Blog Archives - Page 9 of 13 - In Search Of Umami

Textiles and fashion in Bolivia

Everywhere I heard crying kids but I saw none. "Look it's in the cloth" pointed Jandirk. And so it was a crying cloth and not just one but multiple. And so we realised that Bolivian women just carry their kids in beautiful, colorful sheets on their back mostly without oxygen access. "They cry so they can breath" said always calm Jandirk. That was the first thing we noticed and straight afterwards we noticed long, long, braided hair, all exactly the same length, style and always two, always in the back, sometimes joined with a black wool pocacha. Except for that the ladies wear a variety of colorful pleated skirts, polleras. Brought here by the Spaniards they were forced on the indigenous people, now they are a symbol of a proud indigenous women. To complete the outfit all of them wear practical aprons with pockets and hats. All of the elements change depending on the occasion, wealth, region and simple own taste:) so it's a lively theatre of colours, patterns and different kinds of materials used.

Textiles are definitely the most impressive part of the Bolivian culture. Used as coca bags, table cloths, caps, skirts or just wall art, the most typical ones are still handmade with an extraordinary method pallay which hasn't changed in years and involves a wooden frame, wooden sticks, animal bones as tools and a crazy amount of woolen strings. On the Sunday market in Tarabuco (village famous for it's textiles) we found out a process of 3 months is required to get one medium size textile. And that's by a skilled person obviously. All of the ladies were also very enthusiastic when telling the stories of how the textiles represent everyday life in the village like celebrations, chicha (corn beer) preparation, harvesting or typical legends or, children tales told generation to generation. And they also understood when I complained how my husband Jandirk has all our money and how he forbids me spending any of it. Poor life of a wife, even European one:)

After the market we packed ourselves into a local micro bus. Literally packed beacuse Bolivian buses leave when they are full, full Bolivian style. So if a tiny lady or a kid can fit in between your legs, it is gonna be there. And so we travelled with kids and people on the floor and between the sits. A Bolivian girl sitting next to me was showing me effective sleeping poses, which I couldn't apply just because of my slightly bigger size. She started laughing at my efforts. And we started talking about life, family, what we do in life etc. She was a map seller but probably she didn't look at the maps that much as she didn't know where Poland was. "beautiful hat! Is it from here?" I asked her as an introduction to an interview about typical Bolivian hats. "You want to buy it? I can sell you. There are plenty on the market". I didn't want to buy neither the hat nor the map. But I used the husband excuse. And after a few more questions and another lady joining in the conversation I found out that for example ladies from the La Paz region wear bombín that look like an English gentleman bowler, Chuquisaca region (so around Sucre) they wear more of a cowboy style hats and Tarabuco (village famous for it's textiles) wear indescribable pieces of art. Same counts for the "babe/groceries cape", the most popular are colourful, cheap, China made ones but there are also women (like in Tarabuco) that wear black, handmade pieces with a pattern in the middle.

Visiting local museums and fair trade shops I found out that weavings from Tarabuco are often symetric and mostly show real life scenes in many different colours although funeral scenes are mostly presented in blue, green or purple. Potolo, another village close to Sucre, is more famous for their black-and-red less realistic, scary designs. All absolutely stunningly beautiful. Other regions are still yet to be discovered for us. Too bad the prices of all are less of a Bolivian standard so less accessible for us "poor" backpackers. But we at least get rich in pictures:)))

Traditional clothing Tarabuco (it's a man)

Typical textile pattern of Bolivia, made in China

Quinoa salad

Quinoa is a native grain to the Andean communities. It has always taken a great part in the their culture, and even still today it's used in the rituals and ceremonies of the local communities. It was considered sacred by the Inca and forbidden by the Spaniards. Nowadays Bolivia and Peru are the biggest producers of quinoa, on a huge scale as it became a popular "superfood" all over the world.
Quinoa can be used in a salad, risotto, pudding, melted in a delicious bar of chocolate or just as popcorn.

Here is our recipe for a nice quinoa salad:)

Ingredients for 2:

- 200g of quinoa
- a hand full of mint
- a hand full of flat leaf coriander
- 20g of raisins
- 1 medium sized avocado
- 2 tbsp of ras el hanout (north african spice mix)
- 1 big union
- juice of 1 lime
- 7 cherry tomatoes
- 1 tsp of honey
- oil
- salt and pepper, to taste

Recipe for Ras el hanout:

- 2½ tbsp cumin seeds
- 2 tbsp coriander seeds
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon or 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 2 tsp black peppercorns
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- ½ tsp ground cardamom or the seeds of 10 pods
- a good pinch of saffron (optional)

Grind all of the ingredients in a mortar and pestle and you're done.

Recipe for the salad:

- Cut the union in half rings
- heat up some oil in a frying pan and add the ras el hanout, keep frying until fragrant
- add the union to the frying pan, lower the heat
- add a pinch of salt and the honey
- keep frying for 30 min until golden and don't forget to stir occasionally
- cook the quinoa according to what the package is saying (al dente)
- cut the tomatoes into quarters
- take off all the leaves from the mint and cut them very finely
- do the same for the coriander (you can also use the stalks)
- cut the avocado in cubes and sprinkle a little bit of the lime juice over it so it doesn't go brown
- add the cooked unions and quinoa to a bowl and add the rest of the cut ingredients including the raisins
- add the lime juice and salt and pepper to taste and mix

Bon Appétit

P.S. Instead of raisins you can use dried cranberries, figs or even dates.

Life in the white city of Sucre

To get to Sucre we had to take a 17 hour bus through half of Bolivia. Of course the bus didn't have a toilet but it was kindly stoping when someone wanted to pee...too bad there were no trees on our way. As peeing gringos we would be probably a local attraction so we decided not to drink and hope for the best. It was a bit difficult since we were not going on a road just sand and rocks. The bus was jumping, windows were opening, dust was getting into the bus. Bolivian adventure begins!:)

After 5 months of travelling we were longing for a place to stay for a while, a place that could make us feel like home. And we found it in Sucre in an Irish sounding hostel Celtic Cross. Run by a German and South African it is as Irish as us two but it felt good, comfy and homie. And it provides us a real live telenovela full of original people dating, divorcing, being victims of Bolivian husband/ wife/ passport hunters. And so Sucre felt immediately like a village even though it is the capital of Bolivia.

Sucre is by far the most beautiful city we have seen so far. It's full of wonderful white buildings, colonial churches, pretty squares, nice markets with a variety of fruit, vegetables and chocolate!! Unfortunately the Bolivians haven't heard about cables running in the ground so all of them run through the air spoiling every picture.

But even such a stunning city has another side. Begging people on the streets and working kids. They sell food, magazines but the most popular job seems to be polishing shoes and not even wearing flip flops stops them from asking. Many of these people don't even speak decent Spanish just Quechua so one of the native languages which was spoken by the Incas and is actually not really a written language. So I guess Jandirk's rising knowledge of Spanish won't be helpful everywhere:)

Mercado central, one of many juice stations

On the gringo trail to the Salt Flats

From Salta on we started seeing familiar faces more and more. The famous "Gringo trail" where we all meet to see the must sees of South America. And the fellows we meet were divided into two groups: those who have already visited the Salt Flats and those who, just like us, were on their way. From the experiences of those who have already seen it, we found out about crazy drunken tour drivers and made a decision which one we should take. We went for 4 day tour offered by La Torre tour and we packed ourselves into their cool jeep with a pair of Canadians. Carlie and Scott were a young couple. We immediately got to know each other pretty deeply as Carlie had a bad food poisoning. It still didn't stop her from being cheerful and super social in breaks between one bag and another. And so we hit the bumpy, non- existing roads of Bolivia together to see countless lamas and their wild brothers vicunas. Both beautiful and graceful. Obviously I made millions of pictures like a Chinese tourist of which none turned out to be good. We also saw countless lagunas and flamingos of three different types (before I thought that a flamingo is just a flamingo).
For those who think that South America is hot everywhere, all year long the Salt Flats tour would be a freezing wake up call. During the trip we went as high as 5000 m and the temperature difference between day and night was huge. Our second night was definitely the worst I have ever experienced... -15 to -20 C, holes in the walls and windows. Even our two sleeping bags, full clothing or even gloves or hat couldn't protect us from the cold. Taught by the mistakes of other travellers we slept with all of our electronics to wake up with a sigh of relief that only the window got frozen. I'm not even going to mention that the toilets that we got to experience were a chapter on their own...
But it was all worth it, the views were spectacular and on our third and last night we got to sleep in a nice salt hostel. All the bricks and furniture were made of salt blocks taken from the salt flats, even the floor was covered in salt. For few extra bolivianos we took "ducha caliente" (unfortunately it was an over promise as the water in the shower was far from hot but at least there was water) and after a short but finally enjoyable night, all four of us were excited to finally see the Salt Flats of Uyuni. The Salar is the biggest in the world with it's 10 582 km2 surface. It's also pretty high, on the altitude of 3656 m above the sea level. Once a lake, now an ocean of salt, it definitely took our breath away. It's absolute flatness, the contrast of the infinitive, white salt with a blue sky and the company made us forget the cold and just enjoy. We visited one of the islands which is an incredible green point and gives a crazy view on the Salar. We also saw a hostel in the middle of it all which unfortunately got closed after sanitary problems. To finish our journey all four of us got lost in the crazy tradition of taking insane pictures. Jumping, laughing and balancing on different objects we ended up our trip definitely hoping to see each other again.

How much does it cost to travel in Argentina? Our budget and tips

Short answer would be: a lot more than you think! Somehow we tend to think that the whole South America is cheap. Unfortunately it's not. Countries like Uruguay, Chile and Argentina are as expensive as for example Holland.
During our 99 days in Argentina we spend a total of 6827.52 euro which means that our budget per day was 34.48 euro per person.

Where did we go?
Our trip like many others started in Buenos Aires where we stayed for two weeks than we went close to Mar del Plata, here we stayed for a month volunteering. Afterwards we hit budget-breaking South of Argentina (Bariloche, El Bolson, Calafate, El Chalten). Even though out of season it was really expensive. We have also visited Iguazu Falls and the North of Argentina from Salta up to the border with Bolivia.

How did we travel?
The most expensive part of our budget was transportation (2735 euro) which includes our flight from Calafate to Montevideo. But the real budget breakers were the buses which are extremely expensive. There is no way to get a better deal when booking beforehand or just a promotion like in Europe. The buses are organised in classes depending on the service and chair that you choose. So you can decide to just sit and starve or to have a chair that will lean almost like a bed and have all the meals (don't expect anything delicious, they are worse than on the plane). Unfortunately on long distances it's impossible to find only sitting seats so you are forced to travel "business class ".
Example: Bus from Mar del Plata to Bariloche was 1298 pesos (around 131.29 euro)

Where did we stay?
On accommodation we spend 1659 euro spending 37 days in private rooms, one month in our wwoofing and the rest in dormitories. Definitely the most expensive region was Patagonia where for example in a dorm in Calafate (out of season) we paid 18.34 euro per person per night. To compare for 30 euro per night we had a double room with private bathroom in Cafayate in the North of Argentina.

What did we eat?
We spend 1362 euro on food, mainly cooking ourselves but we were not really saving on ingredients and we ate a lot of Argentinian meat:) we also didn't deny ourselves wine:) especially in Cafayate where we bought a bottle of wine every day.
Good bottle of wine: around 7-10 euro.

What else did we spend our pesitos on?
1071 euro went for entrances to national parks, wine tasting, tours (for example to see glaciers by boat in Calafate we paid 130 euro per person).

P.S. Exchange rate used 1 EUR = 9.887 ARS

Our tips:
1. Transportation is just insanely expensive so it's a good option to hitchhike! Just don't forget that Argentina is huge and it takes hours to travel through it.
2. Take as many US dollars as you can- exchanging dollars on the blue market will save you a lot of money. When the official dollar is around 8-9 pesos on blue market you can get even around 13 pesos. Euros are also ok.
3. When taking dollars is not an option transfer money to yourself using Azimo. It's a bank which charges you 2.99 euro to send money and you can send up to 800 euro. It gives you a very good exchange rate which is in between the official and the blue one. It's a big game changer especially because we couldn't withdraw more than 150 euro per time and the Argentinian banks were charging 55 pesos per transaction.
If you have time, volunteer. We did it for a month and during that month we almost didn't spend any money and it was a lot of fun. We learnt a lot about the culture and the country. We used WWOOF Argentina but you can also try HelpX or Workaway. The advantage of the last two is that you can create a couple account and pay less then for two individual ones and that you pay for two years and it's for the whole world. With WWOOFing the rules differ per country.

If you have any questions or you would like to take a look at our spreadsheet, let us know:)

Dry, dry west

After many tiring hours in the bus we finally reached Salta, a city magnificently trapped between mountain peaks in far north-west Argentina. Salta turned out to be our favorite city in Argentina due to well kept colonial architecture, nice atmosphere and most of all the feeling of safety. And if that wasn't all it also had everything that we wanted (except for an exchange office but who would need one when there are so many people changing precious dollars illegally). After a few lazy days in Salta we decided to explore the region dominated by splendid, dry, colorful valleys. And there was no better place to enjoy colors than Cafayate. This small town situated south from Salta was one of our favorites. Amazing wine which is produced here was our guilty pleasure difficult to resist and leave behind, and so were the valleys in the surrounding. Intensively pink, red and green colors created through many years by different minerals and fossils were unbelievable. And so is the origin of the valley which was created by movements of the tectonic plates. Quebrada de las Conchas (the name of the valley) has many interesting points like El Anfiteatro where many local concerts are organised due to acoustics of the place and it's undeniable beauty or Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat) where we could climb a bit and enjoy the red rock formation in a more vertical way:)
From Cafayate we decided to visit Las Yungas which is a diverse forest stretching from Argentina through Bolivia to Peru. On the Argentinian side it's rather remote. To reach our hostel (Aldea Luna) we took a bus for 1.5 h and than walked for another hour through the mountains, rivers and generally everything that makes a good work out and makes you sweet. Obviously in such a place there is no internet or electricity or any another comfort standard in Europe. Aldea Luna is run by a nice family and it's a private natural reserve. Over there we tried what I would call paid volunteering so we were helping a bit in the garden and house and paying for our stay like in a hostel. Unfortunately it turned out to be a bit of a disappointing experience just because there was no feeling of a community for us and it felt rather weird to pay and work a bit. It felt that it was more about our money than our effort and work so in final end we decided to leave after a week which was way shorter than we planned. But even though that week was enough to meet fun people from different parts of the world and even one polish guy, Jacek who is currently travelling around South America just like us. We expect that he is freezing in a tent and we are almost freezing in hostels 🙂
After Las Yungas we decided that we would go up to eventually reach Bolivia instead of going down and to Chile. We just felt that we wanted something totally new, less European and maybe more chaotic and adventurous:)Bolivia seemed to fit in our criteria.
Going further north we visited a few villages closer and closer to Bolivia like Tilcara, Purmamarca and Humahuaca all of which had amazing valleys and mountains of 7 (Purmamarca), 14 (Hornocal, Humahuaca) colors. But more importantly the people that we were seeing were changing along the way, replacing European features for more indigenous ones, which made us more and more excited for the new, Bolivia.