January 2010
1 post
Thank you for reading
While I hate to admit my serious traveling is over for a while, I would like to retire this blog for now. I had too many amazing experiences in South America and am thrilled that I actually met my goal of documenting them on this blog, only failing to post an entry for about three days. I hope you enjoyed reading…
My life may be a bit more routine this days, but I’m trying to...
November 2009
27 posts
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up above the sky so high
After nearly three and a half months of busing around South America, I decided I needed to take a trip back to the States for a while (for family and personal reasons). I’m not done writing about traveling, culture, food and alcohol in South America, but I do have to take a break from actually being there.
Which is how I found myself in need of a bus to Lima from Cusco, one last long bus...
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Aussie Non-Stop Traveler reports from Argentina...
blanquitagringita:
We walked to the Sunday afternoon craft fair, eager to walk around and check out the local crafts after spending the first several hours of the day stuck with nothing to do (most stores, restaurants and services are closed on Sunday, and those that are open do so around 2 p.m. in Buenos Aires and 5 p.m. in Mendoza).
As we wandered, our small group dissolved. After Sarah and I...
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tengo una reserva de hostelworld
I´ve written quite a bit about couchsurfing, yet have not mentioned hostel life at all. And, like almost all young travelers in South America, I have spent many a night - and quite a few days - in hostels. I´m currently in a Loki Hostel, a mini-chain of four hostels in Perú and Bolivia known for being some of the craziest party hostels.
They serve food all day and cook dinner at night (not...
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menú familiar o turistico
Arroz con leche (PEN$1) - rice pudding with a sweet blackberry sauce at a local restaurant in Cusco
I´ve already mentioned how tourists overrun the city of Cusco; much of southern and coastal Perú are also heavily touristed, though not to quite the same degree. In these enclaves of largely light-skinned foreigners, two very distinctive types of restaurants can be found: the local and the...
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getting there and away
A few small towns lie in the vecinity of Machu Picchu, but mostly it´s still as isolated as it was 500 years ago. There are a few different (four popular) ways to get there, and Kiwi Friend and I decided to take the fastest one. Almost everyone starts out in the nearby city of Cusco, population 350,000, one of the most touristy places on the planet.
From Cusco, which sits 3,400 meters above...
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the ancient and the modern
The quintessential view of Machu Picchu from above, with Huayna Picchu (mountain) in the background.
I’m sitting on a short wall in the midst of the remnants of Machu Picchu. 10 feet away, two Peruvian park rangers overlook the area, using a soft whistle to warn visitors of any wrongdoing (generally sitting in an inappropriate place or smoking). There’s no big explanatory...
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gateway to the sky
One of the only things more spectacular than the mountains in Perù is thinking about people climbing them, worshipping them, farming on them and sacrificing to them hundreds of years ago.
view of the mountains in the Colga Valley in the Arequipa region of southern Perú
In recent years, archeologists have found several sacrificial Incan sites with clothes, pottery and mummies on or near the...
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it´s only a day away
Today a friend of mine asked me what I spend my days doing. it´s a good question really. I´ve been traveling for about three months, have been to three countries, numerous cities and small towns and yet often I can´t exactly figure out how I´ve filled my time. A few days ago, for example, Kiwi Friend and I spent a whole day walking around Arequipa, the second largest city in Perú at only 600,000,...
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Kiwi Friend says...
louise-mankelow:
I needed to get out of Argentina to renew my visa, and as it worked out a friend I met in Buenos Aires was travelling through Peru. We decided to meet up a few days ago in Arica, Chile. The bus to Arica from Jujuy was quite a trip. The bus went through some pretty high altitudes which can make you pretty sick. Luckily for me I had conveniently emptied my intestines...
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Kiwi Friend reported from Jujuy...
louise-mankelow:
There is so much laughter at the house, as we try to understand one another and I love the fact that they tell it how it is. The fat girl at the gym, “Gordita” – little fatty. Hilarious. In fact, anything that is remotely endearing attracts “ita” (meaning little) at the end. At the comedor, I am Blancita for obvious reasons. My favourite so far is Sandra requesting a...
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rules of the road
I couldn´t find one plant growing in the desert between Arica and the Chilean border. Just sand, flat sand and mountains of sand - oh, and some trash people have chucked out their windows over the years.
In the past week, I have been told at least 10 different stories about the drama of crossing the Chile-Peru border. Everyone claimed that everyone else´s advice on how to cross was wrong.
¨Just...
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cuidate con el agua. estamos en una zona desierta....
After nearly three months in South America, I have finally gotten to a place where you can´t drink the water. As an avid anti-bottled water, Nalgene user, I find this to be very problematic.
This is not intended to be advice to others on where to drink the water, but I have been told that it is fine - and not gotten sick from it - everywhere I went in Argentina, Uruguay and central Chile. Having...
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recently updated posts
vendors of random crap in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay
tango dancing in Buenos Aires
dulce de leche (Argentina) a.k.a. manjar (Chile)
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driving a lingual line
Being near other tourists a lot has turned out to mean that I spend a lot of time translating between English and Spanish for other people. I´ve done it during a multi-person conversation in Spanish, where I had to recap every few minutes for a beginning Spanish sppeaker in Cordoba, Argentina; one day a taxi driver I exchanged pleasantries with asked me to ask two non-Spanish-speaking passangers...
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planes, trains and automobiles - or not
I was thinking about writing about the buses - the long ones that make up the main form of non-personal transportation around South America. Not trains, not planes. Buses. 10-hour buses from Buenos Aires to Cordoba, 18-hour buses from Salta to Mendoza, 24-hour buses from Santiago to the north of Chile.
Even the cheapest long-distance buses in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay are nicer than any bus...
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paint the world yourself
Think there are people on those stairs?
Decorating Valparaiso’s twisty hillside roads and main streets is more graffiti than I have ever seen in my life. I wrote previously about graffiti in Buenos Aires, but Valparaiso rewrites the book on this artform. There’s a bit of ugly scribble - almost none of it as overtly political as in Argentina - and a seemingly endless amount of...
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surf, sand and sun
With sketchy plans to meet Trilingual Tour Guide later, my two fellow couchsurfers and I walked a mere three blocks to catch the bus to Concón, a beach near Valparaiso. For 150 Chilean pesos (about 30 cents US), we ride for an hour through Valparaiso, Viña del Mar and Renaca. Though none of us are students, we all had the good fortune of still carrying our ID cards; Valparaiso’s a big...
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October 2009
38 posts
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farm to plate meets water to plate
Goodbye crazy amounts of beef (mostly). Hello sea creatures.
Small restaurant in the front of a house selling fresh fish and homemade empanadas on the beach in Concòn, near Valparaiso.
Fresh fish (pescado) and seafood (marisco) fill markets, menus and even empanadas on the coast of Chile. It´s common to see people fishing off piers and from the tops of cliffs. A common soup, Caldillo de...
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still warm from the oven
Much of Valparaiso´s charm stems from all the little cafes and bars tucked away in different parts of the city. After a very long walk up and down hills yesterday, Thoughtful Travler - we share the same couchsurfing host - and I stopped for some fresh fruit juice at a cafe featuring natural food on a small plaza downtown. In addition to the shock of finding out the place was vegetarian, we were...
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up up and away
Pale South African Traveler, Trilingual Tour Guide and another couch surfer drinking coffee on the ledge (look below for what they´re looking at…)
I come outside with my cup of coffee and find Trilingual Tour Guide and the other two couchsurfers sitting on the top of one of Valparaiso´s many (many, many, many) staircases, sipping their coffees. And admiring the stunning cliff, beach,...
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bienvenidos - now let me search your stuff
Start Point (a) is Bariloche, Argentina; end point (b) is Osorno, Chile.
We drive for hours through the snow-covered Andes that provide the natural border between Argentina and Chile for almost the entire length of the two countries. This southern passage is beautiful, just as I remember the trip being in the central part of the countries when I was crossing between Mendoza and Santiago on a...
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so they closed the mountains...
I wish I had tales of wonder to regale you with about Bariloche, but other than the local goodies, I experienced very little. It rained heavily or snowed every day I was there, with weather forecasts to do the same for at least another week.
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willy wonka´s factory town...
This has got to be the most logical and delicious way to make hot chocolate - and there’s not a better place to enjoy it than the self-proclaimed chocolate capital of Argentina. A submarino comes out as a glass of steaming hot milk with a side of one or two small, rich chocolate bars (sometimes they’re already in the bottom of the glass). Stir for a quick minute and it’s ready....
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dip it once, dip it good
While people in the area around Bariloche tell me they eat more cordero and trout (trucha - from the local lakes) than in most of Argentina, one of the local specialties that really caught my attention was fondue. Not only because dipping things in cheese is always fun; not only because any dish that comes to your table with its own fire is always fun; but also because Argentina has many great...
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beers in whine land (not a typo)
After months of almost nothing but Quilmes and the occasional ‘local’ beer that tastes nearly identical to Quilmes - watery, refreshing but with little flavor, I find myself in what must be the microbrewery capital of Argentina: Bariloche, in the province of El Bolson. At least I know that those Oktoberfest beers weren’t just a show.
El Bolson, Manush, random beers made in...
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I spy with my little eye - a giant fucking whale
Southern Right Whales, so named because they were the right whales to hunt - mainly because they come very close to shore. This trait also makes them an easy spot while whale watching, especially in the miniscule town of Puerto Pirámides on Península Valdes, where they’ve never been hunted.
People have been running whale watching trips out of this port (there’s basically nothing else...
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and now about those penguins (pingüinos)
Driving out - literally out to sea - from Puerto Madryn puts you on Península Valdes, a wildlife protection area filled mostly with desert grasslands. Most of the land is divided between private estancias (ranches) that mainly raise sheep. Lots and lots of sheep and lambs, with some horses, ostriches and guanaca - the undomesticated ancestor of the alpaca, the only member of the camelito family in...
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long sandy beaches, rock formations and -...
The most touristy place I’ve been in Argentina, Puerto Madryn doubles as a beautiful beach (in summer) and the largest town near a wildlife reserve - and several other spots for watching sea animals, many of whom spend part of the year near Antartica. The town has grown exponentially in size since 2001. (After the Argentine economic crisis in 2001, both internal and foreign travel to...
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well at least someone´s recycling...
Walking around late at night - sometimes during the day, depending on the neighborhood - you can see people going through the trash bins or pulling apart trash bags to look for recyclables to turn in for money or anything else of use or value.
On a Sunday afternoon in La Boca.
They put what they find in large bags in big carts. In BsAs, people pull the carts themselves, but in many other...