As requested by a couple of people, this is a few of the details about
what we have been up to (myself, Peter and Brittany) to date in South
America.
We were in the deep end from the point of the departure lounge in
Auckland Airport. The boarding announcement was in Spanish, along with
the majority of announcements on the plane. We flew with Aerloinias
Argentina, the national carrier The standard of the plane was just a
taste of what was to come.The seats uncomfortable and small, the food
terrible (by airplane standards) and service non existent. The airport
we flew into reminded me of pacific island airports. Basic and
rundown, the major building appeared from the outside to be a throw
away from USSR. Getting through customs and quarantine was largely
uneventful.
We stayed at a reasonable hostel in BA for US$13/night, including a
simple breakfast, spending the first couple of days adjusting to the
culture, trying out our Spanish and seeing the local sights. A major
highlight was a visit to a catholic cemetery which was entirely crypts
made of granite and marble, maybe a thousand in total. For most of the
crypts we were able to look through glass doors and actually see the
caskets, in one I counted a total of 13 caskets. All the crypts were
very ornate and the city was undertaking restoration on many of them.
A lowlight was Peter getting shortchanged at the subway, by about 90
Pasoes (NZD$40ish) and getting lost on the subway. The government
buildings were well worth checking out, a hangover of the Peron
´´think big´´ era. Buenos Aries is a beautiful city with colonial era
architecture but sadly the whole city seamed to be falling apart.
Walking down the footpath we were in constant fear of breaking an
ankle on the haphazard footpaths. Made up for by the excellent quality
(and portion sizes) of Argentine beef.
We quickly got sick of the big city and got ourselves bus tickets to
Santa Cruze, Bolivia. A 36 hour bus ride for NZD$150 each. We totally
stuffed up getting onto the bus by not properly checking in. This
resulted in a sprint from one end of the terminal to the other with
passports in hand and a lot of fast speaking by a Bolivian woman who
spoke a bit of english. If it was not for her we would have been
stuffed. Then there was the bus ride.... The bus had a toilet (banio)
and all manner of hawkers climbing on board at police checkpoints
selling everything from cold drinks to religion. The Bolivian boarder
crossing was very basic. Bolivian customs was a small grotty brick
building with one computer and grumpy officials wearing guns on their
hips. As it was a minor boarder crossing, they hadn´t seen many New
Zealand passports and were very curious of Brittany´s electronic
passport. They had to look up New Zealandin a table to figure out how
many days tourist visa to give us.
Santa Cruse, Bolivia was nothing more than a stopover. The tropical
heat and humidity was stifling and we were keen to get away quickly.
We took the friendly Bolivian lady, who helped us out at the bus
depot, for a wine, giving further opportunity to practise our spanish.
We paid about NZ$4 for a glass of house wine. A packet of cigarettes
costs NZ$2
We headed on to La Paz, another 14 hours in a bus. Santa Cruze sits at
an altitude of 300m, La Paz at 3500m. The bus went up a high as 4700m
on the Alto Plano. As we were going up it felt like I had a telephone
book on my chest and was slightly light headed. We stopped at about
4500m altitude for a toilet break. I made the mistake of walking too
fast and got very dizzy from lack of oxygen. The local saying for
altitude goes ´Move slowly, eat little and sleep by your poor little
self.´ Dropping back to 3500m (La Paz) was a godsend however carrying
our packs up 4 flights of stairs to get to our room at the hostel left
us gasping for air. The altitude effects were cured by Coca lollies,
made from the plant used to make cocaine. The locals chew coca leaves
like the British drink tea. Apparently it´s mildly addictive and later
in the trip Peter chewed Coca leaves to cure a headache.
The highlight on La Paz for me was mountain biking the worlds most
dangerous road. 60km long and 3500m of decent, mostly gravel with big
drop offs, the biggest a sheer 600m cliff. Until recently the road had
a toll of about 200 lives a year the worst accident a truck carrying
100 people that went off the edge. A new road was opened in 2006,
leaving the worlds most dangerous road to the odd local vehicle and
the mountain bikers. It maintains it´s reputation with an average of a
couple of bikers going off the edge every year. Our company had a
perfect safety record and thankfully it stayed that way. That night we
stayed at Corico, at a hotel costing us NZ$8 each for the room. We had
a recommendation to stay there, described as a living version of
Faulty towers, run by an insane french couple however the french
cuisine was excellent.
We tripped onto Copacabana, on the edge on Lake Titicaca and got our
first taste of electric showers. The shower head contains an electric
element to heat the water, which has a nasty habit of electrocuting
people. We got a mild buzz of touching the tap. Dinner that night cost
us NZD$3 each, and another $3 for beer. We crossed to Isla Del Sol, an
island run in a very authentic fashion. There was no mechanised
transport on the island (donkeys played a major role) and the locals
living a very traditional lifestyle in mud brick huts and small
agricultural plots. Isla Del Sol (Island of the Sun) lived up to it´s
name. The combination of clear skies and 4000m of altitude resulted in
a reasonable dose of sunburn. Fresh trout from the lake for dinner was
fantastic, a meal repeated three times in a row.
We pushed onto Cusco, the Archeology centre of south America, and have
visited several museums. In one we saw a Kumura, which was labeled as
a Kumura, in another we saw mummies, ancient brain surgery techniques
and many many vases. The Incan religion was a relatively simple one,
which was overridden by the invasion of the Spanish.
Tomorrow we move onto one of the highlights of the trip, Machu Picchu,
the ancient Inca ruins. From there we are returning to Bolivia to
spend two weeks volunteering at a wildlife refuge (think monkeys,
turtles, birds, a bear and other exotic creatures). We will then head
to Salar De Uyuni, an area of extensive salt flats, then back into
Argentina and down to Patagonia.
I hope this email finds you well and ready for the rush up to
Christmas, and if you are interested in more detail on what we are up
to, check out the blog at
http://
Kind Regards
Nick
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