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.
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
