My City of Ruins

The closest some people come to Nebraska is Springsteen... and that's not very close at all.

Our second day in Bolivia, we met Grace. Grace was our tour guide the remainder of our stay in Bolivia. What can I say about Grace? She was such a kind and courteous guide, and she really went out of her way to make sure we were taken care of. Bug, I also kind of get the feeling that Grace stretched the truth of some of the facts she told us, maybe even erring on the side of compulsive liar. That being said, I enjoyed our time in Bolivia very much. 

We hopped in the van with Grace and went to the Tiwanaku ruins. Apparently, the culture associated with these ruins dates back to before Inca times. In fact, the earliest date is thought to be 1500 BC. These were the first ruins we saw on the trip, but the certainly weren't the last. The ruins at Tiwanaku were still being excavated; however, they were really interesting. So many of the things we give credit to Ancient Greece and Egypt for creating were happening in South America, too. Not only were they happening in South America, but potentially years before.

The group channeling ancient times.

Carved faces lining the walls of a sacred building.

I should have paid better attention so I could write good captions...

The construction of buildings, aqueducts, irrigation systems... and the way all of these things intermingled with the chemistry of the land and the layout of the heavens. It was all pretty interesting and incredible.

Really... what's the point of taking a tour if you don't pay attention. Idiot.

OH! This is the Puerta del Sol, the Gateway of the Sun.

This is Laura and I being adorbs in the Gateway of the Sun!

On our way out of the ruins, we stopped by the nearby Puma Punku ruins. Ryan has been talking about these rocks since the day I met him. Where most people see a heap of crumbled stone, Ryan saw a candy store, and he was eighth years old. In his defense, these crumbled rocks were pretty cool. It's hard to imagine how these ancient people cut these massive stones so precisely, or how they managed to move them such great distances without any pack animals or modern equipment.

After our tour, we grabbed a quick lunch in the nearby town, and I had my first taste of llama. It was, I must admit, much more delicious than I wanted it to be. Poor llama.

Llama filet.... poor little guy.

Poor, poor, delicious, little guy.

Keeping The Peace

When you're on the other side of the world, you might notice that the seasons have deceived you. That's why as my Nebraskan counterparts found themselves sweating in the thick, July humidity, I could be found somewhere in Santiago shivering as the winter hollow takes over. however, as in the States, with winter comes winter vacation, and here I am, once again roaming around South America.

After spending our first few days of break relaxing in Santiago, Laura, Noah, Ryan and I headed to La Paz, Bolivia. We were accompanied by two of Noah's friends from high school who were visiting.

I caught a glimpse of Lake Titicaca as the plane descended toward La Paz. If I though the altitude in Ecuador had been bad, I had no idea what was awaiting me in La Paz. At an elevation of about 4,000 meters, La Paz will start by leaving you a little light-headed, but altitude sickness varies depending on the person after that.

Church in the main square.

Incan gods depicted on the side of a museum.

Streets lined with vendors.

We dropped our bags off at our hostel (also a brewery) and decided to walk around the centro. Like many cities on the western coast of South America, La Paz is located in a valley surrounded by mountains and hills. That means our walk through the city consisted of a lot of slanted streets... beautiful, but a round sell when you just had your supply of oxygen shockingly reduced. I wish we would have had more than just one afternoon in La Paz, because I'm sure we missed out on things. We were there just long enough to check out a few churches, visit a bunch of shops, and eat some delicious Bolivian food.

Enjoying our complementary drinks at the hostel.

Unfortunately, that evening during dinner, my slight light-headed feeling turned into a pretty legit headache. When we finished dinner and someone proposed walking up the lookout to see the city at night, I decided to head back to the hostel and get some rest. By the next day I was feeling ready to take on Bolivia.

The view I missed as a wallowed in my bed at the hostel.

No one understands me when I say: Uruguay

For real. I always feel like I'm saying it the way you're supposed to it say in Spanish, but no one ever knows what I'm talking about. Story of my life here. 

I present to you, my final blog post about my adventures traveling during the South American summer. And heck, It’s only several months late. Oops. 

After Rio, the Extremely Gringo Travel Gang headed back to Santiago. Soph and Dan were headed for the good old U.S. of A. Ryan’s parents were visiting Santiago. And I… well, I was sleeping copious amounts. We’re talking a LOT of sleep. However, after about a week, Dan and Sophie were gone, Ryan had said goodbye to his parents, and we realized that there was traveling still to be had.

We set out on our adventure of Uruguay. Said to be a “hidden gem” of South America, Uruguay is nestled between Brazil and Argentina on the Atlantic Coast. We flew into Montevideo and spent our first few hours there trying to figure out how to work ATMs and eating at our first parilla. This blog post could have probably been entitled “The trip that never happened” or “Ryan and Sarah eat and drink their way across Uruguay.” The first title would be due to the fact that while there are many pictures of our trip to Uruguay, we’re not in any of them. The second is pretty self explanatory.

The next morning we hopped on a bus to Colonia del Sacramento, a quiet old town on Rio de la Plata, just across the way from Buenos Aires. (Mind you, Rio de la Plata is pretty ginormous.) The town was pretty touristy, but man was it beautiful. We strolled along the cobbled roads, walked all the way down the riverfront path to the other part of town, and ate and drank. 

Colonia del Sacramento dock.

Pretty picturesque, eh?

Rio de la Plata near sunset.

Looking for a parilla to eat dinner.

We only had about 24 hours in Colonia before hopping back on a bus (after sleeping in and almost missing it) toward Paloma. Now, I know that 24 hours probably doesn’t seem like enough time, but there just wasn’t THAT much to see in Colonia. So to Paloma we went. You see, there wasn’t that much to see in Paloma, either, but that was kind of the beauty of the whole trip. We feel asleep when we wanted; we woke up when we wanted; we took siestas whenever we wanted; we lounged on the beach when we wanted; and we ate and we drank when we wanted. Paloma is a tiny beach town on the Atlantic Coast of Uruguay. It’s truly one of the quietest places I’ve ever been. It was the type of town where families from Uruguay probably go for vacation. It’s also the only place where a picture was taken that I’m actually in. The only proof I’ll ever have of my Uruguay adventure.

I told you I went to Uruguay.

After two days in Paloma we headed back to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. Montevideo is a cool city. It’s one of those cities where there aren’t a whole lot of huge impressive sites, but there are thousands of interesting ones. Laura and Elaine happened to be in Montevideo the day that we arrived, and after trying to contact them, we ran into them on accident walking along the Rio de la Plata boardwalk. We spent the evening eating churros and drinking mate (a South American tea) before the two girls caught their bus to Brazil. The rest of our time in Montevideo was spent doing what Ryan and I do best. Eating all the food and drinking all the drinks. We visited every parilla we could find and were introduced to a Montevideo favorite, “Medio y Medio.” It’s basically a bottle of half white wine and half champagne, and it’s wonderful. We also visited the Montevideo port and the first FIFA World Cup Stadium and all those things you’re supposed to do when you’re a tourist, but I think it’s pretty important that you keep in mind all the parillas, too. 

Montevideo plaza thing.

Montevideo cool building thing.

Montevideo beautiful sunset thing.

First FIFA World Cup stadium.

The fabled Medio y Medio. So good.

Montevideo port market with so many parillas.

MORE MEDIO Y MEDIO!

All the grilled foods. :-)

Although visiting Uruguay wasn’t the shiniest most exciting part of my South American adventure, it was the perfect way to end it. It offered a real retreat from the craziness of the previous eight months and helped prepare me for what was about to come.

When we returned to Santiago, we had about a week’s worth of calm before the storm that is our lives teaching in Chile.

The Girl from Ipanema

We were joined by Dan's friend Federico on our flight to Rio de Janiero, and as our plane reached the city he pointed out the different sites and Jesus on top of the hill, which our plane circled before landing. The airport we flew into in Rio has its landing strip right on the water, which was both really cool and terrifying.

Rio has to be one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen.

We headed straight to the hostel after agreeing to meet Federico and his friends for dinner. Our hostel by itself wasn't anything special. It was, however, three blocks away from Ipanema Beach, which made it incredible. Because Ryan was only going to be in Rio for two days before flying back to Santiago to meet his parents who decided to visit, he was given full charge over what we would do those two days. Obviously, the first thing we had to do was go visit Cristo Dedentor, which is the giant statue of Jesus on a hill overlooking Rio de Janeiro. We went to buy our tickets but still had a few hours until our train up the mountain departed. We hopped in a cab and went to Santa Teresa, a neighborhood on a hill overlooking the city. The views were pretty great. We found a cute little shop with some souvenirs, but most importantly we tried acai for the first time. You've probably heard of acai, the Brazilian super-fruit, but if you haven't tried an acai smoothie, RUN, don't walk, to the nearest acai dealer near you.

The statue in all its glory.

The view from Cristo Redentor hill.

The best photo we could get a stranger to manage.

We returned to catch our train and started our ascent to the statue. It was a gorgeous day and our views from the top of the hill were amazing. It was packed, so it was difficult to linger too long, but I wished I could have. By the time we left the statue to return to our hostel, we only had enough time to change quickly before going to meet Federico and his friends for dinner. We went to a restaurant that Ryan has been talking about for as long as he has known we were going to Brazil, Fogo de Chao. If you feel like you've heard of this restaurant, you're probably right. This Brazilian steakhouse has expanded and has more U.S. locations than in Brazil. We ate a disgusting amount of food, especially Ryan, before returning to our hostel and rolling ourselves into bed.

The group on Pao de Acucar.

The next day we slept off our food comas a little bit before hitting the trail once again. The boys ate more acai smoothies, and we all headed to Pao de Acucar, or the Sugar Loaf Hill. This is a series of hills reached by telferico (I thought I was rid of telefericos after leaving Ecuador) that offer a spectacular view over the bay. Aside from a few sprinkles of rain, our trip up Pao de Acucar was awesome. We spent the rest of the evening on the hunt for the perfect bracelet for Ryan before stopping at an Irish pub to watch a bit of the Superbowl before Ryan's fight left.

A delicious acai smoothie topped with granola.

 

Although we were in Rio the week before Carnival, the celebrations had already started.

Ipanema Beach at sunset. Awesome.

The next day greeted Dan, Sophie and I with rain and gray skies. We walked to sushi for lunch and had some acai, did a little bit of shopping, and decided that since we couldn't go to the beach, we would treat ourselves to seeing Les Mis at the movie theater. After the movie, which we all agreed was pretty great, we hunted down a restaurant where Dan could eat Feijoada, a typical Brazilian meat and bean dish.

Although it was still rainy and overcast the next day, we decided to walk along Copacabana beach. Even on a cloudy day, Rio is really beautiful. We did a little bit more shopping. Then we went to see a staircase in the city center. The unique thing about this staircase is that the same artist (from Chile, actually) has been making it into a tiled mosaic for years. Sadly, only a few weeks ago, the artist was found dead on the same stairs he spent years working on. It's still unclear what for sure caused his death, but his art is a testament to his talent and I feel honored I got to visit that beautiful site.

Beautiful Ipanema Beach.

Our last day in Rio, we woke up to fairly clear skies. We took advantage of the sunniest weather we had in days and hit the beach for a few hours. We bought our remaining souvenirs. I got a manicure, because: vacation. And we ended the evening with a nice Italian meal. The next day we were all sad to be leaving a place as beautiful as Rio and to be ending our South American vacations, but we were also really excited to head home. And then I realized that when I said home, I meant Santiago, and that was the strangest feeling of all. However, my adventure weren't over quite yet...

Thank y... Graci... I mean: Obrigado

I only really knew two things about Sao Paulo, Brazil, before we got there: 1.) It is gigantic and 2.) Our friend Mauricio lives there. Well, both are confirmed. Although we unfortunately didn't find a chance to meet up with Mauricio while we were there, I can verify that the city itself is terrifyingly large. So large, in fact, that all four of us fell asleep during our taxi ride from the airport to our hotel.

The city that never ends.

We only had a short stay in Sao Paulo and no definite plans, so we tried to fit in what we could. Our first night there we went to a pizza place we had heard a lot about. Listen, I know, I know... why am I going to pizza places in South America? Let me explain. Number one, this pizza was incredible... some of the best pizza I've ever had. Number two, when traveling with Sophie, it's kind of a requirement that you eat some type of Italian food every couple of days. However, most of all, this pizza is a big deal in Sao Paulo. Sao Paulo (and much of Brazil) has a huge Italian population. In fact, when we met up with Federico, Dan's friend from Milan, Italy, who is currently living in Brazil, he said that he is convinced that Sao Paulo has a larger Italian population than any other city in the world, even the cities in Italy. If that's the case, then they probably know what they're doing when it comes to pizza.

The Cathedral in Sao Paulo.

I wanted to buy EVERYTHING at this market.

Our second day in Sao Paulo, we explored the city center a little bit, visiting a few churches and a giant market. However, that evening was the main event in my book. Federico took us to a pre-Carnival samba troop practice. Much like how you will find dance troops in New Orleans that prepare and practice for Mardi Gras, there are samba dance troops in Brazil. The particular group we went to watch, the Rosas, has been around since 1971 and is something of an institution in Sao Paulo. People slowly filled the troop's auditorium and the show got started.

I want to be these ladies when I grow up.

To begin, these fabulously dressed older women started dancing, and they danced for hours. Simply watching them made me tired. They were adorable and incredible. Then the troop's dancers filled the center of the auditorium. It was a huge production. There were royalty of the troop from all age groups, alumni from the troop's earliest years, security guards, and long-time fans. And the dancers were incredible. I didn't know people could move their feet so fast. After the main show, it turned into one giant celebration with everyone on the dance floor trying their hands at samba. I hated to leave when we did, but we had an early flight the next morning, and I could hardly function I was so tired. We left the auditorium with the ringing of drums still pounding in our ears.

The beautiful samba queens. These ladies are intense.

The crowd went WILD at the end. Awesome.

Sao Paulo was an interesting experience for me. Although we had stayed in Brazil in Foz do Iguacu, we really didn't experience too much Portuguese. The people at our hostel and our tour guide all spoke to us in English. Foz do Iguacu was a tourist's paradise. However, in Sao Paulo, I don't think I saw another tourist. And whatever insane hopes I had of being able to understand a word of Portuguese were instantly dashed when I realized I could, in fact, not. In my defense, I can kind of read Portuguese, at least enough to know how to get around, but I can't understand a word of it when it's spoken. It's a beautiful language, though. We survived Sao Paulo on broken conversations of Portuguese, Spanish and English, and we got by the best we could. People were mostly very helpful and kind to the four gringos who were in way over their heads. What was most interesting, though,w as that it wasn't until Brazil that I realized how comfortable I was traveling in a Spanish speaking country. In Chile and Argentina I had no trouble getting where or what I wanted. So I think I must be learning Spanish, even though it doesn't always feel like it.

Don't go ChACEing...

Our night bus luxury couldn't last forever, and we were greeted by abrupt and suffocating heat as our taxi crossed the border from Puerto Iguazu, Argentina, to Foz do Iguacu, Brazil. After dropping our things off at our hostel, we headed straight to the Brazilian side of the falls to take a look around. Now, I've never bee to Niagara Falls, but people seem to get pretty worked up over the size of it.

Dear Niagara Falls, I'm pretty sure Iguazu Falls makes a mockery of you. Niagara Falls reaches a height of 51 meters and spans some 700 meters in width, which I'm sure is impressive. However, Iguazu Falls reaches 82 meters and is 2.7 kilometers in width. Boom, Niagara... roasted. It's really incredible.

The Brazilian side of the falls is pretty perfect to conquer in an afternoon, although I'm sure you could spend a day there. On the viewing paths and decks you can see wide, sweeping views of the falls, and they're pretty overwhelming... and beautiful... man, are they beautiful. After visiting the falls, we went to eat at a Brazilian buffet with a dance show, which, honestly, was pretty kitchy and touristy, but was a necessary stop in EGTG's (the Extreme(ly) Gringo Travel Gang, if you had forgotten) quest to eat all the food in South America.

Sophie and I... touristing and stuff.

The next morning we went on a tour to visit the Argentinian side of the falls. A couple of things: 1.) aside from having to spend a ghastly amount of money to obtain visas for both Brazil and Argentina, these countries must not care AT ALL who is crossing their borders at Iguazu Falls. All three times I crossed thee border there, my driver simply took my passport inside and came out with it stamped. I never even got out of the car. B of all: very near to Iguazu Falls, Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay meet. So that's the first place our tour guide took us. From where we stood in Argentina two converging rivers separated us from both Brazil and Paraguay. That's probably as close as I'll ever come to Paraguay, which is at once very exciting and very sad.

I had the privilege of sitting in the front seat of our tour van, in between the driver and our tour guide, who tried to tell me a lot of things in broken English and Portuguese. There, I was able to experience my own personal waterfall as the van's air-conditioning system rained (and poured) on me the entire time to the falls.

The Argentinian side of Iguazu Falls was also incredible. The trails and viewpoints come significantly closer to the falls, and you get to experience, up close, just how awesome and powerful they really are. The 11 km of trails take you to viewing points directly over the Devil's Throat, the highest point and tallest drop, and to points next to the falls where, if you linger too long, you'll walk away completely drenched from the spray and mist surrounding the cascades. The roar from the plummeting water is deafening and you worry that you might get swept away as the viewing balconies shudder slightly below your feet. Definitely an experience I'll never forget.

Also... LOOK! These are like South American RACCOONS!!!

The Knight Bus

I almost feel silly writing the post I'm about to write. Here I am, paying homage to some of the greatest cities in South America, and I'm about to place a 19-hour bus ride on the same level. But before you get all up in arms over that, let me explain. When we started planning our travels throughout South America, I was under the impression we'd be taking a number of 19-(or more) hour bus rides. But I was wrong. Most of the flights we found made it affordable for us to jet-set around the Southern Cone, except for our trip from Buenos Aires to Iguazu Falls. So, I knew early on that this 19-hour night bus was in my future.

All Harry Potter references aside, the night bus doesn't seem like the most ideal form of transportation, so when EGTG (the Extreme Gringo Travel Gang as we came to call ourselves, which I later would refer to as the Extremely Gringo Travel Gang) sat down to book our bus tickets, we were give two options "semi-cama" (half bed) or "super-cama" (super bed). We obviously chose "super-cama," which ran us about thirty dollars extra. Little did we know what was in store for us. Listen folks, if you're ever traveling across South America by bus and you have the option of "super-cama," take it! Take it every time.

I'll try to find more pictures! Bus... this is a start.

Not only was this bus ride the best bus ride of my entire life, but also it was, perhaps, the nicest mode of transportation I've ever taken. We had seats that fully reclined so we were able to lay completely horizontally, our own, individual pillows, blankets, televisions, headphones, and privacy curtains, and were served both a hot dinner and breakfast the following morning. Although it wasn't a five-star meal, I was able to enjoy my chicken cordon bleu and appetizer and dessert and soda as I reclined and watched all of "Armageddon" dubbed in Spanish. And, yes, it's a good movie in any language.

I was also able to help Sophie celebrate her 25th birthday as the clock struck midnight, and we rattled through northern Argentina. Our bus even made it to Iguazu Falls in under 18 hours, out of which the majority of us probably slept at least 14.

All in all the night bus was a raging success, and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again.