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Thursday, September 20, 2007

South America: Part 1 of 25

Just kidding, I'm not going to tell you every story that happened in South America, all the stories will come out in good time.

I'll give you some Final Thoughts if you will, a la Jerry Springer.
  • Bathrooms in South America suck. You have to pay, they rarely have toilet seats, no toilet paper, sometimes they flush, no soap, and sometimes a sink. Fun fun fun. Oh and you can't flush anything ever.
  • There are very few cars that aren't taxis or buses. Taxis drive around and honk at every person walking down the street to see if they want a taxi. So 25 taxis on a road at any given time, and maybe 20-50 people walking make for a lot of honking.
  • It's really really really cold when the sun goes down, especially at the higher altitudes. Hostels don't have heating, normally have a huge open area in the middle where they chose not /couldn't afford to put a roof over, and showers are normally cold, so all that mixed with drinking lots of cold beer makes me COLD. I would sit in my hostel drinking with every piece of clothing I owned on. (But I would never sacrifice the beer for tea or something... no drinking is too important.)
  • People are generally friendly. If I asked them a question, they would tell me the answer even if they didn't know it. So I did a lot of walking back and forth sometimes.
  • Bus companies, on the other hand, sometimes not so friendly. They generally blatantly lied to my face, so unless I was going on a more expensive bus from a very well known tourist company, I came to expect the opposite of what I was told.
  • Beer is cheap.
  • Food is also very cheap, but not that great. In Mancora, Peru, the greatest place on earth, the food was incredible, fresh seafood, delicious Mexican (I know, kind of weird) and all cheap and accompanied by even cheaper beer. Other than that, a great meal was rare.
  • Vendors and taxi drivers are very persistent. It's sometimes hard to say no to vendors if you're actually looking to buy something and they are trying to sell you something more. Sometimes it all happened so quickly that I'd end up with two of something or a drink as well or a calculator or a bathroom scale when all I wanted was a snickers bar. Taxi drivers were easy to say no to. I definitely told off my fare share of drivers when they'd ask me if I wanted a taxi as I was getting off a bus after a LONG night. They would say "come on, how come you don't want a taxi" and then I'd swear at them. Ooops.
  • Every town and city seems to have some kind of attraction. It's strange. You can see everything in South America. I saw cars decorated with flowers be blessed by a priest and 36 man-made-out-of-reed islands floating on lake titicaca.
    (And people STILL live on these islands!)
  • Men hiss at you instead of whistling at you. And lots and lots of hissing occurs. Arequipa was the worst, though it may have been because I wore a tank top during the day there instead of two sweaters and a scarf.
That's about it for now, I'll think of some more soon.

Monday, September 03, 2007

I kind of forgot to blog

I´m not sure why but I totally forgot to blog on this trip.

Thanks for the birthday wishes! I spent it on a bus watching ¨she´s the man¨ and some movie about what to do with the jewish people in the concentration camps during WW2.

The earthquake was crazy. But I am fine.

Peru was really cool. Bolivia is also very cool. I´m in La Paz in a rut because it´s fun here but I think I should do more thank get drunk at Toga parties and walk around the markets. I will do something soon.

I´m loving traveling and could definitely see myself doing it a lot more. I am so tempted to just travel for a long time and work along the way. Not this trip, but sometime. It´s so much fun. Traveling alone is a different experience but it´s cool that I don´t have to make decision based on anyone else´s ideas. The bad side? I stay in La Paz and get drunk instead of seeing things.

I have posted lots of pictures on facebook so if you have it go check them out.

I´m blog when I get home, I promise.