Heading underground in Potosi, Bolivia

Today was trying and intense, and for the first time in a week those challenges were not generated from travel issues. Hopefully, we have left those behind us and are now forward looking, anticipating the wondrous and unique country we find ourselves in: Bolivia.

We got across the border yesterday and then took a night bus from the border town up to Potosi. At one point, this city was the richest in the Western Hemisphere, due to the insanely rich vein of mineral wealth contained in the mountain that dominates it skyline, Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain). This has been mined for more than four centuries, and has yielded and continues to yield tin, silver, rare earth metals, and tons and tons of toxins for the men (and sometimes boys) who make it their livelhood to extract the precious ore.

Potosi is also known as the highest city in the world, checking in around 4000 meters above sea level, or 13,123 feet. By way of context, that is higher than almost every ski mountain in the continental US. While we were living in Breck, i took some pride in living above 10,000 feet down at the base of the resort. But Potosi sits above the top of Breckenridge Ski Resort. And that is the town, so yes, air is hard to come by. It was especially hard to come by when we arrived at the bus station around 6 am and had to brace against the piercing cold temps. Brrr, it was bone chilling and also somehow woke me up from a shabby bus ride and fitful sleep of the night.

A couple of hours later and we were heading out with other backpackers on a mine tour of a collective mine up on the Cerro Rico. The business model for the mines have them run as collective, a bunch of little businesses contained within the mountain, all told there are roughly 15,000 miners toiling away to dig out debris, drive in blast charges and blow up the TNT, moving the debris around the mine and getting the minerals to the surface, where the ore is bought based on a scientific reading of its mineral composition.

This is terrible work, with large swings in temperature topping out at 110 degrees Farenheit in the deepest parts of the mine. The mine shafts are highly erratic and confining and miners can go days without seeing daylight, as my understanding is that they pay the government fee for mineral rights just once upon entry and hence can save money by staying and working through the night and not reseting the fee schedule created by the government. Beyond the physical challenges, there are unseen dangers in the form of incredible debilitating substances that are within the rocks and released - arsenic, asbestos and silicon dust particles that cause silicosis. All are fatal with prolonged exposure. We were told the life expectancy of miners is 45 years, and more due to these unseen and persistent dangers than anything else.

Then there is the danger from the inherent instability of the mine. There are serious physical dangers from mine shafts collapsing, TNT going off too early and many dangers i can't even comprehend. These dangers can cause lose of life instantly, or crippling injuries, as well as trapped miners. It was hard not to think of the Chilean miners that spent 68+ days underground, and the hundreds of miners around the world that are trapped and do not have the world's sophisticated efforts and attention to rescue. Dying underground in a mine has to be among the worst ways to die, with finite and necessary resources dwindling to zero, including the very ability to breath.

The Mine Tour

Back to the tour, we first stopped at the miners market to get gifts for the miners, basically soda and coca leaves. The coca leaves help them ignore hunger, give energy and help with altitude. They are also illegal to export to the US as part of the drug war. Then it was on to a warehouse where we got dressed up in the necessary gear for crawling around in the mud, rocks and sludge - think of it as rain gear with a helmet and head lamp. We were relived that this was all part of the tour so our stuff did not get destroyed. Then we were on to a processing plant with a mix of physical and chemical processes in place to separate out the precious metals from the debris. There was a distinct smell at the open air processing plant, one that brought on near instantaneous queasiness.

Finally, we were on to the main event, heading into the actually mine. I decided that we should do the tour in spanish to help with our language skills. This was an interesting choice, as there were a few semi-vital instuctions delivered during the 2 hours underground and we could not be completely sure that we had understood. Still, the required increased concentration to follow the explanations acted as a counterbalance and i think i got about 80% of the info.

We headed down the main shaft to this small cooperative operation, which had a set of tracks down the middle. I had to start ducking pretty much right away, as the pathways are certainly not designed for someone comfortably over six feet tall. The support system holding up the passageway was in various states of disrepair, and some poked down quite far. I hit my head a ton, thankful for the helmet. In general, it was hard for me to gauge just how much space there was in the mine, was i one inch from that beam? or 1 foot? or about to smack it with my forehead? I never could tell exactly, but considering the claustrophobic environment, that is pretty minor problem.

The air was quite dusty and felt very unsafe, its effects also were additive as my lungs felt like they were accumulating the junk in the air after awhile. Mu was using a bandana, while i was sporting a soccer team's scarf as a mask. Having seen the method deployed effectively in the student protest we saw in Santiago, i thought it would do the trick. But, it did not work well for me and i eventually had to abandon it due to my glasses fogging up constantly.

Soon, we left the main tunnel for a passage where 3 miners were toiling away. This required us squirming through quite small cleft in the rocks, moving downward and then shimming along the ground. Again, my height proved a disservice as it seemed to take me longer than anyone. I do not think that spelunking is going to be a pasttime in my future. Still, we all got to a little rest area and then went two by two to the end of the passage way where this man was working with his teenage son and one other miner. They had been in the mine since 7 am and would be there all day.

These men were representative of the thousands working in the mine that day, and every other day this year. Their work had a lineage back nearly 500 years. MIllions have lost their life in this mine, and mountain, and still there is precious minerals that make it worthwhile for thousands to work the rocks with no sign of stopping.

Where did all that silver go?

This mine has been producing for centuries and for a long time was a source of money minted for Spain. It is boggling to think about money being made in landlocked Bolivia in the 1600s and then transported via land and water throughout the Spanish Empire. We went to the museum, Casa de Moneda, where this was done and it has the two-story mule powdered machines used to make the coins brought over from Cadiz, Spain hundreds of years ago. Estimates of the amount of silver extracted from Cerro Rico come in between 20k and 60k TONS of silver. That is one rich mountain.

In the same museum, we saw plenty of precious objects that you expect to see made from silver, such as jewelry and religious icons. We also saw tables made entirely from silver, picture frames, large jugs for serving cold drinks and pretty much every type of household object. Potosi was swimming in silver in its heyday and hence it was easier to make these items from what was around.

Sadly, after minting the money for the richest civilization on earth at the time, Potosi and Bolivia no longer even manufacture their own money. Now, the moneda (coins) are produced for Bolivia by Chile and the paper money is printed in Brasil. An inglorious decline from a keystone in the macroeconomics of the Spanish Empire policy to a lack of monetary independence and security.

 

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Fitness from the Road: Out of Stagnation

View from Top of Cerro San Bernando

Thus far in our blog we have done a few different series: Travel Thoughts, Recommended Travel, Being Helpful, and a Day in the Life. I thought that I would start a new series. This series, Fitness From the Road, is about fitness and health while we wander.

Improving fitness from the road is harder than I imagined when I quit my busy job 10 months ago. I assumed that, as an unemployed traveler, I would have plenty of time and motivation to seek optimal fitness and health. But, even unemployed and childless, time still remains a precious quantity. Days still turn quickly to nights. And motivation (at least for me) still takes effort. Obviously there are other aspects to health and fitness from the road beyond excerise-- two big ones are avoiding getting sick and calorie consumption, and we plan to cover these topics in later posts.

So here I am, almost a year after quitting my job, at a fitness stalemate. I would like to move past stagnation and increase my overall fitness. Up to this point, my exercise strategy has been haphazard and it has kept me at about the same point that I have been for the past 3 years. But I think that in order to really increase my fitness, I need a systematic approach.

In the pursuit of a systematic approach, I took (or tried to take) three fitness tests: running, upperbody strength, and core.

The running test simply requires 12 minutes of hard running (and warm-up/ cool down to avoid injury). But amazingly, I have not yet been able to do the running test because I have not yet found a track or any other method that would accurately measure the meterage that I've covered. However, I know that my running fitness is not in amazing shape because when I jogged up the Cerro San Bernando (approximately 4700 feet tall, where the above pic comes from), I had to transition to hiking at some point. I hope to take the actual test soon...

The second test, upper body strength, is simply a push-up test. As a woman, I was supposed to do the modified push-up. Doing 40 modified push-ups gave me an "excellent" score for my age category. But getting the excellent modified push up score felt both sexist and like cheating at the same time. So I think my goal for improvement will work off my standard push-up number (24).

The third test, core strength, is a 3 minute plank with various modifications. I lasted for 2 minutes before my back seriously arched, and i was done. The scoring for this test is divided into two results: good and poor. I recieved the "poor" score and I am looking forward to when I jump from poor to good.

In addition to these three exercise categories, I have one more priority: injury prevention. My joints are not what they used to be and so I have to practice vigilance, as well, get in physical therapy exercises. Another thing that helps in this department is a 30 minute yoga app, Black and White Vinyasa, that both Wilson and I love. The app cost us $3 but a conservative estimate is that we have used the app 250 times (W = 150, me = 100) since Wilson downloaded it 10 months ago. So if you estimate that a yoga class is at least $10 per pop, W and I have got $2500 of value from this healthy, challenging, app.

Finding a systematic approach for these 4 priorities -- running, upper body, core, and injury prevention -- will not be easy. Wilson and I usually don't know exactly where we will be or what we will be doing in a week, sometimes not even in two days. We also don't often control our own itineraries (Chile/Bolivia debacle) or schedules -- e.g., we have to go when the bus goes, and if it is 5 hours later than expected, that is part of traveling. So my systematic approach has to create a system with an the inherent chaos. Wish me luck!

Run/walk at Iguazu falls

 

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Treadmill Traveling: A week around Salta that Bill Murray would appreciate

Cerro San Isidro View in Cafayate

 

We arrived in Salta, Argentina, Tuesday morning June 18, 2013. It seems like longer, somehow. Our 200th day of traveling abroad! By some great travel luck, we scored the below suite (complete with vaulted ceilings) for under $18. Part of this was helped by Argentinia's blue market rate for dollars -- more on this below.

After a great one night's stay in Salta, we hoped to leave that Wednesday night. In a best case scenario, we planned to make our way over the Chilean Pass (Paso de Jama) to San Pedro de Atacama by Thursday morning June 20, 2013. Unfortunately, today is Monday June 24, 2013 and we still have not made it to Chile. From Salta, there are no direct international flights. So to go north we must go via land either through Chile or Bolivia.

The only way to get to Chile in the north in the winter is via Paso de Jama. Paso de Jama at 14,436 feet is only 69 feet lower than the highest mountain in the continental U.S. - Mount Whitney at 14,505 feet. We actually summited Mt Whitney back in Aug at the end of the John Muir Trail.

And even though the pass is usually open during the winter, we have had the unfortunate luck that it is cerrado (closed) right now due to 2.5 meters of snow. Everyday the folks at the bus companies that traverse the route have told us that today is no good, but maybe Paso de Jama will be open tomorrow.

So every day for basically the last week, we have packed our bags left our accommodation and been ready to go "tomorrow". On Friday night, we decided that we couldn't wait for the pass, which led to the adventure of almost getting to Bolivia that Wilson recently blogged about.

Treadmill Hike - San Lorenzo

Packing is always a chore. But packing every day and remaining in the same area feels like a stinky Groundhogs Day. For example, without a stable base since we left Buenos Aires two weeks ago on June 10th, our limited clothing supply cannot be cleaned. We don't have enough time to get stuff washed and have it dry sufficiently in the cool climate, especially since we arrive at an accommodation in the evening and leave in the morning. At least Bill Murray's clothes appeared clean.

Treadmill travelling hasn't been all bad as I write this in our fourth hotel/hostel in Salta. We also had one hotel 4 hours south of Salta in a wine-town called Cafayate. Cafayate was sorely needed after the Bolivia misadventure. We made a bee-line straight to Cafayate after we arrived back from Bolivia. Cafayate had sunshine, wine, and fabulous hiking. It was an incredible place.

But now we are back to Salta. And we have exhausted the sites that we wanted to see in town and the places outside town that you can hike via local bus - San Lorenzo and La Caldera. We also only have a small amount of time before meeting our friend, Greg, in Cuzco, Peru. We have to hit the road.

Return to Bolivia requires $270 US Dollars cash and visa applications (including about 6 supporting docs) in hand. The $270 will be an expensive commodity for us to come by, especially since it has proved impossible for us to buy US dollars at the official 5.2/5.4 pesos to 1 dollar rate. Exchange companies will not sell dollars and only one Bank, Bank of Patagonia, can sell dollars. But that Bank will only sell dollars to its clients and I believe that the clients must prove that they are traveling abroad and they then have to pay a tax on the dollars.

Since that does not apply to us, we will have to buy dollars from the blue market. The blue market is the term used to describe a shadow currency market here in Argentina. In essence, it is the street rates that you can get for dollars, as opposed to the official rate that the government sets for all electronic transactions and which artificially deflates the peso against the dollar.

The rates we've seen since we have been here has fluctuated from the 6 pesos that we got from the customs official to 9.5 pesos to the dollar when we first arrived. The posted government rate has been about 5.2 pesos to the dollar the entire 6 weeks we have been in the Southern cone. There are some sweet arbitrage opportunities, obviously, but we had planned on being out of Arg by now and hence our hard currency is basically gone. Currently, on the blue market we have to buy dollars at an 8.3 rate. Our ATM rate with fees is giving us 5 pesos to the dollar. This means that in order to buy $270 dollars on the blue market, from the ATM, we would have to withdraw $2,241 pesos (almost $450!). Luckily we have some dollars left and we can get dollars from an innovative money movement service called Xoom at a 7.2 rate. So it is not as terrible as it could be but still an expensive hassle that we wish we could avoid.

After already visiting a Bolivian border once and now needing to acquire dollars and visas, we'd much rather stick with our original plan of going to Chile. But it looks like the snow on Paso de Jama is not melting anytime soon...hello Bolivia (again).

 

 

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12 hours to nowhere: turned aside at the Bolivian border

My favorite blog posts have been about places that brought forth feelings of wonder and amazement, be it Petra, Patagonia (and here) or the safari in the Ngorogoro Crater. This will not be one of those posts.

It was a very disconcerting 2 or 3 am, on a desolate border between Argentina and Bolivia. We had taken a night bus from Salta, Arg and were slated to arrive early in the morning in Tarija, Boliva. Night buses are great in some ways, but being conscience in the middle of the night with the artificial light and the cold often feels a bit of an out of body experience and this night is no exception.

We pile off the bus with everyone else at the Bolivia border and wait our turn with Migration. Once we get out our passports, the officer leafs through our well worn and heavily used passports. By now, there are over a dozen visas and innumerable entry and exit stamps. After going through the passport, he says the phrase that causes my heart to drop to the pit of my stomach - "Donde esta tu visa?"

Ummm, what visa? When I came to Bolivia 8 years ago, US citizens did not need a visa. I do recall some shenanigans from the Bolivian border officials when leaving the country, but they were just looking for a little bribe to grant the exit stamp, a bribe my buddy and I did not pay. This time, things are quite different, as the official comes around his desks and points to a shabby, but official looking, 2013 memo on the shack's wall that outlines the visa requirements for US citizens. Visa requirements that we can't quite meet between the $135 dollars cash per person, the xerox of our yellow fever certification, a hotel reservation within Bolivia and a copy of a bank statement.

This is not going to end well for us, I know immediately.

By way of background, many countries in South America have taken to reciprocal visa requirements for US citizens in response to the requirements made for their citizens visiting the US. It is hard to argue with such reciprocity, and I in fact think it is an admirable, and fair, policy response to the barriers imposed on people visiting the US. The countries, such as Argentina, Paraguay, Brasil and Bolivia mirror the requirements their citizens face for a US visa, such as demonstrating solvency, having a return ticket and a fee that is in excess of $130 dollars. Still, in the balance it is much better to be a US citizen, as in our experience the South American visas are proffered once we have met the requirements, as opposed to the challenge of getting a visa for people coming to visit our country.

Still, this policy dynamic means that we have paid 320 dollars a piece thus far for visas/reciprocity fees and explicitly stayed out of Brasil to avoid another hefty tab. We have to do some leg work to see whether it will cost us to enter Peru, Ecuador or Colombia.

Back to the middle of night on the Bolivia border, where we are screwed. Mu tries valiantly to talk our way into Bolivia, but to no avail. As a result, the bus continued onward and we remained on the side of the road in no man's land, left to our own devices, at 3 am on a very cold night. We trudge across the bridge spanning the gorge that serves as the border and back to Argentinian immigration and customs. At customs, we explain our plight and have our bags x-rayed. The customs official is very nice and actually helps us arrange a taxi to take us to the nearest bus station back to Salta.

He even exchanges some dollars with me so we have some pesos to pay our fare. Interestingly, the rate he offers is better than the official rate of 5.2 pesos to the dollar. Not as good as we have been getting on the black/blue market throughout the country, but considering the circumstances it is pretty remarkable. All the power in this exchange rests squarely in his control, after all.

With our tail between our exhausted and semi-delirious legs, the 50 km taxi ride back to a viable town goes quickly enough and only costs about 12 bucks. By the time we step out of that taxi it is about 4:15 in the morning and we are both quite bummed and zonked. To retrace our steps back to Salta requires another 5 hour bus ride or a 3 hour combi taxi ride. We opt for the latter because we can pay in the only currency that we have -- dollars. We just have to wait for the taxi to fill up, a process that takes another couple of hours that we spend dozing in the back seat of the car.

Finally, the car is full and we hit the road back to Salta, arriving at 10 am. Mu and I doze fitfully, resting our heads against each other and just wanting to be done with the ordeal. Total costs for the fruitless trip to the border comes in around $155 dollars. Just to get back to where we left 12 hours ago. Sweet.

Sometimes travel is life altering, and powerful beyond words. Other times it is depressing. We also learned a valuable lesson on assessing the visa situations of where we are going prior to getting to the border, so we don't get stranded once again. This time we got out of it fine, a bit poorer but nothing traumatic, but we don't want to get into this spot again. Because, frankly it sucked.

 

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Stumbling across Picasso in Resistencia

It appeared we would have to spend the night (and day) in Resisentica. Where is Resisentica exactly? Good question, it is the capital of the Chaco province, about 6 hours from Asuncion, Paraguay, heading south and west. As bus travel was significantly limited on Sunday in Paraguay, this was as far as we could get today, the veritable end of the line. Arriving at 22:15, while the last bus to our next destination, Salta, left at 19:00.

Oh well, looks like we get to explore an off the beaten track city for the day. One upside of these logistics, I get to watch most of the 2nd half of the Spurs/Heat Finals game. Nice to see a true team pull away from a collection of individuals.

As it turns out, we had a pretty mellow day in Resistencia. We slept in a bit and then went for a run around the town. Interestingly, the city is chock full of sculptures, there are more than 300 in total. We saw a healthy percentage of those, gathered around colonial squares, along pedestrian malls and in the mediums separating some not so grand boulevards. Having art immersed in the built environment lends an air of sophistication, and as a visitor is is enjoyable to have little gems reveal themselves. Several times throughout the day, I would notice a piece that I had missed when walking by the first, or second, or third time, revelatory not just in space, but in time as well.

Also during our run, there were protests around the main square of the city, with taxis blocking the roads into the square and in some cases causing nasty traffic jams. Traffic jams are annoying enough when they are solely caused by overcrowding on the road, I can only imagine the frustration I would feel at being gridlocked due to a protest. Through it all, the cabbies stood placidly around and smoked cigarettes, as if they were waiting for a fare. I was half tempted to go up to one and see if they would take me to a nearby city, which would have won: the protest or a juicy fare?

After showering up, we went to a local institution for a leisurely lunch. Hamberguesa completo (with eggs, ham, veg) and a pizza. It was cool to be in a spot that had zero tourist infrastructure and the food was quite good. Then, we wandered towards the cultural center, where we were shocked to stumble across a Picasso exhibition. The exhibition was very well done, and had over a hundred pieces, primarily lithographs. I was mentally transported to the Picasso museum in Barca, which was one of the best I have been to on this trip.

It was so surprising that this exhibit would be going on in this sleepy little town. On this very square a few hours ago where there was the rinky dink protest, while inside this museum are works by one of the most famous artist of the 20th century, if not the most. The exhibit is called 'Picasso en Chaco' and was an obvious point of pride for the people we met in the Cultural Center. As it should be.

It got me thinking about how many of these types of cultural gems must be taking place around the world? Surely many more than I, or anyone, can know. How many times have I driven by a museum that is hosting some engaging collection? How many times have I walked by a cultural center that is showing works by masters, or Calder sculptures or transcendent art that I have never heard of? It is also a reminder to not underestimate the quality of a cultural presentation due to its location. Great, amazing, wondrous art can and do happen in places small and seemingly far from the centers of the global art world.

Finally, we went up to the exhibition of the permanent collection, where i had the pleasure of an unexpected tour guide. A lovely older woman who works at the Cultural center took a liking to me and proceed to go through the collection piece by piece. It was fantastic practice for my spanish, made all the better because she did not dumb down the conversation so much that I felt stupid. We had a great time, for over an hour talking of Braque, the role of the Chaco region in the national art scene and evolutions and revolutions within the Argentina art world over the last 30 or so years. Great stuff and an interaction I will not soon forget.

Then it was time for a coffee and some wifi at the museum cafe before we headed back to the terminal and caught our bus onwards. A very nice day in a place we knew not of 3 days ago came to a close as we kept moving westward.

 

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Bipolar Traveling: 24 hours Uruguay to Iguazu Falls

From noon in Salto, Uruguay to noon in Iguazu Falls, Argentina, we experienced the extreme traveling states of elation and perturbation in 24 hours and a myriad of feelings in between.

At noon in Salto, we waited for a local bus which we were told would take us to one set of thermal hot springs that surrounded the unassuming town. We waited not knowing what to expect and a few minutes later, we paid our 75 cents and we were on our way to the "Termas". 40 minutes later we arrived at an inexpensive, public and clean beautiful facility of 10 or more pools of thermal hot springs. It was so easy and cheap to get to bask in calm thermal springs. Yea! Travel win!

By 5 pm, we had made our way back and to the port. At the port, we waited for a boat that would take us across the river to Concordia, Argentina. We hoped that after we crossed the river that we could make it by bus to Iguazu Falls. However, Iguazu Falls is 600 miles from Concordia and we weren't sure what we would find on the other side of the river. We crossed the placid river as dusk was settling into night and arrived in a very clean green area in Argentina. We made it through Argentinian migrations (our fourth time re-entering Argentina this trip). And then there were no taxis nor buses to be seen anywhere. We began walking with our huge backpacks towards the center of town in the dark. Darkness brings an unease to any situation, especially unfamiliar city streets. Every block that we passed, I looked eagerly for signs of taxi. Nothing. Then we passed a cadre of barking dogs. One particularly disagreeable dog sunk his teeth into Wilson's pants and would not let go until we yelled and bounced a rock off his back. Ugh!

Finally, we found more people and a bus. Still no taxis but at least we would no longer be at the peril of scrappy and deranged dogs. Happily, we boarded the bus after 15 or so people. Wilson had barely stepped on the first step of the bus when the bus pulled away from the curb at full throttle. Wilson yelled and I pushed the person in front of me so that my husband would not be thrown out of a bus with his three months of belongings on his back. The person moved and Wilson was able to get fully onto the bus. Travel loss narrowly averted!

On the bus, we made our way after another local bus change to the national bus terminal that we hoped would take us to Iguazu Falls. Luck was in our favor, at the national bus terminal, we found a bus company that went directly to Iguazu Falls. Even better, that bus company had a bus with available seats that was scheduled to leave in twenty minutes for the 14 hour journey to Iguazu. Yea!

After a comfy night bus, with a hot dinner and cama seating, we safely arrived at Iguazu the next morning and were able to see the truly incredible Iguazu Falls. Victoria Falls (that we visited last December) may be technically larger but Iguazu feels bigger. It's gushing, movement, and beauty ended our bipolar 24 hours with elation.

 

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Life on the Road: Tools for Bus, Plane, Train and Ferry Rides

We are on a bus trundling through the pampas of Uruguay, it is a lot of open fields, the occasional little town, various orchards and some grain elevators. About what you would expect to produce all the delicious food coming out of the countryside. Pastoral and diverse, similar but different than the monocultures you see while driving across the US.

We are on a bus between the famed Colonia de Sacramento on La Plata river and Salto, a town 8 or so hours from Colonia on the Argentinian border. Every so often the bus will stop on the side of the road to pick up or drop off passengers, with the cutest being the school kids getting off at their farms on the return home, with expectant moms waiting for their arrival.

We have started a section of our trip that will be heavy on movement, taking buses and ferries quite a bit with some monster days. I am actually looking forward to this time, as it allows for some nice reflection and relaxation. IN that vein I thought I would share how the Korol clan uses this transport time and share some of the tools and tips that work for us. On a related note, I had quite a few buddies back in the States ask about our various electronic devices and this will cover that topic as well.

Before I get into the specific tools, it is relevant to mention how many more options we have now versus just 10 years ago. The movement to Mobile is really a boon for traveling, you can still do all the same stuff that passed the time before (sleep, read, stare out the window) but now have a bunch more options (podcasts, iTunes U). Some of the stuff we are doing is a blend of old and new, such as planning our travels through a blend of traditional travel guides, i.e. lonely planet, and mobile tools like Wikitravel. All for the better in my view.

Devices: a 5:2 screen to people ratio might be a bit much. We spend a fair bit of thought ensuring that all of the devices have sufficent battery charge, funnily enough.

- Tablets: IPad 2, Nexus 7

- Unlocked phones: an older Android and iPhone

- An iTouch

If you ever find yourself on a bus, train, boat or plane for hours and hours on end, we recommend the following;

Listening

Music: an old stand-by, and one where the leverage of mobile music on various devices is astounding. I still clearly recall listening to an MP3 player in a 4x4 motoring around the Bolivian desert in 2004 and intuitively getting how powerful it was to have all those CD's in one little device. On our trip, I have music loaded on an 64 gig iTouch and my old Android phone. Listening to Quantic Soul Orchestra as I write this post.

Podcast: a podcast is basically a long form (usually) interview or show, and I have gotten Mu into them after having an unhealthy obsession with them for a couple of years back in the Bay. In fact, mu is listening to an NPR podcast called "Tell Me More" right now. I gravitate towards podcasts that focus on sports (BS Report, Behind the Dish, Men in Blazers, Real Talk with Jason Whitlock), comedy (Adam Carolla, Walking the Room, and others) and gems from NPR (This American Life, Here's the Thing). The long form nature of podcasts make them ideal for lengthy travel, the time kind of melts away.

Writing

Blogging: both of us have loved having this medium and forum to share our trip, and thoughts. It has led to greater engagement on our end, being more critical and thoughtful about where we are and the history embedded in its walls and memories. My guess is that about a third of our posts are written all or in part in transit. Personally, I find the movement stimulating for my creativity and perceptiveness, and prefer the posts written in movement to those authored elsewhere.

Emails: with the iPad and Nexus, you can write email easily while offline and have them send once you connect. This is perfect for us and it is why we are able to write lengthy emails to you back home. Instead of waiting for a dingy internet 'cafe', we are able to write away on these trips.

Reading

Instapaper: on all of the deceives, I have an app called instapaper that comes very highly recommended. Basically, it allows me to 'save' articles for offline reading. When I am on an article, for instance a lengthy New Yorker piece, I click a tab in the bookmark of the browser and the article gets sent to the app. Then, while still online, I open the app up and let it load all the saved articles. Then, I am able to open it anywhere and read, with the app saving where I am at in the piece. Ideal for commuting as well, it has allowed us to read many more feature pieces from major magazines than I was able to back in the working world. The only issue is that we now share the app, as Mu grew to appreciate the app and the articles along our travels.

Books: this is obvious, and just 10 years ago was basically my only activity for these long travel legs. I am reading a great book at the moment, The Omnivore's Dilemma, which has been particularly timely as we cruise through countries know for their grass-fed agriculture, contrast to the corn addicted version we have in the US. Mu is working her way through volume five of Harry Potter in Spanish as her book of choice at the moment.

News: on the trip we have migrated from a NYTimes household to one that favors the BBC. Their app is much better for getting a global perspective of events around the world, on more than one occasion it has been very helpful in giving us a heads up about issues that are going on in a city or area we are visiting. It is also super fast to load, even on slower wifi connections and caches the stories to be read, key for the long rides. Finally, it is 100% free. Thanks British taxpayers!

Learning

Language app: this one is more the province of my lovely wife, who has really taken to this great app called DuoLingo. She has been using it for spanish, and really gotten better and more fundamentally solid in her communications as a result. There are lots of options, but this one seems to be working for her and in my limited use thus far it has been doing well.

iTunes U: this is one I have really enjoyed in the last month. There are now thousands of courses available on this resource, some are video lectures, others audio and others still with the slides/handouts. They come from colleges, universities and schools all over the world, and my current 'classes' are from Oxford and Stanford. The former is a class on Critical Reasoning while from the former I am watching lectures from an Energy Seminar series and one on Entrepreneurial Leadership. Great stuff.

Watching

Somewhat surprisingly, we do not find ourselves watching all that much stuff. But the availability for getting stuff is astounding, and the wifi most of the places we have been has been strong enough to load episodes or full movies as need. Right now, we have a bunch of Breaking Bad on the iPad and always enjoying fitting one of those episodes into a ride. Also, on the nicer buses in South America we can catch a movie or two, some of which are quite recent.

Meeting people

One of the great joys of traveling is meeting people along the way. When cooped up in a bus or train, going through the same expiernece, it gets easier to break down personal barriers and make some new friends. A great example of this came on a bus trip from Calafate to Puerta Natales in Patagonia a few weeks ago. On the trip, we met Jose, a trekking loving New Yorker who was sitting in front of us on the bus, and a new friend. We got to talking and learned of many shared interests and values. Now, I am sure we will go hiking with Jose somewhere down the road.

Staring out the window

After the Overland trip in Africa, this has become a favored pastime in transit. I try to do it for at least an hour of daylight each trip, and find that the vantage point leads to the landscape and some of the culture seeping into my conscience, as opposed to a more direct pull. Also, staring out the window lends itself to some great pondering. I underrated this pastime before our travels but won't make that mistake moving forward.

Sleeping

One nice thing about long rides is that if the urge to close your eyes and take a little siesta come along, you just roll with it and conk out. Relatedly, this is BY FAR the most popular activity of the locals, wherever we are traveling, from South America, to Africa to Europe.

Managing

Budget: as we move around, it has been imperative to track our expenses and assess how we are doing relative to projections and our overall travel funds. Since this can be a bit tedious, it is great to save it for the rides, pop on a podcast and crack through. In my system there are two main activities, first tracking all expenses on a daily basis and then converting the various currencies back into USD for daily and rolling averages. For the second part, XE makes a great app.

Photos: keeping track of our digital photos takes some effort and I also have two steps that I like to do in transit. First, uploading the pics from the memory card on my digital SLR to the ipad and the, secondly, culling the pics to keep the ones that we like. The second step requires me to put pictures in their respective country folders, do our time lapse (in order or it gets messed up in iphoto), and delete a fair bit, due to space and not wanting to override my, or anyone's, senses with too many vacation shots.

Planning

Apps (wikitravel): Lastly, you have to make plans as you travel, so you get the right bus, understand the context of where you are going, and stay at a decent place. We use a variety of mobile apps to make this process flow, including the excellent WikiTravel that allows readers to access all wiki-info offline. This has been great, especially for larger cities and attractions.

Lonely Planet: of course, we still use a travel guide, and for us Lonely Planet is the best of the bunch. The South America version we have is a little on the old side, but it has still been working and helps with orientation upon arrival.

Personal Recs: we have been mining our friends' recs for places where they have traveled, and this advice is perfect because they know us so well and steer us unfailingly in the right direction.

Am I missing anything, I bet people have other great tips and tricks and would love to hear them in comments, facebook, email, etc?

 

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Returning to the Scene of a Delicious Crime: Buenos Aires

Mu and I have pushed on from a too short long weekend in one of the great cities of the world, Buenos Aries. This is a city with great bones, and by that i mean the legacy of Argentina's faded wealth yielding impressive buildings, grand boulevards, and a pervasive shabby chic urban tablet that grows on you at warp speed. The below pic shows and example of those bones, it is a port area that was developed in the 1800's and then abandoned due to the growth in volume and ship size. These great warehouses sat empty for decades, or worse. Then, the city took up the effort to restore their grandeur, and so for the last twenty years, the Puerto Madero barrio has been an urban gem.

When we planned this phase of our travels, I was a little worried that my excitement would be reduced when we visited places that I had already been. Eight or so years ago, I spent 4 months bumming around South America, right before starting grad school at duke. During this time, i got to travel with a childhood buddy for quite some time, visited family friends in Brasil and did my first extensive and lengthy solo travel.

Those wanderings were wonderful, feeling both the grandness of this continent and the ease of traveling in the backpacker circuit mu covered in a previous post. I have many fond memories of that time, so part of me was curious to return to this places to see how they have stayed the same or changed, and how I have stayed the same and grown. But, another part of me worried that the repeating of some places might decrease excitement. So much of our travels are driven by seeing and experiencing new places, and I wondered how it would feel to remove that stimulus when we hit up a number of places I have been, and enjoyed, before.

I need not have worried. This last weekend, we rented an apartment in the charming San Telmo barrio, site of the original European entry into this part of the world, chock full of old mansions that have seen better days and yet remain youthful with the street art adorning their walls. Home of a huge sunday market with thousands out on the street. With speakeasies to get a beer, old time serving up the Argentinean meat delights and the choripan stands tiding you over with the cheap and delicious chorizo sandwiches that tasted just as good 8 years later.

Rather, I found that returning to this beloved barrio and city actually kickstarting my brain with memories that had long faded to grey. Instead of feeling less excitement, I kept remembering a moment that I enjoyed in San Telmo or other parts of the city. This recall led to a deeper engagement that i had anticipated. There was also the enjoyment of showing my lovely bride a few little spots that we would have otherwise missed, a personal stitching of meaning into our time here that enriched both of us.

In a number of ways, visiting BA is quite a bit like visiting NYC. Yes, there are some cool things to enjoy, but it really becomes more about indulging than seeing any particular site. The most famous tourist site in BA is a cemetery for the rich and famous, after all, in posh Recoleta barrio. Both have those good bones and a grandeur of a different time while being squarely of this time and moment.

Also, you walk a ton, of course, and being out and about is all that is needed to get a sampling of the life. Both have a fair bit of open space which is getting used heavily on the weekend as we got in lengthy jogs and shared the paths with hundreds.

Also, neither city sleeps, these two cities are some of the only places I have been where calling it a night at 3 or 4 am makes you feel old. And, you can eat like a king, as I touched on above. If we lived in BA, I would seriously pack on the pounds with the delightful combo of steak, chorizo, pasta and vino. What a way to go.

 

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Cordoba's Memoria Museum: Where are the African Human Rights' museums?

A few days ago, we spent one full day in Cordoba. One day, for a city of 2 million people. We took an overnight bus to get to Cordoba from Mendoza (10:30 pm to 8:00 am) and then we took another overnight bus Thursday night from Cordoba to Buenos Aires. In our one full day, we visited a lot of the museums, saw the 400 year old university there, and enjoyed the sunshine with some Malbec.

Sadly many of the museums that we visited could only be enjoyed from the outside due to a transportation strike. The transportation strike caused closures were curious because although the majority of the art museums were closed, the science museums and cultural centers were not. Another museum that was not closed and powerfully affected both me and Wilson was Cordoba's Memoria Museum. It was similar to the Santiago Museum of Memory and Human Rights that Wilson blogged about. Argentina also had brutal dictatorships propped up during the Cold War.

Cordoba's Memoria Museum specifically focused on the individuals disappeared from that region. The museum is in a former police detention center that had held and tortured the disappeared individuals. In this museum, we saw the tiny cells and the interrogation rooms. We saw the negatives of the photos that the regime had taken of those that it had disappeared. There were rooms dedicated to the 400 people who were never found. It has scrapbooks made by the families -- items owned by the people from their childhood to their guitars, dresses, and everything else that was dear. One room was designed as a nursery and shows pictures of pregnant women who were disappeared. This happened right around the time that my mom was pregnant with me -- mid and late seventies.

It was hard to leave that former police station with clear eyes. Neither of us did. As I left, I stopped to talk to the two men at the entrance who had given me the museum's program. One of the men was in exile in San Francisco during that time period and received his political asylum in the US the year that I was born. The other man had been disappeared in the mid-seventies from Cordoba. He was then imprisoned for 8 and a half years throughout Argentina. I asked him how he felt about the Museum of the Memoria and he said that working there was a testimony to what had occurred. He felt that in some way, he was providing a voice for those who had been disappeared and no longer had a voice. By the end of our conversation, we all had tears in our eyes.

This experience made me reflect on the human rights abuses that have occurred throughout the Southern African countries that we visited. Most notably, Kenya, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Madagascar. It made me wonder why there is no memory and human rights museum in Mozambique, Malawi, and Madagacar. These three countries had regime changes from dictatorships and civil wars but, to my knowledge, do not have museums reflecting on people who were disappeared and/or killed. In Kenya and Zimbabwe, it is more complicated because the current regime has a connection to the past abuses. For Zimbabwe, President Mugabe has now been in power for more than 30 years and the current government is a shared power government. Maybe eventually there will be a Memory museum there. In Kenya, two tribes (the Kikuyu and Kalenjin) have dominated the democracy since Kenya's independance. There have been many allegations of squelching opposition with force. In fact there is a human rights' investigation into the violence surrounding the 2007 election. For example, Kenya's recently elected president, President Uhuru Kenyatta, faces charges in the International Criminal Court for his alleged role in that violence. It seems like Kenya and other African countries with a history of human rights abuses could do more to examine, investigate, and then display these human rights abuses.

The Memory Museums in Santiago and Cordoba remember the people who died and suffered. I think that these museums also contribute to a human resolve to prevent human rights' abuses in the future. These purposes would be well served in African countries so that those who have suffered are remembered and their suffering is not forgotten nor repeated.

 

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Hiking in Mendoza: Did the German Shepherd have a good day?

We woke up at 630 am. Early for us. We woke up that early in the dark because we wanted to find hiking. We took a bus to a town, Portrerillos, that some guys at the bus station told us had hiking. The internet seemed to substantiate the idea of hiking but did not guide us to any trails. Nonetheless, we were on the bus and figured that we could find some trails once we got there.

We arrived in Portrerillos and were greeted by two stray dogs and saw a very helpful sign the tourist information sign. As we made our way towards the tourist information sign (a little less than a mile away), our pack of stray dogs swelled, a big black labrador, a rust colored large mutt that begged adorably while standing on its hind paws with its front paws together, a large golden powerful mutt, and small longish collieish sort of black and white three legged mutt who happily chased cars on his three legs while the fourth unuseful leg had blood on it. We didn't pet them or feed them any food (yet) but they followed us for some unknown reason. I guess they could just sense our doggy love.

We were in luck when we got to the tourist information center. There were actually people there and they were helpful and nice about where to hike (7 miles away) and how to get there (bus). We came back outside to where our pack of dogs were waiting and we waited at a covered bus stop very close to the tourist information center.

As we waited, I decided to feed our pack of dogs. Normally, I would not feed stray dogs for the usual reasons, such as, in the US, it is weird (or even prohibited) to feed an animal that is not your own. I also don't feed stray animals because I don't want them to follow me and I can't adopt them. But in this case, we were planning to take a bus so I figured that I could feed them and then get in the bus and not be followed. Wilson was not too happy with my plan to give them cookies. But my argument that people feed stray dogs in South America won out. Or maybe it was the little bloodied happy mutt who had followed us for almost a mile on 3 legs.

After the cookie feeding, Wilson, I and the dogs continued to wait. The humans for the bus and the dogs for more cookies. All of sudden we heard growling and barking, 3 little/medium sized dogs lunged at our stray dogs. Our stray dogs bloodied the attackers with their bigger jowls. I thought that one attacker was going to die as the rust colored dog swung the attacker around by its neck. Wilson thought they would pull one of the attacker dogs apart. It was traumatic as Wilson yelled no and swung a trekking poll, and I ran away. Luckily the attackers ran away too.

We were traumatised and hoped that the bus came soon. We continued to wait - jumpy and nervous. Then a small red car pulled up with the guys from the tourist office. They asked us if we wanted a ride to the mountains. I think they saw the dog fight and took pity on us because one guy, Pablo, said something about the "perros locos".

In the car, away from the pack, we learned that Pablo is a guide up South America's largest peak, Aconagua. As Wilson blogged, we got a good look at Aconagua when we crossed the Andes from Chile to Argentina. Pablo told us that he trained by hiking the mountains we were about to hike. They dropped us off in the small town at the foot of the mountains.

We began hiking up the road to reach a trailhead when I was almost knocked over by a huge German Shepherd and yellow mutt. Gratefully both dogs had collars on. The two dogs ended up happily trotting ahead of us all the way up the mountain. The German Shepherd barked at us when we took too long at the top of the mountain. It was endearing. Earlier, it was less endearing and actually scary when he had barked his deep bark at us. In his excitement to hike, he had gotten in our faces when we had to climb through a hole in the fence. That beautiful dog just wanted us to hurry through the fence so that we could take him on the hike.

During our hike we saw condors and 6 or 7 other raptors. I think that the dogs might have also chased out this jack-rabbit like guinea pig called a mara. When we returned to the mountain town and began our 7 mile walk back to the Porterillos bus station, the yellow collared dog disappeared. Presumably back to his house but the German Shepherd continued on with us.

As we passed other dogs, there were multiple reactions: some friendly, most guarded, and some friendly turned to nasty fights. One big skinny dog, in particular, was dominated by the German Shepherd after the skinny dog got feisty while the German Shepherd was wagging its tail. After the German Shephard had the skinny dog in a choke hold under itself, the skinny dog began yelping and the German Shepherd trotted off. It trotted off just in time because the skinny dog ran into a yard and out ran a St. Bernard and a big golden retriever. Me, Wilson, and the German Shepherd moved even more quickly to put as much distance as possible from those three dogs.

More dog interactions ensued as we got farther and farther from the small mountain town. I became anxious that the German Shepherd would not remember its way home and we would bring it to our stray pack from the beginning of the day.

The situation took a turn for the worse as we met three more rangy strays. One had a large gash in its black neck. The German Shepherd seemed particularly interesed in bothering the black dog's neck. But the German Shepherd was even more interested in the dog that the black dog seemed to be protecting: a female. The female rebuffed the German Shepherd. The black dog would nastily defend the female. And a smaller stray kept close to me and Wilson's feet. The tension was constant as we walked with four dogs. We ran into even more dogs who paused when they saw the German Shepherd but then readily fought with the 3 stray dogs. We could hear the fight beyond us and thought we had lost our extra 3 charges. But they caught up to us. I began to panic. We were only a mile or two away from Porterillos and the dogs of the morning. So I stuck at my thumb so that we could escape. Just then, the little red car from that morning, one of the tourist information guys, drove past. He gave us a ride to town and we left the dogs behind.

I was sad and worried to leave our faithful companion. But I hoped that in the 2 remaining hours of daylight that he would make it back safely. Wilson thought with his king of the jungle genetics and swagger, he would be fine. In fact, Wilson thought that with the hike, the fights, and the female dog, overall that German Shepherd probably had a great day...

As did we.

 

 

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