Catching up

If I don´t do this I´ll never catch up.

Buenos Aires

The answer to the macchiato question was yes, and thus commenced a furious coffee binge. It was an all-round binge actually: we dined out in lovely restaurants, drank wine with abandon, and shattered our previously well held budget. Buenos Aires is a lovely but hectic modern city with wide avenues punctuated by huge statues of various liberators and fathers of democracy and tall obelisks and columns. We sat in famous cafes staffed efficiently by fleets of jacketed and vested waiters; almost every cafe waiter in the city is a middle-aged male. I am ignorant of the cultural forces creating this situation. We saw a tango show and even took a lesson, and can now tango very slowly for about six seconds without repeating any moves. We took a day trip to the pretty but sleepy Uruguayan town of Colonia de Sacramento and drank coffee there too. The best meal of the trip (opinion not necessarily shared by all participants) was at El Pobre Luis, a restaurant for carnivores with a gigantic grill called a parilla in the middle of it. Blood sausage, then little curly intestiney things with pate or something in them, followed by steak and washed down with malbec. I ordered one serve of steak which turned out to be two steaks, both of which were staggeringly tender. Steak knives weren´t needed. We saw Evita´s grave with a zillion other tourists, and I was moved in the opposite direction to them by the absurdly elaborate mausoleum and the atmosphere of mindless hero-worship.

Iguazu Falls

We travelled to Puerto Iguazu by luxurious bus, the best bus trip of the tour. They showed a decent movie in English and I was served wine with dinner and whisky after. The day after we arrived we headed out to the falls which are extraordinary. They make Niagara look like the contents of a toppled kitchen water jug pouring over the edge of a small table.They are right on the border with Brazil and from the Argentinian side tourists can get right up close to the walls of water and view them from above and below. A waterproof jacket is required. On the Brazilian side the view is more panoramic and we could see the whole wall, from the wild "Garganta del Diablo" horseshoe-shaped cliffs on the left along a white wall of falls that must be more than a kilometre wide. The water crashes down and it is impossible to tell how far due to the explosive spray. Every person (there were many) present looked thrilled except for one child (of at least four years and still sucking a pacifier) who screamed in fear and buried her face into dad´s shoulder. It was a major highlight of our trip (the falls, although the kid's tantrum was pretty amusing).

Seeing the Brazilian side of the falls required intense engagement with public transport. Below is a catalogue of our bus rides on the day of 10 April.

1. Bus from hostel to Puerto Iguazu terminal
2. Bus to Brazilian border, passport stamps etc.
3. Bus from border to Foz do Iguaçu urban terminal
4. Bus from urban terminal to rodoviario (bigger inter-city bus terminal); bus tickets and future tours organised
5. Bus from rodoviario back to urban terminal
6. Bus from urban terminal to falls park
7. Park bus from visitors centre to falls viewing area
8. Park bus back to visitors centre
9. Bus from park to urban terminal
10. Bus from urban terminal to rodoviario
11. Bus from rodoviario to unknown bus hub, where we changed buses
12. Bus from unknown hub to Campo Grande, our next destination

Anyone who has been on more than 12 different buses in a day is invited to make a claim for the title.

Campo Grande/Pantanal

Campo Grande is a city in Brazil´s south west from where one can travel into the Pantanal, a wetland populated by interesting wildlife. We paid for a cheap tour into this region and we paid for it, if you know what I mean. The staff were overworked and sour, the guide a smart arse, and the schedule loose and rarely inspirational. However! We caught piranhas; saw an armadillo, deer, jabiru (slightly different to Australian ones), some rodent called something like acucho, some other enormous rodent called capybara (that is oddly at home in the water), many birds, howler monkeys, and shitloads of caiman (little wimpy crocodiles).

Several Israelis were on our tour including Noy, a 22yo former Israel Army infantry officer enjoying his post-national service travel. Over lunch he confided that he and his travelling companion were a little anxious about crossing from Brazil into Bolivia, having heard rumours of banditry and other anti-tourist shenanigans. Noy said "It's not really a problem if there is just one guy with a gun, but if there is more than one guy it gets a bit complicated". "What will happen if it's just one guy?" I asked. Noy shrugged. "You'd take him down would you?". "Of course" said Noy, and then "And we would probably just shoot him and leave him by the side of the road. I don't think anyone would care about him". I made a mental note not to fuck with Noy.

The other Israelis were a female and a male (whose names escape me; let's say Jack and Jill) travelling together. We assumed they were a couple until we began to observe Jack's behaviour a little more carefully. He spoke Spanish; when Mel asked him about this he said he had learned Spanish so he could go to sell skin care products in Spain. At another point we saw a capybara while on a "jeep safari" (in a ute tray driving from the camp to a boat along a dirt road) and Jack leapt off the truck to photograph it from close up. Mel said "Blow it a kiss" and Jack did so with such a flourish that our doubts were sealed: Jack was not interested in Jill. Just to make sure, we asked Noy if they were a couple; he looked at us as he might look at a Bolivian bandit demanding he hand over his bags and said "Can't you see what is going on here?". I wanted to ask how that kind of thing went over in the Israeli army but had adopted a policy of asking Noy one question at a time.

The final Pantanal insult was the way our driver continually performed calisthenics to avoid falling asleep all the way back to Campo Grande. I spent the whole four hours in a state of cat-like readiness to seize the wheel should we have drifted off course. We made it back alive but I decided to reject the tour agent's request to be my friend on Facebook (hopefully he interprets the subtext correctly and the tours improve; actually I don't care).

Sao Paulo

Well well well, little old me in the world's third biggest city! I guess this is more likely than me turning up in the world's third smallest city. Other tourists and residents we canvassed had provided mixed reviews of Sao Paulo, from "it has great nightlife" to "don't go to Sao Paulo" (actually, the same guy said both those things; our survey was not comprehensive). We went anyway and had a pretty good time. It is genuinely vast: we took the elevator to the viewing platform high on the Empire State Building-imitating Edificio Banespa and could not see the city's limits. It is flat and the viewing platform is in the most interesting building so the view is only memorable for the lack of nature.

This was our first real look at Brazil and it's people and we liked what we saw: they are friendly, energetic and musical. And they drink like fish. Beers are mostly served in long neck bottles in double-size all-around stubby holders and they arrive cold and stay cold. What they lack in variety (the beers, definitely not the people) they make up for in drinkability. The other local drink is the caipirinha, a cocktail made of the sugar cane syrup cachaca shaken with sugar, limes and ice. Research on this drink revealed that it is very potent, so potent that we lost our memories and performed identical research the following night.

Some other stuff about Brazil and Brazilians (the people, not the grooming method):

Many adults have braces on their teeth.
Lots of quite big kids (four, five years old) still suck on pacifiers.
Jeans are worn very tight, usually attractively.
Heels are very, very high.
Portuguese looks a lot like Spanish on paper but sounds like something else altogether; an impossible to understand and pronounce something else.
Porn is prominent in street magazine stands; magazine covers especially feature bottoms in extreme close up.
There are numerous evangelical churches, almost always full of people.


Paraty


If the jeans are tight in Sao Paulo the bikinis are minute to the same magnitude on the beaches around Paraty. Body size and shape have little bearing on the amount of the body left visible while swimming and sunbaking. Aside from this (perhaps in part because of this), Paraty is a lovely old World Heritage town perched on a magnificent series of beaches on rugged tropical coastline south of Rio. The best local dish is the moqueca: fish and other seafood cooked in coconut milk and other stuff in a clay pot. Superb with the near-tasteless beer Skol. We spent three or four days here lying on the beautiful beaches and dipping in the lovely waters and discussing the views, natural and human. We took a beach-hopping boat cruise featuring a live guitarist and a woman whose tiny bikini earned her the nickname "Tiny Triangles". Seriously, the bikinis are small. I could go on about it but it's late.

Rio de Janeiro

We lobbed in Rio excited but perhaps as much about heading to New York in five days as arriving in the "cidade maravilhosa". Our time in Rio was mixed. We stayed in Santa Teresa, a cool arty bohemian neighbourhood perched on a hill high above the city centre. Walking down the hill took us into Lapa, a party neighbourhood where alcoholic drinks were cheap and plentiful and samba music played from nearly every bar. The walk down could be a little fraught: the smallest wrong turn took the foolish tourist from a respectable set of steps into a very unpleasant ghetto with unconscious bodies lining the streets. Another small detour led us to the beautifully decorated steps that some would remember from a Snoop Dogg and Pharell Williams video clip of some years ago (falsetto: "Beautiful, I just want you to know, you're my favourite girl"). Rio's guide book "city of contrasts" reputation is earned.

The favelas are interesting (we took a safe guided tour mum): guarded by heavily armed scouts, they are police no-go zones where a whole other system of law and order exists. The tiny streets are covered in trash but the people mostly looked healthy and happy and (aside from the mountains of cocaine) there is a fairly normal economy operating. The city's beaches are beautiful and probably earn their places in their respective songs, although the high rises behind don't help the situation. The competitive but friendly energy of the Brazilians prevails as they heckle and applaud amateur beach volleyball players and try to out-strut each other in their tiny swimmers. On the beach you can buy beer, iced tea, snacks, sarongs, and even bikinis. has anyone ever arrived at the beach and realised they forgot their bikini?

We partied in Lapa with some other Aussies from the hostel and their local friend. It was a long and heavy night, really the first bender of the trip, and I paid the next day with a headache and the horror of hearing about how I behaved. I will leave the details out as my fiance's mum might read this. The next day we tried to take the cable car up the Sugarloaf mountain for the magnificent city views but it was broken down. We were successful the next day and the views were worth two trips as the sun set over the city and it's surrounding mountains.

The breakdown of the cable car, the hectic and hot city streets, the high price of everything, the apparently rife alcoholism; all these things got in the way of our total enjoyment of the great energy of the people, the football (see Maracana entry), the music, the beaches, and the physical beauty of the city (from a distance). Adding insult to injury, Spain and Netherlands-themed Havainanas were widely available but no Australia version could be found. It was a sweet and sour bite of the Rio apple. The Big Apple awaits.

Maracana

For the benefit of the uninitiated (e.g. those that know as much as I did a week ago), Maracana is a bloody big football (futebol here) stadium in Rio de Janeiro, allegedly one of the most famous in the world. Last night we attended a match there and it is, indeed, something else.

Via Google I had found a chap named Sergio who runs tours to matches. Via e-mail we confirmed that we would meet and go to the Flamengo (Sergio´s team) vs Caracas (a Venezuelan club) game, part of the Libertadores Cup, the South American club championship. Sergio arranged to meet us in Lapa, a funky suburb down the hill from our accommodation in Santa Teresa. We strolled down the windy Santa Teresa streets and had a warm up drink in Antonio´s Bar while waiting for Sergio, who was late due to traffic. Soon he arrived accompanied by another tourist, JP, a Canadian on a short holiday after travelling for work. We drove to the stadium with every other car in Rio and Sergio used his local knowledge to find fairly convenient parking without too much queuing. Despite running late he assured us we had time for a beer but we had to walk a couple of blocks to get it, as licensed premises within two blocks of the stadium had been banned from selling grog before matches.

We didn´t go to a bar so much as a bloke´s house; our host was named Luiz. While others waited outside (Luiz was selling beer illegally and worried that the authorities might come by) we were afforded the luxury of entering the house and sitting on the couches. Sergio explained that Luiz was a Flamengo fan who opened his house like this before each Flamengo match. The house was very simple, bare walls decorated only with a small picture of the last supper, a close up of a statue of Jesus, and two Flamengo-themed hangings, providing a glimpse of just how highly the club figured in Luiz´s spiritual life. The furnishings were also very simple: when Sergio took a picture of Mel and I on the couch, JP said it looked like the photo that would be released to announce our kidnapping by Al Qaeda. A couple of fantastically cold beers passed easily and we drilled Sergio with Rio and futebol related questions. JP was pretty clueless about soccer and an elaborate demonstration of the offside rule using empty beer cans was required.

We left so as to arrive at the game about half an hour before kick off. Luiz farewelled us at the door in such a manner as to make clear that he would not be attending the game or even leaving his house on foot for some time. We filed up the ramp with the black and red clad supporters, pausing only to have our photograph taken with the Flamengo mascot, a vulture. Every man wore a team jersey except Sergio, important for keeping track of him. There was a definite hum of excitement in the air and we finally burst into the stadium proper with about 20 minutes to go.

The noise was incredible. The stadium was about a third full, nearly all down our end. Because Caracas are Venezuelan their fans were either absent (and would have been hiding anyway), and a sea of black and red greeted the eye. Several groups played very loud drums without a moment´s rest. At least 20 enormous flags of various (black and red) designs waved vigorously, and close inspections of each waver revealed a careful technique of wide sweeps and sequential jiggles. A youth sat watching his older colleague wave their flag, and when he was handed it his engagement with his task was total. A very large group to our right sang songs constantly, including one to the tune of Frankie Valli´s "Can´t Take My Eyes Off You". Sergio explained that the large group to our left didn´t like the group to our right, and sure enough each group would often start a chant or song immediately after the other, attempting to drown them out. This was the first glimpse of Flamengo´s internal politics.

While we took in the atmosphere Sergio set the scene. Flamengo had been beaten for the Rio state championship the Sunday prior, 2-1 by hated rival Botafogo. In that match Flamengo hadn´t played very well but still had their chances, including a penalty missed by Adriano late in the game. Adriano is a champion national player whom has returned to Brazil from a big European club apparently because of becoming "depressed". Sergio explained this before he had asked what my profession was and he twirled his finger around his ear while saying "depressed". He had accepted a pay cut and contract with Flamengo but lacked discipline, enjoying the nightlife a little too much and perhaps not applying himself to training as he should. Fans were beginning to get frustrated with him and other players thought to be under-performing. Caracas, Sergio went on, were the worst team in the group and Flamengo needed to beat them by two goals to smooth their own path through to the next round. He further denounced Venezuela as the worst futebol-playing country in South America and boldly predicted a 3-0 win for Flamengo. He said a 1-0 win would invite boos from the crowd.

Thus, the teams took the field. As in Ecuador, the away team was greeted with wolf whistles, although this time it was a piercing cacophony that would surely have crushed any slightly fragile soul on the receiving end. The home players were serenaded as they warmed up with personalised songs and chants that Sergio translated ("The number one goalkeeper in Brazil....Bruno!" etc.). Each greeted his song with a grateful wave. The game began with Caracas in possession but Flamengo´s pressure was immense and they very quickly took the ball away. The change in possession was greeted with a huge roar and fervid instructions from the fans to attack down the middle and NOW!!!!!! The players, admirably I thought, maintained their discipline and passed the ball around looking for good attacking opportunities. We began to understand the double-edged sword of such passion: while good play was wildly celebrated, each minute error and even any slightly conservative decision making was met with exasperated grunts and grasping of foreheads. The drummers drummed and the singer´s sang endlessly, and the opposition were booed and whistled relentlessly. It seemed to work: a Caracas player standing seemingly free of injury on the far wing suddenly went down on his haunches and then lay down on the ground. Play stopped and the stretcher buggy drove out, and if it was a "heart muscle" problem then any remaining flickers of ego would have been obliterated by the send off he was given.

Flamengo controlled possession but lacked directness in attack, passing it around looking for the perfect opportunity. In contrast, the underdog Caracans (I haven´t verified if this is an appropriate term, don´t drop it into conversation with your Venezuelan friends without further research) attacked with flair on the few occasions they had the ball in their half. The Flamengo crowd seemed to be feeling positive and the run of play suggested that the floodgates would open soon. Caracas won a corner which was deflected away but out off a Flamengo player, providing another corner. The kick bounced around the players in the box and fell to a visitor with a little time and he put it into the net. Something like silence fell on the stadium. Not a peaceful silence, but a silence laden with fury and threat, the kind of sound that I imagine is made by the eye of a cyclone. Or the not immediately identifiable sound you might hear walking down an oddly deserted city street as a wild, murderous rioting mob approaches the same intersection you do but down a perpendicular street, obstructed by the buildings. I wasn´t worried for our safety but for the well being of the supporters, whose wonderful energy had been suddenly aqueezed out of them. Sergio leaned across to me: "Very bad" he said.

They recovered (the fans). The singing and chanting recommenced, the drums went on, and Flamengo got the ball back. The score had kicked them into action and now they attacked with abandon. They won a sequence of corners and eventually a defender headed the ball past the exhausted keeper. Now, I will admit that when Kevin Muscat scored against Uruguay at the MCG in the first leg of the 2002 World Cup qualifiers I hugged a man (who will remain nameless), quite wantonly I thought. That was nothing. This goal triggered an outburst of aggressive man love all around us. We were physically buffeted by ricocheting pods of tangled screaming men, eventually exploding apart to sing another chant with elaborate arm movements. Flares were lit, the drums crescendoed, somehow the incredible noise got louder. Flamengo´s players were inspired and surged forward again. Only one or two minutes later they scored again, and we ducked for cover as the boys around us really went for it. Many would have woken up this morning with significant bruising but they didn´t notice it at the time. To a man they took off their jerseys and waved them above their heads, Kevin Sheedy style. A brief survey revealed that Sheeds was unknown here.

Halftime arrived and everyone had a rest. An appropriate scoreline had been achieved, imperfect but acceptable. We sat down for the first time. I think the drummers might even have gone to the toilet. There was no half time entertainment or dreadful music played over the loudspeakers, and no gormless just-below-TV-standard host ran any long kick contest. We just had the game to discuss and it was more than enough.

The second half began before the chanters and drummers properly hit stride, so was a little subdued. The play was no different, Flamengo dominating possession again and creating a few opportunities, the ultimate failure of each being greeted with a collective deep "ooo" and more thrusting of hands to temples. Then, again totally against the run of play, Caracas went forward and scored on a superb individual effort by one of their forwards, possibly called Gomez. The just-prior-to-the-nuclear-blast atmosphere fell again, and when the chanting restarted it was angry. The tone definitely changed from supportive to aggressively expectant, with a hint of the possible repercussions should the players fail. Predictably the Flamengo players again responded strongly and scored soon after after creating numerous opportunities. Everyone hugged again but the affection was brief because another score was expected, no, demanded, soon.

I began to watch Adriano. He was clearly the physically biggest player on the field and his body language did indeed suggest that he could have been depressed. He only moved with urgency when the ball was within ten yards and often wasn´t even watching the play, standing with his head down. However, he was suddenly in everything as Flamengo attacked and attacked. He got his head the highest at every corner kick, but was always just out of position, heading over the bar and wide or straight down. The crowd´s mood shifted from suppressed anger to anxiety as time ticked by without a score and more chances were squandered. Injury time was announced, three minutes, and it was still 3-2, not enough of an advantage to ensure their advance to the next round. They went forward again and again, tired players spraying shots from the deep and the Caracas defenders desperately clearing anything that came close to the line. A grown man in front of us hurled himself to the ground at one wasted opportunity as if the redeemer had just walked in front of him. You might think this exaggeration but I am not embellishing.

The final whistle was blown with this unacceptable scoreline standing. New chants began, Sergio translated. One said roughly "Hey Adriano, fuck you"; another was "Bruno, we don´t need you", quite a meteoric fall from "the number one goal keeper in Brazil". The only positively greeted player was named Petkovic, and Sergio explained that other players were targeted by hate chants just because of their disputes with this player. The hate chants each sounded unique, and the player´s names fitted perfectly no matter how many syllables they contained, suggesting they had been prepared in advance. I didn´t see how this was going to inspire them to better performances in the near future, especially given the supposed mental health problems of their star.

We headed back to the car and the usual waiting for car park queues (problems not unique to Brazil) ensued. Sergio´s mood had changed and he didn´t want to discuss the game too much. Any comment on Caracas style or quality of play was met with the deadest of bats. Eventually we were on our way, and Sergio rather clumsily explained why he didn´t want to drive up into Santa Teresa to pick us up. It was dangerous, he said; sometime drivers get mugged at red lights. Taxis won´t take people up there either. With that he dropped us off in Lapa to make our own way, really the only major blot on his copybook for the night.

Other results went in Flamengo´s favour and they went through anyway. They play next week, and I advise all appropriately placed tourists to attend but to carefully check the opposition team´s colours and wear something far removed.

Developed economies ahoy!

One word in bold leapt off the guide book pages regarding northern Chile: scallops. The towns of Caldera and Bahia Inglesa are small beach resorts about halfway between San Pedro de Atacama and Santiago, and are given only a brief treatment in the Rough Guide (no gratuities were accepted for mentioning this guide book by name), enough to say that they are small resorts in the location noted and are famous for scallops. It was enough for us, and we broke away from the backpacker trail to head to Caldera. There were only two other tourists in the town, sturdy young women with short haircuts, who stayed where we stayed, dined where we dined, walked where we walked. We only managed to shake them off when we strolled to Bahia Inglesa on our second day.



Upon arrival, we had one small but important problem: how do Chileños say scallops? Careful examination of restaurant boards revealed the answer: ostiones! So, lunch was ostiones and papas fritas, exceptional. Caldera otherwise had little in the way of attractions. It was too cold to swim and the beach was unappealing anyway. Many fishing boats lay dormant in the small bay and enormous pelicans swooped between them and sat on large buoys discussing whatever pelicans discuss in the tourist off-season. The waters were occasionally broken by a diving bird and further out seals frolicked, breaking the water and enticing quick grabs at the camera and then diving before a picture could be taken.



On the second day we strolled to Bahia Inglesa, six kms away across sandy dunes. There was no one there but a few stray dogs and several small groups of desperadoes assumedly seeking ostiones. It must be quite a place in summer, all beautiful curving virgin beach with calm deep blue water covered in hundreds of people. Luckily, ostiones were still available, and when eaten with a garlic sauce along with ceviche and cold beer they unleashed a tremendous feeling of well being and freedom from petty worries. We lay on the beach for a while and one of the stray dogs joined us. I went for an ice cream and entertained the stall proprietor by correctly but clumsily ordering an ice cream in Spanish, and returned to find the dog had sneakily shifted over to lie against Mel´s body. He had manipulated his weight like a sulky child and Mel couldn´t move him. After a short scuffle he slumped down about a metre away and gazed longingly at our ice cream. He got none.

That evening Mel ditched the ostiones for something lame and I ordered ostiones parmesana. Alas, this was a terrible error, the ostiones smothered in a sauce flavoured vaguely cheesily but bearing no relationship to anything you could call parmesan. Mel had a lot of trouble hiding her amusement at my chagrin and we agreed never to speak of this meal again. Mel cruelly spoke of it again several times.

We proceeded to Santiago and stayed at the Eco Hostel, where the constantly running toilets, very generous shower heads and regular mega-meaty barbecues cast significant doubt over their eco-credentials. We wandered aimlessly for a day before catching a plane to the "Paris of the South", Buenos Aires, Argentina. As the plane banked away from Chile to cross the Andes, one important question repeated in my mind: would I be able to get a decent macchiato there? What a tool.

Desolation

On a Wednesday in a remote locale of Bolivia an elite group was assembled (el mejor grupo). Vinicius, a Brazilian named after the composer of "Girl From Ipanema"; Jimeno and Hernan, friendly Argentinians with limited English; Leslie, a camp Englishman; Sam and Mel, friendly Australians with limited Spanish; and Miguel, fearless tour guide and cook. We were to travel together in a Toyota Landcruiser across the Salar de Uyuni and into the Eduardo Avaroa reserve in the deep south east of Bolivia, where your correspondents were to leave the group and cross into Chile. Although we were heading into an empty wasteland we didn´t fear isolation, as fifty other full Landcruisers were doing the same thing.

Uyuni is salty even before you get to the Salar. Our first stop was a town built of salt, literally. Each house was made of salt bricks and you could buy little models of the Eiffel Tower made of salt. After 20 wasted minutes there we drove onto the Salar de Uyuni itself. I can´t give you too much technical information about the Salar´s provenance or composition because Miguel only spoke Spanish, so I´ll just say that it is a bloody big salt flat. But a special salt flat because it is the most brilliant and perfect white that you can imagine almost as far as the eye can see. It is surrounded by craggy brown mountains that are partially obscured by the reflective haze from the white surface, so they appear much further away than they are and loom in ghostly partial obscurity. Our vehicle drove straight across the white surface to the cactus-covered "island" of Incahuana, where we could climb up for panoramic views. I had seen it in photos but must have suspected that they had been touched up, because the view was stunning.

Sunglasses were necessary almost at all times. It was a clear day and the white lake stretched out interminably, almost meeting the brilliant and enormous blue sky. It hurt to look at with naked eyes but when I did the view was probably the most brilliant I have ever seen, only two shades but both as vivid as I can imagine. Later I read a story by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, who wrote of a boy thrown from a horse, knocked unconscious and paralysed. When he awoke, he found "the present was almost intolerable in it´s richness and sharpness". I immediately thought of the Salar when I read this.

Others celebrated their astonishment by contriving clever photos using the flat lake surface, snapping their friends appearing to stand on giant Pringles tins or standing on another´s upturned palms. I poured scorn on this practice and then cemented my hypocrisy by taking a photo of myself on the Salar surface reflected in Mel´s sunglasses. Coldplay blared from one of the cars and I wished we could just enjoy this sight without plastering something of ourselves all over it.

Miguel prepared lunch (washed down with a swig of whisky courtesy of Vinicius) and then we continued across the lake. We left it behind after an hour and I was depressed; although there wasn´t anything to do there except look and think I wanted to stay longer, perhaps believing that such an otherworldy and previously unimaginable place might help me unlock some other secrets of the world. Alas, it was gone, and we drove across desert to the hamlet of San Jaun, where some Poms embarrassed a motley crew of Aussies and yanks on the dusty football pitch as dusk fell. It is impossible to know what industry sustains San Juan, it´s presence in the middle of a vast desert a mystery, except for the Landcruiser loads of backpackers arriving every night. Some were ready for bed early (most of those in el grupo mejor) but some located the San Juan discoteca, apparently creating a "fiesta del chorizo" on the dance floor and then returning to the hostel where one of their number rendered one of the only two toilets unusable with a poorly aimed spew. Breakfast was therefore quiet, although was notable for the first appearance of the absurdly sweet Argentinian delicacy dulce de leche, a runny caramel spread apparently eaten at any hour and with anything. Hernan spread it so thickly on his toast that those that care for him would be well advised to seek him out and tell him how they feel as soon as possible.

We continued across the desert. And this was genuine desert, the road cutting through rocky valleys surrounded by craggy mountains without a single piece of vegetation visible. At one stage we drove through a slim canyon (shallow, but with vertical walls) and Hernan accurately likened it to the landscape of Tattooine in the first Star Wars movie. Mel saw a viscacha (a rodent a bit like a possum) but we couldn´t see what it could possibly be living on; perhaps it was a recent plant for the benefit of tourists. Miguel drove fast and Mel asked me what the speedo said; I looked but it was broken, stuck forever on zero. Perfect.

We crossed another, lamer salt flat and stopped for lunch at a shallow salty lake populated by flamingoes. Again, the guide book had said there would be flamingoes, we´d seen photos*, but I hadn´t really believed it and was a little shocked to see them gracefully walking around feeding, brightly pink and beautiful. We dined while Miguel split a tyre rim and changed the tube, it was a tough three days for him.

The afternoon consisted of a long drive across more and more desert. Christ it was desolate. The afternoon´s highlight was an Andean fox approaching the car out of nowhere. We gave it a little bread but it was otherwise soon going to have to eat the viscacha seen earlier or it was stuffed. It was cute, someone** said "I want one". The empty, rocky, unfriendly mountains stood over us, sometimes emitting small tufts of smoke from their unstable insides. We stayed in a similar hostel to the previous night, next to a lake with waters stained red by algae and full of flamingoes. Vinicius shared his wine and continued to very openly discuss his previous three marriages and general inability to maintain a relationship for more than five years. He was a fireman, a "bombero", and so currently leads the coolest job title award, as well as coolest name.

The third day began very early, too early for Vinicius who had continued to entertain me with a panic attack during the night. Leslie was also very grumpy this morning. We drove through the desert in the half light and saw smoke rising above a hill. When we crested it we saw that it was steam, and this was a small region of significant thermal activity. Steam rose from the ground quickly or slowly depending upon the size of the hole it was released from and dark boiling fluid was visible in depressions in the earth. We warmed our hands in the steam before continuing to another lake where a man made pool caught natural warm water. It was freezing outside but Mel, Lesie and I stripped and climbed in, being labelled "crazy" by the Argentinians but believing the reverse (e.g. that they were crazy) to be true. The warm waters gave us an enormous filip.

Rather than spend two hours in the morning seeing new stuff, and then eight hours seeing nothing on the way back to Uyuni, after the two morning hours we were dropped at the Chilean border where we farewelled our group ( we were a little emotional and so were they, but not for the same reasons) and boarded another bus into Chile. The instant we crossed the border the rutted dirt road transformed into a sealed dual lane highway and numerous road signs and elaborate downhill emergency stop lanes appeared. Bolivia haven´t mentally recovered from losing their coast to Chile in the late 19th century and their roads haven´t recovered either. Only 47kms from the frontier we checked in to Hostal Sonchek, enjoying solar hot water and various other benefits of a developed economy. Beer-branded deck chairs for instance. There´s a cause for the Bolivian government.

* Why does "flamingoes" get an e but "photos" doesn´t?

** It was the author

Sam "Stop the train" Lloyd

I have just fled from the poolside at an Argentinian hotel to avoid the absoutely appalling music pounding from the bar speakers. An example: a smitten vocalist states that his woman is "like you´ve never seen" but then is unable to actually describe her except to say "I´m trying to find words to describe her without being disrespectful". I mention this to establish that I am motivated to avoid hearing that music again and so may go on a bit here. Mel is still out there, looking like a a yacht-owning millionaire´s trophy wife in her $10 Giorgio Armani sunglasses, bought from some bloke in the street in Arequipa, Peru.

Early in my working life I was required to travel with a colleague to Geelong to do some work. We drove down but as I only had half a day of work to do it was arranged for me to catch a midday train back to Melbourne. We dawdled at the worksite too long, and eventually our contact (we´ll call him Paul*) and I had to rush to the station to catch the train. It was pulling out as we arrived and while I headed for the swiftly-passing rear carriages Paul sprinted along the platform and leapt off the end, waving to the driver to stop or slow down. He did and I scrambled into the absolute rear door and made it back to Melbourne to sit at a desk checking my e-mail and the weekend racing tips all afternoon. When Paul next called our office and I answered he addessed me as "Sam `Stop the train´ Lloyd".

I was reminded of this story as we travelled south from La Paz. We had booked a bus to Oruro, three to four hours south, where we were then booked on an infrequent train another seven or eight hours further south to Uyuni, the gateway to the extraordinary Salar de Uyuni. We were told that the train was much more comfortable than getting a bus the whole way, and anyway, who doesn´t like a train ride? The connections didn´t seem too tight but many a guide book and fellow traveller had warned us that Bolivian transport was a little unpredictable and there was a little frisson of anxiety as we boarded the bus in La Paz.

After a couple of hours on the highway the bus stopped. This wasn´t very unusual; all through Ecuador and Peru buses would suddenly stop for three or four minutes, in which nothing obvious occurred, and then continue on with whatever the problem was resolved. However, this time we didn´t start again and the driver´s assistant came back to make a speech in Spanish, from which we could only understand that whatever it was upset all the other passengers a great deal but there was nothing anyone could do about it. Ten minutes became twenty, then forty, and I was mentally preparing myself for the loss of the train ride and subsequent much later uncomfortable bus ride. I got cabin fever sitting in the bus and went out for...some fresh air, and could see a huge crowd of people about a kilometre ahead where the road crested. A Canadian businessman named Carl approached me and said some Spanish speakers sitting near him had told him it was a protest, and we assumed it was the local indigenous people, the Aymara, who apparently routinely used roadblocks as a form of protest against whetever fucking-over they were upset about at the time. Carl and I chatted for a while and tried to make each other feel better about how lovely an evening in Oruro would be when we noticed a sudden flurry of people back to buses. As we strode back to ours we could see a fleet of motorcycle police come over the hill to the north, back towards La Paz. From the bus windows we observed them hurtle by and soon we were moving (an angry arrogant Western part of me was hoping that some significant violence had been prepetrated on those that dared hold me up for an hour). The passengers were restless and each small cessation of movement as we cleared the protest area was greeted with cries of "Vamos maestro!" and others that we couldn´t comprehend. The road was covered in rocks and other debris and was being laboriously cleared by hand by the cops.

We were away, and by some calculations might still make the train. As 3:30 (the train departure time) approached I was imagining Paul and more hurdling of platform barriers, and a tall lady approached us from the back of the bus. "I live in Oruro and can speak Spanish. Are you catching the train as well?" she asked. "Yes" we replied, and looked up at her with hope and gratitude and admiration in our eyes. "It´s already left" she said, crushing us momentarily. However! The train was slow, she said, and she had overheard a local man´s plan to catch a taxi in Oruro and speed to Poopo**, the next stop, and catch the train there. We agreed to this, and in Oruro the tall lady brokered a taxi for Mel and I along with Carl and his colleague Jacques. The cabbie initially named an absurdly low price for the fifty kilometre drive, but after the tall lady explained further his face turned ashen and he seemed unable to negotiate further. He stammered something to her but his body language made it clear that he wasn´t up for the challenge. We transferred our bags to another cab, whose driver was clearly up for the challenge, his excessive excitement providing a poignant indicator of what life was like for an Oruro taxi driver.

We fanged out of town and for a moment thought we could see the train to the west but it disappeared behind a hill. Jacques spoke the best Spanish and was doing calculations with the driver: "So it´s 57 kms to Poopo and we left 20 minutes after the train which will take about 20 minutes longer than us to get there..." etc. I thought of the Sam "Stop the train" Lloyd story but thought it best to keep it to myself. Ahead I thought I could see it but dared not speak until I was sure. Then "Guys, what do you think that is on the right?". It was the train, gloriously slow and on the right side of Poopo. The driver´s excitement reached fever pitch, and he took his eyes off the road for about ten full seconds while an equally excited Jacques took his photo. We pulled in to the "station" (with no passenger platforms) with seconds to spare, paid the driver and shook his hand and leapt aboard, where we consumed numerous beers in the dining car in what was a pretty good result for the dining car´s balance sheet and everybody involved really. We watched Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson in a film originally made in English but dubbed into Spanish and then shown with English subtitles. It didn´t seem to suffer for it. To Uyuni!

* His real name
** Too easy

Duty-free love

I have read some of "Marching Powder" a book about a drug dealer imprisoned in a notorious prison in La Paz, Bolivia, but can´t remember ever actually thinking of La Paz as a real place. It has been the same for many of the legendary sites we have been to on this trip. The Andes: I knew they were there and were substantial enough for word to have reached us of their existence, but haven't spent a moment actually considering what they might be like. They are so extraordinary that this feels like a tremendous failure.

Anyway, La Paz is pretty great, and has been placed on the list of cities we could live in if we decided to return to do volunteer work or something in the future. The city centre is laid out on a valley floor with the suburbs climbing the slopes around. As the houses get higher and more precariously perched the people get poorer. When people do have money they can buy nearly anything anywhere in town; just about the whole city is an open air market. Stalls line every street and it seems that there is some city legislation that demands that every fourth stall sell very bland hamburgers and hot dogs, and that every person buy at least one a day.

We probably didn't maximise our La Paz experience due to travel fatigue and the sniffles. We had a nice room and when stressed (which is all the time on La Paz's frenetic streets) we retreated to watch Friends and other crap on cable. We did manage to walk the hilly streets a little to take in the dried llama foetuses available in the witches market and to consider purchasing a wheelbarrow full of strawberries. We dined on magnificent spicy soup with pork chop and crackling ($1.60 each) at a little corner food stall where an old lady with an extraordinarily characterful face told us she had been working for fifty years. When we told she and her daughter that we were from Australia they looked very confused and didn't even understand when we mimicked kangaroos, which was extraordinary as every other Bolivian exclaimed "Kangaroos!" whenever we said we were from Australia.

While Mel struggled with the sniffles I rode a bike down the world´s most dangerous road. It isn´t that dangerous anymore as there is hardly any traffic thanks to a new road through the same area, but at some points it is so slim and rutted and adjacent to dizzying precipices that it is hard to understand how a sane person would undertake to drive something as large as a car down there. Apparently several buses have plunged off the edges and there were even a few smaller buses on it this day; even without traffic this seems crazy. I was with a mixed group of Israelis, Australians and Brits, and was one of the slowest. The Israelis in particular zoomed down at reckless speed. Our guides were young Brits, and were probably not as responsible as they could have been. When an Irishman came down with a flat tyre the guide asked if he was alright riding on his own, then said "Fuck him then" and led the rest of us away while the tyre was being repaired.

At the bottom we had lunch and the Israelis sat with the only girls in the group while most of the rest of the boys sat together. Many at our table took the opportunity to comment on their negative experiences with Israelis while travelling, and each followed the other in telling tales bagging Israelis and stopping just short of saying they wished Israelis would never travel. These pricks (the baggers, not the Israelis) then accepted with straight faces the extremely warm regards that one of the Israeli boys left them with after we returned to La Paz. I kind of hope he overheard the lunch comments and if so I applaud his response.

Our last night in La Paz was spent dining with Xavier and Florencia, a Belgin-Argentinian love affair that was sparked in the Buenos Aires airport duty free shop (the cigar bar, to be precise) several years before and has been surviving on brief trans-Atlantic visits since. We drank a bottle of Bolivian wine (the guide book says Bolivian wine is "exceptional"; the author has clearly invested heavily in the industry) and I poured the last of it into Xavier´s glass, a sign, he said, that he would be married within a year. Florencia was thrilled.

Folklore porn

There is a bit of a lull in travel proceedings and so we can take some time to reflect on the III Encuentro Internacional de Folklore. This event was announced on posters in the centre of Lima, Peru, near to the main square decorated with dolourful cow sculpturies covered with bubble wrap. The poster promised a night of enjoyable and interesting folklore performances from all over the world. And, this is preeeeeeeetty much what it delivered.

We arrived just prior to the show´s commencement not certain that we would get a ticket, but it soon became clear that we had overestimated demand for attendance at this event. We seemed to be the only attendees not obviously related to the performers. Not having any children/uncles/cousins to farewell and say "Break a leg" (or "Macbeth") to we quickly took our seats inside quite a nice theatre. The first performance was introduced by a baritone-voiced gentleman who had little to say other than "Señores y señoras, esta noche, presentamos..." (Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, we present...) and the names of the verious countries. unfortunately, he had been allotted about five minutes before each performance to get through this minor introduction, with the reult that "esta noche" was repeated so many times and with such gusto that Mel still dissolves into giggles whenever she hears it, four weeks later. Anyway, finally he wrestled the performers from "Polonia" on to the stage. They performed a lovely little series of vignettes with dancing and music based (presumably) on traditional forms of these disciplines in Poland. Mexico and Tahiti followed up with similarly (presumably) traditional performances reflecting their local cultures. The ladies seated in front of me seemed to be particularly entertained by the...ahem, packages occasionally visible through the small grass skirts worn by the young male members of the Tahiti troupe.

After Tahiti there was a short ceremony in Spanish that seemed to be honouring a French man who was the leader of the movement to bring this event to Lima, and he was very warmly greeted by many people whose roles weren´t totally clear aside from their performances as greeters. Our friend the announcer even managed to say "merci beaucoup" to him, drawing enthusiastic applause. I mention this episode specifically to highlight the warm and chaste manner in which everyone was behaving, just as one would expect at such an obviously family-oriented event (note this sentence for later). Then the announvers voice became even more animated and ragged because Peru was next. The crowd really went for it and the stars of Peruvian folklore roared onto the stage, dancing for a very long time in a way that obviously demanded a huge amount of ebergy, and finishing their first performance with the men striking each other with whips. After this a (how to say this?) portly woman came on with a band and impressively belted out several tunes of patriotic value. The crowd nearly raised the roof. The singer repeatedly shouted "(Unintelligible spanish...) PERU!" and this worked a treat. After this two beautiful young people took the stage, a girl in an elaborate white dress and a lad in a suit and vest looking like just the kind of guy you would want your daughter to be seeing. They performed a gorgeous dance with much quick stepping, twirling of a white handkerchief, and close holds pregnant with longing as their lips almost brushed. The crowd exhaled as one at the end of it and applauded wildly.

They departed and a larger group came on, dressed up as an Amazonian tribe with feathery head-dresses and long spears and grass skirts. I happened to notice as they came out that one of the females was dressed differently to the others, wearing a conventional billowy dress. Another held a bowl and knife. The crowd was into the new jungle beat and the performers soon formed a circle in the centre of the stage, arms and legs moving rapidly to the energetic music. In the excitement I initially failed to notice that the conventionally dressed girl had whipped off her dress leaving her naked but for some white underpants. Even the leery bloke in front of me lowered his camera to make sure he was seeing it right. She danced in the centre of the circle, attempting to escape but being blocked by the other dancers. Meanwhile, the bowl and knife girl sat at front of stage simulating cutting her arms and siphoning her blood into the bowl. We weren´t sure if this was expected by the crowd but judging from the undeniable mood change it seemed that most were at least a little taken aback.

A chief stepped forward and accepted the knife and bowl from the self-harming girl. The naked girl was in a trance by now and had stopped trying to escape from the circle, resigned to her fate. The circle parted and the chief apprached the girl, manouvered her to sit/lay down on the floor and then violently simulated stabbing her five or six times. The girl spasmed realistically and disturbingly as he did this before laying still. After she was "dead" the chief rejoined the dancing which went on for several more minutes while the girl lay with her legs splayed grotesquely apart with her crotch pointed right at little grandma Maria in row A, who had come down to see her granddaughter perform in the beautiful handkerchief dance. The bloke in front of me had long since put his camera away. Once the tribe left the stage the dead girl stood up (there was a tiny moment of doubt that she would), collected her dress, and walked off.

The show had to go on. "Esta noche....Paraguay. Paraguay!! PARAGUAY!!!". Apparently they don´t take the stage until they´ve been introduced thrice. But what could they do to top human sacrifice? Balance bottles on their heads of course. Looking back over the photos it seems that I was only moved to photograph this when the balancers got to five bottles each, sitting lengthways on top of each other on the performer´s head. Each continued until they both had ten bottles on their head, reinvigorating the shocked crowd and triggering much double-taking and counting and recounting of the bottles. A timely reminder that entertainment could be entertaining and clean at the same time. Belgium followed up with a repetitive flag waving (literal) routine, and then Brazil came on for an energetic performance involving clashing of knives (complete with sparks) but it was time to move on. "Mucha' gracias...........Polonia! Mexico! Tahiti! Paraguay! Belgica! Brazil! But most of all.......PERU!!!!!!!!" (Crowd noises etc.)