Hi everyone, so we are back in Canada again. We are moving to Vancouver for a while so if you are there or coming there let us know! Anyhow, I will be updating this blog with more photos and a bit more writing to cover the end of our trip. I will send out emails when this happens.

Today we were lucky enough to experience one of Rio DeJaniero´s most famous entertainments. We were mugged.

It all started innocently enough: A trip to the modern art gallery, a walk down to the small park below, a few minutes sitting and enjoying the view of the marina. Suddenly two young guys appeared saying, "moneh, moneh" over and over. Then there were four. Then one of them flashed a knife to Marcella. It was very exciting. Marcella handed over her $25 and then they came to me.

Earlier in the day I had gotten change from a bus driver who had given me a wad of 10 One Real (.45¢ cdn) notes. Without thinking about it I had folded these underneath a 50 Real note ($25 cdn), so when you looked at this wad it gave the impression of a thick pack of 50´s. It looked like alot of money.

I watched the guys eyes pop out of his head when I handed this over, and the four guys quickly took off into the bushes. Little did they know that I had a $600 digital camera under my shirt that they didn´t get! (HAHA, Suckers!)

As soon as we finished our donation we headed back to the art gallery in a daze. We stumbled into an old Swedish guy wed met earlier. We told him the story and he spun on his heel saying, "well, maybe I go back to the hotel instead." At almost the same time we ran into 2 cops with a VW van and 2 big german shepards. With difficulty we managed to explain what had happened and they hopped on the radio. It sounded like there was alot of confusion on that radio. We could hear other cops yelling and chattering to each other and it took a little while before our guy could get through to someone.

We told him what we rembered of the guys, although the thing that stuck in Marcella´s mind the most was what the knife looked like. They piled us and the dogs into the old VW van. The driver kept telling the dog in the front to sit down, but he couldn´t seem to get comfortable and kept spinning around and running into the gearshift.

We drove over a bunch of curbs and grass until we were back in the park where we were robbed, the whole time the cops were pointing at guys with yellow shirts and asking us if that was the guy. We didn´t recognize anyone, and by this time we figured that the perps must be long gone. Suddenly the babble on the radio raised its pitch and fervor. The driver asked us what color the guy´s hair and shirt were. It sounded like they had caught someone.

We ripped along a winding jogging path and flew out into 4 lanes of high-speed traffic. The van didn´t have a siren, or even a horn, so the cop in the passenger seat would bang on the door to get the other drivers out of our way. We nearly hit 2 cabs and a bus and we went careening through 2 red lights. The whole time the radio was babbling excitedly and the driver was telling the dog in the front to sit down.

We pulled up in front of a bus with about 4 cop cars and a bunch of people standing around. The cops were dragging two guys out of the bus, one of them punching and kicking all the way. They handcuffed these two guys and left them in a circle of gawkers. We went over to check them out, but they weren´t our guys. The cop said they were other robbers, who apparently had been plauging a certain beach. They had been caught with a purse. The cop said they were going away for 3 to 6.

Unluckily for us, all this confusion helped our muggers get away. I´m sure they hopped on the first bus they saw, never to be seen again. Well, at least until tommorrow. I would have liked to have seen the look on their faces when they peeled off that 50.

We went back to the hotel and ran into our tour-guide-pal Simon. He was just in the process of trying to convince some Isrealies of the the dangers, and now we were the perfect example. We shared our story and at the end of it Simon broke out laughing and said that every year about this time a Canadian girl gets robbed. Maybe we should make Marcella a trophy or a plaque or something.

For any of you that are panicked about this, calm down. Don´t worry about it, we´re not. Rio is so famous for this I was wondering how we were going to get out of the city without donating anything to the Rio DeJaniero Muggers Fund. Perhaps we should get a T-shirt, just so they don´t ask again...

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MARCELLA SAYS:

yo and oi!

yeah, we are now part of the statistics of millions of muggings in rio de janiero...This is what happened:

we went and checked out the modern art gallery, a great new building with a bunch of really bad first year calibre art inside it. The building had a great view over the very clean harbour full of yaghts, and a park behind the (broad daylight 3:00 in the afternoon) boardwalk. We went and sat on the rock ledge there, I was asking mihai to take a photo of the suger loaf mountain with a gondola going up to it (for you dad). Mihai sensing a dangerous ´lugare´ said he already took a photo from inside the building and had hid his tiny digital camera under his shirt around his neck.

So a guy came towards us, and he looked weird at me and I said Oi, then he said Oi, and then he basically got three more of his buddies to come from all angles towards us damanding ´diniero,´ I am sketched out at this point telling them to calm down and they could have all the money they wanted from us, until they threatened me with the hunting type knife they had and started grabbing my pockets. I think that is when I blacked out with fear. I just had the urge to run, but mihai had already given them a stash of his money (which was a bunch of little money wrapped in a fifty, so they thought they got a mass amount)....They grabbed my cash and took off, but I freaked out and started running because I was afraid they were going to come back when they realized they only got a little from us and not the camera.

I only came to when we saw a swedish guy we knew on the other side of the art gallery, he told us he ´was going for a walk by the harbour.´ Of course we said get the hell out of here man, we just got robbed and the park is full of weird looking dodgy people.

We informed the local police (that were hanging around their mini van in the shade with their two german shepards) about what just happened. Of course this gets crazy now and we are in the van driving through the park around and over curbs trying to find some guys I dont know I could recognize...I mean everyone here seems to be wearing a yellow shirt and EVERYONE is a black man! I can describe the knife no problem!

Next, we are on the highway speeding around 120km and shouting on the radio to loads of cops who are in little honda civics, dune buggies, motorbikes and bicycles, through red lights and around taxis and cars. The door to the van doesn´t close and the dogs are restless. I am also sitting on the cops gun and cell phone which happend to ring. They are telling us they caught someone and we are going mad crazy through the streets then the police all cram in front of a public bus for the bust. They arrest two guys and throw them on the ground, with lots of onlookers of course! One guy started crying and the other was calm. We had to go and identify them, of course they weren´t our guys, but it felt reassuring that they did catch these other little buggers...they had a womans bag on them and were apparently ripping off people on the beaches for quite awhile. They are in big shit.

They are going to jail from 30 days to 6 years (if they are repeat offenders). And there isn´t anything worse than going to jail in brazil (where they definitely DO NOT get colour tv and great meals).

After all this we got a police escort back to Catete street where we are staying.

Mihai calls it an expensive form of live entertainment, I call it pyscho and want to come home as soon as possible. And a Brazillian tour guide woman had the balls to tell me today that Rio is safe and that it is all media hype! pffffghghghgh!

This place is soooo unpredictable it makes India seem like a bomb shelter.

Oi!

That is how the portuegese say hello... Oi!!!! can you believe it, I feel as though I am in Oliver Twist whenever I say it, Oi Oi Oi! hahahahahahahahahaahah!

Anyway thought I´d let you all in on the biggest secret in the world, a Brazilian soccer game is madness, pyschotic and full-out frightening. We were lucky, so they say, to watch a game. I happen to call it an experience. The two biggest rivals in Rio were on the feild at the same time and this means only one thing here...we are gonna kill you!!!

When we arrived on an organized bus with 30 isrealies I thought we were gonna get it for sure. We were quite the site, let me tell you. Basically we were looking totally scared and little and WHITE!!! 100,000 people were lining the streets in pure havok to get last minute seats, selling beers to drivers in stuck traffic or selling public parking spaces. It works like this: you pay a bloke on the street to watch your car so someone doesnt come and smash the windows, steal the rims and light it on fire!

Simon, our cool guide guy told us that two thirds of the police in Rio there, supposidly guarding the premises. However when we started going up the massive ramps to get into the stadium there were lines of cops. These guys are hard core and all about 6 foot five...you cant be a wee guy in one of the most dangerous cities in the world. However, they got totally harassed. The crazy fans even had a cheer against the cops and splashed water in their faces. They were mean ass. I dont know what goes through someones mind when they are wanting to become a cop ere...except maybe that you get to drive around in a black pathfinder with tinted windows and carry a machine gun!

I felt a wave of marcella fear, that I rarely get, when I was walking into that stadium. You could hear bomb firecrackers going off and riotous cheering, it felt very very f-ing intimidating. It made the soccer game we saw in switzerland seem like a daycare. Here the opposite fans CANNOT enter the same side of the stadium. If they did they would kill each other before the same even started. If you take the metro home you are in deep deep shit as it is a favorite spot for brawls.

This is what it basically came down to: pure riotous yelling and screaming with the cheers against the other team, huge banners covering the crowd, a million flags, the wave, smoke bombs in the teams colours, firecrackers with streamers, cops with german shepards, machine guns and clubs, and even more middle fingers and intensity than I can possibly describe.

I feel as though we got all we payed for and more. The so called neutral seats we were sitting in just actually happened to be in the Flamengo area, which happened to score twice and beat the Vasco team. So we had it good with something to cheer about. I even had my red shirt with me I could wave in the air and pretend to be a local. It would have been a little rotten if the other team would have won and I was wearing red. Enough to get you killed.

I just thank my lucky stars that we had a bus waiting for us when we got out of the game (20 minutes late) so we all could watch the madness and group chaos begin in safety...har har har.

The drive home was just as entertaining of course. Riot cops hammering clubs on the masses of people to calm them down, a guy walking down the middle of the traffic jam with someones tire on his shoulder, again the selling of beers to drivers and the pumping adrenaline from so many people stuck in traffic with nowhere to go.

Ahhhhhh the life , Oi!!!!

Everything was easy about our jump from Argentina to Brazil. Everything that was except for the language. All of the sudden we couldn´t make out a word, not even a syllable. What the hell were these people saying? They sounded like drunken cowboys speaking Russian backwards. Was this Brazilian Portuguese??

In a word, yes. Yes it was, and although thankfully Spanish made some sense to their ears, their responses to us were an utter garble. To quote my pal Jern: "the language is multo complicado, but you´ll get a long way just adding -schhss to any word and make the rest of the word sound as strange as possible"

Before our trip I had been delving into some of the Brazilian Bossa Nova classics*, and had found the language in musical form quite delicate and beautiful. On a day to day basis though, and especially when you are struggling to make sense of all this schhss, its hard to appreciate.

* Bossa Nova is a type of music invented in Brazil in the 50´s. It is a mix of American "cool jazz" and traditional music of Brazil. The famous players/inventors of Bossa Nova are Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto and Luíz Bonfa. Probably the most famous song of this genre is "The Girl from Ipanema."

A luxurious 16 hour bus ride north of Buenos Aires is the other-worldly Iguazu falls. These enormous falls are set amongst a lush green jungle full of birds, lizards, insects and funny little wooly striped-tailed animals called Coatis. It felt to me like we had stepped into an Indiana Jones/dinosaur movie (is there one of those?). Overtop of the falls circled a mass of black birds of prey, I dont know what kind they were, but they certainly kept all the other birds hidden away in the jungle canopy.

The falls were really astounding, Im looking forward to posting some pictures so you all can get an idea of how beautiful they are.

Okay people, this is a picture of an airplane that week took, but what is that thing on the right side of the frame? Click the comments button below and post your ideas!

need I say more?

So after our jaunt to the south we were back to the big Bs. As. (at least thats what they call it here). Summer holidays had come to a close for most people, and the streets were packed. The weather decided to give us a treat, so instead of the swelter we were used to we were treated to a few days of solid rain.

It was nice to be back in the big city again, but our second visit had nowhere near the excitement as the first. I suppose it has lways been like that. The initial rush you experience when encountering a new place is always unique. I think that if me and Marcella are addicted to something, it is that.

We did manage to explore some new parts of town though, including chinatown. Buenos Aires chinatown is really cute. It is small, well treed, and full of all the usual resturants, video stores and import shops. We ate at a resturant where they played country music, served sugar with our green tea and gave us bright pink chopsticks. It was great to break what had become a monotony of salads, sandwiches and steak.

Click the links below to see more PHOTOS:

San Telmo Antique Market
9 de Julio, Major Avenue
Florida Avenue, Buenos Aires
San Telmo Guitarrist
Steak and Fries for $2.00 ($4.50 arg = $2.00 cdn)
Rainy Day, Beautiful Architecture
Another Beautiful Building

As some of you might not know, January and Febuary are the summer holiday months down here in the southern hemisphere. Madryn was our first experience of Argentine beach-life. We were unwittingly stuck there for 3 days, but it was a welcome relief from the long bus rides and freezing winds we endured down south.

The actual beach in Madryn isnt much to write home about. The tide is high and the sand stays wet all day. Massive clumps of seaweed wash up and the smell of them rotting is enough to put one off his lunch. Marcella did manage to get a tan/burn and we ate pancho triples (triple hotdogs) for lunch and dinner. (Joe, you would have been in heaven.

Comodoro was really just a waypoint for us on our treck back up towards the North of Argentina and Buenos Aires. We didn´t expect to find much there.

We were lucky though. It just so happened that on the exact same day that we arrived, at the exact same time that we went to the bus station to buy tickets, that a free hip-hop show was going on in the park next door. Inquisitive as always, we cruised over and were really surprised by the quality of the show. The MCs were good and the dancers were some of the best that I´ve seen. The coolest thing was this little breakdancer, he must have been about 6 or 7 but he was as bad as the badest and yeah he landed on his feet after this crazy filp!

Although El Calafate town is not so special of a place, the nearby Perito Moreno glacier certainly is. This glacier, that is fed from the Andean Ice-cap, spreads over 258 km and its face is over 60 meters high. The sight of it blows the mind.

This is one of the only advancing glaciers in the world, but it doesn`t advance too quickly, as chunks are constantly falling off the front of it into Lago Argentino (Lake Argentina). These massive (60 meter-tall) chunks of ice break off with a massive crack and the waves they create send the tour boats packing. Between 68 and 88 something like 32 people were killed by flying bits of ice, but now the government has set up fences to keep people a safe distance away.

The glacier is definitely one of the most amazing things we´ve seen on this trip.

Click the links below to see more:

Us and the Glacier
Moreno Argentino
Perito Moreno Glacier
El Calafate Sunset

The main reason for going to Punta Arenas in Chile was to pick up a digital camera that my father and sister (bless their hearts) sent down to me. We really didn´t know what to expect in Chile, but we were pleasantly surprised not only by what we saw, but by one particular person we met.

Alejandro was the son of the woman who ran the hostel where we stayed. For those of you that know our good friend Donovan, I hardly need to say more than this guy must have been his long lost Chilean brother. The two of them look and behave so similairly it was almost scary. Alejandro was great to hang out with. He took us to a club that he didn´t really like and hung out while I had my shirt ripped off by three small-town Chilean girls. He taught Marcella how to dance an tried to teach me something.

We also saw some penguins. We trucked out to a penguin colony and were able to observe the silly-looking guys as they waddled in from the beach to feed thier babies. It was so great to see, the only problem being the incessant bone-freezing wind. It really was amazing how much wind they have down there.

Click the links for more photos:

Marcella and Alejandro
Marcella and the DJ`s
Architectural Gem in Punta Arenas

Although it isn´t technically true, Ushsuaia claims to be the southern-most city in the world. Unfortunately for them, a small Chilean naval settlement rests just a little closer to Antarctica. I suppose they could claim to be the "Southern-most city with easy land connections", but that takes up alot of space on tourist flyers and sort of lacks some of the impact.

Anyhow. We flew from Buenos Aires on LADE Airlines, a military airline for civillians. LADE was the idea of an ingenious military-mind, a way to get a little more cash into the army and use some of those planes that were just laying around. Thier service is basic, but cheap. Imagine if the Canadian military ran Westjet.

From the air Ushuaia looked alot like flying into Vancouver Island complete with mountains, islands, and a solid cover of grey cloud. Outside the terminal we were just about blown off our feet by the wind. We were to experience alot more of the wind in southern Argentina. It is not a force to trifle with.

We stayed at a hospedaje, which is basically someones house that they have turned into a guest house. We got our own room but had to share the bath and kitchen with all the other guests and the owners. The owners really were something special. Hilda and Pedro were their names, they were in their 50´s and had the appearance of the once-were-hippies. Pedro had some wild hair and a heavy growth of grey stubble that stuck out at 90 degrees from his skin. Hilda had short hair (unusual, expecially amongst the older crowd on Argentina), a sweet demenor and could talk to you for days about the wonders of god even if you couldn´t understand five words of Spanish.

It was great. We met a bunch of cool travellers, cooked our own meals, and cranked the heater at night to ward off the cold. Compared to the sweltering heat of BA, Ushuaia felt like an ice-box. Although it was their summer, the tempurature hovered at around 13 degrees and the wild and freezing winds made it feel half of that. We hiked for 14 k up a mountain to see a glacier, the views of the town and the sea were amazing, although we never did find out which pile of snow was the glacier.

With the help of an Irish bloke, we talked our way on board an Antarctic tour boat in the port. The crew was Croation, and they thought it hilarious that the three of us wanted to work on board so that we could see Antarctica. Of course it was impossible, but seeing the inside of that posh boat was interesting and even if we couldn´t get to the frozen continent, at least we´d been on something that did.

It turned out later that the Irish guy actually went on a cruise as a passenger. He borrowed the 2,400 US from his pop and actually made it.

This is the final installment. I promise.

Since we arrived in Buenos Aires we had been waiting anxiously for newyears day. We did this not for any festive or spiritual reason, we did this because that was the day that the Lord of the Rings part 3 was to be released.

We had never seen a lineup of more than ten people for a movie in Buenos Aires before, but on that day the lines wrapped around the block and the previously deserted holiday streets were abuzz. We bought tickets and waited in line for an hour and a half, getting into the theatre with enough time to nab some good seats. The theatre was packed, there wasnt a free seat in the house. It took a while to get everyone in, and as the clock slowly ticked past the time it was supposed to start, the crowd began to grow anxious.

People started stomping thier feet, they started whistling, they started yelling, "Vamos! Vamos!" (Let`s go!). The energy was intense, and things were beginning to get sweaty. Then the lights dimmed and the curtain opened and we were treated to a series of previews. At the beginning of each one the crowd would cheer and clap, which they would abruptly stop when they realized that the movie hadn`t actually started yet.

When it did really start, the crowd let out a loud cheer, and then were quickly silent as the drama commenced. During the highly charged parts of the movie, like when Legolas kills the elephant and rides its trunk, the crowd would go wild. People would jump out of their seats, flinging their fists about and cheering the good guys while cursing the bad. The audience participation was so high it was almost like being at a live show. I can`t think of a better place that we could have seen the movie.

Another interesting thing that we found about the city was the method in which people partied. During the holidays it was not uncommon for someone to get off work at 8 pm, eat supper at 12 pm, go to the club at 2, party till 6, eat breakfast at 8, take a nap for an hour and then go to the after-party at 11 am. We met a 65 year old lawyer (recently estranged from his 6th wife and with a new girlfriend) at a resturant on NewYears. Even he had the energy to party it up until 7am the next day.

Something else totally unrelated is Buenos Aires maternity clothing, or lack thereof. Most pregnant girls that we saw in the city (and we saw quite a few) had an interesting style of maternity dress. It consisted of flip-flops, a spanxed-powered mini-skirt, and a mini-top inbetween which they stuck out proudly thier bulge of baby.

We both loved the energy of Buenos Aires. The architecture, the mad drivers, the great coffee and the beer in the movie theatres all added up to an unforgettable experience. As long as the prices stay as they are, we could spend a long time exploring what the rest of this sprawling city has to offer.

Buenos Aires is an easy place to write about. So easy that I could go on for ages, so Ill try and keep it a lid on it.

So there we were, in the center of a massive, thriving city. We shuffled hotels a bit, as we found that for the same price as 1 dorm bed in a foriegner-aimed hostal we could get our own hotel room with all the amenaties. The financial crisis in Argentina is beginning to create a two-teir system of pricing similar to that in alot of 3rd world countries.

After a few days wandering the streets we began to feel a little under-dressed. The people in Buenos Aires, especially the women, are quite well-presented. So we hit the strips and shopping malls and got ourselves some city gack. The prices were 1/2 that of Canada, but in some cases the quality was not up to par. Marcella bought some shoes that after 15 minutes of walking had shredded a hole in her skin so that she had to wear band-aids for a week after.

On Sunday we went to a famous antiques fair. It was an incredible assortment of jewellry, records, tin toys, old postcards and tourists. We returned to this fair 2 more times during our stay in the city, and every time we bought more stuff. It was cool, but the prices were pretty much the same as we would pay in Canada.

On the 22 of December our friends Tonje and Jorn arrived. The next week was spent in nice resturants with fine wine, steaks and ice-cream. The last time we saw them was on the beach in India the January previous. We spent Christmas and New Years in the same resturant, drank free champagne (not very good) and Argentinan red wine (very good).

Argentinians celebrate New Years Eve and Christmas by blowing up bombs in the streets. At least it sounded that way to us. We were waiting for the windows to blow out of the resturant every time one of thier massive fire-crackers went off. The bombs went on all night, all over the city you could hear them echoing between the buildings. After our Christmas dinner we went to a small plaza and drank wine and beer where people were lighting off fireworks and bombs right next to us. At about 2 AM a group of what have must have been Brazilian expats came to the plaza played a bunch of big drums. It was great.

New Years for us was really tame by Argentinian standards. After our wine and pasta we tried (unsuccessfully) to hail a cab to a club. We ended up meeting a pack of Isrealies and we walked with them to another club. When we got there at 2:30 AM there was a lineup to get in, but the doors were not to open for another half an hour. The club didn´t open until 3 AM! We were too bagged by this point to do anything but sleep, so we did.

I dont think anything could have prepared us for our arrival in Buenos Aires. Only a week before we had been travelling down dusty dirt roads in Bolivia, but now we were cruising at 100 kmph down an 8-lane freeway past massive shopping malls. The freeway was packed with vehicles: taxis and city buses, semi-trucks and motorcyles. Speed limits are flexible, and some of those guys must have blasted past us at almost 200 kmph.

The capital of Argentina has a population of something like 13 million people. Its suburbs stretch for kilometers and kilometers. It took us a good hour to reach the bus terminal in the center of town.

When we did reach it, it was together with about 10,000 other buses. Argentinian long-distance buses are long and tall, they are usually painted bright colors and their corners are rounded and shapes ergonomical. This seething mass of buses looked like an army of catapillars. The entry to the terminal allowed 4 abreast, and there was a private police force to act as traffic control.

After inching forward slowly for another 15 minutes we arrived at the terminal. We called a hostel, hopped in a cab, and were in for a big surprise. The cabbie took off at about 100 kmph, and we were struck speechless by what we saw out the windscreen. This was a city. Modern skyscrapers and old colonial buildings towered up above us, 5-story-high Sony and Panasonic signs blinking on thier roofs. Our cab turned onto a wide 10 lane avenue and we raced through traffic at break-neck speed. He turned down a narrow street and screeched to a halt in front of a tall colonial building. A small sign on the door stated that this was our hostal.

We climbed two stories up, the heat becoming more and more stifiling, until we were let into a sweaty room containing 6 bunks. Backpacker crap was piled everywhere, and a fan on the cieling was churning slowly. We would stay only one sweaty-sheeted and snore filled (thanks to the French guy underneath my bunk) night here.

Anyhow, after checking in, we were dying to see more of the city. We wandered down Avenida Lavalle, a pedestrian street lined with shops and restuarants and packed with Argentines and tourists. Our jaws dropped about every 5 minutes, and we stopped and pointed out to each other everything we saw. We marvelled at the cheap prices and the bright lights. We ate arabian wraps and drank a big beer. We avoided cabs as they raced at 80 kmph down the narrow streets. The buildings towered above us, half of them beautiful antique colonial and half modern glass and steel. This was a city alright, and we were soon going to find out what it had to offer.

Hi everyone. Due to circumstances beyond my control I have lost everyone´s email address from my mail account. If you wish to get back on the notification list please email your email.

An ankle-swelling overnight busride away from Salta is the city of Cordoba. This is another place that gets its reputation from the surrounding countryside, and it another place where we hadnt the time to investigate it.

What we did do was wander in a daze through a congested pre-christmas shopping bonanza, constantly asking ourselves where in the hell we were. After 2 months in third-world countries it really was a shock to be in such a developed place. Shops full of clothes, shoes and assorted other things beckoned us with prices that were so good they were hard to believe.

As some of you might remember, there was a currency crisis in Argentina a few years ago. Do you remember scenes of massive lineups at banks, rioting and general unhappiness coming from this country? At the time that I saw it, It didnt seem so important. I didnt really know anything about Argentina, and just assumed it was another poor Latin-American country going through the usual corruption-revolution-coup cycle.

Its safe to say I was totally wrong. Another preconception blasted to smithereens. So what else is new.

So, a brief introduction to what exactly happened in Argentina: Previous to the crisis the Argentinian Peso was exchanged 1:1 for the US dollar. This made the country quite expensive, as, or possibly more expensive than travelling in the US itself. The crisis occured when the government decided to stop trading at the 1:1 ratio, and the value of the peso dropped. The reasons behind the actions of the government are complicated and too long-winded to get into here, but the results are interesting.

Basically, while the international value of the Peso dropped, the prices within the country stayed relatively stable. Therefore, a can of Coke which previously cost 1 Peso (or $1 US), still costs 1 Peso, which is now equivalent to approximately 40 cents canadian. Another example is the cost of a hotel room, whereas 2 years ago ours would have cost $25 US a night, it now is a little over 10 bucks Canadian. Imagine being in a place that looked like Paris but everything cost 1/2 the price of Canada. I still find it surreal.

This rule for the most part only applies to goods manufactured inside the country, but Argentinian industry does make alot of good things. From world-class beef to wines and leather goods, we have enjoyed our fair share. Imported goods, at least of the luxury kind are slammed with 50%-70% taxes that drive the prices to extremes. For example, a Sony digital camera that costs $450 Cdn in Canada goes for more than $900 Cdn in Buenos Aires.

So, I got a little carried away here, but I really want to get across what Argentina is like right now. The country is an unbelievable value, it is comparable to travelling in a 1st world country, but at the prices of the 3rd world. Although we have yet to see anything other than Buenos Aires, I would highly recommend this country as a destination for any of you that are thinking of a vacation.

Salta is a small city in North-Western Argentina famous for the beauty of the surrounding wilderness. Unfortunatley for us and you, we didnt have the time to see any of it. Instead we spent a day in a shopping mall watching movies while it pissed rain outside and joined in on some birthday festvities at our hostel.

The birthday party was great. We chowed on heaps of BBQ steak and wine and listened to 3 of the hostel workers play guitar and sing, which they did very well. It was another striking moment, that night on a patio under a cover of vines, listening to Argentinian music. I realized that we were in a totally different country again. This was a developed country, as modern as Canada, but moderninzed along different lines, in accordance to a different culture. For example it was nothing out of the ordinary that the BBQ didnt start until 12 AM, and the party went on till at least 5 in the morning.

About 20 minutes out of Auguas Blancas we hit a police checkpoint. We all had to get out of the cab and show our bags. This was the first of two stops we would endure, but it was the lesser in terms of excitement. We were through in 10 minutes.

But you are probably wondering about the title of this entry. Right. After the wierdness of Peru and Bolivia, Argentina felt familiar. I felt like I was back in Saskatchewan, the landscape looked exactly like driving through summer in the southern praries back home. We passed familiar-looking expansive farms, straight roads that never ended and small towns with shirtless kids wheeling around on bicycles.

I suppose the modernity of Argentina also sparked that feeling of familiarity. Things were cleaner in Argentina. The roads were well-paved and the buses clean and air-conditioned. The rambling sheet-metal slums that surrounded every town and city in the Andean countries were replaced by decent-looking housing projects. There were no longer 20 people trying to grab our arms to get us onto thier bus. It was a definite change.

So, we set off from Tarija in a fancy bus for a 5 hour ride (including flat tire) through the jungle. We jumped off at Bolivian immigration at about 8 or 9 pm, and after some confusion were on our way across a long bridge on our way to Argentina.

On the other side we saw lights which turned out to be Argentinian customs. After some more confusion in which Marcella thought we were being asked if we had any marijuana, we passed through and were on our way to immigration, a kilometer away. The night was cloudy and totally black, and there we were, walking with our backpacks down a narrow highway watching lightning bugs and listening to the wierd sounds coming from the jungle. It was kind of creepy, and Marcella kept thinking we were being followed by a snake. I remember thinking that it would have been nice if the Argentinians could have at least put up a few lights.

Anyhow, after 15 minutes we saw the lights of immigration, where we interrupted two greasy-looking army dudes in the middle of their pizza. After some pleasantries we got our passports stamped and were on our way again. This time for 4 kilometers, to the small border town of Auguas Blancas.

It was a Saturday I think, and there were plenty of partiers in the streets. We ignored an old drunk trying to call us over and found the only hostel in town. It was run by a young couple, who had a crazy kid with crazy hair called Naguel. He was really friendly and came to have a chat with us but I think we bugged him too much about his hair and made him self-concious.

Since we were now dealing with Argentinian Pesos, and I didn´t have any, we had to find a change booth or a bank to pay for the room. It turned out Auguas Blancas only had about 2 streets and no banks or anything, but back across the river in Bolivia they had everything.

Now I thought that was kind of stupid of us to cross the border last night, as we would have to cross it 2 more times if we wanted to get any pesos. Turned out that since everybody in town did that everyday, it was a cinch. We just took a little boat and were back in Bolivia. Border formalities were nothing in Bolivia, and the Argentinians only cared if we bought anything over there, so in 20 minutes we were back in Auguas Blancas with cash to pay for the room and a cab to our next destination.

That morning the Argentinian soccer (football) team "Boca Juniors" had just won some sort of championships in Japan. This meant that there were truckloads of Argentinians screaming and honking thier way through the streets, waving thier soccer jerseys in the air. They even crossed the border and drove past us in Bolivia, but over there they just got the finger and alot of verbal abuse.

Its hard to believe that the city of Tarija is really in Bolivia. The affluency, the expensive cars and all the white-skinned people make it seem like a different country.

We spent a few days there, wandering the palm-lined plazas and enjoying the humidity and the heat. We met a few Peace-Core workers who told us hilarious stories about their "sites", which was how they referred to the villages that they worked in.

One of them told us a story about her friend, who when she didn´t know a word in Spanish, would just use the English equivalent but with a Spanish accent. She had a problem with her mattress, so she asked the mother in her host family if she could have a "nuevo matrees". Apparently this was something that her host-mother could´t offer, as "matris" in Spanish means uterus. ha.

Our flight dumped us in the clean and modern airport in Cochabamba. After a stern "no" our taxi driver stopped trying to sell us on his hotel and took us to the one we asked for. Since we only had a day in the city we settled quickly and raced out into the chaos. We checked out some very cool antique shops and ate some hari-krishna-Bolivian-style-Indian-food and crashed. The next day we went to an art exhibition by the Bolivian artist Rodo Bounlanger. It was great, she has a very unique style and is incredibly prolific. Although the images on this site dont do her work justice, I still recommend checking it out. http://www.rodoboulanger.com/

A long dusty 12 hour bus ride from Uyuni, in a lush valley complete with palm trees, lies Sucre, the origional capital of Bolivia. After the barren altiplano it was a welcome relief. Although not exaclty balmy, the days were warm and the nights not too cold (except for the occasional torrential downpours).

Sucre was a small pretty town. The center was full of colonial-era architecture, and the main plaza an array of palms and greenery. The market was full of fresh-juice-ladies who had heaps of fabulous-looking fruit that they whipped up into juices and salads.

It was in Sucre that we booked our first in-trip flight; which took us indirectly from Sucre to Tarija near the Argentinian border, with a stop in Cochabamba which was about 300km out of the way. We were to experience a totally different side of Bolivia in the airports and the planes. Suddenly things looked more modern, the people had lighter skin and more money. These were the kind of people that we hardly saw on the streets of La Paz or even Sucre. These were the elite Bolivians.

Then suddenly, in the midst of all these upper-class Bolivians, materialized an apparition straight from Saskatchewan: Four mennonites, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, dressed in overalls and cowboy hats, and with their thumbs in thier pockets, were standing standing in line to check in. People had told me before that there was a sizable population of mennonites in Boliva and Paraguay, but somehow I hadn´t imagined they would have looked so similair to those who lived in my hometown, so far away in Canada.

Funnily enough, that airport scene did something strange to me. All of the ingredients combined to remind me of the Saskatoon airport, and I was transported there for a second, giving me a small and welcome break from travelling.

From La Paz we headed to a small town in South-Western Bolivia called Uyuni. The area around Uyuni is famous for a giant salt-flat (encompassing 2000 km sq) as well as volcanoes, lagoons, and bubbling mud pits.

We took a four-day jeep tour of this amazing landscape in the company of 3 Dutch girls; Reina, Viola and Sabina; a driver, Estevan; and a young female cook who had never done the trip before.

Our first day consisted of 7 hours of driving on dirt and gravel roads, checking out a graveyard of steam locamotives from the 40´s and marvelling at the moon-like landscape of the altiplano. During the day the sun cooked us to the core, but as soon as dusk came the tempurature dropped in a lethal fashion. Estevan told us that during our first night it went as low as -30c but I find that hard to believe, though -10c could have been possible. Our accomodation on that first night was in a big rambling guesthouse without heating or hot water but with about 15 jeeps worth of other tourists.

The next day the sun swung up into the sky like a pendulum, racing from horizon to directly above us in an hour. The wind that had frozen us on our runs to the toilet during the night had turned into a relief from the blazing heat of the sun. We started the day with a quick drive to a group of steaming geysers and bubbling mud pits. The smell was sulpheric and foul but the heat of the steam was a relief from the chilly morning.

After that we soaked ourselves in a natural hot-spring with a few aging Italians with videocameras and marvelled at the volcanoes and icy rivers that surrounded us. From there we went to the "Laguna Verde" (Green Lagoon) which was very green (high arsenic content) and was situated picturesquely below a massive but dormant volcano. Then it was on to the "Laguna Colorada". This lagoon was quite red (the result of some microrganism) and full of pink flamingos. Really, we were as surprised as you. I never thought flamingos liked to live at 4000m, but apparently they fly in from Chile to eat this red microrganism and enjoy the solitude. (except for the millions of tourists trying to edge close enough to get a photograph)

Another freezing night and we were on our way again. This time past some strange rock formations and funny desert-rabbits who live in holes in the rock and have big heavy eyelids to keep out the sun. We passed a few more smaller lagoons where there lived more flamingos, thier bright pink bodies contrasting sharply with the whites, blues and greens of the mountians behind.

Since we had passed so close to the Chilean border we had to go through Bolivian customs. This consisted of an army base that appeared to be made out of giant eggs. These egg-buildings were painted in jungle camoflouge inside and out even though they were in the middle of a desert high in the altiplano. I guess they thought it looked cool.

The next morning we arrived at the show-stopping Salar de Uyuni. This is a salt-flat that stretches around some 2000 km sq. It apparently used to be a salt-lake which evaporated, leaving a massive flat expanse of salt whose flat whiteness disappears seems to go on forever. There we visited "Fish Island" (called so for its shape, as there is no water nearby) which poked surreally out of the flat and was covered with hundreds of large three-pronged cacti.

We drove that day to another volcano, this time climbing halfway up it to visit some Incan mummies entombed in a cave. The view of the Salare from there was incredible, the plain of white spreading out endlessly below us. Another drive brought us to a "salt hotel", which was built and furnished almost completely from chunks of salt. The walls, beds, chairs and tables were all made from this stuff. People had written such comments as "Where´s the pepper", and "All this salt makes me crave something sweet." But for some reason the owners were complete jerks to us tourists (ALL of us, as was confirmed by some scathing entries in the guestbook) and thier daughter was a slice of hell on earth, so we didn´t linger.

I could go on about Uyuni, as it is ranked up there amongst the most amazing things we´ve seen on this planet but I must move on.

After our stint on the Isla Del Sol we returned to La Paz. We enjoyed more stupedous fruit shakes, hot dogs and another journey to the Ceja (junk) market. This second time we picked up some old Chinese clocks, more Atari games and watched a man eat a giant cooked pigs ear.

After a few days in La Paz it was time to backtrack to the place where we had meant to go. At the street where the buses depart we were assulted by representatives of two competing companies who kept tantilizingly lowering their prices. This was for nothing though, as we ended up having to pay full price anyhow.

The ride was ok if a bit cramped. We were travelling in a "collectivo" which is basically a minivan full of seats and crammed to over-capacity so that the operator can make as much money as possible. A little girl got sick and a guy splashed coke on Marcella, it was a standard trip.

We arrived in the town of Copacabana on the coast of lake Titicaca half an hour before the boat left, which gave us just enough time to choke down a sandwich made by a hippie German. The boat deposited us at the base of the "escalara del Inca" (Inca Stairway) that climed from the beach of the Isla del Sol to the peak of one of its summits (over 4000 m). It was a breathtaking climb, literally, and we staggered into the first guesthouse we saw and flopped down on the bed.

We spent two days wandering along the island, marvelling at how the Tiwanaku (pre-Inca) people had terraced the landscape. Actually we don´t know how much was done by them and how much by the conquering Incas, but almost the entire Island (11 x 8 km) was covered with them. The views from the top of the island of Lake Titicaca and the Cordillera Real mountain range in Bolivia were spectacular, although sleeping at such a high altitude was not so easy.

On our return journey we hired a boatman to sail us from the North tip of the Island to the South in his little boat. It was a scenic though hungry ride as we hadn't had time to eat anything before leaving.

It had been a few weeks since the uprising in Bolivia, and after some deliberation and a few chats with other travellers we decided it was safe to go. We accidentally caught the wrong bus and instead of ending up at the border crossing for the town of Copacabana, we took the route that went straight through to La Paz. Oops.

The Bolivian border was a breeze and on the other side we hopped a bus direct to La Paz. There were two stickers on the partition behind the driver: one said, "no talking to the driver" and the other said "no shooting" with the picture of a man with a gun. I guess that is a problem for them.

The sun set as we drove the well-paved highway, and about an hour into the trip we were greeted by a dazzling sprawl of city lights. This was not La Paz proper that we saw, but the suburb of "El Alto", which is apparently the fastest-growing city in South America.

After meandering through a maze of streets in El Alto, we came to the edge of the valley in which La Paz sits. The view was amazing, the entire valley was dotted with street lights that climbed from bottom to top. La Paz certainly was not the sleepy little collection of mud-brick houses that I had imagined. By all accounts the city was actually more modern and cleaner than the captial of Peru.

The vibe of La Paz was a real change from the cities we saw in Peru, it´s hard to put into words, but we really enjoyed it. Being that it is located inside a valley, there are hardly any level streets and some are as steep as those in San Francisco. The downtown core was a mish-mash of colonial and modern, with massive skyscrapers towering over the origional colonial church. As we are becoming accustomed to, there was the ever-present stratification of rich and poor: with campesinos from the countryside begging in front of McDonalds full of suits. The shoe-shine boys had an interesting look, thier heads covered with balaclavas and baseball caps pulled so low you couldn´t make out their eyes. Fruit shakes were abundant though, and a litre of strawberry-banana-orange went for a whole 40 cents.

The fact that we caught the wrong bus must have been meant to be, as we arrived just in time to caraouse the "Ceja" market which only happens twice a week. It was quite an experience. The market stretches for over 2 kilometers along the rim of the valley of La Paz. The views of the city were stunning and the variety of stuff for sale was incredible. From donkeys to DVD´s; from antique sewing machines to factory sealed vintage Atari 2600 games, it was all there.

From Arequipa we zoomed back to Puno and spent a day checking out the homes of the Uros people. These people live on islands made of reeds on lake Titicaca.

It was amazing to see how they accomplished this. The reeds that they use grow naturally in the area that they live, and they use them and their root systems as the basis of thier islands. These islands basically look like a pile of dry reeds, and every 15 days they need to put new ones on top as the ones underneath rot away. They also build their houses and boats from that same material, as well as trinkets for us tourists to buy.

It was the night before we left for Arequipa that Angel, the magical policeman (yes that was his real name), returned Marcella's passport. So it was with a warm fuzzy feeling that we rode the ten or so hours to Peru's second-largest city, Arequipa.

The landscape on the trip was moon-like: we drove across the alti-plano (high plains), where few people live and the mountains are bright orange and the lakes a stunning blue.

We only spent a day in the City, but that was long enough to pick up some cool antiques and visit the frozen body of a young Inca girl, Juantia. She was found in the crater of one of the volcanoes that surround Arequipa, by an American who was funded by the Catholic University of Arequipa. Her frozen body was transferred from the mountain to a $350,000 freezer in a museum also funded by the university. It was amazing to see her, a 12 year old girl who had been given as a sacrifice to the mountain by the Incas hundreds of years ago.

Hi people, get this:

A policeman found Marcellas passport and other documents in the central market in Cusco a few days ago. After all our critisizm of the police here we now have to eat our words. Of course I had to give the cop a "propina" (tip) for his hard work, but thats how things operate here and it sure was cheaper than sending away for a new one. Im a little behind on the blog but just to let you know, we will soon be in Bolivia. Hopefully Ill have a chance to catch up there.

We must be the only people in the world who would go to Cusco and not visit Macchu Picchu. For the sake of reference, Macchu Picchu is a world-famous ancient Inca city set high up on a mountain. It is the biggest tourist attraction in South America and a lot of people come to the continent just to see it.

And we came and went and didnt even bother. Sounds crazy, doesnt it? We had a good reason though: we had read about a festival in the city of Puno that we would miss if we had gone on the trek to MP. It turned out to be a good thing that we went out of our way to see it. The festival, which celebrates the founding of the city, was amazing: 2 days of people dancing in the streets dressed up in a range of costumes from traditional Inca fare to huge fuzzy beasts and demons.

My first three days were spent dealing with a case of altitude sickness. Apparently my body had a problem with the 2700 m climb. I slept continuously, lost my appetite and suffered from what felt like an everlasting headache. Fun.

It wasnt until halloween that I was back on my feet again. We wandered the city streets, watching the preperations and wondering what the evening would bring. It was a bit of surprise when the sun did go down and the central plaza was filled with kids in thier costumes holding plastic jackolanterns and yelling "Halloween! Halloween!"

We watched from the steps of the church a another tourist went into a store and bought a bag of candy. As soon as she went outside she was swarmed by a mob of children pushing and shoving and grabbing at her until she finally burst the bag and sent the candies flying. Then it was a street-brawl grab-fest as the kids went racing after the candies. After watching this happen twice we decided that buying candies maybe wasnt such a safe idea.

Later that night we had our first night out at the bar. There are quite a few places to choose from in Cusco, and touts line the streets tempting us tourists with free drinks, free entry and the ability to jump the line as if we had VIP passes. Being treated like a rock-star was a strange feeling. I was both excited and disgusted at the same time, knowing full well that the only reason we received that kind of treatment was because of the colour of our skin and what it represents.

Our night out at the "Mama Africa" bar was fun, although a very touristic experience. Besides the bar staff there must have been less than 20 Peruvians inside. The drinks were cheap though, and the music drifted from L.A. hiphop to Salsa to house so we never got bored. They had brought in a real coffin for the night and you could win a free beer or whiskey if you could stay inside with the lid closed for 3 or 5 minutes. By 2:30 we were so bagged that we had to go sleep but as laws are lax here the dancing went on well into the morning, with people still puking in the streets when we woke up the next day.

Well people, we had an unfortunate incident today. Whilst inside of a resturant, we were careless with our things and in the blink of an eye Marcellas backpack was gone. Yep, it vanished along with some shady-looking Peruvian; who is now the proud owner of her camera, passport, bank card, underwear and other assorted things.

We are now doing damage control and dealing with Perus under-funded and unenthusiastic finest. Who knows, maybe well experience a miracle, but chances are it will just be a big pain in the ass.

From Nazca we headed up into the Andes, by bus. We climbed from 600 m to 3300 in 15 hours. It was seriously unfortunate that our seats were right next to the toilet, from which eminated the most disturbing smells. We stuck Tiger Balm under our noses and that worked for a while but had the added effect of continuous nose-burn.

We boarded the bus at 9pm, and after a break at some sort of Mad-Max-esque rest stop, we got out of town. Almost immediately the road started twisting and turning, our driver taking the corners as fast as possible. As our 2L bottles of water started raining down on us from the overhead bin I realized that sleep might not be a realistic goal.

After tying down everything that we could, we reclined our seats, but on our geeky air-filled-neck-pillows and settled in. One of the drivers started up the VCR and we were happy to see that it was a movie that we hadnt seen before. It was the Hollywood adaption of "The Time Machine", and even if it sucked, at least it was going to take our minds of the trip ahead. The only problem was that 20 minutes into the movie the VCR stopped and rewound to the beginning of the tape. The film started again, and then, as we sat with fingers, toes, etc crossed, it did the same thing. I put in my earplugs and tuned out.

Sleep came and went, as it does on trips like that, but besides the two teenage lovers making out behind us and the yank and pull of the bus I had a decent rest. At 9 AM we slid into a dirty little rest stop and ordered the house breakfast. 3 huge plates of rice and meat quickly arrived, and our poor disoriented stomaches struggled through them.

The views after that were amazing, as the road clung to the edge of the mountains, climbing through barren passes and dropping into lush valleys. We passed purple cliffs and green trees; past donkeys and llamas; past minority Peruvian woman with their cute bowler hats and their colorful skirts. It was obvious that we were entering a different world.

I had never heard of the Nazca Lines until arriving in Peru, and even after reading about them I didn´t think they warranted the money it would cost to see them. Luckily for me I had Marcella along, and once she got the idea into her head there was no going back. Along with Anne (a fellow Canadian) we hired a small airplane to take us over the lines, and even though my stomach was doing summersaults, the view was amazing.

The lines consist of drawings of beings and geometric lines, some of which are a kilometer square. In total they cover almost 650 sq km of desert. No one knows for certain who made them, and argument goes on today as to weather they were created by the pre-Inca culture of the Nazca or by extra-terrestrials. For more information and pictures check out the crystalinks website.

Most tourists drop into Nazca just to see the lines, but since Marcella was feeling under the weather we hung around town for a few extra days. It was a nice experience. Nazca is a small safe town, and a relief after the paranoia we had experienced in Ica. Hanging around in the park one night we met up with a pack of shoe-shine boys. They were a fun group of dudes; they climbed trees, beat each other up, did circus acts and even made up a few street-plays for us. They charmed us so much that me and Anne took them out for fried chicken.

Their recommended place was "Planets Chicken", as it had a big jungle-gym thing inside that they jumped on as soon as we arrived. We could see that it wasnt that often that they were allowed to come to a place like that, and it was nice to be able to treat them to something special.

As usual we got more than we bargained for, and the next night quess who was waiting for us ourside the doors of "Planets"? We buckled and invited them to dine again, but just as the chicken arrived so did the mother of one of the boys, and she was pissed.

People couldnt stop telling us how dangerous a place Ica was. We heard it from the Embassy, from other travellers, from the guidebook and even from the locals. That said, our three days in that small city were free of hassle and were lots of fun. We had met a Canadian in Lima that had a connection with a family living in the city, and they were hospitable in that incredible way only capable by latin-americans.

The youngest daughter of the family, Techy, was our guide to all sorts of cool cultural experiences. On our first night she took us to the procession of the "señor de Luren". The procession starts at 10 pm and goes all night long, the devoted following a large image of Christ through the city streets until noon the next day. The streets are choked with people holding candles whilst bands play and people in houses throw flower petals on the Christ-image in the hope of receiving a miracle. I was lucky enough to be crushed up against a devout old woman who very ernestly told me to "get married" after she learned I had a girlfriend.

The procession marked a 2 day holiday and an amusement park had popped up in town. Techy took us inside where we played loads of table-futbol and paid a visit to the "Castello de Terror", a mouldy haunted house complete with guys in zombie suits who jumped out of the walls and scared the crap out of Marcella.

The next two days were spent fumbling our way through Spanish, watching bad movies, learning Peruvian line dancing and scaring dogs so that they peed on the floor. Thier house was airy and bright and they made every effort to make us comfortable. Techys sister, brother-in-law and neice even vacated their suite so we could sleep there. We tried to tell them that this wasnt neccessary but they wouldnt hear a word.

Like every house in this country thiers was behind a tall concrete wall complete with spikes on top. Home security is a big business in Peru, the only houses that we have seen that havent had barbed wire, broken glass or electric wire gaurding them were those of the destitute poor on the outskirts of town. It reminds me of a story that I read once as a kid, about a town that was overrun by werewolves or demons every night so that everyone had to board themselves up behind walls and gates. The wierd thing here is that we havent seen any of these werewolves. We have been warned constantly about the threats and dangers, but have yet to witness anything. I suppose I should be hoping that it stays that way, but a part of me feels like it needs to see a justification for all of this security. Knock on wood.