The Best Fives

Experiences

1. Cartagena and its beaches

2. Golf at Bogota Country Club

3. Machu Pichu

4. Biking the Death Road in Bolivia

5. Foz de Iguacu

Food

1. Peruvian Seafood, especially the ceviche and sushi

2. Colombian Mangos

3. Argentinean Filet Mignon

4. Revolving Chilean Restaurant

5. Fresh squeezed OJ sold throughout the continent

Ecuador and Colombia and the Top and Worst 10

Perhaps one of the most painful parts of the entire trip was that I lost all of the pictures I took in Ecuador and Colombia. I can blame the deletion of 100 or so photos -ranging from pictures of blue-footed boobie birds, to delicious and exotic fruit, to surfing great waves, to whales jumping out of the ocean, to the most fantastic golf club in all of Bogota - to the fact that my spanish is still not very good, which caused me to misread the screen and hit a button that to my lament meant "delete all"!


Colombia is a great country full of friendly people, beautiful women and good food. Although the US State Dept. says one should never travel there, it is an overstatement. Lke in any country we must be careful and Colombia is no exception, but Cartagena is a paradise that I recomend all seeing, while Bogota is a city with a classy feel, nice restaurants and tons of great museums.

But now that my travels are over I can look back proudly and say that I had one great adventure giving me memories that will last even if my pictures dont.

Over all Best and Worsts:

Best City: Buenos Aires and Cartagena
Best Country: Colombia
Best Travel Value: Argentina
Best Site: Machu Pichu
Best Surf: Chile and Peru
Best Wine: Chile
Best Food: Peru

Worst City: Potosi, bolivia
Worst Experience: 28 hour Bus ride between the coast of Ecuador and Quito, Bolivian Night
Worst Food: Bolivia
Biggest Dissapointment: Skiing in Chile
Biggest Tourist Trap: Cusco
Biggest Rip off: Taxes in Bus stations and airports, the train to Machu Pichu

Some Things you should know about traveling:
1. In order for a city to be built in S. America there must be a hill nearby where a statue of either Jesus or Mary can be built in order to look down on the people and reinforce Catholicism.
2. Every City has a Plaza De Armas and Plaza Bolivar, most contain beautiful churches
3. Eat the local Soups and fruits Everywhere
4. Always watch where you walk because there are unmarked holes every where
5. Just Because you pay doesn{t mean the bathroom will be nice
6. Old People Never Wait in Line

Peru, The Land Of Ruins

After not eating for about a week it was heaven arriving in Cuzco, a place where you can get every type of food and generally it is delicious. It also offered me a chance to sit in some nice cafes and sip real coffee and enjoy life, knowing that later I would have a soft and warm bed.

Of course like everything in Cuzco, and generally peru, it cost much more than I wanted to spend. Cuzco is tourist trap plain and simple. Unlike Bolivians, most Peruvians speak english, but only to try and sell you things that you do not want.

Shaped like a Puma this ancient Incan city has large churches sitting on old incan sturctures which are displays of the once great civilization. Unlike the current inhabitants of the city the Incans appear to have been an incredibly motivated and industrious people, capable of great advancements in masonry as well as finding hundreds of uses for the coca leaf, generally speaking they were ahead of their time in technology.

Modern day peru is far behind. One of my major greivances was that not a single place accepted credit cards. This includes the train to Machu Pichu, probably the most lucrative business in the city. Most likely the train compnay does well over 10,000 dollars worth of business a day, considering they charge and arm and a leg for a ticket, yet they only accept cash! Then to further prove their backwardsness the train takes 4 hours to travel 60 kilometers, giving you very little time at the park, unless of course you can afford to pay the entrance fee twice as well as stay in overpriced hotels at the site.

Having said that, Machu Pichu is by far the most incredible thing I have ever seen in my life. it is quite simply amazing, affording great views of the surrounding andes and bringing to mind just how much labor it must have taken to build. While there we hiked 45 minutes up steep stairs to find a view high above main site. After working our way back down the stairs we wandered the main grounds, which overflows with tourists from all over the world. The ruins themselves are made from massive stones that boggle the mind as you wonder how they ever got carried to such an inconvenient and high place. Wandering around the site are also el paca´s who act as the groundskeepers, knibbling the grass down to near impeccable and consistent height.

After Machu Pichu and Cuzco Nate and I headed for the coast, where we saw sea lions and ate civeche -fish cooked in lime juice- at a national park, which we were led to by a pot-smoking toothless man who I think may have overcharged us but was very friendly.

From there we continued up the coast, through Lima -a great city possesing great food- for a day and then onto Chuan chaco aka the best surfing town in Peru. The waves were perfect and I spent two days with locals surfing the break. We even met an old surfer dude who in his younger days hitchhicked from Chuanchaco to San Fransisco and back.

Bolivia

While I was in bolivia I probably lost about about 10 pounds due to the fact the food is generally bad and there were very few times that at least one full head of hear did not end up in either my soup -which is one of the most common foods and contains grease, rice, maybe a veggie and the bone of an otherwise unedible peice of meat, having said that, Nate seemed to enjoy the soup but then again he was also very sick the entire time we traveled through Bolivia. I stuck to a diet of water, peanuts and oranges, which were the by far the best things to eat, while Nate continued to both impress and apall me with his desire to eat the soup and the local beef.

If argentinean beef is a caddillac then bolivian beef is the equvilent to a 1986 Oldsmobile celebrity- you know, the car that no celebrity would ever drive- and much like its car equivelant can be found being sold right on the pavement of the sidewalk -no kidding. They sell beef on blankets that sit just atop the sidewalk and right under passerby´s feet and the sun.

If thats not enough to take your appetite away the altitude certainly is. Bolivia contains the highest city, Potosi, the highest capitol, La Paz, and the highest highest major lake, Titticaca. For a week Nate and I remained above 12,000 feet ascending to 15,500 while in Potosi.

This altitude not only fueled my comapnion´s illness but it also seems responsible for the overall appearance of the people here. The average height is about 5¨4 and women are incredibly short. The gravity seems to push them down and stunt their growth. Travel guides may warn about the dangers of bolivia but this is hard to take serious, especially when I, standing just a tad over 5¨9, am a giant, but there was little oppurtunity to celebrate my new largeness.

As many of you may know, Nate and I have been traveling by bus exclusively and have gotten pretty accustomed to long uncomfortable rides. Then we got to bolivia where the roads make Camden, New Jersey streets look like they are paved in gold. The bumpiness of these rides was made far worsen by two factors. First, you could always count on their being at least 15-30 more people then seats, all of which bump into you -if you´re lucky enough to be on the aisle- at the same rate as the bus bumps over the unpaved road. Ppossibly even worse then the elbows or bolivian butts in your face is that they stop every 20 minutes only to let more poeple on who either beg you for money or try to sell you things like gum and lolipops, and in one rare instance the worst singing I have ever heard, which actually caused Nate and I to burst out into a rendition of ¨kick in the door¨ by Notorious BIG as well as a variety of songs from Jay Z´s blueprint 2 in an attempt to drown him out. He still asked us for money.

However there certainly were things that I greatly enjoyed in Bolivia. On our way to the Peruvian border we met and traveled with a couple of argentines who were very friendly and together we all went out to the markets and haggled with the different vendors for postcards and various other goods. These barter sessions might last for minutes and in the end save us anywhere from ten to 50 cents, but even still it was worth it and became a good way for me to practice my espanol as well as save enough money for some more peanuts.

One of our greatest adventures was biking 76 kilometers downhill on ¨the death road,¨ which is a single lane road that winds through the andes at ungodly heights and has sent 100´s of people to their deaths, but only one biker. The side of the road is literally cluttered with gravestones, yet this does not deter truckers from trying to set new records on their way down!

Iguacu and Salta, Argentina

After a long stay in Buenos Aires Nate and I finally made it out of the city and into the countryside. Our first trip was 14 hr busride to Iguacu Falls -one of the most beautiful places in the world. We got there at 9 am in the morning and left at 7 pm on a 26 hr bus ride to Salta, located in northern argentina. At the falls we wondered around in jaguar infested woods and also got stuck behind huge tour groups of old Argerntinean women, who would never move out of the way. We wanted to cross over to the Brazilian side to see more of the falls but unfortunately American´s and Brazilian´s don´t like eachother and charge money to enter their respective countries (100 dollars US). After the falls we ate fresh made pasta and watched world cup futbol until our bus trip.

26 hours on a bus sounds bad but in Argentina its first class all the way -except for the food which makes airplanes look like flying five star restaurants. Along the busride we only stopped once in a small town called Tucuman, where nate and I ate empanadas and discussed the possibility of ever finding a decent toilet again. Back on the bus we met some Aussies who happened to get us a hostel in Salta for about 75 cents a night. Once in the hostel they made me red in the face with their proclamations of ¨We hear there is a great bar full of gringos, want to go?¨ No thanks. Instead we ended up going to the local dance club where terrible latin rap and cheap beer abounded. Surprislingly the people in the club danced worse than I but we had a good time hanging out there, only to be followed home by a pack of wild dogs, who had come with us to the club and waited outside for us for our exit close to 2 hrs.

With one last day in Argentina Nate and I decided to treat oursleves to some fine dining. At 11 o´clock in the morning I ordered a filet mignon which was one of the most tender, juicy and biggest peices of meat I have ever seen or ate. In america it would cost 25$ minimum at a resaurant, in Argentina it cost 3$ and putting up with beggars and shoeshine boys harrasing you throughout the otherwise enjoyable meal. Nate tells me high unemployment is rampant in S. America and this leads to everyone trying to sell you junk on the street, asking you for money and generally bothering you. My new technique is to ask them for money with a smile before they can say anything and this generally drives them away with a laugh.

Our second attempt at fine dining led us to a restaurant where the waiter told us that the Llama was the house speciality and could be found no where else. Foolishly we believed his lies and the next day I found nate ill and Llama on many other restaurant menus. Before heading out of salta we climbed steps for an hour to reach a great view and another huge Jesus statue. Apparently it is a law in S America that every city must be overlooked by either jesus or mary.

Last Day In Buenos Aires

After the soccer game on Saturday about 12,000 peeople rushed the center of city to celebrate, cheer and light off fireworks, but watch your pockets, our friend sarah had her camera stolen.

Rugby game between the New Zealand All Blacks and Argentinea, fun but rained the whole time.

They drink their milk in bags here...

Money we were given that felt and looked forged.

If you want to eat well cook it yourself.

Can't leave this City

Like the locals I can't seem to leave this beautiful city. Local custom here -for the fabulously wealthy at least- is to build extravagant houses with marble, oak doors and columns and then leave them behind and move across town and build another, then when the neighborhood goes "bad" to move to another part of the city and build another outrageous multi million dollar house, very unlike in the US where people just flee to the suburbs. This provides the city with mansions in both the poorest and richest neighborhoods, as well as by the skyscrapers and ports.

I also got to watch another futbol game here but unfortunately they tied so I have to stay for the next futbol game.

I wasn't even supposed to come to BaAs but now it looks like I will be staying here for at least another couple days on my friend Emily's couch.

It's worth mentioning that when you buy milk here it comes in a bag, instead of a box.

Recoleta one of the most famous cemeteries but watch your step getting there

Yesterday Nate and I traveled to the Recoleta Cemetary in Buenos Aires to see the graves of Evita and many of her bourgousie friends. This place is filled with zarcophogae and statues dedicated to themselves, many of which might make the eqyptians blush.
Imagine knowing that you were going to die and thinking to yourself, "well if I am going to be dead then I mine as well be surrounded by the most ostentatious little marble house and accessories that 99% of the living can't afford, let alone probably have never seen." This is Recoleta. But even in the most wealthy and affluent neighborhoods there is that one family who doesn't mow their lawn, or in this case keep their marble prisitine.

At least while I was there I did get a picture with jesus.

Another notable aspect of the streets here is that they are covered by dog poo. Everyone here owns a dog, but very few people walk them. Instead they hire dog walkers, who drive herds of dogs around the city and do not have time to bend down and pick up the poo. Both foreigners and locals agree that when walking keep your head down and watch your feet.