When I got to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) initially I went out and had a few beers (to get over the jet lag!) with a lad from Leeds (21, has a `girlfriend` in Laos whose entire family are professional lady boys but despite the fact that he has never been with her, he is convinced that `she` is not because she has the normal insecurities that all women have!!?!! Oh the wisdom of the young and naive!) and a strange fella from Finland. He works as a fork lift operator for a few months a year and then comes over here to SE Asia for a few months every year. All I could hear was "I`m the leader, I`m the leader, I`m the leader of the gang, yeahhh!!" Gary Glitter any one?!!
There are about 5 million in this city and it seems there are about half of them on the street at any given time driving all sorts of vehicles. There are no official places to cross the street so you have to, get this, walk across the road in a very slow, nonchalant way, eyeing every one of them so that they avoid you!! If you run or move quickly they may hit you!! Hahaha! I have to say that I think a blind driver in a humvee in two hours on the roads of HCM City and he`d be the second most prolific killer in these parts since Napalm!
I swear I cross the road every chance I get, it`s actually a rush to see over a 100 motor bikes rushing at you and then just avoiding you at the last minute as you stare them down feigning absolute Hollywood Action Hero calm!!
This won`t surprise you but I was singing on the first Saturday night I was in this country in Sheridan`s Irish Bar!! It went well considering myself and the all Asian folk band had never played with each other!! Well they weren`t all Asian, there was a lead singer from Bretagne in France, it was funny to hear his accent across the Irish ballads!
I was playing pool then against a pool pimp! Seriously, his `madam` kept getting us to play him for $30-$40 a pop (Aussie) and I lost three times. I was gutted because I had several shots on the black in each game but I was twisted to be fair. They have some pretty funny rules over here too but I think that there might be some money to be made for me around the place if he`s supposed to be good, assuming I can keep off the beer (pint of Tiger is $2, ouch!)
I had a couple of interesting days in Saigon, I went to this place called Dam Sen Park which would have been the culmination of a brain storming session of some 5 year olds and the Mardi Gras Gay Pride Parade Organisation! The place was so camp it was unreal!! Huge dinosaurs, dodgem cars, ice sculptures, monkey cages, egyptian pyramids, plate sculptures and dragons, dragons everywhere!! The funny thing was that obviously they didn`t realise just how gay the place was! There was even piped music over the park like someone had pushed the demo button on a casio keyboard! Surreal!
The lonely planet suggested you go to the blind institute and help them out by getting a massage from one of their masseurs. I did my part for charity (my guy was truly blind because he walked straight into the side of the door that I think I was supposed to be holding open for him!) and the little fella got his revenge by thumping the bejaysus out of me! Every now and again he would say with this psycho evil grin, "Everything ok!" and when he punched me straight on bicep I nearly made a go for him! I`d like to have seen him duck! I had the last laugh as I gave him a bottle cap instead of a tip.......nah, just kidding!
Yesterday I went to the Cu Chi Tunnels which is this network of tunnels the Viet Cong used to attack the Yanks. Unreal... Firstly they started with a Communist Propaganda Film from 1967! It was all grainy and in black and white and I had to stifle back some laughter as I kept hearing in my head, "Hi Comrades, I`m Troy McClure, you might remember me from other Communist Propaganda films such as `Cuba, the real American Dream" and "Vodka; from Russia with love". The video pointed out how the simple, poor and peaceful Vietnamese farmers and villages all turned into fighting, killing machines, many of them winning the highest award of, get this, American Killer Hero!
Then we saw some of the traps that they laid for the Yanks, it puts chills up you. One was called the souvenir trap because you couldn`t get your leg out of it without cutting it off. Then the Viets would send them back to the American bases after they had collected them, as `souvenirs`! And who says there isn`t humour in war... I bought and got to shoot live rounds in an AK47, so loud and powerful. I asked them if I needed the sound mufflers, when they didn`t answer I thought it must be ok and nearly deafened myself! I realised that they didn`t answer me because they probably had gone deaf years before, nutters... The guns (they had M16`s and others) were screwed down with two tiny screws, I`d say a big man could have ripped it out of the socket and it would be Rambo all over again...
But the worst thing was the tunnel. There was a 100m under ground tunnel and we were encouraged to shuffle through it in the dark to see how they lived. I never knew I was claustrophobic until I was in this thing. It was like being in an oven, with about two inches about your head and to the sides and that was you squatting down. At one point I was on all fours trying to crawl through it. Thankfully there were off shoots that people could get out because there was no way we could have turned around in that space. It was so tiring and I was not right for about a half an hour after it! There`s a picture of me in there with a smile on my face, I don`t know who I was kidding, I was bricking it!
I went to Nha Trang which is one of the countries main beaches but it had just suffered another typhoon and the beach had debris all over it... I was taken by a Mr. Chang, guide supreme on his motorbike to see a number of Buddhas, an old fort and then the mud baths! I have never been one to indulge in such extravagances, particularly when it comes to my appearance but I thought I would see what all the locals were raving about.
After some preparatory showers, you immersed yourself into a mud bath. I was put in with a family of locals who laughed at my comparatively gangly size and pallid skin colour. They were cleaning the mud out of their eyes and when I did the same they told me that I should drink it. Not being one to cause an international diplomatic situation, I took a sip and it was warm and tasted not unlike it came from a hot water bottle. Hey, they got a laugh out of it.
Feeling more embarrassed than invigorated Hannah, my new mate from our guest house, headed out. We went to Crazy Kim`s bar, named after its owner who was a Vietnamese boat person who moved to Canada but has come back, opened a bar and the profits go to helping kids avoid the massive paedophile industry here. We agreed to help out with the school the following morning and we were there at 9:30am for two hours helping these street kids with their English. This will help them sell more of their products (wallets, postcards etc) and they won`t need to subject themselves to the sickos that will pay them whatever they are short every week for an hour in a hotel room.
I went out and bought the school 50 copies and pens which would see them through the year just because the kids had been amazing and a few dollars from us makes such a difference. At least this way I was absolutely sure that my money was going to the charity of my choice.
I went to Hoi An then which was an ancient and cool town but I had US $400 stolen from my room (I have travel insurance so I will get it back eventually) which was a pity so I left there and went to Danang via the Marble mountains which were amazing with stunning views! Danang is a kip and I said enough of the bloody over night trains and buses so I flew to Hanoi. I was introduced to Bia Hoi here, a local fresh beer that they serve up on the street, we had as a group 53 of them which came to less than $10 Aus!! Two of the lads who had met up and decided to travel together were Stijn from Belgium and Frank from Holland, it was only when I was introducing them to another guy that it occured to me that they were "Frank and Stijn"!!
This is a great town, I`ve met so many people, and such a mix of people, some of them are seriously certifiable.
To prove this point I met this Aussie chick and to cut a long story short, this cab driver was screwing us over and I was telling him he wasn`t going to get paid and then she back handed me across the face for arguing with the little fella! I was like, `excuse me, when did we get married`?!! She was all pally then, started laughing and apologising about it and then I thought she was ok but then when we got back to the pub we were in she went schizo again and stormed out of the bar. I asked if she was ok and she said that she didn`t want to have a nervous breakdown in front of strangers!! Is there such a thing as TRI-polar?!! To be fair though she did mail me next day to apologise!
But I have seen some great sights too it has to be said from beaches to mountains, caves to ancient towns, pagodas and temples and like I said such an array of people.
One girl, from Omagh in Ireland was talking to me the other night and it transpired that she was cousins of our next door neighbours and that when herself and her sister used to come and visit, myself and the brothers in Limerick used to chase them and terrorise them and she remembered vividly often crying over what we`d said and done! Talk about your past coming back to haunt you!
Vietnam is great, don`t get me wrong, but the people here want to surgically extract the money from you rather than entice it out of you. They are a bit too full on for me especially since by all accounts the people in Laos, Thailand and Cambodia are all so much nicer. As an example I met two Yanks the other day and we were going to a hotel when another guy told us to come to his place instead for the same amount and a much better hotel, so we went with him and the next thing we saw rooms that were nothing like the ones in his pamphlet. When we questioned him on it he said that we should only believe 50% what we see in pamphlets and 100% what we see with our eyes. The Yank guy said he was a liar and the Viet guy lost it! He kept shouting `You fu*king Americans` and I started laughing so hard because all I could hear was Kim Jong Il from Team America over and over again!!
It`s like the Vietnamese people are just used to tourist and are unsure of how long the cash cow will last so they are always on the grift but you can`t really blame them either. It`s hard to understand what it`s like to see someone who has so much money (a traveller) and not to take the opportunity to make their lives easier by getting a share. It`s all part of the culture and something that you have to accept and even appreciate or else the trip will drive you crazy.
I went to a place called Sapa (in Northern Vietnam which is the mountainous regions) on an overnight train and spent a few days there, and to be honest the people from the hill tribes were incredibly nice, completely different. It was freezing up there, really cold which kind of reminded me of home at Christmas which was cool. I did a lot of trekking which has been the highlight of my trip. A friend of mine and I recklessly took a trek into the mountains and everyone else had guides and they couldn`t understand how we thought we were going to get back to Sapa without one.
But we were intrepid explorers (and worse than that males!) so we said we`d be fine! Some of the hill tribes young girls were out selling some craftwork and when they saw we had no guide they offered to guide us! We thought that would be funny and Ma, 9 and Jo, 15 guided us through the paddy rice fields, through hillside villages, across rivers and up the mountain back to Sapa, and all the time with a cheeky smile as they bounced along like billy goats and my friend and I were seriously struggling but refusing to lose touch (or face) with the young girls! (To be honest, the mountain region is such a criss cross of paths that we understood the concern of the other guides as to why we hadn`t one!)
I also assisted a worker and asked if I could carry his load about 60 metres uphill. OH MY GOD! I thought my chest was going to explode, I don`t know how he did it, I will never complain about a job again!!
But what an experience, we`d have stayed on the `paths` but we really got a unique view of how they live from the way that the girls took us. They took great delight on standing on the next level above us and with hands on hips, laughingly entice us to keep up!! I have some amazing pictures. When they left us (so we could quietly have a coronary) I was immediately upset about the lack of opportunities that they would have but just as fast, as I watched them hand in hand, walk back to their village, I was jealous of the simple happiness that they had in their lives. It was definitely the highlight of my trip so far!
Back to Hanoi then for a day which was very enjoyably spent in the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel talking to backpackers from all over the world. On this trip so far I have met many Aussies, Germans, Yanks and Israelis in particular with a smattering from England and Canada and surprisingly few Irish.
Next stop Laos for Christmas, never thought I`d ever be writing that!
Just over one week in Laos and it seemed like a month! Not because it was a drawn out, unpleasant experience, quite the contrary, but because so much happened. It is an amazing country with the most gracious of people and one that is definitely going on the `to visit again list`
Babies don`t cry in Laos, the Lao people don`t have the concept of road rage, street vendors understand that no thank you means no thank you and dogs and cats get along, happily lying beside each other in the street. (This bothered me more than I would like to admit because of my clearly stated policy on cats. It was like Laos dogs didn`t know it was there inbred right to terrorise and generally scare the wits out of these fur balls and the cats seemed to smirk at me because they knew I couldn`t speak dog to rectify this most unnatural of events). Hate cats....
But as soon as I got to Luang Prabang I knew it was somewhere I could stay a few days and on another trip maybe a few weeks. It had the feel of a small seaside town that was either a week before or week after the peak season, just the right balance of locals to tourists. They have wonderful night markets there, where the centre street gets taken over by vendors who lay their products on the ground and the 500m plus stretch of road are all lit by individual light bulbs that hang over each stall. They are so friendly that you gladly part with your kips.
I had met Hannah from Adelaide in Nha Trang and left her in Hoi An when I went north to Hanoi and she crossed into Laos. She`d met the Bournemouth girls Ruth, Kate, Nadia and Sally and Bondi boy Mick and this was to become the gang for Christmas! We ate at the night food markets where every type of meat (and I sincerely hope that includes cats) was being sold. It was like being at a food court but with no names on the food so it was all pot luck!
On Christmas Eve I thought I would have some alone time and take a mountain bike to cycle the 32km to a well known waterfall. Oh hindsight has a cruel sense of humour...
I set off, feeling very good about myself and the first few k`s went without incident as I cycled and greeted the kids that would run along side with a `Sabidee` and a wave! Then a sign appeared apologising for some road works ahead. I thought, ok, a few hundred metres, maybe at most a mile of rocks and dust roads. A predisposition to making assumptions is a dangerous trait for the traveller I was soon to discover.
This dust road was to continue for the remainder of my journey making it excrutiatingly long. Then a tuk tuk (cab) driver pulled up beside me and told me it was way too far to go on a bike and that for a few dollars he would take me. He had an evil smile and right there and then I determined to keep going myself. He just drove along side me for about a minute as I sweated away while trying to keep a smile on my face and a civil tongue in my mouth! He pulled off to wait for me at a point further ahead.
It was hard going with the trucks and cars spitting dust and stones up on me. The worst were the cabs of tourists who would wave back sympathetically at this moron on a bike as he coughed thanks to the clouds that their sympathetic cab had just spat up on him! My iPod had a sick sense of humour throwing up "Free to Decide" by the Cranberries, The Veronicas were `having a day from hell" and Ricky Gervaise was on the "Free love freeway"!
And then, just when I was getting a bit of momentum and some rhythm on this rocky path I drove straight into... a tar pit!! A tar pit?!! All the way out here? Why in God`s name were they tarring the road out here when I had just gone over 15km on pure dirt? Does Jackie Healy Rae have relations in Laos can someone check for me?I was destroyed, covered from head to toe in tar which stuck and dried into my skin. What was equally as demoralising was that the bloody road was only being tarred for 100m and then it was back to the dust road (dust and tar is a great combination everyone that is planning a particularly evil stag party)
Now any other self respecting traveller would have called it a day but oh no, I pressed on, seeing this as just another obstacle on the path to what must be the greatest waterfall man has ever seen! A little further on, my evil imp of a tuk tuk driver was back again, smiling at the obvious tarring I`d received and beckoning devilishly to give up my foolish journey and take the easy option. His salacious grin will inspire me for the rest of my life when I am about to throw in the towel. He was disappointed that I cycled on by and with good reason, the next 2 kms were all downhill! Dizzying descent but it was a welcome relief from the big climb right up until my next obstacle... a freaking huge water buffalo in the middle of the road, facing me and not looking too happy (has anyone ever seen a buffalo smile?!). Give me a brake!!
Speaking of, the brakes were on quick smart and I delved deep into my extensive library of knowledge but nothing came up for tarred and dusted cyclist to water buffalo passing etiquette so I waited till some local came along and blew his horn until the beast decided to make way. I kept going and eventually made the waterfall which was great but in fairness it would have needed to be surrounded with the finalists of Miss World dancing to a band of Elvis, Sinatra and Dean Martin while celebrating Liverpool winning the league to make it worthwhile. Ok, maybe the sun, dust, tar, scares and sore bum had made me delirious but I took a tuk tuk back (but I made sure it wasn`t with my evil tempter from earlier!)
After throwing out my clothes and washing myself with petrol first and then soap, I was able to face the world again!
Laos has 5 recognised religions and Christianty ain`t one of them. Not that that would deter the son of an Irish mother (especially one whose mother had said then that I shouldn`t have found myself in a country that didn`t recognise Jesus!) and the girls had spotted a tiny sign saying there would be a Christian service upstairs in a cafe at 8pm. We went along and about 14 of us from different countries were present. We thought that when the Canadian lady that was running it shut the doors, locked the shutters, turned out the lights and gave us candles, that she was just setting a more spiritual mood. There go those assumptions again!
It was then she told us that last Christmas a pastor had held a similar service and had then been summarily executed for doing that a few days later. And that someone else who had publicly said that they were Christian had been held in prison for the last 18 months. Wow, it really felt weird now but strangely rewarding in a way that we were doing something that we believed in but with potentially dire consequences. Not that for a second we thought that anything was going to happen to us but it couldn`t help score some brownie points with the Mam!
One of the things I love most about this trip is the veritable United Nations you get around the tables in the pub at night. Everyone is new, all of your old stories have never been heard and you`ve never heard any of theirs. You still have chances at first impressions and everyone is on the same level, no one gets above themselves, no pretentions, no rubbish...
It was a great night, lots of drinks and a group of about 20 of us sang Christmas songs and carols for an hour or so. But all the promise of a wonderful Christmas day, which was to be held at the Waterfall (via Minivan this time obviously) was wiped out within a few hours.
I joined the girls at their guest house and I was greeted with muted hellos and a room that had well and truly been turned over. Two of the girls had been robbed of their passports, iPods, flight tickets, travellers cheques etc and despite their obvious disappointment they were putting on brave faces. We were devestated for them and we called the police who were as helpful as a chocolat teapot. The Tourist police had very poor English (I would have thought that having more than Lao would have been a basic requisite for tourist police) so I got my guest house owner to help translate. So the girls spoke to me, and then me to him in French (it came flooding back) and then him to them in Laos.
In these countries, there is a very visible difference in the treatment of men to men and men to women and the police didn`t like how the girls had spoken to them and wanted to teach them a lesson. So they kept some of the other girls passports and wouldn`t give them back for a few hours.
We tried to make the most of a very bad situation and get some food and have some kind of Christmas dinner of sorts. We were going to gather together but then there was a little miracle. We got a text from the UK saying that they had received a call from a Dutch tourist saying that they had grabbed one of the passports from a street urchin that was trying to sell it. That was great news and then one of the girls thought that the best way to get the other one back was to go to another street urchin and get them to find the other one!! We offered $20, a fortune around here, and 15 minutes later we had their passports and the flight tickets back!! Granted the material stuff that could realistically be sold was gone but we had taken the matter into our own hands and got result! Screw the local police, go to the street kids!
As one of the girls said, was it possible to have the worst and best Christmas day all at once?! We sat that evening, had a few sandwiches, a few beers, a bottle of Baileys and recounted regularly the events of the day, made so much easier with the outcome! But we were all knackered from the events and emotions of the day. A few calls home to our parents and friends topped off the evening!
The next day (St Stephens/Boxing Day), Nadia and I took off to Vang Vieng (VV) on a 5 hour bus trip. The twists and turns on the road were like nothing I have ever experienced and I`ve driven the Conor Pass in Kerry. The turns were regularly 180 degrees and over sheer drops. I couldn`t understand how people were sleeping when every turn guaranteed either a jaw dropping scenic view or a body dropping imminent death!
Then we bumped into the most amazing character I think I have met. I`ll keep his name to myself and you`ll understand why soon enough! He was a bone fide American cowboy, who`d been living in this little town for about 8 years and had just set up his own bar (and house) which had opened up 4 days previously. He loved Country and Western music and he sold about 5 different types of drink. From what we could work out he`d had about 7or 8 customers to date and we were the two for today. He paid for our drinks and our snacks, played all his favourite songs really loud (James Taylor will never be the same again for me) and proceeded to tell us about his life. We were in for some shocks.
He`d worked in Thailand in the 60`s and 70`s which had started his love affair with SE Asia. Then in 1986 he and three friends (who didn`t survive) were all shot by another in a drug frenzy and he showed us the scars to prove it. Then he moved over to Laos about 15 years earlier, and to VV 8 years earlier. He`d married and divorced a local woman and now lived next door to her. He hired staff, one of which was like a little sister to him and whom he let wash him as he was `not much for working too much`!!
Then the bombshell! Two old ladies had approached him 4 years earlier and said he should be a father. So he became a first time dad at the age of 56 when he paid $100 for a baby boy that was 20 hours old.... Who said life was priceless? There was Golden Mountain (the name he`d been given) lying asleep behind the bar, actually looking healthy. To say that we were shocked was an understatement. It was amazing and yet so typical of an event in the life of this impossibly likeable character. This crazy cowboy loved his kid and was never going to leave VV now and despite his crude humour and questionable scruples, he was someone that you couldn`t but enjoy his company!
VV has a unique tourist attraction. Large restaurants with elevated comfy tables and chairs with non stop Friends, Family Guy and Simpsons episodes! From 7am to midnight you could watch them without having to move or talk to anyone, just don`t let the Americans find out or they`d all be over here! Terribly anti social though and it led to a quiet buzz in the town...
The next day we tried the other tourist attraction famous around these parts... tubing!! All this consists of is taking an inflatable tube down the Sing River and float down between mountains and jungles and then stopping from time to time at the riverside bars where you are `hooked` in by staff members. The draw card, the flying fox!! A huge swing where you throw yourself from a height and try and limit the damage on your body as you crash impact into the water!
With the additonal dutch courage of a few beers and my now infamous irrepressible spirit that I can achieve things when I put my mind to it, I kept trying to improve my level of difficulty in my dives. All I was achieving was increasing the likelihood of finding it difficult to walk again!! I will post some movies and pictures!
Fresh from the massive beating I`d taken at the hands of the water, I saw an immediate way to re-establish myself amongst my new friends. At the next bar, after a few beers, the old lady that ran the bar gave us a bottle of her own home made Lao Lao Whiskey, an evil concoction. We all had one, then some of the lads had two, 3 of the lads had 3, a local had 4 but yours truly took 6, firmly establishing myself as a complete idiot!
I was a hero again (well at least in the eyes of the guys who to be fair were going blind from having 2 or 3 shots) as we hit the water again! To be fair I was alright but I knew that something wasn`t right later when I had this strange buzz in my head. I kicked on that night to the amazement of my friends, one of which had had a 3 hour sleep after taking just 3. I laughed it off as a return to some of my best form but that was premature!!
The next day, Nadia and I took off on what would turn out to be a 4 bus, 22 hour journey to my current destination, Chiangmai in Northern Thailand. We got in yesterday and I couldn`t eat or sleep or drink all day, suffering from dehydration, most likely some sun stroke and the evil after affects of the Lao Lao. As David Bowie once sang, "We could be heroes, if just for one day"
So bye bye to Laos... a country that makes the surreal seem strangly apt, the bizarre seem comfortingly familiar...
Hello all,
Well I have always held the belief that I am a fairly forward thinking kind of fella but even I was surprised at just how far into the future I had gone after a hellish 22 hour bus journey from Vang Vieng (the Flying Fox place) to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.
While you`re all languishing way back in the dark ages of 2007, thanks to Buddha who was around 543 years before Jesus, those of us in Thailand cheered in the far better and well rounded 2550!! I was meeting up with the gang from Luang Prabang for New Years and Chang Mai was set to go off with a bang, unfortunately the same was clearly the case in Bangkok.
7 Bombs went off between 5:20pm and midnight, three Thais were killed and several backpackers were injured. It is thought that it was the work of supporters loyal to a recently deposed Thai PM who was ousted in September (note to editor: am I allowed to even say that?! Check legal counsel as nights in the Bangkok Hilton are not advised by the Lonely Planet!)
Not that that is a bad thing, the Lying Planet is getting a scathing backlash from backpackers that feel that the authors are getting kick backs to promote certain places that are often not better than a lot of other, cheaper guest houses and restaurants. Some bars have signs outside advertising the fact that they are definitely not in the LP and people flock to them! (note to editor: seriously can someone shut this idiot up before he gets us into a lawsuit?!)
Anyway, back to the bombs. It caused the fireworks display to be cancelled which was a pity but the large lanterns that the Thais release into the sky lit up with a little fire for good luck were all over the place and it was a beautiful sight. The Thais are irrespressible and they started setting off fireworks of their own (very dangerous ones too) on the side streets much to the delight of backpackers and window repair men all around. They even resumed normal broadcast of some movie after the initial reports had come through! We cheered the new year through and then we went to a small bar that we had found days earlier who had a band and a songbook, you picked it, they played it! I was in my element and must have sung about 10-15 songs!
I have also found the best sausages outside Ireland in a place called the Laughing Leprauchaun (run by a Limerick man who left there in 1967) in Chaing Mai and we ate 4 meals in a row there, each time with some excuse to get sausages on the plate!
I have stated it earlier in this travel log that the people that I am meeting are really making this trip what it is, they are great people by and large who have a great outlook on life. And then, in a horrible oversight, in a terrible aberration to the form, you come across a right pillock! Well we found ours, who attached himself to our group by virtue of the fact that he was staying in our guest house and, as would become evident, he was travelling alone for a reason.
I was leaving Chaing Mai to come to Pai and was happy to say goodbye to the group if I could avoid this guy but in twisted irony he said that he wanted to go to Pai to and suddenly we were a `gang`! Fortunately two of my other friends decided to tag along and thank God they did. Now I am not a massive one for omens but the writing should have been on the wall when I took a picture of him and his eyes were red and there was a smoke coming out of his mouth but he wasn`t smoking! Come to think of it, I`m not sure he casts a shadow or has a reflection in the mirror! Two other signs that I did not heed was that his name was Damian and he was born on June 6th so that his last birthday would have been 6/6/06. Now if I`d known that Lucifer himself was a backpacker I`m not sure I would have agreed to allow him come to Pai.
Pai is a great little town which is pretty near the Golden Triangle and so there is a raging drug trade up here. Primarily weed though and there is a strange mix of Bob Marley/Captain Jack Sparrow lookalikes wandering around the place, smiling considerably more than the locals! A haze descends on the town in the evening but you won`t see this one on any weather charts if you know what I mean!
Accordingly though, it means that conversations with the other backpackers can be drawn out and rambling and it takes huge amounts of concentration to connect the thread from beginning to end. Every bar has a guitar which is begging to be picked up and the number of excellent guitarists is ridiculous. There is a reggae festival (coloufully named "We be jammin` Pai") on next week which might explain the influx of dreadlocks and the increase in price of cigarette papers!
I am realising that my trip is relatively short for the amount of land I am covering but this is yet another place that you could spend a week or two at if not more. I met an Aussie guy yesterday and this was his favourite holiday destination, this little town, for the last 15 years. He introduced himself as James Bond so I think that his license to pill should be looked into...
And then the event that will always remind me of Pai. Our good friend Damien from earlier was out drinking with us last night when we stumbled on a bar that had a wall of people that had drunk 3,6 or 12 (double) shots in the space of one day. These modern day legends would then be immortalised by having their name written in chalk onto a blackboard no less which would last through the ages.
Well the giddying prospect of having his name written in chalk beside some luminaries as Daz, Gippo and Bluey was too much for our man to resist. He`d already had quite a few to drink so I thought it entirely appropriate that he would go for the 3 shot (bronze) award. I was playing Jenga with some other backpackers (a lot harder and more fun after a few drinks) when, 15 minutes later, I saw the owner go to the board and chalk up "Damo - Gold Award"!! WHAT?! I turned around just in time to see the first of his many falls as the 24 shots that he had just drank quite rightly decided to take over his entire motor neuron capabilities! LIKE WHAT?! 24 shots in seriously less than 15 minutes and there he was flapping like an epileptic beached whale listening to techno on the ground.
We got him up and he insisted he was fine and wanted more. I turned back to my game and then turned around again to see him swinging for the owner! I grabbed him and it was then that he punched me, (an occurence that unfortunately is getting far too regular air play in this blog) but despite the overwhelming urge to drop the prince of Darkness, myself and my mates tried to lift him out of the bar.
It was at this point that the alcohol had reached and clearly taken over the area of the brain that coordinates speech as he started to shout out in tongues, BLEAURGHHHH, GWAWLLLA, MNNNAAHHHH which sounded for all the world like the mating call of a horny Yeti.
Now I am not sure if any of you have had to carry the dead weight of a drunk but it`s like trying to lift 4 concrete bags that have arms that swing around and hit you in the head. We tried to lift this idiot and in a moment where we all lost concentration (basically each of us thought the other two had him), down he went with a sickening thud as the road conveniently rushed up to massage his face. UUUURRRRLL? was his understandable response to this new development. A huge bump on the forehead was his just rewards and we continued to try and lift him down the road, the first 80m taking nearly 30 mins.
There are no cabs around here so we had to stop a unsuspecting middle aged Thai couple who were driving a Ute and explain to them with gesticulating hands that our friend was sick and we needed to get him home. Our case wasn`t helped as he was in a heap on the ground revelling in the new language he had invented and was clearly the greatest exponent of! PLEURRLLLL!
Anyway, bless them, frightened out of their wits, this couple agreed to our plan and we hoisted the carcass over the side of the Ute and he crashed down into the back of it with another bang. MWWEEULLL? was what he seemed to say as I am sure he was wondering if our gallents attempts to get him home may actually get him killed! I am sure if he`d been able to talk he`d have asked why did we keep dropping him on his head but that was a luxury he couldn`t afford.
We got him back to the guest house as he was being thrown on the bed he turned around and smashed his head off the head board! (I have to confess I am laughing as I am writing this because it was truly something out of a Laurel and Hardy or the Three Stooges clip!). MMMMMWIILLL, he said as the now familiar soft caress of another concussion set in.
I won`t go into the horrors that awaited us as his body, blissfully free now of any responsibilities to decorum or basic hygiene, poured forth every kind of bodily excess. I truly hope you can read between the lines on this as I`m about to go to dinner and I can`t bring myself to think about it again. I stayed up all night then to make sure that he didn`t choke on his own vomit (something which I am sure his liver would have felt was a justified punishment). GWARGRLLLL he said finally, which I think you`ll agree summed up the evening perfectly!
So this morning after hardly sleeping, I am fairly sure that he is alive but that his brain may never be the same again. We have parted ways as I`m not sure if my travel insurance covers people whom I, with the best will in the world, keep dropping on their heads!
So we will try and spend a quieter night tonight in Pai and then I think it`s off to Chang Mai again and then to Bangkok. If I can find this much trouble in a town of 3000, what is going to happen in Bangkok?!
Stay tuned, hope you enjoyed it and remember to leave a message in the message board, I love reading them!
Oh, and if you see Damien, greet him in his native tongue which I think goes something like FFLAWNNNGEE!
Damian has reached mini cult status from the e-mails I have been receiving so I thought I would just send a short update! We were stopped in the street by strangers who had been in the bar that night and wanted to know if we had managed to get him home!
We met him yesterday and his head had a few tell tale bumps but not too bad. He had spent 32 hours on and off asleep, he was in the horrors so bad that at one stage he made his peace with God, he thought he was going to die!
Poor lad, I think that he will be a little wiser in the future but for you to be old and wise you must first be young and stupid!
The bar have just put a new category on their board, Most Shameful, and Damian is the sole member! I have pictures which I will upload over the weekend.
Off to Bangkok now on yet another overnight train, you get used to them.
I hope you are well, talk to you soon.
Hi all,
After a bus from Pai and an overnight train for 14 hours, I found myself in Bangkok again. Of all the Asian cities, I am most familiar with this one after my 3 or 4 conference presentations here in the last few years so it was a good spot for me to come nearly half way through my trip.
We (Mick "Jenga Master" Jones and Julie "34%" Hart, she got the deciding vote on everything the three of us did!) checked in and I took myself off to Khao San Road, famous to all backpackers and anyone that has seen "The Beach"
It is definitely one of my favourite places on the planet, an unabashed and unapologetic freak fest in the best way possible. I took my usual spot, brought a book so I didn`t look conspicuous and looked out at the people walking by, over a few beers of course, for a few hours.
After coming from the colder North the first thing you notice is the clothes, or lack of! T-shirts make you look over dressed as singlets rule supreme and jeans are something that accountants that are trying to look cool wear! One girl immediately realised her major faux pas as she wore high heels in a world of flip flops (thongs to the Aussies), making her far more of a spectacle than she had hoped or anticipated! Gangs of English, Irish or Scottish lads walk down the street topless and with beers in hand, fulfilling a deeply suppressed luxury rarely afforded in their own countries!
Another rarely afforded (poor phrasing possibly) pleasure is the number of white gentlemen of varying age (25 to 65) who have managed to woo a beautiful Asian girl as a girlfriend/guide. The former (in the age group above) have cast away the frustrations of small town attitude and in a world where they don`t think their mothers will ever hear of their dalliances have made full use of the number that their mates older brother gave them in the pub on the last night before they left. The latter just don`t care, have made their money, have long since discarded their hotel bibles, morals, scruples and will soon be not so subtlely separated from their wallets.
KS Road brings together the Asian markets to the Western dollar/euro/pound but it does so effortlessly, not the awkward juxtaposition of so many other cities. Us westerners are old hat here and the fusion is immediately comfortable and recognisable. There were bombs in this city 6 days ago but no-one here cares for that as parents wheel their kids down the street and couples do their best not to offend local sensibilities by giving each other a public kiss.
I`m not of the backpacker mentality that demands that you need to get off the beaten pack to `truly` experience a country, those `other bloody tourists have ruined it for us hippies` brigade. You can find truly different experiences in these countries without having to stay every night in a hut with no running water and no access to a hot shower. On occasions its good to get away from creature comforts but self inflicted purgatory smacks of masochism to me.
So that is why I love this road, there is a great familiarity which I truly believe I had the first time I came here too. With that, you sit back and almost impatiently wait for someone you know to walk by! For me it was two Israelis I`d met a few days ago in Pai and earlier, Milena from Croatia that I hadn`t seen since Sapa in Northern Thailand and whom I thought was in Laos!!
The tattoo artists and the dreadlock ladies are out in force, ready to turn you from ultra conservative to outer edge cool if you can give them a few hours. It makes the original tat freaks and rastas uneasy to see how quickly the `mainstream` are catching up as they try desperately to think of the next fad to get on board with that will take years for the rest of us to gather up the courage to do.
Fathers walk ahead of their teenage daughters and survey with zealous authority over myself and the other people watchers (like train spotters but way cooler!) He needn`t worry because this road throws up a wealth of international beauty that causes equal amounts of envy, excitement and whiplash.
An English guy sits next to me having a beer as his wife approaches with a puppy dog smile and several bags, she rushes to kiss him and he sighs as he wonders how much that kiss has just costed him. You overhear some weary travellers saying that they have lost their appetite after reading three menus a day for the last few months, the difficulty in having to choose all the time is getting to them and they yearn for the relative constriction of their under stocked fridges.
The Thai boys serve beer during the day but from 6pm, the Thai girls take over in their skimpy dresses and seductive smiles. Contrary to popular belief they are not the same people who have just had a clothes change and some shaded make up to diminish an Adam`s apple.
And with all voyeuristic of sports, there is a certain welcoming disdain for the new arrivals, the fresh meat who walk down the road with their backpacks still on, still trying to become part of the city which can only be done once they`ve found a room, discarded their bags and joined us at the bar! We have only settled an hour before but we have all felt the scalding glare of those that have arrived before us in other towns and now its our turn to bask in our booths from the side of the street!
Its a road that rewards those with imagination and teases those without. The temples, pagodas, mountains and rivers of SE Asia are amazing, but I love afternoons like today, which anyone can do in Temple Bar in Dublin, by the Opera House in Sydney, in Downtown Crossing Boston or wherever as long as you have a beer, a keen eye and a sense of humour!
Hope you enjoyed, remember to mail me, talk soon
Consi
Hey all,
I`ve been a bit slack of late so apologies. I had a couple of mental nights in Bangkok, me and that city work way too well together. Then throw in the mad Aussie Mick and some towers of Chang and it was all starting to catch up with me! I took a bus to Aranya Prathet which is a dusty little town. The LP says that these are the best places to experience the real Asia but that`s rubbish. It`s off the beaten track because there is nothing there!
The next morning I went to the border with Cambodia and immediately a guy said that he would get me my visa (which usually can take a day) in about 10 mins for a fee. So I gave him my passport and he disappeared leaving me his old brick of a phone as collateral!! You have to have an element of trust in SE Asia but I did have a fleeting thought of how I was going to explain it to all of ye how I gave my passport away to some dodgy bloke at a border crossing!
When I walked across the border, which is a cool experience in its own right, I met two girls, one from Oz and one from NZ and we shared a cab to Siem Reap. Now if any of you have travelled around these parts you will know what this road is like (dubbed the worst road in SE Asia and believe me its up against some stiff opposition!). He drove like a crazy man as the girls peered between their fingers out the front as I pseudo calmly read a book and feigned Zen like trust in our driver! We hit another car and we saw a dog get hit aswell. At one point he was weaving either side of two cars ahead of us, there was no overtaking lane, just a gap that you had to go for!
We were welcomed by the street kids who could ream off the capital, approx population, languages spoken, president or prime minister and at least two lines in your native tongue. We checked in and after showering I went to the girls room to see if they were ready and comment on how good the shower was (they have just started their trip so I wanted to manage their expectations) and they said that theirs was ok but they didn`t like the fact that they had to hold it?! I looked in to their bathroom and realised that they had just washed themselves with the `butt gun`, the hose that the locals use to clean themselves off!! And neither of them had seen the great big shower in there!!
We had a big night out where we bumped into Milena (who I`d met in Sapa), Gennie (Bangkok), Steve (Chang Mai) and Zac (Luang Prabang). I then beat another Steve at pool 5-3 who is well on his way to an England cap in cricket, he`s a pro cricketer with Yorkshire and he`s only 23. We were supposed to get up at 4:30am to see the sunrise over Anghor Wat but drinking until 3am kind of scotched those plans! Nothing like missing out on one of the wonders of the world so you can have those few more beers at 2am!
Still we got there at 6:30am and it was amazing. The temple is surrounded by this huge moat which they had built for protection against hording masses who, when they reached it, had to work out how to now build a boat to cross it! The temple though is awesome and once the incredibly steep steps were overcome, it was just great to sit there and literally reflect for a while. There is a worldwide Internet poll on at the moment to decide on the new 7 wonders of the world. As much as I love it, it`s almost embarassing that the Sydney Opera House is in the shortlist along with this place, there is really no comparison.
We visited the Tomb Raider Temple where these amazing trees are literally engulfing the temples. We played with this little girl for a while who was about 4. She was so happy to throw and retrieve a little bead in the grass but she had to keep an eye out for her Mum as she would then have to say "You buy postcard?" just to keep her Mum happy that she was `working`
We came across a crash site and by the looks of the local guy on the side of the street, I wasn`t entirely sure that he was going to make it. On the way back, our guuy was crossing a street in our tuk tuk when a motorbike with two people on it came flying up and we all knew it was going to hit us. He pulled off a massive skid and hit us side on but somehow both him and his girlfriend stayed on their bikes. I thought they were going to come flying through the carriage and really do us some damage! But after a quick look at each other a few mumbled curses, both drivers just carried on, none of this "registration details please as I feel a healthy dose of whiplash and lawyer bills coming my way"!!
Another late night that night proceeded our 5:30am pick up for a speed boat to Phnom Penh where I am now. We sat on top of it and got soaked by the spray as we fell asleep. I woke up and decided I`d had enough and we went downstairs to roars of laughter by the other (drier) travellers! It was a good way to start up a conversation though!
I took a much needed siesta when I got in and we all went out with one of the girls friends who has been living here for 13 years. He said that it`s a great lifestyle where he hasn`t had to wash a plate or iron his clothes for all that time because he can pay others to do it! There were pictures of the relatively new king (not as bad as in Thailand where the King is literally everywhere!) who is causing some controversy because he hasn`t married and everyone knows that he is gay. The Cambodians would like him to take a wife to save face but I think it`s great that they`ve got a king AND queen all rolled into one!
Yesterday I set off to see S21, the school that was converted into a prison and torture chamber by the Khmer Rouge. Between 1975 and 1979, Pol Pot had over 2 million of his countrymen killed. (One picture there was of him and five of his mates, he`d had 4 of them executed later! With friends like that....) I immediately got a chill down my spine in this place, a really bad feeling. They ask that you don`t speak as you walk around but they needn`t have bothered, you are literally rendered speechless as you see the singular rooms where there is just a metal bed, some of the torture implements and a gruesome picture of a dismembered body that was found in this room.
The tortures were insane and I`m not going to go into them but it did leave me with a sick feeling in my stomach, I was walking in a room where in my lifetime, thousands of men, women and children were brutally tortured and killed. If you spoke a foreign language or wore glasses that was enough to convince them that you were intelligent and that meant you had to die. Another man was taken away from his village because he had a fat belly so it was assumed that he must be working with the CIA.
We have all read about the Holocaust but this seemed a lot more real but equally difficult to comprehend. The guest book where people could write their thoughts was full of questions like "How could we let this happen?" and "Why haven`t we learned from our mistakes of the past?" and then "Lets hope this never happens again" but I thought about Darfur and how it is happening and it`s happened in Somalia, Sarajevo etc and we do stand by and do nothing. I don`t know what the answer is, but it certainly made me depressed. Of the 40,000 people that passed through this prison, less than 12 survived.
To heighten this feeling of abject sadness, I took off to the Killing Fields, where they have found over 200 mass graves and 8000 bodies. There was a huge memorial with the skulls of the victims and so many of them were crushed in or had a bullet hole in them.
There was a grave of decapitated bodies, a grave for children and brutal pictures of how they were killed. It was just a little park, nothing more than that but it was where all these people arrived in a truck and then just walked to a grave and killed. No pause, no trial, just assured death.
My guide then offered to bring me to a shooting range (which I thought ironic in a sick way) but I`d had enough violence for one day. Instead I tried to do some good (and to try and pick up my spirits) and all you need to do to achieve happiness in Cambodia is to get a 50kg bag of rice and find an orphanage! Yay!!
The kids were amazing, not all of them were strictly orphans but their parents couldn`t support them so they were thrown out of the house. They don`t get any government assistance so they are heavily reliant on donations from backpackers. There are hundreds of orphanages in Phnom Penh so the travellers are spread thin so a visitor with a bag of rice made their day! It would have been easy to have felt smugly heroic for your good deed but you were immediately and sadly aware that this was just a drop in the ocean, it would feed the fifty kids there only about 6 meals each.
Karma was blessing me though as there was 5 gorgeous girls from Australia visiting aswell at the same time, playing football with the kids and walking around the farm. Some of the kids were really good at football, back heels, drag backs, the works and myself and a 4 foot kid played keep ups and headers (until I screwed it up much to his delight!) After the harrowing morning, I was in great form again and as I was being driven back on the motor bike I was beaming, waving at everyone and saying hello to my fellow commuters!
That good feeling carried on to watching Liverpool kill Watford and then a large group of us went out, played drinking games and then ended up in the only late night club worth going to, "The Heart of Darkness"!! (Say it in a Darth Vader voice for best affect!). The WWF name notwithstanding, it was a great club where the security padded you down going in as there have been some shootings in the past! And do you know what, 90% of the world know all the words to Ice Ice Baby!!
So I woke this morning too late to get out of this place so I am staying another night (The Heart of Darkness will probably get another chunk of my savings tonight!) before heading back to Bangkok on my way to the islands in the South of Thailand for some rest and relaxation, all this back packing can take it out of you!
Cambodia is such an amazing country though with a proud and artistic history (in Anghor Wat) and a brutal and senseless recent past. Everyone here my age and older has been affected directly about it and they try not to talk about it much. That`s understandable. They are so friendly here aswell, and the guys that run my guesthouse are all taking me out tonight for a few drinks. This may be my last entry!!
Oh and if you want to make a million dollars, set up a restaurant wherever you are reading this and hire Khmer cooks! The food here is among the best I have ever tasted and a massive meal will set you back a princely $1.50!
I hope you are all well and thanks to those that have written a message on the message board, I love to read them! And don`t worry Scotty, I`ll be back in the Bull soon enough mate and we`ll get those profits back up, just have the Coopers Red ready!!
So I last left you in Phnom Penh. Well the Heart of Darkness did get my money for a third night and the cheer I got from the staff when I walked through the door was a little disconcerting! Next morning I was up and ready to go at 7:30am to take a cab to the border. You have to show liberal amounts of patience when you travel anywhere but it was 9am before they took me to this part of the city where I was assured my `cab` was going at 9:30am.
My cab turned out to be a Ute which had 6 people in the cabin and 16 hanging on to boxes in the back!! We didn`t leave till 11am because they wanted to get one more person crammed in! I got some dry looks because I was taking the entire front passenger seat to myself but I didn`t care, from what I saw they were handing over, I`d paid as much as all the Beverley Hillbillies hanging on for dear life on the back!
It was an amazing drive though, through quarries where they were still bombing to make roads in this part of the world and four ferry crossings (that has gone on the list of all of the various modes of transport I have taken so far on this trip. Submarine, balloon and camel to go and I get a set of steak knives!!). But my heart sank when I asked when we were getting to our destination. 5pm was the earnest response but I know now that that usually means 6:30pm. We arrived in at 6:28pm!
I got to the border with the help of a motorbike taxi that I am convinced had a death wish. I took my cap off as we sped down the road (I didn`t want to lose it) but it caught in the wind and nearly dragged me off!). I walked across the border and found myself stuck on the other side with no hope of getting to Bangkok so I had to stay in a local village. Slim Dusty once sang about "A pub with no beer" but at least he could have some shots or a nice wine, well I`ve just stayed in "The town with no pub"!
An enforced night off the partying wasn`t a bad thing before Bangkok though. You know about the craziness of Bangkok so I won`t go into it again but suffice to say there were some large nights with Thai Tom Jones and Thai Elvis! I met up with Andy, a mate I`d last seen in Hanoi and we flew to Phuket.
We arrived into Patong Beach at 7:15pm in the rain and it wasn`t looking good for accommodation as the place was packed with tourists. But ever the optimists we persevered and got a place for the night and went out.
Patong is where Neon goes to die and on this one crazy street there was about 300 prostitute/lady boys vying for the all too available business. It was a terrible place but we found Scruffy Murphy`s bar and never one to pass an Irish bar while in foreign lands, we went in. We`d met up with Kasey from Sydney and Ryan and Brian from the States.They had this great band playing covers, so never one to shirk my responsibilities I got up and had a song! On my way home I chanced upon a guy playing guitar so I sat with him and sang a few songs but he kept breaking his strings but insisted on playing on!
I got out of Patong next day and went to Kata Beach where my pursuit of a colour other than white began in earnest. But after all my trekking and travels, the long bus journeys, the sickness and the tiredness I have reached Paradise. We got to Ko Phi Phi island yesterday and I love it here! It was literally wiped out in the Tsunami but they have rebuilt but it still has a little village feel about it because it has taken them so long to re-establish themselves. So you get this great feeling that you have found this hideaway.
The island is packed here aswell of some seriously tanned people. I know I am jealous but seriously some of these people are truly tandoori in colour and several of them would make excellent wallets or bags! I was introduced to the term "Poshpacker" by Kasey when we saw a girl wearing the finest of clothes, coming out of a lavish hotel with full make up on at midday but with a backpack! She won`t last long methinks.
Its funny the `luxuries` that you take for granted at home. We were checking into a guest house the other day and he told us that the toilet in our room flushes and we both let out a cheer! Usually you have to get a bucket of water to flush it! And another thing I have noticed in SE Asia is their insistance to get some little spelling wrong in every one of their signs! So you are often reading your `manu` and getting `french fried` with your meals assuming that its during their `openning` hours! I`m sure that they can spell perfectly but they know that us tourists like to point out the cute spelling mistakes!
So in just a few days I have gone a nice salmony colour and I stand beside people who are whiter than me to make myself feel better! But this place is amazing, the people are so kind and full of laughter which is amazing when you think of how devastated they must have been only 2 years ago. Resilient is not the word for it.
So many people have tattoos that to not have one makes me quite unique! Some of the designs are seriously elaborate and must have taken days to do. They are big into their fire shows around here and we had a great night last night, drinking buckets on the beach!
Swimming in the ridiculously clear waters around here with scores of fish around you is about as far detached from the cubicle where you are probably reading this from as I can imagine! So many times I say to myself "That I should have done this years ago" but I am so glad that I am doing it now. If any of ye are thinking about dropping everything and going travelling I can tell you seriously you won`t regret it!
Special mention for how big a night I had after the Liverpool win over Chelsea. A friend of mine mailed me to say that since I have left Australia, Liverpool have been on fire. Well I would gladly play my part and stay over here until the end of the season if they need me to! Stand by for some more photos that I will upload in the next few days. If any of ye have questioned my sexuality you will have proof complete when you see one of the pics I have!
I hope you are well and thanks again to those that have kept mailing me or posting on my message board, I really love to get them!
Hi all
Well, it was always going to happen but I am staying an additional three nights more than planned here in Ko Phi Phi. I have met some people who have spent an additional two to three months on this island, some who have jeopardised jobs and relationships to do so, so I am not that bad!
It is slightly more expensive here but we were very lucky to find "The Rock", a guest house with a dorm of some really funny characters from every nation. But more of that anon.
Not much known for my devotion to sun worshipping but much criticised on the message board for my albino like complexion, I resolved to get myself a colour other than white! This was done by a couple of hours each day steadfastly doing nothing. That`s harder than it sounds for someone who shuns the sun as I do unless I have a golf club in my hand (seriously feeling withdrawal symptoms in that regard let me tell you!)
Then yesterday I took a long tail boat out for 8 hours with our group to see these magnificent islands, we saw the "The Beach" beach and we swam in an inlet surrounded nearly on every side by 100m high cliff faces which presided grandly over the clear green warm waters we were swimming in. Another of those memorable moments. I am determined not to do the usual and take a picture of my toes to relay how clear the water is and anyway, I haven`t had a petticure in ages!
I met a writer the other night who is a few years older than me. He said that he packed in his job at my age and went travelling and is writing his book. For someone like me who can`t imagine anything better, but who has been shackled with a lack of guts and a marketable hook, I asked what his `hook` was. He had none per se but was just writing about the places he had gone with his own special insights. I can tell you it made me think, but its a convenient safety blanket for me to always think I need to find something that would make my trip truly unique (other than the fact that I am on it).
With this question in my head, and a healthy burn on my back, I decided to sit at "The Rock" in the shade of the balcony, read my book and listen in to the conversations of the big group of long term residents on this island. They are truly a motley crew of nationalities and temperments and some of the topics caused me to run down here to pen it straight away!
Of course they were all high!! The authorities in Thailand have very low tolerance for drugs of any kind, even marijuana (one bar has a prominent sign saying that it will take anyone that they suspect under the influence of drugs straight to the police rather than just kick them out!) but these guys seem to have bypassed most of the controls or cares for that matter.
The intriguing catch 22 of smoking to calm themselves and thus relieving the throaty coughs that they all have has clearly been lost on them. It was so funny to listen to one guy starting to tell a story to another friend, completely lose track and then insist on his friend (who doesn`t know the story of course) to help him finish it!
Most were just trying to read their books or magazines and there was an uneasy balance of open conversation and quiet solitude, invariably screwed up by one guy out of step with the group dynamic! He`d ask a question, not rhetorical, and when no-one would answer his furrowed brow showed that he`d just mistimed his entry to the conversation again. Then a few minutes later someone would look up and say something to which the others would clamber to answer in unison as our can-can conversationalist kept kicking the other way.
Confident that he had got his kicking in time now, he`d throw out a question like "So did you see Leonardo di Caprio actually got an Oscar nomination?" but everyone would have gone back to their own worlds much to his chagrin and my growing amusement!
An American guy kept getting asked questions about Canada as an Aussie guy wanted to move to Vancouver and the Yank had been there once! He was asked if he`d smoked any of that `American BC` (British Colombia in Canada) weed and the Yank replied wasn`t that an oxymoron and the Aussie said, "No it`s a type of grass"! The fact that I was one of the only ones laughing at this said volumes as to the various states of mental well being and English verbage recognition. His retort of "Are you playing up as I`m coming down?" I thought was particularly well phrased.
So another day tomorrow here, it`s Australia Day and since I have met a few and am a citizen elect, I have chosen to stay here before moving on to Ko Lanta. I am hoping that my discipline in the sun can reverse my usual trend of looking like a barber pole, white skin to red, red skin to white!
Ko Phi Phi is magical though. There are no roads on the island, so you walk or take a boat to where you want to go. As devesatating as the Tsunami was here, it does leave the island fresh with enterprise and it gives those of us who haven`t been coming here religiously for 10 or 15 years a glimpse into what travelling must have been like before there was such an explosion in development. After meeting some of the people here now and seeing how wonderful they are, it really has made the Tsunami more real to me. Donating a few hundred bucks at the time of the appeals was all well and good but seeing these people just get back to getting on with their lives and you contributing directly by pumping money into their hands feels great.
Well that`s the latest one done, I will report back in a few days unless something particularly exciting happens!! Thanks for the messages, Donough, keep my red in the cold fridge!
Hi all,
Well I said I wouldn`t write unless something interesting happened and well something did... I got lost!! Very lost! Wrong side of the country lost but more on that later!
My last two days in Ko Phi Phi were great! It has been the highlight of my trip to date and that`s saying something. It was with a heavy heart that I left the characters of The Rock and also Lung, chef extroadinaire in Papayas restaurant where I ate every night for a week. In SE Asia, most restaurants have animals walking around in them, particularly cats and dogs! His cat got too hot and jumped into the fridge for an hour to cool down! Picture attached! (My attempts to lock the fridge were thwarted!)
I was leaving on Sunday so we climbed to the top of the island to see the amazing views, it wasn`t Everest or anything, only about 15 mins to get there but it was well worth it. Unfortunately my camera has broken and now I am reliant on friends sending me on pictures. I will get a new one though as I can`t be without one!
I am always palpably aware of the fact that in our own little way, each traveller is representing his/her country and culture and we should be always striving to leave a good impression on people from around the world that we met. Unfortunately some Irish guys have undone a lot of good work by reportedly beating up another guy on the island the other night. The sick irony of it though was that these guys were from the Irish Army and they were on holidays from a posting with the UN Peacekeepers in Kosovo!! Ha ha, if that`s the way they act `keeping the peace` God help the Kosovans.
But being beaten up by Peacekeepers must be like getting drank under the table by a Mormon or being out sung by a mute! In other words it should really never happen!
Another thing that doesn`t usually happen is me getting lost! I have a fair idea how I wanted this trip to go but I have always left myself open to fluctuations and slight deviations from the path if needs must, but I have found myself a long way from where I need to be!
It all started with Mick (from Luang Prabang, Pai and Bangkok fame) giving me a stubby (beer) holder from a bar called Choppers that he made me promise to go see. Well, I have undertaken this search for the Holy Grail with great gusto and I was sure that the bar was on an island called Ko Lanta. Of course, any kind of cursory look at the stubby holder would have told me that the bar was in Koh Tao! That`s on the other side of the country!
So I got to Ko Lanta and I am staying in this beautiful bamboo hut right on the beach in a little resort with just 11 huts! When I got there I asked two English lads from Banbury in the UK (Lee and Justin) where Choppers bar was. They looked at each other, and being frequent visitors to this part of the world both said that it was in Koh Tao! I told them that I had come to Ko Lanta just to have a drink in that bar as a promise to a friend and they died laughing! The bumbling Irish stereotype was confirmed and I made some new friends!
I was invited to play football at the daily 5pm game that the 76 yr old patriarch of the family business, Papa, has to play daily. So there I was playing Ta-Kraw, a game where you have to keep a small ball made out of reeds off the ground with extra points being given for flair! It took some getting used to but then I was flicking like nobody`s business! Afterwards I got invited for their sunday roast dinner which Papa had been cooking all day. My story of how I was on the wrong island had been told to all the locals and they loved it!! They kept saying "You very stupid but very lucky!"
But Lee and Justin turned out to be two of the greatest characters you will ever meet! Both 30 somethings, they had a zest for life that made mine seem positively pedestrian! The locals all knew and loved these guys and after an evening with them I could see why!
Just some of the stories that came out of the evening; Justin was in Bangkok and he stumbled into a brothel that he thought was a bar. Not being one that partakes in such sordid behaviour and who, quite to the contrary, despises the practise, insisted on paying to take all of the girls out for the night! So he had all these working girls walking around with him from bar to bar just drinking with him! It must have been some spectacle but the cost for such an extravagance reached into the thousands of dollars!
The dance music was pumping from the bar in our resort and Justin kept throwing his hands in the air, until he dislocated his shoulder!! Apparantly this happens a lot and he knocked it back in (same as Mel Gibson`s character in Lethal Weapons!). But then a few minutes later he was back to his dance music and throwing caution to the wind again!
Too many years in the clubs has dulled the senses and the hearing because when he was told that there was no weed here, he said "What are you talking about" (pointing to one of the other lads), "He`s Norwegian!" . He was trying to explain how to say Bad Karma in Thai but the words always started out as `Nong nang` but every time he tried to finish it, it had a different ending. So `Nong Nang Bebala` or `Nong Nang Be La La` which prompted Lee to say "What about Nong Nang Be Tipsy and Nong Nang Be Po and all the other Teletubbies?!"
Nicole and Carsten from Germany were the next to come out with a memorable comment as Carsten is a devotee to tattoos with his entire torso covered in intricate designs. I asked why did he get so many, he said it was like an addiction. I couldn`t grasp this so Nicole tried to clarify it for me by saying that getting Tattoos was like Pringles - "Once you pop, you can`t stop!"
Talking nonsense must have been infectious because one of the other Germans then wanted to go for a Night swim. With the currents we advised him against it. I said "Neinen Nachten Svimmen" in one of those terrible put on German accents from the WWII movies and they all looked at me. I thought they were impressed but my pronunciation hadn`t been up to scratch as I had just told him "No Naked Swimming"! He thought I was telling him not to skinny dip as the word for Naked in German is Nackt!! What made it funnier was that I was making up Svimmen as I didn`t know the word for swimming but guest what, I was right!!
Schwimmen is how it`s spelt but I was now officially tri-lingual (English, French and German) but then it occured to me that I can still speak Gaelic so when I told Nicole this we both said (in a broken Italian accent for some reason) that I was "Quatro Linguale" which immediately prompted us into saying that I was `Cinquo Lingual" now that I clearly had added fluent Italian to my repetoire!
This and so much more all happened in the space of two hours and when there was a lights failure (pretty common apparantly), we just sat around, talking and listening to nature. One of the main dangers in our resort though is the really big threat of falling cannonballs, sorry, I mean coconuts! We spend our times walking around looking up, waiting for that fateful sound of a coconut breaking off and coming crashing down. The `en suite` toilet in my room has a wall around it but no roof so I sit on the toilet or stand in the shower craning my head skyward to ensure I don`t become a victim of the worst kind of toilet humour!
I`m sure that there is a astral or geographical explanation for it but it`s amazing in Thailand when you see the moon moving across the sky and actually `setting` as we have seen the sun do on so many occasions! So I sat on the beach and watched this new phenomen and realised how very lucky I was.
Lee and Justin have gone to Koh Tao now and I will set off tomorrow and join them. I am sure that more adventure awaits with these lads and I am equally as sure of it that I was destined to come to the wrong island first and then head over with these two nutters! It also means now that it looks like I might be at the Full Moon Party in Ko Pha Nang on the 2nd of Feb if any of you are going to be in the area.
So even when I screw up on this trip, it comes up roses! You can expect now that the stories will definitely be coming thick and fast!
Talk to you all soon and keep those messages on the message board coming!
If you`ve read the last entry you`ll know that I was on the wrong island in my quest to find the elusive Choppers Bar on Koh Tao! Never one to let my clear lack of orientation set me back I set off from Ko Lanta via several minibuses, two ferry crossings and a few taxis to Surathanyi where I would take an overnight boat to Koh Tao.
They never miss a trick over here to make a few bob and the bus driver dropped us off in Surathanyi at a restaurant where he wouldn`t give us any information about where we were, how we could go on to our respective destinations etc unless we bought some food! It was amazing how quickly their English improved as soon as you had paid for a thai green curry!
At the pier I met Gregory and Benedicte from Bretagne (France) and Roderigo from Sanitago in Chile. It does not serve you well to have stereotypes built up in your mind about different nationalities but Greg and Bene should be permanent overseas ambassadors for France! By their own admission, many of their countrymen do not travel well but they are definitely overhauling everyones pre conceived perceptions that they meet. It is great, I help them with their English (Je suis le professeur) and they are improving my French no end. Throw the Spanish speaking Roderigo into the mix and I may actually become a multi linguist that I referred to in my last entry!
The boat to Koh Tao. Oh good God (or as they say around these parts, Oh Buddha) it was hellish! No seats, just assigned spots on the floor for us to lie out for what would be 9 hours on seriously choppy water. We went below deck to have a few drinks in the carriage hold with Susie and Wendy from Oz and Nz respectively because we needed something to help us get to sleep.
Now, there have been many times when I have thanked God that I am a man, or more specifically, that I am not a woman. For example, any time that I have had to parallel park, knowing the offside rule instinctively, the prospect of childbirth and being able to make logical arguments but seeing the toilet on this boat, I gave another big nod to the man upstairs!!
As any of you that have been in this corner of the world knows, the toilets are often just holes in the ground but add to that the continuous and irregular rocking of the sea and no handles on the walls to get a grip and I sighed a sigh of sympathy every time I saw a girl descend the ladder to the toilet below!
Several people were getting sick out the windows but my iron constitution refused to yield and I was ok. The same can`t be said though for the Thai man lying beside me. It was about 5am, the sun was rising and not being able to get back to sleep and feeling a little queasy, I reached for my iPod to see if it would work and take my mind off the water. I sat up but then a rogue wave hit us and I went flying, elbow first which unerringly and forcefully connected with my luckless companions nether regions!!
He woke in howls of pain as you would if your nights sleep had come to such an unceremonious end at the hands (or should that be elbow) of a great big white guy beside you! The agaonising look on his face of "Oh Good Buddha, why did you do that?!" will stay with me for a long time and since my Thai consists of "Hello" and "Thank You" (both woefully inappropriate in this situation) I said "Sorry" and lay back down. I couldn`t help myself but I did break into fits of giggles every time I thought of his face but I did feel bad that he had to go down to the toilets shortly afterwards, probably to inspect the damage!
We got to Koh Tao and my new motley crew found accomodation relatively easily, Greg and Bene on the beach where most of the shots that you see that I have loaded up have come from. In fact, big thanks to Bene and Greg for the photos as I am still camera less.
And then, the big night when I brought my stubby holder to Choppers! I`d like to say that it was a monumental moment but the gloss was taken off when our drinks got served in replica stubby holders and the staff tried to take mine away when we had finished our round! I tried to explain the significance of the journey I had gone through to get there but I think he was just confused why I cared so much about my beer cooler! So maybe then, it wasn`t one of the last great treks of the modern era but it has brought me to Koh Tao which is really beautiful. The main bars are all on the beach and you sit there, getting served while watching fire shows nightly and the hours slip away as you can go to several clubs and even watch the sunrise again!
None of my travel companions had seen "Team America" and when it came up in conversation I tried to relay some of the funnier scenes. The scene where Gary Johnston the actor goes undercover as a terrorist in Egypt and gives the `signal` (both arms in the air waving wildly), well that has now become the Koh Tao signal/dance! I am aware however though that this probably doesn`t translate so well to those of you who aren`t on the island with us (and lets face it, most of you aren`t!).
I met the Ko Lanta guys Justin and Lee again and it would truly fill up another blog again with the antics that they have been up to. If you are every in Bambury, near Oxford in England, call in to see these guys, they should be knighted (except they`d probably forget to turn up!)
So while I was here and so close to Koh Pan Nang where the world famous Full Moon Parties are held, I thought I would bite the bullet and go. Images of young idiots off their heads on drugs dancing around to Techno music is truly my impression of hell but it was another box that had to be ticked so I went with the lowest possible expectations and still thought I would be disappointed.
Roderigo and I set off on a boat trip of only 90 minutes but this time I even reached for a sick bag the water was so choppy. Again, steadfastly refusing to join the ever increasing number of sick people on board, I held out. But they had actual crew people to clean up sick, hand out sick bags and tissues. We got off and I immediately met some Northern Irish girls that I met in Bangkok a few weeks ago and I knew that a lot of my friends from my trek would be here.
We found two of Roderigo`s friends first and then we all went to Hadrin Beach. There were about 10 or 15 bars, all belting out various different degrees of dance music from outright techno trance to pop/rock to entice customers. Fairy lights and neon abounded, fire dancers entertained, hundreds of stalls all over the island sold buckets of drinks that you could mix and match and at its peak I would think there was about 20,000 people dancing on the beach! The clouds held off so we got a good view of the moon and the fireworks that came later on!
And despite myself, I was enjoying it! We of course found a pop/rock section of the beach so I belted out song after song and even did a bit of toe tapping, against my better instincts!! There were hundreds of new people to meet but I was more interested in catching up with Andy and Scott (from my Sapa trip in Northern Vietnam), Mandy and Stacey from Koh Tao, the gang from "The Rock" on Phi Phi and of course the Phi Phi Massif (Emily, Lucy, Tina and Kelly). It was great to see them all again and it seemed like a very natural end to this trip of mine!
We partied until about 6:30am and then I went to catch the 8:30am boat back to Koh Tao leaving thousands still on the island dancing away in the early morning. I was dreading it but I fell asleep before we took off and then someone kicked me and said "Koh Tao" and I told them that yes, that was where I was going and then they said "Well get out then!". We were there! Once again the man upstairs got some huge credit and I was back on terra firma without any queasiness.
I will spend a few days now in Koh Tao methinks, we have a good crew here and the place is small but beautiful. David and Julia from Germany, Martin and Marcos from Chile, Mandy and Stacey from California, Emily and Tina from England have joined Justin, Lee, Greg, Bene, Roderigo and I so I think that there will be some good nights. Liverpool were terrible last night but I hope that Ireland can do us proud tonight in the rugby.
Please do keep the messages coming on the travel log, I love getting them and they make for funny reading!
Till the next one!
Hello all,
As those of you that know me will testify (and ex girlfriends will bemoan), I hate to plan things! On any trip like this you have to leave latitude to extend your stay somewhere if you fall in love with it and that`s what has happened in Koh Tao. I waxed lyrical about Koh Phi Phi just over a week ago, and that still applies, but Koh Tao has a magical quality.
Our `intimate` gang of about 15 (!) gave the island a very comfortable feel and made you feel like a local as you kept bumping into them on the beach. We all took off to Nuan Yeng beach which we all had to agree was the most beautiful beach any of us had ever seen. Two forested islands linked by a natural sandbar with crystal clear shallow waters where some resourceful Japanese had brought some bread to entice the thousands of fish closer so the rest of us could do the most amazing snorkeling. A mind-blowing explosion of colour right in front of your eyes.
There was a viewpoint on one of the islands that anyone could reach but my two younger friends from Brittany scaled these rocks to have the best views. My body was screaming at me no but machismo and testosterone kicked in and the `old man` climbed it too! Very windy up there naturally but it was truly worth it. I may not achieve everything that I set out to do, but the first time that I don`t even try because I think I can`t do it, that`s when I`ll give up this travelling lark and settle into a desk job!
Mandy and Stacey (California) are baby nurses and they are authorities on how beautiful the SE Asian children are (no wonder Angelina Jolie keeps adopting them!). They did say however that not all babies are naturally good looking and that FLK`s (funny lookin kids) were common! This gave rise to a litany of non complimentary terms which could be applied to both men and women, F0AMCL (face only a mother could love), BOBFOC (Body off Baywatch, Face off Crimewatch), Good from Far but Far from Good, Moon Pig (`If there were pigs on the moon, that`s the way they`d look!) and my favourite, the Melted Welly Heads (people whose facial features seem to have gravitated to the centre of their face, leaving large foreheads and chins and expansive cheeks!). Who says our conversations aren`t always intellectual!?!
This may come as a bit of a surprise to most of you and particularly to my Mom who`s reading these blogs (Hello Mom!) but I`ve become a Dad! Now before I get cut out of any inheritance, I should explain that I`ve been dubbed `Daddy` by the collective for looking after the girls in our group after I arranged rooms for them before they got to the island. But it has expanded in interpretation (as these things are wont to do) because now I`m a single dad bringing up several girls after my horrible wife got killed in a terrible accident and `my` girls were determined to find Daddy `a new friend!"
This is an incredible place to be in a relationship. It exudes romance rather than the absolute drunken dispersing of inhibitions, like some of the other places I have been. I can imagine that many honeymooners are coming back after meeting at such a place.
On the topic of meeting people, it`s going to be strange to go back to a place where you know everyone in your close knit group, rarely meeting someone new. It`s nearly impossible not to meet someone new every day on your travels and if you are a self confessed social butterfly/chatterbox that goes up to 4 or 5 daily!
We met Danielle, a nurse from Melbourne, and she commented on the number of people walking around with bandages. She had counted 33 in just three days! The most common ones are the `motorcycle tattoo`, a burn on your left calf where you have got off the motorbike on the wrong side and got burnt by the exhaust, the `coral cut` where people have swum out to see the coral, got tired and stood on the razor edges, slicing their feet, and the `cigarette lighter/beer bottle opener` which claims several victims when the cap shoots up and hits them in the eye!
My French is really improving but it`s taking over my vocabulary as I have started to dream in French! Often I speak to exclusively English speakers in pigeon French to make them understand before I realise that it would be a lot easier to speak English!
Although our group would have gladly stayed on for a few more days, the various itineraries had to be upheld and flights had to be caught. So in two days, our group dissipated with promises of frequent e-mails and reunions, all made with the best of intentions but only time will tell.
So I was leaving Thailand, this wonderfully diverse country to head to Malaysia to finish off my trip. I can`t believe that this leg of my trip (and I really only see it as the start of my travels) is coming to an end. I wanted to see if the rigours of travel would be too much for me and I am happy to report that it`s not! But the trip to Langkawi where I currently am did test that resolve!
Our boat from Koh Tao to Chumporn was delayed for two hours for no reason so Emily, Tina (both girls from our gang in Koh Phi Phi) and I just sat at the pier chatting. The boat ride was unremarkable if a little choppy and upon arrival we were escorted to a bar that would be happy to arrange our travel requirements and `please sit down and have some dinner!`. There`s nothing for nothing in SE Asia!
They were very good though and got us all on the last train of the night going to Haddyai in Southern Thailand. Emily got the last bed and Tina and I said that we`d be fine to sit in our seats for the 8 hour journey! Was that ever a bad call! Firstly the lights never went off so it was hard to sleep but when the carriage turned into a NASA training wind tunnel that`s when things got really stupid! It might have been bearable had everyone kept the windows shut, but we were surrounded by locals who were much better clothed than the two `farang` (foreigners) in their T-shirts and shorts! A more suspicious Consi might have suggested a conspiracy on their part but I gave it little thought...
They all had big jackets on, one guy giving a very good impression of an Ernest Shackleton/ Kenny from South Park cross with a hugh polar jacket zipped up to reveal practically nothing of his face. The weird thing though was that he had his window completely open! I was baffled by this seemingly obvious contradiction and tried to sleep regardless of the icicles forming off my nose.
My fleece had been vacuumed packed into the bottom of my bag after Pai in Northern Thailand and I steadfastly refused to unearth it for about three hours. But pride cometh before a fall and not wanting the pyrrhic victory of getting off the train pig headedly with my T-shirt, I dug deep into my humility and my bag and retrieved my fleece! There was an immediate reward as my limbs could feel the once recognisable rush of blood again!
We got out at 5:30am and went straight to the travel agency where a Jackie Chan doppleganger booked us on to a minibus that was to take us to our boat to Langkawi in Malaysia. Every day you should drink two litres of water but in this heat that doubles to 4 litres daily. Add in a few alcoholic drinks in the evenings and that goes up again to about 5 or 6 per day. So you are permanently drinking water, morning, noon and night.
Well five minutes into our 90 minute ride, I needed to go to the toilet. Being crammed into the back of the bus, I immediately set about ways to take my mind off it. I started to read my book but the travel writer was currently in Vienna and all the references to water were not helping. I tried to sleep, but still in my fleece from earlier and unable to swing my arms to get out of it, it was too warm.
So I decided to take in the scenery as it was to be my last day in Thailand but two of the first signs I saw were directing you to a Waterfall and another one to the Sunat Irrigation Plant! God has a very funny sense of humour. My mind, getting in on the machiavellian act, conjured up scenes of rushing water, small rivulets and water balloons smashing on the ground!
I decided to give tantric meditation a try by trying to clear my mind of all thoughts but that was shattered as Tina turned to confide in me that she too needed to go to the loo! The driver stopped for what we assumed was one of those frequent and frankly frustrating breaks where they drive you to their wife`s/cousin`s/debt collector`s restaurant so you could spend money but this time I relished the idea. But no, oh good God no, this time he was just making a delivery and sprightly (I`d say impishly) jumped back into the van and drove off. We finally reached the pier and the customs officials but we did a full bypass and with as much dignity as our capacity filled bladders would allow made for the toilets!
There we met Luke, an 18 year old from Southampton and he had overstayed his visa by one day, incurring a 500 Baht fine (12 Euro/15 US $) but there were no ATM`s and they didn`t accept credit cards so `Daddy` adopted another youngster and paid his fine! To his credit he did repay it as soon as we docked at Langkawi which in its own right was a strange experience as I don`t think (with the obvious exception of ferrying to England or Wales for matches) I`ve ever sailed into a new country.
We went for breakfast and had curry at about 10am! We got rooms in the Gecko Guesthouse and set out to explore the place. The first thing that hit us was the heat! It was almost unbearable, the sand was lightning hot and the it was about 35 degrees in the shade! I`ve got a colour (you`d be impressed Seamus) but even I knew when I was licked and I went back for an afternoon `nana nap`
We went out and had dinner in a Muslim restaurant (the predominant religion here in Malaysia) and of course could not order wine or beer with lunch. We then went to Debbies place, an Irish bar run by Debbie, a Malaysian woman with one arm and her husband (formerly the head chef on the QE2) from Mayo!! Their staff were all nuts but wonderfully helpful and very funny! They insisted on learning our names and very much part of their job description is to sit down with the customers for a chat from time to time!
Tina and Luke were tired but Emily and I set out to find the late night bar, The Reggae Bar. What an experience! I know that we`d only had a few drinks but we were appalled to see such decadence unseen since the fall of the Roman Empire. 80% of the crowd of about 100 were very well oiled as we`d say at home and the other 20% took up vantage spots on the fringe to see the descent of morality, humanity and decency! Some people were falling over, others had given up and were sleeping the sleep of the not so innocent and others were drinking a fiery Sambuca concoction off the bar.
And it was hilarious! We immediately agreed to bring our friends back to experience this and I would come armed with a pen and paper!
Yesterday we hired a car to drive around the island. I asked the guy that was renting it to us if there were any scratches, dents etc that I should be aware of so that he didn`t charge us for it afterwards and he just said, "I trust you, you are a good driver, you are a good looking man so you are a good driver!" Hmmm, not exactly the strictest of criteria or even a tangible link there and if that`s how they issue drivers licenses over here, that might explain some of the crazy antics we have seen on the road!
It was great to drive again. We set off for a cable car which took us up the 710m to the top of a mountain with great views of the island. Then we set off for a waterfall and I climbed 373 steps to the top where there was a natural spring pool at the very top which I happily jumped into!
There were monkeys all over and a braver one approached us (a not so brave Emily broke land speed records and made for the car!) and I dangled my keys over him so he could play with them. He lunged and caught it and would not let go! As they were our only keys, a titanic struggle not seen since the black and white Tarzan movies between man and ape ensued. Well it wasn`t that bad, he beared his fangs, I beared mine, we called a truce and he let go!
We picked up Kelly (ex Phi Phi member of our team) and we all went for food in Debbie`s (superb) and then down to the beach for a few songs and to watch the terrible (or just terribly unlucky, I`m not sure) Liverpool lose and then off to The Reggae Bar again. And as soon as we had built it up to our friends, it let us down! It was still good but there was a band playing last night and everyone was very well behaved. Since I thought it was my last night we all were saying our goodbyes etc and I unwaveringly avoided the dance floor.
But just like Pavlov`s dog, I am powerless to avoid the sheer contortion that my body experiences when I hear the opening salvo of `ABC` by the Jackson 5!! (The main picture on the homepage of the blog is documentary evidence!) The girls knew this and requested it and out I bounded to the dance floor, clearing a space for me to show my stuff! And as quickly and dramatically as it had started, as soon as the song was finished I was back off the floor!
So I woke this morning, full of the intent that I was going to leave but I got a mail from Lucy, another of the original Phi Phi gang which said she was in Langkawi and that she wanted to meet up. So that means another night here.
I have realised on this trip that planning is pointless (see how I am linking back to the start!?! Us literary folk do that!).
They say that if you want to make God laugh, tell him what you are doing tomorrow!
Well it`s true! So I`m supposed to go to Penang tomorrow and then down to Kuala Lumper for my flight back to Sydney on Thursday, arriving on Friday morning (Colm, will I see you there?!!)
I know it`s been a long entry but so many great (and not so great) things have happened to me in the last few days, I had to get it all out.
It`d be nice to just have one quiet day.....!
Hey all,
Well I didn`t go to Penang like I said I would, deciding instead to forego the packing and unpacking routine for one day on another island. So I stayed on in Langkawi and watched Ireland somehow snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with France which did nothing for my mood...
There is nothing wrong Malaysia per se, in its own right it`s a beautiful country with diverse attractions for visitors and a nation of helpful and more importantly English speaking people. But after coming from Thailand, it`s always going to be hard to match up. But Langkawi did give us one last day of memories.
We took a boat to see the lake of the Pregnant Maiden. According to legend, a virgin was incorrectly accused of adultery and was sentenced to death. She always protested her innocence and apparantly bled white blood at her execution. She had cursed Langkawi for 7 generations (which is now over) but there is a lake in the centre of an island which is entirely freshwater and they don`t know why it isn`t salty like everywhere around it.
So we jumped right in! It was very different from the water we are used to, (which is usually extremely salty and buoyant), making it difficult to swim around for too long as we couldn`t just float. Well most of us couldn`t, somehow Tina was still able to float in Fresh Water which gave rise to us thinking that she could be pregnant somehow!
There was a platform so we all dove in and took a series of goofy photos afterwards. One of our new favourites for all guy photos is the `boy-band photo`, where none of the guys look directly into the camera! We named the band, "The Pregnant Ladies" in honour of our deceased patron.
We set off again and were treated to nearly a hundred dolphins swimming by. I had to resist an almighty urge to jump in and join them but I thought better of it. Potentially getting attacked by Flipper and 80 of his mates would have been too much! We then went to a section of the sea near where eagles nest and our boat driver threw out some fish guts which had them swooping over us and into the water to retrieve them. It was quite a sight...
One of the realisations (I shouldn`t say disappointments) of travelling is dispelling your notions about authentic Asian food. Chicken fried rice is not like what we are used to in the Western World, it`s fried rice with some chicken pieces on the side (bones attached). Also, one of the lads looked for local fried rice and then duly spent 10 minutes picking out the little fishes and fish eyes out of his dinner..
I had my own experience when I sought out a Laksa, the national dish of Malaysia and a favourite of mine over the last few years in Sydney. I had made the assumption (wrong as they often are) that if I loved it in Sydney, it would HAVE to be better in Malaysia, right?! Well it proved harder than I first thought to find it but when I tracked down a street side stall that made it, I got excited. Tina was there to watch the spectacle of my tucking into some Authentic Malay food but you know what, sometimes the imitation is better than the original.
Firstly, they didn`t have chicken or beef, only fish (she thought I was crazy to ask for anything else with Laksa). I asked (more in hope than expectation) was it shrimp or prawn and she just said, "No". Obviously not feeling that she should have to explain what in fact was in it, she set about her task. Feeling adventurous I accepted the dish. Firstly there was a bloody egg on it. I hate eggs. Eggs make me gag. And here was this wonderful meal (in my mind) with an egg on it. Tina, bless her, quickly took it up and ate it and commented just how fishy it was.
Oh my God, it was putrid. A raw fishy smell protruded my nostrils and I could feel the oily composition going down my throat, tinged with pieces of lime rind just to confuse the tastebuds completely. It was only my good upbringing that insisted that I don`t embarrass the lady and I set to trying to eat as much as my iron like constitution could handle. But was it ever hard going...
It seemed to define my Malaysian experience and after another night out, I left Langkawi next day to make my way to Kuala Lumpur. A boat ride to Kuala Perlis and then nearly 8 hours on a bus with no internal lights so I couldn`t even read. I have never been able to sleep on buses so it gave me a lot of time to reflect on my trip, the people that I had met and the amazing places I had seen.
Saigon with its insane traffic and the Asian tradition Irish band; Cu Chi Tunnels where I shot my first gun and discovered a new fear of claustrophobia; Nha Trang where we taught English at a school to help the children to not have to provide services to paedophiles to make money; Marble Mountain; the amazing children from the Mong Tribe and the trek in Sapa; the secret Christmas service in Luang Prabang and floating down the river while tubing in Vang Vien; the Yank and his amazing life, kid and bar and Chang Mai where bombs interrupted but did not disrupt our New Years Celebrations; Pai and the infamous Damian incident; Bangkok and the people watching on Kho San Road and my first tailored suit; Siem Reap and the truly amazing Angkor Wat; Phnom Penh and the torture chambers but also the orphans of the Lighthouse Orphanage; the beauty and simplicity of Koh Phi Phi and the family of friends I made at "The Rock"; Ko Lanta and being on the wrong island but spent an evening with some of the most amazing characters; Koh Tao, beautiful, beautiful Koh Tao and the amazing group that we assembled there, the craziness and unexpected delight of the Full Moon Party and even Langkawi with its laid back style and oh so hot beaches.
Each place has a special memory and a favourite incident or story for me but Thailand has on a whole been the most amazing country which is unfortunate for Malaysia.
It`s like when you meet a beautiful girl who is an amazing kisser, well she ruins you for any other girl! Everything now has a new benchmark and unfortunately Malaysia is bearing the brunt of the Thailand hangover.
The lonely planet says that Kuala Lumpur (KL) is a very safe start for any backpacker to start their Asian experience, a `baby pool` by comparison to the open sea torrents of places like Cambodia, Vietnam and Bangkok. And it`s true. I suspect that it will prove to be an anti-climactic finish to this trip but certainly a cleaner and safe one.
I arrived in at 2am last night and caught a cab to my friend Niall`s place. Most backpackers tend to `splurge` at their last port of call when leaving SE Asia, a place where the toilets can be flushed, hot water is readily available and there is a bed that doesn`t have cigarette holes and stains all over it!
Well I am doing that and I don`t even need to pay for it! I can honestly say that on the couch at Niall`s class apartment is by a country mile the most luxurious place I have stayed in three months! I OPENED A FRIDGE TODAY!! And it wasn`t to get a bottle of water in a 7/11 store! I also had my second hot shower in three months and I had over 50 channels to choose from on the TV.
It was lavish, sumptuous and somehow wrong... It really brought home that I am going back to another big city, back to my comforts, back to free Internet at home and the same bed every night. Before I left, a trip to Manly from Bondi Junction (in Sydney, about 90 mins by public transport) was unheard of. Now, anything less than 10 hours is considered a short spin!
Don`t get me wrong, it`s great to not have to worry about accomodation or someone stealing my stuff or being woken up by rats etc but I have loved that unpredictability too. And I miss it... This trip was as much to find out and quell the doubts in my head that I could ever be a backpacker after spending over 6 years in Sydney than it was to see SE Asia.
I set out today and walked around KL, a very tidy city with a good ethnic mix, fantastic shopping and the Petronas Towers. I stood below them for a few minutes and I couldn`t help but think of the Twin Towers in New York and when I visited them in 1998. The Petronas are 115 feet higher and I just couldn`t imagine what it would be like to see these two come down like on 9/11.
Niall told me this morning that he couldn`t believe that I was calling into him on Valentines Day!! I had completely forgotten (silently cursing myself that I didn`t inform my local postman of a forwarding address) and I felt bad as I knew that he and his girlfriend would want to spend the evening together. Never one to be the third wheel I will let them go out and I will see what other losers are out there tonight on their own!! If there`s an Irish pub in this town, I`m sure to find a few.
But it`s with some degree of sadness that I write this entry. I am not sure if it`s because I have come to the end of this leg of my travels, if I`m jealous of those still travelling or maybe not being able to share today with a certain someone but whatever it is, I`d better snap out of it quick!
The one thing about being in KL is that it has fired up in me the desire to be in small changeable, impulsive and irrational towns or islands again. That`s where you meet the characters and for a short time at least you feel accepted and infused with the spirit of the place. How to go about it though is another matter and something which I will have to give a lot of thought to.
I am going back to Sydney for two weddings and a music festival and maybe one or two little trips that I still have to tick off so there should be plenty to write about. Then it`s back to Ireland for another wedding before a bit of travelling around Europe and then my own brother`s wedding in Italy in May! (There must be something in the water with all these weddings!).
If you have been a regular reader, thank you. It`s been great to get this all out on paper and to relive the memories so regularly. And if you have posted a message on the message board, thank you very much. It really has been a tonic at times to read them and to see at least that someone is enjoying the entries.
To the Sydney crew, I will see you this weekend (can`t believe I am saying that), to my Irish friends, I will see you next month hopefully. To those still travelling that I have met along the way, safe travels and stay in touch, our paths will cross again.
The Travelling Seanchai
Hey all,
I wanted to update you on my last days in Kuala Lumpur and what it`s been like back in Oz since I got back.
Niall and Jessica kindly insisted that I join them for drinks on Valentines night so we went out after they returmed from dinner. We were taking a cab past The Petronas Towers and I commented how they had brought thoughts of 9/11 back to me and our cab driver volunteered the `fact` that no Jews were in the Twin Towers at the time and that there was going to be an investigation into it. Hmmm, not likely that the Al Queda terrorists were in cahoots with Jewish bankers but I wasn`t going to argue with our cabbie as he showed me a local club that he had beside his chair to hit `runners` on the knee if any thoughts of a free cab had entered their minds.
We went to a bar where you could order a bottle of vodka and everytime you came back you could get a cocktail from it and it would then be put back in the fridge, with the new level and date on it for the next time you came! Little innovations like that always impress me for some reason!
The Gaelic word for water is `uisce` and the Gaelic word for life is "beatha" so it probably won`t surprise you that the Irish term for whiskey is "uisce beatha"!! Well the Malay word for alcohol is "ara" but the direct Muslim translation for the same is "Urine of Satan"!!! Those lads are hilarious!
We had a good night but when we got home I had regretted not having a late night snack as I`d only eaten once that day. Well, here in KL, they deliver McDonalds!! I rarely if ever eat Mc D`s (they`re a treat, not a staple Jessica!) but having it delivered to the door within 7 minutes of ordering it was impressive!
The next day I watched a DVD of the new movie "Blood Diamond" with Leonardo DiCaprio. Now I have always been against the terribly one sided and antidiluvian policy of buying a fiancee a diamond engagement ring (unless there is a bloody good set of golf clubs going the other way) but after watching that movie and about the hardships of the African people who have to die or be maimed to ensure the survival of this trade, well it horrified me... We have banned fur coats and the hunting of endangered animals, when will the women of the world make the conscious decision (hardly a sacrifice really) and just settle for a cubic zirconia from Argos?!
I remember from English class that `pathetic fallacy` was how inanimate objects in nature reflected and expressed the emotions of the person. Well as I walked around KL that day, I got caught in my first real thunder storm and as I slipped and slided in my well worn flip flops I couldn`t help but think that it was an appropriate end to this leg of the trip. It almost said, `hey, this is what you can expect going forward if you don`t go travelling again where the sun has shone...`
Ok, ok, I know that you can make anything suit your own purposes with enough of an imagination. I went out to the airport and was greeted with an announcement that my flight had been delayed for an hour and a half. So I wandered around the airport and was surprised that I knew it so well. It took me a while to register that I had actually stopped in this airport for a few hours on my way to Saigon a few months before. Talk about full circle.
I sat down at my gate and played "Mr. Jones" by the Counting Crows on loop and wrote up my diary for the last few days. It was therapeutic in a sense and I flicked back through the months and smiled and laughed to myself. Then I bumped into Faye, an old work colleague of mine at Virgin Mobile and I had a strange sensation of getting sucked back into Australia rather than going voluntarily.
Sydney is great though but I am not the same as when I left I suppose. It was great to meet my friends and the genuinely big welcome I received. We caught up on some stories and scandals that had gone on over the Christmas but within a day or two I could already sense that my stories beginning with, " When we were in Luang Prabang/Siem Reap/Koh Tao..." were getting annoying. Not that they didn`t want to hear, but when you prefix your stories with where you were, you automatically if unintentionally promote them as being better stories that deserve more airplay. It`s hard to explain but I think that everybody that goes on one of these trips will be able to sympathise.
I got back into the swing of things on Sunday night at the session where I sing and Kasey from Koh Phi Phi was there. Between her on Sunday and meeting Mick (from Pai) on Saturday night, it was truly surreal to see them back in an environment that I know so well!
And there have been some unexpected events/pleasures like cooking again, opening up jars, cleaning my dishes, doing my own laundry, hiring DVD`s, playing golf, wearing different clothes, practising my guitar, drinking from my own bar at home, not having to check out of my bedroom every morning, leaving my shampoo in the shower, having my mobile phone back (both pros and cons on that one), drinking water from the tap, The Simpsons on every evening etc etc. They don`t seem like much but how amazing is it for something that was so taken for granted and what seems so mundane can be made new and interesting again after a few months!
So I`m back in my adopted city where I know the people, the bars, the good food places, where everyone speaks English (except the cab drivers!) and the real world stresses. I really want to emphasise though that I do love this place, it has been my home for nearly 7 years and the friends I have made here will truly be friends for life but I think that I am afraid of settling back here as it would be so easy.
There is so much more of the world to see for someone who is so inclined and I fear that if I do settle down now, then I may regret it down the line. In saying that, I have been offered a few roles since I got back (someone is testing my resolve!!) but I will have to make some decisions.
So, this weekend I have a wedding and with the characters assembling, it is sure to be a good one. Another wedding follows shortly after that and then my last weekend before I go back to Ireland for another wedding will see me singing at a Folk Festival a few hours south of Melbourne! So stay tuned, the destinations may not be exotic to some of you but the antics and stories should!
And seriously, if anyone has any advice (and believe me, this is not something I ask for often) please share it on how to get over post backpacking blues or how to continue travelling!
A friend on my travels once told me, "You`ve got to be awake for your dreams to come true... ". I just think that that makes a lot of sense right now...
Hey all
I must start with a disclaimer! Please forgive me for blatant errors in spelling and pronunciation in this entry as I am using a keyboard in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and quaintly they have moved all of the keys around, bizarrely swapping the `z` with the `y` (or should that be biyyarelz swapping the `y` with the `z`s?!!). Needless to saz, grrr, say the punctuations are all over the place so I have to go hunting for each one...
So what have I been up to in the last few weeks. Well as the title suggests I have to this date survived three weddings (with my brothers to come in Italy in May) and a music festival. The first set spectacularly in the Hunter Valley Wine Region of New South Wales, the second in the splendour of Manly in a truly medieval inspired chapel and the third for one of my best mates back in my home town of Limerick.
I have to say that the brides for the three weddings stole the show in each case and for different reasons. Amanda surprised Rob with a fireworks show as they danced their first waltz in the open air reception. So many of the band members were there and we sang till the early morning
Two weeks later, after a very successful stag party that took 40 of us out on the harbour for fun and festivities, we celebrated Conor and Louise`s wedding in a truly amazing chapel where the guests sat side on to the alter and watched the bridal party walk down the red carpet. Louise`s speech was so heartfelt as she spoke of the fairytale end to the story of how her sister and herself had married two best friends from Dublin.
The day after I flew to Avalon airport, south of Melbourne and I availed of the hospitality of strangers. Campbell and Sandy drove me to an Irish Pub in Geelong to see if I could find anyone driving the 200km to Port Fairy where I was expected to sing that evening. No joy there but I was given a big piece of cardboard and a black marker and I was in for a day of hitching!
I set out rather less than properly attired as I was sweltering in my jeans and top in the 35 degree heat. Coupling that with me forgetting to bring a bottle of water and I was saying creeds to St Joseph, the patron saint of travellers. But a mere 30 minutes in and I was picked up by Bruce who drove me outside the city because no one would stop for me where I was. I didn`t want to draw attention to the fact that he just had as I was just glad to get out of the sun. He drove for a while and left me on this road and said he was sure I`d be picked up soon. I thanked him and with greater vigour worked on my optimistic yet safe look for the punters driving by.
When you saw a family approaching, you knew you were out of luck, equally when you saw a single woman coming up the way (I`d nearly be afraid of a woman that would give a male stranger a lift!!)
One guy that had passed came back and shouted to me that I was on the wrong road and that if I stayed on the road I was on, it`d be a miracle if I got to Port Fairy tonight. I thanked him as much as I cursed my mate Bruce and walked to the nearby alternative road where I felt confident that my luck would change. I had no good reason of course to base this optimism but knowing I was on the right road at last was uplifting.
The problem with being lifted up so high is that the views get diyyzing, grrr, dizzying and the falls are harder! I was standing out there for over an hour in the beating sun and I was seriously thinking of pulling the plug on this `adventure` (my prayers having moved from St Joseph to St Jude, patron saint of lost causes about 30 minutes earlier) when Brent, the legend, came back for me! He`d passed me out thinking the truck driver behind would have picked me up (believe me that old unwritten partnership between truckie and hitcher is well and truly over) so he came back for me... in his convertible!
Now I don`t know a lot about cars and would have gratefully have sat in the back of a Ute just to get where I was going but if you can do it in style, so much more the better! Brent was a top bloke, a true gent and we talked about his multi millions and my dreams of travelling. Unfortunately I couldn`t work it around that his millions would sponsor my travelling but the lift was more than enough considering he drove past his house (where he was expected for his birthday party!) and delivered me to Port Fairy where I gladly bought him his first birthday drink!
I met Clare, Martin and Randall from our band and got set up for the evening session where we were joined by about 8 or so old hands at this festival. There was a power cut however and since we had a big crowd, Martin started up `Cannonball`, one of the songs I sing, and I belted it out to the bar without the need of a microphone (all that opera training coming back to me!). It hardly surprised me to see that when the electricity came back, I wasn`t given one of the mics!
What a night! It was a folk festival but anything that the crowd wanted to hear, we sang! It was a privilege to sit with some seriously talented singers and musicians. We finished (after 5 solid hours) at about 1am, or at least that`s what time I think it was!!
We woke next morning and I took a walk around the little town that had spawned this huge festival. Such wide streets and low rise buildings gave it an old world feel. It was 9am and there was a group singing Jesus worship songs while directly across from them, two scallywags were belting out Bob Dylan hits!! The battle for the souls of the passersby ensued and this was even funnier when you considered there were no other singers on the street for 100 meters! Little kids were making hardly intelligble noises off a baby guitar and a tin whistle and such was there cuteness factor that they were making a few bob!! I was in the wrong game!!
We were about to start our morning session at 11am when we bumped into Luka Bloom, international artist, brother of Christy Moore, folk legend.. We told him he had it easy as we had 11 hours of singing and he only had two that evening. He was suitably impressed and asked how we did it to which I replied, "Strepsils and Alcohol!". He said that there was a lyric in there somewhere so if you see it appear on a song of his, I`ll be looking for royalties!!
Another huge day ensued where we sang till 6pm without a break, took two hours off, showered and changed and came back for the evening session. We had 5 guitars, a piano, a banjo, a mandolin, a saxaphone, a box accordion, a trumpet and even a flugel horn!! I have never been so tired from singing as I was that evening when we finally wrapped it up and to be honest I don`t recall too much about the aftermath (must have been all those strepsils!!)
I flew back the next day to Sydney and had drinks in the legendary Cock and Bull for my last night where I was joined by a great cross section of friends, both old and new, golfers and footballers, some gorgeous and others bald!
The next day saw myself and my flatmate of nearly 7 years go on a rampage! He hired a truck and our appetite for destruction was satiated!! We destroyed our furniture to make it easier to throw it out our third floor window to the truck below! It was very weird to think that as I left that apartment that I would never be back there.
Some recent developments in Sydney had given me cause to have second thoughts about leaving but getting a lift out to the airport from my `mate` Colm put that right, I was leaving a lot of good people and things behind me but I was also leaving him so it nearly balanced out!! Thanks for the three points buddy!
And back in Ireland after the 30 hour trip home. I hardly recognise my own town and my estate such are the developments. I was back for my friend Richard`s wedding to Collette on Friday. On Thursday evening, we all went to the local and the 5 friends from childhood (Eoghan, Kevin, John, Richard and myself) were together again for the first time in 7 years and we reminisced until the early hours, ably assisted by Richards` Dad`s liquor cabinet!
The wedding day was a cool one indeed and after the beautiful, musical ceremony, we had to grin and fake smiles in the bitter cross winds as I was part of the wedding party for the photographer. Fulfilling my duties to a tee, my hip flask of whiskey hit the spot for the groomsmen and bridesmaids alike!
A great reception where Collette gave the speech of the night, having the audience in stitches and causing me to think that she should take it up professionally! St Patricks Day followed and it found us watching the Irish Team narrowly lose the 6 Nations to the French and the next few days passed with varying degrees of total sobriety and otherwise.
I noticed a few things when I got back. Toilet seats are freezing in Ireland and the showers are set to scald to get your heart started again! The adverts are the same as in Australia but they have Irish voice overs so that we can understand them presumably! Prams have become the most fashionable accessory for the discerning teenager this season and if you can find an Irish born person in the service industry you are doing well! Home has changed but so have I, so it was time to go again.
Which brings me to where I am today, Luxembourg! I have an interview tomorrow for a job that should, all going well, find me in some truly bizzare spots on the planet for work. I was up at 3am this morning for an early flight to Frankfurt in Germany and I was greeted to a snow blizzard! It was amazing as I hadn`t seen a snow shower in 7 years or more!! This was proper Bing Crosby!!
I was to get a bus to Lux but I had arrived early (damn German efficiency!) and I approached the driver to see if I could take the earlier bus.
`Guten Morgen` I said exhausting basically all my German besides `Achtung` and `Himmel`!! This seemed to confuse my driver and I heard that familiar gutteral sound that only the confused French could make so I said,
"Parlez vous Francais?" to which he replied "Oui, bien sur"! "Ah, tres bien" I said and managed to explain to him that I was going to die of hypothermia if he didn`t take me with him. As I have often been told of the French and French speakers, if you even try to speak in their language, they warm to you immediately.
This proved to be the case today as I have spoken to numerous locals for directions and they are impressed and mildly amused by my French in an Irish accent!! But I am loving it, back to having to fend for myself again, walking around the city and just letting my inner compass guide me. Its a beautiful city, with a massive ravine that looks like it was cut out by a glacier running through it. The architecture is so impressive and regal in appearance and with the snow falling on me all day, I felt like I had been tossed around in one of those picturesque globes and left to settle.
The French words are coming back to me because with the exception of the road signs, they don`t bother with the English translations to anything (hey, if you want to eat, learn to read French!). I am meeting a friend this evening and I texted him to see what I should see on my first day. His advice that there was nothing to see and to just get out of the cold before we go to the pub this evening did not sit well with my newly reestablished sense of adventure so I walked around the city for two hours.
That was until I thought I was going to get lockjaw! It was bitterly cold but still I was exhilerated. So I have come in here, to this frustrating keyboard ( I have just typed normally, copied it to WORD and done a replace on the y`s and z`s so that ze could read it) and listened to cheesy 80`s music for the last two hours, oh man I`m in my element again!
It`s been ages since most of you have written in my message board so feel free to do so, I love getting them.
Wish me luck in the interview and no doubt I`ll have a lot more to write soon. If I don`t get the job, my fall back plan is to just go travelling! You gotta love plan B`s!!
Have a good daz... D`OH!!
Hello all!
Well, what a few days I`ve had!
I went for my interview on Thursday morning in the sleeting snow! I was there promptly 30 minutes early and prepared myself mentally for an in depth question and answer session. Little did I know that the only Q & A`s I was going to be doing was a maths test!!
I hadn`t done one of these since university, but here I was with 35 minutes of maths questions based on a series of charts and to make things `easier` I had 10 multiple choice answers to choose from!! Oh, my head hurts!
Straight after that I had a 12 minute IQ test to answer 50 questions. `Elephant is to Ballet as these tests are to.... a) Pointless, b) a waste of my time, c) a good reason to regret having a few drinks out with the lads last night... Well you get the gist of it!
Then I waited 90 minutes before I met one of the senior guys who told me basically that they wanted me but for a different role, a role he didn`t know at this point and that was why I had to meet another guy who did. Right enough I thought, so I duly waited another 90 minutes to be told by my next interviewer that they wanted to create a position for me (which was flattering) but no he could not answer my question as to remuneration (which was frustrating).
Suffice to say that the 5 hours I was in there went well, all things considered but now it is up to them if they want to send me to these far flung destinations where my blog entries can really take flight!
And taking flight was something that I had great difficulty in doing. I spent Friday again walking around Luxembourg and trying to improve my French as I went (I suddenly felt like those Asian folks that kept stopping me on my travels a few months ago just to practise their English!).
Joe, Darragh and Alan had been my trusted companions for the three nights I was in Lux and we had a few drinks on Friday night as Alan was leaving after 7 years. Darragh came up with the best definition I think I have heard for whether a person has actually visited a country or not. You can say that you have visited a country if you have bought a pint in that country, outside of the airport. Simple but flawless in it`s application I think you will agree (unless of course you are a teetotaller!)
I got up early on Saturday morning to catch my bus to the airport to join up with my brothers in Dublin for the Ireland v Wales match in Croke Park. Well, I got to the bus stop at 7:10am but I had missed the 7am and for some reason there was no 7:30am bus so I had to wait for the 8am bus which crawled to the airport due to fog. I rushed to the counter and although I still had 20 minutes to take off (its a tiny airport so that should have been enough) the lady said I couldn`t check in. Nightmare. I was reminded of the Little Britain sketch where she types something in and then mournfully informs you that, "Computer says NO..."
Then she said, in an annoyingly upbeat manner, that I could fly to Shannon (the other side of Ireland for those that don`t know) so I took it. What was really frustrating was that both our flights got delayed due to the fog so by the time the Dublin flight took off, I had arrived 60 minutes before it flew...
I was texting my brothers to try and line some way of salvaging the day when I ran out of credit with no way of topping up! Aaagh, give me a break. Then I boarded my plane which due to the fog, took off an hour late and then arrived into Shannon. I caught a cab into the city (blatantly and unregrettably stealing it from in front of 75 punters waiting at the cab rank!) and then boarded a 3 and a half hour bus to Dublin.
I settled into my new book on Pablo Escobar, the infamous terrorist and drug traffiker who literally had hundreds of judges and thousands of people kidnapped, mutilated and summarily executed during his years of terror in Columbia in the 80`s and 90`s. Reading about his exploits, it actually did something to satiate my blood thirsty desire for murderous rage against the Ryanair check in lady, the pilot and the person that my brothers had now given my ticket to when another person joined my list!
The bus driver stopped for a break just at kick off time and I recounted what had happened to me that day to an old fella in the bar. "Aha," he said, " you should be there and here you are with me in Borris-in-Ossary!" and he roared laughing! Insult to injury, still he got a good laugh out of it but unknowlingly got on to my `Pablo-list`!! (It also goes to prove that the Aboriginals don`t have a monopoly of bloody stupid place names!)
I arrived into Dublin just as the game finished and met up with Annette and Megan, both friends of mine from Sydney and my brothers. Again, there was much merriment at my misfortune but I have to say the funnier side of it was dawning on me by now (the affects of Pablo must have been wearing off!). I told them of how if I get this job that I will have to go to places like Honduras, El Salvador, Senegal and Sierra Leone to name but a few and they said I couldn`t even go from Luxembourg to Dublin successfully with getting into strife! Touche...
Still, it bodes well for my future stories! And if the position isn`t right for me, then I will just take off and do some more travelling in Europe before my brother`s wedding in Italy in May.
An aunt of mine said that she felt sorry for the youth of today having to go and buy houses and getting up to their necks in mortgages and buying the big cars just so that they could keep up with the Jones. She wholeheartedly agreed with my desire to just travel and she said the lines from the Diary Title above which I thought were so right and which I find so poignant and apt at the moment.
So I am back in Limerick now after a successful golf outing this morning when the Homer Simpson Cup (it`s actually a glass that my brothers and I swap around to the winner of this prestigious competition) was shared between Caoimhan and I. I think I am on the road in Ireland this week so who knows where I will turn up. But dependent on whether the offer comes from Lux and it`s ok, I should be leaving Ireland in just over a week to do some work or travelling in Europe so stay tuned.
Viva Barcelona!
"We´re all off to Sunny Spain, Viva Espana!" Well, not exactly... After several weeks of excellent weather at home in Limerick, I took off to Spain only to be greeted by a downpour when I landed! Hmmm, not exactly as it says in the song but maybe I should have been singing "The Rain in Spain falls mainly on the Planes" Badum Tish!! Ok, poor joke but I have to say it was great to be travelling again..
I got into Barcelona and even before I had secured accomodation I was walking around snapping shots of the sights, the beautiful parks, the Arc de Triomf (yeah, they´ve got one too and that`s how they spell it!) and the small alleyways with cobbled stones and every window complete with balcony. That was the first thing that hit me, how many balconies there was. It was almost medieval and it really gave the streets an insular, welcoming feel without becoming claustrophobic.
I booked into my hostel and took off to walk around. I would be a nightmare to travel with I am sure (for many reasons but I´ll get to that!) but I am never happier than when I am walking left, right, right, left, down this alley way, up this street, letting nothing more specific than a gut feel guide me. I really couldn`t be happier than in these situations, observing everything, appreciating everything, seeing stuff that locals take for granted and all the time writing it up in my head for this blog!!
I set off for the night. As most of you that are in touch with me by e-mail know, I am a frustrated writer and I`ve been continually looking for a hook, something to be a central theme in the book that I`ve always wanted to write, well, I thought I found it! The SOLO PUB CRAWL! Fair enough, not exactly original but I was going to go around and ask people where were their favourite and worst bars and then go and visit them world wide... ok, it`s brutal but please someone come up with a better one! Anyway I found a flyer for a bar but on the map for some reason there was a spot directing you to McCarthy`s Bar! Right, that`s for me I said and I set out to find it... for an hour in the pouring rain! I swear the place didn`t exist which was ratified by people who owned shops in the area! So much for my new found `hook`, I was like a drowned rat!
So walking down some street in the pouring rain, dejected by my lack of success, I dived into an Irish bar, O`Hara`s and that, for better or for worse, defined my weekend. Because in there I met my Barcelona gang, 4 Brummie boys (Matt, Ian, Rob and Dave), two Wisconson-ite sisters Jill and Jen and Peta, a bit of a plank from Brisbane. They were all in town for the weekend as seems to be the case for a lot of people living in Europe now, cheap flights are great but they have a lot to answer for. I saw groups of 18 year old skinheadded knackers wandering around in their football tops and sneakers out for the weekend... In my day (tell us about it granddad) we had to save for a year to get away to the seaside camping for a weekend!
A great evening ensued, going all over the town but with one constant that was to be an ever present all weekend, large bottles of Magners, Irish cider! Nothing like experiencing the local culture and drinks, that`s what I say! We went to Kennedy`s, an Irish bar in Port Olimpico (again, all about embracing diversity!) for a live band but the early morning, the hours of walking and the pints of cider took their toll and I took myself off home... Except the problem is that my automatic homing pigeon instincts hadn`t quite alligned themselves with their new surroundings so I wandered the streets looking for a landmark I recognised.
Little did I know that some Catalan artful dodgers had recognised a `mark` in me and I got descended upon by about 6 15 year olds who professionally debriefed me, hands on my wrist (I wasn`t wearing my watch as it doesn`t work but it would have served them right if they`d taken it), one around my neck looking for a chain, and ones in each pocket. I had my passport, phone, wallet and my brother`s camera on me and despite my fervent flapping like a seal having been attacked by ants, they still made away with the camera.
I was gutted but since then, I`ve relayed the story to other people and everyone seems to have a `got robbed in Barcelona` story. Seriously, its apparantly notorious for it, it`s almost a right of passage over here. The best one I heard though was from a woman who told me her husband was stopped by a uniformed `policeman` and told to empty his pockets because he was suspected to have been carrying drugs. He promptly did so and handed over the contents to show the lunacy of the charge and then watched the cop run off with all stuff!! And that was in La Ramblas, the very centre of town!
I still felt bad though to have joined the victims association but little did I know that I was to establish a unique group of my own, of the the once bitten, twice bitten variety!! The following night, after moving into my own room (not out of choice but due to overbooking) in Place Real during the day, I met up with the gang. Matt told me how two nights previously he`d been relieved of his watch and his wallet with 400 Euro inside (go to www.forex.com for conversion rates but trust me that`s a lot!) so we exchanged war stories over a pint..
The Wisconsonites sounded exactly like Margie from the film `Fargo` but due to their unique upbringing in the Amish community (ok, thats not true but hey, I`m adopting poetic license) they hardly ever watched TV, like seriously hardly ever so I couldn`t relate it to them. Its a funny thing when you actually think about it, how much you refer to films, shows and TV (and lets be honest, The Simpsons) in normal conversation until you are speaking with people who have no idea what you are talking about!
Anyway, after hours of reliving my folly of my night before, I was heading home again, now fully aware of where I was and the nocturnal activities of the locals I was close to my place when I got approached by two smiling assasins, about 20 years of age both of them, flexing their fingers... 5 seconds later I`d been through the car wash which was my nightly experience in Barcelona, frisked by the quintessential amorous octupus and minus my phone.
Now, I`ve worked in the Telecommunications Industry for 8 years and seen all the fancy phones but I`m an old Nokia man myself and I`ve been a massive advocate for keeping it simple with my phone of choice (I was once told by someone that their maid had a better phone than me!) and my theory held me in good stead for once. I used that oft maligned (always wanted to write `oft`) and seldom used approach of just asking for your stuff back from a thief! Through a combination of my audacity and politeness for requesting the return of my belongings and the fact that he couldn`t have sold my old brick for chips, I had truly one of the most bizarre exchanges with a person ever when he, ever so sheepishly, handed me back my phone!!
I almost accepted it as sheepishly, so embarrassed as I was for the wannabee professional thief! We kind of nodded at each other and we were both happy to part from this awkward situation!
Seriously, if I wasn`t living this life I wouldn`t believe it if you told me!!
Ok, if you`re hoping that after reading the subject title and my last entry that that is what has happened to me, you`re going to be disappointed but it did happen to someone nearly as famous but I`ll get to that!
So, after two nights of me getting to know the locals just a little more than I had reckoned for I started to question my capabilities as a world traveller! But I am nothing if not resiliant and once more into the breach I ventured!
Myself, Jill and Jen went for Tapas in La Ramblas (which are seriously overrated if you ask me) and we ordered drinks, a Sangria for me and diet cokes for the girls. Well they served them in these ridiculously oversized glasses (say Octoberfest with me!) but when the bill came out we got a huge shock to find out that these jokers had just charged us 15 Euro for mine and 10 Euro for each of the Cokes!! At least I`d got alcohol in mine! Seriously, most thieves have the decency to do their work at night! But when in Rome I suppose, but according to my landlady, I wasn`t even in Spain!
When I`d checked into the new place the manager asked me if I was English. I gave her the exasperated look that only the Canucks, Kiwis and Paddy`s (Canadians, New Zealanders and Irish for the non-travellers) can give adequately. She recognised it immediately, apologised profusely and sympathised with me because people were always confusing her as being `Spanish` when she was `a Catalan`?! Seriously, they think that they are a country in thier own right.
Christophorus Columbus (Christopher to his mates) is honoured in this town with a statue of him pointing out to sea, ironically in the direction he was heading initially before getting rightly lost and finding America. I didn`t know it but he didn`t actually get to the mainland until his third voyage in 1498 and not 1492 as we`ve been taught. In Catalan his name is Cristóbal Colón and that`s what is inscribed in huge letters on his pillar, which is perhaps apt because it could be argued the greatest of his discoveries has, in some people`s opinions, been a bit of a pain in the colon for a lot of people since!
I was very lucky to have arrived this weekend as there was a game in the world famous Nou Camp so myself and the Brummie lads (that`s lads from Birmingham in case you didn`t know) took ourselves off there. It`s a beautiful stadium to be fair and the fans are unbelievably passionate in a ridiculously biased way but I suppose that that is applicable for all football fans (I for one have rarely applauded an opponents goal against Liverpool and unfortunately that`s been an all too frequent occurence).
I have to say though that there was a grim smile of recognition on my face and an empathy with the Mallorca players when Barcelona scored in the 90th minute for the win, knowing all too well what it`s like to be robbed by someone from Barce!
Another big night for the gang, not straying from the tried and trusted bars and drinks! Uniquely though I managed to get home without my normal interrogation from the locals, I think that they had finally accepted me now and had bigger (American) fish to fry!
I had to move rooms again, and I had a really quiet day, caught up with some reading and my diaries and then that night, I actually had a night off. I know, I know, you`re thinking, `ok, who the hell is writing this because it`s not Consi` but I swear I decided to just pull the plug on the evening early as I`d a full day next day. Ok, I know that you are still cup in hand, staring at the screen, frozen in shock at this revelation but hey, maybe I`m maturing?! Fair enough, even I know that that is a daft statement!
So I took off walking to see the sights, in total I was walking for about 7 hours! I set off the Sagrada Familia which is, I suppose, a church for want of a better description but they have only 60% completed the project. It was started in 1882 and they want to have it completed by 2026 but that is as likely as an Irishman taking the throne on England any time soon. Antoni Gaudi was the principle architect and worked exclusively on this project for the last 15 years (and in total 40 years) before his untimely demise at the hands of a tram!! (Bet you were wondering when that might come in!) Seriously though, can you imagine a tram travelling that fast to kill you these days, let alone in 1926?! A visionary he may have been, but he must have been bloody decrepit not to have seen a tram coming!
I took in the Picasso museum and it was amazing to see how he `developed` from the kind of art that you associate with the Great Masters when he was a kid to the kind of art that you would put on your fridge when you`re kid brought it home from kindergarden with a big golden star! I kind of understood where he was coming from but still it felt like you were seeing the gallery in reverse, a general disintegration into nonsense shapes. I thought it hilarious to see how he had taken Las Meninas, a classically famous painting by Diego Valazquez, and had rubbished it with his own interpretations which seriously had people with triangular heads and a dog which I`m sure I could draw when I was about 4 and trying to keep the colours inside the lines!
I read voraciously and I had finished my current book and after reading `The Shadow of the Wind` by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (really good book if you are interested) I was determined to find a book in Barcelona (you`d understand why if you read the book). So I tracked down the Elephant, an English bookstore where Frank, a Canadian who`d been living there for 20 years, was literally buried under thousands of books. What a character, I spent an hour chatting about books, authors and the pros and cons of settling down! He had great advice about Barcelona and is the kind of guy you should go to first before you start in a new city, I might have had my camera still had it been the case.
Actually as I was going to his shop on the Metro, a Spanish gentlemen told an elderly English couple in distinct Catalan that they needed to watch out because there were young people nearby and his pockets were open. To be fair, at the same time, the youngsters were trying to tell the lady that her husbands pockets were an easy target, which I thought reassuring and disturbing at the same time!
I had another early night as I was planning my next adventure and travel destination. I had planned on going to Andorra, just so I could tick off another box in the places been too column but I had to google places there and I came across the following blog (http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/05-06/dont-go-to-andorra-la-vella-andorra-la-vella-andorra.html) so I decided to give it a wide berth!
So I got up, took myself off to the bus station and then literally decided to take the next bus out of there going northwards to France. 45 minutes later I was on a bus to Toulouse which by all accounts is nice but nothing to write home about but then I discovered that Lourdes, the famous pilgrimage site in Southern France was nearby so I decided to follow in the footsteps of my Mam and Dad and millions of others and go and have a word with Mary about why it is that I keep getting robbed!?!
Me, in Lourdes, now you don`t want to miss that story!!
Well after another unsuccessful attempt at trying to have a civilised time in a new city with nothing bad happening to me, I felt that I needed some additional help if I was to keep on to this travelling odyssey of mine. As I said previously, my parents, aunts, uncles and some friends had made the journey to this region in the Pyrenees so it was time for me to see what it was like.
I am not sure if you know about it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourdes will give you an idea) but it is a prominent Catholic pilgrimage site to Mary, mother of Jesus. My bus took ages to get to Toulouse and I had 4 minutes to spare when I caught the last train to Lourdes after my pigeon French got me my tickets eventually.
My mate Laurie (more about him in future blogs) had a friend in Lourdes called Emily and he had arranged with her to pick me up and help me find accomodation. I asked for it to be a cheap and a hostel. Now Lourdes has between 300-400 hotels but there aren`t too many backpackers making the trip to these parts so hostels are non existent. But, much to her credit, Emily had found me a place where cub scouts and school tours went, in English, the village of the Young!
Well I already stood out when I arrived there because I had a) a backpack, b) a beautiful French girl in tow and c) this pilgrim had arrived in a Peugeot 206 cc sports car! It might have explained why within 30 seconds of arriving some punk kid had kicked a football off it (I later tied his cravat in a way that he`ll never be able to undo and stole his tree whittling and his bike repair badges). Still I got my own room for about 8 Euros a night and I could join the collective every morning for breakfast at 7am if I so wished but I just imagined me looking like Shrek walking into the palace with all the kids wondering why this big weirdo had chosen to visit!
Emily took me to a bar and we spoke French for about 5 hours. At the start it was excruciating, with the conversation flowing like treacle uphill in winter, me dragging words kicking and screaming out of the deep recesses of my school days with Ms Smith, trying to establish the correct tense and hardly concerning myself with the gender of them at all! It was worse when I strained to pick up every sixth word and depressingly for her kept asking, "Plus doucement, s`il vous plait?" and thankfully she would slow down but I think she could feel the sympathies of those around us wondering why she had gone on a blind date with someone who could clearly not speak the language and may be slightly retarded!
But amazingly, it started coming back to me, like lost relatives after a funeral for the inheritance reading. I was feeling a lot better and things weren`t so steccato and awkward when after about 3 hours she said something in response to my previous line, "well that is essentially the same thing but in a different context". It took me a double take to realise that the girl who I`d thought could only speak French had better English than me! And she`d sat through the development of my Bob the French Vocabulary Builder and never said a word?! I couldn`t believe it but now I was on a roll and we continued in French, but at least now I could ask her for clarification without resorting to the grunts and hand signals of a Borneo Orang Utan.
The next day was a religious one for me, and about time too I hear you say! I started with confession and two hours later I got a lot of dirty looks from the old folks who`d been kept waiting so long! At least they had something to probably confess now because I am sure their looks were not Christian! I went looking for an English mass and found one on at 10:30am, a far more respectable time than for the poor Hungarians whose only mass in their mother tongue was at 6am! Haha! Ah those Hungarians!
The mass was dominated by an Irish group and was said outdoors by Fr Noel Murphy from Cork. It was a very sunny day and already about 24 degrees and at one point he told everyone to `Stand to profess your faith` but then in conspiratorial low tones said, `stay sitting for God`s sake will ye, it`s boiling out here` and then he said it again out loud, `Now lets stand to profess our faith...` and all those that don`t speak Cork accent English stood up and felt conspicuous by their efforts! I smiled, it was a typical Irish inside joke!
The town itself is built on the foothills of the Pyrenees and it`s quite a walk to get around it. Only Paris has more hotels than this town (17,000 inhabitants, millions of visiters from Mar-Oct every year). The owners struggled with unique names; from the blatantly patriotic Hotel d`Irlande and Hotel America to the new Hotel Moderne to the lonely and sad Hotel Solitaire to the downright lazy but descriptive Hotel Restaurant to the plain silly Hotel Notre Dame de Chartes et Sainte Radegonde! Try saying that one to your cab driver after a few drinks!
Now I have never been one to force my beliefs on anyone else (unless of course it is the belief that we should definitely stay out and have a few more drinks in which case I enforce that with the zeal of a puritanical Christian soldier) but this place was really something special. It was peaceful and spiritual without being oppressively so and despite the fact that some people think that I am the devil incarnate (usually the people who wake up the next morning after a bout of my earlier zeal) I didn`t melt when I entered the huge basilica. The walls abound with inscriptions for rememberances of the dead and thanks for conversions and favours granted. One, from 1901, was from a mother who thanked Mary for her daughter`s exam results!
I did the open air stations of the cross in the blistering heat with the Irish group and at the first station there were about 20 steps which you were asked to do on your knees if you wanted to approach it. I watched old people do this and I felt ashamed, every time I genuflect I think I`ll need a winch to get me back up.
Either side of 15 of us, we were shuffled between two huge groups (in excess of 60 in each) Italians who had loudspeakers and who unceremoniously (and terribly unChristian like I felt) held us up at the front and then hovered over us behind like a gang, albeit an old and deeply religious one. I still instinctively went to check on my new disposable camera none the less!
I met Emily that night aswell, flourishing with a new found peacefulness and contentment. Another exclusively French night ensued which entailed dinner in a restaurant (one of those ones where you have to appreciate the art of the presentation of the dinner and not the quality) and then ultimately a Karaoke bar! Thankfully I resisted the urge to sing with the school kids in there who to their credit were all doing their own choreographed variations of swing dancing (and to think in my day, moshing was all the rage!)
Still, Lourdes is not for everyone, there are little to no backpackers there, if you are going there its to pray, confess something or in my case, ask for some divine intervention to stop people hitting me and taking my stuff!
Still, my favourite story from the weekend was when I was asking directions for the post office from a shop assistant. Let me say that trying to remember my French has left me dreaming it, thinking in it, cursing in it. But it`s all encompassing and I will go into that more in my next blog but suffice to say, I was finding it hard switching over my French chapeau with my English hat so to speak.
With my new found comfort with the French language I delivered the question flawlessly but this led to a rapid fire response and my look of confusion led her to kindly ask me "Parlais vous anglais?" (Do you speak English?) but so immersed was I in my French mindset that I answered "Un peu!". You should have seen the sheer look of confusion and desperation on the poor lady`s face, assessing this person who clearly couldn`t speak French properly, who by his own account only had `a little` English and who spoke with an Irish accent!
I felt like an idiot (the same word and spelling in both languages fortunately for my feeble brain) and walked out! Mary might help me look after my belongings but I think St Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, is going to have his work cut out with me!
I am accustomed to overnight boats and 22 hour bus journeys but when my mate Laurie picked me up in his Mercedes convertible SLK, I couldn`t help but feel a tinge of guilt for my fellow travellers! I was picked up in Poitiers and we took the drive (top down of course) to Montmorillon, my base for the next few days.
Laurie has `retired` to here, in his beautiful house with it`s garden backing down to the local river. I threw my bag in and we set off to explore the town via some of the local watering holes (always the best landmarks I find!). We went on a pub crawl with a difference in so much as Laurie walked in and kissed all the men inside on both cheeks and then we would leave without paying... ok, allow me to explain!
It does take a little getting used to to see everyone greeting each other with two kisses. Perfectly natural and comfortable for all involved but I felt that I didn`t want to overstep my welcome and extended a firm Irish handshake. The same applied when I referred to all and sundry with the terribly formal `vous` instead of the normal `tu`, but thankfully they knew that my french had come straight from a text book.
The other difference to our pub crawl which took considerably less time to get used to admittedly was that each bar ran a monthly tab for Laurie so we never had to pay! Highly dangerous practise with me around but it showed how well integrated he was with the locals and how trustworthy the country life is in France. Maybe it still happens in the outback of Australia, the darkest bogs of Ireland or the Deep South in America but I applauded the sentiment whole heartedly.
It`s such a quaint little town, where everyone knows everyone. I was instantly admitted to the inner sanctum of local gossip and the latest relationships, and I couldn`t help feel that this place was perfect for an Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot murder mystery!
I have never really been a connoisseur of wine but everything that got served up to me was among the best I had ever tasted. The French take the serving of food and drink to an exaggerated level in my mind but you have to admire their dedication. `Aperos` was the French (and lets face it, fancier) word for pre-drinks and that could start at any time of day. The French do have fancier words for most things, our `gangs` are their `entourages` for example. Much nicer term on the tongue but I fear it loses it`s intimidatory affect!
With my batteries charged, I was ready for the South of France. My French had a really good workout and contrary to the stereotype, everyone had been so patient with me and appreciated my efforts. In fact, I was universally informed that the only people who wouldn`t have time for my stuttering staccato French were the Parisians, they really aren`t liked by the country folk but that is the case for most capitals world wide really.
Laurie had kindly agreed to drop me down to the South of France but on a whim decided he would stay the week and then drop me to the airport on the Friday! Fantastic, sorry, fantastique! It really made a huge difference on the bank balance and on having to keep speaking French. Because it didn`t take me long as we drove to Montpelier, (over the simply breathtaking Massif Central where we were cruising consistently about a kilometer above sea level) and then along the Mediterranean that this was a place that not too many backpackers frequented.
I was glad we were in such a flash car because we were surrounded with affluence as we drove. We had avoided two near crashes, I had pulled off an amazing catch of Laurie`s registration and insurance papers that had flown out of the glove compartment when I was changing CD`s and every time we got lost, we found ourselves impossibly exactly where we had wanted to go! So we were feeling really good about our chances of getting a place in St. Tropez when we arrived.
It was expensive there and I got in touch with my mate Benjamin (from Koh Tao fame a few months ago) and he said he lived in St. Maxime, the next town on and he could get us a discount on a hotel room of a friend of his! This backpacking lark is just too easy I tell you!
The next day, we set off for Monaco. My mother often told us that when she was young she was always being complimented for looking like Grace Kelly (the actress), so Monaco had always held a fascination for me as she had gone on to become Princess Grace of Monaco. The drive from St. Maxime was amongst one of the most beautiful I have ever been on. Winding roads with the clear blue Mediterranean on one side and the cliffs dropping down to it on the other. Hundreds of cyclists impeded our progress but we weren`t in a rush, taking in the literally thousands of boats moored along the Cote d`Azur.
This is not how the other `half` live let me tell you, it`s how the fraction of half of one hundredth of a percent live. Structurally remarkable houses balanced on the sides of the cliffs in earthy, autumnal colours, where access can only be possible via a helicopter.
Monaco was truly amazing. After coming through a series of tunnels (and equally as many toll booths) we began our descent into the principality. It almost seemed magical, this tiny country at the bottom of the hill, steeped in history and now a haven for opulence and grandeur. It was a different world to anywhere I had been before. We parked our car (this is not a town where you would dare drive into with a Ford Cortina for shame!) and then took a walk by the huge international boats, moored here while their owners take a few days away from their stressful lives. They will be on these boats for only about 3 weeks a year if they are lucky but still the crew must be ready to sail them all over the world.
We had lunch by the marina and I had to pinch myself that I was here. I have become accustomed to (and to be honest I am a lot more comfortable with) the poorer countries that I have visited but this was a ridiculous indulgence! No more so than when we drove to the Monte Carlo Casino, passing the construction of the seating for the upcoming Grand Prix. We didn`t even think we would get in in our shorts, T-shirts and thongs (flip flops!). There were hundreds of tourists just standing outside looking at the people going in like it was a film premiere! We chanced our arms with our haughty airs of `we`re so rich we don`t even need to dress up to try and convince you`!
Fortunately we both had our passports, our names were checked off a database and we were admitted. Have you seen Casino Royale, the latest Bond movie?! Well even during the day, that is what it was like. Ludicrous splendour greeted us, the dealers in tuxedos, the rich tycoons hogging the table, the beautiful women hovering with intent, the mirrored doors, the huge murals, the big cigars, huge tables with rakes for the money, the highly evident cameras (prevention is better than cure clearly!) and but for the gaggle of tourists like us walking around mouths agog, it all seemed so decadently realistic!
Literally thousands of dollars were being bet on red or black and for one of the only times in my life I wanted to be stupidly rich, so I could sit with them all in my shorts and nonchalantly suggest that we `up the ante`! After winning three times in a row at Roulette I would be asked, discreetly of course, `if Sir would like to come with me, there is a high rollers game about to start in the Main Hall` to which I would leave my chips behind and bid adieu to all in 6 different languages.
Ok, enough of the dreaming, knowing my luck, I`d have been taken into a back room and given a complete pasting by 6 security men (all in tuxes of course) and kicked out the back door! But it is fun to dream because that is what it you buy into when you come to the South of France. We all buy into the excess of it all, a fleeting taste of extravagance, the wastefulness of absolute wealth, the having your pie AND eating it too!
People were happy here, the staff in the shops and the waiters, (God knows where they lived and how far they had to commute to this place) because they were facilitating this dream world, this real life Disneyworld.
I had to find the Rose Garden, dedicated and erected for Princess Grace who tragically died in a car crash in 1982. I am not into horticulture in any way (my Mam will testify to that!) but I was really impressed with it. At least 10 full time gardeners attended to it and I wandered around, more impressed with their names than their colours. There was a statue of the Princess and although it was a exquisite from the waist up and really captured what a beauty it was, I was puzzled by the bottom half which looked like she had been hewn from a pile of cabbages. That`s artists for you I suppose.
I felt sorry leaving Monaco but it wasn`t a place where you could stay. This was a transitory place, an ephemeral middle ground from one actual reality to another. Back to St. Maxime we went out with Benji and eventually found a little bar where two of his friends were jamming and I got to play on a guitar that Eric Clapton had signed last year, I wish I could have done it more justice! Still, the number of countries I`ve sung in now is getting up there!
Next day we set off for Aix-en-Provence, a beautiful town north of Marseilles which is a typical, tough industrial town. Much like Limerick is to Cork really! It`d been a big week and we happily sat and people watched for the afternoon. It is a university town so there was a great mix of people for our digestion and commentary!
We went for dinner and I was introduced again to the small portions you get in France. Dining is more of an experience than a necessity here and it might explain why there were comparably less obese people in France.
Another thing that I noticed was that with 5 months to go to the Rugby World Cup, I hadn`t seen one flag, poster or bunting, `Blasé` must be a French word! But all in all, it has been a truly wonderful experience in France. Between my Lourdes trip, BBQ`s in a small town in the heart of France, driving in a great car over the Massif Central and then cruising along the French Riviera, this was not a typical backpacker experience.
At the airport in Marseilles, there were two options for those dropping off, `parking` or `kiss and fly`! This was a bit awkward for Laurie and I because, as close as we had got during the week, we thought this might be somewhat excessive. But it was a last snatch of French-ness, something that truly can`t be replicated. They are a country that you want to really dislike for their snobbery and pride but you can`t, similar to the boxer that is so arrogant but you find yourself secretly rooting for him! Or the football manager that is so big headed but you can`t help but find him fascinating!
Next on my travels are Italy, Greece (for the Champions League final) and then Eastern Europe, back to some hard core graft for me!
Not for me, heaven forbid, but with my brother Seamus taking the plunge I headed back to Dublin for his stag do! Now, always one to shirk my responsiblilies my brother Caoimhan (Cin) had arranged it all! We went off clay pigeon shooting down in Wicklow with about 10 of Seamus` mates. We warmed up with some target practice and I came joint first, bit of a marksman am I! In fairness though, I can`t help but think that one of those alongside me had mistakingly shot at my target because there were holes in the targets before I even got there!
But never one to point out an injustice when it clearly was going in my favour, we ventured on to the clay pigeon shooting where I really did come into my own! All those years of Limerick education held me in good stead and I decimated pigeon after pigeon that were thrown up..
We went on a pub crawl around Dublin where we acquired a new, essential factor for any group of marauding stag groups.... a solitary girl! My friend Louise came out and gave the group a much needed credibility for other girls that were out and of course the bouncers. 10 guys can`t just walk into a bar but when we have one girl with us the common perception of, `Well it can`t be a stag do because there is a girl with them`, worked perfectly for us!
The wedding was to find us in San Gimignano, a beautiful little town outside Florence. But before we could get there, we had to go from Forli airport to Bologna airport where Cin had booked the car from, by mistake! Oh, how we laughed.... grrrr!
The town of San Gimignano is steeped in history, Machiavelli had a castle there when he wasn`t deceiving people. Also in this little square was the World Champion Gelato makers with endorsements from Tony Blair no less! It was weird seeing this tiny shop with all of the famous people adorning their walls.
We spent the day before the wedding in the amazing Florence. One day would never be enough to see all of the sights, particularly when there were so many tourists there, making each of the lines to the museums hundreds of meters long. I preferred to walk around and look at the buildings, the hawkers selling their knock off Prada Bags and the food markets selling all sorts of food (I had the boar stew which was surprisingly very tasty!)
There is a term in psychology called the Stendhal Sydrome named after a French novelist that fainted after walking around Florence and taking in so much beauty in one day! I suppose it would be the same if you walked around the Liverpool FC Trophy Room or the Playboy Mansion but I could kind of understand it. Statues were everywhere, cameras were clicking, the architecture was superb and the huge squares (piazzas) enticed you to sit down and take it all in. A definite tick in the box of, `To see again outside peak season.`
We had a great day for the wedding, beautiful weather in a church high on the hill with a stringed quartet playing as we walked on rose petals. Fierce romantic as we`d say at home! The reception then was held in a castle where we were regaled by the quartet again as we sipped cocktails in the garden before dining in the open-air courtyard no less!
It was all very grand and if I wasn`t so pathologically single I might have had a moment of weakness and considered settling down! Oh, that gives me shivers just thinking about it!
The show was stolen by my brother Cin who took over the DJ`s decks and faded in and out about 10 songs for the rest of the night! He was dancing away and acting like a right eejit and it was hard for us to convince all there that he doesn`t even drink!
My best man speech went well thankfully, just the right balance of tears and laughter! Still it is nervewracking as only those that have found themselves in that position can testify to!
We partied on till the early hours but the next morning I was up early because I was off to Athens for the Champions League Final! Since following Liverpool is like a religion in our house, no one batted an eye that I was shooting off to hopefully see them win our 6th European Cup.
And it looks like the name of my first born, boy or girl, is going to be Adam!! My mate came through and got me a ticket for the game! I took off to Rome and spent a few hours in a local tavern watching the FA Cup, jaded from the night before. I took a cab to the airport and passed the Colliseum, a quick pic later and another box ticked (kind of!)
I thought it wise though, before the football masses descended to check out some of Ancient Greece first though. I have to say that as I was walking to the Acropolis on my first morning, I couldn`t get over how dirty the streets were in central Athens, grafitti all over the place and rubbish bins overflowing. Apparantly the Olympics from three years ago has really backfired on the Grecians with thousands of promised jobs not materialising and massive tax increases to pay for everything else.
I was told that the huge numbers of stray dogs had been rounded up before the Games, taken away, nuterred and then supposedly released again after the tourists had left! But, there are some animal activists that are sure that there aren`t the same number of moggies running around so there is a theory that a lot of them were `put to sleep` instead! I can hardly believe it because there are hundreds of the big mangy dogs running around.
I met John Doyle, the Roy of `Roy and HG`, a comedy duo from Australia at the Acropolis and introduced myself. I said to him that it must be great to be able to walk around without attracting attention and fans wanting to talk to him, to which he replied, "Yes, it would be!!" OH-K then, I`ll leave you to it then shall I?!! I didn`t make the same mistake when I saw Pat Cash (Wimbledon winner 1987) there aswell.
I had met Will (from Wales) and Stephanie and Veronica (Long Island natives) in our hostel and we all took in the sights together. We had a full day and night and we headed to Mike`s Irish Bar (run by Greeks, of course!) where they were playing Karaoke. Now I am on record as saying I hate Karaoke but against my better judgement I got up and sang about 4 times!!! Ok, I`m a sucker for a microphone!
We met Nathan, Grace and Rebecca (all from the States) and a late night was had! It was funny to see the Greek half of the crowd cheer when they could understand the lyrics of a Greek song and keep deathly silent when the song was being sung in English!
Will and I went down to the Champions League Headquarters in Athens, Syntagma Square where we had a few drinks and listened to the ever growing and increasingly boistrous Liverpool fans singing their famous chants. It was great! I met some Irish friends of mine that I`d originally met in Sydney and we`d hardly finishing shaking hands when `Alan Jackson from Radio Merseyside` asked if he could do an interview. He asked us how we knew each other before the interview started and we told him we hadn`t seen each other in years and his first questions were all about how we met up and how we had just travelled all these miles to see each other etc etc. It started to sound like a love story! UNCOMFORTABLE!
The crowds are really building up now in anticipation for Wednesday night. Will and I ended up back in Mike`s Bar and kicking and screaming I was dragged up for another 5 songs last night (all different though from Sunday night to be fair!). I met Dennis from Dundalk who was mates with some of the lads that I had met in the Druid`s Rock bar in Rome! Small world alright!
But now it`s all about the Cup Final, there will be a separate blog for that for sure so stay tuned. COME ON THE REDS!!
My life has taken on a relatively charmed existence since I decided to get on my travels so I would be forgiven for thinking that naturally we would win the European Cup... Hmmm, Milan had other plans.
The build up had been amazing. I was in Syntagma Square (which turned into Liverpool HQ) on Sunday night when about 100 fans were there. Monday, their number was in the thousands like some mass breeding experiment gone wrong, all behaving, all singing and chanting and getting on with the 4 or so Milan fans that had stumbled amongst us! Looking over at the riot police with their helmets and boots off smoking cigarettes gave you some idea of the easy calm over the place.
The rain milled down and it hardly dampened the mood as we all ran to take cover in a nearby train station, still singing so loudly that the nearby Information and Complaints Department of the Train Station closed up early!! Some of the local rush hour Greek commuters started taking pictures of us lunatics and as the rain subsided we emerged, timing it perfectly, to `You`ll Never Walk Alone`!
The Banners all around the place were hilarious for the most part, with one above them all asking for 4 yr old Madeleine McCann to be returned to her family (she was abducted two weeks ago while on holidays if you haven`t heard). I decided to have an early night of it to get ready for the big day but my plan back fired when the other three inhabitants of my hostel room came in and gave me a rousing chorus or farts, coughs and snores which I conducted with my air baton!
The worst thing about someone snoring is that while you are unable to sleep because of them, you know that they are actually having deep sleep at that very moment in time!
Still, we all set off next day to the Square again where the cloning machine had gone into overdrive and now tens of thousands were on the new KOP. One old guy climbed up on a huge pot (I suggested he might actually be on pot to try something like that) and started waving a flag to everyone`s delight. Then another kid, horribly misjudging the crowd`s waning interest in such antics, climbed up and soundly got pelted with flying cups and cans of beer.
Another wannabee legend climbed to the top of a 90-100ft tree and when he thought he was going to be hailed as a modern day Hillary, all he received was a resounding chorus of "How the f*ck, how the f*ck, how the f*ck you getting down? How the f*ck you getting down?!"
I met Glynn and James who were bringing my ticket to the game from Liverpool and the three of us joined others on the steps of Syntagma square and played our part in the singing and chanting, the atmosphere was truly electric. If this was the warm up, bring on the big game!!
It was a long day in the sun though with interspersed heavy showers and with drink flowing, there were some tempers frayed. The final wouldn`t kick off till 9:45pm so some trouble was to be expected. But what happened was a litany of mistakes...
To be honest I am probably too close to what happened to have heard what was reported but we had heard (almost in joking terms during the week) that there was a plan to storm the gates because there wasn`t a turnstyle system. We got out there and when we went to the gates a massive crush was put on by some small minority of those without tickets. I know they were without tickets because they were trying to pick pocket people in front of me and running when they got caught.
If the `if you don`t have a ticket, don`t travel` rule was actually adhered to it would have been fine I`m sure, but a lot of people go to the cities just to soak up the atmosphere. The problem was that fans were expected to show their tickets at a gate instead of scanning through a turnstyle.
There`s no excusing what happened and I was gutted at some of the `real die hard fans` that were instigating it. They`re arguments were that the corporations got all the tickets and they couldn`t but that is always going to happen and seeing some kids crying and women screaming and even myself getting pushed up against some iron gates, well I don`t need to tell any true Liverpool or football fans with a memory what was going through my mind.
Common sense prevailed (even if it capitulated to the mob who didn`t have tickets) and gates were opened. Seeing the mix of shellshocked kids and high-fiving yobs who hadn`t had tickets really got to me. It has to be stressed it was a minority but then some real fans who had tickets couldn`t get in. There will be inquiries etc etc but in the end poor organisation meant a minority could dictate the outcome for the majority.
Still, the game, the ground and in particular the fans were amazing when the singing got under way. The result didn`t finish off the fairytale for the 75% of the crowd in there but when the Liverpool fans were still there an hour later still singing and clapping the Milan team and commiserating with our own, I remembered why I was a fan of this team.
But as I found myself back in my hostel 2 hours later, desperately trying to find a flight anywhere out of Athens, it started to sink in how different it could have been! How it should have been for the travelling fans but that`s sport and some tell me, life! The soonest I could get out of here for anything like a reasonable rate is tomorrow and Budapest. A place about which I know nothing, now do know anyone there so it looks like I am getting back to familiar and comfortable ground again!!
TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE by MITCH ALBOM is one of the best books I`ve read. The Gideons should put this in the hotel rooms around the world.
That`s it, remember, I love to get your messages in the message board about any of my entries so please keep them coming.
Ok, I know, I can`t blame anyone but myself but to error is human, to really screw things up takes a computer!
I had said my goodbyes to the Athens gang after a huge night out which brought us back to Mike`s bar for some farewell Karaoke songs. Unfortunately it was full of men as we double checked the doors to see if we had stumbled onto it`s gay night, but no, the ladies just weren`t out that night. Never letting that get the better of us, Andy, Will and I took the only two girls in the bar (the barmaids Zoe and Ruby) out after they had closed up and we went to a Greek club till the early hours!
We dropped them home and a 25 minute cab ride in the city came to a massive 4 Euros... now that`s more like it. So like I said, my goodbyes complete, I just checked my e-mails before I left for the airport and then saw that my flight details were strangely for two weeks away. Surely an error as I had clearly booked them for today. A quick phonecall confirmed that the computer, that flawless creation of human friendliness, had just moved me to the one in two weeks time when there was an availability!
So I start calling around and I am literally willing to fly anywhere that I can move my credit to (at one point I was nearly going to Helsinki with nothing warmer than a hoodie!) but nope, no flights out till Monday. Well I am over Athens so I met Zoe and got her to explain to a travel agency that I didn`t care how or where but I wanted out of Athens. Slightly rebuffed by my rejection of his city, the agent put me on a ferry the following day from Athens to Venice.... 31 hours!!
So now another night in Athens was on the cards, meeting up with all the people that I had already said goodbye to and had openly slagged off on my going away e-mails! Ah, pride cometh before a fall!!
So the next night at midnight, I did get on the boat in Patras and then settled into my oh so not comfy seat for a nights sleep. The next day I explored my floating accomodation for the next day. It was full of greasy truckers and retired Germans, hmmm it wasn`t so much the Love Boat as the Antiques Roadshow on tour!
I met Laura, a girl from our hostel who I had laughed heartily as she told me she was taking this nightmare journey! She`d stopped for a few days in Corfu and here I was chatting to her now, firmly swallowing humble pie. That pride was falling at quite a degree at this stage!
There was a pool on board but unfortunately the people that were taking a dip were sporting very large moustaches and equally very small speedos! I thought Paisley had disappeared as a design from fashion in the 80`s although by the wear and tear, that`s when they could have been first worn... Uck...
We arrived into Venice at 7am and it was surreal as our liner dwarfed the city by some degree. Venice is truly a feet of engineering but it seemed Lilliputian in its ability to cater for something as big as our boat.
I ran to the train station as I was going to take a direct to Vienna but I missed it by two minutes and in hindsight I am glad. I took off around Venice and just loved the small lanes, the countless bridges, the gondolas and gondoliers and the remarkable lack of a stale water smell! I stumbled on to St Marks Square which is truly beautiful. Outdoor restaurants regale you with orchestras as they rob you blind with beers being 12 Euros! (Seriously, it costs you a Euro to spend a penny in the toilets in Venice! I sat in there and read my book for a while just to get value for money!)
For a much cheaper rush all you need to do is spend one euro, take up position anywhere in the square, throw a few seeds in the air over yourself, stretch out your arms and wait to be attacked by the feathered rats, or as they are more commonly called pigeons! Everyone stands around to wait for the latest human scarecrow and photos fly! I had a strange thought as I was descended on why it was that their feet weren`t scratching me and in a moment of lunacy I wondered if someone actually clipped their nails! Hey, when you are under attack strange things come to mind!
I took off on a long walk around Venice and then sat in the train station as a thunderstorm descended on us. St Marks Square alone floods 250 times a year so I think that they are in a lot of trouble if Al Gore is to be believed!
An overnight train then to Vienna where I met Anna who showed me the tricks to make our compartment as unappealing as possible to potential newcomers so that we could stretch out and sleep! Of course that did little to put off the commuters for Vienna next morning who burst in on us and through a chorus of tuts and throwing our bags about made me feel extremely embarrassed, like my Mom had caught me in bed with a girlfriend! The workers of the world, sheesh I just can`t understand them!
I had checked into my hostel and then had to do my own laundry for the first time in absolutely ages! What, you don`t have someone that will do this for me?! I wasn`t being a snob but I had one day in Vienna and watching the continual swirl of a washing machine with my undies wasn`t high on the guide book of `Must see`s`!
Vienna is a beautiful city, so clean and easily accessible through one tram that takes you around to all of the major sites. But like so many cities it is nearly impossible to see in even a few days so you are resigned to seeing very little rather than attacking just the tip of the iceberg. There must be at least 50 museums and I had to go and pick possibly the worst!
I went to the Sigmund Freud museum which was based in his actual studio. It was refreshing not to be the craziest person in the room for a change! It was very small though with hundreds of letters, diplomas and photos and you were given a folder to tell you what each of them signified. But there was a presumption that you knew a great deal about Freud and his prognosis that most things wrong with you was due to your sexual desire of your mother! I wanted to know why he wasn`t summarily laughed out of the psychiatrist community but maybe this wasn`t the place to find out.
2 rooms of his old stuff and then 3 rooms with cartoons of shrink jokes! I couldn`t believe it! I could have bought Gary Larson`s Far Side collection and would have learned more!
I met Anna that evening and we went for drinks to an array of bars in the city centre. I had visited St Stephen`s Cathedral earlier where Mozart had spent a lot of his time and I felt that he would be pleased to know a fellow composer had traced his steps... ok I compose a self gratifying blog but it all counts!!
We stumbled on a small pub where there were no customers and just a bunch of traditional musicians and I was in my element. I joined them for a few songs and I have never sung `Caledonia` so well because they were so good. They played 6 different instruments and it was a fitting end to the evening..
Next day I visited the Schumphorn Castle which must be the ideal wedding destination if you could rent it out and then fill it with about 1000 people! It takes a lot to get me excited about gardens and the likes but these were truly amazing. I got to the train station with 15 minutes to spare and did one of my now famous just in time connections to my train to Prague to meet up with the Ebbens that I had met in Barcelona...
Madness and mayhem was expected and I wasn`t disappointed!
Arriving into Prague I was actually looking forward to seeing some familiar faces again. Don`t get me wrong, travelling around and meeting new people every night is great but now and again an oasis of familiarity is appreciated.
So Jill and Jen were there to save me from walking down the wrong road from the station(frequented by unsavoury characters) and then I was brought to their new apartment, in so much as they had just moved in that day. They had `rented` it from some guy who hadn`t shown them any ID, had written their `contract` on a piece of paper and taken their money in cash.... Hmmm, call it my old fraud instincts but I had feeling that the real landlord might be popping around in a week or two`s time! (In any case I took one of his books so I felt I had gotten him back just a little!)
We went out and I had to convert money from Euros to the Czech currency with a scandalous exchange rate. We were told a few minutes later that we would have got a much better rate in any Irish bar, now I have always said that pubs are better places for your money than banks and finally I have been proven right!
We went out where I bumped into a friend from home, Keith, who I hadn`t seen in about 15 years. That only slightly dampened the disappointment of him completely forgetting me, even with promptings that we had played on the same football team for a season! I felt a little better when he called his brother and he still remembered me! Sheesh, small world as long as everyone retains even basic recollective capabilities! When they don`t it just leads to prolongued awkward moments of silence!
Next day, the Ebbens and I took a walk around Prague, the beautiful Charles Bridge, the impressive Castle and the 287 steps up a spiral stair case to the top for an amazing vantage point. The humour du jour was to tell the people coming up as you were very snugly going past them on the way down that the top `was just around the corner`!! Haha, going up a spiral staircase, that`s really funny! If there had been space to turn around without causing a human domino affect I`d have slapped that idiot!
We went out for another night out and I met a bunch of Irish lads over on a stag. For some unknown reason we all started speaking in Gaelic for ten minutes but the talk was limited to how good the ladies looked, where we were from, what our names were and please teacher, can I go to the toilet?!! Ok, we never said we were fluent but it was fun!
Another big night out ensued with us meeting Jill and Jen`s friends Chad who for some reason only known to him had dressed up in a Forrest Gump meets The Truman Show get up with alarming and slightly bewildering success in attracting attention from the girls in the bar! I need to find me a set of broken glasses and braces....
So the next day, I had to get out of there because hanging out with my Wisconsonite friends was not only reducing my life expectancy but also doing strange things to my pronunciation of key words like food, good and cute! How do you get two syllabels out of `do` anyway?!
So, on a whim, (love that word!) I decided to take a break and head to Munich, a quaint, quite town in southern Germany where I could gather myself and get ready for the next leg of my world travels...
Ahem, Consi...
WAIT A MINUTE! This isn`t the relaxing, quiet place that I had led myself to believe. Instead, unwillingly (and those of you who know me know that I rarely do anything unwillingly when it comes to partying) I had stumbled on BEER HQ, a place that has taken the noble act of drinking beer to an art form, ney a near religious experience!
Ok, then, I suppose I had better go out and investigate! It is almost startling how much beer they drink around here! Young women, old men, business execs on lunch, scores of stag parties from England, all of them knocking back glasses as big as most toasters! They will serve you a beer unless you tell them that you don`t want one (which will be greeted with a nonchalant laugh, a `that`s a good one!` look and then have one dumped down in front of you anyway!)
I went out and met up with a load of people from my hostel for a night in Ned Kelly`s, cleverly combining my Irish and Australian pasts in one sweeping move. Those glasses are bloody heavy and I have seen some of the Germans carrying 5 or more in one hand, nutters!
Next day, I set off on a walk. Like Vienna, Munich truly has so much to offer the ordinary teatotalling tourist but simply way too much for any one that indulges in their `liquid bread` at night. I walked around by a river and stumbled on this Asian gentlemen that was using the rushing water to block out his full volume belting out of some operatic aria. I walked past him, he was somewhat miffed at the disturbance but not as embarrassed as I was when I realised that I had stumbled on his special quiet spot as 30 meters further on it was a dead end. So I walked past him again as he seethed and had to start again!
Further on, I chanced upon a surfer that was using the waves that were generated out of rushing water on a small bridge. Not exactly world championship stuff but you`d be bloody unlucky to meet a shark in there!
There were so many people jogging around that a strange feeling washed over me. It was a familiar one, something about the physical expenditure of energy in the healthy and correct pursuit to helping your body turn into a temple, a rhythmic exercise which was bringing on pulses of memories to me, something that I used to do quite often, something enjoyable.... oh yeah that`s right, it was time for a beer!!
I went to the Hofbrauhaus in the centre of Munich and it was like a massive canteen full of people all drinking huge beer glasses! Needless to say they were being served by buxom lasses in traditional dresses and the lads were up there Oompah Poompah-ing with their tubas and accordians much to the delight of all as papparazi like photos ensued! It was all terribly camp, loud and random and thoroughly enjoyable! It must have been one of the only bars I have been into in ages that didn`t have a TV and I didn`t miss it one bit! This place was the business and really said it all about Munich.
Hitler started his political life in Munich. The gangs of Neo-Nazi skinheads congregated around and it was a poignant reminder that some of his beliefs are alive if not well (in the head). His designs on creating an Aryan race of tall, powerful blondes has taken shape in the Amazonian women walking around this town however. I had met several ex-pats from England and Ireland who had settled in Munich for good, some for 18 years after arriving here first. Beer a plenty and Amazonian women were two of the more obvious reasons that I could see..
Another big night where I got into a heated (if good spirited) argument with Glenn from Melbourne on the colour of Kathleen Turner`s hair!?! Seriously, where do we get the conversations from?! I also ended up singing Danny Boy to the bar at the end of the night for reasons that still allude me!
So much for my relaxing few days but I set off for Heidelberg to find just that...
This won`t take long because I didn`t get up to too much. I had had an inclination to head to Amsterdam but I knew that I needed one night in between to get myself together for that particular trip!
My friends David and Julia, that I had met in Koh Tao lived here and had told me of its beauty so I tried to contact them and then turned up in town unannounced and ultimately undiscovered!
I tried two hostels with no joy and after walking for two hours finally found one to take me in.. But I had inadvertantly seen a lot of the sights of this picturesque town. All along the river was a green belt where people played football, couples canoodled on picnic blankets, frisbees were being thrown and the abundance of those joggers again brought up an almost Pavlovian response as I immediately started thinking of going out for a beer!
I went out and stumbled on The Dubliner bar (my ability to track down Irish bars even scares me at this stage!), where I met Mickey from Lancashire and Wiley from Wisconson. Needless to say Mickey jumped at the bait to Wiley the Coyote from the cartoons and Wiley responded with timeless resignation by showing us his tattoo of the unfortunate character!
Mickey then met a bunch of bikers from near where he lived and he ran out to talk `to his own`. Hilariously though, each of them started to come in and take refuge at the bar as he was withering them with his collection of porn on his mobile phone! As each one of the group of 9 came in, they besieged those who had got in early, ` You`re not leavin `im with us `. I had spoken to him for about 5 minutes before hand and had nearly guaranteed a drive north the next day but I sidestepped that as it was revealed what a loonie he was. albeit a relatively harmless one.
One of the bikers had incurred some substantial damage to his rear wheel but was still weaving in and out at 160 m/p/h around Germany. Now, what I know about motorbikes could be written on the back of a postage stamp with plenty of space for an address to send it someone who cares but I ventured that at any moment his back wheel could explode? He said yes and his explanation was that, `when it`s your time, it`s just your time` Now I couldn`t agree more but I felt that he was pushing this particular checkout request a little bit too much in the face of the Great Biker in the sky! I hope he`s still alive!
So I left Heidelberg today and am now currently in Amsterdam. I have taken a little walk around and found this Internet Cafe/Bar/Opium Den! When you think of Amsterdam you think of tulips, windmills and clogs right?! Yeah right you do. This place is hash central and passive smoking may be why the computer screen now smells of strawberries and for some reason I think that Mambo Number 5 may be one of the cleverest songs of all time!
Got to get out of here! Will be in touch.. I hope...
Ah Amsterdam, what a twisted little city you are! This place is mad! Their ultra liberal views gives the place a sense of debauchery not seen since the fall of the Roman Empire! I found my room and got chatting to a guy who told me about his first evening in the Dam and his dalliance with some of the local ahem, `herbs`!!
He`d gone for a few beers and once he`d established that the nightlife didn`t usually kick off until midnight, he decided to go to a coffeeshop (where you`ll never see even a bean of coffee) and innocently he ordered a beer. He was told by a distinctly perturbed owner that they weren`t allowed sell beer in the coffeeshops anymore because of the upcoming smoking bans in bars rule.
He ordered a `mild` (if Dutch people even understand the term) joint and sat down to enjoy it with two random blokes he met in there. After about two puffs he said that he felt like someone had filled his feet with lead so he got up and started to play some of the worst pool ever played! Games went on for ages as the pockets seem to move around the table as fast as the balls!
Shortly later, he was cooked. That was it, he had to get out of the place and go for a head clearing walk. He walked around the block a few times, getting progressively more paranoid that he looked like a walking victim for a mugger (I could empathise after my Barcelona stint!). He stopped into a McDonald`s for some water and a burger and that was when the voices started. He was convinced that everyone in the place was plotting against him so he decided that enough was enough it was time to go home.
Of course however, the `voices` went with him and he stumbled around looking for his hostel with four distinct yet conflicting voices clambering around his brain looking for expression.
There was the encouraging one that kept giving him timely pick-me-ups every time he saw a familiar house, sign or bus stop. Well done son, you will be home soon, keep going, you`re doing just fine etc etc
Of course, beside that voice was the admonishing, exasperated one, clearly over stating the obvious, `Well you wouldn`t need so much encouragement if you didn`t get so wasted you idiot`.... `This is a basic walk home but you have turned it into Mission Impossible, ya eejit` The tut-tutting continued but this was, he assured me, much better than the third voice...
The other voice was that of extreme paranoia, an absolutely assured sense of demise, a foreboding of some terrible fate that was awaiting around each corner. This was how he was going to die, stumbling around a foreign city with his mind altered with hallucinatory drugs, of that he was certain. But all the time, over this cacophony of voices, there was a constant buffer of laughter!
His fourth voice was cackling away in the background, like a mental patient laughing at a joke from one of his imaginary friends! Haha, you are so wasted, look at you! Hahaha, you`re going mental very quickly but very definitely and all I can do is laugh at you!
When he got back to our room, the night before I got there, he climbed into bed but was then entirely convinced that his roommates were all drug dealers and they were going to throw him out of the third floor window for no other reason than they could. So he spent over an hour moving his feet so that they didn`t feel so leaden and clenching and unclenching his fists for what he was sure to be a fight to the death.
OK THEN! I think I will stick with the beer, thanks very much!
I walked around Amsterdam the next day, running the gauntlet which is crossing the roads over here. It`s worse than Vietnam! If the cars don`t get you, the trams will. And if you somehow avoid them, then the cyclists can come out of anywhere! A frantic swing of your head about 6 times precedes any crossing of a street. Everyone has bikes over here and the locks are massive too (God be with the days when you locked your bike up with those rubbishy combination locks!).
The Van Gogh museum was very impressive (even if I couldn`t get Don McLean`s `Starry, starry night` out of my head for the day!). I have to say I developed an appreciation for the nutjob. He was a manic depressive and was into self mutilation (a la his severed left ear lobe) but he was truly an amazing painter, even though he got little or no recognition while he was alive.
Someone else who was made famous after their unfortunate demise was Anne Frank and I went to check out her house where she and her family hid for years before they were informed on and sent to a concentration camp to die. I met a young Aussie girl there who emphatically pronounced that she was into hard drugs and dancing (and this just after she had told me her name!) which terminated our friendship long before it had a chance to begin!
I got a call from Laura (who I`d met in Athens and Venice) who said that she was in the Dam too so we went out for a few drinks. She`d been on the Red Light district tour the night before but she was happy to take me around and point out the various hot spots in the most infamous prostitution area on the planet. It was surreal, streets and streets of women standing in the windows, showered in a seedy red glow. And they weren`t the lethargic, seen it all, passive prostitutes, oh no, they were chomping at the bit, every bit the `how much is that doggy in the window` full on, if they had tails they would have been wagging!
All major cities (and most of the minor ones too for that matter) have workers in the worlds oldest profession but they are weathered and weary, life has dealt them some poor cards for the most part and this is where they have ended up, rarely by choice. The thing that got to me was how `happy` (if that can even be used in this context) they seemed to be, laughing with each other and the punters.
We shuffled around (I have rarely been so thankful of having company, particularly a girl, as I was at that time) and looked at these women, and the thought of being in a museum struck me! Except the `art` on show was willing to engage with you in a completely different way than Van Gogh`s sunflowers had done earlier! Some of the girls were actually very attractive which I suppose surprised me a little, here, with their Union and regular health checks, this is an actual financial reality and viable profession. Still, I can`t imagine too many Richard Gere`s turn up to `save` them from this life... "So, Daddy, how did you and Mommy meet?!!"
As an aside, one of the free info packs for tourists on the city had this guy`s opinions on his favourite restaurants, bars, museums etc. Then he intimated which of the sex shows, lap dances etc were the best and then he reliably informed us as to which of the escort agencies had the best women, the fastest delivery and the best value! Now that is the kind of attention to detail that you just don`t get in the Lonely Planet!
I saw cops walking around and I tried to imagine their morning roll call.... "Ok everybody, there has been some extreme littering going on in the south of the city and blatant abandonmentness of bikes around the universities that we need to clamp down on. The fact that everyone is high as a kite on marijuana and are indulging openly in paid for sexual activities does not need to concern you!"
So I left Amsterdam, enlightened and impressed. The tram system gives the city a real old world feel but they attitudes to drugs and prostitution are very new age.
I`ll tack on here that I went to Brussels in Belgium for the night. Suffice to say that Billy Connolly would struggle to find something funny to say about this city so I am not even going to try. The next day I went to the bus station and after buying a ticket to Lille (after a last minute flirtation with Zurich) I decided on a whim (there`s that word again!) to get a refund and just head to Paris instead without accomodation!
Turning up to one of the world`s great cities unannounced... hmmm, not usually the best advice but it would be boring if I did things easily!
Ok, so maybe coming unannounced wasn`t the greatest idea I have ever had! I had to book into a hotel which should have been a luxury but really some hostels are better than 2 star hotels, especially for the price. Still, I found myself right beside the Moulin Rouge and a short walk from Sacre Coeur and its amazing city views and I began immediately to appreciate why they say that there is truly only one Paris.
As any of you that read these entries regularly I tend to walk prodigiously when I hit a new city but rarely have I been to a city where a mindless amble has led me to so many internationally known `must sees`. They are scattered generously around the city and it gives the city a museumal feeling (think I may have just created a word there!)
I took a walk which brought me to the Eiffel Tower and I have to say I was impressed. It`s a chocolately brown and they have truly painted every inch of it, I was desperate to see one nut or bolt that some lax worker had overlooked but no, every inch. Forget the architectural magnificence, the engineering feat of the lifts or the panoramic views, this was a true dedication to workmanship! But it was amazing, right up at the roof of the city, and all the time `A View to a Kill` by Duran Duran was going through my head (from the Bond flick of the same name!)
I went to Notre Dame, and yes I know I am going to hell for this, but I scoured around looking to see anyone that was even remotely bent over and see if I could grab them in for a shot but everyone was from the perfect posture club.
I popped by the Louvre but didn`t go in deciding to give it a day. I overheard a young surfer dude from the States bemoan the length of the queues, "The DaVinci Code must have made this place so popular". Oh give me strength.... (I have been reliably informed that a friend overheard too middle aged Americans who, to their eternal credit, were going through a dictionary to brush up on the local lingo, were confused to find that the French didn`t have a word for "Ya`ll")
L`Arc de Triomphe is impressive because it has spawned so many replicas around the world. Napoleon had it constructed for his returning armies, they might have preferred a shower and a steak but thankfully the not so tiny general was into grander displays of gratitude.
I am writing this entry in London because it is just too hard to type on French keyboards. They have a tendency to leave the keys the same as the English with the exception of swapping just a few letters to frustrate you! Bafflingly though they have the full stop on top of a key, so you have to hit the shift button with it to get one? As if you would hardly use one, bewildering.
But maybe that`s because things rarely if ever stop in Paris (nice segue eh?!) It is all go during the day and equally as busy as night. Courtney, Aislinn, Eric, Suzanne and I went out to Corcoran`s one night and found of full of Rastafarian`s which I thought was a great if strange mix. Now I rarely dance (unless the Jackson 5 `ABC` comes on) but sometimes the challenge of a dance off appeals to the stupid side of me and I was up there with my black sisters and brothers getting all ghetto! Great fun!
I walked around the city again and I saw a sign for `Le Centre George Pompidou` and I squealed with kid like innocence as I recalled Zig and Zag, two puppet TV characters from my youth who had a catch phrase of "Ou est le centre George Pompidou?" so I had to try it out! I asked several people and they probably couldn`t understand why I was smiling so inanely as they were trying to direct me! Hey, who says my travels have to be all about culture?!
I met Jim, a friend of my brothers and we were having a few pints, ironically if not unsurprisingly talking about women when we approached by the bar girl with a note for Jim. Wow, I thought, as I looked up to see the bar girls friend look over at us, this guy is a magnet! But his poorly disguised attempt at nonchalantly and coolly opening the note gave way to barely suppressed despair when he threw it down where I quickly snaffled it up. The note had been left by Ruben, a guy who had just left the bar (fortunately for all parties I suspect!) which I thought was cute and endearing and perfectly gave me the opportunity to say, Ah Gay Paris!
I visited the Louvre the next day and it is simply huge, amazingly and almost intimidatingly big. If you were to spend the requisite amount of time to really take in any art piece, say even one minute, you would be in there for three months. I had to be really selective so I started with the Venus di Milo and I have to say it was impressive but my love of Simpsons meant I couldn`t help but draw reference between it and the Gummy Venus di Milo, the most famous gummy of all!
Then I seeked out the museum`s most famous lodger. I have to say that I saw her before she saw me but it didn`t take her long to catch my eye through the throng although I strongly suspect that everyone there could have said the same thing. I had prepared myself mentally to disparage the Mona Lisa, the famous picture of the smile that Da Vinci couldn`t quite get right (too busy writing codes presumably) but I was impressed. It`s bigger than I thought and she really does have eyes that follow you.
But after that I was left a little numbed by the massive amount of art on show. You kept pushing yourself to see as much as you could, but then you couldn`t really take in anything. Everything whizzed by and after hours I despaired in the tiny amount of the 8 miles of art I had covered.
In contrast though, I went to the Musee d`Orsay the next day and was by far the most amazing museum I have ever been to. It was manageable and with the cheap but incredibly informative audio guide I was whisked around the museum with a greater appreciation than ever for Van Gogh, Monet and JB Millet (never been one for Renoit, Degas or Toulouse-Lautrec!)
The great thing too was that you could take pictures assuming that you didn`t have the flash on (I caught one person who regularly feigned deathly embarrassment that their flash was on, fiddle with the camera and move on to another picture and do the same thing until I pointed out that I could either help them turn it off or I could get one of the stewards to help them from the place, their choice!)
It was open mike night in the Galway and I joined Jan (from Germany but with the thickest Cork accent you`ll ever here!) and about 6 or 7 others get up and belt out a few songs with his guitar. There was a big bunch of us there along with Norna, an Aussie girl from my hostel room who has derived a new term all to herself, a pregpaker! She found out she was pregnant shortly after she left home and is now going back because she can`t go out and socialise with everyone else as she can`t drink. She said she was going to tell everyone that she was coming home `three months early because she was two months late!`
As my brother says, you could go to Paris every weekend and never get bored but it was time to move on. How I got to London is a story all to itself...
One of the lads in the hostel was going to London aswell so we decided to travel together. The fact his name was Gerry Adams gave me only momentary concern, but the irony was truly not lost on me!
We were going to take an overnight bus leaving Paris and getting in at 6am. No problem, a relaxing overnight bus, what could go wrong, right?!
Well the bus was packed and right behind us sat this guy with a penchant for self mumbling that immediately made me think of Muttley the cartoon character, well if Muttley was a fat, middle aged, smelly man who stunk of booze and cigarettes. But he was getting on drunk so I was fairly confident that when he had finally finished his bottle of wine that he would fall soundly asleep and we would be serenaded with a hearty and regular snore but I had woefully underestimated his ability to annoy.
Ten minutes into the trip he had claimed the toilet as his personal smoking section, then came out and once seated, inhaled a mass of oxygen which he generously replaced with a noxious mix of smoke and cheap booze. This he did 5 times before we took a break, going from spy like surreptitiousness initially to sparking up before he walked down the aisle and reluctantly went into his cubicle!
We complained at the break but the driver said he didn`t speak English or French (strange for a guy on this route I thought). Now you might ask why we didn`t force him to stop. Well this guy was clearly unhinged as his strange language testified. Now I am getting good at deriving where people are from but his unique mix of English, French, drivel and slur, sprinkled amply with a sound dose of Tourette`s made this guy a mystery and entirely unapproachable.
Still, saying that, several of us did just that to which he would earnestly reply, "Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry......." and then after a few seconds grace, would round it off with an emphatic, "F*ckin` French!", a comment he was to repeat at least 20 times during the trip.
It wasn`t just us though that he was apologising to as at one point he said `Sorry world, but it will be over soon`. A brief moment of worry crossed my mind but then again I didn`t think that most suicide bombers wore a Beyonce baseball cap and a keyring of her around their neck unless the sultry singer has developed a new religion of crazies I didn`t know about!
After I had told him to be quiet and a few minutes after he had apologised to me 10 times (declining to shake his hand which may have been a mistake), he reached around my head rest with his baseball cap which was either a peace offering or an indication that he could get to me with whatever he might possess if I talked to him again.
When he wasn`t swigging his wine, cursing at us and the world or taking numerous fag breaks, he was rearranging his baffling array of plastic bags. It was like those Russian dolls, he would take them all out, then place one into another, place them into another and so on till he could fit them all into his gear bag, where he would then give us all a satisfactory and self congratulating, "F*ckin` French!" and then open them all and do it again!
When we got to the Ferry he was the first off the bus and he was running around the Duty Free like someone in Supermarket Sweep! He was then drinking his whiskey a little too close to the boats edge. Not that he was in danger of falling in himself but the words `Justifiable Homicide` kept going through my head so I retreated to a safe distance for his sake.
But we were going through English customs, the no nonsense first line of defence of the Monarchy. We had to take our bags off the bus and line up to get them scanned. Our man didn`t take his bag (of bags) off the bus but instead walked up to the front of the queue (clearly staggering) and wanted to impress that he should be let through immediately. Excellent I thought, that`s he`s undoing as he was summarily moved away to one side to speak to an officer. I had listened to him for four hours and he hadn`t made an ounce of sense so with some unchristian delight I returned to the bus safe in the knowledge that I might get some sleep as he wasn`t coming back.
Instead, he came out a few minutes later, SCREAMING and ROARING in his unique, belligerent language, at the bus and all of us with a stream of curses, the only one somewhat intelligible being "Stereof*ck"!! I was now convinced that he had been told to retrieve his bag and that he was being detained and that he was equally convinced that it was one of us that had dobbed him in.
But no, amazingly they had let this freaking lunatic through! "We can`t let you through sir, oh hold on, it seems that we do have an opening for a crazy drunken person to sit in one of our parks and scream obscenities at our tourists all day for their amusement!"
I couldn`t believe it, this obvious alcoholic wino was being allowed enter England despite the fact that he could have had a kilo of heroin in his unchecked bag because he had played the "mentally unstable weirdo" card to such aplomb!
This added fire to his belly, which he tried admirably to extinguish for the next 2 and a half hours. I couldn`t believe his energy levels. "Je ne pas going to bleeg blarn koala be up ta stereof*ck balloons and escargots carnawalla F*ckin French, stereof*ck Jose Maurinho"
One young Leeds lad thought he was hilarious and regularly stoked the flames by talking to him and even partaking in whiskey. I didn`t know who I wanted to hurt more. Weirdo guy was then incredulous that the driver had taken the decision to lock the toilet, not because it stopped him smoking but presumably because now it meant everyone else had to endure it. The only bit of delight I had was when the Leeds lad nearly ruptured his bladder waiting for us to arrive in Victoria Station, irony alive and well in the English capital then!
So we arrived, with him just getting going and probably looking forward to visiting relatives below a bridge, the stupid fat Beyonce loving troll. So the next time you throw some belligerent bum some money, don`t automatically think that they are going to run to a liquor store and blow it on cheap whiskey. Oh no, some of them save it up, travel abroad and buy it at Duty Free!
People are always put into two categories, `You either hate cats or you love them` or `You either hate cate lovers or you can`t understand them` and so on and so forth... Well another for eternal pigeon holes of debate are those with a `settled` mentality and those with a `travelling` one.
A lot of times on the road I meet people complaining that the showers are cold, or that the FREE internet is too slow or that a foot long lizard crawled up inside their bed while they were sleeping and other such frivolous whinges! Well these are travellers who have `settled` mentalities, who want no variables and don`t react well to discomforts.
Then you have people who have travelled and have now settled down or even those who have never travelled but who are always open for something new to do/see/drink!
Well if England didn`t yield the great sights that my other countries have on my trips, it brought me in touch with a group of friends that certainly give me hope that maybe one day I might hang up my backpack with some contentment!
Brian, my geophysicist doctor friend whose job, as I understand it, has him analysing data to help detect natural gas and oil fields worldwide, which is probably a good thing as he`ll need one himself as he turned up in a huge jeep Cherokee which takes some filling I`m sure!
That night, I met James, Hannah and Christine, all friends I`d met in Oz and we had a massive night out, just one of those `sure we`ll go for one or two and see how the night develops` nights! James, to his eternal credit, didn`t have my number in his phone but STILL accepted the invitation for beers despite he didn`t know who was inviting him! Now that`s a travelling mentality!
Milena (from North Vietnam, Bangkok, Siem Reap and Phnom Penh fame) joined us and unfortunately had her bag stolen within 20 minutes of arriving but admirably reported it and didn`t let it get her down. Milena has just spent 7 months travelling and she has dealt with worse and I revelled in reminding her how much better it is `out on the road`!
Travelling is not the be all and end all, any of us that do it realise that, but it is for us to a great extent. Anyone who is very happy with where they currently are, are in my book, doing unbelievably well and should continue what they are doing. It just bugs me when people aren`t happy and aren`t willing to do anything about it...
I travelled to Sheffield to my friend Kate (a very successful business woman but who has retained such a lust for life that it is infectious!). We went out and I gate crashed a party of a friend of hers, I was surrounded by the rich and even richer and I was amazed by how down to earth they all were, despite our exquisite surroundings! Well for the most part that is! When I heard how `Tiffany`s was just soooo cheap` and how as a group they were going to `hire an island for a holiday` which was just going to cost a measly UK £10,000 each, I clearly wasn`t in Kansas anymore Toto!!
I went to Liverpool to visit my mates Glynn and James (from the Champions League final) and although it was just a flying visit it was great to catch up, getting a huge takeaway Indian and myself and his extended family (neighbour George popping in for a popadom and some abuse!) tucked in.
I`m always amused when people refrain from telling a story because `people are eating`! I have rarely been so appalled by a story that it has put me off my dinner but the one about their friend Chrissy was a close contender (I won`t divulge it as you might be tucking into your packed lunch while sneaking a few minutes at your desk in the middle of your busy working day!)
My Mum had asked if I could `pop in` to Birmingham and Bath `as I was in England` not really realising the miles of double backing that that involved but I was happy to do it to visit some relatives. On the way, I visited Mark and Sarah in North Wales, a couple I helped set up in Oz and who now have the beautiful Seren as a result and also another Mark and Anne-Marie in Gloucester who put me up (big thanks to Macauley for giving up his bed!). I felt like an old army pal of Mark`s as I relayed some of the big nights out in Sydney stories when his other son Marcus was there.
Mark is doing some great things with charities and local football clubs and it really got me to thinking about what I can do after my travelling is done. Watch this space...
After visiting my aunts, I was in Bristol airport, licking my financial wounds as England had well and truly battered me with the exchange rates but with a lot of things to think about for the next year, where I will end up after this year of travelling, will I `settle down` and if so where, what kind of work do I want to do, will I ever get around to writing some of these thoughts down in a book, will I ever say no to a night out etc etc !!!
And then as the perfect post script, I got a text telling me that Sarah had booked Mark on to a flight to Limerick from Saturday to Sunday for just 23 hours for one big night out before I left! It`s all about the mentality really....
And so it begins again, one more years travel, I`m at the half way point and that means that it`s Cape Town this Saturday and certainly away from the comforts and ease of Europe, should be interesting!
Remember, drop me a line on the message board, I think I`ll need the encouragement more and more as this year keeps going!
The colour of the sky as I arrived into Cape Town, a manic array of blues, purples, flaming oranges and reds gave me my first indication that I had arrived somewhere truly special....
I have found one of `my cities`... Everyone has places that they have been to that could see themselves settling down in if the circumstances and the opportunity allowed, well besides Boston, Queenstown (NZ) and Sydney, we have a new contender. Now it could be that I am just excited about being on the road again but I don`t think so. Every traveller coming to Africa is warned about the crime and violence but common sense usually prevails (which might explain why the girls in the reception of the Big Blue Hostel had to emphasise to me several times the do`s and don`ts, it was almost like they didn`t trust me to stay out of trouble?!)
I make no apologies for this, but I am an Irish Pub Abroad Tragic! I will sniff them out anywhere and its been my experience that I rarely if ever meet Irish in there! This proved to be the case as I went into the Dubliner on my first night and met Marcus from Munich. Having been stood up for his date, he was keen to meet some women and he approached Chantal and Natalie (both South Africans) and in a terribly polite if worryingly colonial way, informed them with outstretched hand, "Hello, I would like to discover you!"
After the initial shock of getting mistaken for a new country and potentially having a German flag implanted in them, they joined us for a great night! I have never been much of a dancer and to compensate, when I get going, I make sure I go SO over the top that people realise that I must be just putting it on, seriously, no-one could be that bad, right?! I informed the girls that I would rather be singing than dancing and the next thing I knew, I was belting out Mustang Sally to a packed dancefloor (most of them had deemed it safe now to return since I was on stage!)
Natalie and Chantal have adopted me to an extent this week and have driven me around this amazing city, with its breathtaking coastline. It really has one of the `great drives`, particularly at sunset. The main feature of Cape Town is the amazing Table Mountain, that sits majestically above the town, watching over it. I went up there with Sandie, an Aussie girl from the hostel and the views were amazing. We found an amazing spot for a photo but it took quite some effort (without a little unnecessary potential for injury) to get on this one particular rock.
I got up there and I could overhear some women walking past Sandie say, "How did he get out there?", I answered, "With great difficulty!". Before she could ask "why?", her companion said, "I think he`s Irish" which seemed to satiate her curiosity and answer her next question at the same time!
We sat and listened to Ladysmith Black Mambazo as we looked out over Cape Town, it was like something out of the Lion King!
Eva, from Sweden and I met in Big Blue Hostel, in a mutual and deep frustration over `The Norwegians`! Three of them had descended on the hostel for 5 days in Cape Town and they firmly planted themselves on the free computers (at one point, writing to each other on e-mail?!) or in front of the TV and we marvelled as we came and left the hostel to see that they had watched 4 movies in a row! The irony was that every morning they would get up early, make a right rumpus in the dorm room, get all tarted up with make up and the works and then saunter down to get on Facebook on the PC! Idiots!
As an aside, I am now on Facebook too, bloody silly website to be fair but like a good sheep I have followed seemingly everyone else on to it too!
I went to Robben Island too, home to Nelson Mandela for his imprisonment during apartheid. It was visible from the waterfront of the Cape and that must have been hell for him and his friends, so close and yet unbelievably far away. An ex prisoner gave us a presentation and when an elderly black South African lady started to cry, it really hit home to us that the effects were still being felt in very real terms. We saw where the prisoners had to mine the lime quarry and the simple cave where they basically constructed their ideals for a new South Africa. The fact that nothing has been done to glamourise it really added to a very powerful image of how they had invisioned a peaceful South Africa.
In the paper the other day, however, three white men were jailed for the torture and ultimate death of a black man that had wandered into a white area in just 2003. Still, there are great inroads being made into trying to redress the balance that the injustices of the past put in place.
Another thing in the news that needs a lot of work is the preparations for the 2010 World Cup. Sepp Blatter (FIFA President) said that the only person that could stop these games going ahead was God. Well God had better use some of his `6 Day World Creation` magic because they seem to be way, way behind!
When I was in Sheffield recently I got talking to Pete who gave me the details for Andy who ran a whiskey distillery opposite a golf course! Needless to say, I had made contact and we went out to Wellington and played a round of golf with his son and `Uncle` Ferrus. In South Africa, men and women of older age are called Uncle or Aunty which I thought was really great!
What wasn`t, was my golf! I nearly killed `Uncle` who then vowed to stand behind all of my shots from then on! I got a tour of the whiskey distillery next morning after drinking half of it the night before in Andy`s private bar where he presented me with a rare bottle (only 6,000 ever made) which I mean to carry to Sydney for my man Donough and I to partake in after my citizenship ceremony!
I had provisionally given myself about 5 or 6 days here, now it looks far more likely to be 15 or 16. Too much to see and too much hospitality to abuse!
Like I said in my last entry, this place is definitely having a hold on me, which is not what you want when you are a determined traveller out to see the world! Usually it`s hostel to bus to hostel to train to jail etc etc but with Nat taking time away from her studies I have had the rare pleasure of being able to drive around and see the area through the eyes of a local and the thich Irish accent of a foreigner!
I have got to know this city as a result and as I suspected, it`s not as bad as you would be led to believe crime wise. Don`t get me wrong, it goes on and with staggering numbers but you can avoid it if you have any savvy at all.
On Saturday, we took off to Haut Bay (or better known as the Republic of Haut Bay to the locals, they even have their own passport!!) where Oprah and Michael Jackson have apartments nearby! Well another international celebrity that has recently purchased there is my friend Kaz, last seen dancing like a lunatic in the Heart of Darkness bar in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia 6 months ago! We only had met for two nights but it took us hours to `catch up` and to make future plans which will probably see us in Brazil in February next!
It was great to see her and it was even better next day when we had to return her wallet, sunnies and phone that she had left in Nat`s car when she had got out the night before! This time, with Chantal (the third of my Angels) we all set off for Boulders Beach which is famous for the thousands of baby penguins that live there. Chantal felt it her South African duty to remind us `foreigners` (Kaz is from Zambia) that we weren`t allowed `chase the penguins`!!! What? Did some people actually do that?!! To baby penguins?!
The drive down to the Cape of Good Hope is truly beautiful, sheer cliffs dropping down to either the Indian or Atlantic Ocean, depending from where you are coming. It was amazing to be standing at the southernmost tip of Africa, a place which I have always looked at when regarding a world map. The next stop was literally the South Pole! We went to the top of the lighthouse and took many photos, none of which could possibly capture the raw beauty of the place. Having just discovered the time delay on my camera, I took a shot of the four of us along a wall and nearly cried in horror as a wind gust nearly took my camera over the side!
Wherever we go now, whenever we park, a `minder` appears from out of nowhere, gives us a smile which immediately conveys the comforting yet menacing message of, `don`t you worry mate, I will make sure that no-one, (including resisting the overwhelming urge myself), breaks into your car while you are away and for this car insurance, you can just pay me when you get back`!
There is still apartheid in this country, alive and well, in the toilets of the bars! Afrikaans male are seriously tall and big men and their toilets reflect that. Even at my 6 foot plus change I was struggling to use the urinals which are miles up on the walls. I saw some poor sub 6 footers having to pee upwards which obviously caused them a nasty splashback affect much to their enormous discomfort and one must assume, those in their company back in the bar! It was strange but understandable to see the shorties queuing for the cubicles while there was free urinals!
Right enough of the toilet humour! Badum Tish! Thank you, thank you!
Andy, my mate from the whiskey distillery, had arranged for Natalie and I to go on some tours on Monday to Stellenbosch, the wine region of S Africa. So at 11am we were being given the deluxe VIP tour of Van Ryn`s Brandy distillery which was amazing. We saw a Cooper put together a barrel (bloody clever when you see it) and then he `tapped` out the song that he plays when he has finished each of the barrels he makes. You make one a day and AB had been doing it for 33 years! It was a complicated and excellent song!
So we are sipping 12, 15 and 20 year old brandies with espressos and chocolate before lunch time and I wondered (not for the first time) why oh why would I be working!?!
We went for lunch in Stellenbosch in this terrible little restaurant called the Terrace. I ordered what I was led to believe was a Spaghetti Bolognaise and when I asked if they had a spoon, the waitress retreated to the kitchen and then apologetically told me that, no, they didn`t have spoons in this restaurant! Hmmm, I can see that ordering the soup would have been particularly troublesome!
A wine tour after lunch which was so informative, I felt dumb for having imbibed so much of it through the years without having a clue what I was supposed to be looking out for (instead of the warm feeling, enhanced confidence and hundreds of songs that I usually found!). As our guide asked us what we thought we could smell when we sniffed at our first sample, she suggested `fruity` to which I helpfully replied for all, `Grapes`! Hmmm, big gold star for the Irish idiot!
We went for dinner that night in Stellenbosch, a university town 70kms outside Cape Town and my foot in mouth disease carried on when I was ordering a pizza to be made for me and after speaking to our Isreali waiter, Avi, I asked him which was better, `Ham or Bacon?` to which he helpfully reminded me that he was Jewish so he really wouldn`t know!
The next day we set off for Franshoek, a town that was undergoing preparations for Bastille Day on the weekend as it had been made up of French colonialists (The Hugonauts) originally. If you want to see the very definition of `picturesque` and `kitsch` go to this town with their huge teddy bears in seats, quirky sayings on blackboards on the pavement ("Experience is the comb that life gives you when you have no hair left") and a multitude of cafes and souvenir shops.
I love the things that you find out `on the road` that you would probably never hear otherwise! Eva (Sweden) told me the other night that there is a children`s game in Sweden which consists of a child spinning themself around continuously and then trying to chase after their mates while in this balance altered state. The name of this game, `Irish Christmas`, ensuring that every new generation of Swedes are well versed as to the ways of the Irish even before we get a chance to make an impression!
Then last night, I caught a cab from a man that looked exactly like Harry Belafonte! When I told him that he looked just like the famous Jamaican/American actor/singer, he explained that his Dad had been a bit of a `player`, he`d had 3 wives and 27 children so maybe he was in fact related to `this Mr. Belafonte!`
So still loving the Cape, a few more days here though and I am sure that my wandering feet will get me on the road again. Stay tuned and thanks to those that leave a message on the message board, love getting them as always!
As much as I do love this city, the urge to get going again was getting stronger daily. I`ve been going to the movies, buying prepaid electricity credit and making sure there`s enough petrol in the car, yeah, it was time to move on!
But not before a wonderful night in Cape Town`s Art Community! Chantal runs an art gallery here in Cape Town (CT) and invited me to the Museum of Contemporary Art for a `show`. Now I will concede, I don`t get contemporary art, so I wasn`t sure if what I was looking at was any good. To be honest, I didn`t even know if what I was looking at was actually on display but Chantal assured me that `if you can see it, there is probably a meaning for it!`
So with that in mind I started to try and piece together this amalgm of visions into some order. There was a dog wandering around this small room, doing its best to avoid the clearly drugged up guitarist that was playing some heavy metal dirge on a beaten up accoustic guitar to a little 4 yr old girl (who ended up crying) while every now and again running over and frantically spinning the back wheel of an overturned mountain bike in the middle of the floor!
On the walls were some photos and printouts of e-mails of other artists that had been invited to contribute (not sure how many more bikes they could have got in there!) but who had unceremoniously, and I`m sure correctly, declined. A video was playing on one wall of some Gregorian Monks who were chanting and on a TV on another wall there was a fire breather. The name of the exhibit was "Hell Yeah" but I couldn`t make a lick of sense of it so I retired to the balcony for some views of the city and fresh air.
What I got instead was a small man with a tail coming out of the back of his head who asked Chantal and I "Are you crazy? Can you bark like a dog?" Hmmm, well on the strength of the `artwork` I had just seen, I was fairly sure that my sanity was still well and truly intact but I was now intrigued. I asked him why did he say that and he told me quite matter of factly that there was going to be a protest march next morning to Parliament for Madness!
I queried why the 80`s English ska band needed to have a protest march in CT but he corrected me patiently by saying that `madness` and `craziness` had been marginalised by this society and people who were `mad` and or `crazy` were made to feel like social pariahs and that he wanted to force the government to make those that admitted to these afflictions to feel more mainstream and acceptable. OK THEN....
I was beginning to scope the room for emergency exits but I asked why the reference to a dog barking? He said that he wanted everyone to walk barking (mad) like dogs and he asked if we could do that. I said I could bark but Chantal insisted she couldn`t and therefore didn`t qualify. But I pointed out to our wannabee parade marshall that anyone that couldn`t bark like a dog was truly crazy and should be the exact person to help lead the march! If looks could kill, Chantal`s would have had me buried!
Now caught between a rock and a hard place, we retreated into the `art` room again where we met a girl that simply `loved, loved, loved` my accent (she actually said that while bouncing with excitement!) She continued this frantic hand waving and head bobbing as she talked to us.
I told her that I had given up working in an office to go travelling and she said that she was actually a musician but she had worked in an office for three months and she was so unhappy there that her intake of cocaine rocketed during that period. "At least it doesn`t seemed to have had any affect on you," I said tongue in cheek as Chantal literally bit hers, to which our pixie friend agreed wholeheartedly, "Yeah, no lasting affects at all" blissfully unaware of sarcasm obviously!
That was all I could take so it was back to the Dubliner for a few pints. The girls to guys ratio in this town is 8:1 and Chantal introduced me to the term `Caped`, where the local girls will aggresively corner a guy and fend off other girls who are dancing in the area. I could almost hear David Attenborough doing a voice over as I was dancing in the bar and got my bum pinched and surrounded by some women who would be doe eyed with you and positively fierce with the competition!
"...... You see here as the Alpha Male retreats to a position of defence, the beta females parade laterally with their increased plumage to attract the male and at same time send out a clear message to the other suitors that they will scratch their bloody eyes out and rip out their extensions if another makes a flirtatious move.... fascinating!"
I pleaded with Chantal to save me but she didn`t want to get into a fight and she was enjoying the helpless spectacle!
Surviving that, I was up early next morning (6:30am) to take the Baz Bus (a backpacker only bus going up and down the coast). I was on standby and after waiting 2 hours I was told they were full. It was frustrating and I wondered if that was near enough `Mad` to join the march!
Next day I was back again and I took the drive up the coast, it`s a hop on hop off service and I was going to go to Knysna but most of the bus (5 Northern Irish girls, 2 Dutch lads and a girl from New Orleans) were all going to Storms River so I stayed on the bus. This is one of the adventure capitals of South Africa and most of them had booked or planned some adventures for the next day. I was talking Megan into doing a Bungee Jump (as I had done two) the next day and I even agreed to go with her to give her support...
But there is something about that word Bungee....
I don`t know what it is about it but I love and despise Bungee at the same time! I have done two before and just the thought of it is enough to give me shivers. No other word scares me so much (although there is a growing consensus that might suggest `commitment` is right up there too!)
I hadn`t done one in about 6 years but I didn`t feel the need to do one either. Megan was keen to do one today as was Will, who was also a Bungee Virgin. I went along for the ride (provided by Ethna and AnneMarie from Cork) and one look at the bridge and jump off point was enough to put the hairs on end. And the next thing, almost out of my control, I could see my credit card being handed over the counter, a receipt to sign and all of a sudden I was in a harness!
This is the highest one in the world, 216m off a bridge into a gorge, reaching speeds of 120km/p/h etc etc. but I was nearly as amazed to just be in a harness listening to these stats, how did I get here, had I been hypnotised? And in a way, I probably was...
We walked to the jump platform and I started singing (as much to calm myself down as anything); `I believe I can fly` by R.Kelly, `Free Falling` by Tom Petty and for some reason `Eye of the Tiger` from Rocky! Adrenalin has a funny sense of humour and musical taste!
8 of us were in a group and despite my desire to go first and show all the newbies how safe and easy it was, I had to go last by virtue of the fact that I needed a special rope as I was the biggest jumper! Way to give a guy a complex guys, "Yeah, sorry fella, we need to get in the extra industrial strength rope for you, insurance more for the bridge than you, I`m sure you understand"
So, I watched as the other 7 faced their fears and did their jumps, no two being the same, screams, curses and false starts being the main discriminating factors! And finally, after all my bravado and joking, it was my turn. I got strapped up, got my pictures taken a few times, made some `dead man jumping` jokes, no problems! But when the two men hoisted me to the edge and ordered me to get my toes over the ledge, the hypnotist had well and truly clicked his fingers!
I was pretty focused as my brain alerted me to the dire circumstances that I had just found myself in and suggested as a matter of urgency that I retreat and give this some careful consideration, preferably in a bar, miles away from this place!
Understandably my brain was somewhat confused when the order came through that I wanted it to hurl my body off this ledge, somewhat flying in the face (excuse the pun!) of its previous advice. A second confirmation was requested, "I`m sorry sir, can you repeat that? Did you say that, contrary to my risk assessment, you in fact WANT to be thrown off this bridge? Please confirm"
I could actually hear the little hamster in my head, pack its things and storm across the room, slamming the door and leaving as yes, indeed, the order was to be carried out as instructed....
And next thing I knew, I was flying! I had forgotten the rush of air as it screams past your face on the way down and the vacuum like silence when you are down there, you hear nothing, you smell nothing, even your sight is a blur, every sensation has gone into feeling this. And when the chord tightens belatedly around your ankles and that first sensation reaches you that you have cheated death again, the little hamster hesitantly sticks its head around the door and decides to come back in and start running again as your brain starts to grasp the enormity of what you have done.... again!
It is a feeling so hard to describe, but you really feel like there is nothing you can`t do if you can override your basic instincts and throw yourself into complete and careless abandon. I hung there upside down waiting to be winched up with a ridiculously huge grin on my face (the blood running to my head may have helped though!) as a guy came down to get me back up. He must have one of the truly most amazing jobs ever, listening to us babbling incredibly!
"Hey brother, well done! First time?!"
"No boet (brother), my third!"
"HEY GUYS, ADRENALINE JUNKIE COMING UP! Where you from?"
"Ireland"
"Ireland? Small Island! Like Robben Island!"
"I`ve been to Robben Island too, with Sisulu and Mandela"
"HEY GUYS, THE IRISHMAN WAS ON ROBBEN ISLAND WITH MADIBA AND SISULU!!"
They all laughed, as I rambled on about how I had done my time on the island and further impressing them (giving them belly laughters really!) by saying "Nkosi" to anyone that would listen which means "Thank you" in Xhosa (the tribe of Mandela). But you aren`t in control of most of your faculties when you come back up, the hamster is still somewhat in shock I guess!
We bought the DVD, the pictures and got the certificate! Frankly someone could have proposed to me right then and I would have probably said yes too!
We did some zip-lining over these waterfalls and canyons in the afternoon but it was all just a way of coming down easily and avoiding the dreaded adrenalin lows. But that`s it now, nothing more to prove to myself, that`s three done....
but like I said, there is something about that word.... BUNGEE!
I left Storms River and headed north to Jeffrey`s Bay, the famous beach where the professional surfers have a competition every year, which, fortunately is on right now! But I was going back to my first love, football and Cape Town respectively for `90 minutes for Mandela`, a birthday celebration with some of the world`s most famous players coming, including the legendary Pele.
So I was up at 7am, at the bus stop for 8:30am for the 9 hour bus journey to Cape Town. It turning up an hour late wasn`t a great start, but I had factored this in, with the game kicking off at 8pm, I was still in good time!
So I settled down to a day of reading, watching movies, looking at the amazing countryside and playing spot (of better to say find) the white people on the local transport system! The advert for this service ensures that it is "Safe and Reliable" but I think the driver was taking this to an extreme as he coasted along between 40kmph and 60 kmph even in 120 kmph sections of the road.
So rather than making up the hour he had lost already, he seemed to determine to increase the lag time. As I saw the hours go by but the `kms to Cape Town` not drop nearly fast enough, I enquired at one of our frustratingly frequent and extended facilities breaks (fag break for him) what time could we expect to get into CT and he said about 8pm, maybe 8:15pm max!
I told him that it was supposed to get in at 5:30pm and I had a ticket to the game at 8 and he laughingly responded `that didn`t I know that you never trusted buses ever to be on time! Hahaha!` and this from the bloody driver!
But still I didn`t give up hope. Well that is all you have when you are stuck on a bus with a bunch of increasingly frustrated commuters, I thought I sensed a massacre in the offing! I have been told that public transport is not safe in South Africa but now I know that that is just for the drivers!
As we crawled to our final destination (frustratingly not picking up anyone or letting anyone off for the last two towns), all you could hear was the beeps and calls of mobile phones of people explaining that they were going to be three and a half hours late!
When the game had kicked off and I was still an hour away, Chantal kept sending me updates as it was her first ever game in a stadium. I couldn`t believe that I was taking a full day trip to catch the last few minutes of a game.
I almost at one point was expecting and looking forward to something else to happen, just so that this travelling voodoo doll of misfortune could write something else in my blog for your machiavellian enjoyment!
The guy beside me, as he was getting off at the stop before mine, commented that maybe Jesus had spared us one of those inexperienced driver that drove recklessly. I think I could have handled that better than the old fella that was clearly getting paid by the hour and increasingly getting on my nerves by playing his collection of Neil Diamond, Bobby Darin, Barbara Streisand and the BeeGees! I thought I was going to kill him!
On arriving into CT he too thanked Jesus for our safe travels and then apologised for the `convenience` he had caused us... Give me strength!
I took a cab to Newlands and was stopped outside by the police who said I needed my ticket. I said it was inside. He said that he had to stop me as there were too many gangs hanging around outside and there might be violence. "Well then for the love of God let me pass through and don`t subject me to this danger" should have been what I said but instead I turned on my heal and ran!
I got to another gate, after attracting too much attention to myself and got Chantal to come out with my ticket. Pele had been there at the start of the game and now had gone, his bright blue shell suit a distant memory for those who had been there. I saw 30 minutes of pedestrian football by once greats but now who had enjoyed retirement to the fullest.
Still, these are the bad days of travelling, and they have to be embraced with the good ones... Although I might get violent if I hear "You don`t bring me flowers any more" again!!
So my bus journey back to JBay was perfectly on time and efficient, of course! I am the world`s worst surfer, but I decided to stick around JBay as the World Professional Surfing Tour was in town for the Billabong Pro.
I`d met Glenn and Peter from Durban who were down for the event so we went to it and they explained to me the subtler rules to surfing and I have to say I was impressed. It was great to have these pro surfers just run past you on their way to competition, happy to stop for pictures or autographs etc. And it was impressive how they played mind games for the preferred waves and then their ability and bravery when they selected one.
I was going for a burger when the 8 Time World Champion Kelly Slater stood up beside me with his board and asked for some honey which he then duly squeezed down his mouth, turned around and smiled at everyone and went out and won his heat! So that`s how you become a champion I guess! He lost in the final to Taj Burrows but it had been a full day of competition and I was glad I had stuck around to see it.
JBay is a strange place, for some reason I hadn`t felt a good vibe from it. The locals, despite the fact that the tourists had flocked for the competition, were looking forward to getting `their town and their waves back`. Well I for one was happy to do that so I booked my Baz Bus ticket to leave next evening.
That was until Padraig Harrington started doing so well in the British Open. When he got into a playoff with Sergio Garcia, I was called for my bus journey. Well there was simply no way I was going to miss this so myself, Alan and Sinead, the only other Irish in the hostel were glued to the TV and an increasingly large crowd were glued to us as we screamed and shouted every shot for the hour long playoff. When the Irishman won, we fairly scrambled over each other to get to the bar and order Fish Bowls, green of course, to celebrate!
What was supposed to be a quiet night turned out to be anything but as our enthusiasm and excitement rubbed off on the others around us and it was a great evening!
A great evening that needed to be paid for next day as I had to work out a way to get up the coast now. Enter Ollie and Matt, 2 Essex lads who had hired a car and were going my way! So I had taken a chance and it had come up roses! We drove to Cintsa Beach, and within 15 minutes had been invited to Volleyball and Wine on the beach. Needless to say the Volleyball got put on hold as we drank cheap wine and watched the stars on the beach with a big group of people. One of those moments!
We went back up to the Buccaneers where we were staying and got to playing pool. I was challenged by `Baz Bus Johnny`, a bit of a legend around these parts and after a few games he insisted I come up to Durban to take part in some competitions. But the real competition that we got talking about next day was the 2010 World Cup and for all of ye that have been asking me to make some inroads and enquiries, I think I have the tour and package for you!
We were setting off for Coffee Bay and, without knowing it, for a date with some Buffalos!
We are travelling through the Transkaai region of South Africa which is beautiful and vast. But to get to Coffee Bay you have to take another 90 minute detour off the main roads, through `real Africa` with their brightly coloured limestone houses of flaming pink and lime green! The Baz Bus is great for meeting new people but little did I know that the group that was arriving were going to merge so well with the small group there and two nights of madness were to ensue!
Within minutes of getting there, Jasmin and Anna (England) and I decided to go for a swim after the long bus journey. We were told that the beach nearest to us had a bad rip tide so we went in search of the next beach over. On our way, we came across some kids who were playing football and I set off to join them! Soon we were all running around a paddock, avoiding the cow pats all over and general running around like headless chickens (no change for me there then!)
They said they would show us the beach and a series of piggy back races started! Jasmin and I went in for a swim and the rip tide took us way out and a worrying thought of how it was dusk now and isn`t that shark feeding time annoyingly entered my mind! Still we made it back and got back for `Killers` back in the Coffee Shack!
Killers is very simple, its a game of pool where you take turns to knock any ball down, where missing costs you a life. With 25 of us playing, it was very competitive but not nearly as much as the other `sport` of the evening - Buffalos! In this `game` if you were spotted drinking your drink from your right hand, everyone in the bar would turn and scream at you `BUFFALOS` until you now downed the drink!
Believe me it was a heart sinking feeling to hear this scream, look around, see that people were pointing at you and then you look down at your offending hand and wonder why your hamster had let you down again (probably getting you back from the Bungee a few days ago!). I say this with some authority because I got caught 7 times on my first night! The gang were like hawks, ready to pounce on any unsuspecting victim.
It was funny to see everyone with their hands in their right pockets, or holding their cameras or in the case of Ollie actually writing YES and NO on the backs of his hands so he knew which one he could hold his drink in!
I won the Killers (needless to say or I wouldn`t have brought it up!) and my reward next morning was a 12 km trek to The Hole in the Wall, no not an ATM but a natural cave that ran through a massive rock formation in the sea. Joseph ("That was a shot and a half" being his most common quote from last night applying to both photos and pool shots) took us on the trek, walking barefoot of course over some pretty rocky terrain, pointing out whales in the sea, plants inland and his own village. He had a unique deep voice where he would loudly emphasise random words in a sentence like "and here you see WITH YOUR EYES the waves crashing" which made it almost melodic!
That evening we went for dinner and another round of Killers. I won again but my real achievement was staying Buffalo free on the second night. After the game, we had a shot of Sambuca each which you rolled in your mouth, put your finger in, brought it to a flame, brought your lit finger back to your mouth and WOOOSH! a bright purple flame was firing out of our mouths! Flaming Mo`s for your Simpson`s lovers out there!
With that finished, a young lad Fabian from France broke out a guitar and we sat around the fire outside and had a singsong. Well yours truly was trying to initiate a sing song, Fabian was trying to call down spirits from the heavens as he howled out his own songs which was a Smashing Pumpkin/Bjork/Coyote caught in a trap sound to it!
The music brought Manfred to the fire, a 74 year old local that insisted on buying the singers and anyone Irish a drink (doubles for me naturally as I qualified on both counts!). He was convinced that he was Irish because he knew the song "Molly Malone" and he warmly embraced me with his own charming pet name "You are a brother motherf*cker". What?! But it takes all types I guess!
To completely throw us for a spin, he revealed to us next morning that his name was actually Derek and that he made up a new name everytime he came to Coffee Shack and met new backpackers?! He said Manfred was the man who drank at night but conveniently Derek picked up the hangover in the morning, freeing up Manfred (or whoever he was going to be that night!) to have another night of drinking!
The group was breaking up that day, as is typical in these types of situations, and the two days of magic end up in diaries, facebook and hopefully in the memories. We were sad to leave Coffee Bay and the huge group of 15-20 that had come together but Kat (from Northern Ireland) and the two Idges (Matt and Ollie, don`t even ask!) said we would head for a relaxing day in Port St Johns.
But that was until we got a little too close to a Blow Hole!
Port St Johns is supposed to be a strangely spiritual place according to the manager of the hostel and it might have explained why I dreamt that I was in fact dead and was a travelling ghost that only other travellers could see?! I actually had to convince myself of my existence in the morning (you see what happens when I have a quiet night away from the bar!) Can somebody please make mine a double?!
We (Kat, Ollie,Matt and I) had had a night off, firstly going up to see the amazing sunset with the most amazing, vibrant, fiery colours I`ve seen, then just having a chat in Amapando`s bar and turning in early after the antics of Coffee Shack, hence the bizarre dream! Not wanting to face any more demons we decided to leave PSJ that day (much to the chagrin of the owner) but before hand we had heard about this Blow Hole that we should check out. Basically, through erosion, a hole has formed that spits out violently water when a big enough wave enters its cavern!
It was an unreal trek to get to it, over the beach, up a hill, through a forest, then on top of the windswept coastal Bluff, then an absail down the side of the cliff to a rickety ladder, across a wind tunnel, up another ladder (equally as rickety!) and then over the pinnacle and down to the Blow Hole by the waters edge! And then it wasn`t even Blowing! As we caught our breath (and quenched thoughts of killing the Aussie guy Chris that had sent us here!), a change in the sea conditions brought some big waves and `THAR SHE BLOWS CAP`N`!!
It was a violent eruption as we edged closer to take a better look and I don`t mind admitting it gave me a solid taste of heart in mouth! (Better than the foot in mouth disease that I am prone to from time to time!) We decided to head back and we were rewarded by sighting about 40 dolphins surfing the waves and doing some jumps as they moved along the coast! Unreal!
One of the things that I have been collecting on this trip so far are `words that aren`t used nearly enough`! The rules are simple. It has to be a word that is known by the majority, is rarely used but causes that `oh, nice word` reaction when you hear it and it has to come up in normal conversation! We have had some beauties in the last few weeks including diaspora, tactile, umbrage, ilk, gusto, discombobulated (someone actually said that!), ostensibly, skullduggery and my current favourite, plethora!
Saying goodbye to Matt and Ollie, Kat and I set off for Durban. I stayed at Nomad`s that night but next day went to stay at my mate Glen`s place (who I met in JBay) in Durban North. I got settled in to his amazing house and then shortly after he told me that we had box seats for the big local rugby derby between the Sharks and the Bulls! If that wasn`t enough, we were going with his date Renae and her new flatmate, the beautiful Lauren! Man, I hate this travelling lark, so so hard!
It was a great game and after we went to a party at one of Glen`s friends place. I have been to some amazing houses in my time but this one takes some beating! I met my hosts Dee and Steve and before I left, Steve showed me his old backpack that he had travelled the world with. He was left with 48 cents on a beach at Durban at one point and now he lived in this place so he told me to keep travelling because there was always money to be made later. It was a tonic to hear that...
Then we went to the city where we bumped into Kat and her friend Linda and we all went to a club called Society to meet Pete, the quintessential playboy! I decided to pull the plug relatively early and set off back for Glen`s place. I hailed a `taxi` (term used loosely as the taxi sign was homemade and detachable!) and I got talking to my Zulu driver who taught me the basics in his language. We had haggled over a fare but when he got way lost, he assured me that he `would get me home, even if it took hours`! Such dedication to his work! When we finally found Glen`s place, he told me his name was Patrick and no, he had never heard that that was an Irish name!
Glen was supposed to have called ahead to get his flatmates to let me in but when they didn`t respond to the buzzer I had to climb over his 10ft high gate, avoid the spikes, calm the two dogs waiting inside for me but while I was doing this I failed to see the electric wire fence and BUZZZZZZZ! Ouch!!! A good healthy dosage of electricity to get the heart going!
Supressing urges to electrocute Glen, we set off next day to an open air concert, Watershed were the local band made good who sounded very much like The Counting Crows. After that we went to visit Catherine (a new Facebook buddy) and we stayed for dinner as we chatted with her entire family, particularly her fascinating grandma who had been in the S African Parliament! Having had a healthy dose of culture, I set off to meet Jimmy and Wilmie (ex JBay mates) and we had a great evening, venturing on to the dancefloor and giving the "Billie Jean Shuffle" it`s world debut!
I was ready to leave next day to go to Swaziland but it was then that I realised, hmmm, where`s my passport?!
Personal Ad: Intrepid World Traveller seeks companion for fun, romance and adventure! Must be lightweight, compact, easily transportable and essential at border crossings. Must also respond to the name PASSPORT!
Ok, Ok I know, way to go idiot! I had left my passport, flight tickets, iPod and Memory Stick in the safe in JBay and without them, I was going nowhere! I got on to them and cutting a long story short, I arranged for a courier to reunite me with the respondent to my ad above!
So it meant a few more days in Durban, the highlight of which was the curry dinner that Johnny and Samantha cooked for Catherine and I in their hostel! He might not be able to play pool, but he can make a mean curry that Johnny! Catherine and I went out afterwards to see some of the main bars on Florida St and most of them were pretty dead. We went to Taco Zulu`s, Billy the Bums and ended up in the Bean Bag where a group of 6 local black Zulu girls remembered us from a bar earlier and invited us over! It was one of the girls birthdays and for reasons which I can`t fathom still, it meant that every time that she had a shot, I had to have one too?! Just because I was from Ireland?!
Catherine had to go home as she had work next day and I said I would `rough` it with my new friends but it was then that things got weird with the girls suggesting I go home with the 6 of them for a private party... Hmmm, I know what my male friends are thinking right now who are reading this and I can almost hear the curses and feel the collective smacking of hand to forehead when I tell them I ran for the hills! These girls were scary lads, seriously!
I was reunited with my passport next day and Catherine drove me to Ballito, a beach up the coast where I stayed at The Secret Spot (so secret in fact that the Information Centre gave us the wrong directions to it and it took us ages to find!) It was a family run business, making surf boards, conducting lessons and running the backpackers. Their daughter is currently on the Pro Tour and they had `adopted` two boys who worked with them there. Bongs, was formerly a lifesaver until he was knocked down by a hit and run drunk driver and he lost a leg. Instead of letting it get to him, he studied to become a surf competition judge and was now flying all over the world to judge them.
Next day, I set off for Swaziland as a gateway to get into Mozambique. It was a different world from the comparative first world conditions of S Africa. We stopped into our backpackers and went for a drink. Behind the bar were actual headlines ads from The National Paper. The English Tabloids have nothing on the sensationalism of this place!
`Unlucky Fisherman Catches Crocodile`
`Woman arrested for Rape`
`Lover Caught Panties Down`
`Catholic Church welcomes Gays, Lesbians`
`Man mauled by Hippo`
`Win a Cow, (=) School Fees`
`Get Pregnancy Permit or go - Army Commander`
and my favourite
`Naked Man bites Granmothers Lips`
Next morning, my new travelling companions (Tom, Amy and Becky) all set off for the capital and we took a local bus. Surprised is one word for the reaction of the locals as us four white turtles (with our huge bags) boarded and stood in the aisles. Their amazement soon and predictably turned to amusment as we laughed with them as they tried to avoid our eye contact! A sign on the bus said, "To Live like a King is to Work like a Slave". I wish I could have spoken to the locals about that for their opinion on that...
We had to catch a local mini bus to Maputo in Mozambique and we were reliably informed by some guy that it would be hear `now now` which can mean anything from immediately to in our case, two hours! He had taken our passports to for the duration of our wait and we got that uneasy feeling of `what have we done` which wasn`t alleviated by spying the headline on a passerby`s paper, "Tourists raped, Locked in Car Boot". Hmmm, right, where`s that guy with our passports?!
We eventually got them back and set off on the bus with another 15 locals for the 4 hour journey, the highlight being the drunk who reliably informed someone at the front of the bus that he had a knife and was going to stab him! That`s when you reach for your iPod and blissfully close your eyes....
But when I opened them again, I was kind of sorry I did....
I`ve seen some run down spots on this planet but I didn`t expect to find one here. It had been advertised as the `emerging cultural jewel of Africa` (thank you Lonely Planet again!) but it was like a war zone.
We arrived into Maputo where our bus driver, after dropping everyone else off to their respective places, informed us that this was the end of the line, nowhere near where we wanted to go. So out we got on to this main street and a steamy throng of people. All heads turned to see the new white folk in town and I have to say it wasn`t accompanied with any warmth. (We were to have a game over the next few days to see if we could spot ANY other white people in town!).
Becky, Amy, Tom and I negotiated a price with a `taxi` (our love affair with that word was about to start) and we jumped into the back of a Ute as we drove through the streets to our hostel. We could hardly find a tower block with all of it`s windows intact, rubbish littered the streets and the traffic was made up of stock car derby entrants. To be fair, Mozambique has been ravaged by civil war and famine and I was happy to be in one of the more exotic places I can say I have been.
We drove down Ho Chi Minh St, turned on to Vladimir Lenin St and arrived at our hostel on Mao Tse Tung St! Hmmm, distinctly Communist feel about this place (I am reliably informed that the Fidel Castro St was around the corner!).
We got to Fatima`s which I can officially say is one of the worst hostels I have ever been to, severely suffering from Lonely Planet disease (ie they are in it so they don`t have to try). You can`t imagine more unhelpful staff who literally sighed when new customers turned up, forcing them to beligerently direct us to our rooms, giving half hearted promises to get us blankets and then retreated back to not man the bar or reception again! We went for a beer and found that the hostel had 5 left?! What?! So once we had polished them off, we asked about somewhere to go. They helpfully reminded us that they didn`t serve food so rather than disturb them anymore we set off.
My ATM card, which works everywhere else in the world, doesn`t want to work here so I would have to pay for dinner for the weekend and get the money back off my travelling companions. Also, for some reason, my phone couldn`t pick up reception here. Feeling distinctly stranded in this `jewel` of a city, we went out. After dinner, we went to Gypsy`s, a bar that had been recommended to us (as much that it was in the middle of the red light district as anything else) but the trip there was an epic!
Firstly we hailed a cab. But the cab behind him was convinced that he should have got the fare so he pulled alongside, screamed abuse and then drove ahead and blocked us off. He wouldn`t let us go around so we got out of the cab and walked away before we became some road rage statistic. The next cab we got was a beaten up car where the guy had a handmade sign and threw it on his roof as he got near us and then brought it back in when we got in!
His car was literally dying and he turned off the engine when we were coasting or going downhill and would then try and turn it on to avoid another car or to stop at traffic lights. I`d have suggested turning off the radio but he didn`t have such a luxury. His car finally gave up the ghost and I looked around to where we were and by some miracle he had stopped outside our hostel! We got out and got another cab (the same guy that had brought us to dinner) and once again had to watch him `hot wire` his own car to get it started!
The drive to Gypsy`s through some of the worst areas spurred me to ask if the gang had seen Blood Diamond (the DiCaprio movie about Sierra Leone) which they hadn`t. I found out a few days later that the movie had been shot in Maputo and clearly no attempt had been made to clean the place up afterwards. Again we were greeted with strange looks (although that will happen when couples go to red light districts I suppose!)
We ended up in Coconuts, this HUGE club outside the city. They had a huge pool, table tennis tables, massive TV screens showing Fashion TV and Road Runner cartoons and a DJ who insisted on remixing even the remixes of the good songs. But the place was class and speaking of class, a group of Debutants arrived in, resplendid in their gowns and suits! We stayed long into the night until we realised that we were the last white folk there!
Getting back to Fatima`s (or Fawlty Towers as it had been dubbed) we hadn`t been provided with blankets so I had to go on a recognizance through the other dorms, taking unused blankets (and ok one that looked like the unfortunate owner had just left to go to the toilet!)
We went for a walk next day to try and find some food and we walked for hours around the city, shutdown and rundown, stores and houses with men sitting outside 24 hours a day to prevent theft or looting, stalls of mobile public telephones on the street corners (my fraud spider senses were tingling!) and eventually we had to rely on the Colonel (KFC) for food. Fortunately they took Visa cards!
A sign at the Hostel told us that we had to take our passports out when we were in Mozambique as the police would regularly stop tourists to check visas and would be more than happy to relieve you of a fine if you didn`t have it. Also, if we were caught in possession of drugs, we could give the name of Fatima`s and they would come down to the jail for us but could we kindly have paid off the police before they got there because all they could do if we hadn`t bribed them was to suggest a good lawyer!
Also, helpfully, we were strongly informed not to take our knives out at night as the police had a pesky tendency to confiscate them from us! Like, come on! A man from Limerick without his knife!
We went out that evening again (suckers for punishment I suppose) and we found this walled off entertainment area where they had dodgems, a ferris wheel, the waltzer, a roundabout and computer games that I haven`t seen since the 80`s!
We had dinner where we all tried this hot chilli accompaniment for the bread. Good God above in heaven, there is no-one, NO-ONE that could eat this stuff without passing out or at the very least downing a gallon of water soon after!
We returned to Fatima`s (our lips still stinging!) and we had to wait an hour to pay for our accomodation. While I was down there, a range of complaints from no water in the taps, no taps in the sinks, no change in the till were raised but my favourite was when someone came down and calmly told the receptionist that he had just fallen through his top bunk and nearly killed the guy sleeping below! I followed this one back up and found that it was in fact in our room and all the response that we could illicit from our guy was, "Well it`s never happened before" and he walked off, leaving the bed as was and subjecting the person who owned to a night out in the corridor! FAWLTY!!
I was happy to leave next morning and get back to S Africa. I am sure that Mozambique is not properly reflected by its capital exclusively (that is the case worldwide) but I have to say the experience we had between ATMs, the hostel, the cabs and the general run down conditions of the city left me feeling sorry for this `jewel` of a place.
But I did have to smile as I got on the bus and was handed a form to fill in that wanted my name, my nationality, my passport number and the number of my next-of-kin!! For a bus journey?!! Get me outta here!
I got to Nelspruit, the jump off point for the Kruger National Park, in one piece and plotted my next few days. Well, plotted is a strong word for me, really I just went with the flow. That took me to Funky Monkey`s hostel and the next day I found myself on a tour of the Blyde River Canyon in Mpumalanga. Our guide, John, warned me as I got in to the car that I had better speak French as my fellow trekkers were all fluent speakers. Mais oui, pour certain!
It really was spectacular the sights as we went to God`s window (a big sign told us to keep it clean, I wasn`t able to establish if God had put it there! ), Bourke`s Luck Potholes (these put the ones in the west of Ireland to shame) and then the amazing views from the 3 Rondahls with the accompanying tribal stories.
In the afternoon, we set off for a hike to walk off our dinner and it was a fair trek, three hours up hills and through creeks, climbing small cliff faces and balancing across tree trunks over natural pools. And the views were spectacular.
Then came the safari! A 5am wake up call so we could get to Kruger good and early. Our guide Jujeks Khosa rolled up the windows of our jeep and we set off in the absolutely baltic cold, trying to not scare the animals with the chattering of our teeth! There are the registered big 5 (lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and buffalo) which I am sure causes untold disappointment to the second division animals (cheetahs, giraffes, zebras, hippos and crocadiles). But through the eagle eyes of Jujeks (he was a freak and put it down to eating lots of carrots!) we saw them all
The park is enormous, 400kms in length, and you can drive for a half an hour or more without spotting an animal but then, with a screech of his brakes, Jujeks would pull up and no more than 10 feet away would be a huge African Elephant or a family of giraffes! You just can`t get used to this, it is simple breathtaking..
We set up camp and had a Braai (BBQ) that evening but went to bed early in our tents ready for the next day.
One to always learn from his experiences, I was sitting in the back row of the jeep, awaiting a new group that were joining us in my duvet and a nagan of local whiskey! When Jennifer (NYC) jumped into the back seat, I took a swig, offered her one to which she replied, "No, you know what, I think I`m ok for whiskey at 6am!"
Suit yourself I thought as I took another! In fairness though, it wasn`t as cold as the previous day and we set out for another day of driving and screeching brakes and snapping cameras! We saw herds of Elephants, hippos, giraffes, the surprisingly beautiful zebras, monkeys, birds, impalas (little antelope), Kudu`s (huge antelopes) and so many others!
That night, we had dinner at camp, and since it was one of the girls` birthdays, we got the group of 11 Italians in our camp (all over 50) to sing Happy Birthday for her! That kicked off an evening of singing (now how does that always happen around me?!) and we sang O Sole Mio, Funiculi Funicula, Innamorata and what became the group favourite, That`s Amore! The highlight though was at the end of the song, there was a raucous roar of `ZAN ZAN`, with a punch of your hand! This was to become the catch phrase for our time in Kruger, when anyone saw something, said something funny, or just on a whim decided to break the silence, it was `ZAN ZAN`!!
A few of us went to a bar for a night cap, and despite our obvious language barriers, we somehow constructed a conversation for over an hour! They say that communication is 7% words and 93% expression and you know what I believe it! It was really one of those evenings that remind me exactly why I went travelling in the first place...
Following a lie in (we got up at 6:30am) I left the park and headed back to Nelspruit and took the bus to Johannesburg but I met three Scottish lads that were keen to watch football that evening so I changed plans and headed to Pretoria instead.
Little did I know though that that decision was to lead me to the worst incident I was to see in South Africa...
Johannesburg has a bad reputation on many fronts and it is generally accepted that a trip to Pretoria is a better option if you are killing time before you fly out of Joburg. Like I said I had met Elliot, James and Paul and we went to the 1322 backpackers, much to the surprise of Tim, the manager, who only had 3 beds left! Still, Tim was to turn out to be one of the truly great backpacker managers I have come across and he made up a makeshift bed for me for the night!
What made this more remarkable is that he has the appearance of a Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels hardman and is a die hard Manchester Utd fan! With the Liverpool game about to come on, he did say to me that I might be in luck because if one of the three lads were Liverpool fans he was going to kick them out and I could have their place! Hmmm, best not wear my Liverpool top this evening then methinks!
After we went out to Hatfield Square, a collection of bars all pouring out on to one square. The predominant language was Afrikaans and even the music was Afrikaans with some disturbing throw backs to some early 90`s music that we suspected may have only just reached the charts around here! "Saturday night" and "Macarena" were two of the more memorable!
We were told that the Drop Zone was the place to go but getting frisked as we went in caused me to take a double take on the clientele. Proportional representation of the population clearly wasn`t in effect in here as there was a predominantly white attendance. There was a large group of huge men hovering around the bar, suspiciously all wearing black jeans and T-shirts and a fairly even split of skin heads and spikey blondes. Needless to say, I didn`t need a spider sense to tell me to steer clear of these guys. (I was told later that these were The Boer Boys)
A while later, an Indian man tried to push through them to get to the bar but he was firmly rebuked but, with his spider senses on holidays, he persisted. He made gestures to the group of pointing to his eye and then to his dark skin, inferring that they hated his colour. I told James that it was about to all kick off in the next 5 minutes. I was out by 3 minutes, it only took 2...
A huge melee ensued around this fella and all and sundry were getting dragged in voluntarily and otherwise. One of those that did get involved was this girl that had been associated with the Aryans and there is simply nothing more pointless than a girl getting involved in a fight with men.
This was firmly emphasised when she got smacked back on to her bum several feet away from the crush but then, in a display of enormous stupidity, jumped back in only to be seriously bashed again and ended up flat on her back... What did she think was going to happen?! The very definition of madness is performing the exact same actions and expecting a different result!
Either way, the bouncers eventually came, removed the Indian guy and then selected ONE of the group (the sacrifical lamb) and kicked him out too. The rest of the group then high fived each other for seriously over an hour, basking in their `epic` victory. Morons.
Before we left the club, we were treated to another display of testosterone when two groups of whites had a right go at each other (they probably couldn`t find any more coloured people to take their brandy infused anger out on).
Next day, I set off to see the Voortrekker Monument. This celebrates the great Trek that the Afrikaaner people set off on to avoid oppression at the hands of the English in Cape Town in an attempt to set up their own country. I decided to walk there, an enjoyment which has been denied to me on so many occasions due to security concerns in most cities. I set off and with my basic tourist office map I was fairly sure that I could make the short jump between two roads and cut out a long walk. WRONG!
I walked for nearly three hours in the blistering sun as a result, a lot of it along main freeways with no footpaths, praying that no cars would have a blow out! Not for the first time I wondered why I insisted on making things difficult for myself. I did not fail to see the irony though of my difficult trek to get to a monument which heralded the exact same thing (although I am not holding my breath for a monument of my own anytime soon!)
I have to say I was going in with negative thoughts about these people, seeing as how I had seen first hand how their descendents had behaved the night before, but I have to say they were seriously impressive and decent folks. They had been oppressed and had set out on an idealogical trek with no particular end in sight, but with a belief that they would be delivered to a better place.
The memorial itself was very impressive, set up in a way similar to Stonehenge where at midday, on the 16th of December (the anniversary of their famous victory at Blood River against the Zulus), a light shines through the roof and lights up the words on the crypt below which says, "We for you, South Africa" in Afrikaans. They couldn`t be held responsible if a few generations later, their descendants couldn`t handle their liquor I suppose...
I have to say that the Irish in me came to the fore as I mourned that we couldn`t have a building like this at home, sure it`d be leaking all the time!
Monday morning I set off for Joburg and what was to be the final stop on my South African tour...
Sometimes when you go to a place with absolutely no expectations and anticipating nothing good, you get a pleasant surprise! This was not one of those times! Joburg, a city so flattened by crime and mediocrity that even it`s own inhabitants have little to say good about the place. It`s the world`s only `major` city that hasn`t been built near a river, lake or sea. Yep, there was something very different about this place...
I got a lift to the airport and waited 90 minutes for Willie (pronounced Villi) to come and pick me up from the overrated Diamond Diggers backpackers. Ironically Willie was to become a good mate of mine and one of the only decent things about this place.
I agreed to meet Jennifer from the Safari (the prude who wouldn`t take a nip of whiskey at 6am, sheesh, Yanks) in Joburg and that was why I was here so soon. I went over to her flash backpackers (more like a complex really) and had a few drinks with her and Tony, one of those great barmen that are more like entertainers! We showed off a few card tricks and peeled off story after story from around the world.
Then Willie, Jen and I went to a pool hall come bar. Now as many of you know, coming from Limerick, I tend to take my pool a little too seriously at times, striding around the table with purpose, working out the multitude of options and flawlessly executing them to the detriment of many a vanquished opponent! Well, my air of confudence was well and truly deflated when Jen actually cracked a funny joke (for the first time since I had met her) about smoking and I stumbled and poked myself in the face with the cue stick!
I damn near took my eye out and left a nice little bruise there which I had to apply ice to immediately! Muppet!! We all know that smoking kills, but it can blind you just as easily!
In another variation on a health warning, a huge sign over the freeway in Joburg stated that; "Jumping off high buildings while pregnant can harm your child". It has to be said that it was an attention grabber and underneath it said - "You wouldn`t ignore that message if you were pregnant so why do you ignore the smoking warnings?" Fair enough then!
Not to be outdone by the Swaziland press, the sensational headlines of the day were, "Woman boils her lover" and "Killer Kills his Family!". Now that is undoubtedly a tragic story but I haven`t added that exclamation mark for effect, it was on the poster!! It was like, `well what did you expect, he`s a killer, it`s what he does!`
The next day, we set out on a tour because it wasn`t like we could take a walk around the city by all accounts. We had a mixed group of English, German and South Koreans as we set off first to the highest building in Johannesburg (220m high, 4m higher than my bungee!). We went to the famous Soweto townships and we had a tour of one of the shanty areas. One outdoor tap for every thousand people and they could only get water between 4-5pm. One portaloo amongst several families who all had a key for the bicycle lock that secured it.
It was so poor but you couldn`t help but suspect that even this was the better side of things, a side where it was poor enough for us to get a feel for it but not so bad that we would tell other travellers not to go there. Then things got political, as this was an area which was a hotbed of activity in the 60`s, 70`s and 80`s. We had an excellent tour of the Regina Mundi Catholic Church where our humourous guide showed us where the bullet holes of the police had penetrated the walls with equal aplomb as he reverentially told us about the painting of Our Lady of Soweto.
He was impressed that I spotted the eye in the photo and asked if I was an artist, I said no but was terribly proud of myself. He then moved me over to a certain spot and asked me a question (which I got wrong) and he told me that, `It is a pity that you are wrong as you have spoken in the footsteps of Mandiba (Nelson Mandela)`. D`oh! Damn it! Please ask me something else, anything else! Can I phone a friend? 50/50? Damn that pride before a fall saying!
We went to the Hector Pieterson Museum (he was the first child to be shot and killed in the 1976 riots) and the famous picture of him being carried away by another young man
caused the latter to have to leave the country and he has never been heard of again. The museum was on the site of the riots and some of the footage was truly harrowing.
We went to Nelson Mandela`s small little house in Soweto which is now a museum with diplomas and messages of goodwill from around the world. Then we went to the very impressive Apartheid Museum and it took hours to go around, a full history from the early days, the background, the implications and affects to everyone in South Africa, the seemingly impossible coming together of ideologies and ultimately the triumph of common sense and decency. It was powerful stuff.
Back from an emotional day, Willie and I teamed up to play in a doubles tournament that evening in the hostel (because you simply couldn`t go out) and made the following night`s final.
The next day, I set off on another tour with the same gang albeit without Jennifer who had flown to Cape Town causing my South Korean friends to wonder where my `wife` had gone! When I explained that I wasn`t married, Huengsoon kept asking me `why?` repeatedly regardless of what answer I gave him! He was truly amazed that I wasn`t married, he clearly didn`t know me very well!
We took a drive out to Sternfontain Caves where the Cradle of Humankind is (not Mankind of course, thank you very much sufragettes!). It was a series of underground caves like you would see in a lot of places in the world but two sets of bones (those of `Little Foot` and `Mrs Ples`, 3.5 million and 2.6 million years old respectively) had been found.
According to our guide, Gift, there was some recent academic argument as to whether `Mrs Ples` was in fact a female or a male but Gift whispered to me that he was assured that when the remains had been found that the mouth was still moving so he was sure she was a woman!! Move over Racism, hello Sexism!!
It was somewhat disappointing because of course we couldn`t see the bones in question, just where they had come from so it was a very cold tour to the depths. We went back into the city to do the Beer Factory Tour but it was closed so we had longer to spend in the woefully poor Museum Africa where the only bit of interest came from a Steve Biko exhibition and a Ghandi that took strange pride in telling us that he had nearly twice been killed in Joburg, once having been thrown off a train and the other when he had been mugged and assaulted.
Being a target so many times, it seems amazing that he took on a policy of passive resistance, considering the Karate Kid movies thought us that if we `wax on, wax off` enough, any wimp can beat up bullys. Maybe Ghandi didn`t have a Mr Myagi in his neighbourhood!
That night we were in the final against the grumpy manager of the hostel and another guy and I had a right go at him because of his defensive, deliberate snookering tactics (ok I told you that I do take pool too seriously!) and when we won he told me that I was a bad loser, to which I pathetically replied in a cheesy 1980`s Disney comeback way, `only thing wrong with that is that I didn`t lose`. Judas, is there pool anger management?!
My last day in Joburg, I got a lift to the shopping centre and despite the fact I was only there for 30 minutes, I was treated to the sight of four kids with bags being chased by two cops. When they came back with one of the thieves, they were all smiles, both thief and cop alike, like this was a game they had played many times before...
You know sometimes, when the inhabitants say that their city isn`t worth seeing, you just have to believe them...
As my friend Henru had put it, "in South Africa we have time, everywhere else they have watches" and it was with this in mind that I couldn`t believe my time here had come to an end. It really is one of those must see places, so incredibly complicated and complex politically, with the sores from the Apartheid Regime still visible and healing slowly, but on the other hand it has staved off the temptation to cast away it`s ancient history and bound into the modern age.
There is something really amazing about the way that the people of South Africa laugh! It`s infectious, like they have discovered the secret of happiness but they want to share it if you just ask. They are so musical, with the very landscape of places like the Eastern Cape, the Transkaai and the Drakensburgs adding to the symphony. The food is really basic but that means that they have had plenty of time to get it right; the samp, the pap and above all the mealie bread that you got in the Kraal`s was sumptuous.
It is one of the richest countries in the world with their gold reserves but there is a huge disparity in the distribution of riches. Unemployment is over 25% and as a result of this, there is a prevalent lingering awareness of crime. The newspapers are full of crime with a sports section at the back. You are not advised to walk the streets at night and even sometimes during the day. It therefore can have a claustrophobic affect as you are constrained to your hostel in the evenings.
The guard dogs in the houses during the day, the electric fences (oh I really remember them!), the high walls, the permission to break red lights if you feel you are in danger are all somehow more evident here. It`s not exclusive to South Africa in any way but here you understand more their importance.
But I have been assured that when you accept these realities, you get used to it. There are some disgruntled people who say that the `reconciliation` of Mandela`s vision has not really been realised, white South Africans are leaving in droves because they can`t get jobs now despite their education because there has to be proportional representation in the workplace.
There is a perception amongst some that the new goverment is not for `all the people`. It was suggested by one friend of mine that `we left Mandela out 15 years too late.` I suggested that he shouldn`t have been in in the first place but with his struggle came the improvements in society. But there was definitely a sense that all South African`s would have been better off had he been a younger man leading his country with his vision and selflessness.
They grow big men here and beautiful women! The 11 different official languages are amazingly diverse with the clicking of your tongue in several ways being the difference in making sense or making an enemy. Everyone talks of 2010 (the next World Cup) and how they hope that it will be handled well and promote South Africa in a good light. I really hope they get it right for all their sakes.
So it was with some degree of sadness that I walked to board my plane in Johannesburg. I had some rand coins left over and I bought myself a large nutty chocolate bar and had eaten about two squares by the time I got to my gate. The beautiful black African girl that was checking our tickets asked to see mine, and I handed it over in the same hand with the chocolate bar.
She laughed and said, `Oh I thought you were going to give me the bar!`, I asked her if she would like it and her eyes lit up and she said `Yes!`
I gave it over and I looked back as I turned the corner into the corridor and she was looking back at me with a smile so African in nature that you need to see it to understand. The smile transferred on to my face as I walked away, happy and safe in the knowledge that I was definitely coming back here and that I was taking a little bit of South Africa with me...
Just as a PS on Africa let me add that their air stewards are the biggest, no nonsense, uber straight men you will find in any airline!! I got into Perth airport and when it was time to have my bags scanned by quarantine the officer asked if I was Irish to which I responded, `Aye.` For reasons that I didn`t question, he started laughing, said "Aye, he says! Haha! Off you go mate" and promptly directed me out of queue towards the exit?! So if you ever want to bring some contraband into Australia, just come through Perth and wear a leprechaun hat!
I had a few minutes to wait for my cousin (cosidering I had been rushed through customs) and I saw all of the emotion of the arrivals hall. I love it at arrivals, the anticipation and eagerness of those waiting and the explosion of emotions when that special person walks through the door.
It occured to me that some enterprising person could arrange for people who aren`t expecting anyone to be there to book a welcoming committee, granted of strangers, but who would be paid to fuss over a person when they walked through the gates, hugs and kisses and someone carrying their bags to the car! www.happyarrivals.com? Ok, maybe I had been waiting for too long there!
It was great to see my cousin Fiona again, 7 years since the last time I had passed through this airport for what was supposed to be 4 months in Oz back then but which had turned into over 6 years.
We went out that night and met up with Matt, Ollie, Kat and Linda (all of whom I`d met in South Africa) for a reunion and a half! It was a big night where we nearly had another pool/fight related incident where I am glad to say I did not initiate. The `Kalbarri Shaggers` group had walked up and taken our $2 off the table where we were waiting and started to play and when I pointed out that he had taken our money I was informed that "There`s 21 of us and 3 of ye so what are you going to do about it?". Hmmm, a very good point sir, well made!
We kicked on that night and there are fewer pleasures for a mischievous bloke than getting his mates kicked out of a bar for something that you started! A silly beer fight had started (ok I started it) and with my spider `bouncer` senses on high alert I went into the throngs of people at just the right time as Ollie and Matt got lifted out of the bar! Their young, they`ll learn, it takes years to develop these finer instincts!
Next day I was dropping them out to the airport and chatting away to them, not noticing my speed but keeping in time with the car in front. To my left I saw a cop hailing me down so I pulled in and reversed back to him and he informed me that I was 14km/p/h over and that it was going to cost me $150! Needless to say that that fine will more than likely not be getting paid anytime soon!
Fiona and I went to see her team, The West Coast Eagles, play an Aussie Rules game that evening. These fans are nuts (like all good fans should be really!) but they took partisanship to a new level!
Next day, we took a drive down to Cottesloe and Fremantle, two beautiful areas outside Perth and home of the Sunday Session around these parts! I wanted in big time but since I was driving I thought better of it and thankfully so, because on my way home I was breathalysed for the first time ever! I passed it obviously but I was starting to get a decided Big Brother Feel about the place.
Not planning my trip is a conscious decision on my part and for the majority of the time it has reaped dividends. But trying to get out of Perth (the most remote major city in the world) was proving troublesome. Not for the first time I dreamed of my www.getmeouttahere.com website and how useful it would be. Can someone please go away and create it and pay me back in royalties?!
I took the car and drove to see the Pinacles, this amazing landscape of decidedly phallic rock formations about 2-3 hours north of Perth. It was beautiful but maybe a long drive just to see some rocks! I took a drive around Perth and got to know the city because I got well and truly lost!
The next morning, I had to get up at stupid o`clock (4am) to get a lift from Allan (Scottish) who was driving to Geraldton on his way to work in the sheep shearing farms.
I had a plan to do some hitchhiking up the coast. Now the movie Wolf Creek has made this particularly difficult but I had no idea how crazily hard and hazardous it would turn out to be...
`I`ll just get on that road and I`ll stick out my thumb, for I know for sure you`ll be there still` is a lyric to a song that I used to sing with the band in Sydney for two years and how for once did I really wish it was true...
I walked out of Geraldton and into a petrol station to buy some water. I asked the girls behind the counter how easy or hard was it to get a lift north and they assured me that with my accent that there would be no problems?! Now how the cars would realise that I was Irish was a little beyond me but I took this as a good indication of my chances.
It was a hot day, naturally, and I set off with my backpack to find a spot at the north of town. I couldn`t wear my sunglasses or a cap (or so I surmised) because no-one was going to pick a person up whose eyes they couldn`t see. My theory was borne out 20 minutes later when a woman picked me to drop me off at the `best spot for hitchers`. And she proved to be spot on because I was only waiting a half hour when Edith Amy Juliette Blood pulled up in her ute!
Now Edith was 85 if she was a day and the first words out of her mouth were, "You`re not going to kill me now are you?!" to which I replied "I thought the way these things work is that I should be afraid that you will kill me?!" Amusingly this put her mind at ease and she said that her kids would kill her if they knew what she was doing and I admitted that my Mam would do the same so we promised not to tell on each other!
She proceeded to tell me all about her convict ancestors as I sat back and soaked in the shade. Unfortunately she was only going to the next town, Northampton, but after a brief detour so she could show me her house she dropped me to the north of that town with an assurance I would get a lift and if I was still there on Sunday (this was Wednesday after all!) she would be driving north herself!
So I took up my backpack and started walking north. To be honest I wasn`t in any great rush to get picked up (although I did have my thumb out for the few cars that passed me) because I was loving the walk in the countryside and the omnipresent silence of Western Australia. The sun was beating down and with a stiff breeze in my face to cool me down, things could have been worse.
I actually felt like one of those seanchai`s of old, those travelling storytellers that used to walk around Ireland, bringing news and stories from where they had been and getting room and board for their efforts. I was really happy to be honest and with a heart full of faith in my fellow man, I set off with vigour on my walk.
There could be a period of 20 minutes or more before a car would pass in either direction so I was under no illusions that this was a decidedly unpopulated area and this was enforced when a huge flock of sheep saw me and ran in a group to an area under a tree for security. I wasn`t sure if the sun had turned me pink enough for them to think I was a little pig called Babe but as I approached the 5km mark and one hour walking, I was still in good spirits.
The wind in my face had two conflicting affects, it kept me cool but it also made it difficult to hear the cars coming up behind me so on occasions they would be nearly on me before I turned around to elicit a lift. I had been working on the theory that if people found me further and further away from any form of civilisation they would have to stop and pick me up. Hmmm, that`s the problem with theories, they are always willing to be disproved!
The cars coming from the other direction looked on with a mixture of sympathy and kindness, a lot of them waved at me because they knew the road that I had ahead of me and I would like to think that they would have picked me up had they been going the other way. They looked like nice, friendly, decent people unlike the increasingly horrible people that were driving in my direction! At about the 8km mark, I was not `feeling the love` from those going in a northerly direction.
But still I had faith, I wouldn`t be out here for very long surely! Right?
By the 10km and the 2 hours 20 minutes mark, I was starting to get a little bit frustrated with my situation... Now the cars that were coming opposite me seemed to be timing it that the sound of their engines would mask the sound of the cars coming behind me so now there were times when I wasn`t even getting to turn around and face my potential saviours in time! My mood was certainly turning...
I did have this blog as a salvation though as I resorted to calming myself down by thinking how funny it was going to be when I eventually got out of this mess and wrote it up for ye`re enjoyment. I had written it several times in my head (I`m sure better than this, the final draft) and consoled myself with my humour. Or was that the early stages of sunstroke?!
The roads over here are very long and very straight and as I would turn a corner and look at the sheer advance ahead of me (with the mirage like quality of the beating sun melting the horizon) I thought of shooting a gun straight down there and then picking up the bullet in a few hours time! It stretched out like a unanswerable question or, as I elaborated further, a fart in an elevator or a mobile ringing at a funeral.... ok, I had lots of time on my hands and that sun was getting really hot!
And then around the 12 km mark a guy pulled up ahead of me. He pulled it into a parking area and waited for a glorious 5 or 6 seconds. I couldn`t run, my legs were getting tired and there was no need surely as he would wait.... and then he didn`t. With a last look back (and with what I am sure was a chuckle) he took off again. Now because I know my Mom reads this blog I won`t relay what I said about this guy but I`m sure that even Mam would have had some choice words for this idiot!
To be fair, I did wave at most of the people that drove past me as I realised that most of them didn`t have room and I wished them safe passage on their travels but for the ones who just waved at me, I had an altogether different prayer which, had they been answered I would have come across their wreckage a few minutes later but thankfully God isn`t prone to making harsh judgements like I was!
The really disappointing thing though was when I saw backpackers, my fellow travellers, give me the big `hands up, we`re sorry` expression. I have many times waxed lyrical about my fellow transients in these blogs but their score was decidedly an F for this test.
And it was then that I really had my first bout of, if not panic, certainly concern (I can imagine a few of you have been wondering why that hadn`t happened a lot earlier!). Now, pleading with a car whizzing past you has the same affect as pleading with a partner to take you back; it`s ultimately hopeless and it even makes you look more pathetic than you thought possible!
But I was willing to forego my pride and with open arms and then hands clasped in religious sincerity (like an Italian footballer pleading for a penalty) I was close to getting on my knees to get a lift (this was as much for effect as the heaviness of my backpack as we approached the 3 hour mark)
There were no houses anywhere to be seen ( I would have happily called in to one of them had they been about ) and I started to think that Edith may actually have to pick me up on Sunday! If I was still around that is. Not bringing a tent or a sleeping bag on this trip had been a logistical decision so with less than an hour`s light left to me I was facing the prospect of putting on all my clothes and getting into my backpack and lying on the side of the road or in a field and hope that none of Australia`s famed wildlife decided to take more than a healthy interest in me.
At the 15km mark, I decided to stop. The wind was howling now and it was getting dark and I needed a break. It had taken me three and a half hours to walk that far and now I had some serious thinking to do as I hadn`t seen a car in either direction in 15 minutes. That`s a long time folks when you are in the middle of nowhere!
So I decided that the next car that passed I was just going to get on the road and hail it down. That might not seem like a great idea from where you are sitting now but it was what I was left with. So with my bags dropped, my legs given a short massage from their aches and ignoring the blisters on my feet, I prepared for the next car.
It took another 10 minutes but here it came. I waved and waved and with God`s will above in heaven, it stopped. There was no time for formalities or even questions, I emphatically told the bloke that `you are taking me to the nearest town with any kind of civilisation` to which he replied, `ok mate, jump in!`
WHAT?! What did you say?! I couldn`t believe it! It had worked! I was too tired to reproach myself for not having thought of it earlier! Ashley was driving home to his own hometown another few hours north and on reflection, I think he might have actually had stopped for me anyway even if I hadn`t given him the choice! He well and truly saved me and when we had to stop in to a roadhouse for the night (we couldn`t drive on for fear of running into a Kangaroo or some other wild animal) I paid for his accommodation, hey I am nothing if not generous when it comes to my guardian angels!
The place we stayed was a petrol station/motel/scary place but it was like the Ritz to me after the day that I`d had.
To be honest though, I have to say that perversely it was one of the best days of my travels. Things had been going along a little too easily for my liking and when faced with the worst case scenarios of a situation and coming through it (again) well it certainly gives a guy some sense of achievement. I hadn`t made it to my destination yet, that would mean a decision on whether I tried hitchhiking again...
... anyone want to bet what I started to do the following day!?!
Yep, I was hitchiking again next morning undaunted by my setback the day before! Ash had dropped me to a turn off and it took 2 hours before Jeff, a dead set, true blue Aussie Truck driver picked me up breaking his company`s regulations but Jeff was not one for following the rules too closely!
His truck was beeping away as it reached a certain speed limit and he kept saying, "That`s another caution!" from his managers who would have him on satellite tracking! He`d been long haul driving for 18 years and I asked him what the major differences were over the years. He said the roads stayed the same but there were no more hitchikers. "Ever since the Falconio Murder and the `Wolf Creek` movie no-one dares hitch or pick up these days." I asked why did he pick me up then? "Caused you didn`t look like a d*ckhead!"
Fair enough I thought, a deeply perceptive man! One other nugget of info to come out of our trip is that Bradley Murdoch (who is serving 28 years for the death of Peter Falconio) was brought up in none other that Northampton, where I had just hitched out of yesterday!! Funny that they didn`t have a sign up announcing that local bit of history!
I got to Denham and tried to hitch for another 90 minutes in 30+ heat when I went back into the town and saw a guy come out of a `WICKED` van and I asked him if he was going to Monkey Mia (my final destination) and he said yes but he had to do some shopping first. I, quite kindly I thought, offered to wait for him! He was Olivier from Lyon and he dropped me to my hostel.
In my room were three girls and to show off my kind of freaky memory, I told them that they were driving in a silver blue metallicy coloured car and that they had whizzed past me yesterday! "You`re that lunatic that we saw on the road?!" was their opening salvo! They suggested that I make up a sign saying "I`m Irish and not Insane" but I found that a touch oxymoronic...
Next morning I woke early (6:30am) and walked to the nearby beach and was rewarded with a spectacular sunrise and wild dolphins lapping up right beside me on the beach (there was an elderly couple there too but for the sake of my story lets just pretend I was all on my own!) It was amazing, 10 dolphins, some pelicans beside me, the sunrise and no camera! Grrrr... As you may have noticed the number of pictures I have been loading has diminished as my camera is getting fixed back in Ireland.
Still it was amazing to see them in the wild. Olivier and I took off north to Coral Bay, a short 600km spin up the road. In my room that night was Alan who lives about 500m away from my house in Limerick, needless to say we didn`t know each other!
We had a good night, me corrupting Colm and Laurie into a few too many drinks before their early rise and fishing adventure next day (Colm couldn`t even cast a line all day as he was too sick! Hahaha!)
The next day saw us head up to Exmouth. The roads are so long and straight its ridiculous. An errant Emu or an eagle might break up the monotony but for the most part you could sleep behind the wheel on cruise control.
It is strangely beautiful out here though with its red sand, barren yellow hills and off roads to settlements hours inland. I heard that they discovered a river the other day in Australia that no one had ever seen before! And this wasn`t some brook, it was a full on river that they flew over and couldn`t find it on their map! You could bury a person out here no problem, hell you could bury a stadium of people out here and no one would notice....
Speaking of all things morbid, Exmouth was dead! We`d got there on Saturday and when we asked where to go that night we were scoffed at. "Everyone goes out on Friday`s around here!"
And what happens Saturday?
"We recover and wait for next Friday!"
Of course you do.... Well I wasn`t waiting for another 6 days so Jo, Jurgs, Simon, (new mates) and I got a lift to Carnarvon and booked on the 20 hour bus journey to Broome. We had 11 hours to kill first however so we bought some cooked chickens and had an impromtu picnic and then got some drinks and hung out down by the beach. I could think of a worse way to while a day away. It`s a pretty dead end town though, a lot of crime apparantly and we went to one of its locals that evening. We had to pay a deposit for a cue stick for pool. I asked if they had a big problem with people stealing cues?
`No,` said the barmaid, `but we do have a problem with....` and she mimed the action of breaking a cue over her knee as she smiled and handed me over my newly acquired weapon! Seems to be a strange theme of pool and violence going hand in hand on this trip for some reason?!
We got into Broome in a little under 23 hours (our bus had broken down) and checked in late at night. Broome is famous for it`s pearling and there is so much work for people here who might want to go out on the boats for a few weeks. A lot of broke travellers take it up and all come back knackered and black with the tans!
There is a large Aboriginal community up here and everywhere you could see them in ones and twos, just wandering off into the distance, usually stumbling under the influence of some very cheap but very strong alcohol. It was a really sorry sight...
They have a phenomenon called the "Staircase to the Moon" which only happens rarely so we went to see it. The bright orange Moon comes up over the mudflaps on the beach and the reflection gives the impression of steps... well they would if we, like the thousands of others had been looking in the right place! No-one bothered to tell us or check where exactly the Moon came up and when we saw it coming up around the corner by a hill, we all rushed over but too late. Well, way to go us! I better not need to go to the toilet when Halley`s Comet decides to swing by next time!
Thursday night is the big one in Broome, quite literally! This is rough and ready country out here and the weekly wet T-shirt competition is truly a highlight! We roared the Irish `competitor` Angela* (name changed in case she ever goes into Politics and I need to blackmail her!) to victory, easily beating the other ten girls and in particular the runner up who clearly forgot that she had to leave her Wet T-shirt ON to actually win a Wet T-shirt competition! A technicality but an important rule nonetheless!
A few days in Broome and Alan and I were ready for our epic 27 hour bus journey to Darwin. That`s the same length of time it would take me to fly from Sydney and arrive on my doorstep in Limerick! And why did we make such a journey?! Limerick are in the All Ireland Final tonight, yep, we came all this way for a 70 minute game of hurling!
When we told some guys we met in the bar last night we got handshakes, high fives and hearty back slaps with utterances of `Respect`; their girlfriends just stared at us like we had three heads?! Girls, they just don`t get it do they?!
So, 35 degree heat today and no chance of a swim because there are too many crocs in the water.
We are on countdown to the Final mode, it will have been a really long journey if we lose!
Hmmm, Limerick, showing scant regard for my 27 hour bus journey did promptly lose the final! It was a disappointing end to what would have been an excellent story but alas no. Still we had a good night as we met up with Angela (who we`d met in Coral Bay) and Jurgs (our travelling buddy from Exmouth to Broome).
It was determined by Alan that we should only drink pints today (`none of these fairy bottled beers`) to do our bit for the cause but with the outcome of the game as it was, it would only serve to increase the hangover of the game!
I was going to check out some buses to get me south to Alice Springs and Uluru (Ayer`s Rock) when I spied a note on the notice board saying that 2 German girls were leaving and would anyone like to join them on the long drive south!? So two hours later, I joined Lena and Steffie, two teachers from Munster in their Wicked Van (or Vicked Wan as I called it in my best Germanic accent) and we headed off.
So with the basic familiarities discussed (where are you from, where are you going to, do you have a history of mutilating backpackers) I confessed that my German was very limited. That comment was to have far reaching conzequences as the girls set about rectifying that with stereotypical efficiency! Soon I was writing out note and after note of words, grammer and pronouns, getting an hour to study it and then relay it back to them. It must have been working because when one of the sheets got sucked out the window and away, (one hours work gone!) my reaction of "Scheize" meant that I was very much in the German way of thinking!
The girls wanted to take a detour to some rockholes first and take a swim and then we put the foot down literally as driving at night in the Australian outback is really not recommended due to the stray animals that walk on the roads and despite the insistance (in no uncertain terms) of the stickers on the dashboard to run the amimals over, the natural tendency is to swerve which would result in the van tipping over and a free entrance to the lottery of life and death.
I took the evening shift as we did in fact drive in the dark for over an hour to get to a town called Katherine to book in for the night. Next morning we were up early and got provisions for the drive. It`s kind of creepy in Katherine as they pipe uplifting music through the streets to either try and convinvce you how nice it is or to keep some of the locals calmer (a lot of drink related violence here apparantly). I thought that kind of music might send some drunken people over the edge as we left the town with the strange `Truman Show` feel behind us.
The manager of the hostel told me I was wise to travel with Germans because it meant I could swim anywhere I liked as long as they were with me as Crocs had a penchant for Germans (some of the girl`s countrymen have fallen victim over the last few years). Despite his advice, I suspected strongly that we wouldn`t be finding too many water sources let alone crocs where we were going, into the heart of this massive desert.
Daly Waters was our next stop and like a lot of plcaes out here in the outback it is more of a stop gap than a town. A petrol station (one pump), a shop and a pub and that`s pretty much it, but what a pub! The story went that truckers, flush at that time with money, would tack their money on the walls with their name on it so that if they were passing through again and were broke, they could still afford to get a drink. This idea has been taken on to a whole new level by backpackers from around thew world as the walls, seats, windows, etc of this plcae have been covered in memorabilia. They have entertainment every night here and I was raging that we had to move on, it rapidly joined my short list of great bars.
It is a Heritage Site and so I decided to make my own contribution to this cultural haven. So I took my French Connection UK (FCUK) T-shirt, wrote a message, and then tacked it up in the bar. I thought it was a fitting final resting place for a T-shirt that has been travelling with me for a year.
The lessons continued as we contnued driving south. Out here, where there is a shortage of traffic and just about anything else besides sand and heat, all drivers acknowledge each other with a wave which breaks the monotony of the drive. And it can get boring, miles after mile of dead straight roads. The long haul drivers, particularly at night, develop `white line fever`, almost falling into a hypnotic trance looking at the traffic line in the middle of the road. That wasn`t going to happen to me (I was too scared of the kangaroos and wild cattle so I was scanning both sides of the road like a tennis spectator at Wimbledon).
Still, I thought that I might need some more help to ensure our safety. The girls had been wearing a red headband to keep their hair out of their eyes driving and I suggested that I might need it too. I wore it and when I had successfully drvien another two hours in the dark that night to our next destination, the girls had dubbed it `The Consi Halo` and it was to be our driving essential for the next two days.
It wasn`t a bad thing I suppose as we had just arrived into Barrow Creek and a bar made famous by an infamous backpacker murder 6 years ago....
If you haven`t been to the outback of Australia it really is hard to describe how absolutely desolate it is. And if you were being pursued by a crazed gunman it would certainly not be one of the places where you would want to find yourself. And yet this was the fate of Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees in July 2001, close to the area where we had arrived for the night.
Now, I had just read "Dead Centre", a book on the case a few days ago so I was feeling very Bill Brysonesque as I suggested that we stop there for the night so that I could get more of a feel for the story.
We had been driving again in the dark and so we were happy to arrive at the Barrow Creek pub. What was even more appreciated was the welcome that we got from our hosts, Les and Ellen, the latter being a gem of an Irish lady! I joined her for a can of Guinness, my first from a can in more years than I care to remember.
Now, for the record, I was here in Australia during the time of the murder of Peter Falconio. A gunman had stopped them in their combi van, murdered Peter, handcuffed Joanne who later escaped and was saved by a passing truckie a few hours later, who then dropped her off to the Barrow Creek bar. 18 months later, Bradley Murdock (who`d been brought up in Northamption where I had been hitching a few days ago!) was arrested for the murder. Peter`s body has never been found.
I have to say that I don`t believe Joanne`s account of events that night, something just doesn`t sit right with me but that`s neither here nor there. We were happy to be in a great bar and not in the pinball machine which were the roads of the outback at night.
The bar is like a museum, again splattered with traveller`s memoribilia but it also has lots of old history about the place and the amazing characters that have lived in the area and frequented this little tavern. But whoever they were, you would be hard pressed to find a finer personality than Les, the owner! Two other tired drivers, Jenny and Steve joined myself and the girls for a few drinks and we went on to have one of the best nights I have had on this trip, just the five of us and Les!
I found in Les a fellow connoissuer of old style music and he let me go through his old CD and record collections! But to show off his younger, carefree side, he put on the Macarena and Mambo Number 5 much to my amused chagrin and the delight of the girls who danced around the bar!
He then brought out a `bush instrument` for Roy Orbison`s `Pretty Woman`, a long stick with beer caps nailed on that is bounced and hit to provide a beat. If you go to the video part of this website you`ll see Les starting it up and then handing it over to me where I realise that it`s going on tape. I am getting right into it when I realise that I hvae broken it and quickly sweep two of the beer caps away with some nifty footwork! Apologies for the sore neck you may have after watching it though, you`ll understand when you see it!
As it happened, it was Jenny`s birthday after midnight so Les treated us to a shot of whiskey as we talked on till after 3am. On the wall is a $5 note with a note on it from Peter`s brother Paul, left there in case Peter ever walks through the door again and needs a beer. Not having a loved one`s body to bury must be terrible.
I didn`t want to bother Les and Ellen with questions about what it was like at the time, their lives were as disrupted as any during the epic investigation but Les said he didn`t mind it too much as it meant that people could get a proper idea as to what happened and the people of the outback.
But as far as I was concerned I had found one of the great bars and had another unlikely yet amazing nights of banter and laughter in good meansure.
We woke early next morning and drove through Alice Springs and on to Uluru for sunset. It is easy see why this place is so special to the Aborigines, a huge monolith in a barren desert. The changing colours that displayed on the Rock every few minutes were amazing as over a hundred people gathered in their camper vans and watched it almost change shape with the shadows. We had also gone to see the nearby (50km away) Olgas which was another amazing rock formation.
But it was time to head back to our rest stop for the night and with the two girls on cattle watch we managed for the third night to rely heavily on the Consi Halo and got back to Curtain Springs Cattle Station. This place is over a million acres in size and is probably considered small by all accounts over here!
Next morning, I arrived back from my room (the girls slept in the back of the van) took the keys and basically kidnapped them at 5am as we set off the dark towards Uluru again for sunrise. The girls stayed tucked up in their sleeping bags as I drove the short 100km just in time to see the other side of Uluru light up with the sun in a bright orange. We took several walks around and were awestruck by the beauty of it, the wall paintings and the seperate caves for Men`s and Women`s business. Each gender had their own laws and even to this day, the other gender is procluded from activities designed for either the men or the women.
We were told how a movement to modern day food away from the food of the land, a vast increase in the consumption of alcohol and reduced access to medical facilities had combined to dramatically reduce their life expectancy. They openly but politely ask that tourists do not climb Uluru as it is sacred. Not only that, 36 people have died in the last 20 years and there are scores of cases where people have had lucky escapes.
So it was sad to see parents taking their kids up the steep incline, simultaneously putting their lives at risk and giving them a poor lesson in culture and understanding. `Hey kids, isn`t this great? Maybe next year we can go hunting for endangered species, then trample all over the Great Barrier Reef and if ye are really lucky we can go to the Antarctic and spray aerosol cans into the air`
We left there and got ready for the long drive back to Alice Springs. On the way we were waved down by an Aboriginal man standing in the middle of the road by his parked car. I got out and spoke to him and I would have guessed that he was about 60 but they don`t age so well so maybe he was in his 40`s. He asked me for some water which we duly gave him a bottle of but then he asked if we had any beer to buy. When we said we didn`t have any they asked could we drive back 10km to get them some. We said that we were in a rush.
It was like when you were younger and the 15 and 16 year olds would hover around the off license/bottle shop/liquor store and ask you to buy them drink. But here were elders of another culture who were hailing down strangers who they would trust with their money to buy them a drug in essence that they are genetically incapable of processing. It was very sad...
I took a walk around Alice Springs after saying goodbye to the German girls and I was disturbed to be greeted to the sight of an Aboriginal man being led away drunk into the back of a Paddy Wagon after causing a disturbance and all this before 9am. Alice is a strangle little town surrounded by the McDonnell Ranges and the view from the top of the Anzac Memorial gave you birds eye view of everywhere. It is beautiful but there is remoteness about this place that makes you feel like you are further away from everywhere else than even Perth.
But I had been to the West Coast and through the Northern Territory and I was really happy to have achieved that after so many years over here in the big cities. Now I felt that I could go back to my old stomping ground of Sydney and deservedly accept my citizenship for this country...
But George Bush, myself and other world leaders were flying into Sydney on the same day so it was going to be a busy weekend!
With the APEC leaders in town, security was unreal! Hundreds of millions spent on ensuring the safety of these statesmen and the news of the day went to a bunch of Australian comedians who ran alongside a rented limousine, went through the security barriers, got a police escort and then revealed that their passenger was none other than an Osama Bin Laden look-a-like... yes indeed, it was good to be back in Sydney!
I was back here to catch up with friends and to get my Australian citizenship but in true Consi fashion, we managed to screw that up! My date had been bumped to late October and it was hard for me to explain to them that I just wanted to get it and leave again! Apparantly, that`s just not the done thing!
For the first time in months my life took on a modicum of normality which was a little disconcerting at times after being so independent on the road. Still, it was great at times to just know where I was going, where the best bars were, picking up where I left off with friends and getting back to singing with the band on Sunday nights, without a doubt my happiest three hours of the week and one of the things that I always miss on my travels.
It was time to catch up with some old flames and create some new ones. It was time too to call in to some of my regular haunts and have a few free pints with the proprieters. It was time to eat the best Laksa in the world (Circular Quay). But this will never be a backpacker town to me, it`s not like I was clambering to get my picture taken by the Opera House, no matter how magnificent it is, this was my home for way too long for it to be anything different now.
So I decided to go down to Melbourne and take on the Great Ocean Road, a simply spectacular drive up there amongst the world`s most amazing. I had gone down to meet Hannah whom I met in Vietnam and Laos earlier in the year. She let me have her car and I set off on a beautiful day for 10 hours of driving (and all of this without the Consi halo!)
There are so many scenic spots where you have to stop, jump out, take a picture, devour the view and jump back in your car. I was heading towards the 12 Apostles, the amazing rock formations sitting out in the sea, constantly under bombardment. In fact there are only 11 Apostles left as one succumbed to the forces of nature (I presume that this one was Judas, he was well known for not being an `upstanding` character, Badum Tish!!)
The next night I caught up with several friends that I had met on my travels all over the world as they were all now in Melbourne and the stories shot around the table like a pinball machine, it was hilarious but it gave me a taste for the road again.
But first there was a citizenship ceremony to overcome! My friend Manni drove me out to Parramatta where I joined a large group of wannabee wallabees. I had stressed on what to wear as I didn`t have a suit but some people turned up in T-shirt and jeans, really taking this laid back Australian attitude to heart! We had to sing the, I`m sorry but far from inspiring, national anthem and after being thanked for wanting to contribute our skills and experiences to further benefit this country (I was dreaming of Fiji at the time!) we were sent out as bone fide, dinky di, fair dinkum Aussies!
So, clearly, it was time to go! A few more goodbye drinks and I was off to the airport bound for Fiji, a destination that has always struck me with fascination and I was to follow in the footsteps on an uncle of mine who had made a far more perilous trip over 50 years before....
There was a 4 piece male guitar band in the airport as we arrived and their beautiful harmonies put everyone in a good mood, right before we saw the great wall of China of customs queues! Here they have `Fiji time` and you need a Zen like patience to deal with it but I was in no great hurry and reveled in being on the island that my uncle had arrived into in 1951 as a missionary.
Fr PJ had passed away last year so this was as much a pilgrimage of sorts as anything else, I really wanted to see the land that he had dedicated 17 years of his life to and had visited so many times afterwards. I have been told that I have got my adventurous and travelling spirit from him so it was truly special for me to be here.
Like most of the `third world` countries I have been to, the welcome and kindness of the Fijian people (and in particular the staff of my hotel) was first class (and definitely not `first world`!) I had booked a bus to Suva, the countries capital, to visit the Columban Fathers who knew my uncle when he was a missionary here. It was great to be standing in the house that my uncle had been before and that night I was fortunate enough to be invited to a ceremony which included Tongan, Samoan and Fijian song and dance.
The older men revelled in expressing themselves through these mediums and showed immense pride whereas the younger boys were a little bit self conscious, I thought that that was in direct contrast to what I was used to where the kids would be carefree and the older you got, the more reserved you would be.
Another big contrast was the Kava session to our normal drinking sessions. Kava is derived from the root of a plant and has no alcohol in it, it doesn`t need any as it is a mild narcotic. It is offered to you, you clap your hands once, drink it all down, then spin back the empty bowl and clap your hands three times. I loved it! Fr Pat had warned the pourer not to give me too much as it was my first time and he didn`t want me to get sick. But when I showed absolutely no affects at all I started to worry.
"Fr. Pat, I think I am doing it wrong, shouldn`t I be feeling some sensation?" I asked him.
"No tingling of your tongue, no numbing of your jaw, no soft ache in your belly?" he replied, slightly bemused. When I answered no to all three, he really was at a loss especially considering the huge men that we were surrounded by were all getting seriously dozy. It has (or is supposed to have) a soporific and a mild laxative affect (a very dangerous combination I feel!) and as I looked around I couldn`t believe how sluggish the men were becoming as I was getting more wide eyed and awake every minute.
We had been put in the guest of honour position, the white chiefs, and it was incumbent on us as a result to stay on a little extra which was fine by me. I kept drinking away hoping for whatever was supposed to happen to me to kick in. Some musicians started singing (the harmonies again were superb) to which they received applause but as they drank more Kava, their intervals between each song became more pronounced and the listless listeners couldn`t even summon up the strength to clap anymore!
When we drink we are quiet at the start of the evening and it builds up into a crescendo of loudness by the end, but not here, it starts off loud and full of chatter and slowly winds down all evening and then it`s bed time! There is definitely some merit in it! The men and women sat in seperate areas and it was an honour to be amongst them, particularly when some of the young men were not allowed join the mens group.
The next day I had a tour of Suva and then boarded a local bus back to Nadi, always a fun experience even if you don`t get the leg room. I was one of the only Kivavalangi on board (white person but strictly translated as "Person who wears shoes")
The next day I sailed to Beachcomber Island, one of the 300 hundred islands around Fiji and definitely its most famous party island. It`s owned by a Limerick man (my own home town) and 80% of the island is taken up by the resort! Activities and food are provided all day and at night, the `island` lets its collective hair down and parties on the sand covered floors of the only bar! I got to speak to the owner, Dan Costelloe, who knew my uncle very well but hadn`t heard of his passing. He was the physical embodiment of Santa Claus and had a wonderful nature to match. 84 of us shared the one dorm and suprisingly (and in no small part down to the partying aspect of the island), I got a wonderful nights sleep.
Next day I set off for Mana island for some rest and relaxation but when I met four girls from Ireland, I knew that that was out of the question. I rarely meet Irish people on my travels (comparatively speaking) and it was good to be able to introduce myself as Diarmuid again. That night some of the local kids put on a show for us and I don`t think that cute really captures what they were like! More than one or two of the girls were thinking about abduction except it would have meant that they would have had to dump some clothes to make room in their bags and that was never going to happen!
Dan, a Scouse lad who I`d met on Beachcomber was there too, and at the end of the night we were walking home when I heard some music coming from a nearby hall. We peered in the window and there was a group having a Kava celebration ceremony (for a christening) and singing songs. They saw us and invited us in and when I explained who I was, one of the old men in there told me he knew Fr PJ! It was unreal, on this little island, in this hall was someone who had met my uncle.
Again we were given the position of honour and we were given books so that we could join in on the singing aswell! The people all laughed at our attempts to sing these songs and how we drank the Kava while all the time maintaining the clapping ceremony. It was one of the great nights of my travels.
But all too soon, two days later, it was time to head back to Nadi and get on a plane to leave this paradise. One of the truly inspired Marketing slogans I had seen was, " Isle of Smiles, Miles of Isles` and it was so true. I was so proud of the impact that my uncle had had on the people of this country and I assured myself that this would not be last time coming.
I wonder if one day I will have an impact like that on some other people, I hope so....
After my melodic welcome into Fiji, I was quite unprepared for the abruptness of the customs official in New Zealand as he directed me to `Gate 4`, the strange inflexion in his voice gave me a strange sense of foreboding. With my customary good naturedness I thanked him but then noticed that `Gate 4` was boarded off, out of sight of the rest of the arrivals. Ok then, stay calm...
I was greeted by a lady that told me to hand over my passport and take a seat. I looked around and saw several custom officials discussing with predominantly Asian and Indian travellers what they were about to do.
"Sir, I am going to make a thorough inspection of your bags. I must ask you first however, is there anything in there that will cut my hand when I go through it?"
"Madam, please calm down, I am just asking you what these pills are for?"
Hmmm, ok, what am I doing here? I had seen enough `Border Patrol` programs to know that at the very least this was all being filmed and I looked up and saw several cameras. You know what, it`s harder to look perfectly calm when you are innocent than when you are trying to look innocent! My furtive imagination got the better of me for a minute and I had all sorts of images of drugs having been planted in my bag or worse again, a big man stretching some surgical gloves and informing `that you are well within your rights sir to deny a body cavity search but....`
Just as I was wondering how my Mam would take the news that I was using my one call from the NZ Customs to call her and say I needed a lawyer because I wouldn`t let some guy poke me up the bum, another lady informed me that I was indeed sent to the wrong gate and to enjoy my stay in New Zealand. Well, yes, I think I will now that the threat of imminent carnal knowledge had been taken away.
I had met Ben and Emma on Beachcomber Island earlier this week and they made that fatal, if commonplace, mistake of saying "Hey, if you`re ever in the neighbourhood, you must call in!" Ordinarily this will elicit a cursory, "Sure, of course I will, thanks" but you have all the assurance of a slice of buttered bread falling butter side down (say that ten times quickly!) that this will never happen. Well, nearly never happens!
I was on a bus to Tauranga on Friday and Ben and Emma picked me up from the bus stop and brought me to their parent`s home. Another thing that you might want to watch out for when you casually invite me to call in sometime is that you shouldn`t live in a huge, beautiful house on an island with stunning views of the lake. I might never leave!
I met Tina and Graham, Ben`s parents and his brother Daniel and we sat down to a beautiful lamb dinner. Daniel is looking at potential universities around the world to go to and his Mum would love him to travel so she engaged me to try and be a positive influence and show him the merits of travel. Being altogether more comfortable being a disruptive influence on most people, this was new ground for me so I decided to take him for a drink instead!
It was a good night, testimony to which was Daniel lying on his back in his kitchen after I`d forced him to drink 5 large glasses of water at the end of the night. Yep, I think I could get good at this `positive influence` business, maybe I should sign up to be a Big Brother?!
Ben took me to Rotorua the next day to the Maori Park, Te Puia. As we approached the town itself, my nose was invaded with a smell so rank that I nearly choked. It was so bad that I was worried that Ben might actually be very sick indeed, because no amount of beer or German sausages could have combined to form this smell. I politely said nothing, fearing my friend would soon have to have his own cavity checked as I was convinced that his innards must resemble the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant. So I gritted my teeth and bore the brunt of it.
When I opened the door, instead of the sweet comfort of fresh air, I was assaulted by this smell that could only have come from a rotting corpse who had drowned in a pool of Guinness caused by a marathon egg sandwich eating session. Relieved in one way that my friend Ben wasn`t capable of generating such a smell naturally, I enquired as to what it was.
"It`s the reason so many tourists come to Rotorua" he said cheerily as my eyes began to water, "to see the Sulphur Hot Baths" Surely not, but it was true as we queued up to go into the park, the wind easing, then worsening the smell as it swirled around us. Ben laughed it off, saying I would get used to it and it would wear off soon enough. Rather like a tattoo I presumed. It was stifling and this town took the lead, by some considerable margin, as the smelliest place I have ever been to .... and I`ve been to India!
First stop in the park was to the geo-thermal pools where we were treated to some freshly boiled corn on the cob. A Maori lady cooked them while her male counterpart gave us the information on the springs and their importance to the Maori people. I asked a question and when he heard my accent, he came up to me after and showed me his badge. As Maori as the Haka he was, but his name of Robert Paul McGarvey suggested that the Irish have a lot to answer for with their domination of world names. He was one of 13 kids, 9 brothers so the McGarvey name was going to go from strength to strength!
We were given a traditional Maori greeting and performance before we went off to a dark room where we got to see 2 Kiwi birds that had been fooled by the clever trickery of delayed lighting into thinking that it was day time. They are so hard to see at night that I had looked on the Kiwi as almost extinct so I was actually excited to see them there!
That night Ben and Emma brought me to a friend of their`s, Trash`s (honestly) 21st birthday party. When I saw burnt out tyres and skid marks outside his house on our approach I should have known I was never going to fit it, but undaunted I pressed on.
His mother took a shining to me instantly which has as much to do with my accent as it did with the bottles of wine she had consumed. We went to meet the birthday boy and his friends. I have never felt like a 6th grade history teacher as much as I did at that moment. I don`t know what I was doing while this new age decided to butcher fashion but I must have been sleeping (I did feel strangely like Rip Van Winkle).
Hoodies, baseball caps turned to the side instead of straight ahead or to the back, massive white sneakers that I swear I had last seen in about 1986 (ironically the year that most of these had been born) and the latest accessory for any discerning fashionable youth of today, a pair of jeans that actually belt up below your bum showing off invariably some pair of jockey underpants which, bravely I felt, were more often than not in white. How do they stay up? Anti gravitational and it gave rise to the strange loping strides that they all seemed to adopt. I wondered how you even bought jeans that clearly didn`t fit?
Dreadlocks and Mullets were the haircuts of choice and seemed to live in perfect harmony alongside one another amongst this motley crew. Now my olfactory senses are not my best but again I couldn`t help but pick the strange musk of body odour, presumably most of them came from Rotorua where having to shower was optional considering the pong from the sulpher baths.
Sensing my bemusement and deciding that she had to enhance it, Juliet sidled over to me and informed that she was sure that she knew me from somewhere. Hadn`t I been a bouncer somewhere before?
`I sincerely doubt that you were in Boston in 1998 so I don`t think we would have met,` trying to my best `now run along dear` smile and realising that she would have been about 10 at the time. Sheesh...
`You`ve got an accent,` she persisted, showing that her bloodshot eyes were not impairing her hearing, `are you on holidays?`
I informed her that yes indeed, I was travelling and just visiting some friends. To which she replied,
`Are you having a good time tonight? What drugs are you on?`
Ok, taxi for Consi, get me out of here! All the time that I was feeling my mortality and age more so than any other time in my life, Ben and Emma were having a great time! But sensing my frustration, we said our goodbyes.
The next day I spent seeing some more of the sights of this beautiful part of NZ with Tina and Graham but not before we witnessed New Zealand get knocked out of the Rugby World Cup. The nation was in mourning, all except Tina who was delighted because she felt that other sports didn`t get the same coverage as rugby in NZ. She thought that them getting knocked out was a wonderful result and gloated incessantly as such although she did concede though that this would lead to a sharp rise in spousal abuse. Fortunately Graham was an infinitely patient rugby supporter or else I feared that Tina may become a part of that statistic.
I was sorry to say goodbye to my Kiwi family and their hospitality, particularly as they had up until so recently not even known that I existed! But I had to go to Queenstown in the South Island to meet up with an old friend and to see a little memorial to the Consi of a few years ago....
I have some favourite spots on this planet and Queenstown in the South Island of NZ is one of them! Winter is ski season and during the summer, it is the adventure capital of the world. Large numbers of people going out every day trying to kill themselves by bungee, ski dive, rafting or a multitude of other adrenaline inducing ways and then wanting to go out that night to celebrate their existence! As Frank Sinatra sang, it`s my kind of town!
I met Jess, whom I`d met last in Langkawi, Malaysia last February. She was now working in one of the backpackers so I went for a walk while she finished working. There had certainly been some development work but the town still held it`s charm. I had last been here in 2001 for Christmas and one bar in particular, Pog Mahones, had led to my romanticism of this place.
I was sitting in the pub then, minding my own business but regarding everyone elses, when I noticed the bouncer getting jumped by 3 guys. Out of boredom as much as any sense of chivalry, I ran out, clattered into one guy and punched another by which time the bouncer had got the better of his attacker and they ran off. He brought me back in to the bar and despite the fact that he was sporting a massive black eye, thanked me and told his workmates to give me a few pints from his tab. Needless to say they all gave me free pints for the evening and I was even allowed back for after hours staff drinks.
The next night saw my new friends getting swamped by the busy bar so I offered my services to just pull pints (on a `one for them, one for me` basis!) Again they let me stay back for `staffies` and I had found one of those great pubs! Well to make a short story long, I kept going back there over my three weeks in New Zealand, breaking it up with trips to Christchurch, Gore and Dunedin. I was as suprised as anyone else when they told me that I had gained a space on that most hallowed of Halls of Fame in an Irish Bar - the 100pt club!
I suspect that it was more an honourary reward that they were bestowing on me (no-one could drink that much in a few nights, right?!) but I was strangely proud! A friend had sent my 100pt shirt to me in Sydney and a picture with my name on the plaque and now I was in Queenstown again to see it for myself.... except it wasn`t there.
I looked at the board and there were new names on it, I was convinced that they had covered it over and I am almost ashamed to admit, I was bitterly disappointed! I couldn`t believe it, my faith in this shangri-la of towns, shook to its very core!
But when I went in there with Jess a while later, looking past her I saw that there was another plaque which had been moved from it`s original place and there my name was boldly blazened! My fickle love of the town was firmly restored and when I told this story to Ash, the manager, she gave us our pints for free! I LOVE THIS BAR!
I booked a trip to see the famous, if improperly named, Milford Sound which is actually a fjord. I had never seen a fjord before (for some reason, fjord is a fun word to say!) It really was beautiful as we cruised around it but the 4 hour bus journeys over and back did something to dampen my appreciation of it!
On returning to my backpackers I bumped into Conor who had won the Irish Bachelor of the Year competition that I had been in years ago (filling in last minute for someone that had dropped out and left them in the lurch, I wanted to make that clear!) so we and his mates had a good night out.
Jess, in her capacity as a tour operator, had taken time out on her day off to plot my activities and trip for the rest of my time in NZ. This was handy but also somewhat disconcerting for someone who tends to make things up as I go along. And believe me, as I was running up the road at 6:45am the next morning to my shuttle bus after `sleeping in` I wasn`t at all convinced that this was the way forward for my travels!
Still I made it and I found myself heading to Franz Josef Glacier. I had never been on a glacier before but it seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do to take a trek on it. So bedecked in my four layers of clothes, my boots, crampons and ice pick I joined the `fast group` and we prepared for our ascent. Contrary to our title, progress was painfully slow as our guide had to cut out `steps` for us every couple of feet. It was cold and wet and all this waiting around was seriously detracting from the sights around us.
The rain sleeting down on us did little to raise our spirits but later in the day we did get to some difficult terrain which ironically cheered us up, particularly when a young lad from Chile had a pretty big fall off a set of steps and had he committed himself to a few rolls on landing he would have definitely ended up down a deep crevasse! Not that any of us wanted to see that, but you can now understand our levels of boredom!
Still, on occasions, when you looked at these huge `waves` of ice, knowing that you were on a moving glacier and seeing the brilliant blue of it all, it was truly impressive.
But getting back to the hostel, I discovered that my decision to bring my passport, rather than leave it in the comparatively more risky hostel room, in so much as it was destroyed! All my stamps had run into each other, a few pages had fallen out from getting so wet and one of the pages were torn. Hmmm, not good. As some of my friends have said, when I`m not losing this blasted book, I`m trying to destroy it!
I used one of the girls in my room`s hair dryer to dry it out (who ever thought I would be happy to be holed up with a flashpacker!) and I went out to join my group for dinner, drinks and pool. A good night was had by all and we parted that night, safe in the knowledge that it was unlikely we would ever see any of us again!
Feel free folks to drop me a message, I love getting them and ye slackers have been poor save for some loyal disciples. Would love to hear from ye!
I set off next day towards Christchurch on the Tranzalpine train, apparantly one of the top 5 train trips in the planet causing me to wonder what saddo has done so many of them that they could have a top 5!?!
I was picked up by my cousin Mel and it was great to see her again! I had been here Christmas 2001 so there was a nice familiarity about the place. The first thing that we had to do was to put on a wash for all my soaked clothes from the glacier, my cargo pants ironically coming out of the washing machine dryer than when they went in!
There was a `pizza party` on at a friend`s house so we went there with a bottle of gin and the promise that we would just stay for a few and then see Christchurch properly. But this was no ordinary house. They had their own pizza kiln built outside which was cool and Matt, one of the housemates took us on a tour of the place. Inside there was a band playing to an empty room, silently frustrated with their manager for booking them this gig I presumed.
Outside they had a bath with logs underneath it for an `outdoor heated bath experience.` Hey, whatever floats your rubby ducky I guess? Then they had some reed huts in their garden for anyone that ended up crashing at their party house, a degree of foresight that I found comforting.
I met Gustro, a bicycle taxi driver who assured me that despite his appearance, which was distinctly psychotic, he had some Irish in him. Now on my travels I have found that I should not be quick to judge, but let me make this clear, this guy was a dead set, stark raving lunatic. He would shout what he said with such exuberance that it literally scared me and this feeling was not diminished by his eerie high pitched laugh. When he said he had to go to work, I actually felt relief, but we had to give a ceremonial Maori goodbye which meant touching nose twice and then pressing foreheads with eyes open. I thought he was going to nut me!
They had an outdoor, homemade sauna, a clay house surrounded by bales of hay and Mel and I were encouraged to join them. Matt passed us a dirty towel and comfortingly told us that `it has only been used once!` We wisely declined his kind offer. Matt was an accountant but somewhat let his profession down when he said that `3 times $335 is $900 dollars, oh no, wait a minute it`s closer to a $1000` I have his number in case anyone wants to do a dodgy tax return!
Sensing that the night was getting away from us, I asked Mel if she wanted to call it a night or go into town. She assured me that she was ok to carry on so we caught a cab.
"Into the city please mate" I said and then to Mel, "Are you sure that you are up for this?"
"I think that you under restorate me" she stated emphatically
"Ah mate, take us home to Linwood"
Next day was art and crafts day as we tried to glue my passport back together. I think it will pass most careless inspections! I flew back to Auckland and met Jen and Bec who I`d last seen on Mana island in Fiji. She brought me to their hostel`s bar where Yoshi, resident Japanese boarder was engaging in the national Nippon sport of Karaoke. He joined us afterward and with one of those infectious carefree attitudes where he clearly doesn`t realise that he is a pain in the butt, he proceeded to listen to our conversation and then take 4 words out of it, repeat it, scrunch up his eyes and rock over and back while cackling!
After a while, instead of it becoming wildly annoying it was actually piercing our defensive walls and it had us all in stitches, wise old Yoshi!
"So do you intend to work when you get to Sydney, Jen?"
"WORK WHEN YOU GET, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
"Am, I hadn`t given it much thought but it looks like I will have to because I am really running out of money"
"RUNNING OUT OF MONEY, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
And so on and so forth!
Next day I was off to the Bay of Islands, as much to get out of Auckland as any desire to do more travelling. The South Africa v Argentina match was on and my brother was giving us regular updates by text from Ireland which I relayed to the bus from our "Irish Correspondent!"
When we got there to Paihia, I took a boat over to Russell, which was formerly the first capital of NZ and where they had their oldest bar in the country, the Duke of Marlborough, est 1827! Aw bless, a mere pup of a pub by Irish standards as I recalled Durty Nellies out the road from my house that was est in 1620 and wasn`t even our earliest. It really gave me a sense of how relatively new this country was and how far they have come in just 2 centuries.
That night was Karaoke night again (I seem to be finding them with incredible regularity now) and our new group partook with vigour. My rendition of `Closing Time` inspired one German lad so much that he jumped up and gave us an inpromptu pole dance, fearing from my lyrics that maybe his chances to exhibit his skills were ever decreasing.
I went out next morning and played 9 holes of golf on a beautiful course which we were lucky to get on as it was a Plumbers Society Corporate Day out. As we approached the 6th hole, there was a lady there giving out free shots of Tequila and despite not having had breakfast, we accepted her generosity and followed it with a bite of lemon, well at least I was having something nutritious! Tequila for breakfast then, I wonder if that`s the last time I will be saying that with South America ever looming.
Back in Auckland now killing a few hours before flying to Santiago. I am a little anxious but equally as excited about it. South East Asia, around Europe, South Africa, Oz, Fiji and now NZ have all had proficient English speakers so my opportunities to find myself in dicey situations have been curtailed but my lack of Spanish should ensure that I find more than a few where I am going.
Gili, an Argentinian/Israeli that I met in Paihia said that she thought I would be mugged within 4 hours of arriving in South America, instantly assuring that she would never get a job in the tourism industry. She proceeded to tell me horror story after horror story, my particular favourite was her friend who had been out drinking with some `new friends` who had convinced him to check out in the middle of the night, give them all his stuff before they dumped him naked in a rubbish tip! I am quietly confident though of my drinking ability to ensure that I won`t end up in any bins, naked or otherwise.
There did seem to be a pattern however to the stories, after you were mugged and beaten up by the desperados, they seemed to show at least a modicum of decency by invariably dropping you home afterwards (naked rubbish guy excluded of course!).
So now I am on Mugwatch, a 24/7 alert along the same lines as a Suicide Watch for those so inclined.
I just want to get past the first 4 hours to be honest....!!
Crossing the international date line is always strange, its hard for the head to get around the fact that you arriving before you left but that`s what happens. I got my first indication of quite how difficult it`s going to be without any Spanish when the guy at the immigration gate for International arrivals looked at my passport, gave me a quizzical look and blurted something in Spanish to me.
Now, granted, my passport currently looks like the pamphlet for either `Joseph and his amazing technicolour dream coat` or `Hairspray` with all the colours having washed into each other thanks to my glacier trip but he was convinced that it was also expired. Again, he questioned me about it but I only knew enough Spanish to tell him that I didn`t know any. He looked exasperated (maybe you shouldn`t be working on the international arrivals buddy) and called his boss over. Seems that he thought for some reason it was 2008 and with suitable apologies allowed me though.
Thankfully my good friend Rodrigo (last heard of in this blog in Koh Tao in January) was on hand to pick me up. That night we visited his parents house and we started my education into Spanish. It is absolutely essential in South America and I love it!
My next few days were spent catching up on sleep, studying my `Spanish for travellers` which ironically is only good in Spain and not for South American Spanish and watching daytime TV with subtitles which I regarded as homework.
We went out in Santiago and I met some of Rodrigo`s good friends, one of which is apparantly one of the most famous actors in Chile, but I was suitably under awestruck. The Chileans are naturally dark skinned and black haired and the men have more than the women! The sidelock and mullet will never die as long as Chile is around. They are predominantly small too and with the amount that they smoke, their chances of putting an Olympic Basketball team together some time in the future seems small.
I took myself off to Valparaiso, a seaside town, for a change of scene. I went for a walk around the city and at some point realised that I was well and truly lost. Completely. Hopelessly. Now I have a policy of never going back the way that I have come so I pressed on with the blind, pigheaded optimism that I would be alright. As I continued to walk further and further up a hill and the standard of the housing got not so much progressively as dramatically worse, I have to admit I was rethinking my faith in my policy making abilities.
I had no map but I had a vague idea that I wanted to be a lot further north so I walked through neighbourhoods, trying my best to convey that, "I`m just one of the locals, no need to mug me." All I could recall from my guidebook was that there were some areas that are "dangerous" and "considered unsafe to walk around in the evening" but I kept convincing myself that I was not in `those` areas. About 3 hours later I was seriously thinking that my mugwatch count was only going to last 5 days but finally I recognised a building and with all of the cockiness of an innocent man released from jail, I strode confidently back to my hostel, quite exhilerated.
After 8 hours of walking I was ready for a cerveza. At the hostel were Americans, Germans, French, Aussies, some Austrians and even another Irishman there so what had threatened to be a quiet evening rapidly gathered some momentum. We went out and walked the streets in search of a bar and when we saw a restaurant closing we did an `Indiana Jones` run and roll under the shutter much to the owners disappointment and kept her there for another hour.
Next day, I wanted to go see Pablo Neruda`s house, the famous Chilean love poet. I took a cab and explained where I wanted to go which he seemed to understand. Then he took off and 30 seconds later shouted "Amiiiiiigo, dande esta casa Pablo Neruda?" to some guy on the street. Directions received, we proceeded again. But around the next corner, he asked the same question to another guy, "Amiiiiiigo, dande esta casa Pablo Neruda?" to which we were, unsurprisingly, given the exact same directions.
I was baffled how a cab driver didn`t know possibly the most famous tourist site in the town but before I could think that my guy had the retention capability of a goldfish he was off again, "Amiiiigo...."
At this stage, even I could have got the car there but he proceeded to ask another FOUR people the direction, clearly not caring that he was winning the award for `Dopiest Cab Driver` by some distance. This took us nearly 30 minutes due to his procrastination and desire to disprove the stereotype of men not asking for directions so that by the time we got to the house, I was running low on patience.
"$10 Amiiiiiigo!" What?! You`ve got to be kidding, right? He had no meter, and the only reason we were driving around so much was because he was so inept at his job but my limited Spanish could not properly convey that so I settled for "You`re a little thief!" which I think summed up the moment rather well and made me feel better but got me no closer to a resolution. I didn`t have $10 in my wallet so I had to explain to him that I needed a `banco` to get him his `dineros.`
"No, senor, $10" Ok, Groucho, but I need to get you the money first to give you your money I tried to reason with him. This went on for a while, me muttering under my breath some choice words when I realised that I didn`t need to mutter them at all, he understood no English. It was quite liberating really, talking to him quite calmly but calling him every name I could think of and smiling as I said it to his continued frustration!
Eventually he drove me back to the exact spot where he had picked me up, I got some money out and gave it to him and then walked away. He wanted to know where I was going (I think) but now that I was no longer in a romantic frame of mind (quite the opposite in fact), I decided to give it a skip.
But after 6 days, I thought it was time to get going again, so I said goodbye to Rodrigo and got ready for my journey south to Pucon and get ready to start to use my newly acquired Spanish for real...
´It was the best of meals and the worst of meals,´ as Charles Dickens so frustratingly nearly wrote. I was in the bus station in Santiago getting ready to take the overnight bus to Pucon so I decided to have a simple burger and chips before taking off.
But what was served up to me was by far the worst meal that I have eaten in the last few years! I would be going out on a ledge if I said that the chips had been cooked this week as their frail cold bodies hung limply together, actually deriving heat from the plate. But the burger that was complimenting them was even worse. The bread was icy cold, the cheese had been burnt and scraped off something (the floor I would have presumed) and then put on a ´burger´ that had been removed from the freezer, warmed up I would have suspected by someone rubbing it between their hands and then breathing upon it!
I am truly not one to create a fuss but my lack of Spanish left me terribly frustrated as I was actually going to have to say something about it. Instead when the waiter came over and removed almost as much of the meal as he had set down in front of me minutes before, he asked me if everything was ok.
´´ I´m sorry, my fault, but I was under the impression that you were going to cook the food that you served to me´´
I couldn´t work out if the confused look that he gave back to me was because I was speaking in English or that no food served at a bus station is ever cooked. It was probably a bit of both.
I arrived in Pucon next morning and since my hostel was not able to take me yet, I set off to get some breakfast. I stumbled on a lovely place and ordered a remarkably healthy Wheat and Oats Pancake with Honey, Fruits and Cream, bread and marmalade. A large cup of Coffee was ordered too and it was perfect! The music was good in there, the book I was reading was excellent and when a woman pulled up outside on her bike, left it unlocked, come in and proceeded to order breakfast I knew instantly that I loved Pucon!
When the bill came, I called the waitress over and (such was my good mood and catholic upbringing) pointed out that she had omitted my coffee from the bill. ´´ Includio,´´ she said! So not only had I scored points for pointing it out, I was actually getting it for nothing too!! I virtually skipped out of the diner and back to my hostel!
I met Nicole, who I had met in Valparaiso and her American get up and go-ness meant she had already booked white water rafting for that afternoon and the Volcano trek for the following morning. I followed suit and got ready for a few days of exercise. The rafting was ok but we were getting ready for the trek next day when the heavens opened. It fairly bucketed down and as a result our next days activities were cancelled.
The same was the case the day after and staying in the wonderful El Refugio Hostel, which is just a big cabin house with room for just 14 people, was ironic as I started to develop cabin fever.
But the day arrived and we were up for a 7am kick off to the trek to the top of Villarica Volcano. We were supplied with our gear, boots, helmet, gloves, cap, jackets, overalls, ice pick etc and set off. The chair lifts were not working (we had been told that the operator had been seen drinking too much the night before, presumably assuming another bad day was on the cards) so we had to walk up the first third of the 2,847m volcano.
After 30 minutes I already knew something was wrong. The boots I was wearing were chewing into the back of my heels but I suspected that I would get used to it. We continued up through the ice and snow, taking in huge breaths aswell as the breath taking scenery around us. Despite the annoyance of my boots I was feeling good. Three hours into the trek and we had cleared 2/3 of the mountain but by now my enthusiasm couldn´t hide the fact that my feet were bleeding.
But still I persisted, I had never seen a volcano up close nor in essence climbed one so I pushed on, each step biting further into my feet. Another hour later and now every step was excruciating. I couldn´t believe it, three days waiting for this trek and now I was here and it was proving too much to go on. I was walking backwards, moonwalking up the mountain, just trying to give my feet a brief respite but it was too tiring.
The group were leaving me behind as they zigzagged their way onwards. The sleetish winds whipped the snow and the ice into our faces as conversation stopped and breaths deepened. I asked and received persmission to just walk up straight, infinitely more tiring but just less steps for my feet to endure. But in the end, after 5 1/2 hours and with just 350m to go (albeit still 1 hour of walking) I had to call a halt. I was devestated and one of the guides said we had to go down now. It took us nearly 2 hours to walk down, I couldn´t believe how high we had climbed and every step just cut deeper and deeper.
Seeing my group kick on towards the top with me having to beat a retreat was a crushing experience. I suspected that the guide thought I was a baby but I was actually happy to see him wince firstly at my bloodied socks and then the 5 big welts on my feet where the skin had been eroded away.
He gave me some what I suspect was iodine (although it felt like hot chilli sauce) and some bandages and I gritted my teeth as I applied it (I was sure I could hear a sizzle!) in a last ditch attempt to ensure that he wasn´t going to be telling his amigos that evening in the bar about the big gringo who had to come down from near the top because of some cuts to his feet. I suspect that he probably did though.
I found out afterwards that I was given a brand new pair of 9 1/2´s when close to a size larger was what I needed. I had slipped into them alright but it was a disaster waiting to happen. Well, I suppose they are well and truly broken in now for the next guy....
I was so disappointed that evening, seeing the pictures from the others and realising that if the chair lift guy hadn´t had a skinful the night before, despite my obvious discomfort I could have made it. But like everything else, you just have to accept it and that evening we went to our local bar The Mamas and Tapas!
My lack of achievement however was not matched by a lack of severity in the punishment. My feet are in pretty bad shape as I now shuffle around. I left Pucon next day and headed to Puerto Montt to see if I could catch a flight south to Punto Arenas. The alternative was to take a 4 day cruise through some fjords and glaciers down to Puerto Natales. Well neither was to work out for me. The cheap flights weren´t going for another few days, everyone that had just got off the cruise said it was boring and sickness inducing and there were no buses going south for another few days either.
So, I looked around and picked a name of a town that sounded familiar, Bariloche. I asked when the next bus was leaving, an hour later was the response and I shuffled off home to get my bag and take the bus. On checking my guidebook however I realised that I was in fact going to be leaving Chile and ending up in Argentina! Not for the first time I had woken in one country and found myself sleeping in another through nothing more than whimsical chance.
We drove across the Andes and it was simply spectacular as we arrived into Bariloche 8 hours later. It´s an impressive sized tourist orientated town which I think I will make my base for a few days while I ponder my next move. I can´t do any of the hikes till my feet heal up so I might just put in some long hours on the buses making my way down to the furthest town south in the world, Puerto Williams.
Thanks to those that left messages, they were great to read!
Or, I could do the complete opposite and instead head north!! I had been getting some pretty strange looks as I walked around Bariloche in my flip flops trying to let my cuts dry out as everyone else was wrapped up in suitable, winter clothes! I think they thought I was some strange evangelist/homeless person! But it was clear to me that I was going to have to go north to the heat than go south and have to get back into my shoes.
And on such small instances do great decisions rest.
Bariloche is a beautiful town that is tourism based, adventure sports and skiing in particular and thanks to the massive influence from the Swiss and Germans that settled here, countless chocolate shops and factories. St Bernards posed with tourists with the backdrop of the lake and snow topped mountains. I don´t think I have been anywhere where a series of lakes have been ringed so completely by ranges of mountains, it was really stunning.
With the decision not to go south gathering momentum, I decided to take an overnight bus to Puerto Madryn, a town made famous for its proximity to a coastline that seals, sea lions, penguins and on occasions, Orca whales, call home. I had met Lee, Keith and Mark on the bus so we all decided to rent a car for the day and go check out the scenery. They had met Anders from Austria and asked him to come along to help split the costs. What a mistake that was!
So the 5 of us crammed into the little car and started driving, little did we know that it was about a 400km round trip. We all took turns driving, except Anders who had already opened a beer and then proceeded to throw the cap out the window into a National Park. We, out of principle, went out and picked it up.
The road was terrible and we were limited to 45kmph, with no reception for radio and with conversation reaching a natural saturation point between 5 new ´friends´ (Anders was rapidly falling out of this grouping!) We stopped to see some penguins and Anders, displaying reckless abandon and completely forgetting the zoom function on his camera, jumped over a fence and went right up to a poor baby penguin and snapped its picture.
We told him to get out of there and then a guide from a nearby tour screamed at him to get out. We were all embarrassed and it took a quick vote to decide to not drive off without him and leave him stranded out here in the middle of nowhere. Conversation was certainly strained at this point except when Keith and I started speaking in Gaelic about him, much to Lee and Mark´s confusion but extreme delight!
We saw the huge elephant bull seals from about a kilometer away, they were enormous! Lumbering masses of blubber scattered the beach and we were just in time to see a massive male fight, one of the combatants left decidedly bloody, it was an awesome spectacle. The largest of the group, the clear alpha male, would roar and you could see the spit and vehemence erupt from his mouth when he did. The much smaller female population were decidedly scared and you could see them secretly hope that it wasn´t their turn for some ´special attention´ from this beast!
But we all wanted to see Orcas. The killer whales had been spotted the day before and we were hopeful of seeing one surf up on a wave to the shore and snag one of the seals. Now, I am not one to openly advocate harm to any animal, (except for my previously and clearly established hatred for cats) but it was hard not to want to see nature at its most fierce and not have to watch it on National Geographic but alas no. It was suggested openly that we weren´t seeing any Orcas because of the bad karma of some. Anders had already fallen asleep in the car at this point so he missed the inferred insult.
Any regular reader of this blog won´t be too surprised at his antics when I say that Anders was one of those ´belts around the bottom´ kind of guys, they truly have a lot to answer for!
But it was another kind of ´Wales´I went in search for next day. A large Welsh community had settled in a town just south of where we were 150 years before and up until the last generation were still speaking old Welsh. I had read about them in a book a few years ago so I went south to see their modern day influence. Well the language may have only recently died out, but their influence was long gone. I did find one old meeting house with the Welsh flag flying proudly and for some reason I was delighted to see it.
There was a children´s festival on, I think it must have been associated to the recent Halloween celebrations because countless cars had all been decorated with streamers, balloons and pictures and all the kids were in fancy dress as they were being driven, horns blowing and screams eminating from the cars as they whizzed by, it was an endearing sight.
I took a bus that night up to Buenos Aires (BA), with the intention of heading for a few days to Uruguay. I have been repeatedly told that BA and Vancouver are places that my own special brand of madness would suit down to the ground so I decided to spend a couple of quiet days in Montevideo in advance of that.
So there I was, in Uruguay, a country made famous by Homer Simpson when he found it on an atlas and said, "Hey there´s a country called You Are Gay!" and besides that I knew very little. I took a long walk around the city and practised my spanish on the locals. Some were impressed, a lot were not! It is a nice city, but a dusty and slightly run down one. I enjoyed it though, being able to walk a new place again, making turns on a whim and taking it all in. I hope that I remember all these little streets in years to come because its getting this insight into other people´s lives and being off the well worn path that really does excite me.
We went to a bar that night where they had some South American live music and the young girls that were there dancing were pulling some moves that left little, if anything, to the imagination. Not for the first time I remarked on the astuteness of the Arab curse, "May you be the father of 5 daughters." I hope I never have girls, I wouldn´t let them out until they were 30!
But there is something that I am finding very hard to reconcile over here. People don´t go out for dinner until about 10:30 to 11pm, they sit down and eat till about 1am and THEN, then they go out and have their first drink in a bar! What? The bars are basically dead till midnight, then the bouncers come on and the locals dance their huge meals off till about 5 or 6am.
My guidebook has told me not to even bother going out to a club in BA on the weekends until 2:30am?!! That´s usually garlic chip and cheese and a taxi home time for me! Now I´m not one for dancing (Jackson 5 aside of course) so its going to take me some time to get my head around the serious time lag between my preference of start time and the rest of the continent´s. I am sure that I can win them over to my way of thinking though!!
Customs are pretty lax between Uruguay and Argentina via the ferry system. I didn´t get a stamp on my way into Uruguay which the customs guy was looking for as I left but he just shrugged it off. And then on the Argentinian side, my travelling mate and I were ushered through a seperate channel, straight out the door with no checks done whatsoever. No wonder the drug trade is flourishing over here with these diligent officials!
And now I am back in BA for my birthday on Friday. No cards for me this year (hard when you are ´no fixed abode´) but I hope to have a good night with some new friends. So if any of you are in the area, feel free to look me up, you can be sure I will be in some Irish pub, probably singing with the band, maybe "Living La Vida Loca!?!"
Thanks for the messages on the message board, always fun reading them.
For someone who has realised that working is a mugs game and who lives every day like its his last, you wouldn`t think that a birthday would be that significant. WRONG?! Its a huge day, its what sets you apart from all those that were born on the other 364 days of the year (not even getting into the maths of Leap Year babies)
So, I was in Buenos Aires, a place like Timbuktu, Casablanca, Acapulco and Rio that has a mysticism about its name. I couldn`t wait. I got into my hostel and found that it had been over run by Irish people. It was unreal and slightly disconcerting to be honest. The place was full of them. There was a table quiz and when one of the girls asked me whether I was good at general knowledge, I knew that all my years of accumulating otherwise useless trivia was finally going to bear fruit. When you know that OMD stands for "Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark" for the first question, you know you are on to a winner.
And so it proved.
I changed hostels though, table quizzes not being what I had planned for my birthday celebrations. Now, I have stayed in a lot of hostels, slept in more beds than I can recall, but nothing had prepared me for "Death Bed" It got its name because frankly, you would nearly end up on your own deathbed just trying to get in or out of it. Standing a full 6 foot off the ground, it had no steps, ladder or any other climbing apparatus to get into it. I just couldn`t believe that someone had designed it and thought that there work was complete.
HEY GENIUS, how does someone get on to to the top bunk? Not being an olympic gymnast, the ensuing histrionics I am sure were hilarious as I contorted myself like a pregnant elephant and eventually clambered on board as my roommate below must have thought he was in an earthquake.
Now Irony and I are old friends. I recognise her immediately (and make no mistake of her gender, Irony is something that you have to endure with a lot of patience and good dose of humour, like most women) and she showed herself in a terribly wet and miserable day for my birthday.
But the day had arrived, my birthday, Feliz Cuplianos! I took myself off to the Irish Embassy and ordered a new passport (some people get jealous of the stamps they see in others` passports, I yearn for more space!) which I will pick up from the Danish Consulate in Rio de Janeiro (and frankly, that just sounds about right to me these days). The wonderful lady from the embassy asked if I wanted a normal or large passport asking politely but decisively, "do you ever intend to stop travelling and settle down?"
Take a number missus, I have a Mam, two brothers and at least 4 girls who are asking that very same question!
But the day was a waiting exercise. I bought some food, cooked up and, God forgive me, went to bed for a nana nap at about 6 for two hours because no one thinks about going out until midnight.
So I went out at 9pm, already at that stage the longest I had ever gone on my birthday without having a drink since, well since official records began. I met some American lads and was playing Gin Rummy by 10pm. Ok, I know that I am getting old but Irony was having a truly machiavellian time.
Finally though, we got a crew together and went out to an `Irish Bar` (in so much as they had Guinness on tap, no other semblance of Irishness about the place) and finally were having a few drinks. But everyone else were getting in to the night a lot faster than I, and when they started dribbling their apologies and retreating to cabs back to their hostels, I knew that a gross miscarriage of justice not seen since the English legal system decided to lock up long haired Irish men for no reason in the 1970`s, was on the cards.
And my fears were well founded, as I packed more and more of my friends of in my cabs with more than a tinge of jealously. So I caught a cab back home myself, the last to leave and frankly the most sober and even had time and enough comprehension to check on my e-mails before I went to bed.
So screw Argentina, we are doing this Irish style. Its 1:40pm and me and an Aussie mate are going to start in 50 minutes time. There should be one day in the year when, despite my exalted age, I don`t actually have to act like the Daddy.
I am typing this with gusto, lets see how my next entry starts...
Take 2 went way better, I´m as sick as two small hospitals. Thanks for your good wishes, back to bed now...
Ok, I know that my synopsis on my birthday was short yesterday but I wasn`t in the mood for much else. Suffice to say, Ben, Erica, Lesley, Jodie and I went looking for a bar at 2:30pm and finally found one (bars and discos are converted into clothes shops during the day in Buenos Aires because no-one goes for afternoon drinks!)
When we found a restaurant that would serve us some drinks, some locals took pictures of us. "Look at those crazy gringos having a drink before 3pm, Loco!"
It was a good day though, we went out and had steaks, bought some cocktails, played some pool and got ourselves home intact! We had to because the next day, myself, Ben, Eddie and Terence were off to see Boca Juniors play at home. There is a normal section and what is affectionately called "The Crazy Section" and of course you don`t need to ask where I was pushing for!
We got to the ground and tried to buy the tickets for this section but were told `no.` We didn`t know if they were just full or there was no way they were selling 4 white boys a ticket to this area of the ground. Now, we had come with just 100 pesos each, no watches or wallets or anything that could be stolen but that also meant we couldn`t afford the 170 peso asking price for the normal section.
So we went to a tout. The tickets for the crazy section are just 14 pesos but we got 4 for 150 which wasn`t too bad. There was a massive police presence and we were patted down 50 metres from the ground, my pen was confiscated (I`ve heard that the pen is mightier than the sword, but seriously how many pen related deaths could there have been for them to be banned?) and then when we were 10 metres from the gates, we were patted down again just in case we had procured a weapon in the interceding 40 metres and 10 seconds.
We were delighted though to be in and we took up our place in the centre of the crazy section with hard man scowls on our faces to try and persuade all that we were mean hombres and not to be messed with.
The spectacle was something else as streamers and confetti were thrown all over the stadium to welcome the players. The opposing team and their coach were berated by the home supporters and I only know one curse in Spanish and it seemed the entire song consisted of that word!
Well it didn`t take long for the opposing fans to take their revenge and since they were sitting above us, we were all exposed to them spitting down on top of us. I got hit twice, Ben once on the hand, there was nothing much we could do about it. But as half time approached and with Boca 2-0 to the good, things really got dangerous.
Rocks were being thrown down on us, one girl leaving with a big gash on her head, a seriously heavy rock landing 4 feet away from us and the guy 2 feet to my left getting a nasty cut above his eye from where a stone had hit him. They were ripping up the stadium and raining them down on us and since we wanted to watch the second half and not have to stare up all the time at incoming missiles, we went under the stand.
The views weren`t as good there but at least we could watch the game unlike the huddled masses where we had been. Still, we had survived it and we left a little early before the Boca fans could exact some revenge on the Velez supporters. I have just checked the Buenos Aires English Paper and their report on the game made no mention of the violence, its just the done thing at these games I guess.
But I can still remember seeing them waving down at us as they pelted us with rocks, I suppose they don`t call it the crazy section for nothing!
Buenos Aires is a great city, really it is, but its timing system is way off! I can understand a lot of different cultural idiosyncrasies but going out at midnight or 1am is beyond me. I know that I have mentioned this before but its probably one of the strangest phenomenons I have encountered.
Equally as strange was walking into my hostel on Sunday night and seeing an old mate from Sydney that I hadn`t seen in two years! Steve was on holidays in Uruguay and had popped over to BA for a few days and had happened on my hostel! It was great to see a familiar face again and we spent the next day walking all over BA, shopping for presents and eating all you can eat buffets. You just can`t walk off the amount that they feed you in this country but I am reliably informed that the food gets way worse the further north I venture so I like to think I am just putting on my winter fat!
Another overnight bus and I was in Iguazu, famous for the huge waterfalls that separate Brazil and Argentina. They are simply put, awesome in the very full, but oft misused, extent of the word. When Eleanor Roosevelt saw them, she commented,"Poor Niagara!!" It is hard to describe the sheer power of these falls but I will give it a go. My Argentinian friend Sylvina and I took a boat that sped us down some rapids to literally underneath the falls. We were thoroughly soaked and bombarded by the force of the water, I felt like even my contacts were getting cleaned! You didn`t know where to look as you were encircled by a huge car wash of activity until the pilot took us back out where we all just stared at each other and finally gasped for the first time.
Then they did it again! What barest follicle I may have had that had escaped the first time was well and truly immersed now and it was incredible!
We then got a chance to walk around, over and beside the falls in the heat to dry off. I had just about done this when I could see that there was one vantage point where everyone was coming back ringing wet. So I went to investigate and yep, again, I was drenched as I stood about 5 metres from the massive flow of water.
South America was waking up to me here. I started to understand all the hype and my expectations were finally being met, all at Iguazu. It was hard not to be mightily impressed while feeling absolutely inadequate by the sheer size of it all. But when I thought I had seen it all but there was another falls to see, The Garganta del Diablo or Devil`s Throat which is a U-shaped 150-metre-wide and 700-metre-long cliff, which without warning, sprays everyone with a good dose of water every few minutes, much to the surprise of the new arrivals and the delight of those already soaked! On the other side was the Brazilian border but our viewpoint was far superior.
Simply amazing though, I knew that this place was having a profound affect on me because I was even getting excited about the colourful butterflies that were circling around! The famous music soundtrack to the movie, "The Mission" was playing in the train that took us around and it complemented the area perfectly.
Then it was back to the Hostel to join with the other backpackers (including my roommates Alina, Shamina and Mariano who patiently taught me Spanish for three days!) to try and put words to the vision and majesty that we had witnessed that day. It was fun trying but woefully impossible.
I didn`t know it then but my inadvertant Spanish lessons with my roommates were to come in mightily handy next day.
My camera broke way back in Coffee Bay in South Africa and I have been relying on all my new friends to send me pictures over the last few months waiting for it to get fixed. Well it got fixed under warranty but there`s no warranty against stupidity as they posted it to my old Aussie address under normal post and it got `lost.` So, now with the money returned to me it was time to go shopping and snapping again.
About an hour via Brazil is the small town of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, a town famous for being the shopping capital of Latin America. Its proximity to Brazil and Argentina, its poorer economy and a healthy dose of criminal backing has left it ideally placed for any kind of goods that you are looking for.
Myself, Ailish and Babs (Irish girls from Connemara) set off to get some bargains. Our first bargain was a 3 Pesos bus (US$1) for the one hour journey across the Argentina/Brazil border and straight into Paraguay without getting a stamp to acknowledge the two new countries on my trip. Cross border checking was again woefully inept in this part of the world.
The scene that greeted us can only be called chaotic. We had anticipated some big shopping arcades and some stalls but the entire town was a huge market. It was overwhelming but we needed to get amongst them and start bargaining. It was hard with limited Spanish but after a while the words started to come a little more easily and we were off! It was cutthroat stuff though, some guys banging their fists on the counter if we didn`t take their absolute lowest price right then when we just wanted to compare prices somewhere else.
The girls were looking for cameras and phones and from my standing point of knowing one colour in Spanish (negra which is black) by the end of the day I safely had 7 tucked away in my withering brain. "Do you think the red one of the pink one is nicer?" said Ailish, as a strange piercing pain started at the back of my eye!
Still the girls were real pros, haggling and giving as good as they got, the poor salesmen often looking to me for solace and sympathy which were both in short supply! Often the beleagured salesmen would talk to me in Spanish, assuming from my basic speech that I was fluent. I let them rant on and then took a guess as to whether I should say `si ` or `no.` Some of the looks I was getting when I clearly chose wrong told me that I had probably turned down offers of additional free stuff or agreed to a sale and then promptly thanked them and left the store!
And in the midst of the madness, we found Mohamed from Lebanon! His English very good, was a marked improvement on nearly anyone elses. He cleverly insisted on us going away and checking the other prices in the stores, confident that we would come back and we did. I had to smile when he told me not to use my credit card here because of the high instances of fraud, a brief throwback to my old career. I bought myself a touch screen camera for $250 that was quoted to me at $400 initially so I was delighted.
The girls had an uncanny peripheral vision thing happening and more than once I found myself talking to no-one as they had ducked into yet another shop behind me. But like all places, your Spanish really comes on when you are under the gun, quite literally in one case when I suggested to the security guard in a shop that his gun was a replica (like so many of the things on sale) and he forcefully showed me a bullet that he had in his pocket. I suppose I should have been glad that I wasn`t seeing a bullet being forcefully impressed upon my head at a rapid velocity.
The array of goods that were being sold was impressive. Chairs, knives, socks, helmets, blood pressure checking machines, tyres, black and decker hardware, pirate DVD`s, blow up dolls, razors, christmas trees, jewellery etc. I am sure I could have bought human organs if I had found the right store.
We went back to Mohamed to collect our gear and a quick last check of the merchandise, horror stories abounding the hostel of people who had returned with their boxes only to find a bar of soap inside instead of a camera! Hardly any comeback when you are a backpacker there for one day with hardly any Spanish.
But for a finish I was withered. Men are simply just not cut out for shopping, I can openly admit to a genetic deficiency in this area and I never intend to rectify it. I was mentally drained aswell after speaking Spanish all day but gave myself a hearty pat on the back that it had come back to me. We ran down the street to catch our bus back to Argentina and watched the thousands of people who were walking across the border with their bags of goodies, all getting checked at customs.
I got another stamp entering Argentina and the girl behind the counter was in some distress trying to find a space to put it. I told her (in Spanish of course) that there was a little bit of space in the corner of page 14 and now I have to find another for when I head into Brazil in a few days time!
But the last two days have been amongst the most enjoyable on this trip, maybe, just maybe, things are looking up!!
Ok, my camera is seriously cool! The ´oooh´ factor alone from others when they see the functions is worth the trip to Paraguay alone! I spent a few hours marvelling at the seemingly pointless amount of possibilities it has and then wanted to get out and test my new baby!
It was staggeringly hot so as many people turned themselves into convincing looking lobsters by the pool, I retired to the comforts of the shade, a caperinha (Brazilian cocktail) in one hand and ´Moby Dick´ in the other. As Van Morisson once remarked, "I just have to remember, my Mama told me, there´d be days like this!"
That night I was at my blagging best (a mixture of sun and caperinha´s sharpening my game) as I convinced the person at the door of a club that we (5 of us) didn´t have to pay because we were backpackers and then further more, insisted that none of us had got our free beer at the bar yet. The startled bartender duly apologised and furnished us with 5 large Quilmers and we were away!
I had met this group of Argentinian Rugby Players the night earlier, who after giving me a right good ribbing about Ireland´s woeful display in the world cup, decided to adopt me as a team mascot for their trip! In fairness, looking at their average size, I could have only made mascot on their team!
The production of a camera does things to even the most steadfast of people but these guys were anything but and jumped into every shot with abandon! Then one of the girls, (you know who you are!) in a sweeping Zorro like motion managed to knock my new camera and unbelievably, my beer aswell out of my hands and on to the ground. In that moment, time froze as I thought of the implications (ie that I was about to kill someone on foreign soil and that I might need a good lawyer assuming the rugby team didn´t despose of me before hand!)
Fortunately, my camera withstood the attack far better than my beer... Next day, a wet miserable one in direct contrast to the day before, was spent revelling with my new group made up predominantly of Argentines, some Swedes and the arrival of Lesley and Jodie from BA. There was little else to do except practise my Spanish, laugh over the photos of last night, play pool and table tennis and enjoy a few beers.
That night I was invited to the team BBQ and on a variation of an Argentine adverts song over here which goes imaginatively, ´Foto, Foto, Foto, Foto´, I was duly honoured with a regular rousing chorus of ´Consi, Consi, Consi, Consi´, a truly touching tribute!
I had to go back to the Falls again, camera in tow this time but also because it has truly ignited my trip here. Lesley and Jodie accompanied me and it didn´t disappoint, it really is ´one of those places´ that I put in the top shelf of places I have seen on my travels so far.
That night, with my Spanish truly coming on, I was presented with a San Miguel Rugby and Hockey Club Shirt by the lads, a moment so steeped in significance I thought for a second the girls were going to shed a tear! There were already plans afoot for a reunion in February in Acapulco but we will have to see!
I wore my shirt with pride that night and a great night was had by all. The toast all week had been "Talvez Manana" (´Maybe Tomorrow´) for when we would leave this place, so good a time we were all having. But tonight it was replaced by "Mas Champagne" (More Champagne) as it rained from the skies in our exuberance!
The swimming pool was getting a work out with many dunkings that evening and the party raged on for hours, dancing and singing in abundance. The only lowpoint being the introduction of a bunch of idiots that for obvious reasons wanted to crash the party (we had a bunch of good looking girls, all the atmosphere and most of the drink in the bar at our tables!) I got the impression that I was going to be singled out for some attention and told my mates to keep an eye out, they said they would not be ´defending a friend, but a brother,´ very musketeer in sentiment but I suspect the champagne had something to do with it!
Still, the night went off quietly, finishing around 6:30am for yours truly! Up early again next day, we all gathered for the customary review of the ´Foto, Foto, Foto, Fotos´ and deciding whether it would be ´Talbess Manana´ again but in light of the fact that the group was breaking up, I decided to book an 18 hour bus journey to Florianopolis in Southern Brazil simply because my preferred destination, Recife, would have meant a 4 day wait before a 60 hour bus journey.
I said goodbye to all in the main reception area and after a last heartfelt chorus of ´my´ song, I was given a standing ovation and a round of applause for my contributions to the week, some startled backpackers on other tables with bewildered looks even joining in with the applause! Yep, moments don´t get much better than this!
I had been asked recently where was the best hostel that I stayed in my year of travelling to date. I hadn´t been able to answer him then, I can now.
I took a cab across the Brazilian border (a new first for me, can´t think of many ways I haven´t crossed a border now, submarine and hot air balloon proving still elusive) and then boarded my bus. Spanish is to Portuguese what French is to English, some words are the same but in most practical ways, vastly different. It was frustrating taking the figurative snake back down to square one after taking so many ladders in my Spanish in the last two weeks.
After hearing so many horror stories about Brazil I found my natural Spider tingling was heightening. I felt a slight paranoia as I tried to sleep, curling my hands through my bag with all my important belongings in it. And as I walked around here yesterday, I couldn´t help but feel a little exposed as on a few occasions I let one or a group of guys that I thought were following me, pass me by without incident.
Still, until I get my bearings and get into the culture of this place, the money belt is going to stay in place and we are staying on red alert. We are hoping to move this down to orange in the next week or so! And although I am tempting fate of course, Mugwatch is into its fifth week now!!
Hope everyone is well, I know that I am receiving e-mails regularly but I really do like getting a wee note on this website, it reminds me that someone is reading it and makes this long rants worth it!
I am staying in a place called Barra de Lagoa and to be honest it feels like the end of the world. And let me tell you this, the end of the world is nice! I was booked into the Backpacker´s Shared Hostel for two nights but within an hour of being there I had changed that to 5. Life is too short to spend in bad hostels so when you find a good one, its always great to extend your stay.
There was a great atmosphere about the place helped in no small part by the honesty system with regard to buying drinks and food in the place. You could just take a drink, then mark your name on a big chalk board and then the amount would be added to your bill. A terribly dangerous idea when drinks are being had (a chalk mark does not feel as bad as the actual exchanging of money) albeit one that contributed greatly to the good times I was to have here.
Over the next few days, there were many hours on the beach, long treks, bonfires and numerous games of Texas Hold ´Em to be played. A large contingent of Scandinavians there meant I was learning more Swedish than Portuguese! On one of the walks, Kat and I decided to take the 75 minute walk over the hills to the famous Mole Beach on the other side. It was a fair trek and we got slightly waylaid on a few occasions. When we eventually made the beach we found that we got the one just before Mole, better known for it being a nudist beach.
I was relieved however to see that everyone was wearing clothes until one guy, in sunglasses and a dodgy handlebar moustache saw us walk by and jumped off the boulder he was sitting on and dropped his towel magnificently with hands on hips like some kind of superhero. Rather than give him the satisfaction of a surprise reaction, I smirked and insisted that Kat did not look over until we had walked on.
A little futher on, one of the truly sad mysteries of nature was before us as I was sure we were coming across a whale that had beached itself on the sand. I was going to call Greenpeace to report it in, when ´it´ got up and walked back to her undoubtedly long suffering husband. Ironically, I have been reading `Moby Dick´ of late so I was somewhat used to masses of white blubber wreacking havoc on unsuspecting men!
As I reflected on the retinal tissue damage that had been inflicted on me and the cost of therapy that was now going to curtail my world trip, we arrived on to Mole beach. Talk about the beautiful people. Men walked around looking like underwear models (their prediliction to Speedo´s is worryingly common) and the women were wearing dental floss for bikini´s. Everyone was there to look at everyone else as the nearby sea was left alone, I thought I had walked on to the set of a Kylie Minogue Video!
We went diving off some rocks aswell and it was great to throw yourself off them into the choppy waters below. The only problem was trying to get back on to the rocks again and I stepped down on either some coral or a sea urchin and it spiked me over 40 times with 1cm long shards of crystal. It was amazing how quickly they had embedded and the skin had closed over them again. So I had to hack away at my feet to get them out before I got infected to varying success (two weeks on, I took out another 7 yesterday!)
If I ever become famous, as unlikely as that may be, I will shun the customary hands in the concrete memorials and honour my feet instead as they take one hell of a beating on my travels...
And speaking of taking a beating, I have just endured another one! We all went to a samba club where the music was excellent but their crowd control was anything but. It was mobbed as everyone shuffled around to the music in a kind of geriatric line dancing way. I decided to head off early and while walking around outside for a cab, I came across two girls who were in some distress.
Needless to say, I inquired if I could be of any assistance but one of the girls, a local Brazilian girl told me that they were fine.
``We are FAR from FINE,´´ came the emphatic reply from her Norwegian friend as she sobbed away to herself and then promptly stormed off down the road.
The Brazilian girl pleaded with her to come back and to go back into the club and I hoped that another, more direct voice may have the desired affect.
``Annette, I think that you should go back to the club with your friend´´ I said, to which she rounded on me, walked back and punched me in the head!!!
What the **$#%?!!
She followed that up with a punch to the chest, then pushed me down on a parked car and hit me in the face with her handbag!! ``Are you serious?!´´ I asked her friend and then I have to say that the madness of the situation got to me and I started laughing out loud (which Annette didn´t like too much but I was now out of reach!) and I told her friend that she was on her own.
Fortunately Annette did literally punch like a girl so I was free to go home without any medical attention!! The story got everyone off to a good start the next day as we sat down to our sumptuous breakfast. But soon it was time to leave here, as I left with Sofia and Natalie (Frodo and Sam) to take an overnight bus in the direction of Ilha Grande and ultimately, Rio De Jeneiro...
``Never judge an island by the port that you leave from to get there´´ is a famous old Irish saying that I have just made up! But after our 20 hours of bus hopping to get to the pier where we were to take the boat to Ilha Grande, it seemed to make a lot of sense.
The smelly pier teemed with people all intent on making you feel like you were in the way so I walked around to kill an hour before our boat trip. I went for a BIG MAX burger at MAX burger joint (wondering if the good folks at Mc D´s know about this blatant rip off!) and from where I sat I saw a Quicksilver shop (instead of its more famous Quiksilver counterpart) and a shop called TACO that looked exactly like GAP shops around the world. But in this world of fake rip offs, I came across a truly unique sight.
A hatchback car was doubling as a hearst as a funeral procession passed through the town. I couldn´t actually work out who was the main mourners as no-one seemed to be wailing in grief and everyone wore an array of colours, almost anything other than black. It just looked so peaceful and respectful and seemed to celebrate life, even now at this most terminal of times.
The island is really big but any island without roads is ok by me! I love these places and there is always a great vibe, if you have never been to a place without roads, you should treat yourself.
Natalie and I took a 90 minute hike over the hills to the other beaches and we rewarded ourselves with a sleep on the beach. On our way back we came across a little monkey, not even the size of my hand, that posed for photos like a pro! We met Liza and Eamon from Ireland and took a pulley boat out to a floating restaurant bar which some people swam out to. The novelty seemed to work because it was always busy.
That evening a few of us went for dinner where Eamon and I plumped for the Crazy Beef Sandwich which was actually quite good (presumably made from Mad Cow I suppose!)
But the time had come to head to Rio, so after discovering that a lot of the Swedish words the girls had thought me were actually curses and not ´thank you´, ýou´re welcome,´and so forth as I was led to believe, I said goodbye to them and headed north!
I got to my hostel and it was like an episode of ´This is your Life´as I met a load of people that I had met on my travels so far. Always a fun get together as all of our respective paths have construed to throw us back together again, each of us having survived our own difficulties (like Norwegian heavyweights in my case) and increased our story loads to share again.
We went out to a street party in Lapa, several blocks of this area which are turned into a massive outdoor party with drinks and food being sold on the streets and the street kids trying to sell you chewing gum while the older ones tried to pick your pockets! Really enterprising kids!
I went to Ipanema beach next day to see if I could find the girl from the song but she proved elusive. Again I was confronted by the abomination that is Speedo´s but that was offset by the local girls again.
Some were playing a variation of volleyball in so much as they were playing football over a high net. I fell truly, deeply, madly, magnificently, completely, sincerely, genuinely and wholeheartedly in love with about 3 of them at the same time as they exhibited their skills in a dance sexier than the Tango to me. I was getting quite heady by the realisation that I was in a place where not only could I find a girl that understood the offside rule in football, but could actually play it aswell, that I had to sit down!
Next day we got another dose of football as 30 of us were taken from the hostel to see Vasco de Gama play their last game of the season. After going to so many matches in the past, it was kind of embarassing to be herded as a group to the game while the locals looked on at the gringos who they presumed were frightened stiff. To be honest with you, this was where I had felt the safest since I came to Brazil.
The fans were simply amazing. 90 minutes before the game they were singing and beating their drums without break, huge flags flying being waved by big men around the stadium. I thought we were going to get packaged off to a quieter section of the ground so I was quite surprised to see that we were absolutely immersed in the crazy section again, surrounded by the drums and the incredibly vocal fans. We were the only ones drinking beers, the rest of the stadium were just high on life.
Before the game, some under 6´s came out and the crowd acknowledged vigourously a recent competition that the little tykes had won. The game was a walkover 3-0 victory for the homeside but the real winners were the fans. (Check out the video I took of the fans on this site) I went outside after and bought some beers for the bus trip back and then bought some from the fans who were there too, courtesy of the Irish. They all took turns shaking my hands, sang Vasco songs for ages and then insisted on having their pictures taken with me. And all for the price of two cans of beer!
I have to wait for my new passport to arrive from Buenos Aires, via the Danish Consulate but I didn´t want to spend a week in Rio waiting for it, so I looked at a map, booked a flight and 5 hours later I was arriving into Salvador in the North West of the country.
This was the centre of African Slave Trade for several centuries, was the home of the first lighthouse in the Americas, was where Amerigo Vespucci first landed on this continent and is the home of the largest Carnivale in the world (and you thought it was Rio de Jeneiro!) So much history here, great foods and music everynight, I think I have found my base for a week.
I have checked into another great hostel with Russell and Kyeko being amongst the nicest hosts I have ever met. As Russell said, it really didn´t feel like work to them and it kicked off a thought in my head about wanting to own one of these places one day and the immortal words `` Find a job that you love and you will never work a day in your life´´
Hmmmmm
It is hot up here in almost every possible meaning of the word! The weather, food, music and women can all apply that prefix and so it is easy to see why I am loving this place! It really has given me a real flavour of Brazil now and would definitely be the first city I would visit again if I ever came back.
The only drawback, and it is a big one, is that there is a very real criminal element in the city and this was impressed on us by our hosts as the group from our hostel were getting ready to go out. Usually you get dressed up to go out but we got dressed down, leaving our wallets, cameras and watches behind in the hostel.
It was frustrating but I remembered a friend of mine telling me that they had put some choice Portuguese curse words on notes and left them in their back pockets, so sick that they were of being robbed. The satisfaction must have been great though to find that your notes were gone and your would be thief was running away with a message that was sure to leave him with no doubt as to what he could do with himself.
But it was a great night, a large street party with red being the colour of choice for most there. Everyone was dancing and hardly any were drinking! The street kids collecting beer cans for recycling therefore hovered around us gringos with intent, we were their gravy train! We were also given little ribbons which they would tie on to your wrist with three knots, one for each of your wishes and when it fell off naturally, your wishes would come true. Russell, who owns the hostel, had his for three months. Mine fell off after an hour and a half so I must be really lucky!!
I have mentioned already the amount of history associated with this city so I took myself off on a long walk to explore. I saw where the slaves had been brought ashore, where they had been whipped and the churches that they had built and looked to for solace. I visited one church whose interior had been furnished in a Baroque style, the truly breathtaking aspect of which was that it was almost entirely decorated in gold!
This wasn´t some small sacristy here, this was a big church and I stood agog as I tried to take it all in. It was phenomenal and I didn´t know where to look, so much was the grandeur of the place. But not even this was to prove to be, for me personally, my greatest find.
My guide book had made a scant reference at the end of a sculpture that was in one of the churches in Salvador. So I climbed up the beautiful cobbled stones street to the delapidated church on the hill. The old man at the door took my 2 Reals (US$1) and I entered. I had the building to myself and the first thing I came across was an unremarkable little church. I walked on, noting that if they didn´t tear this building down, it might very well fall down of it´s own accord.
According to my book, the sculpture of Jesus Christ was made in 1730 by Francisco Xavier das Chagas, a slave with no formal training. I walked past a room, dirty and dark save for a solitary bulb in the middle lighting up a glass case in the middle. I wandered in to take a look, confident that this ´sacred art treasure of Bahia´could hardly have been housed in such an inauspicious place.
But there it was, quite simply and personally, the finest sculpture I had ever seen (and I´ve seen David and the Venus di Milo) It was simply amazing, as much for it´s brilliance as for the uncomplimentary surroundings that it seemed to have found itself in. As I wiped the dust from the peeling roof off the display, I marvelled at this sculpture for nearly 30 mins, taking it in from every possible angle.
Again the book had said that it was ´set apart from other sculptures by its drops of blood, made from whale oil, ox blood, banana resin and 2000 rubies,´ but the sheer detail of the piece had not merited a mention. The piece had the reddish, bloody hue that you would have reasonably attributed to someone who had in fact been tortured, whipped and nailed to a cross. I left eventually but just as I was about to leave the building, I had to go back.
It really felt like I had stumbled on something truly rare and I said to the old man that it should be in a Paris, London or New York show room so that hundreds of thousands could enjoy it and not the lucky few that climbed the hill. He just smiled and made reference to the fact that 2 Reals will buy you a bottle of water or could pay for a phone call and so few came to see it.
And then I took back my previous thought. There should be some rewards for the travellers when they go out in the world and seek out these treasures, not everything can be brought back to the armchair enthusiasts!
The next day, I again set out to see the sights with my new roommate Reggie, a Brazilian with an infectious personality! He was invaluable as I got a local lady to sheer my head, the heat making my excessive hair unmanageable. She used her machine to cut off a large chunk of the hair from the back of my head in both a blade 2 and 3 and THEN asked me which level I would like! Well the boat has pretty much sailed if I had wanted a blade 3 I thought but I took the military style 2 blade with a smile!
Another beautiful sunset drinking from coconuts greeted us before a group of us went out to see a live performance with two bands. And this was yet another wonderful discovery! I had heard some samba-reggae, distinct from pure reggae, but another variation was Axé and this music was unreal!
It was in a large courtyard with no roof and the stage was set up in the middle. First up was Olodum, a band who have played with Michael Jackson and Paul Simon. They were really good, with their choreography and timing. But one of their former members had left them to set up Vixe Mainha and they were simply amazing!
I couldn´t resist the temptation to dance, really losing myself in the music. There was such an amazing vibe in the place which was catching as people looked left and right and smiled at each other. I have loaded a video to give you some idea of what it was like if you can view it.
There were two huge security guards behind us and when I asked them if I could take their picture, their frowns were enough to tell me no, even if their wagging fingers were emphasising the point!
I apologised and told them it was my first time in Brazil, that I hardly spoke any Portuguese, that I was Irish and that I was really loving Salvador. ´´Welcome,´´ they said non-commitally and I thought I detected the slightest hint of a smile!
I got talking to Nivia, a girl that had been dancing in the VIP section. I told her how much I loved this music and that even though I didn´t understand the words, my love of music and singing meant that I could still really appreciate it. The security guards were now full blown smiling at me as I talked to her and I seized on this moment of weakness and took some really funny photos with them!
Nivia knew Pierre´s (the singer) wife and asked if I would like to meet him after the performance. Of course I said yes and was whisked past security and spoke to him for a while via Nivia´s interpreting. She told him that I was a singer and he asked me for one of my CD´s! Hmmm, sorry, I was all out of them right now but if I get your address I can mail you one......!!
Seriously though, he was so kind and took time to talk to me, insisting on a photo of the two singers. I was given one of the VIP passes for the club that I was going on to next. I met my two security guards friends outside and they got me a cab and told the driver that there was to be no funny business (what that could have entailed I wasn´t sure I wanted to know) and from the size of them, I was sure that I was going to be safe.
When I got to the club they let me in but told me that I needed a passport to enter (for non nationals). I thought for a second and showed them the picture of me and Pierre whom they obviously recognised and they let me in, rather than upset one of this famous performers close ´friends!!´
Some more great music and dancing and Reggie and I got back around 4am. I´m a new convert to this music now and if you want to have a listen, click on this for just a sample. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6F-qdy8yV4
So just two days left in Salvador so I have to soak up as much of the local music and culture as I can. And to that effect I hope to meet Nivia tonight to see some small local band, lets hope she doesn´t tell them that I sing and they invite me up, my Portuguese really is a little rusty!!
Ok, I never like to gloss over my adventures but in light of what happened to me in the last few days, this entry is going to be just that.
I spent the last few days in Salvador checking out the sights and listening to live music. I took part in a massive religious procession on the 8th in 33 degree heat, the faithful throng were incredibly energetic despite the oppressive sun but I kept my hands in my pockets as there were lots of pickpockets about, every few minutes the cops had to march some of them off.
But I had to head back to Rio and catch up with a few old mates, John (whom I knew in Sydney) and Madison who I had met in Iguazu. It was great to see them, particularly John as it threw up those old memories of Sydney again (like when I met Steve last month in Buenos Aires) Needless to say there were a few big nights to be had. The weather had been ok but just when we wanted to go up and see the famous Christ the Redeemer statue (or ´JC´ to us) it was pouring down.
Still though, one of the new wonders of the world still had to be seen. John was eternally optimistic that the weather would clear but that was wishful thinking. As we stood at His feet, we couldn´t even see His head! It is truly impressive but I will have to take other people´s words for that.
That was one box ticked off however but I really wanted to play some football on Copacabana beach. I walked past a game very slowly and waited for an invitation which duly came. I was given the ball, I flicked it up to myself, volleyed it again, then turned and back heeled it over the keeper into the top corner! But then it was time to start the game! I was ready to walk away, happy with my work and ready to embellish that goal for the rest of my life, but teams were picked and it was time to get down to business.
I was wrecked! Ten minutes of running on the sand and I thought my chest was going to explode. I wheezed out words in Portuguese of ´tired´, ´old´ and ´white´ but they fell on deaf ears. But gradually I found my second wind (and subsequently my third and fourth) and continued on.
And then it happened... I stopped an attack and flicked the ball to one of my teammates, who controled it on his thigh and chipped it back to me again as I had advanced up the ´pitch.´ I took it on my chest and, with the keeper coming out, I volleyed it over his head and it flew in off the post! Both sides started clapping and my team came over to me (now lying prostate in the sand in exhaustion) and jumped on me shouting, ´Gringo, Gringo, Gringo!!´
Now I am not wishing my life away particularly when I have so much more to achieve but if I had died then, I would have died happy! And the big gash on my shin from a collision will always leave a reminder of that ´happiness!!´
That night, we went to a samba club in a bad area of town. It was insane, the place looked like a large shopping centre, very well lit up with tons of people dancing to songs that used to go on for about 20 minutes or more. I didn´t know where they got their energy. The older ladies in particular were grabbing the gringos and teaching them a few steps and unfortunately, my efforts were captured and posted on You Tube!
I´m signing off on this entry knowing that this will put a smile on your face! http://youtube.com/watch?v=Wj3NUoAdUQA
Honestly, I do not know where to start on this entry. How can so much can happen to a nice, quiet guy like me in 48 hours, I just don´t know... I better tell you about it.
So, I had booked a flight to Santa Cruz (Bolivia) via Sao Paulo and I took myself off to the airport, complete with my new passport. I was going through the standard check in process when I was asked where were my flight details for when I was leaving Bolivia. Huh? I have no idea when I am going to leave Bolivia, I said to them, I will play it by ear. They didn´t like that but they pressed on.
I was then asked to present my Yellow Fever Certificate. I had planned on getting my shot when in Bolivia because it was free but now they said that I wasn´t allowed to fly because I hadn´t got it already? I tried to explain that I hadn´t been to a country with Yellow Fever but they said the airline had their own rules and that I would have to forfeit the flight.
So I asked for a refund (minus what I presumed was a cancellation cost) but they said that technically I was a ´No Show´ and that I couldn´t get a refund. What do you mean a ´No Show´, I´m right here you moron?!! So then I asked if I could at least take the Sao Paolo leg of the flight but they said no again, claiming that it was all the one ticket.
Now I don´t quite know how to explain the feeling when that pith in your stomach opens wide and a wave of nausea engulfs you as you are faced with losing the money for the cost of the flight, the realisation that you will have to make alternative plans and that you can´t now make it to Bolivia for Christmas which you had planned to spend with friends.
I then asked if I could use the ticket as a credit for another flight and they said yes. So I booked myself on to a flight to Buenos Aires for two days later. I asked where could I get the vaccination and they said that it was free in the airport. Finally, some luck but that wasn´t to last. I went down to the guy and he was babbling something in Portuguese, getting increasingly upset that I couldn´t make out a word he was saying.
Finally, he pointed at a sign telling me that they were out of the Yellow Fever vaccine. Perfect I thought and was about to leave when he said something to me about the cert. We ´talked´ for about 10 minutes, wildly throwing our arms around trying to make the other understand. But when a couple came in for another cert, he made the signal to zip up my lips and keep quite. It was then I realised that this guy could be bribed.
When they left, the first thing I asked him in Spanish was, ´How much?´ and an evil grin passed across his face. He said he would have to talk to his ´amigo´ and then came back and wrote on a page that he wanted US$100 for him and the same for his friend. I went for my bag to leave, clearly I wasn´t going to pay anything like that, when he called me back and conspiratorially whispered that he was happy to forget his friend if I just gave him his $100. No honour amongst thieves I guess.
But still it was too high and I went for my wallet to show him how much money I had and he went nuts, indicating that if he was seen taking money he would lose his job. It was then I knew I could get him right down. A few minutes later, I was the proud owner of a Yellow Fever Cert backdated to November for the sum of $40. It meant that I could get in to Bolivia if I could just get there.
So it was back to the hostel, much to the amusement and surprise of all there. I explained what happened and then booked back in. So myself and my friends, the two Johns, went out to Ipanema that night. We first went to a place imaginatively called ´The Irish Pub´ and met Gerry. Gerry´s story was not an uncommon one around these parts, he worked hard and partied little for 11 months of the year on a building site and then he would take a month off over Christmas, come to Rio and sleep with prostitutes!
This was his third year in a row doing it and frankly his candid way of explaining the benefits of Viagra, prostitute negotiations and renting apartments for a month was endearing but ultimately creepy. We shot glances at each other and decided it was time to leave.
We were walking outside, laughing at our recent encounter and putting it down to another storytelling opportunity, when a police car pulled up alongside us and the officers got out. Now, Brazilian police are famously corrupt so I remember saying to the guys, ´Well here´s another story.´ Unfortunately I was all too right.
They first asked if we were Brazilian and when we said we were Irish, they said that they had to check us for drugs. Hmmm, the words ´probably cause´ seemed to mean little to them as they began to frisk the lads. I had taken my camera and money out of my pockets and when they checked them, they put their hands in my front pockets and then my backpockets too. They found the little black book I carry to get people´s e-mail addresses on my travels and for any insights and I hoped they didn´t think it was a drug dealers book.
Then I couldn´t help but notice that one officer was paying particular attention to my bum as he groped around my backpockets. Then he took his hand around to the front and without hesitation, dropped his hand inside my boxers and gave my private parts a right rummage around. I couldn´t believe it, I had heard of the Long Arm of the Law but this was just wrong. I was being violated by these cops and there was nothing I could do about it. Any resistance would have meant a beating and a trip in the car to somewhere.
Then when he was finished, they left with a ´Good night´ and off they went. I was livid and felt dirty but a barman in the next bar said that we had got off ´lucky´ because often, they would plant drugs on tourists when they were frisking them and then you would have to pay an exhorbitant amount of money to avoid any jail time. I didn´t feel too lucky though and the barman apologised as he said that the police force was a huge embarassment to the nation, due to their corruptability. They were also extremely fond of fondling aswell I was going to add but it was a moot point.
The next day was a slow one in the hostel as myself, Madison and the two Johns were all leaving. Before I left though I was invited to play futsol (a street version of football) with Eliseu and his friends. So there I was, a few hours before boarding my plane, playing futsol at midnight under lights. These guys had some extreme skills and they were so passionate about everything, scoring, fighting and complaining!
So I got to the airport and when the security person told me to wait for a moment while they checked my details with their supervisor, I felt that nausea coming back, oh no, what could happen now? But it was all ok and I took two flights down to Buenos Aires. They were unremarkable save for the fact that I was asleep on both before we took off and I had even managed to sleep through one of the landings aswell!
So back in BA, but leaving again today to get back on a bus, those old reliables, up to Salta which is a big step nearer to Bolivia which is taking on Holy Grail like significance as I try and make my way up there for Christmas!
If I don´t write another entry before Christmas I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a safe and successful 2008.
And here´s my Christmas present (courtesy of Chantal). This web page is beautiful and really resonates with me, I hope it does for you too...
http://www.drokpa.com/Quotes.php
..... take two diuretics and then board a toilet-less bus for three hours at altitude... but I am getting ahead of myself!
Apologies for the delay in updating my stories but I have been breathless, literally! I am currently in La Paz, Bolivia, nearly 4km up above sea level but let me tell you how I got here.
I spent two days in the nice town of Salta after arriving from Buenos Aires on yet another bus. It was full of Christmas hustle and bustle and it was nice to get swept up in it, if only temporarily. I then set off with Barry, a mate I have met all over South America to La Quiaca, the border town on the Argentinian side and then we walked over to Villazon in Bolivia.
Well we did eventually, after a brief hiccup where the Argentinian customs guy had given us an entry stamp instead of the obligatory exit one. But this issue sufficiently smiled through we arrived into my 6th South America country to date. The things that struck initially was the distinctive indigenous look of the people, their diminutive size, their large smiles and their overindulgence in colourful wear!
The other thing that seemed to attack us almost immediately was the lack of oxygen which was oppressive! Short gasps of air was all you could do, even while stationary. Which, in fact we were for most of the morning as we waited to buy tickets for that afternoon´s train. Barry started to nosebleed which gave us yet another indicator of our exalted status.
I met my mate Matt randomly again, whom I hadn´t seen since my boat trip to Uruguay weeks before which reminded me again how small the world is. We were the only three eating in an out of the way ´restaurant´and catching up on our respective adventures whiled away the hours before the train ride.
It was truly a beautiful, if albeit, frustratingly slow one but I think it put me in touch with the Bolivian pace of things. We trundled along so slowly in fact that my empty Pringles box didn´t fall over all night! At one point, I woke and while looking out at the bleak countryside I came across a huge hill that was a cemetery with large headstones, eerily miles away from any town. I felt really blessed for some reason for having woke at that moment.
The next morning after countless miles of barren land, a truly magical apparition happened as the train tracks divided a huge lake, the far sides of which I couldn´t see on either side and which were populated with a mass of birds, particularly thousands of flamingos. All of us gringos in the carriage looked at each other as if to verify that we could believe what we were seeing. I think that Bolivia was revealing itself to me...
I met Kat, Amanda and Amy, friends of mine from Brazil at Oruru, the train destination, and they started to warn me about altitude sickness and the horror stories that they had endured. They knew the way to the bus station so with Marie from Ireland, we organised a trip to La Paz. Now backpackers are generally a generous lot, unwritten universal traveller rules apply and if you can help a fellow roamer, then it is incumbent on you to do so. So the girls generously gave me two diuretics which they assured me would help me with my anticipated altitude sickness.
Well, I can tell you one thing, the very real threat of an exploding bladder is just the tonic when you are trying to take your mind of the supposed threat of altitude sickness! I applied all of my mind deflective techniques as we arrived up to La Paz and to be honest, just seeing it, took my mind of my discomfort (temporarily!)
I knew this was a ´Consi´ kind of place, whatever that means exactly! But I knew that this was to be home for some time. Once settled into The Wild Rover, owned by the irrepressible Davie from Tipp, Ireland, I set out for a walk but that was to prove a bridge too far. I was woozy, tired and I had a dry cough. This altitude malarky is for real!
The next day was Christmas Eve and I loved walking around the huge markets that at all times maintained a great calmness and dignity despite the fervoured business. I bought 11 toys for the local kids which was to be my Christmas present to myself. Ok, who I am I kidding, I also indulged in a few drinks that night at the bar where I firmly impressed myself on all and sundry! I spent as much time behind the bar serving drinks as I did on the other side receiving them!
I was in my element! The next day I went to mass said my a Ghandi look-a-like with Jasna from Croatia and then I went to an Internet Cafe to call home! Technology is a wonderful thing when it works and frustratingly my family couldn´t see me on Skype but it was so much fun telling my Mam exactly what she was wearing and the colour of her Christmas Cracker Hat!!
We had a wonderful Christmas dinner and my Mam received hostel wide laudits for sending me a text wishing Davie and his family the very best Christmas wishes because he was looking after her son for Christmas dinner! I am not sure what she would have thought about the fact that Davie then offered her son a real job....
In case anyone is on Skype I can be found on dconsidine1
Putting the potential job offer to one side, the days that followed Christmas Day took on a similar feel, a lot of festivities, partying and recovering. The altitude, which I had thought I had conquered with aplomb, really came back to bite me, none more so than on St. Stephen´s Day (Boxing Day to the non-Irish) when I took it upon myself to start singing in Ollie´s Bar, following a huge tradition back in Ireland.
Well I can tell you this, singing for an hour at this altitude is enough to leave you weak so I took heed of that and had a relatively quite few days in anticipation of my 62.4km bike ride down the "World´s Most Dangerous Road."
Maria, my Irish friend and I, set off early after disruptive nights sleeps thanks to worry and snoring roommates respectively. We met our fellow riders in a coffee shop and I can only presume it was a nervous energy which started us on a pointless conversation of the bones that we had all respectively broken. With that cheery thought in mind, we took a bus up to 4,700m , our start off point.
Our guides, Damon and Cesar, got us our bikes and safety gear and gave us an extensive safety lecture. I was somewhat preturbed to see that Damon directed the comment, "the only thing that can kill you on the road is if you mistake ability for testosterone," to me... Hmmmm
Before we took off, we had to drop some pure alcohol on our bikes, the ground and then down our throats to appease ´Pachamama´, the Mother Earth that was to protect us on our trip. As we set off on the first 20km on tarmacadam road, as I was inhaling desperately, all I could taste was this drink and I was afraid of giving a much more direct `offering´ to Pachamama in the projectile form.
But the stunning views around me took my mind of it. We had really been lucky with the day and cycling around and above these majestic mountains was truly a breathtaking adventure. I was getting to know my bike, learning to lean into bends, accelerating out of them and ducking down to get as much speed as possible. I was loving this...
Then, at one of our breaks, we were told that we were about to go off road, to get on the gravel and to actually travel down what is (or at least was) considered the most dangerous road in the world until a new road was built only 1 year ago.
We had been told to try and stay in formation as much as we could, to find our natural place in the group so that we weren´t holding a stronger cyclist up who might not be able to overtake on the winding corners. I was feeling pretty good after the first 20km, and having been frustrated behind a couple that had annoyingly made it difficult for me to pass them on the higher section, I set off first after Cesar. What a rush... Flying downhill on gravel roads, arms tensed to absorb each shock under the wheel, eyes focused down to see the next rock or dip to avoid, the surroundings whizzing by...
In my defence, I thought I was supposed to keep up with Cesar (the professional guide) and worried that I was holding up people behind (you couldn´t turn around and you certainly couldn´t hear them), I decided to follow his lines around the corners and do my best to fly down the road.
But in a flash I knew that I had made a terrible mistake, having made the fundamental and often fatal mistake of mistaking ability for ambition.
I flew around a corner, following the line Cesar had taken and then I saw that there was no road in front of me. It was a sharp right turn and on the left was a sheer drop into a jungle, over a kilometer down.
And at that moment, I was equally as certain that I was going to die. The physics of the situation presented themselves as clear as anything I have ever seen, my speed divided by the distance that I had left to break just had to mean that I was going over the side.
I would like to confirm for you all that your life flashes before you in these moments, but it doesn´t. Instead, there is a vacuous calm, a distinct release of any pent up emotions, a definitive and comprehensive realisation of all that is truly important to you. I have to say that I do recall in that fraction of a second being ironically happy that I was going to die doing something that I wanted, pushing the envelope, in control of my own destiny, following my dreams. Scant consolation some of you might say, but I do remember a kind of solace in that thought.
But then, as any of you that really knows me would testify is a frustrating part of my character, I decided that ´No,´ I didn´t agree with this outcome and that I was going to fight it.
Every fibre of my being, every experience I had ever gleaned, every ounce of my stubborness said I would try and defy the odds, confound the physics and survive this. And with a determination that has been cultivated all my life by my reluctance to agree with anything that my bosses, my coaches, anyone in authority and even my parents have told me unless I also agree, I crunched down on the breaks, shifted my body weight and gritted my teeth.
To be honest, I was praying for a massive crash on the gravel, some nasty scars and maybe even a break, all miles ahead in preference to the alternative. But I continued to skid towards the edge and I gripped and turned the handlebars until my wheels were aligned, not an A4 page from the sheer drop. I continued this skid along the edge for probably no more than four or five metres but it seemed to last an eternity...
Even then, I have to concede I thought that my gallant attempt was going to prove futile, but thank God above in Heaven, I started to get purchase with my back wheel and I coaxed myself about a metre from the edge and, although, still going at a reckless speed, I just knew that I was going to be ok....
I cycled on in a state of shock but also with adrenaline off the charts. Cesar couldn´t believe that I was close behind him as I found out afterwards that he had only gone on so fast so that he could take pictures of us as we arrived. So I nearly killed myself trying to avoid a photo opportunity....
I was going to say nothing but the couple behind complained me, telling Damon that they didn´t want anyone that out of control in their group as it might traumatise THEM if I went over in front of them!! Ammm, I think it might have traumatised me more but I wasn´t going to argue. When Damon asked if anyone had had a near death experience, I sheepishly raised my hand and he just said that that wasn´t to happen again.
I took the next few sections relatively easily until my heart rate came back in line but I was soon back at the head of proceedings but this time with a lot more caution. It was a wonderful experience all together and yet another confirmation to me that life is for living, no matter how close you might be to death.
The same could happen on your way home from work in the car, I tried to rationalise to myself, but in saying that, I had to concede that my active pursuit of happiness doesn´t always have to have such a poor consolation prize..
But I was alive and very well and the next 24 hours was to bring a surprise visit and a very successful night at Karaoke!!
Well back to that job offer. In clearly a moment of alcohol induced madness, Davie had asked me to run one of his hostels. It was quite a conflict for me, weighing up the lure of the open road against the opportunity to run my own hostel as I saw fit. I´m still deciding...
But the day after my near ET experience off the side of the cliff, I met Hannah, a friend of mine that has had the auspicious honour of being mentioned in three other countries already in this blog, Laos, Vietnam and Australia! It was great to see her and we laughed at how our initial idealistic plans of, `Hey, I´m going to be in South America for Christmas´, `Hey, so am I, we should meet up?´ had somehow come to fruition.
Oscar and Katie were other backpackers who brought a unique gift on their travels, a Karaoke machine! Now I am not a great lover of this form of musical expression although you wouldn´t have believed it to see me! We had another great night and this kicked on to New Years Eve aswell. It was great to be surrounded by so many friends on the night and in to the early morning.
But after the partying there was some exploring to do. I set off with Aileen and Owen on an overnight bus to Uyuni to see the Salt Flats. Gringos (us foreigners) inevitably pay more for these buses than the locals but it afforded us the front seats although that was not exactly comforting as we watched the driver turn off the road a few hours into the trip and onto a mud flat.
There were no signs, no previous tyre tracks, I swear this guy was following the stars as we weaved across the land. Only a local could have made this drive, a marathon 13 hour effort with the one driver who sat there and munched his coca leaves like his life depended on it. Ironically, it did but so did ours!
We set off to see the Salt Flats, a massive `lake`of salt, 10m deep at points with 2 girls a German and a Bolivian and a Uruguayan couple. We all took land rovers to cross the often difficult terrain. Now, its hard after travelling for some time to keep finding new ways and things to excite yourself but I have never been to a place like this before. As far as the eye could see was brilliante white, the horizon melted into the sky and the backdrops led to amazing and imaginative pictures.
Some people had hired 4x4´s of their own over the years and stories abounded of some that had died as they tried to find a way off, and others who had driven for two days solid without seeing another car. It was easy to get disorientated and end up going around in circles. It was a magnificent place and while Aileen was feeling a little under the weather, Owen and I took it upon ourselves to have a right laugh and disrupt any tranquility that others could have been having, this was a playground, a unique place, well for us it was at least!
That night we stayed in probably the most remote village I have ever stayed at, San Juan. We were hours from anywhere but there is always room for a guitar and an impromptu night of music as European and South American playing jousted for supremacy. It was another great night of spontaneity.
The next day was boring, no other word for it. Hours of bouncing along in our car (which I was now suspecting had the engine of a lawnmower) as we periodically stopped at places where it was not entirely evident what the attraction there was!
Again Owen and I had to lift our own spirits by cracking jokes and the German girl told us after that when she got out of the car she had to take a few ´private´ moments to gather herself after the onslaught of laughter she had heard for the previous few hours. It was a compliment of sorts, a kind of ´Irish compliment´ I guess!
We woke at 4am next morning to go see some geysers, sulphur geysers which reminded me of Rotorua in New Zealand, SMELLY!! Then we were taken to some hot thermal baths which was really nice, over 4000m above sea level. And then we saw the spectacular Green Lagoon where I tried to inhale a clowd (see pictures!)
But then we had the long drive back to Uyuni. No radio reception so we shared songs with each other, ´The Ratlin Bog´ being a favourite for its complete stupidity!
Having prior knowledge of the chaos of bus companies, we had to fight our corner to maintain our seats for the trip back to La Paz, with double and triple selling of the same seats common. So, back to the Wild Rover and to some bad news.
Ronan Lawlor, the young Irish backpacker who had been trekking around South America, had gone missing in early December. His body had been found in Torres Del Paine, a famous park in Southern Chile by some other travellers the day we came back. It made us all take stock and show even greater resolve to get us through our travels.
Ronan Lawlor, RIP.
Bolivia, having been forced into the stratosphere by millions of years of geographical pressure, pretty much has covered all bases in the Guinness Book of Records, `Highest XXXXX in the World´ Categories and golf courses were no exception. I set off with Adam and George to play the course after another big night in La Paz.
We paid our green fees, selected our clubs and then we were strongly advised to pay for some caddies to carry them as we were altitude. This was sound advice and soon we were introduced to Juan, Victor and Ruben who were to bring a whole new aspect to golf as we knew it.
Even if you are not a golfer, you can appreciate the sheer joy of partaking in an activity you love without ANY of the physical effort, it´s like gardening with an ice tea in hand and having someone else prune the roses!
At first I was a little self conscious about handing my club back to Ruben after a shot but after a while I got the hang of it and true professional style, was throwing him my ball to clean without even looking! We were building up quite a rapport and like when I discovered caddy cars, I wondered how I had ever played the game without them before!
And then I fell, hard! It seems that I am hardly happy on this trip to endure a single week without inflicting some damage on myself but on this occasion it had an unforseen benefit! I slipped off an embankment and in a vain, pathetic and ultimately pointless attempt to keep my clothes clean, thrust out my arm which only succeeded in jarring my shoulder out of place. Fortunately, (!), I hit it off something else on the way down and it returned to its position again.
After the initial laughter (mine included) had died down, we realised that I had hurt myself. But I was playing golf, on a truly unique course and with a caddie so I carried on. And (I am ashamed to admit this), my bust shoulder actually improved my game! Shots went straighter and even the caddies were getting a laugh out of me. Still, 4 holes later I was in the clubhouse getting some local ointment rubbed on it and some heavy painkillers but I played on.
Great day though, so much fun and we invited the caddies in for a drink but we could see that they were visibly concerned about this. We wouldn´t take no for an answer and they came in to the dead bar and sat as quiet as church mice, sipping their cokes as the bar manager gave them evil stares. Clearly, caddies belong on the course and not fraternising with their rich employers which angered us all.
The next day was my last in La Paz, so I ran around to see all the things that had eluded me in the previous three weeks. The Witches Market with the Llama foetus was a bit creepy though! It was sad to say goodbye to all the gang in the hostel, it had been a great Christmas there.
We (Casey, Naomi and Hamish and Caroline, Aucklanders and for some reason proud of that) took the bus to Copacabana which is the kick off spot for Isla Del Sol on Lake Titicaca (a name that has been entertaining juvenile minded people for decades!)
Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world (again Bolivia taking another Guinness honour) and we took a look around the Island. It had been overcast and wet for the days previously but true to form and hardly surprising for something called, Island of the Sun, it scorched down and caught us all unawares as people baked in the sun, none more than me.
My lips took the brunt of it for some reason so I went to a Farmacia for some medication. I had asked for some ointment for my burnt lips but in my not yet perfect Spanish it must have come out as, `Please, have you something that will make my lips explode bearing a not too dissimilar look to a Babboon with Scurvy?!´ Good God, they went septic but you will be happy to hear that I have brought them under control again!
Before we left Copacabana, we were treated to an amazing spectacle. About 60 or 70 cars, jeeps and even buses were lined up outside the Franciscan church, each one adorned with flowers and garlands all in search of a blessing. The engines were exposed for the blessing and offerings of food and drink were put in on top of them as the Franciscan priest came around, blessed the car, all of the extended family and then posed for pictures.
But he took off quick smart as the owners showered their cars in beer (or champagne if they could afford it) and they even doused it on their engines!! Now I have been accused in the past of thinking that beer is sacred but here was the proof. It was incredibly colourful, and LOUD as each car then was exorcised with a series of firecrackers which made children scatter and cause the older men to go even more deaf.
There was much hugs and happiness (helped on by the drinking of the excess beer) and as we looked at the offerings on the ground, it was cute to see that some had put little signs of `Internet´ because that was something that they wanted to get for the following year.
Hamish, Caroline, Naomi and I then crossed the border to Peru next day where I gave Eber, the shoe shine boy coins from all around the world that I have picked up on my travels. He had shown great enterprise and asked the customs officials where we were from while we were filling in our dockets and then came out and proceeded to ´guess´ what cities in each of our countries we were from. He got Limerick (frustratingly after Dublin and Cork) so hence the reason why I rewarded him. He was delighted although I wasn´t entirely sure what he was going to do with a coin from Swaziland.
We got to Puno, the town which is the jump off point for the floating islands but within a minute we had all looked at each other and collectively trudged back to the bus station and booked a ticket to Arequipa.
Arequipa is Peru´s second largest city, with lots of tourist activities. We went to the Colca Canyon for a day (the tour starting at 2:30am would you believe!) and saw the World´s Deepest Canyon, huge Condors flying wild, local kids doing a ceremonial dance in the town square at 7am for the tourists (poor things!) and had a snowball fight at 5000m.
Next day, we visited the mysterious Convent Santa Catalina, which before 1970, had been closed off to the public for 391 years. In the early days the nuns all came from rich families, had servants and parties and a rare old time of it by all accounts. But then a strict Dominican nun came in and sorted out all that nonsense and it was all business then. Still, it was a massive place, a city inside a city, with streets and countless little houses. It was truly an amazing place and we spent hours taking it all in.
Having dinner that evening we were pounced, beset, accosted (I don´t know how else to describe it) by Chris from `Cali´ which we eventually worked out meant California. Chris blurted out (without provocation) that he loved New Zealand, that he was going to write a thesis on the geographical differences between NZ and Iceland, pointing out to us that the latter was different because it was more northern and spoke a different language!!
George Bush was a jerk but so was `Mohammed Suharto´ the Indonesian President. Petrol was more expensive in the States that anywhere else in the world but it was really cheap in Egypt (being in the Middle East might help it in that regard). Reykjavic was the most expensive city he had ever been but Japan was the most expensive country. He was going to go to London and did I know anyone there as he only had $600 to spend in Europe. His mother had gone to Iceland when she was 13 with kids from her school but now she was a crack addict who had stolen all his money. Sleeping on the floor for one night of the week was recommended by most doctors. He had been to 10 countries in the world but none in Europe because his American friends wouldn´t be that impressed by that.
And on and on and on he went, all of us agog at how this guy couldn´t see that our meals had come and we couldn´t even eat them. When his meal came, we scoffed our meals, asked for the bill through mouths of food and ran from the place. We then skipped from shadow to shadow for the rest of the evening in a desperate attempt to avoid the madman!
Still, we had been with him for 15 minutes but he has filled hours of bus miles recounting his crazy rants!
We visited a museum which was dedicated to the Inca ceremony of child sacrifice 500 years ago. This was hardcore stuff. First, a child was selected at birth and brought up blemish free to be eventually sacrificed to appease the Gods before he or she was 16. They would be walked hundreds of kilometers first and then without any climbing gear and in only sandals for their feet, they would climb over 6000m up to the top of the mountain before the `offering´ was drugged and then beaten over the head before being buried.
Ice has preserved them perfectly and in the case of Juanita, the most famous of them all, her internal organs are still perfect. Save for the huge crack on her head, you would think it would be just a case of thawing her out, giving her a couple of thousand volts and she would wake up with nothing more than a pretty severe hangover!
Having delivered Naomi to her boyfriend in Arequipa, Hamish, Caroline and I set off to Nasca in the Peruvian desert to take to the air for a truly (and potentially) out of this world view!
I was happy to leave Arequipa and get on the road again, this time to Nazca, a place where I have to be honest I hadn´t heard of but thankfully Hamish and Caroline had.
We arrived to our hostel a little early, well an entire day early we were told because I had got the booking wrong but Abdon opened the door with sleep in his eyes and a smile on his face! He and Hedwig were two of the nicest hosts you could meet and they allowed us check in early and get some sleep.
South America is synonymous with the drug trade and doing lines of cocaine but there are some other lines which might not be as famous but they certainly deserve to be. For it is here, in the arid, dry desert that different generations of the Nazca Culture for nearly a 1000 years (from about 200BC to 700AD) made huge shapes of birds, plants, animals, `spacemen` and countless lines and squirls which scientists have now discovered are directly in line with the stars and such phenomenon like the winter and summer solstices.
They are remarkable for two reasons. Firstly, none of them are deep, no more than a few centimeters in some places but the unique conditions in this region have kept them intact for 2000 years. The other amazing thing to consider is that they can´t be recognised as actual figures except from the air. Obviously, the ancient people that made them couldn´t have taken in their work from the air so it has caused all sorts of speculation as to their intentions and given rise to a myriad of hypothesis including one famous one that they were made for aliens with the assistance of aliens!
Either way, we took off in our little 4 seater plane ( a surreal experience in it´s own right) and took it all in. It was simply amazing to see how it had all been put together and how the Pan American Highway cuts right through it because no-one at ground level at the time could even see, literally, `the bigger picture!´
The next day, I set off to see some more Mummies. The one I had seen in Arequipa had been frozen for 500 years. These had stayed intact due to the dryness of the desert in which they were found. Grave diggers had plundered the graves many years ago of their treasures and left the `worthless´ skeletons out in the burning sun where they were bleached to an eerie white. They looked like TV props but you had to remember that you were looking at people who were once buried with honour, whose graves had been desecrated and who were now just sitting there, with clothes on, facing east and having their photo taken thousands of times...
One other Mummy in the small museum still had all of it`s skin intact, I honestly thought it could have woken up and stretched itself out!
But it was time to head on to Cuzco, the springboard for Machu Picchu, one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. I was to meet Cathy, a soon to be family member who was keen to do the trek. She was also bringing me some baked beans and Sandwich Spread from Ireland so I was triply excited as to her arrival.
Cuzco is a beautiful town, even more so at night. The focal point is the Plaza Des Armas with its magnificent cathedrals, cobbled streets, large park and a collection of good bars and clubs. Hamish and Caroline had joined us again and I met several of my old friends from the Wild Rover so a few big nights were recorded before we were to take on the dreaded Salkanthay trek up to Machu Picchu.
Like most things when you travel, it was to throw up scenarios and scenes that we could never have imagined....
`Then there was the bad weather,´ is ironically the first line of `A moveable feast´ (Hemingway) that I am reading currently and wasn´t that to play its part over the next few days. Cathy and I had decided to do the Salkanthay trek to Machu Picchu (MP) because we didn´t want to wait 9 days to do the famed Inca Trail and we knew it was a harder one (two other companies had refused to take us because it was too dangerous.)
It is the wet season now here, which was going to add to the complexities of the trip as we took some time to pack as lightly as we could for the epic journey.
Day 1
A 4am wake up call and we were picked up and met our travelling group. Three Argentinian lads from Buenos Aires (two Martin´s and Agustin) and Elaine and Martin from Perth. When the latter told us that they had only been at this altitude for one day we knew the writing was on the wall already for them.
We had breakfast in a town called Mollepata (I downed two local breakfast stews to the amusement of the waitress) and with walking sticks acquired (I named mine Curly), we set off with our guide Fernando. The countryside was spectacular as Fernando revelled in showing off his country, stopping to introduce us to local flowers and plants, some poisonous, others medicinally beneficial.
At one break, a herd of cows and bulls came very close and he told us not to be alarmed because being at this altitude had changed their demeanours. I wasn´t altogether sure about that because the first obstacle that we had had to overcome was a bull being `walked´ by two clearly drunk men down a road and when the bull decided to charge, one of them gallantly but ultimately stupidly held on and was dragged over rocks and mud in what reminded me of a black and white comedy of the 1930´s.
Fernando showed us about 7 short cuts that were to take a lot of time off the first leg of our trip. I don´t doubt that they did but they were near vertical and it spurred Cathy to confess `that these short cuts are a death trap!´
I think that these played a big part in her decision (and that of our scarily unprepared Australian friends) to take the offer of a lift from our lunch site to that of our camp site for the night while the rest of us walked in the pouring rain for another three hours before we got there.
The site was about as basic as you could imagine, a hut with three sides up high in the Peruvian highlands, surrounded by donkeys, roosters, cows and dogs. We were given tents to sleep in and a supper that we all ate, wrapped up in fleeces and gloves as the cold set in. It was a surreal setting with one of the most amazing `views´ from a `restaurant´ I have ever seen. Of course, the toilet here left something to be desired, a hole in the ground surrounded by some tarpaulin and no roof, something that the girls in the group were appalled about.
Day 2
So much so, that we didn´t see the Aussies again, they packed up and left as we set off on the hardest day of our trek. We were to climb Salkanthay, a 4650 peak and Cathy showed her infinite wisdom by hiring a horse to do the work for her as myself and the remaining group set off on our trek.
After our 5am wake up, it was hard to get the legs going and we struggled early on. There was a sheer climb up a winding road and every step leadened our legs and tightened our chests. One of the Martin´s was nicknamed Gaucho and he powered up the mountain like it was an Olympic event. We hung on to his coat tails and tried to do our best to keep up, greatly increasing our effort but equally making it more of an achievement.
There were times though when it was a sheer slog, one painful step in front of another and my experience in Pucon, falling short of the top of the volcano, was very much in my mind. I dug really deep (way past anger, revenge and those other negative emotions) and found the one I was looking for, resolve. And as we reached Cathy, perched on a rock at the top not even slightly out of breath, I was overcome with a happy exhaustion. But when it started snowing up there, there was just enough time to make a small, rock tower to thank Pachamama for helping me up her mountain.
The descent had it´s own problems, so hard on the knees and ankles but we knew (from our briefing) that the worst was behind us so we walked on jovially to our lunch site. And it was then that things went very, very wrong...
We had porters who were carrying our tents, food, gas, some of our excess clothes etc and they were supposed to be aided by horses but due to some financial dispute, the horses hadn´t come so neither was our dinner.
We stood forlornly looking out into the mist, the exhileration of our earlier successes rapidly waning, as we willed to see our cooks coming in to sight but to no avail. After two hours of standing in the cold, another group gave us a cheese sandwich each and a cup of tea and we set off again, each of us in quiet reflection which quickly turned, in my case, to an intense bitterness for the person who had penny pinched and left us out here stranded.
To compound things, it started to bucket down on top of us as our continued descent turned into a walk through a bubbling brook as the water poured down the path we were on. Then my pancho tore which left me getting soaked as our legs cramped up and our stomachs rumbled. I couldn´t hear mine as I grumbled obscenities to myself. I was realiably informed that we were walking through some amazing jungle but I had my head down, picking out my footsteps in an attempt not to roll an ankle which would have really finished me off.
Fernando had assured us of the 120+ micro climates in the world, Peru boasts 88 and I can assure you that one of them is relentless rain on muddy roads in the middle of nowhere.
We got to our camp site and to our worst fear, our porters hadn´t made it there so Fernando had to ask a woman if we could sit in her kitchen for a while. So the five of us were huddled, freezing in this woman´s kitchen, a kitchen with no eletricity, bamboo reeds for walls, a small fire in the corner on which she was cooking and a mud floor.
This was probably wise however because it would have been hard to keep a normal floor clean with the 15 guinea pigs that were running around under our feet, trying to avoid the 4 chickens, the cat and the big dog that were also competing for space. I was insisting that one or more of them get sacrificed for our dinner (and I WAS serious) but Cathy wouldn´t hear of it. Grrrrr....
Now I have found myself in some downright strange places on this trip but this one ranks highly. The two young children were man handling all of the pets to some degree or another and in the first hour I saw one of the small chicks and the cat end up in the fire (the latter for an all too brief moment)
We just couldn´t believe what was happening. But the lady took pity on us and gave us some soup and we took off our socks and shoes and tried to dry them around the dying embers of the fire, as our toes froze again. Since there was no sign of our porters, she invited us to stay in her room where she slept with her boys. She put a mat on the mud floor and we took 7 blankets (which she had in abundance) and tried to keep warm. It was 7pm.
My anger had turned to incredulity but I eventually resided back at my usual `try to find the humour in the situation´ self as I asked Cathy where she had been this time the week before and she said she had been with friends, having a drink before going back to a warm bed.
Ah, that was better I thought as I pulled the covers over my head and chuckled away, someone was appalled by this even more than me!
Day 3
Aching from our night´s `sleep´ we were told that our porters had eventually arrived at 11pm so we were to have breakfast. We got back into our wet clothes and set off again for a short 5.5 hour trek to our lunch spot. The good weather had finally come and our surroundings really were stunning as we crossed the river that would one day join the Amazon. We crossed over waterfalls on rickety bridges that took a great deal of concentration because one slip and chances are they would have found your body somewhere in Brazil.
We were getting used to long hikes now, compartmentalising the pain to our bodies into little rooms in our head, we had signed up for this voluntarily, we had endured the worst that Salkanthay could throw at us, we had overcome the nightmare of the guinea pig hotel and we were on the final leg, we were going to make it.
Of course, our porters weren´t at the lunch site as another woman took pity on us and fed us again and then we took a bus and a train from there to Aguas Calientes, the town underneath the famed Machu Picchu. As we waited for our train we reflected on our achievement, we had trekked 68km in three days and no more than 5kms of that would have been level. To go from being a non-trekker to that level was rewarding. I can understand the attraction now but next time I think I will bring more Snickers and an iPod!
Day 4
After a night´s sleep in a bed and a warm shower, we had a 4am wake up call and we were greeted with sleeting rain. Not again we thought as we made our way to our 4:30am breakfast and myself and Gaucho and Shaggy (the other Martin) set off in the dark and rain at 4:55am to make the last walk up to Machu Picchu.
Gaucho set off again at breakneck speed and dragged us up with an invisible rope. I had my miner`s head light guiding my way but as the rain poured down and my warm breath fogged up on impact with the cold and the beam of light, I was often blinded. `Why am I doing this again, hadn´t I just been basking in the glory of completing my trekking days?´ but it dawned on me why.
Drugs are part and parcel of the world today but the most dangerous drug in any man´s system is testosterone. The irrational acts that you do under the influence of this drug are truly frightening as I ordered my tired body to power up the different size and slippy steps because if Gaucho could do it so could I right? Hmmm, I seem to think that that kind of attitude nearly caused me to cycle off a cliff recently but the fact that I am learning from my mistakes is the main thing, right?
Our guide arrived late (and by bus no less) with Agustin and Cathy (again showing wisdom beyond her years and also a distinct lake of testosterone in her system) and we went in. I am always wary of getting my expectations up too high when I see these places but it simply was breathtaking. We were so high up, surrounded by forested mountains and it didn´t take very much imagination to realise that for hundreds of years, this place was hidden from everyone by those same trees.
It was rediscovered by an American in 1911 who had heard rumours that there was a lost city and he walked up and down the Urubanga river for a year asking people if they knew of it. I suspect that they did but they wanted to try his perseverance because a year later, a farmer sent his 9 year old son away with him and showed him the lost city high in the mountain in one of those lovely, `If you had wanted to know where the fabled city of the Incas was, all you had to do was ask,´ moments!!
As an aside it got me to thinking how many `lost´ treasures are known to local populations in the world that just don´t want to have their heritage turned into a mecca for foreigners with digital cameras and loud voices. I really hope there are a few....
The rain and mist subsided and Machu Picchu slowly revealed itself to us. We learned all about how it was constructed, walls so perfectly erected without any form of cement that you couldn´t pass a needle through them. They were just chipped away, man and woman style as Henry our guide said, one with a protuberance and the other with a hole that was a perfect match.
We learned about the Virgins of the Sun, young women selected to serve the Sun God and who were on occasions sacrificed on a slab of stone, their hearts ripped out of their bodies with ceremonial knives while they were still alive and without any form of anaesthetic. If they weren´t selected for this, they often volunteered to be buried alive with their recently dead husband so they could be with him in the next life. Can´t see a long queue of applicants for that job these days!
Waynapicchu is the famous mountain that you see in all the pictures behind Machu Picchu and only 400 people can climb it daily. So, full of that terrible drug testosterone again, myself and the lads set off. I have to say, that for the first time on this trip, my heart started to rebel against my instructions but the views from the top were well worth the near cardiac arrest.
Please take this with the humility that this placed bestowed on all that were there, but looking down on Machu Picchu from such a height made us feel celestial. It was truly awe inspiring and once we had climbed to the top, it was almost hard to take it all in.
We made a huge mistake walking down to see the Gran Caverna, a 90 minute descent to a hole in a wall followed by another 90 minute ascent where if I had any water left in my system, I think I would have started crying!
But it was done, the famed city had been reached by a road worthy of the end result. They say that the reward is often not in reaching the goal but the journey in getting there but in our case, we got it both.
As we took our train back to Cuzco, Cathy and I were both in reflective mood. I had exorcised the demons of my Pucon Volcano disaster, she had achieved one of her life´s ambitions.
Back here now, we have done all those things that you take for granted, sleep in, order a beer, take a shower, listen to music, see a chiropractor! A few days recovery here and we will take off north to a beach somewhere, far from the jungles, the rain and the guinea pigs of the Salkanthay.
Several people I have met in Cuzco are ex-pats who stumbled upon this place and stayed, I can understand why. My internal slave driver though allows no such complacency and I need to keep going and then when fate has shown me it all has to offer, I will make my decisions then.
Suffice to say, for now, I was not going to take up the job offer. Cathy and I took off to Lima by plane, one of my least favourite modes of transport as it smacks of cheating at times and also we were delayed by 4 hours before taking off. There are certain cities worldwide that no matter what they do they get a bad rap by travellers (Auckland, Vientiane, Johannesburg) well you can add Lima to that list. It was yet another of those ´get in and get out´ of towns.
Which is exactly what we did that night. We met Cat, a friend of mine from the Wild Rover and she joined us on our trip to Trujillo, not our intended destination of Mancora but a step in the right direction and a large step away from Lima.
Trujillo was hot! Between Bolivia and Cuzco and being at altitude I had forgotten what oppressive heat was like and to be honest I wasn´t at all comfortable with it. It was going to take altitude like acclimatisation.
They really do know how to make the most of their town centres in South America, they really provide a focal point and a good marker for directions, if only all cities were like that.
We took a trip out to see the largest Adobe in the world (mud city), Huanca Del Sol and Huanca De La Luna which was built hundreds of years ago by the local people. What was very interesting was that they built pyramids where they would have two locals fight each other in response to the bad weather (what we call El Niño now and which comes every 7 years approx) and the loser would be tortured and then sacrificed and buried in the pyramid and every hundred years or so they would build an enormous pyramid over the first.
This continued for over 6 hundred years and it provided a Russian Doll like House of ever increasing tombs. Amazing drawings that had been lost to the sands for hundreds of years before they were discovered again. Hard not to be impressed what can be achieved when you don´t have television and playstation to bother you!
One night in Trujillo was enough though and we set off on a day time bus next day. This was remarkable in its own right as I hadn´t set off during the day on a bus since South Africa! They make for longer journeys but they certainly allow you to catch up on some back reading although reading about societal collapses (´Collapse´ by Jared Diamond) did nothing for my developing antipathy towards first world excesses.
We arrived in to Tallares and negotiated for a cab to take us the 75 minute journey to our destination in Mancora. I have to say that the local Peruvians had helped us immensely to get a cab and made it a point of honour to do so, and all for a wave and a smile.
Side by side bars, opened out on to the main road (more like a wide dirt path really) of Mancora where everyone stood around and partied with beers in hand. That was until someone would shout, "Mind the truck!" and we would all give way to the latest juggernaut passing through, spitting up dust in it´s disgust at being held up by party revellers. I could somewhat understand their frustration, this ´dirt path´ was in fact part of the Great PanAmerican Highway!
Refreshed, Cat and Cathy decided to strike out for Guayaquil (the gateway to the Galapagos Islands) and look for a cheap deal while I went to Cuenca. Crossing the border I once again had to pay a bribe to an official to allow my safe crossing because I was missing a form. I am sure they only give you these bloody little forms to ensure that their fellow custom officials at another port can tap you for money which goes into the big Christmas party fund.
Cuenca is a beautiful town, with its cobbled stones, colonial houses and babbling river that churns its way through the town. It was a town full of character but devoid of any characters... the place was dead! Shops were closed, security guards sat outside watching cartoons instead of watching their banks, churches were even shut. Everyone had gone to the coast for Carnivale so I did likewise.
On my way to the bus station however, there were kids with water balloons, bored with their lack of potential victims eyeing me up hungrily as I laboured under my backpack. Now I have walked down dark alleyways in suspect towns at the wrong side of midnight and I haven´t felt as uncomfortable as these cherubic assasins decided my fate Caesar like. I was waved on benevolently and I felt a silly, strange sense of relief.
A bus to Guayaquil, then I was put on a scabby local bus to God knows where by a overly well meaning gentleman who told me I couldn´t get to Puerto Lopez directly but if I went to ´this place´ I could get a bus from there. Considering my incredible and ever strengthening belief in going with the flow, I accepted and ended up in one of the best town names ever, XipiXapa (pronounced Hippy Happa!!)
I jumped out and met Noah and Dave from North America (as it is very important to say down here as they are all Americans so to speak) and we negotiated with a moving bus to take us to Puerto Lopez so we jumped on (feeling like real hobos boarding a departing train)
Carnivale was in full swing and the focal point of the beach was the Ferris Wheel which spun around in all its lit glory. Water balloons were in full flight here aswell but fortunately only the locals were targeted.
Puerto Lopez is the take off point for Poor Man´s Galapagos, Isla De La Plata. Another Island which has been preserved as a nature sanctuary but at about a 20th of the price of its more illustrious neighbour (although there might be a very good reason for that)
Still, it certainly did give you a very good taste of the unique nature in this part of the world. And it also provided me with an immediate return to juvenile deliquency for free. This is a trip that I look for often, a brief interlope back to when things just had to sound funny to amuse, before syntax, double entendres, semantics and delivery all got in the way. In much the same way that Lake Titicaca raised a chuckle, it was hard not to smile when the guide told us that we were on the look out for ´Boobies´ today! (He was being serious which added even more blissful idiocy to the moment!)
The Blue Footed Boobie and the Nazca Boobie to be exact and they were relatively plentiful, docile and striking. Bobo is the Spanish word for someone who is stupid and the way they walk makes them look that way, the word was anglicised and now we have booby (which has spawned to ´make a boob of oneself´ and ´made a booboo´)
As an aside, another entymological discovery I made on the island was that it was the sight of trades amongst the tribes of old where they used to pay in Spandulyx, a very bright and colourful shell and where I am sure we (the Irish at least), get the word ´Spondoolicks´ from which is slang for money, but I digress.
Still it was great to get that close to nature and later we went snorkelling, which reminded me that I really need to get my PADI scuba diving qualification sooner rather than later.
Puerto Lopez is a first for me in that it is the only town I have ever been to that doesn´t have its own natural water system (and it on the sea) so that they have tankers come in where everyone buys a gallon for about 40c (US$).
I am not sure if that was a contributing factor in any way, but I have fallen sick for the first time in ages that I can remember and it meant an extra night there as I couldn´t face a bus without toilets rumbling over potholed roads as an advert for the merits of chewing Imodiums like smarties.
I am now in Manta, another seaside town but frankly it´s all a bit boring, people make places and despite the fact that you get a room to yourself for pretty cheap, you can´t meet anyone so I am kicking on again to Quito tonight where I will reunite with Cathy after her Galapagos adventure and then we will go to Colombia where I intend to have a serious word with those FARC Guerillas and see if we all just can´t get along!
Quito was never supposed to be a one week stop but when you meet great people, it halts even the greatest of momentum. I arrived early morning into the Mariscal, aka `Gringoworld` where all the main bars, restaurants and shops reside in the Ecuadorian capital. My first two choices for hostels proved full and I stumbled on Centro Del Mundo (Centre of the World) and right from the outset I could tell that this was no overnight and move on kind of place.
To compound things, I was wandering around trying to find a place that was showing Irish v France rugby match and I stumbled upon Finn McCool´s bar and this combination was to prove the treacle from which I was hard pressed to emerge.
Quito is a nice city (without there being too much to do) and the large number of ex-pats I encountered there lay testimony to this. But as I have always said, people make places and when I met Carlos, Frankie, Casper, Zac and Becky on my first night I knew that our paths had converged on this place for some big nights out!
At Finn´s we were given the free run of the place, playing comedies from YouTube on the big screen TV, running tabs that didn´t need to be paid that night (the day after ritual of receiving your previous night´s bill helped us to monitor and regulate our partying or at least that was how we justified it!) and picking out any music we wanted to hear (They even had `Arclight´ by the Fat Lady Sings, a song I hadn´t heard in over a decade, nostalgia a plenty associated to that one)
Ursula from Northern Ireland and Lee ran the bar, ably assisted by Ross and Ally and we had a great week together. Cathy and Cat rejoined me from the Galapagos, aglow from their brushes with nature. Valentine´s Day came and went and was shown the irreverance it deserves (still a hopeless cynic!) and it was easy to think that all was right with the world.... but one exhibition helped bring us back down to earth.
The World Press Photo Awards Exhibition was in Quito and the graphic depiction of so many injustices going on in the world in the last year was really disturbing. The awards all seemed to go to pictures showing the pain and torment that so many are suffering at the moment and it was a very visual indication (if you needed it) to show that the world is still a long way from bring ok for all. People shuffled around silently looking at the pictures and every now and again we´d look up, regard the stranger beside us and register that `yes´, this really is hard to take.
We were up at 5am for a 6am bus to Bogota, 28 hours of an ordeal ahead of us but not before we had a 9 hour wait as the bus was delayed. It would have been alright had we been in a bus station but we were on the side of a street for most of it! We had been joined by Josh (who we had first met on the Salkanthay trail to Machu Picchu) but the poor fella was violently ill for the day and for the bus journey. I can think of a lot of preferable places to be while I feel like dying than the toilet on a South American bus.
In front of us was Geoffrey, a 72 yr old Englishman who had lived in Cork for 30 years before emigrating to South America for his retirement. He wore a green felt hat, had a massive, long white beard and he carried a shilleligh (Irish walking stick) to make him look like some kind of geriatric leprechaun! He turned to talk to us and it was then that we discovered he had been on a non stop 6 day bus trip. He didn´t need to tell us, we were informed nasally, what a smell!
He started to ramble on about all the money he has given away to charity, his many good deeds and how many corrupt priests he has encountered in Africa and in South America. And then, he stole Cathy´s book! He got off before us and when we woke, Cathy´s new book was gone, nowhere to be found on the bus and he was just one row in front of us and the only other English speaker on board.
Thieving gypsy! Still, we have been pretty lucky on this trip so far with this kind of thing so hopefully that will be the worst of it.
And on to Colombia, a country that finds itself on top of the list of `favourite South American country` list for a lot of backpackers, safe in the knowledge that the Colombian govt are trying to hard to lose the tag of the drug cartel capital of the world and with open protests against the FARC Guerillas.
A few years ago, 3 Irishmen were found in the jungles training the guerillas terrorist tactics, heralding the necessity of visas for Irish citizens for the last two years. But dwindling tourism caused an about turn on that decision and since Jan 1 we can enter normally like everyone else.
Now it´s my turn to see what all the fuss is about...
I like it when a city exceeds expectations and that is made easier when you don´t have any. Cathy and I set out for a walk around Bogota with our new friend Nadège. We took a wrong turn which took us off the plush main streets and through some comparatively ugly areas, not giving us a good first impression.
But once we found our way, (thanks to a lady who obviously had missed the Colombian Tourism missives to PROMOTE the capital as she told us that it was dangerous to walk around even during the day) we discovered a really beautiful city. Once again, the South American ability to create a distinctively impressive city centre was realised as the sandstone buildings regally stood out on the skyline. The cobbled streets added charm and the free museums was a nice change.
We visited the Botero Museum, named after their famous Modernist painter Fernando Botero who strangely enough is still alive and around to see all these plaudits that he gets from all of Colombia. His artistic vision is realised through his depiction of everything from guitars, horses, women and men as super fat! Obesity is his thing and trees, pigeons and chairs all suffer from his fetish. It can get a bit tiring however so I was glad to see some paintings from Pisarro, Sisley and, my favourite, Monet there.
The next day, we decided to climb the hill to the Montserrate Monastery, which at 3150m above sea level is 550m higher than Bogota itself. One of the guide books had warned that this was a dangerous walk (for fear of muggings) and that the option of taking the cable car was encouraged but I wanted some exercise. Cathy was finding it difficult and on several occasions wanted to turn around and go back down. Since this would mean walking down with her (for her safety) and then walking back up to complete the trek (for my sanity), I employed all of my cajoling skills to get her up that walk. Hey, maybe inspirational motivational speaking (e.g. David Brent and Tony Robbins) might just be my thing?!!
A woman passed us going up barefoot and even a man in his sixties was running up this hill, so on occasions I was glad of the excuse to take a number of breaks under the guise of waiting for my red faced friend! But it was all worth it when we got up there. There were amazing views of this massive city and then we arrived just as mass was about to start so we stayed there, surrounded by a mass of profusely sweating, heavy breathing runners and hikers who had just arrived and were presumably giving thanks for not dying.
Then something quite surreal happened. A thick foggy cloud enveloped the monastery, brilliant white and quite tangible. The front doors of the church were left open and it wafted its way quite physically up the aisle. We were surrounded in it and those standing in the doorway silhouetted the bright light, like those leaving this world for the next in some sci-fi film. A young man played music on his Spanish guitar and although we didn´t understand a word of the service, it was just one of those beautiful, peaceful moments that all too rarely punctuate this trip.
And then, when the mass was finished, the fog lifted and left it safe for us to walk down again, although after our experience, it was probably fair to say we floated back down to ground level.
Clearly following a theme, our group of 3 set off the next day for the Salt Cathedral in Zipaquirà. The Cathedral was hewn out of the salt mines 180m below ground level in just three years after the old cathedral was considered too structurally unsound for visitors or worship. But it was simply amazing. A huge cavern of sculptures with the Stations of the Cross culminating in the breathtaking main church, 100m long, 25m wide and 16m high. The soft lighting made it a deliberately reflective place and the acoustics were so good that they held concerts and even conferences down there (oh how I was tempted to break out into song!)
We went out that night with Maria from the hostel, Vincent from France joining our group so Spanglish was mixed with Franish and somehow we all seemed to communicate just fine! We were drinking some of the local drink called aguardiente which tastes like petrol and it probably went some of the way to inspire me to get up and dance to ´Billie Jean´ (Michael Jackson is still a master!), much to the amusement of a group of girls from Buenos Aires!
It rains every day in Bogota which is one of its main drawbacks so we decided to leave that evening on another overnight bus to Medellin. We had checked out the National Museum and I found a new painter, Alves de Santa Maria, whose work was incredibly impressive. Of course, there were some more of the fat-loving Botero work there and this followed us to our new town.
We found Plaza de Botero which had about 20 sculptures of all things fat, a condition which seemed emphasised by the strange phenomenon of people walking around with weighing scales, selling the right to use them. Each city seems to have it´s own little idiosyncrasies, it´s own quirks like a personality and obviously this was one of it´s stranger ones.
There is also some more ´artwork´ on show in the capital, as the park exhibited some more sculptured figures, this time in the medium of plastic surgery! It must be cheap here because the women have embraced this in abundance. I hadn´t seen so much plastic since I attended a credit card conference a few years back.
The city was not that impressive however, it´s major cathedral being the largest brick work building in the world with 1.2 million bricks (I didn´t argue with the guide book on that one). One block away however was the red light area, out competing at 4pm for business. The favellas rose up around the city and you knew that those areas were the famed backstreets of the former, powerful Medellin drug cartel that was run my Pablo Escobar. His grave has turned into a shrine but I couldn´t justify going to see it, after reading a book on him and how he had terrorised the country for so long.
We moved into a new hostel, the Pit Stop, run by a fellow Limerick man and there was a healthy abundance of travellers from the auld sod in attendance who had heard about it on the grapevine. It was fun to be able to talk at a normal pace, with our normal accents with terms such as `Whist´ not getting strange looks.
We stayed on an extra night to catch a massive derby match between National and Medellin, football matches in South America taking on lives and significance of their own. The atmosphere was electric as the competing fans sang and countersang for the entire match. When they all started jumping in unison I was seriously worried about the quality of the structural reinforcements of the stands.
A 1-0 win to 10 man National meant that there were going to be some seriously upset Medellin fans so I decided to get our group to leave 10 minutes before the end of the game. You could just sense that something was not right, as the electric atmosphere threatened to turn very ugly indeed. We exited, made our way to the metro and left, unbeknownst to us, leaving carnage in our wake.
The fans attacked each other on the streets, people were stabbed with large flags and knives (including one backpacker that we met next day because he wouldn´t give over his camera although the cuts he received were all superficial), riot police ran through the crowds on horseback, whacking indiscriminately with their large batons, fires were started, the metro was swamped so much that trains wouldn´t stop there and hundreds of would be attackers scoured the streets. And us, safely on our way to the city for the sake of ten minutes.
Going from one scene of madness to another, we went to a Medellin Institution called `Mangos´ where we were surrounded by professional dancers, supplemented by some dwarves that entertained all around the bar. They danced in and around the other dancers and came out and danced with all of us. I didn´t know whether we should feel bad as it looked like they were being exploited due to their physical limitations but on the flip side, they seemed to be having a great time, posing for photos in their ghetto outfits, mini celebrities in their own right!
One of our group was wearing shorts and was refused admission so he swapped his shorts for the pants of a street vendor (for a $10 fee, $5 before, $5 on their safe return). For the 5 hours that we were inside, the vendor happily cooked food in his `out of his price range´ new Billabong attire.
And now we are in Cartegena, 15 degrees warmer, with our new travelling companions Charles, Boo and Frodo (Mattheus in real life when he is not in Middle Earth, this guy is the spitting image of Elijah Wood and he has had to accept that people stare at him for ages with that `I know I know you from somewhere´ face!)
But I am back to the beach, its been a long time between dips so I will have to break out the shorts and sun block and once again don the temporary brown exterior via some inevitable red suffering. I have some serious thinking to do as this is a crossroads of sorts with regard to where I go next, Caribbean or Central America. Both have their complications and merits however so hopefully by my next installment I will know more!!
Stay tuned....
And sometimes decisions are made for you...
We were in the lovely old town of Cartegena, a place just crying out for a decent bar and hostel (an idea may be hatching there?!) where, once you entered the walled inner, older city, it was like you had walked on to the set of a Hollywood movie.
We had assembled quite a crew of backpackers and each evening we had a set ritual, about the only kind of routine in my life at the moment! We would get ready between 6-7pm, get some beers and watch the really excellent `House.´ Once we felt sufficiently smarter and more smug, we would go to El Bistro, a German owned restaurant with the best cook in town. We would follow that at the samba club, Donde Fidel, sitting outdoors in the courtyard, the warm summer breeze accompanying our beers delightfully! When that closed we rocked over to a rundown bar, frequented by prostitutes where we have become a big novelty!
Once the girls realise that we are just there for the cheap drink and the good music, they revelled in dancing with us gringos, Carmen being my partner for three nights. Of course, when other people arrived to avail of their other offers, they would say goodnight and toddle off, as innocent as if they were just getting the last bus home...
We visited the famous fort which had repelled pirates and armies, including Sir Frances Drake. It was not hard to imagine the sheer carnage as the cannons fired off to sea, the torrid abuse it must have taken aswell. Imagination is a wonderful thing.
There was a great reunion of some of the former staff and customers of the Wild Rover where we had spent Christmas, the world truly is a small place. But my decision about whether to go to the Caribbean or through Central America was made moot by some terrible news that I received at home. Thanks to all the good wishes that my family and I have received.
A week or so later, I was back on the road, a 34 hour journey through New York, Mexico City and then to Panama. I had a 9 hour wait in the airport, overnight, which was exhausting. The airport was waking up from its slumber, 5am and some of the shops were just opening, the overnight cleaners packed away their buffing machines, bleary eyed travellers were bent over on tables as young men working for the private security firms seemed to be competing with each other as to who could wear the most hair gel.
Lap topped executives were putting the final touches on work proposals, while a couple that I was jealous of, cuddle for warmth as he pulled her closer so she could get most of his jacket.
I just walked around, checking out the Spanish on everything and getting back into the lingo (admittedly it took a little longer to order a Subway than normal!). And then I was in Panama, gateway to Central America and home of the latest season of `Prison Break´ (I have been reliably informed!)
A progressive city, skyscrapers looking out over the shallow sea that leaves a muddy expanse when the tide was out. I met up with Cathy and Hugo again who had come by via a sea cruise, it was good to see them. We went out that evening but inevitably I found myself dead tired so I called a halt to it early. Our cab driver didn´t know where our hostel was so he picked up a woman who said she knew where it was, he threw her into the boot and she shouted directions to him from back there! It was surreal and completely useless as she had just directed him to where she wanted to get out!!
We had to sleep on mattresses on the floor of this hostel, just under a sheet due to the heat. When I woke, I looked down at my toes to see them adorned with pink and purple nail polish! This had been a tradition on the boat and it made me feel like one of the gang.
But that wasn´t to say that I was going to leave it on, especially when the standard footwear here is flip flops! I woke early, chipped it all off and then woke the girls that had done it, almost convincing them that it had all been a dream! Still, it was my little iniation back to the road, back where I have been for so long.
We went to see the Panama Canal today, a marvellous engineering feat. It is truly amazing what the human race can do with hard work, vision and with 28,000 disposable workers! 22,000 had died before the French decided to give up on it and nearly 6,000 more lost their lives when the Americans finished it. A huge ocean liner came through as we were there so we saw it in all its glory, it really was impressive.
They had a computer there with all the names of the workers and I was ridiculously delighted to see that a Michael Considine, born 22/3/1883, had worked there from 1914 to 1946. We are everywhere it seems!
I really knew I was back on the road when our overnight bus that we were taking to Bocas broke down and we were left sitting on the side of the road for nearly 3 hours. We could have asked what had happened or even complained but it would have done us no good, so we just tried to sleep, which was made hard by the Baltic air conditioner that beated down on our heads.
We arrived in Bocas del Toro, one of a number of islands in this amazing archipelago. A speed boat over in the early morning was exhilerating, the newly risen sun casting a sheen over the water like ten thousand flickering, floating candles. Checked in, we took another boat to an island, beautiful sands, palm trees and towering waves. One snuck up on me and as I dove under it, I head planted into sand bar below, luckily just coming away with a stiff neck.
That night, we were in our hostel and we were playing the Halibut game, first made famous in Arequipa. A guy on the adjacent table asked me what was I halibuting about and it turned out that he had met the other three masters of the game, Julian, Reuben and Cormac in Peru aswell! Our group kept it going for 90 minutes, a new record! Ok, it sounds daft but it kept us rightly amused for the evening!!
And now the big thing on my mind is what to do about Paddy´s Day? Montserrat is out for obvious reason considering where I am but I strongly suspect that we are going to have one halibut of a good time!
Central America is incredibly different to South America in many respects but another to add to the litany is that it is not frequented by a lot of Irish. Cathy and I had sought out Irish people to form a crew for the St Paddy´s weekend and found that we were as scarce as skinny opera singers. But our canny hostel manager saw a business opportunity out of this and put up a sign on Saturday calling it St. Patty´s Day, enticing clients with drinks promotions and the exciting prospect for some to `Come see the Irish!´
Cathy and I had images of being hoisted up in cages or tied up in chains King Kong Style but fortunately it was more civilised than that and a great night was had by all. It was funny though to introduce yourself to new people and have them exclaim, ´Oh you must be one of the Irish we had to come and see!´ I of course told them of the old Irish tradition that if you bought an Irishman a drink on Paddy´s Day you got to make a wish. I wished that more of them believed it!!
The next day we decided to leave the island. Taking a speed boat to a new port, we passed beautiful honeymoon huts, out on the water, Maldives style with their own stretch of private beach, it was luscious. We crossed the border with ease and settled in a town called Puerto Viejo, another beach town but we were now in Costa Rica. Right off the bat, we didn´t get a great feel for the place. It´s Spring Break in the States and everywhere was inundated with teenage American kids for a start, the only ATM in town was broken and our first four options on accommodation were full or too expensive.
We settled on the Puerto Viejo Hotel where the wooden walls were paper thin, made all the more ironic by the infant baby staying in the room next door and the fact that outside our window was a communal gathering area where 10 or so of the aforementioned spring breakers exhibited their immense grasp of 14 words of the English language ad nauseum. `Yeah man, it was like, Intense´.... `Sounds intense man´.... `Yeah man, it was...intense´
Give me strength. But there was an Irish bar in town so we decided to stay on and try and have another celebration on the actual day in question. We were woken to a massive downpour which if anything made us feel more nostalgic for home and after leaving a respectable amount of time for exploring the town, reading and having lunch we set off in the early evening for The Dubliners.
Now I am not sure if there is anything more heart breaking and disillusioning than a non Irish, Irish pub. St Patrick was supposed to have banished the snakes from Ireland where I think to get their revenge, they set up pseudo Irish bars all over the world to torment troubled Irish travellers.
But this one was the worst I have seen. For a start, there wasn´t a single picture pertaining to Ireland on the walls; no map of Ireland, no Oscar Wilde Quotes, no signed jerseys, no customary picture of the owner with some Irish sportstar, singer, politician, no flag, nothing. And to add insult to considerable injury, they were having a reggae night because they didn´t even know who or what St Patrick`s Day was. We finished our drinks and left.
I was walking around with a Guinness top on which acted as a billboard to others who wanted to know where to go for Patrick´s Day but I didn´t know what to tell them. Fortunately it acted like a beacon for local bar owner (and former politician) Edwin Patterson to invite us to his busy bar and buy us all bottles of Guinness which to my surprise were actually really good!
Edwin was quite the gentleman and very evidently the big man in town. He showed us a framed photo of him in his politic days, giving a speech about police corruption. He told stories with glee and a big smile and introduced us to his son Clarence, who revelled in rolling his eyes just as we tried to take a picture, which gave him much amusement and gave us pictures of a child possessed.
We repaid his kindness by walking out without paying our bill but we rectified that later. But Paddy´s Day proper had been a bit of an anti climax and we were happy to leave next morning. Our bus broke down again (a worrying trend setting in here) but fortunately we had enough Spanish to know he was looking for the first 15 people to get into another bus waiting behind us.
San Jose is not worthy of too much note. We checked into our hostel Tranquilo, aptly named as the staff and some of the other travellers were all openly smoking weed in reception. It being Holy Week (or Semana Santa as it is called locally), buses were being stopped the next day so we needed to get out of town or risk getting stuck there for 4 days.
The next morning we booked on to a bus to La Fortuna, crawling the 100km road in 4 hours, a town made famous by its proximity to Volcan Arenal, a volcano that has been continually spewing lava since 1968. Since it was cloudy the evening we got there, we opted for a 4am trip to see it next morning.
And that was when one of the truly surreal days of my travels began....
Up at 3am, Hugo, Cathy and I were delighted to see a dry morning for our ascent to the Volcano. Our hopes subsided when, as we approached, the weather got steadily worse so that by the time we were at our drop off point, a fair shower greeted us in the dead of night. It was one of those strange moments when you stop to take stock of where you are, in a Costa Rican rainforest, 4:30am in a rain shower.
We were given torches and we scanned the forest and we walked the narrow trail in hope (or was that fear of) seeing some animal in the bush or in the trees. The rain hardly subsided as we got up to the view point, some old lava rocks that had resided there in 1992 after a major lava pour. We were 1500m away but you could hear the rocks being lifted forward by the lava and then a terrifying rumbling sound, so loud that I thought there was going to be an explosion. But we were to see nothing of the like, a dense cloud had descended on the volcano and it was to be another disappointment.
It ranked up there with me missing the killer whales by a day in Puerto Madryn, the condors in Colca Canyon, the riot in Medellin and the Irish bar on Paddy´s Day. We rushed back to another town to get a 6:45am bus to take us to the Nicaraguan border but we were in for another disappointment, it wasn´t running today. Semana Santa was already in affect, alcohol was banned from La Fortuna for the next 3-4 days which the police would control so we were in a real pickle.
We negotiated with Marlon, our cab driver from earlier to take us to the border 4 hours away. We paid him $20 each, got some new German friends involved and three hours later than planned we were on our way. The weather had been murky, overcast and wet in Costa Rica all week but we arrived to plus 30 degrees weather at the border. A straightfroward enough crossing where we were `greeted´ by taxi touts who reliably informed us that there were no buses running today.
It seemed plausible enough but what they wanted to charge us was extortionate. I started belting out my Spanish in counter negotiation for nearly 20 minutes (it´s amazing how many sentences you can make out of about 60 words!) and when I had got us all a good price, I found out that there were buses! Lying *********s
Then they ganged up on us as we made for the bus and although I am far from fluent I could tell that they had told the bus collector to tell them that first of all they were only going directly to the capital and then secondly to quote us another outrageous price.
I went as far as telling one of the guys he was a liar and a thief (the look on his face that I knew that words`mentirosso´ and `choro´ was priceless but probably unwise in hindsight) but when I declared to all concerned that we weren´t going to take a taxi and that we would wait for the next bus, the first bus insisted we jump on for the price of 50 Cordobas, (US$2.50). The taxi drivers wanted to charge us $30 so I couldn´t resist a smile as the bus pulled away and would have chanced a wave at the visibly irate cab drvers if I wasn´t holding my bag.
We were dumped out on another stretch of road 20 minutes later to an offshoot for our destination, San Juan Del Sur. The heat was oppressive as we waited for a connecting bus. Some cabs came by and were charging outrageous `gringo´ prices but I wasn´t in the mood for more negotiations, I hadn´t spoken so much Spanish in weeks and I was knackered.
But I wasn´t in the form to get screwed over so I waved on the cabs, to the increasing chagrin of my travel buddies. We had been awake over 13 hours at that stage, we were on a dust road in a new country under 30 degree heat, it was no time for Consi to be getting all principled.
But then our dogged determination was rewarded when the Nicaraguan Army came to our rescue! A soldier came running down the street and asked if we were going to San Juan and offered a lift in the back of their truck! What a result!
Us boys jumped in the back with the soldiers and Cathy sat up front with the officers. They asked myself and Steve (a guy we had met at the border) if we were military, probably going by our toned physiques and no nonsense airs of authority I presumed. They noticeably didn´t ask our metrosexual friend Hugo, a clear indication that the `Don´t ask, Don´t tell´ policy was still being practised by the armies of the world.
Harold and Frederico took a shining to Cathy and she duly handed over her mobile number, safe in the knowledge that we don´t have coverage here, they didn´t speak a word of English and in the unlikely event that they ever did call, all of her recently learned Spanish would elude her instantly!
It was a full half hour ride and the truck drove with reckless abandon. We couldn´t take the smiles off our faces, particularly when the other motorists saw these gringo backpackers in their army truck and wondered where their hard earned taxes were going to! Another bonus was that we didn´t have to stop at any of the several checkpoints into the town, a wave to the bemused security enough for safe and quick passage!
It was surreal in the extreme, a day of disappointments and frustration suddenly transformed by a wild ride courtesy of Nicaragua´s finest.
We got out, eventually got ourselves some accomodation and went out to see what this sleepy town had to offer.... We were in for some surprises!
And how right I was, both good and bad.....
San Juan Del Sur was in the grip of a religious and fiesta mania the weekend we got there, everyone was in town for the end of Lent and the Semana Santa celebrations.
We had left Costa Rica where there was to be a three day alcohol ban to arrive a few miles up the road into Nicaragua where all the alcohol seemed to be going. There was drink being sold and consumed in vast quantities here. There was major advertising going on but I thought they took it too far when one of the three major beach party centres banned anyone entering who DIDN´T have a packet of cigarettes with them!
Well that ruled them out of my drink money for sure and we were happy to have a day off the drink on Good Friday although it was kind of difficult to explain that to some of the other backpackers!
We went to look for the religious service (those 4 years as alterboy of the year still standing to me!) and I asked a person who lived beside the church what times the celebrations were on. He asked was I looking for a religious or drinking party?! I didn´t quite understand how he could have mixed these up until I went to the evening service. It was done nearly entirely in song, it felt more like a pop concert (particularly when everyone had to hold hands) and it couldn´t have been more different to the sombre affairs we would have at home.
On Saturday night, we had an impromptu party on our balcony and locals and backpackers alike stopped by. At some stage though in the evening (only discovered next morning) I realised that my camera had been stolen. Ordinarily this would be a tragedy but it had been broken recently and I had (just earlier that day) taken my memory stick out. So whoever has it, has a broken camera with no memory stick or charger. Karma has a sense of humour sometimes.
The real pity though was the loss of Cathy´s camera that night too. We were told (in one of those classic 20/20 vision in hindsight lines) by an American local that every thief ifrom Honduras to Costa Rica turns up here this weekend to nick stuff.
Another thing to go missing, bizarrely, was some of my laundry. Cathy assured me she had picked it up (although she was somewhat under the influence at the time) and when I went back the next day, the lady at the laundry assured me that my jeans, towel and shorts had been picked up. Another surprise in this weird little twilight zone that we had entered.
We left before anything else could go missing and travelled to Isla Del Ometepe, a small island made up of two volcanos. We decided to climb the larger one, Volcan Conception but we weren´t allowed to climb it all the way as it was too dangerous and at the point we reached there were 80-90mph winds greeting us which we could stand 45 degrees into, they were so strong. And then we walked down the volcano again, sliding and falling every few metres on the volcanic ash.
Any regular readers of my blog will know that I should stay away from Volcanos; Pucon, Arenal and now Conception have all been disappointments for different reasons so I am going to give them a wide berth from now on.
And that was that, my first run of actual bad luck on this trip in a long time but it was long overdue. (I would say that I haven´t been punched in the head either in a while but that could just be tempting fate!)
Hugo, Cathy and I went up to the unremarkable Grenada and now we are in Leon, my favourite Central American town so far! I have made friends with a group of pool players who have thought me the local rules (insanely different to normal rules) and one of them came out with me last night and told me that he would just tell his wife that a big Irishman forced him to come out and get drunk!
If I had a $ for every time I heard that line....
Do you know what, pop songs are just better in Spanish! Maybe it´s the inability to understand what they are warbling on about that makes them so good but it´s true.
But I digress...
Leon was fun and slightly addictive so we decided to leave. It was one of those days of attrition, 4 buses, two taxis, and a bicycle! When we got to the Honduran border we were accosted by guys that cycled tourists the 2kms to the customs. Yet another weird border crossing for me, sitting on a seat in front as some middle aged local puffed and heaved behind me.
They didn´t have a set price, just wanting a tip instead. When I gave him what I thought was a very generous stipend for his 10 minutes of service, he was aggrieved so I felt like giving him the tip of never eating yellow snow but I kept my tongue for once.
We got in to Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital pretty late and drove around the city for 30 minutes trying to find our hostel. It´s a terrible city to be fair, overrun by fast food chains and with an undercurrent of violence. Homeless bums walked the streets at night with their cardboard boxes and a huge machete sticking out of their shorts; the armed guards at the doors of the bank, had their holsters unclipped and their hands on their guns in readiness; a local football match was playing while all of their bags were in a bundle in the centre of the pitch; massive queues of people trying to get cabs home rather than walking etc
We visited a museum and one of the employees took to explaining each piece in Spanish to me. It was tiring trying to piece everything she was saying altogether through each of the displays (Hugo and Cathy had long since deserted me!) until we got to the religious section and then she started an earnest conversation about her relationship with God. She didn´t go to church anymore but that did not make her a bad person, did I understand?! Sheesh, I ran out of the place!
Cathy was boarding a plane home and Hugo was leaving to get to Guatemala and I was bound for a long overdue date with a Scuba Diving Certificate so we all said our goodbyes. I just missed my connecting bus, meaning I missed my ferry to the island so I had to spend a night in La Ceiba, a truly dreary town. My accomodation was amongst the most basic and dismal I have ever seen, and I have seen the dredges on my trip. It was the kind of room that people would hang themselves in if they had enough rope.
But, not being of such a mental disposition I slept dreaming of the next day and my upcoming underwater adventures.
A wise man once sang;
Under the sea
Under the sea
There`ll be no accusations
Just friendly crustaceans
Under the sea!
Ah Homer, you were so right!
I took the ferry to Utila, one of the Bay Islands with Adam and Nicole, newlyweds from the States and we all went to Alton´s Diving Centre. Give me an island with little to no roads and I am always a happy man.
This place though had such a great initial vibe that permeated through the locals with their unique Caribbean accents. This was a treat for me, something that I had promised to do for a very long time. I had been to Koh Tao (Thailand) in January of last year to get my diving certificate but met a great bunch of people and the studying gave way to partying but I was determined to get it this time around.
We went for dinner that night and Nicole gathered up all the bones from the surrounding tables and she went out to the street and whistled for the stray dogs so that we could feed them. She was the Doggy Bag Lady! We went to a bar called `Treetanic´ which is the brain child of an eccentric genius on the island, who has been decorating it with recycled glass for the last 17 years. It was like a museum, an homage to intricate art and gaudiness.
But the next day, we were in the classroom watching the terrible PADI videos (they are universal so if anyone has got the cert they will know what I am talking about!). Then the classroom went sub aqua and we were kitted up and given weights. After some initial baulking I was really comfortable with my new surroundings and the new language for under the sea. Big hand signals and gestures, some ingenious, others just funny.
The next day was our first dive proper and I had some difficulties equalising (getting the pressures right in my ears) which gave me some discomfort but soon after I was floating along, eyes wide as saucers taking in the fish and coral. I made the solo travellers mistake of trying to apply my own suncream and amused all at the centre with the large red patch in the centre of my back, with streaks of white where my fingers had vainly tried to cover me up.
More equalising problems next day meant I had to resurface at one point, my instructor telling me I had a nose bleed. Fortunately there were no sharks around! I got back to the job at hand and beat the barried (the first 10 metres are the hardest to get past) and descended.
I simply can´t fully describe the colours and sensations you feel under water. Every sense is heightened, you pass in to a dream like state, floating along in another world. At one point I looked up at a large wall of coral, where the plants were all floating over and back in sync with the current. I felt like an audience of one in front of a choir of conducters. It was hypnotic, calming and exhilerating, all at the same time.
It really is amazing to think about the lives of fishes. They swim around all day, trying to eat and trying equally as hard, not to be eaten. The camouflages are incredibly impressive. My dive buddy Bel pointed out a fish to me but I couldn´t see it so I floated in for a closer look. Still whatever she was pointing at was eluding me so I went closer and then realised I was a few inches from a huge Tiger Grouper, nearly 3 feet long by 1.5 feet high, his eye rotating around to be in line with mine, with an expression that said to me; Àhem, can I help you?!´
I got such a shock, I backed up quick smart to the bemused Bel. I was going to just do my Open Water Qualification but Annie, the receptionist at the Dive Centre said that I wasn´t allowed leave without a permit that she would write up for me in a few weeks time! She said she would tell her friend the ferry captaion that I hadn´t paid my bill and that I wouldn´t be allowed go! It was all in jest but I wasn´t quite ready to go either, this place is yet another Bermuda Triangle, easy to get to, nearly impossible to leave.
So I stayed on to do my advanced cert, taking in some wreck dives and a deep dive to 40 metres (130 feet). Sitting on the sea floor and looking up through that expanse of water was amazing. Oh and I am a massive guzzler of air down there, I am always the closest to finishing my tank. Big lungs, must have been all that singing!
I had to listen to the Liverpool v Arsenal match in the Champions League on a laptop as it wasn´t being shown and at the end of a very nervous game, I stated categorically that I was never going to watch a game on radio ever again! Irish logic I guess.
Diving every day became like a second nature and when you weren´t you were watching others get ready, a great family atmosphere enveloped the place as we all made scuba jokes and double entendres.
But my last dive was the night dive. I have to say I was nervous about it but with 13 other dives already logged I had gained some confidence. But it was still surreal to be in the water before our descent looking up at the moon and the stars. We went down to pitch darkness and turned our torches on. To be honest, because you couldn´t see further than a few metres you forgot about the sheer expanse of the ocean and in particular sharks (by all accounts if something floated up beside you with green eyes, you were in a LOT of trouble!!)
With other groups in the water and the torches weaving around like light sabres, it felt like being at some noiseless, underwater rave! And when we all sat on the sand and turned our torches off, well I can´t remember being in a more peaceful place.
And that was me certified and in love with a new sport. The next morning I took the early ferry (sneaking past the office so that Annie didn´t see me) and I gave Utila a look back over my shoulder, confident that it wouldn´t be the last time that our paths would cross...
Our travelling circus had extended to 5, Bel, Big and Little Adam, Nicole and I headed to Copan, home of the famous Mayan Ruins there for a long overdue dose of culture. This was the home of the Mayan people from between the 5th and 9th century AD and it seemed that they had a singular obsession with making their city outstandingly beautiful.
Millions of bricks were hewn from the nearby quarry, hand-carved and painted to create an amazingly colourful city, a Mardi Gras for the ages. Now, due to its dolomite construction, the bricks have retained a lot of the original carvings, amazing after all these years. Even more remarkable are the colours that still permeate through the rock, giving just a tantalising hint as to how beautiful it must have all looked.
We were shown a courtyard where a kind of football/basketball cross sport had been played, often during parts of a ritual that used to end up with a human sacrifice. From the etchings they are unable to determine if it was the victors or the losers of the game that used to have their heads lopped off, but depending on who was for the chop would have determined whether I brought my `A´ game or the most rancid of hangovers to the court.
A frustrating aspect of the archaeological efforts had been these 64 four steps, each with about 15 bricks across that climbed a stairs in a veritable history of the Mayan culture over the years. When early archaeologists found them, they took them apart but failed to log or even draw where they had originally been! Reassembled they now form a larger than life Rubik`s cube and those geniuses I hope have been relegated to historical obscurity.
Huge Ceiba trees are now holding a lot of the ruins together with their massive trunks and root systems and are hugely impressive and the impossibly beautiful Macaw´s walk around squawking, wondering what all the fuss is about. It really was one of the great sights on my trip but I had to cut it short and get moving to Guatemala.
I had determined to go north almost directly to Belize but I had been assured that a trip to Antigua, an hour past Guatemala city was definitely worth my while and they were right.
Replacing Leon as my favourite Central American city, it is what you would have ever imagined of a small Latino city. Small, tight cobbled streets, lined with trees full of colour, shading the tastefully painted single level houses with marbled street names written in a calligraphical way. Again the central plaza dominates and the city radiates around that, (how I am going to miss this feature in the bigger cities I will be visiting) and the people were vying with the Laotians as the friendliest I have met in the world.
I was lamenting (ok that is woefully understating it, I was downright abusing) travel writers as a bunch of witless, journalistic, gormless, pseudo travellers when I met Mike, who after listening to my rant, introduced himself as one of the aforementioned and waited for what he presumed would be the inevitable heartfelt apologies while concurrently removing my foot from my mouth.... Well, as you my friends and family can probably testify, that is just not part of my genetic makeup and I proceeded to add extra vitriol to my diatribe, as Mike sat slack jawed at my obvious lack of discomfort!
Still, we went for drinks, (I am nothing if not a good sport about these things!) and a great night was had by all in Reilly´s Irish bar, continuing my great love of `Irish´ bars abroad since I am invariably the only authentically Irish thing in there.
The next day, I broke my Volcano hoodoo. I finally got to climb one that actually worked (out) for me! Volcano Pacaya spewed lava as was its given right to do and we stood just feet away from the insane heat. It amused me how if this was in countries where insurance premiums, personal liability and suing are a fact of life, we would have been cordoned off sufficiently far away that only the increased zoom features on our cameras would facilitate viewing, but here, our guide nonchalantly walked away while we poked sticks into the spitting lava, braving the heat for a chance of a good photo.
I was gutted however when the promised marshmallows that I was assured you could buy at the summit were sold out, would have been the icing on the cake to speak in dessert metaphors. The warm glowing feeling of contentment at having finally had a good Volcano experience was tempered however as we got absolutely soaked in a biblical like drenching, saturated beyond recognition and then had to face into a 90 minibus ride back in our wet clothes. But I was determined not to let this diminish my experience one little bit.
On my last night in Antigua, my friend Mattheus (he of the Frodo physical likeness, last referred to in Cartegena) and I attended a table quiz, coming a frustrating third. Afterwards I was negotiating with a club owner to allow the 30 or so of us that we had then accumulated into his quiet establishment when some police turned up. He went white, claiming that now he would have to pay them bribes and that I might have to go to jail!
What, for having a drink in a club?! He was clearly agitated and this was worsened by the bemused, incredulent look on my face as I failed to see any seriousness in the situation! I almost revelled at the idea of spending some jail time for such an innocuous `crime´ but with one eye on leaving next morning I excused myself from the club, left my friends behind me and walked home without incident.
I arrived in Flores, the springboard town for the Tikal ruins, set on an island in the middle of a lake and booked a sunrise trip next morning. I had been warned off it by a few who said it was rarely worth it but I was lucky this time and was greeted with a perfect morning. We had walked in the dark if not the silence through the jungle with a guide who handled a shotgun (not exactly the Louvre then!) as he explained that usually jaguars and pumas would stay away but if they were injured, then who knows what could happen. I resisted the temptation to ask why he hadn´t taken a head count at the gate and stayed close by!
There was a terrifying sound from the jungle however as the Howler Monkeys bellowed and screamed in what I can only attempt to liken to the sound of a huge Bull Elephant who has just been shot in the neck. It was a gargled, slow, painful wheeze followed by a death cry that seemed to eminate from all around you. The powerful noise is directly inverted to their size, they are no bigger than small dogs but I suspect that they save their loudest roars for when the tourists arrive, for a simian chuckle...
So between the threat of Jaguars and the `right-guys-lets-scare-our-human-cousins-witless´ monkeys, I was glad to reach Tower 4 where just 50 of us sat in silence to see the sunrise. It was another of those great moments as the great ancient city of Tikal, surrounded by the jungle that has enveloped it, revealed itself in all its glory.
It was a thriving city, completely covered in coloured bricks and no vegetation 1000 years ago and now here it stood, silent of its former inhabitants, a testiment to the evolution of time and I couldn´t help but wonder would this be the fate of New York, Paris or Sydney in a 1000 years time?
The obvious answer would be no, but this was a city 125km square, 13,000+ buildings with around 200,000 inhabitants and was the ruling dynasty around these parts back then, so they certainly didn´t think that a millenium later their magnificent city would now be competely covered in jungle.
Filled with such long term, legacy like thoughts, I left Guatemala for Belize, a former English colony and the prospect, however historically unlikely, of being an Irishman with a sustainable tan!
My first taste of Belize, the former British Colony, was a song on the chicken bus from the border which has the rousing (if somewhat disturbing) chorus of;
"Rapist! Child Molester! They should take you to jail and make you feel how we feel"
and not for the first time I thought that English pop songs were not what they should be.
Another song had the lamentable chorus of "Daddy don´t touch me there. Daddy, you should love me" so I was somewhat wary as I boarded the speed boat over to Caye Caulker, a diminutive if delightful isle. Wanting to make sure I hadn´t inadvertantly landed on some kind of paedophile island of infamy, I walked around this quaint little place, openly eyeing the tourists for any obvious signs of impropriety and, finding none, booked in to Tina´s hostel.
We were 20 metres from the beach, with inviting hammocks and since the diving was prohibitively expensive, had not a great deal else to do except catch up on some reading and get a tan! A place called the Split (which basically divided the island in two) got its big break (sorry I couldn´t avoid the pun) when Hurricane Hattie swept through in 1961 and the locals then added to that work and dug the rest to give them a waterway. It had an impressive wreck right in the middle, great for snorkelling as the nearby bar played more dubious and worrying lyrics to the local Punta Music.
A few days here, looking around the island, finding where the locals eat their rice, bean and chicken mix and then dancing with the rastafarians at night was great but it was time to move on again, never wanting the grass to grow too much under my feet.
I was Mexico bound, heading to Tulum for a few days to restore my Spanish and to hit some of their great beaches. I left some of the activities for another day, wanting instead to stay with some Dutch friends who were travelling up to the incredibly over developed Playa Del Carmen. This used to be a sleepy seaside town until Cancun was deemed too commercial for most and they flowed down here, where, inevitably, so did all of the corporate commercial trade and swallowed this place up.
Starbucks, Burger King, Johnny Rockets, Subway, Walmart, Dolce and Gabbana all vie for space now in a conglomeration of tackiness. It made me shudder as to what Cancun was like, it´s probably this but with a huge roof over it. I fear for those that will travel in 20 years time, they will have to go to the moon or the furthest depths of the Amazon to find some local food and not the big Golden Arches of McD´s
....who am I kidding, they are probably already there!!!!
My last day in Playa Del Carmen was an admin day, the kind of tick some boxes day that invariably includes doing laundry, writing blogs, booking trips and catching up on your diary. All those done, I also ventured in to the perilous world of getting a haircut in a foreign language. Hairdressers are naturally predisposed to talking, especially if they don´t know their new customer.
The added complexity comes when you are forced to speak Spanish about the weather, what you are doing in town, how come you aren´t American while all the time fretting whether you were able to convey just how little you wanted taken off before it´s too late.
I also got my sunglasses fixed, they´d been loose for days and they felt like a new pair until later, in a dramatic stabbing-myself-in-disgust gesture while referring to how bad the unabridged version of Moby Dick (the book) was, I spectacularly broke them again, this time beyond repair. I really hate that book now!
That evening, myself and my Dutch friends went out on the town. The affluence and beauty was all about to be seen and to be honest, I tired of it rapidly. There were queues for the clubs and I was trying to get us a better price for a group in one place where the bouncer clearly had no grasp of economies of scale as he tried to charge us all a lot more if we got one bottle of vodka between us?
But I hate the idea, the concept of paying to go in to a club. I could kind of understand if it meant a few free drinks, or if the club had had to pay for some extension but just charging to cover their own staff costs and drive up their own already high profits eludes me. So, in a fit of mischievousness we decided to split into two groups and try and get in for free.
Thijs and I tried a direct approach first, jumping over a rope and walking in but we were confronted by a bouncer who told us that this wasn´t the entrance. My Spanish is functional without being good but even I had to dumb it down so that I looked sufficiently gob-smacked that the entrance to this club wasn´t a quiet side entrance behind a rope.
We continued to scope around and found the back of the complex and a 6-7m wall which I thought was impenetrable but Thijs suggested that we try it. I lifted him up and clambered up to a ledge where we could see some of the kitchen staff of the bar walking around behind the scenes. Our plan was such; we would jump down, walk through the kitchen like we owned the joint and enter the bar behind the bouncers at the door. I didn´t even need to wait for hindsight to know that this was a stupid plan!
I jumped down on to a ledge just as a staff member came out the door, so I lay flat on my back, motioned to Thijs to hide and lay there, failing to resist drawing comparisons to a James Bond film. We got down, looked around but no joy, no entrance we could see and just when we were about to clamber back over the wall, when a staff member came out and inquired exactly what we were doing.
In a flash of fear induced inspiration I said that my friend was very sick and that we couldn´t find the toilets (hey you come up with something better in a split second and in a different language!). Seeing my urgency, he walked us through the kitchen and right past my Noble Prize winner in Economics Bouncer! When he showed us the toilets (large, well signed, bright and directly behind the bar) he must have wondered how we couldn´t have found it but he said nothing and neither did we.
The other guys had bribed another bouncer half the price of the entrance fee to get in. How much had we saved? US$10 each, a princely sum I am sure you will agree!
The next day I was meeting my friend Sarah that was flying in for a flying holiday around these parts. I took a bus out to the airport to meet her off the plane and I had to say the choice of movie was a worry, Flyboys, set in WW1 about the original flyers and just as we got off the bus, the first of I believe many crashes had just crossed our screens. I looked over at some of the anxious faces and was really glad I was going to Arrivals and not Departures!
Sarah and I set off for Merida as we had heard that every weekend they closed down the city centre and had street music and parties. I was so impressed by this for some reason, the energy that they must have to celebrate this every week, and we were suitably rewarded.
The streets around the main plaza were now all pedestrian as you walked past performers, food and clothes stalls, a Beauty and the Beast performance and live bands, all jousting for your attention. The street lights cast angled shadows on the cobbled stoned streets as the colourful kids tried to sell all kind of knick knacks. People of all ages were out and it felt like an annual event rather that one that they perform over 50 times a year.
Next day, we discovered that when Pope John Paul II was here in 1984, he decided to stop the cavalcade and get out and eat at a tiny restaurant. I wanted to see it and to see how it had benefitted from serving one of the most famous people on the planet. Well, in a commendable if baffling amount of under-entrepreneurialism, they had not changed it one little bit, it was still small and pokey and run down.
We ate shrimp tacos (adding having food where the Pope has eaten to the restaurant in Queenstown, NZ that Bill Clinton visited) and I had to smile at the super imposed picture of the Holy Father that they had up. It didn´t even have pride of place, that honour going to some Matador!! I spoke to the old owner and he said that he and his 5 family members had just been inside when the Popemobile stopped and the PJP II asked for some food (can you imagine what his security detachment must have thought!)
I couldn´t help but love hearing about this and it gave PJP II big points in my book.
Everything you eat over here has a deliberate blandness I believe to entice you to eat more chilli. They love the stuff over here and I thought I did too but frankly, I am reaching my limit at this stage. Its impossible to determine which is the simply strong one and which is the one designed specifically to deprive you of at least one of your 5 senses, until you have tried them and waited for the inevitable after kick.
We visited Chichen Itza, one of the New 7 Wonders of the World and it was very impressive although I could imagine some other ´wonders´ might have felt a little hard done by at their exclusion.
We headed on to Tulum and stayed at a different hostel this time to the one I had been in last week, where we met Carlos the owner who divulged to me (within 10 minutes of meeting me I might add) that he had a dream of setting up a hostel under the sea with rooms made of glass and that he wanted a partner.
I thought it was time for a beer!
I met Neil (who I had met in three other countries to date) from Sligo and we all went to the beach for the morning where he picked up an unmerciful burning in just 25 minutes of exposure. His red hair certainly didn´t help his case and his blond eyebrows shone through, giving him a very angry Santa look. I felt bad for him and gave him my after sun gel, with which he stated that he was going to get ´intimate´ with!
Relaxing beach days followed and then we visited the Tulum Ruins, which gave it´s own take on the Mayan Culture, smaller ruins but set against the beautiful drop off of the coast, a beach just behind allowing those that had come for culture to get a colour aswell.
Sarah and I headed back up to Carmen and stayed a night there, where I didn´t emulate any of my James Bond theatrics of last week! It really is an amazing place in a decidely disappointing way. It almost seems like the land where all of the highrises and fast food chains have gone up must have been reclaimed from the sea as the local establishments that are a mere 4 blocks back seem to have been there for ages. But it´s far more likely that the old shops that had prime position simply got swept up, knocked down and built upon.
To give us a kind of balance, we decided to spend a few days on Isla Mujeres, an island just 15 minutes away from Cancun but which has mercifully resisted for the most part the huge developments (although there is a sense of inevitability about it though.) So many restaurants and bars to tempt you and a great buzz about the place, hard to believe you are so close to the bustle of Cancun.
We had two great days there, bumping in to old friends that I had met on my travels (even two that I hadn´t seen since last November in Iguazu, Argentina!) and engaging with the locals. But all too soon it was time to leave, head back to Cancun in preparation for Sarah´s flight next morning. But first there was time to go to a local baseball game where we were definitely the only gringos present! The locals couldn´t believe their team had such an international following!
The game was one sided so the star of the show was the mascot, Chancho the Tiger, who got the entire crowd worked up with his antics, giving us welcome distraction from the baseball.
Sarah got away ok next morning without incident, I only wish I could say the same thing...
Van Morrison wrote this about having a really good day but I think that the title applies as good as any to the day I am having.
I´m sitting in an Internet Café waiting for my 25 hour bus journey to Mexico City (MC), scarcely believing the turn of events that have led me here. Let me tell you about it...
The bus out to the airport lived up to it´s fearsome reputation of never putting the passengers minds at rest by showing footage of the attack on the naval base of Pearl Harbour (yesterday as I was coming back I had watched the airport scene from the latest James Bond flick, ´Casino Royale´ where there are several near crashes aswell. It´s like some sick, twisted individual has compiled all of the worst airplane disaster movies for our ´entertainment´. I understand next week will have Die Hard 2 and Con Air!)
I was in good form, looking forward to getting down to Mexico City, a capital of over 30 million people and one of the last stops on my Latin America trip.
But when I tried to check in, after much deliberation, I had been told that my flight had been booked for the 6th of June, not May. Now I know that that is my fault, ultimately and completely but I remember having a lot of difficulty with the website initially when it had allowed me to book a flight from 4 months previously for some reason.
I couldn´t believe it, I had a hollow feeling in the pith of my stomach. I asked if there was any availability and he said no, that the flight was in fact overbooked (I couldn´t help but feel I had made his day fractionally easier) but that I could go on the waiting list. I did so but to no avail so I decided to wait three hours for the next flight. In the meantime I tried 5 other airlines to see if I could get another flight and use the first as a credit note at a later stage but no joy, everyone was booked out. (Yesterday had been a bank holiday here and everyone was going home)
There are few worse feelings that waiting around for inevitable disappointment. It´s the agonising wait outside the principle´s office after you have been caught cheating; watching the last of the lottery balls to fall when you only have one number; it´s sitting in the restaurant for ´that´ chat when you know for sure that your current relationship is over; it´s all this and more and it´s all you can do to stifle any anticipation of a positive result.
And suppressing that urge served me well as I queued for the expected forlorn shake of the head which told me that my immediate plans were going to have to change. I always feel better when I have some momentum and I didn´t want to spend another night in Cancun so I bit the bullet and booked myself on to a 25 hour bus so that I would get in before the next available flight (well the next flight available to me at any rate) so that I could at least feel I was making progress.
But today was not a day when I felt I was making any progress at all. It was a tough day, a day when you really have to dig deep to find the silver lining, convincing yourself that this very turn in the road, taking the road less travelled so to speak will have a far reaching consequence on your life. At the very least, you have got to convince yourself that if you had made it to your destination today, kismet, the stars and karma would have all aligned you, set you up in fact, to be walking in front of that maniac driver the moment you stepped off the curb!
To compound things a friend of mine had changed her plans to be at the airport to see me in and to a hostel in MC. I had no way of contacting her as there was no Internet in the airport (everything is wireless now of course) and I bought a call card (well I bought two only to find that the first was for a cell phone company in Mexico which a ´nice man´ took off my hands for half price) but the number I had in my book was wrong so I couldn´t get the news to her and she spent over 3 hours running around trying to find me. Now I really felt bad.
It actually started to rain outside aswell for the first time in weeks for me, providing a perfect temperate climate for my current mood.
And so, these are the hard days, the days when it does feel like work (and that is before another marathon bus trip) but I know from experience that another day will come up that will eclipse this memory and I will be better for it.
Just remind me of that when I get off the bus tomorrow evening...
So, do you remember that scene in `The Usual Suspects´ when the cop realises as he is looking at the board behind him that the criminal that he has been talking to all that time was actually making up a story and has walked out scot free?
Well, I had one of those moments as I got on the bus. I was suitably disgruntled and settled back to watch the DVD that they were putting on when I noticed the date in the corner of the screen, 06/05/2008
Well that was the date on my airline confirmation so what was going on? And then it dawned on me in an instant, the bloody American date system. I had mused a week or so ago that we have been waiting to see who the USA invade after Afghanistan and Iraq, but that they have already been doing a bang up covert job in the likes of Cancun and Playa Del Carmen. Well the takeover is complete because for reasons that baffle me, Mexico have adopted the pointless date system understandable only to their northern neighbours.
Now I am throwing this out there for rebuke, but can anyone, ANYONE explain to me why the USA have adopted this system? I don´t condone it but I understand why they spell colour the way they do (although their pronunciation for aluminium still baffles me) but why is it more important to know what month you are in before you even know what day it is? Surely, going from day to month to year makes more sense right?
My mood was certainly not helped with this revelation but as 26 hour bus journeys go, this was a pleasurable one. I got into Mexico City, a city with over 30 million people and I was surprised just how easy it was for me to get around. It is truly a beautiful city, with so many parks, museums and monuments to look at.
In Alameda Park, I was surprised to see two gouchos sitting up on their horses, resplendent in their handlebar moustaches and huge sombrero hats. Then two more, and another two. I presumed (incorrectly) that they were just there for the tourists but on closer inspection I saw that they had guns and were actually part of the park police! I prayed to see a bag snatcher being chased down by these banditos flailing their guns in the air, sombreros flowing behind them, held only by the chord around their necks. My imagination though was not rewarded.
The other thing of note in this beautiful park was the number of couples there. Well, they were couples at the time but probably not soon after as on three occasions I saw one or both of the duo crying, in that typical post `its not you, it´s me` conversations! Maybe this was the place where you took your partner if you wanted to part ways (the sombrero toting cops could protect you if they went postal I guess) but I can imagine the conversation just beforehand.
`Hey Honey, do you want to go for a walk?´
`Sure babe, where would you like to go?´
`Alameda Park´
`Awwwww´
It is really hot here too, well in to the 30´s every day and understandably a lot of the locals where white. But they over do it a little, white shirt, jacket, pants and shoes on many of them. It makes you feel like you have walked in on a pharmacist convention or at the very least a Duran Duran video!
They have these street musicians all over that grind their organs, a throwback to a long gone era. The music warbles away in a pathetic fashion and at the start I was caught up in the romanticism of it. But they are literally all over the place and after a while it begins to grind on you, making you think that in this case at least, progress has got the right idea.
Sarah left me her camera for the next few weeks (thank you, thank you, thank you), showing great confidence in my ability not to lose, break or have it stolen (my track record is not what it should be in this regard) so I have loved it immensely going around taking pictures of everywhere.
They have a monument to Saint Death (I kid you not) which I wanted to go see but the guide book said that the local followers (it is a cult with 2 million followers and is roundly opposed by the Catholic Church) don´t like tourists going to see it and it is apparantly in a bad area. I will probably go see it tomorrow.
On my way there however I did see a shrine to a skeleton dressed in a flowing gown (think Grim Reaper) with `offerings´ of beer and cigarettes in front of it. I had to resist a huge urge to take the beer but I didn´t want to tempt fate.
There are cops everywhere in this city but I can´t help but feel that their presence would be increased if they didn´t congregate in groups of 10 or 20 and talk. I ever saw one on duty cop getting his tarot cards read by a gypsy! Someone out there is getting mugged while the cops are standing around. As it happened I came across an old man who looked like he had been pretty badly beaten up and he was surrounded by no less than 20 cops, but no ambulance.
In 2004 (according to my guidebook) there was 86 muggings, 55 car thefts and 4 `Express´ Kidnappings (as opposed to the slow, drawn out, we´ll do it in 30 minutes or your pizza for free type kidnappings) per day in Mexico City. It sounds like a lot but there are a lot of people here. But more people die from car accidents than street crimes.
Now I have stared down a tidal wave of traffic in Saigon, accelerated into a roundabout in India and been in a tuk tuk accident in Cambodia but these guys have me on edge so much when I am walking around, I fear I might need a neck brace in a few days time. I was perplexed when I came to a roundabout because something just didn´t look right and then it hit me (the answer, not a car thankfully), these guys were driving in both directions around it!
Instead of arriving into the roundabout at 6 o´clock and exiting at 9 o´clock (so basically driving three quarters around it to the right), they just turn left and wait for the traffic coming in the other direction to pass and then they proceed. I watched it with fascination for several minutes.
I went to the Anthropological Museum which had some fascinating pieces from all around Mexico. I was most impressed by the huge Sun Dial which was incorrectly assumed initially to be a massive calendar but it has been discovered subsequently that it in fact was used for sacrificing people and it was where two men would have stood and fought each other. I just love this stuff, to think that we are looking at something on a museum wall that was the last thing that so many men saw as they were killed. It´s not morbid, it´s just cool!
Speaking of death matches, we went to see the professional Mexican wrestling. My God, the mexicans go nuts for this. It has all the fanfare that you would expect with wrestling but with the added bonus of fighting midgets (people of a diminutive stature if you want to be politically correct and frankly boring). Needless to say the two of them beat the normal sized wrestlers much to the amusement of all but I couldn´t help but feel that those little guys would be waking up feeling pretty sore today.
It is big man gymnastics to be fair as these huge guys show incredible flexibility and movement as they swing around each other, throwing themselves over ropes with backflicks etc to land on their competitors below with scant regard for their own health or of those of the front row spectators.
There was TV cameras, commentators and a full press photograper contingent. Girls around us screamed at supersonic levels, I thought the Beatles had walked into the room and father and sons were walking in wearing capes and the Mexican Wrestling Masks. It was very cute but I couldn´t help thinking that the Dad would have served his son better by taking a football and kicking it around the park somewhere.
Tequila is the drink of choice around here and one of the bars that we have been frequenting literally pours it down our throats for free. He thought he was teaching me a lesson after I complained (jokingly) that he wasn´t giving us enough when the barman poured nearly half a bottle into me (it was the really cheap stuff so thankfully not that potent) but I took it without complaint and smiled one of my most annoying smiles at him! To his credit he announced that the Irish were truly the greatest drinkers in the planet and I felt that Brendan Behan, Shane McGowan and Richard Harris were all truly proud of me at that moment.
But I have loved it here, it has been great to get roundly lost in a city again and walk around for hours. Heading north towards Texas in a few days time with a stop off in Monterrey, I want to see the people that gave us George Bush. Maybe they can explain the bloody date system up there!
Another day or two in Mexico City walking around. I love seeing a city`s idiosyncrasies, it really gives a place a personality of sorts. (See Jan Morris` book, A Writer’s World: Travels 1950-2000). One such quirk was the cops walking around and scanning different walls on the street, I guessed it was just an indicator to say that they were in an area at a particular time and that they were on the beat.
Of course, they were carrying about 10 other scanners so you knew that somewhere a bunch of cops were just hanging out and that these two had lost at paper, scissors, rock!
So, I went out to the airport, no dramas this time of course and arrived into Monterrey. It is great to be in so many places that have songs attached. I could have been `Going Loco, down in Acapolco` like the 4 Tops suggested but instead I went with Frank SInatra`s `It happened in Monterrey` except it didn`t for me! I was supposed to get in touch with a friend but didn`t until I had already booked my overnight bus so I just wandered around the beautiful city, trying to avoid trouble.
I had had lunch with a Fernando who had told me how dangerous it was in town, a lot of drug related killings. He had also asked me what state Ireland was in so I questioned pretty much everything he said!
I had had a fitful night`s sleep the night before and my overnight bus was to give me no relapse in that regard. We crossed the border around 1am and of course I was the only one that had to get a permit and that took nearly 30 minutes of questioning.
`So Sir, you are trying to tell me that you have been travelling all this time and that you are NOT working? All this time? Hmmmm" was the jist of what Sargeant Hernandez was telling me. He broke up this rhetoric with telling me that if I walked a block into the border town I would be shot within an hour. It was clear he wasn`t angling for a job in local tourism.
Finally I was let through (after the bus driver had to pay for my entry permit as I had no US dollars) and I arrived into Austin Texas. I have to say I was excited but it was tinged with sadness that my South and Central American tour was over and that I was going to have to resign my Spanish for the time being.
One of the first things I noticed as I took the bus to my hostel (a dry hostel too I might add, my first and I hope last!) was how big the cars are over here. The next thing I noticed was that the people were even bigger!! Ok, lets get it out of the way early here, but they, just like the rest of the world, have huge obesity problems, 30 years from now, it will kill more people than cigarettes and alcohol combined, mark my words.
On the bus (and subsequent buses I have taken around the city) there is invariably someone who is either on a phone or else conversing with the person beside them at a decible level akin to someone in a rock concert or working under a plane. To be honest, it is usually interesting as the first one I heard. They were discussing, to an incredibly complex, financial and chemical level, the merits of petrol versus diesel/electricity hybrids. He was even able to quote the distilling per gallon cost in 1979! I really knew I was in Texas then.
I went into the city and looked around, struggling to keep my eyes open but that was aided as I walked down 6th Street! Oh my Good God, what a place!! Bar after bar, all different and all promoting live music that night. In fact, there are over 100 live music venues every night here. Can you just imagine that?!! You could go out here every night and never see the same band twice! All live music too. You can just imagine (or is even possible?) how ecstatic I was! I even entertained ideas of trying to work here, for just a fleeting moment though!
This could be my idea of heaven, the only difference would be the lack of the omnipresent ATM machines, the beer would be free in my heaven!
I went to the Story of Texas museum and they have had a rich history. They were their own country for a while, they were a part of Mexico too and they had a lot of internal fighting about joining the States. They have a proud fighting history, both winning and losing and I likened them to the Irish. Well except for the cowboys, stetsons and their accents of course! Still, I was in there with about 100 school kids and I was delighted to see them be amazed at their own history.
I was gutted however to see that the `Dallas` exhibition (the massive 1980`s TV program as opposed to the state) was on in a few weeks, would have loved to have caught up with JR, Sue Ellen and the mother figure, what was her name again?
I went and checked out one of the art museums and frankly it made me despair. I like art, I really do, and I am comfortable enough in my knowledge to know what I like and what I don`t. But when I see some of this modern `art` I really feel massively old. It`s shocking stuff altogether, with the notes beside them attempting in vain to give them credibility.
"You can see from the savage, minimalist brush strokes that the artist is clearly struggling against the conformity impressed upon his generation by his elders. He cries out in this piece successfully for acceptance, for his own space. His colour use is deliberate and poignant, heralding a caustic look at all art."
It`s a red box on a black circle.... Sheesh, I just don`t know....
I went out last night and it was simply magnificent, music blaring out of every venue, all in competition for your ears. And it was good music too, talented people everywhere. Of course I was up singing last night, I couldn`t help myself! Austin is a great place, with just the right mix of friendly people and crazies! Next stop, Dallas to catch up with friends, but I am definitely coming back here!
Ever since I was a kid, I knew about Dallas.
JR Ewing was the most evil person on the planet and he was deservedly shot .The theme music was infectious and is still on the tip of your tongue (when not confused with Indiana Jones and Star Wars). My father used to call Cliff Barnes (resident and regular loser of the series) a `mopeen` and we would behave ourselves beyond reason just so that we could stay up past 9pm on a Saturday night to watch it!
And here I was finally and the first thing I noticed was the skyscrapers from the opening credits of the TV series and the distinct lack of Stetsons! I had met Kendall and Claire Stone in New Zealand, Christmas of 2001 while on a white water rafting trip in Queenstown and as is our way, we had always stayed in touch. So when I was within striking distance I had to come and see them.
Claire picked me up with Parker, 5 and Chappel, 3 and we all went for lunch. The kids were so much fun and I revelled in being pulled in both directions as they showed their respective hand drawn pictures of me. It was a fantastic afternoon right up until little Chappel fell hard and gave herself a commendable fat lip! There was momentary talk of a possible run to the hospital, but some TLC, some Irish accent high jinks and ultimately some ice cream saved the day!
Dallas is famous for many things but high on that list is the assasination of JFK on Nov 22nd, 1963 and we went to the 6th Floor Museum of the Texas School Book Depository. It was just eerie being up there, looking down on the view where the shot was taken (by all accounts.) I was also down on the Grassy Knoll and unless there has been a massive amount of development just behind it, I can`t believe that someone was there with a gun, quietly setting up for a shot. It was no distance from the road and there would have been too many people.
But being that close to modern day history was incredible.
Kendall, Claire and I all went out to one of the top dining establishments in Dallas, Bob`s Steak and Chop House where Kendall was known by all. This is where the local stars hang out and it was a fantastic meal. Needless to say, the waitresses were all really friendly to me and sided with me over Kendall until he told them that he would pick up the dinner bill but `let the Irishman pick up the tip` which quickly drew their allegiance back to him!
I met Bob and Kendall introduced me as a world traveller. He seemed impressed by this until he was told I had arrived by a Greyhound bus where he actually took an unconscious step back! One of the bar girls serving us was incredulous at my `bravery or madness` to take a bus saying that she would be R-A-P-E-D if she was to take one. Whoever works as the Public Relations officer for that bus company is really not doing their job!
We got a free dessert (our waitress was 75% Irish descendent) and after a few drinks at one of Kendall`s favourite bars, another guy offered to drive us home, a long way out of his way! This Texan hospitality towards the visiting Irish continued next day when we ordered sandwiches and salad at a busy Deli. Kendall asked what was good and the expected reply of `everything` was returned. He ordered one and I ordered another and the guy behind the counter said that mine was the best kind and his favourite! Kendall`s jaw dropped as I just smiled.
And then incredibly, after talking to the girl that was at the register she decided to comp us the entire meal, free, gratis and for nothing! Kendall just couldn`t believe it, I couldn`t either but I let on that good things happen to good people.... and me aswell!
Texans are great though. They are a law unto themselves, they really see themselves as a semi-independent state and not all of them are fully signed up fans of George Walker Bush. There were subtle indications of politics, a note left in the hostel guest book for people to love one another more and vote Democrat(!); a desk in the office with a rip off daily calendar with a countdown to when George Bush leaves office; a food court with deals and offers and just below it, WE LOVE OUR TROOPS, proudly displayed.
Kendall and his Dad both work in the beauty products business and after seeing their fantastic houses I was once again blown away by the amount that women spend on their appearances! (Oh boy am I going to get some letter in from that comment!)
I have to say I was drawn to my friend`s life. A beautiful loving wife, simply amazing kids, a great home, a successful business, who wouldn`t. I wondered if I would ever find that myself, who knows.
I didn`t have much time to reflect on that though as we went out with Claire and her cousin Christina. This time we went to another famous restaurant with their infamous Mambo cocktails. We went out to see some of the pretentious bars just to laugh at the Dallas `elite` and then danced the night away, right up to one of my infamous body shut downs when I just needed a nap!
I travel so much, sleep voluntarily so little and party often that every now and again my body, sick of me rejecting it`s pleas for sleep, goes into override! I was jaded, we went home and after a short kip I was back up, sending emails and playing Claire at Scrabble!
I was leaving next day to head back to Austin and so I had to say goodbye, reluctantly, to the family Stone. I really didn`t want to say goodbye to Parker and Chappel, just two of the most beautiful kids you could imagine. I was to learn later that Chappel had asked, "Can Consi live with us?!" and when my heart stopped melting, I had to cast aside fleeting thoughts of kidnapping!
Not sure how I could achieved that and kept up this blog!
So it was back to Austin for another reunion with an old friend (let this be a warning to you all, if I have ever met any of you, I rarely if ever lose touch!!)
I had hung out with Allison in Sydney in 2000 and since Austin was somewhere she had always wanted to go, I was glad I hadn`t found myself in Idaho!
I was perversely happy to show her around this great town. We walked and caught up as we passed the Capitol Building and headed down the spine of the city, Congress St. You may have seen the T-shirt, `Everything is bigger in Texas` and I couldn`t argue with them! Food portions, cars, smiles, music amplifiers and even their dogs were huge! A beautiful St. Bernard was walked into the bar and people literally fell over each other trying to get a picture taken.
You really could get used to the way they talk round here! Everyone is `sir` or `ma`am` and the ubiquitous `ya`ll` is endearing; `Ya`ll ready to order or dya`ll need a few more minutes?` Sometimes they are hoping that you won`t get upset at what `they are fixing to tell you` and other times they answer by saying, `I feel like I want to say that.....` It was wonderful stuff.
The official slogan of Austin which adorns the T-shirts here is, "Keep Austin Weird!" Isn`t that great? Everywhere else is "Keep Sydney Green", "Keep Rio Dancing" or "Keep London Wet" but they revel in the that they realise that they are not just a little but a lot different than other Texans who I`ve explained already are different than other Americans.
There are a lot of things I like about America (despite all the bad press they get) and one of them is the Peter Pan attitude they have to people being carded before they go into bars or order a beer. In America, no-one ever gets old, or at least past 21 years of age. So everyone that even retains a slight sparkle of youth in their eyes gets asked for ID.
I haven`t been asked once! I think it might actually be time to start using some of that facial moisturiser stuff!
I met John, a fellow Irishman who told me there was a large contingent of my fellow Limerick men and women living in town, working with Dell. I was instantly but temporarily jealous! We watched an Irish band play that night and the Texan hospitality continued as I was bought pints of Guinness by the locals. We went down to Pete`s Dueling Piano Bar (got there before you even told me Una!) and it was a lot of fun! This format would work everywhere!
Next day, we set off on a long walk to try and find the fabled Hula Hut. We had been advised that we could take a cab but were given directions to follow aswell. After nearly an hours walk we flagged a cab and he drove us twice the distance that we had covered to get to our destination. Everything is bigger in Texas, even the lengths that they will walk for a beer.
The Hula Hut was a weekend hot spot, full of the beautiful people drinking cocktails and hanging out by the water. Kanye West and Eva Langoria lookalikes walked around vying for admiration but I got a perverse pleasure that my `Rehab is for quitters` T-shirt got several people commenting and even a fist pound (kind of like a high five but with a closed hand)
But the affects of the Guinness last night was catching up with me. Unable to eat today, I had a couple of cocktails but the bad Guinness prevailed. I really don`t know when I will ever learn, Guinness is not to be drank outside Ireland except on the rarest of occasions and places.
The next morning when I was flying out, the security officer checked my passport photo and told me that I had lost a lot of weight. Damn Bad Guinness...
I had a lay over in Las Vegas and I decided to blow $5 on a slot machine. They flashed and titillated with their upbeat music, enticing the last poor dollars out of the Vegas faithful, not content to leave them head home with their tails between their legs but wanting to make this latest defeat even more crushing.
But there was a certain allure, the prospect that you could pick the one that was just waiting to pay out the big bucks, getting buckets of quarters as security surrounds you and tells you that you will cashed out at the desk and that there is a limo and private suite waiting for you.
I`d lost my $5 in 7 rolls of the wheels in 20 seconds!
I walked away laughing but feeling a little sorry for those that pushed down the GO button with extra vigour in direct proportion to their dwindling money. Their desperation was bitterly palpable.
I was there for two hours, I didn`t hear one person win....
"If you`re going to San Francisco, be sure put some flowers in your hair" sang Scott McKenzie. Screw the flowers, get yourself a jacket, it`s Baltic!!
I wasn`t feeling great when I arrived in, but I booked into my hostel and dragged myself back out to explore, fairly safe in the knowledge that this almost always cures me of any ailment. This was to be tested however by the hills that have made SF so famous, it is hard to imagine by their steepness (I feel like there should be a better word for that?)
But this was part of the experience and I climbed. It is nearly impossible to understand the topography of this city or what was going through the heads of the original settlers when they saw all those hills and thought, `Perfect!` Just as soon as you think you think that around the next corner, the road will drop down, it goes back up and vice versa. In the end you give up and accept every corner as a surprise, sometimes good, sometimes tiring.
I stumbled across the famous Grace Cathedral, originally built in 1849 during the Gold Rush, later destroyed in the 1906 Earthquake, rebuilt and completed in 1964 in a French Gothic style. It was truly impressive, even for me who was getting a kind of church fatigue on this trip. It was also nice to see that this church was still being used for it`s first function, daily services and not just charging tourists for coming in. A woman shuffled quickly around the labyrinth inside the doors for about 10 minutes, oblivious to us spectators. She was in a kind of daze but when she finished, she went over, grabbed her bag, said a few prayers. Maybe she was combining her daily walk and prayers, a new form of religicise I guess!
The church has musical events and I stood at the same pulpit that Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr, the Dalai Lama, Lech Walesa and Bishop Desmond Tutu gave sermons from. The Ghiberti Doors of Paradise (which are the front doors of the church) are `considered the first and greatest masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance` according to the flyer. They were impressive, but I was more fascinated with the ornate stain glassed windows.
You don`t need to be Episcopalian to marry in this church which I thought was refreshing and of course, in this city of all places, same gender unions are blessed. But more on that aspect of SF later.
A quick walk down to Fisherman`s wharf with their famous fish restaurants, feeling very much better despite the fishy smell. But that was pot pourri compared to the odour wafting over the sea lions on Pier 39, angrily snapping at each other, protecting their respective harems, much to the amusement of the tourists. I had seen them attacking each other in Argentina and I knew a similar attack would have challenged their city slicker sensibilities and almost willed it, but none came.
I passed `Treasure Ireland,` a souvenir shop which boasted having `freshly caught leprechauns` inside!! Sheesh! Leftys, a store for left handed people had a T-shirt announcing that Barack Obama was a Lefty and next door the store sold T-shirts with people in bewildering positions, clearly in a post alcoholic stupor, with the title, `Irish Yoga!`
I was liking the humour of the place already. A women scurried past me apologising to her friend on the phone that she was late as she had had to stop to buy a jacket. It was nippy, no question about it and the hills seemed even more daunting as the clouds rolled in but my hostel didn`t have a bar or restaurant in it so I continued my journey.
I visited Chinatown and bought an ice tea in a shop that Bill Clinton had visited and eaten at. I was tempted to eat some Chinese but everywhere sold shark fin soup and I just couldn`t go in. I passed the famous Larry Flint Hustler Club, complete with pink neon, big bouncers and promises of titillation.
What I couldn`t believe was the number of cyclist going around. Surely, surely this was the last place that you would want to have that hobby, Tour De France mountain climbs wouldn`t be as challenging. But they were everywhere. I was told later that there had been major protests by cyclists in the San Fran area, looking for more bike lanes. But when they got this, some of the anarchistic amongst them continued the protests, every last Friday of the month, calling themselves, `Critical Mass.` The Police are at a loss to stop them, the Mayor has even given up and fights have broken out as people are blocked off heading home by literally hundreds and hundreds of cyclists. Some people just don`t know when to end the joke, causing them to be dubbed by the SF locals as `Critical M-ass-holes`
I took myself back to the hostel, hungry but not enough to chance anything. I sat down to catch up on my diary and got a massive serving of my age versus technology. I was writing away, you know, with a pen, and 12 of the 13 people around me were on their laptops, all tucked away in their own little worlds. I looked over to the only other person still happy to be reading in this taste of tomorrow world we were in but he gave me a scornful look as I saw that he was reading a PC Gaming magazine. They were all probably taking virtual tours of the city and I took my tired body off to bed.
A full room of 4 is pretty much one of the best scenarios you can get when you are trying to sleep, everyone is in, no-one is going to arrive in wasted or as a late book in and it cuts down the chances of a snorer. But that`s the funny things about odds, sometimes the long shots come in. A small Asian guy from LA called Mark was snoring at a level that I couldn`t believe was human. As I was awoken, I thought that some construction work was being done outside my window.
When I tracked it down, this industrial strength pneumatic drill in the next bed, I made all of the courtesy noises designed to jolt a snorer into waking up and continuing on noiselessly; the loud a-hem, the rocking of the bed, the knocking on the floor etc.
When none of these worked, I got up and punched him! I`d decided to get up and go read but when I realised that it was 2:30am I knew I had to get slightly more drastic and that is why I hit him. He woke, sensing this glowering dark figure over him and at the same time a searing pain in his upper arm. I almost felt sorry for him but I told him that he was snoring and that he had to turn on his side. I bet I could have told him to jump out of the 6th floor window and he would have complied! Haha!
Still, as I settled back to sleep, ear plugs reinstated, I knew it was time to call on an old friend...
I had met Steve in Thailand and Cambodia at the very start of this trip, about 18 months ago and he had said that if I was ever in town, I could sleep on his couch. Well after the performance of the elephants mating impersonator last night, I knew it was time to take him up on his offer.
I had started the day with some toast and Sandwich Spread, a jar I had been brought up on and which was a gift from Sarah when she had visited a few weeks ago. It was comfort food for me and the first I had eaten in nearly 3 days. I had a long day planned so I started out early to the Golden Gate Park (humourously nowhere near the Golden Gate Bridge or Golden Gate St for that matter.)
It is the largest man made park in the world but the first impression was not a good one. Camps of homeless people, mostly men, hung out at the gates and at the initial park, all crowded around make shift fires. Their possessions were in their respective trolleys that were kept respectfully a little distance apart, I suppose as a way to mark territory. I was somewhat intimidated, even though it was the middle of the day. I tucked my map away and tried to convey a look of local familiarity.
In direct and abject contrast was the AIDS Memorial Park which was so serenely peaceful, I couldn`t believe what I had had to walk through to get here. It was so beautifully understated, a solace in the city for those that had lost loved ones to this disease. There was a memorial for the women and children who had lost their lives, emphasising if it is was needed that this is not a disease that affects the homosexual community.
And then I was struck by one in particular.
`In Memory of William K. Xenos 1942 - 2003
World Traveller on Earth, Now the Universe`
I couldn`t know who this guy was, but I said a prayer and mourned his passing for some reason.
I walked through the disappointing Shakespeare Garden, listened to a children`s symphony play the `Mission Impossible` Theme in an outdoor auditorium, bypassed the frankly strange DeYoung Museum (always disappointing when the architecture of the building far exceeds what it houses), the charming Rose Garden and the romantic Strawberry Hill with the couples rowing around it`s lake. It was a wonderful morning and I boarded a bus to the Golden Gate Bridge (GGB).
The GGB is understandably impressive. It really is, so incredibly red (I am sure I will be told it was burnt orange but I refuse to know more than 10 colours) and really quite a feat of engineering although it disturbed me to hear that the bridge had sunk 10 feet when people had walked over it during the 50 year celebrations. Hmmm, one hopes that they have looked into that since.
It is a very popular place for suicides. I don`t say attempts as those that jump invariably die. They have tried to keep a count since it`s opening in 1937 but they stopped the count in 2005 at over 1200 and they were just the ones that were witnessed. A tiny percentage have survived the fall, the frigid waters, the currents and the great white sharks that sometimes are seen below. One woman survived it in 1988 and not at all impressed with this amazing stroke of luck, recovered and jumped to her death for a second time, finally getting the job done.
I took a very long walk from the GGB past Fort Pt, Crissy Field to the Palisade of Fine Arts. It really is a beautiful place which was housing an interactive museum on sight and sound and I missed Parker and Chappel (from Dallas) as I knew I would have only had fun in there had they been there.
I continued on and walked another long way (clearly the Sandwich Spread was giving me tons of energy!) to the Crookedest St in SF. Well crooked is the right word for it because beside its weaving drive to the bottom of the street, it`s not even in fact the most crooked street in San Fran! Everyone who is not a tourist knows that it is on Vermont and 20th but because that is outside town and this one has been delightfully maintained with beautiful houses and flowers, so they maintain the lie! I was gutted. I needed a break, so I walked down to the Waterfront and queued up for a trip on the fabled Cable Cars of San Francisco.
These iconic transport vehicles are really amazing when you think of the steep hills that they can still traverse. I hung on from one of the sides and listened to the funny commentary from the huge driver (they need to be to pull the levers and breaks when the car goes into freefall down through the streets.) The cars passed so close to the ones coming up that you could have high fived the person hanging on coming the other way with your elbows!
And every now and again, when you are looking around, you catch a glimpse of Alcatraz, one of the most famous (ex) prisons in the world. It seemed closer to the city than I had imagined to be honest but I could imagine what it must have been like for the locals here to have had the most famous of gangsters, living basically in their postcode. Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly and Robert Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz had stayed here and the debates about whether or not a successful escape attempt was made while it was a prison still goes on.
I took a short train ride to Mission St where I looked around, mostly in vain, for the famous Murals that adorn the streets there around. And when I looked at my map, I determined (fatefully incorrectly) that I was relatively close to Twin Peaks, the highest part of the city and which had a commanding view.
I passed Dolores Park which was small and quaint and full of dogs. I knew America was a country big on their dogs but there were loads of them there. I walked on and saw men coming in groups of ones and twos, each with their dogs and dressed up very well. I looked at my watch, nearly 6pm and then it occurred to me. I was near the gay area Castro and the men had rushed home, got ready and were taking their dogs out for a walk, an ideal and innocent way to meet other men.
"I really like the look of your Sausage Dog"
"I can see he`s taken a fancy to your Boxers" or words to that affect I presumed was the way the conversations went!
I got some advice from a local as to how to get to Twin Peaks and he told me to walk up to 24th street and turn right and then just follow any of the winding passages to the top. So I started walking again, painfully dragging my feet up more hills, which after a day of walking felt like some kind of self induced masochism.
Putting my head down, I got to 22nd St, then 23rd and then... Elizabeth?!! What? How could that be? I was jaded and now downhearted but I pulled myself up to walk one more block and found 24th street. Yessss! I would not be defeated, I was a world traveller, master of my own destiny. I nearly skipped to the turn and then got hit with the hammer blow of the steepest street I had encountered in San Fran (and that is notable in this town)
I nearly cried as I kept going and then at the top, stopped a man, drew in huge gasps of air and asked him how did I get to the top. He pointed out where the steps were and asked where I had come from. I said Ireland, but he said no, where did you start this walk today? I told him Mission St and he whistled and said I had come a long way but the good news was that the easy bit was over and that I only had the hard bit left! He laughed at this in a way too rehearsed way as he walked off, delighted with himself. Stupid old git!
I persisted, driving myself ahead, trying to force negative thoughts out of mind. I was praying that the famous SF fog wouldn`t whip in from the sea and shroud the views. That might have ended me to be honest. But I was delighted to finally make it up, 30 minutes of slogging later, to see the beautiful view (although seeing the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse raining fires of pestilence, plague and death would have been welcomed after that hellish walk!)
It is a beautiful city (once you wipe the sweat and tears out of your eyes) and my camera couldn`t capture it all together. Still, I got an impression from up there just how far I had walked and my feet seemed to throb just a little bit more.
I set off again, no phone booths or cab ranks within a mile I am sure in any direction. I just ambled, gaging that I was going in the right direction from a recollection of my earlier viewpoint. I was getting very tired again when I got to the intersection of Ashbury and Haight and realised that I had stumbled on one of the most famous places in the Hippie Revolution and the Psychedelic music of the 1960`s. While I thought I was hallucinating, I must have been on the end of some Hippie Love right then as the only bus that I knew in SF was one block behind which would take me back to my hostel! I nearly wept I was so happy!
I got back, collected my bag and then took a cab to my friend Steve`s house. I stayed in with him and caught up, I was happy to do so, the steam coming from the stumps formerly known as my feet causing me some discomfort and embarrassment! Steve was great though, taking control of my travel plans and booking me on a bus next evening and a cheap flight a few days later. I was incapable of argument or standing for that matter and I fell asleep, in this case, literally before my head hit the pillow. I actually think that somewhere in the process of lying down I passed out.
And still I had one more day in San Fran...
With my feet almost verbally but certainly visibly pleading for a break, I gave myself a lie in and decided to take the morning easy. I went into the city and took several buses to watch the Champions League Final. At half time I asked the bar lady where their payphone was and she gave me a perplexed look.
"I don`t think we have one anymore," she said, adding a few more wrinkles to her impressive brow.
I asked where the nearest one was to which she replied, "I don` t think I`ve been asked that question in years," and beamed what she presumed was a helpful smile.
I nearly lost my patience and was about to ask if she could tell me what she answered all those years ago but I knew I wasn`t angry with her, it was with progress. Everyone has mobiles (cell phones) now she told me and the irony of all my years working in the mobile industry wasn`t lost on me. I did find one but it had been destroyed so I couldn`t call a tour of some of the nearby woodlands which were supposed to be spectacular. I went back to the apartment and chilled out.
Steve came back from work and drove me across the bridge to the other side and we took photos and drove around the Bird Sanctuary over there (land donated by Frank Sinatra no less.)
When I think of San Francisco, the things that pop to mind are Michael Douglas and Karl Marlden in "The Streets of San Francisco," (a TV series from my youth), an Eddie Izzard comedy sketch about "The City" and of course the largest gay population per capita for a major city in the world. The story goes that during a purge of homosexuals from the US Army and Navy in WW II, a lot of the soldiers were discharged with a large blue H stamped on their papers. Rather than return home, they decided to stay in the area and it took off from there.
The Irish community used to live in an area called Eureka Valley and Castro St ran through it and when the place went into decline, the gay fraternity came in and started to take up the rent in this now undesirable place. (They have sufficiently turned it around that straight couples are queueing up to get an apartment in this now, safe area)
So, it was fitting that for my only drinks in SF that we should go down there. We went for a few drinks in one of Steve`s haunts and as expected 95% of the patrons were gay men, some office girls were there for after work drinks but left soon after to no-one`s disappointment but my own! As Steve introduced me to his friends as a traveller who had been around the world, I was asked questions initially about the gay scene in Ireland and then further afield. Struggling to give some definite insight I had to concede that I in fact did not have the inside line on this information.
"Why not?"
"Because I am not gay"
"So what are you doing here?!!"
The obvious answer was that I was with my friend Steve but the next and equally as relevant reason presented itself when I went to the bar and ordered two Makers Mark on the rocks. Ready with my $20 and hoping more than knowing that that would be enough, I was relieved to see $6 come up on the register. It only dawned on me what an outstanding deal it was when I got $14 back in change! $3 for what looked more like a double and a half of Makers Mark! This would be my local if I lived in San Fran, for sure!
No wonder the men in there were so promiscuous!!
Kylie, Mariah, Rihanna and Janet Jackson played on the video which at least gave me something to look at when not involved in conversation but it was a good evening. The sense of humour here is so wonderfully and overwhelmingly self deprecating. All the staff of the shops on the street were gay, of course the bar men were and I was reliably informed that the manager of the local post office was magnificently gay also.
The local Italian restaurant was called the Sausage Factory; what was an STD clinic by day, had an Open Mic night advertised at night; the local pharmacy developed photos and the pictures in the frames were all men; liquor stores had scantily dressed male mannequins holding trays of drink and T-shirt stores highlighted their products by putting their male mannequins in tight fitting underwear.
Then it was the terminology. A man who liked Asians was a Rice Queen; another who liked Latinos was a Bean Queen and those that liked white, big men were called Potato Queens. I presumed this could be extended to Lean Cuisine Queens but I didn`t push my luck as I`d lost a fair bit of weight!
After dinner and some more brief, amusing looks in the windows of the stores (this kind of window shopping being eminently more amusing that following a girl around Tiffany`s or Saks 5th Avenue for a full day) we set off to get me to my bus stop for my overnight to LA. On the way there, we passed the oldest church in the city, named after Saint Francis and where the city got it`s name and then Steve took a quick detour to show me WAG. I thought it looked like a pet store but in fact it was a pet hotel where animals got wake up calls, meals and massages while their owners were away on vacation.
I groaned audibly, gave my forehead a rub, bemoaned `progress` again and realised it was time to leave San Francisco...
The first thing that hit me (besides my need for a chiropractor from the uncomfortable bus journey) were the palm trees in LA. They really are beautiful, most standing 100 ft tall, all practically the same height, standing guard to the dreams of hundreds of thousands that enter the city in search of movie stardom.
I was in search of a bed.
I called my buddy James, who`d lived with me for a while in Sydney and told him I had arrived and was coming over. He`d been a regular reader of my website and I felt it was just reqards that he got his own entry. That now and flights were cheaper from LA than San Francisco to Seattle, so it was a win/win situation.
He got me settled in, showed me where his guns were (good Lord) and then set off for work while I tried to fall asleep watching some TV. The breakfast show presenters were talking about divorces and how it`s so much harder in the public`s eye. Only the anchorman of the show had not been divorced and he said that was because he married his second wife first. I was too tired to work out if I was impressed with that comment or not.
They say it never rains in Southern California, but boy don`t they warn ya, it pours, man it pours. Some of you will recognise that as a song lyric, I recognise it as my few days in LA. James was devestated, he`d been there nearly two years and couldn`t remember consecutive wet days in all that time and here was a guest in town and we had three in a row! I got soaked finding the bar on the first night.
I met Jim, a workmate of his who had heard vicariously through James about my travels. We went out and checked out some of the better bars in town, you knew they must be better as they were expensive. We were unlucky that one of his favourite bars called Edison`s was closed to a private party so we went to Birds on Hollywood Avenue and it was great. The owner, Mary, heard I was Irish and gave me two expensive Scottish (?) whiskeys and a free drink on the house and then charged us less for our other drinks. The US hospitality to me was continuing.
Next day, we set off for a drive up into the Hollywood Hills and we walked up to right beside the famous sign. Which was just aswell because a sea of fog descended on the city and we could hardly see it from 25ft away. James was losing his mind at his and my bad luck. I wondered how long it would be before he directly blamed me for the weather!
We took a long drive around, it was great just to see the famous names, Pasadena, San Fernando Valley, Beverley Hills, Mulholland Drive, Compton. It didn`t take long for that to be followed up with famous people. I saw an actress from The O.C. and an English TV presenter who I presumed was trying to make it big in the US (of course, he could have been on his holidays!)
But the stars didn`t and couldn`t get much bigger than Indiana Jones himself, Harrison Ford who was in the same restaurant as us, with his wife Calista Flockhart of Ally McBeal fame. It got me looking around at everyone wondering if I could put a face on them so to speak, it seemed like LA was dripping with stars.
Laura, a friend I had met in Greece joined us and she works in the TV and movie industry and could give us lots of great stories as to who was nice and who was not. The famous people she spoke of seemed to come matter of factly to her and I suppose when you work with these superstars often, the sheen must come off them.
Another friend who couldn`t join me over the weekend, did call and said he would catch me up in New York, but he had to run because he `was onset and filming was starting again.` No pretentiousness, this was just the job in this town, as common as saying you worked in IT in Silicon Valley or Silicon Implantation if you were a plastic surgeon in Beverley Hills.
We went back to Birds that night where Mary was wasting perfectly good drink by pouring it on the bar and setting fire to it! Great place! We met two girls, one of which assured me she was more Irish than I was, much to James chagrin. I thought it amusing until she persisted and I found myself in the previously unknown position of having to prove my Irishness. As she was a big girl I didn`t want to enlist the standard, `well lets have a few drinks and it should become blatantly clear who`s Irish` approach so I took out my passport with a `CHECKMATE` and that settled the argument.
Actually, I have to admit that I must be looking older as I wasn`t carded in nearly 4 days in LA except in bars where the bouncer was checking everyones and was almost embarrassed to take one off an old fella like me!
We got up early on Saturday to watch the Mighty Men from Munster win the Heineken Cup. It was great for me to see the crowds in my home city of Limerick on the streets in the sunshine. (How was it sunny there and not here in LA?) We went to Santa Monica and I met some Limerick ex-pats in a bar there who`d been in LA 30 years. One of them told me he had something in his wallet that would bring back memories to me and he produced a 10 bob note, currency that had gone out of circulation in Ireland many years before I was born. Right, that was it, I was clearly looking too old, moisturiser it was for me!
After a few hours in Moonshadows Bar in Malibu where people would just come up to me and ask me where I was from in Ireland and I was holding court telling stories to a few tables, we headed back to get changed and out again. We met Manoushca and Andrea, friends I had met in Honduras and we had a few drinks. At the end of the night, I was peckish so they suggested House of Pies. Having spent a long time in Australia I assumed this would mean meat pies but when my options consisted of banana truffle pie or pecan sesame pie, I knew I had been conned.
Next day, we headed to Hermosa Beach, home to beach volleyball in the USA. Literally between 2 piers, all of the pros come to play and this game is king here. There was a festival here for the Memorial Day weekend and the place was alive. Americans are T-shirt spotters and commentators I have realised. It is one of the first things they notice about you. I was wearing a Texas University T-shirt and Jim didn`t like it as they had famously beaten his team in a final a few years earlier.
We went to some famous, old bars on the strip like the Poopdeck and the Mermaid where, after learning some of its history and seeing the old salty dogs that were serving behind that bar for over 25 years, Jim bought me a T-shirt from the place. It will be sold soon and I was honoured to have one. There was a great festival atmosphere and one group of youngsters had dressed up as American Gladiators so I had the pleasure to meet and have my picture taken with Tazer, Hurricane, Elektra and Magnum.
The bars were all alive and everyone is incredibly happy to talk to strangers in this town. Enter Taylor, a 6ft Goddess who was 6ft 2 in her shoes and who liked to impress on me she was taller than I was when she stood on her tippy toes. She also wanted me to know that I was a very good looking man with a sexy accent.
Of course, she was horribly and terminally drunk and was soon escorted our by her friends!
But I looked around and saw I was in the presence of Amazonian women, the women`s pro volleyball tour being populated with such height endowed ladies! At that very moment I denounced every time I had hit my head off something and cursed my height! It was great to be tall!
Another big night was had and I began to take back what I had said about LA. It had been 8 years since I had been there and I think the idea of the city being a bad one had festered in my head. Of course, some of the main sights that you want to look at fall well below expectations (perfect example is walking down the Boulevard of Stars and saying Who? Who? Who? Who? Who? Mickey Rooney! Who? Who? Who? Who? Bill Cosby? Why? Who? Who? and so on...) but like any town when you get looked after by the locals you see it for what it could be.
I think I could live in LA now and that`s saying something, I just might have to take up volleyball though!
My passage through LAX airport (possibly the most hated and feared airport in the world) was pretty straightforward and I took my seat beside probably the most tired man in the world. We hadn`t taken off and he was snoring, which gradually subsided to a comical bobbing of his head to finally an inglorious amount of drool which emanated from both sides of his mouth.
If he hadn`t been so big and not showing army insignia on his jacket, I might have punched him!
I took the bus to downtown Seattle and had a strange feeling of familiarity when I saw the skyline and then I recalled the opening credits of `Frasier` the TV program (which incidently was not filmed here at all.) The bus driver was very courteous and locals gave foreigners lots of advice when they saw they had just arrived. There was a very pleasant vibe about the place.
I got in and contacted my friend Mary who had been a dive partner of mine in Honduras, continuing my pattern of calling on friends in North America to put me up and to put up with me. She was just coming from a trekking weekend with her friend Suzanne so I was told to look out for a "green Honda and two stinky women!" I had my eyes peeled and my nose shut!
That evening we went out in their local town of Ballard, a former independent town before it got swallowed up in the greater Seattle area. It was very quaint and nice, full of history and all the trappings of surburbia that you might have expected; cats and dogs, picket fences, big cars and little roundabouts.
Suzanne had proposed that we go square dancing and once I had brokered a deal that meant that I didn`t have to partake, we went. It was hilarious fun (me watching, EVERYONE else participating!) There were some people in there that were so exhuberant, it was easy to believe that they had been waiting for this all week! Legs flew, arms flailed, sweat poured and smiles widened as they followed the banjos and fiddles of the accompanying band.
Whoops and hollars of delight went up periodically. On this, I must say that my friend Mary, like a lot of fellow Americans are `Woo-hoo-ers,` giving ample voice to their current peaked levels of excitement! I have always been marvellously perplexed by this phenomenon coming from a country which has no problem with expressing ourselves but not as frequently or as vocally.
But they were reaching fever pitch levels of excitement and it was wonderful to watch. I did dance some of the waltzes to prove that I didn`t have absolute lead feet.
Next day, I took off around Seattle. I started in Capitol Hill and marvelled at the wide range of diverse culinary options and settled on Vietnamese. I was in need of a local map and I stopped into a coffee shop which had a lot of pamphlets and flyers. After scanning through about a half dozen I realised that they all catered for the gay community and I looked up and saw one man and another woman looking at me, with very different thoughts in their minds. "Yummy" and "All the good ones are married or gay" I presumed!!!
Walking on, an elderly black man walked along side me and asked me how my day was, to which I said I was having a good day.
"It`s a goooooooood day!" he sang followed by, "and it`s going to be a goooooooood day!" I smiled and he continued his ballad. "I`m feeling the suuuuuun in the sky and I`m sooooo fine, on this gooooooood day!"
The thing was he sounded like an angel, an elderly Al Green. I walked on feeling even better and thought that it might in fact be a greeeaaaaat day! I could hear him continuing his song, definitely not drunk, just going from one job to another, singing songs! This theme was continued when I went down to the famous Pike`s Place Markets, with their warren of shops catering from clothes to fresh food, flowers to magic shops. I saw a T-shirt which exclaimed that "Life is Good" and I began to think for those here in Seattle, it truly was.
Seattle stores pride themselves on awards. `Voted best Fresh Fish store, Thanks Seattle!` `Voted Best Baby Clothes Store. Thanks Seattle!` but the one that I thought was a bit inevitable was the sign outside The Tasting Shop stating, `Voted Best Tasting Shop in Seattle.` Well seriously, they would have felt pretty gutted if they hadn`t won that one!
The Boston Red Sox (my team) were in town playing the Seattle Mariners and I was tempted to go see them but then I remembered that 12 years ago, when I was in Boston, I once told a visitng group of Mariner fans who were at the game over there, that the reason why my home town was called Limerick was because they all spoke in Limericks, for everything, back home! I even gave them an off the cuff one about the game we were watching and then let them believe it! For some eerie reason, I thought karma was going to get me back and they would be sitting behind me, hearing my accent and cover me in all sorts of snacks and condiments so I decided to let the game play on without me.
I took the Monorail (the world`s first having started in 1962) the short distance to the Sky Tower which is probably more impressive from the bottom than from the top. What is equally as impressive but for all the wrong reasons is the building housing the Experience Music Project. It is singularly one of the gaudiest, ugliest buildings you will ever see and for that, it warmed my heart. I wanted to see the faces of the city`s leaders when the sheet came down off this thing! It truly was an eyesore, a blob of brilliant colours which made you want to appreciate music more because looking at it for too long would make you blind!
I walked around and found the Olympic Sculpture Park which had some interesting pieces. Now I know I mentioned this when I was in Austin, the verbose explanation of `art` which attempts to give it credibility but beside some 15 feet traffic bollards this was the frustrating attempt at an explanation;
Dennis Oppenheim`s Safety Cones will occupy the Olympic Sculpture Park from May to October 2008. A recent work, it is one in a long line of public installations by this veteran artist that playfully manipulates scale and everyday objects. By hijacking (that is my favourite bit!!) a banal and ubiquitous street safety icon and amplifying to heroic proportions, it claims the whole park as a site where heightened caution and care should be taken - a sly pitch for greater awareness of the space that surrounds us.
Give me a break! Give me a match and some kerosene maybe although I would probably be considered a Nazi.
I walked on, down to the harbour front and nodded to the people passing, stopping on occasions to take in the sights and to read the historical references of some of the ports. I looked down on a Police Boat being boarded and thought that a dramatic rescue or drug bust was in the offing but then I noticed that people were having their pictures taken and realised it must be a leisurely cruise for visiting dignatries. It was just that kind of place.
Seattle is a safe city, really safe. It is called the Emerald City because it is so green which is wonderful as it adds to this serene calm. People aren`t getting fussed (they don`t even get fussed when Al Green`s Dad starts singing out loud on the street, I half thought other people would join in and start a broadway musical number) and it struck me as a really great place to retire.
But not being ready to retire, I wasn`t quite ready for Seattle. I see cities like people and I think that we are all flawed in some way or another and that`s what makes us human. I don`t seek it out (it usually finds me if truth be told) but I like to think that cities have their seedier side, their Jekyll and Hyde, their devil on the shoulder, always there, primed to pounce. If it is here in Seattle, I couldn`t detect it which is comforting and strange in a way.
Not to say that Seattle didn`t have a little quirk which suggested a possible machiavellian side. In need of a toilet I walked around the Markets and discovered much to my distress that the doors to the cubicles were two feet off the ground and about three feet in height. Everyone walking past could look in on your when you were doing your business. I found this bizarre and tried several other toilets in different up market malls and they were the same. You walked along to find a free space and all you could see where the heads of men, looking down, each in their own personal shame.
Mary told me that there had been problems with drugs and prostitution in the city and for some reason, it gave me a perverse hope for the place!
I visited the Freemont area next day and was delighted with the off the wall nature of this place. For a start, they had this HUGE troll figure under the bridge (naturally on Troll Ave) which had an actual VW Bug in one of its hands. It was almost sad looking as people climbed on it and I felt like he might talk back if someone just cared to address him.
We walked around to see a rocket sticking out of a building and read the attached story. Apparantly, the people of Freemont `discovered` that they were in the Centre of the Universe and to commemorate this, they got hold of a 1950 Cold War Rocket Fuselage. There were several failed attempts to get it up (their words, not mine) but on the 3rd of June, 1994, in time for the summer equinox, they hoisted it up with the Latin Motto of "De Libertas Quirkas" or Freedom to be Peculiar!
I love this kind of stuff!
But just when I thought it couldn`t get more weird, the best was saved for last. Emil Venkov, a Slavic artist was conscripted to sculpt a massive statue to Vladimir Lenin. It was 7 tons in weight and sat in Poprad, Slovakia. An American teacher literally found it face down after it had been toppled in 1989 and mortgaged his house to get it shipped back to Freemont! It was wonderfully bizarre although a very contentious piece as Russian descendents have voiced their hatred of this reminder of the old Communist Regime but I thought it was great and instantly I wanted to go to Eastern Europe for some reason.
And then it was time to go. Mary dropped me off to the Bus Station but I was at the wrong one so I had a 5 minute run with my 45lb (20 kilo) bag on my back and I instantly felt sorry for those in the army! Safely aboard, I approched the Canadian Border with a slight bit of trepidation as I had been turned away 10 years earlier, but that`s another story...
I had wondered if Seattle had been heavily influenced by it`s proximity to Canada (for example, Canada were `hosting` Brazil in a football international in downtown Seattle) and maybe the calming influence of the Canucks was actually real. I had seen Michael Moore`s take on the relative peace loving nature of the Canadians just north of the border from the States in his movie, `Fahrenheit 9/11` but it was my turn to check out.
As always, I had problems crossing the border, finding it hard to explain to the officials that a person could go off travelling without any intent on getting work, legal or illegal. I arrived into Vancouver and set off walking. I got a map from a hostel owner and the first thing he pointed out was the area that I was not to go to. I really thought he should have promoted the attractions of the city first, but I didn`t quibble. It was Hastings St and I would run that gauntlet later.
I walked around the extremely colourful Chinatown, visited the meditation park with the mutantly large goldfish, walked down to the Gastown region and saw the famous Steam Clock and then around to the Waterfront overlooking the mountains. Directions in Vancouver are given on a strict, 4 blocks north and then 3 blocks east and the entrance is on the South West side. Shy of being Magellan I was struggling with these until I realised that the mountains, visible from nearly everywhere in the city were north and you could take it from there.
I went into the tourist office to get some advice and I met Brian, from Wales who had been here 40 years and still had his old twang. I asked about sporting events and possibility for tickets and he said it was unlikely I would get ice hockey ones now. `I don`t really get that game,` I said almost sheepishly to which he took a double look around, pulled me over conspiratorially and whispered, `Bloody daft game if you ask me, ` and then continued out loud to give me advice on buses, safe that he had beaten the system, said the unthinkable in Canada and still had his job and pension intact!
I was staying with my friends Paul and Tori. They are kind of heroes of mine to be honest. They met in Australia when Paul, supported by Tori, cycled across Australia to raise a quarter of a million dollars for charity. Not content with doing that, Paul became only the third Irish person and Tori the youngest woman ever, to row across the Atlantic. And they are about as down to earth about it as you could possibly imagine.
And, like many of their fellow Vancouverites, they are fitness fanatics! They had a company gathering the following night (Friday) which consisted of the company putting on drinks, including shots of tequila and cocktails and then they all got up and went out on a 4km charity run!! Can you imagine that in Ireland or frankly anywhere else?!! I`d have been, hey here`s my money, see you when ye get back!
It is wonderful to see though, they are all so into it. Paul completed a 25km race next day which was a battle by all accounts, Tori and he were to do a kayak practise and a mountain bike training session by the end of the weekend for races that they have coming up. If I worked here, I can imagine feeling seriously under pressure when I walked into work Monday morning.
Steve: So what did ye guys get up to this weekend?
Bob: I cycled 14km before getting on my bike, doing a lazy 60km cycle to get warmed up for my downhill descent challenge cup race. And that was just Saturday.
Mike: I bought myself a new GPS tracker system and covered 25sq kilometers and camped out for the weekend at altitude.
Consi: I played football with my mates on Saturday, came second in the golf competition on Sunday and mowed the lawn that evening too....
All: (Awkward silence followed by)..... WIMP!
If I did work here, I would have it written in to my contract that I get an allowance for feet strapping, Tiger Balm, heavy painkillers and physio treatment. But the thing is that you DO think about settling down here, it is regularly voted in the top three places in the world to live and you can see why.
The people are seriously and almost comically nice. Pollyanna nice. Go out of their way nice. If you didn`t experience it yourself, you would nearly think it was all fake, like some episode of The Truman Show. People have stopped me when they saw me with a map and asked if they could help me. They also look you in the eye as you pass and smile AND mean it. They are as curious about you as you are about them but they already know that they live in a great country and want you to realise it too.
I went on one of my mammoth walks, starting with the aforementioned walk down the gauntlet which is Hastings St. Gauntlet is a nice segway because some of the people looked so gaunt that I thought they might be dead. It is a long street, through the core of the city and the track marks on the arms and legs, they hang jawed expressions, the filthy clothes, the drop in centres, thrift shops and charity HQ`s all give the place a terrible sense of hopelessness. Paul had assured me that they were all too stoned to do anything violent but I decided I would take the bus next time.
I went out to Granville Island and took in the city skyline from there. Back across the bridge I walked around the city, marvelling in the city of glass, the skyscrapers all taking on a complimentary feel to one another. Stanley Park is huge and lovely. I walked to the aquarium and saw the sea lions and the beluga whales, I visited the aboriginal totem poles, the sculptures, the old sea guns and the Lost Lagoon.
Around this park were benches with touching dedications to those that had spent many years enjoying the park. A lady of about 75 turned to me with tears in her eyes and said that they were so sentimental. To gather herself she directed my attention to three young swans that were on the lake. "Don`t they mate for life?," she said and I answered that I had read that somewhere. She looked at the third one and then wide eyed but with a slight smirk said to me, "Maybe they are having a threesome?!" which sent me into a coughing spree much to her amusement!
I thought the benches were lovely and I wondered what would be said on mine.
In Loving Memory of Consi
Have a seat and take a rest, he never did
although I am sure some wag would write below it, `And now he`s dead so see what that tells ya?!`
We went to see Tori`s brother Clay play Aussie Rules of all things (he`s on the Canadian National Team!) before which Paul`s comment of "Do they play three quarters or four?" was one which I promised would not go unpunished or unpublished!
I went out to meet my friend Carrie`s friend Kathi for a few drinks in Kitsilano beach. We had a really great chat about life etc etc and after I had walked her home and was about to catch a cab to meet Paul for a drink, these three girls came up to me and asked "Are you Irish?"
Now, I had been warned that a recent movie, PS I Love You had caused a stir in Canada, putting their impressions of Irishmen into the stratosphere but the strange thing about Aimee, Hayley and Ally saying this was that they had seen it a week before, had not asked anybody that question to date and we were nowhere near an Irish bar. So you can imagine their surprise when I said I was, that I was going to meet my Irish friend in an Irish bar so they all jumped into the cab!
We had a good night, interspersing the conversation with just how random it all was that we should meet.
Next day, I went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge, one of the foremost tourist attractions in Vancouver. To be honest, the trees out there were magnificent and the river that the remarkably shaky bridge traversed was impressive but I was more impressed by the vision of the person to put the bridge there in the first place. It doesn`t per say link anything to do anything but it has millions of visitors every year. You did feel a little off keel when you walked around after coming off the bridge and looking at the worried faces of others was worth the admission alone.
I then took a sea bus back into downtown Vancouver and upon discovering a beautiful pitch and putt course in Stanley Park, I had to play it! It was immaculate, the flowers and trees, although not challenging from a competitive sense were amazing to take in. I met Johnny and Aaron (Sparky) and we formed a group. These guys also were amazing ambassadors for their country, upbeat, polite, flawlessly kind (they offered me some weed but I declined) and laid back to a fault.
Johnny and I had a good competition, I won with an even par round, but Sparky was having a lot of difficulties. He actually looked like someone you would call Sparky, a bright luminous orange jumper, tight black jeans with a red bandanna waving from a back pocket, huge oversized glasses and a weird leather baseball cap. I kept expecting him to start singing "Teeny-weeny-itsy-bitsy-yellow-polka-dot-bikini" but instead he treated me to such luminary statements like;
`I am not going to curse today, I am that happy`
`I don`t mind hitting a tree with my ball when it is as beautiful a pine tree as this one`
`You know my game is really football, I like watching it more`
I could have listened to him all day. In the group ahead was a young couple, both athletic, him looking like a pro footballer, well built, dark glasses on despite the overcast conditions, stern jaw, in short the kind of guy that you presume wouldn`t laugh at one of your jokes unless you had a gun in your hand and the theme music to Reservoir Dogs was playing.
When Sparky shanked a ball over at him, I thought, he we go, the legendary Canadian niceness is about to see my mate jettisoned into the harbour but no, he laughed it off, had a laugh with the clearly oblivious Sparky and he continued on. I couldn`t believe it and I was impressed.
And then the lads dropped me home!! I was on a niceness overdose watch!
I visited Vancouver Island which was an 8 hour round trip for a 2 hour stay! But the ferry was magnificent as we crawled through the islands and then the bus following that drove me through some of the most amazing countryside I have ever seen. Quirky signs such as;
`Never hold a dust buster and a cat at the same time`
and
`Respect slow moving farm vehicles `
seemed entirely in place.
Thoughts of Tasmania came back to me that my brother and Seamus had driven around in 2003 came back to me. It had a solitude that would either be broken up by a gun massacre (like Port Arthur in Tasmania had) or news that Meryl Bigginsworth cheated in the pie making contest by using non-natural ingredients. I prayed fervently it would be the latter and shook it from my mind.
Victoria has a heavy English influence unsurprisingly. I called into one church and there was a woman in there that was explaining that she hadn`t made it to mass the day before so she was singing the songs she had missed. It was touching. Also, was the notice in the newsletter of the Banns of Marriage, an announcement of the upcoming nuptials of two of the parishioners. I hadn`t seen one like that in years and was later to find out that it is still a legal requirement to get a marriage license in parts of Canada. (I believe it was originally established during the Roman Empire due to an alarming number of children being born to people who were in fact related to each other!)
The Empress hotel, right on the Waterfront, may in fact have the most impressive exterior I have on a hotel in my travels. It literally dripped with old world charm and eloquence.
I came back to Vancouver, bought some Tim Hortons Doughnuts for the gang in the house and got ready for my overnight trip to Calgary. My friend Carrie (who I am going to stay with there) had told me that I should just take a sleeping tablet and fall asleep but I told her that being a solo traveller I couldn`t do that because I had to be somewhat compos mentis so stop anyone stealing my gear.
There was a rich guffaw at this precaution, "This is Canada" was her response and frankly I actually thought she had a point!
So I am going to the bus station soon, looking forward to getting to Calgary and Banff.... but I`m still not taking the sleeping tablet!
I woke early on the bus and was greeted with a view so eerie and beautiful, I thought I was dreaming. The snow capped Rockies were majestic, silver green still rivers, tall trees and wisps of clouds above and below me in the ravines, trucks tucked away off the roads as their drivers had rightly decided to sleep and the sun didn`t so much shine as it glowed.
Calgary is called Cowtown, due to it`s famous Stampede Carnival that they have every year in July and is a rich place thanks to oil money. It`s also a place that doesn`t get many backpackers by all accounts if the welcome I got from Carrie (and later Trish and Tasha) was anything to go by! Carrie, who I`d first met in 2001 in New Zealand, had invited me to stay so I got settled in and met her at her work for lunch.
I met her Irish friend Anthony who had moved out here 6 years ago and got married. When I said we should catch up for a drink, he sheepishly said he didn`t drink anymore. This made me immediately suspicious of him for obvious reasons but when her other friend Josh came to meet me and also said he didn`t drink much at all, I was beginning to fear for the worst.
Calgary is unique in my experience as being linked overground by a system of walkways from the downtown buildings, called `+15` and it is very handy when the weather is bad (which it was for the 6 days I was there.) Still, that didn`t stop me from getting hopelessly lost so I went back out on the street and braved the weather.
Carrie and I went for 9 holes of golf before going out for what is an institution here in Calgary, wings on Wednesdays! The entire town has offers and they have more types of wings and sauces than I have ever seen. The Arsonist sauce was enough to make you think that you might never taste anything ever again.
Next day, I went for a walk around St Princes Island where many people jogged, worked out with their personal trainers, played frisbee and generally ogled each other. I came across another rememberence plaque which moved me.
Gordon James McOuatt 1942 - 1996
I have set out on a journey not of my choosing, determined by forces beyond me
High in the Rockies, a sense of serenity enveloping me with that special magic of the Mountains.
According to a notation below it, he had written that just days before he died.
Back into the `+15` I stumbled on another first for me, a huge indoor garden, the Devonian Gardens and it was beautiful. Rockeries, pools and flowers of every description took up one entire city block floor space, an oasis in the city.
That evening we set off for Banff, the famous ski resort set in the mountains. It was simply stunning, words can`t describe how amazing this place was. Squashed into a valley surrounded by mountain ranges, it can`t really expand either which is comforting. We went out for dinner and I had (with some reservations) a buffalo burger which I have to say was bloody gorgeous! I was reliably informed though that they weren`t endangered in any way.
We were listening to a band as we watched a couple jive at a frenetic pace and later when the band asked if there were any Irish in the house, I was raising my hand when a huge roar came from the same couple at the table beside me. Jim immediately came over, asked me where I was from and when he told me he was from Kilkenny (the team that beat Limerick in the All Ireland Hurling final last year, and for those uniniated out there, that is not a competition in vomiting!) he immediately started to playfully punch me! Carrie thought we had just started a serious fight but we explained that`s how Irish people say hi!
We had a great night and on the way home, Jim and I gave stirring renditions of old Irish ballads in the natural amphitheatre of the mountains! Carrie would tell me next day that the drunker she was, the better looking I got, an Irish compliment if I have ever heard one!
We took the gondola to the top of one of the mountains where I learned about Norman Sanson who had climbed this mountain every week for 30 years to collect weather data and send it back to the Ontario. That kind of dedication impresses and scares me. His little hut was there and I couldn`t help but feel it was set in the most amazing scenery but in a hopelessly lonely place.
It was hailing up there and I regretted having worn shorts! We thankfully went down again and visited Bow Waterfalls before driving for an hour to see the famous Lake Louise, a stunning tourquoise lake set in front of 7 separate mountains. Famously, a former Prime Minister`s son had been caught up in a landslide and he now lays at the bottom of the lake and despite several attempts, his body has not been found. It was a ridiculously beautiful burial place though.
We also visited the beautiful and less commerically developed Lake Moraine which was equally as awe inspiring although it was frustrating to not be able to capture just how striking the colour of the water was with your camera. There was still ice on the lake from the winter and it was serenely quiet.
We went back to Calgary and Carrie brought me to a Newfie (Newfoundland) Bar where they played folk music so I was in my element. The accent of the lead singer sounded familiar so I asked him if he was from home. He said he was (which in hindsight was the only answer he could have given to that question) but home for him was St Mary`s Bay, Newfoundland and his accent lilted from Irish to Canadian in a strange combination. I knew I wouldn`t make it on this trip, but it is still one of my must see destinations.
I met Trish and Tasha who I had spent Christmas with in La Paz and also a night in Cartegena and it was great to see them again! My mother is the person with the most contacts I know (as was famously tested when I was in a great deal of trouble in Buffalo, NY a decade ago but that`s another story) but I liked the fact that I was putting together a formidable list of friends from all over the planet.
And two of those were Becky and Zac, two friends I hadn`t seen since Quito, Ecuador and who, upon learning I was in Calgary, drove over 8 hours to spend a night out with me!! Now that is some effort and we had a night to remember. They would drive back next day, a 17 hour round trip for a few drinks, a concept so difficult for a boy from a little island like Ireland to comprehend, it boggled the mind!
`Harden the f*ck up` is the catch phrase of an Australian comedian and it became our battle cry for the night. We would even go up to a complete stranger and tell them, that on behalf of all Australians, we thought that he needed to `Harden the f*ck up!` and it is a testimony to the laid back nature of Canadians that no-one took offence! Josh had been well and truly tested in his drinking capacity since I had arrived in Calgary and when he picked up a chair and landed it on a table, we were sorry he had taken such a literal determination to our line of the night. It was time to go...
Next day, I wasn`t feeling too well and when I found out subsequently that Josh had had to take two days off work (see my message board!) I knew that we had been served something really dodgy. I had brought my flight forward a day to Montreal and I was regretting that decision with every passing hour. Checking my weight by the end of day, I was at my lightest in 5 years. Who says you put on weight when you travel?!!
Carrie dropped me to the airport for my 1am, red eye flight to Montreal and I prayed the prayers of the most devout that I would find some sleep on the plane.
Prayers answered, I didn`t even hear the safety announcements........
Now I used to speak French pretty well but after being immersed in South America for so long, when I know I have to say something outside English, I immediately start halba-ing espanol! Which is my only excuse for thanking the bus driver who directed me where I had to go with a `Gracias` instead of a `Merci` and which would have spared the look of disgust/confusion I got!
I was jaded so I went directly to my friend Audree`s house. They had left it unlocked which I found lovely and I was greeted by Katou, their Shiatsu dog, Zorroe, some kind of cat (hey, if they`re not big or bald, I don`t know what type they are!), Paco, a love bird and Charlie the gold fish (although why you would name a fish is beyond me, it`s not like they can hear you, right?!)
I fell asleep and was woken with a massive thunderstorm several hours later, my run of bad weather continuing. Audree wasn`t there so her sister Vero arrived home from work to find this strange man in her house! After some initial understandable awkwardness, we started having a great laugh, our beers easing the transition. She had called a friend and told her she had to come over in case I was some kind of psycho or even worse, pathologically boring!
I took a walk around the area next day and I was left under no illusion that I was in a French world, all the signs, the conversations etc bearing the language. The French Quebecers are fiercely proud and if they could manage it, would prefer to be independent of Canada. Again, I tested myself by ordering a SUBWAY in French, you really forget how much you have to say to get one of those things!
Maisonneuve was the area I was in and it was very nice and quaint although how it was named the `Pittsburgh of Quebec` was beyond me. Also beyond my powers of comprehension was why a 40+ year old prostitute was hanging out on a street corner right on the main street, bold as you like, looking haggard and revealing too much. She just seemed so out of place and anyone picking her up would have been the very definition of desperate.
It was 11am on Tuesday and some men were outside drinking local beers. I was impressed with their dedication to the cause but the blaring ABBA songs were slightly off putting and then the reason why I couldn`t see any women became abundantly clear.... it was time to go home...
As is typical of most people that live anywhere, you need a tourist to turn up to show you some of the sights of your own town. That was certainly the case with Audree as we walked around Montreal. We took a trek up to Mont Royale Hill to take in the views of the city. It is so green, trees on practically every street. Then I was taken to eat some local delicacy called Poutine which should be called "Cardiac arrest on a plate!!" It was tasty but I could understand why fat bellies were called `Quebec Abs!`
I was really taking to the city (granted with the aid of a map) and not long afterwards I was fielding questions from people looking for directions much to Audree`s amazement! When we needed directions, it was impossible to know whether to ask in French or English, but most people were bilingual.
I visited some of the beautiful churches in the city, (the `Irish Church` of St Patrick was particularly impressive), one of the better Chinatowns I have been to and some great street sculptures. That night, we were going for dinner in a Montreal institution, Schwarz`s Smoked Meat Deli. This place has queues out the door for its cut meat and have served such luminaries as Celine Dion, Hank Aaron (famous baseball player of yesteryear), Burt Lancaster, Jerry Lewis and Nana Mouskouri and a host of ice hockey players I had never heard of. The girls had never been and we scoffed down the meat in sandwiches, it was good!
Next day, I took off and walked around myself. I visited their Museum of Fine Arts which had another lovely piece by my favourite artist Monet and seeing some Sisley`s and Pisarro`s was like seeing old friends for some reason. Maxime Maufra and Albert Charles Lebourg were two more artists who were new to me and I would tell you to watch them for the future but they are both way dead!
They had an exhibit which made me sad. They had ancient recording machines, calculators, printing machines and computers. And there it was, a 1984 Apple Macintosh 128k computer, the first one I ever used. I felt way past my best before date right then and thought maybe old guys like me should just be on exhibit, sitting there writing my diary with a pen instead of writing blogs on a Blackberry.
I was in dire need to find something, anything that might restore my faith that I am not a relic and the Redpath museum loomed nearby. It was the perfect remedy as it had really cool fossils and dinosaur models, I felt instantly invigorated! The stuffed animals were remarkably lifelike and I was quite prepared to die of fright if the Lioness moved even an inch in my direction.
Interesting fact of the day: The Irish Elk was in fact a deer and it shed its 3.7m, 45kg antlers every year! It`s true, now go out and use that in the bars this evening!
I popped into the Uniting Church and spoke to Daniel, a volunteer there, in a mix of Spanish, English and French, `FRENSP` perhaps. I have to say I do like the concept of the Uniting Church, one which has given up trying to convert people to one specific religion and is happy to welcome all that want to just pray and give worship. And then, somewhat contradictorily, he asked me to join?!! Hmmmm
I visited the Basilica of Notre Dame and it was so ridiculously beautiful that I couldn`t believe that they even had masses in there, it looked like an interior decorator on LSD`s wildest dream.
That evening, Audree, Vero, Simon (another friend that I met in Belize along with Audree) went to watch the Montreal Impact football team. There was a great crowd there which was encouraging as football really needs to take off in the States and Canada. I saw that they had their work cut out for them as the announcer screamed over the PA system, "LETS PLAY SOCCER!!".... Oh dear...
Not being boastful and factoring in `the older I get the better I was` element to this following statement but I swore that I could have handpicked 10 of my mates to join me for a few weeks training and I thought we would have given these MLS players a serious beating. But we got a win at least, a 1-0 after a screaming shot from 30 yards which they showed repeatedly on the big screen when they weren`t showing speeding trains (one of their sponsors was Canada Rail.) I was sorry I missed the film when it was SUBWAY sandwiches turn!
That night we went out to what I have to consider one of the best faux Irish bars I have been to on my travels, Hurley`s on Crescent St. Of course I was getting free drinks because I was from `Ireland, Ireland` but they had two bands, both playing traditional Irish music and my Riverdancing feet took over, much to the amusement of the staff, band and the bouncers! (In fact the next night, the bouncers Ore and Rob both would exclaim almost in unison, `Here`s Dancing Diarmuid` so I had left a good memory at least!)
On Sunday`s in Montreal, people descend on the Mont Royale park and they drum and dance! Groups sporadically start up drumming and they attract hippies and onlookers to beat along with them. Anyone can join in and it`s a very real explosion of enthusiasm. It was free expression dance or so I presumed but mostly it was free from coordination dance! A guitarist joined in (wearing very disturbing short shorts) and he got a lot of stares of the `Ammm, this is a percussion concert` variety so he stopped playing and just started hitting it instead!
The smell of marijuana hung like a mist over the proceedings and the hippies were reliving Woodstock. For some reason at that point, I got an overwhelming anxiety attack and I really hoped I would never turn out to be crazy in later life (the obvious retorts that that boat has already sailed need find no expression on my message board, thank you!) I realised that I had a ways to go in that regard when I saw a cloud of dust in the park and I went to explore.
I had walked back in time to the medieval days of Dungeons and Dragons warfare as 50 or so teenagers and (disturbingly) fully grown men were dressed in chain mail, shin guards, bike helmets and weapons all taped around for safety. They would split into teams, then `attack` each other. There were rules of engagement clearly, a `death blow` meant you had to go down and stay down but a mere `flesh wound` to an arm or a leg meant you had to stop using that appendage but could fight on!
"I`m not dead, I have shin pads there" one warrior shouted but I resisted the temptation to tell him that football shin guards were anachronistically incorrect for medieval combat and let them continue to whack each other. A father and son team were causing some destruction, nothing like bonding on a very male level while decapitating a common foe!
It was great but my time in Montreal was coming to a close and my long awaited return to Boston was a short bus ride away. I was giddy with excitement to be honest as Boston has always retained a Top 5 Cities place in my mind, due primarily to the summers of `96 and `98 which I spent here. Would 10 years of romantic recollections be wiped away by the current reality?
I really hoped not but I was determined to find out...
Boston has always reserved a very special place in my heart since it was the first place that I lived abroad, way back in 1996. I suppose you could say that that summer gave me the first taste of experiencing foreign cultures, creeds and climes and it was a taste that was decidedly agreeable to me.
So when anyone had asked me where were the best places I had ever been, it had forced its way into my consciousness and sat like a stubborn old toy, determined not to be forgotten just because I had not played with it in a long time and had been seduced by so many `shinier and more modern` toys around the world.
The kid (20) sitting beside me was playing some computer game for most of the bus journey down and after each completed level, he cracked all of his fingers repeatedly. Young people don`t recognise subtle irritation because my visible wincing yielded exactly the same result a few minutes later. I consoled myself with the fact that he won`t be able to open a can of beer by the time he`s 50 and I looked out at the road signs as they whizzed by.
Quincy, Worcester, South Boston, the names resonated with me and gave me as much excitement as a welcome to Cape Town, Bangkok or Rio De Janeiro would. I have always resisted the urge to build up a city based on it`s reputation as more often than not I have been disappointed but it was proving hard to hide my excitement. Jeff, a former work colleague was on hand to pick me up. We dropped off my bag and then went for a beer. Sorry a `beeya`, the Boston accent rocketing back to the top of the charts of one of my favourites!
Jeff insisted that I was the one with the accent but I found myself repeating particularly strongly intoned words of his, much to his amusement and mild annoyance but I couldn`t help it! Instead of when you need to `park the car in Harvard Yard,` in Boston you, `Pahrrk the cawhrrrrrrr in Hahhvarrrd Yahhrrrd!`
We drove out to Lawrence to meet his wife Mel, the not so little anymore Kyle and Zeus the dog! It was great to see Mel again and to mimic her even stronger accent! They`d put me up a decade ago when I was visiting a former flame and they wondered where my old bag was because they had seen more of that than they had of me! I was determined to rectify that this time.
But first, I needed to see my old town. I was in the city next morning at 6am, such was my excitement! My first stop was to nod my head in prayer at the site of one of the best bars I had ever been, The Littlest Bar in Downtown Crossing, now gone due to a high rise building development. It was a bitter blow, like visiting the grave site of a friend as we who were old enough to drink at home but not in the States had been drawn to this oasis like moths to a light.
But things brightened up for me after that as I walked to the State House, Boston Common and the Public Gardens, down Newbury and Boyleston Streets, the Public Library where I had used their Internet all those years ago for free, past the Prudential Building to the pool owned by the Church of Jesus Christ, First Scientist (that we used to take dips in in our boxers when we used to run down the five flights of stairs and across the road and kick water around until the overweight security guards would chase us back to our apartments across the road!)
The Boston Symphony Hall (POPS) was still there and I saw the SUBWAY outlet where I had had my first! I walked along the South West Corridor Parkway all the way down to the Boston Harbour Hotel and the dock where the Odyssey boat was berthed (another former workplace for me) and on to The World Trade Centre where I had worked at the Titanic Exhibition (I have a piece of the Titanic at home in Limerick but that is another story!)
I walked on down to the Boston Gardens where the Celtics were getting ready to clinch the NBA Title for the first time in 22 years and the city was electric. And I was grinning like a fool! Boston was living up to my most romantic recollections. They had undergone the largest engineering feat in the world over the last 10 years, the `Big Dig` which had sunk all of their overground train lines under the city and in doing so had let the light in on to the buildings and parks of this fabulous city.
Of course, it hadn`t happened without controversy, bribes and short cuts (one of which cost the life of a commuter when a faulty roof collapsed on her car as she was driving through a tunnel) but on the upside, they were so focused on that project that they hadn`t the time or resources to change almost anything else in the city (except frustratingly build on top of the Littlest Bar!)
I was to spend the night in Cape Cod with family friends, John and Elizabeth Gorrigan, who were celebrating their 46th wedding anniversary the following weekend. They lived in the truly delightful Chatham in Cape Cod and we drove down, catching up on the previous decade`s news. John had a softball game in the 70-75 years young bracket and it was a revelation to see how active, fit and highly competitive they all were. One guy ran faster around the bases than I could have ever hoped. I suddenly got very worried that they might ask me to get up and have a hit because I wasn`t entirely sure I would have been up to their level.
It was fun though to hear the calls from their teammates and supporters though;
"Come on Johnny, two more, just like that, send him home!"
"Way to be there Ernie, way to be there"
"Big hit Paulie, big hit now!"
It had to be the only time and their only peers that could call a man in his early 70`s a name like Robbie, where for the last 40 years he has probably been called, Mr. Carter to his employees or Robert to his other friends and even his wife. But on this softball pitch, these men were transported back 60 years to the game that they loved. It was Field Of Dreams stuff.
That night John and I watched the Celtics win the NBA Title on TV and interestingly, with a full minute left to play, adverts were being run where the members of the team were pleading with the fans to `celebrate responsibly,` a reference to the scenes after the Boston Red Sox won the Baseball World Series in 2004 and a young person had died in the post party mayhem.
They should have said it at half time (although that would have been tempting fate) as tens of thousands of students had already flooded the streets with a siege mentality and the city went beserk again. Most of them weren`t even from Boston but they willfully lost their minds in `support of the team.` I don`t understand that at all. It won`t be like that for me when Liverpool win the league again... (sigh)
Next day, I went back to Boston and that evening we were celebrating young Kyle`s graduation from school. So from 70+ years of age softball players running to make bases to 4 year olds running around, buzzed on attention and cake, I felt strangely very much at home in Boston once again.
The city was alive next day as the winning team had a ticker tape parade on the famed Boston Ducks. Jeff and I went for a few drinks afterwards, taking in some of the bars I used to frequent when I had been here a decade ago. The line of the day came from one local who was being much maligned by his drinking buddies for his failure to drink as fast as they;
"Hey guys, the reason why I`m drinking slower than ye is because I am the one who has to drive later" said the socially conscious but logically impaired drunkard. There was no question of not drinking, but he felt that drinking the same but slower was going to keep him on the right side of the law. Hmmm...
The next days were balanced between quiet days and big nights, when I was catching up with old friends and new in a town that I was becoming more and more familiar and comfortable with. I was actually feeling sorry for myself that it is highly unlikely that I will ever get a chance to work back here with the strict visa policies in the states although I met a lot of illegals during my few days here.
And with a heavy heart, I had to say goodbye to Jeff, Mel and Kyle and check into a hostel in Boston for my last night. I planned on seeing my old friend, the uber talented and consumate entertainer Mike Barrett play a set on my last night. Although it was in a new bar to me, listening to Mike play one old favourite after another, having the crowd rolling with laughter and singing along, it was him that completed my return to the Boston of `96 and `98.
And once completed, it was time to go.
But at least, Boston had stayed in my top 5, it had been set a challenge and had risen to it magnificently.
I met Jeff next day, got a small sandwich that was as big as my forearm (only in the States), watched the Jerry Springer Show with some of his work colleagues and laughed that these were the people that voted in their presidents much to their chagrin and then boarded a Lucky Star bus to New York (it has to be said I was going to take a Fung Wah bus for the simple reason that Jeff said they were death traps and I hadn`t done anything nearly that reckless in a long time but on the news before I left his office there was a report on one of their buses which had just crashed into the rampart of an office building!)
So my last bus journey on this at one point endless journey. I was anxious, I was dragging my heels, I was almost annoyed by the passing of time.
I was heading to the Big Apple, not to `make it there` like Sinatra sang but to end it there instead.
It was going to be a weird week...
So good they named it twice, New York was my last port of call. Probably the most famous city on the planet, abundant in possibilities and with a penchant for not sleeping, it should have been a Mecca for me but I was strangely subdued.
It wouldn`t take a shrink session to work out why, it was the end of my trip but I had to shake off the funk and to maintain my policy of living every day like it`s my last, so I put my head down and got ready for a few good days in The Big Apple.
Jennifer, who had been on my safari in Kruger National Park had kindly offered to put me up in Brooklyn and I called over as soon as I arrived. We sat on her door stoop for a while and immediately I felt like part of the community, waving hi`s and saying hello`s. Ok, I also felt like I had been transported into an episode of Sesame Street aswell but it put me in a better mood.
Jen and I joined two of her girlfriends for dinner and over a few bottles of wine, I felt like I was in an episode of Sex and the City! Maybe anyone that visits New York feels like they are on a movie set, watching the old men playing chess in the park, black kids playing basketball on the courts, the omnipresent police cars only topped by the famous yellow taxis, it was good to be back here.
One place that I wanted to check out was the Metropolitan Arts Museum but first I had to negotiate my way through the Subway system. Now you don`t have to have an advanced degree in geography, orientation and schematics to take the trains, but it would certainly help. I would get on board one that was right there waiting for me and only then experience the groaning disappointment when the train pulls away in the wrong direction.
Still, it`s a melting pot of people and you could quite happily travel on it all day people watching if it wasn`t likely to upset quite a lot of your fellow commuters. New Yorkers pride themselves on their abruptness but I found most of them frustratingly polite but there was a darker side. Every day, news headlines told of someone who had been killed in one of the boroughs.
I was greeted at the Met by an elderly group of black singers, doing perfect harmonies just on the street to a large crowd. It was beautiful. My mood was improving every minute in NYC. I was offered a free audio guide for the Met if I filled in a survey but I really don`t like being told how I should feel about seeing a painting.
But an entire room of Monets made me happier, although I could have sword I had seen two of them already in the Musee d`Orsay in Paris. I have always wondered how the `originals` could actually be on show in these museums, any nut case could destroy a classic in a heartbeat if they were so inclined. Maybe they are just exceptional fakes that us appreciaters but far from expert observers can still enjoy? Answers on a postcard please if anyone knows for sure...
The next day, I went for one of my walks! I started in Grand Central Station which I think is one of the most regal terminals anywhere and I took a look around the Chrysler Building before strolling over to Times Square which is simply the most surreal, man made place on the planet, huge posters, news streams all day, Broadway posters and neon signs even during the day. People stand in the middle island and take pictures in all directions.
It is so audacious and opulent that it should appall me after all the time I have spent in the small towns and earthier parts of the world, but I have to say that it is my Disney world! It`s not real, it`s almost comical in it`s over-the-top-ness but it`s hard not to love!
I was late to meet up with my friends for lunch so I set off on a jog which soon turned into a dash as I had to cover nearly 50 blocks in just under a half hour. I broke so many jay walking (jay running I suppose) laws as I bounded down Broadway I suspected one of the boys in blue would soon be in pursuit. Manhattan Island is huge, deceptively so and I`m sure it`s inhabitants do actually believe that they are in the centre of the world.
Jen`s friend Tara was teaching at a school nearby the World Trade Centres on Sept 11, 2001 and she told us of the chaos of that morning. It gave Jen goosebumps and she had heard the story on several previous occasions. I almost approached Ground Zero in a quiet reverence and almost a fear of what I would see.
Everyone knows where they were when they first saw or heard about 9/11. I was consoling a girlfriend after her sister had attempted suicide that day. I remember it so clearly and I remember my trip up to the top of one of the towers in 1996. And what struck me about Ground Zero was not so much what I saw, but what I couldn`t see. It was a huge cavity in the city, square blocks around and the sound of reconstruction was prevalent. Huge crowds swell around the barricades and there is now a Interactive Museum right beside it telling the stories of 9/11.
For some reason, I went looking for something more real and personal to me to reflect upon. I came across a memorial for 11 people who had worked in a particular company. Each person`s name was in circular pool of water with just 5 words that best described them. A huge crystal hovered over it and nearby a bio on each of them. It was beautifully written. Not their achievements (education or otherwise) but what they were actually like, what teams did they support, their love of practical jokes, they favourite hobbies etc. You really felt like you knew this people and it made 9/11 hit home all over again.
But nothing could prepare me for St Pauls Chapel. Built in 1776, this Episcopalian Church had seen it all, from fires to Wall St Crashes. But at the time of 9/11 it was spared incredibly and became a spiritual and practical sanctuary straight after the event and for the months immediately after while rescue workers sorted through the debris looking for people.
It was small but surrounded by momentos of the time. I read how firefighters, police officers and doctors would arrive in shell shocked and shattered from their efforts, confronted by all the things that they would have seen. Thousands of volunteers rallied around the clock to provide them with the practical needs such as food, beds and massages and the comforts of being a shoulder to cry on and prayer. It was incredibly moving. Badges of visiting Fire Depts and Police Agencies around the world adorned one wall, the pictures that had been printed in vain of the victims on another.
And I simply could not hold it together. I kept wiping tears away, surprised and even angry with myself that I couldn`t be more composed but it was just impossible. I had to leave and get some air. It was one of the most emotive places I have ever been. It took me a while to get right again, I can tell you.
A walk through Wall St and down to Seapoint followed by the walk across Brooklyn Bridge looking back on the Skyline and out the East River to the very tiny Statue of Liberty, sorted me out. That night I caught up with Ted and Anita, two Irish friends of mine that I had met in Australia. I could find my old accent taking shape again which prepared me for heading home. It was great to see them and to see their beautiful baby Riadh.
I caught up with relatives of mine, well not so much caught up as met up with them! Family has been important to me and being Irish, that gives us more than most and in the four corners (a term which has always seemed strange to me) of this globe!
On my last night, after drinks with Ted, Mayerlin (whom I`d met in South Africa), Carolina (whom I`d met in Brazil) and Clement (whom I`d met in Boston) I found myself on a rooftop drinking a martini surrounded by the high rises of the Manhattan Skyline! `Up on the Roof` by The Drifters played through my mind as I smiled away (maybe the Martini had something to do with it on reflection) at the lyrics;
"On the roof is the only place I know, where you just have to wish to make it soooooo`
and this trip had been a wish come true in a way. A tangible, possible dream, not like the impossible ones that you see being done for others on TV but nevertheless, not one that others make happen for themselves. And I had and I was proud of that...
But all too soon, it was time to go home. My flight was delayed for about 5 hours despite the fact that I had been bumped up in class and put on an earlier flight as I was the only person who hadn`t screamed at the check in people about the delays.
And before I knew it I was flying over the patchwork quilt of Ireland with about as much mixed emotions as I could handle. It was great to see my brother, his fiancee and her sister who had travelled with me in the Americas again and the next day I was bussing home to Limerick, the official end of the trip. As I looked out at our famous countryside, my mind was elsewhere.
Flashes of the people I had met, some of the sights I had seen, the places I had travelled to, the buses I had taken, the streets I had walked, the beds I had slept in, the foods I had eaten and even some of the conversations that I had been in poured through my mind with seemingly no order about it.
I knew it would take a few days for me to process it all and to come up with some kind of lesson, something definitive that I could say that I have learned from it all. Was it just another part of my continued life education or was it enough for me to have quelled my desire for travel and freedom and help me `settle down?`
But first it was time to see my Mam, my brother and his wife, eat some decent sausages and drink pints of milk during the day and Guinness at night!
Yeah there were worse things than being at home..............for now!
There’s a black and white photo of my Mam on a camel in Egypt in my house somewhere and when I was thinking where I had got this desire to travel recently, for some reason that picture came to mind. It has come to mind a great number of times in the week that I have been at home, reflecting on my trip.
I recalled where I was before this trip; a good if somewhat unchallenging job, surrounded by friends, in a relationship, playing golf, music and football with respective groups and living a great life in Sydney, my home away from home. I had been looking for nearly a year for an apartment to buy and was quite ready to settle down but for some reason, one which I cannot fully explain even now, I knew I had to travel.
Some people have congratulated me on what they saw was a ‘brave’ decision and friends have encouraged me by telling me to ‘keep going Consi, you’re doing what we all wish we had the balls to do,’ but I couldn’t really fathom that. In the end, there was only one decision that was right for me, listening to the little voice inside that I believe always has your best interests at heart.
It’s something I have thought about a lot while I have travelled, that little voice. It isn’t the angel and devil advisers, shoulder-perched, telling you whether or not you should have another portion of cake when you are trying to lose weight or another beer when you have to get up early in the morning, but that essential guide that I am confident everyone has. I think that you only do things that are wrong for you when you against this voice.
And so I set off, tentatively, to South East Asia which would act as my training ground, if I couldn’t deal with the 20 people in a dorm room scenario, the overnight buses, the strange foods and the language barriers, then I had no business planning on seeing the rest of the world.
BUT I LOVED IT!
It was like eating something by accident that you always presumed you’d hate and then being told what it was and you loving it from then on. For me, I never thought I would ‘hate’ travelling per se but I knew that it wasn’t easy and I had had my creature comforts back in Sydney for so long that I truly did not know how I would adjust. But it came so naturally, so easily to me that it felt like this was what I was supposed to do.
That can be an unsettling feeling too. You wonder why you hadn’t done this before, what had you missed out on, why you had waited so long, why you had put up with so many frustrations in your pursuit of happiness, why you hadn’t listened to your little voice?
But maybe it was because I had never asked the question of myself? Maybe I had got caught up with the way that things are supposed to be instead of asking myself if that was the way that things were supposed to be for me?
I didn’t bask though in those negative thoughts because I’d found what was right for me, which, I’ve discovered subsequently, is not always as easy as it sounds. It’s not. Not everyone can just be happy. To all of a sudden, transform yourself. I know that. I have been very lucky.
Travelling just made sense to me. It was liberating and nearly always exciting. I have seen some of the most amazing places; Iguazu Falls, Angkor Wat, Uluru, Eiffel Tower, the Salt Plains of Bolivia, Volcano Pacaya, the San Francisco Bridge, Koh Phi Phi, Table Mountain to name a few off the top of my head.
I have ticked off a bunch of my boxes, did the highest bungee in the world, did the most dangerous road downhill biking which nearly killed me, scored goals playing with the locals on Copacobana beach, learned to Scuba Dive, did some charity work, climbed Machu Picchu and been up close to wild dolphins, elephants, whales, seals, cheetahs, rhinos, eagles and condors.
And there have been lows. I’ve been beaten up, mugged twice, had 4 cameras either stolen or broken, been pulled over by cops for speeding and other cops have groped me looking for speed. I’ve slept on mud floors in wet clothes, felt my blood fill my boots on a failed volcano climb and was dehydrated after walking 15km in the outback sun. I’ve had hangovers and letdowns, setbacks and throw ups. I’ve been in crashes and seen crash victims. I’ve known of fellow travellers who have been attacked, raped or who have died. It’s not always carnivale and laughter on the road.
But undoubtedly I think the greatest aspect of my trip have been the people I have met. My fellow travellers (for I really feel part of a community now) but also the people in the poorer countries that I have met, that have come to my assistance and who have allowed me to call them my friends now. It’s an awesome (in its true sense of the word) feeling to know that you have friends around the world and that this world is truly small in so many ways.
But not everything I discovered was so profound! There were other lessons which were equally as important ultimately to me. Such as;
Girls DO snore!
Plastic bags are the loudest things in a dorm.
97% of all travellers are great people but all our stories are about the other 3%
You can reach the hard spots on your back with sun tan lotion by applying to the back of your hand.
Ear plugs are the most important item to travel with.
Never go out without toilet paper in your pocket.
Travel guide books are invariably wrong and should never be trusted completely.
You have to know how to play Texas Hold ‘Em if you want to make friends
Buses leave either 15 minutes early or 30 minutes late and never, ever arrive on time.
Any shower is acceptable after 4 days trekking.
You will go through more pairs of sunglasses, flip flops and books than ever before so get attached to nothing material.
What you buy, you carry.
Booking ahead is for losers, often costs you money and restricts spontaneity.
And a diary is your greatest friend and educator in life.
There were times that knowing that whatever hardship I was currently going through was going to manifest itself in a good story one day, was enough to get me through it. Reading the messages of encouragement from my family and friends were the tonic I needed at times and yes, seeing that 40 people had read a recent blog only to find no-one had written something was sometimes tough.
Because despite the fact that you are always surrounded by people when you travel, there are times when you do get lonely. When you do miss having that someone special in your life to share these things with, when you see kids and you wonder if you will ever have any, when you question yourself as to whether you have done the right thing after all.
But I go through my diary and it all comes flooding back! The photos add colour to my memories and put smiles on my face. And I realise that I want to do it again, that I am not tired, that I am still inspired to see new places and meet new people. I’m happy that I have a better idea of what I want to do in life now and I suppose that was one of the big things I wanted to get out of such an adventure and the commitment I made both personally and financially.
And so that is it for my blog and for my world travels… for now. I am looking down at my flip flops which have the indentations of my foot from the tens of thousands of steps we have walked and I know that our journey is not over, I just know it.
To those of you that have read my blog, I hope you have been entertained on occasion at least and I thank you for your messages but I now absolve you from any further responsibility from reading it anymore!!
Stay in touch
Consi (The Travelling Seanchai)
PS I will be writing another for the San Fermin Festival I am attending over the weekend, probably better known as The Running with the Bulls of Pamplona…. assuming that is that I come back!!
Being a non-drinker, it didn`t come as much of a surprise when my brother declared that his stag weekend was going to be more steers than beers, more run-overs than hangovers! We were going to the famous Running with the Bulls, the most famous part of the Pamplona Fiesta in San Fermin, Spain.
I suppose it was always something that I had wanted to do, one of those things that creep their way on to your imaginary tick box list that you like to boast to your friends that you swear you would do if the opportunity would only present itself, like bungee jumps and winning an argument with your girlfriend!
But there was something almost epic about the prospect; it occupied my mind for most of the preceding days and particularly when we set off to take our flight. I am a natural worrier I guess and had this been a normal stag, I had survived countless nights out and could look after my brother but I couldn`t have faced returning to his fiancée with the words, "The funniest thing happened as we were being chased by these 6 anger crazed bulls!"
It seemed that I wasn`t the only one concerned with the prospect of what we were endeavouring to do as the stag lost his boarding ticket in the airport but it was found by a passer by! There was no getting out of this. We were arriving in the day before our scheduled run; although in no way allow me to suggest that anything was scheduled at all.
After some food and a siesta (when in Rome and all that) it was decided that we should drive the three hours to Pamplona the night before `to soak up the atmosphere.` Now there are two schools of thought as to how you approach probable death. One decries getting a good night sleep so as to be at your reactive best, the other (and the one that we ultimately sided for) was more Viking like i.e. `Eat, Drink and be Merry for tomorrow we might die.`
And with these Nordic words of `advice` ringing in my ears, we arrived into town and were immediately confronted by the scant lack of nervousness amongst the revellers, fuelled undoubtedly by the red liquid that adorned most of them. It was chaotic. People walked around in the traditional white shirts and pants with a red bandanna but the further we got into the city centre, they were more and more covered in a sangria mix that seemed to have been raining from on high.
We bought newspapers, not for some light reading but to see the course and also the reports of where people had got injured the day before! It was like reading the form for the Grand National. And it was serious. The paper showed pictures of some of the victims and the thing that struck was the sheer fear in the faces of the runners. And keep it in mind; nobody forces them to do this. It`s all voluntary. I sobered up immediately.
I walked the course amidst the revellers and it struck me how long (825m) and steep it was. This was a considerable run for anyone at a sprint, let alone with thousands of pounds of bovine flesh at your heels! It was getting colder, and without the blanket of immodest amounts of alcohol we thought it wise to at least try and get some shut eye.
We walked back to where our cars were parked (conveniently in an area where a bunch of local prostitutes were plying their trade) and tried to get some sleep. Once the girls saw that we were more interested in playing football than availing of their services, (despite their gallant attempts to breach the language barrier with Olympic standard charades), we had an hours fitful sleep.
And then we marched back into town, back to our collective destinies. The Bulls were kept awake all night (just in case they weren`t angry enough) and I heard later rumours that they were even electrocuted on occasions to get them riled up. Things were getting a little crazy. We took up a position that we thought would be far enough away from the stadium as to give us a genuine workout and sufficiently distanced from where the Bulls emerged to give us a better chance of surviving.
There were some clearly drunken people which were a concern and to their credit the police removed most of them. But then they proceeded to move us all?! What was going on? I was trying to get snatches of the Spanish that the police were shouting but it was difficult. Basically, we were all being moved off the main drag so that cleaners could come in and water the streets, as much to remove the urine, drink and vomit for the cameras (which are beamed all around Spain) as it was to make it all slippy and therefore more exciting for the spectators.
Those of us that were running ran a circuitous route just to get back into mix and we were squashed in together. There were nervous looks and laughs as we wondered how we would all get out alive. But gradually we got some space and we moved into an area where we felt somewhat more comfortable, in so much as we could knowing that within minutes, these narrow alleys would be full of the sounds of snorting bulls and fleeing, petrified people.
One couple epitomised this as the guy tried unsuccessfully to get his girlfriend out of the `run area`, the police being strict that now that you were in, you were in for the duration! Haha, I thought, that will teach you to plan a romantic weekend away in Spain in the hope that you could take in the Bull Run aswell! She was white with worry and perversely it made me feel better!
We were stretching, trying to strike that balance between getting properly limbered up and not overdoing it so as to suggest that we were afraid or less manly. Sitting down on the road, sipping a coffee and flicking through the days paper would have been impressive and guaranteed, I am sure, your own Armani advert but no-one was so inclined.
My brother, full of bravado, was a full 30 metres closer to the enclosure than I was and I`d have been lying if I said I wasn`t worried. But those thoughts were heightened when we heard that first, foreboding rocket. It was awful and exciting at the same time. The Bulls had been released and were on their way. You looked down the hill at the other runners as a tsunami of people jumped on the spot to try and see when to time their runs.
The spectators looked down from above, hitting pans and making an awful racket, adding to the lunacy.... and then everything went quiet. All I could hear was the blood raging around my body, my eardrums beating with the massive increase in blood pressure. My brother flashed past me in world record time and I looked back once more to see the first of the bulls, three wide bounding through the crowd.
I took off with as much dedication as I have ever shown. As dangerous as the bulls undoubtedly were, it was my fellow, demented runners that worried me more. People were grabbing you to gain a lead, pushing you if they thought it would slow the bulls, it was Armageddon and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse had names such as El Toro, El Diablo and El Assassino.
To borrow some text from the Bull Run website; "All sections of the route are looked over by a large number of police and first aid personnel. However, the danger of the run has meant that since 1924-1995, 14 people have died and more than 200 have been seriously injured by the bulls. These statistics do not include the 1000`s of minor injuries that occur and are treated in the streets and released."
I`d like to say that you can put these things out of your mind. I`d like to say that I am such a rush junkie and have experienced danger in so many guises that I am equipped for such feelings. But all that would be a lie, because your primeval instinct of survival kicks in in its most basic way, primarily the adrenalin basically erases any functioning thought process and secondly, all manners, politeness and decorum that you were brought up with... goes out the window!
This was best exhibited when, with the bulls only metres behind me, I was confronted with a woman running in front of me. She was squealing with delight, brought on I could only assume by her immediate confrontation with her mortality. I had my hand on her back, trying to propel and encourage her forward but when this wasn`t forthcoming, and I am not proud of this, I pushed her aside and into a wall...
I wish I could describe to you her reaction, whether or not I had saved her, if she had been hurt but those instincts are non-existent, it`s pandemonium and I had to get away. As a bull came by me some people on the other side of the fence shouted `ARIBA` (UP!) but frankly they could have shouted `Fajitas` and I would have leapt cat like and held the fence as the monsters ran below me.
I jumped down and ran on and soon was being pursued again. This one got ridiculously close, my heart stopped, literally, I could feel it pausing. But my luck was in which is more than I can say for the poor misfortune in the orange t-shirt in front of me that got butted so hard that he crashed into a fence head first, the last I saw of him as I jumped over was his carcass being dragged off the course by some paramedics.
We ran in with the Bulls to the ring, more out of luck than timing as the doors were closed behind us. You took in the crowds in the coliseum and yes, the roars did make you feel gladiatorial. But then the question came back to me like a Spiderman tingle, where are all the Bulls?! A flash of sheer terror caused you to wheel around, convinced in your head that you were about to realise tragically what everyone had been roaring about, the Spanish equivalent of that old pantomime maxim, "It`s behind you!"
But they had been rushed out and in their place came some junior bulls whose horns were corked and after a while of this we thought we had had enough and it was time to go outside and compare bruises and stories. We drove back to our hotels, in part exhilarated, in part exhausted.
I have been asked many times since then if I would do it again and to be honest I am not sure. It is a massive box ticked off but there are so many factors outside your control that it`s like playing Russian roulette with additional bullets, eventually it would have to catch up with you. I was about 2 feet away from sharing the fate with the orange t-shirt guy who is still probably recovering from his injuries (this was a few months ago).
There is also the ethical side of it. Every evening, the Bulls that have run that morning are taken to the same bullring again and in effect, executed for public entertainment. I was sure that I could never watch that but it`s also hypocritical for me to think that the Bulls enjoyed their early morning run surrounded by noise and mayhem after a night without sleep and possible abuse.
The rest of the weekend passed with beers, tapas and a brief unsuccessful stint in the casino. But every few minutes, we recounted the stories of the weekend and they were plentiful. But being abroad, speaking pathetic broken Spanish and avoiding death wielding wild animals had reminded me of all the good things about being on the road... and I missed it and wondered when I would be out there again....
A day before I left, while rummaging around a cupboard looking for my old backpack again, I was struck with a strange feeling of uneasiness. I couldn´t believe after so many months at home, I was striking out again, leaving behind my comforts, my family and friends and wondering how it was that I was wired this way, continually seeking out new adventures...
It was harder to say goodbye this time, so it was with a heavy heart rather than an excited one that I boarded my flight from Dublin to Madrid on a cold February morning. But I transformed when I set out from this unknown airport to look for a metro I had never been on to visit a city I had never seen. The old skills kicked in and I negotiated my way through the impressive subway system to meet my friend Steven and his girlfriend Gema near the city centre.
Steven has been doing TEFL teaching, what I had been studying for the last few months, and he was about to head off to a class but he said that we had to start our day with a caña. Never one to be impolite I agreed and was rewarded when I found out that they were mini beers with some tapas in a local bar! No wonder he loved this city and the working culture!
Gema then gave me the lowdown on the city and I took off on foot, strangely liberated. My first port of call was the Atocha train station, the scene of the terrible terrorist attacks in 2004 which claimed the lives of 191 people. I walked out to the platforms that I remembered seeing on the TV footage at the time and it was strange to see how calm can replace chaos. I didn´t see any commemorative plaques, they may have been there, but I kind of liked how people were getting on with their lives.
I walked into the Prado Museum which I was glad to see was free. The art, a travelling Chinese exhibition on Chi was lacklustre but the building it was housed in was an architectural marvel. I was beginning to like this city and I suspected that in Spring, with the trees in bloom, it must be really beautiful.
I went into Retiro Park, after passing countless impressive buildings, and I walked around, snapping photos. I can´t really explain fully how good that felt, to see something and to capture it as it was forever, just at that moment when I passed. I fell in love with the Crystal Palace, a simple enough building but in the crisp sunlight, it took on an ethereal presence.
There are cows all over the city! Each is designed in a different way by artists and it gets a little disconcerting from a distant as you think you are back in India again!
I walked on, taking different roads and trying as best I could not to repeat my steps. I went to Puerta Del Sol, the centre of the city and home of its famous icons, the Bear and the Strawberry Tree statue, the Tio Pepe Neon Sign and the point zero of all roads from Madrid.
I walked up one main street off that main square and I couldn´t help but notice that the ladies were getting more scantily dressed and were certainly, ahem, friendlier and I couldn´t believe what I was looking at, prostitutes just off the main square, in full sight at 3pm with cops in close proximity. I can´t even imagine the desperation of a man that would run that gauntlet...
But I was beginning to like Madrid, even more than it´s illustrious competitor Barcelona. I walked on, to yet another park, right in the city centre where the Temple of Debod was, catching it just as the sun was setting for best affect. Some old men were playing bouls in the park and you knew that they would be there the next day and the next and the next and it was lovely.
I walked past the presidential palaces but most people´s attention were directed to two police horses, immaculately white. They were regal which was just as well as the King was not in his palace at that time.
I stumbled on the Playa Major, a simply beautiful square adorned with painted walls, antique street lights and cute restaurants. An entrepreneurial woman had taken rolls of toilet papers and attached them to an air vent to create a monkey bars of sorts. It looked tacky and out of place in its elegant surroundings but when I saw the little kids running around under it, I changed my opinion. The sounds of laughter enhanced the enchantment of the square.
I then met my old friend Ariel, an Argentinian that I had met in La Paz and we had spent Christmas together. It was good to see him and to remind ourselves that with a little effort, the world truly is a small place. We went to Museo del Jamon, an institution in Madrid. I am not being unkind when I say it is a butchers shop where you can get sandwiches and beers and stand around an island in the middle.... and it was class!
We went out and all the bars were little boutique bars, so cute and different to the bars I was used to. We spoke a combination of Spanish and English, Spanglish I believe it´s called. We were joined by Steven and Gema and we had a lot of fun. The bars still allow smoking which was an adjustment for me but we were having fun. I asked why Madrid was made the capital of Spain and it started a bar wide debate, without a definitive answer.
Next day, I got around and saw some more. I went to the main museum which housed Picasso´s Guernica, his most famous work and lots of original Dali´s but I have to say it did little to convert me into a fan of Spanish art or cubism.
That night, after watching some football with the crazy locals, I headed for the airport to catch my flight and that was when all my troubles started. I am not sure if the trains were not running as frequently, but I reached the airport with only an hour to spare for my flight. I went into Terminal 3 which said my flight was in Terminal 1 so I walked all the way down there, through Terminal 2, to find out that it was, incredibly another airline that were flying out to Lima at EXACTLY the same time as mine and I found out that I was actually flying from Terminal 4!
WHAT?!! I bolted outside to the cab rank but they didn´t want to take me such a short trip. My €9 trip turned into €20 because the €15 I offered was insulting to him and I wasn´t in a position to haggle.
I ran in and arrived haggard at the flight desk. Of course all the girls behind the counter were beautiful which made me feel even more disheveled. I had 35 minutes to my flight and they talked to each other about whether my bag would make this flight. Then the girl asked where was my follow on flight from Peru and I said I didn´t have one, I would take a bus out of there.
She was sure (I was sure she was wrong but again, I had no room for manoeuver) I couldn´t enter without an exit flight so I had to buy one for a few days later and cancel it when I was there. I was directed to another desk and I gave over my Australian credit card, which doesn´t require a pin number but she couldn´t work that out and told me that I couldn´t use it! But the nearest ATM was 5 mins away if I ran!
Off I went, belting through the airport praying it wouldn´t be out of order. I ran back, paid for the flight, got my flight ticket and was told, with 20 minutes left to my flight that my gate was 23 minutes away! If I had any fluids left in my body, my excess sweating was taking care of them, I would have cried!
Off I ran, Hollywood style, bounding over kids, seats and bins and.... just made it! Last man on, reeking of sweat and took my seat beside a less than impressed couple...
I had a brief moment, between breaths, of thinking that it used not be this hard, was I getting old? But I dismissed it and settled into my flight, little knowing that my dramas and my Olympic trials were far from being finished....
As I landed in Lima, I had just about got my breath back from the exertions of the night before. I had to retrieve my bag (another fall out from not being able to check it through) and when it came, I found out that my connecting flight was already being called from another terminal.
Here I go again!!
As I finally spied my lethargic bag coming through the baggage claim, two things occured to me. One, bags clearly do not adhere to a case of last on first off, as those around me nonchalantly collected their four bags and strolled off in front of me. And secondly, I wondered exactly how much extra my travel insurance would have costed to have covered missing my connecting flights.
I went to the gate where you had to declare stuff and it was like a game show. The immigration agent gave you a cursory glance and then told you to go to a big button and push it! I kid you not, in a country where drugs are prevalent, you´re chances of having your bags scanned comes down to a green or red light.
I looked over at someone who had clearly got the red light, their belongings thrown around in complete disarray by an over zealous agent and I had a horrible sense of foreboding. I knew, that if I got the red light, I was going to miss my flight. To compound things, those smug so and so`s who´d got their bags so quickly were in front of me in the queue and I watched on in horror as the previous 5 ALL GOT GREEN LIGHTS!
I approached it and I have to say, I closed my eyes, said a prayer and opened them to that most beautiful of colours, Green as my beer on St Patricks Day! Woohoo!!
Off I ran and got to the check in desk but they said I would have to take my big bag with me because I was so late. So I ran up stairs, passed people out, all the time apologising in as many languages as I could remember and jumped to the top of a queue to pay an airport fee. (I was going to argue that this should be waived for me as I was going to spend all of about 11 minutes in their poxy airport but I was already out of breath!)
Some nice people let me up to the top of the queue (it´s funny, all you have to do is ask the next person in line, not any of the hundred or so you have passed out unceremoniously although I think one look at my rapidly overheating face might have given them a clue as to the urgency of the situation)
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON´T TAKE EUROS?!! Agggh, I had to run back outside, with my big bag (as you can´t just leave it in an airport) going against the massive queue I had just rudely bypassed and then headed straight to the top of the queue of the bureau de change, all the time apologising and sweating and generally putting on a convincing impression of a person in the latter stages of dehydration.
Money exchanged, I again jumped the queue for the airport fee (much now I am sure to the chagrin of the people I have relegated behind me twice!) and then turned the corner, with 8 minutes to go to my flight and stood in abject horror at the 200 or so people in front of me going for the security check.
And this is the reason that you would always fight a stronger rather than more desperate man, because desperation makes you do things that ordinarily you would never consider. Here I now was blatantly and openly cutting through the queues again, lifting up those flexible barriers and scowling at anyone that dared ´Tut tut´ me.
Security ran over and with my final breaths, I explained to him that my flight was in 7 minutes, that I had to try and get through security and then leg it down to my gate. The deranged look in my eyes caused him to either feel sorry for me or more likely, become very afraid as he escorted me to my own security check, I threw everything into a box, walked through and was going to retrieve my stuff when the bloody beeper went off. They found my iPod and then had to put it through again.
WHAT? Are you having a laugh? Am I actually on candid camera!? So, my belongings retrieved and deeply sensing the eyes of 200 people on me collectively thinking, ´Now why didn´t we think of that?´, I set off like a banshee, straps flying, arms flailing, legs scuffling along as I bolted almost instinctively to where my flight was. Bless them, they saw me coming and held the gate as I nearly skidded through the door.
Good God Almighty above in Heaven. I came in, found that the flight was packed, somehow got my bag into an overhead compartment and took my seat beside someone who must have thought I was actually in a state of decomposition, such was the overwhelming smell that I was sporting. I was going to give him my newly attained withering stare but I was already succumbing to stress induced fatigue and I don´t even remember us taking off for Cusco....
After the stresses of the previous 15 hours, it was a huge relief to see a friendly face at Cusco airport when I got in! My mate Daithi, who was travelling with his girlfriend Niamh, was there with a smile and a hand to lift my bag off my weary (and sweating) shoulders. Can shoulders sweat you ask? Let me tell you, they can!! We went back to the hotel they were booked into and where I had been booked in by another friend of mine, Carlos, for three nights for free.
I can only imagine that the experience I had in the shower must have been akin to the first time an innocent man is with his wife after 20 years of imprisonment. Well maybe not, I spent at least a good fifteen minutes washing off the excesses of deeply ingained sweat off my body!
We had breakfast and then went for a walk around a city that I remembered instantly. The Plaza Des Armas is still stunning, the cobbled streets, the vendors selling you everything from massages to chewing gum, finger puppets to cigarettes, paintings to photos with Llamas! Oh yes, it was good to be back.
After a while, and with my chest wheezing a little, we decided to go into Paddy´s Bar, reknowned for it´s food. In there I met Laura who, after we had stared at each other in that ´I know I know you´ way for about two minutes, was a girl that used to serve at my local bar in Sydney, the Cock and Bull, for about a year! Small world doesn´t even begin to cover that!
It is weird when you see someone who you recall from somewhere else and now they have transposed themselves into a completely different world. On more than one occasion I would look over at Daithi and Niamh and realise that only a few short weeks ago I had seen them in their apartment in Cork and now here they were, with me, in Cusco. The brain is a wonderful thing but sometimes it can get stumped by even the smallest stretch of the imagination.
On our way out that night, a little shoe shine boy came over to me and tried to convince me that we had met the day before and that I had promised to let him shine my shoes the next day. I told him that I had only just arrived but he continued his patter with gusto. He asked me where I was from then told me my capital but when I told him that I was unlikely to need a shoe shine, he turned away with a ´Ah, F*ckin Hell!´ and trudged off! I nearly bent over with laughter!
In Cusco, there is a lot of competition amongst the bars and clubs. So they have touts that will give you free drinks to get you in. But if you know the right guys, grease a few palms on occasions, you can make the night very cheap for yourself indeed with the number of free drinks that the bouncers are willing to part with for a nominal fee.
Soon I became a ´must have´ at your club as I would invariably meet people during the day and then bring them to the club of my choice on any given evening.
I met my friend Carlos (who I had met in Quito and who was giving me his apartment while I was in Cusco) and we went to meet friends of his. My Spanish is rusty so I spent a lot of time developing whiplash, rapidly turning my head around to see the lips moving to give me some chance of determining what was being said.
We had a fairly tame night but it was to have two remark-worthy moments. Firstly I met Ollie, a mate of mine from La Paz and secondly I used my bank card for the first time. Both would have far reaching consequences over the next few days.
Two days later, I had to pay for my last night in the hotel and I went to an ATM and discovered that I didn´t have my bankcard. Absolute confusion. How was that gone and not my credit card? I went back and fortunately I had brought along a bum bag of various South American currencies from my last trip which was enough to pay my bill and have enough to eat that day.
But I was flummoxed as to where it could have been. I met some Irish people in Paddy´s where I was having lunch and after explaining my quandry, they bought me a few pints and we had a good evening. There was little I could do, I was going to have to call Australia (where my bank card was from) and get them to send me another, which would have taken the best part of two weeks.
That night I met Ruairi and Kathleen, a lovely couple from Perth, Scotland who were over for a conference and we had some great banter! Soon enough we had attracted a crowd and when I heard that Ruairi (The Prof) was a folk singer of some reknown, it wasn´t long before we were exchanging songs and stories! Nothing like a rendition of ´Caledonia´ to make you forget a financial crisis!
But next day, I went back to the restaurant beside the ATM I had used on the off chance that it had been handed in and lo and behold, IT HAD! I was elated, I couldn´t believe it! The prodigal card had returned and I was over the moon. Until that is I checked my bank balance on the Internet. Whoever had handed it in had helped themself to a ´finders fee´ of 1000 soles, about 250 Euros. I suppose they could have cleaned me out and then destroyed the card so it wasn´t hard to look for silver linings.
What had happened was that over here, you enter your PIN, you determine the amount, you get that amount out, then a receipt and then, and only then, are you asked do you want another transaction. Being so used to getting my card back first, I had automatically walked away when I got the receipt. Frustrating but another lesson learned. And before anyone asks, no I was not under the influence of anything other than stupidity!
The next day I went to the Tourist Police and wrote out a statement. I brought a friend as they only spoke Spanish but I got the written notification of what happened so that I can go back to my Travel Insurance company and await the novel excuse for why they can´t cover idiots while travelling, they only cater for idiot savants.
I have amazing views from Carlos´ apartment. It really makes you feel like part of a community when you have a place to stay, saying hi to my ´neighbours´everyday. It really is beautiful, to look over the pinky, red slabs over the rooftops and then to see those houses meld into one another over the horizon and high up into the surrounding hills. Two of the hills have been ´engraved´ with the Emblem of Cusco and another which simply states, ´Viva Peru, Peru est Glorious´, these are both over 200 metres in height.
I was here to look for work in teaching but I found that a lot of the teachers down here were PAYING to teach, volunteering to enhance their mental well being but making some entrepreneurs rich at the same time.
I did get to teach some English, in a small little restaurant where Abigail (13) and Daniel (9) cooked and served me lunch one afternoon. They didn´t speak a word of English so I took them through some of the basics and as a thank you, Daniel came out to me with a Coca-Cola and simply said, "Courtesia" and walked off with a smile. I melted....
There are always festivals in this part of the world, but the Festival to the Mother-in-Law was a new one on me. Now the kids of South America need little invitation to throw water balloons, paint and flour on unsuspecting tourists or ´extranjeros´ as we are called, but on a festival day, they are given carte blanche, with no repercussions or guilt whatsoever.
Marauding gangs of kids comb the streets looking for a tourist, elderly, infirm, pregnant, they don´t care, just whoever is unlucky enough to chance upon their tsunami of destruction. It is both a scary and exhilerating predicament. Running is out of the question at this altitude so a quick duck into a bar or shop could be your only recourse if you don´t want to resemble a paper mache piñata! Maybe that is where they got the idea for them, covered some poor individual in paint, water and flour and then started beating them with a stick! The blindfold only came afterwards as a way of balancing out the contest!
Ollie, my friend that I had met last year in La Paz, owned a bar there which was quite (in)famous amongst the backpacker fraternity. Ollie is an excitable character and is prone, when the drink is on him and the tonsils are well oiled, to abusing his customers and staff to the point where he has been barred out of his bar on more than one occasion. In fairness, I think he does it as much to build up a reputation about the place which would be a marketing stroke of genius or else he is, in fact, just an ass, take your pick.
But he had asked me if I wanted to run his bar during his extended exile in Peru. This was a stange if strangely attractive proposition for someone who would ultimately like to own his own hostel and bar one day. I gave it some thought but he needed me in place for the weekend, so, with all the impetuous of someone who still thinks he can call himself a youth, I decided to go for it.
And so, compeletly against plans, I was saying goodbye to my friends in Cusco and La Paz bound that evening. We had a good night out the night before where I hung out with Pamela and her friends, local girls that we had so much fun with and who had so much fun out of continually correcting my imperfect Spanish!
Pamela saw me off at the bus station, where we were greeted with the sight of possibly the sickest drunk I have ever seen, covered in and surrounded with a ring of frankly impressive projectile vomit. My ´bus´ came and I had to sigh with painful recollection that what you see on the pictures at the time of purchasing your ticket is rarely if ever the same as what rolls into your bay to take you on your 13 hour journey overnight.
So here I was setting off on a new adventure, adrenaline flowing again in that stepping into the unknown again...
But my adventures were to start long before I made my destination...
The bus trip brought back countless memories of uncomfortable trips around South America and in a perverse way, it made me happy. The movie was in Spanish with Spanish subtitles which I thought was a little over the top. I sat down beside Luke, a Kiwi and the two of us negotiated our way through the nightmare that was the border crossing. An hour and forty minutes and several stamps later we were walking across the bridge (which all the locals were doing without a passport needless to say) when I commented that it was so lax, I could be easily walking across the border with two kilos of pure Colombian cocaine when I got a tap on the shoulder.
A border official decided to take Luke and I for an inspection. Now I have been through this before and you really need to have your wits about you. The usual modus operandi is to take the two bags inside but just one guy. They will go to some lengths to show that they are putting everything back in that the first guy will come out and tell the second guy that it´s kosher and you end up relaxing, engaging the officers in chit chat and noticing in the next city that your iPod, camera and your favourite boxers have all been lifted.
So when I went in second, I spoke to them but never raised my eyes off my bag, rude I know, but I wanted these guys to realise that unless they had the slight of hand of a Vegas showman, I was going to catch them. Content that my contents were all there, I walked out with my bag and then saw another dupe about to go in, I was almost sorry for him but he had a surly face so I decided some lessons are best learned the hard way.
And soon later, I was back in La Paz, the place where I spent the longest on my last world trip. Everything is an effort at this altitude (3960m) and so it proves for countless backpackers that realise that even packing and leaving this city is a chore to be avoided at all costs.
But it is a beautiful city and one which, during the day, is actually alive. I have never seen a city where so many people are on the move, thousands of vans, taxis and buses spew pollution into the air as the people move frantically around the city, it almost looks like the life blood of this city´s body pumping around the place.
I was reacquainted to the Zebras, the excitable men dressed up in huge Zebra suits who help people across the main road. That is another thing, they are so proud of their Plazas and Prados (Squares and Main Streets) with people tending to the plants and trees every single day. It really is very pretty in the sunshine.
It doesn´t take long for your eyes to drift upwards though as La Paz is built into a valley and houses adorn the surrounding hills at impossible angles. At night, it takes on a symphonic orchestral as it surrounds you in slightly varying lights, it truly is beguiling.
I am a giant in this city! They are a small race of almost perennially smiling people. I attract some stares but it never borders on the rude, mostly they are happy to say hi and leave it at that. That´s another thing, everyone says hi and goodbye to each other. It took me a while to get used to that but now it´s coming more naturally.
And then to the reason why I was here, to become a manager in Olivers´ Travels Bar. I went in for my first shift and met Max, the Mick Jagger doppleganger who is a fountain of knowledge and patience which you need to have in abundance with `our girls!!` Keisha, Gaby and Paolita have made flirting with the customers and making Max and my life a living hell into an art form!
Very tactile and loving in one part, they will throw stuff at you, put ice down your back, eat your food, drink your drink and in Keshia´s case, sneak up and bite the back of your arms when you are talking to customers, running away laughing as you apologise for squealing like a girl to the amused punters in front of you!
On the good days, its really good! My penchant for having a freakish memory for names is coming in handy and spotting when someone needs a drink (even before they know they want one) has resulted in a lot of repeat business and increased profits. On the bad days however, you want to lock the door and take a machine gun to the morons that we sometimes get in. They have no problem spending 280 Bolivianos on drink ($40 US) but then refuse to leave a tip.
Now, I have never been a fan of the tipping system, but Ollie´s is in fact a restaurant that is allowed to serve alcohol although try and tell that to some of our bar flys that probably don´t even know we have a kitchen. But in its capacity as a restaurant we go down to the tables all evening, bring their drinks to them, clear their empties and repeat and at the end of the evening they pay to the very penny. The usual excuse is that they are on a budget but you wouldn´t believe it when they are hammering away on the tequilas!
The backpackers also tend to stay here for the access to cheap drugs. Route 36, an open `secret` in the city, actually advertises which might not seem remarkable except that it is a drug den set in a large house in the suburbs. Young people primarily think they are taking cocaine but in fact, I am reliably informed, it is a mix of speed, amphetamines and dispirin! Well, if they get a headache from the drink before, the dispirin will at least get a headstart on the hangover I suppose!
It is fun though being known around town when I walk around by all the gringos. It makes the place feel far more like home although I have a long way to go before I can be called the Mayor of this place, as I used to be called in Bondi but I am certainly working on it!
I was invited (ok I invited myself) to a BBQ at Paola´s house, a good half hour drive from the city. This was quite an honour and loads of food was brought out along with beer, wine, cider and singani, the local spirit which is seriously strong. By the time we were set to start our shift, we couldn´t claim to be even close to being sober. Fortunately, we are actively encouraged to drink behind the bar (presumably it puts some of customers at ease?!) and it turned out to be a big night in the bar too.
These are the nights when I think that this is the profession for me! There is a great little bar that opens until 4am so we go to it after we have finished up. The door is always locked so it always seems like a lock in, a well kept secret only for us insiders. Marta, the proprieter will not admit you if she doesn´t like the look of you, which makes it feel even more exclusive. We have brought a few of our favourite customers down there and they love the secrecy of it.
Added to this is Tio Juan (Uncle Juan) the resident magician who regales us extranjeros with his tricks and slight of hand (maybe he worked as a border official in a previous life!). He refuses to take money or a drink because he said to me, ´I am a magician for children and foreigners who come to my country have the hearts of children.`
Of course all of this is in Spanish which can be hard because I am giving an unfortunately all too good a display of looking like I understand everything that is being said. My Spanish is coming on but I need to get some time off work so I can take classes.
Because I am working a lot. That might make some of my more regular readers choke on their cornflakes after my hiatus for nearly three years but I am really working all hours. I have lost 8 kilos in my first three weeks (20lbs) due to lack of appetite at altitude, sleeping through breakfast and working anti social hours. The worst side affect of working though is that I am starting to dream about Ollie´s, taking orders, wondering if I have got the change right etc etc so that when I wake up, I actually think I have already worked a shift.
I knew then, that it was time for me to take a break from La Paz and Ollie´s but not before the madness that was St Patricks Day! I dressed up in a Clown Suit with a large Glamrock Hat that became a firm favourite everywhere I went that day, people asking to have their picture taken with me but I suspect it was actually to have a picture with ´The Hat!´
I did a tour of the hostels and met countless Irish who had all dressed up and, to give them their credit, a load of other nationalities had got in on the spirit of the day. I LOVE St Patrick´s Day, it´s got to be the only universal holiday in the world (with the notable exception of Christmas) that the vast majority of the world get involved in. It gives me immense pride that our little isle has influenced so many people to go out and drink for no good reason!
But after that and following five nights on previously , I knew that I had to get out of the city. Enter G, the enigmatic and beautiful Brazilian that came into the bar one day to take solace from another backpacker that had become enamoured with her. It was the day before St Patrick´s Day and I told her that it was fortunate she had found an Irish Bar the day before this most auspicious of days.
I said, "You are supposed to be with the Irish on St Patricks Day" but she misheard me and asked, "I am supposed to kiss an Irish person on St Patricks Day?!" which got laughs from the other guys sitting at the bar. I replied, "It´s not what I said, but I like the way you are thinking" adding that it was probably just a Freudian slip to spare her too many blushes!
But she was leaving for a few days to Sorata and I asked if I could tag along, quoting my problems with dreaming about Ollie´s. She agreed to wait one extra day and next thing we were off for my first ´holiday from work´in three years.
And it was a lot of fun.....
G and I took a micro van the 4 hour trip to Sorata. They are so cheap and full of locals but my knees took an unmerciful beating from people moving their seats. The last hour of the trip was on a very windy road, but it meant that we could see our destination from way out, a beautiful little village set into the Sorata hills.
We stayed at my friend Petra´s hostel, a beautiful place overlooking the valleys, an oasis of tranquility that I was quite unaware of how much I needed. But within minutes of sitting on my balcony, the stress and pressures of Olivers Travels (and more to the point, Oliver himself) were decidedly draining away.
We took a walk up hill, down dale and across rivers and stumbled on an open air cafe owned by the eccentric but entertaining Stefan, a 2m tall gentle giant from Switzerland who, like Petra, had found their place on this planet. I was immediately jealous that I hadn´t found my ´Sorata´ but I suppose that is why I keep travelling.
He was a baker by trade and we enjoyed sumptuous cakes and sandwiches. It was good thing his company was so good as the company of the omnipresent sandflies was beginning to try our patience. He had a tree house and I simply couldn´t resist climbing the 20 metres to the top of it, not sure why I have to do these things!
The impressive thing about Petra and Stefan is that they are the `patrinos´ of over 120 of the local children. This is some undertaking as they assist in education, sponsorship and the health of these rural kids, who otherwise would have little or no chance of getting out of their current situation. They enlist sponsors from Europe and the States and then fund the money to the children for a multitude of purposes. It really was inspiring and one event, only two days earlier, had emphasised the importance of these wonderful people.
A youth had fallen on his head and had been brought to hospital but they had dismissed him as having a bump and prescribed some rest. Next day he was vomiting and he was then rushed to La Paz, where Petra had to negotiate with three different hospitals for a price to do this life saving operation to remove the swelling on his brain. A fee struck (this strikes me as bizarre coming from a country where he would have been saved first and money matters dealt with later) he got his operation after his sponsor had been called in Europe and had confirmed she would pay. The amount to save his life? 500 Euros...
We went for dinner in the simple little town and when we asked for a bottle of wine, the young ´waiter´ brought me the wine bottle and a bottle opener and all this on my day off! But that night, like some therapeutic sedative had been applied to my mind, I didn´t dream of work for the first time in weeks.
Next day, we went on another walk around the town and the surrounding hillsides. We walked past shack houses that were inhabited and laughed with kids that hurtled down steep hills on skateboards, trying to hit us, inevitably capsizing and then roaring through the pain with laughter! It was infectious and it reminded me of my youth, pre the days of Playstations etc etc
On a wall, there was a communal electricity charge meter which I thought was quaint. We descended towards the sound of the river and passed old women carrying seemingly impossible loads on their backs. As a friend of mine said, "If Bolivia was to go to war, I´d send in the old women first, they´re soldiers"
I was wearing shoes, completely inept over the terrain we were traversing and G laughed at my `city shoes.` My pleas that I had envisioned coming to Sorata to catch up on some reading in a hammock was falling on deaf ears.
We found ourselves eventually, more by accident than anything else, back near Stefan´s cafe so I insisted on rewarding myself with some more cake! My downward slide in weight continues unabated but if I was to live in Sorata, Stefan would single handedly get me back to my previous mass!
There was also a cafe there where a monkey used to torment the local cats, something which my regular readers will know amused me immensely. In the centre of the town stood a statue of a regional leader circa 1943 who bore a disturbing resemblance to Adolf Hitler. We hoped that maybe cowlick haircuts and abbreviated moustaches were all the style back then.
But next day, it was back to La Paz. I was recognised by a few backpackers as `That guy from Ollie´s` and we were taking a micro back with a few of them. I have long been of the opinion that chivalry is not dead but rarely rewarded and that was borne out again when I was lifting one of the girls bags on top of the micro and a 4x4 jeep came around the corner and HIT ME!
Fortunately, it was only a little bump, more of a shock than anything, but I retreated nonetheless to a little cafe for some breakfast. A young kid there was watching a Man Utd match but I told him I was a Liverpool fan and that if he´d support Liverpool, I would give him 3 B´s (30 euro cents!) Ever the entrepreneur, he accepted it readily and a week later Liverpool destroyed Man Utd 4-1 so I feel I saved him from immediate embarrassment!
Satisfied with my last act in Sorata, I set off, back to La Paz and the highs and lows of working again. But in just a few days, I was already planning my next trip away, this time to Cochabamba and a seriously huge surprise.......
Whoa!! Whoa!! We were woken up to the paniced cries of the assistant bus driver as the bus was pulling away from Cochabamba with the two of us still sound asleep on board! One of the best nights sleeps I had had in ages. We hung out in the bus station for about an hour as it was still dark and our hostel was nearby but we had heard a horror story about beatings and organ cultivation from Max so we decided discretion was the better part of valour and of an overpriced cab ride two blocks!
G had been here before so I had the rare opportunity of being taken on a tour of a new city and looking around all the time I quickly lost my barings. We arrived into the central plaza and were confronted by preachers, artists and political debaters that would continue for hours on end to the interest of the locals and amusement of the foreigners. Not that there were many of them and we attracted a fair few glances, the local men openly whistling and commenting on G, shamelessly with me beside her. I don´t know how she kept her cool as I was losing mine...
We took a little bus out to the Jesus Christ statue which is in fact bigger and taller than the one in Rio DeJeneiro (which is one of the 7 Wonders of the World) and which they are very very proud of. The one in Rio is 33 metres tall to symbolise the 33 years of his life, but the Cochabambans are quick to point out that he lived to 33 and a bit but I thought the extra 120 cm was a bit of a stretch.
But after my disappointment at having cloud cover the time I was in Rio, I was mightily impressed at this statue and immediately bemused as to how I had never heard of it before. The tourism office in Bolivia should be shot. It was well worth the visit. Also, in the capsule that took us to the top of the hill where it was, we shared it with a local blind lady that went up everyday and sang. She was delighted and surprised to be sharing her trip with a Brazilian and an Irishman! Viva Brasil, Viva Irlanda, Viva Bolivia she cheered much to our amusement!
As an aside, while we were waiting for our capsule down, I found a swing big enough for me! I couldn´t help having a little nostalgia and soon I was swinging to an exhilerating and unsafe level! These should scatter every country, at bus stops, outside ticket offices, at the dole office, anywhere where there is extreme stress levels!
We went to a Brazilian BBQ restaurant that night where men walk around with skewers of different types of meat and just carve it off in front of you. It was excessive and succulent and I was immediately sorry that I have lost much of my appetite of late because it was all you could eat. I passed on the chicken hearts this time around, my experience in Salvador was enough for that particular experience.
But since it was 8 hours away from La Paz, I could only spend the one day and night in Cochabamba and I took the scenic bus journey back the next day. G went to do some of her own travelling so the following Wednesday, I found myself with a spare ticket to the Bolivia v Argentina World Cup Qualifier so I took my good mate Max (the Mick Jagger lookalike) along.
It was a sweltering hot day and we ate ice creams and drank fizzy drinks at the game as no alcohol was sold or needed by the vocal crowd. A huge bunch of backpackers attended to cheer on the underdogs but very early on, we realised that we were at something very special indeed. There is an international argument that games should not be played at altitude because it gives an unfair advantage to the locals who are equipped to play at nearly 4kms above sea level but it was falling on deaf ears by all of us!
Maradona (or God as he is called in Argentina) had brought his superstars to the little stadium and they were roundly and thoroughly thrashed 6-1!! The banter from the crowd directed to the players and Maradona was mocking but in jest! The city was a buzz for the rest of the day, people just going around hugging and kissing each other. Two days later the DVD would be on the stalls and all that night the goals were replied ad nauseum to which every one would cry in unison, BO BO BO, LI LI LI, VIA VIA VIA.... VIVO BOLIVIA!!!
The fact that it was April Fools Day wasn´t lost on anyone either!
But from the euphoria of this day, I was to have a very nefarious and potentially dangerous night...
The night of the game was a time for celebration for the much maligned Bolivian Football Fan. We had a busy night at work and then I went out to try and catch up on rest of the revellers festivities. Certainly not easy when some people had hours and hours of a head start but I met some of the gang in a club called Blue.
But after a couple of drinks, I could tell that tiredness and an inability to catch up on their drunken conversations meant I should take my leave and curse my luck on working in a bar. But two girlfriends of mine from Melbourne, insisted I stay for one more and take one of their drinks. In an incredibly quick amount of time, a few minutes at most, I was out of it. The girls had thought I had hit a wall but were unable to move me so they left me there. I was out of it for 80 minutes according to my watch and I got myself home.
Next morning, I was woken by an urgent and repeated knocking on the door. It was the girls who had realised their mistake in leaving me there on my own because they recalled how I was saying goodbye to them in perfect form and then 5 minutes later, after they had given me one of their extra drinks, I was comatose. It was clear to them, who would have more reason to know about these kind of things, that I had been drugged. Being considerably bigger than the girls and seeing the affects of this drug, it scared me what it might have done to them.
Their Mom, on hearing the news, thanked me for looking after her daughters, literally taking one for the team. I joked that my Mam on hearing this would tell me to stay away from those girls! I had no after affects except a perverse pleasure in knowing that whoever had spiked their drink must have been appalled to see that it was me that it had affected.
I thought that that would have been enough drama for one week and enough for me to have enough material for another story but there was more to come.
For 6 days a week for the last 5 months, a group of about 600 people have held a protest down the centre of La Paz disrupting traffic terribly, setting off fireworks and regularly appearing on local TV in a protest against the government. Their beef is that they have invested heavily on the importation of cars for personal use or onsale but the Govt. 5 months ago decided that there would be no more cars allowed to be imported over 4 years old. No discussion, no argument, that is just the way it is, you can leave your cars in the Duty Free Zones.
Needless to say, this has upset a lot of people so they march every day. The thing that gets to me is that they are allowed to, consistently and without the Govt backing down and at least discussing it with them. These are wonderfully strong willed and persistent people and I am telling you generations of them will march until things come to a head and that is what happened.
G had returned and we were taking a walk around, not paying much attention to the omnipresent fireworks. Then some women ran past us saying ´Gas´ and I looked at G imploringly stating that I couldn´t have a blog if I kept running away from confrontations. She relented and I took off. There was a standoff and I looked around to see G coming towards me mouthing something and pointing behind me.
I turned around to see balls of what looked like charcoal hurtling towards me and one nearly hit me. I retreated but it was too late, the cloud of pepper and sulphur had enveloped us so we made haste away but when we saw people coming from the opposite direction suffering the same fate, we knew we were lost.
The gas choked our throats, noses and eyes, we dry retched and tried to find solace in a car dealership but it didn´t have air con. I ran outside to a stall to buy water but had to queue up behind people that were buying individual cigarettes to fill their lungs with something else! If I didn´t smoke then, I never will!
We walked around a while later, looking for pockets of clean air and found ourselves behind the police that a few minutes earlier had indiscriminantly fired tear gas into the crowds. The locals from La Paz, children and old people had all got caught up in what I can see is becoming a less and less tolerant police form. They had formed a cordon around the Presidents Building and we were there where the secret service stood around oblivious, eating ice creams.
I too had to buy ice cream for G afterwards for dragging her into that scenario but later we were laughing about it, it really was quite the experience and another of those boxes that you would rather not have to tick (like car crashes, getting mugged, eating what you thought was chicken but turned out to be a dog!)
So after those dramas, it was time for a few relaxing days away again, this time it would be Coroico that was to provide it, just in time for Semana Santa, Holy Week.
Holy Week is a big thing in South and Central America, they really go all out for it, be it in religious or debauchery form... So it should have come as little surprise that my 3 hour bus journey to Coroico turned into a 5 hour exercise in meditation and patience as we crawled out of the city, suffering the humiliation of watching people walk past our van and smile in like we were idiots.
G had decided to cycle the Death Road to Coroico (the one that nearly took my life two years ago) and we arrived into Coroico at the exact same time, me frustrated and cranky, her exhilerated but tired. But it was lovely though, a town set into the side of the jungle covered mountain overlooking a lush valley with condors circling the skies. Our hostel had a pool which was a refreshing change and we hung out at our friend Carla´s restaurant and just took in the heat, ambiance and the local drink Chuchuhuasi.
We arrived back to La Paz and to some bad news. A friend of ours at the bar had been in a taxi accident the week before, knocked unconscious and left on the side of the street. He was looked after by a good Samaritan but he could recall nothing to us the next day. He got checked out in the hospital but while there had picked up a disease that got into his blood stream, put him in a coma from which he would never wake up. Fraser died the Sunday we arrived back, another timely reminder that life was too short.
Trying to shorten his life, the President here, Evo Morales was trying to put through some constitutional change which the congress blocked.... so he went on a 5 day hunger strike!! Like a petulant child that can´t get dessert so he won´t eat his greens anymore!
The following weekend, I found myself back in Copacabana, the crossing point between Peru and Bolivia. G told me that the famous one in Brazil had been named after the less than impressive one here, talk about coming out of the shadows of ones predecessor.
G left for Peru and her travels and I returned to La Paz and to a golf day with my mates. La Paz has the highest golf course in the world and there is nothing better than asking your caddie for his advice, him giving you a club 4 lower than you would have picked, striking a ball beautifully into this altered arc (less air resistance at this altitude) and then replacing your club with your beer as your caddie follows you down the fairway. Does life get any better than that?!
La Paz is a crazy city when you really get to know it. I have had staff who have been in fights at night with gangsters and mugged in their cabs with pepper spray. Drug dealers are easily found and drug dens openly advertise. I have been in clubs that have got locked down because the police are outside looking for bribes so we had to sit around for hours waiting for them to leave. I had some backpackers come up to me and ask me to intervence with some drug dealers who were pressurising them into doing jobs for them...
But all of this had to come to a head and it did, with devestating consequences for some....
It had started out like any other day in LaPaz, the pollution, the breathing difficulties, the city coursing with traffic and another day in Olivers. It passed without too much dramas and we were all looking forward to a night out at our friend Alex´s club, Brass Monkeys.
I was playing pool with my friend AJ and a successful run of wins left us with several Jameson´s to drink for a finish, ironically this was to be my saviour hours later but at the time I wasn´t to know.
Like I said, it was just turning into another good night, those of us in the service industry liked going to Alex´s club on a Monday night to exchange stories from the week before and the characters that we had met and served. And then, all of a sudden, I smelled it.... TEAR GAS.
Having had the experience only a week or two earlier on the streets with La Paz, I knew exactly what it was. It was going to be an unsavoury few minutes of discomfort, coughing and spluttering, with your eyes watering up before inevitably shutting involuntarily, but I knew that we would be ok. But try telling that to the hundred or so people in there that had no idea why they couldn´t breath.
There was pandamonium, shouts and screams of panic accompanied the sound of broken glass and smashed furniture. The only exit had been shut and since it was at the bottom of some stairs, there was a crush of people trying to get out. The Isrealis in the club really came to the fore, trained for these types of situations. The Israelis get some flak on the backpacker circuit for being very cliquey, distant and rude and with a penchant for complaining a lot but you wouldn´t want any other nationality beside you in a crisis.
They broke windows, wet their T-shirts and covered peoples faces, helped people out etc. For our part, my friends Jesse, Alain, Armand and I started helping people out of the windows and when a delirious English kid grabbed me and told me he couldn´t breathe, I broke a few windows with my fist and threw his head out of it. Thankfully the Jameson´s from earlier, coupled with the experience of being tear gassed already meant that I was able to stay on till the end, ensure that everyone was out and then calmly walk out like this was a regular occurence for me.
But the scenes outside were terrible, backpackers and friends scattered around on the street, crying and hurt and incredibly, with TV Cameras right there on the scene. It didn´t occur to me at the time to wonder how they had got there before I had even got out of the building.
We had destroyed the place. A herd of hysterical elephants couldn´t have done the job that we had done but in effect that was the idea. Whoever had come in, locked the door and threw in the tear gas canister had banked on us ensuring that this club would be out of commission for some time. Rival clubs had done this, of that I was sure..
Unfortunately, it had a very direct affect on those of us in Olivers. Our new staff member, Paddy from Ireland, had been in the toilet when the attack happened and had jumped from a 2nd story window on to a roof to escape. Except the roof couldn´t hold his weight so he fell threw it and hit a car and destroyed his ankle, so badly in fact that he had to return home to Ireland 3 months before the end of his treatment for care.
When the initial shock was over, it just made me so angry that someone could do this with no regard for human life. Alain and I went around the hospitals to check on the backpackers and to get names of people there.
One girl saw me arrive in and told me in no uncertain terms that she was mortally afraid of needles and that they couldn´t put one in her. She had a nasty gash beside her eye so I knew it would need stitches so I turned to the doctor and told her in Spanish that she had to put the needle in her face.
`You told her no needles, right?` the scared girl implored
´Of course I did,´ and then turning to the doctor, told her in Spanish, ´ When I start to speak English again, start injecting her with the anasthetic´
At that I turned around to the girl, covered in blood and not feeling very sexy at all and said;
´You know what, you are a very attractive girl! Really, you are kind of hot! I am the manager of Olivers Travels and when you get cleaned up you should come by some time and maybe I can take you out for a drink!´
She was so dumbfounded by this that she meekly said ´OK´ and by the time she had done that, the doctor had already injected her 4 times and was getting ready to stitch her up. The look on her boyfriend´s face was priceless as he sat there mute holding her hand and for the first time since the attack, there was a smile on my face!
I have this ridiculous theory that if you survive a particular way of dying, you can presume that you won´t die that way. I know, I know, there is no substance to it but if it is true, death by disco stampede and death by jealous boyfriend have well and truly been ticked off already!!
There was already a close knit community amongst those of us who had made La Paz home, but the recent events had made us even tighter. Those of us who ran bars were giving each other free 'Survivor Drinks', recounting the fateful night, now able to actually make light of the situation which was anything but funny at the time. I suppose that is the resiliance of the human race, endure hardships and then laugh about it.
I had to make a visa run, a necessity for those of us working here to get out of the country for a few days and then re-enter. Most people skip across the border at the nearest point and then come back next day, but never being conventional, I decided to head to Quito, Ecuador. This had three immediate benefits, it would make getting my re-entry visa very easy, I could actually get to see Quito and I would catch up with G again.
The last time I had been in Quito I had befriended a lunatic group of backpackers and my experiences of the city revolved around an Irish bar called Finn McCools so I was glad to get another opportunity to look around this surprisingly beautiful city. The architecture, plazas and public transport system were the first things I noticed, so beautiful and efficient.
We climbed the hill to the Basilica overlooking the city and once I learned that we could climb to the very top of it, across planks, up ladders and stairs, I was determined to do it! It was quite the effort to get up there but the view was worth it. But it was great to be finally seeing the city, getting a rare second chance on my travels.
Next day I did another of those tick boxes that had eluded me the last time I was here, a visit to the equator line. There was an entire park surrounding the monument to the actual equator line but I had to smirk when I learned that the French engineers, mathematicians and astronomers had got it wrong by 200m (according to accurate current GPS calculations) and that behind the park, in a small, dusty valley, was the actual central line, where some locals ran a very impressive and educational park instead.
We were shown examples of the Coriolis affect (water draining away in different clockwise and anticlockwise directions), an example of feats of strength on and off the equator line (seemed like parlour tricks to me) and then the inevitable egg balancing on a nail trick. Both G and I had to do it, my fumbling fingers taking infinintely longer to get the oblong object to settle for a photo!
We took off next morning to Otavalo, a small town that is given over to a market (one of the largest in South America) every Saturday morning. Blocks and blocks are dedicated to stalls and you can easily get lost, walking up and down streets looking at the local art work and food stuffs side by side. Unfortunately though, it attracts a lot of tourists with presumably crazy disposible incomes as the prices were seriously high so I bought nothing.
It has occurred to me that I hadn't been in the sea in over a year (how long has it been for you?) so we took off down to Canoa, a quiet little beach resort that was just reaching the end of its busy season to catch up with my friend Ursula and her fellow Northern Irish compatriot Mark. He ran an Irish bar down there and we all hit it off from the get go! So much so in fact that Mark closed the bar one night and cooked us all an Irish roast and I even got to eat it with English Mustard! I slathered it on, deliriously happy and bawling my eyes out as the intense mustard fumes seemed to invade my nose and mouth!
A few drinks later and we were belting out every Irish ballad (or part thereof) that we could collectively think of to the enjoyment of the few gathered there. It occurred to us that the three Irish people in the bar were all bar managers, talk about living up to the stereotype!!
A million miles away from La Paz and the stresses there, I was sorry to leave the beach as I bordered the bus but not before the little security Nazi woman gave me a disturbingly thorough pat down to ensure that I wasn't smuggling any weapons onto the bus in my underwear. What is it with authority figures in South America and my nether regions (see my time in Ipanema, Brazil for reference!)?
But all too soon, it was time to go back to La Paz and to see what the future held for me there. It was to be a very short future indeed...
Bolivia had only been the third country that I really felt I had lived in. The friendly, diminutive people had become like family and I had found my calling in Olivers Travels Bar, a new skill which felt so familiar and easy, running a bar, making people happy and taking on some real responsibilities for the first time in a few years.
There were so many highs, the new friends, the Bolivia v Argentina match, the trips to Coroico, Sorata, Cochabamba etc etc. The anticipation of hearing new stories with the arrival of every new backpacker through the doors of the bar, the good weather, the cheap drinks, the simple foods and the laid back way of life.
The insane traffic,the cold showers, the continuous strikes and slow internet connections, if anything, actually added to the charm of the city that I now called home.
But there had been lows aswell, most notably the death of my friend Frasier, being drugged in a nightclub, the tear gassing on the streets and more dangerously in the club just recently. Two of my staff had been badly injured that night, two others had been attacked in seperate incidents in the time I was there. Inevitably, the underbelly of drugs in the city had a violent side to it and the fact that I was on first name terms with several of the drug dealers in the city meant that it truly was incredibly prevalent.
When G got back from her travels she said that she was taking a trip north, into and through the Amazon, up through the Guianas and then down the coast of Brazil, I knew that this was an opportunity I couldn't turn down. It was genuinely hard to leave La Paz, my friends that I had endured so much with and my work colleagues that had to endure so much with me at the helm.
When those of us that lived in La Paz for the last few months reminisce about what happened, the adventures, the highs and the lows, others who have just arrived stare at us in disbelief, assuming we are embellishing these incredible stories but no, it was just La Paz, pure and simple, exciting and dangerous, beautiful and a place to call home.
But now it was time to move on again, my wanderlust clearly not satiated and as I set off on our bus to Rurrenabaque, I took a last, wistful look back at a city I can call home, sorry to say goodbye but excited at the prospects of a new adventure...
Did I say that I was looking forward to the adventure? Be careful what you wish for and all that...Our bus took 18 hours on a terrible road, alternating from boiling hot in the day to really cold at night, stopping at one street dusty towns where the public toilets looked like something from a nuclear spillage (except the state of these latrines actually had found a way to kill the surrounding cockroaches) and giving up any chance of sleeping in the miniscule space afforded you by the midget in front who has reclined all the way back so that their feet are practically dangling off the edge of their seat...Oh yeah, you guys see me at the Taj Mahal, the Acropolis, Times Square and Machu Picchu and grit your teeth with anger, envy or ambivalence but these are the hard hours that have to be put in to get to these places.And then when we got to Rurrenabaque, a tranquil jungle town famous for its Pampas trips, we caught some unseasonably wet weather for two days so we were practically penned in, lounging on hammocks, reading books and cooking for ourselves. So we had to take the decision to press on and head to the border, accelerating our trip to Brazil.OH MY GOD.... MY GOOD LORD ABOVE IN HEAVEN.... WHEN YOU CREATED THE WORLD IN 6 DAYS (not sure why You are short changed and said to have done it in seven when You were clearly chilling out and revelling in Your work on the 7th with a pint of Guinness) COULD YOU HAVE NOT SEEN FIT TO ENSURE THAT THE ROADS IN NORTHERN BOLIVIA WERE FIT FOR HUMAN TRANSPORT.I endured 24 of the worst travelling hours I have ever put down (can you imagine how bad this way in light of some of the trips I have descibed on this website) on the road from Rurrenabaque to Guyara Marin. It was simply unreal, it never let up, the pot holes (or should I say depressions) in the road caused the bus to crawl along, lilting over on its side, dangerously close to tipping over on, say, 30 occasions that I counted, bouncing us along with little regard for our comfort or spinal alignment.It was like King Kong had picked up the bus, read the instructions on the side which said, 'Shake well before drinking' and he was mixing us like a cocktail. You simply can't imagine what it was like as I sat there being thrown around like a rag doll, awake for 24 hours, no chance of reading in the dark of night and almost as hard during the day as you needed your hands for balance.And all this time, G, bouncing around in unison, blissfully sound asleep. I couldn't believe it. I had mixed feelings of bemusement and confusion, being immensely impressed one hour and ultimately downright frustrated at her ability to let her neck whiplash around, hitting me, the window, the seat in front and hers behind and weather it all, a momentary murmur and then fall back to sleep again as I watched on, agog with pained amazement.G was travelling with her bike, and fresh from her hours of sleep, she was far better equipped to deal with the corrupt bus driver that now wanted to charge us for carrying the bike under the bus. Of course he didn't mention this at the start and made to grab our bags back if we didn't pay. Miserable from my hours of riding a bucking bronco, I grabbed the bags and leered at him through bloodshot eyes. He called the police...We eventually bribed him less than half of what he wanted but then we were surrounded by 5 police officers (it must have been a slow day in the station) and I was sure that we would end up having to pay them off too... But we were left off with a warning and we eventually made it to a room. Showered, I was about to crawl into bed but the news of Michael Jackson's passing dismissed any tiredness.We went for a walk and already, the car radios were playing his songs and every store seemed to be adding to the cacophony of tributes to the tortured entertainer. We stopped to read up on what had happened on the Internet and a man and his son arrived in, paid their money and started to play guitar and drums on the computer to the tune of 'Beat It' and 'Thriller', it was truly a 'where were you when' moment...And then, 4 months to the day after I arrived into Bolivia, I took a simple 4 minute boat ride to Gujara Marin (yes I know, both towns have ridiculously similar names either side of the crossing) and arrived back into Brazil. It never ceases to amaze me how much a culture can change over a geographically tiny amount of land. I was in a different world full of soap operas (novellas) being shown publicly to people huddling around TV's, religious choir groups practising on the streets, a farmers fair where children dressed up in scarecrow outfits and danced around, women wearing tight tops, skin tight jeans and balance defying high heels.Another overnight bus later and we were in Porto Velho, the exit point for our boat trip up the Rio Madeira and deep into the Amazon.....
The Amazon, it conjures up such electrifying imagery just by the mention of its name. Or at least it has done so with me. It's been one of those places that even a dedicated traveller like myself has never thought he would see, like the Antarctic or the Sahara Desert, Tibet or North Korea! But here it was, beckoning me as we set up our hammocks amongst our new 'room-mates' on our ferry boat, the night before departure.
Something very Huckleberry Finn about slinging up a hammock, a great sense of freedom comes with carrying your own bed on your back. And as I jumped in to check if it could hold my diminishing weight, I felt incredibly content!
Until I woke up next morning in a maternity ward! During the night or early morning, i couldn't tell, families had boarded and taken up residence all around us, kids running wild and a veritable breast feeding frenzy. We had been warned about looking after our possessions while on the boat, that it was commonplace to have your stuff taken due to the close proximity of those around you. Hammocks were all over the place, no more than a half a foot in space either side of you although in one respect we were lucky. We had been told of boat trips where you could have found people slinging their hammocks above and below yours too.
We watched pink dolphins with their strange angled backs and grey dolphins doing jumps just as we set off, a good omen if my maritime memory served me correctly.
We were rudely awoken at 6am by the breakfast whistle, or rather a little Nazi going around blowing his whistle into your ears to alert you that he had slaved over making you this meal so you had better get up and taste his culinary delights, sweet coffee and buttered bread. Everyone on the boat was Brazilian so I had plenty of time to catch up on my reading as we chugged down the river.
it really is impressively big, a huge body of water, brown for the most part with little traffic for you to watch. Instead I found myself watching out for some kids whose 17 year old mother had left in a hammock and I pulled off a one handed catch as the baby had fallen out and would have done itself some damage had it connected with the floor. G found her and told her to look after her children but I conveyed a great deal more disgust with my look and she promptly moved her hammock away from ours a while later.
We were the source of much amusement on the boat and some of the girls on board asked G if we were brother and sister (our skin colours should have been the first clue there), if we had met up on a Blind Date game show and the inevitable, were we married?
There had been massive flooding in these parts and it was incredible to see the houses, which had been on stilts, still have to be abandoned. I saw electricity poles with only three or four feet left above the water level and people looking forlornly out at us, trapped in their houses, accessible only by speed boats. The water levels were at their highest since 1953 and still rising, this was the cutting edge of climate change, no need to tell these people that something very wrong was going on with the weather these days.
I had been a little anxious as to how bored i might have been on board but as our last few hours approached, I realised I was going to miss this boat and this way of travel. The sunsets had been amazing, the camaraderie on board had been different than the nods and grunts you get with bus or air travel, the freedom of movement and the hypnotic passing of the water had left me in a reflective and relaxed mood. But soon we were bundled off the boat and surrounded by the workers unloading all of the food produce for Manaus.
We got a cheap room in a pousada, made cheap by its proximity to brothels on our street. We walked around the city, which was nice without being too impressive save for the Opera House that they had there, a legacy of the boom times when Manaus was a hub of greater activity. We went to a free concert and it was strange to have to wear shoes and a collared shirt again. I couldn't help but look at the city with a view to the World Cup here in 5 years time and how a lot of money and development will pour into this city in preparation and they don't have a proper bar...
We went to see an incredible natural phenomenon, The Meeting of the Waters, where two rivers of different speeds, densities and warmth meet but do not mix, one a light brown, the other a dark black. It was incredible to watch and sail along it, miles of this natural boundary which i had seen only in nature programs before. G managed to get this trip for a fraction of the price than if we had gone through an agency, her language skills again coming in more than handy.
But we had a new destination straight after that, we were heading north, towards the Guianas, (Guyana, Suriname and French Guyana), places so out of the way, I had never met a backpacker that had been there. And I know a lot of backpackers! I was finally going off the beaten track...
We met a backpacker on the border, him leaving and us arriving into Guyana and his only words of warning was that things were seriously expensive in these countries. They really are the forgotten parts of South America and are visited all together, never individually. We took a terribly uncomfortable bus journey over night where we had a 6 hour wait before we could pass through a jungle out of respect for the local Indians. A loud mouthed Brazilian couldn't be convinced that no-one wanted to listen to him so I slept little and thanked my lucky stars I didn't have enough Portuguese to give him a firm bollicking.
We were met in Georgetown, the capital, by G's brother Marc. He is some character, everything he seems to say sounds like he's singing! It was amazing the transformation I felt with my surroundings, I have never been to the Caribbean but it certainly felt like I had left South America. Everyone spoke English as their first language but even then it was hard for me to understand because it was so heavily accented. It was great! I even heard myself lilting into the accent to make myself understood!
We stayed at Auntie Carol and Uncle William's house, the full titles being used at all times. It really felt like i was visiting relations, so welcome were we made. I found myself referring to them as Uncle Wayne, Cousin Tattie etc, their full names, even when they weren't present! Plans were made for Christmas reunions after just a few days! In fact, it reminded me a lot of Ireland.
Big families, always welcoming strangers, fond of drinking and singing, self deprecating sense of humour and big tasty meals, based on comfort foods like stews (their Pepper Pot was simply amazing!) I am used to the irish being known for our partying but when people heard where i was from, the men all made reference to the Irish Cricket Team and how they are amazed at our progress. I made a mental note to get myself more acquainted with them as it seemed like the best way for me to get into conversations.
I haven't been looked at as much when I walked the streets here since when I was in India, but it was all good natured, 'Hey White Boy!' being the cheer, as much as a question as a statement! The houses were all two story, white, with businesses based out of them as we drove around with Marc, listening to Caribbean beats. We were definitely going to places off the Lonely Planet recommended list and i couldn't have been happier! I sat in rooms and bars, the only white person, the token white actor on the set of 'The Cosby Show'
There are car stickers and flags, posters and signs everywhere confirming their devotion in God above but equally, signs warned about the prevalence of AIDS in the area, second highest in the Caribbean after Haiti and that you should 'Abstain, Be Faithful or Condomise.' Stickers of Playboy adorned cars beside those of Jesus, mixed messages or the greatest case of having your cake and eating it too..
Uncle Mickey, the undoubted playboy and black sheep of the family, was a source of great entertainment. He referred to gay men as 'Auntie Man' (very much not anti men as it turned out) and his Karaoke exploits every night were well known in the capital. He had recorded a song many years before and he was one of those people who have had a fascinating life, always on the edge.
The first family in Guyana are firmly the Obama's, calendars, t-shirts and mugs are all over the place. The Star Spangled Banner flies everywhere, often accompanied by the Jamaican flag, these two countries being the dream, the ideal for the local Guyanese. A lot of them had great aspirations to 'get to America' and their families, I presumed that it must have been like that in days of yore for so many other countries before the USA lost some of its sheen.
But the week fairly flew by, making more friends and family, going to Karaoke, taking dinner down by the beach, doing the shopping and feeling very much at home but we had to move on.
We applied for our visas to get into Suriname and it asked all of the standard questions in Dutch, (the national language), French and English. I was amazed though when, under marital status, it asked in all three languages whether you were single, divorced, married etc but just in Dutch and French, it asked if you were a 'concubine'?!! I looked at G whose stare firmly informed me that she was not going to tick that box.
I asked the lady in the consulate if they had many concubines attempting to enter her country and she told me almost conspiratorially that 'That's for the French!' Haha, brilliant!
She also gave us the number of a person we should take a lift with to the border who happened to be one of G's uncles and in an uncanny moment of cosmic timing, Marc came in, handed over his phone to G and there was the man himself, Uncle Brian, on the phone, making arrangements to take us there!
Oh yes, Suriname was to be one of those kind of weird adventures....
"Jaguar"
"Huh?"
"I think there's a Jaguar outside the shed," whispered G in a terrified Blair Witch Project kind of way.
But that was a few days away yet.
A miserable morning greeted us at 3:30am as we set out with Uncle Brian to Suriname, getting the family preferential treatment as we got to sit up front as our large bags crowded those traveling in economy class in the back!
We took a ferry across to Suriname, a former colony of the Netherlands and arrived by car into the capital, Paramaribo where the cost of the first hostel made us gasp. There was little wonder they got so few backpackers around these parts. G set off to try and find alternative accommodation and then I did the same.
I arrived at a hostel that was in our 2009 guide but a lady there told me that it was closed. It had been quite a walk there and I was about to curse yet another out-of-date guide reference when I was told it was because the owner had just died. Feeling a little sheepish about my willingness to explode with indignation I walked back, resigned to the increased prices, but happy in the knowledge at least that I was still around to pay them.
We went out to take a look around this charming and quaint city. The buildings in the city centre were predominantly wooden, white and antiquated but well maintained. It was lovely to walk around and inhale the smells of the city, fresh bakeries, the Suriname river and the multitude of food stalls. G took the lead on all things culinary considering she had been born there and the food was great, enhanced with the local spices! If I had lost weight in Bolivia, it seemed like I was going to find it again here in Suriname.
Thanks to the Dutch, the street names and signs are of ridiculous length. The central park is called ONAFHANKELIJKHEIDSPLEIN (usual pronunciation then?!) where a statue to a much loved former Prime Minister, Pengel, stands proudly. Now, most statues I have seen have been commissioned to make the person being remembered look at their best but Pengel must have been an incredibly large man, as he looked like Alfred Hitchcock on steroids.
Leaving portly Pengel behind, I decided to sit down with my re-discovery of 'Tuesdays with Morrie' a book which I have spoken about before on this blog but which is one of my favourites. What made it even better is that I had replaced it with one of the worst books I have ever read. I read them sometimes to give me hope that one day I can publish a book because if these ones have been considered worthy enough of printing, there is hope for us all.
Speaking of hope for us all, Paramaribo is famous for a man made but rare phenomenon, a Mosque residing happily beside a Synagogue. It didn't seem out of place at all to have these two places of worship beside each other and I learned that the car park is shared when they have simultaneous religious festivals. This should not be taken for granted, people are dying all over the planet because they can't accept their neighbours religion, but here they were, sharing a car park.
After a few days, we went to the Interior of Suriname to Brownsberg Nature Reserve. We took a van down to the entrance of the park, but it was a 13km walk to the camp site in oppressive heat. The only thing more oppressive was the cost of the 25 minute drive up there so we applied the sunscreen and set off. It was mostly uphill and winding, but to be honest, after our over indulgence in the local cuisine, it was good to be doing some exercise again.
But the hours ticked by as we trudged one foot in front of the other, hoping more than knowing that we taking the right direction. We arrived in an hour before daylight finished and 30 minutes before a downpour that would last the night. We slung up our hammocks, showered, cooked up, chatted with the others staying in the shed and then fell into a dead sleep.
I was woken to a deafening sound, exactly the same as that circular sound motion of an air raid siren. I had heard it before, in Guatemala, when the howler monkeys scream at each other in a call and response fashion but with so many of them, it takes on a continuous effect. That is until one of them says 'HUH HUH' and they all stop, dead, on the spot, not a sound. It's as impressive as it is disconcerting, one head conductor bringing the entire jungle orchestra's booming crescendo to a stop.
I couldn't get back to sleep so at 6am I went for a walk. I found myself a beautiful vantage point, lush with jungle views for kilometers and was soaking it all in when the Dutch Family Robinson descended on me. Kids shattered the peacefulness so I made to leave when their father wished me a good morning in Dutch.
"It was," I mumbled. Fortunately it had taken him a second to change languages and didn't catch its meaning. He then said he had brought his children to see what his country had 'given up' 34 years previously 'in return of taking half their population' (a reference to the number of Surinamese who have emigrated there, to mixed reviews from the locals). I was going to make a reference to the number of footballers born in Suriname or of Surinamese descent that have made the Dutch a world power, (Gullit, Davids, Rijkard, Winter, Seedorf, Hasselbaink to name just a few) but one of his kids tripped over so he went to attend to him as I stifled a derisory smirk.
With G awake by now, we set off on another long trek, listening and watching out for monkeys, lizards and other animals. It was kind of hard, you were constantly moving your head around, up to see the monkeys, down to check for snakes and straight in front to avoid one of the many spider webs. It was a good workout however and for a second straight night, we cooked up and retired early to our hammocks.
"Jaguar"
"Huh?"
"I think there's a Jaguar outside the shed," whispered G in a terrified Blair Witch Project kind of way. We had the Shed to ourselves, the others had left that day, but it was an open shed with only two walls and no doors so had their been a Jaguar outside, they had immediate access.
We had been told that there were loads of Jaguars in the park but that they were naturally frightened of people but that did little for G's confidence. I had to admit that I did hear something rustling around outside but not for the first time in my life, I turned to statistics to calm me down.
In the first place, the odds that a jaguar, so emboldened by hunger or desperate through injury had come to a campsite looking for food was low considering the abundance of food in the jungle.
Then for it to have stumbled on our campsite seemed highly unlikely.
For it then to have chosen our shed for it's night time snack reduced the odds further and after all of that, there was another 50/50 odd to diminish it further and the way G was making so much noise, walking around, I felt confident that I was pretty safe.
So despite her protestations, I fell back asleep!
In the morning I was fresh and ready for more trekking, G taking considerably longer to shake the cold out of the bones and her 'near death' encounter the night before out of her system... Today, we set out for two waterfalls, way down in the jungle, so secluded that it felt like we were the only people in the world. I went under the larger waterfall and listened to the soothing sound of the water hitting the rocks and sending up sprays of water, which filtered the rainbow colours of the sun that pierced the canopy above. It was really quite idyllic and refreshing for the soul, that there were still places like this to discover.
The next morning, we set off early to walk the 13km back to the main road. We were treated to the experience of following some monkeys as they jumped from tree to tree for over a kilometer. Back on the main road, we took a lift on a bumpy road to a port where we met a Dutch couple Tessa and Falkurt and we took a speed boat to a 'holiday island' Isadou.
It was a small island that they had renovated into a resort but we were the only people there. It was eerily quiet there but we made the most of it, cooking again and having a few beers with some music before we retired for the night.
"Rat"
"Huh"
"I think that there is a rat in the room," said G, not caring about keeping her voice down this time. I did a quick statistical analysis and came to the conclusion that the odds were definitely better that she was probably right so we turned on a torch and there it was, a great big fat rat, in our room, trying to get at our food. It scurried away as we tied up what was left of our food but it was pouring rain outside so we couldn't change shack. The joys of being nature I guess.
Since there was nothing to do on the island, we asked to leave next day. All transport was by boat and they wanted to charge us an astronomical fee for the two minute transfer to another area. We said no, that they had agreed to drop us over there if we had decided not to stay on their island in the first place but they said that we were on the island now and that these were the rules. We kicked up a fuss and eventually one of them took us in a leaking canoe across the water, with us scooping water out water as we went, barely making it to the other side with our bags intact and dry.
Jaw Jaw (pronounced Yow Yow) was much more like the real deal. The houses and ways of life hadn't changed in generations and it was a comfort to see. Here we were in an out of the way village, in an out of the way country, in and out of the way part of an exotic continent, I couldn't have felt more off the beaten track!
We walked around, snapping photos but making sure we didn't get any of the locals who believe that their souls are captured if they pose for a photo. The kids ran around naked but some covered up when they saw us. I was a big hit when I started to throw the kids up in the air and catch them again, but they were relentless in their desire to be thrown around. It was a pity in one way that I couldn't have had a photo taken with them as their faces will fade in my memory with time but their laughs should sustain me for a lot longer.
The people wash their dishes, clothes and themselves in the fast flowing river (full of piranhas but they are reported to be slow and stay away from the shore in case they are caught for food). Everything seemed so tranquil here, with only one TV in the village and light only turned on at night (just try and imagine that for a moment, no lights on during the days anymore, remember the light bulb was invented to aid vision at night only!)
We headed back to Paramaribo for another night and then set off towards French Guyana but as it happened we had to stop off to witness a miracle of nature and to break a fundamental international law.
We could see French Guyana on the other side of the wide river and were about to cross it when we met Andy who told us his family were about to take a boat trip to Galibi and that we could stay with his family if we so wished. We had considered going to Galibi to see the famed Leather-back Turtles giving birth (as it was the season) but we had ruled it out as we were told that we would have had to join a tour group and it was expensive.
But we were being offered a personal guaranteed trip by his Dad to see the turtles so we agreed to go along. So instead of crossing the river, we set off up the river towards the sea and pulled into their beach on Galibi. Once the hammocks were thrown up, we ate food and walked around for a bit, another throw back to yesteryear as we marveled at the small shacks and fishing nets strewn around.
I got a few hours sleep before we were roused by Robbi, the 'chief' of Galibi who said he was ready to take us out to try and find turtles. It was pitch dark of course as we stepped into his ancient speed boat and set off, bouncing across the waves, huddled behind an ineffectual rain jacket as the spray soaked us to the bone.
I then had a terrible thought. Robbi was there with his son Andy and another man who we never met and couldn't see as he had a torch around his head pointed out to watch out for floating debris. And a thought occurred to me that if they wanted, they could attack us, dump us overboard and no-one would know any better, we hadn't had a chance to inform anyone of our change of travel plans and we weren't on any official tour.
It was very much unlike me, usually so trusting, but it did seem somewhat illegal what we were doing, out at night, scouting for turtles and I suppose my imagination and natural skepticism was getting the better of me. We found tracks in three places but we had been too late to see the turtles. I wasn't sure if this had been Robbi's plan all along but we agreed to stay another night but I told him that we wouldn't be paying him any more money as we were paying on a result basis and we hadn't had a result yet.
I took a walk around the next morning and watched a village open its eyes to the daily chores. I turned a few heads when they saw me, tall white guy wandering around their village. There was a church there and I stepped in and saw a man walking around, shirt off, in shorts and bare feet, attending to a few things. I presumed he was charged with keeping the church tidy but I was surprised an hour later when he had gone off and changed into trousers and a polo shirt and started to say mass, beach style.
The waves lapped onto the shore outside as he seemed to go into a 35 minute sermon, all of course in the cross over language of Dutch and Tackey Tackey. I didn't understand a thing and the next thing it was over, everyone left and I wondered had I just been at a town council forum or alcoholics anonymous meeting.
That evening, we went with Robbi again in his boat but this time he was bringing bottles of beer. We wondered if this was an offering to the Turtle God for a successful search or he was going to pour it out on the beach and see if we could entice any turtles out that were fond of a tipple.
Instead of that, we broke international law....
He took us across the river and we landed on the French Guyanese side. I felt like some kind of drug dealer making a delivery away from the sights of the authorities. When we boarded, we walked into another little village and my overactive imagination conjured up images of Rambo, raiding another area under the cover of darkness. In the end it was far more sedate as we went to Robbi's friends house and cracked open a few beers!
It was surreal, here we had crossed another border to have a beer with a buddy, skipping the formalities of passports or border control and had in fact left the continent and entered a fully fledged part of Europe. I didn't even know if I could count this as another country visited yet. But I reveled in the illegality of it all, in fairness a passport is just another form of ID and this was my second time changing continent and country without a passport (but that is another story for another book!)
We were alerted to a miracle of nature so we rushed down to the beach to see a simply massive leather-back turtle making a hole for itself in the sand. It must have been 400 kgs and it dwarfed us all. She worked away patiently, scooping sand away with her huge paddle like fins, making a hole deep enough for her eggs. She seemed comfortable at our presence there at this most sacred of times, but I felt strangely voyeuristic. She started to lay her eggs, 150+ we were informed, each the size of a white pool ball. It was simply incredible to be so close to something like this and not watching it on the National Geographic.
Then our guide showed us where there were some baby turtles who had just emerged from the sand after 50 days and since this was their most vulnerable time, G and I took one each and brought them into the sea. We were exhilarated by our contribution to the great circle of Life and tried not to think about the fact that we may have delivered dinner to an abundance of hungry, waiting fish!
Next morning, still buzzed from our close encounter with nature, we went back to Albina where we had to go through customs this time to cross the border. He wanted to know where our bags were and we told him that Robbi had told us to leave them on the boat.
He blew out a tired sigh and told him to bring his boat around so that he could check the bags and then told us how the rivermen know the rules but are continually breaking them and that he had jailed two Frenchmen and their guide the day before, putting them in a small, smelly cell with no seats for 4 hours! He seemed to enjoy the recollection and this cheered him up and told us we could go on our way, not needing even to make a cursory look at our bags. No wonder drug smuggling is rife in South America with officials like this on the case.
And so we entered Europe. It was a surreal thing to contemplate, we had left one continent and entered another by name only while still staying in the original continent geographically and I busied myself trying to work out where else in the world this would be the case. Answers on a postcard please!
We had been reliably informed that hitch-hiking was the only way to travel in this country so, with some degree of confidence, based on my French and G's looks, we flung out our collective thumbs and waited for our first lift...
It was to be a long time coming...
We cast our bags aside as we boldly stood on the side of the road, thumbs arched in the direction that we were going, confident of our success. But this was to subside with every minute and each apologising wave from the motorists as they indicated they were turning off and then proceeding straight up the road which we were bound.
We started to take turns in the baking sun, while the other took refuge under a nearby tree. Hitchhiking is not an art form, you can make it easier for yourself though by not looking deranged or holding up a chainsaw but ultimately there is a huge element of good old human nature and trust involved.
And trust was in short supply this morning.
Much like frustrated fishermen, we decided to move to another vantage point, to see if the fish were biting elsewhere. We picked up our bags and moved from spot to spot to similar results. We spied a petrol station so we went there to stock up on water and to implore those leaving for a lift and finally we had a result.
An Oriental gentleman took pity on us and said that he could drive us up a few kilometres but at least we would be past a popular turn off so that we knew that anyone going further than that, were definitely going to our destination, Kourou. His French was impressive considering how drunk he was that early in the morning as the beer in his hand and the empty bottles rolling around under his seat testified.
We were glad it was only a 5 minute trip! But still, we had tasted success, the rumours of easy travel around French Guyana were being borne out, surely it was just a matter of time..... Hours passed by and we started to consider Plans B, C and D. In the end though it was Plan G that saved us as she saw a past date advertisement and she set to writing our destination out on a sign.
Now this might seem obvious to you, but there are so few places to go to in French Guyana that if you are on a certain road, everyone knows where you are destined for. But to leave no doubts in their minds, we threw up our sign and seconds, literally seconds later, Sabrina, Nicola and their son Kyllian screeched to a halt 40m past us! I didn't even have time to smack my forehead and mutter, "Why didn't we do this earlier?!" as we rushed up and jumped in.
Well, that was easy, just 5 hours, piece of cake as we collapsed into their back seat. We drank some water, I shook off the dizzy spells I had been having in the sun and started to drag out my reluctant French. They were such a lovely family, Nicola was a doctor, Sabrina worked in the Space Centre and Kyllian delighted himself with sharpening pencils and driving them into my leg!
They diverted off and took us to see the impressive Space Centre (more on that later), then took us to their home, let us use Internet and then drove us to the cheapest place they could find, a snip at over 50 Euros a room. Ouch, by far and away the most I have ever spent on a nights accomodation since I started this trip but French Guyana is even more expensive that France itself (40% more we were informed).
French Guyana is considered another region of France, rather than a colony. Flights from one to the other are internal and do not require a passport but in saying that, if you lost your passport here, you would have to fly to Paris to get a new one as there were no consulates etc here.
The Centre Spacial Guyana (CSG) is an impressive place and the primary reason why France is still interested in this region. It was built here due to its proximity to the equator and its geographical position not being in an area for tornados, hurricanes etc. Thousands work here and tens of thousands depend on it for their livelihood.
We set off to visit it and had our sign made up this time, but I stuck out my thumb and immediately we got a lift and they dropped us to the centre. We were so thankful but they thought it just part of the norm, maybe our first day difficulties had been an aberration.
You are greeted by a model life sized shuttle when you arrive there and the European Flags flutter proudly although they do seem out of place in this heat. We went on the free tour which lasted three hours and was very informative but it did tax our combined linguistic skills. We did get to see however the launch pad from up close for the upcoming satellite launch. It was incredible the work that goes into these launches, only for them to get incinerated on take off.
They have had a checkered past, with some failed launches (they didn’t promote this on the tour but G did ask, it was kind of interesting to see our guide squirm!) but they seem to have got things right now and have had successful launches for the last 7 years. We went on to another museum afterwards which was fascinating in a nerdy kind of way.
Again, on the way back, my thumb (now gaining the moniker of ‘The Magic Thumb’) was hardly extended when Dante, another employee drove us into town again so that we could get our bags. Our next trip was to the capital Cayenne so we made up a sign but as soon as we stepped out, we hadn’t even unfurled it when Eric picked us up and drove us as far as the best place to get a lift going that way. He even gave us his number in case we didn’t get a lift and he said he would come back and bring us back into town!! Now this was hospitality of the first degree!
Again, the Magic Thumb had hardly flexed its muscles when we got picked up again and dropped just outside Cayenne, Maralese driving 25 kms further than she wanted to go! Cindy picked us up going into the city, took us for a small tour and invited us to a local bar for a beer! They really do treat backpackers well in these parts, probably because we are like unicorns or honest politicians in our scarcity.
Now, I have travelled extensively some might say but I had never enlisted the use of Couch Surfing, a phenomenon that I found too risky without ever really knowing about it. It’s an international community of people that will open their houses to backpackers and allow them free accommodation in exchange for good conversation, simple as that! But I had heard of some unsavoury accounts, predominantly by single female travelers, so I had never looked into it as an option.
But the cost of accommodation here forced our hand and what a wonderful thing it was too. We contacted David and Audrey and asked them if we could stay in their house for a night or two. They came and picked us up, brought us back to their house, we all had dinner and drinks and talked into the early hours, like catching up with old friends rather than new acquaintances. I went to bed wondering why I hadn’t couch surfed earlier if everyone was as cool as our new friends…
We went into the city next day with David playing tour guide. We met Audrey and her friends for lunch and looked around the city. French flags naturally adorn the place and the license plates all have the EU flag. Our French was improving every hour which I was happy about, especially considering all too soon I would have to go back to Brazil and the Portuguese language and relying on G again.
I was sorry to say goodbye to Audrey and David, our new friends who were the perfect hosts. David dropped us to the outskirts of town so that we could hitch to the border. G was making up our latest sign but with supreme confidence I stepped out, Magic Thumb extended and hailed down a lift within two minutes!
Arjan, who we affectionately dubbed ‘The Frogman’, picked us up. A Dutch National here on holidays picked us up and drove us again further than he was going, this hospitality thing was contagious it seemed. He was a fascinating character, in the Dutch Navy and with a great love of Biology, he had come to French Guyana to look at the wildlife and in particular frogs. He was a great source of information and amusement as he explained to us how the nature and wildlife here had been decimated..
“Look, no parrots,” he would exclaim and point at the jungle either side of the road. He was absolutely correct, there were indeed no parrots in the trees but I felt a little silly continually looking out the window to confirm that I could see nothing.
He told us all about the habits of various frogs, in particular the Dart frogs (the ones that you get the poison from that the Indians then put on their darts to kill animals and foes alike). He said that they exhibited real human like characteristics; jealousy, envy, betrayal and the mating rituals were charmingly funny.
He bemoaned the attitude of the French here who shot animals for sport and fun, (he himself had seen someone roll down the window of their car, shoot at a bird, kill it and then drive off)
“Look, no parrots,” he repeated and despite myself I was looking out again at nothing…
He also told us of the illegal and dangerous trade of Brazilians who had entered French Guyana illegally to pan for gold, poisoning the rivers as they did. He said that after some police officers were killed pursuing the bandits into the forest, the French authorities had got much more serious now in their determination to get rid of the thousands of Brazilians in the area. The next stretch of road was very dangerous as the burnt out and commandeered cars on the side of the road displayed. Apparantly, lots of hijackings took place by desperate Brazilians that needed transport down south to the border.
We reached a check point where we said goodbye to The Frogman and crossed through it on foot. We waited for two hours on the other side, hoping for a lift, the Magic Thumb being thwarted by a miserable lack of options. The police there though did come over to us and give us some hot meals as they felt sorry for us, putting French Guyana even higher up on the International Hospitality Register.
Finally, Winston, the wannabee singer told us that he would take us the rest of the way for 15 Euros, clearly not understanding the terms and conditions of hitch-hiking but we needed to get south and to cross the border before nightfall so we agreed to his offer.
We took a short boat ride to re-enter Brazil and to leave Europe for a while. It had been a wonderful, if short stay in French Guyana. All of the Guiana’s had been impressive and I felt sorry that the vast majority of travelers would never make it this way.
But in another, more selfish way, I was glad to have finally been to places that separated me from the run of the mill backpackers, where going to countries previously thought exotic is as common now as buying a new car to other people.
We negotiated a lift overnight to Macapa where we boarded another ferry to bring us out into the Atlantic and into Belen. Again we caused a stir on the boat, G telling the locals I was a famous travel writer and that she was my interpreter. When we got screwed over by the staff (we'd been informed lunch was included in our fee but when we set off, we were old we had to pay for it) another lady offered to buy us dinner, wanting I presume to ensure I wrote up a favourable review of her area. It was a kind hearted gesture but of course we refused it.
We chugged along wide rivers where the local kids rowed out in their canoes, some as young as 4 and 5 years of age, just to ride over the waves created in our wake. This enjoyment lasted literally seconds but they probably had little else to amuse themselves out here. I felt instantly sad for them in a condescending way, but rebuked myself as they looked so happy and were waving back at us on deck.
We pulled into Belen, a city surprisingly full of skyscrapers and got ready for an interesting few days...
I am not sure what it is about being in Brazil, but for some reason, I am always on my guard. At times, I feel that there is a somewhat sinister undercurrent about the people and I struggle to be totally at ease. Now, there are 180 million of them so that would be the greatest of generalisations if I said that that is the case everywhere, but I felt it in Belen when I walked around.
It is a nice city without being remarkable and we walked around the city centre relatively easily. I am always mindful that big cities like this are already selected for the World Cup Games of 2014 but in my mind, they have a long way to go to be tourist friendly.
One place that was however was the Zoo, a wonderful little park which housed all of the animals, birds and reptiles of the Amazon. We had a great afternoon, just wandering around, reliving childhood school trips for my part.
But it was time to move on, down the coast to Sao Luis, the capital of another Brazilian state and a far more interesting place. We were joined by Jara, a Czech backpacker that we had actually met on the Space Centre tour a few days earlier. Sao Luis is lovely, with its cobbled stoned streets, painted houses, intricate tiling on the walls and an old town feel. We were immediately sucked into it's charm and felt perfectly safe there.
Which was more than I could say for our accommodation. I have stayed in some places on my travels that are no better than hovels and prison cells but I had never stayed in a dungeon. We had tried a few places and the Pousada we were now trying was full but they said that there was a room that they could 'tidy up' which would be suitable for hammocks.
Suitable for hated, hardened terrorist suspects I think would have been closer to the truth...
It was truly terrible. The walls and floor were decorated in a panoply of mildew, a water pipe ran through it that was the run off from a toilet above, spiders roamed freely and the door didn't lock from the inside. Now I am not a princess when it comes to where I lay my head but this place was stretching even my Spartan attitudes to comfort. Still, we set up our hammocks and tried to sleep.
Next morning we took a boat off to Alcantara, a historical sight on the other side of the sea from Sao Luis. It was a beautiful if sedate area and to liven things up we went into a dreary museum all about a festival that they throw there once a year. We had a guide and G had to translate all of the meanings of the different symbols but it was rather dull and I amused myself by asking her stupid questions and having her translate them to our bewildered guide.
The boat back was near vomit inducing, people turning shades of green on board that reminded me of the walls in our room. It was tough going and we did everything we could to try and take our minds off the churning ebb and flow on the sea and in our stomachs. It might have seemed like a wasted trip had it not been for Barnaby!
Oh wonderful, wonderful Barnaby! We got talking to uber posh Barnaby from London and his friend Mandy who both possessed the types of cultured English accents that you would see in a Sherlock Holmes movie. I stood there, eyes wide open and mouth agog as he talked about their travels to date, using 'Rather' and 'one' in open conversation rather a few times more than one was used to old boy. I thought it was simply marvelous!
He told us that Mandy was from the Kings Cross area of London and hinted that the nefarious activities associated to there might have helped her pay for the trip.
"Really Barnaby, how rude!" she playfully retorted. I swear I heard Oscar Wilde smirk somewhere.
Later on we went for drinks, an open air performance by a band playing Pagode music, with vendors selling beers all around. It was wonderful but where there are tourists, pickpocketing kids, strung out on drugs reside. I spotted one slipping some money into a pocket and when our eyes locked, we had an ocular conversation, me telling him I wouldn't rat him out as long as he left me and my friends alone and him telling me that that was fair enough.
I spent the night with my hands in my pockets.
We had met Barnaby (seriously, what a great name!) and Mandy, the latter being tired and ready to go home a while later.
"Really Barnaby, I've said it quite a few times now, can we go home?"
Fantastic stuff altogether!
G was tired too and so I walked her back to the dungeon, but I couldn't face it without the Dutch courage of a few more beers, I went back out to join our friend Jara. Two minutes later, we were approached. Now, I had been warned by G about some girls in Brazil and their brazen attitudes to sex and relationships in so much as they have absolutely no respect for either.
These girls came over, talked to us for a while and wanted to know if we wanted to come back to a party in their house. We said no, we just wanted to go for a few more drinks and listen to music so we moved bar but of course they followed us. Another team of girls took interest and every time we got separated, by one of us going to the bar or toilet, the other got propositioned with frightening regularity.
I couldn't speak Portuguese and they couldn't speak English but they didn't care, they weren't looking for soul mates. I would say that suggestions were made but that would be crediting them with a subtlety that they certainly did not possess. In classic, divide and conquer tactics, Jara and I kept getting separated as they engaged their quarry military style. You couldn't even feel flattered, you were just a white gringo, ergo, you must have a bit of money on you and therefore were a cut above the locals.
They were relentless and it was all a little sad in a way. For that reason I am sure, Jara must have taken pity and agreed to go out with them further as I retreated back to safety of the dungeon. I wondered what Barnaby would have made of all this;
"Really, one has to wonder as to the calibre and breeding of ladies in this day and age, doesn't one?" Quite right Barnaby my boy, couldn't (and wouldn't) have said it better myself.
So next morning, I was happy that it was time to head to Jericoacoara, this mystical place that G had put on our 'must see list' and which had become a mecca for serious backpackers everywhere. We took a bus to Camochin, meeting the two Richards (dubbed Snr and Jnr) and going for a drink, sleeping for 5 hours before waking again to take a jeep across the beach to a place so cool, that it has its own nickname.... Jeri.
We got up early and fairly whizzed along the beach towards Jeri. We had to alight a couple of times as the jeeps were ferried across waterways, one time the only volition was the drivers pushing us along with long poles, Venice gondola style. G got talking to the fabulously gay Wagner who gave us the heads up on where to eat, sleep, drink etc and we were soon settled in and decided to go out and see why this place had gained the reputation it had.
You see Jericoacoara is a place of legend for backpackers in this part of the world, a 'must see', a mystical place that separates you from other travelers, a place where those 'in the know' came years ago and stayed for weeks and months, rather than days where you whip out your camera, take your photos, tick it off your mental atlas and move on.
Famous for its windsurfing conditions and for being one of the only places that you can see the sun set over water in Brazil, it has long been held in reverence. But you got a decided feel that commercial interests had definitely taken a huge bite out of the innocence of the place. Still, the big resorts have to live in a symbiotic relationship with the artisans selling their wares of bead work and chains.
You see, people come to enjoy the distance that a place like Jeri seems to create from the rest of the world, but nowadays they want to enjoy their privacy with big screen TV's and skinny mocha coffees aswell. The 'roads' here were still made of sand but the jewelery stores and expensive Italian restaurants seemed to be out of place. Backpackers carried their bags on their shoulders as honeymooners tried to roll their expensive luggage across the terrain. It made quite a juxtaposition and it took me a while to warm to the place.
The same couldn't be said for G who immediately turned her thoughts to working and living here. With her exceptional language skills, the posh hotel resorts were asking her to be their receptionist (many Europeans come to this Brazilian paradise) but they were asking her to commit to months rather than weeks so it was a no go. But still, it was easy to see that this place had the magic, the special 'it' that traps people that other beaches, cities, hostels all hope they have and try to conjure up but I often feel is either there or it isn't.
Jnr was a sun worshipper and he spent his days getting progressively more black as Snr was content with getting his daily Vitamin D intake and then retreating to do some reading, sensibly avoiding having to hear from his confused doctor in wet and windy Scotland how he had, regrettably, developed inoperable melanoma! The days went by and in the evening, as we congregated for a drink and dinner, we mused over the lack of activity of the day, how little had been practically achieved.
Now I am a massive advocate of the belief that when at all possible, you should never miss a sunrise or a sunset. But here, this took on an almost religious experience as the townfolk walked, zombie like out to the dunes and took up residence, all staring out over the ocean, snapping shots and drinking beers, eagerly awaiting the final glimpse of sun when everyone burst into rapturous applause. This perplexed me somewhat and I wanted to inform them of the astrophysics that would ensure that this would all happen again tomorrow but I didn't want to dampen their enthusiasm.
After this, everyone would descend to the beach and watch the Capoiera dancers. Capoiera is a dance which incorporates dance and martial arts, brought by the slaves of Angola to Brazil and developed here. The protagonists throw themselves around, round house kicking and diving at their 'opponent', all the time using their skills to NOT make contact. It really is incredible to watch the masters at work, narrowly avoiding kicking each other, a wrong move could effectively kill a man. All the time the music is played and it takes on a frantic feel of a fighting frenzy.
One of the origins of this artform is that it was developed by the slaves to keep their ancient rituals alive but they needed to avoid bruising each other which would have alerted their slave masters who would then take great pleasure in adding to their pain.
The procession would then dissipate, people heading home to change, then eat and then come down to the main strip and engage with the boisterous cocktail makers in their stalls. This is where we met Raymond, a 32 yr old father of four (to four different women) whose wife had recently left him over a fight because he wanted to see his other kids more often. There was a sincerity about him but also a terrible sadness that I didn't need G's Portuguese for me to interpret. This was borne out when he got drunk one night after work and the other cocktail makers told me we wouldn't see him for three days or more as a result. We went down every night, hoping that this wouldn't be the case, but they knew their friend well and the benders that he was prone to go on.
Determined to do something, G and I did take a few walks, a few kilometers outside of the main area, over rocks whose unique colourings reminded me of the performers painted faces of Cirque de Soleil. The weather was always swelteringly hot, in the mid to high 30's. At night, we would drink some of the local rum and make our own cocktails but Jnr really took the biscuit when he bought a local bottle of cachaca (Brazilian drink) that only cost US$2. It was truly vile stuff and the next morning it left it's mark because even after showering, our driver leaned over and the first thing he said to me was, "Cachaca" and pulled off laughing!
We were off to discover some of the famed sand dunes in the area, huge beautiful areas with natural lagoons where people had set up little bars and where you could swim. It felt like being in an oasis in the desert, Crystalline green lakes surrounded by blinding white sands, all topped off with a clear blue sky, can you imagine it?! And us in our dune buggy, driving around in the sun. It was a fitting end to our 8 days in Jeri...
That night, we bid adieu to Jnr and Snr and took a very bumpy bus to our connection that was going to take us to Fortaleza. It was here that I think I must have hurt my coccyx, to the non-medically minded my tailbone, and believe me for a backpacker, this was a huge blow...
We took our places (me gingerly) in the freezing cold overnight bus to Fortaleza, a brief stop off on our way south to another 'must-see' destination, Salvador....
We took a frustratingly long time to finally find a place where we could stay in Fortaleza but at least all the walking around gave us a good idea as to our surroundings. There isn't much here as cities go, the city isn't as pretty as others, their beaches aren't as reknowned and they are a little light on culture.... So what had brought so many tourists from abroad? The unfortunate answer was prostitution...
All it seems that you need to do is to establish a direct flight to Europe and you will have a thriving sex tourism trade. I had of course seen this in Bangkok, Phuket, Cartegena and numerous other cities around the world but it's not something that you ever get used to. We looked up some advice on the city and WikiTravel.com gave us this advice;
"Any drinking spot that attracts foreigners is bound to attract working girls, therefore some of them try to filter the entries, meaning that a foreign male can have trouble getting in with his Brazilian girl."
We walked around together and got looks from locals and police alike, all presuming, all very wrong. It was a little uncomfortable and frustrating but in the end there was nothing we could do about it. They have restored a part of the city where live music plays, outdoor bars abound and museums abide. It was nice, we walked around and saw the laissez-faire prostitutes, not being particularly proactive, all dressed beautifully, with class you could even say, just waiting to be approached by the foreigners...
But we were happy to get going again. We actually bumped into Snr and Jnr again (this happens less and less often on the road what with email and Facebook documenting our every move) and we decided to kill a few hours by heading down to the beach, drinking from Coconuts and scraping out it's contents, taking walks down the beach and hitting the surf and listening to the bands playing in the nearside bars.
Fully refreshed, we boarded our bus, 24 hours later, we were tired, cold and for me personally, looking forward to renewing my great love affair with the city, Salvador...
I think he was trying to kill us and Snr was certainly not feeling comfortable as our cab driver flew into traffic, mumbling and cursing under his breath as we took our taxi into the city centre. Snr implored the driver to slow down and then incorporated G's help to convince him that we weren't just ready to meet our makers, particularly since we'd hadn't even a chance to make ourselves presentable after our long and tiring bus journey.
He didn't care, but, being mindful of how important tourists are to his city, he did reduce his speed noticeably from 130kph to about 125kph. I cared less than him, I was buzzing with anticipation about seeing the city again I have always said is my favourite in S America.
Of course, this was tempered with a caution, honed over years of experience of revisiting places, when invariably the second time pales beside the memories of the first but still I had high hopes.
On our first night, we went for dinner in the main square of Pelourinho, followed the sounds of music and stumbled upon a free concert, left there and were invited in and watched a Condomble ceremony (a local religion here) that we were passing on the street and finished it up having beers in the bar owned by a guy from Norwich! And all of this in the space of three hours......on a Monday night.
The next day was a little overcast but we still went for the walk. After the recent passing of Michael Jackson, I was keen to just walk the nearby streets where he had shot his famous video, 'They don't really care about us.' Now, when you think about it, almost anywhere you walk in the developed world, you will be following in the footsteps of somebody that graced the place when they were famous or walked it in obscurity, before their path reached their destiny, but it was still cool to be exactly where MJ had been.
Almost in honour of the man, that evening we heard the sound of drums below our window so we looked out to investigate. A troupe of drummers were playing their distinctive sound followed by 200 people, following along pied piper style in a choreographed dance, flinging their arms around while twirling dervishes. It actually seemed impromptu although I am sure it happens every week.
The street kids are everywhere, moaning and holding their stomachs as they approach you. You have to be quite firm with them by all accounts because if you give them any money at all, they spend it on drugs. Even buying them food is pointless as they sell it to others and use the money for their hit.
But I had higher hopes for Jakison, who spoke French, English, Spanish and obviously Portuguese. He said he was 18 but he looked 13, so malnourished was he. I asked him why he didn't get a job with all of his languages but he said you needed an ID card to get 'proper' work but his parents were dead so he didn't have a birth cert. I gave him 4 Reals (US$2) to buy us sandwiches but he ran off and I didn't see him again that night. The next night he said he had come back but he didn't say it with much conviction, he knew I had waited for over an hour for his return. The night after, he was running through the streets shouting at everyone, clearly strung up...
In fact, as soon as any of the kids had stung you (G had bought a kid 6 mini breads to feed his family but he too had gone off and bought drugs), they left you alone the next day, there was always another gringo that they could tap off.
We met Nivia, my friend that I'd made the last time I came here to Salvador and we enjoyed some local drinks in a really cool bar that I had somehow missed that was in the main square. Any word starting with 'r' in Portuguese is pronounced 'h' so for example 'Ronaldo' is 'Honaldo', 'Radio' is 'Hadio' etc etc but even I had to smile when she said we were going out that night to listen to some 'Hock and Holl', ah yes, Rock and Roll had never sounded so good!
The city centre is wonderful but certainly very touristy. Cobblestoned streets, artists peddling their wares, wafts of Bahian food and the ever present music (I had woken most mornings to hearing kids singing in nearby schools.) They are doing everything they can to keep the music alive here and we stumbled (again I know, but you really don't need a guide book when you walk these streets, you just follow your senses) on a class for kids of Olodum, the most internationally famous band to come from Salvador. Kids as young as 5 were beating away in perfect co-ordination, I was incredibly impressed and jealous of my own musical shortcomings.
I went to visit my old mate Russell, the proprietor of the hostel I'd stayed at last time and we caught up like old war veterans over caiparinhas and beers. It was great to see him and it reminded me how much I missed catching up with friends from home, one of the sacrifices you make when you go on the road.
The next day was our last, so we ran around and took all the snaps that we had put off until this moment. We went to see a Baile Folklorico (local dance) which was simply excellent, spiritual, moving, athletic, acrobatic and in places violent which was clearly evident on one of the dancers face!
I was hypnotised by his evident anger, he was mightily pissed off with one of the other dancers and he was struggling to keep it under wraps. Everyone else was smiling when they were supposed to but his lips were sown shut like a Guantanomo bay detainee. His eyes were fiery with pure hatred and my mind was rampant with possible explanations. So much so, that it almost distracted me from the performance but my attention was brought back into the here and now in a flash.... a flash of a sword!
One of the dances was a particularly violent dance where the dancers, dressed in ancient tribal threads (they left nothing to the imagination), brandished swords and sparks literally flew as they flung themselves at each other with perfect coordination, choreographed clashes of the swords in time with the music.
I stared with my eyes wide open as I actually thought that my man, feeling tribal and persecuted, with a captive audience and a deadly instrument of war in his hand, was going to exact his revenge in a very terminal way. Fortunately for us, and presumably his would be victim, he was restrained in his movements and when the curtains came down, and they came out for their final bow, I looked along the line of dancers to see who was most relieved.
My man barely bowed, eyes glistening over as the spirits of vengeance were taking over his body and I strained my ears to try and hear any altercation behind the descending curtain. He had to cool down a bit and he could have done worse than accompanying us, we had to take another ice box of a bus, this time to Lencois and a return to nature...
It was wet and overcast as we alighted the bus after another chilly overnight bus... We got high-jacked by touts and followed one in a daze and got set up in a hostel before we set off to find Olivia, the girl from Somerset that had made Lencois home for the best part of 15 years. She ran a hostel, Pousada Dos Duendes (House of Pixies) and quite rightly asked why we weren't staying there but after some nifty side stepping around the issue of wanting to stay in a cheaper establishment, we went for breakfast.
She really is quite a character, inviting us to her house for breakfast as we 'caught up' in a fashion far more becoming of old friends rather than new acquaintances once again. We went to a local school to eat dinner, the funds going towards helping the kids and then we set off to walk her dogs to a nearby rock formation, like a huge lava flow of kaleidoscopic water had frozen in place, where water then ran over it, in and out of black pools.
And Olivia, the original little Pixie, got into her swimming gear and jumped in. Now, I have jumped off the highest bungee platform in the world, done skydives and a whole manner of other stupid/intrepid things, but jumping into a black pool of water, 5ft deep, takes a mental leap that found me floundering for a while.
It was only when Olivia said I could slide into it that my male ego was pricked and I said, 'to hell with my dodgy ankles' and jumped in! As soon as I hit the bottom, I came up floundering but I soon got accustomed to the jet black water and enjoyed it immensely.
Lencois is a cute little town, again with the omnipresent cobblestones and we went out and had drinks and some dinner with some backpackers, a new experience really for us because with the exception of the two Richards, we hadn't met any new people in this corner of Brazil.
Next day, we got up early, had breakfast in the Pousada and were watching the morning TV when I think I witnessed the worst thing I have ever seen on the box. A police officer was trying to direct cars away from and around two wild horses that had got on to a major city highway when one car didn't take notice and ploughed into the horse, sending it up into the air contorted beyond recognition as the car, windscreen smashed in, careened across the highway and crashed into a pole.
Then it went back to the studio where the news presenter then said with an almost sympathetic smile, "and the 24 yr old driver died of his injuries." WHAT? Had I just dreamt this... We had just seen, over breakfast, the death of a young man, not to mention the excruciatingly painful end of a horse... Wait a minute, why was this being filmed in the first place? I looked around for sympathy in this moment of anguish but the rest of the table had gone back to cramming their faces with pancakes. I took an extra helping of coffee to calm the nerves and set off.
We were up early to take a trek to some waterfalls, caves and some lagoons but our first stop brought us to a secluded swimming area, jet black water again with a 80m swim to a fast flowing cascade. I dove into the water, eyes open by a primal fear of not knowing what I was diving and emerged... blind!
Both of my brand new contacts had washed away in the first dive. I blinked furiously in a forlorn attempt to find that they had merely got lost behind my eyelids but alas no, they were both gone. My strokes towards the waterfall were fuelled with disappointment as much as frustration because I knew that I was coming to one of the most beautiful spots in Brazil with limited vision.
It was pretty cool under the waterfall in terms of temperature and experience and then we went back and continued on. We took a tour of a famous cave, more like a massive cavern that I could imagine would have been any Underground DJ's fantasy venue. The stalactites/mites were incredibly impressive, almost as impressive as the guides attempts to attribute shapes and names to them.
The natural wonders kept coming, blue lagoons, silver lakes, hallucinatory plants (one massive inhalation cleared up my blocked sinuses but also made my head spin in equal measure) and finally we climbed a mountain and looked over the countryside as the sun set in the distance, casting orange light over the other mountains. It had been a beautiful day, one which would stretch the vocabulary of one far more talented than I.
The next day promised more tours to waterfalls but G not so subtlely suggested that we head back to the sun before we take a flight down to Salvador. We took a series of buses and eventually ended up in Praia de Forte, a seaside resort area which seemed to be exclusively sponsored by VISA.
It was incredible, all of the shops' signs had been hewn from wood but all of them had VISA on them. Directions had VISA on them. Store fronts advertised that VISA, needless to say, was accepted there. And you would need it because everything was impressively expensive.
This was highlighted on the bus there, when a passenger complained to the ticket seller on board that he needed his change immediately (he had given a large note and the conductor needed to get more change). I suspect that he thought the conductor would forget to give him his money and he said (G translated for me) that he needed the money now in case armed robbers boarded the bus and he didn't have anything to give them! Yes, everything here, even your civic duty to provide to the criminal element of society, revolved around having money. I wondered if the thieves would accept VISA too....
I got an uncomfortable feeling about the place, not accustomed to such blatant displays of wealth, not since I had been in Cancun, Mexico. We went to an impressive turtle sanctuary, which had sharks, groupers, moray eels, sting rays aswell as a variety of turtles but I wasn't sorry to see the back of the place, not ready quite yet to feel less like a backpacker and more like a honeymooner.
Before we boarded the plane, I had to take a bus into Salvador again to see my mate Russell but I got off the bus early, frustratingly seeing a SUBWAY sandwich shop out of the corner of my eye and mistaking it for the one beside his house. I walked for nearly a half an hour before I had to cut my losses and take a cab to his house, swearing at that point not to tell G because this had been my first venture away from her in over two months and I had screwed it up!
I only had 30 minutes with my mate because G had told me that we were leaving at 8pm and it was already 6pm.
"Mate, your never going to make it in a bus, you're going to have to catch a cab", he said and I groaned in agreement, knowing from prior experience how expensive they were but at least with their Formula One like zealousness, I was fairly confident I would make it on time...
That was assuming of course, I survived one of the most hair raising driving experiences of my soon to be extinguished life....
"Mice Happy Dough! Mice Happy Dough!"
Well that's what it sounded like as the cab driver repeated my friend's instructions to get me to the airport "Mais Rapido" or 'Very Fast' and he screeched off to join the rest of the rush hour traffic. In Portuguese he asked what time my flight was and it was then I made my potentially fatal mistake...
G had told me the flight was 8pm so, considering it was already after 6pm and the airport was miles outside the city, I said it was 7:30p.m.
"AAAAGHHH!" he screamed, waving his hands around (which I felt would have been better served on the steering wheel), "you should have called me at 5" I was beginning to sense that, despite my external calm, there was a great danger that I might not make this flight.
He tore off into traffic, flying around corners, only to get held up moments later by backed up traffic. Upset by the lack of momentum, he added to the Salvadorian reputation for music by doing a solo on the horn. Like a husband that has been sent on the weekly shopping chore, he spied each row of cars to see which line would move quicker. Then he would dart in, by putting his hand out the window but never making eye contact, forcing the other car to stop and he would progress 10 metres before stopping and then exclaim as the line he just left had been given the green light.
I was sure I had seen an episode like this with Mr. Bean...
He seemed to know the backroads which gave me hope but his extensive knowledge bordered on the ridiculous when he sent people diving for cover as he drove through the courtyards of petrol stations...
"BIKE!" I screamed as a kid cycled out in front of us and I had to close my eyes, the memories of the horse getting killed still too fresh in my mind. But when I had opened them again, not noticing any discernible change in velocity, the child was gone and I reassured myself by knowing that if we had hit anything, I would have heard it.
In and out of petrol stations he went, bounding across speed bumps to jump the queue by a paltry three cars, but he was delighted by the service he was giving me as he would turn around to me (still driving at speed) and smile, the conspiratorial smile of the damned!
"AAAGGGHH," involuntarily left my mouth as another person ran the gauntlet in front of our weapon of mass destruction, a portly woman wearing heels and a pink spandex outfit. For crimes against fashion, I thought that this might have been termed a mercy killing but I was aware that we were still miles from our destination so I egged him on.
"MICE HAPPY DOUGH" and almost immediately regretted saying anything. He began to weave in and out of traffic, discarding with his indicators as they would have flicked over and back faster than the window wipers set to max speed. I stared out in front of us and saw a sea of bobbing red lights, cars in the four lanes, all with their indicators on, trying to edge forward, desperate to keep momentum as if their car would stall if it was kept immobile for 30 seconds.
Police cars were up ahead and this spurred a rant about the injustices of the corrupt police, spitting out the window with venom as we drove past them. I could just imagine my guy getting stopped and having to explain to G by text that I was currently in jail, pending a court appearance in a few days for aiding and abetting in vehicular homicide, with additional charges for spitting on some police officers shoes. It was not a text that I wanted to make...
I tried a change of tact. I asked him his name to get him onside on this mission to get me to my flight on time and more importantly alive. I thought if he got to know my name then he might see me more as a human and less as a warhead. It was me and Casio against the world, one intrepid traveler, one psychotic facilitator. Knowing his name seemed to calm me down a bit, he wasn't some nameless maniac, he was Casio, my new friend, my deliverer....
"AAAAGGGGHHHHYYYY," I screamed, the frankly girly high pitched 'YYY' sound coming from the deep recesses of my primal survival instinct genes. Another person had decided to play Brazilian Roulette and Casio had to take evasive, and then abusive, action...
All of this must have even caught up with Casio as he started to point at his crotch. I would have forgiven him if he told me that he had wet himself (I was a borderline nappies candidate myself) but instead, he violently pulled the car on to an on ramp and got out to relieve himself...
WHAT? We'd just weaved, cajoled and basically bullied our way to here and NOW he'd decided to let all these cars pass us by so he could answer the call of nature? I answered the call of self preservation as I put our hazard lights on as a car nearly tail-ended me at speed as it tried to enter the throng that we were now blocking.
Ayrton Senna was a Brazilian World Champion Formula 1 driver before his untimely death in 1994 in a horrendous crash in San Marino and I wondered what he would make of his countryman's driving skills and now his pit-stop strategy. All I could do was wait and he saw me checking my watch as he got back in, refreshed.
He asked me the time and, to keep in the Formula 1 theme, kept insisting I give him updates, so he could gauge whether or not he was keeping up to championship winning pace. He bolted the car back into the madness, giving derisory laughs as he cut other cars off and shrieked wildly when he cut through an almost imperceptible gap.
Driving a cab in Salvador seemed dependent on you having two independent attributes; an almost supernatural knowledge of spacial awareness and an absolute and healthy disregard for human life. Of course, having a terminal illness and a fully paid up life insurance for your family could also explain Casio's behaviour but besides a hyper active twitch, he didn't seem to be suicidal. Yet.
Mercifully, a sign to the airport finally appeared but he steered our car wildly away from it as I looked back in terror. Now where was he taking me? He could sense my anxiety and tried to appease me by saying something about that sign was just for tourists and that he could get me there quicker. I had no choice but to believe him and braced myself for more time travel inducing speeds.
Finally though, we saw the airport and as he turned the car towards it, he barked at me for the time.
"AHA, 10 minutes early," he replied triumphantly, clearly delighted with beating his own target time. I thought this might calm him down but he drove recklessly right up to the departures doors, double parked, told some guy that he would be back in a minute to move his car and leave him out and proceeded to walk me to the door. This was service at its homicidally maniacal best!
After paying him, he waved me goodbye and screeched off to do battle for the return leg. If this was a cartoon I'd say he left a trail of fire in his wake, but this wasn't a cartoon and he did leave a trail of fire in his wake.
I arrived into the airport a little the worse for wear but electrified with adrenalin as those who have looked face in the death will tell you. Nivia was there with G and I was going to relay the incredible journey but I knew we had to book in immediately.
"Oh, we're ok, tell us your story, our flight isn't until 8:30pm, I made a mistake," said G in a nonchalant kind of way that made my eyes expand and mouth open like a trout on display.
I felt nauseous and faint. I had just encouraged a mental asylum escapee to drive at apocalyptic warp speed, nearly killing three pedestrians, not to mention the two of us and all to give me ample time to have something to eat before boarding a hardly arduous two hour flight?
My mind willed me to say, "A mistake?" but my mouth was dry with shock.
As the fear induced beads of sweat chilled on my body, as my jaw clenched and my blood pressure rose, I took a deep breath and with Nobel Peace Prize Winning calm whispered to G ,
"YOU are paying for SUBWAY"
And after all of the miles and the bumps, the buses and boats, the dramas and the laughs, I found myself back in a happy home! We were back at G´s house in Ouro Branco, Minas Gerais, a pristine area that attracts less than its fair share of tourists.
We fought over our different accounts of the stories we were telling to her parents and cousin, taking ad libbing and contradicting to a whole new level! And to give me a special taste of the home that I was missing in Ireland, my Mom had sent over a care package which was set upon and devoured.
This was the reward after months of traveling, the oasis at the end of the journey. And it was welcomed. But there were things to do and see, this wasn´t a convalescence home! On our first full day, we set off to go see an actual Rodeo, my first and it was interesting to see the ceremony that went into the preamble before the action.
Ok, interesting was one word, mind numbingly cold and drawn out could be others! It was bitterly cold as the clock ticked on to nearly 11pm before a cowboy came out all in white (his uber tight jeans looking suspiciously like it had been stolen from the Mardi Gras Parade) to rile up the crowd. His antics were actually welcomed as we sipped on hot chocolates laced with brandy.
But he went on, and on, and on until I feared that rigor mortis set in. To stave this off, he turned to divine inspiration as for over 30 minutes prayers were said to a large poster of Jesus and the Virgin Mary (unrolled to fireworks no less) and then another smaller statue to some divine entity I couldn´t see hovered over the rodeo ring. The Ave Maria was sung live and eventually the contest began.
But obviously the bulls had been kept waiting too long as they were less than enthused by the delays, some of them giving up the ghost entirely and making the rather sheepish looking cowboys actually climb off them rather than ejecting them like you see on TV. It was actually thoroughly enjoyable in a Monty Python kind of way..
Next day though it was my turn to face my fears as I went horse riding for the first time. Now this was truly exhilarating, putting my years of watching Westerns to good use by mounting the horse unaided first time off, I was a natural. But being a natural is one thing on the outside, but I was freaking out on the inside!
The first time you are on a horse and by some weird mix of whistles, clicks and kicks the beast interprets that you want to go for a gallop, oh my Good Lord, your entire innards try to escape the imminent fall by trying to escape through every orifice possible. It is truly terrifying in a wonderful way.
But soon I got the hang of it, dare I say it, I took to it quite well which is more than I can say for my posterior. We rode through the countryside, our `posse` got up to about 20 riders at one point (G cycled alongside now that she was reunited with her beloved bike) and it was a new `first` for me.
I must have been doing well because Gerrit, G´s Dad, insisted I take his big horse after our first break. I internally questioned the wisdom of this but my machismo wouldn´t let me turn down the challenge and then I could really motor (ok, fast trot I would have to admit!)
It was so much fun but you have to pay the piper and I was exhausted afterwards and yes, my bum was killing me next day!
But that wasn`t the only sporting activity of the week. Freed from the shackles of our backpacks, we went for runs, tennis matches on their court and I got to watch Liverpool on TV again for the first time in months (and anyone that has watched a game with me knows how much energy that takes)
We took day trips through the surrounding countryside to the more famous towns of Congonhes and Ouro Preto. The former is known primarily for the famed sculptures ``The Prophets`` which were carved by Aleijandinho, Brazil`s most famous artist, not just for the intricacies of his artwork as the fact that he had suffered from a terrible disease which left his hands as stumps and he had his tools attached instead.
As impressive as the sculptures were, the views that they looked down on were even more so. South American towns are beautiful, that is the truth of it. But here, with the multicoloured hills aching with colours as the sun set and the painted white houses with the woodstained roof tiles in the foreground, it really was a picture worthy of the great artists finest works.
Ouro Preto is a similarly beautiful town, all cobblestoned and colourful. It was the centre of a massive gold rush back in the day and at its peak, it had over twice as many inhabitants as New York. The churches were particularly impressive as the gold adorned everywhere. This was an area that the party mad backpackers that thing that they are `experiencing` South America definitely miss and I was thankful of seeing it, particularly with G as my guide.
Another trip away brought us to Belo Horizonte, the third biggest city in Brazil. We were there for two reasons, firstly to see the famous Sunday markets and secondly to watch a football match in the second biggest stadium in Brazil. You don`t even need to know me that well to know which one I preferred more...
I love markets, I really do. It`s the people that go to markets that kill it for me... The slow, shunt forward as everyone cranes their necks to see every single stall; the continual fear that you are providing such a slow target that it could be considered entrapment if you got pickpocketed; and then the mind numbing assertion that no matter what you see, you know in your heart of hearts that you aren´t going to buy anything because by buying something, you have to carry it on the road...
The football however was much better. You can spend the entire game just watching the crowd, such unbridled passion! Fortunately, unlike some of other South American experiences there was no violence on show and it was great to think I was seeing where many of the World Cup 2014 matches would be held. It`s going to be epic.
It had been such a great two weeks, I couldn`t believe it had been that long but then I had to go. I had to get on the road again and try to make sense of a few things, travel to a destination (Buenos Aires) that had been my initial goal in February before all of the incredible things that had happened to me in the interim 7 months.
The turning point was meeting Ollie, who put me on the road to La Paz and Olivers Travels, which put in a position to meet G, who has truly become one of the most influential and people I have ever met.
There is no way I could describe in words adequately what the last few months have meant to me as a traveller and as a person and I am sure she would rather that this not be the medium through which I try so I will simply but meaningfully say, "You are awesome!"
And so, for all of my future sins and triumphs, I was on the road again but with a heavy heart. I was set for Rio De Janeiro, a stop off as `I was in the neighbourhood´ and wondering where this wanderlust would bring me now.
The answer was an apartment turned tattoo parlour and an asthmatic dog!
"Is anyone else concerned about the dog? I mean, I think he's choking"
"She's fine" which finished the conversation in it's track, as it must have seemed to my new friends I was confused about the dog's sexuality rather than it's horrendous cough where it seemed like he, sorry she, was trying to throw up a bicycle.
The coughing was perforating the constant buzzing from the tattoo gun being wielded by a true professional. Gianluca was drawing, in sweeping strokes, a huge turtle on Apollo's back. I marvelled at how he could do this with such confidence, tattoo guns don't come with erasers on top!
And as I sipped a beer, and contemplated getting a tiny dot of a tattoo somewhere obscure, just to say I had one, I remarked again to myself just how rapidly your life can change if you want it or let it.
I had arrived into Rio in a strange mood, the weather was wet and unsympathetic as I went back to the Tuipiniquim hostel that I had been at years before. And somewhat unsurprisingly, it was the same but it wasn't. People make places and first impressions last (attempts to relive old memories from my previous stay was futile) so my first few days there were difficult .
I was back in a dorm for the first time in over a year and I was the only European in there the first night, so I was somewhat surprised that I must have learned some Portuguese listening to G negotiate for us for so many months.
But I was clearly in a funk, I was down, trying to read, but more often reflecting; instead of moving forward I was still in a holding pattern; my natural urge was to go on, but my mind just wasn't up to the task.
I am a great believer in 'God helps those that help themselves' but this time He was giving me a bit of an extra boost when he sent me something new to wake me from my reverie in the form of a TV crew from an Evangelical channel who were doing a news story on security in hostels!
In my interview I spoke about the hostel we had stayed at in Sao Luis, the absolute dungeon with with the pipe going through it and the mould but when I appeared on the TV that night, they had someone translating for me, "This backpacker tells of a horror stay in ...." but they didn't quite get their editing right because my interpreter stopped and I was left to say, to a waiting nation of 200 million people....
"NO WINDOWS"
and with that I was gone again, leaving a gaping nation to try and understand the deep significance in what I had said...
This was the turning point for me. Next day I went out with AJ, Sally, Aurelion and Mark for a tour of the city markets. I hadn't been before, despite the numerous times I had been to the city. Rio needs to do some more marketing about it's other attactions, because too often you think you have been to the city when you have just been to the Christ Statue and Copacobana.
We walked around and came across one of the ugliest buildings I have seen on my travels, a cross between a trash can and a Dalek, except on a magnificent scale. We all had guesses as to what it was and were all wrong as we unexpectedly walked into a simply beautiful cathedral, one with amazing stain glassed windows. Never judging a book by it's cover has never been so well defined. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_de_Janeiro_Cathedral)
We took a tram up to Santa Teresa, hanging off the sides of the trolley as we whizzed along, through beautiful small, cobbled streets and houses covered in ivy and distinction. We walked around for a while and another tram pulled alongside but I was the only one who managed to jump on.
And in an instant, I was alone and travelling again...
I went to Lapa and to the famous steps (Escadaria Seladon) that adorn every self respecting backpackers 'must have shots of S America', Selaron, the artist, there, just working away. Tiles from around the world adorn these steps which he has been working on for years.
I went down to Copacabana Beach again, and took the buses like a local. It had been a strange few days but I had got something new out of Rio. Not one of my favourite cities if I am being honest, but I still feel like maybe I haven't really seen the 'other side' of this place, and I am not sure who's fault that is.
But I was keen to move on, my recent false start had sorted itself out. I went down to Paraty, a beautiful old town, brutally uneven stones causing you to look down rather than around. But when I did look up, I bumped in to Jonny, a mate who had frequented my bar in La Paz. He had gone up to Colombia and had cocaine fuelled adventures, the kind I would love to write about but without doing the groundwork!
And strangely, for a guy that has been accused of being unhinged at times, I enjoyed chatting to him about my recent funk and trying to sort out my head. There is some times wisdom in the ramblings of a madman; just that we don't always understand it, doesn't make it less insightful and valid.
I left Paraty and Brazil with some mixed emotions. The road from Paraty, along the amazing coast line, was on my right hand side, but I knew I was going West? I was confused and it said a lot about my relationship with Brazil, undoubtedly beautiful, but ultimately confusing. I wondered if I would be back again to solve the riddle....
I was on my way back to Iguazu.... I had a Honeymoon to crash!!
I had been invited recently to a wedding of very close friends of mine in Ireland but such are the sacrifices that you make when you choose this way of life, swapping social and family obligations (and the subsequent fall out from that potentially) for a desire to get your fix, your selfish fix and fall down before the drug of traveling. Not all addicts end up on park benches or breaking into peoples' homes.
But I was back again in Iguazu and the Hostel Inn, a renovated Casino and one of the singularly best hostels in the world. I had met a bunch of mad Kiwis and my mood was lifting, time being a healer and all that but sometimes you need a helping hand with a few beers and bawdy stories.
I went to meet Daragh and Miriam, literally minutes after they had arrived into their honeymoon suite (they hadn't even had the chance to drink their complimentary orange juice and champagne!) and went for beers before dinner. I wondered if I would ever be in a hotel trying to enjoy my honeymoon and having to deal with my own backpacker crashing it!
It was wonderful to see them, to get an injection of home and nostalgia which you can't put a price on when you are on the road. They were going to Rio, I was setting off south to Rosario, a city known for one thing, the most beautiful girls in Argentina... alledgedly!
It really is something to be labelled. The Irish drink too much, the English are terrible at their own sports, the loudest person in a room is invariably American and women in Rosario are the most beautifil in all of Argentina. Stereotypes are rarely 100% accurate but there is usually more than a little truth in them.
There was a lot of 'truth' in the women of Rosario...
AJ, Sally and I walked around the city, in its own right impressive but it was clear that the women of Rosario took their label incredibly seriously. They pride themselves in their appearance, more Italian than South American.
It fascinates me how different cultures develop. Not just in fashion, politically, culturally but also the consensus of what time you eat, what time you sleep and what time you party. And it was one thing that I just couldn't get used to in Argentina.
When 7pm rolled around, I had seen the city, caught up on some reading and was ready to go out but the city was asleep. So when in Rome.... on a Friday night, I went to BED at 10pm! I slept for a few hours and THEN got up to go out...
It seemed completely out of synch with my internal clock but the city doesn't wake till 1am. I went out and met Keith, an Irish friend that I had traveled with a few years earlier. We partied at a club and I made it back to my hostel 45 minutes before we had to take our bus to Buenos Aires (BsAs).
This was to be my new home. I was going to settle down here and take stock and actually use my teaching degree, the one that I was going to use in Cusco in February before I met Ollie who set me off on a very different path and that bar in La Paz and then to G.
I was to meet some real characters here in this town over the next few weeks, moving around regularly from hostel to hostel (a throwback to my traveling days), formed a gang (Los Pistoleros), ended up in the boot of a car when it got pulled over by the cops, became the mascot for a local rugby team with my own song and possibly the weirdest thing of all, found myself interviewing for a real job!!
BsAs is a complicated city, the barrios where the 'real' people live, the city centre with it's cracked pavements and dog litter meaning everyone keeps their eyes on the ground, the history of violence and the home of Tango; the huge steaks and the late nights. But for some reason, it just never felt like a possible home to me.
But after a series of interviews I found myself in a cab to the airport for a brief stop in Ireland as I was on my way to a different world.... Estonia.