through without a hitch.&nbsp; I hate border crossings as they can be nerve-wracking affairs as power is completely out of my hands.&nbsp; Eventually, and without explanation, I was given an exit stamp and was on my way.&nbsp; By way of comparison, the Brasilian immigrations officer gave me a smile and a stamp in a matter of seconds, even though it is the much stricter country to get a visa for and to enter and exit.&nbsp; Go figure.&nbsp; We reached Rio in the morning on June 5 and took a taxi (bad idea, take a local bus, even with bags as it is about 1/10th the cost) over to Ipanema, right next to the beach, to find a hostel.&nbsp; En route, we saw the beautiful coastline of the city, the towering mountains that sprout out of the ground right behind the ocean and the warm embrace of the Christ Redeemer statue.&nbsp; We had arrived in Cidade Marvelhoso.&nbsp; It was time to enjoy the city with the name that gives you goosebumps, Rio de Janeiro. &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;
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