|
February 3rd, 2008
11:48 am - Catching up
Well, as it turns out, internet is prohibitively expensive in most of the american cities we have visited, so I haven't really had a chance to post since New York.
So I will sum up:
New York was wonderful. We saw 6 shows and a taping of The Late Show, which was great. Of the shows we saw, the best broadway show was Spamalot (hi-larious). Our best overall show was on Off Broadway show by a South American company which was like a rave meets circus meets performance art...awesome!!! It is called Fuertza Bruta and for those of you who might be in NY - SEE IT!
Other than that, I loved the American Museum of Natural History. I just wish I'd had more time to explore.
After New York, we flew to Vitoria to visit some friends who have known Jason since babyhood. We spent the night, and the next morning we drove up island with Tara (who traveled with us in South America for a week) to ski on Mt. Washington. The day after, we drove to Tofino and spent a couple of days walking on the beach, cooking (and eating) good food, drinking wine and hot tubbing. After one more night in Victoria we flew to Las Vegas.
Vegas was interesting... I'm glad I had a chance to see what all the fuss is about.
We arrived and checked into the Tropicana and set out to find somewhere affordable to eat. It was a long search that ended at Denny's since none of the Casinos offer anything like affordable options. On our way back to the hotel, we stumbled upon an outdoor bar playing live music.
We spend two nights at the Tropicana and mostly just explored the strip. We saw The Producers, which was fun, and made 98 cents on a dollar in the penny slots.
After two days, we picked up our rental car and checked into the Stratosphere. That night we saw cirque du solei. What a wonderful show! It was essentially what I expected from Cirque, but it was fantastic and weird and funny and amazing.
The next day, Jason signed up for a poker tournament and got to heads up! He came in second, which was amazing.
With our room at the Stratosphere, we got a pair of tickets to American Superstars, their imitation show, which we saw the following night. In the show were a fake Elvis (of course), Britney Spears, Christina Agulara and Tim McGraw. It wasn't a fantastic show, but it's something I'm glad to have seen in Vegas.
The next morning we checked out of the Stratosphere and drove the rental car to the Grand Canyon. It took all day, and at about 4pm, we drove into a snow storm, which caught us by surprise. I didn't know that it ever snowed in Arizona. The snow lasted until we reached the town just on the near side of the National Park gates. By the time we arrive, the roads were bad and it was dark, so we checked into a hotel and went to the visitor's center.
At the visitor's center, a helpful older gentlemen who was selling tickets to the IMAX movie talked to us for about half an hour. He had worked for twenty years at Phantom ranch, the lodge at the bottom of the Canyon, and he gave us all sorts of advice about which trails we should hike. Apparently, there is always snow around the Grand Canyon in winter, but it melts as you descend.
The next morning we drove into the park and asked about getting beds in the dorms at Phantom Ranch. They had space, so we hiked into the Canyon. We had a lovely hike down; the Canyon really is lovely. At Phantom Ranch, the dorms aren't coed, so Jay and I were in different cabins. In my cabin, there was a group of middle aged ladies from Phoenix who had a hiking group. They had all hiked down together and were in very high spirits. They took a liking to me (and to Jay when they met him) and spent the evening giggling.
Jay and I went to bed early and woke up early the next morning. Jason was feeling ill, but we took it slow and got got up the hill in good time. He was a real hero. By the time we got into the car and drove the hour and a half to our hotel, Jay had a high fever and was shivering. Bad news. He took a bath and got into bed and slept.
In the morning, he was a lot more functional, but he still had a fever. He had to drive, since the rental car was under his name, but he got us back to Vegas safely. We spent the next two days at the Rio. I also got sick...it was a pretty chill couple of days.
On tuesday the 29th, we flew to Toronto.
|
January 11th, 2008
09:03 am - Another Trip Another Post
Hello all,
I have been, as usual, remiss about posting since my last trip, but since I'm off again, I figure its time to update.
Jason and I have been in New York since Tuesday evening. We have spent the last few days on the "Hop On Hop Off" bus tour, though we have done very little hopping. Though the tours make us feel a lot like tourists, they have been helpful in helping us to get our bearings.
We have also seen two Broadway shows, "Spamalot" and "Curtains", which stars David Hyde Pierce. Both shows have been a lot of fun, though "Spamalot" was a much better script. I laughed a lot!
I find the city a little overwhelming, but it is also terribly exciting. There is so much to do and see.
|
May 28th, 2006
11:18 am
Dear friends who care about our earth.
> >
> >Judge for yourself if you want to take action.
> >
> >In the Valle de San Felix, the purest water in Chile
> >runs from 2 rivers,fed by 2 glaciers. Water is a most
> >precious resource, and wars will be fought for it.
> >Indigenous farmers use the water, there is no
> >unemployment, and they provide the second largest
> >source of income for the area. Under the glaciers has
> >been found a huge deposit of gold, silver and other
> >minerals. To get at these, it would be necessary to
> >break, to destroy the glaciers - something never
> >conceived of in the history of the world - and to make
> >2 huge holes, each as big as a whole mountain, one for
> >extraction and one for the mine's rubbish tip.
> >
> >The project is called PASCUA LAMA. The company is
> >called Barrick Gold.
> >
> >The operation is planned by a multi-national
> company,
> >one of whose members is George Bush Senior. The
> >Chilean Government has approved the project to start
> >this year, 2006. The only reason it hasn't started yet
> >is because the farmers have got a temporary stay of
> >execution.
> >
> >If they destroy the glaciers, they will not just
> >destroy the source of specially pure water, but they
> >will permanently contaminate the 2 rivers so they will
> >never again be fit for human or animal consumption
> >because of the use of cyanide and sulphuric acid in
> >the extraction process. Every last gramme of gold will
> >go abroad to the multinational company and not one
> >will be left with the people whose land it is.
> >
> >They will only be left with the poisoned water and the
> >resulting illnesses. The farmers have been fighting a
> >long time for their land, but have been forbidden to
> >make a TV appeal by a ban from the Ministry of
> the
> >Interior. Their only hope now of putting brakes on
> >this project is to get help from international
> >justice.
> >
> >The world must know what is happening in Chile.
> >
> >The only place to start changing the world is from
> >here. We ask you to circulate this message amongst
> >your friends in the following way. Please copy this
> >text, paste it into a new email adding your signature
> >and send it to everyone in your address book.
> >
> >Please will the 100th person to receive and sign the
> >petition send it to noapascualama@yahoo.ca
> ><aolrich://6899911025/> to be forwarded to the Chilean
> >government.
> >
> >No to Pascua Lama Open-cast mine in the Andean
> >Cordillera on the Chilean-Argentine frontier. We ask
> >the Chilean Government not to authorize the
> Pascua
> >Lama project to protect the whole of 3 glaciers, the
> >purity of the water of the San Felix Valley and El
> >Transito, the quality of the agricultural land of the
> >region of Atacama, the quality of life of them
> >Diaguita people and of the whole population of the
> >region. (link to Barrick Gold's website for this
> >project;
> >http://www.barrick.com/Default.aspx?SectionId=AE16ED96-78D3-4451-AB11
> >-281B502746FB&LanguageId=1&ProjectID=8fadb7a7-1b99-4e7b-a37d
> >-9da4b178f0b2 <aolrich://6899911025/>
> >
> >Signature, City, Country
> >
> >1) Katharine Proudfoot, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
> >
> >2) Laura Cole, London, UK
> >
> >3) David Platt, London, UK
> >
> >4) Diane Platt, Manchester, UK
> >
> >5) Tanya Corker, Manchester, UK
> >
> >6) Claire Colvine,
> Liverpool, UK.
> >
> >7) Charles Williams, Liverpool, UK
> >
> >8) Mary Williams, Manchester, UK
> >
> >9) Sarah Wettenhall, Melbourne, Australia
> >
> >10] Mary Moore, Healesville, Australia
> >
> >11) Jocelyn Harvey, Madrid, Spain
> >
> >12) Michelle Campbell, Vancouver, Canada
> >
> >13) Lynn Irving, Westport, NZ
> >
> >14) Glenn Irving, Westport, NZ
> >
> >15) Kate Dermer, Raglan, NZ
> >
> >16) Joanna McKay, Raglan, NZ
> >
> >17). Anna Bartlett, palma, spain.
> >
> >18) Hamish Moeller, Taupo, NZ
> >
> >19) Rebecca Dearden, Cumbria, UK
> >
> >20) Russell Adams, Cumbria, UK
> >
> >21) Rachel Hearne, Lancashire, UK
> >
> >22) Gerda Kloos, Lancashire,UK
> >
> >23) Pamela White, London, UK
> >
> >24) Ros Bedlow, London, UK
> >
> >25) Luis Hinojosa, Witham, UK
> >
> >26) Pedro Rojo, Santiago, Chile
> >
> >27)
> Carolina jaramillo, Cheltenham, UK
> >
> >28) Beatriz jaramillo, Santiago, Chile
> >
> >29) Gabriela Sepulveda, Santiago, Chile
> >
> >30) Andrea Rossi, Santiago, Chile
> >
> >31) Amanda Abbott, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
> >
> >32) Emily Abbott, Brockton, MA, USA
> >
> >33) Jonathan Betsch, Brockton, MA, USA
> >
> >34) Sharon Romeo, Medford, MA, USA
> >
> >35) Lois Martin, Tucson, AZ, USA
> >
> >36) Barbara Eisele, Tucson, AZ USA
> >
> >37) Janet Rae, Tucson, AZ USA
> >
> >38) Lori Ryder, Tucson, AZ, USA
> >
> >39) Karen Bauernschmidt, Phoenix AZ, USA
> >
> >40) Kerry McClure, Phoenix AZ, USA
> >
> >41) Don Titmus, Mesa, AZ usa
> >
> >42) Jennifer Linder Anderson, Phoenix, AZ, usa
> >
> >43) Randall "Doo" Kerr, Nelson, New Zealand
> >
> >44) Quija Moon Flower Keogh, OR, USA
> >
> >45) Catiya Gainor, Huizen, The
> Netherlands
> >
> >46) Douglas Gainor, Monroe WA. North America
> >
> >47) Elisabeth Hamilton
> >
> >48) Rose Farrington, Ukiah, CA North America
> >
> >49.) Margo King and John Steiner, Boulder, CO, USA
> >
> >50.) Alexandra McNamara , Scotland
> >
> >51.) Daphne Francis, Burghead, Moray, Scotland
> >
> >52.) Eian Smith, Findhorn, Scotland
> >
> >53.) Amanda Lamb, Toronto, Canada
> >
> >54.) Lennea Baird, Toronto,Canada
>
> >55.) Navjeet Kaur, Oakville, Canada
>
> >56.) Nigel Wolf, Toronto, Canada
>
>57) Vanessa Dixon, Toronto, Canada
>
58) Keltie Brown, Edmonton, Canada
|
May 12th, 2006
08:14 am - So what has it been... 7 weeks...
As usual, I feel little-to-no drive to update this thing while I am home. LIfe moves at a pace so much less dizzying that even important news and big chnges seem strangely insignificant.
Nevertheless, an update:
I am here and working at the New Asian Village. As usual, there is much drama but also good money and great people.
We are selling the house.
I feel like I am past saying much about it. The blue and green walls have just been painted beige in preparation for the perusal of many strange eyes. It feels oddly suburban.
Of course the plus side is that, by having to move, I am forced to purge my life of all of the unnecessary junk that I have managed ot accumulate over the last 21 years.
TellitSlant and I have found a quite large apartment close to work, school and Whyte, and we moving in June 1. I am pleased...
|
March 20th, 2006
01:05 pm - Home again, home again
So, it's been a crazy last week or so.
In pisco we visited a National Park that is supposed to have a lot of marine animals, but it was mostly pelecans. It was a beautiful day though, and we enjoyed the sun and the ocean.
In the evening we boarded a bus for Lima and headed to the Friends House hostel that we had stayed at at the beginning of the trip. We spent most of the 15th finishing our souvenir shopping and eating a nice last dinner in the Larcomar, the open-air mall built into the cliffs of Miraflores.
When we checked our flights, the computer said that it had noticed a problem with our Toronto to Edmonton flight, but we couldn't figure out what it was, so we decided to go to the Air Canada office the next day. We remebered seeing the office during our last stop in Lima accross from the paragliding company. The paragliding turned into a great investment becuse we descovered that our flight from Lima to Toronto had been delayed 8 hours. It was no longer leaving at 11 pm on the 16th, but at 7:30 am on the 17th. The woman at the office told us to head to the Lima Sheraton hotel where we would get dinner and a night free as well as transport to the airport in the morning. After lunch we went to the Sheraton - feeling and looking a bit disreputable - and spent the afternoon wandering around the centre.
We got our wake up call at 3 am, they loaded us into buses and we drove to the airport. The day went pretty predictably after that with one minor exception. When we were about to land in Toronto and the plane let the landing gear down, it started making this bizarre humming noise. We were sitting in the last row, and we heard the stewardess call the ground to tell them about this noise. She said that she had never heard it before and that she wasn't sure that the plane should land. The ground told her NOT TO TELL THE PILOT until the plane had landed, and that they would look at in then. We had a pretty rough landing, first an overhead bin was shaken loose, and then as we touched down, one of the panels that holds the air masks papped open and the masks came tumbling out. Needless to say, we were a bit nervous, but we got to the gate fine. When we got off the plane, we discovered that the reason the plane had been delayed in the first place was that on its flight into Lima, it had taken off and then had to turn back and land again because they had a mechanical problem. South America really is the forgotten land; it seems Air Canada only sends the oldest and most disreputable planes there.
On the bright side, we got $100 Air Canada credit out of the bargan in addition to the free dinner and hotel room.
And I am home now. Things go on very much as they always do, but non of it feels quite realy yet.
|
March 13th, 2006
07:30 pm - A Very Full Day...
Last night at about 8pm Jason, Tara and I got on a bus from Arequipa to Lima with the intention of enbarking in Nazca at about 6am. We had been told that we would not be dropped off in Nazca proper but instead on the highway in front of the airport so that the bus didn´t have to leave the highway. Instead, we were woken at 4 am by the bus stewardess sayting that we were nearly at Nazca. When we got off the bus, we were in the middle of town. We were immediately mobbed by people selling tours and hostels. We went with a guy who had a flight over the Nazca lines at 7 am and a place that we could hang out in until then. The flight was cool! We saw the lines and Jason even got to steer the plane for a bit.
After that we caught a buis for Ica and we arrived just after 10. We dropped our things off at a hotel, grabbed lunch and headed to a small town with a hotel and winery that offers tours.
Unfortunatly the winery was closed (our book sometimes is a little off), but we took a dune buggy tour into the desert where we sandboarded and saw fossils. Jay got to drive again!
After washing the sand off our bodies at the hotel, we returned to town, ate dinner and saw Tara off on a bus to Chile. We headed over to a museum.
It is now about 7:30 and we are ready for bed!
Tomorrow off to Pisco.
|
March 11th, 2006
08:41 pm - Colca Canyon
We have just returned from an amazing three day hike in the Colca Canyon.
We met up with Jason`s friend Tara in Arequipa on the 8th and booked the trip for the next day. I don`t really have time to go into details now, but it was stunning and exhausting and exhilerating and wonderful.
We head to Nazca tomorrow to see the lines. And then to Lima and home. CRAZY!!!
|
March 6th, 2006
11:26 am - When we left, the dogs were still stuck together...
So, on March 1st, we left Rio de Janiero for Corumba, the toen on the boarder to Bolivia. The trip took about 28 hours, and we arrived in Corumba at 4:30 on the 2nd, a half hour after the Brazilian boarder guardhouse (which is located in the bus station) closed. We were intending to take the train from Quijarro on the Bolivian side of the boarder to Santa Cruz in central Bolivia. We dossed down for the night in a cheap hotel and bought our train tickets to Santa Cruz from the hotel. At about 2pm on the 3rd, we started walking to the bus station to get our Brazilian exit stamps. It had started raining, so we had our ponchos on which was luckey because the rain turned into a torrential downpour. There were literally streams a foot deep running down the street within 10 minutes. We stood under an awning for about a half hour, but when the rain didn´t let up, we decided to keep going. We had to get out stamps before 4. My shoes still aren´t totally dry. By the time we returned to the hotel, there were entire streets covered in a foot and a half of water.
Anyway, we got across the boarder and to the train station without problems and embarked at 7:30 pm for Santa Cruz. The train was fine, but it bounced so much that I´m surprised it didn´t derail!
We arrived in Santa Cruz at about 9 am and got tickets to La Paz for 5 pm. In between, we tried to go to the Aqualand in Santa Cruz, just becuase it was odd that it weas there at all, but it was closed. Instead we had lunch at the airport and wandered around town until our bus left.
The bus was an hour late departing, and we had been driving for about 7 hours when we hit a traffic jam in the middle of a Bolivian highway. We didn´t get free until 10am the next morning. Already running late, the bus broke down about 300 km from La Paz. The radiator was leaking. The driver did get it fixed, but it cost us another hour or so.
While we were stopped, we watched two stray dogs making more stray dogs, but when the male dismounted, he got himself stuck. The two dogs tried to separate themselves from each other, falling down and managing to get up again, but not able to disaconnect themselves. After a couple of minutes fruitless struggling, they gave up and stood ass to ass, watching the world go by. Every once and a while, one would try to walk away, sparking a new pattern of wiggling.
When we drove away several minutes later, the dogs were still stuck together.
We arrived in La Paz at about 9:30pm, about 10 hours late, and had a nice dinner. We are here for the day, and tomorrow we leave to meet a friend of Jay´s in Arequipa!
|
February 27th, 2006
02:47 pm - Rio de Janeiro
Well, we have been in Rio for a week now and I have updated my journal twice. In a way, there hasn't been a lot to say. That isn't to say that we haven't been enjoying ourselves, but it has mostly been of the relaxing and cooking and going for nice walks variety. After three months, we were both ready for a break. Also, we were saving up our energies for Carnival.
On Saturday we did the one big thing that you have to do when you come to Rio: we went up to see the giant statue of Christ that hovers over the city. We enjoyed the jerky train ride up, and the view from the top of the hill is amazing. Rio is a strange city. It seems to go on forever and on the streets it is a filled with tall concrete buildings unless you are looking over the beach to the ocean. Seen from above, it is a green city. The cariocas do not build up the steep, green and jagged slopes of their "mountains" except in the most corwded places. So, the city sprawls around the bases of these numerous and beautiful hills making it difficult to get around but beautiful if you have the right view.
Strange. I don't really like making judgments like this, but Rio is our least favorite city yet on the trip. It can be physically very beautiful, but most of the streets are dirty, distances are long and mostly we just don't feel safe. Despite the fact that nothing has happened to us personally, we cannot seem to get past the reputation of the city as a violent place. Perhaps we have been prejudiced by hearing and reading bad stories, but you can feel the desperation here. There is a wholesale approach to sex here that is a turn off even for relatively open minded people. I feel a little uncomfortable simply because most women in this city are minimalistic in their taste in clothing. All women, regardless of age or body shape, wear tiny bikinis and short skirts and huge high heels. In my traveling gear, I feel frumpy and a little insignificant. But this is a mild matter of female competition. More disturbingly, we can watch the prostitutes from our apartment windows at night, and it is a real turn off. Despite the fact that it is legal here, the girls are pretty sad and there are serious economic reasons that they turn to prostitution. It just makes me sad.
At the same time, we have been loving the apartment that we are in. I baked pies for Louis (the landlord) and his friend Alex, who has given us an idea of real life in Rio. There are no stairs up to the 9th floor apartment, only an ancient elevator with an open grid door so that you can watch the foyers of other apartments pass slowly by as you ascend. On the 8th floor there is several days pile up of newspapers. Sometimes the journey seems quite quick, and other times I catch myself holding my breath as we chug past the hand painted lettering that marks each floor.
Yesterday was an amazing day. We got up late and went down to Copacabana beach to swim. Despite the number of people (mostly men) in the water, the waves are amazingly strong, but the water is clean and quite warm. We played just like kids, body surfing along the waves or seeing if we could dive under them jsut as they crested. We came home covered in salt and sand but more invigorated than we have been since we arrived in Rio. In the evening we went back down the beach to check out the Carnival gathering happening there. It was a real family event: the old women dancing to Samba pounding from a couple of speakers, couples dancing and kids spraying everyone with shaving cream. It was nice to see.
After dinner and a bit of a rest, we went to see if we could get tickets to the Samba parade. It is normally really expensive and sells out fast, but we heard that you can get cheaper tickets if you arrive a couple of hours after it starts. It was suprisingly easy to get the tickets, and we sat in the grandstands until 4:30am watching the Samba Schools compete. Each school has about 1500 dancers all elaborately costumed and 6-8 floats of incredible sophistication. It takes each school well over an hour to march the length of the Sambadrome, dancing all the way. They are truly amazing, not least because all of the dancers are volunteers. The people were dancing in the grandstands despite the fact that it was about 4 am and the parade begins at 9pm (it usually lasts to 6am). The energy was amazing.
If you are interested in finding out more:
http://www.ipanema.com/carnival/parade.htm
Other than that, Carnival has not been as crazy as we believed it would be. Part of the reason is that the city is so big, it can be difficult to find the venues (though there is a gathering going on right now in the street below me at the moment). But because we are not feeling fit physically, it is difficult to get to clubs and bars which don't usually start their events until after midnight.
|
February 21st, 2006
08:20 pm - New Pictures
Well, we have been having a couple of days of rest in good ol' Copacobana. I have had a chance to download a few more of our pictures and to create a web address for them.
It is:
http://southamericatrip.shutterfly.com
Enjoy!
|
February 19th, 2006
04:53 pm - 25' from Mic Jagger
Jason and I went to the free Rolling Stones concert in Rio last night. I don't know how many people knew we were going, but hopefully I get to shick a few of you. We arrived on Copacobana beach at about 10:30am trying to catch a good spot for the show. Unfortunately all of the area in front of the stage and around the catwalk to the "b" stage was fenced off for VIPs, but we did get a good spot about 7 rows back from the "b" satge's front edge. We waited all day in the sun - it was about 35C. We started chatting with an english speaking couple who turned out to be Canadian and a guy fron South Africa. They turned out to be a lot of fun, so the day didn't pass too slowly. By the time the opening acts started at 7:15, the crowd was hot bored and a little grumpy. They actaully booed the opening act and gave them the finger. We were amazed by how rude they were. The crowd seemed to enjoy the second act more, but it was harder stuff, which ment a bit of a mosh pit up front with everyone trying to keep their places.
Anyway, we had a great time while the stones were on. I couldn't always see the screen, never mind the actual stage becuase I sm so short, but when I could, it was awesome. Also, Jay lifted me up for a lot of the really big songs. At one point in the show the stage moved foreward and they all got off on the "b" stage to play. At that point they were about 25' from us...unbelievable! When that happened, the crowed became crazy...basically it felt like all 1.5 million audience members were pushing us into the 400 that were in front of us. Despite the crushed toes (I was stupidly wearing sandles), we managed OK. Jay looked out for me and lifted me up so that I could get a good view!!!
Anyway, it was fantastic!!!
We are now in the apartment we booked for Carnival because the owner said we could take it from the 19th to the 23rd for the same price that we would pay in a hostel. It is great we have our own room and bathroom. We are sharing the place with the owner, who is a retired New Yorker. Today we are just trying to relax and rehydrate after yesterday.
|
February 15th, 2006
08:49 am - The Life!
This is the life! We are in Foz de Iguazu, Brazil, in a hostel with a pool! It´s about 40C - too hot, but yesterday we spent most of the day reading and sunbathing by the pool (not to mention swimming) and then Jay took me out for Sushi becuase it was Valentines day.
I feel spoiled!
|
February 12th, 2006
07:47 pm - The Force of Gravity
We found a place in Rio in Copacobana for a price that, if not exactly decent, is about what everyone else charges! We are sharing a penthouse apartment with two others, but will have our own room and bathroom as well as all of the amenities of an apartment. All good!
Also, today we went to the Argentine side of the Iguazu falls, which are stunning. The river is the boarder between Argentina and Brazil. The falls themselves are basically a big bowl in a floodplain, so there are a few different waterfalls. Really neat. The largest one soaks you with spray as you stand at the top looking down.
One of the most amazing parts of the experience is that are were in the rainforest. It is sub-tropical rainforest, but still really cool! It feels like you expect it to - hot and stickey - and it smells like wetness! While we were eating lunch at an outdoor eating area, a couple of huge black and white iguanas (2 feet nose to tail) came around looking for crumbs, just like the squirrels do in Canada.
Tomorrow we are crossing into Brazil to see the falls from that side.
|
February 10th, 2006
06:35 pm - Food
Someone - I don´t know who - was asking about the food that we have been eating. So, as I am waiting for a reply to several requests for places in Rio durring carnival, I thought that I`d wright about food. According to out book, Argentines seem to exist mainly on meat, pizza and pasta. I know that there are a few of you out there saying: Ya, what else is there? but it is true that the diet is pretty limited. Despite this, BA is a big enough city to have some variety, and we have been enjoying it!
While we are on the road, we tend to subsist on bread, ham and cheese, usually with some fruit and yoghurt to keep us healthy. If we have a kitchen, we make a lot of tomato soup or derivatives thereof. Jason likes to make about 400gr of dried pasta cooked and then served with thick tomato soup as sauce and layered with cheese. I like to make ham, tomoto and avocado sandwiches baked with cheese. Eggs are good too. We usually take turns cooking often simple fare, but ocassionally we do something more complicated. Eating out in smaller places is usually pizza, though there are notable exceptions (see beaver and fries).
Here in BA we lack a kitchen, so we have been eating out almost every day. The american breakfast (complete with grilled tomatos or mushrooms, though not beans) has been our most frequent meal, but we have also gone out for a quite excellent Indian meal. Yesterday I had my first Argentine steak, which was delicious despite beeing cooked with almost no spice or sauce. In a country known for its BBQs, Bull´s Eye is non existant (never mind tequila lime BBQ sauce). Anyway, the beef is good enough that you don´t really need it.
About 20 mins after my Steak, we learned that Argentina has had an outbreak of Foot and Mouth...grim for the already struggling economy.
Anyway, our biggest light meal staple seams to be a superpancho (hot dog from a street vendor) covered in shavings of fried poatoes. For heath´s sake we also tend to go for the AR$2 cups of fresh squeezed OJ sold on the streets. Also, I like the banana juice blended with milk and sugar!
In short, we have been less healthy with all of the cheap food in BA than we are on the road, though I did have an amazing tomato and boccancini (?) salad today! BUt that is likely to change as prices in Brazil will drive us bakc to the grocery stores!
|
05:27 pm - Leaving...
Well, we are leaving Buenas Aeries today, and it´s kind of sad. The city has been good to us, though sometimes a challege. We saw the Colon Opera House today; it´s beautiful and HUGE!!!
We are also trying to book a place in Rio for carnival, something that is proving increasingly difficult and an emotional roller coaster. We think we have a place, and then we get an emial saying it was booked an hour before our emial was recieved! I´m crossing my fingers that it will be today.
Before Rio, though, we are going to Iguazu falls...
|
February 6th, 2006
02:45 pm - So, funny story...
...Yesterday Jason and I went to a real live Buenas Aeries fùtbal game in La Boca, the working class area of town. We were walking along the increasingly dirty and run-down streets when the cloying scent of sweat, pot and beer floated out of a bar, followed by a number of men in blue and yellow shirts (or no shirts at all). These were, not surprisingly, the team colours of the local team, the Boca Juniors. As we continued towards the stadium we kept seeing more people drifting along the streets wearing - you guessed it - blue and yellow. I was waering a burgandy shirt, Jason a white one. Waiting in line for tickets in the sea of blue and yellow, Jason turned to me and said, ¨Wouldn`t it be funny if the other team`s colour was maroon¨ I replied that if that was the case, I would take his shirt. He laughed and said, ¨Unless their colours are maroon and white, then we`re really screwed.
So, we get into the stadium about an hour and a half before the game starts, after passing two body searching police checkpoints. We are on the top tier of seats behind one of the goal lines. About ten minutes after we sat down, the opposing team ran onto the field to warm up and , gues what... maroon and white.
We were sitting with the blue and yellows, so we made sure to cheer for the boca juniors really loudly. Luckily they won, so no one was feeling angry.
Anyway, it was a lot of fun to be a part of the energy in the stadium!
|
February 3rd, 2006
07:31 pm - Lions and witches and armoirs...oh my!
We finally arrived in Buenas Aeries after a tough bus ride. We were on the first floor of a two story bus, and the drivers were smoking in the front, so we were fumigated. (or some such thing) It has been nice to be in the city. We are in an actual hotel with a private bathroom for 48 pesos per night (under $20 for both of us), and we saw `The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe` last night. It was a struggle to find it in english (we had old listings and went to two cinemas that didn´t have it at the times advertised). Nevertheless, we did manage. I really enjoyed it; it made me cry, but really what doesn`t. (see keltie weeping at the end of disney`s hunchback of notre dame)
Anyway, today we went for an american breakfast - a real pleasure after so much bread - and just wandered around the city. It is huge and crowded but oddly safe. We were walking down a street well after midnight and there were old ladies and kids still out and about. Argentines stay up amazingly late. It feels like every street is lined with restaurants with meals from AR$1 to AR$50. I saw at 24-hour flower kiosk today. Bizarre - who needs flowers at 5am?
|
February 1st, 2006
11:52 am - PENGUINS
Well, after a more or less direct 33 hour bus ride from Ushuaia, we are currently in Puerto Madryn, a welsh-founded city on the coast of Argentina whose only claim to fame is a nearby UNESCO natural heritage site due to the number of marine animals that stop there. We too a tour to the site, Peninsula Valdes, yesterday. On the way to the park, we passed the largest factory in Argentina - an aluminum factory partially owned by Colon Powell. Go figure. Anyway, due to the number of factories here, Puerto Madryn is one of the few cities in Argentina that is growing. We were reading in the english language newspaper that inflation for January is supposed to be 1.3%-1.7%, driven by tourism. The inflation rate for last year here was nearly 13%. We are really feeling the effects of that inflation. Most things are 20%-30% higher than they are listed as being in the book, but some of the more touristy things are about 50% more. However, I`m sure that what we are feeling is nothing to how Argentines feel.
One of those touristy things was our trip to Peninsula Valdes, but it was worth it! We saw Megallenic penguins less than 1 m away. They were mostly standing still with their eyes closed sunning themselves on the shore, but a few were swimming. They are amazingly fast. After that, we visited elephant seal and sea lion colonies. Though I have seen sea lions before, these were huge and it is now mating deason so the males were posturing and roaring and chasing each other away from the famales. The seals were mostly just lying on the beach, but they are also huge! We didn`t see orcas, but they do appear in the area. In this area, the orcas hunt by beaching themselves to grab baby seals and sea lions and then wriggling back into the water. Apparently, this is the only place in the world that the orcas exhoibit this behavior. Despite not seeing whales, it was a beautiful day, and I have now seen penguins, which was one of my goals.
We are headed to Buenas Aeries today, and I will be glad to be back in a city. The last biggish city we were in was Santiago. I am looking forward to indian food and movies. We still haven`t seen The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Maybe that is shallow, but I could use a little R&R. We are also going to try to go to a soccer game!
|
January 27th, 2006
05:31 pm - Planes, buses and sailboats.
Thanks Julian and Evilkeen for the news. We heard that the conservatives were going to win a majority late on the 23rd, but then we flew to the end of the world and were totally out of touch. I´m not a happy girl with these results, BOO!!!!
But we all know that.
Anyway, on the 24th, we flew from Punta Arenas to Puerto Williams, the southernmost community in the world. It is a small Chilean navy town, truly the frontier. The airport is about a 3km walk from town, so we set out with our backpacks along the road. Within 5 minutes, the (empty) shuttle from the town`s only fancy hotel picked us up. Right now, there is an American couple running the hotel, and they were just glad to help out a couple of english speakers for a chance to chat. They drove us to a tour agencey that arranged trips by bus then boat to Usuaia, Argentina - 50km west on the other side of the Beagle channel - for US$100 per person. There isn`t a lot of transport between the two places due to an almost war in 1973, so it`s expensive! We put our names down for the trip on Thursday, the 26th. After that we found a hostel, the cheapest in the town, for CH$8,000, more than we`ve paid for any place except the 5 star hotel we stayed in over Christmas. The owner of the hostel also ferried people directly from Puerto Williams to Usuaia for US$100. WE told him we might go with him instead because it was 2 hours all by boat. That afternoon, we ran into an American guy who had gotten to the town from Usuaia on a private Yacht for US$60, so we went down to the Yacht club looking for a boat. There were no boat that had space going to Usuaia, so we went for the one day hike in the town.
That walk was very pretty. The trees were a lot like those on the west coast, and the top was a view of the city and channel.
Afterwards, we returned to to marina, but again we had no luck finding a boat. That evening we tried to go for dinner at the town`s one restaurant. The sign swaid that it was open and the TV was blaring, but the door was locked. We pounded, but no one came, so we went back to the marina. On the way we ran into a girl, Chloe, from one of the big boats that had been docked in PW for over a month! The crew had all gone travelling but were now returning. They were waiting for their captain to arrive from New Zealand. She introduced us to a few more ships, but none were going. The next day we returned to the Marina and started to chat with Murry, Chloe`s shipmate. He gave us the number of an Argentinian man who ferries people to and from Ushuaia for US$70. We called the man, Micki, who said that he was bringing a couple to PW the next day (thursday) and that we should meet him at the Marina. He said that depending on the weather he would bring us back to Ushuaia in the afternoon. Usually the wind blows from the west, so it`s a lot easier to sail from Ushuaia to PW than the other way around.
On wednesday night, we returned to the restaurant and managed to summon the owner by knocking. He let us in and we had locally hunted beaver and fries!!! It tastes like deer.
That afternoon, the wind was too strong, so we met Micki the next morning at 5 to make another attempt. After about a half hour he decided to turn back. He told us that we could spend the night for free in his boat to try for tomorrow. We had a mice chat with him about South American politics. We spent most of the day napping or reading in our sleeping bags on the boat. In the afternoon Micki came to tell us that the weather for the next day would be as bad, but that according to the forecast we would be able to make the crossing on saturday. We didn`t want to stay so long, but decided that we would stick with Micki. About 2 hours later, Chloe popped her head into the boat to tell us that her captain had arrived and that they were headed to Ushuaia the next morning and could take us for free!
We moved our things to the much larger Evhoe and had a fantastic dinner cooked by some german backpackers who were sleeping on the boat for the night. This morning we set out for Ushuaia. We had to motor all the way, but it was still beautiful. I saw an albatross. We are staying on the boat again tonight and then moving to a hostel. They have been great to us!
We have been really lucky, but I have caught Jason´s cold. Ushuaia is very cold and windy and I don`t have a really warm coat. Also, our hostel was warmed by a wood stove so our room was very cold. I haven`t been warm in about 2 days! However, on sunday we are heading north! It is about 35C in Buenas Aeries, and we will be there in a week.
|
January 23rd, 2006
09:34 pm - Election Angst
Seeing the most recent poll results and having failed to manage a vote from here, despite my best efforts, I am beyond frustrated that I can get no election news online until 10pm et. That is midnight here and we have to get up in the morning to get on a flight. As it is we failed to be in the correct place in time to mail in our special ballots, and I have been a little out of touch as regrds the election campaign. There was a story on CNN international about some anti-americanism in the Liberal campaign, but not much else. I´m dying to know what´s going on!
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
selkies's journal