The Blaus - South America and Europe

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2005-11-16T16:13:00.000-03:00

7th of November - Moscow, Russia

2005-11-08T09:27:00.000-03:00

We took an overnight bus from Riga into Russia. We were a little nervous crossing the border as we have heard that it is common to get hassled, especially with an American passport. It didn't help that one of the guys next to us was telling this exaggerated story about "Americanskis" and how they got their passports ripped up at the border patrol. We arrived at a small frontier town and had to get off the bus and stand in a long line to get stamped and into Russia. The place looked exactly like what you would expect a former Soviet State building to look like, and was a bit nerve racking for us. We were the last ones to go through the line from our bus, and we were happy when we were told we had made it, with the guy stamping our passports saying, "Nikolai, you speak Russian?" Finally, Billy's strange middle name (Nikolai) actually got us something other than strange looks, it is a typically Russian name and helped us get through the border with no hassles.

We arrived in Moscow at 6AM, and it was cold and we were a bit tired. We wanted to take the Metro to our hostel, and ran directly into two police who immediately took us aside and asked for out passports. We have heard that police frequently check passports of foreigners trying to find a reason to levy a "fine", which is usually everything you have in your wallet. These two were scary looking, but let us go with a "thank you Nikolai", which was making us even happier about the middle name. The experience still rattled us a bit. It is strange to have to be scared of the authorities. Anyone who supports the Patriot Act should visit Russia and feel what it is like to be constantly hassled by the police for "your own safety". You feel violated in a very fundamental way, and it makes you not feel truly free. We can just imagine what it was like 15 years ago when the KGB would know everything about you and would follow you around the country. It is not a feeling that either of us would want to live with on a regular basis.

We found the Metro Station, but had all of our bags with us, and could not read a lick of Cyrillic writing (the Russian alphabet is very different from the Roman alphabet we are used to). We had to figure out a complicated route to our exit station which consisted of 3 train changes, and a lot of standing around rubbing our heads trying to read the signs. We would be able to memorize the first three letters of a stop, and that would be how we would remember it. A common one is, backwards 3 followed by the X with an extra line through it and a gamma. This after very little sleep on a bus and all our packs was difficult. We had to do all this during morning rush hour too. The Metro here is enormous, and probably a million people use it every day. There is a mass of humanity charging in all directions, and we were totally helpless with our giant packs bumping into people, all the while trying not to stick out too much in case we were to get detained again by the cops. It was a bit of a nightmare, but after about 2 hours we finally made it to the hostel, exhausted and a bit scared of the Metro.

Moscow is the largest city in Europe, and Russia is the largest country in the world in landmass. That makes this place by far the all around biggest city we have been to so far. Our hostel is about 10 miles away from the center of town, and it is still in the middle of high rises and a mass of traffic everywhere. The hostel was a bit of a disappointment, as there were cockroaches in the bathtub and the wall paper was all peeling off the walls from water damage. It was, however, one of the few affordable options in Moscow, which is very expensive. Since the fall of Soviet Union, all of the State run agencies were privatised, making a lot of people very rich, along with being the second largest oil producing nation in the world. So today there is a lot of poor people, but a lot of rich people too. More billionaires live in Moscow than any other city in the world.

The city itself looks a bit like Las Vegas. There are neon signs with flashing lights everywhere. There are casinos on every corner, and strip clubs on every other corner. The people on the street run all ranges, from the very rich looking women with all designer clothes, mink coats, and suede knee high boots, to the typical drab looking older men who all wear the same nondescript dark clothing that a Westerner would think of as Soviet style. The Metro is also a carry over from the Soviet days, and it is ground zero for Soviet kitsch lovers. There are bronze statues with people harvesting wheat with a sickle, there are fancy emblems of cosmonauts, there are equally impressive mosaics of the sickle, hammer, and wheat all together showing the unity of the workers. When the Metro was built it must have been very impressive, because it is till quite amazing, with some stops made completely out of marble and granite. We have learned the system quite well, as we have to commute everywhere we go in Moscow. We have also learned how not to get hassled by the police. That means no smiling (Russians think smiling is for the weak, or the mentally challenged), no eye contact with anyone, and no English spoken near police. We feel like we have gotten quite good at being Russian, although we don't talk to each other in public places very often.

As with every other person that visits Moscow, your first stop has to be Red Square. It was quite an amazing feeling to first get there. Saint Basil's church is the symbol of the country (the giant church with the colorful bubble shaped minarets), and it is spectacular in person. The entire square is by far the most impressive square we have seen anywhere thus far. The Kremiln lines one side with Lenin's mausoleum in front of it, and there are old beautiful buildings on the other two sides, one of which is now a famous and very expensive shopping center. To top it all off, we were there during the November Nationalist holiday, and for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union there was a military march on Red Square. We saw cadres of men and women come in dressed in different uniforms from different eras, all marching perfectly and standing to greet Vladimir Putin who was up in the Kremlin watching. Of all the things we wanted to get out of a visit to Moscow, seeing this was beyond our best case scenario.

We spent the next day going inside the Kremlin, which was another hassle in and of itself. There is nothing easy about being in Russia, and they do not cater to foreign tourists at all, in fact it seems like the system is built to discourage tourism. We tried to buy tickets to get in the Kremlin, but after waiting in a line that did not move for 30 minutes a guide came by and said in English that the Kremlin is closed, except for people that go on tours. When we asked the guy why all these people were waiting in line, he said "Russians love to wait in lines, they don't even care if the office is closed." We were skeptical, but then found out that it was really closed unless you paid 3 times the normal fee to go with a guide. That is very Russian. There are no rules that can't be changed or altered at the last minute. One day the Kremlin is open to all, the next day it is closed to people that don't pay for guides, no explanation at all. We paid the extra money and walked around all the old churches and political buildings where the head of State runs the government. It was interesting to see where Lenin and Stalin lived, what they built newly and what existed from when this was just a fort to keep the Mongol Tartars out about 900 years ago. The main attraction are the churches that are much less interesting than the politics of the Kremlin.

We decided we wanted to see the famous Moscow nightlife, so we headed out to s small neighborhood and a bar called "Vodka". The bar was brand new, and incredibly well done, all in a Soviet style with lamps that had the red star on them, mosaics of bombing raids and wheat, but also very modern and hip. It is probably the coolest place we have been thus far. We are not accustom to drinking straight vodka, and made a terrible decision to buy a bottle of vodka instead of paying for shots one at a time. It was a good decision financially, but terrible for the hangover we had the next day. We stayed there until it closed, talked to anyone who could speak English, and the DJ there was even from Chicago. When it was time to leave, the Metro was closed, and they could not get a cab out to the bar for us, so we were in some trouble. To make the matter worse, as we were trying to see if anyone from inside the bar could help us, a policeman came and started harassing us. With this situation not looking good, we jumped into the car of someone we were talking to in the bar, and rolled up the window when the cop approached us in the car. The driver fended him off, and actually drove us all the way home, which was about a 45 minute excursion because he did not know where to go, we didn't really know where to tell him to go, and we didn't speak Russian. Not only did these guys take us home, they walked us to the front door, and would not take any money from us. Russians can be very nice, and many of them have been so far. It can be unpleasant dealing with officials, as the Communist spirit in government apparatchiks dies hard, but many people have been very good to us. We just don't expect smiles from people over 50.

Eating has been one of the hardest things, as menus are all in Cyrillic, so we bought a Russian to English dictionary, and even that barely helps. Although very few people speak English, many people will help us through it, and we met one very cute girl who was a waitress and tried her best to get through the English that she knew from school to help us. She could not believe that we were here from the States, and especially San Francisco. When we told her we were from San Francisco she said, "Isn't that where people dress up in costumes and go to parties?" She invites us to come back when she was not working but it was our last day in Moscow.

Although it is difficult traveling here, we really enjoy it. We have also been blessed with great weather so far, it has been in the mid 40s every day and sunny. We hope St. Petersburg is as warm and dry.

1st of November - Riga, Latvia

2005-11-07T12:58:00.000-03:00

We had one stop in Latvia as we continued to make our way up to Russia. Riga was not in our original plan, because it would have been more direct for us to go through Belarus to Russia, skipping all of the Baltic countries. However, we learned that we needed a visa to travel through Belarus, so we saw that we could avoid Belarus by going through Riga to Moscow. We arrived in Riga by train in the afternoon and Billy said he had a bad feeling about it. His instincts were correct.

We stepped out of the train station to discover a very modern, polished, glitzy Eastern European city with price tags to match. The value of the money here is the same as the pound, so everything is super expensive, and it seems like there's a lot of cash flowing. This is a big party destination for Limeys (especially for stag parties). It's not dissimilar to our Las Vegas, complete with gambling and strip clubs.

We went to the tourist information booth inside the train station and asked for help finding accommodation. The girl working there was cagey from the start. She insisted on knowing how much we were willing to pay and she wanted a number from us. We normally look for the cheapest accommodation available, and when we told her we'd be willing to pay 40 Euro a night for a really nice apartment or a room, she said that would be next to impossible in a first class city like Riga. Then she said that she knew of one place a few blocks away, and she closed down the office to walk us there. We thought that this was incredible customer service until we realized that she was taking us to her apartment. She had an extra room with a pull out couch bed that she was hoping to rent to us for a whopping 40 Euros. We declined and she abruptly kicked us out of her place and sent us packing. This was not the usual kind of help that we receive from tourist information offices.

So, we decided to walk to the center of town to find a place to stay there. As we are ascending the stairs of the train station exit, Jen felt someone tugging on her backpack. She turned around and saw nobody there. A few seconds later she felt the same tugging and this time Billy turned to find two gypsies unzipping Jen's backpack and trying to take something out of it. Billy went running after them and when he caught up with them he realized that they were two older ladies scrounging around for food to give to their children, and we later concluded that nothing was taken. This was our only encounter with gypsies in all of Eastern Europe, and they didn't get the best of us. In the end WE gave THEM a bit of a scare. We've been on the road for so long now that we are more frightening than the gypsies.

We finally found a room in a hostel in dorm style accommodations (which we swore off after our last experience in Vienna), but there were only two of us in a 4 person dorm room, and the price was right at $37 per night. The hostel's name is Profit Camp, which isn't really appropriate for a budget hostel and must have been chosen by someone that doesn't know better. It was conveniently located down an alley above a strip club called Mademoiselles, but it was clean, not too crowded, and included breakfast and internet. It was better than the room that the tourist info office tried to sell us anyway.

Our first night in town we went to a Latvian fast food joint, then to a bar to try some of the famous Riga Black Balsam. This is the drink of choice in Riga....the king of Latvian liquors. It was invented in the middle of the 18th century by a pharmacist living in Riga. It is only produced in Riga. The traditional recipe is based on a composition of 25 ingredients such as flowers, buds, roots and berries. It's sold in ceramic jugs. It was once used as a medicinal remedy, especially aboard sailing ships. It is dark in color and looks like medicine. They serve it in a number of ways, but our drinks were hot and mixed with black currant juice, cloves and lemon with a splash of Black Balsam. This must be how the locals keep warm, as it did the trick for us.

The next day we went out sight seeing and tried not to freeze in the cold. The temperatures in Riga hovered around zero degrees Celsius during the day. We decided it was time to break down and buy Billy a jacket. Going back to California's winter will be a piece of cake after this.

We checked out most of the Art Nouveau buildings in old town (Riga is called the Paris of the East for this reason). We went on a walking tour of the city to see the castle, the city's moat, the river, the churches, the oldest stone dwellings in town called the three brothers, the House of Blackheads, the opera house (called the White House, because it looks like a giant marshmellow). We ducked into cafes to warm up every so often. We walked through the park that runs along the canal near the city's Freedom Monument (the monument is guarded by two soldiers who slowly and ceremoniously march around it all day). Latvia is a country that is proud of its recently gained independence, and it should be. It has been occupied by Germany (at two different points in history), Poland, Sweden, and most recently by Russia. As we crossed one of the bridges in the park to get from one side of the canal to the other we noticed that there were many padlocks attached to the metal bars of the footbridge. Some of the padlocks were engraved with what appeared to be couple's initials and dates. Some padlocks were elaborate and large and others were rusty and looked like they had been locked to that bridge for years. We tried to ask passersby about the significance of the locks, but nobody spoke English.

Some everyday things are a little strange in Riga. For instance, if you want information about trains at the train station, you have to pay for it. This is the first time we have had to pay for information, but in an expensive and flashy city like Riga, it's not surprising that one must pay to ask a question. Another thing that we found odd is assigned seating in movie theaters. Because it was so cold, we entertained ourselves with indoor activities and went to a movie one afternoon. When we bought our tickets we had to choose our seats, like you do when you go to a theater production or an opera. Perhaps this is the way of the future with movie going.

Jen forced Billy to go to a chamber music concert at the small guild to hear two cellists play classical music by the likes of Vivaldi. Billy hated it (and would probably never admit that he actually attended this concert), but it was something to do indoors, and Jen was happy to sit and listen to music and take in the elegant interior of the building. The small guild had stained glass windows covering an entire wall, paintings of Baltic sister cities on the opposite wall and an extremely detailed decoratively painted ceiling with unusual lighting fixtures hanging from it.

It is funny how resourceful one can be when the goal is to save money and time is not an issue. Even in a place like Latvia, where hardly anyone speaks English, we managed to perform some miracles. For instance, we needed to repair a piece of clothing (as many of our clothes are threadbare at this point), and we were able to find a place that sold us the right accessory and then we managed to get it affixed. If faced with this task at home, we wouldn't even know where to start.

So after a few days in beautiful Riga, we were off to Moscow...the land of the hammer and sickle, and we hoped for warmer weather there.

29th October - Vilnius, Lithuania

2005-10-31T11:27:00.000-03:00

We arrived in Vilnius in the morning after a long bus ride, and realized that we had arrived in the Baltic States because of the blustery cold that greeted us when we stepped off the bus. We were tired and not quite awake when we arrived, but we quickly woke up when we stepped out into the zero degree (Celsius) weather. We quickly retreated into the bus station to escape the cold where we arranged to stay in another apartment and gathered information about our next train to Riga, Latvia.

Vilnius, and all of Lithuania, have a bit of a hippie feeling, with a wacky counter culture population. For those who remember, the Grateful Dead had some ties to Lithuania, and sponsored their very good National basketball team that won a Silver medal in the Olympics while wearing tie-dyed jerseys. One of their best players played for the Warriors in Oakland for awhile too. This culture is evident in the part of town called Uzupius (possibly meaning utopia). This part of town, that is just across the river from the main downtown district, is actually a self declared independent republic with its own bill of rights. Hippies of an older generation, squatters, artists and drunks decided to break from Lithuania, and have formed their own community. They posted the Constitution on a wall inside their borders, and some of the 41 points included things like the right to make mistakes, to idle, to love, to be unique, to die (but this is not an obligation), to not be loved (but not necessarily), to hot water, to heating in winter & to a tiled roof, to be undistinguished and unknown, to love and take care of the cat. Their independent status is humored by the rest of Lithuania. We walked around the district for awhile, and didn't see anything that really held a candle to Haight Ashbury, but it was fun anyway. The district is a bit run down, so maybe they are contemplating a reunification effort with Lithuania soon.

Lithuanians are said to be flamboyant and overly dramatic, but we only saw evidence of this in their dress. The women wore knee high boots with jeans tucked in, fur rimmed hooded jackets, wild colors, styles and fabrics.

One third of Lithuania's population was killed either during the Nazi occupation or during the Soviet occupation. The former KGB HQ and prison in Vilnius serves as a museum and memorial to Lithuanians who were shot dead or tortured and then sent to Siberia during the late 1940s. Each stone in the building's walls contains a carved name of these victims. Meanwhile just a few blocks from here is the Zaliasis Tiltas (Green Bridge) where statues of Lithuania's Red Army comrades stand in tribute to the Communist past, and because the locals love these statues, they weren't torn down like the rest of the Lenins and other famous historical figure's statues in the rest of Vilnius.

Overall Vilnius is quaint and the architectural style that reigns here is Baroque. For the Baltics, Vilnius is very well priced. We had an excellent meal in one of the numerous cafes in the old city area. It consisted of fried rye bread served with a cheesy garlic dipping sauce, Cepelinai (meat balls served inside a potato pancake with mushroom sauce), and a really good beef stew. All the food they serve everywhere is hearty, but it all tastes great and is perfect for refueling on cold days. Since we were only in town for one full day, so we did not have the time to see much more than the old town and surrounding areas. Besides the strange story behind Uzupio, it was nothing much to write home about. We were expecting more counter culture and cafes, and they really weren't there in the numbers we expected. We couldn't even find the Frank Zappa monument, which was erected by his fan club in 1995 and is the only one of its kind in the world. However, it is a cheap place to eat good food and would probably be quite pleasant along the river during summer.

27th of October - Warsaw, Poland

2005-10-31T10:50:00.000-03:00

We made a quick journey through Warsaw on our way up towards Moscow. The people in Krakow told us that Warsaw was no fun, too big, too expensive, and basically nothing compared to Krakow, so why bother going at all? It seems that there is quite a rivalry between the two cities, which we are learning is typical for two cities like Krakow and Warsaw. Krakow was the seat of royalty and the medieval capital of Poland until 1596, and now Warsaw is the political and economic heart of Poland. People in Krakow make less money and have all the fun, while people in Warsaw work harder and live more cosmopolitan lives. After dissuading words from the local Krakowians, we did not expect much from Warsaw, except for an overpopulated city with little to do. Something we have learned on our trip, and continue to learn, is that expectations can be everything when traveling. Whenever we are told something is fantastic, we are often a little disappointed, and when something is said to be totally avoidable, we usually like something about it and are glad we went. Warsaw falls into the category of glad we went, we did not expect much, but liked what we saw during our brief stay.

We were able to have the Tourist Info booth at the train station call around town and find us a good deal on an apartment to rent. They gave us perfect directions on how to take the bus and then which little alleys in the old town to wind down and find the apartment rental office. We ended up with a great place looking over the old walled city, a fantastic view in a fully equipped apartment. We got in at night, and went shopping for food and could not find any good markets in the old town. We were then sent out by some locals to Carrefour, which is a European supermarket mega store (a lot like Wal Mart). We were totally overwhelmed trying to shop there, and it took us almost 2 hours trying to get food for 4 meals. After we finally found where the food was, a map was required to find the wine section and then the check out counter. It was way more than we signed up for when we went to get some groceries. We then walked home with all of our groceries, freezing cold, and exhausted from the effort of Wal Mart style shopping. It occurred to us that part of the shock of going back to the States will be reintroduction to huge retail stores like Costco and other shopping centers, as we have not been conventional consumers at places like these very frequently over the past 10 months.

That night we made the specialties that Agi taught us to cook in Budapest, and we made hot spiced wine, another trick we have picked up along the way. The next morning we explored almost all of Warsaw. It has a very nice old town, which just about every European city has, but this one is different because it was completely devastated during WWII, so it has been almost totally restored from rubble to look exactly the way it did before the war. Warsaw was under siege for much of WWII, and the Jewish ghetto was the largest and worst in Europe. There are monuments and statues to the Polish resistance efforts and the Jewish Ghetto, but not much more than that. There are few museums, because they were all totally destroyed, with the exception of the Pawiak Prison Museum. A small portion of the prison still stands where the Gestapo killed tens of thousands of Polish people, and it is now a museum. After the Jewish ghetto uprising, the entire place was bombed and burnt down, literally leveled. It once was the most beautiful old city in Europe, and that is what they have recreated in Warsaw today, from memory.

At the location of the Warsaw Resistance Monument, there were some very interesting facts and different takes on the eventual liberation of Warsaw at the end of the war. All the writings they have posted at this monument tell how the Red Army advanced to sit just 1 mile outside of Warsaw, but they waited for 4 critical nights before they came to the rescue of the quickly diminishing number of Polish resistance fighters. It was not said, but very strongly implied, that the Red Army sat out the final days of the resistance so that when they finally came to liberate Warsaw, they would have a much easier time occupying the land because the Nazis would have killed off the Polish resistance fighters, so there were less people able to resist their occupation. That made the subsequent years of Soviet occupation much easier, and the Poles are clearly still very disillusioned about it. It is hard to say who they hate more, the Nazis or the Russians.

We also found some beautiful parks that were covered in bright yellows and reds with the fallen leaves of the changing colors of the trees. Although it was chilly, the colors created a warm feeling, and the parks and squares were beautiful with all the fall colors on the trees and on the ground. We made a bus journey to the Poster Museum, which was in the former royal stables in Wilanow Park to see some of Poland's famous poster art. The country's graphic designers have made a name for themselves with edgy and creative concepts for advertising posters for French theater and Japanese art.

Our journey in Poland ended the next day at the bus/train station where we were taking an overnight bus to Lithuania. The train/bus station was very seedy, and not a place we felt comfortable for very long. Our safest bet was to spend our last Zlotys on one hour of internet away from the strange characters lurking in the station, but next to the strange vodka drenched characters perusing porn sites next to us. We made the bus and slept all the way to Lithuania.

23rd of October - Aushwitz & Birkenau, Poland

2005-10-24T16:23:00.000-03:00

Billy's dad asked us in Berlin whether we had ever thought about how the Jews sent to concentration camps must have felt...and we have been haunted by that question ever since. As a Jewish man who lost family members to the Holocaust and escaped the same fate because his father immigrated to the States, I suppose that he thinks about this more often than most people do today. Truly, we have been having nightmares since we visited Aushwitz. The whole day we spent between Aushwitz and Birkenau was horrifically overwhelming. I think we both were on the verge of crying most of the time we were there. It's difficult to even put into words. We knew all the facts and had seen some of the photos, films and documentaries that recreate the historic events of the Holocaust, but it is another thing to go to this place where millions of people suffered and were killed. 1.5 to 2 million people were murdered at these two concentration camps. They do not have an exact number of deaths, as many people didn't survive long enough to be registered in the records, but 90 percent of the victims were Jewish and were brought to Poland from countries as far as Italy and the Netherlands.

The most intense parts of the museum at Aushwitz were the films, the photos, and the rooms that they labeled "material evidence of crimes." In these rooms were displayed personal affects that were either taken from the people when they arrived at the camps or belongings that were surrendered as they disrobed just before they stepped into the gas chambers. There were thousands of pairs of shoes all piled up behind glass in these rooms, piles of combs, shaving brushes, shoe polish tins, baby clothes, tons of human hair, pots and pans. The Germans were so disgustingly clever and greedy about every detail of this genocide. They found a way to profit off of the murders in every possible way. They sold all of these valuables that were taken from the Jews...even hair that they shaved off of the women's heads was sold in the German textile industry and gold teeth were extracted after the victims were gassed and before the bodies were incinerated. We walked around in a daze wondering how Hitler and his henchmen came up with this plan and if it was all premeditated or if each step of the process just coincidentally happened to lead up to this maniacal and systematic mass murder of a people. It all seemed to work into a carefully crafted masterplan. How could people be so frighteningly cruel and inhumane?

First the Jews were branded with armbands, then they were moved into the ghettos where they were unable to work and earn money, so they started to starve and become ill because they were living in poverty and filth. Then they were so weak when they were "relocated" to the concentration camps that some didn't survive the trip there (as they were crammed into trains like animals, standing sometimes for 10 days if they were being transported far distances and without food or water). They were always given false hope, so there were rarely revolts or uprisings except on a handful of occasions in the ghettos and in the camps. They were told that if they volunteered to be relocated (by paying a fee and cooperating) that they would be given work and the means to lead normal lives again. When they arrived at these concentration camps they were separated by physicians into two groups: healthy and unfit for work. The unfit were sent directly to the gas chambers, but they were told they were going to be showering in these rooms that looked like showers and even had dummy showerheads mounted to the ceiling, so they went quietly to their deaths. Can you imagine the terror they must have felt during the last moments of their lifes when they realized that they were being poisoned?

The film we saw at Aushwitz was a post WWII Soviet film about Soviet troops liberating the Jews from Aushwitz and arriving there to find emaciated, frozen, naked bodies lying dead in the snow, sets of twins that were barely alive because they were used in biological experiments, men who were sterilized or exposed to diseases and chemicals in other experiments. Some of the women and men that survived the camps were so thin and weak that they couldn't even walk out of the gates when they were finally freed. Birkenau was so expansive that it was difficult to cover the grounds by foot in the 2 to 3 hours we spent there. Being there really made us understand the scale of the atrocity. The strangest thing about Birkenau is that its setting is so peaceful. The camp is located in a serene, natural setting and as we walked around the grounds we couldn't help but comment on the incongruousness of the physical beauty of the green grass, clusters of trees, afternoon sunlight and the quiet isolation of a place that was engineered to torture and murder people.

There was a somber feeling despite the fact that there were crowds of visitors. Many groups of young kids who must have been visiting as part of a school field trip and many other groups of tourists were crowded into the museum, which was distracting, but we felt that it was a positive sign that the site of these crimes is now used as an educational tool. There was one German guy in the museum that we felt sorry for. We could tell that he felt pained by and guilty about the crimes his country committed.

We went to the records office and asked about Nandor's wife and two children (members of the Blau family) who were most likely sent to one of these concentration camps, but we needed to have a date of birth to search the archives effectively because their names are commonly found in the records. The administrators in the records department said that in many cases the only records they have are of names, sometimes there is information about age, and sometimes country of origin. She apologetically told us that if a woman arrived at the camp with two young children, they most likely would have been sent directly to their deaths.

The worst part of it is that all of the surviving family members of these victims of the Holocaust have nowhere to grieve and because the records that the Germans kept are so poor and many of the Jews were sent directly to the gas chambers without even being registered, there is no way to know exactly what happened to many people. People brought flowers and placed them in the gas chambers and crematoria or at the wall where many of the victims were executed. There was a feeling of unresolved anger and incomprehensible sadness among the visitors at Aushwitz.

22nd of October - Krakow, Poland

2005-10-24T04:24:00.000-03:00

We arrived in Krakow by train from Berlin and we were somewhat concerned about theft and personal safety on the train because our guide book warns of cases of train passengers on this route being gassed and robbed while sleeping in their compartments on overnight trains. For this reason we didn't want to let our backpacks out of our sight, so when there wasn't enough space for our bags on the luggage rack above our heads, we put them in the seat behind us instead of in a storage area in the next car. For nine hours on this train, every time someone new boarded and tried to sit in the seats behind us a Polish woman across the aisle from us fended them off. It was obvious that we didn't speak Polish, so she did all the talking for us. She smiled and winked at us each time and was so kind to help us.

The attendant came around with the refreshment cart to offer drinks or sweets and we declined as we always do because treats on the train are too expensive, but he insisted that we take something and then whispered that it was free of charge. He must have sized us up and known exactly the type of backpackers that we are...he spoke our language.

When we arrived in Krakow we took a taxi to our hostel and tried to negotiate the fare from 15 zlotys to 10. The taxi driver insisted on his price and we were freezing outside the station in the dark so we settled on it. When we arrived at the hostel he only asked for 10 zlotys. This was a true gesture of generosity and honesty, and in months of traveling we have never had an exchange like this one with a taxi driver. The time we spent in Krakow showed us that Polish people are some of the kindest that we have encountered in Europe.

Krakow is a beautiful city that was completely spared by the destruction of WWII that reduced Warsaw to rubble, so the old town looks very much like it has for hundreds of years. Krakow dates back to the 7th century. It boasts the largest medieval town square in all of Europe, which is surrounded by interestingly designed buildings that make for a unique skyline, a clock tower and spires of churches. Krakow similar to Prague, but there are very few tourists and there is a presence of an underground artist community in dark and tucked away jazz clubs, cafes and bars that we poked our heads into. Krakow seems to be the hipper, more cultured little sister to Warsaw. Wawel Castle is one of the main attractions of the city and it sits atop a small hill near a bend in the river.

We spent a day walking around Kazimierez (the old Jewish quarter) and visited synagogues, museums, and cafes there. The Jewish community in Krakow were forced out of the city and relegated to Kazimierez long before WWII. Then during the Nazi occupation of Poland, the Jewish ghettos of Krakow were set up in this area. The movie Schindler's List was filmed here, and this part of Krakow has become a popular center for tourism and education about Jewish culture and the Holocaust. It makes sense that this historic area functions this way because of its proximity to Aushwitz. We went into a Jewish museum housed in the oldest synagogue in Poland to learn about traditions, rituals, customs, holidays, sects and the history of the Jewish population in Krakow. We went to a synagogue that was screening documentary films of life in the ghettos in Krakow and in Warsaw. The films were created from footage recorded by the occupying German forces. The most moving film we saw was called Requiem for 500,000. It was difficult to watch. We went to a traditional Jewish restaurant and ate chicken knedly, farfala, latkes, and sabbath soup for lunch and then had coffee and a yummy cookie that was flat, chewy and made with nuts, toffee, chocolate...Billy's mom makes these, but we can't remember what they're called.

On Saturday it was sunny and warm, so we spent the day outside getting lost in the backstreets away from the square. Most of the action takes place on this square, where restaurants and cafes set up outdoor seating and locals hang out in the sun. We walked into bakeries to take a whiff of all the fresh baked goods, popped into cafes and bars in search of the perfect pierogi, wandered around parks crowded with people and bright with fall colored leaves in the trees and green grass all around. We saw two weddings taking place at two different churches around town. One was a very traditional event with some attendees in traditional peasant dress. There were baskets of flowers and fruit and a very elegantly dressed bride in a white fur coat and a 40s style hat with netting. The bridesmaids were wearing crimson, floor length dresses and the flowers were rich fall colors.

On the train leaving Krakow for Warsaw we had difficulty again finding a place to store our luggage, and this train was so cramped and crowded that it was almost impossible to maneuver around inside the cars with our huge backpacks. Luckily the compartment next door was full of nuns without any baggage. They looked trustworthy enough to watch over our backpacks for the short trip to Warsaw.

19th of October - Berlin, Germany

2005-10-24T02:51:00.000-03:00

The three of us (Jen, Billy and Billy's mom) left Prague by train to make it to Berlin in time to meet Billy's Dad who was flying in from San Francisco. The train ride was fun, and we made it with no problems with the help of a very kind stranger. We went to the wrong train station and asked a guy for directions and he insisted on walking with us to the correct train station which was a 10 minute trip by foot. He waited while we purchased our tickets and even walked us directly to the gate to see us off. We were so impressed with this random act of kindness. Being jaded Americans we were sure that he wanted something from us, and we were even suspicious of him at first, but by the end of the experience he changed our minds. It is Fall in Europe, and seeing the rolling hills with all the leaves changing colors pass by was a nice treat for those of us from San Francisco who never see real seasons anymore. We took a few pictures out of the window of the train and arrived in Berlin exactly on time.

Berlin is another city that has that feeling of being part of the elite cities in the world club. It is orderly, has a great transportation system, and is very clean and nice looking in the city center as well as in the neighborhoods outside the center. They do, however, have a bit of a problem with graffiti, but that is exactly what we imagined when we envisioned East Berlin of old.

Our first couple nights were spent at the very chic and historic Adlon Hotel. The hotel is where Hitler stayed at periods while in Berlin during the war and along with much history it is beautifully restored. All of its current beauty comes with a big price tag, so in typical Blau fashion we had one room where all four of us were staying, under the radar of the hotel management, who have a strict policy of two people per room. We were very careful never to be seen together, and had worked out a strategy where those who were allowed to be seen together (Billy and his Mom, Jen and Billy's Dad) would go down stairs, walk around suspiciously, then wait in the back of the hotel for the next pair to come down. Hand signs and head nods were used as signals across the lobby as we would all then sneak out the back door so the guards in front would not catch on. We thought we were very slick in this endeavor, but we think the hotel management just let us get away with it out of pity. They must have had fun watching this charade every morning and evening.

The problem was compounded by the fact that the hotel bellman broke one of our cheap backpack handles while carrying it up to our room (they wouldn't allow us to take them ourselves, even though we tried). Once they re-examined the dirty and fraying backpacks, they knew they had intruders on the premises. One of the guys at the front desk was good humored and told us that they sure don't get too many backpackers in the hotel. That being said, we really enjoyed the hotel, to get a chance to sleep luxuriously on the floor in a very nice room. We even went to the spa in shifts, which was the height of luxury for the two of us who have had no exposure to spas, fancy hotels, or bellman for 10 months.

Billy's Dad arrived the following day, and after a 3 hour delay in New Jersey. He looked and felt great and hit the ground running. Our first adventure was to go to the newly built Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The museum was underground, and had a very artfully designed series of zinc clad coffins rising from the cement shell of the museum (all at staggered heights), meant to memorialize the deaths of Jews under the Nazi regime. This covered about an acre or two of ground in the heart of Berlin. Inside the museum there were powerful pieces of writings, historical notes, and statistics from the Holocaust. It was another somber reminder of what happened right here in Europe not all that long ago, but it was good to see such a thing in Germany where it all started. It was a moving and sad few hours in the museum, but also was impressive and something that everyone who visits Berlin should see. The stories of the many families they highlighted that were wiped out completely had the most powerful effects.

That afternoon we also took a tour of the city by bus, as it is quite big and would be very hard to see it all just walking around. We were shown many important and interesting historical sights, including Check Point Charlie, the Brandenburg Gate, the last remaining pieces of the Berlin Wall, the university where Marx and Engels taught, and most of the glorious old government buildings.

After being terrified of our own shadows in the Adlon Hotel, we moved to an apartment in a quaint part of town that was right next to the river. We could go in and out as we pleased without having to go two at a time, and instantly became much more relaxed. Days were mostly spent walking to different parts of town and just perusing. Berlin has some very nice neighborhoods that are off the tourist circuit, and we could tell that most of what used to be East Berlin was quickly being renovated and upgraded for the more flashy and artsy Berlin crowd of today. The neighborhood of Prenzlaurberg was our favorite. There were little shops and cafes everywhere, with people eating outside despite the fall temperatures. It looked very livable and lively, probably a good place to live for anyone considering a move to Berlin.

Most of all, we enjoyed spending good time with Billy's parents. Hearing about everything that is happening and not happening at home, relaxing while cooking dinners, and drinking wine in the afternoon. It was all really invigorating for us. We realized how much we miss home, family and friends, and that we do not have that much time before we are back in the States, so we should take advantage of what time we have left. We were both nervous to see all our family members, fearing that they might look different than we remembered them, but that turned out to be an unfounded fear. We left Berlin a little sad to have the past two weeks of pampering by our parents over, but very happy to have had the opportunity to share our adventure with them.

8th of October - Prague, Czech Republic

2005-10-23T16:59:00.000-03:00

We arrived in the afternoon the day our moms were scheduled to fly in to Prague. We were so impressed with the modern, luxurious and artsy hotel Linda (Jen's mom) booked. It was decorated in classic Art Nouveau style inside and out. It was once a historical theater that staged anti-Communist plays, so it was left to decay for a few decades during Soviet occupation. It was recently purchased by K + K Hotels and completely restored. Linda did extensive research to find this hotel. She went to a travel agent and told the lady that her daughter was a graphic designer and asked her to recommend the artsiest boutique hotel in Prague for her daughter's 30th birthday. The hotel's luxurious facilities were a welcome change of scenery for us, because we have only splurged on one other nice hotel in the past 10 months. It was like emerging from the desert and entering a lush, tropical oasis. The buffet breakfasts at the hotel consisted of an amazing spread, so we didn't hesitate to stuff ourselves each morning with the plethora of gourmet delights on offer (including mimosas). The hotel was situated near the Powder Tower and the Municipal House, which is a concert hall elaborately decorated by 20th century artists in Art Nouveau style. It was easy to find our way back to the hotel, as we would just look for the "powder keg" as Meredith (Billy's mom) renamed it.

We had not seen our families for 9 months and we wanted to impress and welcome our moms, so we picked up nosegays, Czech beer and deli snacks to surprise them with and we set everything up in their room before they arrived. As we got ready that evening, we joked about feeling as if we were preparing for a first date. We wanted everything to be perfect for their arrival. We waited for them in the hotel lobby and rushed through the entrance to greet them with big hugs. They were tired after a long trip, but we kept them up talking for much of the night. We sent a list of items that we wanted from home and Linda brought the reinforcements. Meredith brought a framed collage of some of our photos from South America, which we kept with us and displayed in our room.

The next morning we rushed to the Russian embassy to apply for visas. As an American citizen, Russian visas must be among the hardest to obtain. Russian visas rank up there with visas for Iran and Afghanistan. We tried to apply in several Eastern European cities, but were denied each time. Our applications were finally accepted in Prague, but in the end, we had to bribe the embassy official to get our passports back in a timely manner. The application itself was a five page questionnaire which asked us to provide details about our last four employers and to list every city we have been to in the past ten years. This is information we had to struggle to remember. We also had to purchase invitations before we could even take our paperwork to a Russian embassy to apply for visas. When we finally arrive in Russia we are required to register as tourists, or pay huge fines when we leave the country. The Russians are thorough when it comes to admitting and keeping tabs on tourists of the Yankee variety.

Once we completed that task, we were free to spend the rest of the day walking around the old town and browsing the farmer's market. We went to see Charles Bridge around sunset when the golden autumn afternoon light illuminated the brightly painted buildings on the opposite side of the Moldau river. Everything was hazy and there were many other tourists meandering across the bridge and enjoying the sights and sounds of musicians playing. After our ritual afternoon Pilsner Urquell that night we ate a traditional Czech dinner at a touristy basement restaurant complete with a traditional dance performance. There were hundreds of Dutch soccer fans clad in bright orange hanging out in the main square because there was a football match in Prague that weekend.

On Jen's birthday we visited the Alfons Mucha museum. Mucha is famous for pioneering the Art Nouveau movement in Paris, but he was born in Prague. Most of his original paintings are in Florida, in the home of a famous athlete. The museum housed a nice collection of Mucha's poster prints. Jen and Linda went clothes shopping at H&M to pick up some winter clothes. We all met for lunch at a quaint cafe across the street from our hotel, where they served soup in a bread bowl that was sculpted like a work of art. We had a few glasses of champagne in our rooms before heading out to a really nice dinner at a French restaurant. The evening was like a dream as Jen relished the attention and made Linda recount the story of her birth (and all the gory details). In the Old Town Square outside the restaurant the rowdy Dutch soccer fans were lighting fire crackers and climbing the walls in celebration of their win.

Over the next few days, we kept busy. One day we picked up sandwiches and salads and had a picnic in the park in Mala Strana to escape the crowds of tourists in the Old Town area. It was sunny and warm (especially at mid-day) every day we were in Prague, so we took advantage of the nice weather and spent time wandering around outside in the Jewish Quarter and along the river. We accidentally discovered the John Lennon wall on one of these walks, which is a colorfully spray painted, ever-changing homage and portrait of the rock star that first appeared in Prague after his death. We visited the Kafka museum and emerged from the dark and spooky museum with a better understanding of the term "Kafkaesque." We walked to the castle on the hill and wandered around its expansive grounds. Linda marched up to a castle guard and asked for directions, but he could only nod in response, as it appears that they are not allowed to speak to the tourists. We stared up at the impressive stained glass windows inside the immense St Vitus Cathedral and hiked up the spiral staircase inside one of the Cathedral's towers to get a better view of Prague.

We moved to an apartment on Wenceslas Square where we could all be together in a cozy pseudo home and cook meals. The apartment was not as nice as we hoped it would be, but it was still much nicer than the types of places that we normally frequent. The place was stocked with almost everything we needed, except for a knife to chop veggies with. Linda and Jen went around to the nearby restaurants with a broken kitchen knife to ask to borrow a functioning knife. The two of them scared a waitress at a nearby pizza place when they walked in brandishing a huge blade. This poor waitress didn't speak English and accidentally poured beer all over herself as she tried to remain calm while being confronted by two potentially dangerous Americans wielding a foot long knife. Once we had a knife we were able to whip up a few great meals, croque monsieurs and bananas flambe.

We went to the opera one night to see Carmen at the National Theater. The tickets cost $3.20 each for seats at the back of the house on the top level. It was Linda's first opera and we all loved it because we knew the music and it was more of a lively theater production than a stuffy classical opera. The National Theater was beautifully decorated in gold and marble, and there was a Dvorak bust proudly displayed in the lobby among the other famous Czech musical personalities. Glasses of champagne at intermission were a bargain too at $2 per glass. The view of the castle at night from the balcony was the best part. For the rest of our lives every time we hear Dvorak's Moldau or any of the music from Carmen we will think of Prague.

4th of October - Vienna, Austria

2005-10-23T16:58:00.000-03:00

We had exactly two days in Vienna before we planned to meet our
moms in Prague for Jen's 30th birthday. Vienna is an expensive city,
and we wanted to see as much as we could without blowing our budget.
We ended up staying at a hostel that was quite interesting, it was just an old
apartment, with one room that had mattresses strewn about the room. The
price was reasonable, so we decided that two nights there would be OK,
despite the lack of privacy of any kind or any organization to the
place. It worked out fine, except for the second night when the
Aussie's staying there decided it was OK to stay up all night playing
drinking games just outside of our sleeping area.

We had a very rigorous schedule of visits to museums, operas, palaces, churches,
cafes, and other sites to see in our two days there. We had to split up one
afternoon just to make sure we got them all in. Vienna is a beautiful
and immaculate city, with an amazing amount of old architecture that is perfectly
restored. It's flawless compared to many of the Eastern European
cities we have visited, which is impressive, but it seems a bit
unnatural. Every building is either in perfect condition or is
undergoing repairs and there are so many historical treasures
everywhere you look. The streets are very orderly, and we noticed that
people did not dare cross the street when the Don't Walk sign was lit, even if
there were no cars anywhere to be found. The entire city also has ample bike
lanes, and cyclists get very upset if you accidentally intrude on
their bicycling space. So, after we got the hang of the rules, we set
out with a map and a plan.

We saw the Hapsburg's summer and winter home, we saw three art
museums, we saw Parliament, Parks, small neighborhoods, the city
center, and just about every part of the city that you could walk to
from our hostel. We were exhausted both nights we were there, which
made sleeping through the drinking games that much easier. The
highlight for us was making it to see an Opera. The Opera House in
Vienna is world famous, and costs 10 Euros to see during the day on a
tour of the interior, but we found out that it is possible to buy
standing room only tickets for Operas the night of certain
performances for 2 Euros. We went to see Verdi's Simon Boccanegra. It
was such a fantastic place, with 6 levels of seating, busts of all the
famous Viennese musicians like Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, and Schubert, and a
grand entrance where people loitered for intermission. Even in the
standing room only section each person had their own personal super
title screen, which allowed us to choose the language we wanted to
read the words in. We only stayed for half the Opera, as standing room only after walking around for 10 hours was a little too much and it was really hot in the nose bleed section, but it was a great experience. We also didn't want to be seen
at intermission, as people were all dressed up, and we were looking
like tattered backpackers.

We went to the Belvedere Museum to see Gustav Klimt's famous painting
The Kiss, and caught an informative and innovative exhibit on
Austria's history (good and bad moments in the country's past). The
museums in Europe are much more engaging than the museums in the
States, they incorporate technology, art and interactive design to
provide an enveloping experience for visitors. We went to
Hundertwasser's KunstHaus (thanks to a recommendation by our friend
Agi in Budapest), which is a shrine to this architect/graphic artist
and we were both impressed by this man's accomplishments and
progressive ideas. We had to have a Weiner Schnitzel and giant beers
in Vienna, so we went out of our way to find a typical Wein style
restaurant that served up enormous portions of this world famous
Viennese dish. Jen was interested in Viennese cafe culture, so she
found a traditional cafe where she could sip a very expensive coffee
(3.5 Euros) one afternoon in order to hang out with the arty crowd and
admire the 19th century fittings and decor inside one of these temples
dedicated to the worship of caffeine. We walked all over the ring and
the inner city to see St Stephen's Cathedral, the Hofburg, Otto
Wagner's Art Nouveau buildings. We went to the Leopold Museum to see
an exhibit from Musee D'Orsey of Impressionist paintings, but even
more impressive was the Egon Schiele permanent collection. Finally,
Jen just couldn't get enough of Klimt, so she went to the Seccession
Building, where his Beethoven Frieze is displayed in the basement to
get a look at his larger than life tribute to the arts.

The city is full of so much history, it was the center of the world
not all that long ago. The Hapsburg summer palace was another mind
blowing experience, to see how much wealth was amassed and lavishly
spent on nothing in particular, besides showing off to the rest of the
world. It was interesting to learn that Marie Antoinette was a
Hapsburg daughter married off to the French to help ease tensions
between the two empires, as well as to help expand the Hapsburg
horizons. It is no surprise that someone brought up like she was in
Vienna would utter those famous last words "let them eat cake." Also
learning about how Mozart played in front of the queen at age 4, and
was internationally known at age 6 brings the whole concept of child
prodigy into focus. We were very impressed by the amount of history to
be learned, and the culture to be experienced in Vienna. Although a
little too orderly for us, it was the first city we've visited on the
trip that felt like a true world class city. From the easy to use
subway, to the Indian, Thai, and Vietnamese restaurants, to the
shopping districts filled with styles from haute couture to The Gap,
to it's high price tag on everything, it is a top flight destination.

1st of October - Budapest, Hungary

2005-10-23T16:57:00.000-03:00

Billy's brother Scott studied in Budapest and has connections there, so he suggested that we get in touch with his old friend Agi. Agi insisted that we stay in her flat while we were in Budapest for a few days, as she had space for us in her daughters newly rebuilt room and they were away at university in the States. She was such a wonderful host and she opened her home to us as if we were family. She showed us Hungarian hospitality, which is a combination of gourmet homecooked specialties and warm company. She cooked incredible dinners for us each night and always insisted that we eat more of everything she prepared. She even packed lunches for us to take during the day while we were out sight seeing in the city. It was so nice to be cared for, to sleep in comfortable beds, to have a place to call home with all of the creature comforts that we have missed over the past ten months.

Because of infrequent buses from Romania to Hungary, we arrived at Agi's doorstep at 4am. She had breakfast prepared for us and we all went back to sleep after eating something. When we woke up later that morning we did laundry and ate constantly throughout the day while Agi cooked and gave us lessons on how to make palincsintas (crepes filled with milk curd, sour cream and sugar) and celery root soup. We lazed around the house talking with Agi and getting to know her. That night her boyfriend Janush drove us all to the citadella atop the hill so that we could see Budapest lit up at night, which is spectacular. It is a stunning city and it is especially dramatic at night. We stared down at the Danube River and its bridges and all the old buildings on the banks of the river. We went for a midnight stroll around Castle Hill, St Stephen's Cathedral, government buildings and the ornately decorated buildings that house the National Art Museum.

We went to the Terror Museum, which we were both impressed with. The subjects explored in the museum were the occupation of German Nazis and then later the occupation of Soviet Communists and how each regime terrorized Hungarians. We visited the Jewish synagogue and went to the very artful memorial constructed on the grounds of the synagogue. The memorial was a metal sculpture in the shape of a tree and each leaf had a Holocaust victim's name engraved on it. It was a very touching monument. We poked our heads into the Four Seasons hotel, because it is really opulent and we were curious to see how they justify charging 700 Euros per night for a room. We walked around the park, Heroes Square, Parliament, the Opera House. We went to Hungarian thermal baths to experience this pastime among men and women who like to torture themselves with hot and cold temperatures in saunas, steam rooms and pools. It was relaxing and the setting was like a Roman bathhouse.

We hopped on a metro train with tickets that Agi advised us to purchase and we thought that we were abiding by the rules until we were stopped by transit police as we exited the train. They asked for our tickets, which we produced, but they claimed weren't valid because we didn't get them stamped before entering the train. There were no instructions posted anywhere and it didn't seem like a very logical system, so we just didn't understand how to use the tickets we purchased in advance. We tried pleading our case, but in the end we were faced with the choice of accompanying the officer to the police station or paying a fine. We paid the fine, but we weren't happy about it. As we were leaving, we noticed that other tourists were being pulled off of trains and subjected to the same treatment and heavy fines. We have no complaints about Budapest other than this one. In fact, we loved Budapest, but this experience left us with a sour taste in our mouths. From what we could see they were taxing unsuspecting tourists on the metro and we didn't think that this was fair treatment.

Back at Agi's house, many more delicious meals awaited us, so there wasn't much time to fret over the metro debacle. We feasted on Porkolt, which is a paprika stew made with pork and Galuska, which is a homemade pasta (like spatzle) to soak up the sauce with. We also sampled Hungary's well known Egri Bikaver (Bull's Blood) red wine, which lived up to its reputation. Agi made us a vegetarian pasta one night that we have cooked for ourselves since. We also tried Hungarian Dobos Torte at a cafe one afternoon that was very rich and tasty, but it wasn't as good as the one that Billy's mom makes. We also had to try Hungarian goulash soup, which was flavored with paprika and warmed us up on a cold afternoon. We basically ate non-stop the entire time we were in Budapest and loved every minute of it.

After 3 days in Agi's home, we really didn't want to leave. We were just starting to get used to eating like kings and lapping up all of her special treatment. Our memories of Budapest are fond because of Agi's spirit, warmth, generousity and hospitality.

28th of September - Sighetu Marmatiei, Maramures - Romania

2005-10-23T16:08:00.000-03:00

The train ride from Sighisoara to the Maramures region of Romania is a beautiful ride through rolling hills, old farms with people driving horse pulled wooden carts full of hay, and hay bails dotting the hillside. Maramures is in the North, bordering the Ukraine, and is known for its old world way of living, not much has changed there in the last 200 years. Many people still wear traditional peasant clothing, and agriculture is the way of life for almost everyone living there.

We arrived after a long train ride that literally stopped every 3 minutes in the middle of nowhere to allow someone to hop on or off near a hay bail or small road that might lead to where they live. We went to a hotel that was in our guide book, and entered this enormous Soviet style hotel that had 25 foot ceilings, hallways that went as far as the eye could see, and we were pretty sure it still had holes in the wall where listening devices were once been covertly hidden to monitor any anti-Communist murmurs. The place seemed so out of place in this remote little area, but it was actually a good deal and our room was three times bigger than any place we have stayed to date.

There is a lot of history in the town of Sighetu (it is about 3 miles from the Ukrainian border), as there used to be a large Jewish community there before WWII, there is a museum where the old Communist prison for political prisoners was during the 1950s, and Sigheti is also where Eli Wiesel, the Nobel Laureate and holocaust survivor, who actually coined the term "holocaust" was born. We went to Eli's old house which is now a museum. It was incredible to see the statistics they have tracked of the diminishing Jewish population of the city and region over the past 60 years. In 1939 there were 37,000 Jews in Maramures, today there are 147. The Wiesel museum touted many of his life achievements, and showed pictures of him in Kosovo and Bosnia with Clinton and Madeline Albright. He has dedicated much of his life to making sure that more genocides to not take place in other parts of the world, and it was interesting to see how prominent he was in the Clinton administration, able to push them into support for the Bosnian Muslims and the Kosovar Albanians. He says that indifference is as bad as committing the crimes themselves.

The next day we went to the Communist museum which used to be a very brutal and secret prison for political prisoners after WWII and during the beginning of the Communist regime in Romania. It was very interesting to see the brutality of the Communists towards their own people, and how the Romanians took to the streets and fought to overthrow the government by force not all that long ago. The museum is dubbed one of the three most important museums in Europe by the EU, the other two being Auschwitz and the WWII Museum in Normandy, France. We saw that many of the prisoners were old politicians that ran the country before Communism, many over 60 years old, and most did not survive more than a year in the prison.

Just outside Sighetu is a town called Sapanta where there is an old cemetery that we really wanted to see. We wanted to rent bikes to get there, but there were no bikes to be rented in town, we even tried to bribe people at the bike shop who sold bikes, but they wouldn't have it. So, we did the next best thing, which was to hitchhike. It is actually the only way people really get around there. You just stand on a designated corner, and passing cars stop and you get in, and pay them about $1 for the ride in and out of town, it works well for everyone.

We got our ride to Sapanta, which if you aren't paying very close attention you will drive by it in a second. We wanted to see what they call the "Merry Cemetery." This place is an old cemetery built around a church where all the headstones are made of wood, and painted in bright colors. What is even more incredible than seeing all these beautifully colorful tombstones against the green hills behind them, is that each one has a personalized painting of the life of the person that is buried beneath it. Some people have paintings of their vocation on their decorative headstones, like the farmer with his cows, or the welder with a blow torch mending a fence. Others have family portraits, so you see the deceased with all their kids, or the deceased holding hands with their husband or wife. Others have silly pictures, the deceased drinking and smoking, or gambling. The strangest of these cartoon-like paintings were the ones that illustrated how they died, a person being hit by a car, or a person drowning in a river. Each one also had a little story written about the person, and we were told they are always happy and lively stories, although we could not read them ourselves. This place was really inspirational, we have never seen death treated in such an uplifting way. We spent almost three hours looking at every possible headstone, we found the whole place to be a great idea, and a great tradition that has been carried down for over a hundred years in this little village in the middle of nowhere. We wondered what we would put on our tombstones, and decided that each of us in front of a computer screen would not do.

After we spent so much time in the merry cemetery, we walked up the hills behind the town and found a nice orchard to sit in where we could look out over the valley. Life is so slow there. People walked by, or rode on the back of horse drawn carts, always saying hello and moving at a very tenable pace. We really felt like we had traveled back in time a hundred years or so in Maramures, and no more so than in Sapanta. Every home we passed had a huge pile of maze drying, some pumpkins, hay bails, a horse or two, and little kids and dogs running around the yard. It was also the second day of sunshine we had seen in almost 10 days, so the experience was extra special. Afterwards we went back to the main road and hitched a ride into town, and had our favorite ciorba soup and hot wine to warm up, and then back to the Communist Hotel to sleep in our giant room.

22nd of September - Sighisoara, Romania

2005-10-23T12:30:00.000-03:00

Sighisoara is a modern day tourist destination in Transylvania, and it just so happens to be where the Blaus lived for hundreds of years. Billy visited Sighisoara over two decades ago when some of his great aunts and great uncles were still alive and living together in what was the old Blau family home for hundreds of years located just outside the citadel. Billy remembers playing soccer in the streets with neighborhood kids, the trees on the hill in the backyard that his great aunts picked fruit and nuts from to bake cakes and pies every morning, the love and attention the whole family lavished upon him, the handmade goose down duvet one of his great aunts stuffed for him to sleep underneath on cold nights. His mom remembers the sound of horse pulled carts passing by on the street out in front of the old house and the affectionate family members greeting each other with hugs and kisses each morning. Today you can still see horse drawn carts outside of the citadel, but they share the road with cars, taxis, souvenir stands and throngs of tourists. It's easy to understand why a city like Sighisoara attracts tourists. It is majestically built inside a fortress perched on a hill, and it is as breathtaking from the inside of the citadel walls as it is from afar as seen when arriving by train.

Inside the citadel walls the streets are paved with cobblestone and the churches, clock tower, artillery bastions, and homes look as if they haven't changed since they were built somewhere between the 13th and 15th centuries. Sighisoara is peaceful and the pace of life is slow. The clock tower is the icon of the town, it sits atop the entrance to the citadel with its colorful ceramic roof tiles and fanciful parade of characters that dance in a circle at the stroke of the hour like a cuckoo clock. The spooky cemetery at the top of the hill is Gothic with its old tombstones and creepy trees. This is where Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler) was born and the plaza in the citadel was once the site of impalings conducted by this legendary figure in Romania's history. We all know Vlad Tepes as the character that Bram Stoker's infamous Dracula is based on.

We went to Sighisoara in search of traces of the Blau family. We started out by visiting the old Blau family home on Illarie Chendi. As soon as we found a hostel and dropped off our backpacks, we walked directly there to see what had become of the old house. Sadly, it was the only house of the entire street that had recently been remodeled. The cement was still wet and the house hadn't even been painted yet. The edifice of the place was unrecognizable to Billy. Strangely enough in this small, quaint town on this old historic street a "night club" had been built a few doors down from the old Blau family home. At this point we realized that time had changed this place and as the old saying goes, "There's no going home."

Seeing the torn down and reconstructed Blau house was anticlimactic, so we decided to start looking for the graves of Billy's great aunts, great uncles, great grandmother and great grandfather at the Jewish cemetery. The first day we went to the main cemetery on the hill inside the citadel and searched hundreds of headstones for the name Blau, but didn't find any Blaus there.

We asked a local kid where we could find the Jewish cemetery and he didn't know the meaning of the word "Jewish" despite his fluent English. This was not the first time we got a blank look from a Romanian when we uttered the word "Jewish." We started to wonder why no one knew what Jewish meant. Was it because it is still a taboo subject or is there so little knowledge about Jews because they were exterminated from Romania in the hundreds of thousands over 60 years ago? Miriam, a friend of the Blau family who grew up in Sighisoara and now lives in Chicago, suggested that people might be pretending not to understand the word "Jewish." We saw swastikas spray painted in graffiti in various parts of Romania and we wondered how antisemitism can still exist without Jews in Romania.

The local kid told us about a Hungarian cemetery on the hill opposite the citadel, behind the post office. We thought that they may be buried there since this part of Romania once belonged to Hungary, and Billy's family called themselves Hungarian Jews. So, on our second day in Sighisoara we walked to that cemetery and searched each headstone with no luck. We were directed to yet another cemetery outside of town by the concierge at Hotel Sighisoara, and the next day we visited that cemetery, but again failed to find any Blaus there. We finally sprung for a taxi and asked the driver to take us to the Jewish cemetery, but even he had to call in for the location. When we finally arrived there, we found it locked up behind a chain link fence with barbed wire all around. One of the groundskeepers at the larger Christian cemetery nearby showed us how to sneak in under the fence around the back. We crept through bramble bush and into the cemetery and finally found the Blaus graves. It was an emotionally cathartic experience for Billy as he read the names of his family members buried there. At the lower end of the cemetery we discovered a monument to the Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, and we found 3 members of the Blau family's initials engraved there. We placed stones on each of the Blau headstones, as is the tradition. Nandor, Billy's great uncle, was shipped to a Nazi work camp in the early 1940s and at the end of WWII he walked all the way back to Sighisoara from the Ukraine to find his wife and two children missing. His family was killed in a Nazi concentration camp.

Leaving the cemetery as we walked back to the citadel we passed a small hospital clinic, out of which a new father exited and yelped with glee about his newborn baby. The proud dad with family in tow crossed the street and hopped into a horse drawn wooden cart and sped home. It was a poignant and uplifting symbol of life, which we appreciated after our solemn visit to the cemetery.

We spent some time trying to track down one of the neighbor kids that Billy once played with when his family was in Sighisoara. We had her name and her photo, which we showed to everyone we met to inquire about her. No one recognized her or knew her name. We went to the German "Gymnasium" school on the hill where Billy's family attended high school to ask if they had a register of names of former students, but we came up empty handed there also.

After we had exhausted all possibilities of tracking down ghosts of the Blau family in Sighisoara, we spent our last afternoon there on a park bench out in front of the house we rented a room in. It was a sunny day, the first of its kind in weeks, as it had been raining almost everyday since we arrived in Romania. We sat there drinking homemade red wine that Marius gave us and watching the routines of the neighbors. One neighbor was passing time chatting with other neighborhood folks while his ducks were feeding on seeds in the grass and bathing in a small tub of water outside of his home. Another neighbor let his chickens out of his yard to feed, and we giggled as they sprinted out of the gate as if they were running in a race.

Before long an old lady named Berta came and sat next to us on the bench. Neither Berta nor her young companion spoke English, but we assessed the old lady's age (94) and we figured that she may have attended school with some of Billy's relatives. We asked if she knew the name Nandor Blau and it seemed to sound familiar to her as her young companion shouted it into her one good ear. In a town as small as Sighisoara, everyone knows everyone that lives here, as we were told by a cafe owner in the citadel. It was a stretch, but we had finally found someone who remembered the Blaus, right there on that park bench completely by chance. Unfortunately all we could exchange with this link to the past were smiles, small talk about the chicken and ducks, the plane that delivered us to Romania from America, and the phone she uses to call faraway places like San Francisco to say "halo."

With that stroke of luck we were off to our next destination in northern Romania. The countryside in this part of the world is so attractive, especially between Sighisoara and Dej. We took in the scenic view through the train window on another sunny day in Fall. There were green sloping hills and golden corn fields growing so high that you can just barely see the silhouettes of horses or men's heads poking out through their rows. We tried to memorize the images of Hershey Kiss shaped haystacks as big as houses and muddy dirt roads with massive puddles children were chasing each other around and men on bicycles were trying to avoid. We saw dozens of small villages of red tile roofs with the ubiquitous church steeple rising from their centers in perfect valleys. Many of these scenes could have been witnessed by a train passenger 50 or even 100 years ago. Romanian countryside is like a timeless illustration in a romantic storybook.

20th of September - Sinaia and Brasov, Romania

2005-10-23T02:02:00.000-03:00

We arrived in Sinaia, a little ski town not far from Bucharest in the middle of a total downpour, and the rain did not stop until we left many days later. Sinaia is a very idyllic town, not too much different from Tahoe in California, catering to a ski crowd in winter and is mostly sleepy off season. We went there to go to Peles Castle, which we heard was a can't miss from the folks we met at the wedding in Bucharest.

We decided not to brave the out and out downpour our first day there, so we stayed in our cold and damp hotel room and skipped dinner so we would not catch a cold venturing back into the rain. The next morning we woke up to more rain, but it was not as intense, so we put all of our rain gear on and started up towards the grand Peles Castle. After a 30 minute walk we were drenched, and found out that the castle was closed, so we had to come back the next day. We bought some food and some wine that they poured directly into our old water bottle from the barrel at the grocery store and ate dinner at the hostel, and watched all the news stories of flooding all over Romania on TV. We thought we might be trapped there for a long time.

We did finally make it to the castle the next morning, and we were not disappointed at all. It is set in an incredibly picturesque valley with mountains extending in all directions. The castle itself looks like a Tudor Mansion on steroids, as it was originally built by the German Archduke of the Transylvanian region in the 1880's. Inside each room was incredibly well decorated, with over the top wood work, paintings (some done by hand on the walls by Gustav Klimt), tapestries, statues, chandeliers, and anything else that would be fit for a King at that time. One amazing part was that each room had a different theme, and was decorated from top to bottom in that theme. There was a Turkish room, an Italian Rococo room, a Moorish room, a German room, and a French theatre and armory rooms for both Asian collections and a European collection. The house was the first of its kind to have electricity, central heating, and a central vacuum system. This was one place that we were in awe of every room, it was spectacular. After visiting Peles castle, we knew that no other castle in Romania would hold a candle to this one, so we skipped the more famous castles in the touristy parts of Transylvania.

From Sinaia we took the train to Brasov, which is a good sized city another 2 hours into Transylvania. Brasov has an old square in the middle of town, but it was being used for the annual music festival when we were in town. The music festival is quite famous, and a lot of big name acts have played at the same festival in previous years, but they are usually a couple years out of their prime when they hit Brasov, and this year was no exception with Joe Cocker headlining the show. We figured out how to sneak in to the concert, instead of paying for a ticket, we could go early to the center and get a cup of coffee at one of the cafes within the concert area. At 6:00 PM the police sweep through and kick everyone out of the square that does not have a ticket, or is not patronizing one of the local establishments. So, we sat for 4 hours in a cafe nursing two coffees to see the concert and we could see all the action pretty well from their outdoor seating area. The cold chased us out before it was over, but we had fun watching different acts from around the world get their 2-3 songs each. The audience was not what we would call enthusiastic, as after each one they stopped talking long enough to give a half hearted round of applause, then go back to talking to each other again. It almost seemed like they were being forced to clap, but didn't really want to.

The next day we went took off for Billy's family hometown of Sighisoara.

17th of September - Bucharest, Romania

2005-09-20T07:04:00.000-03:00

Friends of ours (Steve and Amber Golik) who traveled in Romania a few years ago hooked us up with friends they made in Bucharest, so we got in touch with Liviu before arriving in Romania and he offered to pick us up at the train station and let us stay at his house while we were in town. We had no idea what was in store for us in Bucharest. Liviu and his family and friends treated us like old friends and showed us Romanian hospitality to the extent that Jen cried at the train station as the train pulled away when our visit had ended. We were so touched by his generosity and the time that he and his wife and daughter took to show us their fine city, cook for us at home, treat us to wonderful meals in traditional Romanian restaurants, take us out on the town to experience the nightlife in Bucharest, stay up all night drinking wine and talking with Billy, introduce us to his friends who were also incredibly welcoming, and include us in a special countryside wedding.

Our first night in Bucharest Liviu, his wife Yvonne, and his daughter Becky took us out to a great restaurant for an introduction to Romanian food and we were thoroughly impressed with the wine and the tasty traditional dishes. We had the freshest produce in salads to start the meal followed by things like mamaliga (a cornmeal polenta side dish that accompanies most Romanian meals) and pork meat wrapped in cabbage leaves (another Romanian specialty). Liviu's friend Vlad met us after dinner and the guys took us to a club for a beer and then on to see a popular Romanian live band that played covers and weaved in a comedy act. We slept so soundly that night and then woke up to a lovely breakfast that Yvonne prepared for us of meatballs, green salad, fresh veggies, cheeses, coffee (and vodka)...all presented like a professional chef would plate dishes. Yes, we were off to a very good start, but it only got better...

Liviu took us on a walking tour of Bucharest starting from his apartment in the center of the city. He showed us his office, where he runs a recruiting business for Bucharest's job seekers and a couple of content/lifestyle web sites. It was inspiring to see the kind of drive and determination that has ignited in people of Liviu's generation who are flourishing in a country that has recently broken free of Communist leadership. Liviu told us that there is so much opportunity in Bucharest today because there are so many things that have not yet been done there. He is one of the people spearheading business in his industry and he seems to keep a close eye on what is going on in the States, the rest of Europe, China and India for his own vision of Bucharest's future. With Romania on the short list for accession to the EU, everyone is a buzz with the possibilities and the changes to come.

We continued our tour and Liviu pointed out all the sights as we walked around the city...the impressive Hilton hotel in an historic building, the National Theater, the ornate Opera House (outside of which al fresco concerts were being held in celebration of the great Romanian composer Enescu), the government buildings and parts of the city where Ceausescu's protesters gathered and 1,000 people were killed before he was overthrown and he and his wife were executed on Christmas Day in 1989. We were captivated by the historical and personal accounts of life in Romania during the tumultuous 1980s. We walked to the commercial center of Bucharest, which was once the center of the Communist regime and is now a bustling shopping mall with upscale stores, McDonald's and other international franchises. We made our way to the House of Parliament, which was ambitiously commissioned by Ceausescu, has been under construction for 20 years, and is still only 90 percent complete today. We strolled past city block after city block of fountains as we got closer to the large and looming House of Parliament. Out in front of the Palace of Parliament underneath a tent a car show was being held with expensive cars on display. Everywhere we looked there was evidence of a rapidly growing free market economy. Capitalism is alive and well in Romania's capital city. We could see how the explosion of growth here has impacted everyday life in Romania. For example, the city dwellers are talking on their cell phones in nice cars while speeding past horse drawn carriages on country roads just a few miles outside of the city center.

We got really lucky and were able to participate in a guided tour of some of the rooms inside the Palace of Parliament. This monstrosity of a monument to the Communist government under Ceausescu was as overwhelming on the inside as it was daunting from the outside. Each room was larger than life and so lavishly decorated with materials crafted in and extracted from Romania alone. Beautiful silk and velvet draperies adorn the windows, tons of pink marble decorate the walls and floors, special made rugs require 25 men just to roll them out over the gargantuan ball room floors, huge Romanian crystal chandelier hang from the ceilings of each room, state of the art technology and architectural techniques heat and cool the building and amplify sound in the meeting rooms. Every detail was attended to and money was not an object in the conception of this insanely opulent palace. This is the 2nd largest building in the world (only the Pentagon in the US is bigger). When we asked how much it cost to build, our guide was not able to give us an answer. It seems a bit strange that a communist leader would be so demonstrative with wealth, and we thought it was a pity that the building didn't seem to be fully accessible to the public or utilized by city officials whose offices reside somewhere inside.

We had lunch at the Amsterdam Cafe in the old town part of the city and we discovered house wine in Romania, which is nothing like house wine in the States. The best wine in Romania is the house wine on menus in restaurants...it is fresh, the quality is incredible and the price is right. For dinner we went to Vlad and Maria's house and met the newest addition of their family, a 5 month old named Vladimir. We drank wine as Vlad and Liviu conducted a cook off for dinner. Italian culture and food are prized parts of Romanian life as we discovered when Vlad whipped up a pesto sauce and Liviu threw together a blue cheese sauce for the pasta. Billy and I were appointed the judges of the contest, but we found it difficult to choose, as both dishes were as good as the pasta we ate in Trieste a month ago. We sat outside on Vlad and Maria's terrace watching the moon rise over the spectacular old world European skyline in Vlad's neighborhood. We had great discussions about family, life in Romania and in the States, politics (of course), the conspiracy theories about America staging the Neil Armstrong moon landing in 1969, and the law (a subject in which Vlad is well versed as a Public Notary in Bucharest). We went to Liviu's house and the girls retired while the boys stayed up talking in the kitchen.

The next day we attended a countryside Romanian wedding about one hour outside Bucharest. Liviu's friends Doina and Horia had been married in Bucharest the weekend before and this was a second celebration for their friends and family in the countryside. The wedding began with a procession from the groom's grandma's home to the church as 80 guests followed the wedding party to the small Orthodox church at the center of town. The church itself was made of dark wood and the interior was beautifully painted with gilded scenes of the life of Jesus and portraits of the saints. The ceremony was short and involved blessings of the bride and groom and the entire congregation, so we clumsily participated and noted the differences between Catholic and Episcopalian traditions that we each know. Jen crossed herself the wrong way (Catholics make the sign of the cross by touching their forehead, then chest, then left shoulder and finally right shoulder, but in the Orthodox church they touch their shoulders in the opposite order). Luckily the priest didn't seem to care. After being blessed we walked around the pulpit and kissed each of the portraits of the saints one by one. When the ceremony finished, we ate little sweet coconut flavored ball-like bitesized cakes and then marched back down the street toward Horia's grandmother's house.

On the way back to the house we made noise to notify the neighbors that we were outside and they each came to their front gates and drank tuica (a plum hard alcohol) from a traditional wooden flask and a glass bottle that was offered by the bride and groom. This was the best part. It was great to see the neighbors come out of their homes and wish the newlyweds well. One neighbor in particular was our favorite, her name is Old Lady Banana and she was about 80 years old (we later discovered the nickname was given to her because of her tendency to grab men's crotches while dancing on tables), and she came out of her home and started singing and dancing like a gypsy and was all too happy to take a swig of the tuica.

We met a lovely American couple at the wedding, who were from Tucson, Arizona, and coincidentally the guy (Corneliu or George, depending on who you talk to...we noticed that a lot of Romanians go by two names, one is their birth name and the other is their baptized name) went to high school at Evanston Township High (Billy's Alma Mater) and was born in Romania...he was the cousin of the groom. He showed us around his grandma's farm and recounted stories of his childhood there. He pointed out the hen tree with a ladder resting on its trunk, which we would later see the hens use to climb up into the tree's branches to sleep safely out of reach of any predators. He told us about how the farmland was taken from his grandma and divided up during communist times and how they worked the land and gave 75 percent of the crops to the goverment and kept the other 25 percent for themselves. He told us stories about how he and his cousin used to light fires on the farm for fun and how he tended the potato crops, which were the most backbreaking labor on the farm.

We got to know Corneliu and Jerica well over the course of the day as we ate and drank and danced to gypsy songs played by a live band. They attended the city wedding the weekend prior, so they knew the drill and warned us that we would eat and drink until we were stuffed. The food was indescribably good. Everything was homemade from the sausages to the wine, and all the ingredients came from their farm or from the neighbor's farms. The pig was slaughtered two days before the wedding, and the fruits and veggies were so fresh. We ate coleslaw that was so spicy and tasty, that we didn't believe that it was coleslaw...even the most typically mundane dishes were elevated to a gourmet level. I picked a grape from the vine to taste it and it was so sweet that I thought I was chewing on a piece of bubble gum. We picked an apple from one of the trees on the farm and it was so crispy and tart that it tasted better than any apple I have ever taken a bite of. At sunset the cows literally came home. We looked out on the street in front of the house and saw dozens of cows returning to their homes after being out at a communal grazing spot all day. Each cow knew exactly where to go to be let in through their owner's fences. All the neighbors were either sitting outside on the curb chatting or they joined in the fun at the wedding. They also opened their homes to any of the wedding guests who wanted to stay overnight. Our hosts kept the party going by bringing out new courses of food every two hours and plying us with coffee in between glasses of wine. We learned to dance in traditional Romanian style and felt like part of the family by the end of the night when everyone was dancing on the tables.

We were hoping that our experience of Romania would be special because we are going to visit Sigisoara, where Billy's family is from, to see the old family home and the graveyard where many of the Blaus are buried. We thought that our journey to Romania would be about getting in touch with Billy's roots, but we stumbled upon a whole different experience in Bucharest. We are off to a great start here in Romania.

15th of September - Istanbul, Turkey

2005-09-15T10:10:00.000-03:00

From Belgrade we took an overnight train to the capital of Bulgaria (Sofia, which means wisdom in Greek), where we hoped to catch another train or a bus to complete the journey to Istanbul. In Belgrade we inquired about overland travel to Istanbul and we received 3 conflicting responses from different travel agents and the ticket office at the train station. We weren't sure whether to believe that the train to Istanbul was broken or that we'd be able to catch a connecting train from Sofia or that the tracks were flooded from the recent rains in this part of Europe. So, when we set off for Sofia we weren't even sure if we'd make it to Istanbul, but we figured it would be an adventure regardless of our destination. We had a sleeping cabin all to ourselves for this overnight train ride, so we were happy to be traveling comfortably for the first time since we arrived in Europe.

We arrived in Sofia in the early morning and found ourselves being rushed to the bus that was soon to depart for Istanbul. We followed two Bulgarian guys running at full speed from the train station to the bus station and we boarded the bus leaving for Istanbul just as it was pulling out of the parking lot. We spent all of 10 minutes in Bulgaria, so we know little more than what we read in our guidebook about the country. Bulgaria's claim to fame is that the first computer was invented by a Bulgarian-American in the 1930s. They fought on both sides of WWII (first for the Germans with Austria and later for the Russians). According to our guide book Bulgarians shake their head yes and nod their head to say no, which could prove to be very confusing body language, but unfortunately we didn't have time to test this out ourselves.

Crossing the border into Turkey was interesting. The woman sitting in front of us on the bus asked if we would hide some of her dozens of bottles of duty free gin in our bags until we were safely on the other side. We agreed to assist in the smuggling of bottles and we were the only people on the bus whose bags didn't get searched. We did have to pay for visas upon entry, but we successfully sneaked the alcohol across the border and then wondered why we didn't demand a bottle or two in payment. Alcohol is expensive in Turkey and it is not served in many establishments, probably because it's a Muslim country and not many people seem to drink here anyway...aside from the lady sitting in front of us on the bus.

Upon arrival in Istanbul the first thing we noticed was the sheer size of the city. We sat in traffic for two hours inching towards the city center. Once we got off of the bus we found ourselves lost in the maze of the overwhelming bus station and we immediately discovered what Turkish hospitality is all about. It was a warm welcome. With traffic whizzing by and horns honking a few hawkers crowded around us and vied for our attention with catchy phrases like, Hey Aussie! or Which one is the boss? or The biggest puma is you! This last one was a comment on Billy's puma t-shirt, but we are still not sure what it means. Once they had our attention they joked about taking our money, which led to a sort of bargaining game in which no one budged and everyone laughed. Next thing we knew we were ushered into the back of a cab and off to Sultanhamet, the center of all tourism in Istanbul. When it came time to pay for the cab we haggled over the price, then they shook our hands, kissed us, grabbed our faces, took our money and sped away. Welcome to Istanbul.

Istanbul is a stunning city with a strange mix of modern and ancient buildings and a striking Muslim culture. Our first day in Istanbul was spent walking around marveling at the Ottoman style construction and huge mosques with towering minarets. We visited Topkapi Palace, which was once home to Sultans and their harems, and today is a museum complete with a collection of the prophet Muhammad's swords and other personal affects like pieces of his hair and some of his teeth. The most interesting part of the palace for us was the architecture, as some of the buildings dated back to 500AD and all were built with opulent materials and tiles. That night we feasted on a staple here called doner kebabs (of the Iskender type with yogurt and tomato sauce on top of slices of lamb and cubes of bread). These ubiquitous kebabs would be called a wrap at home, and they generally consist of meat cut from a rotating spit, tomatoes and greens rolled up in flatbread. Billy could live on a diet of nothing more than these kebabs for an eternity. We went to an outdoor cafe to drink Turkish tea and watch a whirling dervish perform while savouring the scent of apple flavored tobacco that our neighbors were smoking from a water pipe. The whirling dervish performance was much less a show than a practice. Without any pomp and circumstance the dervish stepped onto the small platform in the center of the cafe and started spinning around in circles. His face had a very somber expression as if he was in a trance while his arms were held above his head in a very purposeful manner and his full robe made the shape of an upside down flower as he spun around and around. He wore a tall cylindrical hat and a black cloak that he put on and took off each time with a ritual kiss to the collar. We're not sure how he did this without becoming dizzy and falling over or stumbling. We tried it ourselves and determined that it would require much more practice.

We went to the Grand Bazaar and felt like we had arrived in the shopping mecca of the world. It was easy to get lost in the maze of shops inside the bazaar and browse the rows of goods ranging from gold and jewels to hookah pipes and Turkish carpets. The Egyptian bazaar was smaller, but we had more fun shopping there for candies and spices. We visited the Blue Mosque one day, which invoked in us a feeling of awe that can only be matched by visits to other grand and sacred places of worship. Another memorable night in Istanbul was spent having dinner at a rooftop terrace of one of the hotels in Sultanhamet. At around 8pm the sound of the call to prayer echoed all around us from the 5 nearby mosques. We sat there admiring the view of the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofia Mosque, whose minarets were lit up dramatically like taper candles, while listening intently to the sound of the muezzins passionately intoning voices. No matter how many times we hear the call to prayer (we heard it first in Bosnia and also in Serbia) it remains a very foreign and exotic sound that reminds us that we are far from home.

10th of September - Belgrade, Serbia

2005-09-10T11:45:00.000-03:00

We took an overnight train into Belgrade, and arrived at 6AM. We got into a taxi, and got totally ripped off, we paid 10 Euros to travel about 5 minutes in the cab. We have developed a skill for not getting fooled into paying ridiculous prices for things very often, but cab rides are our weakness and sometimes after a long trip we just want to get to a place to rest, and we lose our senses. The hotel we went to was booked, so we started walking around town in search of another place to stay. On our walk we ran into a siblings from Macedonia who had also just arrived in town, so we went with them to a nearby hotel where we all ended up staying.

After we dropped off our bags, we went with them to have some coffee and explore Belgrade a bit. We walked over to the old citadel that sits on a hill high above where the Danube and Sava rivers meet. This is probably one of the most important strategic locations in Europe, if not the world. Because this has been such an important location, linking the trading posts of Asia with Europe, Belgrade has been sacked and destroyed no less than 40 times in the past 1200 years. The citadel is the remains of what this city used to look like, again walled in so as to thwart invasions. What is so nice about the old citadel here is that it has not been fully restored, it still sits in ruins in some places, and really has the feel of what it used to look like. It is much larger than the forts in Dubrovnik or Split, by a long shot. The top of the citadel is now a very lovely park that has views out all over the city where children play and people go to escape the traffic and the heat of the city streets.

Inside the citadel is the Former Yugoslavian War Museum, which was incredibly detailed and full of maps and tons of information. We could not read a lot of the information, and we got the feeling that this was purposefully done. Hallway after hallway was full of old swords, knifes, cannons, and rifles dating from the Ottoman empire and earlier. When we got to the post WWI section, there was only one small room. There they proudly displayed a piece of the American stealth fighter the Serbs shot down in Kosovo in 1999, and the uniform of the US pilot that was flying the plane. This part had some English descriptions, and displayed graphs of how many troops, guns, planes and tanks NATO forces had in comparison to Serb assets, as well as the "illegal" weapons that were used by NATO troops against the Serbs. The experience we were supposed to get out of this part of the museum is to feel sorry for the undermanned Serb army who was viciously attacked by NATO. There was no mention of the ethnic cleansing and elimination of Albanians that was taking place in Kosovo by the Serbs. This was one of the more eerie feelings we have had anywhere on our trip, the people here live in denial of what happened in both Bosnia and Kosovo.

The next day we met up with the Macedonians again to visit Tito's tomb, where there is also a museum. Tito was a war hero who helped defeat the Nazi's in WWII, and also formed what was Yugoslavia of the 6 republics. He was a Communist, but not under Soviet control, and this made him very popular here for three decades until he died in 1980. He was also from a mixed family with a Croat mother and Serb father, which makes his burial in Serbia all the more interesting today. The museum was full of gifts other heads of state had given him as presents, as well as batons that were used in the annual youth relay across Yogoslavia where a baton was be passed person to person and then delivered to Tito in Belgrade. The batons were designed differently each year and were very interesting, there were over 30 of them.

In our cab to the museum, we drove by two old state buildings that had been blown up by NATO forces in 1999. The Serbian government left them that way to show the world what happened to them, although leaving such buildings in the middle of a thriving city like Belgrade seems a bit ridiculous. Our taxi driver also pointed out that there were many armed guards in front of the US Embassy, but there were none in front of the Croatian Embassy. He said that Serbians hate Americans even more than Croatians, whom they have a terribly long and bloody history of war with. When we asked the Macedonians why there was such strong anti-Americanism here, they told us that people are still angry about the NATO attack and generally don't like American interference in Balkan problems. They also said that there was never any confirmation that there were mass murders going on in Kosovo, which clued us in that they were part of the brainwashed group of Serb sympathizers that Milosovic created. It left a strange taste in our mouths, that this very aggressive country still believes that they are the victims after they waged war with the entire region and have always been involved in repressive measures against Kosovars. We decided to leave the Macedonians and walked through the upscale neighborhood of Belgrade near Tito's mausoleum, where we saw Milosovic's old house and many other mansions where mostly foreign diplomats live. All of the mansions had armed guards with large automatic weapons.

Later that day we went to an Internet cafe, and faced another strange situation. The guy who ran the place decided to turn up his little radio to blasting level when these very loud Nationalistic Serb songs were playing. He made the kids in the cafe sing along, and he marched around the cafe singing with his hands in the air. Then a song that had the American National Anthem played, but the words were very menacing, with some strong anti-American language. We felt it was time to leave as this Internet cafe seemed to be whipping into some strange frenzy, possibly as a show to us. When we paid the guy who was making all the noise and marching around the place, he was nice enough and didn't say anything to us. Overall, probably the strangest experience we have had so far.

Apart from the politics of the place, Belgrade is a very happening city, and has many nice avenues to walk along. The Skadarska district is full of cobbled streets with nice trees lining them, and cafes, bars and restaurants everywhere. It reminded us of Palermo in Buenos Aires. There are many beautiful people here, and they all love to stroll the main shopping avenue and sit at the cafes smoking and drinking coffee. We get a feeling that there is a lot going on here, and that there is money being made, we have run into a lot of foreign businessmen and the place always seems to be on the move. The food is excellent, and the city is clean and safe.

We were glad to have made a stop here, to hear how all the people involved in the recent war in the Balkans have very different opinions of the exact same events. We are still not sure how Yugoslavia survived as a union for so long with such deep hatreds that exist even today, but that does not mean that the people of these new nations don't know how to dress, party, and talk about the day their countries are going to join the EU.

6th of September - Dubrovnik, Miljet, Korcula and Hvar, Croatia

2005-09-10T10:56:00.000-03:00

We met up with our friends James and Julianne from Chicago in Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is at the very Southern edge of Croatia and probably the best restored old citadel in all of Europe, or so all the experts say. The city itself is incredible, it is built out on a peninsula, completely walled in from the outside world whether it be sea or land, with the wall reaching heights of 75 feet. Inside the large wall is a well restored city full of old churches, houses, shops, and the 3rd oldest pharmacy in the world, dating back to 1391. Although the city was shelled by the Serbs at the beginning of the war, for no reason at all, it is now well restored and except for the newer red shingles on some of the roofs, it looks just like the pictures of the city before the war.

The four of us spent a few days walking around the city, up and down the narrow alleyways and along the top of the wall where we could get the best views. Croatia is bustling with tourism, especially in such a historic and beautiful city as Dubrovnik, so the remnants of the war are much less pronounced than in Bosnia. We did talk to a guy who was there during the war, and recounted tales that we have heard from so many people in the region, no food, no water, no electricity for months on end. We did hear a bit more than just those words, as he described people drinking out of puddles and eating rats to survive. It is hard to imagine the shop owner or the taxi driver or the person whose home we stayed in living that way, which was sure to be true of anyone who was there 12 years ago as most of the population was.

Our evenings were spent walking along the craggy shoreline watching the sun go down, and then to one of the many restaurants that line to shore all along the new and old city. We also spent one hot afternoon swimming right off of the old city wall. It was spectacular to be in perfectly blue water, swimming in the shadow of a 75 foot wall. People swim all around the outside of the wall, and from the water you can see how foreboding it must have been for those who wanted to get in 700 years ago.

From Dubrovnik we took a ferry to Miljet, an island a couple hours away. Miljet is a beautiful green island that has giant natural inlets that they call lakes. We rented bikes and rode around the island all day, finding nice secluded places to jump in the water. In the middle of one of the inlets there is an island with an old monastery built on it, which has now become a tourist attraction. Apart from the hill we had to ride up and down twice to get to the other side of the island, it was a very relaxing ride and there were very few tourists to contend with.

From Miljet, we took a ferry the next morning to the island of Korcula, where we rented a very nice apartment for two nights. It was one of the nicest places we have stayed at on the entire trip, and was no more expensive than any other accommodation. There we explored the island, which also had an old walled town much like Dubrovnik, but smaller and more relaxed with fewer tourists. We cooked dinners on our deck that looked over the sea, and went to the "best beach in Dalmatia", which turned out to be just a little less pebbly than the other beaches, with some actual sand mixed in with the rocks. Our apartment also had a huge garden all around the house with fruits, tomatoes, herbs and other vegetables that we were allowed to pick for ourselves and use for cooking some gourmet dinners. Korcula had a really nice atmosphere, and was probably our favorite spot anywhere on the Dalmatian coast.

From there we all jumped on another ferry to Hvar, the famous island where the supposed rich and famous go to escape the more famous coasts of Italy and Greece. There were many giant yachts in the harbor, and one was carrying some kind of diplomat who had many bodyguards and people securing the area before he wandered into it. Apart from that, Hvar is similar to Korcula, but a little more run down from all the tourism, and not as quaint. One afternoon the four of us (trying to fit in with the yachting crowd) rented a small boat so we could go and explore the nearby islands. We had to cross the channel in the boat, but the winds were a bit strong, the waves blowing into our boat, and when the big yachts sped past us our boat almost got overturned in their wake. On top of that, it became very overcast and chilly, and we could hear thunder roaring on the other side of the hills. This was not the nice, relaxing boat ride were were hoping for. It did clear up enough for us to make it back across the channel with no incident. We had one more nice dinner in Hvar, and then we said goodbye to James and Julianne as they headed on to Split and we went off towards Montenegro.

28th of August - Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovena

2005-08-28T12:22:00.000-03:00

From Mostar we took a bus a few hours through spectacular landscapes along the river and through the mountains to Sarajevo. We found our little old lady to live with near the old town, and got settled right away. We were really in luck too, as we discovered that the Sarajevo International Film Festival was in town for most of the time we were going to be here.

Sarajevo is of course famous for the 1984 Winter Olympics, and here you can really see how a city can fall from glory quickly. Again, the city is part in rubble, part just shot up, and part renovated. Nothing is more obvious than the Olympic Stadium that once hosted the opening ceremonies on the world stage, now is just crumbling and has some carpet shops operating in what used to be ticket booths. It is also easy to see the distinctly Eastern European architecture, or as some might say, lack thereof. Lots of large cement buildings, and even though they are riddled with holes, have broken glass in the windows, and have been bombed to shreds, they probably never looked too much better.

Explaining Sarajevo is to explain Bosnia, which is also to really explain what happened to Yugoslavia. Sarajevo was the melting pot of Yugoslavia, where Serbs, Croats and Muslims lived side by side in relative peace. There is a corner here that has a Jewish Temple, a Mosque, an Orthodox Church, and a Catholic Church all across from eachother. During the day, you can hear church bells and the call to prayer from mosques sounding in unison. Yugoslavia was formed during WWI by grouping together Croatia, Serbia and Montengro, Kosovo, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzogovenia. This entire region had a long history of being dominated by larger forces, like the 500 years of Ottoman Turk rule (called 500 years of night by the Serbs), and the 100 plus years of rule by the Hapsburg Monarchy (which ended when an Austrian prince was shot and killed in Sarajevo, precipitating WWI). This history is what has led to such strong hatreds. The Muslims here are hated because the Turks were Muslims who enslaved the people here a long time ago, the Croats are hated because most recently they joined with the Nazis in WWII to wipe out the Serbs, and the Serbs are hated now because of their attack on Bosnia after Yugoslavia fell apart in 1991. All of these people and all of this drama was played out in Sarajevo from 1992 to 1995, and the wounds are still very deep here.

We met a cute girl who is a waitress at one of the restaurants that we frequent here, and we talked to her for a long time. She talked about her childhood during the war and how she wasn't able to play outside because her home was very visible and they could have easily fallen victim to sniper shots. Her family lived in the basement of their home, like mice. The kids in her neighborhood couldn't go to school because it was too dangerous, so they organized a way to homeschool children by sending them to different houses each day. She just wants to leave Bosnia, she is still scared, and she hates it here. We heard this from many other people too. Although when walking the streets things seem fine, even more than fine, beneath that exterior there are still many dark feelings brewing. One thing we have noticed is that the women here are gorgeous, all of them in perfect shape, wearing lots of expensive clothes, always completely made up. What we are finding is beneath that is a society that is just hiding their true feelings. The scars of a racially and religiously motivated war like what happened here so recently will never be healed. The hatreds are only made worse when suppressed.

In Sarajevo, we have found out that even though people have literally lived through hell (the most common phrase we get when we ask people about the war is "forget the war"), they can pretend that nothing has happened and look the part of a normal functioning society, but underneath that it is a different story. "Forget the war" means, "I don't want to think about the war", or "I don't want to talk about the war", but mostly it means "I am trying to put it out of my mind forever", but it is impossible for people to do. When you ask questions and people open up, you can hear how they "hate the Serbs", or would "kill them if they could." Sarajevo has all these people living together as neighbors again, and that is what makes it so interesting.

The Film Festival was the perfect way to get some different perspectives on this. We saw movies that were made by Bosnians, others by Serbs, others by Croats. All told their sides fo the story in different ways, through different mediums. Our favorite film was a short by a Bosnian director about the days leading up to the war called "Frame for the Picture of My Homeland." We watched the movie in an outdoor theatre set up in the middle of downtown with 1000 other people, and it was about the heart of the Serb violence against the Muslims, and it was eerie to be there watching it with those who actually lived through this horror. The festival brought out the best of Sarajevo, people were all out and looking good, and people were proud to host this festival in their hometown. We also saw a movie called "Darwin's Nightmare" about what globalization is doing to Africa, and we saw a good American film called "The Assasination of Richard Nixon." We loved having the experience of getting to see all these movies, especially in a place where there are still such raw emotions and many times the movies talk about what people won't discuss themselves.

Our last day in Sarajevo we went to the Tunnel Museum, where the Bosnians had built a tunnel 800 meters underground from the Serb occupied war zone to the safe UN zone underneath the airport runway. It showed pictures from life in Sarajevo with no water or electricity or food, and civilians being randomly shot on the streets by sniper alley. When we saw the footage we could understand why people will never forget, and don't want to talk about it. We also went to the Bosnian War Museum, which is one room in an old bombed out Eastern European cement bunker building. They dedicated exactly two pictures and three homemade guns to the war exhibit.

We have seen that the people here are very nice, and when they will talk have a lot of interesting things to say. It is also an odd town. We met another guy who runs a small restaruant in the old town, and he said that he can not find anyone to work for him. None of the young people want to work. They are still living off of the aid money that was sent here after the war, so people don't have to work to survive, and young people in particular just don't want to. They spend their days walking up and down the main strip drinking coffee and looking good, and that is it. The government wants to join the EU by 2007, but everyone here thinks that is a joke, there is no way they will be let in.

August 24th - Mostar, Bosnia and Hercegovena

2005-08-28T11:36:00.000-03:00

From Split we decided to head inland to avoid the throngs of Italian and other European tourists that vacation in Croatia for the month of August. We took a train inland a couple of hours into what is today Hercegovena, to and old medieval city called Mostar. We arrived in the bus station, and the first thing we noticed were the bullet holes that pockmarked the entire city, like a teenager with acne. The city outside the bus station was run down, and we were thinking we had made a giant mistake coming to Mostar. We again had no place to stay, and with hotels still too expensive, we found another family to stay with in a small apartment that they rent out in their basement. We dropped our bags and went into the old town to get some food.

Walking through the narrow streets on the hill where we were staying, we could see the stains of war. Some buildings were demolished or in ruin. Others were functioning with people living in them, but had giant holes from missles or rockets rendering a level or an apartment unlivable. Pretty much the entire city had spray marks from automatic weapon fire. Life, however, goes on. A few blocks from our place we came into the old town, which is built on both sides of the river with an incredible old bridge that is famous and has made Mostar a tourist destination for over 500 years. The old city itself is truly magical and has been restored since the 90s. It is built along the banks of the river that runs a brilliant cloudy emerald color. There are minarets from old mosques poking up all over the city, and the stone work of most of the buildings is the same as it has been for almost 700 years. The best part is that all of these old structures are now really cool restaraunts that look out on the river, along with some tourist shops selling all kinds of junk from Turkey. It is such a cool looking place, and so unexpected after what the rest of the newer city looked like. We had a great dinner right on the river, eating cevapi and burek, two staples of Bosnian food. This was one of those places that we felt was a gem that we never knew existed, and we felt very lucky to have stumbled upon it.

The next day we set out for the new town because we had to buy a plug adapter so we could recharge our camera and take pictures of the town. Billy decided to wear a yellow shirt he bought in Brazil that has a crescent moon and a star on it, looking very much like the symbol of Islam. Knowing this was a partly Muslim city, we thought it could get a good conversation started with some locals. We were right, but the response was a little different than we expected. We had just been in the new town (where all the Catholic Croats live) and got many strange looks, and people were not very friendly. As we were coming back to the old town we heard a yell from across the street, someone wanted to talk to us, but we did not understand what they were saying. We walked over and asked if they speak English, and Dzenan replied in very good English, "Of course." He told us never to walk to the other side of the city wearing that shirt, or "They will slit your throat."

Dzenan is a muslim who fought in the war in Mostar, but has been living in Palm Desert, CA on political asylum since 1995. He told us about the war, how the Serbs came and began killing Muslims and Croats, and how the Croats also then turned on the Muslims, so the Muslims were defending themselves from both sides. For an entire year they had no access to electricity, very little access to any food or water, and no ammunition for their weapons. They used knifes and sticks (both of which we noticed he still carries on him). His entire family had been killed, except for himself and his mother. People starved to death, others we murdered in hideous ways by Serb secret police missions, others did all they could to survive (including hiding in couches for months). His stories were horrifing. He is a gregarious guy, and is a bit crazy. We think he is invovled in some kind of illegal activity (probably drug dealing) in the States because he had money, and when we asked what he did for work and how he was able to get 4 months off to travel to Mostar on a vacation, he would smile and say, "I was born rich."

We were invited with him and his girlfriend, a Croat named Natasha, and their other friend Allen to drive down to where there is a waterfall and a 1500 foot deep cavern where all the fresh water ran from. We thought it would be fun, so we got in the car, and next thing you know he is blasting ganster rap, driving like a maniac, and pointing out all his "enemies", meaning people he fought against in the war. After a harrowing drive, we got to the cave and had a nice cup of Turkish coffee on the banks of the river, right next to a very holy Muslim place of worship that dated back many centuries, to the Ottoman Empire. On our way back to Mostar after some pizza, he thought that we had gotten a flat tire, so we pulled over. Upon further inspection, the lugnuts on one of his wheels was loose, he thought it to be just another attempt on his life by one of his enemies. We drove past a church that was in ruins, and he bragged about taking part in blowing it up, during the war. They invited us to meet them at a bar later that night, but we decided that our lives were a bit too precious to be hanging out with this guy who thought he had people trying to kill him, so we pulled a no show at the bar, and hoped not to run into them again. It was, however, a very interesting experience talking to him, and I am sure we saw more of Mostar and surrounding areas than most peole do. Now that we are safe and out of his car, we are happy we went with him, but we might not have said that half way through the ordeal.

The other thing about Mostar is that literally about 30% of the town is now occupied by graveyards. They are everywhere. There are Catholic Croat graveyards, separate from the Orthodox Serb graveyards, separate from the Muslim graveyards. We wandered through some of them, and noticed one sad fact, especially in the Muslim graveyards, that almost all of the headstones read xxxx to 1993. Thousands of people were killed there, and many of them were 18-22 years old. Nothing makes you understand war more than seeing the graves, with pictures of the deceased and little sayings in all different languages. Although Mostar was beautiful, and we enjoyed our time there a lot, we got the feeling that the war is not resolved in people's minds, and that people are not all that happy in Bosnia and Hercegovena nowadays.

August 18th - Trieste, Italy and Split, Croatia

2005-08-28T10:45:00.000-03:00

From Buenos Aires we flew to Milan, because it was the best fare that we could get to anywhere near Eastern Europe. It was a big culture shock going from one continent to the next, and a big sticker shock too. We arrived in Milan in the afternoon, then took a bus to the train station, and boarded a train that went to Trieste through Venice. We were in Milan for about 2 hours, just long enough for Billy to get pooped on by a pigeon, which I'm sure is good luck in Italy. We arrived in Trieste at midnight in the rain, and we did not have a guidebook had no idea where to stay. On the train we asked a guy sitting near us if he had a guidebook, he said no, but he lived in Trieste and offered to let us stay on his couch for the night. It was a very unexpected and nice offer, but we had to decline because he had to work at 7:00 AM the next day, and we needed to sleep in more than that after our long journey. So, he told us about a place that we could go that had cheap rooms, and we went there only to find that a dingy room would cost us 60 Euros (or about $80US). We thought surely this was a joke, so we put our backpacks on and headed back into the rain to find a different place. We wandered into a different hostel that was booked, but the very friendly guys there called all around town trying to find us a place to stay. By this time it was coming up on 2 AM, we had not eaten, and we were exhausted from the 20 hour journey from BsAs to Milan. We finally found a place that was 50 Euros a night, still very expensive, but that is the going rate in Trieste for the cheapest accommodations. This price for a room would not have been that bad a couple years ago when one dollar bought 1.2 Euros, but now that it buys .7 Euros it is bad (thank you Mr. Bush and Mr. Greenspan). We ended up having to haul our bags up 6 flights of stairs to stay with a vey nice guy in his apartment for the night. He made us milk and crackers (a nice Italian midnight snack), and asked Jen if anything ever happened to Billy, would she consider him for a replacement. Italian men of all ages are the same. We were amazed at how nice all the Italians were to us, we had three nice experiences with people in a row, and they all spoke English, which was also a shock after speaking Spanish for 7 months in South America.

The next day we spent the entire day wandering around Trieste waiting for our night bus to Split. It is a beautiful city situated on the sea. We ate pasta, gnocci, pizza and gelato because we were starving, but had to do so at fast food places because everything else was so expensive. It was still great food, but we got a bit panick stricken about what it costs to travel in Europe as an American now. After a nice day of lounging in the parks, we made it to the bus station where we went overnight to Split. We thought the bus ride would be a good opportunity to sleep, but the drivers played loud music, and everytime they stopped they would turn on the lights and make an announcement on the loud speaker, so we basically did not sleep at all.

We arrived at 4AM in Split, and after meeting a guy who had a guidebook, we walked to the nearest hostel. It was full, and the guy at the hostel told us the entire town was booked because that night there was the Brazil versus Croatia soccer game in Slpit. That exlpained why we were accosted by a very large, very drunk guy wearing a Croatia jersey singing and yelling and drinking beer when we arrived. He scared a poor old lady so much that she took refuge hiding behind us everwhere we went.

So, with no options for sleeping, and it being 5 AM, we went back to the bus station to find someone who might be able to let us stay in their home. We met an older babushka who offered a room in her apartment for $50 US a night. We took it, and soon found out that it was actually a good deal. We stayed with this family in their place for 2 nights, and all they did all day was sit in their small kitchen talking and smoking. We slept half the time because we were tired and still not on the right time schedule, but we got to see quite a bit of typical Croatian life. We also went to grab a cup of coffee and were waited on by a 6 foot typical looking Eastern European woman. We asked her if she spoke English, and she belted out very loudly, and what sounded hostile "small" (meaning a little). We paid her for the terrible cup of coffee, and she again belted "change" (meaning do we have any smaller money). She scared us, and we realized that we weren't in Latin America anymore.

We did wake up in time to go see the soccer game that was being shown on big TV screens in the old town. Since we had just come from Brazil, Jen wore a Brazil soccer jersey (Ronaldo's) and Billy wore red and white for Croaita so we wouldn't get too harrassed. It turned out to be a great time. It was a giant party complete with bands playing before and after the game, beer was served by vendors, and people were all very excited about the game. We realized how imoprtant soccer is for Brazil, they are by far the most revered team in the world, and they are welcomed to other countries as if the true champions have arrived. They are like traveling rock stars. We saw many Croats with jerseys that had half of the Croatian colors and half the Brazilian colors. The game ended tied 1 to 1, and everyone was happy.

The town of Split is an amazing old Roman fortress built of marble. There are huge walls and a thriving tourist center inside the old city. It was fun to walk the old, narrow streets getting lost here and there, looking at all the shops and outdoor hip cafes. It was, however, very touristy and and not really in our budget range. We did sit at some of the cooler looking cafes for either coffee or a beer at different times, taking in the sights.

The next morning we headed to a small town outside of Split called Trogir to meet up with Birnie, our friend from SF. He had been on a sailboat for the past 2 weeks cruising the Dalmatian Islands of the Adriatic. It was great to see a familiar face for the first time in months, and fantastic to get on the boat and cruise with them back to Split. The water was gorgeous, it was perfect weather, and we were doing something that we had really wanted to do. Billy got to drive the boat and Jen got to jump in the water. We got back and went to a real hotel in Split, where we slept on the couch in Birnie and Matt's room. That was another treat for us, a real hotel, with a mini bar and a private bathroom and everything. The next day Matt and Birnie had to go to the airport very early in the morning, and we stayed until check out, stole all the shampoo, soap, toilet paper and everything else that was not bolted down on our way out. It was a really fun time and Matt and Birnie even treated us to dinner the last night. We are grateful for their kindness and the towel and toothpaste they left behind.

10 de Agosto, Iguacu Falls & back to Buenos Aires

2005-08-27T11:29:00.000-03:00

We were so excited to return to Argentina after months of traveling around South America. It felt like going home, because we knew the culture, the language and the customs in Argentina. It is really easy to travel in Argentina and it is the best value in all of South America (you get a lot for your money here). We knew what to expect, and we welcomed the familiarity. Upon arrival in Puerto Iguacu (the small town on the Argentine side of Iguacu Falls), we were back in the land of mate drinkers, excellent and inexpensive wine, thick cuts of steak at parillas, late dinners, siestas, double ls that sound like js, waiting for hours to get the check after a meal, "bueno" being the standard response to everything.

We were dying to eat at a parilla and have a glass of Malbec, so we went straight to a tenedor libre (all you can eat) restaurant with two guys that we befriended in Rio who traveled with us to Iguacu. We had a great time showing these two guys from Michigan what we knew about Argentina.

The next day we went to the Argentine side of the Falls. Iguacu Falls straddles the borders of Argentina and Brazil, and upriver there is a hydro-electric damn that provides Paraguay and Brazil with a substantial percentage of their electric power. In Guarani, the native language spoken in Paraguay, Iguacu means big water...that is an accurate description. It was no surprise to us that Argentina managed to claim the lion's share of land around the falls, as we have seen Argentina do this with other natural wonders that sit on it's borders (like Perito Moreno the glacier that sits on the border between Chile and Argentina). The Argentine side of the falls was well organized for tourism, with a maze of paths and trails that allowed visitors to view the falls from various vantage points, a train for transporting visitors around the park, and boats in the pools below the falls that manuevered almost underneath the massive amounts of rushing water. We had never seen waterfalls of this size before. The width of the falls and the extensive area that they cover is breathtaking, and there is something so calming about watching water move continuously over the edge of a cliff. It's as mesmorizing as watching waves break at the ocean, but the sheer size of these falls makes this an indescribable sight. The air was damp from all the mist given off by the falling water. We happened to be there during winter, and it was particularly cold that week, so we missed a lot of the wildlife that flourishes during the tropical summers. It would be a completely different experience to see the falls in the summer. We got lucky with better weather the next day, and the sun shone on the Brazilian side of the falls. The falls were less spectacular on the Brazilian side, but the view of the Argentine side was fantastic. From Brazil, at this distance, we could see the falls in their entirety. We thought that this was an interesting analogy for the personalities of the two countries sharing this natural resource. Argentina owned more of the land around the falls, but Brazilians had the superior view.

That evening we headed back to Buenos Aires on an overnight bus. We were actually looking forward to this bus ride, because the buses in Argentina are so comfortable. They show movies, they provide meals, the seats are roomy enough for sleeping. We booked our tickets in advance to make sure that we could get cama clase (bed class) seats, and we were excited to make our last South American bus journey in style. Months before when we were in Argentina, Billy told me that he had seen an advertisment in the bus station for a bus company that served lomo and vino (steak and wine) for dinner. This was always a joke between us, because I never believed that it was true, and we had never been served steak and wine on any of the bus rides we had taken during two months of overland travel in Argentina. I had this image in my head of passengers gobbling up filet mignon and guzzling free flowing wine and it seemed too good to be true. We got settled on our bus from Iguacu to BsAs and out came the lomo and vino!

When we arrived in Buenos Aires, we were anxious to do all the things we hadn't done the first time we were there. First on the list was a trip to a tenedor libre restaurant called Grant's. We had heard about this restaurant from various people who knew Argentina well, and we had to see it for ourselves. On a week night you pay $16 pesos ($5) for a complete buffet dinner that includes sushi made-to-order, chinese food, gourmet cheeses and meats, salads and desserts. There's a crepe station, a parilla, a stir-fry station...basically if you can dream it up, they will serve it up. We went to town at this place, and practically ate them out of business. We also wanted to see a part of town called La Boca, which we had skipped the first time we were in Argentina because it was said to be somewhat dangerous. After getting around the rest of South America unscathed, we thought that we could handle La Boca. It was very touristy, similar to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, except it was located in a seedy part of town. It was a commercial tourist trap at the water's edge dressed up in brightly painted corrugated metal. From there we hopped on the 152 bus (our old favorite) to Puerto Madero to a place called Sushi Club, where we had all-you-can-eat sushi for a steal. We spent afternoons wandering around Barrio Norte and Recoleta, getting lost among cafes, gelato shops, parks, and museums. We finally found Teatro Colon, the opera house in BsAs, where you can see an opera for a few dollars, but we just missed a performance of The Barber of Seville. An international tango competition was being held in the city while we were there, so we went to see some of the dancing. We had salads and cortados at our favorite cafe in Palermo. We had drinks and dinner with Italian friends that we had met the first time we were in town. We just wanted to wrap our arms around Buenos Aires and take it with us. It was hard to leave the city that brought us to South America in the first place.

Next stop--Trieste. From Italy in South America to Italy in Europe.

6 do Agosto - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

2005-08-10T15:20:00.000-03:00

Rio is one of the places that we were most excited to see, as we have heard so much about it. We have heard it is fun and beautiful, but also a place to use extra caution, as it can be quite dangerous. We arrived after a 30 hour bus ride from Salvador, and picked a hostal out of our guide book that was full when we got there, so we had to spend an hour walking around Ipanema with all of our bags to find a different place to stay. Our first impression was that Ipanema is as nice of a neighborhood as we have seen anywhere in South America. Nice resturaunts, bars, upscale shops, and nice looking condos everywhere on tree lined streets. This was our impression before we saw the spectacular beach that is synonymous with Rio. We also later learned that Rio has the most expensive real estate in South America.

Staying in Ipanema is not cheap, and since we decided to choose location over luxury, we ended up in dorm beds in a backpacker`s hostal. Things were great as we had our own room for the first three nights, but once the weekend rolled around it filled up with drunks from all over the world. We purposely have avoided these situations on this trip because we know how they can turn out with such predictable clientel, but we had to bite the bullet this time due to the high cost of getting our own room in expensive Ipanema. Things hit a low point one morning when Jen woke up after hearing the door to the dorm room slammed repeatedly at about 6:30 AM, and went downstairs to get some coffee. On the stairs she encoutered a 19 year old Englishman with blood all over his face and shirt, a huge black eye, completely sprawled out all over the stairs with money in one hand and a tipped over beer in the other, yelling "quero mais cerveja" (I want more beer) at the people who ran the hostal. He then preceded to tell his story about getting beat up by some Brazilian boys and losing his friend. They told us that Rio was dangerous, but we are sure this guy provoked whatever happened to him, which he did not remember a bit of the next day, nor did he get much sympathy from us.

Rio has a reputation in Brazil for having snobby residents. They are called Cariocas (the name given to the first white settlers in Rio by the natives), and because they live in such a beautiful place they are very proud of their city and themselves. They have a really big rivalry with the Paulistas, or the people from Sao Paulo, and often chide the Paulistas for working too hard indoors and having pale skin, while the Cariocas sit on the beach and look tan and are in perfect shape. We saw this first hand on the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana. There were perfectly tanned Cariocas laying out on the beach all day, all with perfectly sculpted bodies and small bathing suits. They clearly spend half the day at the beach, and the other half at the gym. They did not seem to work, as we saw the same people day after day on the beach (this happened to be the week before school started for many students). They bring their chairs to the beach, sit in groups of 5-10, and smoke pot all day. This was clearly a way of life, as the entire beach was up in smoke all day long, nobody even looked over their shoulders for police.

After one day walking along the miles of amazing beaches that stretch along the coast of Rio, we decided to head up to Corcovado, where the famous statue of Jesus overlooks the entire city. This was one of the experiences we will remember forever. Rio is just so spectacularly set that it can only really be taken in from high above the city. There are long stretches of white sand beach everywhere, with giant cone-shaped mountains that form the setting that you see in postcards. There are also a lot of lagoons and a large bay, so there is water everywhere, truly the most incredible setting for a city. We were there in the dead of winter too, and it was still perfect beach weather. They say Rio gets 1 week of winter per year, which consists of some rain and temperatures that go as low as 68 F. We spent 2 hours looking out over the city under the shadow of a 200 foot Jesus statue, and were totally impressed.

Rio is also known for its nightlife. We tried a few times to make it up late enough to go out and see it, but never made it until the last night we were in town when a guy we met named Felipe asked us if we wanted to go out. Felipe worked at our hostal, and he took us with one of his friends to Lapa, one of the main places to go and see and hear samba. The streets were full of people, guys selling drinks from carts, and loud music and people dancing. We got lessons on how to be a real Carioca from Felipe. He taught us how to walk the right way (chest out with a swagger), what football team to root for, all the hand gestures and pick up lines that the Cariocas use on eachother, and generally how to act like we belong. It was great getting to know Felipe and really fun learning all the little tricks and sayings that are characteristic of Rio dwellers. We joked with him that the Porteños from Buenos Aires have a reputation for being the most arrogant of all the South Americans, and he just laughed and said imagine what they would be like if they lived in a city as beautiful as Rio. He then said Porteños and Cariocas are similar, except for the fact that Cariocas are better, with no hint of sarcasm. He was funny and showed us a great time, dancing in the streets until 4 AM. As the night got later, the hookers came out in force, wearing barely anything and walking in the streets poking their heads into car windows. This was our queue that it was getting a little late, and we should call it a night. We all went back to the hostal and said goodbye to Felipe who has promised to come to San Francisco soon. When Cariocas say goodbye, they say "come by my place later." It is not meant to be an invitation, but shows how they are generally very welcoming people, and this is how we said goodbye to Felipe.

Another thing that was on our must do list in Rio was to visit the favelas. These are the slums that are tucked into many different pockets all around the city. For anyone that has seen the movie City of God, that was about one favela in Rio. There are 800 favelas in the city, and they are all built on public property by residents that have no money to buy land, so they are all in essence squatter settlements. The government long ignored them, but allowed the people to live in shantytowns where they erected them, although they would not be equipped with electricity or water or other public services. Those times have changed, and now they have these amenities, but are still the center of the drug trades, and are for the most part very dangerous and very poor.

We found a guide that would take us into Rocinha, the largest of the favelas in Rio, with over 160,000 residents. We walked through the tiny passageways of the favela, met some of the people, and saw what life was like there. The favelas have long been ruled by the gangs, and the drug lords have very strict rules; one of which is no stealing. They rule the place with an iron fist, so people obey the laws, or suffer a fate worse than what the police will dole out. However, in Rocinha, the police have started to put up posts and are moving into the territory, causing an uproar and some shootouts. Because of the shootouts, we were only allowed to stay along the main roads, and so we did not get to see as much as we wanted, but found the whole experience very interesting. The one thing we were most surprised by was how well the people lived in the favelas, from what we were able to see. They did not look all that different than any other poor parts of town we have seen in other South American cities. I think we would have had a different impression if we were able to go further into the favela to see what life is like away from the main roads that are paved, and have electricity and water. The favela was full of kids flying kites, and we were told that this is most commonly used to alert the drug dealers that the police or rival gang members were coming. All in all, they welcome tourists because it brings money into the favela, and people were nice to us and we never felt in danger. It was also a very stark contrast to all the residents of Ipanema, Leblon, and Copacabana who sit all day on the beach with a cigarette and beer in one hand, and a cell phone in the other.

We loved Rio, but also found it to be a very strange place. The poverty was not as bad as we thought, but the luxurious life of the rich was more hedonistic than we imagined. It is very strange that these two parts of society are so often right next to eachother, and functioning in apparent harmony. Ipanema beach is public, but we never saw any poor kids begging or stealing there. There was also not much of a police presence, so it seems to us as if the two sides of town just coexist, but don`t really mingle very much. The only thing that we saw that looked like mingling were these two young kids playing paddle ball on the beach using a flip flop as a paddle, and a soda can as a ball. After soccer, paddle ball is the most popular activity of those at the beach, and we joined these two young kids and played paddle ball with our flip flops until we were exhausted. They loved it, and took it very seriously. Whenever the boy hit the can over our heads, he would jump and and cheer like an NBA star after a slam dunk, then he would cross himself and kiss the sky. He was better at the celebration than the game, he wanted to be Ronaldo, the biggest soccer star in Brazil.

30 do Julho, Salvador de Bahia, Part 2

2005-08-01T10:11:00.000-03:00

Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, in 1888, so the traditions and culture of the former slave population in places like Salvador are not a distant memory, but are still an integral part of life today. Candomble is an example of this; it is a religion practiced by the descendants of slaves in Brazil. It was outlawed until about 40 years ago, because it was thought to be similiar to voodoo. When West Africans were brought to Brazilian soil as slaves and forced to proselytize to Catholicism, they preserved their native beliefs and religious practices by assigning names of Catholic Saints to their African dieties. It appeared that they were pious Christian converts while they continued to worship spirits that inhabit natural objects and phenomena (like the God of water or the God of disease). This syncretism of Catholicism and the animism of slaves from West Africa is alive and well today in Salvador.

We went to see a Candomble ceremony on a Saturday night to witness this phenomenon for ourselves. We were told not to wear any black or red clothing to the ceremony, and that was the only information that the tour agency provided us with. We had only heard stories about these celebrations, so we didn`t know whether to expect an animal sacrifice or a sitdown mass. We hoped that it wouldn´t be a show performed for tourists, but instead a chance for us to get a genuine peek at the sacred practice of Candomble. In the end we were very satisfied with our experience.

There are 1,000 Candomble temples and 166 Catholic churches in Salvador. Most of the Candomble temples are in the poorest neighborhoods, so we were headed to the outskirts of Salvador to a favela (slum) where one of these temples was located. This temple was very small, it was a simple one room home converted into a place of worship. Our tour guide was a talkative Brazilian guy who had lived in Atlanta for 10 years, and loved telling the story about his confusion with the word payday when he first arrived in the States and was learning English. Apparently payday means "I farted" in Portuguese, so he had an embarrassing and difficult time learning about that celebrated day of the month. He picked us up and then drove a car jam-packed with tourists around in circles for an hour and a half before we finally arrived at the temple.

The ceremony had already started by the time we arrived, so we took our places outside the building near the door where we could get a good view of the dancing and chanting that was underway inside. The crowd was separated into men on one side of the room and women on the other, and there was an inner circle of participants who would be entering into trances and then later appearing in costumes of the dieties that were being celebrated on this night of the week. Different dieties are worshipped on different days. The participants sang and chanted in the Yoruba language, and they were accompanied by drums and bells. We noticed that one of the drummers was missing a hand, but he played the bongo with more skill than any drummer we have ever seen play. The music, dancing and singing were enchanting enough to lure anyone into a trance. There were specific people assigned to help and aid the handfull of participants who started to fall under the spell of trances. As they trembled, sweated and yelled while dancing with their eyes closed or rolling back in their heads, they needed someone to make sure they didn`t hurt themselves or any spectators with their uncontrolled body movements. Mainly women entered into trances, as is the custom. The members of the congregation were old and young, some seemed like regular attendees, while others seemed to show up specifically for the free meal (which was given out near the end of the ceremony). Everyone was wearing white and blue.

After the participants had completely entered into trance states, they were escorted outside and later returned wearing costumes that represented dieties (orixas). The festival we attended dedicated to the God of the Swamp, but the most interesting of all of the costumes at this ceremony was the God of Disease. The participant representing the God of Disease wore a straw mask, cape and dress to cover her face and body disfigured by smallpox. Also in attendance were the God of Lightning, God of Hunters, and God of Water. After another hour of chanting and dancing, towards the end of the ceremony, we all threw rice and fragrant flower petals at the dieties as they received other gifts. All of this was done in the name of adoration, because the dieties are vain and they are happiest when they are showered with attention in this manner. We left the ceremony before it came to a close, so we are not sure how it ended, but we were told that it began in the morning with an animal sacrifice and that it would not finish until well after midnight.

The next day we went in search of a museum that claimed to house the best collection of balangandas (slave charms). We plotted out the most direct route on the map and started to make our way to the Museum Costa Pinto. As we walked down the hill and got further from the Pelo, we noticed that the neighborhood became increasingly seedier. A seemingly crazy man approached us and told us not to go any further down the street because it was dangerous. We tried to dismiss him and continue along, but as we rounded the corner we were stopped again by two armed policemen standing at the entrance to what looked like a crack alley. This is the first time we had seen anything like this in South America. It looked a lot like the Tenderloin in San Francisco. The police cautioned us to turn around and quickly get out of this area. We tried to map out a way to circumnavigate the crack den, but we were unable to get around it. As we were retracing our path back to the safer and more touristy area of the Pelo, we spotted a desperate-looking man who was suspiciously crossing the street toward us. Luckily we happened to be in sight of the two police officers that redirected us earlier, and when this man realized this, he changed direction. We decided that it would be best to travel to this museum by bus instead.

The museum was well worth a visit. It had an amazing collection of gold balangandas that were once worn on a chain around a slave`s waist. The charms were depictions of fruits, animals, a fist that represented African unity, and other symbols of daily life during those times. It is said that the slavemaster rewarded slaves with these charms for a deed done, and when the slave accumulated a dozen charms, they could have their freedom. We were impressed by the intricate charms and the concrete evidence of a very sad and oppressive way of life.

Sundays in Salvador are holy days. The streets are deserted and everyone is either at church or making the pilgrimmage to the beach to worship the sun, sand, and ocean. We did a little of both. As we headed to the bus station to find transport to the beach, we let our ears lead us into the church known as the slave church in the main plaza in the Pelo. Mass at this church would inspire the most stubborn aethiest to become a devout worshipper. It was a joyous celebration as people were dancing, hands were clapping, friends were greeting eachother, everyone was smiling and singing to incredible music with African drum beats. Salvador is a place that makes you feel alive.

On our last night in Salvador we were walking in the Pelo and heard the sound of drums in the distance. Again we followed the sound and stumbled upon a marching drum troop. The drummers were young boys being led by two older men who acted as conducters. The troop had attracted a crowd of people who faithfully followed them around as if they were pied pipers and the mesmorized crowd was under a spell like rats. This crowd would`ve followed these drummers and their music to certain death without concern. We stood on the sidelines and watched and then became overwhelmed by the phenomenon and joined in the dancing and marching ourselves. We were all dancing in synch with abandon regardless of who we were. There was a sense of unity despite differences between us in age, color, etc. Everyone smiled and cheered and no one was judging anyone else. It was the kind of joy derived from something unexpected and foreign but familiar to the soul and so seldomly experienced that it was very special. It was a beautiful expression of humanity.

Our friend Jose said it best when asked about his impressions of Brazil. Jose is from Lima, but he is working on a PhD in Spanish Literature at Princeton, and we met him in Rio while he was there doing research for his studies. He stated it simply and precisely, "Brazil is alive." Our experiences in Brazil have reinforced this feeling for us as well.

27 do Julho, Salvador de Bahia - Brazil

2005-07-29T12:09:00.000-03:00

Salvador is called "Africa in exile" because it is the most African city in the Western Hemisphere. The African influence can be seen in the men and women who carry carefully balanced loads on their heads, it can be heard in the Bahian music with African rhythms, and it can be tasted in the food sold on the street that is the same as in Senegal and Nigeria. Now the capital of Bahia state, Salvador was the reigning capital of Brazil until 1763. The Pelourinho is the historic center of Salvador. It gets its name from the Portuguese word pillory, because it was once the site of a pillory where unscrupulous tradesmen were publicly punished and ridiculed. The Pelourinho was once and is today the center of Bohemian activity in the city.

Upon arrival in Salvador (after 2 excruciatingly long overnight bus rides) we stormed around the neighborhood on the outskirts of the Pelourinho in the pouring rain to find a place to call home for 5 days. Once we were settled in we went in search of breakfast, and at a restaurant around the corner from our hostel we met a very friendly ex-patriot named Brit. We were impressed with his command of the Portuguese language, and he told us a little secret that has helped a bit...Portuguese is very similar to Latin. For example, the word "man" in Latin is almost identical to the word "man" in Portuguese. With Billy´s exposure to Latin in high school, Jen has new confidence in his ability to speak Portuguese, and we are gradually learning new words and phrases from Brazilians and subtitles on TV.

Our new friend Brit talked about his reasons for leaving the US, which included ageism (he is in his 50s and said that he started to feel useless and unwanted in the States when he got upwards of age 40), lack of community, inability to strike up new friendships after college or your first few jobs, absence of loving familial relationships and public display of affection (here you see father and son walking together, son with his arm around his dad...and mothers and daughters are always holding hands), and the incessant obsessions with work, possessions, diets, and sports. We spent so many hours chatting with Brit about his life in Salvador that the next time we looked at the clock it was time for lunch.

So, Brit took us on a quick tour of the Pelourinho and then to his favorite haunt for lunch. Our tour included the notable churches and many plazas in the Pelourinho, and he pointed out where we should be careful of pickpockets and explained how to handle the situation if we were robbed (carry small amounts of cash, cooperate and don´t let it shake you up). He has been robbed 4 times in 4 years here, and swears that Rio is a much more dangerous city, but we have been warned to be careful as the Pelourinho is located near the city´s crack den. Many people that travel here say that they feel little hands in their pockets often, especially in crowds. Unfortunately, the next time we saw Brit in the street he told us that his house and car had been burglarized, so that makes it 5 times in 4 years. He lives in a bad part of the city, far from the center, where lawlessness seems to prevail, and as an ex-pat he is an easy target with little hope for protection by law enforcement agencies here.

Brit taught us the European finger wave, which is yet another popular Brazilian hand signal. We´ve seen it demonstrated by locals to ward off aggressive vendors on the street. The street vendors here have been known to tie a ribbon around a gringo´s wrist and call it a "presente." Then they follow the tourist around until money is handed over. There are many scams like these that we are becoming wise to.

Brit´s lunchtime hangout is a restaurant that serves small plastic cups full of sugar cane alcohol (called cachaça or pinga) that is infused with flavors like ginger, tamarind and cinnamon. We ate sausages and fried chicken while sipping on cachaça. As Brit imbibed more of the tasty Brazilian firewater, he began telling us jokes. He shared our political views and told jokes about the adversarial relationship between Brazil and Argentina. During a visit to Brazil, President Ronald Reagan stumbled during a speech in Brasilia saying that he was pleased to be in "Bolivia, eh... Bogotá... Brazil." Brazilians are still upset about this and they believe that many Americans regularly confuse Brazil and Argentina, and mistake Buenos Aires for the Brazilian capital. A popular joke in Brazil after 9/11 was that the then and current president, Lula, called the White House to claim Brazilian responsibility for the terrorist attacks on 9/11 in hopes that the US would retaliate against Argentina and mistakenly bomb Buenos Aires. Another joke was set during the times of Imperial Brazil, when Emporer Dom Pedro the Second attended the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893. On display was a state-of-the-art steam locomotive. When Dom Pedro learned that the locomotive could travel at a speed of 20 revolutions per minute he said, "It can´t keep up with Argentina."

We arrived in Salvador on a Tuesday and when we hit the streets that night we were pleasantly surprised by the vibrance of the city. The Pelourinho is composed of churches and buildings erected in the 17th and 18th centuries. Some are dilapidated and decaying, while others have been restored by the Bahian government and UNESCO starting in the 1990s. The Pelourinho has been called the finest complex of colonial architecture in Latin America. Against the backdrop of this beautifully crumbling collection of plazas, churches and homes on the hill overlooking a grand natural bay is a thriving nightlife. On Tuesday night we wandered around and discovered a colorful cultural performance around every corner. There was a band playing outside in a plaza and locals and tourists perched on steps climbing up the hill to listen to live music for free. A few blocks further in another plaza, there was a capoeira circle formed around high-kicking dancers. In this same plaza Bahianas dressed in traditional 18th century costumes were selling every kind of food and drink imaginable from their street carts. We turned the corner and happened upon an all-female drumming group called Dida performing on the street before an ecstatic audience. In the main plaza, where the so-called Slave Church is located a mass was being held and sounds of song and worship wafted out of the open doors to compete with reggae beats coming from the open-air bar across the street. A guy selling hand-painted t-shirts got a thumbs up from us as we passed by and laughed at his artistic depictions of the White House (a toilet bowl) and GW Burro (the donkey in the White House). There was so much activity and it was such a delight for the senses. Salvador has a pulse like nowhere else we´ve been in South America.

The next night we went out on the town again for dinner and dancing. We met a Brazilian girl from Sao Paulo at our hostel who is a cook, and she recommended that we try a dish called moqueca at a nicer restaurant called Jardim das Delicias. We were happy to splurge on a good meal and split a dish of moqueca, which is buttery white fish cooked in sauce made from coconut milk, tomatoes, red and green peppers, fresh coriander, and palm oil, served with farofa (manioc flour that Brazilians add to everything), and a hot pepper sauce (another condiment that is added to every dish). Then we went to a free Forró concert to see the famous Brazilian dancing that we missed in the northeast (we could never stay awake late enough to catch a Forró show in the beach towns, where this type of music and dance is most popular today). Forró was conceived by the British when they were building railroads in Brazil. The British would throw balls and put up signs saying "For all" (meaning that everyone could come, not only the railway engineers). Brazilians pronounced "for all" as Forró, which soon became the name of a musical style meant for dancing. Forró originated in the northeast of Brazil and is played by the very poor. Luiz Gonzaga is the artist that made it popular in big Brazilian cities in the 1940s. We enjoyed watching couples fervidly dance in circles around the concert hall, but we didn´t give it a try ourselves.

Brazil is not a great place for anyone on a diet. A common way to eat here is comida por kilo, which is buffet style where you pay for lunch or dinner by the kilo. This combined with cafe de manha (filling Brazilian breakfasts) is a dangerous combination for anyone counting calories. We have also become fond of vitaminas, which are thick fruit drinks made with milk...like a milkshake, but more frothy. Brazilian black beans (feijao) and rice are standard sides that come with practically every meal, but the best of the Brazilian bean dishes is feijoada completa, which we ate in Sao Luis for lunch one Saturday. This specialty is made with several meat ingredients (jerked beef, smoked sausage, salt pork, smoked tongue), spices, herbs and veggies. It is very savory and delicious. Guarana soda is a popular carbonated fruit drink that is Brazil´s Coca-Cola, it tastes like ginger ale with a hint of cherry, and is refreshing and light. Acaraje is the best of the street food we´ve sampled. All of the street food has origins in West Africa, and this is a kidney bean dumpling fried in palm oil and topped with dried shrimp and coconut milk pate, green tomatoes, and hot sauce.

We plan to take advantage of our time here in Salvador, tonight we are going to see Candomble ceremony, and tomorrow we will go with our Argentine housemate to see a Bossa Nova show at the bar across the street from our hostel.

22 do Julho, Canoa Quebrada - Brazil

2005-07-29T11:58:00.000-03:00

In Portuguese Canoa Quebrada means Broken Boat. As far as we could tell, all of the boats in this beach town were fully functioning, so we´re not sure how the name came about. We rented a one-room apartment on the beach for 5 nights at a cool $8 US a night and cooked our own meals to economize even more. A trip to the northeastern beaches in Brazil can be very reasonably priced compared to travel in the rest of the country...perhaps this is why we decided to extend our stay at the beaches. The weather was also an incentive, as it is warm and sunny even in "winter" in this part of the country. We had heard from other travelers that it was rainy and cold south of Salvador, so we savored our time in the northeast and spent days soaking up the sun during long walks on the beach, swimming in the warm Atlantic Ocean, hanging in hammocks and reading, and talking about our future plans and schemes.

One afternoon while we were walking along the beach we approached an old man who was struggling to push his jangada into the water. His old, thin frame was pushing with all its might and wasn´t making very much progress. Jangadas are small rafts particular to the northeastern region of Brazil that are used extensively for fishing. Some jangadas have colorful and distinctly shaped sails, and others without sails are scooted around the water with a long, thick paddle. The old man was about 70 years old and he was doing this labor intensive job alone (with a small grandson or great-grandson at the helm of the boat wearing sunglasses and pretending to supervise the operation), so we offered to assist him. He was a bit suspicious of us at first, especially because we couldn´t speak Portuguese, so I´m sure that he was not sure of our intentions. We pitched in and before we knew it another 2 volunteers came out of nowhere to help us. The fishermen in Canoa Quebrada store their jangadas on higher ground on the beach, far from the high tide line. They use a system similar to the Incan stone method of transport to push these heavy boats all the way to the ocean´s edge. Jen took over the job of moving the 2 long planks forward to create rails, Billy´s job was to move the heavy, thick log forward (which served as wheels for the boat to glide on), and the 2 other volunteers pushed the back of the boat while the old guy replaced his grandson at the helm of the operation. In no time the old man was paddling out to sea to catch fish. It felt good to help him out and make some friends in the process.

We were so excited to have a kitchen to ourselves that we decided to cook and bake something new each day. Baking a coconut cake (bolo de coco) with Portuguese instructions, metric measurements and a stove with Celsius settings didn´t prove to be easy, but we managed to gobble up the end product regardless of what the cake looked like.

Our apartamento didn´t come with basic cleaning supplies, so we experimented with what we had on hand. We wouldn´t advise doing dishes with laundry detergent on a regular basis, but if you are in a pinch, it does the job.

We must say that our most valuable possession on this trip has been our Swiss Army Knife. We would like to pay homage to the Swiss and their wonderful inventions. We have used it for everything...and we are not sure how we could live without it. Our latest discovery is that it opens cans of tuna fish with the greatest of ease.

We met a lovely Brazilian guy from Sao Paulo who loved telling us stories about the American travelers he has met in Brazil. By the way, we´ve met so many charming Brazilians that we would rank them as the 2nd friendliest people in South America (after Colombians). July is the vacation month for Brazilians, and the majority of the Brazilians we meet are from Sao Paulo. This guy Ernesto relayed stories about our countrymen that had us feeling like very savvy travelers by comparison. He heard extensively about one American guy from the Bronx who was bamboozled by the oldest trick in the Brazilian book. Ernesto was so impressed by this living and breathing New Yorker from the Bronx, which is a fabled place that he had only heard about and seen in movies. Ernesto said that the guy seemed a bit crazy, as was to be expected from an inhabitant of an infamous place like the Bronx. He wore a Brazilian flag bandana on his head and when asked about his life in the Bronx he said an average day revolved around selling and buying drugs. This American guy seemed very tough and street smart indeed, but Ernesto was shocked when he learned that this guy fell victim of "Bom Noite Cinderella." Apparently this is the most popular scam in Brazil...so much so that it even has a name that every Brazilian knows. An unsuspecting gringo meets a beautiful Brazilian woman who plies him with drinks that are laced with sedatives and he wakes up the next day with empty pockets. We got a guilty giggle at this poor guy´s expense and learned another lesson about Brazil´s potential pitfalls.

We enjoyed our time and our temporary home in Canoa Quebrada. We could stand in our kitchen and look out our front door to ogle at the turquoise ocean above our fence. Looking out at the horizon where the water meets the cloudless blue sky gave us a feeling of serenity. Some afternoons the gang of neighbor kids came to our front yard to climb the cashew tree and pick or shake down the nuts. The oldest member of the gang stood underneath the tree to point out the ripe cashews while the younger members of the clan scrambled up the tree´s skinny branches to claim the prize. The cashews in Brazil are tasty, and you can buy them everywhere...on the highways, on the city streets, and just about everywhere else someone is selling cashews.

After 8 wonderfully relaxing days on the beach, we were very tan and ready to move on to Salvador. We had seen enough of the famous incredibly small Brazilian bathing suits (on both men and women) and had heard enough loud music blasting out of cars parked on the beach to tide us over until we arrive in Rio.

18 do Julho - Jericoacoara, Brazil

2005-07-21T10:51:00.000-03:00

Jericoacoara is a small beach town that is very remote. To get there we had to take an overnight bus to a small town, from there we had to catch another bus to a smaller town, from there we had to ride in the back of a pick-up truck for three hours to yet a smaller town, then take a 4X4 for 45 minutes to Jericoacoara. We have never before worked so hard to get to the beach. It was quite a pilgrimage to Jeri from the northern part of Brazil. The pick up ride was by far the most interesting leg of the journey to Jeri. We piled into the back of a truck with two guys from New Zealand that we met earlier in Sao Luis who happened to be on our bus, another American couple that was also on our bus, and 21 other people. Yes, we got 26 people and a lot of luggage into one pick up truck. It was no great surprise when the pick-up broke down on the way, and we had to pile into a flat bed truck, where we bumped down the road getting splinters and bruises for another two hours. All of this was after a night of very little sleep on an overnight bus journey, so we were happy to finally arrive at this famous and secluded Brazilian beach.

The town itself is very small, completely built on sand. The streets are sand, and nobody wears shoes or shirts, ever, as far as we could tell. The beach is listed as one of the 10 best beaches in the world, but when we arrived and put it to the test we weren´t sure that it measured up to its reputation. It was very unique, however, and positioned right next to a giant sand dune that is 200 feet tall. The town is situated on a peninsula, and the beach is somehow positioned so that the sun sets over the ocean, which should not happen over the Atlantic in the Americas.

We very quickly got into the swing of things. At sunset, the tradition in Jeri is to walk up to the top of the sand dune to watch the sun go down. Once the last light has vanished, the entire town gathered on the dune cheers and claps. Then, all the kids in the town run down the sheer face of the dune, which is very steep and very high. Then the teenagers descend while turning flips and showing off their tricky maneuvers down the dune (one guy did complete back flips from his feet the entire way down). At last the older people make fools of themselves trying to do something brave but most just fall and roll down the hill. It is very fun, and the entire town participates.

After watching the sunset and running down the dune, everyone heads to the beach in front of the town to watch Capoeira. Capoeira is a dance that was invented by the slaves in Brazil 400 years ago. It was originally used as a way to practice a kind of martial art which they would then use to defend themselves against the Portugese slave masters, but to mask their intent they transformed it into a kind of dance. It is a combination of dance, martial arts, and gymnastics. It is, in one word, incredible. The dancers were accompanied by music and singing, and every night we crowded around the Capoeiristas in a small circle to watch them spar.

The dance started slowly, with some little kids going out and practicing their flips and kicks. Then the adults would come out and dance in slow motion, then gradually speed up as the fading sun´s light dimmed. It really looks like a choreographed fight, with the dancers kicking right above the head of their opponents, and the opponents crouching into a defensive move while the other dancers jump over them while doing a flip. The speed at which this is done, and the amount of incredible flips, near misses with kicks and punches, and show of strength were truly mesmerizing. Some of the dancers did handstands with one arm while kicking their legs up and down with great power, some posed in the air, upside down with one arm on the ground, and their legs twisted in a 90 degree angle to their body. One guy was so fast and could do so many flips that you could not really track what he was doing. This was all happening at sundown, and the darker it became the faster and more intense the dance got. We just loved it, and would watch with tears in our eyes every night, it is just a moving experience. The whole crowd clapped and chanted along to the music, it was a truly great event every night. The funniest part is how very abruptly the music would end, the dance would stop, and everyone would just walk away. This incredible event ended just like that, no grand finale or anything, music over, crowd dispersed, that´s it until the next evening.

We never missed a sunset or Capoeira session the 5 days we were in Jeri. We generally spent the days walking along the dunes outside of town, looking for deserted beaches, which were very easy to find. We swam a lot in the warm water, and generally enjoyed ourselves. One day we took a dune buggy (a small, three seater) to the nearby national park and lake, but it was not as impressive as Lencois Marenhenses.

We made friends with the two guys from New Zealand who are cave guides on a two year trip around the world. They invited us over to their house for dinner, where they prepared the backpackers special--pasta, canned tuna fish, and ketchup. It tasted better than it sounds, and it was nice to be invited over for dinner by two younger guys. We have noticed that we are generally 10 years older than anyone else we meet doing the same kind of thing in South America. It makes us feel young again. We also stayed in a very nice Pousada where we hung our hammocks outside to relax in them and were spoiled by the very friendly owners of the place. Every morning we woke up to a breakfast of 5 different fresh fruits, cakes, juices, coffee, bread and eggs. Cafe de Manha in Brazil is a great way to start the day. Every night we ate dinner at the same restaurant. A local from Jeri converted her home into a restaurant and served either fish, steak, or chicken, along with beans and rice for 5 Reais ($2 US). It was a great deal and we found nothing else that could compete in value. In the evenings along the main street tons of street carts set up shop and sold drinks, mainly Brazilian tropical cocktails. Every night there was a small party in the street, and apparently after we went to bed the real parties began (as evidenced by our neighbor from Holland who kept us up until sunrise one night).

Jericoacoara was a bit like a vacation, but after the Amazon and all the traveling we did to get to the beach, we felt we deserved some downtime. We met a lot of people that have taken up residency in Jeri for 2 or 3 months, and we can understand why, as the town just has a great atmosphere. We were ready to leave after 4 nights because Jeri is just a little too slow for us, but worth it for a place to rest and enjoy the beach.

13 do Julho - Lencois Marenhenses, Brazil

2005-07-21T10:29:00.000-03:00

There is a National Park about 4 hours by bus from Sao Luis which is all sand dunes and fresh water lakes that form between the dunes, so we decided to take the bus and see them before heading off further South. The town outside the dunes is called Barreirinhas, and is really just a small jumping off point for the dunes and the National Park. We arrived late at night because our bus stopped every 3 minutes to either pick someone up, or drop them off...a short trip turned into a long journey...as we are becoming accustomed to with Brazilian bus rides. We have been on a lot of slow buses, but this one takes the cake. We would pull into a bus station in a small town, let some people on and off, then pull out of the station to continue on, then two blocks later we would stop and pick up other passengers. Then we would go one more block, and drop of some passengers, then go three more blocks and pick up more. This was repeated time and time again, and was very annoying on a hot, crowded bus. Some things we much prefer in North America.

We got to town and then made our plans to go to the dunes the next morning and found a small Pousada to spend the night there. We took a kind of dune buggy that could hold about 16 people out to the dunes. We drove for about an hour over the smaller dunes and through some large puddles of water that overflowed into the buggy and got our feet wet. We took the ride very gingerly, and it was nice scenery and pretty fun just getting there.

Once we got to the National Park, we left the buggy and went by foot into the dunes. At first sight, they are spectacular. It looks kind of like a lunar landscape, with large rolling sand dunes as far as the eye can see. It was partly cloudy, so in the distance you sould see some dunes illuminated by the sun, and in other places they were under the shadow of the clouds, making an even more dramatic and spectacular view. We walked along the dunes until we got to a large freshwater lake. We were able to run down the dune about 150 feet and jump right into the lake. It was warm water, and very clear and clean. From a distance the different lakes either shine blue from reflecting the sky, or green from the algae that grows in the bottom. The different colors were in stark contrast to the perfectly white, fine sand that made up the dunes.

We both then walked about another 15 minutes away from the tour group and ran up and down the different dunes, taking pictures of us jumping off the edges and landing in the sand and rolling down the dunes sometimes face first. It was a lot of fun, and a very different experience for us. We have never been to a National Park anything like this one. Some of the dunes reached 450 feet high. It was a great place to explore and run around like children.

When it was time for us to head back to the town to catch our bus on to the next destination, we were in for quite a surprise. There were about 10 different buggies like ours that were full of tourists all going back at the same time. On our way to the dunes, we had to cross a river where the buggy drives onto a small barge, and another boat pushes the barge across the river and we get off there and keep going. Since only one buggy can go at a time, and there are about 10 buggies all leaving at exactly the same time, it is a race to be the first one to the river, or else you can end up waiting for almost an hour to get across. We started in about 5th place. We did not know any of this at the time, but were surprised at how once the last person got on the buggy, the dirver hit the gas and sped off completely unlike how he drove us to the dunes in the morning. We had to hold on as he jumped over dunes, splashed through huge lakes, and generally drove like a complete madman. We all let out a cheer everytime he passed another buggy though, some of it elation, some of it nervous energy. We got to the river crossing first, with white knuckles and a little out of breath, and managed to catch the first ferry across. It was like the Paris to Dakar Rally and we had just claimed a huge victory, the driver was quite happy with his efforts, shaking everyones hands.

We got back to town and were trying to arrange to get a bus to Sao Luis where we were to take a night bus to Jericoacoara. It was going to be close, so we were in a rush. When we got back to the tour agency where we left our bags, the owner, who spoke no English or Spanish, had arragned for us to get a ride from someone who was going that way, for the same fee as the bus. We were happy not have to get back on the bus of a million stops, and squeezed with all of our stuff into the back seat of a compact car. We got there in half the time it took us to go in the opposite direction, and listened to 80´s Classics and sang along with the dirver and other passenger. It is really too bad that we don´t speak Portugese, becuse in these situations in Spanish speaking countries we can learn about people and talk to them, here we basically can not talk beyond just getting basics taken care of, and even that can be hard sometimes. We made it in plenty of time to take a shower at the bus station, change clothes, eat dinner, and get ready for the night bus.

8 do Julho - Manaus, Belem, Sao Luis (BRAZIL)

2005-07-19T12:36:00.000-03:00

We were quite anxious to see Brazil beyond the Amazon region after our boat cruise. When we set foot in Manaus, the capital of the Brazilian Amazonas State, at 5am we went directly to a travel agent and planned to wait patiently for the office to open to inquire about flights. We didn´t think that we could bear to get back on another cargo boat to complete the journey to the mouth of the Amazon River. We´d had a sleepless night and were looking to kill some time and muster some energy that morning, so we splurged on a buffet breakfast at a Best Western Hotel in Manaus. This was our first meal off of the cargo boat and it was our introduction to Brazil´s cafe de manha (breakfast). Generally every hotel provides a buffet breakfast for its guests, and this important meal-of-the-day includes things like cakes, juice, eggs, breads, fruits, ham, cheese, coffee, cereal, yogurt, milk, etc. (and is always included in the price of a room no matter how budget the hotel or hostel is). At home we would have thought of the Best Western as basic accomodation, but after being on a cargo ship for almost a week, the Best Western in Manaus seemed like a 5 star hotel to grubby traveler´s eyes. We ate a gigantic breakfast there while waiting for the travel agent´s office to open at 8am.

When we met with a travel agent we were able to book reasonable flights to Belem and we were relieved that we could travel the next leg of our trip by air. There was a small detail that we didn´t notice about our flight, which we discovered the following day at the airport. Our flight was scheduled for 3am that night instead of 3pm the next day, so when we showed up at the airport at 1pm the following day, we were informed that we had missed our flight by 12 hours. We were very disappointed to learn that we would have to pay extra to take a later flight and we would be stuck in Manaus for another couple of days. Our first hard lessons about Brazil taught us that everything is in military time, flights do leave at all hours of the night, and Portuguese is not an easy language (even if you think you know Spanish pretty well).

Yes, Brazilians talk funny. Oi bom dia means good morning in Portuguese, and it sounds nothing like it is written. Oi bom dia is about the only thing we can understand or say in Portuguese, so it makes sense that we might confuse an important detail like a flight time. We´re still not accustomed to speaking in Spanish and being responded to in Portuguese. We hope that conversing here will get easier after a few Caipirinhas (a strong Brazilian cocktail made with lime juice, sugar, and sugar cane alcohol)...we´ll give that a try and report back.

So, we missed our flight, but this turn of events seemed to be quite fortuitous for us in the end. Over the next few days in Manaus we happened to meet a fellow San Franciscan who had just traveled from Sao Luis to Belem by bus, and he had some very useful information about that leg of his trip. We were planning to travel that same route by bus going from Belem to Sao Luis (the opposite direction) in a few days. Sam recounted the story of his bus ride and begged us not to take an overnight bus, so that we could avoid a similar fate. He said that the road was full of potholes and slowed down almost to a stop very often, and at one of these occasions three men jumped on the bus with guns and robbed all the passengers at gunpoint. No one was hurt, but all valuables and cash were taken from the passengers. This was scary news, and we were glad to have met Sam to glean a piece of timely advice from him. The funny thing is that we thought Colombia would be the most dangerous place to travel, but we have heard more stories like these about Brazil than about any other South American country. It is a strange paradox, because Brazil is the most prosperous of all South American countries. Sao Paulo (the 3rd largest city in the world) is the financial capital of the entire continent. To give you a better idea of just how prosperous it is, a Brazilian economist that we met in Jericoacoara told us that Sao Paulo´s financial standing compares to that of California.

With a few days to kill in Manaus before our next flight, we did our best to avoid the heat of the days (Manaus is the hottest city in Brazil) and wandered around the historic center at night. We mentioned how strange it was to pull into the port of this city after seeing little more than huts along the Amazon for 5 days, but it was even more bizarre to see women strutting around in high heels, modern skyscrapers, and a sophisticated cultural and social environment here in the middle of the Amazon.

Our journey to Sao Luis began at 1am with a trip to the airport to catch our 3am flight. We arrived in Belem just in time to get on a 15 hour bus to Sao Luis. This was the longest day in the history of our travels so far. The road to Sao Luis was very poor (exactly as Sam had described), but we had no trouble with hijackers, and we were too tired to worry about it anyway. We were more concerned with the price of our bus ticket, which was astronomically high compared to what we have paid for bus travel in every other country here. We spent hours just staring out the window of the bus at the landscape outside, which was tropical jungle green dotted with bright colored houses with bicycles parked outside. When we finally arrived in Sao Luis, we were all too happy to get into bed and catch up on sleep after a marathon journey.

Sao Luis is a very quaint French colonial town that was once a center of the slave trade in Brazil, so it is rich in African culture. We will try to paint a picture of the town. Imagine a French colonial style building tiled and painted in bright colors. Beautiful porcelain tiles from around the world adorn the buildings here, which were once cleverly used as a building material to keep houses cooler inside. An Afro-Brazilian man rides by on a mule-drawn cart carrying palm fronds to the Reviver section of town (the colonial center that is half crumbling and half restored) where tonight there will be a public festa (party) for the dance festival called Bumba-Meu-Boi. There are music and dance performances every night beginning in mid-June through July in Sao Luis for this festival. We really enjoyed Sao Luis, even though we only had two days there.

In Sao Luis we met two guys from New Zealand and a girl from Denmark that we traveled with to Jericoacoara...these guys were heaps of laughs. They told us that New Zealand rugby players drink their shots the following way--they squirt a lime in their eye, snort the salt, then they down the liquor to kill the pain. Point taken...Kiwi rugby players are tougher than American football players. When we first met Grant (one of the cave guiding Kiwis) he told us that he once had to defend his reasons for traveling to an older American guy who presumed that he was a spoiled kid on a parent-sponsored trip around the world. Grant explained that he was `investing in himself` by traveling on a budget in foreign places...this is part of his education about the world. Later when we were making the 4 hour journey to Jericoacoara in the back of a pick-up truck with 26 other people, we asked him if this was all part of his investment plan.

A few initial observations about Brazilians...they have a very healthy obsession with cold beverages and loud music. Brazilians have shown us how to drink beer at an acceptable temperature, and we are convinced that the rest of the world will eventually catch on. Now when we talk about measurements of cold, we say Brazilian cold to define the freezing point. Brazilians love their hand signals. We have happily adopted the thumbs up signal to communicate that everything is good (ta bom) and the hand to mouth gesture to signify eating. We may not speak a word of Portuguese, but we are becoming adept at Brazilian sign language.

5 de Julio, Traveling the Amazon River between Colombia and Brazil

2005-07-07T11:01:00.000-03:00

The Amazon is so wide in places that it looks more like a lake than a river, but when you are standing on the banks you can see the force with which the river flows and carries massive amounts of water and sediment from the runoff of the Andes in Peru all the way to the river's mouth on the Atlantic.

Some staggering statistics about the largest river system in the world - the Amazon basin contains 6 million square kilometers of river and jungle and spans 8 South American countries. The basin contains 17 percent of the world's fresh water. There are 45,000 miles of navigable rivers. Average riverflow at its mouth is 12 billion liters a minute (12 times that of the Mississippi). Oceangoing vessels can sail 3,500 kilometers inland up the Amazon mainstream to Iquitos, Peru. All this puts in perspective the size of the river, and what is even more amazing is the size of the jungle that surrounds it.

The Amazon was given its name by a Spanish explorer who floated down the Rio Napo to its confluence with the Amazon (near Iquitos). He left an Andean expedition to forage for supplies. As he floated down river to the mouth of the Amazon, his expedition was attacked by Indians, some of them female, like the Amazons of Greek mythology (as he would later report). And so the Amazon was named. We decided to follow Francisco de Orellana's footprints down river to see as much of this mythical and gargantuan river as possible.

Our journey started in Tabatinga, Brazil which is really just the Brazilian half of Leticia, Colombia. The city is really one, and there are no markers that define the international line except some people exchanging money on the Brazilian side. We got hammock space on a cargo boat that looks a bit like a river boat would in the States, but there are no seats or cabins, only open areas to hang hammocks for the passengers. We arrived 6 hours before departure as we were told to do to insure we would get good hammock space, not by the bathrooms or kitchen (these turned out to the same area). We put our hammocks up as we were some of the first people on the boat, and we decided it would be a nice trip to relax and enjoy views of the Amazon from our hammocks.

After about 3 hours, the boat was beginning to get really full. Our once spacious hammock spot and been totally diminished, and we were surrounded by families of 8 with crying kids, groups of loud drunk men, and hammocks everywhere. Our mood quickly changed about our fate on the boat. We finally pushed off and we were feeling that things would be OK, no more people and we had just enough space to keep us sane and to allow us to sleep comfortably. That feeling was swiftly replaced by fear as we made multiple stops, each one picking up more and more people. It got to the point where we had people putting their hammocks above and below us, and it was impossible to be in the hammock without having 4 or 5 different people touching you.

We decided to go up to the roof to get some sun and to escape the slave boat conditions that we were going to have to sleep in. On the roof there was a bar with people playing cards and dominoes, all of which were drinking beer at 7 AM everyday of the trip. We went back down to check on our stuff, and found another hamock had appeared right between the two of ours, literally giving us no room at all to breathe. This was the last straw for Jen. She started taking the hammock down when the owner came back and started tying it back up. This was not a good move on his part, because he got a giant tongue lashing in English by an irate American girl from San Francisco. Jen was yelling at him, red in the face, saying between English insults, "no hay espacio" which means there is no space. Eventually the guy took his hammock down and stormed off sullenly. This was a big hit with the group of Colombian guys from Cali that were our neighbors. They were laughing and imitating Jen "no hay espacio" waving their finger in the air and mimicking her untying his hammock. They loved it, and it gained their respect. From that point on we were initiated into what we called the Cali Cartel. It was, however, quite uncomfortable having to see the guy we kicked out for the rest for the trip.

The Cartel proved to be very useful and important for our journey. They carved out space for us and put us right between the four of them. Victor Hugo, Luis Alfonso, Gerardo and Maicol became our friends and protectors during the trip. The boat was full of thieves as well, and the other gringos all had something stolen from them (one girl had her shoes stolen when she was sleeping) while on the boat, but nobody messed with the Cali Cartel. We would stay up late talking to them, and listening to their stories of Cali and the drug wars there. One of them lived in a house bought by head of the real Cali Cartel 10 years ago. His mother was one of their cooks for parties, and she would be driven to his Finca with a hood over her head so she would not know where they were going. Once she was inside their secretive lairs everyone was very nice, and she noticed many famous soccer players and politicians in attendance. The head of the operation is one of the Roriguez brothers, was never caught, and now lives in the States.

Now that we had barely adequate hammock space, and people watching our stuff, we could spend more time on the top deck watching the huge river pass by, and the jungle that is unbelievably expansive and alive. We could see the little villages that occupy this mostly uninhabited part of the world, and we could see the poverty that we have come to know in Amazonia. It is one of the poorest places on earth, and many people don't have anything and still hunt for food and sleep in the jungle. Most of the passengers on the boat were from these small villages and were heading up to the big city of Manaus to visit family or friends.

Meals on the boat were also quite interesting. In the back of the area where the hammocks were, there were 4 bathrooms, a kitchen, and a table that seated 12 people. Meals were served when a bell rang, and people would eat in shifts of 12 at a time. This was a logistical nightmare as there were more than 200 people on the boat, and all this traffic was congregating where the few bathrooms were located. So, how it worked was 12 people would sit, food would be put out, and people would scoop as much on their plates as they could and gobble food down quickly before the next shift of people were to sit down. The kitchen only had 12 plates, so after someone was finished eating they would grab the plate and wash it in the brown river and put it back for the next group. It was very hectic, and we learned quickly how to be aggressive and make sure we got a spot and food before it was all gone. The meal schedule was also interesting, breakfast at 5 AM, lunch at 10:30, and diner at 4:30.

Although the trip was long (3 nights turned into 4) and we had no personal space, and the ship was dirty and full of drunks and thieves, we did get to meet some fantastic people. Besides the group from Cali, we had two adorable families hanging in hammocks nearby. Billy met a little girl who had a giant smile and wouldn't talk very much. This was OK with him because he doesn't know any Portugese, so they would communicate with hand signals and smiles and facial gestures. After a while of talking and playing, it seemed that her lack of speech was not normal shyness. Billy's fears were confirmed when another even younger girl came up and said, "Ella no habla, muta." She doesn't speak, she is mute. It was a treat to spend so much time with such a cute girl and to make her happy by taking the time to understand her gestures and looks. Everytime she tried to explain something with her hands, and anyone showed understanding of what she was trying to say, she would beam with a huge smile of accomplishment. Neither of us will ever forget her, there was something about her that was very touching. We also had a whole family of 7 children on the other side of us, and they were all talkative, tri-lingual (Spanish, Portugese and indigenous dialect) and very cute too. They would spend the days running around, teaching the smaller ones how to dance, and talking to us. The eldest was a 11 year old one-eyed boy who ruled the coup with an iron fist. If anyone got out of line, he would whack them on the head. He was also very charismatic and fun to talk to.

Overall we can not say that we would recommend this method of travel, or that we would do it again. After 1000 miles in such a cramped space all you want to do is get off the boat. However, the people we met made it a really special journey. When we took out the camera the last night it was actually sad to take the pictures of people we know we will never see again. They all loved the camera, even the Cartel, and we ended up taking tons of pictures as everyone wanted to be in a photo. We have seen so many beautiful things, and the jungle is one of them, especially its great expanse and sense of endlessness, but the people are always what makes the experiences truly memorable.

We arrived in Manaus, Brazil at 2 AM, 20 hours later than we were supposed to. We were in shock after seeing only tiny villages of three to four huts for 5 days when we arrived in a city of 2 million people, with highrise buildings and lights and a giant port. It might have been the strangest thing we have seen so far on this trip. A giant oasis in a completely remote and underdeveloped part of the world.

1 de Julio, Amazonas - Colombia

2005-07-07T10:51:00.000-03:00

The small jungle town of Leticia is Colombia's foothold in Amazonas. It is like an urban island in the middle of the Amazon jungle. When we flew into Leticia we were able to see the jungle from above. The Colombian jungle stretched for hundreds of miles, as far as the eye could see. It is a huge expanse of green without clearing or development and with tributaries of the Amazon river winding through like a snake. The clouds above the jungle cast black shadows on the otherwise green homogenous uninterrupted space. As we descended and got closer to the ground we could start to make out details of the treetops. We spotted the mammoth Amazon river just before landing, and from that height it looked like a wide, brown, silvery column of water.

There is no road into Leticia, which means that the only way in or out is by airplane or boat. When our plans to go to Caracas to visit our friend David fell through, we learned that we could intead make our way to the northern coastal region of Brazil by boat on the Amazon starting in Leticia and floating down river to Belem. When we arrived in Leticia and gathered information about river boat schedules, we discovered that we had some extra time on our hands and an opportunity to go back into the jungle again. We found ourselves a guide (Daniel) who tailored a jungle trek to our desires. When he asked about our dreams of the Amazon we told him that we wished to stay overnight in the jungle, see a sloth, butterflies, flora and fauna, get to know the way of life of the indigenous Amazon tribes, and drink Ayahuasca with a shaman. We had 3 nights and 4 days before the next river boat was scheduled to leave for Manaus, so we created an itinerary around this timeline and set out for our journey into the jungle.

The day we left Leticia we spent most of our time on a boat with Domingo (our trusty boat driver) and Daniel traveling the Amazon and its tributaries to get as far away from civilization as possible. As we cruised up river away from Leticia our guide pointed out the borders of Colombia, Brazil, and Peru, which converge at the river's edges. He also pointed out the banks of the river where giant pieces of land were freshly displaced by the constant force of the moving water. Nearby islands had been formed anew as the mud from the banks collected in shallower spots. Daniel pointed out the brown color and opaque quality of the river, which is made up of a mixture of mud and water. He said that if you were to put a cup of river water into a glass and let it sit for awhile, the mud would settle to the bottom of the glass and separate into a layer of water sitting on top of a layer of mud. We were on a very comfortable boat, big enough to accommodate 10 people with a large shade tarp and cushions on bench seats.

Our first stop was at Monkey Island (Isla de los Mikos), aptly named for the population of squirrel monkeys that live in the trees there. We donned our knee high rubber boots, slathered ourselves with mosquito repellent and left the boat on the shore to follow Daniel into the jungle. There was no path, so we stayed close behind Daniel as he cut down obstacles with a machete. This is not as much fun as it may sound, because the dense jungle is a bit difficult to negotiate with sticky spider webs, low hanging vines, and thick green growth from the ground up to the canopy. Daniel's machete hardly carved out a trail in the thick vegetation, so if we didn't keep up with him we would quickly lose our way. We hiked to the middle of the island where we could hear squirrel monkeys overhead in the trees. We sat patiently with a banana in hand in hopes of attracting them, but unlike the Bolivian squirrel monkeys in the Pampas that jumped out of the trees onto our heads, these monkeys were too wild to come near us. We then walked to the other side of the island to see water lillies in a lake. On the way we encountered a private security guard who informed us that the island had recently been purchased by the owner of the largest hotel in Leticia. The island is now private property and access to it is restricted. We could see the disappointment and despair in Daniel's face when he later translated the news to us and said, "Poor monkeys."

We continued on somberly (this time on a worn path) and we spotted an owl in the middle of the trail. It must have been a baby that strayed from the nest because it shouldn't have been out in the open like that in broad daylight (they are blind in the light of day) and it didn't fly away when we approached. It raised its wings up in defense if we tried to move closer to it. We found ourselves mesmerized by its striking coloring and slow blinking eyes. We continued on again to a lake where water lillies grow and along the way Daniel pointed out many trees, plants and fruits and their medicinal uses. The sap from one tree is used to concoct a drug to treat impotence. The fallen, rotten, sour smelling fruit from another tree is used to treat the common cold (gripa). Daniel pointed out a cacao plant. The seed of the cacao plant is used in making chocolate, cocoa, and cocoa butter. We stopped at the lake to admire large systems of underwater roots that sprouted giant lily pads and delicate flowers of colors that change from purple to white as they bloom. We made our way back to the boat for lunch to later resume the journey up river to a small tributary of the Amazon where it would be easier to spot a sloth.

We were stopped at a Peruvian police checkpoint for some time while Daniel negotiated our entrance to this part of the river. Here where the two rivers met, we could see a drastic change in the color of the water. The tributary was a dark brown color, like black Colombian coffee, and the Amazon's color looked like creamy milk chocolate in comparison. We watched a man fishing with a net in a small wooden canoe. His silhouette was magical as he stood in his boat and cast his circular net into the water and then pulled it out of the river to capture any fish caught in it. This was a very serene image of life on the Amazon. A pink dolphin popped up for air at the convergence of these two rivers. Daniel explained how clever the dolphins are as they wait for unsuspecting fish to swim down river and into their bellies at these strategic places where two rivers meet. The theiving dolphins have devised an even craftier way of catching dinner. They nibble on big fish (like Dorado or Pirarucu, which can easily grow larger than a medium sized man) when they are caught in fishermen's nets and unable to escape. Fishermen often pull their catches out of the water to find that they are missing heads and tails or big chunks have been bitten out of their sides.

We drifted down this smaller, darker river and craned our necks for 2 hours looking for a sloth in the treetops lining the river. These 3 toed sloths are not easy to find because they look just like termite nests high up in the branches of trees. There are also not many of them left in the jungle near villages, because they are hunted for their meat. Daniel pointed out the 2 types of trees where they live and after hours of searching we finally spotted one. We stopped the boat to get a good look at him and we watched as he slowly climbed further up to the very top branches of the tree where he could eat the tender new leaves at the tips of the highest branches and sleep for the night. For us, it was very special to see one of these strange creatures in the wild. We didn´t have binoculars, so we couldn´t see details, but we could see him hanging there by both arms with his little head peeking out at us. As we continued down the river every once in awhile we´d see a group of 50 or so butterflies flitting around a particular spot on shore, creating a flurry of color and movement to contrast with the constant brown of the river and the solid green vegetation on the riverbanks.

As the sun was setting we drove the boat to a lagoon that was so calm it behaved like a mirror reflecting the brilliant colors in the sky. The surface of the water looked like liquid mercury. We were seeing double the beauty of this sunset in its reproduction. All around us was lit up like the colorful sky at sunset.

We went hunting for caiman after dark and saw plenty of eyes glowing in the beam of our high powered flashlight, but Daniel didn´t catch any of these alligator-like reptiles. Apparently, catching a baby caiman is a measure of an Amazon guide´s skill and a trick that they like to pull out of their hats for the tourists. I was more impressed with the fireflies twinkling in the dark trees and the distant flashes of lightning. The beam of light from Daniel´s floodlight was attracting bugs, which attracted jumping fish that would accidentally land inside our boat and flop around in the dark. The very serious search for caiman turned into a wet fish fiesta in no time.

The first night in the jungle we stayed in a village called Bella Vista with the Ticuna Indians just over the Colombian border in Peru. We hung our hammocks in Don Jose´s home, which was made of wood and built on stilts. Unfortunately, this wasn´t the encounter with indigenous tribes that we had hoped for, as this village seemed to be fairly corrupted by contact with modern civilization. At one point we noticed a huge crowd a people gathered outside of a neighboring home and peering in the open door. Upon investigation we found that everyone was gathered around to watch TV. Some of the people in the village had acquired televisions and stereos and generators to power them. We´ve come to the conclusion that TV has displaced religion as the opiate of the masses, even in places where one would least expect this to be possible. The village was thick with spiders and creepy-crawlies. We could see large black insects skittering underneath the house between the floorboards. The proximity of the pit toilet to the water well was disconcerting as well. Our first night´s disappointing accomodation made the next two nights all the more extraordinary.

In the morning we walked around the village to say hello, wave and smile at the kids playing in the dirt streets. The jungle seemed to sprout up like a manicured lawn kept at bay at the edge of the village. In the river at midday there were kids playing or swimming, women doing dishes or laundry and men in boats spearing fish. Everyone else was either bathing or just cooling off in the water. It was clear to us that much of Ticuna life revolves around the river.

We spent the day on the boat parked in the shade of giant trees while fishing for piranhas. We put meat on a hook at the end of a fishing line and within seconds of dunking our hooks we would have a bite on the line. Most of the time the fish were clever enough to take small bites of the meat without swallowing the hook, but a few times we actually pulled fish out of the water. We didn´t catch any piranhas, but when Domingo did, he was eager to pull back their fish lips and show us their sharp triangular teeth. Our little fishing experiment revealed that under the surface of the murky brown waters, the Amazon is teeming with life.

As the sun was setting we went to another village called La Libertad to see the Jaguas tribe and to meet two members with whom we would be walking into the jungle that night: Amador (one of the village elders) and his grandson (whose name we don´t know, so we´ll call him Nieto). We were introduced to Amador´s family and one of Amador´s other grandchildren was ill, so the family asked us for medicine. We gave them what we had in our first aid kit, but this wasn´t the last time that we were asked for medicine in Amazonia. It seemed that many people didn´t have access to the most basic necessities. We gave the family several fish that we caught earlier in the day and they taught us a new phrase in Spanish, ¨Nos da alegria.¨ (It gives us happiness.) La Libertad was smaller and much more pleasant than Bella Vista. A self-appointed guide and village representative showed us around and introduced us to the village mascot (a giant arco iris snake, or land anaconda, which they insisted Billy drape around his shoulders).

After dark we put our jungle boots on, covered our bodies with mosquito repellent, and trekked into the jungle with Amador and Nieto who planned to spend the night hunting with the two bullets that Daniel brought them. Jen was a little nervous about walking into the jungle at night and staying until morning with no more than a hammock slung between two trees and a mosquito net between us and the insects and animals. Afterall, this is the home of tarantulas, anacondas, jaguars... tigers and bears, oh my! Amador had a rifle for hunting and we weren´t sure if we should be comforted or unsettled by this factor. As we made our way into the jungle Jen wanted to back out at the last minute, she couldn´t believe that she had willingly volunteered for this hair-raising adventure.

We had only our headlamps to guide us, but luckily we had a small path to follow that had been created by the village´s hunters who make trips into the jungle whenever they have bullets. Even so, Jen was worried that one of us might accidentally misstep and land in a tarantula hole or twist an ankle. Daniel told us that in 20 years as a guide the scariest thing that had happened to him was when a tourist dislocated her ankle while walking in the jungle at night far away from the nearest village. He had to create a makeshift camp for the night and find help from men in the village the next morning to carry her to the shaman´s house, who (according to Daniel´s story) put her ankle back in place with a painful procedure that allowed her to walk on it again the next day.

As these nightmarish thoughts were going through Jen´s head, she was startled when our caravan came to a sudden halt. Amador was at the head of our line and Daniel was bringing up the rear. Amador spotted a spider hole on the trail and began digging into the hole to track down the tarantula inside. It wasn´t long before he found it and picked it up to show us his catch, furry and wriggling in Amador´s grip. It was a little smaller than the size of a fist. Amador flipped it over to show us its underside, so we could see its fangs. From what we were told tarantulas only sting and inject venom when they are threatened, but they are otherwise friendly. Daniel provoked it with a stick to show us how the indigenous people make poisonous blow darts with tarantula venom. We watched the deadly spider sink its teeth into the piece of wood and saturate it with venom. At this point Jen was getting edgy while thinking about all the spider holes we would later be sleeping above. We returned the tarantula to its home and continued on and Jen started to relax. She realized that she was being a wimp when she looked down at Nieto´s feet and saw that he was wearing nothing more than a pair of Chuck Taylors. If a little boy in sneakers could do this, then she certainly could rise to the challenge.

Truth be told, it is more pleasant to walk in the jungle at night once you conquer fears. It´s much cooler at night and the sounds are more interesting, because much of the life in the jungle thrives at night. For someone as skiddish as Jen is, it is even better to be in the jungle at night because she could see only as much of the creepy stuff as her flashlight revealed. It was only the sight of glowing sets of spider eyes in the darkness that was bothersome. Otherwise the jungle was enchantingly transformed into a sort of playground for us as we discovered strange things in this new world around us like children. We saw glow-in-the-dark mushrooms and dried leaves that somehow glowed as they decomposed on the jungle floor. We pointed out a silvery and luminescent insect that was hanging from the underside of a leaf. We were moving quickly through the jungle, so mosquitos were not a problem. Jen was calm with the exception of the instances when a hanging vine or leaf brushed her cheek or neck, which again was unnerving. We hiked into the forest for about 3 hours and crossed many streams on precariously placed logs.

When we finally reached a spot from which Amador could hunt, he made a clearing between several trees and laid down palm fronds so that we could hang our hammocks here. It´s funny how quickly a hammock becomes a home. Amador and Nieto set off for the hunt to beat the light of the rising moon. Daniel started a fire and we made coffee, and then we retired to our hammocks to sleep. Of course, at this point Jen had to go to the bathroom, so we disappeared into the brush with a bottle of repellent. Despite our efforts, Jen ended up with 2 dozen mosquito bites where the sun don´t shine. It was a penis envy moment. The mosquitos were thick here and the smoke from our fire was our only protection. To escape them, we crawled into our hammocks and tucked ourselves away in the surrounding nets. We noticed a tiny frog on the outside of Billy´s net, it was the size of a pinky nail...we thought that this was a good omen, because frogs were symbols of fertility in Pre-Colombian times. Once Jen killed all the spiders, mosquitos, grasshoppers, etc. inside her net, we were both laying back and staring up at the canopy above. The shadows of the treetops were so dark compared to the night sky. We realized that we had never seen the color black in nature until that moment. The sound of wind rustling leaves in the canopy (sounds like light rain) lulled us to sleep. We wished we had a recording device to capture all the bewitching noises during the night. There was a bird´s call that sounded like a human voice in conversation. The sounds of insects jumping, birds chirping, and mosquitos buzzing were almost deafening. Billy´s mosquito net had a huge hole in it, so the mosquitos were especially loud in his ears and he didn´t sleep very well. We heard a gunshot far from our camp in the middle of the night and felt conflicted about whether we should be rooting for the triumph of man or animal. We fell back to sleep watching the fire´s embers fade and woke up in the morning to a blazing campfire.

Amador was victorious in the battle between man and nature and when we awoke he was weaving a basket out of palm leaves in which to carry home his family´s dinner. He killed a rodent-like creature that was furry and brown with white spots and long sharp claws. It was probably 25 pounds and about 2 feet long. He said that he saw a monkey, but he couldn´t bring himself to shoot at it. Nieto cut a piece of bark from a tree to fashion into a strap for the basket, and he proudly carried the basket home by fastening the strap to his head. The kill was about half the size of this 10 year old kid, and we wanted to help him as he struggled to balance the weight of the animal on his back.

Walking the same path back to the village during the day was fantastic, because we could actually see our surroundings in the daylight and we weren´t concerned with those nasty nocturnal tarantulas. There were hundreds of mushrooms growing like wildflowers in all shapes, sizes and colors. The trees were colossal and some had thorns or massive roots. Daniel and Amador had a deep understanding of the jungle and as they passed on some of their knowledge, it seemed as if each natural element was carefully placed in the jungle to serve a specific function, allowing the ecosystem to operate in harmony. The thorny tree with raised roots in the shape of a teepee provided a safe shelter for smaller animals escaping the clutches of a jaguar. The towering trees had thick rope-like vines that hung down to the ground, which villagers use to climb to the top of the trees for a better view of the jungle. Huge red ants carried pieces of green leaves as they marched in a line across our path. Butterflies filled the air, the most impressive of which was bright blue and the size of a small child´s head. Daylight illuminated humongous spiderwebs. We drank sweet fresh water from a vine Amador cut down.

When we made it out of the jungle and back to the river we were dying to jump in to cool off, but couldn´t help wondering if we´d encounter a piranha, an electric eel, a stingray or a Candiru fish (according to legend these fish are capable of forcing their way into the body's passageways following a trail of urine and once inside they eat away the mucous membranes and tissues until hemorrhage would kill the fish or the host). We asked the village kids if it was safe to swim and they looked at us as if we were crazy. The next thing we know we had abandoned any thoughts of man-eating underwater monsters and engaged in a joyous water fight with a dozen naked kids in the river. We had officially been baptised and could happily call ourselves Amazonians. At night we would drink Ayahuasca from a shaman´s cup and experience yet another ceremonial ritual to complete our initiation to the Amazon.

We hopped back on the boat after playing with the kids in the river, and headed back towards Brazil to meet the shaman. We went to the main village, and were introduced to our shaman, William. He guided us another hour or so further into the jungle where his Maloca is located. A Maloca is a communal house that is far away from the village where the shaman retreats for spiritual exploration and conducts Ayahuasca ceremonies. It was round and looked exactly the way an Amazonian shaman´s Maloca should look. The inside of the Maloca was dimly lit by a candle on a staff in the center of the room, where the shaman´s wooden chair sat. There were a semi circle of tree stumps surrounding his seat that functioned as stools for us to sit on. It looked like the perfect ceremonial setting, like something out of a movie.

Ayahuasca has been used for thousands of years in Amazonia as a way for the people to communicate with the spirits of their deceased elders, to cleanse the body and mind, and to gain insight into their lives through introspection. The drink itself is made by boiling the root of the Ayahuasca vine together with leaves from another plant (called Yaje) for 8 hours. The active ingredient in the Ayahuasca vine that produces hallucinations does not work when consumed alone, the stomach produces an antibody that destroys it, but yaje deactivates that antibody, and somehow this was figured out many years ago and so this ceremonial potion was born. Drinking Ayahuasca is a deeply important part of Amazonian life, and William is known throughout many villages for helping spiritual seekers through the journey.

We were a bit nervous about the whole thing, being in the middle of the Amazon and drinking this strange substance, but William was very affable and comforting, and had a great sense of humor. When he decided it was time, we went into a separate little house built behind the Maloca to start the ceremony. We sat in a triangle on the floor, the three of us tied white bandanas around our heads, and William blessed the Ayahuasca, poured a cup and drank it. He then repeated the same ritual of blessing, chanting and whistling, and offered the cup to each of us. Ayahuasca has a really strong and bitter flavor, like nothing either of us have tasted before, or ever want to consume again. It tastes like battery acid. After we drank Ayahuasca, we were told to sit by the open window where it would be easier to stand and throw up when the time came. William then blew out the only candle that provided light, so we sat in total darkness, and could only hear the noises of the jungle outside. After about 15 minutes Billy threw up out the window and felt shaky and strange. William then started chanting to the spirits, which was very melodic and calming. We sat there listening to his chanting for hours. The experience is a deeply personal one, and we were told not to touch eachother, and to focus on what we wanted to get out of this ceremony. People not only communicate with the dead, but they try to use these ceremonies to seek answers and to think about how to improve their lives. Some people turn to Ayahuasca for medical help with ailments like diabetes.

After about an hour, we were both feeling very strange, and William was chanting away, when a large bug landed on Jen´s arm, and he screamed and jumped. Two minutes later the same thing happened to Billy. William thought this was hilarious, as he did not believe there was really an "insecto grande" in the jungle that could be jumping in through the window under which we sat. He laughed and was sure that we were hallucinating. I can assure you, it was real. It was strange for us not to be able to ask eachother how the other felt, or hold hands for reassurance, but it was a deeply unique and personal experience for each of us separately.

After another hour we decided to go outside. Walking was not easy, as we felt drunk. The world was spinning and the stars and lightning flashes in the sky appeared much brighter than normal, yet calming. Jen still had not thrown up, but after she walked outside for a minute, she quickly ran back to the window to expell the impurities in her stomach (that is what they call the process, in this way it is a cleansing experience for the body). William would ask us every once in awhile if we were drunk enough (estan borracho?), and we said yes, we did not need any more Ayahuasca, thank you.

After about 4 hours we all became tired and retired back to the larger house to sleep. Jen fell right asleep, but Billy did not sleep a wink all night. There were so many thoughts that would flow through the mind so quickly that sleeping was very difficult to do. The next morning at 6 AM we both rose from our hammocks and regained our normal legs. It had been an incredible experience, and William was the perfect person to guide us through the amazing journey. Although we did not see any ghosts or spirits, we did each have unique and memorable visions, and both have decided to make our lives as shamans in San Francisco (just kidding Mom and Dad).

William drinks Ayahuasca 3 times a week with people, and as we were getting ready to leave, a new crew of locals were coming in to prepare for their ceremony that night. As we said good bye to William, he told us to watch out for the insectos grandes, and then laughed shaking his head. We are still not sure if he really thinks there were no bugs, or if he just wanted to make us think there was nothing there in order to calm us down. Either way, we had an experience of a lifetime deep in the Amazon with a very mystical shaman.

27 de Junio - Bogota, Colombia

2005-07-06T13:37:00.000-03:00

Bogota is up in the mountains, and it is quite a bit cooler than the other parts of Colombia that we have visited. We were not expecting cool nights and jackets again, but quickly learned that the capital is different from most of the rest of the country. We arrived by bus late at night because our bus broke down half way between Armenia and Bogota. We wanted to stay in La Candelaria, the old historical section of town, and the bus driver told us that we had passed it and should get out before we reach the bus terminal on the other side of town. He called us a cab from his cell phone, and then dropped us on the side of the road, the cab was waiting and we got right in. We were so tired from the long day and the bus breakdown mishap that we left two bags of gifts including Colombian coffee, cigars, shirts, and other little things in the taxi and were never able to recover these items. That was heartbreaking, but it was nothing too expensive or important. We had heard bad things about Bogota at night, but from our view it looked just like any American city, with people bustling either on their way home or heading out for the night.

We arrived just in time to catch the end of the Colombian league soccer championship, with Medellin Nacional beating Santa Fe de Bogota 2-1. Nacional is the favorite team of the country, and even in Bogota there were plenty of green jerseys worn about the streets, and people driving up and down honking their horns flying the Nacional flag from the back of motorcycles. It was odd to us, because the celebration for Medellin in Bogota would be like people celebrating in Chicago if the Yankees won the World Series, it just would not happen at home. It did, however, make for an exciting arrival in Bogota with a special welcoming committee.

We spent most of the days walking around old town, and going to museums. The Museo de Oro was our first stop, and probably the best museum we have been to in South America. It houses relics of Gold from the rich history of Colombia, a history in gold. Incredible pieces from head dresses, masks, idols, chest plates, scepters, and tons of other religous and cultural pieces adorned the 3 story collection. It was really impressive to see that much gold, only the King Tut exhibit boasts as much gold as this museum. Colombia was once very rich in gold, until the Spanish found it and took most of it. Luckily many pieces were lost for years, and avoided being stolen and melted down by the Spanish. Many of the most incredible pieces have been found in the last 10 years, which we thought was quite amazing. We also visited another Botero museum, which was equally as impressive. It contained all Botero´s work, as well as his personal collection. Not only was he a great artist himself, he had an incredible collection of Rembrant, Monet, Manet, Klimt, Henry Moore, Klee, Picasso, Van Gough and many more famous artists. Another really nice thing was that the museums were either free or only $1 admission. They want the public to have as much access as possible.

Bogota has a pretty rough and tumble reputation, and we saw some signs of it on the streets. There was more pan handling than any other place we have been, and some of it quite aggressive (although nothing like San Francisco). We also noticed that there are thousands of police everywhere on the streets. They are not heavily armed, in fact most don´t even carry guns, but they travel in groups of 4-6, and it is not uncommon to see upwards of 30 police officers within 100 feet of eachother in a square or main thoroughfare.

Since we are heading to the jungle, we thought we should take advantage of our last night in a city for awhile, so we went out to the north part of the city where the lively Zona Rosa section entertains the city all night long. This is an area of about 4 square blocks dedicated to cafes, restaurants, bars, and clubs. We carefully selected a Thai/Japanese place for dinner, then went to a bar for a drink, then went to a salsa club to end the night. The area was completely packed with young party goers, and was a lot of fun. Since we usually don´t go out very late we were dead tired by midnight, but felt like we gave it the old college try.

Just like all the other cities we have been to in South America, Bogota has an old, more run down historical section, and a newer, hip section of town. The old town area was also safer than we had read about and anticipated, and was generally pleasant and lively. People love to dance and sing in Colombia, and we could see that everywhere. In line at the grocery store, out on the street, even in a quiet restaurant a couple was dancing salsa after they pushed their table aside. Everything has a beat and the city moves to that beat. We were pleasantly surprised by the city, but would prefer to live in Medellin, if given the choice, due to the weather.

22 de Junio - Salento, Zona Cafetera, Colombia

2005-06-25T21:22:00.000-03:00

Salento is a small, sleepy town nestled in the foothills of the Andes mountains in the coffee growing region of Colombia. This town gives you the feeling of being in the heartland of Colombia (Juan Valdez land)...it is absolutely picturesque and quaint. There are vaqueros (cowboys) dressed in ponchos and donning straw hats, horses gallop through the streets, and the locals are warm and friendly. Here you find all the charms of a farming village where everyone knows their neighbors. Anytime someone enters a restaurant, bar or public bus, they greet everyone in the place with a warm ¨Buenas¨ short for Buenas Dias and all the ladies call eachother ¨Mami¨ short for Mamita. The streets are lined with colorful buildings and in the center of town there is a plaza surrounded by outdoor eateries and a big white church with a towering steeple and clock tower. The town is alive with the bustle of Colombian tourists on the weekends. Traditional Colombian folk music floating out through the windows and doors of dimly lit bars provides the soundtrack for the activity at night.

To get a better view of the town and surrounding mountains, we walked up the hill to a mirador where we could see the green mountains on the opposite side of Cocora Valley. The rolling hills are covered with green grass for grazing, and everything is so lush that it appears to be covered in felt from this distance. At the top of this hill there is a playground for kids, and people gather here in the evenings to watch the sunset as they sit around in a circle and chat. We sat on swings overlooking the expanse of hills that turn into mountains whose tops are eternally covered in clouds. The mountains look dreamlike, as if someone had taken a sheet of emerald green velvet and pushed the ends toward the center bunching the fabric together, creating soft folds and creases in the otherwise smooth and soft material. Under the light of the setting sun, the green hills glimmered with golden highlights and purple shadows. In the trees below there were exotic birds flying from branch to branch and singing. As we sat on the swings and tried to memorize these incredible images (we knew that no photos would do this justice), we noticed a soldier dressed in camouflage out of the corner of our eye. He was approaching from a bush covered trail nearby. He was carrying a gun and didn´t look like other Colombian police officers that we had seen in bigger cities. For a moment our hearts stopped as we wondered if these men dressed in camo toting heavy artillery might be guerillas. We hushed our voices and decided to pretend we were from Canada if asked. Two soldiers passed in front of us and we quietly observed that none of the Colombians in the park were panicking in their presence. In fact, one of the soldiers was leaning down to pet a woman´s puppy and other soldiers were having pleasant exchanges with locals on the hill. So, when another group of soldiers passed in front of us, we mustered up the courage to greet them and ask if we could take a photo of them. Up close they looked like kids and they seemed friendly. They happily agreed to pose for a picture and asked where we were from. We gave eachother knowing looks and told the truth and they didn´t even turn their guns on us. One of the soldiers said, ¨Bring back Clinton!¨ With that they went off to patrol the mountains outside of Salento. Apparently Clinton has a fan club here in Colombia, as we noticed that he was just in Bogota a few days ago for a speaking engagement. It was good to see pictures of him on TV walking down the streets of Bogota freely. When Bush came a few years ago, he brought 15,000 troops and the people of Cartagena were not allowed in the streets during his brief stay. After our interaction with the soldiers we sat in our swings basking in the glow of that exchange and wondered again how Colombia got such a horrible reputation, because as we are discovering first hand, even the men who should be threatening have gone out of their way to be nice.

In Salento we stayed at a place called Posada del Cafe, which is the most charming little inn in town. Our hosts were Señora Maria Elena, her lady-in-waiting Alba Maria, and a yellow lab named Addie. We were their only guests, so we got special treatment. When we arrived, the Señora sat us down, brought us glasses of mora (blackberry) juice, and helped us plan our days in Salento. She lived in Virginia for a few years, so she speaks great English. The inn is built around a garden where flowers, strawberries, blackberries, herbs and lulo trees abound. Lulo is a fruit that looks like a kiwi, but the juice tastes like apple cider. Every afternoon our señora brought us a cup of tinto (coffee) to drink while we relaxed on the veranda with Addie and watched the most colorful birds come to feed on the fruit that Maria Elena left out for them. The decor and construction of the inn is that of a U-shaped ranch house with open-air verandas, wooden floors, and brightly painted accents (turqoise and yellow). Our room had double doors with windows in each door that opened up to the street outside where we would occasionally hear the clip clop of horses trotting by.

On our first night in Salento, Maria Elena recommended a restaurant for dinner, so we walked there and were immediately in awe of its location on the hilltop overlooking the valley. We ate trucha (trout) prepared Salento style, baked whole and served in a bubbing hot skillet with cream sauce, mushrooms, and shrimp accompanied with patacones (a fried plantain cracker). The ambience of this place was so romantic and we were the only customers, so we had this beautiful dining room all to ourselves. We were intently looking out the window at the valley below as it began to grow dark outside and Billy spotted fireflies (luciernagas) flashing and glowing in the shadows of the trees in the distance. Jen had never seen fireflies before and they impressed her with their random twinkling green lights. They looked like flying embers shooting from the center of a hot fire or shooting stars in the night sky. We walked back to our hostel by the light of the moon and felt the travel gods smiling upon us. It was a very special day in the heart of Colombian Zona Cafetera.

The next day we hiked to Acaime Reserve in Cocora Valley. There were enough trails to spend two days exploring, but we didn´t have time to see everything. We started our day at 7am with an hour long willy (jeep) ride into the valley, which dropped us off at the trailhead. The highlight of the hikes in Acaime is a waterfall called Estrella de Agua, but we settled on hiking to a closer mirador and from there we could see the waterfall in the nearby mountains. The trail started in the valley, which is home to hundreds of tall wax palm trees (Colombia´s national tree) and later the trail ascended into cloud forest, where it was misty and constantly rained lightly. The trail was muddy and the air was damp and cool...perfect conditions for hiking. The path followed the rushing Quindio River most of the way. We stopped at the ranger station and talked with a couple that lives in the reserve about politics, coca growing, the increase of extranjeros (foreign travelers) in recent years, the decrease of problems that the country was plagued with 3 years ago. We drank agua de panela (hot water, raw sugar and lime) and watched hummingbirds come by the dozen to feed on sugar water that had been left out in bowls and feeders for them. We were given a tour of the accomodations offered to students of flora and fauna and travelers. Had we known better, we would´ve stayed in Acaime for one night and hiked around for two days in order to see more. We finished our hike at around 2pm and had lunch at a small restaurant near the trailhead.

The next jeep wasn´t scheduled to depart for Salento for another 2 hours, so we decided to walk back to town instead of waiting for a ride. We got halfway to Salento in an hour, and just before the road began an uphill climb, we were offered a ride in the back of a truck by some friendly cowboys. It was a bumpy ride, but we were so happy to get back to town that much quicker. As we bounced around in the back of the truck, we watched the green hills pass by and enjoyed the company of those cowboys.

The following day we went to the Mariposaria (butterfly preserve and botanical gardens) in Kalarca. It was amazing to see so many different kinds of butterflies in various shapes and sizes fluttering around a beautiful enclosed botanical garden. This botanical garden was inside of a greenhouse that was shaped like a butterfly. The surrounding grounds were impressive as well. There was a building devoted to insects, with ant farms, bee hives and a large collection of dried insects on display. We skipped the tour because we wanted to avoid the crowd and go at our own pace, but we befriended a security guard (Christian) who took us on our own private tour of the butterfly exhibit. He showed us how to get a butterfly to land on our finger by dipping our fingers in juice from oranges that are left out as food for them. We got an upclose look at these mythical creatures as they sat on our fingers and used their tickling tongues to lap up the juice.

Afterwards we went to lunch in downtown Armenia, where two boys were performing for the customers in a traditional Colombian restaurant. We invited them to sit with us and they eagerly played the only American song they knew (Nothing Else Matters by Metallica). We asked if they were vaqueros because they were dressed in cowboy hats and ponchos, and Camilo and Leandro proudly replied that they were ¨campocheenos¨. The guitar player (Camilo) was such a charmer, the right personality for show business. He wanted us to guess his age as Leandro flashed 13 fingers behind his friend´s back. He was so surprised when we guessed correctly, his eyes were as wide as saucers. Both boys were extremely talented musicians. They sang traditional Colombian songs, one of which was very sad. The lyrics were about war, people dying, and violence in the pueblo. They sang with sweet voices, and we were not the least bit embarrassed when we alone clapped enthusiastically for them as if we were proud parents.

Back at our hostel, we spent a lot of time talking with Maria Elena about Colombia. She told us that she remembers her father talking about the leftist organizations and their ideas when she was a child. Fifty years ago they may have had more honorable political intentions, but today the guerilla organizations (FARC and ELN) have been reduced to living in the mountains in hiding, terrorizing citizens with random kidnappings, and forcing farmers to give them money in order to finance their operations. It seems very counterintuitive that a leftist organization steals from and victimizes the poorest of Colombia´s people like the farmers. We wondered how the current situation has become so bleak.

Colombia has been a country in turmoil since its inception (post independence from Spain). There has always been conflict between centralizing pro-clerical Conservatives and federalizing anti-clerical Liberals. Civil wars including The War of the Thousand Days in 1899 when 100,000 people were killed have been the norm. La Violencia was another civil war from 1948-1957 during which time 300,000 people were killed. This war was followed by 16 years of peace when both parties declared a truce, supported the same candidate, and evenly divided all political offices between them. During the 1980s the conservative president offered amnesty to the guerilla movements, but only FARC upheld the agreement and in the next election when the Liberal party took the majority, right-wing groups revolted and killed over 1,000 party members and assassinated two presidential candidates. In the 1990s under Liberal goverments there was the capture or surrender of most of the leading Cali drug lords, but the US decertified Colombia from its list of countries making progress against drugs trafficking, so without US aid for the establishment of alternative crops many communities had no means of support. In the late 1990s the US withdrew decertification restrictions and in 1998 the president (Pastrana) negotiated with FARC and conceded a demilitarized zone in Caqueta. ELN then demanded similar treatment and stepped up its campaign. Pastrana devised Plan Colombia to combat the drugs trade and the US gave $1.6 billion for the cause, which bought military and anti-narcotics equipment and funded crop substitution. Spraying coca crops has not been effective, as it has given rise to the production of opium poppies instead. Both left-wing guerillas and right-wing paramilitaries are involved in the drugs trade. Paramilitary groups like AUC are waging their own war against FARC and ELN. The current president in 2002 (Alvaro Uribe Velez) ruled with anti-guerilla policies and introduced new anti-terrorism laws, but violence continued through 2004. In April 2004 AUC agreed to disarm and restrict itself to a small area of the Cordoba province. Colombians seem to have a positive attitude about the current president. The number of kidnappings has dropped significantly in the past year, and tourism is on the rise.

With a history of turmoil and violence by insurgents the people seem to live in a constant state of fear despite the evidence that it is becoming safer here. Maria Elena told us the Colombians are la gente sana, and when we looked up the word sana, we found that it means recovering. She says that she hopes future generations will live in peace. She tells us that Salento is completely safe and that nothing ever happens in her sleepy town, but she lowers her voice to a whisper when she talks about FARC. She tells us that they are on the run in the mountains miles away from Salento, but then she puts her index finger beneath her eye to show us that they are always watching.

We now understand why Colombians are so religious, because for generations they have lived in fear this way. They haven´t been able to turn to their government or to the police for protection, so their options are either to join forces with a paramilitary group to fight against the guerillas or to pray to God for their safety.

20 de Junio - Armenia, La Zona Cafetera, Colombia

2005-06-24T16:27:00.000-03:00

We arrived by bus from Medellin, jumped in a taxi, and headed to a Finca (coffee farm) in the heart of Colombia´s coffee growing region. Over the past 10 years coffee prices have gone down a lot with the introduction of cheaper coffee beans from Africa and Brazil, so La Zona Cafetera in Colombia has had to make the necessary adjustments. What was once all coffee ranches is now a patchwork of coffee, banana, bamboo, and green grazing pastures for cows and sheep. Fincas are the ranch houses that sit on the agricultural properties, and now many welcome tourists. Over the years since coffee has gone down in price, tourism has flourished in the area to supplant what has been lost in coffee related revenues. Therefore, most of these Fincas have swimming pools, restaurants, and all the amenities of upscale hotels. We made our base La Finca Bonito Alto, about 5 miles from the nearest town of Montenegro.

Most of the tourists in La Zona Cafetera are Colombians from Bogota, Medellin and Cali trying to escape city life by heading to the rural part of the country. It is very family oriented, and most people drive or rent cars to get around if they fly there. The area is not really well set up for people like us who do not have cars. We figured this out our first night after we watched a spectacular sunset over the banana and coffee fields in our backyard. We decided to head out to find a restaurant and walked along the road in the direction of the nearest town. Everything is well spread out, so we walked for about an hour to get there, half the time in the dark. The task was a little more than we signed up for, but we decided that walking was better than flagging down a car. However, once we got there we had a very nice meal in a local restaurant. The owner gave us free dessert and coffee, would not accept any payment, and then found us a taxi to get us home.

The main attraction in the area is El Parque del Cafe, which is part museums about the coffee industry, part National Park, part coffee growing zone, and part amusement park. Again we headed off on foot to the Park, not far from our Finca. We kept noticing jeeps driving by with 12-15 people on them. They are the local form of transportation, and called "Willys" by the locals. Each one has three people up front, 6 in back, 3 on the roof, and 4 people standing on the rear bumper holding on. Everybody has a Willy in this area, they are definitely as important to the people here as a Ford or Chevy pickup is to those who live South of the Mason Dixon line back home. As we continued along the road past many coffee, banana and bamboo Fincas, a guy stopped and let us jump in the back of his Willy and he took us to the Coffee Park, again he would not accept any money, he just smiled and drove off.

The Coffee Park is a perfect place for a family vacation. It has all you need to keep a family happy. Lots of good walking around beautiful bamboo forests, expansive coffee fields, roller coasters, and a small town built in traditional stylings with restaurants and a guy dressed as Juan Valdez standing with three mules carrying coffee bags and posing for photos. The most interesting part were the museums. They have all the great coffee plantation owners of the past pictured on the walls in the museum, and it was funny how they all looked exactly like Juan Valdez. Each one wore the same style ranch hat, a lightweight poncho, and had a small mustache. The icon Juan Valdez is truly the exact replica of everyone that built the coffee industry here years ago.

As the day progressed we got sick of the tourists and amusement rides, so we went to look at the coffee plantations. Coffee is a beautiful plant. A mature plant stands at about 8 feet tall, with dark green leaves that are very shiny and reflective, and covered with beans, red ones are ripe, green are not yet. We were able to walk through the rows, pick beans, and get to understand the growing, harvesting, and roasting methods. We had one guide explain to us different roasting methods, and after her explanation she asked where we were from. When we told her the States she said, "Thank you for being the greatest consumers of coffee in the world." Colombian coffee is the most premium in the world, and Colombians are proud of this fact. It is very uncouth to drink coffee here with milk. The coffee is so smooth, silky and mild that it is always taken black and sometimes sweetened with sugar. It is insulting to put milk in it, milk is for Brazilian coffee, as the locals will point out.

That night we did not want to go on another long walk down the dark street for dinner, so we asked the owners of the Finca what we could do. They went ahead and ordered food for us, went to pick it up in their Willy, and drove it back for us to eat there by the pool. For dessert they harvested some mandarin oranges from their trees (the best we have ever had) and gave them to us. This is another place where we felt so incredibly safe, but noticed that the Finca employed a guard to walk the grounds at night with a slung shotgun. In Colombia it is easy to feel secure, but there are always reminders of days past when you see the armed guards that are everpresent. We couldn´t help but compare this area to wine country back home. It is rural and beautiful, with a slow pace of life, but also well developed for tourism.

14 de Junio - Medellin, Colombia

2005-06-16T17:53:00.000-03:00

We flew into Medellin from Cartagena as we have been told that it is not a good idea to take night bus rides in Colombia. We arrived as the sun was setting, and saw all the mountains that surround the city light up as the sun dove deeper into the Andes. Our first impression of Medellin as we took a cab into the city was how modern it is. It is unlike any other city we have seen so far in South America, very modern and quite large, it has almost 2 million residents. The airport is about 30 minutes away from the city, and the last 15 minutes of the ride are spent going down a pretty steep hill that drops you right into the center of the city. The city is a bit like San Francisco with all the hills, but has much nicer weather.

We arrived the night before our 1 year anniversary, so we decided to stay in a nice hotel. On the plane we found a coupon for a weekend special at the Dann Carlton in the El Poblado section of Medellin, and decided to take it with us to the hotel to see if it would work. It was the first time we have stayed in a really nice place for 6 months, and it was quite a treat. We felt a little out of place when we cruised into the hotel lobby of this fancy place, but we quickly became accustomed to the good life. The room was huge with a bath tub, mini bar, huge TV with cable, room service, and plenty of space, all things that we never get in hostals. The hotel also had a pool, sauna, hot tub and gym, which we took full advantage of the whole time we were there. We felt so spoiled at the fancy hotel that we did not leave the grounds for both days we were there. They had to practically drag us out when it was time to check out and move down town into a hostal. We did get to rub elbows with the wealthy Colombians, and noticed two things. One, plastic surgery is quite common, and two, older men dating much younger women is also quite common. We observed a lot sitting around the pool for two days.

Our little piece of heaven ended abruptly as we got in the cab to go to a hostal we had chosen, and the cab driver couldn´t find it, so he just let us off downtown in the middle of a rainstorm. We were soaked walking around downtown Medellin with our backpacks, and once we found the hostal we were looking for, it was fully booked so we had to keep going. In typical Colombian fashion, a guy came right up to us and asked in English if we were lost. We told him we thought we knew where we were going, showed him our destination in the book, and he laughed and then he pointed us in the opposite direction and told us how to get there. He even offered to show us the way if we wanted. One thing that is impossible to escape in Colombia, the people are incredibly friendly and helpful, and always look out for tourists. We eventually found a nice hostal and were able to dry off and get some food before it got too late.

The next day we took the metro (Medellin has a very modern metro system) a few stops down the line to a couple of museums and the botanical gardens. The Medellin Botanical Gardens could use a little help, it was just a park with an old bog in the middle with garbage floating in it. The entrance to the park was half off if we were students, and we have often tried to claim student status to get discounts, but it has never worked. At the Botanical Gardens here, the guy basically told us that we were students without us even bringing it up, and gladly let us in for half price with a little wink. However, even half price was too much for the shoddy gardens.

The next day we went to all the different art museums and public parks where sculpture is displayed. A very famous artist named Botero is from Medellin, and the entire city is like a shrine to his work. There are huge bronze sculptures of his all over town in public places. One of the most interesting is in San Antonio Plaza, where he erected a huge piece called "Bird of Peace." It was partially blown up in 1995 by a bomb during the heart of the cartel wars in Medellin and Cali. 15 people died in the explosion, mostly children. He then donated another piece, that is exactly the same, to sit directly next to the broken and shattered remnants of his original piece in the park. He wanted everyone to see what the violence of the drug wars really looked like. It is a sad reminder. We also went to the museum of Antioquia (the name of Medellin´s province), where they have dedicated an entire floor to Botero. In a lot of his work you see traces of the violent history of Medellin. One piece is the called "The Death of Pablo Escobar," the now deceased head of the Medellin Cartel, and depicts him being ravaged by bullets. Although Botero is certainly the most important son of Medellin, Pablo Escobar continues to be the most well-known. So much so that in Cartagena we were shown what they now call Pablito Island, which is one of the places Escobar had a house in the ´90s during his reign.

In the evenings we walk around the streets and take in the sights, and eat at one of the many outdoor cafe´s that line the streets on the second floor of buildings. Our favorite past time is to watch the public city buses go by. They are amazingly painted, all different colors in racing stripe patterns, with huge dual chrome exhaust pipes in back, three or four different colored spoilers on the top, and either flashing police lights or neon lights flashing all over the bus. They are hilarious. Each bus looks like a roving party, and some of them have salsa or rumba blaring out of the windows. Our guess is that the drivers take a lot of pride in their buses, and trick them out to their own styles.

Medellin is really a very livable place, and nothing like what we though it would be. It has almost perfect weather year round, and the peole are great hosts. It is also where most of the textiles in Colombia are made, so tomorrow we are going shopping for cheap clothes as well as chocolates and coffee, two of Colombia´s best exports.

10 de Junio - Santa Marta & Tayrona National Park

2005-06-15T18:27:00.000-03:00

We heard about Santa Marta through a fellow traveler, and since we were not in a hurry to leave the Caribbean part of Colombia, we decided to add the small town of Santa Marta to our itinerary. The beaches in Santa Marta were not all that picturesque, but the town (1/3 the population of Cartagena) was a nice change of pace from Cartagena. Santa Marta has a natural bay, which makes it an ideal shipping port. We spent one day exploring the town and beaches nearby and the next day we went to Tayrona National Park.

To avoid an organized tour of Tayrona National Park, we took a local bus to a collectivo (sort of like a carpool), then hiked to the coast through the park. The hike was stunning. We were shaded by the canopy of the dense jungle as we walked along a muddy path, sometimes crossing streams, listening to the cicadas, birds and rustling of the trees. It was hot and humid and we were dripping with sweat, but we had our eyes on the prize, which was the reward of a dip into the ocean at our final destination. There were hundreds of butterflies fluttering around us so quickly that it was difficult to examine their incredible shapes and colors. Some were white with black tips on their wings, some were black and orange striped, some were brown and had wings shaped like a horn. The leaves from the towering trees fell off their branches and floated down through the sweet, heavy air to land gently like butterflies descending. After hiking for an hour, we reached the ocean and we were happy to jump in and cool off. The first beach we arrived at was called Arrecifes and it was practically deserted. Looking inland from the shore yielded an amazing view of this white sand beach with crystal blue water against a backdrop of jungle covered mountains looming above. Here the Sierra Nevada mountain range rises 18,000 feet above the coastline, and during the cooler parts of the year, the mountaintops are covered with snow. The mountains jutting out from the beaches make for a dramatic juxtaposition of nature at her best.

There was a strong current at Arrecifes, so we walked 15 minutes down the beach to a place called La Piscina, which couldn´t have been more like a swimming pool unless the water was chlorinated. It was absolute paradise. There were only a few other people at this beach, so we practically had it to ourselves. It was tranquil and tucked away, like a well kept secret. The waves were kept out of the calm pool by reef that nearly enclosed the small bay, which formed a perfectly circular protected area where we swam and floated on our backs in the warm, turqoise oasis of ocean. We drank water from a coconut and basked in the sun of the beach made of course sand. Before we hiked back, we returned to Arrecifes and played in the waves like children. The sand there was as fine as flour and was the color of salt and pepper. On our hike back we spotted a medium size, furry animal in the brush that we hoped was a capybara (a semi-aquatic rodent of South America that weighs about a hundred pounds and is about 2 feet tall at the shoulder). It ran away quickly, so we didn´t get a good look at it. We were hoping to see monkeys or snakes too, but instead we saw a bunch of kids at a summer camp retreat playing a game in which they ran around in a circle holding hands and singing LA CUCARACHA.

On our last night in Santa Marta, we watched the sunset over the bay. The sun dunked down into the horizon with hundreds of changing colors in the sky as tropical storm clouds moved in and lightning bolts illuminated the ocean below. We sat at the water´s edge drinking tinto and admiring the view.

7 de Junio - Cartagena Parte 2

2005-06-13T19:44:00.000-03:00

Before we arrived in Colombia, we did our research to make sure that it was a safe place to travel. We talked to other travelers we met in South America who had been to Colombia, we read the warnings posted on State Department web sites, we scanned recent news stories. We got very conflicted information from all of these sources. Most travelers told us that it was safe as long as you avoid travel by bus at night and stay out of the rural areas controlled by paramilitary groups. State Department web sites for the US, Austrailia, Canada, and England advised against travel in Colombia. We read warnings about kidnappings, reports of the use of an odorless, colorless drug that is put in food or drink to knock victims out and take advantage of them, we heard about express kidnappings in which the victim is taken to the ATM and forced to withdraw cash and hand it over. These are things that would scare even the most daring traveler away. After all the bad news we heard about Colombia, we half expected to be greeted by guerillas the moment we stepped off the airplane, to read about kidnappings in the newspaper everyday, to be poisoned, or at the very least to feel terrified for our safety the entire time we were in the country.

Perhaps we have been extremely lucky so far, or things are more stable now than they have been in the recent past. The current unrest in Bolivia proves that timing is everything when traveling in South America. Our timing in Bolivia couldn´t have been better. When we traveled there a couple of months ago, there were no signs of roadblocks, protests, or chaos. The current protests in La Paz would have prevented us from seeing much of Bolivia if it was on our itinerary now. We see that the fragile balance of social stability in South American countries can be easily and quickly upset. Toca madera (knock on wood), but so far we have not seen anything that has made us feel threatened in Colombia in any way. We are being extremely careful and following the advice we get from locals, but we can´t help but wonder why this amazing country has such a bad reputation now that we have seen it for ourselves. There is a real paranoia about Colombia that we think might be based on disinformation. When GW Bush was here in November last year to meet their president, he brought 15,000 armed police and military officers with him for protection. Cartageneros were not able to leave their homes or park their cars on the street. Everyone we talk to here says that the best thing that we can do for Colombia is to go home and spread the word about how much we enjoy our experiences and that it is safe to travel here.

In one week we witnessed only 3 small episodes of social disruption. A fight broke out on the beach in Boca Grande one afternoon and a crowd gathered around, but quickly dispersed. It was over as quickly as it started. Another day when we were walking around the center of the old city we saw a small boy throwing beer bottles at a security guard outside of a storefront and in the presence of a dozen street vendors. We watched as the kid broke bottles on the sidewalk and then held them out and threatened to throw them at the vendors and the security officer. A few minutes later, the boy dropped the bottles and ran away with his bare feet and the problem was solved. There was a commotion outside on the street one day when we were eating lunch at a restaurant in the center, but that died down and we never heard any more about it. For such a friendly and laid back culture, we do notice strife, desperation, and volatility beneath the serene surface. We never saw outbursts of violence like this in any other place (except for a fight over a traffic incident in Trujillo, Peru), but even so, we feel very safe here. The only time we have felt afraid was during a cab ride. The Colombians are crazy behind the wheel and from what we can tell, traffic violations go unchecked here. The authorities probably have other things to worry about.

We have found Colombians to be friendlier than people we have met anywhere else. We heard that they are protective of foreigners, and this may be why we have been greeted with open arms, but we sometimes can´t believe how generous and caring complete strangers have been. On the street we are often approached by Colombianos asking if we need help ("Are you lost?") or wanting to know where we are from ("¿De donde son ustedes?"). That last question is funny because they never guess that we are American, but we obviously stick out like sore thumbs here and are easily recognized as foreigners. Most of the time they guess that we are from England, France, Germany...anywhere but the good ole EEUU. The first time you frequent a restaurant, bar or store you are welcomed in and given special treatment, the second time they shake your hand and treat you like an old friend, on the third visit they introduce you to their family. Maybe they invite you to move in with them on the fourth visit, but we haven´t been anywhere four times yet, so we aren´t sure about that yet.

Needless to say, we were pleasantly surprised by our first encounter with Colombia in Cartagena. The street that our hotel was located on was colorful and lively, and probably not the kind of environment we would ever find ourselves in if we were stateside (if such a barrio exists in the States). It is interesting how when traveling you lose inhibitions or prejudices about places and people, because if you have never been to a place before and you have no prior references, you approach people and situations with a clean slate and an open heart. The neighborhood that we called home in Cartagena for a week was located in the historic zone of the city inside the 400 year old wall that once protected Cartagena from being sacked by pirates. No matter the time of day or night, when we walked down our street, we were sure to be greeted by our neighbors. There were people hanging out on the corners drinking, socializing, and escaping the heat. Old men sat around a circle and playfully argued at the top of their lungs while wildly gesticulating. Entire families set up chairs outside their homes on the pavement so that they could watch the activity on the street...it was like a block party, complete with music. Inside homes the music was turned up so that it could be heard outside. Each frontyard was transformed into a discotec. As you walk down the narrow calles and take in all the sights, sounds and scents from each house, your senses are busy and content. When we first arrived in Colombia, we were nervous about all the warnings we had been given and we experienced culture shock from the sudden introduction to Caribbean South America. The Caribbean influence is so different from the Andean culture of most of the rest of South America. There is a completely different energy here. However, after our first night there, we were comfortable and looked forward to the walk down our street to feel the heartbeat of life in Cartagena.

Cartagena is visually beautiful. Downtown in the historic district the buildings are painted in bright colors that are peeling and chipping to reveal muli-colored layers beneath. A beautiful black woman who set up her fruit stand in the shade of a doorway flashes her wide, bashful smile inviting you to buy fruit sliced in halves to show off their colors and sweet aroma. The huge, ornate doorknockers in shapes of pirates, mermaids, and other fanciful creatures invite you to enter people´s homes through giant wooden gateways that resemble ancient sea-faring vessels. Houses have wooden verandas with flowers and vines flowing down from them and there are shady open-air patios tucked away in the center of homes. When we arrived at the airport, the first thing that we noticed was a woman dressed in all brown with chocolate color skin, who was balancing a bowl of candied coconut treats on her head.

It´s so hot that you feel like you could melt, and it doesn´t even cool down at midnight, but every lunch comes with a hot soup and Cartageneros drink hot cups of tinto (coffee served in a dixie cup) all day. The food and drink is excellent in Colombia. Our favorite thing on the menu is coconut rice. Limes here are nothing like limes at home. Here they are sweet and fragrant like a flower. Limonada is made with limes, sugar and ice all blended together until frothy and it is sweet and refreshing. Aguila is the name of the local beer and there is nothing better than a cold beer in this heat. We have developed stomachs of steel, we can eat anything now and we don´t get sick. We have eaten everything from the street vendor´s carts including sausage, grilled corn-on-the-cob, meat shishkabobs, shrimp cocktail, arepas with cheese (arepas are a fried maize cake). In the Andes we ate mostly rice and potatoes, but here in the Caribbean the staples are rice and beans and the food and drink have a tropical flair.

There are some major differences between life here and life at home. The best of these differences is check-out time. Check-out time in Colombian hotels and hostels is at 3pm, which is great for people like us who aren´t usually in a rush. Another interesting difference we have seen is that mineral water doesn´t come in bottles, it comes in plastic bags, which makes drinking water a different animal. Religion is a major part of daily life for some here. On a plane ride as we were taking off, we looked over at the girl sitting across the aisle from us and she was doing the sign of the cross...father, son, holy spirit. At the airport phone kiosk, the woman working there had to finish counting her rosary beads before she could answer our question. Anytime someone asks Billy´s age and we tell them that he is 33 the reply is always the same, "Oh, that was the age of Jesus!" The payphones are so expensive here that everyone uses cell phones, and if they don´t own a cell phone, they pay to use someone else´s phone. There are people on the street who charge to use their cell phone for making calls with. Everyone stands outside their shops and says "A la orden" as people pass, which means something like "At your service" or "Can I help you?"

So far we are absolutely thrilled with our travels in Colombia, and we´re happy that we didn´t let Colombia´s bad reputation stand in the way of a good experience here.

6 de Junio - Cartagena, Colombia

2005-06-06T16:44:00.000-03:00

We flew from Quito through Bogota to Cartagena. We heard that crossing the border over land to Colombia can be a bit dicey, so we decided to take a flight to Colombia instead. Cartagena is on the Caribbean, and therefore is quite hot, but the city is an incredible mixture of Latin and Caribbean cultures. We took a taxi from the airport to our guest house in the Getsemani part of Cartagena. When we arrived we felt like we were in a totally different world. The culture, sounds, and sights are much different than what we had become accustomed to seeing in the Andean regions of South America. We were a little nervous about being in Colombia since we have heard so much negative news about the country, so when we wanted to go get dinner our first night the owner of our guest house sent his daughter to walk us to the restaurant to ease our nerves. As we walked through the narrow streets, there were people sitting outside of their doorsteps, each with different sounds of salsa, cumbia, and different caribbean beats blasting out of the houses. People were dancing, drinking, socializing, cooling off, and playing soccer or baseball in the streets. It felt like a giant party. We both felt that it looked exactly like the pictures we have seen of Cuba. There was a group of 5 old men sitting on chairs on the side of the street drinking and arguing about God knows what with their hands flying all over the place and their voices raised. Every once in a while they would all start laughing and sit back down before another argument would start up. It was a great scene to watch.

We spent some time walking around the main square, where a troop of local Caribbean dancers no more than 16 years old perform different dances every night. They move thier bodies so quickly and with amazing precision, we were mesmerized by their performances. The girls wear white dresses, and the boys wear yellow shirts and blue pants, that look like pirate gear. The streets are filled with horse drawn carriages, and people walking around the city looking for restaurants and bars and salsa clubs. We ate at a very nice place right on San Pedro de Claver Plaza, and then explored a bit before we got in a taxi to go home. We were exhausted from travel and from generally being so nervous about going to Colombia, but realized that Cartagena is a safe city designed for nightlife.

The next day we went out to explore the city by foot. The city is just absolutely spectacular. It is surrounded by a huge wall that was used to keep the pirates out and erected in the late 1680s, complete with the old canons still intact surrounding the city. The city is full of colonial style houses and buildings, but they all are painted very bright, tropical colors, so it makes the place look almost like a hollywood set, too good to be true. We wandered all throughout the city, avoiding the many street vendors who won`t let you pass if you show any interest in any of their products, but also meeting people and having some great conversations. The most common hustle is to try and get you to buy emeralds. Something like 75% of the emeralds in the world are from Colombia, and they try to sell them to you all over the street. We met one guy who was trying to get us to go into a store for emeralds, but instead he just came with us as we ate breakfast, and talked with us until we were done then he went back to work. The people here are all very friendly, more so than any other place we have been. Later in the day we were invited to a friend of a friend´s house for Colombian coffee (Tinto) and an orientation to Cartagena. We talked about politics and all kinds of things, and agreed that because Colombia has such a bad name, people don`t come to visit as much as they should.

The next day we went down to the beach to a part of town called Bocagrande. The water is incredibly warm, but since a river lets out right next to the city, the water is not crystal clear. The beach, like the town, is filled with vendors selling crabs, oysters, massages, hats, t-shirts, and just about everything else a tourist would want. It is a little too aggressive though, as once you sit down you have at least five people trying to massage you, fit you for a t-shirt, put sun glasses on you, and shove crab meat in your mouth (which is supposed to be dangerous to eat because it is out in the sun all day). Our relaxing day at the beach was not relaxing at all, and we decided that there must be a better way to beat the heat.

The next day was Billy`s birthday, so we decided to splurge a little bit. We went to the fanciest hotel in town and sat around their pool during the day. We pretended we didn`t know any Spanish when they asked us our room number, and were never bothered again. We had a mojito in their sleek bar and watched the Colombia versus Peru soccer game with a bunch of crazy Colombian fans, then moved on to Cafe del Mar for sunset. Cafe del Mar is set outside on the Western wall of the city. They play perfect sunset music and the weather is perfect as the sun goes down and so does the heat. We were joined by Stewart, and Australian guy we met in Ecuador, and a couple we had met on the beach from San Diego the day before. We all had a few drinks, then went to dinner at a fancy restaurant in the old town. After that, we went to watch salsa dancing in the square where the place was totally alive with people and music, and we took in the sights until we walked home at about 2:00am.

The next evening we were invited to go salsa dancing by the daughter of the owner of our hostal, Daniella, who is 17. Her Dad was going to come with, but could not, so it ended up just being Jen, Billy, Daniella and her boyfriend David. Her poor Dad looked so concerned letting his only daughter out to go dancing, as we think he was only doing it as a favor to us. We had a lot of fun dancing, even though we have a long way to go before we can call ourselves proficient salsa dancers. We had a curfew imposed by Daniella`s Dad, so we escorted the youngsters home by midnight. It was a bit sad for Billy, who realized that he is now twice as old as them, but we were both able to keep up with them pretty well. Daniella`s Dad was very happy to have his daughter home in one piece, and has since taken on the role of social chair for us. Every day he has a different plan of what we can do, and where we should eat. They really look after us, as does everyone in this city. When we were at the beach we went to a pharmacy to get a bottle of water, and the guy that worked there very timidly asked Billy, "Excuse me sir, but do you have any suntan lotion on?" Seeing Billy´s light skin made him truly concerned about us spending time in the sun.

We have also tried to take the ferry to the islands off the coast where there are beautiful white sand beaches and blue waters, but it has rained heavily the last two days. We walked to the port to get on the boat in a tropical downpour, and in the biggest surprise of the trip, they let us change our tickets for the next day with no charge. Something like that happening in South America is quite rare, and we could hardly believe it. When we asked the lady at the counter to change our tickets, she called her mother who also works there, introduced us to her, and they made the change right there, no hay problema. Again, it just feels like everyone is looking out for us here.

After a few nights of going out we are tired and need a night off, so we will see if we can avoid the nice people at the guest house who have offered again to show us around town and take us to another salsa club. If the weather is good we are going to head to the Islas Del Rosario tomorrow.

Fin de Mayo - Quito, Ecuador

2005-06-05T17:33:00.000-03:00

We were in Quito for a few days on our way to Colombia. We spent time walking around the old city, cathedrals, and colonial plazas. On Sundays the old city shuts down the streets to traffic, so we wandered around and took in the sights. Our Sunday routine has become similar to the routine of the locals. We have a set lunch at a local restaurant that is crowded with churchgoers and their families dressed in their Sunday best. This particular Sunday, we had a moment of reckoning, as we looked around the restaurant and had a sudden realization that we were in Ecuador and our environment should be foreign to us, but it is becoming completely normal. Every once in awhile we are overcome with the realization that we are not home, and this was one of those times.

Quito is a strange city. It´s divided into new and old, and the new section of town is where most of the gringos stay and hang out. There is one street in new town that completely caters to gringos, where you can find restaurants that serve food from anywhere in the world, upscale bars, and all types of services for the gringo population and visitors. Here you are guaranteed to run into people that you have met traveling in other places in South America. The way this street is constructed and the way that it seems a bit out of place makes it feel like a fantasy land. There is a dark side to Quito. We were told by everyone not to walk outside after dark, so we were very careful to take cabs at night or we planned to cook dinners at our hostel to avoid going out at night.

We stayed in between new and old town in a family-run hostel. The family had three children who were similar to us in age. Every morning we woke up and had breakfast with the family and they made us feel right at home. It seems the farther north we travel, the nicer people become. On our last morning there, we discovered that the man of the house is a well-known author. The sweet old man who had scrambled eggs for us every morning is a scholar. Guillermo Navarro Jiménez has written 15 books about politics and economics, including El Plan Colombia, which we will try to find in English when we return to the States. All of his most recent books are about the US and imperialism in Latin America. It was great talking to him and we were shocked to learn that he really is a famous author.

We went to a good museum in Quito, which hosted a huge exhibit about Pre-Colombian Ecuador. It was interesting to see how the Ecuadorians painted the rise of the Inca Empire compared to how the Peruvians talked about the same period of time in history. Ecuador was home to many indigenous groups that were conquered and whose culture was destroyed by the Incas, so they celebrate the cultures of their indigenous people more than the rule of the Incas. The Peruvians seem to idealize the Incan Empire, and it is telling to learn that not all South American countries view this in the same way.

We had a bit of time to kill in Quito while we waited for our flight to Cartagena, so we decided to go to a movie. We saw Star Wars one night and ate at Burger King...we had a very American evening. We were also craving another flavor from home...sushi. So, we had sushi in Quito, which we haven´t eaten since we were in Buenos Aires. We celebrated our last night in Quito with a great sushi dinner. It was wonderful. Another indulgence that we take forgranted in the Bay Area.

We found an English bookstore in Quito. This is the only English bookstore we have encountered in 5 months of travel in South America. We bought a Spanish to English dictionary, because we have exhausted the use of our phrasebook and we thought we might need to expand our vocab in order to talk ourselves out of trouble in Colombia. The bookstore was owned by an American expat who was a very interesting character. He named his bookstore Confederate books and his logo was the Confederate flag.

28 de Mayo - Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

2005-05-28T20:59:00.000-03:00

We spent 11 days in the Galapagos Islands and had an incredible time. We arrived in San Cristobal on May 16th in hopes of finding a last minute bargain to board a boat for an 8 day island hopping cruise. We had heard great success stories about people getting to the islands and then jumping on 1st class boats at the last possible minute for less than half price, so we were trying to make the same thing happen for ourselves. The Galapagos are very expensive, and have virtually no food or accomodations options priced for backpackers. Our first two days were spent in San Cristobal while we searched for a boat. San Cristobal is the captial of the islands, but it is just a tiny port town. Since we arrived in low season, we thought that it would be easy to book a cruise, but we kept hearing that every boat was full. At night we jumped on a water taxi and drove around to all the boats in the harbor, like pirates, asking the crew if they had space. This technique didn't pan out. We were working with one local travel agent and one in Quito via email to secure passage on any available boat. After two very stressful days of haggling, we heard that there were openings on a boat called The Gabi. The Gabi was one of the boats that we were warned about by other travelers we had spoken with before arriving in the islands. The travel agents even admitted that the Gabi was not a very good boat (it was economy class, which is the lowest ranking), but it turned out to be our only option to go on an 8 day cruise, so we accepted the challenge.

Since we had two days to kill before our boat left San Cristobal, we spent one day hiking around the island to beautiful deserted beaches and another day we went on an all day snorkeling trip to Kicker Rock about 30 minutes off the shore of the port. We watched every sunset from the same spot with our ritual ceviches, popcorn and beers. The snorkeling trip was a lot of fun. We went to this enormous rock off the coast of San Cristobal that juts out of the water to about 500 feet, and is home to hammerhead sharks, bull sharks, fur seals, sea lions, and sea turtles. The visibility was not great, so we did not see the sharks lurking deep below, but we saw plenty of turtles, sea lions, eagle rays and large fish. The one thing we noticed upon getting into the water is that the animals in the Galapagos are different from others that we have seen because they are not shy at all. They come right up to you, and look at you without any fear, and then just keep on swimming. Since they have had no predators (aside from humans who only colonized the islands a couple of hundred years ago), they act very differently than animals elsewhere.

The sea lions swim right at you as you are snorkeling with them, and then when their face is about 6 inches from yours they stop and stare in your eyes, playfully floating upside down, then they dart off and come right back to stare some more. They swam all around us and played with us for hours. They look like they are flying through the water, they are so agile and quick and can change direction really easily. They are built to be good swimmers and they are fast enough to escape becoming food for sharks. Since they look so much like dogs, it felt like we were playing with dogs in the park. We learned how to make them imitate us by blowing bubbles out of our mouths underwater, and then we´d watch them do the same. It was like looking in a magical underwater mirror. Sometimes we had 6 or 7 sea lions just swimming around us all as close as can be without touching us. We learned how to swim in circles like they do, and got really good at following them and making friends with them. The babies and the females were the most fun to play with in the water. Sometimes an alpha male would jump into the water to supervise our activities. The males are twice the size of the females. The alpha males are known to be a bit aggressive and territorial, and they are really big and have huge fangs. When they came near, we swam away quickly as we didn´t want to encroach on their domain. One day we were swimming at one of the beaches on San Cristobal where a baby sea lion was floating near the shore. Jen bent down near the surface of the water and called to the sea lion like he was a puppy. He swam over, jumped out of the water, barked in her face, retreated into the water and swam away. It gave her quite a scare. At this moment we realized that they may not be as much like dogs as we wanted them to be, and we learned that we should be cautious around the males.

We also visited the Interpretation Center on San Cristobal while we waited to board the Gabi, where we learned about the formation of the islands, the hypothesis about how the animals arrived there, and Darwin's discoveries which led to his theories of evolution and natural selection. The islands are naturally desolate, they were formed by volcanic activity and were lifeless at their inception. The animals are said to have arrived from mainland by floating over to the islands on rafts or bouyant pieces of wood or debris. This journey would have taken almost 2 weeks, so the animals that survived the trip were very hearty and needed little water for survival...they were mainly reptiles, like iguanas. The plants are said to have arrived in the Galapagos as seeds carried in the wind from mainland Ecuador. The birds flew there, but some, like the Flightless Cormorant, lost their ability to fly after generations inhabited the islands. These birds were able to find all the food they needed by fishing in local waters, so their wings atrophied over time. The Flightless Cormorant is an example of an animal that Darwin observed, and based on his learnings about this bird and other species, he later formulated his theories of evolution and natural selection. Darwin's Finches are the other birds that he observed and he noticed that each had developed beneficially mutated beaks designed specifically to hunt for various types of food. The marine iguana is another example of an animal that adapted to its environment and developed the capability to thrive in the water as well as on land, by an advantageous genetic mutation. The marine mammals swam to the islands, in fact, the sea lions came from California to escape being hunted by Great White Sharks. The persistence of life on the Galapagos is impressive, given that the islands are completely isolated from the mainland and the physical conditions on the islands make them fairly inhospitable.

Despite the location of the Galapagos Islands near the equator, they are not the tropical paradise that one might expect. For the most part, the islands are arid, barren, and there is little vegetation in the low lying areas. The water is cool at around 60 to 65 degrees year-round, but it's refreshing since the heat on the islands during the day is intense. We wore wetsuits so we could stay in the water for as long as possible. The color of the water is an emerald green and it is absolutely pristine. Underwater, everything is shaded turquoise and seems surreal as you witness the beauty of the ocean like never before.

After our adventures on San Cristobal, we finally got on board the Gabi. We were expecting a real joke of a boat, something that sputtered into the harbor and broke down upon arrival, but the Gabi wasn´t all that bad. The other people on the boat were all in the exact same position we found ourselves in, looking for a good last minute deal on a nice boat, and all of them had been warned about the infamous Gabi as well. It made things worse that some of our fellow Gabi adventurers who were already on the boat for 4 days had been swindled by their travel agency. They purchased an 8 day cruise, but were dropped off after only 6 days on the boat and a major change in their promised itinerary. These other passengers got the run around when they tried to get their money back, and once they found the culprit who owed them money, he got on his scooter and sped away (never to be seen again). With this disasterous orientation at the beginning of our trip, we were sure there would be major problems for us as well, but we got very lucky. The generator only broke down once, which left us in the dark for a few hours, but they fixed it quickly. And the crew only went on strike for a half day, because the boat owner hadn't paid them for 3 weeks. These small inconveniences were made up for by the stellar company we had on the boat.

There were 16 passengers and 8 crew members that we came to know, and we all laughed and gave the typical South American shrug any time we ran into stormy seas like these throughout the week. We also entertained ourselves by hosting competitions to see who could jump off of the deck of the boat most stylishly or who could jump the farthest. We had a great group, including one very crazy Spaniard from Madrid named Jesus and a photojournalist who was covering an assignment for the New York Times Travel section. Keep an eye out for a featured photo of the Galapagos at newyorktimes.com under the WHY WE TRAVEL section over the next few weeks. If we are lucky, a photo of one of us or one of our fellow Gabi adventurers will be published. Our guide, Wilmer, was a character too. Wilmer was quiet, and he spent most of his time on the boat in his room studying his books about the Galapagos. As we passed other guides on the islands, we noted the difference between them and Wilmer. Other guides led their tour groups with command and constantly spewed facts about the animals, vegetation, etc. Wilmer on the other hand would say things like, "Now you see the tortoises copulating. Hee. Hee. They are funny." He never wanted to get wet, so one day we threw him in the water while we were snorkeling. We all got a kick out of him and we think he had fun with us too.

Our first stop was the island of Española. It was an incredible place with tons of Blue Footed Boobies. The females were nesting with their eggs or newborns and the males were strutting around their nests as they performed their unique mating rituals and mating calls. The male boobies stand around their nests, which are surrounded by a carefully constructed circle of white excrement. They make a noise that sounds like a wind instrument, stretch their wings out, arch their backs, puff up their chests, and slowly march around picking their feet up slowly one at a time. Their coloring is fantastic, it's as if they know how unusually handsome they are, especially with their strange colored feet. Their feet look like duck's webbed feet, but they are bright blue. The older they get, the bluer their feet become. We also saw Masked Boobies here. We saw the giant and gentle Waved Albatrosses, which are the largest of the Galapagos birds and breed only on Española Island. Their wingspan is 7 to 8 feet. It was magical when a female Waved Albatross stood up to reveal her precious egg in its nest, just for us to get a peek at it. The island was teeming with red, yellow and orange Sally Lightfoot crabs, marine iguanas, and sea lions sleeping on the beach. The marine iguanas are bizarre, they sit still like statues, so you can barely see them on the black lava rocks. They are black, red and green, and their heads are scaley. They spit water out of their noses and they look like they have a permanent grin on their faces. Their tongues are pink and their hands and feet have long, skinny fingers and claws. We watched them walking on the sand, slumbering on the rocks, and hanging out in groups of 10...they gather together and pose in a funny way. In the water, they swim like serpeants and we caught one feeding on algae that was growing on a rock underwater. They are very prehistoric looking, primal animals.

Next we stopped at Floreana Island to see pink flamingoes and then we went snorkeling and saw eagle rays, sea turtles, barracuda, white tipped sharks. Someone on our boat saw a scalloped hammerhead shark, but by the time we all got back into the water, it was gone. These types of sharks can be up to 14 feet long. The English guy who spotted this shark, John, was shaken up quite a bit, and he couldn't tell us how big it was, because he didn't stick around to get a better look at it. We also encountered some aggressive sea lions here that scared us all by getting really close to our faces. One Swedish guy said that he was attacked by the sea lions and had to wrestle with one of them, he reenacted the wrestling match by showing us how he put the sea lion in a headlock, but we all thought that this story was akin to the kind of big fish stories you hear fishermen tell. In the afternoon we went to the post office on Floreana, where they have a post box that was once used by pirates. Here you can leave mail without postage stamps in hopes that a fellow traveler from your area will deliver the mail for you. We left two postcards for our parents, just to test the old pirate post system, and we took one to deliver to someone in the Bay Area when we finally go back to the States.

On the third day we went to the Charles Darwin Research Center and visited the Galapagos Giant Tortoise Hatchery there. The Galapagos Giant Tortoise is the namesake of the Archipelago. The word “galapagos” refers to an old Spanish saddle very similar in shape to the shell of one of two major types of tortoises: saddleback tortoises and dome-shaped tortoises. These giant tortoises live to be up to 150 years of age. They grow to be up to 1.5 meters in length and up to 250 kg in weight. At the Charles Darwin Research Center we learned a lot about the human impact on the islands. Many of the animals and plants that have been introduced to the islands by their human inhabitants, like dogs, goats, donkeys, raspberries, are causing the extinction of the native animals and plants. In the afternoon we visited a 40 kilometer long lava tube and two craters and we attempted to do some birdwatching, but we didn't succeed in finding the elusive Vermilion Flycatcher.

The fourth day of the cruise we went to Rabida Island. You can find every color sand imaginable in the Galapagos. Rabida has a dark red sand beach of volcanic origin. The snorkeling on Rabida was phenomenal. There was an amazing reef, with tons of colorful little fish and marine iguanas swimming and feeding underwater. Jen had a close encounter with a White Tip Reef Shark that was half the size of her. It swam out of a cave as she was snorkeling above and gave her a scare. That afternoon we went to Chinese Hat Island, where we saw the smallest sea lion on the rocks. He was just like any other baby...clumsy and wide-eyed. We wanted to pick him up and cuddle with him. He was so adorable that we sat and watched him for almost an hour. Chinese Hat Island had the best lava formations, and was named for the shape of the dormant volcano on the island that looked like a Chinese Hat.

The fifth day of the cruise we were up at sunrise to hike to the top of Bartolomeo Island, where we could get a better look at the strange rock formation that has become the icon of the Galapagos. We snorkeled with penguins while they were feeding on schools of small fish. We met an underwater camera man who was filming a 3 part documentary for the BBC and National Geographic. He was planning to spend 18 months in the Galapagos getting the footage that he needed. When we met him he was trying to film penguins feeding on camera, which is very difficult, because they swim so fast. We had just spent 5 minutes following a penguin around the reef and watching him feed on little fish. They zig-zag through the water so quickly in hot persuit of one little fish at a time. We had to swim hard to keep up with the little guy. The documentary series will air in November 2006...something to look out for. The first part is about the formation of the islands and the last part is about the eventual demise of the islands. Apparently, the islands are slowly moving toward the mainland every year, and they will eventually erode completely and disappear. That afternoon we went to see Red-Throated Frigate Birds on North Seymour Island. The male Frigate Bird builds a nest in the trees and then waits there and tries to attract a female with a striking, red inflatable pocket beneath his beak, which almost looks like a bullfrog. Frigate birds are large, black, and have scissor tails. They have superb flying abilities. They are scavengers that rarely fish for their own food in the water, unless a fish is at the surface, because their feathers have a low oil content and are therefore not water resistant. Instead they take food from the mouths of the Boobies or the Pelicans, by kicking them in the back of the head to get them to spit out their recent catches.

Our last full day on the Gabi was spent observing land iguanas and birds on Santa Fe and South Plaza Island. We snorkeled with stingrays and huge schools of fish. Everyday in the islands was different and amazing. We learned so much about the animals that we were able to see close-up and interact with on a new level. We will both cherish the experience forever.

14 de Mayo - Guayaquil, Ecuador

2005-05-15T21:46:00.000-03:00

Ecuador is lush, green and humid in comparison to Peru. Here the official currency is the US dollar, so we went from calculating the exchange rate of 3.25 Peruvian soles per dollar to using American dollars in Ecuador. They use Ecuadorian coins alongside US coins. This is the first time in over 4 months that we have seen quarters, dimes, pennies and nickels. There are also many US-minted bronze dollars in circulation here, and neither of us have seen those used back in the States for years. During the bus ride from the Peruvian border to Guayaquil we passed time by looking out the window at the many banana plantations alongside the Panamericana. Rice paddies flooded with water and surrounded by thick greenery looked silver and swampy in the light of the setting sun. The green countryside was dotted with white egrits and silhouettes of palm trees and the golden sun hung low in the sky above. Our first busride in Ecuador was very picturesque.

Billy loves Ecuador so far. We got some ice cream at a creamery called Pinguino downtown in Guayaquil last night and the two young girls behind the counter were giggling and staring up at Billy. When we asked what they were talking about, one of the girls said something about the color of Billy`s eyes and let out an embarrassed chuckle. Billy turned bright red at the compliment and the other girl behind the counter excitedly asked us questions about where we are from and what it is like in the US. Billy was so flustered that he couldn`t speak. As we were leaving, the girls wanted to know when we would be back for more helados. People in Guayaquil are either very friendly, or they don`t see many gringos here. For now, we are enjoying being a novelty in this strange place.

The Spanish we have heard so far in Ecuador is very different from the Spanish spoken in Peru. We are having trouble understanding new words and their accent so far. We have spent our time in Guayaquil walking around the downtown area, exploring the city, and trying to beat the heat. Guayaquil is Ecuador`s largest city and chief seaport, so it is a center of industry and commerce. In the downtown areas of other South American cities, we have noticed pharmacies on every corner, but here there are electronics stores on every corner. We have read that since the 1990s Guayaquil has spearheaded an effort to gain autonomy for Ecuador`s coastal provinces, so this is a very prosperous part of the country. In the park in the center of the downtown area there are iguanas living in the trees and feasting on the green grass. These animals are only a preview of what we should see in the Galapagos Islands. We are excited to fly to San Cristobal tomorrow to make arrangements to see the islands.

10 de Mayo - Trujillo & Mancora, Peru

2005-05-15T19:56:00.000-03:00

We decided to make a few stops along the route from Peru to Ecuador, to break up the journey a bit. Trujillo is a lackluster town, but it boasts proximity to Pre-Incan ruins. We spent one night and one full day there exploring the city of Chan Chan, which was the capital of the Chimu Kingdom. The city is said to be the largest in Pre-Colombian America. It was built in the 15th century of adobe brick and finished with mud, and the structures have barely survived erosion from rains and floods over the years, but parts of Chan Chan have been restored and the site has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The most remarkable feature of these ruins are the artistic renderings and sculptures carved in the adobe walls of the living quarters, burial places and warehouses. The sculptures depict stylized animals like penguins, fish, sea otters, and birds and also fishing net. There is also a beautiful reservoir in the middle of the complex, which is how the Chimu irrigated their crops in this arid part of Peru. The ruins were very unique remains of the Chimu civilization before the establishment of the Inca Empire.

We left Trujillo on an overnight bus to Mancora, where we spent a few days relaxing on the beaches in Peru. Billy has been fighting a head cold, so we welcomed the opportunity to rest and relax for a few days. Mancora is a sleepy beach town on the northern coast of Peru near the border with Ecuador. As a beach resort town that is located on the Pan American Highway, it is a nice pit stop for travelers making their way up the coast. We arrived in Mancora at 5am, and even at that early hour the weather was balmy and comfortably warm. We spent three luxurious days at the beach. Billy overdosed on ceviche (if that is possible) after eating it for lunch and dinner for days on end. Jen discovered Parihuela, which is a fish soup with a light tomato sauce served with steamed rice. We swam in the warm Pacific Ocean and took walks on the beach from Mancora to Las Pocitas (the neighboring beach resort town). Mancora and Las Pocitas appear to be the places where wealthy Limeños (people from Lima) spend summers. Since we arrived in low season, we found a beachfront hotel with great rooms for $20 per night. Apparently every day is sunny in Mancora, so even winters are warm.

We spent entire days gazing out at the ocean, looking for dolphins, watching giant pelicans fly by with their bellies to the water and hungry vultures circle above the fishing boats. We sat at the beach watching kite surfers and boogie boarders get their rushes of adrenaline. We woke up to the sounds and sights of the ocean and watched the slowly creeping silhouette of a man standing on a raft built of bamboo reeds as he paddled with a thick, long stick. The sunsets are flourescent pink and the sunrises are silver. We go to sleep with to the sound of waves crashing on the beach outside our sliding glass door.

One afternoon while Billy was sleeping, Jen sat on the deck outside our hotel room looking out at the ocean and spotted three dolphins heading south. At first glance she thought that the black fins might belong to killer whales, but she soon recognized the pattern of their movement. The three of them popped up for air, and then dove back down in unison. They disappeared underwater and then reappeared on the surface just long enough for her to track them to where the sun was setting on the water and it was too bright to continue to stare in their direction. Seeing dolphins in the ocean is akin to seeing a shooting star, isn`t it? She felt very lucky to have caught a glimpse of something so uncommon.

We spent a lot of time observing life in Mancora. The town is full of tuk-tuk drivers who chase arriving buses and compete for the fresh off the bus passengers who have just arrived in Mancora. These are the best fares that they can get, because unsuspecting tourists don`t know how much they should be paying for a ride, so the tuk-tuk drivers can charge double. It is a comical sight to see. The tuk-tuk drivers congregate at one spot in town and they sit around and leisurely chat until a new batch of potential customers arrives on a bus. At this point, they jump into their tuk-tuks and race to the bus to compete for those fares. There is no fair play with this ritual. They practically run each other over to get there first. The guy with a produce cart slowly pushes it along the main road making stops to sell his bananas, avocados, oranges to the neighborhood restaurants and markets. The guy in a poultry truck makes his rounds to the local eateries and pulls three whole chickens at a time out of the bed of his truck, weighs them, and closes the deal with the restauranteurs. In the back of the restaurants that line the beach, the fishermen bring in the catch of the day. A dozen huge, fresh fish lay on the table waiting to be gutted and cleaned, and later consumed in Billy`s ceviche.

We met a woman on the beach who was selling necklaces and other items made out of shells. We told her that we were married nearly a year ago and she asked if we had children. We gave our usual response to the question that we often hear here in South America, and she told us that being married without children is like having a garden without flowers. "Un jardin sin flores." We thought that statement was very eloquent. We told her that someday soon we hope to know what it`s like to have little sunflowers or roses of our own.

When we left Mancora and crossed the border into Ecuador, we were not sad to be leaving Peru. We decided that we loved and hated Peru after spending a little over three weeks there. Traveling in Peru was trying at times and easy at other times. The Peruvian people are much more aggressive than other people we have met in South America. This was both good and bad. Since Peruvians are forward, we inevitably ended up having conversations with the locals once we established that we were not going to buy what they were selling. However, we were always on guard when anyone was overly nice to us, because we were waiting to learn about their true motives. It was much more expensive to travel in Peru than it was in Bolivia, and we never recovered from the sticker shock. We often expected more for the money we spent in Peru, but this wasn`t always the case. Peru has incredible cultural offerings, a rich history with amazing ruins, beautiful sights from the Andes to the coast, an interesting political background and people who are friendly and warm. We enjoyed our time in Peru, but we are looking forward to seeing the rest of South America.

We are off to Ecuador, where the official currency is the US dollar (strange that we will be using dollars and American coins for the first time since we left home). The Galapagos Islands are notoriously expensive (we will spend more on our flights to the Galapagos than we spend during two weeks of travel time), but we can`t pass up a once in a lifetime experience to see them and we hear that a trip to the Galapagos is worth the expense. We are flying to the islands in hopes of arranging a last minute boat cruise on the cheap. We will report back once we have seen the islands for ourselves.

8 de Mayo - Lima, Peru

2005-05-15T18:18:00.000-03:00

From Pisco, we hopped back on the Panamericana heading north and in four hours we arrived in Lima. The Pan American Highway runs north-south along the Pacific coast of South America. This long and legendary stretch of highway starts in Chile and ends in Venezuela. On the coast of Peru the highway is where the sand dune desert meets the Pacific Ocean. The sky here is filled with a dusty haze that makes it hard to see very far down the road. You can`t see the line of the horizon to the west. The band that defines the separation of sky and ocean is blurred, so you can`t tell where one ends and the other begins. The sunsets are the most dazzling collection of soft pastel colors. The sky lights up like a subtle gradient of mauve and purple. Cruising along the Panamericana in Peru feels like we could be in the Sahara Desert in Morocco.

In Lima we spent two days wondering how LA had magically been transplanted from California to Peru since we left home. We stayed in Miraflores, which is a very wealthy, modern suburb of Lima. We had heard from other travelers that it would be safer to stay in Miraflores than in the center of Lima (as Lima has a reputation for being a little dangerous). Miraflores is situated outside of the center of Lima on the coast, so this oceanfront realestate shares the Pacific Ocean with its identical twin on the other side of the equator. The main street in Miraflores is lined with skyscrapers, condos, highrises, hotels, casinos (OK, you don`t see casinos in LA). Not only do the buildings and streets look the same as those in LA, the weather is also very similar to the climate in Southern California. As we walked around Miraflores we made note of all the American corporations and franchises (McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Bell South, Oracle, KFC, Burger King). We felt like we were back at home in the States. At the end of the main drag, there is a modern mall complex built at the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. The mall contains American retail stores, a video game arcade, and a state-of-the-art movie theater.

We had some time to kill in Lima, because we were waiting there to call home for Mother`s Day, so we gave in to the urge to see a movie one night. It was a Hollywood production called Conquistando A Mi Suegro (Guess Who is the English title), starring Ashton Kutcher and Bernie Mac. It was the worst movie either of us have ever seen, but it was a bizarre experience to see a movie in English (with Spanish subtitles) in a theater like that while eating popcorn and sipping Inca Cola. Those two days in Lima felt like we were back in the States again, and it was weird to get a taste of what it will be like to go home after being absent for so long. After being in South America for over 4 months, our encounters with American culture here are the only times we feel culture shock anymore.

6 de Mayo - Pisco, Peru

2005-05-10T19:25:00.000-03:00

We decided to take the bus to Pisco, about 3 hours outside of Lima so that we would not have to stay too long in the overcrowded, slightly dangerous city of Lima. We were also drawn to Pisco by its history, as it was one of the major ports of South America two hundred years ago. It is also near the grape growing region of Peru, and instead of making wine, they mostly make brandy from the grapes, which they call Pisco. The popular South American trago (drink) Pisco Sour is made from this brandy. The name Pisco Sour actually originated in San Francisco, which was a major trading port with Pisco, and people drank so much of the brandy from the port of Pisco, that they created a drink in SF and called it the Pisco Sour. We were expecting a quaint colonial city on the water with many restaurants that serve ceviche (another dish which originated in Peru) and Pisco Sours. We found Pisco to be quite a bit different than what we expected.

First of all, it was a long bus ride from Cusco to Pisco. When we were buying our tickets at the bus station, and comparing prices and services, we were told by one of the bus companies that the trip would take 14 hours, which was quicker than the trip the other companies advertised. We decided to buy tickets with that company, as we were told they make less stops and offer "direct" service to Pisco. We were supposed to arrive at 7am, but did not arrive in Pisco until about noon. Something we are quickly learning is that you can not trust anyone to tell you the truth that is in any kind of sales role in Peru. Even the bus companies lie to you about specifics on the tickets. We also had asked if we were getting dropped off at the Terminal de Omnibus in Pisco, and the reply was yes. As it happens, we were dropped off on the side of the Panamericana Highway. They pulled over, told us to get out, and threw our bags at us, and that was it. We weren't sure what was happening, and by the time we figured it out and were mad, they were gone.

We found a taxi and went to a hostal to drop off our stuff, and then go and have Pisco Sours and fresh fish after our long bus ride. We walked to the main square where the typical colonial era church and other government buildings were located, but thought that this certainly couldn't be the real Pisco. It was dilapidated, and didn't look like it ever had any glory days at all. The more we hunt out the cities of previous grandeur, the more we see that unless they have a major tourist attraction near them, they are pretty much distant, sad, elderly relatives of a life long past. It is sad to see these famous and historically important cities turned into nothing, but as bigger and better ports are built, industry moves away and these towns are permanently left behind. Pisco is not the first such town we have visited.

We were able to find a good restaurant where we ate a huge plate of Ceviche, a heaping portion of Arroz con Mariscos (rice with shellfish), and we drank a couple of Pisco Sours each. Pisco Sours are made of Pisco, egg whites, sugar and lime juice. They are very good, and quite strong. After the meal we decided to look at the oceanfront, so we took a motorbike taxi (like a tuk-tuk in Bangkok that has a seat in back and three wheels) to the shore, and strolled for about 5 minutes. It didn't smell good, there was a dead sea lion rotting on the beach, and it seemed a bit dangerous. We could see that beach town was never going to be a selling point for Pisco. We then walked back to town, and bought a ticket to leave the next morning to Lima. As luck would have it, there was a party for some teenagers next door to out hostal, and they rented a karaoke machine that was blasting until midnight. We were happy to get on the bus and out of Pisco the next morning. At least we can say we have had a Pisco Sour in Pisco.

1-4 de Mayo - Inca Trail to Machu Picchu

2005-05-08T19:24:00.000-03:00

After an exciting night spent at the porter`s village, we began our hike on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. It was a fairly challenging 4 day trek, because of the high altitude and the steep climbs through the passes, but it was a stunning journey. We walked through the granite mountains and the jungle on a 500 year old stone path past many impressive Incan ruins to an ancient city built by the Incas for nobles and priests...a magical experience. In the end, we felt that the pilgrimage to Machu Picchu and the physical location of the lost city were more remarkable than the ruins themselves, but our first look at Machu Picchu was awe-inspiring.

Tourism on the Inca Trail is regulated by the Peruvian government, so it is now impossible to hike the Inca Trail without hiring an agency that provides permission (permits), guides, porters, and a cook for you. Only 500 people per day are allowed on the trail. We got very lucky with timing, and we happened to secure permissions for the Inca Trail without making reservations ahead of time. Apparently, the months of May and June are booked solid every year. We happened to arrive in Cusco just before the start of high season. Our tour agency made the journey very comfortable. It was like no other camping we have done in the past. We were well taken care of by our cook, porters and guide...in fact we felt spoiled. We carried our own backpacks, sleeping bags, and sleeping mats, but the porters carried all of the rest of our camping equipment and food. These guys worked so hard and carried up to 20 kilograms on their backs, and they still managed to arrive first to our campsite every night to welcome us. When we arrived at our campsite at the end of each day, our tents were set up for us. Every evening at 5pm we were treated to tea and a snack. For breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday on the trail, we were fed homecooked meals that were just as tasty as the food we ate at restaurants in Cusco (our cook Isauro had been given the title of the best cook on the Inca Trail). Every morning at the crack of dawn (or earlier), the porters woke us with mugs of mate de coca to fight off any lingering morning sleepiness and bowls of hot water to wash our faces with.

We met Juan, Modesto, and Timoteo at the porter´s village the night before, so it was great to get to know them even more over the next few days. Modesto was an older guy, but he effortlessly kept up with the younger porters. Juan was the quiet one who wore his baseball cap low, so you could just barely see his eyes. Timoteo was younger and was always joking around and flashing his youthful smile. Our guide (Flor) spoke English, Spanish and Quechua, so she helped translate for us.

The first day of the hike was fairly easy. We were a little tired, because we didn`t get much sleep the night before...either from too much cañaso or from camping in the backyard with noisy cows, pigs, and other animals in the porter`s village. In 4 days we hiked about 45 kilometers, which isn`t very far, but the second and third days involved steep climbs over passes that were about 13,500 feet tall. The first day the trail was mostly flat and we reached our campsite early (before 4pm). Our guide pointed out varieties of plants and orchids and talked about Inca culture and history as we hiked along at a relaxed pace on a trail that followed the Urubamba river, and we stopped to look at ruins along the way. There were impressive ruins to see on the route to Machu Picchu, including agricultural terracing, storehouses and checkpoints built out of granite stone by the Incas.

At our campsite that night we were welcomed by two of the cutest local kids with the snottiest noses we have ever seen. They ran around our tent laughing, yelling and playing until long after dark. We told them that we had to zip our tent up to keep the mosquitos out so that we could finally sleep, and they turned that into a game in which they pretended to be mosquitos and tried to get into our tent. When we could no longer stay awake, they finally gave up on us and bid us goodnight by whispering "Chau Mosquitos." On the trail during the first two days we noticed that there were villages set along the river inside the National Park. The women in these villages make homebrewed chicha de jora and sell cups of this maize beer alongside the trail to the porters as they make their way to Machu Picchu. The porters race uphill with heavy loads on their backs and they only stop for chicha. Our guide called chicha de jora "Andean Gatorade."

The second day was the killer. We ascended over 1,000 meters on the trail (from 3,000 to 4,200 meters), which felt like we were climbing a never-ending stone staircase. We were nervous about altitude sickness, and our guide didn´t help matters by telling us all the horror stories of her past treks with tourists who didn´t make it all the way to Machu Picchu. On the trail that morning we saw a woman and her husband coming down on horseback, which meant that they had some issue with the altitude and had to go back to Cusco. We trudged on slowly but surely and made it over the first pass after lunch. The view of the mountains on the other side of the pass was breathtaking. It was well worth the effort. Our campsite for that night was nestled in the valley below at around 3,500 meters, so as the sun was setting, we hiked down to our final destination for that day. It was amazing to be among the giant mountains and so far away from everything. We saw two eagles soaring overhead as we walked down the stone stairway to our camp. When we arrived at our campsite, we were exhausted and our legs were like jelly from hiking up and down the pass. We watched the sunset behind the jagged, green mountains. After dinner we admired the brilliant night sky and got so cold that we had to duck into our tent for warmth. We had another full day and went to sleep very early.

On the third day, we were up early again to tackle the second pass on the trail. The third day of the hike is the longest day. The ascent was not as steep or high as the climb the previous day (this one was at 3,900 meters), and this time the view from the top of the pass was of the snow covered Salcanti Mountain. Parts of the trail on the third day were literally carved into the mountainside, so if you looked over the edge of the trail, there was nothing but a sheer cliff and a ravine below. After the pass, we descended into the yungas (jungle), where we started to see beautiful vegetation, orchids and butterflies. We went through a tunnel that the Incas built in the side of the mountain. The third day of the hike was the most spectacular of them all. The whole time we walked on the Inca Trail we were in awe at how they masterfully built the trail with stones in those remote mountains. That night we camped in a spot that was closer to civilization than we had been in days. We showered and we bought cold beers for our companions to celebrate our last night on the Inca Trail.

On the fourth day, we were awake and hiking before dawn. We were walking through the Sacred Valley as the sun came up and lit up the clouds in the sky. It was like a fireworks show that kept getting more vibrant as the minutes passed. The clouds were flourescent pink, which looked incredible against the dark purple mountains. We were off to a good start. About 2 hours later, we arrived at the Gateway of the Sun, where we got our first look at Machu Picchu from above. It was a spectacular sight as the sun rose and illuminated the city of ruins.

We spent the rest of the day scouting around Machu Picchu and learning about the different styles of stonework and the functions of each of the sections of the ruins. Machu Picchu means old mountain, is located at 2,200 meters and once was home to 1,000 people (nobles and priests). It was built in 1438 to strict standards that would withstand earthquakes (the walls were built with a slight angle towards the center of the buildings). We learned about the religious beliefs and superstitious practices of the Incas. We were very impressed with their astronomical knowledge. One of the main temples, the Temple del Sol, had 4 windows built into the stonework, and each window was positioned to let in the first light of each solstice, summer, fall, winter and spring. The architecture was perfect. They also created a sundial in stone that illuminated Puma Eyes on the day of the winter solstice (Inti Raymi). All of the symbolism in the temples was either about crops, animals, astronomy or the three worlds the Incas believed existed (the underworld, the mother earth, and the sky and stars). The history was fascinating, but quite sad. The Inca Empire was so advanced, and was 15 million people strong when the Spanish arrived, but they were totally wiped out within 30 years of Spanish rule after many failed revolutions. Luckily, when the Spanish arrived the Incas abandoned the cities in the Sacred Valley and destroyed the trails, and the Spaniards were never able to find Machu Picchu.

In the afternoon we climbed up to another temple on a steep mountain right next to Machu Picchu called Wayna Picchu. The hike was literally straight up hill, but the view from up there was amazing. When the day was over we took a bus back down the hill to Aguas Calientes (small tourist town built for Macchu Pichu tourists) and took a bath in the natural hot springs in the town. Then we boarded the 5 hour train back to Cusco, and arrived back to the hostal late in the evening. The walk on the Inca Trail was truly a memorable one, and seeing Machu Picchu at sunrise before all the tourists arrived was breathtaking. We enjoyed the hike, the nature and all the ruins, but cherished our time with the porters more than anything. We were very happy to have shared the experience with such a great group of guys.

30 de Abril - Porter`s Village, Sacred Valley, Peru

2005-05-08T12:51:00.000-03:00

One of the best experiences of the trip so far was our time spent at the porter`s village the day before we hiked the Inca trail. The tour agency we chose to go with was Waiki Trek (waiki means brother in Quechua). Part of the deal they offered us was to stay the first night of the 4 day trek with the porters in their village. The porters are the guys who carry all of the food and equipment on the Inca Trail. Their village was about 3 hours outside of Cusco, so we took a bus to a small town near the village, then got into a minivan for the last hour to reach the village. This was a real campesino village, a small rural village that has no tourism at all, and relies on crops of maize and potatoes as well as some farm animals for their survival. We have been to some places off of the beaten track, but none like this. The streets were full of people who were walking their crops back to their houses by donkey at the end of the day, or walking their cows or pigs back to their homes after grazing all day. It was a real Peruvian experience that we were very grateful to have.

We arrived just as the sun was setting and our view of the Sacred Valley was beautiful. All of the crops and farms spread out on the valley floor made the landscape look like a colorful patchwork quilt. We were dropped off in the center of the village, along with Freddy who accompanied us to the village, and we went to put our bags down where we would be sleeping for the night. We arrived a few mintues later at a farm house made of dried mud. We were welcomed into the kitchen by a toothless woman who was very happy to see us, and spoke only in Quechua. In her apron she was cradling a mound of maize (extra large kernels of boiled corn) and she offered us some, which we accepted. After she shook our hand and welcomed us to her home, we went to her backyard where our tents were set up for the night. The backyard was full of chickens, two donkeys, 3 cows, multiple cats and dogs, and a pig pen. We asked where we could find the restroom, and Freddy´s response was, "That´s a good question." It turned out that the bathroom was a hole in the ground in the middle of the pig pen. So, we had to jump over the fence, avoid the 8 or so pigs that were in there rooting around in the mud, and use the hole in the ground without much privacy. After the bathroom experience we donned our headlamps and followed Freddy down the dark streets to the first porter`s home that we would visit that night.

We were again welcomed into the house, and this time we sat in the kitchen with the family of 6 as they were preparing dinner. The kitchen was a small room made of mud, it had a table, two chairs, a wood burning stove made of mud, and some large pots and pans. The family was a mother with 4 daughters and one newborn baby boy, the father was still on the Inca Trail and was not due back until the next day. We brought notebooks and pencils as gifts for the children, because they need school supplies as they are expensive for the villagers. We handed the school supplies out, and the girls were so excited about it, and thanked us many times. In the village most people only speak Quechua, the schools teach in Spanish, so the younger people have decent Spanish skills, but all the older people know almost no Spanish. Just as our Spanish was getting good enough to have good conversations in situations like this, we were foiled by Quechua. We were able to ask some questions and talk with the children a bit. The oldest girl was very proud of her role in the family as the second in charge when it came to cooking and helping with the baby. When we asked how old she was, she put her chin up and with a very proud smile said in her best Spanish "catorce" or 14. The youngest girl sat quietly in the corner next to Freddy and clutched her new notebook and pencil in her arms. She was so sleepy that she kept nodding off and once even rolled out of her chair and onto the floor as she struggled to stay awake. The family insisted that Jen hold the baby and take a photo. The little guy was 3 months old and wrapped up in a brightly colored traditional Andean blanket. We think that most South Americans feel sorry for us because we don`t have children yet. The first question we are asked when we say that we are recently married is, "¿Tienen niños? Do you have children?" Our answer is always, "Todavia no. Not yet." We asked if we could take pictures of the whole family, and they all wanted to see what they looked like on the digital camera after we shot each photo. At first the mom didn`t want to be photographed with her daughters, but as we were leaving she changed her tune. Mamacita asked if we would take a picture as she was breast feeding her son, she was very proud of him and wanted us to take the picture of them in that unique moment.

They were cooking away most of the time we were there, and served us more maize, (eaten like popcorn, one kernel at a time), and potatoes that were cooked over the stove. While we were sitiing there, we saw many little furry creatures running across the kitchen floor. They had everything from a baby cat, to two neighborhood dogs, to about 15 guinea pigs. Guinea Pigs are a specialty dish in the Andes in Peruvian villages, and are only eaten on special occasions like Inti Raymi (the sun festival), Easter and Christmas. So, all the villagers raise these guinea pigs (called cuy), which freely roam around their kitchens, and then are served as delicacies on holidays. This seemed a little strange to us at first, especially when we accidentally startled the guinea pigs and they squealed in chorus and ran wildly around the kitchen. Later as we tried to explain how we treat guinea pigs at home, we realized that our custom of keeping them as pets in cages and making them run around on wheels for exercise is equally as odd to Peruvians. A few days later we ordered and ate fried cuy in Cusco, and it was pretty good. After we finished our meal and talked some more with the kids, we said our goodbyes and went to another small house to meet our porters.

We arrived at the next home (we later learned that this was Freddy`s parent`s home) and went into another kitchen, which was almost identical to the first, except there were no chairs, only mud benches built into the sides of the wall. There were about 8 people there--the matriarch of the family (Freddy`s mom) who was cooking maize and potatoes, and 7 older men (including Freddy`s dad who was the jovial ringleader of the group of porters). There was a large wooden harp that "the maestro" was playing beautifully. The men were all passing around a small glass with a shot of sugar cane alcohol in it (sweet and potent stuff called cañaso), and took shots each time saying "salud." When the glass came our way they poured less than each one of them got, we were not sure if this was to protect us from getting too drunk, or because they did not want to waste all their prized drink on us gringos. Either way, it was cold in the room, and the cañaso warmed us up quite a bit. After we made some more small talk in broken Spanish and some Quechua translated by Freddy, we were served soup by his mom. It was actually very tasty, made of maize, potatoes and parsley.

As everyone finished their food, the alcohol reappeared, and was passed around again. The two litre bottle it was being poured out of was quickly being drained, and the guys were getting pretty drunk. The maestro was going pretty good on the harp, and one of the older guys (Modesto) asked Jen to dance. So she got up and they danced to the harp music in the middle of the kitchen, and a few of the borrachos (drunks) were singing along to the traditional Peruvian harp music. Then the mother asked Billy to dance, and the four of us were dancing in the middle of the kitchen to harp music accompanied by the singing drunks. It was so much fun to be able to experience what normal life is for a good portion of Peruanos. There was one old guy in the room, and he looked like a real Inca Warrior. He had that weathered, distant look in his eyes that made him appear to be someone from a different era. He looked the way we imagined men in the village 500 years ago when the Incas ruled the land. We realized that with no books (Quechua is only spoken, not written), no TV or Radio, and only enough electricity for one lightbulb (electricity was a recent innovation in the village), there is not really much to do at night. It is common for them to sit around the kitchen and drink a lot, and tell stories and laugh with eachother, which is exactly what we all did that night until about 10:00pm.

We were taken back to our campsite in the backyard of the old woman`s home, and told that the porters would come back for us at 6am. On the way back to our tents the porters showed us the milky way and the southern cross in the night sky. The stars were so bright. We shared the night with all the animals in the backyard, and twice braved trips through the pig pen to the toilet. Once we startled the sleeping pigs, and they made shrieking noises and ran around crazily in the pen. In the morning we were woken up with a cup of warm mate de coca (coca tea), along with 8 children who heard that there were free notebooks being handed out, and wanted their share. We had 6 more pencils and notebooks, and gave them away and made sure everyone got at least one item. Our favorite child in the group was a little girl who was on the other side of the wall helping her dad with their animals early that morning. She would just peek her little eyes over the wall to look at us, and when we saw her she would immediately go back to hiding behind the wall. We finally got her to stay up long enough to give her a notebook and pencil.

Our guide came along with the porters from the night before to eat breakfast with us and drive us to the Inca trail. We ate more maize and potatoes, but also had fruit and coffee, along with some cheese. As we ate, there were at least 30 guinea pigs running around at our feet, fattening up and waiting to be eaten at the next Inti Raymi celebration (June 24th). We said our goodbyes to those we had met who were not coming with us on the Inca Trail, and got into the car. We thought this was one of the most authentic experiences we`ve had so far on this trip, and by the end of the 4 day trek we were calling the porters "waikichen" or brothers, as they call eachother.

28 de Abril - Cusco, Peru

2005-04-28T17:07:00.000-03:00

Here in Cusco, we have enjoyed a forced break from being on the go while we await availability on the Inca Trail. We`ve spent evenings playing Spanish Scrabble (with letter tiles like LL, RR and Ñ you can spell words like llama, churro and año) over dinner while sipping on Inca Cola. Inca Cola is the Peruvian-produced rival to Coca Cola, but they are nothing alike, aside from the fact that they both contain caffeine. Inca Cola is flavored with lemongrass and tastes like bubble gum. It is a flourescent yellow color and it is less carbonated than other bottled beverages (we have noticed that drinks like Sprite and beer behave strangely at high altitude). Another beverage that we have discovered here in Peru is Chicha Morada, which is a refreshing purple maize juice drink that looks and tastes a bit like grape juice. Another beverage we have sampled that is also made from maize is Chicha de Jora, which is a frothy beer that is served in a large ceramic mug and sipped with a straw. Chicha de Jora is the alternative to beer, which is expensive here (as it was in Bolivia). A medium size bottle of Cusqueña (the local beer) costs the same as a 3 course meal. We are enjoying the food and drink in this city that caters to the tastebuds of Gringos and also offers the best of traditional Peruvian cuisine, while exploring the less epicurean offerings of Cusco as well.

Cusco (Qosqo in Quechua) is a beautiful locale set in a bowl-like valley amidst green rolling hills. This city is the epicenter for tours to Machu Picchu and other Incan Ruins in the Sacred Valley. Cusco is a modern city of tourism peppered with traces of its history as the ancient capital of the Incan empire. On almost every central street you can find remains of Inca stonework, built by skilled masons hundreds of years ago, which inspire awe and wonder. How were the Incas able to construct walls, temples, and edifices from these heavy stones (often weighing over a ton) that fit together like pieces of a puzzle? We hope to learn more about these hypotheses on our trip to Machu Picchu.

We´ve spent our days walking around the city (to get into shape for the Inca Trail) and getting lost in the windy, narrow cobblestone alleyways of the San Blas district. The streets hidden high up on the hill have names like Siete Diablitos (Seven Little Devils).

We have visited two incredible museums here. Today we went to the Museo Inka to brush up on Incan culture before our hike on the Inca Trail begins tomorrow. We admired Inca ceramics, weavings, wood carvings, metalwork, agricultural innovations and architecture, which provided us with a window into the Incan world. We were even more impressed with the Museo de Arte Precolombino, which houses examples of jewelry, pottery, shells, and wood carvings from civilizations like the Moche, Nasca and Huari. This museum also gave us an idea of how Peru`s ancient people viewed their world and the creatures that inhabited it before the arrival of the Europeans in South America in the late 15th century. Our favorite feature of this museum were the enlightening quotes on the walls about the important influence of pre-Columbian art on the artists in rest of the world (quotes from Pablo Picasso and his peers).

Our Spanish is improving daily. We conducted a pop quiz at breakfast this morning to see if we could name everything on the table as we ate, and then continued to name everything in the restaurant. This is a true measure of progress, because we knew none of these practical nouns when we arrived here 4 months ago. Not that our vocabulary is limited to items found in a restaurant, we have picked up so many words by watching subtitles on TV and from hearing other people speak. We have been writing new words down and trying to commit them to memory everyday. We have made friends with Edoardo, who works at our hostel. He is studying English and Health at the local university. We have breakfast with him every morning and he teaches us Spanish (we speak in English and he speaks in Spanish, so that we can practice and teach each other) and he tells us about his hometown Huancayo in the Peruvian jungle.

We have managed to learn a few travel tips from Dutch travelers (we have learned a thing or two about futbol from them as well...they are soccer fanatics and PSV Eindhoven made it to the semi-finals this year). The Dutch are great travel companions and there are many of them traveling in South America. In fact, they are expert travelers. They have been world travelers since the inception of the Netherlands. Foreign travel, trade, and colonization are part of their rich history. We have spent some time with this Dutch couple that we met in Bolivia, who caught up with us in Cusco. This is the couple that had expired visas in Nigeria. They have told us many stories about their travels in Africa. Another story that we found interesting is that in every hotel room in Ethiopia there is a bible and a condom in the drawer of the bedside table. An ironic combination of things. According to the Dutch couple`s observations, there are high awareness levels about AIDS in Africa today. Condoms are widely available and inexpensive, but unfortunately they are low quality.

The Dutch couple suggested that we go to a restaurant on the main plaza for dinner one night, where we discovered the otra menu (other secret, local menu) under their tutelage. Outside of each of the restaurants and shops on the main square are shoe shine boys, kids selling cigarettes, women and their children selling woven finger puppets, and touts who stand outside of each of the restaurants trying to usher Gringos inside for a free drink or some other tantalizing special offer. The kids who sell woven finger puppets on the street are undeniable. We have bought tons of these finger puppets from these little hustlers. Warning to friends at home--if you have children, you will most likely be receiving one of these woven finger puppets as a souvenir. These Peruvian kids run up to us with a finger puppet on each digit and beg us to buy from them...comprame por favor...so that they can eat lunch or dinner. Peru has well trained young salesmen and saleswomen. They won`t stop following you until you echo the promise of "maybe later." The touts are the most crafty of everyone you encounter, we learned this from the Dutch. They sell you on a menu del dia, in which they offer a 3 course meal for 10 soles ($3 dollars) to get you inside their eatery, then when you sit down at a table they hand you the tourist menu with a la carte items that are each more expensive than the 3 course menu del dia. Bait and switch. The trick is to ask for the other menu everywhere you eat in Peru, even if you did not see it advertised outside the restaurant. Thanks to the Dutch, we are managing to save some money here in Peru, where things are much more expensive than they were in Bolivia.

Cusco, overall, is a beautiful city. It has very well restored churches, classic buildings, cobblestone streets, and small walkways everywhere. The city actually reminds us a lot of Potosi, Bolivia from how it looks. Potosi, however, is much more run down, and without a the large tourist attraction of Macchu Picchu nearby, Potosi has not had the influx of money that Cusco has. We see many of the same features in buildings though, especially the large second story balconies made of carved wood that we have only seen in Potosi before. This is an excellent city to walk around, and even though we have been here for longer than planned, we have enjoyed the time and the city a lot.

22 de Abril - Leaving Bolivia

2005-04-22T18:53:00.000-03:00

After spending 37 days in Bolivia, we had mixed feelings about leaving for Peru. It wasn´t the same sadness that we experienced when we left Argentina. I had tears in my eyes when the taxista bid us a safe journey at the bus terminal in Mendoza as we departed for Chile. Leaving Bolivia was different, especially since it took us about a month to identify and understand so many of the important subtleties of life in Bolivia. We were just starting to get into the groove of traveling in Bolivia, but we were also ready for a change.

We have both been fairly ill in Bolivia over the past month (either from altitude or stomach bugs), so we have hopes that our health might improve in a different country. A big part of the issue has been diet. We were warned by our guidebook not to eat salads or uncooked veggies in Bolivia, but it is hard to live on meat and starches alone for a month, so we broke that rule quite a bit. When it comes to starches, Bolivia has no shortage of these. It is good to see that most Bolivians don´t go hungry (especially in the poorest country in SA), but we noticed that many of the middle-aged Campesino women are overweight. They are round and beautiful, and I couldn´t imagine them to look physically different, but they must live on a diet of nothing but starches, which can´t be healthy. They grow a type of grain called Quinoa, which is an ingredient in most soups. They eat what seems like hundreds of types of potatoes prepared in a hundred ways, including dried potatoes, yucca, boiled potatoes, and fried potatoes. Rice and corn (or maize) are also staples here. At dinner a few nights ago, we ordered a chicken dish that came with sides of mashed potatoes, pasta and rice. It is common to get both french fries and rice with just about every meal. As a Canadian family told us in Rurre, their son (who loves french fries and is rarely allowed to eat them at home) said that he would be happy to never see another french fry again after spending a month in Bolivia. I can´t believe that I am writing this (as the junk food junkie I am), but I have to agree with the kid.

Another lesson learned about food in Bolivia is that Bolivians don´t do takeout...not even at the Chinese (Chifa) restaurants. We learned this the hard way in Sucre. We asked for our comida para llevar (to go) at a Chinese restaurant and they tried very hard to accommodate us. They put everything in plastic bags (including won ton soup), and carefully packed all the sauces into small tube-like plastic bags. We brought all of this food back to our hostel and discovered that we wouldn´t be able to eat any of it without plates, plastic utensils or napkins. In the end, we had to go back to the restaurant and explain that we had changed our minds and we would rather eat there instead. They took all the food out of the plastic bags and served it to us with very suspicious looks. Silly Americans. Conversely, in Copacabana when Billy was sick and didn´t want to stray too far from the bathroom in our habitacion, I asked for half of my lunch to go to take back to the hostel to my husband. They sent me packing with soup and rice on the ceramic plate and bowl it was served on. They gave me their silverware too, all of which I carried like a waiter on wheels down the street to our hostel. They trusted me to return all of these items, which I later did. The concept of para llevar hasn´t caught on in Bolivia yet, except in Chifa restaurants in La Paz.

The concept of time in Bolivia is something that we were finally beginning to understand after some interesting misunderstandings and mishaps. "Un rato" (or "un ratito") in Bolivia is one of these things that took us awhile to figure out, but is very essential in understanding how things work and it helps to prevent you from tearing your hair out from frustration at times. "Un ratito" is an unquantified amount of time, and you hear this expression spoken in just about every interaction. It is not equivalent to "wait a second" or "wait a moment" and I´m not sure if it has a literal translation in English. It basically means that you have to wait awhile, and the answer you seek is uncertain. This sums up the Bolivian concept of time, which is very foreign for North Americans like us who are obsessed with time because we generally have so little of it. After awhile we began to adjust to this idea of a nebulous amount of time spent waiting for something. You learn not to be bothered by setbacks like flat tires, cancelled flights, or laundry that is missing or isn´t ready when promised. There is also the expression "en punto" which means exactly on time...sort of like "on the dot" or "on the hour." We have often heard this said about the departure time of buses or planes (it is a great ticket sales technique), and it generally means that the bus or plane will leave when it is good and ready to leave, or when the ticket agents have successfully sold every seat. We are happy that we are not necessarily pressed for time here, because these delays are much easier to digest since we aren´t on a tight schedule. Sometimes this actually works in our favor. Like the time I accidentally left my pillow (almohada) in our hostel and realized my mistake just as we were boarding a bus to leave Cochabamba. The bus was scheduled to leave en punto, but in reality Billy (my hero) had 20 minutes to run back to the hostel and get the pillow. He arrived at the bus terminal just in time for departure.

Then there are the Bolivian showers. In over a month in Bolivia, we still hadn´t mastered the art of taking a perfectly hot shower. There are a few secrets that nobody tells you about the showers. First of all, there is no guarantee of the availability of hot water for a shower all the time. Water is a scarce resource in some parts of Bolivia. You have to check with the hostel for the shower hours. The showers are all electricly heated by a device that is attached to the shower head. You are never to touch the shower head or any part of the pipes in the shower, because if you happen to be standing on something metal, you will probably get the shock of your life. There are no hot and cold nozzles, there is just one nozzle, which you learn (with practice and a lot of trial and error) to control the temperature with. The more you turn the nozzle to the left (to let more water in), the colder the water gets. There is a very delicate balance, which you achieve by slowly and carefully turning the nozzle to the right (less water=more hot water). And just as you have the water temperature perfectly hot, someone in the hostel flushes the toilet and you are left standing in the cold with soap in your eyes. When the water eventually comes back on, you are scalded and you go through the process all over again. We learned to appreciate the consistency of cold showers in the jungle, where there is no fussing over hot water and you emerge from the shower feeling like a very clean icicle.

Aside from these mostly amusing inconveniences, sometimes Bolivia felt so comfortable that we forgot that we were away from home. In Sucre especially we would have a sudden realization that we were in Bolivia when we´d see Bolivia on a passing car´s license plate. Then there were the times that we were very aware that we were far from home, like when we went shopping at the witches market or when we happened upon the brown, smelly, polluted river that snakes through La Paz.

But as with everywhere you go in the world, the people are very much the same. The girl´s giggles sound the same, and you are sure that they are laughing about the same things that make little girls giggle everywhere. People are discontent with their government and they struggle to fight for better living conditions, political justness, better business practices, and human rights just like we do at home. People have similar dreams of prosperity and success, like the kid we met in Sucre who was tending bar. He was a student of tourism at the local university. He dreamed of buying a small airplane that he could use to fly around his beautiful country and travel from the jungle to La Paz in less than an hour. He´s the one who taught us that the Bolivian greeting is to kiss only once on the cheek (not twice like they do in Argentina). I must´ve turned bright red when I went in for the second kiss and he quickly schooled me in the art of the Bolivian greeting. Luckily he advised Billy that men just shake hands with eachother before Billy could practice his Argentine-learned manners on this unsuspecting Bolivian guy. People say "salud" when you sneeze, they say "buen provecho" before and after dinner (perfect strangers walk into restaurants and say the equivalent to bon appetit to everyone dining out of sheer politeness). Bolivians are extremely polite and very down to earth and often think of Argentines (especially those from Buenos Aires) as snooty. There are small and large disputes with bordering neighbors here as there are at home and everywhere else in the world.

We began to observe so many unique subtleties about Bolivian culture and communication. When you see someone making a hand signal the way we would say that something was "so so" or "just alright," with their hand extended, palm down, fingers together and moving from side to side, you know that means "no hay" or "there is none." We´ve seen this one a lot. We learned it from a taxi driver who gave that hand signal to every person trying to hitch a ride on our route. There is also the word falta, which is similar, but different. Falta means that something or someone is missing. We often hear the bus driver yell, "¿Quien falta?" after a pit stop on a long bus journey, just before the bus speeds away, and if we are lucky, we haven´t left anyone behind. Or, like when we first arrived in South America, and we weren´t as astute with numbers in Spanish, we would hand the largest note we had to the person at the cash register and hope for the best. If we had not given them enough dinero to cover the bill, we would hear them say, "Falta cinco pesos." Luckily, we quickly deciphered numbers, as they are essential to almost every interaction here. The way that Bolivians add "ito" or "ita" to the end of words is so endearing that you can´t help but adopt it. On Isla del Sol, we met a little girl who fell in love with Billy and soon learned that she could sweet talk him with the words "una mas" when she wanted him to pick her up over and over again and spin her around in the air. She taught us that even the smallest things are treated with reverance and given a name that reflects this. She had a tiny little plastic baby doll that she called her muñecita (her little doll). We even started to hear the slight accent in Bolivian Spanish, which was confirmed by a women we met from Barcelona. The Bolivians don´t roll their Rs most of the time, and the result is that the Rs sound like Zs. So, Rurrenbaque sounds like Zurzenbaque.

In Bolivia we even began to appreciate South American pop music, which we thought was hideous sounding 3 months ago. There is a song called DA ME MY GASOLINA (give me my gasoline) that we hear everywhere we go, and we have caught ourselves singing along with it. In La Paz we heard the song and asked a local if it was a song about Bolivian disapproval of President Mesa´s controversial deal to export natural gas in 2004. We learned that this song is actually Venezuelan and is more likely about the resentment of US attempts to destabilize Venezuela´s socialist government in order to gain control of their natural gas resources. Little did we know that we´ve been humming the tune of a very anti-American song all this time. Beyond that, there are cheezy love songs (that everyone here knows the words to) and Brazilian sounding dance songs that we hear on the very strange South American reality TV shows that are beginning to grow on us as well.

We have adopted many Spanish expressions that come in handy in all kinds of situations. A lot of them are the same things we say in English.
Igualmente - The same to you
Estas equivocado - You´re wrong
Ya veo - I see
Es una pena - It´s a shame
Nunca sabes - You never know
Muy rico - Yummy food
Por si acaso - Just in case
Nunca digas nunca - Never say never
Some expressions, however, are completely lost in translation from English to Spanish. "Speaking of the devil" is not an expression that is understood in South America. I made that mistake and will not make it again. It was impossible to explain what I meant by speaking of the devil, and I gave it my best shot, then began profusely apologizing for the comment. Billy thinks it is the equivalent of a very offensive insult based on the reaction of the Bolivian woman who was on the receiving end of it.

The day before we planned to leave Bolivia, we looked at the Bolivian stamps in our passports and realized that we had accidentally overstayed our visas by 7 days. YIKES. Upon entry, North Americans are supposed to get 90 day stamps to remain in the country, but we didn´t check our passports when we entered Bolivia in Uyuni, so we wrongly assumed that we had 90 days here. Apparently, this is some sort of scam that the immigration offices are notorious for pulling in order to make a little money off of unsuspecting tourists. In the end, we couldn´t sweet talk our way out of the situation and paid the Bolivian immigration officers $20 in order to exit the country. Not as bad as a story we heard from a Dutch couple who overstayed their visas in Nigeria and spent a night in jail, then had to pay hundreds of dollars after being intimidated by Nigerian immigration officers with very large guns.

The final factor that gave us pause about leaving Bolivia was the safety factor. We read in our guidebook that Peru is fairly dangerous (especically Cusco after dark, and we happened to be arriving in Cusco after dark). We had become so comfortable traveling in Bolivia without any incident that we were worried about tightening up the security to travel in Peru. It turns out that Cusco is Gringoland by day, and we are staying in the charming, artsy barrio of San Blas, which seems to be very safe.

Bolivia was not an easy place to travel, but the experience was well worth the hassles, and once we figured certain things out, we were able to go with the flow much more flexibly. Every country we visit after Bolivia will have big shoes to fill.

20 de Abril - Copacabana & Isla del Sol

2005-04-21T19:49:00.000-03:00

Our last few days in Bolivia were a wonderful and relaxing way to end our experience there. After flying into La Paz from Rurre (our first flight since we arrived in South America over 3 months ago), we hopped on a bus to Copacabana. Copacabana is a small town on Lake Titicaca, and it is very sleepy and peaceful. Not the hottest spot north of Havana that Barry Manilow sung about, but just as worthy of notability. Our little hostel had fruit, candy, and mate de coca on offer 24-7, and we´re convinced that one of those three treats helped Jen fend off the altitude sickness this time around. Billy, however, got sick with what seemed like altitude sickness, so we layed low the first day.

They say that there are three rules to follow to avoid altitude sickness--
1) caminata despacio (walk slowly)
2) comer un poco (eat very little)
3) dormir solo (sleep alone ¡wink, wink!)
The predictability, prevention and treatment of altitude sickness is a large grey area for us, but it probably didn´t help that we ascended to 7,100 meters in an unpressurized plane during our flight to La Paz. Who knows? We have a hike on the Inca Trail to look forward to, which involves an ascent that sounds fairly rigorous, so we will be following at least one of the rules above and walk slowly as we make our way to Machu Picchu.

Once we had rested and recovered, we spent a relaxing day walking around Copacabana to see the sights, including a beautiful moorish-looking church in the center of town where Catholics go to have things blessed (mostly water, but during certain times of the year people drive their cars up to the front of the church and have them blessed too). We sat in the sun by the lake, and were reminded of lakes at home. Jen thought of Lake Tahoe and Billy reminisced about Lake Michigan. The temperature is cool at that altitude, but the sun is bright and warm. It is hard to determine whether the sky or the lake is a truer color of blue, both are so vibrant. Lake Titicaca is the world´s highest lake (in Copacabana we were at a similiar elevation to La Paz), and the thin air at that elevation does something magical to the color of the sky and the water. That evening we hiked to the top of Cerro Calvario, one of the hills overlooking Copacabana, to watch the puesta del sol (sunset). When we arrived at the highest point on the hill, we sat down to catch our breath and enjoy the view of the city and Lake Titicaca, which stretches as far as the eye can see. A teenage Bolivian girl ran as fast as she could up the hill behind us to ask us for a pen (boligrafo). She must have seen me carrying my journal with a pen stuck inside. We talked with her for a minute and asked her about her life, but she was anxious to get back down the hill with her new writing instrument and sprinted down the hill as fast as she had appeared. She made us realize that we are lucky to have boligrafos, and that we should use them.

The next day we set out for Isla del Sol, an island about 3 hours away from Copacabana by boat. We hiked from the north end of the island to the south end, where we stayed the night at a family home. The people on the island were so friendly and warm. The island itself was beautiful with barren beaches, lots of farm land, and views of the snowy peaks of the Cordillera Real in the distance. We visited Inca temple ruins at both ends of the islands. Most of all, we enjoyed the slower pace of insulated island life as sheepherders gathered their flocks, donkeys transported loads of water and food up and down the hilly island, and farmers harvested their land. The island was the idyllic Bolivian setting. Visiting the island was like stepping back in time. It actually rained one day on the island of the sun...in fact, it hailed because it was so cold, but it was otherwise arid, warm and sunny and lived up to it´s name.

16 de Abril - The Pampas, Bolivia

2005-04-20T14:24:00.000-03:00

After the long trip to Rurre, we were able to make a 3 day tour through the pampas on a boat for the next day. The pampas is a lowland area that has many rivers and swamps, and some jungle cover along the banks of the rivers. It is a great place to see the wildlife of the Amazon basin, as all of these small rivers and tributaries are runoff from the Amazon. There is a very diverse ecosystem of wildlife that we were able to observe first hand, and it was particlarly pleasant as only one other person was along with us on the tour, and she was from Barcelona and spoke perfect English, so we had a free translator.

After a three hour ride down a very bumpy road, we got to the place where we launched the boat from. The boat was a long, thin boat, perfect for cruising down the river and quickly moving in and out of the growth and swamps that connect to the river. The water is very murky, almost the exact color of milk chocolate, so it is impossible to see what is beneath the surface. The first thing we noticed along the way were the amazing variety of birds that soared overhead. We saw tucans and other colorful bird species that you would expect to find in Amazonia, but there were also a lot of very large birds with long necks built perfectly for dive bombing their dinners out of the river. We would see these huge birds of all different colors come barreling out of the sky and then splash into the river, and a few seconds later just a neck would appear out from under the water, sometimes with a fish in its beak.

As we continued down the river the first day, we came across a few different groups of monkeys that were jumping from tree to tree along the river. We pulled into the brush to get closer to one of the groups of squirrel monkeys (they are small and very colorful, with bright yellow tails), and about 5 of the monkeys jumped onto our boat. One of the women we were transporting was eating a banana in the back of the boat, and they all rushed her to get the banana. One of them even jumped on Jen´s head to get the back of the boat. It was fun having all the monekys so close, but we could tell they were used to being fed by tour groups, so they were very eager to come close to see us and get any food they could. We also came across a few packs of Capuchin monkeys, and saw a rarer type of larger red monkey. The red monkeys (we called them howler monkeys) made a sound that is like no other monkey noise we have ever heard. It sounds something like a gale force wind blowing in the distance, and it is very eerie. Every morning we were there, we woke up to the sound of these monkeys and their frightening howls off in the distance, and it always made us happy to be indoors at night. The river is also infested with alligators and caiman (larger alligators), which we would spot from time to time lurking in the brush, or swimming across the river. We even saw one large one with a small deer in its mouth twisting its kill around in the water.

At about 6pm we arrived at our lodge, which was very unlike what we would think of at home as a "lodge." It was merely a structure built on stilts right on the bank of the river, with bunk beds and mosquito nets. There was a bathroom attached also on stilts, but if you wanted to shower you had to put on knee high rubber boots and wade through almost knee deep mud to get to it. It was so hot that a shower was a necessity, so we all took turns with the boots wading through the mud to the one shower, hoping not to encounter any anacondas along the way. After the shower, we got back on the boat and went to a different place along the river that had a sign outside that read "we serve cold beer." It had a lookout of the sunset over the savannah, so was the perfect place to end the day. It was still a strange place to have a bar, as nobody really lives out there, only people on boat tours are on the river, but the guy who owned the place was very proud of his jungle bar. At the exact moment that the sun goes down, the mosquitos come out...like clockwork at exactly 7pm. This is nothing like what mosquitos are like at home, there they come by the millions in a swarm. It is literally impossible to stay outside as you just jump around waving your arms around your head trying to get the buzzing to stop. We had to get back on the boat and get moving or we would have been eaten to death. We jumped back on the boat, and with the sun fully down, headed back to camp. We each had flashlights, and would shine them into the banks of the river looking for alligator and caiman eyes. Their eyes turn bright red when a light is shown directly at them at night, so they are easy to spot. That was when we realized how dangerous the place was, we saw at least 15 pairs of red beady eyes staring at us on the short trip back to the lodge.

We arrived back at the lodge, slept quite poorly as it is very hot, and the jungle is very loud with all kinds of noises at night. The next morning we went Anaconda hunting. This involved a 2 hour trip further down river, where we got off the boat (which was a first into the jungle for us), wearing rubber boots, long pants, long-sleeved shirts to walk through more mud looking for any serpents we could find. It was not a great time for searching for anacondas as it was wet season, they are easier to spot during dry season, so we were not too hopeful we would find one. After about 5 minutes of the journey, the last thing on our minds was anaconodas. It was incredibly hot, and with long clothes we were dripping sweat. Plus, the mosquitos there in the mud are just as bad as they are at night, and we were constantly getting them in our mouths and eyes. When walking behind someone, you could see on their back at least 100 mosquitos nesting. Plus, the mud was hard to walk through, and sometimes we would almost come out of our boots because they would sink in to the mud so far. Needless to say, we could have stepped on a 40 foot anaconda and not even noticed, we just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. This part was not fun, and reminded us of the Vietnam War movie Apocolypse Now, when one of the characters says after a bad experience walking through the jungle, "Dont get off the boat, never get off the boat." That was good advice.

In the afternoon after the anaconda debacle, our guide took us to a spot to swim. Since we had seen so many alligators, and knew there were piranas in the water, we thought the swimming spot was in a different body of water somewhere else. We were wrong about that. They took us up river a bit to a wide open part of the river that they told us was safe because the pink river dolphins swam there, and scared off the alligators. So, like good gringos we jumped in, after our guide did of course, and looked for the dolphins. After a few minutes, these amazing creatures appeared, they look very large when in a small river, but are the size of large dolphins in the ocean, but they have pink or grey skin (depending on their gender or age, I think). They came in packs of two and three, and swam all around us, sometimes jumping, but always coming up for air, and protecting us from all danger, as they are the kings of the water in the Amazon. They were beautiful to watch, and seemed so incredibly out of place in the jungle river.

After our swim, we went pirana fishing. Again, this was about 2 minutes down river from where we were swimming. We just attached raw meat to the end of a hook, and threw the line over the side. It was amazing how quickly we got nibbles on the line. Every time we threw the line in the meat was eaten bit by bit. Finally, our guide got one to bite enough of the line that he was hooked, so he caught him. Piranas are very colorful, and they have what looks like little baby teeth (but they are sharp). It was a little disconcerting that we had just been in the water with so many of them, but apparently they don´t like people, unless they are bleeding.

After fishing we returned to the lodge, and basking on the shore literally 5 feet from our door was an alligator. The guide says he is always there, and there is nothing to be afraid of. So, we got out and walked along the planks of our house, looking right in the eyes this alligator. The thing would barely move, but sometimes he would get startled, and turn around and point his head towards us. He would also make a hissing noise, which did not sound like he was trying to make small talk. The only problem with this alligator being there was that we wanted to shower, and didn´t want to walk through the mud with him right there, capable of coming to get us. The guide said there is nothing to worry about, he would not run and attack, so if we wanted to put on the boots and go to the shower it would be no problem. So, with an alligator lurking, we put on the boots, and wrapped towels and sarongs around us and went to the shower. He never moved an inch towards us, thank God.

The next morning we awoke to two alligators on our shores, but by then were used to them. We watched them as we ate our breakfast, slowly lurking, waiting for something unsuspecting to come by. After breakfast we made necklaces out of palm seeds and other natural materials found in the pampas, which was quite fun, and something we are both wearing still, and then we got on the boat and went back down river towards home. It was on this adventure to the pampas that we realized that we have changed quite a bit since we left home. I don´t think either of us thought that we would walk through mud infested with alligators by ourselves for anything, much less to take a shower, but the whole thing seemed pretty normal to us at the time. The pampas trip was really incredible, and seeing that much amazing animal life in the water, trees, air, and mud was fantastic. If it wasn´t for the mosquitoes, the place would have been perfect.

13 de Abril - La Paz to Rurrenabaque, Bolivia

2005-04-19T14:39:00.000-03:00

Our next stop from La Paz was a trip to the jungle (Northern Lowlands), which is not all that far away, but by land it involved traveling over a very steep mountain pass. The number one tourist activity organized from La Paz is a mountain bike trip down the "world`s most dangerous road," but we decided to forgo the bike trip since we had to make the journey on a bus. The bus ride was harrowing enough. The trip down the steep pass is about 5 hours, but the whole journey from La Paz to Rurre (as the locals have dubbed it...short for Rurrenabaque) took about 16 hours. We left La Paz at 11am and arrived in Rurre in the madruga (before sunrise). It was not a tourist bus, it was a local bus, which meant a lot less leg room, and a lot more stops along the way. The trip began with the usual parade of vendors selling food and drinks in La Paz as people were boarding and loading their belongings. The journey started off with the usual chaos. All of that was nothing compared to making our way down the road by bus.

The ascent by bus is up the back side of a large mountain at the rim of La Paz, and climbs to about 13,000 feet. The air is cold, and the mountain is pure rock with some bits of snow. We were right at the cloud line, so we didn't see very much during the first part of the journey. After we hit the summit, the descent was the scary part, and the scenery turned into a tropical jungle with waterfalls and birds everywhere. It is a one lane dirt road, so when another large bus came from the opposite direction, we would be forced to slam on the brakes and then reverse a bit to find a spot wide enough for both buses to pass. The road is cut into the side of the mountain, and when looking out the window, you can literally see nothing but the drop down into the valley. For hours we just descended on this small road that drops off into the valley. You get used to the high adrenaline levels after awhile, but at first it is quite scary. The road also has parts that are washed out all the time by waterfalls, so men are constantly working to build the road back up. The bus also passes under about 6 waterfalls on the trip, and the water literally falls right on top of the bus, where all our luggage sits. Each time we would scramble to close our windows just in time to avoid getting splashed by the water.

After we survived the most dangerous part, we kept on driving through the valley where we would often have to cross rivers in the bus. There are no bridges, so we would just drive through 4 to 6 inches of rushing water, but the driver clearly knew the best places to cross the river, as it was never a problem. We understood why they told us that the bus ride is anywhere between 15 and 24 hours, and can sometimes take 4 days. If there are heavy rains, you can't pass the rivers. So, just as it turned into night, after we stopped for dinner, in the distance we could see the sky lighting up with lightning. It was a spectacular sight, but we hoped that we wouldn´t get trapped in a thunderstorm. Luckily, the storm was always ahead of us, and we arrived in Rurrenabaque at 4am, ahead of schedule.

We walked into town and found a hostal that was open, and slept for a few hours. Then we went into town to try and arrange a river boat trip into the pampas (neo-tropical savannah) the next day. Just as we woke up, a huge tropical thunderstorm came through town, and for 3 hours completely drenched the town. We took refuge in a small computer shop to get our photos burned to disk, and in the shop there was a juke box for music videos. A group of very impoverished Bolivians crowded around the machine as different people put a 1 Boliviano coin in to watch one video. It was very surreal to see and hear the Michael Jackson Thriller video playing in this setting in Bolivia. We noticed a little girl who was standing at the back of the pack, she was completely dirty from head to toe, with no shoes, long ratty hair, and she carried an old basket full of fruit. She was mesmerized by the videos as were all of the other locals. After a bit, the large group got up and left the machine, and she stayed behind. She slowly approached the machine, then quickly retreated. She got up enough courage to go back to the machine, and very carefully selected the video she wanted to see, and reached deep into her pocket and pulled out a coin and inserted it into the slot after much hesitation. As her video started, she watched it with huge eyes, like she was watching something from another planet. She proudly pulled up a chair and sat down to enjoy this luxury. It was probably the saddest moment we have experienced on the trip. Watching this little girl, who had nothing, put her only money into a video machine to transport her to a world that was completely out of her reach, really got to both of us. Her eyes were transfixed to the screen like nothing we have ever seen. She watched a female vocalist with fake nails, make-up and the latest hairstyle singing about some trivial subject set in a clean, white room with luxurious white couches and furs. This is where the poverty of South America meets the so called glory of North America, in a little shop in a small jungle town in Bolivia. We will both never forget that girl, and she epitomizes a lot of our impressions of Bolivia.

11 de Abril La Paz, Bolivia

2005-04-11T16:43:00.000-03:00

We are now back in the Bolivian altiplano, which is what they call the highlands. La Paz is the highest capital city in the world, and sits at about 11,500 feet. It is quite a spectacular city, it is basically in the shape of a bowl, and occupies and entire canyon. There are beautiful snow-capped mountains all around outside of the bowl, which give the city a very dramatic backdrop. When driving into the city from above, all you can see is a huge metropolis of adobe type houses (terra cotta color) built into the canyon walls, it almost looks like a giant ant farm with sky scrapers right in the middle making up the financial district. As with any capital city, it is bustling with traffic, and people selling wares on every street corner. The locals call themselves Paceños, and Paceña is also the name of the beer produced here.

The night we arrived in La Paz, we checked into a hostal that has been converted from an old colonial style home, which is beautifully restored and located on the outskirts of the city center. When we went out to get dinner it started to rain with a thunder and lightning storm. We ran through the wet streets to a nearby restaurant and felt right at home in a very chic spot in this city that has a similar population to San Francisco. We sat at a comfy booth near a huge picture window that had a view of the busy city streets and the electrical storm above. The streets in La Paz are teeming with micros (buses that transport Paceños around the city center). These micros are delapidated former US school buses, and many of them are painted in red, white and blue. There are also smaller vans that transport people around the city, and each of the vans is equipped with a guy who sits in the front seat and yells out the van´s destinations.

Our first day here we took it easy as we acclimated to the altitude, and went to the Coca Museum. At this altitude Jen was struggling just to walk at a brisk pace, while old women with loads on their backs run uphill yelling at the top of their lungs. They say that babies born at higher altitudes have larger lung capacity, and we believe it. The Coca Museum was a fascinating little place, dedicated to the history of coca in the Andean region. Coca has been chewed by the Andean people for over 5000 years, and is a very important and distinct part of their culture. It helps with the amount of oxygen needed in the lungs, and is therefore perfect for people working in the altitudes of the region. There are also many rituals involving marriage and communal offerings that center around Coca leaves. Then about 150 years ago the Gringos came and discovered how to take synthetic chemicals and engineer the coca leaves into cocaine. As we all know, even Coca Cola started as a drink made with cocaine (and still uses the extract from the leaves for flavor). Cocaine is clearly an addictive drug that is quite far removed from the coca leaf itself. The story from the introduction of cocaine to the present day is a very disturbing piece of history, and another reason to question the motives of the American government.

Once cocaine was declared addictive and illegal by Americans, then we decided the next step was to erradicate the plant that grows naturally in South America, no matter what cost to the culture of the people here. In fact, none of the chemicals that are essential in actually making cocaine are produced in Bolivia, they are all produced in the States and Europe, yet that does not stop us from prohibiting the growth of coca, not the chemicals that companies like DuPont make. The hypocrisy is astounding, and probably the main source of Andean resentment towards the US.

We still see and feel the turmoil of the coca problem in Bolivia today. The farmers that have been growing the plant for 5,000 years see no reason why they should stop because we take their plant and chemically engineer it into a dangerous drug, where 50% of world consumption occurs in the States. We are blaming them for our problem. That is why there is a constant political struggle here between the Coca farmers and the government (the govt has to acquiesce to American wishes due to the amount of money we give the country to fight the "war on drugs.") It is very common for the coca growers to create road blocks that cripple traffic between major cities, to get the attention of the government. We have, fortunately, not been caught in any of these roadblocks yet, as the coca growers and the government are currently negotiating terms of a new agreement, so there is peace at the moment.

After visiting the museum, we had a lot to think about and more reasons to be embarrased to be American in Bolivia. We used our energy walking around the city. It is just full of people selling everything, and literally thousands of shoe shine guys. They all wear ski masks that cover their entire face, they look like muggers, we are still not sure why they cover their faces like that. We have tried to take pictures of the older Bolivian women, they are so distinct looking with their colorful garb, long braided hair, and fedora hats, but they hate to be in photos. Everytime we try to take a picture of them, they pull their hat over their faces to hide from the camera.

We have visited more witch markets where they sell larger dried llama fetuses (actually not fetuses, but just llama babies), the main squares where the old colonial government buildings are brightly painted and very impressive, to a few of the churches of the 16th century, and to San Pedro prison. We were not allowed in the prision as the US government has intervened and no longer allows tourists to enter, but this might be the oddest place in the world.

The prison is located right downtown across the street from a beautiful plaza, and not only do prisoners live in there, but so do their familes, kids and all. The prison does not have cells, they actually have apartments, that the inmates have to purchase. There is a real estate market, complete with good parts of the prison and the bad neighborhoods, depending on how much money you have to spend on a nice place. The families come and go as they please, and visitors can come in and stay with them if they want. There are restaurants in the prison run by prisoners, the whole thing is very crazy. Many inmates used to run tours for travelers (very safe, never a single problem), but that has stopped due to American influence. It was dissapointing that we could not see this place, as it would have been a really interesting experience. The guards were nice to us, and let us peek into the courtyard, which did not look very different from the plaza that the prison is located across from.

We have found the pace of La Paz to be nice, it is slow and not hurried in any manner. There are small sidewalks though, and a lot of traffic in the streets (so passing peole is quite dangerous), so the slow pace sometimes means we are walking behind the slowest person on the street for quite awhile. This can be quite frustrating, especailly for Billy, who likes to walk as fast as he can everywhere.

Every evening we watch a nightly game of soccer played outside our hostal in the street by the local kids. We are on a hilly, cobblestone street, so it is far from ideal conditions, but we watch them have fun and every once in awhile retrieve an errant ball and kick it back to them. They reply with a "thank you, baby."

6 de Abril - Villa Tunari, Bolivia

2005-04-06T20:53:00.000-03:00

One of the main reasons we came to Villa Tunari was to see Inti Wara Yassi, the animal shelter created about 15 years ago by Bolivians to rescue wildlife in hopes of returning them to their natural habitats. The idea of the shelter is to obtain monkeys, pumas, rare birds, and a few other animal species that have been captured and then sold as pets into black markets around South America. The wildlife rescue center is owned and run by Bolivians, but is mostly staffed by foriegn volunteers. To volunteer at the camp, you must dedicate a minimum of 15 days in order to get to know the animal that you are assigned to well enough so that the animal is comfortable with you. Most of the volunteers are European or Australian, and many have been there many months. We went to investigate volunteering oursleves, but decided it was too much of a time commitment, especially after talking to the locals about the wildlife reserve.

We think the idea of the refuge started very nobly, to return captured animals back to natural wildlife, but the reserve has basically turned into a zoo. The people in Villa Tunari think that the whole thing has become a bit of a joke, and the owners of the refuge have bought up 3 hotels, so they are apparently profiting greatly from their venture. In the end, not many of the animals ever leave the refuge, they seem to stay there for the free food, and the 25 acres of jungle provided to them.

We decided to visit just as tourists for the day, and we had a great time. When we walked into the refuge, a Capuchin monkey immediately jumped up on to Jen`s shoulders and remained there comfortably as we walked deeper into the reserve. The monkey had a litle leash around his neck, which means he is new to the refuge, and not totally free to mingle with the wilder monkeys until he is assimilated to his new environment. As we kept on down the path, we saw different types of monkeys everywhere. There were little multi colored squirrel monkeys jumping great distances from tree to tree, and larger all black spider monkeys swinging from branch to branch. We were still timid around them, and did not know if they would bite or be a nuisance, so we walked cautiously.

We traveled up a jungle path to a mirador (look out point), where a different capuchin monkey jumped between us and just lay spread eagle on our shoulders eating maracuya (passionfruit) as we walked up the path. Jen was his favorite, and he looked so happy on her shoulders. Every once in awhile a different monkey appeared from within the trees and scared the little guy, and he would run off and hide, but he would always come back and find us, and run and jump right back on Jen´s shoulders, each time with a different piece of food in his hand.

Ater we hiked around the grounds for about an hour and a half looking at the Parrots, Macaws and other tropical birds they were working with, we went back to the main monkey hangout where the volunteers feed them 3 times a day. We were there about an hour before feeding time, and the monkeys obviously knew the schedule, because they started appearing out of nowhere in great numbers. Then out of the forest came a large spider monkey mother who had its little one month old baby clinging to her stomach and they both went right into Billy`s lap. The mother wanted to cuddle and protect the baby, and would often wrap one arm around Billy´s neck and the other around Jen´s neck just like a mother would do to her two kids. The baby had almost no hair, and looked like a bald alien, but had these huge black eyes that would stare right at us as her mother sat in Billy´s lap. Then the father came over and sat on top of the mother while still on Billy´s lap. The whole family was there. It was really an incredible experience, as their tails, arms and legs wrapped around us for protection and comfort. We understood why the different volunteers became so attached to the monkeys they looked after. The monkeys would even groom us (especially Billy`s hairy legs). When they were eating in our arms, they would put pieces of their food in our mouths...that is how monkeys share. We were really happy with the experience, but happy we did not invest two weeks in the "project."

The next day we went to a place called Guacharos in Parque Nacional Carrasco that is just outside Villa Tunari. We drove past the coca fields, where farmers had coca leaves and rice drying out in the middle of the street, along with other spices and natural goods they grow in the region. We went on a 2 hour walk through the jungle, stopping in a dark, wet cave that was full of sleeping bats (Jen did not like that part at all), and learning about the natural habitat of the area from our guide. We were able to see and hear the birds that the park is named for (the guacharos), which are nocturnal and live in another cave within the park. The best part of the walk was crossing a river on this contraption that was like a caged platform that slid across two wires high over the river, all manuevered by hand.

We really enjoyed Villa Tunari overall. It is a quiet and sleepy little town in the center of Bolivia. It was warm and humid and we appreciated the change of atmospere and climate. We stayed at a very sweet family owned residencia and were treated like part of the family. Every afternoon the owner of the alojamiento greeted us with a cold glass of jugo de maracuya (passionfruit juice). We were sad to leave a town full of such friendly people.

After our hike we boarded another bus for Cochabamba, the third largest city in Bolivia. We are here until tomorrow when we head to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia.

5 de Abril - Getting to Villa Tunari, Bolivia

2005-04-05T11:52:00.000-03:00

It is amazing that we are able to write a blog from the jungle of Bolivia. We are in a small town at the frontier of the lowland jungle in Central Bolivia. We left Sucre on an overnight bus to Cochabamba, arrived in Cochabamba at 6am, then hopped on a 4 hour bus to Villa Tunari. We came here to see the lowlands of central Bolivia, to do some hiking in one of the national parks (Guacharos in Parque Nacional Carrasco) with an ecologist guide, to visit a wildlife rescue organization (Inti Wara Yassi) and to possibly arrange a boat tour of the jungle. It turns out that we won`t be able to go on a boat tour of the rivers of the Amazon basin here. The timing doesn´t work out for us, so we will try to do this in the northern part of the Amazon basin instead (in Rurrenabaque) after we visit La Paz.

The bus ride from Cochabamba to Villa Tunari was incredible. Until now, we had only seen the driest parts of Bolivia where water is hard to come by. As we advanced further into the lowlands of Bolivia, we began to see abundant rivers and manmade lakes. There is much more terracing for farming on the hillsides here, and the scenes outside of the bus window reminded us of our memories of remote and tropical South East Asia. It was breathtaking to watch the land transform from the city sprawl of Cochabamba into the tropical mountainous gateway to the lowland jungle of central Bolivia. The weather became more and more humid and warm as we continued the journey. The mountains were covered with green ferns, palms, banana trees, viney rubber trees...very lush and wild vegetation. We started to see butterflies all around and birds in the trees. There were low hanging misty clouds hovering above the purple mountains as the sun rose and we made our descent. This is why we love bus travel, as uncomfortable as it can be, we wouldn´t notice these subtleties if we weren´t traveling by land. We are lucky to have the time to cover so much of South America by land.

We made one stop halfway through our trip to Villa Tunari, which was a checkpoint for drugs and illegal chemicals. Everyone got off of the bus and the gringos were asked to open their backpacks for a quick search while dogs sniffed all the luggage on board the bus. The lowlands are where much of the coca is grown in Bolivia, so there are a few checkpoints on the road between Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. In our Spanish class we learned that the drug laws in Bolivia are basically dictated by the war on drugs that the US has launched. However, very dissimilar to the way the law is enforced in the US, here people caught trafficking cocaine are guilty until proven innocent.

Anyway, back to the bus rides in Bolivia...we wanted to devote some time to stories about some of our bus rides in this country, because they have been entertaining experiences for us. Jen is reminded of her bus travels in Laos when we stray from the gringo trail here. For instance, on the bus from Uyuni to Potosi, we sat across from a family of 4 who occupied 2 seats, and the grandmother was traveling with a kitten in her bag that we could hear meowing throughout the 6 hour trip. That same bus stopped and picked up new passengers along the way who had to stand in the aisle because there were no seats for them. The buses also stop for vendors, who board the bus with everything you can imagine from popsicles to fresh fruit to fried fish with rice and potatoes and all the dressings. The buses that leave on time usually pretend to pull away from the station for about 10 minutes while last minute travelers rush on board. In Cochabamba, we learned that the buses do not leave until they are full, even if they promise to leave at an exact time (en punto). There are no bathrooms on board the buses, so when the bus stops, everyone disembarks and finds a place to squat if there are no baños nearby. Jen had an interesting encounter with a borracho (drunk) while she was doing her business behind a building, so now we go together to find a place to pee. On the overnight bus from Sucre to Cochabamba, we made a stop somewhere at about midnight and we witnessed a very comical situation. There were two harmless borrachos coming from the danceclub nextdoor who were taunting and bothering a neighboring shopkeeper. She had someone inside the shop fill a cup with water and pass it to her through the window so that she could throw water on these two guys. Two buses had stopped at this spot at the same time, so all the pasajeros (passengers) from both buses stood around this spectacle and laughed at the show as the two borrachos got what they deserved.

One last thing about the buses. The luggage is usually tied to the roof of the bus in Bolivia. The bus agencies have designed their ticket offices perfectly for loading the luggage on top of the tall buses. The ticket office (where you check your baggage) is usually on the second floor of the bus terminal and has a backdoor that opens to the parking station for the buses. Once you check your bags, they are weighed, and then they are lowered onto the roof of the bus to a young boy standing on the roof of the bus who ties everything down. This is quite a task for mochillas (backpacks) that weigh as much as ours do (a whopping 17 kilograms).

We have mastered the art of bus travel in South America. We have become quite superstitious about bus travel here, because we have heard many scary stories about the dangers of bus travel (in Bolivia especially). In Potosi, we happened to pick up a local newspaper and read the front page story about a bus accident that occured on the road between Uyuni and Oruro that killed 7 and injured 45 people on board (the story reported that the driver was drunk). A friend of ours who has done a lot of travel in South America wound up in the hospital with a broken back as a result of a bus accident on the windy road between Potosi and Uyuni. So, needless to say, we are usually anxious about the journey ahead as we board these infamous buses, and we have developed a few rituals that we perform without fail in order to calm our nerves. Jen has a lucky outfit that she has worn every time we ride the bus. The lucky outfit consists of a t-shirt that reads, "War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing." The t-shirt is accompanied by a pair of cotton navy blue draw string pants, which were purchased with comfort in mind, but have become a symbol of protection like a security blanket. In La Paz at the witches market, we purchased an amulet, which we were told would guarantee safe travel if one of us kept it in our pocket at all times during a journey. So, Jen carries this strange glass vile in her pocket when we ride the bus anywhere. Inside this sealed vessel are various flourescent color seeds, oil, and small golden charms in the shape of a bus and other travel related miniature figures. The neck of the vile is tied with rainbow colored llama wool, to make it officially authenticated by the witch who sold it to us. So far so good, and we will continue to carry on with these strange habits as long as we are traveling by bus in South America.

3 de Abril - Sucre, Bolivia

2005-04-03T17:07:00.000-03:00

Today is our last day in Sucre, after spending 10 days here taking Spanish classes at the Academia LatinoAmericana de Español. The two of us were placed at different levels. Jen was in the nerdy, snooty class that was far advanced over Billy´s class. She had 3 other girls in her class, and they learned vocabulary and conjugations in past and present tenses in the morning, and then headed out into the streets during the second half of class to practice with the locals. They went to the central market, to El Patio for salteñas (the best breakfast in Sucre), and to get ice cream at the heladeria (Chirimoya...a kind of custard apple...is the best flavor). Billy had his own teacher since nobody else was placed at his level (he was relieved to know that there were people who tested below his level), and did far more basic exercises, like singing along with Bolivian songs and being forced out into the plaza to ask strangers for directions. On his first day of class, he was shown flashcards of famous people and when George Bush was presented he quickly responded with "El diablo." We both feel more comfortable with Spanish, and learned a lot from our classes, especially about Bolivian culture.

Yes, everything we needed to know about Bolivia we learned in Sucre. Spanish classes were extremely helpful because we finally had a chance to ask all of the language related questions we had been storing up for 3 months and in addition we learned a lot about Bolivian culture and customs. We may take another week or two of classes in Cusco and/or in Quito. This same language school has branches in both of those cities, so we could easily pick up where we left off.

Sucre is a very conservative town, it is the Judicial capital of Bolivia, and home to almost 350,000 Catholics. Our teachers told us about how conservative it is here, and how the community looks down upon a lot of dating rituals that we consider very normal in the States. Yesterday when the news that the Pope died hit the town, all the churches rang their bells for 30 minutes, and we saw people in the streets weeping and wailing. Although almost everyone in Sucre is Catholic, they also worship Pachamama (mother earth), who is the Incan God that was worshipped before Colonialism. There is an interesting mix of traditional Catholic practices and traditional Indian practices, and the two seem not to be at odds at all. Both seem to live in harmony. A common practice is to give offerings to Pachamama, because Pachamama gives the community life. This type of ritual is something that Catholics do to show appreciation for their more pagan roots.

After our classes, we spent afternoons exploring the town. Our favorite place is the Campesino Market, about one mile outside the center of town. This is the market where all the people come from the Campos (or small rural towns) to sell their produce and goods. Campesinos literally means country-folk or farmers, specifically referring to the indigenous population in Bolivia. The market is enormous, it takes up an entire section of town with little stands lining the streets with fruits, vegetables, housewares, spices, clothes, electronics, shoes, and anything else you could possibly want. There is a section called the witch (bruja) market where we found the most interesting things from offerings for Pachamama to llama fetuses. The people that work in the fields and that weave the colorful sweaters, ponchos, rugs, and wall hangings that are so common in Bolivia set out offerings to Pachamama every morning. Part of these offerings are bought in the witch markets, and they include dead owls, llama fetuses, certain spices, flowers, and other dead animals that look like road kill. They sell these dead animals hanging upside down from their stands, often bumping their heads into the dead llama fetuses or the owls wings. It is good for a few photographs, but not a place to stay to long. We hear that there are much larger witches markets in La Paz.

After classes we usually went straight to lunch before exploring. Every place in Sucre has a set menu for lunch, usually for $1 per person. Lunches included soup, a choice of entrees, usually spicy chicken and potatoes with rice, and a dessert. Lunch is the most important meal of the day in Bolivia. On Bolivian food...locotos are really spicy peppers that seem to be in all the picante sauces and are even a popular topping on pizza. We have been eating plenty of locoto in llajua (a Quechua word), which is a spicy salsa that is eaten with bread and is the traditional Bolivian accompaniment to lunch.

Yesterday we went to two great museums. One was an anthropological museum of textiles and weaving (displaying and selling work of the indigenous people in this area of Bolivia). The second museum (museo etnografia y folclore) had beautiful masks, clothing and photographs on display...again all from indigenous cultural ceremonies and celebrations (like Carnival, but specific to Bolivia). Apparently Bolivia is one of the only countries in South America that has an indigenous population and they are very proud of their heritage.

There are a couple of famous Bolivian painters that we have come to know here in Sucre. The one artist that is our favorite so far is Mamani Mamani. Apparently, he has made quite an impression on some NYC art collectors and museum curators. His name is unusual, isn´t it? When people get married here, the custom is to take both the wife´s maiden name and the husband´s last name and combine them. Mamani is a very common last name in Bolivia, and this artist happened to marry a woman with the same last name (no relation), so their family name is Mamani Mamani.

We got to know our neighborhood and the people in it quite well. There is a little team of shoe shine boys who hang around our hotel. These kids are no more than 7 years old, and will offer to shine your shoes even if you are wearing flip flops. They are all cute little guys, and run around exactly as you would imagine a shoe shine kid in a third world country. They are dirty from head to toe, carrying just their small box with them, and a hat for collecting money. There were also a few families and older women that sat in the same place every day with their hats out begging for money or food. This is the first city where we have seen a lot of begging since we arrived in South America. Although Sucre is clean and safe, there is a great deal of poverty here, but the people are always nice and never pushy about panhandling. One boy today yelled at us as we passed him, "Gringos, da me plata." which means "Gringos, give me money." He was definitely the exception, not the norm.

Speaking of Gringos...there are 3 theories about the origin of the word gringo. I wondered if the word held a negative connotation, so I asked my Spanish teacher about it and did some research to learn the history of the name we have developed as travelers in Latin America. The first theory is that the word was developed during the Mexican-American War, when the Mexicans overheard American frontiersmen singing a song that contained the words "Green Grow the Lilacs." Green grow or Gringo then became the name for the Americans. The second theory is that during the same war the Mexicans overheard the orders of American troops who were wearing green uniforms. The soldiers would command "Green go!"...which turned into Gringo. This is the theory that my Bolivian teacher believed and told us about. The third theory claims that Gringo comes from the Spanish word for Greek, which is Griego...as in it´s all Greek to me...assuming that Americans were speaking unintelligible gibberish to the Mexicans. The only truth that these 3 theories seem to share is that the word became a name for foreigners in Mexico, Central America and Latin America and is still used today.

Some other interesting things that we learned in our classes...there is a name for the time in between midnight and 6 in the morning. It is madruga. There is even a verb for this late night/early morning time for activity...madrugar. It is also used when referring to waking up before dawn. So it seems that Argentina is not the only country of night owls in South America. Perhaps we will see for ourselves when we get to a big city like La Paz.

On Bolivian music...La cumba is the name for the traditional South American music that we hear everywhere. It has a very recognizable beat and we hear it blaring on car stereos and in dance clubs everywhere in South America.

Not every learning experience in Sucre has been taught in the classroom. We got a lesson in Bolivian Correos (post or mail) by attempting to send a package home from Sucre. We went to the post office and explained that we wanted to ship a package to the US. They informed us that we would need to go to the central market to buy a box and tape, then pack our items in the box and address it with a thick black marker, and finally return to the post office the next day at 10am en punto. The process was very different from going to the post office at home, where you can buy all the shipping supplies and labels, and it can all be accomplished under one roof and in one visit. So, like good little Gringos, we went to the central market with the intention of finding a shipping supplies tienda (store or shop), where we could purchase all the necessary items. Instead, we learned that the only boxes for sale there were old, used boxes that the vendors kept around just in case Gringos like us needed them. So, we bought a box in the best condition possible, and it happened to contain cans of pineapples in a former life. At the end of this boxes career, it will have traveled from Thailand to Bolivia and then on to the US. We found tape at another stall in the central market area, and borrowed a thick, black marker from the front desk of our hostel to address the package to my mom. I had a bit of deja vu at this point, because years ago while traveling in Ireland I sent a suitcase home to my parent´s address, which finally arrived at their doorstep 9 months later. At that point, I had almost forgotten all about the suitcase, and it was like looking through a time capsule when I opened it up and rediscovered all the treasures from my European travels. Anyway, after all that trouble with this package in Sucre, we actually began to see the logic in the process. Why don´t we send packages in used boxes at home in the States? Wouldn´t it be an environmentally friendly way to do things? We could minimize waste and feel good about recycling at the same time. These are lessons that we will take home with us and try to incorporate into our lives at home.

We taped the package up with extreme care and set out the next morning for the post office. When we arrived, we were surprised to find that the package part of the post office was closed. The day before the gentleman working there told us to report back at 10am en punto, so we looked at our watches and discovered that we were a bit early. A post office official came out and lectured us in Spanish that we were wasting our time waiting around the post office this day, since the office was clearly closed. I had faith however, and I really didn´t want to lug this box to the next Bolivian city just to go through the process again at another Oficina de Correos. Soon enough, the kind gentleman we spoke with the day before appeared at the office with his 4 year old daughter in tow. He had made a promise to us, and he kept it, despite the fact that this was his day off. We were so grateful to him and his simpatica little daughter (who played with rubber stamps and shouted destinations at us while she waited for her dad, she was clearly a postal worker in training). Sometimes we are disappointed that things here don´t work the same way that they do at home, and we shake our heads at the lack of centralization, systems, and organization. And then there are the times when we appreciate the differences, especially when someone goes out of their way to help us like this kind Bolivian post office worker did in this situation.

We have really enjoyed spending time in one place and getting to know the town and the people, but are also ready for a different place to explore. Tonight we make our way to Cochabamba.

Our mistake, we have been spelling the word chau the Italian way. The correct spelling of the word for the expression "goodbye, but not forever" in Latin America is CHAU. So, chau for now.

Easter in Bolivia

2005-03-27T18:32:00.000-03:00

As soon as we arrived in Bolivia in Uyuni, we realized that we had landed in a completely different world in South America. Uyuni is a small town where the people are much more traditional, and the town itself is much less modern than Potosi or Sucre. Most of the older women and men in Uyuni were dressed in traditional Bolivian garb. From head to toe the Bolivians look distinctly different than the Chileans and Argentines. There is more of an influence of indigenous culture here in Bolivia than in the other countries we have visited. The traditional Bolivian women wear black fedoras (like bowler hats), full velvet skirts, nude color stockings pulled up to their knees, and two long braids down to their waists that are sometimes tied together at the ends behind their backs. Their faces are beautifully weathered from the sun, which makes it hard to tell their age. Tied to their backs are colorful woven blankets full of their wares or oftentimes a sleeping child is wrapped up inside. The traditionally dressed men wear colorful woven ponchos and very distinctively pointy Bolivian hats knit of llama wool with earflaps.

Bolivian food is very different from what we have been eating in Argentina and Chile. Salteñas are what Bolivians eat for breakfast or a mid-morning snack...they are like empanadas, but they have a sweeter crust and they are a little messier to eat. Most of the side dishes are made with dehydrated potatoes, regular potatoes or rice. One of our favorite dishes is picante de pollo, which is chicken prepared with a yummy spicy sauce that tastes like a cross between paprika and mole...it´s a bit like Chicken Paprikash that Billy´s mom makes.

The weather in Sucre is very comfortable. We are starting to see signs of Fall in South America, and the days here are warm and sunny. We are at a much lower altitude than we were in Potosi, so we have no altitude sickness here and the temperatures are much more moderate at night.

Sucre itself is a very attractive city with a busy city center, well maintained parks, stunning colonial buildings and churches that are painted all white (just as they were during colonial times). It is a place where we can set up camp for awhile, so we have decided to stay for at least 10 days and take Spanish lessons for a week.

We have been in Sucre for four days waiting for our Spanish classes to begin. In this short amount of time in one place, we have become familiar with the rhythm of life in this city. All the shops and restaurants shut down between 2pm and 6pm and the place becomes a ghost town in the middle of the day. This week may be different from the norm, since it is Semana Santa--the week leading up to Easter, but it has been a quiet couple of days for us. Every night the city comes alive again and we see the streets and sidewalks transform into bustling thoroughfares. We start to recognize the people on the street in the same places each night. There is a little boy who strums away on a small guitar with his hat sitting empty in front of him on the sidewalk waiting for someone to give him a Boliviano or two. During the day, we have seen him sleeping on the sidewalk across the street...he uses his carefully folded sweatshirt as a pillow.

Bolivia is the poorest of the South American countries, but it is rich in culture. We have stolen glimpses of the poverty and have had a few experiences that have taught us that the people here are desperately trying to prosper. There is much natural beauty and a unique culture, from the desert to the salt flats to the jungle to the cities, and it is very affordable to travel here.

The Bolivians are warm and welcoming. There is something about the Bolivian attitude and approach to life that I can´t quite put my finger on. There is a sadness and a grit deep down that is hard to discern and explain. There is opportunism under the surface that is more evident here than in Argentina, Chile, or Uruguay. However, Bolivia is much more industrialized than we expected it to be. Of the countries that we have been to so far, Bolivia is our favorite.

21 del Marzo - Potosi, Bolivia

2005-03-23T19:04:00.000-03:00

There is no way to tell the history of Bolivia, and of all Latin America, without talking about Potosi. Potosi is situated at the base of Cerro Rico (rich mountain), at about 12,000 feet, making it the highest city of its size in the world. This is where the Spanish, when they began to colonize South America, capitalized on a mountain of silver. From the 16th century to the mid 18th century, the Spanish imperialists exported over 2 billion ounces of silver. This became the first international money in the world (the Real), which made Spain the most powerful country in the world at the time. The wealth that they extracted from Cerro Rico is what financed the Spanish Armada, as well as the rest of Spanish imperialism. The native Indians who lived here got nothing, of course, except to be forced into slave labor extracting the silver from the mines.

Potosi was the richest city in the world, and in 1620 was larger than Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin. Since all the money was created here, all the best goods from China, India, the Spice Islands, and across the world were imported and bought with Potosi silver coins. The wealthiest viceroyalty lived here, and the town still has remnants of those glory days. In Potosi you marvel at the enormous churches with incredibly intricate stone carvings on their facades, narrow streets on the hills stacked with old theatres and other colonial style buildings. In Spain to this day they say ¨Es un Potosi¨ to describe something incredibly rich.

On our first afternoon here we adjusted to the altitude, and walked around the streets. It is a bustling town, with tons of teenagers and old women in their traditional garb rubbing elbows in the streets. Cerro Rico is still being mined for zinc, lead, silver and tin, so a good portion of the town´s inhabitants are still miners, and the second largest profession seems to be lawyers (abogados) who help with miner disputes over ownership of territory in the mountain. We have never seen so many law offices anywhere in our lives. George Bush would be very dissapointed. There are also lots of cafes and restaurants, making it quite a nice place to be.

Our second day in Potosi we booked a tour to go into the mines of Cerro Rico. We got into a van and were provided with protective gear for our feet and rubber pants and jackets to wear over our clothes so they would not get dirty, as well as helmets and head lamps. We were not sure what to expect, but what we saw was the highlight and the low point of our trip so far. On our way to the mountain, we stopped at the miner part of town to buy the miners gifts at the market, namely dynamite, coca leaves, and soft drinks. We headed up to one of the mines with our gifts, there are over 500 mines in the mountain, but only about 150 are active.

With all our gear on, we started into the tunnels of the mine. After about 1 minute it was totally black and cold and the dirt floor turned into a wet and sludgy mud. We walked along what looks like small train tracks, where the miners bring their days work of minerals out of the mine by the ton on trolleys. Two men push one ton of rocks through the innards of the mountain on these trolleys at least twice a day. When we descended to the second and third levels down inside the mine, it became very hot and stuffy. We could smell and taste the arsenic and asbestos that forms naturally and is pervasive in the mines. Our throats burned with every breath. Since we were up inside the mountain, it was more like 14,000 feet, so walking and crawling through the hot, stuffy mines at that elevation is not easy. As we would pass different miners working, we would give them our gifts, some coca leaves, something to drink, and sometimes dynamite. We met one old miner named Ciento Seisciento (100 - 600). All the miners have nicknames, and his is Ciento Seisciento because like most miners he is Indian, and speaks Quechua and not Spanish, and he had trouble saying 160 in Spanish, instead he would say 100 - 600, hence the nickname.

Our tour guide was Pedro Blanco, an ex-miner himself. He worked in the mines from age 13 to 18, but was lucky enough to get a different job as a tour guide as his back was hurt from bending over in a small section of the mine to transport the minerals all day long. The mine shafts are not tall, so every step you take while hunched over. He told us many stories about working in the mines, and how he had to do one year of military service at age 18, which he likened to a vacation.

We then slid down a shaft about 30 meters deep to another part of the mine where they were still excavating. We came across a guy who was working by himself, chiseling a hole in the rocks above his head to place dynamite in. He was wearing only jeans, and was completely dripping with sweat as he hit his chisel with a hammer time after time after time. It takes 4 hours of constant work to create one hole big enough for one stick of dynamite. It was very sad to see someone working that hard for such a little payoff (average salary is 400 Bolivianos a month, or $50 US). He had 5 kids to feed, and had 5 children die after birth, no doubt due to the toxins in his blood from the arsenic and asbestos.

From there we climbed through another small shaft to a spot where we actually worked with the miners. Well, Jen and Billy worked, the rest of the tourists couldn´t be bothered to do much of anything to help out. We shoveled rocks into a wheelbarrel, and then took it down the tunnel and dumped it in a pile to be put into the trolleys. This is where we saw two kids, no more than 14 years old, and one woman working, sweating, chewing coca leaves, and we could tell that they had aged beyond their years because of such hard labor. After 4 loads of rocks, we were totally dripping with sweat, having trouble breathing, and feeling light headed. We both could not imagine what it would be like to spend 10 hours a day doing that for a living.

That was the end of the tour, so we made our way up the small shafts and out of the mines, where we could breath easily again and cool down in the fresh air. On our way out, both of our head lamps ran out of battery power, so we were in complete darkness in a very small and steep spot for a few minutes and had to yell for Pedro Blanco to come back and guide us out. That was a bit scary. It was nothing but incredibly sad that after 500 years in Cerro Rico, nothing has changed. The poor indigenous people still work the mines the same way they did in Colonial times, and the rich foreign companies reap the profits. It was also amazing to experience first hand such an important part of history. As Pedro Blanco said, without the silver from Potosi, there would have been no industrial revolution in Europe, and it might have been in Bolivia.

The next day we toured the Museo de la Casa de Moneda which is the mint where the Spanish viceroyalty turned the silver into coins. It was another impressive place full of 17th century artwork and all the Spanish riches. We learned a lot about the process, and saw coins with date stamps of 1594. I´m sure this would be the coin collectors Mecca.

For us Potosi is the most historically significant place we have been on this trip, and makes us realize how lucky we are to have been born in the States. The materials that make our industries move forward are often taken from places like Potosi for next to nothing. What we found most amazing is how the Bolivians that we have talked to don´t seem to feel very much resentment about having their natural resources taken by foreign countries. They are almost proud of their linkage to the Spanish glory days in colonial times. The cover of the Sports section on the Potosi paper always features what happened in the Spanish Soccer Leagues the night before. People here are nice and very welcoming, but we can´t help but feel embarrassed to be from one of the places that exploits and bans (in the case of coca where the US withholds humanitarian aid from Bolivia unless the Bolivian government agrees to destroy their coca crops) their natural resources at the expense of their people. This is a place that we will never forget.