#4 LONG OVERDUE! Argentina part 2 and Bolivia

Prologue:

Sucre, Bolivia >> We awoke to shouting and explosions on the street below our hotel room. After lying low for a little while the sound died down and it seemed safe enough to venture out and finally find some food. As we tiptoed down the street we could hear skirmishes 1-2 blocks away and were able to navigate around the chaos ... or so we thought.

Suddenly a shot from above took us completely by surprise. A boy, hardly a man, wielding a huge gun opened fire from a first-floor balcony. We were completely exposed and were both hit badly.

Fortunately the guns were super-soakers, the bombs were water-balloons, the explosions were fireworks and the shouting was accompanied by drums and dancing. It was Carnaval in Bolivia (no not Brazil) and it was a crazy party with tactical water warfare on every street corner.



Introduction ... so where the bloody hell are we?

Right now, we are kicking back on the beach in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. And yes, it´s been a LOOOONG time since our last blog update and plenty has happened since Mendoza, Argentina!!

Our only excuse for this radio silence is that we´ve simply been having way too much fun!!! Fortunately, we´ve kept track of our adventures by writing garbled thoughts on the back of beer-stained coasters in bars and we´ve now started the process of getting these adventures typed up into the blog.

Since our last installment we continued our travels in Argentina (Cordoba, Salta, Iguazu falls and back to Buenos Aires), with a side-trip to Bolivia (the amazing salt fields, desert landscapes and Sucre), then onto Brazil (Rio de Janeiro) before a ´minor´ detour to South Africa (Cape Town) for the AMAZING wedding of Laura (Kate´s sister) and Pete. From South Africa, we´ve turned up in Mexico to spend the final 2 months of our travels.

There´s no way we can cover all of that travel in one blog entry, so for this first overdue blog instalment we´ll cover our travels through northern Argentina and our Bolivian detour.


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Cordoba, Argentina

Our long overdue blog recommences in Cordoba where our Italian connections (thanks Isabella!!) came in very handy as we were introduced to two fantastic locals (Mario and Rodolfo) who went well above and beyond the call of duty to show us the sights...

The tour

Literally a couple of days before we arrived in town, we checked our email to find a message from our friend Isabella who asked if we were going anywhere near Cordoba, where she had good friends living. We were so lucky to get this message, because Mario and Rodolfo were the most friendly and generous guys we have ever met. Despite the slow communication in our poor Spanish and their English, we had a great time with the two brothers who met us on our first day in Cordoba to give us a tour of the town.

Cordoba is a university town with a LOT of convents. There are also many beautiful churches which Dave and I now have photos in front of thanks to Mario. I had to bite my tongue on making a joke about where all the women were locked up when we were shown a women´s prison that was shut down a couple of years ago and coverted into a cultural centre. Right in the centre of town, the building was imaginably a lot prettier surrounded by mate-sipping students instead of high security walls.



around town


with our hosts Rodolfo and Mario

The asado

Cordoba was also the first place we had been in the same spot as a our Swiss friend Simon since Bariloche, so we caught up for an asado at his hostel. Despite being supermarket meat, the Argentinian backpacker in charge of the grill managed to cook the meat to perfection -Dave even rates his as the best cooked rib-cut he had in the whole trip. Although we were a little put off by the ´snack´of uncooked blood sausage as an appetiser it was a great opportunity to meet some interesting people.


The famed Asado (note the side coals)

Lost in translation

After hearing great things about Avatar the night before, we thought we would take some time out from Spanish and hit the movies. Unfortunately for us Avatar wasn´t available in English however Invictus was. After being a little thrown off by the interval (but appreciating the chance for a beer), we came across one of the most unfortunate ´lost in translation´ moments of our tour. In a key scene where Mandela is explaining that if the country didn´t unify the future would be ´very bleak indeed´, the Spanish subtitles informed us that the future would be very black. Not only were we slightly choking and looking around for the audience reaction, it made us wonder how many subtitled movies we have watched over the years that were dramatically off the mark.

Farewell Cordoba

After having had such a great, comprehensive tour from the locals, we decided to cut our Cordoba visit short but not before one last dinner and quick tour with Mario. Our Italian descended hosts took us to a great pizza place, followed by ice cream and a drive by of the football stadium (a perfect example of the European influence in Argentina). While a little sad to be leaving the next day we were happy to have made some new friends and excited for the adventures ahead.


Salta, Argentina

Another overnight bus ride found us in the birth place of Empañadas (or to be more accurate, Salteñas), Salta where we were to spend 3-4 days before heading off again.

We started touristy with a cable car trip up a mountain which was said to have a great view of Salta (it was the prospect of great views, not the incline that made us take the cable car instead of walk). We could be forgiven for calling it a mountain given that our highest peak is 2228 metres however, given the proximity to the Andes we also forgave the locals for laughing at the term mountain. The (almost obligatory) Jesus statue at the top overlooked a city a lot larger than we had expected and a cool beer and great views made the trip very worth while.


View from the top, Jesus looks over grand Salta

The mummies

The surrounding mountainous terrain as an important part of north-western Argentinian life was again emphasised with our trip to a local museum which housed three (only two were on show) mummies of sacrificed children which had been preserved in the extreme cold climates of the upper Andes. The mummies were preserved to the point of facial expression and hair colour and the museum was a great place to finally encounter some indigenous legend and tradition.


Preserved 500 year old discoveries from the Andes. Unfortunately no photos of the mummies were allowed

The peña

Our trusty source informed us that Salta was a great place to catch a folk music (or Peña) show, so we headed for a dinner and show experience which, while a little touristy, had a great mix of traditional costume and dance and local contemporary band members jamming (if you can call playing folk style music jamming). On the way home we learned for free as we watched a tango show through the window of an expensive restaurant.


The Peña shows - traditional and modern

The empañadas

Being in the birthplace of empañadas, it would have been a crime not to try some so on our last day we headed to the local taxi joint which housed at least 4 empañada shops. With our choice of a conservative mix of meat and chicken, baked and fried, the birthplace of empañadas more than exceeded expectations and our ´light lunch´quickly became a big meal.

Very full, we headed for the bus station...


The Bolivian Salt Tour

Before we started our trip we both happily agreed that we wouldn´t lock ourselves into any plans so that we could take unexpected opportunities as they arose.

In Salta, as we were planning a trip in the Northern Argentinian salt fields and the famous Quebrada de Humahuaca, we found out that our Swiss friend Simon was planning to take a 4WD trip from the Chile/Argentina border up into Bolivia to see the amazing salt fields there (apparently significantly bigger than Argentina´s). Sticking with our flexible-itinerary philosophy we decided to join him for this awesome tour and planned to come back to northern Argentina to see the Quebrada de Humahuaca when we were finished.

Luckily, as we embarked on the 12 hour bus ride to Chile to meet Simon our bus took us directly through the Quebrada de Humahuaca. The anti-malerial tablets we were taking at the time were said to cause strange-dreams and we definitely felt we were dreaming as we looked out onto the multi-coloured landscapes of the Quebrada. The minerals in the rocks turned the mountains into many shades of blue, red, yellow, green and purple .... some of the most amazing scenery we had seen



We eventually arrived in the cute little town of San Pedro (in northern Chile near the intersection of the Argentinian and Bolivian borders) to spend a night before taking off on the 4WD tour. As we checked in for the trip, our tour operator greeted us with the surprising news that due to the altitude of the trip (we would be heading up to 5000m), we should stay off the alcohol and red meat for the duration of the trip ... which was difficult after a few weeks in Argentina!!!

The next morning we joined up with 21 of our closest gringo friends for our exclusive ;) tour of the Bolivian landscape. While we laughed at this at first, our fellow travellers turned out to be amazing people and without these guys the trip simply wouldn´t have been the same.

As we arrived at the vehicles for the trip we felt strangely at home ... they were 80 series toyota landcruisers (the same family cars used by the jephcotts and rohans when we were teenagers). We visited a series of lakes that lived up to their colour based names (verde-green, blanco-white and colorado-red). Apparently the different minerals in each lake caused the intense colours which were so strikingly different in a short space. The landscape between the lakes was also amazing and our 5 man jeep, with 2 amazing dutch, Simon and ourselves often paused our lively conversation to ´appreciate´the amazing colours and rocks.


the trusty landy

The chilli high altitude weather was broken by a beautiful dip in a hot spring. Unfortunately we weren`t the only gringo tour to have this idea so it was quite crowded. While our tour was certainly on the tourist beat the views were not worth missing.

Night one saw us in purpose built lodgings where we had a chance to meet a few of the folks in the other landcruisers. Among the crowd were French chefs, Chilean rugby players, Dutch explorers, a couple of geezers and some friendly Czechs. After climbing 4400 metres during the day we were all pretty tired so didn´t spend a lot of time socialising.

Day 2 of the trip saw us revisit lake Colorado to have an up close look at the flamingos before continuing to crazy rocks which many of the group chose to climb like kids in a playground. We also stopped by some stinking sulpher geysers which was weird to see so close.






Amazing landscapes

Unfortunately, due to rain, we couldn´t stay in the much anticipated salt hotel and instead ended up in a small llama farming town . An enterprising young Chilean organised with the drivers to have lamb for dinner.

While waiting for dinner we set off to explore the town. We found a lookout tower that seemed like the perfect place to grab a beer. Simon went to get the beers where he found a 5 year old local boy who thought his 3 week old stubble was the funniest thing he had ever seen. You can imagine the kid´s delight at seeing Dave´s 2 month long beard -he kept laughing and pointing at Dave saying something that we can only guess was the local dialect for beard (we hope). Fortunately Dave managed to grab a snap of this (judge for yourself but I think Dave might be in the wrong business).


hahaha ...what is that on your face?

After two days at altitude surely we were fighting fit for red meat and alcohol?... or so we thought. After two beers our already friendly group were excitedly social, enjoying an amazing evening under a blanket of thousands and thousands of visible stars. Although there was some debate between us and the Chileans as to the location of the Southern Cross, the evening solidified the good times and friendships forming in our group.

Dave was happy to join a soccer game with a local boy and some of the other guys in the group but was slightly relieved when everyone, including the Chilean rugby players, were gasping for breath after only 5 minutes of soccer at 4500 metres (althought the local boy had plenty of energy).

Wearily the next morning we set out for the long awaited salt field. I cannot do it justice to describe it so will put some pictures below. We were lucky to have our group photographer, Walther along to help with perspecitve shots and capturing the vastness of the scene.


distance is impossible to judge


no perspective (thanks to Walther for the shots)


our great tour group


Sucre, Bolivia

After a (relatively) hectic schedule in the prior couple of weeks and a nerve-wracking bus ride through the spectacular (but extremely dodgy) mountain roads of Southern Bolivia, we decided to park our weary bones and our backlog of dirty laundry in the surprising city of Sucre.

For half the price of a shitty hostel in Argentina, we found a plush full-service hotel and set up camp. On the first couple of days we explored the beautiful white-washed streets of Bolivia (apparently council laws require all houses to be painted white), explored the indigenous art (Sucre draws in art from the surrounding indigenous Bolivian cities) and chatted with the super-friendly locals. While these may sound like noble tourist pursuits we do have a small confession ... on the first afternoon in Sucre we slumped into bed and turned on the tv to find some craptacular American TV shows (in English!) from the ´90s. After pushing ourselves to be good tourists for so long an afternoon in front of the box was truly a luxurious extravagance.


traditional weaving

After a few days, Carnaval was upon us. In Sucre, this consisted of music and dancing in the streets, but above all ... water warfare (see the intro to this blog). At first, it was locals only participating, however before long the gringos were allowed to join the fun and not long after that, we became the main targets in town! This was great fun after a few beers when you felt like a water-fight (and vendors were selling bags of pre-filled water-bombs on the side of the road) ... however after 3 days of water-bombs we were a little bit over it and going for a morning coffee without copping a soaking became a truly tactical mission!


carnaval chaos

One day, we evaded an onslaught by ducking into a ¨gringo-tastic¨ bar (according to the lonely planet) and found a friendly Irishman waiting for Ireland to play France in the 6 nations on the tv. Unfortunately the telecast was delayed for a couple of hours so we helped him wait over a few jugs of beer. Unfortunately the gallant greens were outdone by les bleus so we commiserated in true Irish fashion with a few more jugs. Suffice to say it was near impossible to dodge the water bombing on the way home after that much beer with our new irish friend.

With strong Irish-induced hangovers we bid farewell to friendly Sucre and flew to Santa-Cruz for a one-night stopover. We realised our luck in selecting Sucre as our destination during Carnaval when we found out that the locals here were armed with paintballs (seriously). Our cab got us to within one block of our hotel, but would not go the final block because he was worried for the safety of his car, which was reassuring. As the locals reached for their paintballs, we sprinted the block and dove into the lobby of our hotel, with the receptionists stunned that we had made it unscathed and unpainted.

With this action-packed finale, we then breathed a big (but very contented) sigh of relief as we bid farewell to Bolivia and boarded a plane (we´d had enough of Bolivian buses) back to Argentina.


The epic will continue...

If you´ve made it this far, well done!!! Our next (overdue) blog will take us back into Argentina to the spectacular waterfalls of Iguazu before we go back to the big smoke in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro.

Adios Amigos!

Dave and Kate