“The open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself."
Over six months on the road now and still loving it! On the one hand I feel like have been doing this forever, I can't imagine living any other kind of life, but on the other, six months is a pretty good chunk of time, and I feel like I have just arrived considering how much more there is to see.
After arriving in Salta, a large town in Argentina, we decided to stay in a hostel since two out of the three of us only had hammocks and it was raining everyday. We became friends with the owners (a very young couple) and ended up having an Argentinian BBQ with them one night. The steaks really are as good as they say, and, like always here, we only started to eat at midnight. From there we (still with the two crazy French guys), hitchhiked our way down to a lake. There was no one there, and we were able to cross (there was a part where the water only went up to mid stomach) and sleep on an island. After that we made our way down to another town farther south. By then the French guy without a tent had bought one, so we were able to stay in campings again. For my birthday, the guys did an Argentinean BBQ (in the pouring rain) and we drank Argentinean wine all night. A few days later we started out on a day trip that we thought was an easy hike to a waterfall, but ended up being an all day very hard excursion that involved crossing a river over a dozen times (very strong current, water up past my chest), and very dangerous climbs with nothing underneath. Unfortunately, on one of the river crossing I slipped pretty bad while jumping onto a rock and ended up spraining my knee, so I never made it to the waterfall.
I decided from there to head back up to Bolivia as the French guys continued down, so I spent two straight days on the bus (unfortunately hitchhiking alone is not a smart plan). An hour away from my destination here in Bolivia, we got stopped because the miners were on strike, again. By this time it was 22h, and we ended up spending the night in the bus waiting and hoping that they would let up, which of course, they didn't. In the morning at about 6h as the sun began to rise, everyone (there were kilometers of busses and trucks stuck on both sides) came out to see what was going on. Along with thousands of others, we walked over two hours to cross to the other side where some of the busses were turning around to give up. Finally, over twelve hours after I should have arrived, I made it to Oruro. The day after I arrived here, February tenth, I woke up to fire crackers (here they sound like gun shots) and music, the kind you hear in a parade. Sure enough, there was a parade that lasted over five hours and involved just about everyone you could think of. There was the army (sadly have no pictures from this part cause we were packed so tightly I couldn't reach into my bag to grab my camera), scouts, fruit sellers, miners, students, and everyone in-between. I later found out that it was Oruro's birthday, hence the big celebration. Also, all this week there has been an ongoing water fight all over the city. Every kid and student has a water bottle or water gun (as well as spray soap), and it seems like just about everyone participates. The first few days I was safe, but after that I guess a target appeared on my head since I was getting sprayed, with water and soap, constantly. This is all in preparation for carnival, which is a huge celebration here... One of the biggest in the world!
Since I haven't had wifi, I am posting this, which was written a few weeks ago, as well as my newest entry.
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