FTTN: Puerto Iguazu- Tourist towns

I saw it in many places: a town (or village) whose very existence is linked in steel cables to its tourist attraction. Puerto Natales and Puerto Iguazu are great examples, I think. And they feel right for me as examples, being at opposite edges (of the countries and of my trip), so they somehow encase or include all the others, at least figuratively. The tourist attraction that is next to both these towns casts a very large shadow on anything and everything in them. This includes the names of restaurants, hostels, shops and even streets, photos of the attraction everywhere, many services linked to it, the majority of the townspeople working in something that has to do with it, and last but not least, a sense of local pride (or small-scale patriotism) that you get when talking to locals about the attraction.
I would love to know how residents of Puerto Iguazu really feel about the waterfalls.

Iguazu and Esteros Del Ibera- end of April 2008

When I finally got to Iguazu, after the 24-hour bus, I went to the hostel I had booked. Yeah, I know I've said I never book hostels, but this was a special case. Everybody talks about the amazing Iguazu HI, and I was told it was the only hostel in town and that you have to book in advance. All three claims turned out to be either wrong or semi-true. It's a huge and pretty impressive hostel, probably the biggest I've been in, with a capacity for 220 people, a big pool, ping pong and pool tables, and buffet and BBQ nights. Quite good, but not really my cup of tea. I prefer the smaller places, where you actually get to meet people, instead of kinda swirling around in the general confusion. And it was a bit outside the town, so it was a little difficult to get food, which makes most people take their famous all-you-can-eat meals. Which were not bad, but relatively expensive. 

Anyway, I went to Iguazu for the falls and not the hostel, so... the falls were spectacular. I was expecting spectacular, so it kind of took the edge out of it, but it was still great- the force of it is just... it's hard to describe.

FTTN: Salta and Jujuy- culture and tradition as tourist attractions

You see it in a lot of places, but I guess it was most obvious to me in Salta and Jujuy: the attempt to package and sell the local culture and past to tourists. Whether it's the handcrafts (artesanias), whether native or pseudo-native, in museums, in hostel and restaurant names, in local (or "local") music and dance, etc. I always ask myself how much of it is honest and real, and if it actually conserves the culture or does the exact opposite.

I think that it's generally positive, and I have learnt a lot about the area and the people that live and used to live there, both before and after the Europeans came. But you can't avoid a certain feeling of fakeness, especially when you have all those colourful and highly designed brochures and posters printed on chromo paper and exalting the "real people" or the "autenthic tradition".

FTTN: San Juan-La Rioja- tourism vs. traveling

I assume that if I wrote about this subject right after the visit to Valle de la luna, it would have come out quite different. Lots of negativity about the whole guided tour thing, trying to distance myself and what I usually do from that kind of tourism, etc. But after the tour in Talampaya, only one day later, in which I enjoyed myself quite a bit, I changed my mind. It goes to show how much strong opinions are sometimes fluid and quick to change.

Anyway…

Does the distinction between a tourist and a traveler really exist? Is there even such a thing as a “traveler”? And if there is, which one am I?

Salta & Jujuy- mid-April 2008

Salta, to my, my sister's and probably my dad's surprise, is more than a city full of Bolivian Argentinians (by the way, it's apparently legitimate to say that, since I've heard salteños joke about it themselves). It's quite a big and busy city - which surprised me - and a pretty one too. In fact, the nickname for the city is Salta La Linda, which means Pretty Salta, more or less. It has a big colonial architecture thing going, and they even have a law there that says that in some streets in the center buildings must have colonial facades (similar to the Jerusalem stone law, I guess). Most impressive, as is often the case, are the churches. It seems it's quite popular in Salta to paint the churches in strange combinations of pastel colours, usually using two main colours. There is also a nice pub & nightclub area a bit outside the center, although it's a designated night life area, so there's nothing there besides the clubs and bars. I find that a bit strange, and much prefer places to be interspersed into the "daylife" city. Other notable features are a great succession of plazas (my favorite one had a small lake with ducks and pedal boats), two pedestrian streets which are the commercial center of the town, some good museums and a nice handcraft market on Sunday.

Recipes for Middle Eastern food

One more post of the 'uploading it to link to in the future' variety.


As a rule, I treat every recipe as a recommendation and a place to start from, and not a plan set in stone. Food making is all about improvisation, if you ask me. That being said, this is the general outline of how I make these things- if you think you have a better recipe for any of them, feel free to send it to me. I'm always glad to learn something new.

Hummus

Ingredients:

Tips for Jerusalem and the Dead Sea

These are some generic tips I usually send to Couchsurfers when they're coming to the area. I decided to stop copy-pasting it into CS msgs each time, and just uploading it here instead. This is mostly a travel-blog, after all. If you're not a CSer and you're not in the area, this doesn't concern you much. But of course, you're still welcome to read it...

God is in the small details, #4

Wow, haven't done one of these in a while. So this one will be an extended one.

- Ivana's Tshirt in a hostel in Bariloche, with "es lo que hay" (that's all there is, a common expression in Argentina) printed on the chest.
- Getting into a very deep conversation with three Cordobesas, about all the men that have cheated on them. I had heard that Argentinean men are known for being unfaithful, but man, was that a tough conversation to have ended up in.

FTTN: Fictional email from Jerusalem / A plan / Reduction

[While in Mendoza, my mind was still very much occupied with the issue of tourism, how I perceive the places I visit, and how traveling means constantly having to reduce them into the "main attractions". The next three fragments in the tattered notebook reflect that. In the email I took the liberty to invent some mistakes based on what I think can be common misconceptions. I hope I don't make such blatant mistakes about the places I visit...]

A fictional Email from a tourist visiting Jerusalem

Hey Everybody,

Well, you don't have to worry, I haven't been blown to pieces yet J (I'm just kidding, calm down… it actually feels pretty safe here).

Mendoza, San Juan and La Rioja- Mid-April 2008

From Valparaiso I continued to Mendoza. But before getting to Mendoza, there was the road there. While traveling in South America, I usually took night buses, to save on both time and money on hostels. But when he heard me mention it, the owner of the hostel forbade me to take one this time- he said it would be a great waste. And boy, was he right. The road winds up and up, almost reaching 4000m. There was one point were you look back, and I seriously think you can see the road switching back upon itself about 20 times. There are amazing mountain views, in a variety of shapes and colours, complete with icecaps and rivers flowing next to the road. The border pass was set in one of the most panoramic spots imaginable, and for about 3 seconds you can even see the Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the western Hemisphere. When I got to Mendoza I found out people travel this road up to the border crossing as a day-trip, including a visit to a site called Puente Del Inca (which I didn't see).

FTTN: The desire (or need?) to write something meaningful, and the inevitable failure

What do I want with this notebook [or, for that matter, what do I want with this blog?] What’s its value? It is definitely not a travel diary, since I never write a word about what I’m doing. It isn’t a personal diary either- first of all, there are few things that I consider too personal to disclose, as long as it seems fitting and there’s some point in it; and besides that, what I write in the notebook isn’t too “personal”. It does fulfill some practical needs, like writing down tips and Emails and such, but that’s just a side effect, and far from its main goal. That side effect did have a good effect on the notebook, though: it added authenticity, whatever that means. I’ve always liked to have as many scratched out words as possible, as many pages where the words go through to the other side (but you still write on the other side…), as many humidity marks and torn off corners, as much text running in different directions on the same page… It might be stupid, but I love that. It adds character, it shows that this notebook has been traveling with you, and has not remained impervious to the outside world’s effects. The change in outside appearance somehow reflects richness or complexity in content, if that makes sense. Some dirt is necessary

Valparaiso- early April 2008

The day after the Villarica trek's soaked ending, I woke up thinking I was going to Mendoza, decided by midday to go to Santiago, resisted persuasions from my latest group to go to Valdivia, and ended up on the bus to Valparaiso. I had left Patagonia after about 2.5 months there. But before I reached my destination, there was an unpleasant surprise: I was careless enough to leave my camera in plain sight and fall asleep on the bus, and when I woke up it was gone. Fortunately, I had spent a good chunk of time uploading and backing up all my pictures just before boarding this bus, so nothing was lost. Except, of course, the camera itself. But I had found that camera anyway (that's a different story, though...).

Valparaiso (AKA Valpo) is probably the most “south american” city I had been to at that point: loud, busy, unorganized, blending many European/colonial, local, and just plain strange architecture styles, colourful, and most of all- full of life. It's strange that it's in Chile...