Big Brother is Watching

There's a small bit of irony in having video surveillance in the George Orwell plaza. Hurrah to the city planners of Barcelona.

Pizza, Pizza

Some might wonder if thirty hours is enough time to wolf down eight pizzas... let's just say that it was with the two of us. Deserving in reputation, Naples has the best pizzas we've ever had. So good in fact that Matt pretended to be a local and told some American tourists, that "Da' Michele's does good pizza" with the bored affect of one who goes there all the time and has no doubt that it'll be good pizza. And it is.

The only down side to Naples is that all the weight loss of South America is coming back with a vengeance. We figure it's a small price to pay.

The End of an Era

Well, there's so much to say... First off, we have left South America and are now in Europe... Italy to be precise. It's beautiful, the food is good, the toilets flush, but...

As we were leaving Buenos Aires, I couldn't stop thinking about how much I have come to love the idiosycrsies of Latin America... the bad music guaranteed to be played on buses, the packs of wild dogs in the streets, the diligent dirt watering of the shop keepers, the ability of roosters to live just about anywhere... it's all just so good there. I think it's fair to say that we both loved Latin America. From Mexico to the tip of Argentina, it's an amazing place and we were lucky to see it.

And, another era has ended... Matt turned 30 on Tuesday, and now he's all grown up. Or something.

The Walk a Thon

You could make the argument that a 7 and a half day hike, carrying all your food, a tent and sleeping bags for a hundred kilometers, that stretches in altitude from sea level to almost four thousand feet, through a park whose name translates to ¨Towers of the Paine¨ seems a little masochistic.

Actually, I am fairly certain Mary made that exact argument before she became good friends with an ultramarathoner (our friend Becky who runs the "Jungle Marathon" 200 K through the Brazillian Amazonian rain forrest carrying all her food, tent and clothes for a week. And she`s placed first amongst women two years in a row now). Hearing Becky`s stories makes our complaints look sad.

While we skipped out on the last 15 kilometers to avoid rain, wind, and tourists, the hike was beautiful. Really, really beautiful. And we were fortunate to have two amazing friends to share the journey with.

I don´t want to recount or think about the total number of blisters, bruises or sore muscles on the four of us combined, and I definitely don´t want to think about our hike through forty mile per hour rain on our last day in the park.

And even though finding stairs in the middle of a one and a half mile, three thousand foot descent was brutal, it was all made a lot better by staring at a rainbow covering an ice field bigger than Manhattan (See photo here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2235081966/in/set-72157603830655102/).

Lamb the Argentine Way

A big touristy thing to do in Argentina is to visit an estancia-- a working sheep and cattle farm where cow hands show you how to rope cattle and you eat lots of good meat. The unfortunate thing about this activity is that most estancia stays start at about $60 a person and that´s a bit spendy to stare at cows. We`ve renamed all estancia tourism places Estancia Club Med.

So a few weeks ago we felt very lucky to have stumbled upon a working estancia in the middle of Parque Nacional Lanin in Argentina, where we camped in our tent amongst a field of sheep on a gorgeous lake in the middle of the Patagonian Lake district.

While there, our amazing luck continued and we met the worlds kindest, greatest family who, upon seeing our ineptitude at making campfires, invited us to join their family camp of 20 people for two days.

They taught us local dances to the tune of the ranch owner`s accordion, a guitar and a kid playing a drum (dance photo, aqui: http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2196273232/in/set-72157603725623931/), we drank wine out of cow bladders (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2196296556/in/set-72157603725623931/
), and Matt watched the lamb we roasted be killed (roasted lamb is in the above photo). Matt also had the opportunity to watch the castration of a bull (if you have any interest, testicles sans cow can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2195504815/in/set-72157603725623931/ ). Basically, it was an incredible time of bad spanish, great grilled meat and a feeling of love and inclusiveness.

And, of course, the lamb was some of the best we`ve ever tasted.

Cruisin`

So, everyone loves a cruise. Well, maybe not everyone.

Honestly the thought of one has always frightened me. But somehow we ended up on a four-day, three-night boat ride (meals included) through the islands of Chilean Patagonia. Technically it was a cargo ferry, but any boat that has a bingo night is close enough to a cruise in my book.

Let me say that the icebergs, penguins, islands, seals, glaciers, sunsets, and straits were all spectacular. And we made great friends with our cabin mates. And we were blessed with beautiful weather. I mean you hear about people looking out cabin windows through sleet and snow at the islands, but we were up on deck worrying about getting sunburned. Yes, the food was pretty mediocre (a hint to cooks throughout Chile, herbs and spices are an acceptable way to inject flavor into food, it doesn´t all have to be done with mayo), and the lack of drinking water was obnoxious. But our first cruise was spectacular.

And I am fairly certain I won´t do another one for a long time.

¡Happy New Year!

We rang in the New Year with much ablomb and general weirdness. Here`s the story:

We pulled into the bus station in Valparaiso, Chile at midnight the night before New Years. Having skipped dinner in order to make it through Chilean customs in under 3 hours I was a bit grumpy. As we start to head toward some Lonely Planet reccomended hotel, this weird guy in a velvet jacket comes up to us and keeps saying "you reservations?" and finally I´m all "hablamos español" in this snotty, stop-talking-to-me-in-bad-english voice. Which is funny, porque no hablo español. Mucho. Entonces....

We start to figure out at this point that we may be in a place where a lot of people go for New Years. Turns out, yes. Yes, we were. As a matter of fact, had we bothered to read the "special times of years" section of any of our guide books we would have learned that Valparaiso boasts the biggest party in South America for New Years and the town has, on average, a million tourists descend for their fireworks extravaganza. Yeah. So we decide that it´s time to start talking to weird velvet jacket guy.

He has some fliers that say "Hostel!" on them so we figure he´s safe to follow. Keep this in mind. If you want to be a mass murderer, all you need to do is print some fliers that say "Hostel!" and tourists will follow you anywhere. So, we start walking with him and the neighborhood gets progressively sketchier. And, mind you, I´m still starved and cranky (Matt is much more mature and doesn´t get cranky without proper snack times). As we start to walk up a really dark hill we pass a lady sleeping on a mattress in a corner of the street... and then we pass some graffittied houses that say "if you have bread, help your neighbors"
You can see the photo here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2173051732/in/set-72157603648426454/. Apparently the author followed that same logic, and decided that if you have spray paint, you should share it with your neighbors house.

By the time the hill ascent begins, I´m giving Matt looks that are intended to say "I am going to kill either myself, you or weird velvet jacket guy." Do these looks stop us from following a stranger into a seemingly bad neighborhood at 1AM? No. Of course not. You can see what the neighbors house looks like here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2173053074/in/set-72157603648426454/

And then we get to the house. Which he shares with his mother and the whole place is pretty sketch, and has structural problems like the ceiling caving in but I don´t really want to leave since I don`t want to go back into the neighborhood from which we had just emerged. So we stay. And the velvet jacket guy, Carlos, brings me delicious white nectarines and water since I´m hungry and all... and the view is incredible... and the beds are comfy. See view here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2173039436/in/set-72157603648426454/

The next morning, the mom (whose name I was never able to understand) demands that Matt and I have tea and cake with her and she explains to us the Valparaiso mess of New Years (because we still didn´t know at this point, we just knew there seemed to be no hotel rooms). And she says they will cook dinner for us and have a party with us, their relative and 4 other "hotel" guests and we should stay through the New Years. So we do. And it´s totally strange.

We have a processed lunch meat turkey and some lamb and sausage and mayonnaise (Chileans really, really, really LOVE mayonnaise) for dinner. No one spoke English. At all. And I have a long conversation in Spanish with a nice lady about metaphysics. The fireworks were nice, the city was a massive party for three days prior to the actual New Years extravaganza and the dancing in the streets and drinking entirely too much was a lovely, although liver debilitating, time. Anyway. Here is a photo of Mom, Velvet jacket man and their relative:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2172263685/in/set-72157603648426454/

I think this sums it all up. Mostly. Weirdly, I feel that we got very lucky with this experience... We found a place to stay in a city where park space to sleep was limited. We met some incredibly kind, although incredibly strange, people. We most definitely had a "cultural experience." And these are not the sort of things one does everyday.

To 2008, may it continue to bring surprises.

Prize Offer!

To the first person who correctly identifies the object in this photo.

Using proper wine making jargon, of course.

Chilean Customs Form

The Chilean Customs and Immigrations form specifically states that you have to declare semen. That´s all I have to say.

Camping

Now that we´ve entered Argentina and Chile, countries where it´s normal and heard of to camp, we decided to purchase a tent and start experiencing nature first-hand.

Unfortunately, our tent was the worst tent ever made, and it broke. In this photo Matt is pointing out the broken tent whilst slapping a fly that has landed on his cheek. Ahhh, the joys of experiencing nature first-hand.

It´s Springtime in Chile

And it´s really pretty with wildflowers everywhere. And I love this photo.

Iguassu Falls

There are few things that could make a 27 hour bus ride that ended up in a humid land of 100 plus degree heat worth it, but these falls were. I just can not come up with words to explain how incredible they were. And I am certain that the picture does them no justice. If you get the chance definitely check them out.

Which of these things are all of the same?

Guess the theme amongst the cities on this sign....

Pulling Teeth

Fountain in Tiradentes.

In the mountains a few hundred miles north of Rio de Janeiro a gold rush almost as big as the California one took place in the 17th and 18th century. Portugal taxed this gold to finance their empire, and through trade, the Industrial Revolution in England.

However, near the end of the 1700s, as the gold started to run out the Portugese, discontent with a lower take, raised the tax rate. This was around the same time as the American and French revolutions, and low and behold, the people of Brazil followed international sentiment and rebelled.

Unfortunatly, unlike the US and France, the revolution failed. One of the leaders of the revolution, Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, took full responsibility for the revolution, and was hung in Rio de Janeiro, in the plaza today named Praça Tiradentes.

His body was quartered and with his blood, a document was written declaring his memory infamous. His head was publicly displayed in Vila Rica, the town at the heart of the gold rush. Pieces of his body were put on display in the cities between Vila Rica and Rio, in an attempt to intimidate other would-be rebellions.

Today, the square of his death is named Tiradentes in his honor. It seems that in Joaquim´s life prior to being revolutionary thinker and General, he had been a dentist. Tiradentes is Portuguese for teeth-puller. Thus, all of Brazil refers to him as Tiradentes, and his home town in the gold rush mountains has now been renamed Tiradentes after him.

Down at the Copa... Copacabana

Definitely not the same as the nightclub in NY, our first Copacabana of this trip was spectacularly beautiful, if quite chilly. Lake Titicaca (no longer just a bad childs joke, or the answer to a trivia question) is one of the prettiest lakes we`ve ever seen. And if it`s beauty alone didn´t leave us breathless, 15 miles of hiking at 13,000 feet certainly did.

(All Titicaca photos can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/sets/72157602584747352/)

Salt Flats are Flat

How we have not put up a post yet on the Salar de Uyuni is beyond me. I mean it was a month ago, and it was phenomenal.

The first day we headed out from Tupiza, Bolivia into a landscape that reminded us of the California desert. However it quickly turned into the desert as envisioned by Salvador Dali.

Red and purple rolling hills quickly turned into giant smoking volcanoes, vivid red, green, blue, and white lakes filled with flamingoes, steaming and bubbling mud pits, ostriches, llamas, vicunas, and of course the highlight of the actual salt flats. Imagine almost blinding whiteness in all directions, with an occasional îsland in the middle of the great salt sea. The most amazing thing is that the salt flats were probably the first thing Mary has found too salty to eat.

All photos can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/sets/72157602829782359/

Leaving (Bolivia) on a Jet Plane

The national beer of Bolivia is Paceña, with the best slogan ever... "Paceña. It`s beer."

If you spend too much time in Bolivia, you can grow to be quite frustrated with it. It does have spectacular sights, Titicaca, the Salar, and ...ummm... well Titicaca and the Salar, but outside of them nothing really works like it should. For example, leaving Bolivia.

You know a country has problems when it takes a 15 hour bus ride to travel from it`s judicial capital to Santa Cruz, it`s wealthiest and second biggest city (as the crow flies about 200 miles), because no one has ever bothered to pave a road between them. Actually, in places the road is really just a dry riverbed. Or, in the rainy season, the river is where you would want the road to be.

Luckily we were in the dry season. Unluckily we grabbed some salteñas for the road. Really unluckily they had gone bad, and Mary spent 15 long sick hours with a plastic bag and no bathroom nor bathroom stops.

After the 15 hour ride, we arrived in Santa Cruz at 6:30am, an hour and a half before the train ticket window was supposed to open for sales, where we found a line of around 300 people waiting to get tickets. We decided to check into a hotel and come back for tickets, but by the time we had checked in and got back to the train station, the ticket seller had called it a day as it was noon and all.

The next day all train tickets were sold out, however we were able to purchase tickets for the following day. When we arrived at the train station the next day, eager to leave Bolivia, there were signs up saying the train was cancelled due to striking villagers, and security told us the train probably wouldn`t be going for the foreseeable future.

So we decide to fly. Unfortunately the first travel agent we went to wouldn`t take credit cards, and once we were back from the ATM, the tickets we were trying to book had been sold out. (Why not accept credit cards at a travel agency? Why not book the tickets while we went to the ATM? This is not the way of Bolivia.) Travel agent numero dos found us an 11 hour, 5 leg flight out of Bolivia departing at 4 AM. And that, my friends, is the story of how we left Bolivia. (BTW-- it looks like they`re headed toward civil war nowadays and the trains STILL haven´t left. Lucky for us we`re in Argentina now).

San Francisco Take Note

Behold the Lacerda elevator in Salvador, Brazil. This elevator was originally constructed in 1873 to connect the high and low cities of Salvador. While the initial elevator was hydraulic (and man and rope and pulley) operated, today´s electric elevator transports about 50,000 passengers the 207 feet in around 30 seconds.

There are many a spot in San Francisco that could use such technological brilliance... I for one nominate the hill I used to live on (the Cumberland hill AKA Dolores Park parking lot), California between Montgomery and Powell and I´m sure a few others. I hope some politician is taking note.

Sean is the Best!

I love when friends visit. Come!

Digging for Diamonds

We took a mine tour in Potosi to see first-hand the appalling arsenic and asbestos laden conditions under which miners work in the hopes of earning as much as $250 a month. While $250 a month doesn´t sound like much, consider that it´s about four times that of what a store clerk in Bolivia makes. And a store clerks salary dwarfs that of Bolivia´s rural poor (the average altiplano family of four lives on $11.65 a month). And then when you stop to consider that the average miner has a life expectancy of 45 years and the life expectancy of those in the Altiplano is 46, well... some things here are just too depressing to think about.

Of course it wasn´t all depressing... the day featured several first time in life type of experiences (and, hopefully, last time in life experiences) including:

• Climbing into a still-working 450 year old mine that created one of the largest and richest cities of the 16th century
• Gasping for air in the highest city in the world
• Taking a tour with a guide who didn´t manage to wipe the traces of cocaine from his nose before starting his 100-word-per-minute spiel
• Holding a lit stick of dynamite packed with ammonium nitrate
  

It may be worth noting that Matt was voted most likely to be the unibomber in his high school year book.