Day 102: The end of the world

We are down to one week and change left on The Trip. The last week was spent in Patagonia, in the southernmost part of South America.

Getting there from Buenos Aieres is either a 50+ bus ride or a 2 hour plane ride. Given the time remaining to us, we took the latter option (we even got to earn frequent flyer points!).

The first stop was El Calafate. Apparently, the calafate plant has a berry which was used to seal between the planks of wooden boats, back in the day. Now, the town serves as a transport hub for the area, as well as providing access to the spectacular Perito Moreno glacier.

The glacier is a massive sheet of moving blue-tinged ice, about 5km wide at the base, 32km long, and ranging from 40m to 60m high (about 20 stories!), all of which is moving downhill at a rate of 2m per day. The whole time we were there we could hear loud cracking noises, sometimes accompanied by a chunk of ice falling away from the edge of the glacier, into the surrounding lake. The best were at the beginning and end of our stay, when two house-sized blocks ripped themselves off into a slow, melty death, much to the delight of everyone in attendance.

The next day we headed up north a little to El Chalten, home of the Fitz Roy, a unique-looking peak which was not conquered until a decade after Everest. Being the avid mountain climbers we are, we decided not to attempt the summit this time. We did, however, do a couple of less
techical hikes.

Note: Contrary to the impression you may have gotten based on the number of treks we have done on this trip (at least 6 at last count), we are not actally big fans of the activity. However, if you come to South America they pretty much come with the territory. If on the other hand you do like hiking, go and book your tickets now!

Anyway, the first day we did a 6-hour warmup trek to Lago Torre (Tower Lake). Once we got there, we both agreed that the view from the lookout a hour-and-a-half earlier was actually much better. But Dave took the opportunity to strip down to his boxers and a t-shirt and attempt to ride an undersized iceberg anyway, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

The next day we set out for Lago de los Tres (Lake of the Three. Three what or who, we never established). This one was about 8 hours, but much harder, mostly due to the long, steep hill you have to climb at the end. It jumps up 400m over about 2km, which kind of sucks after doing the same height over the previous 6km. Not to mention the intermittent rain and strong, gusty wind. Ah, hiking - gotta love it.

Anyway, we finally made it to the top, to discover that, as suspected, Fitz Roy was covered in cloud. Shortly after, we further discovered that the clouds were in fact full of snow, which they then proceeded to release upon us. Still, snow is better than rain, so in many ways this was an improvement anyway.

We headed back to El Calafate the next day, and from there did an 18-hour tour of the Torres del Paine national park, in neighbouring Chile. This park really deserved more time than that, particularly if you are a hiker, but: a) we didn't have time, and b) we are not hikers. Instead, we spent about 12 hours on the bus, 4 hours in the park, and 2 hours in the Argentine and Chilean border control offices. Still, it was worth the trip, particularly for Dave Cohen, who got to see over 30 condors - his favourite bird - in one spot!

The next day we flew into Ushuaia. Famous mostly for being at the bottom end of the world, it also serves as a departure point for travellers heading towards the real bottom of the world - Antarctica. We had a quick check to see if any cheap last-minute tickets were on the go, which there were, but only if you consider US$4,000 to be cheap. Unfortunately, it wouldn't quite fit into our budget this time...

Instead, we caught a shorter (and much more economical) boat ride down the Beagle Channel, spotting some interesting landscapes and animals, including cormorants, sea lions and penguines. Those little guys might waddle around on land, but they're pretty zippy under water.

We rounded out our Ushaia visit with yet another hike (only a couple of hours this time), a visit to the Maritime Museum, and attending a local church service. Fun!

The next day we caught a plane back to Buenos Aires, then a bus straight out of town to Cordoba, in the central north of Argentina. We are here until tomorrow, then head to Salta (probably).

In any case, that about wraps it up for this round. Only one or two more to go, I'm afraid.

Hasta luego!

Los Davides

Day 93, Part 2: Las playas, los carnavales, y las cataratas

(Note: due to an accidental button-push, this update is now in two parts.)

The remainder of our stay in Salvador mainly consisted of various periods of trying and failing to stay awake until catching our flight to Rio de Janeiro later that morning.

Rio was our third, and best carnaval experience. This may have been aided by the fact that we were able to hang out with some friends who could take us around to the good places. Not to mention that they had also arranged accommodation for our three nights in town, a fact we were now extremely grateful for.

After crashing out for a couple of hours, we headed out to a bloco, Rio-style. As in Salvador, it was a big truck with speakers and a live band, but this one was open to whoever wanted to go, and had a much better vibe.

The next day, we attempted to visit the 30-metre tall statue of Jesus, but getting tickets for the train to the top of the hill that day turned out to be impossible, so we headed to the 'Sugarloaf', a big chunk of rock sticking out of the coastline with a great view of the city.

After seeing some of the famous Samba Parade on TV, we decided to see if we could get in the next night to see it live. Eventually we found somewhere which had some available. Tickets go for up to AU $700 each, or much more than that if you get a private box, but we snagged some in the public section for a fraction of that.

The Samba Parade is actually a competition between 12 different samba schools. Over two nights each school dances their way down a 1.5km strip, lined by grandstands. Each school takes up to an hour and a half each, and has thousands of people, so each night starts at about 9pm and finishes at around 6am. Most people pay to join in, and mostly wear large, colourful costumes, shuffling down the strip, and paying a few hundred dollars each to buy their costumes. The various blocks of costumed performers are punctuated by huge floats with more skilled performers. And the whole time, the unique song for each school is being sung on a loop by the tireless musicians, and occasionally by the crowd.

We ended up bailing during the second-last school, at around 3am, and made it home by about 4. All in all, a fun night out.

Over the next couple of days we saw bit more of Rio, and finally made it to see Jesus (which is a pretty impressive statue). On the 25th, we finally got in a swim at Copacobana, said goodbye to our friends, and headed to the airport. Our destination:

Word 3: Las cataratas
Definition: The waterfalls

The Iguasu Falls are located at the corner of three countries: Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. The former two have the views of the falls, no doubt much to the chagrin of Paraguay. It worked out well for us, since for some reason Australians require a visa to get into Paraguay, and we didn't have one.

The first day, we visited the Brazilian side. For the most part, this turned out to be less impressive than we had expected, but it was still pretty. Snr. Cohen decided to take a hellicopter ride at the end of the day, and enjoyed himself thoroughly - his fist one ever, apparently. At the end of the day, we skipped over the border into Argentina, and just like that our time in Brazil was over. It was a little bit odd to be back in a Spanish-speaking country again, and we are still working on excorcising the smattering of Portuguese we picked up From our vocabulary.

The Argentinian side of the Falls turned out to be much more impressive. First we visited the Gargatua del Diablo (Throat of the Devil), which has a huge amount of water flowing over it. Next was the Circuito Superior (Upper Circuit), which goes over the top of the smaller, but longer string of falls, then the Circuito Inferior (Lower Circuit), which provided views from the bottom of the falls.

At the river, we hopped on a speedboat, which took us for a short tour of the falls, and then right under on of the biggest - twice! It was a blast! Hopefully the video will make it onto YouTube for general consumpion at some point.

That night we hopped on an overnight bus to Buenos Aires. We caught a tango show last night, which was fun. Andrew headed off to back to the States tonight, and tomorrow Los Dos Davides are back on their own, flying down to Patagonia, in the southernmost part of the continent. It is going to be a bit chilly, we fear...

Well, now it is time for dinner, so for now, hasta luego!

Los Davides (plus one)

Day 93, Part 1: Las playas, los carnivales, y las cataratas

Well, the end of our epic journey is rapidly approaching. In a little over two weeks, we will be back in Buenos Aires hopping aboard a flight back to Sydney. Time flies...

Anyway, today's update has a short Spanish lesson.

Word 1: Las playas
Definition: The beaches

In the last update, we were in Jericoacoara, awaiting the impending arrival of my brother Andrew (from Australia, via New Zealand, LA, Atlanta, Recife and Fortaleza - urg...). We managed to meet him successfully, and we've been travelling together since then. In fact, he is about to jump on a plane back to the States, joining a cruise ship to Mexico for his class reunion. Don't you wish you were in his class?

Anyway, we chilled out successfully in Jeri for another couple of days, managing to squeeze in a couple of swims and a game of soccer on the beach with some of the locals (our team won, believe it or not). Once we had fully relaxed, it was time to jump back on a long bus
ride, this time heading for...

Word 2: Los carnivales
Definition: The carnivals

Our first carnaval experience was in a town called Olinda, just north of the larger city of Recife, in north-eastern Brazil. Olinda has a nice historical centre, and a very friendly carnival. We were there for three days leading up to the official start of carnaval, and each night the vibe of the town was getting more and more excited. There were several street parades, and one in particular with a group about 20 drummers, 20 percussionists, and 20 dancers, all of whom happened to be female (this fact did not effect our bias whatsoever). And each night there was a free concert, mostly made up of musicians in their 50's (or later). Apparently the good Carnival music has been around for a while...

Next, we pulled what we now refer to as 'The Salvador Stunt'. We were going to be in Salvador for the first official night of Carnaval, but we didn't have any accommodation booked, partly because it was expensive, and partly because we had a couple of contacts who we hoped would hook us up. This didn't end up working out, so we decided to revert to our uni days and attempt an all-nighter.

Unfortunately, it turned out that we didn't really like the Salvador style of Carnaval, which seems to consist of rock bands perched on top of big trucks which are about 80% loud-speaker, all at 110% volume. These 'blocos' move around a loop, followed by people who have paid up to AU$1,000 for the priviledge of owning a brightly coloured t-shirt (the same as their fellow bloco members), surrounded by a large rope around the truck and the followers, and watched by people on ground-level (known as 'popcorn') and others perched high in balconies in the surrounding buildings.

After a couple of hours of being popcorn, we decided to cut our losses and worked on killing time in other creative ways. Our primary strategy was 24-hour fast-food restaurants. First, we hit Subway, but discovered that the special Carnaval prices were too much for us. On the way out, we bumped into a guy who was offering massages for 1 Real (about AU$0.67) per minute. We weren't really interested in a massage, but still had about 12 hours to kill, so we chatted with him for about an hour or so, after which we felt kind of obligated to actually pay for his time. A really good ten-minute massage each later, we were feeling relaxed and refreshed, and ready for the next stage of the plan: McDonalds.

We arrived, made the obligatory bathroom stop, and ordered a meal. Three hours later, we were running out of conversation points and started noticing that there were less and less people in the restaurant. It turns out that contrary to our earlier impression from a Portuguese-speaking attendant, the main restaurant was in fact NOT open for 24 hours.

For lack of a better place to go, and encouraged by the rain now falling outside, we decided to see how long we could stay inside before we were kicked out by an irate staff member. Our strategy involved not leaving our seats, and avoiding eye contact with all employees. The drive-through stayed open, so several staff stuck around, and so did we. At about 2am, the manager started removing the tables from the room, often having to snap them off the rusted bolts that were holding them onto the floor.

This seemed like a somewhat odd thing to be doing, but we stuck around anyway, until we were sitting at pretty much the only table still standing.

Deciding that our options were fairly limited at this point, we finally gave up our table to the wrecking crew. The staff turned out to me pretty friendly, and the manager even gave us a quick samba lesson (conclusion: Brazilians are good, we suck), and we moved on - back to Subway.

Day 77: Jungles, rivers and beaches

Well, it's been a while since the last update, and as some of you may have notice, it was actually sent 5 days late anyway. It was written on my iPhone, but we didn't get access to send it until after the jungle tour.

In any case, there is a lot of ground to cover, so brace yourselves.I'll try to keep it brief.

After São Paulo, we headed to the city of Manaus, capital of the Amazonias province. As with all the cities in Brazil so far, we were surprised by the size of the place. We were expecting a smallish city, but it would probably be at least as big as Brisbane, and most likely with two or three times as many people.

The next morning, we set out into the Amazon jungle for a 5-day tour/4-night tour. Our guide's name was Tarzan. Yes, that was really his name. He lived up to it too - just a little bit crazy, but in a good way.

The river was our main conduit, and we spent a lot of time in little boats going from one place to the next. We spent two nights in a 'jungle lodge' (i.e. an actual bed, a roof over our heads and a shower!) and two out in the jungle, on hammocks under big sheets of black plastic. In between, we saw alligators, sloths, pirrhana, monkeys, jungle cats, poisonous frogs, venomous snakes, pink dolphins, tarantulas and lots and lots of bugs.

On the first two nights we were with a British couple, and for the last two we were on our own - a private tour! We managed to get completely drenched while stuck in the boat on the way to the first night in the jungle, and it took another couple of days to dry out fully. The next night, the British couple headed back, and we went deeper into the jungle. We even caught our own dinner - pirhhana.

After the tour, we jumped on a boat to the coast, to a city named Belém. The 4-day journey was very relaxed - there was pretty much nothing to do other than chill out, read books, and play dominoes with the locals. The busiest we got was when stopping in a town called Santarem. We were going to be in port for about 6 hours, so we caught a bus out of town to a beach on the Amazon river. After a 45 minute bus ride, we finally made it. It turned out to be a small island made of sand, about 50 metres out into the river, complete with thatched-roof huts, umbrellas and kayaks. We got there by a short boat ride, and we just chilled out for an hour or so. We left ourselves about 2 and a half hours to get back. This turned out to be only just suffient. The bus we were catching was about an hour late, and we got back into town with about 5 minutes to spare. After catching a taxi that then got lost, we finally made it back with about 1 minute to spare, and discovered that the boat would not be leaving until two hours later.

After arriving in Belém, we caught a plane to São Luis, then a bus to the town of Barreirinhas, near the national park of Lençóis Maranhenses. This park contains some unique sand dunes, which have lagoons of fresh water. You can even swim in them, and get nibbled by small fish. Fun!

From there we headed to a beach called Jericoacoara.The journey took a day and a half, and included two jeep rides, two busses and another jeep ride along the beach. Despite the fact that the last jeep had a leak in the fuel line and the new fuel tank was a big container in the front passenger seat, we made it safely to Jeri and are now chilling out as much as possible.

This afternoon we should be meeting my brother Andrew, who will be with us for the next couple of weeks. It will be good for both of us to have some news from home and someone else to tell all our old jokes to.

Anyway, for now, hasta luego amigos!

Los Davides

Day 62: Adiós Perú, ola Brasil!

Since this edition is being written on my iPhone while waiting for our flight to Manaus, in the Amazonia region of Brazil, there are three immediate consequences:

1. I can't check exactly where the last place we wrote from was,
2. There won't be any pretty photos on this edition, and
3. This one may be a lot shorter than usual.

No promises however...

I believe we were in Arequipa, Chile's second largest city, behind Lima, and home to the frozen Incan mummy named Juanita. She was found at the top of a volcano in 1996, and died around 500 years ago at the age of about 11 or 12. The one-hour tour is highly recommended if you are ever in town.

From there we headed to Nazca, home of the famous Nazca Lines. These are giant outlines of animals, such as the monkey, whale, humming bird, and spider, as well as geometric shapes, including triangles, trapezoids and rectangles. They were created somewhere around 500AD, and are only visible from the sky, leadomg to mich speculation about why they were created, ranging from religion to aliens. They were rediscovered in the late 1930's when commercial flights began in the area.

Nazca also has an interesting cemetery nearby, dating back about 1,000 years. It contains dozens of mummified remains in underground crypts. The area has been scavenged repeatedly by tomb raiders (not Lara Croft though, apparently), and as a result there are bone fragments and bits of clothing scattered around the landscape. There are a few tombs which were relatively undamaged however, and they contain well preserved mummies of adults, who often still had 2-metre long ponytails, and infants, several of which had a 'false head' because their real one had been removed in a sacrifice.

There was also another place nearby with an aqueduct system, and deep circular holes down to the water. You can ask Dave 'Water Engineer' Cohen for more details if you are interested.

After Nazca, we headed for Lima, where we would be catching our flight into Brazil. After arriving by bus at about 6am, we managed to track down a dodgy hotel to dump our belongings in, and headed out.

It was a pretty cruisy day all up, starting with a tour of the catacombs beneath the San Francisco church (containing bones from over 20,000 people), followed by a visit to the national library (Snr. Cohen wanted to research the Inca, and then took a nap), the Museo de la Nacion (lots of pottery and artwork), and finally sushi with a friend we met in Cuzco and eight of her acquaintances.

The next day, we headed to the ariport for the 5-hour flight to São Paulo, Brazil. We were met at the airport by a friend named Mariana, and her friend Rafael, who had generously offered to give us a ride to our hotel. This ended up taking a while, since we hadn't booked ahead and the first place we tried didn't have any space. We ended up in a 16-person dorm room, in which we actually got a decent night's sleep, contrary to our initial expectations.

The next day, we hunted down a hotel room, then headed to a local museum/garden area. The museum was closed, but the gardens were quite pretty anyway. As we were about to leave, it started raining and it got heavy quickly. We initially took refuge under a tree, but this soon proved inadequate for the task, so we ran to the awning of the museum. Once it lightened up a bit, we headed home, fairly thoroughly soaked. A good day out!

The next day, we met up with Marcos, who we had met in Brisbane about a year earlier when he was there studying English. It turned out that his brother lived on the same block as our hotel, so we dropped in there first. He turned our to be a former restaurant critic, and pointed us towards a place that had traditional Brazilian food from the north. It consisted of beans, rice and lots of meat, and was pretty darn good.

After lunch, we visited my favourite museum so far: the Museo do Futebol. No prizes for translation. It talked about some of the history of the game in Brazil, the stars of the game, great goals, and more. Afterwards, Marcos and I managed to forget to pick up our ID cards, and didn't realise until the museum was closed..

The next day, we headed back to the museum and successfully retrieved our posessions, then headed into Sé, which is the city centre. São Paulo has a great subway system, by the way, although we were warned that 7am is a bad time to try catching it (peak hour).

While wondering around in Sé, we came across a curious sight - a white leather couch with a cardbord cut-out of a peroxide blonde 60-year-old woman, and a TV camera pointing at it. Investigation revealed that they were recording short messages from people which would be played later on TV. Anyone who is in Brazil, look for us on STB at 7 or 8pm on February 9, on 'Sofa de Hebe'.

Today, we head for the Amazon jungle, and will be out of contact for somewhere between 5 and 10 days. In the meantime, feel free to peruse the hundreds of photos that we have finally gotten around to uploading. They are still about three weeks behind, but we're catching up. You can find them all here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bitmeizer

Hasta la proxima vez,

Los Davides