Potosi, Bolivia - Day 1

I visited a silver mine today in Potosi, a UNESCO site, one of 700 mines in the area employing 2500 locals to slave away in the mines. These mines are co-operatives owned by the miners with the government taking a small percentage of the proceeds. Miners make about 1200-1400 bolivianos a month which is about $170-200 dollars a month. The average salary for non miners in Potosi is about 400 bolivianos a month which is about 55 dollars a month. So compared to other locals the miners are making a king’s ransom.

Until you consider that miners have a life expectancy of 40 years. We met a father and son team working in the mines. The father was 38 and his two sons were 18 and 15 with three other children at home; the youngest one being 1.5 yrs old. The youngest child will not remember his father who will pass away in 2 years. It’s poignantly heartbreaking. Even more so may be the fate of the two young boys who work with their father. Because they started working in the mines at such a young age, their life expectancy goes down exponentially and reaching the age of 34 may be a lucky scenario. We met children as young as 11 working in various roles in the mines.

The mines are filled with uneducated Bolivians lured in by the comparatively lucrative money to be made. Miners work reasonable hours as they have to be out of the mines by 5pm to allow for the large explosions to open up new passages. They have a large breakfast and dinner and do not eat lunch, instead macerating coca leaves which are purported to provide an energy rush similar to caffeine and to stave off hunger. In order to avoid putting their asbestos covered hands in their mouths while eating the coca leaves, they urinate on their hands prior to eating their lunch. As the mines are cooperatives, the miners get paid in accordance with as much ore as they can pull out of the ground and sell to refineries. Teams within the mines are in constant battle for prime real estate and physical altercations often break out. Miners go on years and years of experience in finding a vein of ore, and there are no regulations as to where you can blast. As a result, miners may accidently blast underneath other preexisting mines, causing cave-ins and casualties.

Miners have health insurance and a decent retirement plan. However, this plan comes with a number of stipulations. In order to get health insurance, the miner must work as a “helper” in a group for 4 consecutive years. After working as a helper for 4 consecutive years with the same team, he gets the insurance and is promoted to a “miner” with access to the more desirable jobs and potential managerial positions. What often happens is young miners do not feel the effects of the dust and asbestos filled air on their lungs, and because they are compensated based on how much ore they extract, they will often switch teams once their particular vein of ore has dried up. The impact is that their 4 year timeline to get insurance starts over. After doing this a couple times, a miner may not get insurance until they are 30 or ¾ of their life is over.

The retirement plan goes as such. If a miner is found to have 50% of their lungs damaged by working in the mines, the miner can retire and get paid the same amount of money (1200 Bolivianos) until they die. The stipulations are that they can only get tested every 4 years. So if a miner is 38 and gets tested and is found to have 45% lung damage he must continue to work until he can get tested again at 42. The problem is that they are often dead before the next scheduled test. Even if they manage to have 50% lung damage and retire and collect on the retirement plan, they are not expected to live more than 1 year past that point.

Traveling has definitely opened my eyes and adjusted my perspective. Things are not always as bad as they seem. Even though the US economy is in shambles, even though gloom and doom abound on every newspaper and news channel on TV, even though I don’t have a job, even though .......

My father is alive and lives past 40. I have a loving family. I have my health. I can afford to travel. I’ll get a new job, it may not be my dream job but I know I won’t starve. Count your blessings. Others are not so fortunate.

Everything is amazing and nobody is happy

Potosi, Bolivia - Day 1

Solar de Uyuni, Bolivia - Day 3

We had to wake up at 4 am this morning to see the sun rise. I wasn’t entirely excited about waking up that early, especially since we were sleeping at 4000 meters and it wasn’t exactly restful recuperative sleep. I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of sunrises is this one really going to be worth waking up at 4am? Wow. This was one of the most spectacular sites so far. The sun rising over a crystal clear lake of white salt; reflecting and shimmering off of the pools of water on the salt made for a magnificent site with a color spectrum that ran the gamut.

Today was the most jam packed of the 3 days, and we were to be done by 2ish. After watching the sunrise, we drove to a massive salt flat. We were driving on the salt flat for about an hour and did not get across it. In the middle of the salt flat was a small hill full of cactus which we explored for a bit. Then we made some funny photos on the salt flats all before having our breakfast.

After we finished breakfast, we visited a hotel made entirely out of salt blocks and a train museum that was more of a graveyard where they sent trains to die.

Solar de Uyuni, Bolivia - Day 3

Solar de Uyuni, Bolivia - Day 2

Today was more desert and lagoons as we continued our way towards Uyuni, Bolivia. I got to climb up some rock formations, watch a flat tire being changed, and play soccer with some local kids when we arrived at the hostel.

Solar de Uyuni, Bolivia - Day 2

Solar de Uyuni, Bolivia - Day 1

So today was the start of one of the best tours that I took in South America. A 3 day tour of Bolivia’s salt flats and beautiful lagoons in a 4x4 truck, with food and lodging was only $100 dollars. Granted the accommodations were a bit rough, with no heat and the first place did not have shower facilities, but we had people on the tour ranging in age from 25 to late 60s and everybody survived and enjoyed themselves.

On the tour that day, we visited the desert that inspired Vincent Van Gogh’s art work, volcanic geysers overflowing with mud and steam, and saw a tornado approaching us through the desert. We also explored a couple lagoons which were so vividly brilliant that they appeared to be painted vibrant hues of blue, green, white, and red. Complimenting the beautiful water colors were towering mountain scenes and masses of magnificent flamingoes. I’ve never seen so many animals of one species in one place at one time. Couple that with the amazing scenery and you are driven into visual sensory overload. Of course a picture can only get a fraction of what the eye can see so while the pictures that I have on this tour are stunning, the in person experience was exponentially better.

Trying to move around for your first couple days at high altitudes, 3000 meters is where you first start of feel some of the altitude symptoms, is like trying to run a marathon while carrying a horse who is kicking you in the head. You take five steps and have to stop, completely winded, hunched over trying to catch your breath, while a headache constantly pounds your skull. Sleeping at that altitude is a totally different matter. We had to sleep at 4200 meters on the first day and with no previous altitude exposure it was really difficult. The best way that I can describe it is to use a simile - sleeping at 4200 meters is like trying to breathe through a straw while a baby elephant performs back flips on your chest.

Solar de Uyuni, Bolivia - Day 1

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile - Day 2

So today I had a very packed day of tours starting at 4am until 2pm for an early morning geysers tour and then another tour of the Death Valley, Moon Valley, and some desert sites from 4pm to 9pm.

El Tatio Geyser Field is located in the Andes Mountains of northern Chile at 4,200 meters above sea level. With over 80 active geysers, El Tatio is the largest geyser field in the southern hemisphere and the third largest field in the world, after Yellowstone, and Dolina Giezerov in Russia. And at 4,200 meters, the El Tatio field is purported that they are the highest elevation geyser field in the world.

The best time to see them is at sunrise when each geyser is surmounted by a column of steam that condenses in the bitterly cold morning air. The steam plumes disappear as the air warms up. The tourist agency told me it was going to be cold, but it was hot in San Pedro, so I wore a T shirt and thin hiking pants and a light jacket and I figured that would be sufficient. WOW was I freezing. When the sun was down, the weather hit -11 degrees Celsius (12 degrees Fahrenheit) and I was doing jumping jacks to stay warm. I would take a picture and then warm my fingers up and try and repeat. What I didn’t understand was how people were swimming in the hot springs. As soon as you get out of the water, you must be freezing. Once the sun came up, it warmed up a bit but it was still rather chilly.

The second tour of the day included Death Valley, a huge desert canyon; Moon Valley, a desert space that had rolling valleys and hills which resemble the moon’s surface; and a desert peak climb to watch the sun set. A very very packed and satisfying day.

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile - Day 2

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile - Day 1

So 2 other travelers, Oliver from France and Martina from Switzerland, and I made the 6-7 hour car journey together from Salta to San Pedro. We were on our way to San Pedro, the desert town in Chile's Atacama Desert. The town serves as a gateway to multiple outdoor activities, archeological sites, and natural wonders such as geysers and desert formations. It’s a popular tourist attraction for foreigners and local Chilean’s alike.

It was a fun talkative journey as we meandered our way through the mountains and salt flats until we got to the border crossing with Chile. We had been speeding most of the way to stay in front of a large tourist bus as we did not want to get stuck behind 80 some people for the border crossing formalities. But it didn’t matter because when we got there the line snaked around the building and we got caught in the quagmire. After some questioning, we found out that the power to the station just went out. Backup generator? Nope. Welcome to South America. We waited for 3 hours and during that time the office managed to process perhaps 15 people tops using the manual process.

So our driver goes to the front of the line and who knows what kind of deal he made with the man in charge but he ushers us to the front amid the stares and Spanish outbursts to “Respect the line!” After getting our passports stamped and hurriedly skirting out amid hostile glares, we got in our car…where we waited for 10 minutes while our drivers got…coffee. Coffee? UMM…were you doing something during our 3 hour wait in line?

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile - Day 1

Salta, Argentina - Day 3

Today I took another tour north of the city which had highlights of “train to the clouds”, the salt flats, and a 4200 meter marker. The train to the clouds is a train that goes up an extremely steep hill that uses a method called switch backs in order to ascend very steep mountains. The train goes from left to right on the track in a “Z” shape up the mountain instead of going straight up or around. The salt flats were amazing and provide some interesting pictures with the white background as a background to reduce depth perception. The 4200 meter mark (13,800 ft) was a marker on a hill that we drove up to and it was the highest elevation that I had been to so far. Just for perspective, the highest mountain in Europe is the Mont Blanc Massif in the Swiss Alps and that sits at about 4800 meters (15,775 ft) above sea level. Denver, the mile high city, is 1,609 m (5,280 ft). We DROVE to 4200 meters.

So I had a reservation to stay in Purmamarca that evening and get picked up by a car to go to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile the following morning. I would normally take a bus to San Pedro but the buses were fully booked for 2 solid weeks because it was the Argentinean summer vacation period and a lot of people are traveling. So I guess my question would be if you have that much demand that your booked solid for 2 weeks why not do one of two things – 1. Raise your prices to lower demand or make more money 2. Increase the supply of buses temporarily??? Helllooooo, no bus company should be booked solid for 2 weeks straight, rent some crappy busses and crappier bus drivers and fill the demand. Anyway so I had to pay $110 dollars for a 6 hour taxi ride. The travel agency, which had a monopoly on the cab rides to San Pedro, is loving the bus companies right now.

So I arrive in Purmamarca at 7pm and go to the hostel where I had a reservation and for some reason the hostel doesn’t have the reservation. So this girl from the tour and I walk around the town with our bags in search of a place, but every place is booked solid. Then we find out there is a rock festival going on in the next town and all the beds are taken. A Rock Festival? In a village in northern Argentina? OKAAAAAAY so how are they going to have enough electricity to support the concert? I don’t think the town had internet, and the village electricity was probably generated with a bunch of kids running on a hamster wheel or blowing on a wind turbine. We finally find a person’s house that put a ton of beds (like more than I’ve seen in one place outside of a mattress store or higher than I can count) in one room. Well beggars can’t be choosers and at this point in the night my back hurt from carrying my bag around for an hour or so. Thanks rock concert.

Salta, Argentina - Day 3

Salta, Argentina - Day 2

Today I took an all day tour of 4 small villages north of Salta which covered a total of about 250km or about 150 miles. These villages were my first taste of a more rural “traditional” Latin America culture which I was expecting when I started planning this trip. You know…the colorful traditional clothing, the unique handicrafts, the fresh foods made from local ingredients, and the dirty children happily playing with sticks and pig bladders. Ok so I didn’t see any animal parts being thrown around, but the rest of my perception (right or wrong) of South American living was unveiled today.

The first place was Purmamarca, a small village with the 7 colored mountains nearby. The second place was Tilcara, a small village about 2500 meters above sea level. The key to this city is the archeological site of Purcara de Tilcara, the ruins of a pre Inca Puracar people. The archeological site was atop a large hill which had a panoramic view of the area for protection from invaders. The third place we visited was Humahuaca, a UNESCO site for its fine example of pre Inca life and architecture. The fourth place was Jujuy, the capital city of the area. We also visited the marker for the Tropic of Capricorn, a major line of latitude in the southern hemisphere.

Salta, Argentina - Day 2

Salta, Argentina - Day 1

I arrived to Salta early in the morning on an overnight bus from Mendoza so I took a nap and then hit the town to explore. I went to a couple museums, and a lookout point on top of a hill. I think of all the Argentinean cities that I’ve visited so far, Salta has the most indigenous culture and charisma to the city, both the architecture and its people.

The fun part of the day was taking an empanada class at the hostel in the evening. We made both fried and baked empanadas. One of the telltale characteristics of empanadas from Salta is that the meat and other ingredients are chopped into very fine cubes and not ground. They also add a decent dose of cumin which adds a lovely flavor and a ton of lard – wahoo! Pork fat can make cardboard taste good. Lard may be the best condiment ever after ketchup. Just like ketchup it works on pretty much everything! OK everything savory. I can’t wait to reproduce those tasty suckers back home.

Salta, Argentina - Day 1

Mendoza, Argentina - Day 2

Mendoza, Argentina - Day 2

Mendoza, Argentina - Day 1

Mendoza is the main city in Argentina’s wine country. But besides the wine tourism, it also has amazing rivers to raft and the largest mountain in the Southern Hemisphere to scale, Aconcagua, at 6,900 meters. To cater to the up market wine tourists there are a plethora of first class restaurants at reasonable prices (compared to New York). So there is a lot to do in Mendoza. Yet for some reason, I really really did not like this city.

First off the actual city of Mendoza. Mendoza was demolished in a earthquake a while ago, so when they rebuilt the city, the city planners made the street blocks extra wide and very grid like. The city is a huge square, with a main square in the center, and four themed squares (spain, Italy) extending from each corner of the main square. On the good side, it’s impossible to get lost in Mendoza. And while the town squares were a nice touch, you couldn’t help but feel that the squares were erected as a half hearted attempt at an aesthetic façade. Half of the fountains weren’t even working. There is no beauty in the city; no city culture; no museums. It’s a grid, the buildings are ugly, and it’s immensely overcrowded.

The surrounding area of Mendoza. Perhaps I chose the wrong wine tour. Perhaps I chose the wrong day to go rafting. But the wine tour that I went on was horrible. There was an olive oil plant that we visited along with the two vineyards, and that was infinitely more interesting and educational. I learned that olive oil is made purely from crushing olives with nothing being added. 60% of the olive is water and the olive pits contain about 10% of the olive’s oil. Everything is conserved; the olive water is used to water the crops, and the ground olive pits and skins are rendered to a hard bark like substance that is used for fueling the factory. The olive oil comes in multiple grades such as extra virgin, virgin, etc. These grades are based on the acidity of the olive oil with extra virgin olive oil having less than 1% of acidity. The quality can be controlled by picking and processing the olives just as they ripen to ensure the purest oil with the least acidity.

I signed up for a rafting trip for the following day as the trips came highly recommended from other travelers, Mendoza apparently has some of the best rapids in Argentina. But when I returned to my hostel after dinner on the first day, I was told that there were not enough people to fulfill the tour minimum and they would have to cancel the rafting expedition. So I bummed around all day and then worked on my blog.

I went to two really nice restaurants in Mendoza’s plush restaurant area near the town square. One was an Asian fusion restaurant that had the first location outside of the city and due to popular request opened another location in the middle of town. That has to be good right? The second was a jam packed steak house that I walked past on the first day and decided to try on the second day. Note to self – temper your expectations on any type of “Asian” food while in South America. I suppose some key ingredients are just too hard to find here or the flavors must be adjusted to suit the local customers because I have yet to find anything that resembles real Asian food. The bread and spread at the Asian restaurant were a nice touch, and the hot chicken salad with apples and raisins was good. But the lamb masala, the restaurant’s supposed specialty, was watery and bland, lacking the punch and spice that comes with good Indian food. The accompanying Nan was a thick pancake like pad of dough that was neither flaky nor absorbent. It just kind sat in the watery masala and got soggy, not properly sopping up the supposedly rich spicy mess which it is intended to do. The second restaurant, a steak place, was something that I looked forward to all day while I was working on my blog and stewing over my missed white water rafting trip. Perhaps that was my mistake. Perhaps pessimism is the best optimism. That way I’ll always be pleasantly surprised no matter what the outcome. Perhaps I’ve just been pampered with amazing steaks at all the other Argentinean cities that I’ve visited. If you love meat, Argentina should be a food destination. They don’t have much in the way of food variety or creatively. But they sure know how to make an amazing steak, except in the one steak restaurant that I picked in Mendoza. The rich cream and tomato sauces drowned out the bife de lomo and the steak was well on its way to being burnt. The steamed veggies were nice though.

If you can’t tell, I didn’t really like Mendoza.

Mendoza, Argentina - Day 1

Valparaiso, Chile - Day 3

Today was a blog day while I awaited the New Years Eve festivities in Valparaiso. The city is the site of the largest fireworks display in the world. More than a million people flock from around the world to Valparaiso to watch 20 tons of fireworks go off from seven locations throughout the pier. For me, fireworks are often very similar. Regardless of the location, most shows have a similar bouquet of fireworks with some being slightly longer or slightly higher or slightly more elaborate. But at the end of the day, they kind of look the same. Valparaiso was like watching 7 shows at the same time in a wrap around IMAX theater. Because they shot the fireworks off from multiple spots along a half moon shaped bay and because they spent an exorbitantly excessive amount of money during this global economic crisis, the show was an amazingly coordinated display unlike anything that I’ve ever seen before. And I forgot my camera.

Valparaiso, Chile - Day 2

I went to some museums, hills tops, to a local restaurant, and to observe some street performers in a park. A long day of wandering. Other people may call what I did today a long day of getting lost. I prefer wandering.

Valparasio, Chile - Day 2

Valparaiso, Chile - Day 1

Valparaiso, a Unesco Site, is an artsy bohemian town about an hour and a half northwest of Santiago along the Pacific coast. A cluster of winding streets, massive hills, and cable cars permeate the city. They have artists galore and homeless people aplenty.

Valparaiso is definitely not for everybody. It’s a very overcrowded city; the streets are narrow and people are everywhere. There are rough edges not just at the city edges but throughout the city. Of all the cities that I’ve ever visited, it’s one easiest cities to get lost in as the streets names change a couple times for the same street on one stretch of road, most of the streets are extremely windy, there are few main streets to walk along, and the city is built around multiple hills and along a bay which adds to the confusion. Certainly, the flock of homeless people laying around the entire city also makes it somewhat difficult to ascertain the “safe” areas from the somewhat “shady” areas.

For the shutterbug, wanderlust takes over and exploring the numerous side streets on each hill can become a multiple day activity. The artistic graffiti, colorful houses, and small art galleries on the hills are a joy to discover with each street providing a glimpse into the local art work and often crescendoing into the next find.

Valparasio, Chile - Day 1

Santiago, Chile - Day 2

So here are some things that I’ve learned about Argentina and Chile so far while traveling.

1. Most stores close between 2-6pm for a siesta so it’s really hard to purchase things or plan anything during this time. If you’re gushing blood and you need a bandage, tough luck wait until 6pm.
2. Most restaurants do not open for dinner until 8pm. Get a snack.
3. Argentineans eat a huge meal really late at like 10 or 11 pm so restaurants do not get packed until then.

Today I learned that in Santiago, restaurants are closed for dinner on Sunday.

I’ve been craving sushi for a long time and there was a sushi restaurant right next to where I was staying. I noticed it after walking back home the night before from a really crappy Korean restaurant. The Korean food was rather authentic, the place was run by Koreans, and only Koreans were in the restaurant. But the seafood tofu stew that I ordered was horrible, the shrimp were half rotten and the tofu somewhat grainy.

On the way back from that restaurant I passed this Japanese restaurant next to where I was staying. It was packed with people. Good sign. Packed with Asian people. Even better sign. So I decided to give it a try the following night. I went to the Santiago zoo, climbed up a mini mountain for a view, checked out a pre Columbian museum, and worked on my blog. In anticipation of my sushi dinner, I had forgone a large lunch and had a snack instead. After working on my blog, I exit my building promptly at 8pm, turn right, walk down the block and low and behold the restaurant is closed! WHHHHAT?!? What’s going on? I checked the time, it’s past 8 pm so the restaurant should be open. It’s Sunday? Japanese restaurants are closed on Sundays! No wait a minute ALL restaurants are closed on Sunday evenings! So like no one eats on a Sunday?

So I’m wandering around Santiago trying to find something to eat and I run into a Chinese restaurant…and it’s open. Just like in the states on Christmas and Thanksgiving, Chinese restaurants seem to open when others close. That’s work ethic.

Santiago, Chile - Day 2