South America Explorations: Week 8 - Northern Chile & Argentina

Sunday, December 1^st, 2013

I suppose since I had a mid-day nap yesterday, I woke up relatively early this morning, so I decided to go for a walk since the sun had not started baking the city quite yet. Much to my surprise, most of the town was closed still even though it was well past 8am. The hostel didn’t include breakfast, so I actually ended up having to wait for something to open up at 9am to get a bite. It could be that the late start was because it’s Sunday, or it could be that the culture here is a bit different than in Peru or Bolivia. The breakfast was pretty good though – that’s 4 solid meals out of 5, for those keeping score.

Of course, it wasn’t the food that I found most intriguing. I was kinda digging the odd music selection at this place. And then it got more odd. A new track started with MLK’s I Have a Dream speech, the key parts of it anyway, and then there was an instrumental dance-ish track playing and it sampled portions of the speech for the rest of the song’s length. I almost felt like this was sacrilegious in some strange way. But perhaps they were trying to honor MLK instead – after all, they did start with almost the speech in full. Black people, can I get a ruling please? In a few extremely limited circles, I actually have honorary black people status due to my ever-darkening skin darkness, but I don’t think this qualifies me in this particular instance. I know what you’re thinking and so I’ll spill the beans – yes, I have an honorary Black People membership card to prove it. The black community goes with membership cards, whereas if you remember from when Rayman and I were in Indonesia all those years back, the Islamic people have a secret handshake. Black people used to have a secret handshake, but then all the poseurs started copying it and then decided to go retro with the membership cards.

Nick and Greta had already left for another hotel out in the boonies – more on that place later, but that left me alone for the rest of the day. So I putzed around until the early afternoon – just killing time like Clint Black. I read a little, I wrote a little (these things don’t write themselves), and I walked around a little to see places like this very simple church. I think I mentioned it last time, but outside of the heat, I really like this town. The food is excellent as long as you order the fixed price menu. Speaking of which, I found a really nice place for lunch that had a steak on the fixed price menu. Score – 5 for 6.

I didn’t want to wander out into the desert on my own on a bike, so I joined a tour to go sandboarding down the dunes. There were seven of us in this tour, and the others were quite friendly and talkative. There’s Lance from Philippines who has lived in Norway for past 15 yrs – he’s a pretty young guy and works as a medical technician; there’s a couple from Norway doing a 3 month trip with a big group and their first two months were in the Galapagos doing volunteer work with schools; there’s an El Salvadorean girl who lives in Brazil and works for Gap Adventures; and finally there’s two friends from southern Chile on vacation.

When we arrived at the dunes, there were a few people there who had ridden over on mountain bikes. And then two or three large vans pulled up with scores of other people. These guys had their stuff together – they had ski boots and helmets for all of the tourists, they waxed the boards right then and there, and they had big speakers in the back of their van and played music loudly to give us something to listen to. Our guide? He was the most laid back guide in the universe. We used our own boots or sneakers (which were far more comfortable), he didn’t worry much about waxing the boards because we were all beginners, and he didn’t need to play music because the other group had that covered.

But he did show us how to sandboard and he gave us fairly decent instructions on that. After each run, we had to hike back up the sand dune, which is extra tough because of the height, the heat, and the sand. I ended up getting about 10 runs in before calling it a day. Many others quit after 5 or 6 runs. I think by spending the last 6 weeks in high altitudes, I had built up a little more endurance. Either way, with every run, I inevitably fell… I just couldn’t manage to slow down enough to maintain control unfortunately, but it was boatloads of fun. I would take it over snowboarding any day.

The guide took us to a spot nearby to watch the sun set over Valle de la Luna again – the sun didn’t set too gorgeously because there were a fair number of clouds in the sky, but it was memorable nonetheless. It was even more memorable because the guide gave us a few glasses of our choice of beer, soda, or pisco sour (I took the latter). We got some time to talk and compare notes on travel and I even got to practice my Spanish a fair amount with the Chileans.

 

I had another excellent dinner (6 for 7), and then tried to pack up a bit. I had a bus leaving early in the morning and I was scheduled for a very late night. At midnight, I stood alone on a random corner in town waiting for a bus. It finally showed up, and then twenty other tourists appeared out of nowhere, as though they were beeped when the bus was near or something. We were headed out of the city to a ranch house on an open field where an astronomic couple gives tours of the sky. Nick and Greta were already there because they’ve chosen to spend a few nights at this location, and in fact, they detoured their entire trip to come to San Pedro for this.

Basically, San Pedro has about 300 clear nights per year and is close to the equator, which makes it an exceptionally exceptional place for stargazing. In fact, NASA and other international organizations have astronomy outposts a few hundred kilometers south of San Pedro where they get 360 clear nights a year. So, despite a ton of clouds earlier in the day, we got lucky that it ended up being a pretty clear night. I saw two small clouds in the sky, but it turned out those are actually galaxies generally only visible in the southern hemisphere.

If you look closely, you can see the Southern Cross.

The Canadian tour guide lady used a super bright laser pointer and pointed out the key constellations in the sky. Then she explained how the axis of the earth and latitudes change the rotation of the sky depending on where you are located on the planet. All of this made perfect sense, but it was a different experience to be talking about it while looking right up at the sky and the instructor being able to show you directly. Finally, they had 12 uber-large telescopes set up to focus on specific things – planets, nebulas, galaxies, blue or red stars, and so forth. I also finally saw the southern cross and she told us how to use it to find the south pole in the sky – take the large axis and extend an additional 3.5 lengths. In the northern hemisphere, we have Polaris in almost the exact right spot, so we are blessed with not having to do any math.

The other astronomer dude talks to us for about an hour afterwards inside while our instructor gets us a warm beverage. Apparently, I was special so I got two cups of hot chocolate – score! He had a wonderful way of answering questions very scientifically but still in a manner that we could understand. He explained the life cycle of stars, how fission and fusion work in the stars (and in atomic bombs), how the speed of light impacts what we know and don’t know about our universe, and all sorts of really interesting stuff. Finally at 2am, he comments “It’s 2am and we’re talking about nuclear fission” and sends us on our way. This was an absolutely exceptional way to cap off my experience in a town that I was already really enjoying. Now if they could only do something about the heat…

Monday, December 2^nd, 2013

I got up early this morning to head to the bus station. Since there were no taxis that wandered around the streets where the hostel was located, the friendly but oddly shady hostel owner drove me. My 9:30 bus to Salta arrived at 10:30am and didn’t leave until 10:50am. In fact, there were so many people wanting to leave town this day that the bus company scheduled a second bus at 9:50am – this bus arrived a few minutes after mine and left about 5 minutes before. This was not a good omen for the day.

My destination today is the town of Salta in Argentina. Driving time is about 10 hours, but there’s a border to pass through and this border is a bit more formal than the virtually non-existent Chile-Bolivia border. Since the border is not open during the evenings, an overnight bus is simply not possible unfortunately.

Being a single traveler, I often have to play seat roulette to see who has reserved the seat next to me. For today’s nice long journey, a man from Salta who claims to be a surgeon sat down next to me. He seemed friendly enough, but any time I looked directly at him, I couldn’t help but stare at his nose hair. I’m not talking about nose hair that comes out of nostrils, I’m talking about a few random and very thick hairs coming directly out of the surface of his nose. If I had tweezers handy, I may have been tempted to pluck one while he was sleeping.

But instead, I largely tried to avoid conversation with him. Despite my requests for more clarity in speaking voice, he spoke too rapidly, too softly, and too blurredly for me to understand a single word he was saying. And for the words I did understand, he seemed to be complaining non-stop about something – from lazy people to people who smoke and start forest fires to tourists like me who can spend lots of time wandering around while he hasn’t had a vacation in 20 years to the gay people. On the last point, I told him that I have many good friends who are gay, but that didn’t faze him. There's only so many times you can say "uh-huh" before you just have to start ignoring the poor fella.

At the border, I assumed I was going to have a problem so I got close to the front of the line for the people from our bus. Indeed, I needed to pay for a visa due to reciprocity for the US fees for Argentinians, but I was prepared for that and had the requisite $160 of cash on hand. What I didn’t know is that they don’t take cash and that I was supposed to pay online and print out a receipt to show them each time I enter the country for the next 10 years. The bus guide dude somehow had complete autonomy in this bus terminal, probably a result from crossing the border every single day on this very bus for his entire adult life. So he quickly bossed some people around to find a working internet connection in the inner buildings of the migration control offices and gave me the website address. After registering on the site and paying by credit card, I printed a receipt and I was off to the races.

It was about 4pm by this time and I was starving, having only had a few chocolate chip cookies and a boxed bus lunch consisting of a package of chocolate wafers and boxed peach juice. Fortunately, there were two dicey food kiosks up the road a few meters. It was hard to miss – they were both labeled “kiosk”. I got a steak & egg sandwich of some sort and hoped that it would stay in my stomach… which it fortunately did.

After some 6 more hours of driving through some very nice scenery, the bus finally made it to Salta. It was close to midnight by this point and I didn’t have a hostel. My original plan was to write the addresses of a few places down – I did research this morning but couldn’t find my pen. Instead, I memorized the name of my top option: Hostal La Posta, but to my dismay, the taxi drivers here did not know where it was located. So I let a tout ship me off to the Backpackers Suites hostel – I remember reading that this was a bit of a party hostel, but at least I got a free $2 taxi ride out of it.

The hostel was surprisingly modern looking, and when the guy showed me to the room, there were two nice looking girls showering (separately – sorry to burst your bubble). Later, at about 3am, two drunkish guys wandered in and plopped down on a few beds. And then some drunk girl wandered in at 6am and plopped on one of the beds with one of the guys. Oh how I love party hostels.

Tuesday, December 3^rd, 2013

The first task this morning was hair management. This might strike you as odd to hear from a bald guy, and no, I am not getting a toupee. It’s just that November is finally over and I can finally get my hair and beard trimmed. Dear precious Neema – I know you wanted me to keep growing the beard until I came home but I couldn’t hold out that long. Actually, Asha told me to do it, and no, in case you’re concerned, she’s not my favorite so you have nothing to worry about. Neil is my favorite – any child that willingly lets me tickle him for extended periods of time is automatically my favorite, and you’re not ticklish.

I’ll admit it… I look good. In fact, if I were a woman, I’d probably do me.

After a quick shower, I set about exploring the city… but nutrition comes next since the hostel breakfast left a lot to be desired. The guy at the front desk informed me that I was required to try the empanadas and sent me in the direction of a local Empanadera Mercado a few blocks away. He also told me in these precise words more or less, “Go see Alejandra in booth #6. She’ll hook a brother up. Just tell her Federico sent you.” And hook up, she did, though that was a lot of fried food and I couldn’t possibly finish it. Doggie bag for a random homeless guy!

Scratch that. I ate them all, in what hopefully is not my undoing for the day. I haven’t really had Delhi Belly this trip yet, and I’d like to hold off as long as possible, thank you.

The hostel gave me a simple map and pointed out the plazas and the pedestrian-only streets and other sights, so I spent the day just walking around mostly. The town looks nice, but it feels more like a normal town and like there’s not so much for tourists. Most of the guidebooks for Salta mention a specific museum called MAAM or Museo Arquelogica de Alta Montana (roughly, High Mountain Archeological Museum). This museum is special because it details the discovery of several mummified child sacrifices by the Incas and provides a view into the Incan culture. Yes, mummified children are creepy, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Other than the MAAM, there was a nice square and that’s about all. On the maps, there were some pretty big parks so I walked to those. The first one was beautiful, but it was completely locked up. The second one (right next to the first) was not enclosed but it looked crappy with worn down grass and handfuls of people everywhere. I guess that’s what happens when you let people use a park?

This is strange. I found myself checking me out in parked car windows as I walk by. In addition to my new do, I think the black shirt I’m wearing is a wee bit slimming and it’s been a while since I’ve not had the belly bulge. I’m guessing I almost look as stupidly silly as Tobey Maguire did in that Spiderman movie sequence where he thinks he’s supa-fly. If I ever start acting like that, you have my permission to smack me. But if Iever start acting like this, then I think my life actually might be a complete success. Stick a fork in me – I’m done.

For dinner, I was hoping to grab some food near the hostel since I was a bit tired due to the lack of sleep from the night before and walking around in the heat all day. Unfortunately, the environs of this hotel were quite crappy. I ended up having a not-too-shabby hamburger at a place called Mak Lucas, a local fast food chain with Daffy Duck as their symbol. I heard later that they use Daffy to compete with McDonald’s (Donald Duck?). Clearly, the copyright laws here in Argentina are both strong and very well-enforced.

Wednesday, December 4^th, 2013

I had another day to kill in this town unfortunately, so I booked a day trip to El Cafayate. The bus driver, Gerardo, picked me up at the hostel at 7:30am with 10 other random strangers and we headed south. The drive was as much of the reason for the trip as the destination, or probably more so. The winding road follows a river path southwestward between two mountain ranges – the mountains below were barren yet very colorful with lots of interesting rock formations, and the mountains above were more sedimentary and had plants and trees growing on them.

Along the way, we stopped at least 10 times for different viewpoints and vistas. I think the neatest scenery was the devil’s canyons, which were large auditorium-like spaces carved out by the wind or water. Many of the formations were named after an object that they resembled, like an iguana or a castle or the Titanic.

It was crazy hot though, and our wonderful bus wasn’t working properly. It kept overheating and the battery was dead at times or something… I couldn’t completely understand what was going on, but the net result was that we had no air conditioning and relied on nice hot wind from the windows.

When we neared El Cafayate, we had two not-that-interesting tastings at local wineries. I got some nice pictures out of it, but that was basically it. Across the street from the second winery was a small salami stand that was offering tastes as well. I like this a lot better, even though I’m not generally a salami fan. But the pork & cheese one was great… I figured I shouldn’t buy any though since I didn’t want to carry it around for 2.5 more months only to have airport security back home ask me “Is that a salami in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

After getting back to the hostel and having a much-needed shower, I walked around town looking for something to eat. I must have definitely been walking in the wrong areas, because I ended back at a different eatery near the hostel which was absolute crap – somehow I managed to order a big plate of deep-fried thickly-breaded thinly-sliced beef, with some French fries on the side. It was crap. And the only thing they could offer me to dip the fries in was mayonnaise. Yuckie.

Thursday, December 5^th, 2013

So the reason I stuck around yesterday with nothing to do was because of a 3-day/2-night hike that I had booked today. I completely lucked into this trip – I saw glowing reviews on TripAdvisor and sent an e-mail on Tuesday on the off-chance that they had a hike coming up that I could join. As pure luck would have it, there was a 35-yr old Swiss lady who had called the day before asking the same thing. As I’ve mentioned in the past, the minimum for most tours in South America appears to be two tourists, so they put us together and voila. We learned later that this was extremely odd for this company, as they generally are working with clients months in advance to develop a much larger adventure tour that often spans multiple locations and countries. Things apparently tend to slow down in December, so it worked in our favor.

The company is called Andes Challenge and is owned by friends Facundo and Santiago. Santiago (or Santi) was our guide for the hike, but Facundo (or Facu, which would be a very bad nickname in English speaking countries) met me for a pre-hike meeting on Tuesday night and this morning drove us an hour west to the drop-off point. Kiersten, my Swiss co-hiker, is a nurse on vacation for 3 months. Like me, she’s been traveling solo so far, but a friend is joining her shortly for the remainder of her trip.

Our hike began off the side of the road after driving for about 30 minutes up a picturesque valley. We literally just stopped on the side of the road, selected the food we wanted to carry, packed up our backpacks, and started walking up the side of the hill on a random trail. Salta apparently is not known for hiking, so no trail around here would be extremely well-marked.

The hiking today would be difficult. Not only is this the first real hike I’ve ever done where I am carrying my own gear (that’s kind of sad, actually), it’s also not exactly an easy hike. We were walking up switchbacks on a pretty steep hill for 3 hours straight with 30+ lbs on my back. I neglected to mention my lack of experience in this manner to Facu during our pre-meeting, but that was on purpose because I didn’t want him to not let me go. But I thought it was just fine, especially since I smartly used one of their backpacks instead of my own – my backpack was built more for traveling and less for hiking. Santi told us several stories of other very-experienced hikers having massive problems on this hill, so when I spilled the beans about my own inexperience, he made sure to check in with me every 15 minutes. Kiersten, being from Switzerland, hikes all the time and twice in her sleep. I think it’s a requirement for them to maintain their citizenship.

Though the hiking was difficult, we didn’t let that deter us from enjoying the landscape. What was stunning was that the colors in the mountains seemed to change the farther up we went. And towards the top, you could almost picture exactly how the mountain range was formed as the tectonic plates crashed into each other millions of years ago (or for you creationists out there, the way God told them to form of course).

After the long climb, we made it to the pass and took a break for lunch. Santi pulled out some bread rolls, sliced meat, a tomato to slice up, and some lettuce and we filled up, and then took a nice relaxing 20 minute nap. The heat from the midday sun had been replaced by some ominous clouds. Santi assured us that it never rains on day 1 of this hike, so we should be just fine.

We had about 2 hours of hiking a bit up and a bit down across a valley to our camping spot for the night – a place called Inca Huasi. In the olden days back with the Incas, apparently this was the spot where the Incan governor would collect taxes from the villagers in the neighboring lands. As recently as a decade ago, there was a schoolhouse here for the local children but it was closed a few years back because the government found it too costly to maintain a school and pay a teacher to live here for 10-15 kids.

We learned quickly that the weather changes extremely rapidly here due to the landscape. It sprinkled briefly at the end of our hike and now it’s full sun without a cloud in the sky. We set up our tents – Santi and I would share a double and Kiersten would have her own single, refilled our water bottles from the river, and Santi started cooking dinner: pasta with tomato and cream sauce plus a few cubes of bullion for flavoring.

By the end of dinner, the sun had set and it was getting dark, so we cleaned up and called it a night. Just as we were closing the zippers on the tents, it started downpouring and rained for much of the night. Santi and I were up for a few more hours talking and cracking jokes – he quickly realized earlier in the day that I’m either quiet or I’m a sarcastic idiot, which suited him just fine. But poor Kiersten is very scared of thunder and she didn’t sleep well at all through the night as a result.

Friday, December 6^th, 2013

We had a breakfast of champions this morning – coffee and crushed grocery store muffins. Most of the bread was in my backpack. Facu had loaded these items at the top of my pack and reiterated instructions to me a few times to make sure that I didn’t crush them. Then he proceeded to take the 2-person tent, place it across the top of my pack and tighten it down, crushing everything. We had a good laugh about this when I discovered it.

Our hike today started where we camped, of course, which looked similar to a desert despite the extended rain last night. We walked at a slight incline up a valley for about an hour – this small valley crossed through a set of mountains to another larger valley perpendicular to it. As a result of this geography, clouds tended to form on the other side and travel through towards us before dissipating just before reaching where we camped. The net result was that we moved to an area that reminded me of New Mexico to a humid landscape and geography that reminded me of Ireland in less than an hour. Just spectacular.

After we got through the valley, we came to a spot where we had a tremendous view of Salta in the distance. We sat down and had another sandwich lunch, this time with lightly breaded steaks – though cold and cooked a few days ago, these were MUCH better than the breaded steak slices I had at the crappy restaurant next to the hostel a few nights before.

I took this opportunity to talk to Santi a bit about their business model and where he and Facu wanted to take the agency. Santi also told me more about their TripAdvisor rating – they have almost exclusively 5-star reviews and are in the #1 spot. Early on, when they got their first 4-star review, their ranking dropped from #1 to #4 virtually overnight and it took another 4 months of 5-star reviews to get back to top spot. Once I learned this, I immediately started teasing Santi with this info for the rest of the trip frequently saying “That’s going on the report card”. At the end, Kiersten and I decided that the reason they have so many good reviews now is that anyone about to give a bad review is kidnapped and buried in the Inca burial grounds they showed us at the beginning of the hike. We were joking of course, as this has easily been the best agency I’ve traveled with since I started in October.

The hike after lunch was another 3 hours of up and down a bit, until we arrived at a very simple home used seasonally by a local fellow that Santi knows. We set up our tents under cover of a corrugated tin roof and then got started on water and dinner. Because we were pretty high up in the mountain, there is no river near where we were. Instead, we walked for about 10 minutes to a spot where the local farmer had found water seeping from the mountain – he built a containment tank around the spot so that he had access to fresh water when he needed it. It was definitely fresh and tasted far better than the river water from the day before.

Two other things were really neat about this location as well. Firstly, we had a beautiful view of Salta from this vantage point – this was especially true after the sun set because you could see the lights in the city twinkle while there wasn’t a light nearby in site. Secondly, we had a lot of condors fly extremely close to us. Several were within 20 feet above us, but since none of us were wearing Google Glass at the time, the images will just have to remain in our memory versus the digital world.

Over dinner, Santi shared with us his story of getting hired and purposefully fired from a cruise line in Miami. The short version: Santi had to pay his own way there and the vast majority of his income was from tips. Even then, it took him a little more than two months to just break even and it’s only a six month contract, which is invariably why plenty of workers choose to extend multiple times. While it’s good money compared to what is offered back home in their own countries’ currencies, there’s a big reason why there are so few Americans working on these American cruise lines: the hours are long and hard and it’s more of a sweatshop than a workplace. The cruise lines purposefully apply labor laws from the Bahamas because they prohibit unionization of workers, so nothing ever changes. Santi decided that he wasn’t going to put up with the lifestyle and went about purposefully getting fired – if they fire you, they are responsible for flying you back home, but if you quit, the airfare is your responsibility. He also shared a story of an Indonesian coworker whose daughter died back home – the cruise line opted to wait 4-5 more days before flying him home to take advantage of a better airfare. Of course, I’m sure the shareholders of these cruise lines are doing just fine.

Another revelation – Kiersten mentioned that she had been loving her time in Salta so far, which is the polar opposite of my experience (prior to the hike). She told me that she’s staying at Hostal La Posta, which is the one that I had been planning to go to but didn’t have the address written down. Santi confirmed that where La Posta is located is much nicer than the area of town I had been staying – it’s amazing how hostel choice can change an entire perspective on a city. I’m going to have to remember to avoid making this mistake again.

Saturday, December 7^th, 2013

Breakfast today was even simpler. Since we ate the crushed grocery store muffins yesterday, we just had crushed hot dog buns to use with jam. Since jam is solidly in the sticky food group, I don’t partake of that stuff. So my breakfast was just coffee. And an apple maybe.

Today was really all downhill walking – both Kiersten and I were a bit tired, so this was a welcome change of pace. As an added bonus, the downhill was largely not too steep, so it wasn’t so bad on the knees. As we neared the bottom, we reached the primary house of Santi’s local friend and stopped to chat with him for a bit. He was waiting for some relatives on their way in and had 7 or 8 beautiful horses in yard chewing on some grass, enjoying some salt licks, and some general horsing around. The guy was very friendly, but his accent was so thick that I could nary understand a word coming out of his mouth. I felt like Chris Tucker talking to Jackie Chan, except I wasn’t talking. So I guess I felt like Jackie Chan.

Within a few minutes of leaving the house, we had reached the bottom and were essentially walking along the river. An hour later, we enjoyed a quick lunch – this time with cooked pork loin that Santi sliced up for us. Apparently, cooked pork loin will stay good for a pretty long time wrapped in tin foil.

After another hour or so, we reached the pick up point where Facu had some cold beer ready for us. Fortunately for me, he had brought a bottle of cerveza negro (dark beer) – the stouts here are wonderful in taste and are not overwhelming as many back home can be. Facu asked me how the hike went and, as instructed by Santi, I replied “menor e casarse”, which translates to “worse than getting married”. Santi had shared with us that it’s common around here to make jokes about marriage and in particular, mother-in-laws. For example, you could say “it was colder than a hug from your mother-in-law”, or something of that ilk.

An hour later, the fellows dropped me off at my hostel and I repacked my stuff in preparation for an overnight bus journey that evening. I grabbed a quick shower and then headed out to get a bite to eat. Right when I’m leaving, another couple I met briefly when I arrived is leaving for dinner as well, so I join them. Tiffany is 20 years old traveling on vacation with her boyfriend who is 24; I don’t remember his name so let’s call him Marcelo. She’s from Canada and is First Nation, which I learned is their term for Native American or Indigenous; Marcelo is the same but from Argentina.

I found Tiffany to be unbelievably impressive and I could have chatted with her for days on end – she speaks five languages and has travelled extensively already, primarily on the merit of academics and scholarships that she has earned. She even knows a little bit of Marathi because her roommate in Canada is from Maharashtra (the state my parents are from in India). I had a wonderful conversation with them about the indigenous folks all around the Americas, but unfortunately I have to cut it short to get to the bus station. Our conversation reminded me that I want to do some stronger research into the real history of relations with our Native Americans. She shared some startling things with me, and it occurs to me that the hubbub that many Tea Partiers or Libertarians make about the US being “their country” and immigrants trying to change everything is at best hypocritical. But I want to get my facts straight before I share more. At the time at least, this was particularly relevant since an old high school acquaintance had found it necessary to “remind” me on Facebook just a few days prior that if it weren’t for the founding fathers, my parents would not have made it here. No bones about it, friends – that’s a wee bit of racism, because I guarantee you the same comments would not have been made if my parents had emigrated from anywhere in Western Europe. But crying “racism” isn’t really going to solve anything either.

 

Tidbits:

1.       No matter which country I travel to on this trip, I keep hearing two specific songs over and over again. The first is a pop song with a light reggaeton beat with a chorus of “mo-re, mo-re mo-re-e-e…” – I’m hoping one of my Latino friends (who likes reading unnecessarily long blog posts) might know this one.
The other, strangely enough, seems to be the pan flute version of Simon & Garfunkel’s “El Condor Pasa”. I don’t recall that title actually being in the lyrics, so click here – you’ve probably heard it too. Actually, now that I hear it again, the same pan flute is in the song so they must just love playing the instrumental-only version or something.

2.       Chilean and Argentinian people are much more fair skinned compared to Bolivia and Peru. From what I can gather, this is for two reasons: the Andean people were able to survive in Peru and Bolivia where the Europeans were not, and the indigenous people in Chile and Argentina were more purposefully wiped out, similar to what happened in North America.

3.       I briefly heard two polar opposites of the government in Argentina as well. Facundo and Santi were complaining non-stop about the leftist government, whereas Marcelo told me that the leftist president is the first one in many years, and was going through the process of righting many of the wrongs to the working class and poor over the years. Sounds familiar.