Patagonia: Tierra del Fuego (22-24 enero)

The day after my long time on a bus to and back Perito Moreno, I had a full day of travel to get to Ushuaia--the world´s furthest south city; consisting of 2 buses, a boat, and a minibus.  I slept for most of the trip, so everytime I was awoken to spanish instructions as to what I had to do next or where I had to go, I was very confused and disoriented.  Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago at the south of the continent that is shared by Chile and Argentina.  To enter the island, you must take a boat that in Chilean territory, but once on Isla Grande, we crossed the border into the Argentine side, which Ushuaia is on.  The crossing this time was a lot easier--we didn´t even have to get off the bus...the guy on the bus just took all our passports and papers (which was a bit sketchy), brought them all into the office and then came back with them all checked and stamped.

view of the city from my second hostel

My first day there I ended up just walking around the city and exploring.  The hostal I had stayed at was full for the following night, so I had to find a new one, and I found out about hikes I could do in the Parque nacional Tierra del Fuego.  I also booked a tour to hike the Valle Andorra upto a glacier and then we would put on crampons and hike on the glacier!!  I was so stoked!  I also saw the memorial for the Islas Maldivas. And discovered that fresh fruit and veggies don´t exist that far south, and that the shitty stuff that's available is overpriced.  Also, that Ushuaia is a super touristy city, full of people doing excursions to Antarctica, and doesn´t have too much character or a culture of its own.

view of the park from cerro Guanaco

I had decided to go hiking in the national park on my second day, but it was pouring!  I went anyways, because I figured it would probably mean less people would be there, and I had already planned my day around going.  I met this British girl and Porteño from the hostel at breakfast who were also going to the park, and we were happy to find we were the only ones on the bus transfer to the park.  They did a hike around the shoreline, while I decided to hike up to Cerro Guanaco.  It had been written about as really steep and challenging, but without a 20 kilo pack on my back, it didn´t seem difficult at all.  I only ended up going up to the first mirador, as it was still pretty cloudy and the view wasn´t great.  The park was nice, but it wasn't magical like Torres.  I think if you lived in the area it would be a beautiful place to go on the weekends, but I didn´t need to go all the way to the "end of the world" to see it--we have parks that are nicer than it back home.  It´s still pretty amazing how lush it was considering how far south it is and how harsh the climate is.  But even though it´s the furthest south city in the world, it´s not as south as Belfast is north...

Overlooking Ushuaia

I went to the visitors centre while I was waiting for the shuttle back into town, and realized that the majority of visitors were out of shape middle-aged European and American tourists who were really happy to take a bus into nature for a bit for novelty of it, but had no interest in actually exploring the park.  The three of us headed back into town after our hikes and just chilled out and watched a movie.  That night we went to a bar where the Porteño knew some girls that lived there from back home and hung out, but holy fuck one of the girls spoke soooo fast!  For the most part I knew what was going on and could participate in the conversation, but then she would open her mouth and it would just be like rbahgdfjahbsaughsdiua.  I went home pretty early that night to get ready and have energy for my ice trekking on the glacier the following day!

Ushuaia from the viewpoint we rode to

So I woke up the next morning early, got all my stuff ready, went and had breakfast, only to find out that the company had called the hostal the previous night to advise that not enough people had signed up for the excursion so it was cancelled :(  I was so bummed out!  Besides how awesomely cool the trek would have been, I also didn't find this out until like 845am, making it kind of hard to plan any other activities for my final day there.  I ended up finding out about some half day horseback riding excursions you can do though, so I signed up for that in the afternoon, and for the hostel's Asado in the evening!

The horseback riding was super fun, but sooo windy (welcome to tierra del fuego).  We got on some mountains overlooking the city, and then went all the way down to the shore.  I don't think anyone else in the group had ever been on a horse before, so our pace at first was really slow--there was one girl who didn{t want to kick her horse everytime it stopped to eat as she didn't want to hurt it, which held us up a lot.  I got up ahead to the front though, and once our guide saw that I was comfortable on a horse, he let me gallop up ahead of the group and circle back around a few times which was fun.

The asado was sooo much meat.  Like ridiculous amounts of meat.  And a tiny bit of bread and lettuce.  and then more copious amounts of meat.  It was fun though, and an Aussie in my room and a couple french guys ended up hanging out at the asado and then heading upto the chilling out room with a gorgeous view afterwards to have some more drinks.  It was definitely a fun final night in the city.

Patagonia: Glaciar Perito Moreno (20 enero)

The day after I got back from my trek in TdP I had booked a day trip to the Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina, so I was pretty tired, but I slept for most of the 5.5 hour bus ride.  And I ran into this couple I had met while hiking the W which was cool.

When we got to the border though, they didn´t want to let me and this Australian family through because of their new reciprocity fee rules.  As of the 14 of january, Canadians, Aussies, and Americans have to pay recprocity fees to enter the country at any border (not just at airports which had been the case before), and for some reason, you had to have payed the fee in advance online before getting to the border--they wouldn't accept payment there.  So the guy was bitching about it and making a big deal, but then since we were returning to Chile later that afternoon he let us through but said that we were going to have to pay it online while we were in Calafate and present the receipt on our way back, otherwise they wouldn´t let us leave the country.  So silly.  And I will be going back and forth to Argentina a few times, so it´s still shitty to pay 75$, but at least it wasn´t just for one day--the Aussies were literally just going though for the day to see the glacier, and then had to pay this ridiculous fee to spend about 8 hours in the country.

Once we got through I just slept the rest of the way, and when we got to the Parque nacional las Glaciares, it was unreal!  The Perito Moreno glaciar is the biggest in Patagonia; one of the new advancing glaciers in the world, and the sheer size of it is just breathtaking.  We didn´t have very much time there though--just about an hour to walk around and see it from different angles, and then I went in a boat to see it from the bottom.  There were so many different colours and formations in it, and it was amazing how varied a piece of ice could be.  With the sun heating it up, every so often a part would fall off into the water making a giant splash and filling the air with a resounding BOOM.  The ripple of this piece would radiate for probably 30 m outwards, and then eventually the fallen piece would float back up to the surface to join the giant pieces of ice floating at the base of the glacier, that looked so small in comparison to the glacier.

The glacier spans 5 km across and is over 70 m tall from the water!  Combined with the backdrop of the mountains, it makes you feel so tiny and insignificant.  It also descends like 170 m below the water--it´s vastness is awe-inspiring.  Despite the beauty and uniqueness of the actual glaciar, the touristic aspect took a little bit away from the experience.  When I saw Glacar Grey in TdP, we climbed up to it, so not only was there this sense of personal discovery, but we were also the only ones there.  At Perito Moreno, you sit in a bus for 5 hours, get out with the hundreds of other tourists and take a bunch of photos like everyone else around you.  And then you get herded back onto the bus for the long ride home.  It´s definitely not as magical as being by yourself out in nature.

On the way back we had to stop in El Calafate for half an hour so me and the Aussies could run to an internet cafe and pay the stupid reciprocity fee.  We ended up getting back into town just before 11pm after having been picked up at 630am, so it was quite a long day, but definitely worth it, because Perito Moreno was unlike anything I had ever seen before.

Patagonia: Torres del Paine

Patagonia is magical.  Pachamama is incredible--the views here are unreal.
I did the ¨W¨in Torres del Paine--a 4 day hike through the National Park, and although the things I saw were amazing, I do not understand the appeal of trekking.  If I want to see nature, I can get in a canoe--that way I enjoy the journey as well as the end result.  Walking for 8-12 hours a day with 20 kilos on you back is not so much fun.  But the rewards at the end of those walks were completely breathtaking.

Lago Grey

The first day I hiked up to Glaciar Grey.  The Aussies I had met on the bus and started the hike with had shot up way ahead of me, but I ended up meeting some Israelis who were going more my pace.  We climbed 11 km up to our campground and set up.  From there we went up another 4 km to get up close to the glacier and it was crazy!  We saw pieces falling off, crashing down into the water, filling the entire park with the sound of thunder.  From there we climbed back down to our campsite.

Glaciar Grey

The second day we climbed back down to Paine Grande, and then another 7.6km to campamiento Italiano. The second half of the climb was alright, but the first part was not fun at all, as at times youre climbing down rocks that aren´t even a path with a giant pack on your back making you less balanced, terrified you're going to go tumbling down.  We then had to argue with the park rangers because the camp was supposedly closed, and they wanted us to walk another 2.5 hours to the next refugio, where they were going to make us pay 8000 pesos each just to camp in our own tents.  It´s complete bullshit that they have private companies operating out of a national park turning a profit, and essentially forcing us to stay on their land and pay them by shutting down the CONAF-run campgrounds.  I´m happy to pay park fees to finance rangers and maintenance, but to force us to pay a private company to camp in the national park that we already paid an entrance fee to? Not cool.  They eventually let us stay, as we argued we would not make it to the next campground by sunset, and it would be dangerous to walk in the dark.  They ended letting like 20 tents camp there after us anyways.

Day 2 of trekking

The third day I split up with the Israelis, as they had 5 days in the park and I only had 4, and they were spending an entire day going up and back down the French Valley.  That day was sooo long for me--first I walked 5.5km to Cuernos where I stopped for lunch.  From there it was another 15km to Campamiento Chileno, almost all uphill.  I thought I was going to die.  And I had been saving some chocolate as a reward for myself once I got to a certain point in the trail and had been so looking forward to it, but when I got there I discovered it had all melted!  It was really sad.  The final 2 hours were such a struggle, but just as I was finishing I met this other Canadian guy who was super friendly and just starting the trek (going in the opposite direction as me).  I kicked off my boots the second I got to Chileno, and after about a 20 minute break thought Fuck it, I´m going to Torres.  So I put back on those god-awful boots and went another 5km up to Campamiento Torres.  I left that morning at 8am, and didn´t arrive to Torres until 9:45pm.  Luckily the sun doesn´t set til like 10:30 here.  The valleys I walked above were unreal!  And I crossed a stream with rocks that had been coloured red.  I´m not sure why that would be, as all the rivers have the same source in the park, but I guess there were some mineral deposits in that area.  It was also crazy as I would be crossing so many little streams that all fed into the same river--there must have been hundreds of little streams from the snow on top of the mountain that all eventually meet up into one big river which leads into one of the many gorgeous lakes.  The colour of some of the lakes was unlike anything I have ever seen in nature before--turquoises so bright and vivid you can´t believe your eyes!

The third deathly day.  All uphill was exhausting, but resulted in stunning views like this.

I was really glad that I had gone that extra bit in the morning, as we woke up at 4am to leave at 4:30 and hike up to the Base de las Torres for sunrise.  It was completely magical, and the perfect culmination to 4 days in the park.

2 stages of the Sunrise at Base de las Torres

I ended up hiking back down quite leisurely with a British guy I had met at Italiano, as our shuttle back wasn´t until 2pm.  In total I hiked about 78.5km, with my bag diminshing to about 15 kilos by the end when all the food was going.  And I would have been happy to never put on my hiking boots again.  The vastness and diversity of the park though was incredible!

Sun rising up the valley, casting light on the towers on the other side.  UNREAL!

There are 18 different ecosystems all in the same park.  At certain points I would be looking at rockface jutting out of the water and think that this environment could be Georgian Bay...until I looked up and saw the snow-capped mountains as a backdrop to this scene.  At times I would be on top of a giant mountain, looking up at an even bigger one across the valley, only to see these giants dwarfed by the monstrous mountains that provide a backdrop to everything in the park.  Also, the freshly melted water from the glaciers that made up the streams and lakes in the park was so pure and fresh.  It was amazing to see the snow on the top of the mountain, a little further down see the cascada starting to form, and then much further downstream sipping that same delicious water.

Journey of the purest water I have ever tasted.

Pachamama is amazing.

Santiago (11-14 enero)

Santiago was amazing!  It is so freaking huge, and it seems like there's a neighbourhood for everything.  My first day there I went on a free walking tour and I met these 2 cool guys--Ed from Australia, and Jerry from London.  The tour was really good and we covered a fair bit of the city and we ended near the base of Cerro san Cristobal which has a giant statue of the 'virgin' Mary and was quite close to the boy`s hostel.  We went back to their place and met up with a girl from England named Freddy and climbed up to the top to see the sunset.  he view was incredible...it seems it doesn´t matter how many cities you see from the top; the panoramic views never cease to amaze me.

The next day I ended up moving hostels to be at the same place as the other three.  I also went to the contemporary art museum which had some amazing exhibits, including a joint project between the mexican government and Chile showcasing Mexican and foreign artists' interpretation of freedom and representations of the revolution in Mexico, meant to highlight the commonality of the Latin American countries.  Freddie and I went to the Museo de la Memoria in the afternoon, dedicated to remembering the victims of Pinochet´s reign.  It was an incredibly powerful and informative memorial/museum.  It's easy to think about a dictatorship and say/think that it's bad, but this actually forced you to face the reality of the atrocities he committed--there was even footage of his speech just following the coup in which he takes responsibility for the people´s 'best interests.'

Cool street art in Santiago

That night the 4 of us went on a pub crawl which was really fun.  A lot of people here seem to think that I'm Brazilian, despite the fact that I don´t speak a word of Portuguese...  It was really fun, and I met some cool people from Argentina and a real Brazilian who were telling me all about the best places to go in their countries.

The following day we had all planned on renting bikes and going to the cemetery  but of course this being South America, everything was fucking closed, including the bike rental place, so we ended up walking there instead.  I really don´t understand how a country can function when everything shuts down 1-2 days a week; it ridiculous!  Especially services and places like bike rentals and museums--activities that people would obviously doing when they're not working.  It`s so frustrating and backwards.  The cemetery ended up being really cool though.  They didn´t bury people, they put them in drawers with a plaque instead, and to deal with the lack of space issue, they started building up.  It's hilarious--it was like apartment buildings for dead people with different floors and sections on each floor.  Despite Freddy's reservations, we had a picnic there and it was really nice and chilling.

Picnic with the dead people.

That night we went to the supermarket and had a dinner together which was really nice, because it was Ed and mine last nights in Santiago.  Ed left the next morning, and Freddie, Jerry, and I ended up just chilling in the amazing courtyard of our hostel in the glorious sun all afternoon.  Many things are also closed on Mondays...never mind the 3 hour midday break that most businesses take here.  It's amazing anything ever gets done here considering how often people are on break.  Santiago was so much fun though, and the Santiago crew made chilling there amazingly awesome!

La Serena (5-7 jan) and Valparaiso (8-10 jan)

For some reason all the computers have stopped recognizing my card reader, so I can´t upload photos :(

From San Pedro I went to La Serena for a few days, and it was alright, but kind of boring.  In the summer, all the Chileans just go there to party on the beach, so the beach was a bit douchy.  Like there was some big stage blasting music...not exactly the vibe you want when you´re at the beach.  The hostel I was at was super cute though.  I went to the archeological museum my second day, and aside from an awesome statue from Easter Island, it was pretty lacklustre.  Also, everything is closed on Sundays here which is really frustrating.  What are you supposed to do when everything shuts down??  I went to a Japanese garden which is the biggest in South America.  It was donated as a show of the fraternity between La Serena and Japan.  It was pretty, but fairly small, and only took about a half hour to walk through.  On my last day there I went to another museum half about La Serena´s history, half about Gabriel Gonzalez Videla´s life.  It had some nice paintings, but it didn´t really seem like there was a curator or focus to the museum.

Valpo was so much nicer.  There is street art everywhere, and ascensores to get up the Cerros.  I did a free walking tour the first day I was there and met some nice American girls that I ended up hanging out with the rest of the time we were there.  The history of the city is super interesting--it was the biggest port in the whole continent (and as a result the richest city) until 1914 when the Panama Canal was built.  At that point the city went into decline, as European ships no longer needed to go down around the bottom of the continent, so they were no longer stopping in Valpo.  The city has suffered numerous earthquakes, and is now the city in Chile with the highest unemployment rate.  We saw a building that was completley in disrepair with cracks in the walls from earthquakes and old marble stairs that had chunks ripped out of them by thieves who would sell it on the blackmarket for jewellery.  It´s crazy to see such the grandiose history compared to what the city is like today.

Also, because the city is centered around all the cerros, you can get a great view, all the way to Viña del Mar and Con Con.  One night I was waiting for Anya and Ivan outside a restaurant when this guy Christian started chatting to me, and it turns out he´s from Spain, but just moved to Valpo like a week ago, and invited us to come to a music festival that his roommate was playing in.  We thought a music festival in Chile would be a really cool experience, so we agreed to meet him later.  Turns out this ¨music festival¨ was really just his buddy playing a set in a bar.  False advertising.  We still had a good time though.  I went to a cool free art museum the following day which many landscapes of the port at the height of it´s success.  And the girls and I went on a boat tour around the coast.  My final day there we went out to Con Con to go to the beach.  It was a super nice view and we got some delicious seafood.  Valpo was really cool and had a great vibe, so when I return to Santiago after Patagonia, I may go back for a day or 2 as it´s only a couple hours by bus from Santiago.  Also, I had wanted to go to Pablo Neruda´s house, but the workers are on strike, so hopefully the labour dispute will be solved by the time I go back.

San Pedro de Atacama

Clare, Alejandro, and I got to San Pedro de Atacama after a ridiclous journey, and I fell in love with the place.  It's a tiny town in the middle of the Atacama Desert--the driest desert in the world--with like 6 streets.  It´s so chilled out there and mellow and we really lucked out with our hostel.  We had originally been bummed out as it did not seem like what we wanted when we booked it online (all the others had been fully booked), but it ended up making our stay there amazing.  Nico was the guy who ran the place and he was super chill and we befriended him when we first got there.  He told us about where the good new years party was going to be, and knew all the best places in San Pedro that were muy tranquilidad.

 

Just the casual view of an active volcanoe from our hostel.

New years started with a party at the hostel and then we went to a restaurant that had been converted into a bar for the night called La Casona (other than 2 days a year, bars are illegal in San Pedro).  I guess the Chileans had some pent up party energy, because when we left, exhausted, at like 4am, the party was still going strong.  Also. at out hostel and all over the town, people had built scarecrows and then set them on fire at midnight...so fun!

Happy New Years!

The following day Nico and his friend Jorge invited us to come swimming at a pool just outside town.  It was so unsafe, with people doing backflips off the side, pushing each other in, and babies in waterwings in the deep end!!  Barely anyone knew how to properly swim, and I was flipping my shit.  But no DNSs, surprisingly.  That night after we went to dinner, Nico brought Clare and me to the hostel Jorge works at and they made a bonfire, and we could look at the stars and it was really cool (y muy tranquilidad--Nico's fav phrase).  Almost perfect silence...except for the roves of street dogs who would occasionally start yelping.

Alejandro left to go back to Argentina the the following morning, and as per Nico's suggestion, Clare and I rented bikes and rode into the desert.  We went to Rio San Pedro, but there was literally just a trickle of water as the river had dried up.  We were a little disappointed at not being able to swim, but the scenery was still breathtaking.  I had no idea that a desert could have such beautiful and varied landscapes.

 

Valle de la Luna (named because it's surface resembles the moon)

The next day was Clare's last, and after chilling out in the day, we went on a tour of Valle de la Luna, which was otherworldly.  We watched the sunset from the Valle de la Muerte, and casually climbed through these salt caves that the indigenous people had hidden in during European invasions.  Clare left the following morning for Salta which was sad, but I had a really chilled out day.  Some of the boys from the hostel were driving to the pool, so I went with them again, and then hung out in the courtyard of the hostel until my bus left that evening for La Serena.  San Pedro was so great, I didn't want to leave!  Definitely going back there (although the lack of water was a little worrisome...half the time we felt like we were in 127 hours rationing our water off).  Love this town so much!

 

Clare and I at the sunset in Valle de la Muerte 

Salar de Uyuni (28-30 dec)

We went from Potosí to Uyuni, and thankfully only had to spend 1 night in that wretched town.  The following morning we were supposed to be picked up from our hostel at 9am.  By 9:45, when they still hadn´t arrived, we walked over to the agency to have the women tell us that actually we would be leaving at 10:30.  We returned at 10:30, and they were still not ready for us, but because of a strike at the Laguna Verde, our transfer from the end of the tour to Chile would take 8 hours instead of 1, as we would have to cross at a different border, and that it would cost 250 bolivianos instead 70.  A little after 11 we finally departed, and our guide did not speak a word of english.  This was fine for Clare and I, as we hadn´t requested an english speaking guide.  There was a mother and daughter, however, from Denmark, who had paid an extra 200 bolivianos each for an english speaking guide, and they were pissed.  It ended up being good for my spanish though as I ended up being the de facto translator for the Japanese and Danes on the trip.  Also, hanging out with Alejandro has been really good for mine and Clare´s spanish, as his english is not very good, so we can´t get lazy and just revert to english.  His Argentine accent is impossible to understand though!  He says jo, playja, cajje etc. instead of yo, playa, calle.  I´m constantly just like "como? Como? COMO?"

When we finally departed, we first went to an abandoned train cemetary which was really cool.  If there were something like that in Canada, there would be fences up everywhere to make sure no one hurt themselves and sued, but here we could just climb all over them.

From there we drove into the Salar de Uyuni (Uyuni Salt Flats), and it was amazing!  The was white in every direction as far as the eye could see!

We slept in a salt hotel the first night where the walls, tables, beds, everything, was made of salt¡

We went to Isla del Pescado which was this one tiny patch of salt-free earth covered in cacti, in the middle of the salt flats.  It was so unreal¡

The second day of the tour was a lot of time spent in the jeep, which was not so comfortable, but we got to see some pretty cool sights.  First we went to the Volcan Ollague, which is still active¡  Then we went to a few different lagoons and saw flamingos which was really cool.  They are born black, but become coloured pink in part due to their diet, and in part due to the high mineral levels in the lagoons.

From there we went to the Arbol de Piedra which is a rock in the form of a tree due to the high winds blowing sand in the air and erroding it into this shape.  There were a lot of other cool rock formations were but it was so windy¡

Finally, we went to the Sol de Mañana Geysers at over 4000 m above sea level.  It was freezing there, but the geysers looked so cool!  We slept at the Laguna Colorada which is coloured red due to high sulfur and other mineral content, and it was soooo cold¡  I was in my long johns, wool socks, an alpaca sweater, a sleeping bag, and under 2 blankets in the fetal position DYING.

The final day was supposed to be spent in the hot springs in Laguna Verde, but because of the strike, we instead had to drive 3.5 hours north to cross the border and take a bus 4.5 hours south.  On the way to the border we got a flat tire, and then about a half hour from the border we passed by a car that had completely flipped over.  There was a woman dead on the side of the road, it was horrifying.  There was no cell signal, and when we got to the border to inform the police, they said that they didn´t have any ambulances there so they would have to call a town over an hour from the crash site to send an ambluance for the body.  The drivers here are so dangerous, and many of these roads are so remote--had the crash happened at night or on a road not so close to the border, it could have been hours upon hours before anyone drove by to get help.  Apparently an entire family had been in the car--it would be so traumatizing to see your own family member die in a crash right in front of you.

The border was ridiculous, we had to walk into an office to get our exit stamps, and then got driven about 100m into no mans land where we had to wait for our bus (which was 45 minutes late) into Chile.  They had oversold tickets, and also had no room for anyone´s bags, so they had to call for another pickup truck to come and get all our packs.  So sketchy.  Then we drove about another 100 m to do immigration into Chile.  Then we had to wait for about an hour for all our packs to come so that we could go through customs.  The dude in front of me got his San Pedro Cactus confiscated which was hilarious.  Finally we got on the road, but when we stopped in Calama to let some passengers off, we found out that the truck with the packs had gotten a flat tire, so we had to wait there for it to catch up with us.  We finally arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, only about 4 hours after our projected arrival.  Oh Bolivia, I´ll miss you!

Potosí (27 dec)

Clare, Alejandro, and I spent the day in Potosí--the world´s highest city in the world.  Clare and I also casually took a 3 hour cab ride from Sucre to Potosí, and it cost the equivalent of $10 each.  Bolivia is loco.  Potosí used to be the richest city in the world due to its silver mines (although all the money was going back to Spain).  The spaniards enslaved the indigenous people to work in the mines, however with 8000 deaths a year there weren´t enough workers, so they began to ship slaves from Ghana and the Congo to work in the mines as well--at it´s peak, there were 6000 african slaves working in the mines.  Many, however, found it hard to adjust to the altitude at 4090 m, so many of the slaves got sent to work in the plantations near Coroico.  This is why there was an Afrobolivian community there.  Their story is really interesting and a documentary was made about their community called "Afrobolivianos Tocaña."

 

95% alcohol that we bought for the miners.  They mix it with orange soda and drink it all day in the mines.  Everytime they have a sip, they pour a little on the ground for Pachamama and a little on the ground for Tio--their devil protectorate.

Back to Potosí, although the majority of the silver has been depleted from Cerro Rico, cooperatives still exist today with the workers working in horrific conditions.  We did a tour of the mines, and it is such an incredibly dangerous place to work.  None of the workers wear masks, so the majority develop respiratory problems within 10 years of working there.  There is also no record of who goes in or out of the mine.  If a worker doesn´t come home for 2 nights, the family will inform the other miners and a search will commence, however, at that point it is usually just a search for a body.  There are 50-60 deaths a year in these mines, and the life expectancy in Potosí is only 55 due to the number of men who work in the mines.

There was a 19 year old who had been working in the mines for 3 years already, and he had a baby.  So many of the miners have a ton of children, and start their families extremely young--probably because of their shortened life expectancy.  One of the men had 15 children with 5 different women.  There life is so incomprehensible to us.  At one point we descended 35 m down into the mine and there were absolutely no safety standards.  We had to walk across a wooden board with no rail that dropped about 30 m on either side, in many places we had to crawl, and there were exposed electircal wires that would electrocute you if you touched them.  And thousands of men work in here every day.

While extremely shocking and saddening, it was a good experience to see inside to try to understand the lives of these men.  The guide, however--a former miner--was completely inappropriate and kept making sexual comments about all the girls, calling us sexy, and being really innappropriate to a 15 year old girl, asking if she was single and wanted to shack up with a 29 year old miner.  At one point after making some jokes about women´s breasts, and after asking all the guys if they had girl friends and making jokes about their responses, he asked me if I had a boyfriend, to which I responded that I didn´t like his objectification of women.  At first he said sorry, but then went on about how when you´re in a different place, you have to respect their culture, and compared it to eating Bolivian food in Bolivia as opposed to pizza.  I was so pissed that he would have the audacity to compare respecting one´s culture and eating local food to accepting and participating in behaviour that demeans and lessons an entire gender.  Although I am enjoying my travels, I fucking hate the machisimo attitude that permeates here, as though women are incapable of being independent, and are just objects for men´s desire. The men here also tend to revert to the maturity level of 10 year olds after acting macho in front of their friends.  It doesn´t make any sense to me and I find it extremely annoying.  I also don´t understand how some of the women here take the men´s behaviour as a compliment. There are many things here that I´m willing to embrace that are different from home, but this is just too much--I just want to smack them sometimes!

 

Just me casually holding some dynamite.  nbd.

Other than the mines in Potosí we didn´t do much, we just spent the night (which was FREEZING!) and then after the mine tour we hopped on a bus to Uyuni.

Bolivia Part II (Dec 24-26)

 Ghetto speakers blasting Christmas music #hostellife

I went out for Christmas dinner in sucre with Clare and her friend from the Netherlands Louisanna. We had a really nice time and there was a party back at the hostel when we returned. Also, on the 24th we bought a ton of fruit at the market so on Christmas day we made a giant fruit salad and had a picnic in the park. The weather was so nice, and there were all these rides and bouncy castles and things in the park for Christmas. Also, we ran into Alejandro there who I met in la Paz which was super random but nice

Sucre was so pretty but there was so much poverty, it was heartbreaking. We wanted to give the street kids some candies or sweets, but they don't have access to dental care, so the tourists aren't supposed to give kids anything with sugar. Outside the church they were giving away a few toys to the street kids, but they only had about 10 toys for about a hundred kids, and they ended up fighting over them. One poor little girl got pushed down and all these people were getting knocked on top of her and she was crying and screaming, but none of the kids cared- they cared more about getting one of those toys. I can't imagine living there and seeing all that poverty everyday yet remaining unaffected. Even though Bolivia is 70% indigenous (Quechua mostly, Aymara around la Paz), the indigenous populations live in poverty and face discrimination from the castellano speakers. Bolivia has it's first indigenous president now in his second term, and he is working to improve the lives of the indigenous populations, but the country is so poor, especially since chile annexed their access to the ocean, there are few resources to devote to impoving the quality of these people's lives.

On boxing day we went up to the mirador to overlook the city and it was beautiful. Sucre is an old colonial city and was declared a unesco heritage site in 1990 due to it's colonial architecture with all whitewashed buildings. We then went to the Museo de Arte Indigenia where we saw beautiful tapestries and other woven goods depicting the stories, traditions, and landscapes of each respective community.  I read about some cultures that divide their calendar by music. Festivals with specific dances and music depending on the time of year denote the start and end to each musical period of the year.  They were all so beautiful and it was so incredible to read about these cultures where music, dance, and these visual pieces of art are so integral to their societies. While many of the traditions have to do with celebrations for the gods, it was so refreshing to learn about these communities that value art for art's sake without trying to commodify it. Creativity is an integral part of their lives instead of being viewed as superfluous to a utilitarian life as is more and more becoming the case in our capitalistic country.

Beyond just this indigenous art, the people here in Bolivia are so expressive! If you a salesperson doesn't have what you're looking for, they say "no amigaaa" as though it is personally paining them that they can't help you. Also, when we were in a bar in coroico, an Argentinian at the next table over pulled out his banjo and just sang his heart out to the small place. He wasn't busking- it was mostly just for his friends (and maybe the gringo girls at the next table over), and he captivated everyone's attention  and adoration. That kind of thing would never happen in Canada. Also, when people talk here they are much more physical and they seem so engaged in everything they are saying as opposed to back home. While Clare and I were at the market in El Alto last sunday in La Paz, we ran into numerous musical groups--big and small--that were just jamming. A couple had audiences, but some of the smaller groups were just playing for themselves and loving life.

Another interesting comparison is the status that the indigenous people receive here, in Peru, and Mexico as compared to in Canada. While they do face discrimination in Latin America, there are museums showcasing their history, art, and cultures. They aren't ignored the same way the first nations are in Canada. Some travellers I've met in my hostels have even been unaware that we have aboriginals in Canada. While the history of colonization in the Americas is very similar, the history of decolonization is quite different, and I think this has a large part to do with how we treat our indigenous populations today. When the countries down here fought for their independence and expelled Spain through revolution, it gave them an opportunity to reclaim their history. In Canada, however, Britain gave Canada it's freedom. As a result, for decades, Canadian leaders looked up to the motherland as a place of civilization, and wanted its approval, as opposed to feeling animosity towards their former colonizer. This lead to canadians of european descent continuing to implement the heinous policies that Britain had employed. Of course there are other differences like the lack of unity of language among Canada's first nations, and the smaller proportion of the population,  but it just boggles my mind how Canada, one of the wealthiest countries in the world can treat it's indigenous populations so poorly, especially in comparison to here.

While the fight for the indigenous people's rights is far from over here, they are much more visible in society than in Canada, and not just due to larger numbers. In Cuzco, for example, many of the street names have been changed back to the original Quechwa names. Also in Cuzco, the rainbow flag is everywhere!  It's not for gay pride, but rather represents the many different indigenous peoples coming together in unity. In Bolivia, the police wear a badge on their uniforms that is half the Bolivian flag, and half a rainbow mosaic design. This has only recently begun (thanks to Eva Morales), but publicly shows the state's commitment to acknowledging the value if these people in society. In Canada, the First Nations are othered, while here they are (starting to be) accepted as bolivians or peruvians. In Canada in school we seem to have "Canadian history" and "First Nations history," as though they are not Canadian. Whereas when I was in Cuzco, there was a televised cultural festival happening including competitions in traditional dance with a tagline of "know your history." Canada's aboriginals are so marginilized, they for the most part live on reserves. Here in the cities, however, you see women and men in thier beautiful traditional dress and no one bats an eyelash.