Beautiful crayfish

Not 24 hours after putting up that last post, we decided to switch our flight so that we'd only have another week in New Zealand instead of two. We decided... fuck it. New Zealand has not impressed us. We're impatient. And the best part is, we're saving more than $500 by doing this. Now it's really tempting to blow all that money in our last week here. Crayfish and skydiving for everyone! Weeeeeeee! (At first I went with 'caviar,' but for some reason crayfish is really popular where we are now, and it's like $60 for half a crayfish. I don't even know what a crayfish is, but that is a lot of money for HALF of something. They should just eat guinea pigs.)

Today I want to talk about bus drivers. We've had an inordinate number of crazy bus drivers in New Zealand. I don't want to say that the profession attracts lunatics or anything -- I'm just saying, the correlation is there.

The cheapest and most extensive bus network in New Zealand is called Intercity Buses. The only downside of Intercity buses is that the bus drivers are apparently contractually required to provide "commentary" during the ride. At first we were like.. sweet! Bus ride AND tour for the price of one! But then we realized that you pretty much get what you pay for. Typical commentary goes something like this (and I am not making this up):

"Now we're passing through a nice little community called Kaikoura. Kaikoura has a population of about 4,000 people. It's not a very big city... but by New Zealand standards, it is actually pretty big. We're passing a hill over on the right here, and we're about to go over a bump in the road. I'll just get into the right hand lane now... Okay. Now I'll tell you a little more about Kaikoura. Kaikoura is known for its beautiful crayfish. You can get some of these beautiful crayfish at Polly's Crayfish Palace, or from Crayfish 'R' Us on the corner over there. Most restaurants in Kaikoura sell them, actually. Kaikoura has a lot of nice shops and restaurants. Mmm... crayfish..."

It makes me wish that I were a bus driver with a microphone. I would also enjoy tormenting entertaining people on the bus with my inane funny and witty ramblings:

"Now if you look to the left, you'll see a blue car. I really like that color of blue. That's the color I was thinking of painting my bathroom. But then I ended up going with a nice bright yellow. I like yellow, it really perks up the room. It wakes me up in the morning when I'm getting ready for work. Sometimes I'll go to the other bathroom though, if my husband is in that bathroom, and it's just not the same..."

ANYway. So that is a typical bus ride for us down here. But TODAY! Today we got a driver who, I'm just guessing here, graduated top of the class in bus driving school. He first really pissed me off when, while boarding the bus, he told us we were not allowed to get on the bus with any food. Having just spent $50 on groceries, we really did not want to put the groceries with the luggage and have it get all squished. He nevertheless INSISTED, and did not believe me when I said I would not eat on the bus, because apparently I'm 2 years old and can't be trusted with food.

The bus ended up breaking down halfway through our ride. (At this point he further sealed himself onto my shit list by pulling out a sandwich from his GIANT lunchbox while waiting for the new bus to arrive. So much for "no food on the bus.") We milled about for a while, switched to the new bus, and finally continued on our way. When we arrived at our destination, he shouted something to us about our bus connections, but half of us couldn't make out what he said because he didn't turn off the bus before shouting at us. So, after getting off the bus, a bunch of us crowded around him to ask questions. Apparently this was too much for him to handle. He freaks out and screams: "Can everyone PLEASE just give me FIVE MINUTES!!! I've been under a LOT OF PRESSURE!!!!!!!!!" and walks away.

And everyone just stares silently before breaking out into giggles. Wow. I think "I'm under a lot of pressure" is going to be my new response to everything for a while.

Looking forward to being in a place where I have no fucking clue what the driver is saying.

New Zealand as!

Helloooo from the land of the Hobbits! I apologize for not posting sooner. Not to point fingers or anything, but this time I have a legitimate excuse. Technology has completely failed us on this trip - after having to replace 2 credit cards, the Kindle, and Ross's phone, now the hard drive of our laptop decided to just die for no reason. ACK. Once we got that fixed, we discovered that the internet here is SO EXPENSIVE that it feels like we're spending half our budget just to stalk people on Facebook ($2 for 20 minutes? Are you joking me?). All of that is to say that I haven't spent a lot of time on the computer since we've come here, and it feels very wrong. I'm not sure how people here cope. Don't they long to waste their lives away watching videos of cats playing the piano?

Okay, enough with the excuses. I'm finding New Zealand a bit difficult to write about because (not to mince words) I've found it a bit boring here. That is the last thing I expected to write about a country that several people have called the most beautiful place on Earth. The problem is, I think during this trip I've become addicted to traveling to places that are culturally very different. In South America, just the act of getting somewhere was fun and interesting because it was all so new, which made the actual destination almost not matter. On the bus, you'd see a guy with a guinea pig on his lap, or a grandma with a very tall bowler hat pinned to the top of her head, and you'd already be happy. Every interaction was fun, albeit frustrating at times. But here, that part of it is gone, so the destination is all you have. And destinations, no matter how good they are, are often a bit disappointing. (Wow, I'm so optimistic.) Of course, New Zealand has been pretty, even stunning at times, but that pales in comparison to the excitement of trying to travel and live in an entirely different world. In light of that, for the rest of this trip we've decided to extend our stay in Asia and shorten the amount of time spent in Europe. I think our wallets will also approve of this decision.

There have also been a lot of little annoyances here and there that aren't a big deal on their own, but have started to add up. For example, there are lots of pointless signs everywhere. While standing next to a tractor, we saw a giant, official-looking sign saying "MULTIPLE HAZARD AREA." No shit? It's a tractor. First of all, if you can't figure out that a tractor is a multiple hazard area, then you deserve whatever's coming to you. We should just let nature take its course on that one. And second, everywhere is a multiple hazard area. A plane could crash into our dorm RIGHT NOW. EVERYBODY PANIC! What a waste of time and money. I feel that no one in South America would have deemed it necessary to put up such a sign. (Also seen anywhere where there are forklifts: "Warning: Forklifts in Use!" What am I supposed to do with this information? "Oh, a forklift is in use... RUN!!")

Other annoyances deserving mention: mosquitoes and sandflies are everywhere. Fortunately they go for Ross first, so I've been spared. It's also EXTREMELY touristy. If I see one more hippie with dreads and flowy pants playing guitar while waiting for a bus, I'm going to go all multiple hazard on his ass. There also seems to be an almost blind veneration of all things Maori. Learning about their history is fine and everything, but putting a sign up in a museum saying "This rock is imbued with a spiritual essence" without qualifying it with the phrase "According to Maori beliefs" is a bit much. And I really don't need to know the Maori names for everything. "This cereal is known as Te Koutou Pehea Haere Ra in the Maori language!" No. Let it go, man. Just let it go.

Anyway, now that I've bitched my little heart out, I feel better. All of that negative stuff aside, we've seen some cool stuff here. My favorite so far has been "blackwater rafting" in an innertube through the Waitomo Caves, a series of underground caves that have glowworms in them.

Once we were in the caves, our guides confessed that they're actually not glowworms, they're the larvae of flies... which make them maggots. It is their intestines that glow in the dark when they're hungry ("Shiny maggot shit!" our guides delightfully informed us). They extend little strings underneath them ("maggot snot!") with which they catch insects. They live in this stage for about 60 days, and then they hatch into flies that don't have mouths or stomachs. But they don't mind that too much because, as flies, they live 3 days, just long enough to have a lot of sex and lay a lot of eggs, and then they starve to death. Basically, they are one of the most badass animals of all time. Getting into the caves required a bit of agility - at one point we had to jump backwards, in our tubes, off of a small waterfall - but it paid off. Once we got inside, we turned off our headlamps and silently floated in the pitch black darkness, illuminated only by the galaxy of glowing maggots above us. Magical.

We also did our first winery tour here. We rented bikes and rode around from vinyard to vinyard and they just gave us free wine for some reason! Oh wait, it's because we ended up buying 2 bottles and giving them $40 anyway. Damn sneaky wineries. Either way, it was fun, even though my butt is still hurting 2 days later because of the awful saddles on our rental bikes. I'm pretty sure we've sustained some permanent butt damage and I would definitely sue if it weren't for all this wine dulling the pain. Damn sneaky bike rentals.

Maybe things will get better as we explore the interior of the south island, as that is supposed to be much more beautiful than the north island. We'll see. We have another 2 weeks here, then Bali!

Pictures coming soon.

The end of South America

We've spent the last 4 days at El Calafate, visiting Glacier Perito Moreno. Our guidebook described this glacier as "suspenseful," "exceptional," "neck hairs rise a-tingling," "spectacular," "existential experience," and "orgasmic." (Okay, maybe I made one of those up.) As a result of all the high praise, we went 500km and 4 days out of our way to see this glacier. And yeah, it was a pretty sweet glacier, but at the end of the day it was still just a glacier. From now on I'm never trusting anyone who calls a glacier an existential experience.

Now we're at the EEEND OF THE WOOOOOORLD!! (Please insert a grandiose hand gesture worthy of the end of the world every time this phrase is read.)

The EEEND OF THE WOOOOORLD happens to be Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost city in the world. We are here after one horrible 12-hour bus ride on which we endured 4 immigration stops, 2 police checks, a ferry ride, and one bathroom disaster. I won't go into details, but said disaster involved me innocently sitting down on the toilet to pee, just as the toilet inexplicably decided that it would be fun to gush water up at that exact moment, spraying pee and water and god knows what else all over me and the rest of the bathroom in quite an enthusiastic manner. I then had to explain to the bus attendant in Spanish that the toilet was "malfunctioning" (a drastic understatement, in my opinion), which caused him to walk to the bathroom, open the door, and just stand there, staring in horror. Understandable, really. And that is how I arrived at the EEEND OF THE WOOOOORLD smelling like urine and sadness.

The EEEND OF THE WOOOOORLD is also the end of our time in South America. It's been a fun ride, but I'm looking forward to getting to New Zealand. One can only spend so much time in a place where American 80's music is still so ubiquitous. If I hear "Lady in Red" one more time this week, I'm going to lose it.

So, since we're saying goodbye to our South American lives and heading into a whole different world, I thought it would be fun to do a comparison of North and South America. I've tried to stick to cultural aspects only, leaving out parts of life here that are a result of differences in wealth.

Things South America Has That I Wish North America Had:

1. Snack and Fruit Stands. Because walking all the way to a store just for some gum is annoying when you're as lazy as I am.

2. Stray dogs. They've been a common theme all throughout South America, and it's made me realize that we have no stray dogs in North America because they're put down. We like to think we're so humane in North America, but I think it's more cruel to kill them than to let them live their lives, however those lives may turn out. They have a good system down here: catch them and neuter them, then let them go on their merry doggy way. And it seems that, for the most part, the strays seem quite happy to run around, play with other strays, and hang out with people. We've had so many fun and touching experiences bonding with friendly mutts that it's a shame there aren't any back home. Life is just more interesting with random Dogosaurus encounters.

3. Pastry shops. In the U.S. we're basically limited to donut shops and, in Canada, the slightly more varied Tim Horton's. I think if a native Argentine were to visit Tim Horton's, they'd be appalled. Down here, on every corner there are pastry shops with real, homemade, absolutely scrumptious sweets. I don't understand why this sort of thing isn't more widespread in our society, the most obese in the world. I'm going to miss everything about them.

4. Llamas. No explanation necessary.

5. Passionfruit juice. Probably the most delicious juice I've ever tried.

6. Coca tea. I didn't believe in it at first, but I came to really love it, especially when we were at high altitudes. It's tasty, it decreases hunger and fatigue, it's good for altitude sickness, and it has no side effects. Why can't we get any in North America? Oh right, because drugs are bad, mmkay, and the only way to stop people doing them is to make them illegal. Right. Nailed it. And on that note...

7. Prescription medicines. Many medicines that are only available by visiting a doctor in North America are over-the-counter down here. This includes things like coldsore medicine. Who in their right mind would abuse coldsore medicine, or use it for anything other than its intended purpose? Why is it necessary to make it prescription? We have less freedom than Peruvians do, where medicines are concerned. This strikes me as really sad.

8. Dancing zebras. Hilarious government mandates are tragically under-utilized in North America.

Things North America Has That I Wish South America Had:

1. Vegetables. People down here don't seem to view them as a necessary part of meals. They are rarely on any menu, even though they're obviously available in grocery stores. I am not usually a health nut, but down here I've been craving them constantly. I particularly miss sweetcorn. And, similarly...

2. A variety of foods in general. I never realized that variety of food was so important to me until we had to eat Peruvian food for 7 weeks and I nearly killed myself. It's been driving me insane that I can't have curry, or sushi, or pad thai, or burritos, or won ton soup any time I want. I think that people here are satisfied with the food of their own culture because they're used to it. It reminds me of my grandparents, who moved from Russia to the states when they were in their 50s. Even though they can have any type of food any time they want, they only eat Russian food that they cook at home because they simply don't want any other type of food. I can't relate to this at all.

3. Sane traffic. I like that people follow traffic rules back home. It allows me to not die much more easily.

4. Line chefs. The service was extremely slow everywhere we've been except Argentina because in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, there were no line chefs or pre-preparation. This was great because every meal was freshly made, but incredibly frustrating for someone as impatient as me. Every meal took at least half an hour to be made. "AGGGGH, WHY CAN'T THEY GO FASTER!!!" was probably the most common thing I said in those countries.

5. Set prices. I'm really, really bad at bargaining. I find it incredibly draining. I appreciate just being told a price and paying it. Done. No arguing, no conflict, no feeling ripped off. I'm not entirely sure why this practice is prevalent in any culture.

6. Street signs. I'm especially frustrated at Argentina for not having many street signs, even though it's such a modern country in so many ways. Even in Peru they managed to paint the names of the streets on the walls of buildings occasionally, even if it was just an afterthought. It's as if the names of the streets are purposely kept secret and passed down from generation to generation just to fuck with tourists.

I'm not sure what it says about me that most of these were about food, but there you go.

We're flying out to New Zealand on Friday. I'm excited!

Penguins!

Yesterday we went to see penguins.



We knew that these penguins lived on the beach, but we were shocked to see that they actually make their homes in the surrounding desert! They dig little nests in the ground with their feet. After waddling to the ocean and hunting for fish, they waddle back to their nests to feed their chicks. There is nothing more surreal than walking through a desert and seeing hundreds of penguins sticking out of holes in the dirt, or hiding under spiky bushes. Or, even better, standing right next to a guanaco (same family as llamas):





Nothing in the world is cuter than penguins. NOTHING. The comedian Jim Gaffigan once raved that bacon is so good, that when they want to make other foods better, they wrap it in bacon. Likewise, I think penguins are the bacon of the animal world. If you want to make anything better, get a penguin. Weddings, birthday parties, funerals - all could be made exponentially more fun by adding just a single penguin.  Even the way they poop is cute. They lean over a bit, pause, and suddenly a little green blob flies out and lands about 6 inches behind them. Pbbt! Done. Penguins don't fuck around.



We were also surprised to find out that penguins make braying sounds, just like donkeys. I had no idea - but then, penguins like to keep people guessing like that. You can never predict penguins. They are like ninjas.



I think it's pretty obvious that this has been the best part of our trip so far. Even the jungle doesn't compare, because there were no penguins. Get on that, JUNGLE.

You better look at these pictures, unless you want to be totally lame and not see any more penguins.

Argentina, Redeemed

Just when I was prepared to hate Argentina and everything it stands for, it turns around and becomes AWESOME. It's beautiful, there's tons to see, and the taxis actually have meters! It's such a relief to not have to engage in a battle of wits with the driver every time you have to take a cab somewhere. (I inevitably lose.) As great as it's been, though, we've been trying to get through it quite quickly because we're a bit tired of South America. I'm ready for some Kiwis. So the last 3 weeks have been a blur of activity - we've been to Iguazu Falls, Buenos Aires, and the delightfully palindromic Neuquen, home to the fossils of the world's largest dinosaurs (bigger than the T. rex!) and 100-million-year-old dinosaur footprints. As evolution nerds, there's no way we could pass that up.

(Note: if 3 cities in 3 weeks doesn't exactly sound like a "blur of activity," please remember that getting anywhere in Argentina usually requires a 20-hour overnight bus ride, effectively ensuring that every move takes us 2 days. Looking forward to New Zealand, which is 10 times smaller.)

There's not much to say about Iguazu Falls except that they were stunningly beautiful.



(Pictures couldn't possibly do them any justice, but to see our attempts, click here.)

Buenos Aires was a ridiculously fun city. Everything people do there, they do to the absolute extreme, with a lust for life that is contagious and exciting. It's beautiful, sophisticated, and vibrant in a way that I haven't experienced before. People routinely eat dinner at 10pm, get drinks at 12, and party til 7am. I'm not entirely sure how these people hold down jobs. Then there are the endless amazing restaurants, pubs, and free music shows, as well as beautiful architecture, tons of museums, and chic cafes. The people are gorgeous and almost too well-dressed. Add to that an almost obsessive penchant for drinking yerba mate out of little gourds and dancing tango at every possible opportunity, and it adds up to a place that sucks you in and doesn't easily let go.

We spent the first 4 days in a cute, upscale suburb called Palermo Viejo, not doing much except shopping, strolling around and EATING. Being a vegetarian here simply doesn't work (unless you're okay with getting scurvy), so we temporarily abandoned that plan and ended up switching to the other extreme, as you do. We ate steak almost every night we were in the city, and can I just say, HOLY FUCK, steak here is good. If there was ever a place to fall off the veggie wagon, this was the place to do it. I like to think that all of our steaks came from the same cow, so not much harm done, right...? =/



The next 4 days we were in San Telmo, just outside the city center. This neighborhood was a lot grungier. Dumpster diving takes on a whole new meaning here -- we saw several homeless guys with trash-filled sacks literally the size of cars, precariously balanced on carts. On every block, we had to dodge several piles of dog poop, as well as dripping air conditioners. Graffiti and trash decorated the streets instead of trees. The seedy underbelly of the city could definitely be felt here.



However, San Telmo is home to the San Telmo Sunday Market, one of my favorite parts of the whole city. The market is devoted to local artists' crafts, so everything was wonderfully creative, handmade, and cheap. The atmosphere was dizzyingly energetic - it felt like half the city was milling about here. Amidst all this, we stumbled upon an unbearably cute elderly couple dancing tango, surrounded by crowds of people. The man donned an old suit and a sideways hat, and shuffled around so smoothly that he could've probably done it in his sleep. SO ADORABLE. A few minutes later I came upon a drumming band, rocking out in the middle of the market so hard that it made my heart explode a bit. I gave them 10 pesos for exploding my heart and rocked out with them for 4 or 5 songs, reluctant to leave. LOVED being here. So much life.

The other experience I will never forget was seeing a tango show at a small restaurant downtown. We chose to go to a casual, cheap show because we didn't want to have to make reservations (I'm lazy), and I'm so glad we did. We turned out to be the only tourists there, so it was a brief glimpse into true Argentine culture. Everyone sang along with the classic Argentine songs the singer performed (perhaps almost too passionately at times), and in the end, many people got up to dance amidst the dinner tables. You see so many things when you travel that are simply for the benefit of tourists, an exaggerated caricature of their culture, that when you see something real like this, it's beautiful and very touching.

(We didn't take nearly enough photos of Buenos Aires, but to see a few more pictures, click here.)

Neuquen seemed like a tiny, quaint little city after Buenos Aires. We did a day-trip from there to Villa El Chocon to see a museum housing the bones of the gigantic dinosaur (literally, it's called Gigantosaurus carolinii) and some dinosaur footprints by the nearby lake. Due to a scheduling mishap, we ended up with about 8 hours in which to see the museum and the footprints, so for a while there, it seemed like it was going to be a day filled with lots of thumb-twiddling. We took as long as we possibly could in the museum, reading every sign, in Spanish and in English, and then drank coffee as slowly as we could to stretch the time before starting our walk to the lake.



(Dinosaur footprints are quite hard to photograph because they blend in so well. They were about 2 feet across, astonishingly big.)



As we walked, a dog suddenly appeared, sprinting towards us, happy as a clam and jumping all over us with uncontrollable glee. He was so immediately and unnervingly friendly, that at first we got a bit scared because we thought maybe he had rabies. We pushed him off of us and kept walking as fast as possible, hoping he wouldn't bite our faces off. But as we walked, it became obvious that he wasn't rabid, he was just an unnaturally social and happy dog. He ran in front of us, and then behind us, and then around us, and then into the surrounding fields and back, his energy and curiosity entirely inexhaustible. We couldn't figure out if he was stray or not - his coat was clean and his teeth looked healthy. We ended up naming him Dogosaurus.

Dogosaurus walked with us all the way to the lake, came with us to see the dinosaur footprints, hung out on the beach with us, and then walked back with us. As the day drew nearer to its end, we desperately hoped he would find his way home so we wouldn't have to abandon him as our bus drove away. But he didn't -- he waited for us for an hour outside of a restaurant, and then followed us back into town and waited at the bus stop with us. Just as we were preparing to say our tearful goodbyes and feel like monsters for abandoning the cutest dog of all time, Dogosaurus disappeared! I guess he knew that tearful goodbyes were coming and wanted to avoid the awkwardness. That's how I usually avoid those types of situations too.

So it turned out to be a marvelous day -- not boring for a single second of those 8 hours -- thanks to Dogosaurus, our little gift from the universe.



(More dinosaur pictures are here.)

Today we spent the day in Trelew and Gaiman, two small Welsh (?!) towns on the coast of Argentina. I think this is maybe the only area in the world where you can see signs both in Welsh and in Spanish. We had tea and all-you-can-eat pastries at a Welsh teahouse, which was, and I'm not overstating here, the BEST THING EVER. I don't understand how America has adopted so many traditions and foods from so many cultures, and yet this one has gone unnoticed. Bubble tea - yes. All-you-can-eat pastries and tea - no. What a sad world we live in.

A Welsh and Spanish Jehovah's Witness Church:



All-you-can-eat pastries and tea. LOVE.



(Trelew pictures here and Gaiman pictures here.)

Tomorrow we're seeing PENGUINS, and, if I haven't died of cuteness overload by that point, then after that we're going to see one of the world's only expanding glaciers outside of Antarctica. As it expands, the pressure in the ice builds to such extremes that icebergs the size of houses fall off its edges. Fuck yeah. I'm really glad we gave this place a chance.

The one thing that has continued to be a huge challenge is the way Argentines talk. When I took Spanish in school, I learned the Spanish they speak in northern South America. So until now, I was getting pretty cocky, thinking I was about halfway to being fluent. Then along comes Argentina and I'm back to feeling like a complete beginner. There are several changes that, when combined, makes it sound like they're not even speaking Spanish.

- "Y" sounds have changed to "zh" and "s" sounds have changed to "th."
- Their word order is usually all flipped around.
- They use entirely different words for many things, including the words for "you are," which is a pretty important phrase. It's as if someone took the phrase "you are" in English and changed it to "fleb gleb."
- They speak extremely fast, and slur their words together.

Putting all of these changes together, it's the equivalent of going to California and someone asking "Where are you from?" and then going to New York, where they instead slur to you: "From zhere fleb gleb pathing?" Perhaps you will understand when I say, with all due respect, that to me they sound like my friend Kelly after she just had her wisdom teeth pulled, which makes every interaction extremely difficult, albeit somewhat amusing, even after being here 3 weeks.

However, they have waterfalls, Buenos Aires, dinosaurs, Welsh tea houses, penguins, glaciers, and Tierra del Fuego, and that's not even a tiny fraction of what there is to see here. So I guess I don't mind it here too much. :)

First Impressions

Our first day in Argentina was undoubtedly the worst day we've had this whole trip. I usually don't like to go into such detail about a single day, but I think this day deserves to have its own post, if not some sort of thesis, written about it.

We took a 9-hour overnight train from Uyuni to the Argentinian border, which already started everything out wrong because it was the bumpiest, shakiest train I've ever been on. Not as bad as the bus TO Uyuni, during which, for about 7 hours, I could literally feel my own brain bouncing around in my skull, leaving me to wonder if I was giving myself permanent brain damage (will I still be able to do math after this? damnit, now I have to keep solving math problems in my head just to make sure) but still bad enough that we didn't sleep very well at all. Also, I woke up with a chest infection that got worse and worse throughout the day. We were not very happy campers when we arrived at the border at around 7am and had to wait around half an hour for our luggage to be unloaded, followed by another hour just to cross the border. What's the deal with borders, anyway? I just want to go over there, why does this have to be so complicated? Why can't we all just get along?

Our plan was to take a bus from the border to a city called Salta that very same day. As we neared the bus station, we were approached by one man asking "Bus a Salta?" We replied, "Sí!" and were instantly swarmed by 5 more guys all shouting in unison "Bus to Salta? Direct! Cheap! Leaves in 10 minutes! BEST BUS IN THE WORLD!! This bus will take you out for a romantic dinner, give you a foot massage, and make you breakfast in the morning!" or something to that extent. I don't think these people realize how scary it is to be swarmed by 6 shouting guys at once when you have no idea where you are. We somehow extricated ourselves from the cluster and kept walking towards the bus station. Note to self: never say "sí" to anyone again.

At the bus station we managed to find one company that didn't have anyone shouting or harassing us, so we decided to go with them. (I wonder if those guys realized that their shouting had exactly the opposite effect of their desired purpose? Someone should tell them, dude, just chill.) Our bus didn't leave til 11:20am and it was only around 9, so we bought our tickets and decided to hang out in a cafe til that time. The menu in the cafe looked like this (leading me to wonder whether they'd be capable of making a tea without injuring themselves in the process. I was pleasantly surprised when they could).

Something doesn't add up (i.e. the numbers):

We came back to the bus station at 11am, 20 minutes early, like good little backpackers. I went back to the company where we bought our tickets to ask where the bus would be leaving from. "A Salta?" The lady asked, while clutching her mate gourd. "Ya salió." (It left already.) We looked at each other in confusion and rising anger. She pointed at the clock above her head, which read 12:00. WTF? Then it slowly dawned on us: there is a one hour time difference between Bolivia and Argentina. Why in the hell didn't they tell us that on the train? And how is there a one hour time difference if we've gone directly SOUTH of where we were in Bolivia to where we currently were in Argentina? Why does nothing make any sense down here??

Since it was an honest mistake, we asked her if they'd be willing to transfer the tickets to the next bus, but she absolutely refused. She just kept looking at her computer in complete boredom and saying, "No." Ah. Alright then, there goes that $50. Thanks for nothing, bitch. Their next bus didn't leave for another 3 hours, and we decided we weren't going to give them any more money anyway, so we went back out to look for a different company. That is when we got swarmed once again by the guys from the other company. "Our bus leaves in 20 minutes! It's cheap! It's direct! Our bus will hold you at night while staring longingly into your eyes! NO OTHER BUS WILL LOVE YOU LIKE THIS BUS!" And even though we could tell these guys were shady as hell, in our moment of anger and impatience, we decided to just go with them, since waiting 20 minutes sure beats waiting 3 hours.

I had a bad feeling about this company from the very start. Something just didn't feel right, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. In the end, it turned out that when they told us, "This bus is direct, takes 7 hours, and has a bathroom" what they really meant was "This bus has no bathroom, you will be forced to switch buses three quarters of the way through the trip and wait for 2 hours at a hamburger joint for the next bus, and the whole trip will actually take about 10 hours." What I had initially sensed and couldn't put my finger on was that people were lying directly to our faces because they knew that by the time we'd realized it, we'd be 7 hours away and helpless to do anything about it. We were NOT happy about this, especially since throughout the day I kept getting progressively more sick. I'm thinking the sheer amount of anger from this day probably had something to do with that.

Because the bus didn't have a bathroom, they stopped about once an hour to let people use the bathrooms at a bus station. Both times I tried to pee, however, turned out to be traumatizing experiences. The first time, I completely forgot that most bus stations charge a peso to use their bathrooms, so after walking all the way to the bathroom, I had to run back into the bus to get money. As I was getting off the bus again with the money, I told the bus driver that I was going to the bathroom. To this he yelled, "Rápido!" as if he would, in fact, drive off without me if I took too long. I sprinted to the bathroom and back like my life depended on it. Which, in a way, it did. Talk about performing under stress.

The second time, as I walked into the bathroom all prepared with my 2 pesos, I was confronted by a (roughly 14-year-old) girl who immediately shouted something at me. Because Argentinian Spanish is so nasally, slurry, and generally incomprehensible, I thought she had shouted "Boliviano!" I momentarily forgot that we were in Argentina by this point and thought she was asking me for 1 Boliviano, so I tried to hand her my money. She just shouted at me even louder, and I finally understood that she was shouting "LIMPIANDO!!" (I'M CLEANING!!). So I asked if I could use the men's bathroom instead, and she angrily yelled, "NO!" as if I had just asked if I could round up a group of my best friends to gangbang her mother. So I just slunk back to the bus and tried to hold it til the next stop. Apparently the complete lack of manners begins quite early in this country. What's with all the unsolicited yelling, especially from some 14-year-old girl? Was that really necessary? And, more importantly, why did I let myself be ordered around by this little teenage piece of shit? Apparently the complete lack of balls begins quite early in my country.

Shortly after these mortifying episodes, the bus suddenly stopped and the driver droned through his nose that everyone had to get off the bus, take all of their stuff, and submit to having their bags searched by border control officers. By hand. By which I mean, these guys were pulling out everyone's stuff, including clothes, underwear, children's toys, everything, and just tossing it on the ground, while everyone else watched. Then each person would have to kneel on the ground and repack everything. Ross and I stood in the back of the line watching this in horror, getting more and more pissed off at the complete lack of respect. (Just imagine, none of this would be necessary if there were no war on drugs. But that is for a different, even more frustrated, post.) And then, when we got to the front, nervously anticipating having all our stuff thrown on the ground, the officer just checked our passports and waved us through, not even bothering to open our bags. What? Um. Okay.

When we got back on the bus, the woman in front of us was complaining to the woman next to us that, in the process of "investigating" her bag, this "officer" had taken some of her sexy underwear that she had bought to wear for her boyfriend. Ross and I were shocked and asked why. She shrugged and half-joked, "Because he liked it?" Wooow. So, that explains why everyone here is so bitter: They are being constantly fucked over by their own government and police officers. And the worst part is, they're not even overtly pissed off about it anymore. She seemed to accept it and move on with her life while Ross and I sat there completely stunned that any of this could happen so casually. We've witnessed corruption in Peru and Bolivia as well, but this was fucked up on a whole new level.

This post is already getting far too long, so I'll just end by saying that the rest of the day continued in much the same manner, with us wondering what the hell is wrong with these people, and probably vice versa. South America hasn't exactly bowled us over with kindness in general, but Argentinians seem actively hostile against our presence. Since that day we've been in Salta for 2 days, during which I've been lying in our hostel being sick, while Ross has wandered around a bit. He has tried to convince me that people in Salta are nicer than on this first day and not all completely obnoxious, but I'm not sure I believe him. I really hope so. I'm going to try to be open-minded and give this place a chance. But seriously? Not a good first impression, Argentina.

More Salt Than You Could Shake A Stick At

Hey, guys! We totally didn't mean to neglect the blog like we did. It turns out that if you stay too long in one country, everything about that country starts to piss you off. And then you try to write a blog about that country, and it comes out sounding like you hated everything about it, which isn't true at all. And then you feel bad and delete the entire post. And then your boyfriend tries to take a crack at it too, but the exact same thing happens. Before you know it, it's two weeks later and you can barely remember anything you were going to write about in the first place. So, in a nutshell: Cuzco was pretty at first but so touristy that we ended up hating it, Machu Picchu was beautiful enough that we overlooked how touristy it was (but it still felt a bit like entering Disneyland), the salt pans and Inca ruins in the Sacred Valley were completely fascinating, and Lake Titicaca was over-rated (aside from its name, which I will never tire of giggling at).

We've been in Bolivia the last week or so. We spent the first several days in La Paz (the highest capital in the world). It's our favorite city so far - it's got its metropolitan parts, where businesspeople in suits mingle with ladies in native dress; it's got its cute little tree-lined residential sector; and it's got an especially interesting neighborhood where the streets are lined with vendors selling everything from llama fetuses (?) to dentists' chairs (??). And, unlike in Peru, we're not constantly bombarded by people trying to talk to scam us. I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to walk the streets without being a target! It's quite refreshing, I must say. I almost want to give people money for NOT talking to us.

By far, the best part of La Paz, however, was the dancing zebras.

The first thing we noticed when we arrived was that, at every red light, people dressed in zebra costumes were dancing around in the intersections waving little stop signs. I found this extremely confusing until I found an article about this very issue in a magazine. Apparently, until recently, La Paz had a serious problem of drivers not paying attention to stop lights, causing horrible traffic jams. The government decided that the best way to counter this issue was to hire students to dress in zebra costumes and dance around. And to the surprise of everyone except the apparently-quite-stoned Bolivian government, it worked! Now, drivers actually stop at red lights while the zebras help pedestrians cross and, delightfully, make fun of any drivers who violate traffic rules. I saw one zebra stop dancing, shake his head sadly and do a facepalm when he saw a driver stop too far into the crosswalk. AMAZING. I think way more government mandates need to involve dancing zebras. Even now, this makes me laugh every time I think about it.

We didn't think to take any pictures of  La Paz, so I had to steal one from google:

After La Paz, we endured the worst bus ride in history to get to Uyuni, home to Bolivia's enormous salt flats (10,000 sq km across! "Almost as big as yo mamma," my brain can't help but add). I think the salt flats may be one of my favorite places in the world so far. Not only is the landscape completely insane (hexagons of salt in every direction as far as the eye can see), but it's studded by islands filled with hundreds of cacti, most of which are at least a thousand years old. (The salt flats are what remain of an ocean that used to be here 30,000 years ago. We later found out that the islands of cacti used to be coral reefs! This explained why the rocks forming the cactus island looked so un-rocky: they were actually petrified corals). It's the kind of environment that, the more time you spend in it, the more you devolve into a giggling, shrieking mess. After about an hour of wandering around the cactus island, Ross and I were reduced to making elephant noises to try to entice the llamas to look our way for a picture. I have a feeling that this is the only natural response to such mind-boggling surroundings.





Note the llama, totally oblivious to our elephant noises:



On our way to our hotel, we stopped at a "museum" on the edge of the salt flats. The museum turned out to be one man's massive collection of rocks that are shaped like various animals, which he collected from the nearby mountains. This may be the strangest hobby I've ever heard of. But then, just when we thought it couldn't get any weirder, underneath his rock collection in a small underground closet was a 1,500 year old mummy that had been found nearby. There was no glass to keep us from touching, no ice to preserve it, none of the typical museum protections - just a mummy sitting on the ground, close enough to smell and touch, surrounded overhead by rocks that look like condors and rabbits and whatnot, on the edge of a goddamn salt flat. I couldn't decide if this was the best or the creepiest museum ever. Or both.



That night we spent the night in a hotel made of salt. This wasn't as awesome as you'd expect. At first it was great - "The walls, bed, tables, and chairs are all made of SALT! WTF!" - but then it slowly became obvious why furniture isn't typically made of salt. Over dinner, Ross's Sprite exploded as he was opening it, and the edge of the table just melted right off. (Uh, oops? Someone get a salt sculptor in here, QUICK!) Then, just as we started to notice that our elbows and clothes were covered in salt (alas, if I were more prim and proper, I would've kept my elbows off the table), the waiter brought out a big, salty soup. Ahh, perfect - just what we were craving, MORE SALT.

Shortly before the Sprite disaster:



Another highlight was the flamingos that breed on the lakes near the salt flats. They were even more hilarious than I expected. They can live in groups of up to 12,000 and all squawk quite amusingly to each other, creating quite a ruckus. And they can fly, but only very awkwardly - they can only get airborne by running, flapping and flailing, and then when they do manage to take off, they have to flap their little hearts out just to stay about a meter above the water. Silly birds. If that is, in fact, what they are. I have my doubts.



Either way, one of the best parts, for me, was swimming in hot springs overlooking a lake teeming with flamingos. Our guide, Jose, timed it so we were the only ones there, which was amazing, as not only did it give us private access to the flamingos (not that way, perverts), but also it gave us a chance to goof around with Ross's underwater camera for the first time. Good times.



Before we left Vancouver, I said that I wanted our travels to change my life somehow. Well, it has become clear that this trip has changed me in 3 very important ways already.

First, I've become much more bold about peeing outdoors. Perhaps this is a consequence of always having to carry toilet paper around with us, which makes it much less gross to pop a squat. Or perhaps it's just a result of spending the majority of our time in places where we're not near bathrooms (or where the only bathrooms look like this). Either way, I think I have sufficiently marked Southwest Bolivia as my personal territory in the last several days. I have peed behind rocks, on deserted beaches, and even off of a cliff. I'm not exactly sure if I should be proud or ashamed, but either way I thought it was relevant to mention.

Second, I'm now able to tell apart llamas from vicuñas. Llamas are much fluffier.

And finally, my Spanish is now immeasurably better than when we first got to South America. When we were first getting to Ecuador 2 months ago, I could barely ask for a croissant at the airport without stammering and blushing intensely (incidentally, if you want a mind-blowingly good croissant, go to the airport in Bogota, Columbia). Now, during the tour of the salt flats, I managed to have entire conversations with Jose (our wonderful guide who only spoke Spanish) about mining, the war on drugs, and Bolivian driving and healthcare policies, all in a coherent and blush-free manner. Who wants to speak Spanish with me when we get back home? I need a Spanish buddy so I don't lose my español skilz, por favor.

We've enjoyed Bolivia very much (way more than Peru). I think we'd like to come back here someday to see the rest of the country. It's a shame we only planned a week here; it turned out to be way more interesting and beautiful than we expected. But tomorrow we'll be in Argentina, and that is very exciting too! I can't wait.

Click here for more pictures of Bolivia: