Chuckle Bear's Amazing Adventure

Oh so many things

2007-11-08T09:26:00.001-08:00

So guys it has been a while and so many things have happened, most have been extremely excellent, few have been rather shite, and often things have got a bit strange.
Last time I spoke to you guys we were in Munich, and we had a lot of fun there, but we also had many troubles with people in our dorm. I think I wrote about one night of annoyances, but the next night was much worse and it wasn´t even the same people offending. Brit and I had gone to bed at a reasonable time (around 11.30) and went to sleep. The rest of the room, all nine beds worth were occupied by a bunch of football fanatics who did not return home until very late and very drunk, they came into the room on variuos occassions during the night screaming their football song and then wandering back out again, they thought they were pretty funny. Brit and I asked on many occasions very politely I must stress if they could quieten down a bit. A reasonable request at 1am, 1.30am, 2.30 am, 4am, and finally at 5.30am. We did not raise our voices, but eventually they started harrasing us telling us we should have learned German before coming over and eventually when I got up I was pushed around a little. I went and got management, but when I saw him I knew he´d be no good, his intentions were good, but he was tiny, and a pacifist. eventually the thugs left the room, but they were there to confront us at breakfast, still drunk and now angry, it was a little intimidating but I soon realised they were all bark with little bite. One guy got up and threw a ceramic cup at us, but missed by a long shot he threatened to hit but when I didn´t back away, he retreated. Long story short, drunk football supporters=worlds biggest jerks. Otherwise Munich was excellent.
Then we headed to Prague. I won´t dwell on Prague much except to say the Hostel was excellent, as was the beer. The town itself was pretty but touristy and food was more expensive than it is in Germany. We saw some sights, we went to a torure museum and a communist museum (this country is still very angery about the communist regime of only a decade ago). We had a generally pleasant time.
Now though we are in Berlin, and it is an extremely excellent city. Probably the best one we´ve been to so far. The city has so much history and so much diversity. Crazy contrasts all over the place. We went on an alternative tour of Berlin and saw some excellent things, abandoned warehouses used as squats, skateparks, and some not changed since they were bombed in the war. A crazy warehouse museum/squat/gallery/cinema/pub. I can hardly express how amazing this city is. The nightlife is great, the shopping is cheap and unique, even our hostel is nice.
But alas it is our last night here, and tomorrow we must move on to Bruges in Belgium.
And I shall leave it there so I can get back to enjoying this amazing city.
Catch ya all next time.
Dylan

Germany.

2007-10-31T10:03:00.000-07:00

Just a quickie guys. We´re now in Munich and have been for a few days. It´s been quite excellent, we´ve done little else apart from take a free tour (that was incredibly interesting), walk around town, eat lots of sausages, and of course drink a lot of beer. Getting to Munich from Paris was hell. There was a plane strike in France (they always seem to be striking in some area or another), which we of course did not hear about, so all the people who had their planes cancelled went and booked the trains completely full. So when we went to get on our train, to our dismay (and to many many others as well) we were not able to get into Munich until 4am (we thought we´d be there by 3pm). But we got there so all is well.
Tomorrow we leave for Prague, we´re not really sure how we´re gonna get there, but we are going to somehow.
The rest of our time in Paris was excellent, we went to the Catacombs, which was really creepy. 1km of an underground quarry that was converted to an ossuary. Piles of bones making up approximately 6 million people´s remains, and not just piles of bones but piles of bones organized into pretty patterns... Morbid! But quite cool. I don´t know why it was decided that it would be a good idea to make patterns out of peoples remains, but who knows what people were thinking in the 1700s.
Other things we´ve been reminded of since the last blog is that people are quite often jerks, especially in hostel rooms. The only language that jerks seem to understand is jerkish and luckily I am very fluent, so safe to say that when people keep me up at night, they sure as hell aren´t getting a sleep in in the morning! This rule will apply to any future offspring I can assure you.
Anyway you guys should wish us luck in our travels to Prague cos we need all we can get.
Till next time,
Sir Chuckleton

P.S.
Good to hear everything went smoothly with the wedding Uncle Chris I wish I could have been there. Also you underestimate Mum´s cooking, despite the amazing food we´ve been having I still look forward to Mum´s (which is equally good)... You forget that her cooking has a very strong selling feature... It´s free!

Florence to Paris

2007-10-26T10:19:00.000-07:00

Hello all. Today is our third day in Paris, and it has been amazing, but first I shall tell you about Florence.
Florence was cool. Both figuratively and literally. There was plenty to do and see, and the weather was icy cold. The latter would not have been too much of a problem except that we were staying in a tent at a camp ground, so even in taking refuge in our tent did not altogether relieve us from the cold. However, we persevered and made the most of our time in this beautiful city. We saw Michelangelo's David, which was a lot biger than I expected (in most places anyway), we waited 3 hours in the cold to get in to the Ufizzi Gallery, which was more or less worth the wait, but most importantly we ate a lot of delicious pizza and pasta, and in spite of the cold, Gelati. After our time in Florence we made the ambitious trip to Paris by train, we left Florence at 7am and arrived in Paris at 11pm. It may not have been the best way to do things in hindsight, but we're here noww and loving it. The first two nights we slept in a bit of a hole in Belleville, but made such good use of our days that it was barely noticable that the bed was just a wooden board with a sheet on it. Our second hostel in Montemarte is mildly better.
On our first day in Paris we had a look at the Louvre, walked under the Arc D'Triomphe, climbed up the Eiffel Tower, and went to an excellent (and free) photography museum exhibiting an excellent display of amongst other things pieces from Larry Clark's work, and of course we ate a whole heap of delicious pastries. On the second day we had a look at Notre Dame cathedral, ate some more pastries, sat in a cafè with some delicious coffee, checked out Montemarte and capped off the day drinking wine on the steps of Sacre Coeur overlooking the city, and today we set out for the overwhelming task of exploring the Louvre. It was pretty excellent, but exhausting. Tomorrow we head for the Catacombs and a picnic in the Luxembourg gardens. After that we head for Munich, and after that we've decided to take a side trip to Prague, it's all very exciting.
So until next time...
Take it easy,
Dylan

Cannes, Rome, Cinque Terre

2007-10-19T07:30:00.000-07:00

Okay so it's been awhile since I've had a chance to blog, we've been very busy and internet prices have been extortionate. However, we are in Florence now and have found an internet parlour with reaonable rates. I was excited to find my first comment on my blog (cheers lauchy) which confirms that I have at least one reader. Anyway I should go back to what has happened since Avignon. Well as you may have guessed, from Avignon we headed to Cannes for a couple of nights. The train trip there was excellent, we had a great view of Cosa Azure along the way, which is so beautiful that I have decided that I will buy a beach house there... well when I've got that kind of cash. Cannes itself, although touristy was still stunning. We had an excellent cheap hotel room just out of town, and perfect weather for swimming, which we made the most of. From Cannes we had a trecherous train trip to Rome, it took about 15 hours, we had to change trains several times and we for each train we had to pay a booking fee which we were horrified to find was 15 euros each. So after a couple of those I ouldn't afford to eat let alone rent accommodation. We got into rome at around 10pm, tired, hungry, grumpy, and with some alarming indicators of sickness, we got terribly lost on the way to the hostel and then when we eventually found it we were told our bookin had been given away, and were directed to another place that was 20 minutes walk away (which is annoying with a 20kg pack on your back), and also was a shithole. The next day Brit and I awoke sick with severe colds, but perservered with sight seeing regardless (having little choice as we were locked out between 11am and 4pm for a "cleaning" time that was not very evident upon return...), we went and saw the ruins and the Colosium, and it was all very exciting. we also ate a lot of Gelati and Pizza and Pasta, and that was almost equally as exciting. The following day, still ill, we headed to the Vatican, we waited in line for almost 2 hours and pay 26 Aus dollars, and for that I hoped that we would at least see the Pope dance the Charleston on top of a flagpole. We didn't but it was all very impressive and the Sistine Chapel was probably worth the admission. After that we sat outside of Saint Peter's Catherdral, which was equally impressive, and I reflected upon the fact that this was probably as close as I wold ever get to the Pope, and realised that I didn't really care either. I also wondered why he so closely resembles my own image of Satan rather than God, and that if there is a God why thinking this means that I am likely to go to hell. 15 minutes later I was eating Gelati and had forgotten all about it. We then stopped at the Fountain Di Trevi and that was cool also, but by now we had had just about enough of Rome, we were sick, tired, and decided to get an ealy night's sleep so we could ge up early to go to Cinque Terre. An annoying American girl had other ideas for us though.
After being asleep for a couple of hours tops, she and a Local Roman man crashed into the dorm drunkenly, and took part in some very unpleasant activities in the bed directly next to me for the entire duration of the night. I hardly slept a wink and at 4.45 I got up and used the hostel compute until Brit got up at 6am and we headed to Cinque Terre.
Now this place really did live up to expectations. We stayed at an cosy hostel filled with lovely people, we met a really nce Canadian couple that we spent some time with. And Cinque Terre itself was amazing. The walk was fantastic, the weather again was superb, the water a clear bright turquoise that couldn't be resisted, and the views were unbelievable. I could spend weeks there swimming off the rocks in the calm sea, I'd recommend it to anyone with half a chance of making it there. We spent 2 and a half days there, and today we travelled quite easily to Florence. We've got ourselves some cheap accommodation at a camp ground that overlooks the city, and we're going to spend at least four nights here, maybe 5. Then it's on to Paris!
I'll keep you informed regardless.
regards,
Dylan

Goodbye Spain. Hello France

2007-10-10T01:46:00.000-07:00

Our last few stops in Spain were relatively relaxed and hassle free. We spent a few nights in Valencia, which Brit donned "The Adelaide of Spain" namely because there wasn't too much to do, but it was nice enough, and we were able to spend a good deal of our time there drinking extremely cheap (yet very drinkable) wine. From there we returned to Barcelona and checked out the Picasso museum and the modern art museum, both of which were well worth the price of admission. We ate a lot of the free pasta people left behind at the hostel, and a lot of fresh bread from the bakeries, occasionally we did so amidst the jovial atmosphere of the Barcelona beaches, other times we did so in derelict car parks that could have easily been located in Marion (much to Brit's dismay), but on the whole we ate our fill and did so happily and cheaply.
From Barcelona we headed to France, specifically Montpelier. We were nervous about not being able to speak any French, having heard all the stereotypes, so we learnt a couple of phrases that we hoped may help us. Pardon, jé ne parle pas Franés- I'm sorry I cannot speak French, and Parle vou Anglais?- Can you speak English? I'm sure my spelling isn't correct but you get the idea. To our delight, these phrases have been ample especially when delivered apologetically and politely. The French have been very accommodating thus far and most can speak at least a little English and have been happy to help in any way that they could. I can imagine the people they might be less likely to help out, like our American acquaintance from the last blog, demanding "CAN YOU SPEAK ENGLISH, you know EEENNNGLISH?" I wouldn't help here either. I must point out that this isn't my view of all Americans or even the stereotypical American, we've met many lovely ones, however I will never forget our obnoxious American acquaintance, just as I will always remember who the jerks are back home (I'm sure none of you readers are, but there are probably only four of you so I'd be pretty safe to say so.
Regardless, Montpelier was a cute city, and we stayed in a é star hotel that felt like a ( star hotel to us.
And now we are in Avignon, a beautiful old city, that has a fantastic wall around it, which has been present since the 15th century. We have been having a fantastic time just walking around looking at things, trying to keep to budget, and have mostly been successful, save last night when we accidentally spent an exorbitant amount on dinner because we were looking at the lunch prices instead of the dinner prices, it was a good meal though so what can you do?
France is tré expensive though, which doesn't make heaps of sense to me because by and large the people aren't that well off, they only earn about 19000 euros a year which isn't much in comparison to other western european countries, and this is largely due to the fact that they only work 4 days a week, and generally don't start work till 10 which they then follow with an overly long lunch break... I mean the French know how to live, and somehow they do it cheaply as well! Alright I best be off, we're headed to Cannes next then Italy where internet prices are reportedly ridiculous (9 euros an hour apparently) so it may be awhile before I get to Blog again.
Take care all,
Dylan

P.S.
Congratulations to Erin and Mark Seaborn, just married, I regret missing the wedding but maybe we'll bump into you on your honeymoon I hear you're headed this way!
And I should also send a belated happy birthday to Nanna, although I spoke to her on her birthday, I just thought it worth mentioning that she's the kind of 80 year old I want to be one day, active, travelling, and larger than life... of course I'd like to continue to be male.

San Sebastian, Granada, and Valencia

2007-10-01T04:34:00.000-07:00

Much has happened since my last blog, but it has been hard to find the time to write, so I´ll try and get it all out now.
A fewe things I didn´t mention about the SanSebastian trip: Brit had her first of what would become many unpleasant public transport experiences on the train on the way to San Sebastian. She had to sit next to a very unpleasant and possibly insane young man, that reminded us both of Kyle Sandilands. I tried to get her to swap with me but she had nothing of it and opted to sit next to the glowering, yelling, unpleasant and somewhat perverted young man for the entire journey. Upon arriving at San Sebastian we had some trouble finding our accommodation, but once we did, it immediately felt pretty dodgy. The guy who met us didn´t run the hostel (he was away), and he had overbooked the place so we had the thrill of staying in this guys room. Which was just a matress on the floor of a room the size of a closet. Upon entering we were asked not to use his weed or his flavoured condom, which we were only too happy to oblige. However the rest of the stay was very nice, we saw Richard Gere´s new film the Hoax, and we even saw Richard Gere, which was very exciting.
From San Sebastian we took a God awfully long train trip to Granada, in which we endured a four hour stop at the train station in Madrid. At the the Madrid train station I witnessed the most obnoxious American middle-aged hippy tourist I think I have ever come across, not speaking a word of Spanish and demanding things of officials everywhere barking at them in English like they were the idiots. I relayed the story to Brit, and did an excellent impression of her. However, I received instant Karma and found that we would be sharing the train trip to Granada together, and beyond that realising that we spoke English she latched on to us and basically made us her tour guide, following us to our accommodation, complaining to them when they did not have anything for her diespite the fact she hadn´t booked and it was after midnight, and then when they found her a bed she complained about the bathrooms being too dirty. It´s about as close as I´ve come to throttling someone, she was literally in my top 3 most irritating people of all time.
Anyway Granada was a pretty cool place, it looked beautiful with the Alhambra overlooking the city. And they have this excellent free tapas culture, where with every drink you get free food, and pretty good food too. We visited the Alhambra and that was mind blowing, the amount of detail in every aspect of the palace was incredible, and the views were spectacular. I think that is the one thing Australia really needs, big f***-off castles splattered about the place. It was also refreshing to see something old and cool without Jesus splattered all over it.
Beyond these however, our experiences of Granada turned a bit sour. When we wanted to book another two nights at the hostel, we were told it was quite full so we´d have to spend one night on the roof, but the following night we could have a bed again, the weather had been good thus far so we agreed. Of course that night it rained all nigh and everything of mine at least got soaked (including several books and my passport) and we only got a couple of hours sleep cos we were wet and uncomfortable. Then the next night they said they´d overbooked so we´d have to sleep on the roof again, in no mood to that, with the weather looking menacing again, we kindly told them to go f*** themselves and asked them to relocate us to another hostel which, they happily obliged.
The next morning we set off to catch a bus to Valencia, but I got the time wrong by an hour and we had to wait another 4 hours for the next bus, which meant a) we wouldn´t get to Valencia until after 1am, b) we couldn´t do our washing,which we desperately neede to do, and c) I was not very popular that day. The bus trip when it finally came about was horrid. Everyone stank, and was generally rude. I mean people were on their mobile phones the entire trip, and not talking quietly, but actually shouting into their phones, and I am not exaggerating. When it got to midnight and the guy in front of me was still doing this to lighten the mode I pretended to answer my phone and talk loudly in to it.
"Yeah, hey, I´m on the bus.... Yeah the BUS. Other people?..Oh I think they´re trying to sleep... no TRYING....TRYING.....Well I guess some of them are CRYING now... etc."
The guy in front of me shut up right away, and people behind me were laughing, I guess it occurred to me that most people have a basic understanding of English.
Anyway now we´re in Valencia and we´ve been trying to get our washing done, and it´s been harder than it should be as the washing machine was malfunctioning a bit, but I think it´s alright now. Anyway, we´ve got a few days here to relax, which is lucky cos I think we´re due for a good run.
Cath ya next time.
Dylan

Spain shenanigans

2007-09-23T09:27:00.000-07:00

Well we are now well and truly in Spain, and thus far it´s been pretty hectic. Currently we are a bit off our original course, but it is perhaps for the better.
We flew into Spain on Wednesday I think, and spent the night in a really nice little town called Girona, it has beautiful old medievil buildings and a pretty relaxed atmosphere. Fro there we tried to book accomodation for a few days in Barcelona, but to our dismay everything was pretty much booked up. We settled on spending one night in one hostel and another in a different one, and then hopefully work out the rest when we got there. It turns out that there was this big festival going on and there was no affordable accommodation to be found anywhere, and we got a bit stressed out because of it. We spent the one day we had in Barcleona checking out Gaudi´s Cathedral and park, La Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell, and they were pretty amazing in all honesty. Gaudi was clearly a genius.
Anyway we had to come to a decision as what to do next as time was running short. We considered buying a tent and camping, we even considered sleeping on the beach or in the airport but decided that these weren´t really very realistic options. So we made a snap decision to catch a train to San Sebastian on the North Coast of Spain, which was never in our plans, but has proved to have been an excellent decision. The weather is beautiful here, and the beaches are pretty spectacular, and by pure coincidence there´s an international film festival going on. Richard Gere and Demi Moore are supposedly here, we´ve been looking out for them on the beaches but instead all we seem to see are fat naked men (one who we deemed the Walrus man), and not as fat naked women. Oh well. We got tickets to Richard Gere´s film the Hoax tonight as part of the film festival, apparently we may even get to walk down the red carpet and tickets only cost us 5euros.
Otherwise though all this travelling has been eating up my money. Hopefully staying put in the one place for a little while will mean I can recoup my losses.
Alright, I best be off considering my budget and all.
Catch yáll later!

Off to Spain

2007-09-19T04:14:00.000-07:00

I don't know what all the fuss about London weather is about, we've been here 7 days and had 7days of sunshine. It's been excellent. And with that luck I am happy to be heading out of London while the goings relatively good. But before I do I'd like to comment on a couple of things. I've found London quite frank in its business, for instance all the gay bars we walked past were called GAY bar. The sex shops had signs outside that said 'Porn in the basement', and we past an all you can eat noodle bar called Phat Phuc noodle bar. It's pretty funny.
Yesterday we went to the Globe theatre and saw the Merchant of Venice, it was pretty cool, we had to stand for three hours on account of only paying £5 for the tickets but it was worth it. After that things got a bit gloomy. I had forgotten my jacket, and although relatively sunny, it got pretty damn cold, and now I'm sick, not too bad though. We saw a guy threatening to jump off a bridge. By the size of the fall I doubt it would have killed him, and luckily it didn't come to that, cos police talked him out of it. Still it was pretty sad seeing a man that desperate. And a bit sick seeing everyone get their cameras out to take photos, I mena Jesus some people really are low.
Finally I'm very sad to say I heeard news of the death of a class mate back home. George died of cancer, which is incredibly sad, he was far too young and far too nice of a guy. My heart goes out to his friends and family.
Anyway, now we catch the bus to Stansted and from there fly to Spain, should be good.
Catch y'all.

I'm in London still... and it's better than that Waifs' song my Dad likes.

2007-09-15T12:46:00.000-07:00

Well, we've been in London a few days now, and although still not entirely over the jet lag we are seeing some great things and having a great time. Yesterday we went for a long walk and saw all that royal stuff like Buckingham palace etc, it was a bit of an accident to be honest, we just kind of stumbled across it. We were lucky enough to catch the changing of the horse guards, which was pretty cool. I tell you what though, being a guard like that would be a sucky job, they have to just stand there all day and barely move, I'm not disciplined enough really, but regardless it looks as boring as hell, even if they do get to carry swords. Anywho, after that we went to The Globe theatre, the reconstruction of the theatre shakespeare's plays were shown in. We got tickets to see The Merchant of Venice on Tuesday, which I'm pretty excited about. After that we went to the Tate Modern art gallery, and that was really impressive, so many really interesting things to look at, which is kinda a given I guess. Then today we checked out the Natural History museum, and the science museum, which were both relatively interesting, but free admission meant the price was right so I'm not complaining. Then we went and had a look at Harrod's which was pretty impressive in it's excessiveness, but made me realise how much I couldn't afford anything. We've also been spending a lot of time in the parks here which are huge and lovely. I've been managing to stick to budget, which has been excellent for my health in terms of having to walk everywhere and eating cheaply without the option of snacking or gorging. So so far all has been excellent. Really the only downer has been the hostel. It's interesting being in an English speaking country but being a minority in the hostel for speaking English, which is fine, it just makes socialising a little harder because of the language gap. We're moving to another hostel in a couple of days so it will be fine regardless.
Well that's about all I have time for at the moment, so take it easy and I'll catch y'all next time!

Chucklebear II: European Vacation

2007-09-13T05:52:00.000-07:00

So I never did get around to writing that last summary blog for the South America trip. I got back home and was distracted by so many things that I guess I just couldn't be bothered. Anywho, none of that matters any more because I'm back on the road, except this time I am with my girlfriend Brit and we are in Europe. Some of you may be thinking that it really hasn't been that long since I was last away, and are probably wondering how I could possibly afford to go on a trip such as this, and you'd be right to wonder, because basically I can't. But that's all part of the fun and should make things at least a little more interesting for you the reader. This being the case though, you may expect my entries to be briefer and fewer this time around, as I am paying about $6 an hour here instead of the 6cents an hour in South America.
As far as European themed sequels go, I am hoping that this blog at least meets the standard of Deuce Bigalow European Gigolo, and perhaps even be a little more interesting than the instant classic Eurotrip. I figure if you aim high enough you might just reach mediocrity.
But enough blabber, onto the trip. In Adelaide yesterday morning Brit and I jumped on a plane to Singapore , and by pure coincedence found ourselves on the same flight as our dear friend Ben McGee. We managed to organise it so that we were sitting together and enjoyed a pleasant trip before farewelling Ben at the Singapore airport. Our next flight to Zurich surprised us a bit as neither of us had checked how long the flight was, which to our dismay turned out to be a very long one, accentuated by the screaming child in the row behind us. From Zurich we flew to Heathrow airport, tired and disoriented we collected our bags and tried to make sense of the subway system. Given our state we did pretty well, and found our way to our hostel without any major hassles. The hostel is alright, a bit dingy and smelly, but that's what you get for £10. Since then we have been walking round London (mostly Hye park and Nottinghill) and trying to stay awake. Believe it or not everything looks very British, we even saw some squirrels scurrying around in Hyde Park. I'm not really doing it justice at the moment, I'm extremely jet lagged, I have absolutley no sense of time presently, and my current surroundings aren't exactly inspiring. I am currently sitting under fluroescent lights in the basement of a dodgy pizza shop that they have turned into an internet 'cafe', plus there's a guy sitting next to me burping loudly every 20 seconds. He is truly disgusting.
Regardless, it's all a bit hard to believe we're here at the moment. What we have seen of London so far has been pretty cool, and I know that when we get over this jetlag, we're going to enjoy it even more. So until then, take it easy.
Chucklebear

Galapagos and Beyond

2007-03-01T10:08:00.000-08:00

I´m sure you know that by now we have returned from our trip to the Galapagos, and tonight we do in fact begin our journey home. It´s funny, the Galapagos Islands were incredible, possibly the highlight of the entire trip in fact, but I´m not that excited about reporting our experience on them. I´ve noticed that I much prefer writing about the things that go wrong on our trip rather than those that go smoothly. I think it´s a combination of being a well travelled whinger and that I´ve never enjoyed reading about other people´s amazing trips to the most beautiful places, all I get is bored and mildly jealous. That said I´m fully aware that I have included plenty of boring recounts of the aforementioned beautiful places, and will include at least one more in this very entry. It´s just how things seem to be done in travel blogs.
So, we enjoyed a brief and hassle free flight to Baltra Island, from which we were escorted to our amazing Yacht, it had 4 levels, including a sunbathing deck. We were granted the luxuries of a TV and DVD player, hot showers, flushing toilets, airconditioning, washing machines, and an incredible kitchen from which the most amazing meals were prepared. We soon met our tour group and found them to be a mostly pleasant array of people of different ages and nationalities, we also met our guide, who we soon found to be useless.
We were shown to our rooms, Ness shared with a girl we became good friends with called Abby, and Sarah and I were to share a room. We found to our horror that we had again been given the matrimonial suite. This was most complexing. There were two married couples on the cruise, and a long term younger couple, and none of them were given a double bed. It was incredibly strange. On top of this the bed was very small for a double, and it soon became apparent that this was not going to work. Luckily we were able to organise to swap rooms with someone who had a room to himself with two single beds.
Over the next five days we enjoyed some of the most incredible day trips that I have had the privilege to experience. We explored several fascinating islands in the most perfect of weather. We saw hundreds of iguanas, some eating, some sleeping, some fighting, some swimming, and some just hanging out. We saw too many sea lions to mention, playing, barking, sleeping, and feeding their pups. We saw plenty of boobies (Blue footed and Nazcan, not the lady bits), lizards, crabs, Frigate birds, Giant tortoises, penguins and much more. And we saw all of it closer than you could imagine, the zoo will never be the same. All of this was just during our land visits, during the snorkelling we saw a hell of a lot more.
In crystal clear water at a constant 26 degrees Celsius, we saw, Giant turtles scrounging for moss, penguins and sealions fishing and playing with us (many sealions even brushed me as the came to get a closer look at me), thousands of the most spectacularly coloured fish, all different types of rays, including giant sting rays swimming in schools that you could have reached out and touched if you were dumb enough to try, we saw a bunch of sharks (some of them very big), eels, sea snakes, and from the boat we even saw some dolphins playing as the sun set. The girls also saw a few jelly fish, and they were even lucky enough to feel what happens when you get too close to them (I think the welts have finally faded). I saw everything I thought I would and so much more. On one occassion when Ness and I were snorkelling by ourselves in shallow water, four sealions led by a giant Bull sea lion suddenly surrounded us. They circled us very closely and as Ness and I tried to keep our eyes on them we tripped over each other, got all tangled up, basically making quite a scene. We soon got some bad vibes from the Bull Sea lion, who was much bigger than I am, and decided we had better get out of his territory. The females followed us out quite playfully, they were really very curious, but I was relieved when there was some distance between us and the Bull.
I could go on and on about everything we saw, but I´ll leave that until I get home, suffice to say that it was about the most incredible trip I have ever been on, and I could spend months their given the opportunity.
We flew back to Quito, this time it wasn´t such a hassle free trip, and spent a night in a really fancy hotel as part of our Galapagos package. Over the last couple of days we had dinner with some friends that we had met several times throughout our travels (including Christmas), we went to an animal sactuary that was really impressive, we attempted to go to a female prison, but missed visiting hours, and today I went to a barber and had my beard shaved off.
Now this, Í am much more interested in reporting. First of all I asked if I could keep my side burns, and I am sure the hairdresser understood me, she just messed up. She started with the clippers and was careful to keep a sideburn on one side of my face at the length I had requested, but on the other, quicker than you can say ´´side burn tan lines´´ she slipped and sheared a vast majority of it off. I saw her face freeze with fear, waiting for me to yell at her, but I gritted my teeth and smiled, as Ness and Sarah both covered the mouth in a mixture of shock and amusement. She tried to compensate by leaving the other sideburn a little longer, but I would have clearly rathered she even them up. Then as she was shaving me with the razor, she slipped again, this time imbedding her razor quite deeply in to my mole, looking at it now, it appears as if she took half of it clean off. Of course it bled like a bastard, and she freaked out. As it didn´t particularly hurt I told her not to worry about it as she kept trying to stop a rather constant flow of blood, eventually I got her to let me hold a cotton bud to it. I think she also shaved a bit too close as I have come up with a bit of a rash. I left only having to pay two dollars, but with a cotton bud stuck with thick blood to the side of my face, an imminent rash, and ridiculous tanlines where my sideburns of probably 8 years used to be. Are you looking forward to seeing me now Brit?
I´ve decided that taking the timee to ensure that the person you ask to take a blade to your face, has both the skill and pride in their work to request a payment of more than $2, is time well invested. On the plus side I don´t look like a hobo anymore... I more closely resemble someone who´s paid a visit to Sweeney Todd.
Well that just about sums it up.
That was our trip to South America.
I may try to get one more entry in to sum things up, tie up loose ends and all that, but if not, thank you for your patient attention. I don´t know if it´s possible for psychologists to write anything interesting, but I´m not quite a psychologist, so there may have been hope for me. For your sake hope that´s true.
Till next time (if there is one),
Chuckles

Jungle Fun

2007-02-20T13:42:00.000-08:00

So, we've just returned from the Galapagos, and it was incredible. However, before that we went to the jungle and had an awesome time there as well. I'm a bit tired though, and it seems so long ago that I'll just give you a quick overview of some of the highlights there.
We caught a hideous bus ride from Quito to Cuybeno. From there we took a motorised canoe to our camp a couple hours down the river to our lodge. We then went on various trips and saw 4 types of monkeys, piranhas, alligators, a tarantula, a couple of snakes, a catfish, some huge pikes, hundreds of cool birds, frogs, and too many mosquitos.
We went piranha fishing, Ness caught one, but Sarah and I didn't. I did catch a pretty big catfish though. We went swimming with the alligators and piranhas. The food was great, the other people in the group were not so great, and our guide didn't like wearing shirts but was otherwise fine.
Alright, I'll leave it at that and record a really decent blog for the Galapagos soon.
Till then,
Chuckles

The Quilatoa Loop

2007-02-14T14:07:00.000-08:00

After our brief stay in Baños we decided to head to Latacunga, from where we would base ourselves to do a tour of the Quilatoa Loop. The loop has been described as one of the most spectacular tours you can do in Ecuador. However, on reflection most tours just about anywhere make similar claims. Despite this it was a most incredible part of the country.
The loop itself is settled mostly by farming communities connected by several small villages. The landscape is diverse, and it is easy to see how many travellers can spend weeks completing the loop. You could spend an age exploring the deep, lush valleys and canyons, a particularly large inactive volcano, a cloud forrest, many quaint towns, and even a cheese factory. However, on our increasingly strict schedule, we only had two days to explore the area.
We booked two nights in a small village called Chugchillan (where there´s not much chugin but plenty if chillin... sorry that was incredibly lame), at hostel Cloud Forrest, and proceeded to make plans for the following day´s activities. With a bunch of other tourists we were able to hire a milk truck to drive us to the volcano, from where we would explore a section of the rim and then make a b-line back to our hostel, which would allow us to explore a few of the larger canyons and a valley, all up it was to take us about 5 hours.
The morning of the trip Sarah woke up feeling incredibly ill. You could tell she was torn, and I know exactly how she felt due to my Inca Trail experience, so I wasn´t incredibly surprised when she decided to push on regardless. I was most concerned that sitting in the back of a milk truck was going to push Sarah´s nausea over the edge into full a fledged fit of vommitting. I needn´t have been concerned however, as for some reason, the shaky dusty ride was enough to encourage an almost full recovery, and apart for the occassional coughing fit she fared well for the remainder of the day. I found the truck ride most enjoyable, standing high on the tray holding fimly on to the cab in front of me. The view was incredible, and at some moments mildly upsetting as the road narrowed and dropped away on one side to the greatest of depths.
We were also reminded that Carnival was fast approaching as at one point our truck was bombarded with water bombs thrown by the local kids, it would not be the last time that day we would be met with such an attack.
After an hour in the truck we arrived at the Quilatoa volcano. I hadn´t really heard anything about it, so I was suprised to see just how big it was, and even more surprised to find the crater filled with a magnificent blue lake. We climbed about a third of the rim before descending down the volcano, and before long we came across a small town. The girls decided we would have a luch break here despite the alarmingly high presence of sinister looking children armed with water bottels and water balloons. I had no particular desire to be drenched for the remainder of the day, so found myself a little apprhensive. As we were slowly surrounded I went so far as to get out my water bottle in such a way to make sure that it be known that there would be repurcussions for the child actually bold enough to dare get me wet. For a time it worked, whether deterrence was due to a fear of getting wet or the fact I was about five times bigger than most of them shall remain a mystery. However, after a time, the children´s numbers grew larger, and they did in fact grow bolder, and the occassional water bomb would whistle past us. At this time I realised things weren´t heading in a desirable direction, so I hastened the girls to finish their lunch, and we hit the road again only having to growl at them once to get enough distance between us to be safe from further attack.
The remainder of the walk was incredible, the descent in to the valley was spectacular, if slightly perilous. At times we truly thought we had gone the wrong way, due to the difficulty of the track, but soon found out that in fact we hadn´t. The final ascent up the other side of the valley was a particularly long and hard climb. Once I started I didn´t want to stop for fear of not being able to begin again, and thus left the girls behind to climb the valley at their own pace. Close to the top I had to pass through a small village, and began to feel goosebumps up the back of my neck as I came across evidence of a bloody water bomb battle whereby some poor tourist had clearly not come out on top. Bits of broken balloon were sprayed all over the place, and large damp patches that clearly showed where someone had been hit were far too frequent for my liking. It was a truly horrifying scene. Before long I became acutely aware of the presence of others. Charlie was in the trees, behind bushes, and peeking around corners. I was surrounded and sure of my fate, so I stopped in the middle of the track knowing not what else to do. The tension was thick in the air, you could feel the excitement of the little bastards rising as they knew their moment of glory drew closer. Although I didn´t want to get wet, it was the waiting for it to happen that I couldn´t stand, and thus the moment of calm before the storm seemed to last an eternity. Then it happened, one jumped out from behind his bush flinging his water bomb wildly, it missed badly, but set off a rapid release of other children´s bombs headed in my direction. I did a little uncoordinated dance dodging those that fell at my feet, and turned behind me in time to see a bomb flying straight for my face. I ducked in time, and looked ahead of me to see it scone another child square in his face. This gave me enough time to pass him without him getting a chance to offload one of his bombs, and was able to duck into a little nook in the cliff face on the side of the track to get momentarily out of range. I knew the children would not approach me directly as I had my large water bottle out again, and such daring would surely end in their drenching. I peeked out to check out the situation, but quickly ducked back in as 5 water balloons were hurled in my direction.
I realised quickly that there were surely no more than 12 of them, and some of them were holding water bottles, meaning only about 6 of them could possibly be holding two bombs, I thought I had at least 15 thrown at me, meaning that with no time to get refills there could surely at best be only 3 bombs left. Suddenly I begun to like my chances, I ducked out again and two more bombs came hurtling at me with no chance of hitting me, so that left only one. I decided to step out and face the last armed bandit, but found I had miscalculated, as three more bombs came at me again and luckily still missed. For country kids these guys had crap aim. I saw one last child holding a bomb, he couldn´t have been more than five, so I just stood there and let him hurl it. It missed by a mile, I smiled turned my back and walked slowly away in mockery, until I was out of sight whereby I hastened my pace to be sure not to be caught up with. I thought briefly about the girls, but figured they could cross that bridge when they came to it. However, upon questioning I found that they met no such ordeal. Humiliated, the kids were probably crying themselves to sleep. Suckers.
Anyway it was a great walk, and it would have been nice to explore the loop further, but with time as short as it was we had to head to Quito today, where we have arranged a great looking jungle tour for only $200 US everything included for 4 days. We head off tomorrow, and for that I am quite excited.
So until then,
watch out for little bastards with water balloons.
Regards,
Dylan
P.S. I´m not really that much of a stooge, it was all in good fun!

Our first few days in Ecuador

2007-02-10T21:04:00.000-08:00

So we are now well and truly in Ecuador, and it`s a big call but I reckon it`d be about the most stunning country we`ve been to so far. In terms of it being very green and quite tropical.
Our time here thus far has been eventful, and reignited our passion for travelling after the tour through Peru.
Our first couple of days we spent in Cuenca, which in my eyes was not nuch of a city, except that it had Cajas National Park a short bus ride away from it. This national park was stunning. Lush green hills, clear blue lakes, and creepy ass woods straight out of a Tim Burton film. We took a day trip out there, and were directed on a four hour hike. Like most things in South America the track was poorly sign posted, and although we were having an awesome time, it was not long before we were unsure of which way to travel, and not long after that until we found we had lost the trail altogether. We sat down with the map out and managed to work out where we were using the hills and lakes around us. The whole day was quite an adventure, and exactly the change in pace we were looking for.
After Cuenca we took a short bus ride to Alausi. The bus didn`t exactly drop us off in Alausi, but rather up a hill near Alausi in the middle of the night. A little dazed from the trip, with no idea where we were seeing as the lonely planet didn`t have a map of this small city, all we could do was laugh. And with our heavy packs we marched towards the distant lights of the city. Aimlessly wandering the streets we were lucky enough to run into an old woman who kindly directed us to the closest hotel where we dumped our stuff, checked in, and fell asleep almost instantly.
The following morning we caught the Devil`s Nose Train. A 1 and a half hour train trip down a steep hill and back up again, the twist being that you sit on the roof. In all honesty I wasn`t entirely impressed with it. It was very touristy, so the train was packed, and you could hardly enjoy the few glimpses of the view you got. However, we took the same train for the less touristy part of the track, a three hour trip from Alausi to Riobamba. This time there were only five of us on the roof, and the trip, although cold, was thoroughly enjoyable. We passed many lush farms, and at almost every one of them the dog belonging to that property chased the train enthusiastically for much further than you thought possible. It was in fact, very amusing.
We spent no time in Riobamba, as we jumped onto the first train to Baños, a small city named after the many hot springs it has to offer. It is an incredibly beautiful city as it is surrounded by huge mountains (and a volcano) all covered in amazing tropical flora. The clouds that hang around the mountains only add to the mysticism of the city.
This morning we got up relatively early and headed to one of the hot springs, we didn`t see the pay booth so we somehow ended up going for free. We were under the impression that it was a very touristy thing to do, do were surprised by the lack of any other tourists. The only downfall was the presence of way too much old woman boob, showed off by the older woman in the open showers whose shame obviously had left them after they gavin birth earlier in their life. Other than that it was a pleasant experience.
After the baths we hired some bikes and embarked on a 22km downhill bike ride. It was the best we had encountered yet. The scenery needless to say was spectacular, and the route had us pass many extravagent waterfalls.
About half way through the trip we came across a swing jumping sight. The concept is very similar to bungee jumping, except that the cord is not elastic, it`s just a rope, and it is connected to the other side of the bridge that you jump from so that after falling 20m you swing like a pendulum for a few minutes. Needless to say I was keen to do it.
There were two jumps to choose from, the small jump that everyone was doing, which was basically just like a swing rope. And the big jump, from the higher bridge whereby you climb on to the top of the railing on the bridge a dive head first before being flipped the right way up and swinging. It was thirty metres to the rocky waters below. Noone was doing the big jump except the demonstrator. The girls refused to do either jump outright, but insisted I give it a go. I really wanted to, but didn`t at the same time. In the end I figured I had to. As soon as I got to the bridge I regretted my decision... It was just so high, and I was about to jump head first off this bridge? That just sounded like stupidity to me. I was harnesed up and not feeling the happiest in the world, but before I knew it I was standing on the ledge with nothing infront of me but a thirty metre jump. The guy counted to three and I jumped, knowing that if I didn`t then I never would. Then as I started to fall, I decided I`d done a very dumb thing, and had a minor freak out, which was aided by the screams of everyone watching. But as soon as I was flipped the right way up I was fine, and enjoyed the swinging. Sarah caught the whole thing on video and I hope to post it soon. It was certainly a thrill, and I am very glad I did it.
The remainder of the bike ride was pleasant, and when we got to our destination we were able to chuck our bikes in the back of a small truck and hitch a ride back to town. It was a very fun day.
And that about brings us up to date, so I`ll see you later!
Dylan

click below for the video of me doing something stupid (it`s sideways but I can`t help that).

http://s125.photobucket.com/albums/p70/alex0080/?action=view&current=DSCN1483.flv

Beaches, Borders, and Brutality

2007-02-06T17:45:00.000-08:00

Today we arrived in the final country we shall be visiting during this trip, Ecuador. However, prior to this we spent 4 days at two beaches along the Northern Coast of Peru. It was a welcomed change of pace. The first two days we spent at a beach near Trujillo called Huanaco, the atmosphere was very relaxed, and tourists were few. It was the perfect setting to swim, unwind, eat, and drink. Although the beach itself was not as nice as anything we have at home, save perhaps Glenelg, we had a very pleasant time doing very little at all.

From here we headed to the surf beach Mancora. It was an eight hour bus trip at night, and we were awoken early in the morning tired and disoriented upon arrival. It was still dark, but we were immediately inundated by copious amounts of taxi drivers offering us a lift to our hostel. We chose one at random, really quite overwhelmed by the whole ordeal, as we were still half asleep. He took us to his taxi, and we realised it was nothing more than a took took. A motorcycle with a tiny carriage dragged behind it. A little unsure of how we were all going to fit with our luggage, our driver took care of everything, and before we knew it we were speeding along into the sunrise. Our hostel was situated right on the beach front and being a Sunday morning, music from Saturday night partying was still pumping loudly. This, along with the rising sun, and the drive along the shoreline with the crashing ocean metres away, made for a most surreal experience in our sleepy daze.

Mancora was a very nice beach, but much more of a touristy destination. We made the most of our time there by hanging out with a friend from our GAP tour, working on our sunburns, swimming, drinking, eating hamburgers, drinking some more on the beach, and sleeping a lot. We took it so easy that none of us could even be bothered taking a single photo, so you´ll have to take my word for it that it was a nice place.

This morning we sadly farewelled our friend from the GAP tour, and jumped on a bus to head to Ecuador. By pure chance we got on the same bus as another GAP group we had met earlier, and had come to know quite well. As such we gained the benefits of being in a GAP tour without paying for it. Which proved to be quite fruitful for us seeing as crossing the border between Peru and Ecuador turned out to be most trecherous. As our bus approached the border we all got our passports and papers ready, and as we stepped off the bus all these official looking men were demanding us our passports. A little dazed by it all I obliged immediately. Luckily for me the GAP leader snatched it from his hands, and then proceeded to do the same for almost half the group as they made the same mistake I had, some passports had to be chased down, but luckily all were recovered. We were all then sternly told not to give our passports to anybody, excpet those actually inside the immigration booths. It was yet another close call that turned out well for me.

The bus trip into Ecuador was spectacular, the scenery was notcibly greener, lusher, and basically more tropical. We arrived at Cuenca many hours later, and have only just now booked into a really cosy hostel in the centre of the city. Quite tired, the three of us have thus far struggled to get our heads around the new currency, which is in fact US dollars. It´s strange changing to a currency that is actually worth something, especially when the country using it is relatively poor. You end up paying $2 US for a large meal, but are still unsure as to whether that´s a good deal comparitively to other countries we have been to. However, I am sure we shall soon adjust.

I´d now like to finish this entry on a spectacularly horrifying note. This actually took place on the bus trip between Pisco and Lima, but it was so disturbing that it had been deeply repressed at the time of the last entry. The bus trip in question shall be dubbed the bus trip of death, for which I, sitting in the frontmost seat, had the best view for. Some time into this relativley lenghty journey, we unexpectedly hit three birds flying in formation. It was a shock, as hitting birds always is, but hitting three was expectedly somewhat more disturbing than hitting one bird. Especially as I saw that at least two of them met a most gruesome, although admittedly sudden death. So yes it was a shock, but as I am sure you are all thinking, it was also something that you get over relatively quickly. However, this was only to be an appetiser to what would become the main course of disturbingness I would witness on this journey. For roughly one hour later I watched happily as two beautiful black sheep dogs, no more than two years of age frolicked gleefully together as they played some yards ahead of the bus. As one gave chase to the other, the pup playing the evader darted unexpectedly out on to the road, directly in front of a double decker bus travelling at at least 100km an hour.

Watching a dog get hit by a bus travelling at that speed is a somewhat sobering experience to say the least. It certainly gave me a reality check, for I realised that if it were me getting hit by that bus at that speed, I would not stand a chance of surviving, and those with a weak stomach or a particular fondness for dogs may be well advised to stop reading and see me at the next entry. At the moment that dog was hit by that bus, it ceased to be a dog, and instead became nothing more than flesh and entrails flying in every direction. To do no more than retell exactly what I recall seeing, for one brief moment I swear I saw a large proportion of the dogs insides escape out of its mouth. Some parts of the dog flew clear of the bus, a much larger part got tangled up in the wheels, and afterwards what was left behind was a five metre blast radius of what was moments before a seemingly untroubled dog.

Everyone in the bus witnessed the aftermath, I was the only one who caught the whole horrific ordeal in its gruesome entirety. And many of those who witnessed the aftermath went as far to say, what in God´s name did that used to be. For me though, the most hearbreaking moment of the entire ordeal was watching this pup´s playmate nudge a larger portion of the carcas, whilst looking noticibly distressed at the loss of his friend. Either that or he was hungry.

The whole thing was of course over in seconds. Yet needless to say I was mortified, and remained somewhat quieter for the remainder of the journey. So, sorry to put you all through that, but it was somewhat cathartic for me. If it bothered you in any meaningful way, maybe retelling the story and disturbing a bunch of other people could be as helpful to you as it was for me in moving on from it all. If not, tough nuts!

Till next time,

Chuckles Mc Chuckleton

Finishing the tour

2007-02-02T16:01:00.000-08:00

Hey all,
I know it´s been awhile, but there have been some serever problems with blogger. Also although we have done a lot since the Inca Trail, many of which have been cool, none alone have seemed to deserve a blog entry to themselves. I guess after you´ve been travelling for awhile you become harder to impress.

Anyway after the Inca trail we got on a plane to Arequìpa. It is a city much a kin to most others you will find in South America, however, this one is in a desert near a bunch of volcanoes. Due to this many of the buildings have been built out of white volcanic rock, making the city look suitably arid and kinda cool. A part from that it´s just your average run of the mill city. From there we visited Colca canyon, the world´s deepest canyon. It was alright, but not terribly impressive, probably because we didn´t visit it´s deepest part. We went there mainly to check out the condors, one of the world´s biggest birds, but we only saw 4 in the distance and they weren´t very impressive either. After that we visited a hot spring, and that was about as nice as taking a communal bath can be. Which is in fact relatively nice.

From there we headed back to Arequipa for a day, and then set off to Nazca. I saw the Nazca lines from a small plane, they were pretty cool, seeing as they are thousands of years old. I found the monkey especially impressive, as the Nazcans were located in the middle of the desert, and conversley monkeys are generally situated about as far away as you can get from the desert. So it was most puzzling indeed. After this we checked out some ancient Nazcan cemetries and saw some mummies, it was cool if a little morbid. Sarah wasn´t terribly impressed by the constancy of Ness´and my jokes that were admittedly in pretty bad taste.

That night we drank out of pineapples next to the swimming pool at our hotel and had a generally pleasant evening. From Nazca we headed to the coast to Pisco, the inventors of the Pisco sour, a tasty drink indeed. On the way though we sopped at the worlds biggest sand dunes and went dune buggying and sand boarding. This was incredibly cool. The dune buggies were crazy. Better than any roller coaster I have been on, climbing up and down the steepest dunes at the most incredibly speeds. The boarding was cool as well, we all ended up with sand in every crevice imaginable, but incredibly exhilarated... In retrospect I am sure the sandy cracks were at least partly responsible for said exhilaration.

Upon reaching Pisco we found it was a dank hole. Also quite dangerous. So we mainly kept to our Hotel. One of the very friendly but incredibly clueless and painfully annoying members of our group got his camera bag stolen at the bus station, in total losing his camera, three credit cards, ipod, passport, 1000 soles cash, and his entire trip´s worth of photos. It was heart breaking but dumb. Some guy came over to him and started joking around with him. And as he sees himself as a bit of a joker he joked around back and whilst he thought he had this guy as his audience, someone else took his camera bag... So that´s where attentin seeking behaviour can get you. It was a massive hassle for him though, but our tour guide helped him out and got just about everything sorted so the only real loss would be his photos. You may recall a similar scam was played on us, but we were far too savvy to be fooled by such trickery... Some would say lucky, but I think savvy is a much more apt term.

In Pisco we headed to the Bastille Islands to see the penguin, sealion, and other bird colonies. It was pretty incredible, we got much closer to the wildlife than we did in Argentina, and there was lots of it. We also saw the mysterious ancient candleabrah (clearly that´s not how you spell it but I don´t even know where to begin to fix it up, and I´m way too lazy for spell checker, as you may have picked up with previous spellings of Machu Picchu...) inscribed in the side of a sand dune. Noone really knows what it is, why it´s there, or how it got there, so that´s pretty cool.

From Pisco we headed to Lima for the conclusion of the tour. It was a relief, although we had come to like many of the tour members, many had thoroughly shit us. The eldest member of the group was easily the most childish and selfish. It was no wonder she was alone. Another member of the group did nothing to break down the stereotypes that Germans are austere, easily dissatisfied, and generally unpleasant. Although it must be said that many other Germans we´ve met have. Mainly though, it´s just good to be doing are own thing again.

In Lima I was met by a man´s worst nightmare. Walking with the girls, slightly ahead as I sometimes do, I spotted to my dismay a huge clothes shop that was advertising tshirts for 5 soles... so very cheap. This was made worse by the fact that the clothes were displayed in 12 massive piles 1and a half metres inheight, 2 in lenght and 1 and a half in width. I knew this spelt trouble. No one can navigate through that amount of clothing in a relatively short period of time. especially when displayed in such a ridiculous manor. I tried not to notice and continue walking, but the girls surely saw it and freaked out. We were there for an incredibly painful hour and a half. I couldn´t really do my own thing either as we had just arrived in Lima, and it is a notoriously dodgy city. I tried waiting outside for a moment but was offered drugs twice in a two minute period, with one man urging me to come with him. So with little other option I sat through the horrifying ordeal.

Currently we are at Trujillo, a beach town that is very nice. We certainly have seen some diverse terrain on this trip, and we still have jungle and the Galapagos to go.

Anyway best be off.

Regards,

Chuckles

My Incan Ordeal

2007-01-27T13:43:00.000-08:00

As you should already be aware, Ness became ill a couple of days before we began the Inca Trail. Her sickness seemed to settle down a bit, but the night before we began the Inca Trail she began to feel very unwell again. Her situation was probably not helped by the meal we had just consumed. Both Ness and I had eaten some very ordinary creamy pasta, and I had mine accompanied by the rankest pizza I have had the displeasure of tasting so far on this trip. However, I felt fine, for that moment at least.

I awoke during the night to the sound of Ness vommitting, the first thing I thought was, poor girl. However, this was immediately followed by, hmm I´m not feeling too well. I pushed the latter thought to the back of my mind and tried to sleep. For the rest of the night I was disturbed by stomach cramps, and at 7 in the morning, just before we had to get up to leave, I felt the onset of the all too familiar need to reach a vomit reciprocal.

Doubled over the toilet I cursed between heaves. Why the f··· now? Of all the f···ing times in the world to get violently ill, why the f··· did I have to be ill now?

After emptying my stomach, I stumbled groggily and grumpily back into our room. Ness and Sarah both looked sympathetic. After a short discussion with them we worked out that Ness and I had the same symptoms. Vommitting and other unpleasantness that one REALLY does not want to deal with whilst hiking, especially in the abscence of a clean or indeed ANY bathroom facility. We decided it was either due to the food we had eaten last night, or that it was Ness´original illness coming back with a vengeance and reeling in a new victim. We decided with much deliberation that the latter was more likely. Firstly, no one else in the group had gotten sick from the food, and we had all eaten at the same place and similarly. Secondly, Ness seemed to be doing better than I was, her previous night´s vomit would be her final for the illness, whilst I was just getting started.

Quite frankly though, how and why it happened didn´t make one iota of difference. The outcome was the problem, we were facing a shit situation, of which the most sensible solution was also the most horrifying and heart wrenching, boycotting the Inca Trail. It was not a solution either of us were willing to accept. So our guide got us the most powerful antibiotics money can buy, and sent us on our way.

The bus trip to the trail entrance was Hell for me. By the time we got there I was in big trouble, weak, light headed, and extremely nauseous, I stumbled off the bus. For the first time, I really didn´t think I would be able to embark on the Inca Trail. I could hardly walk a step let alone trek 40 kms. Apparently I looked like the living dead, I was a definite grey colour, I spoke in groans, and stumbled around as if my limbs were decaying.

At this stage the guide´s assitant was celebrating, it looked to him as if he were about to get four days worth of pay to take me back to town and kick back in Cusco. The guide approached me to ask how I was, I was about to reply not good, before I turned on my heel ran five steps, and projectile vommitted all over the entrance gate to the Inca Trail. Suddenly I felt fine. I knew in my heart of hearts that it was only temporary relief, but despite all that my body was telling me, I figured I had come to far to turn this experience down. So I told him that I was doing it. I don´t think anybody truly believed that I would make it, not even me.

Somehow I found myself holding two hiking sticks, in my haze I don´t know where they came from, but for the following day they served as an extra pair of legs to keep me from falling to the ground. The first day was supposed to be the easiest hiking, which was a blessing for me, however, this day still turned out to be the hardest for me by far. As we set out I immediately fell behind. It was the assitant guides job to make sure I made it, so he always hovered just ahead of me, occasionaly asking if I wanted to head back, but always checking to ensure I hadn´t fallen down and died somewhere.

I don´t remember the scenery that day, although I am assurred that it was spectacular. I focussed on taking just one more step. Each step I managed was one more than I thought I could. The ascents were murder, and the descents were almost as bad, each step down unsettling my stomach. I vommitted a couple of times on the track. I arrived at the lunch site to a round of applause, but I simply collapsed and slept through most of the break. When I was awoken, far earlier than I would have liked to have been, I was informed we weren´t even half way. My heart sunk. We had the same distance again (4km) plus an extra 2km at the end of the day that was to be a steep ascent. I had hardly made it to lunch, I didn´t see how I was going to make it to the campsite. However, I couldn´t face the idea of giving up after putting myself through this much pain. Stubbornly and perhaps stupidly I set off again. Again it was agony, and if it weren´t for the kindness and persistance of the assitant guide Edmundo, who carried my day pack for the last 2km of the day, I surely would not have made it.

I arrived at the campsite forty minutes behind everybody else, later I was told that I made it in the average time hikers generally did, our group was to be the fastest our guide had taken in two years. This was evident in the amount of groups we were overtaking, and our guides constant over estimation of the time it would take us to get to the next stop. But at that first campsite I just got into my tent and slept.

The following day I felt much better. I found out that Ness was going alright as well, she seemed to be about one day´s progress ahead of me in terms of recovery. This day was supposed to be the hardest, with very steep and lenghty ascents. Comparitivley I found it a breeze compared to the previous day, and managed to keep up in the middle of our group for the days hike. The scenery was spectacular, and the weather was perfect for hiking. That night our guide told us his life story. It was quite sobering. He had grown up in poverty, and had to work hard from an early age. After finishing high school his family couldn´t afford to send him to University. He and his friends decided then and there that their lives were not going to improve, so they made a pact to drink themselves to death. A few yearsa later his sister had made a bit of money and found a good job, and was able to afford to send him to university. His mother had to find him on the streets and sober him up. But he did so, completed uni, and became a tour guide, a good one at that. Now he is sending his little brothers and sisters to uni. His friends did not have the same happy ending. Their story is unfortunately a common one in Peru.

The third day I began to get an appetite, and was very lively. It was only a short walk and views were spectacular, I perhaps overate at dinner that night, and consequently fell ill again. I vommitted in the middle of the night, and felt very ordinary on the early morning we were to set out to Machu Pitchu. It was to be a crazy morning.

There was only two hours of hiking to get to Machu Pitchu, and every group on the Inca Trail got up early to get there first. The hike turned into a sprint. Every pace I took I was sure would make me chunder. Although I did turn and dry reach once along the way, I was lucky to generally be spared of that eventuality. I was the third in our group to make it to the Sungate, and there were only about five others who made it before us. The view was amazing, but clouds were descending fast. By the time Sarah arrived she caught a glimpse of Machu Pitchu before it was engulfed by clouds.

The morning of our tour of the ruins was dampened by heavy rain. I was neither feeling to comfortable or well, but the grandiosity of the ruins could hardly be denied. After our tour the rain cleared and we hung around the ruins for a bit, but soon decided to head back to town.

On the short bus ride back to Aguas Calientes we were lucky enough to witness a most amazingly athletic feat. As our bus depated from Machu Pitchu a boy dressed in the traditional garb waved goodbye to us with vigour, then he ran away. I scratched my head over this for a short part of the bus´descent down a very windy hill, before I saw the same boy again jump out in front of the bus waving and hollering all the time, stop running whilst still continuing with the dramatics and step out the way of our bus to let us pass him before he ran off again. We saw this kid after every turn the bus took, and it was a very tall hill. Towards the end he was looking exhausted. Of course after the last turn the bus stopped, let him on and he collected a tip from every body. But Goddamn he deserved it, it was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. The blurry picture beneath is a capture I got of him waving.

The Inca Trail over, a few of us headed to the hot springs to soak. It did me the world of good, I was aching all over. Upon putting on my boardies I realised I had lost a lot of weight. Trekking 4 days for 40kms with the shits and the occassional vommitting fit without consuming much food is apparently better than the no carbs diet. So try to spot the condition on me now MUM! For a final thought, the Inca Trail did almost kill me, but I am glad I was able to manage it, for one it makes a good story, and also you never know if you´ll ever get a chance to do such a thing again.

Cusco: Both Beautiful and Frightening

2007-01-18T14:38:00.000-08:00

A fore warning for this blog entry; parents may find some aspects of this entry distressing, however it is important to keep in mind that all said and done, the three of us remain in one piece (each), and that has to count for something.

As our bus rolled in to Cusco I awoke violently choking on my own saliva. A vigourous coughing fit ensued, until an elderly lady in front of me stood from her seat turned to me and held out a grottelated tissue. I tried amongst the spluttering to give her a quizzical look, but most likely failed. Clearly a little aggravated with me, she said `there´s a cough lolly in there.` I tried to tell her I was choking, and a cough lolly probably wouldnt help, but she looked at me coldly, and said ´I haven´t touched it. Take it. It will help.´ So I took her grottelated tissue, unwrapped the cough lolly, and obligingly put it in my mouth as she stared me down. She sat down, and I rested my head against the window trying to supress my cough as tears welled in my eyes due to the water still in my lungs. To take my mind off the discomfort I took in the sights of the city we were entering and my urge to cough and splutter eventually passed, as such an urge always does. At first the city seemed quite unimpressive, dirty unpaved streets, unfininshed houses (very common in South America as you dont have to pay taxes tif you live in an unfinished house), and many homeless. However, soon the scenery turned greener, the houses older and grander, the roads cobbled, and we found ourselves in the heart of a most amazing city. Incan houses still standing, generally with Spanish additions of second and third floors. The result; a gorgeous city that could belong in any European country.
Our group was to split in two the following day, for two days anyhow. Half would advance into the jungle for a couple of days, the other half would remain in Cusco to relax and take in the sights. Needless to say the jungle goers were keen to have a big night in Cusco to make the most of their brief visit. And so we all prepared for a night on the town.
I was a little tired, and thus only intended on having a couple before turning in. God`s honest truth I did only that, but after my fourth drink something very unexpected happened. I suddenly felt incredibly drunk. Now I know we are in high altitude, but we had been in higher altitude for some weeks, and I can usually put away five or six drinks without beginning too feel intoxicated, so this was most unusual. I stumbled down some stairs towards the bathroom of the club we were at, but did not make it. I collapsed on the floor of the lobby, a couple of people helped me up, and I realised then that I desperately needed to get back to the Hotel. I made my way back up the stairs to signal to at least one of the girls I was going. I caught Ness` eye across the crowded dance floor and waved. She signaled for me to wait a second, but I desperately needed to get out of the club, as the sure signs of imminent vommitting were well and truly present at this stage.
I descended the stairs a second time, flung myself out onto the street and briefly scouted for a suitable place to vomit. I clearly failed in this venture as the place I settled for was most definitely not suitable for vommitting, it was a grand pillar of at least five hundred years, constructed under the rule of the proud and masterful Incan Empire. After the first episode of vommittting passed, I managed perhaps ten steps to the next grand pillar before hurling again in what must have been a most offensive gesture to any one who felt any morsel of pride towards the the once great Incan Empire.
After this I cannot remember what happened. My hotel was perhaps a twenty minute walk away from the club we were at, which included many dark and slightly dodgy alleys. Keeping in mind I had only just arrived in Cusco it was a miracle I managed to make it back to the Hotel unharmed. Before waking confused and groggy in my room the following morning I can only remember one thing. I cannot remember arriving to the Hotel, I cannot remember getting into bed, but I can remember crawling up a set of stairs in a dark alley wondering how the hell I was going to find the energy to make it back.
Awaking the following morning felt like I had skipped a scene on a DVD. I could make certain deductions on what had happened based on the information that was being presented to me at the time, but somethings I had well and truly missed and would not recover without that vital piece of footage. I could for instance incur that I had spent some portion of the night vommitting in the bathroom, but could not work out how I had managed to communicate to the night porter who I was, or what room I was residing in. As I had no room mate, I could not be enlightened.
That day was a slow day for me. I felt pretty rough. The girls said they had looked for me as soon as I left the previous night but couldn´t find me, and assumed I had gone home.
The only reasonable explanation for this night in my opinion is that one of my drinks was spiked. I say this because I rarley forget anything when I´m out drinking especially after only four drinks. Also we heard that guys were regularly targeted by drink spiking in Cusco, escorted back to their Hotels, and stripped of all their valuables. Luckily I had all mine, but I do put this down to luck, and luck alone. Somehow, I must have managed to leave the club wihtout detection, and avoided mugging on the way home. Our guide doesn´t think it likely my drink was spiked, but he is a proud Peruvian, and perhaps underestimates the dangers of this city.
Regardless, it was a lucky escape, but an escape nonetheless. And another valuable travelling lesson learned in which we came out relatively unscathed. So no amount of frantic emails from concerned parents will further teach me to keep a closer eye on my drinks, I´m already on to it.

The following day we did something really cool. We went white water rafting. It took a lot of convincing to get the girls to come along, and when the safety chats at the beginning of the day, both girls looked positively horrified, a visble shade of green. Sarah approached me afterwards and said ´Why are we paying ten dollars to die?´
Their attitude soon changed when we finally got on the water, it was lots of fun and the views of the mountains alongside the river were spectacular. Half way through we stopped at a bridge ten metres above the rapids, and our guide asked us who wanted to jump off it. We all did, even Sarah although she needed to wrk up a bit of courage. The bridge looked much taller once we were on top of it, and the rapids much wilder. I didn´t think about it too much and jumped over the railing second in our group. the rapids were strong, but I easily swam to the bank where our boats were. Ness jumped in gung ho but forgot to swim for a bit and almost missed the landing. Sarah gingerishly attempted to mount the railing, but required assistance. When she finally bombed off on her own accord she didn´t bother swimming and when she emerged and let a rescue kayak bring her ashore. Apon questioning later, she thought that was what you were meant to do.
Rafting continued, and in our final violent rapid I nearly fell in. Turning to tell Ness how close a call it was, I found it had been even closer for her, she was no longer in the boat at all. I then saw her two little hands holding onto the rope off the side of the raft. Sarah and I proceeded to pull her into the boat. She landed on top of me laughing hysterically, as only Ness does.
It was a really fun day, but had dire consequences for Ness and I that would prove most compromising. Ness caught a bug from swallowing river water. How that affected me you shall find out in the next blog regarding the Inca Trail.
Adios.

Titicaca: The highest navigable lake in the world... Can you spot the trend in my titles?

2007-01-15T14:53:00.000-08:00

For our last night in La Paz we had to book into a hotel for the beginning of our 21 day tour of Peru. It was by far the nicest place we had stayed in, we even had tvs in our rooms, which didn`t really matter seeing as we never have the time nor desire to watch it. We met up with our group for dinner for the first time, and we were shocked that we were by far the youngest in the group, making me yet again the baby of the trip. However after minutes getting to know them it soon became apparent that we were not the most immature. Sarah went into skepticism mode, beginning to think we had made a terrible mistake in booking this trip. I on the other hand was trying to find a way in which I could enjoy the following three weeks. I had already decided that one of the members of our tour was a real life David Brent from The Office, after he told us that he did nothing at his work except sit around and have a laugh in his office with the boys. He then went on to tell me about explicit photos he had sent to him by email, one in particular called ¨mittens¨(which I shall leave to your imagination, except that it included 3 girls), that the only female co-worker caught him looking at. He went on to tell me how funny it was that she was offended cos there was nothing she could do about it. It sounded like a truly horrifying work place. All his subsequent stories were equally cringe worthy, especially one about video taping himself making fun of locals who could not speak English. However, as horrible as this man sounds, being able to compare him to David Brent turns him into a hilarious and relatively pathetic charicature.

As it turns out, although there are a few tools in our group, they are relatively harmless and nice enough, and the rest of the group are really nice. One man from Canada called David is particularly nice, and by a strike of coincidence reminds us very much of David Plebs, a fellow Australian called Dale is very friendly, and the three of us are getting on very well with a Canadian girl who is close to our age called Ola.

Upon being assigned to our rooms in the hotel, Sarah and I were assigned to the same room. We looked at each other a little curiously, everyone else had been matched with a same sex room mate, and we were under the impression that males and females were to sleep in separate rooms for the whole trip. We wandered up to our room, opened the door and pissed ourselves laughing. We had been given a room with one double bed! We asked our tour guide what it was all about, he shrugged and said he had nothing to do with it. Then some of the hotel staff saw us and started laughing, one nudged Sarah telling her to enjoy the Matrimonial Suite. I´m not sure if they were taking the piss or what, but we all had a good laugh anyway. I think they were actually just short of rooms, and really it was no big deal to share a bed for a night, and better with Sarah than someone I did`t know. As it turned out we were so tired that our sleep was unaffected by the presence of the other.

Over the past couple of days we have been visiting Lake Titicaca, and it has been a most incredible experience. Yesterday we headed from Puno (a lakeside town) to two large and inhabited Islands. First we headed to Taquile Island, with a population of 2 thousand. It was an immensley beautiful island, where we had the most spectacular of lunches. Sitting at a large table outside at the top of a hill overlooking the lake, we enjoyed a very tasty rice and vegetable soup, and one of the most delicious serves of fried trout I have ever had the pleasure to consume. All whilst a local man played the pan pipes and guitar for us. It was one of the highlights of my trip so far. We then went on to the next Island (the name of which escapes me at present), where we would have our homestay. Sarah and I were assigned to our Mother, Justa, and after a long and exhausting walk from the port, we reached our house. It was a cute mud brick house, with tiny doors, and no electricty (obviously). We then played soccer against the locals (they throughly beat us, but I did set up one of our only goals), and proceeded to do an arduous hike to the temple of Mother Earth. It had the most spectacular view, and along the way our guide told us of the courting rituals of this community. Basically a guy would shine a mirror at the house of a girl he liked to let her know that someone was interested in her. The following day when all the girls went to the shops to buy food, all the guys would wait by the soccer field near by and on their way back would follow them back to their house. Then one of two things would occur. One, she would like him, and throw a pebble aside to let him know she was also interested. 2, she would not like him and run for her life. Some things are universal I guess.

We were fixed a most fantastic dinner, gave our host family some presents, including my recently purchased hacky sack that I had grown quite attatched too. However, the child of the house, Henderson, also had grown attatched to it and was really too cute to be denied of it.

After dinner Justa dressed us up in traditional garb, and took us to a dance. It was a pretty amazing sight, all these whities in Ponchos and fancy dresses that really made the girls look more like they were from Holland than Peru. Our host Mum then took us by the hands and started teaching us the local dance. After awhile I got the hang of it. It was really very difficult. As she threw one hand forward, you would throw the corresponding hand back, and vice versa. Tricky stuff. There was a local band there, and they played songs for 7 to 10 minutes, and thus that´s how long the dances lasted for. It was really very tiring throwing your hands back and forward over and over again. Plus our host Mum looked very disinterested in the whole thing, as if it were a chore. I think in honesty the whole thing was a ploy to make us very tired so we would go to bed early, thus allowing them to do the same. However, it was animmensley fun evening, even if we did go to bed early due to our exhaution. Sarah and I splept like logs, apparently right through the most violent of thunder storms, and awoke early in the morning to Pancakes in bed. It was quite a treat.

From there our boat took us to the floating islands, a spectacular if touristy destination. The locals live on these islands that they have constructed from reeds and that literally float on the lake. It was quite incredible.

We arrived back to Puno this afternoon, and re leaving for Cusco tomorrow morning. It will be our last stop before The Inca Trail, and an opportunity for us all to have a bit of a rest and recover from our various mild illnesses.

I look forward to blogging again there.

Catch ya,

Dylan

La Paz: The Highest Capital City in the World

2007-01-11T14:58:00.000-08:00

We were lucky enough to get a good bus into La Paz, and thus we were able to sleep for the majority of the overnight trip. I awoke at 6am just as we were approaching La Paz, and was met by the sight of a city unlike any I had ever seen. We were at the top of a mountain descending in to the city, which lies within a valley surrounded by mountains, some of which are snow capped. What is remarkable about this city is that it climbs high up the walls of the valley. Houses are crammed in every space possible. Entire suburbs sit precariously on badly eroded mountain faces, and look as if one torrential downpour (not an uncommon occurrence here) could wash them away. It is really quite breathtaking.
We got off the bus and booked into the closest hostel, and were rewarded by our lazyness. Upon checking in the doorman actually led us out of the hostel, took us down the street to what looked like an abandoned warehouse, he heaved open a large decaying door, and led us into what still looked like an abandoned warehouse. There was no signposting at all, but we walked up about five sets of steep and seemingly endless stairs, before entering a final door to reveal a freshly renovated and quite charismatic hostel (it is the secondary residence of the place we had booked in). Being 6.30 am we assumed we would not be able to get into our rooms until at least midday, but to our delight we were shown to our rooms and beds, and passed out immediately.
When we awoke we got down to business. We came to La Paz for pretty much one reason... To shop. It has innumerable markets, with good quality stuff for next to nothing. Over the next few days we all shopped until we were way over it. Except Ness, who bought more than Sarah and I combined, and in fact is hard to find amongst her purchases when she goes to bed at night. No Ness could probably shop indefinitely, and I fear would if we were not leaving in a day.
Other things that happened over the course of our stay in La Paz, involved me getting quite sick from either accidently drinking Bolivian water, or eating rancid Burger King. However the vommitting ceased after a day (although it was quite an intense day of vomitting), and I am now almost back to my best. We also met up with our American friends Adam and Noah again, definitely for the last time, and went on a double decker bus tour of the city with them.
The tour was good, except that it was raining and we were on the roof of the bus, even that was not so bad though. What really made us question the quality of the tour, was when the bus left literally half of the tour on the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. We were included in that half. We were left scratching our heads wondering whether they would return for us, and as we waited two friendly police women approached us, organised us a taxi and then encouraged 8 of us to pile in to this four seater. We all crammed in as if practicing the clown car circus act, whilst these police women were smiling and nodding at us, and then began our uncomfortable journey back to the hostel. It was a funny enough experience though.
Tomorrow we begin our tour with Intrepid. We are quite intrigued as to what our group will be like, as it has the potential to make or break the tour in essence. I figure at worst we`ll be able to bond over our hatred of any particularly vile member of the tour, but it would be nice if we had a good group.
This I am sure will be revealed soon enough.
But until then...
Ta ta!

Potosi to Sucre

2007-01-06T11:28:00.000-08:00

After the mines, the only thing worth noting in Potosi is that Sarah ate a cream bun on the morning we left. At the time she claimed it was the best thing she had eaten in a while, and went on to proclaim that cream buns would be her new thing. The relevance of this will become clearer soon.
We got on a bus, and enjoyed a relatively comfortable and short trip to Sucre. However, we did come across one disturbing sight. Our bus stopped suddenly, and upon looking around I saw that many cars had stopped, but I couldn´t work our why. On one side of the road was a river that was about six metres below us, on close inspection of the road side, I saw that a whole bunch of bushes had been flattened. The driver started the bus again, and as we drove by the flattened bushes I could see that a family Sedan had driven off the road, fallen six metres, and lay crumpled upside down at the bottom of the shallow river. Surprisingly it looked as if most of the family were okay to the exception that the mother was cradling a child and weeping. It was impossible to tell whether he was alive. The clearly distressed father was warding off people attempting to help them. We were about 15 minutes out of town, and five minutes down the road we saw a police car rushing in their direction, hopefully to help them.
We arrived in Sucre, booked into a nice enough hostel, and went to look at the markets. After a few minutes, Sarah looked ill. She decided to go back to the Hostel, and did not emerge for a day and a half. She had become very ill indeed. It was only a matter of time before it happened to one of us, and I am sure Ness and I shall fall victims to food poisoning soon enough, but it certainly wasn´t pleasant for Sarah. Ness however, although sympathetic for Sarah, was not too affected by it. I say this because I witnessed something I thought impossible. During one of Sarah´s more violent vomitting affairs, Ness sat on her bed watching Sarah, quite concerned, but still somehow managing to shovel handful after handful of cerial in to her mouth, chewing unabaited by he hurling not a metre and a half away. It was an impressive feat.
Sarah is still not 100%, her appetite has not yet returned and it has been a while since she has been able to eat a proper meal. But she is certainly far better than she was yesterday.
Whilst Sarah was sick, Ness and I went to see some dinosaur tracks. You were unable to get closer than 150m from the tracks, and thus they were none too impressive. They were uncovered by a cement mining company, who only decided to preserve them because a) the soil they were in did not make good cement, and thus b) they realised they could make more money making a tacky dinosaur park and charging tourists 40 boliviars to get a far away glimpse at said tracks. They continue to mine around the tracks during the opening hours of the park. Thus it was not one of the greatest highlights of this trip to say the least.
Sucre is a nice place though, it´s a pretty town, and it´s been good to bum around for a few days. I even got to see a film in English, The Prestige, which I quite enjoyed, if only for the experience of seeing a film.
We´re headed to La Paz tonight, and shall be there until the 12th. It´s a twelve hour bus ride, so we took care in selecting a comfortable looking bus.
Until La Paz,
Dylan

Potosi: The Highest City in the World

2007-01-04T13:27:00.000-08:00

After our first night in Potosi, I awoke well rested if still a little sick. Despite this we had booked a tour of the cooperative mines, with a group called Koala Tours. Why Koala Tours you ask? Well Koalas chew eucalyptus leaves all day, whilst Bolivians chew Coca leaves all day. Also Koalas sleep 22 hours a day, whilst miners are awake 22 hours a day. Except for the boss of koala Tours who also sleeps 22 hours a day. Well that´s what our guide told us anyway.
We were lucky to get a very good guide. A miner, who spoke very good English, and was very funny. Our tour consisted of more Australians than we had met on the trip so far. But I guess that´s what you get when you travel with Koala tours.
The first thing we had to do was get into ridiculous mining apparel, then jump on a bus to the markets outside the mines. Upon getting off the bus, we realised how ridiculous our clothes were, no other group looked like us, and the miners certainly didn´t look like us. Upon asking the guide why we were dressed the way we were, he responded, to give the other miners a laugh. And yes upon looking around we were attracting many looks and smiles. I have never felt so much like a tourist. At the markets we were to buy the miners presents. Our guide gathered us around and taught us about the presents we would buy. First of all dynamite. Our guide pulled out a big stick of it and smacked me hard on my helmet with it to mine and everyone elses horror. Then explained it was harmless without a fuse and detonator, I was not entirely convinced, but am glad i still have my head. then our guide pulled out a bottle of alcohol. 96% alcoholic it was, he said we must drink from it if we were to enter the mines. A mouthful put hairs on your chest, anymore would put you under ground. By this stage the entire group´s eyes were watering. Our guide proceeded to tell us to buy a bag of Coca leaves, and soft drink.
We bought these items, and I realised it was the first and most likley the last time I would be holding cocaine and dynamite at the same time... at least legally.
We were then taken to outside of the mines where our guide sat us down and introduced himself as Pedro, not Perro (dog), and if we ever called him Pedo (fart) he said he´d kill us. He got us to introduce ourselves, upon telling him my name he told me I must be mistaken... He was asking us what our names were. Upon reassuring him that my name really was Dylan, ya know like Bob Dylan, he decided just to stick with Bob. He then asked the girls when they started high school, and that became a running joke of the tour, getting the girls to cover their ears when he was to tell us anything remotely crude.
Pedro then pulled out a bag of Coca and asked us all to take a handful, a large handful, he wanted us strong for the mines. He then told us all to put it in our mouths and chew it. So we all stuck large fistfuls of Coca leaves into our mouths and began chewing. It tasted pretty foul, kinda like sticking a hundred tea leaves in your mouthes. As he watched us all struggle on our big mouthfuls of Coca leaves. He laughed and showed us how Bolivians chewed Coca... One leaf at a time. We cursed him between swallowing large amounts of Coca sap.
Finally Pedro took us into the mines. The ceiling was very low, I hardly ever was able to stand up straight, and I was thankful for my helmut as I hit my head often and hard on rocks and beams, but my neck got very sore. It often got so low that we had to crawl on our stomachs.
The Potosi mines are the highest mines in the world. So conditions in them are very hot, up to 45 degrees C, and there is very little oxygen in them, thus conditions for working are poor. The miners work for themselves, and have to sell their mineral themselves to the highest bidder. Thus they have no medical benefits, no protective clothing, and no special equiptment to get their minerals out of the mine. The average life expectancy of a miner after he starts working is 10 to 15 years. That said, Pedro explained that most miners were happy at present as the price of minerals were way up, and a miner could make quite a good living these days, drawing attention to all the miners rocking up in their 4X drives. Still it´s a hard life for a miner.
In the mines there were many sculptures of the devil, sporting a flattering erection, usually holding a bottle of booze, smoking a cigarette, and covered in coca leaves. This is because the miners are predominantly catholic. They believe that their mines must be close to hell and therefore the minerals in them must belong to the devil, so they worship him, reffering to him as Tio (uncle). If they have a good harvest of minerals, they feel they must show their appreciation to Tio by drinking A LOT with him. If they have a bad harvest they believe they have not drunk enough with him to appease him, so they drink A LOT with him. In fact there are many occassions whereby the miners drink a lot.
We crawled our way to the 3rd level of the mine, it was hot, impossible to breathe, and many of our group looked as if they were to pass out at any minute. I couldn´t walk in a straight line. Sarah looked as if she could have collapsed at any moment. One Hawaiian man was really struggling. Pedro explained that we should not worry if we passed out, he had carried two Israeli´s out yesterday.
Pedro continued to tell us of the miner´s bloody history, as we passed other miners giving them presents. As many as five massacres have occurrred in the mines in the past 100 hundred years, whereby the government have come in and just slaughtered them. To protect themselves the miners use dynamite as weapons, and continue to keep the cheaper crappier Peruvian dynamite on hand to kill anyone if need be. Pedro explained this in quite a matter of fact way, it was just their way of life he explained. The mines have claimed over 8 million lives in its entire history.
Upon getting out of the mines and regaining our breath the guides got some of the remaining dynamite, prepared it and lit it, and handed it to me and some other guy and just walked away. We both had a minor freak out, but the guides told us top stay there while people took pictures. Then strolled up to us casually took the dynamite walked 150m away put it down and walked casually back in time to watch it explode. I don´t think such practices would be accepted by OHSW in Aus, but it certainly made for an intersting day!
Catch yáll,
Dylan

Happy New Year

2007-01-02T14:39:00.000-08:00

Hey yáll,
so we are well and truly in Bolivia now, and it is most certainly a very different country to Argentina. Our border crossing went very smoothly, just a couple of stamps and a walk across a bridge, and it was over. Later we found out that the border is so relaxed that you can do day trips from one country to another without any passport checking, you can literally just cross the border unchecked, which is how the cocaine trade survives so easily. The differences in the two towns that share the border could not be more apparent. You go from a well developed city to an impoverished one in the space of fifty metres, it is quite uncanny.
From the border we made our way to the train station, and slept on the dirty floor for around 4 hours whilst waiting for our train. It was a surprisingly good sleep, I think mostly brought on by the altitude. We got on the train, and were surprised by its comfort. 4 hours later and at 3.5km above sealevel we were in Tupiza, and were instantly Marauded by 15 children trying to sell us a room in their affiliated hostel. We chose one quickly, and made a b-line for it. By this stage a headache set in. Little did I know that it would not subside for three days. This was the begginning of my altitude sickness. Something that the girls were fortunatley spared of. Although I didn´t vomit, I was miserable. Whilst in Tupiza we booked a 3 night 4 day tour of the desert and the salt flats. It was $100 US everything included. Our tour consisted of me and the girls, two Germans, a Chinese Canadian, our guide, and his wife the cook. It was good to travel with these Germans and the Canadian. It made the three of us appreciate each other´s company a hell of a lot more. I don´t know what these other girls were expecting, but I think they were all suffering from culture shock. During the first stop in the desert, one of the Germans asked where the toilet was, our guide laughed and gestured to the entire countryside. The horrified look on these girls faces was priceless, but the complaining didn´t cease till the tour´s end. Myself, I was no fun for the first two days of the tour. Each day was 12 hours sitting in a jeep, getting to altitudes of up to 5km above sea level, my head felt like it was splitting every time my heart beat. Despite the amazing sprawls of desert either side of me (the types you only see in the movies), I was concerned with little other than sleep. Then when we finally got to the hostels the beds were so short, squeaky, and uncomfortable, that I hardly slept a wink.I was particularly grumpy on the second day, as I was sure I had lost my camera. It turned up in my sleeping bag, which was incerdibly lucky!
On the third day everything turned around. I still woke up with a headache, but this time I decided to treat it with Codral, the panadol had been doing jack all, and within half an hour I was feeling mountains better. Then I realised why the Codral worked so well, and probably why the altitude hit me so hard... I was getting a cold. But by this time I didn´t care, I was just glad to be awake without my head throbbing. I enjoyed the third day, even if it was much the same as the first two, but it was the first time I was truly able to appreciate the Flamingos and Llamas. We got to our hostel near the salt flats, and I was thrilled to find our beds were a good length and comfortable. On top of this the whole hostel was built out of salt, including the bed bases, it was cool.
On the fourth and final day of our tour we headed in to the salt flats. They are so vast it is impossible to comprehend. Somewhere in the middle of them is an Island of cactusses, where we stopped for a good two hours. The three fo us took the opportunity to take some awesome photos, which I shall psot as soon as I can, but with Bolivian internet being as slow as it is, that may take awhile. Coincidently, it happened to be New Years Eve. And we celebrated Australian New Years, with the girls daring me to do a nudie run into the vast, open, and deserted planes. In a rare display of extraversion, I took up the dare, and sprinted naked in to the distance. It was liberating, if retarded, and the girls got some photos of my pasty white ass in the distance. Which incidently, Sarah sent home to her Mum today. So sorry Anne, you have been warned. The tour ended in Uyuni, which is about as rural a town as you can imagine, we booked into a dank hostel, and despite there grandest efforts the girls missed New Years, opting to crash at 11.40pm. I decided I would not miss my first New Years in 15 years, and went out on to the street to watch the fireworks being set off by the locals. I watched as one local used two massive rockets as crutches, and winced everytime she threw the rockets forward, jammed them into the ground and then threw her weight on to them. I am truly surprised I didn´t see any amputees, I guess when things go wrong they can´t afford the medical to survive as cripples. As morbid as that hypothesis is.
The fireworks were alright, and satisfied that I had done my bit staying up for New Years, I headed back to the hostel at 12.05. To my surprise, the hostel had locked up... Before Midnight on New Years! Before long more backpackers turned up and became equally as disgruntled, until a crowd of over fifty of us were thumping on the door. People began resorting to throwing rocks at the windows and eventually an angry man came down and let us in.
The next day we got up early for our bus ride to Potosi. I realised that my cold had hit me with avengeance. I guess I had not exactly been taking it easy. And as soon as I saw our bus, I knew it was to be a horrible day. You see the busses in Bolivia are built for Bolivians surprisingly. And I have not felt as much of a giant as I do in Bolivia. They are on average the same height as the girls... So real short!
The girls sat next to each other and settled nicely in their well proportioned seats, falling asleep almost immediately. I looked at my seat directly behind them and wondered how I was going to get my legs in. I managed it by jamming each knee painfully into the gaps between the seats infront of me, my kneecaps were pressed firmly against the metal bolts holding the arm rests up. As I reclined into my seat I realised that the head rest met right in between my sholder blades forcing me to hunch over. Finally I realised my shoulders were far broader than the seat I was allocated to. As I considered what the implications of this could be, I watched a ver large lady approach me, each empty seat she passed only confirming my wildest fear. And thus it was realised. She plonked her enormous build practically dead on me. Her wide heavy thighs, driving into mine, driving my kneecaps further than I originally thought possible into the bolts they had been resting against. The bulk of her body crushing my shoulders in on them selves further, wedging me firmly between this woman and the window. Also as showers are a comodity in Bolivia, and the bus being incredibly stuffy, this woman reeked, and thus as she sweated on to me I began to smell the same way. The bus finally began its journey and as I sat, hunched over, bolts cutting into my knees, snotty from my cold, hardly able to breathe, partly due to restricted lung capacity, partly due to the stench, the woman fell asleep on me, began to drool, and I pondered whether I could keep this up for 7 hours.
When we arrived in Potosi, I was not a happy chappy. I made things worse by taking codral on an empty stomach. Disoriented, dizzy, sore, and tired, my map reading was attrocious, and after getting lost many a time we finally made it to the hostel. Where I slept like a baby. The following day made up for the previous one. We visited a cooperative mine. But that my friends is another story for another day. Thanks for sticking through this epic if indeed you did. Till next time, Chuckles

Feliz Navidad

2006-12-26T10:28:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas all!
It´s Boxing day over here, and we´re all taking it very easy after a big day of eating, drinking, swimming, and general merriment. But I´m getting a bit ahead of myself.
A couple days back we went on this big day trip out into the desert. We saw Seven Colour Hill, climbed to an altitude of 4100 metres, ate traditional Argentinian food at a self sustained farm in the middle of nowhere, visited the Salta salt flats, and visited an Inca ruin. It was a very nice day, but damn tiring.
The following day was Christmas eve, we took it relatively easy and did a bit of Christmas shopping, during which Ness tried to speak to someone politely in Spanish, and clearly getting it very wrong, she aroused a very angry rant from a local store owner, that I am sure consisted of the worst Spanish swear words imaginable. It was pretty funny.
I then tried to ring Brit and my family for Christmas, however the instructions on my phone card was in Spanish, the phone lines were jammed most of the time due to everyone having the same idea as I, and due to a storm the phone kept cutting out. After 2 hours I got to speak to my sister and Brit for about 20 minutes. Mum and Dad had gone out.
That night we went to a Christmas party at a hostel, 30 pesos for all you could eat and drink. We were only going to have a small night because we intended to have a big day on Christmas, but somewhere along the way it went horribly wrong, and it turned into a big night. Over here Christmas is kind of celebrated like New Years, with the party on Christmas eve, and a count down to Christmas followed by all the locals shooting off massive fire works. It was quite incredible, I have never seen so many fireworks filling the sky in all directions.
At 5am I decided I would try to call my parents again, seeing as it would be 7pm in Australia. I managed to get through relatively quickly, and it was nice to speak to them, but truth be told I can´t remember much of that conversation.
I finally crashed out at the hostel, and it was only a couple hours later that we had to get up and check out. I felt ordinary, but Sarah looked like death, and contiued to look quite ill for most of the day. From the hostel we set out for a house some friends we had met in Bariloche hired out for Christmas.
It´s a great house, a pool, a big backyard, and most importantly plenty af great people, 15 of us all up. When we got there we were told of a massive feast we were to enjoy later that day. It all sounded quite ambitious, so I was skeptical as to how it would turn out. When we offered to help out, these two Irish boys stepped forward and proclaimed, you can all help by not setting a single foot in the kitchen until dinner is served. And for the remainder of the day we were all locked out of the kitchen, some people attempted to enter but were yelled at immediatley. At about 6pm, with none of us having eaten all day, the boys opened up the kitchen and what lay in front of us was the most enormous feast I have ever seen. Two turkeys, roast beef, stuffing, gravy, roast veg, roast potatoes, scalloped potatoes, mash potatoes, fries, corn, wine, beer, Irish coffee... The boys had even had Brussel Sprouts Fedexed to them from Ireland. They went the whole hog. Dessert followed with more Irish coffee, 2 apple pies, and a crazy ice cream cake.
I had never invisiaged that it could be so good, a few days prior we thought we´d be eating hotdogs on a street corner somewhere, and although not a family Christmas spectacular, this exceeded all expectations. By 4am we passed out on the floor, as the house didn´t have enough beds, but what followed was one of the best sleeps I have had in weeks. And this morning we got up sometime after midday feeling well rested.
Tonight we leave Argentina and head to Bolivia. Tupiza being our next stop. It´s been a fun country, and we will miss our American friends, Adam and Noah, who we may not catch up with again, however we may see Natalie and Tracy for New Years, so that will be good.
Argentina was a good way to start the trip I think because it is quite similar to Australia in many ways, and we didn´t really experience any culture shock. Bolivia however, shall be an entirely different propostion, and I look forward to the challenges it will hold.
Till next time,
Dylan
P.S. Christmas photos are coming and maybe even a video, but it may be some days until I can get them posted.

Iguazu to Salta

2006-12-22T17:18:00.000-08:00

First thing´s first. Booze is REALLY cheap here, and only gets cheaper in Bolivia. On our last night in Iguazu we bought a litre of vodka for 5 pesos, which is about $2.50 Aus. It smelt and tasted like Methylated Spirits, but we had a good night. By coincidence we ran into Dean, who we met in Bariloche, and this made the night even better. We had a 9am bus out of Iguazu the following day, and needless to say we weren´t feeling the flashest. We transfered onto another bus in Tucuman, and by coincidence jumped on the same bus as some American guys we met briefly on another bus. We got talking and it turns out they were friends with two other girls we had met in Bariloche and were meeting them for Christmas in Salta. The coincidences just keep on piling up. So these guys invite us to this Christmas party they´re having at this house that they are renting for three days over Christmas with a pool and everything, telling us about the huge dinner they´re going to prepare, and we agree whole heartedly. It turned out that they were coming to the same hostel as we were first so we shared a taxi and checked in. Then I get an email from the girls we know inviting us to the same party. It really is a small world. Anyway we´re pretty psyched about Christmas, we´ve got a makeshift travel family, and with the big dinner and the pool, it should be really fun.
Salta is a really beautiful city. Yesterday we took an airbus up a mountain, and despite desert only being a few kms away the whole place is greener than any city I have seen. It´s nice kicking back in one town for a few days. Buses are beginning to feel very ordinary.
However, despite this being a really nice city, and being in a really nice hostel, there are some wankers about. Last night we were cooking dinner and this drunkard kept on leaning over our food, pushing Sarah aside and taking over. Who does that? He started adding all this olive oil in it, we were making Chili con Carne, you don´t really need olive oil! I literally had to push him aside and forcefully reject his offers to help, which were not so much offers as much as they were demands as he reached over to take the pan. I was fuming and ready to throw the pot half full of boiling olive oil at the bastard, but luckily he wandered off and passed out in the hall way. How rude can you get. You just don´t touch a strangers cooking, you could get shot for that kind of thing in some cultures... well my culture, whatever that may be! For the rest of the evening I had to contend with this loser pleading with me to pick up a girl for him. It didn´t seem to occur to him that me picking a girl up would not help him in the slightest. He also didn´t care when I told him I had a girlfriend and wouldn´t feel comfortable doing it. I downright refused, and he continues to give me daggers when I walk by him in the hall ways. Jerk.
Despite these set backs, I´m having a great time. The pool table is free here, the beer is cheap, and the weather is warm. The girls have gone nuts for a cocktail that you drink out of a pineapple, however they haven´t yet mastered the art of not butchering the pineapple beyond its use as a beverage container. Still they´re having fun. I´m enjoying my last opportunity for big cheap steaks. Bolivia ain´t much of a steak country.
Tomorrow we´re heading out for a 15 hour day trip. We´re getting to some high altitudes, so that´ll be interesting. I´ll let you know how that goes soon.
Till then,
Dil pickleton.

Iguazu Day 2

2006-12-19T13:21:00.000-08:00

Well it´s been another big and spectacular day. We got up early and caught the bus to Iguazu national park to see the falls. Again it was damn hot and humid, we all agreed that we had never sweated so much in all our lives, it was just lovely. The national park has several walks that take you to different views of the falls. Each was spectacular in its own way, and between today and yesterday we manged to do them all. The park itself is crawling with wildlife. Amazing birds, the most colourful butterflies you have ever seen, thousands of lizards including plenty of iguanas, these small wild guinea pigs, huge bugs-ants as big as your thumb, we were also lucky enough to see a family of Matis ( at least I think that´s what they´re called... I could be very wrong), they were mammals about the size of monkeys with stripy tails, and long thin noses, they came to within a foot of us. It was pretty cool. So it was a pretty amazing day. Half-way through it however, it just started pouring with rain, I mean the heaviest rain I have ever experienced. One moment it was really hot, then BAM- pouring with rain. In Iguazu it seems you´re either swimming in sweat or swimming in rain. There was no shelter anywhere, so we had no option but to grin and bear it. After you´re soaked through there´s not much you can do but enjoy the rain. I was a little worried about my camera and i-pod, but luckily they are fine. Most everything else in my bag had to be ditched though, and all my money got very wet, which is a problem when it´s made of paper. I handed the bus driver a hanful of soggy notes, he accepted them, but was none to pleased about it. When we got back to the hostel, I used Sarah´s hairdryer to dry out all my money(which I would have paid her out about bringing if I knew she had it earlier, but seeing as I needed it, it turned out to be a great thing to take abroad). It was a relief to have a hot shower and put on some dry clothes. Right now the girls are out buying ingrediants for dinner, we´re gonna make pizza, which is exciting cos although there is plenty of Pizza here it has all been surprisingly ordinary. We´re gonna make it right tonight!
Tomorrow we jump back on another long bus trip to head to Salta, where we´ll be spending Christmas. It will be good to spend a while in a town and just relax.
Until Salta,
Dylan

Mendoza to Iguazu: One Big ass bus trip!

2006-12-18T17:24:00.000-08:00

Many a thing has happened since the last blog.
Whilst still in Mendoza I decided to scour around for a new book to read, which is a harder task than you would think cos of the whole language thing. We asked around and finally were directed to some kind of second hand book store district. It was bizzare, there were all these book hustlers on the street corners, whispering sleazily in your ear,
``hey guerro, you lookin for a book, you come to my bookstore, you get some good books there!``
then some other guy would come up to you, and be all like
``don`t listen to him, his books are bad, you come buy my books``
Then some kind of book turf war would start, and much blood would be shed. Well not quite, but it did feel like they were pedling drugs or hookers or something, when honestly the shops were like ma and pa secondhand bookstores. Crazy!
I finally found a book, and we headed to the bus station. It was here that we had our first run in with dirty dirty theives. We were sitting with our packs near our feet, my day pack was about two feet away from me. And then some guy came up to us and was like,
``Hey, you guys, you know....(followed by incomprehensible english).``
We all looked up at him, but as I did I saw in the corner of my eye someone picking up my day pack. I turned to him quick as a flash, catching him in the act. I wasn`t quite sure what was happening at first, but he dropped the bag immediately, and tried to confuse me by offering me his half eaten lollies. It worked, I took his crappy lollies, and he was gone before I had truly realised what had happened. It was a close call, but a good way to learn, our day packs stay in our laps in bus stations, and locked up otherwise.
We waited a long while for our bus, almost too long, before we checked with a lady and found our bus had been docked at a different platform to the one we had originally been directed. We ran to the otherside of the bus station and got there just in time. Sat down and got as comfortable as we could for the epic journey ahead of us. The trip wasn`t too bad. The food was passable and I knocked off half of my book. But when we finally got off we found that Sarah`s bag had been sitting in some foul smelling liquid for 36 hours and soaked theough all her clothes, rendering them smelly. She`s washing them now, but not altogether happily.
Iguazu is hot. And damn humid. Walking around here is like swimming in sweat, it`s not too pleasant. However, battling on we headed to the falls, and they are breathtaking. So far on this trip I have seen so many sights that are so amazing they are practically indescribable, but looking at these huge falls is kind of like being drunk. The constant changing formations of the masses of falling water makes you dizzy, and gives you a bit of a head ache. It is truly mindblowing. We are heading back there tomorrow cos there is so much to see, the falls are so huge you can`t see them all in one day.
Our hostel is alright, it looks really cool cos it used to be a casino, we`re about to go swim in this huge pool out the front. However, everything in Iguazu is sooooooooo expensive, it`s a tourist town and boy do they know it. It`s worth it though, I never thought I`d be so impressed with a waterfall, but I have been proven wrong, and not for the first time... nor the last I fear.

Till next time,

Chuckles

Leaving Mendoza

2006-12-16T11:03:00.000-08:00

After a big sleep last night we set out to stroll around the city of Mendoza, saw some nice parks, ate some decent enough food, and now we are preparing for the 36 hour trip to Iguazu that lies ahead. To tell you the truth there´s not a whole lot to report, but I have taken this opportunity to download a bunch of photos, the first lot are from Sarah´s camera, the second lot are from my camera and are shots of Mendoza. I have also added some more pictures from Bariloche in previous blogs.

See yáll,

Dylan

Mendoza

2006-12-15T15:19:00.000-08:00

Another crappy bus ride later and we´re in Mendoza. This time our bus broke down twice, they only played one crappy film for the entire 20 hour trip (the Italian Job), and we were not fed because they were too busy grinding the hell out of the gears. So spirits weren´t exactly high when we finally arrived. We also decided to walk from the bus station to our hostel, which took us more than an hour, and to top things off our hostel is a hole. The first thing we wanted to do was shower, and we all got to do this, but Ness and Sarah did so wading in a bout three inches of other peoples shower filth due to clogged drains. It is also the first time we have been put in single sex dorms. I have the pleasure of sharing my room with a silent mustached man, and Old Man Doom. Old Man Doom is nice enough, but about 50 years old, when he asked me where we were going and I replied amongst other places Peru. He responded with. Oh that´s a very dangerous place. And I said oh, have you been there. Turns out he hadn´t, but he did tell me a bunch of horror stories, and continues to look at me as if my days are numbered. This morning I woke up to him telling me that someone had been mugged in a park nearby, so we had better be careful. I asked him how it had happened and he told me that a drunken tourist was staggering throught the park at midnight, and then he got mugged. I told him that a staggering drunken tourist could be mugged in any park at midnight. And he proceeded to look at me as if my days were even lesser numbered.
After breakfast we jumped on a bus and headed to the wineries. We hired bikes and rode to 3 wineries, a wine museum, and a place that made amazing chocolate liquers. We tried beverages at all of these places, which combined with the extreme heat of the day made riding the bikes progressively harder. By 5pm we were exhausted, and headed back to the hostel. We just went to the supermarket to get our dinner organised and opted for our first vegetarian meal. It was so cheap the girls suggested never buying meat again. I don´t know if they were joking, but I let them know it wasn´t very funny regardless.
We´re heading off to Iguazu falls tomorrow and shall be spending Christmas in Salta. The Iguazu trip is 36 hours on a bus, I just hope it´s not as tedious as the last trip... That may not be a realistic thing to hope for, but I´ve still got a shred of optimism in me.

Catch yáll!
Chuckles

Leaving Bariloche

2006-12-13T06:34:00.000-08:00

Just a quickie toady. We´re heading out of Bariloche in a couple of hours to set out for Mendoza, Argetina´s wine region. I´m looking forward to it, but in honesty it´s a little sad saying goodbye to our new friends. Dean the gay pom was one of the funniest guys I have met on these travels. The Americans, Jarrod, Natalie, and Tracy, were really cool to hang out with. Who´d have thought that Yanks could be so bearable? We´re all headed in roughly the same direction so we may be able to meet up for New Years. Some funny things to mention that happened during our stay at Hostel 41 Below were as follows. Two morons paid 100 pesos for about one cent´s worth of mate (argentine tea) being told it was pot. They almost smoked all of it before someone else told them they weren´t smoking pot, we heard them coughing and spluturing upstairs, they complained of headaches for the next day. It was pretty funny, you´d have to be stupid to try and buy drugs over here, so they got what they deserved. Ness confidently shouted out bottom when we were listing words that could be spelt the same way backwards and forwards, moments later she thought it was raining in one spot that was actually a sprinkler. I asked a guy to turn a light on, he was Israeli and clearly misinterpretted what I said and proceeded to tell me all about who he hooked up with the night before, then he left, leaving me in the dark. A Canadian was intrigued when I told him that 70 % of all statistics were made up. He wanted to know where he could find that statistic, it took me another 5 minutes to explain that it was a joke.

Anywho I best be off. Photos are on their way soon, it just takes so long to upload them. Here´s a taste anyway.

Chucklebear.

Bariloche Part 2: Certificate of Courage

2006-12-12T14:33:00.000-08:00

Bariloche is amazing but exhausting. There is just too much to do.
Yesterday we went canopying. They drive you up a mountain in a 4x drive. Then strap you into harnesses, and set you off down flying foxes conected to the tops of the trees back down the mountain. It´s pretty cool, they even gave us a certificate of courage, so we´re certifiably more courageous than all of you! Probably more cool though are all the people we have met here. The hostel we´re at is the first that we have really been able to meet nice people and hang out with them. We never once intended to head out to town for the noght, but it´s happened just about every night cos people just pull you out and take you to cool places. They have the most amazing chocolate here at a place called Mamushca´s, not really comprable to Haighs but really good. Their ice cream is even better at a place called JaiJai, pronounced Hai hai, so much variety, all gold. That said, I´ve cut down to one meal a day. Partly cos of money, partly cos of time, but to be honest I´m having no problems with it, cos at the end of the day I´ve been going down to the supermarket, getting a 600 gram chunk of steak, fry it up with onions, capsicum, garlic, and jalapenos, served with a side of mash and peas and carrots, and boy it really hits the spot. All for about $3.50 Australian. If you buy at the supermarket, you can eat real cheap!
We went bike riding today with a group of 6 of us fro the hostel, got a bit lost, but that was fine. We just sat by a river and read our books then found our way home, but gee my ass hurts now. I reckon you have to be a masochist to be a cyclist!
Anyway, best be cruising, my tummy´s rumbling, and steak isn´t too far away!

Luv Dylan

Bariloche

2006-12-10T13:48:00.001-08:00

It seemed like a year, but at the end of our tedious day stop on the way to Bariloche our bus did finally arrive. We were so relieved to see our big yellow bus, but our relief did not last long as somehow we had landed the most anxious bus divers in the whole of Argentina. They must have had one too many hits of speed or something, cos they were nuts. They were shouting at everybody in frantic incomprehensible Spanish, leaving Ness, Sarah and I quite confused. We got on though, sat down and began to relax until the world´s most annoying passenger sat down directly behind Sarah. He was laughing, waving, and gesturing wildly to his daughter outside to see her off. This doesn´t sound bad on the outset, but even his daughter was not as enthused as he was about his parting, and she certainly didn´t seem upset. Then this guy starts making faces at his daughter and strange slurping noises that would have been completely lost on her due to the two inch thick plate of glass between them. Forcing everyone else in the bus to listen to these sounds that in honesty sounded pseudo sexual. It was disturbing and annoying. Then the bus took off, and we all got settled to read our books, when the drivers turn off the lights in the bus and proceeded to blast Phil Collins´ music for many an hour. I hate Phil Collins. But to make things worse annoying Mc annoy-o started playing the drums with his drink bottle on the back of Sarah´s chair. Luckily I had my i-pod and drifted off relatively early.
I awoke suddenly to the bus drivers screaming at us. It was daylight but I knew instantly that we weren´t in Bariloche yet. The drivers wouldn´t have a bar of it and forced us off the bus. We were left standing cold and disoriented in a strange place without our luggage as we watched our bus screech off. Unsure of what had just happened, we stood there scratching our heads until a kindly gentlemen informed us that the bus was just refuelling, and would be back shortly. The last leg of the journey was relatively uneventful except for a rising smell of heated stale urine. It got worse and worse until we finally got to Bariloche by which time it was unbearable to be within fifty metres of the bus.
We grabbed our gear, got a taxi to our hostel, and had a shower. I am glad to say that this is the best hostel we have been to. The people are really friendy, it´s run by a New Zealand guy so communication´s a breeze. Bariloche is amazing, one of the most spectacular places I have ever been, it´s in the centre of the lake district. There is in fact a huge lake by the city, and surounding that snow capped mountains. Yesterday we took the bus to one of the smaller mountains. We caught a Gondola, a kind of sky bus, to the top of the mountain and walked back to our hostel from there. It was tiring but really nice. Then this morning nursing hangovers we headed to a national park by bus. We wandered round the lakes for a while then headed up a trail. Ness and Sarah were too buggered to go very far so they sat down whilst I explored a bit further. I ran the rest of the trail right up a big hill to the most amazing view, and then ran back leaving me beyond exhausted. Now I´m here, at the internet cafe, exhausted and hungry, so I best be off to have dinner and or a nap.

Till next time,
Chuckles

Disclaimer

2006-12-08T09:49:00.000-08:00

Very little has happened since the last blog except an excruciating bus trip. We´re taking a day stop Comodoro Rivadavia, before going onto Bariloche. Anywho, it has come to my attention that some of the contents in my blog have been a little unnerving for parents and loved ones, so I´m just going to clear a few things up. The guy in our room fiasco was most probably a dream and at worst a fellow traveller who wandered in to the wrong room momentarily, it´s an easy thing to do in a hostel. Regardless we did lock the door the following night just to make sure. Thus far we have all shared the same rooms, and all our other room mates have been really nice or at least harmless. Despite all the stories you hear about South America, we have so far felt very safe, but have been very precautious nonetheless. The locals have been very helpful, and we never purposefully wander into any place that seems remotely dodgy. Transport can occasionally be an issue, because they do drive quite recklessly, but thus far we have taken a total of three taxis, and only the first was especially frightening. Despite the scary driving, road fatalities do not appear to be sky high, and the buses that we have been on have been especially safe. If some things that I write sound a bit scary, it´s probably just exaggerated (not fabricated) to make it a slightly more interesting story. To assure you how tame we are, our ´big night´ the other night consisted of us drinking two bottles of wine and playing oh hell (a card game) in our dorms. So don´t worry too much about us! We´re really too lame to be in any real danger. You guys are probably at a higher risk of dying from thirst over there from what I hear of the drought.
Keep hydrated yo!
Regards
Responsible Dylan and the Girl Scouts

Glaciers galore... well one...

2006-12-06T15:54:00.000-08:00

Hey yáll
After seeing all the animals at Peninsula Valdes we jumped on a bus to Calefate. It was a 24 hour bus trip, and we worked out the entire trip was a four day detour out of our way for the sole purpose of seeing a glacier. By the end of the bus trip we were all thinking to ourselves that this had better be one hell of an impressive glacier. When we arrived in Calafate it was cold, I mean icy cold. It is a cute little village, and after passing several impressive cosy looking hostels, we came to the very average looking one that we had booked. Inside it was not much better, the toilets were a bit of a joke. However, a joke that would be more funny for you guys, than for those of us who had to use these particular facilities. We had a cheap and mildly satisfying meal, downed two bottles of wine, and passed out in our dorms, which we had to ourselves. Half way through the night Sarah woke up and swore she saw a guy in boxer shorts standing over her. She looked across at where Ness and I were sleeping and we were both there. So either it was a dream, or there was someone in our room watching us sleep, or the third option; this was a jammy clad ghost of some poor tourist who froze to death using the sub-par bathrooms and continues to haunt the premises to this very day. Either way it freaked Sarah out. On a side note for Lachy, this is the first time we´ve had any more trouble with guys since we made your t-shirts!
Anywho, we got up this morning and got ready for our glacier adventure. We had booked a taxi for the day, which cost us $40 Aus each, but was the cheapest way of getting to and from Glacier Perito Moreno. It was also the quikest cos our driver travelled at 150km plus and hour. It was a spectacular drive, our first view of the fast approaching Andes was breath taking. Our first glimpse of the glacier was even more so. I have never seen anything like this before in my life. Not even in Victor Harbour! Words can´t really explain how impressive this thing was. Plus as it was an active glacier it was making these cracking sounds and bits were falling off it. Shortly after we arrived this massive chunk fell off. It had to have been 35 metres high and 10 metres wide. I cannot adequatley describe it beyond this, but it was pretty damn cool. Then we got on a boat that took us quite clost to the glacier, and that was pretty awesome as well.
After another quick taxi ride we were back in Calefate. We decided we´d cook for the first time in the trip. We made spag bog, with heaps of veges (as we have had none in the last week and a half), and it was awesome, but more importantly cheap ($5 Aus all up).
That brings me bout up to date. Getting prepared for another epic bus ride to Bariloche, where we are going canopying, and eating chocolate.
Hope you are all having just as awesome a time at home!
Hahahahahahahaha.... feel free to send money over...

Luv Dylan, xo

Whales, Elephant Seals, Penguins, Sunburn

2006-12-03T17:37:00.000-08:00

Today I realised I was definitley over my jetlag when I got up at 7am and felt as crap as I usually do at 7am. But the day that ensued made the ´´early´´ morning well worth it. At 8am a minibus picked us up from our hostel, it was full of other tourist who all spoke English better thant they did Spanish and thus the tour was conducted in English. Our guide was fantastic. Enthusiastic, clearly good at what she did, and a grasp on the English language which enabled us to understand her easily but still be amused at the way she said belly-button. I´m not complaining, obviously her English was infinitely better than our Spanish. Anyway the bus trip took about an hour to get from Puerto Madryn to Puerto Pyramides. Once at Puerto Pyramides we hopped on a boat that seated about 45 people, and the driver took us out to see a bunch of Southern Wright Whales and their calves. It was amazing! We saw about 10 whales, 5 mums with their babies, and we got to within 5 meters of them. We got a heap of photos, but the problem with photographing whales is that the majority of them remains underwater while you take the photo, so most of the photos are of black rubbery mounds sticking out of the water. I got a couple of good ones though. After that we headed to an elephant seal colony. It was pretty cool watching them play and fight and move a little bit and then stop moving. They moved like giant slugs! Unfortunately we couldn´t get very close, so the photos are a bit ordinary, it was a spectacular sight though, especially with the clear sky, amazing blue water, and vast cliff faces.
After spending about an hour with the elephant seals, we went and saw a penguin colony. It was amazing how close we could get, literally less than a meter. The penguins didn´t care. They stood non-chalantly over their nests, hardly noticing us. It was awesome.
It was towards the end of the day that we realised we were had forgotten sunscreen and were all quite burnt, which was silly, but oh well.
Gotta go now the place is closing!

Catch ya

Dylan

Go to http://s125.photobucket.com/albums/p70/alex0080/?action=view&current=IMGP2090.flv to see a cool video of penguins!

Puerto Madryn

2006-12-02T11:04:00.000-08:00

After leaving the hostel BA yesterday we went to the Bus terminal. We got there really early to make sure we didn´t miss the bus, and yet somehow we still almost missed it. We had been looking at our tickets, and decided we had to go to terminal 25 for our bus, we waited and waited there, but the bus didn´t come, and there didn´t seem to be anyone else really waiting there. We waited until about 10 minutes before our bus was to leave, and then I decided to have a closer look at the tickets, and realised it was well within the realms of possiblity that we may have misread the tickets and were in fact meant to be at gate 6. So hauling all our luggage we ran down to gate 6 and sure enough our bus was packing up and about to go. The main thing is we got on the bus.
Now this bus trip was the best I have ever had. The seats were like lounge chairs that reclined almost all the way back, and we had plenty of leg room. I slept better on the bus than I had been in the hostels. The trip went for 18 hours and I reckon I slept at least 9 of them. They put on 2 films. Both American dubbed in spanish with English subtitles. It was pretty funny hearing Adam Brody (Seth) with a deep Spanish voice. It was also cool because there was a huge thunderstorm for over half the journey, with heaps of spectacular lightning. I was also surprised by the country side, it could have easily been Australia, it´s so vast, and in parts extremely flat. The vast flat scrublands reminded me of the nullabor.
Anyway we finally got to Puerto Madryn and it took us a while to find our accomodation. Once we had we found that the place was run by a vague hippy, who between singing to her spanish reggae, told us that she didn´t have our booking, but had room for us anyway if we didn´t mind sleeping in a freshly waxed room that reeked of turpintine. We accepted figuring that at least we wouldn´t need to spend any money on alcohol to get intoxicated. We also booked our whale tour for tomorrow, which is pretty exciting. But apart from that there´s nothing to do here, it´s a pretty quiet town, and the beach has grey mud instead of sand. It will be good just to sit back and read a book though.

Catch ya later.

Dylan

Leaving BA

2006-12-01T11:55:00.000-08:00

It's our last couple of hours in BA. And I am actually looking forward to the 20 hours bus trip ahead of us. The buses here are amazing apparently, and we're travelling first class. It'll actually be good to stop for a little while and have a break. We've been walking just about everywhere for the last few days, and it has been hot. Not as hot as in Adelaide but it was 33 today and humid as hell. A few things have happened over the last couple of days. Some english backpackers took us to an irish pub, it was a bit of a hole, and pretty sleazy. Every time I turned away from the girls guys swarmed around them. Ness pretended I was her boy friend, but Sarah had to fend for herself. Which she did amicably. The boys are very forward here. The English backpackers can really drink, we weren't up for a big one, but they kept buying us drinks. And the average size here is a longneck. It got messy quickly, but we managed to get back to the hostel fine. Yesterday was a bit of a write off, we were organising our travel for the next couple of weeks. We startred at the travel agent here, but realis ed we were getting ripped off. So we organised it all ourselves, well mostly Ness, she's a machine! But we saved probably $300 dollars so it was worth it. We said goodbye to Sam and Owen yesterday, it was really nice to see them. I think they were pretty s toked to see us too, they'd been travelling together for 6 months. And then we had a few drinks at the Hostel, where Ness danced up a storm, noone was dancing at the time, and everyone stopped what they were doing to watch her. She was on fire. Some of the other girls obviously felt they were being upstaged so they started dancing on the table, and soon everyone was dancing. So Ness was the party catalyst. Today we went to a modern arts museum *MALBA. Saw some work by Frida, it was pretty cool. Now we're about to head to Peninsular Valdes to see the whales, penguins, and sealions. I can't wait.

If I were to sum up BA in a couple of words, I'd have to say they are terrible drivers, but very friendly people on the whole. Pollitically there's a whole heap of crap going down over here. There are big protests almost everyday. It's a damn cheap place to enjoy, but I think I have seen about as much as want to at the moment.

Alright , I best be off. But first I must congratulate Mark and Erin, and Belinda and Mark, for their recent engagements, and secondly Brit for her first class honours. Amazing shiznit guys!

Here's hoping internet coverage will be okay across the rest of my travels...

Luv

Sir Chuckleton of Radelaide

La Boca to Palermo... Still in Buenos Aires.

2006-11-29T14:46:00.000-08:00

Today Owen, Sam, Ness, Sarah, and myself headed into La Boca. It's a crazy little suburb in BA all the houses are painted in bright contrasting colours. To get there we had to catch a bus, the first one during this trip. We found the bus stop and our bus came within a matter of minutes, but we were promptly refused fares because we didn't have correct change. It then took us twenty minutes to work out what that change was, and find somewhere that could give us that change, many places could not change 10 pesos (roughly $5 AUS), which is pretty bizarre, but gives you an idea of how impoverished some areas are. Money has been slightly problematic because we only withdraw money occassionally and when we do it's usually a couple of hundred pesos (we don't carry all of it with us at once, that would be silly!). Problem is the ATM only gives us 100 peso notes, and hardly anyone can change them! Anywho after finally getting the correct bus fare (roughly 30cents AUS), we were soon on our way. Drivers in BA are crazy, our bus driver clearly hated his job, which was quite understandable, but he drove like I drive in video games... recklessly. He almost killed a couple of pedestrians on the way, like actually slamming on the brakes at the last second and then swerving violently to miss them. Then once the bus had stopped, the driver screamed at the people he had almost hit out the window. It was quite something to be a part of. We arrived at La Boca and had a look around, it was very pretty, but very touristy, so we decided to venture out a little beyond the touristy area only to find we were in a slum of sorts. There was a suspiciously strong police presence, so we meandered back to the main area and sat down for a break, pulled out our lonely planet to read up on La Boca only to find strong tourist warnings about sticking to the main streets. We'll research things a little better in future. We got back on the bus, grabbed some lunch, and then parted ways with Owen and Sam. Ness, Sarah, and I decided to jump on to the subway and head to Palermo, which is a lot like North Adelaide at home, but prettier. Leafy boulevards, charming boutiques, and other noncy crap. I bought this wicked t/shirt of a hotdog high fiving a mustard bottle. It rocks! On the way back Ness walked through a small childs freshly excreted urine, but we all managed to successfully navigate through the mountains of dog crap. There are so many dogs and cats everywhere, seemingly unowned, but all relatively well mannered (opening doors for ladies and that kind of thing). We jumped back on the subway, and have arrived safely back to our hostel. This is our second hostel, I liked the first one better, there are too many people here... Any who the cerveza is calling, and we have to organize the next few days.

Catch ya on the flip side homecows!

Dylan

Photos are of La Boca and a $4 steak!

City of the Dead

2006-11-29T05:57:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

Been here a few days now and heaps has happened. First day in Buenos Aires we just wandered around a lot. We struggled with the language gap at first but are getting the hang of some basic spanish and charades. Yesterday we went to the city of the dead, the place where Evita is supposedly burried. It was one of the craziest things I've ever seen, it is actually like a little city. Each grave looks like it's had hundreds of thousands of dollars poured in to it, Evita's grave is amongst the blander of those in the cemetry. Anyway I've got hundreds of photos to show you all, most with me and ness being inappropriate around the dead.
After that we went back to the Hostel, and then something really bizarre happened. We ran into some guys from school, staying at the same hostel. Sam Muerhead and Owen. What are the chances, same hostel and everything! Anyway we had dinner with them, and today we're all heading to La Boca. Anyway best be off. There's a huge line behind me due to internet being free in the hostel.

Catch ya round yo!

Dylan

P.S. Thanks for the comments guys, it's good to here from home!

All of these photos are of the city of the dead.

Arriving Continued

2006-11-27T17:56:00.000-08:00

At 10pm we finally got on our flight to Buenos Aires. By this time we were very tired. For the first time we were not seated together. I was sandwiched between two guys, and I could feel one of them staring at me for most of the trip, but every time I looked at him, or said "hola" he looked away. Except for this one time when he just grinned, his skinny lips stretching to nonexistence and his dark yellow teeth on show for all to see. He still didn't answer. I pretended I was reading an Argentinian newspaper for the rest of the trip. By this time I was tired and a little bit fed up with all the flying, but that all washed away in a second when we came into land in Buenos Aires. It was one of the prettiest sights. Street lights in every direction, from horizon to horizon. It was mind boggling to see how big this city is. We got off the plane and found that our bags had been waiting for us on the carousel for hours due to the flight mess ups. Luckily they were all there. We prepped ourselves to go through customs, but because I think we were the last flight of the night (it was well after midnight), customs didn't care about our stuff they just told us to go through, so all you drug runners out there, take the last flight, like in any job custom officials can't be arsed doing their job when it's knock off time.
We said goodbye to the friends we'd made on the plane, (not creepy mc grin grin), and ordered a taxi from the booth at the airport. After waiting 10 minutes a guy swaggered up, flicked us the taxi reciept and casually gestured to us to follw him. If any of you guys have seen "The Big Lebowski" this guy was a spitting image, and had the same mannerisms as Jesus (not Christ), he was hilarious. Anyway we got into the taxi, and the driver travelled between 140 and 160 kmh the entire way back. Most of the way was 80 zones, this guy overtook an ambulance with its sirens screaming. It was relatively nerve racking, but we did manage to complete a 40 minute trip in 20 minutes, so it's not all bad!
We got to our hostel at 12.30 am, by this time we had been up for 30 hours with only the briefest of naps. We all had showers and Ness and Sarah went straight to bed. I checked my email, and some other Aussie bought me a beer, I went back to the room and Ness was wide awake sitting on her bed. I passed out immediately. When I awoke 6 hours later Ness had still not slept, so we decided to get drunk tonight to try to help us get over our Jetlag and at present we are well on our way!

Till next time,
Chuckles Mc Chucklebear.

Arriving

2006-11-27T11:22:00.000-08:00

So, we made it safely to our first destination, Buenos Aires.
Currently I am sitting on the roof of our hostel (the Portal del Sur), where there is both a bar and internet access. There's a pretty awesome view of many grand buildings that are in varying states of disrepair, which seems to be a common theme throughout this huge city. It's mid afternoon and Ness and Sarah are napping, we're all pretty jetlagged. Yesterday we worked out that we had only slept about 6 hours in the previous 50, and my body still has no idea as to what time it is anywhere. In fact it's pretty hard to believe that it was only yesterday that we left adelaide. The flights were okay, but damn long. The food was awful, and served at strange times, but this was to be expected. Everything was going ok until we got to Santiago Chile, and they messed up the entire flight's transfers. We were lucky only to be held up for 7 hours, some people couldn't get flights until the next day. With nothing to do, and no Chilean currency, we began talking to other passengers. A surprising amount of Adelaidians were doing the same thing we were. In fact Rory's girlfriend Clair and her friends were on the same flight. So the wait wasn't too bad. I made my first attempt at communicating with someone whose language I didn't understand and made a fair ass of myself in the process. We were getting lunch, and I thought this guy was saying "dip, dip" and I was like I don't want any dip I just want my chicken and pepsi. He threw his arms in the air and walked away, we soon realised he was trying to get a tip, which is customary on this side of the world. Later on we tipped him, explaining that we were slow in the head, in the best Spanish we could muster, he laughed. All the locals we have met so far have been pretty accommodating. Anywho, I've got to cut this short, cos there's a cue for the computer and I've been on it for a while.
So I'll leave it you in suspense and you can all read the conclusion to this rather bland story on another occassion!
Regards,

Dylan
This photo is of a huge head in the Santiago airport!

It begins

2006-11-20T21:47:00.000-08:00

Welcome all to the beginning of my amazing adventure.
I intend for this blog to be a record of my trip to South America starting this Sunday the 26th of November 2006 and ending upon my planned return on some day I'm not entirley sure of, the 4th of March 2007.
This will be your standard travel blog; self indulgent, riddled with in-jokes, and full of tedious long-winded stroies that have neither a point nor a satisfying conclusion. My adventure can be accurately deemed "amazing" for every day that I survive in a completely foreign country, with-out any travel experience or know-how. Further, it may be deemd "amazing" for every day my co-travellers Ness and Sarah do not murder me in my sleep. Not that either of them are in anyway nasty, but my prolonged company has been known to be quite grating. Unfortunately for you, the reader, the word "amazing" is not meant to suggest that this blog is supposed to be in anyway interesting.
So if you have fallen upon this blog by accident, take heed to my warning and stop reading now. Go look up some porn, or conspiracy thoeries about celebrity deaths, you know, the things the internet was actually intended for. If you are a friend or family member, don't feel obliged to read on either, I probably wouldn't read your travel blog. For those of you who do decide to read on, I hope you find something of interest, even if it is laughing at the myriad of spelling erors and gramatical mishappening's.

Regards,

Dylan
AKA the Chuckle Bear