Saturday, November 23rd, 2013
When we got back to the Max Adventures office from the jungle trek, I dropped my bags and walked
over to the French Bakery – those pastries had been on my mind each morning
since I had tried them a few days before. And it was still glorious. I
mentioned it to Linda as well (she grew up in France) and exaggerated it a wee bit
in the process by saying that the water here in Rurre helped them make the
pastries better than anything you could get in Paris or something like that. So
she tried it at some point this morning and strongly disagreed with me. Denied.
In the few hours we had this morning, we showered up, gave
Tereza and Regi some laundry to send out for us, and repacked our bags for the
trip to the pampas that would leave this morning. There were a number of others
joining us today, so our total bloomed to 10 tourists. This is too much to put
on a single tour boat (more on that soon), so we were split up into a group of
6 and a group of 4. Our little tightknit group absorbed a couple from England,
Naomi and Shawn.
Once we are all ready to go, we load up into two SUVs for a
2-3 hour drive to Santa Rosa, which is east of Rurre deeper in the jungle. This
is where our pampas trip will start. On the way, we had a flat tire. This is
the third flat tire of my trip. I might be cursed. Cars in South America,
beware.
Our boat driver and guide is Jackie, who has been in this
line of work in the pampas for about ten years. He is incredibly energetic and
friendly, and his English is not too shabby either. It didn’t take long before
we were all pretty darn impressed with him.
In those first few hours before getting to the lodge, we saw
a plethora of birds – big and small, turtles, several alligators, a school of
small brave squirrel monkeys that were more than happy to get right next to the
boat and stare at us, and even a snake swimming in the water. The snake was a
funny story actually… Jackie yells “COBRA!” and then drives the canoe straight
into the large bush that said snake crawled into, and then tightrope sprints
from the back of the canoe to the front via the right ledge and starts looking
for the thing. Meanwhile, we’re a bit terrified and thinking that if there’s a
swimming cobra around, the last thing we want is to see it face-to-face; those
things are a wee bit deadly. It turned out that the term “cobra” is just
another generic word for “snake” and that there was no danger at all. For a
little while there at least, I thought our new guide was insane and had a death
wish.
As the sun started getting lower in the horizon, Jackie took us to our lodge. We passed by a few other lodges along the way and they were all basically the same – dormitories on stilts (for the seasonal water levels). The canals we drove through were the same as everyone else as well, so the only real difference from one company to the next is the quality of the guide. I think we got crazy lucky with ours.
After the sun had long set and darkness was fully upon us,
we got back into the boat and went to go find some alligators. All we had to do
was shine our flashlights or headlamps along the banks and look for the
telltale red-eye glare when we came across an alligator. In the next hour or
so, we probably spotted 15 of them, but I think seeing them earlier in the
daylight gave a wee bit more satisfaction since we could actually see the
suckers before they swam away. And besides, the headlamps were bug magnets.
Sunday, November 24th, 2013
After breakfast this morning, we left on a hunt to see an
Anaconda. So we donned some rain boots and marched in the steaming sun to the
fields beyond the sunset soccer field, armed with Jackie’s machete and a couple
of long sticks with forked ends. We were a feared army, no doubt.
We returned back to sunset point, but unfortunately didn’t
get a great glimpse at it. Clouds hovered in the distance at the horizon,
depriving us from a spectacular sunset – much like the night before.
Monday, November 25th, 2013
Today was very very hot. I would tell you how hot it was,
but I don’t remember because it was being quoted in that weird creepy Celsius
scale. You know, that one that actually makes sense, which means that we refuse
to use it in the US. That’s just downright creepy. Measurement scales were
invented by God to be confusing, in fact, it was one of the original 15
commandments before Moses dropped the third stone tablet.
Net: I didn’t last very long in the water. The dolphins were
swimming around us, but were too far away from me. And then they weren’t… I
thought I felt a slimy ground under my feet a few times while I was actively
treading water, but in fact I kicked a dolphin twice and my guess is that he
wouldn’t be too happy about it. So I decided to get back in the boat. Naomi and
Shawn got back in the boat about 15 minutes later when more and more boats
started to show up. Later on, we found out that the two guys from Max’s other
group in the lodge with us both got bitten pretty badly on the feet after they
accidentally kicked dolphins as well. I’m definitely glad I got out of there
when I did.
After lunch and a refreshing bug-swarm shower, we packed up
for our trip back to Rurre. About an hour in the boat, followed by two or three
hours in an SUV and the adventure was over. Tereza and Regi greeted us and I
gathered all of my things and headed back to Hostal Lobo for my last night in
Rurre. I had thought about extending a little bit because later this evening,
Shawn was planning to do ayahuasca with a local shaman. Ayahuasca is a tribal
procedure that is said to help bring clarity and many people have claimed that
it has been extremely helpful to them. I had heard about it from a fellow
traveler a few weeks prior and figured I’d try it as well. It was a full day
activity and Shawn was leaving for it within an hour of arriving back in Rurre,
but I was too pooped to spend a day hiking and camping in this heat. It’s a bit
of a shame, because this place was probably the last place I could try it on my
trip, so I suppose that experience will have to wait for another time.
I had a very mixed experience with Max Adventures this past
week. The office and pampas were excellent, but the jungle was poorly run. Through
the week, John and I had discussed it numerous times to try and boil down what
the issues really were. I shared that with Karin this evening back at the
hostel and she fully agreed. So within a week, I wrote a long e-mail note (as
you know I am capable of doing) and sent it to Tereza with what we felt needed
to be changed. Tereza responded in a few days and told me that she spent a lot
of time with Pedro afterwards and then had a full staff meeting the next day
about it, and is planning to develop some sort of tour guide training in the
near future. She thanked me profusely for writing the note as well, since she
is in the office and doesn’t have a good way to really know what’s happening in
the trips other than what the tourists tell her. I think a lot of people are
uncomfortable giving direct constructive feedback, which is a shame. I’ve
learned a lot at P&G on how to do it, which has made me much more
comfortable giving it.
Karin and I had a quick catch-up dinner at a
not-very-well-stocked restaurant across the street and owned by Hostal Lobo –
somehow, they basically only had cheeseburgers and pasta. Their dessert menu
looked wonderful, but nothing on it was available. I suppose when you’re deep
in the jungle, all ingredients are not always available, so this makes sense…
but I think it might be better to have a large blackboard with the menu or
something like that in this situation.
Karin and I each had one more coupon for a free caipirinha
at Moskitto bar, so we headed over to use it up before calling it a night. I
had to wake up early the next morning to catch my flight. The caipirinha as
usual was excellent and made me immediately crave another. The four tourists
from the other simultaneous Max tour were in the bar as well, so Karin and I
caught up with them a bit. Then Regi randomly walks in on a quick errand of
some sort. On the way to the bar to pick up something, she gave a round of hugs
out and an extra one for me along with a quick kiss on my bald head. On the way
out, she stood behind me again to give me a big over-the-chair hug, kissed me
on the head and said “yo te quiero”, before leaving to go to a party she was
going to. I have no idea why I didn't follow her out that
door. Yes, I’m still kicking myself. No, you cannot kick me on my behalf, but
you can call me an idiot if you’d like or in case you needed a new reason.
This makes me remember all of the other “you’re an idiot”
moments throughout my life when it comes to women… but I’ll save that for a
different blog entry someday.
Tuesday, November 26th, 2013
I got up very early this morning to get to the airline
office by 5:45am – freshen up, pack up, roll out. It turns out that a German
guy in my dorm room was on the same flight. When we got to the office, we sat
on the curb outside of a closed and empty office with another tourist schmuck
who actually followed the instructions. Fifteen minutes later, some airline
employees showed up and waited on the curb with us. A few minutes later, a
small bus with the airline’s logo Amaszonas pulls up and we all file in…
including the airline employees. It turns out that the reason we needed to get
to the airport so far in advance of our 7am flight was that the very people
running the airport were taking the same bus we were on. Golly gee, isn’t that
swell.
Well, wouldn’t you know it but it started raining. I
recalled that only the runway was paved at this airport, so I was kind of
excited because I got to see how the airport functions when everything is
muddy. Basically, the plane stays on the runway and they take the passengers
and the luggage from the gate to the runway in the same bus they used to bring
us to the airport. Since they only had the one bus, when the plane arrived we
got out of the bus and stood in the rain or under the wing so that the deplaning
passengers on the inbound flight could get out after which we soaking wet
tourists boarded.
The German guy and I shared a cab back from the La Paz airport
down to the city centre. He’s taking a several month vacation and works for the
Yellow Pages selling advertisements. I told him that in the US, the Yellow
Pages is basically thrown into the recycling bin by the vast majority of people
and that people generally just go on the internet. He confirmed the same
happens in Germany and this was why his job was difficult, but he was somehow
very good at it.
I swung back by the Hostel Copacabana because I had left a
small bag there, and I spent a little time there repacking before heading back
out in the town. My plan was to take an overnight bus to Uyuni in the south of
Bolivia tonight, so today was going to be more or less a throwaway travel day.
Down at the main square, I took a tour of the Museo San
Francisco, part of the cathedral there. I saw how and where the monks (or were
they friars?) used to live and make wine. The guide also took us to the rooftop
so that we could see the church bells and the vista across La Paz. But largely,
it was kinda blah except for two things. First, there was some sort of artistic
poster session going on and after the tour, I went back in to look at them more
– many of the artists had progressive ideas and interesting ways to communicate
them through this medium.
Second, one of the other tourists on the tour with me was a
photojournalist who had been in Bolivia for a number of months – he struck up a
conversation about Bolivian politics with the guide. Apparently, the practice
in Bolivia is for companies to pay you a 1-month salary bonus for Christmas.
The current president, xxxxx, was trying to buy votes by mandating an
additional month’s salary in the coming weeks prior to the upcoming election,
and both the photojournalist & the guide agreed that this would be
devastating to the poor people (who don’t have salaries so would be unaffected
directly) because of the resultant inflation in the first quarter of next year.
I’m not sure I completely understand this, but it sounded like they knew what
they were talking about so I can agree to agree on this one.
I overheard some other tourists talking about a wonderful
steakhouse, and that sounded like a fantastic idea for a meal. So I found a
place on TripAdvisor that apparently cooks up their steaks with Jack Daniels
sauce. The meat was good, but what I found most interesting is that the owner
employs three Indian guys (dot, not feather), two of whom are vegetarians and
both happen to work the grill. Ironic, I think. It’s like a Jewish guy working
in a bacon factory. Or rain on your wedding day. Or 10,000 spoons when all you
need is a knife.
The bus this evening was actually quite nice. I was a bit
worried because the kiosk where I bought the ticket was small and cramped, and
those weren’t the most reassuring of indicators. I had heard from multiple
people that you have to be very careful with buses in Bolivia because some of
the companies are bare bones with crappy buses and half-drunk one-armed
drivers. But this one was actually quite comfortable and all of the seats were
full cama: fully reclining and wide executive-style seats.
So is that Alanis Morrissette song still stuck in your head?
But hooray – I actually got some rest on this bus ride.
That’s not to say it wasn’t without its own nuances though. I remember a
bathroom stop at 2am with a 5-yr old patrolling the door yelling at people to
pay before using the facilities. I asked him if he had change (in Spanish) and
he lit into me and said no, even though there was a pile of change on the table
next to him. So basically, there’s a 5-yr old bathroom nazi running a cash
business in the middle of the night and the kid can’t count. But at least he
was good at yelling at people.
Wednesday, November 27th, 2013
We arrived in Uyuni at about 8am this morning. I walked a
few blocks to the central square in search first of a hotel, then of a tour and
quickly confirmed what the book said – Uyuni is kind of a crappy town. It turned
out that the tours for the day hadn’t left yet and as a single traveler, it
would be quite easy to get added today. After shopping around a bit, I quickly
came to the realization that none of these places ran their own tours – all of
them were agents pooling tourists into the same pool of drivers and jeeps. This
was unfortunate because I was willing to pay more money for a better tour but
those nicer tour agencies were nowhere to be found. So I haggled and shopped
around and booked a 3 day / 2 night tour of the Salar de Uyuni salt flats and
environs for a little less than $100 USD.
I ended up getting farmed out to a group of 6 total tourists
that included 2 Korean guys, a Japanese guy, and a young couple from England.
This was quite odd to have 4 Asians in one group. But it was clear that these
next days weren’t going to be the most exciting in the world, as this wasn’t a
very talkative group. On top of that, our guide Heber doesn’t speak a lick of
English and the air conditioning in our ancient Lexus SUV doesn’t work at all.
You get what you pay for, and I paid for crap. Dang it.
I was riding shotgun up front in our 15 year old luxury SUV.
The couple from England, Nick and Greta, were all the way in the back and three
Asian guys were in the middle. Heber didn’t say too much, but he’s apparently
been doing this for about 10 years and his wife and 2 kids live in the town of
Uyuni. He is generally out on the road on these tours, especially during high
season, and generally doesn’t see his kids very frequently. I got the feeling
that he wasn’t crazy about his line of work, but he grew up in the area and was
very familiar with it. He didn’t have any specific training in the geology of
the area, and that kinda showed.
The first stop on the tour was a train cemetery just outside
of town. I have no idea why there’s a train cemetery here, so I asked Heber. He
explained it to me and I nodded politely because I had lost him at hello. The
trains were what was left of the outer shell of very old steam engine trains,
full of picture-taking tourists. I think it could have made for some wonderful
photo ideas if the people weren’t draped all over every inch of it.
Next, we were headed into the salt flats and then disaster
struck. We had a flat tire. For those of you keeping count at home, this is the
fourth flat tire in my now 7-week old trip. This is great because I’m becoming
an expert. Someday, someone in a car with me somewhere will exclaim “I think we
have a flat tire!” to which I will calmly respond, “I’ve had plenty of flat
tires and I know flat tires. This, sir, is no flat tire.” Tick that one off the
bucket list.
You know, that makes me think a little, which is always bad
of course. I think in addition to a bucket list, page 2 should be a f*ck-it
list. You could put all sorts of stupid and crazy sh!t on there – like “Burn a
$100 bill.” Because, you know, f*ck it.
So the main attraction of the 3D/2N trip was here within an
hour of starting the trip – the great salt flats of Uyuni,
over 4000 square miles. From what I was able to gather from Heber’s mumblings,
there used to be a lake here way back when (maybe with the dinosaurs but most
probably after the Noah’s Ark flood) and then the water evaporated and left
about a meter of salt everywhere. This salt is used to make…, wait for it…,
salt. I would guess that the process is magical.
We take a handful of obligatory silly pictures on the flats
with some Godzilla and Dinosaur plastic figurines that Heber keeps in the SUV
for just this occasion. Indeed, every one of the tour operators in Uyuni and
even La Paz had an obligatory optical illusion picture from Uyuni… I guess
since the ground is all white as far as the eye can see, this makes for ideal
photographical optical illusion landscape. Whoopee. But it was a pretty cool
site to see and experience, but it was also plenty hot and I was looking
forward to an air-conditioningless ride in the SUV where I could roll down the
window and bask in the onrush of exceptionally warm and dusty air. Joy.
The flats were so big that it truly took the better part of
a day to drive across. Since it’s flat, there are no real roads, just the
tracks of previous trips. If I were driving, I think my tourists would hate me
because of all the donuts and slaloms that I’d undoubtedly put those poor
unfortunate souls through. That never gets old. My poor excuse for a luxury SUV
would need barf bags in every seat. I guess I should probably cross “Uyuni Salt
Flat Driver” off my potential jobs-when-I-finally-grow-up list. Sigh.
Halfway across the flat, we stopped at a large island called
Incahuasi. I’m not sure why this was all that exceptional, but I went ahead and
paid the admission fee to walk around it amongst the somewhat impressive
natural collection of cactuses. I should have skipped it and paid a little more
to go parasailing instead – the older Korean gentleman in our group did this
and spoke highly of it.
Once we climbed back in the vehicle, we continued our
journey to the other side of the salt flat and then drove around seemingly
aimlessly for multiple hours. During this time, I learned a little more about
my compatriots: Nick is from England and is traveling for a year; Greta is
southern Italian, lives in England, and just finished up a freelance job doing
social media for a university before joining Nick in South America; the
Japanese guy has lived in Houston for about 8 months and is here on a 1 week
vacation; the older Korean guy is 40-yrs old and is on vacation for a week
after finishing up some work in La Paz; and the younger Korean guy lived in
Paraguay for a few years and is headed home after this trip.
We arrived in a small little town, and were excited to
potentially be able to get out of the vehicle. But alas, the stop was only for
Heber to stop into his home town and pick up a replacement inner tube for the
flat tire. I guess these tires aren’t tubeless. After another hour of driving,
we finally get to our hotel, but it’s under construction and won’t be ready
until tomorrow. So, Heber took us to another hotel and it was pretty full, but
they managed to shuffle people around to fit us in. The hotel is a salt hotel,
meaning that all of the walls are made of the bricks formed from salt in the
flats and the floor is a salt floor as well. This was kinda neat.
Our dining tables and bench seats were made from salt as
well as the frame for the bed. Interestingly enough, when we sat down for
dinner, the food could have used some salt. I contemplated scraping some off
the wall to add some flavor, but too many people were watching. I did manage to
lick the wall to verify its saltiness when no one was looking. It’s salty, just
as I suspected.
Thursday, November 28th, 2013
We woke up this morning at a leisurely time. The beds were
quite comfortable, all considering, but I’m sure a fair amount of that has to
do with the fact that these beds may have never been used before. With all of
the salt in the hotel, it feels a bit dry in here too. I wonder why.
The older Korean fella had another shower this morning.
Judging by his rapid deployment of cleaning wipes, I’m guessing he’s a tad bit
of a germophobe. He’s like Monk but
taller and more Korean. He’s terribly friendly though. I thought about having a
shower too, but by the time I decided there was a bit of a line behind the
single working shower stall for the entire hotel (~20 people) population.
After a very simple breakfast that left a lot to be desired,
we loaded into the car. The Japanese fella took me up on the offer for the
front seat and I moved back to hang out with my Korean buddies, while Nick and
Greta were happy to have the cramped back row again. It turns out that
yesterday, they were nursing a small bottle of Abuelo rum the whole day and had
a pretty nice buzz going most of the day and it was their intent to do the same
today with a bottle they bought at a nearby market.
Today’s itinerary was to drive. A lot. I mean, seriously –
that was it. Don’t get me wrong; we saw a whole lot of really good stuff. It’s
just that driving in an SUV without air conditioning gets kinda old after a
bit.
We did have lots of oohs and ahhs all day – the biggest ones
coming from the very pink flamingos at a number of the lagoons we visited. And
fortunately, for the most part, the lagoons just kept getting cooler and neater
as we went on. And in between lagoons, we had stops to gaze at random rock
formations. It really looked like we were on another planet. And judging by the
number of appearances that Godzilla made, perhaps we were. There was one
location in particular that had extremely odd rock formations carved by the
wind – the net result was a collection of free-standing rocks, including one
with an extremely narrow base that resembled a tree.
The hotel tonight was extremely basic. There was no shower.
This really confused and bewildered our older OCD Korean friend. I offered to
spray him down using the garden hose outside that the drivers were using on the
vehicles, but I don’t think he found my offer very funny. My witty sense of
humor was cracking me up, of course as always.
The beds, however, were fantabulous – not because they were
comfortable, but because they all had awesome comforters. Our choices were
primarily puppies or Princesses (Disney) – I immediately claimed a bed with an
awesome pink Princesses comforter. Everyone knows that Jasmine is smoking hot.
Mmmm… Jasmine.
Nick, the Japanese guy, and I decided that we shouldn’t have
a second consecutive early night, so we went to a nearby shack of a store and
bought some Pringles, beer, and a bottle of bad wine. The store was simply
marked “tienda”, because I suppose store branding is irrelevant when yours is
the only tienda around. The wine was by Kohlberg and was from Bolivia – I found
it strange that a German Jewish person would decide to build a vineyard in
Bolivia, but hey.
So after dinner we had a few rounds of Abuelo shots,
followed by a few glasses of wine and beer, and then suddenly Heber gave us a
bottle of wine too (it was part of the tour package apparently). Now we we had
more alcohol than we could drink. So I farmed out our leftover cheap wine to a
table next to ours, and fortunately the Japanese fellow finished the rest of my
large beer. Now I could finally go to bed knowing that I had not wasted
alcohol. That’s important to my street cred.
Friday, November 29th, 2013
At Heber’s recommendation, we woke up very early this
morning so that we could leave by 4:30am. Unfortunately, I didn’t sleep very
well at all. It might have been the altitude – we were sleeping at above 4200m,
though I don’t think this is dramatically different from other places I’ve been
recently. Or maybe my issue was that the younger Korean guy was moaning much of
the night – and not a painful moan, but a strangely sexual type of moan. I
immediately found this 10 times funnier because he is a missionary finishing a
3-year stint in Paraguay. I guess I always presumed that missionaries would be
a bit more pious than the average Joe, but then again since there’s a common
sexual position named after missionaries, I suppose I shouldn’t have been that
surprised after all.
After loading up the Lexus, we drove for an hour or more –
I’m not actually sure how long, because I immediately fell asleep. Somehow I
suppose the bumpiness of a jeep ride is more comforting and conducive to sleep
than Korean missionary moaning. Whoulda thunk?
Our first stop this morning was a set of hot spring geysers
(pronounced geezers by Indian people), emitting boatloads of sulfuric vapors
into the air. It was nice, but I was freezing cold and I can’t say that I’m
much of a fan of the eau du sulphur
fragrance line. Perhaps my nose is pickier as a result of working in a perfume
factory for almost 5 years. Or perhaps it’s pickier because I forgot to blow it
this morning. (Yes, Dale – twss, that was for you.) Actually, come to think of
it, I think the major results of working in a perfume plant is that everything
now smells like Downy and I learned that a key perfume ingredient is from the
sweat glands of an Indonesian cat (civet) or something like that. Google is
down right now, so I can’t confirm at this very moment.
After the geysers, we went to a set of hot springs where
there was a pool for bathing. Initially I balked at it because I was still
freezing cold, but then I relented and hopped in. It is possible that the large
concentration of bikinis impacted my decision but I cannot say for certain.
Either way, I was happy that I hopped in – it was extremely hot at first, but
once the body got accustomed, it was unbelievably difficult to get out. I think
the happiest person in our group was the 40-yr old Korean OCD dude, since he
finally got a bath. I distinctly recall wondering how he possibly exited the
vehicle, changed, and hopped in within the span of about 15 seconds. I also wondered
whether or not he took a bar of soap into the pool with him.
After drying off, I laid out my towel and shorts on the
Lexus in an attempt to get them dry. At about that time, I noticed that my
backpack was soaking wet – it appears that one of the geniuses in our group
forgot to close his water bottle before laying it atop my bag in the back. This
sucked because all of my books (travel guide, journals, notebooks) were soaked,
and that just put me in a foul mood. I think it was KMM (Korean moaning
missionary) because despite our language barrier, he probably spidey-sensed my
true feelings on organized religion.
The scenery today was very similar to yesterday – it continued
to really feel like we were driving on a different planet. There was even a
surreal spot that the locals call “Desert of Salvador Dali” because of its
resemblance to a painting he did – I’ll have to look it up, but this desert had
some very random large volcanic rocks scattered in almost a straight line. I
actually thought this was one of the neatest things we’d seen so far. Unfortunately, it was a bit far off in the distance so I didn't get a great shot of it.
We finally made it to the Chilean border, where our very
quiet tour group would be dissolved. The three Asians were farmed out to
another aging Toyota-produced SUV to return to the town of Uyuni that evening.
Nick, Greta, and I were awaiting transport to Chile. Fortunately, all three of
us had gone to the Bolivian border control post in Uyuni (where there is no
border) before our journey began to get our exit stamps in advance, pre-dated
by two days. Somehow, I don’t think this bulletproof method of managing who is
in your country would fly in the US. And at the actual border, no one actually
checked to make sure that you had an exit stamp. In fact, in retrospect, I
think I could have entered and exited Bolivia (and completely avoided the $135
fee) quite easily with no one ever noticing a thing. But that would be wrong,
and I wanted my damn passport stamp.
The Chilean border control was not at the border at all – it
was in the town of San Pedro de Atacama, where we were headed. Here too, it
would have been surprisingly easy to just get out of the minivan and walk away.
While they have strict rules about not bringing produce (including coca to the
dismay of many) into the country, it would have been unbelievably easy to put
it in a bag and leave it in the minivan or even outside the border control
building. No one was watching. I was just happy that they stamped my passport
without extorting a US reciprocity visa fee from me – I had read that Chile
only extracts the fee at the airport and not at land crossings like Bolivia and
Argentina, so I think I’ll probably get away with this one.
The minivan driver dropped us off near the square and we
went in search of a tourist information booth to get a map. Nick had met
someone earlier in his travels who had worked in a bar in this town for several
months and gave him a recommendation on a cheap place to stay. We definitely
needed a map, because I don’t know if it’s possible for a place to be further
away from the town center. The Casa del Sol Naciente is kind of a dump, and if
not for Nick & Greta, I would have walked back to the town square and
picked something cleaner and closer for a few more bucks. But no big deal – the
owner & workers here were supremely friendly and that counts for a lot.
There were also lots of other travelers there, and I got a lot of tips for the
rest of my trip during the stay here.
After a brief rest, we walked around the town a bit to grab
some lunch. It’s a very cute little town and we were instantly surprised by how
nice everything was here in comparison to anything in Bolivia. It was also
crazy hot, since we were at a much lower altitude (~2000m) and in the desert.
We picked a restaurant seemingly at random and the dishes came out in a
presentation fitting for a fancy high-end gourmet joint, and the taste of the
food matched the presentation. It was nice to have some truly good food after
the cheapest of the cheap Uyuni tours we just finished.
For the afternoon, we decided to rent bikes and drive out to
Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley). This was one of 2-3 places that a helpful tour
guide told us we really needed to see that was different from what we just saw
on the Uyuni trip – the rest (the majority) was really more of the same in
fact. We rode about 15km out to the valley, which was mildly challenging for me
since I hadn’t actually ridden a mountain bike in >7 years. Heck, it’s been
over 3 years since I’ve ridden a stationary bike in a gym. What was exceedingly
nice about my bike is that the allen bolts holding the handlebar in place came
loose, which made it difficult to hold firm to the bike and even more difficult
to shift gears. Joy. Fortunately, when we got to our destination, one of the
other tourist bikers had a wrench set I was able to borrow – it seemed that
their bike agency equipped them a bit more properly. They even had helmets.
Our ride back to the town was twice as fast as we had
expected – apparently much of the ride into the park was on a slightly upward
grade, and so the sight downward grade allowed us to ride back at full speed
much of the way. The bad part was that the light was gone and we were reduced
to using our headlamps – this was fine for the pavement, but much of the park
itself was unpaved with very random issues: large pockets of sand, spots of
stone pavement, gravel, and sometimes a speed bump or three.
After returning our bikes to the bike shop, we wandered
around for some food. The town was surprisingly lively and the streets were
packed. After talking to multiple restaurant touts on their fixed price menus,
we picked a place and settled in for a nice meal. Dinner was superb, and so far
the town is batting 2-for-2 in this department. Most memorable to me was a
medium-sized very young puppy that wrestled with my hand for much of the
evening. I love doing this with my doggies back home. I miss them.
Saturday, November 30th, 2013
I slept in late today – this was especially nice given that
the night before was so sleepless (thank you, KMM). That reminds me, I forgot
to mention that KMM also had an interesting habit of peeing at almost every
site we visited during the trip. The photo is proof for those that don’t
believe me. So perhaps his acronym should be SBKMM (Small-Bladdered Korean
Moaning Missionary). He also had a small bright pink electronic Spanish
dictionary, but we’ll leave that out of the acronym for now.
After catching up on e-mails at the surprisingly fast
internet service at this cheapest hostel in town (and sending out my Week 3/4
blog a mere month late), I went out to get some lunch. I picked a random place
close to the hostel and, well, let’s just say that we’re now 3-for-3 on
excellent food. I’m not even ordering the expensive dishes, just the fixed
price menu which is cheaper than a normal entrée but comes with an appetizer
and a dessert in addition to the full-sized entrée. I don’t know why you would
ever order off the full menu in this town.
This evening, Nick, Greta, and I planned to rent bikes and
sandboards and ride out to another valley and slide down some massive sand
dunes a few times. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a single place that actually
had any sandboards left – we checked 8-9 places. By this point, enough time had
passed that we had to abandon the plan, so we went to a nice looking restaurant
with a courtyard and settled in for drinks. Interestingly enough, the town has
an ordinance against serving only alcohol without food – it seems that a few
years back, tourists were getting very drunk and dizzy, especially those not
accustomed to the altitude, and this was causing problems. Since the ordinance
requiring food purchase with alcohol though, the problems evaporated. Also, the
restaurants close at midnight during the week and at 1am on weekends. I guess
they’re pretty serious about managing the tourism boom proactively.
So we ordered a small plate of potatoes, and hung around for
a bit. A bit became several hours, so we ordered a pizza to split for dinner.
It was merely okay… so I think the tally officially goes to 3-for-4. Stupid
pizza. The caipirinhas weren’t too shabby though.
So basically, I got nothing of consequence done today. I had
joked with Nick that at least we could pick up the laundry this evening that we
dropped off yesterday so that the day wouldn’t be a complete bust, but in fact,
we completely forgot to do this too. I did take a fair number of pictures of
some of my more favorite stray dogs though.
Tidbits:
1.
Fire ants really suck. At some point in the
pampas trip, I was helping Jackie dislodge the canoe from the sand at our lodge
and I was pushing on one while he was pushing on the other. Suddenly I felt
about 15 simultaneous sharp piercing bits of pain on different parts of my
right foot. It turned out that Jackie had inadvertently positioned me above an
ant mound, and those little suckers knew how to time their chomps to maximize
my pain. I still have tiny black scar marks on my foot from that transgression.
2.
I know I’ve made fun of the Korean people a bit
on this particular blog entry, so please know that I am very much pro-Korean in
a plethora of ways. (“Would you say that
I have a plethora of pinatas?” – name that movie!). Firstly, Korean BBQ is
about the greatest meal ever invented. Secondly, Korean electronics companies
are pretty dang good. And thirdly (and most importantly), anyone who really
knows me knows that I think Korean women are generally the most attractive on
the planet. Of course, given the abnormally high percentage of uber-religious
Koreans, this generally goes nowhere for me. I guess I’ll have to go to the
second most attractive population – the Puerto Ricans. Sorry, my fellow
brownies – you’re third. I think. I haven’t really thought beyond the top two
quite honestly. It might be Bolivians now… J
3.
Chile is clearly a VERY different country from
Bolivia. I’m really amazed at just how different two neighboring countries can
be right at the border. The drivers actually stop at intersections and allow
the pedestrians who want to cross the street through before proceeding. I’ve
already mentioned the food. And all of the restaurants & hotels & shops
here (with the exception of our hostel) are really super nice inside. It’s also
easily twice as expensive.
4.
The currency is initially very awkward. I was
quoted $5000 Chilean pesos for my cheap dorm bed per night in San Pedro. That
ends up being a little less than $9 USD after converting. I’m guessing they
must have had a bout of ridiculous inflation at some point and never “fixed” it
by creating new currency called “nuevo pesos” as many other such countries have
done.
