El Cronico de un moreno gordito

So this is going to be a joined effort, as we have Bill in this small ass smelly cubicle in this internet cafe to help right this entry. He's actually sitting on a small garbage can. Today, after waking up at 1 pm and getting some grub, we went up the big hill called Cerro Santa Lucia which is a block away from our hotel. It was built up by one of the presidents who converted it from some small dinky hill and put a castle and church on it. It has now been converted to ''Cerro We live with our parents and have raging hormones so let's suck face in the Park'' A little saunter around the Plaza de Armas with a beautiful cathedral and the fish market and we're here. It's important to mention, that 20 meters from the entrance to the cathedral are multiple gypsies offering to tell your fortune with Tarot cards.

So not to beat this to death, but the girls that told us the word for 'stray dogs' (vagabundos) were astonished that there are none in the US. Like, FLOORED that we don't have vagabundos roaming every street and sleeping in every piece of shade. Needless to say, Bill and I are were FLOORED when we saw a dog we surely thought was left for dead spontaneously started breathing with Cheyne Stokes respirations after 30 seconds of apnea (not breathing).

Oh so we went to the Colo Colo Futbol match, which is Santiago's most famous football team. First of all, there are like 8 different stadiums in Santiago. There's one called Estadio Palestino, estadio Israel, Estadio Italy, etc. So chances were we were going to go to the wrong stadium. The guide book said it was at Estadio Nacional. Being thrifty, we took the subway (which runs great by the way, far better than the PATH in Hoboken) and walked 6 blocks to the stadium, only to find a high school track meet going on inside. Move over Penn Relays. We walked AROUND the entire stadium like idiots, and had to hail a cab that cost like 5 US dollars. Oh by the way, John made me feel bad that I didn't trust him with getting to the right stadium earlier when he was planning the route to get there.. Nuff said.

En route, we asked the cabbie if there is beer at the stadium. NONE. It's too dangerous with all those glass bottles. We arrive to the stadium and see THRONGS of youth. DRUNK. There are policemen armored up like Robocop on horses, and armored vehicles with guns on Turrets. TURRETS! Are you kidding me? So we get in line to enter, as drunken 14 yr olds are escorted out by cops. We were told that we were in another section (more tame, thank god) and as we were walking out, things escalated rather quickly. All of a sudden a horse pistol whips John in the face with his tail, neighing like he's spooked out of his mind, and up on his hind legs. On the other side of him, a drunk fan runs away from cops who are smacking him repeatedly in the back with nightsticks. John was okay, but all of us vowed to hold hands upon leaving the stadium, as we thought our livelihoods depended on it. We get to our section of the stadium, and things there were more copasetic. The section with the rowdiness actually looked like a lot of fun with the chants, but I decided not to jump over the fences with the barbed wire to get to the rowdy section. The game was pretty boring all in all, and it ended in a 0-0 tie. The best part of the game was definitely getting into the stadium.

Bill wants to say to all his friends and family who have so graciously tuned into this edition. Don't worry Mrs. O'Connell, we're taking good care of him. We even upgraded our hostel for his arrival. Little does he know that it costs 150 US dollars per person. Just kidding.

Keep it real, fo sho (or in Spanish 'Seguro')

So there has been much slacking lately on the blogging. The last time I wrote was 10 days ago! I just have been spending too much time sitting in plazas and cafes drinking espresso...Yes, no longer is it just instant Nescafe. We have like totally moved out of the third world. Just kidding.

So after leaving San Pedro de Atacama, Amish and I went to Salta, Argentina and John went to the beach in Chile. After a 12 hr daytime bus ride with some pretty sweet movies (I sat by the dvd player with a bunch of foreigners and we commandeered the dvd player) we arrived in Salta in the evening. I had been here 3 yrs ago visiting my friend Jonas, and I revisited some of his old digs. We had a ridiculous steak dinner at 11:30 PM (normal time for dinner it seems) and then went out the main strip where everyone goes out. The streets are closed off to cars and there were TONS of people, young and old, walking the streets and going to bars, clubs, etc.

We decided to go to a casino close by, attached the local mall. Now, on the outside, it looked really classy..frosted glass doors, plush carpeting. When you walk inside though, you see a TON of slot machines, and only two blackjack tables..with table minimums of 2 pesos (66 US cents). The clientele is very similar to that found in many Atlantic City casinos (old men with their shirts half open and gold chains. Those are the high rollers that spend 5 pesos per hand)

We spent the next day walking around Salta, which is a beautiful, but more suburban city, making sure to get our fill of empanadas. We booked a tour to go see the countryside near Salta, which takes us in a car along the route of what used to be the highest train in the world, as it weaves through the Andes.

We have been having a huge problem with the time changes when going back and forth between destinations. We went a whole 28 hrs thinking it was one hour behind the actual time. Needless to say, we are idiots, and were woken up for our tour at 7:30 in the morning and had to rush out. Since we were out the night before, much of the 12 hr tour was spent sleeping...Kind of a waste.

After spending a significant time putzing around Salta and eating some good steak, we bussed it to Mendoza, a 20 hr bus ride, where we, once again, sat around a lot of terraces and cafes. We went on a wine tour, as Mendoza is the wine capital of Argentina. Not bad...not bad at all, except for some annoying co-tourists, that is. Other than that, we just spent a lot of time people watching, and commenting on how we could significantly improve our mullets.

We then hopped onto another overnight bus to Santiago, where we met up with John. We get into the Santiago Bus Station at 3:30 AM when we are supposed to get there at 5, and then are lucky enough to get TOTALLY hosed by the cab driver. Luckily, we had a hostel picked out and reservations already made.

We spent most of the next day catching up with John, walking around plazas, and going to the central market, which is a HUGE seafood market, with tons of different types of fish, oysters, clams, sea urchins, etc..and we actually saw a stray CAT milling around. We had an amazing lunch here which consisted the largest single seafood consumption of my life. I´m SO happy I got a Hep A vaccine before I left.

Yesterday, Bill, our other friend from Med school came into town and we went to the horsetrack here, which is beautiful, and we definitely were not classy enough to be there. Amish almost won 100 bucks, and a jockey fell off his horse in the 3rd race..Dangerous. Right after you see the jockey fall off the horse however, you see a stray dog run across the track. Priceless.

Post racetrack, we had what possibly is the best dinner we have had so far. Once again, a steak dinner, followed by going out. We were fortunate enough to talk to some locals while we were out and found out that the word for stray dogs is ´vagabundo.´ Yeah all of you might think that this infatuation with stray dogs is bizarre, but if you just saw the sheer number of these mangy animals roaming the streets, you´d understand. They follow you and try and nip at your food. If Bob Barker were here, he would have a FIELD DAY.

Anyway, we are off to see Colo Colo, Santiago´s main soccer team play today. Be ready for some pictures of us with face and body paint...or just some team jerseys. Let´s just hope we don´t get stabbed for chanting the wrong thing.

Cheers.

What up dudes and dudettes. We left La Paz and got on some 4X4 land cruisers (some older than expected..scratch that..most) to head to the salt flats in UYUNI Bolivia...This was after the BUMPIEST overnight bus ride I have ever experienced.. This was tour bus was seriously off roading, and two people puked in the bus...One woman was nice enough to do so 2 rows behind me, and the smell woke me up at night. We then entered Uyuni after being served a breakfast of Oreos and juice (dental preservation isnt a priority in this country) and entered the DUSTIEST town I have ever been in. Uyuni was a huge dust bowl, with stray dog populations per sq. km. rivalling La Paz. 12 were congregating in the marketplace at one time, I think plotting a way to overtake the town. Unfortunately, all the flying dust blinded them and foiled their attempt.

The salt flats tour was 3 days and two nights. We saw a lake that dried up about 5000 yrs ago and is all salt, and stopped off at what was once an island, and now is just a rock formation in the midst of a lot of salt. There is even a hotel made of salt in the middle (not as cool as it sounds, believe me). I was hoping that their toilets were made of salt too, but no go. The land cruisers had no working speedometer, the steering wheel was upside down, and they were refilling the tanks using old vegetable oil containers....awesome.

We spent a night at refugio on the salt lake, which consisted of us reading, eating, sleeping and waking up the next day to visit tons of amazing lagoons, flamingos, and multiple amazing rock formations you can crawl around on.
The whole idea of off roading was really cool until the driver hit a rock all of us saw and popped his tire. Out came the bald spare tire...but dont worry.. It was quality-Pirelli All terrain.

The place we stayed that night was REALLY roughing it, with a small room for 6 people, a window covered up with plastic with wind blowing through, and no heat. So that was a miserable night, what with our french roommates coughing up a storm.

We woke up the next morning at 4 am to get an early start to see some geysers, thermal baths, and a BEAUTIFUL green lagoon. I must warn you that I was miserable during this entire trip. MISERABLE. There was not one part of my body that was warm, and John and Amish were about the same. My toes finally regained sensation like 3 days later.

Later that morning we made it into San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, right on the border. Its a sunny, warm, touristy border town. I´m wearing shorts, and believe me, if I owned a wife beater, I would be wearing that too. We chilled out the first day, got to know the town, decompress, warm up, drink. Yesterday evening we went on an RIDICULOUS tour of the stars. They drive you out to a part of San Pedro with no ambient light, and these two astronomers point out tons of constellations and teach you about stars. They also have some huge telescopes, the largest in Chile, actually. Today Amish and I are doing a hike around the Valley and sand dunes, and John is breaking off from us to go to the beach for a few days. Amish and I are going to Salta, Argentina tomorrow. Though I have been there when I visited Jonas, Im excited to go back and do some of the things we weren´t able to do. I think I would have gotten too bored at the beach for 5 days. After that we are all meeting up in Santiago and Bill (friend from med school) is joinin us for the next 4 weeks. The next month will include Santiago, renting a car to Buenos Aires, and getting an apt in BA for 2 weeks, with side trips to Bariloche and Iguazu.

Im posting pictures on facebook, because I think that is way easier. Check them out there. Hope all of you are holding up well.

What up dudes and dudettes. We left La Paz and got on some 4X4 land cruisers (some older than expected..scratch that..most) to head to the salt flats in UYUNI Bolivia...This was after the BUMPIEST overnight bus ride I have ever experienced.. This was tour bus was seriously off roading, and two people puked in the bus...One woman was nice enough to do so 2 rows behind me, and the smell woke me up at night. We then entered Uyuni after being served a breakfast of Oreos and juice (dental preservation isnt a priority in this country) and entered the DUSTIEST town I have ever been in. Uyuni was a huge dust bowl, with stray dog populations per sq. km. rivalling La Paz. 12 were congregating in the marketplace at one time, I think plotting a way to overtake the town. Unfortunately, all the flying dust blinded them and foiled their attempt.

The salt flats tour was 3 days and two nights. We saw a lake that dried up about 5000 yrs ago and is all salt, and stopped off at what was once an island, and now is just a rock formation in the midst of a lot of salt. There is even a hotel made of salt in the middle (not as cool as it sounds, believe me). I was hoping that their toilets were made of salt too, but no go. The land cruisers had no working speedometer, the steering wheel was upside down, and they were refilling the tanks using old vegetable oil containers....awesome.

We spent a night at refugio on the salt lake, which consisted of us reading, eating, sleeping and waking up the next day to visit tons of amazing lagoons, flamingos, and multiple amazing rock formations you can crawl around on.
The whole idea of off roading was really cool until the driver hit a rock all of us saw and popped his tire. Out came the bald spare tire...but dont worry.. It was quality-Pirelli All terrain.

The place we stayed that night was REALLY roughing it, with a small room for 6 people, a window covered up with plastic with wind blowing through, and no heat. So that was a miserable night, what with our french roommates coughing up a storm.

We woke up the next morning at 4 am to get an early start to see some geysers, thermal baths, and a BEAUTIFUL green lagoon. I must warn you that I was miserable during this entire trip. MISERABLE. There was not one part of my body that was warm, and John and Amish were about the same. My toes finally regained sensation like 3 days later.

Later that morning we made it into San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, right on the border. Its a sunny, warm, touristy border town. I´m wearing shorts, and believe me, if I owned a wife beater, I would be wearing that too. We chilled out the first day, got to know the town, decompress, warm up, drink. Yesterday evening we went on an RIDICULOUS tour of the stars. They drive you out to a part of San Pedro with no ambient light, and these two astronomers point out tons of constellations and teach you about stars. They also have some huge telescopes, the largest in Chile, actually. Today Amish and I are doing a hike around the Valley and sand dunes, and John is breaking off from us to go to the beach for a few days. Amish and I are going to Salta, Argentina tomorrow. Though I have been there when I visited Jonas, Im excited to go back and do some of the things we weren´t able to do. I think I would have gotten too bored at the beach for 5 days. After that we are all meeting up in Santiago and Bill (friend from med school) is joinin us for the next 4 weeks. The next month will include Santiago, renting a car to Buenos Aires, and getting an apt in BA for 2 weeks, with side trips to Bariloche and Iguazu.

Im posting pictures on facebook, because I think that is way easier. Check them out there. Hope all of you are holding up well.

So last time I wrote you nice people I had just gotten to Lake Titicaca, weary and worn out by the stinkin Incan trail. That afternoon we putzed around Copacabana and literally slept 14 hours and slept through dinner. Being the morons that we are, we totally forgot to change our watches, and missed the full day tour of Isla del Sol, which is said to be the birthplace of the Incan empire, as the first Incan leader was born there. This island has 3800 inhabitants and some really tasty twix bars. We ended up getting the half day tour at 1:30. The island itself isn´t that impressive, and the tour guide, even less. However, the actual boat ride to the island is magnificent. Lake Titicaca is huge! It´s also relatively clean as well.

After getting back from the island, we had to rush to get our packs and board a bus to La Paz. Thus far, this was the absolute worst trip I have taken. The 3 hr bus ride started out quite pleasantly, but then Bolivian B.O. from the other travellers wafted my way. Then came the insanely loud Bolivian pop/ballad/ gospel music which made it difficult to sleep. I did end up dozing off, only to be woken up by a sudden stop and disembarkation by all the passengers. Dumbfounded, John, Amish, and I got off the bus and followed the others. There was a HUGE lake in front of us. Apparently the bus gets on a ferry, and we get on motorboats to cross the river and on the other side, meet up with the bus again! Amish had heard about this through a cousin that had travelled down here, but a warning would have been nice. The motorboat we got on wasn´t the safest either-we could see water swishing by through the slits in the floor of the boat.

The end of the bus ride was marked with a spectacle I had never seen before. On the outskirts of La paz, there are just piles of garbage at the medians at intersections, and there were no less than EIGHT to TEN stray dogs rummaging and fighting in the heap of garbage. I counted. Yeah and we probably passed like 20 blocks. That´s like a million stray dogs in total.

After that trip from hell, we got to our hostel and promptly left to go out to a nice irish pub. We ended up staying out until about 5 AM, which included going to an after hours lounge we were invited to that was like in the first floor of a house. But it was a legit place, with a bouncer outside and everything.

Needless to say, yesterday was a total waste of a day, since we woke up at 1 PM. We booked our tours to the salt flats of Uyuni (where we are headed on an overnight bus in 2 hrs), bought some tourist t shirts and then went out again til about 4.

John was fortunate to find some nice pastries today, one of which literally looks like a chocolate covered fallace. He´s going to have one for dessert tonight. He had a brownie on the way to our bus tour of La Paz. We decided that 2 days here is enough and off we go.

SO everything here is just amazing, but there is one HUGE dilemma I´m having...Should Amish and I get mullets? I mean, we´re all about assimilation. All comments and suggestions are welcome. More pictures to come soon.

Pray for our safety as we have realized taxi drivers have no regard for traffic laws here.