On Argentina Time

It's Thursday and we're still in Buenos Aires- I've come to realize that no one here is in any type of a hurry. As in Mexico and other places, the word ¨ahora¨ (which literally translates to ¨now¨) implies a timeframe of anywhere between a few minutes to a few hours, and sometimes even a few days into the future. I'm really learning patience. Besides, there's no reason at all for me to be in any kind of a hurry- I don't have a job to go, people to see, things to do, haha. I had heard that things get going really late in Argentina, and it's true. The other night we had a BBQ and no one showed up until after 10pm. We finished eating somewhere around midnight, and the last people left around 5am. Normally, no one even goes out to the bar until 1 or 2am and clubs can stay open until 10am, although I haven't had a night out like this yet.
The weather has been amazing in Buenos Aires- everyday the temperature around 27C and sunny. But it's fall and everyone's expecting winter weather soon- although I hear it never gets cold enough to snow (wimps).
Don't have much else to report, but I hope that everyone who's going to Chantelle's sisters´social has a head-bobbing good time and I am soooooooo upset that I'm missing it!!!

The trip is continuing in a more relaxed, less frenetic manner here in Argentina. We are back in Buenos Aires until Wednesday. The 20 hour bus ride when smoothly- the buses in Argentina are better than any flight I've ever been on- the seats are huge and recline almost into a bed. We were served lunch, dinner, breakfast, and 2 snacks with coffee. I think the price worked out to approx. $60 for the 20 hour trip, which I think is reasonable all things considered.
After arriving into Baires on Saturday we went out on the river on a boat with Maxi's friends for the afternoon. Some of them went wakeboarding and sea-dooing but because I'm sick with a cold AGAIN, I decided it was best not to immerse myself in the freezing water. It's technically fall in Argentina, but the weather in Buenos Aires is still unseasonably warm. It's sunny and hot during the day, but cools off at bit at night. Unlike Bariloche. Which is really cold if I haven't mentioned. It snowed in the mountains really closeby where we were staying. Beautiful look at, but only from the window. I hadn't anticipated travelling in this climate and don't have my winter parka and boots with me. I probably don't have to mention that the truck doesn't have functioning heat either, being that it's 69 years old.
Yesterday we drove 3 hours outside the city to see Maxi's friend run in a car race which he never ended up running in. All was not lost because we ate a delicious asado and sat in the sun and I learned to drive the motorhome which we're taking back down south. Hoping for minimal breakdowns....
I still haven't booked my flight home but I'm planning for the week of June 1, so everyone start planning my party, haha. As much as I'm loving every bit of this trip, I miss EVERYONE tons and can't wait to see you all and have BBQs and funnel some beers and go camping and all that fun stuff!!

BA by Bus

Just a quick update to say we are heading to Buenos Aires for the weekend but by bus. Since it's a quick trip we opted for the 20 hours in the bus versus the lengthier truck option. Will write again soon!

Roadtrip 1939

Alright. So far Argentina is awesome. It's a whole other world from the last few countries I travelled. It is clean, orderly, super modern, with paved roads and bathrooms with toilet paper. It is also quite a bit more expensive. The food is amazing, especially the grilled meat, as I mentioned. I have been fortunate enough to be invited to a few asados, which is kind of an all day or all night affair including copious amounts of wine and about 10 different cuts of meat slow cook over a carbon grill. All of Maxi's family are really nice and have included me in everything, even though I don't understand everything they say to me. They have fun teasing me but are very helpful and patient and try to talk slowly and explain things when I look confused.
In Buenos Aires we spent some time walking around the Tango district of San Telmo and then the artsy, poorer area of Boca, home of the famous Boca Juniors soccer team. I went shopping one day and was overwhelmed by the amount of stores selling beautiful clothing for cheap. I didn't buy much yet but I'm sure I'll be going back. Maxi manages a tennis club so I spent a fair bit of time there drinking coffee and hanging out while he worked.
On Thursday left for Bariloche, some 1700km to the south of Buenos Aires. The plan was to leave at 4am and drive straight down in one day. Well, apparently the concept of time is the same here as elsewhere in Latin America and we left some time around noon. We took Maxi's red 1939 Chevy pick-up truck which he has been restoring and which has never been on such a lengthy roadtrip. Classic American vehicles are not as common here as in North America and so we got a lot of honks and salutes, etc. and every time we stopped (voluntarily or by technical difficulty), people wanted to talk about the truck.
The first major problem was the vibrating. Maxi stopped a couple times to see that the wheels were on tight and to check who knows what else (because I don't know anything about cars I have no idea). Some time in the afternoon he decided we needed to go to a balancing shop and have it looked at. They took the tires off and the 2 back ones had super warped rubber. They needed to be replaced so we waited a few hours to have that done. By the time we were back on the road it was probably close to 9pm. The GPS told us that we'd gone something like 500km since noon. A couple hours later we stopped for dinner then back on the road. Sometime around 230 am we decided to drive to the next town and stop for the night. We had a few kms left when we passed onto a bridge and the truck started jerking. A few seconds later we were stopped for good because one of the rear wheels fell off. I tried hard not to laugh because it really could have been a lot worse if there had been traffic.
After awhile a nice man stopped to help, he was hilarious- really animated and distraught about the truck. He kept saying what a disaster it all was, flayling his arms around. They went for a tow truck and I fell asleep waiting in the truck. The tow truck ended up to be useless so the decision was made that I would get a ride to the next town with the old man and Maxi would stay with the truck until the morning. The next morning when Maxi came to get me, he said that another truck had come and towed him to a repair shop where he'd been working on the truck all night. We had lunch with the man who had given me a ride and started back on the road. This time with me driving. I don't know if I mentioned, but the driver's side is opposite to where it should be. And I haven't really driven in 5 months, but I did pretty good considering.
After a couple more motor and battery adjustments we stopped again for the night in a small town. The last leg of the journey Saturday went pretty smoothly and we arrived to his sister's house in time for dinner. This is where I have been staying in Bariloche. They have 3 kids- Camila who is 14, Augustine who is 9, and Maria who is 5. They are all super sweet and Augustine wants me to start giving him english lessons today. They are supposed to start at 1pm and I think I'll be late on account of the blog.

Bariloche

I have arrived safely in Bariloche. Staying with Maxi's sister's family. I have some interesting tales of the road to tell but will likely do so tomorrow when I'm less lazy.

Buenos Aires

So I am safely in the country's capitol drinking amazing wine and eating world famous meat. I'm staying with Maxi, who I mentioned many blogs ago that I met in Colombia. So far Argentina is amazing- the people are beautiful and friendly and there's so much culture and amazing things to do and see. We are supposed to be heading down south this week where I hear it's much colder. Baires has been hot and humid so far, with a bit of rain today. I forgot to wish everyone a Happy Easter and tell you all how much I miss you!!

Catch Up

Looking back on the last few posts I realize I have been really lazy!! Time to catch up on some details. First of all my current location is Salta, Argentina. Just crossed over the border from Bolivia last evening. The bus from Uyuni departed around 530am and was supposed to take 6 hours. That's not including the transfer and 2 hour layover that we were not informed about prior to purchasing the ticket. We spent the layover time in a quite a shithole of a town, in fact that is how I would describe all of the towns that I passed through yesterday- but that is to be expected of border towns.
I suppose I need to go all the way back to Copacabana, which already seems like sooooo long ago. I think that I mentioned the strike that created a huge and uncomfortable delay and I also don't wish to re-visit the bus condition issues in Bolivia- needless to say the buses are pretty ancient, filthy, and crowded. Couple that with mostly unpaved roads and no shocks and you can imagine what kind of ride that would be.
Copacaban itself is the major town located on the Boivian side of Lago Titicaca. I don't have much to say about the town itself but the lake really was beautiful. It is said to be one of the world's largest navigeable lakes. I don't have a clue what that means, but there it is. It was truly beautiful to see it from the bus window as the sun was coming up on the way to the border- the surface sparkled as though it were covered with diamonds!
Luckily I met a guy on the bus with which to travel and pass the time- Layth from Toronto. We split a hotel room in arguably the filthiest hotel I've stayed in but which cost a mere 15 Bolivianos (approx. $2 US). The following day we took the slowest boat I have ever been on to Isla del Sol, which is where the sun is said to have been born, according to the Incas. I didn't mind the length of the boat ride because the scenery out on the lake was spectacular. Once on the island, we hiked over to see the museum and then on to the Inca ruins. Afterwards the trail continued to the other end of the island where the boat left for the return to Copacabana. It was a really nice hike, although a bit rushed and made more difficult due to the altitude and the inclined path.
Due to the altitude, Copacabana was quite chilly at night and I was glad to have a sleeping bag, not only to protect me from the filthy hotel bedding. In fact, most places that I visited in Bolivia cooled off to an uncomfortable temperature at night. I'm lucky to not have suffered from altitude sickness as some travellers do. There were times here and there where I found it difficult to catch my breath but this usually only lasted a few minutes and didn't come with the vomiting and headaches that I've seen some people suffer from. I also learned quite quickly that the altitude can affect how the body metabolizes alcohol and I found I wasn't able to consume my usual amount of beer (of which the countries of Latin America have proven to produce satisfactorily).
After Copacabana comes La Paz. As I know I've mentioned, my 3 nights and days spent there were consumed mostly by socializing in bars and visiting the markets. I stayed in the Loki hostel which was equipped with a great bar and restaurant and is known to be a very social/¨party¨ hostel. It was what I needed after spending the previous few weeks quite sick and unenergetic. There I met Chris from Australia who I spent the past few days travelling with on the salt flat tour and here to Argentina.
The markets in La Paz were unlike any I've seen before. They stretched for blocks and blocks and I'm quite sure you could find anything there that you could ever wish to buy. It included a small ¨witches´ market¨ in which you could buy any kind of herbal remedy or good luck charm imaginable, including llama fetuses, armadillo feet, and various other animal corpses or portions thereof. The food market was also incredible and included meats, fruits, vegetables, etc. of varieties that I have never before seen in my life. It was nice to see the huge piles of seafood being kept chilled by one small chunk of ice on top of the mounds.
Following my time in La Paz, I travelled with Chris to Uyuni which is where we booked our 3 day Salar Tour. We ended up paying 450B which is approx. the equivalent of $80US including all food, transport, and accomodation. We were asked not to tell the others in our group what we payed, as they were charged 700B each (reminiscent of SE Asia tours).
The other members in our Jeep which we got to know quite well due to the quantity of time spent in very close quarters were 2 guys from France (Alex and Yanel), a couple in their 60's from New Zealand (George and Claire), along with the driver and his wife who was our cook. I would safely say that Alex was a certain friend from back home's French counterpart- possibly the witiest person you'll ever meet but occasionally taking a joke a bit too far. Within minutes of meeting, he responded to my comment that I loved wigs by saying- ¨if I had your hair, I would love wigs too¨. Luckily I thought the comment was absolutely hilarious and took no offence to it, in fact it broke the ice and everyone got on really well from there. That is until the last day of the trip when he went too far with a joke and made the old woman in our Jeep cry.
The first day was spent visiting the salt flats, which is essentially kms by kms of blindingly white salt, at points as deep as 10 metres down. The area used to be a giant lake- many, many years ago. After lunch we were allowed a few minutes to photograph the flats which was amazing because of what you can do with depth perceptions- you'll have to wait for the photos to see what I mean. The rest of the day was spent visiting various lagoons of insane contrasting colours due to all the salt and other minerals in the ground and water (again, wait for the photos- words cannot describe). We saw pink and red lagoons, followed my a blue one and then a green one. Along with the lagoons we were able to see hundreds of flamingoes, llama, vicuña, an ostrich, and a really weird animal that was that a cross between a rabbit and a kangaroo.
Once in the tiny town that we were to spend the night in, we had the opportunity to visit a Necropolis. This was essentially an ancient grave-yard; the corpse enclosures being above-ground and made of porous rock. Inside some of the enclosures were human skulls and bones, one of which Chris and I couldn't resist touching (he dared me first!) The accomodation the first night was alright, better than the next where all 6 of us had to share one room. In the morning we learned that Yenal had been up all night throwing up, likely from altitude sickness, and his second day of the tour was spent mostly getting to know the inside of the Jeep.
The second day we visited some more amazing desert landscapes and lagoons, as well as some volcanoes and incredible rock formations (photos). The third day we were awoken at 430am by militant old George who hadn't slept and was just waiting for his chance to inflict some pain on us young people. We drove huddled up in the Jeep in the freezing cold to see some unimpressive geysers, and then on to some hot springs. These I couldn't bring myself to enter because I knew it would mean climbing out wet into the cold air, where there was frost and ice around the rim of the nearby lake. After breakfast we began the 9 hour journey back to Uyuni, which I have to admit was pretty miserable and uncomfortable. There were still a few sights, but the biggies were definitely visited the first 2 days. Just before arriving back to Uyuni we visited a rusty old train graveyard, which was admittedly pretty cool.
An early last night was spent in Uyuni, followed by another 430am wake-up for the bus. As I mentioned, it was hideous and we only finally crossed the border as it was getting dark. After the 2 hour wait through customs in the freexing cold and in sandals (I had washed my shoes and they were still wet), we booked another 7 hour night bus to Salta. Thankfully 2 really cool girls from Slovenia that I met for the first time in Mexico City (Petra and Nastja) were doing the same route, which made things more interesting. And here I am in the internet shop in Salta for the third time today, waiting for my flight to Buenos Aires at 710pm. I just couldn't bear the thought of the 22hour busride, even though the buses in Argentina are deluxe ¨cama¨(bed) buses.

From Uyuni

I arrived safely back from the salt flats. I promise to write more when I arrive and settle into Argentina- hope to be there tomorrow evening.

Uyuni

Just arrived in Uyuni this morning and booked a tour for the salt flats leaving at 1030am! Will be gone three days and then will be trying to cross over into Argentina! I promise I will catch up on the blog when I get back!

Party and Markets

Still in La Paz, leaving for Uyuni tomorrow on what's supposed to be a horrendous bus ride...Not much to report about La Paz- just staying in a party hostel and going to markets during the day.

Boliviando

Arrived in La Paz yesterday- going to do some shopping and drinking here and thats probably about it. Oh, and went for Indian food last night- was soooooooo good.