Let me tell you about the hostel we are staying at. It is called: Hostal Cactus. I really like cacti so this is a pretty good name. Inside it is painted white and a pastel cupcake green, and it is full of potted cacti and also of gorgeous 70s paraphenalia such as a plastic parrot mobile. It is laid out like a little old motel, with two stories running down long corridors, and there is also a little roof garden with a kitchen.
They screwed up our booking so we are sharing a matrimonial suite. I have no idea why it is called a ¨matrimonial suite¨ unless your idea of sexy times involves a toilet door that doesn't close, fecal/blood stains on the walls, and a double bed that dents in the middle so that you are forced either to spend the night on tenterhooks, hovering on the edge of the bed, or roll into the centre for some forced snuggling. I suppose the last one is a bit romantic.
The showers and toilets are all in one so you can't have a shower without potentially making trouble for someone in need of a urgent wee, and they are coated with wires so I thought I was going to be electrocuted for the duration. They also have doors with nice big gaps up the top and bottom, basically like saloon doors, so that all someone would have to do to catch me in a state of nude squalor would be to stand on tiptoes and not squint their eyes shut.
In other news, yesterday we went to a Moroccan place, creatively called ¨Marrakesh,¨ for lunch. The woman who served us, who appeared also to be the owner, was odd. She was singing along to a CD in a husky yet tuneless voice and with a tremendous passion. She also flung her arms out and spun around dramatically a few times. When she brought out my drink she attempted to wrap a napkin around it, but failed depressingly. She then beamed at us and serenaded us with the chorus of the song in a most theatrical manner: ¨Mujeres!!!!¨ (that means, ¨Women!!!¨)
¨She's drunk,¨ I hissed at Ro, when she wandered off.
¨What?¨ said Ro. ¨Really?¨
¨Nah, I dunno,¨ I said. ¨She's a bit weird though.¨
But then we noticed she was drinking a large bottle of beer. The cook caught us looking at her and rolled her eyes. I raised my eyebrows at the cook and mimed slugging back a large glass of alcohol. She grimaced and nodded. And so the rest of the lunch was spent being assaulted us with seemingly nonsensical Spanish, the drunken mujer happily ignoring our numerous pleas of ¨No entiendo, lo siento.¨
Despite this misfortune, I am in magnificent spirits. Why?! you might ask. Because... WE HAVE GUITARS! Oh oh oh man I am so happy about this. I have a little ¨traveller's guitar,¨ as they call them around here. It's a funny little triangular thing. It cost about $90, which may make you think ¨holy crap EXPENSIVO¨ but I think it is a pretty good bargain. For one, I bought it off an awesome guy called Pedro, and I bought it from his workshop as opposed to one of the crappy street stalls. He was a crackin' musician from what I could tell, and he was very fond of his instruments, and they were much nicer than most of the street stall ones we played, not to mentioned better priced. So far as silly little guitars go, this is a nice one. And Ro got one toooooooo! A full-sized puppy, also from Pedro. He was a good friend to us.
Plus, here is a really nice trick: when I get back to Australia I can sling it over my back, using my new embroidered travellin' guitar case which I purchased from a separate outlet for $8, and RIDE MY BIKE WITH A GUITAR. Now that is what I call awesome.
I also bought a stupid chompa (jumper) that I have been looking for absolutely everywhere. It is dip-dyed with a picture of a sun on it. I am so happy!
Love love love
Ms. Lion
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Our Ladies of La Paz
Soooo we are still in Sucre. But not for long! Thank goodness. I was growing a little weary of it. Tonight we catch a bus to La Paz.
Still, we have had a pretty good time. The 25th of May went off pretty nicely. There were as many brass bands as you might have imagined. The afternoon was quiet though. We bought hats! When I was in Australia I lost both my cowboy hats. And I hate not having a cowboy hat. So I bought an amazing one off a woman sitting in the street with a rug full of silly hats. Ro bought one too, not a cowboy hat though. Gosssssssh I love hats. When I return to Australia I don't intend to be seen without one.
I didn't buy any fairy floss even though that was my big plan for the day. Disappointing. When it came down to it I just wasn't in the mood.
We had a wacky old night. First we went to Joy Ride, which is Sucre's official Gringo Café. There are quite a few competing for the honour but Joy Ride certainly deserves to own it despite their hopeful catchphrase ¨NO SOLO PARA GRINGOS¨. We danced to some sweet tunes for a while (actually they were awful tunes let's be honest) but then it shut at 2am! WHAT. Bolivia, you are letting down the nation of South America. We got laughed at for trying to go out at 3am in Argentina. Anyway, we didn't really know what to do after that but we befriended a gentleman originally from Kenya but now living in Bolivia, who lightheartedly insisted that he was a hustler and robbed banks for a living (actually he lived with his aunt and studied nursing), and he told us that there was a shisha bar that stayed open late.
Well, I don't smoke, and Ro doesn't smoke, but it was open so that was reason enough to go. It was almost deserted bar a group of some very giggly, sleepy looking folks who were almost horizontal in the corner. They kind of flapped their hands at us in an attempt to wave. Marijuana is as illegal here as it is in Perth, and the menu certainly didn't say anything about it, but regardless I suspect from their demeanour that they had been ingesting. We eschewed the opportunity to order a hookah of tobacco infused with vanilla or rose (actually rose sounds quite good now I think about it SHAME ABOUT THE TOBACCO) and instead nestled into the cushions for some deep and meaningful conversation. It was a pretty good time. Actually I almost fell asleep. It was quite late by then. But they didn't seem to mind.
That is pretty much all that we've done of interest lately. Today we went to the post office. It was a rush. I bought a shirt. We went to the laundry. We are feeling ready for La Paz.
Love love love
Lion
Still, we have had a pretty good time. The 25th of May went off pretty nicely. There were as many brass bands as you might have imagined. The afternoon was quiet though. We bought hats! When I was in Australia I lost both my cowboy hats. And I hate not having a cowboy hat. So I bought an amazing one off a woman sitting in the street with a rug full of silly hats. Ro bought one too, not a cowboy hat though. Gosssssssh I love hats. When I return to Australia I don't intend to be seen without one.
I didn't buy any fairy floss even though that was my big plan for the day. Disappointing. When it came down to it I just wasn't in the mood.
We had a wacky old night. First we went to Joy Ride, which is Sucre's official Gringo Café. There are quite a few competing for the honour but Joy Ride certainly deserves to own it despite their hopeful catchphrase ¨NO SOLO PARA GRINGOS¨. We danced to some sweet tunes for a while (actually they were awful tunes let's be honest) but then it shut at 2am! WHAT. Bolivia, you are letting down the nation of South America. We got laughed at for trying to go out at 3am in Argentina. Anyway, we didn't really know what to do after that but we befriended a gentleman originally from Kenya but now living in Bolivia, who lightheartedly insisted that he was a hustler and robbed banks for a living (actually he lived with his aunt and studied nursing), and he told us that there was a shisha bar that stayed open late.
Well, I don't smoke, and Ro doesn't smoke, but it was open so that was reason enough to go. It was almost deserted bar a group of some very giggly, sleepy looking folks who were almost horizontal in the corner. They kind of flapped their hands at us in an attempt to wave. Marijuana is as illegal here as it is in Perth, and the menu certainly didn't say anything about it, but regardless I suspect from their demeanour that they had been ingesting. We eschewed the opportunity to order a hookah of tobacco infused with vanilla or rose (actually rose sounds quite good now I think about it SHAME ABOUT THE TOBACCO) and instead nestled into the cushions for some deep and meaningful conversation. It was a pretty good time. Actually I almost fell asleep. It was quite late by then. But they didn't seem to mind.
That is pretty much all that we've done of interest lately. Today we went to the post office. It was a rush. I bought a shirt. We went to the laundry. We are feeling ready for La Paz.
Love love love
Lion
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Sweet as Sucre
Here's something weird. When we were in Argentina we met a girl who seemed convinced that it was virtually impossible to get by as a vegetarian in Bolivia. ¨Well, people in Bolivia surely need to eat vegetables OCCASIONALLY, you might think¨ I suggested, ¨so perhaps I can occasionally buy a salad from a restaurant, or perhaps I can buy a vegetable in the markets once a week, or something along those lines, so as to maintain basic nutrition.¨ She maintained the satisfied disposition of someone deeply knowledgeable who is forced to consort with ignorant morons. ¨No, I don't think so,¨ she said.
I find it interesting that none the people who have said such things about Bolivia/Argentina/South America in general - there have been a few - have been vegetarians (although some have been ¨basically vegetarian¨ and have been ¨forced to eat meat¨ on occasion).
As it happens I think I have probably eaten better in Bolivia than anywhere else on the entire trip so far. The reason? Everything is so flippin' cheap that I can dine out every night if I want to. (I don't, interestingly enough, even though going to the supermarket is just as expensive. Even dining out grows a bit tiring after a while.) I have eaten some truly excellent meals here, and all for less than $10, which usually includes a drink and often a dessert. As to vegetarian options - well, the salads are actually substantial here and usually contain generous amounts of tasty things like baby corn, cheese and olives that are inevitably skimped upon in Australia. The tortillas - ahh, the tortillas. Tortillas in South America are usually of the Spanish variety rather than the Mexican one unless otherwise specified, i.e. a delicious eggy omelette/quiche/pie. They are wonderful with seasonal vegetables, or provolone and champignons, or papas fritas (believe me when I say that an omelette-with-french-fries may just about be the greatest thing you can ever have with your coffee on a Sunday morning, except maybe panqueques con dulce de leche, but really that's a better dessert.)
And let us not forget that Bolivia is the land of QUINOA! Boooyyy do I love quinoa. It is a wonderful grain containing ALL the essential amino acids that I love to cook with in Australia, only it costs $7 for a little box. Here, every menu is liberally riddled with quinoa soup, quinoa casserole, quinoa pie... The quinoa pie at the Bibliocafé is probably the best thing I've eaten since I've been here. With broccoli(!) and other vegetables and really tasty cheese (the cheese in Argentina and Chile is largely so flavourless and rubbery that I can hardly bother to eat it, which is saying something when it comes to me and cheese), it is truly a magical little terracotta pot of joy.
Another thing I'm crazy about is JUGO NATURALES. ¨JUGO¨ is pronounced sort of like how an American or stupid person might pronounce ¨HUGO¨ which I find very pleasing. I'm entirely smitten with JUGO DE FRUTILLA which is none other than STRAWBERRY JUICE! What a concotion! The marvellous thing is that, while one might pay about $6 for such a delightful beverage in Australia, here it is more like 6 Bolivianos. Which is about a dollar! BARGAIN.
Finally I would like to announce that I am a woman at last. The reason for this? I like olives! Congratulations are in order, I think. When I came to South America I had a lucky feeling that if I just gave it a go, maybe I would learn to enjoy this most mature of foodstuffs in time. But I had no idea it would happen so quickly! The last olive I ate in Australia was tolerable, I guess, but only just. It came from a woman sitting next to me at the Leonard Cohen concert who insisted I would like it, that it didn't taste like any other olive on earth. She was talking out of her pooter, it tasted exactly like an olive, but it was nice of her to share her food with me I guess so I shouldn't complain. Then a guy in Bariloche let me try one of his black olives and I kind of liked it. THEN in Mendoza I tried a green olive when I went on the wine tour with Rosie and Anna and BAM! Olive fever! That very night I bought a packet of them from the supermarket and I knew I was an adult. Olives here are super cheap and they are so good, with thick thick smoky skin that tastes of wine and incense. And they come with everything! On every menu! Like little green slivers of magic.
Soooo today I went up to the Sucre mirador with Ro, which is something we've been planning to do for some time but never getting around to, and it was beautiful! A fine view of the old town, but a bit of a hike was involved so we went to the Mirador Café to relax and read a little and I ordered a vegetable tortilla and jugo de frutilla and I enjoyed it so much that I kept thinking ¨I should really write a blog post about how much I enjoy the food here,¨
and then you will never guess what we did on the way home. WE WENT TO A CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL! It was pretty great. I tried a really odd frambuesa creme thingy ('frambuesa' means 'raspberry' in Spanish, and it's a good thing that jugo de frambuesa isn't widely available or I'd probably never return to Australia). Then Ro and I each tried a shot of sweet liqueurs - Ro tried the chocolate blanco and I the ¨leche de tigre,¨ which means ¨tiger milk.¨ ¨No es legal,¨ I admonished the boy at the counter sternly, but he informed me that it was not the milk of real tigers. The best thing about the liqueurs was that the shot glasses themselves were made of chocolate. GENIUS. And theeennn I tried a doughnut sort of thing. It was pretty average to be honest. But still... great?
The other good news is that we finally managed to go to a decent book exchange so I got rid of Jude the Obscure (pretty great but MISERABLE, sheesh, what an indictment on marriage) and Heart of Darkness (blergh) and got Islands in the Stream and freakin' War and Peace instead.
Anyway the point of this post, apart from the last couple of paragraphs I guess, is to tell all those people who don't know jack about vegetarianism to shut the hell up with their fear-mongering ignorant opinions and concentrate on boring other travellers with the superiority of their overpriced North Face backpack instead of pissing me off.
Love love love
CJ Lion
P.S. The internet café is playing ABBA songs in Spanish! It sounds exactly like ABBA though? I'm so confused!
I find it interesting that none the people who have said such things about Bolivia/Argentina/South America in general - there have been a few - have been vegetarians (although some have been ¨basically vegetarian¨ and have been ¨forced to eat meat¨ on occasion).
As it happens I think I have probably eaten better in Bolivia than anywhere else on the entire trip so far. The reason? Everything is so flippin' cheap that I can dine out every night if I want to. (I don't, interestingly enough, even though going to the supermarket is just as expensive. Even dining out grows a bit tiring after a while.) I have eaten some truly excellent meals here, and all for less than $10, which usually includes a drink and often a dessert. As to vegetarian options - well, the salads are actually substantial here and usually contain generous amounts of tasty things like baby corn, cheese and olives that are inevitably skimped upon in Australia. The tortillas - ahh, the tortillas. Tortillas in South America are usually of the Spanish variety rather than the Mexican one unless otherwise specified, i.e. a delicious eggy omelette/quiche/pie. They are wonderful with seasonal vegetables, or provolone and champignons, or papas fritas (believe me when I say that an omelette-with-french-fries may just about be the greatest thing you can ever have with your coffee on a Sunday morning, except maybe panqueques con dulce de leche, but really that's a better dessert.)
And let us not forget that Bolivia is the land of QUINOA! Boooyyy do I love quinoa. It is a wonderful grain containing ALL the essential amino acids that I love to cook with in Australia, only it costs $7 for a little box. Here, every menu is liberally riddled with quinoa soup, quinoa casserole, quinoa pie... The quinoa pie at the Bibliocafé is probably the best thing I've eaten since I've been here. With broccoli(!) and other vegetables and really tasty cheese (the cheese in Argentina and Chile is largely so flavourless and rubbery that I can hardly bother to eat it, which is saying something when it comes to me and cheese), it is truly a magical little terracotta pot of joy.
Another thing I'm crazy about is JUGO NATURALES. ¨JUGO¨ is pronounced sort of like how an American or stupid person might pronounce ¨HUGO¨ which I find very pleasing. I'm entirely smitten with JUGO DE FRUTILLA which is none other than STRAWBERRY JUICE! What a concotion! The marvellous thing is that, while one might pay about $6 for such a delightful beverage in Australia, here it is more like 6 Bolivianos. Which is about a dollar! BARGAIN.
Finally I would like to announce that I am a woman at last. The reason for this? I like olives! Congratulations are in order, I think. When I came to South America I had a lucky feeling that if I just gave it a go, maybe I would learn to enjoy this most mature of foodstuffs in time. But I had no idea it would happen so quickly! The last olive I ate in Australia was tolerable, I guess, but only just. It came from a woman sitting next to me at the Leonard Cohen concert who insisted I would like it, that it didn't taste like any other olive on earth. She was talking out of her pooter, it tasted exactly like an olive, but it was nice of her to share her food with me I guess so I shouldn't complain. Then a guy in Bariloche let me try one of his black olives and I kind of liked it. THEN in Mendoza I tried a green olive when I went on the wine tour with Rosie and Anna and BAM! Olive fever! That very night I bought a packet of them from the supermarket and I knew I was an adult. Olives here are super cheap and they are so good, with thick thick smoky skin that tastes of wine and incense. And they come with everything! On every menu! Like little green slivers of magic.
Soooo today I went up to the Sucre mirador with Ro, which is something we've been planning to do for some time but never getting around to, and it was beautiful! A fine view of the old town, but a bit of a hike was involved so we went to the Mirador Café to relax and read a little and I ordered a vegetable tortilla and jugo de frutilla and I enjoyed it so much that I kept thinking ¨I should really write a blog post about how much I enjoy the food here,¨
and then you will never guess what we did on the way home. WE WENT TO A CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL! It was pretty great. I tried a really odd frambuesa creme thingy ('frambuesa' means 'raspberry' in Spanish, and it's a good thing that jugo de frambuesa isn't widely available or I'd probably never return to Australia). Then Ro and I each tried a shot of sweet liqueurs - Ro tried the chocolate blanco and I the ¨leche de tigre,¨ which means ¨tiger milk.¨ ¨No es legal,¨ I admonished the boy at the counter sternly, but he informed me that it was not the milk of real tigers. The best thing about the liqueurs was that the shot glasses themselves were made of chocolate. GENIUS. And theeennn I tried a doughnut sort of thing. It was pretty average to be honest. But still... great?
The other good news is that we finally managed to go to a decent book exchange so I got rid of Jude the Obscure (pretty great but MISERABLE, sheesh, what an indictment on marriage) and Heart of Darkness (blergh) and got Islands in the Stream and freakin' War and Peace instead.
Anyway the point of this post, apart from the last couple of paragraphs I guess, is to tell all those people who don't know jack about vegetarianism to shut the hell up with their fear-mongering ignorant opinions and concentrate on boring other travellers with the superiority of their overpriced North Face backpack instead of pissing me off.
Love love love
CJ Lion
P.S. The internet café is playing ABBA songs in Spanish! It sounds exactly like ABBA though? I'm so confused!
Monday, May 18, 2009
Varsity Blues
Well boy howdy that was a weekend to be remembered! Last night especially was amaaazing (apparently "amaaazing" is something Australians say a lot).
Karen, a girl from Canberra/Spanish school who reminds me of Joan Cusack when she´s sober and Joan Cusack being drunk in School of Rock when she's drunk, invited us to go to a Britney Spears tribute show on Saturday. Daniel, a charming German gentleman also from school and our hostel also invited us to go to see an band at the Bibliocafè, a kind of hip restaurant/café just round the corner. We weren't quite sure what they were going to be like but Daniel had heard that they were an oi band - hi Mum and Dad, "oi" is a type of punk music that skinheads like. Both seemed deeply appealing so we rejoiced to discover that Britney was on at 7 and the band not until midnight.
Britney was disappointing. I can not pretend otherwise. It was not so much a ¨tribute show¨ as ¨a bunch of jerks dancing around to Britney songs.¨ I would have liked a singer or at least a little bit of mime. But it was still a rocking good time in the old Auditorio Pachamama.
One quite funny thing was that, before the gig, Karen and Ro each bought a bottle of Coke from an old women at a kiosk stall. She stressed that she would like them to return the bottle once they had finished drinking. They recycle glass bottles a lot here, which is of course great. "Certainly," they said. She stressed this sentiment three more times. "Of course," they said uneasily. Then we went into the show and halfway through a woman who appeared to be working at the venue came up to us. Did we have any Coke bottles, she asked, there was a little old lady waiting outside desperate to get them back. I have no idea how she found us ("FIND ME THE GRINGAS" I imagine she demanded) what she was planning to do with them.
After that we headed to the Bibliocafé for food and music, but not before stopping in at little sports stadium on the way to watch the end of a game of futsal between a couple of universities. Kind of like Uni Games. Futsal is just indoor football really. Which is just indoor soccer really, if you're Australian. There were only two minutes left of the game though.
The band was pretty boring to be honest. It turns out that they were not actually oi punk, but were called "Oi." In fact I think they might have been called "Oil." They were sort of like Karnivool only with a couple of guys switching between reed flutes, pan pipes, African drums and didgeridoos. They were not unskilled on the didgeridoo, I have to say. The rest of the band were relatively dull though. One amusing thing, though, was that Ro ordered a Café Moca. Which is evidently just a mocha. What they brought her, however, was a coffee with vodka. Black and instant. After she told the waiter and got her mocha, though, he had the audacity to charge us for this ridiculous International Roast con Vodka concoction, which was as violently foul as you might have predicted. It cost 20 big Bolivianos too! I felt obliged to attempt to drink some of it after that, but I didn't get far.
Sunday night was less of a blowout. We were completely exhausted and decided to have an early night. At 8.30 we were sitting around in the hostel and I was just getting ready to make myself a pre-bed Milo (they have Milo here! In Chile too. It's not quite the same, though), but then a nice Australian gent called Tommy came along and we got chatting about the futsal game we'd seen last night and decided to go see if there was anything else on at the stadium. We'd stay for 20 minutes or so, we thought. So we checked out the end of a men's basketball game, which wasn't overly interesting. Next was the women's basketball. We noticed a strange buzz in the stadium, and found ourselves seated next to the most hyperactive, excited group of students in the WORLD. They were chanting, yelling, jumping and dancing, taking their shirts off, waving flags, banging balloons and bottles together and drumming their feet on the ground to make noise. They had come from Santa Cruz and I absolutely could not fault their devotion to the Santa Cruz women's basketball team. As Tommy said, "I cannot believe that this is happening at a women's basketball game on a Sunday night."
At first there were about 20 of them but by the end of the game the numbers had swelled to around 35, and that didn't include us as we were swept into Mexican waves and chants of "Viva Santa Cruz". I've never felt such devotion to a sporting team before. It was completely awesome and I'm pleased to announce that our girls played a magnificent game, completely crushing Tarija or whoever the other team was. When the final buzzer went, the guys flooded the court and swept the girls into an embrace and they jumped around the court for a good ten minutes.
The really cool thing is that, just before the end of the match, Ro was befriended by a Santa Cruz gentleman who was sitting next to her, and he invited us to come hang out at the after party. And it was amazing! It was held in a big sporting yard... kind of thing... in the open air, with concrete bleachers all around, and there was a stage set up with a band playing, and men and women outside selling pizzas and fried food and this crazy drink in plastic cups made of vodka, milk and cinnamon and served hot. Which sounds awful but we decided to try just a cup and it was incredibly tasty.
Then we danced with our new friend Pierre and one of the girls from the basketball team came and dragged us over into the circle where all the Santa Cruz kids were dancing. And then Pierre pushed me into the circle to dance with this enormous guy who seemed to be, I don't know, Sports Captain or something, and it was kind of terrifying, but I busted some moves and they all cheered for me! Everyone was suuuuper nice, which was exciting because we are sometimes treated with suspicion by the ladies. I think they think we want to poach their men. Honestly you guys, it was like the end of an American varsity film, only BETTER. I kept thinking the camera was going to spiral above us and the credits would slam down over us to the tune of "All The Small Things" by Blink 182.
Now I want to go to Santa Cruz because everyone was so completely great. There were other schools at the after party but the Santa Cruz kids were definitely having the most fun. The best thing was that they had to go back to Santa Cruz that night so we still got to bed before midnight! Party on.
Ro is unwell at the moment. Please give her your love and maybe send her a nice email?
Karen, a girl from Canberra/Spanish school who reminds me of Joan Cusack when she´s sober and Joan Cusack being drunk in School of Rock when she's drunk, invited us to go to a Britney Spears tribute show on Saturday. Daniel, a charming German gentleman also from school and our hostel also invited us to go to see an band at the Bibliocafè, a kind of hip restaurant/café just round the corner. We weren't quite sure what they were going to be like but Daniel had heard that they were an oi band - hi Mum and Dad, "oi" is a type of punk music that skinheads like. Both seemed deeply appealing so we rejoiced to discover that Britney was on at 7 and the band not until midnight.
Britney was disappointing. I can not pretend otherwise. It was not so much a ¨tribute show¨ as ¨a bunch of jerks dancing around to Britney songs.¨ I would have liked a singer or at least a little bit of mime. But it was still a rocking good time in the old Auditorio Pachamama.
One quite funny thing was that, before the gig, Karen and Ro each bought a bottle of Coke from an old women at a kiosk stall. She stressed that she would like them to return the bottle once they had finished drinking. They recycle glass bottles a lot here, which is of course great. "Certainly," they said. She stressed this sentiment three more times. "Of course," they said uneasily. Then we went into the show and halfway through a woman who appeared to be working at the venue came up to us. Did we have any Coke bottles, she asked, there was a little old lady waiting outside desperate to get them back. I have no idea how she found us ("FIND ME THE GRINGAS" I imagine she demanded) what she was planning to do with them.
After that we headed to the Bibliocafé for food and music, but not before stopping in at little sports stadium on the way to watch the end of a game of futsal between a couple of universities. Kind of like Uni Games. Futsal is just indoor football really. Which is just indoor soccer really, if you're Australian. There were only two minutes left of the game though.
The band was pretty boring to be honest. It turns out that they were not actually oi punk, but were called "Oi." In fact I think they might have been called "Oil." They were sort of like Karnivool only with a couple of guys switching between reed flutes, pan pipes, African drums and didgeridoos. They were not unskilled on the didgeridoo, I have to say. The rest of the band were relatively dull though. One amusing thing, though, was that Ro ordered a Café Moca. Which is evidently just a mocha. What they brought her, however, was a coffee with vodka. Black and instant. After she told the waiter and got her mocha, though, he had the audacity to charge us for this ridiculous International Roast con Vodka concoction, which was as violently foul as you might have predicted. It cost 20 big Bolivianos too! I felt obliged to attempt to drink some of it after that, but I didn't get far.
Sunday night was less of a blowout. We were completely exhausted and decided to have an early night. At 8.30 we were sitting around in the hostel and I was just getting ready to make myself a pre-bed Milo (they have Milo here! In Chile too. It's not quite the same, though), but then a nice Australian gent called Tommy came along and we got chatting about the futsal game we'd seen last night and decided to go see if there was anything else on at the stadium. We'd stay for 20 minutes or so, we thought. So we checked out the end of a men's basketball game, which wasn't overly interesting. Next was the women's basketball. We noticed a strange buzz in the stadium, and found ourselves seated next to the most hyperactive, excited group of students in the WORLD. They were chanting, yelling, jumping and dancing, taking their shirts off, waving flags, banging balloons and bottles together and drumming their feet on the ground to make noise. They had come from Santa Cruz and I absolutely could not fault their devotion to the Santa Cruz women's basketball team. As Tommy said, "I cannot believe that this is happening at a women's basketball game on a Sunday night."
At first there were about 20 of them but by the end of the game the numbers had swelled to around 35, and that didn't include us as we were swept into Mexican waves and chants of "Viva Santa Cruz". I've never felt such devotion to a sporting team before. It was completely awesome and I'm pleased to announce that our girls played a magnificent game, completely crushing Tarija or whoever the other team was. When the final buzzer went, the guys flooded the court and swept the girls into an embrace and they jumped around the court for a good ten minutes.
The really cool thing is that, just before the end of the match, Ro was befriended by a Santa Cruz gentleman who was sitting next to her, and he invited us to come hang out at the after party. And it was amazing! It was held in a big sporting yard... kind of thing... in the open air, with concrete bleachers all around, and there was a stage set up with a band playing, and men and women outside selling pizzas and fried food and this crazy drink in plastic cups made of vodka, milk and cinnamon and served hot. Which sounds awful but we decided to try just a cup and it was incredibly tasty.
Then we danced with our new friend Pierre and one of the girls from the basketball team came and dragged us over into the circle where all the Santa Cruz kids were dancing. And then Pierre pushed me into the circle to dance with this enormous guy who seemed to be, I don't know, Sports Captain or something, and it was kind of terrifying, but I busted some moves and they all cheered for me! Everyone was suuuuper nice, which was exciting because we are sometimes treated with suspicion by the ladies. I think they think we want to poach their men. Honestly you guys, it was like the end of an American varsity film, only BETTER. I kept thinking the camera was going to spiral above us and the credits would slam down over us to the tune of "All The Small Things" by Blink 182.
Now I want to go to Santa Cruz because everyone was so completely great. There were other schools at the after party but the Santa Cruz kids were definitely having the most fun. The best thing was that they had to go back to Santa Cruz that night so we still got to bed before midnight! Party on.
Ro is unwell at the moment. Please give her your love and maybe send her a nice email?
Saturday, May 16, 2009
daylight savings and sucre ravings
So (as I learn from facebook), Perth rejected daylight savings yet again, huh? Classic Perth!
Right now we are in Sucre. Here are some things you should know about Sucre:
Right now we are in Sucre. Here are some things you should know about Sucre:
- it is the unofficial capital of Bolivia and the Supreme Court is here
- there are a ridiculous number of lawyers´ offices, which I suppose follows
- it is a UNESCO world heritage site and there is lots of lovely white spanish architecture
- a number of people here are addicted to absinthe and as a result there is a bit of a schizophrenia problem (obviously you can´t tell this by looking at the buildings)
But the best thing about Sucre is that on the 25th of May they are having a bicentenarial celebration of independence, and right now they are ¨warming up¨ for it. What this means in practice is that when you walk down the street, or are otherwise just minding your own business, you have (at any given moment) approximately a 50 percent chance of being suddenly accosted by:
- a marching brass band
- a group of folk dancers
- a lycra-clad bicycle race
- a street parade of extremely excited teenagers in various halloween-style costumes
- a man on stilts dressed as Jack from the Nightmare Before Christmas
- a sudden firework or smoke bomb
- a terrible (or wonderful?) rock band consisting of electric-charango and panpipe players
- ...or any other such combination of the above.
Lion and I spend most of our time shaking our heads and saying, ¨What is the DEAL with this city?!¨ Turning up in Sucre at the moment is kind of like wandering into Perth during Prosh (minus the newspaper-sellers), except that the craziness here goes on for weeks.
We have been here since last Saturday night, doing a bit more Spanish study and fancying ourselves as people who might, one day in the very distant future, be able to speak fluently in another language (at the moment I oscillate between believing this is possible and believing it is a hopeless dream). But vale la pena (it is worth it) to try and learn anyway, because it´s actually pretty fun!
It has also been v. rejuvenating to stay here for a while and settle in a bit, because before that I don´t think we´d stayed anywhere for more than five days since Bariloche?! Gosh, how long ago was that, a month and a half? Two months? It´s been good to see so many places, but I was getting a bit sick of all the moving on!
Lion and I had our three-month travelling anniversary on Sunday. That is ... such a long time! Also, it´s halfway through our trip. We didn´t do very much, just cheers´d with jugo de naranja (orange juice) glasses at breakfast and then proceeded to get horrendously homesick for the next couple of days. (But don´t worry, we´re hells of perky again now!)
Our next stop will be La Paz, probably on Tuesday... where I am going to buy a guitar!
Tonight we are going to see a Britney Spears tribute concert (which, I would like to clarify, was not my idea) with another Australian chica from Spanish class, and then maybe we´re going to see a SKA/punk band afterwards with a German guy from our hostel. Looks like an action-packed night in Sucre!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Altitude Lovesickness
Righto so it has come to my attention that neither of us have written about the crossing into Bolivia yet, and since it was one of the most spectacular things we have done all trip one of us should probably do so. Frankly I'm not sure either of us is going to do it any justice, but if either of us is it is certainly going to be me and not Ro so I suppose I had better give it a whirl for everyone's sake. It is going to be long so, you know, go make yourself a cup of coffee or something.
Man, it was completely stellar. A righteous good time. I absolutely recommend the trip to anyone in the vague area, and the company we went with - Pamela Tours - was basically without fault. Our driver Orlando didn't speak any English (unless he was amusing himself with a very cunning prank) but he was helpful and courteous and a fine driver. Not that I'd know. The food and the accommodation was better than I was expecting (the toilets were awful) and I enjoyed both thoroughly. No breakdowns and no food poisoning, which so far as I can tell puts it in at least the top 5% of all tours run across the flats.
The first day wasn't all that salt-themed to be honest. We headed off in a minibus around eight in the morning and after an hour or so arrived at the Bolivian border. This first hour involved a reasonable ascent and I drank a great deal of water so as to ensure I would not grow dehydrated at altitude. I thought myself very sensible at the time, but combined with the diuretic effect of Diamox I was absolutely desperate for a wee by the time we hit the border. ¨Thank god,¨ I thought when we arrived, ¨a border crossing, a fine place to go to the toilet.¨ I didn't consider the fact that the Bolivian border crossing would probably be a little bit less schmicko than the Chilean and Argentine crossings with their fancy pants ¨x-ray machines¨ and ¨security¨ and ¨toilets.¨ It was basically just a tiny brick hut. They didn't seem to give a damn what you brought into the country, in fact the only reason they seemed to exist was so that you could get a stamp on your passport and thus be permitted to reenter Chile.
Long story short I was forced to search frantically around the DESERT for a place to relieve my torment. The only thing I could see was a sort of deserted looking tiny brick hut. ¨Could I go behind that do you think?¨ I asked my travel companions. ¨It's a HOUSE,¨ they said, looking at me in disgust. Eventually I found a mound that provided enough decency to stop me getting shot for public exposure but not enough to hide me from the numerous jeeps that lumbered past, faces glued to the windows (I probably made that last bit up).
Anyway this is supposed to be a story about the salt flats, not my bladder. Sooooooo we transferred into a Jeep with our travelling companions, Jen and Trin from Canada and Stephanie and Oliver from France. PS Did I mention that I love the desert? It is so beautiful. Actually the first few moments in Bolivia were not overly beautiful. I kept thinking of Moriarty´s ¨I don´t think you should go to Bolivia Caroline, it looks really bad in Quantum of Solace.¨ You were right Moriarty!... BUT NOT FOR LONG. Soon the landscape became all wonderful and red and terracotta coloured and the sky was enormous and blue and the mountains were striped with glorious golden shades. We saw some pretty great things. Lagoons that were named for their colours, like the Laguna Verde and the Laguna Blanco. We had heard that you couldn't tell the difference but I guess we got lucky because we could! The coolest was the red lagoon, which was all full of flamingos and surrounded by big old llamas with pompoms on their head, the ridiculous sweet things.
We saw one of the rock deserts that had inspired Salvador Dali, though only from a distance. It was sort of cool but not really that interesting. We saw geysers! Not the shooting hot water in the air type, but the bubbling hotpots of sulfuric water and mud. Vaguely cool although I was sort of worried at this point because my middle finger was turning yellow. It was cold outside.
It was a cruisy day. We arrived at the hotel (NOT ACTUALLY A HOTEL be warned, but less primitive than I had expected. EXCEPT THE TOILETS) really early. So we had lunch and I had a little read and a little chillout sess and then it was time... for afternoon tea! Man do I love afternoon tea, I drank tea and ate galletitas (little biscuits) and it was great. Just when we'd decided we were done with afternoon tea and were thinking about whipping out a deck of cards, they bought out dinner. Sheesh! They gave us some pretty great vegetable soup and bread. Luckily I wasn't souper (oh ho ho) hungry after the whole afternoon tea thing, because dinner was a platter of fried chicken, potato fries and fried banana. When we talked to the other group that went with our company they said that they only got the chicken and chips. Jen and Trin suspect the cook picked up a bunch of bananas that they left on the table after lunch and decided to roll with it. Oh well.
By this stage we were exhausted. It was about 8:30. Oh well, again. We went to bed. But not without... sleepover chitchat! Turns out we got on like a house on fire with our new Canadian friends Jen and Trin so there was much post-lights-out giggling. Also once we had gone to bed and the lights were out and we were all comfortable dozing off Orlando popped his head into the room and happily announced ¨Hola, amigos!¨ which was extremely funny for some reason. He just wanted to tell us what time breakfast was in the morning.
Whooooooooo are we ready to hear about DAY TWO on the salt flats? The first stop was SALVADOR DALI'S DESERT. Well one of them. We saw the big upside down triangle rock! I wanted to have a good old stare at it, but it was surrounded by other people doing the salt flats tour who felt the acute need to be photographed in front of the damn rock. Eventually I got a good look though and some sexy photos. I wasn't in them.
Then we saw what we thought was a salt lake! It wasn't salt, though. It was Borax. Or Ajax, as Jen seemed to think. The wackiest thing ever is that, even though the sun was shining and it was a glorious day in the old Bolivian desert, the lake was coated in ice. Do you know how cold it had been the previous night? I don't either, but it was somewhere between -10 and -20.C. Frosty as all heck! The Canadians were unperturbed but I was going to bed in my thermals and jumpers (chompas) and socks and hat and all that business.
We stopped for lunch by another salty or boraxy or whatever it was lake, this one covered in flamingos again, and had a nice old time eating pasta salad and watching the same people who insisted on clambering all over Dali´s desert now chase flamingos so as to capture photos of them in flight. Which, I feel bound to point out, Lonely Planet says is an ¨Environmental No-No.¨ After lunch we saw a volcano! It didn´t really look like a volcano so much as a mountain having a smoke. Still kind of cool. It was also cool when Orlando pointed out that the rocks we were standing on were in fact hardened lava.
Thennnnnn we hit the salt lakes! Well, the beginning of them. The best was yet to come. We drove on them for a while until we hit the salt hotel which actually was kind of a salt hotel. Well, it still wasn´t a hotel but it was super salty! The walls were made of salt, and the tables and chairs and beds, though not the mattresses. I was excited to see that they had a picture of Evo Morales in one of his trademark chompas (attn MAGDA and TOM, "chompa" is the Bolivian word for "jumper!") on the wall. It wasn't made of salt.
By this stage we had come down by a cool 2000m or so and altitude sickness was vanquished, it seemed. We ate some more vegetable soup and read books and drank cups of herbal tea and it was lovely. (I was reading a wonderful book called 'East of Eden' by John Steinbeck that Jen and Trin gave us. I finished it a couple of days ago. It is a magnificent achievement and I recommend it to all.) Ooooooh and the hostel and the little town surrounding it was full of cacti, which I thought was pretty cool... AT THE TIME. I love cacti.
The next morning we had to get up SOOOOOO EARLY! Well, we left at six or so. That is early, yes. That is because we were to watch the sun rise over the salt flats. "Big flipping deal," I thought grumpily. I sort of changed my mind once we started driving across 200 square kilometres of salt, though. We drove on a little more and ate breakfast by the cactus island. Which is just an island of cacti. If this doesn't sound awesome to you then you are obviously crazy.
I can't really tell you how great the salt flats were. The colours and the expansiveness and the patterns in the salt and such. So here are three of my favourite pictures from Ro's camera (mine had lost its battery by then), on the extreme offchance that you have failed to see them on Facebook by now. You can click to enlarge.
Ro on salt.
Me on salt.
Team Robolion reenacting the Beautiful Ladies hombre on salt.
That'll do, piglets.
Love love love
Lion
Man, it was completely stellar. A righteous good time. I absolutely recommend the trip to anyone in the vague area, and the company we went with - Pamela Tours - was basically without fault. Our driver Orlando didn't speak any English (unless he was amusing himself with a very cunning prank) but he was helpful and courteous and a fine driver. Not that I'd know. The food and the accommodation was better than I was expecting (the toilets were awful) and I enjoyed both thoroughly. No breakdowns and no food poisoning, which so far as I can tell puts it in at least the top 5% of all tours run across the flats.
The first day wasn't all that salt-themed to be honest. We headed off in a minibus around eight in the morning and after an hour or so arrived at the Bolivian border. This first hour involved a reasonable ascent and I drank a great deal of water so as to ensure I would not grow dehydrated at altitude. I thought myself very sensible at the time, but combined with the diuretic effect of Diamox I was absolutely desperate for a wee by the time we hit the border. ¨Thank god,¨ I thought when we arrived, ¨a border crossing, a fine place to go to the toilet.¨ I didn't consider the fact that the Bolivian border crossing would probably be a little bit less schmicko than the Chilean and Argentine crossings with their fancy pants ¨x-ray machines¨ and ¨security¨ and ¨toilets.¨ It was basically just a tiny brick hut. They didn't seem to give a damn what you brought into the country, in fact the only reason they seemed to exist was so that you could get a stamp on your passport and thus be permitted to reenter Chile.
Long story short I was forced to search frantically around the DESERT for a place to relieve my torment. The only thing I could see was a sort of deserted looking tiny brick hut. ¨Could I go behind that do you think?¨ I asked my travel companions. ¨It's a HOUSE,¨ they said, looking at me in disgust. Eventually I found a mound that provided enough decency to stop me getting shot for public exposure but not enough to hide me from the numerous jeeps that lumbered past, faces glued to the windows (I probably made that last bit up).
Anyway this is supposed to be a story about the salt flats, not my bladder. Sooooooo we transferred into a Jeep with our travelling companions, Jen and Trin from Canada and Stephanie and Oliver from France. PS Did I mention that I love the desert? It is so beautiful. Actually the first few moments in Bolivia were not overly beautiful. I kept thinking of Moriarty´s ¨I don´t think you should go to Bolivia Caroline, it looks really bad in Quantum of Solace.¨ You were right Moriarty!... BUT NOT FOR LONG. Soon the landscape became all wonderful and red and terracotta coloured and the sky was enormous and blue and the mountains were striped with glorious golden shades. We saw some pretty great things. Lagoons that were named for their colours, like the Laguna Verde and the Laguna Blanco. We had heard that you couldn't tell the difference but I guess we got lucky because we could! The coolest was the red lagoon, which was all full of flamingos and surrounded by big old llamas with pompoms on their head, the ridiculous sweet things.
We saw one of the rock deserts that had inspired Salvador Dali, though only from a distance. It was sort of cool but not really that interesting. We saw geysers! Not the shooting hot water in the air type, but the bubbling hotpots of sulfuric water and mud. Vaguely cool although I was sort of worried at this point because my middle finger was turning yellow. It was cold outside.
It was a cruisy day. We arrived at the hotel (NOT ACTUALLY A HOTEL be warned, but less primitive than I had expected. EXCEPT THE TOILETS) really early. So we had lunch and I had a little read and a little chillout sess and then it was time... for afternoon tea! Man do I love afternoon tea, I drank tea and ate galletitas (little biscuits) and it was great. Just when we'd decided we were done with afternoon tea and were thinking about whipping out a deck of cards, they bought out dinner. Sheesh! They gave us some pretty great vegetable soup and bread. Luckily I wasn't souper (oh ho ho) hungry after the whole afternoon tea thing, because dinner was a platter of fried chicken, potato fries and fried banana. When we talked to the other group that went with our company they said that they only got the chicken and chips. Jen and Trin suspect the cook picked up a bunch of bananas that they left on the table after lunch and decided to roll with it. Oh well.
By this stage we were exhausted. It was about 8:30. Oh well, again. We went to bed. But not without... sleepover chitchat! Turns out we got on like a house on fire with our new Canadian friends Jen and Trin so there was much post-lights-out giggling. Also once we had gone to bed and the lights were out and we were all comfortable dozing off Orlando popped his head into the room and happily announced ¨Hola, amigos!¨ which was extremely funny for some reason. He just wanted to tell us what time breakfast was in the morning.
Whooooooooo are we ready to hear about DAY TWO on the salt flats? The first stop was SALVADOR DALI'S DESERT. Well one of them. We saw the big upside down triangle rock! I wanted to have a good old stare at it, but it was surrounded by other people doing the salt flats tour who felt the acute need to be photographed in front of the damn rock. Eventually I got a good look though and some sexy photos. I wasn't in them.
Then we saw what we thought was a salt lake! It wasn't salt, though. It was Borax. Or Ajax, as Jen seemed to think. The wackiest thing ever is that, even though the sun was shining and it was a glorious day in the old Bolivian desert, the lake was coated in ice. Do you know how cold it had been the previous night? I don't either, but it was somewhere between -10 and -20.C. Frosty as all heck! The Canadians were unperturbed but I was going to bed in my thermals and jumpers (chompas) and socks and hat and all that business.
We stopped for lunch by another salty or boraxy or whatever it was lake, this one covered in flamingos again, and had a nice old time eating pasta salad and watching the same people who insisted on clambering all over Dali´s desert now chase flamingos so as to capture photos of them in flight. Which, I feel bound to point out, Lonely Planet says is an ¨Environmental No-No.¨ After lunch we saw a volcano! It didn´t really look like a volcano so much as a mountain having a smoke. Still kind of cool. It was also cool when Orlando pointed out that the rocks we were standing on were in fact hardened lava.
Thennnnnn we hit the salt lakes! Well, the beginning of them. The best was yet to come. We drove on them for a while until we hit the salt hotel which actually was kind of a salt hotel. Well, it still wasn´t a hotel but it was super salty! The walls were made of salt, and the tables and chairs and beds, though not the mattresses. I was excited to see that they had a picture of Evo Morales in one of his trademark chompas (attn MAGDA and TOM, "chompa" is the Bolivian word for "jumper!") on the wall. It wasn't made of salt.
By this stage we had come down by a cool 2000m or so and altitude sickness was vanquished, it seemed. We ate some more vegetable soup and read books and drank cups of herbal tea and it was lovely. (I was reading a wonderful book called 'East of Eden' by John Steinbeck that Jen and Trin gave us. I finished it a couple of days ago. It is a magnificent achievement and I recommend it to all.) Ooooooh and the hostel and the little town surrounding it was full of cacti, which I thought was pretty cool... AT THE TIME. I love cacti.
The next morning we had to get up SOOOOOO EARLY! Well, we left at six or so. That is early, yes. That is because we were to watch the sun rise over the salt flats. "Big flipping deal," I thought grumpily. I sort of changed my mind once we started driving across 200 square kilometres of salt, though. We drove on a little more and ate breakfast by the cactus island. Which is just an island of cacti. If this doesn't sound awesome to you then you are obviously crazy.
I can't really tell you how great the salt flats were. The colours and the expansiveness and the patterns in the salt and such. So here are three of my favourite pictures from Ro's camera (mine had lost its battery by then), on the extreme offchance that you have failed to see them on Facebook by now. You can click to enlarge.
Ro on salt.
Me on salt.
Team Robolion reenacting the Beautiful Ladies hombre on salt.
That'll do, piglets.
Love love love
Lion
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Boliviargh!
We are in Bolivia and it is so Bolivian that I can hardly stand it! Here are some Bolivian things that have happened to me so far:
-We bought a menu del dia - menu of the day - for $2 each. Soup, bread, fried rice with egg and potato and even one or two vegetables in the rice, and a piece of watermelon. Ro got meat with hers!
-We had to use several toilets without seats. Also: we used a squat toilet!
-I bought ludicrous stripey pants which I am currently wearing. Also a tie dyed headband, ohhhhh nooooooo.
-KATE! Pay attention, this bit is about you!! Due to automobile difficulties, I was forced to entertain myself by playing 'Singing Songs To Ro That My Sister Has Written.' She was thrilled to hear joyous and jaunty renditions of 'Big Fat Roly Poly Santa,' 'Poor Wrinkly Kate,' 'Like A Little Russian Peasant Girl,' 'The Hippopotamus Song' and more too I think.
-We got stranded for a night in the highest city on Earth (no dodgy business mum don't worry).
But I have to go and catch a bus to Sucre! I just wanted to assure you that I am doing well and that Boliv is living up to my wildest dreams.
Love love love
Lion
-We bought a menu del dia - menu of the day - for $2 each. Soup, bread, fried rice with egg and potato and even one or two vegetables in the rice, and a piece of watermelon. Ro got meat with hers!
-We had to use several toilets without seats. Also: we used a squat toilet!
-I bought ludicrous stripey pants which I am currently wearing. Also a tie dyed headband, ohhhhh nooooooo.
-KATE! Pay attention, this bit is about you!! Due to automobile difficulties, I was forced to entertain myself by playing 'Singing Songs To Ro That My Sister Has Written.' She was thrilled to hear joyous and jaunty renditions of 'Big Fat Roly Poly Santa,' 'Poor Wrinkly Kate,' 'Like A Little Russian Peasant Girl,' 'The Hippopotamus Song' and more too I think.
-We got stranded for a night in the highest city on Earth (no dodgy business mum don't worry).
But I have to go and catch a bus to Sucre! I just wanted to assure you that I am doing well and that Boliv is living up to my wildest dreams.
Love love love
Lion
Saturday, May 2, 2009
three tales of Ro and Lion
Alrighty, this post has been on the backburner a while, and we are currently hanging in a very quiet desert town with little to do while we acclimatise to the altitude... so it seems like a good time to finally write it.
Maybe some of you have wondered whether Lion and I still get on after 2.5 months of travelling together, or whether we would rather see one another burn in hell than suffer through another day? Well, (although Lion is of course the worst human being I have ever known... but the finest lover... JUST KIDDING GUYS) it turns out that we actually have a pretty good time!
So to prove it, here you are: three tales of Ro and Lion.
1. Valparaíso, Chile : the popcorn tale
Lion and I decided to go to the cinema. Just the old Hoyts, nothing special.
The english-film selection being a bit thin on the ground, we chose ¨Loca por las compras¨*, grabbed an enormous box of popcorn and headed on in. Surprisingly this movie was super funny? Or maybe it was just the novelty of seeing a movie that wasn´t a) in Spanish, b) dubbed in Spanish or c) dubbed AND subtitled in Spanish (the latter actually being quite good for learning Spanish, FYI).
So, after our hilarious movie-going experience, we were on a bit of a high (too much cocacola perhaps). We headed to the supermarket and we were still being pretty silly, racing around the aisles and singing to the PA-music. Then all of a sudden, Lion stops dead next to me and grabs my arm, points to the floor and orders, ¨Hey Ro, look just down there at that spot on the ground okay? Keep looking, don´t look up,¨ and then she lifts up her jumper and shakes about half a ton of popcorn from her shirt onto the supermarket floor.
...then we both collapsed into laughter like little children, and ran off to find the pasta aisle.
* literally ¨Crazy for the shopping¨ (WHAT? who translated that?!) but known as Confessions of a Shopaholic to the english-speaking world
2. Santiago, Chile : the piropo tale
Lion and I usually get a lot of whistles and comments from men on the street. This is fairly normal in South America when you are a) young b) female and c) clearly not local (this last is not strictly necessary but it helps). Generally it´s just along the lines of, ¨Muy bonitas chicas¨ (beautiful girls) or ¨Linda!¨ (pretty girl) Sometimes it´s annoying, occasionally it´s gross and/or offensive, but every now and then... it´s hilarious. Observe.
We were walking back from the Lavandería (laundry) in Santiago carrying our deliciously freshly laundered clothing (I cannot explain this feeling unless you, too, have ever worn the same pair of jeans for ... let´s not get into how long exactly). I saw a guy notice us from the next block, so I knew it was time for yet another comment, but I wasn´t really caring about it much.
But imagine our surprise! ...when this man suddenly leapt artistically and dramatically in front of us, spreading his arms wide and waving his hands and fingers as though he was performing in a jazz dance, and with an expression of utter amazement cried (quite musically) at the top of his lungs, ¨OYE, BEEEAAAUUTIFUL WOMAN!!¨
We sauntered on past and ignored him as we normally do... but half a block later, we suddenly stopped. ¨Hang on... WHAT the HELL was that? That was really funny!!¨
Lion attempted to recreate the moment later in Vicuña by leaping out when I didn´t know she was there and shouting the same line. I got such a fright that I cried out, thinking she was a mugger, and she nearly got a punch in the snout for her trouble.
But the old man walking on the other side of the street sure had a good, long chuckle.
3. Santiago, Chile: the funicular tale
Lion and I made two visits to Santiago, and on the second we finally got around to going up the funicular to get the classic ¨view of Santi¨ (one of those touristy things). We got a bit bored on the way down and decided to take a bunch of photos trying to get the perfect shot. ¨One for Mum!¨
After a while I was getting a little tired of the whole thing: ¨Geez Caro, what is this... finicky funicular fotography?!¨ There was a pause, and then we looked one another and in unison added, ¨DOT COM!¨ ...and then collapsed laughing.
Soon after this, I decided to stay in Santiago an extra day while Lion headed to Mendoza to meet our English pals Rosie and Anna. So for one day only, the Ro and Lion team were not together... and that morning, I awoke from a vivid dream and straight away burst out laughing. I looked around to tell Lion all about it, because I knew she would love it... only to realise she wasn´t there! What a heartbreaking moment!!
The dream went thus. I was in a grand house, owned by Bruce Springsteen (currently Lion´s favourite singer), who was showing me around. We were walking down a dangerous-looking winding stairwell, each stair more rotten through as we descended, and Bruce was talking, telling me, ¨Yeah, I really love this house.¨
¨It´s just so incredible. It´s like the first time someone tells you that the world is round, you know, and you just have so much trouble believing them? It´s the same thing, the same feeling for me in this house. I´m actually writing a thesis about it at the moment. I call it ´Rickety Railings... DOT COM!´¨
(Don´t worry folks, the story has a happy ending. Lion and I were reunited soon afterward, and she did think my dream was truly hilarious.)
Maybe some of you have wondered whether Lion and I still get on after 2.5 months of travelling together, or whether we would rather see one another burn in hell than suffer through another day? Well, (although Lion is of course the worst human being I have ever known... but the finest lover... JUST KIDDING GUYS) it turns out that we actually have a pretty good time!
So to prove it, here you are: three tales of Ro and Lion.
1. Valparaíso, Chile : the popcorn tale
Lion and I decided to go to the cinema. Just the old Hoyts, nothing special.
The english-film selection being a bit thin on the ground, we chose ¨Loca por las compras¨*, grabbed an enormous box of popcorn and headed on in. Surprisingly this movie was super funny? Or maybe it was just the novelty of seeing a movie that wasn´t a) in Spanish, b) dubbed in Spanish or c) dubbed AND subtitled in Spanish (the latter actually being quite good for learning Spanish, FYI).
So, after our hilarious movie-going experience, we were on a bit of a high (too much cocacola perhaps). We headed to the supermarket and we were still being pretty silly, racing around the aisles and singing to the PA-music. Then all of a sudden, Lion stops dead next to me and grabs my arm, points to the floor and orders, ¨Hey Ro, look just down there at that spot on the ground okay? Keep looking, don´t look up,¨ and then she lifts up her jumper and shakes about half a ton of popcorn from her shirt onto the supermarket floor.
...then we both collapsed into laughter like little children, and ran off to find the pasta aisle.
* literally ¨Crazy for the shopping¨ (WHAT? who translated that?!) but known as Confessions of a Shopaholic to the english-speaking world
2. Santiago, Chile : the piropo tale
Lion and I usually get a lot of whistles and comments from men on the street. This is fairly normal in South America when you are a) young b) female and c) clearly not local (this last is not strictly necessary but it helps). Generally it´s just along the lines of, ¨Muy bonitas chicas¨ (beautiful girls) or ¨Linda!¨ (pretty girl) Sometimes it´s annoying, occasionally it´s gross and/or offensive, but every now and then... it´s hilarious. Observe.
We were walking back from the Lavandería (laundry) in Santiago carrying our deliciously freshly laundered clothing (I cannot explain this feeling unless you, too, have ever worn the same pair of jeans for ... let´s not get into how long exactly). I saw a guy notice us from the next block, so I knew it was time for yet another comment, but I wasn´t really caring about it much.
But imagine our surprise! ...when this man suddenly leapt artistically and dramatically in front of us, spreading his arms wide and waving his hands and fingers as though he was performing in a jazz dance, and with an expression of utter amazement cried (quite musically) at the top of his lungs, ¨OYE, BEEEAAAUUTIFUL WOMAN!!¨
We sauntered on past and ignored him as we normally do... but half a block later, we suddenly stopped. ¨Hang on... WHAT the HELL was that? That was really funny!!¨
Lion attempted to recreate the moment later in Vicuña by leaping out when I didn´t know she was there and shouting the same line. I got such a fright that I cried out, thinking she was a mugger, and she nearly got a punch in the snout for her trouble.
But the old man walking on the other side of the street sure had a good, long chuckle.
3. Santiago, Chile: the funicular tale
Lion and I made two visits to Santiago, and on the second we finally got around to going up the funicular to get the classic ¨view of Santi¨ (one of those touristy things). We got a bit bored on the way down and decided to take a bunch of photos trying to get the perfect shot. ¨One for Mum!¨
After a while I was getting a little tired of the whole thing: ¨Geez Caro, what is this... finicky funicular fotography?!¨ There was a pause, and then we looked one another and in unison added, ¨DOT COM!¨ ...and then collapsed laughing.
Soon after this, I decided to stay in Santiago an extra day while Lion headed to Mendoza to meet our English pals Rosie and Anna. So for one day only, the Ro and Lion team were not together... and that morning, I awoke from a vivid dream and straight away burst out laughing. I looked around to tell Lion all about it, because I knew she would love it... only to realise she wasn´t there! What a heartbreaking moment!!
The dream went thus. I was in a grand house, owned by Bruce Springsteen (currently Lion´s favourite singer), who was showing me around. We were walking down a dangerous-looking winding stairwell, each stair more rotten through as we descended, and Bruce was talking, telling me, ¨Yeah, I really love this house.¨
¨It´s just so incredible. It´s like the first time someone tells you that the world is round, you know, and you just have so much trouble believing them? It´s the same thing, the same feeling for me in this house. I´m actually writing a thesis about it at the moment. I call it ´Rickety Railings... DOT COM!´¨
(Don´t worry folks, the story has a happy ending. Lion and I were reunited soon afterward, and she did think my dream was truly hilarious.)
Friday, May 1, 2009
¨A Blog¨ - San Pedro de Atacama, 2009
I´m in the desert!
I am so excited about this. I don´t know what has happened to me in the last few years but I seem to have developed a fierce love for all things Western. Not Western like McDonalds and anorexia but Western like Hank Williams and people flying out of saloon windows. (I still haven´t watched any Westerns, though, I don´t think. Is The Three Amigos a Western? Cracking film.)
Consequently I am happy - nay, ecstatic - to be rompin´ about in the Wild West! Well actually I am about five minutes away from a Chilean-Argentina border crossing, but SP de Atacama is West of Argentina at least so it is sort of Western. As Ro wrote yesterday, the bus drive was just stupidly amazing. Offensively excellent. It wasn´t just one type of your generic Amazing Desert Imagery, either. It changed from one marvellous desert cliché to the next. I am frankly surprised that we did not encounter Road Runner/the Little Prince. We did encounter: llamas with pom poms on their heads; a man in a wide-brimmed hat leading two donkeys from one arid and isolated location to another for no apparent reason.
Also I should point out that despite my joy at being in the desert, I have been in sort of a grumpy mood this morning and all I have done today is: eaten eggs on bread; drunk 2 cups of tè canela (black tea with cinnamon, quite tasty); read about 200 pages of Jude the Obscure, which is a book by a Mr. Thomas Hardy. I´m really enjoying it, it´s just getting to the sexy bit, but Jude is such a sad gentleman! Is there any hope for happiness for him? Not according to the blurb, so thanks a lot for the spoiler PUBLISHERS.
Anyway what I was going to say is that the desert is a mixed bag of treats. On one hand it is stunning, what with the huge sky and the big white moon that rises in the day and the adobe huts and all, ooh and tonight there is a FOLK MUSIC festival! (I´ve discovered the hard way that folk music here doesn´t necessarily mean croaky-voiced bearded Jesus lookalikes in cowboy shirts so much as it does grinning men bellowing out vibrato-heavy odes and strumming instruments in a silly sort of way, but it is tremendously enjoyable regardless.) But on the downside it is really hot. Actually it´s a nice sort of hot, not humid or anything, and it´s very easy to cool down once you´re indoors, but it does make doing things kind of difficult. For instance this afternoon we were all set to hire bikes and ride out to an oasis pool where one can go swimming and such. But it´s flipping CLOSED! Not just today but for the season. Consequently the thought of riding bikes around seems potentially stupid/fatal. Plus there is the fact that it takes very little to get stupidly dehydrated. Last night I drank almost two litres of water before bed and I still woke up with a crusty old throat.
What´s more we are at 2400 metres. This is the point at which altitude sickness begins apparently, so while we shouldn´t be too bad yet it´s hard to tell if we´re dehydrated or have a spot of the mountain sicky. Ooh here is what Wikipedia has to say on the subject: ¨The town lies at an average altitude of approximately 2,400m (7,900 ft) and visitors often experience mild altitude sickness such as dizziness, lethargy and headaches.¨ That sounds about right. So we are having a lazy day.
It´s been a while since I blogged, hasn´t it? We´ve been having a lovely time. I really enjoyed Còrdoba; it´s a fine city. We went to some wonderful markets and found some A-grade restaurants. All nice and cheap. I bought some excellent (silly) earrings. One of them is a treble clef and the other says ¨CARO¨. Relevant!
After Cordy we caught the nightbus to Salta. Salta is a funny sort of place. About 450 000 people. It has a rather more chaotic feel than the south of Argentina. And the traffic is wacky. Also it is hell of cheap, which is nice. We suspect this is because it is getting close to the old Bolivia - Lonely Planet says the same about Jujuy, which is even closer to the border. But it also has some knockout churches - I say this as someone who is infrequently thrilled by churches - and wonderful plazas. Ro and I spent a delightful 20 minutes paddling a little boat around a scungy old lake filled with ugly geese. It was a good time! We also got our tourist on and climbed the 1070 stairs to the top of Cerro San Bernardo (I managed to irritate Ro by counting them.) By golly it was a lovely sight, so much prettier than Cerro San Cristobal in Santiago - more like Smogiago. Oh ho ho. It was fantastically green and full of exotic and exciting trees (not baobabs, I don´t think, but something with swollen trunks and pears?), and all sorts of interesting diversions - an outdoor ¨gym¨ with poles and rings and benches and stuff, and a playground, and a waterfall and a big old Jesus. Then we caught the cable car down! It was truly a joy.
Right, I think Ro plans to post again shortly so you should be well and truly sated with blog posts in the interim. I think I will try to post more frequently, I´ve been lax of late.
Loooooooooove
Lion
I am so excited about this. I don´t know what has happened to me in the last few years but I seem to have developed a fierce love for all things Western. Not Western like McDonalds and anorexia but Western like Hank Williams and people flying out of saloon windows. (I still haven´t watched any Westerns, though, I don´t think. Is The Three Amigos a Western? Cracking film.)
Consequently I am happy - nay, ecstatic - to be rompin´ about in the Wild West! Well actually I am about five minutes away from a Chilean-Argentina border crossing, but SP de Atacama is West of Argentina at least so it is sort of Western. As Ro wrote yesterday, the bus drive was just stupidly amazing. Offensively excellent. It wasn´t just one type of your generic Amazing Desert Imagery, either. It changed from one marvellous desert cliché to the next. I am frankly surprised that we did not encounter Road Runner/the Little Prince. We did encounter: llamas with pom poms on their heads; a man in a wide-brimmed hat leading two donkeys from one arid and isolated location to another for no apparent reason.
Also I should point out that despite my joy at being in the desert, I have been in sort of a grumpy mood this morning and all I have done today is: eaten eggs on bread; drunk 2 cups of tè canela (black tea with cinnamon, quite tasty); read about 200 pages of Jude the Obscure, which is a book by a Mr. Thomas Hardy. I´m really enjoying it, it´s just getting to the sexy bit, but Jude is such a sad gentleman! Is there any hope for happiness for him? Not according to the blurb, so thanks a lot for the spoiler PUBLISHERS.
Anyway what I was going to say is that the desert is a mixed bag of treats. On one hand it is stunning, what with the huge sky and the big white moon that rises in the day and the adobe huts and all, ooh and tonight there is a FOLK MUSIC festival! (I´ve discovered the hard way that folk music here doesn´t necessarily mean croaky-voiced bearded Jesus lookalikes in cowboy shirts so much as it does grinning men bellowing out vibrato-heavy odes and strumming instruments in a silly sort of way, but it is tremendously enjoyable regardless.) But on the downside it is really hot. Actually it´s a nice sort of hot, not humid or anything, and it´s very easy to cool down once you´re indoors, but it does make doing things kind of difficult. For instance this afternoon we were all set to hire bikes and ride out to an oasis pool where one can go swimming and such. But it´s flipping CLOSED! Not just today but for the season. Consequently the thought of riding bikes around seems potentially stupid/fatal. Plus there is the fact that it takes very little to get stupidly dehydrated. Last night I drank almost two litres of water before bed and I still woke up with a crusty old throat.
What´s more we are at 2400 metres. This is the point at which altitude sickness begins apparently, so while we shouldn´t be too bad yet it´s hard to tell if we´re dehydrated or have a spot of the mountain sicky. Ooh here is what Wikipedia has to say on the subject: ¨The town lies at an average altitude of approximately 2,400m (7,900 ft) and visitors often experience mild altitude sickness such as dizziness, lethargy and headaches.¨ That sounds about right. So we are having a lazy day.
It´s been a while since I blogged, hasn´t it? We´ve been having a lovely time. I really enjoyed Còrdoba; it´s a fine city. We went to some wonderful markets and found some A-grade restaurants. All nice and cheap. I bought some excellent (silly) earrings. One of them is a treble clef and the other says ¨CARO¨. Relevant!
After Cordy we caught the nightbus to Salta. Salta is a funny sort of place. About 450 000 people. It has a rather more chaotic feel than the south of Argentina. And the traffic is wacky. Also it is hell of cheap, which is nice. We suspect this is because it is getting close to the old Bolivia - Lonely Planet says the same about Jujuy, which is even closer to the border. But it also has some knockout churches - I say this as someone who is infrequently thrilled by churches - and wonderful plazas. Ro and I spent a delightful 20 minutes paddling a little boat around a scungy old lake filled with ugly geese. It was a good time! We also got our tourist on and climbed the 1070 stairs to the top of Cerro San Bernardo (I managed to irritate Ro by counting them.) By golly it was a lovely sight, so much prettier than Cerro San Cristobal in Santiago - more like Smogiago. Oh ho ho. It was fantastically green and full of exotic and exciting trees (not baobabs, I don´t think, but something with swollen trunks and pears?), and all sorts of interesting diversions - an outdoor ¨gym¨ with poles and rings and benches and stuff, and a playground, and a waterfall and a big old Jesus. Then we caught the cable car down! It was truly a joy.
Right, I think Ro plans to post again shortly so you should be well and truly sated with blog posts in the interim. I think I will try to post more frequently, I´ve been lax of late.
Loooooooooove
Lion
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