TravelStream™ news feed for member nickandamiria on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/nickandamiria en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 27 May 2008 00:16:40 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1211855880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1211855880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1211855880/tpod.html Tue, 27 May 2008 00:16:40 -0400 Travels in South America: discovery of a dark continent by two post-colonial explorers.

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Buenos Aires, Capital Federal District, Argentina

Well, it´s been quite a holiday, but it´s nearly over. After another gut-wrenching bus ride we spent a few days in the beautiful city of Salta in northwestern Argentina (in which we didn´t get to ride the train to the clouds, because it was ´broken´) and celebrated one of the key days of Argentinian independence there. Now, after our cushiest bus ride ever (18 hours with heaps of leg room, a smooth road, blankets, pillows, 3 course meal with wine, post dinner drinkies...), we´re back in Buenos Aires, where it all began for us. When we first came here, fresh from Christchurch, we were struck by the filth and noise and sheer size and poverty of the place. After Peru and particularly Bolivia, Buenos Aires seems like a modern, sanitised, western city, even if there are still some massive holes in the pavement that were there when we first arrived. Tonight, our last night, we went to a tango class and show which was a lovely way to end a trip which will change our outlook on life forever. The tango lesson was a bit like a room full of men trying to back trailers in unfamiliar vehicles, while women tried not to interfere and suggest things. The show had all the glamour, elegance, and sweltering sex appeal that we have come to expect from Argentina.

We´ve seen some amazing things, met fantastic people, and had more exciting and varied bowel movements than we could ever have wished for. And now we´re doing what hundreds of millions of South Americans can´t - we´re leaving it all to go to a place where you can drink the tap water, flush your toilet paper, there´s a proper health system and laws regulating things like 97% pure sugercane alcohol and rhino-grade tranquilisers. We´re going to a place where we can make nearly a hundred times more than many people here, simply by working a 40ish hour week, anywhere. Last year the Bolivian government introduced a universal pension - it´s about US$300 per annum, and you qualify for it once you reach 60 (which in relative terms is about 75 years in NZ). There are families there where both parents work full time (which is around 50 hours/week) and they still can´t afford health or child care.

But none of this changes the fact that the world´s not fair, and economically we´re on the good side of things. It´s simply all the more reason to try and make something of the advantages we have. On that note, Nicholas has decided to go back and finish his computing degree, starting in July. I´ve decided to put my only real talent (abstract, circular argument) to use and become a political theorist, so I´ll get my Masters´ from Canterbury and a PhD from anywhere overseas that I can weasel a scholarship to. Another change is that I decided (some time ago) to go vegetarian once I got home, so I´ll be giving up red meat and poultry from when I reach NZ as a first step towards this. Besides, after Argentinian steaks as thick as your arm, nothing can really compare.

Another thing we´ve learnt in our travels is the the way the laws of diminishing marginal utility apply to personal possessions. Simply put, it´s great to have some stuff. It can keep you warm, entertain you, help you get clean and keep in touch with people, etc. But the more stuff you have, the less each thing contributes to your quality of life, and the more you are burdened by having it all. In his biography, Bill Bryson asserts slightly whimsically that everything that really improved people´s quality of life had been invented and was in the American home by around 1960 - after that they just worked longer and harder for more and more crap. Now, I´m not suggesting we´ll live by this at home, but asking yourself, ¨do I want to carry this on my back across South America?¨ is a great way of putting things in perspective. I know it sounds hippy, but we´ve been forced to realise that purchasing things is rarely the solution to our problems that we are constantly told and hope it will be. A polar fleece and a hat is important for that overnight bus trip, and an MP3 can help, but the thing that will really get you through the winding roads, pot holes, coca chewers and screaming babies is your mindset.

Eight months is a long time to be away from family and friends, and for us this blog has been a slender link with a world which has generally carried on merrily without us. We really appreciate everyone who´s taken an interest in our trials and tribulations, and we hope you´ve enjoyed them. We´ve got a lot of people to catch up with, but please feel more than welcome to drop us a line, through the blog or otherwise, in the meantime.

The flight is confirmed and reconfirmed, and if Aerolineas can simply get a plane somewhere on time, we should be back early on Thursday morning.

We won´t miss - South American bureaucracy - I know they need to employ people, but having to go to six different counters to order and pay for coffee is way excessive. And don´t get me started on those little scraps of paper you have to keep for when you exit the country...
We´re looking forward to - giving everyone their ponchos; having our clean, normal clothes to put on; sleep; and PAUL AND ANGELA´S WEDDING! of course.

See you soon!
NickandAmiria
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1211222160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1211222160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1211222160/tpod.html Mon, 19 May 2008 17:33:17 -0400 Travels in South America: discovery of a dark continent by two post-colonial explorers.

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Arica, Arica, Chile

We left you last to head for Machu Pichu, the famous lost city of the Inca Empire.
You need to understand about Machu Pichu that no one is sure what it´s doing there. It´s quite close to Cusco, the capital, and not really on the way to anywhere. People speculate it was some kind of resort the rich escaped to in winter for a bit of R&R, but who knows. It´s a big complex on a hill at 2300m, with extensive agricultural terracing, housing, common areas, ceremonial areas, watch towers, storage huts, and quarters for nobles. You walk through the ruins listening to guides saying things like, ¨...so this area may have been the school where young girls were taught about the priveledge of serving the gods in the afterlife once they were sacrificed, or it might have been priests´ quarters, or some other kind of building¨. It´s very, very impressive though. If you are in South America, see it - everyone else does.
We checked out of our hotel at 5.30am after a breakfast that didn´t even include instant coffee (it was ECCO, the sadists) and headed down to get the first bus up the mountain - as did the other 500 tourists in Aguas Calientes that day, all keen to beat the crowds. We were bused up promptly and joined the long queue at the top, all the time wondering if we would get in before dawn broke (which we did). It was all worthwhile, though - it´s just breathtaking to get to the top and look down at the expansive remains, and then consider that the temples were covered in gold while in use, and thousands of people lived there, and the multi-storey buildings had wooden floors, and the roofs were thatched and terraces covered in crops, not grass. Then consider that this was probably a fairly minor settlement of the empire - Cusco certainly had many, many more people and buildings - it´s just that the Spanish turned up and built on top of most of it - even now many ordinary buildings in Cusco have some of their ground level walls and foundations of original Inca construction. What´s unique about Machu Pichu is that it was left intact by conquistadors.
It´s also amazing to look at the way the architecture works in with the site - which is not only a steep hill which is extensively and probably painstakingly terraced - but it´s also covered in massive boulders, which are simply intergrated into the buildings and pathways. It´s frightening to think how many slave hours it took to build.
An unexpected hightlight was stumbling across a pair of viscachas, very close, warming themselves in one of the unrestored buildings (still overgrown and full of rubble). If you don´t remember these rabbit like creatures of the altiplano, we got excited about seeing some of them on the Salar de Uyuni tour. Accustomed to gringos, they kept an eye on us and groomed each other until a big tour group turned up.
That afternoon we took the train to Ollantaytambo. This is a little agricultural town not far away, but the contrast between the 2 towns is huge. Aguas Callientes is an aggressive tourist trap. Ollantaytambo sees some tourists, but once you step outside the main plaza it could be nearly any century - the walls and cobbling is mostly original inca, and many of the houses are still thatched. Most crops in the area, and in most of Peru at this altitude, are still tended entirely by hand, which means tiny women in their fifties and sixties out with their scythes, and carrying the harvest into town on their backs. Clothes are often still washed in streams, and laid out on bushes to dry in the sun. It was a really nice place to wander about and watch the world go by (as well as see more hummingbirds, which we´re still not over), and for me a chance to rest my knee which had been hurting whenever I climbed stairs since we got off the marathon of buses to Arequipa.
Back in Cusco we tried to get on the next bus south, but South American politics had finally caught up with us - there were road blocks on all the roads to Puno in response to some international leaders´ meeting being held in Lima. In the spare day in Cusco this stranding got us, I finally got my knee seen by a doctor.
Certainly, the private clinic smelled the money, and they wouldn´t diagnose without insisting I be put into a wheelchair and pushed around the hospital getting blood tests and x-rays done (cutting in front of the poor locals). In the end they told me my knee was inflammed and I needed to rest it, shot me in the arse with I´ve no idea what drugs for 2 days, and wrote a report diagnosing me with ¨Painfull Knee Sindrome¨. Without a miracle cure we decided it would be a bad idea to do our trek in Bolivia, ascending up to 4700m on inca stairway then down to about 2500m. Cancelling the trek suddenly presented the exciting prospect of NEVER HAVING TO DEAL WITH BOLIVIAN ROADS AGAIN - which as you can see was seductive and appealing. We decided instead to go south down the coast, probably saving about 12 hours on off road buses, and get to Salta from Chile.
The trip to Arica was pretty tough - neither of the windows by us shut properly, the bus climbed to about 4200m overnight, and we´d probably have gone hypothermic if Nick hadn´t seen a local with a spare blanket and asked them for it very nicely at 2am. It deposited us in Tacna at 7am, where we took a shared taxi across the border to Arica,along with three middle-aged Chilean women who´d stuffed the boot with all the Peruvian toilet paper they could get their hands on.
Nonetheless, it´s really nice to be back in Chile, the land of Nescafe and hotdogs for every meal of the day. Arica is clean and spacious, and Chileans are incredibly and considerate and nice (and clean) after Peru and Bolivia. No one bellows at the bus station, ´La-Paz-a-La-Paz-ALAPAZ!´ (To La Paz, etc.) - they just politely ask you where you´re going if you stop in front of their counter. We saw a solitary guy sifting through the rubbish bins yesterday, and he was in immaculate pressed, clean trousers and a jersey. We stopped to look at our map on the street and someone stopped to actually offer directions - NOT to get commission by ushering us into a travel agents our hotel. No one is pissing in the streets (and it really did run everywhere in hilly Cusco). Just incredible! And don´t get me started on their dual shower curtain system here...
Tonight our bus hopefully takes us to Salta in Argentina, taking about 24 hours. Salta´s an area we regretted not seeing after Iguazu last year, and is supposed to have some of Argentina´s most stunning landscape. And with no trek, we might even be able to afford a nice meal and a tango show in Buenos Aires before we go home.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1210387200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1210387200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1210387200/tpod.html Fri, 09 May 2008 23:28:23 -0400 Travels in South America: discovery of a dark continent by two post-colonial explorers.

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Cusco, Cusco, Peru

Running out of days and dollars, some tough decisions have had to be made. Top of the list is Machu Pichu in Peru, the Takesi Inca Trail in Bolivia, the famed train to the clouds (if it´s running) in Argentina, and getting home. So we decided we didn´t have the cash to visit the canyons on the off chance of seeing a new variety of condor. Instead we turned up at the plaza in Arequipa on our second morning, looking for some juice and bread from the supermarket there for breakfast.
It was a glorious, sunny Sunday, and two thing immediately struck us. Firstly, the supermarket was closed. Secondly, the whole plaza was filling up with military personel. We did the only thing we could do - went up on the balcony of a trendy restaurant overlooking the square for a leasurely breakfast and an excellent view. It soon became apparent this was the May Day parade. The first was Labour Day here, so naturally it was celebrated next weekend with lots of brass and guns.
The regular army, special forces, military police, various brass bands, national police, naval and airforce units assembling weren´t a big surprise. But it didn´t stop there, not by a long shot. There were the youth brigades aspiring to various military positions, the Lions club, pretty much the whole university, including admin staff. There were doctors, nurses, and school children. Special mention, though, must go firstly to the pharmicists, who were by far the best civilian goose-steppers, and also to Nicholas, who got a blushing wave from a women in an assembling airforce unit. The one group I felt sorry for was the riot police who, presummably like every other year, were on crowd control (and you can imagine how well the crowd behaved, significantly out-numbered as the were). Always the bridesmaid, never the bride...
And then to Cusco. Certainly, it´s all going on here. Probably 90% of westerners who come to South America will come here, largely to see the formerly lost city of Machu Pichu. A city of only 350,000, formerly the capital of the Inca empire and built on top of it, in recent years tourism has created a high pitched frenzie of all the money which can be made. I get the feeling if I stop at a shop window for too long I´ll be stripped down for parts. Within 2 hours of arriving we´d had 4 people try to talk us out of going to the hostal where we had a reservation (including the taxi driver, which is standard), been offered cocaine twice, and been offered numerous ´massages´, free drinks, meals, paintings, postcards, woven goods, shoe shines, phone calls (people make livings selling cellphone calls on the streets), tours, and train tickets. In the main plaza it is about 40% gringos, 50% hawkers and 10% locals, so about half the population there is after you. Every other shop proports to offer ´tourist information´, and the silver and jewellery stores in the centre are mostly equiped with ATMs inside. The climate is so competitive that a ´no, gracias´ is rarely enough on the street, and lately I´ve sometimes struggled to not follow it up with comments like ´you´ll have to catch me first´ (particularly shoe shine boys), and ´yeah, but life´s tough´ when pursued. I do particularly feel for the school kids who get sent out in the afternoon and evenings - selling cigarettes or postcards or sweets, or girls dressed up in traditional costumes hanging around central city street corners with their alpacas hoping for paid photo opportunities.
A highlight yesterday was going to a Peruvian food evening put on by the South American Explorers´ Club (the set menus are often very dull and sanitised), where we have also taken advantage of some great travel advice and a good book exchange. Tomorrow we take the train to Aguas Calientes (lit. Hot Waters) at the foot of Machu Pichu, which we´ll see on Sunday. Then we´re headed for the small villlages of Ollantaytambo and Lares, relatively off the beaten track, to see rural peruvian life in traditional Inca constructed villages. Also to take a break from the thick and fast hawkers and Inca ruins.
We like - trying on woolly hats - so many patterns and styles of knitted hats, so little time!
We don´t like - the way the resident dealer in the alley (one of the many old streets to narrow for vehicles) leading up to our hostal has to stagger against you before offering you drugs - he doesn´t go for the pockets, but he also doesn´t look very clean.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1209831000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1209831000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1209831000/tpod.html Sat, 03 May 2008 13:53:14 -0400 Travels in South America: discovery of a dark continent by two post-colonial explorers.

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Arequipa, Arequipa, Peru

After being stamped into Peru for the third time (they gave us a different number of days each time), and having traversed the length of Peru almost twice already, we´ve finally come to a standstill in Arequipa. But our story begins in Baños, where we left readers...
In Baños, where no one has heard about the things you can catch when you put your head under in hot pools, we were asked if we wanted illicit drugs for (remarkably) the first time in South America. I´m not counting the many questions we were asked in Buenos Aires but didn´t understand. After refusing politely but firmly a couple of times the guy tried to compromise by booking us onto a rafting tour the next day, which we also declined. Another first in Baños was the way I was shamelessly oggled by every male over 10 in town, particularly at the hot springs. Nick, bless him, thinks this is because I am very attractive, but I suspect it has more to do with being nearly a foot taller than the local women, much paler, and just about the only women in town to get past 21 without my figure being ravaged by childbirth several times. It´s all relative, and in Baños I was a freak to behold.
Next was Riobamba, a city only on the tourist map because it is the departure point of the famous Nariz del Diablo (Devil´s Nose) train ride - now strictly a tourist event.
Unfortunately there was a big landslip over much of the track, so instead of an exciting day out on a train we ended up being bussed out the first 4 hours, then gettting a return journey for the ascent and descent of the actual devil´s nose part, which lasted less than 2 hours, then another 4 hours back to Riobamba by bus. Admittedly, it was still very cool to ride on the roof of a train through steep, lush green valleys up narrow switchbacks (where they go up one side of the peak in a zig zag by changing the direction of the train at each end, rather than in an ´S´ or a spiral), but not exactly what we anticipated. Still, this is south america. In the first world, the track wouldn´t have been closed so long by a landslip, but then, they also wouldn´t let you go on the roof when some Japanese guy was partially decapitated and killed on the roof last year when he didn´t gethis head down at the right time - perhaps a tunnel. Swings and roundabouts.
Hopefully we´ll be able to get on the ´Tren a las Nubes´ (train to the clouds) in northern Argentina on our way back - a 15 hour trip that apparently takes you over some amazing viaducts and past stunning scenery (although not on the roof).

We then went down to Cuenca, which is a lovely colonial city about the size of Christchurch about 5 hours south. We visited the ruins across the road from the hostel (it seemed churlish not to), which was a very interesting site with remains of one of Ecuador´s pre-Inca cultures, the Incas and the Spaniards. The pre-Incas had built basic shelters and stone irrigation channels and pools, and cultivated potato and legumes on the site. Then the Incas had built larger structures, including an place for sacrifices (the big stone where the cut things open was still there) with their more sophisticated stonework, and then the Spaniards turned up around 1550 and pinched a lot of the cut stone from existing structures to put in the town´s first mill and one of its first stately homes, also bringing in their own style of cut stone, and then bricks.
Cuenca´s ´new´ (18th century) cathedral is one of the most attractive buildings I´ve ever seen. It´s huge and high and light, and made of beautiful, marbled volcanic stone from the area, but what really sets it apart is how restrained they´ve been with adorning the inside. There are no sarcophagi of spent bishops, no plaques to patrons, or people who died in wars or struggled for independence or founded the town. There weren´t even the 12 scenes of the passion of the Christ, which are highly standard here. There was a lot of while stone and plaster for the walls and ceiling, and the tile work of the floors was very simple. All this really drew attention to the comparatively small, intricate stained glass of the windows throughout and the beautifully carved and gold-leaved alters. It´s as if, just once in South America in the 1700s, someone in the Catholic church decided that less was more, and they were absolutely right.
Then the long bus trip began. We left at 3.30am on Wednesday for Guayaquil, and all the males where ordered off the bus at a police checkpoint just out of town and patted down for weapons, another new experience (although in the end Nick only had to show his passport). We arrived at 8.30 that morning, had breakfast, then got the last to seats on the only bus to Lima, leaving at 11.30am. That night, over the border in Peru, everyone was ordered off the bus and locked in a holding pen while (presummably) the police spot-checked the luggage for god knows what, and large crickets attracted by the bright lights jumped all over us. We arrived in Lima after 27 hours, had lunch, taxied to another bus terminal, and got ourselves on a bus to Arequipa. The special thing about that trip was that we arrived AN HOUR EARLIER than we were told, which was totally unprecedented by any south american bus trip we´ve done (we´re in the habit of adding about 25% to any expected arrival time we´re told). Another first for that trip was that I finally succumbed to motion sickeness on a bus, and threw up copiously the next morning (luckily just water) - if only the plastic bag hadn´t had a hole in it.
Frankly, 46 in 52 hours on buses was pretty rough, particularly the last night of it, but we´re very happy to cover all that ground and be ahead of schedule. We´re also happy to still have our luggage and not to have experienced any hijackings yet (touch wood - the Shining Path movement is making a bit of a resurgence here).
Arequipa a temperate, pretty colonial city at about 1500m. Nearby are the world´s 2 deepest canyons (a bit over 3 km down), a lot of condors and more hotsprings. The city itself is full of attractive cathedrals and monasties, set against snow capped volcanoes. A good place to spend a few days before we get to the tourist Mecca of Cusco.
We like: Set menus - you pay about half the price of an ala cart main for 3 courses, and they have it in front of you about 2 minutes after you walk in the door.
We don´t like: bus seats where you just can´t quite stretch your legs straight, even in first class, because all the seats were designed for midgets.
Nick particularly likes: the ´fanny´ brand tuna and strawberry jam on sale in the supermarkets here.
Amiria particularly doesn´t like: The jolly, jolly panpipe music which is everywhere again, and every taxi on the streets (so, about half the traffic) honking at you for business because you´re a gringo.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1208799420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1208799420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1208799420/tpod.html Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:37:23 -0400 Travels in South America: discovery of a dark continent by two post-colonial explorers.

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Quito, Quito, Ecuador

We've certainly enjoyed our week in Quito, even if the bus driver who got us up hear was COMPLETELY INSANE. If it had been NZ, we'd have got off after half an hour, but as it was there was no promise of anything better.
We visited the ecuator on our first day, which is an hour north of town. It really is a testimony to just how much hype and interest you can create out of absolutely nothing - there are museums and a huge monument, although it´s apparently about 150m out - like anyone would know, though. On the way back, Nick fulfilled one of his major ambitions for the trip, which was to ride in an articulated bus (one that bends in the middle). Next we explored the old town, full of monastries and cathedrals dating back to 1500 and before. There are some amazing collections of religious art, and I must say it was pretty lively compared with what I studied at school - huge pictures of Christ flagellating himself and cherubs picking at the flesh, devils torturing naked wailing people in the fires of pergatory, and sheep queing up to drink the blood of christ's wounds. There's one church here that they reputedly used 7 tonnes of gold for the gold leaf that adorns it. A guide also cheerily took us to the top of the belltower at Santa Catalina Monastery, and when we got out the camera she said - you want pictures? climb out onto the roof! Only about 6 stories up with a plank laid across the worst of the A-frame. Public liability - pish! She managed remarkably adeptly in her heels, but we declined the opportunity.
Next we nearly climbed Volcano Pichincha. Quito is at 2800m, and we took a gondola to the foothills at the base of the volcano, which is 4100m. We then walked for a bit over 2.5hrs until we were pretty close to the summit, 4700m. Then it all turned to custard, because sections of the trail had slipped away (it's Quito's rainiest month now), and it started looking rather dangerous. At that point we also started feeling a bit light headed from the altitude - apparently 48 hours wasn't enough time to acclimatise before going that high. So we took some pictures and turned back with most of the other hikers that day. Summit's are overrated anyway.
We spent a day in the bustling craft markets - Quito is a major centre for woven goods, and loads of producers come in from the surrounding area on the weekend. Incidentally, you're all getting big woolly ponchos with bold indigenous patterns on them when we get back.
The next day we met Matt from Parque Ambue Ari (the park with the cats) for lunch, and watched a swarm of riot police turn up in the Plaza. We learnt the next day we the president of Argentina made a visit to Government House just after we left.
We just arrived in Baños, about 4 hours to the south of Quito, for a few days to enjoy the hot pools, and maybe to do a little biking beneath the active volcano here.

It has come to our attention that some readers are interested in themselves paying a visit to Latin America. For them, here is a pithy guide to Spanish on the road:
1) [Basics] Sí - Yes, No - No, Por favor - please, Gracias - Thank you
2) [Essentials] Donde esta el baño - Where´s the loo?
3) [What´s going on?] Que - what, donde - where, quando - when, como - how, quien - who, porque - why, quanto - how much, quantos - how many ... {if in any doubt, use liberally}
4) [Shopping 1] ¿Donde puedo comprar _______ (pan, laxantes, agua, ponchos, etc)? - Where can I buy [](bread, laxatives, water, ponchos, etc)?
5) [Shopping 2] ¿Quanto cuesta? - how much does it cost?
[Supplimental: in the market] ¿Esta su mejor precio? ¡Es muy carro! - Is that your best price? It´s very expensive!
6) [Navigation 1] Necesito ir desde (Quito) hasta (Baños) - I need to go from Quito to Baños.
7) [Navigation 2] ¿Quando sale? When does it leave?
8) [Accommodation 1] No, gracias. Hay muchos cocarachas en la habitacion. - No, thanks, there are many cockroaches in the room.
9) [Accommodation 2] ¿Hay agua caliente? ... a que horas? - Is there hot water? At what times?
10) [Conversation] Fútbol es un juego para niñas pequeñas - Soccer is a game for little girls.

Note - we´ve added photos to the last 2 entries.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1208041320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1208041320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1208041320/tpod.html Sat, 12 Apr 2008 20:35:00 -0400 Travels in South America: discovery of a dark continent by two post-colonial explorers.

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Puerto lopez, Ecuador

It was slightly reluctantly that we left Vilcabamba - a tiny, beautiful dot on the map in the middle of a gorgeous valley with great weather, where nothing much happens.
But we turned our backs on the hummingbirds, waterfalls, the great Mexican restaurant, the beautifully tiled swimming pool at the hotel and the seven eleven that opens a bit after 8, closes at 9.30, and takes 2 or so hours off for lunch, and headed for the coast.
It turned out that the British advice for foreign nationals was correct - flooding and land slips had severely restricted travel in and out of Loja (which we had to pass through). But we eventually made it on to Guayaquil, Ecuador´s biggest city and with the biggest bus terminal we´d ever seen. Not only was it much, much bigger than Auckland airport, but it had more shops than most malls, and even included a casino.
We took a smaller bus on to Jipijapa (the js are pronounced like the ch in ´loch´), and then an even smaller, dodgier one on to Puerto Lopez - so about 15 hours on buses that day.
Puerto Lopez is a touristy fishing village which is largely devoid of tourists now, as the humpback season isn´t until June. After finding a new, empty hotel to stay at, we took a day boat out to Isla de la Plata - Silver Island - (named either because Sir Frances Drake buried silver there or because of the wealth of guano to be found), where we saw dolphins, pelicans, frigate birds (the ones that blow up a huge red pouch under their chin when they´re mating), and BOOBIES. Masked boobies and blue-footed boobies, to be exact. Besides the sloths and capybara, boobies are just about the coolest things out there. Females judge which male to hook up with based on the blueness of their feet. The albatrosses (the ones that do that elaborate circling dance with clicking and beak jousting) were mating, so we didn´t get to see them. This is where the tropical heat has really hit us for the first time (and incidentally, it´s really only been since Ecuador that there´s fruit on the menu).
After a strenuous day on the beach tomorrow, we´re off to Quito, capital to the country which is the primary producer of the world´s favourite fruit (Ecuador and bananas, if you´ve just gotten out of bed).
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1207348860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1207348860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1207348860/tpod.html Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:21:28 -0400 Travels in South America: discovery of a dark continent by two post-colonial explorers.

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Vilcabamba, Ecuador

To save on a lot of map pin entries: we went on a lot of buses -
From Santa Cruz to La Paz on an overnight bus (it was about 35ºC when we boarded at 5pm and when we woke the next morning on the altiplano the condensation on the inside of the bus windows had frozen), then a night in La Paz, then overnight to Lima (Peru) via Deseguadero, a night in Lima, overnight to Piura, a night there, a day/evening bus to Loja, a bit over the Ecuadorian border, then today a quick bus to Vilcabamba in the ´Valley of Longevity´, where we will stay a few days. We´ve been very hot, very cold, been up and down repeatedly, but mainly we´ve gone north a long, long way. We´ve spent about 70 hours in the last 7 days on buses, and more time in bus stations waiting, and in taxis to and from stations. None of the buses actually arrived on time (after all, this is South America), but the journeys were relatively incident-free, apart from a blown inside tyre in the desert south of Lima, a certain amount of homocidal driving, a lot of minor landslips since we entered Ecuador, and me discovering a cockroach party down the back of my seat when I foolishly went fishing for the seatbelt. Oh, and I failed to follow my own advice about looking away when you see a dog eating something, and saw a stray eating another dog on the outskirts of La Paz. Definitely time for a breather, anyway. We´ve got about 160 hours more to spend on buses before we get back to Buenos Aires for the flight home, and that´s if they all run on time.

Peru went by in a flash, and suddenly we are in Ecuador, where US dollars are the currency (they still mint their own coins, which also say ´United States of America´, but are made of thinly coated copper). It´s just a little bigger than NZ and has 12 million people. From what little we´ve seen, the pace of life is a little more laid back, there are fewer beggars, more privately owned cars, slightly bigger houses and generally tidier streets and buildings, although we are still looking for decent coffee.
Vilcabamba is at 1500m, and because of the latitude that gives it a
balmy, 20ºC climate most of the year. It´s set in a lush, beautiful
valley, and is the kind of place where nothing much happens and there´s
plenty of time for good food and exploring the surrounding area, which
will be nice.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1206730080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1206730080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1206730080/tpod.html Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:38:48 -0400 Travels in South America: discovery of a dark continent by two post-colonial explorers.

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Santa Cruz, Bolivia

Viewers may be wondering, ´what have we been up to over the past 10 days or so?´. Well, the answer is ´precious little´. Richard made a full recovery from pneumonia, and was released after 4 days, although remains an ardent Kylie fan. The cause was fungal, so it appears that living with a fine layer of mould on everything for a month isn´t good for you. I caught another stomach bug, which is still making life exciting. We tried to find immigration to extend our visas, failed, and are illegal overstayers from the 26th to 30th of March, which is how long it will take us to get out of here now. Relax, they just make you pay about $1.30US/day for the overstay and send you on your way - it´s fairly popular amoung western travellers as it saves you money and about a day in queues to get the extension. Bolivia IS the underdeveloped country, so they don´t have a problem with people coming from other countries to overstay and work illegally.
We´ve also been struggling with airlines. After days of waiting, the Aerolineas Argentina office here told us they were happy to give us a new ticket to return home a week early for Paul and Angela´s wedding, but that they no longer dealt with Air New Zealand so we´d lose the transfer part from AKL to CHC. After an unhelpful answer from STA travel we´ve contacted Air New Zealand, and will keep you posted of any changes in arrival time. I suppose we can hitch if it comes down to it.
We did have a nice day at the zoo on Tuesday. After our work at the park, all the cats there looked fat and understimulated, generally in much smaller cages, but there was a huge, beautifully presented avary you could walk through with lots of native flora, and an interesting snake house (although I think it´s in slightly bad taste to put in cute little chicks for them to eat while the punters are around). Best of all were sloths roaming free in the trees overhead and the capybara lazing by the large pond. As you should all know, sloths and capybara are just the coolest things around. There were also capuchin monkeys roaming free overhead, thumbing it to the other species of monkey in cages. One of the caged monkeys put its hand out to try to get food from us, and I couldn´t help being reminded of the street beggars by the expert gesture of extending the open palm and shaking it up and down slightly. After I declined the gesture twice he grabbed a handful of dirt and through it at my face. The spider monkey troop was also charming, and they carefully extending their tails through the wire mesh to pick up interesting pebbles, beg for food or try and pinch your digital camera (joke´s on them - it wouldn´t have fit through the wire). Also on show were spectacled bears (they live in cloud forest and eat mainly bromeliads), tamarins, a huge anaconda (sunning itself motionlessly), an adult tapir, armadillos and 3 kinds of condor.
Stomach bugs aside, we´ve been trying to eat better - we´re both a bit malnutritioned, and Nick needs more bulk as he didn´t have so much to lose as me. It took us a few days to find non-touristy cafes and restaurants, but it´s definitely worth it because they charge about half the price and have much better menus. And you get to dine with yuppies instead of gringos.
We´ve also figured out what we´re doing in Ecuador, which was overdue. Now it´s Quito or bust, starting with an 18ish hour bus to La Paz leaving at 5pm. At least when the trip´s over 16 hours you can usually get a bus with a toilet, and of course it´s always so exciting to see if it works, and how it smells. Tonight we´re travelling ´Cama Paradiso´ (literally ´paradise bed´) class, which may mean the seats recline a little. And we´re ascending 4km, so I expect winding and bumps. We can´t wait!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1205686980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1205686980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1205686980/tpod.html Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:11:41 -0400 Travels in South America: discovery of a dark continent by two post-colonial explorers.

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Santa Cruz, Bolivia

Well, here we are back in civilization, after a 12 hour bus trip back to Santa Cruz that included a 2 1/2 hour stop at night while a bridge was repaired. At the moment we think electricity, hot showers and DEET are some of the best luxuries around. We decided a month was enough 10 days ago, after a personal standoff at the park between a longstanding bolivian volunteer (the de facto manager of the park) and a Danish girl lead to 9 of the most senior western volunteers leaving. We disapproved of the decision by the park to ask the Danish girl to leave because of a personal grudge held against her by one person, but also wanted to see out our month and provide a bit more continuity for the animals and help during a very busy time at the park.We had an amazing time, and still think the park does very good work on a shoestring under very trying circumstances.

The day after the exodus of volunteers there was an incident with Yuma the puma - she jumped up a tree while being walked by a different volunteer, and the guy eventually had to let go the rope rather than strangle her when she went down the tree a different way. He managed to get her back on the rope, but by then they were off her trail in dense jungle and she was very worked up, so he was unable to take her back to the cage alone. He tied her to a tree in a dry area and managed to get back to the road and then to camp by mid afternoon. That left us with an aggitated puma tied to a tree somewhere in an area of very, very wet, dense jungle about 500m by 800m, bordered on 2 sides by road and farmland. Not a big area, but with little natural light even in the day, a lot of waist deep water and bamboo, and where sound travels very poorly and visiblity is low. In the nearly 2 hours it had taken him to get out to the road he´d not been able to maintain a straight course (without a compass), so in the end it took shifts of search parties, including Nick, just over 24 hours to find Yuma, and another 12 to get her back in the cage. Certainly, lessons were learned about organisation and judgement during that time (the group who found her had gone out at 4.30pm with only 2 torches for 6 people search in pairs, and spent a miserable 8 hours out there, mainly in darkness and heavy rain, eventually realising it was no longer viable to cut their way back to her trail that day as was originally planned). Still, everyone got back safe and sound, if down a few gumboots. Had the puma been on the loose she risked being shot by neighbouring farmers.

There were rashes, blisters, pains, a LOT of fungus, a lot of white pasta and rice with little on it, a lot of cockroaches and spiders, a lot of putting on dirty, wet clothes, a LOT of mud, massive numbers of mosquitoes - a swedish girl counted 359 on my right hand a few days ago - a few disagreements, but all in all we had a great time. We met some great people - you´ve got to be a bit strange to go and work with big cats in the rainy season in the middle of Bolivia - and learnt some valuable things, too. In the end Nicholas was able to get Wayra walking on 2 ropes (with 2 people), and leaves knowing she is calmer and will have a better quality of life because she can be worked with more closely and exercised because of his care.

As for Vanesso, I´m not sure how much we bonded, but I really was touched on my last morning with him, when, after nearly a month of seemingly futile patience and persuasion, he decided it was time to go on a proper walk up his trail, in spite of the water, and we spent a lovely hour wading through the overgrown pathway. While there, I made his cage a bit safer and more secure, cleared his runner of vegetation so he could exercise more freely, hid a lot of raw chicken parts in trees, and in the end he was slightly less cranky and a bit nicer to me. On my final day he rushed to greet me in his cage by climbing onto a low platform and butting me firmly in the knees with his head three times, then rubbing against them with his body - for the first 3 weeks I mainly just got sulky knee biting, low growling and lazy attempts to claw me. I don´t flatter myself that he will remember or miss me, but I certainly learnt to be more patient in our time together, and also that, with ocelots as with people, you are judged in every encounter and should try to be fair, consistent, not show fear and always send clear messages about yourself and what you expect of others.

And I must admit he´s rather cute hunting for lizards.

There is very good coffee in Santa Cruz, so we will spend about 4 days here relaxing, sipping cortados (espresso with a little bit of foamed milk) and cleaning or having cleaned pretty much everything we brought with us.
We´ve already worked with or seen most of the stuff to be spotted in the pantanal, so our new plan is to go pretty quickly up to Quito (the capital of Ecuador, one of the smallest countries in South America and still larger than New Zealand).

Special mention to Richard Grainger, a brit we met at the park, who is currently in hospital with pneumonia after getting a fever of 41 upon return to Santa Cruz. He is in good spirits, and we hope he makes a speedy recovery even though he is a keen Kylie Monogue fan.
We´ll try and put some pictures on this entry in the next 24 hours or so.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1203795060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1203795060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nickandamiria/sth_america_101/1203795060/tpod.html Sat, 23 Feb 2008 15:27:00 -0500 Travels in South America: discovery of a dark continent by two post-colonial explorers.

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Ascuncion Gurayas, Bolivia

Yes, we made it safe and sound to the animal park.
It is hot and extremely humid - our boots have already started to get mildew - and we are living in the Amazon Bason amoungst a bunch of tropical birds, howler monkeys, a few coati, lizards, frogs and snakes, and massive butterflies, dragonflies, spiders and stick insects of every colour and description. There are also a few rodents of unusual size around - about small-medium dog size - which I don´t know the name of yet. You can tell them from the rats because they don´t have long tails. Yesterday I even saw an armadillo on the way out to my cat. The park has maybe 18 volunteers in total, about 16 cats and a bunch of other animals, and there is heaps of work to do. We have both lost a bit of weight on camp food as there is hardly any fat or protein in it, so we are looking around for some goodies like peanut butter at the moment.
Yes, we are both caring for cats which, for one reason or another, cannot be in the wild. First I walked very friendly cats with lovely dispositions called the three sisters - pumas weighing about 60kg - (only one at a time). After struggling nobly to walk them through swamp up to my arse, having tripped on sunken logs and been pulled over by their sheer size and strength more times than I could count, I decided that while it´s what you do when you fall that counts, it was going to be an utterly, utterly miserable, wet month if I continued to be walked by them each day (the sisters also have the added challenge of their entire cage being completely flooded, so they will stay out on their trail until after dark rather than go back there - there are plenty of dry platforms and walkways, but going in means getting wet). So gladly they reassigned me to a stroppy ocelot called Vanesso. He bites and jumps a bit, but the mud doesn´t go past my gumboots anymore, and as he only weighs about 20kgs he´s physically much easier to deal with. Vanesso was seized from a chinese restaurant in Potosi as a cub by the police, donated to a zoo who didn´t want him, then signed over to Inti Wara Yasi on the condition he is never freed, as he is too accustomed to humans. He is now 2.
Nick is working with a female puma called Wayra. She weighs about 40kg (light for a puma) and is currently too agressive to be walked, but he and Mira (another volunteer) are working towards her being able to walk at least daily (all the cats have their own trails cut into the jungle owned by the park.
2 months ago the park acquired a sad lioness from a local circus, which had lived most of its life in a cage about 2x2x4m. A new cage is nearly finished, but yesterday government officials came to inspect the park. The day before, she was whisked off to a remote border of the park under the pretext of ´quarantine´, presumably so she didn´t excite any difficult questions from the officials. When I got back to camp from the morning work one of the howler monkeys was on one of the official´s heads, and he was chuffed that she was grooming him, so everybody seemed happy on the day.
The mosquitoes really are very rough - I think we both have more than a hundred bites on each hand, but we´re not in a current malarial zone, and we´re taking our preventatives as a precaution.
The park is about 50km north-west of Asencion Gurayas, where we currently are on a half day off.

And mum, my mum, I am frankly disappointed that there were 3 emails waiting ostensibly supporting what I´m doing but then complaining that you haven´t got any responses. I am not in the Amazon Bason to help you learn to use the internet. Use internet, don´t use it, approve what I´m doing, don´t approve, just stop grizzling - I´m living 50km away from the nearest internet and get half a day off each week. Everything moulds, the cochroaches are bigger than miniature poodles, I´m covered in insect bites, living in a dorm with people who go out boozing until 5am and my main responsibility is a cat which can eat bones the size of my fingers with relatively little effort. I care about your well being but right now couldn´t care less about the thrush in the holly tree or the x-partners of cousins I haven´t seen in 20 years.

We Like - Howler monkeys - there´s no sound like it at 6.30 in the morning - the baby tapir named Herbie who lives in the park with a few deer, military grade mosquito bed nets, and when the cats are loving, not biting.
Nick Doesn´t Like - cold showers. Come on! It´s over 30 degrees here.
Amiria Doesn´t Like - the straw mattress she had to sleep on for the first week - scratchy!!!
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