Chapter VI - Considering again

Asunción (PY) - Rosario (AR) - Buenos Aires - Colonia del Sacramento (UY) - Buenos Aires (AR) - Mendoza - Valparaiso (CL) - Santiago - Caldera - San Pedro de Atacama

Pacific ocean in Valparaiso

Dear friends and family, especially our worrying mums,

we probably should apologise for not writing anything on the blog (or on Facebook) for weeks, but to be honest, we aren't sorry at all. We've been busy travelling around, seeing places, getting to know people and enjoying life. So no apologies but instead an enormously long post with loads of pictures from three countries.

The oldest building in Buenos Aires, also known as Manzana de Luz

After a week in Paraguay we began travelling southwards towards Buenos Aires. On the way we stopped in Rosario for a couple of nights to greet our friends we met on a tourist tour back in Rio. The weekend was fun - we got to know the city, had some delicious home made burgers and danced to the best hits from today (or a few months ago). A heart attack was also close, when a bat fell out of nowhere on the floor of our room when we were about to go to bed.

In Buenos Aires zoo we took pictures with all the animals.

Our stay in Buenos Aires didn't start the best way it could have - it was Anneli's turn to get really ill. We kept prolonging our stay at the hostel so that she could try and sleep her on-off-fever away. Anneli was sure it was rabies (from the bat in Rosario), I tried to convince her it was probably "only" malaria. To make everything worse, the wifi in the hostel didn't work, so she didn't have anything to do during the days. After a few days she went to see a doctor, got antibiotics for bronchitis (or pneumonia, the doctor wasn't sure) and eventually was feeling better.

Having spent a bit too many days in BA, we decided to shorten our week in Uruguay to a weekend. We took a boat on Friday evening from BA to Colonia del Sacramento but came to regret the decision about twenty minutes before hitting the coast. Even though Sanni had tried to prepare herself for the worst, seasickness never feels good. Like about 40 percent of our fellow travellers, she also enjoyed the sight of a white plastic bag full of questionable fluids. Anneli did her best to keep her cool and not to get sick herself.

Colonia was an utterly beautiful city. We celebrated Anneli's 25th birthday by signing her happy birthday at the hostel in five languages and eating well.  The antibiotics set some restrictions on the wildness of the party. Our ferry (bigger, more stable, slower and less throw-uppy) left at four in the morning and since we didn't want to spend money on a night in a hostel, we spent it on the street, in a restaurant and eventually at the port.

A quarter-century-old Anneli

Being the lazy travellers that we are, we ended up staying in Buenos Aires for a few more days. We spent our days roaming San Telmo, the bohemian hippie neighbourhood, met some interesting street rats and found delicious cherries in a market hall. For the first time on the trip we also made some plans for the first week in Finland - munkkimaanantai!

Next destination: Mendoza on the other side of the country. One of the most exiting experiences so far was  the Finland vs. Sweden ice hockey game (which we eventually were able to watch on our tablet, yay!). We met a fellow enthusiast, a half Finnish guy from London. After seven weeks of sniffing each others butts we finally had enough courage to start taking contact to the outside world and other people (ha ha). We got to know some awesome people, some of whom we have even met again during the last weeks. We spent one day biking around the wine yards near the town, on another afternoon Sanni finally got to go horseback riding and Anneli got to try galloping for the first time.

Anneli's (which on this trip means our) camera got stolen
along the way. We lost only a few pictures and the new
one is awesome - it has cool effects and pics turn out great.

We were supposed to continue our journey towards Chile on a Sunday evening. At the bus station they let us know that it had snowed so much that the buses wouldn't drive over the mountains. After spending one extra night in Mendoza we finally took off to Valparaiso. Actually we were delighted to travel during the day - the landscape was different than before, so beautiful with all the mountains and serpent roads. While waiting to cross the border we even got a bit of fresh snow!

Colourful Valparaiso

Our plan in Chile was to meet a friend of Sanni's in Valparaiso, spend the night there and continue northwards the next day. Meeting her didn't work out, but eventually we stayed in the prettiest city so far for a week. We made some friends at the hostel and roamed the city with them - saw amazing graffiti, bought veggies on the farmers market, visited Pablo Neruda's house and checked out the best restaurants.

Before heading north towards Bolivia, we took a bus to the capital, Santiago. We spent the night there with some friends from Valparaiso and drove the next night to some random city halfway to the Bolivian border. We ended up spending the day in a pretty dead city in the middle of nowhere, where the siesta seemed to last from early morning until late night. Luckily we had bought tickets to continue to San Pedro on the same day and we could escape the uninviting, drowsy town soon enough.

The Andes seen from Santigo

Anneli and our Australian friends went to check out the views and sunset
from the highest hill in Santiago. Sadly they were kicked out just before
sunset but the view is still pretty neat.

Bahia Inglesa, a sleepy beach town (or rather a street) next to Caldera.

The next morning we arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, booked a tour to Salar de Uyuni, the salt flats in southern Bolivia, for the next day, relaxed in the town for the night and had the best burgers ever for dinner. Seriously, delicious.

Tsunami warning signs everywhere!

 We have had surprisingly few problems with the language in the past weeks. Even though we don't understand everything, most of the time we at least get along. Sanni's portuñol is getting better and more understandable day by day and Anneli's one word questions such as ¿Baño? or ¿La quenta? get always answered. The best conversation was in a bus with the driver in Bolivia, where they had heating on:

A: ¡Muy caliente!
D: Si.
A: ¿Mas frio?
D: No puedo. (No can do.)

Thoughts of Anneli: In the start of the trip we were both homesick After we left our Finnish fear of people behind, things changed. The biggest difference between us is the fact that when Sanni doesn't want to be with me, she wants to be alone, but when I can't stand her face, I want to be with other people. So now that we have met a lot of cool people, some of them travelling since forever, I have started to fear the moment I have to go home. Travelling, seeing new places and meeting cool people feels so much easier than facing the reality and living a normal life. One friend of ours said that the more you travel, the less you know what you want. That combined with the reason why I originally wanted to go to South America (finding myself and all that crap) doesn't make the storm of feelings inside me easily solvable. Everything good I have in my life back in Finland (that being a lot) fights with the feeling of excitement you get when you go to a new city and meet people with amazing stories and can maybe be a part of those stories. Then again escaping reality and running away from myself feels like something that a 1/4 century old "woman" shouldn't do. Because of that the last couple of weeks have consisted of me being anxious and even more analytic than before, Sanni feeling exited about getting closer to home and her boyfriend and me being pissed at her for being happy. I do have to say that Sanni has also enjoyed the trip, she is just seeing home as a positive and not a scary thing. Back in Valparaiso a friend of ours told me I should make decisions based on what will take me closer to the goal I had when leaving home. I guess all of this I'm feeling comes from not having finished my goal. For the first time since naming the blog I'm thinking about escape and the sense of it.

Since we're so much behind our blogging schedule, we try to keep the texts shortish. Yeah, we know this text isn't short at all but trying to squeeze three countries into one text can't be done in a couple of sentences. Entries about Bolivia and Peru should follow soon enough. We're now in Cusco and will head off to Machu Picchu tomorrow. Two weeks left, about 4000 kilometers to go! (We did book a flight between Lima and Quito to make it possible to actually do the 4000 km on time.)

The song above was made in Caldera when Anneli was sick and tired of Sanni's face but stuck with her and no one else for two whole nights in a row. It made her smile for the first time in what felt like ages.

Chapter IV - Picturesque views

Araxá - Rio de Janeiro - Curitiba - Ilha do Mel - Curitiba - Foz do Iguaçu

Up first, pictures from Araxá:

Meeting some of Sanni's friends after six long years!
Andim, Fred, Wilker, Poliana, Arison (and later
Hugo and Rogerio too), foi bom ver vcs!

Visiting Barreiro with Sanni's brazilian mum Eliene,
who let us stay in her home for the week.

SWEET PIZZA and salami, thanks Diego!

Oops, rebellionism. Two piercings in different
ears weren't the best idea, after more than a
week they still hurt when laying in bed :<

We went to see small waterfalls near Araxá.

Behind you can see some of the falls. In front
Anneli almost falling off of a cliff. On the same
trip we got a proof that brazilians drive reclessly
 - though the car didn't break, the front tire
wasn't as lucky.

Everyone we told about us being homesick and in some way wanting to go back home just said, wait and see how you will feel in a couple of weeks. We were waiting forward to the feeling of excitement and wanted to really start our trip. Thankfully we guessed correctly and Araxá was the thing to pull us out of our culture shock. After a week of relaxing and doing fun stuff with Sanni's friends, we headed to Rio. Sanni had been there 3 times before, so she wasn't as excited as I was. The song Copacabana had been stuck in my head for days before going there (and was the whole time we spent in Rio). We arrived in Rio early in the morning and had to find out something to do for the hours before check in. We of course went to the beach and ended up falling asleep and burning ourselves partially. Sanni now has a (hopefully) permanent hippo'ish' looking creature on her right thigh and very brown feet.

Everybody wants to go by bus!

Sanni's now probably permanent hippo friend, who was
at some point infested by a rash and sun allergy. (Note to
Sanni's mum, she put Bepathen on it many times a day.)

There is so much to see in Rio that we were wondering how we could see it all the easiest and cheapest way. Originally we didn't want to do the 'tourist thing' and do an expensive tour where you go see everything with a guide. But in the end, we did it anyway and it was a good choice. We could see all of the biggest attractions in one day and met a couple of really nice people on the way. From our guide we heard a secret tip that you can actually hike up half of the way to Pão de Açucar (the Sugar Loaf) and get a free ride up to the actual mountain with the locals after 7pm. Because we love being stingy, we always take the chance to not pay for something. Two other people from our group decided to do it with us. According to our guide the hike was supposed to be easy and even her small son could walk it. It ended up being 30 minutes of natural 'stairs' made of tree roots and rocks. But we made it and the feeling was great! Then it turned out that her information was outdated and we couldn't get all the way up. It didn't matter though because the sunset and the view were just as great from the lower landing.

Jesus was touched by Anneli. Or the other
way around. Can you see the Holy Light
emitting from the touch? (Sanni does
not approve of this joke.)

The way up to Pão de Açúcar. Easy, right?

Desperation?

Sunset in Rio

After Rio we took a night bus to Curitiba. It was the best so far! We sat in the first row of a double-decker so we could lean our feet against the window and sleep properly. Sitting next to us there were two very nice grannies, one of them had just turned  100 years old. From Curitiba we were planning to travel to Ilha do Mel (the Honey Island). This time we were smart and found out in advance if there was a room for us. When we arrived to the beautiful island that has no cars and proper roads, just sand everywhere, we found out that our hostel keeper would find a room for us somewhere on the island, not in his hostel. Because he also rents tents, we decided to stay in one, paying only a half of what we would have paid for a room. A decision at least I grew to regret. The first night it was hot like hell and the second it rained and stormed like I had never experienced before. I was sure the tree covering the campsite would fall on us. Well it didn't and everything turned out just great. The island was absolutely beautiful and the water warm like 'birds milk' as the Finns say.

Ilha do Mel

Anneli trying to cool off in the breeze and also
 trying to take a cool pic. Sanni admitted of timing
the picture taking the way that only 1/8 pictures
does not have a bum showing. You are welcome world!

Now we are in Foz do Iguaçu trying to plan our next move. We just don't feel like leaving this hostel and its comfortable beds.  We have already been here for one night more than planned and seen the falls from the Brazilian and the Argentinian side. We know we don't have so much time to lose, but then again...comfortable beds (and good breakfast and nice atmosphere and people). We know we will go to Paraguay next, most likely to Encarnación to experience their twist on carnival.

Brazilian side with our new Irish friends

View from the Brazilian side of the falls

Unbelievably cute, fluffy and rabies-carrying mammal.
We thought it could be Marsupilami but apparently
it's some sort of raccoon or aardvark (maasika).

Devil's Throat, Garganta del Diablo - the first
and biggest of the falls.

We told you before that we are going to write about the feelings we have had about Brazilians and some of the cultural differences that have effected us the most. Now that we are leaving Brazil it feels like the best moment to tell you about them (not that we haven't been negative before. Heh. Heh.). After the first days in Salvador, we wrote a short text about our feelings. We didn't post it online, because we wanted to see if our feelings would stay the same after the initial shock. We do still feel shocked about the way people treat this unique and beautiful country they have, filling it with litter, cans and plastic bags. Seriously, they give one plastic bag for each item when you go grocery shopping.  To us it seems people don't see the effect of their actions. We have been laughing about how Brazilians must feel if they go to Finland and nobody packs their groceries, not to talk about the huge bags we have (bad customer service anyone?). The government tries to remind people not to litter by putting signs and billboards by the roads, but people learn to not care since childhood. I saw a 3-year-old eating a candy and just throwing the paper on the ground, just like the older lady next to him. Again, we have to say there are exeptions like D'Aventura, the firm we told you about. Brazilians are also very proud of their recycling system, something we haven't seen in action, but what hopefully works.

We took a shower under these waterfalls.
No one stayed dry on that boat ride.

In the text we also wondered about the attitude towards other people. We are not sure if we have just gotten used to it or do we just see things more positive, but people just don't seem so bad anymore. Somehow we have felt and still feel like many people would have a 'me first' -attitude to things. We don't know where this feeling comes from and also don't feel comfortable talking about it, because the subject is a nation that consists of groups with hugely different economical status. How people show caring and worry for the lesser, if they do it, is a riddle to us and in that sense also hard to understand for well-cared students from Finland. Respect towards other people and how it's shown is a very complicated concept and it defines a culture greatly. It's impossible for us to know if we can see respect in any other way than our own. We have talked with Brazilians about our feelings and some of them do agree with us, so maybe we are not totally off in our views.

View of the falls from the Argentinian side

After this labor-like try to get our feelings and my over-analytical head in order, we have to say that Brazil has been a joy and a puzzle. I'm sure it won't change in other South-American countries, but it has given us a good start to this trip that is turning into a load of deep hows and whys. In the last post Sanni was giving me compliments about being a good sport among all this portuguese, so now it's my turn. Poor Sanni has to listen to me analyze my head, her head and the head of every person that walks past. That's really not easy.

Oh and if you wonder about us not listing good and bad things about each other, we decided that it's none of your business. We still talk about all of them (mostly because I have to and make everyone else talk about everything), we just don't have the need to tell you about Sanni warming the water bottle with her hands and me screwing the cap unnecessarily tight. All you need to know is that we are having loads of fun, eating a lot of meat and inspite of our disagreements we still love eatch other (Sanni read it and made a throw-up-face).

We went to eat in a churrascaria, where
different types of delicious meats are
served to tables in swords. This picture
says more than a thousand words.