El Vagabundo

Bosnia (Mostar, Jajce and Sarajevo)

2012-02-09T05:03:00.000-08:00

We didn't get a real stamp on the passport as we crossed into Bosnia. This was a little concerning as in Central America they tended to hand out massive fines to anyone who didn't have their passport in order. After a little more travelling around Eastern Europe, I'd realise they really don't give a shit here except for maybe the old Soviet republics. Apparently we were double charged. I have no idea what that was about. The hazards of writing these things a long time after the actual events. Anyway. We arrived in Mostar and first impressions from the window were that this was a bit of a shithole. I didn't say anything to Cannelle, but it turns out she was thinking exactly the same thing.

There was a gaggle of locals waiting at the bus stop and we were singled out by a small old woman who offered us a room for cheap right next to the bus station. Having been burnt by not accepting the proposition in Croatia, we decided that this time we should accept. There was another guy charging double to a family near us and maybe that's what I meant by double charged. Our old lady didn't undercut him and we had a place within easy walking distance for the bus the next day. We decided to stay for just the one night, because it didn't look that great. Mostar ended up being really pretty. We had taken an afternoon kip because we were dead from the night before. When we headed into the town, it was obvious that the facade from the bus window was not representative of the picturesque centre of the town. It was small, but it was very cosy. We noticed the price difference immediately. We would finally be able to stay on budget and enjoy ourselves a little. The famous bridge is excellent, arching over the river like a curving back, gently tumbling over the river. Its also very serene. You feel strangely relaxed, when normally next to a famour landmark you feel harangued from all sides by the hustle and bustle of the tourists and vendors. This was in the height of summer as well. The cobbled streets leading to and from the bridge were also nice with the small vendors. Not much pushing here and the locals seemed a lot more accommodating than the Croats before. We went on a walk around the suburbs to see some of the bombed out buildings from the war. The contrast between the new and old was marked. Cannelle thought one place I told her was bombed out was in fact just a new housing estate. It's got a nice blend of ghost town and vibrant pulsating little community. It's one of those places you could just chill out in for ages. Shame we only had the one night as we'd already booked tickets to Jajce. I believe this diary entry sums up the finances. 'Can eat again.' Yes we could. No more bread and chicken sausage. Well not much anyway. We could eat in restaurants and still be on budget. We could get giant portions of meat with some pita bread thingy. It was so cheap. Lots of weddings in town, though not of Kiev dimensions. No bridge divers sadly. It didn't mater. The bridge was better than the divers would have been. We hung out in some cool bars, Cannelle picked up an awesome crepe for almost nothing and then we went home because we were knackered. Nice place. It was also monumental here, because it was where Cannelle's hair straighteners blew up and gave up the ghost. Since this day she has not used them anymore. Going from the woman who could never do without them, to finally having her wonderful natural hair all the time.

We left the key on the table in the morning and headed for Jajce. We got there and there appeared to be no budget accommodation in town. Bus times were bad as well. We opted for a two night stay and a hike down to Pliva lakes. Or maybe we decided on two nights after we saw Pliva. I can't remember. It was a long walk. Very long. All the way down the main highway. Wow it was pretty. We had come for the town, but we would stay for the lakes. Cannelle didn't want to see the waterfalls for the town, but that was ruined by the Croatian disease of sticking up a giant billboard with the location plasted all over it. It was a mini Plitvice. Only you could swim in this one. The campsite was 5 euros each for the night. I love Bosnia. Or maybe it was 5 euros each for 2 nights. It was cheap anyway. We went down to the lake and got a huge burger thing that we couldn't even finish. Mountains of meat. We walked around the lake, past the second upper lake with mini mill things. Not sure what their purpose is but it looked pretty. We went for a swim. Well I did as it was ice cold. Shit like Russia. Still it was nice and invigorating. It's true that cold water fires up the blood. We grabbed some supplies and headed back to the tent. It was still a shitty tent, but it was hanging in there. Not sure if it was going to make the whole trip. It was a nice relaxing couple of days off here. No rush. Just chilling. I told Cannelle that South East Asia would be a more similar pace to now.

In the morning we went for another walk around the lakes. We got super cheap ice cream. 20p or something like that. We went to visit the catacombs and the castle. Both crappy but cheap. Everyone was super helpful. The Bosnians just seemed really nice. Cannelle has a veggie stew for lunch and I had another Cevapi. The food down here in the Balkans was really good. The more you spend here, the more you realise why Yugoslavia was such a popular destination for the Germans before the war. We even got a great hot chocolate that I spilt everywhere from a little house in front of some impossibly beautiful mini cascades. I have no idea why more people don't visit here. Even Lonely Planet glosses over it, but I think they always slide past National Parks. A place in Thailand that looks jaw droppingly beautiful only got a small mention in the Thailand section, yet some bullshit beach resort will get three pages. Oh well. Shows the focus of most tourists. Ah mini pooh. Its Cannelle's new name. Never stuck though. We bought the Sarajevo tickets for the next day, electing to avoid the weird pyramid thing they have unearthed. Then we saved the best until last. The double drop waterfall underneath the city. It looked picture perfect on the photos, but when we got to the vantage point it was clear that one of the waterfalls had dried up and they had built some sort of weird bridge. Bugger. It ruined it but it was still pretty and Pliva had been worth it as well. The waiters in the evening thought we were Bosnian. We went back to the lake and chilled out reading and watching a crazy dog who was running around for no reason at the barbecue. It was a really pleasant two days here and Bosnia was fast joining Slovenia as a favourite country.

In the morning we set off for Sarajevo and had just left the campsite when a car pulled up alongside us for the third time this holiday. A crazy local farmer offered us a lift. He couldn't speak a word of English but showed us photos of his family and him with a scythe. He was a bit mental, talked at us in Bosnian, was happy with our countries and gave me a thumbs up because he thought Cannelle was beautiful. He drove us into town (kind of like a crazy Bob from Twin Peaks) and saved us a hike. So we could chill out waiting for the bus. A woman moved for us on the bus so we could sit together. The Bosnians were so nice to us. We arrived in Sarajevo and had a double problem. No buses to Montenegro. Only one night bus from a bus station in the middle of nowhere that was expensive and there was also limited accommodation due to the film festival. This was badly planned. After our own 'no room at the inn' wanderings around Sarajevo we eventually found somewhere not too expensive with our own room. We figured we had saved enough elsewhere in Bosnia to take a hit here. It seemed a nice place, despite the number of Bosnian women dressed like putas. In the evening we even sat in the square spotting who had the shittest dress and who was the biggest puta we could see. While it was nice, I fail to see how this city is ever like a mini Istanbul. Everyone says it. I can only assume that A) They have never been to Istanbul, B) They have never been to Sarajevo or C) They are really stupid. I don't see any similarities. We went off to a museum that was supposed to be free, only to be greeted with the statement 'this is a museum, you must pay.' Fuck off then. We walked up to the hill cemetary. I took us the long way round, which Cannelle loved. She got hit on by some guys when we made the top, because she was slightly ahead of me and they didn't realise I was with her. We sat and chilled up there with a good view over the city. One of the kids followed us away from the fort and I was worried we were about to be attacked, until he stopped, removed a rock and took out a bottle of alcohol that he'd obviously stashed there sometime before. We went to see the film Hanna in the evening and then adopted a dog. He followed us around and barked at all the other dogs to keep them away from us. It was a little heartless when we had to ditch him, but we ended up slinking into a Chinese restaurant to buy a few things for the evening. We were able to chill in the evening.

DISASTER. That's what I wrote and what this day was. One of the worst of the trip. The hotel would only hold our bags for an hour or so despite telling us it was ok the day before. Miscommunication. We did however get free crepes in a local restaurant when the waiter found out I was a Spurs fan. Turns out he loves Spurs, even though we have Croatian players (they don't like Croats here) and he was so excited to have a Spurs fan in his restaurant that it made his day and we ate partially for free. Nice people these Bosnians. We saw the famous bridge where World War I started and then took a bus out to get tickets for Montenegro. The bus would arrive in Herceg Novi at 4am. Ah perfect. We tried to walk to the Tunnel Museum, got lost twice, realised it was miles away and gave up. Now we were stuck. Hours to go and nowhere to go. We killed time in a restaurant with super expensive ice creams. Pointless waste of a day, aside from the crepes. Anyway the sunset was pretty and we were off to Montenegro. We would miss Bosnia. Great country.

Croatia (Zagreb, Plitvice, Zadar, Split, Trogir, Hvar, Korcula and Dubrovnik)

2012-01-03T03:29:00.001-08:00

Oooohhh slidy head rests. Reminds me of my first inter railing. Anyway we were in Croatia and excited. It was one of the three countries I expected to be a highlight of the trip. First impression. There was not a massive price difference between Slovenia and Croatia. This could prove problematic as we had a higher budget of 45 euros a day for Slovenia and Italy, but Croatia would have to be attacked with the trip's basic budget of 30 euros a day. We found a hostel (admittedly expensive) with free internet, so we took the opportunity to upload our first round of photos from the holiday. The last bus to Plitvice was at 4pm so we would only have a half day or so in the capital. We headed out for the evening. Zagreb has some funky bars in the downtown and is probably one of the best looking cities I have been to in terms of the women. It didn't please Cannelle much, but she was the first one to mention it after we left the railway station. We got some good food from an organic bar and chilled out under the lights of the city with a hot chocolate. We were officially on gypo travel rations, but it was a cool city. It has a nice vibe and I could live there, even if its a small city. The hostel even had a double bed with the bunk beds so we took that one. Free tea and apparently some fashionistas. I am not sure if that relates to the hostel or the people of Zagreb.

We got up and stored our bags before heading out into the city. Lots of cool graffitti lines the walls on the way to the railway station of Zagreb. Some Belgians in the hostel. They loved Eastern Europe and I got the impression it was for the women. We walked around the city. Grabbed a lunch by the market where it was good value for money. Cool city. Found a sign for a 'Naive' museum which I guessed was a typo, but then again maybe not as we saw some others later on the trip. We skipped the museums and headed to the botanical gardens, where we spooned some melon and danced on a bridge. There is a nice shaded wooden walkway up on the hill. There are not many top grade tourist attractions in Zagreb, but I do really like the city. Cool place to hang around for a few days and I am sure its even better if you are single. apparently we had a moron bus driver. I don't know why, but he dropped us at the campsite. Its very expensive there to camp. More than Slovenia. Personally with hindsight, I think it would be better to stay in one of the homestays lining the road, but we didn't cotton on to this until Bosnia, so it cost us in Croatia. Now we were apparently around 9km from the park and so we got into a debate about bus v walk. I think the bus was 10 euros return maybe. Now I can't remember. In figured we could walk it. Cannelle wasn't interested. In the end and after much debating, we agreed to the bus one way and walk back the other. It was going to be difficult to stay on budget in Croatia. We were eating from supermarkets and still killing the budget. Shitty.

In the morning we took the bus one way to Plitvice. They even put the fucking photo of the park on the side of the bus. Yeah good idea. Dickheads. Its a bus that runs from the autocamping near the park to the park. Who the fuck is going to be in the autocamping? Why are they there? I don't know. Maybe they just like stopping in the middle of fucking nowhere for no reason. I am sure if you are there, you are there for Plitvice. So why the advertising. There is no need. Yet some people might like to be surprised when they go there. Damn Croatia. The tourism is killing it for the tourists. We got to share the bus with 500 French scouts and an Italian family. Well anyway.... How was Plitvice? Fucking awesome. The highlight of the trip and possibly the highlight of Europe. That's how good it is. From the moment you enter and catch the huge waterfall plunging off the cliffs and down into water so blue and clear, Cannelle said it felt like being somewhere tropical. It did. It's difficult to describe and needless to say we broke our rule of only a few photos a day. They have little wooden boarded trails all over the park. You go under waterfalls, past waterfalls, over waterfalls, around pools of water, through the middle of them and everywhere there is water. Beautiful water. Hypnotic water. Its like being in a natural water theme park. Its too cool. These Karst limestone formations are immense and as usual UNESCO didn't disappoint. We had a wonderful day, picnicking, riding boats, hiking and marevlling at the beauty. It keeps evolving as well. So everytime you go there is something new. I would have attacked the long trail round the back of the park as well, but I preferred to spend the time with Cannelle. We saw a snake swimming, lizards and beautiful butterflies. If you only go to one park in Europe, this is your park. So far Croatia was living up to what we expected and then some. After the park we walked back and it turned out to be only 6km, so walk it is my advice. There is a nice swimming pool halfway back along the road as well, but we didn't have our swimming costumes. We went over budget with a nice outdoor barbecued dinner and then watched an Italian couple smash all their crockery outside the toilets before we turfed in for the night.

In the morning we took the cartel bus down to Zadar. We passed the national park en route and there were some useless English people on the way. Lonely Planet said the campsite was 4oom from the centre of the town. I think they missed a 0 somewhere in there as it was a bitching nearly 2 hour walk with full rucksack. We also kind of went the long way round. Its disheartening when you don't know how long you have to walk for. Eventually we got to the campsite and had the privilege of paying another fortune to stay there. How wonderfully uncheap these places were. Never mind. We had one night to enjoy the city, but due to transport fuck ups we would have to go early to Split in the morning. Really early. Like 5am early. No trains. They stopped them. Too cheap I guess. I love the bus rules in Croatia. The price can be literally doubled depending on what time of day you leave. Zadar doesn't have much to do. Its got a nice pretty downtown, but not much else. That could be the review for the remainder of Croatia. My God their coastal towns all look the same. We were bummed by random taxes for all sorts of shit at the campsite. There were more skanky English in the towns. Should have been a warning sign. Cheese bureks full of too much cheese and we were off to the sea organ. Sounded cool in the book. In reality it was ok. We went swimming past it and they have put some organ pipes in the water so when you swim past it, it plays music. We couldn't see the light show as we had to get back and sleep. We had a picnic with no spoon after finding nothing of interest at the cinema. Cinema = shit town with nothing to do. Then we headed to a bar called 'The Garden'. What a cool little bar. Shame we couldn't stay and enjoy it more. Some skanky English came in at one point but before that it was cool. Raised up with a view over the water and boats, beanbags scattered on the top deck to lie down and enjoy the cocktails or in my case a hot chocolate. Super chilled out and vibey. Would have liked to spend more time there. It was top class. Realxing in a cool bar, lying down with my future wife watching the waves roll by. We had sunset on a beach back at the campsite, I had my first French lesson and I had to insist on paying the stupid campsite out of hours as our bus left in the morning before the opened. Damn inconveniences. Onwards to Split.

Chicken sausages. We were being stalked by chicken sausages. Huge billboards. As if we didn't see them enough on our cheap picnics lol. Now trucks were coming with the stuff as well. I don't have any idea if Poli really is the best chicken sausage, but I haven't had any others and it was ok for me. We had our first rude bitch experience in Zadar bus station when Cannelle was bitched at by some woman. We had hostel problems again in Split. Everything was expensive. So we went over budget for 2 nights and opted against going to Krka National Park for budget reasons. If we had known the other countries were so much cheaper we could have gone, but at this point we were worried about the viability of the trip. The hostel was shit and their cooker was broken. There was an old one in our room and I reconnected it to the mains so we could cook spaghetti that night. Confused the owner, but that doesn't take much. It has a really high rating on hostelworld as it was run by Aussies. Now its run by locals and they are effectively asset stripping the hostel. We hunted down a McDonalds for cheap, filling food and found that the majority of locals were unfriendly here. Very different from Slovenia. Cannelle ended up ordering a pork burger that she hated and was pissed because she finally splashed out and got something she didn't like. We hadn't combined our money yet. I think we did that in Jajce and beforehand we were operating on two budgets. We went to Dicoletians Palace. It was nice, but a bit of a disappointment. We went up the tower with the metal stairs designed to scare anyone with vertigo. We went for an early evening walk up the hill to find the zoo. It wasn't a real zoo. Then we saw Super 8 at the cinema. It was a good film. We touched the lucky big toe of the statue in the centre of town and to be fair we had a lot of good luck after we touched that toe. We are exceptionally lucky anyway :-) It started that evening when we had the room to ourselves and decided to have sex in the hostel. Just after we finished and Argentinean couple came in. Like literally after we finished. Very lucky indeed.

In the morning we got breakfast on the waterfront at a French bakery while all our clothes were in the laundry. I think it was the only successful laundry we did on the trip. We took a bus to Trogir as there was nothing to do in Split and it looks exactly the same. They all look exactly the same. All these UNESCO Croatian towns. The same only a little different. Each slightly prettier than the last one. Just go to Dubrovnik and maybe Hvar and skip the others. We didn't need to pay for the bus to Trogir as noone checks, so we didn't bother for the return journey. The argentines had started cooking now as well, so the hostel owners were pissed. Trogir is an overpriced, small, walled port town. Nothing much else to say. We went down to the waterfront for an evening concert, which was nice and enabled Cannelle and I to piss around with sweets :-) We couldn't buy the ferry tickets so we would have to wait until the morning.

We bought the tickets in the morning and killed time while Cannelle taught me French on the hostel veranda. The boat trip was fairly straightforward. I like boat travel. Its my second favourite after train travel and is relaxing and chilled, even on a catamaran. We pulled into another island, en route for Hvar and scared the crap out of a number of people eating in a waterside restaurant. Nothing like having your lovely sea view ruined by a catamaran pulling up alongside and spraying you with water, while simultaneously threatening to plough through your table. We arrived in Hvar. It was a very pretty little town, but boy was it small. We figured we'd lock up the bags, but as they wanted 5 euros for 3 hours, we only put in one and I carried the other around with me. It was hot work. We climbed the hill to the castle and chilled out with a picnic. Its a really beautiful view from up there. It may even be the prettiest of the Croation UNESCO towns. It was however super touristy and very expensive, so I was glad we weren't spending the night there. We wandered around the town, before settling for some super expensive internet while we waited for the boat to Korcula. The boat arrived, after many tourist's day trip boats had swarmed the harbour like ants at a picnic. People had to climb from one boat onto another in a long chain to the harbour. Our boat eventually turned up and we joined the queue for the middle of the boat. After letting lots of people on, he told us his part was full because we had big bags. Arsehole. We just kept meeting the creme de la creme of Croatian tossers on our trip. I can imagine the huge influx of retarded tourists we met can be draining over time, but still...They could at least be civil. We arrived at Korcula with a different crowd of tourist. Gone were the dickhead English and the sun, sand and sex crowd and in their place came the Germans and the Croatians. This looked like an island for the locals. We liked it immediately. It was the first place we had arrived in since Plitvice, to which we took an instant liking. We hiked round the town as the lights were dimming and found a very cheap campsite, where the old proprietor insisted on taking us to our pitch by bicycle. Very old school. It was an old fashioned campsite, but it was tucked away nicely. We went back into town and stopped to watch some water polo. Was free, so why not. We then wandered around the town at night and had dinner in a local place. I think all of the Croatians were surprised at our gyponess in the face of their extortionate prices, but this was the first time when someone actually was surprised by our relationship. An Englishman and a French girl. 'Aren't you supposed to hate each other?' Hmmm, well yes, but its been a good 100 years now. Anyway even during the 1000 years, I figured it was more a love/hate relationship, but came down more on the love side. Besides I think it was a cunning ploy to stop weird children. The children of French/English relations are always somewhat strange. Look at Francois or Canada. Anyway they didn't charge us for all of the food and we felt it would be too rude to correct them and scarpered. We went for a walk around the castle walls and saw some black witches (three identically dressed young girls on the pull) and listened to some cool music for free on the castle walls. We came back, flanked by a French school group and the tent was still buggered apparently. I remember the tent's shitness being discovered here and as I have not mentioned it before, I am surprised it gets a mention now. I think its where we realised one of the tent poles was snapped. It still worked with a bit of binding. Slovenia must have knackered it. What a shitty waste of money. Anyway we persevered with El Crappo because he was still hanging on in there. How long would he last?

In the morning we walked into town to buy tickets for Dubrovnik. The bus station was on a half hour break. Of course. As you do. We got some breakfast and ate it while hiking across the island. We decided to hike to the West end of the island. We had a mini fight under the heat of the day, but it was scorching and we really didn't have enough water. There were lots of Slovenians here, judging by the cars. We passed through fields and vineyards till we found a small beach where Cannelle took a swim. i looked after our stuff. Then we carried on hiking back East along the North coast on one of the cycle tracks. No shade. We passed a god awful rubbish dump full of the most foul odors known to man. They dump all the shit away from the tourist resorts and clearly for a reason. They also seem to have gouged all of the greenery off the hills on the North side, so I imagine they are developing. Not so fun to see the pace of development literally destroying the reason why you go there in the first place. We got lost again and ended up going down a dead end. Then we got lost again. Cannelle was getting pissed at me by this point. Finally we stumbled across the road and headed East again. W e got picked up by some local guys, who drove us down to a private little cove. Beautiful place we had to ourselves, except for the local guys. A few local houses, a private beach and a nice little cove. We had lunch before going for a swim. How could you ruin such a picturesque little cove. Try piloting a fuck off yaucht right into the Bay. Ah the rich and their ability to ruin anything in the pursuit of it. Still they enjoyed their little swim with a couple of locals and a couple of hobos. By this point the heat was kicking in and the water was running low. We hiked round the East until we eventually hit a town and then turned South and West back to the town. A long days hiking in the heat. We hung out on the wall, drinking milk and listening to music again. There was a retarded woman at the burger bar for dinner, who couldn't understand our order or prepare it without taking about half an hour. The French kids were there again and we slipped into El Crappo to get up early for the bus to Dubrovnik.

We took the bus early in the morning and stopped midway for no reason. Then out of a dusty sideroad came a guy on a motorcycle. He approached us and handed a package to the driver. Then he went off again. The dude looked like Bon Jovi and it was a bit random. We arrived and were mobbed by women offering us rooms to stay in. Take them. We didn't as Mostar would be the first time we took this opportunity. It is the most economical and best way to stay anywhere in the Balkans. I was just stupid and we didn't know. We lugged our stuff all the way over to the campsite, where they told us it would be 50 euros to stay there. What the fuck. A campsite. For 50 Euros. Let me think about it lol. While we were weighing it up a guard came to move us. I asked him for one second and he started carrying my bag. I shouted at him to put it the fuck down as its not his stuff. We had a little stand off, while we checked options outside and the guard kept trying to kick us off the property. What an arsehole and once again the wonderful Croatian hospitality. Fuck this city. The arseholes we had met so far didn't deserve our money. We decided to lock up our bags in the bus station for the night and stay up all night. Good idea at the time. We walked down to the famous, old, walled city of Dubrovnik. I thought it was pretty and the prettiest of the idetikit towns we had trawled through. Cannelle wasn't bothered though and was thoroughly bored with Croatia. It had not been what we expected and tomorrow we would head to Bosnia. I went for a walk around the walls, which Cannelle didn't fancy. It was nice up there with some good views. The way the check points are set up you could probably go up there for free for some parts of it. It was scorching, so I was pouring water on my head a few times up there. The walk takes a good hour to circle the whole city. The inside of the walls was covered in stone slabs for walking and was pleasant if touristy. The city was going to charge everyone to enter it until the Dubrovnik residents protested. Seems like the Croatians will do anything to squeeze some more money from the tourists. We went to a cool little artsy cafe with weird colouring like something out of Alice in Wonderland. We got lost in the allweyways trying to find the outdoor cinema, but we ended up in a jewellery shop overlooking it, which judging by the owners response was a common occurence. The only clubs were super expensive, so we would have to stay up in the city. We went to a cool Thai veggie place where everyone thought we were Spanish. The jazz place would only sell cold drinks so we couldn't stay as they were extorntionate. We found a place doing coffees and stayed there for a while. Then we went to the square and watched some Aussies breakdancing and some fire jugglers. It was a nice, romantic outdoor evening of culture. We were killing time and we didn't have much Kuna left. We didn't want to draw more as tomorrow we would be in Mostar. I was a little wary in the streets at night after having my nose broken in Chile and that annoyed me. Also I had Cannelle to look after. Its one thing getting myself broken, but quite another if something happened to her. We ended up sitting on a bench with a sea view, overlooking a club where we could take the piss out of the people there. Two other hobos seemed to join us for a bit. I let Cannelle sleep while I kept watch. We wandered back into the city around 3am and could walk around the deserted streets. It was very pretty and surreal at night. We walked all the way back to the bus station, past some prostitute who was being picked up by some drunk guy and we slept for two hours in front of the bus station with all the other people who must also have found Dubrovnik too expensive. It was a mix of hobos, back packers and hammered party people. Nice company. We paid for the bags when the place opened up, I walked and got us some breakfast. Little croissants filled with sausage that would become staples and we were finally leaving Croatia.

The bus left town, briefly passed through Bosnia's only coastal resort (shithole) and back into Croatia, where we crossed the border without a real stamp. Finally we were done with Croatia and we were happy to be out of there. Lets see how Bosnia is.

Slovenia (Bovec, Bled, Bohinj, Ljubljana, Skocjan and Piran)

2011-11-03T08:09:00.000-07:00

We walked down the main street into Slovenian Gorizia and it was my first new country of the trip. We got to the bus station and I had to try and make sure Cannelle avoided the poster of Plitvice on the side of the bus station. Fucking Croatians. They plaster photos of their parks everywhere. You feel like you have visited all of them and I know its designed to make people visit them, but they even put them next to the park entrances. As if you had visited the park and didn't know it was there and may just pop in. STOP RUINING THE ANTICIPATION. Most people like to see the places when they eventually get there, not splattered all over the side of a bus. Anyway I mention it here, because this was the first time we saw it. We only had to wait half an hour for a bus (which was lucky as there is only one a day so make sure you make it there for 2pm or so. Well there is a second at 5am so lets just say one a day). We took the bus to Bovec. What a green country. I mean really green. Apparently 70% of Slovenia is covered by forest and it looks more. It reminds me of Switzerland, in miniature, without the tourists. Driving through the little mountain towns was very pleasant and we arrived in Bovec in the late afternoon. Its tiny and we found the campsite easy enough. The facilities are really good and its not too expensive to camp in Slovenia. We had a short walk around the town and bought dinner from a supermarket (10 euros for two. It wasn't that cheap). We booked in for the rafting the next day and went for a walk down to the river. The scenery with the surrounding mountains is truly spectacular and it was probably the most impressive geographically featured country on our trip. We even bought ourself some Poli chicken sausage. We were yet to find out just how famous this sausage is, as billboards of the product stalked us through Eastern Europe (well at least the former Yugoslavia). We had a small picnic and it started to get cold. I had forgotten that it gets cold in the mountains (even in the summer). While we were waiting there we saw an innovative way to walk a dog. The car was driving along with the dog lead out the window as the dog jogged alongside. Why stress getting exercise for yourself, while you can just let the dog do all the work. Another dog also wolfed down the last of my Poli. He seemed happier than the dog running with the car. It was super windy at night and 'El Crappo' (our tent's name) probably got slightly broken this first night, but we didn't realise it at this point. One night, early stress fractures to the frame and the carrefour tent was seen to be wanting. Speaking of being wanting, my sleeping bag was awful. No pillow part and very cold. Oh well it was going to be a long summer. At least I only froze a few times during the trip.

In the morning we headed to meet our guide, take a van ride across town to pick up the raft and we were off to our start destination. It was less aggressive than the Rio Pacuare, but Cannelle wanted to be broken in gently to rafting. We got wetsuits (unnecessary in the warm Costa Rican waters). This beautiful, transparent, greeny blue, ethereal river was the polar opposite. A glacial mountain stream, it was refreshing (freezing fucking cold) when you jumped in and Cannelle declined the opportunity to acclimatise. We saw the famed marble trout and the obligatory faces in the rocks as we crusied down river. Towards the end there were some grade 4 rapids, but it was mainly gentle and a lot of fun. Cannelle loved her first experience of rafting and maybe we will do some more in Asia. We definitely will in Latin America. After the trip we decided to hike up the river for the afternoon, past the parts that you can't raft through. You can canoe some of them if you are super talented, but most people carried their canoes past. This path winds through beautiful gorges, over the crystalline waters and threads through the mountains on the way to a waterfall. We followed the path for a few hours, enjoying the scenery. Cannelle was dying a bit, as she hadn't acclimatised yet and she was terrified of the bears (her constant fear would slowly erode my lack of fear until I started to be afraid of bears as well). Its a complete contrast to my usual devil may care attitude. We passed over rope bridges and headed up towards the waterfall. We were getting further and further off the path without finding a real waterfall, though we found some cascades. Maybe that's all they had, but we'll never know. Cannelle was really scared by now and we had to turn back. I lost the path and we ended up scrambling over random scenery. Welcome to one of my typical hikes. On the way back we were trying to find out where the bus went from. We found a random fisherman. He sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger. (ooohh aaahhh the buuus leaavveess from over deeerrrrrr) he indicated to us with his Arnie accent. Made me laugh. Imagine Arnie fishing in a small place and giving bus directions. We ran to get there and we missed the bus by a few minutes. I figured we may as well start walking back along the road (13km), but then the storm came and the rain slowly began to descend. Shit. We were walking back, but a wet night in a tent is never fun. Luckily for us, just before Cannelle killed me for making her walk, a car stopped at the side of the road. We weren't hitchhiking but they had stopped to give us a lift. We clambered into the car of a Slovenian family. The mother was talking excitedly with her 10 year old kid in Slovenian. He turned to ask and asked us why we weren't hitchhiking (In perfect English except the hitchhiking where he just jerked his thumb in the universal symbol). Its the first time I've been criticised by a mum for NOT hitchhiking. We had 9km of quadlingual conversation (Slovenian between the family, English with the kid, Spanish with the mum who spoke back to us in Italian). These Slovenians really are gifted linguists and by 10 the kid could speak better English than most school leave age Spaniards and French. It was a nice cross cultural opportunity and they dropped us in town where we found expensive internet and a pizza for dinner. Oh yeah we saw a deer in the forest which was really nice and I'd forgotten to mention it. That night was really crappy. Cold, wet and I forgot to do up my sleeping bag. Oh well. Two nights of camping in the mountains and two rough nights. Didn't bode well for Slovakia and Poland later on in the trip, when it would be further north.

We got up very early the next morning and took a bus over the Vrsic Pass which was meant to be spectacular. The winding, ever climbing mountain road was a little uneasy for Cannelle and I, but the view from the top is really good, though it was cold with the wind. We looked through the photos so far to edit and delete the ones we wouldn't keep. Maybe it would have been nice to stay a night up there if we had had the time (and not in a tent). After the top we were the only people in the bus for the descent down to Bled. I'd seen some photos of Bled and after Bovec I already knew this country would be special. It didn't disappoint. What a beautiful lake. Picture perfect, like it was designed for postcards. I was feeling feint by now, but we hadn't eaten for a while. I still get it a little now in Paris. I am suspecting Anemia or Diabetes as they run in my family. Cannelle suspects I am just a hypochondriac. We walked around the lake to the campsite and went to take a photo. Shit. Where was the camera? Shit. We'd left it on the bus when we were looking through the photos and had then fallen asleep. The camera was off to Ljubljana before us and we had to decide whether to buy a new one or not. I worked out from the bus timetables that the same bus came back in the afternoon. As the main office was shut we figured we'd give it a crack and see if we were lucky. I told Cannelle what happened to me with the 100 Peso note and that I had promised God if I found it I would spend it on food to reward the good luck. Unexpected money is not real money and you should enjoy it as it was never in your original plans. So Cannelle agreed that if it came back she would pay for dinner that night. In the meantime we couldn't just hang around so we went off to Vintner Gorge. It was a fair walk (an hour or so) and we got our first Bureks (wonderful pastries filled with meat). Heaven sent if you are feeling hungry. The gorge itself is well worth the entrance. Its just a shame we didn't have a camera. You walk over wooden walkways above the pools, waterfalls and cascades and its a very pretty half an hour stroll. You can get out at the back and walk over a bridge to get a better view of the final waterfall as well. We came back fully satisfied and waited for the bus. It arrived at last (around 5pm) and the same smiley man was driving the bus. Cannelle went on and the camera was there. On the exact same seat we had left it. They are not a criminally minded people, the Slovenes. Lucky us. Lucky me for the dinner. I have written 'Cannelle is Canadian' and I have no idea why. There were some French 'yo-yo' people on the lake and some English middle class twits as well. We ended up walking round the lake 2.5 times in total with the trekking back and forth. We went up to the castle on one side, but decided not to pay to get in. The views of the lake are beautiful. There is also a famous church on the island in the middle of the lake, which you can row over to and ring a bell. We didn't but its one of the things I wish we had done. We had a superb dinner of sausages, meat and swiss chard (which is the first time I've had it outside Switzerland or my Nan's house). The meat is fantastic down here. Succulent, tasty and well sized. We saw a German old couple we had seen earlier on the train in Italy at Vintner and then again the same old woman came cycling past us at the lake. Weird people and strange to see them again. On the way back we saw a Slovenian man sprinting out of a restaurant to return someones forgotten telephone just before they drove away. Friendly and helpful people. The '5' star campsite had only lukewarn showers but at least it was less cold here.

In the morning we got up and took a train to Bohinj. Its a glacial lake further up in the mountains. People say its more beautiful than Bled. Its less developed and more natural, which is appealing, but I think bled is just a shade more beautiful despite the tourists. You can take a direct bus, but being tight I opted for the train and a 6km hike. It was full of Aussies (I guess they are tracing their Yugoslav routes as many of them come from around here). The walk was nice along a winding country road and we bought ourselves another picnic. It was a pretty alpine lake with a nice church, but our picnic was dusturbed by attacking wasps and some weird people doing an amateur photo shoot. Cannelle was totally broken by this point and I had to give her a long leg massage to ease her muscles for walking. It was the usual problem if your muscles are rusty and she always insisted she had bad circulation. I insisted that the more you exercise the fitter you become, the better your circulation is and the easier any kind of hiking is. We fed some ducks and had a little hike around the lake followed by melon. On the way back I opted to walk through the cycle lanes and it was very pretty. The bike trail got narrower and narrower until I was certain we had taken the wrong turning. Then again maybe not. There seemed to be a route across the fields, but Cannelle was traumatised by the cows. She thought they would come to get us, probably born out of the horse experiences in Andorra. It turned out the free roaming cows we had seen were actually behind a fence and it was a pretty uneventful hike back to the town. We got to the train station for the return train, only to be informed that today was a Sunday and subsequently the mid day train didn't exist. Shit. We did see them loading the cars for the shuttle car transport through the mountains, which is one of the only ways across to Bovec in the winter when the passes are all blocked off. We ended up deciding to take the bus, which pissed Cannelle off as we could have taken that from the lake and it would have spared her a calf breaking trek through the mountains. Still, it was a pretty walk. On the way back I made us get off the bus early as I got confused with the directions and that pleased Cannelle even more. She was really aching at this point. At least over the course of the holiday she got fitter and can now comfortably match my walking pace and stamina. I was trying to take things easier at the beginning as I didn't want her to get disillusioned with travelling as being too much hard work and I avoided any of my back breaking, minimal cost saving treks. We went online again and Cannelle's ex Josef was once again stalking our trip. I think it may have been the last time we heard from him, but I am sure I'll be reminded as I re-read my blog. Good job I write these things to chronicle everything that happened to me. Will be a fun read when I'm older and also for our children. Like children's adventure books, where your parents are the stars :-) The lake seemed surrounded by little insect people, kind of like those little pixies in a very clever art installation I once saw at the Royal Academy of Art. Maybe they were onto something. We took some food and chocolate down to the lake and hung out there for the evening while the temperature dropped. There was something moving out in the frigid waters. It looked like something moving slowly. Was it a boat. Was it a duck. No, it was a mental Russian tourist swimming to the island and back in the lake. Brave woman. It sure looked cold when she got out of the water. Oh well. Better her than me.

We packed up the tent in the morning. Four days of camping and we still hadn't noticed it was a little buggered yet. 'El Crappo' was holding up well. We got a pizza burek and an apple burek for breakfast and hopped on a bus to Ljubljana. Our camera could already tell us what was worth seeing, having taken his little side trip. He didn't take any photos while he was there. I guess everyone likes to take a break from their job when travelling. Even the support equipment. In a concession to Cannelle (and a good idea of hers) we took a bus to Lana's house. You had to buy an equivalent of an oyster pass for 2 euros but they told me we could get a refund when we left. Lana was our second and final couchsurfer of the trip. The Balkans are difficult to find hosts in and after the Balkans we realised we didn't need to couchsurf. She lived in a nice small apartment with her boyfriend and three cats. The cats were big with strong personalities and fun to have around. She had just taken exams for art school and her boyfriend was taking his finals for his computing course at uni, so everyone was ready to celebrate the end of an intense few weeks. We headed out in the day on our own to see the city. Its a pretty little town. We winded through the cobbled streets, saw padlocks on the bridge (a disappointment as we thought Odessa was the only place to have it and in the end we didn't put a padlock anywhere. Shame). We went up to the castle and up the watchtower to see the city. Its still reasonably green, but the video was excruciatingly boring. Skip it. Save yourself. Both of us almost fell asleep with the crappy 3D. I don't understand the obsession with 3D. Why would I want to pay extra to have stupid plastic looking shit unrealistically float towards me across the screen. Its a total waste of time. Afterwards we headed to Park Tivoili and on the way passed a cool looking outdoor bar. They have a full range of unique bars in the city and it looks like a cool place to hang out for some time. The art gallery was shut, but there was a photography exhibition running through the park. We went to a cafe overlooking a little pond and chilled out there. We also had a monster, delicious burger opposite the railway station. Highly recommended for any backpackers. We came back to the flat and offered to help Lana cook. She did a really cool banana cake, but forgot the sugar so it was naturally sweet (Oh yeah we had an awesome tiramisu when we stayed in the Lakes), I somehow managed to churn cream into butter so that didn't help. Well at least I know how butter is made now. Its made from incompetent pastry chefs like me whisking too much. After the dinner, which was a lovely caribbean curry, we headed off to a bar. As luck would have it, it was the bar we had walked by that morning and it was as cool as we had suspected. It was playing a cool jazz jam session and we joined some of Lana's friends including some friends of the musicians. It was a nice outdoor garden and we bought them some drinks for their hospitality in letting us stay with them. It was a really cool, if too short time and we'd like them to come to our wedding. One of the other girls was off to a horror film festival in the mountains dressed as vampires. Sounded cool, but we were on a tight schedule for this trip. Looking forward to South East Asia when we can cruise along again and see how we feel. Even better after Oz as we will travel only with money concerns and time is no object for us. They were big fans of English comedy series so I introduced them to Garth Marenghi's Dark Place, which they loved and we got to bed around 1am.

We were up early again to take the train towards the UNESCO Skocjan Caves. This country was top class so far. The train was leaving at 7.15am and the tourist office opened at 7am. It was a brisk run to the platform. Cannelle told me to forget about getting the 2 euros back, but I am a super gypo. I anxiously waited outside the office. 7.01 am still not open. Bastards. 7.05 the man arrived with his bicycle. I accosted him and got him to refund our 2 or 4 euros, before running to the platform where Cannelle had kept the train waiting. Sometimes gambles are worth taking. I still hadn't ever missed a transport on holiday, except for the bus in Cuenca when I was horribly drunk beyond all recognition. Ah trains. They are so much better than buses and I missed them a lot on South America. It would be nice to have a train trip down to the caves, except there was a problem with the lines and halfway we would have to change to a bus. Fuck sake. It started to rain really hard. Oh well at least it was for the day we were in the caves. The bus connected with another bus and we were eventually at the park. There were tours of the cave in Italian, German and English. French and Spanish are kind of useless in former Yugoslavia. Well Spanish works with the Italian. We were debating whether to do two caves or one and Cannelle didn't fancy doing both, but then they closed one due to the rain and we had no choice anyway. The caves are very impressive. I can't remember exactly, but I think Carlsblad Caverns in Texas were better, but these were really good. The highlight was the huge cavern in the middle with an underground river cutting it in two, a bridge spanning the chasm and remnants of the vertigo inducing old route the miners and earliest tourists used to have to take to pass through. There was a stupid French family who took a push chair through the caves. Not only is that difficult, but it becomes impossible on the way out where you have to go through a turnstyle. No photography was premitted, so we have no visual record. Its a shame as Slovenia looks awesome on our photos and if you factor in that two of the best places don't even have photos you can imagine how impressive this country is. The elevator was broken so we had to take the walkway back. I would recommend it anyway as it winds through some lovely scenery and past a waterfall. We almost snuck onto the second walk by accident (or design) until some random woman stopped me. We had to wait an hour at the top for the free bus back to the town, but eventually it came and we had to wait for the even more expensive bus to Piran on the coast. We were heading there and then going to cross into Istria in Croatia. Well at least we thought we were. There are no well timed buses over the border and we would lose a whole day if we waited. Having arrived in the town and set up the tent a nice walk down the coast we took a look around the town. Its pretty, but nothing special. Not worth going out of your way for. The old port is nice and we had pizza and strudel for dinner. Cannelle went for a swim, but we had a problem of protecting valuables which would be with us for most of the trip. Maybe we would be trapped here. We had a disagreement over what we should do and why we even came here, but in the end the most time saving option was to go back to Ljubljana and then take a train to Zagreb. It meant we missed Istria but we can always do it next time we go back to former Yugoslavia as we surely will.

We grabbed a strudel in the morning waiting for the bus and I drowned my phone in the sea. That'll teach him. For some reason I flipped it out of my pocket, went all butter fingers and it slipped through them into the sea, where it bounced off some rocks before settling near the bottom. By careful inspection it could be seen, lying open in a small pool of water, drowning and being surrounded by a fierce rat. A sad way to go. The funeral was lovely. We got the same shitty, expensive bus back to the capital, grabbed one of those awesome burgers (the only plus for coming back) and took a train to Zagreb. Slidy head rests. Awesome. They should bring them back in Western Europe. Onwards to Croatia and one of my two most anticipated countries.

Italy (Milan, Lake Garda, Venice)

2011-11-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Milan and I convinced Cannelle that it was definitely worth visiting the city to see the cathedral before we headed to the lakes. It would be a crime to be so close and not see it, as I still believe its one of the best buildings in Europe. We walked into the centre and went up on the roof. Its still one of the few places you can walk on the roof. The building is awesome and Cannelle says it looks like its made from some sort of silken gauze material (I can't remember exactly which one it was). They were doing night concerts there and it was a shame that we would miss it because we had to be at the lakes. We were going to couchsurf and we had intended to couchsurf a lot on the holiday (In the end it never quite worked out like that). Milan is a super classy city, one of those which is probably better to live in than visit. The shopping centre is cool and the dress sense is what you would expect from a fashion capital. Cannelle though the 'underground' was a Mcdonalds due to the 'M' metro symbol and has to rank along with the classic in Valencia of 'where is the cathedral?', while we were standing on the cathedral roof :-)

Following our brief tour we went to buy tickets for the lakes. An Italian man stopped us and showed us that the machine we were about to use was not giving any change. Nice guy and very helpful of the Italians in general. Cannelle had had bad experiences in the South on a work trip and liked Italy a lot better this time. We still need to see Florence, Rome and Siena together. After his help we headed out for Cannelle's first CS experience. We met our Polish host at the station and she made us lovely parma ham with melon before taking us on an evening tour of Sirmione. I pretended I hadn't been here before as I figured it was politer. All of the Italian leg were places I had been before, but I wanted to show Cannelle Venice and I had always wanted to visit the most beautiful city in the World with a partner (so who better than my future wife). I have written 'old man with three seats' and 'pink shorts/blazer' man. I have no idea what I was writing about and its things like this, which is why I will return to the live blogging format for the Asia trip.

When we wokeup both Kasia and Davide had gone to work and we had the day to ourselves. We went to Migros (A supermarket we always went to in Switzerland when I was a kid) and bought ourselves a picnic. Being constantly ravenously hungry I had to eat early and we had breakfast while feeding the friendly/aggressive ducks. Delete as appropriate depending on your love of animals. They were certainly confident ducks. We found a mini golf. Its an important tradition as readers of this blog will know, from the original days of playing in Pennsylvania with Ollie. I believe the second post of the blog has a reference to it. There was even a weird gemini twin hole. We played it twice as we thought it was two separate holes, as oppose to two separate ones of the same to speed up game time. The weather was scorching and we were lucky for our start. We headed out to the recommended Jamaica beach to spend the afternoon. Cannelle can find the cold (well by Caribbean standards) water refreshing in the heat. I just find it cold. It could be 60 degrees outside and I still wouldn't want a cold water shower. Only the Amazon boat drop buckets come close to proving that wrong. I cut my toe out in the water as I got it stuck on the rocks. Lake Garda is a nice place to kick back and relax. The European Mediterranean summer was going to be a nice one (We didn't see much rain until we hit the Czech Rep and Poland). We found some Roman ruins but didn't want to pay to go in and we saw plenty of fat red lobster women around the beaches. There are a lot of Italian tourists around the lake. We came back and had a wonderful risotto. We then rounded out the weekend with a game of risk. I had the objective to kill Cannelle's pinks and noone could work out what I needed as I kept switching directions, but of course it depended where her men were. In the end I won by conquering the whole World as Cannelle's were the last men standing. Was fun. There was also a murder in town where a local restaurant owner (and someone they knew) shot his chef dead over some money dispute. It was treated quite calmly and I suppose is more of a normal occurence in Italy. Our hosts told us there is a lot of Sicilian influence around the lakes. Fair enough. We were happy to be communicating by using our Spanish here as everyone understood us and we understood almost everything they said. Ah the bliss compared to what was to come.

I have no idea what I have written now. In the end I paid extra for the train to Venice. Not sure why. I must have fucked up somewhere. The trains were full as people moved around the lake but cleared out for the last leg. Ah that was it. I bought a ticket to Venice central, when we were only going to the Venice mainland stop. We got to our random 4 star hotel that we had found on the mystery hotel offer on lastminute. It was really nice and a cool place to stay for our anniversary. We headed out into Venice and its still a very beautiful city. Cannelle liked it, but secretly I suspect she was expecting more. My fault for bigging it up. We walked around the back streets through the Rialto, stopping down a back alley for a famed stone baked pizza (It was superb and had been recommended to avoid tourist hotspots with mediocre food and prices that suggested delusions of grandeur). We had the sausage and wild mushroom. It was heavenly. We got lost a bit (normal), visited San Marco, found a statue with a stone penis (for Cannelle), saw some random art, climbed the tower for the beautiful views (where we met a very lovely Yankee couple we gave advice to for Barcelona) and chilled out in a park. It was crawling with tourists as it was on both my pervious visits, but its still a very unique place. I whacked my head three times on the shower here. You'd figure I would have learnt after the first time or even the second. We went to a lovely trattoria seafood restaurant that doesn't really welcome tourists, but that's part of the appeal. Its fiendishly hard to find, even with a map, but it was worth it as we had an exceptional meal and Cannelle got to continue her new love affair with fish. We didn't pay for the bus either way from the mainland to Venice and I wouldn't bother if I were you. We had a wonderful anniversary evening and could lie in the next day as we were going to cruise into Slovenia. It almost cost us, but we ended up with exceptional luck on our connections etc.

We had a wonderful buffet breakfast and ended up walking up the stairs as we were too heavy for the lift. It was a good breakfast. We took the train to the border town of Gorizia as it was the cheapest way to cross. On the train one couple had to pay extra and one woman was fined 40 euros for not stamping her ticket. The guard argued it was the same system in Holland (She was Dutch) which is not true, but I wouldn't have known either except that Cannelle is used to the system in France. I suppose they have to do it as they don't really have barriers. We got off the train and Cannelle reckoned there was a bus direct to Slovenian Gorizia. I didn't think so (there was) and we took a bus to the border. We asked the driver how to get across the border and he seemed stressed until we told him we understand Italian and he rattled off the instructions. Easy enough. Everyone in Italy was super happy and we walked across the border (It was Cannelle's first time walking a border and it wouldn't be her last). Onwards to Slovenia.

France (Bordeaux)

2011-11-02T07:47:00.000-07:00

Woohoo. Ok the blog is back up and running now. Going to update our travels across Eastern Europe and will try to maintain a more play by play account of our South East Asian travels next year. Been a while since I got tapping on the keyboard. Good to be back.

Anyways a lot has happened since the last update. I found my soulmate and am getting married next year in London. I spent 6 months back in London, before relocating to Barcelona for 11 months of not as much bliss as we had hoped. Now I am sitting here in Paris with Shy'M on the music tv, a fading lightbulb and my own failing eyesight as the modus operandi for the blog. Anyway enough of this. Just going to make myself a quick steak burger before I sit down to this. Oh yeah I am wearing glasses now. Makes the light shine brighter from the screen.

Ok I finished. We left Barcelona under a cloud of darkness. Well not really, but we escaped without having to see the wicked witch of the west who was our landlady. I had forgotten about her until writing this blog entry brought it all back. Less said about her the better. Anyway we caught the morning train to the border. It was supposed to be a quickish trip to Bordeaux, but our first connection was horribly delayed due to a train on fire or strikes or something very French. Then our second train was stopped in Carcassone for someone who had an attck of some kind (Not sure what kind but they got stretchered off). Perhaps they were allergic to bureaucracy or delays and the TGV pushed them over the edge. At least we got two benefits from this. One was stopping right in front of Carcassone castle. After Ollie introduced us to the game it was fun to be opposite the real one. Super impressive as well. We may go and visit it next summer on a swing through the South of France. The other benefit was unlimited food delivered to the train. It was ok, but we got a lot of it. Naturally I tucked in. We also found a cool Husky dog. Eventually, about 12 hours after setting off, we arrived in Bordeaux and I waited and got abused by a French cleaner, while Cannelle went to meet her sister. We had left all our bags on the platform (8 I think) and she decided she needed to clean that part of the platform now. She wanted me to move the bags. All eight. Stupid woman. I explained that I was waiting for Cannelle, but she insisted and reported me to the station manager. Bear in mind I speak no French. He came to speak to me and I explained the situation. To his credit he let me wait there, but the old bitch was clearly unhappy and I still think she wanted to sweep through my bags. Good start. We met up with Babout, Jessica and Cyril and headed back to their flat.

The next day we went for a tour of the city. It has changed a lot from the shithole that it was in 2003 and 2000 (the last two times I was there). I finally got to see the work from all the digging up they were doing back then. I now understand why Francois liked it and I didn't. We saw it either side of the doing up period. We saw the water mirror, which is kind of like Bordeaux's beach and hung out there a bit. I was a little lost in the conversation and it was a foreshadowing of my early Paris experiences. I am somewhat out of my depth in French, but hopefully bit by bit I will get there. We went out for dinner with Cannelle's dad, which was good as I though I wasn't going to meet him before the wedding. He was sleeping in his converted Scooby Doo van and we all caught a ride back to Jessica's place. We even managed to persuade her and Cyril that they might fancy joining us for our South East Asia trip. Indeed they are coming to Paris this weekend and we can discuss it. She also owns a rabbit with pooh constantly stuck to its arse. It also goes mental in the middle of the night and had to take a berating from Babou to stop it being too mental.

In the morning we went to Cannelle's uncle's house for lunch and again I was a little bit out of it with the French. We had a nice traditional French meal. We had some home made jam back at Jessicas and tea in a bowl. It seems to be a weird French tradition to drink tea or hot chocolate from a bowl. Maybe its because none of them own mugs. Only tiny glasses. We finished up with some savoury crepes and its not as horrible as it sounds, though I can't say I love it. French food is still my favourite in the World, but a lot of the stuff they eat day to day is not really to my taste. It was a nice weekend down in Bordeaux and we considered it as a place to live if everything didn't go to plan in Paris. Luckily it has gone way better than we expected and we both have good jobs with very good salaries and we are able to take care of everything we need to do for next year. In the morning we went off to the airport and boarded our flight to Milan. The holiday was about to begin :-)

Argentina Part 3: Buenos Aires

2010-03-12T05:41:00.000-08:00

This will be a monster post as it was just over 2 weeks that I spent there. That kind of gives away the end. This will also be the last part of the blog from the current trip, although it will be regularly update when I step abroad again.

I arrived in BA and walked to the hostel. I could not draw any money. Problems with my credit cards. Well nationwide would have to fuck me one last time or it would not be my trip. Only this time it was my fault. I rang the bank. Nobody had told me that you can only draw half of the value of your credit card in cash. Shit. I had 37 quid left. Nevermind they could extend my limit by 700 quid on the spot, giving me 350 quid more cash. Fucking unbelievable. One month ago they want to take away my overdraft and now they want to give me 700 quid more. Good to see the Janus heads of nationwide are in harmony. No wonder they had a banking crisis. I sorted that out and then found out I had to pay the hostel in cash. Crap. I needed to find somewhere I could stay on my card if I was to find work. This was becoming squeaky bum time. Could I even operate in this environment. I was going to need to live off of my card and use cash only for the essentials. I even wrote 'can I make this work?' in my book. On the plus side there were two Brazilians and a Colombian in my dorm. Excellent. Cheapest dorm in BA and you get cable tv in your room lol. Excellent. Winter olympics were on, not that I ended up watching much of it. I wrote 'Go home or work it? Maybe enough cash to live 1-2 months, 1 month to find it.' Hmm should have guessed where this was going to end. I walked the streets to an English language meeting and the radio in BA is really good. Was a fun little meet up with three English guys and three Argentine girls. One guy had even managed to live in South America for 5 years without really working. Thats impressive. His hoboness far outstrips mine. We grabbed a free drink, though the barman took a while to agree to giving me a coke. Sebastian was the other guy and we would end up hanging out a fair bit in BA.

I walked back around 6am and this would become the norm in BA. In 16 days there I went to sleep before 2am once and that was this day, a saturday of all days. I had no sleep and a bread roll breakfast because I was going to need to start to work. I applied for jobs all day and one company would require a legal visa for me to work. Shit. In summary others offered me irregular hours and crap salaries to work on the black market, others said they had to promise the Argentine government not to assist foreigners who wanted visas. I decided I should apply to Colombia as well, but I left in my cv that said I was applying in BA (my attention to detail is shocking lol) and they got pissy with me. Oh well I killed that route stone dead at birth. I abandoned the days search and went off to meet a ballerina and her friends for a tour of BA. We went to Recoleta cemetary and then to the touristy end of La Boca. Its been scrubbed up and painted for the tourists and did not look too rough. Of course at this point I did not know I had been taken to the sanitised end of the barrio. It smelt of dead fish though. The Belgian girl brought up the topic of the Falklands. Cheers for that. Neither me nor the Argentine really wanted to talk about it much and in the end I was too tired to join this Colombian girl in the evening.

The next day was sunday so I took some rest and went to join another Colombian girl for Chinese new year. She was a really cool girl. I had missed the Colombian relaxedness that the Argentines often replace with histerica. Me and her friend went and saw the dragons dance. I think its a little less big there than in London's Chinatown. We had parilla in San Telmo and I was slowly getting used to BA's barrios. The places where the tourists stay are a little too gimmicky or clean for me, which is becoming a trend. I am really drifting towards the more real and edgy barrios of cities. Not that BA has any barrios that are edgy. San Telmo is a cool Boho neighbourhood to wander around in though and we saw some tango in the streets. I found Corrientes which is the Broadway of BA. Then I returned to San Telmo to meet Karina and a big group of random people. There was an Estonian guy who said I should join him for tango but we never managed to meet up. They were drinking in the streets and eventually we found a Brazilian samba band and shuffled samba behind them into a larger street where everyone was shooting each other with foam for carnival. Was quite the gun fight while I tried in vain to protect my choripan from foam. I was getting lots of offers of help finding work and everyone was failing to deliver lol. Its like those sliding, half meant promises. Damn they annoy me. If I say I will do something, I do it regardless of if I want to, if I am ill or if I am almost dead. Its imperative you keep your word. I was spending too fast and really should be moving hostels but I decided to stay there a couple more nights.

I spent another 6 hours looking for work. By this point I think I had applied to every school there and was becoming increasingly disillusioned. Some companies would employ me if I had a Temporary Residents Permit but I don't think that was going to be easy to get (Will make sure I get one when I go back though). At this point I was concluding it may be easier to regroup at home. Or even take a bus north and visit a few places before flying back from Colombia or Venezuela etc. Or even see Paraguay, Iguazu and Uruguay. Shit system. Helen told me I should just enjoy BA and come home if I have to, because I was not enjoying it while I was stressing over work all the time. I went to La Bomba that evening. Its a really cool drumming show though I am sure the hostel people ripped us off on tickets. There is no space to dance, which is a shame as the music has a really good tribal rhythm and makes you want to move. While we were in there the heavens opened up. Monster rain in 2 hours. The water was above my knee height and you almost had to swim across the streets, littered with rivers of garbage due to the bottom of the bins being punched out. I asked for a little plastic bag to put my passport and bank cards in and then set off wading through the streets. I have never seen anything like it in any major city ever. Laly cancelled on me due to the rain and it was the second time we had failed to meet up. Oh the ironies of fate. I wonder if I would have booked my ticket on the tuesday if I had met her on the monday night. Well the best of things you have to work for and don't always get to follow the easiest route.

I got up on the tuesday and gave up on job hunting. I went back down to Recoleta cemetery to look around. Did not find Evita's grave but did not really care. Found Sarmientos. Was interesting. I once wrote an essay on him, but can't remember what about or even anything about him. He did not have the same lasting influence on me that Jose Marti did. The museum was open late so I took a wander through the grass of the sculture garden. Hmm lots of cobwebs. Ah dammit its fucking grass mosquitoes like in Paramaraibo. I hate those bastards. They don't leave you alone. The MALBA was shut. Dammit. So I went to the Japanese gardens which were nice and the rose gardens which was also a nice place and free. I came back and went round the Museo Bellas Artes. Was cool, though the modern stuff was better than the historical stuff (not usual for me to say that). I was really beginning to enjoy BA and the pressure had come off. I decided to book a flight home via Rome and was sorted. Now I had 12 days to enjoy the city. I had figured I would come back the next year and stay in BA for 3 months, Rio or Sao Paolo 3 months, Caracas 3 months, Cali 3 months and travel in between them for 6 months. Sounded like a great plan and one that was sustainable financially. That may now have changed as I am thinking strongly that I may end up in BA for at least 10 months-1 year and then travel with Laly in Brazil. Anyway I am jumping ahead of myself. Patience is not my virtue. Man City drew which was good for us. I went to Sebastian's flat for dinner in the evening and it was total open plan with a drop pool swimming pool in the hall. Words don't do that place justice. Its superb. I would love to rent it but thats only realistic if the pound starts taking steroids and recovers against the dollar. Stayed for a bit and then went to meet Laly. We were due to meet at Plaza Serrano and I got accosted at first by a tramp. He wanted me to give him money and afterwards to drink a beer. He was shocked that I spoke Spanish and did not drink beer. Must be odd for an Englishman. Anyway he dropped his money on the floor and lost a peso. I was helping him look when Laly arrived and as I always look like a hobo, she probably assumed I was just an other tramp. We headed out to a bar and stayed there, eating pizza until around 4am. Seems funny writing about something when you know where it goes. Its odd how the most innocuous things at the time take on great significance due to the events that follow from them. Every small trickle of fate helps to steer us on a course into unknown territories. One small event or night can change a lifetime or destiny and the smallest things are often cruelly overlooked at times. Now imagine if we had met the night before. Some rain changes the night, but would I have booked my flight? I could well be in London and not Buenos Aires purely due to rain. At least its a typically English thing that played the fateful role. Also it does not seem fitting to discuss my relationship with Laly in the ontext of a timeline and I am also not sure I can do it justice with words. I think I will just describe the night and then I will give it a go in a short an sweet paragraph. I can't sum up all the conversation. Would need the same time back to describe it. We ended up going down to the rose gardens, where we were eaten by mosquitoes, joined by some random hobo dog, observed some strange old men running and walking around in circles, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs. We talked about stealing heads, the relationship of the sun and moon and many other non topics, where saying stupid things illuminates clever minds. I love mind games and I love creating random worlds and private universes. Firstly it is good mental exercise, secondly it if funny and thirdly it bonds you to that person faster. We kissed though Argentines are still terrible at reading symbols and responding. They assume lack of movement signifies interest, whereas us Europeans need some positive and proactive response. We also got stalked by some random museum worker. What was he doing working at 5am.

Hmm ok the paragraph that tests my writing skills. Often with people you can have a connection that is mental, emotional or physical. It is rare that you have all three, rare that it is so good to start with and rarer still that it gets better and better everytime you are with them. With Laly it is that good and it just gets better and better every moment of time we spend together. So it is shit that it is on pause right now. I hate the Atlantic. With her its just very effortless. Everything is easy. We click so well and harmonise on everything. The body chemistry is superb, but so is the mental chemistry as we can talk for hours and time melts away, which would be good in the long term, but sucks short term when you don't have many hours to spend together. Its that obliviousness to external factors that means we got bollocked in Tigre everywhere we went. A lack of willpower to depart, a general killing of time doing nothing. Together we never do anything and yet that time is everything. One of life's ironies. I prefer to write stream of consciousness as its more honest and there is less time for censorship. We decided we wanted to move in together after less than 24 hours. As so often with us what sounds insane just feels right. I think I could go nuts back in London and possibly for the first time in my life I am not that concerned about protecting my freedom. I always said there would be things worth sacrificing freedom for, but you don't come across them often. Right now I miss the intensity, I miss the conversation and I really miss the time doing nothing. I really want her to come to London and hope that she can. Ack it sucks. For now I have nothing more to say. My words are not good enough for it.

The next day I slept all day long as I was dead. I went to play 5 a side football in the evening and we got cained and I played shit. Mind you our team was total crap and I felt like I was Iker Casillas again.

I was now going home in 10 days. I found a hotel to stay in for that night but I needed to find somewhere that accepted credit card as a matter of urgency and eventually I found a shitty hostel for 8 nights. It was fucking horrible with no sheets and 800 insects in the bathroom. I would not recommend it to anyone. I was beginning to really love the city. I know knew I could live there for some time. I tried to find some plays for the saturday night out with Sebastian. Then I went for a walk around La Boca. Dangerous my arse. There are way too many middle class people travelling. La Boca was about as dangerous as Brixton and less so than Hackney or even Turnpike Lane where I have lived and never had any problems. There need to be more travellers from less cookie cutter backgrounds to have some perspective. Hmm they have themed sex hotels in Buenos Aires that look fun to try though we never really got round to it. I spent all say trying to find a blues bar so I could show the music to Laly. Ah I should send her some blues songs to see the style now. At least there are two in London for when she comes in July. They played 'rat in my kitchen' on the radio. Fucking awesome. That is now officially the best radio station ever and it was going out of business the day after I left BA. Timing. Laly was late (not unusual lol) and we ended up in a shitty jazz bar in San Telmo. Afterwards she came and stayed with me and we failed to sleep for the second night. We will probably kill each other from lack of sleep when she comes here. It was our second night together and we were planning London, Edinburgh, Devon, getting Polish passports, living in Argentina and a whole raft of things. I have a feeling this could be a whirlwind in the end.

We had breakfast in a bakery and then she had to go to study. She had an exam the day after I left and I think its partially my fault she did not pass the Spanish bit, although she was thinking of staying in the public university now. Yet another person failed to meet me at the obelisk. It was becoming a symbol of failure. Then I slept through the afternoon for a few hours. Then I grabbed dinner in burger king and the guy working there is possibly the most incompetent person I have ever seen. He fucked up every order and I mean every one. I just accepted my wrong burger as by that point I felt really sorry for him. Then I took the subte. Its shit. Its the shittest subway system I have seen in South America, but its better than Bogota's transmilenio which sucks. An internet place could not break my 100 and a bar would not break it so I got a free coke. Excellent. You should just travel around BA with a 100 peso note if you don't want to pay for anything as noone can ever break the thing. I met Aussie Ben and Monica from Manizales for drinks. Hadn't seen either of them for 11 months. Laly could not make it. I stayed for a while and then left. Monica wanted me to go clubbing with her and decided I was lame when I declined.

I moved hostels and then met Sebastian. Taxis are expensive. I hate them. We decided to watch Agosto, which was a recommendation of a histerica Argentine girl from the night before. I had a Mexican lunch with Sebastian and then met a girl briefly for a coffee. We had kept missing each other and this time only had half an hour as I had to meet Sebastian for dinner and then head to the theatre. Play was really good though I did not understand all of it. Afterwards we headed to Palermo where I had said to Sebastian we could go and 'Pass la pirata' but as I was now de facto attached I told him I would come to the bars but I was not interested in meeting anyone. Palermo has attractive people, but its a little zona rosa style plastic fantastic. Wehung out there until around 3am and then I walked home.

I was knackered the next day as the hostel bed was total shite. I met Laly while half dead and we had some media lunas on the way to Tigre. We spent another classically quality afternoon doing nothing lol. We carried on planning july and january and then got bollocked by everyone in the town. We got heckled for sitting on a wall inappropriately, for kissing in an internet cafe, by a pharmacist woman for asking for protection (Laly did not want to ask and I don't have smooth enough Spanish, so it was quite direct) and a policeman and ice cream woman tried to send us to a sex hotel. We ended up getting eaten by a few mosquitoes on the river bank and then a dog climbed all over us, seemingly trying to hump one or both of us. Spurs won, Villa won and Man City and Liverpool drew. We spent time wandering around the town and eventually found a nice hotel but we never got to use the swimming pool. This was the first time together we actually slept at all as well for about 4/5hours. I can't honestly say after 2 days and a night up in Tigre that I really know what the town looks like at all.

We left the hotel around midday and decided we would maybe visit Paris lol. Then we eventually took the catamaran tour. It absolutely opened fire from the heavens like the day we had failed to meet. Everyone on the boat was hiding. We got drenched but I sat wind side to take most of it on my back. Still we got drenched and saw parts of the canal. The photo on my wall is just before it battered down. We should have had a before and after. Laly is very fashionista and I am a tramp, so muddy arses and wet clothes are more normal for me. Seriously though, it does not matter how many times we are drenched, scolded or bitten the time is still good. BA flooded again. We eventually made it back to the town and fed a blind dog some lasagna. Have to find crazy dogs in London as they seem to follow us everywhere. There wasa French beardy man as well. Laly had to go back for classes and I just went to watch Invictus in the evening. Was a good film, but nothing special. It has got me to start reading Mandela's biography though, which is good so far.

I slept a long time into the afternoon and then finally met Agus to go for dinner. Was quite amusing. We have been friends online for 4 years and when I get to BA she is not there but on holiday and eventually we finally get to meet. We went out for dinner and it was a nice night, although we had the famous parilla and I can see why offal was banned in 1986. Its fucking horrible. I prefer the choripan to the beef we often got. Very chewy stuff in some places.

I spent all of this day applying for jobs in the UK. Change of tack. Ended up with lots of offers and have too many interviews. I am starting work with St Giles on monday and then can start to slowly add more hours and more jobs as I feel comfortable doing so. I met Sebastian and the Aussie girl at his flat and they cooked dinner. Laly was a little late coming over, but that's standard in BA lol. We had a veggie dinner and then went out to get some ice cream. After a few bars, Laly and I went to the ghost playground which is kind of freaky and near the Japanese gardens. We got bitten loads again. I got attacked so much in that week, but we had fun down in the park and then got breakfast before she needed some more time to study.

I got up at 5pm. My sleep pattern was really all over the place at this point and it was thursday of my last week. I met Agus again and we ate before seeing 1001 Nights which was a decent enough musical. We had dinner afterwards and then I went home to drop dead as I had had my third night with Laly without sleeping. It was almost as if neither of us wanted to lose any of the time we could spend together, as well as it never being dull, never an awkward pause or with my talking any pause lol.

The next day I woke up and went to see Peter. He had made it all the way here and this was the last time I would see him on this trip and the first time since Cuenca, so naturally I apologised first. We met at the obelisk and walked around all night before Laly joined us an hour late lol. We went to a square in San Telmo, got accosted by a drunken Colombian and then Laly stayed with me. I had gone to the MALBA as well, but they had the Andy Warhol exhibition on and would not take card payment. Fuckers.

My last day I got up and met Peter having not slept at all on friday night. I was struggling a bit. We fixed all the logistic stuff and then took the suburban train out to the Jesus theme park. I figured it was a fitting end to the trip. Its not actually that great, but it was cool to travel on trains again. They have a giant jesus who pops out of the rock and moves a bit, a nativity where only one wise man and a sheep moves and a last supper with a freaky jesus moving like he wants to create a Chun Li fireball. The creation is quite cool though, with the green laser shows and the Arabic dancing was probably the highlight of the place. Peter even made us move for a better view lol. Afterwards we headed back past a memorial to the lost people of the dictatorship and with a view of the River Plate at last. I met Laly, a Romanian girl and Sebastian and we went to San Telmo for dinner and drinks. I said goodbye to everyone and will no doubt see them again, while Laly came and stayed with me. It and somewhat sad last night and we did not have our usual sleep deprivation as we were both knackered (me especially being an old man). In the morning we got up and took the bus to the aiport and we annoyed some more people in Mcdonalds before I had to take a plane back to the UK. The end of an odyssey. Trip of a lifetime people say. Hmm. Nope. The first of many Ilike to say and now I have 10 months to save to get back down there. I did manage to see District 9 on the way back.

Now I just need to enjoy my city, get cracking on working, save money, pay back the banks, save more money to cross the Atlantic and head back to BA. Meanwhile we need to think of a way to get Gatita over here and past Gordon Browns crap rules.

Top 10: Peru, Bolivia and Chile

2010-03-12T05:28:00.000-08:00

Like Colombia dominated the north, Chile will dominate the west.

1. Valdivia (Chile): Absolutely picturesque little town. Botanic gardens, parks, every house with flowers, university town, multicoloured buildings and sea lions in the river. How can you not like the place.

2. Santiago (Chile): Will be a weird one for most people. Even the people who live there don't like it. Not sure why. Funky multicoloured barrios, great food, looks like London in parts and the only city in these three countries with a top class cultural scene.

3. Pucon (Chile): Picture perfect adventure town. Lifted straight out of the Rockies and build from Swiss Alp instruction manuals, this town is fun and pretty.

4: Iquique (Chile): Beach resort in the north. You know its a good resort if it can make my list. Buzzing in the summer, paraglide off the cliffs or wile away a day in the superb UNESCO ghost town of Humberstone

5. Arequipa (Peru): Best town in Peru comfortably. Very nice architecture, most intelligent and best looking Peruvians.

6. Sucre (Bolivia): I really like this colonial town. Very pretty and coolly laid out colonial town.

7. Lima (Peru): Another big city that gets battered a lot, but its got a pretty centre, a cool area overlooking the Pacific and a good clubbing scene.

8. Santa Cruz (Bolivia): Like a wild west town and so different to the rest of Bolivia

9. San Pedro de Atacama (Chile): Awesome desert oasis. Yeah its touristy but its still cool

10. Iquitos (Peru): Its a bit shit but I had the best breakfast I have ever had there in the Yellow Rose of Texas

And no space for Valparaiso (too close to Santiago but nice enough), La Paz (Was not that impressed with this ramshackle mess, but maybe because I don't use cocaine) and Cuzco (What a shitheap full of gringos and passport hunting bitches. Pretty though). Of course the best place in these countries is Torres del Paine but Puerto Natales is a bit crap.

Argentina Part 2: Ushaia and Puerto Madryn

2010-02-15T08:55:00.000-08:00

18 MONTHS ON THE FUCKING ROAD BABY. NOT BAD GOING.

The bus to Ushaia was really long. Really long and we had to wait 3 hours at the border to cross. In the Chilean bus we had been there for 20 minutes. I think they have the advantage at that border crossing as I was completing yet another one of my circular routes. We played a lot of Hackey Sack, at which I am very shit I have to say. Its so different from actual football that I have no idea how it really functions. There was a dude from New Orleans who was fired up for the superbowl. It must suck for him being down here, as he would miss their only superbowl. His father had 8 tickets on the halfway line in Miami as well. There was an Italian tourist as well. Quite mad. Only he was not Italian. Apparently he is from Buenos Aires. Wow a lot of 'Portenos' really sound like they are Italian tourists on holiday. They really do just speak a halfway house of a language. The scenery in the north of Tierro del Fuego is boring and flat, the same as in Patagonia north. Quite qhy anyone wants to travel through that repetitive nothingness is beyond me. Maybe I am too visual. We took a ferry trip that everyone was excited by. It was ok. It was no ballet dancing across a river using the currents in Guyana (I still think that was absolute genius). I ended up chatting to an English girl who loves Colombia as well. Eventually we arrived in Ushaia and I had just enough time to check my e-mail and find my hostel before the places closed. It was a cheap hostel and not a bad place. I got in and just went to sleep as I wanted to do some serious hiking the next day.

I got up at 6.30 am and decided to hike to Tierro del Fuego. Oh yeah the scenery is much more spectacular in the south of the island. Its 12km from the town so not sure why people take buses. Its also not 12km as I walked it in 2 hours and I don't walk 6km an hour. I walked past the Train at the End of the World. Not really sure what the point of that train is as its almost in the park anyway. Shit. I lost 100 pesos. What a retard. Only I can walk to save money and then lose 2-3 times the bus fare by dropping it. Oh well. If God favours me I will find it when i walk back and then I will have good food as its then not really my money. I made it to the park and decided to take the coastal walk. They reckon its 4 hours. It took one and a half. Jesus, what kind of zombies do they have walking these trails. Probably the same people that glide down Buenos Aires streets at the speed of a snail on ketamine. Its a nice walk, though not very challenging. I can see why people say they avoid it because its not hiking. So far, so easy. I paid too much money for empanadas and then set off to climb the hill walk. What the fuck is this? This is way harder than anything in Torres del Paine. A 1km ascent over the space of 4km so an average gradient of 22.5 degrees, but often much worse. Its a bitch of a climb. They reckon it takes 4 hours to ascend. I was up and down in 3.5 hours but it was rough. Took a lot out of me and I hike for fun. Its forest at first, then a boggy mudand that went into my shoes as my feet disappeared two foot into the mud. Then its watery marshland thats difficult to balance on. After this its a rocky near vertical hike, similar to Cotopaxi but at a much lower altitude. Following this its on to the snow and finally you get to the top. What a mothefucker. That hurt. The views are stunning though, but hell thats the toughest hike I did since Cotopaxi. This ones not for weaklings as the sign says at the beginning. Afterwards I came back down and staggered around the other routes. I went to see the beavers but they weren't there. I walked through the lake viewpoint and then to the end of the road. Southernmost road point ends there. End of the Panamericana. What a damp squib of an ending. Oh well. I would say the only walks worth doing are the hill and the coast, but almost all tourists do the others. Maybe that's why they think its easy. I have to mention the big blue buses of death. They were tour buses that followed me all day long. Everywhere I went. It was like duel. They were crammed full of almost dead old people. It was like an elephant's graveyard pilgrimage as they drove all the old people down to the end of the world to die. Hawaii dude had said Peninsula Valdes smelt of death, which I love, but that could be applied here. Why would you take one of these tours. Everyone moving in a line to the same places. Its kind of like being shuffled in generic lines. Almost like being at work so why go on holiday unless you have more freedom. Oh well. Bastards would not slwo down at the wooden bridges either so I walked right in the middle to stop them crossing. Then it started to rain. Bugger it. 20km walk home. Maybe I would find my money. Hiking along the trail I did. Class. 11 hours after I lost it. That must be Gods thankyou after he let me have my nose broken. I got back and crashed because a 60km hiking day is a little rough. Nice park though. Flopped down dead was how I wrote it.

In the morning I met an Irish girl, an Israeli and a couple of Yanks. We took a long breakfast. They said the glacier was not that great and it was raining so we just hung around in the town. We went to the museum at the end of the world. Its not that great. Was fun to read about the guy who had to have plastic surgery on his ears because they thought that was the reason he was evil. His ears were big and stupid looking like mine, so maybe I should be more evil as well. Not much happens in Ushaia. I saw a dog sleeping with another dog fucking it. Even the animals can't find motivation to put much into it. The Israeli had a fun story about a drunk guy who fell asleep on a lamp post. They gaffer taped him to the lampost. He woke up and tried to walk. He couldn't move so he went back to sleep. Sounds like something that would have happened with my friends when we were younger. The Irish girl had a cool childhood. She had lived in Papua New Guinea and afterwards went to Australia when she was a kid. She met santa in Australia at 5 years old and said 'That's not santa, he's black'. She also spent time in a lot of the former Soviet Stans. We split a pizza for lunch and then hung around with a crazy 40 year old Englishman before we went to the pub for the superbowl. AND THE SAINTS WON. WOOHOO. 31-17. The winning score came from an interception by the guy that everyone thought was the weakest link on the team so good for him. What a party they would have had in the Big Easy that night.

The next morning I overslept my alarm. Or maybe I woke up and turned it off. Either way I was fucked if the hostel guy had not woken me up to let me know I was about to miss it. I just about scrambled down to get it. It was a very uneventful trip. There were 3 Yanks with me and one of them said I can get work in Antarctica. Guy from Oregon was going for only $1,000 as a friend's rate and the others on the boat were going to be paying $16,000. Damn it. I just fucked up. Wrote to a job offer in Bogota and attached my cv for jobs in Buenos Aires. My attention to detail has always been too sloppy. Hopefully I can salvage it. Just being honest with them as that genuinely tends to be the best policy. I got back to Rio Gallegos and thankfully I did not get stuck there this time. I took a night bus to Puerto Madryn. Annoying pop remixes on the bus.

I woke up and Gladiator was playing. Cool. Our bus broke down in the Welsh town of Trelew for an hour or so to fix the toilet. Then we eventually arrived in Puerto Madryn. No map. Dammit. Lonely Planet has some uses. They have free internet in some of the petrol stations. Excellent. Dude there was very friendly. I found my hostel and then went out to meet Brenda for drinks. Really nice girl. We chatted until quite late and then I went back to get some sleep.

The next day I got up and had a breakfast totally with Argentines. One girl offered to help me find work but have not heard from her yet. Not sure if the Argentines say that rather like the English and less like the Colombians. I had actually left the hostel and met her by accident in an ice cream place so that would be a very coincidental job offer if I was to get one. I was getting a lot of advice and help from people in BA but so far it has not translated into work. I am a little stressed which is unusual for me, but I want to know whether I will be in Buenos Aires, Bogota or London in 3 weeks and at the moment it could be any one of three and I have no idea. And I have no cash. You can only draw half the value of your credit card in cash so I have almost maxed that, though I have a lot of money that I can't touch except by paying by card. Have to move hostels tomorrow. I walked 14km to a sea lion colony which was fun to see in the wold for the first time. Was drinking tap water as I forgot to bring anything with me. On the way back I was stopped by the police. My shoes and trousers don't really give off the vibe that I am anything other than a tramp so it was not surprising. Still it was the first time I had been interviewed in the street. Spurs and Liverpool lost, whilc Villa won. Shitty as Man City had won the day before. I then booked a tour and went out and had coffee with Brenda until 2.30am. Was knackered the next day when I got up to take the tour early and I knew that I was not going to sleep really well on the bus either.

I had two Swedes and a German for company. It was my last day of the trip. We would not see any orcas, which sucks but I will come back at another time of year to see them. I figured I would come back while I am working in BA. We saw sea lions and penguins. We pretty much had control over our itinerary which was cool and unusual on tours. We could go where we wanted and stay for as long as we wanted more or less. They even allowed us to opt out of the boat trip that would have been a waste of money. The tour guide was telling us about bloody elephant seal fights he had seen. Apparently we saw some but they did not look big. Apparently the big ones are there in october. It appears there is something cool going on all year round in Peninsula Valdes as the animals alternate being the major spectacle. I found a cheap hostel in BA. Peninsula Valdes is class and I was a little worried at first because a lot of people had bad experiences, but mine was pretty good. Anyway I got back and took a bus to Buenos Aires overnight. Here I am now and here I have massive problems.

Can't use my credit card for cash accept for 350 pounds. Not much to live off. Need a hostel that accepts credit cards as that's all I have. Need a job, but not hearing from anyone. Applying for stuff in Bogota but nothing is certain. I hate lack of certainty. It stresses me. In 3 weeks I will be in the UK, Colombia or here. I just don't know where. Fuck this shit. Next time maybe I will have an answer.

Argentina Part 1: El Calafate and Rio Gallegos

2010-02-15T08:01:00.000-08:00

Ok this part of the blog is being written under duress. Stress, stress and no idea where the hell I will end up. All problems I need to fix.
Oh well. Shit happens and lets see where I end up. Basically I have a Russian roulette of options and not sure which bullet to shoot myself with (Though I realise technically there is only one bullet in Russian roulette so you don't actually have options or choices). Oh well, analogies are not my strong point at the moment. Woohaa. Back to the blog.

Ok I hit the border and was immediately greeted by a big sign saying that the 'Malvinas son Argentios'. Excellent welcome. Hmm basically the Falklands Islands conflict is massive down here, whereas at home its a small footnote in history. I have tried to explain that the Maradona handball is a bigger deal for us than the war, but it does not help. Basically it makes sense that the islands are part of Argentina as they are just off their coast. Only they weren't when we took them in 1833 as Patagonia was not even a part of Argentina then. Also no Argentines have lived on the islands. Everyone is British. Only they are not. We downgraded their citizenship before the war as we don't really care about the islands. We already have Wales. There is no other need for a country full of sheep. I think if Argentina had asked us for them we would have given them to them. I mean 98% of English people could not find them on a map and they really are irrelevant to us. Apparently Chile helped us with the war. Not sure why we needed the help but hey they have long memories down here. The fact that they have few wars and we have had at least 6 since 1982 changes things. It seems a pointless conflict really, but then apparently they may find oil and then they would become strategically important and maybe people in England will care, but if not I imagine it will remain a contentiously pointless point of contention. That about sums it up for me. Apparently its worse for the Argentines though that we don't consider it important as its insulting.

Anyway I met some Brazilians and we chatted for a while and then I got to El Calafate and found my hostel. 45 pesos, but they have some for 20. Shit. Anyway it had a nice breakfast. I had come to El Calafate because the bsues to Ushaia were full and expensive. Did not make any difference really as I would get stuck in a shithole anyway. El Calafate is like Pucon. Total tourist town but nice. Very expensive, but cheaper than Chile. It was not going to be cheap to visit the glacier so I booked a bus for the next day. I was not sure if 7 hours was going to be enough there. They were playing 'morphine' in one bar. Awesome. The band only famous for the end song in 'Wild Things' playing in the middle of Argentina. Funky. Went to the bird pond place. They wanted 10 pesos. Too much to walk around a lake, so I bought some bread and pomelo (pink grapefruit) juice. Awesome. Not had grapefruit juice for ages and I love it. Then I got chatting with a girl from Colorado. Love those Yanks from the mountains. We chatted in Spanish for quite a while and then I went to sleep.

In the morning I headed for the glacier. Ended up meeting the Brazilians again on the bus and we hung out together for the day. Only one of the Brazilians was not Brazilian. She was Belgian. Oh well. The boat trip was too expensive and does not go much closer, so probably is not worth it. The glacier is very impressive. Massive and such a vast array of blues and whites. Utterly superb to stand next to. The Brazilians reckon its the best thing they have seen. It advances 2m a day and is constantly cracking and collapsing. You hear booming cracks coming from the ice, like a monster ready to devour the viewing platform and huge chunks of ice tumble off. The boat almost got flattened by a huge block falling from the glacier. Superb and well worth visiting. Though 7 hours is perhaps 3-4 hours too long as the walkway is only short if you don't choose to take the boat. One Argentina woman was surprised I was English and was friendly and spoke Spanish. I tried to point out that most British tourists are middle or upper class and those people are more arrogant and unfriendly in every country. You don't get too many working class British tourists, but generally we are a little less 'rod up the arse English'. On the way back I was seated next to an Argentine woman who used to work in Mozambique as a missionary. I don't understand why people say Argentines aren't friendly. They are always chatting. Apparently its just the 'Portenos'. I suppose I will see soon enough. I called my mum eventually after she had not answered the day before and cost me loads of pesos in El Calafate's evil internet cafes. Then I turfed in.

In the morning I was chatting with the girl from Colorado all morning again. Really nice girl. Shame I had to move on. I had my bus to Rio Gallegos where they had told me it would be cheaper to find a bus to Ushaia. It wasn't. I got into Rio Gallegos and there were to be no buses for the next 2 days. Shit. What is there to do here? I don't have a guidebook? I don't think you need one. There is nothing to do. There. I can save your eyes some reading. Its a shithole. Think Tepic but worse. The cheapest place was 50 pesos. Bare in mind in El Calafate its 20. So I moved to pay more to stay in a place with less. Not my best move. I had to stay in a crap, expensive hostel for 2 nights. I went out the first night and nearly died in the streets from boredeom. It looks like a shit mid western US town. Ah yeah I bought a phone with a radio. Class. Except if I go back to Colombia it will be one of the most pointless purchases in my life I just realised. Oh well. Still they have good radio stations here. Makes up for the shit town with awful weather. It blows like a storm. Almost like Torres del Paine except in the streets.

In the morning I met a dude from Oregon. Nice guy. He wanted me to support the Portland Trailblazers at basketball because everytime I adopt a US team they win their title for the first time in ages. Superbowl on the sunday to prove this. No idea what that team are like, but maybe I will adopt them. I don't really like basketball much. There were a couple of Canadians, a Hawaiian and an Aussie who had just cycled across Africa for the last 4 years. Cool. I asked if it was dangerous and he said only a bit. Though he had been shot in Cameroon. Three guys jumped him. One had a homemade shotgun. He kicked him and jumped the guy with the knife. The guy recovered and shot him point blank with buckshot through all his intestines. He carried on fighting and was stabbed and eventually a bus picked him up and he spent 3 weeks in hospital. He needs to write a book. His stories were great. Makes me certain that Africa is the roughest continent to travel across though. Some English woman who apparently looks like the queen told us there were some good marshes to visit. Did not seem to be the case. I caught up with my writing and I still have not bought any shoes. In fact I still have not bought any shoes now. The next day I would leave this shithole and I was off to Ushaia.

Chile Part 7: Punta Arenas, Puerto Natales y Torres del Paine

2010-02-04T13:32:00.000-08:00

They fed us on the bus. Nice. Only twice. The other times we got dropped off at random expensive restaurants. Hmm the lake district on the border near Bariloche is supurb. What a beautiful bus route. Will have to go back to Bariloche. Either in the summer next year when I finish in Buenos Aires or for the winter to learn skiiing if I get the opportunity. I will definitely make it there. Without the money for the navimag and the time for the Carretera Austral or El Chalten, I will definitely come back to do that trip with those three and maybe Antarctica depending on when I come back and with how much money. We had craptastic Muzak on loop for a long time. Then they went into films. We got stamps to leave Chile, but none to enter Argentina. So for one day I was technically in no country. We did stop and had some meat empanadas in Argentina. Superb. Angel had told me that the food would be much better in Argentina than Chile. I was in Argentina, but I would technically not be in Argentina until nearly a week later. The famous route 40 is so fucking boring south of the national parks that I can-t understand why anyone wants to travel down that flat dusttrack. We got night in the museum 2, RV, transporter 3 and then I fell asleep but I believe it was taxi. I wrote that Patagonia was going to be expensive, that you could see how windy it was, there was a crazy kid and this was too long a bus trip. Scenery spectacular.

I think by day two on the bus I was beginning to suffer from cabin fever of some type. Such a long bus journey I wrote. Then we got a Jim Carey medley. Bruce Almighty, Liar Liar, Me Myself and Irene and then I think Truman Show but maybe not as it got cut off for some Mr Bean. Reminded me of home so I was laughing more than maybe I should have done and the woman next to me clearly thought I was insane. Or maybe that was another bus. No idea. My brain got scrambled from the boredom. There was no space in Punta Arenas where I wanted to stay. Crappy. There was an Aussie dude in the place run by a mental old woman. I went out in the rain to find a cinema and was very disappointed to see I had seen everything. I got soaked, ate some pizza from the suprisingly good Telepizza chain and then went back to sleep.

Damn this internet can be slow sometimes. Not much in Punta Arenas, but its better than Puerto Natales. I went with the Aussie guy to the cemetry (which was ok), the regional museum (which was total shit) and the naval museum (which was mostel crap apart from the cool video showing an old voyage around Cape Horn from the early 20th century with commentary. That is more than worth the entrance alone). I spent too much on a pizza lunch and then took an afternoon bus to Puerto Natales. Eventually after 15 attempts I found a hostel run by an Argentine guy. Well he found me as I missed it. I set up my park transport for the next day and bought a load of food, for what I thought would be 4-5 days in the park. It did not look too tough on the map but you never know. Lets see.

30 dollars for transport and 30 dollars for the entrance. Woohoo. Patagonia had jacked up its prices just as I arrived. Just as I arrived with virtually no money and struggling to get through the last parts of the trip. I had made the decision that I would see all of Patagonia and then shoot for Buenos Aires via Puerto Madryn and Peninsula Valdes. As I write this I am about one week away from Buenos Aires. i should make it there with around 2k dollars to find work and live off while I wait for pay. Its going to be tight. May need a Plan B. Luckily Argentines at Perito Moreno were reassuring me I should get something. Still need to make my cv. Maybe tomorrow morning before the bus to Ushaia. I arrived in the park and hiked the road from Lake Almagro to the first hotel. 7.5km and I blitzed that. Left myself tired though. Ice, Ice Baby. This channel is too much. I figured there was no way I was going to take the full backpack up and down all the hills. I would just walk the base of the W with my rucksack and hit every point, there and back, without my bag. Should make it faster. Ok they reckon you need 4 hours to get up to the viewing point. Of course you do. Its a steep climb, but I nailed it there and back in 5 hours. The wind was looking like a problem for my tent. I blitzed the climb. Its a pretty valley running up. It really is a beautiful park. At the top there is a really steep climb and thats always been my weakness. Slowed me down. The viewpoint of the towers is stunning. Well worth the climb. On the way back I made friends with a Mexican girl and we chatted and hiked down together. Both of us prefer hiking solo to not slow down, so we could set a decent pace walking together. Just before this hill climb one plastic sweet rapper flew out of my hands. This should indicate the wind. I am quick. Very quick. Yet to catch this paper I had to sprint 150 metres to nail it down. I dont like littering, but I was going to keep my grip from then on. Wind was running around 50km/h. Very fast. I had gone looking for somewhere to have a piss and noticed a tent down in an old looking zone. It was the old camp site. There was a German guy there who had been cycling across Patagonia and being battered by the rain and wind. This area is in a dip and so has a wind shield. Also you dont have to pay so it was good for the two of us. I ended up shitting wild and the old benches made a good toilet. This old campsite is on the left, opposite side of the road to the main site.

The second day I got up and loaded up my bag to go to Los Cuernos. The Mexican had persuaded me it was too far to go the night before, but I think I could have made it. Its a four hour walk, but I hit it in 3.25 hours with full backpack. Its not a difficult walk. Moves over the hills, past a lake and then loops through some cliff hugging trails that are a bit rougher. I had left at 8.30am so I met noone for 2-3 hours. Lonely Planet says everyone goes east to west so naturally now everyone goes west to east to avoid people. So they all work it together and I ignore Lonely Planet and get the trail to myself. Stupid Lonely Planet. If they say anywhere is deserted you can guarantee it will be full of everyone going there. Some travellers have yet to figure out that everyone uses Lonely Planey when travelling, so you can only get space by ignoring the book. From there I hiked to Campin Italiano. Motherfucker of a trail. Easy on the rocks and lakeshore and then an absolute bitch of a climb. Nice views, but fuck me that trail was evil. Would be easy coming the other way. It took me less than 5 hours in total to there. Got overtaken the only time on this trail by a guy moving like the Tayronas in Colombia, but he had no backpack to be fair. I dropped the tent and took on the Valle Frances. There is no real trail for the first 20 minutes and you are scrambling over rocks, seeking a path. An orange symbol 50 m to your left, then 50m to your right. Damn it. Stay still. Then you cross a stream and the trail becomes clear. This is the most beautiful part of the park I saw and its a steep trail. I was up and down in less than 4 hours. The mirador halfway has a stunning view of the mountain to the left. The snow does not look real and the multicolours are completely contrasting to Englands white snow. All the blues and greys and shades of colours. Stunning. Then if you bang on up to the second viewpoint you are in the middle of all the famous mountains. Every way you look is beautiful. This is probably the highlight of the park and if you can only get to one place, that is the place you want to see. When I got back I ate my last tin of peaches to lighten the load and then packed up the bag and headed 7.5km down a trail, past a lake and over lots of wooden pathways that felt like walking on jettys. This radio station loves Michael Jackson. I pitched my tent and it was battering the wind. I had hammered 40km in 11 hours. 25km with backpack and 15km without. Not sure why this W takes everyone so much time. I met the German again, who had cycled round and taken the catamaran across the lake to this point. He was surprised I made it that fast and we chatted for a bit. The night was shit. Rainy, windy and I had to pin the tent down in the night. Food and drink is ridiculously expensive in the park.

The nights sleep was so shit that I just got up with sunrise (which is very beautiful in the park) and decided to hammer it to Lake Grey and back for the catamaran. If I made it there and back before midday I would have made the W in less than 2 days. It took me 5 hours there and back and I made it with an hour to spell in the end. Damn the wind was strong. I feared for my tent and really should have collapsed it myself if I was thinking smart. The wind shredded straight through one carrier bag and was leaving me blind at points. Never been in wind like this. It was also bitter cold. I had socks on my hands. The mirador at the halfway point was beautiful and it was mainly uphill to here and some serious downhill to the refugio. Made me realise it would be a bitch coming back and it was. After the mirador it would be easy. Did not see anyone for the first 3 hours and on the way back I caught and passed people I had met on the way there. Everytime you catch someone it gives you a boost. Like a chase. You feel like you can then hunt down the next person. Must be something like that in formula one. The glacier is pretty. Ok its no Perito Moreno and if you had to skip one part of the W I would skip this one. Got a rainbow over the glacier on the way back. The lake is full of icebergs and they are very pretty. The first one I had seen in the morning I had thought was a boat. I thought the zodiac was out early and then I realised they were icebergs. This park has such great sights in every place. I had done th W in 47 hours (total walking time around 21 hours). You do not need 4 or 5 days for this. What are you going to do. Walk 4 to 5 hours a day. Ridiculous. 3 days would be comfortable for any walkers. I managed to maintain 4km/h even with my rucksack and regardless of terrain and thats maybe a little quick, but still its not hard. The winds had massacred my tent. It had splinetered one of the legs and someone had pinned down the stricken animal with some rocks. Oh yeah I got face to face with a deer on the way back. That was cool as we both just eyed each other up. A fun face/off. Reminded me of the Apalachian mountains at the very beginning of this trip. I took the catamaran back at midday and then a bus. Another 22 dollars for the boat. I think there were a couple of Israelis who were scamming and trying their luck to get away with not paying. Well done to them if they were, but they still held us up. There were no spaces to Ushaia for a few days, so I decided instead to rest up and take a bus to El Calafate in the morning. More stamp space in my passport. Its one year old and it only has 5 or 6 completely clear pages. It would help if the retards did not keep stamping in spaces to limit how many can be put in the passport. I wince everytime some idiot cant stamp straight. All of central america had no problem with this simple concept. Oh well in the morning it would be off to Argentina at last. The owner of the hostel had lent me his jacket for the trip to Torres del Paine. Thank God he did as it was bitter cold. Nice of him. I came back to the hostel and chatted with him. Bought the last ice cream Mega Framboise I was going to get (love them, ate one a day) and gave the tent a burial in a bin. Tomorrow it was off to Argentina. I will cover that sometime soon. I reckon there will be two Argentine parts and then it will be Buenos Aires. The scary shit is now whether or not I can get a job or not. 19 months without working. Judas would be proud. 18 months on the road tomorrow. Come on the Saints. Who dat say dey gonna beat them Saints. I really like Chile. Probably my second or favourite country so far, but very expensive.

Chile Part 6: Isla Chiloe and Puerto Montt

2010-02-04T13:05:00.000-08:00

Sweet Dreams. Excellent. We took a direct bus to Ancud on the north of Chiloe. It included a ferry crossing, which had awfully expensive and awfully awful food. It is a different sort of place. Very isolated and for want of a better word, quaint. I will have to shoot myself for using one of my most detested words in the English language, but everything has its place. We went to the fort, which is more a ruin and tweedle dum, and tweedle dee offered us a tour. A tour of what exactly. Bricks. We found a Brazilian who ran a protestant church and we were considering going there on the sunday, but never made it. We pitched the tent outside. We ate some local food that was hit and miss and then Marcela being a little drunk inspired us to some drunken running on the walls of the city. We met a couple of local girls, chatted a bit and then met some Germans back at the hostel before turfing in. There was some constant music all night. We had assumed it was a party, but in reality it was a fat drunken fool, asleep, catatonic and blaring music from his van, asleep with a half cocked glass of wine on the dashboard. In the hostel was a shotgun just lying on the side. Welcoming.

We ditched our bags at the hostel and set off for National Park Chiloe. We met the Germans again and its a cheaper route to go to Castro and then take a bus to the park, than going all the way to the next town. Save you around 800 pesos. At least it removed the doubt from my mind that we had chosen the right route. The park operator had maps for the wrong park. Well organised. We had left Pucon without paying for the last night in the tent, which I just remembered. Saved us 14 dollars. We had pitched our tent illegally next to the lake, so we had to move it later and the German guy helped. We went for a walk in the forests which was pretty cool. Like a Hobbit forest. Then we headed to the beach and met this Scottish guy the Germans had met everywhere. The beach was nice ish. Reed fields and dunes to get there, then the beach and ice cold water. Really ice cold. Fuck it. I am not going in that, but the others played around a fair bit. Then we came back to the camp site and I kept killing these stupid big flies. Eventually I killed enough of them to buy us some free time. Arsenal went out of the cup and Spurs had drawn 2-2 with Leeds. The cups big guns were all being spiked. We must be second or third favourite of those left in. We could not make fire. We sucked. We tried and failed horribly. In the end Marcela went and found us some Chileans to show us city boys how it works. That functioned much better. Then eventually we went to sleep and the tent door was left open so we got soaked. Was not a great wake up and we had another minor conflict.

We took the bus out of the park to Castro. Saw the church briefly and took a bus to Ancud to pick up our stuff. Marcela wanted to see the penguins, but I knew that I would have opportunities further south. I still keep postponing it. Probably in Puerto Madryn. I had a problem with the cash machines as I had forgotten a lot of them only work with mastercard and not with visa. We decided not to bother staying and push onto Puerto Montt and sort out transport for Barriloche that night. Back over on the ferry. Ok the buses only go to Bariloche in the day. Shit. We were stuck here. There was only one seat for the next day. I suggested I just go south to Punta Arenas and she take the city. I bought mine and while we were chatting someone else bought the last one to Bariloche. Typical luck. Ok we would stay here for 2 nights. It was NFC championship day though. She bought a ticket for Bariloche, but had no stamp in her passport and had thrown away the immigration paper. Shitty. Ok we would have to find the Brazilian consulate th next day. We got to the hostel and then ate hot dogs from a petrol station. Good value for money, though not quality food. Jets - Colts was on tv and the Colts won 30-17. Ok it would be the Colts if we made it. Bugger. It was not on tv. I had to go down and watch it online so Marcela went to sleep. We were up and winning, then it ended up 28-28. Vikings were within field goal range. Penalty. Twelve men on the field. Retards. Favre. Interception. Fuck you. Overtime. We advanced with luck. All the way. Field goal. Superbowl here we come. 31-28. Who dat indeed baby. We were off to the superbowl and the great luck American sides have when I adopt them continues. All my teams excel except for Spurs (the most important one). This sunday is superbowl sunday. Will be watching it in Ushaia and hoping my Saints can bring home the bowl.

In the morning we went hunting for the Argentina consulate as they did not have a Brazilian one in the city. They told us we had to go up the hill to some barrio to find the special police. They would sort it out. We had another mini clash after she had had to wait for 2 hours and I walked down the hill. We met up again and then saw some of the city. Not loads to see. They have a Mexican arts centre in the French cultural centre. We went there and looked around and then left to find a restaurant. Marcela had liked one of the Chilean photographers working there. I wanted to walk along the coast, but all of a sudden she exploded on me and I think this one was as much her fault as the one in Valdivia had clearly been mine. Anyway I did not fancy sitting round to get hammered, so I walked off back to the hostel. Its a shame. We have moments where we get on very well, but its like dry tinder. It only takes a little spark to set it off again. Strong personalities will do that too each other. She made it back to the hostel after me and was not feeling good. It cooled down again and we went for more excellent hot dogs and then to see the film in the French centre. It was typically French and slow, but reasonably interesting and most importantly free. Afterwards we walked to the pier and emt a group of three lesbians, a mentally handicapped guy and 6 young Chilean rappers. Odd bunch. We hung out and joked around with them for an hour or so. I was a little concerned after my nose was bust, but they reminded me a little of my group of friends when we were younger. Killing time doing not much and just hanging. Then we headed back and got some sleep. In the morning I helped Marcela carry her bag down to the bus station and saw her off to Bariloche. Then I came back and chilled a bit before taking a monster 32 hour trip by bus down to Punta Arenas.

Chile Part 5: Pucon and Valdivia

2010-02-04T12:23:00.000-08:00

We arrived late at night and hiked to the camp site area. I pitched up the tent and Marcela went out to make some friends. I was too knackered and just dropped down to sleep. She ended up finding a Kiwi stone carver to chat to with his friends. Kid of cool. Eorann has taklen up stone carving as a profession. Can't say I had come across it much before she told me about it. It was good of her to find some creative outlet though. I think like myself she is too much of an artistically, free thinking person to be doing corporate banking.

The Jets beat the Chargers. Not sure how that happened. So we had Saints - Vikings and Jets -Colts for the superbowl. Ok so it should be the Colts v one of the others. Come on you Saints. I went and found some internet and then Marcela joined me. We ended up having an expensive breakfast at this Yankee owned restaurant for 3 days in a row. Perhaps we spent too much money there, but the food was good. Almost authentic Mexican food. The town is very beautiful. You have a snow capped volcano in the background, you have the giant lake, which is surrounded by reeds and a black rock beach in the north. You could tell it would be pretty, when the bus station we had arrived at was a wood carved building. All of the town is very pretty. Looks like a Swiss ski resort or a more polished Aspen. Everything was very expensive for us though. I was not willing to pay loads to raft or climb volcanoes that weren't as good as ones I had done before. I think for Marcela it was different as she had not been rafting or climbed a volcano, so it felt more of a disappointment for her. She was pretty cold at this point so she picked up a top to keep warm. I went for a walk along the beach. Pretty cute locals and I found a shit hot dj playing on the beach. They had a club in the city, but we never ended up going there. I still think I have not been clubbing since Valparaiso. Over a month. Way too long. Oh well, I will be in Buenos Aires in a week and may go clubbing in Ushaia over the week. We took a bus to Currarehue, which is a Mapuche village. I believe Pinochet moved them all there during his reign. We met a really old woman with no legs and she invited us into her apartment to chat with her. Was interesting to gauge the quality of life and the fact that the Chilean government just leaves them to fend for themselves. Then we went to the local museum and had a fun time with the guy who runs the tours. The Mapuches seem to have got battered by the Chileans and Argentineans. While they were one of the few native groups to resist the Spanish invaders, they had a rather less favourable nineteenth century against the industrial powers. He said that a lot of tourists just breeze through the building, but if you spare the time and chat you can learn a lot more. Oh yeah. Pinera won the election. We took mate with him and chatted for around 2 hours. We got to play some long pipe instrument, but Marcela's sucking sucked. We had equal trouble with the instrument you place between your teeth and twang. It sounds like the stuff that Ennio Morricone gets for his westerns. Was a fun experience. We got taught some strange Mapuche dances, which seems to be hoping around in circles on one foot to different paces of music. Instruments are sacred in the community. One family takes responsibility for each instrument and you would train your sons and grandsons in the usage of that instrument, so it bonds the community and keeps traditions alive. They tend to stay out of politics and don't involve themselves much electorally, which seems to be the mistake of a lot of indigenous communities. We then walked 1km out of town to try to some traditional Mapuche food. Was very good and vegetarian on the whole. Was a crazy dog as well. We ended up having to run for the last bus back, but the restaurant is right on the main road. We went back to the tent and stayed in for the night.

The next day we got up and I had quesadillas for breakfast. The Mexican type and not that shithole Venezuelan cake. We set off to Parque Huerquehue. Marcela left her new jumper with the park guard and ended up leaving it behind. We met a couple of old Kiwis on the bus and got chatting. Some local woman said she liked me because I talked a lot and Chilean men don't talk as much as me. Noone talks as much as me. Well except maybe Geli lol. Or possibly Marcela. Yeah fuck yeah. Danger Zone. This Radio Bangkok is awesome. I love my phone. First music since those little bastards stole my mp3 player. We joined up with a Dutch girl (who lacked charisma of any type) and an English guy (posh yet poor and educated at Oxford. The English will know the type). None of them were spirited walkers. Indeed Marcela burned them for someone who claims they don't hike much. She powered it to the lakes at the top, which were very pretty for all 5 minutes we got to see them. Very impressive effort. On the way down, we met the old Kiwi and a couple of Israelis. They hung out together, so I took the opportunity to do some sprint training downhill and blitzed the section. I am in very good shape since I stopped drinking. Need to rebuild the upper body and I could probably take up rugby again. Still very much in two minds over that. I waited for them at the bottom and got chatting with the Israelis. The girl was very interesting. Worked for Israeli intelligence, is a dive instructor and wants to train as a medic. She suggested I should go and work in Tel Aviv. Might well do that when I get over to the middle east. Israel would be an interesting place to live. We could not go to the Asado on the way back. So I gave Gloria a ring and we chatted for an hour. Was the first time we had chatted properly since she left Colombia and was cool and strange at the same time. We still have a nice chemistry and get on well. Back at the camp site, Marcela met some Chileans and wanting to hang out with locals (and also interesting in the dude with the moustache) she wanted to hang out with them. I was late to meet the Israelis, so being English was stressed a bit by that. Its remarkable the small crap that stresses people from my country, when serious stuff barely affects us. My eyes were almost not purple by this point. I think they healed in Valdivia. She went out with the Chileans and did not have a great night. I went to the Israeli hostel and it was shit at first. Everyone was chatting in Hebrew so I understood nothing. Eventually some people welcomed me to the conversation and I went out with them. We went to a few clubs, but never entered any and still did not dance. Fucking hell. Still had a really good conversation with Ya'ana for a few hours and she is a very interesting person. Hopefully we can catch up another time. We did not manage it in Patagonia, due to my acceleration, but maybe in BA. I walked back around 5am and ended up chatting with the guards and playing with the dogs before going back to sleep.

Marcela and I had our first really big argument on this morning. We both took each others comments far too personally and it escalated from there. Anyone who knows me, knows my potential to escalate stuff. She made an interesting quote. That when people click they bring out the best of each other and when they clash they bring out the worst in each other. Very true and we were definitely bringing the worst traits out to play. Suffice to say it was a ringing clash. I left the tent and went off to chill by the stream for 20 minutes. I still love water for shutting it down. Also she had had one of her shoes stolen by the local dog. I found it in the warden's hut. We ended up leaving for Valdivia late as we had to wait for the guy to bring Marcela's jumper back. He forgot. Idiot. So we took the bus to Valdivia. Its a very cute town. On first impression I really liked it, on second impression I think it would be the best town to live in Chile. At least for a short time. We stayed in a cheap, but cool hotel by the station. Shame it had no real hot water as we could not light the boiler. I never have been a mechanical man. The jazz/blues bar only played at weekends so we missed that . We gave up on doing anything and I watched some family guy before we went to sleep.

We slept a long time and then went down to the river to take a boat cruise. We had another huge fight. This one was mainly my fault, so I could tell I was being rubbed up the wrong way as I have not instigated fights like that for a while. I think little things were niggling us. Anyway Marcela ended up storming off the boat after I was criticising her negotiating for the boat. I stayed on and took the boat tour, which was not really worth the money. A longer one might have been. They have sea lions that swim and play in the river in the middle of the town. Thats quite rare and very cool to see. When I got back, Marcela said she would spend the day with the boat crew and I was quite releaved as I fancied some time to see the town myself and have some peace after the last 2 fights. I went off the the park in town and got chatting with a professor. He told me I should check out the universitys botanical gardens. Damn it. Keyboard does not have an apostrophe. The park has a cool lake and is pretty to wander around in. It also has a good and interesting sculpture garden. It really is a postcard city. Very beautiful. I think I could live there. The botanical garden is a very romantic and pretty location. You can see that from how many couples they have wandering the grounds. I walked around other parts of the city. The art gallery is pretty shit, apart from one long underground tunnel with an exhibition of sound at the end. Quite eerie but not worth the entrance fee. I was feeling a little sick from something I had eaten and I got tickets to see Sherlock Holmes. I met Marcela again and she was going clubbing with the boat guys. The relationship was pretty broken down at this point and I suggested online that we should maybe consider splitting ways before we killed each other. She came and met me and we took coffee to chat it. It seemed resolved, so I went to the cinema to watch the film. Was quite good and fun. Came back and now she suggested we separate. Nothing is ever simple. We debated on it until the early hours of the morning and decided we could carry on as long as we avoid the big clashes, which we mainly did. We ended up getting up late and had to get a bus to push on from Valdivia.

Chile Part 4: Talca, Santiago and Concepcion

2010-01-21T14:54:00.001-08:00

Ok I tidied up the last entry to include the remainder of Santiago. You can take a read if you were curious as to what you missed. I took a train down to Talca. I so much prefer trains. I think I am always going to travel in them as opposed to buses. There was the first bit of rain I had seen since Bolivia, where coincidentally I rarely saw the sun. Also I realised I had developed a fear of small towns at night after having my nose smashed. Though in Pucon and here in Valdivia the fear has been drastically reduced, so I will put it down to post-traumatic nose disorder. I am tired, but writing this to MSTRKRFT so that helps. Really want to see them again, but don't think they are heading down here anytime soon. I met a couple of very uncommunicative Germans and stayed in a pretty cool hostel. Can't remember the name, but one of the best I have stayed in. Not expensive for here and you got cable tv, breakfast, excellent service and the owner is really interesting as well.

I got up really early, having bought a load of stuff from the supermarket and headed off into the National Park Altos de Lircay. I think thats spelt slightly wrong. I wanted to see Siete Tazas as well, but it was not looking like that would be possible. I took the bus there and slept all of the way. At the other end I met a German dude and we decided to hike the park together. Only he was going to try to hike from one park to the other in 4 days and I was going to hike with him to the mirador and walk about a little bit. Almost the same. Ah I have just reentered this blog. Last time I was writing in in the pleasant surroundings of Valdivia and now I am writing in the total shithole that is Rio Gallegos. On the plus side my new phone has a radio, so I get to listen to some good and sometimes dodgy music. Ah radio. Ah so where was I. Ah yeah hiking in the park. We hiked up through the ridges and the park looked like those in the Rockies in the States. Multicoloured. After being bored by the green and brown monotonous scenery of the Andean countries, it was nice to be back in a place with reds, oranges and yellows as well. A real mix of different colour schemes and styles. Very pretty. The path wound through the the campsite at the end. Number six. There I dropped my tent and went hiking with the German to the mirador. It had great sweeping views of the valley and the walk down would be a steep one. I opted out. Could not be arsed to walk back up the hill afterwards and you could see most of it from here. Ah I have crappy Argentine news in my ear about corrupt Rio Gallegos governors. At least its not adverts. Yeah 'I get fire from your tongue' seems some random group. Need to change channel. I opted to go back and hike up to the basalt or granite plateau. There I met a group of Chilean girls and chilled there looking at the sweep over the valley. The German and I had been farting around with topographical maps to work out which mountain was which. We weren't the best at it. Hope he made it back after camping up in the snow. From there I hiked across the top of the plateau to a beautiful lake, which included some hiking in snow (which was cold due to the holes in my shoes) and met some starving Chileans. I gave them a packet of crisps when I passed them again on the way back. Hiking through all these parts had taken the Germans 3 days. Took me less than one. I really think these lazy bastard hikers are not pushing themselves as much as they could do. I ran down the hill as I love running downhill parts of hikes. Takes less energy and a lot less time as you are just running with the gravity. My nose was starting to return to an appearance normal at this point. I rebroke my little left toe by kicking a rock on the way back and then just turfed in early into my tent.

The next day I was up with the sun. Well almost up with the sun. I decided to hike back out of the park as I had seen everything worth seeing and I had tested the tent. It was seemingly working fine. My stomach problem had maybe been from unfitness, as after hiking and my nose was broken it seems to function fine. I got out of the park and just missed a bus, so I had to sit there eating stale bread for an hour or so waiting for the bus. Eventually I got back to Talca and found out the Brazilian would get to Santiago the next day so I should head back. I did not do much. Just watched a lot of CSI, did my laundry and watched Liverpool get knocked out of the FA Cup. Hahahahah. Better for us. Fucking scousers. Torres, Benayoun and Gerrard got injured as well. Excellent as we would play a weakened Liverpool next week.

In the morning I got up early and got chatting with an Israeli guy who had been hiking around the middle of Chile. In the afternoon I took a bus back to Santiago to meet Marcela. I wanted to see Alex (the Colombian from, Manizales) as well but it depended on her. The hostel cost me $20 in Santiago. Damn this country. Too expensive. I met Marcela and we chatted before heading to meet Alex at his Colombian restaurant. She was tired and went back, so Alex and I went and chatted in a cafe until around 4am. Was good to catch up. Both me and Marcela realised early on that we both have strong, differing personalities and we were bound to end up clashing at some point.

In the morning I got up and met a girl from Sao Paolo. Very cute. We chatted for half an hour or so and then Marcela joined us. We went to Alex's house to have breakfast and bought a load of stuff from the supermarkets. They are not cheap in Chile. There is almost no point cooking. If you eat out it will cost you around the same amount of money, more or less. We had breakfast and then the other two went in the rooftop swimming pool. I did not have any clothes for it so had to stay on the side. Then I went and got a long overdue haircut, while the others went siteseeing. I cooked up a rather flat dinner. Always disappointing when you cook for some people for the first time and its a bit crap, as they will assume that is your level of cooking ability. Oh well. We went past a weird church that looked like it was constructed in four different time periods and then molded together. I still don't know why people bash Santiago so much. Its clearly a good city and one of three I would consider living in for a short period of time in Chile. We took a night bus to Concepcion and did not end up sleeping at all. Was a strange bus ride. Oh well. I was hoping Concepcion would be the only other expensive place in Chile that we stayed, but that was optimistic.

We arrived at 5am and the hotel would not let us check in until 7am. Shitty. We were both tired. Neither of us had really slept in the last few nights. There seemed a bit of game playing so I just went to sleep. Marcela went and chatted with the hotel owners and their son, who ended up hanging around with us a fair bit. Spurs and Liverpool both drew, while Man City lost. The Saints crushed the Cardinals. Excellent. They were in the NFC title match against the Vikings. Was going to be a good matchup the weekend afterwards. We walked around the town and saw a really cool little art gallery. Had a good mural painting that was very similar to the work od Diego Rivera. We then went to the local musuem, which was focusing on Mapuche history. Marcela did not fancy climbing the hill, so I set off to get a view of the city from the higher places. I always like to get the high point views. Its not a very pretty city. The rest of the city was shut down as the elections were the next day and they did not want any drunken voting.

The next day we were up and had some fun before breakfast, but it was pretty obvious we did not have great chemistry. This had been clear to both us really. Oh well. Onwards with the trip. Gloria needed a bit of help, so would give her a ring on skype. We went out to see the beaches of Concepcion. They were a bit rubbish strewn and just a bit rubbish in general. Water was still too cold. It was interesting to wander around some of the suburbs of the city though. Chilean small towns all possess a lot of multicoloured architecture. Very pretty. We even found a hobo lying in a tyre on the beach. Made for a fun photo for Marcela. The son had made us both perosnalised letters for when we left, which was a nice touch and then we took a bus to Temulco. Its a bit of an industrial shithole and the direction giving was so bad that we ended up wandering around for a while before we eventually found a bus to Pucon and we were heading to the Chilean version of Bariloche.

Chile Part 3: Santiago, La Serena and Vicuna

2010-01-09T11:11:00.000-08:00

Hmm the blood seems to have stopped flowing. Well if not stopped, certainly reduced to mean this is the first bit of cotton wood shoved up my nose that has not gone red within one hour. I have high hopes I won't have to shove more cotton wool up my nose tomorrow and I can start to rehabilitate myself normally. In a continent as vanity obsessed as Latin America its never very flattering to walk around looking like you have been a contender for the heavyweight boxing title. People are so abhorred they won't even say thankyou when you hold open a door. Classy.

I was woken up by my landlady to leave the apartment in Santiago. I hate travelling without any form of alarm, but I am not going to buy yet another telephone until I get to Argentina as there I should get at least one year's usage out of it. I am also now travelling without a guidebook. To be fair to Lonely Planet I only used them for maps and bus times now and I can get them from tourist information and my Spanish is more than capable enough to take care of directions etc. Damn the bandage thing is wet, but it looks white from my angle so its not blood. Hoorah. Lucciana was not free until the evening, so I decided to head to the museums. I climbed up Cerro Santa Lucia, which has a cool castle at the top and a pleasant Japanese garden. I then went and took the cable car up the massive hill on the north side of thr river. Its in a multicoloured barrio that is funky in and of itself. I only wanted one way, but did not see the option for that (it exists) and bought a two way. It climbed to the top and the hill is kind of like Montserrate in Bogota, but you can see the smog cloud from the top. That's a shame. Its nowehere near as bad as LA's piss yellow cloud that hangs over the city, but I won't use this part to savage Los Angeles again. Its too shit to warrant it. Liverpool-Spurs got called off by the way due to a frozen pitch, but Lennon should be back for the next match. Arsenal drew and Man U are as well. At the top there is not much to see, but the view is good, except for the cloud. I opted to walk down and went down a path from the carpark. Seemed to go all the way down but did not. You cross a major path two thirds of the way down. Take a right there, because the down path goes straight to a fence. Shit. Its no fun hiking back up in the summer sun. I also had not brought water, but I was listening to some good African music and Michael Jackson. That main path runs past the second station and eventually leads to a way down. I think it took me two hours to get down, but the walk was quite pretty. At the bottom I gave the other ticket to some random couple and headed to the Art museum, which was shut on mondays. Great. Phoned around the family as it was my birthday and this was the day I fixed stuff up with the bank. Lucciana had her phone on silent from the conference she had been in and so missed my calls. I eventually made it there and they very generously took me out to a top class sushi place for dinner. They insisted on paying for my birthday as well. The company was good and the food was fucking top class. I had forgotten what good food tastes like. I have not maintained those standards since, it is fair to say. We talked all night and had monster cakes at another place. I don't have much money left, but I symbolically bought the drinks later to contribute something. It was a shame we had only got the one night together, but hopefully they will come and visit in Buenos Aires and I can repay the favour.

The next day I slept in a bit and then we got breakfast. We said goodbye and I headed to the art gallery, which was a collosal waste of time. One of the most disapponting art galleries I have been to. Normally they at least have one good thing and I had delayed leaving for this. In the end I took the metro (which is a way better system than the Economist seems to think it is) to the bus station and got a bus to La Serena. It took about 8 hours and arrived around 2.30am in the terminal, so I decided to sleep there for the rest of the night and then look for accomodation.

I did not think La Serena would be too busy, but I had forgotten that people would have to have left Valparaiso for somewhere after new year. Every hostel appeared to be full. Shit. Eventually after a lot of walking with the fucked up bag I found a hostel with space. I checked in and wondered around the town. Probably the least pretty of those I have been in so far, pretty small aswell, but nice enough. Least pretty in Chile that is. I came back to the hostel and in the kitchen were Mayra and Scott. Scott shouted over to me. This would be awkward after how it was left in Valparaiso. Scott was off for a run and Mayra said I should keep her company. Hmm a turnaround. We ended up walking down the beach and ahd coffee and shrimp/cheese empanadas in a cafe. Got the lunch eventually. We had a long chat on many things, mostly in Spanish as she has to use English all day normally. She thought I was staying in Vina and had never e-mailed her. I reminded her of her last comments and that I had e-mailed her. Oh well she did not remember too well. Maybe the blog might jump her memory. It was a lot more pleasant and less stressful time. We went back so she could do some washing and I walked to the beach for sunset, before heading out to see Ofelia as they did not want to join me. I told them to wake me the next day and went out. Met her at the gallery and ended up drinking with her cousin and his friends. Barmaids find it odd that I want a coke in a bar. Will be weirder back in England but I have dealt with it before. I promised them to go partying this weekend, but obviously that won't be happening now. Elephent men don't dance.

In the morning I woke up and noone had woken me. Hmm I figured they were just off, but have no concept of time. I always get the feeling they are looking to escape, but somehow we always bump into each other. At least Mayra seemed more relaxed in my company now. Testing the paper for blood with paper. Hmm yellowy. Much better than red anyway. I got breakfast and met Scott as Mayra must have gone to write her note while I was in the bathroom. Found it later. Anyway they left and I pottered around La Serena a while. All these chain of events led to me breaking my nose. When I eventually got a bus to La Serena it arrived too late to find accomodation. The drive on the way there is nice and I reckon the rest of the valley might be interesting. Never got to see it. They have a reservoir part way there that reminded me of the Hoover Dam area. Anyway. Nowhere to stay accept one place with no lock. With hindsight I should have taken it, but I dropped my luggage in the terminal equipaje and went off to book a tour for the observatory. Apparently you need to book a long time in advance. I don't think so somehow. I opted for the tour in Spanish as it looked more interesting (though I reckon they may be the same) at 12.30am and left. Bumped into Mayra and Scott again and chatted for a bit. They had been on a pisco tour they said was not that great. I did not go for obvious reasons. They also have horse rides under the stars somewhere here. It felt like I was stalking them, but I left to hike up the big jesus hill, which is kind of cool and probably the last time I will hear my mp3 player (though now with hindsight I am not c ertain I used it then). The little bag had stayed with me and I bumped into Mayra again in an internet cafe when we randomly got the two computers next to each other. Some sort of fate is going on here. Will have to catch up in Mendoza or Buenos Aires and probably will do by accident or design. I killed time online and got chatting with Marie-France online. Looks like she may come down to stay with me in april. Will be good as its been too long since I saw her. Eventually I went in search of a toilet. All the restaurants apparently did not have any. I was needing it badly now. They had shut the toilet in the terminal. Shit. Getting desperate. Ah excellent a dark alley. Damn it, the dark alley is guarded by an army of dogs. Shit. Eventually I just pissed on a house as I could not hold it any more. Relief all round. I took the tour and I believe I was the only non native speaker , but I understood around 90-95%. Some of the jokes flew by me. We got an interesting 40 minute presentation and then went up on the roof to look at various constellations through a telescope. The sky is unbelievably clear here and I had never seen stars like this, except maybe when Ollie and me camped in Mexican Hat. Though the telescope was disappointing. It showed stuff closer, but nowhere as awesome as those shots you get in space books. They just seemed like white dots more zoomed in. Oh well. Some of them were orange. That was better. Then we got some live music. Well it seemed like I was in Peru for a second. A band popped up and played two songs on pan pipes (one the simon and garfunkel one in a different style) and then plugged their cd. What a shameless sell. Anyway back to Vicuna (which has only 24,000 people so I still stand by my statement that towns are more dangerous than cities if you read what follows. Only other place I have been attacked in was my hometown of Watford with 80,000 people). In towns live the retards. Decent people live in cities or the countryside. Ok so I stopped off in the plaza to rest/sleep, when a gang of 6 hooded kids came in. Hmm. Was I in Watford. Two peeled off left and the other four went to the nightclub. This did not feel right as one of them had sized me up. I can tell when people do this from experience. I could see two of them and a dog come back into the park afterwards. I left the other way and figured they would follow me. They did. I walked fast, so did they. Ok now I know they want to rob me. I ran and so did they. Here is where I was a bit stupid. I clearly had them outgunned for pace (though not their dog) and I could have run into the nightclub, but was not thinking. Does not bode well for my decision making under pressure. That line will come back to haunt me if I ever run for prime minister and I can imagine justifying that in the future. Anyway, with those two options I ran a few blogs and then turned to face them. Stupid move. One of them had a metal rod (like a giant aerial) and whipped me with that. Then I managed to knock one over, but my attempt to bang the second guys head into the wall failed as I just banged my own head. Then they had me down and got some good kicks in. One broke my nose and the scattering of blood persuaded me that I was going to lose or had lost this one. I gave them the bag and they took my wallet thing. Dripping blood on the street, I asked them for my passport and they gave it to me. Excellent. So I asked for my bank cards and they gave me them as well. Excellent. Now considering those were the only two things worth losing I should have just negotiated. Everything else I have is a load of shit. Still I was bleeding a lot now. My money (40,000 pesos or 50 quid) was all with the cards, so the stupid fucks forgot to check that. Excellent. They got around 1,000 pesos and a bag full of books. Yep my bag was full of books for teaching English mainly. It also had a decrepid lonely planet, a dictionary and a Garcia Marquez novel. I am sure that's what they had in mind when they stole it. Oh it also had the diary, hence why I have to write this now while it is fresh. Good job I keep this online record for my adventures now that the hard copy is gone. Anyway next time they rob someone they should be able to do it in English. I told this to the medics and they thought it was funny, but that I was weird for making jokes after being beaten up. I had told Mayra the English take nothing seriously except sport. Anyway I was dripping blood and no idea how bad any injuries were. Did not have any real pain though, but my threshold is pretty high. I have been stitched without anaesthetic. Knocked on a door of a hostel and they would not help me, even dripping with blood. They are on Mistral street just opposite the Mamalluca tour office if anyone wants to know or even firebomb them for me. I staggered back to the club and a big group of Chileans were helping me. They thought my nose was broken. I did not as it did not hurt. Went to the club and washed my face. Then I woke up on the bathroom floor. Hmm I don't feel drunk. Where the fuck am I? Ah yeah I have been beaten up and I have just passed out and whacked my head on a urinal. Bit of a bump there. Disorientated is the right word. Only the second time I have passed out and was hoping it was from blood loss and not a kick in the head. Then the police arrived. I kept trying to buy water but they did not sell me any. They took me to the hospital and the doctors seemed bewildered by my statement that nothing serious was taken, I wasn't staying anywhere and I was on my own. In the end they x-rayed me and it all looked ok enough. I have the cd. Should be fun to view later on. Just a little crushed on the upper right side but I could breath still. I took it to mean it was only lightly fractured. Good test of my Spanish this incident though. All the doctors love the Premiership, one of the nurses was excited to have a foreigner, though the doctors assured me they had had a lot of foreigners in their hospital. I took that as a sign this town is a little dangerous. Meanwhile I am sure the thieves were getting to grips with present simple and will soon master 'give me your money.' Bengals v Jets has kicked off in the wildcard round. No idea who will win, but I bet the Chargers or Colts won't be scared of whichever shit team gets through. They said I need to see a specialist, but they cost a lot. I think it is Latin vanity as they can't stand anything not looking great. My dad however said if I can breath don't bother as the operation is horrible and he's broken his 4 times but you could not really tell. I am not a nose model so I think I will let it heal natural. Still yellow, not red. Woohoo. Maybe the last day with a plugged nose. They kept me in for observation. Excellent news. I got a place to sleep for free. All the medical stuff is free here. Class. They put me in a room with a young guy with one of those bags filled with water and a coughing old man. Hmm you can tell I have never spent much time in hospitals. First break in my life and first time I had slept in one. Hmm they take ages to let me go in the morning. I assumed the blood from one nose, meant a rupture and no internal bleeding. Still not dead, so I guess that holds. If I do die publish the blog as it stands as my last will and testament. Ok so I left and got to baggage woman. I apologised for being late, but she said I did not have to pay because my face was beat up. Excellent news. Another bonus.

I took a bus back to La Serena where I am now. Have not done much as I lost a fair whack of blood. Slept for 14 hours or so. The woman in the hostel said the kids must be from Santiaho and gave me a huge bit of watermelon. Every Chilean seems ashamed I got whooped in their country, so they are all very eager to do anything they can for me. I still prefer to do my own stuff though. Slept for a long long time after writing yesterday. Jhon informs me that someone rang him to say they have my bag and diary. Oh well. None of it is important enough to go back for and I don't fancy another kicking or visiting Vicuna again. One good thing about Chile is that stuff that's very expensive in other countries is just ok here, so you don't feel so guilty spènding money. Off to a book store in a bit to pick up some stuff. So today I stayed a long time in the hospital, because they forgot to put my details in the computer screen. A cute nurse fixed up my nose with more delacacy than the doctor in Vicuna. I am sure he pushed the cotton into my brain. She just walked in the internet place now actually. Ironies. Many ironies. Anyway I don't think much else will happen here. Maybe I will go and watch a shit film. I have considered contacting some people here to hang out with, but may just leave it as rest is probably a more sensible option. Oh well. At least I caught up with my diary. Sure some good, small things escaped like in the US, but should have covered the most of it. If the blood stops, I am off south.

Ok I figured I would update this. Managed to get back to the hostel afterwards and all of the Chilleans were so embarassed that one of their countrymen had broken my nose that they cooked a giant asado and invited me to join them. Second lot of really good food in a week. Was interesting to practice my Spanish in that environment. Just figured I would update that as the next day I took a bus to Santiago and stayed in a sex hotel just near the terminal. The woman on the door did not want to let me in because I looked dodgy with my broken nose. The blood had at least stopped by this point. You know you are in trouble when even a sex hotel won't let you stay with them. Remarkable how soon you forget something like that as well. Its been 2 weeks since I broke my nose and sometimes I forget it was broken. It seems to have healed looking almost like new, with only a mild deviation and noone I meet even mentions it as the eyes have stopped being purple lol. Anyway the sex hotel had a music player on the bed. I assume to set the mood. It had good taste in music as well, as there was only one channel, but it got cut off at midnight which was a shame. A Brazilian girl Marcela had contacted me to go travelling with her. I wrote that I hoped she did not bring drama lol. Will get to that. The next day I spent $72 for Lonely Planet Chile. Probably the most I have ever spent on a book and got a sleeping bag and a tent for a lot less. I decided to head south to road test this equipment and see if it would be up to the challenge of Patagonia or whether it would fold at the first challenge, like the Walmart equipment in Yellowstone. Damn, so long ago lol.

Chile Part 2: Santiago, Vaparaiso and Vina Del Mar

2010-01-08T15:24:00.000-08:00

Ok I am sitting here bleeding from my broken nose and aware that my diary was stolen from me. This makes it an urgent necessity (are there any others) that I get this down while my momory is still fresh. Well relatively fresh. The main points should have stuck. Damn this keyboard is tough. I hate hard keyboards as I type too fast. The broken nose shit will be in the next part. Makes for a fun tale. Chile has been interesting good and bad in ways Bolivia could only dream of.

Ok I took a bus from Iquique and came to Antofagasta. There I stayed in the bus station, paid for a bus to Santiago and killed time chatting with an Argentine dude. Spanglish I believe it was. I am now very much speaking more Spanish than English in general and can only help my development even if all my dictionary and books are now missing. I am not bitter at all. Nope. Just like Wenger. Got the bus and took a second night bus in a row. Slept at least 14 our of the 17 hours and watched part of some film. Can't remember what it was. I don't think yo or I will lose sleep over that one. Although technically I did as I watched it. Eventually my marathon busathon brought me to Santiago. I had not bothered to look around Antofagasta as my main rucksack has broken. This means the metal rods stick out the top and break my back rather than supporting it. Its only got to last about 5-6 weeks more though and then I will be in Buenos Aires. The time has come to work. Rumour has it that this work thing happens to people who need money. That they make you do stuff and you lose your freedom. Sounds terrifying. Maybe I will kill it if I see it. I may even have come across it some time in my past.

I got into Santiago at about 7am. Breakfast and grab Lucciana's number off the internet. Of course if this was any other capital, but Chile does not believe life starts before 10am or so, so I was stranded in Barrio Brazil twiddling my thumbs. As places for this activity go, Santiago is not a bad one. Has a lot of places like London. Especially New York street (financial centre) which is a spit for Bank. I liked the city. Noone who lives there likes it. At least they don't beat you up for your bag, but then my current landlady reckons the little shits were from Santiago. Hmm its also the only capital city I can think of that is cheaper to buy stuff than any of the other parts of the country. Usually its the most expensive. I could live in this city. Eventually I met Lucciana and it was cool as it was almost two years since she had stayed with me in London. I was looking forward to this, but I was to be frustrated. I think the 29th and 30th december have been solely designed to piss me off. I fucking hate those dates. Anyway she had two Swedes staying with her and I think my opening line of Chile being much more cultural and better than Peru and Bolivia did not go down well with them. Ah damn it. Scandinavian, vegetarian, hippyistic (does this need another y? I think I invented it) socialists. I have always got on cracking with them. Also they had typical northern european cold personalities and I talk like talkie toaster in speed. This was not great. The atmosphere was a little awkward and we went out for drinks and food in the evening. Hmm. I kept trying to kick something into life, but I figured they had mae their judgment on me from the opening statement. My mouth is always going to walk me into problems. I have one of the most divisive personalities around. People either really like me or hate me. Chances are if you are reading this you like me as you have my facebook lol, but if it makes it into a book I am sure I will have facebook hate groups up in Ecuador at the very least. Scratch that. They will probably use the next entry as a template for kicking the shit out of me. Anyway I went to sleep and at some point in the night a powow was called with the others. The Swedes did not want to spend new year with me. Excellent. This left the plans in good fettle. Shit. This was the night of the 29th/30th. For those with long memories that was the same date that I lost my passport in Dominican Republic last year. I think for safety measures I will not go out next year on these dates. I still have hope that someone takes up the fatwa offer and kills these dates. Apparently a German friend told me that the Mayans did not have names for the last 5 days of the year and thought they were bad luck. Damn it. I knew I should not attack Guatemala so much. If I promise to say its the best country in the world, will the Mayan gods stop fucking me in the arse on these dates. I do love Tikal. Best ruins in the Americas and thats the honest truth.

Ok well being the mature man I have become and being diplomatic (about time) I said I would pull out and find something else and they should all go to Valparaiso together. In reality it made most sense, but that day walking in town I was feeling bitter, angry and a little upset as I come all the way to see Lucciana and can't see her because some Swedes can't find some middle ground. Dammit. Yeah lets whack on some Corrs. Been awhile. Maybe they can stop my nose leaking. I went to search accomodation for Valparaiso. Yep Valparaiso. The place lonely planet tells everyone to go. I am there on the 30th without accomodation. This was going to be fun. I found some for the 30th and the 1st in the same hostel. $20 for a night. They want $80 for new year. Fuck that. I can rumba all night and then limp back in at midday to check in for thefirst. Cunning eh. I even found a couchsurfer to drop my stuff for new years eve in Vina del Mar and they had a party on. Excellent. Problem solved, except for a bus. What's this? An e-mail from my dad. Nationwide want me to repay 900 pounds of my overdraft in 19 days. WTF. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Motherfuckers. I hate this date. They expect me to magic that out of my arse when I am not working. This was not resolved until 4 days later and hung over me for new year but I will take it on now to get it out of the way. The lazy shits took the whole weekend off. I phoned them and said why are you removing it. They said no money was being paid in. I informed them that no money had gone in for 18 months and they had no problem when they had 13,000 pounds of my savings but now it was overdrawn for 2 months they want the money back. I said they knew I was travelling for 18 months and there was one month left. They said it did not matter. I said ok lets set up a wind down payment. Yes I can do that but first I have to default, even though penalty interest is the same as legal. So basically al it does is fuck my credit rating and possibly damage my credit card limit (on which I am currently travelling). It was not possible for them to change it without default. That must be bollocks as I had the power to renegotiate facilities up to 10,000 pounds as a lowly grunt in corporate banking. Arseholes. I said if you fuck my credit rating why should I pay them. They said they would send debt collectors. I said to Argentina. Excellent. Their flights would be more than the debt and do they need a place to stay. They said I would have to pay when I come back. I said excellent. Thats in 10 years. Keep on waiting boys. That scared the shit out of him. Fun for me though. After playing brinksmanship I would have to phone again the next day to speak to collections or some other bunch of idiots. Then I rang all my family and my dad told me my uncle would cover it and I would have to pay him back as he thought it unfair it ws pulled on me with no warning. Excellent news. I was very grateful and also thinking maybe I should not have threatened the bank now that it will be paid. I hate nationwide sometimes but they are still cheap. Probably means I won't use them to bank with while working though as I don't trust them now. The bastards may steal my money out from under me by adjusting limits.

Anyway enough of these two dates. Evil though they are. I went off to the national history museum. Only I didn't, because I had read the map wrong and I ended up at the natural history museum. I just used their toilet and left. I have seen these museums before and the plastic whale was not a good start. Nice grounds though. Eventually I went for a wander through town and found the national history museum. Nice enough place. I could not be bothered with the pre-Colombian one. The art is always crappy and too religious. I still agree with Mark Twain on that. I wanted to search out stuff on the War of the Pacific. I expected a whole room, but on the first pass missed the whole one photo they have on the war. Way to belittle Peru and Bolivia, but then maybe they are just not very proud of it. I headed back. Ah yeah I had done my washing the day before and wandered all around Lucciana's apartment in just my shorts. Maybe that put off the Swedes. Grabbed my stuff and shot off to Valparaiso. I limped in late and found my hostel after a long walk. It is kind of Bohemian. I quite like there and Vina del Mar. Vina is probably the slightly cleaner cut of the two. It wa full of French and French Canadians so we were chatting in Spanish as normal. They were playing drinking games. I miss the camaraderie of those but its not the same if you are on coke. I taught them a few. They must have thought it weird that the guy who does not drink knew so many drinking games. I ended up talking philosophy an EU politics with a French dude until about 4.30am. Stupid for the 30th december but fun anyway. I love the intellectual edge to French culture and should be fun when I am living there eventually. Still we lost lot of sleep and I had to leave by midday.

I limped up in the morning and went and met a few couchsurfers to take a city tour. Our guide took us all over the city and we even took the famous 'elevators' (I reckon they are mini funiculars, but hey elevator is not a real word in England so make it what you want). There are a lot of multicoloured buildings, strange architecture and sweeping sea vistas. There was also a Brazilian and an American southerner. Excellent. Then we met some Spaniards and they have the same sense of weirdness as the French that an Englishman can speak Spanish. It happens. Will be good for when I am Prime Minister though as can address a few European countries in their own language. I think my Spanish is approaching Francois's French (in terms of speaking being way better than writing). Damn it can smell iron in my nose. I suppose at least its good that I can smell. I took the train to Vina (I don't care if its more expensive. Trains are better and you don't get them often). I am even thinking of going south from Santiago by train just because I can. That's why Chile is cool. I met the group of couchsurfers sortof. There was a big group of people standing around with rucksacks. I assumed it was them, but said nothing as they could be from the other bus. They thought I must be the odd Englishman but noone said anything for 10 minutes. Really awakward. Eventually an Italian doctor put us out of our misery and we all went to her place. The Chileans thought my accent and speed was funny, because I speak Spanish so fast. Then again I speak English fast and I think they have a weird accent. So we are even. There was an Argentine girl travelling with a Yank, the Italian, a German and 3 Chileans. Then we met a massive group of people and everyone got massacred. Ah yeah the Chilean girl has a phenomenal house in Vina and a giant white dog. He looks like a polar bear and I called him orso polar all the time. Then he tried to hump me. I think he could have had me if he really wanted. He was pretty big. Tease. We watched the fireworks down by the main square. Cool but did not have the big Chilean flag firework that had been rumoured. Ah I miss bits without the diary. Its like a jump cut. I remembered this stunning girl arriving and thinking who is she, then I realised it was the Argentine after she had changed. That ha to be the most drastic transofrmation I have seen. Very impressive without your home kit on the road. Everyone was plastered. Guido was being very Italian with the women, the Yankee Scott was so plastered he danced off somewhere on his own and lost his bag. The German scuttled off with one of the Chileans and we found them in bed together later. We had a huge 2m viking Dane with us. He was like a blonde lighthouse in the crowd. There was an Aussie who probably hooked up with the host. We lost them. Then Mayra was upset and crying as Scott was to look after her and this was the first time out of her country. She hated drunk people, but was a little drunk. This was a night of contradictions and wading through it sober is always fun. I promised to lok after Mayra and then she wanted to slap Scott in the face. I ended up looking after all the things as everyone else was battered. I got myself a Lenny Kravitz wig. That drew loads of attention. I got the number of a cute Chilean then lost it later on when I lost my phone. Shit. Everyone scattered and we ended up in a fucking salsa club. Mayra wanted to ring Argentina so we went looking for phones. Did not find one. Then she did not want to dance close, but was suddenly grinding me. Then we kissed and then she did not want to be treated like a slut, so I backed off and then she wa grinding me again. Then she was off somewhere else and the Chilean, Guido and Scott were dancing between us. Everytime we got close someone spun us away. It was like that scene from Grease (much as I hate that film to get a mention in my blog). Looks like I am still typing so I will go see Paranormal Activity. Or maybe I should just sleep. This was a demanding night. So much drama. Then Guido started groping the barmaids and when they resisted told them to fuck themselves so he was thrown out. He was back again soon after and dancing with Mayra, which rattled me a bit. Nevermind. We eventually left with more drama. We took a bus back and I suggested we get lunch the day after. Mayra said yes and then when we made it back and the Chilean broke into the house she went on a massive rant about not being touched and not wanting lunch etc. Ok. Enough. I had lost my phone again. I grabbed my bag, left and set off to hike the 8km back along the coast to Valparaiso with my mp3 player. I figured I would not see them again. The walk back was cool and I did the whole thing with my Kravitz wig. I kept that. Oh shit no I didn't as I think it was in the bag. Or maybe its not. Hmm will look into that. Anyway got loads of attention and it was class. Lots of fun. Took me ages I think and then eventually I got to the hostel and went in for free internet and to crash. Met a cool Chilean and a Colombian dude in the lobby and we chatted with a German girl. I should have slept, but instead went with them and two Dutch girls to the beach over in Vina Del Mar.

I am still no beach man and apparently the sea is so cold you freeze your nuts off. I did not experiment. Instead I spent 200 years attempting to buy some empanadas. Eventually when they did come they were very big. An empanada here would be a pastel in Colombia. Some dude talked to me a lot, but I understood nothing. Some of these Chilean accents are impossible. Lots of people are staring at my bashed up face lol. Maybe I will be more scary than the horror film tonight. Its possible. Good to catch this up while its fresh. Ok just as I wrote that the internet place shut and I had to change to finish this. Will wrap this tonight and write the other one tomorrow while buying a new notebook and pen and maybe a small bag, though not sure what for. Apparently someone rang my Colombian friend and told him they have my bag in Vicuna. Damn it. Think I won't bother going back but will mull over it. I hate having a mashed face in a pretty town. Did not go to the horror either. Would have been a waste of money. Ok. The Colombian, me and the Dutch girls went to get ice cream and coffee and then came back to the hostel and crashed completely exhausted.

The next day I don't have any memory of what I did. I think I went to sort out the bank on this day maybe. Spurs went through 4-0 against Peterborough in the cup. Man U were knocked out by Leeds and then we were drawn against Leeds in the fourth round. Thank God they knocked Man U out. It would have been the third year in a row we played them in the fourth round and they are the only team to have beaten us in a domestic cup in the last 3 years. Trouble is, they beat us in every cup. Maybe we might win the FA Cup this year. Liverpool game has been called off this week due to ice. Pussies. I slept all through the afternoon to recover and then we went out to a salsa club again. Not more fucking salsa. We had gone to the main club in town to see a famous Chilean band, but in the end the queue was huge. Ah I had got dinner with an Aussie guy and we were reminiscing over our relationships in Colombia and Brazil respectively and how good the last one was. The salsa club really bored me to tears after an hour, but I stayed until around 4am.

I was designing the bus tour at this point. I think when I get back to Europe in 2012 I will buy a bus, decorate and paint it and then take it on a massive tour across Europe and maybe parts of Africa as well. Should be fun. Have been recruiting. On the sunday I got the last ticket back to Santiago for the evening and then went and watched Zombieland. Quite a lot of fun. As fun as the trailer suggests it would be. Then I grabbed a bus that was delayed because someone or something threw a rock at the window and it shattered so some passengers had to change buses. We got in late and I ended up staying in some old shithole of a place near the terminal for $20 because Lucciana was staying with her parents. Next up birthday, stars and getting beaten up.

Chile Part 1: San Pedro de Atacama and Iquique

2009-12-27T15:49:00.000-08:00

Hmm San Pedro de Atacama is a small desert oasis. Its one of those ultra touristy places that is still cool (like Banos and Monteverde). Very adobe. Kind of like a tiny Santa Fe without the nightlife and Santa Fe does not even have great nightlife. San Pedro however is dead. Really dead. I waited for Enzo and Rene in the main square. They only have two ATMs in town and one does not take visa so I had to trek out to the edge of town (All 200m) to uee the other one. One of the locals called me gringo. Oh well. Nevermind. I knew immediately that Chile was going to be better than Bolivia. We took a tour out to Valle de Luna as we did not have much time. The guys had to be in Peru for new year so we would move fast. The tour is actually pretty cool. We walked through the Valley of Death (which is like a mini Death Valley). Comparing the hottest to the driest place is to say they are similar. Atacama is probably prettier though. We went to some salt mines and saw some statues. Then we left the vehicles and went hiking along a ridge line to get sunset. Really cool. Was very impressive. Huge sand dunes had piled up amongst the mountains and the view from the top was spectacular as the colours changed with the ever fading light. Well worth the visit. Got blasted by the sun again and would do the following day as well. Need new skin. Came back to San Pedro and it was dead. Went to the square and played with some dogs. They were too hungry though and tried to eat my arms. Mental. Enzo went to sleep as the place was dead. Rene and I went wandering and were told there was a festival in the desert that night. Chatted with some local girls and they weren't going but said there weren't many people in town. I thought they meant locals for christmas as it was the 23rd, but they must have meant foreigners. This party is just for foreigners and a bit shit. We took a jeep out into the desert and they had a sound system and drinks. Don't know if drinks are expensive as I don't drink. Latin America and noone was dancing. Damn foreigners lol. It was a total sausage fest. Met some cool Belgian dudes and spent most of the night chatting with them. Was a bit of a waste of time. Asked one local woman where the locals were and she said they were boring and she preferred Germans and did we want some weed. Nope not really thanks and after that boring party and having visited a Chilean nightclubn here in Iquique, I would say its the foreigners who are dull. There was even an English guy who had lived in Lima for 5 months and did not speak Spanish. How the fuck is that even possible. You have to try to achieve that. There were the 3 Charlie Chaplins as well. Locals who were always hanging together, but never actually said a word all night long.

We grabbed breakfast and I got my change from the hotel as they had not had any the night before. Then we went to Calama. Being christmas eve it was not possible to tour the copper mines which was a shame. Damn christmas lol. So we decided to go straight to Iquique. The eggs from breakfast came back to haunt me. Slept a lot on the buses. The hostel was full so they sent us to another place. That had a dead rat on the doorstep so we opted for another place just across from Beach Hostel. Its not really open yet and has no sign but is cheap enough. We took the cheap room with no deep mattresses, no private bathroom and no tv. The owner said we were soldiers. Hardly. Just not pampered pussies. Iquique is a really pretty city on the Pacific coast with the cliffs overlooking the town. I like it here. Could live here for a bit. I love the ocean and never lived anywhere with it. Suppose that will change with BA sortof. They have a clock tower in the middle of the town and a Georgian promenade with old wooden trams that sadly aren't running anymore. We went walking around and met some tramps on the beach. We thought they were travellers, but they weren't. Had a fun time with them for a bit. Rene and Enzo always take loads of video diaries of their trips, which is cool as its like having a mini film. There were a bunch of people using the gym on the beach at midnight. Why they weren't with their families I don't know. The whole town was dead though, because the 24th is christmas here. Shame. We would never actually get to sample Chilean nightlife together. We ended up with rogue dog companions and eventually settled into a bar on the waterfront and got chatting with the barmaids. Noone showed up though and Enzo ended up paying $7 for an orange juice. This is not a cheap country. Really cool place though. In three days I have already done more interesting things than two weeks in Bolivia. Though admittedly I missed most of the famous tours there. Two consecutive dead nights. They also use European plug sockets in Chile. I think it is because in reality Chile is more European than South American. They can dance electronica, they use European plugs, apparently everyone is loyal and they like spicey food. They break all the stereotypes for this continent.

CHRISTMAS DAY. Well for the English anyway. The guys went and bought their bus tickets to leave at 2.30am. Not sure why they wanted to leave at that ungodly hour for the frontier. Then again I have an overnighter to Antofagasta tonight. Expensive the buses here. Well its expensive for everything so I won't mention that again. Its like Brazil. A taxi driver offered to take us to Humberstone for 40,000 Pesos ($75) with a wait of one hour. Ridiculous. You can get a bus for 2,000 each way from the market and we stayed there 4 hours so you need time. We got to the bus station at 10.55am and the last bus that day was 11am. The guys still needed to check out so they ran back to complete that while I stalled the bus. They came running back just in time and we set off for about a 45 minute journey. Humberstone is a UNESCO ghost town that used to be a nitrate mining community and is the ultimate children's playground. Awesome place as well. I had been to mining ghost towns in the States with about 10 buildings etc. This place must have had about 200, a swimming pool, basketball court, hotel and theatre. All deserted and all ready to be explored. We found one building with Rene 1986 on it, which is Rene's date of birth. We joked it was his house and where was the key. The dentist's house had Brazil scrawled on it so it must have been his relatives. You clan clamber around the pool and climb the old water tanks, fart about on the trains and we even filmed and Irish dancing performance in the theatre. There is so much to explor. Then at the far end is the actual smelting factory and all of the workplaces for the town. Rusting trains, heavy duty machinery and rusting corregated iron. This place is worth a visit. Santa Laura, the other location, is sort of more of the same, but the rolling wooden plant is great to descend into. There are much more interesting things to see in Chile than most of the other countries seemingly and I did not even have enough time to visit Pica here. We were knackered after 4 hours out there in the desert and we could not grab a ift back. After an hour we stopped a taxi and we managed to get the ride for 6,000 pesos in total. Nice. Same as the bus. We were sitting in a cafe when we bumped into some hostel owners whop invited us to a fiesta. Met two groups of French people that day who thought it was weird that I spoke Spanish when I am English lol. Its getting pretty good now. Can live in just Spanish easily. My face looked like gothic make up after the burns. I saw the guys to the bus station and then nearly shit myself walking home. Grabbed my mp3 player and went for an hour long walk on the beach. Good times.

I woke up at 1.30pm as I don't have an alarm and have no concept of time. Missed the Spurs game, but we got a decent 0-0 draw away to Fulham. Villa lost to Arsenal, but Liverpool and Man City won. Need to beat West Ham tomorrow. I finally bought some long needed socks and then met Rocio in the afternoon for drinks. I was going to go to Arica to meet the girls I had met in Arequipa, but had no solid contact details so did not go in the end. We went for a walk along the coast and got really good seafood empanadas. Not sure which seafood, but a type of shellfish. Maybe conch. We saw the caimans and they had a show of sealions for free. Then we went to her house and met her friends. They leave for clubs at about 1am in Chile as everyone drinks in the clubs, so not anticipating finding many great bars in town. There are some stunning girls in this town and everyone dances to electronica and can dance to electronica. Night life was thumping. We went to a club and one of the girls managed to get me in for free, which was nice as entrance was $10. I don't drink so I paid nothing in the end. Chileans tend to dance in lines facing each other, which is a little odd, but groups of guys go in search of groups of girls with the same number of people. I ended up pulling Rocio's friend Paula and we had a fun time dancing. Was great to be in a place with good music again. Also I was at ground level. After so much time in the mountains my energy levelw as immense and the dancing not even remotely tiring. I can see how athletes have advantages with this. I came back in the car listening to Snoop and Dre (so different to other countries here). I then went for another walk by the sea. I love the coast, just not enamoured by beaches. Chile looks like it will have banging nightlife and should be awesome. Even the French were telling me how great the fish sandwiches are in Coquimbo. Will have to eat one. French recommendations for food with praise are rare praise indeed from the master culinary nation.

Today I got up and Rocio was busy. Was going to go to Pica but did not have enough time. I went walking down the coast and then bought mu bus ticket. Decided to catch up on my writing while I waited for the bus. Went walking down to the duty free zone in the north. So many pretty, multicoloured buildings. It realy is a nice town. They pay reasonably well for teaching as well. Maybe I will come and live in Chile at some point. Really liking this country already and so much still to see. Oh well. Lets get this bus and start off on the long journey south. Will finally catch up with Lucciana.

Bolivia Part 4: Salar de Uyuni

2009-12-27T14:21:00.000-08:00

Apt I should be writing about this as I peel the last of the dead skin from my lips to reveal a brand spanking set. The sun's a little stronger than I anticipated down there. Though why I did not anticipate strong sun in summer, in the driest place in the world is a mystery to everyone, myself included. I said I did not expect anything else of note to happen and it didn't. Apart from a desperate scramble to not eat chicken. Fuck they love their fried chicken in Bolivia. It must be the national dish and the national motto is probably 'that will be 15 Bolivianos please.' Their propensity to rip people off and make you eat chicken was so legendary that the Brazilians with whom I travelled across Uyuni would constantly make that joke. Its an onrunner that carries on to this day and will probably be resurrected in Sao Paolo and Rio. Anyway all the restaurants in Oruro were shut. Presumably because Bolivians only need to eat on six days of the week and this super power enables them to starve foreigners on a sunday. After about 40 minutes of searching I finally found some generous soul to give me salchipapas (very unoriginal, but at least it was not chicken). I took the train. Ah trains make me miss Europe. One of the first times. They are so much better than buses. Why do buses even exist? Dirty, smelly, shit traps. Ah the keyboard is eating my letters again. Have to be careful I don't make mistakes. Leg room, relaxation and great trailers. Oooh a good film. Not quite. My sister's keeper. Not bad though. Then we got the Manchurian Candidate. Made me remember Boston as I saw it there, when my dad would not watch it with me as he did not want to go back to our hotel in Roxbury at night. Its a better neighbourhood than most Bostonians think. How did the Saints lose 20-17 to the fucking Buccaneers today. Oh well. Let's see how we do in the postseason. Hopefully Chicago do us a favour monday. For the postseason will have to find some bars and do Hunter S Thompson betting to fund my budget for Chile. Expensive country this one. Some religious group was on the train with me. They all lit candles to pray before we left. Mental cases. They were praying for a safe passage, but the biggest danger was them setting fire to the train. They don't think much in these countries. I wanted to get bin and hopefully get a tour the next day as I had had enough of Bolivia. The similarities with Nicaragua of being a nice place with fuck all to do and very cheap are many. Also the moving into a better country afterwards (Costa Rica and Chile respectively) and realising how bored I was before and how much better despite being expensive these countries are. Nicaragua and Bolivia are officially very dull. Costa Rica and Chile both rock. 'Everybody Dance Now.' Yeah this is a rhythm for writing. I arrived in Uyuni. Its very cold and small and nothing is open at 2am. After doing some Joseph biblical wanderings I found a place to stay the night and get a tour in the morning. It had no light (really it did, I was just too stupid to work out how to turn it on until too late).

I overslept as I ignored my alarm because there was no light outside so it could not have been late enough. Not sure where my thinking was. There was no light because there were no windows and how can the alarm go off early. Nevermind. The brain does not always work at full speed. I chatted with a tour company and paid 550 Bolivianos (Hd no bargaining power and that was to include the transfer to Chile. Yeah of course it was. Fuck these little lying fuckholes). Can't see myself ever bothering to go back to Peru or Bolivia. Maybe I may cross to Arequipa if in Chile. As for Ecuador. They are lucky they have the Galapagos to make me have to go back once again, though I would probably nip to Cuenca. Except for those places, these countries are effectively useless shitholes. Had to pay 21 Bolivianos to exit the country. Good job they don't put it on entrance. I pity the Yanks having to pay $130 to enter mighty Bolivia. Money not well spent. Although the people are better than Peru (except the north) and Ecuador. They know you will want to pay to exit. I got breakfast. At last good bread. Where were they hiding this stuff? Chile, probably. I was grouped with three Israelis. Seemed like a nice bunch. They went to get breakfast and the slavery chattel market kicked in again. I was instead sold to a group of Brazilians for 2 lies, 15 Bolivianos and a Pollo. Fuck me 106 year TD return for Jets on Colts. End their perfect record and appease my jealousy. Hmm a rare tour I get to (have to) practice my Spanish as my group did not speak English. Nice bunch. Portuguese is easier to understand from the south of Brazil and I could make out about 40% of what they were saying, but when we spoke together it was in Spanish. Enzo (guy from Rio) taught me how to samba in the middle of Uyuni. Class. Others were taking the obligatory on top of a bottle photo or other such nonsense. I was learning samba lol. First stop was the train graveyard. Not a bad little place. Loads of junked, rusting trains on the edge of town. All the tours were going the same way and to the same places, so we were like a military convoy. I left the main body and went to chat with some local kids who use the train yard for playing. Bit dangerous maybe, but also what a cool playground if you were a kid. Me and my sister would have loved it. We had a half hour stop to look at local artesanal craft (or the latest shit they have knocked out of a factory to pass off as hand made). Makes me laugh how so many hand made crafts are meticulously identical and how these hours of labour manage to generate enough goods to seel all over the country, as you see the same old shit everywhere. They are as hand made and original as I am blonde and short. I spend half an hour drinking a fruit juice. Then I was told we had to pay 30 Bolivianos for a national park that noone had told me. Fuckers. I did not have enough Bolivianos, so would end up borrowing from Enzo. The Brazilians told me that Rio carnival was for only tourists (ver Ingles, which I knew), but also that Salvador was as well (which I did not know). Apparently around Recife is the best place. Hmm. I'll trust them. They live there. After this tour with the Brazilians I have more or less decided I will live in Brazil and work before going to New Zealand. Though I like Chile as well. Need to learn Portuguese first though. We visited Ojos de Sal which was not bad. Then we went to Isla del Pescado. Fucking spectacular. You have to climb this place. Superb. They wanted 15 Bolivianos (what else) to climb the hill. Yet they are retards. There is a way up and another pass down. Now what would you do if you wanted people to pay? Put only people on the route up and leave the route down unguarded? Excellent. If you answered yes, you are as stupid as the people on Isla Del Pescado. So the route down in unguarded. What would you do? We just did not bother paying and went up that way. If you are going to rob someone, at least do it properly. So we climbed up to the top for free and the view is superb. Its like a white sea in every direction. Truly unique from what I have seen so far, though Franny informs me they have them in Tunisia as well. That's the problem with travelling a lot. You compare everything and if you have seen the best, everything else is rubbish. Jaded is the right word for it. Still the new stuff is top class. Salar de Uyuni itself is top class. We were travelling in a Toyota. One class up from the Highlander, but I was still fondly remembering the US road trip. Transport nostalgia all over this trip. Ah one thing completely unrelated. People say how Avatar the film is an analogy of the Iraq War etc. Idiots. Its clearly and very obviously a take on America's colonisation by the English. Similarities are too striking. We went to some blocks of salt. Yep a bnunch of blocks. There are a lot of stops at pointless places to to pad out the tour itinerary to make it seem you will be seeing more. There was a big block saying don't touch anything (and a load of others spelling Kiwi, showing a Jewish candelabra and saying fea to demonstrate people were paying attention to the big block). We got to visit the 'illegal' salt hotel, which is quite cool. The seats are very uncomfortable but the statues inside are cool. They want 5 (not 15) Bolivianos for the toilet. I reckon someone should shit on the doorstep of the toilet. Will thye then let people use it for free. Might persuade them. People should never have to pay for a damn toilet. Then again they don't even have them on buses in Bolivia. We arrived in the little town and found a local kid with a football to play. Marcelo. He supports Chile. Oh well. They are better than Bolivia. Playing football with Brazilians was cool and I took goalkeeping duties. We went hunting for computers that night with Enzo and Rene, but we had no luck. Enzo is actually on a mission to sleep with a woman from every country in the World and has 20 so far. If he makes it, he wants to write a book. Interesting concept. More juicy than mine lol.

Hmm plum jam. My favourite. Don't think I had any though. We got up early to go to a rocky outcrop to see a volcano. Excellent. That was worth getting up at 6am for. If you can't detect the sarcasm, its there. We had a lot of 70s and 80s music which they love in Uyuni. They had AC/DC 'Back in Black' and we were in a convoy of SUVs in the desert. Ironman moment. I cranked it up and that was a cool little vista. I decided for the road trip across Europe I want to buy a giant bus and decorate and paint it before driving all over Europe on a cool little road trip. There were a lot of lakes filled with flamingos. Was nice to see. Saw some vicunas. We went out over some rocky outcrops and saw some green stuff on rocks. There would be a stop later just to see this 'unique' green stuff. They said it only grows there. Bullshit. I had seen it and touched it in the morning. Hmm was an Aussie with a cute arse. We saw the mountains of many colours. They were quite cool. Very Bryce Canyonesque. Deserts are lifeless places. Makes me like them as much as beaches. Actually I prefer deserts. We then went to the Valley of the Rocks. That's a funky place. Lots of rocks carved up into different shapes. Wandered around there a bit. By this point I had been incinerated by the sun, for which I am just recovering, so I had to wear a towel on my head all day to limit further damage. We arrived at the Lake of Colours to stay the night. Was red from minerals blown into it and so windy it was unbelievable. It was like walking in a wind tunnel. It whipped gravel into your eyes and kept slapping you with a constant barrage. So damn cold. There was a fair bit of fitness in this hotel. Also the Israelis were here. They asked what happened and I explained I was kidnapped. Everyone drank a lot of wine, but me and two of the Brazilians did not drink so the others got a little hammered and we all played an Israeli game of Uno. One of the Israeli girls had had a Colombian boyfriend so we were reminiscing about Colombia etc. I went to sleep eventually listening to people talking shit about stuff they do not know about. Usual travel stuff.

In the morning we got up at 4am to go and see some geysers. They weren't bad, but again after Yellowstone they were a bit shat. Not sure why so many travellers don't want to go to the US. They truly do have some of the most spectacular national parks out there. It was fucking cold out there as well. I have just realised I have no real cold weather clothes and no real warm weather ones either. I have generic middle temperature clothes. Useless. We went to some thermal baths and they were luke warm but welcome after having to suffer through lack of showers. Second place did not have them. First place you had to pay 10 Bolivianos. In the thermal baths Enzo intorduced me to two Brazilian girls from his home town and we all did this weird Brazilian humping dance in the thermals on film. Brazilians are class to travel with. We then demonstrated English bump and grind, before some samba in the pool. I think the others thought we were nuts. We visited Laguna Verde. That's a really pretty lake. Kind of like the five coloured lakes near Comitan in Mexico. Afterwards they drove us to the border and we said goodbye to three of the Brazilians. The included transfer was not included. It was Ripley Tours by the way. So avoid them and if you end up in Uyuni go and complain to them for me so they know how shit they are and that their actions have consequences. The guy did not check tickets until we were about to leave. Then he realised I did not really have one. Great. i had to move buses but he promised me a seat on the other one. Then I got off and got on the other bus and he told me there was no space. Lying little shit. I called him a liar and he said I could not use his bus. Stupid little fucker. He said for my own security I should use the third bus. Hijo de puta. My security. He was 3 foot nothing. I was dreaming of breaking his nose on the van and wondering if the jurisdiction would not cross the border, but then again a border was not the best place to pick a fight. Little shit. At least he lost money and the other bus was much faster at crossing the border. I hope something awful happens to him. Oh well. Farewell and fuck off Bolivia and your lying bastard tour operators. Onwards to Chile.

Bolivia Part Three: Santa Cruz, Cochabamba and Oruro

2009-12-20T11:03:00.000-08:00

I got to Santa Cruz and took a taxi to the centre. It looked like the wild west at first glance and was quite funky. The weather was hot, which was good and I was down from altitude for the first time in ages. It was a nice town, but there was nothing to do. After one hour there I had pretty much seen the whole place. Hmm there did not seem to be anywhere in Bolivia you could spend a lot of time as there was just nothing in any of the towns. It has the same feeling of being in Nicaragua. Now everyone says the women are the best in Santa Cruz. I disagree. I think they are better looking in Sucre, but sexier in Santa Cruz. Shows how much there was to do. Both cinemas had closed down and the highlight park was shut down. Nice. Spurs were on ESPN. Class. I watched us beat Man City 3-0 at home, outclass them and effectively get Mark Hughes sacked. The hostel staff watched it with me as well. I met Liz and we went to the Irish pub where I had an 'Irish breakfast'. Last time I checked that was an English breakfast, but as we are basically the same country I will let it go. Then we grabbed some drinks, I hung around the plaza a bit and turfed in.

At breakfast the hostel seemed to be populated with just English people. I got a job offer from Bogota British Council. Excellent. Normally you can't work for them without 2 years experience, so they must have liked my work. Lina said I could stay with her. Cool. Would be good to see her and everyone again. Then they pulled the plug as I was not in Colombia at that time. Shitty. Some things come and go too fast. I had walked out of a restaurant the day before, because all the staff stood around like lemons for 5 minutes and I was not being served. Then this day I had the same problem in a pastry shop. This country has without doubt the worst level of customer service I have ever seen anywhere and I have had to deal with Caribbean embassies. I wanted a cake. The first person would not serve me as they were taking ages to count a small amount of money. It was not the second guys jurisdiction and I would have to walk all the way to the other side to use that till. I had exact change. 'Just take my fucking money arsehole and give me the cake.' No it was too much for his brain to process so I stormed out. Then I walked to the bus station to get a ticket for Cochabamba the next morning. They would not sell me a ticket. What the fuck. Sell me a fucking ticket. One woman would for an extra charge. I said no. Then this other woman came to buy a ticket for the next day and was offered face value. I said why was she not paying a tax and she just smiled and shut the computer screen down. I could have smashed her face through the desk. They would only sell me tickets for the next day if I wanted an expensive bus, which I didn't. In the end only one company would let me travel on the cheap buses. Fuck these hawking bastards and screwing the tourists. I don't need a bus cama for a day trip. Also the hostel in Potosi fucked the Australian guy. They sold him a ticket for 35 Bolivianos to Sucre with apparently 10 commission. Yet according to Evo's own fare lisitings the maximum that can be charged for that trip is 18. Someone is fucking someone, but most likely everyone is fucking everyone. What a money grubbing dirty little system in everyway is Bolivia's bus system. I was so bored in the day I just decided. You know what, let's just go to Chile. Of course that's easier to type than to execute with this transport system. I met Liz and her Yankee boyfriend and we went to his place. He had rescued a dog in Guatemala and it had travelled with him everywhere and was now living with him down there. Quite cool. He also told some interesting stories about how shitty Aymara culture is. The richest families are elected to pay for all festivities and if they don't their children are shunned. One woman had a leg amputated and wanted to sell her land, but because she had missed meetings due to the amputation they wanted to fine her $100. Also the owners of the animal rescue centre where Johannes had been working weer corrupt. They had siphoned off $5,000 he had given them, were taking most of the money from the volunteers to fund their own lives and had even borken into another rescue centre, attempting to steal one of the bears there. Wow this country is awesome. How come both the two socialist countries (Venezuela and Bolivia) have so many money hunting grafters. Desperation breeds capitalism seemingly. That's one for Chavez and his black market to chew on. We then met one of Liz's friends and went out to some bars. First one noone was dancing. That's just not Latin America. Good music though. Second bar everyone was dancing, but the music was crap. Typical. Was also the same price for a coke and a beer. Bastards. What's the point of not being able to drink if it does not at least save you some money. Quite a lot of fit girls in the first bar though. The others bailed early and I snuck back to my room for a little bit of sleep before leaving.

I went to the station in the morning and they finally sold me a ticket. Bout time. Then some woman in the internet place fucked with me. Cost was 1 Boliviano. I gave her a 50. She gave me 48 back. I said it was short. She said there was a charge of 1 Boliviano to break a big note. Ah go fuck yourself. I called her a 'puta' and got very abusive. I had finally snapped. She got offended and very surprised. I continued the tirade and that visibly shook her. Good. Fuck her. It had been awhile since I let fly with invective, but I can be very cutting. This country was putting me over the edge. There was no space for my bag so I shoved it down the bus. I was not feeling charitable. I got to Cochabamba and the piece of shit bus broke down short of the bus station. Oh well at least it made it to town. Its a bit of a poohole. Checked into a hotel with CNN and went for a walk around. Not much to see here either and by this point I did not care. Was going to make the run for Uyuni tomorrow. Noone to go out with so I went and watched Avatar in Spanish in a funky crumbling old theatre. Quite enjoyed the film, though I am sure I missed some of the details again.

I woke up and caught the end of Heartbreakers. Not a bad film from memory. Liverpool lost 2-0 to Portsmouth. Hah they suck. I watched us beat Blackburn 2-0 away on ESPN. Good result and we are back on track. Villa, Arsenal and Man City won, but Man Utd lost and Chelsea drew. Funny season this one. Very open. Then Mark Hughes was sacked. Put my laundry in and they promised it to me for 2pm as I had to take a bus to make the Uyuni connection. I got there at 2pm and they said come back in half an hour. So I came back in half an hour. They said come back in half an hour more. Fuck these retards. They promised me a time. I exploded again. The guy stood there smiling. I assured him this was no joke, I wanted a discount and I wanted my clothes. Where were they. He said could I recognise them. I said he should be able to as he took the order. They had sent my clothes to another place to be washed. I could have done that myself. Three parts were here though. Odd. I leapt the counter and walked into his shop, picked up my stuff, told him these were mine and where were the others and I wanted them now. He stopped smiling. He almost shit himself. I was livid. What the fuck is wrong with service in this country. He left the shop unattended to find my stuff and then very rapidly pressed them all. He was so fast I felt sorry for him and thought I may pay afterall. He was moving like lightning. Hmm. American service does not come from the work ethic of the people, but the demands of the clients. You can't deliver shit service if your customers demand more and it snaps them into line. Maybe the Bolivians need to take some pride in themselves and their country and force the service levels higher. He had weighed it wrong earlier and it should have cost 36 Bolivianos but he only charged me 10 Bolivianos. Nice. Getting fiery can really save you something, but I was genuinely pissed off. They had made me snap twice in two days. I went off to Oruro hoping to make Uyuni, but the laundryman's delays meant I missed andy connection and when I got there it was absolutely smashing it down. Got drenched and the streets were rivers of water as there is no drainage. Most hotels wanted exhorbitant amounts of money but one eventually gave me a room. The Saints lost their unbeaten record after being blitzed early on to the Cowboys 24-17. Shitty. Still they can hopefully go on and lift their first superbowl.

Laundryman had cost me a night's accomodation, but thankfully it meant I would not have to set foot on a bus again in this country. I got up and got a quote for a bus to Uyuni. 35 Bolivianos. If it was even close for the train I was going to go by train. I walked through town. Its a bit of a shithole Oruro. Sucre or Santa Cruz is hands down the best city in Bolivia. Train was 40 Bolivianos and so I bought a ticket. Just the salt plains tour to go and I should be in Chile. Should be no problems as I imagine that tour is first class. Just got to think if I should draw out some dollars to cover me into Chile in case there are any problems. Not sure if there is an ATM in Uyuni and the one in San Pedro de Atacama is unreliable. I have somewhere between 700 and 800 Bolivianos and it may not be enough. I then decided to sit and write as this town is bullshit and my train goes in 3 hours. Can't imagine anything too exciting will happen from now until then. Looks like the Patriots and Cardinals are heading to the postseason.

Boliva Part Two: Potosi and Sucre

2009-12-20T10:34:00.001-08:00

I woke up early and went to the bus station with the girls. They were back off to Peru to catch a plane from Cuzco. There were no morning buses to Sucre or Potosi, because apparently the locals only travel between the two to shop. Fine. So I took a bus to Oruro, which is where I am writing this now ironically. Spurs somehow lost 1-0 against Wolves at home. Fucking shit. Man City drew and Villa beat Man U of all teams. I have a feeling I have covered this already. Never mind. There was a bus to Potosi. So I took that one. I got there and walked uphill in the highest city in the world to the hostel. Its a charming enough, tiny town, but deadly boring. Nothing to do at all. I was suffering from a chest infection and worried about the cramping for the 'mine tour'. I knew that Ollie had bottled it and I was seriously considering doing the same. In the end I opted out and then found out they don't run the tours on a sunday anyway so I could not have gone if I wanted to. Yeah that's my excuse, but really I am just a bit of a pussy with this. Maybe I will go see the mines in Chile as the couchsurfer I am meeting in Iquique is doing some sort of research on this.

I met an Aussie guy in the morning and we grabbed some lunch. I decided to write and then check out the town. Ah yeah I wrote there so I had mentioned the scores before. There is not actually much to see in the town so the walkaround was quick. Real Potosi won the Bolivian league and the celebrations were a bit pathetic. Paled into significance with being in Seville when they paraded the Copa Del Rey. Assured me that town has crap nightlife. Liverpool lost to the Gunners. Hahahah. They suck right now. Will probably come back to bite me at the end of this trip. I arrived in Sucre and everything was dark and foreboding. Decided to just grab a cheap place by the bus station. Found a really shitty place, but it was cheap. Got chatting with some local girls in the restaurant place and they wanted to know why I was not choosing to work in Bolivia. Was not a hard decision.

In the morning I overslept, because I had set the alarm for 7.30pm instead of 7.30am. Ah damn teething problems. I paid for another night and then walked into town. Would miss the Aussie guy for the dinosaur tour thing. Wow Sucre is a really pretty little town. I like it a lot. Bolivian girls are also much better than Peruvian girls and possibly shade the Ecuadoreans. Then again maybe not. I took the dinosaur tour with a random bunch of tourists. The tour guides English is overly dramatic. The footprints are quite cool to see, but I figured we would be allowed to get much closer to see them. That was a little disappointing. I decided to go and rent a room in the downtown so I had effectively paid for luggage storage. Still it was not too expensive. I did see a woman stand over a drain and piss directly down into it. Classy. Like a streetside waterfall. I was now slightly worried about making Uyuni and whether the tours would make it for christmas. Claudia could not meet up and Sofia was not going to make the gig so I figured I would head on to Sant Cruz the next day. I wanted to sample the nightlife here, but there was noone around and not much going on, so I just watched Surrogates instead, which was ok.

I got chatting with a Dutch guy over breakfast the next day. Interesting old dude. I went to visit the museum in town. It is recommended to eat less at altitude so I started to do that as was feeling a bit shitty. I am sure there is something wrong with my stomach. Hoping its not the hernia. Museum was ok. Nothing you couldn't miss. Graham had headed into town, but I did not have time to meet him as I was leaving. They are having a campaign to get Rage Against the Machine's 'Killing in the Name Of' to christmas number one over the X-Factor in the UK. Nice campaign. Wrong song. Should have gone for 'Wake Up'. Less offensive, about mind control, which is what they accuse the X Factor of more or less and comes from the Matrix films so will be remembered. Bus station bullshit was to follow. They fucked around with the tickets and then said the bus was leaving and blocked off the ways down, while I still needed the toilet as they don't believe in toilets on buses in Bolivia. They would not put the bag in the old as I had no ticket, so I just started whacking people and then stored it inside. Shit organisation. I have not lost my temper in ages, but have snapped twice in the last two days in this country and I think this started it. I wrote 'shittest, dirtiest bus in Bolivia with no toilet. Fuck this shit.' The roads out of town were awful. It was like driving in a quarry. We had a toilet and dinner stop, but I did not want to eat there. Someone kept touching my face like John Travolta from 'Face/Off' and someone looked like a moomin. Anyway. Onwards we go.

Bolivia Part One: Titicaca and La Paz

2009-12-20T09:21:00.000-08:00

I wandered down to the waterfront of this dineyfied town. That's Copacabana if I did not mention it in the last post. Expensive place for Bolivia, but then i have not found that Bolivia is massively cheaper than other countries down here. It can be. Definitely. Its also at a way lower level of quality though, so you get what you pay for. Especially with buses. They are all dirty, disease ridden shitpits in this country. Even Peru could clean its buses. Anyway I bought a ticket from the dockside for half the money the others had paid at agencies in town. Ah you have to love the dirty shiester middlemen. I went and got some lunch in town. It was very expensive, but pretty good. Best food I had in Bolivia probably, except for the place near Potosi's bus station of all places. I grabbed the boat and headed over to Isla Del Sol. They had asked me if I wanted to stay or come back. What time did the boat arrive? 3pm. And what time did it come back? 4pm. Hmm. Yeah I wanted to come back. Don't want to spent more than an hour somewhere surely. What a waste of time that would be. Fuckwit.

On the boat over I got chatting to a Texan dude, a couple of German girls and three English guys. Surprisingly everyone from my country on this trip had been decent except the idiot in Iquitos, but at least he makes for good stories. Hmm we were informed that we would have to pay 5 Bolivianos to see the excellent Incan sites and 20 instead of 10 to come back. Ah welcome to the con. You are on a boat and so have no choice but to pay. Then you must pay double to come back because you are trapped on an island and have no choice. Ladrones. Oh well it was a good first intorduction to the long con. Also I got told to shut up for translating the tour guide to those who spoke no Spanish. Ah of course. It is important to note that the tour guide was repeating the exact same thing for the third time, but heaven forbid I stop someone from memorising his drivel. We arrived on the island. They met us at the dock for the Inca ruin charge (rip off the gringo charge). They could not change a 50 (I know they never have change so I always pay with big notes as it gets me stuff for free). They said pay at the office. I went 'yep, sure' and walked straight past it. I will pay if its fair, but if they fuck me, I will fuck them harder. A cool little kid met us and escorted (frog marched) us to the hostels up above. He expalined how everything was Inca and they only had one fountain for water. I said what about the north and he said oh yeah they had fountains too. They really will sell you on any shit here. Also the 'Inca' ruins looked younger than my house in the UK. I do sometimes wonder how much of these 'lesser, crappier' sites they dig up in obscure towns are Inca and how much are Ikea. The place was really nice. Shame we would never sleep there. He changed the price from 20 to 25 as he had obviously undersold the place for commission and probably made more money for his walk than the hotel did. We decided to get a quasi dinner and then hike to the north end of the island. Part way round we hit a checkpoint. Ah class. More ruins (that don't really exist) in the north and we would have to pay 10 to enter the other side of the island and 5 for path maintainence. This country was going to need to come up with some system to maintain my patience. I said 'no chance, 10 maximum' and they took it. I ended up paying 10 when it should have been 20. Good business. I have become a master haggler and fearsome negotiator and I will get my arse handed to me when I am back in London and on the London Underground insisting I will only pay half and they will have to take it or leave it. We went hiking off across the island. You get some great views, but if you take away the snow capped mountains on the right it could easily be England. Then it began to rain and it was England. Andy (the Texan) had stomach problems and went to the random town on the right with one of the German girls. They managed to scramble down what we thought was a path in the light, even if they ended up going through a forest. We were not so lucky. We hiked onwards to the end and saw fuck all for our 10 Bolivianos and then we saw lightning ahead of us. Shit. We really had to scramble back for the town. Andy was going to try to hire a boat to take us back. We got lost on the trail and eventually found the path down. Well I say path, but it wasn't really a path. We descended round a rock and down a gully. Luckily we found some plastic bottles left behind by irresponsible tourists. Its always a sure fire sign that you are on a trail frequented by touristy tourists and they would not desert safe ground. Either that or locals use the trail, because Bolivians will always throw their shit into the wild territories. We eventually staggered towards some light and shouted to a shadow. The ghost man he shall be called. I never saw him. We just spoke. His voice drifted through the fog like those ancient mariner's voices out at sea and we were cut adrift in the fog, so it was apt. He told us to go downhill where we met some demon children who escorted us into town. We were told our friends had not made it (which was wrong as they had been there and told the owners to say we were in the restaurant). Luckily we were hungry so that's where we had headed anyway after paying kids biscuits to take us there. We found the others and Andy said he had a captain. They had taken refuge in the restaurant after a 3 year old girl had told Andy this Bolivian guy wanted to beat him up and rape the Sonja. Charming. Good educations these islanders get. The boat captain changed his mind and then wanted our trade in the morning. He can go fuck himself, the lazy bastard. We ate and then set off for home, but a downpour ofrain changed our mind and we stayed in another place on this side of the island for 15 Bolivianos. The beds were ultimate shit. One of the worst I have ever stayed in. Andy had to abandon his, put a mattress on the floor and borrow a sleeping bag from some French who were drunkenly partying upstairs. Ah no more drink for me now. Que triste.

We got up early in the morning and set off for the hike back across the island to rescue our backpacks. We got to the edge of town and these almighty noises came from beyond the pathway. It sounded like the smoke monster from Lost. What kind of island was this. Demon children, smoke monsters, ghostly sailors, rape minded 2 year olds, thunderstorms at both ends of the island and mysteriously invisible Inca ruins. It was mystical. Almost otherworldly. Thank God the little bastard from the checkpoint yesterday was on hand to drag us back to shitty reality. It was pissing it down on the way back. Like walking on the cliffs of Devon. We were walking towards the gate and I could see some hobbitlike creature in a plastic cover come bounding (well jogging slowly) along a pathway below us. What was it. A mystical creature. No it was a Bolivian man. I joked cynically that he was running to charge us at the checkpoint lol. Only the little shit was. He got there and asked for money. I said no we paid yesterday and would not pay again. He said you pay everytime you go through the checkpoint. Yeah right. I just advanced on him, got angry and said we had paid him yesterday and we were not going to pay anything again to this fucking mercenary. He can jog slowly back to whatever pit he crawled out of. Then the heavens really let us have it. This was torrential rain on Amazonian levels, only cold. We got destroyed by the rain and I was beginning to wonder when I got back just what was this lump around my appendix. It is still there, but much smaller than before. I hope this bit of the blog is not a precursor of something really awful later on. Oh well. My dad reckons its a strain. Stripped off the wet clothes and got in the beds we never slept in. They were so much better and the reason we did not walk back the night before was to avoid the rain. Well that worked. We took a tinier shittier boat back to the mainland. It looked like it would sink anytime. Yeah charge us 10 to come over in a good boat and 20 to go back in a shit one. Also we had stone cold crazy pilot. Just like Sir Jabalot at Angel Falls. He had zero facial expression and just like Jabalot took us in the clouds while everyone stayed low, he ploughed ride across the middle of the lake while everyone else hugged the coast. Why do I always get the crazies. Anyway we made it back and were sold into chattel slavery by an agency. I am not joking. They sell you bus tickets, but don't actually have a bus. Then they sell you in big groups to bus companies. I half expected to find myself renamed the Bolivian and entered into gladiatorial combat in the pits of La Paz when we got to the other end. Hmm ok then the bus stopped and we all got out (Sorry it was a minivan as they ran out of busses. Bumper day for the slave traders). They drove our van onto a log and then punted it across the river. Take that Cambridge. Punt a few tourists. Bah. You should be punting a whole bus. Then we were loaded into a children's compartment to cross the river. Now it was like a slave galley. No room to breath. We hit the other side and carried on with a new Danish doctor for company. I think he told me you make something obscene like $12,000 a month if you work as a doctor in Norway or was it double that. What the hell do you do with that money? I had travelled with the two German girls and as it was battering down with rain we got a taxi (after the third one eventually gave us a fair price) and stayed in. Sonja and I grabbed dinner and chatted philosophy for ages and then turfed in.

We got up early and had a look around the town. The view of La Paz as you arrive there is actually quite special, but the city looks often like the toilet parts of Central American big cities close to the centre. We saw the catehdral and the main square was nice (as you expect from these colonial Spanish cities). The city is a bit dirty and a lot of it was being refurbished. Was unusual for me, but it was a big city I did not like that much. Was ok. Nothing more. Yet everyone raves about La Paz. Possibly for the cocaine, as after Colombia it is the second most prolific. Though they shut down the cocaine bar recently due to an expose from the Guardian. Is there anything that paper can't ruin. they interfered in another foreign election and cost the electorate recently. I still remember those idiots writing to American in Ohio in 2004 to vote for Kerry. Yes because if you write to midwesterners from a socialist paper advising them who to vote for, they are going to vote for your recommendation. Arrogant sons of bitches. I would love to see the numbers, but I reckon at least 90% of those written to voted Bush in a close election year. Perhaps the Guardian is to blame for Bush's second term. Just want to hang that one out there. We went to the funky kid's park that doubles as a mirador. Then we grabbed an awesomely healthy breakfast in a cafe (I was wrong earlier. This was the best meal I had. For my health anyway). Then I broke my toe kicking a curbstone looking for a new phone. We headed to a gallery which had quite a lot of cool art. I met Sofia and we went and bought a telephone. I said I wanted the cheapest they had and they offered me one for $150. No the cheapest. So eventually I got one for $35 but its not activated for the chip. Well they assured me it is unchipped so hopefully it is in Chile as will try to pick something up there. We got some coffee afterwards and then met the girls back at the hotel to get some dinner and go clubbing. The club was a nice location, but the music was properly shit. Kind of like Candelario in Bogota. I was getting tired of crap locations. Need to go to the End when I am back in Bogota and looking forward to the clubbing scene in Buenos Aires where I will be able to dance properly. I was told Tiesto was playing on the wednesday so I changed all my plans to see him and would set off for Potosi or Sucre in the morning. See those two, come back and then head out to Santa Cruz for a bit. I need some sleep at this point and probably now as well to be fair.

Peru Part 8: Arequipa and Puno

2009-12-13T12:30:00.000-08:00

It seemed like the bus driver was a massive Paul Walker fan. Fast and the Furious 4 was playing in between my sleep and then that film about him and the dogs in Antractica which I had seen before came on. Mostly ignored this as needed to catch up on sleep. Then there was a bastard with his soap that can cure everything. Its just a normal bar of soap. He said there ends my speech and carried on for another 100 years. Someone should have just shot him. Put us all out of our misery. I found a fair taxi driver when I arrived. Unusual. Arequipa would turn out to be the Peruvian equivalent of Cuenca. Vastly superior to the rest of the country in every way. I then got to watch some Peruvian comedy on the bus as well. the Peruvian idea of sophisticated comedy is men dressed as women. Sums up the level of intelligence in this country. I got into the city and had a walk around. It looked nice and pretty, but noone was available so I went to sleep.

Ah kick arse the Saints have held on with some desperate defending to beat the Falcons 26-23. 13-0 and going for the perfect season. Colts are just about up against the Broncos as well. There was a weird old guy staying in my hotel. He kept trying to shine my shoes and then wanted me to straighten his back, but it seemed like an excuse for him to rub his arse into my crotch. He then gave me his home address and asked me to visit. I think he may be a strange old gay man. Tried to avoid him for the rest of the trip, but he seemed to live like some sort of troll in the lobby. I put my laundry in and was about time it got done. I then went to meet Gianina for lunch. She showed me around the city and we went to a posh restaurant in the city that does cheap set menus. My inca cola was the same price as the whole meal, because it was not included. Met a Yankee friend of hers who said I could have a job in his institute if I don't find anything in Buenos Aires. Nice guy. Went to his place for drinks in the evening. Liverpool had drawn and the others had won. We went and met a tall friend of his names Claudia and another Claudia from couchsurfing and her friends. There was also another guy from the States. They were playing some form of jenga when we got there. Afterwards we went clubbing and all night long we met a load of people. Seems like a small town, but also a friendly town. There was an Irish guy who had been working for the American guy and seemingly knew most of the girls in the town. The American guy had walked out on two kids fucking in the street by his house earlier. They were a little embarassed but the middle of the street was never going to be a smart spot. I got a few people's numbers and then went back to the hostel. There was stupidly only one key for the room, so i had to knock on the door at 5am and wake up the Israeli guy there. He seemed ok with it given the circumstances.

Spurs managed to draw 2-2 with Everton after being 2-0 up with 12 minutes to play and then missed a last minute penalty. We just lost 1-0 yesterday to Wolves at home as well, which sucked. At least Liverpool lost and Man City drew, though Villa beat Man United. Game against Man City is a must win now on wednesday. Saints pulled off a miracle win as well, when Redskins missed a 26 yard fieldgoal, Saints went to whole pitch to score and then intercepted in overtime to kick a winning fieldgoal. Someone was smiling down on them. The last buses to Chivay had gone so I was forced to opt for a tour. I went back to the hostel and booked a one day tour that left at 2am. Great. I then went out to meet tall Claudia for drinks. I had effectively wasted a day due to the buses. We met and got coffee and then went to dance. We did some cool hip hop style and I pulled her in the taxi home as she had to leave. I still had time to kill so I went back to the club. Lost my phone in the taxi. Ah retarded. It was the last thing that had made it all the way through the trip with me. I was pissed off and now had no alarm. No choice but to keep on clubbing. I waqs dancing alone and met a very hot gymnast from Peru. We went with her friends to a bar and I met a random couchsurfer who was running the first ever donut business in Vietnam. Interesting. I stayed with them in the bar until I had to leave and then went to get the tour with no sleep. Stupid bus was really late and I kept waking up the guy in the hotel again and again until he did something about it. I threatened to cancel the tour unless the bus was there by 3am and it made it by 5 minutes to. I was really losing all my Englishness with my haggling. I think I will get into trouble when I get home and keep trying to haggle for absolutely everything.

It was a tour of middle aged people. The kind that Graham tends to hate. It was 45 minutes late in leaving. I hate tours. There was an advert on the chairs in the bus that said 'shoppinh centre exclusively for tourists.' Fuck that. Why would you want that. I wrote 'why am I here?' I think the sleep deprivation was getting to me, but I was constantly reminded of why I hate tours by the useless fucks that were on my tour. I was so fucking tired. We eventually made it to Cruz del Condor and I saw the condors circling away below and above me. I met the Canadian from Hucachina randomly. She had recognised me and I was not exactly sure who she was at first. I slept a lot and we had a lot of pointless stops in pointless towns for pointless things. Seems like the locals were after our blood, well money, but to them its the same thing. Currency vampires is what they are. Out to suck us dry. I was so fucking tired and could not find Claudia in the bars after I had contacted her about lost phone. I went back to the hostel to sleep, but those plans never work. I bumped into a couple of Canadians and a Yankee. They were wankers really, but figured they might be fun company for one night out. They were buzzed and so we headed out clubbing. One party had been busy so I asked at the door. They said it was private and a quincenera or however its written (party for 15 year olds). Whoops. The Canadian wanted to know why we could not get in as he spoke no Spanish so I explained it to him. We entered the bar and got mobbed by crazy drunk French girls. Was fun. Music was reggaeton and the French girl wanted to dance Merengue. She said she was too pissed for any other style. Then the Canadian got together with a local who did not like her arse being touched. Her friend miraculously appeared and they said to 'get me'. One reason they don't like Spanish speakers. We understand them. I was not interested and the Canadian wanted me to ask his girl if she would sleep with him. I said smooth or blunt. He said blunt as he only had one night. She said no. Then he moved on. Me and him got dancing with two lawyers who had to leave when their dad arrived. Meanwhile his brother and the Yank had found two girls. The Yank's girl was the best looking person I have ever seen in Peru. They were having fun and then the girls left. We followed them out and the fit one told her friend 'look just lie to him and tell him you have to leave.' Damn these Peruvian hunters. The American was heartbroken for the rest of the night, but we traded e-mails with her friend. We went to a few shit bars and then back to Deja Vu. Then we encountered a Chilean school group/university group, who wanted one of the Canadians to dance on the table. Only me and one Chilean girl spoke both languages and we ended up hooking up. The Canadians hooked up with one each, but then the Chilean girl with the Canadian said she was a lesbian and her girlfriend was there and jealous. Again I checked this in Spanish and it was bollocks. One of the Chileans had disappeared and eventually they had to get their bus for Chile and the Canadian was still trying to sleep with all of them. I said I may see them in Arica or in Valparaiso for new year. Will see how it goes. We eventually headed back to the hostel after a random night. I thought the Chilean had given me a fake e-mail and indeed it did not work, but then she added me anyway so maybe she wrote it wrong. Makes no sense.

I slept in and then had a chat with the guys before I went for lunch. I took a bus to Puno on Lake Titicaca in the afternoon. The border was going to shut early so I would not have enough time to cross into Bolivia that day. I was sitting in the bus terminal and there was a mighty noise made. Someone had parked in the wrong space. They swapped spaces. What the fuck was the point of that. They were next to each other and leaving at the same time anyway. Peruvians. Stupidity runs high in a lot of them. Arequipa is like an oasis of intelligence in the stupidity. The films were Braveheart and Django which was very random. I arrived in Puno half dead from a lack of sleep. There appeared to be no restaurants and loads of lightning on the lake. I booked my ticket for the next day and drew cash as there were no ATMs in Copacabana apparently.

Without any alarm I was up at 4.30am and paranoid I had missed the bus. Then again at 5.00am. I gave up and went to the bus station for my 7.30am bus. I killed time and then set off to cross the border. Apparently the ruins near to Copacabana were disappointing if you had come from Peru. I found the ruins in Peru disappointing, so God knows how bad the Bolivian ones are. We crossed over with limited problems except for being annoyed at the instructions in Spanish and English. I hate listening to stuff twice. Woohoo it was country number 51. Bolivia. Could it beat the shit Ecuador and so-so Peru to be king of the Andes?

Peru Part 7: Cuzco and Machu Pichu

2009-12-13T10:53:00.000-08:00

The last post made post 100. What a monster of a blog lol. I arrived in Cuzco really early and earlier than expected. It looked like a real bumhole from the outside. The Saints had won 38-17 against the Patriots to go 11-0 and continue the chances of an undefeated superbowl against the Indianapolis Colts. It was a really long walk up the hill, but I eventually made it to the hostel to meet Graham. The people there said he was not staying there and invited me to wait in the lounge which I declined. It turned out he was staying there but they can't pronounce his name properly and that he was in the lounge so I would have caught him earlier if I had accepted their offer. Instead I waited in the lobby for 40 minutes. He was with an American and an Argentine guy and we decided to take the back route to Machu Pichu. We went searching for a torch first as we knew it would involve some night walking and as it was pissing down with rain we bought some plastic mac style things. They were in four different colours and we looked like a tramp version of the power rangers. I had the black one so that either makes me a leader or evil. Not sure which. Been awhile since I saw the program. The bus in the afternoon to Santa Maria had left so we opted to take a private bus and haggle down the price. We arrived there after a reasonable trek and grabbed dinner from a restaurant by the bus stop. I would eat there if you take this route as the old woman who runs the place is the only person within 100km of Machu Pichu who's first instinct is not to fleece you for as much as they can. Nice woman, even if she was insane and kept laughing over the fact the American guy knocked over a chair. Saints up 16-9 at half time but missed the extra point. Hope that does not haunt us. Anyway after the dinner we grabbed a combi down to Santa Teresa. It was an hour and a half on a cliff hugging road. Quite scary and I was not keen about taking that route back. These two forms of transport should cost you no more than about $10 and leave you about 5 hours hike from Aguascalientes. They will take you further but we decided to walk. Naturally because we wanted to walk they gave us shit directions. Another two Argentines joined us and we were off and walking. You have to head down the hill, cross a football field and then head right until you find the path down to the bridge to cross the river. Then once across go right and its a 2 hour hike on the main trail to the hydroelectric plant. I am sure you can follow a different and direct route via the roads out of town as the cars sure as shit don't cross that bridge. We had got to view some cool glaciers on the route to Santa Maria though. I was wondering how Spurs had done against Man United in the Carling Cup and would find out later they lost 2-0. Shitty. It was a long walk to the hydro plant (2 hours more or less) and then you have to find the way onto the rail tracks. They have a restaurant there that was open at around half eleven at night. Not sure why. Maybe you can stay there and hike in the morning towards Machu Pichu. We wanted to push on in one night. They have switchbacks from the hydroelectric plant up to the level of the tracks. Now the others were going to follow the tracks, but I figured the emergency stairs etc must go straight up and cut off the switchbacks. We trekked up them for what seemed like ages and eventually we came to the upper tracks. The tell tale rubbish (plastic bottles) left by irresponsible travellers marking the way as normal. The route along the railway tracks is easily followed and you just head straight. Its about 2-3 hours and yes that big mound on your right hand side is Machu Pichu and we found out later you are just walking in a giant U shape around the ruins. Some points you have to walk over tracks with gaps in between to get to the other side of the river etc, but you will eventually come to the start of the trail up the mountain that goes to Machu Pichu. If you pass this it is 1km more and you will walk through some tunnles (quite cool) and just after these you will arrive in Aguascalientes. If you want to hike the trail to be the first ones up at the site you will need to buy tickets in Cuzco as the office does not open until 5am. We had not bought any, so we were left to sleep on the streets until the office opened. We had arrived at 2am and 3 hours of freezing weather locked my calf muscles up.

I had cramp from the freezing in my calfs when I got up. Attacking the hill was looking a distant prospect as I could barely walk. After seeing that monster of a hill it was probably a good idea we did not take it on. Would have finished us off on the limited sleep we had. Now came the first bit of arse raping from Machu Pichu. The tickets prices had doubled to $41. Shit. Half price for students. I tried to use my British Council card and suggested it must be valid this year, because my passport has only been valid for 10 months. He was having none of it. He said it needs a valid date on the card. So then I paid with a 100 soles note and he said he did not have change. I said he had a 10 sole note in his draw. He said it was not real. So I said he had the change in coins. He told me not to be disrespectful and look in his draw. I thought he should not be such a lying bastard. Then he tried to give me the 10 soles. I said he just told me it was fake. So he ended up giving me 10 from his own wallet. Wanker. This was the beginning of the shitness of this town. We had been raped for that and then had to pay $21 return for a half an hour bus ride up the side of the mountain. What a bunch of bastards. They know they have you in one place and they really try to take advantage of it. I wrote that it was the 'greatest raping on the South American continent since the Spanish were there.' I was even charged for the toilet. People start queueing really early for the buses up there so you probably need to queue around 4.30am to get the first bus. You can't even buy tickets on the bus. We got up there and eventually entered. I wrote that Machu Pichu was underwhelming but nice enough. It was certainly not a patch on the Mayan and Aztec ruins of Mexico and especially Tikal. Maybe the bitter taste was still in my mouth. It was an impressive setting, but the buildings themselves are much of a muchness. We did a side trek to the point where the Inca Trail hikers tend to enter and that was a waste of time and energy. We wondered around the site for a few hours. The others went to Huayna Pichu, but I bottled it as it did not look worth the exposure to heights it was going to entail. The others went and said it was cool, but the trail was hardcore for vertigo sufferers. If the trail had been for Machu Pichu I would have gone, but it wasn't so I didn't. 5 soles for a water. Fucking thieves. Then I waited for the others in a cafe. 9 soles for crisps and 10 soles for a little water. What the fuck. I hate Machu Pichu. Motherfuckers. Its not even that good. Its worth visiting, but whether it is worth this much pain and butt fucking is debatable. More was to come. We ate in the town and got fucked there as well, because it is impossible not to be fucked here. We were tired and opted for the train back. A mere $48 additional and we were back in a town near Cuzco. Not Cuzco. No that would be too simple. They must hammer us for more money on a taxi to Cuzco. The other three decided they hated Peru after visiting Machu Pichu. I did not hate the country, but I was pissed at how badly we had been cleaned out. The only consolation was that they did not lie. We got back and went to sleep. Taking the cheap route had cost around $120, but it is possible to do that route for around $70. Apparently there is a free way into the site. If that's possible someone needs to expose it. Only by not paying can we get these bastards back. Thank God I had been to other parts of Peru where the people aren't bastards.

We moved hostels in the morning and lost the other two somewhere as they moved to a different place. I smashed my head on the door of the new place and knocked myself for six. Marie-France wrote to me which was random and it was the first time I heard from her in ages. We went and bought our bus tickets, got some decent cerviche and headed round the markets as Graham wanted to buy some christmas presents for the girl he had met in the States. We were still getting hastled by the stupid street hawkers for clubs and for massages. Why would I pay for a massage. Graham got so frustrated he said 'only for 5 soles and a blowjob.' That at least got rid of them. Ah shit close in Saints-Falcons 23-23. We ended up playing pool on a snooker table and that's pretty hard to work with. Went out clubbing. Cuzco has a 'legendary' nightlife. It can surely only be legendary if you come from a small town. For me it was pretty shit, repetitive and they jumped music genres to please everyone. This kind of pleases noone and makes the Dj look like an idiot. We moved bars, some places were dead, there was group of Chilean schoolgirls and some bitch of a salsa teacher. The local Peruvian girls never seem to want to speak Spanish. I think they prefer to talk to foreigners who can't speak Spanish, because they can't tell what a bunch of lying bitches they are and also that these girls are thick as shit and as interesting as watching grass grow. Graham managed to offend one of the little stooges who shepherd tourists into clubs like sheep. The guy responded with 'I'll kick you arse.' Being a two inch midget I seriously doubted it. They did play the blade soundtrack for the second time in a week though. Class. The nightlife is pretty shit, the town is not that pretty a colonial town, the place is full of wankers and they fuck you in the arse. Why so many people like a bollockhole like Cuzco is beyond me. Maybe they have never been anywhere good. Fuck that gringo hole. I got 2 hours sleep and then took a bus in the morning to Arequipa.

Peru Part 6: Ica and Nazca

2009-12-13T10:08:00.000-08:00

I got into Ica and we had a good result in the football. Fought back from 1-0 down to get a 1-1 draw with Aston Villa and could have won it by the end. I took a little motor taxi think out to Huacachina and the sand dunes. Got to the hotel to meet Andreia but my phone did not function there and we did not end up meeting up. I slept all afternoon as I was suffering and still am not quite recovering my sleep. I went out to meet Gina in Ica. I wrote in the margin that hair and bodies are better in Colombia. Not sure what prompted me to write that there and never mind. Probably a bit mental. We met in the square and headed to a house party. Was a bit of a weird party. Noone seemed to be able to communicate properly and everyone sat around in a circle drinking beer from one glass. It was like some Viking ritual, with grunting replacing conversation. Most of my time in Peru was spent in search of decent conversation and it would often prove highly elusive. Education was not their strong point. Then we eventually headed to a club and I think that the girls managed to skank a lot of things of all of the guys they were with. Reminded me of what the German guy said when we were in Peru. That a lot of Peruvian couchsurfers had contacted him to go out and for him to pay. The club was good and there were surprisingly a fair few good looking people there. It was only later that I found out the sanboarding competition was international and these girls were probably foreigners. I think they were disappointed I did not pay for anything, but then I could not drink so why would I. Going out and clubbing was turning into a very cheap night out for me. Of course, as the music was good we had to leave as noone was buying stuff and we went and joined their friends by a car outside. There we listened to shitty salsa music and they drank their friends mixer. By this point I was incredibly bored. Gina suggested I go back to her place, but I could not be bothered as I was lacking motivation from the dull conversation and just took a taxi back to Huacachina.

Andreia knocked on my door to wake me up. I had left her a message online with my room number and she had got it. We went and got breakfast and I bumped into Aussie Scott who I had known from Colombia. Then we met up with some other couchsurfers (a Canadian and a German) to watch the sandboarding finals. There was a lot of ramp jumping, but the sand seemed too slow to really do anything. Most people just dropped over the end. One guy managed to execute a pretty cool backflip and probably won the competition. Idiots with the ATM? If anyone can tell me what I am writing about, answers ona postcard. Liverpool had won and Arsenal lost. I decided to take a bus to Nazca. Huacachina is an expensive desert oasis by the way, but it was a cool place to hangout and very picturesque. I was greeted in Nazca by a guy who sorted me out with a hotel and a tour over the Nazca lines. I asked him if everything was included including the airport tax and he said yes it was. He lied. Bastard. Still he sorted me out with a nice place and I was too tired to go hunting myself. Ah I have remembered the ATM problem. These bastards in town kept sending me the wrong way to ATMs and when I eventually found the only one in town I had left my cards behind. I guess we were all idiots. I arranged to meet the Irish guy Graham in Cuzco and I went to bed and watched the Steelers v Ravens game which the Ravens won in overtime.

I got up for the flights. I had to pay the fucking tax that he assured me was included. The woman at the desk was asking why I was molesting her, but I was trying to assure her that I had been told it would be included in my ticket price. We flew over the Nazca lines and my plane had a French family for company. I hate little planes. Reminded me of the mental pilot in Angel Falls. The pilot was checking everything with a little manual. I was the co-pilot. I am not sure if that made me more nervous or more secure. He should know this stuff surely, but then again it was better to be thorough, no? He was banking a lot on the flight. I hate that. I keep thinking the plane is going to flip over and crash. I kept a close eye on all the gadgets. They seemed to be in the green so that was reassuring. Most of the time we were not high up enough to think you might die if it crashed, but the far end part was over a canyon and I was watching our banks to make sure we were out of the canyon and back in safe crashing territory. The hummingbird and the albatross were the two clearest, but I could not even see the dog and the astronaut was rubbish. The pilot was banking more with the dog so I could see, so i just nodded yes hoping he would right the damn plane. I did not die which was good and it was a worthwhile experience, though not as good as the French seemed to think it was. I had to kill a lot of time in town and really should have done some writing, but I had finished it the night before. The bus was changed from the one I was meant to have and so I lost the included dinner. That was annoying as I had deliberately not eaten dinner in the knowledge I had it on the bus. It was a ridiculously expensive tourist bus as locals don't use that route much, but I did get to watch the film 'Step Up' which I had always quite wanted to see. Was quality.

Peru Part 5: Trujillo, Huaraz and Lima

2009-11-29T18:39:00.000-08:00

It was dark and long. Luckily a van driver pulled over and took me for free to the border post, because he told me it was too dangerous for me to stay there. We had to wait a really long time for a taxi to Tumbes on the other side. Some random guy got chatting with me and eventually we managed to get a car after staying by the police for protection. He accompanied me to the bus terminal (which I oddly remembered) and I got a ticket to Trujillo for that night. Last seat on the bus. I needed a shower, but I figured the next day I would finally be back on the road to new places. I got to watch a John Cena film where he is a cop chasing some Irish criminal and got really crap sleep on my way to Trujillo.

The morning film was 'Traitor' with Don Cheadle. Good film I saw in Houston. I arrived in the city of my earache smelling like wee. I walked a lot and got given shit directions. I finally found the bus station for Huaraz and it would be another night bus. Great. I used my credit card to draw money and after more shit directions I eventually found a laundrette to wash my clothes. They were fresh and I was rank, so I kept the older clothes on for now. I got a chip for my phone and the girl at the movistar counter was quite cute. Went to see 2012 at the cinema. I thought it was good. Made me cry a lot. Maybe I am getting sentimental a bit. I took the night bus to Huaraz. I was in all sorts of trouble. Had picked up that stomach infection again and could not sleep between visits to the toilet and head pains. Was a nasty night and left me wiped out after two shit nights of sleep.

I met an Irish girl and guy in the bus station and he had a hostel that was recommended to him so we went there. I got a shower, but I needed some shampoo. At least I did not smell of wee anymore. This hostel was called Caroline Lodging I think. Awesome place. Free breakfast, beds are decent, but the people are great. They went out and bought me medication for my stomach, they went and got my dinner for me and when I woke up late on the second day they did a special breakfast and tea just for me as I was ill. Best service I have ever had from a hostel. Very highly recommended place. We had arrived early so I went out to Chavin de Huantar ruins. Lonely Planet says its a two hour bus ride, but its 3.5 and over dangerous roads. I chatted with a guy all the way there in between sleeping. I wrote 'bit crap, missed entrance again, hate buses on mountain roads, useless people, crazy driver, tried not to shit myself.' Kind of sums up the trip succinctly. It was a bit of a waste of a journey and I have yet to see any impressive ruins in Peru. Everyone talks about them, but I fail to see it. Compared with Mexico and Guatemala they are shit. Hopefully Machu Pichu changes that. I literally did have to avoid shitting myself though. The gas kept building up and building up. I kept retaining it with more and more pain until we arrived thankfully just before I exploded. I was even considering shitting on the bus, such was the pain. Liverpool were happily knocked out of the Champions League. Hopefully we do that to them next season. The Irish guy had picked up diarroeia as well and all of us went to sleep early and I settled in for a long sleep. I had planned to visit the lakes, but that was always off the agenda once I got really sick.

Both myself and the Irish guy could not make it the next morning so we stayed behind and chatted all day. Interesting guy. Had spent time in the Irish army and had some good stories. We went out and grabbed coffee and figured we might meet up in Cuzco as he was going hiking and I was going down the coast for a few days. The Irish girl came back and she was not going to make the trek and was instead heading for Argentina, so she was setting off for Lima. I had booked another night bus (3 in 4 days in not smart) with the expensive company Cruz Del Sur. I was sick so needed it. Trekking looked beautiful up there in Huaraz but I had missed it due to being very very sick. Irish guy said his trek was shit. Don't know why yet. Huaraz the town looks in contrast like a victim of an air raid. Cute it is not. Kind of the same as Gracias in Honduras, which Lonely Planet also strangely likes. The bus was impressive as I tried to sleep, but watched 'Curious Case of Benjamin Button' again in Spanish. They had 'Beautiful Mind' somewhere. Maybe on the way to Ica. Anyway I was stuck next to another FPW (Fat Peruvian Wanker). These creatures ferquent buses and other small places, where they are really too large to go, before pissing you off with their persistant retardedness. Seemingly highly resistant to intelligence, they fall prey easily to their own innate stupidity. Avoid if possible and please don't feed. They´ve had enough already.

Two weeks later than originally planned I arrived in Lima. I was yet to see an impressive Peruvian city. Lima was that. Not amazing, but miles better than what I had seen before. Why do all travellers and Lonely Planet hate big cities. I can imagine Lonely Planey England now.

London: Avoid this city. Its dangerous. There is a distinct possibility that you could be exposed to culture and overwhelmed by choices of night life. It is therefore best to stay in the neighbourhood of Hackney (That way hopefully you will be attacked and hate big cities like us). We have demonstrated time and again our inordinate ability to never find good nightlife zones of a city so we will recommend Leicester Square. Avoid tourists in the National or Tate galleries and instead head to blind al's back alley gallery for some local culture. You can buy authentic indigenous clothing at a variety of adidad tracksuit centres and outside of football stadiums.ç

Watford: Visit this glorious traditional town. No mind if the locals are braindead and the city looks like a bomb site, its authentic and noone will be there until we write about it. You can sample a traditional wetherspoons and learn local dialect as you integrate with thew locals. Transport links are great and you can go hiking in UNESCO Cassiobury Park. Shop for local 'chav' merchandise in the Harlequin Centre and then partake in the traditional saturday night beat up the foreigner celebrations (beware of flaunting your tourist credentials). This town is picturesque and charming (read boring and uninteresting).

Fuck Lonely Planet. I have given up on them except for maps. I wrote here that Peruvian women are like Monet paintings. They look better the further away you get. Its true but a little harsh. After 3 weeks in this country I finally saw some that were good looking. Not amazing, but decent enough. The Pacific Ocean waterfront is really cool and the colonial old town has some nice buildings. They had a crap band playing at the palace and the main gallery was shut. I found and visited a small gallery of Italian art which was quite cool. Brenda had not answered her phone in the morning so I had checked into a hostel. I finally bought some long needed multivitimans and slept in the afternoon. Lima is a nice little city. There was a Canadian nurse who was a typical Canadian. We chatted for a fair bit. Then I went to Brenda's house, out to a bar and back again. I drank some beer and got numbness in my lips and tongue wherever it touched. That was worrying. They have a tiny cat. She had a German and some guys from Bahamas staying with her and the German guy came back hammered. I went back to my hostel.

In the morning I woke up feeling awful despite drinking only two glasses of beer. The Canadian nurse says it was from my allergy and I really need to stop drinking. Makes sense. It looks like it is getting quite dangerous now so I decided to give up for my health and so I don't die as she says it takes only 6 minutes to die from an attack. Nasty. I moved to Brenda's place and would stay there for the friday night. We all stayed in the house chatting. Was quite a big gathering. The guys from Bahamas, the German and me went for a cheap lunch. I told them I was friends with the American guy who had eaten the iguana there and they remembered it. I then went for coffee with one of the guys from the Bahamas. He told me he had been hunting with Mike Huckabee and he was as good a guy as he seemed. I like Huckabee. It would also be cool to go hunting with him and the guy from the Bahamas reckons its possible if I am in Arkansas. That night we went clubbing in a lot of shit bars. I don't think these guys knew where to go and they did not want to pay any entrance fees. That gyponess seems to run through a lot of Peruvians. So they end up in crap places. Eventually me and the guy from the Bahamas (only other person not drinking) went off on our own at 3am and found a few cool places. At 4.30am most places had shut and we headed for another bar. The guy in front was charged 15 soles. I said how much and they told me 30. Fuck them. I told him I heard him say 15 for the other guy and he said ok 20. Fuck these wankers. They always think they can fuck foreigners in the arse. We grabbed some food and headed back to the flat. I did not sleep as I had to get a bus just 1 hour later to Ica for the sandboarding competition.

Ecuador Part 6: Quito and Cuenca

2009-11-29T18:12:00.000-08:00

I was still fucking ill. Was having lung and breathing problems. I had not quite twigged yet that my allergy was taking on a stronger proportion. Still no light so I had to walk all the way into the city centre to check my e-mail. I could not see Liz today, so I used the day to finish of my writing. Felt good to get my nlog up to date at last and I am now vowing and trying hard to keep the thing up to speed, with regular updates that I used to do. Currently its going well as I am about 10 days back here. I tried to go to a pub quiz with some Swedish couchsurfer for the evening, but I could not pick them out in the heavily Gringo packed bar. So I went online and that stupid bitch who me and Dom had failed to get rid of last time in Quito found me again somehow and kept tapping me with her rose. Puta.

No electricity again. Met Liz. The hotel wanted $5 more if she was staying for more than 20 minutes. Who the hell is going to have sex in under 20 minutes. The world's least energetic couple. Useless. She was on her period and for the first time I decided ah fuck it its not important. She ended up staying for 5 hours and the bed got covered in a fair bit of blood. The hotel staff never seemed to complain though, which was nice of them. I suppose the $5 covered the cleaning bill. We ended up sharing a shower to clean off the blood. Was fun, just a shame it limits what you can do as I am not a fan of the taste of blood. She left to study and I went and found pizz hut. Why I keep getting cravings for that place I don't know. I am always disappointed everytime I eat there and this time they burnt it. Fuckers. I had bought my first book in Spanish as well. Marqeuz's 'Chronicles of a Death Foretold.' Have yet to start it but hope it will imrpove my vocabulary knowledge. Algeria, Greece, Portugal (Hate Ronaldo), Slovenia, France (by the hand of Henry) and Uruguay completed the line up. The draw is this thursday. Will hopefully be back from Machu Pichu in time.

I met Liz again the next day and she came back to the hotel again. We just spent all our afternoons lounging around and having fun. I decided I would make a move on the saturday for Cuenca. I went out to meet some couchsurfers but ended up at the wrong coffee shop. When I eventually found them they took me to some weird dragstrip part of town where everyone hung around their cars, which were blaring out music. We went to a rock bar and played a lot of table football and pool, before ending the night chatting about global politics in Spanish. I am getting there slowly. I had not spoken any English since leaving Bogota as well and would not really speak it at all in Ecuador.

I went to meet Liz by her university and then we went to the cheap Chinese place for lunch. They gave us these horribly bitter little mandarin things, that the old man/woman/thing spent all day peeling. Liz reckoned it was a gay man, I thought it was an old woman. Either way the mandarins were not pleasant. I maxed out my Nat West card. That was one card down and I would only touch my Nationwide cards from now on. We spent 7 hours together in the hotel for the last day we would have together. Being latin america and her being 19, she was never going to be able to stay the night. She was crying a lot when we separated and seemed genuine. I had figured she saw me as foreign meat, but I think maybe I had her wrong. She said the week was magical and hopefully I will see her again in Buenos Aires. She dances tango very well, so she said we should dance after I have lessons, but I figure I will be too low a standard lol. Some English girl invited me to a party, but I opted out because I wanted to get some sleep and was leaving early in the morning. Some weird taxi ended up stalking me over the pedestrian crossing. God Ecuador is dangerous at night. No people in the streets and no street lighting.

I had only $51.35 left. I hope my mum did the transfer. She had for 100 quid, but it would not arrive in time so I would have to start using the credit card. Taxi wanted $15 for the bus station. Fucking ladron. I ended up paying $10 to cross Quito and $10 to go all the way across Ecuador to Cuenca. Something is not right there. It was a big day for Spurs' rivals. I hate these high roads the buses go over. Especially with the drivers down here. Some of these people speak retard Spanish. I got to watch 'Taken' and 'Ironman' again. Great. Some bastard in the lunch restaurant insisted on speaking to me in English, even though I was consistently using Spanish. Idiot. I booked into a hotel near the terminal and was finally going to meet Gabriela after we missed each other last time. All the results went for us. Man City drew with Liverpool, Villa drew and Arsenal lost. I saw an old musician play in the park and then met Gabriela, her friend and a Yankee at the cathedral. She is very hot. You can only say that about Cuencans in this country. We went to the mirador which has a great view and afterwards for coffee in my old hostel from last time. Brought back great memories of being drunk and very sick on antibiotics and rum lol. She is coming to Buenos Aires in march so we will meet up for some tango and I went back to the hotel, avoided the fat prostitute and settled in to decide which of my two channels I would watch.

9-1. FUCK YEAH. That's how my day started off as Tottenham took full advantage of their rivals weaknesses to smash Wigan. Bring on Villa I wrote. That lifts the energy. Shame it was to be wasted on two back to back night buses. I watched a Dennis Quaid film called Pandorum or some such. I really enjoyed it, except when some idiot Ecuadorean stood in front of the tv for ages and the fact that they turned it off with 5 minutes still to play. God I hate this country. Bus was really quick and we passed through some shithole before we got to Machala. Then we entered Machala which is also a shithole. I remembered the town and grabbed a bus to the border where I ended up walking across into Peru. Woohoo. Out of Ecuador. Just a long and dangerous walk to the Peruvian checkpoint.

Ecuador Part 5: Tulcan and Quito

2009-11-29T17:33:00.000-08:00

I was hailing a taxi, but the guy wanted $3.50. I only had $3 so would have to pass a cash machine. Then a woman from Medellin asked if she could share the taxi and chip in a bit. Was fine by me. Had only just crossed the border, but was already missing Colombian company. She persuaded me it was late to get a bus and I should stay in the town for the night. I stated it was probably a good idea and checked into a hotel before heading for dinner with her. We ended up heading out to sing some Karaoke. The place was full of drunks and she was a better singer than me, but the machine was an idiot and ranked my version of November Rain as 97%. Hmm maybe if Axl Rose needs replacing I'm their man, but somehow I doubt it. The machine seemed biased towards Spanish songs in general. She sold jewelry in the streets of Ecuador and Peru etc and was staying behind to work. We had a power cut in the night. This would be recurring. It seems that the Ecuadorean government does not have sufficient power for its country. What a surprise. I did not remember this happening last time, but everyday I was in Ecuador we would be without power of somekind.

International House were not helpful with the job application and my results had still not been sent. I asked Leonardo if he could look into it for me. I mised the girl from Medellin for breakfast, but we agreed to meet up again in Bolivia if we got the chance. It had taken me precisely two hours to hate Ecuador again. Never takes long. Stupid bastards were really unhelpful in the streets. Colombia had also got to the U-17 semi finals. They would be smashed 4-1 by eventual winners Switzerland. I went off to Quito to meet Liz. The film seemed to involve Segal, Trejo and some dreadlock criminals. Looked good. Any film with both Trejo and Segal must be golden. Its like a major scene from our never written film 'Fight House'. I arrived late, because even Ecuadorean buses are incompetent. I could not find the hotel the girl from Medellin recommended so settled for any hotel and got some rest as Liz could not make it.

I went off to the old town. Liz did not turn up. Well actually she did, but she was late. They had all the Miss Quito contestants in the square. Its then that you know this country is quite ugly. They were all ok, but Lina is better looking than all of them. I got my pass grade B for the CELTA. Class. Difficult to get that, but I figured I had an outside chance, especially after the last lesson was delivered in front of the moderator. Ekhaterina got an A. Always thought she had a good chance after a monster run of Above Standards. I spoke to both of my parents as it had been awhile. Met another Ecuadorean retard. They taunt me everywhere.

'How much is this?'
'Its a lemonade'
Fuckwit. Of course that took place in Spanish.

I ended up going out with Liz and her quasi boyfriend/not really boyfriend/dude from Cuenca. Take you pick what you want to call him. She had not told me how much the gig was, so I had to go back to the hotel again as I had only brought $21. Entrance was $15. I met her twin sister as well. Very sexy. Dom missed out here. Sitting down in an old abandoned theatre for an electronic gig is kind of weird. Normally you dance. Still it was fun. Not sure if I swapped drinks for a drink that was spiked as felt a huge surge of energy and a little light headed later. Ended up flirting with the sister as Liz was with quasi man, but all of them had to study and I went back on my own. Had a bar themed on the Simpsons near my hotel, but I never ended up going there. Thought about it many times.

I wrote 'NO FUCKING LIGHT EVER: THIRD WORLD COUNTRY.' Sums it up pretty well. Was frustrating that my district was not allowed light in the mornings. I spent all day writing and Egypt got some late drama scoring in the 95th minute to get a one off replay with Algeria for the World Cup. New Zealand, Cameroon and Nigeria qualified. All the big African sides will be there for their continent's showpiece. Looks like they can mount a challenge this time. How the fuck New Zealand got there is a joke. Beat some Pacific Islanders and Bahrain. They should scrap the Ocenia qualifying zone and shove them all in Asia and give Asia 5 places. Liz and the girl from Medellin never made it so I ended up drinking with a Belgian, Estonian and some Ecuadoreans in La Mariscal. The Estonian guy thought me being British would mean he can't practice his Spanish. I spoke better Spanish than both of the guys.

I got up on the sunday and Liz was still not available. She was studying law and had to revise for all of the upcoming exams. She had 2 every day of that week. I thought I should just leave, but figured I had a lot of writing still to do so I would give it one more day. Always go with your instincts. I think I am now travelling in a much more sensible manner, with pacing and decision making, but then I am a very different person to a year ago. May even be able to see this when you read my earlier stuff. Will have to go back to check. I wrote 4 more chapters and was getting there. Saints are still killing it. Every time I adopt an American team they start doing well. Redsocks won their first world series in ages the year after I adopted them and the Saits are now 10-0 the year after I adopted them. Watch them take that first superbowl. Would have been good to watch the New England game tomorrow. Still not sure how they managed to lose to the Colts. Idiot decision making. Maybe Bellichick had some Ecuadorean advisors. Yoana was considering coming down from Mexico for Patagonia. Need to write to her actually. I considered the Galapagos again, but again ruled it out. Was not really doing much in Quito. I walked off to the cinema only to find out that it was full and I could not see anything.

I wrote in the morning 'seeing Liz today, want to sleep with her.' Hmm funny how you hit your predictions sometimes. Its odd being back up on reasonable real time for the blog. Stops me from using hindsight which I think ruins entries. I met Liz and we went for a tour of the old town before I kissed her. Got some lunch and then she came back to the hostel. Had to sneak past the guard at the front desk as no guests allowed. Was funny as I had moved back to the hostel I had stayed with Dom last time. I had the same 6 bed room and had it to myself again. Ended up sleeping with her in Dom's old bed. I thought that was ironically funny. Bunkbeds are crap`for this sort of thing though as one person's head is always in danger of getting whacked. I said I would move back to a hotel in the following days. She left to revise and I went and did some more writing. Still no fucking light so I went to sleep.

Top 10: Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and the Guyanas

2009-11-29T17:20:00.000-08:00

Top 4 pick themselves, but could easily have changed places. All of them I would happily live in. 5 and 6 are stunning places and I could probably live there for 3 months due to the size. Its a pretty impressive zone for cities here.

1. Bogota (Colombia): Could so easily have been Caracas, but I had a great 3 months here and will always remember it fondly. Its also the first place I have lived abroad. Like London in the day, very good cultural scene, good nightlife, lots to do. Just a top class city.

2. Caracasc (Venezuela): Another top drawer city. Its like London at night. Has by far the best nightlife I have scene in the Americas and the women are stunning. I would live here as well if it was not for the idiot Chavez. Great cultural scene and the best art galleries in Latin America. Can't understand its panned reputation.

3. Cali (Colombia): The people here are awesome, the nightlife is superb and the women are stunning. After San Juan and Caracas they are the next best looking. Not much to do in the day here, which probably puts it after the other two, but fuck me what a nightlife. Considering here, Caracas or Manizales for after Buenos Aires.

4. Manizales (Colombia): Nicest and most intelligent people in Colombia and that's saying something. This city is a tad small, but is like a slice of Switzerland. The other Zona Cafetera cities are also class. Size keeps this place at number 4.

5. Cuenca (Ecuador): Its well documented how much I hate Ecuador, but this place is just different. From the Guanajuato league of beautiful cities, the people are freindly, good looking, intelligent and honest (All rare in Ecuador).

6. Paramaraibo (Surinam): I love this city as well. Shame its in the middle of nowhere. Beautiful meltingpot of a colonial city. Like Salem, mixed with Charleston, with some Asian fusion, left to simmer in an African pot on the coast of South America and leaves a spicey mix behind.

7. Parque Tayrona (Colombia): Not really a city but a superb place. Best beach place I have been to because of the jungles and the mountains.

8. Banos (Ecuador): Very touristy but its from the Santa Elena/Monteverde school of touristy and therefore beautiful and fun.

9. Mompos (Colombia): Superb little slice of Mississippi. Beautiful and often overlooked by travellers.

10. Cartagena (Colombia): Much as I dislike Cartagena and Medellin for the people, there is no doubt the former city has to make the list, just by being an unbelievably stunning city. Its pretty beyond words, just a shame about the gringos and putas.

Bogota Week Thirteen

2009-11-17T12:30:00.000-08:00

I decided to extend this through all of my remaining 9 days there, including the weekend away on the coast. This was basically the farewell to Colombia. I am very close now. Just took some time out to write to Dom and chat with Tom. Need to catch up a bit. Good to see my prediction of Brazil taking over from the States as number one country in the World seems to be coming to fruition. I predicted it not China would take number one. I will slap the prediction down now and explain why so I can gloat if it happens in my lifetime. Four economic reasons. Firstly the just struck oil deposits the same size as those in Norway. Secondly if biofuel kicks off they are pole position to be the World's leading supplier with sugar based ethanol. Thirdly if the Doha free trade talks ever work they can be the World's granary basket. Finally Ecuador is trying to pass a law that would mean countries have to pay other countries to maintain their eco systems. With the Amazon, Brazil would be the biggest beneficiary of this law. So take those four as a start. Then you have linguistics. Chinese is too complex. Portuguese is similar to Spanish. Spanish is the only language that can rival English and if the States becomes bilingual or even tips to Spanish then it can roll English back. Portuguese is close to Spanish and Brazil could easily emerge as the leader of a badly underperforming Latin America if it kicks into gear. Its a democracy. This leads to the crux of American power. America was not number one due to its economy or its military as some people think. The key to US power was culture. Obama understands this. America was number one and trounced the Soviet Union, because people wanted to be America. They loved American ideals and its lifestyle (from films, to sport, to television, to cars, to appliances etc). America dominated the global market. Think Nike, Coca Cola and Disney for only three things. Where the hell is China's cultural appeal. Represion, lack of freedom and bland conformity. Hmm attractive. No democracies will line up behind a non democracy. They did not with the Soviet Union and they won't with China. If China democratises it could be a different ballgame, but at the moment they aren't. So I will concede if anyone can tell me in what way Chinese culture is more atrractive than US? To throw the deciding punch how about Sex, Football and Samba. That's Brazil's culture. Who does not find that appealing? Brazil's whole culture and people are attractiveness personified. If they could just find some work ethic to go with it. Look at London. The world in a city and its being conquered by Brazilians. Many Brazilian clubs and bars, everyone wants to learn latin dancing and capoerinha has practically flawed the other cocktails, with the mojito right up its arse. Now I know salsa and mojitos are not Brazilian, but I foresee Brazil as the head of the Latin nations, like the US led the Anglo/European alliance. Now what Brazil is doing to London, will be what Brazil does to the World eventually. Now go on hit me with the persuasive argument that China can out do it? Oh and I ban you from using stats (that should prove why it won't work). What looks good in stats and on paper does not always translate. After all the US started as a backward outpost and I believe Britain once bet on it being so insignificant that its system of government was laughed at (democracy). Much like the Scandinavians can provide the future model for systems of government, Brazil will do it. In 1804 Napoleon said he sold the US the Louisiana Purchase to make a rival to the UK and that in 200 years it would be the global superpower. He was laughed at. He was right. This is my punt at a Napoleon moment.

Anyway I was late meeting Eduar at his hometown as I had gone to play him at tennis. Sadly it was clay courts and a proper clubhouse and I did not have the correct shoes. So we could not play. He had not told me he was number one in his club, so he would have wiped the floor with me anyway. Instead we played pool and I whipped him. Luckily the change os sports worked to my advantage. I finally ate good patacones. My God they do exist. Then again this clubhouse was quite special so it might be just due to that. Then I went to his house (nice place) before grabbing some lunch. I came back to Bogota and Lina stayed at mine. She was on her period. Then I planned my two part debate or at least began to set it up. Was a bank holiday weekend by the way.

Went into the British Council. Long day of study and then I prepared in the evening for the two parts of the debate. Another rocking day it seems. Gloria had calmed down a little bit by this time, but the relationship was still not on firm footing.

I taught my penultimate class. It went well but that damn 'above standard' was still alluding me. Fucking hell. This time my timing was tight as I wanted to set up all of the necessary vocabulary for the debate so my instructions were a little rushed. Dammit. Well I always thought lesson 8 would suffer for lesson 9. Got all my assignments back and I had passed all of them. Excellent. Was now free at the weekend as I only had one more class to teach. It was a good day overall for our team, with three very strong lessons. We were a well oiled machine at this point. Lina was supposed to stay at mine, but could not make it so I went out to Aguaspanelitas for the last time. I went with Angelica M and drunken Cesar. I was disappointed to see tramp Cesar. He did not have any of the clothes and had clearly not gone to Villavicencio. Dammit. Praveen had told me he would not do it. Shitty. Always crap when your gambles don't pay off, but I would do it again for such a small outlay. If he had taken the chance then it would have been 12,000 pesos well spent. We went out for drinks with a whole bunch of people. Was fun. Got quite mashed. Noone was up for clubbing. They wanted to go the next day. I was not going to go out the night before my last class. In the end I stayed out till 2am with a Swiss guy and his Korean girlfriend. Was a decent night, but I was too hammered for how good it was.

Francois' birthday and Guy Fawkes' night. Two years without the mental fireworks. I went in and we learnt some Arabic script that day. Leonardo already knew some. It was to give us an idea of how to teach people who had never seen a different type of script before. Was an interesting lesson. I think I want to spend at least one year in an Arabic country. I mostly got bored watching the others teach that day and then prepped my final class. I had designed everything myself and even set up a complex rule structure to get them to do what I want and use the language I want them to use. There had been a huge smash on the transmilenio and the road was covered with ambulances etc. Two buses had really mashed each other. Colombia were still somehow banging on in the U-17 World Cup as well and would end up coming a very surprising fourth. Switzerland of all countries won the thing. The other group had got its third below standard when Ben fell apart. Juan had missed a class as well so he could not pass. Megan had the other one, ut her young son had been sick so it really was not her fault. Our group in comparison was cruising. I spoke to Franny and Lina had gone out to an adidas party. She wanted me to go as well, but I could not. Had to teach. Nonetheless she rang me at 3.30 am to tell me she was drunk and tha party was great. Great. I need to sleep. Then she rang me at 4.30 am to tell me she had found an inflatable thing for the beach and they had an after party. Very nice, but I still needed to sleep lol. Thank God I had gone to bed early.

I took my class and I had to give mine along with Leonardo in front of the assessor. Debate went awesome. Assessor was very impressed. I think it was the best class given on the course. I said only about 10 lines in one hour for some minimalist teaching and the students spoke loads. I had been the first trainee to set them homework and they really worked hard at it before delivering an excellent lesson. I was smiling a bit as it was better than even I had hoped. A whole class of Colombians debated without interrupting, listened to each other, jousted and even used all of the target language I wanted them to use. 'The problem with your point of view is...', 'I am sorry to interrupt, but..' and similar. Cracking. Leonardo had technical issues again. The 8th lesson the cd player had just started to play what it felt like and speak when it felt like, sort of like the talking toaster from Red Dwarf. Then today the god damn cd player refused to play even after we had tested it before. Damn thing. I got a thumping 'above standard', but the best stamp approval was that Ekhaterina wanted to use my lesson to teach her class. She was the best of us, so that was encouraging. I was done and free. Thank fuck for that. Woohoo. Off to the coast. I met Lina at the airport. We ended up drinking a fair bit of wine before we left and had too much fun on the plane. I really have become too bold in public. Will be a problem when I am back in the UK I think. I am not sure what I wrote here. Must have been drunk, but we met her friend and her boyfriend from Barcelona. He had a cool flat on the 10th floor overlooking the old town of Cartagena. Very beautiful. He had broken a bottle of red wine before we got there and it looked like one of those random crime scenes. It was pissing down with rain. The others took some strange drug I had never heard of called Micropoint (something akin to acid I believe) and Lina then said she felt weird for the rest of the night. Horses? What the fuck. What was I drinking. We went out to the casinos of Bocagrande and we were due to stay at her friend's place. Lina instead decided we should get a hotel. At 3.30 am. In Cartagena. A Colombiana and an Estranjero. Good luck. There is only one thing the hotels are going to think if we turn up at that time, in that combination, without luggage. Prostitute and creepy foreigner. Unsurprisingly we were treated to a string of Bible style, no room in the inn, welcomes. Eventually the last place we tried let us have a room. It was the room of the guard himself. I did not know that at the time. Lina told me later. Now it was dingy and shitty. Lina said it was the worst place she had ever stayed in. Hmm I had been in worse, but I am a bit of a tramp. We had a great 2-3 hours of non sleeping, though I had left most of my stuff in her friend's house so we were falta more than one condom. Shitty. She did say she would like to keep my tongue though. Ah some prostitute bitch keeps tapping me on the neck with her rose in this cafe. Ah God. Its that stupid bint that me and Dom met last time and could not get rid of. Funny how you meet the same old people in the same old places 6 months later. Especially gringo hunting putas. They really have nothing better to do.

We left early with no sleep. Lina was now two nights without sleep after the adidas party. We grabbed our stuff from her friends and grabbed a bus to Santa Marta. It went about 2 hours and broke down. Fuck sake. The axle snapped. It took them over an hour to get a replacement us as we just lay by the side of the road with the crazy dog. We eventually got a second bus. It stayed nearly an hour in Barranquilla, drove for five minutes and broke down. Flooded engine. Two fucking buses in one day. Motherfuckers. We got a third bus. He went five minutes and then stopped to have lunch. Right. Enough. I could have gone out and murdered the bastard. Then we eventually got a bus to the Tayrona entrance, but the idiot missed it by 1km and we had to hike back. The company was Brasilia by the way. They deserved to be named and firebombed. Eventually we arrived and its still spectacularly beautiful. We stopped at the restaurant and it was too dark and dangerous to push on. There was also an almighty thunderstorm so we set up Eduar's tent using a flashlight that the bastard on reception eventually lent us. The floor was rock hard as we pitched it on concrete and in the middle of the night a bunch of people arrived to set up more tents. Lina got quite nervous with this, but I was not too worried, although one idiot did crash into our tent. I get the impression Colombians don't take risks that often as they are always scared of everything. Then again I probably have an unhealthily low fear level.

In the morning we got up and hiked to the mirador and then hiked through the jungle to the Arecifes beach. She indulged in some topless sunbathing as the beach was nearly deserted while I got some breakfast. She believed foreigners were less likely to perve on someone than Colombians. I said I doubted it and there were many perverts in Europe as well. We spent all of the morning lounging on the beach, getting burnt and swimming in the sea that is apparently dangerous. I don't think so really. We had to leave the park and get a bus back to Barranquilla. We only just made it back in time, but I did manage to get her to cum on the us. Was an interesting us ride. We landed back in Bogota. I fucking hate flying. I am not getting in a plane until I leave this continent if I can help it, with the honorable exception of the Nazca Lines. Kind of need it for there. Lina came and stayed at mine that night.

It was now my penultimate day in Bogota. Would be sad to leave. Had some good morning fun before I headed into the British Council. Mondays classes were uneventful. Paola got mugged that night as she was going to join me at some point. People could not make it after class so I ended up drinking at some shit ar on my own. Oh yeah Spurs had beaten Sunderland 2-0 despite being battered. Liverpool somehow drew with Birmingham and we were back up into fourth for now. We had beaten Everton 2-0 in the league cup as well and were rewarded with a quarter final away at Man U. Should be rough. Lina, Sofia, David, Angelica M, Alice and Justin joined me for a farewell drinking session. We moved bars and had a fun time with some really good conversation before I left. It was some bastard Spanglish conversation. Lina stayed at mine. She was really sick with some sort of fever and that may have been what was dogging me for the last week or so. Wow I have really caught my own tail here. It was a really good last night and she left early as she hates goodbyes. I am not brilliant at them myself.

I went to classes and we wrapped up the lessons. I felt that an A for me was impossible, but Ekhaterina may get one (she did), but that the last lesson had made a B a possibility. They had promised to e-mail me my results but would forget until I reminded them. I got my B in the end and I believe I pretty much graduated in 3rd place. Not bad as I was probably 12th after lesson one. Everyone passed except for Juan and not sure what he is going to do now. We had some good goodbyes as it had been an intense four weeks together. Then I went home, packed up everything that was important before leaving an almighty mess of everything else behind. Was supposed to meet Jennifer for a leaving coffee, but she did not show up. I took a taxi to a station and ended up with a 23 hour bus journey to the border. It was touch and go if I was going to be able to cross while my visa was still valid. I wrote to the International Houses in Buenos Aires for jobs, but they are not looking to recruit yet. Dammit. Agus gave me a list of institutions to contact and may do that tomorrow after I create my CV. My money was slowly dying on me. Would have to call on the reinforcements soon.

Woke up on the bus and this was D-DAY for leaving. This journey is forever. The bus was painfully slow and there was a serious danger I would not make it. Then it got stuck with an accident. Shit. Nobody on the bus knew when the frontier was going to close. Shit and I had not enough money to get across. In the end I made it with one hour to spare, but that was mighty close to a nasty fine or worse. I was ack in Ecuador. Shit. I was going to miss Colombia. I had crossed the border for 5 seconds and I already missed it, but help was at hand.

Bogota Week Twelve

2009-11-17T12:01:00.000-08:00

I had to leave really early the next day, because the psycho ex had rang her and was coming over. Felt like one of those real fast film style exits lol. I got into school and found out I had passed assignment 4. Not sure why they don't number them in order. We had another long day of observations and then I had to prepare another 20 minute lesson. After teaching for an hour, these lessons seemed somewhat pointless. I sorted the problems out with Iranis and had just begun them with Gloria. It did not look like I was going to Tayrona with Lina.

Nope I was wrong. She changed her mind. Colombians have a real problem making definitive decisions or making plans. They change them on a whim. The English on the contrary will attend something they have agreed to even if they are about to drop dead. I suppose its one of the best qualities from my country. Tuesday we all taught a small 20 minute lesson, so it was my last disjointed one. I prepared a class on stereotypes between men and women for the next day. The elementary class did not like their new tutors. They wanted to have us back. The intermediate group was also responding top us and did not want to switch back. I believe the elementary students said that Rebecca was the only good teacher from the others and lots of them had told me that they were not going to go back to their classes.

I woke up very sick with a bowel infection of worms. Nasty. I was really struggling and looking green apparently. I taught my lesson and got my best marks yet. Almost an above standard. I would stay up at that level for the remainder of the course except for the last lesson. My instructions cost me on this one. Dammit. It would be something small from now on it, but I started to get confident in my ability as a teacher, even if the nerves were getting steadily worse with every lesson. Lina came over that night and I cooked dinner. She was allergic to spicy stuff so I did a sweet spaghetti bolognaise with Teriyaki and Soy. Came out really good. She ended up tidying my room while I worked on assignment two in the morning.

After Lina tidied my room and I had studied some more, we set off for college. My bowels were getting progressively worse. I took Rebecca and Meagan's advice and went to buy some medication they recommended. It seemed to do the job. We watched the classes. Paola's went really bad that day but she avoided a below standard and that was the closest our group got to one. We observed classes that afternoon and the schedule was taking its toll. So many days were from 6am until 11pm, but at least I was keeping my weekends free. I finished assignment 2 and then prepared my class. I was going to adapt Washington Irving's Legend of Sleep Hollow and get them to write ghost stories, while Ekhaterina was going to a listening on Nightmare Before Christmas' 'This is Halloween.' With Anita as well, we were really starting to deliver high quality lessons and themed as well. Each person backing the other one up. I booked the flights for the coast and we would have to go via Cartagena. She had an ex there and a lot of friends so no problems for somewhere to stay. It does feel like sacrilege adapting Washington Irving with my own pen, but then maybe one day I will make it as a writer as well.

I got up early and finished off my version of the story. I taught a very good lesson. Saved myself time at the beginning and used that to elicit story structure. I should not really have done that as time was tight. It meant my lesson overran, but it was a really good lesson. Tom was finally impressed for the last lesson of mine her observed. Timing cost me though. Cost all of us that day really. Yovanna won the competition for the writing. I went to Lina's house after class and met a lot of her friends. She was going out for a halloween party. I needed a rest first. I could not wake up though and after going home I slept all night long. She rang me at 3am to say she was drunk and the party was great. At this point I was totally destroyed and we only chatted for a bit.

Halloween. Went into the British Council to do assignment 3. Did assignment 1B in ten minutes while I thought of a topic and I had then finished all of the assignments. Just two classes to go and I had in mind to do a debate and stage it over two lessons. Should solve my timing issue and allow me to use one class to tee up the other one. We got mashed 3-0 by Arsenal and conceded two goals in 17 seconds. That was depressing. We may be on the slide again. Need to get some good results in the next few weeks. I have almost caught my tail here and we only played twice more before now. There were some superb costumes around Centro Commercial Andino. One kid was dressed up as Optimus Prime in a ridiculously eleborate costume. They take this festival seriously here and some of the families spend way too much money. My cock is bigger than yours competitions with their kids. Little sad really, but spectacular nonetheless. Liverpool lost to a beach ball. Awesome. I went to meet Alice and her friends in a bar. Katzo had a truly cool turtles costume and then David came and joined us. I wanted to go to Vinacure as it would have been awesome that night, but nobody wanted to pay 50,000 pesos to get in. We went to a gay bar called La Oficina. Great music. David being a blonde gringo was attracting more attention than he was comfortable with his. His Washington State small town did not prepare him the same way that London had prepped me and Alice. Afterwards we went to Changos but the queue was too long. We were drinking in some shit salsa bar when Lina rang me and invited me to a party at some fat American's house. He worked for the US embassy, but apparently spoke no Spanish. Very odd. Lina reckoned he was a perro. It was odd having a very old American dude and lots of young Colombians. There was really good food and some truly impressive costumes. The three of us had not bothered. There was even a guy and a girl who were just in body paint and nothing else. Had a good time there and then Lina left for her flat. Alice, David and I decided to go and join my coursemate Anita. We met three random Colombians in the street, but they opted not to join us. Got to Anita's and she was there with her friend Alice, Paola and Rachel. Everyone was a little steamed. It was around 4am or 5am. We ended up having discussions about which students we would sleep with. They told me I could not pick Lina, so I said Camila. Paola chose Eric (a fat student), because he was quiet and James (an old business man) due to his dress sense. Rachel was surprised and then Anita was saying ah yeah Mr James is quite smart. Rachel by this point was 'what the fuck' and everyone was laughing. We would spend the last week and a half fucking about in class quite a lot and that night was always in my mind whenever we were teaching. I left and got breakfast with Alice before heading back to the flat around 8am. The others had called Benjamin and they ended up partying all through the next day.

November 1st. 4 MONTHS TO GO. Then I actually have to work. Ridiculous eh. After 19 months of not working, you don't really feel like it. Man City drew. Good for us. I ate in Khalifa (the Arabic place) and missed Praveen as we always ate there. I went all the way to Portal 80 to join Angelica for the cinema. We missed the first performance so we went back to her place and got some hot chocolate. Her and David are really nice people. Shame they never got together. She did have a really good time with a French dude though and I am pleased for her. We went and watched Inglorious Bastards. Quite funny, but not amazing. The German guy is just awesome. I got a taxi back. I had planned to go to Alice's for some films, but it was too late and I racked up 239 on the taxi metre. A new PB and 20,000 pesos. Nice.

Bogota Week Eleven

2009-11-17T10:59:00.000-08:00

Fucking Ecuadoreans. This woman is leaning on my shoulder while I try to type so I just shrugged her off. There was another bitch in the shop this morning. She tried to charge me $1.20 for a Colomiana. I could travel to Colombia, buy one and come back for less than that. Then she wanted $0.80 for a can of coke. Bitch. I have always paid $0.50 or maximum $0.70 in that same shop.

Hmm October 19th must have been an amazingly exciting day. Here is the full diary entry. 'Up and into class. Watched lessons and prepped until 11.30pm.' Quite possibly it might be the dullest day of my trip according to that entry. Certainly the shortest I believe. Next year I will have an October 19th memorial dullness session.

Had to get up at 5.30am as I had observation sessions with Leonardo. They thought we were a couple of Colombian students. We must look very teacher like. So tired. My first tutorial with Rosie went well. Was ticking over ok after the first two lessons. Would change over to Tom after this and I don't think he liked my teaching style much, but then everyone seems to have felt that. Went out for lunch and spent the afternoon trying not to fall asleep. My lesson went ok. It was not very well themed but they enjoyed it. I think it was the lesson I used road runner to elicit past tenses and then did charades of some sort. Lina had said that it was just to be me and her that weekend as we were heading to Villeta, her hometown. It was Praveen's last night so his girlfriend and Alice came over for a farewell meal. I then wrote assignment one. I passed all of my assignments first time and comfortably except for the grammar based one. Everyone had to repeat that except for Rebecca and I was the next closest with two minor faults. None of them took me very long, but I am a very fast and accurate writer. I mean I wrote my 13,000 word masters dissertation in just one day, with no editing and no rewrites and got the top grade.

I slept in a bit after saying goodbye to Praveen. As I said earlier, the flat was a lot quieter after he left. It had been a pretty good time in the flat. Will see him again in Porto Alegre and its his duty to throw a party for me down there to end my trip lol. I went to study and there was a problem with the shitty transmilenio due to an accident. It was a good morning for Bob Dylan. Enjoyed walking along calle 76 listening to Oxford Town. I took all evening to prepare the next lesson plan and I was doing a reading class based around the times that Praveen was attacked in Bogota. Made for some interesting stories.

I went to the classes and was nearly killed in the toilets by some industrial strength cleaner. I had just enough breath to make it through my piss, but afterwards I was struggling to breath and coughin a lot from the fumes. At least I knew I had fumigated my lungs. Lina was upset and had to leave early in my class. I found out later it was due to an argument she had had with her ex boyfriend. The class went fairly well for a class that I had prepared myself, but I still had not convinced I could put a coherent lesson together and I was now four lessons down, five to go. I stayed behind with Rachel afterwards to do assignment four for the next day. That was easier for the intermediate group as they had more activities to choose from. I met a drunken Fernando in the transmilenio and chatted for a while before ending up in an argument with Gloria as to my plans for the weekend.

I was up early for observation classes. Juan went AWOL that day so even though we weren't supposed to teach, Leonardo and I had to cover an hour spot with games and generally just fucking about with the class. We had moved over to the intermediate classes and had a new group. They had one cute girl called Camila but she lacked some oomph. She asked me how long I was here for lol. I love Colombians. I went for drink after class with Lina and Victoria. David joined us as well and then Lina had to go home early. Had assumed she was not that interested at this point. David and me grabbed some food. I was a little pissed from drinking almost alone and went to join Alice and Sofia and some Peruvian girl. We went to the crappy reggae bar and I fell asleep because I was completely knackered. I started to get some weird messages from Iranis now as well. I did not think it was her though, because the English was so awful. It turned out someone hacked her account and then read her e-mails and was intent on grilling me for information. She rang me to apologise and this person then wrote to Gloria. Caused a massive, mental ruckus ontop of the fight that was going to come from this weekend. I had to spend the first half of the next week dealing with these two problems, while also juggling my lessons. Nightmare.

I got up and watched online Tottenham batter Stoke into submission and then somehow lose 1-0. How the hell did we do that. Fuck sake. We were slipping a bit. It was Gloria's birthday. I sent her a happy birthday message and then went and met Lina to go to Villeta. We ended up kissing on the bus on the way there which was somewhat unexpected after the night before. Villeta is a nice, small, warm town. Her family have a beautiful house and she wants to open up a bar on the hill when she gets back from London. We went drinking with her friends and sister in the town. Asolutely smacking it down with rain. Afterwards we ended up having some strange fun on the stairs leading from the road to her house. She was always a little too preoccupied though. I used to call her 'preoccupada.'

The next day we slept in. Well I did. She sunbathed on the roof. Then we ended up lounging in a paddling pool on the roof for the afternoon before going to see some nearby waterfalls. Loads of soldiers were having competitions to see who could kill themselves the fastest by jumping off the top of the waterfall. Insane. Came back and played the 'boo' game with her nephew. He went mental. Afterwards we took a us back to Bogota and I went and stayed at her flat. Her psycho ex boyfriend kind of stalks her. Jealousy is a whole other level down here. So we had to turn off all the lights in case he was around. Fun times.

Bogota Week Ten

2009-11-16T15:23:00.000-08:00

Hmm for the second week in a row that's a weird place to break it, but I can't help it. Its the way this system of mine works. I slept for about 3 hours and then got up early and hiked down the finca mountain, along the motorway, down another road and to the junction for buses to Medellin. Was a bit worried I may not make it back for my course and I was a bit stupid, because I was taking risks and not getting enough sleep before I started it. One of the other trainees Rachel had been in Medellin and Blue that weekend but we did not know each other then so there is no real recollection. I took a bus to Medellin, had to wait ages for a bus back to Bogota and then sat in for yet another long bus ride. I was quite knackered at this point, but for some strange reason I decided it was a good idea to watch Dance Flick and GI Joe again. I now had dodgy bowels as well. I had missed reading the course outline, because I was stupid and I went to McDonalds and then to sleep. Was really nervous for the course in the morning.

I wrote 'D-Day as I start my course today.' Rare for the nerves to get to me. I was up early and really nervous. Praveen was trying to reassure me that I would be fine. I think he had had woman number five over the weekend I was away. Also Manuel was breaking bits of the apartment and blaming them on me and Praveen. The drunken landlady pointed out that I was not actually there and she had known Praveen for ages. We did a lot of admin. It was not as intense as I was fearing, but it was still going to be a solid slog. We had to learn Welsh on the first day. Bore da. Thats for you Tim. It was to experience what its like to learn a language you have absolutely no familiarity with. We were introduced to the students and I wrote that one of them was very good looking. Foreshadowing again lol. All the students for elementary seem nice people. I had to make a lesson plan on the first night for my first teaching session. I wrote it should be challenging. The groups ended up being horribly unbalanced. We had Leonardo (10 years experience) and Ekhaterina (6 years experience) who helped our group of six all the way through. Our group posted 7 Above Standards, 7 Almost Above Standards and 0 Below Standards (which is very rare). The other group got 2 Above Standards, a few Almost Above Standards and 3 Below Standards. Admittedly Ekhaterina posted 4 of those Above Standards but still.

I slept very very badly. I was cripplingly nervous. Don't remember the last time my nerves got hold of me like that. We went through the morning sessions including charades, which I love. Its a good learning curve. Had my first teaching session. I followed Leonardo and he just blew them out of the water. Fuck. Following that shot me to pieces and my first ten minutes were a disaster. The following ten I brought it back a bit, but it was definitely the worst performance. I would end up graduating with the 3rd best marks, but there and then I was 12th from 12. Apparently I had the biggest improvement ark of all the teachers, but then if you start with the worst lesson of 12 teachers and deliver maybe the best lesson to finish the course, you can't really get much wider. I passed with a standard. I think we get allowances for the first one. I spoke to Gloria again. Argentina qualified thank god and so did Honduras which is nice for Wilson Palacios the Spurs boy. I got some needed sleep and passed on Praveen's invitation to go to Quiebra Canto.

I did not have to teach on the thursday which was good. I missed my stop for calle 76 as I was not paying attention and went all the way to calle 127 before I could come back again. Damn transmilenion, but I think this time it was my fault for daydreaming. It almost made me late. I needed the loo and they had the world's tiniest toilet. What the hell is that? Only later did I find out that they taught kids at weekends. I had assumed they built it for Colombians in general and I thought they are smaller, but not that small. Had my morning classes and then observed the other teachers. This was kind of my week for the next few weeks. Up at 6am and work until 11pm and then sleep. Jesus. Life as an actual teacher will hopefully be a lot easier. We prepped a questionaire for one of our assignments. I spoke to Luisa and Fernando after class about going for drinks on friday and then I spent the rest of the evening planning my lesson.

Up early to work on the last few parts. I taught my lesson. It went better. I think it was to do with food and I ran out of time and had to drop loads of things. Timing, instructions, ICQ's (Instruction checking questions), grading language and planning coherent thematic lessons were my weakest areas. I managed to eradicate them all in the end, but the dogged bastard that is instruction giving clung on until the very last lesson before I killed the bastard. Not actually sure its dead. I just said very little in my last lesson. Ah yes I got them playing pictionary and drawing their breakfasts. Even got Eduar to teach a bit of the lesson (he was the best of my students). We went for drinks after class and after a tough first week I drank for the first time in ages. Now I am back on the road I have to be careful to not fall back into the trap of drinking every night. It was fucking Heineken. What a way to break a drought. I ended up flirting with Lina (the good looking student) that night. Her and Fernando joined us and we all spoke mainly Spanish. Leonardo said I was more latin than English and it will be hard for me to readjust back into England afterwards. Most felt I spoke too fast in Spanish as well. It was a fun night until the end. Pilar (one of the profs) cornered Lina in the toilets and accused her of being on the course just to pull a professor and that she had kissed me. This was not true. Then Fernando made Anita cry (I had to go and check if she was ok) and then we ended up with a phantom bill. I mean it is 33,000 Pesos for 1.5 litres of Heineken. 11 pounds. You could get at least 2.5 litres in London for that price and I normally pay 2,200 pesos for a half litre in my local. I hate the zona rosa. Its like a small slice of Medellin's plastic people in Bogota. Somehow we had a bill for 600,000 pesos. Lina ended up paying 120,000 including 50,000 for Fernando even though he had drunk nothing from our jars. I paid 70,000. There was 160,000 left behind by other people. That makes 350,000 from just a few people. There were about another 10 people there. Everyone reckons they paid between 50,000 and 70,000. That leaves a lot of unaccounted for money. If I was not trying to sort out the other two problems from above I would have turned my maths teaching ability to the bill. Fuck me. Everyone in this internet cafe is always smoking. Bastards. Someone went home very rich and the rest of us paid a ridiculous amount of money for Heineken. Lina went home insulted, Fernando went home pissed off. Everyone else scattered and I had no phone credit so I could not join Praveen etc. Instead I went home and nearly killed myself and my landlady. I had come in and put some eggs on the stove. Then I fell asleep. They cooked for one hour before they eventually shot out of the pan like cannonballs and hit three different areas of the kitchen. Did not know they could do that. Meanwhile the bottom of the metal pot had melted through and released a stream of carbon monoxide in the flat. It would have killed me if the landlady had not woken up. She claims she had a premonition in her dreams. Thank God she's mental. She continued to tell me stories all saturday of people who had died from carbon monoxide, but I just kept laughing imagining the rocket launcher eggs.

Spurs won 2-1 away to Portsmouth. Good result considering Defoe got himself stupidly sent off. We were still hanging around the top 4 at this point and still are at this moment. I went to the Arabic place for lunch. Some Bogota band was shooting a music video in the streets but we just scooted on by. I met drunken Cesar for drinks with Praveen. It was Alice's birthday and Praveen's leaving do. I was about to lose another good friend after Gloria had gone. It was a fun night. Someone had brought along balloons and we were playing with them in the club. I met Praveen's quasi costena girlfriend. Lina could not make it. This guy called Danny from Valledupar got everyone dancing and was impressed with my spazzy hip hop dancing. Oh yeah we had gone to Candelario as I forgot to mention that. Afterwards a big bunch of us went back to Danny's rooftop apartment. Really cool place. He seemed like a nice enough guy. David came back to our flat after some 24 hour food hunting in the shitty sandwich place on calle 19. He fell asleep in the chair around 6am and everyone went to bed before he left.

I got up at 3pm as I needed to sleep off the night before and went to McDonalds with Praveen. We met Cesar the tramp (I had forgotten to give him his clothes the week before because it was a thunderstorm) and Praveen's girlfriend. Cesar said he was off to Villavicencio so I gave him 12,000 for bus fair. Me and Praveen gave him clothes, toothpaste, a razor, mouthwash, socks and shampoo so he could tidy himself up. He was smart enough to work. He guessed I was capricorn from my eyes. Scary stuff. I was hoping he would kick start his life and it did not cost us much to give him a shot. Then we all went to have dinner with Alice near her place for her birthday. I had met a few of her friends the night before. A cool Colombian guy, a German girl and a Japanese guy named Katzo. I had to translate a lot for Praveen and his girlfriend as they had no common language except for body language. The dinner was nice and then we took a taxi back to the flat and I did some work. I assume it was on one of the assignments but I don't really remember. Maybe I just read a bit.

Bogota Week Nine

2009-11-16T14:42:00.000-08:00

Here we go again. I am somewhat very sick. Like some synus style infection/flu hybrid. I really need to sleep this off at some point. Still had a kick arse afternoon today. More of that in later blog entries. I really am half dead. At least I have found a computer that has youtube, but is missing messenger. Every internet cafe in this city has to be missing something. Oh well. Better get used to it. I am here for 3 or 4 more days. Best laid plans and all. I have Rhianna for company today, so this blog may veer all over the place. Got locked into an internet cafe yesterday, but somehow managed to watch the Colts come back from the dead to beat the Patriots by one point, thanks to the Patriots unbelievabel stupidity. Still if it had come off they would say he was a genius.

We woke up early in Cucuta. Stayed in bed till lunch. Went to Carrefour and picked up some food. Came back and slept in the afternoon. Did not really do much in Cucuta. There is not actually loads to see. Had hot dogs again and the vender woman felt I had a cute accent in Spanish. I have been told I have the accent of a Frenchman rather than an Englishman. Probably for the best. We missed some random telenovela due to time zone problems and then just stayed in.

I decided against leaving early as was still knackered and could just get a night bus for the DAS (which I had forgotten I needed to see). Gloria had a problem with something in Argentina, but at this point I did not know what. She said she wanted to me to come online to chat about it, which I did but she was not online at that time. Something happened in Argentina. Liverpool lost and Man City and Villa drew. Good weekend for us. There was too much Vallenato in Cucuta and we said goodbye at the bus station. I took a night bus to Bogota. Too many buses in too short a period of time really.

Arrived in Bogota and Gloria rang me. We chatted for a fair bit about different things and then I met Alice outside the DAS. Police had stopped me on the highway to demand why I was over my visa limit. I wasn't but I realised I only had around 1 day left and had to get to the DAS. I ended up having to argue and fight with the DAS. The stupid bitch on the counter had said I could have the 33 days I wanted so I paid. They took my finger prints. Then they informed me I was only entitled to have 30 days. Fuck them. They said its the rules. I said I had paid on a different assumption. I refused to leave until they gave me 33 days. Eventually they consented and I had my passage secure to complete the course. We then went for lunch and I headed back to the flat. Praveen had apparently been missing me in my absence and I went away the next weekend as well. I am back in Bogota, so at least the headings make sense, though this week is probably the least valid of the name. I was less than one week away from starting my course. Manuel had invited some woman around with her kid and the kid kept trying to come into the shower with me. I know they take a more liberal attitude to parenting down here, but this was surely too dodgy. Damn locks. I went out for Aguaspanelitas and offered one of the tramps (Cesar) that I would give him some used clothes the next week. Went out for drinks afterwards in just Spanish. We managed to find some dickhead Yank who went off hunting women with Praveen in Quiebra Canto. I just sat chatting away and the club was shit as normal.

Got up early. God know why. I had no dry clothes apparently. I took a bus to Pereira. I told you none of this week was in Bogota. There was a really talkative old woman on the bus. This weekend would be almost exclusively in Spanish for me. Kind of like now. She was actually sick on the bus as the bends took it out of her. It was a very long bus ride. I did not think through all these buses. Anyway it was priming me for being back on the road again. Started to read for my course as it was less than a week away and I was warming up my brain after it had been dormant for a long time. Pereira looked like a nice enough city. Had a wander around. I thought that I was quite close to Medellin for the football and Liliana said she could get me a spare ticket if I came up, so I decided to go to Medellin for the weekend. I met Tatiana for drinks and she was too knackered to go clubbing. So was I really. So I headed back to the hotel, got accosted by a prostitute, politely told her to fuck off and went to sleep.

I slept in a very long time I was very tired. I met Isabel for a long lunch and a tour of the city. Lots of young kids smashed on some serious drugs. Gave one of them a sandwich which he took after he realised we weren't about to attack him. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Not quite sure how he managed that, but the opposing arguments on CNN were quite fiery. I ended up spending the rest of the evening undertaking all of the pre-course tasks for the CELTA. Was quite gruelling but it felt good to have it out of the way. Everyone was unavailable in the night so I opted to go for a walk around the town alone. I hate solo drinking so I just ended up back at the hotel. Still don't know how Franny does it.

I got up and grabbed a bus for Medellin. It was going to be tight to find somewhere to stay and then get to the football match. Apparently the bus seems to be populated by Pingu. I can only assume that the Pereira accent sounds like Pingu or that our bus was invaded by penguins. I will let you pick. It was a crucial day all round for World Cup qualifiers on this weekend. Colombia were at home to Chile. All the hostels were sold out. Shit. I ended up grabbing a hotel in what was apparently the red light district of Medellin. Hard to tell. Hotel Conquistador. Nice name and I actually quite liked the place. Did the job. I finally met Liliana a good five months or more after we first chatted. Very beautiful and cool girl. A load of us (An englishman, a yank, a canuck, an aussie, a dane and some others) went to the game and watched Colombia lose 4-2. They had been 1-0 up and then conceded two goals in one minute. Rubbish. They were out. Shitty. At least Argentina just about won and even better Ecuador lost. The football was of abysmal quality but at least there were goals. A lot of rain. They say Medellin has good weather but I have had rain for all 8 days I have ever been there. We went to La Octavia and Blue and were joined by a Dutch guy. We had a fun time dancing all night long. Well at least I danced all night long. Everyone else was trying to hook up with someone, but I was just loving being in a club without salsa even if I gathered somewhat of an audience. I got on well with the Yankee but he sadly left early. Sander and Chris were invited with me to spend sunday night out at a finca. I figured why not. One Colombian girl, Sander and me got some late night food and were surrounded by the usual Medellin prepagos. Putas.

I was knackered on sunday from not much sleep. Went off to the Colombians house to grab a lift to the finca. We ended up buying a mountain of meat for the barbecue. We had gone on Sander's measurements not realising half the people don't really eat and the other half are vegetarians. It ended up with 3 of us trying to polish off an abertoire of meat (Chris, Sander and me). We got a ride there and there was some sort of giant dildo thing that became the source for some unintelligable Spanish jokes. I have realised that my Spanish has accelerated a lot in the last month. The time in Bogota was well spent. More fucking rain. The finca was absolutely huge. I mean the size of about 6 of our English houses. They had an out house with disco, bar, pool table and billiards table. We played a bit. I cained everyone at pool as normal, but got my arse handed to me at billiards. Chris was given barbecue duties, while Sander went with two of the girls to Penon. I had been before so stayed behind. The Paisa girls were asking me if I found Medellin girls the best. I said that Bogota girls and girls from Manizales were more intelligent and nicer people. They said Bogota girls were ugly. I said Cali girls are better looking than the girls in Medellin. They said they were bitches. I said the Medellin girls were mannequins, dolls, plastic people, cold and not that great. I know two exceptions (Liliana and the girl I met at the frontier a few days ago). That did not go down to well with the Paisas. Reminds me of the joke from a restaurant on Cartagena. It was called the lying Paisas and had ten things they always say. Quite funny if you know Colombia. I found out chatting with Chris that we had pulled the same girl in Nicaragua. Random. He slept with her though. Too much meat I wrote. We played some weird Colombian games and then danced a lot. I refused the salsa and the photos are awesome from this night, but for some reason Sander has made them private. We pretended to be babies, danced various styles, Chris and I treated them to Morris dancing, we did the thriller video, I had a hip hop off with the Yankee guy David and everyone had a blast. Real good fun. I still don't know why the photos are private. Ah one of the Colombian girls treated us to some Arabic dancing as well.

Bogota Week Eight

2009-11-15T15:07:00.000-08:00

Jennifer cancelled our lesson again. She really needs to take a break as she is always knackering her health from pushing herself too hard. I had lunch with Angelica. Then I left for the language meeting. The owner was absolutely hammered today. I mean she is often drunk, but she could not even walk straight and had to have a lot of assistance to get back into the apartment. I had bumped into Angelica M in an internet cafe earlier as well so we chatted a bit. Alice had been away to the coast for over a week so it was good to catch up with her now she was back. We spent a lot of the meeting swapping stories from the coast. Gloria got a little emotional saying goodbye to everyone. Praveen had not come and ended up chatting up some random girl in the pizza place and getting her number. Ridiculous. Sometimes he was having more success not speaking Spanish than speaking it, because people had to help him out. That was one of the main reasons he said he never bothered to learn it.

In the morning I went to the British Council and signed up for my id as well as renting out the three books I would need for my pre-course work. I maybe should have read more to really hit the ground running, but I had a stuttering start, but I won't jump the gun with this thing yet. I met Gloria outside and we spent all day at my place as she flew the next day. We listened to a lot of music and shared a really good time. At one point Praveen entered saw we were busy and left again. Was a classic comedy moment sketch and still makes me laugh. Then the three of us went for a meal at her friend Angelica's house. It was a nice time except for her psycho friend. I set up new year for Buenos Aires the year after next and started inviting people for it. Her friend was quite drunk. I can't even remember her name, but its the only friend of Gloria's I did not like. She started off asking me who my next project was. Gloria thought she was interested in me. I clearly pointed out she was ugly and a bitch so there was no threat. Also she ended up hating me. Praveen was practicing salsa again. She was then asking us what we thought of love and quoting all sorts of philosophers. I love these well read people. They spout shit they have read, but never actually think for themselves. They also never have a point. She gave me two positions and said what do I think. What do I think aout what? You need a question to have an answer. If she meant the two points, then they are pretty quotes but divorced from context. She did talk an enormous amount of shit and even Praveen became frustrated at her pointlessness. Though he did take her number and at one point I thought he was going to sleep with her. Thank god he didn't. I question his taste sometimes, but then he questions mine as well so we are even.

In the morning I met Sylvia at her university and did an interview in Spanish about Pax Americana. I had to defend the usual anti-Americanism you encounter while travelling. Many Colombians don't want American bases in their country. They are idiots. Their main argument is that it would make them a colony of the US and provoke Chavez. Both are rubbish. Britain, Germany, Japan, South Korea and many countries have American bases. We have nuclear ones. We are not colonies but allies of the US and we use their protection wisely. No country will attack a country with US bases, because those are the only countries that the US will definitely defend. Even Russia knows this. It is the reason why Eastern European countries like Poland and Czech Republic are crying out for bases. Protection. Its the reason Ukraine and Georgia want to be members of NATO. Protection. Look at the lack of support Georgia got for its war with Russia and also Estonia when it was attacked on the internet. Do you think Russia would be so bold with England or Germany. No. Obviously. So Colombia would become part of a network of Democratic alliances. Why would you not want that, unless you were an idiot. Chavez is also less likely to attack now. He is stupid, but he is not that stupid. The US want an excuse to knock him out and if he attacks Colombia he gives them that excuse. Anyway. I met Alice and Praveen for lunch in the Arabic place afterwards.I went to Olympia to buy some stuff for dinner that day and it was the day of the retards. Every retard in the world was in my queue. First there were the people buying apples with credit cards, then the woman with 200o questions and finally the idiot man who could not count properly what he needed to pay. I felt like grabbing him and counting it for him or just paying for him so he could get the fuck out of my way. I was fourth in the queue and I saw people enter while I was in the queue, get their shopping, pay and leave while I was still in the queue. For fuck sake. Angelica M was too late for dinner in the end, so we went out and did Aguaspanelitas. I think this was the first time I participated in that activity. We go out and give aguapanela (a sweet Colombian drink) and bread to the tramps for two hours around the area I live in. In fact it starts in front of my house so there really no excuses for me not participating. Gloria had gone out for dinner with her family and I was waiting for her call to come over to her place. I kept buying special ham and cheese croissants for the tramps as I felt that the other breads were a little dry and they might prefer something more exciting. Eventually Gloria rang me and I went off to her place. Man BBC Radio 2 is a bit wank. Need to change this. There is a guy with a really annoying voice next to me. He has been here as long as elbow mouse man. Will they never leave. Fuck there is not much choice. Soul it is. Anyway we had fun in the lounge before Gloria left and we spent our last time together there. Neither of us slept and then we went to the airport. She got her luggage wrapped up in that useless plastic stuff. Not sure why. Seems a waste of money. Then again I have been travelling forever and never had anything stolen. It was an emotional goodbye for everyone and it would feel very strange afterwards. I had spent a lot of time with her and had many good memories and now she would no longer be there. It would be similar when Praveen went. The flat kind of felt empty. Weird how you develop attachements to people fast, but strange that it was this time they were leaving me and I was staying behind. I came back from the airport half dead and very tired. Praveen had been in Quiebra Canto and met a girl from the coast. They ended up having a quasi relationship, even though she spoke no English and he spoke no Spanish. Indeed he invited Alice to one of their dates to work as a translator.

I was very tired from the airport and slept a fair bit. Spoke to Gloria now she was in Buenos Aires, my future home. Both me and Praveen were very tired. I cooked lunch for me, him and Manuel. I wrote that I don't think I did very much. There was nothing on at the cinema so I just stayed in and slept

The next day we went to Jennifer's class and Praveen taught Hinduism. He was pretty good at it to be fair and had to teach for at least an hour. He had a translator but always gave him way too much to cover. While he was teaching, Jennifer and I were chatting at the back as we had not seen each other in a while. Aires and Avianca are crap and useless. You can't book flights with a credit card from Europe, which is retarded as a lot of their customers will be from there. Stupid people. Actually Aires were ok, but I could not fly to the border. Angelica M came to meet me to do some shopping, but somehow got lost and then never answered her phone. We met some random weirdos in the shit bar as normal as Praveen insisted on sitting with these two girls for drinks. Daniella, Diego and David joined us for drinks afterwards. I went to the toilet and some perra ended up shouting at David. He got shook up and went home. Praveen was still injured from nearly being killed and went back to the flat. Possibly for a tryst. No idea. Of all the girls he had stuff with I only ever met one. The quasi girlfriend. His one night rendezvous' were always secret affairs. The remaining three of us went to Vinacure for the night. Great club. I wanted to go to the Medellin one but after being burnt by Mangos we never went. This one was carnival themed with a stage show every 50 minutes for 10 minutes. The first one was based on little red riding hood and the second on Michael Jackson´s thriller. There was hardly anyone in it, which is a shame. Lot of space to dance. The people were all Colombian though which was a bonus and there were a lot of good looking people too. There was a large group of girls who got approached by three wanker guys who ended up surrounding them and penning them in like an episode of one man and his dog. They did not seem to realise at any point that the girls thought they were repulsive and they had no chance in hell. Took a taxi back home afterwards.

Spurs drew 2-2 with Bolton, coming from behind twice. United almost lost to Sunderland at home though and had to rely on a last minute equaliser. I met the Mexican girl from Cali who had written to me. Had lunch with her and Alice in Kokoriko and then we went to the couchsurfing picnic. We ended up in Parque Virrey in the end. We had some food and mingled as normal with the Bogota core group of couchsurfing (ie we did not mingle at all). Drunken Cesar joined us and Praveen and I had realised he was probably our only proper male friend in Bogota who was actually Colombian. A dog came by and sat down on the bottle of water. I am still laughing, hearing Alice go 'oh no it touched his willy.' So English. But the dog had rubbed its cock on the bottle of water. We were then rather childishly offering this to people and drunken Cesar ended up drinking from it. We played football and somehow one of the guys managed to kick it into the sewage they call a river. Cesar had already fallen in their going for a piss and now it was my turn to fall in while going for a ball I never kicked in there. Dammit. I smelt of sewage and I was off to Cucuta that night on a night bus. We renamed Drunken Cesar as Gollum for hoarding the mate and I think he must hate our nicknames for him lol. I finally confirmed that mora was blackberry in English after months of confusement as to whether it was blackcurrant or blackberry. We met a few more people at the barbecue and then I had cut my finger climbing out of the river bank as well. I took a night bus to Cucuta to meet Iranis and watched the film Taken. It got panned in the reviews but I thought it was a pretty good film. Spoke to my notions of pride and fighting for what you believe in. Watched it in Spanish without subtitles and understood everything. My Spanish was getting there.

I got intermittent sleep on the refrigerator that this bus always is. Why do they think this is the only bus to leave Bogota, where people want to take the freezing cold climate with them. Strange. I arrived earlier than expected in Cucuta. It seems full of strip clubs. Typical border town. The internet girl was phenomenally stunning and there are a lot of good looking girls on the border. Not too smart I think though and they are certainly not used to foreigners down there. Found out that Praveen had slept with some Yankee we had met in the party up in the mountains and that some other Colombian had stayed in my room and complained all the time. Pampered bitch. You should not moan when someone gives you hospitality. Ungrateful. I had missed another party and Praveen was reinforcing his theory lol. I arrived at the hotel and was interrogated as to whether I was who I said I was for Iranis' security. She had arrived before me and it was good to catch up after not seeing each other for 4 months. She had even said she was worried I would not make it and that she had taken comfort from Chavez even though she hates him, because he is Venezuelan and she was alone there. We chatted a lot about different things and walked around town a bit. She helped fix my back with some chiropractic techniques and some reflexology. Was really useful. We ended up sleeping together even though neither of us had planned it. It was a good night, if somewhat unexpected. I am aware this blog is entitled Bogota and I was away in Cucuta, but I would be away for 4 weekends of my last 6 in Bogota in general.

Bogota Week Seven

2009-11-15T12:24:00.000-08:00

Hmm this thing is becoming a monster. I will be close to 100 posts soon, but I feel I have the basis for a book. Maybe cut the chapters into regional sectors. On an aside, why do none of the computers in the fastest internet cafe in the zone have Adobe Flash Player. Do people not like music. One of them did not even have Messenger. Also the fat Ecuadorean with a dodgy moustache next to me keeps touching my elbow with his mouse. He needs to stick to his zone.

I had a Pan Au Chocolat for breakfast and then cooked a vergetarian pasta for lunch. Jennifer came over and joined Praveen and me for lunch. Then we spent the whole afternoon chatting rather than actually teaching any English. Oops an online radio started playing and then this wanker computer decided it did not like Indie music and shut it down. It was a little American middle of the road but still. Hmm trying a rock channel. Anyway Jennifer and me made a deal to go to Australia and New Zealand together and possibly to get married in ten years if both of us are single. Being an evangelical christian she does not want relationships with anyone she might not marry, so we had a fun time talking over future possibilities, but she wants to live in London eventually. We both want to go to Australia and New Zealand around the same time so we figured we could probably go and live there. After the Olympìcs I do want to nail down some French though and go and live in Paris for a year. Maybe road trip a bit of Europe and Africa as well while I am there. Praveen spent the lesson taking the piss out of us, until Jennifer called him a 'sapo'. His Spanish is a bit sucky so they ended up taking the piss out of each other in jest even though they don't have a common language. She recruited Praveen to teach Hinduism to her university class. It was kind of a very serious and very humorous conversation at the same time. Her self confidence is a little low though (which is surprisingly common in Latin America. I think it stems from the lack of trust) so I sent her a message with all of her strong qualities. I don't actually believe she has any negative ones really. Praveen picked up his third woman of six, though I think it was over the weekend. He got depressed, went out, got smashed and found an obliging perra in a bar. That night I went to the language meeting and had the only major argument I had with Gloria. Well in my time in Colombia anyway. She accused me of lying to some degree (which always pisses me off more than anything else) and then said she had read my notebook for this trip the day before and that was why she was pissed off. So that was the reason she was annoyed. She thought I had been seeing other people, which I hadn't. It pissed me off a lot. Not the reading of the book as I put up honestly on here what I am thinking anyway, but the fact that she had lied to me about there being nothing on her mind the day before. That's a major problem with this blog actually. You dredge up old emotions that you thought were dead at the time. Ah music and its guns'n'roses Rocket Queen. Good choice random radio station. Distracted lol. Still trying to persuade Yoana to come down here for a visit. I hate lying. It leaves you with a doubt over everything that person says in the future and is the reason why I won't have people around me who lie in any form. Anyway. We had a disagreement and she was upset and I was pissed. She said that was the day she realised I did not lie. I would have thought my answer to the Mayra question would have given that away. Anyway we argued a bit and I went back and out with Praveen to the shit bar for some soft drinks as neither of us were drinking then. Still felt odd. Like England, but I would be with Tim, Franny or Dan or someone with a pint in Bodegas. The usual place for therapy. Well that and it has some of the best looking barmaids in Watford (which admittedly is not saying much). Anyway he chatted with me for a bit. He said I should either end what we had there and then or continue as normal, but not leave it halfway. Was goodish advice though I ignored it and went with a middle option. I texted Gloria later that night and said don't worry about it and I would still go to hers the next night. Was still a little fuming, but Praveen at least put some of the fire out.

The next day I went for a brunch with Sylvia, from Manuel's university and then met a bunch of her friends for coffee. Was really struggling with the Bucaramanga accent after you get used to the clarity of Bogota. The league cup results came in and I believe this was the day that we beat Doncaster 5-1 or maybe it was the other 5-1 win we had over Preston (I think it was Preston). Either way we beat two shit teams in the cup. I should go to Ibague apparently. I never did. I have written 'how come children can see through bullshit but not adults.' Very true and a worthy question. I assume it was focused on the fact that children and animals can always tell if someone is a good person or not. Yet most adults are retarded when it comes to that. I went to Gloria's house in the evening and we did a photo shoot with her friends and family. Felt a little awkward there as I was not a close enough member of the family group to really be there. Still some Englishness in me no matter how much I try to kill it. They got one of the nephews to dress up in a Star Wars costume, but I think he was a little uncomfortable with it. Yet his mum insisted on getting him to perform for the cameras. He kept running for his dad though. The other nephew was clearly put out by it, because he had dressed up similar before and now he no longer had attention. I think the neice felt a little out of it as well when she had the cloak taken from her. It was when I noticed how good a person Mariann is. She noticed this and worked on cheering up the younger nephew. I tried to chat with the older one and it lightened their mood a little. I think she will make a great mum and had a great character. That's evident by the way she looks after the kids and the way they respond to her. One of the nicer people I have met. Gloria and all of her friends (with that one exception) are all really good people. It is funny though that when I asked her how many men she knew who were always loyal with their girlfriends her answer was one. Pathetic really and then men of Latin America do treat their women really shitly, even if a fair few of them are perras. I went back home and showed Praveen how to play poker in anticipation of a poker session that never happened.

Did not meet Sylvia for breakfast ion the end and Jennifer did not turn up for lessons. Typical Colombia. Many plans. Many cancellations. They don't know the meaning of keeping appointments here and yet sadly its better than most countries. Fucking hell. Now elbow mans girlfriend is leaning her jaw on my shoulder. I feel like shrugging my shoulders. Spurs beat Preston 5-1 so it was the third round. Another good performance and back to winning ways after two defeats. I have cautious optimism now, nearly 2 months later, but then I was flying with confidence for Spurs. We are still fourth. Soon I will have caught my own tail and then it won't be a problem as I can predict without hindsight. This radio is very stop start. Apparently I spent too much money on food. That's the story of my life so hardly needs mentioning. I went to Usaquen to a blues night (which was really soft rock). We talked about her father and the fact that she never got to say goodbye. That's a really shitty position to be in. She had a rough few months. I tried to persuade her that she should go to Australia to carry on the promise she made to him and to live out his dreams for her. It must be hard not to say goodbye. I rang both of my parents the day after, but I still have only had one relative die. I never got to say anything to them either. Hmm feeling melancholy now. This blog is taking my on a rollercoaster of emotions, because I am compressing 3 months of my life into 2-3 days of writing. Very surreal. Will be interesting reading this back in the future and it should provide many people with a solid insight into what kind of person I am and how I think. I ended up in an expensive taxi via Gloria's house and she had written me a letter than my Spanish was not good enough to read. I speak fine, but really can't read or write. That was uncomfortable as I am not good with sentimentality and I don't like owning possession for the simple freedom of not having to worry about losing them. Yet if it is a momento from someone else you have the added pressure of looking after it on a journey where many things get stolen and lost, because it means so more than the general things you carry with you. After this meal I went to Quiebra Canto as Praveen had summoned me and I had the only good night I have ever had there. I met him and David in the club. David agreed with me that it was full of passport hunting bitches. It is by far the worst place in Bogota for these perras. Daniela from Cali and Diego were there as well. They have a strange relationship. I don't think we ever worked out if they were together or not. Its sort of like a strange brother and sister relationship. Something slightly hinting of incest even though they are not related. Both really nice people. Daniella is quite cute and Diego is a nice guy. I would meet them a few more times in Bogota. We danced strangely (well I did) for all of the night and Alexandra turned up, looking and acting very differently. She would end up hooking up with Greg. I don't know why. He was not a great Yankee and more evidence that the coasts (excepting New York and the Pacific Northwest) suck in comparison to the areas in the middle of the US. Praveen got me to ask a dentist to dance as his Spanish still sucked. Seems odd. The night was good fun as we avoided the other people and then we went back home.

Radio is good, but inconsistent. Bit like Aaron Lennon. I had four hours of sleep and then I went to Jennifer's class on religious wars and the history of Protestantism. I could contribute bits and understood all. Being a specialist historian by nature I could offer many opinions and I was trying to get Carolina or Angelica to articulate them for me. Was a good lesson. Then the four of us went out for coffee. It was a fun discussion on religion and protestantism in particular given half the partcicipants were evangelical and the other half Catholic. We got talking on honesty. Jennifer asked if I trusted Angelica. I said yes. Then her. I said yes. Then Carolina. I said I did not know her enough to make that judgment. Angelica said it was a perfect example of my honesty when most people would just have said yes in order not to be awkward. Carolina and Angelica left and then I went for lunch in the Arabic place with Jennifer. We talked a long time about religion, children, marriage and her church. Was a good lunch and very interesting. Then I came back and taught Praveen some more poker. I was a bit knackered so we did not end up going out that night.

I had brunch with Maria as I had not seen her for a while. We went to the Arabic place again as I think I did four straight lunches in that place. Fernanda cancelled that night for a party so we ended up just going for afternoon drinks in the Zona Rosa. We chatted for a fair bit, but she expected me to pay for the cocktails again. Perras. Damn them they are everywhere so I never bothered meeting her again. I came back and all of our five different options were torpedoed in a blaze of cancellations. Impossible you would think. If you were in England you would be right. So Praveen and me played poker and watched Black Adder. Not the most tradtionally exciting of friday nights.

Spurs annihilated Burnley 5-0 at home. Good result and we were back up and charging up the table. Not far off the leaders at this point. Both Chelski and Villa lost which was even better. Liverpool were really beginning to flag at this point and its looking like them, us, Villa and Man City will be battling for the positions from number 4 down to number 7. Top 3 look safe enough, though only Chelsea look locked on after Van Persie got crushed playing for Holland yesterday. I slept in the afternoon. Not sure why. Had not been doing anything. I don't recall going to a dance show. Ah no it was the one opposite my flat which was a breakbeats and breakdancing competition and not bad. I had been having cravings for Pizza Hut (man I miss Nandos) and so we went all the way up north to have some and then met Angelica M for her birthday in Parque 93. Then we went to Candelario for the night. It was a fun night of dancing until we were moved by the bouncer. Praveen asked why but they speak no English, I asked why and did not understand. Then Angelica M asked why and did not understand. Then they said it was because someone said we smelt of sweat. What utter bollocks. We did not smell at all and it made sense why I had not understood what they had said. Fucking idiots. We were clearly moved because some guys took offense that the girls they were with were watching mine and Praveen's dancing than paying attention to them. Oh well. Praveen wanted to go back but instead we ended up dancing elsewhere. We went back to the flat and Angelica M was scared when two guys approached us, but they were clearly tiny and realised the mismatch and their mistake when they got closer.

England cricket success. I believe this was in their ridiculously good run in the ICC trophy despite being total bollocks. Somerset just missed out on the sunday league title. Does anyone have a gun? There is some fuckwit outside making duck noises and he needs to be put out of his misery. I went to Mariann's house and cooked everyone English breakfast with Colombian ingredients. It bore more of a resemblence to Bandeja de Paisa. Gloria, Mariann and some others had gone to visit her dad's ashes in the morning and some bastard had stolen one of the trees they had planted. Some people have no class. The breakfast went really well in general. Was surprised considering I had to cook eight ingredients. I had picked up a head cold somewhere and Gloria came round for the rest of the afternoon. We did not have loads of time together now so were spending a lot of it together. Praveen had to prepare for his interview for the AISEIC position in Porto Alegre and the week was rounded off in a sad note when Tim told me that our friend Karen had drowned in a boating accident off the coast of Vietnam. They were on a cycling trip around the world to raise money for charity. Where is the karma in that one.

Bogota Week Six

2009-11-15T11:22:00.000-08:00

Ah this was the moment I found out my flight had been cancelled. Woohoo. Refund of money that I would end up spending on flights again. It would have been a little less the next time, but the Colombian inability to make plans and decisions and stick to them thwarted this effort. I started a new healthy breakfast regime. I believe that lasted about one week, but I may be being generous there. I spoke to my dad on the phone for the first time in ages. Then I went and had lunch with Jennifer. He cousin had died in a car accident on the saturday night and so she had to go toe funeral rather than have English lessons. That's quite understandable. I really need to write to her actually. Ok just did that. I went to the language meeting in the evening and it was a fun night until the end. Gloria received a phonecall from her mum that her sister had been rushed to the hospital. She was not going to tell me, which is odd. If you are seeing someone you tell them everything normally. I said I would come with her. She seemed surprised, but it really is normal in England. If you are seeing someone or they are a friend you would always go with them to make sure they are ok if they have a problem. We went to the hospital and I was not allowed to enter so I made my way back home. She called me later to say that her sister had had a miscarriage. Terrible news. It must be really rough. It happened to my aunt twice and I know it was really difficult for her. I made it back to the flat to await the phonecall and Praveen dragged me out to join some Brazilians and other Latin Americans for some clubbing close to our flat. We went and joined them and it was a fun half an hour or so before we went back to the flat.

I had a healthy breakfast again and then I was suffering from back problems and I thought I must have a really bad kidney problem. So I booked in to see the doctor again. This is where I got the more detailed hernia advice. Gloria came with me again and it turned out I was fine and that my bed was just crap and destroying my back. This doctor's appointment actually happened three days later but who cares I am covering it now. He suggested that I take painkilling injections and pills. They take medication for fucking everything here. Its why Jennifer said English doctors are racist because they don't give antibiotics to Latins for colds. I pointed out they don't give them to anyone. In fact the doctors in England will never precribe medication for something that can be handled by rest. I ignored his advice. If it was just my bed I could fix it by changing my sleeping position. Gloria had suggested I get her sister to have a look at my back, but I did not want to bother her after a miscarriage. What do you say. 'Hey I know you just lost a baby, but I have some small back pains. Can you check them for me.' It was far too insignifcant to trouble her with. I do miss the NHS the more I am away from it. Its so much nicer not to have to pay.

That afternoon I headed out to join Adriana for a coffee. We had long philosophical conversations as normal and she invited me to go to a reggae gig on the friday of that week. I concluded that people have to stop attacking capitalism and democracy. In both systems you get what you deserve and subsequently we and not the corporations or governments are to blame. If we are apathetic, don't vote or worse vote for an idiot then we get the government we deserve. If you really care that much, stop complaining, get up off your arse and stump, campaign or run for office. The same goes for capitalism. Are Coca Cola really evil for selling us their products. Don't they just sell us what we want. If nobody bought their drinks because they had too many artificial flavorings would they still be made. Of course not. They supply the market. They are a slave to the market. We are the market. Therefore they are a slave to us. Therefore it is our fault as bad masters if they produce crap stuff. If nobody wanted it they would not make it. They make it. Therefore people want it. Blame the people. Educate them, campaign if you must, but put the blame where it belongs. On us. This excuse ridden culture covers up the fact that we are ultimately responsible for what happens around us and generally if your life is shit, its your fault. Nobody elses. Get up, be counted and change it. Obama said 'we are the change we believe in.' That is bang on, because only we can change our circumstance. Stop looking for someone to fix what ails you and have some ownership of your problems and your life. Personally I think both systems are very good. All we need is a better education level. I bumped into this slaggy friend of the complete bitch from last time in Bogota. She did not remember me. Good as she is a gringo hunting bitch. I went to Gloria's house in the evening and we chilled out watching District 13 (Most of it was in English, but we had to watch two parts in Portuguese. It felt like I was drunk again). Praveen was supposed to go clubbing with the Brazilians and so was I. He did not bother in the end and neither did I, as I spent time with Gloria instead.

I woke up in the afternoon after a long day. There is apparently a sequel to District 13 called District 13: Ultimatum. Have to watch that some time. This youtube is pissing me off. Gods it takes ages to write all this when you keep getting sidetracked. I could not watch or buy Lost. I still need to see series 5. I love that program. Gloria came over and the guard lied to her, saying he had called us when he hadn't. He was beginning to piss me off. I wrote 'cock' in my book. I ended up having a longer conversation than I would have liked about extreme rollerblading in urban environments with Manuel. This was the night that we had a problem with the condom slipping. Maligno. It was off to Profamilia in the morning, because they for some reason don't sell the morning after pill in shops here. Though Alice (ever the feminist lol) informed me that they do. Research pays off apparently. We ended up chatting about our potential Australian kid. Was quite a fun time. Also slightly scary, but it brought parenthood to a focus. I concluded that I was sufficiently mature and ready to have a kid if needs be, but that I did not particularly want one now with all my travelling to do. I also thought it would be better to have the kid in the US as then it would have the strongest two passports.

In the morning I met Gloria at profamilia bus station. At least I now knew why it was called that. It took me 40 minutes to get there by bus. Never mind the fact I can walk it comfortably in 25 minutes. Fucking transmilenio. Bane of my existence. Hmm ok so they have budgetary restraints, but it must be a little embarassing to have group sessions for advice to the women who come in. I was sat in a room with 10 women and a specialist discussing their health problems. Ok I don't speak amazing Spanish, but that must be embarassing for them. Some wanted their ovaries removed to prevent cancer, some had pregnancy issues with their boyfriends, some were surprisingly young to want this surgery. We then got a lecture about 15,000 different types of contraception and preventative measures. Was quite educational, what I understood about it. Apparently there is a chip you can put in your arm that works as a contraceptive for 5 years. What the fuck kind of Terminatoresque thing is that. Become a cyborg and avoid pregnancy. How does that thing even work? I have no idea. There were some other strange things. I hate anything artificial anywhere near my body. My body keeps chucking out my only filling. Its a little xenophobic towards foreign objects. Probably the reason I don't like piercings, tattoos or jewelry on myself or others generally. Anyway after a 20 minute lecture we were given a ticket to see the main reception. There we queued to be given a ticket to see a doctor. So what the fuck was the point of the first part again. I thought that was the doctor. Nope we queued for half an hour even though there was noone else there and then Gloria saw a doctor. He gave us a ticket to see reception again and finally they gave us a ticket to buy the pill. Fucking hell. Read this and tell me the NHS is not miles better and we don't even pay for it. Gloria came to mine and cooked a good breakfast before I went off to the doctors. Oh yeah my cyst is fine as well. Good to know. Gloria was nauseous from the pill and so I took a taxi with her to her place. Then I had to dash back to teach Jennifer, but she missed the classes due to phone problems. Was a chaotic rush, but I had to make sure Gloria was ok. I met Angelica M for dinner and we went to Gato Greis for drinks. Then we had some weird Egyptian tea. It was a fun night of random conversation. We concluded she was in fact an armadillo that lived underground, but that she had a drug problem and subsequently had caught armadillo aids from sharing needles. All this stemmed from the fact that apparently drinking armadillo blood is a cure of some sort for Asthma. I ended up having a one hour chat with the guards to clarify my friends were not prostitutes and I don't use drugs. I was going to tear into them, but my new found maturity suggested diplomacy was a better tactic and it worked sort of as we ended up chatting about cooking and recipes for many hours. We both agreed French cheese was the best and left it at that. I think my charm is superior to my anger, but its nice to know I have both for when I need them.

My wounds were pretty much healed by now. I had lunch with Carolina and Angelica. Carolina did not like my theory on paying. I stated that most Latin women who expect you to pay for everything are bitches and that most decent girls pay 50-50. She said it was tradition there. I still maintain and David agrees, that all of our good Colombian friends pay their own way. That is the only way to know they are interested in you and not your money and a fast way to flush the 'putas que quieren las pasaportes de los Gringos' (Snappy I know. It means the whores who want the passports of the Gringos or foreigners). Passport hunting bitches is a bit snappier. We had a spiceless Mexican. Here in Colombia they have identical food to the actual countries. The only difference is they subtract the spice as they hate both spicey food and rich sources here. Its an Achilles Heel for people who actually like good food. They gave Praveen another Spanish lesson on top of the one I had given him, but frankly he just never bothered to try. I met up with Adriana and we went to a cafe and then for some more Mexican food. We went to the reggae gig (Thank God not salsa) and did some crazy dancing. I did capoeira/hip hop and she did hip hop/yoga dancing. The whole club did not know what to make of it, watched us a lot and then danced salsa, because its the only goddamn dance they know how to do. Its not important the music. With salsa, they dance salsa, with electronica they dance salsa, with reggae they dance salsa. For fucksake. Its goddamn reggae. Dance it. I know it does not have any rules, but sometimes you just have to be spontaneous or creative. There were a lot of very hot girls in the reggae concert. It was a benefit concert. Which we did not know and everyone kept thanking us for coming until they realised we did not know what they were talking about. I had to leave early and walk to Candelario to join Praveen and Gloria etc for Jaime's leaving do. Everyone was drunk except Mariann (who does not drink). I kept saying excuse me, but the drunken fools still stood in my way so I started just throwing them into the walls if they did not move. Gloria was wankered and Praveen was completely plastered. I stayed and danced till the end, although it was shitty salsa and then we went home.

I stayed in an internet cafe as Liverpool and Arsenal won. Not sure why I did that, but apparently I did it. I wrote it. It must be true. We went to Gloria's house for her leaving barbecue. There I met the Texan guy Justin. Cool guy and he had done the CELTA before the same as David. I would only see him once more though and that would be at my leaving do. The barbecue was good, though Praveen seemed to have got me into trouble somehow. Iranis rang me. She could not make it to Bogota to stay as she had been accused of kidnapping someone. She had had her mobile phone stolen and then the person who stole it had used it to phone in a ransom request. She had reported the theft, but Chavez's system of government is not known for efficiency. So she had to be investigated as a kidnapper. We arranged instead that we could meet up at the border in Cucuta as we had planned to meet up from the time I was in the Amazon. We planned a fancy dress night for Alice's birthday and Praveen's leaving do, but this did not happen because Colombians are scared of looking foolish. Us English have never suffered from that problem. Its just in our genes to look foolish, intentional or no. We went to Changos and Gloria was really upset, because one of her friends (who is a total bitch) had laid into her on her leaving do and insulted her many times. I spent half an hour talking to her and quelling her fears, before insisting that she should enjoy her leaving do with her friends as you don't realise quite how strange it is not to see them again until you actually leave. I have been gone over 15 months now and I don't think either me or my friends fully realised the implications of my trip before I left and the leaving do may have been a little different if we had known. She ended up enjoying her night with her friends and I was happy for her as its a rough time leaving and then she came and stayed at mine.

I got up and made breakfast and when I came back Gloria was funny with me. She said the milk was cold and they prefer warm milk on their cereal here which is odd. I knew something else was bothering her but did not know what. I would find out the next day. She left seemingly a little cold. I watched Spurs get smashed 3-0 by Chelsea with Manuel and Praveen. Bassong was seemingly killed, but it turned out to be less serious than feared. Shitty. We really need to win the next four games. We didn't. Bassong hit his head so hard on the turf he actually caused a power cut in Bogota. Or maybe the tv could not take any more of our performance. I then went to watch 'Taking of Pelham 123' which was an enjoyable enough film. I have missed so much quality in the cinema this year through travelling. I came back and went for pizza with Manuel. He told me about his money problems and I suspect he stole at least 50-100,000 pesos off me in my time there as I don't make mistakes adding up (former maths teacher) and I was short a few times. Praveen even saw him in my room one day. I met his drug dealer mate and while we were waiting for him I had got chatting with a girl Fernanda from Bucaramanga in the street and she wanted to join us for some partying the week after.

Bogota Week Five

2009-11-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

Time for some change of pace. Will write all of these entries to the music of Guns and Roses Live in Tokyo 1992. Should provide some cool firepower for the words. Attempting a mammoth session to cover my remaining time in my second home. Just learnt Praveen is being a demon over in Delhi. Four women in four nights. By the time I finish my trip I will probably have to write a book only about his exploits.

Anyway that monday I found out about the British Council. They had received my money and due to two bank holidays, the course would run over until the tuesday. My visa was to run out on the wednesday if they gave me what I wanted and that was not certain yet. Was going to be a careening, rollocking, regal ride to the border. I found out Praveen had a hidden girlfriend or at least thats what I thought. Instead he was seeing this girl who was Colombian, but mental. She had snuck into a temple in India and observed one of the Gurus demonstrating the Karma Sutra with his wife. She had observed five things, but when applied together they can be fatal. She was not aware of this and had managed to knock out one of her boyfriends in Colombia. She had then proceeded to nearly kill Praveen by applying five at once and it was only his superior yoga skills that prevented me from finding a dead housemate in my house. Damn this fucking slow youtube. Why can't this country have a real speed internet. The owner was mostly naked apparently. I don't remember that, but maybe this was the night she said I needed to find her a foreign boyfriend. Praveen believed she meant me, but I figured differently. Well at least I was not going to satisfy that wish if she had it. Ghana and Brazil qualified for the World Cup. Alice apparently went south and taught kids. I have no idea what the hell that means. I know she got lost once and ventured into the southern parts of Bogota. Brave girl. Though David tells me there are some cool bars down there. I bought a Lope De Vega play to practice my Spanish. He is my favourite playwright but its rock hard in Spanish as its Shakespearean equivalent Spanish and very difficult. Gloria stayed over again and asked me about Mayra staying. She had asked me if I still liked her. I said that's difficult to know after four months and then she asked would I sleep with her if she wanted and I said yes. I think that level of honesty took her by surprise as Latin guys are generally not that honest, but I won't lie ever to a direct question. For some strange reason she still apparently did not trust me at that point. It was weird that even though we were never in a commited relationship officially we never ended up seeing anyone else during the time we were together. I had liked Mayra a lot when I met her the first time, but you never know after four months how you will feel for someone. I always say though that my honesty is brutal at times. For good and for bad you will always get an honest answer out of me. Its salving for the soul and I honestly believe that if I tell one lie I cease to exist as it is such a fundamental and integral part of my character. You stand and fall by what you believe in. What you believe defined who you are and whether you deliver on your beliefs defines your confidence and what sort of person you are. I believe it was Alexander Hamilton who said 'A man who stands for nothing, will fall for anything.'

The next day I rested all day long as I was still buggered. The medication had not fixed it so I went to see a doctor that Leonardo had recommended to Gloria. He told me that I hate acute tonsilitis and a minor hernia. Which I had forgotten I had until now. Damn diary. I did not find out anything about it this time as I did not know what a hernia was exactly, even though I had witnessed a hernia operation in Tijuana. A bit of foreshadowing perhaps. I ended up seeing the doctor again so I may as well cover off my health here and now. I do apparently have a minor hernia near my belly button. It is very minor and so minor I could even play rugby with no problem. The only thing I can't do is lift heavy weights. Oh well. I may have the same size hands as Arnie, but it looks like the opportunity to follow in his footsteps as Mister Universe has passed me by. Scrap that one from the list of aims. Still I don't like having one, but the operational risk is not really worth it. Not till I am back in the UK and it is free anyway. Apparently I have also shrunk, but then maybe my original conversation of feet and inches into metres was just someway off. Gloria came over and we were both relieved that at least it was not Herpes. Damn my sister. She thinks everything is a sexually transmitted disease. If you sneeze she probably thinks you have AIDS. I ended up meeting Angelica from Manizales (from now on Angelica M to avoid confusion) for dinner. Everyone in Colombia has a name beginning with A if you had not noticed this and even my English friend Alice added to that list. I think by the end of my time in Colombia I had a phone list for A's that could have wallpapered the Taj Mahal. We went for a few drinks as well and was a nice time.

Jennifer cancelled her lessons as she was not well and neither was I to be fair. I did nothing much that day. I am a very bad sick person. Constantly moping around. I think active people suck as patients, precisely because we lack patience. I watched most of Fast and the Furious 4 with Praveen (which was mostly cack) and then Mayra arrived. She had been late due to taxi problems and I feared that she may have had something happen to her and her luggage around the glorious area that is Las Aguas. She seems to be the only one of my friends the security guards did not acuse of being a prostitute. Maybe the suitcase helped. She would have to be a special interest prostitute to arrive with all that stuff. We grabbed a late night arepa (always a harrowing experience and one I passed) and then we stayed up chatting. I had watched the football with Camila that day as well. Seemingly I have missed this and should really move it to its proper place, but I am too lazy. Colombia lost anyway and I think it was against Uruguay, who pipped them by one point and won their first leg 1-0 against Costa Rica last night.

We got out and I spent the day hanging with Mayra. We went to the Museo del Oro. First time I had been there. I have no interest whatsoever in jewelry and gold, but it is actually quite an interesting museum. I still maintain Museo de Antioquea is the best in Colombia, but this one is good. In the evening we went up Montserrate for my third time, but the first time I had seen it at night. Its very pretty up there, but neither of us are the most comfortable with heights. Mayra showered and left. She somehow managed to leave her underwear on my bedpost. This would cause me grief and mysteries as I thought my psychological abilities enabled me to understand most people, but this one stumped me. Jennifer found the underwear a couple of days later and it was difficult to persuade her that nothing had happened. Dammit people just don't believe honesty here. Praveen backed me up though. Gloria believed that Mayra left them there on purpose, which is a theory that someone else supported. Can't remember who though. That its a Latin thing and its kind of to indicate that I can't have her and to remind me of her, which is the most mental thing I have ever heard of. Firstly a pair of pants is not going to indicate you can't have someone, secondly you either think of people or not, but normally you think less about someone you don't have anything with. Also I have a very c'est la vie attitude (bad attempt at French) to life and if I am with someone, I am with them. If I am not with someone, I am not with someone. If she had wanted me she could have had me and if she didn't want me, oh well it won't be the first or the last lol. I am not too sentimental and I don't think about things I can't control. If something bothers me and I can fix it, I fix it. If I can't, I don't stress about it lol. Which brings me onto an even weirder story with David and a girl he was dating. He had taken her out a few times and they were in a bar. A guy asked if he could dance with her. David said yes and then she ended up kissing the guy in front of him. Fucking odd. Apparently some Latin women do that to make the guy like them more. Apparently some latin women are fucking mental. In what world do you see your girlfriend kiss another guy and then you think, 'You know what I really want her now.' Normally I think she is a 'perra' (bitch) and get rid of her. As Lope De Vega said 600 years ago (or was it Marquez) 'If a woman tries to make you jealous by flirting with another man, punish him by letting him have her.' That holds very true. If there are any latin women who think this is a good idea with European or North American men then they are nuts. Apparently they would feel stupid the next day. I think they were feeling stupid from the moment they took that decision. Oh well. Gloria wanted me to mail the pants back to Mayra, but I did not see the point of wasting money on a stamp. That evening I went to Julian's place for one of Gloria's leaving dos. It was a nice gathering and the group were nice people. Praveen and I walked home afterwards and finished off the film. Its a shame I never got to say goodbye to Julian and a few other people, but I never ventured to the English language meeting for the last two weeks as me and Gloria were having a bit of a conflict and I was not sure if I would have been welcome there or not, given that the cafe is owned by a good friend of hers.

I did nothing much in the day again. Ah the energy of a sick man. Then in the evening I went to a salsa place with Gloria, Pablo (Argentine guy), Mariann (Gloria's friend) and Praveen. I fucking hate salsa. I have danced it once in Villeta since and Lina reckons I can dance it well, but that still does not make me like it. There was some cool African dancing and Gloria and I did some ramdom bump and grind stuff to that. Pablo ended up hooking up with Mariann and Praveen was left alone. Gloria and me left early for my place and had a good time despite me being super sick, before she took a taxi back with Pablo. The guard said no more women were allowed in the building and yet Praveen was still bringing back all of his clandestine girlfriends. He had managed to extent his time in Colombia until the 21st of October and I think this is the time when he began his spree.

Spurs suffered their first defeat of the season when we lost 3-1 to Manchester United despite taking the lead in the first minute. Dammit, there go the title aspirations. I tried to sneak into the hostel to watch it again, but instead they were watching Batman. I went out with Praveen to buy a load of stuff and that night we were due to go to a party at Candelario. Praveen had invited Xiomara to the flat again, but in the end they met at the shit bar. I said I needed to rest a bit first and then proceeded to sleep through the entire night and miss the party. I woke up around 3am when Praveen came back. Shitty. I was still healing slowly. Apparently it was an awesome party and it was here that Praveen began to state that he always had a better time when I was not with him. I think he was kind of joking, but then again he can't have his clandestine trists if me or Alice are there. I had to get some books for my course, but was struggling to find them. In the end I borrowed them from the library of the course centre but quite late on.

On the sunday I could not meet Jenny as her boyfriend was going to the jazz again and these latin men and women are very jealous. Probably because a large chunk of them are unfaithful. Praveen and David insist that all Colombian women can't be trusted. I have found myself alone defending Colombian women against foreign guys. I maintain there are a fair few ´perras´and I make it around 10% or so, but they are a large perecentage of those in the clubs. Especially the traditional Gringo clubs. Most of the best girls don't go clubbing, though some do and I had two good relationships in Colombia, in which I believe the women were faithful so I have never had someone cheat on me yet there. Cristina, who I stayed with in Peru contacted me as she was coming to Colombia, but she ended up in Medellin and we never got to meet. Agus and Geli spoke with me for quite some time and we did some catching up. We were still trying to arrange the Patagonia trip and it looks like Geli is off to my country after Canada proved what a giant bunch of fuckwits they are. They changed the visa requirements a day before Geli and Sergio were going to Canada. Then they proceeded to slap a financial requirement that they failed due to an exchange rate shift of around $1.50 I think. What a bunch of morons. Then again I am not the biggest fan of Canada. Cold place, cold people, strange people. They are very nice people though. It is a poor man's America and a bigger, colder England. I met Alice at Jazz in the Park and we chilled there talking about the party and family. Gloria joined us and my mangled face was sufficiently healed to kiss again. Thank God. I had missed that. My tongue is by far the best part of my body and not being able to use it was a tragedy of Athenian proportions. I stayed for most of the jazz and it started to rain so they sold us some plastic stuff. It had no arm sleeves and appeared for kids as it just had a hood you hooked over your head. It was thoroughly useless and in the end we just used them to sit on to avoid getting a wet arse. I was planning a trip. Not sure where to or what, but apparently I was planning one. Maybe my sojourn to the Zona Cafetera.

Bogota Week Four

2009-11-14T13:17:00.000-08:00

Ok I have made seven entries today and this one should be the last. It looks like I will have dragged my blog upto only 2 months out of date more or less. If I stay here tomorrow I will try to smash it most of the way through Bogota. My aim is to catch my tail by the end of november at the latest. Anyway, week four.

I started my week by having lunch with Jennifer. She was a very hot teacher and a professor at Rosario. She had wanted some English classes and Angelica had suggested I teach her. She volunteerd to pay me, but I said I would teach for free. A one hour lunch became four hours as we discussd various things. I had to speak in Spanish naturally and it was good practice for me. She believed I was a 'gift from God' as she needed the language practice and did not have much time. I am just more of a believer in coincidence. I met Andrea and Cesar early for some language practice before the meeting and ended up welcoming some Aussies to the meeting, which was useful for Gloria and Julian. We walked Andrea back and agreed to have lunch on the friday. We ended up with some crap chicken dinner after I had walked Gloria to the station and then we took a taxi back home. At this point Alice was getting hassled by most of the Colombian men and had had her bottle of rum incident, but it was difficult for her to shake them.

Spurs signed Niko Krancjar on he last day of the transfer window and that was some very good business at the price. My friend from Cali Paola was in town and we tried to arrange to meet u as she had finally decided to head to England and her friend was no longer going with her. I went and did lots of shopping in uselss places with Praveen, but managed to buy some badly neeeded new clothes. The crap transport meant I was late for meeting Gloria at the cinema. She was also a little late and wanted to see the earlier showing, but I hate missing the start of films. We went to watch the John Dillinger film 'Public Enemies' which was pretty good and we postponed her coming to mine as she had her period. Crap public transport had cost me again. Praveen had meanwhile gone out for an Indian with Alice and he claims the friday night previous as the turning point for him whn he started to go a little crazy with the Colombian girls. He would end up sleeping with six girls in 2 months which is quite a few. We had gone to Bogota Beer Company before the film and I had had a Leffe. Great to have one again even if it was nearly twice the price than in London. I found out Xiomara was going to apply for Gloria's job, which was awkward but I opted not to say anything. That would come back to haunt me a bit. Also Jenny was coming over for dinner that week and Praveen decided it would be a good idea to invite Xiomara to the flat. That was insane and clearly not a very smart decision. Was going to end up in one of those awful comedy situations where everyone arrives at the same time and has stuff they don't want known by other people. That night the washing machine went completely mental and sounded like it was going to blow up. Praveen ended up having to attacj it and shut the whole damn thing down.

We got our new housemate Manuel. A Colombian guy who studied at the nearby university. Hmm I did not remember that he joined us so early. He brought a girl back or Praveen did. Not sure which. I cooked lunch for the girls from Los Andes and they tried to persuade me that I should come to their graduation in Andres Carne de Res, but I insisted that I already had plans to go to Gloria's leaving do and subsequently would not be able to make it. They told me I should cancel my plans, but not being Colombian I refused. They cancelled the plans for Andres that we had had for that saturday as thy had to go away. I got a haircut, which means its well over two months since I last cut it. Still torn between cutting it or letting it grow longer still. Damn French have scored. Come on Ireland. Come on Bosnia. I met up with Paola and Luis Betancourt (the kind of head of couchsurfing Bogota) and they came to the flat before we went for drinks. They went to do aguaspanelitas for the homeless people, but I failed to make it that week as I had to go and see Adriana after missing her last time. I went with her to a Mexican and then we had a really interesting conversation. She is half Colombian, half Yankee and a yoga instructor. I went back to the flat and had some cereal. For some reason that fact is deemed interesting enough for it to have made the blog.

I met Jennifer and taught her for four hours after cooking lunch. I also got a phonecall from Alice's flatmate who wanted me to teach English for her. She was somewhat pushy and psycho. She wanted me to confirm if I could teach without any of the details. I asked her to e-mail them to me and she just went mental and ended up hanging up. She ended up getting Alice to teach cowboy style for her in an IELTS preparation for which she had no training. The family ended up sacking her and last I heard they were sueing the cowboy company for their money back and Alice's housemate was asking her to lie. I advised her as a foreigner it was just safer staying away from it all. Jenny came over later and we went for a long walk in search of a jazz or blues club. We never found one, but got to see a lot of Bogota near where Alice lives. Nice architecture around there. Jenny stayed over at mine as a friend and I found out that Mayra was coming to stay with me the week afterwards when she got back to Bogota.

The bank and the British Council were still shit and still no responding to my e-mails. The bank eventually changed my postal address and I found out I could not contact the British Council, because the person who was my point of contact had left and nobody had informed me of this. I had not got much sleep lately and was completely knackered. Of course when I wrote that I did not realise I was about to be whalloped by tonsilitis. I went to Andrea's place to teach her and Daniel some English. They did not have the correct coursebooks and it was not a resounding success. We walked her dogs first and then she cooked me lunch. My damn phone died and she had to give me a new chip so I could continue with what I had planned for the day. We met a guy named Cesar who Praveen knew (he invited us to a party on the saturday) and a Peruvian and Venezuelan girl for drinks in the Bogota Beer Company. Afterwards we joined Jamie, two Yanks and a random Austrian guy in the shit bar. There were also two shitty bint Colombian women who were interested in me. One asked what I look for in a woman. I gave her my qualities. She said she had none. I said I was not surprised. Still she kept trying it on until w got rid of them and we went with Jamie to some shit reggae bar with a random Belgian. It was crap so we left to go to Candelario for the first time. One of the Yanks lost their coat and we clubbed until the end although at this point I was starting to suffer.

I got about six hours sleep and went for lunch at Angelica's house. I had Ajiaco which is probably the best of Colombian dishes. Though I hate patacones and arepas so I was always going to be cutting down the competition for dishes. I was starting to get ulcers and blistering around my mouth as the tonsilitis kicked in. My sister thought it was herpes but that was struck down by the doctor. Colombia won in a qualifier. I think that one was against Ecuador. So thy were still in he hunt for the World Cup. Looks like Ireland will lose the first leg 1-0. We went to a house party where we met some cool people, but the Los Andes lot suck even if the house party was moderately ok. By this point I was completely fucked health wise and I headed home to try and sleep off whatever was hammering me. Praveen went to the shit bar with Alice and thats where they had a massive argument revolving around feminism and saw the crazy Yank again.

I cancelled everything on sunday. I was completely buggered. My tonsils were like gold balls again and I could barely swallow anything. My throat was on fire. So began my long break from drinking alcohol as well. I thought maybe the allergy had got stronger and Gloria brought me some medication to repair my throat. She was always incredibly good to me when I was completely sidelined with this. I wrote I need to desist from drinking and that hopefully the medication would work. Gloria stayed over for the afternoon and the guard said 'otra' when she entered. Bastard. It was the start of a long running war with my guards. They accused me of using drugs and prostitutes to the landlady. Which is bollocks. Manuel was the only one using drugs when he was smoking weed and Praveen brought back way more women than me, bu seemingly my country stereotype was coming before me. On the plus side I solved the last political issue that had been causing me problems in a delirious bout of fever. I knew exactly where I stood on everything except abortion. I considered it murder, but felt it should always be legal, but thats hard to square. Then I figured it comes down to persona choice. Whether people believe abortion is murder or not comes from their idea of when life begins. If you think it begins at conception it is obviously murder, but if you don't then you will struggle to see what conflict there can be. This is a matter of opinion not fact and therefore each person should be free to make he decision on abortion as to their own beliefs and then it can quite comfortably be legal without any moral conflict. And so ended my fourth week in a whirlwind of delirium.

Bogota Week Three

2009-11-14T12:22:00.000-08:00

Week three started with a trip up Montserrate with Hannah. I had been up there before with Dom when I was last in Bogota. We went walking through the woods at the back which was cool as had not been to that part before. Looked around the monastery and enjoyed the views of Bogota from the top. We went with Praveen to a vegetarian restaurant for lucnh, which he had found. Quite good stuff. We went early to the language meeting and met Cesar (not drunken Cesar). He had wanted to practice more English. We were drinking and chatting English for most of the night. I got Praveen to join couchsurfing. Sorted out some stuff for Gloria. Don-t really remember what that was and then I went to the shit bar with Hannah, Lenin, Cesar and Praveen. There was a dude from Cali who was eventually kicked out for stealing and trying to sell cocaine. He was hitting on Hannah loads so we pretended to be in a relationship. It annoyed the Cali man, but the old man said we made a great couple and when were we planning on getting married. There was also a weird crack addict woman who was missing all of her teeth. She took a shine to me and so was pissy with Hannah and ended up spitting beer all over her back twice. Hannah had thought that she had thrown the liquid, but I pointed out in fact that she had spat it all over her. Another crazy night in the shit bar.

I wrote I can't drink beer anymore, but I think that refers to Praveen. His father caught a photo of him with beer on facebook and banned him from drinking. This position would change in the future but for now he can't drink. I went and had lunch with Angelica in McDonalds as we started to become good friends and could practice our Spanglish. I spent a long time online and then met Camila later for drinks close to Los Andes. Hannah, Praveen and Jenny joined us as we headed to the rock bar. Its a shame Jenny had a boyfriend as we both enjoyed our time together and agreed it was frustrating to spend time together but not be able to do anything. Rock bar was cool and then we ended up in Gato Greis for some drinks.

Hannah went with Praveen in the morning to Uribe's Palace and to have a look around the downtown of Bogota. I then went and bought the food and we went to Alexandra's place. I cooked for her, her housemates, Hannah, Praveen, me and David. It was th first time I had met David, but he would go on to become one of my better friends in Bogota as well. Funny how you don't realise these things when you are keeping your diary. We then went to th shit bar afterwards and clubbing in Quiebra Canto. I was supposed to meet Alejandra there but we ended up missing each other and that bar is still as shit as it was when I went with Dom. I still maintain its a crappy little bar with bitches who go there only to hunt for foreigners and I have still only had one good night there. Praveen likes it though. We went back to the shit bar and drank there for the rest of the night, though it lacked its usual crazy clientele.

I met Hannah for breakfast and then had lunch with the lawyer Alejandra who I had missed the night before. Afterwards I met Angelica (a girl from Los Andes) and her friend for some afternoon cocktails. Was a lot of jetting around that day. I don't really like the Los Andes set that much. My housemate said they walk in the clouds. I don't believe they live in the reality and Praveen just reckons they are a load of bitches. Take your pick. Lots of money, no sense. They told me I should go to Andres Carne de Res. Praveen hated it when he went and I still maintain it is likely to be very similar to Mangos in Medellin and therefor quite shit. Ireland are hanging on 0-0 with France at halftime. I went with Hannah afterwards to buy an adaptor plug because she spoke no Spanish. Not that I knew what adaptor plug was in Spanish anyway. Afterwards I met Gloria (long day and the cocktail at lunchtime explains why I was tired. I had forgotten that) and we went to see 'Los Demonios' by Dostoyevsky. That's hard work in Spanish. It was killing me about halfway in but I got the overall plot, even if I did miss a lot of the details. Still it was brave first effort. Will have to go and see some more plays in Buenos Aires. i was liking Gloria quite a lot at this time and we went afterwards to the Alice in Wonderland bar, but she had to go home as she was working the next day. Ah I forgot. We had gone for dinner at the famous Italian restaurant where a crazy Colombian war veteran had executed a load of customers after killing his mother, a student and I believe her mother as well.

I woke up in the afternoon. I think the long day and the Spanish had taken quite a lot out of me. Gone to the crap bar I wrote. Maybe I went there with Praveen afterwards. Not sure. Was meeting Jenny the day after. I went for drinks with Angelica and some of her coursemates in the early evening Was about 20 of us. Found a guy who wants to study in England and only later told me he was half English. I told him he should get an English passport, but his mother had never remained in contact with his father and so it would be difficult. There was a very pretty girl there, but Angelica reckons she looks like she is made of porcelain and far too young for me lol. We met up with Gloria and Alice came along when we went to a weird bar to meet the girl from Cali. I never did end up meeting her. We had plans for an all nighter that night. The bar was strange, in Chapinero and had a space theme. The music was weird spacey techno and lots of people were dressed up accordingly. We ended up getting into a drinking competition which Praveen instigated and I danced with Gloria. Praveen says it is less dancing and more two positions of the Karma Sutra, but we ended up hooking up and went back to my place instead of going on to other bars. That was the first time me and Gloria got together. Ah yeah Gloria left at 5am and the cocksucking guard would not call her a taxi. Forgot that.

Spurs won again the next day with a last minute winner against Birmingham but we lost Luka Modric to injury and he as yet has not played for us again. It was a bigt blow losing our best player and playmaker to a rash and loose challenge. I had lunch with Jenny and Alice (I have no recollection of that lunch at all). Then we went to the train bar for cheese and chocolate (ah now I do). I went to Gato Greis with Jenny and it was a good afternoon just chilling. That evening Praveen and I went to a house party. Another Bogota gripe. The stupid transversal system with its damn red crosses. In order to harmonise Bogota's road systems they renumbered a lot of the streets, esepcially the diagonal ones, but they did not remove the old numbers. Instead the old ones exist with a red cross and the new ones without it. Ridiculous system that mans you always get lost whenever you visit anyone who lives in one o the transversal areas. The house party was at Luisa's house and there was a lot of karaoke and a reggae band. We were trying to guess which band member Maria liked, but by the end of the night she managed to get her man. Praveen and I had been trying to guess if he liked her, but the attention instead convinced him that we were gay. He was a bit of a dick in the end though and seems to believe the whole world was in love with him, be they men or women.

On sunday I grabbed lunch with Hannah before she left for the coast. Then I was supposed to go to Leonardo's to teach him English. I got back to the building and got stuck in the fucking lift. Fucking hell. It was stuck between the fifth and sixth floors and it took them ages to get me out of the damn thing. Ah fuck Portugal scored. I had to leap between the gaps in the floors once they crowbarred it open and I still had all sorts of images from Final Destination flashing through my mind. Eventually once I was free I went to teach Leonardo some English and due to all sorts of transport problems and mistakes we were very late getting to Gloria's place. There I cooked Chinese pork and cabbage soup again, but it did not come off quite right. It was weird as I had to pretend nothing happened on the wednesday. Afterwards I went back to the flat and had a weird lump on my neck and head. I am guessing that was the beginnings of the genesis of the proper outbreak of tonsilitis and my bad health spree.

Bogota Week Two

2009-11-14T11:34:00.000-08:00

I began week two by introducing Praveen to Pain-Au-Chocolat. He had never had one before. We went to the little cafe that I would go to many times for breakfast until I got sick and decided to eat more fruit for breakfast. Walking late at night I decided it is safer to carry round a glass bottle of Postobon. That way you can whack anyone who attacks you. I was told there were buses only as far as calle 146 by the stupid guard even though they go further. Maybe this time it was my fault, but not normally. I met Alexandra outside of one of the shopping centres where they were doing a random test on the suspension of the new Toyota jeep thing. We went off to Chia for the day. Nice little town north of Bogota. Its famous for Andre's Carne de Res which I never actually went to visit in the end. I did not visit much touristy stuff in Bogota. Must be a legacy of living in a city. Never did much touristy stuff in London either. Its a nice colonial town and we ended up in the commercial centre where we saw an Israeli version of the band stomp performing live. They have dinosaur skeletons in the shopping centre. Interesting. She had been married to a Dutch guy for a year though it ended badly and he sounds like a dick. A lot of the European guys in Colombia sound like dicks and seem to treat the women differently there than they ever would in their own country. A Colombian friend of mine said the North Americans and Europeans often seem to have s superiority complex. Wonder if it is a legacy from the days of colonialism. Either way its plain wrong. Was still waiting to see what Lucia wanted to do. We ended up going to her flat and having cheese and jam toasties with her mum. I got a bus back to shady Jimenez, bought me a bottle of postobon and some classic English chip shop style chips and chatted with Praveen.

I had breakfast and then a long lunch with Angelica. I then met Praveen to teach some Spanish, but he never actually bothers to learn anything. That evening I went to the couchsurfing language meeting. Met Gloria and Alice for the first time. Both of whom would end up playing major roles in my time in Bogota. I met Lucia after the meeting and she was all over me after about ten minutes. We went to a bar up around Heroes and carried on playing. There was a lot of cat and mouse game playing. It was like with Caitlin in that first night in London all over again. Very fun and very frustrating. She tod me she wanted to have sex with me, which I had no problem with, but first I had to tell her that I loved her. Now that was not going to happen. I don't lie and I did not love her. She claimed that all men lie for sex. I said I don't lie for anything and I don't need to lie for sex. She was leaving the country in seven days and she was certain that I would say those words. I said I would prove her wrong. She was crazy but very good looking. She took my hand and put it down her trousers saying 'See I'm wet and you want me.' Both very true, but I was not going to lie. We sadly parted that night and she sent me a message saying its just three little words. I resisted comforatbly for her remaining seven days and she ended up sending me a message saying there was one guy she could trust. I replied that it was a little late now, given that she was in Austria and I was still in Bogota. Fun times.

We had Hull away on the wednesday. I thought it might be a tough game, but we ended up demolishing them 5-1. We were looking pretty good this season. Top of the league on goal difference. There was always an annoying fat bastard in the internet cafe I used most often, who always seemed to want to clean around me when there was no need and was always crashing into me. He annoyed me a lot. There was also a strange street cleaner near my house who was always whistling the tune from Kill Bill while he was cleaning. A little disconcerting. Russia have beaten Slovenia 2-1 first leg, Greece drew 0-0 with Ukraine and Egypt scored in the fifth minute of injury time to set up a play off in Sudan wednesday. Six places left. Who will make them on wednesday. I met Cristina for lunch on the wednesday and had a pleasant time. In the evening I made a long walk to the Hacienda shopping centre. Its a cool place designed like a Spanish colonial hacienda. I was supposed to meet Adriana but was late getting there and we missed each other. It was a long trek to be stood up. Oh well. Lucia was still playing games at this point and I was still unaware as to how that would pan out. Kind of hoped she would drop her conditions.

I did nothing all day long on the thursday. Then Alice and Xiomara came over in the evening for drinks. This was an interesting evening. We kicked off drinking in the flat and then headed off for a bar, but the people had already left. So we went to Dona Cecis (from now on to be called 'the shit bar' like we always called it here). Met a rocking Yankee weirdo there. He kept telling us he was a Beatlemaniac and that he loved Paul McCartney. He was always saying 'what would Paul say?' He believed he was a musician with the same talent as Mozart and was really interested in Alice. I pretended to be married to Xiomara and we maintained that Alice was the Queen of England and Praveen was her husband and private Karma Sutra instructor. He was still getting too friendly so I told him Praveen did not like people touching his wife. When he tried, Praveen slapped his arms and stated 'don't touch my wife'. He said Alice had beautiful blue eyes. Never mind that her eyes are green. Then he followed Praveen to the toilets to ask if he loved Alice and if not why does he not divorce her. Then a drunken student girl of his apparently, came to our table, stared at us, said some giberrish and fell over. I hope she made it home ok. Then we made friends with some cool old Colombian guy. We would see him a few times in the bar. We nearly died from laughing that night. Especially when the Yankee said

'Paul McCartney has his birthday on June 8th' (He was trying to convince us he was Paul McCartney)

'Guess when my birthday is?'

Now I answered June 8th as that was obviously his point

'No, June the 18th' (What the fuck. This guy was too much) Praveen and Alice would actually bump into him again somewhere and had to hide. I ended up sleeping with Xiomara that night after she stayed at mine, though I am not really sure who instigated it.

I got breakfast with Xiomara and Praveen in the morning. Alice had gone back to her hostel after escaping the Yank. She was over here to study Spanish and work on her PHD and had yet to get the flat she would later have around Plaza de Torros. I met Angelica for a long lunch and to discuss her Yankee problem. He sounded like a cock to me and I gave her some advice that would later prove he was a cock. Why do all of my Latin American female friends always end up with dickhead men. I came back and slept while I was cooking the Chinese soup. My landlady was drunk again. This was quite normal. Praveen was most likely going to Brazil. In the end he would end up going there and will be in Porto Alegre some time soon I think. I cooked the Chinese pork and cabbage soup for Maria and Angelica and I ended up being too tired to go to the club with the girl from Cali. We had to stick a knife through the can to get to the peaches for the pudding. Savagery.

I slept in on the saturday as I seemed to do quite a lot in Bogota. I met Gloria for breakfast and lunch before heading to the book fair. I met her friend Leonardo (one of the nicer Colombian guys I would meet). I have no idea what the fuck I am writing about. I think some people phoned me for English lessons and I ended up finally eating at the wimpy. They still have them here. I thought they were extinct. I don't remember seeing one in England since I was a very small kid. I met up with Praveen that night and we headed out for a party in the mountains. We ended up cramming into the back of a van with the dj and a load of foreigners. We went up some windy roads to a couchsurfing party. There was plenty of dancing, a fair bit of drinking though I went a bit weird so I reckon my drink must have been spiked. I think everyone hooked up with someone at this party except for me and one other person. No idea what I was doing. Alexandra came along and got together with a Chilean guy which was shitty for me and I hate dancing salsa so that kind of sucked. Praveen got wuite drunk. There was a drunk guy from Barranquilla, but someone told be all Costena guys are perros. The party was all night long, but I seemed to be the only one not to enjoy it loads. Oh well. The Bogota couchsurfing group are a hard group to crack. We came back late and ended up getting the first transmilenio back to our apartment.

Slept very late. Spurs managed to win 2-1 away against West Ham and we are continuing out good start to the season. Three from three. Still top. Woohoo. Met Hannah (an English girl who had contacted me on couchsurfing), Gloria and Leonardo to go to an Andie Warhol exhibition. It was ok. Enjoyed it but not the biggest fan of his work. I cooked spaghetti for everyone at Leonardo's place. Praveen was getting Leonardo's brother to teach him some more salsa and England somehow managed to win the Ashes. Everyone was tired so I headed home and at this point I had won my bet with Lucia.

Bogota Week One

2009-11-14T10:25:00.000-08:00

I arrived and met Praveen at Las Aguas bus station. Did not really remember that place from last time even though it was just around the corner from my hostel. I would get to know it very well over the next three months. Seems weird writing a travel blog without any actual travel. Maybe it will become more of a lifestyle piece, but I intent to continue doing this for Buenos Aires so my children can have a full account of my ten years or more of travelling if they have the patience to sift through all of it that is. Well Praveen had informed me that I should be able to come to some sort of agreement to rent the whole apartment, but as the amount the landlady wanted was insane it was just not feasible. Especially as I had made up my mind that I would not work in Bogota and only teach English for free before my course. I ended up taking the room that had no lock and was kind of a sliding door to the rest of the apartment. Funky layout, but very cold. There was a family from Medellin in the flat as well, but the landlady wanted to get rid of them. She was a nice lady whose mood changed when she got drunk and she got drunk a lot. The family from Medellin had a daughter who always seemed to dress up around me and put in more effort. Praveen reckoned she was interested and the family was nice enough, but I was glad to get rid of them. That evening I went out for drinks with Maria in the zona rosa and I was settling into my neew city.

The next day I chatted and did nothing all morning. This would become a regular routine for Praveen and I. He had quit his work placement with Fenalco. He was contracted for 38 hours a week, but they were getting him to work 70 or 80. So he was unemployed while he waited for the tribunal results. The landlady was also not working as she had broken an ankle so we were effectively a flat of bums. I went and had lunch with Maria, where I had strange coffee and cakes and was jokingly offered sex for English lessons, although maybe its something I should start considering. The locals are definitely good looking enough in Bogota. Met Angelica and Luisa (friends of Marias). I went to meet Raisa for her farewell meal before she left for China. There was a drunken man on the transmilenion who kept falling on me and then stuck his hands down the back of my trousers, seemingly trying to undress me. Not exactly sure where he thought he was, but I shoved him off and told his friends to control him. He fell out the bus doors at the next stop and will play no further part in this story. Met Raisa, a Chinese friend, a Colombian guy (I think is her boyfriend) and a Turkish dude in Wok for some food. At this point I was still pretending I can stick to my budget. Fat chance. There was a crazy taxi driver on the way home and noone seems to know Museo Del Oro in this city. Its a bit like taking a taxi in Paris, asking for the Eiffel Tower, only to be met by a blank stare. Unforgivable. I got back and touched up Praveen's cv for him.

D-DAY. Had to go to the DAS in the morning and find out whether I can stay in the country for a sufficient amount of time to undertake the CELTA. I went there and asked for the extension. I had my airline ticket on me. This airline would later collapse and go bust, meaning that I had to find another way out of the country, but for now it was sufficient to get me an extension. They told me to come back in october to sort it out, but that it should be no problem and I could have my extension until the date of the flight departure. I made a business proposal to my parents after constantly being spurned for ways to extend the finance for my trip. They eventually agreed to finance one thousand pounds each if I needed it to get through the rest of my trip. Looks like I will be calling on the first instalment of that money over the next few weeks as I have about 300 quid left. Have about three grand on the credit card but will only touch that for payments and not for withdrawing cash. Wasted the rest of the day online and hunting bars for my time in Bogota. Later that night I went barhopping with Praveen in La Candelaria. We found the ultra cheap Dona Ceci's just opposite Escobar and it would become our regular for our time in Colombia. We met Jenny that night and some twins. Praveen spoke almost no Spanish despite five or six months in Bogota and so the conversation was a little broken. There was also a strange man who made little models out of metal, but there were always strange people in that bar. Its a bit like Pepes in that respect. At some point Jenny lost her phone and left crying. I had to chase her. She said she felt the twins had stolen it and she was crying outside as we were sitting in the gutter. I suggested she come and stay at our place as it was close. She stayed over and at one point I thought she had gone into the landladys room. I only realised later that it was her bathroom. Praveen was left behind with the twins and metal man. He came back to the flat with the twins and came into my room when I was with Jenny. Bad timing lol. Ah yeah there was some strange Brazilian girl who was so hammered on Aguardiente she started stripping on the tables. Praveen realised I was with Jenny and so he sent the twins away. Nothing much happened as she had a boyfriend and did not want to cheat. In the morning I broke some of her objections but not all of them.

I decided to catch up on my writing that morning. I don't know what I did though as I sure as shit did not do any writing. Was a little tired from a lack of sleep. I slept all afternoon long and then I went to play some five a side football with Praveen but we were too late to have a game. We went to a Bohemian art cafe where I did an interview in Spanish about the artist's work. It was a blending of the indigenous women into the backgrounds of famous Colombian landmarks. Quite cool. He had lived in London as well so we chatted for a bit. Then we went to a coffee shop and drank a bit. Praveen told me his legendary mugging stories. These were so good that I would end up incorporating them into my lesson plans at the British Council by writing them as genuine texts. The first time he was attacked on his way back from work by two guys with a knife. He noticed they were a little bit nervous though, so he took off his belt and whipped them until they ran away. Then the police ended up interviewing him. The second is a classic. He had to attend an event at the Indian embassy near to Uribe's palace. He did not know the address so he took a taxi. The taxi driver drove him down a back alley and produced a knife. Praveen had a toy gun which one of the embassy workers had accidentally left at our flat. So he took the toy gun, put it to the taxi driver's head and ordered him to drive to Uribe's palace. There he exited the taxi and robbed him for 100,000 pesos ($50). He then tried to pay the fare, but the taxi driver ran away. Two motorcycle police chased him. Praveen was then standing in front of Uribe's pàlace with a toy gun and was surrounded by five soldiers pointing their rifles at him. He spoke no Spanish and shouted 'Soy Praveen, desde India. No se espanol.' They kept asking for his cedula (national id card) but when he reached for it they threatened him with their guns. Eventually someone heard him from the embassy and came and set him free. He ended up giving the money to the tramps around Las Aguas where we live. The third time he interrupted two guys robbing a woman and they ran away. There would be one more incident while I was there. He was punched by a tramp and ended up decking him before he ran away as there were more people close by.

I woke up on the friday really sick. It would be the first stage and sign of tonsilitis, but I was unaware of it then as it only lasted a couple of days and I had never had it before. I could barely move around and it was to wipe out my weekend. I was still struggling to ever get a proper weekend of nights out in Bogota as I was always busy with something or someone. There was a free calle 13 concert in the park so I decided to go to that with Maria and her friends. We had gone for drinks beforehand in La Candelaria and the artist guy recommended Gato Greis. Nice place when I eventually went. I got id'd by the police and I don't carry id so they were suspicious I was really English. The concert was great but afterwards I suffered froma really bad fever for all of the night.

I was told the next day by Jenny that I can't put besos in texts to her as her boyfriend may read it. Fair enough. Dom seems to be on fire down in Sao Paolo with the women. Reminds me that it is sad that he got sick down there and went back to Barcelona. He should really be travelling with me here, especially as Liz was asking after him last night as he was supposed to meet her and her sister with me back in May. My tonsils were like golf balls and I was due to meet Jenny the next day. I went with Praveen to an Indian independence day celebration. He said it would be funny to take an Englishman along and they could all throw stones at me. The food was really good and aside from not unerstanding anything in Hindi it was good fun. I went and watched GI Joe which was harmless fun and then I found out you can't buy transmilenio tickets after 11pm, which is stupid as the buses run until almost half past. This was where my hatred of this system of transport began to germinate and over my three months there I would come to hate it more and more until eventually it took its honorary seat next to the Los Angeles transport system as amongst the worst in the world. I walked back from Heroes which took an hour and a half. There are only a few shady bits around the calle 22-26 gay prostitute area. Its pretty desolate there. I don't trust around Avenida Jimenez station at night either, but the rest of the city is safe enough if you are used to big cities. Somerset lost the 20-20 final which was kind of shitty. Hmm I never checked how they did in the World 20-20 tournament in the end. Will just have a look. Ah we did shit and won only one of four matches. Egypt have 10 minutes to save themselves. Cameroon qualified by the way.

Spurs kicked off their season this sunday. I snuck into one of the hostels and put on the Spurs v Liverpool game. Opening day and the Liverpool squad looked weak. Confidence was up after the finish to last season. Some guy tried to sell me a cycling tour and said you don't come on holiday to watch football. Wrong and no thanks. I live in Bogota so I have plenty of time. This is the first game of the season and a big one. The correct phrase is 'you don't go on holiday to the US when the football season is on, because Spurs never win a game when I am there.' I would love to live in the US, but then we would get relegated. Liverpool were off colour and we won 2-1 thanks to goals from unheralded Cameroonian defenders. Class. We were off an running. My blog will most likely have snippets of Spurs for the rest of the trip. Top four here we come. Murray won Montreal. Good prep for the US open. Spoke to Dom for the first time in ages. I have contacted too many people, but I went on a La Candelaria bar crawl with Praveen. We found a lot of funky bars, including Gato Greis and the cheap rock places. Chatted to some Yankes and then turfed in. And so ends week one.

Ecuador Part 4: Cuenca and Quito

2009-11-14T08:44:00.000-08:00

We left Tumbes and crossed the border into Ecuador. A woman was having an argument with the border police. He had her card. She snatched it off him, abused him and pushed him. He was astonished and began insisting that he is a policeman and you just can't do that. I don't think she really cared too much to be honest what he thought. We had yet another long bus journey ahead of us to Cuenca after being dropped in the middle of nowhere in Machala. Hmm thats where I am heading when I finish up here in Quito. Keep postponing my leaving day a day at a time. Will go get some lunch after this entry. It seems like the Cameroon are 2-0 up and heading for the World Cup. Looks like Africa will be sending all of its traditional power house this time if Egypt can roll over Algeria. We arrived in Cuenca and checked into the hostel. I had been chatting with Peter (German guy from Mexico) for the last few days and we were finally going to catch up 8 months after we had last seen each other. I checked into the room and Peter greeted me and asked if I recognised the other woman in the room. Fuck me. It was Jasmine, the Aussie from Mexico City. It had been 10 months since I saw her. What a coincidence. How dod you end up in the same hostel room as two other people you spent time with in Mexico City 10 months before by accident. Very strange. Coincidences, eh. We went out for an Indian with a Dutch girl and a Yankee. We caught up on each others trips and went to a place with music and chatted all night long.

We got up and went to the modern art gallery, the cathedral and a craft museum. The gallery was not bad, the cathedral is moderately impressive and the craft museum is shit. It was only fun, because I got to chat up one of the assistants there and find out what bars were good to go to that night. Cuenca is superior to the rest of Ecuador. Its like the antithesis to the rest of the country. The people are nice, friendly, intelligent and good looking. They also treat you like people and not like cash machines. A breath of fresh air. Perhaps Cuenca could be spared Ecuador's destruction along with the Galapagos Islands. I wrote its almost not Ecuador. We lost out on the flat so I had to start searching for a new one for my time in Bogota. I popped out to a Lavamatico to wash all of my clothes, while Helen did some further site seeing. We went out for Mexican food in the evening and ended up missing the free classical concert. Then we went drinking in a bar. Bear in mind I was still on antibiotics. This was a stupid decision. A very stupid decision. We started on beer and then went to the club next to the hostel that had kept everyone awake the night before. Then I went on to drinking some hot rum with a random Jamaican dude and an Ecuadorean salsa teacher who I met in the club. Got chatting with some more locals and this looked like a gringo hunters bar. The girls were being hassled a lot when they danced and I ended up taking on the Yank in a drinking competition on this weird hot rum. By this point I was getting a little fucked up. So we headed for another club. The girls were very attractive from what little I remember, but it was here I turned on the charm. I ended up chatting with some local at the girl's toilets and was then upstairs with Helen and Peter. I have pieced this night together from other's accounts. Apparently I said I wanted to get a local girl, but then said 'Damn it I'm drunk, I'll just take the easy option. Where's the Yank.' Classy. I followed this up when I found her by saying 'Your good looking...enough.' Not my finest hour. We danced all of us a bit hammered and then headed back to the hostel wheer I was yelling down the streets that I had never slept with a blonde girl. I then followed Helen and the Yank into their bathroom where they were cleaning their teeth before being ordered back to my room. It was very much Francois style and probably my least charming moment since the time I stripped naked in my street at home and told all my neighbours to suck my cock, while I was covered in blood from smashing my face into the floor. I think I was going to pay for this night in more ways than one the next day.

I wrote 'we missed the bus because I was completely buggered'. Thats pretty succinct and accurate. Apparently Helen tried to wake me up twice but I don't even remember and I told her to go away. The Yank eventually woke me up and said I was a bit of a creeper the night before. That was an understatement. I would actually feel physically sick for two days after this incident, underlining the stupidity of it. I wrote 'so rough' and the next entry 'still rough'. Eventually I said goodbye to everyone, somehow was not sick and limped to the bus for a 12 hour journey. Was meant to meet Liz, who I had met on the streets of Quito in May but was not going to get there in time. I finally met her and her sister yesterday and am supposed to be going out with them tonight. A twelve hour bus journey. Just what you want when you are almost dead. Then the tyre blew up and the bus broke down. Fucking typical. We got loaded onto another bus that we had to pay for and we got to stand and watch 'Ironman', though we were sitting for 'District 13' and a dodgy Argentina comedy. Not a bad trio for an Ecuadorean bus though. We arrived in the new terminal. I was unaware they had built a new one, but it was probably a good idea to avoid the run the risk style crack run from the station to anywhere you wanted to go. The new terminal was in the middle of fucking nowhere though. As is the northern one, but at least the southern one is a real terminal. We ended up taking an expensive taxi to an expensive hotel, but Helen paid for the majority of it as I was out of dollars. I found out that the flat was back on in Bogota, but that I had to make it by monday. It was now sunday morning. The race was on.

In the morning I said goodbye to Helen. She would have further misfortune on the route back. She joked with the Iberia desk that they should not lose her bag this time, but they did just that leaving it in Madrid. I know you should never trust any company that is associated with British Airways, but to lose two bags on one trip is spectacularly incompetent even by their standards. They did post it to her house from Madrid though. I took a bus from the northern outpost to the border. Requested 90 days at the border as I knew I would need around 92 in order to complete my course. In hindsight it was stupid for me to corss the border when I did. I should have waited. I was running a serious risk of shooting myself in the foot over the entrance to a course for $2,000 solely to wrap up a flat and because I missed Colombia so much. I may have to be an illegal immigrant unless I can get 33 more days. Got some good food in Ipiales and then set off on the mammoth bus ride to Bogota (22 hours, though my crazy driver made it in around 18). I ended up watching '21'. Good music. The book is a little ripped apparently. No idea what book I was talking about. Maybe this one, but Dom reckons it makes them look like real travel journals. We got breakfast after crawling through the hills into Ibague. Hmm we passed the wreckage of another Fronteras bus. I think it was the one before mine that I had luckily missed, even though at the time I was cursing it. My luck seems to be keeping up for now. Cool old man. Not sure who. There seem to be a million signs for this town of Giloyan. Maybe I need to visit it. Even when you pass it, there are signs saying it is behind you, turn around, like they are incredulous that you could possibly have passed by the town. Interesting. A long bus ride makes these pointless things suddenly seem profound. Ah Bogota at last and that's where I spent my last 3 months. Class. My second home and the first place I have lived outside of the M25.

Peru Part 4: Trujillo and Chiclayo

2009-11-14T08:17:00.000-08:00

Ooh I forgot to mention we got a Dolph Lundgren film. It had been awhile. You know you are on a South American bus when you get a Dolph Lundgren, Steven Segal or Joean Claude Van Damme film. I took coffee and lunch with the French couple and then I slept the rest of the day, because I was injured. It was nice if somewhat expensive hotel and I awaited the others.

I met Lucy and initially went the wrong way to the dentists. She helped me by taking me to the doctor and translating for me. I had a severe ear infection, which was much better than the perferated eardrum I feared, not being able to hear anything. I am not allowed to go anywhere high up for 10 days. This would prove a problem as I was in the Andes and Helen had her flight from Quito in 8 days. Oh well. It would mean we would have to spend more time than planned on the Peruvian coast. Helen and Manuel arrived and we got a room. I was pumped full of medication and we went for dinner in a barbecue place with Lucy and her mum. The French couple left that day as well and we were down to just three from our boat group. Manuel would be with us for Trujillo and then he was heading south to Lima to meet his girlfriend.

The next day we headed out to the Temple of the Sun and Moon. They were interesting enough. Helen was wowed by all of it, but she loves ancient architecture. There were some cool mosaics and a lot of weird hairless dogs, that are definitely the closest I have ever seen a dog come to being ugly. We tried to climb the big sand mountain nearby, but failed miserably and it would have been quite risky to persevere. Afterwards we took a bus across to Chan Chan. I ended up not paying and the bus driver drove offf without giving Helen any of her change. A quick update. She still had not got her bag. Though Iberia eventually sent her compensation of around one thousand pounds. Eventually, mind you. Chan Chan is essentially a big restored sand castle. Its interesting to wander around in, because it is so vast, but I agree with the guide books that it is more interesting to imagine the history than to view the reality today. I wrote 'its not too amazing'. Trujillo is a nice town however except for one idiot. I asked him where something was and he said he did not understand. Now I was speaking Spanish and he was being facetious. So I decided to say to him it must be difficult not speaking Spanish and living in Peru and that he must be quite stupid not to have picked up the language. That surprised him and I think I finally snapped after dealing with so many idiots. Manuel got stung that night in a street scam. He had changed up $200 with a guy in the street and all the Soles he had got were fake. Shitty luck. Never trust those street salesmen. He started tearing them up, but I suggested he try to spend them at least. I still had my fake/not fake $10 with me at that time. This bill has been to eight countries. Not bad going. He will have plenty of tales to tell when he is in his next wallet or cash register. We met Lucy for dinner with her niece, but everyone was too tired to go clubbing.

We got up late and went to Huachica on the coast for a few hours and to get some lunch. Outside of holiday season its pretty deserted and these beach towns are generally always a little bollocks. I don't really understand why people want to spend time in them unless they absolutely love sand. Manuel left and we took an afternoon bus to Chiclayo. We arrived there quite late and had problems with accomodation, but eventually booked into a cosy little place in the centre.

Everything appears to be shut on mondays. Shitty. We went to the market and then watched Ice Age 3 in Spanish. I wanted to test my comprehension and can now safely say (especially 3 months later) that I can comprehend films in Spanish without subtitles. Helen on the other hand struggled, but at least it was a cartoon and fairly obvious. It was independence day somewhere, but no idea where. I then did some writing and that was the last time I updated this blog before todatçys marathon session. Really trying to bring it back up to speed, but still slightly over 3 months behind. We got a late night cheap dinner and we don't appear to have done anything on this day. I think it was symptomatic of my malaise that was creeping in after one year on the road. After three months in Bogota I am now raring to go and want to see a lot more new places.

The breakfast was not great and we went to somewhere that looks like Tucuman. Can't read my own hadwriting. Again it was not too amazing, but the mirador was kind of cool. We got a really, really cheap and very good cerviche lunch in the first restaurant on the right after you exit the bus. We then went to Lambayeque and the museum with the replica of the Sipan Lord's tomb. They even buried the llamas with him. This was a superb museum. Worth the visit. Seemingly I had lost out on the flat with Praveen as we were unable to rent the rooms and Helen's granddad died, which was a bad end to the trip for her. She would be back for the funeral, but its tough being so far away when something like that happens.

ONE YEAR ON THE MOTHERFUCKING ROAD. WOOHOO. Its the 5th of August for those who don't know. We ended up killing time in the morning. I felt bad for Helen's holiday, but I could not go up high without risk to my ear although it was steadily repairing and I was regaining my ability to hear some things. We set off on a bus to Piura and from there to Tumbes close to the border. It proved an expensive and long journey. We ended up staying in Tumbes as it was quite late and in the morning we would cross the border for my favourite country in the world: Ecuador.