What Did You Do for Super Bowl Sunday?

We spent the night in the town of Gobernator Gregores, population 3500, after 6 hours by the side of the road attempting to hitchhike to the Estancia (the Argentine name for ranch).

The next morning, I walked around and found the “Templo Evangelico,” which was quite an exciting discovery since we hadn’t been to church in a while. We went back at 10 and no, there wasn’t a service, but a bible study would very soon get under way. From what I gathered, the 2 hour study was about the devil and his various schemes, accompanied by a reading and extensive commentary on what is probably every relevant New Testament verse. Two long-suffering souls in the front row read at least 30 passages, as the adults listened attentively. Needless to say, Seth and I identified a bit more with the children, who fidgeted or tugged on their parents' clothing.

The service ended with what some of our French companions here on the ranch have described as an exorcism: The teacher would pray over someone and then push them back into the waiting arms of two or three other parishioners. At first it was novel, but the strangeness of the situation soon became overpowering. Seth and I agreed that it would not be ill-mannered to leave immediately, so we did. 

**Blog post interrupted to go catch and slaughter a sheep, no joke**

After lunch we took a taxi for 30 kilometers and then walked with all our luggage on a dirt road for almost 4 hours. The wheels on Seth's suitcase were not a big help and they are no more. The third car that passed us picked us up and dropped us off at the ranch, where we will be for the next 3 weeks. 

Somewhere in Patagonia ...

We took another overnight bus south ... again. It doesn't seem to bother us anymore. Honestly, its almost like staying at a hostel, except you can't lie down to sleep. If I hadn't been woken up by water (from the air conditioning system??) dripping on my forehead, I would have comfortably slept through the night.

I started to get nervous when the sun came up and we were driving down a gravel road--a road that is supposed to be a national highway. The sage and other knee-high underbrush spread as far as the eye could see on either side and we would only pass houses every 20 or 30 minutes. I started to be very concerned that the "town" we were headed to would be a few houses and we'd be stranded and unable to find a bus for the final 300 kilometers to the sheep ranch.

It turns out I had reason to be concerned. Even though the bus route goes within 75 K of where we need to be, there is no transportation across that stretch. For better or worse, we resisted to the temptation to hitchhike from the prairie crossroad. Now we are hanging out in the town until our next night bus, which will take us to the coast and then farther south, to a city that definitely has a bus going past the ranch ...

Currently Seth is finishing Great Expectations while I write this post. We're sitting in a museum/coffee house and I'm trying mate, the Argentinian herbal coffee substitute and national obsession. It's a bit bitter, but on the whole quite tasty. The best part is the ritual that goes along with drink: fill your pot mostly full with herbs and pour in a little hot water and sugar. After you've finished, you pour in a little more water and sugar and keep drinking. The mate straws are stainless steel and have a little filter at the bottom to prevent ingestion of the herbs themselves--they also look like something straight out of Lord of the Rings, which certainly adds to their mystique.

So here we are in cowboy country ... hoping to get to our ranch ... and hoping somehow we can watch the Super Bowl. Wish us luck.

From Water in the Sky to Water on the Ground

Our bike ride ended Sunday after several hours of riding in the rain. When we stopped for hot chocolate at a swanky restaurant along the road the waiter came outside to the patio so we didn't have to go inside. My bet is he didn't want two wet, gross looking guys sitting down inside. But at least we were dry on the patio and the hot chocolate was good!

We spent one last night in Chile before catching a bus to Bariloche, Argentina. Now we are situated in a hostel located on the tenth floor of an apartment building. The reason? The windows give an unobstructed view of the lake and Andes Mountains. From our windows we can see people swimming below us and snow-capped mountains across the lake. The swimming is not for us, however, since the water is frigid. We already went swimming in frigid water in Chile for Jim's birthday. It was the first time he had gone swimming outside on his birthday. Or worn shorts, sandals, and a t-shirt. We are scoring life changing moments on this trip.

Jim sent me out today to shop for dinner while he went to buy the bus tickets. With the intention of making stir-fry, I bought pasta. But my true Italian instinct kicked in and instead of being satisfied with one pack, I bought two. Only after I had paid the bill did I realize there were only two of us to feed. Now I think I am finally beginning to understand how my mother feels when she cooks for us.

I´m Standing Up to Write This

Seth and I have just finished Day 2 of our 120 mile bike ride around Lake Llanquihue in southern Chile. The rolling hills are occaisionally occupied by dairy cows and are always incredibly green. The lake is dominated by 3 snowcapped volcanos, even in the summer.

We didn´t know this before we arrived in the town of Frutillar 3 days ago, but Chile is one of the most developed countries in Latin America. Most people have at least one car, and the family we´re staying with tonight has a giant flat screen TV with cable from America. All that to say, this part of Chile is very touristy for Chileans--I don´t think we´ve run into any foreign tourists.

These beautiful green hills are our nemisis. They just never end. Our ride yesterday was up and down the entire time, often on gravel roads with bone-jarring bumps.

Our legs hurt, but the worst parts are our bottoms. Every time we mount up after a break, we wince in pain from the hours of sitting on a fairly hard seat. It gets better as the ride goes on, but the ache is always there. At this point, Seth and I are labeling scenic bike tours on gravel roads with hills as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We both plan on sleeping on our stomachs and being less sore for the last 76 kilometers ... however far that is

The Virgin Mary watches over Santiago

Jim and I are now in Santiago, Chile. We arrived here after a 22 hour bus ride to the south of Peru, and then a 30 hour bus ride to Santiago. Whenever we got off the bus to stretch our legs we feared that we had finally gone south enough where the air was cool. But no, we are still basking in 80 degree weather in our shorts, t-shirts, and sandals. My dad send me the weather link for NY and it appears snow is still falling there. I wouldn´t know from first hand knowledge.

Yesterday we took the metro (yes! Santiago has a metro) to a park. The park is actually a really big hill (or a small mountain by NY standards) in the middle of the city. On the top of the hill is a statue of the Virgin Mary. Since we both have a fascination with posing in the same position as a statue, Jim got to pose with the Virgin Mary. I posed last time with Jesus. Jim definately got the bitter end of that deal. On the way up the hill we stopped to drink a Chilean drink: two canned peaches in peach nector with a type of grain at the bottom. Although it looked almost deadly, it was remarkably enjoyable. After descending the hill we walked through downtown Santiago. The city is beautiful with wide widewalks, many older buildings with colonnades, and of course, palm trees! We spent a while sitting at the plaza where the Spanish soldiers use to drill. It doesn´t get dark until 9 pm, so just before 9 we ate some Chilean sandwiches by a fountain in the gathering dusk.

According to the locals, it is possible to see the Andes from Santiago. While all the pictures on the postcards prove this, we cannot see the Andes yet because of the smog. Tonight we leave for a region called the Lake District in southern Chile on an overnight bus.

Sweaty Onions

Day 1 in Lima is drawing to a close. Seth and I are definitely beginning our trips a bit differently than last time. There were no late night walks around town, and no random accosting of strangers for directions. We haggle properly with taxi´s and use the drivers as unofficial Spanish tutors.

Most spectacularly, for the first time, we found a restaurant using a guidebook. We never owned one in Central America, so the option of taking one with us when we explored the Miraflores neighborhood was a new experience. We decided to take it, ostensibly as a reference for our dinner discussion about the next leg of our journey. I confess I felt we were channeling a little bit of the Hawaiian-shirt-wearing-SLR-toting tourist, but we only pulled it out on deserted street corners when we were sure no one was watching.

We decided to go with the Lonely Planet editor´s choice for dinner: Hot ´n Cool--a sandwich shop purportedly bursting with personality and hot sauce. The pork-pineapple-and-banana chip sub was not a disappointment, along with a glass of pomegranate juice, nor was Seth´s Iberia--a sausage and pepper sub

According to the English translation on the menu, both were served with sweaty onions. One can only hope this a reflection of poor English as opposed to poor food service standards.

On a completely unrelated note, we showed up unannounced at a Peruvian think tank, hoping to learn about their work for property rights in developing countries. The secretary was quite apologetic: it seems that the boss, the economist Hernando de Soto, was in town and everybody was in a meeting with him. She didn´t want to disappoint, so she arranged for us to spend a few minutes with someone. It was the librarian, whose only spoken English was ¨"librarian"!  We didn´t do too badly for our first day back speaking Spanish, but to be honest, it was a little rough.

We´re headed to a Wycliffe Bible Conference, hoping to meet a few translators. Do you know there are over 2,000 languages that don´t have a Bible translation? Neither did we.

From Snow to Palm Trees

Jim and I arrived in Lima, Peru tonight. Outside my open window the palm trees are rustling in the balmy breeze. Once we arrived at our guest house from the airport, both Jim and I traded our jeans, sweaters, and coats for shorts, t-shirts, and sandals. Coming to Peru while New York is covered in snow was definitely a quality life decision.

Rewinding back to Monday night, Jim and I boarded a bus to NYC. We then took two trains to JFK airport, where we spent the night. Since we knew we had 12 hours to spend in the airport we rode the airport train past all the terminals to see which one we liked the best. Terminal 1 fit our fancy, so we hung out there until midnight, when we were asked to move to Terminal 4 because the guards wanted to close Terminal 1. Jim and I took turns sleeping on a bench that had pads while the other one read, ate, and watched our baggage. Morning came and we saw precipitation through the windows. We, however, took off at 10:45 am and have no more knowledge of the weather in NY. Nor do we really care as we sit beside our open window and listen to the palm trees rustling in the wind.