buenos aires, 100 pipers, insane woman, checkpoint drug search, down 2 2

in our apartment in Buenos Aires, located in the quiet section of Palermo, we´ve enjoyed several home-cooked meals, bottles of wine, cigarettes, laughter, and crazy dance sessions, all of which culminated in the smokey chaos that was last night. lizzie and i killed the bottle of 100 pipers, our good friend, (cheap scotch)after drinking beer and rum throughout the day. then we danced madly to james brown and sang Kokomo at the top of our lungs. I made a fool of myself several times partly because i lost my mind to some of the good earth, given to me by a couple dudes on the street corner who had just finished filming a coca cola jingle for television. when i said i was from california the first thing they said was "oh! jim morrison" then they said they spend most of their time on the streets, that the devil lives in buenos aires (and LA, new york, etc). i agreed and then lizzie and i bought cuban cigars.
today i am very disoriented.

our bowel movements have been quite regular this week. here´s why: we make a big salad with avocado, palimtos, onions, garlic and tomatoes every night, using lots of olive oil. then we eat either brown rice and lentils or a big pasta. i am adamant about throwing curry into everything we eat, including eggs in the morning. i also have put us threw hell with several cloves of garlic in all the dishes. i believe in the power of garlic and i wont back down about it though sometimes i have to sneak it in because the two ladies say they cant handle it. but then they rave that the sauce tastes good. in addition we go through lots of Quilmes (cheapgoodbeer), 2 bottles of Malbec and occasionally 100 pipers. for dessert we cut up peaches and sometimes bananas and heat them up on the stove, and then pour dulce de leche on top. AND THEN we cut up white chocolate and sprinkle it on top so that it melts into gooey heaven.
so that is a bit of our home life.

at the beginning of the week we went to the zoo and the botanical gardens. they had a snow leopard which was fucking awesome, just runnin around its territory and occasionally jumping in the air or trying to escape through the metal door in the back. also some beautiful white lions, crazy monkeys, a HUGGGGE turtle, and a section with farm animals which ally was happy about because "they are animals too!" i listened to the Panda Bear album on my ipod and was constantly confused because the album has noises which sometimes sound like roars or sounds of elephants. i will let ally or lizzie go into more detail about the animals. oh, they also had these little rabbit looking things and beavers with rat tails running freely through the park so you were kind of immersed in the whole thing whether you wanted to be or not. the botanical gardens were very nice and peaceful and had cats EVERYWHERE. Andy (our friend from Bariloche) told us there would be wild cats but we didnt expect as many as we saw. the cats would even group together behind trees to conduct meetings, and they´d also taken over a large square where they segregated themselves according to fur color, minus one stubborn son of a bitch who was sprawled out with all the "tabby cats"... we took some pictures and then cooked our feast.
the next day we walked a shitload and hit up the Belles Artes museum which was pretty cool. Ally dug the Rothko painting and gave me a little knowledge about his style and i got pumped up about Picasso and lizzie was really into this crazy visual thing which fucked with your perspective.
then we began walking to the MALBA museum and it was pouring rain and we saw their current exhibit on andy warhol. i listened to the velvet underground and they had some cool modern art and then we cooked our feast and passed out eating ice cream.
The following day was spent in San Telmo. very cool section of the city with tons of little antique stores with all sorts of crazy stuff. we went through many of them and didnt buy anything and then drank at a nearby bar and ally and i stumped lizzie with games like black magic and other strange things. but she figured everything out and then had dinner at Desnivel, a place frequented by locals where lizzie and i had a kick ass steak and ally had a shitty pasta but a good piece of grilled cheese with tomatoes. we also had sangria at this cool little cafe in san telmo which was in a kind of courtyard and seemed to be somebody´s apartment. the sangria was made on the spot and gave a nice buzz. Plaza Dorrego was also a good time. lots of people selling art and jewlery where we returned the following day for lizzie to buy this spoon necklace kinda thing with jewels on it. then we were sadly convinced to go into a bar which had a cool upstairs section where we could smoke and drink and they said we would see tango for free. we didn´t know we would be THE ONLY people inside and that the tango would occur right in front of our table, that it would last 5 minutes, that we would be forced to take awkward pictures, me with the woman and lizzie and ally with the guy (while wearing their hats and scarves)....and then of course we had to leave a tip.
people here are very clear about tipping. the waiters always make sure to tell you that "the tip is not included" when they drop the check, and the guy who puts your backpack into the bus will wave a couple pesos in your face to make sure you tip. on the way to buenos aires this pissed me off so i gave him 2 pesos and told lizzie he didnt deserve anymore, but when we arrived in buenos aires our bags were soaking wet. he gave me a really dirty look after getting the 2 pesos and i knew he had power so this was a fuckup on my part.
anyway, yesterday we went to La Boca, which was a mistake because it was pouuuuring rain and though Caminito looked cool (a little neighboorhood with really colorful houses and people selling art and jewlery) we rushed to find a restaurant/bar. people will do anything to get you into the restaurant (see tango situation above) and when we asked if we could smoke inside the woman said yes, and when we sat down our waitress Virginia (who was cool and on top of her shit) apologized and told us that "it is IMPOSSIBLE to smoke inside"...so we drank Quilmes, ate bread with tapanade that was taken from a jar that hadnt been cleaned since 1974 and ate some decent empanadas. then we took a cab back to san telmo and relaxed until night.

a few other things we´d left out from before:
1. when we entered Argentina, from Chile, we stopped at customs and 2 argentine police officers came aboard the bus and went DIRECTLY to lizzie, ally and i and started searching our bags. they asked each of us if we smoked marijuana and went through everything we had, smelling our ipods and even the trash we were carrying. this took about 15 minutes, was fairly awkward and then they apologized and walked off the bus. nobody else was searched and afterwards lizzie said that the old dude from San Luis Obispo who was sitting behind her said "man, i was afraid they were gonna search me...i got some pot on me right now". Later i saw this same guy running frantically through the streets at one of our stops on the way to Bariloche. he was crazy and kept yelling at people in shitty spanish while looking for an atm. i needed an atm too so i was stuck with the dude. while we were walking he kept saying that somebody must have called ahead to tell the police officers to search us. he was very adamant about this but said that he was lucky to be old because he could put on his reading glasses and look innocent. i did not like this guy.

2. in Valpairiso there lives an insane woman. Lizzie and Ally saw her cause a scene with her boyfriend/lover (also insane) which i will let them describe. this occurred at some restaurant in town and was very awkward according to them. anyway, they told me about this woman and it seemed wild but i didn´t think much of it UNTIL we were sitting in an empty bar, just us three, drinking malbec before our bus left at night. the woman came in and sat down at the table closest to us. ally and i were facing her and lizzie had her back to her. lizzie insisted this was more scary but i must argue that because her face was on fire and had sprinkles of dark chaos everywhere. ally and lizzie told me not to respond to her when she spoke. this did not however deter her from speaking to us, NONSTOP for an hour. lizzie can verify what she spoke about, but i think it was everything from her family, to why she doesn´t have money, to what she does in town, etc etc. she would laugh, flirt with the young waiter, ask us questions (to which we did not respond) and then laugh and continue talking. ally and i had to work hard to avoid looking at her. maybe we seem like bastards for all this but anybody would have done the same thing. if not even the strongest would get sucked into a whirpool of insanity. before we left she walked right up to our table and asked for a cigarette. i told her we didn´t have anymore (true) and then she started singing a little bit before yelling "FUCK YOU" and going out into the streets to wreak havoc.

now lizzie is gone and ally and i are relaxing today. i need to recover from last night and we needed to leave our apartment and get a hostel for two nights before leaving for Igaucu falls on monday. we spend a couple days there before going to Florianopolis in Brasil to chill out for a few days at the beach. then we meet up with my family. we miss lizzie already and wish her a safe trip home. hope everyone is enjoying the thanksgiving break. peace and love
ciaooo

ok so Bariloche was very similar to Pucon, just as beautiful and just as cold, Bariloche wins though because the lakes were bigger and we met cooler people. day one we rode chair lifts up a moutain while Japanese tourists took our picture and waved hello asking ¨are you ok???¨ it was kinda strange but whatever cause the view was worth it, blue slate lakes trapped in green and white mountains, xandre seems to enjoy being cold so he took a lot of pictures for everyone, ally and I waited inside the cafe......but in our defense the cafe held a priceless cultural experience; Chococognac (hot chocolate with cognac, fucking amazing!!!) 
our outdoor adventure was followed by a bottle of whiskey we bought in Mendoza and family dinner at the hostel with our really cool roommate Andy, really solid guy from London who actually liked talking about other things besides traveling (honestly it gets really old after a while, yes we are all traveling and on the road blah blah blah but we also have some other things gonna on man)
I got a little chatty and stated that you could never have too much leather and then started talking about therapists..........but Andy didnt seem too disturbed by it, so we pretty much knew he could hang.
Day two we hung around town a while, then Xandre went Kayaking with an Argentine Elvis fanatic and Ally and I bought chocolates and I had my portrait taken with two St Bernards!
After the Kayaking we opened the second bottle of Mendozian Whiskey, after that we took advantage of the cheap wine of the hostel, and then shit hit the fan.
Basically I felt like being really really nasty and mean, so I stated that a coca cola jingle is more legit than promoting awareness for Aids in Africa (mind you I was wearing my african liberation tribal print leggings at the time) Xandre and I had a screaming match, he left disgusted, Andy and Ally tried to reason with me, I was stubborn so I stood my ground for a good two hours, but once closing time came around I pretty much took it all back and we walked home drunk and happy, one big happy family.
Day three, because of the whiskey the night before we bought three tickets for the black glacier excursion, not wise at all. Cold Cold rain the whole day. We thought that entrance to the national park and lunch was included, it was not, had to bum money off a fellow traveler staying at our hostel named Alan (a really really sincerely nice guy from Toronto). Then we did a ¨hike¨ which was more of a single file line up a mountain with no breaks to look around or BREATHE. We saw the waterfalls, Xandre loved it, I thought it was nice, Ally was pissed. Then we rode through the forest and came to the infamous Black Glacier, the only problem was that it looked like a rock or as Ally stated ¨a bowl of cookie soup¨. It was actually kinda cool though, the broken chunks had really nice lines dividing different shades of grey. Xandre had another Lord of the Rings moment and Ally and I ran around doing our charming ¨rosie o´donnel run¨.
We ended Bariloche with a nice dinner with Andy and then made our way over to the hostel bar for one last round, the place was empty but the bartender was cool and let us have a drink. We had a really good time talking to him, his work basically revolves around using the internet to empower and unite communities so that they don´t need to rely on the government in order to take care of their needs, POWER TO THE PEOPLE. Then we went back to our hostel and Andy looked up pictures of Tipper Gore on his Iphone, then we played a round of Marry Fuck or Kill, and Xandre didnt think twice about killing Chelsea Clinton (leaving him with the two Bush twins to either Fuck or Marry).
The next day we said our goodbyes to Andy and Alan which was sad because the two of them really made Bariloche for us. Andy brought more control and ability to our table, Alan made us realize that our table isnt resting on mound of shit.
Now we are in Buenos Aires, times are good but frankly we´re getting a little homesick......we have really good nights but they make the bright mornings a little rough.
We´re thinking about Omead a lot, and things are down.
We saw a cool Warhol exhibit and thought of sending him a postcard of it, but the only one they had was a Self Portrait in drag. (we thought his parents might get a little weirded out by it)
Today is Turkey day so we listened to Aretha during breakfast and ate Dulce de Leche, tonight we kill the bottle of 100 PIPERS Scotch that we bought.
A few more days of prowling around and then the journey splits,
Dog Wonder is flying home and the two golden outlaws travel north to get their bossa nova on.

MUCH LOVE TO ALL.

Maggie, Turner and running against the headwind.

We got to Pucon. A new rustic type of wooden town(think aspen, whistler, etc. lesscorporatebutneedssnow). We stayed in a log cabin run by German women who liked to chat, smoke and party late and wake up early. There is a volcano here. It is majestic and white and we took pictures in the morning. It´s always cold here, and windy and we wore layers and lizzie wore Keds with holes in them and a flannel with the pockets cut out because she lost her purple raincoat. The first night we ate at a crap italian restaurant and they played Michael Jackson music videos on a big screen while blasting club music in spanish and sometimes the dancing matched up. We taught Xandre all he needed to know about MJ and his life, and then we ate crap food while the restaurant billowed with smoke from some mishap in the kitchen and no one cared and no one apologized and they turned on a small fan and put Shakira on. The smoking section came back to bite us in the ass.

We woke up, went to the closest coffee shop, ate bland food. it was lovely. We walked to the lake and I met Maggie, the german shepperd, who ended up following us for the next 3 days. She was well behaved and lovely and I wish I could take her with me. We walked around the lake which was glassy and cryptic and then walked through the streets and I bought Maggie some cheap ham and she ate the whole pack in 2 bites. Xandre was certain she had an owner, and was all bah humbug after hamtime. We all bopped around (Maggie included)and finally decided to go on a bus tour of the area(No Maggie). We saw beautiful rivers, and rapids and blue water, and waterfalls and the forest. wonderous splendor. We got to talking with Anka, a nerdy but sweet German journalist who liked to talk. The trip ended in a visit at the Thermal Hot Springs. This was like a miz between the local YMCA pool and a eurpean bathhouse. Set in a beautiful woodsy outdoors, but all enclosed so you might as well be in Kansas. They weren´t that warm and there was skin floating around. We wore neon green and blue swim caps and looked like we worked at hot-dog-on-a-stick. Frothy Lemonade? Anka talked and said interesting things. We left finally. It was still very cold outside. Maggie was there when we got back. We ate good food that night and Maggie ate salame that was leftover. We went to a bar to wait for Anka (We had stopped by her hostel earlier and left her a note inviting her to drinks later since she talked about being a lonely traveler and eating picnic food alone). She never showed. Lizzie and Xandre drank as they do on most days and I sat and we talked. Music was loud and they played reggae and we talked about Robbie Dietz and we all saw him singing along in our heads.
Next day, lizzie and I spent the day walking around Pucon with Maggie and Turner (a fellow friend, german shepperd and chow chow mix who looked like a tiny bear). Xandre did the canopy tour, had the time of his life. He came back with Brian, a schoolteacher from Texas with an accent and an awkward way about him. We dined together. He was quaint.

I am tired of typing.
We are in Bariloche now.
Look up images.
It is INCREDIBLE.
We love you all.

shit on the bus and on to the mountains

They don´t let you take shits on the busses and it was nice to get (and hold) a powerful diarrhea 2 hours into our 11 hour bus ride from Santiago to Valdivia. Luckily since everybody was passed out I managed to get to the back and sneak a little squirt, otherwise I would´ve burst by hour 6. The sleepless ride left me bed hungry by the time we got to the little wood hostel, which was very near but felt like home and had a duck and a rabbit in the backyard. The duck was an asshole and the rabbit cuddled with Ally and Lizzie in the morning over coffee, exposing the fact that Duck bit the top of Rabbit´s head (he had a small bald spot).
Santiago was awesome and we saw a museum showing artifacts from the Myans and Incas and all those cultures. COol to see the way that art penetrated every aspect of their lives. Before this museum we had coffee at Cafe Haiti. Ally said it was a coffee shop for men and Lizzie disagreed. The facts: relatively unattractive women wear schoolgirl outfits with lots of cleavage and stand behind the counter. You give your ticket for your coffee and they bring you a small glass of sparkling water with your drink and you stand and smoke and if youre an older man they probably flirt with you.

Saw late night jazz in a VERY sketchy part of town at a place called Thelonius, right next to a giant strip club. It was a monday so we think it was not the night for the best players - 4 nerdy dudes jammin, but they did ok even though Lizzie and I fell asleep. (We´d been drinking for hours in celebration of Ally´s birthday).

Drinking earthquakes at Piojera, a very old looking bar where you might go after your wife leaves you or if you´re 50 and you wanna get drunk at 1pm or if you´re young and you wanna smoke and get drunk and eat cheaply. The earthquake is basically sweet wine with ice cream inside. A little dash of something else on the top, and you just let the ice cream soak in. Ally took one sip and then refused to touch it again, though we forced a little down her throat. Lizzie was really into it, i hated it and i cite it as a source of the diarrhea. The best way i can describe this bar is this: i asked a guy on the street where Piojera is and he said, very concerned, "You´re going alone? You´re going alone?" and then he made a motion with his finger across his neck...like i might die in there alone. Also, everybody in Chile consistently gives you the wrong directions. it was disastorous but allowed us to get to know the city better.
santiago, being my first stop, got me hungry for those strange adventures when you travel and the days open like 1 liter bottles of beer, poP! and cities with smog, valparaiso with trash tornadoes whirling at your feet and ocean air smacking you in the face from Pablo Nerudas house high in the poetry of the hills, street art splashed everywhere, people with real lives and you pass them disappearing, cramming it all down your throat, shitting it out in public bathrooms where you cant flush the toilet paper, bottles of wine for 10 bucks and 1am meals, cloudy smoke, lucky strikes, mad men, wired, talks of future, silence and new strange things bubbling, trees in the streets, hills on the hills and castles in the middle, Andes jagged in the east, weird british dude in your hostel jumping from the top bunk at 8am in nothing but briefs watching extreme sports, a late night smoke with lover on the rooftop with jazz dripping from the speakers in the streets into the city which soaks it all up and squeezes you out the next morning drenched in desire for more more more, and you see on the Road in a hostel on the bed and your friend just bought an rv and writes of the road and everybody talks furiously over wine and beer, curiouser and curiouser cus they played alice and wonderland on the tv with hoochie coochie man blasting on the speakers

Estas son las mañanitas, que cantaba el Rey David

Mendoza was chill.
We took the wine route and met a couple of other interesting travelers, including Maryanne (a forty five year old cougar from Chicago who had a Prozac problem) as well as British version of Jack Black and the four original members of Abba. The vineyards were beautiful and the wine was for the most part lovely, except that every tasting included a "young white wine" which basically meant it tasted somewhere along the lines of fruit punch with a splash of malibu.......
We left that night, well into our Malbec hangovers and rode the night bus to Santiago. Night rides are no good when you have to cross the border, imagine getting pushed off a bus at three am into the freezing cold only to wait in line for a good half an hour while a german shepard sniffs your shit and a two teenagers laugh at you. Thankfully we remembered not to take any Xanax this time.
News Flash !!!!!!!!!! We lalalove Santiago.
We've come to the conclusion that other travelers dont know shit, everyone kept telling us how lame Santiago was, but we find that the city suits us quite well. Good musuems, good music shops (including one which we think might be owned by Murakami) great vintage book stores and gellato which according to Ally tastes like butter. (on a side note i dont know when people decided that south america must be done the outdoor wilderness explorer way, fuck that shit, i could a jazzercise class at home if i wanted to sweat)
We also found a really cool park to chill at (ally thought it was a bum park because everyone was laying down, but it turned out that Chileans just love the pda park sessions, i'm almost positive that 75 percent of babies are concieved outdoors here).
Round one of Santiago was also great cause we finally got Xandre to join us!
Ally is happy to have someone besides my heart of steel and I'm glad because I now have someone to share the wine bottles with.
We took our new partner in crime to Valparaiso, everything was going great till Houdini came and stole Ally's bag. Serioulsy the asshole that stole her shit most have been good at vanishing acts because no one saw a thing.........
So basically we came back to Santiago a little defeated but Ramming On none the less.
Please have a strong stiff drink in honor of Alison's birthday today,
Cheers to the deux deuxs treating her right.

wild days, lazy nights and the wolf shadow

Some quick updates for the slow minded:
-valparaiso is beautiful, lots of wine, and good food and art on the walls.
-we both dyed our hair, I am a very bright orange-red and lizzie is a black purple.
-we went out for a cigarette one morning and 2 gentlemen from the adjacent hostel window popped out and handed us a giant joint. they then proceeded to tell us it was leaves. we smoked the whole thing between the two of us. they left. we did not get high at all. now i can say that i´ve smoked oregano before.
-we went to a quaint vegetarian restaurant and 2 druggies had to be arrested for contesting their bill (this was after the husky woman made several attempts at slapping the waiter)
-xandre the great is feeling below par these days and has to postpone his flight.
-following the news above, we hopped on a bus to Mendoza, Argentina (wine country) where we will tour wineries tomorrow (along with cheese and chocolate factories) and get drunk.
-there is an amazing video that was set to be posted tomorrow for Morgan & Omead´s birthdays, but alas the camera cord will not get here until Xandre does, so it will be belated or perhaps posted on my birthday.
-if you would like to skype with the dynamic duo, this week would be ideal before we truly hit the road again. send us an email. or don´t and just feed the fish and forget to comment.
-until we meet again...

You got to go steal ahead

Leaving San Pedro was not wise at all.
Rachel, we´re very sorry but Antofagasta did not treat us right.
We thank the empanadas at Florencia´s for helping us through our day of darkness.

La Serena was chill. We stayed in a Casa de Huespedes run by five single women, all the other patrons were males, it could have been brothel.
So we did what anyone would in a brothel; we played with the kittens (Nelson, Principe and Badeye) and drank wine.
There was also a little girl living there that hated Ally. She liked to creep out into the hallways late at night and yell at her in Spanish, we named her the Chilean Shinning twin.
The city itself was chill, a lot of lounging and one run in with a couple really dirty gypsys that tried to steal our ciggarettes.

Now we´re in Valparaiso.
HELLO WORLD.
We celebrated Halloween in an old piano bar last night. The mood was solid annd legit there, it was the type of joint that makes you react. I defy any person who drinks or eats meat to try and not a order a steak and gin there.
Today we heard Radiohead and Cat Power playing at random nonmusical establishments.
And street art is ALIVE, someone here has realized the potential of all surfaces.
We sleep in a lime green house with a trapeze and leopard print chairs.

Valparaiso is basically what the wait has been about.
We've been needing a city like this.
The things you talk about when you're drunk and excited about life are actually tangible here.
Come to Valparaiso and tell me you've been doing enough to live............................

So with that said,
we plan to stay a while.


Time ain't gonna cure you honey
Time's just gonna hit on you
Time ain't gonna cure you honey
Time don't give a shit.
You got to go steal ahead
You got to go steal ahead