Enfrascarse...

Quiero escribir esta publicación en Español... bueno, intentar escribir en Español porque estoy en un país donde hablan Español... entonces tiene sentido! Pues, estoy estudiando, hablando y leyendo en Español todos los días y en serio estoy reventada! Durante el día no hago mucho pero me siento como si usara mi cerebro demasiado así que me duele la cabeza. A pesar de eso disfruto cada día y la verdad es que no lo querría de otra manera. Por las mañanas tengo clases que están llenas de vocabulario nuevo, hablamos de la vida; de todo y de nada, y práctico mi gramática más que nunca. Mi profesor me ha dicho que es necesario enfrascarme en la lengua si me gustaría hablar con fluidez entonces por las tardes trato de escuchar las conversaciones de algunas desconocidas (parezco un poco entrometida pero todo es por una buena causa!), he comprado unos libros en Español y los leo, hago mis tareas y hablo con alguien que escuchará.

Si todo va de acuerdo a lo planeado voy a empezar el trabajo voluntario muy pronto. A estas alturas estoy tan nerviosa por trabajar con niños (que hablan muy rápido, todos al mismo tiempo y les gustaría corregirme mucho), o con adolescentes (que por el contrario son demasiado distantes para hablar completamente) pero cuando tenga más confianza en mi misma lo empezaré. Realmente, yo tengo bastante Español para comunicarme, es decir que si quisiera hacerlo ahora lo podría hacer. Sólo tengo miedo.

A la vez que aprender Español intento a aprender más de la cultura y la vida en Bolivia. Sucre es una ciudad muy bonita y hemos encontrado un piso con una cocina y todo... significa que podemos dar una vuelta, ir al mercado, comprar todo necesitamos y simular que vivimos aquí! Estamos muy cerca de la escuela justo en el centro de Sucre y es un reto evitar los restaurantes buenos que nos rodean. Tenemos un presupuesto que no nos deja mucho dinero para los lujos, de otra manera no podríamos continuar estudiando y Jim quiere hacer actividades como escalar y 'trekking'. No podemos gastar todo de un tirón si queremos quedarnos aquí por mucho tiempo. La consecuencia es que comemos mucho pan, muchos huevos y muchísimas verduras... pasamos por los restaurantes corriendo para evitar el tentación!

 

or in English...

...we are having a fab time and I'm practising my Spanish a lot!!

;-)

Chasing Jesus, hiding eggs and discovering sushi...

We arrived in Sucre on Good Friday so our first weekend was all about Easter. They take it extremely seriously here and although we are not religious it was fantastic to see all the festivities. The highlight for me was happening upon a procession of hundreds of people following a coffin with a model of Jesus in it, Mary was on a pole held above the crowd and a model of another man with a beard followed... I'm afraid I don't actually know who he was! The crowd all looked extremely sombre and the big brass instruments and drums gave the whole thing a really ominous feeling. Jim and I joined in the walk to the main plaza, we didn't go right to the church, where I assume they were headed, but it was a real spectacle and quite enjoyable to be part of!

It also turned out that the Easter bunny comes to Bolivia and he even managed to visit our hostel. Yummy.

We have now been here for a week and I have fallen slightly in love with Bolivia's capital. It is placed on a hill, or what seems to be several hills and valleys muddled together. The streets roll up and down which is a little tough on tired legs but creates a unique landscape to wander through. The main plaza and the surrounding streets are full of grand colonial buildings, huge ornate churches and extremely well kept gardens. You really feel like you are being spoiled. As you venture out further the streets are filled with gorgeous white houses with terracotta roofs and it is easy to mistake one street for another.

Of course, like most Latin American cities, poverty is just around the corner and there are more beggars here than any of the places we have been so far, mainly old women and small children. Obviously you can not give something to everyone but being a tourist you do get asked a lot. I find it particularly hard to see when it is a group of children sitting on a hard pavement floor all day instead of being in school or just out playing, they look tired and fed up. Really sad.

If you venture away from the tourist centre you then get to the more 'truthful' streets where the fancy restaurants turn into greasy food stalls and the shops filled with lovely weaved fabrics, bags and hats turn into market stalls with bright pink tracksuits, fake label sunglasses and huge piles of second hand shoes. These streets are not as picturesque. There is rubbish on the corners, lots of not so nice smells and all the drivers angrily toot as they pass through. There is one shopping road in particular which is a little intimidating at first. It is filled with shops, carts and stalls spilling out onto the street, people quickly walking in every direction and old women sitting with their tables of herbs, natural medicines and scary looking concoctions. You definitely get some funny looks for being there but it is worth it just to be caught in the hustle and bustle of the real Sucre.

We have been having far too much fun in Sucre! Our hostel did not have a kitchen so we have been spending all our money eating out ;-) The best thing in the world is that we found a place that did sushi!!! I was in heaven... amazing how good some raw fish is when all you have had to eat for a couple of months is fried chicken and rice! We have had a week of living too luxuriously for our budget so we have now moved into a small flat with a kitchen so we have no excuses. We start a Spanish course tomorrow and hopefully volunteering next... holiday is over!

Salar de Uyuni (lots and lots of salt)...

 

Feather duvets, tasty nachos and no way out...

We had booked a lovely little bed and breakfast for two nights in Uyuni (http://www.hotel-lapetiteporte-uyuni.com) and it was way over our budget and worth every penny... the gorgeous duvet alone was worth the money! Having spoilt ourselves for the first couple of nights we then moved into a rather dingy hostel where I struggled to sleep... shouldn't have allowed ourselves a little luxury, it just highlighted what we couldn't afford and how amazing it must be to travel if you are rich! Anyway, enough feeling sorry for ourselves, we are, after all, in a pretty amazing place half way across the world!so... we have now found a much better hostel and have settled in nicely.

One of the best things about the town of Uyuni is that it is well set up for tourists who have come here to take a tour of the salt flats. Normally I wouldn't like the touristy aspect but it has managed to maintain its authentic side as well as having a great choice of hostels, restaurants and shops selling woolly llama gloves. We have become regulars at a particular restaurant that does a mixture of Mexican and traditional Bolivian food, yummy home-made nachos with guacamole to die for!

They have a market that sells everything from wallets to watermelons and it is quite obviously aimed at the locals. I bought the DaVinci code in Spanish (El Codigo Da Vinci) for less than a pound so have got something to occupy me for a while. The food part of the market is amazing. Everything you could possibly need; all sorts of fruit and veg, meat hanging up with flies happily buzzing around, sacks of different pastas almost hiding the old ladies that are selling them, tins, drinks, bread, herbs and spices. There are also women selling things ready to eat that smell yummy. As I got closer to their carts I realised I would need to be much braver than I am to try some of the huge bowls of unidentified meaty stews. Probably tasty, definitely scary!

There is a military base here so there are a lot of soldiers wandering around. Earlier today we met some lovely men from the Bolivian air force who let me take their portraits. They were really chatty and surprisingly good posers! After nervously approaching them to see if they would mind if I took their photo it was great to have such a nice experience and friendly conversation. I am actually trying to get a collection of portraits together of all sorts of different people in Bolivia to show what life here is like... I have made a start but will wait and post more of the photos I took when the collection is done!

We have seen a couple of funeral processions since we have been here. Always sad to see something like that but a unique insight into the way of life here. They use taxis instead of hearses and the coffin doesn't quite fit so it sticks out the back of an open boot. The mourners follow behind with a band of men playing brass instruments and drums. Everyone stops what they are doing as they pass through the street and they all make the sign of the cross. I have never seen anything quite like it.

Anyway, as much as Uyuni is an interesting place to be we have plans to go to Sucre next. We had a little panic when we spent a whole day searching for a way to get to Sucre and none of the options seemed particularly viable. We had the choice of going to La Paz (which is in another direction), getting a bus to Potosi and a connection to Sucre (total of 9 hours with no loo on the bus!), paying $200 for a car to take us to Potosi (not at all in our budget) and find another form of transport from there to get to Sucre or getting the train back to where we had come from. After a little more panic we looked on the internet some more and found something that looked promising... we went in search of an airline called TAM which had something to do with the military. They did not have a website and not many of the locals knew anything about it. Luckily we found their office and they do fly to Sucre. We booked our tickets for 500bolivianos (£25 each). Phew.

We have been here for 5 days and will have to wait another 5 days before we can leave as we missed the weekly flight. We are planning to go to the salt flats, eat more nachos and wander around the market so we are happy to stay here for now!

Bolivia begins...

Standing in the line at the border to travel across to Bolivia we did not have a clue what to expect. I had visions of sniffer dogs standing guard, our rucksacks being emptied and searched, our plans being questioned, medicine being confiscated and just generally having a tough couple of hours. In fact, other than a very long wait, it was a pretty painless experience. We crossed over into Bolivia with new stamps in our passports and walked less than 100m over a bridge to leave Argentina behind. We were greeted by 'Bienvenidos a Bolivia' with letters no bigger than a small shop sign and not much more impressive but there was a noticeable difference between the buzz of Villazon and the quite desolate feel of La Quiaca.

The first thing you notice is that there is definitely no lack of casas de cambios to change your money into Bolivianos. Actually there was no lack of anything as the next five blocks were covered with market stalls and little stores that poked out into the pavements... fake label boxer shorts, children's plastic toys, massive bags of coca leaves, mobile phones, watches and more tat that you could dream of.

We had picked up a lovely, travelling stray from England who had joined us in the queue. It was nice to meet another traveller who was on a similar route to us. He spoke no Spanish (I had been wandering how someone could get by without any language) and he had been struggling in the north of Argentina where less and less people spoke English. He was glad we could help him with the border, finding a cash machine, exchanging his currency, getting some lunch and upgrading his train ticket. It must be scary travelling on your own but everyone we meet who is by themselves seem to be doing just fine and having a great time. Braver than me!

There are two trains a week out of the border town of Villazon that go to Oruro and stop at Uyuni, Atocha and Tupiza. We were heading to Uyuni. The train journey was an odd experience. We had paid for semi-cama seats which were comfy and reclined a bit more than the standard ones as the journey was a nine hour one.

It was definitely the slowest train I have ever been on, in fact it was almost slower than a bus. The tracks were not exactly what you would expect either; low to the ground and covered in grass and dirt at some points which made the journey pretty bumpy. A couple of hours into the journey we were invited into the next cart where we found tables set out for dinner and were asked if we would like burger, chicken or vegetables... not too tasty but edible and quite good fun.

The rest of the journey was not as much fun. They turned the heating right up and the lights off so it was pitch black, it felt like some sort of sensory torture! We arrived at about midnight. Very ready for bed.

We've been in Uyuni for a couple of days now and my next posts will be about our time here (with lots of photos!) but I think I've blabbered on enough for now... ;-)

Smile, cry or feel completely confused...

Getting a smile...

In the north especially, lots of the elderly women seem quite grumpy and a little intimidating. This is completely not the case. If you amuse them with something, do something kind or just smile nicely then they suddenly break into the most amazing warm smiles and giggles that light up the room. You just have to earn it.

'll'... 

the accent sounds nice in argentina but is much harder than in other countries, pronouncing 'll' like 'sh' instead of 'y' is much harder to adapt to than I though it would be.

Supremas, Milanesas and Empanadas...

sometimes the only food you can find. Don't get me wrong, I like it, but you don't know what I would give for a Thai takeaway!!

Beautiful, quirky, cute little llamas...

Jim keeps eating them! Llama stew, llama milenesa, llama burger, llama empanadas, llama steak...poor little llamas.

Postcards...

sent some over a month ago. Haven't arrived yet :-(

Sausage dog on the loose in Cafayate...

almost every stray dog in Cafayate is short with a funny long body. We thought there was a little randy sausage dog on the loose a while ago that managed to make lots of puppies!

Young people in white doctor jackets...

at one point Jim and I were wandering why the doctors looked so young, or if they were pharmacists or did they work in a factory? In fact, the school uniforms here are the same as the white coats doctors wear. This was confirmed when we then saw a group of 10 year olds in these coats...definitely not doctors.

Lots of donkeys and that always makes me happy...

I watched a lady pull her donkey up a hill in the midday sun and when the donkey reached the shade of the one tree that was on their path it stopped. The lady tried to pull the donkey along, it just stayed where it was, completely ignoring the lady. Obviously her stubborn donkey was as amusing to her as it was to me which made me smile.

10 pesos is about £1.50...

you can't get more than 1000 pesos out from a cash machine. Sometimes cash machines don't work. You can't get money out from a bank unless you belong to that bank, I have noticed some HSBCs so it would have been good if we banked with them but we don't.

Bus whisperers...

there are some things here that you are just meant to know, on buses especially. Sometimes the bus will stop to pick up locals and other times you are able to get off for a stretch, a snack and a loo break. No one tells you which one it is though and by the time you work it out it can be too late. 

a man puts your luggage in the luggage compartment and takes it out for you, we learnt very quickly that you tip him or he might give you a bit of abuse. Seems obvious now but the first time we thought he worked for the bus company. 

People in the countryside like to stare...

they also fib about distances! 1km is not always 1km and 5km is usually 8km.

They are obsessed with facebook...

more than us!

No-one will talk about the 'bin'...

it's got to be mentioned. Put it this way, no paper goes down the toilet.

Don't expect things from hostels...

don't expect a window in your bedroom. If it says 'internet' that does not mean in your room. If you do not have a private bathroom you might be sharing one with the whole hostel.

Some hostels have TVs...

got the world to explore and I'm excited by a TV! Channels 36-45 often have English speaking programmes on them. Good stuff sometimes. Watching famous people being dubbed in Spanish is also quite amusing.

They eat a lot of sweetcorn...

and there are whole aisles of tuna in the supermarkets. If you are stuck for something to cook there is always tuna and sweetcorn pasta.

Los Ninos del llullaillaco...

made me cry. Incredibly sad but an amazing insight into the Incas.

...and that is about it for our Argentina. ;-)

altitude, ambulances and the amazing Jim...

We have now travelled up to an altitude of 3442m. That is high. Really high. Unfortunately my body doesn't like it very much... a week later, two trips to the hospital, one ride in an ambulance, and a lot of Argentinian television and we are just about ready to cross the border.

It has not been the best week we've had on our journey so far. We left Tilcara and made it to La Quiaca where we were due to have one night in a hostel and cross over to Bolivia the next morning. By the evening I had become so ill that the staff suggested that a trip to the hospital would make me feel a lot better. A little lost in translations but I managed to tell the doctor that I had been really sick and dizzy all day and my head had been extremely sore. They gave me oxygen, put my thumb in a beepy thing, prodded and poked me for a bit and then to my surprise gave me a rather painful injection in my bottom! I'm still not entirely sure what it was for ;-) Anyway, it turned out I had altitude sickness.

It can take up to a week to adjust to the lack of oxygen of the high altitude and it effects people in different ways. Luckily Jim has not been badly effected. It's been so amazing having him here, I really don't know what I would do without him... he has even been out shopping on his own to some quite intimidating, spanish speaking markets for fresh veg just to make me soup!I'm a lucky girl.

It has taken me the full week to adapt and I've been to the hospital a couple of times, got better then got worse but I am definitely getting there now. As for La Quiaca, I've no idea what it is like but our hostel is lovely, the couple that run it have been really kind but it feels like we have been here forever. Can't wait for Bolivia.

Images of Tilcara...

...not even slightly capturing what we saw but I gave it a go.

Heading north...

We have left Cafayate. We were at our hostel for such a long time compared to other travellers that the lovely manager offered me a job! I found it interesting to see how many people travelled through in the time we were there. They all had schedules to keep to, places to get to and people to meet along their chosen journeys. All of them kept asking us why we would want to stay in such a small town for longer than a couple of days and what could we possibly have to do there... mean while we were wandering why nobody wanted to stay in such an idyllic town for as long as they could and why we had to do anything at all except absorb our surroundings, enjoy talking to the locals and take some time to breath and relax. We did decide that it was time to move on however when one of the days our only objective was to try a particular type of ice-cream!

We spent a couple of days in Salta, a city with lots of tourists, lots of traffic and after the peace of the countryside the change of pace was really noticeable. Salta had some nice bits to it but I didn't feel like we were missing out on anything spectacular by only spending a short time there. The highlight was definitely a ski-type-lift to the top of a nearby hill where you could see the whole city. Scary trip up but worth it for the view.

We then booked our bus to head north past Jujuy (pronounced who-who-eee... I tried all sorts before I worked out how to say that one!) and when we were all packed up and standing, waiting for our bus we suddenly realised there were quite a lot of policemen around, men with make shift percussion instruments and firecrackers, and crowds of confused tourists. Long story short, there was a national bus strike and we ended up getting a couple of quite expensive lifts/taxis to our next destination.

So, having left Cafayate, one of the most gorgeous places we have ever been to, we have now arrived in the equally gorgeous village of Tilcara! Tilcara is surrounded by mountains with layers of rocks of every shade of red, orange and brown. The little maze of cobbled streets climbs up the mountain and the weathered looking buildings look like they have been cut out of the hillside. The sun quickly heats your skin as the cold air cools you down and for the first time it feels like we have begun our journey through the Andes.

Illustrations of Argentina...so far

'Wisdom and Light'

'The noise outside our window' very noisy Buenos Aires.

'Shapes behind Jim' sitting on the balcony in Buenos Aires.

'A Mandala for my Mum' my mum likes Mandalas and there are a lot of Mandalas here!
(i pretty much just coloured it in but it was a lot of fun!)

the story of the 'Foraging Princess'

Things on our terrace in Cafayate.
didn't draw the mosquitos cos they would just fill the page!

Life around Cafayate.