Into Bolivia

Well we have a lot to recount from an exciting last week. So we will try not to leave anything out.

We spent Christmas Eve in a fun fashion (mostly). Tracy was still recovering from a rough cold, and Adam decided to ride a bicycle out about 7km into the desert to try his hand at sandboarding. Turned out to be the only one there. It was a surreal experience to be in the middle of a giant desert, on top of a giant dune, alone. Sandboarding was fun, like snowboarding in the hot and without turning abilities. We decided to attend mass on Christmas Eve at the small Catholic church in San Pedrio de Atacama. It turned out to be a wonderful experience. We were lead into the church by a 30 minute processional of children dressed in traditional clothing dancing to drums and accordians. The mass was really wonderful as the priest gave a wonderful sermon while standing right inn the middle of the people. You could see that this priest was disinterested in being high and holy and felt much more comfortable standing right in the middle of the people in the church, conversing with them during mass. He talked about the dificulty of singing songs about joy, peace and hope while living in a world full of hunger, injustice, war and ugliness. He went on to resolve his sermon by explaining that he feels this is exactly why we must sing songs about these things and why Jesus was sent into a world full of these things. It was a beautiful sentiment and I think the setting and the Spanish language made it all the more beautiful. At the end of the mass (which did not conclude until midnight), the church proceeded again, led by the children and the musicians, to the town square where they placed baby Jesus in his manger.

Christmas morning at 8am we loaded into a bus and were driven to the Bolivian border where we would cross the Atacama Desert over 3 days. We watched as all of the Europeans and Australians went through getting their entrance stamps and read the poster on the wall explaining all of the requirements for us to enter Bolivia, some of which we did not have. At risk of sounding like we felt victimized (as our dear neighbors here in LAtin America have to go through a million more hoops and processes in order to apply to enter the US, which is a hope that has very little posiibility because most applications are denied), it was an interesting experience. We were alloowed to pass through the border, but our driver had to hold our passports until we could go to the immigration office in Bolivia to officially go through the process.

From the border crossing we loaded into a 4x4 with 4 Swiss folks and a Bolivian driver named Jose (who was an excellent driver and a knowledgable guy pointing outlots of great things along the way). Our frist day we passed by several lagoons. The most impressive of which were the Laguna Verde, which is colored a bright and impressive turqoise and set against the backdrop of a dormant volcanoe. The other was the Laguna Colorada, which was an amazing Lagoon that is colored bright red due to the microorganisms and minerals it contains. It was outlined by deposits of Borax, which were bright white and looked like snow. The lagoons also had thousands of bright pink flamingoes walking around eating and occasionally flying to a new spot.

We then continued on to a location that contains geysers and volcanic activity. This location is over 16000 feet altitude. Which means if you climb to the highest point in the continental USA, you will still lack about 1500 feet of being at the altitude we spent this little bit, and it was in the desert, surrounded by mountains which went much higher.

The evening was spent in a very basic room that blocked the wind and that is about it. The temperature was below freezing at night and the altitude where we slept was well over 14000 feet. Altitude sickness effects people at random, no matter how fit or healthy you might be, and Tracy got bit by it. Our driver made her a home remedy drink for atitude sickness. This is a cultural remedy throughout Bolivia, PEru ecuador and Colombia. She finally started to feel well enough to get some rest and would cope quite well throughout the rest of the journey.

On day two we continued through the desert, seeing more lagoons filled with pink flamingoes, wild ostriches, vicuñas (which are related to deer, but remind me of a mix between a deer, camel, giraffe and horse) and occasional llamas. We got to see amazing rock formations, volcanic rock flows (from thousands of years back) and incredible desert landscapes.

On night two we slept in a small hotel that is located about a mile away from the Salar of Uyuni, or the Uyuni salt flat. The hotels walls were made of bricks which were made of salt and the floor was covered in salt. The tables and chairs were made of.... yes, salt. It sparkled in the light and was an amazing thing to see.

The next morning we woke up before sunrise and drove into the salt flat. Words cannot describe what it is like to be surrounded by salt in every direction. It looks a lot like snow in the desert. It is bright white and feels like another planet. The colors of the sunrise reflected wonderfully off of the salt. We stopped along our route through the salt flat at the lone island that stuck up out of the thousand square mile flat. The island contained thousands of giant cacti, asome of which were close to a thousand years old. Again a bizarre and mind blowing landscape. We were able to relax and eat breakfast here by the island and take fun pictures (which we will try to upload once we get to good internet).

Finally we arrived to Uyuni, Bolivia and Jose took us to his home for lunch where his mother had prepared llama steaks and vegetables for us. It was really delicious and a great finish to an amazing trip. Our busses have been fun, but this kind of travelling was amazing.

We finally got our immigration issues worked out in Uyuni and now have our Bolivian Visa. Yesterday we travelled about 10 hours to Potosi where we currently sit.

Potosi has the honor of being the highest altitude city of its size at over 13,500 feet in altitude. We have adjusted to this for the most part, but it is impressive to see. The city was once of of the richest cities in the world due to mines rich in gold, silver, copper and other valuable minerals. As has unfortunately been the case with much of the rich resources in Latin America, exploitation has been the name of the game ever since the Spaniards arrived and every other power in the world has followed suite in trying get their riches from this place.

This morning we toured a convent that thrived in the 16-18th centuries, but still is in operation. It was actually the most enjoyable 2 and a half hours I have ever spent in a convent. The art, all done by local artists from Potosi, was incredible and all frames, adornments and shrines were made of gold or silver. The most impressive, however, was the self flagellation instruments. I dont think any tour of a convent is complete without some mention of this, so I was rather content.

This afternoon we dressed up in helmets and head lamps and took a trip into the mine. We were able to meet many of the miners. On the way, people visiting the mine are able to stop at the miner market and buy gifts for the miners. They benefit from the gifts and are thus willing to take time to talk to the gringos who have ventured into their mine. We took big bags of leafs (which the miners put in their cheeks to offset altitude, weather, hunger and fatigue), cigarettes, big bottles of soft drinks, dynamite (yes, you can buy large sticks of dynamite on the street) and alcohol to them. This was not really a gift basket of things we thought they might like, but things that we were loaded up with by the market people and our local guide. (I am guessing if we showed up with broccolli and tofu, the miners may have been less apt to give us their time). There was actually an interesting explanation of how each of these items helped the miners deal with the extreme conditions in which they work (i already mentioned the coca leaves and the other items, such as alcohol, have similar explanations). We were able to see only a small amount of the conditions they experience, but they are really nasty conditions. Most miners are only able to work in the mine for 10-15 years before either being too sick to continue or dying. Most miners who make a career of mining die at age 35. These statistics made us look at the faces of the miners in a different way that I dont think can actually sink in on the same day. (The Devil´s Miner is a documentary about this that I hear is wonderful --Thank you Maria!)

Tomorrow we head to Sucre to celebrate the entrance of a New Year. Thanks for reading all of this, we will take time to post pictures as soon as we get an opportunity.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas everyone. We are currently in San PEdro de Atacama, which is in the middle of the Atacama desert. We leave tomorrow on a 3 day trip crossing into Bolivia. Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, we miss spending time with you all but are thankful for being able to stay in touch.

A few more pictures

Still enjoying La Serena and trying to figure out our Christmas plans. A cool town with a nice beach, street performers, colonial architecture, nice downtown and a very good, cheap hostel so we are pretty content.

Tracy and I on Cerro Allegre in Valparaiso. The town is very large and densely populated, built up the hills in a horseshoe around the bay. Old architecture and signs of the former elite having had residendces here (we hear they have since moved north up the beach as Valpo has become more urban over the past half decade). You can see a piece of the bay and the steep ascent of residences in the background.


This one of Valpo´s famouns "acensores". Built around the turn of the 20th century, they make for an interestng ride and it defnitely beats hiking all those stairs. For about 20 cents a ride, it is half transport and half entertainment.


Tracy admires a piece of artwork in our room at the last hostel in Valparaiso. Oh we the ways we etertain ourselves.


The scenery changes quickly as we rode what was supposed to be 7 or 8 hours north up the coast (turned out to be 12). Last night we were able to be in the desert as suset.


Last night we went to an observtory in the desert. Chile is a very popular pace for these things aparently as the high altitudes in the desert make for good viewing. It was interesting and a unique experience. We had a really good time and were able to appreciate being in the southern hemisphere a bit more.

Valparaiso

Greetings from a big city. Since we need to upload pictures in order to get them saved somewhere, we will update you on our latest movements with the captions.

This is a church built in the early 1700´s in Achao, which is on a smaller island in Chiloe. The church is filled with amazingly ornate woodwork. The coolest thing is that it was constructed with the use of no nails. Only joints and wooden pegs were used. We were not allowed to photograph inside.


Here is our campsite in souther Chiloe, right in the middle of an apple orchard. Unfortunately, the apples need another 6 weeks or so to be ready. We finally got real laundry done (not in a sink or shower), so we hung out here for an extra day with little to do. It was great. We are about 3 weeks ahead of tourist season, so we are often the only ones at campsites. It is quiet, but we do enjoy being social now and then.


Here is Tracy at a Laguna. We made it here without use of public transportation or walking, but for the sake of our parent´s blood pressure, we will not say exactly how. (It rhymes with smitchhiking... no worries all the locals assured us the Chiloeans are 100 percent good people, and the lady who picked us up felt bad for our lack of towels and brought us some from her house) Tracy is eating a "completo" which is a Chilean classic- hot dog covered in enormous amounts of guacamole, tomatoes and mayonaise.



Who wouldnt want to pick up this guy? (The sun finally cooked my face to the point that I had to buy this one dollar hat).


From Chiloe we went to Valdivia. A hip little university city at the junction of two rivers and near the ocean. German influences is particularly strong here. Our favorite part was hanging out near the market, where locals buy and sell veggies, fruits, flowers and sea food. These sea lions hang out by the market and wait for the folks cleaning fish to throw them the scraps.


The veggies and fruits were quite beautiful.


This one is for Nana since the last one was such a hit. Those Germans love to put up cutouts of stereotypes for travelers to pose in. We could not find two children to accompany us.


We travelled overnight to Santiago, the capital of Chile. We spent several hours walking around this morning. This picture is in front of the capital building (I think). Our ultimate destination was Valparaiso, where we currently sit. We tired of hot dogs, french fries, french fries covered in lots of stuff and baked chicken with potatoes, so the city was a welcome place to find some variety...today we found some Chinese.


We will try to get up some Valpo pics soon.

We are starting to see lots of Christmas around. Christmas trees everywhere (plastic, of course), carols on the radio, street vendors selling wrapping paper and singing Christmas lights. Not sure where we will be at Christmas time, but we are starting to get in the spirit.

Beauty of Travel

We spend much time takign in new things and this leaves us with very little time to fully digest all that we see. In spending an extra day in a small town waiting for our clothes to be clean and dry, we spent time thinking and making this list.

Theologian Philip Sherrard, whom I know nothing about, said that "Creation is nothing less than the manifestation of God´s hidden being."

We have seen amazing landscapes and natural wonders as well as come into contact with many beautiful people. Here are some of the places, over the last 11 weeks or so, that we have seen the face of God more clearly:

-In Hector, who showed us great hospitality from few resources.
-In the sharing of a maté with farmer Gabriel
-In the flocks of sheep
-In lunch and a warm welcome from family of a friend in Buenos Aires
-In Iguazu Falls
-In a campsite overlooking a bay
-In penguins, sea lions and sea otters
-In a woman giving us a ride to a lake and bringing us towels from her home, without even knowing our names
-In seeing people with seemingly little, stopping on the street to find change for the homeless, and giving it with a smile
-In Mr. Hugo´s smile and ability to make his guests feel welcome
-In a kind local man who made change for 2 strange gringos in order to help them ride the city bus (after no stores would do so)
-In Alex the Brit making us finally laugh while telling us about being robbed by "gypsies" after a stressful day of losing a bookbag ourselves.

Adios Argentina y Hola Chile- En Fotos

In hopefully chronological order we will try to throw up a few photos of our past few weeks:

Tracy at a river we hiked to from our farm in Epuyen, Argentina. A large forest fire burned out this area a few years back, so the growth is all new. We got to hear interesting stories of the small community pulling together in response to the fire.


Adam´s favorite job on th farm. Loosens the soil very nicely before planting. Broccoli, lettuce, and raddishes went in this plot afterwards.



Tracy in our little bedroom at the Epuyen farm. The brick/clay oven in the background was used for much of our baking.


Adam crossing a bridge on our way to the cajon azul. The bridge is actually more rickety than it looks. Many of the planks were broken making us wonder who the poor soul was that had the unpleasant experience of breaking it over the icy river.


Our ultimate destination, the Cajon Azul. Beautiful little canyon near El Bolson, Argentina.


Adam back to milking sheep for delicious cheese.


We successfully crossed into Chile and made it to the Chiloe Islands. This is our campsite, which is breathtakingly beautiful. We are in the town of Ancud.


Tracy ordered what we knew to be the local special, "curanto." We did not know exactly what it was. Tracy had the restaurant taking bets on whether or not she could finish it (nope, not even with Adam´s help).



Speaking of food, we had another Chile specialty our first night. We cannot remember the name, but it was a bed of french fries covered in cheese, hot dogs, beef tips, italian sausage, dill pickles, pickled carrots and cauliflower, mayonaise, mustard, hot sauce, and boiled eggs. Organic it was not, bloody AWESOME, it was.

This morning we rode a fishing boat out to a penguin colony and a sea lion colony. Very beautiful, interesting and incredible creatures to see up close. We really did take these pictures from the boat.

Osorno

We made it into Chile and are currently in Osorno. We will be coming back through here as we head south tomorrow into Chiloe for camping, penguin colony visiting and fun exploration.

We went south through Argentina yesterday with a plan to cross in a more remote location and then take a ferry to souther Chiloe and head north. However, it makes it very difficult to arrive in a town when it was destroyed by a volcano, and the locals look at you funny when you say you are headed there. So we turned around and have now made it after 2 different searches with a drug dog.

More updates to come.

Alan and Trip move on to Chile

We have aquired some new names from folks who dont understand us when we tell them our name. Adam and Tracy are not the most common names in Latin America, so we just enjoy the new identity and deal with it.

We finished up a little less than 2 weeks on our latest farm. We were working with an Austrian family living in Argentina. We got to enjoy fresh, unpasteurized milk from the milk cow every day, fresh homemade cheese, and homemade champagne like drink made from a flower called ´sauco´ (ok, researchers, help us figure out what this p`lant was, because this sprite like drink was delicious), homemade bread, oatmeal, canned cherries and apple juice from last years harvest and lots more. We also milked one of the sheep for cheese. We spent most of our time moving lumber and firewood for about 10 and 11 hours a day and just became exhausted from it.

We came to the internet today to figure out the best (and by best I mean most interesting/exciting/not too expensive/somewhat convenient) way to cross over into Chile. We will be starting on the Chiloe islands and moving northward, hoping to cross into Bolivia eventually, assuming we are able to aquire a visa to do so.

Good news is, we were able to find a small sweet potato pie from a local ´panaderia´, so we celebrated our own thanksgiving a day early.

We will try to post some more pictures soon as we know it has been a while.

Feliz Dia de Accion de Gracias!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We will certainly miss seeing everyone, the yeast rolls, the sweet potato pies and all the other Thanksgiving things.

We are on our way to the next farm and will post all our latest news soon.

Random new stuff

No real new stories or anything today, so we will just throw some random thoughts or observations as they come to us.

-We have been making bricks out of a sand/soil/clay/water mixture. Lots of back-breaking labor involved and really only mildly interesting. The farmer is trying to nuild a small house in order to house tourists in a growing "agrotourism" industry in Argentina (also growing in Uruguay from our observations). I think this is an interesting concept and all in all a good one. It seems in the US we are a long ways away from our food both distance and in having any idea whereit comes from or how it grows. Maybe Agroturismo could help us to care a little more about this important issue.

-We continue to eat massive amounts of fresh honey. We figure the ratio of honey per pound to bee stings to be currently sitting around 15 to 0, which is a nice ratio.

-If we hear the song ´Girls Just Wanna Have Fun´again, be it a remix or not, we may pack up our stuff and go home. Argentina and Uruguay, you are on notice. Chile, Bolivia: advise your supermarkets and other public areas accordingly.

-As graduates of NCSU, I think we can pick on our engineer friends and family a bit. The farmer we currently work for is certainly an engineer more than a farmer. Whereas on our past farm, things could be done in many ways and the ultimate goal was important, the current farmer watches every detail and points every minute mistake. If the seed is not pushed into the ground with 3kg of pressure per square centimeter, then it is a state of emergency. Tracy and I have begun to joke with each other about to keep from going crazy.

-Snow caped mountains are really beautiful and we cant get enough of them. When working until 830 at night sometimes, it is really hard not be in a good mood when considering you are in a valley surrounding by enormous snow capped peaks.

-Wildflowers here are really nice and abundant. Lupines are the wildflower mostabundant here in various shades of pink and purple. All of the roadsides and in random places around the farm.

-We learned that our suspicion about widespread digestive issues from eating so much meat is a reality. It is apparently not unusual for some Argentines to eat only meat, and apparently the GI tract issues are serious. The government has a division called pro-garden in which it encourages citizens to grow their own fruits and vegetables. The hope is that this will aid in this issue as well as with hunger issues around the country.

-We really enjoy all the comments in our comments section, we tried to reply to some, but the internet connection broke, and we dont get to make it to the internet very often.

-How far will NCSU fans go to see NCSU beat the pants off of UNC??? Well today we wanted to go to Lago Epuyen. It was a 7 mile walk out of our way to come to the internet today. It is 34-10 right now, so I am calling my blistered feet well worth it. (I will say it is not as fun just watching the score change on the internet, but it still bring about true joy)

-At our last farm we baked lots of bread in a clay oven. Here we have made empanadas, tartas (a veggie pie of sorts), baked potatoes (sweet and and regular), baked carrots, bread, apples, and a tiny bit of meat. Very useful and fun, I think the clay oven needs more use in the US.

-Grapefruit soda is all the rage here. We think it is delicious!

Blog Note

Just posted new update, but wanted to let folks know about this change. I figured out how to allow Anonymous comments. This means, no sign in is needed and you do not have to register if you wish to leave a comment. Sorry I did not realize this was possible earlier. Just throw your name at the bottom of the comment so we know who you are.

Saludos de Epuyen

Greeting after a week away. We have been at a new farm that is a bit remote. This weekend we have come into town to use the internet and to go to craft fairs and the likes in El Bolson (a very cool little town here in Patagonia).

The new farm is full of new things. The most notable is beekeeping. We got to put on the beekeeping garb and help a bit with the beekeeping, which seems fair since we have eaten our weight in the delicious honey. My curiosity is peaked about the amazing little creatures, so I hope to keep learning more about them.

With many large gardens, this farm seems rather ideal. Trees cover the land with small pockets of land for gardening. The farmer grows and wonderful variety of fruits (lots of raspberries) and vegetables and has no interest in making money from his product, but only in providing for the consumption of his family from their small piece of land. They also have 5 sheep which graze and from which they get meat (no sheep milking here unfortunately(of and we have been snacking on sheep heart and sheep liver pudding...delicious!)). They also have chickens and we get to eat fresh eggs every morning. There is nothing quite like eating breakfast of fresh eggs from the chickens outside your window along with a piece of bread covered in raspberries from the garden and smothered in honey from the bees , also kept outside your window. All this in a valley surrounded by snow capped mountains, very nice.

We will be in this region for the next month. We were not sure what to expect, but we couldn´t be happier with the natural beauty that surrounds us!

We came across this gem today and could not resist.

Setting up camp so we can relax away from the farm for the night. Notice Adam´s awesome hat, made by Tracy. So warm, such nice earflaps.


Acted like I was taking a picture of Tracy so I could capture the Gaucho waiting for the bus. I want to learn more of the history of the Gaucho.

YUMMMMMYYYYYY! (Honey!)


Grillmaster Tracy:


The highlight of our fantastic hike in Parque Nacional Llao Llao (near Bariloche):

Snow-capped Mountains and Chocolate!

We endured the 20-some hour bus ride from Mendoza to Bariloche, although the Patagonia border guards did take our apples and cherries (our only food for the 20 hours). Once we stepped off the bus, we felt an immediate change in climate from the other areas we had recently been to. It was quite chilly, and kind of rainy with what appeared to be snow mixed in with it. We went on search of the campground listed in the Lonely Planet, and found out that they no longer do camping, so we had to ride the public bus out of town about 13 kilometers to another campground. It is really nice, right on the lake, and you can see the snow-capped mountains in the distance. At the campground we met four people from the US who are just travelling around and taking spanish classes. We went on a hike with them yesterday, and it had really great views of the mountains and the lakes around.

We are glad we sprung for the lower degree sleeping bags, as the second day we were here it rained/snowed (blown off of the mountains) all day while we decided to walk around and explore Bariloche (and to try out the famous Bariloche chocolate- there are dozens of fancy chocolate shops, which seems strange for a place that we assume is unable to produce even a single coco plant due to the cold climate). It rained all day, and all night. The high that day was in the lower 40´s, and we´re not sure about the low, but my 20 degree sleeping bag served me well (and our tent didn´t leak, which was a plus).

I have been crocheting hats and layers for our stay in the South and Adam has been building fires with wet wood (Thanks Nathan for the fire building skills) and grilling vegetables, with minimal meat for our much needed balance.

We head off to the next farm tomorrow, which is three hours south of where we are now. We will be there for about 2 weeks, and hopefully we won´t freeze while we are there! (Judy- when does it finally get warm here???)

Ciao!

Córdoba, Ché, Mendoza and who´s black bookbag is this?

It´s been a busy few days of mostly fun. I will try to recount the highlights in a stream of consciousness to share the details.

We travelled from Iguazu to Córdoba, which was 20 hours on a bus. We did not have a lot of time there. It is a very large city and tough to really get a feel for. There are 8 Universities in the city, resulting in a hip young crowd roaming the streets. Lots of nightlife, businesses, rather expensive hostels, etc. (Hostel story: we walked into the shared room and there was a guy with no shirt on who had wrapped his left arm, part of his body, and part of his neck in an electrical cord. I have no earthly idea what he was doing, but it did not help me to sleep well)

Córdoba is very close to a smaller town that we spent a day in called Alta Gracia. Very quaint little town in the Andes. This is also the main home where Ernesto Ché Guevara grew up. In his former home there is now a museum marking various stages of his life. It was a really well done museum and very interesting to see how someone goes from being an asthmatic young child to a world famous revolutionary/philosopher.

There is also a Jesuit mission turned museum here. Very interesting piece of history. The Jesuits were some innovative people with some advanced technology. I didn´t leave the museum with positive feelings toward the Jesuits missions in LAtin America, but it was very interesting to see the advanced technologies from the 17th century.

We took an overnight bus to Mendoza. The heater was broken on the bus and was constantly on, making it difficult to sleep, but these are super nice busses and quite comfortable despite occassional annoyances. When the sun came up we could see the snow capped Andes mountains on the horizon, beautiful!

Mendoza is a much smaller town. We are camping about 6km outside of town. At the campgrounds we have run into a Brit who is finishing school in Anthropology and just doing osme travelling and some Canadians who have travelled from Western Canada to Mendoza on motorcycles and plan to return via the same mode of transportation.

We are camping in a much smaller little town that has a church, an abandoned amusement park, a giant slide and a drive in theater. I went to test out the giant slide yesterday. It is about 50-60 feet tall and is metal. They give you a cut up piece of carpet for about 1 dollar and you can have unlimited rides. To give a good picture, there were about 100 people at the slide, all of which were Argentine. There were about 60 people riding the slide, 90% of which were ages 5-15. Then along comes big ol gringo. I went down a few times, but finally caught enough air over the last hump to bang my ankle up and decided I had had enough. Tracy says she will give it a try with me today.

This morning we sat down for lunch (we thought it was noon, but really it was 11. Apparently we have spent the last 2 or three days an hour ahead of everyone else and did not realize it because they are different than Buenos Aires here in Mendoza, crazy.) A lady kept asking us weird questions about how to order, which seemed odd, but we told her what we knew and explained that we were not sure about anything and she should go inside and ask. She did so and came back out and sat down beside us again. She again tried to strike up a conversation about ordering and then left. A few minutes later I looked down and realized that where my bookbag had been, there was now a black bookbag that was empty. We fell for the oldest trick in the book. I am an idiot for setting bookbag down beside me instead of in my lap, but we werent in a crowd and did not really see it coming. They got our camera (you see now why you have not gotten to see the slide or the snow capped Andes?), our extra camera pieces, our guide book, sun screen, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, flashlight, water bottle and one of my pocket knives. I was quite angry with the lady and her accomplice as well as with myself. We cant go back and fix it now, so we are trying to look at the bright side of things. We made a police report and there were two Belgian girls there who had lost passports, debit cards and most everything else in a similar incident, so I guess we should be thankful to have learned a lesson without more serious consequences. We did bring another camera with us, so hopefully we can switch over and this one will last more than 6 weeks. The police were very hospitable to us, the restaurant owner was also very kind and was visibly angry that this happened to us, which we appreciated.

We were pretty disappointed with our guidebook anyways, though it was certainly better than the nothing we were left with. While walking around looking for the various little things we needed to replace at pharmacies and whatnot, I noticed an agency that did trout fishing tours, and was curious. As I expected, the trout fishing was very expensive, but I mentioned to the guy that we had lost our guidebook and asked if he knew where we could find another one (books in English are hard to come by in smaller cities). As it turns out he is an author of the Argnentina and Bolivia Frommer´s Guidebook and had been sent a stack of Frommer´s South America and had been trying to figure out what to do with them. Nice as he was, he sent us on our way with a free guide book (cover price $30 USD).

We plan to fninsh tonight out with some vegetarian or middle eastern food (ENOUGH MEAT ALREADY) as Mendoza has a nice array of restaurants to give us a small break until we reach our next farm. We also plan to scope out a bar or other late night establishment to try to set up camp tomorrow and see if there is any buzz around the US elections. Should be fun times. Wednesday we head to Bariloche for the last leg of this travel jaunt until we head to the farm on Monday.

Foz de Iguaçu

Yesterday we went to Iguazu Falls. Over 250 waterfalls within the national park. The river seaparates Brazil and Argentina. The Argentine side is called Cataratas de Iguazu, but I have been looking for a good excuse to use the ç letter, and why not in the title (that is the name of the Brazil side). All of the falls were extremely impressive, but Garganta de Diablo (Devil´s Throat) was mind blowing. The size and the amount of water going over the falls was just incredible. We were able to get very close on a cat walk and look over at it. It is shaped like an enormous semi circle, making it all the more impressive. There is a species of bird that lives behind waterfalls and they could be seen flying around in the mist in what appeared not to be a search for food, but just a way to have a really good time. There were also thousands of butterflies in the park. They constantly landed on us and would stick out their long tongues to drink our sweat or the water from our shirts or back packs. There is a theory that waterfalls cause negative ions which bring about extreme happiness in humans. I believe we can call that theory confirmed.

We have found an internet shop here with a fast connection, so we will try to share some photos in reverse chronological order:

This is Garganta del Diablo. There is no way to do it any justice with a photo, but it is still impressive. The land you see in the distance is Brazil.


The forest fire prevention representative in Argentina is an Owl. I was trying to look like the owl, but I believe I was mostly unsuccesful. I believe this Owl could probably share better information than Smokey the Bear regarding forest fire prevention. However, he may be less likely to do so because as a bird, he will be less effected by the forest fire than Smokey, who is unable to fly.


Tracy with just a small part of the beautiful landscape. We were able to get pretty close to the falls thanks to the really nice trails and catwalks at the park.


BIG CITY BUENOS AIRES
Here are a few photos from BA.

This is the Casa Rosada. It is the same function as the White House.


The parrilla is the popular and customary food of choice in Argentina. It is quite a lot of meat.


This is Tracy in front of a part of the centro of Buenos Aires. You can see the old architecture in the foreground with the new building in the background. There was lots and lots of both in the huge city. Somewhere around 12,000,000 people live in BA and the urban neighborhoods surrounding it.


We had a good time on the farm and are looking forward to our next farms here in Argetina. We especially enjoyed becoming friends with Hector. We have said a lot about him in other posts, but we cant say anough about what a cool guy he is. This is Hector and I working to spread chicken poo over a field. The spreader was designed to spread chemicals which come in handy little pellets that do not stop up the machine. The chicken poo, which was shoveled from the floor of chicken houses was complete with feathers, dirt, and other various pieces, so it stopped up the old spreader pretty bad. So Hector designed a seat so he could continuously shove the organic fertilizer into the spreader and then he trusted me to drive him around the field.

Meat, Tango and Trains

This country, just like Uruguay, is crazy for meat. We got a ´parrilla´for dinner last night and it was literally a pile of meat. Sirloin, sausage, chicken, liver, intestine, and other stuff that I am not sure about, graced the giant mound o meat. We have since been trying to balance it out with empanadas containing a variety of veggies.

Tango is huge here. Many bars and restaurants feature tango shows, which is where a couple dances on a stage as a dinner entertainment. Our was OK and the tango is certainly captivating to watch.

Yesterday we got a special treat. A friend from North Carolina has family here in Buenos Aires. Yesterday we connected with her brother and sister in law. We got an excellent tour of the city with explanation of various parts and historic sights. We also got to see some of the urban barrios that arent acessible by subway or foot and it was a lot of fun to see and a lot of fun to meet and hang out with locals. We also got to eat a fantastic lunch at a really unique little cafe. (Thanks Laura and Danny!) We also learned from them, as they were preparing to go to a wedding at night, that typical weddings last from 9pm until about 6am. That is a serious party.

We tried yesterday to take another form of transportation in taking a train. Different from the subway, this is actually what you think of when you think of Amtrak or the likes. Unfortunately, the train broke about 15 minutes in and after waiting about a half hour, we decided to hop off and make our way back into town.

We plan to lounge around in a cafe or two today and relax until time to head back across the city to our bus to the north. For those trying to follow on a map, we will be at the top northeast corner of Argentina, on the border with Brazil and very close to the border with Paraguay.

Apparently USB ports were more popular in the rural area we were previously in, as we havent come across any here (though we havent sent any time looking). This means no pictures for a while.

On to Agrentina

We we finished off Uruguay with a bang and a day earlier than planned. We left the farm on Thursday morning and headed into Colonia de Sacramento. It was a nice day and we got to visit several museums and eat some good food. The highlight of the day was when we were sitting on some steps near the water and relaxing when an elemtary school class on a field trip came up to us (I am talking about 15-20 children) and surrounded us shooting off questions and practicing their English. A few of them knew someone living in the US and had to ask if we knew them. As you can imagine, we disappointed them by not knowing a single person.

We planned to leave for Buenos Aires on Friday, but only expensive fast boats and First class seats on slow boats were avilable, so we ended up taking off on Thursday night. We headed west as the sun set, which made for a beautiful way to see Bs As for the first time. We have been filling our bellies with empanadas and rushing about the city all day today.

Buenos Aires is an excellent city that I would easily put in the category as NYC or DC. Huge, but busy on every street. Great architecture, lots of arts, museums, cafes, historical locations and a great vibe. After being in Uruguay for a month, which is one chill, laid back country, we are excited about the change of pace given us by this monstrcity of a city. We have mastered the subway system in under 24 hours and are hoping to see what Bs As night life is all about tonight (Tango and hopefully some salsa is on the docket).

On Sunday we leave on a 17 hour bus for Iguazu Falls and then we will be heading west across the country to see as many places as possible, eventually landing at our next farm.

Hopefully some fotos will be forthcoming.

Food on the Farm

As mentioned in a previous post, our food options on the farm consist of greens, cabbage, lots of cheese, and some citrus fruits. In wanting to keep with the local season, we don´t want to go out and buy a lot of vegetables that were shipped in from other locations, so we have lately had to be creative with what we have. This has resulted in one of our favorites: greens/cabbage pizza. So in case any of you want to try out this recipe in your own house, here it is:

whole wheat crust (yeast, flax seed, wheat flour)
boiled greens and cabbage
four types of sheep and goat cheese


Let the crust rise, and spread it out on your frying pan (cause that´s what we have). Put the greens mixture on top, and add the ricotta, pepper cheese, soft sheep cheese, and parmesan/romano type sheep cheese. Light your dangerous gas oven (or build a fire in your equally as dangerous outdoor oven- according to Adam´s finger) and cook until you think it is done.

It is actually quite tasty.



And I know you all are dying to see pictures of us milking sheep (it´s not a common thing here either- the guys at the local store make fun of Hector for milking sheep), so here they are:





A new WWOOFER arrived yesterday. She is from New York and goes to college in Wisconsin. We have been showing her around before we head out on Thursday. As we prepare to spend 100s of hours on Argentine busses to traverse the country, we will likely think back to the relaxing life at the farm.

¿Photos Perhaps?

We spent our day off today going to a city called Colonia San Francisco. About an hour away it was a nice little break from our daily social life with the 60 sheep, 2 goats, 2 chickens one dog and lots of fleas. We will have to go back through another day because it is the way to Buenos Aires, Argentina and we look forward to going back and hope it is not rainy and messy for most of the day as it was today. Colonia is kind of the historic museumy city of Uruguay and many of the area were quite nice. Lots of tourists appear to be there, though most of them appear to be from Latin American countries.

OK, on to the photos.

This is our humble little room. We didnt get much sleep last night because a storm came through and kept blowing that back window open. Rooms do not connect on the inside and you have to go from room to kitchen to bathroom by going outside.


This is our house. There arent any other houses around within view. It is 2km to the other part of the farm we work on and 4km to get into town. The milking house and cheese making facility as well as a large barn is in our back yard.


On of the last days that the Belgians, Ana and Dominique were at the farm, we grilled out some steaks. Tracy is on the left (of course) and beside her is Hector who we work most closely with on the farm. He is 22 and lives nearby and is brilliant in every aspect of farming and just being able to fix anything that breaks. Fortunately, he is also a good motorcycle driver as he and Adam went to buy some things at the store requiring Adam to ride on the back with his hands full (my mother will love that part!).


This is what laundry day looks like every few days (since we didnt have room for too many clothes). Tracy does most of the washing while Adam hangs it all up on the line to dry. Our work days are from 730-1030 and then from 2-5, so it is nice to have a lot of time to do things (including laundry or especially napping) during the afternoon while there is plenty of sunlight. We do have electricity, but the only things it serves is a refrigerator and one light bulb in each room.



In the evenings we have to round up the sheep from the pasture and put them into a smaller pen for the night. Part of this is helping the baby sheep that you can barely see here to eat. He can graze as he is old enough to digest grass, but he also gets milk with our help. We haven´t clarified the story, but suposedly his mother rejected him and so now it requires one of the sheep to be held in order for him to eat. This is me (Adam) holding the sheep for the baby to drink.


This is our bread oven. I am trying to build a decent fire inside in order to raise the temperature enough to cook the bread, which we add later after removing the coals. This photo was taken just before Adam sliced his finger wide open with a sharp knife.

We are still having a great time and have about 10 days left on this farm before we head off to Argentina. Hasta Luego...

Breaking Our Addictions

We have 10 days on the farm under our belt. We are still having fun and feel like we are learning a great deal. Early spring is a difficult time to jump into this, as we are learning. Having jumped in without the opportunity to have canned or frozen things from past seasons, greens are the only thing in our garden. Between some big leafy collard like plant and cabbage, we are eating a lot of greens. We have learned that a neighbor sells oranges from his yard and they are amazing. We are eating our weight in those. The cheese is also very good. The owner of the farm makes an amazing cheese from the sheep milk. Our goats milk makes good yogurt and our lemon tree gives us delicious lemonade. However, take all of this and add a single gas burner, some old pans, and a trip to the supermarket for some rice and pasta and some flour for bread and you still dont get the variety that we have become accostomed to in the US. The produce section of Harris Teeter doesnt really have too many seasons.

So this feels like it has been a time of breaking our addicitons. Our cravings for fast food or tomatoes go unanswered because there just arent any. Our time for relaxation is not consumed with television, internet, NCSU athletics (and the constant sorrow that comes with them), radios, or other forms of entertainment, but is spent sitting outside watching and listening to those things that surround us. Not because we choose to do this out of nobility, but because when you open our door (that doesnt really close anyways) that is what is there and there really isnt anything else.

I am not sure that we knew we would have to go quite so cold turkey, but here we are in `el campo`.

One thing that does bring great entertainment is realizing how mundane things sound way cooler when put into context of being where we are (at least in my head). For example¨"I am sitting in a chair on the porch" sounds pretty dull, but "I am sitting in a chair on the porch in Uruguay" sounds really cool. "I am listening to electronica music...in an internet cafe in Uruguay", see you are jealous aren´t you??



OK, so now it is letting me add some pictures, we will see how many actually happen.

This is me riding my bike on our beach excursion this past Sunday.

Sheep, Goats, Lemons and One-speed bicycles

Still having fun. We will try to put some more meaningful thoughts on here soon, but since using the internet (very slow internet) means riding a one speed bike 8 kilometers (mine has no brakes, but I havent really needed them yet), we just seem to run out of time. Photos are an impossibility today because this internet just will not cooperate. Oh well. We will try again soon.

Thursday we get to help in the cheese making process. This is what all of the sheeps milk is used for. We get about 30 Liters per day from the 60 sheep. This is supposedly one of the money making parts of the farm. The sheep and goat graze on grass all day and are not given corn or other things that industrial agriculture insists upon. They do eat a small amount of corn during milking. I dont think they love the milking process, but since they rush the milking room for the corn, it seems they feel it is a fair trade.

The goat is also milked daily and give us about a quart or so a day. It´s baby still also eats so that takes away from some of our milk, but we dont mind sharing. We made our first successful batch of yogurt from the goat milk. It is very tasty. We add either peach marmelade or fresh lemons for extra flavor. We hope to make butter soon once we skim enough fat from our milk to do so.

The lemon tree seems to be one of the only things in season right now in early spring. We are planting a lot and getting some greens from the garden. Lemonade is tasty. We are drinking the water now, but adding lemons helped us to get used to the idea after being told that the water was potable. I did not realize Lemons were a spring fruit, but I am happy with it. Oranges are also in season, but we have to buy those from a neighbor.

Yesterday we rode our one speeders to the beach, which is more like the bank of a large river. It was pretty and a nice ride (14km round trip). It is chilly here, so swimming was not an option. We also got to ty our first Mate. Not too bad and perhaps something we will try to aquire the taste for. This is a big part of the culture of Argentina and Uruguay. Google Mate if you are not familiar with it. It is kind of like tea, but you can only drink it with a special set with a gourd cup and a metal like straw. Apparently there is also lots of customs about sharing the mate and passing in certain ways and turning the gourd, but we havent figured all of that out yet.

Thanks for the comments, we enjoy reading them.

Cross your fingers for pictures next time.

Life on the Farm

We made it to the farm, after taking two busses, and being picked up by a guy named Hector in a 1950-something truck. Hector is who we work with on a regular basis milking sheep. That is our main task here on the farm. The house we´re staying at is about 4 kilometers away from ¨town¨ which is where there is a supermarket and internet cafe. We have two bikes to use to get there. We have also learned how to use an outdoor bread oven. We will post pictures, and more explanation next time as 4 kilometers is a long way to go back when you have forgotten your camera.

Full Day in Montevideo

Here are a few fotos from our day in Montevideo. Tomorrow it is off to the farm. We had a fun time trying to figure out how to get there. Our experience in Guatemala was that if you go to the bus station, you can just hop on a bus and might have to change busses, but it supposed to be pretty easy. After using some sort of telephone store that functioned as a really fancy phone booth, we have reservations for a bus tomorrow and believe we know how to get to the terminal, using another bus. I think this is one of my favorite parts of travelling, figuring out how to do things that people who live here think is every day life.

On to the photos:


Tracy in the room at our hostel.


Yes we have a Bidet (spelling¿?)



Tracy (and some random woman) in the Plaza de Independencia (we have had gloomy weather both days so far)


Uruguay has much Italian influence. We went to dinner last night and ended up eating pasta. It was excellent and was some of the best italian food we´ve had. We wandered around from about 5-7 wondering why many of the restaraunts were not open. We learned today that most Uruguayans do not eat dinner until 9pm and it is not unusual to start dinner well after that. Tonight, we shall explore at a much later hour.