JoZ and JL

In Mendoza we stayed at a hostal called Simplemente Mendoza, owned by an American/Argentine woman and her Argentine husband. Despite the cold showers, they served delicious pastries for breakfast and we really enjoyed our time there. We stayed four days in Mendoza and drank wine every day but Sunday! We did the obligatory wine tour, but this one had a twist. We first visited an artisanal chocolate and licor place where we had home made tia maria shots and a taste of chocolate. We also bought ourselves a little bottle of mistral--port made with white grapes--since we'd been seeing it around for a while and wanted to try it. Then we went to a boutique bodega called Don Arturo and Mrs. Don Arturo herself showed us around. From her we learned that instead of saying wine ... read more

We got to Villazòn, which is the Bolivian border town. We changed our Bolivianos in for Pesos (thus halfing our money, literally). The Bolivian border guard was a young, jovial guy--joked around about the U.S. with us and stamped us on our way in no time. Then we walked across the bridge to Argentina--glorious country that Josie missed so--and waited over 2 hours to get our stamps there! The Argentinians kept getting pulled ahead of line and we were stuck with whole families of Bolivians, little children and ancient grandparents, always budging in front of us with new relatives. Then, it seemed like the immigration officers took at least a half hour siesta where they just closed the (one) window. We got through and trudged uphill with our bags to the bus station, bought a ticket ... read more

Bolivia had a strong aversion to us using USB ports so we couldn't upload any photos for the last few weeks. So, we'll try to backtrack and recollect our last week or so in Bolivia since we've recently crossed into Argentina and it's like a whole new world. Please check back for videos dedicated to Steph Lee--we haven't been able to upload them yet. We need to buy a new jumpdrive as ours has filled up. The bus ride from Potosì to Uyuni was perhaps our best yet. There was a group of 5 Argentinian girls and 3 Argentinian guys, both groups armed with guitars and good vibes. Most of the ride consisted in passing the mate gourd around, sharing snacks and having an epic sing-a-long. The bus broke down (no surprise) at one point, but ... read more

Puno, Peru: Puno is the main town on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. We liked this town quite a bit even though it downpoured every night. On Sunday there was a folklorico music festival which entailed what seemed like hundreds of folklore groups from all over the province playing music and dancing in a parade that lasted from 10am until it rained at about 7pm. It was pretty exciting to see young and old, traditional and more modern all rocking out in the streets like that. We also saw a Sunday matinee of a really terrible Peruvian movie that we don't recommend. Still, it was pretty interesting to see how they pulled it off--stark but grand theater with wooden floors and curtains, dvd player and projector, started about 40 minutes late, etc. The last day ... read more

In no particular order... * The People! Our group was 16 people from the US, Canada, England, Australia, Holland (Kim from Amsterdam hiked in her Birkenstocks, smoking all the way!), and New Zealand, plus 2 guides. Everyone got along really well. We became fast friends and everyone helped each other out. It was nice to walk and talk with different people along the trail. It was so hard for us to separate that many of us had dinner together the following night. * The Porters! These guys are legends! We felt good about how the company we went with (Peru Treks and Adventures) treated them. Our guys had matching pants and jackets, good shoes, headlamps, proper backpacks, etc. There were 20 porters for the 18 of us and they carried all the tents, food and supplies. ... read more