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Buenos Aires

A romantic city of tango, soccer, architecture, it is loud, busy, and full of people (13,000,000 to be exact). We arrived in Buenos Aires again after our great excursion to Uruguay, ready to see what everyone was talking about. We took the subway from the port to the apartment that we had decided to rent. Unfortunately, John had forgotten to ask what floor the apartment, so we had to go and hunt down a computer to find out what floor it was on. After we figured it out, we went up and met who we think was the owner´s girlfriend, who showed us around the apartment. There was 7 bedrooms, a large living room and an eat-in kitchen. The building seemed old, we thought from the 1920´s but the Dutch couple we met there seemed to think that it was a remake from the 60´s that just looked old.

We had a nice little balcony overlooking the street below us. Later that night, we found out why having a balcony on the street maybe wasn´t such a good idea. Buenos Aires is one of the loudest cities in the world and not just by my opinion, it´s been scientifically proven. Anyway, after a few days, I discovered that the pigeons had decided to use the planter on our balcony as a nest and we had two ugly little pigeon babies, "squabs," if you will, filling our balcony with poop. We decided to leave them as they were just babies, even if they were adding to the already high pigeon population.

Outside of the apartment, we lived off of one of the busiest roads in the city center, this made it easy to get just about anywhere in the city that we would want to go, especially with a "subte" or subway stop about a block from the apartment. Our first day we explored around and had our valentine´s dinner at a vegetarian restaurant, since we were a little carne-d out. It was ok. Apparently vegearian means devoid of spices and flavor as well, which is too bad, since our food had good potential. In terms of architecture in the area we had a mini Washington monument in the center of the square at the end of our street. It was strange since Argentines supposedly have something against the USA for whatever reason, yet they copied the Post Office in NYC and the Capitol to a T... oh well. One thing that they do really well down here is ice cream. We tried the oldest creamery in the city which was good, but the gruff old waiters are a little off-putting. So the next night we decided to try another recommened ice cream place, Cadore which had the best ice cream I have ever had. During our month long stay we tried nearly every flavor they had, which is pretty difficult since they change them often.

In terms of sight-seeing, we went to La Boca, the working class area of the city where we saw all of the colorful houses and got scammed for a tango show lunch. It wasn´t too bad though.

We also went to two different soccer games, first River Plate, the team in the rich suburbs of Buenos Aires where we sat in assigned seats, and then a Boca Juniors game, where we sat in the popular section with all the locals. Both were interesting experiences, but I still prefer a good American football game over them.

We also saw the cemetary in Recoleta, modeled after the giant cemetary in Paris, it had enormous, elaborate mausoleums for the most elite Argentines. Supposedly it is the ultimate show of money and prestige as with enough money you can buy an expensive house in a posh area of Buenos Aires, but you can´t get in the the Recoleta cemetary unless you have some sort of great family connections. Most of the mausoleums are impressive, but there are quite a few that have fallen into disrepair since the families can no longer afford the upkeep due to the tightened financial situations since 2001. There were also a few that had been pilaged and defiled; there´s something creepy about seeing human bones outside of the coffin they´re supposed to be in, I´m sure someone is walking around with a curse on their heads right now.

In terms of museums, we went to the Malba, the modern art museum of Buenos Aires and the Holocaust museum. The Malba was one of those modern art museum, the kind you walk through and think, I could´ve created that if I had had access to as much drugs as they did. One of the exhibits consisted of a juice box that had been painted with puff-paint and mini-bows. That was it. I´m not really sure what kind of message or social injustice the artist could argue it stood for. My other favorite consisted of a video of a group of naked young men running around on a beach, tripping each other, rolling around and then running again. Every so often, they would sit down for a rest then start all over again. For 30 minutes. I think I watched for 5. Maybe I´m not cut out for that art, but I also get the feeling you may need to be in a psychologically altered state to understand any of it.

The Holocaust museum was moving, but small, it basically consisted of a wall of pictures of Argentine Holocaust survivors and their stories. While all of them were sad there were a few that were really bad as they had come ot Argentina to escape the war or after the war only to have more of their family members killed or "disappeared" during the military regime.

The parks in Buenos Aires are many and usually beautiful, with lots of trees. My personal favorite was the Rosedahl (rosedal?), the rose gardens of the city. There are hundreds of different roses, all gorgeous, my only complaint is that you can´t get close enough to the flowers or the "Rose nazis" will blow their whistles at you and make you get off the grass, stop touching the flowers, get off the tree, etc (I only got yelled at for putting my hand on the grass to balance while smelling a flower). There´s also a Japanese garden which is pretty, with native Japanese plants and flowers, HUGE coy, and a few funny looking ducks.

Buenos Aires is an interesting place with a huge mix of people. There are some of the richest people on the continent living along side some of the poorest. Since the collapse of the Argentine economy in 2001, unemployment is still very high, though less than the 25% it was in 2002. At sundown, once everyone has put out their trash for the evening, the "trash-pickers" come out. They go through the trash looking for empty bottles and other recycleables. The number of them is astonishing, apparently even to Argentines. There´s also the issue of begging. At our subway stop there was a woman that would wait at the bottom of the stairs on the way to the platform and beg for money while she had her children stand by the ticket counter and ask people for the change from their tickets. There are also lots of children, usually between the ages of 6 & 10 that travel from subway line to subway line juggling or selling little cards that look like the kind you buy for valentine´s day when you´re a little kid. Everyone I have talked to or everything I have read says don´t give money to them since it just perpetuates the begging and the parents using their kids for sympathy and money. It is sad though. You don´t really realize that their normal children ´til someone gives them a caramel and they sit down eat it exactly the same as any other kid would.
While I´m on the subject of children... the children of Argentina are very ill-behaved. It´s as though the parents just let them get away with anything because they´re children and they´ll magically grow out of being brats. Wrong. It just allows them to grow up with the notion that one day they will become some super diva or athlete or something. So for the time being they get away with completely ignoring their parents, hitting their parents, and screaming with crocodile tears whenever they don´t get whatever it is that they want. I suppose you can´t really blame them, it´s honestly poor parenting.

All in all Buenos Aires is a beautiful, amazing city that everyone should visit for at least a week at least once in their lives.

Hope everyone is doing well and sorry for the delay on the blog, I got a little lazy again.
Love and miss you all!
<3
Lauren

Buenos Aires, day 1 and Uruguay

The bus ride from Iguazú falls to Buenos Aires was 18 hours long. Luckily for us, the Argentines know how to ride in style. For Ar$200 (a little less than US$60), we got the best bus I have ever been on. The seats reclined a full 180 degrees, we were served lunch, a liquid snack, with a choice of soda, water, whisky, or fortified wine, a hot and cold dinner, and an after dinner glass of champagne. With two movies and a glass of wine, I slept like I've never slept before on any mode of transportation. It was amazing.

Upon our arrival to Buenos Aires, we found that we arrived earlier than the subways even opened here, so we took a taxi with a driver that wasn't too friendly and he coughed and spluttered the entire way to our hostel. Our hostel was great. It was a modern building with about 5 floors of rooms and a basement with a lounge area, decorated in a modern scandinavian IKEA-esque way that was really sleek. Our room wasn't going to be available until later since we were so early, so they were nice enough to let us eat breakfast there then they gave us directions to the San Telmo market, an open air market where hippies -sorry, I mean artisans- perform and sell their goods to the general public. There's also a lot of clothing stalls, odds and ends stalls, antiques stalls (some of which are antiques, others are really glorified junk shops), just about everything you can imagine and tango shows, by really good dancers and some not so goods ones (or in one case, a man whose partner was stuffed and velcroed to him [as a doll, not as in a former living being]). It was definately an individual experience. We went back to the hostel, checked in to our room and took a little nap, met our roommates, two (what we think were) Argentinian guys, and then we sat around and thought about what to do next and planned our trip to Uruguay the next day. For dinner we decided to try a Cuban restaurant a little further away from the hostel. We took the subway to get there and it had a pretty good atmosphere, so we stayed and got our dinners. They were good, but nowhere near that of my mom's or abuela's cooking, so I wasn't floored or anything (though I expected that) then about 3/4 the way through dinner, John stabs into what looked like a mini cockroach. We stopped eating at that. We didn't make a big deal out of it but showed the waitress and she was mortified. The restaurant comped John's dinner and bought us flan for dessert. We didn't mind the bug too much and were happy to have gotten dinner at half the price we would have paid. We walked down the street back toward the subway, only to find it closed (at 10:30 at night, a little early in my opinion for a big city subway). So we hailed a taxi to get back to the hostel, only to find that neither of us remembered the hostel's street name and the driver had never heard of the hostel. Luckily, I remembered the name of a nearby street, so we didn't have to walk far. We got up to our room and decided that we would go to sleep early by Argentine standards so that we could get up and go to Uruguay by a decent time. We brushed our teeth, got in our pijamas and locked the door and got in bed.
Somewhere around what I imagine was 4 o'clock in the morning, could have been earlier or later, I didn't have a watch near me, there's a knock at the door. It was our roommates. John answered the door and asked them if they had a key, to which he got no answer and he went back to bed. I'm not sure what they had been doing, but I'm fairly certain they were either drunk or otherwise incapacitated. They proceeded to make as much noise as humanly possible while shushing each other and whispering. Then they both stripped down and got in the shower (a side note: the shower was a single shower about the size of a shower tub). For the next half an hour or so we heard more shushing and a lot of giggling coming from that shower. I stuffed my earplugs in further and rolled over and eventually they came out of the shower and went to their appropriate beds. Despite their growling snores, I slept relatively well and woke up earlier than everyone else. The first view of my day was the well-furred derriere of the guy sleeping across from me. As I climbed down from my bunk I noticed the other one sleeping with no covers, just his hands holding on to the critical body parts. Once I started pulling out my pack and stuff it roused them enough to cover themselves. We packed, went downstairs ate breakfast and then took the metro to the dock, only to find out that the next ferry didn't leave until 6 o'clock pm. So we hoofed it over to a nearby mall to kill sometime. This mall was the most beautiful mall I have ever seen. The interior of the mall was very renaissance, with frescoes on the ceiling and walls and marble and intricate carvings galore. The stores were very upscale, so we didn't buy anything (not that we can fit anymore in our packs right now). We headed back towards the boat area and went through customs and on to the boat where we were able to get front row seats for the hour and a half trip.

After the aformentioned time, we arrived in Colonia del Sacramento, a colony in Southwestern Uruguay founded by the Portuguese and appropriated by the Spanish. It is a charming little city with about 22,000 inhabitants, criss-crossed with cobble stone streets with ornate buildings, some from the turn of the century and some way before then. On just about every street sits an old car, some still running and well cared for, others long forgotten and two at the restaurant "The Drugstore", one you can sit and eat in the other a home for plants. The turisty areas of Colonia are concentrated in a small area, so we only spent two days here, but we explored the lighthouse, the official gate from the Portuguese fort days, the old cathedral, and the fountation of what is speculated to be the ruins of the former Portuguese governor´s home.
The food there was pretty good, nothing too different there, but I did have a "sweet" pizza that supposedly is only found in Colonia (or Uruguay at least). The pizza crust was topped with mozzarella cheese, bananas, and chocolate. It was delicious, I´m hoping I can recreate it when I come back.

From Colonia we took a cheap bus for two hours to Montevideo, the capital city of Uruguay. There´s something about Montevideo that instantly puts you at ease. They still have the same pretty buildings that Buenos Aires and Colonia has, but the fact that you can see the beach from just about every street is an added benefit. Also, Uruguayans are about the nicest people we have met so far. We took a taxi from the bus station to the hostel, which was in a nice old house and a convienent location from everything.
We went to a place down the street called Marcos to try out the chivito sandwich that Uruguay is famous for (and you can only find there). A chivito is a steak sandwich, with a thinly pounded steak topped with mozzarella, onions, peppers, olives, ham, bacon, egg, lettuce, and tomato. I feel like there was more in this sandwich, but that´s all I can remember for now. It is an amazingly perfect blend of all that is delicious, although I suppose too many of these would probably lead to a heart attack eventually. We walked around our area for a while and along the beach, where they were opening a collection of art featured in the Louvre along the boardwalk. The bay side beach wasn´t too spectacular, I personally wouldn´t get in the water, as it is a tea color.
We spent the rest of the night in the hostel, first talking to some other people that were staying there, our roomates were Aussie and there was another American there (he´s currently AWOL from the Navy) looking for an apartment there. After that John spent the part of the night looking for somewhere to watch the Duke/Carolina game. He finally convinced the kid working there to let him watch it on the laptop and the kid wound up really getting into the game (for Duke of course).
The next morning after breakfast we rented bikes from the hostel and rode them along a road following the beach down into the downtown area. We walked around sightseeing and went to an area called the market. The thing about this "market" was that it was really a bunch of parillas or grills that specialize is various types of meats. We found one that had decent prices (to be fair we didn´t look all that hard, we were HUNGRY) and sat down on the stools in front of where they were cooking. The grill was full of everykind of cut of meat you could imagine. John and I managed to narrow it down to chorizo (spicy sausage) to start and John had a filet that we can only estimate was around 22oz while I got the kebabs and we both got potatoes for our sides. While we were waiting we got to watch one of the cooks make paella for the people next to us that looked amazing. We got our chorizo and managed to hold out long enough to take a picture then devoured it. We were salivating by the time our lunch came along. John´s steak was huge and he ate it all, he didn´t really bother with the potatoes as he saw them as "wasted space". My kebabs were huge, but I managed to eat 3/4 of them and some of my potatoes. We washed this all down with a beer. After we were done, the girl sitting next to us turned and started talking to us (she turned out to be from New York), saying that we had to try the wine drink called a "medio-medio", which was half dry white wine and half sweetish bubbly wine. It was created at Roldo´s, a bar in the market there. So we went over to Roldo´s in our post food stupor and drank medio-medios until we felt quite nice.
After a short visit to the bathroom, we went back to our bikes, where we discovered our butts were REALLY sore from riding earlier. We rode over to the mall where we watched "Changeling", which was really good, albeit slightly depressing. I´m not sure how we managed to ride those bikes back to the hostel; I don´t think I sat down the whole way.

The next day we got up early to catch the ferry back to Buenos Aires, though I can honestly I was not ready to leave. If you´re looking into retiring relatively soon, you should look into Uruguay, it´s cheap, beautiful, and the living is good. You could probably get by with English, but learning Spanish is really useful (and it´s fun to speak!).

Hope everyone is doing well and winter isn´t too bad for you!
Miss and love you all!
<3
Lauren

Iguazú Falls

Iguazu Falls is between Brazil and Argentina, with most of the falls on the Argentine side. They are stunning. We had great weather (albeit a little hot) for the Brazilian side of things, we got to hike up the little trails and see a few of the different areas of the falls. We got to stand below the biggest section of the falls and got soaked by the mist. The panorama views of the falls are impressive. The next day we left for Argentina, to see its version of things. Well, the first day we got there in the afternoon, and decided to wait for the next day to go 'cause we wanted to have enough time to see everything. The next day we woke up and went to eat breakfast, then the skies opened up and poured. Hard, all day. So we didn't get to go, which was a pain since we had already bought bus tickets to Buenos Aires and the bus left at two the next day. Well, we decided that we absolutely had to see the Argentine falls before we left, so we got up early, took our bags to the bus station and caught the first or second bus to Iguazu. We got there and found out that since we were foreigners, we had to pay Ar$60 when all the Argentinians only had to pay Ar$20 at the most. I didn't like it but oh well, it was a small price to pay for the beauty of the falls. John on the other hand griped and moaned about how it wasn't fair and if "this would never happen in the US..." blah blah blah blah-blah. All the way up until the view of the first falls. Then nothing. The falls were so amazing they shut him up for a brief minute! Then in typical John fashion he said, "I'm going to stand here for three times as long as any Argentinian since I paid three times as much to come here." John aside though, the falls were amazing. I cannot find enough words to explain. They made the Brazilian side look like nothing. These falls are so large and powerful, they make Niagra look laughable. Even Eleanor Roosevelt said "Poor Niagra" upon seeing these falls. These falls should go on everyone's list of must see, but if you can't, we took some great pictures, so you should go look at those to get an idea of what I'm talking about. So far we only have the Brazilian side up, but the Argentinian side should be up sometime soon.
Love and miss you all!
<3
Lauren

PICTURES!

YAY!! We have some pictures!
Click here for the link
You do have to join snapfish to see them though.

<3
Lauren

Brazil (minus Iguazu Falls)

So here we are at the end of the first half of our trip.

A warning to everyone wanting to go to Brazil: either take someone with you that speaks Portuguese or take a few lessons, since not many people outside the major cities speak english, and while they might understand (or "speak") spanish, they will usually answer in Portuguese, slowed down just a little.

Corumba was very hot and mosquito infested (dengue fever is everywhere there), so we decided to hop on a bus and go to Sao Paulo. The bus ride was long, but we got a break in between to stretch our legs. On arrival to Sao Paulo, we got to take a mode of transportation we hadn't seen yet in South America: the metro! It was really nice, but really small considering the size of the city. We didn't see much in Sao Paulo, we only stayed one night before moving on to Rio, but the hostel and people working there were very nice.

After a shortish bus ride (only 6 hours this time!) we arrived in Rio. It was intimidating at first because the first view of the city are of the favelas (slums), where the bus station is situated. After we hopped in a taxi to the first hostel we were staying in, we felt a lot better about the city and staying there. The hostel was a cute one, up on a hill with a great view of the city at night. It had a hippie-vibe to it, some of the people there were pretty authentic... We only stayed a night there because it was so busy and we wanted to be closer to the beach.

We moved to an apartment for three days, and took day long tour of all the tourist points of the city. First we went to the Christ the Redeemer statue on top of the hill. The views from there were amazing. You could see everything from up there. We took some great pictures. The statue itself was impressive, about 120' tall (I think). It was made out of soapstone in the 1930's. We took some great pictures of him too. We also saw the biggest spider I've ever seen outside of a cage in my life. John says it was bigger than a tarantula. Either way it was huge, with giant fangs and scary. Naturally I took pictures of it too. We then went to the Cathedral which was built in the 1960's. It is a weird shape for a Catholic Cathedral, a pyramid. It had stained-glass windows on four sides and as made out of concrete. The shape and building materials made it very cool on the inside considering the temperature and humidity on the outside. Finally we went to Pão de açúcar, or Sugarloaf, the mountain you see in the background of all the pictures of Copacabana, Ipanema and Christ the Redeemer. We went up in a cable car, which was particuarly nerveracking for John, so I got to take all the pictures from there. The views from the top were incredible, we got a bunch of those, so hopefully we can put some of these up sometime...

The next day we walked to Copacabana beach which was pretty and we decided to go to Ipanema and check out that beach too, also very nice. We only got to stand on each of them as it started raining, so we decided to go to the mall nearby; I was on a mission for a new swimsuit. The mall turned out to be like South Park/Short Hills/Rodeo Dr/wherever you´re from´s version of an expensive mall, so we didn´t end up buying anything.

Our third day there started out sunny so we got to enjoy the Copacabana beach for a little while, which was very pleasant. I know everyone talks about how beautiful the Brazilians are, and while there are a few of them, no one ever mentions the rest of them which are no where near as fit and still squeeze into the same little swimsuits. I suppose the upside (for them) is that everyone seems to be happy or at least comfortable with their own bodies, unlike the US.

From Rio we had a short stopover in Curitiba, a really pretty modern city inland, then from there we took the turist train on the way to the coast. The train had amazing views of canyons and bridges and the Mata Atlantica, the forest that grows all along the coast that is rapidly disappearing. There were beautiful flowering trees and lots of orchids (this region has a ton of them that can only be found there) and lots of pretty blue hydrangeas and morning glories of all colors. Our guide on the train was really nice (funny too), he spoke pretty good english and every so often took the time to come over and explain to us what it was we were seeing.

Off the train, we caught a bus then a ferry to Ilha do Mel (Island of honey), an island with no cars, beautiful beaches and over half of the land is a forest preserve where we spent two nights. We didn´t do much the first day, just explored our side of the island, but the next day we explored the beaches of the island, there were lots of rocks and hills and superfine white sand, it was gorgeous. We walked all the way from our hostel to the lighthouse then to the fort, which was 14km (8.7mi) worth of walking. We were definately sad to leave this place.

Today we are catching a bus to Iguazu Falls, the second highest falls (I think) in South America. From there we will be crossing over into Argentina (and back to Spanish, finally).
Hope you´ve been enjoying my blog!
Love and miss you all!

<3
Lauren

La Paz and Bolivia

Sorry about the delay in posting... John usually hogs the computer so I don't get too much time to write on here...
So La Paz. We left our hostel in Copacabana, Bolivia, at 7.30ish more or less to catch our bus to La Paz. We got to where the lady told us the bus would be and we couldn't find it, even after asking a bunch of people. We finally asked another sales lady where the bus was and she points to the Bolivian equivalent of a 15 passenger van. I wasn't too convinced it was the right van but it was pouring rain and it was getting close to the 8.00am leaving time. So we throw our bags on the top of the bus like everyone else and then board. There were some Britishers and an Australian (I think) on the bus as well, so we weren't the only gringos there. We start our 3 hour trek to La Paz going down some VERY curvy roads (Mom, you'd probably freak out) without any guardrails. The scenery was beautiful. The mountains went down into valleys that met Lake Titicaca, which was a gorgeous sapphire blue color. It was strange because it didn't matter what side of the bus you were on, the Lake was on either side, I was expecting it to be on one side only. We sat behind two indiginous women dressed in their petticoats, skirts, sweaters, mantillas, and bowler hats and their baby girl, which was very cute. She behaved well for the ride, she never cried til the end when she was put in the typical baby wrap and slung on her mother's back. At one point during the ride, her mother and aunt (or friend, I have no idea which) fell asleep and the baby took to playing with their hats. She was so cute, but very elusive, as I only got one picture of her with the hat.
After an hour we reached a river where we had to get off the bus and pay b/1.50 get on a boat to cross part of the lake to reach La Paz. It was a tight fit, I think the capacity on the boat was 25 or so and we had at least 10-15 people more than that on it. Either way we made it across and had to wait for our bus to cross on its interesting version of a barge (a shallow boat with a few planks of wood on the bottom). While waiting I noticed a barge that was going back and forth but there were two people stationed at water pitching patrol at all times. It seemed a lost cause to me, but oh well. A couple hours later we were in La Paz.
We caught a taxi going to our hostel; it was a quality taxi, we had to keep the windows open ever though it was raining because the windows would fog otherwise and he either didn't have or didn't want to use his defogger and the windshield wipers weren't very effective either, not to mention the lack a seatbeats... We finally arrived at our hostel and relaxed since there wasn't much to do in the rain and the altitude can be vicious. The next day wasn't as rainy and we ventured out into the city where we passed the witches market, where they sold just about everything imaginable for whatever you may need a potion or a charm for. The most interesting specimens were the llama fetuses, some of which were entirely too large to be a fetus, and the random animal pelts which were probably from some endangered animal or something...
Down in the square we noticed that there was a protest march (the people were voting on a new constitution, both sides were represented in the marches) starting down the main boulevard, and we saw the riot police starting to assemble to prevent anything from growing dangerous (nothing happened). John started freaking out, thinking we were going to get kidnapped or beaten or something from being so close, but I pointed out they were heading in the other direction and as long as we kept on the sidewalk and away from them we would be fine. And we were. As we were eating our lunch on the patio of Burger King (don't judge me, if you'd gone that long with questionable food, you'd be eating there too), we got a firsthand view of the protesters from different areas in Bolivia. They didn't want much except to be heard and hold up traffic, though the firecrackers they shot off made me want to hit the floor everytime they popped one off.
Bolivia as a city is mostly modern with tall sky scrapers from the 60's and 70's framed by snow capped mountains/volcanoes, with busy streets full of people selling whatever they can get their hands on. They have buses that will take you to where ever you want to go, provided you can understand the route from the kid hanging his head out the window and yelling each stop as quick as an auctioneer. On the otherhand, there is not much to see in La Paz, it is mostly shops and offices. After our two nights there we decided to hop on a plane to Santa Cruz and start making our way to Brazil.

The plane ride was uneventful, the airport reminded me of the US's before we had the million and one regulations we do now. We got to Santa Cruz where the weather was a complete 180 from La Paz's. It was sunny and HUMID. We went directly to the train station where, after some confusion and lies from a man trying to get us to take his bus instead of the train, we got out train tickets. The train was nicer than the bus, but I'm willing to bet it was just as violent, I'm not sure how a train can rock that much and not derail... The night scenes weren't too eventful, but the stars were pretty and the next morning we were in the Pantanal region closest to Brazil and Paraguay. There I saw plenty of birds (two toucans!) and cows and interesting plants.
We got off the train in a boarder town in Bolivia and took a taxi to the boarder where we got a stamp on the Bolivian side and then were just sent into the Brazilian side. We were a little distressed when we got in a taxi and it just drove us over the boarder, past all the guards into Brazil and dropped us off at our hostel without an entry stamp into Brazil. Fortunately, it's just the way things are done there, there are no formalities, we walked over to the bus station, got in line with all the Bolivians and got a stamp. I don't think the Brazilians in Corumba like the Bolivians that flood in there very much, they were very rude to them and talked down to them alot, kind of like a lot of people at home with the Mexicans.

Next Chapter, BRAZIL!!!

Hope everyone is done well, love and miss you all!
<3
Lauren

Lake Titicaca

Another bus trip, this time to Puno, Peru on Lake Titicaca. We decided to take a tourist bus, even though it took longer than a normal bus, we got to get out and stretch our legs every hour/hour and a half or so and see interesting sights we probably wouldn't have seen otherwise. When we arrived in Puno and got to our hostel we were VERY disappointed. The town was a city and it was very dirty and the lake was not as spectacular as we had heard. Our hostel was dingy, our room had a strange musty smell, the closet smelled like moth balls, but at $22/night for two people, I suppose you get what you pay for. We signed up to go see the floating islands further out in the lake the next day. We then went to a little pizzeria for dinner, which was good, but needed salt. When we returned to the hostel, I started to feel sick and basically spent the entire night in the bathroom. Needless to say we didn't make it to the islands that morning. I felt better later, and I figured out that the pizza probably triggered my stomach to make too much acid again...
Anyway, we went on the afternoon trip to the islands, not as extensive, but we decided an all day trip to these "islands" would have been too long. The islands are set up on reeds, with reeds layered over 3 feet deep. It was neat to see that all the houses are made of reeds and their boats and they are able to have fires and little garden on top of the reeds. It was pretty neat but I didn't need a whole day to appreciate it.
After our litle trip we ate dinner (thankfuly uneventful) then went to the bus station where we caught our bus to Copacabana. After we got to the Peruvian/Bolivian boarder, John and I, as the only adventurous Americans had to go through a long process and pay $140 to get our Bolivian visas (it says $135 on the stamp, so I think we got over charged, but I wasn't about to argue with the civil guard over $5). Once we did that we found our luggage that had been brought across the boarder via bicycle (it was pretty funny) then loaded into the "bus", which was really more oif a large van than a bus and rode on down to Copacabana, Bolivia.
Bolivia is a lot prettier and less sketchy than everyone thinks it is. Copacabana had the nice little shoreline (still with trash, but you can't ask too much at once) and little boats and mountains in the distance. We stayed at a really nice hostel, which was more like a hotel with great views. The next day after sleeping in we took a tour to the Isla del Sol where we took some great pictures and got a good workout climbing up some brutal stairs. We watched the native women going down to the shore and digging up dirt then carrying it up all those stairs and wondered why they were doing that. A little further up the trail we saw the native men mixing the dirt that the women brought all the way up from the shore into concrete and building a new house or school or something like that. I noticed when we returned to the boat that there were donkeys by the shore doing nothing but trying to eat seaweed and I wondered why they weren't carrying the dirt up. Oh well, to each their own. Overall, if I had to do Lake Titicaca again, I wouldn't bother with Puno and I would just stay in Copacabana. I really hope we can put pictures up soon as there are some great ones. I know I'm a little behind on the blogs, but forgive me as finding good internet that lets me put up posts this long is difficult!
Hope everyone is doing well, love and miss you all!
<3
Lauren

PS. Check John's blog (link at bottom of page) for links to other peoples' blogs about their experiences in Titicaca, they're hilarious!

Nazca part II and Cuzco

So we made it to Nazca where we checked into a hostel our book said was "new and modern" and didn't quite agree with the book. It did have hot water though, so we paid for two nights. We walked around the town for a little, there was a lot of street vendors that liked to charge gringos more for things and the little plaza was pretty. There was a group of little indigenous boys there from some school somewhere that would dance to the violin player they had with them, they were cute, especially the little ones that tried to keep up with the older boys. We ate lunch at a restaurant that was, for lack of a better word, 'authentic'. We had two courses there, the first being chicken soup. There were a few good pieces of chicken in mine before I got down to what I am going to assume was the neck, and decided to keep to the broth and pasta pieces. John was enjoying his until a little foot floated to the top of his bowl. We finished the soup at that point. The main course was normal enough, no strange animal parts there.
After lunch we talked to a travel guy about taking a plane over the Nazca lines and decided to do it the next day. We also looked up bus tickets to go to Cuzco, since aside from the lines, there was nothing really to do in Nazca. Then we found out that since the bus ride is 12-13 hrs long, they start at night. So I went back into the hostel to see if we could get our money back for the second night and the little woman (see picture) told me "No, the money's already in the bank." Never mind the fact that it was Sunday, and no bank is open on Sunday... We decided it was a good thing though, since we could stay in the hostel until 9:00pm when we had to go to the bus station and not have to lug our packs around with us.
For dinner that night we went to another little place that wasn't as "authentic," but the food was pretty blah.
The next morning at 8 we left for the airstrip where we were told it would take 1/2 an hour but really took more like an hour before we got in the little Cesna. It was us, a Japanese kid and the pilot. We got up in the air and did circles, lots of tight little circles, around all 13 figures drawn in the desert. I took lots of pictures, but we still can't upload them, sorry. So anyway, all of the circles were to the right, since that was the best side to be taking pictures from, which also happened to be my side of the plane. After about the 7th figure and 25th circle, I started to feel slightly nauseated. It didn't get much better, at one point I really thought I was going to pass out. I toughed it out and we finally had just finished the last figure and circle when I got sick. I think the pilot may have had a heart attack because he didn't realize initially that I had a bag and was not in fact revisiting my breakfast all over his backseat. Once we got to the ground, the travel guy asked if I had gotten sick and said that he could tell because I was so pale. Thanks...
So we spend the rest of the day recovering (well, me recovering, John resting) in the hotel room. We decided to go to the market to get some food and water for the trip and when we get back to the hotel, John runs to the bathroom and has a talk with Montezuma. So we rest some more, and drink the yoghurt with probiotics in it to help our systems. Then starts to have chills and aches all over, so I told him to get in the shower and it'll make him feel better, which it did 'til he got out of the shower and the other part of Montezuma's revenge took hold. All two hours before we had to leave for the bus. I was really worried about the poor kid and whether we would make it or not to the bus, so I gave him some Cipro and water and went to find some Gatorade or something like that. I went the pharmacy and came back with some electrolyte stuff that they told me John had to drink over 24 hours. I got back to the hotel and gave John the bottle and told him what they'd told me and he takes one sip of it and complains about how bad the stuff takes, nevermind the fact that he would be way worse off if he dehydrated (that's how I knew this wasn't life threatening). So after he assured me that he would be ok, we got a taxi to the bus station where we didn't leave until an hour after we were scheduled, an hour and a half after we had gotten there. I guess the bus had been running late from Lima or something. We get our packs on the bus and board and find that the bus smells more or less like used kitty litter. We (or I at least) got to eat dinner and the seats did recline sustantially, so that was nice. The ride was interesting to say the least. The man in front of us was polite enough to use a Breathe-Right strip to keep his snoring down to that of a lawn mower, and the kid a couple rows back only puked 5 times that night (thrice more the next morning). The road had been 'just repaved,' yet I wasn't sure that the bus still had tires after 6-7 hrs. Poor John suffered quietly in his seat, he only ate ibuprofen, water and the stuff he despised the whole time, so he wouldn't have to use the bathroom. :( After 14 very, very, very curvy hrs (we had to stop a couple of times for herds of cows and sheep and the occasional llama to clear the road), we finally arrived in Cuzco.
Cuzco is beautiful. Cobblestone streets, flowery plaza, beautiful churches, and nice cool weather too! Our hostel is my favorite we have stayed in yet, painted bright colors with a pretty terrace, and it supports two children groups. We saw churches today, we may see ruins tomorrow, depends how John feels (he is much improved by the way).
Miss and love you all!
<3
Lauren

Pisco, Paracas, and Nazca

Hello from Southern Peru!

For those of you reading/listening to the news, we were not involved in that bus wreck in Northern Peru, so you can stop worrying. For the rest of you, don´t start worrying, we´re fine. We decided to leave Lima and go south to Pisco, as recommended by one of the girls in the South American Explorers Club, so we got on the bus and watched bad American movies and listened to the vendor-lady on the bus "Gaseosa, sandwiches, gaseosa; gaseosa, galletas, gaseosa" (Soda, sandwiches, soda; soda, cookies, soda) for three hours. All without air-conditioning (although it was advertised). When we arrived in Pisco, we noticed that the girl at the club neglected to tell us that the entire little town was in ruins from an earthquake in 2007. It looked like it had been bombed; everyone lived in temporary housing (unless they weren´t hit that bad or were able to afford to rebuild quickly), and the "houses" were about 10´x10´. Our hostel on the other hand was really nice, it had a little pool, running hot water, TVs and ping pong and pool tables. It was a strange and saddening experience, because it looked like the town used to be really nice. So after one night we decided to move to a different town 15 minutes away by the beach called Paracas. It was cute, full of beach goers (I got pretty sunburned, I think the anti-malarials are making me more sesitive to the sun) and we took a boat tour of the Ballesta Islands, a few islands where millions of birds live and produce guano, a profitable agriculture aid we know as bird poop. There´s also a bunch of sea lions that live there as well. We only stayed there one night cause after the islands there wasn´t much else to see, the beaches were pretty dirty. We took a bus this morning to Nazca, where there are lots of giant animals and geometric crop circles things in the hills. We plan on getting on a little plane to see them tomorrow. Then we plan on going to Cusco, just to see the city, not to see Machu Piccchu yet.
Hope everyone is doing well, I miss and love you!
<3
Lauren

LIMA!!!

YAY!! Finally in Lima! It´s an interesting mix of Spain and Mexico. We´re staying in Miraflores, one of the nicer neighborhoods, near the beach. The weather here is nice and sunny (John got a little sunburned today) but pretty humid/smoggy. We plan on leaving here tomorrow for Pisco, a little city to the south of Lima for hopefully cleaner beaches and a little more quiet and relaxation.
Today we took a taxi to the center of Lima and watched the changing of the guards at the Governor´s palace. We then looked at the monestary of San Francisco where just about every important piece of religious furniture was coated in gold. It also had a catacomb with about 10,000 peoples-worth of bones. The graves in one section were 4 meters deep (about 13 feet deep) and there were supposedly 4 levels of graves! That´s a lot of bones. After that we went to a nearby restaurant where we ate lunch off the "menu economico." I had potatoes in cream sauce, John had a stuffed avocado, and we both had the arroz con pollo and a drink for s/6 or $2. We ate about 5 hours ago and I´m still not hungry!
John and I tried to up load some pictures today, but the connection or the computer or maybe both were a little too slow and would never really complete the uploading. Maybe we´ll have better luck next time.
Miss and love you all!
<3
Lauren

Stuck in Miami

So our flight's been delayed until 8:30am tomorrow, so no Peru for
another 16 hours. :(
But American Airlines was nice enough to put us up in a Howard Johnson
for the night and they gave us a $20 dinner voucher and a $10
breakfast voucher; Chinese food here we come!
Hopefully tomorrow we'll be in Lima.
<3
Lauren

Here we go!

Greetings from the airport!

So we've finally made it! Forty-five minutes until our flight leaves
for Miami then on to Lima, Peru! I'm pretty excited but tired too,
hopefully I'll be able to sleep on the plane.
Next post will be from Lima!

<3
Lauren

PS. Thanks to everyone for the great graduation and Christmas
presents and the good thoughts in general! I love you all!

4 days to go...

Yay!  I have a blog and can keep you updated my my version of events from South of the equator! I'll try to update daily, but that will depend on my access to internet.  I'll put up a link to where ever I put up pictures as soon as I have some to post.  Hope you enjoy!

So it's official crunch time. Trying to pack for a four month trip while clearing out an apartment and working two jobs is a little taxing, but I'll be on vacation soon enough.  Hope everyone had a great new year's celebration!

Bye for now,

<3 

Lauren