I don´t really know where to start with this one. Since I have last written, I have spent about two weeks in Buenos Aires, in an apartment we rented. The apartment is pretty cool because other people our age have rented the other rooms and they are pretty normal, for the most part. Staying with us here at the apartment is a Dutch couple that speaks perfect english, an American girl from Seattle, Colombian sisters, and Alejandra, the older lady. We all get along pretty well, with exception to the Colombian sisters who don´t speak to us....even when we are speaking Spanish. So I guess its kind of like two factions of guests, english speakers and the Colombians. Anyways, the apartment is beautiful and was probably built in the early 1900s or late 1800s. It is really pretty and the elevator is a little scary, as you can see out of the thing on all sides because the walls are iron mesh! Lauren and I got a great room that has a ceiling like 20 ft high. It was really hot for a few weeks but now it rained and has gotten down in the 50s at night! I have gone from waking up at 8am every morning to hardly waking before 1 in this city!
I sleep horribly late due to the culture in this crazy city. Breakfast and lunch time is normal but a break for mate (Mah Tay) is between lunch and dinner pushing dinner back to about midnight or 1 am. This really messes with my timing since Lauren and I haven´t gotten into the whole Mate thing.
Some more notes on Porteño culture are that they love mullets. Here a mullet is called a Cubano and it is a huge part of Buenos Aires life. I see probably between 100 and 300 on any given day here. The typical one is a sleek euro soccer mullet, paired with some stunna shades (sunglasses that rappers wear), and a skin tight soccer jersey. Its a pretty horrible sight. The next most common type is the disguisting rats nest dredlock mullet. These are really popular for the hippie types here. They wanna make me vomit. Last but not least is the rat-tail, which is HUGELY popular everywhere in Argentina. These are not centered on the head and in no way do they demand respect. The Argentine variety comes off the backside of the head at any location desired and may or may not be a dred lock. In most cases it is just a separated group of hair strands that are coupled together with any kind of cloth or rubber band found laying around. Most of them look like they have been growing since a young age. I have seen these coupled with the mullet on many occasions here. They come shooting out of the most un-suspecting of hair cuts just to shock the unprepared!
Now that the Argentina mullet epidemic has been discussed I wanna share soccer experience number 1. There are two huge club teams in Buenos Aires, Boca Juniors and River Plate. We chose to go see River Plate first and we´ll see Boca on March 1. These games are incredible. We went up to the neighborhood where the River Plate stadium is a couple days before the game and decided to familiarize ourselves with the area and get our tickets. To our surprise it was a really nice neighborhood with huge houses. We bought our tickets from the stadium for about AR$120 each. This is funny because the tour companies want AR$500 to take you to a game. When you go with a tour company you get a baby sitter for the game and a ride to and from the game. For face value and a $0.30 subway ride I got to go to the game like a big boy. I know its probably really hard for some tourists to go and buy your own tickets and take the amazingly efficient subway, but I thank them anyway because they were sitting right below us where we could laugh knowing that they paid nearly 5 times what we did for the same thing. So we get to the game neighborhood on game day about 3 hours early to be ready for masses of people. This was a good idea because I wanted to find some beer to drink on the street before the game. Lauren wasn´t real big on this idea so she made it her goal to make sure I was miserable and that I had the worst time possible at the soccer game. After walking around the stadium for about an hour we realized that due to a government order, no alcohol is sold anywhere near the stadium on gameday! I guess I´ll have to bring a backpack for the March 1 game at Boca! We got pretty hungry right before we headed in the gate so we stopped over by a chorizo stand and got a HUGE chorizo on a bun. It was really good and it fit the sport event mood. Lauren started to come out of her little mood once we got the chorizo, even though she claimed hers was undercooked. We got into the game with a full belly and completely sober and watched the raging fans in the Popular section hang flags, sing, and destroy things. The popular is a section of fans behind the goal. It goes all the way up to the top of the stadium. Thses are the fans you see on the news causing riots. They are locked into the stadium in order to separate them from other fans. They aren´t allowed to leave till all the other fans are gone! The barriers keeping them in their area are concrete walls with barbed wire on top. They sang and raged in here until kickoff, when these fans then started chanting. It was unreal. I had never been to a soccer game in a foreign country before so this was quite an experience. Since we didn´t get the babysitter service, we sat with a group of locals that sang and pumped their fist in a hitleresque manner the entire game. I still can´t believe those sucker tourists paid that much for a babysitter! After halftime the fans started chanting for their newest player to be put in the game. The Ogre. He was promptly added to the lineup at right forward and almost immediately scored! He was funny to watch because he is really tall and overweight. A few minutes later he assisted a beautiful goal and the entire crowd donned their shrek masks that were given out before the game. After the game we missed the last subway back to our neighborhood because the damn thing closes at 10pm, which is a pain in the ass since dinner isn´t until midnight! We got to try our skill on the public busses to get home! We did a great job and made it first try. When we got home Lauren said she wanted to skip the tango show and go to another soccer game because she forgot about being pissed at me and had a little bit of fun at the game! So now we are going to Boca together!
We spent some time in the upscale Palermo neighborhood when we first got here just because it felt safe. Its actually kind of lame. The big attractions here are modern art galleries which Lauren and I both, have decided we don´t care for. They are really confusing and the art can be really gay. I mean gay both ways, literally and the way that teenagers use it when they don´t like something they don´t quite understand. When we left the first AND last museum we visited, we both said at the same time, "I´m glad that was free!" A little more on modern art before I stop my rant. Anyone can take a lot of drugs and then throw paint at something and give it a retarded abstract title. Half the damn exhibits were UNTITLED. If you are doing some wierd ass thing where you are clearly trying to make a social or political statement, then title it or explain it please. Taking a picture of something in black and white is not art. Thanks for listening to that, I wish I could get the time back I spent in that place.
Palermo also had tons of gardens and a zoo. The zoo was cool and we got to see some different animals than you would in a North American zoo. I think the polar bear wanted to drown itself because it was 100 degrees outside. The gardens are probably nice but we´re gonna try those out right before we leave.
Puerto Madero is another district of the city. I really like this part because it is genuinely Porteño (of or relating to BsAs) but it has all the things you need! This is where all of the ports are for the bay on which BsAs sits. They have converted all of the huge brick wearhouses into restaurants, offices and upscale apartments. They are still original brick and sort of look like a turn of the century wearhouse, but they are styled with tinted glass and modern trim materials. Since Porteños eat their food with no spice at all, we were more than pleased to find a Hooters down here. Lauren had never been to one and we were both CRAVING spicy food, so we spent the afternoon eating wings and drinking 2 for 1 beers. The happy hour here is great. Nobody eats dinner before midnight so happy hour runs from off work time til dinner time, just like at home.......except here that is 5pm until 10pm or midnight!!! I think Lauren enjoyed her first experience at hooters. The girls were actually hot at this one too! You can´t go wrong with South American girls in a hooters!! I think I´ll bring her perception of hooters back down to earth by taking her to one in Hickory or Myrtle Beach when we get back!
Recoleta is the nicest neighborhood in town and we had a great time visiting this place. This is where the cemetary is that houses all of the famous Argentines! The memorials were like castles and you could look in and see the coffins in most of them. The guide there said that most of the mausaleums cost about the same as mid range apartment in the city! We went and saw the graves of the few famous argentines we´d heard of. So we saw Evita, and then we left.... Just kidding, recognized some of them from the names of streets in town! After the cemetary we walked around Recoleta and saw nothing but older American Tourists following around english speaking guides, dodging culture as best they could! There was Hard Rock cafe up here and the Recoleta Hippie Street Market. It is really called the Hippie Market. It is just a bunch of handicrafts, bums, hippies, and dumb Americans thinking they are buying something really ethnic. Its really just shit the hippies bought at the flea market across town that they are now selling in the rich part of town to tourists at 500% mark-up. All of the restaurants were about twice as expensive as the rest of the city and all were some kind of chain! We opted to hit some Mcdonalds instead, which we have done way too often here!!, and then head back to our neck of the woods. I feel guilty about all the Mcdonalds I have eaten but it doesn´t bother me too bad since Lauren and I can both eat for for under $10!! There are tons of cafes from the Buenos Aires good ol days, so we are trying to eat at as many of those as we can. We ate at the most famous one, it opened in like 1837. My burger was good but sent me running for the subway to get back to my apartment and Lauren´s milkshake cost more than my burger! The atmosphere is really cool because they have changed nothing other than the kitchen since it opened! They have live tango in the dining room every night!
The last place we visited was La Boca, a working class neighborhood by the docks, and home of the world famous Club Atletico Boca Junior! We headed up here to see the brightly painted houses, which were a lot more artistic than that shitty museum! The houses are all covered in corugated metal from the shipyards, and then painted in many bright colors! It makes for a really cool look that I have seen nowhere else! Lining the streets are restaurants and stages with live tango for free as long as you´re eating! We chose this as the alternative to a hundred dollar tango show downtown. The tango was good and food was horrible, but Lauren go to see some dancing so we were happy! Next we walked up to La Bombonera, the Boca Jr stadium! It is HUGE and it is covered in yellow and blue paint! They couldn´t decide on colors when the team was born in the 1900s so they decided to take on the colors of the next passing ship out by the docks. It was a Swedish ship so to this day the colors are yellow and blue. Tickets weren´t on sale yet for the game we wanted so we headed back to the touristy area. We were told Boca was a sketchy neighborhood but I think that is just for people who have never been anywhere else in South America. It seemed fine to me after visiting La Paz, Lima, Sao Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro!!! I have to go up there Sunday morning to get our tickets before the game. I can´t wait because these games are supposed to be crazy!!
Í´ll put the pictures up soon from this city! We have a lot of them. We are on the home stretch of the trip now and both of us are ready for something new. We head to Ushuia on Wednesday and then start heading north all the way back up to Lima. Ushuia is the southernmost city in the WORLD. Like Sara Pailin, maybe we´ll be able see Antartica from our back porch, like she can see Russia..... We´ll keep an eye on ém, Sara! It will be nice to be back in small towns after the 11 million person metropolis of BsAs. It is about the loudest city in the world.
For those of you who missed out on the Uruguay and Iguazu pictures..... heres the links!
Uruguay
Iguazu - Argentina
Iguazu - Brazil
-John
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Iguazu Falls and Uruguay
These two places are really incredible. We started the trip to Foz do Iguacu, Brazil about 9 days ago and it was a pretty standard bus ride. Not really anything interesting to look at on the trip. We got to Foz with no problems and decided to take a nap because the bus trip was another all nighter. We had decided in Curitiba to take a good bus company so the air conditioning would be strong the whole way to Foz but at the first rest stop on the route, the bitchy old hag behind us complained to the bus driver that the bus was too cold. This wreaked havoc on every other passenger for the remaining 9 hours aboard the bus. Lauren and I gathered our portuguese together in an attempt to get the air conditioner turned back on but the old hag lady went back up and complained again. Everyone on the bus just thought the air conditioning had broken but Lauren and I were in the front row so we knew what was going on. So we didn't sleep a bit that night on the bus so a nap was in order as soon as we got to Foz do Iguacu. Our hostel was ok and a little bit of a walk from the bus station. The people spoke english and the internet was broken, as usual. After a 3 hour nap we hopped on the bus outside our hostel and rode 30 minutes to the national park at Iguazu Falls. It was pretty cheap to get in and then we had to get on another bus up to the falls themselves. We got off at a fancy hotel and could immediately hear the roar of the falls. I had read about these falls in the guide books but I really had no idea what to expect. It was a million times more than what I had pictured! These dwarf Niagara! From the Brazil side you really cannot get very close to the falls but you can see the damn thing, which is difficult. There are 275 waterfalls total. The biggest was La Gargantua and it was perfectly named. We got pretty close to it and got SOAKED! It was worth it because it was extremely hot outside.
The next day we hopped on another public bus that took us to Puerto Iguazu, Argentina. Time for another passport stamp. I had lost the piece of paper that the Brazillian immigration officer had given me 3 weeks before, which is punishable by a fine of $90 USD. They won't give you an exit stamp if you don't have that piece of paper! You only get a citation and then you have to go to the embassy in your home country when you get back, pay them the $90, and then they give you your exit stamp. I knew all of this before heading to the border. Well for me playing dumb at the border wasn't too difficult since I don't know any portuguese AT ALL. The officer held up the paper I was supposed to have and I just made some grunts and random english words, followed by shoving my passport towards him and saying 'STAMP'repeatedly! After pointing at the paper a few more times and saying some other angry portuguese back to me he laughed at my lack of Brazilian culture and stamped my passport and let me go free! I don't know how it worked but it did and that I am thankful for!
Once in Puerto Iguazu, we chilled out at our amazing hostel, which had air conditioning, and then went to bed so we could explore the Argentina side of the falls the next day. Next day we woke up to the worst thunder storms we had seen since we started our trip! It didn't let up all day so we just lounged around the hostel and looked for a plane ticket to Buenos Aires for the next day. We ended up getting a night bus to Buenos Aires because we learned that bus travel in Argentina is an art form. We'll get to the bus later. It didn't leave until 2pm the next day so we had to get up early to see the falls before the bus left. It was worth every bit, except the exorbitant fees they charge to go in a national park if you are a foreigner. It was bullshit in my book. It was $5 for people from Argentina or $20 for anyone else! I got over the price scheme pretty quick as we headed straight for La Gargantua. We walked through the woods on a path where we saw a family of Coatis, a little racoon like anteater, then found the cat walk that took us over the river to the biggest waterfall I have ever seen and may ever see. As we walked up all I could see was mist rising and water being sucked down. I am not even going to try to describe the Argentina side of Iguazu Falls because it is impossible to do it justice. It is the most incredible natural site I have ever seen. On the Argentina side you can walk around the bottom of the falls and around the top of the falls on a very extensive system of cat walks. The whole time our mouths were open in awe. I took a ton of pictures and should have them up on Snapfish soon. I haven't totally figured out how to use that site very well so if anyone has any idea how to share my whole library, let me know please!!
I haven't spent a lot of time in Argentina yet, but so far the food kicks ass. I got a "simple cheeseburger" the other day and it had burger, ham, and fried egg on it!! I called it the gaucho burger and when I spend an extended period of time in Buenos Aires I will find the best one there!
So about the bus... We had 3 companies to choose from that offered Cama Suite, or Bed Suite, service to Buenos Aires. This was a must as it is an 18 hour trip. Two companies offered free wifi on the bus but we decided to go with another company that had a promotion for $60 US. For that price we got a leather seat that reclined into a bed like a first class international flight. As for meals, we were served three in 18 hours, including a 3 course dinner with salad, cold dinner, and hot dinner. Full bar service, for free the whole ride, and Argentine wine during dinner! We both stuffed ourselves and I had plenty of wine and whiskey. I think it was the best I had slept in 3 weeks! Anyways, bus service in this country is the best ever. I can't wait to take another bus in March.
Once in Buenos Aires we spent one night before heading to Uruguay for a week of exploration of a country I had never thought of before!
Uruguay is a manly country. I watched the Anthony Bourdain No Reservations on Montevideo a couple weeks before I left the states, so I knew I was in for a treat. First we went to a little town called Colonia de Sacremento. It was cool little town set up by the Portuguese to smuggle stuff across the bay into Buenos Aires! It looked like a mini Charleston or Savanna and we spent a day taking pictures of the old buildings and antique cars all over the streets. One of the restaurants we ate at had cars parked in the lot all around it that had been converted into booths. The engine was removed and replaced with speakers, which was really pretty cool.
I think Montevideo might be my favorite city I will visit in this continent! Everything about it is perfect! Low crime, extremely clean, good people, and the best food ever. I wish we had spent a week here because two days was not enough. We started the trip by going to our hostel in the upscale Pocitos neighborhood. It was cool place with a lot of character. We immediately headed up to the end of the block to the place where Anthony Bourdaine ate his first Chivito!
YouTube about Chivito Creation at the restaurant we went to by our hostel!!
The next day we headed on a tour of the city on some bikes we rented from the hostel. These were some badass cruisers that we were about to put to the test on a 12 hour adventure around Montevideo. Montevideo is unique because it has the "Rambla". The rambla is a road and sidewalk that stretches around the whole city like a belt inclosing all of the buildings and separating them from the ocean. The development of the city stops about 500 yds from the ocean to make room for parks, beaches, golf courses, fishing clubs, and one or two exclusive restaurants! The rambla walk way is two lanes, one for walking and one for bikes! It is perfect. We rode like 5 miles, or about an hour, up to the ciudad vieja neighborhood. For my dad, that means old city. This is where I started to love this city. The main avenue downtown terminates into a huge plaza flanked by ancient Portuguese Government buildings on all sides and the main avenue continues on the other end as a pedestrian street. It has all the nice cafes and shops and upscale apartments mixed with buildings and theatres from colonial times and the turn of the century. It was impressive and we took lots of pictures in anticipation of Montevideo's crown jewel, Mercado del Puerto. It is a market built at the turn of the century to house the bars and parillas down by the port! It is similar to what I think Heaven might be like. There are nearly 20 restaurants that are like none I've ever seen before. The typical layout is bar surrounding coolers full of meat or beer and the grandaddy of all grills covered in all sorts of meat, entrails, veggies for skewers, and all heated by wood fire. It was a spectacle of manlyness. Lauren and I both got filets and shared a beer that was 970ml. It was only $20!!! My filet didn't even fit on my plate and came with a salad and side and bread. We had an appetizer of spicy chorizo, fresh off the grill. An American girl doing the same thing we were came and sat down next to us and told us of a bar at the end of the market that invented a wine called media y media, or half and half. It is part dry white wine and part semi sweet white wine. Its really good and we drank a lot of it at the bar that invented it. The first glass is always on the house at that place. After this amazing afternoon exploring the city we rode our bikes back down the rambla and had to stop at the movie theatre because our asses were so sore from the hard plastic bike seats. We saw Changeling which is creepy and a little depressing but really good. 12 hours after first setting out for the market we made it back to the hostel, still full, skipped dinner and went to bed.
YouTube about Mercado del Puerto... not the same stand we went to but it was identical!!
So now we are back in Buenos Aires where we'll spend the rest of February and I'll get some practicar on my espanol. There should be another update soon enough.
The next day we hopped on another public bus that took us to Puerto Iguazu, Argentina. Time for another passport stamp. I had lost the piece of paper that the Brazillian immigration officer had given me 3 weeks before, which is punishable by a fine of $90 USD. They won't give you an exit stamp if you don't have that piece of paper! You only get a citation and then you have to go to the embassy in your home country when you get back, pay them the $90, and then they give you your exit stamp. I knew all of this before heading to the border. Well for me playing dumb at the border wasn't too difficult since I don't know any portuguese AT ALL. The officer held up the paper I was supposed to have and I just made some grunts and random english words, followed by shoving my passport towards him and saying 'STAMP'repeatedly! After pointing at the paper a few more times and saying some other angry portuguese back to me he laughed at my lack of Brazilian culture and stamped my passport and let me go free! I don't know how it worked but it did and that I am thankful for!
Once in Puerto Iguazu, we chilled out at our amazing hostel, which had air conditioning, and then went to bed so we could explore the Argentina side of the falls the next day. Next day we woke up to the worst thunder storms we had seen since we started our trip! It didn't let up all day so we just lounged around the hostel and looked for a plane ticket to Buenos Aires for the next day. We ended up getting a night bus to Buenos Aires because we learned that bus travel in Argentina is an art form. We'll get to the bus later. It didn't leave until 2pm the next day so we had to get up early to see the falls before the bus left. It was worth every bit, except the exorbitant fees they charge to go in a national park if you are a foreigner. It was bullshit in my book. It was $5 for people from Argentina or $20 for anyone else! I got over the price scheme pretty quick as we headed straight for La Gargantua. We walked through the woods on a path where we saw a family of Coatis, a little racoon like anteater, then found the cat walk that took us over the river to the biggest waterfall I have ever seen and may ever see. As we walked up all I could see was mist rising and water being sucked down. I am not even going to try to describe the Argentina side of Iguazu Falls because it is impossible to do it justice. It is the most incredible natural site I have ever seen. On the Argentina side you can walk around the bottom of the falls and around the top of the falls on a very extensive system of cat walks. The whole time our mouths were open in awe. I took a ton of pictures and should have them up on Snapfish soon. I haven't totally figured out how to use that site very well so if anyone has any idea how to share my whole library, let me know please!!
I haven't spent a lot of time in Argentina yet, but so far the food kicks ass. I got a "simple cheeseburger" the other day and it had burger, ham, and fried egg on it!! I called it the gaucho burger and when I spend an extended period of time in Buenos Aires I will find the best one there!
So about the bus... We had 3 companies to choose from that offered Cama Suite, or Bed Suite, service to Buenos Aires. This was a must as it is an 18 hour trip. Two companies offered free wifi on the bus but we decided to go with another company that had a promotion for $60 US. For that price we got a leather seat that reclined into a bed like a first class international flight. As for meals, we were served three in 18 hours, including a 3 course dinner with salad, cold dinner, and hot dinner. Full bar service, for free the whole ride, and Argentine wine during dinner! We both stuffed ourselves and I had plenty of wine and whiskey. I think it was the best I had slept in 3 weeks! Anyways, bus service in this country is the best ever. I can't wait to take another bus in March.
Once in Buenos Aires we spent one night before heading to Uruguay for a week of exploration of a country I had never thought of before!
Uruguay is a manly country. I watched the Anthony Bourdain No Reservations on Montevideo a couple weeks before I left the states, so I knew I was in for a treat. First we went to a little town called Colonia de Sacremento. It was cool little town set up by the Portuguese to smuggle stuff across the bay into Buenos Aires! It looked like a mini Charleston or Savanna and we spent a day taking pictures of the old buildings and antique cars all over the streets. One of the restaurants we ate at had cars parked in the lot all around it that had been converted into booths. The engine was removed and replaced with speakers, which was really pretty cool.
I think Montevideo might be my favorite city I will visit in this continent! Everything about it is perfect! Low crime, extremely clean, good people, and the best food ever. I wish we had spent a week here because two days was not enough. We started the trip by going to our hostel in the upscale Pocitos neighborhood. It was cool place with a lot of character. We immediately headed up to the end of the block to the place where Anthony Bourdaine ate his first Chivito!
YouTube about Chivito Creation at the restaurant we went to by our hostel!!
The next day we headed on a tour of the city on some bikes we rented from the hostel. These were some badass cruisers that we were about to put to the test on a 12 hour adventure around Montevideo. Montevideo is unique because it has the "Rambla". The rambla is a road and sidewalk that stretches around the whole city like a belt inclosing all of the buildings and separating them from the ocean. The development of the city stops about 500 yds from the ocean to make room for parks, beaches, golf courses, fishing clubs, and one or two exclusive restaurants! The rambla walk way is two lanes, one for walking and one for bikes! It is perfect. We rode like 5 miles, or about an hour, up to the ciudad vieja neighborhood. For my dad, that means old city. This is where I started to love this city. The main avenue downtown terminates into a huge plaza flanked by ancient Portuguese Government buildings on all sides and the main avenue continues on the other end as a pedestrian street. It has all the nice cafes and shops and upscale apartments mixed with buildings and theatres from colonial times and the turn of the century. It was impressive and we took lots of pictures in anticipation of Montevideo's crown jewel, Mercado del Puerto. It is a market built at the turn of the century to house the bars and parillas down by the port! It is similar to what I think Heaven might be like. There are nearly 20 restaurants that are like none I've ever seen before. The typical layout is bar surrounding coolers full of meat or beer and the grandaddy of all grills covered in all sorts of meat, entrails, veggies for skewers, and all heated by wood fire. It was a spectacle of manlyness. Lauren and I both got filets and shared a beer that was 970ml. It was only $20!!! My filet didn't even fit on my plate and came with a salad and side and bread. We had an appetizer of spicy chorizo, fresh off the grill. An American girl doing the same thing we were came and sat down next to us and told us of a bar at the end of the market that invented a wine called media y media, or half and half. It is part dry white wine and part semi sweet white wine. Its really good and we drank a lot of it at the bar that invented it. The first glass is always on the house at that place. After this amazing afternoon exploring the city we rode our bikes back down the rambla and had to stop at the movie theatre because our asses were so sore from the hard plastic bike seats. We saw Changeling which is creepy and a little depressing but really good. 12 hours after first setting out for the market we made it back to the hostel, still full, skipped dinner and went to bed.
YouTube about Mercado del Puerto... not the same stand we went to but it was identical!!
So now we are back in Buenos Aires where we'll spend the rest of February and I'll get some practicar on my espanol. There should be another update soon enough.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
A Special Treat
Today marks the day that I got off my lazy ass (and got on it again for a long time) to upload ALL of the pictures up to this point! They are on Snapfish.com so you have to create a login. It´s worth it though because I can upload them at full quality this way!
So heres how to see them:
I´m hanging out in the bus station right now waiting to go to Foz do Iguaçu, the Brazilian side of Iquazu Falls. My bus doesn´t leave for 10 hrs so now is a good time to wrap up my thoughts on Brazil.
Things I noticed here:
So heres how to see them:
- Go to My Pictures
- Create a login
- Look at my pictures
I´m hanging out in the bus station right now waiting to go to Foz do Iguaçu, the Brazilian side of Iquazu Falls. My bus doesn´t leave for 10 hrs so now is a good time to wrap up my thoughts on Brazil.
Things I noticed here:
- Brazilians like sweet tea as much as southerners. You can get Nestea and Lipton anywhere.
- Politically Corectness is not a priority. I loved this fast food place called Habib´s.... it had a fat cartoon arab on the sign. hilarious
- For a country where they´re the only ones who speak the language, nobody knows any other language. Portuguese is wierd and hard
- Fake Boobs everywhere
- Everyone is consumed by trying to look American. If it has an American company logo on it, they´ll wear it.... no matter what logo that may be
- I´ve seen enough soccer to last the rest of my life.
- This is the most beautiful country in South America so far. It is incredible and everyone should visit here. From the rain forest to the incredible beaches to the pantanal. You should visit this country. Bring a translator if you do.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
The Update About Brazil (excluding Iguazu Falls)
So I´m gonna wait before I ever give Wake any praise again. Oh well. So we´re in Brazil now and it is amazing, but expensive on my backpacking budget! The luxuries of being in a developed nation are very welcome after Bolivia. Immediately upon crossing the border I knew we were in for a pleasant change of pace and scenery!
We crossed the border into Corumba, Brazil from Puerto Quijarro, Bolivia after the bumpiest ride of my life on my first ever passenger train. During meal time I had more rice and chicken in my lap and on the floor and seat around me than in my belly. This attracted some attention and stares from the Bolivianos around us. The train was fairly uneventfuly other than seeing a few Toucans as we bounced on down the line.
During the train ride we had sort of met the old lady sitting across the isle from us. She was from Uruguay and spoke English and was pretty funny. She reminded me of an old New Yorker widow that was full of wisdom and one liners. She also ate all of the food that I could not manage to man up for! Anyways, at the border, she came over to us after getting our exit stamps from Bolivia and hurried us into a taxi with her because she said it would be cheaper if we went into Corumba together. Lauren and I exchanged skeptical glances and asked if our Australian friend we had just met could ride with us. No was all she as she rushed us towards the taxi. It was amazing to ride in a taxi that would probably pass US inspections. This was a first in this continent. When we zoomed past Brazillian immigration Lauren and instantly started to worry that we were being smuggled into the country illegally. We both watch entirely too much Locked up Abroad to think that skipping immigration was a good thing. At this point we thought we were both going to have to do a lot of explaining to the Brazillian immigration officers. As it turned out you don´t have to get a stamp until you´re there for more than 24 hours so we were ok, but the awkwardness of the strange Uruguay lady, the speedy taxi driver, and Bolivia in general, made us really question our decision!
We got settled into our DUMP of a hostel in Corumba. Lauren took a nap and I flooded the bathroom trying to take a shower. The shower here was in a bathroom not made to have a bath or shower, but Hostelling International decided it best to just throw up a shower curtain and a electronic shower head to section off a 3ft by 4ft section of bathroom. There was nothing stopping the water from going into the rest of the bathroom. I don´t know why, but my whole life I have been the type to get water everywhere when I shower so I have to make sure I´m sealed in wherever I shower. Well between the shower and shaving in the sink that was as big as a cereal bowl, I managed to cover the floor in a 3 inch layer of water. Pretty amazing. After that I tried to go to sleep in the 100 degree dorm room that Lauren and I had to ourselves. 10 minutes into laying there, wondering when my brain was going to start boiling, I convinced Lauren that we needed to upgrade to and A/C room. It was the best $2.50 I ever spent. The following are a few more highlights of Hostelling International Corumba:
This was a beautiful ride. When we finally got off the interstate and started descending down into Rio de Janeiro, we came down a huge green rain forested mountain. There were waterfalls and natural orchids and huge banana trees. It was pretty amazing. Once into the outside of Rio we were met with a horrible looking city and we started to question the greatness we had expected here. After an hour or so of staring at slums, called favelas here, we made to the Bus station. This was also in a seedy area. We figured that taking a taxi would be the best bet to get to our hostel since we had our huge backpacks. Wrong! The asshole basically robbed us. 48 Reais to get to our hostel that we were only staying at for one night!!! Thats like a $24 taxi ride that only took 10 minutes. It was easily our shortest ride in all of Rio. That first night we stayed in the bohemian district, Santa Teresa. It was pretty cool because it was flanked by favelas but inhabited by the Asheville crowd. It was up in the hills with cobblestone streets running through the district. It had a real trolly cable car that ran through the street up past our hostel. I was pretty glad to only stay here one night as I don´t get along real well with the peaced out hippy crowd. There´s only so many times you can tell the bros you don´t wanna smoke with them or try some of their gnarly homemade vegan food.
The next morning we went to the Apartment we had rented for the week in Copacabana beach. This was the best score yet! Valeska, the lady that owned the apartment lived there and rented out bedrooms. She was an amazing host and arranged us a tour of the city for that day. A tour of the city in one day in Rio is a big task. There is sooooo much here to see. It really is an incredible city. First we went to the Christ Redeemer. A huge statue of christ that looks over the beaches, perched high on a mountain. This thing is incredible. It was named one the 7 wonders of the world in 2007. We also saw one of the biggest spiders I hope to ever see in the wild again. Next we went to Marancana stadium. Its a soccer stadium that was built for the World Cup in the 50´s. At the championship game that year, Brazil hosted Uruguay and 199,000 people were there in the stadium. Its a world record for a sporting event. They its the day Brazil went quiet because Uruguay won in the final minutes. They have since installed safety features and it now seats just under 100,000. The next stop on the tour was the Cathedral. Not really what I expected but extremely unique. It is a giant concrete pyramid. Meade Willis would be impressed with this giant hollow structure. It had stained glass going all the way to the top from the ground level. Definitely a wierd Cathedral. It was designed in the 60´s so who knows what they were thinking. The next cool stop was the Pao de Acucar, or Sugarloaf Mountain. I was realy excited to go here because I had heard so much about the views from up here. Upon arriving I saw the cable car that hung what looked like 1000 feet off the ground from a little cable and started having second thoughts! I´ve been on some cable cars I haven´t really liked before at ski resorts (squaw Valley, California and every single lift apperatus in the Alps) but this was different. I don´t know why, I am just skeptical of foreign safety precautions. I went up anyway and it was incredible. It made me realize that there is no other major city like this in the world. Giant green mountains, skyscrapers, rainforest, tropical beaches, 8 million people, I even saw some howler monkeys, all living harmoneously together. I´ll post some of my pictures I took from up there.
Next day we did the beach thing. We spend a couple hours down on Copacabana beach. It was really cool and I just kept thinking about how beautiful it was and amazing it is to sit in a city the size of NYC and feel like I´m in Hawaii. Rio de Janeiro should be on everyones´bucket list. Don´t stay too long though. The beaches up north are much more secluded and more tropical.
Christ Redeemer
Sketchy Cable Car to Pao de Açucar....probably 1000ft off the ground
Pao de Açucar
The strange Rio de Janeiro Cathedral
Huge Maracana Stadium
We are now in Curitiba, which is a pretty modern city with very clean architecture. We are going to Iguazu falls from here. We´ll have a new update soon. Leave some comments so I can know what you guys think and what kind of stuff ya´ll might wanna hear about.
-John
We crossed the border into Corumba, Brazil from Puerto Quijarro, Bolivia after the bumpiest ride of my life on my first ever passenger train. During meal time I had more rice and chicken in my lap and on the floor and seat around me than in my belly. This attracted some attention and stares from the Bolivianos around us. The train was fairly uneventfuly other than seeing a few Toucans as we bounced on down the line.
During the train ride we had sort of met the old lady sitting across the isle from us. She was from Uruguay and spoke English and was pretty funny. She reminded me of an old New Yorker widow that was full of wisdom and one liners. She also ate all of the food that I could not manage to man up for! Anyways, at the border, she came over to us after getting our exit stamps from Bolivia and hurried us into a taxi with her because she said it would be cheaper if we went into Corumba together. Lauren and I exchanged skeptical glances and asked if our Australian friend we had just met could ride with us. No was all she as she rushed us towards the taxi. It was amazing to ride in a taxi that would probably pass US inspections. This was a first in this continent. When we zoomed past Brazillian immigration Lauren and instantly started to worry that we were being smuggled into the country illegally. We both watch entirely too much Locked up Abroad to think that skipping immigration was a good thing. At this point we thought we were both going to have to do a lot of explaining to the Brazillian immigration officers. As it turned out you don´t have to get a stamp until you´re there for more than 24 hours so we were ok, but the awkwardness of the strange Uruguay lady, the speedy taxi driver, and Bolivia in general, made us really question our decision!
We got settled into our DUMP of a hostel in Corumba. Lauren took a nap and I flooded the bathroom trying to take a shower. The shower here was in a bathroom not made to have a bath or shower, but Hostelling International decided it best to just throw up a shower curtain and a electronic shower head to section off a 3ft by 4ft section of bathroom. There was nothing stopping the water from going into the rest of the bathroom. I don´t know why, but my whole life I have been the type to get water everywhere when I shower so I have to make sure I´m sealed in wherever I shower. Well between the shower and shaving in the sink that was as big as a cereal bowl, I managed to cover the floor in a 3 inch layer of water. Pretty amazing. After that I tried to go to sleep in the 100 degree dorm room that Lauren and I had to ourselves. 10 minutes into laying there, wondering when my brain was going to start boiling, I convinced Lauren that we needed to upgrade to and A/C room. It was the best $2.50 I ever spent. The following are a few more highlights of Hostelling International Corumba:
- Kitchen was infested with winged red ants. Looked deadly
- First non a/c room was infested with small ants until I unloaded a whole can of OFF around the door and floor. Problem solved
- John and Lauren´s combined portuguese vocabulary= not a damn word....The hostel workers english= non-existant
- claimed to have internet and cable. nope
- Most expensive hostel we stayed in so far
- Saving grace = they have frozen pizza in the grocery stores
This was a beautiful ride. When we finally got off the interstate and started descending down into Rio de Janeiro, we came down a huge green rain forested mountain. There were waterfalls and natural orchids and huge banana trees. It was pretty amazing. Once into the outside of Rio we were met with a horrible looking city and we started to question the greatness we had expected here. After an hour or so of staring at slums, called favelas here, we made to the Bus station. This was also in a seedy area. We figured that taking a taxi would be the best bet to get to our hostel since we had our huge backpacks. Wrong! The asshole basically robbed us. 48 Reais to get to our hostel that we were only staying at for one night!!! Thats like a $24 taxi ride that only took 10 minutes. It was easily our shortest ride in all of Rio. That first night we stayed in the bohemian district, Santa Teresa. It was pretty cool because it was flanked by favelas but inhabited by the Asheville crowd. It was up in the hills with cobblestone streets running through the district. It had a real trolly cable car that ran through the street up past our hostel. I was pretty glad to only stay here one night as I don´t get along real well with the peaced out hippy crowd. There´s only so many times you can tell the bros you don´t wanna smoke with them or try some of their gnarly homemade vegan food.
The next morning we went to the Apartment we had rented for the week in Copacabana beach. This was the best score yet! Valeska, the lady that owned the apartment lived there and rented out bedrooms. She was an amazing host and arranged us a tour of the city for that day. A tour of the city in one day in Rio is a big task. There is sooooo much here to see. It really is an incredible city. First we went to the Christ Redeemer. A huge statue of christ that looks over the beaches, perched high on a mountain. This thing is incredible. It was named one the 7 wonders of the world in 2007. We also saw one of the biggest spiders I hope to ever see in the wild again. Next we went to Marancana stadium. Its a soccer stadium that was built for the World Cup in the 50´s. At the championship game that year, Brazil hosted Uruguay and 199,000 people were there in the stadium. Its a world record for a sporting event. They its the day Brazil went quiet because Uruguay won in the final minutes. They have since installed safety features and it now seats just under 100,000. The next stop on the tour was the Cathedral. Not really what I expected but extremely unique. It is a giant concrete pyramid. Meade Willis would be impressed with this giant hollow structure. It had stained glass going all the way to the top from the ground level. Definitely a wierd Cathedral. It was designed in the 60´s so who knows what they were thinking. The next cool stop was the Pao de Acucar, or Sugarloaf Mountain. I was realy excited to go here because I had heard so much about the views from up here. Upon arriving I saw the cable car that hung what looked like 1000 feet off the ground from a little cable and started having second thoughts! I´ve been on some cable cars I haven´t really liked before at ski resorts (squaw Valley, California and every single lift apperatus in the Alps) but this was different. I don´t know why, I am just skeptical of foreign safety precautions. I went up anyway and it was incredible. It made me realize that there is no other major city like this in the world. Giant green mountains, skyscrapers, rainforest, tropical beaches, 8 million people, I even saw some howler monkeys, all living harmoneously together. I´ll post some of my pictures I took from up there.
Next day we did the beach thing. We spend a couple hours down on Copacabana beach. It was really cool and I just kept thinking about how beautiful it was and amazing it is to sit in a city the size of NYC and feel like I´m in Hawaii. Rio de Janeiro should be on everyones´bucket list. Don´t stay too long though. The beaches up north are much more secluded and more tropical.
Christ Redeemer
Sketchy Cable Car to Pao de Açucar....probably 1000ft off the ground
Pao de Açucar
The strange Rio de Janeiro Cathedral
Huge Maracana Stadium
We are now in Curitiba, which is a pretty modern city with very clean architecture. We are going to Iguazu falls from here. We´ll have a new update soon. Leave some comments so I can know what you guys think and what kind of stuff ya´ll might wanna hear about.
-John
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Bye bye Bolivia
I think a few days were plenty of Bolivia. I guess I should start by saying that I didn't really wanna come here in the first place. After realizing it was the most direct path to where we wanted to go, we decided that we might as well traverse the lovely country. It started in Lake Titicaca, as I described earlier. Next came the bus to La Paz, the mighty steed it was! Lauren and I were lucky enough to sit behind two Indians and their daughter. I threw up a little in my mouth when the mom started digging away in the little girl's nose with her fingernail! We started climbing out of Copacabana in our mighty 1970 Toyota minibus, a daring drive with steep Andean cliffs on each side with not even a hint of a guard rail or road repair. Soon we made it to a part of Lake Titicaca that we had to cross. I figured it would be a bridge that we would drive over. The bus was driven onto a wooden barge to ford the river, Oregon Trail style (for those of you from my generation). I included a picture of another bus making the same crossing. 
I was hoping we were going to get to hunt for buffalo at the next stop!
I was hoping we were going to get to hunt for buffalo at the next stop! After the lake crossing, we finally made it to La Paz, Bolivia. It was raining and cold out and the city is pretty intimidating. The bus driver tried to drop everyone off at the cemetary but everyone kinda refused to get off until he took us to the bus station, which was designed by the same person that did the eifel tower. We made it to the hotel pretty quickly and watched the Obama innaugeration. It really made me think of how badass USA is and that we really are better than every other country. Being in Bolivia will do that to you. Even Lauren was feeling pretty pro-America that day.
The next day, the sun came out, against warnings of rain from the news, and we decided to explore La Paz by way of finding a way to buy plane tickets out of there!! We walked down to the main street, which is huge, and it was completely blocked off by armies of chanting protesters who were shooting firecrackers. We knew they were about to vote on a new constitution, we just didn't know it was happening the day we were spending in La Paz! Naturally we found the nearest American chain (in order to avoid food poisoning and have someone to sue if we did become ill) and sat and watched the 3rd worlders riot themselves silly.
La Paz was really not a bad place. We ended up having quite a good time walking around the city, especially when the clouds cleared and we could see the 16,000 ft snowcapped volcanoe that towers over the city. It was so amazing that we just started following the street down which we could see the thing until we could see all of it. It was pretty cool because they say there is about a 5% chance of seeing it this time of year.
Food in La Paz..... still horrible! We ate all American chains except one. First night was Hard Rock Cafe. Easily the coolest Hard Rock in the world, worst food though! I didn't think veggie lasagna would be too hard to screw up but it tasted like they poured a whole box of mortons in it! Burger King the next day was incredible. I ate more than 3 bites for the first time in a couple weeks. Later on we tried a monsterous local chain. Brosso was everything. Playplace for the kids the size of chuck e cheese, full bar, fireplace, two stories with easily 800 seats, a grand piano, a menu that rivals in size with Denny's combined with a Mcdonalds and Baskin Robbins. It was incredible. I had the sneakers, snickers icecream. The place was full of the upper end La Pazians. Overall a pretty hilarious experience. If you look at the picture we sat in the table you can see right by the 'O' in Brosso, near the tangle of electrical wires.... what a view.
La Paz is also famous for it's shoe shine boys. They dress like terrorists with black ski masks over their heads. We were pre warned so wern't alarmed by them.
I felt bad not supporting the cause for $0.30, but I don't think he could have done much to the Merrells.
Next we strolled throught the witch's market. It is exactly what it sounds like. There are millions of old Andean women selling potions, carcasses, and other lucky trinkets. They stand there all day chewing coca leaves and moaning strange andean phrases at you with coca blackened teeth, trying to get you to buy a horribly stinky dried Llama fetus for good luck. No thanks the smell was all the luck I needed. There was nice array of other exotic, probably endangered dead things to add to the standard Llama fetus.
The last part I have about La Paz is a bit about the municipal bus system. I wouldn't know how to ride this thing (or be brave enough to attempt) if I had lived in La Paz for 20 years. It consisted of a fleet of bluebird or Thomas school busses inherited from more well-to-do 3rd world nations, half a century ago. The paint jobs on them tipped you off first. Whatever neon color was found in the garbage that day, got used. Then it was styled with any religious sticker or American brand name sticker that could be found and placed all over. Next they must make sure the catalitic converter or any other emission reducing enhancement is removed make for maximum pollution. The blacker the better with this exhaust. The final touch is to find a teen that can speak as fast as an auctioneer to stand in the missing door or window of the bus screaming at mach speed which route the bus covered. I was able to understand one word one time one of the kids said. I was freakin proud. If that was too much to consume, here is another picture to help.
This ends the recap of La Paz. Our flight this morning to Santa Cruz started the official trek to Brazil. Expect a post whenever we get to a firm destination on the East Coast of Brazil. For now, I have to catch a train, my first passenger train experience ever, for 14 hours across the Dengue fever region of Bolivia. I miss everyone, but especially the food! I hope you're enjoying reading about my adventure.
Sincerely,
John
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Cuzco and Peru side of Titicaca
Cuzco and Lake Titicaca! We´ll start with the Cuzco side of things. As I said earlier, the hostel was amazing. I can only hope that we´ll stay in another this nice on this trip. In addition to the hostel, the town is great. Its the first town that I could even maybe think about living in. The town surrounds a beautiful plaza,(where the last inca was killed) containing 4 churches. We toured the churches and they were pretty incredible. Their is probably enough gold in these churches to completely take Peru out of poverty and make it a player in global commodity trade. Even more impressive than the gold is the solid wood carved pulpits. If I had been allowed to take pictures, I would have. So pretty much we toured a lot of cathedrals here and set up our second trip to Cuzco at the end of the trip. We are hiking to Macchu Pichu from here in April, when it is considerably drier on the Inca Trail.
The worst part about Peru is easily the food. The best part about Cuzco is a McDonalds. I´ve never been happier to eat a big mac. I had to beg Lauren to go with me but she gave in after one more shitty pasta dish and a couple more indians trying to get us to eat Guinee Pig. Speaking of Guinee Pigs, in order to better explain the Catholic gospel, in all of the Catholic art, they are eating guinee pig and riding llamas!! The funniest is in all of the biggest cathedrals, there is a painting of the last supper, done by a local Inca during the conquests, and they are always eating guinee pig in the last supper!!
On the "touristic bus" from Cuzco to Titicaca, we were immediately met with an exciting surprise. The farmers and train workers decided to go on strike the night before and that meant for tourists taking the train to macchu pichu, they´d have to wait til next time they were in Peru! For me, on a bus, it meant that we would have to weave around boulders, rocks, and trees lying across the the Pan American Highway. The farmers tried to block the roads for the tourists to get in and out of cuzco!! Luckily our driver had plenty of experience driving on the wrong side of the road at high speeds, like all Peruvanos.
Now in Titicaca, the food in this 3rd world country still sucks. They have no refridgeration hardly anywhere! I am so afraid to eat this gross food! They say the trout and King Fish is good but if you saw the water outside Puno, the town I´m in, you´d go for the Pizza. Even pizza is sketchy. No refridgeration means everything is sketchy. I would kill an innocent kid for a velveeta shells and cheese dinner! Theres only so much pan this gaucho can eat! Next time I come to South America I´m gonna bring a whole backpack full of kraft mac and cheese dinners. On the bright side, I did find gatorade at a little bodega today. I bought all they had.
So Titicaca can´t be all bad right? Nah, we went on a boat ride on Gilligan´s salvaged vessel to the "Uros islands", a bunch of indian made floating islands that indians still live on. They make them out of reeds tied together and they are about the size of a football field. I can´t believe people live like this. I have included a picture because I didnt understand what they were till I saw them. These people live a very hard life here. Most people, that aren´t farmers and actually work for pay, make about $3000 per year. One was complaining about how much the private university was in nearby Juliaca.... It was $800 per year.
Anyways, tomorrow we are going to the Bolivia side of Titicaca, which is supposed to be a lot nicer. Right now I just wish I had saved the money and gone to Tahoe instead!! Just joking, but Tahoe is much prettier.
All for now,
-John
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Made it to Cuzco
Just a short update.
We made it to Cuzco, base camp for treks and trains to Machu Pichu. It was a horrible 14 hour bus ride. The bus smelled of human feces the whole time. I was so sick with some sort of food poisoning that I could not sleep. I actually kept from having to use the bathrooms on the bus for the whole 14 hours. I dont even want to know how bad they smelled if the rest of the bus smelled that bad. I think were gonna fly from here to Titicaca on Saturday!
My fever is gone so today we are going to go check out the town. Our hostel is amazing. It has a perfect view of the central plaza.
I will have more later on the Cuzco experience.
We made it to Cuzco, base camp for treks and trains to Machu Pichu. It was a horrible 14 hour bus ride. The bus smelled of human feces the whole time. I was so sick with some sort of food poisoning that I could not sleep. I actually kept from having to use the bathrooms on the bus for the whole 14 hours. I dont even want to know how bad they smelled if the rest of the bus smelled that bad. I think were gonna fly from here to Titicaca on Saturday!
My fever is gone so today we are going to go check out the town. Our hostel is amazing. It has a perfect view of the central plaza.
I will have more later on the Cuzco experience.
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