South Bound

Molino photos

2009-04-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

Dinner party with the roomies at midnight, obviously. Who in their right mind would want to eat dinner at the ridiculuosly civilized hour of 7pm?

Dining room balcony view of the Argentine national Congress

Thanks to Florencia for the photos!

We live in Buenos Aires

2009-04-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

Dear readers,
We have landed on our feet in Buenos Aires. Our friend Magu connected us with a whole crew of friendly Chileans who offered us a room on their floor of the Confitería del Molino. Which just happens to be an extremely well located, famous, rotten, art nouveau masterpiece. What luck. So, we`ve been decorating our little room with 25 foot ceilings and a balcony and continuing our exploration of BA which is HUGE. We just returned from a week or so travelling in the south of Argentina (El Bolsón and Bariloche) aka mountain paradise where the trees are red and gold, the water is frigid and aquamarine and the air is cold and clear. I wish I could post pictures but sadly our camera was stolen the night of our going away party in Uruguay. The robbery hasn´t tarnished our affection for "Burning Man: the Country" and we left with high spirits, many friends and intentions to return. Our final parting contribution to Punta del Diablo life was a visit to the local elementary school where we made hundreds of precious hand drawn buttons with all the kids, rocketing ourselves into the gringo hall of fame for at least one tiny fishing village in one tiny south american country. ¡Bárbaro!

2009-04-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

I am sitting next to a window that is tinted blue, it is open and the sounds of the city spill in. Most commonly the sharp squeal of passing micos punctuated with an occasional dog barking. Peaceful as it is only one thirty in the afternoon. No one is awake yet.
Buenos Aires, do you want some party for your party?
-z

Where in the world are Mark and Zya?

2009-03-03T11:35:00.000-08:00

Punta del Diablo, Uruguay!

Dear readers...apologies for the long radio silence. We have been all over the place, on buses, on foot, on the train, in taxis, in boats-searching, always searching for something. Searching for something that we found in the perfect, sleepy, fish/surf/vacation village of Punta del Diablo. Yup, Devils point has what we want out of a South American vacation-the people are friendly, the weather is HOT, the water is warm, the beer is cold and the fish is fried. As you can see, weve rented a darling cabaña with ocean views and we plan on staying for a while. Uruguay is by far the most chilled out, progressive country that South America has to offer. Everyone, including us, drinks mate 24 hours a day and never wears pants. We recommend that you come on down and visit.

Cheers,

Mark

Pre-Columbian

2009-02-07T13:05:00.000-08:00

I foun out that mark LOVES pre-columbian museums. The bone picture is for Hannah.

Pisco Elqui Photos

2009-02-07T12:28:00.000-08:00

We camped under a weeping willow in Pisco Elqui. Nice material for basket weaving. You can hardly believe that such a lush camp is cradled by such dry and sharp hills...

Atacama Spring Break!

2009-02-06T12:14:00.000-08:00

We hit a rut here in the Atacama desert
No, to be fair to a once blind nominee for ¨the world´s most romantic desert¨, we hit a rut in the town of San Pedro de Atacama.
California´s very own Death Valley still holds the crown...
And San Pedro Atacama wins the Spring Break (bone dry) Key West look a like contest. But Chilean teenagers sure do seem to love it.

What you really need here is your own jeep.
Our experience has been similar to like what it would be to ride a bus into death valley to the visitor center/golf course ¨oasis¨ in the middle of the park ... and be stuck there with hordes of high maintenance screeching latina teenage girls with fake IDs.
I am sure the desert is lovely, but apart from over an overpriced tour in which they will take you to see some nice rocks so long as you don´t mind one of the teenage girls sitting on your lap it has been kind of like a permanant Coachella.

So we are moving on to visions of escaping horizions, stars within arms reach, flamingo filled lagoons and salt flats. A three day 4x4 jeep tour into Bolivia. They take 6 passengers, so we will have dwindled it down to 4 screachers, at worst. Four screachers standing between us and the exquisite romance of a land without water.

Pisco Elqui, on the other hand, was tops.

-z

Photos!

2009-01-30T10:04:00.000-08:00

Dirty sock puppets are the new business venture!
With chapita (button) eyes no less...

Midnight domino showdown...
Larimar:330
Los Madre: 250

The Chilean equivalent of The Onion had some things to say about Obama too.

Mi familia at the country house in El Pangal

Sad Valparaíso :(

For Luke Dauter:

Still life with Jever...in a can

Don´t eat the shellfish!

2009-01-28T14:09:00.000-08:00

Greetings from beneath the shady leaves of the Pisco vineyards in UFO friendly valle del Elqui. We´ve departed from Santiago and the loving embrace of my ultra hospitable Chilean family. We´re off on the open road for sure now. After spending four hell filled days trapped in an apartment in Valparaíso (seriously...don´t eat the shellfish in summer) it was time to move on. Now we´ve landed on our feet in the mystical desert oasis mountains of northern Chile. The stargazing is luminous and clear and we have a great campsite down by the river. The days are hot, the nights cold and the water is perfect. Barring anymore gastrointestinal umpleasantness (fingers crossed) its the good life of slanging chapitas (buttons) from here on out.

Cheers!

Mark

Ten Dollars, Three Options, and the Truth About Beer

2009-01-22T12:19:00.000-08:00

In these swirling economic times, with the collapse of imaginary money and thieves who will steal your plumbing, everyone loves-hates to talk about money. But love on, because I am about to unveil the price of beer.

Beer. International currency and multi-lingual translator. An affordable and reliable friend.

Our new black president has been good for the drink. Dollars up, Euros down. Today for one US dollar you can go to a "house of change" and come away with 620 pesos. On the last day of Bush it was 598. And at the airport in Toronto the Canadians were trying to sell us on 412. Canadians, ooughff!

But back to South America and the important topic of beer... So lets say you go down to your local house of change with a ten dollar bill, because tens are mathematically easy, and you walk away with 6,200 pesos and a powerful thirst for Escudo, "the beer of the Chilean people", says Mark.

Now you have a few options.

Option one. You go to a trendy little bar on plaza nuñoa in Santiago, like "El Amor Nunca Muere" and you sit at a little candle lit sidewalk table with uncomfortable chairs, surrounded by beautiful people whoes cigarette smoke chases twirling street drummers and you order five regular sized bottles of beer and leave a really shitty tip.

But better to order two beers, leave a good tip, and then go to the cafe next door and get an avocado, green bean, cheese, egg and hearts of palm sandwich.

Option two. You go to a lovely and typically chaotic south american market piled high with vegetables and stray cats in Valparaíso, a crass and liberal port city. A good place to drink beer because all the Chilean wheat that fueled the California gold rush passed through here. You are in good company in a culture embedded in grain.

Here you sit at a wide plastic table in wide plastic chairs and your budget will allow for four liter sized beers and a decent tip. That is more than a gallon of beer, so the author recommends, and I am sure the Lonely Planet would agree, you chose one liter of beer, a few cheese and shrimp empañadas and a big bowl of mixed shellfish soup served with bread, a dinner plate of cut lemons and a not so spicy spicy garlic parsley sauce. (Feeds two)

Option Three: Any grocery store will do. You go in with your 6,200 pesos and walk out with three six packs and a half pound of pichanga (mixed pickled vegetables, olives, ham and cheese).

And the words for hangover: andar con caña.

-Z

EveryThong in California is better!

2009-01-21T09:13:00.000-08:00

Foppiano (el perro Ladron de Guevarra)

Or so said the hand painted t-shirt that we saw some handsome young devil wearing in the city center. Another great language tidbit came from Su when she was telling us a story about funny names in Chile. When a Dr. asked a woman why she had named her daughter Sha-nya-nya, she responded with "por Sha-nya-nya Twain." Awesome! Its been a busy week for us here in Santiago. We have been visiting, sightseeing and staying out all night. Plus we¨ve been making buttons like crazy. They seem to be going over well and so far they have more value as regalitos for our friends than they do as any kind of commercial enterprise. We went out for a night of exile themed theatre and live traditional music at Villa Grimaldi, once an infamous torture center and now an amazing peace park with Pia and the fam. The event ended with the audience chanting "El pueblo unido-jamás será vencido" (the people united-will never be defeated). Muy impresionante, po. Goosebumps. Afterwards we had a late and delicious dinner and got completely schooled in how to talk fast and understand nothing from la profesora herself. ¡Pasamos la raja hueon!

More photos!

2009-01-15T14:32:00.000-08:00

Zya and I in the jardìn.

Me and my Chilean sister Susana Maria.

Susana Maria and the button machine.

Our big plan to survive as street gypsys in Argentina revolves around our fabulous button making machine and the supplies to make a thousand buttons that we brought with us (despite the fact that it weighs 16 pounds). We found it broken in our storage unit (courtesy of Zya´s friend Julia) and repaired it. It was instantly well received by Su and she already has orders for several custom buttons. At 300 chilean pesos each we are well on our way to paying for the first beer. Here´s to Red Dawn ingenuity!

-Mark

2009-01-15T13:55:00.000-08:00

The heat and the wine have convinced me to go virtual. This is my first post ever! I will start with a near tragedy. Picture Mark and I at gate 61 of the San Francicso airport. The plane is refueling, we are moments away from boarding and I am shuffling through my bag looking for a pack of gum. Feeling good. Excited and calm.... untill it becomes apparent that my money belt with my passport and boarding pass and everything truly fundamental to my travels is missing!! Missing!! Missing!! Totally not gravy. Panic hits. And I run, retracing my steps. There was the bathroom and before that the water fountain. Nothing. I get the cold sweats..... and then in the distance I here my name on the paging system. It is soo faint and distorted, like I am being called from a dream... happily ever after there was a grand reunion. I run back to the gate just in time to board. Gravy.

Llegamos a Chile!

2009-01-14T20:34:00.000-08:00

We have arrived safely in Santiago and are reunited with Mark´s Chilean host family. It is unbelievably warm and beautiful. Now for some well deserved rest...

To the airport!

2009-01-13T08:23:00.000-08:00

We are all packed up and ready to go. This is a last look at the swiss chalet westhaven retreat right before we trashed it. Now we live out of our back packs. To Chile and beyond!