A series of bad decisions and incidents.....

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Hello everyone!

My last blog entry from Santa Cruz seemed like it was written lightyears ago. Mainly because of the things that have happened since then..until now.

Pretty much right after I posted the last blog, I was off to get ready for a little excursion to Vallagrande and then La Higuera, where the Ernesto "El Che" Guevara festival was being held.

By 8 oclock on the morning of the 5th, I was heading towards the bus station with some new friends (Son, my Korean friend, Ken, my new Japanese friend, Nathan, my new American friend and Erika, my new Brazilian friend).

We arrived at the bus station around 8:30, the bus was ALREADY full, our options were to either sit in the isle for 6 hours or wait for the next bus, or try to arrange a taxi.

Because there were 5 of us, it was a little hard to reach an agreement on our transportation. Son, Ken and myself pretty much were indifferent about how we will get there. We just wanted to get there.

We gathered together and discussed how we would get there, listed and compared our options...just as we finally all reached an agreement to go by bus, the bus took off....... one less option... it was much easier. We either wait for the next bus or we take a taxi. As we were asking around for prices for a taxi ride to Vallegrande, another small group of Peruvians and a Chilean saw us, and decided to join us. So all of a sudden, there are 9 of us. We could all take two taxis, which were gonna cost 500 bolivianos (70 dollars) each with 5 people in each eaxi.

500 bolivianos were simply out of our budget. So we had to look for another way to get into Vallegrande, soon. Because there are less than 9 seats left in the next bus. Someone suggested that we would go by a cattle truck... which would be a lot cheaper, but it would also take a lot longer. Within 10 minutes, the group of 9 reached a decision than a group of 5 - surprise!! Our decision was to take the cattle truck.

We all piled into two taxis, which would take us to a desert-like truck stop. We were told that we would be on our way in a couple hours. What ended up happening was that we waited for a good 7 hours before we were finally on our way. The 7 hours were worst than simply waiting. Since the truck stop was in a desert-like location, there were sand everywhere. To add a little excitement to the agonizing wait, the wind decided to join the play.....so we passed the 7 hours in a windy desert basically.

By 4 in the afternoon, we were finally on our way, in the truck (luckily not with cattles, but with booze - but they were wrapped up and covered, mind you...otherwise, you could have bet a million buck we would have had a party on the back of that truck), to Vallegrande.

BUT...................

by 4:30, not even out of Santa Cruz yet (actually we got as far as the little city that is right next to Santa Cruz...at the boarder), our truck broke down. This could only happen in Bolivia... our driver tried to fix the truck himself, but to no avial. He called his friend. Then while "help" was on its way, our driver decided to take a nap........

Only after about another hour had passed did the "help" arrive. Not sure exactly what the problem was, but we were on our way again finally. Within the same hour, we got into a gas station, where our driver tried to gas up the truck, ....but the gas station did not have any gas! Trying as hard as I could, I couldnt understand why a gas station wouldn´t have any gas..... so we were stuck again, waiting for "help"... at least while waiting for help, we went and had dinner, which made our wait a little more enjoyable.

By time we were on the road again it was already kinda dark. We were told that we will arrive around 1 or 2 am. So we believed.....

*****I have to add here that while we were in Santa Cruz, the weather was very nice, with cool breezy winds that made me think that I was in Brazil...only missing the beaches!!! So we all left Santa Cruz thinking that it would be about the same weather in Vallegrande and La Higuera....... but we found out the reality the hard way....

The truck ride into Vallegrande from Santa Cruz lasted longer than expected...I had no idea how slowly the truck was really driving, but long story short, we spent the night on the back of the truck out in the open driving at X km/hour, X = unknown, the distance was only a couple hundred kms and we left around 7, arrived at 7 in the morning. The nearly dozen hour truckride was the coldest ride I have ever had.... it was as if I had visited Antarctica while I slept on the truck. Speaking of sleep, I barely put in a total of 2 hours of sleep the entire night, since I was fighting with Son for the blanket that one of the Peruvian guys kindly lended us.

Well, as soon as we arrived in Vallegrande, the first thing that was on everyone´s mind was a good cup of coffee!!!!!! We begun our coffee searching trip as soon as we paid the truckdriver, and the coffee searching trip took us to the local market, where we could have a large cup of coffee for 1.50 boliviano...which is about 2 cents!

After we finished our hearty breakfast at the market, we set off to look for camping sites (made especially for this Che Guevara festival). We had to walk almost from one end of the town to the other. As soon as we arrived, we were invited to play a game of football. I have only played a couple times before to be honest, I thought..well, why not give it a try...so I did, and as you can probably imagine, embarrassed myself, but I played till the end anyways. It was only a warm-up game for the "Che cup", I decided to decline the invitation to play for the entire "tournament" - and I think that it was a better move, then to play more.

After the game, everyone was pretty much B-E-A-T...desperately needing a nap.
However, Ken and Son and myself, decided to get some lunch and then get each of us a Che Guevara T-shirt, so that´s what we did. Son then announced that our other Korean friend, Chun, was arriving the same day. We were quite excited, because the last time we saw each other it had been in La Paz, a bit over 2 weeks ago. Anyhow, we went to the bus stop to greet Chun and get her to our camping site.

Then at night, a few more people joined us (some people from the same hostel in Santa Cruz where we stayed), , we made a group of 12, and were walking around town looking for some dinner and then to attend a folk concert. At the dinner, (I am not sure if some of us had something to drink prior or not) since we were a fairly large group of 12 people; however, instead of making a long table to accomodate 12 people, we made an L shaped table... it was a hilarious picture.

After dinner, we walked around almost aimlessly looking for an elusive folk concert that was never found, by any one of us at least. So we gave up and headed for the tent to get some much needed sleep. We had to share a tent with 30 other people, because we had no tents, but sleeping bags..luckily the group from Paraguay agreed to let us stay in their tent with them.

Thus concluded our first day at the Che Guevara fest.

We bagan our second day pretty early actually. Because we were sharing the tent with some musicians who had set up a bon-fire the night before and stayed up the whole night, playing music, chatting. We slept through the music and the chatting part, but when they came into the tent, getting ready to sleep.

At any rate, I decided to use the commune washroom, and whoa.....

Well, it was impressive that they had dug up a trench and channeled water pipes to the middle of nowhere, on the outskirts of a small village, just for this event. Nonetheless, the washrooms were ...well, decent, in comparison to what I had been accustomed to in other parts of Peru and Bolivia. One problem was that no one bothered to flush, despite the fact that there were buckets available and water.....

Overlooking the washroom situation, this entire Che Guevara festival seemed like small 1969 Woodstock, or at least somewhat similar to what I had seen on TV, since I wasnt even around in 1969.

Getting back on track with my blog......after everyone got cleaned up, did their own things, we all met up again and headed for the market to have some cheap breakfast. After breakfast, we jus walked around the town, continued to look for some "elusive" events that were supposed to be going on at different places, and did some "window shopping" on the street artisen markets, where it was filled with loads of Che Guevara related stuff. I regret now that I didnt get any....but in a way it is good. I dont have to carry anything extra.

Around 5 pm, everyone who came out to Vallegrande for this festival were supposed to all meet up to take this truck that would take us to La Higuera for free. So, everyone pretty much all gathered at the plaza. I was a bit hungry, and managed to convince the little group that we formed to have a quick dinner together, (which I would later regret - I finished the quick dinner in 5 minutes.)

So once again we were back on a truck, this time with almost 90 other people, so at least it was a little bit warmer, but we werent exactly in the most comfortable position. Since some people on the truck decided to bring all their belongings and leave them on the floor of the truck, and to make it even more challenging, some people on the truck decided to sit down!!! So there werent exactly enough legroom for the rest of us who could only stand. It was almost like playing twister...except the floor (the bus was driving on a very bumpy trail) was shaking. We, at least I, passed the 5 hour bus ride in a very unconfortable position,...and with a stomach full of food...I was actually feeling a bit sick after we arrived in Vallegrande.

But I wasnt sick sick.... anyways, when we arrived in Vallegrande, there were already a lot of people...from where they had came I have no clue. But it was definitely way more that the number from the camp ground. Upwards of a thousand at least! A lot of Argentineans, Paraguaians, Peruvians and Bolivans...even Brazilians.....and only a handful of gringos (from England, Danmark, U.S., Korea, Japan and Canada!)

At midnight, a series of speeches took place, and went on for a couple of hours. Some of us fell asleep standing, listening to the speech..since we didnt really fully understand what was being said. After the speeches, some musicians began playing music..they were quite nice, mind you. I bumped into some Brazilians over there, and they invited me to samba with them....how nice! Did I mention how happy I feel each time I meet a Brazilian????

While everyone watched and listened to the songs about Che Guevara, my friends and myself made our way to the bonfire - it was so nice! A really nice change from the couple of freezing nights that we had - since we didnt exactly bring enough clothing for the temperature at Vallegrande and La Higuera. We spent the entire night between the bonfire and the stage..that was the prime spot! Both nice and warm, with entertainment nearby! We had to sleep on floor that was filled with rocks, but we could really care less...we were too tired and too cold to care about the uneven ground that we were on.

While we slept, some other friends joined us and chatted all night around the bonfire, I slept for only a couple hours....until I heard a song that was about South America...sadly I didn´t take note of the name of that song, nor the musician.

By 5 A.M., some of us decided to start looking for rides to get back to Vallegrande, since everyone will be leaving after they wake up. We thought by getting a headstart we would be able to get a ride and get back to Vallegrande earlier; but it turned out otherwise. All the transportations were reserved or booked. We ended up leaving Vallegrande in the latest possible....TRUCK! Already feeling ill, I wasn´t really up for another truck ride, but that was our only option, so I thought, what the hell, I´ll have to take it, and we did.

Luckily the truck made a stop (a really sneaky move, I will explain in a bit) to make us pay for the fare....as soon as the truck stopped, I climbed up the fence, and threw up the food that I had consumed within 5 minutes the day before in Vallegrande.

***** The Bolivian way of doing things is a big sneaky...or maybe I am just not used to it. What happens is that, for example you are taking a truck/bus...they dont tell you how much it is before you get on, they just tell you we go to point B. Then you get on the truck/bus...after riding it for about 15-30 minutes..or even an hour..to the middle of nowhere, they stop the truck. And then they ask you to pay the fare...if you don´t pay the fare, you have to walk..either to your destination, however far that is, or walk back....or you pay and stay on the bus. Not that it bothered me, the amount was nothing compare to what people pay for the transit in Toronto. But its enough to get some people really angry and start walking. I personally don´t like the way they do it, but well....I guess that´s the Bolivian way...

When we got back to Vallegrande, all of us, (now just Son, Chun, Ken and myself), were very tired and sick (I was sick physically actually) of the place - there wasn´t really anything to do in town, other than the Che Guevara fest. So, we all decided to get back to Santa Cruz as soon as possible.
This time we hopped on a taxi - a much nicer ride compare to the truck rides I tell you! Then took a bus back into Santa Cruz.

In Santa Cruz, I recovered from my illness but still coudln´t really eat anything, since I had lost my appetite...and each time I think of Milanesa (from a Chinese restaurant), I felt like vomitting.

In Santa Cruz we stayed for a couple more days to get some errands done...ie..getting our train/bus tickets to our next destination...getting some money changed, laundry...etc.

We all parted again in Santa Cruz. Chun and Ken were headed to Sucre and then to Uyuni..while Son took the Death Train to Brazil and myself..I was gonna take a bus that would take me from Santa Cruz to Cordoba, Argentina..a 40 hour bus ride.

How everyone got to their destinations I am not sure, I hope it was nice.
For me it wasn´t so nice.
I paid a whopping 50 dollars for a bus that was supposed to take me to Cordoba...or so they told me.

What ended up happening actually....

was that at the boarder, I found out that we had to pay some money to the Argentina customes officer to cross the boarder FASTER...which I refused to pay.. (there were 3 queues that people line up for to cross: 1 for people who are paying the customes to cross the boarder quicker, 1 for locals, and another 1 for foreigners who don´t want to pay....of course the queue that is willing to pay gets the fastest service..the locals are next and the rest is looked at last until there is no one at the other two queues) so I was waiting in the queue for people who refuse to pay...until the last minute, when the lady from the agency kept pushing me saying...hurry, just 1 more hour your bus is going to leave (in Spanish of course)...so I felt pressured and she took me to the paying queue...and in 10 minutes I was over the boarder.....only to find out that I have 2 more hours to wait before my bus leaves..the lady had lied! and then she demanded a 20 dollar fee for getting me across the boarder quicker! Which of course I refused to pay...I thought it was 20 pesos (equivalent of 7 dollars almost, ...its a huge difference from 20 dollars!), so she threatened me with cancelling the bus...I just thought to myself...WTF! Very very reluctantly I paid the 20 dollars, only to find out that the bus that I was supposed to be on, heading to Cordoba was full! So, my destination was changed to Tucuman...which is actually 8 hours from Cordoba...what a f%&ing rip-off...the funny thing is ...to be ripped-off, it wasn´t free either, they charged me 10 pesos to be ripped off - but I guess that is essentially what ripping off someone constitutes... overcharging them.

At any rate, I was so mad I felt like strangling the lady at the boarder...and her accomplice. But I am in South Amerca, I guess thats sort of how things are.

To make it a little worse, the bus they put me on going to Tucuman was supposed to arrive at 10, so I could have sometime to catch another bus (which I have to purchase another ticket for!)... but the bus I was on broke down....we were strainded for a good 3 hours, by time I got into the terminal in Tucuman, it was 2, and the latest bus to Cordoba had just left half an hour ago!!!! So there I was, strainded in Tucuman, in the cold...for 4 more hours until the earliest bus leaves for Cordoba.

I got into Cordoba really tired actually. The good thing is I didn´t have to look for a hostel. I stayed with a friend, Matias. Only 2 days in Cordoba....but there were still problems.... I didn´t have any pesos with me, since the lady at the boarder had lied to me and got 20 dollars and all my pesos, the only money I had with me was 20 dollars U.S..... when I arrived in Cordoba, it was about 3 in the afternoon, but after I got settled down at my friend Matias place, it was already 5, and the bank was already closed....so I was left to live on 20 dollars U.S., which most stores woudln´t accept, especially the cheap restaurants I was going after. Luckily, I was able to purchase things with credit card at a supermarket, and prepare dinner at Matias place.

Matias showed me around the city of Cordoba. It was really interesting and I really enjoyed the city, just that I didn´t have any cash with me to spend or have fun with. I think maybe I will go back to Cordoba again. But the city has 7 universities, and a huge neighbourhood where there are plenty of discos and bars to go to. In Cordoba, I felt like I was in Europe...since I had been in Peru and Bolivia earlier, and only saw Andeans....it was a nice change to be back in civilization I must say. But people are also colder, and not as friendly as they were in Peru and Bolivia.

After 2 days in Cordoba, I found myself in Bariloche - which is where I actually am as I type this blog.
Bariloche is a very very small city compare to the ones that I am used to. But still in this montaneous area, Bariloche is the largest city. In a bit I am leaving for El Calafate (connecting at Rio Gallegos)....a 30 hour bus ride.

I will publish this blog after I get into either Ushuaia or El Calafate, where I can upload some pictures for the past 2 weeks!

I hope things will be a bit better from now....lets see

Until the next blog then

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Photos

The Flip-Flops Army
a bunch of guys that i met up with in santa cruz...while we were exploring the town, we all marched in our flipflops... the flipflop sounds we made were in unison too! ;)

Che Guevara Festival on newspaper
the schedule...if you can read it

Toucan Telephone booth
in santa cruz, bolivia

A real toucan this time
at my hostel in santa cruz

Bolivian T shirt and a North American T shirt
Bolivian T shirts are really TEE shirts (top)
North American T shirts are more like an "arrow" shirt

Dude..I Found My car!!!!!
a plate with my last name....how nice to see!!!

Being Practical
Using a Corona bottle as drinking glass.... saw this in one of the restaurants in Bolivia

The truck!!!
This is the truck that would take us from Santa Cruz to Vallegrande

On the truck
to Vallegrande

the Che drink
its actually Cuba Libre... (rum and coke)..-with ACTUAL RUM

the L shaped table
which we made....when a group of about 10 of us headed to the restaurant

Comments

[maurice]

whoooh
Cliffy you're a smart traveller and a survivor I may add. Once again your blog rocks with lots of good photos, smart writing. You must be a bit tired when you write sometimes because it comes through; which keeps it real. Hope all goes well byeee

[sammy L]

Enjoying your blog very much
I like your descriptions of things. Living vicariously thru you, I am.