After a wonderful week with Becca in Mendoza it was off to Buenos Aires. I decided to treat myself (not that I hadn't already been treating myself every day) to Andesmar's Primera Clase bus service to the capital. For 125 pesos (about 40 bucks) I would ride in style into the big city. Thats right, fully reclining leather seats, champagne, all the mendozan red wine you can drink, mediocre meals (certainly a step up from the airplane food they normally serve aboard Andesmar) and the company of fellow rich people. I was tired of riding with the riffraff you normally encounter [View Full Entry]

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If you don't get that title, dont worry, its a stupid joke anyway. So Becca and I got on our clean, polished Andesmar double decker bus for the 15 hour ride to Mendoza. The busride was fabulous. They had a stewardess (though he was a man, so i don't exactly know what you call them) who served us tea and dinners and even organized a game of bingo for us. It was quite a treat. Then we reclined on our leather semi cama seats and tossed and turned while trying to sleep. Such is the struggle of a bus sleeper. Bad [View Full Entry]

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After 4 weeks in Santa Cruz, it was time for me to leave. It was a wild, crazy time there, and i met a lot of people, but i wanted to get on the move again. So it was off to salta, argentina - back into the semi-developed world. Or so i thought. After an uneventful 12 hour busride from santa cruz to the southern border town of yacuiba, i arrived groggy and disheveled to the "aduanas integradas" (integrated customs office). I walked up to the line that snaked out from the office and put my bags down. There were about [View Full Entry]

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to break up the monotony of my 3 week binge in santa cruz, we took a trip up to villa paraiso (jason´s site) and urubichá, a volunteer named gerid´s site. our trip to villa paraiso was relatively uneventful. it was hot, dusty and quiet. his project partner seemed to me a bit cold and demanding; in all it didn´t seem like a place i would want to spend 2 years as a peace corps volunteer. that explains why jason spends lots of time out of his site: it is not cool. later we got a ride in the peace corps land [View Full Entry]

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So I have been hanging out here in santa cruz for about 3 weeks now. this is jason´s regional city where he and his nearby volunteers come in to do office work and hang out. we have been concentrating on the latter. there really isn´t much to say here. i got here after chrissy had already been here for several days and we immediately started a pattern. every night we would go out for an incredible meal that cost around 4 dollars per person and wash it down with several paceñas (bolivia´s main beer) and wine. it was very similar to [View Full Entry]

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So tom randomly met up with us at the Ballivian hostel, the peace corps hostel in Santa Cruz, and we soon were on our way to hike around and camp in the nearby Amboró National Park. Once arriving in Buena Vista, a small town near the entrance to the park, we got to work figuring out the logistics of our hike. it was a pain in the ass. after asking everyone, and with nearly nobody being helpful, we figured out a way to get to the entrance for merely 10 Bs. (about a dollar). We then were purchasing food for the [View Full Entry]

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phew. this is a lot of travelblogging. i´m tired. i´ll make this one quick. after 15 hours on my bus cama (a kickass bus with about 5 feet between you and the seat in front of you where you can lay completely flat like in first class on a plane) i arrived at 530am in samaipata, a touristy town in eastern bolivia just outside santa cruz. chrissy and jason were supposed to meet me out there, but i didn´t see them, so i lugged my shit into town from the side of the highway into a hostel. i was tired. later, [View Full Entry]

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sucre is beautiful. only a 2 or 3 hour taxi ride from potosí, you drive into the town and pass by its white buildings and amazing central square. good things. daniel, the swiss, and i visited the casa de la libertad, the country´s old parliament. you see, the capital of bolivia used to be only in sucre, but as la paz grew in stature, it steadily sucked away all the parts of the central government until sucre was left as only the judicial capital. bolivia is the world´s only country with 2 capitals. the casa de la libertad is very interesting, [View Full Entry]

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After a grueling, yet effortless 4 days inside a landcruiser, we landed in the town of uyuni for a few hours to wait for our bus to potosí. Daniel, the swiss i met on the salar trip, and i were headed for potosí together, and had a few goodbye beers with marta and luca (our other salar partners) before we got on our bus. but it was the wrong bus. we had tickets for ¨trans. 11 de julio,¨ and were on the bus for ¨turismo 11 de julio.¨ a little angry and confused, we got off and sure enough, there was [View Full Entry]

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Sorry folks, its been a while since i´ve written, but i am a lazy man on vacation. Lets begin with about 2 weeks ago when I embarked on a 4 day, 870 km tour of the southwest portion of Bolivia. i was alone for this leg of the trip - tom was nursing his death road wounds in la paz and chrissy was out galavanting with bolivia pcvs. this is known to us travellers here on the gringo circuit in south america as, ¨the salar trip,¨ because the highlight is supposed to be the ¨salar de uyuni,¨ a salt flat that [View Full Entry]

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