And I thought my ears had a lot of wax in them!
Last night I went to sleep with my candles still lit on the windowsill next to my bed. I was sound asleep at 5:30am having some fantastic dream when I suddenly felt like my hair was on fire! I leapt out of bad frantically patting my head and turned on my lamp. What I saw before me was a huge oozing stream of hot green wax all over my windowsill and pillow and in my hair! One of my candles had burned a hole through the side allowing for a nice steady stream of wax to come pouring out of. Luckily there was no permanent damage to my mop of hair and after picking and combing the wax out of my hair and then cleaning a lukewarm lake of wax off of my windowsill I was able to catch a few more ZZZ’s.
posted at: 12:19 | path: | permanent link to this entry
The search for Pompeys Pillar
I first learned of Pompeys Pillar in August of 2000. I was driving to Grand Forks, North Dakota to return to University after spending the summer at home. It was my first time driving a long distance by myself and I wanted to check out the sites along the way. I was in Montana just East of Billings when I saw the brown historic monument sign that read "Pompeys Pillar." I knew it was a historic site along the Lewis & Clark trail, but had no clue as to what it actually was. I decided to check it out so I took the exit and drove along a gravel road for a few minutes to reach an empty parking lot facing a hill. A small sign told me that Pompeys Pillar was on the other side of the hill, to be reached by a footpath. As I usually do along the long drive between Oregon and North Dakota I had a strong desire to get back to Grand Forks and decided to be lazy and not to walk over the hill so I turned around and left.
Pompeys Pillar did not cross my mind again until July of 2004 when I was driving home from a weeklong visit to the Grand Cities. After a day of cruising through the badlands I once again found myself looking at the sign for the Pompeys Pillar exit. It was late at night and I was planning on stopping soon so I figured I would pull into the parking lot, spend the night and check out the site in the morning before I resumed my journey home. I took the exit and in the dark did not see the sign pointing to travel down the gravel road. So I missed the turn but by the time I figured out I was on the wrong road I just decided to keep on driving as I was almost to Billings.
Six weeks later I found myself once more on the road home after spending another week visiting friends in Grand Forks and attending a fraternity brothers wedding. I decided to finally see Pompeys Pillar once and for all. Nothing would stop me this time! I arrived in the evening with plenty of daylight left and confidently took the Pompeys Pillar exit. I took the right road and drove down it a couple miles until I reached another sign that read Pompeys Pillar and pointed to a road that went south under the highway. I made the turn and immediately found myself in the very small town of Pompeys Pillar. I knew that was not what I wanted so I turned around and continued up the gravel road for a bit but never saw anything mentioning the historic site of Pompeys Pillar. So I once again turned around and got back on the highway heading west. Pompeys Pillar had eluded me once again.
http://www.mt.blm.gov/pillarmon/
posted at: 14:27 | path: /Travels2004/USA | permanent link to this entry
The Summer's Almost Gone...
The end of my summer as passed by quickly. After returning from my July Grand Forks trip I did some roofing for my dad for a few days and worked getting the wreath shop office set up and then headed out to Charleston, South Carolina for Pi Kappa Phi's 100th Anniversery.
Over Labor Day Weekend I drove to the Gorge Ampitheater in Washington for three days of Dave Matthews Band shows. It was a spetacular time and I made my debut selling some hemp bracelets that I made.
From the Gorge I headed back to Grand Forks once more to attened the wedding of my friend and fraternity brother Sean Thomas. Quite a few more of my friends were back in town for the wedding and I got to see Pete and Jack, which was great. After a relaxing week in GF, ND I made my final drive home to Oregon and since then I have been working selling Christmas wreaths and pondering where I want to travel next year.
Summer's almost gone
We had some good times
But they're gone
The winter's comin' on
Summer's almost gone
posted at: 13:46 | path: | permanent link to this entry
Back to GF, ND
Last week I made the relaxing drive across 1,600 miles to visit Grand Forks, North Dakota. The drive went well. My dad let me borrow his Honda Accord so I had a/c and cruise control, which made the trip a breeze. My excuse for going back was a "fix the house" weekend for my fraternity, Pi Kappa Phi. But I really just wanted to see all my old friends that I had not seen since last August or before.
I was in town for six nights of partying and helped work on the fraternity house for three days. I painted, getting the little storage shed we have knocked out and getting the main room in the basement painted, except for the ceiling.
Grand Forks looked great. The town is having a beautiful summer with lots of sun, a nice breeze and a steady temperature in the 80's F. It was definitely nice to visit but I am kind of glad I left when I did. Most of my good friends have all moved on so there are only a few left that are still holding down the fort. But the trip was definitely worth it and I look forward to returning again in September for another visit.
posted at: 14:18 | path: /Travels2004/USA | permanent link to this entry
Goose Soup
This last weekend I went to Eastern Oregon to pick up pinecones with my dad, brother and a crew of five workers. We found an abandoned golf course where there were loads of huge pine trees and subsequently loads of pinecones. We spent two days working, which was basically the same five second action repeated for seven hours each day. Walk a few steps, find a nice pinecone, bend over and pick it up, but it in the bucket and repeat.
We camped out on the golf course and while I was resting my tired legs some of the workers found a few geese on a nearby pond. One of the workers ended up chasing a baby goose until it made the fatal mistake of running into some bushes instead of returning to the lake. It was at this point "Nacho" pounced on it and captured it. He brought it back to our makeshift camp to show off his prize and right as he was about to let it go one of the other workers, the "Burro," grabbed out his knife and cut the goose's head right off. Goose blood started squirting out and the birds beak kept opening and closing even though the head was severed from the rest of the birds body! At this same time a local resident was walking by with his dog so Nacho quickly shoved the moving bird body into a plastic bag and hid it under my brothers truck. The dog walker came by and chatted for a minute and then carried on. The workers then started to de-feather and clean the goose and butchered it to make soup with. But they didn't want to eat it because they didn't have any salt. So they spent like two hours working on this soup and didn't eat it. They said they would save it for the morning when my dad (who was driving the first load of pinecones back to the farm and then coming back) could bring them some salt. So my dad showed up that morning with some salt but by then the workers were not too excited about eating the soup. So they put the pot into the back of my brothers truck with our other camping gear and it rode around with us all day as we worked. We came back to Troutdale and none of them wanted anything to do with the soup. So it just sat there in my brothers truck.
Yesterday we ended up feeding part of it to our dog and some of his dog friends who seemed to quite enjoy it. So it didn't go to waste after all.
posted at: 02:24 | path: /Trabajo | permanent link to this entry
I feel home
Last Monday, July 5th, I left my hostel in La Paz at 4am to start my journey home. I had a full day of flights taking me from La Paz, Bolivia to Santa Cruz, Bolivia then onward to Miami, Florida, USA where I had to wait forever to collect my baggage in order to finish clearing customs. After finally making it out into the airport I only had forty minutes before my connecting flight was to leave so I had to run the whole length of the semi-circle airport to board my flight to Portland, Oregon via Houston, Texas. I finally got to Portland just before 11pm and then took the light rail train to Gresham and walked an hour to get home.
The only person I had told about coming home was my friend in Australia, Pete, as I was planning on surprising everyone else. I got to my parents house about 12:45 am, exactly 24 hours after waking up in La Paz to head out. All the doors to the house were locked so I knocked on the door leading outside from their bedroom and gave them a real shock. They were very happy to have me home. The following day I continued the surprise by visiting all my grandparents.
Well I've been away but now I'm back today, and there aint a place I'd rather go.
posted at: 22:44 | path: /Travels2004/USA | permanent link to this entry
El Salar de Uyuni
Last Friday June 25th I left Potosi headed for Uyuni to find a tour to the Salar de Uyuni (the desert and salt flats). I took a taxi to the bus station only to find out that buses to Uyuni left from a different office about five blocks uphill from the station. So I wandered over there and bought a ticket for the 11:30am bus. About 12:30pm the bus finally showed up and we started the journey. Everything went fine for the first few hours. We blew a tire later in the afternoon but it was easily fixed and we were on our way again. About 5:40pm we encountered a roadblock on the road. We waited a few minutes and then the bus turned around to find an alternative route around the roadblock. It was about 6pm by then and the driver told everyone what they were planning on doing. All of the locals on board started getting really upset then because they thought that the other road we would take was too dangerous to travel on and they wanted to wait for the road blockers to go home. Which for some reason they thought would be at 7pm. So after a bit of arguing the driver decided to wait it out. So we sat on the bus until about 6:45pm. The road blockers had left and all the men from the bus went outside to clear the rocks off of the road. Some of the people who were cold started lighting up the small bushes that lined the desert to stay warm. There were not very many rocks on the road and we had about a dozen of us moving them. I was thinking "This is too easy!" when we discovered the huge pile of sand blockading the road. The sand was about four feet high, a bit wider then the road and forty feet long with rocks buried on the inside. The bus tried to drive over it but was not even close to making it so it backed up and two shovels were produced and we started digging. It took about an hour to dig out a path for the bus to drive through. We finally made it to Uyuni about 9pm and were greeted by a throng of tour operators. I already knew what company I wanted to go with and headed over to the Colque Tours office with three English folk I met on the bus ride (Roger, Fiona & Libby). They had spots for the next morning so we signed up for the same four day tour.
We left around 10:30am on Saturday June 26th. There were only the four of us plus our driver & guide Raul so there was plenty of room in our Land Cruiser. Our first stop was the train graveyard just outside of town then we visited a tiny village where salt was processed and bagged. Then it was on to the amazing Salar de Uyuni which is a huge salt flat. Workers scrap the salt into piles and then load it into trucks to take to the little village. All the work is done by hand and each huge pile of salt sold for only one boliviano each (about 15 cents).
The salt flat was amazing and we spent our first night in a hotel on the edge of it. We drank them out of beer after only three bottles so we had to switch to $2 boxes of red wine. But then magically towards the end of the night more beer showed up. At 10pm we were sitting there drinking and hanging out and they shut off the power generator without telling anyone so all the sudden there were half a dozen drunk people stranded in the dark. But we managed to make it to bed and the next morning our group (everyone else was drinking tea) was the last to get up and head out.
The second day of our tour we left the salt flats behind and headed across the desert. We visited several lakes and the Arbol de Piedra which is a rock sticking up in the air that looks like a tree. The whole area around there had just amazing rock formations. We arrived that night to the "cold" hotel where it supposedly got to below zero temperatures at night. There was nothing to do and no beer to drink so we all went to be before 9pm and tried to stay warm.
Day three we got up nice and early and headed out at 7am to go and see the geysers. About 15 mins away from the hotel our car quit working. Raul tried to fix it for a bit then walked back to the hotel to get help. So I waited in the freezing car for an hour while the English recreated lawn bowling with rocks. Raul finally came back with some help and the guy in the other car unhooked his radiator hose and sat there holding it while all the steam poured out. While he was doing that Raul jacked up the back of the Land Rover. Then he started to tighten up the fan belt. I asked them what was wrong and they said there was ice in the motor. Not sure what all the other stuff was doing to get the car working but after a while they gave up and towed it back to the hotel. The Land Rover that had come to rescue us had a group of gringos waiting for it back at the hotel so they went off on their tour and Raul went with them to try to find us a new car. So we were left with the little Bolivian family that ran the hotel who kept laughing at us. So we pulled a table our into the sun and drank coffee and played cards until Raul came back with a new car and driver at 11:30am. So we pilled in and continued our tour to the geysers, a hot springs and some more lakes. Around 4pm we met up with another car from our same tour company which had Ned the 19 year old Welshman and Yuval the Israeli. Everyone else from the four Colque tour cars had continued on to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile so the six of us were the only ones left to finish off the fourth day and head back to Uyuni. So we said goodbye to Raul who went back to take care of his car and headed off for a three hour drive to our lodging for that night. At our hotel we were fed and they had an amble supply of beer. So we ate and drank and then a musical group from the villages school came to entertain us for a bit with Bolivian folk songs. Monday night was my sixth month anniversary of leaving home and well spent I think. We had loads of fun that night.
Our fourth and final day, Tuesday, was mostly spent driving back to Uyuni. We stopped at a few different villages along the way and got back to town around 2pm. We hung out during the day at a restaurant with a very smoky fire pit and then I caught the train to Oruro at midnight with Roger, Fiona and Libby. They headed off to La Paz on the bus and I went off to find a Hostel. I slept for a bit and then hung out around Oruro. It is a very cold place and not too exciting.
Today I am going to head off to La Paz in a bit and chill out there for a few days.
posted at: 12:27 | path: /Travels2004/Bolivia | permanent link to this entry
Bolivian Mining
Thursday June 24th I was in Potosi and went on a tour to the mines there. It was a gringo tour so I once again figured it would be an easy enough venture, but was once again wrong. The tour group met at the tour office in the morning and we headed off to get ready for our tour. The tour company gave everyone a pair of waterproof pants and a coat and a hardhat with a lamp. Then we went to the Miners Market where we bought some presents for the miners we would see on our tour. I bought a stick of dynamite with a detonator and five minute fuse and a bag of some chemicals (ammonium nitrate?) that magnify the explosion for 16 Bolivianos (US$2) and a liter of 96% Alcohol for my presents. Others bought some coca leaves and sodas and waters for presents. After our shopping venture we drove up to the mountain where the mine is that looms over the town of Potosi. The mine was first started by the Spanish in the 16th century and then silver was the main mineral, however nowadays it is mostly zinc they mine because all of the high grade silver is gone or still hidden deep in the mountain.
So we arrived at the mine and started our tour inside. During the first bit I only had to duck a little but the shaft was very narrow. It was ok and there were no worries yet. We visited the museum which was near the entrance and saw a effigy of the devil (El Tio or The Uncle) as the miners call him. The miners offer the statues of the devil coca leaves and cigarettes so that they will have good luck and find silver during their workday. So we finished up in the museum and started the real bit of the tour. The mine we were in (there are loads of different ones) had six levels to it. We entered through the top level and after walking for a bit we came out to a bit of a open area in the shaft. We stopped there and divided up into two groups, my group had six gringos the other five. Our guide Pedro told us about the mine and we rested up before heading down to the second level. To get to the second level I had to crawl on my stomach to fit through this little passageway and then crawl on my hands and knees downwards before sliding down the rest of the way. It was about this time I realized that there I was way in the middle of this huge mountain in a little tiny passage with no easy way out. So I tried to block that out of my mind. We walked through the second level for a while, it is here that it started to get warm and I could really notice how dusty and sticky the air was. We were soon at the passageway to the third level which was much easy to negotiate then the first to second floor passage.
Upon arriving on the third level we met a group of miners working hard. Basically one group of guys would work together in one section of the mine that was theirs and would share all the profits made by the group between them. Some of the miners whacked the walls with picks to break off the minerals and then would dump the minerals into a big wagon which was on railroad tracks. Once the wagon was full, two men would push it and two would pull it with ropes as hard as they could and it would barley move because it was so heavy. They would then have to take it to the end of the mine shaft and then come back for more.
We gave the miners some of the presents we had brought and then moved down the shaft to see the miners in action. After watching them work for a bit we reached the passageway to the fourth floor. I started down but after getting a good look at the passageway backed out. It was a narrow hole that one had to kind of slide through and then grab onto a ladder and then cross over to another ladder below. I thought there was no way I wanted to be down there. I was terrified enough in the "roomy" shafts we had been through already and had no desire to battle my fears. So I hung out at the top of the passage and waited until the group came back up ten minutes later fully covered with sweat and relived to feel the "clean & fresh" air of the third level. I was very glad I did not go down.
We had been in the mines for about two hours at that point and then started back up. I was not looking forward to the small passages I would have to go through but did not have much of a choice. We took a different way back up to the second floor which kind of turned into the passage up to the top. First there was a wooden ladder with shaky wobbly steps which got us up to the second floor then the same passage back up to the top. It sucked so bad. I had to crawl up this incline not knowing what was in front of me because I had to look where I was crawling and kept hitting my back and head into the rocks above me. Towards the top I started getting really out of breath but had no place to stop and had to keep crawling upwards. Finally it started to even out a bit and up ahead the rest of my group had stopped to rest. When I got there I plunked down next to Pedro to try to catch my breath. He started to blow on me to cool me down and after a few minutes I was good to go. We started off again but luckily while scrambling up to the top floor I had navigated all the worst parts in a frenzy and during the rest of the way did not have to crawl again. Just a lot of ducking. Most of the mine looked the same to me so I had no clue how much further it was until I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. It was at that point when I could see the sunlight pouring in and feel the fresh cold air from outside that I realized what that phrase really means.
I stumbled outside covered in mud, dust and sweat and very happy. After resting up for a couple minutes it was time for our dynamite demonstration. Our guides showed us how to prepare it and then lit the fuses. After lighting the fuses they passed around the bags of dynamite to hold and then went and tossed them in a nearby field. After a couple minutes of waiting they blew up. I was prepared for a loud bang but even so the explosion made me jump. Really, really loud. Then they drove us back to town and that was that. I will be happy if I never go in another mine ever again.
posted at: 17:55 | path: /Travels2004/Bolivia | permanent link to this entry
Sucre Update
I have been in Sucre for the last few days. It is pretty nice here. All the buildings are painted white. I have just been talking it easy getting ready for the next spurt of travel west to the desert and to finish off my Bolivian tour.
posted at: 17:59 | path: /Travels2004/Bolivia | permanent link to this entry
Amigos De El Che
This week I had one of the best experiences of my entire journey so far. I visited the village of La Higuera where Ernesto "Che" Guevara and his fellow troops were hunted down, captured and murdered by the Bolivian Army and the CIA in October of 1967. I guess I should start my tale from the beginning.
I started my journey in Santa Cruz de la Sierra which is a huge city in Eastern Bolivia. My guidebook did not have much to say about my upcoming journey to La Higuera. It said to take a bus to Vallegrande where there are Several pleasant, basic places to stay on or around the plaza. It gave a few details about taking a bus from Vallegrande to the village of Pucara from where there is transport to La Higuera. It also mentioned some Che tours and said if considering a tour, book locally, not from La Paz. Fair enough I thought. So while I was in Santa Cruz I walked around and looked for a tour operator but did not see anything of the like. Oh, well I figured. Once I get to Vallegrande there will be all kinds of people trying to get me to go on their Che tour.
My journey started on Tuesday (June 15th) and the only one bus I could find that went from Santa Cruz to Vallegrande left at 6:30pm and arrived at 1am they said. I was not wild about arriving in a new city that I knew nothing about at 1am but I figured how bad could it be. So I got on the bus and it started out with only myself and one other passenger on it. Interesting considering how full the other buses I had been on so far in Bolivia had been. Kids laying in the aisle and people standing for hours and hours because there were no seats. But the bus plodded along for a while and soon we stopped to pick up some more passengers. But only a few people got on board. So 1 am came and went and I could only see blackness out of my bus window. Finally about 1:30 am we rolled into town. I asked the bus usher kid where there was a hotel and he pointed and said towards the plaza. So I walked up to the plaza which was only a block away and looked around. No hotels or anything. So I picked a street to walk up and didn´t see anything that direction either. I went back to the plaza and picked a different road and started heading up it. The whole time I didn´t see a soul around. All of the people who were on the bus with me had promptly hopped into taxis and disappeared. As I was walking along a couple blocks I spied another plaza and figured this must be the plaza the kid and my guidebook were talking about. There was a residencia right on the corner so I rang their bell a few times and waited but no signs of life. Moving on I found a couple more residencias but no one was home at those either. Shit I thought. What am I to do now. So I picked another street and walked up it. I came to a residencia with some lights on and could hear some people talking and a tv going. I rang their bell and knocked and waited and waited but no one came to the door. So I went back to the plaza. There was a place that I thought might be a hotel but had a weird word on their sign. I knocked and the door creaked open. I poked my head in and shouted "Hola." But didn´t hear anyone. So I crept in slowly and looked around. I found myself in a courtyard with possible bedrooms all along the upper level of the courtyard. So I walked up the stairs hoping I would find an empty room I could crash in and figure things out in the morning. But all the rooms where under construction and there were no beds anywhere. So I quickly made my way back out to the plaza and closed the door. I was considering sleeping on one of the many park benches, but was not wild about the idea. I decided to go give one more knock at some of the places I had already tried. I was walking across the plaza when I saw a taxi creeping along the street. I hailed him and asked him if he knew of a hotel that was open. He said sure so I hopped in and off we went. Two blocks down the street and he pulled up to a building that was still being built. He said it was a new hotel. It was 2 am and I did not really care too much as long as I was not on the park bench. So he knocked at the door for a bit then I heard a woman say she was coming. Whew! She opened up and was super friendly and took me up to a room. I drifted off into a deep slumber and was awoken at 10:30 the next morning by someone knocking on my door. I answered and there was a different lady who started spouting all this stuff off and the only words I could pick out were man, work, key and room. I told here I didn´t understand and then she just walked away. Not quite sure what to make of it I decided it was probably time to get up and try to track down a Che tour. So I got up and hit the streets of Vallegrande. Things looked much better when it was not the middle of the night and I walked up along the main street and over to the first plaza that I had seen but did not see any tour places. So I decided to eat and then deal with it. I popped into a place and had their lunch which was soup followed by chicken and rice. I admit that I don´t really like to try new weird foods but I was really hungry so I was going to eat whatever they brought me. The soup had some very odd mystery meat in it. At first I thought the small round meat tubes were ham but after trying some of them I am still stumped as to what they were. Anyways, I ate most of the food and then set out of figure out how to get to La Higuera. I stopped to talk to a taxi driver and he reconfirmed my guidebook´s bus story. But I wanted to go then, I did not want to have to wait until the next morning and try to hassle with all kinds of crazy buses. The feeling that I was in the middle of nowhere was starting to sink in. So I took the kid up on his taxi offer of 150 BS (US$20) to drive me to La Higuera. First we headed over to my hotel to grab my pack. He dropped me off and went to go get some gas. So I go to walk into the door to find a big fat lock on the door. Great I thought. I tried fiddling with it and tried my room key even though I knew it would not work. I stood there calling out "¡Hola!" hoping someone was inside even though I knew no one was. So I stood back and surveyed the situation. I knew I didn´t want to stand here all day waiting for the owners to come home. There were no windows yet and on the part of the hotel that was going to be the foyer they had two large windows that were covered up by a big piece of metal. I pushed the metal and it gave way, it was just held up by a board from the inside of the hotel. So I removed the metal and was about to try to climb in through the window when I heard some lady shouting behind me. The lady who had woken me up this morning. She disappeared for a second and then came back waving a key. Then our conversation from this morning made sense to me. The owners were going to work and left the key with her. So I apologized for the window and put the piece of metal back. She let me in and I paid her then ran up to my room to grab my stuff. My taxi driver, Jamie, showed back up and we were off I thought. But apparently Jamie was worried about driving so far away (60km) and he kept asking me how long I was going to stay in La Higuera. One hour? Two? I told him I was going to stay a couple days and he didn´t seem to like that idea so he tried to find another taxi driver to take me. But apparently no one was up for the trip. So we went off to go and get gas which he had apparently not done before. Then stop by his house so he could grab a quick lunch and then we were off. It took a good two and a half hours to get to Pucara and along the way Jamie and I talked about a bunch of different stuff. He asked me why I was going to La Higuera and I told him to visit Che. He said "oh, is he still there?" I said well no they took his body to Cuba in 1997. Then Jamie asked "oh, is he living in Cuba then?" So I had to give Jamie a brief history lesson about Che. Jamie was more concerned about what kind of food we had and how big people were in the USA though. In Pucara Jamie had to ask directions on how to get to La Higuera. I asked him "Haven´t you been there before?" "Once, but it was night and I wasn´t driving." Alright then. So we got some directions and kept driving along for the last bit of the drive. We finally made it to La Higuera. Jamie pulled the taxi up next to the big bust statue of Che and tossed my bad out and got out of there in a flash.
So I am standing in this remote Bolivian village next to the Che statue with my backpack and no clue what to do next. There were some buildings around mostly houses but two little stores. The statue of che and a little plaza with another statue of Che. And that is La Higuera. A lady peeked her head out from the store and beckoned me over so I headed over and said hi and asked if there was anyplace to stay here. She said yeah, just wait a minute. Apparently the gringo alarm had gone off the second my taxi pulled up and the call went out because shortly after an older guy with hardly any teeth strolled up to me and asked if I needed a place to stay. Yep I said so he told me to follow him and we went down the street to the old school house where Che was held prisoner before he was murdered. After that he took me to the new school house where they have a dormitory with four bunk beds. So I tossed down my pack in the empty room and went to see the next item on the agenda, the schools library. My new buddy, Manuel started asking where I was from and he was amazed when I told him I was American. He said that Americans did not come to La Higuera very often. He told me he had some dollars that he wanted me to look at. So I went back to his house with him and while he was searching for his dollars inside a little old lady, Manuel´s 110 year old grandmother, came hobbling over the wood and rock fence from the corn field. She could barely walk and had a constant shake going. Manuel came back with a $100 bill and said that someone had given it to him in 1998. In La Higuera it is hard enough to get change for a 100 BS (About US$13) much less a $100. Manuel asked me to change it for him so I did, giving him the four twenties I had and then the rest in Bolivianos. After that Manuel hopped up to grab his Che book that he had. But Manuel dosen´t read so he flipped through the whole book showing me all the photos in it and telling me about the Cubanos. He said he would come and get me in the morning to take me to the El Churo valley where Che was captured. So I left Manuel´s house and headed back towards the school, stopping to buy some snacks at the shop. There were a couple little kids following me around so I invited them to play cards with me. So we played war for a while and then their mom called them home. So I just relaxed and went to bed early that night.
Thursday morning Manuel comes in to collect me a bit before 8am. I had just woken up and was still laying in bed so he said something about having a coffee then we will go to El Churo. So I got ready and headed out front to street but did not seen Manuel anywhere. The lady from the "other" store beckoned me over and fixed me a coffee. The town drunk was already hard at work finishing a beer at 8:30am in the store. I finished my coffee and headed off to find Manuel. I went to his house but he was not there so I went back to the plaza and hung out there for a while. He showed up just before 9 am with a small machete and asked if I was ready to go. We started off walking on the road for a bit and then set out onto a dirt path going uphill. Manuel was wildly swinging around his machete clearing the path for us as we went. There were some pretty steep parts so I got to breathing pretty hard and that led Manuel to enquire about my weight. I told him that I was 140 Kilos and that just blew him away. He said that I needed to live with him and eat what he eats for a month and then I would be 100 Kilos, which was as he figured it as much as anyone ever needed to weigh. I agreed with him. So we kept walking along with Manuel turning around every now and then to say "140 Kilos, keep walking." We made it to the top of the ravine and then started going down a very steep incline. That part was easy enough but I knew that I would be dying on the trek back up. All along the way Manuel would point out where the Army soldiers had been positioned, which was pretty much all over the place as they had 1,800 soldiers in the area to capture Che´s small group of twenty or so revolutionaries. Che had been trekking along the river near there and after a few encounters with the Army had become trapped in the valley. As Manuel and I walked down to the valley floor Manuel pointed out where Che and his troops had been chased and finally we reached the spot where Che had been captured. He had been shot several times in the leg and his rifle had been shot and he was taking cover behind a large rock with one of his soldiers when the Army troops surrounded him. Che told the Army troops "Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead." So they captured him and took him back to the school house in La Higuera. Manuel and I stayed there for a bit while I took in the area around me. It was pretty erie being there and I could imagine the gun shots being fired and the soldiers running around through the bushes and trees. After a few photos Manuel and I started the long trek back to La Higuera. It had taken just under two hours to reach the end of our hike and took a tad bit longer to get back to town. Along the steep climb back up I had to stop and rest quite a few times and as we sat and rested Manuel would tell me about Che and his troops. How they had visited nearby villages and talked to the villagers and when they collected food from the villagers they always paid for everything that they took. Manuel told me that the day after Che was captured the troops there received the order to kill him. So two soldiers went walking down the street with a beer in both hands and arguing over who would shot Che. The soldier entered the school house drunk with is gun ready to shoot Che who was bound and laying on the floor. As the solder hesitated before he shot Che told him "Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man!" And then gun shoots echoed throughout the village as the villagers were hiding away in their houses. After a bit more sweating and grunting I made it back to the top of the valley and to the road. We were pleasantly strolling back to town on the road when Manuel suddenly jumped back as a meter long snake slithered in front of us. Manual swiftly chopped it right in half with his machete and then pried open the snakes mouth with a stick to show me the fangs. After that excitement we made it back to town and had some lunch and a few beers. Then I went off to take a nap and rest up.
About 7 pm Manuel came into the bunkhouse to get me and we went next door to the store for some beers. We had a couple beers then I went down to the other store to have dinner. There were a couple of guys just totally drunk there and the Señora made me some dinner which was unfortunately the same thing I had for lunch. Rice, carrots and potatoes which was good when it was warm at lunchtime. But the second time around it was cold and not quite as tasty. But I munched down as much as I could stomach and headed back to the first store to have a few more beers with Manuel. There was another lively villager in the store and the younger Señora who owned the store. I kept buying the beers and the four of us were drinking and having a good time. While I was gone at dinner two boom boxes were produced and the music was flowing. The folks there took a keen interest in me and kept asking me about the USA and how far away it was. When I told them that I had been to Chile, Argentina and Peru first they didn´t know what to make of that. Santa Cruz de la Sierra was as far as most of them had ever been. They all wanted me to come back and buy a house in La Higuera. They said for a $1,000 I could buy a real nice house with two rooms. I think around midnight or so we learned that there was no more beer. So the Señora mixed up some sort of concoction that we drank for a bit. Then I said my goodnights and stumbled back to my bed. I was just about to crawl into bed when Manuel came in and we ended up staying up for an hour or so having a drunken conversation. Then he took off and I went to sleep.
I was sleeping away when I heard the door open and Manuel came in and sat down on my bed. It was 9am. He said that there was a car in town that was going to leave later that afternoon and would take me back to Vallegrande. Good I thought. So I went back to sleep for a bit. Manuel came back a while later and told me that the car had left already. Manuel asked the driver to wait but apparently they didn´t want to. But Manuel assured me that on Fridays there was lots of traffic through the town so it shouldn´t be a problem. So I started to get up and get ready. I had just come back from brushing my teeth in the very deluxe bathroom (seriously!) and Manuel came in with the two little kids in tow to tell me there was another car in town and the driver was waiting for me. So I packed up really quit and headed out. But when I got outside the car had left! So I set up camp on the side of the road to ensure that I did not miss another opportunity. I only had to wait about half and hour before a taxi came driving into town in the direction of Vallegrande. So I ran down to the taxi and the guy asked where I wanted to go, I said Vallegrande and he said get on in. I was set. So I grabbed my pack and hopped in the back seat. We drove down the road a bit and the guy in the passenger seat got out to go have a jaw flap with one of the locals. There was a little old guy all dressed up with his slacks, sweater and top hat in the back seat with me and the young taxi driver. I shortly figured out that the guy in the passenger seat had hired the taxi and was driving around visiting his friends and looking for cows to buy. So after a bit he was ready to go and I said goodbye to Manuel who had sauntered over to the taxi. He said "Bye, I shall see you when you return." and we drove off. After a bit we arrived in Pucara and stopped there while the guy went around for about two hours to talk to people. It was nice day out and they have a nice plaza there so I hung out and there was a group of locals who were taking a mid day siesta and invited me to share some beer with them. Eventually the guy came walking down the street with this huge bull and as he stopped to talk to his buddies who were hanging out in the plaza the bull started to ram a small van that was parked on the street. So the guy ran the cow down the street and told the taxi to follow him. So I climbed in and we were off. The guy put the cow in a fenced in pasture on the edge of the village and we started the drive towards Vallegrande. We got to town and it looked a lot nicer then my first trip there. Maybe because I knew I could find a hotel because it was still daylight! So I headed back down to the plaza and and went to the Hotel Copacabana. I rested up for a bit and had a shower to cleanse off the dust and headed off to try to figure out the bus scene and find some dinner. I went to the bus office which had a sign saying they had buses to Sucre, which is where I wanted to go, and asked what time they left. The lady started in on this confusing deal saying that I would have to switch buses in a town called Mataral but that the bus left at one pm. So I said ok and I paid for a ticket. Then I reconfirmed that the bus was leaving from the office at one tomorrow. She said, no you have to go to Mataral on another bus down the street and then wait for your bus in Mataral which will come at 7pm. Ok, I thought. Easy enough. I went and found a place to eat and had a great hamburger and a ice cold Coca-Cola for 5 BS (70 cents) and went back to my hotel room.
Saturday morning and I was going to try to escape from Vallegrande. I got all packed and walked around to get some photos. I figured out where my bus left from and had a great lunch at the same little restaurant. As I was walking over to the bus I noticed the strap on my red daypack was about to come unsown. It had come undone a month or two ago but I had sewn it up then. But this time it looked a lot worse. I passed a shoe repair shop so I popped in to see if they could fix it up for me. The kid at the sewing machine said he could certainly fix it and while he was working on it a really drunk guy came into the shop and started talking to me. I was talking to him and asked him, "Are you fixing your shoes here?" The kid fixing my backpack and his buddy both looked and me and rolled their eyes and told me he was the owner of the store. Herman was a very friendly guy and invited me to sleep in his store if I wanted. But I politely refused and told him I had to catch the bus in a bit. After the kid was done repairing my daypack I had some time to kill so I bought a couple beers for us to drink and then headed out to get on the bus. On the bus ride I discovered that my CD Player and only source of entertainment had gone tits up. The radio still works but for some reason it won´t spin the disc around or after starting it and stopping it a bunch will but makes a horrible sound and will only play about half a song before stopping. I also discovered that I had lost my sunglasses at some point in the recent past. We reached Mataral after only and hour and I got off the bus, almost forgetting all my cds, but a lady handed them to me out the window. I asked the bus helper guy where to wait for the bus and he pointed across the street. He asked if I was going to Sucre and I replied that I was. He said "Oh, your gonna have to wait a long time. The bus does not pass until 8 or 9 at night." Not much I could do I thought and I started my waiting by the side of the road. Mataral is basically a few little shops and restaurants and a fork in the road where truckers stop to have a snack and check their tires ( quite a past time for Bolivian drivers! ) It was 2 pm. Around 4 I went across the street to have a Fanta and kill some more time. But after nursing my Fanta for two hours I went back to my waiting spot. I had no music, no book to read other then my guidebook and nothing to do. So I sat there. Seven o´clock came and went and no sign of any bus. Eight o´clock came and went and still no bus. An old guy who was waiting for a different bus asked me where I was going and when I told him Sucre said "Oh, that bus does not pass until late. Until 10 or 10:30." Well there was not much I could do but wait. After it got dark it was hard to tell which of the approaching vehicles were trucks or buses so at every approaching headlight I ran out to the side to the side of the road to hope that it would be my bus. There were some smaller buses that passed and stopped but they were all going to local towns near there. Nine came and went and then a few buses started to come. I was pretty sure that the bus company that I had a ticket for was named Bolivar. But I didn´t care and was ready to hop on any bus going to Sucre even if I had to buy another 40 BS ($5) ticket. Four big buses blew right past me without even thinking about stopping and I was hoping that my bus would be kind enough to stop. I figured that they knew they were supposed to pick me up because the lady at the Vallegrande office had called the Santa Cruz office to book my ticket for me. But I didn´t put too much faith in that. So I waited a bit more. Finally I saw my Bolivar bus approaching and the glowing "Sucre" sign in the window beckoning to me. So I started waving my arms like a madman and it stopped for me. I tossed my backpack below and hoped on board. My receipt that I had said seat number eleven. But I knew that there was little chance of my seat being empty, but I did not care. I would have sat on the floor. I hoped and and went back to try to find a seat. The driver turned the inside light on and there were kids lining the aisle and everyone in the totally packed bus was soundly asleep. The bus helper kid asked for my ticket and I gave him the receipt deal I had been given. He said "No, where's your ticket?" and I told him that I had already paid for it and this was all I was given. So he tells me to wait a second and goes back up front. Then all the lights go out and I am standing in the isle with a bunch of kids behind me and unsure of where any empty seats were. So I waited a few minutes for the kid to come back but he never did. Luckily a friendly passenger told me there was an empty seat towards the front so I hobbled my way up there and sat down relaxed and damn happy to be on the bus. We drove all through the night and finally made it to Sucre about 7:30 am.
Eating pizza for lunch today while listening to The Beatles and watching a steady stream of gringos walk past the restaurant I was a bit sad that I had left the peacefulness and beauty of La Higuera. But I sure will not miss trying to get there or away again!
posted at: 18:59 | path: /Travels2004/Bolivia | permanent link to this entry
Bolivian Boredom
After La Paz I took the bus to Cochabamba. Stayed there a few days and then took the bus Saturday to Santa Cruz de la Sierra. It was long twelve hour bus ride through the jungle. I have been hanging out in Santa Cruz the last couple days and going to leave tomorrow night for Vallegrande. Not much exciting to report as there is not much exciting going on.
posted at: 19:50 | path: /Travels2004/Bolivia | permanent link to this entry
In La Paz.
Yesterday morning (Sunday June 6th) I took a bus from Puno, Peru to La Paz, Bolivia. At the border we all had to unload and walk across. However it was a big fiesta weekend and when we arrived at the Bolivian side of the border everyone was at the church marching around and signing the national anthem and other songs. So all the gringos from the several buses were all lined up outside of the closed immigration office waiting for the parade to get over. It finally did and we loaded back onto the bus and were on our way.
But here is my favorite part...
We drove 8 KMs down the road to the town of Copacabana, Bolivia where we had an our to get lunch and afterwards change buses. When we first arrived into town a guy hoped on board to collect the city tax for entering Copacabana. It was a one Boliviano tax so about 14 cents American. And all of the sudden all these tourist start freaking out and bitching to the poor tax collector guy. "We were not told about this." "Were going to La Paz, we just won´t get out of the bus!" "We refuse to pay!" And they did. At least two girls flat our refused to pay. Other people were bitching about it and eventually paid. But it just pissed me off that these fucking tourists have no respect for the places they visit and can be such ignorant cheap assholes. I really hate other tourists a lot of the time. Oh yeah, and of course these people did not even attempt to speak spanish but blather about in english like everyone should understand them.
But that ugly part out of the way. Copacabana is a really cool town, even though I only saw a little bit of it. It is right on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. I am definitely going to stop back there a couple days on my way back west.
The bus rolled into La Paz around 5pm and parked at a hotel and hostel somewhat near the center of town. I had a hostel picked out of my book near the center of town and figured that it was only about five blocks away or so from where I was. Right away a taxi driver asked me where I wanted to go and I told him and he quoted me two Bolivianos (about 25 cents), but I figured it was not very far and wanted to stretch my legs after being in the bus all day so I told him no thanks. I asked him which direction it was towards the Plaza San Francisco which was near where I wanted to go. He pointed me in the right direction and off I went. I was having a hard time figuring out where exactly I was on my map so I kept walking and asked a few more people where the Plaza de San Francisco was. They kept on pointing me all the same general directions. While I was walking I got to witness the end of the fiesta, Which meant lots of drunk people passed out on the sidewalks and even more drunk people all dressed up in nice clothes staggering around. It reminded me of one end of the night at one of the fraternity parties we used to have. But I kept walking and walking and tried to find myself on my map but when I did it never made sense because it looked like I was walking in the wrong direction. But I figured the local people must know where one of their own central plazas is, right? But apparently not. Eventually I ended up at the Plaza Sucre which I was able to easily locate on my map and figured out that instead of heading the four blocks north that I needed to go originally I had walked about 1 K east. So I had my bearings down at least and started the trek back towards the center of town. It was at about this point I had wished I had taken the taxi guy´s offer, but at this point I figured I set out on foot and I was sure as hell not going to give in a take a taxi now. I made it with little difficulty after that and made it to the hostel fine.
After resting up a bit I set out to wander the streets some more. It was pretty weird because I saw some people that were on the bus from Salta, Argentina to San Pedro, Chile with me walking around as well as some people that ate in the same restaurant as me the night before in Puno. They have lots of cool stuff for sale here though. Like basically any American CD you could want, all for only 10 Bolivianos (about $1.25) as well as any number of DVDs including movies that are still in the theaters now.
There are lots of hills here, the whole city is in one big canyon. It is hard work to just walk around too because La Paz is 4,000 meters high (13,123 feet). I am going to stay here a couple more days and then head east.
posted at: 14:05 | path: /Travels2004/Bolivia | permanent link to this entry
The Colca Canyon and More...
Wednesday morning (June 2nd) Thomas and I crammed ourselves into a van and headed out on our two day Colca Canyon tour. We left Arequipa about 9am and started driving north towards the village of Chivay. We finally arrived around 2pm after making a few stops at random barren locations where women had set up souvenir stands. Once in Chivay we had our lunch then got carted off to our hotel. A bit later that afternoon I went with the rest of the group to a hot springs near town for an hour long soak. It was very relaxing and had some super hot water in the pool. At night we went with the group for our dinner and were treated to a traditional folk show, which included some guys playing traditional instruments (guitar, flute thingies and drums) and a couple dancing all over the place.
Thursday morning we got up nice and early at 5:30am to drive two hours to see the canyon and watch condors (really big birds). We got picked up last so I had to sit in the jump seat that folded down in the isle way. A couple minutes after getting in the van I leaned back to reach into my back pocket for a tissue and (SNAP) the seat broke. I put too much pressure on the seat back and it broke the little bolt holding it up. We were going to spend all day in the van as we were headed back to Arequipa that night and the seat was bad enough in working condition and without the seat back it just totally sucked. So at the first stop I talked to my buddy the driver and he monkied around for a bit and ended up taking a bolt out of a different seat to fix it. Whew!
We got to the Colca Canyon around 8am and hung out for about an hour watching the condors fly around. It was absolutely amazing scenery and a very big canyon. I think it was 3,300 meters (10,800 feet) from the top of the mountains to the river flowing through the bottom of the canyon. After our hour was up we went on a little walk to another viewpoint a bit away and were treated to some more great views. Afterwards we loaded back into the van and started back towards Chivay. Along the way we stopped at a lookout where the canyon turned into a big valley full of farms and terraces. Amazing stuff! Once back in Chivay we were treated to another substandard lunch and eventually made it back to Arequipa around 5pm.
Thursday night Thomas and I had our final supper at La Italia and Friday morning Thomas left to make his way towards Santiago, Chile for his flight home on Monday night.
Friday I also departed Arequipa and made my way towards Puno. I got on the noon bus and was cruising along until we reached a town about an hour north of Puno. There all but eleven passengers got off the bus so the bus company sent us the rest of the way in a colectivo van. Most of the ladies on the bus with me got really mad about this but I just went with the flow. We got in the van and started going with no problems. About half way there though there was a pick up spot on the highway and we pulled over and a few more people got in. We ended up with nineteen people in a regular sized van. It was a little crowded and the ladies from the bus with me got all riled up. But we only had like 20 mins to go so it was no big deal. Once in Puno I hoped out at a point I figured was somewhat close to the center of town and the hostel I was planning on going to. The ladies in the van with me were overflowing me with information on how to get to the center of town and where it was so I ended up not really sure where I was. But a friendly bike taxi guy made the fatal mistake of approaching me and asking me if I wanted a ride. So I told him the hostel I wanted to go to he said "Cicno Soles." (About US$1.40). So I hopped on board and we headed towards the center of town with the poor guy pushing me most of the way. He really earned his dinero on that trip so I gave him a bit of a tip which he seamed very happy about.
Today I am going to visit some Inca ruins near here and then in the morning head off for La Paz, Bolivia.
posted at: 14:20 | path: /Travels2004/Peru | permanent link to this entry
¡Arequipa, Arequipa!
Thomas and I arrived in Arequipa, Peru on Saturday (May 29th) night. We left Arica in the early afternoon to head to the bus station only to find out that to get across the Chile - Peru border ment transport in a Colectivo. So we wandered over to the colectivo area and hired one of the many people with huge old shitty cars to drive us across the border for C$2,000 (US$3.30) each. We ended up having to wait almost an hour for our driver to secure three other passengers and we finally set out for the hour drive to Arica´s sister city of Tacna. Once we got to Tacna we found bus tickets for Arequipa with no problem but had a couple hours to kill. So we sat down at a little lunch counter in the bus station and I tried to order a Inca Kola but got a chicken sandwich instead. Which wasn´t bad as soon as I got my Inca Kola to wash it down with. On the bus to Arequipa we watched one of the strangest movies I have ever seen. It was an American gang/robber movie that was so poorly made and acted that Thomas and I just could not figure out how it possibly made it´s way to a bus in Peru. But at least it was in English.
We made it into Arequipa about 9pm and hired a taxi to take us to our hostel. The taxi driver told us that the hostel we wanted to go to was closed but he knew of a much better one. So I told him to take us there anyways and of course it was open and welcoming. Poor Thomas contracted my illness of last week on Saturday and came down with it way worse then I had it. So the last few days Thomas has been recuperating himself and today is doing much better. Luckally the hostel had a wide range of movies for us to watch (including Star Wars!) but when I asked if we could watch them the hostel worker said "The VCR is in my flat." And that was that. No movies.
So we have been hanging out in the "White City" of Arequipa the last few days just resting up and playing lots of Yatzee and War. We have dined at the Italian restaurant of legend (from our previous visit to Arequipa two years ago) a couple times and last night listened to the blind accordian player who played for us two years ago! It is very interesting making a second visit here. It seems like there are way more gringos here then before though. Which is kind of a shock after being in Chile and Argentina where there was a significantly less amount of gringos.
Tomorrow we are going to head to the Colca Canyon for a couple days and then Friday Thomas starts his journey back to Santiago, Chile to head home on Tuesday and I am going to go to Puno and then to La Paz, Bolivia.
posted at: 17:27 | path: /Travels2004/Peru | permanent link to this entry
Onward and Upwards...
Our time in Salta was pleasantly spent. On Sunday (May 23rd) we took the bus to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. The road takes a pass over the Andes mountains which was 5,200 meters (17,100 feet). Being at such high altitude caused my stomach to rumble and tumble and I felt like I had a bayonet twirling around in there. Add to that a headache and difficulty breathing and it all adds up to a very miserable twelve hour bus ride. Thomas and his iron constitution did not have any trouble and pleasantly read his book during the bus ride.
After arriving at San Pedro we had to walk a bit into town from the customs station on the edge of town and got settled in to the Hostel International. San Pedro is a very cool little town with adobe buildings and dusty streets. The town and desert landscape is straight from the planet Tattoine (Star Wars). On Monday we did a tour to the Valley of the Moon, Tuesday a early morning (4AM) tour to the Geysers and Wednesday we did an all day tour to the Salama salt flats, some lakes & mountains and a caynon. After getting back to San Pedro at 6pm we hopped onto a bus and headed for Calama which is about an hour and a half away.
In Calama we checked out our bus options and found that there was a bus leaving at 9:30pm heading overnight to Arica, which is where we wanted to wind up. So we bought tickets from a little too friendly ticket agent and headed down the street to the local pub to kill the time before the bus. The bus ride went well and we got to Arica at 6am. After a quick taxi to the hotel we slept off the travel weariness and had a look around town. The plan from here is to head to Arequipa, Peru.
posted at: 09:23 | path: /Travels2004/Chile | permanent link to this entry
The Salta Update
Our foray into Paraguay on Tuesday was interesting. We took the bus from Puerto Iquazu for about an hour (only that long due to the traffic) through Brazil and over the Friendship bridge into Paraguay. The part of Cuiduad de el Este that we visited was basically a big market and really not that nice. However, Paraguay is blessed with a wide variety of Fanta flavors and the only thing I bought during my short stay in Paraguay was a strawberry flavored Fanta. Delicious! So we trodded around and got harrased by people for a few hours and then caught the bus back to Puerto Iquazu. And that was that.
Our long bus ride went pretty well and flew by except for the last couple hours when we knew we would be arriving soon and started getting antsy. Today we have been touring the town of Salta and took a cable car to the top of a hill overlooking the town. The plan from here is to leave Sunday morning for the Chilean town of San Pedro de Atacama.
posted at: 18:58 | path: /Travels2004/Argentina | permanent link to this entry
Oh Iquazu Falls
From Rosario we took an overnight bus north to Posada. Upon arriving in Posada we waited around a couple hours at the bus terminal and got on the next bus to Puerto Iquazu, which is a town very close to Iquazu Falls. The bus was of the local variety and we spent the next six hours picking up and dropping off a variety of people about every 10 minutes and visiting each little town and side road along the route to Puerto Iquazu. But we made it finally and got settled in fine.
Today (May 17th) Thomas and I visited the mighty Iquazu Falls. Simple put, it is an area where the river has 275 waterfalls all contained in a fairly small area. There were two main areas to see, one with lots of walking paths and the other with a grand view from above the falls. There is a little train that drops people off at each spot. Along the walking trails there were a variety of different views of the waterfalls and we could get very close at a few spots. We took a little boat across the channel at one spot to get a closer view of the smaller of the two main clusters of waterfalls. Then after getting back up to the train we visited the Garganta del Diablo (the Devil´s mouth). The view from there was amazing as we were basically right on top of a huge cluster of waterfalls with many more all around us. But that spot was easier to walk to so there were loads of people all over and was a bit crowded. After heading back towards the train we discovered a raft that offered to take us down the river back to the train station so we decided to go on that. It was very cool and we got to see some turtles, alligators and some different birds. At one point the boat paddler slash guide motioned for me to come close and then flicked something off my shoulder. It was giant ant that had landed on me I guess. I am just glad it was not a spider! After disembarking the boat we had a short walk back to the entrance and caught the next bus back to town.
Tomorrow we are going to attempt a foray into Paraguay and then come back to Puerto Iguazu to leave tomorrow night at 9:45pm to head to the town of Salta. It is going to be an endurance test as we will not arrive into Salta until 11pm on the following night. So about 25 hours on the bus which is unfortunately not the Cama (the best kind) class that has three seats across but just a Semi-Cama which has four seats.
posted at: 18:20 | path: /Travels2004/Argentina | permanent link to this entry
Heading away from B.A.
We stayed in Buenos Aires from Monday until today (Friday). Thomas and I had a great time exploring the huge city and checking out it´s many sights. We took a city tour one day, visited the Recoleta neighborhood, did a shit load of walking and ate at a bunch of different restaurants, saw the movie Troy, and of course had our obligatory dining experience at the Golden Arches.
Today we headed four hours north to Rosario on a very stuffy and hot bus and the plan is to head further north towards Iguazu falls tomorrow on the overnight bus.
posted at: 18:00 | path: /Travels2004/Argentina | permanent link to this entry
In B.A.
Well, when we were planning on going on the overnight bus we showed up at the station in Viedma only to find there were no buses going that night. So we chilled another night in Viedma and bought a ticket for the overnight bus on Sunday. In Viedma little kids seem to be very intrigued by me. At one restaurant we went to there was a kid who was staring at me the whole meal then when he went to leave he came up to me and asked me where I was from and I told him and then he looked like he was thinking "Ok, that makes sense," and then said "bye". The other day at the bus station a little kid was starting at me so hard he walked right into a chair!
The bus journey went well though. We left at 7pm and got in at 7am this morning. Stopping at a restaurant to eat a meal that was included in the bus fair. My only problem on the bus was they had the heater cranked on high and I was literally sweating all night. But better then being too cold.
We checked into the Hotel Marbella this morning and slept for a bit and then today walked around for a while and checked things out.
posted at: 16:44 | path: /Travels2004/Argentina | permanent link to this entry
On to the big smoke…
We left Trelew yesterday and caught a bus north to Viedma. We had a ninety year old taxi driver with no teeth take us into the center of town and checked into another posh hotel for about US$16. Ate some more pizza last night. There seems to be more pizza restaurants then any other kind here, but that is fine by me. Tonight we are heading on the overnight bus to Buenos Aires.
posted at: 12:55 | path: /Travels2004/Argentina | permanent link to this entry
Cinco De Mayo Update
Happy Birthday Pa!
Today we took the bus north to Trelew. It is a pretty nice town that was originally a Welsh colony. Today we visited the Museo Paleontologico Edidio Feruglio which has a whole bunch of dinosaur skeletons. It is really cheap here in Argentina. Here in Trelew we are staying at a pretty nice big old hotel and it is only A$45 (US$15) for a nice double room. We were paying about the same for much more rugged places in Chile. Other things like internet and food and really cheap as well.
posted at: 16:34 | path: /Travels2004/Argentina | permanent link to this entry
The last week of Chile... And the beginning of Argentina!
Last week Thomas and I went on a tour to Parque Nacional Torres Del Paine. We left Friday morning (April 30th) a little after 8am. There were nine of us in total, including two couples who had been on board the Magallanes with us, a pair of crazy Italian guys and a cute Japanese girl. First we went to the Monumento Natural Cueva Milodon (The Milodon cave) which is a cave where the remains of a 10,000 year old giant sloth were found a while ago but today all their is is the cave and a big fiberglass replica of what the Milodon looked like. After that we drove for about an hour or so to get to the national park. We were supposedly behind schedule and our driver was really putting the pedal to the metal, which scared some of the old people on the tour. But I think he just liked to drive fast anyways. Thomas and I were in the front seat of the van right behind our driver and our tour guide, José. They were talking to us the whole time and cracking jokes. They shared their Mate with us too.
Mate is originally an Argentinean drink and is a a strong tea. The tea leaves are put in a mate cup (or a gourd is used traditionally) and then filled with just a little bit of hot water. Then it is drunk out of a metal straw that has a sieve on the bottom which just allows the water to get sucked into the straw. Then more hot water is added and the cup is passed along to the next person. I liked it a lot.
The park is just amazing though. It was definitely the best day I have had on my whole adventure so far. All over Chile there are huge mountains but the mountains there were just spectacular. We had perfect weather too and could see everything. We made lots of photo stops at various look outs and got out to check out the Salto Grande (Big Salt) Waterfall. It was super windy there! After that we headed to this super fancy hotel in the park to have lunch and then after that walked across a suspension bridge to the Lago Grey (Grey Lake). At the other side of the lake from where we were there was the Grey Glacier which just comes right down off the mountains and into the lake. Amazing! After visiting the lake we started our drive back to Puerto Natallis and got back around 6pm.
On Saturday we took a tour to the Parque Nacional Bernardo O´Higgins on board the boat 21 de Mayo. We left at 8am and took about four hours to get to the main attraction, The Serrano Glacier. We docked at Puerto Toro and walked along an easy 1200 meter trail to get pretty close to the glacier. Both Thomas and I thought it was a little disappointing compared to the scenery we saw the day before. But overall it was ok. On the way back we stopped at a Estancia (Farm) where most of the people had lunch, but Thomas and I just hung out for the hour we were there because the lunch was a real rip off price. We got back to town about 5pm.
Sunday we took the bus south three hours to Punta Arenas, which lies on the Straight of Magellan. The "beach" along the straight was about the most disgusting and filthy beach I have ever seen I think. Arriving on Sunday almost all the stores and restaurants were closed but we found a place to eat that had empanadas(which are a Chilean baked burrito sort of thing). Later that night I went out drinking with some travelers I met at the hostel. An English guy and a couple from Greece. We had lots of fun and ended up finding a small restaurant open on the way back to the hotel after the pubs closed and had a delicious sandwich called a "Boca Loco," which is like a steak sandwich with cheese and mayonnaise.
Monday we caught the bus to Rio Gallegos. We decided to forgo Tierra Del Fuego and instead spend more time in (hopefully) warmer climates. We were in Rip Gallegos just for a few hours, hit up the ATM to get some Argentinean money and had a big feed. Then we hopped on the night bus north and got off at small town (13,000 people) of Caleta Olivia. We got here this morning at 7am and my guidebook only has two paragraphs about the place, mostly talking about attractions that are over 100 Kilometers away from the town. For the first time in South America we had a problem finding a hotel. We got a taxi from the bus station and he took us to three different hotels that all told me they were full. I think they just were scared of gringos or something though. We got lucky on our forth hotel though. It´s nice and sunny here today and I think it´s further north from here tomorrow probably.
posted at: 16:24 | path: /Travels2004/Chile | permanent link to this entry
Puerto Natales Report.
I survived the boat ride. It was pretty fun actually. The Chef on board moonlighted as an electric keyboard player at night in the pub. He was actually a way better musician then a chef, but that is not saying too much either way. It was smooth sailing most of the trip, however, on the second day we had to venture out into the open sea for a while and it was very bumpy on board. They had free sea sickness relief tablets though and after taking one of those I felt fine. There were only about thirty passengers on board (in the summer the ship is full and can hold like 300 passengers) so it was pretty cool because everyone got to know each other. Yesterday we had our only stop on the boat which was at Puerto Eden, a small village of about 200 people. We got off there and walked around for an hour or so and got back on the boat. And that was that. So now I am in Puerto Natales and tomorrow we are going to go on a tour of the Torres Del Paine National Park and then bugger outta here on the next day.
posted at: 15:59 | path: /Travels2004/Chile | permanent link to this entry
Onto Patagonia
Tomorrow Thomas and I are going to set sail on board the Navimag ship Magallanes from Puerto Montt, where we are now, to Puerto Natales. We should arrive there on Thursday. It cost US$275 each, which is pretty spendy and my guidebook says that it´s both cheaper and quicker to either fly or to take a bus through Argentina to get to Puerto Natales, but we figure the voyage should hopefully be worth it. The boat goes through the fjords of Patagonia, which should be cool.
posted at: 16:43 | path: /Travels2004/Chile | permanent link to this entry
Nate is home!
One of my best friends and fraternity brother Nate Reierson recently returned from a one year tour of duty in Iraq with the North Dakota National Guard. He is now back in Grand Forks all safe and sound. However our other friend and brother Andy “Jew” Erickson has now taken his place with a different North Dakota National Guard unit. Following is a brief account of Nate´s time overseas that he wrote for our fraternity newsletter:
As I write this, I sit on my five legged cot. A buddy of mine fat-assed the sixth leg. I’m in a leaky tent, but we have electricity, heat, internet, and even a TV station, (Armed Forces Network), and most importantly I sit inside the wire. My favorite place to be. I am near the Syrian border, and it has been a journey of ten months that got me here.
My Company landed in Kuwait on April 24, 2003. It seems a lifetime ago. From Kuwait Airport, we were bussed to Camp Virginia, Kuwait, where another brother and close friend of mine, Andy Erickson, now sits. We retrieved our equipment and waited to go north. My company is a multi-role bridge company (MRBC), and our secondary mission is transportation, so it wasn’t long before we were hauling crappers to Baghdad (no joke) among other things.
After a couple of haul missions I found myself on our advance party at Camp Anaconda, Balad, Iraq. It is located 30 miles north of Baghdad. Here I filled sandbags, setup tents, and all the other sorts of b.s. required to get the camp ready for our people. This is what I did until June.
We then got an order for a boat patrol mission in Baghdad. We loaded up our boats, (think Apocalypse Now without the guns) and headed into Baghdad. We got lost in downtown and ran over a couple of cars, not observing traffic laws is great and I highly recommend it if your vehicle is big enough. We eventually arrived at some little base I can’t recall the name of. From this base we patrolled the Tigris river, looking for weapons runners, any sort of trouble, and unruly ruffians. This mission lasted for about three weeks and was by far my most enjoyable time here. We searched a ton of boats, got shot at, took a few people in, recovered a body and all sorts of fun stuff. This was before the realities of war set in.
After that mission was completed, we returned to Anaconda. It was around this time we had our first casualties. Jon Fettig was killed in an ambush near Ramadi, and Brandon Erickson was wounded and lost an arm. Brandon is a student at UND, Jon left behind a wife in Dickinson. Even now it is hard to believe he is gone.
Shortly after that incident I went down to Camp Virginia, to spend six days with our rear detachment. These six days turned into nearly two months due to various difficulties with transporting us out. I was in a safe environment, but it was a miserable time for me. I was separated from my soldiers and friends. During this time our commander was relieved- it was a welcome change for me.
I finally returned to Camp Anaconda. We then pulled a couple of convoys throughout Iraq, hauling various things to various places. We finally got an order to do what we are trained to do, build a bridge. We got prepared and headed out. We arrived at our destination and got out final preparations in order, and headed out to the bridge site. We were supported by a couple of choppers, M-1 Abrams, M-2 Bradleys, and a few other light vehicles. We started to put in our ribbon bridge. To do this you drop floating sections, called bays into the water with our trucks and assemble them with our boats. For this mission I was the NCO in charge (IC) of the engineer equipment point (EEP). My job was to get all our equipment prepped and down to the water. We completed the assembly of the bridge around noon. Shortly after that the mortars started falling on our site. It sucked. We had AK fire, RPGs and mortars pounding our position. We then witnessed the destructive fire power of the US military. All our security elements unleashed hell. M-1s and Bradleys tore up our attackers, and the choppers pitched in. We continued with our mission. We still had to anchor our bridge with an overhead cable system and retrieve our boats. The mortars fell twice more that day, but no more direct attacks. Darkness fell and the call was made to pull the majority of our company back to camp and leave our boats, key personnel and security at the site. It was a long night both at camp and on the water.
The next day we arrive at the site at dawn and got back to work on the frickin overhead anchorage. Fortunately it was a quite night at the site, It didn’t last long. The mortars started falling again, and fell three times that day. We’d dive for cover and than get back to work. Night fell and found us not quit done. I stayed on site this night, and was behind a .50 cal. This night was a little longer than the last for me. It was quite again, and our company showed up at dawn. We finally finished and pulled out late on the third day. All said and done we had a couple of people with light injuries, a couple of vehicles with light damage, a few enemies killed, a few dozen captured and a crapload of frayed nerves. We were exhausted as we arrived back at camp and had a couple of days of hard earned rest. We than headed back to Anaconda.
We got word when we arrived that we had orders to move to FOB Ridgeway, near Falluja. We packed up all our crap and once again headed out. I went to Ramadi with 12 other people for another boat patrol. This time on the Euphrates river in Ramadi. This mission was a security patrol for the US installations along the river. It was thankfully an uneventful time.
After about a month I went to Ridgeway. I was back with the company for about a week and got orders to head out for a weapons cache demolition mission. Myself and 20 others headed close to the Jordan border for this mission. Here we blew up over 6 million pounds of enemy ordinance. It was here I learned of our greatest loss. Sgt. Keith Smette and Ssg. Kenny Hendrickson were killed in action. I was with Keiths younger brother Rob and it was the most difficult thing I have ever been through. Rob is also a student at UND. Keith was attending NDSU and Kenny left behind a wife, and I believe two kids in Bismarck. The sadness of these losses will be with me for a long time.
After we finished the weapons cache, myself and four others headed to were I am now, with 13 others maintaining the bridge we put in. From here hopefully we will link up with the rest of the company and head straight to Kuwait, but only time will tell.
I have learned a lot about myself and life here, a lifetimes worth. I realize that tomorrow is not a guarantee. I’ve known how close you can grow to a group of strangers. This has been a time where I have experienced every emotion possible, experienced highs and lows beyond anything I have ever known. I have never been prouder of myself, or prouder to be an American. I would give anything to bring back the people we have lost, but would not trade this experience for anything less.
posted at: 16:42 | path: | permanent link to this entry
Mountain Climbing, What was I thinking?
Yesterday Thomas and I went on an organized tour mountain climb of a volcano near the town of Pucon in Chile. The pictures say it all, but basically it was a very physically challenging event and I made it two hours up the climb but then turned back because I was totally exhausted and could not keep going. Thomas kept going and made it all the way up. At the stopping point where I turned back everyone had to put on crampons (Spikes on the boots) and really started to use their pick axes. We had two guides with our group of ten people so one of the guides, a woman from Germany, took me down to the bottom and we picked up another straggler on the way. It was fun going down because I got to slide most of the way down making it go about ten times quicker! Once at the bottom we had to wait for about four hours until the first group made it down and we hitched a ride back to town with them. I had a great time even though I only made it up the easy third of the volcano.
Today we took a bus south to the town of Puerto Montt and from here are going to try to take a ferry boat south through the fjords of Patagonia. But we will find out more details about that tommarow.
posted at: 09:21 | path: /Travels2004/Chile | permanent link to this entry
April 20th Update.
I left Valparaiso today and took the bus seven hours south to a city named Chillan. It was raining today and starting to get cold. For some reason I didn't think it was going to be cold here so I left my fleece in Australia because I had not used it yet. But after reading through some of my guidebook today I think it is only going to get colder and wetter the further south we go and we are planning on going all the way down. Time to invest in some sort of local clothing I guess.
Not much going on in this town though. It is the birthplace of the first head of state of Chile and national hero Bernardo O'Higgins, but besides that it is your average place I guess. We are leaving tomorrow on the bus in the afternoon to head another six hours south to Pucon.
posted at: 09:20 | path: /Travels2004/Chile | permanent link to this entry
The South American Travels begin!
I arrived in Santiago, Chile at 2:30am on April 17th. Thomas and I had arranged to meet up at the Hotel Paris in downtown Santiago and I made it there via a taxi with no problems. Thomas had arrived the morning before me and just rested up in the hotel. On Saturday we walked around the center of Santiago and checked things out. It´s your basic big South American city I guess. Saturday night we dined on Chinese food and afterwards sampled a few of the local beers at a nearby pub.
Sunday we slept in and I was awoken by the phone in our room ringing. I answered and the hotel receptionist asked me if we were staying another night. I told him no and asked when check out was. He said 1pm. I hung up the phone and said to Thomas "They have a one o´clock check out time here, that´s pretty friendly.¨ And Thomas looked at his watch and said ¨Well, it´s five to one right now!¨ So we packed up quick and took a taxi to the bus station and hopped on the next bus to Valparaiso (the ticket for the two hour bus ride was cheaper then the 10 minute taxi we took the the bus station!).
Yesterday we checked out Valparaiso and today we took the train over to Vino Del Mar to find the famous Hotel O´Higgins where Uncle Walter stayed many years ago. I read the map wrong so we walked around for and hour trying to find it and the whole time we were just a few blocks away. But we eventually made it there to find a pretty empty big fancy hotel. So we had a beer there and then headed back on the train to Valparaiso.
posted at: 09:21 | path: /Travels2004/Chile | permanent link to this entry
The End of my Australia adventure...
The last week of my time in Australia was spent in Byron Bay attending the Blues and Roots Music Festival over Easter weekend. It was a five day music festival with bands starting around noon and ending around 1am every day except for the last night which ended about 11pm.
My new camera broke during my Fraser Island excursion. The lens got bent somehow, I think during one of the big bumps we had in the car. Anywho, I took it back to K-Mart as I had only bought it three weeks previous. The guy there looked at it and told me the lens was broken and that they could send it in to get it fixed. I told him that I was leaving the country next week and he said that it takes two weeks to four months to get them fixed and it would probably cost me around A$200-300. I asked him if he could just swap me for a new one because I had barley used it and I needed to get it fixed before I left. He was kind of a asshole and said that all he could do was send it in and it would take two weeks to four months. He said that they could only swap items if they were for under A$100 or purchased in the last two weeks. As he was saying this I noticed that the camera was now on sale for A$300, and I had paid A$320 for it. So I kindly asked him if he could at least refund me the A$20 and I would deal with fixing the camera on my own. He called his manager and asked her and she said ok. Since I paid for it via credit card they had to refund it and then charge me for a new one at the new price and when it was all said and done I had a receipt saying that I had bought a camera that day.
So the next morning I went to a different K-Mart and I got a really nice lady and I asked her to take a look at my camera because I had just bought it and could not figure out how to make it work correctly. She took one look at it and could tell that it wasn´t working properly. They were all out of that camera at that store so she apologized and said all she could do was refund my money. I said I could live with that, got refunded and had my mom buy me the same camera at home for US$180 and send it over to me with Thomas. So it all worked out good in the end, except I didn´t get any photos of the Blues Fest.
I camped with Pete and his childhood friend from ND Drew and his girlfriend. The camping was ok but it turns out that the "official campground" was on the other side of town from the concert and it was A$25 a night each so in retrospect I think we would have been better off (and dryer) staying in a hostel in town. But it was fun anyways. The artist I wanted to see the most was Xavier Rudd who played two nights and ended up joining other bands on stage quite a few times. He is an Australian musician I discovered after arriving in Australia and he plays the didgeridoo, guitar and a few other instruments.
After the concert was over we drove straight through to Sydney getting in around 11pm. It was Pete´s 25th birthday so he and I went out to the Emperor Pub in King's Cross near where we were staying and had a few beers. Then Pete & company left insanely early the next morning (which for some reason the wake up involved Pete getting water thrown on him) and I left the hostel around 10am and had to get straight to the airport so I never got a chance to check out Sydney.
When I got to Los Angeles I had to wait the whole day for my flight to Santiago and when I went to check in I found out that the flight was canceled due to mechanical problems and I would have to wait until the next day. But the airline put me up in the Embassy Suites hotel so I got a chance to rest up and do my laundry so it turned out ok.
posted at: 09:20 | path: /Travels2004/Australia | permanent link to this entry
Fraser Island
I got back from my three day self drive four wheel drive adventure on Fraser Island. Fraser Island is a big long sand island off of the coast and they have roads through part of it and then the big long beach for a road too. It is really popular with backpackers and families to drive around and go camping on. I went with a tour from the hostel I was staying at and got chucked in a group with 8 other people. There was a German couple and an Englishman who were all really cool and then the other half of the group was five 19 year old English girls who had never been camping before. All I will say about them is that they are very blessed to know everything about anything. But since they couldn't actually DO anything they were not exactly my cup of tea.
But I had a very good time nevertheless. There were quite a few different fresh water lakes to go swimming in which was nice because the ocean was full of Tiger sharks and stinging jellyfish. The first night we drove almost as far as we could on the island and camped. After dinner I headed down to the beach with two Canadian boys and we started up a bonfire and shortly after three Forest Rangers showed up and partied with us. They drove their truck down to the beach and brought us more firewood and had their stereo going. By the end of the night I think we had around forty people down on the beach partying with us. It was really cool because there were loads of people all doing the same three day self drive tours and all the fun people came down to the beach for the party.
The second day we got rained on quite a bit. Which was ok it was just that everything was wet which kind of made things miserable. But we drove around and saw the rest of the sights on the island and drove back inland to a different camping spot. That night there was a lot more of me sitting in my tent listening to rain and whining English girls then campfires on the beach, but what can you do? I am just glad I have my own tent!
Pete can now add "Macadamian Nut Harvester" to his already extensive resume. Today is his last day working in Bundaberg and he should be arriving shortly to collect me and then we are driving down to Brisbane tonight.
posted at: 22:53 | path: /Travels2004/Australia | permanent link to this entry
The East Coast Trip
I am in Hervey Bay now. Pete dropped me off here today and then went back up to the town of Bundaberg where we stayed last night. He is going to pick fruit for a few days to make some money so he can buy his ticket for the music festival we are going to next week.
Our drive up from Melbourne has been a great time. We pretty much drove straight up to Byron Bay just stopping in Canberra (Australia's Capitol) for the night and to check out the War Memorial and National Museum before driving to Newcastle (just north of Sydney) for the next night and then making it up to Byron Bay on the third day of our trip on Monday (March 22nd). We stayed in Byron Bay until Friday at the Art Factory Hostel which is a pretty cool place with it's own bar and theater and semi-outdoor dorms.
Then we drove up to Surfer's Paradise for the weekend. But that was just like one 20 kilometer long strip mall with no life to it. So we just hang out at our campground most the time and in the car for the few hours it was raining!. But my tent proved it was rainproof so it was ok. We were bored so we drove back south to the town of Nimbin and stayed there a night and then Pete found a lead during his job hunt which took us to Bundaberg so he could find work fruit picking. This hostel we stayed at was pretty much for workers and they had several farms that use their people for working and have it set up so they give people a ride out to the farms in the morning and bring them back at night. But you have to pay for a week at a time at the hostel before they will find you a job. So Pete is up there for a week while I am checking out some of the Fraiser Coast.
So the plan is to get to Brisbane on Tuesday night (April 6th) and then leave Thursday (April 8th) for Byron Bay and the music festival and then get down to Sydney on the 13th and fly out on Tuesday the 14th to South America.
posted at: 03:49 | path: /Travels2004/Australia | permanent link to this entry
Santiago Bound!
Well, I took the plunge and bought my airline ticket to Santiago. Actually considering how many miles it is going to take just to get there I got a really good deal I guess.
I ended up using my Sydney to Los Angeles ticket that I already had (the one I had to get in order to get into the country, but I ended up not really needing at all!) and just changing the date (A$33). To compliment that I bought a one way ticket on Copa Airlines from Los Angeles to Santiago via Panama (A$495). So my finally itinerary is this:
Depart Sydney, Australia on April 14th at 1:25pm.
Arrive Los Angeles, U.S.A. on April 14th at 9:45pm.
Depart Los Angeles, U.S.A. on April 15th at 1:10am.
Arrive Panama City, Panama on April 15th at 9:30am.
Depart Panama City, Panama on April 15th at 7:30pm.
Arrive Santiago, Chile on April 16th at 2:45am.
Thomas arrives into Santiago on April 16th at 7:45am.
posted at: 23:40 | path: /Travels2004/Australia | permanent link to this entry
Back to the big smoke.
I left Alice Springs at 2pm on a Thursday and went straight through to Melbourne, arriving at 10:30pm on Friday night. The train ride was ok, but I didn't sleep more then two hours so I was a bit weary. The train was running late so around 8pm I sent a text message to Pete using a borrowed cell phone on the train. I told him it was late and to pick me up around 10pm. Well, I got into Melbourne about 10:30pm finally and there was no Pete to be found. So I called him up on his mobile but I got the voice mail of some other dude instead. I had written down the wrong number! So I called Pete at home and he wasn't there. I decided to take the train to Box Hill (where he lives) so after getting on the wrong train first I was on my way to Box Hill just after 11pm. I called right before I hopped on the train and left a message saying I would be walking to the house. So I got to Box Hill and started walking and got to Pete & Kip's house about 12:15 in the morning and Kip let me in.
So it all worked out ok, but I was worried that no one was going to be there and I would have to hop the fence and sleep in the back yard. Because when I talked to Pete earlier in the week he said we would go to a pub after he picked me up so I was thinking he would be sitting at a pub waiting for me to call him on his cell and no one would be home. But actually he had to work at 6am on Saturday so he had gone home to sleep.
I uploaded lots of photos today. I have about 70 more that are from my disposable cameras I bought in Darwin and Alice Springs because my digital camera died on my in Darwin! But I bought a new, sleek and small Sony Cybershot so I am fully digital again!
Pete is working this week so we are going to head out for the East Coast on Saturday morning (March 20th).
posted at: 21:21 | path: /Travels2004/Australia | permanent link to this entry
A town called Alice...
I have been in Alice Springs for a week now. It is a pretty nice, though small, town right in the middle of Australia. The highlight of my visit here (and pretty much all the other tourist here) actually did not happen in Alice Springs itself, but about 400K away. It was my visit to Uluru (Ayer's Rock), King's Canyon & The Olgas. Anders I and went on a three day tour and set off last Friday (March 5th) morning bright and early. The first day we drove to King's Canyon and did a hike up to a swimming pool named the Pool of Eden. There were a lot of stairs, lots. After we got back to the camp we ate dinner and slept out under the star in swags (which are like big sleeping bags you put your own sleeping bag in).
The next day we drove to Uluru and I went on a walk around the base of it which is 9.2K. It was really fantastic to see. It is amazing how far away it looks just like a big smooth round rock but up close there are lots of caves and different parts to it. After the walk we went back to the campground which was about 15K away and watched the sunset. Then dinner and swags again.
Sunday morning we got up really, really early, 4:20am if I remember right. We set out to walk through the Valley of the Winds in The Olgas. The Olgas are another set of smaller (but still big) rocks that are spread out in a small area. There are 38 rocks in all. Then we headed back to Alice Springs. On the way back we stopped at a roadhouse (gas station and store) and got to see the world famous "Singing Dingo." A guy had trained his pet dingo to stand a piano and yelp when the piano was played. Then it was back to Alice getting in at 7pm.
Monday we went and saw the old Telegraph Station (which was the reason why the town was started). Anders left yesterday to head off to New Zealand and I have just been hanging out and relaxing until my 35 hour train ride starts tomorrow afternoon.
After I get back to Melbourne on Friday the plan is to head up the East coast with Pete for about a month and then it's off to Santiago, Chile where I meet up with Thomas in the middle of April.
posted at: 03:13 | path: /Travels2004/Australia | permanent link to this entry
In Darwin at last...
I arrived in Darwin, Northern Territory yesterday (Feb. 28th). But it was a long journey to get here.
I left Perth with my Swedish friends Anders and Martin and Martin's girlfriend Misung on Tuesday Feb. 10th. We rented a car from the same place we had rented one for our trip down south, but we got a red Ford Falcon station wagon instead. We finally got outta town around two in the afternoon and headed North, intending to make a five hour cruise north to Geraldton. There were four other vehicles of people who we had met at the hostel in Perth and we were kind of all traveling North together. They had all left the day before and our plan was to meet up with them in Geraldton.
We took the wrong highway out of town and ended up headed north-west when we just wanted to go north so we had to take another road once we got out of town to cut over and join onto the main highway. We decided to stop off at the Pinnacles, which was about an hour off of the main highway. The Pinnacles is a small area, probably like 50 acres or so, where for some reason an ancient forest was petrified and turned into rock. So there are these tree shaped rock formations ranging from a few inches tall to four or five feet tall. There were a few that were bigger but most were not as tall as me. Before it was turned into a national park it was used as a motocross track! But now it is all protected and there is a loop to drive around and spots to get out so we could take a walk around. So we snapped a few photos and were driving out of the park when we passed two of our friends cars who had left the day before us. They were just heading into the Pinnacles and hollered for us to follow them. So we turned around and went back in and watched the sunset over the beach and Pinnacles. It was getting dark then so we all went to a little lookout spot a few kilometers down the road and camped on the beach.
The next morning we made the drive up to Geraldton along the coast and met up with the rest of the crew at the campground there. We stayed there a night and the next day headed north to Kalbari. Kalbari is a small town near the Kalbari national forest. We stayed in a caravan park there in two trailer homes with bunk beds in them. The next day we went and visited some of the different gorges there. All very nice.
Then we kind of split up from there. With a large group some people always want to do different things so I found myself in a car headed north with four other guys. The rest of the crew was going to stay in Kalbari that night and meet us in Monkey Mia the next day. So we headed off and made it to Hamlin Bay that night. We camped there and in the morning checked out the local attractions. Hamlin Bay is the home to the Stromatolites, which to put it briefly are these little organisms who grow only in Hamlin bay and one spot in the Bahamas in the whole world. They were one of the first life forms on earth however many billion years ago and once covered the whole earth. What do they look like? Like a little pile of rock that once in a while has bubbles coming out of it. But they were very cool and I am glad we stopped there.
We headed up to Monkey Mia from there. Monkey Mia is just a little campground and hotel with a beach. But the attraction is that they feed the dolphins there everyday and the dolphins will just come up to the beach to get some food and swim around for a while. Everyone told us to get there really early, like 7am to watch for the dolphins. So we got there along with about 100 other people and a film crew. Two dolphins came up and swam around for a bit. Anders and I decided to take a sailboat cruise to get a better look at some wildlife. It was a two hour cruise for A$50. The only thing I saw was a one second glance at a sea turtle and a duck. When we returned back to the dock around 12:30 we saw that there were now about eight dolphins swimming around and there were only like six people there who all got to hand feed them. Then we headed off for our next stop, Carnarvon.
Carnarvon was kind of a hot hellhole. It seems to me that is the point where I started to notice the heat and humidity beginning. There were also lots and lots of insects there. They had these big flying scary looking things that made a loud noise and were all over the place. Misung said they had the same bugs in South Korea (where she is from) and she called them Locust. She said that they only lived for one day and then they died. It did seem to be true because it seemed like about half of the Locust around were moving slow and dying and the other half was flying right by your head and practicing dive bombing campers heads. The next morning we left Carnarvon and were planning on going to some blowholes (holes in the rocks near the ocean that under the right conditions have waves shoot through the holes and come surging out the top) north of town before heading up to Coral Bay. However our car battery was dead that morning so we got a jump start and when we were filling up with petrol we noticed our car was profusely leaking radiator fluid. We took the car around to three different garages and they all said it was the water pump, but the first two could not fix it until the next day. So finally the third place we went could fix it a little bit later so we got to spend some quality time in downtown Carnarvon until the car was ready at 5pm.
The rest of the group had gone ahead that morning so we decided to skip the blowholes (They were about and hour and a half off the highway) and just go straight up to Coral Bay. It started raining during the drive and when the sun started setting we still had about 45 mins of driving left. Martin was at the wheel white-knuckling it as we started to see Kangaroos jumping around in the bush on the side of the roads. Kangaroos are kind of like Deer in the USA. They will jump out in front of a car and just stare into the headlights and then when the car gets close try to kick it, not realizing that the car will win the battle. Once we got a little bit closer and it was pitch black out and the rain was pouring down we came across a herd of cattle in the road. We were going nice and slow so we stopped with plenty of room and waited for them to move along. We finally made it to Coral Bay and the rain helped us decide to stay in the hostel instead of the campground. We ended up staying in Coral Bay for two nights. We went on a glass bottom boat out onto the Nigaloo Reef and went snorkeling. There were two different kinds of fish hanging around the boat (due to the boat crew throwing handfuls of fish food into the water) and some coral about twenty feet below us on the sea floor. At the time I thought it was pretty cool. Until I went snorkeling in Exmouth that is.
So on Wednesday Feb. 18th we left Coral Bay headed up to Exmouth. Our car had a dead battery again so we got another jump start and decided to head out before the rest of the crew (they were on the snorkel trip a day later then us). So we got into Exmouth and since it was nice and sunny we decided to camp again. It was really hot there as well but they had a pretty nice swimming pool so I lounged around there for the day. The next afternoon we all rented snorkel gear and went to Turquoise Bay which was supposed to be a great snorkeling spot. My car had rented snorkel gear and flippers from the campground for A$12 for the day. The rest of the group went to a place across the street and got there's for A$5. Once we got to Turquoise Bay we walked along the beach for a bit and then swam out into the ocean. The current there carried us all the way down the beach and over a utterly amazing forest of coral and tropical fish. One trip down the beach took around 20 minutes to complete and afterwards everyone who had rented the cheap snorkel gear was complaining that their stuff leaked and was no good. So Anders and I headed out to swim out to the break of the waves which was way out in the water. That was where the inner reef turned into the outer reef. So we swam and swam and swam and pretty soon it became so shallow that if we were not careful we would not ourselves into the coral because it was just inches below our stomachs. It took us an hour to get out to close to the break but then we started to get hit by waves and couldn't easily make it out any further so we headed back in. Which took me 40 minutes. The whole experience was awesome though. Easily the best day I have had on my trip so far. That day was also the birthday of one of the girls who was traveling with us. So that morning we had gone into town and bought a small cake and candles and some balloons. That night we all went out to the restaurant across the street and had dinner and some drinks there.
Exmouth was the end of the road for the group as a whole. So Anders and I decided to go on the Easyrider Backpackers Tour Bus from Exmouth to Broome. Which was another 1,200 Kilometers up the road from us. It was basically three days of riding in the bus and stopping once in a while to take a break at a roadhouse or see a beach. Except for our hiking trip in the Karajini National Park. We hiked down into a gorge and to a waterfall for about four hours and everyone got just covered in sweat and mud. Lots of fun though.
We got into Broome on Monday night and were finished with the bus tour. Once we got to Broome Anders and I learned that the road was closed in two places headed north east to Darwin. So our only option was to fly. So we bought tickets for Saturday and had a week to kill in Broome. Tuesday we went to the oldest operating outdoor movie theater in the world and saw the movie Big Fish. Then Wednesday we woke up to the rain and it rained pretty much until we left on Saturday. The whole week we just kind of hung around and relaxed. One day we went to a crocodile park, which was really cool. It was a farm where they grew crocs for their meat and skin and they had some on display. We went on the little tour during feeding time and the tour guy told us all about them while throwing chicken halves into their pens to feed them. They had a McDonald's in Broome, so I ate there a few times and that was about all the excitement there was in Broome.
Well, that sums up the last bit of my Western Australia journey.
posted at: 21:43 | path: /Travels2004/Australia | permanent link to this entry
Perth, Western Australia :: The world's most isolated city.
I have been in Perth since Jan. 22nd and having a great time here in Western Australia. When I took the train over I was planning on only staying one week and then moving on. But obviously my plans have changed. While in Perth I have been staying at the Swan Barracks Hotel in Northbridge. It is A$16 a night.
On Wednesday Jan 28th, I rented a Red Nissan Skylane with two Swedish guys I met at the hostel. It was an old beat up station wagon with a big Roo Bumper on the front. We took it south over four days and visited Margaret River, Pemberton, the Valley of the Giants and Albany. It had a tape deck and a radio. However the small bent and rusted piece of coat hanger that was currently serving for the radio antenna was not quite able to receive radio stations on a regular basis. I think three total times on the journey south we had radio reception, that being in Perth, briefly in Margaret River and pretty good reception in Albany. After the first day of this we were going crazy from the silence so while filling up with petrol I browsed the petrol stations tape selection (which was small) and miraculously found a lone Johnny Cash tape which I immediately bought and we probably listened to that tape at least twenty times over the next couple of days.
So now as of Feb 9th my plans are to leave tomorrow with the same two Swedes (Anders + Martin) plus Martin's girlfriend Misong. We are going to head north and camp for around two weeks. There is a large group of people going who all meet up at the hostel in Perth over the last few weeks. All together there is going to be I think 5 cars and around 20 people traveling North together for the first bit anyways. The plan is to go as far as either Exmouth or Broome. From there I am going to head over to Darwin and then to Alice Springs and back to Melbourne to collect Dr. Read.
posted at: 03:06 | path: /Travels2004/Australia | permanent link to this entry
The Indian Pacific
Saturday night I arrived at Spencer Street Station in Melbourne to begin my train journey to Perth, the most isolated city in the world. I was down in the bathroom and a old Australian guy with a hawaiian shirt, long white beard, scraggly outback hat and a bad case of B.O. asked me if I was heading all the way to Perth.
"Yep" I said and his response was "It's a fucking long way mate. A fucking long way." That was Ray.
Upstairs in the waiting area Ray invited me to sit with his wife, Mary, and himself and eat grapes with them. As we were talking they played the "grape game" where they threw a few grapes onto the floor and tried to bet on which passerby would step on them. Then we got on board "The Overland," which is the train that runs between Melbourne and Adelaide. It was a pretty comfortable ride because I had too seats to myself and I dozed off as the train ran through the night. We arrived into Adelaide around 8am Sunday and had until 6pm to explore the city as I had to wait for the arrival of the "Indian Pacific," which is the train that runs between Sydney and Perth. I spent the day wandering around the city center and the park terraces that border each side of the central area. I bought a few groceries for the train ride and went back to the train station to start the long ride to Perth. The train had two coaches for the "Day/Night Seater Red Kangaroo Class," such a nicer name then "coach" or "over-energetic young child transport section."
The train was pretty full, with the few extra seats that remained immediately guarded by their new owners. The train ride was fun though. Everyone got to know each other and I spent most of my time in the lounge car which had couch like seats that were far superior to the regular seats. The food in the "Red Kangaroo Buffet Coach" was pretty crap, but I guess with only a microwave to cook with that's what happens.
Monday night the train stopped in Kalgoorlie, a small mining town, to re-supply the train. We had three hours to kill so a small group headed off to find the local pub. Find it we did and as we walked in we were greeted by lots of loud, drunk, screaming miners who were watching the end of a boxing match on the tele. The local favorite did not win and it there was some very loud booing. The drinks were being served by a few girls who had apparently forgotten to get fully dressed before they went to work that night. After a few "sleeping aids" we all headed back to the train thinking of how funny it would be if someone got too drunk and forgot to make it back in time.
The second night of sleep went pretty good, that is until I woke up at 4am and struggled to get back to sleep. You see, sleeping on trains kind of sucks. The seats don't lean back very far and there is just not to much room to spread out. Couple that with severe ass soreness that develops after sitting in the same seat for endless hours and sleep turns into a hard to win battle. Luckily for me the English girl who was sitting next to me decided she was going to sleep on the floor so I had a bit more room to work with.
The train was running a few hours late because a freight train had somehow knocked a power line across the tracks when were were just a few hours away from Perth. We finally pulled into the East Perth Station around noon on Tuesday.
posted at: 05:16 | path: /Travels2004/Australia | permanent link to this entry
Going out west.
I bought a train pass today and am going to be heading out for some solo traveling on the train. Below is my itinerary for the next month or so.
Jan 17th Depart Melbourne 10:10PM
Jan 18th Arrive Adelaide 8:00AM
Jan 18th Depart Adelaide 9:40PM
Jan 20th Arrive Perth 9:10AM
Jan 28th Depart Perth 11:55AM
Jan 30th Arrive Adelaide 7:20AM
Jan 30th Depart Adelaide 5:15PM
Jan 31st Arrive Alice Springs 11:35AM
Feb 9th Depart Alice SPrings 4:10PM
Feb 10th Arrive Darwin 4:00PM
Feb 18th Depart Darwin 10AM
Feb 20th Arrive Adelaide 8:00AM
Feb 22nd Depart Adelaide 10:10AM
Feb 22nd Arrive Melbourne 9:00PM
posted at: 00:19 | path: /Travels2004/Australia | permanent link to this entry
Onward to Australia
We made it to Australia. Pete and I left Fiji a few days early and flew out standby to Sydney. From there we took a regional flight to Melbourne and Pete's father, whom we are staying with in Melbourne, picked us up at the airport.
We will be bumming around here for a little while and then head off to the eastern coast of Australia.
posted at: 21:21 | path: /Travels2004/Australia | permanent link to this entry
Sunburnt Already...
We spent New Years Eve on a remote tropical island in the Northern area of Fiji. After a four plus hour boat ride we were taken ashore to find out that we were the only guest staying in the resort. At first Pete and I were a bit dismayed by this, after planning on spending the night in the midst of a large gathering of intoxicated expatriates. However we soon discovered that we were pretty lucky. There were three small resorts on the shore of the island we were staying on, so for New Years we simply walked over to one of the other resorts for a few beers. We had after all drunk all the beers at our resort, not too hard of a task because they only had eight to begin with.
New Years day was spent in the most splendid manner of doing absolutely nothing but swaying the the cool tropical breeze from our hammocks which were conveniently placed just a short distance from both our bere (island hut) and the beach.
Today we took the boat back to Nadi and upgraded our accommodations to a bit nicer place named Aquarius Fiji. We are going to attempt to leave for Australia a bit earlier then planned because it is expensive here in Fiji if one is not very careful.
posted at: 12:05 | path: /Travels2004/Fiji | permanent link to this entry