Uyuni is a hub for stopping or booking for salt flat tours. Our group and the second group I told you about all went to the same hostel as it was recommended to us by their guide. Me and four from the fantastic five group went out for dinner. After we ordered Jay and the two muskateers arrived in the same restaurant. Pants. It didn´t sway the mood though, we had such a good time. I felt so lucky to be on that table and not the other. The names of the group are Eleanor (the trainee nurse), and Johnny - both from Ireland, and Diana - UK and Liam - Irish. El and Johnny had been together since teenage years on and off and are finally together forever, we think. Diana and Liam met when volunteering abroad and have been a couple for a year and a half, visiting eachother once a month for a long weekend, they are so gonna be together forever, if you saw them you´d understand. All lovely open minded, interesting people. The fifth is Ben, who didn´t come out for food this night but we´d been bumping into eachother all over the place today (very small town) and all of us went to buy our bus tickets together. The bus station was not a station, it was a road where buses park and lots of ticket offices are stationed along the side.
We turned up in the morning for our bus to Potosi because we were all going in the same direction. There were two buses next to eachother, we thought the good big bus was ours but it wasn´t. Ours was the dodgy, broken and taped back together windowed old bus. Jay, Eddie and Terry laughed as they got on the good bus. We laughed that we were getting the experience of Bolivia that we wanted. Then I noted that the size of the wheels on their big bus were the same size as the ones on ours and wasn´t sure which was safer after all. Here comes the dangerous road on mountains edges. You´ll have to bear with me on this story.
Tuesday 23 September 2008
Incredible
The views were spectacular on this route, we went to Laguna Amarilla, Laguna Celeste, Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa, Laguna Colorado, Laguna Cañapa, Valles de Rocas, Alota, Avaroa, San Juan, Colchani, Solar de Uyuni, and finally to the Uyuni ghost trains that have been abandoned.
All I have to say is, do it. Explaining the views isn´t enough. I´ll explain the salt hotel though. Apparently our hotel had been picked up piece by peice and moved to it´s spot. It really was made of saltm I lick a wall. I bet hundreds of people have licked that wall before me but I needed to know.
On this tour we came across small towns in the middle of nowhere that rely on tourism. They are expecting our cars, I guess, a certain amount of times a day. Each store or outdoor market sells the same things. After going to a few, you buy something just because you can imagine that they don´t sell much at all. This may truelly mean that they sell a fair bit. They never hassle you to buy something.
There was a ghost town of crumbled ruins. The people who lived there felt that it was haunted so they all moved away. The guy whose name I just remembered, Terrence, really needed a number two. He couldn´t wait for ten minutes to get to the next inhabitated town so he found a quiet spot, shat, and covered it with rocks. Then told everyone. Charming.
Everything morning we needed to get up in the early hours of the morning, usually between 5am and 6am. The reason to get up early was to catch the sunrise or because we had a long day of driving ahead of us. This suited me, I woke up before the alarm every day anyway. So did Ben from the other group so we´d always look at eachother with groggy eyes and nodd - yep, we´re the first up again. I don´t know about him, but I always ended up napping in the car, which infuriated Jay a bit, I should have been talking. He says, if it wasn´t for me talking all the time what would you all do? When my eyes were shut I could still hear him. Luckily I was tired enough to ignore him and listen to my spanish music for practice. A couple of times Terry and Jay blew up and argued. Terry would also change personality when Jay was around and pretend not to like me, then be nice when he disappeared again. I wondered how old they really were. My tolerence of Jay had abandoned me with lack of sleep, so I just kept myself to myself and enjoyed any time I had with the other group. At least Eddie was ace, he wasn´t malicious in the slightest. If I do a group tour again, I´m going to do it with people unlike Jay.
In the buildings that we stayed electricity only came on at certain hours and there was a need for torches at night. We shared our table with the other group quite a lot, which made me happy. They taught me how to play a card game called shithead and they played poker with tea bags because they didn´t have chips. Lovely and creative.
On the tour I met a retired french lady who was traveling alone. She spent 7 months volunteering in Cusco teaching people how to knit, sew and weave so that they can make their own products to sell. She was ever so pleasant, I had to mention her.
All I have to say is, do it. Explaining the views isn´t enough. I´ll explain the salt hotel though. Apparently our hotel had been picked up piece by peice and moved to it´s spot. It really was made of saltm I lick a wall. I bet hundreds of people have licked that wall before me but I needed to know.
On this tour we came across small towns in the middle of nowhere that rely on tourism. They are expecting our cars, I guess, a certain amount of times a day. Each store or outdoor market sells the same things. After going to a few, you buy something just because you can imagine that they don´t sell much at all. This may truelly mean that they sell a fair bit. They never hassle you to buy something.
There was a ghost town of crumbled ruins. The people who lived there felt that it was haunted so they all moved away. The guy whose name I just remembered, Terrence, really needed a number two. He couldn´t wait for ten minutes to get to the next inhabitated town so he found a quiet spot, shat, and covered it with rocks. Then told everyone. Charming.
Everything morning we needed to get up in the early hours of the morning, usually between 5am and 6am. The reason to get up early was to catch the sunrise or because we had a long day of driving ahead of us. This suited me, I woke up before the alarm every day anyway. So did Ben from the other group so we´d always look at eachother with groggy eyes and nodd - yep, we´re the first up again. I don´t know about him, but I always ended up napping in the car, which infuriated Jay a bit, I should have been talking. He says, if it wasn´t for me talking all the time what would you all do? When my eyes were shut I could still hear him. Luckily I was tired enough to ignore him and listen to my spanish music for practice. A couple of times Terry and Jay blew up and argued. Terry would also change personality when Jay was around and pretend not to like me, then be nice when he disappeared again. I wondered how old they really were. My tolerence of Jay had abandoned me with lack of sleep, so I just kept myself to myself and enjoyed any time I had with the other group. At least Eddie was ace, he wasn´t malicious in the slightest. If I do a group tour again, I´m going to do it with people unlike Jay.
In the buildings that we stayed electricity only came on at certain hours and there was a need for torches at night. We shared our table with the other group quite a lot, which made me happy. They taught me how to play a card game called shithead and they played poker with tea bags because they didn´t have chips. Lovely and creative.
On the tour I met a retired french lady who was traveling alone. She spent 7 months volunteering in Cusco teaching people how to knit, sew and weave so that they can make their own products to sell. She was ever so pleasant, I had to mention her.
children! scarper!!
Each time we stayed at a destination (3 nights) we were with the group that we met at the tour office, who was also the group that I had the pleasure of sharing their 4x4 when Lucy had her accident. When in their car we stopped at the place where Lucy was to be left and we would pick up a new cook. The children that surrounded us could sense that I had chocolate in my bag... they gathered around us asking for sweets then innocently waiting for us to speak. A few of us tried talking to them, because I couldn´t talk I asked them to dance for me. Which one seven year old, celia, would only do if I did first. So, stupidly I did some turns and stepped from side to side, in front of all of these people that I had recently met. Luckily they smiled at us with encouragement. We carried on dancing to eachother and ending up twirling eachother, unsuccessfully when she tried to turn me, being half my height n all. I asked if I could take their picture, to which they were shy at first but then were really happy to be accidentally caught in a picture that I showed them. Half trusting a boy who wanted to take a picture for me, I ran along side him as he took pictures of the most shy girls. Then Celia wanted to take pictures but couldn´t understand the idea of not looking through a view finder and kept trying to look through the zoom and taking pictures of her face upsidedown. Some experiments later and she got it. Now there were less children so I dçfigured I had enough chocolate for just them. As soon as the chocolate came out it seemed like a war had borke out and more kids flew around the corner in a perfectly made war line to get to the fron. I broke off the smallest pieces of chocolate understanding how it could of felt for Jesus handing out fish. It really did go far. Aiming for the smallest kids first so they wouldn´t cry, I ended at the melted part of the chocolate and threw it into the crowd and they all scarpered towards it and followed the kid that grabbed it. Wow. In hindsight, I should never have taken out my chocolate. Ben, from the other group, wound me up that the crying kid in the distance was upset that he didn´t get any chocolate. I know this wasn´t true, I´d seen him fall over.
Living in the middle of nowhere seems to have given these children a trustworthy and unneedy attitude (other than for chocolate). Having not seen so much wealth or objects of desire they appear unscathed by modern living. They were beautiful. The parents all stood at the edge of the square watching but not doing any more. Just observing. I wander what they were thinking. I hope not, please stop taking advantage photographing my children. We tried to take very few photos so as not to upset anyone but you never know. Its better that the children took more photos than I did.
Living in the middle of nowhere seems to have given these children a trustworthy and unneedy attitude (other than for chocolate). Having not seen so much wealth or objects of desire they appear unscathed by modern living. They were beautiful. The parents all stood at the edge of the square watching but not doing any more. Just observing. I wander what they were thinking. I hope not, please stop taking advantage photographing my children. We tried to take very few photos so as not to upset anyone but you never know. Its better that the children took more photos than I did.
stuck in the mud
LLamas are spotting grazing in the distance so our guide drives us to them to stop for lunch. He is a sweet boy, probably about 16 years old. He has a loving relationship with our cook, Lucy, who is funny even though we can´t communicate. She seems to love her job dearly. Her food is ace. And quick.
5 hours away from Tupiza we get stuck in mud in very deep mud slodge. Even though we are in the desert the ground has plenty of water in it. At night it is so cold that ice forms over the sand mountains and in the afternoon we can still see ice melting in the glittering light. However pretty this is, it doesn´t help us now. We unload our bags and chuck them on some leaves far away from the churning wheels. Over the course of half an hour, four other tour 4x4s arrive at the scene and everyone examines the situation. That´s all of the tour guides, cooks and passengers, equating to about 30 people standing there staring and coming up with new solutions as to how we escape. The wheels are almost three quarters deep on the right hand side and almost on top on the left.
7 of us are practical and bring over leaves and stones, me being slightly less practical wearing flipflops and slipping into deep pools of watered mud. We aren´t going to be able to shower for four days - what was I thinking? Jay has an interesting idea when he spots a 14ft log in the distance. We should lever the car up. So, all of the guys and some girls lift this huge log up and carry it to the car ready for lift-off. Quite a funny sight, I took photos and let them do the hard work. After all, I had collected leaves and stones ...some were heavy. Finally, after several ideas being instigated it was time to start the engine. Everyone jumps to the front of the car, knowing that the car is going to backup with the tow lead of the other 4x4. As it moves backwards, for an unknown reason, Lucy steps over the log which has been left next to the wheel, to the behind side. The wheel caught the log and it span towards her, strongly pushed by the wheel and the cooks leg is caught and she is thrown under the log. One loud yelp and her pain is over. Everyone shouts to stop the car and runs over to help her. One of the guides carries her away from the scene while her ankle dangles freely. She is placed on a less muddy spot and after our v4x4 easily gets out of the mud - well it had to with the amount of ideas - our 4x4 takes her to the next village 20 minutes away. This is even though the hospital was in Tupiza 5 hours away.
Due to the need for my seat in the back to place Lucy and a uni student nurse, Eleanor, I jump into Eleanor´s spot in the other 4x4. Unlucky for her, Jay kept trying to tell her what to do. She hated him after that and told him to get the fuck away. Who could blame her. He said to me that he had put a wrist bandage on someone before, then he told someone else he had done it three times, then he told her he had done it lots of times so she should listen to him. Puuulease. As you can see, Jay was starting to grate. Still, as there was heat in the situation I wanted to give him more time to be a better person.
5 hours away from Tupiza we get stuck in mud in very deep mud slodge. Even though we are in the desert the ground has plenty of water in it. At night it is so cold that ice forms over the sand mountains and in the afternoon we can still see ice melting in the glittering light. However pretty this is, it doesn´t help us now. We unload our bags and chuck them on some leaves far away from the churning wheels. Over the course of half an hour, four other tour 4x4s arrive at the scene and everyone examines the situation. That´s all of the tour guides, cooks and passengers, equating to about 30 people standing there staring and coming up with new solutions as to how we escape. The wheels are almost three quarters deep on the right hand side and almost on top on the left.
7 of us are practical and bring over leaves and stones, me being slightly less practical wearing flipflops and slipping into deep pools of watered mud. We aren´t going to be able to shower for four days - what was I thinking? Jay has an interesting idea when he spots a 14ft log in the distance. We should lever the car up. So, all of the guys and some girls lift this huge log up and carry it to the car ready for lift-off. Quite a funny sight, I took photos and let them do the hard work. After all, I had collected leaves and stones ...some were heavy. Finally, after several ideas being instigated it was time to start the engine. Everyone jumps to the front of the car, knowing that the car is going to backup with the tow lead of the other 4x4. As it moves backwards, for an unknown reason, Lucy steps over the log which has been left next to the wheel, to the behind side. The wheel caught the log and it span towards her, strongly pushed by the wheel and the cooks leg is caught and she is thrown under the log. One loud yelp and her pain is over. Everyone shouts to stop the car and runs over to help her. One of the guides carries her away from the scene while her ankle dangles freely. She is placed on a less muddy spot and after our v4x4 easily gets out of the mud - well it had to with the amount of ideas - our 4x4 takes her to the next village 20 minutes away. This is even though the hospital was in Tupiza 5 hours away.
Due to the need for my seat in the back to place Lucy and a uni student nurse, Eleanor, I jump into Eleanor´s spot in the other 4x4. Unlucky for her, Jay kept trying to tell her what to do. She hated him after that and told him to get the fuck away. Who could blame her. He said to me that he had put a wrist bandage on someone before, then he told someone else he had done it three times, then he told her he had done it lots of times so she should listen to him. Puuulease. As you can see, Jay was starting to grate. Still, as there was heat in the situation I wanted to give him more time to be a better person.
small mud house town
In a tiny little town we wandered around aimlessly, not knowing why we were there because our spanish combined wasn´t too hot. Only 20 to 30 families lived here. There are no obvious convienences, five to ten woman walk around slowly and a few children also walk around. The men travel away to work and come back in the evening so there were none around. The women wear the traditional dress of many colourful layers and bowler hats ontop of their plaited hair. If a girl has one plait they are available, if they have two plaits they are married. The guys whipped out their super duper cameras and I whip out my tiny convenience and shoot pictures of these interesting people. They have such curious yet unsure faces and look at cameras in a completely unposed fashion, appearing to not really acknowledge the camera at all - perfect for good photography.
Walking back towards our van a mother looks at me with a tilted head and creased eyebrows, and says aren´t you cold. Having expected Quencha, not Spanish, I was doubly surprised. Wearing soley a tshirt and not a million layers had baffled her. I said I need a tan, to which she responded that she is dark enough already. This makes me sound like I can speak spanish, I really can´t, she spoke very slowly and clearly for me. We must have looked similar to two dogs discovering a bone. We both stared at eachother for a minute with clear curiousity in eachother. My head spins, this is a kodak moment! I ask her if she minds if i take a photo of her. She lets me, still appearing completely baffled and curious as to what planet I came from. Just as I took the photo she seemed to become quite proud that I had asked her noticing her friend behind looking a little jealous. She didn´t seem to know what she was looking at when I showed her the photo on the camera screen. Gracias, adios. Chao gringo. Gringo is foreigner, supposedly it is not meant in a nasty way but rather an affectionate way. In south america it is quite normal to call someone a name by what they look like ie whitey or thin one, or tall one. This is seen as affectionate - not quite the way it would be taken in England.
Walking back towards our van a mother looks at me with a tilted head and creased eyebrows, and says aren´t you cold. Having expected Quencha, not Spanish, I was doubly surprised. Wearing soley a tshirt and not a million layers had baffled her. I said I need a tan, to which she responded that she is dark enough already. This makes me sound like I can speak spanish, I really can´t, she spoke very slowly and clearly for me. We must have looked similar to two dogs discovering a bone. We both stared at eachother for a minute with clear curiousity in eachother. My head spins, this is a kodak moment! I ask her if she minds if i take a photo of her. She lets me, still appearing completely baffled and curious as to what planet I came from. Just as I took the photo she seemed to become quite proud that I had asked her noticing her friend behind looking a little jealous. She didn´t seem to know what she was looking at when I showed her the photo on the camera screen. Gracias, adios. Chao gringo. Gringo is foreigner, supposedly it is not meant in a nasty way but rather an affectionate way. In south america it is quite normal to call someone a name by what they look like ie whitey or thin one, or tall one. This is seen as affectionate - not quite the way it would be taken in England.
Trainers and children
My trainers really stink. I´ve had them for a couple of weeks, since being in Chile and wearing them on the horse has ripped a small hole in the front. They are getting close to death row. I had to leave them outside the window of my room and hope they air out enough before we go on the tour. Otherwise the others will have to deal with them in our shared accommodations.
In Argentina I had to accustom myself to slow service and a possibility of dying before food arrives. Therefore, became quite used to arriving to restaurants way before I was hungry. This however, didn´t prepare me for Bolivian service which is somewhat sporadic. In one place you can be waiting for two hours for food, in another, your food is slopped on your plate almost before you order it and you are barely asked if you want any, let alone showed a menu. This is not easy to prepare for. How hungry should I be when I go to a restaurant? Basically, don´t be hungry and just hope you get fed, and worry later if you are hungry again or stock up on snacks. In the lonely planet recommended restaurant we were served by a 15 year old and he cooked the food I think. The pizza was actually delicious but that might have been because I was so hungry.
The walk back from the horse ride had taken us passed a strange gold head statue - to be quite a popular object throughout Bolivia - I´m still to find out why. Then we came across a mass of table football tables and a bunch of kids fanatically playing on them while their proud mothers and older brothers and sisters watched. Amazingly, here we were ignored entirely unless we caught someones eye and smiled. A lady was selling home made ice cream at the side of the road, ofcourse I tried some. I thought I was getting coconut and was pleasantly suprised by banana flavour.
In Argentina I had to accustom myself to slow service and a possibility of dying before food arrives. Therefore, became quite used to arriving to restaurants way before I was hungry. This however, didn´t prepare me for Bolivian service which is somewhat sporadic. In one place you can be waiting for two hours for food, in another, your food is slopped on your plate almost before you order it and you are barely asked if you want any, let alone showed a menu. This is not easy to prepare for. How hungry should I be when I go to a restaurant? Basically, don´t be hungry and just hope you get fed, and worry later if you are hungry again or stock up on snacks. In the lonely planet recommended restaurant we were served by a 15 year old and he cooked the food I think. The pizza was actually delicious but that might have been because I was so hungry.
The walk back from the horse ride had taken us passed a strange gold head statue - to be quite a popular object throughout Bolivia - I´m still to find out why. Then we came across a mass of table football tables and a bunch of kids fanatically playing on them while their proud mothers and older brothers and sisters watched. Amazingly, here we were ignored entirely unless we caught someones eye and smiled. A lady was selling home made ice cream at the side of the road, ofcourse I tried some. I thought I was getting coconut and was pleasantly suprised by banana flavour.
Tupiza horses then get a tour
That day the four of us, Eddie, Jay and thingy-me-bob (temporarily forgotten his name) had time to do a horse riding tour for three hours. I´m the only person who knows how to jump on a horse and go. I wanted to stay out riding next to the devil´s doorway and the red rock formations that looked like daggers poking in to the floor but the boys all had sore parts that females avoid. Our guide looks like Forturo from Never Ending Story. His horse kept bouncing and kicking, playing up so much that we lost him a few times when he galloped off uncontrollably. Once the horse ran off without him so he needed to get on thingys horse with him. Our horses just kept on going as they knew the way. I tried to catch up with the escapey horse but my horse knows what it wants, and that´s not what I want. Another tour group passed us on their way back. The tour guide caught the horse and gave the lead to me. Great. For once, my horse decided to do as I say and go back the way we came - because it thought we were going home. Tour guide with his horse and ready for action, we go. Keen to speed up, me and our guide stayed behind so the other horses wouldn´t get excited and gallop with us. When their horses were a safe distance ahead.... Woo yeah! That was exciting, give me a taste and I want more, on our return walk I didn´t hestitate when my horse wanted to go faster, I just let it pick up pace. Unfortunately it meant the other boys horses felt like going too. The horror on their faces was a picture to remember, especially on Jay´s, he is so sure of himself but he can´t deal with a bit fear. It was Eddie´s first time on a horse but he went for it and turned out to be a natural.
Later on, while Jay blew out smoke from his cigarette and drank a beer, he told me a message from our guide. He liked me and wanted me to know. That was it. End of message. Interesting. Yeah, I think that could work... a young fifteen year old and me, a Bolivian in Bolivia, me in England, no ofcourse! We simply need to marry. I´ll suggest that next time we meet... if we see eachother again. Where does he live? Mustn´t be hard to find him in this small town.
Forgetting about the young Bolivian, I focus on where to go from here. At the tour company Jay argued with the sales person about saving a few pounds for a four day salt flat tour. What a waste of half an hour, and what a headache. The tour was such a great idea that I couldn´t refuse to go on it. A 4x4 would take us passed many lagoons, hot springs, volcanic waters, flamingoes and the salt flats, ending in Uyuni, my next destination. I knew I would have to put up with Jay but figured it was worth it because the other two guys were nice and occassionally funny. Outside the hotel tour shop we met five lovely people, all about to do the same tour. As Jay had argued so much the english tour guide had opted to being their guide, not ours. So we were going to have a spanish guide instead. The five lovely people were going to be at every destination that we stopped which was quite a relief to me. Also, the guide agreed to chat to me about the land when we see eachother on the tour. How nice is he!? How could Jay be so mean and rude to him?
Later on, while Jay blew out smoke from his cigarette and drank a beer, he told me a message from our guide. He liked me and wanted me to know. That was it. End of message. Interesting. Yeah, I think that could work... a young fifteen year old and me, a Bolivian in Bolivia, me in England, no ofcourse! We simply need to marry. I´ll suggest that next time we meet... if we see eachother again. Where does he live? Mustn´t be hard to find him in this small town.
Forgetting about the young Bolivian, I focus on where to go from here. At the tour company Jay argued with the sales person about saving a few pounds for a four day salt flat tour. What a waste of half an hour, and what a headache. The tour was such a great idea that I couldn´t refuse to go on it. A 4x4 would take us passed many lagoons, hot springs, volcanic waters, flamingoes and the salt flats, ending in Uyuni, my next destination. I knew I would have to put up with Jay but figured it was worth it because the other two guys were nice and occassionally funny. Outside the hotel tour shop we met five lovely people, all about to do the same tour. As Jay had argued so much the english tour guide had opted to being their guide, not ours. So we were going to have a spanish guide instead. The five lovely people were going to be at every destination that we stopped which was quite a relief to me. Also, the guide agreed to chat to me about the land when we see eachother on the tour. How nice is he!? How could Jay be so mean and rude to him?
Arriving in Tupiza, Bolivia
Walking down the road, it feels like you´ve been sucked into a wild west movie. Dusty roads, horses and a dust covered train line that is used once a day to follow to our destination. As I´m the girl who sacrifices her guide book by ripping out the maps she needs and replacing them later, I am again, the designated map reader. All we have is the counting of roads to work out how far we are from the bus station to our hostel. Four of us had discussed at length which hostel we would go to from the guide book and finally agreed in which way I should lead the six of us. The chinese couple had decided to tag along for this bit. Walking down the road a young Bolivian offers us accomodation at the hostel across the road. We are tempted but have already made our minds up, we want to stay in the old hospital which has hospital beds - they have to be comfy! We walk through the dusty roads for a further ten minutes carrying our weighty backpacks and pretending we didn´t pack too much. Having passed several hostels and dismissed them, we find our hospital hostal - the door had a big fat lock on the door. Closed. Retracing our footsteps with a hungry manner and rumbling stomachs, it´s now 9am breakfast time, we go to one of the dismissed hostels. The lady who owns it looks ecstatic that six people want to stay the night and rushes us to our rooms. 2.50 pounds for my own room for one night! What?! That´s Bolivian prices for you.
Backpacks discarded and flipflops on, the search for breakfast begins. As expected, people curiously stare at us white folk here, almost as though we are creatures from outer space. We found a place that sold an american breakfast, that says backed beans on the menu. I´m excited, I haven´t seen baked beans in months. The breakfast came out and was dissappointed to find crunchy beans in a thin water red liquid that didn´t resemble the baked beans at home. When I get back to England the first thing I´m going to do is buy a cupboards worth of baked beans and jacket potatoes, because I miss baked potatoes too. They were once a big part of my life.
Backpacks discarded and flipflops on, the search for breakfast begins. As expected, people curiously stare at us white folk here, almost as though we are creatures from outer space. We found a place that sold an american breakfast, that says backed beans on the menu. I´m excited, I haven´t seen baked beans in months. The breakfast came out and was dissappointed to find crunchy beans in a thin water red liquid that didn´t resemble the baked beans at home. When I get back to England the first thing I´m going to do is buy a cupboards worth of baked beans and jacket potatoes, because I miss baked potatoes too. They were once a big part of my life.
a toilet stop in cafayate
I´m not hoping to confuse you but here´s something that happened to me on a tour from Salta, before the Bolivia crossing.
We were on a tour to look at seven colours in the mountains. Spectacular views, you get bored of leaning over others shoulders to take photos and just look. You can only take so many photos of mountains. We stopped at a tiny village that appeared to be surviving easily, miles from anywhere. It was definitely time to find a toilet, our guide, Fernando, told me how to get to the toilet in Spanish. I don´t believe there really was a toilet anywhere, my spanish can´t be that bad.... I hope. Anyway, I was walking along in the direction that I had been told with a bursting bladder, two minutes later I couldn´t handle the pain anymore, I had to ask a local.
A 60 or 70 year old was standing in a small dirt road next to a mud house. I asked him where the toilet was, he said there is none, I must use nature. Looking around I could see nothing but houses and people dotted around the streets, apparently doing nothing much at all. I didn´t fancy going in the street and my eyes desperately searched the landscape for somewhere, anywhere, a bush, PLEASE! The look of desperation on my face was enough for him, he told me I could use his. Are you serious? I replied (what a response to my saviour). I am serious. He led me in to the mud house next to him and directly to his bathroom. I´m not sure what he did but he went in first and shuffled around and flushed the loo before letting me in. It had not been cleaned in a very long time but who was I to complain. Looking around, he had the shower head almost directly above the toilet, a tiny window very high up and a little bit of dirt smeared on absolutely everything. That was the longest urination I have ever had, and that´s long. He must have heard it through the thin mud walls. Luckily he had toilet roll (clean, yeah!), a rarity in many places.
When I regresed into the living room which led back to the front door, he was sat at his dinner table watching tv. He leant on his lovely green and red flower patterned table cloth that related to christmas time nicely. On tv was a blue screen with a spanish word bouncing around and a fuzziness overcoming the whole screen from time to time. He had a cup of mate and asked me to stay and drink with him. It was obvious I could only understand a few words but he kept talking to me anyway, telling me about his life. I gathered that he was retired and used to work on the train line that closed down (we had just been to visit it as part of the tour). His daughter has gone traveling around South America and he lives alone.
I was grateful for his kindness and tried to give him 5 pesos. He refused it and it hung around after I repeatedly tried to give it back to him, eventually he allowed it to slip on the table and ignore it. He kept offering me mate and said I should sit. The problem was, I only had ten minutes to find a loo and get back to our tour bus. Explaining this in the same way several times, trying out several accents eventually he understood and I was excused. This gentleman let me take a photo of him. In return for the use of his toilet I would send him the photo. He wrote his address down. His house has no number. There are so few houses here that your name is enough.
Back to Bolivia.....
We were on a tour to look at seven colours in the mountains. Spectacular views, you get bored of leaning over others shoulders to take photos and just look. You can only take so many photos of mountains. We stopped at a tiny village that appeared to be surviving easily, miles from anywhere. It was definitely time to find a toilet, our guide, Fernando, told me how to get to the toilet in Spanish. I don´t believe there really was a toilet anywhere, my spanish can´t be that bad.... I hope. Anyway, I was walking along in the direction that I had been told with a bursting bladder, two minutes later I couldn´t handle the pain anymore, I had to ask a local.
A 60 or 70 year old was standing in a small dirt road next to a mud house. I asked him where the toilet was, he said there is none, I must use nature. Looking around I could see nothing but houses and people dotted around the streets, apparently doing nothing much at all. I didn´t fancy going in the street and my eyes desperately searched the landscape for somewhere, anywhere, a bush, PLEASE! The look of desperation on my face was enough for him, he told me I could use his. Are you serious? I replied (what a response to my saviour). I am serious. He led me in to the mud house next to him and directly to his bathroom. I´m not sure what he did but he went in first and shuffled around and flushed the loo before letting me in. It had not been cleaned in a very long time but who was I to complain. Looking around, he had the shower head almost directly above the toilet, a tiny window very high up and a little bit of dirt smeared on absolutely everything. That was the longest urination I have ever had, and that´s long. He must have heard it through the thin mud walls. Luckily he had toilet roll (clean, yeah!), a rarity in many places.
When I regresed into the living room which led back to the front door, he was sat at his dinner table watching tv. He leant on his lovely green and red flower patterned table cloth that related to christmas time nicely. On tv was a blue screen with a spanish word bouncing around and a fuzziness overcoming the whole screen from time to time. He had a cup of mate and asked me to stay and drink with him. It was obvious I could only understand a few words but he kept talking to me anyway, telling me about his life. I gathered that he was retired and used to work on the train line that closed down (we had just been to visit it as part of the tour). His daughter has gone traveling around South America and he lives alone.
I was grateful for his kindness and tried to give him 5 pesos. He refused it and it hung around after I repeatedly tried to give it back to him, eventually he allowed it to slip on the table and ignore it. He kept offering me mate and said I should sit. The problem was, I only had ten minutes to find a loo and get back to our tour bus. Explaining this in the same way several times, trying out several accents eventually he understood and I was excused. This gentleman let me take a photo of him. In return for the use of his toilet I would send him the photo. He wrote his address down. His house has no number. There are so few houses here that your name is enough.
Back to Bolivia.....
Tuesday 9 September 2008
entering Bolivia
At the bus station, there was Jay, waiting for the same bus as me. Two Irish guys, Eddie and Terrence talk to us both immediately, they are nervous about crossing the border. There is no true description of how to get to the border from the bus station or how to leave the Bolivian side to get to Tupiza. Our bible, the lonely planet guide, has left us to work that out. They suggest we stick together for safety and Jay seems a bit nicer today so I agree. A Chinese couple traveling from Canada join us on our venture too. We are all sharing the lower deck of our very comfortable laid back suite seats. This would change soon so we had all opted to make the most of the luxury. Dazidly getting off at the Argentinian side we all grab our bags and look around. There are no taxis or taxi ranks in sight. I try in my terrible spanish to find out where the taxis are. Around the corner. We walk all the way around the station to find them in the opposite direction to the way we had been directed. Tricker bus man, he had used pointing so we had definately understood him. Anyway, we caught taxis to the border. Where all you had to say was, I´ve been through immigration, and you could walk through to Bolivia. A river divides the countries here, we just cross a bridge and the change is noticable immediately. Women wear many layers in bright colours and bowler hats are the fashion. It suddenly seems dirtier and even at 5 in the morning there are people wandering around asking you to buy something. After asking several people for directions to the bus station to Tupiza and a fifteen minute walk with our bags later, we arrive in time to pay for the privilege to use a smelly ugly toilet and drink a cup of coffee. We buy a ticket for the bus, give the lugguage boy a tip and are asked to pay a second time to be allowed on the smelly slightly broken bus. Those who wish to sell empanadas or food of some sort are allowed on the bus at different moments and then jump back off for more if they need to. Bolivians seem to look after eachother in that way, giving eachother a chance to make some money. That was the most tasty smell good empanada that I have ever tried. Dangerously close to the edge of bumpy and dusty roads, two hours later we arrive in Tupiza. Six of us walk using my lonely planet map that I´ve ripped out of the book to find a hostel. I gave up booking hostels in advance ages ago, it´s way more exciting rocking up unannounced.
Fernando
Amid the others having a spanish conversation I spotted a word that I wanted to know. Fernando told me to go through his bag to find his spanihs - english dictionary. In his bag I came across a teach yourself german in 30 days book, japonese dictionery, french dictionery and italian dictionery, yes I just noticed I have just spelt dictionary wrong. He is almost fluent after teaching himself german for 25 days. Then I found the spanish-english dictionery, amazing. He gets his dictionaries out at any given moment and practices with any foreigners that he meets and is moving to Scotland next year for a Scottish accent. He is an inspiration in this sense.
Fernando was our tour guide again with another lovely small group. A young German girl was very sweet and fell asleep on my lap a couple of times during the journey, and when she woke up was encouraged to tell us German swear words. I was told one that I should never repeat. I repeated it once to three German girls that I met at a BBQ (as it was the only German word I knew and I wanted to impress them) luckily they laughed but again, I was told never to repeat it. It sounds like Mushi. I wont tell you what it means. Fernando recommended a restaurant to us and the two German guys, Patricia and me went to it. Amazingly, in my soup was a stretch of skin with a nipple of a pig looking straight up at me. Feeling a bit sick I couldn´t eat any more. With courage, I took a photo. The guys left for the bus station and Patricia and I went for a walk around the pretty plaza. We bumped into Fernando, he had gone to a Tango class but had no dance partner so he left. We took this opportunity to go back to his class. The teacher and 8 classmates all welcomed us with kisses and hugs. During this free lesson the teacher decided to film Fernando and me dancing for utube as we know the basic steps. God forbid if I ever see it. Fernando kept turning me to sit on his knee and before lifting me up kept trying to kiss me. Please Fernando, no! Later he walked me back to the hostel. He wanted an English girfriend so much that I agreed to be his girlfriend for five minutes until we reached the hostel, but that only included holding hands. He knew about Adrian so accepted sweetly. That was the shortest and most innocent affair in history I think. Exactly five minutes later we said goodbye. I may see him in Scotland next year. A five hour train ride seems like nothing now to visit somewhere for a day or two.
Fernando was our tour guide again with another lovely small group. A young German girl was very sweet and fell asleep on my lap a couple of times during the journey, and when she woke up was encouraged to tell us German swear words. I was told one that I should never repeat. I repeated it once to three German girls that I met at a BBQ (as it was the only German word I knew and I wanted to impress them) luckily they laughed but again, I was told never to repeat it. It sounds like Mushi. I wont tell you what it means. Fernando recommended a restaurant to us and the two German guys, Patricia and me went to it. Amazingly, in my soup was a stretch of skin with a nipple of a pig looking straight up at me. Feeling a bit sick I couldn´t eat any more. With courage, I took a photo. The guys left for the bus station and Patricia and I went for a walk around the pretty plaza. We bumped into Fernando, he had gone to a Tango class but had no dance partner so he left. We took this opportunity to go back to his class. The teacher and 8 classmates all welcomed us with kisses and hugs. During this free lesson the teacher decided to film Fernando and me dancing for utube as we know the basic steps. God forbid if I ever see it. Fernando kept turning me to sit on his knee and before lifting me up kept trying to kiss me. Please Fernando, no! Later he walked me back to the hostel. He wanted an English girfriend so much that I agreed to be his girlfriend for five minutes until we reached the hostel, but that only included holding hands. He knew about Adrian so accepted sweetly. That was the shortest and most innocent affair in history I think. Exactly five minutes later we said goodbye. I may see him in Scotland next year. A five hour train ride seems like nothing now to visit somewhere for a day or two.
Tour, tour and tour
To keep myself busy, not to think of Adrian, I went on three tours in three days in Salta. For each one I had to get up at 6.30am and was getting back in the evening between 7 and 9pm. Each one was beautiful, I highly recommend visiting Salta. The canyons, mountains of many colours and huge cactuses are all a treat. Then there was the salt flats, which were very interesting. The wind was so strong that it blew my camera case in to the white plains and in a blink I couldn´t see it any more. Most of the time was spent travelling in buses for hours at a time. Everyone in the middle aisle clambered over the person in the window seat to take photos. I was sat next to Jay, who I met in Cordoba, he told me about the Salta hostel where we were staying. Slowly, he was revealing his miserable, insecure and arrogant attitude towards people and life. Groups of us went out for dinner and had many discussions, one guy and me were talking about religion and he was describing his views on spiritualism rather than being religious. Jay said he has very strong views on religion because he knows alot about it, and he is open minded so can accept anyone´s view. Yet he ignored everyone´s comments and continued to say his view over and over again using different words. Yes, ofcourse you are open minded Jay. He decided that he absolutely hated two girls because just from looking at them he thought they were stupid and had no points of view, also one of them had looked at him in a funny way. I chatted to them, they were far from stupid and lovely people who couldn´t understand why this person was cutting them off at any opportunity. At this point I was still willing to keep giving him a chance, assuming he was tired from the previous early morning and late night.
On another day, without Jay, a small tour group of five, two people being German, the other Spanish and our hilarious tour guide went on another trip through the mountains. Our guide was trying to teach me spanish, he wrote down some words, asked me to read them out and then tolds me what they meant. Everything he got me to say was rude and everyone else, who could speak spanish was in hysterics! Even though it was rude it was still helpful because it was showing me how to construct a sentence. I showed a few people my peice of paper after this and they all cracked up. Here is an example - esta noche necesitamos muchas condones porque tengo huevos grandes. Sorry mum and dad, it means - tonight we need many condoms because I have big balls.
We were given the only icecream in the world which is made of wine and actually gets you drunk if you lick it. Delicious. We met a Madridian on a motorbike who was traveling South America on it. He was going to Uyuni and it was likely I would see him so we exchanged numbers. Unfortunately I left my phone on the next overnight bus. Another whoops.
On another day, without Jay, a small tour group of five, two people being German, the other Spanish and our hilarious tour guide went on another trip through the mountains. Our guide was trying to teach me spanish, he wrote down some words, asked me to read them out and then tolds me what they meant. Everything he got me to say was rude and everyone else, who could speak spanish was in hysterics! Even though it was rude it was still helpful because it was showing me how to construct a sentence. I showed a few people my peice of paper after this and they all cracked up. Here is an example - esta noche necesitamos muchas condones porque tengo huevos grandes. Sorry mum and dad, it means - tonight we need many condoms because I have big balls.
We were given the only icecream in the world which is made of wine and actually gets you drunk if you lick it. Delicious. We met a Madridian on a motorbike who was traveling South America on it. He was going to Uyuni and it was likely I would see him so we exchanged numbers. Unfortunately I left my phone on the next overnight bus. Another whoops.
Jonny Be Good
Walking around Cordoba I came across various musicians playing and arty buildings and lovely old architecture. In one square there was a big stage erected for six sixty-somethings singing Jonny Be Good in spanish. A small crowd had gathered, it was pretty amusing, they seemed delighted after I took a photo of them. I went into a university because I needed a wee. Eventually finding the loo and being utterly relieved I looked up to discover a large hole in the ceiling overlooked by a few windows. I wonder who was going to the toilet when that big chunk fell down, and who was watching. Outside their were several adults wearing all illuminous green jumping up and down very close to eachother, probably standing on eachothers feet, saying ´we want more´ in spanish. Camera men were filming them. They looked pretty rediculous, I liked them for that. There was another Bella Artes gallery so I had to go, I had loved the previous two that I had seen. Once again it hit my expectations, brilliant. I secretly took photos of art that I likes and when I was caught pretended I didn´t understand what they were saying and took more photos. It pays to be foreign sometimes.
I took a spanish lesson with a 23 year old from Cordoba, she was fantastic so I took a second lesson with her. As lessons can simply be conversations about lives she ended up telling me her love story. Her name is light blue in English. She taught an Arabian English for a couple of weeks and they ended up going out and enjoyed eachother´s company to the extreme that he stayed at her apartment for a further month. Thinking that they had something very special, she hoped to see him again one day, but was disappointed that he never invited her to his country. Saddess in her eyes was honest and compassionate.
In a zoo there was a photo gallery of the staff holding or feeding the animals, for tourists to purchase. Interesting idea.
I took a spanish lesson with a 23 year old from Cordoba, she was fantastic so I took a second lesson with her. As lessons can simply be conversations about lives she ended up telling me her love story. Her name is light blue in English. She taught an Arabian English for a couple of weeks and they ended up going out and enjoyed eachother´s company to the extreme that he stayed at her apartment for a further month. Thinking that they had something very special, she hoped to see him again one day, but was disappointed that he never invited her to his country. Saddess in her eyes was honest and compassionate.
In a zoo there was a photo gallery of the staff holding or feeding the animals, for tourists to purchase. Interesting idea.
Saturday 30 August 2008
Tear away
Adrian walked out to me wearing some big dog slippers, which made me smile, we kissed for a long time. Finally we were together again. For the five days we spent every moment together and had a lovely fun time doing regular non-travel things again. We tried to introduce Anelka to the outdoors, she sat wherever she was put and cowered into corners as the frightened puppy that she is. With a bit of patience she began walking around the carpark under Adrian´s flat with caution. Nothing seemed to sway her from being afraid but we played hide and seek with her and it made a slight difference to her confidence. A bit more work and soon she will walk around the car park with ease. Adrian missed a few uni classes to be with me and as usual I went to his work so we could spend every moment together. During our last few hours we watched Jurassic Park at the hostel, we all know it´s not a sad film but I cried for the last hour on and off. Adrian told me I didn´t have to get the bus, I could stay. Imagine how I would be after another few days! He said, no, stay for a month. There was no way of sticking around longer. I´d need a bucket for tears. The taxi arrived and this time we knew it may be the last time we would see eachother. After a long hug and more silent tears later, the taxi man patiently waited for me to get in the car. Looking out of the dirty back window, Adrian held both arms in the air in a slow wave. I wave back at him and as the car turned around the corner his fists clenched together and his head swung down and his chin hit his chest. I had never seen him look so sad. With uncontrollable silent tears rolling down my cheeks I stared blankly out at the road side trying to ignore my compulsion to turn the taxi around. Reminding myself that I still had to continue my dream I sat on the overnight bus to Cordoba. And was woken up at 5am by a girl who wanted to sit in my window seat, there were plenty of available seats but mine was on her ticket. Whoops.
Monday 18 August 2008
Santiago or Pantiago?
Get your thermal pants on, it´s snowing.
Other than one extra day in Bariloche, working my way up through Chile to Mendoza was easy, until I got to Santiago. Everything I wanted to see happened in one day. It´s a city with city workers, another fantastic Bella de Artes gallery, a great columbian museum, a few pestering beggers and nice views. I wouldn´t live here but it was worth visiting for a day or two.
A plan and ticket in hand to catch the bus back to Mendoza the next day fell in the face of weather. It´s common for the roads to close in the mountains for two or three days. Santiago has become my home since wednesday night, it´s now monday night, hopefully the last night. There are four of us at our hostel waiting for the roads to open. Each day the bus companies tell us to come back in the morning as the bus might leave. Each day we have turned up and gone back to the hostel for an extra night. This is why I have had time to write my blog! Hurrah! We´re lucky we´re staying in a top hostel that has a fantastic breakfast (pitiful in some hostels), a luxious lounge and pool room - makes a big difference when you have a problem like ours. I´ve ended up chilling with a sick girl from Switzerland a lot. Now, I´m off now to find some people to go for dinner with. Catch you later! This is as up to date as we´re going to get... yay, I finally made it to today! Now it´s you´re turn to read it all... hehehe.
Wish me luck for tomorrow! I need it.....
Other than one extra day in Bariloche, working my way up through Chile to Mendoza was easy, until I got to Santiago. Everything I wanted to see happened in one day. It´s a city with city workers, another fantastic Bella de Artes gallery, a great columbian museum, a few pestering beggers and nice views. I wouldn´t live here but it was worth visiting for a day or two.
A plan and ticket in hand to catch the bus back to Mendoza the next day fell in the face of weather. It´s common for the roads to close in the mountains for two or three days. Santiago has become my home since wednesday night, it´s now monday night, hopefully the last night. There are four of us at our hostel waiting for the roads to open. Each day the bus companies tell us to come back in the morning as the bus might leave. Each day we have turned up and gone back to the hostel for an extra night. This is why I have had time to write my blog! Hurrah! We´re lucky we´re staying in a top hostel that has a fantastic breakfast (pitiful in some hostels), a luxious lounge and pool room - makes a big difference when you have a problem like ours. I´ve ended up chilling with a sick girl from Switzerland a lot. Now, I´m off now to find some people to go for dinner with. Catch you later! This is as up to date as we´re going to get... yay, I finally made it to today! Now it´s you´re turn to read it all... hehehe.
Wish me luck for tomorrow! I need it.....
hills, dancing and horsies!
hola! What a pretty neighbourhood. Valparaiso that is. Colourful German influenced houses decorate the hilly landscape in a grimy and arty way. In the day it shines with painted walls and at night it glows of beauty with the lights.
Gimme a girl up for dancing (Julie) a place to dance (on the seashore), some personal lessons in Salsa, a national drink (whiskey sour) and a late night. Whola! Perfect.
Gimme some people to walk with (hostel folk), a nice long road through the cool streets (of Valparaiso), a new friend from Chile to show me Viña Del Mar (Gonzalo) and cards to play games at night (with the hostel crowd). Kebam. Lovely jubbley.
Gimme a new girl (who wants to go horse riding) (with me), some horses, a guacho, hills, sandunes, forest, lakes, streams and a beach to ride down (to gallop and stop to take pictures as we please). Wooohoooooo! Yer. In Concon, thats not too much to ask for. Wonderful.
A perfect few days.
Gimme a girl up for dancing (Julie) a place to dance (on the seashore), some personal lessons in Salsa, a national drink (whiskey sour) and a late night. Whola! Perfect.
Gimme some people to walk with (hostel folk), a nice long road through the cool streets (of Valparaiso), a new friend from Chile to show me Viña Del Mar (Gonzalo) and cards to play games at night (with the hostel crowd). Kebam. Lovely jubbley.
Gimme a new girl (who wants to go horse riding) (with me), some horses, a guacho, hills, sandunes, forest, lakes, streams and a beach to ride down (to gallop and stop to take pictures as we please). Wooohoooooo! Yer. In Concon, thats not too much to ask for. Wonderful.
A perfect few days.
Valdivar & the Schizer climate
Valdivar became my option because transport to Urshauia at the end of civilisation would take days and political problems closed the pretty route through lakes and mountains to Puerto Montt. Hopping off the bus into the cold air, a woman accosts me blabbering on in speedy spanish. Slowly, tired after the three bus rides, I look at this well presented woman and say no entiendo (I dont understand). She hands me a slip of paper and suggests staying at her house for the night. Her appearance told me that her house must be tidy - not be so bad. Telling her I am busy tonight but may stay at hers tomorrow, she was happy.
Its raining, its pouring and the whole house is snoring. My hostel was made of tin FRREEEEEZING! but so are most houses in Valdivar. Lots of Nazi runaways from Germany moved to South Chile and South Argentina after the war to escape the rap. In Bariloche the hostel owner said there are still Nazi gatherings here. That made me angry. Grr. Anyway, there is a lot of German influence in the buildings. It is colourful, full of students and way more expensive than Argentina, yet it looks poor. A recommended cafe on a big square, there are lots of squares in south america, was run by German descendants who make amazing hot dogs and huge cakes. Yes, by now I am using my breakdown from being a vegie to try everything before I stop being a carnivore again.
Seals ate fish given to them by the market fishermen and many birds swooned above the fish market. When buying some non-holey trainers from a sweet gentleman, I paid and handed him my holey ones, trying to explain my thinking; that he would sew them back up and sell them. They were good trainers initially. Appearing as though he understood, in a dazzled way, he took them and wished me a good stay in Chile with a smile. Most Chileans wish you a good stay in Chile and are eager to know where you are from.
Not able to visit parks and beaches or go for walks in the rain, I stopped for lunch. Filled-up, now a new jacket was needed, the one from Uruguay had a rip under the arm. I paid 20,000 pesos for the chosen one and gave my old one to the girl that works in the hostel. She looked overwhelmingly (alarmingly) happy even though there was handy work involved.
Staying another night was a possiblity for the weather might improve. Seriously considering staying at the Chilian ladies house and half-believing that she may be a con woman, I wanted to know the truth. Venturing to the other side of the town I found it within half an hour (small town) and took a picture. The windows were open to air the house, it looked too cold so I jumped on the next bus north to Valparaiso instead.
Its raining, its pouring and the whole house is snoring. My hostel was made of tin FRREEEEEZING! but so are most houses in Valdivar. Lots of Nazi runaways from Germany moved to South Chile and South Argentina after the war to escape the rap. In Bariloche the hostel owner said there are still Nazi gatherings here. That made me angry. Grr. Anyway, there is a lot of German influence in the buildings. It is colourful, full of students and way more expensive than Argentina, yet it looks poor. A recommended cafe on a big square, there are lots of squares in south america, was run by German descendants who make amazing hot dogs and huge cakes. Yes, by now I am using my breakdown from being a vegie to try everything before I stop being a carnivore again.
Seals ate fish given to them by the market fishermen and many birds swooned above the fish market. When buying some non-holey trainers from a sweet gentleman, I paid and handed him my holey ones, trying to explain my thinking; that he would sew them back up and sell them. They were good trainers initially. Appearing as though he understood, in a dazzled way, he took them and wished me a good stay in Chile with a smile. Most Chileans wish you a good stay in Chile and are eager to know where you are from.
Not able to visit parks and beaches or go for walks in the rain, I stopped for lunch. Filled-up, now a new jacket was needed, the one from Uruguay had a rip under the arm. I paid 20,000 pesos for the chosen one and gave my old one to the girl that works in the hostel. She looked overwhelmingly (alarmingly) happy even though there was handy work involved.
Staying another night was a possiblity for the weather might improve. Seriously considering staying at the Chilian ladies house and half-believing that she may be a con woman, I wanted to know the truth. Venturing to the other side of the town I found it within half an hour (small town) and took a picture. The windows were open to air the house, it looked too cold so I jumped on the next bus north to Valparaiso instead.
go go go
The guys call me Leesa Seempson. As Mees Seempson I went skiing with Moka (nick-name means fly), Bart (Simpsons lover. Real name Rojo), Fredo (Frederico), Madeus and Mariah, his girlfriend. Madeus, an experienced skier, took me and Mariah around the difficult parts, speeding. Following the zooming red jacket of Madeus like usual, I lost him for a second when I bounced over a large bump, just about landing on one ski zooming on... finding him at top speed again, he must be testing us, so I matched his speed and daring. At the bottom of the slope, after a bumpy and fast ride I stopped next to him to say you´re crazy but that was great. He turned to look at me, with a face saying what are you doing? It was someone else wearing the same jacket. The guy couldn´t understand why I had followed him and stopped very close. Across the slope I heard Lisa, hola, lets go again! Mariah and Madeus were taking the lift to the highest mountain, I followed like a sheep. These two are brilliantly crazy - I thought it was my spanish misreading ´cerrado´ but the slope really was closed and dangerous. If I didn´t think they were mad I would in a minute when they took me off piste down some ice at a 45 degree angle. Scary but one of the biggest excitements of my life!
Diego kept pretending we were having a proper conversation amidst the other boys. Testing my theory I´d say something really random like the trees are blue and he would say yes. Walking in the snow, amazingly my holey trainers weren´t keeping my feet warm. They have never been so cold that they were stiff before. When we sat down in a log fire restaurant, two of the guys ran back to the car to bring me a spare pair of socks. Off came my trainers and on went their socks. Bless them. It took Frederico a few days to perk up his english but he improved a lot and was able to tell me what they were up to. These Argentinians would mostly speak spanish and Id listen, at this point I can work out what people are talking about generally but revert to trusty english, as if they will understand. We said random words that we´d learnt in eachothers language and it made vague sense when we weren´t laughing. Moka and me had our conversations on a computer most days. Google translate is a great tool but the translations aren´t quite right. At one point it said he was a woman when he is home... maybe he is?
This christmassy snow covered town has a chocolate shop every few doors. Walking into a huge store full of different types of chocolate was a dream come true! The temptation was too much, I bought one of the largest box of assorted chocolates. I had to try everything! Only a few steps away from me was a canteen, I had to look at the menu as it could only mean one thing - a chocolate menu! Almost, it was a six page pudding menu. Heaven. This was heaven. I bought a tiramisu icecream sundae - mmm mmmm. Every thought disappeared and the chill from outside didn´t bother me, this was the meaning of DELICIOUS.
It might be worth noting how forward men are in this country. A few taxi drivers gave me their personal phone numbers and asked me out to dinner, one even played me a song that he had written, and sang to it. Men who are friends all hit on the same woman in front of eachother and in front of the girls boyfriend in a very obvious way. I was told people were friendly here but come on guys.... Apparently Argentinians are jealous men. I´m not suprised. It can also be normal for a man or a woman to be in love with one person and have another partner that they simply like. I heard this story all over the country.
At the bus station, the roads to Chile were snowed in but the bus wanted to go anyway. After five hours we were back at our primery destination, Bariloche. At some point they had decided driving in heavy snow conditions was a bad idea. One more night with the boys was good. We ate chocolate and had a delicious mexican meal with Caipariniah cocktails. Second goodbyes later and even with warnings that the roads may be closed again... I was going to Chile on a different bus which wasn´t going to take me all the way. I would need to swap buses two more times to make it to Valdiviar 9 hours later.
Diego kept pretending we were having a proper conversation amidst the other boys. Testing my theory I´d say something really random like the trees are blue and he would say yes. Walking in the snow, amazingly my holey trainers weren´t keeping my feet warm. They have never been so cold that they were stiff before. When we sat down in a log fire restaurant, two of the guys ran back to the car to bring me a spare pair of socks. Off came my trainers and on went their socks. Bless them. It took Frederico a few days to perk up his english but he improved a lot and was able to tell me what they were up to. These Argentinians would mostly speak spanish and Id listen, at this point I can work out what people are talking about generally but revert to trusty english, as if they will understand. We said random words that we´d learnt in eachothers language and it made vague sense when we weren´t laughing. Moka and me had our conversations on a computer most days. Google translate is a great tool but the translations aren´t quite right. At one point it said he was a woman when he is home... maybe he is?
This christmassy snow covered town has a chocolate shop every few doors. Walking into a huge store full of different types of chocolate was a dream come true! The temptation was too much, I bought one of the largest box of assorted chocolates. I had to try everything! Only a few steps away from me was a canteen, I had to look at the menu as it could only mean one thing - a chocolate menu! Almost, it was a six page pudding menu. Heaven. This was heaven. I bought a tiramisu icecream sundae - mmm mmmm. Every thought disappeared and the chill from outside didn´t bother me, this was the meaning of DELICIOUS.
It might be worth noting how forward men are in this country. A few taxi drivers gave me their personal phone numbers and asked me out to dinner, one even played me a song that he had written, and sang to it. Men who are friends all hit on the same woman in front of eachother and in front of the girls boyfriend in a very obvious way. I was told people were friendly here but come on guys.... Apparently Argentinians are jealous men. I´m not suprised. It can also be normal for a man or a woman to be in love with one person and have another partner that they simply like. I heard this story all over the country.
At the bus station, the roads to Chile were snowed in but the bus wanted to go anyway. After five hours we were back at our primery destination, Bariloche. At some point they had decided driving in heavy snow conditions was a bad idea. One more night with the boys was good. We ate chocolate and had a delicious mexican meal with Caipariniah cocktails. Second goodbyes later and even with warnings that the roads may be closed again... I was going to Chile on a different bus which wasn´t going to take me all the way. I would need to swap buses two more times to make it to Valdiviar 9 hours later.
Saturday 16 August 2008
sueño
Waking up sat next to a police officer in full uniform with the gun on her hip leant on me made me jump. Woa! Is this another dream? She finished her shift and jumped on the bus for a 10 hour bus ride to Bariloche to pick up her two children. That night they were doing the same journey back up north to meet her husband, who she also only sees once a month because he`s a cop with awkward hours too. After our broken spanish chat a young Dick and Dom wannabe held a Bingo game. I fully expected to win because the numbers were called out in Spanish and being the only English speaking person it was highly likely, no? I won a bottle of wine (from Mendoza). Talk about ridiculous luck. Other Spanish boys tried to cheat, which made everyone laugh even more when I won. People have a good social sense of humour in Argentina.
Panaramic views of snow covered mountains and large lakes filled the scenery. Beautiful! I chose to stay at El Gaucho hostel in memory of the Ranch. Within minutes of walking in an Argentinian spoke to me, thinking he was saying something about going for a walk around a lake. Another Argentinian poked his head around the door and said we´re going, you too? I said yes assuming it was the lake we could see from the hostel. We went outside and I got in a 4x4 with them, finding two other guys wearing puffa jackets waiting for us. We drove for 30 minutes, me with four spanish speakers. Ok then.
Panaramic views of snow covered mountains and large lakes filled the scenery. Beautiful! I chose to stay at El Gaucho hostel in memory of the Ranch. Within minutes of walking in an Argentinian spoke to me, thinking he was saying something about going for a walk around a lake. Another Argentinian poked his head around the door and said we´re going, you too? I said yes assuming it was the lake we could see from the hostel. We went outside and I got in a 4x4 with them, finding two other guys wearing puffa jackets waiting for us. We drove for 30 minutes, me with four spanish speakers. Ok then.
couch potato
Five days later and I´m still on the hostel couch but my cold and my coldsore are gone. Most of the time was spent with Adrian, who works in the hostel. We talked, played games, watched films and cooked eachother dinner. I decided to stick around and organise a spanish course for the next week. Next thing we know I´m living at Adrian´s house.... going parascending, drinking, on walks, have BBQ´s but generally just chatting away his working hours. There was nowhere I´d rather be because I was happy just being with him. Even the two hours I´d spend with my spanish teacher would be spent talking about Adrian. The more time we spent together the more we wanted the other to move to our part of the world. Both big tasks.
About Adrian: He is a romantic, thoughtful, interesting, friendly Argentinian with a good sense of humour who loves to learn about other cultures and likes to do nothing sometimes. Adrian speaks to me in Spanish alot and tells others to do the same just to make me learn, but he can speak English perfectly. He moved to Germany for six months to learn German, which he can speak very well. At uni he studies Hotel management and tourism so that one day he can run his own hotel. Activity wise, he took a bit of convincing to go parascending but loved it once he was up there. Reckon I can get him to do sports on a more dangerous level now.
After two and a half weeks with Adrian and his puppy, Anelka, lots of missing socks and bitten clothes later, it was time to leave. I was at the beginning of my travels, I just had to carry on. Spending time with him was incredible, I had to tear myself away. Both of us were on the down side of up when I departed on an over night bus to Bariloche. Yo quiero Adrian a movar al Inglaterra, el es mi amor. Pero esto es impossible ahora, quizas una dias : (
About Adrian: He is a romantic, thoughtful, interesting, friendly Argentinian with a good sense of humour who loves to learn about other cultures and likes to do nothing sometimes. Adrian speaks to me in Spanish alot and tells others to do the same just to make me learn, but he can speak English perfectly. He moved to Germany for six months to learn German, which he can speak very well. At uni he studies Hotel management and tourism so that one day he can run his own hotel. Activity wise, he took a bit of convincing to go parascending but loved it once he was up there. Reckon I can get him to do sports on a more dangerous level now.
After two and a half weeks with Adrian and his puppy, Anelka, lots of missing socks and bitten clothes later, it was time to leave. I was at the beginning of my travels, I just had to carry on. Spending time with him was incredible, I had to tear myself away. Both of us were on the down side of up when I departed on an over night bus to Bariloche. Yo quiero Adrian a movar al Inglaterra, el es mi amor. Pero esto es impossible ahora, quizas una dias : (
Change of scenery
There was no room at the hostel for this night so Vicky, Ellie and I carried our goods to it´s linked hostel a few roads away. Adrian welcomed us.
Even though we were staying at the new hostel we spent the day at our old one. We said goodbye to Chris from US, our fellow singer. With hangovers we watched Back to the future 1, 2 and 3 with other hostel stayers. Lots of Aussies were there together, we all pitched in for a BBQ. The night before I vowed that I wouldn´t revert to eating chicken because my friend has pet chickens. I ate a chicken wing for the first time in three years. It was ok.
Following all of this body abuse I was full of cold. Vicky and Ellie had an attempted mugging. The first time for them was in BA; Vicky´s purse was stolen on the Metro. This time they managed to pull their bags back screaming loud enough for the person to run away. They were both in a bit of shock when they caught their bus back to BA.
And then there was one.
Or two....?
Even though we were staying at the new hostel we spent the day at our old one. We said goodbye to Chris from US, our fellow singer. With hangovers we watched Back to the future 1, 2 and 3 with other hostel stayers. Lots of Aussies were there together, we all pitched in for a BBQ. The night before I vowed that I wouldn´t revert to eating chicken because my friend has pet chickens. I ate a chicken wing for the first time in three years. It was ok.
Following all of this body abuse I was full of cold. Vicky and Ellie had an attempted mugging. The first time for them was in BA; Vicky´s purse was stolen on the Metro. This time they managed to pull their bags back screaming loud enough for the person to run away. They were both in a bit of shock when they caught their bus back to BA.
And then there was one.
Or two....?
Tango, and then there was....
Vicky and Ellie gave me many reasons not to be a vegetarian. Still upset about the no cake incidient, I wanted to be converted. They hadn´t convinced me, yet. For three years my thinking has been that if I couldn´t kill it I can´t eat it, and I can kill fish so I eat them. A random girl at the hostel brought it back to stone age for me. Women back then didn´t need to kill it themselves anyway, the men always did it, and essentially, these jobs have stayed in the man´s hands in the modern world. Oh my I was desperate not to eat another cheese and tomato toastie. It had been difficult to get my hands on fish too. That night I went out and ate mexican with the girls. They took pictures of me eating my first beef fajita. I didn´t like it, it seemed pointless to have killed a cow for a meal like that. But I had started so I may as well try a steak tomorrow, that´s what everyone has passion for over here. The next night we watched a Tango show, dinner came, and I ate steak. I never thought I´d give in but I ate steak. I really did eat steak. It was ok. You can tell in the photos that I´m not enjoying the idea but feel the need to get myself off those toasties and healthier, if that means eating steak then so be it.
After dinner Tango became a dance off between audience members and the show dancers. Vicky was pulled up, she is so gorgeous that everyone in sight always clocks her. Having never seen tango before Vicky still got through it. Then on came karaoki. We were called up by the man with the microphone, he was too loud to ignore and Vicky wanted payback, she pushed me, Ellie and Chris towards the stage. We sang....um... said as many words on the screen as we could before they disappeared... a song that none of us had heard before, in spanish, and I have photographic evidence. The Spanish audience gave us a loving smiley cheer and clap the whole time. Occasionally, not knowing exactly what we were saying, or more how to say it, brought a roar of spanish laughter. Relieved of duty, a band came on playing spanish, english and tango music, we joined the conga line twice and danced with lots of stangers. What a night.
After dinner Tango became a dance off between audience members and the show dancers. Vicky was pulled up, she is so gorgeous that everyone in sight always clocks her. Having never seen tango before Vicky still got through it. Then on came karaoki. We were called up by the man with the microphone, he was too loud to ignore and Vicky wanted payback, she pushed me, Ellie and Chris towards the stage. We sang....um... said as many words on the screen as we could before they disappeared... a song that none of us had heard before, in spanish, and I have photographic evidence. The Spanish audience gave us a loving smiley cheer and clap the whole time. Occasionally, not knowing exactly what we were saying, or more how to say it, brought a roar of spanish laughter. Relieved of duty, a band came on playing spanish, english and tango music, we joined the conga line twice and danced with lots of stangers. What a night.
Bike it drunk... walk it cold.
Vicky and Ellie greeted me with huge smiles when I met them in Mendoza. I´d been on an overnight bus ride and had a small cold. Regardless, I went on a vineyard bike ride with them and a couple of guys. We rode to vineyards, tested wine, got drunk and continued the 11k drunken ride on the roads meant for cars. Ace! On the way back we stopped at a chocolate factory, a lady who worked there could see my happiness and gave me a free chocolate bar. Imagine my joy!
Lots of stray dogs were following us. We gained another pet dog that was being bullied by the others. He was safe with us. They followed us for hours. Us three had caught a bus to the middle of nowhere. There are two buses to get there in the morning and two buses leaving in the evening. Climbing rocks and walking showed us an incredible landscape of mountains caped in snow overviewing a large lake and a dangerous no pass area which our innocents Vicky and Ellie wanted to go through even though the danger sign revealed there were probably crocodiles and we might get trapped by the water. After a bit of convincing they changed their minds. not long later we were bored being in the middle of nothing land. The cold forced me to buy red and grey stripey leg warmers from a little stand that was on the corner. The road led to a spa several miles away, dreaming about being in the spa, we walked on. Vicky was completely covered in clothes and I was freezing. Only a few months before I had a conversation with my old house mate, Adam, about swearing. He bet me that I couldn´t swear mid-conversation without people noticing, because it´s so out of the norm of my personality. We were talking about warmth and Vicky was cosy so I said you´re a lucky bitch. Her and Ellie gauped at me open mouthed. Adam was right, it just sounds like an insult when I swear. It could have been my whimpy sniffy half smile cold but even my explanation of why I sweared didn´t loosen them, oops better not do that again. Freezing, we said goodbye to an incredible purple orange sunset and seven dogs.
Lots of stray dogs were following us. We gained another pet dog that was being bullied by the others. He was safe with us. They followed us for hours. Us three had caught a bus to the middle of nowhere. There are two buses to get there in the morning and two buses leaving in the evening. Climbing rocks and walking showed us an incredible landscape of mountains caped in snow overviewing a large lake and a dangerous no pass area which our innocents Vicky and Ellie wanted to go through even though the danger sign revealed there were probably crocodiles and we might get trapped by the water. After a bit of convincing they changed their minds. not long later we were bored being in the middle of nothing land. The cold forced me to buy red and grey stripey leg warmers from a little stand that was on the corner. The road led to a spa several miles away, dreaming about being in the spa, we walked on. Vicky was completely covered in clothes and I was freezing. Only a few months before I had a conversation with my old house mate, Adam, about swearing. He bet me that I couldn´t swear mid-conversation without people noticing, because it´s so out of the norm of my personality. We were talking about warmth and Vicky was cosy so I said you´re a lucky bitch. Her and Ellie gauped at me open mouthed. Adam was right, it just sounds like an insult when I swear. It could have been my whimpy sniffy half smile cold but even my explanation of why I sweared didn´t loosen them, oops better not do that again. Freezing, we said goodbye to an incredible purple orange sunset and seven dogs.
Meet my double
Angus is me but a boy version, we met at college and have been friends since. He took another route in Argentina and came south to meet me in BA. For the first time us girlies had a boy to hang around with. List of things we did:
- Two of Catherina´s birthday parties, which we were invited to at 7.30 and left at 1am and the Argentinian´s night was just beginning.
- Lessons in tango, Milangue, Salsa and Rock n Roll. We tried the advance lesson in Tango, both Angus and me were given different partners and both of our partners tried and successfully, shamefully found escape routes away from us.
- Ate delicious food at a Harry Krishna restaurant and some (too nice for me looking) places.
- Angus taught me to roller skate backwards ending on a spin.
- Saw many different types of poo on the floor, green, brown, splodgey, black, hard, old, new. It is EVERYWHERE.
- Found great galleries, Bella de Artes was one of them. In it was highly inspirational art and the worst art ever. There was fun art too. Someone had put lots of fake red poo on the floor. Angus looked at me and said, if you smell it I´ll smell it, so we smelt it together: unexpectedly cinnamon.
- Watched Angus have a bongo drum lesson and left him a bit early to look around the shops. I pointed at leggins in the shop window, immediately the assistants took the manican out of the display and gave me the leggins it had been wearing. I bought them for the memory.
- After five days of asking around we came across a small hairdressers that also offers massages. Once I ignored the hairdriers and chitchat noises through the cardboard wall I fell completely asleep.
- Walked around rich area Palermo, tangoed with colourful La Boca and poor yet antiqued San Telmo. Once we had a disagreement directional problemo, Angus thought he was right... guess who is the queen of map reading? Lisa!
- Read a note, Liah disappeared one day and left us a note to say goodbye, I´ve caught a plane to the sun-kissed beaches. Chao bebe.
- Emma at work, emailed a friend in argentina, who gave me another friend´s email address, who introduced me to someone else via email. Angus and I went to the third friend´s house and tried Mate, the South American drink. It´s horrible but socialable so I drink it because I like the idea of sharing a drink.
- Two of Catherina´s birthday parties, which we were invited to at 7.30 and left at 1am and the Argentinian´s night was just beginning.
- Lessons in tango, Milangue, Salsa and Rock n Roll. We tried the advance lesson in Tango, both Angus and me were given different partners and both of our partners tried and successfully, shamefully found escape routes away from us.
- Ate delicious food at a Harry Krishna restaurant and some (too nice for me looking) places.
- Angus taught me to roller skate backwards ending on a spin.
- Saw many different types of poo on the floor, green, brown, splodgey, black, hard, old, new. It is EVERYWHERE.
- Found great galleries, Bella de Artes was one of them. In it was highly inspirational art and the worst art ever. There was fun art too. Someone had put lots of fake red poo on the floor. Angus looked at me and said, if you smell it I´ll smell it, so we smelt it together: unexpectedly cinnamon.
- Watched Angus have a bongo drum lesson and left him a bit early to look around the shops. I pointed at leggins in the shop window, immediately the assistants took the manican out of the display and gave me the leggins it had been wearing. I bought them for the memory.
- After five days of asking around we came across a small hairdressers that also offers massages. Once I ignored the hairdriers and chitchat noises through the cardboard wall I fell completely asleep.
- Walked around rich area Palermo, tangoed with colourful La Boca and poor yet antiqued San Telmo. Once we had a disagreement directional problemo, Angus thought he was right... guess who is the queen of map reading? Lisa!
- Read a note, Liah disappeared one day and left us a note to say goodbye, I´ve caught a plane to the sun-kissed beaches. Chao bebe.
- Emma at work, emailed a friend in argentina, who gave me another friend´s email address, who introduced me to someone else via email. Angus and I went to the third friend´s house and tried Mate, the South American drink. It´s horrible but socialable so I drink it because I like the idea of sharing a drink.
Cram us in. Say you can!
Clare had already booked a hostel so the rest of us found a hostel to stay together. One room only had six beds, so they gave us a mattress to fit our extra person in. Sadly, day-by-day, each person left to another destination.
Catherina said she would transfer my pictures to cd on her computer. She stuck my memory card too far into her laptop and it refused to bounce out. Technicians in a computer shop said, si tiene un problemo, and laughed. This happened in two shops. Our confidence was not growing. We were left with no choice and went to HP head quarters. The man looked at us and said, is this your only problem? uh yes, isn´t it enough? was Catherina´s reply. He looked at us blonde girls, disappeared and a moment later relieved our agony. We had three weeks of photos in tact and a laptop unharmed, phew!
Catherina said she would transfer my pictures to cd on her computer. She stuck my memory card too far into her laptop and it refused to bounce out. Technicians in a computer shop said, si tiene un problemo, and laughed. This happened in two shops. Our confidence was not growing. We were left with no choice and went to HP head quarters. The man looked at us and said, is this your only problem? uh yes, isn´t it enough? was Catherina´s reply. He looked at us blonde girls, disappeared and a moment later relieved our agony. We had three weeks of photos in tact and a laptop unharmed, phew!
Give me rum!
Thinking the night was ending after Catherina gave a wine tasting, it was announced that we were going for dinner. Jeez! At 10.30pm? This is normal here Lisa. I argued... but I don´t eat past 9 in England, there are health warnings!! Lisa, the restaurants don´t open til 8.30 or 9 here. Restaurants aren´t busy until 11. What!? Let´s go, I´ve got to see this. No longer thinking about pyjamas and sleeping bags, most of us went out. To a steak house. I ate a salad (lettuce, tomatoes and egg) and everyone else ate the best steak of their lives. Still there was temptation for me, I was simply happy not eating a cheese and tomato toastie. Champers, vodka and wine later, we found ourselves controlling lovely little Ellie. She´s a mental drunk person in the best possible light. She is so small and cute that when she called the bar man ugly with a serious voice he laughed. When she threw the menu at him because he didn´t have rum, he smiled. She thought he didn´t understand her so she tried to write it down for him in BIG letters. He spoke English. She drank a pint in two gulps. It was someone elses. She drank two more pints within three minutes. It is questionable where she puts it. Then we carried her out of the pub and were chased down the road by the bar man. She hadn´t paid. She said, we can still run, go go, it´s only a beer. I turned her around and said, it´s only a beer just pay for it. She went back in and paid for one. The bar man quietly ignored that she had drunk three pints. Then she started running down the road, we could see it all in slow motion, she swurved into the road just as a bus was coming and made it across the road in the nick of time - her near death experience. Safely laid on the bed fully clothed, she snored immediately. The next day she remembered nothing.
At breakfast Liah wandered in, she only got back to the hotel at 8.30am having fallen asleep at a guys house. There had been a band at the pub and the band member had taken a fancy to Ellie. He gave Liah his email address to give to Ellie. Liah went to his house by accident - Spanish translation confusion ?? - and kissed him. Still, Liah tried to give Ellie his email address anyway. Suprise suprise, Ellie didn´t remember the pub let alone the guy.
At breakfast Liah wandered in, she only got back to the hotel at 8.30am having fallen asleep at a guys house. There had been a band at the pub and the band member had taken a fancy to Ellie. He gave Liah his email address to give to Ellie. Liah went to his house by accident - Spanish translation confusion ?? - and kissed him. Still, Liah tried to give Ellie his email address anyway. Suprise suprise, Ellie didn´t remember the pub let alone the guy.
earth calling lisa
By chance I checked my old email address. Mum and John had sent emails to that address. Ahah no wonder I hadn´t heard from them. Where are you? Are you there? What has happened? Eeek. It had been two weeks and I hadn´t told them anything. They hadn´t received the email that sent mentioning my arrival in Rio. Luckily my brother had told them I am safe. My reply bounced back twice. It took a while for these problems to sort out. Finally I spoke to them last week, a month later. Yeah yeah I know I´ve been lame at writing my blog. It´s easy to do lots of things and internet cafes can be dull but also an experience. They vary alot, this one has loud pumping english trance, music is good for concentration right?
Friday 15 August 2008
cobblestones and a lighthouse
The pretty town of Colonia has cobblestones, a lighthouse, a few restaurants, some small museums and the oldest church in Uruguay. Some museums are peoples very old houses that the owner shows you around. Leah and me were speaking English as we walked in so the old lady whisked us in for free as if she was hiding us from someone??? ...who knows? bless.
We were all a bit confused about the Uruguan currency, I took out 10,000 pesos which ran out in two days. Trying to balance out our money to last only one more day, Sophia and Eleanor took out quadruple me so we did an exchange, lunch for Argentinian pesos. At lunch, the deal-makers were getting very drunk to spend their money and E revealed that she has things under her bed that she doesnt want her parents to find. Yet they are sleeping in her room while she is away... she refused to give specifics. Watching the purple sunset while drinking wine from our balcony roof terrace was a nice way to end our time in Uruaguay.
We were all a bit confused about the Uruguan currency, I took out 10,000 pesos which ran out in two days. Trying to balance out our money to last only one more day, Sophia and Eleanor took out quadruple me so we did an exchange, lunch for Argentinian pesos. At lunch, the deal-makers were getting very drunk to spend their money and E revealed that she has things under her bed that she doesnt want her parents to find. Yet they are sleeping in her room while she is away... she refused to give specifics. Watching the purple sunset while drinking wine from our balcony roof terrace was a nice way to end our time in Uruaguay.
Uruguay and toasties
If you have ever seen the Never Ending Story you will know how I feel in this internet cafe. One or two people have been in here today and no one else is here, except one worker mystiquely hidden away in the building. I should have a blanket over my head. There is a long story ahead and I dont know how it is going to end. I love that film, my mum had to hide the video from me because I watched it so many times she was sick of it.
Back to travels.... Montevideo city. Nothing in particular happened here. There was a gaucho museum, a walk with Carla, Eleanor and Sophia to find a good breakfast - incredibly difficult. I ate cheese and tomate, sorry tomato, toasties three times in one day because that was the only vegetarian option. Normally here I eat that toastie once or twice a day. What else? ...everyone went shopping for cheap warm jackets to ditch at some point. Clare and I almost bought identical jackets, we are becoming a literal pair. A walk around the docks passed lots of cool common grafitti which represents Che Gevara. We both wanted to go in completely the opposite directions to a 50s diner/cake restaurant that we passed earlier. Clare said, Im not going back in the other direction when we find you are wrong. Even so, Clare was grateful that we made it directly to the restaurant from my directions and we had a lovely time. I had a toastie and was too bloated to eat cake. Being a vegie sucks. Why do I have morals about this? Please remind me... If I had eaten less stodgy food maybe I could have eaten cake. I started to look for reasons to stop being vegie and struck up many conversations with everyone to find out why they weren´t veggie. Damn I ended up with stronger instincts than before. Anyway, you had to read that ramble because not much happened in Montevideo.
Back to travels.... Montevideo city. Nothing in particular happened here. There was a gaucho museum, a walk with Carla, Eleanor and Sophia to find a good breakfast - incredibly difficult. I ate cheese and tomate, sorry tomato, toasties three times in one day because that was the only vegetarian option. Normally here I eat that toastie once or twice a day. What else? ...everyone went shopping for cheap warm jackets to ditch at some point. Clare and I almost bought identical jackets, we are becoming a literal pair. A walk around the docks passed lots of cool common grafitti which represents Che Gevara. We both wanted to go in completely the opposite directions to a 50s diner/cake restaurant that we passed earlier. Clare said, Im not going back in the other direction when we find you are wrong. Even so, Clare was grateful that we made it directly to the restaurant from my directions and we had a lovely time. I had a toastie and was too bloated to eat cake. Being a vegie sucks. Why do I have morals about this? Please remind me... If I had eaten less stodgy food maybe I could have eaten cake. I started to look for reasons to stop being vegie and struck up many conversations with everyone to find out why they weren´t veggie. Damn I ended up with stronger instincts than before. Anyway, you had to read that ramble because not much happened in Montevideo.
its still July in Guacho land
When Juan discovered badminton, he asked any Chinese tourists due to visit his ranch to bring him a badminton racket. He has a collection now. After our hard day on the field we decided to have a game in his garden, sore legs n all. His court was made of string laid on the grassy ground and two strong wooden posts holding a proper net (a gift from a chinese tourist). He said, thats your side. In the center of my serving square I discovered the biggest piece of horse shit I have ever seen. Juan wouldnt swap sides but did have the grace to come over and kick the shit over the whole court for me. Great! He said, you´re not afraid of a little shit are you? Me, no. I walked, ran and slid all over it, pretending to myself that my trainers don´t have holes in the sides. Juan walked all over me in the game but admitted he didnt expect to sweat. It was still a close game and he didnt have shit in the first round so I should have an extra point really.
I seriously considered leaving the tour and staying at the ranch for the remaining time of my trip. I was having so much fun and Susannahs cooking was the best I had tasted since leaving England. Life is so easy yet strenuous here. NO. I told myself to carry on and thought about how many times I would have to say goodbye to amazing people in the future, this made me sad. Then I thought of how many people I would say hello to, this made me happy.
Shortly after the visit Juan sent me an email. It was like the song from Trainspotting, Choose Life. A lot of advice in short sentences. It was beautiful bless him. He also said that our girls were the hardest working group so far. Get in!
I seriously considered leaving the tour and staying at the ranch for the remaining time of my trip. I was having so much fun and Susannahs cooking was the best I had tasted since leaving England. Life is so easy yet strenuous here. NO. I told myself to carry on and thought about how many times I would have to say goodbye to amazing people in the future, this made me sad. Then I thought of how many people I would say hello to, this made me happy.
Shortly after the visit Juan sent me an email. It was like the song from Trainspotting, Choose Life. A lot of advice in short sentences. It was beautiful bless him. He also said that our girls were the hardest working group so far. Get in!
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh awe urgh!
Excitedly Clare and I galloped off to round up a small bunch of sheep. Clare went up the hill and I went down towards a stream losing vision of eachother. My horse awkwardly stepped over the stream and bounced up the small hill on the other side loosening my harness. At the top of this ditch, Thunder patiently stood still while my whole body slid to the right. I reached to my left, grabbing on to the falling saddle which only helped it slide... slowly.... for about two minutes. After trying several launches to my left and looking at my watch, I finally fell off. Riding a black beauty, a guacho appeared from nowhere. The slightly silhouetted guacho smiled at me, took my hand and gracefully helped me stand up. He fixed my saddle and rode off in to the sun. I wish someone had seen that.
Sheep run in the opposite direction as you, with other sheep. They are easy to fool. Once one gets an idea of a direction, they all go that way. With a little persuasion they ran in to the pen for counting, we ignored the sheep and picked up all off the cute kicking lambs with arms strength for Juan. He castrated some males and chopped the tails off the females that he would breed from later. He offered us the option to do the deeds. The brutality was too much, out of the pen I ignored the choppings by chasing the escapee lambs and sheep. One escapee had blood all over it and a big lump the size of a small football in its neck. Juan pierced it with a penknife and squeezed a litre of yellow puss out of it. The poor lamb would have died in a few days but now it is living life, eating grass.
Deep in the dark night, in the middle of no mans land, there was a very loud scream in the ranch house. Everyone heard it and stayed in bed. Safest place, no? The next day Carla told us she openned her eyes to see a black gaping arm surrounding her in the dark, Leah had been leaning over her to get something.
Sheep run in the opposite direction as you, with other sheep. They are easy to fool. Once one gets an idea of a direction, they all go that way. With a little persuasion they ran in to the pen for counting, we ignored the sheep and picked up all off the cute kicking lambs with arms strength for Juan. He castrated some males and chopped the tails off the females that he would breed from later. He offered us the option to do the deeds. The brutality was too much, out of the pen I ignored the choppings by chasing the escapee lambs and sheep. One escapee had blood all over it and a big lump the size of a small football in its neck. Juan pierced it with a penknife and squeezed a litre of yellow puss out of it. The poor lamb would have died in a few days but now it is living life, eating grass.
Deep in the dark night, in the middle of no mans land, there was a very loud scream in the ranch house. Everyone heard it and stayed in bed. Safest place, no? The next day Carla told us she openned her eyes to see a black gaping arm surrounding her in the dark, Leah had been leaning over her to get something.
Treading the gaucho ground
Juan didn´t like me because I was too tired to get his carrot joke. He gave me his most jumpy horse. I found out later that he does this to people that he wants to fall off. I´ve been horse riding 7 times - that includes being led on a donkey at the age of eight. You could say Im inexperienced but my experiences on horses have mostly been slightly dangerous ie riding without saddles or reigns or helmets - sorry dad.
Over the days I had three horses, they each showed the level of how much Juan liked me. The first generally got over excited and did what it liked, kicking and screaming. My second horse was known for laying down for a nap while the rider is sat on it. She spiced up as we cantered on the way home. In the evening, most of the girls watched a film for the scarce hours of electricity. In the kitchen four of us sat in candle light, Juan and me shared wine and blunt questions, ending up with an interesting evening. Occassionally quiet travellers stay at his ranch. To make them speak he asks questions about a subject that will make a person angry enough to disagree and put a point across. He does this by pretending he has a small mind, but he doesnt. I like this about him. The next day I had the most attentive and beautiful horse called Thunder.
Over the days I had three horses, they each showed the level of how much Juan liked me. The first generally got over excited and did what it liked, kicking and screaming. My second horse was known for laying down for a nap while the rider is sat on it. She spiced up as we cantered on the way home. In the evening, most of the girls watched a film for the scarce hours of electricity. In the kitchen four of us sat in candle light, Juan and me shared wine and blunt questions, ending up with an interesting evening. Occassionally quiet travellers stay at his ranch. To make them speak he asks questions about a subject that will make a person angry enough to disagree and put a point across. He does this by pretending he has a small mind, but he doesnt. I like this about him. The next day I had the most attentive and beautiful horse called Thunder.
Monday 11 August 2008
Give me a life long sentence here and I´ll be happy
There is nothing but animals grazing for miles. People living in this vast area pay taxes for their land but get no bin men, no post office, or schools, nothing. We were staying in Juans family home, he says he was born there but its hard to believe what he says. He has a practical family, someone in his family had decided to keep a side table on the porch and add a sofa, in a small space so they nailed the table to the wall above the sofa, out of heads reach. It could have looked as though it was meant to be there as shelves if they sawed off the table legs, but they didn't.
Juan is a vet when the locals need his help and he farms meat which is traded for other goods like fruit with locals. A walk in storage cupboard has fruit for us all day long. Three delicous meals a day are made by Juan or his lovely Belgian wife Susannah (another vegie aka another strange one). We fill a bucket of water from the well outside to wash our goods down the toilet. A well in your garden is a lucky convenience here. We are told that we can work or not work everyday, it is our choice before the day begins but you cant change your mind when you are out there or it will confuse the animals.
I love being here. After hustling cities, too much to do and traveling through traffic: the natural habitat and personal sufficiency (with 3 hours electricity) is my perfect break. Um, I've just been told I will be castrating animals..... is that another lie?
Juan is a vet when the locals need his help and he farms meat which is traded for other goods like fruit with locals. A walk in storage cupboard has fruit for us all day long. Three delicous meals a day are made by Juan or his lovely Belgian wife Susannah (another vegie aka another strange one). We fill a bucket of water from the well outside to wash our goods down the toilet. A well in your garden is a lucky convenience here. We are told that we can work or not work everyday, it is our choice before the day begins but you cant change your mind when you are out there or it will confuse the animals.
I love being here. After hustling cities, too much to do and traveling through traffic: the natural habitat and personal sufficiency (with 3 hours electricity) is my perfect break. Um, I've just been told I will be castrating animals..... is that another lie?
Hot springs, carrots and a truck
Uruguay, our fourth country in four days. During the dark early hours it dropped us in the middle of nowhere opposite a large supermarket and a garage in a very small town. The girls saw a truck and looked pretty horrified, I looked over and got excited, this must be our lift.
Juan (our Gaucho guide) said to me, you are the vegetarian yes? I nodded. This is your food. He showed me a big bag of carrots. If you don´t go to the supermarket this is all you will eat. He said this seriously. Tired and confused, even seeing he was a joker I felt the need to check with Catherina and she wound me up too. I really did feel like crying. I was that tired. And a wimp. She noticed and laughed at me. Phew!
Juan´s truck had wooden slabs wonkily nailed to the sides in various places and most of the top was covered by a some wood. We wouldn´t get too wet. It looked as though Juan had been making a small effort every week to improve his truck for passengers. He´d made seats from wood then nailed seatbelts (the ones you get in the centre back seat of a car) to the sides. At 5am wearing all of our warmest clothes for our ride we huddled together in silence. Peering at the open view from the back of the truck, people who were mad enough to drive at that time in the morning pointed and laughed at us, then followed these gestures with waving. We looked like illegal immigrants.
After two hours we arrived at another small town with time to eat and spend an hour in the cold weather swimming in hot springs. After a night bus this was LOVELY. With wet hair we sat on the truck for another 5 hour drive to Juan´s ranch. There were horses in his drive way wandering freely. Surely this is heaven!
Juan (our Gaucho guide) said to me, you are the vegetarian yes? I nodded. This is your food. He showed me a big bag of carrots. If you don´t go to the supermarket this is all you will eat. He said this seriously. Tired and confused, even seeing he was a joker I felt the need to check with Catherina and she wound me up too. I really did feel like crying. I was that tired. And a wimp. She noticed and laughed at me. Phew!
Juan´s truck had wooden slabs wonkily nailed to the sides in various places and most of the top was covered by a some wood. We wouldn´t get too wet. It looked as though Juan had been making a small effort every week to improve his truck for passengers. He´d made seats from wood then nailed seatbelts (the ones you get in the centre back seat of a car) to the sides. At 5am wearing all of our warmest clothes for our ride we huddled together in silence. Peering at the open view from the back of the truck, people who were mad enough to drive at that time in the morning pointed and laughed at us, then followed these gestures with waving. We looked like illegal immigrants.
After two hours we arrived at another small town with time to eat and spend an hour in the cold weather swimming in hot springs. After a night bus this was LOVELY. With wet hair we sat on the truck for another 5 hour drive to Juan´s ranch. There were horses in his drive way wandering freely. Surely this is heaven!
On the Brazilian side...
We had a pleasant morning, both sides of the falls had cloud in the sky that merged with the spray of the falls making it look even larger - I took millions of photographs. We could walk right up to the falls on a platform that people built without dying.
Just outside of the falls there was a coffee shop. It was cold so I bought a Cordado, my favorite coffee, and transfixed by the view almost dropped the cup off the saucer when I didn´t see a drop step. Someone´s way of kicking me back to reality. After this unexpected excitement I felt the need for an adrenaline sport so when a helicopter ride over the falls was suggested I jumped at the chance. If you ever get the chance to do this , do it. The clouds cleared, our shots of the mouth of the dragon are beautiful. The story of the mouth is; a couple had a tiff, the man god was angry at a women god for loving his brother god so he hit the earth with his gigantic fist and made this great hole where the water continually runs through. Gotta be true right? All I want to know is where the water comes from. Guess all I have to do is look at a map.
Just outside of the falls there was a coffee shop. It was cold so I bought a Cordado, my favorite coffee, and transfixed by the view almost dropped the cup off the saucer when I didn´t see a drop step. Someone´s way of kicking me back to reality. After this unexpected excitement I felt the need for an adrenaline sport so when a helicopter ride over the falls was suggested I jumped at the chance. If you ever get the chance to do this , do it. The clouds cleared, our shots of the mouth of the dragon are beautiful. The story of the mouth is; a couple had a tiff, the man god was angry at a women god for loving his brother god so he hit the earth with his gigantic fist and made this great hole where the water continually runs through. Gotta be true right? All I want to know is where the water comes from. Guess all I have to do is look at a map.
A day in Agentina
Iguazu falls lay between Argentina, Brazil and a bit of Paraguay has the river that leads up to the falls. Within two days we had been in all three countries. Our passport stamps look nice & dodgy.
In Argentina...
A small quiet boat trip leading up to the falls that deserves champagne was a great spot for seeing crocodiles and falcons up high. That didn´t cross our minds later.
With macs on and bikini´s under our clothes we walked for hours around the Iguazu falls, another of the seven natural-wonders of the world. It is an astonishingly, massive, beautiful waterfall. At one base of the falls everyone strips to bikini´s & macs and tucks their belongings inside a protective bag, gets on a boat and holds their bags tight underfoot. We took pictures up until we were too close for safety, then the dare devil drivers dip us in and out of the monster waterfall. Another thrill to add to Lisa´s list! Lovely innocents Vicky and Ellie surprised some of us by getting very excited and shouting for the drivers to take us under again, again and again! Patiently waiting to be helped over a mighty step, four slightly pale seventy-something old dears who took the front seats, stared bewildered at everyone clambering off the edge of the boat.
Continuing our walk I took more photos than everone else, lagging behind I followed the group over a long bridge that overlooks the waterfalls. The sound of the falls was so immense that I wanted to experiment. The girls were walking about 10 feet ahead of me and I´d wanted to sing at the top of my lungs for a few weeks but have had been surrounded by people since the beginning of my travels. I burst into song, Whitney Houston´s I will Survive, I think you know it. I got louder and louder. They didn´t hear me once. From then on I was quite enjoying being alone and singing even though the girls probably thought I was strange walking alone. Occassionally a stranger would walk towards me and see my mouth moving but was unable to hear me from their position. I´d stop until they walked past me and continue before they left earshot. I like that they may think I´m crazy but reckon they would try it a few moments later.
In Argentina...
A small quiet boat trip leading up to the falls that deserves champagne was a great spot for seeing crocodiles and falcons up high. That didn´t cross our minds later.
With macs on and bikini´s under our clothes we walked for hours around the Iguazu falls, another of the seven natural-wonders of the world. It is an astonishingly, massive, beautiful waterfall. At one base of the falls everyone strips to bikini´s & macs and tucks their belongings inside a protective bag, gets on a boat and holds their bags tight underfoot. We took pictures up until we were too close for safety, then the dare devil drivers dip us in and out of the monster waterfall. Another thrill to add to Lisa´s list! Lovely innocents Vicky and Ellie surprised some of us by getting very excited and shouting for the drivers to take us under again, again and again! Patiently waiting to be helped over a mighty step, four slightly pale seventy-something old dears who took the front seats, stared bewildered at everyone clambering off the edge of the boat.
Continuing our walk I took more photos than everone else, lagging behind I followed the group over a long bridge that overlooks the waterfalls. The sound of the falls was so immense that I wanted to experiment. The girls were walking about 10 feet ahead of me and I´d wanted to sing at the top of my lungs for a few weeks but have had been surrounded by people since the beginning of my travels. I burst into song, Whitney Houston´s I will Survive, I think you know it. I got louder and louder. They didn´t hear me once. From then on I was quite enjoying being alone and singing even though the girls probably thought I was strange walking alone. Occassionally a stranger would walk towards me and see my mouth moving but was unable to hear me from their position. I´d stop until they walked past me and continue before they left earshot. I like that they may think I´m crazy but reckon they would try it a few moments later.
Paraguay - fives
In the dodgiest looking official market and shops you look at what they sell, ask for it at counter number one and take a closer look - there are two or three people to help you do this. Attempt to pay for it (me & Clare were buying matching macs for the falls tomorrow), are directed to a desk five feet opposite desk number one, offer to pay one of the two people waiting to help, hand over the items, they put them in bags and hand us a receipt each while refusing to take our money. They point at a third desk a few feet to their left. We take the goods to the third desk forming a small queue. Money is taken and we can walk out. Apparently that is how many shops work here. This country will never be a leader in economy; each stop took 5 minutes.
Becoming twins, Clare and me bought identical speakers for our ipods at another shop. Catherina negotiated the prices pretty damn well. The shop had two pairs of speakers remaining; one dark blue, one bright pink. I gave Clare the option to choose which colour she wanted even though I wanted the blue one. She chose blue. I took my bright pink speakers back to the hostel. They lasted for a 5 minute song and konked out. Clare´s speakers happily worked up until we left eachother two weeks later and probably still are...
We saw a damn. An amazing idea and genius thinking that pulled off but it´s pretty damn ugly. It is one of the seven man-made wonders of the world.
Imagine all you can eat pizza. Please someone, move this most amazing idea from Paraguay to London. Immediately after you choose the ayce option pizzas are dished out. Just point at a slice and they hand it over. Carla realised she had no idea what the waiters looked like because she was so busy gauping at food and pointing cave man style. I´m sure the odd ¨Ugg¨ came out of our mouth s when pointing at food. You had to point quick or you might miss it. Automatic instinct jumped in and I grabbed the white chocolate and strawberry covered pizza. Being full to bursting point, we still fit in ice cream, again ayce in many flavours! As we were walking away from the restaurant, 5 minutes after we arrived, Carla made another acknowledgement that it took us longer to walk to our table than to scoff all of our pizza down (averaging 6-7 slices per girl plus ice cream and beer).
Becoming twins, Clare and me bought identical speakers for our ipods at another shop. Catherina negotiated the prices pretty damn well. The shop had two pairs of speakers remaining; one dark blue, one bright pink. I gave Clare the option to choose which colour she wanted even though I wanted the blue one. She chose blue. I took my bright pink speakers back to the hostel. They lasted for a 5 minute song and konked out. Clare´s speakers happily worked up until we left eachother two weeks later and probably still are...
We saw a damn. An amazing idea and genius thinking that pulled off but it´s pretty damn ugly. It is one of the seven man-made wonders of the world.
Imagine all you can eat pizza. Please someone, move this most amazing idea from Paraguay to London. Immediately after you choose the ayce option pizzas are dished out. Just point at a slice and they hand it over. Carla realised she had no idea what the waiters looked like because she was so busy gauping at food and pointing cave man style. I´m sure the odd ¨Ugg¨ came out of our mouth s when pointing at food. You had to point quick or you might miss it. Automatic instinct jumped in and I grabbed the white chocolate and strawberry covered pizza. Being full to bursting point, we still fit in ice cream, again ayce in many flavours! As we were walking away from the restaurant, 5 minutes after we arrived, Carla made another acknowledgement that it took us longer to walk to our table than to scoff all of our pizza down (averaging 6-7 slices per girl plus ice cream and beer).
Ok, sooo in Parati... yes, before Illa Grande.... anyone for tea?
Roomy Clare was feeling a tad ill and wanted to stay in. She is funny, off the beat and likes a drink (well she is Irish). Clare loves tea.... I mean reallllllly loves tea. She brought Irish tea bags with her just incase she couldn´t get any while traveling. As she was bed ridden and wanted to share her tea love with me, I was given the mission of going to the coffee shop below our cottagey hostel to purchase two cups of hot water with milk. Speaking absolutely no portugese, I tried to learn a word: Abrigardo (thank you); and can´t spell it.
In the shop two lovely ladies; mother and daughter, nodded at me a lot and tried to understand my broken spanish - all english had failed. Suprisingly bad spanish didn´t work. I touched my tongue with my finger and made a sizzling noise ´tzzzzzz´ as though my tonge was hot. It wasn´t clear so I tried this same action and noise on my arm, this time saying água´. Then positioned my body in a tea pot shape and poured tea out of my spout. They understood my tea pot! However, they thought I wanted tea = Problem. So, no te, agua. Their faces were taught with confusion and half-smiles. There were now two onlookers watching this catastrophe over my shoulder. we were the show for this small village. Mother picked up a jug of water, pointed at it, pointed at her stove and gave me the thumbs up. I returned her thumbs up with a smile, then two fingers that suggested I needed two cups of hot water. Whoops I sweared - turned my fingers around the other way. Blimey this is going well. Getting milk is going to be difficult. Moooo comes out of my mouth. She looks and me and says ´leche´ - oh there was no need for my effort as it´s the same word in spanish. Daughter points at hot water now in two cups and picks up some leche to point at. Thumbs up for both. She picks up tea bags, I waved my arms around frantically with a horrified look on my face - no no no! She looks utterly confused, I mean, why wouldn´t I want a tea bag in my cups of hot water and milk? Again nodding while pointing at the hot water, the milk and then pointing at the tea bag she shakes her head. Yes yes!!! Relief spread throughout the cafe. We had our two cups of hot water and milk in two lovely tea mugs plus two biscuits on the side. Oh bugger, I wanted to take these away. Somehow this is the easiest bit, I show her me walking away and walking back again with the mugs. Asking for two only for me must have given it away. Back in our room, I saw the delight on Clare´s face and it was worth it.
In the shop two lovely ladies; mother and daughter, nodded at me a lot and tried to understand my broken spanish - all english had failed. Suprisingly bad spanish didn´t work. I touched my tongue with my finger and made a sizzling noise ´tzzzzzz´ as though my tonge was hot. It wasn´t clear so I tried this same action and noise on my arm, this time saying água´. Then positioned my body in a tea pot shape and poured tea out of my spout. They understood my tea pot! However, they thought I wanted tea = Problem. So, no te, agua. Their faces were taught with confusion and half-smiles. There were now two onlookers watching this catastrophe over my shoulder. we were the show for this small village. Mother picked up a jug of water, pointed at it, pointed at her stove and gave me the thumbs up. I returned her thumbs up with a smile, then two fingers that suggested I needed two cups of hot water. Whoops I sweared - turned my fingers around the other way. Blimey this is going well. Getting milk is going to be difficult. Moooo comes out of my mouth. She looks and me and says ´leche´ - oh there was no need for my effort as it´s the same word in spanish. Daughter points at hot water now in two cups and picks up some leche to point at. Thumbs up for both. She picks up tea bags, I waved my arms around frantically with a horrified look on my face - no no no! She looks utterly confused, I mean, why wouldn´t I want a tea bag in my cups of hot water and milk? Again nodding while pointing at the hot water, the milk and then pointing at the tea bag she shakes her head. Yes yes!!! Relief spread throughout the cafe. We had our two cups of hot water and milk in two lovely tea mugs plus two biscuits on the side. Oh bugger, I wanted to take these away. Somehow this is the easiest bit, I show her me walking away and walking back again with the mugs. Asking for two only for me must have given it away. Back in our room, I saw the delight on Clare´s face and it was worth it.
Friday 4 July 2008
Ilha Grande...it may be wednesday or thursday, July some time...?
drinks in the evening with a couple fo Ilha Grande´s boatmen drunkards has led to cathrina drawing up a contract with them on a scrunched piece of the paper on the table. This contract says that we can turn up the next day for a boat trip around the island and they include fruit in their price of 20 reals. Good price. They stuck to it, took us out and gave us fruit. The drunkard from the night was drinking tequila all day. He was hammered. Their boss was away so he wanted to take advantage of his drinking time. He chose Vicki to be his girlfriend and hugged her alot. She took it well. The girls looked nervous when the captain let me take the wheel a few times. I was moved away when we came to the docks even though it looked pretty easy to do, where´s the faith!? Ok, I suppose they did get another more experienced man to dock us but how will I ever learn if I never try? Sue, I guess I´ll wait until I sail with you one year.
The drinks last night made me just as drunk as the two boatmen. I left earlier than my roomy and found the dog huddled up against our door. The poor dog smelt so much that I heard myself making a deal with her ¨You can only come in if you are clean, and you aren´t clean, I have to clean you to let you in and it´s too cold to shower you out here. You can come in but only for a wash¨ I took the dog in to our shower and used two soap bars on her. One wash wasn´t enough for Lexi, she still had a stench. I gave her a second scrub, dried her off with my hotel towel and pushed her outside smelling better but still not good. I held off from telling clare what I had done until the morning when she asked me why I had left my towels outside. She was not impressed but still wasn´t angry with me. I was expecting a battle field because she hates dogs, especially ther smelly one with fleas.
Somehow Ellie guessed what happened because Lexi had a spring in her step and now had a friend. Still, none of the girls could stand her being around because no matter how hard I tried to clean her the night before, the smell was still there. Ever since this night my head has the odd itch and I worry a little... I´m sure I don´t have nits... well I hope I don´t. Some of the girls had cold showers in their rooms and were hoping to use ours because it was a warm shower. They changed their minds. Funnily enough, so did I. I went showerless for a day. Clare braved the shower, now I´m in shock.
The drinks last night made me just as drunk as the two boatmen. I left earlier than my roomy and found the dog huddled up against our door. The poor dog smelt so much that I heard myself making a deal with her ¨You can only come in if you are clean, and you aren´t clean, I have to clean you to let you in and it´s too cold to shower you out here. You can come in but only for a wash¨ I took the dog in to our shower and used two soap bars on her. One wash wasn´t enough for Lexi, she still had a stench. I gave her a second scrub, dried her off with my hotel towel and pushed her outside smelling better but still not good. I held off from telling clare what I had done until the morning when she asked me why I had left my towels outside. She was not impressed but still wasn´t angry with me. I was expecting a battle field because she hates dogs, especially ther smelly one with fleas.
Somehow Ellie guessed what happened because Lexi had a spring in her step and now had a friend. Still, none of the girls could stand her being around because no matter how hard I tried to clean her the night before, the smell was still there. Ever since this night my head has the odd itch and I worry a little... I´m sure I don´t have nits... well I hope I don´t. Some of the girls had cold showers in their rooms and were hoping to use ours because it was a warm shower. They changed their minds. Funnily enough, so did I. I went showerless for a day. Clare braved the shower, now I´m in shock.
Parati. what day is it now?
now I don´t know which day it is or where I am half the time. When you stop writing a blog time moves along as it pleases. We´ve been on a bus all day and all night to get to Parati, a cobble stoned villiage that charges a bomb for laundry and internet.
The sun has come out to play and we are out on a boat relaxing with Caiparinahs and beer. The boats look a little bit like they are from Pirates of the Carribean. We are stopping at three different beaches to relax and snorkel, swim, or dive off the boat. Ilha Grande Bay is truly beautiful and relaxing. The food is delicious, just imagine, this is the paradise I never thought I would see, I thought I´d need to be rich to see this view under the scorching sun. Oh happiness.
The sun has come out to play and we are out on a boat relaxing with Caiparinahs and beer. The boats look a little bit like they are from Pirates of the Carribean. We are stopping at three different beaches to relax and snorkel, swim, or dive off the boat. Ilha Grande Bay is truly beautiful and relaxing. The food is delicious, just imagine, this is the paradise I never thought I would see, I thought I´d need to be rich to see this view under the scorching sun. Oh happiness.
Monday 23 June 2008
what´s that smell? - Monday 23 June
We walked a short trail because it rained last night. You can´t walk the big trail for the danger of slipping is just too much! We went for dinner quite early after our relaxing stroll and there was a really bad smell at the table. Everyone was commenting on how the dog must be near by but she wasn´t in the eye view. Lexi, bless her, had found her spot under the table before we had arrived. She really does stink so we moved to a table far away from her. She stayed put. Dogs are open to wander around freely here and lots of them are stray. The others try their best not to touch them, I stroke them all, they really are sweet lonely little things. The girls think it´s gross that I touch them and unhigienic, little do they know that after I stroke them I clean my hands with sanitizer that I keep in my pocket. I´m enjoying their disgust too much to tell them that I´m eating my food with clean hands.
Three boys walked cautiously over to our table and tried to talk to us. All of the girls I am with are gorgeous so I was only a tad surprised when they asked to take a photograph of them smiling next to us but was completely surprised when they introduced us to another twelve year old and asked ¨would we like to kiss a brasilian boy?¨. Ofcourse our answer was going to be yes from a bunch of twenty somethings....? They weren´t even bothered which girl it was! I wish I had taken a photo of them.
Some restaurants here have an interesting idea that works for us. We weigh the food that we have chosen from a cart and that is all you are charged for. Being vegetarian, this helps a lot. Only once have I found meat in a dish that was supposed to be meat free. In england, to say it is meat free normally includes chicken but over here chicken doesn´t count, you have to say sin everything to be understood. The food is pretty tasty here, we can eat salad and be safe as the water isn´t clean enough for the locals either so you know you wont be ill. One girl Leah, has been drinking water from the tap, she says she has been fine. Later on in the day we discovered that she is becoming ill... she has been drinking water from the tap all over the country...
Three boys walked cautiously over to our table and tried to talk to us. All of the girls I am with are gorgeous so I was only a tad surprised when they asked to take a photograph of them smiling next to us but was completely surprised when they introduced us to another twelve year old and asked ¨would we like to kiss a brasilian boy?¨. Ofcourse our answer was going to be yes from a bunch of twenty somethings....? They weren´t even bothered which girl it was! I wish I had taken a photo of them.
Some restaurants here have an interesting idea that works for us. We weigh the food that we have chosen from a cart and that is all you are charged for. Being vegetarian, this helps a lot. Only once have I found meat in a dish that was supposed to be meat free. In england, to say it is meat free normally includes chicken but over here chicken doesn´t count, you have to say sin everything to be understood. The food is pretty tasty here, we can eat salad and be safe as the water isn´t clean enough for the locals either so you know you wont be ill. One girl Leah, has been drinking water from the tap, she says she has been fine. Later on in the day we discovered that she is becoming ill... she has been drinking water from the tap all over the country...
Christ! paradise Island & love - Sunday 22 June
Carla, a harvard english graduate from New York, had arrived on the day of our meet and greet. She hadn´t any time to see any sights and really wanted to see christ, and as I hadn´t, we got up early, caught a taxi, took the second train up the hill and came upon something that we couldn´t quite see. Was it christ, I think so, the mist was so heavy that we couldn´t see this amazing statue! I looked over the edge at the landscape and could see only cloud. We spent most of the time in hysterics trying to spot a patch of noncloud so we could take a couple of pictures. A helicopter flew at us out of nowhere, stopped, looked at the statue and went away. I mean, who would be stupid enough to wait until the one cloudy day to pay for a helicopter ride and stare at some cloud, and just maybe, might they catch christ for a split second. At least we weren´t more stupid than them. The thing is, from the ground the sky looked clearer, the higher we got, the worse the weather became and the more we couldn´t see the landscape.
This was the beginning of our bad weather. We made it back to the hotel just in time to pack and jump in the taxi with the rest of the girls. Their names are Catherina (tour leader), Ellie, Eleanor, Vicki, Sophia and Leah. We were on our first long bus ride to a paradise Island, Ilha Grande. If it wasn´t raining most of the time, we would believe that statement. When I read the climate of South America, I didn´t think about the global warming impacts on this side of the world. This is the dry season which is also winter. Except, apparently the rain is getting more frequent all year round. Dogs are popularly a stray animal here. One in particular follows us everywhere we go. Not one girl likes her, except me. I feel sorry for this stranded dog. Yes she smells, yes she obviously has fleas and yes half of her fur has been scratched off so she isn´t attractive. BUT she has a lovely personality and always wants a friend. She sleeps outside of our door at night and is always happy to see us. I love her and named her Lexi, as a relation to ecsma. Noone understands my love.
This was the beginning of our bad weather. We made it back to the hotel just in time to pack and jump in the taxi with the rest of the girls. Their names are Catherina (tour leader), Ellie, Eleanor, Vicki, Sophia and Leah. We were on our first long bus ride to a paradise Island, Ilha Grande. If it wasn´t raining most of the time, we would believe that statement. When I read the climate of South America, I didn´t think about the global warming impacts on this side of the world. This is the dry season which is also winter. Except, apparently the rain is getting more frequent all year round. Dogs are popularly a stray animal here. One in particular follows us everywhere we go. Not one girl likes her, except me. I feel sorry for this stranded dog. Yes she smells, yes she obviously has fleas and yes half of her fur has been scratched off so she isn´t attractive. BUT she has a lovely personality and always wants a friend. She sleeps outside of our door at night and is always happy to see us. I love her and named her Lexi, as a relation to ecsma. Noone understands my love.
laura, sugar loaf & girls - Saturday 20 June
Laura, a funny entrepenurial northern girl staying at our hostel, recently split up with her boyfriend while traveling. Unexpectedly she needed to make the choice of whether to carry on or go home. She chose to carry on with a heavy heart. Quite a few people in the hostel had discovered that there was another girl staying there who was also traveling on my 17 day tour with Intrepid. After a few days of knowing this, we finally came into contact via Laura and the three of us had a few drinks. I´m not going to tell you the ideas that Laura was coming out with to make money to keep traveling but she is one funny girl. We had such a laugh together that Laura came to our meeting point hotel to try and get on our tour. After some thought it was too much of a bit of an expense so sadly we had to leave her behind. This late interaction with Clare led to us to being room mates for the entire trip. This is lucky for me, I almost had to share my room with a loopy girl who really isn´t on this planet. Not that anyone could know she is loopy for a few days but looking back, I feel lucky. Clare has a couple of her own little quirks too, she is a reporter in Ireland for RTN news so has a lot of conversation in her, and she is VERY scared of moscuitos. I have never seen anyone with such an obsession to protect herself from being bitten. I can see why, she is bitten when I am not, even if she uses a moscuito net and I don´t. Poor girl.
Before our tour group meeting to introduce ourselves to everyone, I took a brash decision to run to Sugar Loaf mountain, knowing that I would be late for the meeting. I was the luckiest person on earth to go up the hill just as the sun set. If I am ever able to find an internet cafe that is quicker than a snail, I´ll upload the photos. They are beautiful, I happened to catch a couple completely embraced in the corner of one romantic night shot. And I was late. That´ll teach me for exploring the neighbourhood and not seeing the key sights first. I still haven´t seen Christ and we leave in the morning.
We went for a meal with our group. We were all surprised to find only girls. Eight of us plus our female tour leader. This will be interesting.
Before our tour group meeting to introduce ourselves to everyone, I took a brash decision to run to Sugar Loaf mountain, knowing that I would be late for the meeting. I was the luckiest person on earth to go up the hill just as the sun set. If I am ever able to find an internet cafe that is quicker than a snail, I´ll upload the photos. They are beautiful, I happened to catch a couple completely embraced in the corner of one romantic night shot. And I was late. That´ll teach me for exploring the neighbourhood and not seeing the key sights first. I still haven´t seen Christ and we leave in the morning.
We went for a meal with our group. We were all surprised to find only girls. Eight of us plus our female tour leader. This will be interesting.
oh to fly forever and see the streets - friday 20 June
The excitement was beyond me and when we ran off the cliff edge and were flying over a hill of trees, the feeling was so powerful that tears came to my eyes. The happiness of having fulfilled another dream was phenominal. Now, I have a new dream, to learn to handglide solo. Wow! That will have to wait until Peru. It´s encouraged me to think more seriously about getting into extreme sports. Seriously, I mean it. The ferry ride back to Centro didn´t quite match up to flying.
Drinks with other hostel people let to Thai dinner in Ipanema, a great nightlife area with lots going on, and then a bus to Lapa with Rafael and his best friend, who I call Jelly, but that´s not his name. We were supposed to meet a big group from the hostel but they got lost and had ID problems getting into small clubs in the tunnel arches. In Lapa, there is a mass group of people gathered on the streets, tiny stands sell Caipirinhias, beer and crisps. Music pumps out of most buildings. Lots of Brazilians come here for their nights out. Everyone seems to know everyone and they greet eachother with big smiles. Maybe that´s just because I was with two regulars but this friendliness appeared to spread through the crowd. The taxi that took us home was a mix between a taxi and a bus, it has a roughly set route. It is a nine people van that will pick up lots of people up from Lapa and then take everyone near enough to where they want to go in roughly the same direction. What a great idea! Cheap and cheerful, people talk to eachother on the bus unlike in London.
Drinks with other hostel people let to Thai dinner in Ipanema, a great nightlife area with lots going on, and then a bus to Lapa with Rafael and his best friend, who I call Jelly, but that´s not his name. We were supposed to meet a big group from the hostel but they got lost and had ID problems getting into small clubs in the tunnel arches. In Lapa, there is a mass group of people gathered on the streets, tiny stands sell Caipirinhias, beer and crisps. Music pumps out of most buildings. Lots of Brazilians come here for their nights out. Everyone seems to know everyone and they greet eachother with big smiles. Maybe that´s just because I was with two regulars but this friendliness appeared to spread through the crowd. The taxi that took us home was a mix between a taxi and a bus, it has a roughly set route. It is a nine people van that will pick up lots of people up from Lapa and then take everyone near enough to where they want to go in roughly the same direction. What a great idea! Cheap and cheerful, people talk to eachother on the bus unlike in London.
taxi, alcohol & a motorbike - Thursday 19 June
Our hostel receptionist Phillipe was worried that I´d be in danger on my own in Santa Theresa. Ofcourse, I went alone and took a tram from Centro (the most mugged area) with my eyes peeled at all times. Male locals stare, however women are quite friendly. They talk to me in Portugese and I nod with a response of ´si, si`. With a feeling that I´m not really blending in I catch the next taxi that comes my way. I pay him to show me the area. He pretendsto understand my broken spanish. Then takes me to a corner shop while he asks someone to translate for him. We had already agreed the price! He took me everywhere up a hill to a helicopter spot. Such a great view.
At night, I went out for Thai food with Dom and Amy, we met their friends who were celebrating a birthday. You have to do something pretty terrible not to be welcome somewhere with travelers. Luckily I wasn´t intruding. Hostels are such friendly places.
I went back to the hostel and left them out samba-ing. My plan for a quiet night ended up drinking, and singing to Rafael while he played the guitar, and riding on the back of the security guards motorbike. There was a communication breakdown somewhere - I thought we were going around the block but he took me a few blocks down through tunnels and pedestrian walkways past people sleeping on the streets, and to a bar. He bought us a capiriniah and I suggested that we leave in cinco minutos. Another miscommunication, he wanted to go to the club next door and thought I was going to gather everyone in the hostel up to come clubbing - in the favellas! We got back and Rafael translated for me. All understood, he left for the club alone, upset.
At night, I went out for Thai food with Dom and Amy, we met their friends who were celebrating a birthday. You have to do something pretty terrible not to be welcome somewhere with travelers. Luckily I wasn´t intruding. Hostels are such friendly places.
I went back to the hostel and left them out samba-ing. My plan for a quiet night ended up drinking, and singing to Rafael while he played the guitar, and riding on the back of the security guards motorbike. There was a communication breakdown somewhere - I thought we were going around the block but he took me a few blocks down through tunnels and pedestrian walkways past people sleeping on the streets, and to a bar. He bought us a capiriniah and I suggested that we leave in cinco minutos. Another miscommunication, he wanted to go to the club next door and thought I was going to gather everyone in the hostel up to come clubbing - in the favellas! We got back and Rafael translated for me. All understood, he left for the club alone, upset.
Paranoia and road mayhem - Wednesday 18 June
Today I took the metro to Centro to follow a walk from my lonely planet guide. Try following a map that has half the road names missing. Even when I thought I was lost and in dodgy areas it turned out that I was on the right road, I´d just made my own way to their suggested destination. Most of the time I was paranoid and thought I´d be mugged. My camera only came out from hidden angles and in quiet areas. Lots of the time you see either a bit of my top or a lot of land and no sky. Not my best shots. I walked around a big park five times just to find a moment when I felt safe enough to take a picture, I slid down a bit of grass, hid between two trees and looked in another direction to veer any attention away from my hands sneaking out my camera to take a shot of this gorgeous park. Bound to go wrong really. The shot has a lotta pond and not a lotta park. Not that you can tell but there were lots of cats and some other creatures that may be wombles, who knows?
A minute later I walked out of the park and saw a motorbike crash into the front of a policia car that was edging out of a small road. The bike landed and swirled on top of the rider´s leg. It was definitely crushed because he couldn´t move. Lots of people went to help him. My lack in portugese would have caused more problems so I walked off to get lost again.
It´s easy to think any young Brazilian man is going to mug you. Lots of stories float around the hostel of people who have been mugged that have or are staying in the hostel. Last week, one girl who was laying on Copacobana beach was accompanied by an uninvited Brazilian. He sat down next to her, tapped his pocket and said give me everything you´ve got. She asked him why he was robbing her and ended up talking to him for two hours. They went to a supermarket together and she bought him a sandwich, they exchanged numbers and now they are friends. They met up on saturday to spend some time together. I know what you are thinking, that is the sort of thing I would do, but no, it wasn´t me. These sort of stories are rare, normally they are more vicious, quick and always involve knives. You can see why I was a bit paranoid about getting my camera out.
After the excitement of the crash I took a calm stroll into a government building and took a picture of the street from a high up window where noone could get to me from the ground. Then, just incase someone had seen me, I practically ran out of the building and walked to the sea docks. Nice view. I sat down and slipped my camera out from under my top. I´ll look at the result later. There were cool kids swinging two long skipping ropes while two other cool kids jumped in the middle while doing the tango. I risked taking a shot. Phew! All of this worrying is tiring.
Back at the hostel Rafael, our bar man, learned how to play an Alanis Morrisette song on his guitar and I sang with him.
A minute later I walked out of the park and saw a motorbike crash into the front of a policia car that was edging out of a small road. The bike landed and swirled on top of the rider´s leg. It was definitely crushed because he couldn´t move. Lots of people went to help him. My lack in portugese would have caused more problems so I walked off to get lost again.
It´s easy to think any young Brazilian man is going to mug you. Lots of stories float around the hostel of people who have been mugged that have or are staying in the hostel. Last week, one girl who was laying on Copacobana beach was accompanied by an uninvited Brazilian. He sat down next to her, tapped his pocket and said give me everything you´ve got. She asked him why he was robbing her and ended up talking to him for two hours. They went to a supermarket together and she bought him a sandwich, they exchanged numbers and now they are friends. They met up on saturday to spend some time together. I know what you are thinking, that is the sort of thing I would do, but no, it wasn´t me. These sort of stories are rare, normally they are more vicious, quick and always involve knives. You can see why I was a bit paranoid about getting my camera out.
After the excitement of the crash I took a calm stroll into a government building and took a picture of the street from a high up window where noone could get to me from the ground. Then, just incase someone had seen me, I practically ran out of the building and walked to the sea docks. Nice view. I sat down and slipped my camera out from under my top. I´ll look at the result later. There were cool kids swinging two long skipping ropes while two other cool kids jumped in the middle while doing the tango. I risked taking a shot. Phew! All of this worrying is tiring.
Back at the hostel Rafael, our bar man, learned how to play an Alanis Morrisette song on his guitar and I sang with him.
Friday 20 June 2008
A butterfly , supermarket and a musician - Tuesday 17 June
I went for a walk down on Copacobana beach and found a butterfly just alive, with it´s wings stuck together by sea water. I carried it most of the way to the hostel and decided to leave it under a tree, wings separated, as the monkeys at our hostel might eat it. I hope it´s ok.At the supermarket a guy smiled largely at me while pretending to hit me with his shopping trolley. He did this several times and found it funny. It was, a little bit. He had a small gold cross dangling from his earring. I kept imagining that he was a drug dealer out doing his weekly shopping.
A walk around the hill of a mountainous forest I ended up facing a massive lake and took a slow walk around it. Being slightly paranoid I slowed down several times to let people pass me or sitting down for two minutes before moving on. Turns out no one robbed me at knife point like I was expecting. However, a tree had a big dangling branch which, if I sat on it, looked like it would either split in two or just about hold my weight. i thought I´d give it a go. It didn´t snap but my distraction from avoiding people gave a Brazilian the chance to come over to talk to me. Bugger. He had a guitar on his back and was on his way to show a singer his work. This was the perfect opportunity for him to sing and play a couple of songs for me. Next thing I know it is an hour later and we are still chatting. It has turned from day to night and say I want to leave. He gave me his phone number, email address and a very encouraging offer to come and visit him at his university. He lives in the jungle next to the uni and looks after the ground and it´s many animals. He ensures me that I am allowed to bring a friend and says I must bring a camera because it is sooo beautiful. He seemed sincere - he was just walking along the lake to decide what to do about his music and really did want directions from me (even though I am obviously a tourist). I still went for the ´there is no way I am going on two buses and a boat to visit you in a lodge in the jungle´option. Although, it could have been a good extra for my dream.
Tuesday 17 June 2008
stags and monkeys - monday 16 June
On the plane I met a lovely venezuelian lady, a chatty Brazilian lady, a brazilian photographer and nine forty year old somethings from Notts going on a stag do in Rio. I was lucky the stag group chatted to me a lot, for when I went to look for my taxi transfer to my hostel, it wasn´t there. This football fanatic stag group took me on a journey in their large taxi to my hostel. Bless them. We exchanged numbers, I might be going out ¨on the lash¨ (their words) with them tonight...
The hostel is painted in lots of bright colours, the nine people I´m sharing a room with are french, African and English. No, not the stags! Nine is coincidental. As soon as I arrived a guy came up to me and said ¨hi, I´m david, nine of us are going handgliding tomorrow if you want to come¨ This is my sort of place. Shame I had jet lag as I slept in and missed them. I´ll go another day. Little monkeys climb around out the back - they refuse to eat everything except bananas.
...nah, I´m not going out with the
stags tonight.
The hostel is painted in lots of bright colours, the nine people I´m sharing a room with are french, African and English. No, not the stags! Nine is coincidental. As soon as I arrived a guy came up to me and said ¨hi, I´m david, nine of us are going handgliding tomorrow if you want to come¨ This is my sort of place. Shame I had jet lag as I slept in and missed them. I´ll go another day. Little monkeys climb around out the back - they refuse to eat everything except bananas.
...nah, I´m not going out with the
stags tonight.
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