Salt of the Earth, Bolivia

The bustling town of Uyuni, Bolivia, located nine hours north of the border town of Villazon, appears to exist solely for the purpose of catering to tourists desiring 4x4 expeditions through the surrounding countryside. We first heard about these tours from a pair of Dutch boys at a Chilean hostel, and figured we'd never participate ourselves. However, curiosity eventually got the better of us.

Our tour consisted of our driver, Leonardo, his wife/our cook Barbara, and five Italian agronomists. Three of the Italians live in La Paz and speak fluent Castellano. Two were visiting from Italy, and spoke only Italian, which to my ear sounded like fluent Castellano. Anyway, they were all quite nice, and besides for the occasional communication problems, we preferred them to the squawking Brits and Aussies we encountered at each stop. Also, they reminded us a lot of the characters in The Best of Youth.

On the first day, we explored a train "museum" -- really an old rail yard where locomotives are left to oxidize in the dusty air. From there, we visited a tiny town where a woman demonstrated how local families dry, pulverize, and package salt for consumption. And from there, we headed to the blindingly white salt flats, covered in many places by a warm cover of rainwater. Everything sparkled and shined, and the water made the mountains on the horizon seem to float in air.

The highlight of Day One was the town where we ended up and it's eerie necropolis. We spent the hour before the sun set exploring the site, which consisted of beehive-like constructions of rock scattered throughout a desert landscape. Each of the constructions housed visible human remains. Many were just skulls and femurs, but there were also some remarkably intact mummified corpses, dressed in tattered woven material and surrounded by pottery shards. All of the remains dated to pre-Incan times.

Day Two brought us to a series of small lakes, many of which were choked with colorful micro-organisms and deposits of arsenic and borax. We watched pink and white flamingos traipse about, their skinny legs folding at impossible angles. At night we stayed at a crowded encampment, sleeping seven to a room. Before bed, we taught Leonardo how to play Rummy 500, and neglected to correct him when he slapped runs and three-of-a-kinds down on the table that weren't deservedly his. Afterwards, everybody turned in early to be rested for our 4:30 am wake-up.

We pulled out the next morning in the frigid, pitch black, listening to Leonardo's stories about how drug smugglers move marijuana and cocaine into Chile by dressing up as tourists on the same 4x4 excursions we were on. We climbed to 4900 meters (the Italians had a GPS to verify it) to take in roaring geysers. The steam smelled noxiously of sulfur, but everyone was eager to brave it for the heat it provided.

The highlight of Day Three, and possibly of the trip, was a stop at some thermal baths. Despite the lack of an adequate changing area, the Italians stripped down to their tighty-whities to go for a dip. Not wanting to disrupt group solidarity, we quickly joined them, relaxing in the warm water while more tours arrived and spent awhile gawking and photographing us in their parkas and wool hats. Eventually, almost everyone joined in.

The Italians had a bus to catch that night, so we spent most of the morning and all of the afternoon booking it back to Uyuni. Unfortunately, our jeep was unwilling to cooperate. Because one of the wheels was improperly aligned on its axle, Leonardo had to make infrequent stops to remove the wheel and reattach it again. Once, someone asked how long it would take to walk to Uyuni. "A day and a night," Leonardo said, "Then another day and another night, and probably another one too." He drew some kind of symbol in the dirt with a tire iron, which presumably helped. Also helpful--continually crossing himself in between bites of coca leaves.

In the end, the fickle gods smiled down on us. We made one last stop at a town that Leonardo claimed existed solely for drug trafficking. The low stone houses were all shuttered up, and on the hillside, above a yawning cave, the mangled remains of a prop plane were twisted into the rock. There was definitely a story there. From the town, it was a straight shot to Uyuni, with the occasional braking for llamas the only thing to slow us down. After 14 hours of driving, the Italians made their bus by about 20 minutes. -NSH

Quebrada Arriba

After Tilcara, we continued up the Quebrada de Humuaca to the tiny town of Iruya, which we reached via a stomach churning three hour bus ride. As we bought our bus tickets, we were warned that because it had rained the night before, the roads were particularly bad, and the bus would not in fact be going all the way to Iruya - instead we would be dropped off a couple kilometers from town and would need to complete the journey on foot.

The ride, mostly over dirt roads, occasionally through full fledged rivers, was indeed rough, but our bus driver performed impressively. The ride was through beautiful high Andean plateau, climbing to the 4,000 meter Abra Condor pass. I'm not sure whether it was because of the extraordinary views or merely the lack of oxygen at that altitude, but our entire bus became giddy as we went over the pass, snapping photos and jumping from one side of the bus to the other in an effort to get the best views.

About two kilometers short of Iruya, we encountered a river running across the road. Despite our bus drivers best attempts to drive through the torrential water, we were unable to cross. Instead, he got out of the bus and began throwing rocks in the river, in an attempt to construct a temporary bridge. After waiting a few minutes, all the tourists piled out the bus and began to assist him, gleefully throwing rocks and splashing each other, while the locals remained on the bus, hoping that our efforts would pay off. After fifteen minutes of construction effort, the driver sucessfully negotiated the river, and managed to deliver us all the way to Iruya.

In Iruya, upon disembarking from the bus we were met by an enterprising youngster, who promised to get us a room for 25 pesos. We followed her up Iruya's steepest hill, where she took us from house to house, until we finally found a family with a suitable room for us.

We spent two days in Iruya, mostly watching the donkeys and goats that have the run of the town. After a fruitless attempt at acquiring some horses for a day's riding (the owner of the hosteria sent us to check at a kiosk, where we were informed that the only person who might have horses was the hosteria owner) and exploring the nearby canyons and riverbeds on foot (somewhat taxing giving the altitude). We left Iruya early on the morning of the third day, waiting for the bus in the dark at five am with a crowd of locals and one friendly donkey. We arrived in Humuahaca dead tired, but in time for the bus to La Quiaca, our final stop in Argentina before heading into Bolivia. -EMW

Where The Streets Are Paved in Cheap Empanadas

With our finances dwindling and our return to the states still long on the horizon, Emily and I have decided to head up north, where the living is miraculously cheaper. Fortunately, the warm and arid region of Argentina where we've ended up is also full of many colorful and interesting sights.

After securing an apartment rental in Salta beginning April 1st, we continued on to the city of Jujuy, which is very fun to say (hoo-hooey!). The bustling, Andean city is useful as a jumping-off point for the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a stunning gorge that boasts polychrome strata, eerie rock formations, and picturesque villages that feel lost to time.

Our first stop en route was the tranquil hamlet of Pumamarca, whose sights include a beautifully austere 17th century church, an impossibly crowded, cactus-strewn cemetery, and a dramatic mountain--El Cerro de los Siete Colores--that towers above the town. We took a long walk around the rainbow-colored rock, counting many more than seven shades of orange, pink, grey, and green. We also loitered around the central square, where squat old women sell weavings and other wares. After sampling lomo de llama for dinner (it tastes kind of like pork, but... smokier?), we retired to our tent, which we'd foolishly staked a mere six inches from four of the most annoying girls in Argentina. They stayed up all night taking flash photos of each other and singing Bob Marley's "Jammin", but I think one of them got trapped in the bathroom the next morning, which I attribute to karma.

From Purmamarca we continued up the gorge to the slightly larger town of Tilcara. Boasting a campground with a) space and b) grass, we were wholly prepared to love place. However, resolving to attempt an asado, we almost came to grief in "downtown" Tilcara, where none of the stores are ever open, and don't stock anything even when they are. Thankfully, we finally found a butcher willing to hack some slabs off a hanging cow carcass, and a bakery with stale bread. No one in town had any carbon, but by shovelling together the coals from extinguished asado fires back at the campground, we were able to get a flame going. Sadly, we had to eat our steaks in the dark, as we'd neglected to remember that the sun sets hours earlier than it does in Patagonia.

The next morning we were tricked into ordering the world's foulest coffee (3 parts powdered milk to 1 part instant coffee, add boiling water) before setting out for the Pukara--the imposing ruins of an enormously complex pre-Columbian fortress that was used briefly by the Incas. Roaming around the reconstructed stone walls and ominous sacrificial altars, we were willing to overlook Tilcara's other flaws. And, because our tickets to the Pukara also got us into an archeology museum housing Andean mummies, we decided that Tilcara deserved a thumbs-up.

For the next week or so, we'll continue climbing up the gorge, reaching altitudes of 4000m. as long as our tender American lungs don't collapse. We plan to poke around at least three or four more of these tiny hamlets before ending up in Bolivia where, my mother warns me, they have something called "the road of death". -NSH

Butch Cassidy, har har har

We broke up our journey between Perito Moreno Ciudad and Bariloche with a stop in Esquel, planning to head over to Cholila, a nearby town featuring the dilapidated remains of three cabins where Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Etta Place spent 1901 to 1905, hiding out from the law and trying their hand at a more peaceful ranching life. Our travel planning was flawless, except for our failure to take into account the fact that Esquel and Cholila are near each other only in a very general sense, somewhat like Maine is near Delaware. However, having stopped in Esquel, we felt committed to completing our excursion, and we hopped on a bus for Cholila.

We asked the driver to drop us off at the Casa de Piedras tea house in Cholila, a wily attempt to conceal our true destination. The bus driver knew what was up though, elbowing Nate as he got off the bus and chortling, “Butch Cassidy! Har har har!” Apparently it was obvious that we had not taken the five hour bus ride for a cup of tea.

After arriving, we blundered around the farms on either side of the road, hopping random fences only to find ourselves face to face with enormous steers. We finally realized we would never find the cabins by relying on blind luck alone, and walked over to the Casa de Piedras, where we wandered through a deserted tea room, and entered the kitchen looking for assistance. We found the owner, hair still in curlers, enjoying lunch in front of a blaring television. She put her arm around me and kindly (pityingly) directed us 200 meters back in the direction we had come from, to the sign clearly labelled “Butch Cassidy” with an arrow pointing towards the cabins. As we left, she wistfully asked us if we were very sure we didn’t want any tea.

We arrived at the cabins shortly after. One was partially rebuilt, while the other two were in a sadly (but authentically) decrepit state. Someone had gone to some effort to impart a creepy vibe to the site, with animal skulls nailed threateningly to the fence and skins draped from the rafters. We searched unsuccessfully for an escape tunnel the three had allegedly built and contemplated outlaw life.

Veni, Vidi, Vindimia!

Nearly a month ago, Emily and I resolved to make it as far north as Mendoza for the city's annual celebration of the wine harvest. Held the first weekend in March, Vindimia is an unrivaled spectacle of vino, consisting of parades and music and dance extravaganzas, and culminating with the election of a beauty queen from among the ranks of the city's rival districts.

Normally we're pretty lax about scheduling, but in this case our planning paid off. We stepped off the bus on Saturday morning and into the throng of Carrusel, a procession of floats, marching bands, and sequined dancers. From the beauty queens throwing fresh (and often heavy) produce to the throngs below, to the gauchos who struggled mightily to coax their horses across the grates in the street, there was a great deal of excitement to observe.

Mendoza is Argentina's wine capital, and as such, it's a major port of call both for oenephiles and dilettantes who dig free tastings. The two of us fall squarely into the latter category, so we decided to spend our Monday in Maipu--the satellite town where the bodegas are most densely clustered. While waiting for the bus to bring us there, a slick salesman sidled up next to us and told us about a bike rental place in central Maipu. He explained that the evil cartel of "Bikes and Wines" was run out of Mendoza, while the mom-and-pop operation he was helping--unimaginatively called "Rental Bikes"--was a local operation. This was our first indication that a battle for the hearts and minds of malbec-guzzling bike renters was being waged in wine country.

Unsure with whom to pledge our allegiance, Emily and I decided to walk to the first bodega. Nicknamed "La Rural", San Felipe is a vineyard that churns out the usual batch of malbecs and syrahs, while also housing a museum dedicated to winemaking. After admiring some 16th-century cowskins used for mashing grapes and marvelling at rich U.S. buyers who dumped half-glasses of $80 peso wine into the communal jug, we decided to move on.

Fortunately, we weren't long before meeting a very friendly couple from Buenos Aires who were driving from bodega to bodega. The "Bikes and Wines" vs. "Rental Bikes" debate had been settled for us. We sat in their backseat while they navigated between wineries, and quickly discovered that being chauffered between cool cellars was far superior to pedalling under a scorching sun. Plus, we were able to drink about three times more red wine than would have otherwise been possible.

We tried to duplicate the magic the next day, but failed miserably. Two of the three bodegas we visited charged money for tours and tastings, and a fourth turned out not to exsist at all. Now that Vindimia's over and most of the major bodegas are under our belts, Emily and I have been using our time to stroll around Mendoza's wide, shady streets, hang out in its spacious parks, and explore its smattering of sites, including an anthropology museum, an aquarium, and even a greenhouse housing deadly snakes and spiders. We can't quite bring ourselves to trudge out to the bus station and buy our next pair of tickets--things in Mendoza are laid-back, friendly, and addictively relaxing. -NSH

I want a pony!

After weeks of backpacking and camping, Nate and I were in desperate need of a sleeping situation not involving thermarests and tents, so we decided to spend a couple of days relaxing at an old estancia on Route 40 run by Petty and her husband Coco. Key to the estancia experience for me was the possibility of horse riding. When I called to make our reservation, Petty informed me that the estancia did indeed have horses and, "if you know how to ride, you can certainly ride." I sat on a horse once 15 years ago without any major problems, so I informed her that yes, of course Nate and I knew how to ride.

Once we had arrived at the estancia, she seemed slightly more reluctant to entrust two of her horses to our clearly untutored hands. Over breakfast she made us sign a release form while fellow guests (who were too scared to ride themselves) reminded us of what a great responsibility we were accepting by taking the horses, and quizzed us about saddlery, asking if we were aware that the horses here were saddled western style. We did not. Did we know what western style was? No. After thoroughly demonstrating our ignorance of all things equine, Petty introduced us to our horses. Nate was given Petty's horse, Coco, (apparently named after her husband), while I rode Pampero, a fat brown horse. Under Petty's close watch, I took Pampero for a practice ride around the paddock, while Nate kicked a totally immobile Coco in a fruitless attempt to get him moving. Petty watched for a few minutes before announcing "I think you'll need a whip!" Whip in hand, Nate got Coco moving, and we hit the trail, chasing sheep around the estancia and marvelling at the bone and carcass littered landscape.

The beauty of taking horses out alone (especially when provided with a whip) is that you can finally do all the things that guides, for some reason, restrain you from doing: make the horses run, jump over streams, play chicken with the other riders. The downside is that horses are willful, lazy animals, and without a guide or a competent rider to keep them in line, they immediately lose the trail, pretend that they are totally unfamiliar with the terrain, and generally use all their wiles in an attempt to trick the rider into letting them return home. We fell for none of their tricks, and had an excellent ride. -EMW

The mythical Ruta 40

Ruta 40 is the lengthy highway that stretches along Argentina's western border, connecting southern Patagonia with the rest of the country. Guidebooks are apparently obligated to refer to it as "mythical," which in this case apparently means very, very long and unmaintained and poorly served by buses. Only one company provides any transport--one bus, on even numbered days only. We caught a bus out of El Chalten to Perito Moreno (the city, not the glacier or the man--see below.)

The ride was hot, dusty and 12 hours long, with unchanging views of flat, parched fields. The road consisted of a bumpy one lane dirt track, occasionally narrowing to two ruts. Our bathroomless bus made frequent pit stops, giving us a chance to enjoy the scenery at even greater length. The drivers also pulled the bus over for essentially anything that broke up the monotony of the landscape: a service station serving coffee and pie, a river, an armadillo. Our bus driver pulled over and leapt on the armadillo, holding it up for all the passengers to see and pet while the armadillo shit in terror. The ride finally, thankfully, ended in Perito Moreno, a city only marginally less desolate than the landscape that preceded it. -EMW

Pigment and Spit

In classic Argentine fashion, the country's department of tourism takes great pains to hype the Cueva de las Manos without providing much in the way of infastructure for people to actually visit. There's one business in the infamous Perito Moreno offering excursions, but it took us two days to catch them when they were open (they're called "Guanacondor" which, to the best of our knowledge, is translated "Shit Buzzard").

Fortunately, Emily and I did manage to successfully sign up for a tour, which ended up consisting of the two of us, three Argentine women, and a guide. The guide drove us a few hours over extremely bumpy ripio roads until reaching the rim of the canyon housing the paintings. From the rim, it was roughly 45 minutes of steep descent, followed by an equally steep ascent. Because the trail cut through red rock outcroppings and scrubby desert vegetation, there was a great deal of scenery to admire. However, our fellow travellers were mostly interested in taking pictures in a wooded glen where the Rio Pinturas winds through the canyon bed. "Don't forget to get my shoes in the photo," warned one of the women. She had snappy new red sneakers.

In the end, the Cueva de las Manos was well worth the trouble taken to visit. A mysterious archaeological site, the "cave" (really a series of exposed overhangs) features 829 negative images of hands, created 9500 years ago by tribes in the area. By placing their hands on the rock wall and blowing pigment over top, the primitive artists created an eerie, remarkably long-lasting tableaux. In and around the hands are images of guanacos--the llama-like creatures that still wander around the dusty landscape. There are other indigenous paintings from 2500 years ago consisting of scribbly stick figures and jagged lines. I think everyone sort of silently agrees that these are pretty half-assed by comparison.

The woman who escorted us around the site (you're not allowed to go yourself in case you get the urge to spraypaint "TE AMO COCO!" or something over the hands) explained that some archaeologists theorize that the ancient painters might have successfully domesticated guanacos in the area. Guanacos usually appear pretty tame, so I didn't initially find this terribly impressive. However, on the ride back to Perito Moreno, we stopped off to use the bathroom at a hostel and saw one of the gangly creatures ambling around the grounds. We all took turns taking photos ("don't forget to get my shoes!") until the guanaco got restless and suddenly arched its back. Seconds later, a foul spray of spit flew from its mouth. Tragically, my shirt smelled of regurgitated grass for many hours after, giving me a new perspective from which to admire the resourceful cave painters and guanaco herders. -NSH