The Macchu Pichu Gang: Ready for the Death March

The night before our trek began, our group of sixteen intrepid adventurers, three guides, three cooks, and three horsemen (whom were sadly just men with horses, and not half-man half-horses as my imagination had led me to greatly anticipate) met in Cusco, Peru to discuss what we should expect.  The tourists in our group consisted of five men and eleven women (score!) all of whom had no idea just how difficult the coming hike was going to be: Cusco is located at about 10,000 feet, and at the peak of our trek we were going to climb up to over 15,000 feet.  For those of you who have never walked around at such heights, it is really, really exhausting.  I discovered this on my first day in Cusco, when I walked around to find a place to stay.  With my 45 pound bag strapped on my back, I could manage to stumble a valiant 34 feet before my lungs felt as though they were going to escape my body through my nostrils.  This was made even more embarrassing when the locals were effortlessly sprinting around the streets, and staring at the panting pile of collapsed gringo laying next to a giant bag on the sidewalk.

So it was slightly disconcerting as our guide, Paul, informed us that on Day One of our hike we were going to walk from around 10,000 feet up to 14,500 feet.  If I couldn’t make it 34 feet without collapsing on a flat street in Cusco, what would going uphill on a mountain for a whole day do to me?  There was only one logical answer: it would undoubtedly turn me into a pile of llama food.

 
Thus, there was only one thing that would help me through these difficult times; a tried-and-true remedy that was passed down from the Incas and highly promoted by Peruvian locals: coca leaves.  Now, some of you are probably thinking that it sounds strange to have to utilize illegal drugs to climb a mountain.  But, coca leaves are far from an illegal drug.  In reality, I wouldn’t use illegal drugs to enhance my walking techniques; I only reserve the use of illegal drugs for the most dire situations: incapacitating meddlesome police officers, making movies funnier, and staring at colorful objects.  In fact, coca leaves are a quite different from their elaborately-altered cousin, Colombian Marching powder.  The leaves are a natural product that are used for such diverse practices reduction of diarrhea, sore throats, appetite, and getting fat, lazy, lowland gringos over high altitude mountains.

Ahh...coca leaves. Just seeing this picture gives me the shakes.

Thus, I searched around town for someone who sold this wonder product.  After being rebuffed multiple times, I started to feel like a fourteen year old kid trying to buy Zima from his elders at 7-Eleven.  But, as I wandered around a local market, I found the motherload: a nice old Peruvian woman who slanged me a couple dimes bags of the good stuff.  I didn’t even have to sell my body for them, just give her a few Soles.

What a country.

Therefore, at 6 AM the following morning, with my stash of coca leaves in tow, carrying my faithful hiking stick, donning my trusty hiking jeans, rancid hiking boots, hip Peruvian-style beanie, all the cold-weather clothing I had been lugging around the equator with me for the last three-and-a-half months, our group embarked on our adventure. 

 After deciding that we would simply drive the bus as far up the “road” (read: miserable, dusty, cliff-sided path) as possible, most of us lazy foreigners (myself happily included) strapped our things to the Horsemens’ beasts and started walking uphill.  Luckily for us, this first stage only lasted an hour until we stopped for lunch.  Hey, you can’t expect too much out of tourist on the first day, can you?  After gorging ourselves on the first of many delicious Peruvian meals, we groggily started heading back uphill. 

 However, as we looked up to where we were headed, it was clear the path above was heading waaaaaay up there.  Our first little pre-lunch jaunt was barely inclined compared to what we were about to undertake.  This is when I realized that eating so much food for lunch was an obvious failure in my decision-making processes.  Luckily for me, the donkeys had already broken the taboo on shitting on the trail, so if the food decided to make a reappearance during our steep hike, I could utilize the creed which I base my life upon: WWDD?  (What Would the Donkeys Do?) and just do my business right there on the trail without it being awkward.  And so, we began what would be the first of five grueling days of trekking.

The Horses and a Horseman

Up and up and up we hiked.  Our 16-man strong group slowly snaked up the rock-covered trail as the Horsemen trotted far ahead of us, neighing and munching on grass along the way (man, I wish they were real Horsemen).  The technique for we weary hikers was clear: slowly lift the left foot and drag it in front of the right foot, then vice versa.  This technique was called “walking” and we were assured it would help propel us up the 5,000 feet we had to climb the first day.

 The first thousand feet or so really wasn’t that bad.  As we begun to master the skill of “walking,” we moved more and more adeptly ahead.  Our guides also understood that gringos are feeble creatures when it comes to altitude, and we made frequent stops to catch our breath, dry heave, and consider turning back to the comfort of centrally-heated rooms in Cusco and McDonald’s french fries.  Alas, we persevered. 

 The next 4,000 feet, however, wasn’t as kind as the first 1,000.  Our group became more and more spread out as we each struggled with our own adjustment to the altitude, all the while the donkeys and Horsemen taunted us from the peaks above. 

 This, is precisely the moment when I became one with coca leaves.

 Breaking out my stash, I stuffed my mouth full of these amazing treasures and, like a cow, chomped happily away.  Within ten minutes, I noticed a new burst of energy entering my body.  I felt alive and ready to follow in the hoof-steps of the Horsemen and trot up the hill.  These things were amazing.  My fatigue, while still present, wore off remarkably and I was headed up the mountain with reckless abandon.  I quickly became the group coca enabler and offered leaves around to the team, and we all marched on with renewed vigor, and mouths full of crusty green plants.

 God bless you, coca leaves.

Mount Salkantay

(On an interesting side note, after understanding the power of coca, I now plan on introducing these leaves to the American populace, thus increasing productivity, reviving the economy, and soon accepting my position as the next Secretary of Labor due to my visionary techniques.)

So, we continued on.  Now, it is interesting to note that not all of the group had embraced this hike-altering product, and our hikers were stretched out over vast expanses of mountain.  The coca-induced group hurried along, while the Puritan, non-coca group trudged slowly up the mountain.  Once we reached around 12,500 feet, we caught our first glimpse of Mount Salkantay.  This glacier-covered behemoth loomed in the distance, towering above us, taunting our coca-stained smiles with its ever-increasing altitude.
 

 After about 4 hours of hiking, we reached a vast, granite, glacier-carved canyon that stretched up to the base of Salkantay.  This was where we were informed that it was time to turn upward.  At this point, I had thought we were already going up, but I was sorely mistaken.  Now, looking about 60 degrees and a quarter mile up the mountain, we spotted the Horsemen hurrying along.  We had about 1,500 more feet to go, and it consisted of switchbacks that slowly wound up the steep mountainside.

More coca leaves, please.

 And up we went.  This part of the trek was, for lack of a better phrase, a bitch.  Our “walking” techniques, even with the aid of our good friend coca, slowed to a near-crawl.  But, we carried on.  For almost two more hours when we thought we had reached the top, the ridge we were dreaming of cruelly revealed another ridge far above.  As that son-of-a-bitch Salkantay grew larger and larger, taunting our every step, we inched along the trail, huffing and puffing, until we finally reached 14,500 feet and our camp site.  Even with our exhaustion, we could appreciate the beauty of this area, and the backdrop of the immense mountain.

Camping at 14,500

While the remainder of our group plodded up the mountain, a select (retarded?) few of us decided to climb up the granite pile that the glacier had carved in the ground.  By the time we reached the top, we were again fatigued and worn, but got to enjoy a view of a hundred-foot vertical crevasse dug by the glacier, with the sunset-covered Salkantay in the background.  I’ve seen a lot of amazing things in my life — the Roman Coliseum, Colombian women in Medellin, a Marky Mark concert — but this was one of the tops.

 After we descended the granite hill, my jealousy peaked.  The remainder of our group was just arriving at the campsite, and they were riding donkeys up the trail.  It would have been funnier, but probably less appropriate if they were riding the Horsemen up, but nonetheless I was jealous.  By living in such close proximity to Tijuana, I’ve heard all about “donkey shows” and have thus always wanted to ride one.  Wait…that’s all that a “donkey show” is, right?

 Anywho, as nightfall descended on our 14,500 foot campsite, so did the cold.  Our beleaguered crew bundled up in our mess hall tent, zipped up the doors, and sat around drinking hot chocolate, hot coca tea (yes, we were now addicts), and hot coffee while we waited for dinner.

 That’s when the altitude sickness arrived, and ravaged our band of hardy adventurers.

Killer hat, bro.

Once we had a chance to sit down and relax, over half of our group caught the beatdown that comes with this extreme height: altitude headaches, altitude vomiting, and explosive altitude ass-vomiting were just some of the fun that came with our voluntary decision to climb to Macchu Pichu.  I was lucky enough to escape the wrath of this plague, but quickly succumbed to the near-zero cold.  So, donning my trusty hiking jeans and every other piece of clothing I brought with me, I went outside to stare at the billions of stars in the sky.  1.3 seconds later my lips froze together and I sprinted to my tent to burrow into my sleeping bag.

 Thus, with the sound of avalanches on Salkantay echoing in the background, the dreary rasp of my breath trying to escape my mouth, the booming drumbeat of my heart pounding in my chest, and the clickity-click of my frozen eyelids blinking, I fell into a deep sleep, satisfied that I had walked to the highest altitude on which I had ever stood, and happily knowing that I would most likely die that night and not have to walk on a mountain ever again.

The Peak — 15,253 feet

After a much needed 10 hours of sleep, our group awoke in the freezing cold morning with stiff joints, frozen eyebrows, and coca-crusted teeth. And, in my own case, I woke up with a dangerously full bladder because I had no intention of walking outside to urinate the night before. This was due to a) the arctic cold weather that would inevitably freeze my nether regions; and b) our guide had told us about the Incan ghosts that haunt this area. While I am no real believer in fantastical tales of ghosts and goblins, I also didn’t want my icicled ding-dong to be exposed to a terrifying Incan warrior…it would probably hurt his ego. Oh snap.

Anywho, after climbing out of our frosted tents our other guide, James, greeted us with a hot cup of addiction-quenching coca tea. An hour later as the sun emerged over the mountains, the temperature climbed dramatically — from zero to about thirty five. Upon polishing off a wondrous breakfast of pancakes, oatmeal, and more coca tea, my coca-less shakes subsided and we were ready to continue our climb to the peak of our trek at over 15,000 feet. And, with the sun on our faces, a belly full of food, a night full of sleep, we were all ready to go.

So up we climbed steadily, and within about two hours of walking, we reached the Salkantay pass at 15,253 feet. The views were incredible: a hundred yards to our right was the base of the glaciers that covered the behemoth mountain; behind us was the glacier valley where we had camped; on the left was another giant glacial peak; and in front of us was an old Incan trail that descended deep down into the valley below. “Woo hoo,” I mistakenly thought, “downhill!”

Our Homage to Salkantay

At this point our guide Paul told us about the dark past of the Salkantay pass. When the Spaniards arrived to this region five hundred years ago and pillaged Cusco and its surrounding towns, the Incans would capture some of their soldiers, tie them up naked, and leave them to die on the icy pass. I imagine it’s kind of how I felt the night before, only instead of being naked, I was wearing my traditional hiking jeans, and instead of being tied up I was cocooned in my sleeping bag. He then told us that Salkantay was regarded as the protector of the Incans, and we made a traditional sacrifice to the mountains; I don’t know where he came up with that 1400s-era Spanish conquistador, but it sure felt authentic when we sacrificed him to the Gods. Maybe that was just the coca-buzz playing tricks on my mind.

Actually, our homage to the mountain included each of our group grabbing a rock from the mountain, piling them up as a totem to the mountain, then offering up three coca leaves each to Salkantay. I was a little unnerved at giving up three cherished coca leaves, but I thought “it’s probably good for karma…and I don’t want to end up tied up like our little friend Francisco Pizarro over there.”

After our picture-taking session and ode to the mountain, we started off on our much-anticipated descent. While we had only gone uphill for one full day, downhill sounded like a marvelous change of pace. Now, I’m no physicist, but I have heard shadowy stories of an invisible force known as “gravity” that pulls things downward. While I generally don’t believe in this kind of wild-eyed conjecture, I must admit this theory of “gravity” piqued my interest: if this invisible force could assist me in hiking, especially since it was only Day Two out of Five, I would try to believe. The crazy thing that happened was, as we started heading downhill it felt much easier than uphill. My legs moved quickly, and if I stumbled, this “gravity” would continue to pull me downward. I was a believer. What’s next? Was someone was going to tell me that the Internet is actually made of “waves” that travel silently through the air to different “servers”, instead of just being a series of underground tubes that send messages by means of really fast hamsters with notes stuck to their backs? Yeah right. You had me at gravity, but I’m not buying that one.

 

Time to follow the Horseman downhill

While the gravity-assisted downhill started out as fun, within an hour I noticed a aching pain in my knees that was growing worse with every step. I tried rubbing coca leaves on them, then discharging coca spit on them, but none of my advanced medical training seemed to be working. As we continued on, I realized the sad truth about going downhill: it sucks worse than uphill. My knees were taking a beating like a Horseman’s rented mule, and we still had two and a half more days of downhill. Fudge

Although the knee-splitting pain was not that cool, one nice thing about downhill was that the weather became gradually warmer and warmer, until my hiking jeans were starting to soak through with sweat. After pulling up the pantlegs to do my best Huckleberry Finn imitation, I wandered on, waiting for my soon-to-be gelatinous kneecaps to be excreted out of my skin. Alas, they did their jobs, and we carried on over the rock- and donkey-shit-covered trail.

By the time we reached our lunchtime break spot, we had already hiked for a good six hours and were in need of a rest. We enjoyed yet another delicious meal, and were able to rest our wobbly legs and feet, as we watched some local farmers chase around an alpaca for half-an-hour, then try to beat it to a pulp. Alpacas are apparently not the brightest of animals, but it eventually got the hint, and ran up the hill to hang with its buddies. I was envious of its kneecaps’ ability to run around, and truly wanted to either catch it and ride it down the trail, or knock it around a bit in my furious kneecap-envy.

This is the shortest I've ever felt in my life.

So after lunch, on we trudged.

By the time we finally reached our day’s end camp, we had walked over 15 miles downhill. The only thing that kept me and my battered hiking mates going was the promise of a hot spring near our camp, and that the world’s best medication for sore everythings — beer — would be available.

As we arrived, everyone quickly changed out of their sweaty, dirty clothes, and into swimming gear to make the quick hike down to the hot springs. With beers in hand, we all started downhill on what our guide had described as a 15-minute hike. What we actually saw was a very steep, cliff-lined, dirt path that led down to the river. After assuring us that there was a hot spring at the bottom, I ignored my creaking knees and continued on. My only thought was “if we have to go down this steep hill now, we’re gonna have to go back up it in the dark; and I don’t remember seeing a reverse-gravity machine anywhere nearby.”

However, all nervousness abated when we reached the hot springs. It was a pool full of about 95-degree water which was like sitting in a big, hot, wet dream. Gross. As I eased my aching legs into the water, I thought I heard a sigh of relief coming from my feet and ankles…but maybe I just farted. I can’t be totally sure. Either way it was tremendous.

While our exhausted group relaxed in the hot water for well over an hour, gulping down semi-cold beers, we finally were comfortable and our spirits lifted greatly. I was planning on sleeping in the hot springs for the night, but we eventually had to leave. That’s when my beer-soaked brain and waterlogged knees remembered that we had to go back up that merciless hill in the pitch black. Hanging onto every last second of hot water time, we finally decided to head up.

 

And it turned out to be just about as awful as I had imagined. 

The last four of us hiked up the hill with only two flashlights, stopping only twice to catch our breath. Although we had descended over 4,000 feet that day, we were still in really high altitude and my lungs had planned a mutiny on the rest of my body. Upon reaching our camp almost an hour later, I stumbled over to my tent and collapsed, completely exhausted. The beer and hot water were a long-lost, vague aftertaste and afterthought in my broken brain, and I fell immediately asleep.

I got up briefly to try eating dinner, but my zombie-like appearance terrified all of our fun-loving group who were putting away our guide’s rum-based tea drinks and downing glasses of coca-beer they had just invented by putting coca leaves in their beer bottles. However, it was painfully obvious that I was completely wiped out, as I was too tired to celebrate the marriage of my two favorite things on Earth — coca leaves and beer.

So, I went back to my tent, defeatedly remembering that we still had two more hard days of hiking until we reached Machu Picchu.

I fell asleep trying to calculate how much a helicopter-taxi to California would cost.

 

Campsite #2. No snow, thank the Lord.

This morning we woke up in a beautiful valley in the midst of a bunch of forested mountains.  The day before we went from freezing cold glacial mountains to jungle-mountains and rivers, and it only cost me the peace of mind that comes from knowing you will never be able to utilize your knees for the rest of your life.  A small price to pay.

After yet another marvelous breakfast, I stretched, retired my hiking jeans, threw on a pair of shorts, and started walking.  Our guide Paul told us that today would be an “easy day” of hiking, where we could just hike the six hours straight without a lunch break so that we’d arrive in the early afternoon to our lovely campground called “La Playa — The Beach.”  This sounded like a tremendous suggestions, and our group wholeheartedly supported the idea of pushing through lunchtime to have a leisurely afternoon on a beachfront river where we could bathe for the first time, relax, read, and nap the day away.  However, as is the case many times in life, our imagination was flat-out, completely wrong; and Paul, although he was a very capable, responsible guide, was totally full of shit on this one.

With dreams of beach lounging and scrubbing off the the accumulated three day funk from our bodies, our crew hiked off with a youthful spring in our step.  Eschewing lunch turned out to be a wonderful idea and we quickly trekked along in record time.  After a simple day of slight up-and-down hiking through warm weather along a beautiful jungle river, we arrived at La Playa not long after noon. 

How quickly our dreams of the Wonder Campsite disintegrated.

We walked into a small town with four or five little stores that were clearly designed for the numerous hikers that passed through to Machu Picchu.  We turned into one of the small encampments of wooden houses, and were careful not to step on the chickens, roosters, or dogs charging around in the small open grass area.  Our tents were crammed together into a tiny area with the meal tent stuck in the middle, which made it nice if you wanted to fall out of one into another.  Paul must have confused the look of puzzlement on our faces with a look of satisfaction, and congratulated us on arriving at La Playa.

Now, on the previous three days, the process of human waste removal was either performed in nearby rocks, bushes, dark fields, or the makeshift tent latrine that had been erected by our porters.  While the tent latrine may sound kind of gross, it came with a cooler-like toilet that had an actual seat, and was thus not too bad. 

On this day however, things took a turn for the worse.  There, on the outskirts of the tents (read: 4 feet away), was a little shack.  In this shack was a hole.  Not just any hole, mind you, but a Shithole.

For those folks who have not had the pleasure of Third World excrement disposal, toilets are a real crap shoot.  Pun intended.  And, in the case of La Playa, the Shithole in the ground was a literal crap shoot, because there was no toilet seat to sit on.

So, as a tutorial for the uninitiated, I will outline the technique for utilizing this mechanism:

1. Open “bathroom” door, close it, come to the realization that there is a hole in the ground to shit in.
2. Stare at the Shithole, and psych yourself up to go for it.
3. With self-motivation achieved, stare a little more and try to figure out the dynamics of getting the shit from your butt into the Shithole.
4. Lower pants, bend over Shithole, then realize possible negative outcomes of this scenario.
5. Remove pants.
6. Bend over again, gradually getting closer and closer to Shithole, until you are relatively sure you will not just shit on the floor next to Shithole.
7. Shit on floor next to Shithole.
8. Curse.  (“Shit!” seems to be an appropriate response).
9. Now, with a little practice under your belt, clear the rest out, most of which lands in Shithole.
10. Size up the situation: can you get out of bathroom without kicking “the miss” into the Shithole?  If no one will see you: run.  If you cannot escape: close your eyes and kick it in.
11. Wipe, throw it in the Shithole, pour water down Shithole to clean it out.
12. Put pants back on.
13. Rub shit shoe on nearby grass.
14. Breathe.

Simple enough.

Luckily for me, I had to go bad enough that I did not have time to analyze the situation.  So, I followed steps 1-14 above, and left the bathroom a more worldly man, knowing that I made it out of the Shithole without shitting in my pants, on my shoes, and without the door blowing open as I’m awkwardly grabbing my ankles and bending my knees like a praying mantis with no pants on, cursing as my discharge misses its mark.

After that fun escapade, it was time for the beach.  As we found our swimming gear and got ready, we began to notice the abundance of small gnats that were swarming our campsite.  At first, they just seemed to be an irritant that flew in your face and landed on your skin.  Then, upon swatting one, the bloody mess and hole in my leg alerted me to the fact that these were no simple gnat.

They were Death Bugs.  And they were everywhere.

In the mad scrambled for bug spray that defined the next two minutes, our group managed to endure over 803,273,014 bites.  These little fuckers were voracious.  They bit at will, and when you killed one, 312 took its place.  So, we resisted the urge to climb into our tents, assume the fetal position, rock back and forth whimpering, and sleep until the following morning.  Instead we bathed in bug poison and hit the beach.  While trying to figure out where this infamous “beach” was, we were led by a local girl through someone’s backyard, where we were greeted by a little kid taking a dump.  Only he didn’t have a Shithole.  After the uncomfortable situation of walking past this little scamp in his backyard, it only got weirder when he picked up his waste product and moved it around to another spot.  Hmm…I just kicked it with my shoe when I missed.  I’m clearly not a local.

After tramping through a soccer field and clambering down a small cliff to arrive at the beach, we realized a few sad truths:

1. “La Playa” was nothing more than a rock-covered bank of river;
2. There were far more Death Bugs near the water;
3. The river was flowing from a melted glacier, and topped off at about 33 degrees.

Fuck.

Partaaaaay!

So, our choice was simple: get in the Arctic water to escape the Death Bugs who were undoubtedly sharing their Dengue Fever with us, shriek like a three-year-old girl when your unmentionables went underwater, rapidly clean the filth off our bodies without getting hypothermia, try not to be swept away by the fast-flowing current, then get out only to be feasted upon by Death Bugs because we washed off the repellent.

I’m pretty sure I had more fun in the Shithole.

As our blood was drained by the Death Bugs on the walk back, we realized that it was only 1 PM, and we had the rest of the day here.  Thus, there was only one thing left to lessen the pain of “The World’s Worst Campsite”: drink copious amounts of beer.

And this we did.

All the way through the afternoon, we drank beer.  As we played cards and the nice lady who owned the house tried to build a “smoke fire” to keep the bugs out, we drank beer.  As we almost asphyxiated from the “smoke fire”, we drank beer.  As the sun descended, we drank beer.  Then, miraculously, as it became dark, we noticed that we must have drank enough beer, because the Death Bugs were gone.  To celebrate, we drank beer.  Throughout dinner and going back-and-forth with the English people about how much better American English is than English English, we drank beer.

Dance Partaaaaay in the Middle of Nowhere

Then, suddenly, without warning, a dance party erupted in the dirt streets of the town.  Then, suddenly, without warning, a handstand contest broke out in the dirt streets of the town.  This apparently was not a normal occurrence in town, and the locals all came out to watch the weird gringos clumsily gyrate about to music, then walk on their hands up and down the street.  Throughout it all, we drank beer.

This place wasn’t so bad after all.

Then, as our mood got better and better, someone noticed a shining gem in the darkness.  In this town’s defense, it did have one thing going for it that we had not seen in three days: electricity.  And, this strange glowing light coming from the neighbor’s bar was like a beacon calling us towards it.  As we opened the door to this small building, we understood: the Lord had put us through enough hardship, and He had placed a real, flushable, seated toilet there specifically for us.  Hallelujah!  Even those of us who had cleared ourselves out in the Shithole went into this beautiful contraption just to sit there for awhile, smiling and flushing.

That night we all slept like drunken babies.

And all was right with the world.

Don't let the Thumbs Up fool you -- I felt about as good as I looked in this picture.

 

Waking up in La Playa aka “Shithole Bugville” was literally a rude awakening. Not because the magical toilet we found the night before was in a worse state than the Shithole, nor because of the idea of being consumed anew by the Death Bugs, but because the rooster decided to wake up at 3AM and start relentlessly screaming. And he didn’t stop until 6AM. To add to this noise, the Horsemen had done their final day of work and we tipped them before they headed back to their homes. I’m fairly sure they spent all their tip money on beer that night, and also hooked the rooster up with a couple of drinks, and together they all had a yelling party.

Thus, we woke up after a poor night of sleep with horrifically itchy bug bites all over our legs, arms, necks, feet, and souls. Even our hangovers had bug bites. And there were ample hangovers.

As Paul had warned us before, Day Four was going to the hardest of the hiking. But he also said our campsite at La Playa was nice, and it turned out to be the Fourteenth Level of Hell, so we were hesitant to trust him.

This time, however, he wasn’t lying.

Up...and up...and up...

At about 6:30 we were all packed up and trekking again. This was our day to hike a real Inca trail. It was an amazing collection of stone stairs that wrapped their way up, up, up the mountain. And, if it weren’t for the 79 beers we each consumed the night before, we probably really would have enjoyed it. But climbing uneven stone stairs up a mountain for hours with Cusquena beer-flavored sweat pouring from your ears generally isn’t my idea of an enjoyable time.

Alas, this was no time to complain (that time would come soon). So up we climbed.

Staking out my place at the end of the line, I silently walked up the mountain, searching for a suitable cliff to hurl myself off. After about four hours of looking at the ground, listening to the banter of the rest of the climbers through my panting gasps, I had sweated out most of the beer. I finally started to feel more optimistic, and thought “Hey, at least we’re not going downhill. Right, knees?”

It was right about this moment that we reached the peak, and started heading downhill.

Poop.

Incan temple at the top of the mountain

Again, I staked out my place at the end of the line, and silently walked down the hill. Between the creaking of my knees I noticed that I was not the only person who was just about completely cashed out from four days of hiking. Everyone’s delirium was expressed through different mediums: be it complaining, random freestyle jumping down the trail, singing of horrendous show tunes, or trying to find the steepest cliff to efficiently fling oneself off, the group as a whole was burned out.

Hiking is difficult. Especially for four long, high-altitude days. Don’t get me wrong, the trek was incredible; probably the highlight of my four months of South American travel. But, it was time to triumphantly return to civilization and its marvelous inventions: running water, electricity, and non-Shithole toilets that take your feces to magical, far-off, unseen lands at the flick of a handle.

We reached the top, now all we had to do was walk down to the river.

And, after four long hours of uphill hiking followed by four long hours of downhill hiking (shouldn’t we have just gone around the mountain?), we arrived at our final lunch site and were awarded with a three hour wait while for our train to depart.

Eventually, we arrived in Aguas Calientes, got to clean the four days of hiking funk from our bodies, drink cold beer, warm boxed wine, and sleep indoors.

The long hike was over, and the next day, we would finally go to Machu Picchu to try to discover what the fuck the Incans were thinking building a tourist site at such a difficult-to-reach location.

Machu Picchu

Finally, on Day Five of our Salkantay trek, we reached the Incan City of Machu Picchu.

There were many obstacles: the Shithole, the Death Bugs, the freezing temperatures, the long days of hiking, the broken knees, the bruised ego, and the altitude sickness.

But it was all worth it, because Machu Picchu is incredible.

Located in the middle of the Peruvian Andes, Machu Picchu is a mountaintop stone-walled city surrounded by misty green mountains, huge tiered grass agricultural platforms, hundreds of ancient stone temples and homes, and is full of llamas walking around nervously crapping all over the place, and is overrun by the strangest creatures of all — French tourists.

After our early wake up at 4:30AM to catch the bus up the mountain to beat the crowds, we hustled across the grounds of Machu Picchu to get tickets to climb Huayna Picchu, the nearby mountain that looms 1,000 feet over Machu Picchu. Then, as we all shook off our early morning-dreariness and hike-induced exhaustion, we were enthralled by our guide’s stimulating, hour-long discourse on how much of a putz Hiram Bingham (the “founder” of Machu Picchu) was. It’s not really that Bingham was a genuine “putz”, but our guide Paul is very proud of his Incan heritage, and was quite strongly opinionated in his views of Bingham’s “discovery”, and also about how much the Spanish suck.

Llamas. The Guardians of Machu Picchu.

In the early 1900s, Hiram Bingham was the first person to locate the Lost City of Machu Picchu and share its existence with the world after it was abandoned by the Incans for hundreds of years. However, there was actually a family living there when he arrived (a “Lost Family” maybe?), so it is a disputed “discovery”. It was especially disputed by our guide Paul, who enraptured us for a rather long period of time about the faults of that scoundrel Hiram Bingham:

1. He didn’t really discover Machu Picchu — someone was already living there;
2. He stole artifacts from the site;
3. He was a bitch;
4. He single-handedly caused World War I and II;
5. He sunk the Titanic;
6. He hates babies and puppies;
7. He would like to slap Ghandi.

Ok, now just to clarify, I stopped listening about 10 minutes into his diatribe, so he might not have actually said numbers 3-7 above. But it was clearly implied.

The steep cliff-sided stairs to Huayna Picchu

After we had heard about how shitty the ancient Spanish were to the Incans (which, in all honesty, was pretty shitty), we finally started our tour of the city. Paul really knew his facts about the way the buildings were built, the construction materials, the uses of each temple, and the astronomical allineation of the site. However, his anti-Spanish, anti-Bingham, anti-anything-that’s-not-pro-Incan attitude shined through on a few occasions, the most memorable being when he was asked if the Incans were short because the doorways were very small. He answered, “They were very spiritual.” Now, no matter how many times I have tried to convince people of my massive stature through the measurement of my enormous spirituality, I’ve still never dated a girl taller than 5′ 9″. Sorry Paul, but that line has been tried and tested, and has miserably failed.

So, after a while of hearing increasingly humorous pro-Incan facts, our group finally split up to wander around the city, and to climb Huayna Picchu. The guards of Machu Picchu only allow 400 people per day to climb this behemoth of a mountain, and we had heard that the views were unbelievable. Thus, despite four days of hiking for over 40 miles up down mountains, we tortured ourselves one more time.

The View of Machu Picchu from Hayna Picchu

Up we went again. The Incans had built a massive stone staircase up this steep mountainside to reach the ceremonial sites that they built on top of Huayna Picchu. If you ask me, I think the Incans probably chewed one too many coca leaves and lost their minds, then decided to build things on top of really steep mountains for no apparent reason other than to punish future tourists. But that’s just my opinion; Paul would probably describe their crazy altitude-fascination as being fueled by their “love of clouds”.

After about an hour of grueling uneven stair-climbing, we finally reached the top. The view was amazing. Machu Picchu was a tiny spot on the mountain in front of us, and you could see an amazing 360-degree view of the surrounding mountains from Huayna Picchu’s peak. After about an hour of chilling on the mountain, we took it all in, then slowly descended the dangerously steep stairs in the most efficient manner possible — on our asses.

Alas, Machu Picchu lived up to its hype. It is without a doubt, one of the most amazing places I have ever seen in my life. And, the brutal five-day journey through the mountains was an awesome experience that made finally reaching Machu Picchu that much more worthwhile. All in all, the entire journey ranks up there as one of the best adventures I’ve ever had.

Now, I just need to kick this nasty coca leaf habit I picked up…

The Machu Picchu Hiking Gang

The Southern Right Whale

The time is nigh.  They are coming.

I was then told by the staff at my hostel that a nearby beach (12 miles away) was one of the best places to see these monsters up close and personal.  So, envisioning a mellow 45 minute ride on a paved road to the beach, I rented a mountain bike and headed off.  The first 3 miles were just as I imagined.  In fact, it was such a traquil ride that I took out my iPod to enjoy the delightful sounds of the Jonas Brothers as I cruised along the beach.  This ended quickly as I noticed the sign that said “Punta Doradillo, 9 miles” as it swerved off to a deep gravel and dirt road.

What you looking at, bitch?!

Anywho, the next morning I took a tour to out to nearby Peninsula Valdes to view the wildlife up close and personal.

They are everywhere.

Hopping back into our tour van we crossed the peninsula and spotted many guanacos, who seemed a little uneasy, even for guanacos (and I’m sure I don’t have to regale you all with how uneasy a Patagonian Guanaco can be in early-October).  Our next stop was to see the giant elephant seals and their baby calves, and maybe some killer whales.  The adult male seals are truly u-g-l-y without an alibi, but they live, quite possibly, the greatest life on Earth: these beasts sleep 23 hours a day, can grow up to three tons, and have harems of up to 50 female seals.  Lucky bastards.  However, what I was really hoping to see was the lovable babies of these creatures with their big innocent black eyes and soft fuzzy skin, as they adorably lounge near the seashore…then get viciously mashed to a bloody pulp by an oncoming killer whale.  Alas, there were no Killer Whales to be seen.  There weren’t even any of their less-dangerous cousins, the Harmful Whale, or their non-dangerous relatives, the Unhazardous Whale, around.  Boooooring.  So I hurled a couple of rocks at the elephant seals, and went on my way. 

Notice the holes. That's where they keep the bodies.

This was seconds before the penguin slaughtered these poor guanacos.

As I entered the park, I noticed a herd of nervous guanacos glancing about.  When I looked down, I saw the root of their fears: more (I can only assume) bloodthirsty penguins.  This time, they were literally everywhere.  Our guide told us there were over 600,000 at Punto Tombo, and that more were coming from Antarctica.  They had no doubt grown tired of that cold, lifeless continent, and were beginning to overtake the rest of South America, and most likely the world.

Brrr...

Tierra del Fuego — “Land of Fire,” my ass.  This place is, for lack of a better description, fucking freezing.  Literally.  There’s snow, frost, ice, and face-chapping coldness everywhere.

After spending the last three months in weather varying from “sweltering” to “terrifically sweat-inducing” in Northern South America, I decided to hop on a plane with my brother and his wife, from Buenos Aires to the bottom tip of the continent — Ushuaia, Argentina.  

Ushuaia, Argentina -- The End of the World

As we landed in Ushuaia, the snow was apparent, but it really didn’t seem to be that cold.  That is, it didn’t seem cold until we walked outside and my butt cheeks froze together.  This made my general reaction to cold (or fright, or nervousness, or basically any slightly startling situation) — that reaction of course being pooping my pants — pretty difficult.  Once we checked into our hotel, we decided to take a cab into the nearby mountains to see a glacier.  After taking a chair lift to the base of the glacier, we noticed many signs stating ”do not climb the glacier without an experienced guide.”  This seemed to be pretty solid advice that, considering our lack of hiking gear, we would absolutely heed.

 

Or so we thought.

 

Thus, donning my hiking jeans, kind-of-waterproof jacket, Kleenex-thickness gloves, and snazzy new ”Ushuaia” tourist hat, we began a self-guided tour to view the bottom of the glacier.  While this would generally be a fairly unstrenuous hike, the wind was whipping, the snow was whirling, and it was about as cold as you would expect for the southernmost city on Earth. 

 

Oh, so the Glacier is just right up that snowy hill?

So, since none of us had seen any up-close-and-personal glaciers before, we continued hiking in two and three foot snow drifts for half an hour, and our spirits remained high.  We then encountered a sign stating “Glacier” with an arrow pointing left, we figured that we should follow this sign and ascend the snow-covered mountain to see this natural phenomenon.  Up we went.

 

This is when it started getting tiring.  Mainly because I have now learned the difficult life that is led by an ice cube, an otter pop, or a mouthwatering Dairy Queen Blizzard with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup pieces.  In other words, it started getting really, really fucking cold.  But, we continued upward.

 

As the Arctic winds continued freezing our faces, we continued climbing to see this glacier that the sign so clearly stated was to the left.  The higher and higher we got, the less and less we saw other than pure white snow.  But, as we had permanent brain freeze, we kept going up.  “It must be just above this next crest,” I kept muttering while contemplating warming my frozen thighs with my own urine.  

 

Finally, after about two hours of straight uphill climbing, we started to piece together the painful truth: there’s no clear view of the glacier, there’s no one else climbing anywhere near as high as us, and it’s so cold that I can’t even come up with any clever curse words to describe my current hatred of Mother Nature.  Normally, I’d shriek something clever like “Bitch tickler, it’s cold!” or “Fuck waffle!” in order to explain my current feelings towards the weather.  Alas, the cold stopped this, and I could only cleverly decry “Ffffffffffttttt.”

 

Oops, I accidentally just climbed a glacier.

However, it was at this point that we realized we had missed the subtle innuendo of the sign with the arrow pointing left: we had already climbed halfway up the glacier.  And as far as my frozen brain could remember, neither my brother, his wife, nor myself were glacier climbing guides.  

 

Poop. 

 

Oh well, at least I had my glacier hiking jeans on.

 

So, at this realization, we decided to stop going upward or we’d end up like Sylvester Stallone in that one movie where he’s climbing mountains: nope, not “buff and short” (although I already have one of those covered…and it sadly ain’t the former), but we’d be trapped in a constant struggle between man and mountain, between love and honor, between not really speaking English and being a kinda buff midget.  And, we also realized there was a decent chance we were going to plummet into a hidden ice crevasse, thus ruining my best pair of hiking jeans, and maybe breaking my legs and dying.  But the hiking jeans were really all I could really focus on.

 

Thus, we decided to descend in the fastest way possible: on our asses.  This was interesting.  I volunteered as the guinea pig for this expedition.  I thought it would be fun to slide down a snow-covered glacier.  I was right…until I started picking up speed and surpassed 75mph and careened into the rock formation 100 feet down the hill. 

 

After we had all reached the bottom of the glacier alive, we marched back home with frozen toes and fingers, and declared our contempt for glaciers and Argentine warning signs.

 

Tierra del Fuego National Park

The rest of our trip went far smoother than the glacier expedition.  We hiked in the Tierra del Fuego National Park amongst giant glacial mountains, ice-cold bays and ocean inlets, and all the way to Chile, where we illegally immigrated, then spat upon this fine country as most proud Argentines would do.  We also took a boat trip through the Beagle channel where long ago Darwin infuriated the Lord by denying the fact that all animals and man (even Mormons) were not created, but rather evolved from earlier species.  Yeah, right.  How do you explain George Bush then, Mr. Darwin?  On this boat trip we were able to see a colony of Lobos del Mar (“Sea Wolves”), which disappiontingly only turned out to be sea lions, not actual web-footed wolves that terrorized the Arctic seas.

 

All in all, Tierra del Fuego was an amazing trip to the End of the World, which lessened my sympathy for glaciers and their feet freezing ways.  Global Warming, do your worst.  I mean, even if the glaciers melt, we’ll always have ice-machines in our hotels to make up for them.  I mean, it’s like someone saying animals in the wild are more spectacular than those in a zoo. 

 

I’ve seen them both.  Same diff.  So give up your pro-glacier stance, liberals, it’s just a big ass ice cube.

Lago Escondido

There's some seriuos boobage going on with these angels...

That’s why it was truly refreshing, in a purely religious sense, when I encountered Tierra Santa in Buenos Aires: a place entirely dedicated to Jesus, and all the exciting things that He has done, in complete theme park form.

This place is remarkable.  Upon entering you are greeted by an employee who is dressed in full ancient Jerusalem-era garb, whom also happens to be selling disposable cameras, which I assume are exactly like the disposable cameras used in ancient Jerusalem.  Maybe even the exact brand of Kodak disposable camera Jesus used Himself when He visited religious theme parks.  As you wander past Ye Olde Holy Camera Shoppe into this sacred amusement park, you see a giant mountain adorned with scalawag Romans and a multitude of Jesus statues in various forms of torture and crucifixion.  It’s really enchanting being able to celebrate the magical experience of the Lord Jesus Christ’s murder and misery in such a fun-filled atmosphere.

Me practicing the lost art of the Four-Armed Robot

Poor Jesus, always getting tortured and killed in this place. On a side note, notice the Holy Airplane and the Holy Driving Range in the background.

Tierra Santa has truly created a new standard in Jesus-themed amusement parks.  This place is an enormous tribute to the ancient times when Jesus lived.  It is full of paper maché animals (that probably were actually not made of paper maché back then), and there are hundreds of paper maché statutes of people in various forms of ancient life: from sword-swinging Romans and (apparently) robot-dancing nomads, to murderous dentists and torturous barbarians.  And of course, there is an exhibit celebrating Gandhi…who was Hindu…hmm…maybe you’re supposed to throw rocks at it or something…

To further please the pious visitor, there is also a Hall of Photos which is, not surprisingly, full of photos.  However, these are not just any photos, but photos of the park itself…which is kind of redundant in my mind.  Although, what great theme park doesn’t need an exciting attraction such as a Hall of Photos of itself?  I actually left a suggestion with the management that they make a Hall of Photos of the Hall of Photos.   However, now that I think of it, if someone were to take a picture of the Hall of Photos of the Hall of Photos there’s a pretty good chance it will create a vortex that will rip a hole in the fabric of space time and consume us all.  But, that would be the kind of Judgment Day scenario that this theme park kind of supports, right?  Christ, what have I done?

A picture of a picture of a Bible in the Hall of Photos.

Anywho, while all of these features are truly delightful, the most inspirational, religiously-exhilarating part of Jesusville are the shows.  “The Resurrection” is a thrill-a-minute recreation of a giant Jesus rising out of a mountain at speeds of nearly 0.5 (!) mph, all the while “Hallelujah” blares forth from speakers.  At the truly inspiring climax of his ascension, just as the giant Jesus has finished ascending after nearly five amazing mintues, the statue does something tremendous: it begins to turn around very slowly!  It was more thrilling than driving a go-kart in Uruguay at 15 mph.  We were also blessed enough to attend the “Creation” show, which started with God himself creating the cosmos, then life on Earth which was represented by animatronic animals such as a giraffe, a lion, and a hippo whose mouth actually opened and closed!  It changed my life.  Then, to complete an already mystifying experience, Adam and Eve showed up, and all was right with the world.  It could only have been better if the crowd were able to interact with the show by being allowed to lynch an employee dressed as Charles Darwin.

The Creation. Not so much "miraculous" as it was cheestastic.

After such a religiously charged experience, one which I shall never forget (mainly because I stopped off at the Catholic Conversion Waterslide to solidify my newfound faith before leaving), all has changed.  I have found my life’s calling: to create religious theme-parks around the world, to regale and amaze the people of the world.  I can see them all now: “Muslim Magic Mountain”, “Haunted Hindu Playland”, “Judiasm Joyville!”, “The Adventures of Atheism”, “Knott’s Buddha Farm,” “Weird Scientologyville,” and, of course, “The Mormon Polygamy Park, brought to you by the Disney corporation.”

Righteous.

The Resurrection. Hallelujah, that was dull.

Argentina, here I am.  Let’s do dis.

So, in my time in this fine country, I have already encountered many interesting phenomena, which I shall list in no particular order:

1.  Megatubes — These are a magnificent treat that has no equal.  They are kind of like Doritos chips, but are cheesier, crunchier, more tube-shaped, and much more tube-flavored.  And, of course, these delightful morsels are not to be mistaken with Normaltubes, their uninspiring, dimwitted, tube-flavored cousin.  You wouldn’t be stretching it to call Megatubes “totally tubular.”  Pun intended.  God damn it, that’s hilarious.

2.  English — The use of English here is like an entertaining novelty that is rarely employed but, when implemented, is always fun.  Like the midget butler you invite over once a year on Christmas Eve who inevitably is chased out of the house in an eggnog-fueled haze by you and your candy-cane-hurling family, English doesn’t come around often but when it shows up, everyone has a blast.  Um…or something like that.

Either way, English in Argentina has three common characteristics: a) the words are generally correct, but their usage makes little or no sense; b) they are horribly misspelled; or c) they’re just downright humorous. Examples:

a) As I was riding a bus through Buenos Aires, we passed a bar.  While its name did not inspire me to enter this rough-looking establishment and hang with the locals, it was just so wonderfully titled that it grabbed my attention.  That name was “New Moustache Bar.”  I shudder to think of what happened to the “Old Moustache Bar” especially give the state of the new version.

Another wondrous name belongs to a shop that has just luckily opened up down the street in my brother’s neighborhood of Palermo.  I’m pretty sure this shop sells clothes, but its wares are not what are interesting.  What is interesting is its name: “Diablo Mother Fucker.”  In all honesty, I can’t think of a better name for any shop in history.  They could specialize in selling dead racoons, and with a name like Diablo Mother Fucker, I’d pop in for a look-see.  Another remarkable example is the name utilized by a chain store I have seen many times in this fine city is named “Pizza Bum.”  Either this is a new social program in Argentina that aims to eliminate homelessness by employing them as pizza delivery men, or it’s an imported pizza flavor from England.  Either way, I really don’t care to find out.  Yet another fun illustration of the use of English was a T-shirt that said “Blowind — People Who Care Seriously.”  Hmm…never in my wildest imagination did I think one statement could have summed up all my beliefs and convictions so succintly.   The final example of fun Argentine English was in Ushuaia, where we encountered a shop called “Cheeky Mr Cock.”  This store was out of business, however; which was probably for the best.

Yikes.

b) My sister-in-law has done some serious shirt shopping here in Buenos Aires, and has happened across a couple of doozies.  The overall winner in this category belongs to one of those t-shirts that has some world-changing slogan on front.  This particular inspirational shirt declares: “What the Worl Neens Now is Love.”  Amen, t-shirt.  And, completely off-subject, after leaving behind the friendly women of Brazil, my worl neens a little love too.

c) I was walking through the grocery store the other day when I happened to notice a bottle of alcohol.  The name was Old Smuggler Whiskey.  While, technically, this is grammatically correct, the idea of an elderly smuggler lugging a bottle of whiskey from God-knows-where to this particular grocery store does not fill me with the urge to pour this liquid over a glass full of ice, hand it to one of my friends, and declare “Nothing tastes as good as an Old Smuggler.”

Finally, someone realizes that American Power has a Cause...a cause to kick some ass! Woooo!

In reality, I find that scantily-clad women in bikinis eating ice cream tend to be a much better way to market your product than a tattered, smelly Old Smuggler.  Another wondrous example is a pair of tennis shoes that are sold in the main bus station in Buenos Aires.  These shoes are exactly the same as Converse, but are named “American Power With a Cause.”  ’Merica, fuck yeah!

3.  Fashion — People here have some wacky style.  While the mullet is cool, the curly, Billy Ray Cyrus mullet makes you an undeniable, invincible, chick magnet.  Unless you are a chick who wears it (which is not uncommon), then you’re just outright bad ass.  Now, while hairstyles here are pretty sweet, they pale in comparison to the coolest fashion trend to return since 1990.  And, yes, I am talking about…Hammer pants.  They are back, and in Buenos Aires, this is a style, uh, you can’t touch.

4.  Steak — Argentines have the greatest steaks on the planet.  I am planning on suggesting to steakhouses that they should just serve raw beef in a cone, because it is melt-in-your-mouth delightful.  And not only are they delicious, they are amazingly cheap and miraculously large.  Thus, all I eat now is steak — morning, noon, and night.

Beeftastic.

Here’s my daily eating routine:  I get up in the morning, I pour myself a hot cup of steak and pop a couple of pieces of steak into the toaster.  At noon I make myself a “steak sandwich”: a nice juicy filet mignon slapped between a couple of slices of porterhouse.  For dinner, I generally start with an appetizer of a left-ass-cheek-sized steak, then follow it up with a main course of a steak the size of my torso.  Then I wash it down with some steak-flavored wine, and fall into a steak-induced coma.  All of which costs about 12 bucks.  Then, when the time is right, I go into the bathroom and a couple of steaks fall out of my butt.  All in a day’s work.

5.  Yerba Maté — Argentine crack rock.  This herbal tea is what fuels the entire country.  People guzzle this shit all day and night.  While walking the streets of Buenos Aires, you will see hundreds of locals slurping maté from a small gourd from a sliver straw while carrying a thermos of hot water slung over their shoulder, a small tupperware container of dry herbs to replenish their addiction, and a glazed, tea-induced euphoric look in their eyes.  If you were insane enough to try to steal any of the above ingredients of maté drinking from an Argentine, you would no doubt find yourself in a similar situation to jumping into a lion’s den wearing a steak helmet.  Survival would only transpire by the graceful, interceding hand of the Lord.

As an example of the maté obsession, I was idiotic enough to ask a maté vendor how exactly to prepare the drink in a gourd, and, after a 11 hour discourse, he finished with the strong admonishment: “Never, NEVER, put the maté straw underneath the herb.  Never.”  I now resolutely believe that breaking the “maté-straw-above-the-herb” principle would be the equivalent to donkey punching the Pope in the gonads.

6.  Nightlife — People here are probably vampires.  Attractive vampires; but vampires, nonetheless.  My reason for this belief is that when you venture out on the streets around dusk at 7 P.M. (which of course is a normal time for citizens of non-vampire countries to eat a meal or simply walk around), the streets are eerily calm.  But, once the sun has safely settled behind the Earth, at around 10:30 P.M. these maté drinking Argentine vampires emerge to eat dinner.  While I haven’t personally seen them eat any humans, these vampires have an unquenchable thirst for steak, which I’m pretty sure they just suck dry.  After finishing up dinner at around 12 A.M., it is time to go home to get ready and have a couple of pre-game matés before heading out for the party.  Once 3 A.M. eventually rolls around, these vampires head out to the clubs to dance the night…maybe morning is more appropriate…away.  This lasts until about 6 to 7 A.M. when they have run out of energy from not eating brains or steak, and head home to undoubtedly sleep in their coffins until the next sundown, when they do it all over again.  If this isn’t the action of vampires, then these people just simply like to party late night.  But I still think they’re vampires.

7.  Buses — The buses (or omnibuses, as they are referred to in castellano, probably to sound superior to normal buses) are an exercise in luxury.  Unlike their Venezuelan or Brazilian counterparts, Argentine buses employ a waitress who serves you a meal, wine, and whiskey, nearly making you forget that you are on a bus for the next 18 hours.  Also, they tend to show a movie that usually involves Steven Segal, which is so bad ass after a couple of bus whiskeys.  Moreover, if you pay the extra few bucks, you can avoid sleeping next to a half-grizzly bear, half-human who snores all night long, and get a fully reclinable bed in the lower deck away from the proletariat backpackers in the upper deck and their disgusting ways of living.  And, you still get Steven Segal.  The best of both worlds.

8. Television — Television here is, more or less, lame.  Unless you love fútbol and Alf.  Which I do, of course.  So by “lame,” I meant “terrific”.  And, it’s weird, but Alf speaks fluent Spanish here.  Is there anything that he can’t do?  Methinks not…

9.  Monedas — Coins.  There are no coins in Buenos Aires.  Which is to say, the currency involves coins as a standard of monetary exchange, but, for some reason, there is a serious lack of them in this city.  No stores have them, neither do any people.  And if they do, they hold protect them more furiously than a drunken wolverine protecting its young.  Some say the mafia is holding all the coins.  I’m not totally sure why.  I mean, that sure is a pretty tough guy move; why be involved in drugs or prostitutes or gambling when you can control all the coins in the country?  You could have the entire video game parlor industry by the balls.  Now that’s power.  I can’t believe there hasn’t been a Sopranos spin-off based on the shady world of coin-counting Argentine mafiosos.

Ders no coins here, Goomba. Fuggedaboudit.

However, the lack of monedas is kind of a problem because all buses only accept a one peso coin.  If you are unfortunate to find yourself without one, you are left standing in street like a bill-holding sucker.  This circumstance became an problem for me when I had to catch a bus, and literally no one would change my two fifty cent pieces for one peso.  I went to over seven stores, and no one would do it.  I thus had to start bartering with people on the street to simply gain access to a one peso coin.  I had almost negotiated for a one peso coin by offering a twenty peso bill, three blowjobs, and my liver, when I got lucky and noticed one sitting on the ground.  Whew, I sure dodged a 33 American cent bullet there.

10.  Empanadas — Argentine Hot Pockets.  But, oh, so much more delicious.  These little delights, along with steak and maté tea, are the only things this country consumes.  But, they are all delicious; so more is less, I suppose.

11.  80′s Music — While 80′s music is popular around the globe, in no place is it more popular than in Argentina.  They have taken their fanaticism to a new level by: 1) playing 80′s music that no one knows, or (even knew in the 1980′s); and 2) having really awful cover songs of the 80′s hits.  I recently was regaled by a full soundtrack of a female, acoustic, adult-contemporary artist covering such classics from “Never Gonna Give You Up” to “Every Rose Has its Thorn” to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” And each one was worse than the next.  My ears were bleeding by the end, as my eardrums had committed suicide.

So, thus far, that’s my Argentina experience in a nutshell.  Buenos Aires is a great city, and I am thoroughly enjoying the days of sitting in the cold weather on a bus watching English-butchering, mullet-laden, maté-slurping, Hammer pants-attired, moneda-concealing, Alf-watching vampires listening to a “You are the Wind Beneath my Wings” cover song, while eating a meal of Megatubes and steak empanadas.

What a country.

“Uruguay — Come Visit Us, We’re Really Normal.”

Come for the Sunsets, and Have a Wildly Average Stay!

Imagine walking into a 31,000 Flavors ice cream megastore, surveying the mouth-watering options such as “Cherry Detonation,” “Chocolate Underpants,” and “Strawberry Sex Offender,” and deciding to order sugar-free, flavor-reduced, vanilla sorbet.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  It just means you would love Uruguay.

After taking the hour-long ferry from Buenos Aires to Colonia, Uruguay at 8AM, we quickly realized that a day and a half might have been a little too much in this lovely little (and I mean little) town.  By 8:05AM, we had wandered around, checked into our hostel, and pretty much seen just about all of this lovely little (and I mean little) town.

So, we decided to do what any good tourist would do, and head over to the tourist information offices to see what they could recommend.  There wasn’t much.  They informed us about the beach (although it was far too cold to enjoy), the old church, a place to rent scooters, and gave us a map.  Now, literally, this town could be quickly and easily be fluently traversed by a blind man, sans seeing-eye dog, within 10-12 seconds — so a map seemed like overkill.  However, we had already been given a map at the hostel and the scooter-rental store.  Thus, with little to do, your imagination begins to work overtime to prevent yourself from doing what normal people in normal towns like this do – i.e. Shooting Rampage — and we started playing a fun game called “Collect the Map.”

You Toucha My Ride, I Breaka Your Face

This game is rather simplistic: you collect maps, which are given to you at every place in town — gas stations, hotels, restaurants, brothels, map stores, and even the offices of TOAM (The Organization to Abolish Maps) — and the person who collects the most wins.  The final results were close: Ben 7; Eric 6; and, introducing, The 2008 Map Collecting Champion of Colonia, Uruguay — with 10 maps collected! — Yeeeeeeeeff Wheeeeeeelaaaaand!

On our way out of the tourist office, the gentleman we were speaking to, as a horrifically nonchalant afterthought, mentioned that we could also visit The Pirate Museum.  Now you’re talking, my map-loving friend!

So, the three of us attempted to rent scooters, but we thwarted when Ben did not have a driver’s license.  I mean, Heaven forbid a person would ride one of these Powerful Beasts approaching speeds of nearly 20 (!) mph, without a driver’s license!  In all honesty, my niece could drive (and most likely get bored of) one of these great machines within minutes.  And she’s four years old.  However, these Uruguayans love their rules, and told us we were unable to rent another scooter.  But, as an alternative, they said we could rent a “buggy”.

When they intoduced us to this “buggy,” we were intrigued.  It had three gear shifters, a roll bar (in case, we imagined, you flipped this monster while doing 95 mph while ditching the cops that were chasing you), and its compact size managed to contain two thrill-seeking seats from which to enjoy the wind blazing through your hair as you shredded the pavement in exhilaration.  Also, it was named “The Raptor.”

So we rented it.

The Raptor aka Bitchmobile

However, upon inserting the key, bracing myself, and flooring the gas, this “buggy” showed its true colors.  As it putted out of the starting gates, it turned out to be nothing more than a fancy-pantsed go-kart with a three gear shifters that were nothing more than mere decoration, a roll bar (in case you wanted to hang your wet laundry on top to get some breeze to dry them) and two seats which meant that it had that to expend that much more power to reach its mystifying 20 kilometers per hour.  ”The Raptor” my ass.  More like, “The Craptor.”  Snap.  Oh well, at least there was still a pirate museum.

After collect three more maps while zooming down the road at 15 kph, we concluded the long journey of 5 kilometers nine hours later, and reached The Pirate Museum.

Walking up to the entrance of this spectacle, you are greeted by three giant, swashbuckling pirate statues that seemed to menacingly growl “Yar, get back in yer fancy mini-kart and return to the land from whence ye came.  Unless ye be suffering from enough scurvy to dare plunder yer pockets for 150 Uruguayan pesos to enter this dump.  Yar.”

Shiver Me Timbers!

And suffering from scurvy we must have been, Mr. Pirate.  So we entered.

After entering, we realized just how sweet this place was.  The first thing that you encountered was a paper maché pirate with cardboard tubes that served as arms with no elbows, and socks attached to the tube which served as hands, and a sign above that said “Barbanegra” (Blackbeard).

The Murderous Pirate "Captain No-Elbow Glovehands"

So cheesy.  Yet so f’ing funny.  As we wandered around this “museum” we noticed and array of really “cool” “artifacts” such as fake gold coins that could have been on a fake pirate ship in fake 1647, a small model of a wooden ship in a room that was bumping European techno music (which, we all know, regaled pirates for so many years in the 15th century), many more pirate statues made of paper maché, and a tribute to the most famous and bloodthirsty pirate that ever sailed the seven seas: Jacque Cousteau.  Finally, we were treated to a tour of the replica pirate ship, with all of its hilarious assortment of paper maché scalawags, deckswabbers, cutthroats, and ruffians.

So, after declaring The Magnificent Pirate Museum of Colonia the “World’s Funniest Place” we hopped onto our scooters and go-kart, and sped away at a turtle’s pace.  At this time I luckily discovered that, where the go-kart was greatly lacking in death-defying speed, it compensated in two other categories: the ability to turn on a Uruguayan dime, and the ability to slide-stop when slamming the brakes as hard as possible.  This made life a little more fun…for about 15 minutes.

Now that we were officially out of things to do, so we engaged in the activity that most bored groups of young people engage in — drinking beer.  Then, suddenly, an idea blossomed out of the fermentation of the urine-flavored Quilmes beer, like a mushroom out of cattle dung: we would…drive our scooter and go-kart around some more. 

It wasn’t much of an idea, but it was a lot more fun after a couple beers.  Now, some of you might be thinking: “That seems like a dangerous plan.”  Well, you would be correct in this assumption in most regular countries, but this was Colonia, Uruguay, and there were a grand total of three cars and twelve scooters in town, and we had seen none of them.  So, we just drove up and down the streets of Colonia, blazing new paths and raising Heck in our mean machines.  We even managed to pass a BMW on our way home (although I think there was no one driving it…and it was rolling backwards down a hill), all the while honking and rubbing in the fact that they were just passed by a go-kart.

The Creepiest Pirate in History

So, the next day we arrived at the ferry station nine hours early, just to make sure we wouldn’t get trapped in this wonderland that even Jerry Mathers would find dull.  And like the paper maché pirates of yesteryear, we departed Colonia, Uruguay praying to never return.