Allie loves food.

You all probably figured that out already...

Salteña:



I don´t know why we don´t have more breakfast food like this in the US. Cheap ubiquitous, handheld real food for breakfast. Or anytime really. What more could you want??

Salteñas are like little empanadas stuffed with mostly potatoes but also a little ground meat and a piece of a hard boiled egg swimming in a slightly spicy sauce. The spice combination is amazing. I must figure it out. I haven´t been able to find a cook book with a recipe for them here so far. Also, they are a perfect example of the way I prefer to eat and cook with meat. There is such a small amount of it that it´s almost as though it´s just a seasoning. If Americans learned to use meat as a compliment to vegetables and grains rather than the main thing on the plate, we´d have a lot less obesity and heart disease. Grocery bills would be a lot lower. I´m not going to even go into what it could do for global warming...

Anyway...

I love food. I love everything about it. This has been my first big trip where I have not been a vegetarian, meaning that besides things containing nuts, I can try whatever I want. It´s been so much fun!!

I enjoy nothing more than wandering a market. I´ve actually found that I don´t eat too much while doing it either. I mostly observe, ask questions, take in the smells, watch how it´s done. Then I stop for lunch.

The US is missing out on a market culture. I´m not talking about farmers´markets full of local, organic produce that is simply unaffordable to most, we have that. I´ve referring to markets of the people. Accessible markets for normal, average, everyday people to buy affordable raw imgredients and to eat.

As far as I´ve seen in Bolivia, the cheapest place to get a meal in any city is at the local central market, not at McDonald´s. And this is a real meal. Freshly prepared unprocessed food from all the food groups. A menu completo at one of the market food stands costs between 10 and 13 Bolivianos ($1.50-$2 ish) and includes a soup, main course, and sometimes a fresh juice (which will probably give you as a foreigner food poisoning, but that´s another story...). You can order just a main course for less than 10 Bolivianos. Even though there is a huge income difference between Bolivians and Americans, I think that this type of meal is still affordable to most.

So, my question is how do they do it? And how can we do this in the US?

One thing I´ve certainly noticed is that sanitation regulations do not exist (or they aren´t enforced, at all). I´m sure that this cuts down on the cost a bit. It also allows entrepreneurs to enter the market with no qualifications or experience. Many producers and few barriers to entering the market keep prices low. I´m not saying that we should go in this direction, but it is something to think about.

Second, the food stalls aren´t necessarily pretty or very comfortable. You go to them for food, and that´s what you get. You might be sitting on an awkwardly low wooden bench, at a packed table full of strangers, or even standing at a counter, but you came to be fed and that´s what will happen.

Third, I don´t know how, but these talented food stall ladies are able to cook in the tinniest of spaces. Ingenuity, creativity, adaptability. We need more of this.

Fourth, there isn´t much variety at each stall. Each person makes a few dishes per day from the standard repertoire and that´s all there is at this kind of joint. I think that in the US, we´ve gotten a little too used to 5 page menus. How can a restaurant possibly make 100 or more menu items from scratch every day? They can´t, and they don´t. Much of that food you are paying tons of money for was frozen, canned, or processed in some other way. Why not just microwave it yourself for a fraction of the price??

When you go to a restaurant in the US, much of what you are paying for is comfort, ambiance, cleanliness, choice, and service. But what about the food???

That´s what I want to know.

Fruit...



Veg...

Love it.

Besitos,
Allie

The most interesting bus ride of my life! Sucre to Tarija, Bolivia.

I arrived frantically to the ticket office to check my bag 30 minutes before the bus was scheduled to leave. It turns out I was the first one there. The ticket office is located directly above the bus departure gate. You check your luggage at the office and they lower it down by a rope with a hook to a gang of cackling children waiting below.

The little boys grab the bags, like a bunch of ants over taking a fallen crumb, and carry/drag them to the bus, where a mammoth señora tells them where to place them in the luggage compartment of the bus. The little girls giggle and yell taunts in Quechua and Spanish as the boys struggle with giant backpacks twice their weight. I giggle along with them and they seem to notice, as a few of them make eye contact with me every time a little boy lets out a particularly strained grunt or struggles to push and awkwardly shaped item wrapped in an old blanket or plastic sheeting.

I board the bus. Miguel sits next to me and starts talking immediately. He is embarrassed because he thought I was Argentine. You could tell that he never would have dreamed of starting a conversation with an American girl. He starts to blush and apologize. Once he realizes that we can communicate, conversation really takes off. I like Miguel. We talk about everything from nutrition to the Davinci Code, to cars made in Asia, to our philosophical beliefs regarding if "madre tiera" causes earthquakes when she is mad at us for polluting too much (he thinks so). We talk for 3 hours or so, until my ability to hold conversations in Spanish is completely drained and I find myself asking him to repeat nearly everything he says. I swear he starts slipping some Quechua in... I´m getting lost.... he keeps talking....faster.

Did I mention that this bus has no bathroom? Yes, this 16 hour bus ride has NO BATHROOM. When we make a 10 minute stop in Potosi to let Miguel and others off, I make a bee line for the bathroom, even though I don´t need to go yet. I didn´t drink much of anything for most of the day before in anticipation of this bathroomless journey.

I get back on the bus and a tiny young woman with an adorable two and a half year old and two reasonably sized suitcases follows me. I don´t know how she is holding all that stuff. When I reach my seat, I realize that she, the child, and the two suitcases are meant to fit in the seat next to me for the next... how many hours? I look at my watch and realize that it has stopped. For the next who knows how many hours, I am stuck here between the bus window and a pile of luggage, a baby, and a young woman.

I´m impressed how she is able to slide the bags under the seat and her legs. She reclines the seat and lays the baby on her stomach. The kid instantly falls asleep. She is clearly super woman, and she has obviously done this before. She even looks comfortable. Before not too long, she falls asleep as well. I am amazed.

When we pull out from Potosi, the lights are turned off in the bus and our individual reading lights don´t work. It´s pretty much pitch dark and it´s only... I can´t tell the time anymore, maybe 7:30? Cumbia music starts blasting through the darkness and I begin to laugh. There is nothing to do but put my seat back and look out the window at the amazing display of stars and the faint silhouettes of the mountains. I smile and curl up in my sleeping bag as if I´m camping under the open sky.

Lights on. Fifteen minute bathroom/dinner stop. I go into the restaurant and ask where the bathroom is, a far greater concern to me than food. He says "outside." I wander around outside. No bathroom in sight. I ask someone else. He says "mas abajito." Ok. I wander in the dark down the hill until I reach a store front blocked off by a picket fence. I peek my head in and yell "alo!!" until an old woman with grey braids down to her knees saunters in. I ask for the bathroom. She says there isn´t one. I whimper a bit and she sends me across the street to a nearly identical little store front. I say "excuse me" to the old man whose back is turned to me. He looks at me as if he´s seen a ghost, as if he has no idea how this foreign girl got out here to his humble little store in the middle of nowhere. I ask for the bathroom and he does that thing where he doesn´t understand me just because he thinks he won´t be able to, but I am determined. I ask and ask and ask until he gets it. And then he tells me he doesn´t know. I look at him pleadingly, and he points "over there." I walk in that direction, stumbling in the dark, until I reach what looks like a shed with half a door. It´s so dark that I can´t see inside, but I know that whatever it is, it will have to pass for a bathroom.

I can´t do it.

It´s so dark.

I go back to the bus, sit for a few minutes, and manage to work up the courage to go back over there and try to pee over a hole in the dark. I go back and pee, but who knows if I made it into the hole...

Back on the bus. Lights are instantly turned out again and the Cumbia CD is replaced by Disco. Blaring Disco. I´m talking the Bee Gees and ABBA. I´m talking horrible songs that I didn´t know even existed. Then, we turn onto a dirt track and the sound of the windows, seats, luggage, EVERYTHING rattling is almost loud enough to drown out the music. I am thankful.

I´m also thankful that I brought ear plugs. I put them in, and although I can still hear the music, and the rattling, it´s softer now. Against all odds, I fall asleep.

Did I mention that the recline function on my seat is kind of broken? Of course it would be, right? It reclines, and it goes back quite far, but after a few minutes of bumping along dirt roads, it slowly but surely returns to its upright position. Amazingly, with my whole body buried in my sleeping bag, I am still able to sleep. And it´s not that bad.

I´m woken by a tap tap tap on my shoulder. I pull the sleeping bag and eye mask from over my face to see a police man standing over me and shinning a flash light into my eyes, even though the lights in the bus are on (???). I pull out my ear plugs. He asks for my passport. I pull a wad of documents from the pouch around my waist and he takes them all before I can sort through them and hand him my passport. He asks me a series of yes or no questions, based on the documents I am carrying. I ask the woman next to me if this is normal. I think she pretends that she doesn´t understand, as it seemed that she didn´t want to say anything in front of the police officer. The police woman harassing the drowsy people in the row in front of us tells me that we are at a check point, this is normal, and we will be arriving in Tarija shortly. Ok.

Out the window I see a city in the valley below us, lighting up the vast Bolivian emptiness. It must be Tarija. I decide to stay awake and watch our barely lit surroundings turn from rural to urban as we snake into the valley.

What an interesting bus ride. It wasn´t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

Besitos,
Allie

Bolivia.

Since I´ve last posted I went on a three day tour through the Salar de Uyuni, stayed a night in the town of Uyuni, spent a few days in Potosi, and now I am in Sucre.

My trip so far in Bolivia has felt like an upside down bell curve. It went from "ohmygodfantastic" to "eh," to "I´d pay anything to be teleported out of this place," to "mehh?", to "ohmygodfantastic" again.

This country is beautiful beyond words, and that´s where I started.

See???



And look at this!!


Amazing, huh??



And ohmygodfantastic can you even believe this???



Okay, maybe you had to be there. Regardless, the tour of the salt flat and nearby lagunas was a high point of my trip so far. That region must be one of the most naturally beautiful places on earth. Just. Stunning.

It was cold, though. I spent a night in Uyuni and bought so much woolen gear that I almost couldn´t shut my suitcase by the time I was leaving. Uyuni has a great outdoor market that sells everything from fried fish to motorcycles. Lots and lots of knit stuff too. It´s also the cheapest market that I´ve been to so far... and Bolivia is really really cheap.

Potisi was lovely. It reminded me of Valpariaso a lot.

See???



And look at this?!?



And this??


There are lots of churches...



Soooo Valpo, huh?

I´m actually 100% sure that this one done by one of the same artists that has painted the streets of Valpo. (All you porteños know what I´m talking about...)

It also incited similar feelings of rage/peace/idealism/frustration/joy/depair in me. Those were a draining few days. Ugh, I think I´ll leave it there for now.

Sucre, where I am now, is so "ohmygodfantastic" that at some moments I think I´ll never leave. It´s a lovely colonial city, and it for some reason, feels very safe and peaceful to me. I´m staying in the most adorable quiet little hostel I have ever seen. My room is well worn for sure, but has amazing vintage accents, like simple yet beautiful plaster cieling mouldings, and 50´s style bedspreads that I will have to use all my restraint to not shove into my suitcase when I leave. I have a little breakfast nook by the window, with a handstitched tablecloth and a set of chrome and brown velor chairs that could easily fetch a few hundred dollars at a vintage store in Brooklyn. It opens into a lovely little courtyard, bursting with rose bushes and all sorts of potted ferns and delicate green vines. And, amazingly, the shared bathroom is clean. All this for under $6 a night. Why am I going back to Seattle again???



All I´ve really done so far, besides enjoy my room to the fullest possible extent, is spend hours wandering the central market. I know that I rave about every market I go to, but believe me, this is a good one.

At one point in this breathtaking maze, the market building opens into a courtyard of potato venders and fruit juice stalls.

Papas.....



Besitos,
Allie

San Pedro de blahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Third stop on THE JOURNEY: San Pedro de Atacama.

Everyone in Chile talks about how amazing San Pedro is. The Lonely Planet clearly loves this place too (and I read the thing cover to cover on the 20 hour bus ride). It was pretty hyped up in my eyes and I´ve sadly been rather disappointed.

The whole town of San Pedro is basically a backpacker´s resort. Every store front is a touristy restaurant, souvenir shop, internet cafe, tour agency, or hostel entrance. No one lives here. Everything is expensive, especially the fruit and veg. Cheap fruit and veg is probably my favorite thing about Chile. So, urhhhm, I´m a little sad. I just don´t feel like I´m in Chile here. I don´t even feel like I´m in South America. This whole little town could have been constructed in any tourist destination, anywhere in the world.

But, people don´t come to San Pedro for the town, they come for the excursions. I did a few, and they were pretty fun. There is some amazing scenery here.

El Valle de la Luna or Moon Valley was given it´s name because it is said to look like a moonscape. It kind of does, and it´s very pretty.

Here I am in el valle with Yayone, a fellow New York gringa who I´ve been traveling with for a few days.


El valle....



We thought it all looked very Dali-esque... and we do silly things and make ourselves laugh a lot....


The next day we got up at 3:45am to see some geysers at sunrise, the highest geyser field in the world, in fact.

Here´s a crazy Chilean, still drunk from the night before, and REALLY EXCITED about the geysers!


And here are some even crazier tourists that decided to strip down and swim in the moderately warm hot springs.



Tours aren´t my favorite way to travel, but they are really the only thing to do here. That said, I head out tomorrow for a 3 day tour through the Bolivian salt flat, the largest in the world!

Besitos,
Allie

Photos of la lovely La Serena....

I liked La Serena. Here are some of my pictures.


View from the bus on the way to La Serena. Wind power?!?! Yay!!



Favorite antique shop in Chile...


Favorite cafe in Chile...


La plaza...


La feria...



Darling, huh?

Besitos,
Allie