Peering into the Precipice

Time for some catch-up.

We spent the month of February entirely in Argentina. Having heard Buenos Aires was a city we’d all love, we rented an apartment for the month from DeptosTemparios. Being travelers on a budget, we went cheap, which first left us with a lot of roaches and next left us with a lot of travel costs to get anywhere that things were happening (i.e. taxis at night). I think if we did it again it would probably be worth springing the extra $200 for the month which we’d save in comfort and convenience.

Buenos Aires, as everyone has heard, is a very European city by South America standards. Within the downtown area its hard to distinguish the architecture from historic districts of major European cities like Paris, Munich, Prague, etc. Fashion wise, the people are pretty progressive, at least in comparison to countries like Chile.

For most of our time in Buenos Aires we spent a good deal of our time skateboarding. We also hit the typical tourist museums and sites, which were all good and well (the Modern Art Museum was notably good), but its hard to be a tourist everyday of the week. Skateboarding, which essentially is just wandering around bad parts of town looking for weird architecture, is a nice way to see a different side of the city than your typical tourist. Buenos Aires has a massive number of skaters, and as a visit to standard meet up spots like Correo Central or Facultad de Medicina proves. Unfortunately it seems that the city’s golden era of skateboarding was probably 5-10 years ago. There are tons and tons of spots which look great on the surface - smooth ground, a variety of ledges/gaps, etc, but on closer inspection most ledges have had their wax powerwashed off, leaving ugly and useless scars, while others are just plain destroyed by the also high number of BMX’ers, which are notorious for significantly shortening the lifespan of good ledges. Still, a few good spots can be found in the city, and if you’re looking for gaps, there’s plenty of variety of those (I’ll pass). The locals in Buenos Aires are probably some of the best at skate in the world, too, given their environment.

The nightlife in BA is fairly happening, although my personal take was that it was a better place to party as an expat than as a tourist. While cheap drinks can be found in Colombia, Chile, Peru, etc fairly easily, it seemed that BA prices were much more in line with stereotypical big-city prices as opposed to South American prices. Some of my favorite nights were spent at a local dive-ish bar a block from our apartment which seemed to be most frequented by us and next by the bar staff that weren’t working.

Finally, BA is probably suffering from the most crime (or, perceived crime) of any city I’ve been too. We were constantly warned about bad parks and neighborhoods, which is normal when traveling, but also semi-frequently felt comfortable or even on the edge of danger/confrontation as lurking sketchy characters eyed our bags while we skated or wandered. Besides a lame attempt at stealing a board, however, we didn’t get burnt.

Next, Iguazu…

For those that haven’t read or heard, the CCTV’s new HQ compound suffered a heavy blow last month during the peak of the Chinese New Year festivities. There are plenty of stories and pictures that can be easily found online, so I won’t delve too deeply there. I did, however, just read a decent article at a favorite blog of mine, Absurdity, Allegory & China, taking a post-mortem analysis what’s going on there at the moment. From the sounds of it its business as usual - sweep the detritus under the carpet and hope no one notices the scarred earth that remains before the next big rain. I’d be interested in what is planned to happen in the next few months - perhaps a midnight implosion of the skeleton while no one is awake?

Anyhow, its a good read.

For the last 10 days in January we spent our time on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, mostly in Santa Marta and with a few days in Cartagena. My uncle Kico has an apartment 10 minutes outside of Santa Marta at a small resort’ish community (half apartments like his for Colombians, half beach resorts with mostly foreigners). We hit just a week or two after the high season, so the beach and town were pretty dead. Nonetheless, the beach was amazing and I think probably the best one we’ve been to so far (even including our brief visit to DEATH BEACH). The beach hawkers and drug peddlers in Cartagena were a bit much, but overall a good beach week.

I spent most of my time (at home) laying in this hammock.

Stunning beach with hardly anyone on it, blistering sun everyday and pretty clean water.

Gorgeous sunsets each night.

One day we went to Playa Blanca (White Beach) and on the way were deposited at a ridiculous little aquarium. My favorite exhibit was this hippy-shark.

On the way back we stopped about a mile off coast and walked around on the sand bar, which was far more surreal than it sounds.

Us chugging beers in the middle of the ocean, at Manuel’s insistence.

During our exploration of Cartagena we found some ancient ruins, and felt it appropriate to pay homage to Team Zissou.

Cartagena looks like a scene out of Pirates of the Caribbean or The Count of Mount Cristo.

On the way on to Argentina (via Baranquilla) our boards were not allowed as either carry on or checked luggage - a first in 11 years. This was Avianica’s solution. They also made us print off forged return itineraries from a wise travel agent because they were terrified we’d be rejected by Argentinean Customs (who didn’t care at all).

After our 10 days or so in the southern, ‘jungled’ area of Colombia we returned to Bogotá. After over a week of changing beds nearly every other day it was great to have a regular place to sleep for a week or so, even if it was 3 men sharing one room, which meant not a square foot of floor space was visible. In addition to visiting some museums and scenic sights, we also skated around the city and generally unwound. A big part of how we planned (I use that term loosely) our time in later countries, such as Argentina and now in Chile (and, likely, later in Peru) was based on our past experiences with traveling. In my case, having traveled in Europe during my study abroad in 2005, including for a 3 week stint (which I know isn’t long in the field of professional travelers), I knew I only enjoyed the hostel circuit for a week or so at a time, and doing that route for 5 months solid would drive me insane. So, we decided that after Colombia we would establish a ‘base’, i.e. a rented apartment, in Buenos Aires, Valparaiso, etc, where we could leave a majority of our crap, travel lighter on shorter outings to other spots, and have a decent place to unwind. Its surprising how much one appreciates a vegetative TV night once the option isn’t available (and I wouldn’t consider any of us much of TV-junkies normally). Anyway…

After several days in Bogota waiting for Anthony and Sean to arrive we departed for Girardot and Neiva, where I have family and a few side journeys planned. Not much went on during those first few days in Bogota waiting, besides Lola, the dog of the house, eating my power adaptor which I discovered cost over $140 to replace. Apparently Colombia has some extremely high tariffs on high-tech or luxury goods - my uncle picked up a hard drive from an incoming friend from Chicago the same day that I landed, which also cost about half as much in America vs Colombia.

Girardot

The bus ride to Girardot was about 5 hours, although the most gruelling portion was the wait for tickets at the bus station in Bogota. Although the ticket hall had about 40 windows available, only 6 were running and only 3 people were actually manning them (two windows each, alternating) so we ended up waiting in line for about 90 minutes for a 2 minute transaction, but in the end we made it all right. A majority of the time in Girardot was spent either in the pool, sleeping off a hangover or reading in the shade during the afternoon heat. A few things that stand out:

• Girardot appears to have changed little from the last time I was there, about 11 years ago. While I didn’t know much about the general layout of the city, the neighborhood where my grandmother and uncle Mono lived, as well as my uncle Negro’s house, were exactly as I remembered them… with slightly rougher roads (skateboarders notice this kind of thing) - apparently repaving isn’t high on the list of city priorities.
• The nightlife is pretty wild there for the relative size of the town… I get the impression that during the holidays its mostly revelers from Bogota or other bigger cities. It was also interesting to see how lax parental attitudes were about their teenagers partying until 3 or 4 am.
• A few changes that struck me; while the small, classic and characteristic tiendas remain at most every corner, big chain stores such as Carrefour have also moved in, and are practically nicer than any grocery store you’d find in Alaska… although their shoplifting prevention is much more thorough, with a practical pat-down of every exiting customer.

Neiva

After Girardot was another 3-4 hour journey to Neiva, where Negro lives with his family. There, it was more of the same; late nights with my cousins, sleeping in late, and getting reacquainted with family. These days were great for my Spanish, as my cousins seemed among the most willing to deal with our broken grammar and limited vocabulary before writing off the hope of communication altogether. Besides partying my uncle also showed us where he worked and the archaeological museum on campus, which was OK as far as campus museums go. It would have been better, but the place had recently been robbed of some 200 million pesos worth of gold artifacts, which had only been secured by a few screws and a plate of glass. Somewhat shocking to think that that much gold could be so lightly guarded… In Neiva we were also treated to a ‘great’ dinosaur museum by the banks of the River Magdalena, which housed such favorites like a plaster T-rex, a few rock stegosauruses (?), and other classics in a cave under a bridge - you’ve got to see the pictures (link below) to understand.

San Augustine

After a few lazy days in Neiva we departed for San Augustine (the town), where there is a major archaeological site and a few hikes. Highlights here included seeing the narrowest, deepest portion of the River Magdalena and touring the ancient ruins at San Augustine (the site), which besides the Museo del Oro in Bogota was the most ’serious’ attempt at academic museum work in Colombia. Despite the high quality of the actual artifacts we were all pretty amused and at times perplexed by our English speaking 4′10″ tour guide, Jerry Lewis (really), who was filled with tail after tail about how the San Augustinians were in contact with the Chinese, Indians, Egyptians, Aliens, performed brain surgery, heart surgery, cesarean sections, and breast enhancements (ok, cut that one). While perhaps one or two from that list have some grains of truth in them, his equal emphasis on the amount of psychedelic mushrooms they ate (evidenced by the wide eyes in so many sculptures) and their masochistic sexual tendencies (as seen in their fully erect statues with belts tighted around their genitals, to the point that their eyes bugged out - or was that from the mushrooms?) left us a bit skeptical of the whole lot. Sean also noted how nearly everything Mr Lewis said flew completely in the face of what is known about not only the cultures in South America but also in those other lands. Let’s not forget Mr Lewis is an entertainer, not a scientist.

Desert Tatacoa

After our time in San Augustine we killed a day in Neiva and then headed for the Tatacoa desert, which provided the best pictures of the first few weeks of our trip. There’s not much to be said about it, except that we had a blast running up and surfing/free-falling/sliding down sand dunes, so I’d suggest checking the pictures out.

Pictures on Facebook