Bolivian deserts and stuff

Border crossing

21/7 Leave Argentina, enter Bolivia, and persist with my new Mexican travel buddy, Ivette. She's a bit of a diva, so sometimes I'd call her Divette (Diva-Ivette). Later this helped me let her know when I'd like to pull her head off , without the bloodshed. I couldn't decide if I liked or loathed this girl, but I think she satisfied some need I had for a surrogate mother.

We crossed the border at La Quiaca, on foot, dragging our bags along the dusty road hoping then to catch the afternoon train to Tupiza up north. No luck, we were told the service was not running today, so we forced our way onto a chicken bus instead.

Bolivia is a poor but beautiful country, further sweetened by the cute little grannies and even cuter toddlers. Cute but grumpy. Much of the population is indigenous, and still speaks Quechua, the language of the incas.

Tupiza

22/7 Horse riding, lots of fun. We were lucky our horses were well behaved but keen gallopers.

Got told off for galloping along the train tracks on the way back into town, someone was worried I might run over some old ladies dotted about town. No-one seemed to worry if they got run over by a train though.

Ivette becomes my spanish teacher, this pays for her travels, which is cheap in Bolivia, and the arrangement suits me too.

Back in town Ivette speeds off to check out transport and returns to persuade me that we leave on the evening train. There are 3 classes on the train, 1st, 2nd, and "popular"... which we take - clearly I'm not paying Ivette enough to teach me Spanish. But it turns out to be quite a fun experience. There are no tourists on popular class (even "shoe-string" backpackers can afford to travel first class in Bolivia), so we pile in with the locals, whole families with their pets and a years harvest, exchanging produce regularly through the windows whenever we stopped at villages - coca leaves, fruit, rice you name it.

I ponder how the energy exchanges work that enable someone in Europe to earn enough money in just a few minutes to travel by train for several hours in Bolivia.

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Uyuni

23/7 We arrive at uyuni in the middle of night, well wrapped in woollies - we were warned it drops to minus 20 degrees here. Ivette stays with the bags and I roam the deathly quiet and cold streets on the town looking for somewhere to stay. I feel like i'm in the wild west, the place is pretty ghostly. But we're in luck, as is a Korean chap who was going to spend the night in the station, thinking the town too dangerous to venture into at night. Maybe it is, but we all arrived safe and in one piece with all our stuff.

We spend the day preparing for a trip to the salt plains, checking out tours and shopping for woollies.

We opt for a family-run agency that felt right, seemed pretty organised, and had detailed menus laid out. There are dozens of agencies and you really see this each morning when the tours head out.... a convoy of Toyota 4x4s hits the desert.

Salar Uyuni

24 July. Early start, a few french join us on the tour but otherwise it's a pleasant morning. The scenery all day is beautiful, and the sunset is spectacular.

We pass a couple of breakdowns on the way. Someone looks more depressed than me.

At night we settle into our salt-brick home on an island.

I would definitely come back to Bolivia, buy a 4x4 in La Paz, and just roll.

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Some desert, southern Bolivia

25/7 Next day heading south we are treated to more spectacular scenery and a flamingo dance-show, quite a sight. I'd show you but i cant find the video my internet is too slow.

Further south is less spectacular, the lakes have all but dried up, the national park entry is a rip-off, and its a long bumpy drive. Worth it if you're using a tour to cross the border with Chile or Argentina, but otherwise i'd recommend one night is enough - the salt flats and flamingoes did it for me, the rest was more punishment than passion.

That said, the geysers are impressive, if smelly. The accomodation however was cold and basic, so I was glad to have an arctic sleeping bag (well, a cheap supermarket one, extended with a fleece at a local tailors)

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Chilly, near Chile

26/7 Chilly and early start. We're on a tight schedule to get back. But first some relief from the cold at a hot spring.

Its a long trip back. Ivette and I try to study for a bit but there's tension. I can't remember the details but she had said some things that I found condescending, and I felt treated as if a child. I told her so, and learnt about her being a bit of a diva as a child. We cleared the air. I think these little challenges were part of the reason for my travelling with her. Did I say I wanted a surrogate mother?

Back in town to shower and change and head straight onto the overnight train to Oruno.

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Oruno

27/7 Dawn as the train appoaches Oruno. The carriage windows are thickly iced up. As they thaw we see it's a beautiful ride through the salt lakes. Flamingoes and other flocks of birds fill the sky and waters.

We spend the day at Oruno before catching a bus onto La Paz.

Spot the cute granny...

In La Paz, we do exactly what the guidebooks say not to do, get a cabbie to show us somewhere to stay. But this works out just fine, we get a decent private room for half the price of a hostel dorm bed, and best of all there are no backpackers.

Ok that's enough my head hurts. Coming up next.. Ivette locks me out of our hotel room.

Northern Argentina

Tafi del Valle, Quilmes, Cafayate

13/7 In Tucuman I meet a couple of mad northerners, share a hire-car with them, and drive off to Calafate to taste some wine, dropping off at the Quilmes ruins and passing quite a few cacti.

Some anxiety going on. The previous night I had 2 dreams. In one I get mad and smash a shelf of plastic cups onto the floor. My sister and mother are in the room. In another I witness a skydive that turns into a balloon landing. I am next and scared.

In my diary I note how of two girls I met recently, the one I spotted and approached myself (rather than being introduced), was more typical of the sensitive type I am attracted to. Not surprising really, but made me think that subconsciously I'm looking to rescue and be rescued but if I want a casual affair, I should pick girls more randomly!?)

Cachi and some canyons

14/7 We're on a tight schedule having the car for only two days, so Simon "Schumacher" puts it to the test. We race along some roads winding through canyons stopping to visit the odd "devil's gorge" here and there.

Spot the backpacker

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Salta

15/7 Say goodbye to the northerners, say see you on Facebook etc.

Climb a hill. Visit church. Tick.

16/7 Heavy snow, quite pretty.

Get the woollies on, "matching" hat and jumper, as people keep commenting, though the hat comes from Nepal (a gift from my sis). Funny that remote peoples separated by oceans can produce matching winter-wear. Else it all just looks "ethnic". Oops missing the photo maybe will find one.

And since its snowing i take the opportunity to lose my jacket, stolen in a bar at night. I try pity as a chat-up but it fails and I end up going home alone in the snow at 4am wearing only a t-shirt.. de na na naaa. Well the jacket served its time well, and someone probably more in need of it will benefit.

Jujuy

17/7 A bit of a blur. Town itself reminds me of somewhere like Slough, but with better looking women.

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Though i remember staying in a crappy hostel but met someone who told me about a great thermal spa just out of town, so I move into luxury for a night to recover from the cold grime of the hostel.

Termas de Reyes

18/7 Check-in to a beautiful spa hotel in the middle of no-where. Lounge in a natural thermal volcanic pool while it snows. Lush. Just missing the romance.

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Purmamara, Salinas Grandes

19/7 Lots to see that's hard to reach by public transport, so i hire a car for a day. Drive to Purmamara, a beautiful town nestled within a strikingly coloured landscape. My pictures don't do it justice.

Here I meet some backpackers including a chirpy mexican I call Divette and offer to drive them to Salinas Grandes, some awesome salt flats.

Later head back and onto Tilcares where we all stay at a terrible hostel. I crawl into my sleeping bag to escape the cold.

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Humuhuaca

20/7 I escape alone before dawn and enjoy the early drive, past the tropic of Capricorn (my sign) and onto Humahuaca, another pretty town nestled in more pretty coloured hills.

Find a nice place for breakfast which turns out to be a lovely hotel as well, so I check-in and a naughty thought crosses my mind. I call Divette, the chirpy mexican, and invite her to come over and stay with me (she is heading north also). I'm a bit surprised she accepts. While she makes her way up on the bus, I return the hirecar to Jujuy for lunchtime, and then catch a bus back. The logistics are a bit messed up, times like this I wish I had my own car. Anyway, I'm excited that a pretty young mexican girl I met yesterday has agreed to share my double-room tonight so it doesn't matter.

But it turns out she is a good catholic mexican, and her "body is a temple". Well I had been looking forward to worshipping it, but there were some irreconcilable differences in definition here. So we just sleep peacefully like saints, and in the morning I test her English by using the expression "Morning glory". I explain. At this she jumps out of the bed as if there had been a snake in it (well there was, sort of), and from this point on I'm convinced the one-eyed chappie is on a dead-end mission here.

Scene of no crime

However, we get on well and decide to continue travelling up north together. I can't decide if I like or loath this girl, but either way it makes a change from travelling solo, and I get to practice my Spanish.

Divette, propping up the flintstones bar in Humuhuaca

We hop onto a bus to the Bolivian border for the next leg of adventure..

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Independence Day

(A name or so may have been changed for privacy)

5/7 Leaving Buenos Aires for the second time was even harder. An appointment to reach in Colombia, a few thousand km away, finally lures me out of town.

Go to church, need some spiritual guidance. An old lady sitting in the pew in front of me asks for my name, prays for me, and gives me a little prayer card. It still sits in my wallet 3 months later.

Say a final goodbye to a special girl I will miss.

Feeling shit leaving, stuff my face like Homer.

Night train to Cordoba. Makes a nice change from the bus, though the ride was quite bumpy. Eat & chill in restaurant car before crashing into a real bed! Splashed out on a cabin :-)

6/7 Wake up at 3am, piss in the room sink, back to bed. Wake up at 9am, head to the now packed restaurant car. Join some Cordobese students who make me a comprehensive list of interesting places to visit in the area (Capilla del Monte, La Cumbre, La Falda, San Marcos Sierra, Villa General Belgrano, La Cumbrecita, Villa Alpina, Los Gigantes - Cerro de la Cruz, Cabalango - Tanti). Well interesting to know for next time, as I only made it to one of Che's old homes.

Arrive Cordoba. Scour my dusty cyber-records for any contacts I may have here. Three come up.

1. Some hottie totty met on the beaches of Brazil, but she has de-friended me on Facebook, clearly a cleanup since her profile now shows two heads.

2. A chap I met down in Patagonia. No answer though, even to my request if he can host 11 dutch girls to watch the football. Clearly married or gay.

3. Gise, a lovely girl met on the beaches of brazil. I had no recollection, but luckily my friends have better memories, and are better at staying in touch.

In the evening arrange to meet the dutch team at a concert in town. It's packed, a massive event something to do with independence, but still meeting a 6-foot blonds in a such a crowd is pretty easy.

7/7 Do something cultural. Visit one of Che's old homes.. what a normal looking family.

Afternoon invite the 11 dutch girls to come and watch the football at my hostel, half turn up but thats still plent to help prepare some lovely fresh pizza. Bernie in the background is keeping a watchful eye.

Early evening there's some live music in the hostel, which I quite enjoy. A mixture of styles and languages. Some of it's quite romantic, the candles are out, and I get a little cuddly with one of the dutch on the couch. But the team have to leave later so the romance is short-lived.

Later in the evening head out to meet Gise, and Michelle, a friend of a friend who happens to be in Cordoba, as you do.

Michelle is a strong-willed girl, like our friend in common, Jez. If i ever make it to New York i'll call her up and can imagine it would be a blast.

Almost as an afterthought, Gise gives me the phone number of her cousin in Tucuman, who proves to be a wonderful guide.

8/7 Recovery. Day chilling out on the hostel roof terrace, admiring the murals, making silly faces, and popping out occasionally to check out the local scenery.

Join the hostel BBQ on the roof in the evening. Yum. Then crash out contented onto the midnight bus to Tucuman.

9/7 Independence Day Argentina, which was declared in Tucuman on this day about 200 years ago. So I've come to the right place on the right day. Except I have no-where to stay, so leave my luggage in the bus terminal on a 24 hour ticket.

It's early morning and apart from an uplifting military parade, celebrations don't really get going till the afternoon, so I kill the morning by having breakfast twice and looking for somewhere to stay.

All the hostels and hotels are full, and the love-hotels only take couples (mental note for later). I even try to strike a deal in a brothel, but they close at 9pm, and anyway are closed today for Independence Day. However an off-duty lady of the morning/afternoon lets me in for tea, a chat, and use of the house bathroom.

Off-duty knickers

And off to the local park for a siesta and some lunch. Another day full of pressing tasks.

In the afternoon president Cristina Kirchner pops by to make a speech. The argies aren't very enthusiastic, I think their presence is reserved for the parade that follows..

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Later, armed with a phone number from heaven, cousin Sophia comes to meet me with some of her friends, so I put on my best behaviour for dinner, trying to hold it together after a whole night on a bus and no shower. We all pop by to her place for several cups of coffee, and then out to a rock concert by Charly García, Argentinia's Mick Jagger allegedly. Sophia is cute, but so is one of her friends, and in between a bit of concert jiggering I'm trying to gauge my best chance for accommodation tonight. I'm not detecting any clear signals either way so I stay on the fence for a while longer.

There's a lack of alcohol going on, so this is fixed later as we all retire to a bar. It's cold and on the way I try a little ambiguous hugging with Sophia, which seems to go down quite well. I follow-up in the bar with some under-the-table hand-holding, but I've still no sense of where this might go. It's a bit of a waiting game until everyone starts heading home and Sophia expresses disappointment that her mother is staying over at her place, so much for Independence Day. But Argentina, like any latin country has a great solution to such problems.. the ♥ motel :-D

10/7 Sleep. A hostel now has vacancy. Out later for a spot of clubbing. A crowd of ladies hover outside trying to get into a disco. The bouncer lets me straight in. I wish it was this easy in London.

11/7 World-cup final. Celebrate Spain's victory with Sophie, now that mama has felt.. :-)

12/7 Meet a couple of English brothers in the hostel who have booked a hire-car for the next day. They invite me along which I accept and so the next day I join them on a mad dash through the wine regions of Cafayate and Cachi ending up in Salta...

Football and sex

Taking ages to get this damned post out. A lot of personal stuff again, and with no pictures to hide behind, I've been stuck a lot. I want to be as honest as possible, but how honest should you be? Is it ok to say i was depressed this morning so had a wank to cheer myself up for a few minutes? I guess there's only one way to find out...

Early June 2010, still in Buenos Aires

There are plenty of STDs about that don't necessarily show symptoms. Yes safe-sex i know, and do, but every now and then things get out of control. Anyway in Buenos Aires there don't seem to be any one-stop STD clinics like in London, or at least I didn't find one. I start by googling HIV test Buenos Aires which unsurprisingly takes me to a gay support site, but at least gives a clinic address. I turn up but am refused testing - it's a gay-only clinic, hey I should just have lied. They refer me to another address, a dodgy looking alleyway just north of Palermo. The reception is drearly and abandonned. I hover looking for signs of life, noting the empty condom dispenser, and faded wall-posters suggesting I'm in the right place. The building care-taker appears from a small office and invites me in. The room looks groggy but the needles aren't dodgy. Maybe he's not the caretaker - he gives me the spiel, takes my blood, and says come back in a week. He also explains that if I pretend I live here I can get the other tests done in a nearby clinic.

Feeling pretty peaceful i write in my diary which is near-illegible so here's a little extract "in this space of peace many things come to mind which I want to share. But after they come to mind as I'm walking down the street the thoughts somehow elude capture..... On religion for example... it has its cycle too, it is born, exists and dies off. But the energy from which it springs remains... Someone starts out with its purest essence and then tries to share this, over time becoming poluted and corrupted until it bares little of the essence from which it sprang. Jesus and others did this. And Lilia is now following a spiritual path grown from the work of a dutchman. Neither is right or wrong. One is newer than the other and may therefore be purer, but the newer it is , the less accessible.

Someone writes of the need for a garden in which to nurture the seed within our souls. Does it matter what garden that is? As long as there is light, and nutrition, and care. And if we cannot find that garden, maybe we create one in our world, a 'real' one as my mother does, tending lovingly to the other living things about us. How simply they respond to our care, they blossom. Not so easy for us people, so much more care and energy we need to blossom.."

Blast from the past

I feel like screwing everyone. A hot german girl travelling with her boyfriend. The two receptionists at the hostel. It's everywhere, relentlessly it goes on..

I've met dozens of women who miss their fathers, either because they were abandoned, rejected, abused, or simply not hugged enough. It's groundhog day in the love department.

Some soft words from my diary "I'm sensitive to the broken-hearted and I listen and listen and listen until I'm broke myself. We turn to each other but ultimately find this lacking as we are each limited in our capacity to give, so we turn to god who draws no limits. And by doing so we pray to open ourselves that we too may have no limits."

I book to see a psychologist or two, wouldn't you?

Tango therapy
Meanwhile a cheaper therapy -- back to tango classes at La Viruta. It's kiddy in a candy store - I'm stunned at the range of pretty latin women I meet in one evening: Venezuelan, Chilean, Spanish, Argentinian, Mexican, Brazilian. I enjoy the classes. Apart from anything it's a way of socialising without having to talk very much, which suits me. It's a huge challenge though, tango can only be danced with feeling, so if you're blocking your feelings, by being English for example, then it all gets quite comical. Nevertheless I have faith in my spanish roots and enough sense of suffering to qualify for tango.

The classes work like this: you pick your level (absolute beginner, beginner, intermediate.. etc) and join the group. Then grab a partner and "dance" to give the instructors some entertainment and a flavour of how bad you are. The instructors (a pair) demo a move, you have a go, swapping partners now and then. It's a lot of fun except when you get a girl (usually american) who decides to hang off your shoulders like an over-laden backpack, so that turns become the dance equivalent of trying to open a stubborn jar of marmelade.

That said, its a cheap night, and the hours fly by.

Kissing therapy
Another tango night, with some salsa and rock thrown in for good measure. More lovely ladies. This evening I feel a connection with one of the girls at the class. The tango embrace is intimate, and during breaks in the dance , that we are a second or so later in letting go of each other tells it all.

I invite her for a Capirinha and join her friends at a table. We stagger about the dancefloor some more, and it feels good even though we are both terrible. She has beautiful eyes and I'm trying to control myself, but when her lips break into a smile that's it, I can't help myself. Forget all the fantastic scenery in South America, there is nothing more beautiful than a smile on a pretty girl.

Anyway, during a break for air, I spot some of Lilia's friends on the dance-floor, which is a handy warning as Lilia herself (my ex-lover) soon comes into view. She had fallen in love with tango, a happy result of our meeting back in March when I first invited her to a class. Anyway we all greet and she seems happy, and later gives me a lovely warm hug, instead of a slap in the face which I might have expected in a tango hall.

The passion and emotion of the evening takes its toll on me, and later i'm back at my hostel and want to weep but there are people sleeping in the room, so just a few tears leak into my pillow and I'm off with the fairies.

England 1 - USA 1
Days have turned into paragraph numbers, so i deleted them. Were it not for the World Cup I'd probably not know what month it is, let alone the day. All the matches are in the daytime here, which is perfect for a retired bum like me. For brunch I stroll to a local bar for a classic English fry-up and football f&ck-up.

Boarding school

Feeling really crap. Maybe lying in a hostel dorm and hearing the voices of some RP brits transports me back to boarding school. I didn't feel I belonged there. I ponder how the difference between cultures seems so much greater than the differences between people within the same culture. So coming from a mixed cultural background automatically makes me a social outlier, but with this comes greater creative potential. Put all the outliers together and you get a city, like London for example, and the collective becomes the new norm. And so it goes on.

Around this time I decide I don't belong to the regular backpacker collective and move into a hotel to go a little crazy on my own.

Small dose of sanity at a new tango class in the evening. Always feel better after surviving something a little scary.

How to measure an ego
Necesity is the mother of invention, and disatisfaction is the father of capability. If you are happy with what you got, why make it better?

I distract my my mind by doing some internet research on ego measurement and life cycle modelling. It's a developing area, and I'm both encouraged and concerned to find that the US defence department have recently (2009) started to fund some related research. Cue Michael Crichton a new novel..? Though his book "Prey" probably already comes somewhere close to it.

Psychologist

Therapy is basically freelance parenting. During childhood you get what you're given, after that its about 50 quid an hour. There are no rules to say how much parenting is right - whatever you get is a gift. Anyway I decided to go for a top-up today, to see a nice old chap who sat in an armchair patiently listening. What is said is hardly important, the point is having someone listen. So the following transcript is completely fictitious:

"What do you suggest doc?"

Doc: "Well, do you want to change?"

"Of course not, I enjoy shagging random women, it gives me a kick"

Doc: "oh wonderful, that'll be 250 pesos"

"Thanks doc"

Doc: "My pleasure"

No psychologist

Cancel appointment with another psychologist and go watch football instead at my local, which has a tasty breakfast and even tastier twins waitressing.

Plenty of time to think about time. If you think about it, time only goes forward if you think about it. This is because perception without action, such as looking at a clock, increases the amount of information in your head, reducing it's uncertainty, or entropy, so increasing the entropy outside your head. This entropic differential gives rise to the thermodynamic arrow of time. Typical symptoms include thinking the world is a mess, or feeling generally disatisfied. There is however a simple cure - stop looking at the clock. When you're not looking at it, it can go in any direction, including backwards. Really.

Back to tango in the evening, meet a lovely hippie with a big behind, an even larger heart, and huge hugs that squeeze tears out of you. She also does Akashic records reading and I ask her if she can do one for me one day. Like anything, it works if you believe in it, so for me it didn't really work, but I thought it would be cool to have a go, and get a couple more of those hugs.

Work

Spend a day sorting out some property issues back home. This is important as i'm living off rent.

Get very depressed. Write in my diary "What is this pain asking me to do?". The mind is a delay-response system designed to increase its energetic advantage. If no imaginable future action is predicted to achieve this, then the mind goes on strike, forcing faith to take over.

Meanwhile some simple tasks are still possible. I kill time by calculating my cost of living and travel in Argentina - its has averaged 45 quid a day.

Hippies

My hippie friend invites me to an indigenous meeting in Quilmes, I go but feel out of place, get bored, leave early, and go to hostel BBQ and feel out of place with some backpackers instead.

Happy Ending

I think about shagging some whore, but decide to go for a decent massage instead, with happy ending. To balance things out, i visit an art gallery beforehand.

Early morning air

Wake up at 5am, doesn't happen often, but when it does i'm reminded what a good time of day early morning is. Must try it more often. I use the time to plan how i'm going to get to Colombia, an epic trip which if taken overland is about 150 hours.

Some random lists for the record...

Things i want to do

Learn to dance

Learn languages

Teach maths

Study on entropy changes in complex systems, eg life.

Stay in new and interesting places which inspire me and meet new and interesting people who dont talk a lot of shit.

Things i avoid doing

various admin, accounts, paying tax

sorting out finances

staying in touch

anything too scary

Argentina 0 Germany 4

Trainspotting moments as I watch this game from the comfort of my bed. My Argentine lover is spared the suffering of seeing her country thrashed, she is pleasantly distracted.

Argentina dropping out of the world cup is a good cue for me to move on. I have a small leaving dinner the night before to say goodbye to some lovely people, and take the train the next day to Cordoba...