¿Dónde están los ladrónes?

JUPITER, Fla. -- We made it! Will and I arrived safely back in Miami this morning, but not without the usual drama. Well, this time, we had a bit more than the usual drama. I'd give it a 7 on the 1-to-10 fiasco spectrum scale.

We checked out of the luxury apartment this morning so the owner could clean it for guests arriving that night. We left our bags with the friendly doorman downstairs, who put them in a secure room awaiting our return that evening for our redeye flight.

I hesitated a moment, wondering what I should do with my iPod and cellphone. I usually take them with me rather than check them. But, an acquaintance had just regaled us with the story of a brazen purse-snatching on the streets of Buenos Aires. Our alternative, putting the iPod and phone in Will's backpack for the duration of a crowded subway ride, seemed even less secure. So, in a fit of bad judgment, I left them in a case at the bottom of my backpack, solidly buried under a copy of 100 Years of Solitude, my glasses, sunglasses, accounting workbook, two reporter's notebooks, three possibly pirated CDs, two purses made of antique weavings (one full of silver jewelery), a guide to the La Paz Coca Museum, and the July issue of Latin American Vogue.

This did not deter the thief.

We returned from a leisurely lunch with Andrew and hopped in a cab for the international airport, where I discovered the absence of my cellphone and iPod in a backpack that had been rifled through. The culprit did not appear interested in Garcia Marquez, jewelery or my credit cards (which saved me the headache of canceling them).

But worse, I could not find my camera with the previous two days' photos on it. I had asked Will for it at lunch, and he said he had seen it in my bag that morning before we checked it. So we assumed that's where my camera was, and we used his camera the rest of the day. The moment of discovery at the airport improved from 'disastrous theft of irreplaceable proportions' to 'merely irritating and expensive' when Will found my camera in his bag, where it had been all along. Whew! Our photos of Uruguay returned from oblivion. Don't know what we would have done without those.

And really, both my old phone and iPod both would need replacing soon anyway. Thank goodness for planned obsolescence. It took the sting out of the incident, as did Will's amusement at the image of a thief listening to my eclectic and lowbrow iPod playlists somewhere ... including, oddly enough, Shakira's ¿Dónde están los ladrónes?, about the theft of her luggage, and song lyrics, in the Bogotá airport.

So, it could have been a lot worse.

One more Country

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina- We went on a day trip to Colonia, Uruguay on Saturday. We could say we did this because the old colonial city and beach port, vacation spot for Argentinians and Uruguayans alike, is extremely beautiful, which it is. But, truth be told, we both wanted to get one more stamp on our passports. Although it is a tourist haven, this piece of land, which requires a boat trip across the Rio de La Plata, is surrounded by water on three sides -- giving it the feel of a small quaint island. Highlights included cobblestone streets, Uruguay's oldest church and the ruins of a convent. The history of the small town is interesting, as it was originally founded by the Portuguese and then later taken over by the Spanish. This rich heritage can seen in the restored buildings and old museums, which made our stroll through the streets well worth our time.

Our Best Day in Buenos Aires

BUENOS AIRES -- As our 11-week trip drew to a close, Will grew nostalgic and decided to plan a special evening out on the town. He wouldn´t tell me any of the details, just said to clear Thursday night (as if we had other urgent business to attend to here). I could get no details out of him, so I eventually stopped asking, and instead took the opportunity to buy purple leather boots, as I had no nice going-out shoes. But then I saw some shiny purple flats and bought those too, and wore them instead.
These were the trivial details I had on my mind. Obviously, I had no idea what was coming.
I thought I´d figure out where we were headed once Will told the taxi driver, but he slyly had written down the address on a piece of paper, and he simply handed it to the driver without saying a word.
We ended up in the tony Puerto Madero section of town, a refurbished waterfront, in front of Cabaña Las Lilas -- the best restaurant in the city. Prices skyrocketed when New York Times writer R.W. Apple declared it one of the world´s best restaurants.
What a perfect way to end our trip, I thought.
We sat dockside and ordered two medallions de lomo, mine with butternut squash puree and Will´s with walnut mashed potato, and a bottle of Malbec. Oh, and a provoletta to start off with. Which I probably wouldn´t have ordered had I known they would set out a platter of appetizers for free -- carpaccio, pate, mini mozzarella balls and tomato, in addition to the woman wandering around with an enormous basket of hot bread.
Still, not too much I thought, as I prepared to dig into my steak. I had ordered medium rare as usual, and it came with a little smiling plastic cow that said ´´Estoy jugoso.¨ We saved those for kitsch appeal.
Then the waiter rushed back, apologizing profusely. ´´We only brought you a half portion!´ he said. ´´I¨m so sorry!¨
I had no opportunity to protest. The next thing I knew, he was back with another steak. I had no choice but to eat two steaks.
I have never felt so full in my life. I wanted to go home immediately. But Will persuaded me to split the Chocolate Nemesis cake (I couldn´t resist the name). Then he persuaded me to go for a walk ... in weather suddenly turned blustery ... down the canal to the lovely suspension ´´Bridge of Woman,¨ so named because Puerto Madero´s streets are all named after famous Argentine women. At least I can vomit in the water, I thought, if it comes to that.
I easily could have refused all these suggestions. But I would have ruined a plan weeks in the making, unbeknownst to me.
When we got to the bridge, Will, nostalgic again, started talking about what a great trip this had been, and how much he loved me, etc., until he was interrupted by a woman trying to sell us two of the ugliest flowers I have ever seen. They were wilty and pink, and each came with an even uglier gold-glitter-dusted fake flower. She wanted 5 pesos. Will gave her 20 to go away.
The next thing I knew, he was dropping to one knee.
¨Will you marry me?¨ he asked.
He was holding something shiny in his left hand, in a box, and it was not the ugly glitter flowers.
´´What?´´ I asked. I was shocked. Then, ¨Yes, yes, of course I will!´´
He had somehow managed to hide this plan and piece of jewelery from me though we had spent 24 hours a day together for the past 3 months. And now, standing on a windy bridge over the water, I was about to drop a shiny, shiny ring into the Buenos Aires canal.
¨I don´t want a ring!¨ I said, trying to give it back. ¨I lose things!¨ But he convinced me it would be ok, and I put it on -- a purple amethyst, thank goodness, because he knows exactly how I feel about conflict diamonds.
I am still in shock. But I think we can all agree this was our best day in Buenos Aires, our best day in South America and our best day ever. We are looking forward to many, many more days together in the years to come.

Top 10 Reasons We Love Buenos Aires

1. Abundance of purple leather boots in equally abundant women´s shoe stores.
2. Watching a parade of dog walkers each try to handle a dozen Labrador and English sheepdog-sized canines every morning.
3. Despite weakening dollar, exchange rate still 3 to 1 with the peso.
4. Belle Epoqe-era theater´s new owner turned it into a cathedral-like bookstore.
5. Abundance of other used and new bookstores.
6. Clean and pleasant tree-filled plazas.
7. Four-hour lunches.
8. Four-hour dinners starting at 9 pm.
9. Quirky and affordable Sunday antique fair.
10. Espresso, ice cream, pasta, steak, red wine.

Pasta or Steak?

BUENOS AIRES -- Our biggest daily dilemma in this culinary wonderland: Do we eat pasta tonight, or steak?

Known equally for its cattle and Italian cuisine, Argentina has a wealth of restaurants to choose from. We have the luxury of a seasoned food tour guide in Andrew, who has narrowed down the best restaurants for us in more than a year in Buenos Aires. We took a complicating factor out of the dining equation by deciding to have wine every night, usually a local Malbec. No dilemma there. -- Meghan

Las Criticas de Will

Restauran Don Julio

Guatemala 469, Buenos Aires

This cozy little restaurant in the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires was our first stop. With cow-hide tablecloths, vintage brick walls and crowded with locals, this establishment was a magnificent way to begin our culinary journey. We started off ordering a special cheese dish, called provoletta, grilled and sprinkled with oregano. It was very tasty, but reminded me a lot of cheesy bread from Domino's. Then it was on to the main course, bife de lomo, the finest cut of beef known to the world. It came out properly cooked (well done) and was very tender. But by far the highlight of the night was my introduction to chimichurri, a spicy sauce made up of garlic, parsley and a secret ingredient known only to Argentinians. It's on the table to complement the meat, but dipping your bread in this tasty connoction is the best thing since Sonny's Barbecue. I pledge here to search out into this large city to find the best chimichurri sauce.

Luxury at Hostel Prices

BUENOS AIRES -- We have not prioritized comfort as we tried to stretch our lodgings budget across three months.

In Sucre, we went without heat or hot water (though few places even had that option). In Salta, we got colds from the mildew in our hostel. In Tucumán, the malfunctioning toilet in our room dated back to 1972 (older than both of us). That´s what happens when you spend between $15 and $30 a night. And still, this looks much better when you consider what you might find for $30 a night in the U.S.

In Buenos Aires, the hotel gods rewarded us for our sacrifice.

Thanks again to a brilliant idea from Andrew, we decided to rent an apartment for a week. Our last-minute search yielded an incredible deal -- for about $30 a night, we have a brand-new studio apartment in the exclusive Recoleta neighborhood. It comes with a balcony, cable TV, access to a rooftop pool, basketball courts, stainless-steel appliances and a helpful doorman. We walk a block and a half to the subway, and get out four stops later for dinner in the trendy Palermo neighborhood (at Don Julio: steaks, a bottle of Malbec and grilled cheese -- like the sandwich but without the bread) Or, four stops in the other direction, we can visit the Plaza de Mayo and salmon-pink Casa Rosada government offices downtown. We can walk to the fashionable cemetery where Evita is buried.

Today, we took the bus to San Telmo, center of the tango world, for the weekly antiques fair. The cost of restaurant meals, real estate and just about everything has climbed since Argentina´s economic meltdown several years ago, but remains well below U.S. prices. Hence, this was the first antiques fair I´ve visited where I could actually afford to shop. Somehow, we will try to get the green 1940s-era glass soda dispenser home without breaking it ...

The Great Falls of Iguazu

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Our flight touched down a little after 4 p.m. local time here, but Meghan and I were still thinking about our trip yesterday to the falls of Iguazu, the world´s widest waterfalls and one of the most amazing sites I´ve ever seen.

Meghan and I made a day of it. We first hiked to the famous Garganta del Diablo, ¨The Throat of the Devil,¨ where three sides of the cliff remained covered in mist as the gigantic falls converged. There´s really no way to stay dry in this national park with falls far larger and impressive than North America's Niagara Falls. Afterwards, we went hiking on the upper trail, which rims the falls and the lower trail which gives you a close up view from the bottom. The lower trail was my favorite, as we caught two rainbows arching over this natural wonder and also encountered hundreds of multi-colored butterflies along the hike. This sanctuary was spectacular and made for maybe the most perfect day of the 11-week odyssey. A fitting way to wind down our great adventure.

Happy Argentine Independence Day!

PUERTO IGUAZU, Argentina --- Today, Argentina celebrates its independence from Spain, and we celebrate our liberation from the Andesmar bus from Tucumán after 24 hours aboard. The trip ran four hours longer than planned, and as the sunrise illuminated a road stretching endlessly into the horizon, the final hour seemed longer than the rest. We watched four movies and played bingo yesterday, which helped pass the time as we drove past sugarcane and wheat fields. And even though an electrical problem limited our beverage choices, we did have 7-Up and two meals. Next time, we reserve the first-class seats early. Actually, next time, we go to the airport instead.

And now here´s Will with his reviews of the movie selections:

1. The Bucket List (I give this a C-. Great actors, but where was the writing?)
2. Shattered (I give this pig a D. Does anybody remember Pierce Brosnan as Remington Steale? That´s when the man could act.)
3. I Am Legend (I give this a C+. Not half as bad as I expected for a sci-fi film.)
4. The Legend of Bagger Vance (I´m so glad dinner was served during this disaster. Why did you make this film Robert Redford? I give a D-. However, they served some very tasty cookies on the bus, which made me feel a little better.)

Feeding a Cold With Locro

CAFAYATE, Argentina -- An 11-week trip to South America is bound to have a few unexpected roadblocks, such as miners with dynamite on strike, transportation delays, etc.
So, why should the small town of Cafayate be any different?
Meghan and I both picked up bad colds in Salta and have been recovering here for four days, a couple days more than originally planned. Actually, Cafayate is a darn fine place to recover. It´s renowned for its vineyards and temperate climate, and Meghan and I have soaked it all in. Although I loved the wine tour and six-hour odyssey through the red-rock canyons outside of town, the best part has been the food. We ordered Parrillada last night. The dish for two was a carnivore´s dream! Three types of sausages, ribs, chicken breast, filets, different cuts of steak, all on a small grill delivered to our table. We had very little for lunch just to prepare. Armed with glasses of dark red wine from a local vineyard, we even impressed the waiter with our hearty appetites. Many poeple told me told me some of the best steaks in the world can be found in Argentina, and after Saturday night who am I to disagree? We have also been nursing ourselves back to health with bowls of locro, a delectable stew common in this part of the Andes. The ingredients include cornmeal, some form of meat, usually beef, and an array of fresh vegetables. And I would do well not to forget the empanadas. Meghan and I fell in love with small joint called Casa des Las Empanandas in town. Anyone can make an empananda, but the folks here have mastered the technique. Using a secret recipe of spices, the piping hot treats melt happily into your mouth. Meghan used to buy empananadas in South Florida, but you can find the real thing at this little restaurant on Ave. Mitre in Cafayate. Yum.

When we finally make our way to Buenos Aires, my goal, after weeks and weeks of being on the road, is to eat my way through several glorious days and nights in that metropolis. With Andrew guiding us to the best restaurants in town, I can think of no better way of ending this fabulous adventure. But before all that, we have one more very special place to visit....

Celebrating Freedom

CAFAYATE, Argentina -- We arrived in wine country just in time for the Fourth of July, and I can think of no better way to celebrate freedom than with free tours and tastings. Our hostel runs a bus to not one, but two vineyards every morning for wine, cheese and education, and we plan to be on it tomorrow.
One might complain that this seems a bit too French for Independence Day, and perhaps we should make do with boorish American beer and barbecue, holding off 10 days or so until Bastille Day. I say wine and fromage is a great way to celebrate the crucial French contribution to our revolution, and we can always repeat it again July 14. And, in between, we have Argentine independence day on July 9. We have hit all of the winter´s major secular and religious holidays between La Paz and Buenos Aires.
Cafayate has so far proved to be a relaxing departure from the big city of Salta, which we found a little overwhelming after two weeks of desert solitude. The road running to the small town, overshadowed by mountains, runs through red rock canyons and grape-filled valleys.
We made it here, once again, despite ourselves. Luckily, we had scheduled a wake-up knock on the door for 6 a.m. When the knock came, I insisted to the night manager that he had arrived an hour early, as my clock said 5. He insisted it was indeed 6, and furthermore, as we had spent five minutes debating the issue, it was now 6:05, and we had better get a move on or we would miss our taxi. We grudgingly complied, and, in the shower, it dawned on me what had happened. We had throughout our four days in Argentina wondered why we seemed so in synch with a country so notorious for its 9 p.m. dinners, though we were dining at 7 or so. Our Chile-to-Salta bus´ arrival an hour early had pleasantly surprised us, though we thought nothing of it later. And when the laundromat seemingly closed an hour early we threw a fit because it stranded us an extra day.
Now, I realized, we had advanced a time zone to the east when we crossed the border with Chile four days earlier. The driver must have reminded everyone on the bus about this during our sprint, before we caught up with it at customs. Consequently, we had spent the week living on Chilean time.
We reset our clocks and apologized to the night manager. If not for his wakeup knock, we would still be in Salta.

Wine + Mummy Museum = Nightmares

SALTA, Argentina -- We have found ourselves stranded, once more, in a city a day beyond our planned departure. This time, we made a calculated decision to stay and wait rather than abandon our clothes at the laundromat. We dropped them off yesterday morning, and when we returned at 9:15 p.m. to pick them up, we found the laundromat had closed, with our clothing locked inside. They had told us they would stay open until 10 p.m. I think that was a lie.
We would have arrived earlier, but we needed to finish our wine at the Patio de la Empanada, sort of like a food court with only one kind of food (thanks to Andrew for the recommendation). And we needed the wine to wipe away the memory of the most disturbing museum exhibit we have ever seen.
The new-ish museum, MAAM (Museum of the High Mountains, www.maam.org.ar), topped my list of things to do in Salta. It exhibits mummies found at the summit of a 6,700-meter volcano, preserved in perhaps the most perfect conditions possible. In retrospect, we should have realized seeing the remains of 6-year-old children sacrificed by the Incas 500 years ago would be somewhat disturbing. The museum explained its reasons for the exhibit over and over (a rare glimpse at the roots of an ancient culture still alive today), and it was done in a professional, educational manner, and we would have gone if we had to do it all over again. But still, we needed the wine. And it went nicely with the mini-empanadas -- we had a pile of 14 cheese, beef and chicken varieties, plus the wine, water and Fanta, for a grand total of $15.
But we were still a little creeped out. It only made matters worse that earlier, the night manager at the hotel (we are constantly befriending talkative night managers) told us about duendes. We had heard of these leprechaun-like creatures, and his tale confirmed that everyone in Salta, center of the duende universe, believed fervently in them. We saw duende-themed stores and bars on the way back to the hotel, selling garden gnomes that looked just like the one our Dutch friends on the Uyuni tour stole from their parents´ garden, then sent snapshots back in the mail (he´s traveling independently, they told us). Duendes abounded. The night manager pointed out the YouTube video recently shot near Salta by a group of teenagers (search for Duende de Guemes) and explained that the duendes don´t hurt anyone ... they just move things around and pilfer objects. You keep them at bay by leaving out cigarettes and whiskey (a tradition that extends to the dead ... we saw cigarettes and whiskey, plus coca leaves, all over the cemetery in Sucre ... and to shrines to Pachamama, the Earth Mother, and to El Tío, the underworld god in the Potosí mines.).
We had no time for buying cigarettes and whiskey. So when something woke me up around 4 in the morning (a bad dream, a noise, empanada hallucinations ... I don´t know) I jumped right into full-fledged paranoid delusion.
We´re staying in an extremely old, extremely dark youth hostel, and I was paralyzed by fear. I thought duendes were surrounding the bed, and I assumed they had come up through the bathroom drain (rats do that in South Florida, and I noticed the drain grate was loose earlier. I had forgotten to put something heavy over it). I became convinced the duendes wanted to steal the tissue packets I had just purchased and left on the nightstand. As I have a terrible cold, I wanted to hide the tissues so the duendes could not take them. But I was afraid that if I moved I would surprise the duendes and anger them. I did not want to turn on the light to see an army of pointy-hatted little Travelocity gnomes, and I was afraid that in their anger they might call on the mummies at the museum. Having just seen the mummies literally in the flesh, the prospect of their encore appearance terrified me. I was too tired to deal with it. So I told the duendes to please go away, and promised to bring them cigarettes and whiskey tomorrow. Let´s hope that buys us some rest tonight so we can make the 7 am bus to the wineries tomorrow.

Sprint For the Border

SALTA, Argentina -- We arrived here, exhausted, last night after nine hours on a bus we almost didn´t make. Had we not found inner reserves of strength for a 1,500-meter sprint through the desert while carrying luggage, we would still be in Chile.

Will: Meghan and I had planned to leave for Salta on Friday, but when we arrived at the San Pedro municipal parking lot (aka the city bus terminal) we found snow in the Andes had closed the Bolivian and Argentine borders. Don´t worry, the Pullman bus company told us, your ticket is still good for the 11 a.m. Sunday bus. So we bided our time in the most expensive country in South America for two more days, then trudged to the parking lot Sunday with our luggage.

We had plenty of time, we thought. In the main square, we paused to let a parade pass -- on the Dia de San Pedro, the feast day for the city´s patron saint. A man dressed as a cross between an ostrich-like bird and the devil took a liking to us, and put out his claws to shake our hands. He held out the dead bird´s talon, which Meghan and I shook with auspiciousness. He then pushed the bird´s beak in my face and I gave it a few tender pats. He happily danced away with the rest of his crew.

We reached the parking lot a few meters away just in time to see the word ¨Pullman¨ on the back of a bus going at breakneck speed the wrong way -- out of the lot. As I was carrying about 50 pounds of bags, I said ¨Meghan, that´s our bus, run after it!¨ Meghan wasn´t worried. She said it couldn´t have been our bus because it wasn´t scheduled to leave until 11 a.m., and it was only 10:20. I had my doubts as there were not other folks in the parking area waiting for a bus to Salta and San Pedro de Atacama did not strike me as a giant hub for Pullman buses.

Then, Meghan went over to ask another bus driver about the Salta bus, while I stood loaded down with all our bags. The following sequence is a study in pantomime, as I did not speak to Meghan for a good 20 minutes, but watched her from afar:

Meghan walks up to another bus driver and then there is an exchange of Spanish.

(Meghan: I asked the bus driver where the Salta bus was, and she pointed to the end of the road, saying it just left for customs. I asked her if that was the 11 a.m. bus to Salta, and she said yes.)

Will: Meghan abruptly ends the conversation with would-be bus driver and then sprints to a cop directing traffic. She makes wild gestures with her arms as she talks to him.

(Meghan: OK, first I stopped and yelled to Will that it was indeed our bus that had left. We needed a taxi to get our bags to customs. I yelled to a taxi driver watching the parade, and he said good luck. Then I asked the cop and he said, hmmm, a taxi will be difficult. He suggests I haul it to customs on foot at the end of the road.).

Will: After talking with him, she turns and looks in all directions. Then she puts the palms of her hands to her head in exasperation. At this this point I know things are not good. Meghan, who does not usually run, immediately takes off down a dusty road at a sprint that would make Carl Lewis proud. I begin to follow, but quickly realize that I have no earthy idea where she is going and if I did, it would take me an hour to get there with all my bags. So I wait as she disappears behind a gathering crowd preparing for their own parade.

(Meghan:I looked at the sign that said Aduana, 500 meters, and knew I would only make it sprinting, which I had not done since the Journalism and Women Symposium last year, when my friend Karen and I were caught in a lightning storm atop Bald Mountain.
This is where things got really weird. The Dia de San Pedro parade had started up again on the road between the parking lot and Customs. Parents were taking photos of their baton-twirling children. Men were dressed as oxen and ostriches. I sprinted through, wheezing and gasping ^Perdon¨, but people cleared out quickly after one look at the crazy gringa (who, to be fair, was carrying Will´s day pack). I looked behind me and saw Will, and continued, confident he would catch up if only I could stall the bus long enough.

Then, out of nowhere, a man on a bicycle appeared. It was Christian, the night manager at our hotel, coming to our rescue like a knight on a shiny Schwinn. ``I will chase the bus for you!`` he yelled in Spanish, pedaling toward Customs. Will must have met him in the parking lot, I thought. How fortunate. ´Thank you!´I yelled. It later turned out Will had not seen Christian at all.

Still running, I shed my scarf and sweatshirt, having dressed that morning for a high-altitude winter bus ride, and wished I had not worn the wool leg warmers. Wheezing, I saw in the distance the Pullman bus still at Customs -- Christian was talking to the bus driver. ´It´s OK, he said. ¨The bus left me there once too!´´ He had seen the commotion in the parking lot, recognized what was happening, and acted fast. The bus driver told me to hurry up and find my boyfriend so we could all clear immigration and get on the road. I looked back, expecting to see Will rounding the corner at any minute. He didn´t appear. I walked back toward the parade and parking lot, then, as I still didn´t see Will around the bend, I broke into a run. Again. Running total: 1,000 meters.)

Will: I wait about ten minutes not sure when I will see Meghan again. Then, all of a sudden she appears -- running at top speed toward me. She waves me to follow her with a ¨hurry, they´ll leave without us¨ and grabs two of our five bags. As Meghan is carrying far less baggage then I, she quickly disappears into the oncoming parade.

(Meghan: to be fair, I was carrying about 10 pounds of dirty laundry, plus Will´s day pack. And sprinting, again. That´s 1,500 meters now.)

Will: I had a heavy bag on my back and a humongous bag in my hands as I plowed through the parade -- past cheerleaders, dancers, costumed revellers. I was running against the tide. As part of the parade, several men carried a wooden platform with a statue of Jesus. This figure was clearly the center point of the religious festival and I nearly caused its downfall. Wheezing and coughing my way up the incline I accidentally clipped one of the men, causing Jesus to nearly tilt and overturn. (I can only guess what my Jesuit teachers would have said at this.) I was too mortified to look back, but I think Jesus made his triumphant appearance. Meanwhile, I ran as fast as I could, guessing which road Meghan had turned down. After a good ten minutes running as fast as I could, I made to the customs station, where the bus had apparently stopped so all passengers could get their exit stamps. Meghan was there, smiling, as everyone else looked on with disgust at my disheveled, sweaty self. I didn´t care. We had made it!

(Meghan: Just thank your lucky stars you did not have to smell us for the next nine hours on that bus. The ride was beautiful, by the way -- up to 5,000 meters in altitude across snow fields, salt flats, past volcanoes and through a green river valley).
And thanks again to Christian, without whom we would still be in San Pedro de Atacama. The next bus would have left Tuesday.)

Riding ¨Tornado¨ in the Chilean desert and Seeing Stars

SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA, Chile -- I admit I wasn´t keen on the idea at first. Riding horses in the Chilean desert outside this pueblo just didn´t sound that interesting. It was not that I was afraid. I spent five years riding horses as a teen, but I just thought that chapter of my life was best left to the past. But Meghan wanted to give it a try, so I relented. Our cowboy guide gave me a dusty brown horse named Tornado and I jumped aboard.

Our first bit of business was transversing the dusty roads of San Pedro de Atacama to get to the desert - a simple enough proposition if your horse is sane. My first inkling of trouble was when a bicyclist came riding by at normal speed. Tornado gave a little jump, his head popping up with a jolt. I took up my reins and eased him down, but this was not a good sign. Next came a truck and he jumped again, this time with a greater jerk, requiring me to pull back on the reins with greater force. However, the ¨the perfect storm¨ for Tornado came as we were nearly out of the pueblo when a loud garbage truck and a bicyclist came down the dusty road in tandem. Tornado gave a kick and started to break, then jumped up and headed for a clay brick wall. He was just about ready to go hog wild. I tightened the reins and my legs around the beast and ordered him to slow as I pulled back on the reins. Eventually, he relaxed and all was well.

My guide said in Spanish that Tornado wasn´t used to truck noise. The obvious question, which remained unasked, is why Tornado was allowed on the streets if this was the case. I mean, I was fine. As a teen, I was bucked off horses at least three times, including an incident in which I broke my left hand. Those situations were my fault, of course. I was young, nervous and inexperienced then. When a horse is in trouble, scared, you must use a firm hand and a strong voice--there is no time to be afraid. So, that´s what I did with Tornado. But I just wonder about the tourist who gets Tornado next, the rider who has been on a horse once or twice before. Look out! (By the way, Meghan´s horse was about as tranquil as the Red Sea.)

Despite all that, the horse ride through the desert was just amazing. It also rekindled my love of horseback riding. So thanks Meghan for urging me back on that horse!

Also, Meghan and I went to an observatory outside the pueblo at night for a star tour. The desert outside San Pedro de Atacama is one of the world´s clearest places to see the southern hemisphere of stars. We could see the Milky Way, the Southern Cross, the closest star to the Earth - Alpha Centauri, the constellation Leo, and the planets Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. Our guide was Alain Maury, a astrological engineer from France. He said looking up into the sky, the naked eye can see about 3,000 stars, but of course we all know there are many more. Maury´s love of the night sky was infectious and despite the bitter cold we spent an hour outside jumping from telescope to telescope looking at celestial bodies and nebulae. (He even used our cameras to take pictures of Saturn through a telescope, see below) This area is so good for star gazing that multiple countries, including the United States, are heavily funding research here into far-flung galaxies, to the edge of the universe. Pretty cool!

Photos: Me and Tornado; Saturn from a desert telescope

A Thin Line Between Wealth and Poverty

** BREAKING NEWS UPDATE ***
Looks like I jinxed us with the detail about our impending departure to Argentina. The borders have closed due to snow, so we´re stuck here til at least Sunday. The Disneyesque atmosphere and warm days look more appealing now ... and maybe now we´ll get to go on the famous Star Tour (celestial, not celebrity). Violent dust storms cancelled the tour on our previous two attempts ... figures we´d hit the 27 days per year that clear San Pedro has partially cloudy skies.

SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA, Chile -- When we crossed the frontier from Bolivia, I didn´t expect major changes in our surroundings. Three days into a trip over the desolate salt flats, we had gone from the middle of nowhere in one country to the middle of nowhere in another country. We would trade the high-altitude salt flats and Salvador Dali desert for the lower, warmer Atacama desert of northern Chile. We would enjoy the trip, but with no major difference in accomodations or infrastructure, I assumed.

But we were about to leave the poorest nation on the continent for the richest, and the difference became starkly apparent the minute we crossed the border.

Our intrepid tour guides dropped us off in the Land Cruiser at Bolivian border control, a concrete box with the national flag and a yellow and black gate over the dirt road. A rusted-out school bus, sans wheels or windows, lay a few yards away. We got our stamps, hopped on a new-looking bus that resembled the Park-n-Ride shuttle at the Fort Lauderdale airport, and passed through the gate. The driver handed us Chilean customs declarations (something else Bolivia never asked us for).

¨If you have any fruit, vegetables, animal items, coca leaves or other drugs, you have an hour to consume them,¨ he said. ¨Otherwise you have to pay a fine if they find them at customs.¨

He had put us on notice: we were about to reenter the First World.

We passed a sign with the Chilean flag, and the dirt road turned to asphalt. We had not seen asphalt on a highway since La Paz. It was new asphalt too, smooth stuff, apparently the result of the Mercosur agreement among South American nations. Then we saw signs next to the highway, telling us that this was the way to San Pedro, and that we shouldn´t drive faster than 60 km/h. I don`t know what was more distracting -- the reintroduction to traffic laws or the stunning scenery as we rapidly descended more than 2000 meters from the altiplano to the vast brown and red desert below, volcanoes looming on the horizon and salt glistening all around.

In San Pedro, customs searched our bags as promised. We left the highway for the dirt roads of the town -- but they were different from the rocky roads we had become accustomed to in Bolivia. They were like roads in a manufactured, high-class resort in Arizona or Utah. Someone took care of these smooth roads, which saw little traffic, and someone made sure that all the buildings conformed to a desert-town adobe code, with desert-style signage (I hate that bureaucratic word). And, to our incredible luck, the hotels, restaurants and stores all took Visa. The one problem -- a malfunctioning Visa ATM, was quickly solved. The people of San Pedro expected it to be solved, and it was. This transition gave us a bit of a culture shock. Still used to things never, ever getting done according to plan in Bolivia, we were prepared to do what we had to in order to get money. We had nearly reached the bus station to buy tickets to the next bigger town over when the ATM technician appeared.

It was nice, but a bit expensive, and a bit unsettling in a Disney kind of way. We head to Argentina today, hoping for a happy medium.

The Salt Flats and the Chilean Peso

SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA, Chile - Only an hour before Meghan and I had planned a crazy hour-and-half bus ride to a bigger pueblo just to use a working ATM, a technician fixed the one Visa ATM in this desert town. For the first time in nearly five days we have cash, in this case Chilean pesos. We immediately walked to the swanky hotel of the American couple who had lent us money on our tour of the desert salt flats and paid them back in pesos with a grateful handshake.

Despite the money troubles, our three-day tour of the Salar de Uyuni, the world´s largest salt lake desert, and the humongous Reserva de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa, an absolutely stunning wildlife reserve straddling the Bolivan-Chilean border, was definitely one of the highlights of our journey. During the day we rode over in a four-wheel drive, walked on and generally admired the salt flats, which gleamed in the sunlight for miles in every direction, with small islands of land barely visible in the distance. From afar it looks like you are walking or driving on ice or snow, but this inhospitable environment is made entirely of salt. One taste confirms it. The first night, we bunked in a hotel built entirely of salt just off the desert floor. The Salar de Uyuni received a number of votes a few years ago as one of the wonders of the modern world. I can see why. Despite the rustic nature of the tour, the LandCruiser came equipped with a plug for an iPod -- which we appreciated even more once it turned out the driver had brought only a few CDs of Spanish techno and 1970s disco hits

Reserva de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa has just about everything you could want in a natural park. Towering peaks, ice covered rivers, giant mountain outcroppings, sand covered desert, and glacial salt lakes with algae that cause the water at times to turn green and red, making it a perfect habitat for all three species of flamingo. Seeing flamingos wading in multi-colored lakes is like looking through neon glasses. We stayed that night in the block lodges near the main lake. This was very basic stuff, no heat, no protection from the elements but a block wall and a sleeping bag. When I woke up at 5 a.m. the next morning to visit the natural volcanic steam geysers my alarm clock registered the temperature as 34.7 F. Only later, did we realize we slumbered in this harsh but beautiful place on Noche de San Juan, the coldest night of the year.

Thawing Out in Chile

SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA, Chile -- Close followers of the blog may wonder, what happened? Chile was not on the itinerary. We have in the past deviated slightly from the route, but never before had we spontaneously added an entire country. Well, nearly eight weeks into the trip, after experiencing the, er, spontaniety of Bolivia, we have thrown planning out the window. We have started doing things like hopping into a Toyota LandCruiser with six total strangers and driving through the frozen desert to the Chilean border, with nary a centavo to our name, not a guidebook in sight and without any idea as to the entry requirements of said country.

But it all worked out, mostly.

We last saw the blog on Friday in Potosì, where the miners` protests had escalated into using hard dynamite and burning the local tax office down to the ground. We were sure things would only get worse -- or, at the very least, that they would take a few days to cool off. So when we awoke at 7:30 a.m. Saturday, well-rested for the first time in weeks, we realized the dynamiting had stopped, and we knew we had to act fast. I ran to the front desk, where the hotel manager told me the miners and government had reached an agreement just two hours earlier. That is how negotiations work in Bolivia. Protesters threaten to escalate violence, the government calls their bluff, it turns out not to be a bluff at all, and after valuable infrastructure is destroyed, everyone sits down at the negotiating table again. With news that the roads had opened for the first time in six days, I hopped in a cab -- still in my pajamas -- and made for the bus station. There, I found hordes of people desperate to leave, including a woman with a herd of about a dozen donkeys. My haste paid off as I grabbed the last two tickets on the morning bus to Uyuni. Afraid the miners might change their minds if we dawdled, Will and I skipped a trip to the ATM and snack store, instead hauling our luggage to the terminal early.

Over the next six hours, we gawked at the sheer drop off the rocky, unpaved road and admired the starkly beautiful mountain scenery. We arrived in Uyuni, ready to sign up for a four-day, four-wheel-drive tour through the Salar de Uyuni and Reserva Edoard Avaroa. After a week cooped up in small-town Potosì, we looked forward to going off-road to see Bolivia`s natural wonders, even if it meant climbing still higher to altitudes of more than 5,000 meters, forgoing showers and sleeping in unheated huts. We had another concern -- Bolivia was bracing for a transport strike on the 25th, the day after we would return to Uyuni. We could find ourselves stranded in Bolivia another week or two (not a bad prospect, except our return flight leaves from Buenos Aires). So we decided to sign up for the tour ending at the Chilean border, with a bus transfer to San Pedro de Atacama, an oasis in a vast, high-altitude desert. We put down a deposit for the next day at a tour agency, then set about restocking bolivianos.

But when we reached the only ATM in town, we discovered it had run out of cash -- two days earlier, according to other tourists. No, we had not learned our lesson from the virtually identical incident at Machu Picchu. We couldn`t pay our hotel. We couldn`t buy food. We couldn`t pay the remainder of the cost of our tour, which left at 10:30 a.m. the next day, Sunday.

Don`t worry, everyone told us. They restock the ATM at 9 a.m. every morning. We awoke at 8 to stalk the ATM. By 10:30, the money truck still had not appeared. It might come today, or it might not, the security guard told us (wearing a Wackenhut uniform -- their reach extends even to the frozen desert of southwestern Bolivia). We were sure we would have to forfeit our tour deposit and hang out in Uyuni until the money arrived. But instead, the tour operator, desperate to send us on our way in a full SUV, talked the four other tourists into loaning us $40 to pay our hotel bill (we sprung for the only hotel that advertised heat) and said we could pay the rest at the end of the tour.

We spent 20 of our remaining 100 bolivianos on four liters of water, and hopped in the LandCruiser.


TO BE CONTINUED ...

Stranded for Six Days

POTOSÍ -- We arrived in this ancient colonial city just in time for the roadblocks to start up again, and though rumors abounded that they would end ´today or tomorrow,´ we´re still stuck here six days later. Protests, illness and other delays have stranded us in cities before. The difference here: the protesters in the central plaza have the really good dynamite. On our mine tour, we got to see them set off ammonium nitrate (I will try to upload the video later), and we can hear the same earth-shaking boom now. We´re used to the firecracker variety the students use in Sucre. In Potos í, they´ve been setting it off in the wee hours too, which makes for a lousy night´s sleep. But aside from damage to delicate nerves, no one´s been hurt. It serves mainly as an attention-getter. Most of the 15,000 miners who work on Cerro Rico, overlooking Potosí, are protesting high taxes. After 350 years of excavation, the hill that gave Spain its colonial wealth resembles Swiss cheese, but they´re still hauling tin and silver out of it. It comes back to Bolivia at inflated prices -- in $300 electronics equipment that would cost $150 in the U.S. Such is the Bolivian economy. The miners make twice the national average salary, but they have to pay ridiculous taxes --one miner told me 50 percent -- and the job usually ends in a nasty early death by silicosis. Business owners -- particularly those who cater to tourists -- have lost patience with the protests because no one can get in or out of the city, so no one is reserving hotel rooms, or buying alpaca gloves and antique textiles. Well, no one but us. We´re running a little behind schedule now, but Potosí beats other cities where we could be stranded. We´re staying in a fantastic restored colonial mansion with free Internet, TV, hot water and actual central heating. We´ve seen more of the city than we would have. We learned about every step of the silver process, from mining to smelting to minting coins, a fascinating look at the true price of money and precious metals. We have seen most of the city´s dozen or so colonial churches, including the cloistered St. Theresa convent where aristocratic families sent their second-born daughters in the 1600s and 1700s, never to see them again. And, if the protesters take the weekend off like they usually do, we´re hoping to see the bus terminal and get on with our journey.

A Journey into the Mines of Potosi

POTOSÍ -- Cerro Rico (meaning Rich Mountain in Spanish) towers over the highest city in the world like a goliath. It is here that at the height of the colonial era, the Spanish forced the people of the area to mine silver for shipment back across the Atlantic. At its peak in the early seventeenth century, Potosí´s population of 160,000, exceeded that of London, Paris and Madrid. Spain made its silver coins here for nearly 400 years (You can see the ones that did not make it back to Spain at the Mel Fischer wreck museum in Key West).

Needless to say, the mountain has been raped of nearly all its silver, but more 15,000 locals still enter the dangerous mines to hunt for tin and other metals. With arsenic and asbesto dust clouding the air, the average miner lives only to about age 44. Still, they come for the money, 1,500 bolivianos a month, twice the national average.

Meghan and I journeyed into the mines to see just what it was like to work there. We started as a group of six, but three people quickly dropped out as the passageways began to narrow and the ceiling began to drop. With only the light on our helmets and scarves wrapped around our faces to keep the dust out, we crawled, climbed and slid through three stories of a 350-year-old mine, which although rather depleted, still contained hopeful miners. (When we crawled past a miner, we gave them gifts of coca leaves, soda and dynamite.) The conditions in a mine like this are what you would expect: horrid. About 90 percent of miners here say they only do it for the money. Nearly 8 percent polled said they did it for fun -- mostly, the pollsters say, teenagers who like the thrill of a dangerous job.

At the end of our visit, our guide gave me a green mushy substance, and I began rubbing my hands with it to get the grime off my hands. I thought it was some kind of weird soap. Meghan looked at me like I was crazy and said the guide wanted me to shape it into a little ball -- it was not soap, it was dynamite! After I did this, he put a three-minute fuse into it and set it alight. Then he handed it to me before I had a chance to react. After a quick picture, he ran over a small bluff and dropped the package. A minute or so later... Kaboom!!!





Pictures: Entering the mine; our groupmate Malay from England before crawling through a scary section of mine; the two of us enjoying the rare chance to stand up in the mine.

Hasta Luego, Sucre (Maybe)

In a few hours, we move on from lovely Sucre, city of many names: the White City (for the colonial buildings always freshly painted), the Capital Plena (a slogan on signs around town, in the wake of conflict with the federal government, declaring its status as the official capital and seat of the judicial branch), Chuquisaca (the Spanish spelling of its original name, and still the name of the state), La Plata (for the silver processed here during the colonial era).

You get the picture.

It´s a stunning town, a pleasant place to stroll around for days or, as we did, weeks. In the mornings, we ate salteñas. In the afternoons, we took four hours of intensive one-on-one Spanish classes. In the evenings, we took in a folkloric dancing show or had a local Potosina beer on the plaza. Each weekend brought a new festival or citywide event: the chocolate festival, independence day, the university´s homecoming parade, the street-racing championship.

We hate to leave. But, at the same time, we´ll feel lucky to get out of here before the roadblocks start up again. In a university town with an independent streak, at a critical point in Bolivia´s political history, there´s always a demonstration. This time, the truckers are protesting taxes. Lucky for us, protesters take the weekends off.

So, if the traffic gods stay with us, we´ll post next from Potosí, the highest city in the world and source of Spain´s colonial wealth.

In Memoriam

There are only two television shows that I know of that are truly worth the commercials. The first is CBS Sunday Morning and the other is Meet the Press on NBC. The CBS program, which began with legendary newsman Charles Kuralt, is about as close to poetry as television will ever get, reminding us in quiet, probing segments of the stunning diversity of our nation and the amazing people in it. And then there is Meet the Press with Tim Russert, where the important issues of the day were discussed and toady government officials and their henchmen had to face real questions. I spent many a Sunday morning, beginning as a teen, in front of the television waiting for Tim to grill the pompous or to simply press someone for an answer we all wanted to know. It was riveting and informative. Often, my dad and I would boisterously cheer Tim on as he made his guests answer every question. He was doing it for us, i.e. those of us dwindling Americans who still care about getting at the truth. But, the fact that Tim was a superb newsman is not the only reason why I was such a big fan. He was, at heart, just a regular guy. I loved seeing him sitting beside the coiffed and pampered NBC anchors talking about an election. His hair was usually askew, like mine, and he always seemed to have a down-to-earth approach that differed from just about every other television journalist I have ever seen. He could also poke fun at himself, appearing on an episode of the NBC series Homicide: Life on the Streets. It was those qualities that made you feel like Tim was representing us on Meet the Press. He represented something slowly disappearing in many newsrooms- integrity and class. Every broadcast, after giving us a peek at the truth, Tim would remind us “If it's Sunday morning, it's Meet the Press.” I know it was just a corny catch phrase to remind us to tune in again, but somehow I felt reassured that despite all the troubles in our world, Tim would be back and we would get to the truth. This from James Carville on a special edition of Meet the Press: "The question I'm most often asked about Tim is, 'Is he really as good a guy as he looks like?' " said Carville. "And the truth is, he was a better guy."

Why the Apatosaurus will never do

SUCRE -- Who doesn´t like dinosaurs? You´d have to be on heavy medication or just plain blue-nosed not to get excited about the world´s largest collection of dinosaur tracks (5,000 in all) here in Sucre. The Cretaceous Park and Cal Orko Dinosaur Tracks is just a 10- minute cab ride from the main plaza. A variety of big-footed dinosaurs rambled through a muddy lake in Sucre millions of years ago, and thanks to a few serendipitous volcano eruptions these footprints are preserved for all time. Scientists at the site, discovered in 1998, believe 294 different dinosaur species made these tracks during the second half of the Cretaceous period, including sauropods -- the largest animals ever to have lived on land. The lake bottom is now a vertical wall thanks to the sparring of two tectonic plates, which have pushed it up over eons. The tracks are amazing, but the real fun is in the life-size dinosaur models in the park, especially the Brontosaurus! Sure, there was a replica of a T-Rex and Stegosaurus too, but the Brontosaurus is tops in my book. Yes, I know the scientists long ago renamed the Brontosaurus ¨Apatosaurus¨, but I refuse to bend to such an injustice. To an 8-year-old (which I was once) on his first visit to the Museum of Natural History that lumbering plant-eating goliath was the best thing ever! I know most heroes tend to be of the human variety, but those types never live up to the title. With an average length of 75 feet and a mass of at least 25 short tons, the Brontosaurus is most certainly worthy of hero worship. Anyway, to make a long story short I made Meghan take about 50 pictures of me and the towering Brontosaurus model. I kept asking myself what it would have been like to chomp down on some plants in the tops of trees with these mostly gentle giants, unfortunately I was born a few million years too late!

Meghan and I had a visitor for about four days this week. It was our old friend Andrew from our time as reporters together at the Palm Beach Post. Back in the old days, Andrew and I used to drown our worries after a long day of work with a ¨birch beer¨at the Frank ´n´Steins hot dog joint in Stuart, Florida. Fast forward a few years and Andrew is living it up and working in Buenos Aires. It was good to see the man. We hope to meet up again in a few weeks. Incidentally, Andrew will be the subject of our first Globe Gators Poll. Just scroll down this blog tomorrow afternoon to make your vote count!

The Perfect Snack

SUCRE -- Two foods have long competed for status as my favorite snack: the empanada, and soup in a bread bowl. The empanada combines pastry and meat in compact form, tasty and handy for lunch on the go or as the main entree in a balanced sit-down meal. While providing a substantial meal at low cost, the delicious and hearty soup in a bread bowl eliminates the need to wash a dish or add to landfill trash, as you can actually eat the container.

Bolivia, it seems, has managed to do the impossible, combining the best parts of soup in a bread bowl and the empanada. The tasty treat is called a salteña, a special kind of empanada full of a kind of stew, with either chicken or beef. It´s like soup in a bread bowl that you can actually carry down the street, eating on the run without utensils. Restaurants all over Bolivia serve them as a morning snack from about 10 a.m. to noon, and Sucre prides itself as having the best salteñas in the nation. In late morning here, people crowd around street vendors and salteñerias, eating them with little spoons to scoop out the stew, or, as the real locals do (or at least they say they do) without the benefit of a spoon. Only attempt this feat very carefully unless you want to end up with salteña all over yourself, as happened to me on my first try.

The name salteña comes from the city in Argentina, Salta. Legend has it that a woman from Salta (hence, she was a salteña) started making the special kind of empanada after she was exiled to Bolivia and fell on hard times in the early 1900s. So now they´re called salteñas, even though Sucre is the center of the salteña universe. Apparently in Salta, they serve a different kind of empanada altogether.

Another Day, Another Tire on Fire

SUCRE -- So I´m sitting in Spanish class yesterday, trying to get a handle on the subjunctive, when the explosions started again; loud this time, like they were right outside the window. And that´s exactly where they were: A small crowd of protesters, mostly women, had gathered outside the district attorney´s office next door. My teacher as usual didn´t even flinch (such is life in Sucre these days) and eventually got up to close the window. Then the chanting started: ¨¿Dónde esta Roberto? ¿Dónde esta Roberto?¨ The crowd grew larger, large enough that even our jaded teachers and journalists at the newspaper office on the other side of the school gathered to watch. It turns out Roberto is an official with the campaign of a candidate for governor, in opposition to the current government. He was thrown into a car early yesterday morning while walking down the street and hasn´t been seen since. People suspect the government did it, so that´s why they were protesting outside the government building. Despite the explosions and raging bonfire, the protest stayed peaceful, and the police left quickly after checking things out. It was just another day in Sucre, with an abnormal occurence that´s becoming all too common for the people who live here.

Learning Spanish Ain´t for the Faint of Heart

SUCRE - So there I was Thursday, sitting across from my Spanish instructor Esthella, confidently responding to every question. My pronunciation still needs a lot of work, but I´d been making remarkable progress. Everything was peachy during our regular four-hour session until... she brought out the irregular verbs! It was as if someone brought out a mallet and decided to play Beethoven´s Fifth Symphony on my head! I immediately accused the diablo of creating these irregular verbs to ruin my waking hours, but Esthella pointed out that if I thought this was bad, just wait until we wandered into different tenses! One mate and saltena later, I recovered, but it was quite a sobering experience. There is still much work to be done!

On Wednesday, nearly the entire city was shut down in protest of the central government. Only a few days after the violence erupted during the independence festivities here, Sucre residents decided to protest by closing their offices, restaurants, markets, Internet cafes and just about everything else. (Luckily, Meghan and I had been tipped off about the protest on Tuesday and were able to make a last-minute trip to the market for food.) It seems President Evo Morales had long ago promised Sucre new ambulances and folks are still waiting. Let´s just say the fleet Meghan and I´ve seen could use an upgrade! Sucre is a fascinating city. It is probably the most affluent in Bolivia and definitely home to the most capitalists in this left-leaning land. Yet, it lacks some of the bare essentials. One prime example, this city of 250,000 has only one working fire truck! Policemen on the streets double as firefighters, but they have little or no training on fighting fires. If a Sucre resident has a house fire, they don´t call 911 -- they knock on their neighbor´s door. And if you live out in the country, forget it.

Thanks for Reading!

SUCRE -- We´d like to take a moment today to thank our readers. The blog hit a milestone yesterday with more than 300 unique visitors since we installed our counter, and 630 page views according to our map. So thanks for living vicariously through our travels. We´ve enjoyed writing and hearing from everyone.

In other statistical news, after three visits to the Feria del Chocolate (Sucre´s chocolate festival), I have decided I like the coffee-cream-filled bonbons the best, with the milk-chocolate bunnies from Para Ti a close runner up. Sadly, the festival ended last night but the chocolate stores downtown are only a short walk from our hostel.

It´s Not the Dynamite; It´s the Tear Gas

SUCRE -- Thanks to Will´s mention of "explosives" in the blog, we no longer have to worry about our friends and family reading the international news briefs buried deep in the A section and consequently worrying about us. We appreciate all your concerned emails, but rest assured we have not heard dynamite in two days. The streets have practically emptied since it´s a federal holiday. And, although it was hard to overcome the remnants of our natural journalistic curiosity, we steered clear of the protests. Besides, what you really have to worry about with these demonstrations is not the dynamite but the tear gas. Police here don´t hesitate to use it. And having experienced tear gas once (sadly, not in a glamorous political demonstration --someone down the hall in my college dorm decided to see what would happen if they opened a can of it) I have no desire to do so again.

For those of you out there still struggling with journalistic curiosity, the indignation pervading Sucre dates back to last year´s ¨Black November¨, when three protesters were killed during much more intense demonstrations during the rewriting of Bolivia´s constitution. Protests and the sound of dynamite have become a fact of life here ever since. The local paper, Correo del Sur (www.correodelsur.net), put out an interesting special section on it Sunday.

If things heat up again, we´ll still steer clear, though now that we have realized that as non-journalists we are free to participate in protests, the temptation beckons.

Violence in Sucre

SUCRE, BOLIVIA -- Violence broke out Saturday afternoon in the country´s official capital. Protesters armed with rocks, old tires and dynamite caused quite a scene in this city, which long ago ceded much of Bolivia´s government to the bigger La Paz. Police responded with force, with at least four people wounded in fights with authorities. Melees near the soccer stadium made up an entire edition of the Saturday evening news. But Sucre has a past of this sort of thing, given it is the site of South America´s first push for independence from the Spanish 199 years ago today. Things settled down today, and we were on hand for a peaceful parade through the streets, similar to our Fourth of July celebrations. Every church bell in the city tolled before the event at 10 a.m. to memorialize when they first rang in 1809. Given their independent past, Sucre citizens don´t like to be told what to do. One Sucre gentleman in the crowd screamed¨Viva Sucre, down with Morales.¨ That would be Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia who just a day or two before had been in Cuba meeting with other leftist leaders. Morales, who had been openly mocked at the podium at last year´s celebration, canceled his planned visit because of the violence. Meghan and I missed most of the explosions because we were on a field trip into a crater deep in the mountains and the little village of Maragua. These little mountain towns separated by hills are the best places to connect to this country´s past. Sadly, the old hamlets like Maragua are dying off as the young children head to the mines of Potosi or domestic jobs in Argentina to make money. Only the town´s elderly and abandoned clay-brick houses remain.

Happy 25th of May

Tomorrow Bolivia marks the start of its long quest for independence from Spain. The ¨First Shout of Liberty¨ in the Americas rang out right here in Sucre (still the official capital though La Paz ranks as de facto) on May 25, 1809. It´s a very big deal here and throughout the continent. You hadn´t heard of this? Apparently the Bolivian community in Washington has parades and festivals as well, for those of you DC-area blog readers looking for a Sunday activity.

Rest assured the expat festivities cannot match Sucre´s celebration. People here have grown quite emotional about it this year -- since we arrived, protests have intensified, and who knows what will happen tomorrow. At first, this May 25 was shaping up as one for the history books because it kicked off a year of bicentennial celebrations. Then, for what would probably be the first time in 200 years, it looked like the president would not come to Sucre for the events. Apparently last year´s celebration not go so well for the leftist Evo Morales, with angry words from the crowd, etc. And it was just as well, because many here did not want him to come. But now, it seems, he´s changed his mind. He´s coming, whether Sucre likes it or not. And many of those same people still do not.

So, stay tuned. If the drama stays to a minimum, we´ll be able to enjoy another very important event celebrating the city´s confectionery achievement: the chocolate festival. A miraculous accident of the calendar has squeezed all of these monumental undertakings into one week: in addition to the bicentennial May 25 and chocolate festival, we also have the Corpus Christi religious holiday, the human-rights film festival and after that, Sucre gears up to host the Bolivar games, an Olympic-like series of sporting events featuring several South American countries next year. We hope the Internet cafes stay open.

Insomnia Over the Andes

SUCRE -- Since infancy, riding in cars, planes and trains has worked like a sleeping pill for me. On the four-hour flight from Miami to Lima, I fell soundly asleep on takeoff and apparently snored so loudly -- through dinner, drinks and the movie -- that it disturbed the other passengers. Last summer I slept through about 12 hours of a 22-hour train detour in Russia after a bombing on a train ahead of ours kept the entire nation and my friends and family at home wide awake and on edge.

But today I met my match in the flight from La Paz to Sucre. It was early, and I was tired. I was looking forward to the air nap. Driving out of the literal concrete canyon that is the city of La Paz to get to the airport was, I thought, the hard part. The airport is in El Alto, a vast, growing, impoverished city on the flat plain on the canyon rim above La Paz. From our vantage point on the ground, it looked like the pilots would have plenty of room to fly around those snowcapped mountains surrounding the city. Right?

We took to the air, the pilot sounding just as bored as usual giving details of weather and estimated arrival time. The mountains just kept getting bigger and bigger, as we got closer and closer. Black rock and white snow filled the horizon, vertical and menacing.

¨Oh my God,¨ Will said. ¨Do we have to clear THAT?¨

As we approached a ridge, the ground seemed to speed up under us like it does when the plane comes in for a landing. The flight attendants did not seem worried. They were giving the oxygen-mask demonstration. I paid extra close attention.

Then, as we passed the snowy peak of Illimani and his mountain friends, I saw what lay beyond: MORE mountains. Jagged spikes and soft folds appeared behind the first wave and stretched into the horizon. You could almost see the geologic forces twisting and shaping the Andes below us, the tectonic plates crashing together. This was why it took 15 hours to reach Sucre by bus, but only 45 minutes by air.

It went on like this forever. Then the ground started to speed up again, closer and closer. We must be landing, I thought. But there was no flat land in sight.

¨Where is he going to land this plane?¨I asked Will, like he would know. He just shook his head. ¨Where is he going to land this plane?¨ I might have repeated it a few more times.

No one was bracing for a crash. The other passengers were sipping their drinks, working on their laptops, harrassing the miniskirted flight attendants.

Then, just as we cleared a steep dropoff, a tarmac appeared. The wheels touched down. We breathed a sigh of relief.

The businessman next to me was sleeping. At least someone got a nap.

The Ruins at Tiwanaku

The small town of Tiwanaku is about an hour and a half´s bus journey from La Paz on the rugged and dry Altiplano. Meghan and I made our way there on Sunday. It doesn´t look like much but dust from the highway, but scholars say this town holds one of the most important archaeological sites in the Americas. Long before the Incas dominated this portion of South America, the Tiwanaku culture thrived, impressing their religion and beliefs on all that came after. According to our local tour guide Freddy, in 1,000 B.C. Lake Titicaca´s currently vast waters reached even further to this point and the Tiwanaku people perfected a system of raised fields and irrigation canals to turn the normally harsh hillsides into fertile ground, even during persistent drought. Based on a genius for farming and llama herding, this civilization lasted until 1,000 A.D. The ruins of the cultural and religious center of the Tiwanaku remain half buried in a valley below the Cordillera Real, the famous snow capped Andes peaks that make La Paz one of the most beautifully situated cities in the world. The sacred center of the Tiwanaku, called the Kalasasaya, is entered through the memorable ¨Gateway to the Sun,¨ an entrance carved from a single piece of adesite rock weighing more than 10 tons. At the top of the door, the Tiwanaku´s creator god, named later by the Incas as Viracocha, is carved with rays sprouting from his head. Intricate figures of what were likely three upper classes (governors, noblemen and wise men) are intricately shown below. The door was placed to fit astronomical needs and more importantly to these people, foretold through the slanting sunlight a change in the seasons. Another interesting find was a sunken temple area with more than 200 carved stone faces on the walls. Freddy said the ancient people honored their leaders by creating likenesses of their heads in this place. Tiwanaku is still revered by millions today, who once a year converge to be blessed by the god of the sun. Freddy said even Bolivia´s leftist president Evo Morales took the oath of office here.

Given all this sun worship, you would imagine I would have taken the proper precautions. But, I wandered out into this sun-baked land sans hat, sunglasses, sunblock and water. I figured I was a tough Florida native, no problem. I was wrong. Tiwanaku is more than 12,500 feet (over 2 miles) above sea level. Lesson learned!





(photos from L. to R., Priest, Sun Gate, Wise Man)

Serendipity in La Fiesta del Gran Poder

LA PAZ -- I thought arriving in the capital, unknowingly, just in time for the city´s biggest festival was punishment for not paying attention to the intricacies of the religious calendar in CCD classes as a child, or perhaps for a lack of appropriate reverence at shrines during this trip (though not a churchgoer, I do maintain every Catholic superstition). Entrances to the city and most businesses have closed, and the guidebook promised rollicking drunken debauchery in the streets, something foreign travelers might want to avoid.

But our timing turns out to have been serendipitous. The colorful Fiesta del Gran Poder - an amalgam, like most festivals in South America, of Catholic and Aymara tradition - is raging all around the city, and the route runs only a block or so from our hotel. We woke to the music of marching bands, and spent the morning taking photos of participants in bright yellow feathered costumes and masks with fake pipes as long as an arm, dancing and clattering through the streets. Our favorite so far -- the man in the condor headdress who looked like he might take to the air at any moment.

Photos to come ... when the memory-card places reopen.

Bolivia Is Full of Surprises

The snowy peaks over the deep blue lake, the persistence of life on the bleak Altiplano, the extra charges here and there at tourist destinations: Bolivia always has something unexpected for the visitor.

Today, we found another hidden gem. Our 3.5-hour bus ride to La Paz included a scenic boat tour. How fascinating! We got on the bus in freezing Copacabana and enjoyed an ear-popping ride over the lovely lake, above the tree line, hanging out the window snapping photos all the way (and once I find a store that does memory-card reading, you too can enjoy the scenery, sans altitude sickness). About an hour into the trip, our driver announced that we would need our passports and 1.5 bolivianos each for a boat ticket. Boat ticket? We stopped lakeside, where a fleet of aging wooden vessels, each flying the Bolivian flag, waited. Our bus, with our luggage, drove onto one, nearly sinking into the lovely azure depths, and we crowded onto another with two women on their way to the market with enormous bags of handicrafts to sell.

Fortunately, the captain of our vessel was able to restart the engine when it conked out mid-trip. Swimming the freezing lake is not an option for more than a few meters, and you´d better have a warming station ready on the other side if you attempt it. We made it to the other side, dry, and eventually our bus reappeared.

We reached breathtaking La Paz in time to see the sun set behind the mountains, only 1.5 hours late. Another nice surprise.

The Other Copacabana

Maybe once we leave Copacabana tomorrow, the Barry Manilow song will finally leave my brain. We paid homage to the Virgin of Copacabana at the cathedral yesterday, braving a tunnel with soot-darkened walls in the Chapel of Candles to at last reach the gold and silver image of the Virgin Mary, which cannot be moved lest it provoke catastrophic flooding from Lake Titicaca. It would have been quite the spiritual experience had I not kept thinking her name was Lola, she was a showgirl, with yellow feathers in her hair ... aaaaagh!
Today we made another pilgrimage to Isla del Sol, about an hour and a half off Copacabana. We were only the latest in a centuries-long line of pilgrims to the island believed by the Inca and pre-Inca cultures to be the birthplace of civilization. Apparently even during the Inca days the pilgrims flocked here to see the rocks shaped like a puma and the face of the god Wiracocha. Only they were not allowed to get as close as we did and pose for photos; they had to stand back outside the sacred circle and peer at the rock formations from a distance. This seems unfair. Photos to come once we reach La Paz tomorrow.

Too Late To Join the E.U.?

Do you think the European Union would entertain an application from the U.S. without responding with peals of laughter? It might not be too late. Someone really ought to make this suggestion to the presidential candidates. I knew things were bad, having read stories before we left about Bolivian banks encouraging customers to save in euros, not dollars. But the situation didn´t hit home until we tried to use dollars to pay for dinner in Cuzco our first night, and the waitress refused to take singles. She only took five-dollar bills and higher denominations. And just six months ago, this same restaurant had happily accepted Will´s credit card and U.S. currency on a previous visit. Now we´re in Bolivia, where our dollars buy 7.3 bolivianos to the European travelers´ 11. 3 (which is also much closer to a nice round 10, rendering calculations much easier for them). This has been a long time coming, and is our just desserts after globalization, but really, isn´t there still time? Where do we apply?

A Heart in the Sacred Valley and Confusion at the Salon

We have crossed the border into Bolivia, but wanted to add some final thoughts on Peru:

Hearts Cafe in Ollantaytambo
I only got a ham sandwich and a side of papas fritas at this nondescript little restaurant on the Plaza des Armas in Ollantaytambo, but Meghan and I left with great admiration for one woman and her passion to make a difference. Hungry and dehydrated, we wandered into the little establishment owned by a Sonia Newhouse, a woman from England. We were lucky to run into Sonia during lunch and she told us how she came to create the restaurant where nearly all proceeds go to projects aimed at Andean women and children of the sacred valley. It all started when she was doing some volunteer work in the area several years ago. When she returned to England she was proud to tell people how she built beautiful homes for needy families. But, later she found out those homes were being used by the men of the village to drink and hang out. Angry and upset, Newhouse came back a year or two ago to make things right. On the day we met her, Newhouse had just returned from a trip deep into the Sacred Valley where she received an award from a local village for helping to build a new school. She said she was in need of used cameras and computers for the children. Meghan and I offered to ship our old equipment sitting lifeless in Florida, but she said she doubted it would get to her intact. Instead, she told us to tell our friends about her cafe and if they visit to bring some of those old unused items with them. And so we have. You can read more at www.heartscafe.org.

Israel women are pretty, no?
I am sure this kind of thing happens to everyone learning a new language, but this particular incident happened to me. I stopped into a salon on the Avenue del Sol in Cusco for a haircut. My hair was getting rather unseemly and I needed to get it cut before someone mistook me for some crazy hermit who lives in the sacred mountains. Anyway, using my limited Spanish I somehow convinced my stylist that I was from Israel. I can not tell you exactly how I did this, but once established, she kept talking about the girls in Israel and how pretty they were and if I agreed. By the end, I was too far in the one-sided conversation to try to reverse course. So I played along. Only later, when the owner of the salon asked where I was from did I fess up. My poor stylist was completely confused -- that made two of us.

The Floating Islands of Lake Titicaca

Puno, Peru -- It´s easy to understand why Lake Titicaca is the world´s largest high altitude body of water when you´re on a boat heading for its many islands. One island we visited today took us two and a half hours to reach! Just when you think Peru can´t offer anymore stunning beauty, it ups the ante again. This morning we took off from Puno for the Uros Floating Islands in complete awe. We talk about lakes acting as mirrors and this is easily the biggest mirror of them all -- clouds and mountains mingling in amazingly placid waters for miles upon miles. The Uros Islands are 48 islands made up by piling up layer upon layer of tortora reeds , a plant found near the shallows of the lake that is also a source of food for the Uros indians, who originally built the first islands centuries ago to remain far away from more powerful forces, like the Incas. Amazingly, many of their descendants still live on the islands. Our guide said today´s Uros love the fact they don´t have to pay property taxes. The islands can be moved in only a matter of weeks. In fact, family feuds on one island often result in one family using a saw to cut themselves away from their neighbor. It happens all the time, said the ¨president¨ of the island we visited. The islands are anchored to the lake bottom using rope and all a person has to do to send it floating off is a snip or two.
To get to Puno, we took an 11-hour tourist bus from Cusco (the public bus would about been about 8 hours, but withoug the stops ), which stopped at some less known but still amazing historical landmarks including one of the largest remnants of an Incan temple anywhere. But, the payoff is the final four hours of the trip, where you seem to fly upward through mountain passes and watch as the snowy peaks wink at you in the afternoon sunlight. It´s the best bus ride I´ve ever been on. Frankly, I didn´t want it to end.

The Uros Islands: