John Shield's Travel Diary

Japan

2008-12-11T19:46:00.000-08:00

Japan

Living in the UK, 2008

2008-11-16T13:35:00.000-08:00

UK

Rock Werchter

Back Home

2007-11-05T02:00:00.000-08:00

Hobart

Santiago de Chile

2007-11-02T19:03:00.000-07:00

Well, this was my final stop in South America before the long haul home to Hobart, Australia. Undoubtedly this has been the most amazing and fun year of my life, which is hardly surprising, given I was travelling and doing exactly what I wanted every day for a whole year. I have to say though, the highlight for me was definitely meeting and befriending all you amazing people and it would be great to keep in touch.

So, if you're currently living or travelling in Australia: give me a shout, I'll be mainly staying in Hobart this Summer if you want to come to Tassie, but also have trips to Perth and Melbourne planned (with another to Sydney in the pipeline). Also, I'm moving to the UK around mid-January, so if you're one of those couth types that don't much like the prospect of visiting the colonies owing to your rather dreadful prickly heat that is ever so problematic in the tropics, oh gosh, and think of all those accursed reptiles... I'll see you soon (and we can talk about how I might fit in over there).

Oh, and if by chance you were enjoying my blog entries, don't fret - they will be finished off ... one day!

Ecuador

2007-10-15T15:41:00.000-07:00

Vilcabamba

Cuenca

Chimborazo

Baños

Quito

Galapagos Islands

Guayaquil

Lima (again) and Mancora

2007-10-01T15:46:00.000-07:00

Potosi and Sucre

2007-09-28T15:09:00.000-07:00

Potosi

Sucre

Salta & North

2007-09-28T15:07:00.000-07:00

Mendoza

2007-09-19T06:54:00.001-07:00

Buenos Aires Revisited

2007-09-06T08:43:00.000-07:00

So you may well ask, this year long solo voyage of self discovery thing - how was it going? Had I had an epiphany, or was it just giardia? Had I searched my soul, or its homonym with a stick after wading through foot high piles of dog shit lining Chile's streets? Well, neither of the good ones there, but I had met up with my little sister; aunt and uncle; mother and father on a different continent; so even if I'd had the inclination, there wasn't the requisite healing time for my body piercing wounds before the next family gathering for me to find myself spiritually or metallurgically.

Anyway, I'm getting a little ahead of myself; which causes all sorts of problems at passport control and with the chronological accuracy of this narrative. So let's go back to Pucon, or more precisely, the corner shop next to my hostel which was also the bus stop for the trans-Andean and trans-mission-less bus to San Martin de los Andes (de los Argentinians, del mundo, del universo). It was raining. Not that rain could dampen my spirits or punning ability, but it had me a little on edge - rain in Pucon meant snow at the small mountain pass my bus was aiming for. As it turned out, my bus kind of aimed at it in a sideways fishtailing mode; which seemed to do the trick, not that I would have noticed were it not for the Fran Drescher-esque commentary by the larger than petri-dish-of-life American lady behind me. Her hair was quite large. Maybe that was why she spoke loudly - I imagine speech would sound quite muffled on the other side of 14 inches of power perm.

I didn't stick around in San Martin terribly long - long enough to admire the enormous kettle at the bus station and to run - quite improbably - into (and bus to BA with) a particularly sodden pair of Venezuelans I'd met in Torres del Paine. Hmmm: tea, towels, improbability, drives - this story needs a robot with an oversized head.

Another bus montage scene later (Mana unplugged, bus driving off on Miguel and I when we went to the loo in Neuquen) and I was checked straight back into the Milhouse for BA round 2. This time was a little different though, as instead of having in depth conversations with fellow backpackers on the ethics of travelling and our social responibility in the countries we visited; drinking 9 litres of very cheap beer and flipping plastic cups upside down; I went out for the high life and dinner with my Aunt (Viv) and Uncle (Lawson) at Bar 6 in Palermo. It was halfway through my main course of slow cooked lamb shank that I decided my journey of spiritual enlightenment could bugger off and I would be detouring on the gastronomic high road for a little while.

Back in backpacker mode, one of my sorta-must-do things was going to a South American soccer match. Preferably one with flares, stampedes, riot police and no soccer. Unfortunately the match I chose had more opposition players than supporters (which were like caged monkeys, except they were throwing bottles rather than poo, in the main), so the crowd kept themselves busy watching footage of yours truly on the big screen.

I was actually very glad for the second visit to BA, as it meant I could visit some of the more famous tourist attractions I'd missed the first time around: the Recoleta Necropolis, the zoo, Rumi, The Bourne Ultimatum. It was actually after returning from my second viewing of Bourne that I found a curious email from my father along the lines of "we're in BA, we're calling the embassy because we think you've been kidnapped and now you've missed your Mother's birthday - I hope for your sake you've been kidnapped." So just how I managed to get my parents' arrival date wrong was anyone's guess - I'm blaming it on the international date line, eating too much red meat and spending the previous 9 months essentially not knowing what day it was. Not through drunkenness, Mum.

It was not long after checking out of the (Mil)whorehouse and checking into Mama and Papa's plush Palermian pad that I discovered that self discovery was on the Discovery channel all along and I needn't have bothered with the whole trip. I also discovered that parents in holiday mode tend to do about twice as much stuff every day as the average backpacker; they had this interesting concept called "morning" (no I don't know what it really was either - don't worry - I don't think it'll catch on). But like any true homo sapien mobile disco, I quickly adapted to their ways and used this "morning" to do some "stuff". Of this, I would like to tell you of three good bits, none of which are on the normal backpackers to-do list, and only one that you have to do in the morning:

1. Forget El Deznivel, the fun in that places hinges on whether or not you have The Bear as a waiter. The place to go for inter-table fun is El Obrero, in La Boca. OK, so the food's pretty much the same (2kg of kidney for 8 pesos); it's in a shitty part of town under a bridge, but a cab there will cost you about about $1 each and it's definitely worth the trek.

2. Owing to the distinct lack of backpackers out there, I can only surmise that the delta only gets a very brief mention in the pink bible. I reckon it's probably a top three BA attraction (along with a Boca Jnrs match - though I missed out; hanging out in Palermo - food, bars, shopping - just a cool place; and the Bourne Ultimatum - OK, top four). You have to catch a rather naff tourist train out there then jump on a local ferry (which is cool), but then you're off wandering around ship-shaped holiday homes, prodding (presumed dead, presumed incorrectly) snakes with your foot, and generally getting lost in a very different part of BA.

3. One of my favourite hot dinners of the whole trip was at Casa Felix. On the recommendation of a friend I made on the Navimag (Marc), I took my parents out for dinner for the birthdays and parents' days I'd missed throughout the year. Not much to say really; great atmosphere, top notch food and wine, Diego and his wife are lovely (you eat at their home). I guess it was just one of those rare occasions when I felt like I was living in the city, rather than just travelling through it. God that sounded gay

Leaving Patagonia for the Chilean Lake District

2007-09-02T13:44:00.000-07:00

This section of my trip was one of those rare ones where I had put in a little bit of effort planning: I shall have one night to rest back in Puerto Natales before boarding the ferry to head North up the coast of Chile (I announced to no-one in particular while standing on a rock with my fist clenched). This was a good plan. There's not a lot to do in Puerto Natales in Winter. I know this because the ferry was delayed by four days and my diary entry for three of those is "same".

In Winter, there are 3 (easy) ways of heading North from Puerto Natales: fly out of Punta Arenas, bus out on the Argentine side of the Andes, or the fery. By far the most expensive and slowest of these options is the ferry, so I was hoping my temporally and financially ill-advised choice would prove to be a good investment, measured in terms of the length of the slide nights I'm bound to unleash upon captive extended family members in my twilight years. I did have high hopes for the scenery - Chile is quite squiggly down the bottom of the map - though it appears the water level's a little too high to see anything particularly glacial these days (global warming!). Maybe the water would drain out a bit if we spun the earth a little quicker. I shall put this idea to the Chilean tourism board post-haste, nay, forthwith!

OK, so in case you hadn't guessed, not much happened on the boat: lots of drinking, lots of games of Uno, lots of spirited discussions about the interpretation of some Uno rules I never knew existed, and a little bit of muffled sobbing from the seasick French guy in the cabin next to me. I think the main thing I took away from the trip was continued confusion as to whether or not Uno has a yodh.

We arrived in Puerto Montt like a ship passing - but, like, stopping - in the night, three days after we set out. This town is a little dead in Winter, so two of us immediately decided to continue our trip North to the Chilean lake country; namely a pretty lake- and volcano-side town called Pucon. My travelling companion was a Swiss cop-but-train-driver-if-anyone-asks (plot for a wacky Vin Diesel movie?) called Roger who didn't speak expressly in the third person or use words like "affirmative", so may well have been a train driver pretending to be a cop pretending to be something else Swiss. Like a banker, or cheese, which I think is more likely.

This part of the google earth is unbelievably beautiful (much like Argentina on the other side of the hills) and Pucon is the type of town that I instantly like because there are obviously lots of things to do in and around the place. The reason I actually came here was a recommendation from Ollie The Bolivian Bomber who I'd met a few months earlier in Peru: there's an active volcano looming over the town and you can climb it. So Roger and I did. Slowly. Although fun, this excursion was one of the biggest rip-offs of the trip so far: we were forced to trudge in single file up the equivalent of a learners' ski slope and later an icy-but-not-that-steep slope, continually stopping so our lard-arse guide could rest. The view from the top was nice, though copping a lung full (lungful? lungfle?) of volcano hole acid belch wasn't. My advice for this activity: hire a taxi to the ski centre, throw caution to the wind, stand upwind of said caution, then walk uphill. Hire some crampons if you're a pansy.

My delay in Puerto Natales rather annoyingly cut into my time in Pucon (I had to get back to B.A. as I had a pressing appointment with my Aunt, Uncle and a 2 kilo steak), so I decided to conquer my long-standing mutual unease with horses and go for a trail ride. The reason for my unease was a rather nasty incident when I was about ten. As all sisters are around that age, both of mine were obsessed with horses. Eschewing generally accepted child-rearing practices, Mum and Dad decided it would be a good idea to fuel this obsession, so we booked on a family trail ride while on our annual summer holiday in Orford. My steed for the outing was a failed racehorse with wind (Danny) who had the particularly endearing trait of doing whatever the hell he wanted, which mainly seemed to be farting. That, and galloping completely out of control on the return journey. Somewhere during this stretch, Danny managed to trip over, sending me over the handlebars and head first into some cutting grass. It has taken nearly 15 years of painful corrective surgery for me to start looking normal again. So, my unease stems from a feeling of being out-of-control, which I assume is a result of being a novice rider and riding obstinate ex-racehorses. In case you were wondering why I dropped the word "mutual" in there a while ago, I don't know why horses feel the way they do, but I've seen the way they look at me.

Anyway, I actually really enjoyed the trail ride - the horse did what I wanted, we went for a gallop, through a stream and up and down some steep muddy trails. If anything, the four thousand barking dogs added to the tranquility. After horseriding I cajoled Roger into coming with me to the thermal pools to ease my aching buttocks. Stop tittering at the back, you're not funny. Fairly standard thermal pools: freaking freezing outside (including an icy river plunge), too hot inside, alcohol banned (obviously ignored); though they did have the attraction of being mostly empty. I found out later that this was because two weeks earlier a had guy carked it and cooked in one for a couple days. Oh well, the pool guy did a good job scooping out all the floaty bits.

Patagonian Adventures

2007-08-09T09:57:00.000-07:00

The very mention of the name "Patagonia" stirs vivid and fanciful imaginings in the minds of the world traveller. These imaginings are somewhat drab, however, compared to those held by Northern Argentines, who seem convinced that the entire bottom half of their country is under ten metres of snow and completely inaccessible by bus. Though this may not be entirely true, the mandatory stopover I endured in Comodoro Rivadavia bus terminal is reason enough in itself to believe their tripe and fly. No offence intended to the guy snoring in the adjacent toilet cubicle (after all, a man's cubicle is his castle, even if the front door has been kicked in), but it was one of those places where you'd rather stay on the bus watching recent Wesley Snipes movies. And I don't make that claim lightly.

On the drive South along the dry Eastern plains of Patagonia, you could be forgiven for thinking there is not much of anything there. But scrape below the surface of the non-existant ten metres of snow and you'll find grass. And nodding donkeys. OK, when reciprocating oil production equipment is the most fascinating aspect of the surrounding countryside, you can probably keep your camera stowed. To break the monotony, we did stop at one lonely roadhouse on the way to Rio Gallegos that reminded me a little of Nanutarra, but for the absence of corn jacks, flies and around 40°C. If anything, I think this intensified the desolation. As I'd spent the last five years of my life in Western Australia, I hadn't actually headed to Patagonia to see lots of nothing; so I headed towards El Calafate, on the Andean spine (just above the bum), where there's stuff to see. In such a touristy town, ordinarily my hostel wouldn't rate a mention unless it had particularly bad coffee (it did); or featured a rather nasty dorm-room incident that a) rather annoyingly cut short an otherwise pleasant sleep-in or b) left me so deeply emotionally traumatised that I still can't talk about it. It did, on both accounts. I choose to talk about it now. And often after a few beers.

I'm still not entirely sure why I awoke, though I naturally assumed it was my sixth sense of 'ninja attack' or something. As my other, lesser senses sprung into sloth-like alertness, I realised it wasn't actually my sixth, but just my fifth sense of 'wetness; thigh and abdomen region' that was ringing the neural alarm bells. Owing to the location (and that of my willy - normal spot), my first conclusion was that I'd wet myself during my slumber. Having not done this in a good while, I figured my old excuses (nightmares, still training, drank too much cordial, etc.) weren't going to cut the mustard with the hostel staff and I'd need something fresh and new (a dog did it!). While mulling over the believability of this claim, I realised that I still needed to, erm, go - first with relief (maybe a dog did do it?), then horror: "Oh God! I'm bleeding!" Adding some more firepower to this sensory man-o-war, I opened my eyes, which (along with a lack of pain) quickly dispelled any fears of a leukocytic leak; but that it was in fact, raining. In the bottom bunk.

At this stage I'll admit that it actually took me about ten seconds to figure out why the hell it could be raining in the bottom bunk, but nowhere else in the room. Leaping out of bed and noting the still-growing trail of urine emerging from the torpid Argentine in the top bunk confirmed my third worst fear: I got peed on. At least I had my mouth closed. So, you may ask, why does the hostel rate a mention? Because apparently urinating on someone in your sleep is NOT grounds for being kicked out - so pee freely, my Argentine brothers!

Doing work experience as a urinal lolly wasn't actually the main reason why I came to El Calafate (revised now to just below the bum of the Andean spine). On the other side of Lago Argentino are some of the biggest and most stupidly beautiful glaciers outside of Antarctica. I'll admit that before seeing them, I'd never really thought much about how glaciers are made - I think I just assumed they were frozen rivers left over from the ice age - it's squashed snow sliding down from the snowfields, which is pretty damn obvious at Perito Merino and Spegazzini glaciers. Now you know.

With the smell of urine all but gone, I headed a little way North to the climbers' and trekkers' hideout of El Chalten. The main drawcards of this town are Cerro Torre - a spindly tower that lures rock-climbers, in much the same way as a Venus Fly Trap lures flies - and Mt. Fitz Roy - a similarly spectacular geological and predatory formation. I walked to the lookouts at the base of both with two buddies from Calafate (Clare from Seattle and Rotterdamsel Lindsay), which were quite tough and long hikes in snow, but certainly doable. Owing to a lack of anything else to do in Chalten, we all headed back to Calafate for an amusing night on the tiles with a couple of Korean lads (one of whom inexplicably developed a thick Scottish accent when drunk) before Lindsay and I bussed all the way down to Ushuaia on Tierra del Fuego.

There is a little bit of confusion as to whether Ushuaia (with around 60,000 people) really is the southernmost city in the world. My Lonely Planet notes that: "while Ushuaia claims ... (what I just said) ... Puerto Williams - a Chilean naval settlement of 2,500 - is just a bit further south." Last time I checked, 2,500 men in tight white pants does not a city make - even the Swindon lot (who chime in with over 150,000 people) aren't recognised as a city in the UK and (from all accounts) no-one cares, so I think those Williams-folk have a bit of work ahead of them. I curse the incessant pedantry of Lonely Planet's authors. Besides, I've been to Ushuaia, so that's clearly the people's choice.

As the souvenir passport stamp getting only took about a minute, I had around 2 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes left to kill in Ushuaia; so I ate a king crab dish (apparently famous - not bad), went snowmobiling (cool, scary with Lindsay at the helm - no wonder the clogs managed to crash the Batavia into the side of Australia), dogsledding (super cool doggies, but the experience smells - unexpectedly, when you think about it - a lot like dogs' bums) and for a hike around the national park (I'm apparently going to die soon because I ate some seaweed from a red-tide affected area). This left me 5 minutes with which to run to my bus. I really shouldn't try to pack so much stuff into my holidays.

My next stop in Patagonia was Puerto Natales in Chile - the departure point for all things Torres del Paine (chile's version of Cerro Torre and Fitz Roy al crammed into one weather-permitting photograph). As it was roughly mid-Winter (with only one refuge open), I elected to do the five day (with one extra day for weather) 'W' route in and around the Southern side of the main peaks. In Summer, 500 people walk this track per day. On the day I started, it was just myself and two quality Venezuelan lads (Miguel and Daniel). The first day, we walked together up to the Mirador Las Torres, which was absolutely magic - we saw it at sunset with perfect blue skies, I couldn't understand how we had it to ourselves. Defrosting my socks the next morning at breakfast after fourteen hours in bed with less than four of sleep, I began to understand the seasonal unpopularity.
Unfortunately the weather and sock situation deteriorated over the next five days: camping and hiking through mud, snow, slush, ice and streams necessitated a ghetto wetsuit solution (plastic bags) for my frozen feet; which looked a little like cooked cod fillets after 102km of this treatment. Also resembling a cooked cod fillet was my brain after spending most of five days alone: after spending approximately half a day working out exactly what I was going to say in my press conference after defeating a man-eating puma armed with only a pocket-knife; I realised that maybe my mental wanderings had taken a slight turn for the unsound... think I'd best get back to society.

El Bolsón and Esquel

2007-08-01T08:12:00.000-07:00

I normally avoid hippies like the plague, partly because I'm disturbed that they think sitting around singing in high voices and a-rhythmically patting a bongo drum is in some way profound, but mainly because I don't have the immune system for prolonged exposure. Although my Lonely Planet had somewhat skirted around the issue, omitting the term: "basically a captive breeding program for decorative wirebenders and hair lice"; I had a feeling that my successful hippy avoidance program (mainly comprising leaving Tasmania) would come to an end in El Bolson.

Smatterings of wire and other crap craft aside, the El Bolson hippies rather agreeably focused much of their attention on making beer, cheese and uncomfortably scratchy knitwear; so I quite enjoyed myself for the couple of days I spent there (despite the itching). This was helped in no small part by the striking scenery, which reminded me a little of my home town (Hobart), also at 42°S. Despite all this pleasantness, I still felt a general malaise while there - it may have been the hippies, but probably was just an extended hangover from Bariloche - so I decided to head further South and away from the two most probable causes of my ill-health. Arriving in Esquel and booking on a couple of tours that night proved to be the magic bullet. I tend to cheer up when I have plans.

Esquel got a bit of a bad rap from my Lonely Planet and, to be fair, it is a little bit shit. While I wouldn't recommend it as a ski-town over Bariloche (despite it being much cheaper); they have much better empanadas there (pasties without the floury texture - more like a gourmet meat pie) and the scenery out of town is about as nice, so is probably the only reason you'd go there. Though the empanadas are good.

As much as it pains me to do so (because I know this will make Jimbo happy); I have to admit that my first tour in an old Land Rover with cat-tracks wasn't quite as cool as I'd hoped. Our 20km/h rumble over 5cm deep ice and snow was barely enough to keep the blood - let alone get the adrenaline - pumping. Fortunately our host sensed my imminent death and unleased us upon a snow covered (ish) slope armed with toboggans (more like a plastic container lid with a handle designed to remove testicles) and a kids' sized snow bike. After quickly tiring of my ball-jarring lid, I wrested control of the bike from the only suitably sized rider in the group and hammered down the slope. Regardless of the fact that I couldn't navigate my man-hoof amongst the bright red tubulars to apply the brake; I'm convinced that these things are death machines on planks. A word of caution to anyone thinking of riding one of these monsters: Don't. Though if you're like me and don't really listen to advice, try this bit: if you feel like you're maybe starting to get a little sideways, you can't steer out of it. You're screwed.

At least my misfortune gave me the opportunity try out my new-found eh-Spanish skills, though trying to explain that: "I hit an icy patch and tried to ride it out so broke my fall with my head while still vainly gripping the handlebars, providing quite convincing proof that I will never become a forehead model or Nobel Laureate." was a little beyond me, so I settled for "I went in ice and broke my head." I still haven't worked out if my Spanish is more amusing than my English.

The next day I went to Parque Nacional Los Alerces - named after a type of tree that grows at a rate of a coat of paint each year - probably explaining a previous generation's impulse to speed things up a bit by chopping them down, then painting them. The park's other poster boy is the "huemul", which is not - as the name might suggest - the offspring of a human and an emu; but kind of like an ungainly deer with a more ungainly cow's head. They're also every bit as elusive as the out-of-focus poster photos suggested. Perhaps this was because the animals I did see in the park read more like a roll-call at Old McDonald's farm than a national park: cat, dog, horse, cow and fish. This led me to believe that the huemul has been slowly out-competing these animals in their native living rooms, backyards and farms; forcing them up into the highlands to eke out an existence. So sad.

Not one to become overly emotional about the extinction of cats, the next day I headed to a Welsh enclave called Trevelin for high tea. An enclave it may be, but with all the streets still named San Martin or a random date and a decided lack of Englishmen roaming the streets with longbows trying to pick a fight; it just didn't seem particularly Welsh. I did, however, manage to find a Welsh teahouse called Nain Maggie (Grandma Maggie), where I ate two plates of cakes and drank about a litre of very nice tea. My bus back to Esquel was notable because of a rather unusual resonance thing it had with the suspension that caused us all to bounce up and down like the days before the Wonderbra; amusing at first, until my high tea threatened to ascend to loftier heights. Despite irreparable damage to my breast tissue (I believe the ads), I managed to keep it all down and force in one last meal of empanadas; and with that I bade farewell to the Argentine Lake District; next stop, somewhere in Patagonia!

Update from Esquel

2007-07-30T06:16:00.001-07:00

I'm in Esquel at the moment - a bit below latitude 42°S (same as home!) and in a really good mood; so it's time to update this little tome. I'm not entirely sure what jolted me out of the post-party-town-downer (thanks Bariloche...) though the following events either contributed or detracted in their own little way:

I spent two days in the very pretty town of El Bolsón, which has a hippy market and mountain backdrop not totally dissimilar to Salamanca Market and Mt. Wellington.
I'm onto my 3rd day without a beer and received a lovely postcard from my vacationing liver.
I think my pack weighs about 20kg now, thanks to the very average pair of snowboarding boots I bought in Bariloche for $250AUD; a hoody I bought in B.A. that makes me look pregnant; a sleeping bag that's too thin to use in Winter; waterproof pants; gloves; goggles; boardies and a host of other crap that I only use one day in twenty.
I accidentally went potty in the girls communal bathroom at my new hostel. Try telling me that the thingo on the door doesn't look like a boy. A very effeminate boy with boobs, but a boy nonetheless.
I spoke to Dad last night and found out that they arrive in Argentina in September, not August, so I now have an extra month to kill in this great meaty, ($) change famished country after my foray through Patagonia to Tierra del Fuego. No solid plans yet, though spending some time learning Spanish in Buenos Aires or Mendoza is appealing.
Last night I watched two of my favourite brain-off movies: Bourne Identity and Supremacy, then read a particularly beautiful chapter from Orhan Pamuk's novel Snow, entitled The Difference between Love and the Agony of Waiting (well... the first part anyway; the second part is about porn and dirty sex).
I picked up some songs from the hostel in El Bolsón which I'd lost along with my iPod (Neil Young, Grateful Dead, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed etc.); I'm very happy to have this music back in my ears (especially for the hundreds of bus-hours I have coming up).
This morning I spent literally 15 minutes trying to get the shower working. I swear it had some sort of differential feedback system, such that merely resting my hand on the cold tap resulted in a temperature change of 80°C.
I found out that skiing in Esquel is about half the price of Bariloche ($25AUD/day vs $50AUD/day for a ski pass), and they have better snow here.
I've booked a tour today in a Land Rover that has cat tracks (instead of tyres) - more like a tank than Jimbo's East German crane.
I met an American called Randy. It doesn't take much to cheer me up.

So, enjoy the snowboarding photos - I'll try to keep new ones coming in regularly. I hope you are all well and look forward to catching up either when I come home in November or in Europe when I head that way in January (unless you want to come with me around Northern Peru and Columbia in October!). Ciao for now!

Bariloche

2007-07-18T09:40:00.000-07:00

So I'm told all the rioting on the day I left Buenos Aires had nothing to do with my departure and everything do with the fact that it snowed there for the first time in eighty something years. Even still, I waved a teary farewell to my people and settled into my very agreeable "cama" for the long haul to Bariloche (inexplicably falling asleep through the mobile premiere of Die Hard 4).

I arrived in Bariloche to a very dim reception - and even darker dorm room - owing to the blackouts that, although quite common in the town, are most definitely not cause for installing enough backup generator capacity to keep the ski lifts running and the resort open. Right then, as long as that's clear.

Hillside havoc aside, the blackouts actually presented an altogether pleasant candlelit dining and drinking atmosphere in Antares (a brewery pub), where I swapped stories, poured out troubles and poured in beers with my more travelled and less troubled mate Babs. So it wasn't all bad news.

I stayed at Marcopolo 'fun' Hostel, which I can probably recommend with the caveat that 'fun' isn't the only piece of descriptive text that should be stuck in their name. If they're going to insist on that one, they should also include:
- Marcopolo 'no running water' Hostel; or
- Marcopolo 'where your female English bunk-mate is too tight-arsed to rent a private room with her boyfriend and is so appalled at the prospect of dorm room sex (particularly the Brazilians going hell-for-latex around us) that I'm sure the poor lad hasn't got any in months' Hostel; or
- Marcopolo 'no, despite running a hostel bar every night, I still haven't learnt that I need change in the off-chance that someone may want to pay for a beer with a denomination larger than the asking price of $6. The fact that I look like a dreadlocked monkey has very little to do with this.' Hostel.

On that note, any economic forecasters out there who say the Argentine peso can only become stronger are discounting the importance of one fundamental principle: that as any denomination greater than 20 pesos is virtually worthless because no-one will have change for it, the peso can only devalue until the ATMs dispense money you can actually use.

Despite all the running water and purchasing beer dramas, Marcopolo was a great laugh, though as usual this was because of the willingness of the resident non-Brazilians to engage in furious drinking activities. Having said that, it did look bleak for a while as the Brazilians outnumbered us roughly two to one. Apparently they come to Bariloche in droves (and buses) for the snow, beef and icecream. They don't call it "Braziloche" for nothing. Exactly who they are, who pays them for saying that and for what purpose, continues to elude me.

Well they're correct on at least two of those three reasons: the icecream is (without casting any aspersions as to the value of a family icecream maker gift) the best I've ever tasted: Jauja's "Chocolate Profundo" is the winner; and I ate the best steak of my life there: Alberto's bife de lomo. The snow, when it snowed, was great. Unfortunately due to a lack of overnight snow maneuvering - each 30cm snowfall only lasted 2 days before it became awful awful moguls, so I spent most of my time on the tracked out (but fantastic) tree runs. On the lone attempt at grooming they attempted while I was there, they actually managed to terrace the hill, which was a rather surprising feature in the bugger-all visibility we had most days. It was actually because of the poor visibility and a chance conversation with an 8 year old Costa Rican kid on a chairlift that prompted me to build a jump and try doing 360s half the time:
"Are you any good at jumps?" he enquired, first in presumably perfect Spanish, then in perfect English.
"Oh... I'm alright." I replied, trying to moderate my enthusiasm having just landed - for the first time - an admittedly rather modest trick on the way down.
"I can do 360s."
In retrospect, I should have just pushed him off the lift.

Aside from the Barilochean's inability to groom or keep the lifts running, there was one other feature of Argentine ski culture where I feel they just didn't get it quite right: apres-ski. Now the actual partying and drinking was fine - god knows I spent enough time and money in Wilkenny's the Irish disco; though because everyone keeps typical Argentine hours (dinner at 11pm, out at 2am, home by 8am), it's more an antes-ski than apres-ski experience, if you want to have any shot of going the next morning.

I had originally planned to spend a month or so in Bariloche, snowboarding and hopefully gaining employment in a hostel for some free accommodation. Unfortunately this plan was thwarted by the number of Argentines and Brazilians in town (in Argentina of all places!), apparently my retarded level of Spanish wasn't going to be enough to stand behind a bar and say "do you have anything smaller?" in Spanish with a blank look on my face. So, changing plans more rapidly than I ever could clothes before and after Phys. Ed.; I enrolled in La Montaña Spanish School to learn me some eh-Spaneeesh.

Although the highlight of my hardcore 6hrs of lessons per day was finishing every night so I could bathe my aching brain in epsom salts; I did feel some sense of achievement: learning the Spanish for useful words like "godfather", "saltshaker" and "son of a whore" (hijo de puta). And so, with this vocabulary, my conjugational prowess and my legs under my belt; I thought it might all be put to better use exploring Patagonia than asking for change... geez, notice how cocky you become after one week of Spanish lessons?

Buenos Aires

2007-07-07T09:31:00.000-07:00

To fly or to bus? A damned difficult question to answer if the sod who asked it hasn't provided any context. Safe answer is "to bus", as apart from probably dying, flying in South America is a false economy of time once you figure in the obligatory 4 - 10 hour delays. Well Claire was sold on this false economy and the tickets were sold on a false credit card, so I guess the numbers worked in our favour. Fortunately the pilot's last announcement wasn't to the tune of "OH GOD! WE'RE GOING DOWN! WE'RE A GLEAMING WHITE COCOON OF DEATH!" and we landed safely, albeit 5 hours late, in Buenos Aires.

My 2.5 hours of Spanish lessons in Lima had been enough to survive for 7 weeks in Peru and Bolivia ("baño", "Imodium", "No gracias", "I said, NO gracias", "they're thongs - you can't polish thongs"); so I thought travelling in Argentina was going to be a cinch. Battling with a BA map that put up at South-West, (for the uninitiated) an unpronounceable street address for our hostel (Hipolito Yrigoyen), a half blind cab driver who couldn't read the map (upside down), followed by a brisk pack-walk the right way down the wrong street and I realised Claire and I might be in a little bit of llit.

As this was my little sister's last week in South America, I was determined to get her to act like a responsible backpacker and do some serious drinking. So we stayed at the Milhouse; where the ugly alternative to drinking is listening to people have sex all night: from the cinema next door (if you're lucky), or in your dorm (if you're unlucky).

We were unlucky.

Thus far I've shied away from recounting sordid stories of dormitory debauchery in this mostly one-way forum; this is not because of my inability or unwillingness to foray into the challenging genre of stylised erotic non-fiction, I've got loads of lines worked out for the juicy bits already: ... her skin was as smooth and white as the congealed fat on a cold steak ... not unlike retrieving a stuck gumboot from a peaty mire ... his breathing became determined and laboured like an asthmatic donkey ... etc.

A simile which quite neatly brings us back to the point that I awoke - though in this case the wheezing and fiddling of the asthmatic donkey was playing second fiddle to the cacophony of metal bunk beds and steel cage lockers reciprocating into alternate walls of our room. Being on the far side of that room, my sleepy eyes first opened to the shocking sight of two fellow backpackers on a top bunk, engaged in one of the least furtive acts of dormitory doing imaginable. My eyes then briefly looked towards my little sister clinging on for dear life - and praying for a swift death - in the lower and adjoining bunk to the ruckus; before closing in the vain hope that all this would go away so I could instantly fall back to sleep. OK, so not that it was likely, what with the equivalent metallic and organic noise of a rhinoceros tipping a car over continuing unabated at my now symbolically - though unnoticed - turned back; but I'm glad I didn't nod off before the drunken post-coital whispering. In an unexpected (though spectacularly unsuccessful) show of modesty; our female principal whispered to her man in a thick Irish lilt:
"I hate it when people can hear me fucking."
"What?" questioned the male lead, in an unspecific continental slur.
"I hate it... when people... can hear me fucking" she repeated, a little louder.
A dramatic pause followed, punctuated only be Claire's and my pillow-muffled giggling.
"... What?" he queried again clearly struggling with her accent and his afunctional synapses.
"I HATE IT... WHEN PEOPLE... CAN HEAR ME... FUCKING!"
(more giggling)
"... What?" he said.
"Oh forget it", she huffed.

The next morning, as far as searching-for-clothes/walks of shame go, our Irish girl's was top notch; helped in no small part by Claire's and my parrot-like renditions of the preceding night's dialogue.

Our first day in Buenos Aires was also the only day that Claire and I had to endure the Argentine equivalent of Vegemite: dulce de leche, which was served for breakfast at Milhouse. For anyone familiar with sweetened condensed milk, it's like that. For anyone familiar with pure evil, it's also like that. After a day of mediocre sight-seeing (La Boca) and plus-sized shopping (for our circa-6ft frames), Claire and I decided that we didn't need the mid-morning gustatory assault (or daylight) to enjoy BA, and entered the twilight zone... (well, mainly the bit after twilight).

Pursuing a nocturnal life in BA is very easy, given the locals' penchant for dining at 1-2am, clubbing til 8am (or more) and not doing very much of anything during the day. We had all three of these nailed by about the third day - though did manage to fit in a bit more plus-sized shopping in the late afternoons. I even managed to stave off Vitamin D deficiency by working in some Time Crisis 3/Daytona to my daily routine.

One of my favourite nights that week was at Club 69, which had a rather interesting and provocative drag (and maybe straight) show on a stage in front of the dance floor. After a solid two-minute "What the fuck?" moment experienced by myself and another Tassie escapee (Nick); we quickly put our agape mouths to use at the bar. We clearly spent a fair bit of time there, because halfway through the night I remember thinking all the feathers, leathers and dry-humping on stage was quite normal and probably in every nightclub these days. In retrospect, my perception of normality may have been somewhat skewed, as I also remember thinking that putting a tequila shot in my pocket was a perfectly acceptable solution to not being able to carry a round of seven back to the dance floor; then drinking five in quick succession after spilling that one down my leg and another down my front on the perilous return trip.

Of course, it wasn't all fast virtual cars and faster cross-dressed women; BA also has a fantastic dining scene, which I very much enjoyed: from eating bife de lomo and riñones with "the bear" in El Desnivel to sushi in Palermo - there are two constants: the food is always going to be great and there's going to be a lot of it. It's actually at the point where going to an all-you-can-eat restaurant is just a waste of time and money - unless you're going to drunkenly and mistakenly insist on tipping 100% on a 100 peso meal - Claire - then you save money.

Ilha Grande and Iguazu Falls

2007-06-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

Ever one for spotting a blatant backpacker fleecing exercise, then meekly handing over my money because the Lonely Planet Shoestring alternative would require effort... my little sister Claire and I handed over our pound of flesh each for a three hour ordeal in a hot, confined space with a four-song R&B megamix soundtrack; some drunken Irish people and a chick on the floor. Fortunately this wasn't a Bondi backpacker bar simulator, but out combi-van transport to a port near Ilha Grande. Owing to mechanical failure, though more probably mechanical non-existence, of the advertised speedboat; some time after before we knew it, we were near the island courtesy of a man with a shark tattoo-bedecked torso, monobrow-bedecked brow and deck-bedecked boat. If the final leg of the trip had not been mine, knee deep, following an agonisingly slow shore approach in a rubber dinghy that looked more like a carelessly discarded condom... I may not have felt a little cheated by the "Express Transfer" we paid for.

The tourist office on Ilha Grande can tell you all about the lagoons, beaches and hills you can visit on the island; they will also tell you that you need a guide to walk up Parrot Peak, because a Dutch guy got lost for three days up there. I can only surmise that his inability to walk back down the hill is a result of living his entire life in a country full of Kleins but devoid of -clines. What they won't tell you is how to play seventy three different drinking games and that it only takes one cup of Cachaça for an Irishman to re-enact the HAL9000 shutdown sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Given these serious omissions, Claire and I decided to ignore the tourist office's advice to hire a human-guide for the trek up Parrot Peak; opting instead for the competitively priced (1/2 tin of spam each) canine variety. One of the guides that followed us had a curly tail, so we called him "Curly", because his tail was curly (stop me if I'm going too fast). The other we called "Spot" after the festering ulcerous wound she kept chewing on her flank. Our guides performed admirably, pointing out (and weeing on) all the locations where something had previously crapped or died and (somewhat more helpfully) following my trail of alcohol tinged sweat back down the hill.

As Claire was flying out of Buenos Aires in a week, we could only spend one more day on Ilha Grande, which we spent on a surf beach - with just about every other backpacker on the island - before heading to Iguazu Falls.

Of the travel montages I've had so far, this one would definitely vie for inclusion in the yet-to-be-written feature film of my holiday: the winding coast road in Brazil provided spectacular scenery and falls from the on-board toilet; our manic run around Sao Paulo's enormous bus station (2nd biggest in the world), followed by a more manic taxi ride to Sao Paulo's other less enormous, but more appropriate, bus station provided the excitement; and the old man stepping, seemingly in slow motion, on the unopened mustard sachet I dropped in the bus aisle lended a touch of piquancy to the atmosphere - though not necessarily the wit - of the whole affair.

This visit to Iguazu Falls was the fourth and last of my (admittedly short and ignorant) list of must-see places I had devised before coming to South America (also featuring Machu Picchu, the Death Road and Rio de Janeiro). The probable reason for their inclusion is that I think Catriona Rowntree did a Getaway! feature on them some years ago and she still holds some kind of hypnotic hold over me from her Wonder World days. We stayed at the Hostel Inn, on the Argentine side of the border for reasons of economy and pool ownership; not so a Scandinavian couple could make fun of my sister's array of toiletries (the words sound the same, people!), though that was included.

We visited the Argentine side of the falls first, which is where you get to walk in and out of the falls, take a speed boat ride into the base of a waterfall (similar to being blasted in the face by a water cannon) and get reprimanded for swimming from the island. My co-swimmer was a lad from Melbourne (Rhys) who had cunningly deployed a herd behaviour tactic for confusing pickpocketers, having roughly 16 pockets in his jeans (including pockets in the knees!).

The next day, Claire and I headed to the Brazilian side of the falls along with Derek from Belfast and Babs Boumans from Boechout, Belgium (who quite comprehensively won the alliteration award for the day. The Brazilian side certainly has the "wow" factor (I guess the other factor is 1): numbered butterflies, innumerable bees, receiving lollies instead of change. Oh, and to your right is a bloody big waterfall.

Rio De Janeiro

2007-06-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

Waaaay back in December when I was planning my round the world ticket, I agreed to an overnight stopover in Santiago when flying from Lima to Rio de Janeiro. This decision was based on my assumption that the OneWorld lounge would be open so I could wallow peacefully in a baby fur seal recliner while having my exorbitant whimsies of the flesh and mind tended to by fourteen LAN hostesses.

Instead, I was forced to spend the night in squalor with the less frequent flyers: buying a Dunkin Donut for 1,361,894,157,951,369,875,156,972,101,099.99 Chilean Pesos and trying to sleep on a hard bench that, rather interestingly, had the same resonant frequency as Shakira's voice (and hips, I suppose); while Latino pop music videos assaulted my senses all night. Choler is a terrible bedfellow.

Despite the shite overnight respite, I was quite happy to land in Rio, as my little sister Claire (flying from Straya) was coming to meet me at Mellow Yellow hostel (which is considerably less mellow, though more yellow than its potable namesake) in Copacabana. Unfortunately she had been delayed for about 1 year so Aerolineas Argentinas could properly lose her luggage; so the next day I met her out at the airport and took her shopping for a replacement bikini (and came back with two rubber bands).

Copacabana isn't quite as beautiful and relaxing as I had imagined: the cafe culture is quite different to Perth's, for example, as most drinking is performed on the beach with the aid of quite handy but annoying vendors that pace the beach yelling the same three words "Corka... Shkooorl.... Agua..." (that'd be Coke, water flavoured beer and beer flavoured water). Not bad, except it's impossible to doze on the sand with a) their incessant trudging 2 inches from your noggin b) blokes standing 5 metres in front of you, facing you, in tight budgy smugglers, sunning themselves. I was just too aroused.

On the plus side for Copacabana are two things:

Mellow Yellow is a great hostel, they have a good bar and the breakfast of pineapple, ham and cheese toasties is kick-bum; though I'm concerned their 24-bed dorm room is a Matrix-like construct designed to harvest heat (or maybe bed bugs) from the interned backpackers (even though they aren't encased in red goo).
Churrascaria Palace - an all you can eat restaurant where the dining experience is akin to sitting next to one of those kebab shop rotating meat logs while it's continually carved onto your plate; also the desert menu is a tray of plastic replicas that you can fondle (if you really want to)... AND (oh, that's a big "and") they have a "piano surcharge".

On the down side for Copacabana, Ipanema's better and next to it. Claire and I had a marvellous time on the beach there, which is much nicer (cleaner sand and water); the restaurants are also quite a bit less tawdry (sorry Bob's Burgers). One night we dined in the cafe where (legend has it) "The Girl from Ipanema" was penned (and most probably fed, though they don't advertise that). We had Moqueca, which is a particularly bland local stew, no doubt serving as inspiration for the aforementioned song. Ipanema also has a good market for the girls (jewellery) and legs (pants), though make sure you take enough money with you, otherwise you have to eat quiche for dinner. Claire.

A better market (in my eyes, though my capoeira pants from Ipanema are magnificent), is in Uruguaiana (previously shortened from Uruguaiuaiuaiaiuiauaiuaiauaiauana), where there is a thriving second hand vintage electronic game console market. Unfortunately my cash reserves weren't enough for one of the pristine Game Boys (Games Boy?), as I'd already purchased a rip-off Casio watch and 2GB memory stick pro-duo (for about $50AU!), but imagine: portable gaming in 56 colours!!

Apart from visiting the obligatory Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf (pointy hill), Claire and I also went on a tour of the largest favela (shanty town/slum) in Rio de Janeiro: Rocinha, which was awesome. The taxi motorbike ride to the top was a particularly good start; even though my biker absolutely hammered up the hairpins, I didn't have the temptation to disregard our guide's instructions for the guys not to cuddle the rider. Our lack of bonding on the short journey may have been because I was unsure of his connection to the drugs mob ADA (Amigos dos Amigos), which (as explained to us) is apparently providing all the law enforcement, healthcare and schooling for the residents of Rocinha. They also carry fucking big guns.

So I'd heard all the stories about dodgy cops and robbers in Rio, with all the pickpockets, drug setups and muggings; I have to say I saw absolutely none of that during my time there. Maybe I was just one of the lucky ones, or maybe it was the piece of toilet paper stuck on my shoe that said "don't fuck with me", but I didn't feel particularly unsafe during my time there. Even the favela tour wasn't particularly dodgy - though I wouldn't try going there without a guide.

So with the touring side out of the way, I can say a little about the nightlife. The rich pickings seem to be in Lapa, where we went for a Friday night street party (cheap streetside Tequila shots, followed by free Tequila shots, fortunately not followed by the guy who Claire nicked the Tequila bottle from). I visited a couple of other bars and clubs around Copacabana and Ipanema, though, to be honest they didn't do too much for me; and I was particularly scared of the enforced bar tab system at a few of these establishments: damn tricky when you are battling with unfamiliar bar prices and drunken currency conversions.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Rio nightlife for me was noticing that Brasilian men have pulled off the biggest scam in the history of cross-cultural courting: convincing women across the world that they are good dancers. My observations of the Justin Timberlake impersonator in Lapa and the dancing competition at the Favela Funk Party (female stripper moves, but with guys; followed by some strange butt-hopping maneuver) didn't do much for their reputation in my eyes. Of course, I'm not saying that I'm an excellent dancer, I'll let you arrive at that conclusion independently.

Peru: Part Deux

2007-06-16T17:38:00.001-07:00

Next stop: Arequipa my semi-cama shaped arse; my widely unanticipated return to Peru (via a border town I never knew the name of) was heralded by a comically awful military and school parade, which was in turn heralded by a comically off-key brass band. As the parade was held in the main road (thereby stopping all traffic for hours) and in full view of the (considerably more decrepit) Bolivian side of the border town, I'm fairly sure the sole purpose of all the flag waving and trumpet sputtering was to convince any potential Bolivian immigrants that this sort of thing happens daily in Peru and that they really are better off where they are. Our bus driver was convinced, so he beat a hasty retreat to find an alternate entry point to the country; stranding two English backpackers in the process (who amazingly embarked on a successful 30 minute long taxi pursuit of our bus).

Arequipa's a nice city, probably. I only stayed one night there before heading off to the second deepest canyon in the world: the Colca Canyon. Actually, one thing I liked there was the 6ft tall Jenga set (with log sized pieces) they had in the bar at The Point Hostel; though it was rather difficult to sleep with the tremendous crash and cries of "Oh my God, he's not moving!" or "I can't feel my legs!" every 20 minutes. They had most of the blood cleaned up by the time I left the next morning.

The walk in and out of the Colca Canyon is one of the toughest walks I've done: about 1000m (vertical), quite steep and on narrow slippery gravel/shale paths. Fortunately the opportunity to walk with a guy who looked like Lloyd Christmas (Dumb and Dumber); the scenery; and the campsite on the second night (with swimming pools!) are ample gain for the pain. The other cool thing about the canyon is that it hosts a sparrow-like population of condors. I have plenty of photos of blurry black blobs to prove it.

As I was on a bit of a tight schedule (flight to Rio), I jumped straight on a night bus to Nazca as soon as I got back to Arequipa. The next day was a bit of a speed-backpacking experience with a cool English lad (Ollie) I met in Nazca: after watching an hour long video about the Nazca lines (dull except for some '70s footage of some seriously tweaked shaman), we took a 30 minute flight around them (interesting, but not a breathtaking experience) then straight on a bus to Ica and taxi to the desert oasis: Huacachina for a dune buggy ride (scary, awesome) and sandboarding (sorta fun, but too slow); then on the next the bus to Lima. I'm not really a fan of tick-the-box tourism, but it was kind of fun to knock all this over in a day.

Not much had changed when I got back to The Point in Lima - a couple of lads had moved on, Steve had been hit by a bus, Nick looked like he had, and the girls were still lovely (and cheeky because of my crap Spanish, ¡pero soy listo ahora para ustedes!). I also met up with Hayley again who - while awaiting her flight to Costa Rica - graciously allowed me to win ten pin bowling and let me play Time Crisis 3 before dinner at Larcomar; in retrospect, I think I may have had the lion's share of fun on that outing...

After a last minute flight change, I managed to squeeze in a four day trip to Huaraz to do a little more trekking. Huaraz is about 7hrs North-East of Lima and sits at the base of the Cordillera Blanca; near the Huayhuash mountain range, which is where Simon cut a rope and Joe touched a void. Huaraz is mainly a mountaineers' and trekkers' hangout and isn't really on the mainstream backpacker circuit, but it really should be (just for these three): the Llanganuco National Park is stunning, my hostel (Churup) had an awesome open fire and views of the mountains, and Cafe Andino has top breaky, coffee and boardgames (Risk!). I was lucky enough to jump on a 3 day trek to the summit of Mt. Pisco (5,752m): 1000m ascent to base camp (4,700m) on day 1; summit and return on day 2, then descend to the road and back to Huaraz on day 3. Our group of 8 was very lucky in that no-one was too altitude affected to summit (we pretty much had to drag a fat German up, cutting the rope did cross my mind - I'm with you, Simon), though it was somewhat humbling to see a group of local Indian men and women skipping past us on the way down (and no Gore-Tex there, the women were all wearing skirts...). The toughest part of the whole walk was actually crossing the scree for a few hours coming back to camp: it was hard enough with sore knees and jelly legs, let alone Touching-The-Void-Joe's broken ones!

Hooning through Bolivia

2007-06-06T18:16:00.000-07:00

My journey to Puno on the shore of Lake Titicaca with Charlie and Clarissa was my first experience on a long haul bus in South America (actually, ever) and it was a bloody ordeal. The semi-cama (half-bed) seats didn't recline to anything even resembling half a bed and it was freakin freezing; had Charlie not been farted on by a Peruvian man-lady all night, I would not have been amused.

My mother always said "if you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all" (mother also said I'd go blind if I played with it too much, I bet she didn't foresee the advent of Braille keyboards); fortunately Puno isn't a person, it's a place, and a crap one at that. Unfortunately it's also the only departure point for tours to the floating islands of Lake Titicaca. I know two trivial facts about Lake Titicaca: 1) it's the highest big lake (and biggest high lake - make that three) in the world; and 2) in earlier times it was the primary defence for the inhabitants of man-made islands (buoyant blocks of reed roots covered with reeds) from less buoyant tribes (both in temperament and transport). Given their secondary defence is apparently singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" off-key in seven sort-of different languages (as unleashed upon our tour group - THWACK!), I understand the historical requirement for this inconvenient postal address.

After hastily ignoring the particularly cheesy pizza we ordered for lunch, we were straight back on the bus to La Paz for our second ordeal of the day. For those who've been lucky enough to avoid the bus journey from Puno to La Paz, there are two bonus-features that make the trip particularly abnormal:

The border crossing: not too tricky unless you happened to overstay your tourist residence period, in which case the border guards will demonstrate that they can, given enough time, count to 90 (I guess they're lost without their quipus). During this period, the bus driver will probably leave with your bags because he's bored and run out of coca leaves.
The lake crossing: this was the first time in my trip when I was convinced I'd never see my backpack again. Some time during the night, our bus arrived at the edge of a lake; clearly the guys building the road were faced with the same predicament and just gave up (instead of going around, yes, around the lake). So we were herded off the bus and onto a not very lake-worthy dinghy while our bus rolled onto a nearly bus-sized barge to navigate the lake after us. By navigate I mean "succumb to the mercy of", as the bus-barge combination immediately drifted off in the wrong direction; though it was probably just a Captain Haddock wannabe at the helm.

An unfortunate overnight stopover in La Paz later and we were back at the bus station wondering why our bus to Uyuni had knobblies, six spare tyres and was being loaded with parquetry chips (I'm convinced it ran on steam). The three of us had the battery-hen-like run of the back seat to ourselves so we settled in for the 12 hour steam South. Clear skies and a full moon afforded a wonderful view for the passengers of the surrounding countryside, and for the driver of the surrounding road; though when I noted a river and riverbanks on either side of the bus somewhere South of Oruro, I suspected our steambus captain either needed the headlights too, or had simply forgotten he was driving a bus - not a boat.

Had Charlie not at that time orally ejected his most recently consumed Burger King vlue meal out of the window, things may have taken a decided turn for the worse. Twenty minutes, a jammed window and two handfuls of burger #2 later; our fortunes were really heading skyward.
Upon our arrival in Uyuni, we had planned to go straight on a 3 day salt flats (Salar de Uyuni) tour, but with Charlie needing at least 36hrs me-time before brushing his teeth and Clarissa still walking like a Thunderbird (thanks over-the-counter valium!); we elected to have a day off. Fortunately our lodging was super-cheap (US$3/night) and there was an awesome market in the main street where I bought an awesome cardigan (which, despite buttoning up from the left, is most definitely not a woman's cardigan).

Crissa (who had by now regained full control of her limbs), Charlie (with full control of his digestive tract) and I (in my so-awesome-it's-out-of-control cardigan) were joined for the tour by a lovely English couple (Nick and Paula) and our fairly lucid driver/cook: Alejandro. After a cursory tour of a salt harvesting operation (like this, but without those pesky machines to speed things up); Alejandro took off across teh salt flats at a decent clip and promptly nodded off. I did not realise I would be lumped with the responsibilities of driver-reviver/emergency obstacle avoidance when I stuck my hand up for shotgun; but I was more than ready to spring into action lest any object threateningly appear over the horizon.

This long period of dozy driving pretty well set the scene for the next three days - we were in the car for 8-9 hours a day, passing amazing scenery (salt flats, more salt flats, flat salty patches, geysers, vicuñas (like alpacas), alpacas (like llamas), llamas (like vicuñas), multi-coloured steaming lagoons; loads of pink flamingoes and strange rock formations); so you'd think we'd welcome the opportunities to stop and get out for a stretch and a photo once in a while. Not on your bloody life. Freaking freezing temperatures and howling winds have an interesting effect on your need to appreciate nature without a piece of glass between it and you. Even still, I'd thoroughly recommend the tour: Incahuasi (cactus covered island); our salt hotel; the Salvador Dali deser and the train graveyard were all definitely worth the trek.

Our bus back to La Paz was considerably less eventful than the outward journey; the highlight for me was trying the new peanut-butter filled Twix (a victory for chocolatiers). La Paz is a crazy city: where else do they pay people to dress up like zebras at the zebra crossing? Where else can a pensioner crack whore keep a very well known gringo-friendly nightclub-cum-coke den running for months? Where else can you still easily find Casio talking and solar powered watches? Where else do they have seven minute intermissions in the middle of new-release movies? Though, at the time, our debate revolved more around the reasoning for the selected duration of, rather than the necessity for, said interval.

As cool as all this was, by far the best thing about La Paz is its proximity to the World's Most Dangerous Road. Mountain biking down this monster was one of the best days of my holiday so far and I'm ashamed to say I may have done more high-fiving with Charlie that day than in my life to that date. Tearing down a hill at top speed (they gear the bikes low so you can't really peddle downhill) from 4,760m to 1,100m over 64km tends to get the blood pumping a little.

It was a rather fittingly climactic day before I quite sadly bade farewell to my Mexico-bound pals. I'd had a smashing time on our brief whirlwind tour of Bolivia and I may have to go back at least once more (to get me one of them new-fangled watches!). But my holiday keeps on trucking, next-stop: Arequipa!

Cusco, Inca Trail & Machu Picchu

2007-05-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

It didn't take long before my observations of the Olympian levels of competition within the Cusco (or maybe Cuzco - I've never been sure) massage and shoe shine industries (shiny thongs anyone?) shattered my earlier assumption that it was the Iquitos trike-taxi industry alone that had a hoof-like grasp of the market concept of "supply and demand". I'm now fairly sure that a ridiculous oversupply of obscure commodities is endemic to Peruvian culture, someone certainly seems to be doing a roaring trade in Inca Kola tshirts (certainly more than the awful beverage itself). I also managed to learn a little about the mating habits of stray Peruvian canines while in Cusco as I'd inadvertently planned my trip to coincide with dog sex season. So, uh, yeah, dogs do it a lot. A lot. I'm pretty sure every time I left or entered the hostel, I was treated to the sight of the same old bastard mongrel pounding the same little white fluff-ball senseless while a group of beta males stood around hoping the old boy would keel over from over-exertion in the altitude. He looked like he had another couple of footy seasons left in him though... I digress, here's my diary:

I gave myself one full day in Cusco to acclimatise to the altitude (3,400m) - which I spent predominantly hungover, hence unable to perceive any symptoms of altitude sickness - before embarking on the classic Inca trail. Due to the trail's worldwide fame, I had incorrectly assumed that it would be a doddle, so didn't piss about with packing lightly. And so with the weight of both a 16kg backpack and the medical evidence against my success; I joined my group on the bus to Ollataytambo and the beginning of our trek.

As I'd booked through an agent of an agent of an agent back in Australia, I had absolutely no idea how the guide/group situation was working until halfway through day one. I was lucky enough to be thrown in with 4 other trekkers (2 frogs, 2 argies) who had 2 guides between them - often the ratio is more like 16:1 - so we were treated to plenty of explanations in Spanish (that I didn't understand) and then English (that I didn't understand either). I did manage to glean that there is a much easier way to get to Machu Picchu but it was reserved exclusively for Incan royalty, and much later, a train; and we were walking along but one of many peasant routes to the sacred city. After hiking up to Dead Woman's Pass (1,250m ascent to 4,215m in one morning), I'm quite convinced that the Windsors aren't really that bad at all compared to the Incan royal family. Utter bastards.

Unfortunately Machu Picchu was shrouded in mist for our dawn arrival at the sun gate, but when the mist cleared mid-morning, the classic view across the city to Huayna Picchu (the pointy hill) was every bit as stunning as I'd imagined. The other things that I was particularly taken with were: the masonry - freaking unbelievably perfect joints between huge stones; the hike up - and view from - Huayna Picchu; and seeing a llama scratch its head with its hind leg (who'd a thunk it?).

I had only planned to spend maybe a day or two back in Cusco before moving on to La Paz for some death road mountain biking action; but what with the weekend looming, it only made sense to stay for that. This happened twice (though to be fair, the first time I'd planned to go to La Paz, the roads were blockaded). The hostel where I stayed - Loki - also played a big part in my reluctance to journey on, they had it really figured out for backpackers: breakfast served until 1pm; it's easier to stay in bed watching Family Guy and then stay another night, than check out (no booking - you keep your bed!); hammocks in the sun; and freely flowing Sprite. There was also a great crew of fellow travellers there who'd I'd like to thank for providing the compelling but generally poorly structured arguments to stick around ("con gas?", "bungee jumping is fun", "don't be gay, have a beer" etc.) : Alex, Luke, Kim, the clogs, Hayley, Kyla, Charlie, Clarissa, James, Dylan and Jack - I (who is (am?...) about to die) salute you.

When I actually made it out of the hostel, I found that there were quite a few cultural things to do and see in Cusco - I did none of these - opting instead for: sitting in a cafe in my pea green undies with Alex and Luke while my jeans were being mended; loading up on coffee and English breakfasts at Jack's; sing-alongs and pisco shots at km.0 (an excellent little bar); salivating in front of the cow snouts and llama heads at the markets; dangling from a ceiling in a balaclava and bopping around Mama Afrikas in ill-fitting trackpants. If it weren't for the traditional Incan bungee jumping and white-water rafting trips, you could almost say I fell into the gringo trap.

I was quite saddened when it was time to leave Cusco, but I had some unsuspecting travel buddies in Clarissa and Charlie who had flights to catch from Las Pazes to Mexico City; so we picked the closest one and headed that-a-way!

Lima and Iquitos, Peru

2007-05-13T13:05:00.000-07:00

South America! An enormous and diverse land of impenetrable jungles, vast deserts and impossibly tall mountains - as viewed from the air. From the ground, it's a land of toilet paper intolerant toilets, water resistant napkins and meals of intestinal parasites that may be disguised as food (but probably just covered with melted cheese).

It's also a place where you can have a metric tonne of fun. My first stop in South America was Peru's capital city: Lima, which is typically not on the gringo (foreigner) backpacker circuit owing to: a) a lack of things to do and b) it's a balls-ugly city. If bucking the trend means eschewing trendiness, then once again I did it, as I really liked Lima; admittedly I spent most of my time between The Point Hostel and Larcomar (a spanking shopping mall on the seaside clifftops) playing Time Crisis 3, going ten pin bowling and seeing (once) Spiderman 3 (AWESOME!), so probably won't be getting any calls from Lonely Planet for reviews, but it's a great place to party and chill out and forget about travelling for a while. Oh, the cerviche - cured trout - is fine, but steer clear of the chifa - chinese food - unless you need some "me time" on the loo.

It was also in the The Point that some new pals (Ross, Tash & Em; bye Bing!) and I hatched a plan to go to Iquitos for an Amazonian jungle experience. So, with a shoebox of Imodium in my carry-on luggage, I boarded a flight to this steamy city in the North-Eastern corner of Peru. I met the others in a hostel I chose (sorry) called the Hobo Hideout, which to be frank (Frank Drebin: "...since I've met you I've noticed things that I never knew were there before; birds singing, dew glistening on a newly formed leaf, stoplights.") - was a bit crap - but I'm fairly sure the other budget options were similarly budgo. Iquitos is a mad city of 500,000 people, right on the Amazon, and holds the title of the largest city in the world without a road going into (or out of) it. It also holds the distinction of being the only city in the world where every working-age male is genetically predisposed to drive an auto-rickshaw (tuk-tuk). Apparently there are 80,000 in town - I've no idea if that number is true, but there were about 20 vying for our 2 soles (60 cents) every time we needed to go somewhere.

There isn't much to do within Iquitos itself, save booking a jungle tour (check. And thanks Emma for asking if it rains in the rainforest) and visiting the Belén markets (check). I believe the name came from the first Western visitor to the markets, who exclaimed "Gee, this place really smells like a bell-end", which it did. The meat section was particularly appealing, I liked the recently de-turtled turtle shells for their shock value; though the others found solace in the shaman's various concoctions of bark water, mud and god-knows-what-else. Our second and last night in Iquitos was a fairly tame and less stomach turning affair - we just went to a nice jungle themed restaurant, which caught fire. Can't wait for some excitement!

We stayed at El Chullachaqui Lodge, which is 2 hours speedboat ride upstream from Iquitos. I've no idea what the rest of the Amazon looks like, but if it gets any wider, browner and flatter downstream then it's not exactly a landscape photographer's paradise.

I can thoroughly recommend the lodge we stayed at, not for the comfortable lodgings, naughty naughty monkey and swivelling-head-from-The Exorcist parrot, but the comedic value of our local guide: Danny. The first day was promising: on our jungle walk he hit his head on a branch and fell over, so went ape-shit with his machete on the offending tree; then showed us how to correctly swing on a vine (like Tarzan), but selected a vine which broke mid-swing, sending him flying off into the jungle somewhere. That afternoon, he took us on an "Amazonian jungle village experience", which turned out to be his soccer practice; then violently crashed the motorboat into the bank when we went piranha fishing. Unfortunately everything after this flying start went flawlessly - we saw a tarantula that night right where they'd left it 5 minutes earlier (guys - it would be more believable if you took the collar off), Ross and I actually caught piranhas (not before I sent one overhead into a tree with an over-exuberant reaction to a nibble) and when we "swam with the dolphins in the Amazon", some actually turned up (though they could hired the Romanian mens synchronised swimming team to do the job, as they look like naked pink people). And with that, I bid adieu to Ross, Em and Tash (who doesn't normally look like Popeye - I think - she got stung by a mosquito on the eyelid) and hauled my Imodium-subdued-butt off to Cuzco.

Barbados - Cricket Final

2007-04-30T17:07:00.000-07:00

For our second trip to Barbados, we stayed a little further from the action, at Dover Beach in St. Lawrence Gap. Also staying there were some Tassie boys we'd run into a few times on tour; named Joe, Ray and Me (as introduced). Joe wasn't in fact a deer, a female deer; but Ray was certainly a drop of golden sun.

Counting down the days to the big showdown between Australia and their closest rival: daylight (which didn't even bother showing up for the final), we didn't do anything particularly spectacular, unless you count Ramm's shoreside removal of his forehead dermis by diving into ankle deep water.

Barbados was my favourite among the nations we visited on this tour, the locals are a bit more chilled; transport and good food are cheap and easily accessible; Bridgetown isn't totally ghetto; the beaches really are the best (possible exception was Deep Bay in Antigua) and you can get a decent cup of coffee. Having said that, every island we visited was bloody expensive for a backpacker and not quite the idyllic paradise I had imagined - I think you have to spend some serious cash money on a resort with a private beach to experience that kind of holiday. Still, 30 days in the sun drinking beer, playing beach cricket and watching the Aussies win .. can't complain!

St. Lucia

2007-04-30T17:01:00.000-07:00

LIAT showed us their true colours in our transit from Grenada to St. Lucia - the not-very-many-kilometer journey took around 12 hours and the compensatory food and drink voucher was not redeemable for beer. Really reaching out to the Australian crowd there... When we finally arrived in St. Lucia, we were pleasantly surprised to find that our accommodation was located smack bang in the middle of Rodney Bay - a pub, club and restaurant district. After another meal of mac pie and company, we realised the full benefits of our location as we were lulled to sleep by the dulcet tones of Peter Ram Wiggins, then promptly awoken at 3am by the local Fast and the Furious fan club.

St. Lucia must have been short of luxury accommodation options, as both the Australian and Sith Ifrican teams were staying in Rodney Bay as well. I'm sure Gilly and co appreciated us squealing like schoolgirls every time they strode past in their budgie smugglers. Unfortunately my one chance, my one chance, to show the Australian team that I was ready for the call up was ruined by a selfish local kid who wouldn't hand the tennis ball to Brad Hogg to bowl as he was walking past. Little bastard could have cost us the final.

If anyone has ever seen the original Doctor Doolittle, you will be aware that the pitons near Soufriere feature in a rather irrelevant sequence about a mollusc. I have it on good authority (sample size = 4) that nobody except Fenders has seen the original Doctor Doolittle, hence we were amazed every time Fenders told us that the pitons near Soufriere featured in the original version of Doctor Doolittle. Not one to let an opportunity pass me by if I don't have to do anything much, I climbed into a minivan with the boys (Gimme a booossssstop!) to go down to the pitons (of Doctor Doolittle fame!). On the way we were forced to stop at St. Lucia's capital Castries, which is a bit shit to be honest. The second bus ride from Castries to Soufriere was quite an ordeal, not because of the dim local who put his arm around me while eating a tub of fried chicken and tediously read out every road sign we drove past, but because it was the single most nauseating (non-alcohol related) experience of my life. Sitting in the back middle seat of a packed minibus, which was swerving violently around hairpin bends for over and hour, in stifling heat and humidity, pretending to read so the dim local wouldn't talk to me; pretty much craps all over the Zipper for a stomach turning experience. The pitons (from Doctor Doolittle) quite disappointingly didn't look much at all like boobs, just pointy rocks, but they still held my interest for the entire hour long boat tour we chartered.

The cricket was a freaking shambles - the well told story was Australia's absolute decimation of Sith Ifrica - I would like to relay the less well told story (you want the other guy for well told stories). With South Africa batting first and sitting at a handsome 5-27 - doing their utmost to keep Hansie Cronje's legacy alive - the party stand crowd were in trouble with the required rum rate quickly doubling from 1.5/hr to about 3/hr. This is not a challenging target when you can pour rums freely all around the ground, but the local barstaff (who move like Thunderbirds) managed to restrict the rum rate to less than 1/hr. And so, when the game and bar service concluded many hours early and most patrons were left with at least 4 drink tickets; rum fueled riots quickly erupted, during which I managed to nick a bottle of gin and make it home on the back of a truck. Like that wasn't a good story!

Quick update

2007-04-17T11:44:00.000-07:00

Hi all, I'm in St Lucia (Caribbean) at the moment. I've finally written the diary entry for skiing in Bulgaria - more to follow. Pics of recent visits are up!