Diary Of A Gringo

My Last Adventure

2007-03-06T14:43:00.000Z

Facing the prospect of a boring week in Pretoria or Jo’burg pre-flying home I decided to head out on one last mini-adventure before returning to the UK…

I GASPED as I checked my bank account online for the first time in nearly a month. “That’s even less money than I thought I had!” I said out loud to no-one in particular. I realized that with no money and no mysterious benefactor (unlike Pip in Great Expectations) I would have to come home slightly earlier than I planned. I was soon on the phone to Qantas and then appearing in person at the British Airways Ticket Office at Jo’burg Airport. To cut the tedious story of a dull afternoon short, I arranged to fly home ten days early, on March 4th.

That left me a week or so left in South Africa. With no money to do a serious trip and not excited by staying in the Gauteng area (Pretoria and Jo’burg) the question remained; what to do? The answer came to me after a few other plans fell through. I couldn’t get hold of my friend Ebony who was getting a marriage blessing in Jo’burg the next weekend for which I had been provisionally invited. Don’t know what happened there. After that, a teacher from the school I spent my Gap year at said she would come down to get me and I could spend a week with her. But she never came down, I couldn’t contact her, and that never happened either.

Frustrated and exasperated (which may mean the same thing) with these failures I was feeling down on my luck when all of a sudden I was quite surprised to receive a message that President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe (right) had requested my attendance at a State dinner in the capital Harare in a few days. Incredible. Maybe I could travel in a limo?

Actually I have a confession to make. The above paragraph is not really…ok, it’s a big fat lie. Could you tell? I’m not even sure that Bob Mugabe has even heard of me. But my friend Sarah, who is Zimbabwean and lived for a time in Plymouth last year, now lives back home in Harare and I decided to get in contact to see if I could go up and see her. Her cell phone really wasn’t working well when I tried it (which was A LOT), but I got through for long enough to ascertain that she was indeed at home. I tried many times to establish contact for longer but to no avail.

Still, I had my mission. I decided to head up to Zimbabwe!

Now, to fly or not to fly? That would surely be Shakespeare’s main question had he been a 21st Century budget traveller out of money and at the end of a long trip instead of a bloke from Stratford with a rhyming dictionary. In the end I boarded a lovely Greyhound bus for the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 17 hour bus ride to Harare.

On the way I was reading a copy of South Africa's FHM (just for cultural research purposes, obviously). I was particularly interested in an article called '25 Reasons Why SA Rules!' Apart from things you might think of such as Nelson Madela, table moutain, Zulus, the world's greatest sausage, etc. they also included the ability to fight a lot, drink drive well and corrupt and easily bribed cops. Interesting.

There was difficulty at the border where the passport control man insisted (correctly) that a visa cost US$55. I had been under the impression that possibly it was free to enter. I said that the Zimbabwe Embassy in London told me it was free. I have, of course, never visited the Zim (as I will cabbreviate it) Embassy in London. We resolved that I would pay for the visa. Then he showed me that the visa sticker book that, like a book titled 'Great Songs by James Blunt', was empty. I said that if I was going to pay that much for a visa I wanted a big sticker. So I paid US$70 for a double entry visa, meaning I can go back anytime until August FOR FREE. Wow. I’ll start looking at brochures on Zim as soon as I get home. If there are any.

Anyway, I was into Zim. A whole new country. Arriving in Harare, I could see no sight of the hostel pick-up I was promised, but a kind Zim couple from the bus saw my concern and gave me a lift to the hostel themselves. They were lovely. In fact they even offered me a place to stay at their house but I decided in the end to stay at the hostel as we had arrived.

Small World Backpackers is located in the north-west of Harare near the Avondale Shopping Centre, if you know the area. The staff are quite friendly, especially a woman called Moreblessing, which I think is a brilliant name. I also met an Innocence. Fantastic. The hostel is nice, although the pool table has seen better days (left). Another interesting factoid of Small World is that in the lounge are every copy of National Geographic 1998-2002. I’m not sure what happened after 2002, but I’m sure it’s Mugabe’s fault.

I was having trouble getting hold of Sarah, trying her phone and questioning my friend Neil back home for details of her address. But I didn’t want to spend all my time trying to get hold of her. So I went for a walk to the shops, then I got a taxi downtown to have a walk around the city. On the way we passed by State House (where the President lives). I called for him but they said he was sulking and didn’t want to come out. I then went to the city centre, saw only a few whites and subsequently feel I may have looked out of place. I passed the Parliament where the ‘democratic process’ takes place. It’s not a very impressive building, just a converted two-story hotel.

Money, money, money, must be funny…

I decided to go to the cinema and at this point it’s best to mention the great currency issue of Zimbabwe. Officially US$1 gets you 250 Zimbabwe dollars. But if you go into a supermarket and look at the prices you'll see a carton of fuit juice costs ZIM$10,000. TEN THOUSAND. That’s US$40 for some juice, or 20 pounds sterling. For some juice!

By the official exchange rates, Zimbabwe is the most expensive country in the world. However, just about everyone changes money illegally on the black market (or through helpful hostels). On the black market you can get ZIM$5,000 or ZIM$6,000 for one US$1, thus making Zimbabwe one of the cheapest countries in the world. Economics is fascinating isn’t it? So I was able to get ZIM$560,000 for my US$200. Unfortunately a nice German staying at the hostel had changed US$250 at the airport at the OFFICIAL RATE. This makes him one of the poorest men in the whole of Africa. Things are cheap Zim. A cinema ticket or beer costs about ZIM$3,000, that’s 50c or 25p. Not bad.

After the cinema (I saw Lucky Number Slevin. I was impressed, it was entertaining, had an cool storyline and Ben Kingsley – sorry, SIR Ben Kinglsey – was really interesting weird, but isn’t he always?) I tried Sarah again. Still no luck, so I bought five different Zim beers and had a tasting competition joined by a nice Zambian guy called Marlon.

ZIMBABWEAN BEER TASTING

Name: ZAMBEZI
Tagline: 'Zimbabwe's own beer'

Alc: 4.7%

Context: Watching a Bob de Niro film. Not sure which one, though it looks to be near the end. Bob is distressed. He's saying things like, "I ws sure we could get the [important device type thing] to work." Can his career be saved? Only time will tell.

Notes: Medium bodied and well balanced. Pleasant enough without any distinctive flavours. Sits well in the stomach. A good beer for a long session, I think.

Verdict: A good start - 7/10

Name: BOHLINGER

Tagline: 'Cool, smooth and refreshing'

Alc: 4.2%

Context: Schlocky CSI episode. Location is seafront area, possibly Miami or Torquay. Sample dialogue; "You told the feds!" "I was having a drink with the feds, it slipped out." Rubbish.

Notes: The link to the champagne of similar name is unclear, but Bohlinger is clean, crisp and stylish like the French tipple. Difficul to object to, and a fun label too.

Verdict: Would go down well in England. Bolly is leading the field early on! - 8/10

Name: EAGLE
Tagline: 'Celebrate our taste'

Alc: 5%

Context: Reading National Geographic. Did you know that the British island Monserrat in the Carribean has a capital called Plymouth? It's true.

Notes: Ooh, a divisive one, this. Heavy, earthy flavours and a deep malty finish. Definately not for casual drinkers.

Verdict: An acquired taste for seasoned beer guzzlers, not suitable for first timers - 6/10

Name: GOLDEN PILSNER

Tagline: Unknown

Alc: Unknown

Context: Watching Zimbabwe public television channel ZBC. Some soap is on. It's awful.

Notes: I can't tell you too much about this one because I gave it too Marlon, but I had a sip and it tasted ok.

Verdict: 'Not bad, worth a try', which is a completely unimaginative review on a par with writing 'hope you have a good time' or 'don't get too drunk!' in someone's birthday card - 6/10

Name: LION

Tagline: 'Store in a cool, dry place'. Er, ok it doesn't have one.

Alc: 5%

Context: Marlon and I are watching Meet Joe Black. Marlon is very confused about what Brad Pitt is up to. Question - is that man too good-looking? Pitt, that is, not Marlon.

Notes: Quite earthy and dull. Very dissapointing. I had big expectations for this one and I feel let down. One to bring out at the end of the night when everyone is too drunk to care.

Verdict: An anti-climax. Also loses a point for not having a picture of a lion on the label. If I have a beer named after some great beast I want a picture of it to make me look more man-like as I drink it - 5/10

Conclusion

A worthwhile experiment. Suprisingly Bohlinger emerges as the best beer availablein the typical Zimbabwean supermarket, priced approximately ZIM$2,900, although due to inflation that will probably have changed by the time I publish this post.

Sarah. Finally.

I spent the next few days trying Sarah and reading National Geographic. It’s a really good magazine when it’s on form. Not all the issues are that interesting but some are full of phenomenal adventures – tracking cloud leopards in the Indian forests or meeting indigenous tribes in the Venezuelan jungle, anyone?

Two days before I went back to Jo’burg I got Sarah’s address and jumped in a taxi (it was actually more of a slouch, but I’m obviously trying to convey urgency). After a long drive around town (not stopping at some red lights – just like Jo’burg!) we found 27 Guys Cliff Road. Sarah (below) lives in a biiiiiiiiiiiig house with a swimming pool and built in bar in the house, etc. It’s her parent’s house, clearly. She’s only 20.

We had a cup of tea and a nice chat. She was unimpressed by my video of a large elephant herd. “But I see thet everydaay heeyah, Andeee, I’m from Africaar, hey” she said. She talks like that because she’s white. The whites here are called ‘Rhodies’, like ‘Rhodesia’ as Zim was formally known. So Sarah is a Rhody (not sure if that’s how you spell it) and has a funny accent. I can say that because she has only been on the internet about five times and will never read this.

I replied, “You see 100 elephants at a watering hole everyday in the suburbs of Harare?” To which she said, “Well, not everyday…but yaarrrh, you know, hey?” I didn’t know, but never mind.

She’s a lovely girl, but after a short while she had to go as she was going on holiday to Mozambique with her brother. A shame, but if I’d waited a few hours more I would have missed her altogether. Life’s funny, hey? Oh god now I’m doing it. She drove me back to the hostel, hence the picture of her at the wheel. I didn't force her to pose in her car for a picture. That would be weird.

The last night and following day in Harare I hung out with two Germans. One was called Valentine and is a funky hat-wearing musician from Berlin. Everyone to him is “beautiful”. It’s endearing. We walked around Harare and went to the Botanic Gardens. The Shona people of Zim seem very friendly. I wasn’t in Zim long enough to get out into the countryside and really see any of the country. But in my last week I just wanted to relax and hangout somewhere different. So in that I achieved my goal, and I’m a happy camper.

On the bus going back to Jo’burg, to Park Station in fact, we watched the South African film Tsotsi, where someone gets mugged and killed in…Park Station. Thanks Greyhound.

I’m now in Gemini Backpackers, the seventh or eigth hostel I’ve stayed at in Jo’burg. I'm awaiting my flight home. The hostel is ok. It has a full size snooker table, which is certainly not something you see in many other hostels.

None, in fact, now I think about it.

Maps

2007-03-04T15:10:00.000Z

Here is the route through southern Africa, with a few annotations. The map isstolen from Yahoo. Ssshh, don't tell them.

Coast to Coast

2007-02-23T14:12:00.000Z

I travel round the coast of South Africa reunited with and rejuvenated by my girlfriend Laura. Join us on a journey through time and space as we explore the vineyards of Stellenbosch, stumble across a huge herd of elephants at Addo National Park and get woken up by monkeys in Zululand…

AFTER NEARLY five months I finally see my girlfriend Laura again. She flew out to see me on February 9. Partly it was a holiday for her and a chance to see each other after a long interlude, but I also suspect she was checking up on me to make sure I was behaving myself and not up to any mischief.

Although I’ve been busy whale watching and trekking through canyons and getting sick and eating rodents I’ve really missed Laura. Especially the last few weeks when the date of her arrival approached I was getting really excited, apprehensive and even nervous.

She flew into Cape Town where I had been waiting for two days to meet her, staying at the Ashanti Lodge. I had to wait another two hours for her as the flight was delayed. As it landed I excitedly scanned the disembarking passengers to see her. After waiting a while and not making a visual on her, I made a visit to the toilet and came back to find she was waiting for me. Disaster. I had failed in my boyfriend duties of officially meeting her off the plane. No chance to display my sign that read ‘LAURA BENNETT (the one from Suffolk)’. She wasn’t annoyed however, but tired, and we neded to go back to the hostel so she could have a rest.

It was dismally raining that day in Cape Town and Laura reminded me I had not delivered on my promise of sun in Africa. “But it was, like, 35 degrees yesterday,” I stammered, to no avail.

The next day we hit the Waterfront and went up Table Mountain, although it was only clear to see anything for about 5% of the time we were up there, and that’s a generous figure. Still, what are you to do?

Vino

It has been nice to share a romantic meal with someone other than a Swiss army captain. Laura and I ate a lot of prawns and drank cheap Sauvignon Blanc, which tasted really rough, but get what you pay for at three quid a bottle in a restaurant.

From CT (that’s Cape Town, an abbreviation although I realize that by explaining that has taken more time than actually writing it in full) we made the short journey into wine country, staying at the robust Stumble Inn in Stellenbosch. Nice town. Very white. Forgot we were in Africa for a while.

We hopped on a wine tour with some English girls, an Afrikaan couple and a honeymooning American couple from Atlanta, Georgia. The guy worked for CNN and talked a lot.

The tour was cool. Lot’s of wine consumed, of course. We popped up to Fairview Winery in Paarl, a producer that caused a lot of controversy by basing their wine names on French regions with the additional theme of goats (they make goats cheese) e.g. they have wines called ‘Goat Rotie’, ‘Bored Doe’ and ‘Goats Do Roam’ playing on Cote Rotie, Bordeaux and Cotes-du-Rhone. Some French wine makers tried to sue them and lost, merely confirming what many people have long believed - that the French have no sense of humour. Fairview also have a wine called 'The Goatfather’, however I don’t think Francis Ford Coppola has been in touch.

Mr. Good

After the wine tour we went for dinner at a friend from school’s place. Nick and his charming girlfriend Kate are living in Stellenbosch at the moment, working bars and cafes, with the ultimate goal of going to Durban and catching the boat the to India. I think. Contrary to reports from some circles Nick did not perish on a refugee boat from Ghana, this time he flew to Johannesburg, saving him weeks on a boat and days in hospital. This Nick is of course the great Nick Good of Plymstock School, an old chum who was brave/crazy enough to go to Accra, Ghana from England OVERLAND. There aren’t too many tourists or backpackers in Burkina Faso, apparently. Nick got malaria on his trip, and once paid about 30 quid for a five minute phone call but what doesn't kill you... etc. I feel the experience may have been good for him.

The following morning my head felt several sizes too big, to quote Marv from Sin City. I vowed to stay off the wine for at least that morning and afternoon. We hopped onto the Baz Bus and made our way to Plettenburg Bay on the ‘garden route’. The Baz Bus is a famous backpacker minibus service that takes you door to door between hostels. Actually, that sounds kind of breezy. What actually happened is that the Baz Bus were an hour late picking us up, then we were delayed because they had overbooked the service and then we broke down and had to wait in a service station for about four hours for a replacement van from CT (which is Cape Town, remember). We should have taken a mini-bus taxi!

In Plettenburg Bay we stayed at Albergo’s which is very friendly and enthusiastically run. We were there for Valentine's Day and went to the beach, swam, larked about and ate at a lovely place called The Lookout, although we didn’t see any dolphins, which I had promised Laura. I said we’d see them in Coffee Bay later on in the trip. Then we headed to the hostel and lounged in hammocks for a while as we awaited the Baz Bus.

Heffalumps and other animals

Sadly, we hung around in ‘Plett’ for only a night, and were once again at the time-consuming mercy of the Baz Bus. Thankfully we arrived in Port Elizabeth, or PE (as it really is called here) only an hour or so late, at Jikeleza Lodge. It was a whole evening of traveling and we were pretty tired out. The guy who ran the lodge was a guy named Mike. I’m not prejudiced in this area but I’m always a bit on edge when someone says to me, “A marvelous thing happened to me in church today.” It turns out Mike is part of a happy clapping, nay, prog rocking Christian movement in PE which is divided into ‘cells’, which each have a leader. I am not making this up. But Mike was a cool guy, very friendly and helpful.

The next day was one of the highlights of my whole trip. If you’re in Africa you really need to see some wildlife. So we went on a trip to Addo National Park which houses up to 450 elephants. It was very exciting. At first we struggled to see any, but then our guide Peter got a tip-off and we turned around and headed for one of the park’s viewing points. We went through some wire door type thing where we were warned of the possible presence of lions, then walked for a few minutes up to a wooden fence. Upon looking out through the fence we could see an amazing and awesome sight. A massive herd of elephants, maybe more than a hundred, at one of the park’s watering holes. These are wild elephants, they are monitored by the park but not interfered with. It was a great sight to see.

One of the guides said it was ‘as good as Addo gets’, which I can believe. Laura was very excited as she loves ‘heffalumps’ and has quite a few cuddly furry ones at home. I have promised to get her a baby elephant for her birthday. On the way out an elephant ran across the path of the car. Awesome.

In the afternoon we went to Scotchia Private Reserve game park. It was very, very cool. Sitting in one of those open top land rovers we went through the big gates of the Reserve and into another world. Jurassic Park!

We saw beautiful kudu, impala and nyala (types of antelope), warthog, zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, buffalo and rhino. After some light refreshments we headed into the lion enclosure to see if we could spot the five cats they have there. We saw the new lioness and the three sub-adults but not the big daddy lion. He was hiding somewhere. Still, it’s exciting to be a car and not now what you’ll see or where you’ll see it.

So in one day we saw four of The Big Five (rhino, elephant, buffalo, lion and leopard). Not a bad day. On the way back to PE our guide Peter pointed out drug dealers and hiding behind lamp posts we saw prostitutes, Peter describing them as ‘walking AIDS’. It was like we were on safari, albeit a strange city night safari. We gave him a good tip.

After PE and the elephants and Mike’s ‘rocking for God’ organised cells we headed up to Coffee Bay, staying at Bomvu Paradise, a very relaxed place where there is tribal drumming every other night. It was a good experience, although we were molested by strong wind and sand on the beach.

We made traveller small talk so much it hurt my head. The where have you been how long are you travelling where do you go next questions annoy me greatly. Boring, boring, boring! If you're sitting with someone it's polite to chat to them but if you are only going share someone's life for fifteen minutes why not at least make it interesting? Ask them about the death penalty, gay marriage, peadophiles. Something interesting. I'm guilty of this superficial chatting as well, but try to do it as little as possible in any situation in life.

We were at Bomvu for a couple of nights (it could easily have been a week) and bought some of their clothes. On our second and last night we met a guy called Eric who was very drunk and had some kind of shawl over his shoulder. Officially he made drums at the hostel but he told us he was a fortune teller. It is unclear whether he was able to foretell his own unfortunate dismissal the following day for anti-social behaviour. We left Coffee Bay having seen no dolphins, but I promised Laura we would see them at Umzumbe, our next stop.

Treehouses

Umzumbe is on the KwaZulu-Natal coastline and is a lesser known hangout. We stopped for two nights at the Mantis and Moon which is my favourite hostel I’ve ever stayed in. As well as the usual things you hope for such being clean, safe, comfortable, friendly helpful staff, pool table – this place had it all. We slept in a treehouse where in the mornings monkeys would come and eat right outside the door, there was a rock pool, a Jacuzzi and a cool bar with poker playing facilities! Add to that it was all set amongst tropical type plants and the (empty-ish) beach was only a few minutes walk away. It was an awesome time. It doesn’t get much better than sipping beers in a Jacuzzi in Africa on a Monday afternoon in February.

One night myself, Laura and a couple, Dean and Jo, played some Texas Hold ‘em. At home I played almost everyday on t'internet, but out here I've only played a few times, once using tree leaves as poker chips. I was relishing the chance to get back amongst the cards. Well, after three hands Laura and Jo were both out and Dean and I played heads-up for the next hour. I thought I had him with a full house, tens and eights, but when we flipped over our cards Dean had exactly the same hand, forcing a split pot! I ended up short stacked and went all-in pre-flop with 7-4 of spades and wasn't surprised to lose to a pair of sixes. That lousy Dean! Afterwards Laura and I played. I won of course, but she has developed a skill at deception that I must remember to be wary of in future.

The only downpoint to the Matis and Moon, apart from leaving, was that I got savagely sunburnt. I creamed up, but must have missed a few spots. The sun here in summer is like when Schwarzenegger was up against the alien in Predator and has to cover his body with mud so the creature can’t see him. If some of it comes off, he’s dead. So I have random burns all over. Nasty. Laura didn’t fare well with the mozzies here either. She got some bad bites and they bruised and blistered and got all swollen up. It looked awesome but she wouldn’t let me take a picture.

The heat is on

From Umzumbe we moved onto Durban where I assured Laura we would finally see some dolphins.

We were in town for only one night but the temperature had moved up to nearly 40 degrees and Laura wasn’t coping well with the heat. After a spectacular meal at the Ocean Basket earlier in the evening she was sick. A lot. I was briefly panicked thinking it was the seafood, but it turned out it was just the heat and the prawns were as good as they tasted. It was a pity Laura only rented her food. The Sauvignon Blanc was still rough but again, for three quid... etc.

And so before we knew it the time to leave was upon us. We caught the SA Roadlink bus up to Jo’burg. Having seen no dolphins in Durban even I was skeptical of seeing any in Johannesburg.

Over here buses and plane flights between cities are incredibly cheap but taxis are ridiculously expensive. It cost us 100 Rand each (about seven quid) to bus from Durban to Jo’burg, a journey of seven hours, yet here in Jo’burg a ten minute shuttle to the mall costs the same amount. Madness. It’s because the different bus and domestic plane companies are in competition with each other, driving down prices. I said it cost R100 to bus from Durban to Jo’burg, well it only costs R219 to fly with Mango airways. Incredible.

So Laura flew home yesterday and suddenly I am very alone. After spending so much time with someone and then having them leave is a big shock. The leg of the journey with Laura is over. Was a bit quick, but that’s all the time we had. Another two weeks would have been perfect. Still, really enjoyed it.

On our trip we met some people who were travelling on round-the-world type tickets like myself, but were doing the whole south-east Asia thing, then Australia, New Zealand, LA and home. Again, for me this route is a little boring. Wouldn't you like to go somewhere where you tell people where you're going and they raise their eyebrows and look at you like you're a bit strange and ask 'isn't it dangerous?' The further out of the way you get (I'm thinking cramped bus rides in Lesotho and Bolivia here) the more interesting travellers you meet, I think. You don't have to go overland through Burkina Faso, but somewhere a bit more intersting than New Zealand. It's just like the Lake District in Cumbria, you know. And it's got some bad places. Mordor is pretty rough. The coast of South Africa is lovely but very safe, especially if you are travelling on the Baz Bus, I think that's why you get more girls than guys travelling that area.

Wow, where did that rambling come from? Ok, I'm off my soapbox now. Asia is undoubtedly beautiful. Go there!

I am staying at the Purple Palms lodge in Jo’burg, just hanging out, plotting my next move. I have no money left really so I need to maybe bring my flight forward a little. It’s scheduled for March 14 but that is about three weeks away. Don’t know if I need to be out that much longer. Not sad about that, I‘ve lived the life and now after almost six months I feel too tired out of doing ‘excursions and actities’ but just hanging out makes me feel like I’m drifting, not doing anything constructive. Also it’s quite tiring this traveling lark, I need a holiday. How do people do this for a year or longer? I don’t know. However, I’ve learnt in this game you never know what’s around the corner. So the trip might have a little more steam left in it.

Like Sly Stallone said to me, (well he didn’t say it to me as such, it was in Rocky 6) - “it ain’t over till it’s over!

Cape Town

2007-02-08T18:42:00.000Z

I AM in Cape Town awaiting the arrival of my girlfriend Laura, who flies in tomorrow from London Town. Exciting stuff.

But not as exciting as the fact that today, for the first time ever, I used a razor to shave rather than my electric shaver, which is officially lost as I hinted at in my last blog.

The feel of cold blades pressed against my neck was odd and I had a palpable sensation of anxiety. Very palpable. So much PALP I was almost ABLE to touch it. It's funny when you break down words isn't it?

Anyway, shaving with a razor made me feel like a man. I could have gone straight out and killed a chicken, or at the very least purchased one from the local rotisserie.

I can now add this shaving experience to the new sensations of altitude sickness and jet-lag which I have experienced on this trip.

Yes, I know, it's not exactly Booker-prize winning coming of age/quarter life crisis stuff is it? I should be more interesting. I'm trying. I'm reading classics at the moment. I read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and now I'm onto Dicken's Great Expectations which, if the South Park adaptation is to be believed, climaxes with Miss Havisham fending off Pip and co with robotic monkeys. I can't wait.

Actually, I didn't think Gatsby was that great. But The Mediocre Gatsby would be a bit of a hard sell, wouldn't it? Good God, with puns like that I could start work on the Daily Mirror tommorrow.

After Great Expectations I move onto Crime and Punishment by the boy Doyvesto-, you know, that Russian bloke. Apparently it's 400-odd sheets of compelling Dan Brown-esque page turning plot perfection.

When Laura gets here we'll be in Cape Town for a few days then moving on to Stellenbosch, to hit some wineries and maybe meet up with my friend Nick from Plymouth. And meet his girlfriend.

He said she might be too good for him.

Back in South Africa

2007-02-05T15:59:00.000Z

I return to SA and head south to Cape Town. Along the way I decide to pop into Lesotho, the Kingdom in the Sky...

AFTER FIVE years I'm back in the Republic of South Africa. Was a 13 hour flight from Sydney and I watched toooooooooo many in-flight movies including The Queen, The Last King Of Scotland and Scoop. I even got to watch Snakes On A Plane...on a plane! The addition of watching that film in context made it even more super-gripping than ever!

So I flew into Johannesburg and it's still dangerous but once again nothing bad happened to me - Andy 1 Law Of Averages 0. I stayed at Eastgate Backpackers, which is not the place to stay in Joburg. But it's only five minutes walk from Eastgate Mall, which I have now been to more then any other shopping centre in the world, and that's a fact you can take to the bank, shopping fans. I've even been there more than Meadowhall in Sheffield, and I lived in Sheffield for three years! Incredible.

After wondering for a while about where on earth I was going to go now I was back in South Africa, inspiration (from the Lonely Planet) hit me and I was soon on a bus to Bloemfontein, which has only one hostel in town. In fact I'm there now. In fact I've been here before. But I haven't stayed here all this time, I've been in the magical Kingdom of Lesotho, one of Africa's smallest countries. Interestingly it is actually landlocked entirely by one country, in this case South Africa, making it a bit like the Vatican City (except probably less corrupt - is that libelous? I wouldn't know, I get my religious knowledge and history from Dan Brown these days.)

We didn't go to Lesotho last time we were here. I forgot my passport which people tell me is actually the number one thing you need when crossing an international border.

Lesotho is home to the Basotho people, and the foundations of the nation were laid by King Moshoeshoe The Great. And he was great, folks, just so you know. He fought the Boers and the Zulus, just like Michael Caine, although history scholars are divided over his quip-ability.

They speak Southern Sotho in Lesotho. Sample phrases include 'dumella' (hello), 'la kae' (how are you?), 'kea leboha' (thank you) and 'sala hantle' (stay well!)

So I am fluent in the native language. Practically a local, really. In lesotho transport isn't a double-decker cruise liner with meals and movies, it's a cramped minibus which is NEVER full. Why, just yesterday I was the only white person squeezed in with all these Africans, sweating away, 'listening' to house music blaring out the windows and all with some woman's child on my lap. It's the proper African experience! There's a romanticism to it all but a few hours is all I can take I think. Couldn't do a 12 hour stint in one of those.

The capital of Lesotho is Maseru, fact fans. It's half the size of Plymouth and feels like a small provincial town. I travelled with a Canadian woman called Marcy and somehow we made it to Malealea where they have a famous lodge that's really set up for touring groups and costs double what I usually pay but they have a few backpacker shacks and they let me stay (I now look very scruffy - my hair is even longer and I have a beard growing. I can' find my shaver. It's in my bag somewhere but my bag has started to smell. To solve the problem I have avoided opening my bag.)

Anyway in Malealea I found peace. The local villagers are friendly and funny. One kid wanted to exchange a pound sterling some tourist had left as a present. So much for sentimentality! I gave him ten Maloti for it (the currency in Lesotho) which is actually much lower than the official exchange of 14.6 Maloti to Gordon's pound but he got it for free (the kid I mean, not Gordon) so we're all happy campers. I now have SIX English pounds in my wallet awaiting spending back in Blighty. Here that's a slap up meal and some beers, back home I suspect I will be lucky to get a coffee and a copy of Empire.

Yes. Peace. In Malealea. Surrounded by mountains (not like the ones in Bolivia) it's really quite a postcard setting. As I mentioned earlier the Malealea lodge caters to an older crowd, the average age must have been 45 or even 50. So it was a different crowd than I usually hang out with, but I'm no ageist! It was still an enriching experience.

And every night the local choir performed (see below) and the Malealea Band performed. They are both very good.

You can do hikes and pony treks from the lodge. I paid a kid to take me to the Botsoela waterfall (below) which was a nice scenic walk and a good four hour return trip, but apart from that I did nothing. I sat in the shade drinking Savanna ciders, I played pool in the village with some local kids, I read Dickens under a willow tree in the garden. It was all very quaint and charming. I felt happy and peacefull and relaxed for four days. Then it was back into a packed minibus and back to Maseru and then Bloemfontein.

Oh, in Maseru I stayed at the Anglican Church Training Centre (I told you Lesotho wasn't set up for backpackers). I met a nice Korean guy called Lee (below). I thought I should mention him because we both discovered Hunter's cider together. It makes Gaymers and Magners taste like Swamp Donkey.

It was a nice experience to be in Lesotho. It's a bit off the beaten backpacker track. No hostels, just lodges. Hardly any whiteys, people staring at you in the street or while you're in a minibus. Silly white man, what's he doing here?

Courtesys and greetings are very important here. 'Hello's' and 'how are you's' aren't just confined to the sticks. A ten minute walk through Maseru as a stranger can elicit twenty or thirty greetings. Some people even want to stop and chat. I might try it in London.

Lesotho is quite poor and AIDS, as in most of southern Africa, is quite a pickle. Many kids you speak to have lost at least one parent, and although you don't pry, it's quite likely due to AIDS. It affect all kinds of people even across different social groups. I don't know what the answer is, but I'm pretty sure it isn't the Teenage Chastity Ban as was inforced by King Mswati III of Swaziland recently. Despite that foolish policy Mswati is one of only three absolute monarchs left in Africa. He answers to no one, wears funk colours AND he has 13 wives! I can't be sure but I'm certain he's a big James Brown fan. You rock King M!

So I am back in Bloem' and tomorrow I get a (hopefully comfortable) bus to Cape Town. There I kick my heels for a couple of days and then Laura is flying in! Very exciting. Our plan is to travel up the coast and see monkeys and whales and live in treehouses. The treehouses I feel are very important. I can't strees the importance enough of such a house. In a tree. Brilliant!

I apologise if you feel the blog is boring with not enough pictures. I will remedy this tomorrow hopefully. Bloem must have a photo shop type place to make cd thingys. It's certain, I'm sure.

I feel very relaxed and happy at the moment. South Africa feels foreign yet familiar at the same time. I don't know if I will properly look up people from the old gap year teaching days or go back to St. Marks College in the Limpopo province. Maybe we should let memories be? Then again, maybe not.

Fingers crossed, then, for a safe trip to the Western Cape.

Oh, and that was a joke about the Vatican by the way, I don't want one of Pope Benny's assasins after me! Not that they exist. Or do they? Over to Mr. Brown...

A short visit to Australia

2007-01-27T04:12:00.000Z

Hanging out in Sydney, visiting Will in Newcastle and being in the land of Oz for 'Australia Day'...

I FLEW with LAN from Santiago to Sydney. It was an unremarkable trip. I sat next to a Brazilian called Bruno, who was travelling to Brisbane to study English. The entertainment program was pretty limited. I played 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' seven times but never got above 32,000, damnit! I also watched a film called Little Miss Sunshine which is very good, really charming and funny.

My bags were thoroughly searched when I arrived at Sydney International as I was forced to declare a box of Malteasers. After a close inspection it was decided that these wouldn't devastate the ecosystem and I was able to proceed.

I've been staying in Sydney at the Harbour City Hostel, which is alright although I'm not keen on one of the fellows at reception. The hostel is full of Swedes and Dutch, some kind of company they fly with makes them stay there. Could be full worse nationalities I suppose.

My first day here I was jetlagged like disorientated badger. I realised that 2pm here was about 4am body clock time! But I still managed a walk around Sydney harbour and the Opera House, of course. It's essential. The Opera House looks a bit dirty close up. Still good stuff, though.

In fact those first two days I did lots of touristy stuff. I went to the Natural History Museum and up the Sydney Tower, which is a bit of a rip off and full of Korean younglings. The Natural History Museum had a great BBC Wildlife Photographer exhibition. It was cool.

I've taken it pretty easily on the going out front. Everything here is super expensive compared to South America and I don't want to blow the last of my money on clubs that I could virtually go to back home. We went out one night to a terrible place called 'The Gaff' which was apparently THE PLACE TO BE! on that particular evening. Rubbish. Between 9 and 10 there was free beer, which is pretty cool, but not quite that pleasant. If you want to witness man at his most base level forget concentration camps, terrorism, the butchering of baby seals, look for a bar giving away free beer for a limited amount of time. It's like the end of civilization, people clambering over each other for a drop of the precious golden elixir. God help us if it was actually something you needed, like medicine.

Anyway, on this evening while the free beer was (for the time being) flowing, they decided to have a game of strip musical chairs. Lower those eyebrows, for shame! The game consisted of about ten contestents; five guys, five girls. As you know, when the music stops the players find one of the chairs cruelly removed. When you lose though, you're not out, you just have to take off an item of clothing. The guys took to the game with relish. They all got naked pretty quickly. They didn't seem to care if they lost or not. In fact I think there was one naked guy not even in the game. The (sober) girls were a different story. One went down to a bra, but for the most part they just left when the lost a round. If I were single I's say that was dissapointing. Soon I was left staring at a bunch of naked DUDES. Great.

Sydney is hot and a little humid. It's a nice city, very modern and everyone speaks English, which is nice. I keep feeling like saying "hola" or "que tal?" whenever I meet someone. I'm sure I said, "gracias" the other day.

A few days ago I decided to go and meet Will, an Australian I met in Brazil fishing for piranhas. He lives in Newcastle just a couple of hours up the road. I hopped on a train and soon was having lunch with Will and some friends.

Will's family are lovely and they have a very nice, modern house. His 14-year old brother Tom is a typical Aussie lad into his rugby and surfing and such. On my first of two evenings there we had a quiet night, eating barbied salmon steaks, drank some De Bortoli wine we sold at Direct Wines and all watched some Australian Celebrity Poker before retiring to bed, which was a comfy double bed. Nice.

I was in Newcastle on Australia Day, a celebration of all things Aussie. Well, really just an excuse for a party in the sun. It was bizarre, everyone decked out in Australian colours, sports tops, flags, hats, temporary tattoos, some people even had stickers saying 'fair dinkum' and 'you little beaut'. I don't think I've ever felt like such a gringo! Also, Will was the only 'native' on the continent I knew so the afternoon was a bit difficult, but by the evening I was flying, (we'd started drinking beer at 1pm), talking to random folks on the streets, my veins pumping alcohol and enthusiasm around my body. We went to party we were evicted from on account that we didn't know anyone. Fair dinkum!

Some of Will's mates were so Australian think they were on the cusp of being a parody. It was very strange being surrounded by sooooo many Aussies. Too many if you ask me. I usually try and avoid them.

Walking back to Will's to change to get into a club we were accompanied by a very attractive girl. Let's call her Brenda. Brenda had previously gotten romantic with Will's brother (not Tom) and was now being pursued by Will! She thinks he doesn't know about her and his brother. He does. As I stumbled drunkenly on ahead carrying a big bottle full of specially mixed coke and vodka they kept hanging back, stealing intimate embraces in the shadows. Naughty!

By the time we got to the club we were drunk and tired. We stayed for a bit. I danced to some funky songs, then we grabbed a burger and headed back. It was good we got back early as we were up at 8.30am so we could drive to Sydney so Will and his dad could go to a stag party thing. That's a heavy weekend.

So I'm flying to Johannesburg tomorrow. I'd like to do some travelling here but it's a lot more expensive than so much of the rest of the world. You'd have to do some working as you go. Not my usual style. I'm looking forward to South Africa. It's been nearly five years since I've been there. And it's been nearly five months since I last saw Laura.

It's good to get reunited. And now here are some arty pictures of Sydney...

Maps

2007-01-19T19:37:00.000Z

Ok, so this is the route I have taken through southern South America. Some of the lines are not completely accurate and are in fact the result of a faulty mouse drawing the lines in Paint. Still, gives a raw feeling to it all, which is fitting, don't you think?

The blue line to the left shows my flight to Sydney, although I doubt I'll include a map of Australia as I'll only be there a week.

But after that it's South Africa! You can bet I'm gonna be getting in on the map action for that one!

The journey to Santiago

2007-01-19T18:28:00.000Z

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round...

OK. THE simplest way is just to say it all. I left Arequipa at 5.15am on a bus bound for Tacna, on the Peru/Chile border. I got there about midday-ish, took a collectivo taxi through the border control with a Chilean naval oficer who had lived in Croyden (so bizarre) and spent the night in a depressing hostel in Arica, which is actually a pretty nice looking city. What followed the next day was a period of my life that I will never get back - a 32-hour bus journey.

We left around 11am one day and arrived in Santiago around 6pm the next day. Quite a journey. I slept about 4 hours during the whole time, owing to the crying baby in the seat next to me. Also it was hot. Really hot. The south of Peru and north of Chile is really just a desert, albeit a nitrate rich desert that the two countries and Bolivia fought over during the War of the Pacific (1879-1883).

Yes, it was a long trip, my personal best so far, although I know people who have made 40-45 hour bus rides so I shouldn't complain.

I finished Elmore Leonard's LaBrava, which was entertaining, and read THE WHOLE of Roddy Doyle's novel A Star Called Henry which is really very good and you should read it. I've never read a whole novel on a bus trip before. Afterwards I felt very special.

When you arrive after a journey like that you feel really weird, like you've been spred too thinly over some toast. Or something.

But, anyway, I'm now in Santiago, taking it easy at Hostel de Sammy, which is one of my favourite hostels I've stayed at. I've been to see the National Museum of Art but apart from that I really haven't done anything much at all in Santiago. It's not got a good reputation amongst travellers but I like the feel of the place. It's exotic, yet kind of European and familiar. The hostel is near some universities. It feels vibrant. And the other day I stood watching old men play chess in the main square. They finish games in ten minutes - no lie.

So I like this place despite not having seen much of it. But with all the trekking, tripping, bussing and fussing it's nice to really relax for a bit. Stay in the same place for a while. It's a good place. They have cereal for breakfast, a real treat.

And the weather here is great! Three days of sun and wrath. No rain! Fantastic. It's put me in a good mood. You can't help it, the sun does it to you. It's summer!

Charles, the interesting owner of Hostel de Sammy, taught me how to play Chilean pool. It's slightly more complicated than regular pool but I think I like it. You basically arrange all the balls around the table cushions and must pot them in order. You then are awarded the value of that ball. If you knock in a higher value ball after first hitting the current number, you get the value of that ball! But if you foul you lose the points of the ball were trying to hit or the ball you hit instead! Interesting, no? It really rewards people good at setting up or escaping from snookers. At the end you subtract your negative points from your positive ones to get a total, just like with the gold and silver tickets inside the crystal dome on The Crystal Maze! Except in Chilean pool you don't have to wear shell-suits to play. I will teach it to anyone interested when I return.

It's a nice crowd at Sammy. I'm mostly hanging with a crowd of Scandi's, Ozzies and English, for which I make no apology. We hang out A LOT in the hostel, playing pool, watching movies and drinking tea (which is free, hurray!)

I'm in a (nice) dorm with a Japanese guy called Rich. He can do karate, so I don't wanna get on the wrong side of him. He lives in Los Angeles and has sparred with Dolf Lugdren. Fantastic! He was offered $500 an hour to do some martial arts training for X-Men 3, but said he didn't do it because he didn't have the time. Fool! Below is a picture of me doing the Karate Kid 'crane' move on him. Take that!

Sadly the X-Box containing the movies is now broken, a tragic day for all but we get by...one day at a time, y'know?

Another sad fact is that I've finally cracked after a run in with a rubbish book exchange and am now reading....Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Don't look like that! Don't! I've only just started and it seems fine. It's trashy, obviously. And prosaic. Lacks any kind of interesting character development. And at times it reads like an overly enthusiastic history homework assignment as if Dan is saying "look here, look how much I know about art and history and the geographical locations of Paris. I am clearly very clever."

But apart from that I'm sure it'll be great. Maybe even "brilliant!" as it says on the cover. By someone I've never heard of. And never will.

Yesterday I went to the Australian Embassy to get a visa. They gave me an Electronic Travel Authority thing, which is the same but no sticker in the passport - boo! Travelling is becoming less fun, soon there will be no stamps, no passports, just eys scans and DNA testing...if Blair gets his way!

So today is my last full day in South America. I fly to Sydney for a week's stay tommorrow night at 11.10pm. I'm looking forward to it. I love flying. I like the take-off when you suddenly acelerate to speed and the plane goes chrrrrrrrowwwwwWWWWW...and then you're in the air and it's time for one of my favourite things ever - in flight entertainment! Sometimes I don't want to leave when the plane lands. I should really try to get some sleep and not watch films all night.

Where was I? Yes, South America. It's nearly all over. Emotional. Lots of ups, a few downs, pretty much always interesting. Apart from 30-hour bus rides. They are less interesting. But the trip has been very nice. I've learnt a few things. What, I cannot say at the moment. Time and perspective is needed, to analyse, absorb and process these experiences. Yes, it's all about absorbtion.

So my next entry should be from Sydney. I've only a week as I can't afford to do a whole trip there and never planned on travelling there as part of this trip. Sfter that it's South Africa again, baby! I hope Mandela doesn't die before I get there else it'll be REALLY depressing.

Ok, so this is me signing off for Santiago, Chile and South America. I'm gonna miss the sights, sounds, smells, rain, steaks, colours, canyons, ruins, wines, smiles, buses, llamas, cold showers, language misunderstandings, good hostels, bad hostels...the whole thing. I'll be back hopefully.

One day...

Arequipa and the Colca Canyon

2007-01-19T16:40:00.000Z

Trekking through canyons, eating guinea pig and spying on nuns...

IT'S BEEN a busy time doing touristy stuff in Arequipa (pronounced a-reh-kee-pa). The trip here was a comfy, uneventful overnight ride from Ica. Arequipa is a nice city, a change of pace a little from Cuzco. You certainly get hassled less. I was here to see a couple of city attractions and do a little excursioning, if in fact that is a word.

There's a big famous monastary that's 400 years old that was very nice and yielded some lovely colourful pictures. Different areas are painted their own individual colours and there are flowers and orange trees and it was really lovely and I can feel myself turning into a girl. Urghh! Er, football, war, bbqs, poker, cigars, Sparticus!...right that's better.

The Monastary is called Santa Catalina and is made from the rock type 'sillar', if indeed anyone cares about such a thing. I clearly don't, because I'm a ruddy man! For many years rich families in Spain paid doweries so their daughters could go and live there, in relative luxury with servants and such. Basically they lived it up in a fashion they were accustomed to, I think. Then a strict nun, like the old girl from Sister Act, came in and straighted things out.

The Monastary first opened up to the public in 1970 and the nuns there now live in a newer part of the complex. The whole site is huge, the siz e of a city block. It even has it's own street names and stuff. It was really interesting and I even spied a few nuns hanging out, looking kinds holy. I did enjoy the experience of walking around. Places like that have a really peaceful, relaxed feel to them, still a bit removed from the outside world. Check out the pictures below. I think they're pretty good.

After that I went to the Museum (whose name I momentarily forgot) which is all about Inca sacrifices. They put on a National Geograhic video, give you a tour showing artifacts like clothes, trinkets and even a mummy, frozen in a -20 degree chamber under low light. It's creepy but tastefully done.

The Inca's used to offer the purest children as sacrifices to appease the mountain Gods and maintain the blance of nature, thus insuring a good crop harvest. Which is rubbish, obviously, but they believed it. And after young children were chosen they made a journey from the Inca capital, Cuzco, to the highest mountains (about 6,500 metres high!) in order to carry out the sacrifice. It took months to get there. Imagine the dedication. Incredible.

Once there, they gave the children a seditive then bashed them over the head with some rock to kill them, which is, ironically, not very bashful. Then they buried the kids in graves with all the other gifts and trinkets. Because of avalanches and the temperature at this altitude (which is a bit nippy) the bodies were frozen and preserved for scientists/gravediggers to discover. Fascinating stuff. They even have the coat type cape thing of one of the mummies, Juanita, that was still covered in blood from where they struck the fatal blow. Scary.

Being sacrificed was kind of like an honour, as only the purest and most beautiful children were chosen. It was thought you would go straight up into the heavens and become a god of sorts yourself. If you believed such things, of course. Otherwise I imagine you'd be pretty scared.

It is though there are still many sacrificial burial sites out there waiting to be discovered/plundered.

So Monastaries and museums were visited in Arequipa and I felt very cultured. The other big thing in/around Arequipa was a three day trek in the Colca Canyon, which is this really big canyon. It's famous too. Our guide was a very interesting guide called Luis. We were also joined by a Dutchman, a Scotch girl, and a couple who were from Austria and Germany. I wish them luck, although alliances between those countries have not suceeded in the past.

Anyway, twas a good group. The main purpose of the trip was to see the small communities that live in the canyon, to see who their lives differ from those in the big cities, etc. The walk down into the canyn took three hours, then a further hour and a half walking to a village along some paths and across a stream, crossing a makeshift bridge built by the villagers. There was a man from the village to meet us with a mule to carry one person, which I thought was a nice touch.

So it took us 4-5 hours to get down into the canyon. I noticed that the family we stayed with had a really big fridge in their kitchen. You cannot access the canyon by car. I was confused. Apparently it took the family SIX DAYS to bring the fridge from the nearest big town, Cabanaconde. I think after I few days of carrying that thing i'd be like, "you know what guys, I don't mind if my beer gets warm, let's just leave it."

But they didn't leave it, and that evening we enjoyed lovely cold Coca-Cola! Good job!

There was a lot of walking on that trip. The company we went with, 'Land Adventures', promised that they 'go the extra mile'. The German guy said, "I fail to see how that is an advantage." Quite.

The next day we were up for a pancake breafast at 7am, then we walked to the local museum a lovely woman called Doris had set up. The museum showcased local culture and was really interesting, especially all the examples of natural medicines. It's crazy, they spread melted donkey fat on broken bones and for birth pain they wrap a LIVE snake around the woman's abdomen. Apparently it helps.

After the museum, (where Doris let us try cactus fruit which is nice but has lots of seeds in) we walked for a few more hours to a little oasis in the driest part of the canyon where we had a dip in a nice pool and ate Luis' spaghetti.

We then endured one of the hardest walks I've ever done - 1,200 metres up and out of the canyon. It only took two and a half hours or so but it very nearly killed me. It was so...so steep! And it started raining at three o'clock, as it does every day in the canyon in the wet season. It was an arduous challenge, and I can't say I particularly enjoyed that bit. My legs at times felt like they just wouldn't go anymore! But I did it. I made it. We all made it. The Scotch girl a little behind everyone else.

The next morning we went to see some condors, which are famous for their role in Inca mythology. They are massive creatures and one of only three species of bird that can fly without flapping their wings, avian fans. However, they are also vultures, too slow to catch any prey or anything, so most of the time they sit around waiting for animals/tourists to die so they can eat them. In fact to keep the birds in the canyon, the villagers, still to this day, sacrifice a donkey every month for the condors. Poor donkey, but it's tradition so what can you do?

The rest of the trip passed without incident. Luis told us about a quasi-religious novel/spiritual history book he was going to write and we went for a swim in some local hot springs.

Back in Arequipa we all went our separate ways. I was staying in Bothy Hostel with Martin the Dutchman. He had an evening bus and I went out for dinner with three guys from New Zealand; Will, Andrew and Peter. We decided that we should try Guinea pig, which is a Peruvian delicacy. After making numerous jokes about what expression the guinea pig might have we were a little shocked to see that the animal was served pretty much intact, with it's head still attached and a full compliment of teeth, ears, eyes and whiskers. Yum!

We tucked in. It's nice, slightly sweet and the skin was reminiscent of fried chicken. Not a lot of meat on the bones, though. My guinea looked up at me with what I interpreted as an expression of bewilderment. I enjoyed it, but I don't think I'd go for another one.

We left the heads, but kids kept trying to sell us things (gum, chocolate, ciggarettes) so we managed to dispose of the heads by offering them to the working steet children. Friends, they looked at us as if we were mad, as if we were getting rid of the best part of the pig. We even tried bargaining a chocolate bar for the price of a guinea pig head. It was no deal, however.

Following dinner we had a drink in a nice bar where I met up with a nice American guy called Matt who I had seen in Loki in Cuzco a week previously. By chance I had passed him in the main square. His friend had had her camera stolen and was upset but these things happen and you just gotta deal with it I guess. I haven't had anything stolen so far (although I have lost my mobile phone) but I think it's just a matter of time before I get something nicked. I might pay someone to rob me, just to get it over with and thus embrace the law of averages on my own terms.

Maybe.

Huacachina

2007-01-09T23:40:00.000Z

A few hiccups over transport and I find myself in the cute (if slightly smelly) desert oasis of Huacachina.

ONE DAY on my own following my separation from Beat and already I have run into trouble. I caught the 6pm bus from Cuzco intending to get off in the town of Ica. But there was no stop in Ica and I didn't know where it was, and fatally didn't ask anyone. Well, I was tired. It was a long journey and I didn't sleep that much.

So I missed Ica and went straight onto Lima, an additional four hours on top of the 15 I was supposed to travel. Lima has a KFC and Pizza Hut, I noticed. But Lima was not where I wanted to be. So I hopped onto another bus and hurtled four hours back down south along the Pacific Ocean. And this time got out at the right time. An uneccessary extra EIGHT hours of travelling spent eventually getting to Ica. Nightmare.

But I had nothing elseto do, and besides, I was on Cruz Del Sur, the best bus company in Peru, and perhaps the world (they have their own private terminals!) Security is tight, too. They video you as you get on the bus. For security.

On my intended 15 hour trip (or actually 19 hours as we've nowestablished) we watched no less than five movies, which were curiously all English language films dubbed into Spanish and subtitled in English. Confusing. Among our celluloid treats were Robert Redford's enjoyable melodrama An Unfinished Life (which has a bear in it that mauls Morgan Freeman, but by the end of the movie he's ok with it), Al Pacino playing the lovable meat-seeking Jew Shylock in The Merchant Of Venice and Tom Cruise battling his (fictional) alien demons in War Of The Worlds.

And hey, it wasn't all bad missing my stop, I got to watch Cheaper By The Dozen. TWO!

So I arrived in Ica. But I didn't want to go there either! I caught a taxi the 6km to the little desert town of Huacachina (pronounced "whacka-cheena"). Here I've just been chilling out. Reading in a hammock or by the little lagoon. My room is/was a bit of a hole, with ants crawling up the wall and everything, but I just needed somewhere private and quiet to rest. Well, at least it was private.

You can go on dune buggies here and sand surf, which of course I have not done. But you can do it. If you want.

I have been doing to much travelling in the last few weeks. Too many cities. Stress. Needed to rest. So instead of engaging in adventure I have been reading about it. In particular I refere to Endurance, Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated attempt to cross the whole continent of Antarctica in 1914. He would have been the first. That's why he wanted to do it, obviously.

Well, what happened was old Ernie's ship, The Endurance, got stuck in ice and drifted in said ice for months before enduring no more. It was crushed and finally sank. What's an explorer and crew to do in such a predicament? Well, they lived on the ice for ages. And ages. Then they sailed to different islands to try and survive in what you can imagine was not pleasant weather. They lived on seal meat, some kind of dough balls and instant tea and coffee. INSTANT! Needless to say, it was not a jolly holiday. In fact at one point they had to shoot their dogs and eat them which, come to think of it, is probably more horrible than having to drink instant coffee, actually. But no-one died! And it could have been worse. They could have been in the fields of the Somme in France, say. I'd personally rather live on the ice floe!

But seriously, they endured an awful lot. It was two full years before they were rescued. Two years! Thankfully now you can go on safer trips to Antarctica and they don't make you kill your own penguins and seals, which I think would put tourists off somewhat.

Anyway, Huacachina is nice. But they need to employ some people to clean up litter.It smells of nasty stuff at some points by the Lagoon, distracting me from Shackleton. Photos are needed to fully emphasise the place, but if you 'Google-image it' you might find some nice pictures. Just imagine me there.

I am now reading Nabokov's Lolita, which is actually a very good book, surprisingly funny and enjoyable, if it does drag over the second half somewhat.

It is now at times like this when I have said everything I meant to say that various important questions come to mind, such as what is my Swiss amigo Beat doing right now? Who will Argyle sign in the transfer window? And what are Tom Hanks best films? With this latter matter I believe there are two schools of thought. Some prefer his earlier light-hearted works such as Turner and Hooch, The Money Pit, Splash, etc. Others prefere altogether 'worthier' fare, such as the Springsteen soundtracked Philadelphia, Forrest Gump or Road to Perdition. In my opinion Mr Hank's best films are probably Big, a coming-of-age comedy, and Saving Private Ryan, an, if you will, coming-of-death drama.

And that is all I have to say about that, to quote Mr Gump. Tonight I'm bussing to Arequipa, 10-12 hours south of here.

Goodbye.

Macchupicchu and The Sacred Valley

2007-01-04T19:56:00.000Z

At long last Beat and I get around to visiting THE sight of South America. Along the way we see a few other bunches of rocks and get annoyed with a tour guide called Reuben.

GUIDES. I really hate them. Guided tours too. You feel like such an idiot and almost always realise you could have done things yourself. I feel this way because of one man; Reuben. We booked a two-day trip around some sights in the 'Sacred Valley' featuring many different Inca sites, and finishing with Macchupicchu.

Don't get me wrong, I do lot's of indie travelling too, but for ease we decided to take up a tour offer this time.

First of all the tour was an hour late kicking off, and Reuben kept rushing us around. "You can have 20 minutes at this market." Twenty minutes! Around a market that you could have killed an afternoon in. Estupido.

Just above Cuzco we drove past a site called Sacsayhuaman, which means 'satisfied falcon' in Quechua. But when pronounced it sounds fantastically like 'Sexy Woman'! Ironically, no women sexy or otherwise would have lived there as it was an Inca fortress housing up to 5,000 warriors. We didn't stop.

The trip was worth it, but in spite of the guide rather than because of him. We visited the Inca ruins at the sites of Pisac (left) and Ollantaytambo, both which were very cool, but it was too crowded going at tourist o'clock. It was just...argghhh. Stupid tours. Ten minutes later lots of tourists dissapear, you can get good pictures, but by then 'Reuban Group' has moved on. It's quite frustrating.

Pisac is known for it's many terraces which the Incas used for agriculture, keeping them in full supply of corn and other foodstuffs. There's also evidence of living quarters, temples, sanitation and a water supply. At one site there is a circular ampitheatre type land structure, where apparently on each level crops had their own micro-climate. Clever people. As we ascended the path a delicate-looking child in traditional clothes played haunting pan-pipe music of the Andes to earn some pocket money. He needed practise. Lots.

Ollantaytambo (right & below) was a fortress and spiritual centre for the Incas. It sits high above a market town and was one of the only places where the Incas won a battle against the Spanish, firing down arrows, stones and (maybe) potatoes to thwart the advancing cavalry. Would have been fun to watch. Apart from all the death.

But then the Spanairds came back with more men and this time won - boo, forcing the last Inca king Manco Inca to retreat to the jungle in Vilcabamba. The Spanairds tracked him down and killed him 8 years later. I've really got into the Inca history, especially the decline, which is the most interesting bit of any society. Just look at Hitler. When I get back I'm definately going to get a big book. A glossy one full of pictures. Of the Incas, not Hitler.

Reuben rushed us round the site slicing our way through hordes of tourists, telling us how heavy all the stones were. He was an expert on the weight of stones and the altitude. Everywhere we went, he knew if it was 2, 897m or 3, 356m above sea level or if a stone weighed 15 or 25 tonnes. Of course he could have been making it up, we wouldn't know.

But he didn't tell us enough of the context of the places. He didn't set the scene, put us in their place. I'm a man - I want to know about BATTLES and WAR. Rubbish Reuben.

Opposite the Ollantaytambo site is an Inca prison. I'd like to go to Inca prison.

We then hung around for a few hours and caught the train to Aguas Calientes, a town deep down in the mountains and a sort of base camp for excursions to Macchupicchu. I felt a bit like Michael Palin. Trains are definately more comfortable than buses. Less bus, less fuss. Good slogan.

Agauas Calientes is quite petite and probably wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the ruins above. We stayed the night in Inkatambo hotel - everything there is called 'Inka-something' - and the next day got up at 5am to get up to the ruins early. After a half-hour bus ride we were in the ruins by 6.30am after paying a fairly extortionate price of $38 to get in. Well it is Macchupicchu. And we were there! Great, except one problem - it was so misty you couldn't see anything. And it was raining. In fact it was the worst weather possible!

Things cleared but never enough for a good chance to get the classic Macchupicchu shot (right) overlooking the site with the towering Huayna Picchu in the background. Shame. Still, looks pretty cool.

We ditched our large tour group early on as the thought of following a grown woman waving a purple flag shouting "Ana Celia's group!" was just too much after Reuben the day before.

Finally we had what the Scottish wanted in 1147 - freedom. We wandered around in the rain exploring the nooks and crannies of the site on our own, although armed with a guide book. And if you want toknow more just hang around untill a tour group arrives and listen to the guide. It's a bunch of rocks of course, nothing happens. But probably it's the best bunch of rocks there is. The thing that makes the site so good is that it is so complete. Throw a roof on most of the houses and people could just move back in.

It is thought that the city was abandoned and never discovered by the Spanish. There is no mention of it in Inca history or Spanish journals. So it lay forgotten by everyone bar a few Quechuas untill an American called Hiram Bingham (his name is everywhere) found it in 1911, thinking it to be the site of Vilcabamba which I mentioned earlier. So just like Chris Colombus, a lost explorer got lucky and hit the jackpot.

A bit like Stonehenge, no-one really knows what Macchupicchu was all about. Spiritual centre? Royal retreat? A last ditch attempt to preserve the culture and hide from the Spanish? Some believe the site was abandoned before the Spanish arrived and others that it was a even pre-Inca society. So far no-one thinks it was an alien landing site. Yet.

But with the impressive stonework and layout of the site it must have been very important and would have looked really awesome in it's day. On both sides it has spectacular views down into the Urabamba valley. Along the edges of the site are many steeped terraces which were used for agriculture. Along with animals like sheep, llamas and alpacas, the people who lived here would have been virtually self-sufficient. Which begs the question; if they were never discovered by the Spanish, why did the people of Macchupichu abandon the city?
I suppose we'll never know. Macchupicchu has been called 'The Lost City of The Incas'. From the HUGE amounts of people that really begin to arrive from about 10am onwards, you can be absolutely certain it's been found. Soon the site gets quite crowded in most of the good viewing points and it's almost impossible to take a photo whithout another person in it.

So later in the morning Beat and I went for a walk along the steep narrow path to see the cliff-hugging Inca bridge (right), which you can no longer cross owing to the fact that it is too perilous, a fact supported by the fate of the last person who tried to walk across it. Which was death.

About midday we decided we had been in the 'lost' city long enough and headed down the mountain. I think 5 or 6 hours is enough to spend at any archeological site (unless you are an archeologist, in which case I recommend staying longer). People were heading back in and the day cleared to be bright and sunny in the afternoon, but we were halfway down the mountain and couldn't be bothered to go back to take one or two better photos.

In fact on the walk down we took some lovely photos of the Urubamba valley (left).

We visited the town's hot springs, which were exceedingly hot, and stayed the night in Aguas Calientes before heading back early this morning (5.45am!) to Cuzco via train (Palin again) and taxi.

I am now back at Loki and am wondering where to go. To Pisco, home of pisco? But I don't like pisco. Do I? Or I could go to Arequipa. I just don't know. I need to relax. Think. Maybe get a massage.

Anyway, Macchupicchu was good, I enjoyed it. People say it's a must but if you have zero interest in ruins and history it's an expensive trip up a hill. Beat was less impressed than I. He gave it "5 or 6 out of 10." I don't know how he arrived at thatrating but he's from the contintent so I don't always understand him.

Anyway, now I have to go as we bought a copy of Rocky VI (that's six) from the market and we need to watch it.

Rocky's out of retirement for one last fight. Probably against arthritis.

New Year's Eve in Cuzco

2007-01-04T19:16:00.000Z

The New Year's festivities are spent in one of the tourist hotspot of South America...

PARTY HOSTELS are pretty hit-and-miss. 'Loki' is definately a party hostel and as such is full of a LOT of people that ordinarily I wouldn't rub shoulders with. It has a lot of folks that are a little too cool for school to be honest, and as such a lot of people aren't the friendliest. Reminds me of being in a pretentious club back home. Thankfully Loki is HUGE and well over 150 people were around for new year's eve, so lot's of nice people to chat to as well.

I spent most of the evening with an English brother and sister combo called Henry and Amber. I met them on the island hopping trip on Lake Titicaca. Nice people. Beat was preoccupied, having met up with a Peruvian woman that he had been 'communicating' with for several months over the internet. They are now very much in love and are going to marry and have loads of Inca children. Probably. She is called Maribel and lives in Lima. She flew all the way to Cuzco for new year, just to see him. Pretty desperate if you ask me. Still, true love, eh? It's marvilous.

The new year's eve party was held in the hostel. Full to the brim like brimful of asha, the party rocked untill about 11.30, when everyone dissapeared to the main city centre Plaza to celebrate the arrival of 2007. It was slightly confusing as there was no definable countdown. Instead, around 12-ish everyone just decided it was pretty much new year and started throwing fireworks at each other. It was madness, so dangerous. Explosions everywhere. Memories of 'Nam started flooding back, which was weird because I've never been. Not even on holiday. I blame the movies for these quasi-PTSD feelings. Damn you messers Stone and Ford Coppola!

After the 'celebrations' we headed back to the hostel where drinking and chatting was engaged in untill I felt it was my bedtime around half past three, having had my fun and feeling plum tuckered. I haven't actually been feeling too brillant recently. The stomach again. Still, 3.30 is a reasonable time to retire, right? I really need a holiday to get better. Recharge. Buses, hostels, excursions, different cultures, languages; these things are all very stressful. I need a break. I don't know where I'll go but it must be private and quiet.

And I'd like cable TV. Actually it's essential.

Speaking of entertainment, on the book front I recently read Leviathan by Paul Auster, whose imagination is so vast his main character is A WRITER CALLED PAUL AARON. Way to go Auster. Also I read Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel. It's a '28-year old coming of age' type thing. Very enjoyable. The main character is not called Benajamin, but Dwight. See, it's called FICTION Auster!

I now have a strange mixed bag of books to read; Lolita, The Best Detective Stories of Agatha Christie, and Endurance: The True Incredible Adventure (which is the story of Ernest Shackleton's heroic trip across Antarctica. I'm actually quite looking forward to it. In fact I may read it first!).

Hmmm, what about something cultural...let's see, Cuzco was the capital of the Inca empire, which stretched, well, all over the shop. Now it's a party/tourist city where everyone is trying to sell you something; "Bus tickets?...Machupicchu Tour?...Marijuana?..." Everything is for sale. EVERYTHING.

Cuzco (right) has some nice Inca walls and restaurants and stuff. It's a South American tourist hotspot and prices reflect that. The competition between bars is so fierce that it's happy hour almost every hour. Some places offer 3 or even 4 drinks for the price of one to get you in. Incredible.

It's a strange city. I don't know if I like it. Sometimes I just want people to leave me alone and not try to sell me a tour or massage or anything. It's annoying.

Anyway, that's the end of this entry. Bye.

Puno and the 'floating islands'

2006-12-31T22:08:00.000Z

After an unexpected and prolonged stay in Bolivia, Beat and I move on along the shore of Lake Titicaca to Peru.

WE HAD no problems crossing the border into Peru. In fact if we hadn't stopped at the border I would never have even noticed. The idegenious peoples of Peru and Bolivia are very similar you see. The main difference is that things are much more expensive in Peru. It's 6 Soles to the pound, rather than 15 Bolivivanos. Outrageous. I'm going to have to think very seriously about spending now. People say something costs 2 soles, and I think that's really cheap, like 2 Bs, but it's not! It's 30p!

We were sad to say goodbye to Bolivia. It had been home for over 5 weeks. Such a fascinating country with the most amazing differences in landscapes and natural beauty and very friendly, colourful and humble people. Of course many try to seize the opportunity to rip you off, but on the whole they are very nice and helpful. It's a country rich in the currency of culture, but sadly poor in the actual currency of money. I hope some day this turns around and that if I ever return there will be less poverty begging and desparation in the streets of all the cities.

But, anyway, I'm in PERU now. The biggest soft drink here is not Coca-Cola but 'Inca Kola', a local traditional soft drink since 1935. It's a fizzy yellow concoction that tastes of bubblegum. It would sell by the freight-load back home if marketed to kids, but it's been bought by Coca-Cola and they won't export it lest it becomes rival to it's main product. So you have to come here to drink it, unless I'm really resourceful and send some home. But let's face it, that won't happen.

We arrived into Puno and stayed in a very weird place called Hostal Europa, which was incredibly recommended in the usually useful Lonely Planet. The theme of the hostal is supposed to be EUROPE, but over the map of Europe hangs flags of USA, Argentina and Brazil. Are Brazil in the E.U.? Also there was a big picture of Los Angeles on the second floor. Crazy.

Basically the place was a hole. A Rat-hole as Beat likes to say. We never even properly checked in, and the woman behind the reception was breastfeeding when we arrived. We got the top floor room in a construction site and the floors were wet. Great. I hate staying in these hostals which are little more than rubbish hotels, not 'hostels' at all.

But Puno (which is also a pretty rubbish place) was just a stepping stone for a trip to the famous floating islands of the Uros (left). There are about 40 different floating islands on Lake Titicaca made out of reeds that grow up out of the water. The people there eat the reeds as well. It was strange walking on the islands. They really do float and as you step on the reeds sometimes water seems up. They have to constanly replace the reeds as they rot away. The people on the island have lived there for hundreds of years, originally as a way of escaping from the aggressive Incas, who presumably couldn't build boats.

The people of the Uros can build boats (below), great big reed boats with puma heads on the front. It takes 7 men a month to build a boat big enough to sail 30-40 people, stat fans.

The islands themselves were, I have to say, not what I'd expected. Although the experience was interesting to witness these islands and to get a grip on how the people lived, the whole thing has become shockingly over-touristic to the point where it was a bit disapointing. Almost all the people on the islands have stalls trying to sell you things like cloths and models for a not-very-cheap-price. They almost harass you to buy stuff. I'd rather have paid more for the priviledge of coming onto the island and seeing them live their lives rather than the kind of over commercialisation that we found. There are some islands, we where told, that don't allow tourists on. Good for them.

After that we stayed the night on the island of Amantani, which was a more orthodox island of 5,000 inhabitants that did not float. Just to clarify, it is the island that didn't float, I imagine most of the inhabitants would float, although I didn't empirically test this hypothesis.

We were put into groups of 2-4 people and assigned a family to stay with, who made us lunch, dinner and breakfast. Very friendly people. They only spoke Quechua, a local language, and a bit of Spanish which made conversation a little difficult, but we had a beer with them and had a nice chat. Our host mother spoke no Spanish so drank very quickly. Not a cheap date.

In our group (left)was myself, Beat, a Japanese guy called something like Mokita, and a guy from London called Nick. But the thing was, Nick had family in the south-west...and was a Plymouth Argyle fan! As if to prove it he had a blue Argyle t-shirt with the club crest on! Fantastic. I'd almost given up on discussing the shortcomings of Nick Chadwick while in South America. I tried with a Brazilian once but he just replied, ironically, "Who? Maradonna?" I said, "No, Nick Chadwick." He said, "I don't know this Neil Chadweh, I know Maradonna. Good player. Too many drugs." And that was that.

In the evening on the island we were made to dress in local dress (for men wool ponchos and silly hats were the fashion) and dance with the locals. It was cringeworthily touristic, if that is in fact a real phrase, but quite fun. I mastered the basic if slightly repetitive dance moves quickly and blended into the local scene.

The next day we headed to the island of Tequile, where the people speak only Aymara, another local language. Interestingly, there the man must learn to sew or he cannot get a wife. He must knit her 20 skirts or something before marriage. Also, the men wear funny hats that indicate they are single, kind like at a traffic light party in a student union.

On the way to the island, we were struck by bad seas. The boat was tossing around like a boat in bad seas. Now, I haven't got a good stomach for these things, but I managed to keep my breakfast down. The same could not be said of some other passengers. One girl went outside straight away, another had to be carried out. A French woman of about 60 threw up on herslf inside the boat! One by one we were dropping like flies. People even threw up after they got off the boat. It was a proper horror show.

On the way back to Puno I asked Bruno if I could drive the boat. The driver was on deck having his lunch. Bruno shrugged and said, "ok." He sat down, put on his headphones and closed his eyes. So I drove the boat for ten minutes, which must conflict with some kind of insurance policies or SOMETHING. It was a good ten minutes. Then we got too close to another boat and the driver came back in to take over. But he was a rubbish driver. He kept falling asleep.

After the tour we were signed off by our enigmatic guide Bruno; "My friends, for two days we have been friends, you have asked me lots of questions. Now the tour is over and we are not friends." Quite.

We stayed another day in the rat-hole of Hostal Europa in Puno. Just in case you ever go there is a good bar called something like 'Kamazariky' in Puno. Apart from that, hop around the islands and then get the hell out.

In our case we have headed to Cuzco, the former capital of the Inca Empire and now the biggest tourist city in South America after Rio, possibly. We are ther for the new year and then we will head out to see some sights in the 'Sacred Valley' and possibly even Macchupicchu, the BIGGEST sight in South America.

Happy New Year! The picture above is me and Nick with our host 'father' on Amantani. He looks happy.

Copacabana and Isla Del Sol

2006-12-31T21:15:00.000Z

Festivities take place in the small town of Copacabana, which shares it's name with that beach in Rio de Janeiro.

I SPENT Christmas in the small town of Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. We were actually in a hostal overlooking the lake. Some great sunsets (left). Titicaca means 'grey puma' in the local language. Bolivians crudely claim that out of the grand shared lake, they got the 'Titi' and Peru got the 'caca', which means, well, you can guess what it means. Copacabana is nothing special, but a nice quiet place, a good change from La Paz. But before all that, Beat and I headed to Isla del Sol, or 'Island of the Sun' for four days to check out the place and look at some piles of rocks.

The Incas believed that the first Inca, and also the very sun, moon and stars were born on the island, out of Titicaca Rock (sort of right and below-ish). That's this rock that looks (alledgedly) like a puma, and all these things emerged mysteriously out of it's mouth. Science seems to refute this creationism, but it makes for some very interesting mythology.

The Incas had a big thing for pumas. In their society (around 1100 - 1550 AD, history fans) the main animals in their mythology were snakes, representing the underworld, pumas representing this world, and condors representing the world above. How clever am I? I could be a professor of mysterious old stuff.

Titicaca Rock is set on a very scenic part of the island. This place must have held a great deal of importance for the Incas. It's a beautiful spot. You can camp on most nice spots on the island for free in fact, or stay in a hostel for little over a quid (as we did. In fact just to mention we stayed in Templo Del Sol Hostel which was run down, but had character. There we met many Germans, one of whom was a priest who had been travelling for 3 years and slapped a bus driver who mistreated his luggage. Incredible. You meet really interesting people travelling).

Opposite the 'puma' mouth is the sacrificial stone table where the Incas killed Llamas, and hopefully also people, in honour of the God's. It's a nice structure, very interesting and is also a great picnic table. It reminded me of the death of Aslan in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Very sad. But he came back to life! Just like Jesus. Strange...

Down from this place are the main ruins, Chincana (below), I believe they are called. Very impressive. We were alone so we had a nice chance to explore all the nooks and crannies and to really feel the vibe of the place. The rooms, windows and doorways are all still well preserved and laid out. Cool. It was really sunny too, which suits the name of the island. Lots of these ruins have waaaaay too many tourists around so if you get a chance to walk around them on your own it's nice. Beat had to go to the toilet , but we couldn't find the appropriate room so he went outside the ruins.

The exact purpose of these ruins is unknown (to us at least), but I believe it may have been some kind of Inca King holiday home. In fact close inspection of the earth on the ground of the ruins indicated the Incas seemed to wear size 8-10 Merrell walking boots. What an advanced society! I await a better theory from historians. Come on Robinson, get your Time Team together and tell me.

Their are some less impressive ruins on the south of the island but we had fun playing with some children, games of 'hide-and-seek' and so forth. The children here are much cuter and quieter than kids back home. I've decided I'm going to adopt an Inca child when I get back and call it something that means 'Sun Child' in an indigenious language. (A South American indegenious language, of course, not English. I don't know what 'Sun Child' is in Cornish).

The best bit of the island was walking around. True, carrying 25 kilos up a hill at 4,000 metres nearly gave me a heart attack, but it only takes 4 or 5 hours to walk the entire length of the island, with a smaller 'day' bag. Much walking on this trip, there is.

Life on the island is very different to the mainland. Less poverty, no begging, although everytime you go past some kids with a donkey or llama they instinctively adjust into a tourist friendly pose in front of it. They know exactly what you want. Then after you take the picture they run up to you shouting "pagar mi, pagar mi," ("pay me"). A fun game is to take a picture from reasonably far away, then run away from them. They can't leave their sheep so, haha, I win!

But in all seriousness I really liked the island and it was a definate highlight to the trip. Things are what you make of them and we had a really good time walking around and seeing stuff.

For Christmas I had a rubbish beef type thing in an apparently wizard themed restaurant in Copacabana, where we were waited on by a child. Children do a lot of waiting tables and general working in Bolivia. Bizarre. Children bringing and opening beers for you is an experience I can't imagine much happening in England. Beat had a squashed hamburger. He was very upset.

There are lots of hippies in Copacabana, selling all manner of nick-nacks and trinkits. Not my thing, really, although girls may be interested.

Apart from that what is there to say? We stayed in Copacabana in Hostal Leyenda, with a nice view over the lake where you can get nice shots of the sunset. We climbed up the hill next to the town to see sunset one day but it was a non-event. At least we had wine and cake to enjoy the mood of the late afternoon, and there were some good photo-ops.

La Paz

2006-12-18T15:07:00.000Z

Interesting days in the Bolivian capital as Beat and I visit the city's Coca Museum and risk our very lives on The World's Most Dangerous Road...

LA PAZ, like a drawing by a third-set art student, is nothing special to look at. It's noisey, crowded and polluted. In short, not one of my favourite cities ever. It's also at 3,600m above sea level and is kind of built on a long slope, making walking any distance uphill a real effort. The place is kind of like one big market with stalls everywhere and of course the usual people begging and the like. If someone, child or adult, offers you some chewing gum or chocolate it makes sense to help them out and buy it even if you don't want it. At least they are working and not asking for money flat out for nothing.

But it does have some good things going for it. First up was the Coca Museum, which is actually my favourite museum I've visited while I've been in South America. It was small and pokey but had loads of information and photos and models and stuff.

The museum takes you from the ancient societies of South America that chewed the coca leaf to colonialisation, where coca leaves are grown, how they affect you, how they are used, chewing technique and cocaine processing and drug addiction. All fascinating. To chew you roll some leaves into a ball and stuff them in the corner of your mouth. After 10 or 15 minutes the leaves soften and the alkaloid properties are released and you swallow the resulting juice. They taste foul, of course, but the desired affect is worth the displeasure. Coca leaves were, and still are, an integral part of the societies that live in this region of (mainly) Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.

Coca is used to cope with the high altitudes endured by the Andean people living in the mountains. There is simply less air up there (here) and chewing the leaf desensitizes you to altitude, pain, hard work, hunger, thirst, tiredness. In other words it was used extensively by the Spanish to work the natives to death. Horrible.

Even today miners in the silver city of Potosi won't go into the mines without coca and spend about 12% of their yearly income on the leaves!

The place really interested me. The more recent history of cocaine being used as an anesthetic, pain killer and even soft drink was fascinating. Coca-Cola was invented by a pharmacist in 1886 and contained caffiene and cocaine untill about 1912 or 1914. Imagine the buzz that would give you! Apparently Coca-Cola still use tons of coca leaves to flavour the drink. The 'cola' bit comes from the cola nut of Ghana, if I remember rightly. In the museum there were cool adverts and posters advertising 'Kokaine' when it was still legal, as a substance to smoke or as a remedy for toothache! Fantastic.

But the really interesting aspect of the last few days was our trip on the World's Most Dangerous Road, or 'The Death Road' as it's also known.

First, some facts. The Death Road is the teacherous pass between La Paz north to Coroico. It descends from 4,700m to 1,200m in just a length of 83 km of road. That's a drop in altitude of 3,500m! So you go from the snowy ice capped mountains down to humid tropics in just a few hours. Incredible.

It's called 'The Death Road' due to the number of accidents every year. Annually, 26 vehicles plunge over the edge of the road into the abyss on average, killing between 200-300 people. The reason for this is usualy bad/drunk drivers, terrible visability and weather conditions making the road unstable. Also, at points the road is only THREE METRES wide with no barriers, and drops of over 1,000 metres! It's really quite dramatic.

Now I know what you're thinking, this sounds kind of dangerous right? In addition to the countless vehicles that sucumb to the perils of the road every year, 9 bikers have died cycling the pass. But riding the Death Road is actually one of the biggest tourist attractions in Bolivia, and there are many different companies that offer the trip. The biggest and 'safest' companies, such as Gravity, charge about 65-75 US Dollars. Gravity in fact took out their last group on 9th December, as they state as their professional opinion that during the wet season (December-February) it is TOO DANGEROUS to take people down the road. Rubbish! Our company, El Solario, charged 35 US Dollars and said they go out all year round, rain or shine. Rock on!

And we found them to be a very good company indeed; safe, organised, friendly. The day we went out was bright and clear. Perfect. We were a group of 6 with me and Beat joined by two more Swiss, two Ozzies, our guide Christoph and driver Alberto, who has to drive The Death Road everyday. Lucky him. Beat was happy as he coud speak Swiss-German all day.

I was a little nervous before starting off. I'm no adventurer, I don't even like going on the fast rides at theme parks. This was one hell of a ride, however. The first part of the road is all (icey) asphalt but really pretty safe. It's only when you descend down into the foresty areas you can see the dangers of driving the road in poor conditions. You ride through waterfalls along gravelly, stoney surfaces. While all this is quite fun, the pinch of reality hits when you see literally loads of crosses marking places where vehicles have fallen away over the side. Occasional tires and pieces of metal come into view just below the edges of the road.

I, of course, suffer badly from vertigo. But riding takes alot of concentration. Although we stopped every so often, there's no time to caually observe the various drops beyond the road in front.

It took about 4-5 hours cycling from start to finish. The road is virtually all downhill, the few km uphill were a killer at that altitude. I was by far the slowest member of our group on the actual dangerous bits of the road, but it's not a race! You just have to go at you own pace. Rather that than end up a statistic.

The trip is advertised on the danger/adrenaline aspect but we found that the most enjoyable aspect of the day was the amazing scenery and the way you plummet from Andean cold climate, wearing jackets, gloves and trousers to the humid valleys wearing t-shirt and shorts and getting bitten by damn mosquitoes.

After the last leg of the trip we all enjoyed one of the best cold beers I've ever had. I was sweating and sore and had really had my fun by that point. Any further and the experience would have been pure endurance.

We then had a nice lunch and Alberto drove us back up the death road to La Paz, which was more nerve-wracking than cycling down as you have no control. I did NOT sit on the side of the mini-bus which overlooked the precipice. No way. When we hit asphalt again I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Although the road seems dangerous it's relatively safe to cycle. People who get hurt push their limits too far. Same goes for the drivers that fall victim to the road. You have to know what you're comfortable with and stick to that!

Of course after every such 'adventure' excursion you get a free 'I biked/survived the blah blah blah...' t-shirt. The one from El Solario was particularly bad. I don't get the sizes over here. I just got an 'Inca Kola' t-shirt that's a medium and it's bigger than my Death Road T that's an XL. "Go Figure," as our friends from the colonies would say.

They have actually just opened the new 'safe' road from La Paz to Coroico so the traffic taking on the Death Road will drop dramatically. Only buses and cars for people who live in houses and villages along the pass will still be using the road. Along with thrill-seeking tourists of course. But the number of deaths on the road will virtually drop to zero, which will actually be bad for business for biking companies. It's a funny old world.

So I am safe and sound in La Paz. I'm staying at The Adventure Brew Hostel. It's quite good; comfy, nice building, internet, dvds, book swap and they make their own 7% beer which is really quite nice, especially at 6 Bolivianos (40p) a go.

Yesterday Beat and I went for an excellent but extortioate Japanese lunch. We had fantastic sushi with soup and vegtables and other bits and bobs. However, the wine we ordered was not 40Bs but 120! Back home 8 quid for a bottle of wine in a restaurant is fine but here it makes your head spin. Still, it's nice to live like a king on the money of a pauper.

Tomorrow we head to Copacabana and the Isla Del Sol, where the Incas believed people were created by the Sun Gods, or something. We'll find out more later. Hopefully we'll be on the island for a few days then spend Christmas at a nice place overlooking Lake Titicaca.

Today I have nothing to do especially. I got the bus tickets, swapped some books, had a pancake breakfast. So all the important things taken care of. I might go to the modern art museum or the cinema. Not sure. I'd like to write more emails but have got really into this blogging and if I spend too long in an internet café my brain starts to turn to musha and I start telling people in Spanish that I don't speak English. Yeah.

Take care.

Hasta a vista.

Some more pictures from The Death Road...(including our driver, Alberto)

Our group at the end of 'The Death Road'. Six surviors out of six!

Maps

2006-12-15T20:48:00.000Z

I thought it was time for a map update. The top one shows the Bolivia journey in detail. It doesn't look like I've covered much ground in Bolivia, does it? But half of the country is in the Amazon basin, which is full of malaria, scary animals and cocaine processing plants, so I've not ventured too far into the jungle. I've taken the trouble to label just a few things of interest in the country. Perhaps it will encourage others to visit? Also, I have included a map of the whole of South America, to show The Big Picture.

PICTURES

2006-12-15T19:58:00.000Z

Sucre, Bolivia's prettiest city. An example of some colonial architecture which is evident everywhere in the city.
Getting up in Backpackers Sucre, 'fresh' for some Spanish lessons.
Ruins in Samaipata. Bunch of stones.
Beat takes five.
Me at one of the Las Cuevas waterfalls in Samaipata.
The other waterfall. Pretty nice, don't you think?
"Woah-woah-woah, mysterious girl, I want your..." That video was in a waterfall, right? If you squint hard enough you can see Peter Andre in his mid 90's heyday.
Hmmm, another little waterfall in the jungle in Villa Tunari.

This was taken just before me and Indy found the Golden Indian Head and he was crushed by a giant boulder.

Beat makes a new friend.
I think this monkey just looks really funny. Look in his eyes!
This monkey is one of the cutest things I've ever seen.
Villa Tunari at sunset...

Cochabamba

2006-12-12T16:05:00.000Z

Back up in the sky.

I'M ANNOYED. There seems to be some kind of virus on my photo memory card. Of course I can get a new one but I've loads of great pictures on there. Maybe they will be a shop that can sort it out, with some kind of anti-vral software type stuff. I'm not really very good with these things. If anyone has any ideas...

But what will happen will happen, there's nothing you can do about it. I'm in Cochabamba for a few days and there's not too much to do here. Plenty of excursions to 'pile of rocks' type ruins but my appetite for that has waned, gonna save it for a crack at Macchu Pichu. There are, however, some nice cafe/bars and Beat and I are rejecting beer these days for rum and cokes, or as they call them here, 'Cuba Libres' (Free Cuba!). Excellent.

The ride here was a pretty authentic South American journey. A long twisty trip in a squashed seat up through the lush misty mountains in the rain on a bus with sometimes two kids in one seat and people sitting in the aisles. They always say you have to travel How The Local People Travel. It's like some kind of travelling rule. It's Bad if you fly or take a comfy bus. I personally think if you can find a comfy bus you should be rewarded for ingenuity.

The city here seems pretty standard. Plaza, parks, university...oh, and a big Jesus on the hill, but I've seen one of those before. There's a big market here that we'll try to get to hopefully. We're out of the Amazon basin here. Cochabamba is around 2500-3000 metres above sea level so it's not too difficult getting around and it's cooler and less humid than the low-lands.

My camera problem has thrown up an activity for tomorrow, else I'll try to get it fixed in the capital La Paz, our next stop in a few days.

It's weird thinking about people getting ready for Christmas back home. There are a few decorations popping up here and there but otherwise it's a low key affair in Bolivia. If I were a super-organised traveller I suppose I could have cards and presents arriving back home, but unfortunately that's not me. If it was me, then I wouldn't really be me, would I? Be real to yourself. Didn't someone say that once? Think about that.

Have I any general thoughts? Not really right now. I'm a bit worried about my camera. And it's frustrating as I can see the pictures on the card on the camera screen but can't put them on a CD or upload them. Arrghhh!

I'll report back.

Villa Tunari

2006-12-12T15:46:00.000Z

Thieving monkeys and Spanish speaking parrots...

THIS IS a one-dog kind of town. Actually there are in fact several dogs, but you get the idea. Beat and I are here to see some animals in the nearby Parque Macchia. It's a place where for a reasonable fee you can volunteer to look after rescued monkeys and birds and big cats for 15 days. Beat and I do not have 15 days, so we're just wanting to have a look around.

Our plans are initially thwarted by a downpour that last abot 18 hours. We got wet. Quite wet. We are not allowed to go into the park as the animals are hiding from the rain and the trail is dangerous. So we wait. And wait. Altogether we wait for well over an hour and a half. But then we didn't have anything else to do. At least we dried off.

Eventually we were let in and we walked around seeing some birds (parrots that speak Spanish - quite strange), met some volunteers and walked through the rainforest type forest. Good walk, getting good views of Villa Tunari and the BIG river next to it and the mountains. At the end of the trail is a little cascada (another waterfall). They're everywhere, these waterfalls.

After the walk back we go to the monkey house and that really made the trip worth it. There's loads of monkeys all ages jumping on you. It's great fun. Sometimes they curl up and go to sleep on you, it's quite charming. But you have to be careful, these monkeys are mischevious and clever little things and are experts at searching your pockets, even undoing zips. I presume they were after food. I can't think what use they'd have for money. It was all going quite well, then Beat sat on the bench that I was on and it collapsed dropping us into a sandy pool of water. Wet again. But it was worth it.

We didn't get to see any of the pumas or anything. That's in the refugio part of the park where the vounteers are. It would have been cool to work at the park and look after all the animals but unfortunately time simply doesn't permit. Beat and I must move on, and get back on the road. I think that a few more months more in South America would be good, but you can't do everything and it's always possible to come back to different countries on holidays and see places you didn't see this time round.

Villa Tunari doesn't have many great restaurants but we managed to find some battered fish that I assume must have come from the river or something. We also found a bar with no-one in apart from 3 guys watching a Steven Seagal movie. I don't know which one. They're all the same. The bar had a great sloping pool table so we wracked up a few games. Needless to say I was victorious over the Swiss.

Samaipata

2006-12-12T15:22:00.000Z

More waterfalls. And are fascinating archeological sites really just a pile of stones?

THE LITTLE town of Samaipata is two and a half hours drive from Santa Cruz. Beat and I arrived here to...actually I wasn't sure what we were doing there. It was supposed to have some cool stuff. We were staying in Hostal Andorino, which served the best breakfast I've had in South America so far, fresh fruit and everything. Usually you have to make do with stale bread and dulce de leche.

We met up with another guy from Jodanga called Alan and went on a day-of-fun type excursion together. First we headed up to El Fuerte(left), which has some pre-Incan ruins. Apparently, if the badly translated info sheet is to be believed, the site dates back to 1500 years BC. BC! That's a lonnnnng time. It was used as a meeting/market type place I think. Or possibly a spiritual ceremonial site. Or maybe it was used for sacrifices. There's this European guy who thinks it was an alien landing site, but I don't think he has any infomation to back this up.

Anyway, so the site has carvings, nooks, crannies and some discovered ruins of buildings and houses. But really, when it comes down to it, it's just a pile of rocks, I think. But it was fun to walk around! And it was something interesting and cultural to do rather than watching dvds and that's important. Don't get me wrong, I think ruins and stuff are impressive and interesting, but maybe they need to be more complete to be more compelling and fascinating.

After the pile of (interesting, pre-Incan) rocks we spent the afternoon at Las Cuevas, a lovely area with two amazing waterfalls. I slipped on a slippery rock and hurt my arm but it was nothing serious. Nothing could dampen this really quite beautiful little spot. The two waterfalls are conected by a little river/stream which I walked down. Really fun, felt like a jungle explorer, especially when you leg sinks down in sand up to the knee. Bit weird. I didn't have have any swimming stuff but it was so hot that I just ran in in my shorts, which meant I was wet all the way back but it was worth it. And waterfall water is quite powerful stuff. I alsways thought I could survive falling over a waterfall but now I'm not so sure. And these were tiny waterfalls, too.

I also got quite burnt that day. But again, it was worth it. Really good day, really great scenery. Some of the rides in cars and buses here just yield the the most amazing views of valleys and stuff. Going through the hot, humid rainforesty areas you get all the mist floating through the trees and everything. It looks epic and totally cool, like you're in a documentary or something. I'm trying to underplay it all to emphasise how amazing it is. I don't know if it's working.

Santa Cruz

2006-12-12T14:44:00.000Z

I venture east into the humid tropics of the Amazon basin to see Bolivia's rischest city...and watch lots of dvds.

THE JOURNEY to the city of Santa Cruz was one of the worst trips EVER. Fifteen hours on a rickety old bus bumping up and down the whole way on scary mountain roads. Add to that the prescence of a fat man taking up half my seat and you can see I was not a happy bunny. I was also not happy that I couldn't stay in 'Busch Hostal', which I was recommended by a guy from Santa Cruz. It turned out that the hostal didn't actually exist. Which is a slight problem.

Anyway I ended up at Jodanga Hostal which was very nice so it was all good in the end. Jodanga had a pool and a big TV. Also, it had Adam, a Kiwi with a ton of 'fake' dvds of current films in cinemas. Surprisingly good quality. So during my time in the hostal we watched Scorcese's new movie The Departed and a film called The Illusionist with Ed Norton and Paul Giamatti. It is interesting that The Illusionist is out the same time as The Prestige, starring Christian 'The Professor' Bale and Michael Caine, which is also about illusionists. This happens often it seems. One studio decides to make a film about bugs or volcanoes or astoroids hitting the earth and another thinks 'great ideam we'll do that too.' Well movie/illusion fans I can report that The Prestige is the superior film. It even has REAL magic in. Although they both utilise the magic of cinema, so I guess everyone's a winner.

But what of Santa Cruz? It's a nothng city really. After Sucre it's a complete let down. Lots of beggars, and really humid. Sata Cruz is kind of on the edge of the Amazon basin so it's sticky and sweaty with lots of angry mosquitoes, so the pool in the hostal is a life saver. My left leg has been savaged by blood-sucking insects recently, it looks 'orrible.

Much of the time at Jodanga it was either too hot and humid or too wet to go out so...why not watch some more dvds? I remember watching a bit of an animated Spanish movie about an egg. Think Finding Nemo. But with eggs.

The reason for the wetness is that although it is summer here in South America it is also the rainy season. So every other day there is some kind of tropical downpour. It's cool, but sometimes annoying.

Beat (left), my new travelling buddy, arrived at the hostal a day after me. A couple of interesting points about Beat; he's a Capatin in the Swiss army (he even has a Swiss Army Knife), and he's a full time pant-wearer. To address the first point, in Switzerland they have to do military service despite the fact they haven't had a war in 140 years. They even have a navy. To address the second point he says he doesn't like boxer shorts "because you're not in control of things." I don't know exactly what that means but it amused me greatly. I cannot confirm whether wearing pants in Swtitzerland is compulsory, like the army.

One interesting happening in Santa cruz was a big protest in the main plaza one night. The President Evo Morales has had a law passed that any land not being used that is privately is to be given back to the indigenious people, who make up about half the population. The two main groups here are Quechua and Aymará, although it's very complicated. President Evo is himself an indio. People in Santa Cruz are angry about this law firstly because many people in Santa Cruz are rich and own land and secondly because you need two thirds of the vote to pass the bill and they didn't get it but the law went through anyway. South America, eh? Apparently in Bolivia they have had 40 Presidents in 50 years or something silly like that. I don't know what keeps the country running. Good luck Evo!

It's very strange the contrast of the rich living so closer with the very, very poor. Honestly, so many people here have nothing, living on the streets. But it's an education, a learning experience definately. It puts countries like Argentina into a lot of perspective.

Sucre

2006-12-04T19:00:00.000Z

I visit Bolivia's prettiest city for 10 days and try and learn some Spanish while I'm at it.

THE JOURNEY here was not pleasant. After the Salt Lake trip I came down with a touch of something I will describe as 'travellers stomach'. Interpret that as you will. I made the 10-hour overnight trip on a bus with no toilet. Great.

As I arrived into Sucre I had the hassle of trying to arrange a room at a hostel at 5.30am, which wasn't a lot of fun. However, from this dark cloud emerges a becon of light. For it transpires that Sucre is, in fact, a beautiful, charming colonial city. The hostel, Backpackers Sucre, is an olden days style 18th century type place with a courtyard, patio, trees and all the other 18th century trimmings. Best of all, for the last 10 days I've had a quiet, comfy private room with cable TV (hearing Darth Vadar dubbed into Spanish is really quite an experience) for less than three quid a night. Pretty good.

My main reason for being in Sucre was to learn some Spanish. I am a complete beginner and felt pretty stupid learning how to say the alphabet (the Spanish alphabet of course. I know the English one). It was like I'd been in a car crash, lost my memory and was having to relearn everything again like the words for chair and spoon.

But it needed to be done. Every weekday afternoon from 2.30 to 6.30 I learnt my verbs, adjectives and pronouns with my teacher Carla, a Sucre local. She was nice enough, but I never felt completely relaxed with her. Someone else said the same thing about her. Strange. The school only charged 6 dollars an hour. Three quid an hour for a tutor would be hard to find back home.

It was weird being back at school. I had a exercise book with a cartoon mouse on it. I noticed the mouse was playing basketball, which is completely implausible.

I had homework as well, which was interesting. I thought of all the hours and years wasted learning German, which is spoken only by Germany, Austria and the Swiss pretty much. Instead I could have learnt Spanish which is spoken by, pretty much the WHOLE OF CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA. And Spain of course. And a few other places for good measure. Madness.

It was intense with all this learning. I woke up one night shouting out loud, "conjugate the verb, CONJUGATE THE VERB!"

Outside of school I have been socialising with a nice group of people at the hostel here. There was Jenny from England, Sig, Mads and Mie (right) from Denmark and Patricia from Italy to name a few. Nice people. They have all since left and I have befriended a new group briefly. Importantly in this new group is a guy called Beat, a 34-year old ex-banker from Switzerland. No he really was a banker. Is. He's not sure what he'll do when he goes back home. (He speaks English as well as German!). He is going the same kind of route as me so we're going to be travelling together for the next few weeks. I'm leaving here a day earlier than him, going to Santa Cruz tonight. We've been recommended a place called Busch, but I'm not entirely convinced it exists, which would certainly make checking in problematic. Another option is Jodanga Hostel which has NO CABLE OR PRIVATE ROOMS. But it does have a pool. It's a bit pricey (almost 3.50 pounds a night) but it looks the best option.
Hopefully we'll do some day trips and then go to Cochabamba and then up to La Paz. Our aim is to spend Christmas at the town of Copacabana on Lake Titicaca, before heading to Cusco in Peru for New Year's eve. That's the plan, anyway. Things can always change. But it's a rough idea. From then on, who knows, although I fly to Sydney on Jan 22nd-ish (must check) so won't see much in Chile.

Sucre is a lovely place, 'spoilt' only by an abundance of beggars. It's simply a fact of life as Bolivia has a great amount of poverty. Walking around the city is fantastic. They have great Churches, houses and a walk up to overlook the city which is really quite splendid. There's an impressive cemetary and a park with a miniture Eiffel Tower.

It's a really nice place to spend time and I now feel fairly at home here. We've been out to different restaurants and cafès. I've discovered I have a weird ordering problem in restaurants in that if something looks unusual I have to have it. This is a good thing when you get something called 'Mondongo', a nice traditional dish, but GOD HELP YOU if you go for the 'Bolivian Surprise'. It's supposed to be the dish-of-the-week, but basically it's whatever the chef has left over; pasta, potatoes, chicken legs, and really, really HOT sauce. Not good for poorly Andy's stomach. The 'Bolivian Surprise' has now become a code word for...bad things.

Laura quizzed me on the dress over here recently. Like most young people in South America, in Bolivia the young people wear western style jeans, t-shirts, trainers and the slightly older people wear suits. But the old indio women wear crazy patterns and bowler hats and their hair in plats. I'm getting used to it but it's still pretty odd. I want to get lots of pictures but they always ask for money, so it's difficult. Hopefully I'll get some pictures up soon.

The Bolivians are very different from Argentinians. About half the population here has indigenious ancestors and they seem more passive and quieter than the Argies. I'm glad I came to Bolivia, it's a fascinating place. Really feels like real South America.

So my time in Sucre is almost up. I'm almost over my stomach thing now. Strange that in one of my favourite places I've visted I've felt the worst on the trip so far. When you feel weak and unwell everything seems like an effort. But I'm better now and I've really enjoyed it. The hostel, people, travellers, classes and everything has all been good.

On the book front I've finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Still prefere the Gene Wilder film version, and now I'm onto Freakonomics, a book about, er, freaky economics. I've also got an interesting book by a Japanese writer called Norwegian Wood. Hmmm. My reading has suffered from classes, cable and general socialising. I'll crack on now.

Right I'm off to get my bags and head off to Santa Cruz. It's only 12-15 hours.

I wonder if the bus will have a toilet?

PICTURES

2006-11-27T15:26:00.000Z

The charming little town of Tupiza, where we started the Salt lake tour.
The wild west type valleys we had to navigate through.

Michele and Lynn in the back of the Jeep.
Franklin, a boy in one of the TINY towns we stopped at.
Farmers.
Clive on a photo mission.
Ahh, lots of nice reflections abound.
A strange light blue lake. What's it called again?...
Hot springs! Relaxing.
Geisers. Dangerous to jump over.
Back a little, back a little...
Michele and Clive.
Mmm-hmm.
The bizarre 'rock tree'.
The view of our lodgings just outside the salt flats.
Our group climbing up the cactus hill.
Dinner time eating Margarete's lovely food.
Carlos getting emotional. And drunk.
We slept on salt beds.
Sunrise over the salt lake.
View from the island in the middle of the salt lake.
Dead Cactus.
A little pond. Quite salty.
The endless horizon. That's Clive in the background.
Me triumphant with a massive lump of salt.

Salar de Uyuni trip

2006-11-25T20:29:00.000Z

I've had an interesting time on a 4-day tour of the south-west of Bolivia, climaxing with the reaching of the 'Salar de Uyuni', the famous salt lake which is supposed to be one of the highlights of travelling in South America. Along the way we encountered beautiful alien landscapes, amazing scenery, altitude sickness, drunk tour guides and coca leaves...

THE TOUR does not get off to a good start. I had no money in the tiny town of Tupiza and the only way of getting cash was to get a Mastercard advance, involving commisions and interest. Fine, except the swipey stripe on my Mastercard wasn't working, so for the entire trip I was in debt to everyone for Bolivianos. I actually had a tab with Lynn.

So we got off to a late start on Monday, setting out into the nothingness at about 10am. Ours was a group of four, consisting of myself, Lynn, a Canadian stockbroker called Clive and an Italian called Michele. We also had our driver/guide Carlos and our cook, Margarete. There were two other groups leaving from Tupiza earlier that day, but we soon caught up with them as Carlos is one of the best drivers I've ever seen, which is a good thing as at some points we were driving along gravel mountain roads with no barriers or anything. I have to admit that despite the amazing scenery I felt quite nervous.

That first day we mainly drove around the mountains and stopped at some tiny little towns where they have only recently got a couple of cars to drive the 3 or 4 hours to Tupiza for supples instead of making the week-long journey on llamas. Apparently on Sundays a preist comes from Tupiza in a 4x4 truck to do services across the area.

In these small towns you really wonder what the hell these 150 or so people do, hours from anywhere in a car (and that's in the dry season when the roads are passable). I was told there is a bus. Once a week.

Llama farming seems to be a popular job. Carlos told us about a man up in the mountains with no wife, no family, just a few hundred llamas. What does he do most of the time?

When we stopped that first night I started to feel the altitude. We were at about 3,500 metres and walking around was literally a breathtaking experience. Our cook Margarete, a lovely woman, made us dinner. She served us breakfast, lunch and dinner each day, with some pretty decent food for the Bolivian desert.

The next day we awoke at 5.30am to get started. There was a huge amount of driving that day, as we didn't finish untill about 6pm that evening. During the second day we realised the Bolivian/Peruvian mix tapes that Carlos used were insufficient for our long drives, resulting in the repitition of many songs that drove me to the point of madness. One of the songs was about some people celebrating because the village cow was fat and nearly ready to eat. They were going to have a party. Because of the cow, you see.

It was around this time that it was explained to me that Coca leaves are helpful for altitude sickness. So we all started chewing and though they tasted disgusting, they did the trick. Apparently it's all to do with opening up blood vessels to allow more oxegen to get through the blood stream to the brain. Coca leaves are totally legal to buy and everyone chews them at altitude here in Bolivia. Well, not everyone, but you know what I mean. You can have them in tea, a popular drink being Coca Maté. Cool. It's nice. Quite stimulating, so I don't recommend it before bedtime.

I was quite sick that second morning, what with the motion of the truck as well as the altitude. It got better later in the day, but that was a bad few hours.

During the day we saw a cool ghost town. I don't know what it's called but back in the 1600s this town mined for silver and became so rich they went a bit mad. The story goes that the devil came to the town and soon people were building houses with wheat instead of proper cement mixture stuff, some people got married 3 times in one day and the women used llama meat to sew things instead of your typical sewing stuff like string and thread.

Then a plague came and killed them all off. And that was that. Interesting, eh?

We stopped at a hot spring for lunch and later that day we travelled up to see some geisers at 5,000 metres! It was insane. Nothing was growing up there. The geisers were impressive. I heard a story of some tourists who were JUMPING OVER the geisers as some kind of dare-based situation and a Frenchman fell in one. Stupid boy. He was burnt all up to his waist. Nasty. Some people have to learn the hard way.

The landscapes we were seeing during this trip were quite out of this world. Desolate and unforgiving terrain was crossed over many hours. I wouldn`t have liked to break down out there.

The sleeping arrangements were basic. Very basic in fact, but not horrible. I mean we didn't have showers at the first two places we stayed but still it was fine, what with the hotsprings and all. Quite refreshing.

Our third day we saw loads of lagoons with strange colours and amazing reflections and flamingoes. But more impressive were the strange rock formations we walked around a few hours later. Apparently there are little or no formations like this in the world. The famous bit is the 'rock tree' but all of it was strange and somewhat magical. Spiritual almost. These crazy rock shapes set in some kind of quasi-Marsian landscape.

There was a lot of driving that day too. Some roads that didn't even qualify as roads. Carlos did a superb job not only keeping us on the road, but keeping us ahead of the other groups, which is more important I think. In fact we lost one group, Tupiza tours, and never saw them again. I'm sure they're ok.

Our last night proved most interesting. We stayed at a lodge type place with beds and floors made from salt. We hiked for an hour up the nearby hill where we had a superb view of the salt lake and the nothingness beyond. The hill was covered with cactai. Very strange. At the top of this hill was the quietist silence I've ever heard. No wind or anything. Then I said aloud, "this is the quietist silence I've ever heard," and a great crack of thunder answered back that it was time to go. It was really surreal, like a cliche in a film. Bizarre.

At this point I feel I should explain more about the 'salt lakes'. Basically they were real pre-histric lakes that one day just dried up. Well, not one day, but it happened, ok? Anyway, left behind was this salt terrain landscape that looks completely alien. Like desert, but more bizare. Lifeless, endless, and, er, salty. Very salty in fact. I tasted it. People mine the lake for salt and refine it.

Apparently a few years ago a truck of tourists just disappeared in the slat lake. The theory being that an earthquake opened the ground and swallowed the truck then sealed up behind them. Fascinating, but chilling!

Now the really interesting bit of that last night. Drivers in Bolivia are notoriously known for being drunk. Our guy, Carlos, was completely fine. Untill that last night. We had an excellent dinner of soup, chicken, potatoes and salad prepared by Margarete. We were drinking some beer and wine and Carlos and Margarete joined us for drinks. It soon dawned on us - Carlos was wasted! We were his brothers, fathers and friends. Lynn was a potential lover untill she was downgraded to a sister. It was a deep, touching session. Carlos went on and on about how this was a great group, and I was 'muy tranquilo' (very relaxed and calm), probably because I couldn't unserstand much of what Carlos was saying. He spoke no English you see. He does speak two other indigenous languages, but that doesn't help because my Quechua is pretty rusty.

The lights stayed on past the alotted time of 10pm because Carlos claimed people knew him and were fearful of him (he is about 5'6).

Now, we all went to bed soon after as we were getting up early to see the sun rise over the salt flats. Well, not all of us. When we got up at 5am, it was apparent that Carlos had not gone to bed and had stayed up partying and drinking with some others at the complex! He was a happy camper, and we had the hilarious and strange experience of driving around this alien landscape under the rising sun, at 6am, in Bolivia, with a drunk driver who was having a party with us in his truck.

Now you might think this was somewhat irresponsible of our Carlos, but the truth is that on this salt lake there is literally nothing to hit. Someone with no arms could drive the lake. Carlos proved this by driving with his thighs for ten minutes.

At the centre of the lake is a bizarre island inhabited by more cactai which offers an amazing 360 view of the salt lake. You can see some mountains from the top but apart from that it's salt, salt, everywhere.

One of the cactai (spelling?) was 1200 years old. That's what the sign said. It was old. And really big.

So we drove around the flats as Carlos sobered up and we took loads of pictures and did that perspective photo thing where it looks like you're holding the truck in the palm of your hand. Michele took lots of those photos. In fact he took loads of pictures generally during those few days. He said he took 300 pictures over the trip time and I believe him. Everywhere we went he wanted to "make a picture." We made lots of pictures.

After a couple of other stops we were finished our trip. The last day was bitter-sweet. It was the climax to our trip but I had to say goodbye to all the guys. In Uyuni, where the trip finished, we managed to find an international ATM and I settled all my debts before boarding a rickety and bumby bus to Sucre. Clive went to La Paz with Michele and Lynn went to Buenos Aires where she has an exam sometime soon. Carlos had to drive back to Tupiza, where I imagine he went to sleep pretty fast.

I understand that this whole drunk driver thing seems a bit alarming. But Carlos was genuinely a nice guy and I think he probably got wasted at that point quite often, as he knew he could handle the drive across the salt flats. If he was drunk on those mountain roads it would, er, be quite a different story. In fact one group complained to their agency because their driver was drunk quite a bit. Obviously this is unacceptable. In fact we had a good tour company. It's an insane business these 3 or 4 day salt flat tours. We paid a bit over the odds (130 US Dollars) as there was only 4 of us in our car on the trip. Other people paid about half what we did in Uyuni, the characterless town where most tours go from. However, I think it was worth it as our tour was along a better route, we were alone more often and not in a herd of 10 or 15 cars from Uyuni and our tour was 4 days whereas some people paid 65 US Dollars for 3 days. I've heard of some bad stories from Uyuni tour groups - Drunk drivers, fallings out with drivers, only one cook per 18 people, 7 folks being squeezed into a 6 person max truck.

Sometimes it's better to pay a bit more for a trip you really belive is going to be good. I would recommend anyone going from Tupiza on this trip rather than Uyuni and going with Salar or Valle Hermoso (our group). It was a great trip and I was really happy with my group.

So now I am in Sucre, at Backpackers Sucre on Colon and Loa. It's a nice place, with nice courtyard type stuff. I have a comfy, private room with cable TV for about 2.80 pounds a night. There's another bed but even if it gets taken there'll still be loads of space. It's like being in a hotel, which is bad for socialising but great for relaxing and having some privacy.

I've been having a poorly stomach these past few days but there are far worse places to relax and take it easy after the crazy trip up to Bolivia and the following tour. Last night I watched Silence of the Lambs and Roxanne. Today I watched Shakespeare in Love. Cable is great. I've gone from watching no TV for ages to indulging completely. I've watched quite a lot of comedy shows too.

But I'm not bedridden! I've been out and about and I'll be in Sucre for a week or so as I've signed up for some Spanish lessons. Four hours a day for five days. Hopwfully I'll get some basic syntax understanding about sentence forming rather than my broken attempts like, "Hola, que tal? Quisiero, er, medicine para, er, malo, um, stomach," where I mix up English and Spanish for good measure.

This is an epic entry, and I think I'll probably add more to it later. Hopefully I should have loads of pictures up tomorrow. That's my sole thing to do tomorrow - upload pictures! Ahh, it's a hard life.

Another positive of the last couple of days is that the lovely tax people have paid me over a thousand pounds, so although I was getting a bit concerned about money I should be able to finsih my intended trip and not come home early. So it should be sometime in March I come home. That's a good 6 months away. I don't think I'd want to away to much longer on my own. It's great meeting, tripping and travelling with people but I think I'll be ready for home around March!

This salt trip has been fantastic. Good folks, good experiences, photos, stories, everything. My journey though Bolivia continues. After here I'll head to Peru for Christmas and new year, then down through Chile then flying to Sydney 20 January-ish, then after my short Australian stoppover, onto South Africa where I hope to visit a couple of old friends and meet Laura and do some travelling with her.

It's all very crazy and exciting. Suddenly time looks shorter. Days slightly more important. But I've still got a month-ish left in Bolivia, then 3-ish weeks in Peru, then, er, a bit in Chile. Then my stoppover in Oz, then Africa.

I now realise that this has not value of interest to read at all, I'm just sorting things in my head but out loud effectively.

Well, it's nice to have a bit of a plan.

I'm meeting English and French girls later, possibly for dinner, then an early night and possibly more cable! And, yes I am getting into the culture. Most of the channels are in Spanish, so you see it's all research.

Just for good measure, here's a picture of me sitting on furniture made entirely from salt.

Drop me an e-mail. Chao for now.

Journey into Bolivia

2006-11-19T20:22:00.000Z

"Borderline...feels like I'm going to lose my mind." - Madonna.

YES. BOLIVIA. I never thought I'd be here. Not on this trip. Not ever. And yet here I am, in a town a couple of hours north of the Argentina/Bolivia frontier.

The trip across has been relatively straightforward. It's kind of like this. At 12.30am I took the 6-hour bus to La Quiaca, partially having to endure the emetic Hollywood chick-flick The Perfect Man, starring Heather Locklear. I'm travelling with an American girl called Lynn. Lynn is from Michigan and has never heard of scotch eggs or jaffa cakes. Incredible. The US is a backward country, it really is.

At La Quica we walked through the immigration control and took care of all the passport document stuff. From there we caught another (more rustic) bus up to Tupiza. We were trying to get to the city Uyuni, but the buses only go every OTHER day. The jeeps and trains were booked up so we checked into Villa Hermoso Hostel. It's HI, but unlike the last place it's clean, comfy and the staff are friendly. Well, the staff were friendly in the last place but this is just nicer.

The purpose of coming up to this part of Bolivia is to tour around the Salt lakes of Uyuni. The highest and possibly biggest in the world. We wanted to go from Uyuni but got such enthusiastic feedback from people returning from the trip, from other reviews and the woman at the hostel that we're now going from here in Tupiza tomorrow at 9am. It's a 4-day tour including (reportedly good) food, accomodation, guide, transport etc. I think it's a bit more expensive than some tours in Uyuni but it's so heavily recommended I think it's a good choice. It also means we don't lose a day in a hot, cramped jeep for 6 hours getting up to Uyuni. Apparently we get to see other cool stuff like geisers an volcanoes but I don't want to think about it right now lest I build the trip up in my mind and get disappointed. No doubt I'll write a full report when I finish the trip in Uyuni and I'll try to get photos up as well.

Tupiza is like an old wild west town. Dry, dusty and with a browny beige colour scheme that may not be intentional. It's also close to the spot where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid died. I'm glad we stopped here.

Bolivia looks like it's going to be an interesting place. The older women especially wear really strange clothes. It's like stepping straight into a guidebook. I want to take pictures but don't want to seem like a stupid annoying tourist. Must be subtle. Stealth-like.

I have a pocketful of Bolivianos. It's about 15 to the pound. The hostel is only 20 Bolivianos for a nice dorm bed. That's only 1.30 in proper money. Excellent.

I'm quite excited about my trip. There's just going to be 6 of us travelling around with our guide I think, and because we're going from a less popular town to start we'll be on our own for a couple of days before we hit the salt lake and joining the other tourists. Hmmm. It's all very interesting. As we leave tomorrow I'll finish in Uyuni on Thursday so might blog it Friday and then leave for Potosi or somewhere. As ever, I'm pretty much making it up as I go along.

It's cool travelling on your own, meeting people all the time. You definately get in some interesting situations that you wouldn't if you were with a big group of friends. But I'm not one of those people that says 'travelling alone is the only way to go man'. No, every travelling scenario has it's pros and cons. Solo travelling makes you accesible, you make new friends easily because you have to talk to people. If you have an established group or long term travelling buddy it's easy to not do things as you still have someone to talk to. But then sometimes it can be lonely moving to a new place and no-one speaks good English, only Spanish or Hebrew! Likewise travelling with a friend or partner is great because of the whole 'shared experience thing' (which will be great when Laura comes out to visit me), but long-term, think of the compromises to possibly make, and the tensions that could develop. Ah, in the end it's all good experience. If you travel alone you have to be social, form groups and friendships whenever you can and go on trips with your new friends. If in a group or with a partner just be as accessible as you can, I guess.

It's nice travelling with Lynn. Despite her ignorance of classic British snack food she's a lovely girl. She's been in Buenos Aires studying for 5 months which of course is a great specific insight into a place. Living in a place is the only way to get to know somewhere really well, like I feel I did in South Africa. But you can't do that in every country you want to visit! It's best to get a mixture of experiences I think. Oh, and Lynn speaks very good Spanish. Which helps in Bolivia. Because I don't think many people here speak great English.

My last day or two in Salta were interesting. Iwent to the MAAM museum which is all about the discovery of the mummies of 3 Inca children in 1999. The children were 500 years old and the best preserved mummies, pretty much ever! There were photos, info, documentaries about it all at the museum. Apparently they were found over at 6,700 metres up an Andean mountain near Salta. They had travelled there as part of an Inca sacrifice ceremony. Crazy. Google it, it's really interesting.

My last meal in Argentina was suitably an Asado, a bbq with more meat than you can shake a stick at. What' s more when I went to pay they said "don`t worry about it." Amazing.

There were a few late nights in Salta, reminded me of being ing Buenos Aires. I liked Salta. Interesting architecture, museums, bars, and good exursions by all accounts (I didn't go on any).

Arrgghh, James Blunt is playing! You're bloody Beautiful. In a wild west town in Bolivia! He seems to seep through the tectonic plates like a disease, or maybe even like that slimey stuff from Ghostbusters 2. He has infected the planet and invaded every pore of the world. It is the end. There is NO ESCAPE!

Book update! I have just finished Kurt Vonnegut's bizarre novel Timequake. There's no plot to it. It's kind of part biog, part fiction. Very funny and strangely thought provoking. At one point in the book Vonnegut declares that he actually knows how many people in the world have lives worth living.

It's 17% apparently.

Next I'm moving onto either Charlie and The Chocolate Factory or a book about The Yorkshire Ripper, aka Pete Sutcliffe.

Right, gotta go. Will report back later in the week.

Chao.

PICTURES

2006-11-18T15:56:00.000Z

The view of Salta in northern Argentina, from San Bernardo mountain.
The cable car, or teleférico. That's how you get up there.
A statue of Saint Bernie.
The Catedral in Salta.
Some weird cocktail involving kiwi.
Claudia, a Chilean/Swedish girl. She liked that gun.
Me helping the Argies carry the flag.
I like to entertain.
Some monument in Cordoba.
Jen and Bernie on the wine tour.
Barrel aging.
Marcus and his Maté.
All smiles at the dinner table in Mendoza.
Marius assumes some cooking duties.
Astor!
Troy gets started on the Parilla.

Salta

2006-11-17T19:38:00.000Z

My dorm turns into a tropical rainforest in a nasty hostel in northern Argentina...

SALTA IS A far more interesting city to walk around than Cordoba. There's lots of old school colonial buildings, reminds me of San Telmo in Buenos Aires. It's really hot here. I don't know that temperature but it's too much for me. I've decided that the hair may have to go as well. It's just much too impractical to have this mop on top of my head. Must add about three degrees to the temperature. Now I know what Jon Bon Jovi was on about when he did that song '99º in the Shade'.

I'm staying in one of my least favourite hostels so far. No, actually it's the worst. 'Backpackers City' is a HI hostel. The only reason I decided to stay there was to meet some English-speakers who might be travelling up to Bolivia. Guess what? The place is full of Israelis and Argentinians. The place is rubbish. No relaxing areas, it feels a bit cramped, dirty, noisey. Like a traveller factory. Horrible. The worst part is that the 4-bed dorm rooms like mine have no natural ventilation or fans or anything. There is a window, but that opens up into a dort of corridor that's still indoors. Last night i opened the door and was hit with some kind of warm humidity blast. Everythig felt wet and sticky, the sheets and pillow and...everything. It was like opening your bedroom oor to find it's turned into the tropical dome from the Eden project. Also felt a bit like Jumanji, now I think about it.

Thankfully Robin Williams was nowhere to be found.

However it's not all bad. There are two other HI hostels in Salta and 'Backpacker's Home' is much better, with a nice roof top bar. I met a good group of people of varied nationalities. I'm now going up to Bolivia with an American girl called Lin. She's been studying in Buenos Aires for 5 months so her Spanish is very good. Translator!

We plan to head up to La Quiaca on Saturday about midnight, arriving early in the morning. The we need to get a train to Uyuni where we can go see these famous Bolivian salt flats, or Salar de Uyuni. It's quite exciting, and I'm quite looking forward to gettig my 15 Bolivianos to the pound (as a side note no-one believes me when I tell them that Africa wanted to have a single currency, like the Euro, called the Afro. It's true, damnit!).

Last night went out with some Argentinian students from Cordoba. Felt a bit out of place, although some of them spoke quite good English, so wasn't too bad. Some of them were quite friendly to this Espanyol-deficient gringo. Went to the bar area of Salta, but I left early at 4am, so maybe hit it again tonight.

Earlier in the day I had gone to a museum where they had some historical stuff on Salta and Argentina in general. It was all in Spanish but there were lot of pictures and photos, which was good. I've never seen any of the photos and some of them were quite cool, making an impression on me.

I then went up a little cable car up Mount San Bernardo where you can get a cool view of Salta and it's surrounding areas. Very interesting. It's not the Christ in Rio but it's a lovely view none the less.

Hot hot days

2006-11-15T21:27:00.000Z

I retreat to air-conditioned comforts as the temperature soars.

SO I'VE been in Cordoba for the last few days. It's a city remarkable in it the fact that it is so incredibly ordinary. The most notable aspect of the last few days is that I have found that the further north I go (coinciding with spring progressing to summer) the hotter it gets. The past two days the board in town said it was 38.5 degrees. My blood is too thick for this punishing environment. And it's only going to get hotter. I have sought asylem from the oppressing heat in the pleasures of the local multiplex. Sadly there has not been much to take my fancy but sitting in a cool dark room with a Pepsi and some random Latinos has been heaven.

First up I saw Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, in which Stone turns one of the most dramatic events of our lifetime into a schlocky TV melodrama with cinematic pretentions. It's fairly interesting untill the towers collapse, but then it's a just by-the-numbers rescue story with Stone cutting beween the guys trapped in the rubble and their families, explaining to us that they were VERY WORRIED. It's heart was in the right place but there wasn`t much interesting happening bewteen Cage and his trapped collegue, on account of them being pinned down by immovable slabs of concrete (which move when the characters breathed).

But the most interesting part of my World Trade Center viewing experience was when the film ran down and stopped, like you see happening in movies but not real life. It was like that bit in Gremlins 2 when Hulk Hogan yells at the projectionist to turn the movie the hell back on!

Today I saw Pulse, a Wes Craven-produced remake of a recent Japanese shocker. The film features the original themes of GHOSTS and COMPUTERS. You see the ghosts COME THROUGH THE COMPUTERS. Amazing. Can anyone stop them? Ironically the 'good guys' spend most of their time acting like the very dead things they are running away from. Because the idea is not to die, you see, although everyone looks pretty miserable anyway and you wonder if maybe it's for the best. Perhaps it would help if someone, anyone, wore something with a little colour. A little sparkle. Who knows.

The ghosts kill you by sucking the life out of you. So the characters literally give up living. After about an hour I felt I could really to relate to them (oh, how droll!). The only thing that keeps out the ghosts is red duck tape. Obviously.

Overall I think Pulse is generic, formulaic and only confirms that Wes Craven has probably got a worse 'miss-to-hit' ratio than John Carpenter, and has also contributed more than anyone to the niche of average-to-bad horror.

However, although I may mock these films, they kept me fairly entertained on days when the alternative would be to sweat copious amounts of sweat. For ages. I really like popping into the cinema to see pretty much anything on a hot, sticky afternoon. It only costs little over a pound and who knows, maybe one day I'll actually see something genuinely good.

But I haven't just been wiling away the afternoons in the cinema. Oh, no. The other day I was passing by Cordoba Zoo and I thought, why not? Six pesos later I was walking among lions and bears and the like. Well, I say 'walking among' but in truth it was more like 'stare at them lounge about in the shade with a drink'. Again, I could relate.

On the way back from the zoo I picked up some copied cds from The Beatles, Jacko and some Creedance Clearwater Revival. The guys in the shop had done some amazing work copying the song titles. On the Beatles cd I can look forward to treats such as 'I Feet Fine' and 'Get Bach'. Fantastic.

There have been a group of Swedish girls at this hostel so in the evening I've been spending time with them. They've been here soing a Red Cross project type thing that I can't quite describe. Whatever it is, they are DOING GOOD, and that's all that matters. They have been living (all of them) in a dorm with their teacher Goran, who is about 40ish. Some people might think that's weird. A male teacher sleeping in the dorm with 7 21-year old girls. Not me. I think it's perfectly fine. And if you think otherwise, well, you're obviously disturbed.

I have accompanied these Swedes out to the bar area of Cordoba where I have explored the cocktail selections. And last night we went for a nice meal where I tried to take a picture of a fish head on a fork placed stratigecally in front of the camera to create the illusion that one of the Swedish girls had a fish head instead of her own head. Actually the girl was from Chilean descent, but I don't think that makes it either more or less likely that she would have a fishhead instead of her own head. It was a Kingfish, but again, I don't think that bears much relevance at all.

I'm starting to change my eating habits from 'Malbec and steak' to 'white wine and stuff that goes with white wine'. I'm red wined out completely. Having said that, I don't know if they have anything remotely sophisticated like wine in Bolivia so maybe I should still take advantage while I can.

Anyway, all in all Cordoba hasn't been that bad. It's been hot as hell, and this hostel is really weird. But it's been interesting. Last night at the restaurant was really nice. Classy service. Nice Sauvignon Blanc. Swedes. All the things you need at a good restaurant. Oh, and I had some kind of lemon sorbet made with champagne for a dessert that I can highly recommend. Alcoholic sweets are the way forward, I believe. It came with a preposturously long spoon which of course Goran, being an eccentric Swede, wanted.

We stole it.

Cordoba

2006-11-12T14:15:00.000Z

¿Como ésta amigos?

I find myself in the city of Cordoba in the 'central north' of Argentina. Why am I here? I'm not entirely sure. I thought I'd come here before heading up to Salta, a nice northern colonial city. What was I planning to do here? What is my goal? From an overnight bus ride (with Andesmar - we watched Denzel Washington seek REVENGE in Tony Scott's derivative and predictable Man On Fire), I arrive at La Casona hostel to find it's one of those places that nobody really speaks English. I could have gone to several places where they do, but instead I end up here.

Still, I am met by Willy, who works here and who positively has friendliness seeping out of every pore. Perhaps this is too much friendliness to seep, as he brings me a coffee and talks me through (in Spanish) the entire glossy guide/photo book of Cordoba. What can I say, the guy is proud of his city. It is a shame, then, that I find absolutely nothing of interest to do here. I may be meeting up with the Swedish couple Marcus and Anna. Maybe. I think today will be a 'walk-and-take-photos' day. Maybe I'll go to the cinema. I miss it. Hopefully there will be nothing on by Tony Scott.

My last nights in Hostel Lao in Mendoza were great. I awoke to the sound of "Check out time!" directed into the dorm. I smiled as the others scrambled around to pack their belongings. My smile fades when I realise I have not booked a further night in the hostel and I positively grimace when I discover the hostel is fully, er, full. For the next two days. But fear not, friends, for the garden just happens to contain several comfy hammocks. Yes! Back in the saddle, dear boy. After initial mild trepidation I grew to love the idea so much so that when the guys at Lao (Mike and Celeste, lovely people) offered me a bed after all I was forced to turn it down.

So the last two days I've been sleeping in a hammock and lounging by the pool in 30c+ heat. When it gets too toasty, why you can jump in the pool. Yes, it's a hard life on the road sometimes. Oh, and we also cooked an amazing 'parilla' (bbq) the other night. SO much meat. It was great. We got friends and acquintences from other hostels to come round. Lovely. We had salad and everything. I don't know what was in the salad because the women made it, obviously.
Hostel Lao is definately among the best I've stayed in (La Casona probably won't figure on any such lists). Good hosts, good breakfasts, garden, pool, hammocks, good library. But I feel the key draw of the place is the dog, Astor. I've mentioned him before, but I need to again because I came close to stealing him. He's a big bundle of friendly fur. Pawing at you to pick up his stick and throw it or to play 'dog v man tug of war'. Probably the best dog ever.

The days preceding this were taken up by wine touring. I capitulated and rented a bike with some of the guys two days after trying walking and bussing around with the Swedes. There was some excellent wine, much mediocre, very little bad. I bought a few bottles over the last few days and now I feel a bit wine-d out, should there be such an expression of alcoholic exhaustion. This cycling was hard work in the sun, especially as we skipped lunch. I hope to visit some vineyards in Chile. Visit Colchagua and the like. We'll see.

This was supposed to be a really brief entry. Oh, well.

I'm progressing rapidly through Marina Lewycka's A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, which I now realise is actually different to the title I previously refered to it as. After this I either start Charlie and The Chocolate Factory or something by Kurt Vonneghan. Choices, choices. You just have so much opportunity to read out here. Get up, sit in louge or by pool, and just crack on.

I am just reading something worrying about the 'Road of Death' in Bolivia (search on the BBC website). It's between La Paz and somewhere I've never heard of. I know many people worry about mountain roads in Bolivia. Hopefully I WON'T take this one...

On an additional and completely irrelevant note, I'd like to start calling Scandinavians either 'Scandi's' or 'Navian's'. Which one is better, do you think?

Mendoza

2006-11-08T17:54:00.000Z

Wine Country! I'm making progress toward Bolivia, though still have some places I'd like to check out in Argentina first. Current stop - Mendoza.

MENDOZA. IT'S A tiny city, about 130,000 people. I arrived after an unleasant 19 hour bus journey from Bariloche. Sat next to a fat and slightly sweaty man the whole way. He was perfectly friendly, offering me biscuits and other nick-knacks, but this doesn't get around the fact he was taking up about 15-20% of my seat space.

I was travelling semi-cama, you see, rather than full cama. Less space. Little sleep. Although the whole trip wasn't totally rubbish. I found myself sucked into Eight Below, a heartwarming Disney tale of one man's (Hollywood's Paul Walker) battle to save his dogs stranded at an Antarctic research centre. It's called Eight Below because there are 8 dogs in total. And they are on Antartica, below everything else on the planet. Very clever. How do they do it? It's a fantastically difficult battle, but aided by several rescue mates, including American Pie's Jason Biggs, he manages to get to them. Along the way Walker confirms my opinion that his acting is so wooden he should really carry a warning not to smoke around him, lest he catch fire. Two of the eight dogs have already died at the end, but it's still a happy ending. So happy in fact I felt the suprising and unexplainable urge to clap. I suppressed these feelings, however, and concealed my mild euphoria (is that an oxymoron?).

I am staying at Hostel Lao in Mendoza. It's a really nice place (see right). Met up with Anna and Marcus again. We tasted some wine yesterday, although we only visited two Bodegas, most of the day taken up by travelling on buses. I might go again tomorrow and hit some different places. The fastest way to get around is actually to hire a bike, but me, Ana and Marcus agreed this seemed a bit tacky. We are, after all, wine buffs and must travel in far more classy and elegant circumstances. Like taxis or buses. Or walking of course.

Although our trip was limited, we still found a small place called Vina La Cerno. They let us try a couple of outstanding wines. We were so impressed we immediately bought their expensive
1999 Malbec Crianza which we plan to drink tonight. It was 30 pessos (about 6 quid!). Compare that to the fact we have been drinking wine at around 5 pessos. Real cheap stuff.

Had an amazing steak last night at a place called Facundo. It's a nice place, even if all the customers were gringos! I'd put the steak in my top 3 of all time. It was that good. Of course that top 3 has all been in Argentina. How can I leave this place?? Having said that, I'm getting a bit 'steaked out' right now. Sometimes you go for a meal and get the Bife de Chorizo, a 500g slab of beef. And nothing. That's it. If you don't bother ordering side dishes. Good for protein, bad for everything else.

At our Hostel they have a really cool dog called Astor. He looks like a brute but is actually the softest dog I've ever met. He wants to play all the time. His favourite game involves dropping his stick and pretending he doesn't know where it is so you pick it up...and then he tries to grab it from you! Clever. It's no wonder Paul Walker wanted to save his dogs so bad in Eight Below, they can be great friends. He's only one year old and he never gets tired. Very cool dog. I want one.

Mendoza is an interesting place. What is amazing me at the moment is that the kids school uniforms are white cotton type coats that you'd expect a doctor or maybe a butcher to wear. Impractical and unsightly. Mental.

I've got maybe a few more days here then will head up to Cordoba. I don't know if there is anything there. Apparently there's a Condor coloney. I thought they were extinct. That's what Richard Attenborough said in Jurassic Park. Or did he? I'm not sure.

Then I think it's up to Salta. That's the plan. We'll see.

I read a really good novella called The Hawkline Monster by Richard Brautigan. It's a Gothic Western, and it gave me a good idea for a novel of my own in that kind of strange genre. I don't know if I can write out here, or if I have to wait to come home, but I think it's a good idea. Next up I think I'm reading A Short History of Tractors In The Ukraine by that woman who is a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University where I studied. Apparently it's quite good. That's what the quotes on it say.

Also I must tell you all of one other thing that I think is amazing. At Bariloche in the Lake District of Argentina is a hostel called La Morada. It's high up on a mountain overlooking the lakes and National Park. There seems to be some kind of cult going on their. The owner is a man of around 50ish, a beardy super-good chess player. He has never lost a game to a traveller. Once he said, without a hint of irony, "I am the best chess player in the world." This guy has a strange relationship with two women at the hostel. One of them is about 35 and they seem to be together. But he also seems to be in a relationship with a younger woman who he refers to as his 'daughter'. She works there and does EVERYTHING for him. Cooks all his meals. Even pours his wine. She cleans all day. Apparently she came there for a two day stay...three YEARS ago. And has never left. It's like some kind of strange cult. Like if you stay you can't get out.

On the reception wall is a sign that says - 'If you would like to leave please tell us 24 hours in advance and we will discuss it'.

DISCUSS IT!

Urgh, this has left me fascinated, but chilled. To lighten the mood here is a South Park caricture that Neil has drawn of me.

Adios for now.

The Lake District

2006-11-05T19:10:00.000Z

Mountains, lakes, forests, treks, chocolates and...gnomes?

OK, IN MY HEAD I'm trying to recap. It's been a busy week or so. I left Puerto Madryn with the bus company Mar Y Valle. Not Mary Valle, as I thought it was written (very confusing asking Argentines were Mary Valle was). Anyway after another cool trip, marred only by watching a generic American thriller in Spanish, I arrived in El Bolson, which lies in a lovely picturesque valley (albeit with no phone signal).

This place has an alternative feel to it and is a bit of a hippie town. It was Argentina's first non-nuclear town and is allegedly near one of the world's 'energy centres'. I don't know what that means but the place is cool. Quite a few dreadlocks in evidence. El Bolson is also known for knomes. Very bizarre. Many of the carfts here are strange depictions of goblin-like creatures. Not sure where this originated but I liked it, especially the amazing chess set with the pieces as, yep, knomes. I also have to say that El Bolson is the first place I’ve seen so far that has loads of stereotypical Argentines with mullets, flat caps, bandanas around their necks, leather coats and boots. Some of them even had oxen pulling those carts behind them. Excellent.

While getting off the bus I met a travelling couple that told me the cheapo place I had booked that night was waaay out of town and that the taxi would be expensive. Hmmm. So I had to look for a new place. This couple told me about a guy who was letting them stay in his out house for 6 pessos a night. That's about 1 pound, practically nothing, so I asked to be taken to this place. It was 5 minutes out of town. The guy was called Enrique. Lovely chap. Although I was impressed by this makeshift dorm/shed he had constructed I decided to go a bit more upmarket, mostly at the thought of the freezing wind which may well have been extremely unpleasant and possibly deadly at night.

So I hit the tourist information. I remembered an Australian in Puerto Madryn had told me of a small place called la Casa del Viajero, so I enquired. Fifteen minutes later I was in the car with Agustin and his family on route to their hostel. I think this place has been my favourite place I've stayed in the trip so far. I'm really going off Hosteling International places. They’re big, a bit impersonal and the staff generally don't take too much of an interest. At la Casa del Viajero you felt like you were staying with the family. The Porro's (the family) have two cabins in their garden which can sleep about 8 people in each. Maximum. Fantastically rustic, charming and full of character, it was a lovely place to just do nothing and lay about reading in a hammock or chatting to fellow arrivals over some recently brewed Maté. Nice gardens too. And they had a chicken coup.

On the Saturday I arrived it rained most of the day so that was a stay-at-home day. On Monday, I asked Agustin about walks to do around El Bolson. Now, let me tell you a little bit about Agustin. He's a bit of an old hippie who now runs a hostel and makes craft stuff for El Bolson's famous craft market. He makes belts, hats and other nick-knacks, and has hand drawn maps of places you can go in El Bolson. I love these maps because they look kind of like something you would draw as a child with your friends to locate treasure, which would probably turn out to be your He-Man toys. It had things like, 'go around the big stone' and 'go over the hanging bridge'. Brilliant.

So I followed this map, which apparently lead the way to the 'Caza del Indio', a stone that's been eroded away to form the shape of an old Indian head. It was supposed to be a simple 3 hour trek. But halfway around, near the ‘little river’ but before the ‘waterfall’ the trail ran dead. Confused I took off my shoes and socks and went around the big rock and into the water. I caught sight of what I thought was a trail leading upwards and on the map it said 'up' so I climbed. And climbed, and climbed. It was exhausting. The trail ran dead again. I was lost.

I did what I had to do. I walked and walked and eventually found a new trail. It wasn't the one I was supposed to be on but I did find a cool look-out balcony and got some good pictures. I got back to la Casa del Viajero about 4 hours after I set off. Agustin found this experience amusing. He said, "You must go again tomorrow." No way, Jose. I didn't and I never saw the Indian head, but no big deal. The same thing happened to two American girls. They got lost the same way. Although they took ages and managed to find the Indian eventually. I think the thing about getting lost is sometimes it's more of an adventure than going the right way. It's a good way of thinking about things, you know? Like, what's more fun, getting somewhere on time or the bus breaking down and something weird happening? Exactly.

Around this time two Scandanavian couples arrived at the cabin. Between them they had Sweden, Denmark and Norway represented. Impressive. Very nice people, we had a couple of good Maté sessions and shared quite a bit of wine, and also watched some of Coffee and Cigarettes which I forgot has some great episodes. Marcus found those few days a Maté breakthrough, as did I. We now both own our own Maté holders and straws (made from cane!). I have run into the Swedish couple (Marcus and Anna) at Bariloche, and I think I might see them at Mendoza as well.

The next day I went with the Scandanavians to Lake Puelo and the day after that I attempted to climb Mount Piltriquitron, which stands at 2,600 metres, approximately. A strange trek. It's a 14km climb to the Bosque Tallado, or carved forrest, which features strange sculptures. From there it's another few kms to the top. I began with the greatest enthusiasm. But after 4km or so going very steeply uphill I felt like giving up. It was hard going.

Then a light came out from the clouds up over the mountain, basking sun upon the whole valley. I’ve never seen so much basking. And it was if God was telling me to keep going. So I did. For 10 minutes, then I realised I was actually going to have a heart attack, so I walked back 4km and got a taxi to the Bosque Tallado.

From the taxi drop-off it's still a hard 45 minute climb up to the forrest, which was actually pretty cool, although I had to stop for ages to get my breath back. It's magical. There's 31 sculptures and I got about half of them on camera. Some of them were very interesting, disturbing even. Fascinating and chilling, one could say. They were all in a kind of woody-brown colour apart from one, which was light green. This was chilling as it reminded me of that bit in Return To Oz where Dorothy is in the Knome King's mountain and she has to identify the emerald in his jewel collection or everyone is turned into a statue FOREVER. This film terrified me as both child and adult, and alone on the mountain it gave me the willies once again. If you haven't seen the film, DON'T. It's the scariest thing ever.

I touched the green statue, subconsciously afraid I would become one myself. Actually…what if the sculptures where all originally people? Some of them look reeeaaally weird. Where’s Tick-Tock when you need him?

Climbing further up I reached the refugio on the mountain where I stayed the night, but not before I did some trekking on the mountain. Getting to the summit proved impossible, what with the wind and hail and all, but it was still a good experience, if a little frightening worrying about falling through ice. Luckily I had my trusty walking stick to test the depth of the snow. Very useful. Oh, and it was COLD.

At the refugio a guy called Santiago was working on his own. Bizarre. He's up there on the mountain day after day. I'm suprised he doesn't go mad. But he's a nice guy and makes a mean café con leche. At the refugio I slept on a mattress on the floor upstairs. There was also an Argentinian family there and they offered me the best Maté I've ever had. Which was nice.

The next day I headed down the mountain, a 3 hour trip back to the hostel. By the end my legs felt like big bags of corned beef that some had had a violent disagreement with. Rest was needed.

The Scandanavians had since departed but I befriended some American girls in the other cabin who made us all some kind of lentil based soup, which was really very lovely. Deep conversations that night if I remember rightly. I think we broke up for the night round about artificial intelligence. ‘Stop messing around with things!’ That was my message on that topic. I mean right now we control the machines. I’ve seen Terminator and I, Robot. I know what can happen. What are scientists stupid or something? If I had to trust a ‘scientist’ or James Cameron over artificial intelligence I think I know who I’d pick. And I think you do too.

And so it passed that on Thursday I made the beautiful 2 hour trip north to Bariloche, also in the Lake District - the Nahuel Huapi National Park to be exact. Here at Bariloche I’ve been at Hostel 1004. It’s cool, you go up a lift in a normal apartment building in town and go to the end of the corridor on the 10th floor. It’s merely marked ‘1004’, not hostel type signs or anything. You ring the bell and step through into an amazing hostel like it’s some kind of tardis. I really like it here. Amazing view (right). There’s something about the living room here that encourages people to be social. I’ve met some nice people and I think I’ll see some of them again in Mendoza, where I’m going tomorrow.

It was a nice surprise to bump into David and Gretchen from Puerto Madryn. Although Thursday descended into madness as David, myself and a Colombian guy called Rodrigo went in search of a bar after the hostel kind of closes down at 2am. We were in a quasi-Irish pub for a while then that closed and we tried to get into a casino but were denied on charges of inebriation! Confusing times getting back to the hostel only to find the next day a complete write off with killer hangover, although not like the old days. But still bad, you know? The mixture of cheap boxed red wine and fizzy beer was, in retrospect, not the best plan ever.

Recovery. Yesterday I did the ‘7 lakes’ tour of this beautiful lake district I find myself in with two Spanish guys, Javier and Jorge (left). We rented a car. I, as I have made evident, am deficient in Espanyol, and Javier and Jorge don’t have brilliant English, but somehow we got by okay. The Lake District here is really quite beautiful, although I'm sure you could say the same of New Zealand, Austria or even in the north of England in Cumbria. But I'm not used to all this amazing scenery so I've really enjoyed it.

Lots of lovely pictures of lakes and forests and mountains were captured and we went out for a meal with some guys in the hostel in the evening before going back to the Irish pub! Arrgghh! Bad memories. Actually, scrub that, I have no memories apart from swaying to the toilets like an inexperienced sailor at sea. Nasty. Not been like that in a while. All shall be quiet on the alcohol front until Mendoza. Then – wine tours! Yes, I must taste some of the best Malbecs and Sauvignon Blancs in South America. Maybe I’ll get drunk and phone up Direct Wines viscerally praising the plumy flavours and soft tannins of a good Merlot I’m ‘sampling’, and demanding they buy a boatload of it. I can see it happening.

Yes, it’s been a strange week. Meeting interesting people like Rodrigo (right), who says I can stay with him in Bogota anytime I go to Colombia! And the guys at La Casa del Viajero before that were great to meet.

There's something weird going on with my chin in this picture, though I'm not sure exactly what.

I’ve not been on the old email for a while and find my inbox fuller than a bottle bank in January. I must write. Reply. And book a hostel for Mendoza. I’m heading out there tomorrow. 12.30pm departure. Semi-cama. A nineteen hour trip, bus fans! I’m hoping for a good film this time, but not holding my breath. It’ll probably be Miss Congeniality 2: Full Throttle, or whatever it’s called. In Spanish.

I intend to be fully stocked with music and literature. Which reminds me, I’m just finishing Will Self’s debut The Quantity Theory of Insanity. It’s good. Not a novel but 5 or 6 short stories. He’s not too great on plots, but it’s really well written, and very amusing. Also it looks almost like a science book, which makes me feel clever as I try and make the cover clear to any passers-by. After that I have a short book to read that I forget the title of but is billed as a ‘Gothic Western’. Fantastic.

That’s possibly the best genre ever, I don’t know. No, it is…surely?

PICTURES

2006-11-05T16:54:00.000Z

Great grammar at the Sea Lion place at Peninsula Valdes.
Claudio, who works at Los Choiques Hostel. Lovely guy.
James, very excited by a book on the Peninsula.
The view from the hostel at El Bolson.
Look at the sign. Look at the name...!
Not everything in Argentina tastes nice, and the shops acknowledge this.
El Bolson from up Mount Piltriquitron.
The Scandanavians! Anna, Maurice, Ann and Marcus.
La Casa del Viajero. Just like home.
A late night Maté session at La Casa.
Ana's not a massive fan.
Er, the Maté.
¿Which way?
The Carved forest. Spooky.
Odd.
Disturbing.
Just weird.
Hmm...
Return To Oz!
Santiago, at the Refugio on the mountain.
Me (looking a bit fat - it's the light!) and Agustin!
The American girls at La Casa.

Yeah, really arty isn't it? It's one of the lakes in Nahuel Huapi National Park.
Me, Jorge and Javier at Lake Espejo.
More lakes and mountains.
Some more.
Yeah, it's pretty much the same, but still really beautiful.

Relaxing in some Irish type bar in Bariloche.

Puerto Madryn

2006-10-27T20:43:00.000Z

Whales, seals and sea-sickness...

THERE'S ONLY one real reason to come to Puerto Madryn - to visit the Peninsula Valdes, which hosts some cool wildlife. It is for that reason I have found myself at Los Choiques Hostel ('The Ostrich', I think).

My day trip starts at 8am. It's an early start for me after Buenos Aires, and I'm still digesting a weird pizza I had last night. The guys on my trip (a little mini-bus of us - oh, being a tourist!) seem pretty cool. Maria, our guide, immediately starts quizzing us on our wildlife knowledge of the Valdes Peninsula. She then finds out our names and asks us what someone else is called. Cruel. A hungover fellow from England called David struggles with Maria´s questions, although he gets his own name correct. David is one half of a couple with an American woman called Gretchen. They are good people and let me befriend them for the day, which is nice as the 12 other people in my group, including David and Gretchen, are COUPLES. I learn that David and Gretchen are in fact fishermen, or fisherpersons, who work out of Seattle. They have done some varied travelling before including an overland trip in Africa which sounds interesting.

The Peninsula Valdes is home to several different species that go there every year to breed. First up for us is some whale watching. The Southern right whale is a curious creature and does not seem to mind a boat of people moseying up to them while they try to get some breeding done. This was a pretty incredible experience. The whales come right up to the boat and we can get really close to them while they're, er, courting with each other. My pictures weren't particularly brilliant, to be honest, but it's again one of those things where pictures don't quite do the situation justice.

I was enjoying it all very much until about 20 minutes from the end of the trip. We'd been out about 45 minutes and the boat was VERY choppy. I began to feel the feeling of one who feels very sick. Initially I thought I had it under control. But I didn't. I ran to the back of the boat to release unto the sea my breakfast, which included some nice pastries. A middle-aged woman patted my arm in a sweet way. I told her I'd eaten a bad sandwich. She nodded. She understood.

After the whales we drove for a bit to see some penguins and elephant seals. The penguins really don't seem to care about people being around and just go on doing their thing, waddling around. They really are very funny when they walk around. They live on the beach this time of year and have little houses in the hard sand that they emerge from and disappear into. The elephant seals are pretty cool, although in my pictures it just looks like I've been taking photos of slugs in a sandbox. Elephant seals also move around in an amusing way , a bit like fat, drunk snakes trying to get into bed. We didn't see any Orca whales on this day but I am told that Orcas do hunt seals and pick off the babies. I remember Attenborough narrating just such a scene on Blue Planet. I mean, Free Willy was cool and everything, but Orcas are cruel creatures, in Blue Planet they were throwing a seal's carcass between them like some KIND OF GAME. No shame, those Orcas. They make me sick. I Had a nice lunch at a restaurant nearby.

It was then time to see some sea lions, who as it turns out, aren't actually related to lions at all! Again, they are high on the cute-animal-o-meter, right up there with penguins and baby polar bears. Again, they were cool, but don't really do much. All the seals we saw today were kind of sun bathing on the beach, occasionally wriggling down to the water to cool down. Why weren't they fighting for the attention of females as they were suppsed to? Never mind, still good stuff.

All in all, a good day, despite the sickness. Speaking of sickness, I am quite hungover as I write this. I met up with James again, who is in Puerto Madryn before going to El Calafate to see glaciers. We went out with an ozzie and a nice girl from Scotland. I felt ok, but I think we had super-strength caprinhas and I got back at 4am. I haven't been sick, but I feel quite unusual. I have a bus ride to El Bolson in 3 hours. It's gonna be tough, especially as I have elected for Comun, the lowest class of bus, just to try it out. When I get to El Bolson there are a number of places that are good that I might stay in for my second night onwards, but my first day I amstaying at a lodge type hostel which is only 10 pessos a night. That's one pound eighty. Practically free, so I'm not expecting luxury. We'll see.

The hostel I'm in in Puerto Madryn is small but nice. Everyone here seems to stay at the HI hostel, El Gaulicho or something, but this joint is ok. Comfy beds. And nice staff. I have befriended Claudio who is one of the guys who works here. He has taught me much about Maté and I even made dinner the other night. Crazy. Also, I am the only person here whose first language is English, which is interesting!

Right, I may add more later, but right now I need a lie down and then get some food for the bus trip. 13 hours. I don't think there will be bingo or red wine on this journey.

Oh, and here is a map of Peninsula Valdes. The sizes of the animal drawings are not accurate.

Buses in Argentina

2006-10-27T20:25:00.000Z

The long, empty road...

I'D LIKE to do an entry about transport in South America. The distances here are unreal. Maybe if you come from, or have spent a lot of time in the US or Australia you'd used to it. But then I imagine there most distances of note are covered by plane. Not here. Here it's the open road, as Britain's third best songsmith Gary Barlow once sang about.

Travellers think nothing of 10, 20, even 30 hour bus journeys. Literally living on a bus for a couple of days. The longest one I've heard of is 56 hours from Rio de Janeiro to Santiago. That crosses the entire continent. Madness. Who travels on these trips? I wonder what is the longest bus journey you can do, with no stops or changes. I'm going to look into a Santiago to Los Angeles bus. I estimate it would take about 200 hours. Which sounds like insanity personified but think - that passes through over a dozen countries. That's a lot of stamps.

But back to reality, so much as I've been calling it these past few weeks. My bus to Puerto Madryn from Buenos Aires left at 7.30pm on Monday night. I got a taxi with a nice canadian guy called Rob to the bus station. I panic and begin to perspire heavily when I try to get on the wrong bus. Do I want to go to Mendoza? Not today. Where is my bus? Finally it arrives. My company is Andesmar. A group of good reputation, although James tells me they serve rubbish food. But more of that later. First a goodbye to Rob, who is going to Puerto Iguacu (where the National Park and waterfalls are). His is also a 16-18 hour journey. I estimate that within 24 hours we'll be over 2,000 km away from each other, as we are going in opposite directions. In Argentina there are 4 classes of bus transport; Executive, Cama (bed), Semi-Cama and Comun. Executive is for business men and the like. Most travellers and normal people get cama or semi-cama buses.

My bus with Andesmar is semi-cama, meaning the seat reclines most of the way in order for you to get some sleep. I've heard a lot about buses in Argentina, that they are part of the fun of travelling. I thought the buses in Brazil were pretty good, as they have a similar type of system. Well, when I get on my Andesmar semi-cama I am immediately pleased - I have the best seat on the bus. The top tier of the bus has two seats on the left of the aisle and one on the other. I have the single seat AT THE FRONT OF THE BUS. I used to be happy getting that view on the bus to school or into town. Now I have it for 16 whole hours. Excellent. Good start.

I have been suffering from a bit of a cold for a few days and am pleased to notice blankets and pillows on the seat and a passable airplane style meal is served by a man Julian calls a 'feederplayer'. He is called this as his job is not to drive or navigate or anything, but to give you food and play dvds. Speaking of dvds, our 'feederplayer' puts on Mr and Mrs. Smith. Which is technically brilliant but the emotional centre of the film between Pitt and Jolie leaves me cold, and I make a mental note to join Team Aniston as soon as possible.

I read for a time. My latest is I Flew For The Fuhrer, a diary of German WW2 fighter pilot Heinz Knoke. Interesting stuff. He shot down about 52 enemy planes. In the book, one German pilot remarks that "swearing is the laxative that purges the soul." It's an amazing line. Unfortunately the pilot dies shortly afterwards, shot down by 'Tommy', thus robbing us of any other philosophical gems.

After dinner, our feederplayer brings round some vino. Intrigued I forgo my usual travelling beverage of Coca-Cola for a glass (or cup) of lovely, ice-cold RED wine. On first taste I am shocked. But, you know, it wasn't actually too bad. Around 12ish sleep descends over me like some kind of comfy blanket - courtesy of Andesmar no doubt! I wake. I feel like I've been asleep for ages. It must be midday. I check my watch. 7.33am. Twelve hours since departure. Still a way to go. Breakfast is merely some crackers and biscuits. Dissapointed, I glare at my feederplayer, who shies away, probably from the shame of the rubbish breakfast. He then further dissapoints me by putting on a boring war film starring Clint Eastwood, who doesn't even kill anyone that I saw. Rubbish.

I open the curtains to my makeshift bedroom to admire the scenery. I am met by complete nothingness on all sides. Just wide, open grassy plains. This means one thing - we have arrived in Patagonia! When a truck goes by it is a mini event, met with waves from our driver. The view remains the same for the rest of the journey. Shortly before the end of the trip, another event famous among travellers with tales of this company - the Andesmar bingo! Everyone ticking off the numbers down that our feederplayer reads out. In Spanish. I didn't win, so I don't know the prize. More crackers, possibly. Still, I make a mental note to suggest it, when I get back, to National Express whose lack of bingo on their buses is all too apparent.

Finally, around 1.30pm we arrive into Puerto Madryn. Collect bags. Grab taxi. Arrive at hostel.

And that's a note about buses in Argentina, although I intend to try out the (possibly very uncomfortable) Comun buses soon, just to see. Also I'm sure Bolivia will involve many buses with chickens and people sleeping in aisles and such so I wouldn't like to say Andesmar are indicative of all South American buses.

Anyway. That's all about buses for now. I'd just like to make an additional note that someone left some converse trainers in a dorm room I was staying in. From the look of them I'd say they were aged between 6 and 8 months. Coincidently they were size 10. My size, fate! I've been wearing them although this brings up my footwear count to FIVE, which is probably more shoes than I've ever actually had in my life. May have to leave them. Maybe that is what has been happening to them . Maybe they have been all over the world, constantly rejected for durable Merrells. Excitement and fun versus durability and reliability. A metaphor for relationships maybe? Except I don't know anyone making this kind of decision who has three OTHER pairs of 'shoes'.

Colonia, Uruguay

2006-10-26T18:26:00.000Z

Last few days in Buenos Aires and I have an idea which leads to a new stamp in the passport. Not an original idea, but an interesting one nonetheless.

OK, I WAS in Buenos Aires when thinking of things to do and it hit me - day trip to Uruguay! I had been enjoying BA very much but was tiring of staying out or up til 5, 6 or 7 in the morning (as is normal in the city). This leads to sleeping in til 1,2 or 3 afternoon. Bad pattern to be in. I wanted to have a good, constructive day. So, for $117 (pessos) I took the 'Buquebus' ferry for the 3 hour trip across the Rio de la Plata to Uruguay.

Nobody much goes to Uruguay, and it's a shame. They are friendly people and have some beautiful coastline. If I had time again I would have gone for a few days and worked my up to the capital, Montevideo, and back again. Alas, I had only a few hours in the city of Colonia, and I had to make the most of it.

My transport, the Buquebus, is a glorified floating brick (albeit a very comfortable brick). I half-suspected swimming would have been a quicker option. But no matter. By 8.30am I had been stamped out of Argentina and into Uruguay. At least I hoped it was Uruguay, I couldn't make out the stamp perfectly. It was fine though, and I really quite enjoyed relaxing back in the seats as we took off. It felt like we were flying toward the sun, lying back in those seats. Maybe this is how planet Earth will ultimately end, J. G. Ballard-style with hundreds of Buquebuses taking of towards new Colonia's in space. It would be cool. Especially if you got an interplanetary stamp.

We arrived at noon and after much confusion over what bus to get on and where to go I found myself onto the English speaking tour. Colonia has a lovely historical quarter where it's nice to take a stroll around town. I was shown the most famous street in Uruguay. Why was it so famous? I have no idea.

A pecularity of the day was bumping into Brad, a guy I met in the Pantanal in Brazil. Bizarre. He had been working his way down from Montevideo. It is always a nice surprise to see a familiar face. Sadly, I couldn't stay to talk with him for very long before being forced to go, lest my tour bus leave without me.

On the tour I met one of the coolest stereotypes so far on my travels. A bulky, friendly American shook hands with me. I was relly hoping he was called Bob or Chad. He said, "Hello, there Andrew, my name's Chuck." Even better. Chuck was from Arkansas and works with cattle. He was in his fifties at a guess and he just fancied seeing a bit more of the world I think. Cool.

Colonia is a nice place, but where we were it was a bit saturated by tourists. I must include myself in that number, I suppose. So I shouldn't complain too much!

At the end of the 3 hour ferry ride back, we arrived back into Buenos Aires at night. It's a beautiful city lit up in darkness and it felt quite special to see it. People took pictures. Maybe they knew that the photos would never come out in the dark. Maybe they didn't care.

I left Buenos Aires after 10 days. I never really took to the Milhouse Hostel. I'd been hanging out quite a bit with James and an Irish guy called Steve at Estoril Hostel and I think I'd spent more time there after I left than when I was staying there! The Milhouse was fine, I just felt more at home at Estoril. At Milhouse, you have to party, party, party at night. Sometimes it's an effort to try to meet new people every night when it's a bit noisy and everyone's going ker-azy. Also I think when a hostel has a reputation for being a 'party hostel it can attract a, er, 'special' crowd. Most of the people I met were nice, but you know when you just can't be bothered with some people? I think I' recommend Estoril to anyone staying in BA. It's nice, clean, warming, friendly staff, good location. Lot's of pluses.

Anyway, Buenos Aires was really good. restaurants, cafés, parks, football, some nice people. It is a fast, chic city, but somewhere it's easy to slow down the pace, especially on a Sunday. On Sunday I had a lovely day firsty walking around the antique market in San Telmo, one of the older barrios (neighbourhood's) in the city and walking around La Boca, seeing the famous colourful house on Caminito Street. The houses were an idea by, er, some guy at...some point in history. I'm not exactly sure. It's in my Lonely Planet but I've forgotten. Google it. It was cool, but still saturated by tourists and locals just trying to sell you things. I prefered just walking to San Telmo through La Boca. At night I imagine it's quite dangerous but on a sunny afternoon it felt fine. San Telmo and La Boca are areas of the city where the upper classes moved away from after the cholera or yellowfever outbreak in 18something (again, Google). This means that this areas still have original colonial architecture from the olden days, except it's all run down and crmbling. Still, looks cool and has loads of character.

I think I went to a couple of really good places for steaks. I think the city, and probably Argentina as a whole, deserves it's reputation as an amazing place for meat. Some people say this is because of the fertile soil of the Pampas where the cattle graze and the lack of intensive farming. But I prefere to believe the 'Happy Cow' theory, which states that a content cow ambling around grazing in plenty of space and with lots of freedom to roam makes a better steak. So basically happy cow = tasty meat. There's no scientic support to empirically validate this idea. Not yet at least. But it' s the theory I like.

So it´s goodbye to Buenos Aires, and onto Puerto Madryn to see some wildlife at Penninsula Valdes. First, of course, a 16 hour bus trip.

Maps

2006-10-23T18:32:00.000Z

It´s just like Indiana Jones. Kind of.

I HAVE decided to draw a map to show where I´m at. I have included a South America map, and also a world map to get the 'Big Picture'. For extra detail, I have included a key to show different modes of transport, although I don´t know if I´ll be going on many boat trips, to be honest. Oh, and just to get some perspective, one tiny little orange line is a mammoth 20 hour bus journey.

PICTURES

2006-10-20T21:38:00.000Z

A street mural of one of Argentina's two BIG clubs, Boca Juniors, in the run down area of La Boca. This is the team Maradonna played for and he goes to watch them frequently. Apparently he acts like a cheerleader winding up the crowd. I couldn't see if he was in his box when we went to watch Boca v Newells.

The colourful houses on Caminito Street, La Boca.

More colourful houses.

A wedding or something at a nice Buenos Aires church. Night, obviously.

Some local boho looking youths enjoying some Maté and a chinwag. Colonia, Uruguay.

Ahhh. Late afternoon at a beach in Colonia.

The area of Rio de la Plata separating Uruguay and Argentina. Zoom in for a geography lesson! But bare in mind that this is merely a tiled picture, drawn by an artist, not an educated person.

The Sunset over Uruguay. Or Argentina, I'm not sure. Anyway, it's on the Buquebus.

The living room at Estoril Hostel. That's Irish Steve on the right, with James lurking behind him.

Well, at least they're honest. An upmarket shop, near the Milhouse Hostel. Also, is it me or does the man in the car in the foreground look like a computer avatar?

A lovely fountain on Av 9 de Julio. It's near a café I had pizza in at 5.30am. Very cool. The fountain I mean. Although pizza in a café at half 5 in the morning is also cool.

The Congress building 5 minutes from my hostel on Av. de Mayo.

Centre of the Plaza de Mayo.

Catedral on Plaza de Mayo.

Casa Rosada on Plaza de Mayo. This is where Eva Peron did her famous rallying in the 1940´s. It is also the president´s building and was painted pink to try and symbolically apease the two rival fraction parties (whose names I forget) but whose colours were red and white. Making pink, you see?

Museum on Plaza de Mayo. Bet it´s got lots of lovely art in it.

Eva Peron´s family masoleum in Recoleta Cemetary. Evita is buried 7 metres down under concrete to stop people stealing her remains!

Someone else´s masoleum.

Me and Cesar, the Brazilian bear, in our dorm at Estoril hostel.

Me with Michael and Anat at Estoril.

Buenos Aires

2006-10-18T23:57:00.000Z

After almost a month in Brazil I make it to Argentina.

IT TOOK A total of 9 hours including a taxi, plane, bus and taxi again, but finally I made it to the ´city of good wind`, as Buenos Aires may or may not translate to. Panic ensued at the Airport. Flight 247 from Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires contained a school hockey team, unaccompanied children, a man afraid of flying and a honeymooning couple. Every disaster movie I´d ever watched told me this meant only one thing - snakes on the plane!

Deep breath. I calmed down. Checked in. Got ON the plane. Thankfully it was completely safe. In the end I´m not even sure there were any snakes on the plane. In-flight I watched Hollywood´s Jennifer Aniston in The Break-Up, which was enjoyable, but still pretty average.

I have been staying at Hostel Estoril. It´s top rated on www.hostelworld.com and I can see why. It´s clean, comfy, and has a lovely colour scheme that emphasises WARMTH. Mine is a 6-bed dorm and I have been sharing with a collection of interesting characters, including Cesar, who is a big hairy Brazilian bear who can speak only Portuguese and Spanish. Of course I can only speak Inglés, so our conversations have never risen above the rudimentary levels. He is however, incredibly friendly, and wants to talk anyway!

Another surprise on arriving at the hostel was seeing James from the Pantanal. I have said goodbye to him twice but am getting used to bumping into him. He has not ventured onto a horse since the Pantanal and seems more together and in command of things in an urban jungle.

Buenos Aires is a complete change from Brazil. Apparently this place "looks like Paris, tastes like Italy and moves with the pace of New York," if my Lonely Planet guidebook is to be believed. On the evidence of the last week I´d pretty much agree. I loved Brazil and the way nothing happened on time (if it happened at all), but Buenos Aires is a different kettle of fish. It´s clean, sophisticated, safe. People here put a lot of effort into the way they look. I fit right in.

There aren´t as many touristy things to do here. One of the biggest tourist attractions is the Recoleta cemetary. No, that´s not a joke, because it´s unlike any cemetary I have ever seen. It´s not graves but masoleums, big tombs with crazy designs and architecture. It´s fascinating...and chilling. The place is massive and looks like a city. OF THE DEAD. It even has streets and avenues, whcih I´ve just realised may also be streets. I remember thinking that the masoleums looked like little houses and inside there are spaces next to the coffins given the impression of a bedroom. Creepy. Almost as if the coffin might open any time and the occupant fresh-up ready for- actually I don´t know what I´d do if I was in their position. Anyway, it´s really interesting and I can´t help wondering what the price of real estate is in the best areas. Some tombs are just by-passed completely by visiters. Sad. I saw Evita Péron´s family masoleum, where she is buried 7 metres down. Flowers. Tributes. Tourists.

The 67m Obliesk on Av. 9 de Julio commemorating 400 years since the city was founded.

The big draw of Buenos Aires for young hipsters and scenesters is the nightlife. We went to a club called Mint on Friday. Apparently it´s where all the cool kids go, so I fitted right in. It was like stepping into the future inside. Big sunglasses and dancing I´ve never seen before. It was a pretty crazy, long night. Everything in Buenos Aires happens later. You don´t go out to dinner before 10 or 11, which I think is great but means that clubs don´t open untill 2. When we went to Mint I got back at 7am. I was the first to leave.

Went to the Japanese and botanical gardens yesterday. There are some in every city in the world I think, but they were still nice.

This city is great for meat and wine. The rumours are true. While going out is fun, I think I´d rather spend a few hours getting stuck into some quality tender steak and tasty wine. I´m on a mission to find better and better steak and wine constantly. Due to the strength of the pound (god bless you Gordon) an English gentleman abroad can expect to pay about 4 quid for a good meal and the same for a decent bottle of Malbec from Mendoza (where I hope to visit). In supermarkets you can get good wine for about 2 pounds. How amazing is that? Despite the fact that this is a rhetorical question there is, in fact, an answer. The answer is very amazing.

So I´m on a quest to find the best wine I can. I may even break the 5 pound barrier. I need to buy a shirt and jeans before I can venture into the posher restaurants.

Yeah, so life is good in Buenos Aires. We went to see the Boca Juniors play on Sunday. They won 3-1 althouth I missed the 2nd goal because I was distracted by the fact that when the crowd jumps up and down the stand shakes. It was a good game and I have bought a Boca shirt, although not changed my aliegence (no idea how to spell that) from Plymouth, who are doing very well back home.

I also have started wearing my contact lenses, making me feel loads more confident. For some time now I had an eye condition making me unable to wear my lenses but now it seems from time to time I´ll be able to put them in, go out and NOT talk to any attractive girls. Or ugly girls. What´s the point? Am I being serious or not? Even I don´t know.

Today was very interesting as I awoke from my bed to find my friend Julian standing over me. A bit surreal. He was here for a day before heading up to Bolivia. I´ve been trying to meet up with him for ages but he´s been (literally) at the end of the world. It was nice to spend the day with him today. We went to a restaurant where I had possibly the best meat I´ve had here so far. Fat, thick, juicy, succulant, arrrggggghhhhhhhh. No wine, but then it was 1pm. Then we had ice cream and I got it all over myself, which is normally something he would do. We chatted about Rio, hostels, Patagonia, buses, steak, different countries, South Africa of course, and LOTS OF THINGS ABOUT CATHERINE. We got back to the hostel and had an improvised and extensive photo shoot. The picture I´ve selected here is really quite beautiful.

Tomorrow I check out of Hostel Estoril and move one street to the Milhouse hostel. It´s famous everywhere amongst travellers in South America for being a serious place to PARTY. People have left the hostel, city and possibly even the country from PARTYING too hard there. I´m sure I ´ll fit right in. But in all seriousness, it´s an interesting change.

Just outside there has been a massive protest through the street Avenida de Mayo where I am staying. It is to do with a man who recently went missing after he was a witness against Bad People during the Argentinian Dirty War between 1976 and 1983, when 50,000 people disappeared. Some think he was attacked as a warning to other people who testified against the Bad People. But outside there are a lot of socialist mentalists just making trouble I think. Like the other day they were moving the body of former President Juan Domingo Peron to a new masoleum outside Buenos Aires and it all kicked off majorly, fights and scuffles between different trade unions or something. Now I think about it the BBC might be a better source of information than me.

On the literature front I read Richard E. Grant´s memoirs, Swallowing Grandma (which you´ll remember was described as "warm, witty and honest" in the Sunday Times) and now the plethora of choice at the book exchange library has given me 4 Blondes by the woman who gave the world Sex And The City. I intend to come back a fully fledged metrosexual or something. I´ll find time to read it. On Monday I think I´m heading down to Puerto Madryn in Patagonia, about halfway down the country. Apparently you can see whales that come up to, but do not capsize, the boat. Hopefully it´ll be okay. It´s a 18 hour trip I think, and I heard a lot about Argentinian buses being the best in South America. I´ll probably write a blog entry just about the bus.

But going to the Milhouse Hostel I´m sure I haven´t run out of history in Buenos Aires just yet...

The Casa Rosada in Plaza de Mayo, where Eva Peron did her famous rallying in 1946.

Sao Paulo

2006-10-11T23:58:00.000Z

Strange days hanging around waiting to change my flights.

SAO PAULO. The biggest city I´ve ever seen. There are almost 18 million people living here. Madness. Although many of those are merely existing. I´m here before flying out to Buenos Aires. I had to change my flight as I was due to fly on the 19th October. I´ve now moved it foward. To FRIDAY THE 13TH. Yeah. It´s at 7am too. Guessing it wasn´t a hugely popular flight.

Sao Paulo isn´t a particularly attractive city so wandering about to see nice buildings and scenery is pretty pointless. And unless you´re here on a weekend (I´m not) then there isn´t a lot of nightlife to get excited about. So I´ve been seeing a lot of art. Went to the Sao Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) the other day. The MASP is quite small, but has some good impressionist offerings, you know, Manet, Van Gogh, etc. And loads of boring 1200s portraits of rich Dutchmen.

Today went to ´Bienal´, a bi-annual art exibition on from October to December - something like that, I´m not sure (a good thing about these blogs is that you can go back and change things, like in 1984. Crazy). Yeah, it was brilliant. Now I always get a bit panicky when I go to see modern art. You see some rubbish in the corner? It´s art. That step ladder by the door? Don´t touch it, it´s art. That woman just sipping her coffee? Is she an installation?? I just don´t know. She asked me what I was doing walking round her. I didn´t tell her I was searching for the artist/art description plaque. It turns out I´d just wandered into the restaurant. I bought a pastry.

The Bienal is loads of contemporary installations of artists from all over the world housed in a building designed by Niemeyer, the famous architect who designed the capital Brasilia. There´s scultures, films, photography, lots of crazy things. Although some of the artists I thought were ´artists´ rather than artists, you know what I mean? I´m not going to lie, some exhibits I found pretty confusing. A long, stationary shot of a boat on a beach? A film of a cat eating a mouse? I don´t know. There was one short ´film´from an ´artist´ of a woman banging a wall with a hammer. It apparently explored issues of feminine involvement in destruction and creation in a patriachal society. Or something. Anyway.

There was loads of really good stuff I enjoyed. Well I enjoyed all of it but some things grab you. There was a good installation (I say good but I don´t really know) of a guy called Simon Evans, an American artist from California. All his work was pictures made from text. Lot´s of ideas. Intriguing. A bit like that Radiohead album sleeve. If you know it.

There was a guy who had built a miniture of the White House and had lots of worms living in it, crawling around and looking gross (sub-text, anyone?). Lots of photography of indigenous Brazilians and stuff of Africa, really, you know, rough places where they don´t have a Subway or anything. (Mental question - what do they eat for lunch?).

There was a city made from sugar (scaled down, obviously). An artist´s impression of a future when we all live in bubbles in the sky. Cool. A computer based visual thematic interpretation of a J.G. Ballard novel. Interesting. Hundreads of photos covering walls looking at Brazilian food and culture. Appetising. A Korean installation of a women´s place in modern society based on how to be a Good Daughter, Wise Mother, etc, complete with shackles and clamps on chairs to hold their legs and hands in the right place etiquette-wise. Creepy.

There´s waaaaay more stuff but I can´t think now. It´s been a long day. Again, I´ll fill it in 1984 style later. Right now an Argentinian guy called Juan is cooking for us. I think. I´m hungry, and all I ´ve eaten today is an overpriced ham sandwich.

I´ve had enough art for the time being. Tomorrow I shall watch something stupid at the cinema. I went the other day to watch Hollywood´s Scarlett Johanssen pout and strutt about in Brian de Palma´s The Black Dahlia. Or, as it´s known here, Dahlia Negro. Or Negra. I can´t remember. Negro sounds funnier, lets go with that. Yeah, and I liked it. I´ve read on IMDB (the source of all great movie opinion!) a lot of people hated it because it wasn´t like the book, or it was too camp, or not tense, or not like it was advertised in the trailers. But these people, I think, are all wrong. That´s the only explanation.

Anyway, if I can understand any of the titles of the other films on (the only one I know is Click, which has Adam Sandler in it, so no way am I seeing that) I´ll hit the multiplex tomorrow.

And this time I won´t allow The Language Barrier to result in my popcorn being covered in BUTTER.

It´s disgusting.

PICTURES

2006-10-08T21:38:00.000Z

Waterfalls at Foz do Iguacu.

The Paudimar hostel in Foz. That´s a bar in the shadows. Lovely stuff.

Jesus Christ! Literally. He looks down on Rio de Janeiro and you can see him from almost everywhere. From the ground he looks small but in actual fact is MASSIVE. My pictures from the front are rubbish. Clouds and stuff.

Me with a Swedish guy. They all wear incredibly sexy white vests, a little known fact.

Water buffalo in the Pantanal. They´re not from round here.

Here in Brazil, snakes walk on the left.

Sophisticated dining out with Dominic (left) and Axel (right). Not sure Dominic likes his pizza.

Nothing quite like a good honest afternoon´s pineapple selling.

The view from Christ in Rio. Slightly better than the ´Plymouth Eye´.

Waiting for the bus in Foz. As you can see it would help if I was looking in the right direction.

Relaxing at El Misti in Botafoga, Rio.

The hair. Still growing.

A mixture of Germans, Swedes and Brits (arriving early) to watch a game at Rio´s famous Maracaná stadium between Flamengo and Cruzeiro. What do you mean you´ve never heard of them?

The very cool view of the Copacabana from the Sugar Loaf mountain, Rio.

The falls at Foz again . No pictures can do them justice, to be honest. This is just the middle bit.

The impressive Garganta del Diablo, or Devil´s Throat, at Foz. If you can´t see it look at where I´m pointing.

Some Brazilian chocolate biscuits that have clearly disturbed me. Tasted great, though.

A picturesque street in Rio. In real life it´s actually coloured in.

Me on top of the Sugar Loaf, Rio.

A street mural in Santa Teresa in Rio . Notice the Brazilians are taking on about 5 different teams. And using a tram, which I´m pretty sure isn´t in the rules.

Everyone enjoying some down-time in the Pantanal, Lost style.

An alligator being fed a piranha by our guide, Levy. Cool

The guys in the Pantanal (l-r): David, Peter, Me, Will, Mave (sorry, couldn´t remember the crazy Irish spelling), Steve, Levy, Alex, Brad. I can´t for the life of me remember the guy in front, but he seems happy, doesn´t he?

The Pantanal

2006-10-08T20:32:00.000Z

Spotting and fighting wildlife in the wetlands below the Amazon basin.

I awake from bed this morning to find myself in a PRIVATE room. Blink. Yes, my own toilet, shower, bed. Excellent. How did this happen? It was part of the 4-day deal that took me to the Pantanal, a wetland national park below the Amazon basin. The park is half the size of France and is shared between Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay.

I embarked on the journey along with a Frenchman, Ozzie and 3 guys from Ireland to base camp in the Pantanal, about 4 or 5 hours from our hostel in Campo Grande. I´m not going to lie here, the camp was pretty basic. Hot and sweaty from the trip, I was dying for a cold shower. A fellow camper told me that was good because cold is the only setting.´Nice.

The Pantanal is a series of interlocking rivers, streams and ponds with wide stretches of open plains and boggy swamps. So why do people go there? Because unlike the Amazon where there is loads of dense foliage for animals to hide in, the Pantanal is somewhat more open and therefore a better place to see wildlife. We spent the days in groups of 6 or 7. Our guide, Levy, told us all about how people use the trees to eat and make houses from, which was pretty cool. They have those tree branches you cut and pure water comes out. Refreshing.

There were some different activities you could do on the trip. We did some horse riding. Interesting experience. I´ve never been on a horse before. Generally I had control but they all want to follow the horses in front so it´s a mission to go wander off on your own. Also, when mad Irish people start galloping past, your horse breaks out into a very scary run which may make you hang on sideways. Scary. Which didn´t happen to me of course! Still sore from riding a few days later.

Then we went Piranha fishing. Was very cool. You stand on the bank to this little river and try and hook them with fishing rods that are little more than bamboo shutes with string. I caught one. Very powerful things. Nasty teeth. Levy, our guide, caught several meaning we had plenty to eat for lunch. The whole experience was cool as all the time there are loads of alligators in the water and on the bank next toyou. However, they are the 2-metre ones afraid of humans, not the 5-metre ones in the Amazon. This means you can run at them shouting ´Arghhh!´and prod them with your rod and you´re (pretty much) safe.

We also went on an eventful boat ride down the river. Eventful not because we saw any animals (we didnֲ´t see anything really), but because we hit a log in the water and fell out of the boat. Fell out into the PIRANHA and ALLIGATOR INFESTED water. One of the Irish guys had a cut on his ankle and some baby piranhas tried to have a nibble, but apart from that we were fine. Levy said that that doesnֲ´t usually happen, although aparently loads of people come off the horses. Hmmm.

The camp food was fine. Simple and tasy. We slept in hammocks. Surprisingly comfortable. Irishman snored weirdly all night. Every night. Less sleep than I would have liked.

One night we got an insane and intense tropical storm. I´ve never seen anything like it before. Constant lightening for an hour. The sky practically light the whole time. Rain coming in, soaking everything. Everyone laughing and shouting, amazed. Next day we talked to guides and asked them how incredible they thought the storm was. They were like ´yeah, so-so,´ shrugging their shoulders. All in all we saw loads of birds (storks and macaws, things like that), alligators, otters, wild boar, monkeys, piranhas, racoons, deer and weird giant water rodents called capabearo or something like that. They were cool.

So the trip was good, nice group of people, few mosquitoes (the hot, wet season is a few weeks away). Apparently it was a good time to go as in January the temperature is like 50 degrees and you get a ton of mosquitoes in your mouth just by talking to someone. Crazy. Yeah, it was one of those trips where you really feel like it´s a cool time AT the time rather than laterthinking back, allowing nostalgia to take hold. There is no USB port on this computer so I´m going to have to wait till Sao Paulo in a couple of days to upload some photos. I´ll put my favourite ones on here and all of them on one of those kodak image gallery things, if I can.

Next port of call is Sao Paulo where I´m going to try to move up my flight to Beunos Aires. Hopefully I won´t be stuck in Sao Paulo for too long. It´s another 14 hour bus journey, but I have a book called ´Swallowing Grandma´, which the Sunday Times describes as ´warm, witty and touching´. It´s a bit of a girl´s book but there aren´t too many Waterstones around, you get me? It´s by an English writer and there is much talk of jammy dodgers and tea, which is very bizarre compared with my current surroundings. I finished reading Richard E. Grant´s memoirs, which Neil gave me. It was very good. I´d go so far as too strongly recommend it. I feel, as when I was in South Africa, much reading will be done on this trip.

To check out more about trips in the pantanal go to www.pantanaltrekking.com

Campo Grande

2006-10-02T12:56:00.000Z

Getting set at the transport hub of Western Brazil...

I HAVE arrived into the city of a Campo Grande and am awaiting departure on my trip to the Pantanal where either I, or nature, will emerge victorious. The bus journey was 14 hours from Foz do Iguacu and I didn´t sleep particularly well so nature has the immediate advantage.

Also, my muscles hurt after taking part in an intense 6-a-side football game at the last hostel. It was a complete mistake. I thought the other players would be rubbish but they were fit and fast and taking it SERIOUSLY. I possessed neither the fitness nor the ability to keep up with the play on what was a BIG pitch. After 20 minutes we were something like 8-2 down and my team stopped passing to me but all was well and we had drinks in the bar afterwards just like in the good old days of Best and Charlton et al.

So anyway I´m basically killing some time before we leave on our semi-perilous journey into the unknown (for us, I hope the guide knows the way). I may practise my Portugeuse, which is non-existant! Some useful phrases, ´Esté onibús vai para Sao Paulo´ - Is this bus going to Sao Paulo? And ´Voce falla Ingles?´ - Do you speak English?

More phrases and news next time.

Foz do Iquacu

2006-09-30T18:45:00.000Z

Adventures in Iquacu National Park with some Germans?

I'VE SPENT the last few days in Foz do Iquacu with german guy called Axel (I agree, it´s a cool name), whom I befriended in Rio. Foz is home to probably the most beautiful waterfalls in the world. No photos can do justice to them. And it´s a good thing because it was a 16 hour bus journey to get here from Sao Paulo.

In Brazil you just can´t believe the distances. This country is hogging most of South America. To do the whole place would just be stupid (a Swiss guy from Rio was getting a 45 hour bust trip up north to Natal - crazy).

Where was I? Ahh, the falls. Yeah, they´re incredible. They´re in a national sub-tropical park and the whole place looks like a mystical landscape imagined by Lucas on another world, but without being ruined by his CGI and quasi-adolescent fantastical narrative arcs. Me, Axel and another german guy called Dominic spent two days walking round these falls, which spread over Brazil and Argentina.

The money shot of the trip is the Garganta del Diablo, or ´Devil´s Throat´, which is really, really impressive. Apparently 1.2 million litres of water per second pass over the falls. Who the hell worked that out? I don´t know but I´m not going to question it. I´ll try to get some pictures up soon.

The city of Foz is crazily on the border of Argentina and Paraguay. We went over to Paraguay yesterday for lunch. It´s madness. No border control or anything. We just walked straight through. Everything there is a cheap imitation of watches or sports clothes. Anything authentic is guarded by men with machine guns and shot guns - even the local Sports Soccer type shop. I never thought I´d say, ´´we´re safe now we´re back in Brazil.´´

We also saw the world´s biggest hydro electric dam. But that was rubbish.

The hostel I´m in here is lovely and has got a bar by a pool, comfy dorms, free breakfast - and it´s only about 5 quid a night. Bargin! I´m going for a swim in a minute, after I sort out my next adventure - a trip to the Pantanal, some wetlands beneath the Amazon. I´m going on a 6 or 7 person tour with a guide over the next few days. I think it´s gonna be an adventure, there´s a base camp and everything! Hopefully I won´t be eaten by the reptilian residents of the area. Will report back in a few days...

Getting up to date

2006-09-30T18:12:00.000Z

Okaaaay, I need to go over 'the story so far'.

Where to start? The beginning, maybe. Here goes.

Brazil.

I flew into Rio Sunday 17th September and was met by Marcello, the only Brazillian who doesn´t like football. Stayed at the El Misti hostel for a week in Botafogo, a middle-class neighbourhood. Pretty safe. El Misti is a ´meeting people´ hostel, singles, couples, groups all happy to meet up and go on day trips.

The sights were seen, and seen well. Sugarloaf, Christ the Redeemer, etc. Some AMAZING views. Went to two games at the Maracaná stadium, seeing an exciting total of just ONE goal. Slightly dissapointed. Still, a change from watching Plymouth Argyle.

Rio seems safer than I was told. Not as intimidating. Walking the streets feels ok, pockets safe. Went to a ´funk party´at a club in a favella (slums), but was totslly safe. Amazing dancing, though not by me.

Food in Brazil in plentiful. They have these lunch buffets where you load up your plate and pay for the weight! Cool. They´re called Buffette a Quilo. Because of the weight. Per Kilo.

From Rio I went to Sao Paulo. It´s a dump. Got stung by taxi from bus station. Driver didn´t know where the hostel was. Anxious moments. Finally arrive, making my way over the bodies in the streets (joking). Hostel cold and glad to only spend one night.

Off and running

2006-09-30T16:43:00.000Z

Here goes...

Hey everyone, I´m finally getting around to setting up a blog to bore both myself and everyone else with my tales from around the (metaphorical) campfire. Stay tuned and don´t touch that (again metaphorical) dial....

Andy