Anastasia and George

The End

2011-03-20T15:47:00.000-07:00

We spent one more day in Cincinnati in the company of Libby and Bill. This lovely couple gave us a driving tour of the city and took us to an exhibition of the newly discovered artefacts that Cleopatra herself has touched.
Early next morning Bill kindly dropped us off at a rest area on the north side of town. There, we had a long wait. Once again we were sticking the thumb out in the brisk morning air. People smiled, some shook their heads as if to say “No, no, no, are you crazy? I _never_ pick up hitch-hikers”. It was entertaining to watch people’s reactions when they saw us. Many people had the “Krasivo sleva” (Russian for “something beautiful on the left”) syndrome, as we have named it. Here’s how it happens:
Once a driver sees us, he starts checking his blind spot, trying to avoid eye contact with us. Even if there is nothing there, he still repeatedly checks his rear-view mirror or just appears to be very interested by the scenery to his left. He starts looking straight as soon as he passed us. “What hitchhikers? I did not see anybody!”
After three hours of observing the syndrome play out in a million different variations, we finally flagged down a ride. Two elderly sisters coming home from a family reunion in Tennessee were going to Michigan. All their thoughts were about family. There was nothing more they ever talked about.
“Where are you coming from?” they asked us.
“A two-year trip around South America”
“Ah, how interesting... You know, I have two grand-sons, one is three and the other is seven. My sister here has two daughters and one has two kids and the other has three...”
A few hours later, the lady asked us:
“So, how was it, South America? You must have been in Georgia or Louisiana or something?”
She thought we have been travelling in the south of USA!!!
The two sisters dropped us off at a rest-area south of Toledo. We waited until the evening there before a man drove us to another rest-area just north of town. It was actually a Michigan Welcome Centre. It was getting late, so we went a little ways into a thin forest that was just wide enough to block the view of a sub-division from the highway. It took some imagination to pitch a tent as invisibly as possible there. Luckily, some fallen pines made a perfect hiding spot for us. We rolled out our sleeping bags, put on all our warm clothing and crawled in.
In the morning we got a ride pretty quick. A man was on his way to a Detroit Casino. He introduced himself as JJ.
“I’ve spent ten and a half years in jail,” he told us, “that’s where I learned to play cards. I’m on parole now; I’m not allowed to leave the state of Ohio. But fuck it, I really wanna play in this tournament that is happening in Detroit.”
“Cops don`t get along with me and I don`t get along with them” he added.
He drove fast but good, keeping his black sporty car cruising at 80 mph, zigzagging between the slow mini vans and the big trucks that crowded the highway. We arrived to Detroit in half an hour.
“Have a good day!” said JJ and sped off, leaving us under an enormous bridge that span the Detroit river. The structure looked unassailable: vehicles rolled up to the toll booths and effortlessly continued on. We couldn’t do that – no pedestrians were allowed on the bridge. There was another alternative – the Tunnel in the center of the city. We reached it on foot, passing by the early morning empty old industrial buildings of red brick. The sidewalks were so clean even there...
No pedestrians were allowed in the tunnel either. We had to take a $4 bus for the whole minute it took to drive under the river, a sort of a Central American way of taxing the border crossers. A minute spent answering the silly questions of the border guard (“how can you afford to travel for two years?”) and we were on Canadian soil. It was cold. The cold wind got under our sweaters and we shivered.
Windsor is a big place. It took us two hours to locate the library, find on Google Maps where it is we needed to go and then go there.
A take off spot in Windsor is an excellent one. The highway 401 starts there, the speed limit is only 80 and the shoulder is wide. We installed ourselves off the pavement and lifted the thumb for the last time on this trip. Many vehicles did not stop (even though they were all Canadians in there!) but one did. Mark, the Lutheran pastor from Denver, was on his way to check up on a few churches in Toronto. He drove a rental and was happy for the company for the boring drive to “the Big Smoke”. Unlike our previous encounters with religious people, Mark did not try to convert us right away, under the fear of eternal torture and suffering. Instead, we had a very pleasant conversation all the way to Toronto.
“I have nothing to do tonight,” said Mark, “so if you want I can drive you to your parents’ place in Brampton.”
As we were approaching the house, we invited Mark in for a cup of tea. We did not realise it but we must have overstressed the importance of drinking black tea in Russian culture. We talked at length about how important is the “ancient custom” of drinking black tea, with sugar and lemon. We described the simple procedure and Mark nodded:
“Ok, I think I can do this.”
Half an hour later, Mark looked perplexed and confused when George’s mother said,
“and this is the lemon”, offering the plate of lemon slices to him. Mark took one and started squeezing it out with his fingers into the cup.
“Am I doing this right?” asked Mark as lemon juice flowed down his fingers. Everybody laughed and the conversation flowed, the cultural exchange going on full throttle.
Mark had to leave soon and we chatted some more with George’s parents. It was past 11pm when we went to sleep. Inside, out of the frigid spring air, we were warm, sleepy, tired and happy.
Technically, our journey is not over just yet. We still have 600 kms to go to Montreal, but we will not blog about this. Friends to meet in Toronto still, the “normal life” things to figure out, like a place to stay and a job, to mention a few, will take some time.
Well guys, gals, ladies and gentlemen, chicos y chicas, locos y fritas, señoras y señores, thank you for following and supporting us on our journey; thank you for stopping and picking us up on the road; for the kind words and encouragements in moments of doubt and despair; for the wise advises you gave us when we did not know what to do; for travelling and living in the moment alongside us; for telling your story; for sharing food, drink and shelter; for inviting us to your home and sharing a part of your life; we are grateful to all of you.
Best of luck,
Anastasia and George

Miami – Cincinnati

2011-03-16T15:50:00.000-07:00

The airport awoke early, around 5, and we had to cut our sleep short. We waited until the daylight and ventured out. It was chilly. We took a bus downtown, in hopes of getting online in the public library. We got off at the central station and walked one block to the library doors. It was a scary walk. All kinds of crazy people were hanging out at that hour in downtown Miami. Black homeless old men, preachers on the empty street corners, grim-looking white men with tattoos on their faces… As we were walking by a white guy sitting in the flower bed, he got up and took of his shirt. His whole upper body was blue with gangster style tattoos. We looked straight and walked.
The library was not open yet, so we sat outside, watching a peculiar crowd gathering around us, waiting for the doors to open. Bob Dylan songs came to mind. There was a group of men near us and it sounded like they met here every morning, for a long time.
“So, you got a job yet, Bill?”
“No, nothing. I’ll check my facebook now though, you never know, maybe something came up there…”
“Yeah, you never know”
We were experiencing a strong cultural shock – everything was so clean, so perfect, the air was fresh, we understood the locals perfectly… It was a very strange Saturday morning for us.
Finally, the library opened and everybody went in. Many people headed straight for the couches, lied down and fell asleep. We followed the majority to the internet station. Unfortunately, as guests, we were only allowed 15 minutes each. After we explained our nature to the librarians, they probably thought we were just as crazy as most of the visitors at that hour.
“You are gonna do what? Hitchhike to Canada? Oh my God, you are going to die. Do you realize that it is very cold up there? Do you really need to go there?!”
We briefly told them about out trip up to date. Their disbelief quickly changed into a strong desire to help.
Julio the librarian opened Google maps on his computer and plotted a public transit system route to a truckstop outside of Miami. He did a good job and we followed the directions. It was a shock to us that you could do that.
“Do you guys need Internet time?” he asked, “here is an hour, if it is not enough, tell me”.
It looked like it was going to be a busy day: we had to get to the truckstop before sunset, buy food and eat and also buy some warm clothing and rubber boots for the cold temperatures up north.
It was 8 pm when we got off at the end of the line of the seventh public transit bus we took that day. We were loaded with two new sweaters from Goodwill each, and a shiny new pair of rubber boots was attached to each backpack. We had bread and peanut butter for food and we were exhausted. The truck stop was still 5 miles away (about 9 kms). We started walking in its direction when suddenly an ideal camping spot looked straight at us. We waited for cars to pass, then quickly rushed into the bushes and set up our tent not 5 meters away from the road. After a couple of gulps of mediocre Venezuelan rum we fell asleep fast and woke up with the birds chirping in the fresh morning air of North America.
When we approached the truck stop we saw a lot of motorcycles parked at it. It was a weekend motorbike show, and tough looking white men and women were sitting around. Most wore black leather and Confederation flags could be seen in many places. People sipped Coca-Cola and discussed biker stuff. We did not hang around too long there, eager to hitchhike north.
After only 15 minutes, a van pulled over. The passenger window was open and we could see three Hispanic physiognomies smiling at us.
“A donde vas?” (where are you going?)
“Norte”
“Vamos!”
We got a ride with an illegal bus line servicing illegal immigrants in the US of A. The driver had no license and was living out of his van for the last three years. People would call him and he would drive wherever his customers wanted to go. After we got in, we headed to a trailer park to pick some people up who were headed to Atlanta. 6 short, stubby Guatemalans got in. It took them a while to load their belongings in the back. After a while they succeeded though and we were off.
We dropped off and picked up more people as we zig-zagged around Fort Myers.
The guys were very careful not to attract any attention to themselves. The driver drove 5 miles under the speed limit and when we stopped to refuel people got in and out as fast as they could, always closing the door behind them.
When the night fell, the driver asked us if we can drive.
“I haven’t slept for three nights, I am really tired” he said.
Of course, the least thing we could do to help him was to take over the wheel. We dropped the passengers off at a lonely cabin in the woods of Southern Georgia and then continued empty onto Atlanta. The driver happily snored in the back seat while we took turns driving on the wide and straight highway 75.
As the light drove away the night, our driver woke up and took the wheel. He dropped us off on the outskirts of Atlanta and was off to Colorado to pick up his next clients.
“Thank you so much for driving,” he said,”you have really helped me out. I think I would have crushed tonight if it wasn’t for you”
We took busses across Atlanta pretty much in the same way we did in Miami: bus to library, plot the route, follow directions, walk to the on ramp.
As we were walking, an SUV slowed down and opened a window.
“Heading north?”
“Yes!”
“Get in!”
Craig was cool. He was only heading a few miles up the highway, but he invited us into his home to watch some TV. We accepted and watched a documentary on cocaine trafficking and M-19 in Columbia on the Marijuana Channel. Unfortunately, as the story came to the culminating point, Craig had to go, so we had to leave. He was very kind to give us a lift a few exits further up the highway. He dropped us off at a nice forested off-ramp.
It was already late and we did not feel like traveling any further that day. We were falling asleep on our feet.
We walked a little ways away from the highway, climbed a small wooded hill and pitched our camp just behind the top of it. The forest was absolutely beautiful. Pines, oaks and beeches stood silently and the floor was entirely covered by leaves shed the previous autumn. We laid down on the soft blanket of dry rustling leaves and took in the beauty of these stately black trunks. Not a banana palm to be seen.
It rained heavy at night but as it usually happens, as soon as we woke up and we ready to get out of the tent, the rain stopped. We had breakfast and hot Venezuelan coffee in the cold wet misty morning. We put on our new rubber boots and walked to the on-ramp.
Three hours have passed before we got a short ride to a rest area not 10 miles ahead. There, only 30 minutes of waiting before Libby picked us up. She and her husband (in another vehicle) were coming home to Cincinnati from their winter holiday in Mexico. Libby invited us to stay with them for a day, an invitation we surely accepted. So here we are now, sitting in a condominium downtown Cincinnati, typing up the blog. It is cold and rainy outside, but all our things are freshly washed and dryed, we have just had a delicious American breakfast and we are full of eagerness to reach just one more border, into Canada, this time!

Guiria-Miami

2011-03-12T07:40:00.001-08:00

So, the boat to Trinidad did not work out. The carnival was approaching, the festivities were due to start the next day. People told us that Guiria’s carnival is considered one of the best on the whole coast. We had our reservations, though. We had no desire to stay any longer in Guiria to see the carnival. True, we had a good place to stay, but we had absolutely nothing to do in town. We had no access to the house’s bathroom, so performing our daily functions became a real task. We had to plan in advance or wait until the nightfall to… you know. The idle sitting around our tent all day long got very old by day 6, so we made up our minds to move. The most agreeable option, we reasoned, was to fly from Caracas to Miami.
When we told our host Kira that we were leaving, she broke into tears. She really did not want us to leave! She hugged us, we exchanged emails and she hopped on her motorbike and was off.
We started walking to the highway and as we were passing an idling truck we asked the driver if he could give us a lift out of town. He said:
“Sure! Jesus loves you! He is in your heart!”
The day being Sunday, the local Evangelical group was getting together to go to church. We drove around town picking up the believers and then headed out. We were dropped off at a turnoff and quickly flagged down the next ride. A few more quick and short rides got us deposited near a police check point.
For the carnival time the “security” on the roads was increased. In reality, it meant groups of casually dressed men carrying shotguns standing in the middle of the road. Some wore bullet-proof vests while others had nothing but a radio or a pistol. Their main task was to question the passing vehicles:
“Where are you going?”
“Guiria” or “Carupano”, depending on the direction
“Ok, you may pass”
We baked in the hot sun just past the check point and wandered how the men did not get heat strokes: none of them wore a hat!
Soon enough a car stopped with a family inside. An elderly man was behind the wheel and his beautiful young wife (she looked 25 years younger at least) held a year old baby on her knees. The family gave an impression of being well off.
The conversation flowed and soon we learned that Argenis worked for PDVSA (the national oil company that was expropriated by the “revolutionary” government some years ago). He was an important man in the company: the whole Paria peninsula PDVSA operations were under his control.
“I am on duty this weekend, supervising the Guiria division” he shared with us, “that’s why my wife and I here decided to go to Carupano to pick up my mother-in-law. It is nicer to spend the carnival with your family.”
That was an interesting logical connection but we agreed that it was indeed a good idea to spend carnival with the family.
Soon enough, Argenis steered the conversation to politics:
“Do you think it’s a dictatorship here in Venezuela?” he asked straight.
Without pausing for a second for us to reply, he continued:
“No, it is a lie. What is a dictatorship? A dictatorship is when people are killed, when they are treated badly, when there are soldiers on the streets… None of this happens in Venezuela, right?”
We had no desire to argue with such delusions so we agreed, of course, none of these things happen in Venezuela...
“In any case”, Argenis continued, “if it is a dictatorship, I like it. I am a Chavista, you know. I am with the revolution! You see my cap? It is red! That is the color of the revolution…”
We have heard similar words before, if you remember, but in a different setting.
“I always pick up people,” carried on Argenis, “you know why? Because this car that I drive (he lightly tapped the steering wheel of his brand new Toyota sedan) is not really mine! It belongs to the people of Venezuela! So why not share?”
This phrase was spoken as we sped through a very poor village. Hens and people scrambled out of our way. Apparently, the shocking contrast between his shiny ride and the mud walls and tin roofs of the village huts escaped our driver.“And look at the roads here in Venezuela” Argentis was going full throttle by now, “look how many pot holes there are! It’s going to wreck my car! There is so much oil in our country, so much asphalt, but the roads are still as bad as they were before. Why?”
“Obviously, the abundance of the resources is not the problem here…” George carefully suggested.
“Of course not, but I can see no other obstacles to improve the roads!”
“Eeeh… Corrupt… I mean, I have no idea either.”
We drove in silence for some time, each pondering the mystery of bad roads. A cell phone rang. The young wife pulled out three different Blackberries to see which one was ringing.
“Oh, hi mom. Yeah, we are getting close, we’ll see you soon!”
Argenis had just enough time to drop us off on the other side of town. We wished him to spend a pleasant carnival and watched him speed away to pick up his mother-in-law.
By the end of that day we have arrived to Cumana, a good sized city. It was the carnival night and the downtown was blocked off for traffic. Multitudes of people were already gathering along the carnival route and the drinking has begun. The night was falling but we still had no place to sleep. We aimlessly walked through empty city streets when we came up to a fire station.
“Firemen, may be we can camp at a fire station tonight?”
The firemen were friendly but it was “prohibited to camp” on the station territory. Instead, they suggested that we go to the military post and ask there. So we did. A young military commander came to greet us. He said he was really sorry, but the law “prohibits anybody camping on the military territory”. He then suggested we try our luck with the police office further down the road.
“Yeah, right” we thought.
Unexpectedly, the police chief was young, slim and quick. He instantly grasped what it was that we wanted and invited us to camp inside the police station!
Having set up the tent, we went across the street to witness the so-much-talked-about carnival. It was a sad scene. The music was blaring hard, but few people seemed to enjoy their time. The carnival participants dragged by without smiles as if they were out to pick up some groceries. The costumes were a poor imitation of the Brazilian ones. Some were impressive feathery constructions, but more than a half of participants wore every-day t-shirts and shorts. They marched by us, talking on their cell phones and waiting for the whole thing to be over. Having observed the procession for some time, we went to sleep. Or, rather, tried to sleep. As soon as the procession ended, the music got turned up a notch, people kept on drinking and some started to dance. The party lasted until 4 in the morning.
A few quick rides the next day and a long wait before our last ride in South America came about. It was around sunset when Felix and Deborah pulled over for us. A young couple, they were on their way from a beach to Caracas. We enjoyed each others company and the three-hour drive to Caracas went by quickly. Once in the metropolis, they dropped us off at a hotel and we agreed to meet for a beer the next day.
In the morning, a quick visit to an Internet café revealed that one out of our 5 CS requests was accepted by Laura and Luis. We went over to their place and showed up just in time for lunch:)
Laura and Luis are practicing psychologists and are a very cool couple. They fully entrusted us their house from the start: we had the keys, we were free to move around and we could eat as many mangos as fell from the mango tree in the back yard. Luis is a painter as well as a psychologist, and the house is full of his paintings, interesting design ideas and books. We were very happy just to stay inside for the whole time, playing with the dog, reading and just enjoying not moving anywhere.On our last night at their place, Laura gave us a quick talk about one of their projects. Laura and Luis have developed a system called Neurocodex. Laura briefly explained it to us and taught us a few techniques to “get the problems out of your head”. Empowered by this new way of seeing things, we went to sleep.
24 hours later we stepped on the American soil. The airport was quiet – it was 1 in the morning. We pulled out our sleeping bags and slept the rest of the night on the comfortable couches they have all around the Miami International Airport.

Guiria

2011-03-04T07:04:00.000-08:00

On the first night we got into the shady port town of Guiria, we asked a lady named Kira if we could camp in her backyard. She was the second person we approached with the request. The first one was a lazy fat policeman on duty at the town regiment of… police, I guess. He grinned evilly at our cause and suggested that we go camp at a beach, a notoriously dangerous part of town. Kira, on the contrary, invited us in and we´ve slept in her backyard every night since. Kira is a very generous person. She let`s us take a shower once in a while and generally makes us feel at home (but still in the garden:)There are plenty more people living in the house. Three of Kira`s sisters with their families. The sisters were not as friendly as Kira at the beginning, but they warmed up after two or three days and now we are getting along fine. We have spent a week here already but no ride to Trinidad yet but we made a lot of friends, people recognize us on the street and ask how is our search going.
About every other person we talked to so far asked us:
¨And why don´t you take the ferry?¨
Indeed, why?
There is a ferry, it runs every Wednesday. The problem is that it is the only one, and the monopoly it enjoys allows the ferry company to fix the price as high as they like. When we inquired at their office, a fat man (most population in Guiria is fat or very fat, men and women, including most children, but excluding teenagers for some reason) behind the desk smiled and said:
¨1700 bolivares each, please.¨
If you pay cash, it is 170 dollars, at black market course of $1:10. If you have no cash, the official exchange rate of $1:4 applies, and the amount grows to over $400. That´s over $800 for the two of us. The only good thing is that a return ticket is included in the price, because without a return ticket the Trinidad Immigration will not let you step on the island. Our humble protests to the fact that we plan on leaving by other means were met with a smile.
¨You still have to buy the return ticket,¨ said the pleasant fat man.
So, we kept looking for other options.
A few mornings ago we almost got on this super sketchy cocaine-carrying motor-boat going to Trinidad. This was the boat we were waiting for the first three days here in Guiria. The boss of the fisherman fleet of motorboats kept saying to us that there is a boat about to leave any day now, it is completely legal and he knew the people who are taking it well. We had nothing better to do than to trust him and sit by the fishing dock, all day, waiting for the ¨people from Caracas¨ to arrive. We saw the morning routine of the dock people, we saw the afternoon fishing boats arrive and the excitement over the catch of the day, its weighting and selling. We got to know the routine pretty well by the end of the third day. We made friends, and almost everybody wanted to buy us something to eat or to drink. Chicha (sweet rice porridge with LOTS of condensed milk), coffee, cookies and crackers, we did not refuse any offers.
One afternoon we were walking home from the fishing dock. We were passing by some boats that were pulled up on the beach for repairs. A group of men sat in one of them.
¨Hey gringos! Beer?¨
We changed our course and approached a group of boat painters who have just finished their workday and were now working their way through a case of beer. They had a bucket of ice and were pulling out the ¨cold ones¨ one by one. About the only beer you can get here is called ¨Polar Light¨. It is very light and comes in miniscule 200 ml bottles. A picture was out of a commercial of ¨Corona¨: beach, palm trees, sunset, muscular black men in work clothes, barefoot, having beers among brightly painted beached boats… We could not refuse.
After the initial ¨Where are you from?...¨ the conversation soon turned to politics. The tall black man would yell out:
¨CHAVEZ! RUSIA!! AMIGOOOS!!!!!!¨
His smaller friend would lift his cap and yell in response:
¨Chavez! Rojo! Trabajadores!!! Yeah! You see the color of my hat, you see? It is RED! That´s because I am with CHAVEZ! REVOLUTION!¨
The third companion would put in:
¨Chavez! Ick. Revolution! Chavez con nosotros! Ick. Chavez...¨
We enjoyed their company but did not share in on their enthusiasm. We sipped on the cold beer and were just taking in the whole scene. We had to leave when it got dark and the boys got too drunk.
On the fourth day, the ¨people from Caracas¨ finally arrived. We were called over to the beach from where the boat was to leave. The captain wanted lots of money for our passage. He was asking for 100 dollars a person. We brought him down to 80 total (that was ALL we had at the moment) when suddenly the skipper came up and asked if we were going to contribute to the ¨Trinidad Entry Tax¨, another 80 dollars. We kind of ignored him and kept waiting for the captain. While we were sitting in the shade of the palm trees, we got talking to the man ¨from Caracas¨ who ordered the boat to take his ¨cargo¨ across. He was a Trinitarian and spoke English. We asked him straight:
¨Are you transporting any drugs?¨
He looked straight at us, swallowed and got into a lengthy explanation as to why it was not worth the risk for him to traffic cocaine over. About five minutes into the conversation, he bent over, reached into his bag and pulled out… a fighting cock.
¨Poor bird,¨ he said,¨suffering so much. But wait, when you get to Trinidad, you will make me lots of money, hahaha.¨
After all this, we were not so cool on giving the captain the money OR our passports. We waited some more when all of a sudden, the captain announced that the boat was ready. We all went over to the boat, but our passports were still not stamped out.
We asked the captain:
¨So are you taking us or not? What about the stamp out?¨
The captain did not answer but instead started the engine. The guy with the fighting cock yelled to us:
¨Don´t talk! Jump in!¨
¨Eeee… No-no-no. Have a good trip!¨
We stood on the peer, watching the boat turn around in the harbour and take a course to Trinidad. We did not know if should we thank gods from keeping us taking this ride or should we wave them back and agree to pay whatever they want.
Adrenalin had rushed through our veins a few times that day :)
When we aimlessly wandered the streets later on, people called us over from the sidewalks, cafes and stores. They were all characters we met earlier in the port, and they all asked us:
¨Have you found anything yet? No? Wait, I´ll talk to my brother/sister/friend, he is going to Trinidad on Friday...¨
The same evening we were walking past a bar when some people inside waved to us.
¨Hey, gringos! Wanna beer?¨
That was the crew of a fishing boat we talked to earlier that day. There were three of them: El Gordo, El Chico and El Flaco (Fat, Small and Skinny). El Gordo was the captain of the ship. El Chico was first mate. He was dark black, short and fatter than El Gordo. He talked non-stop, smiled constantly and only stopped his avalanche of jokes when a pretty girl passed by. He would stop mid-sentence, turn around and start flirting. He was hilarious. El Flako was timid and did not speak much, but smiled and noded his head. The trinity was very friendly and full of eagerness to help us.
¨Look,¨ said El Gordo,¨we are going to La Union. We have no problem taking you, we just need to ask the boat owner´s permission.¨
¨Wow,¨our adrenalin levels rose for the tenth time that day,¨that would be… awesome! And where is this La Union? What country is it?¨
¨La Union, you know,¨was the answer,¨they speak French there. It´s an island.¨
¨Aaaa… an island…¨
We spent some more time in the bar with them, being treated to the Ice Light beers by El Chico.
El Chico invited us over to have breakfast on their boat in the morning and we went to our back yard in high hopes.
Early next morning we were at the boat, 7 am, as told. There was no movement on board. We waited for some time before we saw sleepy El Chico poking his head out of a door.
¨Damn my head hurts!¨ He exclaimed, ¨We got SO drunk last night! We got back at like 3 in the morning! And now my head hurts!¨
Soon the other crew members woke up. The cook headed to the kitchen and started by making some coffee. He then made arepas, traditional Venezuelan pancakes of corn flour. El Chico took over after to fry some fish. Half an hour later, we were chewing on one of the most delicious breakfasts in our trip: Arepas with fried fish, aboard a fishing vessel that is about to sail to La Union (which is in Grenada, we found out).
El Chico sat down beside us and quietly said:
¨Sorry guys, but unfortunately we cannot take you. The boss does not allow us. Sorry.¨
¨Oh, don´t worry about it, don´t be sorry, it´s ok…¨ we answered, trying not to show our disappointment.
So we were on land again, with no ride to Trinidad.
Two more days has passed since. Two more leads failed. Everybody is telling us that Trinidad Immigration will not let us through without an ¨onward passage¨. We do not have one, nor do we want buy one, for obvious reasons. Without it, no captain will give us a ride to Trinidad. The circle is closed.
The carnival is approaching. The festivities are due to start this evening. We think we will stop actively looking for the boat now, but still keep our ears open. We will enjoy the carnival in Kira´s company and if nothing comes up, we will leave Guiria by the road we arrived by.

Venezuela

2011-02-26T07:21:00.000-08:00

When we were approaching Venezuela, every person we met thought it was his duty to tell us that Venezuela is very, very dangerous. Bad, bad people live there, and their only goal in life was to rob us, kidnap us or do some other undescribable thing to us.
We decided to press on anyway to see with our own eyes if it was really that bad. Juan Villarino must have heard tales ten times worse when he was planning his trip across Iraq and Afghanistan... What he found was the incredible hospitality of the people instead.
So we, keeping his example in mind, got our passports stamped at the border and stuck our thumbs out just past the military post. 5 minutes later,an owner of a cyber cafe gave us a lift into Sta. Elena. We changed our reales into bolivares on the street (the black market in Venezuela gives you twice the exchange rate than the official banks) and headed to the exit of town. On our way out we passed a gas station. An old pump was standing in the middle of a dirt field, a line of cars waiting to be filled up. We glanced at the display on the pump and then looked again with eyes wide open: 0.048 bolivares a litre? That`s 200 liters for a dollar! Gas is practically free... An image of smiling Chavez looked at us from every wall and lamppost we passed. ¨Until the victory!¨ said the signs below. ¨Build socialism or die!¨ proclaimed a brush-painted slogan on the block walls of a police station.
The weather was unstable as we moved out to our spot. The sun would poke out and hide again behind heavy rolling thunderstorms. It would rain hard for 20 minutes and then the sun would shine again and dry out the ground. Half an hour more,and another rain would pour down. The Gran Savana gave us its usual welcome of heavy mists, rain and shine, all at once.
The first day was a failure. Nobody stopped, and when we went to camp that night, the heaviest rain poured down on us. We woke up a little wet but determined to hitch out today. Indeed, we did hitch a ride. It was not a very long one but still a ride. When Mishico pulled over, she was out for her 4:20pm ride out in the savanna. She invited us to come along, offering to drop us off at the military check point some 20 kms further on. While we were driving, we saw this cool ant-eater on the side of the road. We got out and approached it.The funny mammal would get up on its hind legs and spread out its ¨arms¨ in a defending posture. Very cute. It was obviously a young puppy because we were told that an adult ant-eater can reach a size of a big dog. The one in front of us barely reached 1 foot when it stood on its hind legs. It fell over a few times, loosing its balance. We were lucky its mamma was not around! We observed it for a while and then let it continue on its route. It started raining heavily at that point and Mishico said: ¨why don´t you come back to Sta Elena with me tonight? You can stay at my house a night or two, rest from the road.¨ Well, the offer was generous and we happily accepted. Mishico turned around and we drove back to town. At the entrance, not far from the place where we tried hitching the day before, Mishico pulled into a driveway.¨This is the bar I ran for 7 months¨ she said, ¨but I had no permission to run it, so they finally closed me down a month ago. Damn. I´m in the process of getting all this official crap sorted out.¨ We walked into the empty bar. The clock, strangely enough, showed 4:20 (again!) and we sat behind the empty bar table, listened to loud Bob Dylan records and watched the street traffic. Mishico, it seemed, knew everybody in town. Many a passer-by would stop and ask her ¨so, when do you finally open up?¨
Later on Mishico took us to her place and showed us our room. The next two days we spent in her company, touring the houses of her friends and going for walks.
One of the friends that we visited impressed us deeply, although we are still not sure what was stronger: the personality of Margarita or the crazy view that opened up from her window openings. You see, Margarita was building a huge house on top of the hill. She was working alone and without a slightest idea about what she was doing. Margarita went crazy sometime during the construction, or was it before...? She spoke non-stop for 8 hours about all sort of her construction decisions, workers she hired and neighbours, on whoom she was stealthily advancing her property lines. She chain-smoked and lively gesticulated with a beer can, letting beer fly in all directions.
While Margarita was buzzing in the background, an icredible view opened up to us from her second storey. You had to walk on a plank thrown over some twisty joists and look out of a window opening holding on not to fall, and this is what you could see: Mount Roraima peeked out of the clouds just as the sun was setting. It was far away but still very clear, we could even see the waterfall rushing from the top of the plateau. We took this photo on another day and from a different pointNext morning, we said good-byes to Mishico and her family and went back to the road. This time we advanced a little further, to the bus station that was curiously located welloutside of town. We picked a spot just past it and observed a steady flow of taxis (80% of Sta. Elena vehicles are taxis) drop off passengers there, or just coming by for a ride, looking for customers. So we spent the next 3 days, looking for a truck or a car without the small yellow ¨taxi¨ sticker on the windshield. When the nights fell, we seeked shelter under a traditional palm roof of Señor Castro´s closed down restaurant.On the third day we struck gold. Rafael was taking an empty truck to Caracas. He was in no hurry and had a pleasant disposition. We stopped frequently to drink from the jungle streams, to take a cup of coffe or just to stretch our legs. At the end of the day, Rafael deposited us at a tollbooth outside of Puerto Ordaz. There was a truckstop nearby, with an ample roofed space for the truckers to hang their hammocks! We camped there and hitched a ride to Carupano next morning. This ride was silent, we barely exchanged 10 words with the trucker in the first 3 hours. Then, Anastasia asked: ¨by the way, we never asked what is your name?¨ and instantly, Jose smiled and started chatting. He dropped us off at a small village 20 minutes before Carupano. It was getting late so we decided to camp there. We began going from house to house, asking if we could camp in the backyard. None of the five women we asked said no, but instead said ¨why don´t you ask the next house over? They have a back yard.¨ After a fifth such reply, we went to the gas station with the same question. The owner looked as if he never heard such a request before and offered us to camp right in front of the pumps. ¨There¨ he said,¨you can put your tent there.¨ 10 more minutes were required to carefully explain to him why we do not like to camp out in the open at night, but instead would prefer a more out-of-the-way spot, like around that corner, for example. Eventualy, we reached a consensus with the man and pitched a tent behind a parked truck.
In the morning the ride did not come easy. We were only a short distance away from town, but nobody would stop. Eventually,a man gave us a short lift to the center of the village from where we took a luxurious taxi ride all the way to Carupano. The beaten-up 70s model Caprice Classic took in 5 passengers and there was still room for more. We cruised in comfort, riding with 3 other local people who were taking their usual taxi ride to work in the morning.
Carupano was our first town on the Caribbean coast since a long while and its chaos made us recall Central America. Lots of people on the streets, yelling, selling and buying all sorts of things. We maneuvered our way to the central plaza and sat down to think. We did not know how to get out of town, nor did we see anybody trustworthy whom we could ask for directions. A plaza full of people but no one to ask! Finally,a young mother with a child in her arms sat on the bench near us. She was friendly and explained to us which bus we should get on to get to the exit of town. Half an hour later we were already hitch-hikng on the narrow highway 10, headed for Guiria.
A few more rides took us there. The first one bought us a much-needed beer and the other was a ¨rural transport¨ truck. ¨Gratis, gracias a Chavez!¨ (Free thanks to Chavez) yelled out the driver and we hopped into the back of the revolutionary socialist transport.
When we got to Guiria, it was getting dark. We walked a few blocks and asked at the first house that we liked: ¨could we please camp in your backyard for the night?¨ The lady agreed and even let us stay for as long as we need! Now we are set up with a place to stay and our next task rises tall in front of us: get to Trinidad. It is easier said than done, this is sure. The fact that a carnival is approaching (the festivities commence Monday), does not make our task any easier. We are getting a lot of conflicting information about boats that go there and prices they charge, but one bit is certain: the ferry that leaves once a week charges 120 dollars for the 5 hour traverse, and they would only sell us a two-way ticket. That´s to comply with Trinidad´s immigration request of an onward passage for every foreigner who comes to the island. We are in the process of seeing what other solution can be found, wish us luck!

The Amazon

2011-02-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

Early next morning we moved out to the direction of the port. Not the container port, which was surrounded by a three meter wire fence (with electric wire to boot), the entrance guarded by grim men in uniform, but to the ¨public¨ port. The piers stretched out for some 10 kilometers along the shoreline, and there was plenty of boats moored up. Some were unloading lumber, some were loading rice and beer to take upstream, but most of them were not going anywhere anytime soon. We asked a few captains of the typical three deck passenger/cargo vessels like this one where they were heading, but the furthest port of call was Macapa, 100 kms away, and in the wrong direction. After going up and down the port for half a day, amidst slums, open-ditch sewages and never-ending piers, we came up to Porto Marcus Pinto. ¨Santarem¨, a beten-up three deck diesel boat was due to depart today, and the last of the cargo was being loaded into the vessel. Most of the passengers were already on board, having hung their hammocks in the best spots. They were idly waiting, observing the labourers work. The cargo deck was being filled with bags of onions and crates of tomatoes. We found the captain and inquired about the price of passage up to Manaus. ¨180!¨ was his firm word, but after some pleading, going away and coming back game, it was lowered to 150 ($75), and to that we agreed. We were actually quite happy with the arrangement, having by that time abandoned the hope of hitching out of Belem.
So we went back to the hostel, got our bags, bought some snacks for the 5 day ¨cruise¨ and came onboard.
When we showed up, the official passenger-holding capacity of the ship must have been trippled. Hammocks and travel bags took up most of the space on passenger deck and there was no space left to even sit down, let alone hang a hammock. Children were running underfoot and it was a difficult task to move along the passages: one had to step over, crowl under and generally avoid collision with the human bodies crammed into their hammocks all over. When we were leaving the hostel, the reception girl presented us with a hammock that one of the travellers left behind, so we were proud owners of a good, brand-new hammock, but without a place to hang it.
In despair, we went to the least crowded area of the ship - the cargo deck. We sat down on the hold hatch and watched the men load up the last of tomatoes. The crates were piled up to the ceiling on three sides of the hatch, and the forth side was a passage along the board. A crew member came up to us and said: ¨it is prohibited to sit where you are sitting. Go to the passenger deck.¨
¨Show us where we can go there and we will!¨ we answered.
He said nothing more and went away.
We looked around. The hatch was pretty big, and there were metal pipes running along the ceiling that we could possibly attach our hammock to... 10 minutes later we have occupied what proved to be the best spot on the whole ship (except for the air-conditionned cabins, of course). We had a cabin with a view. There were no neighbours, only green tomatoes peeped out from their card-board homes all around. True, we were a little close to the engine room, and on some nights it got pretty hot, but overall we were happy. Compare yourself:
As we were settling in for the night, we spotted a bag of pasta packages in the garbage bin next to us! What the hell? Somebody threw out 5 kilos of pasta? We promptly dumpster-dived the treasure and hid it in our bags. Half an hour later a crew member came by. He looked into the garbage bin, turned over some trash in there, obviously looking for something. Not having found what he was looking for, he went away and returned with a flashlight. He made a careful search of the area, even lifting up some tomatoes to see if the big bag of pasta accidentaly got buried in there. When we asked him if he was looking for something, he grumpily said he wasn´t. For the rest of the trip we saw him now and then sadly looking in the garbage bin, perhaps hoping that the pasta would somehow reappear. We nicknamed him ¨Matros Lapshov¨ to avoid pronouncing such words as ¨macaroni¨, ¨pasta¨ and ¨spaghetti¨ all words understood in Brazil. We guessed that he stole the bag from an even biger bag of pasta when it was loaded on the ship. He then stashed his booty the garbage bin, hoping to retrieve it under the cover of darkness. We beat him to it, and were not at all sorry. As most of the other tourists onboard, we thought that at least some of the meals would be included in the price of the passage. We were wrong. A sad looking plate of rice, beans and some meat varied in price between 6 and 10 reais ($3-5), depending on your skin colour and appearance. The whiter you are - the more expensive it is!
The pasta, therefore, was our main dish for the next 5 days, along with 2 kilos of peanuts and a kilo of raisins. Towards the end of the trip the tomatoes began to get red around us and we snacked on them now and again.
The first day of the route passed through the narrow channels of the amazonian delta. We often got close to the banks and the wall of greenery was sliding along us. We could imagine pumas, capibaras and anacondas looking at us from the cover of the forest. We saw no animals, but we saw lots of people. There were a lot of shacks built at the swampy shores of the river. The construction was dubious and the huts lacked window panes, but almost every one was equipped with a satellite dish, pointing straight up in the sky.As our ship would appear around the bend, people who lived in those huts would jump in their canoes and paddle out to the center. They would wait for the ship to get close and then the children in the canoes would start waving their hands up and down. The passengers onboard would get very excited and throw plastic bags full of stuff to the canoes. The local would then pick up the bags and paddle back home. The woman who stood near us watching the ¨donation¨ explained to us that these people were very poor and lacked essential things. People who could afford it donated what they needed most: clothes. It may be true, but many bags contained things other than clothes. We noticed potato chips bag showing through the plastic in one of the bags that floated on the water. What surprised us was that the locals never said ¨thank you¨ or some how acknowledged the gifts. They picked up the floating bags with the same face expressions as if they were pulling out a fish net.
The second day we got out into the main channel and the banks diminished to a thin line of green on the horizon. The captain steered the boat along one shore or the other to avoid the strong current in the middle, and he would switch sides often. When we passed a small village, a motorboat or two would catch up to us, tie up alongside and sell cheese, banana chips, salted shrimps and frozen fruit juice.
The third, fourth and fifth day of the cruise were hard to tell apart. We slept in the hammock, coocked pasta and generally hanged out on ¨our¨ hatch. Some passengers would occasionally come down, look at our royal arrangemnts and without saying a word, go back to their hammock. We guess that they were envious of our spot, which only encouraged us to never leave it for the fear of loosing it to some industrious local family of seven.
We read books and played chess to pass the time. The game aroused immense interest among the passengers. The men would gather in circle, observe us moving the pieces for some time and then ask if we were playing checkers. ¨No, it is chess¨ we would say. ¨Ahh, I only know to play checkers...¨ yet another man would say and walk off. We tried to teach some, but people lost interest about 5 minutes into explanation, asking if we knew how to play checkers instead.
An impressive sunset near Santarem
We arrived in Manaus on the sixth night, 3 in the morning. To our surprise, most of the passengers, rolled up their hammocks and walked off. We stayed onboard untill the morning to venture out into the port city.
No CS luck in Manaus either, so after a quick Internet session we headed for the take-off spot. In half an hour, already 4 cars have stopped for us, offering rides of 8 to 10 kilometers. We politely refused such offers, but were pleasantly surprised at the friendliness of the population. The fith car that stopped was driven by a math teacher. He gave us a 100 km ride to Presidente Figuereiro, talking all the way. He told us about the cruel history of the road we were travelling.
In the 70s, the last military dictator of Brazil (Figueredo) decided to build a road from Manaus to Boa Vista. The task was difficult because of the terrain to be traversed and also because of the hostile indigenous peoples to be encountered on the way. The Waimiri-Atroari people fought against the road builders, protecting their area. The army was called in to make the construction progress. The natives were mowed down with machine-gun fire, dynamited and blown up with grenades. The indians fought back with poisoned arrows. We were to pass throught the 200 kms of Waimiri-Atroari Indigenous Reserve further up the road. The traffic is only allowed during day time, and stopping is expressly prohibited within the reserve.
We bid farewell to the talkative fellow at the turn off to his town and walked a little ways up the road. We came up to a tiny truck stop and seeked shelter for the night in an empty trailer. When we first asked the driver if we could camp in his trailer he totally did not understand what it is that we want, but after some 5 minutes of careful explanation in Portuñol, he got the idea and warmed up to us. We spent the night peacefully, enjoying sound sleep on the cool metal of the trailer floor.
In the morning, an early breakfast of bread, cheese and water, and we are back on the road. A quick succesion of three short rides placed us at the last settlement before the reserve. There, we cooked in the hot sun for sometime before the air brakes hissed behind us and we jumped into a truck carrying jet-fuel up to the airport in Boa Vista. Joao-Carlos was a sublime truck driver. He was talkative, inteligent and generally an interesting person, an uncommon collection of traits of Brazilian truck drivers. In the first five minutes of the conversation he said: ¨Once I saw a program on National Gegraphic about a French guy hitch-hiking around Brazil. I thought, wow, what a cool story, I would like to meet such a fellow, and then I see you two on the side of the road, so I stopped...¨ Joao-Carlos was interested in many things: he was intrigued by the mistery of the Incas and was planning a trip to Cusco; he collected wild orchids, for which purpose he bought some hectares of virgin forest in the Amazon; he painted with oil ¨to relax from the road¨, in his own words. Because he was transporting dangerous cargo, his speed was limited to 78km/h, and 60 on wet surface. He could not drive in the dark and was also obliged to stop frequently to rest (1:15 for lunch, for example). We did not object to such a relaxed schedule, still having our sleepless 16 hour ride fresh in the memory.
Joao-Carlos took it as his mission to show us the lands we were passing through. He would tell us local legends about pink dolphins and panthers; pirranhas that are only dangerous if you have an open wound on your body; dangerous fish cantiroo that lives in the local waters: if a swimmer urinates in the water, the tiny fish smells out the urine and quickly goes up the uretra. Once inside, it opens up its spiky fins and can only be extracted surgically. He told us about the giant anacondas (sukuri) that swallow up men and cows in one piece and pointed out tuyouyou birds, sort of like giant heron with a head of a pelican. Once we saw a herd of capibaras chilling in a roadside pool. Joao-Carlos screeched to a halt and backed up for 200 m so we could take a photo of them. He said:¨ whenever there are capibaras, there are panthers around.¨Our driver also possesed a wealth of information about the flora of the jungle and he would point out some of the species on the side of the road and talk about it.
An important part of getting to know the lands you are passing through is the food, and Joao-Carlos stopped at all his favourite road side stands to treat us to fresh fruit juice, an especially tasty dish of fried fish, fresh fruit... and, of course, a few cans of beer after a long day.
We are in Boa Vista now, heading to Venezuela in a few hours.

A lack of sleep and too much trucking brings us to Belem

2011-02-07T10:00:00.000-08:00

The truck stop that we found ourselves on in Anapolis was not in a perfect spot: it was before the highway turned off toward Belem and a lot of trucks going to Brasilia stopped there and almost no Belem-bound driver thought it comfortable enough to spend the night on the dusty parking lot of Posto Presidente. An intoxicated trucker invited us to camp inside his empty soya trailer that night.
Next morning we went to town, the day being Sunday. On Sunday trucks travel much less than on other days in Brazil, you know. Most truckers we spoke to on the morning of that day were `taking a day off`, sipping on their morning coffee and relaxing in their folding chairs in front of their trucks. We made a tour of the city (on a public bus) and came to a conclusion that it is very similiar to the towns of the same size in Peru. Street vendors, noise and smog.
We came back to our truck stop in the evening and found shelter in the familiar trailer. The next morning was pretty bleak. Same idle waiting, nothing to do. After about two hours of sitting, we decided to explore other truck stops in town.
`Posto Brasil is where you need to go,` informed us the trucker in whose trailer we crushed. `It is on the route 153, but on the other side of town. It is just as big as this one here. You´ll have much better luck there than here.`
`OK,`we thought,`let´s go there then.` Two hours later we hopped out of a municipal bus in front of a God-forgotten Posto Brasil. It was dead. There was one truck parked near the pumps, not looking like it is going to move any time soon. The parking lot was empty except for a couple of local pick-ups. Their drivers were sipping beers in the half-open restaurant on premises.
`@#$%!` we thought, `what was the guy thinking!?` We walked back to the bus stop and took another tour, this time of the countryside around Anapolis, before coming back to the central bus station, again. There, we asked a sympathetic-looking elderly bus driver about what bus we should take to reach such and such a truck stop. `Are you guys hitch-hiking to Belem? You need to go to a different truck-stop!!! The one you need is called Posto San Jose. All trucks stop there!` He then lead us to the bus we needed to take and instructed the driver to let us off at the right place. We felt at ease: finally, a sensible man. We thought these relaxing thoughts for about half an hour, just as long as it took the bus to reach Posto San Jose. `It´s just over there, one block away!` said the driver when he let us off. We walked in the direction indicated. `@#$%!!!!!!!!` The gas station was under damn construction!!! The brick layers stopped their labours for a few minutes to watch two back-packers cross the road, survey the half build lot and walk off. We were so depressed. The bus left, and we had no desire of waiting for the next one in the sketchy suburbian neighbourhood. We were on the edge of breaking down and crying. What we had in front of us was a 15 km walk back to Posto Fucking Presidente, in the scorching sun, against the desirable traffic direction.
We walked for a few kilometers, up the hill, when we came to a speed bump, in the middle of an abandoned highway-improving construction project. We decided to try our good old way of hitching there, with the outstreched arm, smiles and waves... Ten minutes passed and a miracle happened!!! Hitch-hiking in Brasil actually WORKS!!! A trucker made a welcoming gesture and pulled over. We picked up our bags with an almost-forgotten swing of the hand and were underway all the way to the turn-off to Palmas. The driver was super cool. He was from Santa Catarina, he was a surfer and listened to reggae music. He was genuinely interested in our story and we chatted almost all the time. Like most other truckers in Brazil, Giovanni Coelho Pacifico, such was his name, travelled in pair with another trucker, an old road-dog Cuco. When it came time for them to stop for the night, they pulled out a bottle of cashasa (a vodka-like sugar cane liquor) and tought us the traditional way of drinking it. After a few rounds, we were like a family gathered around a kitchen fire.We parted as good friends at the turn-off to Palmas. There, we walked to yet another speed-bump (the further north we go, the more of them seem to appear and we welcome this fact) and hitched yet another 500 km ride in under 15 minutes. Ho-ho, the curse of Foz do Iguacu has lost its power, ha!
This driver did not look over 18, although he claimed to be 25. He consulted our road atlas several times, inspite of him reassuring us that he has been doing this run for three years now. Whatever, man, as long as we are heading the same direction, it´s all good...
The kid dropped us off in a small town the next day. There, kids stopped their games in the mud and watched us go by. Their grandmothers, who were selling cocos and corn, watched us silently as we walked. No smile, no handwave of ours could invite a response. After the fifth non-responsive grandma we changed the game a little. We opened our mounths just a bit and looked back at them, raising one eye-brow. No change of face, no response, we could just as well be making grimases at the brick walls behind them.
An expected speed-bump at the end of this village, complimented by an improvized labirinth of orange cones that the nearby police stastion has mastefully aranged to make traffic go even more slower. On top of that, a bushy tree gave plenty of shade where we installed ourselves. That was an ideal hitching spot, and we were not going to leave it for anything less then Belem, 1200 kms away.30 minutes of waiting yielded just the ride we were waiting for - straight to Belem. A truck pulled over and when we ran up to it, the driver poked out of his window and asked us in pure English: `Do you speak any English?`
`Eh, yes, we do. Sir.`
`Ok, let´s go`
Luciano spent some years as an illegal worker in England before he was found out and deported by the Immigration Police. He learnt English while he was working there, and he had a dream of going back one day. In the meanwhile, he was trucking. When he picked us up, he already spent 60 hours driving, no sleep. His eyes had dark circles around them. He had trouble concentrating on the conversation, he was so tired. `I´m a damn good driver` he told us, `you´ll see`. And he was good. In the next 16 hours that we spent with him, he drove with supreme accuracy. He avoided ALL the pot-holes on the Transbrasiliana, and some of them were mean. He drove through the night rain, remembering every speed-bump, sharp turn and the pot-hole to come. We were impressed. He kept saying:`I am so so tired.` Like many drivers, he took pills. Normally, one Amphetamine pill staves off sleep for about 8 hours. For Luciano, it only lasted 3. `That´s because I eat them all the time, hahaha!` He said. He chain-smoked, stopped to drink strong coffee on almost every gas station and just kept driving. We had trouble staying awake, but he would storm hill after hill, looking straight. About 4 am, a battery belt broke. We had to pull over and replace it. The operation took more than an hour. `Now I am really really really tired` said Luciano when he pluncked back into his seat and released the parking brake. Two hours later we parted with him outside of Belem Cargo Terminal. He was going to unload, sleep for 2 hours and then head straight back to Sao Paulo!!! Crazy.
On our part, we had yet another cup of coffeeeeee and went to town. Out of our 5 CS requests none were unswered. Hm, in the atmosphere that we felt in Belem, we had no desire to camp somewhere in the bushes. We caught lots of `interested` looks on our bags when we walked on the streets. So, we found a hostel ($7 a head), for the first time since... Bolivia, actually! An early night tonight, kids!

Interesting points of Brasilian Portuguese

2011-02-03T05:34:00.000-08:00

By and by we are slowly picking up the local lengua. When some people speak to us, we understand almost everything, while the speach of others sounds totally foreign to us (like Luis the trucker). We suspect that the accents vary greatly from one state to another, the most clear sounding (to us) are the accents of the southern states. These are the few points we managed to figure out from chatting with drivers and reading road signs:
D is pronounced as G, as in `edad` (age), pronounced `edaJ` and `onde` (where), pronounced as `onJe`
L is pronounced as O, as in `Natal` (a city on the coast), pronounced `NataO`
T is pronounced as CH, as in `Internet`, pronounced as `InterneCH` - that´s why the girls at the gas station in Rio Preto were so confused when we asked for an InterneT place nearby.
M is pronounced as N, as in an article `com` (with), pronounced as `coN`

Our waiting time on the service center outside of Sao Jose do Rio Preto has significantly improved compared to the 3 day wait in Foz do Iguacu. Here, we spent only 2 full days. The scenario was very similar: we picked a strategic spot near the gas pumps, from where we could see both the trucks pulling up to pick up fuel and also those pulling up to the restaurant/washrooms. As soon as we spotted movement, one of us would get up and stroll over to the truck.
`Hi, would you be heading north by any chance?`
`What?`
`I said, North? Goiania? Anapolis? BELEM?` also pointing north with a finger
`Aaa, no.`
`Thank you, have a good trip, then`
`brrrrahmk.....`
The dialog has repeated itself for over 60 times , varying only slightly. Sometimes we would approach a friendlier-than-others truckers. They would ask where we were from, and when they found out we were Russian, they would offer us shower coupons, snacks and lots of bad advices on how to hitch hike. The winner in this category is: `If you have no luck here today, you should walk to the next truck stop, it is like 10 kms down the road... or may be 50.`
Inspired by Juan Villarino, we made a similiar sign in hopes of starting conversations with people: The message reads: `Two russian hitch-hiking around Latin America`. But, alas, it did not help much. Some truckers stopped and read the message, by syllables. They briefly scanned the map, obviously not connecting the image with anything they were familiar with. One trucker came up, looked at it and pointed to Brasil: `And this is the United States, right?` Hm.
By the end of the first day we met Aparecido, a super-friendly trucker. He was waiting for a load for the fifth day in a row! He asked us if we ate, and when we said no, he got excited and busy. He said:`I do not have much, but I would like to offer you a traditional Brasilian dish - arroefejao` (rice and beans). He pulled out the pots and the stove from his kitchen box on the side of the trailer and reheated his left over rice and beans for us. We were not particularly hungry but we could not turn down such an open-hearted offer. We ate and constantly complimented the cheff on the good taste of the meal, to an obvious satisfaction of the host. `This is the best dish in Brasil!` he said proudly, `Arroz e Feijao.`
After we washed the dishes and installed ourselves on our spot again, Aparecido (his name means `the one who appeared` by the way) appeared from around the corner. He pulled out his cell phone and put on some simple melody. It sounded like a hymn, and he was humming some words in tune with it. After we listened to some three compositions, Aparecido said: `this is holy music. It praises the Lord. We play this music in our church, the Congregation of Christ in Brasil.` Just so it happened that there was a service at the local chapter that evening and Aparecido invited us to come. We were so bored at the gas station that a visit to a `New Religion Church` sounded like an entertainment worth exploring. So we agreed.
At 6 pm Aparecido appeared again. He was dressed in a suit and looking sharp, eyes glowing with excitement. `Come, my friends, come, the service will start soon!`
We loaded into his truck and drove to the church. The interior of the church looked more like an office space rather than a place of worship: white walls and strong white light. No cross, no icons, no decoration. There was no altar, but instead of it, a white space with two white columns on the sides, supporting the golden letters: `IN THE NAME OF JESUS`. A woman sitting next to Anastasia, said: `Today you will meet the lord (senhor).` Anastasia thought that the woman was referring to the pastor, so she answered: `Oh, I already met him. In the corridor outside.` The woman looked at her, hesitated for a moment and then said: `No, the OTHER lord, JESUS`.
The service consisted of singing hymns (the males in the audience could yell out any number from 1 to 450, and the congregation would leaf through their singing books, find the right page and sing the appropriate 3 verse hymn) and praying (again, the males would come up to the front pedestal and pray very loudly to the Lord. The congregation was free to yell `Great God!`, `Thank God!` or `Halleluya!!!` whenever they thought appropriate). It all lasted two hours. When it was over, people started shaking hands and kissing each other on the cheek. Everybody wanted to meet the Russians, of course... We were quite tired of the strong illumination, loud singing and attention when we went out. Tears were running down Aparecido´s cheeks when we were driving back. `I am so happy, so happy for you. It was your first time today! It is the happiest day of my life, I will never forget it. I will pray that you will get a ride tomorrow`, he said.
The next day we spent just like the day before. It was not as boring as waiting for a ride near Bajo Caracoles back in Argentinian Patagonia but still, we were thoroughly bored.
In the morning of Day 3, we finally asked the right person - he agreed to take us to Goiania! Whoo-hooooo!
We were moving again! That was good. The driver said not a word during the 5 hour drive. That was not so good, but we could live with it, as long as we were moving! Silent Andres dropped us off at yet another truck stop in Goiania. 5 minutes of asking for rides there (Anastasia scores!)and we were underway to Anapolis with a brand new (2011 model) Scania. The music worked, the driver was interesting and talkative (only two years trucking...) and the landscape finally changed from never ending fields of soja, corn and sugar cane to rolling hills covered with forests and bamboo groves on the sides of the road. We fell asleep on the truck stop in Anapolis, 600 kms closer to Belem, 2000 more to go.

A new hitchhiking strategy in Brasil

2011-01-30T06:30:00.000-08:00

It has been over a year since we had to learn a new language, but here we had to start over again. Portuguese is not very different from Spanish. The difference is something like between Ukranian and Russian. A lot of the words are similiar, but pronounced with a different accent. If both people talk slowly and listen, a dialogue can be maintained.
So, we entered Brasil. As soon as we crossed the border, we flagged down a pick up. The Argentinian couple (biologists running a private nature reserve)inside gave us a ride to the outskirts of Foz do Iguacu, a much bigger town than its couterpart on the Argentinian side. That was a good start. We walked to a suitable take off spot and let the thumb fly. 1 hour, nothing. 2, 3, 4 hours... People were going by not even turning their heads, looking straight. No smiles, no waves. We were invisible. It was getting depressing. When you get depressed while hitch-hiking, walking takes off your mind from the bad vibe and situation soon gets fixed. You arrive somewhere or you get picked up, which ever comes first. After 2 hours of walking in the hotest sun ever, we arrived at the biggest truck stop we have ever seen. There must have been over 150 trucks parked in the immense field around the gas station. There was a restaurant with good food (a plate with enough food for two - R7, around US 3.50) and free showers.
We have arrived late in the day, so all we did that night was ask the permission to camp, put up our tent where we were told, and went to sleep.
The next morning, we made a tour of the parking lot, asking truckers if they were heading our direction, Sao Paulo. No dice there. Men turned their eyes away and came up with all sorts of reasons for not taking us. Going the other way, not moving at all at the moment and no permission to take passengers were the most common. We had nothing else to do, but to sit on our bags in the shade of the huge roof, near the bathroom door. We had a sign propped up against our legs, `Sao Paulo`. We read our books (one by Lecompte de Nouy `Human Destiny` and the other `Viaje a Rio de la Plata` by Ulrico Shmitdl), played chess and observed the workings of a big truckstop.
By the end of day 1, we briefly chatted with three truckers. The last one gave us a very good advice: `You guys look Argentinian. Here nobody likes Argentinians because they are all worthless thiefs and robbers. You should write on your sign that you are Russian.`
We did so and wow! what a change! The truckers who the day before walked past us as if they did not see us, said hi and some of them even smiled! During day 2 we had about 4 conversations, all stemming from the little line on our sign: `two russians to... Sao Paulo`. On day 3, we began receiving offers. Luis, a black Brasilian from the state of Bahia, offered to take us to Sao Jose do Rio Preto. It was a very good offer because it would stear us clear from Sao Paulo, a big city that we would have to take a bus to get out of. Furthermore, Rio Preto was on our chosen route, BR 153, also known as Transbrasiliana. Luis was waiting for his partner to be loaded and than they would leave, any moment now... Another offer came from Allan, a co-worker of the fat Elder who gave us a lift in Argentina a few weeks before! Allan had a very concerned look on his face, he inquired if our papers were in order, if we carry any drugs on us, if we have enough money to eat... After some chatting, he warmed up to us and invited us to stay in house for three days until he had a load going to Sao Paulo. Unfortunately, we could not accept his kind invitation because we were already waiting for Luis, seldomly taking eyes off his white truck. `Is he moving yet?`
Luis´ partner, Fren, finally got his load ready and tied down in the afternoon of the next day, and we left our by-then-beloved spot near the bathroom door, after 4 days of sitting there.
Luis was not a talkative person. Moreover, he did not like to explain. He had a heavy accent from his state Bahia, making him ever harder to understand. He spoke no word of Spanish, of course. He spoke with us with frases whose translation in English would be something like that:
`Ain´t this babe hot, I`m tellin ya`
`Where youall headin`, anyway?`
`Get down, there are cops up ahead`
Most of our two-day ride with this stern but kind man was spent in silence, which was only interrupted by the static of his CB radio. Luis would mummble something into the mic, and listen to the reply, which sounded little diffrent from the static. After the reply was over, Luis would errupt in laughter, and chat excitingly into the mic again, hitting the driving wheel with his powerful hand. We were understanding nothing.
Luis´ partner Fren was more understanding, more curious and more talkative. Every few hours, the pair would stop, either to refill up some 50 liters of burnt diesel, to have a snack, to eat or just to rest. In these frequent periods of rest we were actually learning Portuguese from Fren.
At the end of the second day, Luis and Fren dropped us off at a spectacular truck stop a little outside of Rio Preto. They shook our hands and hugged us. Then they each popped a no-sleep pill and rolled off into the night. We camped on the cobbled (!!!) parking lot and walked into town in the morning in search of the long needed coonection with the WWW.

Buenos Aires - Iguazu Falls

2011-01-30T04:52:00.000-08:00

It was raining hard when we left Buenos Aires. We decided to take a train out to the nearest town - Zarate, and hitch from there. The train was unlike the flashy, new, air-conditioned ones going between Villa Ballester and Retiro - this one had old, dirty cars, with seats ripped out and broken windows. There was a policeman patrolling the train. On the way out of the capital, we rolled slowly by the most poor slums we have seen yet. Houses built of plastic sheets and sticks, children going through garbage on the huge mountains of garbage, dirt roads and horse-drawn carts...
When we got to Zarate, it was already getting late. We walked to a super-modern YPF gas station on the highway. A friendly attendant showed us a lawn where, he said, ´we always let people camp`. So we did, too. We took a free shower and retired for the night. In the morning we walked to the near-by toll booth and were underway with a truck in about 10 minutes. That day we got 3 rides in total, all trucks. The last one was a Brasilian who spoke no Spanish, our first encounter of such kind. He was speaking slowly and listened hard, so we understood each other pretty well, although we spoke different languages. He dropped us off near Paso de Los Libres. There, we went over to a group of truckers. They were sitting in a circle around a gas burner with a teapot on it, passing mate around. We approached them without doubt, knowing perfectly what we should say and how will things go. After 5 minutes of talking, we have already joined the circle and were offered the mate. 5 minutes more, and we had our camping spot picked out - in an empty dump box of one of the trucks. It was perfect because we wanted to camp out of sight for obviuos reasons, and what better place could there be? Unfortunately, the truckers were not long howlers - they were working on the road construction project and their daily route was only 20 kms long.
In the morning we had to wait for some few hours before we got a ride. A local tree farm worker Luis gave us a ride to his home town La Cruz. We got stuck there. The sun was so hot that we had to take refuge in the shade for some hours, a siesta. When the sun went down a bit, we walked back to the spot. Half an hour later, we were riding with a fat and cheerful Brasilian trucker. He had an unusual name - Elder, but he liked to be called Gino. He dropped us off 40 kms outside of Posadas, at a truck stop with free showers, again!
Posadas in the capital of Misiones, and it is very difficult to hitch-hiker there, especially in the tourist season. We happened to be passing through precisely at the busiest part of the year. Cars were going by full with vacationing families, and the locals, it seemed, had no custom of picking up hitch-hikers. Although there was a heavy traffic and our position was ideal, we waited for over 8 hours before a truck stopped.
The trucker Daniel was the king of the road. He was happy on the road. He drove fast, took chances and bossed the small cars around. He had no load, and sometimes we were roaring at 120 km/h. It was 1 in the morning when we camped at a gas station (free showers, once again), 40 kms from the Falls of Iguazu. By this time we have been on the road for four days, and we were taking a shower every night! In Brasil, they say, ALL the truck stops have free showers, hmmm...
We were unable to hitch the last 40 kms to the town of Puerto Iguazu. We were on the road by 6am, and at 8, when the sun has gained strength, we gave up and flagged down a local bus.
Puerto Iguazu is a typical `tourist trap` type of town. Lots of hotels, souvenir shops, a busy bus station, and not much else. The park (the falls are surrounded by a National Park), is 17 kms out of town, and there are no campgrounds, in fact it is prohibited to camp within the limits of the park. Well, we were not deterrred, we knew that there MUST be a camping spot in the forest:) We stocked up on provision in town, took a bus to the border fo the park and started walking. The skies opened up and got us drenched in an intense tropical shower 20 minutes after we started out, but it was actually a pleasant refreshement. We did not mind getting wet when it was +35 C.
We walked for about 6 kms when a perfect camping spot revealed itself to us. A trail was leading off into the jungle, and to the side of it, there was a sign. `NO TRESPASSING`, in Spanish and English, and a rough image of a park ranger, with his palm of a hand streched towards us, prohibiting entry. 100 m behind the sign, there was an abandoned parking lot! The lush vegetation creeped up on the pavement from all sides, leaving only an area for our tent!!! A forest stream flooded some of the area, and we had a shower with the stagnant (but still very clean) water.We pitched our tent and watched yet another thunderstorm approach. It started to rain again and we slipped into our leaky tent. The twilight fell, and with it, the miriad of the forest creatured started their concert. Our camp was on the edge of a swamp, and all sorts of frogs and toads, aided by the giant cicadas, grasshoppers and we don´t know what else, emitted all sorts of sounds. We laid on our backs for half an hour, listening to the powerful cacaphony.
In the morning we folded up our camp, stashed our bags deep in the jungle and walked to the Fee Collection Booth.
`You haven´t camped somewhere in the forest, did you?` sternly asked us the park worker when he saw us appear on foot from around the bend, first visitors of the day.
`No sir, of course not, it is prohibited, you know.`
`So where did you sleep?`
`We... ehhh... we camped on the camping ground in town, and walked all night to see the falls!`
`Yeah, right...`
By the time the park opened, at 8, there were already 200 people in line for the tickets. The park stuff was sitting around, chatting and sipping on terere. Terere is the same as mate, only it is drunk cold. You can use ice-cold water or any fruit juice you like - it is very refreshing in the humid heat.
The guard looked at the clock, 7:48, and flung the gate open. We were second in line and followed the first couple, who looked like they knew where they were going. The park that we were going through looked more like a shopping center or may be a Disneyland. Lots of concreted plazoletas, sidewalks and lawn, lawn, lawn. There is even a little train that you have to take to get to the falls.

The falls were, of course, impressive, but the highlight of the day for us was the small secluded falls at the end of Macuco trail. After having viewed the main falls, alongside with the multinational tourist crowd, Macuco was a relief.It was actually a place straight from a fairytale, or even from heaven. A small cool stream weaved its way through the thick bush before it fell off of a 40 m cliff, hitting the black rocks below. The water broke into millions of streams in the air and filled the air with freshness. A small lagoon has formed at the base of the fall. May be a dozen people were there besides us. You could swim up to the falls (or walk to them, the lagoon was only waist-deep) , stand under the strong massaging shower, and swim back to your chilling place, letting the next person to enjoy the shower. We stayed there until the sun hid behind the trees and shadow fell. Rainbows and butterflies disappeared and we went back to our camp. We camped in the same place the second night and walked over into Brasil the next day.

New Year in BsAs

2010-12-31T13:49:00.000-08:00

When we came to Buenos Aires we had an idea. We wanted to crew on a sailboat that would take us aaaall the way to the coast of USA, or at least the Caribbean. We had our successful crewing experiences rosing up our imagination, and we had no doubt we would find our boat in such a huge port that is Buenos Aires. Well, after about two weeks of visiting marinas spread out on the shore of Mar del Plata, of looking online and talking to people we discovered the following: Buenos Aires is not on the route of world-cruising yachts, and seldomly does anybody sail out of here anymore. There are a few boats that stop over on their way to Ushuaia, but that´s the other way:) There are lots of marinas, but they are all private and closed to visitors. We learned that most of the sailing traffic that does leave the area goes as far as Uruguay or the south beaches of Brazil at the most. The commercial container ships are out of the question - there are too many ¨safety¨ barriers. This means - no boat for us.
We shall now head directly north, to the North of Brazil and see what it looks like there. Perhaps we can get to Trinidad or Venezuela and try to find a boat there again... Sailing friends of ours from Costa Rica sent us a letter with loads of useful info, and it looks like Trinidad and Tobago is the place to be for us. It is too far to think about right now, but at least our route is chosen for the next little while: through Brazil, not around it.
Now, an update on our whereabouts in the city. Since our last post we have moved, and this is how it happened: One day we met with Pablo (Pablo and Julieta), we went to see a drum performance, Bomda de Tiempo (Time Bomb). It is sort of like the drum-circle on Mont Royal on Sundays, only they charge admission and there is a drum orchestra playing. It is a mix between a jam percussion session, a dance hall and a concert. We were having a beer before heading to the show when Pablo asked us if we would like to live in their house while they go for a vacation. ¨We will be gone for three weeks, and if you could look after the house in the meantime, we would be very grateful to you¨, he said. ¨Well, uhmm¨ we did not know what to say for a moment, ¨yes, we would like to, very much!!!¨
So this is where we live now, in Julieta and Pablo´s house. It is located in the historic La Boca neighbourhood, which has a feel very similar to Saint-Henri, the neighbourhood where we lived in Montreal. There are tourists strolling on El Caminito one block away from the house and the proletariat has beers on the sidewalks and mothers shop for groceries one block away. The two worlds collide and mix right at our doorstep.
The house has its own blog and the photos there truly show the spirit of the place. This is a kitchen, for example: The place is huge, there are six rooms (three of them are workshops), two bathrooms and two staircases leading to a terrace on the roof with lots of plants. We are living in our own room, which is built as a house of its own on the terrace! Our duties as house keepers are to water the numerous plants in the morning, feed the shameless black cat Vicente and feed a turtle that roams around on the terrace.
There is one more person living in the house - Augustin. He is a painter, he works selling paintings on the touristic commercial stretch El Caminito one block away from the house.
We moved in a few days before our hosts were due to depart, so we got to know them a little better. They are both artists, Pablo is a silversmith and Julieta is a painter, their respective art blogs are here and here.
We will stay here until our hosts come back, and then we will pack our bags once again (leaving out the warm clothes) and head out into the heat...

Buenos Aires

2010-12-16T15:25:00.000-08:00

We have spent only one week in the city, but so many things happened to us that it feels like we’ve been here for much longer.
Maxi and his family received us with open arms. It will not be far from reality to say that his parents, Jorge and Claudia, took us in as their own kids. They invited us to stay with them for as long we need!
The very night that we showed up, Maxi took us out to a dance. He participates in a community dancing group. They dance Murga, a traditional Buenos Aires dance with roots in Brazilian culture. The group danced out in the park for the community for a few hours and then we all piled up in the back of a pick-up and went to a kindergarten graduation party. The group was asked to dance for the kids. We watched them dance there too and walked home with our friend way past midnight.The next day Maxi took us out to a rock concert, in a pleasant art center called ¨Ana Pavlova¨. The evening felt very much like the ones we passed at ¨Shizo¨ in Montreal – small space, about 50 listeners and young musicians playing good music until late.
Before coming to the big Babylon, we contacted a few CS hosts, not expecting to stay with Maxi for a long time. Although we already had a place to stay, we still wanted to meet the good-hearted people who accepted our requests. The first on our list were Julieta and Pablo, a couple living in a huge artistic apartment in one of the neighbourhoods of the city. Their home amazed us: every single square foot of surface in the house had not gone without loving and creative attention of the couple: colourfully painted trim, lots of paintings on the walls (both by Julieta and Pablo), and plants, lots of healthy growing plants… We accidentally stayed overnight, for the conversation and the company emanated a very good vibration.
We left their house early in the morning, heading to meet another CS person: Mago Daniel. He is a professional entertainer, he works as a clown, magician and a juggler, depending on the occasion. He had a shaven head, and a goatee. He met us in his house a bit before noon. We were sitting in his impossibly dirty kitchen with cockroaches running all over the place. ¨Hi, I am Mago Blanco Planetario¨, he said, sat down at the table and had a vegan breakfast while lecturing us on the benefits of a vegan diet. He poured us a cup of herbal tea sweetened with a special herb Stevia, NOT SUGAR, which is a deadly poison, according to him. George had to fish out a small cockroach out of the cup before sipping on the delicious (and healthy) brew . We spent a few more hours in the bad-vibe circus house and then navigated our way back to Maxi’s family through the crazy but well-organized metropolis which is Buenos Aires.
Maxi makes gnome-looking dolls in the sparetime. He has a good eye and the gnomes (duendes in spanish) turn out each looking very different from the other.The family is doing a little renovation in the house, so we offered them our help. ¨Can you lay a wooden floor?¨ Jorge asked us. ¨Yes,¨ we said. So, for the last two days we have turned into semi-professional floor-layers. We spill glue on the concrete and stick the exotic woods parquette down, it looks like it is turning out good so far :)

Puerto Natales - Buenos Aires

2010-12-11T07:20:00.000-08:00

After a few more relaxing days in the house of the welcoming La Familia, it was time for us to travel again. In the morning we made our way to the exit out of P. Natales. The sun was shining but the wiind was very strong - it was impossible to stand on one spot.You had to struggle against the wind, sometimes falling forward when the wind weakened and sometimes taking a few steps back not to fall over when the gusts were strong. We must have looked like two drunk persons hanging out on the side of the road. After a few hours of this we got tired. Nobody was stopping, so we decided to walk, thankfully the wind was pushing us from behind. We leaned back into it and walked. As it usually happens, about 100m into the walk, a car pulled over and gave us a lift to the turn-off. A few minutes of wating there and an empty tour bus took us across the border and deposited us in Rio Turbio, Argentina. Good bye, Chile!
A truck took us from Rio Turbio to Puerto Santa Cruz. It was a 6 hour ride across the empty pampa. The trucker talked and we had a good ride. Daniel dropped us off at a YPF (he went 20 kms out of his way to do it) on the ruta 3 when it was already dark.
We camped out in the pampa. In the morning, the usual routine got us 900 kms closer to Buenos Aires, we went to sleep outside of Trelew. A quick rest from the road in Rawson and back to la ruta. Next day we started out late, around 3. A few long rides and then a super-long ride with Gustavo. He was heading straight to BsAs and we covered over a 1000 kms that day. This is the scenery we have observed for the three days it took us to cover the emmense distanses of the pampa.
Gustavo was a very good driver: he drove prudently, listened to good music and had a laid-back attitude towards life. The first day he drove until 3 am, smoking cigarettes and listening to Papos Blues.
The second day looked little different from the fiirst, but the scenery changed: the pampa ended and fields of wheat were rolling out on both sides of the road. Gustavo stopped in one small town, bought meat and vegetables and then he cooked an awesome dish - ¨colchon de orvejas¨, which is meat stew with vegetables. Oscar, Gustavo´s compañero, pulled up iin his rig to join us for the meal. We ate and listened to the two of them chat about things the truckers always talk about: who went where, where are they going next, how many kms each of them covered yesteday, the strange sounds the motor is making recently...
Gustavo drove us to his house on the outskirts of BsAs. The neighbourhood he lives in is considered a dangerous one, there are mounds of garbage blocking some streets and the burnt-out carcasses of cars are eternally parked along the curbs.
We had a chat with Gustavo´s family and had a chance to check internet at his house - good news was in stock for us. Our friend Maxi (whom we met in Cusco), was inviting us to stay at his place for the weekend. We called him, got the directions and were sharing a beer wth Maxi and his family some 30 minutes later.

Ushuaia to Torres del Paine

2010-12-05T06:42:00.001-08:00

Having hitched out of Ushuaia with sublime ease (a first car pulled over) we reached Rio Grande in a pleasant company of an aged couple. They dropped us off on the other side of town.There we had to shiver in the cold wind for a few hours before a few short rides to the border. There was zero traffic at the border. Thankfully, the complex was equipped with a heated ¨waiting room¨. There were two french girls waiting for a ride there already, so we joined their company. We boiled tea and chatted with them for a bit, enjoying the warmth of the shelter. When a truck would pull up to be inspected by the customs officer, one of the girls would go out and talk to the trucker. After a few trucks, they got a ride, and we, following their example, got a ride with the very next one. Our driver Cristian was a classical Argentinian trucker. He had bouncy curly hair and a wide smile. He owned his own truck (a rare thing here) and was in love with his machine. The ride was long and the scenery beautiful.¨Watch out now,¨ said Cristian, ¨there is a big pot hole somewhere soon on the road¨. Having said that, he got absorbed by our conversation when, all of a sudden, he gripped the wheel tightly and said:
¨Get ready here it comes!¨

BOOOM!!!!

We hit the pot-hole dead-on, full speed. Things leaped at us from the dash board: papers, toothbrush, mate cup, everything. There was a big storage space above that also emptied out: wires, radio, a cell phone, a heavy log book... ¨I told you there was a pot-hole here somewhere...¨ said Cristian, laughing. The floor of the cabin got covered with the mess. Having fished out his cell phone, Cristian said: ¨don´t worry picking things up, I was gonna clean the rig tomorrow anyway.¨ The whole incident gave us about an hour and a half of laughter and chuckling after, the truck-drivers never shunning from discussing anything in depth, for as many times as they find it entertaining. ¨That was a good one, Cristian!¨ we would say for the tenth time and the cab would fill with laughter, rolling through the rain in the night pampa.
Cristian dropped us off at the crossroads in the middle of the pampa, already on the mainland, in the middle of the night, strong cold wind hawling. We had nothing else to do but to set up camp as soon as possible and sleep tightly until the next day.
In the morning the rides came fast and easy and we rode into Puerto Natales in the afternoon. We had CS connection there, and that is where we headed. Familia Seguel Albornos received us with open arms. They have embraced the project of CouchSurfing and are hosting about 15 people DAILY. We rapidly integrated into the big and ever changing family and rested for a few days before heading to the park.
The Park.
National Park Torres del Paineis located about 150 north of Puerto Natales and there is no better way of reaching it than by – you guessed it – hitch-hiking. We hitched out of town in the morning and arrived to the entry gate with a truck loaded with firewood. The entrance fee is an astounding 15 000 pesos ($30), which we had no desire to pay. So we climbed the near-by hill and observed the surroundings of the ticket booth. The most likely way around it seemed to be across the river, only we did not know how deep it was. The water was very blue and it could easily have been over our heads. We were devising a strategy of circumnavigating the building when a guanaco appeared on the rock.It stopped and looked at us. Then it gracefully trod down the slope and headed for the river. It paused a bit at the water´s edge and forded the river. The water was shallow, only reaching up to its knees. That was a sign!!! Guanaco showed us the way! We had no doubt now about what we should do: we shall ford the river just like the guanaco, and walk to the bridge under the cover of the low bushes.
We went down to the river, rolled up our pants and crossed at almost the same place as our animal guide. We were careful to stay in the cover of the vegetation not to be noticed from the guardhouse. Having crossed the river, we decided not to advance any more that day, so we made camp on the little island, enjoyed the view of the towers and went to sleep early.We woke up precicely with the sunrise (5:19 am) next morning, packed up quick and proceeded with our ¨infiltration¨. We had to scramble on all fours at one point – the bushes were that low, but we made it with no problem to the bridge, and once we were on the other side, we were in the park. High five!
We hiked 50 kms of trail in the next two days – something we are not particulary fond of at this point of our trip – walking with backpacks on a trail just does not seem that appealing to us as it used to. The trail was very busy – tourists from all over the world, clad in the latest fashionable gear trod up and down. When we greeted them, many did not even acknowledge our presence. Oh well.
There were a lot of red berries growing alongside the trail – the delicious heathberry was beginning to ripe.Anastasia saw a description of it in a book earlier. We did the one hour test (a hand-full of berries in the mouth and then wait for an hour if a stomach ache appears) and found the berries edible. The good thing for us was that the throngs of tourists did not know what the berry was – the bushes were full of it. They were taking pictures of it! Ha-ha! We filled our mouths by a handfull under concerned glances from passing trekkers.
We camped for two nights in the park. We did the most straightforward route possible, connecting with the road in only two days. As we walked onto the road, we stopped to check our map to determine which way we should hitch to get back to Natales. As we were examining the map, a rental car pulled over.
¨Are you guys heading to Puerto Natales?¨ Asked a white-haired driver in pure English.
¨Yes we are!¨
¨Would you like a ride?¨
¨We would like a ride very much, thank you for asking!¨
¨Get in, then!¨
Jeff, the driver, was from Calgary, a geologist specializing in petroleum. His friend Farook was also from Calgary, a medical practicioner. We had a very pleasant chat with them, enjoying speaking English for the first time in a while. We stopped for scenic photos a couple of times on the way and they dropped us off in the front of the supermarket in town. We got some groceries and headed to the familia, admiring how effortlessly we arrived into town. This, in our understanding, was a perfect ride: We were only thinking about it, and it was all it took to materialise it. No waiting, no thumbing, none of that. Moreover, the conversation was good and everybody felt good after we parted. Per-fect!

Direction Home

2010-11-25T10:37:00.000-08:00

We have spent almost two weeks in Ushuaia. The first week we were thoroughly relaxing in Ana´s home, not really thinking about anything.
One day we have learnt that a famous hitch-hiker and a writer Juan Villarino was in town. He and his girlfriend Laura have succeded in getting a ride to Antarctica. We found out when their ship was due to return to the port and went to the pier to meet them. As we were watching people walking out of the port reception, we saw a familiar face - Romina! It was a third time we meet her! We were chatting when Juan and Laura walked out. We greeted them, shared our almost-cold-by-then mate and chatted for a bit. We agreed to meet that night.
Later that night while sharing some beers, Juan and Laura told us about their Antarctica experience. Amazing photos and lots of impressions. Wow. Right now they are on their journey to Greenland! After a few hours of talking, Juan and Laura`s friends Aki and Leandro arrived. They did not join in the conversation, but got busy in the kitchen. A few hours more and they invited us all to the table. It was a feast! The food was all vegetarian, a tough thing to pull off creatively in Ushuaia, but they have masterfully succeded! It was our first truly vegetarian meal in a while.
Our spirits were high when we left the house that night.The days were passing by one after another but we were not getting any closer to what we should do next. We would make up our minds about looking for a ride to Antarctica only to reject it and decide to leave town a few hours later. I don´t think we have ever been so undecided in all our lives! Well, after about ten changes of mind, four days of arguing for and against, we have agreed: no Antarctica.
In our last days in Ushuaia we explored the magnificent landscapes around - forests, glaciers and beaches. We camped in a beautiful lenga forest near the glacier one night and another night on the beach, witnessing amazing sunsets and walking amongst the delicate southern mosses and low wind swept bushes.This is where the glacier was 40 years ago - now there are only a few snowy patches left here and there. The tourism office in town still sends tourists to see the ¨Magnificent Martial Glacier¨ - that is no longer there.Delicate mosses on the way to the ¨glacier¨ - the short green leaves you can see are hard as a rock! A view from our campsite some 400m below the glacier.
Playa Larga, on the other side of the bay from Ushuaia.
We are officially starting on our way home now! Direction: north!!!

Вписка, or Argentinian Hospitality, Unlimited

2010-11-16T07:18:00.000-08:00

Вписка (vpiska) is a Russian slang word that is also a whole concept. Vpiska is first of all a place. It may be a house, an appartment or any other dwelling. A particular place can be called a ¨vpiska¨ when a traveller gets invited to stay there, free of charge. Couchsurfing is a world-wide network of vpiskas, for example.
I mentioned in the previous post that we got invited (вписались) in Ushuaia. I would like to share with you what actually happened in more detail.
When Anastasia went to the bathroom at the gas station that morning, she met Ana, the gas station attendant. ¨Come see me inside after you are done in the bathroom, I have something to offer you,¨ said Ana. Anastasia came a few minutes later and Ana asked her: ¨How long do you think you will stay in Ushuaia?¨
¨I don´t really know yet,¨ said Anastasia,¨but probably about a month, may be longer. We will look to rent an appartment or something.¨
¨Look,¨said Ana,¨why don´t you come stay at my place? I like you two. You are clean, you smile, you seem trustworthy. I live in a two-room house, I live alone. You are welcome to stay with me as long as you want, a week, a month, as you wish. There is a kitchen you can use, computer, internet, hot shower... The only thing I don´t have is a bed for you, but there is floor space.¨
¨Wow, thank you very much, it is very kind of you.¨ said Anastasia, ¨But the thing is that there are actually three of us. We were thinking to rent the place with another traveller. He is french, he is working in a restaurant here, he also hitched to here from Canada.¨
¨Ok, no problem, bring your friend, too,¨ said Ana. Wow!
We agreed to meet her at the end of her workshift and then go to the house. She wrote down her address and a phone number on a piece of paper and gave it to us, just in case.
We went to see Jonathan at his new post as a waiter at a trendy restaurant downtown. He looked funny. He was wearing a clean, impeccable waiter attire. Red shirt and black pants, with a black waiter apron. A white towel across his arm would have looked classic. What stood out were his dusty, road-beaten shoes! Looking at his feet you immediatly understood that it was a dressed up vagabond serving you, nobody else!
We showed up at the YPF gas station at the agreed time, with Jonathan in tow. Ana then called a cab and we piled in. The house was only a 15 minute walk, but uphill, and a pretty steep one. ¨I usually take the cab home,¨ said Ana ¨I get tired after work and I don´t feel like walking home.¨
We arrived at the house in a few minutes. In was located on a steep hill. Young Lenga trees grew all around the house. There were no city noises audible here, we could only hear the multitude of birds chirping in the tree canopy above our heads.
The house was indeed small, but layed out well, with just enough space as was necessary for every room. We set our bags in the corner and Ana said: ¨if you would like, I have three (!!!) extra mattreses, you can use them.¨ The mattresses she had were of finest quality, two single ones and one double size! The double size one was brand new.
So this is where we live now, in Ana´s living room. We fry eggs in the morning, listen to music on Ana´s computer and drink mate. Sometimes we open the door and fresh cool air fills the room.
The sun goes up early at this time of year here (it is already light at 5am!), and the birds wake up with the sunrise. Today we woke up to the birdsongs outside.
Yesterday, Ana gave us a cell phone to use while we stay in Ushuaia. ¨I have three (again!) of them, you can use this one, you just need to buy the SIM card¨. So now we have our own phone number, it has been a while!
THIS is the spirit, THIS is the hospitality, THIS is the way! We feel strangely elated these days, unsure of what we have done to make the universe fulfill our ¨request¨ so soon and so, well, easy.
The thing is that the night before, when we got into town with Carlos, we were walking back to the truck stop from the internet cafe. We were discussing what we were going to do here. We did not know. We did not know how long we want to stay here, we did not know if we want to find work or not, if we want to get busy right away with looking for a ride to Antarctica, if we want to rent a place to stay... We did not know, so we decided to leave it all off until the morning. May be things will sort themselves out without any forceful action from our side. May be our path will become obvious to us when it will need to be.
We said outloud into the dark night, waiting for a bus at an intersection: ¨It would be good if we find a house to stay in. That would be very nice¨. We REALLY said it, I am not writing it just to add a lyrical effect to the story!
Well, the Great Spirit, God, Gods, the Universe, call it what you like, must have been listening.

The End of the World (aka Ushuaia)

2010-11-15T03:41:00.000-08:00

We greeted the morning on the other side of the river from Los Antiguos, Argentina. The sky was clear and it was promising to be a sunny day. We boiled water to make tea and took our time to pack up camp. When we were walking over the bridge we saw something moving in the water below. ¨Grass?¨, no. ¨Salmon!¨ Huge fish were swiming below us. There were at least ten of them, about 50 cm long, swiming against the current, remaining in one spot, dark moving shapes.
We walked to the end of town and assumed our usual position, with one thumb out of four pointing towards the sky. Half an hour passed before a young beautiful mother stopped. She was driving a big truck with three young kids in the back seat. She was really friendly and her kids too. ¨Where are you from?¨ asked the youngest of them as soon as I plunked on the seat next to him. ¨Ugh, Russia, I guess¨. ¨Where is that?¨ followed an immediate question. How do you explain to a three-year-old where is this land called Russia? In Spanish?
The girl dropped us off a few clicks down the road, at the police post. ¨This is where everybody hitch-hikes from¨, she said. This is where we got stuck for four hours. There was a steady flow of traffic towards Perrito Moreno. Moreover, they all came to a stop to be questioned by the policeman on duty. We could overhear the conversation:
Policeman: ¨Where are you heading to?¨
Driver: ¨Perrito¨
Policeman: ¨Ok, you may pass.¨
There was no other settlement or a turnoff before Perrito, but nevertheless, ALL the drivers gave us the hand signal that they were going only a few clicks further, turning left (or right) very soon. After a few hours it became entertaing. We could hear the driver yell ¨Perrito!¨ to the policeman and then show us that he was turning off soon. In four hours of observing this phenomenon we came to a conclusion that if you want to meet some insencere people, your best bet would be to go to Perrito Moreno, Provincia Santa Cruz, Argentina.
On the fourth hour a car pulled over. Two young lads were inside. As soon as we got into the back (it was a kind of a sedan converted into a cargo van), the driver offered us a beer. The passenger handed us a thermos. What a clever way to keep beer cool on a warm spring day!
The guys were cool, they listened to good music and the 67 kms to Perrito passed fast. We passed a few of the shameless liers on the way, they were sadly and slowly putting along, staring blankly at the road ahead of them.
We walked through Perrito, only stopping in a convenience store to refill our supply of bread. On the exit of town we met a man hitch-hiking. He was wearing black clothes, had about 50 years of age and had three crosses hanging from his neck. ¨I lived 22 fuckin´years in Alaska, man!¨ he told us with a heavy Spanish accent, three minutes into the conversation. ¨I ran into some problems with the law there, so now I work on this ¨estancia¨ in the middle of nowhere in Argentinian pampa for three years now.¨ We wished him luck and took our place 200 m behind him. He took off in under 20 minutes with a truck. A few vehicles passed after , but we guessed that they were infected with the ¨Perrito¨ syndrome: there was nowhere to turn off to for 120 kms, but the people were only going ¨around the corner.¨ We went to sleep outside of Perrito Moreno that night.
In the morning a road engineer pulled over. ¨I´m going to Baja Caracoles, 120 kms further¨ he said. Alejandro was very intelligent and he told us about the indigenous people who inhabited the plains 8000 years ago. He presented us with a skin scraper of the Pre-Welcho period which was uncovered during the road construction, under his supervision. ¨I have a whole lot of arrow heads and spear heads at home, have this scraper as a present from these lands, ¨ he said with a smile. He said that sometimes the excavator pulles up a mummyfied skeleton from the ancient burrial ground while digging for the new road. Then, the whole construction process has to come to a stop and wait for the archeologists to arrive and assess the site.
Alejandro dropped us off at Bajo Caracoles. What a hole. We got stuck there for three days, two nights. The traffic consisted of four or five tourist vehicles going by in the morning and then only the construction trucks, going only 30 kms further. The tourists mostly did not notice us, only some of them making sorry grimmases and driving by with their back seats perfectly empty.
We would limit ourselves to saying that the highlight of our record-breaking three-day wait at Baja Caracoles was a sighting of an armadillo crossing the road. It was strolling along at a leasurely speed. At the sight of it, we sprang up to our feet, glad to be woken up from the desert lethargy. We ran up to the animal. It got scared (naturally) and bolted as fast as it could. To us, it was a matter of leasurely jogging to keep up to its pace. It would run across the desert as a tank, maneuvering around the bushes of pampa grass as a war machine. It was keeping a steady course towards its hole. As soon as the armadillo reached it, it dove in and dissapeared from sight. We sighted and returned to our waiting spot, on the side of the empty dirt highway 40. It was only a few days after that we learned that armadillos are notoriously easy to catch (even easier than porcupines) and that their meat is delicious. We missed out on a feast that day.

On the third day a tourist couple pulled over. They were elderly doctors from Buenos Aires and they have been all over the world, including Russia (in ´84). They rescued us from Bajo Caracoles and deposited us in Gobernador Gregores. There, we had a shower at a gas station, did laundry and bought bread and cheese in a local supermarket (all things unheard of in Bajo Caracoles) and camped out for the night.
In the morning the ride to Puerto Julian came fast. The man worked for the mining industry and was in charge of the safety at the mine. As most miners that we met, he was not into talking. We passed the three hours in almost complete silence, which was only interrupted by him slowing down for us to take pictures of guanacos and ostriches grazing in the pampa.
He dropped us off at the service station on Ruta 3, the bloodline of the country. The sight of freight trailers rolling by filled us with joy. There was movement, after all! As we were walking to the take off spot, a tuned-up car pulled over. We ran up and plunked on the back seat. The regular questions and answers were exchanged and we roared off. The driver put on some ¨punchy-punchy¨ on (electronic music, his own expression) and we dissapeared into the emptyness of the pampa.
The guy dropped us off at the road-side gas station near Piedra Buena. There we waited for a bit to be picked up by the most silent drivers of all. He drove a black Honda Civic, with six gears. He asked us a few questions before getting absorbed by the driving. His cruising speed was 160, peaking at 183. He drove good. He slowed down to 140 when he saw guanacos grazing on the side of the highway. ¨These are dangerous,¨ he said, ¨they can jump under your wheels and then you are dead.¨
He dropped us off at the turnoff to Rio Gallegos. The crossroads was in the middle of nowhere so the only thing we could do was to start walking towards Rio Gallegos. Almost every vehicle that passed us honked, but it was not untill half an hour later that one of them came to a stop and gave us a lift to town. We walked throught the outskirts of the wind-swept town and camped out amongst some chimneys, weirdly constructed in the middle of nowhere, some of them already falling apart without having ever been used.In the morning, the icy wind had us almost frozen solid when a truck put its four-ways on and hissed its breaks. We ran up and found ourselves in the company of Carlos ¨El Mono¨, the most classic trucker we have ever met. His animated face indeed resembled that of a makaka, his huge smile stretching from ear to ear, revealing his bad teeth. He had 32 years of trucking experience and he was a happy man. He joked, told us trucker stories and served us mate all the way to Ushuaia.
We arrived to Ushuaia late, around 9 pm. Carlos parked at the YPF (a gas station) at the entrance of town. The sun was only beginning to touch the horizon, so we had time to find the internet cafe and send a message to our friend Jonathan Mouette (cristened Johnny in Ushuaia). Carlos offered us to camp in the shade of his truck for the night, which was exactly what we did. In the morning he invited us to come have mate with him before we leave.
I was chatting with Carlos when Anastasia showed up, smiling broadly. ¨We are doing ok,¨ she said. Allright, I had no doubt about that but it was a slightly strange thing to say, with such a glowing face. The thing was that while Anastasia went to the bathroom at the gas station, she met Ana, a gas station attendant. Ana invited us (including our French friend) to stay at her house for a MONTH, free of charge!!! No wander Anastasia was smiling like crazy!
We had a good mate with Carlos and wished him happy trails. We then headed to town to meet Jonathan. After we reunited and exchanged the latest news, we headed to the YPF, to meet Ana, who was getting off work. She guided us to her house and made us feel at home in her small house on the hill, in the middle of the Lenge grove.
Now I am writing these lines on Ana´s personal computer, sipping on a beer, late in the night, sure of my abode for the next few weeks. Who would have thought that life would present us with such a wonderful gift in Ana´s welcome at this culminating point of out trip? Life is great and the horizons amaze us, every one of them being grander that we have ever imagined. Ja!

Cutting Off Balls in Patagonia

2010-11-11T15:51:00.000-08:00

Getting out of Coyhaique was so typical that it is not even worth describing. The adventure began after the postman on duty dropped us off 50 kms down the road at a turn-off to Puerto Ibañez. We were not heading there, we were taking the long road around Lake General Carrera (or Lake Buenos Aires, depending on which side of the border you are looking at it). We did not spend 5 minutes at the spot before an overloaded 5 ton truck pulled over. The main feature of the load was a small JCB tractor. Around it were piled a variety of things one might need for road construction: buckets of grease for the tractor, scaffold and lumber, a ton worth of ready-mix cement mix, cement mixer and a bag of potatoes.There was no room in the cab but Luis and Jose pointed to the tractor seat: ¨Get in!¨
It was a perfect ride. Luis and Jose were on their way to Guadal to repair the main plaza of the town. They were not in too much of a hurry and they stopped to check out the road-side brooks for salmon a few times. They would both get out, run to the river, toss in their hooks and wait a few minutes. ¨No salmon here! ¨ Luis would say. We would all rush back to the truck, hop in and roll until the next fishing point.Luis was driving through his homeland and he knew all the vistas. He would slow down in front of waterfalls and beautiful mountains for us. One time the truck came to a stop before a huge waterfall. Jose jumped out, ran like a mouse to the base of the falls, posed for a second and ran back.After a few hours the two friends decided to make some room for us ion the cab. They hawled all the stuff out of it and we fitted in. The rest of the way we spent listening to Luis` stories. He had something to tell about every kilometer of the road. We were soaking in the local stories coming from the local person obviously enjoying telling them - that was the essence of our trip, travelling, listening, learning, observing.
We parted ways with the friendly crew at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere at 1:30 am. There was nothing at the intersection of the two dirt roads except for an awesome shelter. It had a solid metal roof, a flat concrete floor and three sturdy walls. It looked like a bus stop, only it had enough room inside to put up two tents side by side! The walls were covered my messages left by generations of people who camped there - half of them were in Hebrew. We pitched our tent and fell asleep.
Next morning we got a short ride to the nearby Puerto Bertrand almost instantly. There, we only had to wait 3 minutes before Patricia and Juan-Carlos stopped for us. They were touring the area, heading to Tortel, our destination as well! The couple was super nice, they were in no hurry and stopped whenever they wanted to take photos.After some 6 hours of driving we arrived to Tortel. Well, this village is unlike anything else we have ever seen. Remember Riverdale form the ¨Hobbit, There and Back Again¨? Tortel was just like it. It was built on the shores of a misty fjord. The buildings and the boardwalks were entirely of cypress, bountiful in the forests around. All the structures were elevated on stilts above the inter-tidal zone, and climbing up the steep marshy hills around. Boardwalks connected the houses. The coolest thing about Tortel was that there were no cars in town – all vehicles HAD to be left on the huge parking lot at the entrance, some ways away from the actual settlement. You would then walk through the welcome gates and dive into life without cars.According to the friendly lady whom we met shortly after entering the town, Tortel has more than 10 kms of boardwalk. Wow. There are lots stairs to climb, too.
The town was mainly inhabited by younger people – we have not seen an old person during our 4 hour stay there. As the same woman explained to us, walking on the boardwalk with lots of stairs is not the same as walking on firm ground. With time people develop spine problems, as the wood is a little too springy.
After exploring the town, our drivers (you may even say hosts by now) invited us for an awesome lunch of fresh-caught fish at the only restaurant in town. The fish was delicious and we left Tortel in an elated state of mind.
Patricia and Juan-Carlos were heading back to Chile Chico the same day and invited us to come along with them. That was super cool, we did not even had to hitch to get back! The ride back was tiring for all. After three hours of driving, when we finally arrived to Cochrane, our hosts told us that they were too tired to continue on to Chile Chico at night. We agreed that it was not a prudent thing to do. So they went to look for a hotel, and we were eyeing up empty lots that we drove by. Patricia and Juan-Carlos walked into one hotel and emerged a few minutes later. ¨Listen, said Patricia, ¨we would like to pay for a room for you. We know that you have no problem sleeping outside tonight; by I would not sleep well knowing that you are somewhere out there. Please accept our invitation.¨ This last sentence convinced us and we gratefully accepted this generous offer. The night on a soft bed, a shower and breakfast in the morning were a refreshing change from our usual routine.
On the leisurely drive back Juan-Carlos noticed a road sing that read: ¨Balsa Baker – 1 km¨. (A ferry across the river Baker – 1 km) ¨Would you like to see the ferry? ¨ he asked us. ¨Sure, ¨ said we, ¨we are in no hurry¨. We drove down to the river and saw the ferry. It was a big steel raft that ran across the biggest Chilean river. The current was so strong that the ferry needed no motor to cross it: the ferryman simply adjusted the steel cables that attached to the cable running from bank to bank in a certain way, skewing the raft this way or that. Short front end and a long rear end made the raft drift across to the other side in a matter of minutes. Taking the same ferry were some farmers, on their way to tend to their cattle. ¨Would you like to come along to castrate some year-old bulls? ¨ asked one of the farmers. Patricia is a veterinarian and Juan-Carlos is a rodeo rider, so their eyes lit up with anxiousness. We have never been to a ranch, so we wanted to go, too.
We got off the ferry and followed our new friends down a trail, which later disappeared and we were just driving through some hilly pastures. At one point, the hill became too steep so we had to abandon our vehicles and walk the rest of the way. The ranch consisted of a small house, some farm sheds and a corral. In the corral, some thirty young bulls were hoarded together. Our farmer friends carried all the necessary tools for the castration: some lassoes, a veterinarian kit and some 16 beers. Some more men were waiting at the ranch. As soon as we came, the job began. The process was easy: A calf was let out into the bigger part of the corral. Men were swinging their lassoes above their heads. The objective was to lasso the calf in, bind its legs, put it on its side and cut off the balls. Instead of a dull job, these men turned the process into somewhat of a competition, or a game.The coolest was to throw the lasso under the calf, binding its legs and making it stumble down. The others would then run over and bind the legs, pulling the hind legs further behind to open its belly. The veterinarian would then come up, cut the bag open with a sharp knife and cut off the testicles, one by one. Some disinfecting spray and the calf was free to go.The second coolest thing was to throw the lasso over the horns. The calf would then kick, throw and bend its back. The men would then get very excited, running up to it, grabbing it by the horns and trying to bend it to the ground. Some calves were tougher then others and would chase the men around, trying to punch them with their heads. Men would ran away, yelling and having the most fun.
The third coolest thing was to get the lasso on the calves neck.
After some ten calves were done, Carlos, the owner of the cattle, offered George a lasso. George turned out to be a born ¨gaucho¨: he lassoed in four calves: two over the horns and two over the neck. Yeea-haaa!
After all the calves were castrated, an asado followed. A two-month old lamb was especially killed for the feast, a traditional asado of the region. Men congratulated each other on the job cleanly done and were chatting about hay prices and cattle in general.
After the carcass of the lamb was eaten, the people began to leave, and so did we, continuing on towards Chile Chico tired, happy and with full bellies.
Patricia and Juan-Carlos changed their minds about going to Chile Chico, deciding to go to Coyhaique the way that we came with the truck the day before. So we parted with them late in the afternoon on the same crossroads with the shelter. It was raining and we decided to camp under the same welcoming roof for the night.Next day greeted us with sunshine and we easily hitched to the border, crossed into Argentina and camped out near the river, on the other side from Los Antiguos.

Capoeira and Mate in Coyhaique

2010-11-03T19:52:00.000-07:00

In a few hours after our last post we successfully connected with our CS host Claudio. He treated us to a thick fish soup at a restaurant of his aunt and drove us to his place to drop our bags off. In a few minutes after we entered Claudio´s house and met his grandmother Lina (a woman of 85 years of age, remarkably agile for her years) our benefactor was off to his work. He is an Emergency Room doctor at a local hospital.
We respectfully exchanged a few phrases with Lina and went to follow up on Fidel´s invitation for a mate in his store. In the following two days we learnt A LOT about mate, mate drinking traditions and the history of the region in general. Fidel is a master of his field and he kept loading us with information, clearly enjoying sharing his vast knowledge of the subject. Here is the recap of what we retained from the hours of listening:
Yerba mate (llex paraguariensis) is mostly grown in the northern provinces of Argentina and sipping on a steep brew of this chopped-up grass is a crucial part of the Argentinian identity. In the Chilean Patagonia the Argentinian influence is very strong, as the first settlers were arriving in the region from across the Andes. During the slow travel across the Argentinian territories the colonists picked up the local traditions. The most obvious of those traditions in today´s everyday life are the gaucho dress style and the mate drinking.

An essential part of drinking mate is sharing it. If you are offered a mate it is a first sign of welcome and hospitality in the homes (and trucks:) of the region. There is a simple but an important protocol in sharing mate and here are some of the most important points:

-When sharing mate with a group of people, the gourd always travels counter-clockwise (opposite to the northern tradition of passing a joint ¨to the right¨).

-The gourd is to be handed and received with a right hand, with the bombilla (the straw) pointed at the receiver.

-The receiver is only to thank the cebador (the person in charge of the serving) when he had his fill of mate, thus indicating that he wants no more. If you say ¨thank you¨ in the first round, you will lightly offend the offerer and will not be offered the gourd the next time around.

-Rejecting an offer to drink mate is a bad idea. In doing so you will miss an opportunity to meet a good-hearted person and an easy-flowing conversation. An offer of mate is a first sign that you are accepted. A little later will come an offer of food and finally of accomodation.

Mate has an energizing effect, similiar to that of a strongly brewed tea, coffee or a mild toke. Truckers are famous for drinking it as it keeps them awake during long night-time hauls across the pampas.

We spent about four hours in ¨Casa del Mate¨ that time. Fidel gave us a tour of the shop: At least 7 different brands of mate, pots and pans, hats and pants, bombillas and gourds, axes and knives, even horseshoe nails were sold in this place.
It had a strange but a pleasant feeling: It looked like a souvenir shop, but was widely popular with the local farmers as well. After the tour Fidel put on the kettle and served us mate until we had to thank him while returning the gourd. When we walked out onto the street we were so pumped with the brew that we had to keep our hands from shaking mildly and our eyes turning wildly in all directions.

We stopped at a grocery store to pick up some supplies for cooking pizza for our hosts and headed home. As soon as the pizza was out of the oven Claudio came home from work and we shared a delicious meal. After our road diet of bread and pasta this veggie-loaded, cheese-topped pie was a feast to our poor little constricted stomachs.

After the meal we started talking and Claudio mentioned in passing that he is a practitioner of Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian ¨game¨. An essential part of the game is the rhythm provided by the drums and the Berimbau. We hopped on the subject and Claudio´s eyes cought fire in a flash. In a few seconds he was rigging up his instrument to demontrate the music to us. We had the honour of filming this impromptu kitchen musical piece, please enjoy here.Claudio played with passion for about half an hour, loosing himself in the rythm, with a broad smile on his face. We went to sleep in the small hours.The next morning we were woken up at 7 am by Claudio. He was free until noon before going to the hospital, and he was eager to show us the surrounding areas. We had a quick but big breakfast, hopped into his Toyota and were off. It was raining outside, but in the first time in more than a week we did not care about the drizzle, sure of drying out later on. Claudio took us to the near-by Falls of the Virgin and Falls of the Virgin´s Vail. The former impressed us more as one could come right up to the gushing waterfall, breathing in the humid vapour and bracing against the strong wind produced by the falling mass of water.The second part of the excursion was of little interest, as Claudio himself also admitted. He took us for a drive through Puerto Aisen and Chacabuco. Puerto Aisen has a local fame for being the suicide capital of the region, simultaneously boasting of the highest depression and alcoholism rate of the area. Little wonder, as it rarely stops raining in this hole of a town.

Chacabuco´s main attraction is a sleepy port with one old fork-lift moving the containers about the yard. It is from this port´s only peer that the first-class catamarans carry the wealthy people of this world to a one day excursion to Laguna San Rafael. The $400 price tag includes million year old ice cubes from San Rafael Glacier in your whiskey glass and a party with an open bar after the tour.
When we came back home, Claudio had a ten-minute snooze and rushed for his post, being a little late. We had ourselves a warming cup of tea and a slice of yesterday´s pizza. We veggied in front of a computer screen for some hours before we got bored. ¨What to do, what to do?¨ we asked ourselves. Drink mate!
We headed to the ¨Casa del Mate¨, once again following up on Fidel´s invitation. This time we showed up at the busiest time of the day and Fidel was rushing between attending to his customers and serving mate. The conversation had a hard time taking off, but as the flow of people decreased towards the evening, Fidel, his brother Samael and the shop employee Andrea relaxed, sat in the chairs around the stove and we talked about all manner of things. After we closed the shop, Fidel took us to a beautiful vista overlooking the town. We shared a beer and contemplated the severe sky and the landscape shivering from an unexpectedly freezing wind. After the first beer we gave up and hopped inside the truck, continuing our conversation there. Fidel drove us home after dark. We hugged our new friend, wished him farewell and ran up the stairs.

Long waits on the Carretera Austral

2010-11-02T07:32:00.000-07:00

We waived good-bye to the happy trio and walked a few kilometers out of Cholila. The evening was gorgeous and as usual, we happened to be passing by a perfect camping spot right when it was time to set up camp. We boiled tea, contemplated the sunset and went to sleep.
After a late rise and another pot of hot tea in the morning, we were sure of getting a quick ride to Esquel. This did not happen. That day we walked about 15 km on the dirt road and about 6 autos passed us, none of them willing to give us a ride. We camped near a cristal clear stream, once again passing a pleasant evening in the middle of nowhere, but already in Patagonia.In the morning we did not walk for 5 minutes before a pick-up screeched to a halt and gave us a lift straight to Esquel.
In Esquel our CS request was turned down so we had no desire in sticking around. We went over to the tourist office to inquire about the ancient Alerces and our hopes of seeing them were quickly reduced to dust: the only way of getting to them is by boat, 110 pesos ($40) per person... The boat does the trip once a week, two days for us to wait for the next trip. No chance, said we. We stoped by the camping ground to get a quick hot shower and walked out of town fresh and happy. 3 minutes of thumbing produced a quick ride to Trevelin. The guy was very friendly and went the extra bit to drop us off on the far side of town, near the police post.
We waved to the policemen as we walked by but apparently their official gazes do not register friendly gestures. None of the three acknowledged our presence. Ok, not the first time:)
We installed ourselves a little ¨down the stream¨ from the checkpoint and hitched in vain for about half hour. The traffic was light and mostly consisted of locals going to their local farms, some of them on horseback.
In a little while we got hitch-hiking company: two locals with small backpacks walked up to the police post, chated with them and started hitching 100 meters in front of us, thus bluntly violating the hitch-hiking etiquette. We got a little upset at first but later we wholeheartedly wished them luck. A few minutes after our change of mind we got a ride with a truck, leaving the other two hitchers behind.
That evening we reached the border. It started raining with hail as we approached the customshouse in the back of a pick-up. Luckily, there was a brand-new toilet building nearby (toilets closed for the season), with generous roof overhangs. We camped under it for the night, falling happily asleep listening to the sound of rain that was not getting us wet:)Since that night until now our main priority was keeping dry, as it never stopped raining. We looked for covered bus stops to hitch from and for roofs to sleep under. So far it worked, as there are many roofs in this rain country!
Having crossed into Chile once again, we headed to Chaiten, to see the town covered in ashes. Two years ago Chaiten had a population of about 5000, but now only 500 people live there. The authorities still consider it a ¨danger zone¨ (the volcano is still smoking) and discourage people from returning to their homes. There is no electricity in town, and no water supply. The few residents who live there run generators to produce electricity.
We arrived to Chaiten just after the night fall and it was creepy walking the deserted town under heavy rain. You could tell the inhabited houses by the buzz the generators were making. There were lots of roofs for us to choose from, and we chose the biggest of them all - the abandoned police station. There was a layer of about 20 cm of ash inside, rendering the building unfit for occupation. We camped in the main hallway and when we turned off the flashlight, the darkness was absolute. The silence was almost as intense, only the sound of falling raindrops audible.
In the morning we walked through town a bit. The scene was empressive, but we were surprised to learn that it was not the ashes themselves but the river that did most of the damage: When the ashes started falling, they dammed up the river, causing it to rise. The silt flooded the north part of town, but did little damage in the south part.Hitching out of this ghost-town was not easy. It was raining and the ¨one car per hour¨ schedule had us thoroughly bored and a little wet. Finally, we got a ride with the salmon farmers for some 70 kms. They explained us the farming process and dropped us off in ther middle of the forest near their turn-off. We spent some more hours there, contemplating the rough landscape and the low-hanging clouds that dispersed rain once in a while. The ditch near-by proved to be entertaining too, as it was home to the biggest Nalca plant (Giant rhubarb) we have ever seen!And a view from the inside, from the point of view of a Smoking CaterpillarWe were rescued from our wilderness meditation point by a VW bus. It was freshly painted light green and white, it moved extremely slow (40 km/h being the maximum cruising speed) and contained two ¨hippies¨ inside. Claudio the chilean and Mark the german. Claudio listened to Los Jaivas, had a big smile on his face and was friendly and talkative. Mark did not understand much Spanish (the two spoke German between themselves) and concentrated so much on the road that he never said a word. We wandered how long this oddly-paired partnership will last, as the guys were embarking on a round-the-South-America road-trip, this being their second day! They drove us to La Junta, where they were to spend the night with Claudio´s aunt. She went out to meet them at the main street of town, but turned out to be unresourceful to us. When Claudio asked if she had a roof under which we could pitch our tent, she shook her head and suggested to us that we look for a cottage to rent for the night instead. We thanked her and headed over to the abandoned gas-station at the entrance of town.The roof was solid and it looked like generations of travellers found shelter there. A part of the floor was swept cleen of rubbish to provide just enough space for our tent. We cooked lentils and drank cognac-sweetened tea (the cognac was of a very classy brand - Tres Palos (Three Sticks), made in Chile), listening to the sound of rain falling outside.
In the morning the road was as empty as the day before. It took us about three hours to get a ride to the next town of Puyuguapi. It was raining there, too. We did a tour of town looking for an acceptable roof to camp under. No luck this time! There were no abandoned houses there, so our only option was to head to the camping ground ¨La Sirena¨. We were the only guests there and easily convinced the owners to let us camp in the ¨kitchen facility¨, as the tin-covered shack with a wood-stove inside was proudly called. The aging owners Elio and Magdalena were very hospitable, they put on a roaring fire in the stove for us right away and even left a good-sized bundle of firewood for our use later on. Too bad there was about a foot-wide gap between the roof and the walls all around, otherwize we could have had a warm little space. We managed to dry most of our clothes around the stove though and went to sleep admiring the impermeability of the tin above our heads.In the morning Magdalena peeked in to start the fire for us (nice!) and told us that they were going to Puerto Aisen later on that day, and they could take us there, too! We were incredibly grateful to them for that, as we did not have to leave the side of the warm stove to miserably hitch in the rain:) A ride with the couple was slow over a wet rutty dirt road. Elio took it easy and we even stopped to collect some Nalca stems at a good spot.We loaded the harvest in the back of the van and continued on our journey. About 5 hours later they dropped us off at the intersection towards Coyhaique.
We walked to the other side of the road, downed our green ponchos and mentally prepared to get soaked, but the universe had arranged it otherwise: the very first car pulled over and we travelled to Coyhaique in warm comfort of a taxi off-duty. In town, the clouds cleared for the first time in a little while and a bit of the blue sky appeared.
We had a few contacts in town from before but none of them produced a shelter for the night. Unsure of what to do, we started walking out of town, eyeing up different roofs. When we were passing a house with a very agreeable car port, we asked if we could camp under it. The lady of the house had no problem with it. Half an hour later, she emerged once again and offered us to relocate to their guest cottage, that also doubled as an asado room. There was a fire pit in the corner and all the things needed to roast a BIG piece of meat were found therein. Once again we dozed off under a sweet tin protection from the elements raging outside.
In the morning Eleana and Fidel invited us to their kitchen to share some mate and converse a bit. We spent about an hour happily sipping on the ¨bombilla¨ and then Fidel drove us back to town and dropped us outside of his shop called ¨Casa de Mate¨. As soon as we finish posting this post, we will be on our way to share an afternoon mate with him there:) Chao.P.S. We were thinking lately: should we change the background colour of the blog to white? A few people told us that it is easier to read. What do you readers say?

ASADO and the Drunks of Cholila

2010-10-26T13:13:00.000-07:00

Asado is a technique for cooking cuts of meat, usually consisting of beef alongside various other meats, which are cooked on a grill parrilla or open fire. It is considered the traditional dish of Argetina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and southern Brazil. (Wikipedia)

We hitched out of Bariloche in the afternoon, relaxed, fresh and recently showered. We had to wait a little to be picked up by a lovely aged female architect who drove us to El Bolson. Accidentaly, she also gave a lift to Jonathan Mouette, a famous french intercontinental hitch-hiker, only a week ago! We felt like we were following a hot trail...
We had a lunch of organic youghurt and freshly baked bread in El Bolson, got a quick lift from an organic farmer for 10 clicks and got stuck. The place to be stuck was a pleasant one, with an empty half-built and abandoned house with no fence around it (a division of Vagabond Express Chain of Hotels and Resorts) across the road, next to a medium-size supermarket. The mountains were all around us, hence the name of the hamlet: El Hoyo (The Hole). We got stuck in a hole. A gas station was a little ahead of us, on our side of the highway, but it mostly served local antique pick-up trucks. Their drivers in big ¨Georgian¨ hats (¨gruzinskie kepki¨ in Russian) made hand signals alluding to the very close proximities of their destinations and the vehicles themselves generally did not look like they could make it to Esquel, 180 km further south.
We were watching the sun approach the mountain silhoutte and decided that when it touches the forested outline, we will close up the shop, go have dinner and an early night in an unfinished room. Ha! Little did we know of the adventure awaiting us aboard the truck that was idling at the gas station!
Three minutes before our deadline, a rusty red, beat up flat bed pulled over somewhat strangely for us: the driver gave a few extra turns to the wheel in both directions, as if not sure of weather he was pulling over or just slowing down to let other cars pass. He did eventually come to a stop and layed on his horn as if he was waiting for us for an hour. We ran over, hopped onto the flat bed and were off towards Cholila. Cholila is 30 kms off the main drag. We wanted to go stairght to Esquel, but the friendly (and a little drunk) driver Carlos invited us to stay the night in his house and eat asado. We could not refuse. We stopped a few times on the way to the house to refill the supplies of beer inside the cab (we got a beer out back, too)and made it to Carlos´ estate on the top of the hill outside of Cholila around 10. That is when we got to meet his two companions: Jose, his brother and Gustavo, his half-brother.
Jose looked about 50, he had no front teeth and laughed sheepishly at whatever Carlos said, behaving very much like Ippolit Matveevich Vorobyaninov, aka Kisa (a hero of a novel ¨12 chairs¨ by Ilf and Petrov). Gustavo was only 19 years old, he had a big chin and an empty gaze. He did not say a lot, but did everything Carlos told him to.Carlos himself had a likeness of Mr. Bender, lacking only in youthfullness, handsomeness and intellect.
The trio returned from a delivery of a load of bricks to build a new cabin on Carlos` land. Another notable event in Carlos´ day was the fact that he was thrown out of his house by his wife. In the next 24 hours we must have heard this irrefutable fact repeated 50 times, with such an air about it as if it was delivered fresh every time.
¨You know what happened to me today? My woman kicked me out of my house!¨
When we got into the house, Carlos turned into Carla (his own words!) and cooked chicken and meat in the gas oven, proudly calling the meat on offer an ¨asado¨. He also bought a lot of beer, very cheap wine and a whisky-based liquer (which contained only 25% whisky and god knows what else) to go along with the feast. After downing a few glasses he got professionally drunk, with glazed over eyes and an unintelligable speach. He lacked front teeth just like Jose, he spoke fast and used a lot of slang. He got very upset with us when we missed his unwitty points. At 1 am he kindly offered us to sleep in his room, while he was to crash out on the dirty kitchen floor. We tried to politely protest such a fountain of hospitality, but his fist landed on the table with such force that we concluded it was better to do as was being suggested.
Carlos suddenly got furious at the very end of the night with Anastasia. She did not understand his mumbling when he told her to close the door to the room for the night. Instead of repeating his suggestion, he slammed the door with such force that the whole house shook and paint fell off of the walls. Unsure of what our host can come up with next, we went to sleep in a somewhat distressed state of mind. There were flees in the matress, too.
In the morning Carlos woke us up by gently pounding on the door with both fists at around 7 am. He offered us mate for breakfast (we were happy to be drinking mate again!) and downed two glasses of beer himself. He sent Jose out to warm up the truck and announced to us that we are going to a place the likes of which we have never seen before and that we will never forget in our lives. It sounded a little stretched out, but we decided it would be better if he took us to where there were other people, so we went along. Carlos did not lie.
He took us to a local bull auction. The bulls were the finest Herefords, but that was not the highlight of the day. The highlight was the ASADO.
To get to the auction, we drove on the dustly roads around Cholila for about half an hour and then entered impressive-looking gates of a private ranch. We had to board a private FERRY that took people and vehicles across a swiftly flowing 30 meter wide river (from the parking lot to the grounds) - better barrier against thiefs was not invented since the middle ages.A 10 meter long fire was burning in front of the barn.16 big cow parts were stuck on iron rods around it.4 men were tending to the fire, pulling the coals from under the blazing logs and closer to the meat with long-handled shovels. A master asadero was busy directing the process, but he kindly answered our questions about it and even hailed his helpers over to pose for a classic 19th century photo.Our leader was so excited about the free meal that we rolled onto the empty parking lot at 10 am, the first guests to arrive. Asado was not due until 2 pm. Having nothing to do, the joly company fell soundly asleep on the lawn directly behind the public portable toilets. We sat nearby, in the shade of the tree, also catching a snooze after a short and nervous night.
The mighty snoring of the great combinator was interrupted by a loudspeaker, inviting all the assembled guests to the tables. The tables were set up in a huge and clean shed, there must have been around 500 seats. Each table was covered by a sparkling white table cloth with a smaller red one turned 90 degrees in the center, giving the barn a look of a 5 star restaurant.Soon after the people settled in, the meat started to arrive on special trays with hot coals underneath to keep it warm.Our particular table of eight received three such trays loaded until FULL and the red wine was also restocked thrice. The waiters ran around looking around for emptying trays and bottles. Carlos commented loudly after pretty waitresses passed nearby: ¨Hermosaaaa!!!¨(¨Beautiful¨). He pulled a huge Argentinian knife out (we notice that other men also used their own knives to eat) and started chopping away at the meat. The table space around him soon looked like it was a place of a furious life-or-death battle between the steak and the salad. Noticing the mess, Carlos shyly pulled plates and other assorted items found around over the extra juicy stains. We felt like we were suddenly tranfered from the side of the great Ostap to the side of a semi-human stage of Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov. Or perhaps our hero had both sides of the literary personalities in equal measure.
After the meat ran out, the plates and glasses were collected and ice cream was served for desert. This concluded the free feast and the guests followed out onto the fresh air to the set up ring where the bulls were to be auctioned off. We got to pay our respects to the team of asaderos who worked for 8 hours to cook the meat before we were dragged off by our excited friend.
As soon as we installed ourselves in the shade to observe the auction the action began.
¨10 chestnut chairs!...¨
Not exactly like this, but the auction commenced.
The first to be sold was the best and the most expensive bull by the name of AX-6738. A strange move by the seller. The following numbers were progressively decreasing in price. Carlos actively participated in the action from his grass seat in the last row: after the bull was sold for, say, 10 000 pesos, (around 2500US) he yelled out, apparantly wispering to Anastasia:
¨TOO FUCKING CHEAP! THIS BULL IS WORTH MUCH MORE, THE GUY GOT A GOOD FUCKING DEAL!¨
People looked at him from the corner of their eyes.
Jose behaved in a much more agreeable manner: he fell soundly asleep, stretching out across the grass nearby. When we got up to leave, a kick from Carlos´ sharp-ended cowboy boot was unable to wake him up. We had to shake him back into conciousness.
The drive back was slow and windy and we were lucky to part our ways with Carlos in town, masterfully dissuading him from inviting us to spend another night on his bed.
Заседание продолжается!Our quest to reach the ancient trees continues.

Bariloche

2010-10-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

We thought that we will be out of this town in a day, but the surrounding landscapes are so beautiful that we decided to stay the weekend to see more of it. Moreover, our CS hosts Paula and Denis were very welcoming and cheerful people, entrusting us with a key to the appartment and making us feel at home. Denis is an outdorsman and a Russian, from Omsk. We spent an evening listening to his stories of the routes around Bariloche - all in our native tongue:) Paula is a nuclear scientist, the first one we have ever met in person! There is a research facility in town.
There is a very strong German influence in Bariloche. The first wave of the immigrants came in the 1850s to clear and work the land. The second wave came when the Germans were loosing the WWII. The ones who could stuffed their pockets with jewels and gold and immigrated as far as they could from their fatherland. We have met a few young people who told us that their grandfathers were Nazis. This is the main square.The scenery around Bariloche is said to be very ¨Alpean¨. There are cristal clear lakes, vast forests and snow-capped mountains.
The first day we took a town bus to the nearby place called Llao-Llao (pronounced Shao-Shao in Argentinian Spanish). There is a short but beautiful trail through a Coihue (Nothofagus dombeyi) forest, and in the middle of it there is an ancient Arroyan (Myrceugenella apiculata) grove.Stunning. We hitched half way back to town and took a bus home from there.
The second day we followed Denis´ advice and made our way to Lake Gutierrez, also a short bus ride away from town. There we walked to the falls and climbed up to the lookout where we saw this view.This time we got tired out much sooner than we thought we would and returned home.
Tomorrow we set out towards Parque Nacional Los Alerces, home to 2000+ year old trees.

Chiloe

2010-10-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

Having gotten out of Valdivia with sublime simplicity (a small red car pulled over without any prompting on our part) we headed ever south, to Chiloe.
It was very easy to reach Puerto Montt, but between it and the ferry to the island our luck abandoned us. We were deposited at a tough spot and waited almost 3 hours before a man in a grey pickup stopped. He took us half way to the ferry and during the ride he said not a word. The turn off where we got out was totally unsuitable for hitch-hiking, so we decided to walk the remaining 15 kms. The walk was refreshing and when it got late, we happened to be passing by an empty house, in which we camped for the rainy and windy night.In the morning we cooked a proper breakfast with hot tea, walked a bit and travelled the remaining few kilometers with a roadworking truck.We walked onto the ferry and were delighted to know that ALL ferries in Chiloe do NOT charge pedestrians!
Chiloe is an archipelago, but there is one main island. It is covered in perpetuous mist and it is almost always raining. The island looks like a funny mix between two great Canadian islands - Newfoundland and Vancouver. The landscapes are of Vancouver Island with the white peaks on the horizon and pasture all around, but the locals and their towns look more like the East coast.
As it rains so much here that the locals distinguish beween the different kinds of rain: heavy rain that rolls off of your woolen sweater and does not get you wet (!) is quite different from a drizzle that gets you soaked in a matter of minutes. The rain is considered ¨better¨ when the wind is strong - the clouds are moving and the weather may change soon, whereas when there is no wind it can rain for weeks on end. If it is raining only sparringly, it is considered a good day out! We were lucky to catch four sunny days on the island before the weather got back to normal - rain (the wet kind) with wind.
A few typical images of Chiloe:A harbour of AncudLos palafitos-traditional seaside houses on stills
A wooden church. There are many on the island, and most of them look like this one near Castro.
Our idea in coming to this island was to reach its southern port of Quellon and look for a boat to take us across the strait to Chaiten. When we came to Quellon, its port dissapointed us: there was only a very expensive (20,000 pesos=40 dollars) ferry that was doing the run to Chaiten. No other boats, fishing vessels or navy ships were going there. The fishing boats are even prohibited to approach the dock in Chaiten and this is why: In 2008 the volcano erupted and covered the town with a meter of ash. The town was abandoned in a hurry. Then, the fishermen from nearby settlements began raiding the abandoned houses, maraudering. The navy was forced to interfere and put up a barrier which no unauthorised vessel is allowed to cross.
In Quellon we were hosted by Carlos Villalobos and his family, deep in the countryside, 16 kms out of town. We spent three days with them, listening to their incredible stories of their 7 years spent on the shores of the Tic Toc Bay. Their closest neighbours lived a 100 kms down the coast!This is the backyard!
So, there was no ride available for us, and we were not considering to support the monopolizing ferry company. The only option available to us was to come back to Osorno, cross into Argentina and re-enter Chile at Fatalefu, which seems like a trip in itself.
On the way back to the mainland we were picked up by Jaime Cardenas, a scientific technician who was on his way to take water samples from a shell growing farm. He invited us to accompany him. We went to the farm, dressed up for the sea like the real fishermen, met the harvesters who were getting off work and then got to witness the cultivation of the mollusks first hand. The water in the bay was contaminated by red bacteria, so Jaime was taking samples to see if the levels were back to normal and the harvesting can resume.The shells are exported to Europe by an airplane!
After our little tour was over, we were back on the road and got to Chacao in the afternoon. There we stopped by a friendly InfoChiloe office to say hello to our friends we made when we first stopped there. This time we were invited to cook pizza, drink beer and stay the night!!!
In the morning we walked a hundred meters to the ferry, chatted with a trucker while at sea and travelled with him to Osorno. He was carrying a container full of frozen salmon destinied for Saint-Petersburg in Russia!In Osrono we were unable to get a lift so we camped at a road-side greenhouse.
The next day was rainy and miserable, the only ride we got was from a bus (who refused to charge us) to the next town Puehue 50 kms down the road. There we got all wet near an empty highway and seeked shelter for the night under a roof of a tractor shed of a local house. In the morning the weather turned around and the sun was shining once again, and with the sun our luck came back. A quick ride with the municipality folks to the border and then a touring couple taking us straight to Bariloche through a beautiful scenery of Nahuel Huapi Park.We are in Bariloche now, it seems like an obsenely touristic place, we will be on the road again as quick as we can.

Santiago to Valdivia

2010-10-06T11:11:00.000-07:00

Uff, once again we kept putting off the blog and now there is so much to tell...
Let's start at the begining, go until the end and then stop.
We tried to leave Santiago for four days. The first day we met up with Armando. He is the crazy Irish-Argentinian whom we met back in Cusco. Over a glass of beer in his office an idea was born to travel together. We decided to go to Argentina, down highway 40 and cross back into Chile at Pino Hachado. Good. He had some work to finish so we waited for him for one day. The next day we agreed on leaving at 2pm, but it did not happen. We walked out of the house at 4:30, missed the last bus to take us out of the metropolis and the only thing we could possibly do was to buy beer and come back to the house we just left. Armando knew of a party happening a few blocks away, so we went there and finished the night at 4 in the morning. The next morning the awakening was hard but we managed heroicaly and were hitching out of Los Andes that afternoon. The first truck stopped in under 20 minutes and took the three of us over the beatiful snow-covered pass into Argentina. We camped outside of Portillo with a camp fire and a beautiful starry sky above us.It took us 5 hours to get a lift next morning though, and even that for mere 50 kilometers until the highway 10. The traffic was speeding by at 120 km/h. In addition, a passing thunder cloud dispersed a good measure of hail above our heads and we had to seek shelter in a road-side chapel. We were expelled from there half an hour later by a pious owner of a near-by business. ¨This building is for praying and not for hanging around in!¨ he said.Ok, we relocated to the near-by gas station and waited out the rest of the storm there. It was too late to travel by then so we made a tour of the surrounding area and located an abandonned church, in which we camped for the night.
It was drizzling in the morning, but the sky cleared later on and we were out on the shoulder again, but nobody would stop. We became bored with the scene and walked to the next on-ramp, some kilometers away. As soon as we installed ourselves there, a truck went by, with a strangely familiar passenger inside. He had his nose and palms of his hands pressed to the side window as he went by. ¨Jonathan!¨ It was him indeed, our travelling companion from Peru and Equador. We got a ride shortly after this ¨encounter¨, and then another one in rapid succesion, which deposited us at the entrance of Malargue. It was late at night and the place for getting off could not have been picked better. We saw in front of us a perfectly half built and then abandonned shell of a would-be hotel. The inside was remarkably clean and we did not even had to put up the tent, but spread our bed-rolls out on the second floor. In the morning we located the super-market, had breakfast and walked to the end of town.
There was very little traffic. After standing there for some hours and seeing no suitable vehicles to take all three of us, we decided to split up. As soon as we walked 200 m past Armando, we got a ride. The energies were changed and we continued our journey, meeting funny truck-drivers, sharing meals with them, camping in unexpected places and witnessing gorgeous landscapes and sunsets. Armando got a lift 5 hours after us and travelled very fast, covering the distance until Las Lajas in two days. It took us four days.
The driver who brought us to Las Lajas invited us to stay in his house, which we surely did. Carlos and his wife Carina were great hosts, we drank mate, ate asado and stayed up late for three days.On the third day Jonathan came to town as well and was also welcomed to the house. We talked late into the night with him. In the few months since we last saw each other, this guy has been to Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay, Buenos Aires and back to the cordillera. Wow.
In the morning our paths went in different directions: Jonathan went further south to Bariloche and we crossed back into Chile. A traditional group photo and Jonathan gets a ride in a few minutes, leaving us steeping in black envy on the opposite side of the road, waiting for our ride for hours.
We are in Valdivia now. The forests around here look identical to the ones in Canada, until you look closely: it is made up of entirely different species! We went to the botanical garden this morning and spend some hours walking amidst big strange-to-us trees that looked almost like spruces, cedars and poplars, but... different! We are very happy to be in the forested lands once again.

Valpo to Santiago

2010-09-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

Well, the long awaited celebrations came and went. There was a huge fair set up steps from our place and at nights the music was booming so loud that our window panes shook. People were drinking chicha and dancing cueca until 4 in the morning. There was also lots of vendors selling traditional chilean food (read - meat). We did not know, but our CS guests told us that street dogs were said to be missing shortly before the feria opened. It did not seem improbable, you just had to get a smell of the meat being fried on coals - it was definitely not fresh, and it did not taste like beef...
During our last few weeks we have hosted a lot of people through CouchSurfing. Our guests were mostly French, and most of them new to the CouchSurfing concept. Among our guests were exchange students from Valdivia, a main-stream travelling couple, a group of 5 (4 girls and 1 guy) law students, and a professional paraglider pilot. All of them from France!
The paraglider pilot took us out of town to try his wing out. The experience seemed more similiar to hitch-hiking than flying - two hours in a bus to get out of the suburbia, a long walk with backpacks looking for the ¨spot¨ and then a sunset on the beach. Gerard did take off and flew for a bit. He then gave us a short introduction and we pulled the thing up in the air, pulling it along the beach.
On our last night in town, Gabriela and Robinson, our Chilean friends, invited us to the ¨bicentenario¨dinner at Gabriela`s parents` place. When we arrived, the empanadas prepared by her mother, were hot out of the oven, the food was plentyful and delicious, and the night was the most appropriate conclusion to our month.long stay in Valparaiso.
Next morning we cleaned our room, dealt with the old grandma running the place and went to see the Navy Parade. The event did not take place since the 1810, so people were very excited. We went to the look-out and waited. The air shook with war planes flying low over the city, and then the war ships motored by the pier, where all the generals were sitting. When the fighter jets flew by and there was no end in sight of the column of the ships, we decided we saw enough of the military ¨defile¨ and headed for the bus station, it being too late to try to hitch-hike out the same day. We do not pretend to be purists, so once in a while we do things we usually try to avoid. The bus departed in a few minutes, and we were in the capital two hours later. Here, we had a CS contact, so we headed straight there (or so we thought). When we were looking for the address on google map, the system pointed us to a street that was nowhere near the real location. Convinced of the reliability of Google, we headed there. An outsirt neighbourhood, 20 subway stations from the true address. Not bad. We asked at a corner store, and the old man scratched his head and told us that we are very far away. He then called our host and put us on the bus heading our way. Shortly after, we were at the door of German and Gemma, our hosts. They live across the river from the downtown, and breathtaking views open from their tall windows. They were having a roof-top barbeque party, so we mingled with the friendly people to be found there and went to sleep pretty late in a room of our own.
We have stayed for four days now with them. We went to see a light-show on the Moneda Palace, helped to move some furniture, went to see the fairy-tale Cerro Santa Lucia, and even witnessed a sword-fencing practice, of which German was the master.

Living slow in Valpo

2010-09-02T10:06:00.000-07:00

Valparaiso is a city of contrasts - colours, smells, and most importantly elevation differences. A walk around town is usually a struggle, unless you are going downhill, of course. There are around 30 funiculeurs (lifts like the one in Quebec City) installed around the city - a system dating from the middle of the nineteenth century. Only a few remain in service, but they are nevertheless very popular with the people.We are getting to know our neighbourhood little by little. Our baker addresses us by our names, we meet aquaintances on the street and Anastasia gets presents of empanadas from the local homeless guy.There is a very special gas station next to our house - they play music on the loudspeakers exclusively after 11 pm, and exclusively jazz or some good classical music. We fall asleep listening to Bach...
There are a lot of graffitti in Valpo. Big, small, good and not so good, they cover almost every wall in the city. We have gone on a few ¨graffitti hunt¨ walks - it was like visiting a living art exhibition, with people, dogs and traffic contributing to the experience.Dogs deserve a special note: it seems that all street dogs are purebred here. It is a common thing to see a huge beautiful bloodhound, with shining fur, to be digging in a trash can or, more often, leasurly lying in the middle of the sidewalk, in the sun, meditating on a meatshop window in front of him. German sheppards, cocker spaniels and setters also abound, running around in jolly packs. All of them are friendly and not afraid of people at all. If you were to say a typical ¨pshhh¨ to a dog in Bolivia, it would tuck its tail between the legs and get out of your way in a flash. Not so here. The dog will probably just ignore you, or slightly wiggle its tail and try to lick your hand. Dogs are not used to being kicked here.Chile is a country of good wine that is cheap. You can get a decent bottle for around $3. We are progressively becoming aquainted with the selection of the good and not so good wines available in almost any shop.
One of the late mornings, after breakfast, sipping on a hot ¨ceylon blend¨ tea, we were thinking of all the funny questions we have been asked on the road (all of them many times over). Here are a few that immediatly came to mind:
-Is Canada an island? (Peru)
-Is it in Europe? (Peru)
- I though that it is always cold in Canada... (after an explanation that there is a hot summer) (Bolivia)
-Do you have to stay indoors in Canada the whole winter not to freeze to death? (Equador)
-What do you eat in the winter? (Colombia)
-You are never cold, because you are used to it in Canada, right? (asked in the -5 C morning on the Bolivian altiplano)
-Do you speak Spanish in Russia? (Equador)
-What language do you speak in Canada? It is something strange, you say ¨eh¨ a lot up there... (an American tourist in Chile)
We are very happy that we are living here now. We are resting from the road, reading interesting books, we eat good and make a little money selling our macrame bracelets. We are thinking of getting back on the road after the 18th of September - the 200 year anniversary of Chile. The party is promising to be huge, with a kite flying competition, bag racing, lots of wine and chicha all around, good food, music and lots of dancing. The celebrations will last four days!
Good times:)

Valparaiso

2010-08-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

We got out at the main square and headed straight for the internet cafe in high hopes. But, out of our 9 CS requests, 5 remained unanswered and 4 were declined. Damn, this network really stopped working for us!
Valparaiso is a main port of Chile, it looks like a mix of Halifax and Montreal, only it´s multiple neighbourhoods look much livelier, with houses painted in bright colours. The city is gracefully spread out over 40 hills, some of them are quite steep.We wanted to stay in this beautiful sea-side town for about a month, find a room, perhaps even a job, and rest from the road. But as we had no immediate place to rest, we were looking for a base from which we could explore the city more carefully.The day was grey and cold, and we wandered aimlessly in the center. We asked at a few hostels about the prices, but they were all sky-high, the lowest being 5000 pesos ($10) per person in a dormitory. After a few hours of walking up and down the steep streets, we sat down to rest near a scenic look-out. A gentleman came up to us and we chatted for a bit. He was a Chilean, but spoke good English. He was an owner of a hostel on which wall we were leaning. He understood our predicament without too much explanation and made a phone call to a lady-friend of his, who, as he said, had a room for us at exactly our budget.Half an hour later, Maria came to meet us. We were to stay in her house on the neighbouring hill. Her price was just a bit lower than the hostels we visited earlier, but we figured that she was our best bet. Maria was a tall, middle-aged lonely woman, deeply Catholic and very very sad. Her parents, whom she cared for for the last ten years, passed away two years ago, leaving Maria´s life unexpectedly empty. The rooms of her house were last painted a long time ago, and now, dusty grey, they emanated vibrations of a mental institution or, perhaps, a prison hospital. The small lightbulbs at the center of every room struggled against the darkness in the corners. No wander she was sad!
Maria could not let us sleep in her ¨papa´s¨ room, because his clothes were still hanging in the closet. We slept on a single bed in another room, cold as a dungeon and just as depressive as the others. The prospect of spending a month in this abode invited unhealthy suicidal thoughts.
In the morning we raised our spirits incrementially by tea, fried eggs and warm bread. When we stepped out on the morning sunny bustling street, it felt like we left something very heavy behind the door. Our objective was clear: find another place, quick!Which was exactly what we did within an hour´s time. As we were walking down a street, we saw a friendly grandmother standing in the doorway, taking in the morning sunshine. She looked like she might know where we could find a room. We said ¨buenos dias¨ and in a few minutes she was leading us up to the second storey, chatting happily with us, non-stop. She had a huge bright room on the second floor for us, with four huge tall windows and a big bed. Needless to say, we have the ocean view as well. We will stay here for at least a month! Yey!!!

San Pedro de Atacama-Valparaiso

2010-08-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

In San Pedro the prices are high - there are twice as many tourists in the village as the residents. There were many places to see around, but most of them are far way and you need to either rent a 4x4, or take a tour. We followed an advice of Jonathan, who had been here a week before us, and went for a walk in the Valle de Catarpe, only 7 kms outside of town. The landscape resembled that of a moon, with very little errosion, earth and rocks of different colours and an absolute silence. We pitched a tent in a small valley and climbed the hill just in time to catch the sunset. As soon as the sun went down, the temperature plummeted with it, and we jumped in our sleeping bags minutes later, wearing all our clothes once again.In the morning, we walked back to town, had breakfast, and hitched out in the direction of Calama. We asked the driver to be dropped off on the highway, and as soon as we put our bags down, a bus pulled over for us. It was a big comfortable smooth-riding Pullman, our first hitched bus! The driver Marcello was a happy dude, he served in a Foreign Legion in France some 20 years before, and he was happy to re-tell his war stories to us. He had videos and photos of his army days on his cell-phone, and he showed us his likeness in full gear posing in front of a tank, parachuting out of an airplane and generally having a fabulous time.Little by little, we made our way to La Serena. the going was slow, cold and rainy! It was drizzling in the driest desert in the world! When such a phenomenon occurs, the lifeless sands of the desert get covered by a carpet of tiny violet flower, an incredibly gentle sight!The last ride that took us into La Serena was a truck, with three other travellers in the sleeper. Patricio the driver had a positive outlook on life, he chatted with us the whole time, made funny jokes and hailed every passing truck on his CB radio. He told us that once he gave a lift to fourteen hitch-hikers at once! Half of them rode in the cab and the other half-in the trailer. When the ones in the trailer wanted to stop for a piss, they all jumped on the walls of the trailer. He truly had a big heart, this fellow.
La Serena is a nice quiet town on the coast, it´s streets are wide and clean and the people are, oh, so friendly! Our CS requests here remained unanswered though, so we went to the beach and camped there in the shade of some eucaliptus trees in luxury.
In Chile, you can take a shower at almost any big gas-station. For a $1.5 (sometimes free) you get an immaculately clean, huge changing room and a 15 minutes (sometimes even unlimited) shower with real hot water. A blessing after months of struggling with the problem of keeping clean in Peru and Bolivia!Clean and happy, we continued on the road the next day, and, as we were walking to a good take-off spot, we heard an engine-brake rumbling behind us. Patricio, our driver from two days ago, was doing another trip! We were happy to re-unite with a cheery ¨Rastafaray¨, as he called himself on the CB radio. He was very excited about coming home for the weekend and he could not keep from speeding. He assured us that his fellow ¨collegas¨ out on the road keep an eye out for speed traps and let other trucks know well in advance. Well, there was a trucker out there who did not share the po-si-tive energy of Patricio, he failed to let us know of the police car stationed just behind the curve, and we got pulled over for speeding. The ticket took the smile of Patricio´s face for only a few minutes, and we arrived to La Calera, a turn-off to Valparaiso, in good humour.
It was getting dark as we were walking the streets of this small town, and when we saw a temporary construction hut, we headed straight for it. Juan the foreman was finishing his day, and he invited us to sleep on the bunk-bed found inside the hut. There was also a weekend guard on duty, an old señor, Maestro Ferero, who spent his weekends drinking tea and watching over the site. We had a cup of tea with him and went to sleep. Ten minutes into the night we realized that we made a bad decision crashing inside. The blankets and matresses were full of fleas. Our fifth flea infestation on the trip! Scratching and cursing, we barely slept that night. Anastasia is now even thinking of wearing a flea collar, may be it would dicourage future fleas from jumping on her.
It took a while to get a ride the next morning. The highway to Valpo was just like a highway somewhere in Canada or the States: two lanes each way, on-ramps and a speed limit of 120. At the on-ramp there were lots of prohibiting signs. Having studied them carefully, we did not find any that looked like it could apply to us, and walked past it at peace.It was early Sunday morning, and the traffic was scarse. After a few idle scratchy hours, a small car with a young couple inside pulled over for us and we rode with them into Valparaiso.

Argentina

2010-08-09T07:35:00.000-07:00

We crossed into Argentina early in the morning and the contrast with Bolivia is stunning: toilets have seats AND toilet paper, people look up, smile and reply when you say ¨buenos dias¨ to them, and the feeling in general is very friendly and relaxed. We walk out of town and encounter... hitch-hikers! We take our place in the line and leave with a truck a few hours later. Two truckers inside are friendly and talkative. We discuss the strike in Bolivia, Argentinian politics and the beautiful places to see in Argentina and Chile. They kept seducing us to travel with them to Salta, the ¨most beautiful city in the country¨, but we have already made up our minds about crossing into Chile at Paso de Jama. We will definetely come back to Argentina, but a little more to the south. They drop us off at a turnoff to Purmamarka, a quiet beautiful town located at the base of an incredible 7 colour mountain. We camp outside of town (bone-dry firewood once again makes cooking a breeze) . In the morning we buy delicious pastry and a litre of yogurt for breakfast and get stuck on the shoulder of the road for hours. We don´t mind though, because our bellies are full, the temperature is pleasant and we are facing the gorgeous geological formation the whole time.Our spirits are high. Eventually, a couple from Salta stops for us and we travel with them to their destination - Salinas Grandes. They drop us off in the middle of the salar, near a building entirely built of salt blocks.The sunlight reflecting off the white surface is blinding, but we only endure it for five minutes or so, when we get a lift from a customs officer going to his post in Susques. He tells us that it gets -15C at night there, so when we get to the village, we seek a room and sleep in all our warm clothes, under 4 blankets each, in a sleeping bag - we barely keep warm.In the fresh morning we meditate on the shoulder of the road amidst the breath-taking scenery for some hours before a Brasilean-Chilean trucker Victor invites us into his luxury extra-long sleeper Volvo. He is on his way to Iquiqe, but we get off in San Pedro de Atacama, a small oasis located in the driest desert of the world.
We barely have time to by something to eat in a minimarket (a small bag of food for dinner now costs us $10 compared to $2 in Bolivia) and use Internet before the night falls. At only 2000 m above sea level now, the evening temperatures are very pleasant. We go a little outside of town after dark and miraculously find a perfect place to camp on the other side of the river, within minutes of walking from the main plaza.

Bolivia II

2010-08-08T14:59:00.000-07:00

We headed out of Sucre on a sunny Sunday afternoon, and when the sun went down we were 50 kms closer to Potosi. There were very few vehicles on the road, and that seemed rather strange to us that such an important road would have so little traffic.
In the morning we waited for hours, and, having got tired of the empty road, we started walking. In a few minutes a car pulled over and gave us a lift for the whole 9 kms more, to the toll station. There, we hitched for a few more hours, and when a truck full of people finally stopped, we hopped into the trailer. We were sure that we will be asked to pay later, but as it was the first moving thing we saw in 2 hours, we were happy to be moving at all.From the fellow passengers we found out that the road to Potosi is blocked by a strike, for an ¨indefinite¨ period of time. Indeed, the truck came up to a town of Betanzus and stopped in a long line of other vehicles. The road was blocked by stones, tires, buses, taxis and a whole lot of traditionally dressed people. ¨The road is closed to traffic¨, they informed us,¨until we have a talk with Evo!¨. The people had a list of things that they wanted the government to accomplish for them. We asked three of the protestors what those things were, but none could tell us. The answers came down to the fact that the government promised the people a lot of something, and now was not delivering, so the people are protesting until something gets done about the mysterious points.It did not seem likely that the roadblock will be lifted soon, so we walked through empty Betanzus in the direction of Potosi. All the businesses, including food stores, were also closed because of the strike. Nevertheless, we managed to buy 2 kilos of pasta to last us on the 50km hike to Potosi. We walked about 30 kms the next day when a minibus stopped for us and took us the rest of the way.
In Potosi, the scene did not look any better. Closed stores, demonstrations on the streets, no cars moving, and, the scariest thing, dynamite charges exploding on the streets once in a while. It cetainly felt like the Red Revolution we learned about at school. There is a huge mine near the town, Cerro Rico, and it is mostly worked by poor independent miners. Because of this, dynamite, an important thing for a miner, is sold in the town´s stores like bread. The protestors bought a lot of dynamite sticks, cut them up in small (5 cm!!!) pieces and were using them to boost the morale of the strikers.We had no desire to stick around and walked straight through. There was yet another blockade on the other side of town, so all the traffic towards the Argentinian border was also paralysed. At this point, we decided to forget about Uyuni and get out of the area as soon as we could.As we were walking away from the last blockade, a black pickup, the only moving vehicle around, cought up with us and offered us a ride to the border! The driver made a lot of effort to get out of town. He camouflaged his car to seem as if it was a protesting vehicle: two huge speakers in the box yelling ¨Potosi Federal!¨, red and white flags of the protestors all over and a paper sign stuck to the windshield: ¨AUTHORISED VEHICLE¨. As soon as we were out of sight of the barricades, the guy unloaded all his makeup in some office building, and we took off. We were as happy as could be to ride with him.
Little did we all know, that 30 kms down the road, there was yet another roadblock. It was the last one, but there was no hope of running through it, as the protestors would throw stones and dynamite charges at any vehicle that would get close to the debris blocking the road. The guy waited until 2 in the morning, at which point it became obvious that they will not lift the block any time soon. He then turned around to go back to Potosi. We stayed there and camped near the blockade, in between the parked trucks, for the night.
We waited for something to happen the next day, doing nothing just like the rest of the people around us. We met some really cool Argentinian truckers, they treated us with breakfast and lunch from their portable kitchen, and we chatted with them for most of the day. But as the evening fell, we again pitched the tent in the same spot.
As the rumours had it, the strike was becoming more and more widespread, and more roadblocks could be set up further towards the border any time now, and the border crossing itself may be closed off ¨indefinetely¨. This was bad news to us, so we decided to move at any price. There were buses circulating between the border and the blockade, but they were taking full advantage of the situation, charging two times and a half the normal rate. We found a taxi that was willing to take us for only two times the price, a good deal given the circumstances. The car had some mechanical problems and the engine would stall once in a while. When the engine stalls, the breaks quit as well, so we rode down a few steep hills on an emergency brake. The driver was racing like crazy on the bad dirt road (the main highway in the country), so within thirty minutes of the ride we got a flat tire. He put on the spare and kept on racing just as before. There were only six more hours to go. The guy had no gas in the tank too, and as there was a shortage of that as well, he spent at least an hour hunting for the last 10 litres of fuel in the village. He finally got it, and we got to the border at night.

Bolivia

2010-07-30T14:27:00.000-07:00

We have entered Bolivia along the shores of the lake Titicaca, and noticed no difference from Peru. The same half-finished buildings, same traditionally dressed people on the streets and the same freezing temperatures. Copacabana, our first Bolvian town, blew us away by the tourist crowds. Every restaurant was ¨touristico¨, which translates as ¨same shit, just very expensive¨.
We did not go to the well-advertised Isla del Sol because we had no desire to pay for the ferry, and then escape the people collecting ¨tourist tax¨ in three different places on the island itself. So we walked out of Copacabana early in the fresh morning and got ourselves a ride in the back of a pick-up of a newlywed couple. They left us half-way to La Paz, and in 20 minutes we were riding again, this time with a truck loaded with pebbles. The driver gave us directions on how to get to the city centre and dropped us off at a bus stop - a perfect ride!
In La Paz we had a shower, a refreshing sleep on a soft wide bed, Anastasia had a haircut, and we invested in two pairs of loosely knitted alpaca socks. That concluded our tourist program of the city.
Next morning we headed to Santa Cruz. This was when we have encountered, for the first time, the Bolivian version of hitch-hiking. It is almost always in a back of a truck, and almost always it is not free. After travelling for six hours through the cold of the altiplano amidst stinking empty boxes of chicken meat, a driver asked us to pay for the ride! This has happened almost every time since then, and we more or less figured out the going rate: 10Bs ($1.5) for 150-200km per person. The change of climate from the altiplano to the selva was spectacular. We were descending down for a few hours, the engine brake humming non-stop, leaving us half-deaf once again. The vegetation changed in front of our eyes. From the scarce dry shrubbery of the highlands it turned into a lush tropical cloudforest with banana palms, enormous ferns up to 3 meters tall and lianas all over. In the places where the pavement was washed out by seasonal torrents, it was replaced by cobblestone(!), sometimes stretching for several kilometers. After seven hours of travelling (and 30Bs later) we were walking down the streets of Villa Tunari, a very clean and quiet town in the jungle. We camped in the municipal fairground, which was laid out as if it was somewhere in the MidWest USA - huge lawn (funny enough, mowed by machete-swinging men), a half-finished public washroom that was constructed better then most houses in the village and big flood-lights, which were, luckily for us, out of service. Bolvia used to receive a lot of aid from the States - in many villages since we have seen the signs advertising the USAid program to schools, hospitals and the like. Now the Americans are expelled by Evo (yes, they call their president by his first name), and the Russians are brought in instead to develop the gas industry of the country.
Having enjoyed the agricultural surroundings of Santa Cruz for a few days, we headed to Sucre. The shortest way was not the fastest. We went through Samaipata, Valle Grande and Villa Serrano, and it took us four days to thumb through this hilly terrain. What appears as a neat white line on a map from Valle Grande to Villa Serrano is in reality a very bad, curvy dirt road. The sign on the side of the road informed us that we were travelling on ¨Ruta del Che¨. He was excecuted in the near by village of La Higuera, and now tourists flock to the historic site. Most of the time our truck, loaded with peasants and their belongings, was dragging itself a little faster than one could walk beside it. The driver of this truck exceed the usual country rate, asking us for 100Bs for about a 100 kms covered. We offered 20, which he declined. Spitting coca juice and cursing, he screamed: ¨But you have DOLLARES, I know you gringos have DOLLARES, you must pay, everybody pays!!!¨ After a few minutes he realized that no more money are coming his way and accepted the payment.
Dirty, hungry and tired, we entered the capital. We will rest here for a few days, and then continue on towards Potosi and then Uyuni.

Arequipa and the Colca canyon

2010-07-18T16:03:00.000-07:00

Having said farewell to the hippie bunch on top of the hill near Cusco, we headed out for Arequipa with Karan, a first Indian from India we have met on our trip. He was excited about becoming our apprentice in the art of hitch-hiking for a few days. Travelling once again in a group of three did not slow us down, and by the end of the first day we disembarked in a small town of Pucara. It was already dark and freaking cold, so we headed for the church in hopes of finding its doors open and a pastor sitting inside. Our expectations were crushed very shortly, but a kind couple passing by got interested in our plea to find a room free of charge. They took us on a tour of the town and then to a restaurant, which also functioned as a hotel. Our guide-lady had a quick chat with the owner, and soon we found ourselves resting under heavy wool blankets in a room.
Early next day, after a few short rides, we were picked up by a truck going to Arequipa. The slight inconvenience was the fact that we were riding inside a closed box with only a few light beams penetrating the steel walls. The noise inside was deafening and we felt every bump in the road with our bums. After the ride Anastasia´s hearing was impaired for one day. This is what we saw of the landscapes we were passing with this 6 hour ride:We got to Arequipa after dark, where we separated with Karan. He went on a cheap-hostel search while we headed to our CS contact in town. Paul and his family welcomed us with hot tea and dinner, and then even gave us our own room, with a bed and a dresser! We stayed with them for four days. This is the view form the top of their house.After we have rested in Paul´s house, we went off to the Colca canyon, the second deepest in the world. It lays some 200 kms from Arequipa and there are two ways to get there: the easy way and the hard way. Sure enough, yours truly chose the hard way: a long winding desert dirt road that approaches Cabanaconde from the south-west. As we found out later, hitch-hiking there was not an option: all the traffic takes the OTHER easy way, and this road is only traversed by two buses a day. The bus was expensive and full of campesinos carrying loads to their hometown: onions, beans, mattreses and the like.
Once in Cabanaconde, we embarked on a search of a camping spot. We met some french tourists (most tourists in the canyon are french) who informed us of all the dangers of camping out in Peru and suggested a ¨nice¨ hostel which only charges 5 soles per person to camp in a fenced off (read: safe) area. We chuckled, walked a few doors down and obtained a permission to camp on the lady´s lawn for a night for free.
The next day we went down to the bottom of the canyon. It was not as spectacular as we were made to believe (what a surprise!), but it was indeed deep. The trail was steep, long, and rather boring. We met lots of guided (!!! who the hell needs a guide on a meter wide trail???) french tourist groups and a few locals. The ascent the next day was hard. We figured out whose idea it was in the beginning to hike down here at all, and placed all the blame on her. When we reached the top, our hiking day was not over, as we wanted to go to the famous Cruz del Condor the same day, to see the majestic Vultur gryphus early next morning. Here, the ¨Peruvian hour¨ played yet another trick on us. ¨Two hours¨ until the mirador turned out to be a good five, and unaware of it, we mistakenly camped on the first mirador we came across after 3 hours of hiking (well after dark). We woke up early next morning and something felt odd... May be it was the absence of a big sign saying ¨Cruz del Condor¨, or may be the absence of a huge parking lot, or the absence of the birds... We walked to the road, stopped a truck and found out that Cruz del Condor is only ¨30 minutes¨ of walking ahead. After an hour and a half of hurried walking (the sun was rising, the thermal currents were already carrying the birds on their wings high up in the skies, the precious time was going out) we spotted the point. As soon as we got there, an official-looking dude approached us and inquired if we had a ¨boleto turistico¨, which goes at 35 soles. We told him no, spread out our hands, and said that we have absolutely no money for him. He then asked us to pay at least 3.5 soles entry fee (a ten times difference!), but got a negative reply once again. He then nodded, and left us alone. The few tourists who were around looked at us with big eyes, as they were obviously charged for the privilege of observing the birds. We got there for the last ten minutes of the show.As soon as the last bird soared high up, the tourist throngs started pouring in. There was no end to the caravan of buses, big and small, steering into the enormous parking lot. We hanged out there for a few more minutes and started walking towards Chivay. The lanscapes were breath-taking. There was no traffic except for the tourist buses, and, needless to say, these never stop. Finally, we were picked up by a minivan carrying a loar of American volunteers to Chivay. There were excactly two spaces left inside for us.
In Chivay, we went to the market, had a big ¨menu¨ lunch for a dollar and headed for the hot springs. There, we took a long hot shower and soaked in a hot pool for a while. Clean as never before, we walked to the other side of town and got a ride in the last rays of the setting sun with a truck, which dropped us off at the crossroads to Juliaca.
Literally within seconds of disembarking we were already talking with Manuel, an agronomist working at the check point there. He told us that the temperature there drops down to -17 C at night. He then invited us to sleep in his room, and we gladly accepted. The room was built in a shipping container, and it was nicely furnished with a brand new kitchen, two bunk beds and a gas heater. Manuel turned the heater on for the night, but it did not prevent the water in the teapot to freeze solid in the morning!!! We slept under three thick alpaca blankets, in all our clothes and hats.In the morning we shared some mate de coca with Manuel, walked across the road to the truck stop, chatted with the first driver we saw and, in a few minutes, rolled off towards Juliaca.

And, of course, the Machu Faken Picchu

2010-07-03T16:19:00.000-07:00

The plan was simple and elegant: Take a bus from Cusco to Piscocucho (aka km 82), walk the railroad until Agua Calientes (km 110), wait until the nightfall and enter Machu Picchu without paying the pricey $40 entry fee.
The first two points of the plan were completed with relative easiness, although we were turned around near Piscacucho by an official-looking dude with a hand-held radio. He told us it is prohibited for us to walk on the railroad and that if we want to reach Aguas Calientes, we have to buy a train ticket (the cheapest is $35). We pretended to comply and walked back a bit, but then, behind his back, we climbed the steep hill, went up through the bushes and a dry creek bed and so escaped him. We made a big circle through the fields and got back to the railroad a few hours later. We met no more harmful people, so we walked on the rails until the sunset.As it was getting dark, a Quechua woman hailed us from her yard and invited to camp on her land. We happily accepted her invitation and pitched out tent in the meadow, next to the 20 constantly shitting cows. We then cooked dinner on the wood fire in her kitchen.Most of the next day we walked through the most beautiful landscapes along the Urubamba river, saw many ruins and terraces. Trains passed us once in a while, and we waived to tourists who were taking pictures of us.
Around lunch time we reached Aguas Calientes, an ugly town built in a most beautiful valley. All the prices there were doubled, so we walked through to the camping site near the bridge and surveyed the surroundings.
The picture we saw was disheartening: Lots of security everywhere, even on the bridge. You need to buy the ticket to M.P. in advance and present it to be allowed to cross. The bridge is blocked by high gates at night, supposedly guarded as well. Under the bridge, a mighty boiling rio Urubamba. ¨No way¨, we thought. If only we would have looked closer! There is a way, in fact, but we have learned about it only when we came back to Cusco.
So instead of laying out $80 for the tickets, we desided to climb the mountain on this side of the river, Putucusi, free of charge. The forest was full of singing birds and sunlight, and there was absolutely nobody on trail! The reason for that was that the section of the ladders was wiped out by a mudslide last rainy season, and the ascent of the section was difficult, but possible for those without fear/brains, underline the appropriate.We climbed the slippery slope and continued on an impressive Inca trail. The trail mostly consisted of high steps sometimes constructed of huge boulders and sometimes carved right out of the side of the mountain. A beautiful panorama of the archeological site and the surrounding peaks opened up from the top.
We desided that this was as close as we really wanted to get to this jewel of South America. Two thouthand tourists daily on that side and zero on this side looked like a good deal to us. So we came down and walked in the direction of Santa Theresa, leaving Machu Picchu undefeated.
There was a trail along the railroad to Santa Theresa, it was very wide and flat, with scores of tourists walking on it. That´s why we haven´t met anybody walking from km 82, they all come from this side! It is much closer (like 3 hours instead of 24) and the trail is sooo easy, but the lanscapes are nearly not as impressive. After we got on an actual road, we flagged down the first pick-up that went by and got a ride straight to Cusco! Sweet.

Cusco

2010-07-03T15:47:00.000-07:00

Together with Jonathan we easily hitched out of Abancay.After the first quick ride we had to wait a little until a pick-up stopped. Inside was a typical wealthy Peruvian family.The man was a newly elected municipal official, his wife was a meat seller at the market. There was also a driver who did not talk until the very end, and their 5 year old son. Jonathan and George had a pleasant ride in the box, while Anastasia was enjoying the ¨cultivated¨ conversation inside. When they dropped us off, the driver of course started asking for money, but got nothing. He angrily threw an empty plastic bottle on the pavement and sped off. We walked to the shoulder and in a few minutes flagged down a beautiful new Toyota truck, and we rode in comfort until Cusco. In town Jonathan had a CS contact (as usual), so we headed there.The place was a typical hippie-run disfunctional community. There was a lot of rosy talk and meditation, but little useful work was being done... Mariesol and Christian, who were running it, had a beautiful picture in mind: a yoga school for the local kids, an organic veggie garden to feed all and an ashram... The brute work of cultivating the garden and building the yoga temple, as well as more mundane tasks were supposed to be done entirely by volunteers (or CS´ers). The volunteers were supposed to work 8 hour days, as well as buy and cook their own food, do dishes and keep the place clean, with the Head Couple happily overlooking the process. Luckily, yoga, meditations and plain laziness got in the way of this busy program...
After a few days of meditating, we went on a day-trip with Jonathan to see some Inca places around Cusco. The Inca experimental farm in Moray and the salineras near Maras were impressive. As true hitchers, we managed to solicit two rides even on a day trip!After we came back, we worked a bit ¨for the children¨ who were supposed to arrive later and surely appreciate all we have done for them. The job we got was to varnish the entry gate. Much better then demolishing the pigsties out back, so we kept slapping the poison on the wood for two days...

Choquequirao

2010-06-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

We woke up early to catch the only bus going to Cachora at 4 am. Why do buses going to interesting places always leave in the middle of the night? In a classic peruvian tradition, the only seats left for us were in the very back of the bus, as the locals showed up a few hours prior, to get the good seats up front. As soon as we got in, the bus left off. It turned around only once, because the driver forgot to fill up the tank. Once we got out of town, the driver turned the music on loud (at the passengers´ request, at 4:30 in the morning!)and we rolled on.
We found ourselves in Cachora at 7 am, it was a fresh morning, but the people huddled, rubbed their hands and cursed the cold as if it was -30. The cattle was being led down the streets to the pastures. We asked several people the way to the ruins and started walking.
The first 10 kms were easy, the trail was in fact a good dirt road, the sun was shining and our spirits were high.We had brunch at a scenic lookout and started our descent into the Apurimac valley. As we were taking a break at another lookout, Tom (with whom we were stuck on Kuna Yala and then hiked in Colombia) with his friend Kai walked out from around the corner! We hugged and continued on in a group of five. Tom and Kai had an ambitious plan: to do the whole trek in three days.
When we crossed the bridge across the river, the sun was already going down, we were tired and decided to camp below Santa Rosa, on an attractive shelf with lots of dry grass and firewood, overlooking the river. Tom and Kai pressed on to Santa Rosa though, driven by their tight schedule.
Next morning, a little bushwaking through the prickly trees and tall cactuses(!!!), and we were back on the trail again. The trail was steep. And long. It took us an hour and a half to reach Santa Rosa, but Jonathan, light on his feet as an elf, sped ahead of us and was already resting for half an hour when we cought up with him. He turned out to be a much faster walker than us and he usually walked ahead, stopping and waiting for us. ¨You guys stop too much¨ was what he said. From Santa Rosa the trail got steeper, and we got to Marampata a few hours later. This time, Jonathan was already resting for one hour!
From Marampata the trail levelled off somewhat, and we walked to the campground below the ruins. Tired as we were, we had a big dinner and went to sleep in the fresh mountain night.The next day we explored Choquequirao. The site is only 48% excavated, and there are debates whether it should be left half covered by the forest or completely uncovered like Machu Picchu. The site is very spread out. First we went down to the terraces and were blown away by the size and precision of the construction.Monolithic steps connected different levels, and dry water channels were everywhere. According to an archeologist that we met on one of the levels, the terraces go all the way down to the river. It was hard to believe. Going up from the terraces to the main plaza was hard work. When we got to the top, we had a big lunch and dose off in the shade of a tree for a few hours. Refreshed, we explored the palace that overlooked the whole site and then rested the rest of the day on the ritual platform, enjoying the magnificent vista that opened up from there. The platform was made by levelling off the top of the hill and looked more like a spaceship landing ground rather than a religious space. A condor flew close by two times.The next day we descended. We desided not to come back the same way (as most guided groups do), but to go to Huanipaca instead. This way was closer, but steeper. It was hard. Our muscles were still hurting from the climbing of the previous two days, and the trail was punishing for us. When we got to the river, we had a refreshing swim in the mighty Apurimac and walked a bit more uphill to an abandoned hacienda. Jonathan was eager to climb all the way to Kuñalla, but we pleaded to stay where we were. A few new cottages were built near the crumbling adobe ruins of the old house, obviously with an idea to rent out rooms to tourists. There was no one in that night, so we asked the caretaker for a camping spot. He showed us a place in front of one of the cottages, we set up camp, collected firewood and cooked dinner.
Next morning we woke up early to make it to Kuñalla for the 11am bus. This time Jonathan beat us by an hour and a half. Half an hour after we dragged ourselves into the village, the bus, which was actually a truck, got loaded with people and huge bags of beans and left. It took the truck 5 hours of windy mountain roads and countless stops to pick up or drop off passengers and goods to get to Abancay. It was the only transport in the area to the big town for the weekend, so people were heading to town with stuff to sell on the market. Chics and cuys (guinea pigs) in bags, tons of beans, sacks of corn, pig´s bloody body parts (including its head), some firewood, an old dresser and 18 passengers sitting on top of the cargo constituted the load. The wind was very cold, and we were frozen when we finally unloaded in Abancay. Once in town, we headed straight for the bakery, bought sweet cones filled with a kind of brown concentrated milk, and had a good dinner for a dollar in a restaurant. We then went back to Khaled´s place, watched a movie and fell asleep. We will stay with him for the weekend and then go to Cusco.

Out of Lima!

2010-06-13T17:53:00.000-07:00

So we spent four more long days in Lima before the parcel showed up at the post office. We torn it open, but what a disapointment - the pump inside was for another model of the stove!!! The hole where the fuel line comes in was just a liiitle bit too big. So no stove for us...
On the bright side of things, we finally invested in a new camera - Canon A3100 IS, it is very small, fits in a pocket and it seems to take decent photos. We have also picked a good place to stay in town - a ¨hostal de los artes¨. The arts in question were undoubtedly those of sex nature - the whole place was creaking, moaning and heaving at nights. Curiously enough, the hostel had an amazing book exchange shelf, where we picked up four books: Two recent Lonely Planet guides on South America and Peru (a combined value of more then $80!!!), a Penguin history of Latin America and Grandfather by Tom Brown. Our backpacks are weghting us down a bit more, but now we know what tourist attractions lie ahead of us, very convenient.
Getting out of Lima was a usual routine - early rise, big breakfast and a combi to the nearest small town on the highway. As we got out at the intersection, air breakes hissed behind us in under five minutes and we were rolling in a Volvo (almost all trucks in Peru are Volvos, old and new) towards Ica. Going through Chincha Alta was interesting: the driver slowed down only a little bit and all these mototaxis were just getting out of the way.The things were unfolding sublimely, but unfortunately the driver changed his mind about taking us all the way (after telling us that he was actually going to Ica) and dropped us off an hour later at a gas station. It was getting dark, so we asked the owner and set up a tent right there on the concrete.In the morning we got on the road around 7am, and this time waited only three minutes. Another Volvo, this time all the way to Ica. The driver was a friendly Quechua, he told us stories about ghosts up in the mountains where he grew up and asked a lot of questions about life in Canada. He had a good vibe, and we left his truck happy and uplifted. We got off in Ica, at a turn off towards Huacachina, an oasis set amidst tall sand dunes. It was only a few kilometers away, so we started walking, but we haven´t made a hundred steps before a taxi stopped and gave us a lift. Needless to say, we were not tired when we got there, so after waiting out the mid-day sun, we hiked up to one of the dunes and looked around. It was very hard to walk in the sand, but the vista was indeed impressive. Rolling dunes, an oasis with palms, setting sun... We rested for a bit and walked another kilometer into the desert. As soon as the sun went down, the wind started howling and the temperature dropped at least 25 degrees. We set up camp and set on the cold sand, studying the constellations of the southern sky.

In the morning, we finished off our water and walked back to the highway with pleasantly light bags. There we saw a BIG supermarket. Hm, just in time for breakfast! We took our time there and when we got to the road, most of the morning traffic was already gone. The road was filled with local traffic, buses and hundreds of mototaxis. The drivers of these have an annoying habit of honking when they spot you, slowing down by you, making eye contact and offering their services. Every one of them. By the end of the second hour, we felt like grabbing the side of one of the light vehicles and flipping it over. Luckily, another truck pulled over, and we rode in comfort until Nazca. The driver was friendly and talkative once again, and he was even kind enough to stop near the observation tower in the middle of Nazca desert, and wait for a few minutes while we observed the geoglyphs.In Nazca we left our ride at a gas station and walked three tiring kilometers through town. As the sun was going down, yet another truck stopped for us. It was bound for Cusco, which suited us perfectly, as we were heading to Abancay. Jonathan, our french friend, was waiting for us there. The next two days we spent riding with Carlos, at the speeds rarely exceeding 25 km/h. Carlos´s reasoning was that it saved fuel. We bet it did, and an 8 hour journey took us a day and a half. We passed through high mountain platos - altiplanos with blue lakes,
grazing lamas and gracefully trotting vicuñas, canyons with steep walls and deep winding valleys. We got into Abancay after dark. Upon checking our mail we found out that our caring friend Jonathan was already in town, and he had sent us conact info for a CS host with whom he was staying. We gave him a call, and Khaled and Tanya met us a few minutes later. We headed to their place and spent an evening talking with the friendly inertnational crowd that gathered there that night. It was an excellent conclusion to the day!
Today we bought all the provisions for the 5 day hike, and tomorrow, early in the morning, we are moving out to the trailhead in Cachora. We are going to hike to Choqiqerao, the ruins that rival Machu Picchu in size.

Lima and Marcahuasi

2010-06-03T15:16:00.000-07:00

So, we woke up in Huaraz, bid farewell to the hospitable grandma and walked to the edge of town. After a few hours of waiting, a classic peruvian truck pulled over, the one used for transporting cows. It was empty, and we climbed up onto the ¨mom´s attic¨, the part of the box overhanging the cabin. The wind was blowing in our faces and through our ears, the locals all of a sudden turned all friendly and waived to us as we flew by them. The snow-capped peaks were passing by on the horizon and the road weaved it´s way through the narrow valley. The quality of the pavement left much to be desired though. Huge pot holes, livestock on the road and sometimes chunks of road missing due to wash outs made driving very tricky. Our driver was of the best kind, he weaved around cows and donkey, but he had to break hard often to avoid hitting pot holes. These maneuveres almost catapulted us a few times from our nest, but we held with all fours and kept one eye on the road and the other on the landscape. It was difficult, but rewarding.
The truck dropped us off in a small town, we walked across it and installed ourselves for another long wait. It was around 4 pm and the sun was approaching the horizon when a brand new Lima-bound sedan stopped. There was a middle aged couple and a man inside. The couple have immigrated to Virginia a decade ago, and now were visiting their cousin in Peru. They spoke bad English and wanted to show off in front of their cousin, so we kept talking in a mixture of languages. They seemed quite interested in talking at first, but as the sun went down and the topics exchausted themselves, they fell silent. It was another four hours until Lima, and the atmosphere inside got stuffy and uncomfortable. We asked them to stop so we could call our contact in Lima, but our request was ignored, as if we have not said anything. We asked where is a safe place to be in Lima at this late hour (around 11), but they did not know, even though they lived there... On top of that, the driver was driving very badly on the nighttime straight desert highway. At this point we decided to leave this ride as soon as we could. The people in the car were obviously releived when we asked out at a tall booth, in the middle of the desert, an hour away from Lima. It was the first ride that we have ever intentionally abandoned!
Their red lights faded in the night and we went to chat with the policemen on duty. They showed us where we could pitch our tent and gave us some food. We were happy as could be, falling asleep in the desert that night.
In the morning, it was easy to get to Lima, which assaulted our nervous systems badly. The traffic was just crazy. We were in a mini-bus, that was racing through the grid-locked streets. George made a mistake sitting in the front seat, so he saw all the close calls. On top, there was loud dance music blaring from the speakers, driver cursing at everything, simultaneously honking and flooring the gas pedal. Imagine all that after a calm night in the desert!
We had a CouchSurfing contact in Lima. We had high hopes for it, but we should have not expected much. As it turned out, sleeping or taking hot showers were not part of the program. The hosts were very fond of pisco, a local 48% sugar-cane liquor, and they got very loud and drunk up until 3 or 4 in the morning. Plus, there simply was no hot water in the house. The nights got pretty chilly, and a cold shower in the morning was rough. Three sleepless nights was all we could bear, so we decided to leave our hosts and take a trip to Marcahuasi, a near-by high mountain plateau, reputedly a magnetic anomaly and an esoteric point of interest.
We spent next four tranquil days up at 4200 meters above sea level, admiring the mountain landscapes.The town of San Pedro sits at only 3500 m, and it was from this Nepal-looking town that we had to hike the remaining 4 kms to the Marcahuasi ¨stone forest¨.The trek was exchausting. We have not properly acclimatized before hiking, so we had to stop and recuperate every 50 steps or so. We gained almost a kilometer of altitude hiking only 4 kms. It took us 5 hours.
Once at the top, we found a beautiful camping spot and sat down. The effect of the altitude were strongly evident. A walk to the latrine and back left us breathless. Bending over for a piece of firewood made the head spin.The area was heavily used by people, and there was very little firewood available. A stick the size of a pinky finger was considered a log. On the second day we decided to do like the locals do, and burn dry cow dung scattered in large quantities all around the plateau. It burned very well indeed and left us with hot coals in the morning. We boiled coca tea on our little fire of prickly sticks and dung cakes.
The four kilometer wide plateau did not leave us bored, and we explored the ruins and natural landcapes for a few days.Anastasia naively decided to sun bathe one day. 15 minutes of high altitude sun was enough to make all the exposed bits glowing red. Suntanning at 4200m without a sunblock hurts!
We are back in Lima, waiting for a parcel from home. It contains a new pump for our stove, and as soon as we have it, we are moving on.

Cordillera Blanca

2010-05-24T08:38:00.000-07:00

From Trujillo we decided to make a detour into the Cordillera Blanca, reputedly the highest mountains of the continent. The road from the coast into the mountains was the roughest we have ever been on. Big sharp rocks, huge holes and frequent rockslides make 10 km/h the highest comfortable speed. Our first ride was on top of a truck transporting random things, amongst them a sheep and a bull. We were seated on a narrow wooden plank directly on top of the bull´s horns. The truck sped at what we guessed must have been at least 25 clicks, and we were shaken hard on our perch. At first the trucker told us that he will take us for 6 hours. ¨Awesome¨, we thought: a long scenic ride. But after an hour the truck stopped at a desolate crossroads in the middle of the mountain desert and informed us that we ought to take the left road, as he was taking the other one. Damn. There it is on the photo, crawling away.So we started walking in hopes of finding a shady tree. There were none in sight. It was hard walking on the rough surface. In about half-hour a truck heading the opposite direction stopped and gave us bananas and oranges. We ate them immediatly.
We passed a few ghost-villages, with only mud walls remaining. In one of them was a restaurant that was guarded by about 20 dogs. They barked fiercly at us and we made a big loop around the friendly establishment. Finally! A shady bush with a good view of the road. We were hidden under the leafy branches so well that the traffic did not see us at all, so when we saw a car heading our way, we had to leap out like wild bushmen, possibly scarrying a few drivers.
After a few hours of contemplating the red and yellow mountain sides around, we flagged down a Jeep. A true racer was behind the wheel. He floored the gas pedal a few times, and was advancing with an average speed of 40 km/h. He hit the bumps so hard that we were jolted from our seats, he sped around the blind turns and made no attemps of avoiding the big sharp rocks that sometimes fell from the cliffs above. In a few hours we were in Huallanca, where we stopped to eat. As a good omen, as we were leaving town, something burst under the hood and the oil leaked out of the engine (no freaking wonder). We were glad to part ways with our kind but dangerous friend as he took the bus to Huaraz.
We walked a bit out of town in search of a level spot for our tent and came up to a school yard,where we spotted a tent. A french couple was inside it. We decided to camp with them for the night and soon we organised an expedition for firewood, on the other side of the fast flowing river Santa. There was no bridge over the canyon... but there was a busket.You get in and pull the rope until you are on the other side. Scary! When we were on the other side (one by one), we met a grandma who told us that the whole contraption somehow collapsed last year, when four people were crossing at once! Then she wished us a good night and pulled herself to the other side with a huge bundle of grass to feed her guinea pigs. We gathered the wood and crossed back over as it was getting dark. This time two at once (much easier to pull the rope).The next morning we were excited to go through the next section of the road to Caraz. There is a beautiful Pato Canyon and also 35 tunnels in 50 kms of the road! The road was empty at the early hour and we did not think it through when we flagged down the first truck that appeared. We climbed into its closed box and realized that we will miss all the beauty as there was no opening! No, wait, there is a door on the side! And it opens... on the right side, so we watched the rock face fly by all the way. There werea lot of beer bottles, however they were empty. At least we were not in complete darkeness...In Caraz we made up our minds to visit the beautiful lake Paron, surrounded by white peaks and beautiful glaciers on all sides. It was only 35 kms up a very steep and winding road. And no cars. We walked may be 5 kilometers and were completely exhausted. Chewing coca leaves infused us with enough energy to climb the small hill to find a place to camp. In the morning there were no cars again (except for honking taxis speeding up and down) so we walked down to town, exhausting ourselves again. May be it was the altitude (around 2300m), our recent illness or our general weakness, it was hard to say, but no more mountain excursions for us! This photo was our only reward for this fruitless and very hard attempt to visit the lake. The lake is directly under this peak,still a long ways off.Yesterday we walked into Huaraz, a town famous amongst primarily Israely tourists for trekking and mountain climbing. There are tons of agencies here offering all of that and more, but we politely decline their insisting offers. As we were walking towards the main square we met a couple walking in ridgid mountain boots and carrying ice axes and ropes. We shivered.
As we were looking for a spot to pitch our tent for the night, we asked a knitting grandmother sitting on her porch for directions to the beach. In return, she invited us to camp in her garden. We slept tight throught the cold night.

The highlands

2010-05-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

From Chiclayo we went to Chachapoyas. Our first ride was with a director of a nearby archeological site, so we were invited to visit it, free of charge. The erroding pyramids of Tucume were impressive in the setting sun. As it was getting dark, the best camping spot we could find was on top of a small unexcavated pyramid, amidst bee hives and very prickly trees.In the morning, a few short rides and then a truck, all the way to Pedro Ruiz. The truck was carrying bags of cement, and us on top of the bags. The scenery was beautiful, but the cement dust got into every crack! We were happy it did not rain!
In Chachapoyas we reunited with Tolik and Lusine, and also met Miryam and Markos on the street, for the second time since Panama!
The main thing to do in Chachapyas is to visit the Kuilap fortress, an archeological site. It´s quite hard to get to, as the three-hour ride bus ride there leves only once a day - at 3 am. Yes, 3 in the morning. We got together with Miryam and Markos and went. We were the first visitors of the day (at 6 in the morning) and the site was closed until 8. So we were invited to have a cup of coca tea at a nearby hut. The archeologists working at the site, happened to take their breakfast in the same hut, so we chatted with them and they invited us to visit their excavations later. There, we saw skeletons of an ancient sacrifice! Bones sticking out of the earth and workers brushing dust away with tooth brushes and syringes... Impressive. The whole site is little excavated, and there´s a lot more work for the few people who work there. When it is all finished (and getting there becomes easier), we were told that some day it may rival Machu Picchu itself!Our next stop was Cajamarka, and the road there is the scarriest (and most beautiful) we have ever seen. It is a narrow dirt road that winds its way through the mountain ranges, then plunges down to the river and then climbs up again. Oftentimes when you look out of the window, you see nothing but the valley a few kilometers down. There are lots of blind turns and the drivers honk to warn the oncoming traffic. There is not a lot of cars on this road, but if there is an oncoming one, you usually meet it just around the bend.
In Cajamarka we hanged out with Miryam and Markos again, and headed out in the morning. A trucker with his young family picked us up and we stayed with them for two days until Trujillo. Another dusty low-rise desert town, we will check out the pyramids and go to the mountains, to Huaraz.

Sechura desert

2010-05-09T13:39:00.000-07:00

Ladden with a load of fruits and water we take a minibus from Piura to the edge of the desert and walk off into the sunset... The landscape was dry and beautiful, with sand dunes and prickly bushes. As we walk further and further into the desert, we pass a shepherd leading his goats back to the village. After we walked over a few ridges we agree that we want to go no further, put up our tents and settle around a fire. And then the mosquitoes attacked us! In the desert! Crazy.In the morning the rides do not come quick, so we decide to strategically split our forces. Jonathan goes ahead, and as soon as he leaves, we are picked up by a tractor-trailer. The driver is funny and talkative. Half way to Chiclayo he stops for a group of men hitch-hiking, and loads them all in his empty container.In Chiclayo, we finaly meet Tolik and Lusine, go to their hotel and get a room. And in the room, we find a treasure! A plastic bag full of expensive austrian clothes and other travel gear. The jewels of the hoard are: a multi-tool from Navimag ferries, a gasoline lighter, never used, and a sleek flashlight. Who and why would have left all of it behind?We apropriated the find, but if the owner comes back in time, we will give it back.
In the evening we figured our route with the guys: It looks like a lot of bus rides! Oh well, we`ll see what this way of travelling looks like!
Later at night, we reunited with Jonathan (who made it to Chiclayo half an hour after us) and talked well into the night.
The next day we went to the nearby ruins of Sipan with the guys. What looks like two muddy hills at first sight, are actually the remains of huge ancient adobe piramids. In the nearby museum there are a lot of excavated gold objects and descriptions of the tombs.

Ecuador-Peru

2010-05-07T12:12:00.000-07:00

As we were hitching out of Cuenca, a pick-up pulled over, with one hitch-hiker in the back already. His name was Jonathan. He had done exactly the same route as us, even starting from Montreal! As we have forgotten most of our french, we conversed in spanish(!). We decided to travel together for a bit, as none of us was in a hurry to get anywhere... After an hour or so of travelling, we came up to a road blockade, high up in the mountains. The local indigeneous community was protesting against the goverment interfering into the community´s water managment. Private companies were planned to be brought in, increasing the costs (or even privatising) the water. The traditional way of protesting in Ecuador was historically to block roads, preventing all but pedestrian traffic from passing, sometimes for days.(photo by Jonathan)
We alighted and walked to the other side of the barickades. There was very little flow of traffic on the other side, only some people going for lunch to the nearest town and taxis. We walked on a totally empty road for may be half an hour when a van stopped and took us to the next town. Then the rides came so quickly that we did not have time to even make a couple of steps of our own. By the end of the day we covered more than 200 km, way more than we usually do, and that including the road block! Jonathan definitely brought us some good luck!
We got into Loja just before the sunset and got to looking for a campsite straight away. Jonathan asked some señor if he would know of a campsite nearby, in return to which he pointed to an abandoned construction site. The four storey appartment building was perched on a hill overlooking most of Loja and facing directly west. We occupied the central living room and discovered that we are facing a small-scale version of St. Basil´s Cathedral.The sun set behind a furious storm-cloud and we went to sleep.
In the morning Jonathan´s luck only increased. As soon as we walked to the spot, he flagged the very first car down, and his fenominal thumb worked wonders the rest of the day, getting us to the border 8 hours later.There we camped behind a gas station and crossed into Peru in the morning. As we were taking breakfast, Jonathan noticed a truck pulling out. He quickly ran over and got us a ride straight to Piura!The truck was delivering a sort of humanitarian aid to the local population, and in the middle of the ride we unloaded sacks of rice and boxes of soya oil into another truck, heading the opposite dirrection. We hope the aid reached the people!
We find ourselves now in the hot and dusty city of Piura, on the northern edge of the Sechura desert. We only have to cover 6 kms to get to the desert´s edge from here, so we think we´ll stock up on fruits and water and go camp in the desert for the night.Photo by Jonathan.

Ecuador II

2010-05-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

We left Quito late in the morning, it was overcast and we couldn´t see any volcanoes around us. We took a bus to the nearest town of Tambillo on the Panamericana. We started hitching, but somehow we got disoriented and when the car stopped the driver informed us that we were heading back to Quito! We felt stupid, turned around and walked to the other end of town. Again. There was no good take off spot, so we kept walking. It started drizzling, turning to rain later on. It started raining heavily as we were passing a truck scale station, complete with a two-storey building for the the police to watch over traffic. There was a porch on the backside of it and we sat down there waiting for the rain to stop. It didn´t. George was practising his flute and Anastasia was making bracelets. A security guard came up to the sound of music and chatted with us. The building was sort of abandoned but the guard used it to store his things in it. The key to the door was a piece of wire laying on a nearby sill. Anastasia picked the lock in under 30 seconds and we looked around the place. It was empty, had a locked toilet, an empty kitchen and a second floor with a 360 degree view of the landcape and the highway. However, we decided not to trespass and to sleep outside under the cover of the roof. Don´t mess around with the police, man!
It was getting dark and as we were boiling soup for dinner, the same guard came back, showed us how to pick the lock and invited us to spend the night on the second floor. We had a comfortable night as it rained outside.In the morning we walked a bit more and got a lift to Latacunga. There is a very high and beautiful volcano Cotopaxi near it, but the clouds were still hanging low. Another lift to Ambato, with an extremely polite and interesting Colombian, Ivan. How nice it was to get the feel and hear the expressions of that beautiful country once again.
From Ambato we headed to Baños, which we believed to be a beautiful resort town. Anastasia planned to sell some of her bracelets there. Well, Baños wasn´t beautiful. Ten years ago an eruption of the near-by volcano leveled the old town, and the new one was ugly with half-finished disproportional buildings, most of them hotels. 150 of them in a town of may be 10 000 people. Everything for the rich tourist. Lots of offices offering horse-back riding, rafting, waterfall excursions and so forth. We found the cheapest room in town, without even a window. In the morning we felt sick and didn´t feel like partaking in any of the wonderful opportunities which were offered on every corner. There was no traffic heading out of this hole, plus a walk to the hitching spot was up a very steep and long hill. We chickened out and instead boarded a bus to Riobamba and then to Calabamba for a buck. How lucky that we did!
As soon as we plunked our bags on the shoulder and did not even have time to raise a hand, a pick-up pulled over, driven by a Russian-speaking ecuadorian Luis! The ride was long and spectacular, with steep drop-offs on one side and tall walls on the other. In the meanwhile, Luis told us about his university years in Odessa back in the 80´s, his ukranian ex-wife Svetlana and we discussed traditional Russian dishes at length. What a good feeling it was to speak Russian half-way across the globe! Luis was very excited to treat us to a local specialty - cuy, which is a coal roasted hampster. To his dissapointment, we told him that we were vegetarians and therefore could not accept his offer. Instead, he treated us to a spinach soup followed by a big portion of rice with potatoes and an egg at the roadside eatery. Very tasty indeed!
After 4 hours of going throught the mountains, we rolled into Tambo, where we got off to see the Inca ruins, the most important ones in Ecuador. As we were exchanging e-mails, phone numbers and saying farewells, in his excitement George forgot our camera in the truck. Damn.
Anyway, it was raining when we got out so we decided to postpone our visit to the ruins until tomorrow. There was a train station in town with a big roof over the platform. It was the only dry spot we could see so we decided to settle there for the night. Luckily, it was quite boring to just sit and watch the rain fall, so we went to a near-by internet cafe to kill some time. When we asked the owner of the cafe if it was allright for us to sleep at the station, he invited us to spend the night in an empty room in his house instead! So we spend another dry and comfy night indoors.
When we got to the ruins early in the morning, they were just opening up. At the entrance, the lady initially asked us for $6 per person to enter. We made long faces and said that we could not afford such a huge entry fee. She then agreed to let us in for a dollar each. What a difference! It was our first taste of the perfect Inca stonework, but other then that the site left us unimpressed.
Later in the day we got to Cuenca, another beautiful colonial town, and tried to call Luis, who was in town, but his phone was off. So we had nothing else to do but to go to a hostel and wait until tomorrow to meet our friend again and to retrieve our camera.The next evening we met with Luis and he treated us to a superb drive around excursion of the town, complete with an authentic dinner in an authentic ecuadorian eatery, the type that fries its goods on a coal stove out front to lure in customers. A great finale to our stay in town, we head out tomorrow!

Ecuador

2010-04-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

A week ago we entered Ecuador and the mountains rose all around us. Our first night we camped out on a cow pasture with a view of a snowy volcano peak, the first snow we saw in almost a year!In the morning, as we were packing up, a local indigenous farmer Luis came up to us and invited us to drink tea at his house. The day being Sunday, all four generations of his family were home, running a few errands and generally lounging in the sun. They fed us a dietary breakfast of boiled potatoes, corn on the cob and ¨agua de cafe¨, which is hot water with a hint of coffee. We talked for a good three hours, and if it wasn´t for our determination to get back on the road, they would have held us captive all day!We arrived in Quito an hour later, connected with our CS host Alec and happyly fell asleep on her floor.
The next day, we felt sick. General malaise, stomach ache, headache, no energy, diarrhea. At first we thought it was Hepatitis A, except that we did not have yellow eyes. All the symptoms came and went as they pleased, leaving us completely exhausted. The next three days we made regular trips to the local Red Cross, doing blood and urine tests. The doctor saw us pretty much right away (and free of charge, too, thumbs up for the Red Cross!), dispelled our fears about Hep A and prescribed antibiotics and vitamins to take. We feel better now and the symptoms are less violent.
We are now waiting for a letter to arrive from Canada, and as soon as we have it, we will move on, hopefully in perfect health.
In the meantime, Anastasia made a lot of bead bracelets, and even sold her first one for three bucks, and George got himself a cheap recorder and is now terrorizing the inhabitants of the appartment with the lamely-played tunes of ¨Hey Jude¨ and ¨When I´m Sixty Four¨.
We are eternally grateful to Alec for hosting us at such a time, for it would have been terrible to live in a hostel (or even worse, to travel!) in the state that we were in.
A view from the balcony is quite spectacular, too. On clear mornings we can see the snow-covered peak of 5753 m Cotopaxi (if it wasn´t for the clouds, the volcano would have been visible on the photo to the left of the tall wire fence), on wednesday night the beer-bellied taxi drivers play volleyball, and every evening we witness high-class neighbourhood soccer matches right from our balcony. We drink herbal tea and smoothies and cheer for the teams.

Colombia part III

2010-04-19T10:17:00.000-07:00

Despite all the warnings we have heard about Colombia, it turned out to be very friendly, polite (and clean!). The people here, quite annoyed with the stigma attached to their country in the rest of the world (Colombia=drugs and gorrillas), are doing their best to prove the opposite. In fact, several people said to us ¨Thank you for visiting our country, now you can tell your friends that Colombia is not what it is said to be, come to my house...¨This family hailed us over from our hitching spot right across from their house. Senora´s son Christian, who is not on the photo, came over and talked to us at length, he brought out for us a local brew that tasted like cider, coffee, cookies and in the end ivited us to his home to have dinner and spend the night.
Hitch-hiking was not the easiest for us here, though. Waiting times ranged from a few hours hours to a few days! Like in Panama, there are way more buses and taxis on the road, and very few big trucks and we seldomly saw a private car. When we saw one, it was usualy brand new and very expensive. Unlike in Panama, there are lots of motorcycles everywhere, which transport everything from entire families (both parents and two kids) to wheelbarrows, shovels, small trees and even washing machines.
We were enchanted by the quality and variety of Colombian bread! Yellow dough, freshly baked practically on every other corner! Often we had our breakfast in bakeries, with a cup of black coffee.
Our most favourite ride from the whole country happened to be the very last one, in the back of truck, on top of sacks of corn. The road was good and the scenery beautiful.

Colombia, part II

2010-04-12T07:08:00.000-07:00

At one point in our journey we were feeling quite a big urge to do something physical and also something that would bring some positive and actual results... We were longing for work! We said out loud to the universe that we want to rest from the road and find a farm somewhere in the mountains where the climate is nice and COLD! Within a week our desire materialized and we were on our way to an ecological community ¨Atlantis¨, high up in the mountains.
We spent two weeks there, doing farm work, looking after goats and rabbits, cutting firewood, doing carpentry, cooking over a wood fire and thoroughly resting from the travelling and camping routine.
The community is nearly self-sustaining, producing most of what they eat, including sugar and goat cheese. They have a huge garden, lots of banana trees and a vast sugar cane field.
Strangely, we did not feel like taking a single photo on the farm, neither of the beautiful landscapes nor of the folks. Our camera is dying anyway...
During our stay, we met many neighbours, mostly native people. They came and chatted with us, all of them asking similiar questions. We also encountered a group of fully armed soldiers looking for the guerrillas in the region. They travelled in a big group and every soldier interrogated us, asking the same questions as the friendly locals, except that the locals did not have huge guns slung across their chests and big granades stashed in their front pockets. We guess they were all just bored out of their minds. Two days later, we met the guerrillas themselves, them being very armoured and very friendly with us. They shook our hands and asked how we liked Colombia. When the revolutionaries found out we were from Russia, they started smiling and telling us that they were ¨Marxista-Leninistas¨, too. We smilied in return and nodded our heads.

Half way through Colombia

2010-03-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

From the first day of being in Colombia, we met more kindness and hospitality than in all of Central America combined! Bus driver buying us a meal, vacationing family inviting us for a picnik, merchants refusing to accept the payment for a litre of youghourt, families inviting us to stay the night, people on the street starting up friendly conversations...
This friendly family took us up to a mountain stream, where they swam in the cold water and relaxed in the fresh air.
A descriptive name for a youghurt store, isn´t it?
If you show up sweaty and tired, they don´t charge you for what you ask, but instead give sweet treats and wish happy trails.
As we were walking out of Pereira, a couple stopped and invited us to their home to rest for the night. John and Carolina have a small baby, a big dog and a beautiful garden.As soon as we entered their home, the skies opened up and the water came down for a good half hour. We would have been soaked to the bone.
As we parted, they told us to go to Salento, a beautiful town in the mountains nearby. As it was pretty close (20 minutes driving), we decided to walk there. And indeed, we walked most of the way, but as we were about 5 kms outside of town, a car stopped in front of us and the back door was magically flung open...
In Salento, we met Tom, with whom we crossed the San Blas. He told us about a beautful trek nearby, and we all went for a long walk (we estimated that it was about 30 kms in total) the next day. On the way out of town our group was joined by a street dog Mateo, who stayed with us throughout the whole hike.

Crossing the Camarca Kuna Yala

2010-03-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

So started our long crossing of the San Blas Archipelago, home of the Kuna Indians. For better or worse, they are fully autonomous from Panama, they come up and try to enforce laws of their own, prohibit foreign investment, maintain their traditions and way of life.
Our first stop was a small island of Carti, a typical Kuna village build on a very small island, the windowless bamboo huts crowded on it without any apparent planning. The small structures on the sides of the photo are toilets. Some of them are built more solidly than the others. On the village dock we met Chessi from BC, who was travelling on a motorcycle from Costa Rica to Bolivia. When we met, Chessi has already spent two days on the island, waiting for a cargo boat ¨Lya del Mar¨, that was supposed to arrive yesterday, but was delayed. He already knew quite a bit about the surrounding islands, ways of getting to them and pros and cons of different modes of transportation in the region (dug out canoes, powerboats and cargo ships).
There was a military supply vessel docked at Carti when we arrived, bound for Puerto Obaldia. We chatted with the crew for a bit (in Russian!), the first mate and another passenger having both studied in Russia. Amazed by the encounter, the first mate agreed to take us all (and the motorcycle) to the next island, Nargana, the capital of the Kuna Yala. Why they couldn´t take us all the way, remained a mystery.
That is where we spent the next six days waiting for ¨Lya del Mar¨. Many other boats came and went, but they were all going other direction, to Colon. Everybody we spoke to told us that ¨Lya del Mar¨ is in Colon and is coming to Nargana tomorrow. It seemed to be a sort of a joke, this sentence was repeated by everybody for ten consecutive days. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow for sure. If not, the day after it´ll be here.
There was a condemned school on the island, in the process of demolition, which was a joke in itself. It appeared to be a Saturday project for the male population of the village. Thirty men, armed with one sledge hammer and one shovel, were breaking the two storey concrete building by hand, carrying off the rubble to the near-by shore, expanding the island. The second storey was already gone when we showed up, but the lower level classrooms remained intact. We asked the local chief if we could camp in one of them, and he gave us his permission. We cleaned one of the rooms up, found some buckets and crates to sit on, positioned ourselves in the porch and started waiting.
Our activities on the island included: looking around, sitting, looking on the horizon, shopping for bread and eggs (which were sometimes out of stock, in the shops that were open for business only now and then), sowing, talking to locals who came up to us to chat and tell us that Lya del Mar is coming ¨tomorrow¨... We even picked up some Kuna words!
There was a basketball court in front of the school, and we attended every match that was played there.
As the days went by, more travellers came, and at one point, six people slept in our classroom. Two Israelis, Ofri and Tom, joined us for the rest of the journey to Puerto Obaldia. So, there were more of us waiting.
Finally, a cargo ship ¨Yeya¨ sailed in. It was bound for Ustupo, another, bigger, island half way to where we needed to go. Needless to say, we were excited for the opportunity to get closer to our destionation, and to finally change the place of waiting.
Ustupo was much more traditional than Nargana, with more bamboo huts, narrow paths, dugout canoes and with more women wearing traditional dresses.
Ironically, ¨Lya del Mar¨ was supposed to show up on this island tomorrow, too!
The food was much more scarce on this island than on the previous one: no greens at all, no eggs (but lots of chickens running around), bread without salt... The main dish was rice and fried platanos, known as ¨patacones¨, they taste just like potatoes.
This island was much bigger than the others, and there was even some unoccupied land near the beach, where we decided to camp for the first night.The spot was beautiful and serene, but it was infested with swarms of sandflies, which are so small that they can get THROUGH the tent mesh and suck happily on your blood all night long. In the morning we were all covered in little red bumps, like some contagious disease.
The second and third nights we chose to sleep on the concrete village dock, with the gentle breeze keeping the bugs at bay.
On the third day, ¨Lya del Mar¨ finally cought up with us and we leaped onboard.There were 15 more travellers on the boat, and one of them, Alex, we have met on the road back in Mexico!!! As it was a trading vessel, it stopped in every major village on the way, selling sugar, flour, canned goods and beer. It took us two long days before we finally reached Puerto Obaldia.
Here, we waved good-bye to Chessi, Ofri and Tom and teamed up with three other couples from Switzerland, Basque country and Argentina. With them we got a good price on the lancha (a small motorboat) going to Capurgana. Once on Colombian soil, we got our passports stamped and the Swiss cooked up a fiest with freshly cought salmon, fresh greens and a strong marakuya punsh, what a sweet delight it was!
In the morning we got onto another lancha that took us to Turbo, where the pan-american highway began once again.
So, we are in South America!

Panama Canal

2010-02-26T13:24:00.000-08:00

The last week we spent in the historic neighbourhood of Panama City, relaxing and observing the streetlife from our third-floor balcony. Then, one day, we learned of a boat that needed line handlers to transit the Panama Canal. We got together with two other travellers, Romina and Ayack, and went to meet our captain in Portobello.
We got there early, so we had a few hours to explore the old fort that protected the once-richest Spanish port on the Carribean.
Then the captain showed up and we went aboard his yacht.
Next morning we motored to the port of Colon to pick up our advisor, a man telling the captain what to do but not responsible if something goes wrong.
On our way to the first set of locks, Gatun, we saw a lot of big container ships, auto-carriers and oil tankers.

For the Gatun locks, we were scheduled to go in after a ´small´ contasiner ship, so we had to wait to let him pass. As soon as the ship went into the locks we rafted up with two other yachts, us in the middle, and went into the chamber after the ship.
We lucked out the first time, because the linehadlers on other boats had to do all the work and we had nothing else to do but take pictures. We have to say that it was very surprising to see the level of water rise so fast, 30 feet in 3 minutes or so. The procedure was quite simple: the boat (or a raft of boats) is prevented from hitting the wall by four lines attached to cleats on the sides of the dock. The workers onshore throw us their light lines, we attach our heavier lines to them, they drag our lines up and secure them on their cleats. We, in turn, maintain tension on the lines as the water level changes. Easy.
It was getting dark as we got our onto the man-made Gatun lake, so we tied up to the bouy and raised a toast to the succesful first transfer.
Next morning, before the first light, we were underway to the next locks to lower us back down to the sea level. Shortly before the Pedro Miguel locks, we saw the biggest excavation on the Canal - the Gaillard Cut, an impressive mountain moved out of the way a hundred years ago. Wow.The final set of locks, Miraflores, made us sweat a little bit more. This time we arrived well ahead of the other yachts and we did not raft up with anybody, so everybody onboard had a job to do. The things got interesting when one of the workers on shore decided to simply let go of the line, which Anastasia was holding. It took us another five minutes to get the line back to him. Anastasia could not secure the line until it was attached onshore, and by the time the worker caught up, the rope was running out fast. By this time we were already pushed by the strong current dangerously close to the opposite wall of the lock (any captain´s worst nightmare). The advisor made things worse by jumping in and sticking his foot into the cleat (what was he thinking?), instead of helping doing the proper stoping knot. The rope jammed on his shoe and destroyed it, and we had a hell of a time trying to straighten out the boat and undo the mess.
We missed the wall by about a meter, and made it fine to the Pacific. Captain shook our hands and dropped us off at the marina. We went home, showered and went to sleep.

Panama

2010-02-18T12:58:00.000-08:00

When we were in Costa Rica, we heard about this Sendero de los Quetzales, a mountain trail that connects the villages of Cerro Punta and Boquete. It is said to be one of the most beautiful trails in Central America, and it is also famous for the occasional spotting of a local bird, a Resplendent Quetzal. Such a description lured us in, and Cerro Punta became our first stop in Panama.
The trail turned out to be a mostly downhill muddy slide, with huge sections washed out, going through some second-growth cloud forest and wet. No quetzales for us. The best part about hiking that trail was... ready?... a ride in a back of a 4x4 pick-up, down some steepest, narliest gravel road we ever been on. Sometimes it seemed that there is no way this old beaten-up machine can make it up this crazy hill and we had to hold on really tight not to roll out of the box. It was raining too. But the truck made it. On the way down, the driver picked up six other hitch-hikers, local farmers in rubber boots, with machetes slung over the shoulders and a mother with three kids. We were all dropped off at a bus stop, where the paved road began.
A cozy camp sot in an abandoned commercial building and a ride to David the next morning, where the pleasant coolness of the mountains was once again replaced by the unbearable tropical HEAT. After a 3 hour wait in the burning sun, we got one of the shortest rides ever, about a kilometer, which took us to a bridge over a clean, fast running river, on the outskirts of town. We tried hitching again, but the river was too tempting, so we bought a watermelon for a buck and had the rest of the day off, as well as the next day, too. We swam in the river, sat in the shade, did laundry... In this magical spot, we hanged onto the roots over the stream and the water gave our tired bodies an all-over massage. A natural jacuzzi, it was great. So we had ourselves a mini-vacation, if you wish.
The next day hitching was rather slow again, lots of very expensive, brand new SUVs with tinted windows (they even tint the windshield, you can´t see the driver at all) were not interested. Finally, the spell was broken and we got underway. All three rides that day were very quiet, even speachless. The last one brought us to Panama City well after dark. We called our CS host and were soon having a beer with him on his balcony, looking over Avenida Central in a beautiful neighbourhood, Casco Viejo. People say that it resembles the old Havana, with lots of boarded up dilapidated, beautifully ornamented buildings and narrow cobble-stone streets accentuating the colonial glory of the past. Fortunately for us, we arrived right after a big, four day Carnival, a local varietion of Mardi Gras, and we only caught a glimpse of it: the floats being dissasembled, lonely mascots, sitting on the sidewalks, their jobs done, and confetti being swept up by the morning sweepers.
We visited the local marina today and posted out little note there. We will do the same tomorrow in Colon (the other end of the Canal) and patiently wait for the results.

Costa Rica

2010-02-12T11:12:00.000-08:00

We ended up staying for four days with Tim in San Jose. During this time, we thoroughly relaxed, ate proper meals at a properly set table and spent hours on-line...
After San Jose we went to Dominical, where we were hoping to catch up with a couple we met on a beach earlier. The Chance would have it otherwise though, and instead of meeting our friends, we met Noel, who stopped for us just outside of San Jose, his friend Bernadette, who invited us to have some pina coladas and a dinner with a whole bunch of friendly Quebecois from Sept-Iles. After diner we went swimming in a salt-water swimming pool under a heavy tropical rain. It was the first time in our trip that we were getting wet on purpose!
After such a party, a few days of rest were in order, so we camped on a few beaches in the area, entertaining ourselves by splitting found coconuts and chewing the contents for a long while, taking in the sunsets, swimming... It sounds very romantic and relaxing, but believe us, it was SO hot that the sweat was pouring down our faces even we calmly sat in the shade of the palm trees. It got worse during the night, when the feeble breeze seized completely, and it started raining hard, so there was NO air in our little tent. Anastasia had three sweaty nightmares in a row that night.
Two days of doing nothing was enough for us, so we went back to the main road. We wanted to climb the highest peak of Costa Rica, but a $50 entrance fee to the park was way too steep. So instead we headed for Panama.
It was a sublime hitching day for us because we traveled some 300 kms without even raising a thumb! Both rides saw us walking and stopped of their own accord! The second ride, a police officer off-duty, dropped us off near a big river. He kept saying that there is lots of "cocos" in this river at night. We thought that he was talking about cocaine trafficking, but later we figured out that he was saying "crocos", short for crocodiles. He told us to camp further up stream from the bridge, because crocos there were smaller than downstream from the bridge. With such reassuring advice we found a campsite right near the water, upstream, and had a rather sleepless night, listening to the sounds of rustling leaves, which seemed like crocodiles moving around, scheming to devour us together with the tent. Our fears were fueled enormously by the huge crocodiles we saw two days earlier, about 400 kms north from where we were.Nothing happened, of course, and we did not even see any, but we hiked out of there pretty quick in the morning.
The last day of hitch-hiking in Costa Rica we spent 5 hours waiting in San Vito and got into Ciudad Neily after dark. Looking for a camping spot at night is always an adventure in itself, too. We did well though, encamping under a bridge, near a river (too shallow for the crocodiles, we made sure).
All in all, we liked Costa Rica, the cleanest country of Latin America we saw so far. It is expensive, though, and swarms with tourists, which never makes hitching easy. Moving on to Panama, where the Pan-American highway ceases to exist, and we will have to come up with a way to get across the fabled Darien Gap.

El Salvador-Honduras-Nicaragua-Costa Rica

2010-02-04T13:06:00.000-08:00

El Salvador greeted us with good and smooth highways, on par with Canadian ones! Right from the border, we got a ride that was going straight to San Salvador, but we got off early because we wanted to find a good place to camp and not get stuck in a big city. The camping spot was perfect: tall grass, full moon and nobody around. Really hot though. In the morning we hitched to the city, where our senses were assaulted by the noisiest market we ever saw: everything from sweet buns to pens and bra´s can be bought right there, it was difficult to brush off the insisting vendors! In San Salvador we splurged for the first time in our trip: we got a room with hot shower and laundry included, and had the most relaxing evening in months. Next morning, a bus out of town and a ride that was supposed to take us all the way to Managua (capital of Nicaragua). When the pick up pulled over, we did not think there was room for us in the box, but the driver said:¨tranquilo, tranquilo¨, shuffeled a few bags around and we got in.Too damn bad that we did not have enough cash to pay the entrance fee into Nicaragua! So we had to overnight at the border and in the morning go back 50 kms and search for an ATM that is actually connected to the international system... We felt like schoolkids, taking the same exam third time in a row, when are we going to learn the f...g lesson!? Have extra cash stashed away!!!
Having this figured out, we rode from the Honduras-Nicaragua border in the comfort of a vacationing family, and in Nicaragua we were picked up by a Nicaraguan land surveyor, who invited us to stay the night at his house at Managua. His two sons and their friends played a rock gig in our honour in the living room and it was great to meet the real people of the land, you know... Father singing along with the tunes his sons are hammering out, it was goood!
From Managua, a straight ride to Rivas, where we camped on the shore of a freshwater lake, what a blessing! To be able to wash the road dirt off at the end of the day!
In the morning we had some good camp-stove coffee and when we were packing up, an ox cart went by, the driver casually said ¨buenos dias¨ and sped away...
The crossing of the Costa Rican border required quite a bit of patience, for the line up to get your passport stamped was 5 hours long!
From the border to San Jose we got a classic ride in the sleeper of a tractor trailer, spending the night in the cab with the driver...
In San Jose we are staying with a CS host for a few days and then we´d like to explore the country a bit more before moving on. We´ll see what happens!

Guatemala

2010-01-29T11:51:00.000-08:00

The rides all the way through Guatemala came fast and sweet, with the longest waiting time about 20 minutes, we were just flying along!
The four days that we spent there were quite eventful, we have to say.
On the evening of the first day we were walking out of Flores, looking for a spot to camp out for the night. The problem was that the road was lined with a tall concrete wall complete with turrets on one side and a barbed wire fence on the other, with signs haging all over saying that it is a military base, do not pass! We didn't like the idea of an armed soldier waking us up in the middle of the night, so we kept walking. After about an hour or two, we came up to the military base itself, a few buildings and a guard-post lined with sand bags. We asked the soldier if we could camp for the night at the base. He said he had to go get his commander. The commander turned out to be a stubby man with a rank of a mayor, who spoke broken English and some very fast Spanish. The first thing that he did was write down our names and nationality and present us with a Guatemalan flag patch which we think we'll stich onto one of our bags one day. He, in turn, could not give us an answer, because he had to ask his commander, too. Luckily, he was going to see him in a few hours to give his daily report, and he said he will ask about us, too. So we had nothing else to do but sit on our bags, observing soldiers marching to dinner with plates and cups in hand and others walking around with big and most likely loaded guns. After some time, the mayor returned, telling us that the permission was granted. He invited us to have dinner with him and wished us a good night. We were certainly relieved and had a refreshing and sound sleep.
In the morning we woke up bright and early, had a coffee with the mayor and wished him farewell. Half an hour later, we were already riding in the bunk of a tractor trailer, bound for Guatemala City. The trucker was a happy dude, honking at every girl he saw, listening to loud Spanish tunes and chain-smoking all the way. There was also a guard in the cab with us, he carried a pistol on his hip and said very little. We stopped a few times, one time to sell some diesel out of the tanks to some pirate-looking lads and the other time we stopped right in the middle of a very tall, two-lane bridge. The trucker really wanted us to enjoy the vista, so we all got out of the truck, the trucker pissed into the river far below, we snapped a few photos and were on our way again.
The day before we have heard that there is an active volcano nearby, where you can see the lava flow. That surely sounds ecxiting, so we went to see Vulcan Pacaya, near Esquintla. We slightly miscalculated our finances though, so when we got to the turn-off to the volcano we discovered that we only had enough quetzales for a bus back to Esquintla. Oh well, we thought, we'll just quickly go see the lava and be back in town before dark. What we did not realize was that we had to hike 8 kms up the hill, and also pay a tourist fee. The hike was enjoyable, we passed through two villages with no sewer system and when we arrived to the parking area we were met by a machete-wearing man, who asked us for a very steep entrance fee. We made surprized and tired face expressions and said that we just walked up this very hard and hot road, are very tired and are completely out of money! The tactic worked and we were allowed to continue up what now became a steep trail. At the top, the weather was much cooler.
The forest ended and we could see the lava fileds, the main crater puffing smoke and the secondary one oozing a little bit of lava. The lava was not flowing in rivers that day, it was mearly weakly spitting out of the secondary crater, sending some red-hot stones down the slope, a few hundred meters away from us. We enjoyed the sight for a few moments, and went back. On the way down we met a local guide who made his living by taking rich or lazy (or both) tourists up the trail on the back of his horse. He was very friendly with us, we chatted for a bit and he took us to an excellent spot to camp out for the night.
The next day we woke up feeling a bit hungry, we had no fuel in the stove to cook, so we decided to go back to Esquintla, get some cash out and eat. Ha! Little did we know that the multitude of Guatemalan banks do not deal with debit OR credit cards! We tried five or six of the banks, with no luck. The hunger was strong now, the day was hot and we were pretty close to panicking. There was one last hope: on the other end of town, the is a bank that MIGHT help us out. With our last strength we reached it and hallelujah! it worked.
Later in the day we caught a ride with gringo Bruce and his Guatemalan wife Adelia who invited us to come to their house and spend the night. We gratefully accepted and went with them, 20 kms off the main highway, on the dirt road between the never-ending sugar cane fields. When we got to the house, it was full of people, may be around 200, all the family, gather for the funeral of Adelia's grandmother. That night we had some beers with Bruce at the near-by village store, played checkers with a grandmother who kept saying "Ai, ai, ai, Santa Maria!" every time she lost a piece and had long conversations with Juan Jose, a very smart 12 year old who spoke very slow Spanish so that we could understand. We set up the tent while 30 kids followed our every move, giggling that we will sleep in this very small thing. They have also never seen a gringo with long hair, so it took some time to explain to them that in Canada it is so cold that long hair is necessary, and all Aboriginal people up North have long hair to help protect their heads from the cold.
In the morning we loaded into Bruce's car again and followed the coffin-carrying SUV back to the main road. The very first truck stopped for us, and took us almost to the border with El Salvador. There was a low-clearance bridge on the way, so we had to go around it on some dirt roads, again sugar cane everywhere.
Now we are in Salvador, and today was unfolding pretty good. The first ride this morning took us to a volcano-warmed river (the water must have been 25C) so we could have a bath and then bought us some coconuts, and we drank the milk with a straw.
Honduras and Nicaragua is next, and we are still loking for the map!

Belize

2010-01-24T13:32:00.000-08:00

Итак, we have left Mexico. 6000 kms in 2 months, from Tihuana to Tulum. We tried to trace our route in Google maps, but apparently Google can´t follow roads in Mexico. Could anybody suggest a better alternative?
Now come a whole bunch of small, hot and humid countries. Belize is already behind our backs, which certainly feels good. During all the 48 hours that we spent there, we were approached for money more times than in all of Mexico. Partially because of that it was really hard to get rides in Belize, the locals, just like in Mexico, seem to be travelling in taxis to almost everywhere they go, even if the destination is three blocks away. A strip of bad luck hit us in Belize: two cars, one after the other, in which we were travelling, broke down.
After a bit of hustling with the money changers at the Belize-Guatemala border we safely crossed over. Finally we are back to Spanish speaking world, but the hitching part still has not improved. It is really hot and humid, the road is unpaved and there are more damn taxis on the road then cars. May be tomorrow will be a better day?
We have reached the edge on our Mexico map, so it seems like we have to go to Guatemala City, where we think there is a high chance of finding a map of Central America. In the towns we have passed so far the best maps they got are in the backs of tourist brochures. The real maps are simply not in stock.

Tulum

2010-01-21T09:18:00.000-08:00

We stayed in Tulum for three days. We found the public showers, yey!!! No hot water though, but it´s ok. We also went to the beach, swam in the Carribean Sea, relaxed from the road as much as we could, camping in the forest... but we were still sweating, all day, even at night, it is so hot here! The sea is really an amazing array of shades of turquise blue, but it can all change to dark blue really fast if the cloud is passing overhead.

One exciting thing happened to us in Tulum: we met Ferenc and Istvan, two Hungarians walking around the Earth! If that was not enough, the really exciting part is that we were following their blog for almost a year now, and that day we just finished reading their last post, that said that they have arrived in Tulum. We left the internet place, talking about them and saying how cool it would be to actually meet them and lo and behold! There they were, walking towards us on the street!!! Dressed in similiar grey clothes, big bags, beards, it was them!
We camped with them for two nights, listening to their incredible stories from the road, talking about Mexicans and people in general... Wow. We have a link to their blog on the right, check it out.
Our mini-vacation is over, we are going south to Chetumal and then through Belice and Guatemala...

More ruins

2010-01-19T07:54:00.000-08:00

After more rides in the backs of pick-ups, big rigs and cars of all sorts we have arrived to Yucatan peninsula, loaded with mayan ruins. There are so many pyramids here! It´s of course impossible to see them all, so we went for a few major ones like Tonina and Palenque, and it feels like enough ruins for now.
Both of the ancient cities were overwelmingly beautiful and impressive, with steep stairs and underground passages, in some places you can even see the stucco reliefs, some with traces of paint left from a thousand years ago!!!

Following an advice of a friend from Mexico city we came to Tulum, wich turned out to be a congregation of Jeep-driving tourists, with overpriced food and no public showers, damn! We´ll go see what the beach looks like, hopefully there will be a spot for our tent somewhere amongst the palm trees...

Oaxaca

2010-01-10T11:29:00.000-08:00

After our last post, we decided to stay a few more days in Mexico City, and we sure are glad that we did! Our CouchSurfing host´s friend Ulises took us to the Square of Three Cultures, it´s pretty obvious which ones :) The cool thing about this place is that the church is built out of the stones taken from the pyramid, which at its biggest was around 60 meters tall. The pyramids in general were built like this one here: the new, bigger structure is built over top the old one, thus creating many layers inside. These are the different historic layers.
The way to Oaxaca tooks us three days. The weather soured up, which the locals say is unheard of - it never rains in the winter! Well, it did, but luckily for us, we met Carmen and Bill, owners of a temporarily closed retreat in a small village of Agua Escondido. They served us delicious mexican food in big quantities, and showed us some clay artifacts from near-by fields. They let us camp on the veranda, so we were able to pack our tent up dry.
Our next campsite was in the pasture, amidst cow cakes and near this giant asparagus, which is actually a shoot from an agave-like plant.
When we finally got to Oaxaca, our luck dried up (or so it seemed). It was drizzling, cold and wet, and none of the people we wrote to through CouchSurfing replied. As we had nowhere to stay in this busy place, we headed to Monte Alban, only 7 kms up the hill from town. We camped on the outskirts of the main archeological complex, on a platform between three old pyramids on the top of a hill.
Our strategic campsite allowed us to be the first (yeah!) visitors to the ancient city, early in the morning, chilly and beautiful!

Mexico City

2010-01-04T09:46:00.000-08:00

We rolled into the city on an 18-wheeler, the first one in Mexico for us. The driver had no map and we had to ask for directions the people on the streets many times. Nevertheless we made it fine, and met our CS host Esteban the same evening. He is a geek with a big smile and a great music collection, he plays base and cracks jokes all the time! Geeks rule!
We are slowly picking up Spanish and here are some interesting ones (for a Russian ear):
Pruebalo - try it!
Ahuehuete - local tree species
Huevon (pronounced: uebon) - a derivative from "huevo", an egg. The closest translation in English would be a couch potato, a person who does nothing all day.
Huipulco - a name of a metro station

The following several days were a haze of drinking and partying with Estban's many friends. Beer, tequila, pulque... Happy new year, by the way!
On the second day in the city we went to Cayoacan, where we visited Trotskiy's legendary homestead-fortress. Tall walls, turrets, thick metal doors... and bullet marks on the bedroom walls! Brrr, we felt goose bumps on that sunny day.
On Jan.1st we went to Teotihuacan, a grand archeological site, ruins of a city with around 200 000 population at the hight of its glory.
Mexico City reminded us of Moscow, simply replace cactuses and palm trees with snow and cold. Same micro buses, markets by the metro, bakeries and architectural styles. We are heading out tomorrow, bound for Oaxaca, famous for its cheeses, rich cuisine and "hippie" atmosphere.

Michoacan

2009-12-28T10:32:00.000-08:00

Our way from Puerta Vallarta to Morelia was so slow, that sometimes we even went backwards. Just before we got to Guadalajara, we learned about a ¨shaman gathering¨ nearby. We went and witnessed a Huichol ceremony, ¨Raices de la Terra¨ complete with shamanic dances, sweatlodges and drumcircles. The latter two were identical to the ones of the indigenous people up in Canada. We did not take pictures out of respect, and this is the only image we got when walking to the highway after the gathering.
Then we went to Morelia, where we had a place to staÿ: a friend of ours, whom we met in La Paz, gave us the keys to her place!!! We stayed in this beatiful colonial town for a few days, rested from the road and went for walks in the historic town. There were clonial courtyards, huge cathedrals that took 150 years to be completed, and even an aqueduct! This is the view from our front door.
We figured it would take us a few days to get from Morelia to the Monarch butterfly sanctuary, near the town of Ocampo, but our luck was amazing: a straight ride, how would you like that!? We showed up at dusk, when the butterflies were getting together to spend the cold night. A park ranger took us behind the fenced-off area, where we could see an even denser clump of butterflies within an arm´s reach. Our lucky strip did not end up there, for when we asked that same warden where could we camp for the night, he set us up in a huge concrete ticket booth, where we slept soundly until today´s morning.
We are now in Zitacuaro, devising a way to get to the capital of the nation with minimum walking. We´ll probably hitch-hike again :)

Crossing the Sea of Cortez

2009-12-17T12:35:00.000-08:00

There are several ways to get from La Paz to the mainland, but most of them are really expensive and not a lot of fun. The best way to go it is to hitch a ride on a boat, which is exactly what we did! It took some socializing at Marina de La Paz, and after a few days we met Sam, captain of Alluvium, a 47 foot sailboat, bound for Puerto Vallarta. Sam is a great person, very attentive and easy to get along with. Anastasia at the helm:
There were two more people on board, Kenny and Jamie, a father-and-daughter team travelling to Guatemala. They are both experienced sailors, so we felt really safe in their company.
The crossing took two days, and as Sam predicted, the weather was perfect most of the way. It ramped up a bit during the night though, the swells were 6 or 8 feet tall, wind gusted up to 22 knots and the engine broke once, but there was nothing that our captain could not handle with supreme calmness.
This is how the cooking at sea is done: hold on and don't spill!
In the pleasant sunshine of the daytime cruising, we played with dolphins off the bow, saw a whale breach and spotted a few turtles, leasurly floating on the water.

We are now in Puerto Vallarta, a port with huge cruise-ships and a lot of gringos. It is a little warmer and more humid here than in the desert, but the change in flora is surely nice! We'll head out soon, in the direction of Guadalajara.

Baja California Sur

2009-12-17T11:33:00.000-08:00

It is very easy to hitch-hike in Mexico, and riding in the back of a pick-up is an essential part of Mexican life. Everybody here travels like that - from heavyly armed policemen to 2 year old kids and construction workers. Our first ride in the box was three hours long, through a beautiful desert on a nice sunny day.
When we got to La Paz (peace in Spanish), we went to Carlos' house, whom we met throught couchsurfing. He had no room in the house for us, so we slept in his front yard, under a coconut palm. It was really warm during the night, maybe around 12 or 15 C, but Carlos and his family could not believe that we did not freeze sleeping outside.
Through couchsurfing, we also met Edgar, a marine biologist, who took us around town and showed us many different cactuses on the hills around La Paz (these little red fruit come off very easy and taste like strawberry!)
And this huge thing is called Cardon, it grows really slow, so you can say that this is an old-growth cactus:) Edgar also took us on a small roadtrip to a small village of Lopez Mateos, on the Pacific side of the peninsula, where he and his friends run a turtle project, Proyecto Caguama.
Our stay in La Paz was awesome, we picked up some Spanish and made a lot of friends.