Loose End In LatAm

Tying The Last Loose End...

2006-12-20T11:51:00.000-03:00

...For Now

I thought my last entry, knowing that I wasn't planning to stuff every last square inch of time (unlike my baggage) of my last days here, would be a list of impressions and memories of my trip, of the places I've been and the people that I shared my journey with. But today is my last day in South America, for now, and I've been too busy to collate all those thoughts in my head let alone actually write them down. I will always hope I remember the sound of howler monkeys in the morning and the rumble of avalanches in Torres del Paine; the smell of the freshest roasted coffee and woodsmoke infused locals on crammed buses; the sense of utter privilege of walking into the Lost City, and of hugging a puma, or baby anteater for that matter; and the humbling and numbing sensation of talking with a man about the "disappearance" of his mother, and of watching mud caked children happily playing marbles in the slum back streets of a Bolivian village; and all the wonderful people I've met, Norwegian Chris foremost of them all. But these are just a few of the instant memories I have as I sit here now - there are so many more, but I have no idea where or how to start cataloguing them.

Despite saying I would be doing "nothing", my last couple of weeks have been pretty busy running back and forth over the Andes. But it meant I could catch up with three great friends I have made, amongst many, in the last year. Kathrin, one of the Swiss trio from my Salar trip and occasional host in Santiago, and I shared a chilled weekend in Valparaiso and also my very last night here, in a great Peruvian restaurant, (so lots of good Pisco, great Ceviche, and my favourite veg, Yucca!!).

I also managed to meet up with Mike (my T del P and Navimag companion) back in Mendoza. Mike (actually two Mike's: Mike T del P and Mike from Hostel Lao, the best in Mendoza) persuaded me I should do something more active than gently meandering between wineries on a bike, so we went white water rafting... silly pastime really but a lot of fun. However the sense of danger was not actually as acute as when we first arrived at the starting point for our winery bike tour: there are now two rival businesses hiring bikes within about 500 meters of each other. The original lot, Bikes&Wine, are losing business to Bike Rentals, run by Hugo and his family, who is a nice guy with plenty of bikes, a mission to undercut the opposition, and a tactic of bribing the bus drivers to drop off any potential customers outside his shop. So the Bikes and Wine crew stand on the side of the road screaming at the buses "It's here! Get off now!! Get your bikes here!" in an excitably aggressive way that convinces you to stay on the bus and avoid them at all costs...

One other danger while making your rounds of the bodegas are the dogs - they don't attack the cyclists, but they'll do anything to get your picnic off you... I was cutting up a sausage when I found one burrowing his head under my arm: I managed to hold his head to the floor, without loosing the sausage, but even with is head fixed and unmovable he still managed to give the cheese we'd brought with us a good lick.

Mike and I travelled to Santiago to meet up with my mud hut Colca Canyon drinking buddy, Laura, in time for her birthday... pisco, wine, beer, rum...hangovers, the usual. Unfortunately the very unusual happened to me in that I managed to be relieved of both a jacket and a fabulously warm hoody I was looking forward to having in wintry London. Ah well, if that's all I get nicked (touch wood, still a few more hours here), in the whole time I've been in south America, I think I've done OK, and thankfully (or possibly sadly) I don't have to report having woken up naked by the side of the street...well there was that time...no...

In reality, despite travelling through countries of poverty, social unrest and civil war, I have found have found it all very safe. The countries I have visited and the people I have met have, on the whole, been incredibly friendly and welcoming. Even the poorest of these countries are swollen with potential for fantastic futures. Let's hope with Bush thinking about upping his armed forces to make a further mess of the Middle East, the US will keep its meddling hands out of Latin America for a while, and allow it to run and rule itself.

I would love to be able to spend more time here now, but it will be good to see everyone at home again too. If I have one real regret it would be that I really should have better Spanish by now! But I can work on that next time... I'll be back soon I hope!!!

Valporaiso and Mendoza...yet again

2006-12-11T18:17:00.000-03:00

Haircuts, hangovers and a dictator checking out.

Before I left the lake district I took the opportunity to get probably the worst haircut I have ever had, (somehow the sides were left long and the top short giving a strangely tonsured effect), by someone I'm not entirely convinced had ever cut hair before, and was probably just minding the place... any way all was rectified when I reached Valparaiso. The guy had certainly cut hair before, just always for the navy, but that's what you get if you go to a barber just next to the port I guess. It's a pity Carrie and I didn't manage to meet up in this part of the trip as hoped, as doubtless she would have a suitably pitiless comment.

Any way, after 11 months of getting up and either "doing" something or moving on every day I have reached saturation point, so I abandoned all plans to do anything more than move up the coast and shuttle between a couple of my favourite cities: Valparaiso and Santiago in Chile and beautiful Mendoza over the Andes.

Mendoza is just a place I find it all to easy to do absolutely nothing and consequently have nothing much to report other than I have been feeding myself on fat steaks, guzzling the local plonk, and throwing sticks for Astor, the dog in the hostel.

Valparaiso on the other hand always has something to keep me busy. Mainly it's just wandering around and seeing something new every day. There is so much public art to see (both official and unauthorised), and fantastic views over the port - it's very easy to spend time watching the port life while sipping a pisco sour. And there's always a dilapidated asensor (funicular cable car thing, that are all over the city) to trundle up a hill on, or an ancient trolley bus to ride - the trolley buses are all different having been acquired from various places in Germany and Switzerland, and one or two still have the original destinations on the front.

However, I think Valparaiso must be utterly different from any other town in the world. It may be dirty and smelly but it has so much character, not in the least by the packs of dogs that run around the place, or the gangs of sea-lions I watched sink a small boat in the harbour. And it has a particularly high number of bars you would never go into, which appear to have been named and decorated in the 70's, including the International Pink Flamingo Bar and, my favourite, Club Kenny's Disco Bar. The latter I think would make a fabulous title for some novel or concept album, but I've decide that it would be best as some sort of art-house documentary film, in which show business celebs from the 70's are filmed drying and dying in front of pitifully small, non-plussed audiences, followed by interviews of their reactions and reminiscences, spilling the beans on the heady life of being an "all round entertainer".
Interviewer: "So Brucie, not a great night. Have a drink mate"
Brucie: "Thanks, I need it after that."
Interviewer: "Well, it must happen once in a while. After all it's not the first time you been up staged, is it? Top up?"
Brucie: "W-wadaya mean?"
Interviewer: "Have another gin, and tell me in your own words, what was it like to see a camp twat like Larry Graceson beat you in the ratings on the Generation Game."
Brucie: "Sickening. What more can I say? Somehow it would have been different if it was one of my old muckers, like Tarby or Kenny [Lynch]. Or even Bobby [Monkhouse], despite the fake tan and a reputation for a back hander. But Larry... he was always...different."

...I really have got too much time on my hands.

Valparaiso is also where the Chilean Congress sits, in a building Pinochet erected on the site of one of his childhood homes...only fitting then that when the bugger died someone burnt his effigy on its steps. I'll admit, as I wandered through town on my last day in the city, I thought the noise was all about a home win for the local team, but when I saw the hammer and sickle flags out I realised what must be going on. Within a very short time the main street had been closed to traffic and a march progressed up and down it, with flags and banners, and many pictures of people with the caption "Donde Estan" (where are they?). Pinochet was responsible for the disappearance and deaths of 3000, and the torture of a further 30,000, of his own countrymen, and of course was never punished, (so nice then, that our own ex-Prime Minister Thatcher is "greatly saddened" by his death). In Santiago crowds were dispersed with tear gas, but in Valparaiso it appeared the officers and sailors were confined to their ships, and a with light police presence, the demonstrations passed off peacefully.

But now I've really only got just a few more days to wander back and forth for between the plains and the coast, and frankly doing very little...except having the odd drink here or there.

Overwhelming Sad News

2006-11-29T19:36:00.000-03:00

Goodbye Bolita...

If you read my entry on Parque Ambue Ari, (June), you may remember Bolita, the baby Giant Anteater, for whom I built a house, while Norwegian Chris nursed her. I have just heard that Bolita has died. I find it desperately sad that such a wonderful creature that showed so much personality and potential has been lost.

In the intervening months, between leaving the park and this news, both Chris and I had many email exchanges with the Inti Wara Yassi representative in London. We objectively expressed concerns over the issues we had found at the park, but ultimately we wanted to let IWY know that we were concerned that the park did not have the right facilities or skills to offer the best care for Bolita. We sent information, hard copies direct to the park, and in English and Spanish via the representative in London, electronically. It all seems to have been for nought.

My first reaction was to tell people not to support this organisation, but in reality this will only mean the animals suffer. Unfortunately I would not be at all surprised if this organisation stutters and fails at some point, with ultimately the animals being the victims any way. However should you decide to volunteer at either of the IWY parks I hope you have a positive experience and help the animals you work with. If you ever have any suggestions to make don't make the mistake I made of going through the representative in London, not very helpful, and ultimately utterly futile.

Chilean Patagonia

2006-11-27T14:07:00.000-03:00

Being Prepared

When I was about 9 or 10 years old I turned up at the church hall one evening to be told my presence was no longer required at Cub Scouts. The official reason was that I had failed to show up for the previous 8 weeks and therefore hadn't obtained my Bronze Award - tie a reef knot, make a cup of tea that sort of stuff... However in reality I actually think it was more to do with the reason that I had absented myself for those 8 weeks: that is, I had encourage the other members of my 6 (although there were only 4 of us) plus a few others to abscond from a ramble across Hampstead Heath... Anyway, scouting, trekking and camping have hardly been something I've been particularly interested in since. However for some reason I decided to make a 5 day trek through chilly Chilean Torres Del Paine National Park.

You will not be surprised that I was fully prepared for this trek through the wintry wilderness. My list of equipment included the following:

One whistle, donated by Norwegian Chris, for drawing attention to myself in case of emergency. However it doesn't have a pea and sounded more like an asthmatic mouse than a whistle.
One compass, a present from Karen and Alex, unfortunately it got cracked at some point in Colombia, and therefore had the unique feature of placing North wherever you think it might be really.
One Swiss Army Knife, slightly inhibited by a superglue accident preventing full (well, any) blade usage...but you ought to have one, right?
One length of parachute chord, donated by Matt Belcher, that has proved its usefulness time and again. However with a Swiss Army Knife rendered useless by the superglue accident, it was of fixed length. My advice, don't ever bother trying to gnaw through parachute chord.
One pair of glasses, although they were blown off my face (did I mention it was a bit windy there) on my second to last day, never to be found again.
One sleeping bag, of which I was convinced was suitable for temperatures as low as minus 6 degrees, until I read the bit that said "From + 7 to - 6 : RISK"
One tent, rented, the down side of the luxurious space of a two man tent with just one of you in it is that the lack of second body actually makes the whole thing colder...
4 days worth of packet soup, dried noodles, dried sauces, dried potatoes, dried bloody everything... it was actually this aspect, the relentless aspartame and mono-sodium glutamate gruel that was the only real down side of the trip.
And of course, one roll gaffer tape...once again a saviour. Every home should have it!

Despite having a bit of stinking cold all the way round, the whole thing was fantastic. Great weather and good company (including Kylie who made friends with all the park rangers, so got us cooking privileges - and therefore warmth - in their shacks where there was no kind of refugio) and utterly stunning scenes.

Generally the whole thing is one of those spectacular sights that defy description. All I know is I've earned my trekking badge so that'll be that for a while.

If you are heading for this part of the world, even if you don't stay at either of the Erratic Rock Hostels, in Puerto Nateles, go to their briefings (3pm every day), it's open to anyone who shows up. Shed loads of really useful info all worth taking note of, from people who, despite having hostel, hire and guide services, don't get pushy with them at all. They simply seem genuinely interested in helping budget travellers get the most of a visit to Torres Del Paine. Just be aware, if you get Bill started on how the park should attract the "right" kind of visitor you'll be there for hours...

Fjords and Ice Bergs

From Puerto Natales Mike, my trek companion, and I headed up north on the Navimag ferry, passing more incredible landscapes. And drinking quite a bit, especially at the last night's Bingo Fiesta!!! This is Mike helping some college girls with their homework. Are you surprised he couldn't find his glasses in the morning?

When I got back to Puerto Montt I was able to capture on film something I spotted last time I was here, and as a few people I have told thought it was just talking rubbish as usual, here is the proof: Some enterprising young fella attempts to beat the "Nuts-4-Nuts" company, and go one better.

Collective noun of the month:

A puddle of Old Aged Pensioners

Now I'm back in the Chilean Lake District and seriously considering doing nothing for the next few weeks until I fly home...

Argentine Patagonia

2006-11-16T13:45:00.000-03:00

Searching for Bad Face

I'm a Londoner. In the past I've managed to not leave it's boundaries from one year's end to the next, without noticing, and can be fairly quoted as having once said "It's nice to come out to the country once in a while" whilst sitting in Greenwich Park. So even I'm vaguely surprised I've chosen to travel across Patagonia. However it so stunningly beautiful that even I couldn't fail to be impressed by it. And in truth I've had a hankering to journey through its vast expanses since seeing a very gentle film, Historias Minimas (Small Stories), in which various characters traverse the region, including an old man in search of his lost dog, Bad Face.

Throughout this leg of my journey I've experienced glaring sunlight (sin ozone), wind, snow and rain, relentlessly long bus journeys through endless, stark, unchanging landscape, as well as having to combat more different accents - If anyone's been to Spain recently and there wasn't anyone there it's because they're currently all in Patagonia, so the conversations have been full of th-th-th as well as sh-sh-sh-che, if you know what I mean.

Switzerland only bigger

Running south through the Argentine lake district are a series of towns that are reminiscent of scenes off the tops of Swiss chocolate boxes (there is also an overwhelming number of chocolate shops in them too). When I arrived in San Martin de Los Andes, I thought it was snowing. Thankfully it was only wispy seeds being blown out of the trees, which was a relief, although they are not as pleasant as snowflakes when you catch them on your tongue. It was in this town I decided to make my first hike in Patagonia this spring...although I had a few false starts just trying to leave town, and firstly ended up at the doors of an Irish Pub, sadly closed. I left with a mental note to at least invest in some sort of map for my next hike...what was I saying about being a city dweller..?

I spent just one night in Bariloche, having stayed there for a week or so in the South American autumn, but at last I met a Norwegian man travelling - I was beginning to think they just didn't leave their own country as despite having met a vast amount of Norwegians, until now only one of them was a man, and he was old with a broken arm (although I'm sure that doesn't exclude him from citizenship). From Bariloche I went down to the rather unlovely town of El Bolson, famous for the beautiful surrounding countryside, being the "first nuclear free" town in Argentina, its (not very) alternative market, more chocolate and being "one of the seven chakras of the world" - I ask you?? Thankfully most of the holiday-hippy contingent seemed to have packed away there draw-string trousers and returned to their day jobs at the merchant banks and petro-chemical firms, although there would have been plenty to keep them happy with the market touting the usual braided tat among the home made jams and mate bombillas.

Basking in the sunshine.

My next stop took me right across the country to the Atlantic coast to a tiny village Puerto Piramides on Peninsula Valdez, where the South Right Wale turn up every year in their hundreds, to coax their calves through their first few weeks. So it was into the boats to watch them splash around, and down to the beach at night to listen to their song, (except it was so bloody cold and the wind was blowing the wrong way, so we gave it up as a bad job). On the peninsula there are also huge colonies of huge elephant seals, which are really just hilarious burping bags of blubber. There are Penguins as well, but to my mind they were disappointingly out of place in the 30 degree heat instead of perched on an ice shelf some place.

So if it's ice you're after...

A long bus ride south and then back east got me to El Calafate. I've seen a couple of glaciers before (including a rather lovely chocolate brown coloured one on Aconcagua) but down the road is the impressively huge Perito Moreno Glacier, (one of the world's few expanding glaciers). Occasionally chunks break off the 60 meter high ice wall and crash into the lake it is currently choking. I also journeyed a couple of hundred kilometres further north to El Chalten to climb on a glacier as well as see the peak of Fitzroy, but the first real snow on my trip closed in and forced us back off the mountain. The falling snow covered the Alpinesque landscape, the storm then stopped and the clouds moved out, revealing the dark jagged mountains, and then the snow melted from the lower slopes exposing the green valley spotted with yellow dandelions, so within 5 hours it was like trekking through sets from The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, to The Lord of the Rings and then The Sound of Music.

Narnia...Austria

On the way back and forth to El Chalten our cowboy-hat-wearing bus driver played country and western music and looked as if he'd be all the more happier with a big truck, with an air-horn, (although he did have a CB radio), rather than driving a bus load of gringos around. Having now listened to a huge chunk of non-stop C&W songs I have come to the conclusion that the lyrics can be split into just a few topics, which are solely dependant on speed and gender. It needs a bit of work, but so far my hypothesis is panning out like this:
Slow songs are sad. If sung by a man they are about how he got drunk and left his woman, or his woman left him because he was a drunk. If sung by a woman they are about how her man got drunk and left her, or about being a single mom, (although these generally end with her meeting a real good man, but by the next track he's got drunk and left her). Fast songs are happy. If sung by either sex, and they are about a girl dancing or a pick up truck, or a girl dancing in the back of a pick up truck. I imagine very few Country lyrics are about having a fulfilling life being black and/or gay.

Tomorrow I head for what will probably be my last border crossing of this trip, until I return home, to the snowy wastes of Chilean Patagonia...brrrr. So tonight, Bryan and Gillian, (my glacier trekking pals) and I, will head out so I can say farewell to Argentina with a huge plate of meat...mmmm.

Peru, Chile and on through Argentina

2006-11-05T09:19:00.000-03:00

New Friends, Old Friends

My last stop in Peru, before heading into the north of Chile, was Arequipa, one of the more beautiful cities in Peru, which was in the throws of a religious festival, like most of Peru, but included a Mr South America show...lots of guys with make up and tight t-shirts preening themselves on a make shift stage in the main square - really can't say what the supposed relevance was. From here I embarked on a trek to the Colca Canyon. Apparently, although this is occasionally disputed, it was recently verified as the world's deepest canyon. All I know is I had very achy legs afterwards. The canyon is also famed for its condors which occasionally swoop down and pluck tourists from the miradors...OK that bit's a lie, but there are a lot of condors. The accompanying photo is a reconstruction of a real event, no birds were hurt during the making of this picture.

I have been extremely fortunate on all the tours and treks I've taken part in on my trip to have had some of the most excellent companions. This trip was no exception, consisting of a gang of Dutch people, that once again proved to me that the Dutch are amongst the nicest people you could hope to meet; an Australian armed with more film trivia than any one person should have a license to carry; a couple of cool Americans with eco-credentials you don't mess with; two very lovely Brits, Laura, who became my drinking buddy, while we left her friend, Belinda, to languish in bed with altitude sickness; and Ralph Wiggum, from the Simpsons.

OK, that's probably desperately cruel and unnecessary, but here's the quiz:
Which one is responsible for which statement, Ralph or my canyon companion?
1) And, when the doctor said I didn't have worms any more, that was the happiest day of my life.
2) Maybe you've got amoebas. I got amoebas once. Sometimes I still have them.

Once we had descended and ascended the canyon over a couple of days, (spending the night in an isolated village where I asked useless questions like "what do you make out of the furs of the guinea pigs you eat?" and sampled snake juice - a bit like meaty vodka), we stayed in another little village in the arse end of nowhere. While everyone else took themselves to bed with fatigue or altitude sickness, Laura and I found a great little bar, where we could put the world to rights whilst letting one of the Paccha Mama's greatest gifts numb our achy limbs. The bar had mud brick walls, candles for lighting, a fire and of course beer. But, it wouldn't have been out of place in North London's more fashionable night spots, and it's given me the inspiration for a fabulous scheme for my return...

All I need is venture capitalist with more money than sense (think that's a possible definition any way), and the world can be ready for "Adobe"...hear me out. A bar restaurant specialising in beers, wines, cocktails and food from all over South America. In the morning we can open up as a juice bar and serve various breakfasts, from stale bread and gluey jam (a bit of a staple in the North) to fried fish and yucca for those with an appetite; lunch will be the classic "almuerzo", a set menu of soup, main course, pud and juice, dependent on the previous nights left overs to afford a budget price; dinner has a wider menu to suit either the adventurous or or more pedestrian tastes. Set it up in a painfully trendy area and even non-meal times will do a rip roaring trade with music execs and advertising creative teams pretentiously sharing mate or a pot of coca tea, whilst musing over how they will exploit their next unsuspecting target market. I can only see a couple of supply issues standing in the way: HM Customs may not run with the coca imports, but I reckon I could get away with substituting bay-leaves in Lemsip, and the animal rights may not go a bundle on me farming guinea pigs for the pot, but if you cut the feet, wings and head off poussin and run them through a mangle the punters will get a better tasting meal and wont know the difference. As long as I make sure the fruitarian-macrobiotic-wheat-intolerant-vegetarians are covered off with a few options, I think it's got legs... Who's in??

We celebrated our return to Arequipa with dinner and drinks, enough so that I managed to get lumbered with giving my Aretha (Say A Little Prayer) to a thankfully all but empty karaoke bar. Once again Laura and I found ourselves the only participants with any back bone and finished the night with a line of pisco sours, leaving in the wee small hours with loose plans to meet in Santiago at some point in December. And I hope we do, as without a doubt Laura is up there with Matt, Tone and Poe, Carrie and Katharina (star billing reserved for Norwegian Chris, obviously) at the top of a list of the very many fabulous people I have met as I have been trundling round this bit of the world.

Speaking of Katharina, one of a triumvirate of Swiss guys that NC and I crossed the Salar with and met up with throughout Bolivia - which helped me to concluded that the Swiss are also amongst the nicest people in the world you could hope to meet - she put me up for the night in Santiago, where I sought refuge from a very cloudy north Chile. I'm sure you wont be surprised to know that pisco sours featured heavily in the evening. Santiago was the first city I rolled up in on this trip and a place I love, although I think I've realised why many people don't like it all that much. It's modern - if you arrive from else where in LatAm it must just feel very European, and if you make it your first stop it just doesn't feel like what you might feel South America should do: very little in the way of historical buildings, not a gaucho to be seen, no jungle, no blokes with blow-pipes etc. I had also forgotten how impenetrable the accent here is. Katharina says they swallow their words, but they wolf them down, biting off the ends, and peppering their language with a vocabulary all their own.

I then crossed over the Andes to another of my favourite cities Mendoza to wander around in the sunshine for a couple of days, before heading for the chilly southern spring. I left with perfect timing, as the heavens opened and must have delivered more than the average 200mm of annual rainfall Mendoza receives each year, filling the ancient canal-like drains and flooding the town's roads.

If you're planning on visiting Mendoza, stay at the Lao Hostal, (Rioja 771). Started by Mike and Celeste (a Anglo-Argentine couple), a year ago, it's got a great location between bus station, micro-centre and nightlife, clean, with chilled areas if that's what you crave, not to mention great communal areas including a mini swimming pool, and an attention seeking dog. And they can help arrange tours and all that sort of stuff, as well as occasionally throwing booze on the table and stakes on the BBQ, for a small contribution to the collective. The best place I've stayed in Mendoza...and I've stayed in a few.

Right now I find myself in waiting for a connecting bus in a non-descript town of Cipolletti, not far from Neuquen. Around the town the flat landscape stretches out for miles and the water-foul are flying in huge flocks south, and sometimes you have pinch yourself to remember just where you are. But this place seems like the sort of town most teenagers would hope to escape as soon as possible, hence the bus station is plastered with posters asking for information about a 16 year old girl who has gone missing. I just hope for her sake she's safe, working behind a bar or cleaning rooms in Bariloche or Buenos Aires, and not in a hole in the ground or enslaved, in one way or another, like too many other children find themselves in South America.

Vegetable rights and peace, OK.

The Long Road South

2006-10-23T19:20:00.000-03:00

How much time can one man spend on a bus..?

I decided to zip straight through Ecuador and head straight for Peru, only I did it the long way round. After flying out of Cali to Tulcan, and getting x-rayed to see if I was a drugs mule into the deal (they asked me if I'd swallowed any coins lately before I signed the consent form???) - I took a bus to Quito, changed onto an overnight bus to Loja, and then got a bus to a little place called Zumba, a garrison town with only very nasty hotels. The next day I journeyed across the border to Chachapoyas in Peru - this meant travelling in 3 collectivos, 1 minivan, 1 flatbed truck and 2 moto-taxis, all so I could visit the ruins at Kuelap.

To some extent, Norwegian Chris and I sped through Peru the first time, so I'm now mopping up some of the places I missed, now that I'm on my way back down. This includes 4 places of archaeological interest, all billed, as most of the sites I've visited are, as the most important in South America.

Kuelap is a stunning hill top fortress, once home to Inca-hating folk who then fell foul of their supposed conquistador alies, and so there is little other trace of them. It's huge undulating walls enclose numerous circular buildings, not totally unlike those in Colombia's Lost City. Again, like most in South America, the site is as yet mostly un-excavated, however, unlike most there is good preservation and reconstruction work underway.

From Kuelap I moved down to Chiclayo, to visit the Sipán. The huacas, (pyramids) having been built of adobe millennia ago, are fairly shabby, and I didn't think they were as impressive as those of Chan Chan and Sol y Luna, down the road in Trujillo. However the treasures uncovered in the burial grounds are spectacular, (beating the pants off European found grave goods, like Sutton Hoo), and probably worth visiting the museums for than the pyramids themselves. There isn't much to the town of Chiclayo itself, but it does have a great and extensive market, where you can buy all the usual foods and goods, including great fish and black maize, but also curative potions, huge lumps of charcoal from a choice of 50 vendors, and where I almost got abducted by some stall holders attempting to sell me a belt I really didn't want.

The next set of buses, including one that took 8 hours instead of the normal 3, due to break downs and closed roads, at 4000 meters above sea level, (personally I felt sorriest for the chickens stuck on the top all that time), finally got me to Chavin. At first sight the ruins don't seem like all that much: a set of dilapidated ramparts surrounding a sunken central plaza, but within the ramparts are a series of labyrinthine tunnels, one of which leads to El Lanzon, a knife shaped obelisk. Several intricate carvings of gods, men and monsters survive. On the bus back to Huaraz I kept thinking we were passing a lot of sheep until I realised the bleating was coming from one we were carrying in the boot.

From Huaraz, I bussed, via a connection in Lima all the way down to a little oasis town, Huacachina, near Ica to rest up for a night, take in a dune buggy ride and some rather unsatisfying sand-boarding (it just ain't the same as snow: not much speed and little manoeuvrability by comparison), before heading down to Nazca, and its famous lines.

Nazca is another lesson in not listening to the dissenters. I've just heard too much "don't know what all the fuss is about" from fellow travellers I've encountered on my journey. I suppose it's not going to be everyones' cup of tea, but then it's no more or less than advertised either. Etched by the drought besieged Nazcans having abandoned their temples to appeal directly to their gods for rain, spectacularly straight lines and stretch out across the desert plain bisecting shamanic inspired geomorphic figures, (or if you listen to some, they're landing sites for space ships - yeah, right).

The Nazca Lines, like Easter Island and Machu Picchu are places I've wanted to visit since I was a child, are another highlight of my trip. But they are also the last of the major Archaeological sites I shall visit, as I will now head back along the Pan American, into Chile heading yet further south.

Meanwhile, I've also found a candidate for the most un-PC sweet wrapper award. Dona Pepa is a chocolate biscuit bar made by Kraft subsidery Lacta:

...oh, and on the "musical differences" front, I finally got Wang Chunged in the taxi this morning, and currently a Flock of Seaguls are on the radio...

Colombia

2006-10-10T18:23:00.000-03:00

Where almost everything begins with a C

I've been keeping my visit to Colombia quiet, for no other reason than to stop my mum from worrying, but now I've left the country I can reveal all...

Best known for cocaine and decades of civil war, Colombia has got a bad reputation, but it is a truly beautiful country, and as far as my experience goes very safe.

Cali
My first stop was in Cali, a fairly grubby city, but the world capital of Salsa. Having two left feet I left that to others. The women of Cali have a reputation for being the most beautiful in Colombia, but in a word.... na.

A short trip from Cali is San Cipriano, a jungle village only accessible by a train line. The locals ferry you along the line on a wooden pallet, with a motor bike strapped to it so that the back wheel rests on the rail and pushes the whole thing along. It is like being on a life size Scalectrix track.

Cafetera
In the middle of the coffee region is Salento a lovely place to chill out and where I visited a small coffee finca run by and old man and his family and had the freshest cup of coffee imaginable. I also learnt how to play Tejo, a game where, basically, you throw lumps of metal at small packets of explosives - only in Colombia!

Cartels and Cosmetic Surgery
Medellin, home to the once all powerful Medellin Cartel and much loved Pablo Escobar until he was gun down by police. It's also a big party town, and on any given weekend night the results of being the South American capital of plastic surgery is all on display. The current latest deal is US$1000 for boobs, nose and bum...

Cartegena, Crew-Cut and Cholera
Cartegena old town is such a beautiful, well preserved colonial city, (reminded me a lot of Cadiz, but that makes sense seeing as they were both fortified by the Spanish after a few attacks by the English), that a US-Colombian collaboration were making a film of Marquez's Love In A Time of Cholera at the time I was there. Cartegena is also damn hot, so the hair went. When Carrie saw it she asked whose army I was joining - there are several to choose from here. But that was her parting shot and it was here we went our separate ways again, with promises to meet up in Patagonia!

Caribbean Coast
Further along the coast is the town of Santa Marta, and the little village of Taganga, which is a great place to sit in a hammock and do nothing... what more can I say.

Ciudad Perdida
Possibly the best thing I've done on this trip. A hard trek on which you are quite literally soaked in either sweat, rain or river water... But, the Lost City is just as you can imagine it should be: in the middle of the jungle a flight of 2000 moss covered stone steps lead up from the river to ancient terraces, that line the mountain side, and on which there are still the stone foundations of the long since rotted wooden buildings. The city is surrounded by forest, with a huge amount still remaining hidden - steps tantalisingly lead off from the paths into inpenatrable jungle. What makes it all the more a magical experience is that, as this is the only permitted way to reach the city, our group (16 people and guides) were the only people there. This isn't the world's most conventional trek: money goes to paramilitaries for protection, there's a visit to a cocaine factory, the guide regaled us with tales of when the ELN kidnapped his group, and on the first night we got handed a huge bag of weed. And once you're done at the city you have to trek all the way back - If you are thinking of doing this trip, although the trek itself is probably a medium grade the heat pushes it up to a hard, and you do need to have a reasonable level of fitness to attempt it. Food and facilities are good, but expect to get very hot and sweaty, very dirty, get rained on, and cross rivers that are waist high or deeper - not a trek where you'll keep your boots dry...oh yeah, and then there are the mosquitoes and sand flies, the record on our trip was 180 bites below the waist before we gave up counting.

Capital City and Colonial Villages
From the coast I turned round and started head back south. From Santa Marta I made my way to Bogota, via Gíron and Barichara, two wonderfully oldy world pueblos. It would have been easy to get stuck in Bogota, but as I am going to attempt to make it to Patagonia before I return home, I had to move on, from this buzzing city, with great culture and great nightlife. Popayan, my last stop in my trip in Colombia, is another lovely colonial town.

Can't think of a way to describe...San Agustin and Tierradentro.
These two fantastic places are billed as "possibly the most important archaeological sites" in South America.

San Agustin sits in an area where another lost civilisation spent there time preparing for the next life by building statues that accompanied their tombs. My guide round the archaeological park was Luis Alfredo, or Jerry, and is good value entertainment but I don't believe a word of what he said - he's swallowed every theory out there, and I checked out when he started with the alien contact stuff.

Tierradentro was home to another bunch of ancient tomb builders, in a stunningly beautiful valley. The tombs have staircases leading down into womb like chambers, some of which are painted with geometric patterns, where the dead were buried in foetal position ready for rebirth into the next life. Many, across a couple of sites, have been preserved but a few dozen others, on the top of the nearby mountain ridge, have been destroyed by grave robbers, however they are still worth a visit. Gaping holes reveal entrance ways to the burial chambers - I crept into a few, but I convinced myself that the others were inhabited by man-eating spiders the size of Shetland ponies and so that's all I managed. The surrounding countryside is breath taking. There is a diverse enough micro climate for coffee, banana, sugar cane, oranges, fir trees, mosses to all grow at different levels along the hill side, and the valley is filled with blooms of many and varied trees, flowers and orchids.

Crashes
I imagined that covering the amount of miles I have this trip I would probably see a fair few road accidents. Thankfully I've been greatly relieved and have seen only a few...and then I reached Colombia, but maybe that's not surprising in a country where they publish the number of accidents, injuries and fatalities by the various bus companies in the bus terminal. And where all long vehicles including buses come equipped with a flashing light - this is so at night when they are overtaking on blind corners the traffic in the opposite direction can see them.

Can't get enough of this place.
Colombia is the most beautiful country I have visited here, the people are wonderful, it's as developed as Argentina or Chile, and it is very safe. There are troops on the roads, there is a 50 year long civil war, there is major drugs business here. But as a tourist you are no less a target for crime than anywhere else in South America. Virtually everyone I have spoken too bemoans the bad reputation their country has, and more often than not blame the press. Everyone always asks you to tell your friends that it isn't a bad place. It isn't.

I love Colombia. My biggest problem with it is working out how and when I can come back again. Basically, there is something for everyone, culture, beaches and diving, party towns, archaeology and colonial towns, and great places to just chill out. Everyone should visit here at least once in their lives.

There are also some people around the place working really hard to make Colombia an even better experience, like Tim at the Plantation house in Salento and Kelvin at the Black Sheep Hostal in Medellin. The guidebooks are out of date and sometimes miss whole (safe) chunks of the country, if you're planning to come to Colombia have a look at Kelvin's website, it has really good up-to-date information on loads of places: http://www.blacksheepmedellin.com/

Musical Differences

2006-10-02T22:39:00.000-03:00

Time for a letter to the Editor from "Angry of Tooting"

One might think that it would be all Salsa and Reggaeton, but musical tastes across the continent seem to vary wildly, and although it doesn't take much digging to get to the local or more traditional music, the standard fair is a mish mash of styles, even in club sets. And off course pan pipes are all over the more touristic Andean areas, and no artist is spared, but believe me My Way and Like A Virgin just don't work.

In some countries there is a frighteningly high level of bad 80's music on virtually all playlists - in fact, as I write Come On Eileen is playing on the radio. In Chile I heard A-ha's Take On Me virtually everyday, and one day heard it 3 times and saw the video once. In Paraguay it was Alphaville "Big In Japan". It can only be a matter of time until I get Wang Chunged.

In San Pedro de Atacama, I sat in a restaurant while dinner was accompanied by a three piece comprised of drums, double base and ukalele, playing a right mix of stuff. However, having seen the Ukalele Orchestra of Great Britain perform Apache, with their tongues firmly in cheeks, it was impossible for me to keep a straight face when these guys attempted it. At the end of their set the ukalele player came round with their CD for sale. He put it on our table, but immediately picked it up, and said tersly "I don't think you really enjoyed it, so there's not much point is there?".

In Ecuador, when the bus drivers aren't playing local music, they revert to dodgy 80's American MOR, but in bars and on the street it's never long until before you hear Shakira's Hips Don't Lie ...I know love, I know.

In Argentina there is a horrific new wave of muzak that has infiltrated many bars in which classic songs have been recorded with dinner jazz arrangements and syruppy female vocals. There are some songs that you can guess are just too popular to escape this treatment (Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds, Hotel California, et al) but somehow the Cure's Boys Don't Cry has not only been ravaged in this way but also appears to be the track on most frequent rotation. I recently heard, in a French restaurant in Cusco, Peru, of one the very few vaguely decent cover versions, with sugary little girl lost vocals, of an indie classic: Australian band Frente's version of New Order's Bizarre Love Triangle. It wouldn't be completely out of place in the Sarah Records catalogue, but the deliberate pronounciation the word "every" as "elvery" jars.

Meanwhile, I have been chased across the continent, and driven to utter distraction, by that whimpering fop James Blunt.

...Rant over...

Ecuadorian Bits and Pieces

2006-09-20T19:06:00.000-03:00

Police action and Piccachu

I spent longer in Quito than expected, but this is was so I could meet up with Carrie, (aka Grommet), who I had previously travelled around Uruguay with, for a couple more weeks on the road together. But it also meant I had time to sort out new rain-cover for rucksack made by a street tailor - that has already proved it's worth!

Before leaving Quito I witnessed the main square being cleared of protesters. As the 50 strong crowd of women, shouting "asesinos", were charged out of the square by military police in full riot gear, it struck me the police had two lessons to learn. Firstly, don't shove protesters down a road where there is building work going on, your apparel gives the invitation and the material to hand the opportunity for you to be showered in bits of brick and wood. And in the consequent effort to disperse the crowd more rapidly, if you will use CS gas, don't spray it and then charge the crowd, you will succeed in gassing the first row of the officers too.

As far as I can make out there are countless variations to the Ecuadorian Police - with uniforms all obviously designed by a man taking too much testosterone on his cornflakes. There is a whole swathe that come in military style camouflage uniforms, but the divisions within these are unclear except for the variation in colour. They come in a range of grey-blacks, grey-greens, dark blues, light blues and pinks, none of which look like they the would camouflage anyone from anything really, but all of them have been designed to fit an athletic Ecuadorian youthful standard, and look rather comical on the more portly older constabulary. The metropolitan police forces have a more formal, khaki dress. However, the women wear knee-length skirts and impractically high-heeled boots, where as the men have some elements that are clearly a throwback to days gone by: in addition to their stab-proof vests they wear cavalry boots and on occasion carry sabres.

Bad stuff on buses
In every country of South America the buses and trains are boarded by men women and children hawking all manner of stuff, from food and drink to q-tips and needles and thread. Some times there are some less standard articles such as computer manuals and miracle cures which I've always assumed were picked up cheap at markets and then sold on for some kind of profit, but perhaps the worst I've come across is the Piccachu toys that, when squeezed, mysteriously played "I'm a Barbie Girl" - the guys wasn't shifting them.

Best collective noun:
"A Wallet of Gringos"
- This was originated by Adam, a man with an encyclopedic knowledge of music and football, and a life like something from Jerry Springer.

Ibarra and Otavalo

2006-09-07T21:15:00.000-03:00

SuperMercardos

Ibarra is a small regional capital north east of Quito, surrounded by inactive volcanoes. The Northern half of the city has a faintly old fashioned feel, with colonial buildings and tree filled plazas. Hummingbirds buzz around the blossoms, and small children can have their photographs taken on a long-dead, stuffed ponies, by photographers that look equally long-dead and stuffed.

The south half of the town is the commercial centre and has a fantastic, sprawling central market, which is a warren of stalls. And it was the first time I've seen in my travels in Latin America a row of shoe-shine women, of all ages - this role is usually filled by old men or small boys, so I'm not very sure if this is a good or bad sign!

I imagined I would spend a few hours wandering about the place before heading to some of the surrounding lakes that the area is famous for. However I filled a couple days meandering around the town, chilling in the plazas, and eating several good meals...

Ibarra is one of those places Lonely Planet last visited when the stuffed ponies were still twinkles in their parents' eyes, and the guide is fairly inaccurate. If you are using the "South America on a Shoestring" book and plan to visit Ibarra soon, see the "Information on Ibarra" at the end.

Second-World Waugh

Since Norwegian Chris has departed I have been accompanied to dinner on several occasions by a tatty 1950's Penguin Orange edition of Put Out More Flags, that I had swapped in Montevideo for a copy of Cider With Rosie. It was one of what looked like a batch of second-hand books that had been picked up job lot by the hostel to fill some shelf space. I'm not much of a Waugh fan, and find it all a bit upper class claptrap - tongue in cheek or not - but what's holding my interest are the words, such as flummoxed and tipsily, that the original owner has carefully underlined and filled the margins with the Spanish translations in beautifully old worldy handwriting.

Otavalo - The Camden of The Andes

I arrived here on the first day of the annual Yamor fiesta, which was a surprise, (as was the lack of reasonably priced accommodation). It's the biggest fiesta in the North of the Country apparently, and to prove it the parade lasted 4 hours, culminating in fireworks and the selection of the another queen for the year. Yamor is a hot drink made from corn. Whether it was that I was drinking or something else, for 25 cents a cup, I don't know, but whatever it was, it was mix with some nameless white spirit, which helped keep out the cold, knocked me sideways, and left me in a very "can't be arsed" mood in the morning - bargain!

During the second day of festivities there were a series of what could be referred to as "modern interpretations of traditional fokeloric dances" which involved a lot of slightly out of time dancers in costumes a "talented" tailor had been let loose on.

Otavalo is famous for it's Saturday markets. Once out of bed, I made my way to what was the fading moments of the animal market. By this time most of the livestock had been sold and the pigs were either squealing madly as they were being dragged off (not for the faint hearted) or just bedding down in the dirt. The other market is in the centre of town, in one half you have the very touristy part, including lots of stuff that tourists like (ponchos, drawstring trousers and jumpers etc in horrific designs you would never see a local wearing) and, unbelievably, didgeridoos and north American Indian dream catchers. In the other half you have the standard local market: food stalls, fruit and veg, unidentifiable parts of animals, and all manner of stalls selling all sorts of other goods like, tools, pots and pans, plastic stuff and of course the clothes that the locals do wear. I definitely prefer the local market, not for any patronising "Yeah, it's like this: you get closer to the locals actually" reason, it's just all that knitwear with repeated geometric lama patterns reminds me of terrible Christmas jumpers.

I'm Spartacus, part two:
On my last day in Otavalo I travelled up to Lake Cuicocha, and wandered up around the edge of the volcano crater it lies in with a British couple who've been travelling around South America as long as I have. And he was called Barney too!!! That's the second in this trip. I'm beginning to wonder if there are enough still left at home...

Overheard in the Street:
"But in my country you don't have to pay if you take someone's photograph."
Nice try son, now pay the lady her money and ask first next time. And not really true, when Dave, Biff, Gemma and I had our dodgiest of haircuts we charged tourists 50p for a photo, or a pound if it was septic. (I can hear my mother sighing "Oh you didn't" as she reads this).

Meaty Sticks Index:
As it was fiesta time in Otavalo the BBQ meat skewer people were out in force. Having sampled more than a few in a couple of countries I have compiled the following top three comparison:

Ecuador- overly complex:
Bits of frankfurter at bottom and top holding a potato, banana and a strip of meat in place. (US$0.25 : 13.5p)

Paraguay - a bit worrying:
Strips of meat, interspersed with lumps of gnarly fat, accompanied with a bit of yucca* (500 Guaranis : 5p)

Bolivia - plain and simple, and the best:
Meaty strips with a lump of yucca* on the end. (1 Boliviano : 6.5p)

*Yucca is a root vegetable I love! A bit like potato meets parsnip. Not quite sure if it's the same as the houseplant Yucca, or not, but otherwise I have only knowingly eaten a house plant once previously, but bring an ornamental cabbage into my kitchen and that's what happens...

Ibarra Information:
Other than a few well established (i.e old) hotels and restaurants, local bus stops, and the street plan, the guide is pretty inaccurate, and maybe why I spent so long wandering around the town in the first place.

There is an airfield!! But there are no planes, and only people flying kites and cows at pasture on the strip. TAME don't fly there nor do they have an office in the town.

There is now a bus terminal, right the way down Espejo to the south west of town, (taxi ride is no more than US$1 into the centre), where all regional and inter-regional buses arrive and leave from. This includes buses to Otavalo and Cotacachi, although go straight onto the platforms for these and pay on board, there is no ticket office for them. You can get to San Antonio on an Otavalo bus from here too, but the local buses in various states of decrepitude run there regularly, passing the corner of Guerrero and Sánchez y Cifuentes.

Some places that the guide has either wrongly or not marked are as follows: The post office is in Parque La Merced. There is a tourist office is on the corner of Oviedo & Rocafuerte, next to a travel agency, and has good information and map of the area, but no map of the town. Opposite is the small Banco Centro Cultural Museo, which is worth a go for the US$1 entry and has a good explanation (in Spanish and English) of the pre-Colombian development of Ecuador and the region. There is a cheap international call centre in the 5th Block on Mosquera, and several internet cafes on Olmedo.

Unless you're sick to the back teeth with colonial towns it's a pleasant town to stop over and spend at least half a day wandering around. San Antonio is worth the 18cents bus ride, but wont keep you busy for more than an hour or so, unless you're really into gaudy wood carvings...but for me once you've seen one shop full you've seen them all... that said away from the main square there are some workshops you can stop and look in on, which to me are more interesting. And walking down to the Pan American to the left of and past the football pitch, there is a series of murals of varying quality.

Quito and the Cuyabeno

2006-08-29T18:52:00.000-03:00

Big Fish & White Elephants

We found a great way of seeing a bit of Amazaonia paddling downstream for a couple of days. The Cuyabeno and the jungle around it, despite the oil companies' best efforts, are an unspoilt bit of Amazonian rainforest where we saw troops of monkeys jumping from tree to tree, and pink dolphins swimming up the river.

Being the rainforest the trip wasn't without it's fair share of rain, and during one down pour we were just about to give up a very uneventful fishing expedition when Aldemar, the boatman, shouted he had a big fish. It only took him about 20 minutes to land the fella pictured here, with a hook and line meant for piranha! It's a paiche fish... and this is only a little one.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Back in Quito, one of the least inspiring capitals I've visited so far, it's just a short journey the Mitad de Mundo (Equator). And I have to say it's a bit of disappointment... apart from the fact that it's at the end of a tatty street in a bit of theme park, at 2400ms above sea-level on a scrubby hillside it just didn't feel like what the equator should feel like: no palm trees or desert island landscape, and no one getting tarred and feathered. But, due to a bit of bad maths a while back, it's actually in the wrong place, 200 meters down the road is a small private museum where they've calculated the real equator using GPS and perform all the science stuff that can only be done on the actual equator, (like balancing an egg on the head of a nail and watching water go down the plughole in different directions on either side of the line).

Sushi survey

There's only so much chicken and rice, cheese and ham sandwiches, sopa de mani and pork and yuca I can eat, so the occassional maki roll has brought a bit of variation. Don't expect the restaurant names, as I've blotted them out with the accompanying white wine, but here's the best to the worst, by city.

Lima, Peru
Buenos Aires, Argentina
La Paz, Bolivia
Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Quito, Ecuador*

* The restaurant is called Sake and generally the fish was a bit tired and rolls just too overcomplicated making them rather "meckty"
I have also eaten Sushi in Santiago, but I have absolutely no recollection of it...

Quitting Quito

My partner in crime for the last five months, Norwegian Chris, is, as I type, on plane back to the land of the midnight sun, and I shall miss her dreadfully. Although, I'm sure there'll be a "Loose End in Lapland" blog some time next year.

Up the Peruvian North Coast and into Equador

2006-08-17T21:53:00.000-03:00

Sand, sea and security...

In Peru some of the security measures on the buses are pretty tight, but on the bus from Lima they took our passport numbers, finger prints, and all the passengers were bag searched, metal detected and videoed . Whether this is to put off would be hi-jackers and theives or to help identify victims I don't know. It feels vaguely misplaced in what seems to be a fairly safe and stable country, and relatively rich compared to some of its neighbours, even though Norwegian Chris and I had had to fend off a gang of icecream bandits by ourselves.

It was a timely, but not too disastrous, reminder to be on our toes in Trujillo, a colonial town built bang on top Chan Chan the capital of ancient giant-sandcastle builders - having seen a fair chunk of the coast there is little but desert and dunes in the whole stretch. Norwegian Chris and I nearly fell foul of a fairly standard tourist hussle: while wandering along a street, Chris stopped to buy an ice cream, this bloke came up to me mumbling, as a distraction while a couple of other fellas zeroed in on the Viking. The next thing I heard was Chris saying, more in anger than fear, "This man's got his hand in my bag". So I grabbed the bloke in question by the wrist and held his hand aloft - I have to point out that for once in my life, in Peru, I am generally taller than the majority of the population, and this guy was short even by Peruvian standards - consequently holding this fella's hand up felt like hauling a small boy away from a biscuit tin. After the commotion subsided, and the mumbling short fellas ran off, we realised, too late, that Norwegian Chris had never got the icecream she had paid for.

Watch towers, the sort that look useful in a general uprising, on the corners of perimeter walls are also greatly favoured here, and while I see the use in protecting military camps, utilities and the suchlike, it again felt like overkill to see them used on the biscuit factory on the outskirt of Trujillo. I can't really envision a time when a leader of popular revolution is credited with a quote like "We may not have the radio stations or the electricity company, but our people are hungry and now we can truly say, when they call for bread, let them eat c...ustard creams."

Further up the coast is the surf capital of Peru, Manchora, a great place to spend a few days doing nothing...so not much more to add than that.

Banana Repuplic

It isn't really until the very north of the Peruvian coastline that the desert and scrub finally gives up to the lush green of forest and agriculture, and once in Ecuador it is almost overwhelming: I began to believe I might have seen more banana trees than any thing else in my entire life. The plantations stretch for miles with stand after stand, each tree sporting a plastic bag around the stems of the fruits...now that's what I call genetically modified!

Our first stop in Ecuador was it's largest city, Guyaquil, a huge delta town that is spending a lot of money to shed it's reputation as a dangerzone, with a upgraded bus station, new airport and revamped waterfront...however it's a bit like Birmingham meets the Southbank. If you are coming to this town soon, due to the revamp, you get kicked off the bus at a line of bus stands in what is pretty much a building site: buses out of town leave, and have their ticket offices, just around the corner, but don't give into the temptation to jump straight into a cab, get your forward tickets before leaving, as it's a long schelp in and out of the centre.

Call Me Ishmael

From Guyaquil it's a short jump over to the coast to Puerta Lopez, another great place to chill for a few days, and where humpback whales also stop over, off shore, on their way to and from their breeding grounds further north. So yesterday I watched these fantastic creatures throw sumersalts as I stood on the prow of a boat excitedly shouting "Flukes ahoy!" (although don't ask me which bit of a whale is a fluke I just remember it from Moby Dick). One of the National Park guides asked Norwegian Chris where she came from, when she answered, he replied "you eat whales don't you", to which she had to admit she had once...

Even with my inability to spell, I smirked when I saw the "I (heart) Wales" sticker someone has stuck in the boat, although I wondered what someone else was trying to say about the Welsh with the "Exitinction is forever" sticker next to it.

My favourite nautical joke (best told in a West Country accent):

Q: Why are pirates called pirates?
A: Because they ARHHHH!

Lost Worlds

2006-08-06T17:52:00.000-03:00

Machu Picchu & The Sacred Valley

Walking into Machu Picchu was, for me, one of those unrepeatable "first" expericences that will live with me forever. Having wandered around many ruins over the previous week or so, I had developed an expectation that I would see some fairly impressive stuff, but the vastness and preservation of the site is utterly amazing. It was made all the better by being virtually the first onto the site that morning - I have to report that I was sad enough to insist that Norwegian Chris rehearse the route to the bus stop from our hotel with me the night before...I was, obviously, annoyingly excited!! And here's a picture of me looking vaguely stunned by the whole experience.

Other unforgettable "firsts" in my life include:
First artistic performance (smell of the greasepaint): As a shepperd in St Michaels Nativity Play, aged 6, led on stage by sweaty palmed angel played by Victoria Chomerton.
First time in the stands (roar of the crowd): Boxing Day 1984 Fulham at home to Sheffield United (2:0) - bit of a late starter with footy and never much of a fan, because:
First concert (smell of the crowd): The Clash, Thursday 22/10/1981, at the Lyceum, and the start of my relationship with tinnitus.
...and lots more "firsts" in later life, but my mum reads this blog so this'll do for now...

If you're going to visit Machu Picchu, (especially in high season) allow at least half a day to wander around Cusco getting your train tickets, bus tickets, and entry tickets from three different locations in town. Get your train tickets first, then ask where to go to get the bus and entry tickets. If you decide to get bus and entry tickets down the track NOTE you can't get entry tickets at the site, you have to buy them in Aguas Calientes.

After returning to Cusco we wandered around the Sacred Valley to some more Inca sites, which I likened to having a Mr Whippy after having feasted on Ben & Jerry's, so we left for Lima, which is not in "darkest Peru", although very foggy at this time of year. The 9 million inhabitants of the city, a third of the country's poulation, crowd the town, and everyone seems to drive a cab for extra cash.

Overheard on the street, (OK, it was Norwegian Chris in response to my suggestion we visit one of the many casinos in Lima) : "Why would I spend money on that when I could use it to buy cake!?!?"

The Salars and the Altiplano

2006-08-01T14:53:00.000-03:00

Salt, sand and a lot of lurid knitware ...at altitude

Finally some time to jot down the last few weeks, which have been a hectic journey from Argentina, through Chile, Bolivia and Peru.

Firstly, I am pleased again to report I have made it through Bolivia without suffering from food poisoning or being mugged or killed... doubtless I will now be kidnapped, stripped naked and left by the road - but then there are some people who'd pay a lot of money for that.

Having got stuck in Jujuy, (slightly reminiscent of a old East European city, but a resonable place to watch the World Cup final and go to the cinema for the first time in 6 months - X-men III - don't bother), Norwegian Chris and I finally made it out across the Andes and into salt flat territory. The journey takes you past two smaller salt flats in Argentina, before crossing the border to Chile to San Pedro, the Atacama desert and the salar of the same name. Not that the salt flat is the only thing to see: San Pedro is surrounded by spectacular scenery, with volcanes, geezers, and even some Inca ruins - all of which are a stones throw away, and all of which makes it a magnet for tourists, as reflected by London prices and, as a gringo, you are immediately addressed in English.

If you're visiting San Pedro a great place to stay is the Incahausi, a reasonably priced German run B&B. Also, the guidebooks say there are no ATMs in the pueblo but there is now one, which takes Mastercard and Cirrus, but not Visa.

San Pedro is also a starting point for trips into Bolivia, through more breath-taking landscapes to the Salar de Uyuni. Apparently it will take a million years before the footsteps are erased from the moons surface, and, if I remember correctly, the fine for just walking on the salt flat in Death Valley is $1000. So I can't help wondering what the impact of at least a half dozen or so 4x4's racing across the desert and salars in both directions every day must be. Theoretically the Uyuni Salar is rejuvinated every year when the rains wash the minerals out of the surrounding hills and flood the flats, but in some places the desert looks like a ploughed field from the tyre marks.

Top tip if you are doing the trip... take some tastey snacks with you, but let some air of the crips packets as they tend to explode at altitude...which I discovered all too late. The Dutch people travelling with us thought we were being shot at, but it was only my cheesey puffs making a bid for freedom in my bag.

We needed no reminding we were in Bolivia as in the very first town we reached there was a band playing - they love a bit of a marching band the Bolivians do. And it was good to reach Uyuni (although it's a cold, ugly and dirty town), but after 3 days of freezing temperatures, so-so food and accomodation, and although our driver/guide was great, members of the tour in the other two cars in our caravan had had to take over the wheel as their drivers were too drunk. To save face, one of the drivers insisted taking his vehicle back the last leg to the agency office in Uyuni, and then promptly drove in to a power pylon... maybe that's why the town was without electricity until 9pm that night..?

From Uyuni we dropped a few meters to Sucre, with the briefest stop in Potosi, once the richest town in the world due to the silver in them there hills. In Sucre, (a beautiful Colonial town with probably the best mercardo central I've been too - a warren of stalls and wonderful aromas), I met Vicky, an English teacher from Texas (no jokes now) and who also earned the title "my America mom" as she has a son the spitting image of me... yes dear reader, I sent commiserations to her family on your behalf.

Overnight from Sucre to La Paz: an amazing city filled with sprawling markets and a million souls all clinging to the side of a steep valley, and the shoe shine boys wear ski-masks to hide their identities, as percieved meanial workers... oh, and a very good Japanese restaurant, not to be dismissed because it is namesake to Wagamamas. I can understand why people get stuck in La Paz, you can wander the same streets and see something new every day.

From La Paz it's a short hop to Lake Titicaca, a place not only rich in trout but more Inca and Pre-Inca stuff you can shake a stick at. The first major players in the area based themselves at Tiawanaku, a must-see archaelogical site, along with the Isla del Sol, the funerial towers near Puno, and a bit of living (if commercialised) history: the floating islands - a throw back to when the Uros people took to the water on islands mades of reeds, to avoid neighbouring warlike tribes, and have stayed there ever since.

Once in Peru Norwegian Chris started on the guinea pigs, a local delicacey. Bear in mind her first language isn't English, but when the first roast fella arrived at the table, complete with head and legs, she said "It's sad enough that it comes like this, but now I'm going to violate it" - I said she could just eat it, but I think it was the Viking in her coming to the surface. For the record, I reckon you need a brace of guinea pigs to make a worthwhile meal, but to be honest they don't taste of much, not even chicken.

Peru is also the hub of the Gringo Trail and it's the first place I've been on a standard bus journey where the tourists have out numbered the locals. I'm used to seeing a huge chunk of the tourist contingency clad in ponchos and some very nice Andean knitware, but I was taken aback to see a guy sporting a mohawk haircut, black PVC jacket and trousers, and a Anti-Nowhere League "Nazi Punks F**K Off" t-shirt, swaggering the beachfront of Lake Titicaca. For a moment there I was back in Camden Town, 1984, keeping Alex company while he flogged posters outside Sid Strongs, and Benjy Biff got people to buy him cans of Red Stripe if he´d jump into the lock.

The next hop was to Cusco, which I'd been told had been built on the foundations of the Inca town, but it is utterly staggering how much of the original Inca stonework remains, and how much has been used in the walls of the cities buildings. But be warned, if you're ever in this neck of the woods, it's expensive, especially where the companies that have monopolies over the routes, trains, buses and entry fees to Machu Pichu exert them to a disgraceful extent, with the a lack of concern or service that had me mumbling into my beer about writing letters to the government.

However, this morning I arrived in Aguas Caliente and tomorrow I will visit Machu Picchu....and I'm very exicted!!!

Why I love Paraguay...

2006-07-13T20:54:00.000-03:00

...and one reason I don't

The reason most people miss out Paraguay on their trips around South America is that, unlike it's neighbours, it doesn't have one stand-out "must see" attraction, like an Iguazu falls, chunk of Panatal or gigantic salt flat. But I love the place for it relaxed pace, genuinely lovely people, and it's simply very beautiful. So I was glad to be back in the country, this time coming in from the north to Conception, then travelling the Chaco route to Asuncion.

There are a load of reasons why I love Paraguay but here are a few random ones...

Being a foreigner is easy
...and good entertainment value for the locals. As well as being a cheap country to visit, you're made to feel welcome. I was greeted constantly by people in the street, was as much a point of interest in some places as the place was to me, and often consulted on who I thought would win the World Cup (me???). The Paraguayans are great hand-shakers and everyone from the man in the tourist office, to the guy waiting for a bus with me had a go. I only went to send a parcel home, but the (3) people in charge of special edition stamps diverted Norwegian Chris and me into a side-office first just to see their latest first day covers...they all found it hillarious that I wanted the Paraguayan World Cup Team issue (Alex, their on a postcard to you and the boys as I type).

Great cows
...like parts of Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia, Paraguayan cows are an ancient, skinny, Indian breed imported because their suitability to the conditions. They´re strangely beautiful with long horns and a hump, but I like the way the Paraguan army lets them graze on the parade ground.

And horses too... There are horses everywhere other than in the heart of Asuncion, and the horse and cart is still a popular means of transport. I just liked turning a corner and finding a horse parked in front of a house.

Asuncion...
I love this city. It's a complete mix of old and modern, poor and rich. It's beautiful has great restaurants with great food. And this visit I made it to the Mercardo 4, street after street of covered market selling anything from cow guts to Hello Kitty radios.

They have a navy...
Which on the surface may seem a bit odd for a land locked country, but I suspect it spends it's time patrolling the Rio Paraguay for contraband from Bolivia rather than defending it's borders.

The people...
...just lovely

...and the one thing that isn't so wonderful...
is the everpresent heavily armed police. Aparently there is a high proportion of private gun ownership amoung Paraguayans but it just doesn't seem that unsafe a country, and I suspect that the powers that be just like to make sure the people know who has the biggest guns. In Asuncion there was a demostration of about 15 people accompanied by an armoured police van complete with water canon...need I say more?

Twenty days and five countries...
Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Argenina (including an unscheduled stop in Jujuy) and now back to Chile... but tomorrow it's back to Bolivia...more soon.

Overheard on bus...
"Sorry, I bashed you in the Andesmar toilet"
Andesmar are a pan-Argentine bus company, all I wondered was whether to be "bashed in the Andesmar toilet" was code for something..?
Current SP´s:
To be kicked in the bollox - 5:1
An attempt to join "the meter high club" - evens

The Brazilian Pantanal

2006-07-03T17:59:00.000-03:00

Swimming with Pirahnas

The last hour of my time in Bolivia was spent beating off Brazlian husslers from Pantanal tour agencies. They used nasty little methods, (from deliberately false advice about crossing the border, constantly bombarding us with useless information and just obvious lies). And once over the border at Corumba, the hussling continued with the same guys turning up constantly, and sadly it started to become a crash course in how to despise a nation.

One of the ever present characters in Corumba is an old Greek fella who seems to be everywhere, and attaches himself to the tourists. He's one of those people who makes everything his business, thinks he's expert in everything and in reality know absolutely nothing about anything... a good example of this was when he asked if I had any foreign coins, all I had was a 5 Boliviano. Bear in mind that Bolivia is about 8kms away from Corumba and I know I've not been to Peru, our conversation continued when I handed him the 5 Boli's: "Ah Peruvian" he said. "No, Bolivian" I said. "No Peruvian" he assured me. I took the coin back.

Things weren't greatly helped by the Lonely Planet being woefully out of date, which reminds me, I'm now translating the LP as follows: if it ever says "...resembling a town from the old wild west" read "sh*thole" and if it ever says it's worth a stopover it probabably isn't. If you´re travelling in this area, see the recommendations below.

Into the depths of the Pantanal
However, having teamed up with a couple we met on the train we finally settled on a company, Quatros Cantos, that have a farm right out in the middle of the Pantanal. About twice as expensive as other agencies and apparently run by a guy called Wesley who I'm sure had ADD, I wasn't 100% convinced, but I went with Norwegian Chris' instinct and it paid off fantastically. We had an amazing guide, and great accommodation on the farm that was far further into the Panantal than the other companies went. Travelling up we saw so much I felt we'd already got our money's worth, seeing an array of birds and animals including endangered species such as red and blue macaws, giant anteaters and a black armadillo, as well as a huge amount of the more numerous wildlife like rheas, deer and caymen (crocodiles)... and yes, after a morning fishing for them, and having checked for cuts, I went swimming in a river infested with parahna.

The madness continued after the Pantanal: Moving south to Bonito we swam in crystal clear rivers, with spectactualar, huge fish, but not before we'd been treated to more of the same shambolic confusing missinformation when trying to book transport to the river. I'm really not sure if the guy was trying to be difficult or just a bit mad. The convesation went like this:
Agent: "How many of you are there?"
Us: "4"
Agent: "Fantastic! 4 is the perfect number. 3 is best because you can get 3 in a car, and 6 is the right number for a van, but 4 is good because you only need to find 2 more people. I think there are some Canadians who want to go, I'll ask my daughter. Pamela!Paamellllla!"
(Noises off)
Agent: "Fantastic! No they're going on another tour. So come here tomorrow at 8, OK?"
Us: Stunned silence
In the end we went in a van with one other guy call Eric.

It saddens me that I left Brazil (I'm not even going to describe the merry dance we were led getting across the border) with such a bad experience of the people. What was also dissappointing to listen to the Brazilians themselves bitching and moaning about each other, while they vyed for our attention and wallets, so in some way I don't feel unfair in saying, to the next Brazilians I meet: if I treat you as idiotic or with distrust blame your countrymen in the Matto Grosso Do Sul.

Although I was dissappointed that a rainy day partially obscured the amazing scenery as we tore through Paraguay's Parque Nacional Cerro Cora, I was just pleased to be leaving Brazil...

Recommendations:

If you´re coming up to the Pantanal on the "death train" from Bolivia, the Lonely Planet have the following things wrong:
Despite being described as a "collection of shacks" Quijarro is actually a fully functioning town with banks, restaurants, hotels and tour oporators. You don´t need to haggle with the taxi drivers, they charge a fix Bol$5 perperson to the border. And at the border the official exit duty is Bol$10 (well it´s official as anything is in Bolivia, but you get a sticker in your passport).
The husslers from the tour companies may tell you it´s easier to get off the train at Puerto Suarez or that you can´t go into Brazil if it´s after closing time for the Federal Police at the bus station in Corumba... we ignored all this and were fine (if the Federal Police is closed overnight in Corumba and go up in the morning).

Watch out, Brazilian taxis (in the whole department) are very expensive operating a fix minimum charge of Bra$10-20 per journey however short, so take advantage of the tour guides offers to give you free rides into town from the border. All you need to do is go look at their accomodation and then go somewhere else if you don´t want to stay there - Green Track only have dorms, so if you want a private room they´ll probably give you a lift somewhere else.

Hotel Saylette is a reasonable option with good breakfast, but watch out, our agreed room rate mysteriously went up by Bra$5 overnight, so make absolutely sure that they write the rate on your registration form.

If you´re taking a tour from Corumba you have a couple of options: there seems to be 3 main tour agencies opperating at the moment, Indiana, Green Track and Cuatro Cantos. If you´re on a budget they all offer tours around Bra$285 for 4 days. Indiana has had good reports and probably has the best accomodation, but is only just in the actual Pantanal, Green Track has only hammock accomodation but is a bit further in, and Cuatro Cantos has a very basic hammock only accomodation at their camp, but it´s much further in (take a mosquito net if you have one). And in the wet season the Pantanal road is impassable, so you have to go down the highway, meaning that with the first two options you don´t even travel across much of the Pantanal, and they actually send you the first bit on the bus. But if you can afford it, take the Bra$600-700 Quatro Cantos 5 day tour to the farm: you only spend a bit of one night in the "camp" before a dust ride to the farm but your chances of seeing more varied wildlife is much better and the accomodation is among the best I´ve had in LatAm so far.

If you go to Bonito you can book tours through Muito Bonito Hotel, but the guy that runs it is mad. There is a much better place for the same price round the corner, Caromancioa, which has an amazing breakfast.

If you´re crossing the border into Paraguay, go via Ponta Pora: Although you can (in theory) get an entry stamp to Paraguay, at Bela Vista and elsewhere, they wont give it unless you have a valid exit stamp from Brasil which you can only get in Ponta Pora or back in Corumba. In Ponta Pora you´ll never find the Paraguayan Migration office (open every day including Sundays) on your own, it´s way out of town, so get a cab... and if you arrive on a Saturday or Sunday the Brazilian Federal Police Migration office in town is theoretically closed, but there is someone at the main reception who will stamp you out (or in) if you ask nicely.

Samaipata & The Chiquitos Jesuit Missions

2006-06-22T20:13:00.000-03:00

Gods, myths & idols

[Pictures to follow when I can get to an USB port]

Once rested in Santa Cruz after the parque experience, we headed a little way south via crazy Bolivian converted Toyota taxi (again stuffed with passengers and puffed corn products) to Samaipata, location of a pre-columbian religious centre, perched atop a near by peak. And not far is Villegrande where Che spent 30 years buried under the airstrip, after his rather pitiful attempt to stir Bolivia to revolution. I remember his Bolivian Diaries reading more like "Carry On Che" so I didn´t feel it necessary to visit the sites of his demise (although I now think Che´s descriptive skills must be pretty good, as the countryside was very much as I imagined). Having completed something of a Che trail of my own accidental making, my recommendation to Che fans of a far more worthwhile pilgrimage, I think, would be to his childhood home in Alta Gracia in Cordoba, Argentina, where there is an excellent museum.

Missions Impractical:

It was then onto another Jesuit mission circuit: the Chiquitos missions in Santa Cruz region, and as if to wet the appetite by some kind of divine intervention The Mission had been on TV in Santa Cruz the week before! (And although I´d forgoten what a fantastic actor Ray McAnally was, turgid Jeremy Irons sent me to sleep before De Niro´s splashdown finale). However, the actual missions are an absolute bugger to get to, and I was left wondering whether it was worth it, with the long drawn out journies and relatively small amount of interest to see. The worst of the circuit´s towns is the last, San Jose, with oppressive heat that shuts the town up for most of the day, and dire hotels... and we got stuck there for 3 tedious days, thanks to the vagueries of the "Death Train", our exit route from the circuit. The first day it didn´t run; the second it stopped down the line from the station so we missed it (apparently we should have known that it stopped there because the there was a sign on the station apologising for the inconvenience due to the building work...it just didn´t mention what the inconvenience was... oh well); and on the third day a train derailed somewhere down the line. We finally got a slow train out at 2am the following morning.

I think these last few days may well have jaded my view, and certainly the missions, San Miguel and Santa Ana particularly, are tranquil, beautiful places. And in each we were lucky to enough to get a little more than expected to our visit: services, choral and violin practices and the like.

When two worlds collide:

Throughout this part of the Bolivia there are Mennonite communities and these uniformly dressed, conservative anabaptists are in and out of the towns, although they do seem to be a fairly insular bunch... I´ve got to admit there does seem to be some evidence of over crouding in the gene pool, and on occassion I found myself inadvertedly humming the "Dueling Banjos". However, the Menonnite man we met on the bus to San Jose was a great guy, if a little short on the whole sphere of reference thing: he´d lived in Bolivia for 31 years but didn´t speak much better Spanish than us, and hadn´t heard of Lake Titicaca. And we did have one of those "is it our use of language or the worlds we live in?" moments when Norwegian Chris was talking to him about what farming there was in Norway: she told him that her aunt worked with horses and the Mennonite guy asked "Oh, so she doesn´t have a tractor?" Nor do they appear to be without humour: one fella had a Tommy Hilfiger label stitched on to his overalls... I´m pretty certain Hilfiger hasn´t entered the Mennonite market yet.

Giant parrot news: I was delighted to discover that the giant bird phone boxes weren´t just in Camiri but all over the region, but best of all are the rampant jaguar ones to be found in San Ramon and San Ignacio.

Overheard in the street: Everytime you say that I think you´re saying "I´m just going to see if I can use their banjo".

If you´re ever in Santa Cruz: Give it a chance. It looks like an utter sh*thole arriving at the "bimodel" bus and train station, but the centre of town is great. Not yet in the guide books is Lorca, just by the Cathedral, a great cafe/bar/arts centre. And if you do get stuck at the dark and gloomy bimodal, try the cafes upstairs, they were staffed by really friendly people serving cheap good food when we were there; an the public toilets are fine (you even get a ticket for your Bol$1!)

Dispelling the myths:

So many travellers you bump into along the way tell you about the dreadful things that have heard have happend to someone they have met whilst travelling in Bolivia. I am pleased to say that throughout this side of the country we were the victims of no crime, had only very good experiences with the Bolivian authorities, and despite eating from marketstalls, roadside stalls, vendors on buses and trains, and a fair few back yard restaurants, suffered no sign of a dickie tummies (I put this down to clean hands, lemon juice and lots of hot sauce). I hope this will be our experience when we return to Bolivia in a few weeks time. But for now, it´s off into the depths of the Brazilian Pantanal, but I´m already looking forward to coming back to this beautiful country, with its wonderful people and exciting continued social changes.

Parque Ambue Ari

2006-06-12T18:03:00.001-03:00

Extreme sports covering as conservation

Over the last couple of weeks I had to keep reminding myself that the animals, birds and children at this animal sanctuary in the Bolivian jungle were better off than they otherwise would have been, and that very few people are doing any kind of conservation here. But I also felt that I was somehow being disloyal to my own principles, and honestly couldn´t wait to leave. Within the first day I felt the park was chaotic and wastefully disorganised, in the next few I decided the people running the park were misguided even if their hearts were in the right place, but by the end of my stay I was doubting even that. I refuse to accept the patronising "but it´s Bolivia" excuse that other people in the camp gave: widespread poverty and bad infrastructure may be huge disadvantages, but if anything it´s made the Bolivians a hugely ingenious and resourceful people.

Bolita - dig your own hole
I stayed only because I had made a promise to myself I would complete building a house for Bolita, an utterly enchanting baby Giant Anteater. But this was more because I simply could not stand that a 10 year old boy continue sharing a bed with her. This is an example of contradictory and strange situations that the park allows. They treat most of the animals as pets initially, while deciding how they should be re-introduced to the wild if they can: for Junior, one baby howler monkey, having spent months sleeping in the volunteers beds, it was determined he should no longer do so, and so he was forced into a cage barely bigger than himself at nights, until a gang of us quickly built a new home for him. One other wild monkey that had been encouraged to visit was attacked and killed by a wild cat who is also encouraged to visit. Iggy, a depressed but other wise well iguana, had his leg broken whilst in the park's care by a racoon type animal. And on the day I left they were off bringing 3 ocelots and a puma back from Santa Cruz...wait for it... apparently by bus!

But perhaps the most ridiculous situation is that volunteers, with no supervision or experience, are allowed to walk (yep, animals on leads like dogs) jaguars and pumas. It's just a serious accident waiting to happen: bites and scratches are a daily occurrence and serious wounds regular. And I can't believe it's great for the animals' well being either. Unfortunately it also means some f**kwits actually encourage the cats to jump them, so they can get trophy scars. Something tells me giving big cats a taste for attacking humans might backfire at some point...

The conditions in the camp were fairly dreadful with showers and toilets sub music festival standards. There is no science taking place and plans for the animals are, at best, fluffy. I heard they are starting to build "luxuary" cabañas for day trippers, which will turn the place into little more than a zoo. I'm sure that improved conditions for (paying) volunteers and developing a serious programme would encourage most volunteers to stay longer, and pay more.

Bored Free

On a lighter side, there are some things that you´re never quite sure how you´re going to tell your mother, but when I arrived I was told I would help look after a puma called Elsa. The cat was on heat, she mewed when I called her name, followed me around, took no interest in the two women who I was working with, and I spent most of a week rubbing her hind quarters, ...yes mum, your son went to South America and got a job pleasuring a big cat. Elsa, a pet from being a cub, has apparently always disliked being walked and after some kind of "incident" a year ago has not left her cage. But while she was in a man-loving mood it meant she was safely approachable in her cage to the point that she would nuzzle my face.

Juan Carlito's Way
Every now and then I'd have to stop and think: Barney, you're in the middle of the Bolivian jungle with puma... and you're being bossed around by Juan Carlos, a 15 year old. Juan Carlito is a great kid, full of ideas (some of them rubbish by the way), who wants to be a vet. He also had a healthy fear of the jungle, a few of us took turns to walk him the 1km to his cabaña at night after he got a bit worried about doing the trip alone having seen a wild jaguar one night... can you blame him? Quite frankly what I would have done if the cat had turned up again I don't know, but I'm not sure trying to blind it with the faint glow of my maglite would have done the trick.

With Bolita´s house built and occupied, I have retreated to Santa Cruz for a hot shower, decent food and comfortable bed... shear luxuary.

Bits & Pieces in Boliva

2006-05-20T21:16:00.000-03:00

Stuff and nonsense

I think I´m the first person to officially note that dogs make more noise at night over 3000ms above sea level. Other things that are odd at altitude: tea tastes terrible and my tinnitus is far more noticable. Something I didn´t know before, but Cactae grow in the middle of forests - or at least in the bit of jungley forest between Tarija and Yaquiba in Bolivia they do, and they´re HUGE! I thought they were desert loving plants but apparently not... and in Camiri the parrots are on the large side

Tarija smells wonderful at night. I think it´s the mix of Eucalyptus and Orange trees. On our last night Norwegian Chris got excited that there was a band that day (17th May - Norway´s Constitution day) , and although it was for something completely different we waved some homemade Norwegian flags all the same. (There have still only been two days while I´ve been in Bolivia that I haven´t seen a band, of some sort). This band included a section of very strange trumpet-like instruments, about 2 ms long with a leather horn at the end... they were unweildy and sounded pretty dreadful, so I´m not surprised they haven´t caught on elsewhere. After I realised I had hidden from view the bicycle that the drum major subsequently fell over, I felt it was time to leave town.

It took at 12 hour bumpy ride from Tarija to Yaquiba, including stops and road blocks, but we made it. We travelled by day (which seems to be an unusual event for Bolivian "long distance" buses). I´d been longing for a bit of lush greenery ever since I´d left Paraguay, and I got it... as we moved east the cloud came in and the hillsides turned from arid scrub to ridge after ridge of thick forest , with only the road and the pockets of cultivated land near the few villages along it making any break in the canopy.

Yaquiba is another border town and is the first place in Bolivia (having arrived after dark) where I have felt even vaguely ill at ease, so we jumped in a micro* (a converted right hand drive Toyota estate) packed with the driver, 3 other people, and a boot full of giant bags of puffed wheat and rice (coloured pink) and headed to Villamontes, (a town we couldn´t get directly from Tarija to because of a landslide). Along the highway (no, honest, it´s paved) we reached one particularly wide river, instead of there being a road bridge, the highway ended at the railway track and all the traffic just went along the railway lines, single file, and then the highway started again when we got to the other side. I love this country!

From Villamontes another micro to Camiri, a town surrounded by the forest and Bolivia's petroleum industry - which makes is sound awful, but it's a good stopover if only to have a go on the giant bird telephones... although they only go through to the emergency number at the moment, but don't bother ringing there a military base on the other side of the road, so I´m sure they'll help out if you need it.

Tomorrow on to Santa Cruz.

* A micro in Bolivia is a tini minivan or car, in Chile it is a local bus, which in Argentina is called a colectivo, but in Chile a colectivo is a taxi with a fixed route, which is sometimes called a remise in Argentina although that can sometimes just be a taxi or a mini cab...confused? I was.

Into The Badlands of Bolivia

2006-05-16T21:38:00.000-03:00

In a big country...

Through the north of Argentina and into Bolivia are a stretch of ravines and canyons that would have most physical geography teachers wetting themselves. The landscape is a series of massive chunks of the earth pushed and pulled in all directions, and eroded by hundreds of thousands of years of water and wind to create an utterly spectactular landscape. But having spent a couple of weeks travelling up through this barren and cold country is with some relief I´ve now started on the first steps towards the lower, jungley south-east of Bolivia.

First proper stop in Bolivia was Tupiza (yes, some enterprising fella has named his fast food joint Tu Pizza) a great little town somewhere close to where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid burst out of the doors all guns blazing and got battered by the Bolivian army. Then a rather bumpy ride over night to Tarija, a thousand meters lower and a lot warmer, thankfully.

Crime and Punishment

Everyone you meet travelling has a story about people being mugged or killed in Bolivia, and while it is incredibly poor and tourists are obvious targets for some nasty buggers, we didn´t get robbed the minute we crossed the border as we were beginning to think we might be. Thankfully the biggest bandit in the badlands I´ve come across so far was in a shop on the Argentinian side: she shoves her hands into your pockets and demands chocolates and caramels... she´s about three years old.

Later, a Candian girl staying in the same hostal at the border asked me, with some concern, "I saw you being led around by that Policeman! What did he want?" I told her I´d been arrested for exposing myself to goats, again, although in fact he was simply helping find out if there was a bus to Tarija (big traumas as the buses have been on strike for weeks). So far the cops have been great, and Norwegian Chris (my current travelling partner) is a good distraction as they always ask lots of questions like "Is it cold in Norway?".

Fanfares and songs

...and the most I´ve seen of the army is in the bands that have been accompanying the various parades, so far one in every town (Villazon - the border - a school parade, Tupiza celebrating the anniversary of the university, Tarija a saints day). Great music and lot of people dressed as angels and devils, and the such like, chasing eachother around.

Halfway up a mountain between Tupiza and Tarija the bus pulled aside for a comfort break, and amoungst the splashing on the hillside of a bus load of passengers finding relief, a wonderful but ghostly sound rose out of the valley below. At first I thought it was strange sounding goat bells, but I was reliably informed it is was a frog night song.

Top tip if you are in this part of the world: Stay on the bus. A lot of the buses run overnight, and arrive at daft times, like 4.30 am, where no hostal you´d want to stay at is open for business. If it´s the end of the line, ask the bus driver if you can stay until a more reasonable hour. We did and he locked us in with our bags so we could get a bit more kip. Safer than sitting around with the tricksters and husslers in the bus terminal.

Riding Shotgun

Think twice about getting front row seats on the bus. Recently I have had a couple: In Argentina I witnessed so much road-kill carnage it quite put me off my plastic sandwich, while in Bolivia being able to "see" the driver throwing the night bus around mountain hairpin bends, whilst driving through blinding clouds of dust, ascattle trucks raced towards us in the other direction had me cletching every cheek imaginable.

Tucuman, Salta and the road north

2006-05-10T12:56:00.000-03:00

Next stop Bolivia!

If the buses gave frequent flyer benefits I´d be in for a bag load... from Asunción I travelled back into Argentina, south to Resistencia to get a connection to Tucuman, where it was raining, so I got on another bus down south Mendoza, so I could spend my birthday in one of my favourite cities. Add that to the mamouth trek to Asunción in the first place and I spent 3 out of 5 nights and a total of 52 hrs on buses!

I´d been very careful to plan arriving back in Tucuman on a Monday, because I´ve arrived in cities on Sundays and they are always dead, only to discover it was a bank holiday so it was even quieter than the quietest Sunday! Anyway, it´s not a particularly lovely city, so I´ve been hopping, skipping and jumping north.

Throughout the little towns on the way my particular style of spanish has been coming in more and more handy, although I was pleased to find in one restaurant a kind of english menu reader, but it wasn´t very accurate: "A local animal a bit like rabbit" turned out to be goat.

Meanwhile this hurried update will have to surfice as I have meet a bus for the border... if northern Argentina is anything to judge by, internet connections and the possibilities to upload picutures may be a bit limited for a while, but keep watching this space.

Paraguay

2006-04-30T16:47:00.000-03:00

...why (again)

Another backwater of South America and another place I know I must come back to.

In fact, I just took a swift visit to Asunción, the capital, which I had been told was a bit boring...and in truth if you arrive on a Sunday, like we did, it's pretty dead, and once you've seen the sites, there isn't a whole lot more to do in the traditional tourist sense of the word. So we jumped on buses and headed to different parts of the city and out of town, along highways with buses spewing out exhaust and getting jammed up in the traffic. In all the big cities I visited so far street sellers jump on the busses hawking all sorts of stuff, but here it's utterly mekty... at one point there was a procession out numbering the passengers selling (all for around a 1000 gurarni each - about 10p) the following:

1 x icecream (strawberry) - rather melty
2 x apples
1 x bunch of bananas
1 x cup of coke (not the glass bottle because they´re returnable)
1 x sprite or coke (plastic bottle) for G$2000
300 x cotton buds
1 x pack of thread and needles
2 x pairs of socks for G$2000
1 x handbook on writing and letter on computer for G$5000
1 x icecream (chocolate) - very melty
1 x bath towel for G$5000
more apples and bananas
and I dare say a few other things I've forgotten

One great place that I have to go back to explore properly, I only saw from the bus, is the market quarter: block after block of gallerias of shops and stalls selling everything a city like Asunción needs. Thankfully I resisted the urge to jump off the bus, the exchange student I had contacted to find out a bit more about the city told me later, it's one place you really need to go without a single valuable item on you, just to be careful.

...and then it was time to get my bus across the border to Argentina, but now I'm just trying to work out just when I will get back there...

Inter-country context:
Cost of using the public lavatory in a bus station:

Chile (Púcon): Ch$150 - 16p
Argentina (Cordoba): Ar$1 - 18p
Argentina (Buenas Aries): Tip only
Uruguay (Montevideo): Tip only
Paraguay (Asunción): G$1000 - 9p
Paraguay (anywhere else): what toilet? just do it behind the nearest wall

Uruguay

2006-04-30T15:00:00.000-03:00

...why?

Uruguay is a bit of a backwater as far as South America is concerned, as, on the surface it´s fairly dull: uniformly flat - the largest "mountain" is only 423 ms high, that´s about 3.5 times the height of Highgate Hill - and the majority of the country has been cleared for pasture or farm land, punctuated by the odd cluster of palms or small plantation of firs.

From a touristic point of view the only places thought to be worth visiting are along the Rio Plata or the Atlantic coast, and you have to wonder what lurks in the interior: there´s a town called Trienta y Tres (33) simply because it´s on the 33rd parallel, even the most dull towns usually warrant a saint's name rather than just a grid reference.
However, there´s so much more.

Colonia

A short ferry ride from Buenos Aires, Colonia is Uruguay´s touristic highlight, a, for the most part, intact colonial fortress town, interlaced with over-photograhed cobbled streets and ancient houses...so I took a picture of the sewage works, which is probably less frequently shown than most sights. On the last night the heavens opened spectacularly, so I headed to the capital the next morning. (Montevideo is the third capital I have visited in a row where I have had to glue my glasses back together).

Montevideo - Good Friday, Bad Weather

Since I saw The Battle of The River Plate I have had some romantic notion of visiting the city and sitting purched on crates watching for a ship to make a break for the open sea, just like the reporter in the movie... Although I had to make do with standing on end of the harbour wall amongst a gang of crab fishermen on a cloudy day it was a great feeling being in the city.

While the guide books mention that there's little of the colonial architecture left to see, they fail to mention that you can see in the architecture times of growth and prosperity, like layers of overground archaeology. Hidden amoungst the highrise blocks of the 70´s are spectacular examples of turn of the century, between the wars and post-war buildings. Why some bright spark hasn´t come up with running architectural tours to Montevideo is beyond me.

...or for that matter throughout the country. The coast is dotted with small towns where no two buildings seem to be the same, despite the standard single story box like construction. In Argentina and Chile you so often see out of town developements of row upon row of identical houses, but for whatever reason not here.

The Atlantic Coast

I left Montevideo to escape the rain only to find myself in an utterly dreary Punta Del Este over the Easter Weekend. It was here that I decided that it is almost impossible to eat anything in Uruguay without it being covered in mekty* amounts of cheese, some more cheese, and in case you feel like a bit more, more cheese.

* Mekty is a mispelt and misused Norwegian word I've decided to introduce to the English language to mean overpowering/over-the-top, as in "That shirt is well mekty man". In reality it´s spelt "mektig" and means overwhelmingly sweet. Before travelling to Latin America the only Norwegians I had ever met were A-ha, when I worked at Warners, but since I´ve been here I´ve met 7.

I moved onwards to Punta Del Diablo which is an amazing little town that reminds of a festival site, and where I met two extremely different people. Firstly Nigel, who I would have writen-off as an imbacile if it weren´t for the fact that anyone who gets from Mexico City to Montevideo on a bicycle that looks like it was found in a skip deserves credit of some sort. However I think he must have been kicked in the head by a horse when he was in his early teens as he is the only person I have met who has ever, in all seriousness, said "come the revolution you´ll be the first up against the wall" when relating the tale of one of his run-ins with various authority figures. I did try to suggest that perhaps, however flawed they may be, an attempt a some kind of "truth and reconciliation" program would be better in the event of sweeping social change, rather than wholesale slaughter of the oppressors, but he seemed unconvinced. That and the fact he looked like Rick Parfitt from Status Quo, and wore hot-pants that would make Kylie blush, and you might understand why I was reasonably relieved when he left the day after I arrived.

The second was Ernesto. If memory serves me well, Hemingway wrote The Old Man and The Sea in Cuba, but you could imagine him sitting in Ernesto's "restaurant" guzzling whatever booze was on hand. Ernesto must think of himself as a bit of a Hemingway character having named his restaurant "El Viejo y La Mar". However I seem to remember Ernest could be an utter w**nker at times, while Ernesto showed nothing but the utterly open and generous character, shared by all the Uruguayans I met, to myself and my travelling budy for that part of my trip, Gromit (who always carried an inexhaustable stash of crackers, hence the nickname).
When the weather turned we made a move back to Montevideo and then onwards to Paraguay. I left knowing that someday I will come back to explore the coast more thoroughly, and perhaps even 33 and the rest of this great little country.

Pythons...

Obviously having been so close to the border, it wouldn't do not to pop over to Brazil ("Hello Mrs Sartre how's your Jean-Paul"... see the Iguazú entry below). We caused utter chaos at the border control, having got ourselves stamped out of the country, Gromit and I went to Choy (Uruguay) to get a bus to Choí (Brazil) only to find out that actually the border is the mainstreet and you don´t need to get stamped out. The imigration man got as close to "slightly vexed" as any Uruguan probably ever does, when two hours and an all-you-can-eat lunch in Brazilian Choí, we presented ourselves back at the border post requesting a new entry stamp. Actually this was all a bit of ruse to sort out our rather messy passports: Gromit needed to swap from Aussie to British to avoid visas for entry into Paraguay and Brazil, and so I took the opportunity to straighted up the stamps that said I´d entered Uruguay a month before the Argentinan stamp said I had left Argentina, and, in reality, the day before I had.

Something to think about if you visit:
Uruguay has a reputation for being cheap but actually compared to Argentina it is expensive, although this is obviously based on tourist prices in tourist areas.
Context:
The minimum wage is 6 Uruguayan Pesos per hour (about 15p), the teacher I met did two jobs and took home about Ur$5,000 per month. In Punta Del Este a Vodka Tonic costs Ur$300, a hostel in Montevideo is Ur$275 per night. Meals on the whole came in around Ur$300 per head, including the cheese.

Uruguay and Paraguay

2006-04-24T12:29:00.000-03:00

The bits between Argentina and Brazil

Sadly these two countries get mostly ignored by the world and tourists too, in part due to the richness of their neighbours. In fact for the most part all that any one can tell you about Uruguay is that they won the first World Cup, and as for Paraguay is only that it´s somewhere in South America. However, despite the relative poverty of these two countries, they are both rich in and beautiful in their own ways.

Any way, here´s a quick update on me in them, although I shall write more about them, what I´ve been upto and post some images, in a couple of days time.

For the last week or two I have been jumping from place to place, pushed around a bit by the very changable weather in autumnal Uruguay, so I´ve moved further north for a short stay in Asunción, Paraguay´s captial.

Some bits about Uruguay:

A wonderful country and lovely people, but even a the Uruguan girl that worked in tourism I met in Punta Del Este told me there was nothing to see in the middle of the country, so I travelled up and down the Atlantic coast, between Montevideo to Chuy.

A wet Easter weekend in a relatively deserted Punta Del Este made it the fluff dissappointments are made of, but the deserted, blustery but sunny Punta Del Diablo is the stuff of dreams, and one of the most wonderfully chilled places I have been lucky enough to have been in my life. Although finding a dead seal and masses of dead beetles washed up on the otherwise deserted beach wasn´t much fun.
Top tip: If you´re in Punta Del Diablo ever, go to El Viejo y La Mar restaurant, and say hi to Ernesto and Pampita (his dog) from me.

Asunción, Paraguay

I arrived overnight from Montevideo yesterday morning. Sundays in Latin America are a bad time to arrive in any town, they are always very quiet, but as the heat of the day rose it became all but deserted. And whoever said Montevideo was the most laid back capital of South America hadn´t been to Asunción on a Sunday. However this morning things picked up, although it wouldn´t be quite fair to say there was a "rush hour", it was more of a "slightly animated ten minutes". However heading out of the city on the exhaust belching buses this afternoon was anything but sedate. That makes it sound like a terrible place, but ignore that and what other people might say, it´s a really great city, one that I feel safe and comfortable in.

A note on the safety. It is a very safe city. I have however noticed a hierachy in security: If you´re a door man on a cafe-bar you might get a shirt that says "security" on it, if you´re a security guard you have a nightstick, a knife and a pistol, if you´re in the police you have an automatic weapon of some sort and if you´re in the military you get a huge canon type thing... your safety is perhaps assured on the most part there as a tourist or richer citizen, but it unnerved me that the street kids run away when the police cars pass. The poverty is obvious here, there is a shanty town directly opposite the government buildings.

If you come here go to the post office - not an obvious tourist attraction, but go just for a look - it´s very old fashioned in a wonderfully decaying building.

In other news...
Right now I´m just trying to work out if my toes are tanned or if it´s just ground in dirt.

More about all sorts in a couple of days...

Iguazú or Iguaçu

2006-04-13T16:01:00.000-03:00

Indescribable amounts of water however you spell it

I was told the falls at Iguazù are the 12th most amazing thing in the world, with stuff like the Grand Canyon up at the top. I don´t know what the other 10 are but they´re impressive, and I can´t really think how else to put it. The different spellings depend on whether you´re in Argentina or Brazil, either way the falls are amazing... But if you come to the falls I recommend going to the Brazilian side first and then the Argentinian the next day.

It was a bit of strange feeling knowing that I was just popping over to Brazil after lunch and was back for tea. "Where are you off to dear?, "Oh just popping over to Brazil...", sounds like something out of a Monty Python sketch, "Good luck, dear, and don´t forget to bring back some nuts. We´ve got that nice Mr Sartre coming round for dinner..." - I have no idea if Jean Paul Sartre went to Iguazú but I reckon he´d have been impressed too.

San Ignacio and the route back south

I seem to have swapped visiting a town and seeing a beauty contest for visiting a town and seeing a Jesuit ruin. Sounds dull but the ruins at San Ignacio are breath taking - I actually involuntarily said "wow" when I saw them. You could wander around for ages amoungst them. But don´t do as I did and stay in the town over night... not a lot going on.

If you are in the area go to Posadas, a fantastic bustling city with views over the Parana to Paraguay, and an easy base to visit a whole handful of ruined Jesuits. I only wished I´d stayed longer, but I caught another bus down to another fabulous town, Rosario, birth place of Che Guevara (although the don´t make much fuss about it and building is doesn´t even have a plaque or anything like that on it).

Rosario is a fantastic city, and Lonely Planet actually turned up trumps for a change: The Savoy Hotel, is a vast rambling hotel that must have really been something at its height. Either by luck or judgement a vast amount of original features are still intact, along with furniture gathered over the decades and never updated.

I returned to Buenos Aires to find the gloomy weather I had escaped from by going up north had finally cleared, so I took the boat across the Rio Plata to Uruguay...

Sunday in Buenos Aires

2006-04-03T18:35:00.000-03:00

San Telmo´s Fire

The first proper day of sunshine for some days on Saturday ensured that a good chunk of the tourists crouding into the streets of San Telmo district for the Sunday Antiques Fair were sporting varying shades of red under the little-bit-too-late coats of sun block. Amongst the antiques and bric-a-brac is some truly dreadful art and jewellry that would have Pat Butcher salivating, all with relatively hefty price tags vying to get a share of the tourist dolars - and why not? (See "the most ignorant comment of the day" below). Even the price of empanadas rises on Sundays!!

And this is not a market for locals, other than the stall holders and the swarms of tango dancers and musicians. In the restaurants meals are constantly interrupted by less than great singers regurgitating old ballads before passing a hat around. Several try to emulate Carlos Gardell - much loved tango crooner of the porteños - both in style and looks. Although I witnessed one very disgruntled artist wander off after one spectator commented, a little too loudly, "That looks nothing like Bing Crosby!"

Most ignorant comment of the day: "Why is it that it seems once they get to a certain age they sell everything they have?" from the fellow that is obviously completely unaware of the 2002 economic meltdown. I came across another reminder down town: a desserted "Harrods" department store with nothing but some very dead palms to be seen through the windows.

The prize for worst tourist hook: Goes to the guy that collects comments from tourists in a notebook, before pitching to sell them tarrot cards. Amongst the "I love BA" messages there was one he couldn't read so he asked me to translate it... I told him that showing a message that read "He's a thieving pikey git" wasn't going to encourage business.

The prize for the strangest thing on sale: Goes to a huge Warhol-esque screen print of Gary "what you talking 'bout Willis" Coleman...why?

The following weekend saw the commerative parades and marches for the 30th anniversary of the military coup. The city felt very different, (even though the authorities did their best for it not to inconvenience the tourists: you could still take a city tour around the Plaza de Mayo, amongst the bonfires of tires and corn husks). This is the last year that the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo will hold their weekly silent protests.

Chascomus - a town with an instantly forgetable name
..no honestly, I couldn't remember what it was called even when I got there.

After three weeks in the city, and a not very statisfying spanish course under my belt, I felt the need to get out to the countryside... a pin in the map later and I arrived at the lakeside resort of the Argentinian middle classes, Cahascomus. Pristine parks, clean children, happy dogs and slow moving traffic, it is a living breathing Pleasantville, unrushed in it's out of season traquility - and a great place to lie down and stare at the sky through trees and do absolutely nothing...

I stayed in a hillarious hotel run by batty old ladies, who would burp in the corridor, (I'm sure solely for the acoustic effect), and discuss whether they should wake me up for breakfast outside my door before retreating to the front desk to telephone through:
Me: Hello?
Old lady: Are you coming for breakfast?
Me: No, it's really not necessary, thank you.
Old lady: But you ought to have something.
Me: I'm fine, honestly.
Old lady: Not even a little..?
Me: Everything's fine, please, it's really not necessary
Old lady to other old lady: He says he doesn't want anything.
Other old lady: Oh...not even a little? He ought to have something.
Old lady to other old lady: No, he says he's fine.
...this went on for quite a bit.

The old ladies have a little old dog that yaps very excitedly whenever they unfurl a very noisey awning... for the life of me, when I first heard this, I was convinced they were putting the dog, live, through the gigantic bacon slicer they have on the restaurant counter.

I trundled back to BA on the train. The trains have been left behind and almost forgotted because of the numerous road alternatives. Many towns have a station but no service and most no tracks. We passed corals of cattle waiting to go to the slaughter houses, and once thriving towns that were now nothing more than abandoned sidings with dilapedated carriages now used as housing. There were prosperous towns too that benefited from proximity to a road or industry, or like Chascomus survived from increased local tourism since the devalution as many of the upper/middle classes stay at home rather than holidaying in the US and Europe.

Overheard in the street: "What do you mean, you accidentally strapped bricks to your arse and sat on my glasses?"

Buenos Aires

2006-03-17T16:02:00.000-03:00

"In London you have the Blues, in Buenos Aires we have the Tango"

Last night I found myself crammed into a tiny bar somewhere out to the west of town, off the usual tourist-beaten track with a room full of Porteños just a couple of other "extranjeros" listening to a couple of old guys singing tango songs - which sounds fairly dreadful but was an incredible night out. The whole experience was enhanced by the wonderfully friendly local crowd.

There were the inevitable digs about "The Hand of God" and a more serious moment when, in relative good humour, the Falklands War came up in converstaion. I´ve found it´s generally easier just to act ignorant in both situations!

Today it has been chucking down with rain and I have retreated into the hostel with a stack of alfajores (very chocolatey things), while they fumigate the rooms for bed bugs, hmmm....

Cordoba

2006-03-15T14:51:00.000-03:00

Campo 1 : Ciudad 0

Cordoba, the province, is beautiful... the city however I found a bit so-so. To be honest I didn´t give it much time, I spent a day wandering round the various sites, and an evening out, at the bar-club which left me less than enthusiastic about the well reputed nightlife of this student town, despite the 8 pesos entry which included a litre of beer... we trundled around dwarfed by the oversized buckets.

Perhaps I didn´t really get to grips with the city having travelled over night still carrying the hangover I inflicted on myself in Mendoza for a good 24 hours or so. So, probably not in the best shape to take on the world. That said before I left Mendoza I managed to attend a presentation on a cartoneros collective in Sao Paulo at the university... no, not by accident. I met the woman who gave the lecture on the trek up Aconcagua and wanted to find out more. The cartoneros (the impoverished people who eek a living from sorting through South America´s rubbish bins to gleen anything recyclable), have no official standing, representation, working rights or welfare provision, and seen all but ignored by the better off sections of the general population, as is their potentional as an economic force. Hopefully the small scale project in Sao Paulo will bring some recognition and benefits that can be spread around the rest of the continent.

From Cordoba I travelled out of the city and visited a number of ancient Jesuit estancias with varying degrees of success: one, (Santa Catalina), which promised to b the best, but also the most difficult to get to, had been closed by the owner for the day, because he had some mates round. I also saw Che Guevara´s childhood home. I am disappointed to tell you I was prevented by the staff from taking a photograph of a sign hanging above the toilet in the house, that read ¨Please don´t use this, it´s part of the museum¨... I also realised this meant you couldn´t sit in a place where you could say with absolute certaintly Che had, either.

Another overnight trip and I find myself in Buenos Aires, and once more in the company of Poe and Tone - horrah!

Aconcagua!

2006-03-08T16:37:00.000-03:00

Try saying that after a couple Frenets & coke!

I should show you a picture of me heroically standing next to a glacier, at the base of the mountain at 4200 meters, whilst surrounded by devastatingly stark landscape. But instead here´s one of me dancing on what passed for a table in the camp kitchen tent after a few too many of said Frenet´s - another drink the Argentinians seemed to be vaguely obsessed by.

If you´re ever in this part of the world...
It´s sooo worth the easy trek, but when you think you´ve packed, stick in another layer... it was so cold (-3 at7 am, so God only knows what it was in the night).

Oh OK...here´s a small one of the heroic shot too.

Odd thing I noticed:
You know people sell posters outside rock concerts... well there´s a guy outside the hospital selling posters with diagrams of the human body on it!

Pass the pants:
The pair of my brothers boxer shorts that I acquired in my laundry when I was in New York have dissappeared in a laundry in Mendoza. If you find them please give them a good home. They´re easily identifiable: blue with "M Voss" and "Thursday" written inside the waist band

Odd bits of sentances you hear in the street:
American girl: "...I accidentally got into bed with this little boy...". I have no idea when this happened because she sleeps in the bunk above me in the hostel, and I´m sure she was already in her bed by the time I got to mine this morning!

The story so far

2006-03-03T14:01:00.000-03:00

Where the hell have I been?...A quick summary

Easter Island - amazing big heads:

It´s a very strange, spiritual place that has an atmosphere you find very rarely and is impossible to describe. Thankfully it isn´t too over commericalised, except for overly long organised tours which accompanied with endless uncoroberated speculation about the who-what-why of it all. Instead I took an unofficial tour, with an unofficial guide: a french man who just said "I don´t know but no one does" a lot whenever I asked him questions.
(photo courtesy of Tone and Poe)

Jerome moved to the island after he met his wife, an islander, whilst on leave from the French Army stationed in Tahiti - she was the airstewardess on the areoplane over. That sounds quite romantic but then he told us that the guy he flew out with married her sister, and then his brother married another islander... and then you just start thinking it smacks of some strange kind of colonisation.

If you ever come to this part of the world...
...you only need a few days really. I had 6 days there which was a great relaxing time for me, but I´ve met people who have booked two or four weeks there, and you´d really run out of stuff to do, unless you try to build a moai yourself I suppose.

Valporaiso - Pablo and Pisco

This is one of the places a guidebook can never do justice to. Some people hate it, I love it.
Up the road is Viña Del Mar, Marbella 6000 miles out of place, and if Viña is the flamboyant, rich nephew, Valporaiso is the old maiden aunt: colourful, excentric and sometimes a bit smelly.
On the flat of the "Plan" the grid of streets buzz with the port traffic and hubub of urban life, while the old town is a cluster of multicoloured corregated iron buildings, stacked on top of each other up the hillside, where you either have to hike up the winding streets and alleys or take ancient finiculars that trundle up and down the steep slopes. I stayed in a great hostel, Casa Aventura. An easy walk to various fabulous cafes and bars, awash with Pisco Sours.

Pablo Neruda (Chile´s beloved poet) loved this area also and built two houses, on in Valporaiso and one an hour away at Isla Negra. On the way back I noticed a burger bar call McCola - all the world´s evils into one outlet - and a shop with a sign outside that just said "Hay cosas" ("There´s things" - there´s also a magazine here call Cosas, a bit like Hello, but they didn´t sell it).

Santiago - Spanish learning curve

The homestay was odd. Uka the Bruka, my landlady, had a stream of odd people wandering in and out and seemed more interested in practising her English than helping me practice my Spanish. However the school was great, with wonderful staff and fellow students alike. My Spanish has deffinately improved, but there is an awful lot more work to be done!

In the weekend in the middle of my course we trundled off to La Sorena and the Elqui Valley. This area is known for is amazingly clear skies as well as the national drink, Pisco. We visited an observatory and looked at the stars. From there you can even see the Magellen clouds, our nearest galaxies, without the aid of telescope... it was nothing less than awesom. The weekend also included many drinking games involving pisco and my room mate, Brad, waking me up a 5.30am for a couple of piscolas... it would have been rude not to have joined him.

Santiago is a fabulous city, and while many people that visited found plenty not to like about it, (it is huge and rambling, has it´s fair share of social problems and it´s nasty tourist areas, and a lot of smog), coming from a big city I found it very comfortable and felt very at home there.

Púcon - Just call me fat face:

Climbed a volcano, went fishing for trout (and caught some) - sorry to any angling enthusiasts but I´m not really sure what all the fuss is about - stayed on a farm with cows, pigs, ducks, sheep and all sorts wandering around, and washed my clothes in the stream: a rural delight...

...except I got an infection in my mouth which meant I got a hugely swollen left side of my face, so I also got to experience the Chilean medical service at first hand! Was slightly discouraged when I returned from hospital and the people at the farm generally agreed that I should have gone to Temulco German clinic instead of putting my faith in the good doctors of Púcon, that said I´m all fixed now.

If you ever come to this part of the world...
...stay at Kila Leufu just outside Carrawahue: absolutely idyllic

Matt - I can´t lose

I can´t mention Santiago and Pucon without mentioning Matt, who lived in the bruka´s house and travelled south with me too. A really great guy, all 7 ft of him, who only caused a problem when we tried to climb the volcano for the first time: We had to cancel because they didn´t have boots big enough for him!! His favourite phrase seemed to be "I can´t lose", which roughly translates as "I don´t mind what we do", which made such easy travelling.

Puerto Varas - Reina de Rosas

If you ever come to this part of the world...
...stay in Puerto Varas, Puerto Montt is horrible!
It´s as easier a place to visit all the local stuff and plan onward journeys

Puerto Varas is a prettty little town, with amazing view of Volcan Orsorno, and a huge casino and another one being built up the hill. And this year is was the Region´s captial of tourism, which basically meant there was lots of things going on in the town for the summer: concerts, firework displays, and one evening the final of the Reina de Rosas, the local beauty competition.
The whole thing was very odd, all of the six finalist seem to win some sort of prizes, were then smothered in kisses from a rather rancid looking man and weighed down with vast bunches of flowers... the eventual winner gave a tearful speach almost to the extent of mimicking Paltrow´s "and I´d like to thank my dead cousins" Oscar acceptance speach. I´m not really sure what she excelled at to win, but my hopes weren´t high for it being anything too challenging: the teenage girl in front of me said "I can spell her name better than she can". Ah well so much for feminism in Chile at the moment.

Puerto Varas was also a deciding point for me... I spent a day being drenched in a very rainy Chiloe, to the extent that I just got on the bus back to Puerto Montt - I asked a woman what the weather was going to be like for the next day: I didn´t catch everything she said through her laughter but I got "mañana" (tomorrow) and "peor" (worse) and that made my mind up. I also decided that maybe I´d missed the best of the weather for heading further south and made arrangements to head over the border to Bariloche, Argentina!

Argentina!

2006-03-01T14:00:00.000-03:00

Bariloche - I left my boots in Bariloche:

I arrived late at night in the rain that had followed me across the border. The hostel I was going to stay at was full but the receptionist kindly said I could doss down on the sofa... not that I needed it, instead I went to Pacha Bariloche for the night, by the time I got back my bed was ready!

I had a very "I´m Sparticus" moment whilst in Bariloche: a new (English) couple arrived at the hostel, while I was mouching around one morning. The conversation went something like this:
Me > Hello!
Him > Hello, I´m Barney
Me > What?
Him > Barney
Me > Yes
Him > What?
Me > I´m Barney
...how we laughed...
But it really was very weird. I´ve only ever met one other Barney before and here we were two English Barney´s in Argentina in the same town, hostel, dormitory. Weirder still was that that morning an American girl called Bonnie had left the hostel... we´d also had a vaguely similar conversation, as in her Montana drawl Bonnie sounded just like Barney, as she commented "You say your name like I say mine!"

After a few bits of scrambling around Bariloche, I realised my boots were just about done for trekking (not much grip, and gaffer tape and superglue keeping at crack in the toe at bay). So I left them with the hostel with instructions for them to go to a charity, and being the fabulous hippies they are I´m sure they did.

I didn´t really plan very well, which meant time and inclination, I must admit, worked against furhter travel plans for the South. But sadly, this meant I left Poe (Finnish) and Tone (Norwegian) in Bariloche as well. They are a lovely couple I originally met in Puerto Varas, and I miss them. So, as they headed south I headed north, with promises to try and catch up somewhere else along the line, if not in LatAm then back in the UK.

Mendoza - Wine and women, not much song

In Mendoza the fountains are running pink (literally - they´ve coloured the water pink) as the town is in the throws of Vindimia, the wine harvest festival, the highlight of which is the choosing of the new Queen - I don´t want you to think I´m just on a tour of tacky beauty parades, it´s just coincidence, honest.

Here the contestants are paraded about on floats. Each float has a guy on it with a special stick for lifting up the low slung telephone wires so that the float can get under. Last night one guy misjudged a set of wires, the stick slipped and he gave the queen on his float a glancing blow, thankfully she kept her ballance and her dignaty...just. The contestants throw flyers and sweets from the floats as they pass, someone told me they threw watermelons, which I can´t believe - you´d kill someone. However I did see one throw a carton wine (about 2 pesos at any good supermarket) into the croud...if someone doesn´t catch it the carton explodes on impact covering all the spectators in close proximity with plonk.

I also took a flying visit upto Valle de la Luna, a spectacular Triassic period landscape. Apparently this is the only area where the range of Triassic layers are exposed on the earth surface in one place, and they also found the oldest dinosaur fosil yet discovered. Quite spectacular.

I travelled up from my hostel in San Juan with the hostel owner and a couple of people who worked at the hostel, drinking mate (local herbal tea Argentinians are obsessed by) and telling dirty jokes on the way. It did my Spanish a world of good. And the hostel owner offered me a job! Well, accommodation in exchange for work - but Frankly San Juan is the Coventry of Argentina, having been decimated by an earthquake in the 1940´s, so that was an easy decision.

Tomorrow I will taking off on a three day trek up a chunk of Aconcagua. Apparently it´s "one the seven" mountains of mythical status for climbers - I hope for my sake the other six also include Highgate Hill and Angel station when the escalators aren´t working.