Sarah Suter

So after 2 weeks of the usual Buenos Aires madness, Sébastien – the lovely Swiss guy I had travelled with in the summer in Europe, and had met in Bolivia in December 2005 – came to meet me in Argentina to travel together for 5 weeks. We had a great 10 days chilling in Buenos Aires in a little apartment in Palermo. We walked a lot, talked a lot, drank a lot of coffee, ate a lot of really good meat, went to some random house parties, watched some fabulous Tango, and just lived life Porteño style for a while.

After that we headed north west to the city of Rosario. Unbeknown to us we happened to arrive on the weekend of the largest festival of the city. A huge gathering where all the immigrant communities set up stands and displays selling food and showing dance from their home countries. Really great and very festive. We didn’t see any other tourists the whole weekend which was also a nice change from Buenos Aires.

From there we headed up to Iguazu Falls – the largest waterfalls in South America… The waterfall system consists of about 270 falls along 2.7 km of the Iguazu River. Some of the individual falls are up to 82 metres in height. The Garganta del Diablo or Devil’s Throat, is a 150-metre-wide and 700-metre-long cliff, and is the most impressive of all, and marks the border between Argentina and Brazil. We stayed in this cute little village on the Argentinean side of the falls – Puerto Iguazu. It’s really warm and humid there, with beautiful lush vegetation. We went to the Falls on two of the days. Absolutely incredible… the thunderous sound and the sheer volume of water are truly incredible – something you can stand and stare at for a long time.

From Iguazu, we took a 24 hour bus into Brazil and to Rio de Janeiro. We stayed in this beautiful old area of the city, Santa Teresa, in the hills above the city centre – worlds away from the scene down on Ipanema and Copacabana beaches – but just half an hour away… This area is accessible by the Bondi (pronounced Bon-gee), a really old street car system kind of like those found in San Francisco but a bit less hardy. Rio is such a great city… one of those fabulous places like Cape Town and San Francisco where nature and mankind have somehow got the balance right. It is beautiful, it is interesting, and you just cannot stop taking photos there! Awesome… we did the usual touristy things of Sugarloaf mountain, the Christ statue on Corcavado, the beaches, some galleries… but we also went to some crazy local things such as a huge local market they have every weekend in a stadium. The entire stadium overflows with stalls selling everything from spare car parts to food to artisinal products. Every third or so stall is a mini-nightclub with its own music blaring out of their sound system jam-packed with sweaty Brazilians dancing and drinking the night (or even the day) away. Fascinating.

Living at our hostel was a group of really interesting volunteers – in Brazil to train street kids in various performing arts – from theatre to juggling… very cool!

Another fantastic Rio de Janeiro experience, was the food at a churrascaria (one of those Brazilian restaurants where the waiters walk past every few seconds with a new skewer of weird and wonderful meat to slice onto your plate). This was no ordinary churrascaria… between Séb and I, we spent 5 hours there, drank a few caipirinhas, 2 bottles of wine, and ate the most ludicrous amount of food – starting at the buffet of starters (sushi, sushi, sushi, and some other yummy stuff), to all the meat that was offloaded onto our overflowing plates every few minutes. It was very indulgent but it was truly fantastic.

After Rio we bussed down to Ihla Grande (Big Island)… about 4 hours south of Rio. It was low-season so we managed to get a fantastic room for a fraction of what we had been paying in Rio. We chilled, we read, we played chess, we snorkelled. It was divine. A beautiful little island – very peaceful… and just so lovely!

We then realised we had about 6 days to get back to Buenos Aires so that Séb could catch his flight back to Switzerland. So we headed south to the city of Florianopolis. We rented this really grotty little apartment really close to the beach, which made absolutely no difference in the end as it rained the ENTIRE three days that we were there. It’s apparently a really great place. Apparently… Séb and I – we just spent 3 days being wet, drinking too much cachaca, and being grossed out by our apartment.

We left a day earlier than we had planned and bussed 24 hours south back to Buenos Aires… to spend our last 3 days in a funky little hostel in San Telmo called Sandanzas.

A really great trip… So great, in fact, that I decided to make my next move in the direction of Lausanne, Switzerland. I booked my flight from Joburg to Geneva, and headed back to South Africa to get my last dose of sunshine before heading off to the wintery Northern Hemisphere to live in chocolate and cheese heaven.

I have been absolutely awful at keeping my blog up to date these past few months… so I thought I would take advantage of a rainy day and unemployment to update this site.

I spent September and October in El Salvador (yes, El Salvador is a country, no, its not in Brazil). El Salvador is the smallest, mostly densely populated country in Central America. It is almost entirely untouched by tourism, and probably as a result, is home to 6.8 million of the friendliest people I have ever met (although this number includes the 1.5m Salvadorians who are trying to make their fortunes in the US). El Salvador is a fantastic place. Its small, yes, but its relatively safe (this comes from a hardened South African), and has a lot of natural beauty for the 21,040 square kilometres that it occupies. El Salvador emerged from its 12 year Civil War which claimed 75,000 lives in 1992.

My experience in El Salvador was fantastic. Work-wise, I worked for the same NGO that I had worked for in Kenya – TechnoServe. This time my assignment was to develop a financial plan and debt repayment plan for a coffee cooperative (Cooperativa Las Lajas) which was in bad disrepair. I spent 6 weeks travelling back and forth from the TechnoServe offices in San Salvador to Las Lajas. Oftentimes, I would arrive to a previously planned meeting to discover it had been cancelled without anyone informing us, or that the accountant was ill… or… I found it a challenge to work to deadlines with a Cooperative which had not been running to real business principals for years. This had worked okay for them until the coffee crisis in 1999 where an over-supply of coffee dropped world prices by 50%. As coffee was a huge part of the Salvadorian economy, this had a huge effect on the country. The crisis caused Las Lajas to accumulate over $2m in debt which it is currently unable to repay… So my job was to show both the Cooperative and the banks that loan them money that the only way that Las Lajas was EVER going to repay the money was if the banks loaned them more money to invest in the renewal of the coffee plantation. A tough task as Las Lajas’ income will always be hugely determined by the coffee price – something which is completely out of their control.

Nevertheless, I constructed the financial model and presented it to the Cooperative and to the bank. Both parties have a strong interest in the survival of the Cooperative, and I hope that my work has contributed to the renewal of some loans and to the coffee plantation.

On a social side, I was very lucky to meet a friend of a friend there. Her name is Maria, she’s Salvadorean, and she’s just lovely! I was quickly welcomed into the group, and after one weekend of partying in San Salvador, I felt like I had known these girls for years. I spent most of my time with 3 girls there – Maria, Marcela and Barbara. Such crazy fun interesting and warm people. They showed me around their country, took me to their beachhouses, took me to Antigua in Guatemala, nursed me when I had suspected Dengue Fever, listened to my drama, and basically just opened their lives to me. It was an amazing and rich experience, and I can’t wait to go back to visit them…

So after 6 weeks in that lovely country, I left for Argentina (on TACA - the worst airline in the world)... to chill for 2 weeks with my crazy English friend Lucy until…. (see next chapter!)

It’s been quite a while since I wrote… Right now I am in transit, again, in Buenos Aires… could think of worse places…

The last few months working in Kenya were a fantastic experience. The job was very cool and satisfying, and it was great working with such talented and inspiring Kenyans. I ended up working on planning a conference to encourage investment in the fruit industry in Kenya, and then did a feasibility study for Unilever Kenya to assess whether it was possible for them to source sunflowers (for oil) and spices from within Kenya as opposed to importing. Cool! and a far cry from the dry uninspiring work I was doing at my previous job… also sadly, a far cry from the salary I was earning – anyway, such is life

Work aside, Nairobi is a fantastically (and surprisingly) social place, with a vibrant ex-pat community… I met a lot of inspiring people doing very different and interesting things in Kenya… it was great…

Also quite a few trips to some national parks and the beach…

Nairobi itself is quite a strange place –
So, after Kenya, I headed up to Europe to visit my folks and various friends.

• A crazy weekend with Carole (my best friend from New York) in Paris, where we ended up getting mugged at 3am!! Well done to the police, who were there in 10 seconds and caught the guy, and us spending the next 3 hours in the police station… fun fun (This, after a totally crime-free 3 months in Kenya!)
• Chilling with my parents in Paris, and going to the Rolling Stones concert with them on my dad’s 60th birthday – very cool
• Weekend in Amsterdam with Annelies (my Dutch friend I met in Colombia). Cycling around on those silly bicycles, drunk, at 4am. Got to love the Dutch…
• Exploring Barcelona with Craig and Nicolette (from South Africa)… what a great city!!
• Traveling in Switzerland, Provence and Corsica with Sébastien (my Swiss friend I met in Bolivia)… beautiful places, great times, camping, ferries, ice cream, chocolate, wine, beer, cheeses… super

And now… I am on the way to go do another project for TechnoServe, but this time in El Salvador. I am going to be advising a coffee farmer’s cooperative on their debt problem… yep, who would’ve thought…!! So I will be up there in Central America for the next 6 weeks…

Jambo (hello) from Nairobi…

After almost not making it on to my flight from joburg to Nairobi due to the totally incompetent staff at South African Airways (=1.5 hour argument about letting me onto plane without having my original credit card with me that i had used to book my flight (I had lost it))... and having to run through the international terminal with ALL FOUR of my bags on my back, shoulders, round the neck, trailing behind me, because I was too late to check anything in… I arrived in Nairobi.

Karibu! (welcome)

Dropped off at my new apartment (which didnt have any water that day), or electricity for much of the next.

Aside from that. All is great!

My new job looks like it is going to be really interesting – and the people I work with are really great! I’ve already spent a day out in the rural areas visiting one of our projects (based on banana farming). And I’ll be coordinating a Fruit Investors Conference for sometime in June… really cool!

It was a long weekend here for Easter, so I went up to this beautiful Nature Reserve north of Mount Kenya called Buffalo Spring. Awesome weekend bush camping, game viewing, and chilling with some new people. So, aside from the (hopefully-malaria free) mosquito bites, it was great

Thats all for now…

;)

After 9 months of unemployment and gallavanting, I’ve finally made a decision about my next move!

Over the past few weeks I have been applying for a position with an NGO (non-profit) in Africa. It took a while, but I eventually got offered a position in Kenya, based in Nairobi!

The organisation is called TechnoServe and does some really great work in Africa and Latin America. Their philosophy is based on creating business solutions for rural poverty. I am going to be doing some development consulting work in Agriculture, which is something I know nothing about, so its going to be a huge learning curve! Yay! The initial position is for about 4 months, but there is the possibility of extension.

I’ll be based in Nairobi, but the job will involve a lot of travel to rural Kenya and Uganda… they say there’s lots of opportunity for travelling on the weekends too, so hopefully some cool wildlife viewing, hiking, cool beaches… !!

Anyway, I am still in South Africa but will be heading up there in the next 10 days or so…

Still planning on heading back to Buenos Aires to live and work at some point

Hola!

Just been sitting in the sun in the plaza in San Telmo, Buenos Aires, drinking beers and catching up with my friend Cat from Australia!

Back in Buenos Aires after 3 months…

Highlights of my last few weeks in Colombia:

• Medellin – the drug trafficing capital of South America – is a beautiful, wealthy, modern city that houses amongst other things, a subway system, 24 hour supermarkets, restaurants that dont just serve rice and chicken, and luxury malls… (these things always look so much more beautiful after travelling for a few months)
• La Zona de Cafetera (the Coffee Zone) – absolutely gorgeous lush green landscapes… wow… wow…
• The Valle de Cocora – home of Colombia´s very cool national tree – 50 to 60m tall palm trees all growing in this spectacular valley – see the photies!
• San Cipriano – tiny little jungle town… the only way to get there is by train… which no longer runs… soooo, being the industrious locals that they are, they have constructed some kind of motorbikey contraption that ruins on the tracks pulling passengers… this one you have got to see the photos!
• Popayan – gorgeous colonial town in the South of Colombia, and its yummy coffee shops…
• San Agustin – fabulous chilled out San Agustin, and my last stop in Colombia… beautiful village in a valley with cool ruins, and ancient statues nearby…

Colombia was FANTASTIC… spent 4 weeks of it travelling with my fabulous new Dutch friend, Annelies…

I am so glad to have got the chance to visit while tourists are still a rarity in the country… because I am sure this is going to change soon… Like South Africa, Colombia is a country plagued with a bad reputation that discourage many travellers… but in reality, Colombia is a pretty safe place, and travelling there was as easy as elsewhere in South America…

So after 9 hours in a bus, 12 hours at the Bogota airport, 2 four hour flights and a 3 hour stopover in Lima, I am back in the BEAUTIFUL city of Buenos Aires… full of BEAUTIFUL people, awesome plazas, great meat, and I have 7 days of indulgence ahead… cant wait!

TOTAL BUS HOURS: 7 days and 1 hour

The last 2 weeks on the Caribbean Coast have been fantastic…

On the 12th of Jan, after quickly overcoming a revisit of my stomach bug from La Paz, I boarded one of 3 little red jeeps along with 21 other assorted travellers on our way to Ciudad Perdida (the Lost City). This was the start of a 6 day, 40km hike in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains close to the coast…

This was to be my first trek in South America (and ever, actually)... 6 days, 40kms, and at least 200 mosquito bites… it was fantastic… tough, but really beautiful scenery.

We hiked for about 4 to 5 hours every day, lots of uphill on the outbound journey, but our cooks kept us filled to capacity with rice, potatoes, yuca, pasta, lots of eggs, hot dog sausages, and more rice rice rice… life seemed to revolve around food and walking… going to sleep shortly after dark, and waking up when the sun rose… we slept in hammocks for 4 of the 5 nights – also my first time sleeping in a hammock – surprisingly easy and comfy. We carried all our own stuff, aside from food… and my white vest (why bring a white vest camping???) was soon muddy and brown. It was really humid as well, so clothes became wet after a few minutes of walking.

Highlights of the hike

• En route we met up with some of the paramilitaries on assignment in the area. Paramilitaries are Colombias unofficial army who protect the areas not under government control (areas where guerillas are active). The guys we met were on a 3 year rotation up in the mountains we were hiking, were pretty amicable, and even posed for a couple of photos with our group…
• Also en route, we visited a cocaine “factory”... more of a shed, than multi-million dollar factory, but interesting to see how the stuff gets made… The guy giving us the tour wouldnt give his name, but went through the process in detail… lots of chemistry… and using about 1 tonne of coca leaves grown in the area (as well as a bit of salt, chalk, petroleum, and other stuff) to produce 1 kg of pure cocaine… the guy sells about 15kg a year from his little lab, bringing in about $45,000 of revenue a year – not bad for a small jungle settlement, where the only things you can buy are beer, coca-cola, and gatorade.
• Ciudad Perdida – after 3 days of hiking, and ascending the 16,000 stairs from the riverbed to the lost city, we had arrived… really beautiful ruins… the only thing that remains of the ruins that were built starting at 500AD are these large circular stone terraces, and stairs… still really beautiful, and the scenery was great. Also happened to be there for full moon, so we watched the moon rise and set that night – very cool! Only about 30% of the ruins have been excavated. The local indigenous folk wont allow any more excavation as they believe the pieces of gold and ceramics buried under the terraces represent a persons soul…(also probably dont want their gold floating around some random museums)

Lowlights

• Mosquitos, little bastards

So after the hike, ended up heading to one of Colombias best national parks – Parque Tayrona – with really beautiful tranquilo beaches… Me and Annelies, the Dutch girl I met on the hike spent 3 days lying on our asses in hammocks doing nothing! Awesome!

So now, Annelies and I have just spent 15 hours in another overnight bus and have arrived in Medellin, Colombia{s most modern city! Yay – it even has a metro… quite a change from the last 2 weeks sleeping in hammocks… more next time! Chau, Sarah

Sitting in an internet cafe in a little fishing village sipping on a Baileys on the rocks… things could be worse…

I´m in Taganga right now – on the Caribbean coast… just spent a couple of days doing my Open Water SCUBA course, lying in hammocks, buying yummy fresh fruit salads off the beach… very cool!

Holiday season in Colombia came to an end yesterday, thank goodness – the beaches have been absolutely swamped with people from the cities (much like what happens to Durban and Cape Town in season)... so from now on things should be a little more tranquilo – fantastic!

My time in Colombia started out with 2 days in bed at my friend, Ana´s, apartment in Bogotá – managed to eat something dodgy on my last day in La Paz…

After that, things improved, I moved to the Platypus, the hostel in Bogotá... and spent New Years there… New Years in Colombia is a family night, so that, combined with the fact that everyone was at the coast for New Years, meant a strange New Years Eve in the capital… nonetheless, we eventually mananged to find a semi-decent nightclub which got going around 3am…

From Bogotá, a 22 hour bus ride on the long, windy, single-lane road to the coast… to Cartagena! Cartagena is a beautiful old colonial city built on the water – really pretty… Took me a while to find a bed there, as the coastal cities are packed… but eventually found a lovely bed in a dorm at the lovely Hotel Holiday… (ughhh!)... anyway, had lots of fun in Cartagena… ended up going to UltraMar – Paul Van Dyk was playing a set at this cool festival on the beach… fun times!

And, from Cartagena, to here, Taganga… where I sit in an internet cafe in a little fishing village sipping on a Baileys on the rocks… things could be worse…

Bringing total bus hours to 128.5…

After checking with the Bolivian embassy in Buenos Aires that I didn´t require a visa to enter Bolivia, I got told at the Bolivian border that I did in fact need a visa – so I had to trek back into La Quiaca (in Argentina) and to the Bolivian embassy and get one – what a mission, especially since the embassy has recently moved and no one had a fkn clue where it was…(which brings us to another thing about Bolivians, who never wish to appear unhelpful, so will generally just make up something to please you even if it is wrong…)... anyway, after that, I couldn´t get a seat on the train to Tupiza, so I got on a bus, which was just hilarious – so overfull and squashed, and half the bus got kicked off the bus at a roadblock, but these 2 nice ladies and little boy helped me, so I stayed on the bus, and after a long arduous journey eventually made it to Tupiza!!

So I´ve had some pretty interesting times in Bolivia!

1. The Salar de Uyuni tour – 4 days cruising the South West of Bolivia in a Jeep – amazing lagunas, flamingoes, volcanoes, mountains, deserts, thermal pools, not showering for 3 days, and the highlight: the Salar de Uyuni: a 12,000 sq km expanse of salt plain… incredible. Spent the last morning there at sunrise, white as far as you can see, beautiful!


2. Potosi – the highest city in the world (4070m) – and a center for silver mining. Went on a tour of the silver mines here – really claustrophobic dusty tiny little tunnels, and appaling conditions…


3. Sucre – hanging out with Cat and Sebastien in this beautiful colonial city in Bolivia, very tranquilo… learning how to play Catcho, the Bolivian dice game, drinking flavoured Singani, chilling in the plaza, playing in the park, drinking Tumbo (unripe passion fruit) licuados in the mercado… oh, and meeting Tuto, one of the Bolivian presidential candidates… (see photos)


4. Chilling in Cochabamba at Grant and Natalie´s house!! Yay, a real house for 3 days!


5. La Paz – (highest capital city in the world – 3660m) randomly meeting up with Cat and Nancy again… awesome interesting city built in the mountains – very cool…

Total bus hours: 101

COCA

Coca has been part of Bolivian culture for centuries. Coca leaves (the raw ingredient for Cocaine – although it takes over a tonne of coca leaves to produce 1kg of cocaine) are chewed all over Bolivia as a mild stimulant… Supposed to be helpful for altitude sickness, and chewed a lot by miners to supress their appetites, and improve their stamina… taste pretty manky…

Tomorrow, I am off to Colombia for the next 6 weeks… really looking forward to spending some time chilling on the beach in the Caribbean, and doing a SCUBA course! Yay!

I left chilly-drizzling middle-of-a-taxi-strike Bariloche on November 21st, and made my way up to Mendoza, then to San Juan, then some National Parks, and am now in North-West Argentina…

Some bus stats:

• Cumulative long-distance bus time so far: 61 hours


• Amount of chocolates and general travel junk food rubbish consumed on busses: lots


• Games of bus bingo played (I kid you not): 2


• Bad dubbed American movies shown: Arachnophobia, The First Daughter, Anaconda…etc…

Highlights of the last few weeks

• Chocolate in Bariloche


• Rafting for the 1st time – the Rio Manso (grade III and IV) right up to the Chilean border!


• Chilling up at La Morada hostel on a rainy day, colouring-in journals and playing cards with the 2 mohawks from Ireland and UK, and Andrea from Aus


• Wine tasting and stuffing our faces in Mendoza


• Visiting the thermal pools for a full day of pampering up in the mountains surrounding Mendoza with Vera (Neth), and Kyle (USA)


• The costume party with 100 bottles of cheap champagne at our hostel in Mendoza…


• Booking myself into a NICE hotel after said costume party to de-hostel-ize myself


• Trip to Ischigulasto national park 4 hours from San Juan! “Moon Valley” – Beautiful!


• The 2 day road trip south of Salta with Guy (SA), Jess and Louisa (UK) – hired a car and headed to Cachi – unbelievably gorgeous diverse vistas, horseriding, eating yummy ice-cream – then heading the next day on an equally awesome drive to Cafayate – another wine-region – and a gorgeous town – rented bikes and went wine-tasting – disastrous combination – lotsa fun – This trip is definitely one of my favourites so far!


• Getting my stitches out!!

From here, I´m heading North to Bolivia over the next few days…

Bolivia holds its elections on December 18th, and they´re expecting some issues around that – so may not stick around in Bolivia too long…

Hasta luego!!