fresh n juicy chunks of oyster :: RTW travel blog

This is the End [London, UK, 17/08/2004]

2004-08-17T16:09:00.001-07:00

It's raining outside but maybe tomorrow it will get better.
The beauty of the London summer is that you never know when it is going to end. In its impermanance and unpredictability it is much like travelling - in fact it is much like life.
Maybe that's why I've been having difficulties drawing a line between the two.

Life in the past few weeks has been as incomprehensible to me as ever. There was no culture shock, no hard cut-off point, no gentle let-down even. Strangely enough it feels not much different to when I was on other continents a short while ago.

London may indeed be the least different place I've been to this year: it seems like the whole world has left its mark here and even though this is the English people's natural, if not optimal, habitat it is decidedly less English than say Khao Sarn Road.

On the tube the other day I saw an office lady in exile reading a manga while hanging from the ceiling-grip. In London, every stranger's face I see reminds me why I've longed to be here so long. Maybe it is the icy gaze that Londoners carry like a shield when travelling the Underground - an icy gaze that often melts enough on a sunny day to let you glimpse inside of them for just a minute.

This town feels like it is brimming with possibilities, gritty darkness, pollution and oh-so-many lives, living, drifting and waiting to collide every day and night.

And through the age-old but extensive public transport system everyone becomes a traveller: the late-middle-aged German tourists talk loudly and congenially of irrelevant things; the bird and bloke lie passed out on the last Jubilee-line tube in booze-stained school uniforms, his hairy white legs sticking out of his schoolboy shorts; the suits commute to and fro mostly with apathetic frowns on their faces maybe thinking of how it will all end; hordes of multi-ethnic students mill about, some possibly with higher purpose and enthusiasm on their minds and the crazy prophet in his dirty trenchcoat hurls sermons down the carriage like ball lightning while asking for small change.

No one is a stranger for long in London; everyone becomes a part of the landscape here.

As have I again; London is good at forgiving absences.

[I have no idea why it has taken me so long to post the final entry - maybe I was afraid that once I do post it this trip will be truly over and the reality of it all will hit.
Maybe it will hit tomorrow when I start a full-time job though...
In case this will be the last post I also want to thank everyone who has kept in touch with me throughout this year and everyone who has checked in on this blog every so often. It's been a pleasure to write (mostly) and has kept me entertained during many a lonely hour - I hope it has done the same for some of you. I also hope that some of the pictures may have brought back memories of places or encouraged some of you to hit the road.
Safe travels.]

Relativity 101 [Kathmandu, Delhi, 22/07/04]

2004-07-22T08:37:00.000-07:00

Delhi was pure chaos as though Shiva herself had descended on the place. At least that's pretty much all that I could glimpse in the 54 odd hours I will have spent here. I have to admit that after being faced with this chaos I gave up and chose to wind down; the trip as I had known it was ending - a fact I had only become aware of with around 28 hours remaining. Somehow the End had crept up on me silently and I wasn't sure what to do with it.
At that point I had only left Kathmandu 27 hours ago but it felt as though I had been in Delhi for much longer than that. On the other hand I also felt that I had been in Kathmandu for just a few, intense days but alternately it also hits me that I may have spent a lifetime there without knowing. Everything has stopped making sense to me and maybe I have lost the concept of time; I will attempt the unravelling.

Around 40 hours ago I was running late on my way to Kathmandu's airport. I had caught a taxi and was crawling out of the city slowly. Meanwhile the wild emotions the place had thrown at me where all blended together smoothly and undiscernibly: a continual background buzz. Maybe Kathmandu's been rather confusing to me.

On my first day in the land of Tenzing Norgay I was staring and marvelling in true greenhorn fashion at everything. Kathmandu is a pretty exciting city but I guess I must have shown too much excitement. A friendly jewellery seller took pity on me, took me to his office and said I could make 5000 Euros by bringing some pieces of coloured glass back to Germany in exchange for letting him steal my identity. He proudly showed off photocopies of passports and credit cards of previously satisfied customers; it looked more like a police file of murder victims with their photocopied faces staring blankly at me from their passports so I decided to seek my fortunes elsewhere. Back on the street some guy walked up to me wafting at me the most ragged, scruffy $100 dollar bill I have ever seen. "Change to rupees?"
Still, it all didn't bother me too much, even when shopkeepers, drugdealers and hotelowners of Thamel (Delhi's Khao Sarn with a twist) had convinced me that there was an entrance fee to get into Freak Street (the shabbier alternative to Thamel: 30 years ago it was the playground of the hippies, now the place is quietly falling apart - but it's doing so with charm).
I assumed the lie was an effort to keep the few tourists in Thamel; business has hit rock bottom in Kathmandu, it is low season for trekking and the country is in the middle of a civil war which is discouraging even more visitors. From the stories I hear of the Kathmandu of only 10 years ago it is barely a shadow of its former self and some of its people have turned bitter.
And like always it's started from the top. The politicians are corrupt as are the institutions. The locals are hurried off the streets at 10pm by cops armed with whistles and AK-47s. Anyone out after that time is prone to be extorted by the police. The tourists on the other hand can walk through the empty streets completely impervious - the police have orders to leave tourists alone and I have the sneaking suspicion that anyone caught mugging a foreigner will be summarily executed or just disappear. Even the Maoists go out of their way to leave tourists unscathed: they courteously make sure all the foreigners have left a building before bombing it.
One night I overheard a traveller in a bar shouting, "Yeah, I really want one of those Maoist receipts. It'd make a great souvenir!"
Back in Thailand this would have undoubtedly reaffirmed my unjustified loathing for the world and humanity and have swiftly led to the onset of a minor depression. But I'm ok now. I have accepted humanity as essentially flawed, individuals as potentially good and tourism as inevitable. I even ate pizza in Kathmandu.
And I followed the advice of a guesthouse-owner as he took a pause from playing the guitar as the foreigners' conversation started getting too political: "You guys just come here and don't worry about a thing! Nepal is meant for chilling and enjoying yourself."
The dichotomy may be uncomfortable and the political system in shambles but worrying about them is a luxury most people on the streets can not afford.
And Kathmandu is just meant for getting lost in, regardless of politics. Even on the last day I could not quite figure out the layout of the romantic and twisty alleys winding around and away from each other. I would navigate by instinct with a low success rate through the dirt, the traffic without rules and the squares with Hindu stupahs, temples and other stuff I am too uncultured to understand. But it was all incredibly satisfying, never knowing what or whom you will bump into.
The Nepalis in general have to be some of the best people on the planet even though 95% were having identical conversations with me ("which country?", "how long you been in Nepal?", "how long will you stay in Nepal?", followed by "oh, what a shame" in response to my answer.) But they have good hearts and deserve to live in a happier place.

However, in my unfortunate way of travelling I have constantly been leaving places, their worries and their joys behind me. Just like I left behind the taxi driver who had put his meter into a special tourist-hyperactive mode for the last minute of the journey to the airport, doubling the fare. I was relieved that I had made it out of Kathmandu without getting too badly ripped off, losing my identity and/or dignity. And I was happy about the people I'd met and the smoothie of emotions that was still buzzing.
That is, until I exchanged my left-over Nepalese rupees into Indian rupees at the airport without counting them first: an invitation for getting the worst rate possible which I promptly did. No space for argument, the system had gotten its cut from me after all.

And that's about as much unravelling as I'll be able to do. Stuff still doesn't make sense, especially with my plane leaving Asia in a few hours but I will advance the following definitive theory of time in an effort to imbue some reason into my chaos: non-Einsteinian relativity of time is a symptom of being in places for too short a time and of sleeping in too many different beds every night (which sounds either far worse or far more glamorous than it actually is).
Yes, I am very confused at the moment. But at least I'm buzzing still.

[Maybe my confusion will clear up soon with a more constant bed and home: my flight leaves to Frankfurt tonight, followed by Amsterdam and then London. There'll be a final post coming up in a week or so (I write while wiping a tear from my eye).
Meanwhile click here for fuzzy pictures in Album Nepal 1 - Kathmandu and Album India 1 - Delhi.]

My Love Lies Waiting Silently for Me [Laos/Thailand, 13/07/04]

2004-07-13T04:19:00.000-07:00

The speedboat rapidly skimmed along the surface of the Mekong as though its waters were frozen; I was on my way out of Laos like Redux on fast-forward but unusually I found myself looking forward to Khao Sarn Road.
An hour earlier at a river-side restaurant I was flicking through my pictures from Laos as a Dutch package-tour group arrived in other ultra-light long-boats powered by screaming engines from hell. In fact it was the same jovially jabbering group that I had waited behind a week earlier at the Thai-Lao 'friendship-border' visa office and because of whom I had missed my Bangkok-organised sheep transport to Vientiane. I looked at their surreally tinted and flickering week-old picture on my camera's humidity damaged LCD and it felt like I was looking at a different world as though through an intense opium dream. I imagined that they must have seen a hundred times as many temples, hilltribes and waterfalls as I had in the same time but I wasn't jealous, I had no regrets. Laos had been worth it; I had seen enough even though I had seen nothing and hadn't budged an inch from the beaten track.
I guess Laos should have been exciting, fascinating and wild to me. And when compared to Thailand it certainly is - the combination of low-season, malaria, poverty and a 'communist' regime seemed to be keeping the visitors at bay slightly, meaning there is still the 'undiscovered'. From Luong Prabang for instance there were the hilltribes to visit, either on a "meet the primitive people" tour (as literally advertised) or by carving up dirt-tracks in the middle of nowhere independently on a motorbike.
Instead I picked up a book at a guesthouse, Graham Greene's The Quiet American, and found that this world of fiction was so much more exciting, fascinating and wild to me than anything I could be seeing in Laos with my own two eyes. In all honesty what was I expecting to do in my limited time there? Ride up to some 'primitive hilltribe people' and gawk at them as though they were Jawas from Tatooine? Did I expect being welcomed by them with open arms, opium pipes and just before leaving back to town being offered (but politely refusing) the chief's beautiful daughter in marriage with a dowry of fifty mountain-goats and one small, white elephant? What could I ever offer them that could possibly enrich their lives? They didn't ask for me to visit them just like they never asked for the wars about communism and drugs that have ravaged their countries and lives for years; Greene's fictional character Fowler had this to say: "they don't want to be shot at, they want one day to be much the same as any other and they don't want our white skins around telling them what they want."
The morning after I finished the book I just lay in bed. The roosters were crowing like crazy, it was raining outside and I crawled happily back into the loving arms of sleep and dreams that tasted like softly rolling flowers.
Like every day in Laos I would check out of the guesthouse several hours later, sit in cafes and enjoy Laos vibes (which may be some of the best in the world). There was no-one telling me what I wanted and I carried all my possessions on my body not even psychologically encumbered by a backpack. Thus I floated homelessly through Luong Prabang and its surroundings on my rented bicycle only finding a bed for the night once I needed to sleep. It is an exhilarating feeling of freedom and independence.
But strangely that feeling has not left me now that I'm reunited with my multi-ton backpack and have been drawn back in by the magnetic and etherising pull of Khao Sarn Road. Most people here are still as ugly as they were when I left them a week ago. But maybe I have stopped taking sides like Fowler tried to or I'm looking forward to one day being much the same as any other soon. I am on the home-stretch of this journey but I don't mind, for now I have the keys of Paradise...

[Click here for Album Laos 1 with the photos - nothing of touristic value or otherwise to be found.
Tomorrow morning I'm catching a flight to Kathmandu. It's been nice knowing you South-East Asia, until next time.]

Fly You Fools, Fly... [Bangkok, Thailand, 05/07/04]

2004-07-05T02:49:00.000-07:00

At Kho Phang Nan's Full Moon Party I was almost decked by the reek of hour-old alcohol as a Brit pressed his sweaty, glo-painted face against mine and put his arm around me in that disgustingly repulsive way only drunk people can do. He proceeded to enlighten me with his philosophies and inconsequential theories on European football. Then he suddenly spat on the beach, by now littered with bottles and garbage in all directions, and told me with a sort of excited gleam in his eyes, "This is what I do to Thai women!" He spat on the sand again, "That's what I do. Like this. They disgust me!" Before he could sling his arm around me again I kind of mumbled something about having to get back to dancing and ducked off. He proceeded to stagger through the theme park that had been erected in his honour.
These are the new kings of Thailand and all I could do was wonder who in fucking hell gave them passports.
But when the near full moon outlines the palmtrees in a pale glow and you see the thousands of people on the beach having fun it can seem incredibly beautiful. Nice from far, far from nice for just as suddenly the image is prone to slide into an infestation that has claimed ownership of this island with bright lights and Western music.
But not just the Full Moon Party is alien to this place. There are the so-called 'less discovered' places that at first seem like paradise. 'Bottle Beach' lies in a bay that as of now is only accessible by boat (although a paved road is obviously in the pipeline): a perfect beach, not many people around, comfortable beach-side bungalow huts, four restaurants/bars serving comfort food from home and showing movies from Hollywood. It is the fantasy of the archetypal beach come to life, the frame of mind that is Beach and that we have been taught from a tender age by holiday brochures and our media, it is a valid excuse for laziness that people do not dare afford themselves in their lives of work and skewed horizons. But like all dreams it is incredibly fragile and requires serious self-deception to work as intended: "Yes, I deserve this relaxation; yes I deserve to be pampered by the locals; yes, I deserve to hang out with other pissed people from my country. Yes, I am special!"
I too felt special for the first day or so on that beach but then I suddenly couldn't take it all anymore: the sterility, the lack of stimulation and the scattered sunbathers who were flipping themselves scientifically like overcooked omelettes in frying pans striving for the perfect tan. And so I fled the beach for the Full Moon Party and my encounters with an army of pissed Europeans encouraged by buckets (literally) filled with medicinal-grade Red Bull, Whiskey and Coke, hordes of Israelis doing what they do best and a couple of cats who were digging the music and the mushroom shakes. I closed my eyes to all the broken eggs that had gone into making so many omelettes and started digging too until the next morning.
And then I fled again on the first boat away from the island back to Khao Sarn Road, Bangkok, a Yangshuo West Street on steroids.
In South America there were times when I used to be excited to bump into people who spoke English; here I have started despising them and they are everywhere. This country ain't big enough for all of us so my only option is flight yet again, facilitated by ultra-light travel made possible by great luggage storage facilities here.
Thailand is not the place for me. It is too difficult for me to see the country and the, I suspect, amazingly rich culture which runs almost invisibly alongside the backpackerism. I am tired of being shuttled from door to door by A/C'd 'V.I.P.' buses like lazy sheep with 50 other backpackers; I don't want to eat any more overpriced tourist food and I can't deal with seeing locals who are jaded and filled with impotent aggression after dealing with the scum of our societies.
A traveller should be invisible and float through places leaving behind no demands for anything that's not already there. Instead we have systematically made Thailand our whore for life: this is the colonialism of the 21st century that will make other countries slaves to our economies and values. And the sad thing is that we were the only ones who could have changed it by behaving differently and not wanting the world to become our circus. But it is all already too late: there is too much money to be made and too many livelihoods that are intertwined with ours now; no one is interested in change. In a few years time even the backpackers will probably start disappearing to be replaced with the reliable income of package tourists and after Thailand is full it will be time to export Khao Sarn Road to Laos, Myanmar and everywhere else in the region - although in all likelihood this has already happened.
Goodbye sweet world; goodbye sweet dream.

[Disclaimer: The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of God, your uncle or anyone in particular. Any reference to people living or dead is purely coincidental, etc...
That should cover my back from Thai-o-philes. And to clarify for the purists - Thailand is a beautiful country with beautiful people and I probably only have myself to blame for sticking to the beaten track. It's just that the beaten track is so bloody wide here and I have no time, as always.
At any rate piccies from Thailand can be found here. My camera is going to the dogs to from humidity in China so the photos kinda suck.
I am heading to Laos on a V.I.P. bus in an hour. There I will look like a monkey with a 'utility-belt' that contains all I will take but at least I'll be able to flee a place with only 2 seconds notice if required.]

South by South-East [Guilin, China, 27/06/04]

2004-06-28T01:29:00.000-07:00

It is near midnight. A thunderstorm is brewing overhead; flashes of lightning bathe the sky like bright white sheets that threaten to descend in a biblical flood. My skin is sticky with dried sweat and I long for the air to release its payload on me and the dirty streets of Guilin. But within this oppressive humidity and the crowd of locals laughing and drinking loudly at street foodstalls something feels different than it has for a while; it feels real.
The train from Beijing was the last time anything felt this real - all too real in fact in the bargain 'hard seat' class carriage to Guangxi province down South. These were probably the most uncomfortable 24-hours of my life; I ended up sleeping in the aisle for want of legroom. But I was a curiosity to everyone on the train, attracting stares and students eager to practise their English. It felt like it meant something like that exhilerating feeling of being somewhere you have never been before.
Then I made my way to Yangshuo, recommended to me by some random travellers as a nice place to go. The place to be in Yangshuo is West Street which has possibly earned its name by being a street for Westerners: bars, cafes, hostels, trinket souvenir shops and travel agencies are packed side by side. As I enjoyed my dearly missed English breakfast on the first morning there, however, some feeling started to creep up on me but I couldn't quite place it.
Later that day as I was sipping on coffee (a rarity in China) an old lady in tattered robes and the traditional, conical Chinese hat was slowly walking up and down the street. She came over to me and out of her basket she slammed down a plastic bracelet on my table. I picked 'no thanks' out of my vast vocabulary which had increased to an incredible repertoire of four phrases; she scowled at me and started yanking at my wristband from Bahia which is by now barely more than an ugly piece of string. She shouted something angrily in Chinese, presumably calling it ugly. After another minute of 'no thank yous' she walked off but it was then that the feeling that before I couldn't place crystallised: it was sadness.
It was a sadness about this town which lies in one of the most beautiful areas of the world and how it had become an entertainment centre for the traveller and how that once beautiful old woman had become frustrated and jaded by our being there. I imagined how she would have been content driving her family's oxen or working the rice fields; as hard as such a life would be at least it would not destroy her soul and spirit. I and all the foreigners there were responsible for what has happened. No amount of 'but we are helping the local economy' can truly excuse the transplantation of our ugly culture into beautiful places and into the minds of beautiful people. Yangshuo, albeit in China, was my first whiff of the fabled South-East Asia and its backpacking culture made infamous but legendary by books such as The Beach and common traveller-folklore with all its pretensions and high-horsedness.
But you get used to it and after a while the guilt starts to fade; I started noticing the old lady with a basket full of fruits hooked under her tiny arm and the cutest, most sincere gappy-toothed smile that has ever graced me; I 'discovered' the areas of town where the locals eat delicious foods and don't speak English; in a bar at night I had conversational English classes with the sweetest group of schoolkids from the city, brought here by their parents to practise with native speakers; and then there was the countryside, just minutes away by bicycle and where the people still drive their oxen and farm their rice-fields - where the world is still ok in my simplistic view of it.
In the city of Guilin meanwhile the downpour has come and I have walked back to my cheap hotel by the railway station. The cool rain on my skin felt amazing and even the female shopkeepers and small boys on the side of the road who tried to interest me in business with some hookers did not overly disturb me. But as I lie here on my lonely bed in this dirty room there is a suspicion growing in my mind: once I enter South-East Asia proper all this is just going to get worse...

[But all is not doom and gloom - the football commentary in China has improved miraculously and I am also one giant step closer to 'home': I bought a flight to Bangkok but am now looking for the best path out of this city.
Until I do check out Album China 2 with the snappies of Guangxi.]

Grease is the Word [Beijing, China, 22/06/04]

2004-06-21T14:17:00.000-07:00

My introduction to China was somewhat strange which was to be expected when sailing on a ship from Kobe under Chinese flag but stocked with the vending machines and products that I had come to love in Japan. The crew was Chinese who spoke superficial English but most of the passengers were Japanese who spoke unusually good English. The Chinese food served was undersized, overpriced and glistened and tasted like MSG-saturated plastic. Below deck there was a Japanese sauna and bath. Entertainingly the stewardesses extracted a cut-throat price from me for the Chinese entry visa and gobbled up all my dollars at extortionate exchange rates - it's hard to argue with a pretty smile that doesn't understand English. But then they made up for it with last-night karaoke performances and an attempt at a traditional Chinese dance with napkins. On the last day on board I then overheard an elderly Japanese gentlemen making conversation with a traveller from Australia.
"A lot of people in China," he started somewhat expectantly.
"Yes, the most," the Aussie replied with a baffled grin directed at me.
There was a slight pause, as though the older man was deliberating very carefully, and then he suddenly stated very matter-of-factly, "A lot of rats."
Make of that what you will but giggles by the gaijin ensued.
It was all already quite surreal as we started nearing the Chinese mainland after 48 hours and a cloud of thick pollution hung over the horizon of the canal into the port-town of Tanggu; it was promptly and aptly decided that we were entering China through its asshole.
Once we set foot on China's proverbial buttcheeks I collected my visa (to find that amusingly my name had been misspelled), passed through the SARS thermometer check (you were kindly informed to prepare for immediate quarantine in case of failure - outer Mongolia anyone?), souvenired an extra-wet and brightly shining red stamp in my passport and caught a bus to Beijing, glorious capital of the 2008 Olympic games. They already seem to be as prepared as Greece currently is; most of the area appears to be a building site or a locale for enormous modern art monuments, economically consisting of steel beams arranged in elongated geometric shapes. It'll sure be pretty here in four years.
And all that could pretty much sum up Beijing - it is a pretty strange place. In the poorer districts men generally only seem to lounge around, sip tea and chat, all the while their impressive chow-mein gut holding up their rolled up T-shirt; the women too seem to like to stand around and chat with each other on the street, often carrying a screaming child. They are amazingly friendly and seem very willing to throw token phrases of English at me and break out in giggles when I drop a Mandarin phrase out of my amazing vocabulary that consists of exactly two words. Conversely, anyone who seems to be working in a shop or behind a counter and the like are supremely grumpy towards me. The Beijingese seem to be happy doing nothing and seriously despise any sort of work - which is a pretty healthy attitude in my book (isn't stereotyping people a wonderful thing?).
Chinese national TV is also a good source of amusement. Viewing the English-language national TV channel for just a few minutes gives you a complete view of what is going on in China: everything is rising, from GDP-aquatic-food-price-confidence to constructing-asphalt-roads-into-the-middle-of-nowhere-index and other such nonsense. It's actually quite hard to make sense of anything but it all sounds pretty rosy.
Then there is the Euro 2004 football coverage which is simply hilarious - a goal is occasionally followed by a mumbled "oi" of the commentators several seconds later and most attempts at goal rarely warrant a comment, let alone a variation in tone of voice. Chinese football commentary must be the perfect antithesis to the South American one-minute crescendo screams of "GOOOOOOOOOOOL!".
But in compensation there is pretty decent and affordable food here - even if there is often more grease than you imagined possible and the flavour can be overwhelmingly intense (MSG is a way of life here).
And of course China is the place where DVD piracy has been elevated to an art form - oh, it's so beautiful, special features and all!
The nightlife is also quite entertaining (even if slightly expat-heavy who often lechily gallivant around while wife and kids are probably back in Europe). And at the end of the day there is the never-ending potential for totalitarianism/communism-related jokes that are just begging to be made here and brighten up the day - and brightening is severely needed in Beijing where hazy, smoggy skies are the rule.
Culturally I have been rather disappointed (or possibly unenthusiastic): the Forbidden City pretty much lives up to its name with most interesting-seeming areas being "forbidden for visitors" and the Chinese Wall too has evaded me - rainy days have made the climb up to the remoter sections either undesirable or just plain dangerous. And then of course, I am quite lazy too - wall, schmall, whatever.
But it's been great fun overall and not only because just like in Japan I have been spending the majority of time here with an old friend. Nevertheless, move on I must and tomorrow I hope to experience the marvels of Chinese train travel all the way across this huge country into the South. As in so many places I am afraid I will not even begin to be able to do justice to this China in such a short time.

[Weirdly I have been able to access this blog randomly at various times while at other times it seems to be blocked by the Chinese government's firewall. Strange, strange place but it feels liberating and slightly subversive to be blogging through the censorship anyway... But seriously folks, you barely notice it's not a democracy around here - could do with some of this political system elsewhere in the world, possibly.
In other news this time around I have managed to caption the photos (the Japan pics are also captioned now, btw). Click here for Albums China 1 and 2 with pictures of a skinned sheep and other random rubbish.]

Zen and the Art of Being Japanese [Kyoto, Japan, 10/06/04]

2004-06-10T08:16:00.000-07:00

It is my last day in Japan and as brief as our encounter was it has changed me more than anywhere else in the world. Japan has crept up on me - I barely noticed it amidst the flurry of confusion, excitement, isolation and peace - and today for the first time I felt its soul mingling with mine.
Before I arrived I thought that I knew Japan better than most places without ever having been there but the longer I stay the more I realise it is impossible to know Japan, ever. Japan defies comprehension and logic; all you can do is to start feeling it and listening for the vibrations that are around you everywhere, creating a symphony that initially appears to be devoid of all harmony.

When my plane touched down here I experienced sensory overload and some serious sleep deprivation. The two worked together to paralise me in fits of gigles wherever I'd look: the cute, cartoonish icons on signs; the way people were bowing enthusiastically to each other; the train conductor with white gloved hands bowing every time he'd enter or leave a compartment; the dark but brightly neoned streets of Tokyo replete with singing and dancing billboards vying for attention; the crowds of people who as soon as the traffic lights turned green would simultaneously spread all over the pedestrian crossings that dissect junctions diagonally; and the hordes of salarymen (business men) sleeping on trains clutching their mobile phones or the overhead hand-holds hanging like overworked bats in their cave.
Cool, I was in the Japan I knew from movies, stereotypes and books and was loving it. Ooh, and then there was the food: sushi, seaweed, bento lunch (or breakfast) boxes, slurpy ramen soups, gyozas, delicious sweets and finally amazing 24 hour convenience stores on almost every street corner selling most of the above. For a while I was in heaven.
I would walk the streets of aimlessly like a ghost amidst a population imbued with unfathomable purpose. It was as though I was invisible and everyone was ignoring me; the only way of making my presence known was through token konnichi was and arrigatos: I was experiencing the way of the gaijin (foreigner). As a gaijin you will never fully fit in or be treated as Japanese; a permanent stranger in a country where conformity exists even in youths' attempts at non-conformity. The fake-tanned schoolgirls applying glitter make-up compete for being kawaii (cute) with the schoolboys sporting gravity- and nature-defying hairstyles straight out of a manga; others go for the full-on goth look with Nazi-insignia blissfully nonchalant about the significance but luckily equally kawaii within their group; the arcade addicts who perfect their hand-eye co-ordination seemingly every free hour of their day, racking up perfect scores on personal favourites such as the virtual drumming, guitaring, DJing and dancing games.
But then right in between red-light districts, shopping centres and neon lights sit countless shinto and buddhist shrines and temples - even with a multi-lane highway next to them these places exude calm and peace with their manicured gardens and trees, raked gravel fields and people solemnly praying and being zen. After having seen countless cathedrals in my lifetime I couldn't help but be in awe of the shrines and their beauty. Here was a religion that didn't try to shock and awe you into submission with cold, imposing angularity and gold that screams brightly like a TV commercial advertising a vengeful God. In Japan places of worship are timelessly elegant with their gentle curves and solemnly sturdy beams of wood. They feel like living, natural objects, like forests in themselves just like a bonsai conversely feels like a man-made work of art. In shintoism there is natural beauty in everything from the most unremarkable pebble to the most majestic mountains whose silhouettes often line Japan's horizons.
After my first couple of temple visits I would have been ready to 'convert' if I were a more spiritual person and spoke Japanese. But instead I started looking inside people on the street more and thought I was feeling everyone brimming with inner peace. I would trust almost every stranger here with my life - the kindness of people here doesn't cease to amaze me and in fact Japan may very well be the most peaceful nation in the world (discounting its antics in earlier history and I don't recall ever feeling as completely safe as I do in Japan's streets).
And just when I thought I too was finding inner peace here, Japan's hyper-modern 21st century confused it all again. Shivers ran down my spine when I felt my first Shinkansen bullet-train fly past me, thundering like the furious and eponymous winds of old that twice miraculously saved Japan from the invading Mongolian armies. But maybe nowadays this modernity is in some strange economic way too saving and protecting the age-old spirituality that seems to lie diametrically opposite to it. Ultimately, however, it still doesn't make sense to me and in Kyoto I just gave up and immersed myself in more temples and shrines.
And then today, possibly induced by post Karaoke hang-over, I stopped feeling as isolated from everyone around me and I started bowing and smiling to random people in the street - and they bowed back! I actually felt that for the first time I was in some way part of it all, not a ghost anymore. Maybe if given time I could one day too be Japanese?
But no, as I was dodging bicycles on the pavement and waited obediently for a minute in front of a red traffic light on a small road with no cars in sight I realised that some things were just impossible. As I crossed the road by myself with the locals left behind me I thought that maybe they are right and gaijins can never 'learn' to become such complex and mysterious creatures as the Japanese are. Japan is a way of life and more than just loving karaoke.

[Just for the record, I love karaoke. But I am sure they will have karaoke bars in China where I'll be heading tomorrow by ferry and will be having trouble with updating this blog over the censored internet, no doubt. But there's always a way as a deeply spiritual person might say.
Apologies for not having updated for so long but the internet here is really, really expensive and Japan's been so hard to write about.
And apologies too about no pictures in this post - the internet here is giving me trouble viewing my own pictures.
Click here for Albums Japan 1, 2 and 3.. Final apologies for the lack of captions - see above for my excuse.
Wishing myself a safe voyage.]

Tokyo pics online

2004-06-05T02:21:00.000-07:00

[Click here for Albums Japan 1 and 2 with pictures (no captions yet, sorry, Japan is hectic. And proving tough to write about...]

I Wish I Was Famous [LA, 23/05/04]

2004-05-23T13:19:00.000-07:00

From hippie capital, USA I have returned to Atkins capital, USA where the 'low-carb lifestyle' has been embraced by the fast-food industry, the media and the rich and famous.
But it is more than just a fashionable excuse for stuffing your face and damaging your heart, bones and liver: it is a philosophy that lives in perfect harmony with Los Angeles.
Much of LA is, in essence, a tomb and you can live under the assumption of being able to conserve the beautiful and the good life as though you had a giant jar of marmalade - there is but little change inside a near vacuum.
Therefore anyone who is anyone has their mausoleum here. Behind high walls and security systems you can live and die your life in peace and isolation and the rest of the world can become invisible when you wish it too. Clusters of such mausoleums can be found in the desirable neighbourhoods that cover an unusually large part of the city and are almost eponymous with wealth. There not a single person dares walk in the streets car-less; distances between any two points in LA are measured in multiples of twenty minute units - by car. One such unit away you will usually find another crypt of the modern world: the shopping mall. On your way there you are encased in your tank-like Hummer or huge SUV that protects you while on transit between your lairs. And it is only then that you are reminded of the other people who live in the same city and also clog its arteries: traffic jams are cripplingly endemic in LA.
But you have to learn to take the bad with the good.
In the early evening from the hills of Mulholland Drive the pollution and the day's dissipating heat cause the city lights in the Valley below to glimmer and vibrate as though it was a mirage: LA appears to you like a beautiful Hollywood dream of old.
And then change, the only constant in life, also becomes apparent and marmalade jars and perfect vacuums are exposed as fictions. We are like bodies floating through the natural, eternal flux of the universe. Resistance is irresponsible and ultimately futile. And it may result in a low-carb lifestyle.

[Contrary to all the doom and gloom recently it's been a good time in the USA. But maybe I have been trying to induce a natural low in myself so that Japan will be all the more exciting and I'm also facilitating its fucking with my head. Which hopefully it will do after tomorrow's long flight straight to Tokyo, Narita. There are only 9 weeks left until London will call me back again and my remaining itinerary is predictably looking crazy right now.
For photos evidencing how TV has been my loving companion here check out Album - USA 1.
I would also at this point like to apologise if I have upset any LA natives in this post. I have actually not seen much of LA due to lack of transportation but next time I promise to rent a car and visit Compton and Long Beach. And like in every city there are the good and the bad. I just chose to ramble about a bad because it's more fun that way.]

Nothing Newsworthy [Berkeley, USA, 16/05/04]

2004-05-16T12:25:00.000-07:00

I would like to apologise for not posting for so long and neglecting this
blog but unfortunately there has been almost absolutely nothing
rivetingly interesting to write about.
And yes, I know that hasn't stopped me before and in fact I have tended
to write nothing about nothing a lot of the time anyway. But right now I'm taking
a break.
I am in Berkeley visiting friends to be precise. And it's strange because
Berkeley is pretty much where I started this whole trip-thing a long time
ago and it still looks the same. In the Bay Area life seems simpler and
still the sun shines every day in a cloudless sky. Graffiti on public
transport calls for 'destruction of car culture', crazy burnt-out hippies
lounge on street corners and everything feels kinda woolly-soft and
non-threatening.
Which is good because I now finally have all the energy I need
to make it to Japan -- ok, so it's not like I'm swimming but it's all in
the mind! Any time now -- I'm bracing myself for Sushi breakfast, lunch and dinner every day; paradise beckons.

Ugly Beautiful Times [L.A., USA, 07/05/2004]

2004-05-07T14:24:00.000-07:00

I left Mexico after three more days of excellent partying and flew into the Land of the Free. I swiftly breezed through Los Angeles immigration - mindful that in a few months I too would be welcomed by the handshake of fingerprint-scanner and a mugshooting webcam - and stepped on a public transport bus. I felt as though I was still back in Mexico: almost every person who stepped on spoke Spanish: there were couples, mothers with children, grandparents and restaurant chefs coming home from work. I felt at home and wanted to tell them that I was in their boat, I was from South of the border too and I loved how they were preserving their culture here.
Instead I ended up involuntarily saying gracias and por favor everywhere, especially in restaurants. I have stopped now. I am used again to 'civilisation'.
One unfortunate side effect of 'civilisation' is that I again have constant access to television and news and I seem to have chosen the precise moment of when the shit is starting to hit the fan for this exposure. Possibly, unbeknownst to me, the shit has been steadily dripping into the fan all this time but irrespectively I currently find myself standing right underneath it.
It ain't pleasant there.
I punch the air in frustration as though I can spur on the media to fix the world.
Then I see a Bush-Cheney '04 election broadcast convincingly hammering home Kerry's 'weakness' to the American heartland, still shocked and in fear of 9/11.
I fear everything will stay the same or get worse very quickly.
I want to see the President stand up and shout with as much pathos as when going to war, "This is disgusting and I am deeply ashamed of what has happened in Iraq. I am so terribly sorry and wish I could take away the suffering that has been inflicted. It is the most important thing in the world to me right now to make sure this will never happen again." Then he could symbolically sack his Secretary of Defence, tear down Abu Ghraib and dismantle Guantanamo or at least allow independent observers in (I don't even want to begin to imagine what we would see if soldiers had digital cameras there).
Maybe some of the above would repair a little damage or at least demonstrate some goodwill to the world.
But I am afraid of the future. I am afraid of just how angry and furious the world and its people may be. I fear that the only gesture of goodwill that could repair anything would be a parade through Baghdad's streets of the stripped-naked and hooded GI perpetrators. I fear nothing will be repaired in a long, long time.
And then I started hoping in the people's anger. I started hoping that they will rise up wanting to make the world a better place.
But then I watched Fox News for ten minutes. I saw that there probably weren't enough people who are pissed off or worried about the world being pissed off. After a ten minute dose of Fox even I caught myself having stopped worrying.
Oh what a frightening world.
But the good news is that in Los Angeles you don't have to worry. The sun is shining reliably every day and the world's beautiful and famous are around you.
I have been staying with family here, eating well, relaxing and having fun: it is an easy life.
So exactly what right do I think I have to complain about the world and torture you all with my rants? None at all, indeed, but I think getting it off my chest helps in not letting the shit that's sprinkling down ruin my mood too badly. After all, I'm on holidays. So, apologies and thank you all for being my therapists.

[Click here for Albums Mexico 2 for pictures of the party and Album USA 1 - LA for pictures of not much yet.]

Flash -- ahaaaaa... [Mexico City, Mexico, 29/04/04]

2004-04-29T21:42:00.000-07:00

Any moment on the road can be categorised between two extremes: Either you're staying in one place or you're moving fast to new ones. Staying has the advantage of getting to know people and the place closely, you can relax, recover and feel at home somewhere; this is a luxury you are rarely afforded when you're moving fast but instead you get rewarded by the excitement of never knowing what awaits you around the next corner, whom you may meet, what new foods you may try and what unexpected things may happen. And in some sense both states are both easy and hard at the same time. It is tiring and exhausting to move for a long time but your travelling feet also start itching when you've stayed somewhere for a long time; as always the problem may boil down to time but I won't go into that again.
But I make no choices - usually life, circumstances or those strong gut feelings just sweep me away and make the choice for me.
I stayed in Bogota longer than in almost any other place. The city is entertaining and relaxed, I made friends and my body and mind were tired of moving and of being bombarded with new things everyday. And even though it was not cocaine addiction that kept me there (allaying my parents' fears) I had as little control over staying or leaving as a coke addict has over his habit. It was physically and mentally so very hard to get up and go - kind of like the feeling when you first battle with the decision to get up and leave your comfortable and easy home for the first time and set out into the world to travel. It takes willpower and conviction and sometimes a kick in the backside.
Eventually time kicked me in the backside and my excitement at seeing new places fuelled my conviction to have to leave sooner or later. But, just for the record, Colombia is a wonderful country with amazing people and I truly regret not having seen more of it. But I tell myself I am saving it for another time when I have more energy.
When I arrived in Mexico City I had a heavy heart and was again homeless. Adding to my woes was a fascist-style HI Hostel with a massive hotel feel to it and too many rules. And the city is pricey and huge.
On the second day there was a last minute afternoon-trip to Cuernavaca - a beautiful town, bursting at the rim with language schools and a fair number of Gringos (in Mexico and Colombia, by the way, I wasn't a Gringo anymore as only US-Americans are Gringos here) - and then hit the nightlife in Mexico City which, when experienced as a tourist, is slightly pitiful. Still, the people you drunkenly meet on the street are pretty fun, especially in Zona Rosa - go figure it out...
Next morning, hungover and after less than minimum sleep: beeline to Guadalajara, Mexico's second city, cool and funky. Arrived that night and followed up on a party recommendation from Mexico City. The party ended up lasting until the next evening. Good stuff.
I allowed myself a day of rest - or rather I was too paralysed to move anyway. But the next day's afternoon - I slept in after a night of Tequila and worm - I kicked myself again and left Guadalajara, after paralysis caused by inability to make up my mind: should I stay or should I go?
On arrival in Maruata at night, the beach and village were dark and deserted but still great for hanging around. Next day I chilled on the beach, in the town (very relaxed) and talked to the sea and that afternoon I again left to Mexico City, hitchhiking, taking taxis and buses to get there overnight.
There I washed my still salty hair in a sink at the bus station, left my backpack in a locker and went to the pre-Mayan ruins of Teotihuacan; I was so tired I fell asleep on the bus there and missed my stop - that's what moving fast does to you.
Teotihuacan is very nice but being close to Mexico City and very accessible it has groups of school kids running around whistling on pre-Mayan whistles - which is all kinda cute but not as atmospheric as Machu Picchu (yes, here I go again). But where Machu Picchu was to all intents and purposes a tiny village, Teotihuacan clearly used to be a Metropolis - the Mexico City of its day, more than a thousand years ago. But, just like Machu Picchu, it must have been a pretty cool place to live in; I'd be chilling on the wide main avenue like the army of Artesania vendors nowadays and would watch people walk by, going to the Temples and living their ancient lives. Screw Helen of Troy - I want to see a movie called Helen of Teotihuacan.
And now, I am again in Mexico City, typing this in and not knowing what will happen tomorrow. But the good news is that I've been eating delicious tacos everyday! Nice.
I don't know why I've been moving so fast, it just kind of happened so it could have been the momentum of the enjoyable air-ride that set me off here. But maybe I will leave this super-chido (cool in Mexican) country with super-chido people any day now. Maybe I will stay a few days longer for another party. And still I don't know which.
And that's the other bright side to moving fast: I don't care. I don't have time to look for meaning and to think 'I wish I was special, so fucking special, what the hell am I doing here?" (to quote Radiohead for no apparent reason).
Shit just happens and it's fun. Maybe I'm cured.

[The photos are up. Find them in Album Mexico.]

South America in my Nutshell: A Different Picture [Bogota, Colombia, 19/04/04]

2004-04-19T13:28:00.000-07:00

Full stop, period, the end. Caracas - Bogota: a mere 634 miles separate the two yet for some reason it took me more than 7000 and through eight countries along the way. What did all this mean? 7000 miles or so ago I didn't quite know what it would all mean and hoped for revelations on the way. But life ain't that simple and finding meaning in a meaningless world may forever be doomed to failure; the only ones who ever feel they come close may be lovers, poets and the blindly religious. Yet all that is still so terribly far away from what we truly crave in our lives.
So, I lie here on my bed in my cheap hotel in Bogota trying to piece it all together from memory, all the while acutely aware of my impending failure and of a clock ticking mechanically somewhere in the silence.

The story started 24 weeks ago in Caracas. I felt like a naked new-born and I was on my own, truly alone, for the first time in my life. It was frightening. I was afraid of being found robbed and murdered in an alley-way - I was afraid of never being found - before my life had barely begun. So I started beginning my life; maybe I felt that luck was on my side.
The tiniest events - finding a bed, keeping myself from starving, walking a few blocks, posting a blog entry, meeting the first other traveller, booking a bus - they all set off hormonal fireworks inside of me. My body and brain were working hard to adjust to the freedom and the burden of being responsible to no-one but myself.
Churning up the miles on my first long-distance bus ride I was surprised by people wanting to be your friend and helping you just because you're a lonely foreigner in their country. My Spanish at any rate was still close to useless and our contact could have only been superficial at best but they didn't seem to mind. What a good world I was in.
In Ciudad Bolivar I found a safe place where I could gather myself and try to understand what it was I was looking for. Endless numbers of travellers passed through the hostel there, many staying only one night, swapping stories of places and adventures. I was envious of them yet I listened and the stories gave me confidence. I started coming to terms with what it was I had. Waking up every day in a hammock, blinking my eyes at the sun and feeling the warm morning air drifting through the roof terrace. It was freedom; the freedom to use my life to do whatever it wanted to be used for.
My life chose to take its time to savour that feeling. But then, one morning, I heard a ticking sound. It was my newly bought, chunky alarm clock and it reminded me of the far-away crocodile that threatens Neverland, the place without time. Time can bring all to an end, even freedom and always life.
With the realisation of limited time came the realisation of the necessity of choices and the subconscious, almost arbitrary manner in which these are usually made. But when travelling, any choice made has an effect far greater that most choices faced in life in its 'normal' stationary state.
Somehow I thus chose the almost remote jungle, a waterfall in the middle of nowhere, a place thick with the dust of a frontiertown on its roads, and an isolated community of Indios and societal 'dropouts'. Then I chose Brasil and did not choose Angel Falls, Mount Roraima, and hundreds of other natural and cultural marvels that could fill several lifetimes - if chosen.
I left Venezuela feeling I had seen a lot yet knowing I had seen nothing.
I entered the North of Brasil with nothing but confusion and the longing for more cheap adventure and quick adrenaline thrills. But on a mere 30-day visa from the unsympathetic Brasilian officials at the Venezuelan border I instead felt irritation at the arrogant pride of Brasilians in their supposedly magnificent country. Up in Manaus this magnificence seemed little more than a stinking, urban mess long beyond its prime in the middle of the wild jungle that was giving way to humans and their filthy needs. Most people were unfriendly, uneducated and spoke a messed up type of Portuguese, making no effort to be intelligible to the few foreigners who'd made it to this isolated part of the world. I had never felt as lonely and as lost as I felt back in Manaus and I decided to show the crocodile and the Brasilians how fast I could move through this huge country. Argentina promised bigger and better things to me at the time.
Even with these best of intentions in mind I couldn't help but starting to warm to Brasil, little by little. But I didn't know this yet in Manaus nor when I was still drifting down the Amazon on its disgusting boats. I don't think I knew it when I stopped in Santarem either, nor when I finally reached Belem after 5 days on the water, in sickness and in health. The mortality and fragility of my own body hit me and I considered not eating and drinking any crap off the street or the boats anymore. But after recovery you always feel invincible again.
The strange thing is that I don't anymore remember what made me decide to go to Sao Luis instead of rushing ahead to Fortaleza as I had originally planned. But I do remember that it was a choice weirdly made within split seconds at Belem's bus station. Probably I didn't really know why I did it back then either. With the benefit of hindsight maybe it was that gradual warmth that I was feeling for the country or a suspicion of just how diverse Brasil is and how many surprises could lie forever hidden to me along the coast between Belem and Fortaleza. Indeed, I would later consciously realise that calling Brasil one country is like calling Europe one country in a cultural sense.
In Sao Luis I then finally got the first hint of the Brasil that is the stuff of legends: the mix of Africa, Europe, South America and Indigenous hit me through the music, the people and the vibrations in the air.
I was charged, excited to see more and when I stretched out on the fishing boat full of stoned fishermen, drifting lazily but purposefully through the Parnaibo delta, I told myself that this was it. It had to be, it was the stuff of my dreams - no, it was reality surpassing them by miles and I tried to listen inside of myself for an appropriate feeling: freedom? The feeling was good but it wasn't the clear, shining tone I had expected. Maybe the lack of meaning dilutes such tones but I don't really know.
On arrival in Jericoacoara I found out how some others were beating time, or at least giving them the illusion of victory, amongst palm trees, sand dunes and beaches. A perfect place for urbanites sick of the rat-race.
And then, suddenly, time stopped for me too. The second-worst event I had imagined had occurred; it was just slightly better than being found dead in an alley. I had lost my diary. Somehow it felt like all the memories I had made until then seeped from me - memories I had wanted to save for those rainy days in the London rat-race. It was as though the crocodile had taken a huge bite out of my brain.
Thus lobotomised I began my therapy sessions to get over this trauma, pen and paper in hand. In retrospect this was probably the single most significant moment on my trip - it was all at once full of grief, reflection, reparation and finally contemplation of meaning and the 'why' of my travels, for the first time consciously. And it was - ultimately - ridiculous but it liberated me. Hell, the second-worst thing imaginable had occurred and I was surviving, moving on and learning (wiser but still paranoid, photocopyable loose pages have been my diary since).
But still the 'why' remained unanswered. I had two enemies now: an unanswered question and the crocodile, but at least I could see them both although I may have known that they were both uncrackable.
Somehow it became easier to travel that way - eyes open - and the mostly unremarkable but pleasant Fortaleza was followed by a giant leap to Salvador in the state of Bahia, whose 'motto' 'tranquilo' translates to something like 'chill out'. So I chilled out in Arembepe, the time-less mental institution and hippie commune, and celebrated something like Christmas in Lencois. It was probably in Bahia that I first started truly loving Brasil, its people, culture, attitude and diversity, and I dare anyone to go there and not to feel it.
Rio was where this love matured and then and there I gave my vows, till death do us part but I noticed a bitter taste on my tongue.
Knowing that you'll have to leave a lover is hard, especially if you've just started getting to know each other and there is still so much more to find out. It was as though I had only a blurry, incomplete photograph in my wallet, near my heart and in my mind. It seemed like everywhere I could go I would discover more and more facets of her character.
But bigamy can't work for long. I already had a wife and I learned that cheating on someone as omnipresent as time herself is impossible. I knew then than I would be her slave forever and her minion, the crocodile, chased me through Sao Paulo and Foz de Iguacu out of Brasil and into the arms of Argentina.
Once you've given your heart away and it's been broken it is hard to do so again. And Buenos Aires sure tries hard. Everything about her is eminently lovable but I knew I could find more of her type back in Europe. Still, we had our fun and I wasn't expecting anything deep again so soon after the last affair.
Cordoba too had oodles of charm but again it left me a little bored, just like that 'German' village which was wearing make-up from yester-year.
But the further I was moving North towards Bolivia the more interesting the characters of the places became. Salta was exciting - I hadn't yet seen a town like it or something I could compare it to. It was surprising and unpredictable, just like my little adventure on horseback in its countryside; the restless eel inside of me was being fed.
On I pushed northwards through Tilcara and its carnival and into Bolivia that was exuding its strange unknown influence across Argentine borders, calling to me.
In Bolivia I found a place that seemed unique to me. It was magical and unexplainable; I knew I had found a friend but also immediately knew that our relationship would remain strictly platonic. Bolivia is perhaps not a place you can love romantically and with such intensity as the pure distillation of life and hedonism that is Brasil, but love it I did and it touched me deep inside. Bolivia is no distillation but a crude, unfiltered mixture of good-hearted fun, ancient Indio traditions, stoic misery, chaos, tranquility, the overwhelming and so much more I did not get to see. And through it all seems to shine a genuine, stable happiness and calm inner peace of its people, almost no matter what their circumstance.
Bolivia will always be a wise and humbling friend to me and it taught me how to deal with one of my enemies; time was still, as ever, on my heels snapping at my ankles and driving me away and on. But as one learns to talk to an unruly child I learned a few magic words that would calm the beast and send it into momentary lapses of aggression. These words I would henceforth keep uttering like a prayer when I would feel a panic inside of me triggered by travellers or locals telling me of places. The words were: 'I'll be back'. Bolivia taught me these words and they gave me speed. Something inside of me began to feel that South America had already given me more than I had ever expected, maybe because I never knew what to expect in the first place.
So I pulled myself together for one last climactic high, which this time was laden with expectation; I raced through Chile, Cusco and straight up and down the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. It didn't disappoint and in retrospect I doubt I could have been disappointed considering my state of mind at the time.
After this self-induced and -prophecied high the travel-weariness kicked in. I don't know if it's a cliché that travelling is not living but running from life (and ultimately that statement confuses me once I start thinking about it too much) but for whatever reason I felt that I was ready to live again. A 'normal' life, wherever.
And that's what I've tried doing since then, in both Lima and Bogota. And it feels good. The urge to experience these places as a tourist has almost disappeared (or been suppressed - I haven't yet found out). I am taking it easy, enjoying myself and the company of others, I dream, I sleep, I eat. In short: life. But then again no one really knows what that means.

And that's it, all of it, the wheel has turned full circle and I have barely moved.
My alarm clock, bought 24 weeks ago in Venezuela, is still ticking loudly in my hotel room in the early morning. But I guess it doesn't really bother me much anymore.
What should bother me is that I still don't really have an answer to 'why' and I haven't really found any meaning in this whole mess behind me. The only things I thought to have found after all this are precious only to myself and lack a universal - hence they sound banale. As ultimately sounds life, mocked by time that will always be the final victor.
But maybe travelling is good. Maybe it is good because it is real. It is good because we choose it and it is good because luck does not matter. It is good because it happened. It is good because it is always unique and it will never happen again in the same way. And in the end it is good because we are not yet dead.
And if you want to look at it in this way then maybe life too is good, in spite of time.
Time can never change anything that lies in our past and present and maybe time's forward pointing arrow is the only thing that makes anything good; it continually locks away every bit of our pasts with the certainty of never being undone. Every moment in life is thus real but fleeting and urgently longs to be valuable and always unique.
But with time eternally and unstoppably moving in one direction the only valuable freedom that is left in life to make it unique is our ability to carefully and deliberately choose our place, in the x, y and z dimensions. Without that choice there may be none left at all.

And still I hear my alarm clock ticking neutrally and steadily. It looks at me in what appears to me to be a slightly Japanese way, with its neon-blue plastic housing. My eyes close and I start dreaming of a place where all the houses and roads will be of that colour; a soft, blue, glowing hum in all the streets, pulsating in silence like clockwork. The place draws me in and suddenly I find myself floating one foot above the still pulsating road. I look around and notice that I understand nothing that I see or hear. And then suddenly - a clock still ticking in a hotel room - it all means nothing again.

[I'll think about whether or not to get a digital alarm clock. While I ponder this and while I will try to go to the Gold Museum before I leave you can find pictures of, no sorry, from Bogota in Album Colombia - Bogota.]

The War Against Tourism [Bogota, Colombia, 08/04/04]

2004-04-08T16:42:00.000-07:00

Every step I took forward was a strain, my boots sticky with honey keeping me glued to this magnificent continent. Like a fly that's fallen into a pot of honey and feels the need to binge eat yet at the same time knows instinctively that this place could be its sugary grave: its wings grow sticky and useless and it dies of thirst as nothing can live on honey alone.
I had the luxury of taking a bus that plowed through the honey pot, relentlessly taking me where I was too weak to go on my own strength and masking the candy behind tinted windows and with a television playing action B-movies.
You shall know our velocity, I told myself and with momentum as my ally I arrived in Guyaquil, Ecuador, ready to ignore this Dollarised economy and step on the next flight to Bogota.
I was stopped dead in my tracks. The only flight left the next morning and could have paid for a royal lifestyle in Bolivia for a month.
I entered the impeccable airport bathroom, unshaven and laden with backpacks, to wash the travel weariness out of my face. A grey-haired, -faced and -bodied businessman stared at me as though lost in somnambulist trance. Then, for a fraction of a second, there was a look of confusion - maybe existential angst - on his face before he looked back at himself in the mirror, washed his hands and returned to his world that I should have had nothing to do with. I don't purport to know this man. But at that moment I did.
And so I sat amongst the overpriced airport fast-food restaurants, sipped on my coffee and decided I needed a dose of different. Asia may do. Until I'd get there I would be the anti-tourist. I picked up a book I'd meant to start for a long time and read the whole night through in the airport, aided by the bright lights and time that was only measured by the ebb and flow of people entering my realm.
The next morning travelling had disappeared out of my life. Instead of noticing mile after mile being ground up by a bus beneath me I passed out on the airplane and woke up an unknown amount of time later. It was like magic, like teleportation to me - I stepped into one airport that could be anywhere in the world with metal beams, glass and shiny floors and almost instantaneously ended up in another time-less and space-less teleportation chamber. I exited and found myself in Bogota, the city I would make into my anti-touristic home.
I had chosen a good place: one of the coolest cities in South America.
I started out experiencing the Israli side of Bogota by staying in a hostel that is a legend back in Israel. Being dropped into this world of no rules, endless supplies of drugs and readily available women after years of army forbearances may be called irresponsible. But who can blame them for partying so hard. In contrast I was partied out after two nights with them.
My sleeping patterns, however, would remain the same for my stay here - sunrise would remind me of bedtime and sunset would be my breakfast call.
Bogota is a lovely place to be. Amazing locals, great coffee and accompanying shops, readily accessible, quality nightlife and culture and plenty of time for reading and what goes with it - anti-touristically. And even though this country is practically in a civil war I have very rarely felt more secure in a city and the country as a whole is safer to visit than it has been in a long time.
So, how long will I stay here? I don't know. Will I even make it to other parts of Colombia? No clue. What will I do here until I leave? I have absolutely no idea. Every day just kind of comes along, I make no plans yet am always surprised by where it ends up going.
Be warned: anti-tourism wrecks your decision making ability. But it feels good.

[In true anti-tourist style I have uploaded no photos yet. Besides it is a public holiday and no fast internet cafes are open.
A few pictures now online at Albums Peru 3 - towards the bottom.]

Downtime [Lima, Peru, 29/03/04]

2004-03-29T19:09:00.000-08:00

When I first stepped out into Lima's microclimatically humid night air from an Internet cafe one of those strange feelings hit me momentarily. It was one of those feelings that amount to nothing more than the hint of a vibration producing a note inside your body. And you feel that once in your life that note had already been sounded in another composition - back then it was different and only a single instrument in the elaborate symphony that was pounding away inside of you. And you try to remember and then it comes flooding back to you, fragments of melody, and you focus on that resonating tone that still tickles you from inside, all the way to your fingertips.

First, the city talked to me, its cars screaming metal and fumes, whispering into my ear - my anonymous ear! - of things that comfort me with a voice as silky smooth as the footsteps of strangers.
Then the city glanced at me searchingly for a split second, I almost missed it, with its bright, neon eyes locked onto mine. Only a passing glance at another one of the nameless many deep inside its nervous system.
The beginnings of a note were forming inside of me, at that point barely more than hints of harmony found in a chaos of electron storms, when, unexpectedly, the city touched me, wrapped me in its equatorial arms and floated its warm, wet breath through me.
Within split seconds the layers combined to compose a memory and some dark recess of my brain activated and spat out frames and frames of fast forwarded movie reel.

I saw the strange portal that dropped me into this strange continent. I felt Caracas re-entering my body. That distillation of another metropolis, ancient and cold yet alive, now again a straight dripfeed into my veins. My mind stretched out trying to unite the two places in space and time but the distances that lay between them just unrolled like rag carpets flung down empty roads all over South America.

What was I to do in Lima? More congregations of people, more churches with foundations on the rubble of Inca temples, more hunting for obscure and probably unsanitary places to find my next meal, more walking of meaningless streets in search for invisible alleys, more of everything else that has happened in parallel universes at least once before?
The only possible answer to my hangover: downtime. Preferably with an old friend who now lives in Lima, mourning the distance of the far-away world we both used to live in and now miss.

But I won't be coming home just yet.

[Click here for Album Peru 3 with all pics, scroll down to the bottom.]

A Walk in the Park [Inca Trail, Peru, 21/03/04]

2004-03-21T20:03:00.000-08:00

I have yet to meet someone who is willing to stick their neck out, be courageous and say that the Inca Trail is rubbish. As much as I crave for being novel I can't be that someone either. Everyone's Inca Trail is a personal trip and mine felt epic. The Trail moved as though it was hewn into the mountains by a gifted artist with a razor sharp understanding of dramatic curve and the human psyche.
It would be a story that we always knew the plot and ending of but as with all good art it is the unexpected bursts of genius that overwhelm you and its capacity for revealing nuances and extremes of emotion that you never knew existed within you that differentiate this from your standard walk in the park.

The trail gently teased me on its first day with mild suggestions of what it may reveal of itself in the next three days. The scenery and variety of fauna encountered would already have made it into a memorable trek by itself but the myths and infamies that hang in the air of every gringo hangout in Cusco played on my mind and made sure this was only the light reading of an introductory chapter. There was the buzz of anticipation on the campsite that night and we were introduced to the most creative - and mostly tasty - cooking possible with the bare minimum variety of ingredients available. I was personally also introduced to sleepless nights in the cold tent in my summer sleeping bag and eight-fold layered clothing.
Powered by hot coca mate - luxuriously brought to our tents and guzzled before our eyes were yet fully open - a monster breakfast and more coca leaves stuffed into my cheek we set off the next day - by reputation the most punishing one of all. Gently ascending it started out nicely enough, new species of flowers popping up every ten metres of climb.
After several hours however, the punishment started being meted out in the ascent to Dead Woman's Pass at 4200m. The path was steep and long and when I'd feel like my lungs were about to cave in and my legs were about to buckle I'd push myself to climb faster, all in the name of the search for that elusive natural high. It worked. By the time I was down at the camp for that night and had lunch I and two others felt cocky enough to climb more and pre-empt the next morning's ruins. They and the mountainside were dipped in a marvelously mysterious mist that was drifting and revealing the parts it chose for us to see. It was an indescribable rush coupled with the high I was on at the time.
The come-down was all the more severe - the old adage that what comes up must go down proved true. Camping at altitude that night I froze worse than the night before, wrapped in everything I had carried including my rain poncho. Whether it was the cold, too much food I had eaten for dinner (I had developed a reputation for eating a lot so I was always kindly thrown the others' leftovers as to a dog), lack of sleep, the iodine purified river water or a combination of everything, I proceeded to empty my guts outside the tent early the next morning.
From then on I felt rough and irritable. The ruins we re-visited in the sunlight held none of the magic they had done the night before, the steps upon steps were starting to grate on my nerves and the idea of sleeping in a nice bed and going back to civilisation (and I wasn't thinking Cusco but more like the USA) seemed preferable to what I was doing right there. Instead I slept on the ground at our lunch camp, soaked in the hot sun and ate. Which did the trick. With renewed energy I started on the longest stretch to date which mostly wound downhill.
We passed through enchanted cloud forests that had trapped the clouds and were drinking their water. There were many species of orchids and moss, moist, colourful and so deep you could sink your entire hand into it. We passed other Inca ruins, again lent atmosphere by the fog that had descended on the old stones coloured red by the moss and plants.
I was immersed in this world and my imagination kicked in as I started running down the same rough, seemingly neverending stairs at breakneck speed that Inca messengers had used to hold together a huge empire that was lost half a millenium ago.
The camp we stayed at that night had all the amenities, a bar and lots of high Inca trailers (which is meant to suggest that a few of them decided to get pissed and started throwing chairs around). Dinner was a special occasion and the cooks of the different tours tried outdoing each other in carving animals out of vegetables - we all agreed that ours were the best even though our tour was on the cheap end of budget. What followed was an amusing attempt at a ceremony to say goodbye, thank and tip our porters who had carried food, tents and countless kilos more and had done so many other things for us to make the trek amazing and possible.
As the rain was pattering against our tent that night I slept like a baby and was warm if only for a few hours when we awoke at 4 AM for the final chapter. Nothing felt impossible anymore, we had survived the worst the Trail could throw at us, had forged bonds in the fires of hell and the cool heavenly highs and were now ready to reap our reward: being part of the lost Inca city of Machu Picchu.

The spectacularly entitled sun gate that we aimed to reach by sunrise didn't live up to its name - the clouds blocked out the sun as well as most of the Lost City. But even after the sun came out it took me several hours to start appreciating the full mind-blowing extent of Machu Picchu's beauty. The place is a giant work of art of stone. There is intelligence, refined aesthetics and creativity in its design, sitting there atop and nested in incredible mountains. The different neighbourhoods revolve around beautiful open green spaces, sitting on terraces of different levels with almost everywhere being accessible by at least two different sets of stairs - backtracking is rarely necessary when moving through the elevations from A to B. Temples to the various gods have been situated meaningfully and abstract symbolism abounds. You can tell it had been designed to be a place of beauty - the path up the nearby mountains from the city can only have been made as a showcase of Machu Picchu's aesthetics. Machu Picchu smacks of self-awareness and purpose everywhere you walk.
The city drew me in more and more the more I explored its streets and alleys and started noticing subtle details in the stonework and decorations. There was harmony. The llamas roamed the streets and gardens and seemed as though they were solely in charge of their maintenance. I imagined what it must have been like when the majestic condors still ruled the skies and lorded over this place.
Even the huge tour groups of largely Japanese, Koreans, Americans and French could do nothing to spoil the place for me. On my cocaine-like natural high I felt above it all. I understood this place, I knew I had been an Inca for a few precious moments when running down their ancient trails forgetting about the existence of buses, trains and cars and the world outside.
For the rest of the day I made Machu Picchu my home and got to know its shortcuts, hidden alleyways and character. I could almost see what it looked like when it was still populated.
As the sun started setting I said goodbye, my heart heavy with lightness, and ran down the steps, Inca style, to the tourist village of Agua Calientes. The hot spring there is funneled into a cesspool of human Inca Trail filth but the hot water did wonders for my exhausted body. The train back to Cusco the following day was, however, full so I resigned myself to spending another day there.
In the morning the village was drenched in rain and the mountains were hidden in impenetrable clouds. What was up had come down again and I felt like a nobody. There were no more elderly congenial US-package tourists congratulating my 'achievement', I didn't show the signs of four days without a shower anymore and had slept in a comfortable bed the previous night. I was barely sure anymore of what exactly had occurred in the last few days. But in some places in my body I started feeling the tingling recollection that whatever had happened had been infinitely different from all standard walks in the park I had had so far.

[Inca Trailage and Machu pics in Albums Peru 2 and 3 -- still no captions, will be added shortly.]

Naturally Sweaty [Cusco, Peru, 15/03/04]

2004-03-15T19:53:00.000-08:00

My search for a genuine cuyeria (guinea pig eatery) has landed me in a back-alley back-yard restaurant where I'm sitting and sipping on a strawberry-vomit flavoured drink. Unfortunately cuy (guinea pig) seems mostly available on the weekends as a special treat.
Sheesh, that's the problem with trying to write contemporaneously, things never stay the same way for long: the delicious main course had arrived and only one half of it is still in existence and I have ordered a coke leaving the frutillada (ugh) to sit there and ferment. Oh, and the slightly spicy, green salsa they have here tastes incredible. How about I just freeze time to spare you all the slightly dull details of my diet?
And since we are on diet (ha!), I did eat guinea pig yesterday at a tourist joint but it tasted like tough, skinny rabbit so that's why I'm still looking for the genuine article.
But seriously folks, I have done more than just eat here. In my attempt to become the foremost authority on Incas in Cusco I bought this book that was written by a near-blind historian about 150 years ago - umm, and have yet to read much more than the prefaces. Partly to blame are indeed Cusco's bars which irresponsibly hand out free Cuba Libres and with a bit of blagging and bar hopping seal the night making bed time reading impossible.
On the cultural flip-side of the coin I have tried to pre-empt the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and walked, horsed, bussed and hitchhiked to more ruins I wanted to manage in this time.
Cusco lies in the so-called 'Sacred Valley' which does deserve the title in my humble opinion. The land looks fertile (to my highly trained agriculture-eye) and most of the mountains have been landscaped into terraces which already on the bus to Cusco immediately looked quintessentially Incan to me although I can't remember having ever seen them before in such a context. I think more than the temples and ruins - which often require a lot imagination to even recognise as temples or ruins owing to the Spaniards' infatuation here of building huge churches out of other cultures' houses - it was the terraces and the landscape that have hit me so far. They seem as though gods have set to work on the mountains and the valley to make them inhabitable to humans.
The ruins at Pisaq, however, were very impressive to me. Probably mostly because of the natural-high-phenomenon which I had previously been often told existed but always attributed to fairy tales told to keep kids on the straight and narrow. In this case the phenomenon was triggered by sweating like a pig after climbing up steep slopes at high altitude and being hormonally rewarded after seeing the view and my first proper Inca ruins.
Which I hear is more or elss what the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu is all about, so I may get bored. Good thing that you can enhance natural highs unnaturally.
Soso, dinner is long finished, the pink-vomit is still sitting there, fermenting, a band has started playing and I have asked for the bill. And time's been unfrozen too. Which means I'll have to do some shopping, upload photos and these ramblings and then make myself learn about Incas from the near-blind historian. I hear when you're wise you get higher. Naturally. Which may at least reduce any craving for free Cuba Libres while sweating like a pig on the trail for the next 5 days. Let's just hope I won't O.D. on the endorphins and seratonin.

[Too much time wasting had gone on after writing this post which means I probably won't read any of the book...
But click here for Album Peru 1.
A final note - everyone can now download all the pictures at the full resolution they were taken at - including all the panoramas (including Iguacu falls) which may make for good desktop backgrounds although I wouldnt currently know. Didn't realise there was a setting I could jiggle to enable this option on the gallery page. Just click on the medium size pic to get the full one.]

Time Travelling Pigs [Cusco, Peru, 12/03/04]

2004-03-12T15:44:00.000-08:00

My hunt for a local joint in Cusco that serves guinea pig has so far been unsuccessful. Actually I was overwhelmed by hunger caused by two days of bus travel and ate cheaply and deliciously at the central market instead. But as I'm sitting here, sipping on coffee and slurping on desert I have a more serious problem than catching that so far elusive guinea pig: I have to write about the events of the last week and this is proving difficult when the last week has just been a blur of sensory overload to me. My time-honoured friend Chronology will have to come to my rescue to prevent me from getting ahead of myself and muddling it all up. Which of course I already have done since I started with guinea pigs - for the sole reason to get the attention of all the vegetarian animal lovers out there and with this I also want to pre-empt any major militant show of strength on this page by you. :)
We arrived in Uyuni from Sucre some time last week early early morning after a wonderfully unrelaxing busride, slept for two hours and then jumped on one of the hundreds of three day Salar tours. For good reason this area is one of the top destinations in Bolivia: the jeep drove us into some of the strangest landscapes I have ever seen.
It started out like a strange dream. Everything in all directions below the sky was flooded with that most uncoloured of colours: white. And it was a gleaming, blinding white, looking tranquil and somewhat heavenly but at the same time probably being one of the deadest places on earth: it was all salt. Like off of a mirror the sunlight was bounced into space and into our eyes and faces (sunglasses obligatory). I started wondering whether it would be possible to construct a hell on earth out of this place by finding a substance that reacts with salt to turn it black or purple and spraying it systematically over the place. Now that would be a tourist attraction, just imagine the boiling purple earth and fumes as far as the eye could see. Of course the salt miners would be slightly miffed but it'd be a small sacrifice for my personal entertainment. If there are any chemists out there who can suggest a suitable chemical I'll take it up with Bolivia's minister for tourism.
But I guess the landscape is already strange enough on its own. Out of the white nothingness there rises a rocky island full of cactuses. Mounds of salt lie around to be ferried off by salt miners. There are holes in the surface of the salt where one finds strangely coloured, bubbling water. There is a sea of rainwater on the salt that is cut in two by an elevated driveway of rock - and I dare anyone who's seen Sen to Chihiro to not cry when first encountering it. There's a hotel built entirely of salt which is slightly tacky but kind of cool anyway.
To tell the truth it felt good to be on the tour. Everything was organised, nothing had to be worried about and we were shuttled from one amazing place to another.
Over the next two days the landscape changed like a chamaeleon from rocky mountaineity (?) to beautiful lakes that changed colours several times a day, were populated by flamingos and backdropped by majestic mountains to quintessentially deserty deserts with funky rock formations to geysers of fuming sulphur and bubbling mud, to terrains that seemed to be constructed after NASA Mars Rover pictures and finally some wonderfully relaxing hot thermal baths (which incidentally was my only chance at washing until this morning's shower - I am starting to like being dirty and I am only mentioning this in case there are readers who like the disgusting details on my lack of personal hygiene).
After the tour Mechi and I spent another day in the Salar at the foot of a volcano where the harsh wind beat us and the landscape into submission permitting only the growth of tiny shrubs and the survival of cats with thick, very strokable fur. The few humans there subsisted on tourism and at the lodge we met an old woman, a cook, who was wrapped in layers and layers of llama-wool clothing like the age-rings of a tree. Weather-beaten and stable she would stand there as though she had dug her roots deeply and securely into the rock and earth around her. When she spoke the sole bottom row of her teeth would become visible like pebbles strewn lovingly amongst the mountainside and every word she would slowly and thoughtfully produce seemed infinitely wise and true. Before I knew it I had told her of my dreams in life while to most other locals I resort to a spiel that I know they'll understand and not judge or resent me by. When she answered me I knew she understood. Her dream was to climb the volcano one day when life would let her. She was amazing and has made me believe that cold winds and harsh climates make people more wise as they withdraw into their layers of clothes to introspect. I too started to feel comfortable while wearing two sweaters and three shirts inside.
After this intense experience the next morning, anti-climactically we made it into Chile - which I didn't like much. Superficially it may just have been the high prices but the town we landed in (San Pedro de Atacama) had dullish vibes for me and too many tour agencies. Thus Mechi made her way back to Argentina and I headed up to Peru that night, sans travelling companion, again alone.
The benefit of travelling alone is that I spent eight straight hours on free internet (that came with my bus ticket) the next day at the bus station in Tacna, Peru, just across the Chilean border. Ok, so maybe the benefit of that precise action is debatable.
That night, however, several other gringos kept me company on the bus to the gringo capital of Peru: Cusco. A dodgy woman tried to give us a volleyball that weighed 3 kilos, some shoes and random other packages to keep safe in our backpacks - now there was a coke-carrying mule if ever we saw one. Random movies kept us entertained before we tried to sleep which was an operation of only moderate success.
So, here I am in Cusco, eschewing chronology yet again since it is now evening, I am in an internet cafe and have since also booked a Machu Pichu tour for Tuesday. Until then I will try to saturate myself with useless facts about Incas so maybe I can experience a flashback while I am on the trail or some other near-religious experience that would rival tree-woman. Or I may just succumb to all the free drinks that get handed out around here to tourists... Only time will tell.

[Check out Bolivia 3 and 4 Albums for more pics of Salar.]

Worst ever... [Sucre, Bolivia, 05/04/04]

2004-03-05T17:16:00.000-08:00

Since I am currently searching for the worst place in the US I may as well make this the worst entry ever. I am frustrated by the crawling internet here and trying to upload pictures for a couple of days so I'll just use this space to vent a little. Grrr - the bastards in the internet cafe are playing Shakira, non-stop. How much worse can my life get? And I need to eat. And I need space on my camera for more pictures for the Salar de Uyuni - a Salt Desert - which is where we're heading tomorrow.
I didn't get to hang out much in Sucre either. Shame, but instead we went trekking to middle of nowhere which is a place I always like (Maragua in fact it is called). So, nutshell time: Beautiful nature, yadiyadiyaa; exhausting hike for 5 hours there; on arrival in Maragua played a basketball game against the teachers of the 'frontier school' there and the altitude smacked me down again reducing my height advantage; slept in the school; jogged back downhill in about 2 and a half hours early next morning while bumping into kids on their 2 hour up-hill school-run; ultimately made it back to Sucre in a cattle truck chock full of people. Yeah it was all cool and fun but I am feeling nasty right now and am in the mood to be mean so I won't praise it or talk more about it. Some of the pics are kinda pretty though.
But actually they're still stuck in some internet cable somewhere in Bolivia.
Ladidadidadi.
Ok, almost done. So here goes, Albums Bolivia 1 and 2 with pics of Cochabamba and Sucre, some panoramas and some pics from the hike to middle of nowhere.
I feel much better now, finally done.
Love to all and begging forgiveness for grumpiness earlier - nothing personal. Just my deep-rooted hate for the world and all...

There are some things money can't buy... [Sucre, Bolivia, 02/03/04]

2004-03-02T17:01:00.000-08:00

I think I'm in love with Bolivia. I spoke to an old(ish - he didn't look it) man today in Sucre who told me I should buy a cheap house and live here. Indeed that is what a lot of Germans seem to have done as Sucre is teeming with cafes and bars with German names, usually chock-full of Gringos but very nice places!
And this is exactly what I intend to do the next few days in Sucre: relax and enjoy this lovely city, eating good food, sitting in cafes watching the world go by, reading, writing, and consuming copious amounts of caffeine.
Which brings me to my next point: these are activities anybody should be able to enjoy but unfortunately this kind of lifestyle is out of reach back at home. I always knew that Bolivia was economical to travel in (I won't call any lovely country cheap!) but putting a number on things after I found out the actual exchange rate to the Pound yesterday was a shock. A complete lunch with soup: price of a pack of gum in the UK. The meanest, largest fruit salads imaginable: cheaper than a cigarette in the UK (healthy alternative, but then again a pack of smokes here is only slightly more). Delicious cakes and sweets: pennies. I could go on but everything in fact comes in similar price ranges.
Now I obviously feel a little bad and unethical since I am in effect trashtalking a country's economy and unfairly reaping the benefits of a ridiculously high Pound and I fully understand why some locals here are resentful of Gringos coming and living like kings and queens. I am no economist but something must be wrong here anyway - either how overpriced everything back at home is or just how wide the gaps between places really are, as cliched as it sounds. Someone must be stuffing their pockets full of cash somewhere! But probably all I'm trying to say is that it will be incredibly difficult being a good consumer again once I return.
But enough about money since it is already a truth universally acknowledged that it is the root of all things satanic and otherwise worthy of worship in our world.
And since we're speaking of Satanic, I arrived in Sucre from a warzone: Cochabamba carnival. I thought the carnival in Tilcara was bad with the armies of armed kids roaming the street but in Cochabamba the army was a professional one composed of youths and adults. A cottage arms industry of selling filled water balloons had sprung up to meet the demand for arms, thousands of cans of carcinogenous (and incidentally CFC containing) artificial-snow spray were sold and half the crowd were armed to the teeth with imitation super soakers. That, being a Gringo who's a head taller than everyone else and the folly of having worn a bright-red (and what I thought at the time as festive) shirt made me into the prized Target of the Day. I was fucked.
After several hours of punishment the sun started going down, I was freezing and soaked and I decided that it'd be best to leave. Of course not before I had my diary (of all things again - but only a few pages this time!) pickpocketed in the crowd while I must have been shivering, dodging around and trying to defend myself against overwhelming odds. I think the parade was pretty good too but to be honest didn't catch too much of it -- too much foam in my eyes. I'm such a hero!
The next day however, made up for it. Cochabamba has the most amazing market I have yet seen. It stretches for 5 blocks and you can buy (almost) literally everything you desire. And, as we've established, it's cheap. So while I had been looking for a new diary for two months in Brazil to finally find one after much searching in Buenos Aires, in Cochabamba something suitable reared it's head within the first half hour of looking. At the same time I also fell in love with the 'antique' Bolivian fabric patterns and handicrafts which are simply gorgeous! Needless to say, shopping spree ensued.
So to finish off like I started: House in sucre - $15000; 12 water balloons $0.10; Diary with 'antique' cover: $1; having to go to dinner while leaving the slow, slow internet cafe to upload the rest of the pictures: priceless. (ok, that one's lame, but I really have to go to dinner and can't think of anything right now!).

[Click here for Albums.]

I Me Mine... [Potosí, Bolivia, 27/02/04]

2004-02-27T12:22:00.000-08:00

Two things have changed in the last week: 1. I am not travelling alone anymore but have teamed up with a lass from Patagonia, and 2. I am in Bolivia, moving at breakneck pace.
Because I love stating the obvious here goes: Bolivia is a completely different animal from Argentina (possibly a llama). It is spectacular here, full of contrasts, wild places that have an unexplored feel about them and one hell of a colourful carnival.

We crossed into Villazon, Bolivia late at night last Monday (a perfect, unprotected little border for drug runs or getting drunk with the guards) and walked right into the carnival with our backpacks. Amazing constumed parades were dancing down the street and folklore and symbolism was rife. The night was topped off with a wild disco night, Bolivian village style. Good stuff.
The next day we hung around Villazon and got pissed for free as everywhere we went - from the border immigration office to bus ticket offices to random places in the street - drunk party people would be forcing us to down glasses of beer and spirits. Sweet!
I honestly don't think I've ever met such hospitable people who genuinely seem to be interested in you - then again maybe they've all just had a few.
That night a bus took us to Potosí. Even though I had a seat I suffered badly. Bolivians aren't particularly tall and correspondingly their buses have 10cm of legroom. Neither do they seem to have sufficient supply to meet demand for bus travel - there were a good 20 people standing and sleeping in the aisles - I was trapped on all sides and DVT seemed a real possibility. But I mustn't complain - at least I didn't stand for 8 hours that night.
I also suspected from the carnival decorations on the bus and the state of the ticket office and its staff earlier that the bus driver was enjoying the ride over the unpaved dirt road in a state of mild intoxication, fulfilling his rally driver fantasies. Hell it was carnival, everyone was allowed to have fun!
Potosí doesn't really celebrate carnival in a major fashion but it is a very interesting town that was once made rich by silver mining and now survives mostly through tourism.
The first day we set off on a trek through the nearby highlands but I didn't get very far. With the town at around 4100m and the trek at 4500m the altitude sucker-punched me right in the chest and winded me after a short climb. My pulse hammered with the frequency of a pneumatic drill.
Since then my blood has become juicier (or something) and I've learnt how to handle climbing stairs like an old man.
So the next day we were ready for the physical exertion of a tour of the collective mines (e.g. no company owns the mine but collectives of miners rent space from the government). Being a miner in Potosí has to be one of the hardest jobs on earth: working on their own, darkness all day, narrow, cold, wet tunnels, Coca laeves as the only sustenance, frequent lethal accidents and a toxic atmosphere that has a serious effect on life expectancy.
It was a different world we had entered into, a world that was hard to properly comprehend. Making a true connection with the miners was difficult. We brought them Coca leaves, cigarettes, cookies and dynamite as gifts which seemed to be appreciated and also necessary, as mining is not very profitable anymore these days. The miners depend on tourists to lighten the financial load of their working materials.
I attempted to help Don Felipe, my namesake and an old, experienced miner, with drilling a hole for inserting the dynamite but after a minute of hammering my heart was pounding out of my chest again. My blood wasn't juicy enough yet and with my tail between my legs I admitted defeat, knowing full well Don Felipe would be doing hours more of the same work today to make a living.
It was an experience I can't quite describe but somehow I was left feeling that the world is a very, very complicated place indeed.
Very aware of our privileged position, we made our way towards a hot spring to relax while the miners were still underground grinding away. After putting those thoughts aside the hot spring was amazing. A large lake the temperature of a bathtub, outside it was nice and chilly. If I ever get a house give me a natural hot spring, damnit! It'd possibly be good to get a mine or two for humility's sake too.
Leaving all that behind we're taking a bus to Cochabamba tonight where on the weekend there'll be a massive carnival celebration. More costumes, dancing and foolishness undoubtedly. Maybe I can dress up as a llama or something...

[Pics have been uploaded, click here for Albums Bolivia 1 and 2.]

¿Como te Llama? (How is your Llama?) [Tilcara, 23/02/04]

2004-02-23T11:25:00.002-08:00

Up here in Tilcara it is definitely scarf territory at night and I don't think it'll get better up in Bolivia. I am hoping that layering will be key (currently at 3 shirts, 1 sweater and 2 trousers - I'll keep updating).
My body had already reacted badly and erupted in a temperature on Friday although that may also have been a by-product of the last week's exhaustion, excesses and the rain on arrival here. I prescribed myself a day of bedrest only interrupted by an afteroon stroll around town but once it started getting cold around 5 pm I slinked back to the hostel and slept till next morning.
Eureka, miracle cure! I had lulled my body into believing it was safe again, ready to take a new beating in a week of fast travelling. Indeed I'll be having to do a lot more of that in the next month otherwise I'll never make it back to London on my RTW ticket.
Sunday I then met up with some Argentines I knew from Salta and roamed around freely in Tilcara Carnival. One of the ideas of Carnival here seems to be to irresponsibly arm little kids with Super Soakers, water balloons and spray cans of some carcinogenic foam or other and to declare open season on absolutely anyone. While on Saturday, packed into my layered winter gear, I was still able to plead with them not to soak me on account of my infirmity, on Sunday and today I was a sitting duck (although revenge, when forthcoming, was all the sweeter - I love bullying little kids! :). Maybe having dressed like a bulky, layered, multi-coloured Carnival Clown with a Brasilian-flag serong draped around my neck didn't help either.
The rest of the Carnival affair involves getting very drunk (lots of locals too) and dancing through the streets all day and most of the night in a long procession. All clean, harmless fun, really!
In other news I am embarrassed to admit that in my time here in Argentina I hadn't realised how many contrasts there are in this country (this ain't Kansas or Europe no more). Gradually towards the North it has become noticeably more 'Andean' in culture. At least that is based on what my, by-definition, misinformed stereotype of stereotypically Andean countries would have me believe. But for one, they serve Llama here which seemed quite Andean (--unfortunately I had the munchies quite badly when I tried it so I can't quite recount anymore what it tasted like but I think it was good-ish).
Anyway, I'll be working more on educating myself in the Andean ways of life and Llama diet: I'll be off to Bolivia tonight - finally! :)

[Pics have now been uploaded to Album Argentina 5.
Ps.: Have my blog post titles always been this cheesy?]

The Good, The Bad and the Gringo [Jujuy, 20/02/04]

2004-02-20T08:14:00.000-08:00

Here I am at 5 AM, sitting at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. My body is a wreck that is only kept moving by Coke's age-old secret ingredient, I haven't slept in a bed for three days and haven't taken a shower for four. I am wondering whether other people can tell already... How I got here I'm not quite sure and it is a long story that I'll have a hard time cutting short.
It all started last Saturday when I thought I had found the perfect guide in a tourist office. I insisted I didn't want to do 'estancia-tourism' (where they dump you on a ranch, feed you beef and after you're nice and juicy they slaught- umm sorry, send you on horseriding daytrips). The travel agent eagerly agreed and presented me with a 3 day horse-trek of some 320km from Cachi to Cafayate, two towns mostly in the middle of nowhere. I then spoke to the guide, Hugo, who explained to me for half an hour that horses could run fast and how much fun it'd be. And such is the story of how I got suckered in and booked on Monday for the following day. My skepticism was quelled by my child-hood fantasies of galloping day and night to deliver a vital warning of impending Indian attack to Fort Cafayate, Pony Express style.
Tuesday morning dark and early the guide, we caught a bus to Cachi. It turned out Hugo's newly acquired Swiss girlfriend would come along for the ride. No problem, she was great to have there actually, especially as another voice of sanity!
Once we arrived in Cachi Hugo started taking his time over things. It turned out he hadn't reserved any horses but there were some in a town called Saclantas "only 10 km away". Now, the Argentines are infamous for underjudging distances (after careful deliberation they'll tell you "four blocks that way" when it usually turns out to be 14) and in this case too I finally found out it is actually 35 km - after walking for an hour. I proposed we hitch-hike to Seclantas so as not to get there after nightfall.
An hour later we arrived but Hugo didn't know the way to the horses, at one point proposing to wade across a half-mile wide fast-flowing river. I found the farm a little later (asking directions helped) and had a chat with the owner Fido, whom I can only say amazing things about. From him I found out that the proposed trip was indeed impossible. Apparently it would take at least a week and besides the river was too powerful to cross by horse right now. I confronted Huge and after much Gollum-like twisting and squirming of his I find out that he intended to start for a day and then realise we couldn't make it to Cafayate and come back here. Charming bastard. I proposed a policy of honesty henceforth and we planned a shorter and more manageable route to Angustora, a farm another 35 km away. We spent the night in an empty house of Fido's and the next morning we were on our way.
The horseriding was amazing. The scenery was mindblowing, alternating between desert and lush green fields all the while stunning mountains as backdrop. My horse Vayo (no relation to the laptop) was high-spirited, fast and listened to most things I told him. Hugo's horse on the other hand buckled under his weight after an hour and had to be dragged half the way. We took our time and in the evening finally made it to Angustora.
The farm had no electricity or running water and sheep, goats and chickens roamed the land and lots of cattle grazed on pastures. A recommendation letter from Fido got us warmly welcomed by the family who were again, simply great (I don't want to keep waxing on about how hospitable and friendly the people in the countryside are). I had a really good time there! And I fulfilled another cowboy fantasy of mine by sleeping on the horse's blankets and saddle which actually turned out to be quite comfortable.
The next morning we left late. Too late in fact to realistically make the last bus to Salta which I needed to catch to honour the hostel reservation I had made for that night (no telephones=no cancellation). Hugo's horse started breaking down underneath him again and he was dragging it along painfully slowly.
I decided to head back by myself on Vayo. At that point Hugo started mumbling something about my having to pay extra for the horse, mumble mumble. Bollocks. After I gave him an earful about him being the most useless and disorganised guide in the world I galloped off with faithful horsey.
At this point the 'tour' as such luckily finished. And I don't want to sound whiney but I've but mentioned a fraction of Hugo's incompetence for lack of space.
Tourless, I rode back to Seclantas, only stopping for water but singing and whistling songs to Vayo to keep him in good spirits - he seemed to prefer the Monty Python theme tune and was a forgiving listener when I had to make up the lyrics to songs. Another fantasy of mine kicked in and I pretended to be the lonesome cowboy in the desert complete with flesh-wound, being carried home by my trusty steed.
Before I went mad I arrived in Seclantas but getting away from the middle of nowhere was harder than expected. After several 5-minute lifts from a pick-up truck, a van full of onions and a tractor I found myself on the main road to Cachi - only a swift 27 km walk. After an hour of mountains to my left and river to my right the first car approached. I held out my thumb full of hope but the asshole (probably tourist) behind the steering wheel of the half-empty 4WD Toyota waved at me condescendingly and cruised by in a cloud of dust.
I started feeling like a leaf in the wind happy to settle anywhere it would take me. I was getting increasingly friendly with the notion of sleeping by the side of the road huddled under my rain poncho when finally a van came - and stopped!
A husband and wife team were collecting tomatoes and onions from farmers waiting patiently at the side of the road and were driving them up North to Jujuy. None of that chain-supermarkets monopoly crap here: "local produce from local farmers" or something.
For the sake of being a leaf in the wind I decided not to be honourable, screwed the reservation in Salta and joined them on the way up towards Jujuy (if I don't chicken out I'll try to call the hostel and explain). In Jujuy state I was dropped off seven hours later not as centrally as I'd hoped and started writing this entry. But the past has caught up with the present and I'll have to ignore rules of tenses to continue.
A friendly truck driver from Buenos Aires namely took pity on me and took me to where I am now, the capital San Salvador de Jujuy. I seem to have stumbled right into the middle of carnival season so I will head further North today to some smaller village for some R&R and partying. Rio it ain't but I'll give it a chance.
Equally I'm still undecided on whether the horsetrek was the worst tour ever (in the traditional sense of the word) or the best possible 'tour' (in the non-tour sense of the word).
Or maybe it was all just an elaborate set-up and conspiracy, right from the start, planning for everything to go wrong... Maybe they knew that I am sick enough to even enjoy this sort of stuff? Well, it definitely beat getting slaughtered on an estancia with other Gringos.

[Would you believe it, I've edited out about half the photos this time and still ended up with loads. Find them in Albums Argentina 2 and 3.
Oh, and if anyone can come up with a less cheesy title to this post please suggest, I'll take the first option. I'm way too tired right now to think of silly puns on Westerns... ;)]

Second Class Travel, Never Again! [Salta, 16/02/04]

2004-02-15T19:43:00.000-08:00

From Cordoba to Salta (further up North) I decided to treat myself. Instead of opting for the cheapest bus available (which have all so far been much more comfortable than buses in Europe or the infamous Greyhound) I decided to experience the luxury of Argentine 1st class bus travel (for a price hike of $3). Unfortunately none left at a convenient time so I settled for semi-cama class instead (first class is called cama, i.e. 'bed').
I was welcomed on the bus by a friendly stewardess in uniform who would put most grumpy airline staff to shame. I munched on the complementary sweet, reclined my seat to 30 degrees off the horizontal, put up the leg rest and went to sleep straight away.
An unknown time later I was woken by the friendly stewardess with a meal that was up there with airline food (which in actual fact should read 'down there' but I like the pun).
Just as I was about to nip off a video was slapped in starring 'J-Lo'. It began predictably enough as a badly written romantic chick-flick, then out of nothing pops a made-for-US-TV domestic violence drama (with of course a disgustingly cute daughter involved). Then the scriptwriters struggled to come up with an ending suitable for a pop-princess and had a 6ft 6 Yoda instruct Ms Lopez in the art of self-defence and Jedi mind-tricks within 3 minutes of screen time. Et voila, she turns into Tom Cruise from Mission Impossible, complete with gadgetry. She then proceeds to assassinate her husband in hand to hand combat in an elaborate fashion. No apologies for spoiling the plot. And no, it wasn't a comedy.
Anyone who hadn't fallen asleep through 'J-Lo's' antics earlier was then treated to an encore of frustration. A guy several seats in front of me was evidently really enjoying the reclining seats and snoring like a mammoth giving birth. To a space shuttle. Indeed, there will be no more silence from me on the topic of public snoring - I've suffered enough. A spouse at least you can lovingly suffocate in their sleep with a pillow, blame it on Sleep Apnea and live happily ever after on the life insurance payout. Lack of kinship and proximity prevented me from doing the same in this case. In youth hostels kicking a snorer's bed hard usually buys you a several-minute window of falling into a death-like sleep. On the bus, however, he was in control. Snoring, just like a baby crying in the middle of the night, has an organic, grating quality to it and a chaotic irregularity in its melody that constantly raises the irrational conviction that there is malicious intent involved. The bastard. He was teasing me, playing with me like a spider with its defenceless prey that is being kept barely alive on the hope its tormenter will stop the torture or die swiftly and violently.
"Ah, no snores for the last minute," I'd keep saying to myself, "quick, go to sleep sleep sleeeep..."
I'd ignore the slight grunt that was meant to remind me he was aware of my plans and could slowly feel my mind flirting with the line between this world and my dreams. Then, suddenly, a sound like a pigsty during mating season would make my heart jump with fear and my mind race with helpless fury.
I had to proceed with the last resort that I will in future make my first: the uncomfortable sonic bubble that is earplugs. The snores now sounded miles away but the hope they might cease kept me awake for longer. I should really have known better.
I arrived in Salta the next morning exhausted. Fascinatingly, Salta is neither Rotterdam nor Germany but refreshingly it feels more like what I'd imagine Bolivia to be like. I may of course be completely wrong in that assumption, but I was welcomed by Coca leaves that are sold on every street corner. Between masticating cow-like on that and drinking copious amounts of mate (hot, caffeinated, tea-like national drink) it was no problem staying up for 24 hours or more. Even after a night of sleeping with mammoth-boy.
On Tuesday I shall hopefully live out my childhood John Wayne fantasies and go horseback riding for a couple of days. My ass and legs are expecting heavy punishment. If I'll be able to walk to an internet cafe I'll post again on my return. Hopefully about something more eventful than bodily functions and bad movies. :)

[Pictures have been posted, but just to warn, they're not very interesting... Unless if you're into train stations and cities from above that is.]

This could be Germany... [Cordoba, 11/02/04]

2004-02-11T13:17:00.000-08:00

Or anywhere... But enough of the cheesy pop music and besides, I'm getting ahead of myself...
Cordoba could not be Germany (but it could be in Spain!). Even though I had just been there for a couple of days, I've nothing but praise for the place. I'd always assumed that as far as cities go, bigger is better. I have had to live and learn. Albeit Cordoba being only Argentina's second city after Buenos Aires I find it a lot more cool (though it is still scorching hot during the day!). For starters, Cordoba central area is eminently walkable and to anywhere else you can catch a taxi for the price of a cheap burger - the meters here move in units of $0.05 or so. The streets are narrow and lined with trees providing a degree of shade all day long to prevent the severe burnage that would otherwise ensue. There are loads of parks, pedestrianised areas, shady plazas, shops, lovely buildings, restaurants and anything else you could desire for. On top of that it is a university town loaded with students and corresponding facilities like lots of bars and clubs and finally it also has the widespread reputation of being home to the most beautiful girls in Argentina and so far I can do nothing but corroborate.
In short, Cordoba is an exceedingly pleasant and laid back place to spend time in; even though there isn't as much stylish Tango as in Buenos Aires. I did finally understand a large part of the appeal of the dance though: there are few things old, balding men can do to get this close to consenting, young, pretty girls and feel like a macho again, Viagra notwithstanding and also a possible exception.
The area surrounding Cordoba has the Sierras, a series of hills and lush green valleys. One of the villages nearby is Villa General Belgrano and that's where the title of this post comes in. Around the second world war most of the crew of a German war ship, the Graf Spee, made their home in this village. Correspondingly, it is essentially German and seems to have a reputation amongst some Argentines for being full of old Nazis.
Basically, the place is quite unremarkable and I'm only using that word because I didn't want to use 'shithole'. Its essence is that of a backwater village your dog wouldn't want to get lost in and of those there are hundreds in Germany. Apart from being in a pretty area its German-ness slap-bang in the centre of Argentina, however, is the only redeeming feature which makes it attractively exploitable for tourism. Thus, in the last twenty years the main road has sprouted over-priced Artesania shops, over-priced kiddies and stylish women's clothes shops, dozens of ice-cream parlours for the children and lots of Argentine steak restaurants that serve over-priced faux-German food as novelty 'typical dishes' of the region [see picture for an appetising example of 'livercheese']. Thus it has made a perfect holiday destination for the average Argentine family (many of whom have preferred staying within their country and currency after the financial disaster of the last few years).
But no, I'm being a tad too scathing here. It is cute if you look past the tourist traps and there is some authentic food including good Black Forest Gateaux and some good local beer. And they have an Oktoberfest! And Sauerkraut, that only German dish of international fame - or more probably infamy - which, in a linguistic twist of Argentine Sperman (yes, that does look bad!), they have called Chukrut. And they have houses here that from the inside look more yester-year-German than most in Germany, complete with Formica kitchen tables! Yes, it's been a bit of a trip for me! :)

[Ok, so I uploaded loads of pictures of random things this time (Albums Argentina 2 and 3) and I'm sensing there may be some more voices of dissent. Please vote on the poll on the right (again?) to let me know whether they're too many to handle and next time I'll do more editing. That's the problem with digital cameras and large mem cards, I start playing around too much... :)]

This could be Rotterdam... [Buenos Aires, 06/02/04]

2004-02-06T11:28:00.000-08:00

Or anywhere, actually. Like Liverpool (ok, so not really!) or Rome. I'll put Paris and Madrid up there too for good measure. Yes, it was easy feeling at home in Buenos Aires. It only takes a tiny stretch of the imagination to turn BA into most European cities so South America seems further away to me than Tony Blair right now.
However, BA is possibly more beautiful than most European cities. Wide streets (including the world's widest with a good 20 or so lanes), a lot of public parks, tons of restaurants with the juiciest beef tastable by man and/or woman and cafés on every street corner. Nightlife here is happening and mostly happens at night - mostly... Going out before 2am is a little pointless unless your idea of fun is dancing by yourself outside a shut club.
So far so good. There is however, one thing that seems absolutely unique to me about here: Tango. People of all ages seem to be into it, tangoing the night away cheek to cheek, letting the music flow through them in stylish and atmospheric joints. And then there are the professionals - never have I seen any professional - actor, singer, dancer or otherwise - convey so much passion through singing and dancing. Acrobatics, drama, sex, passion and legs swinging everywhere, what more can you ask for in a dance?
So I guess it's not quite Rotterdam here, although I want to make clear that I'm in no way making a statement about the dancing ability of the Dutch.

Son, that's one helluvalotuv water! [Puerto Iguazú, 31/01/04]

2004-01-31T12:49:00.000-08:00

There's only so little you can write about the Iguaçu Falls without just stating the obvious and besides, at that the photos do a much better job. I could write that 1,200,000 litres of water pour down Iguaçu every second but first of all I don't even know what 1,200,000 litres per second is supposed to look like and then it is a pretty dull statistic. I could talk about how the Brasilian side gives you an impressive panoramic walkway along the side of all the Falls while Argentine side is more of a waterfall theme park where you get up-close, wet and personal with a few of them. But again, hardly inspiring. So I'll just admit I'm at a loss for words and won't spoil the experience by waxing lyrical about a bit of water.
With the Iguaçu area being one of the popular border crossings between Argentina and Brasil it is also home to another phenomenon. Here is where I ran headlong into one of the three 'waves' of young Israeli 3-year-military-service absolvents who pass through on their way to the legendary Carnival in Brasil. When I arrived at my current hostels there were 12 Israelis, 1 Japanese and myself and that is of course completely anecdotal and non-representative. The other two 'waves' originate in Santiago de Chile and Cuzco, Peru and by February they all converge on the major carnival centres. Apparently 3000 Israelis will have made the pilgrimage. For a country with a smaller population than London and with some like orthodox Jews and the elderly never or barely ever traveling, that has to be quite a sizable exodus of young people. I myself found it a fascinating bit of social behaviour (if slighly lemming-esque :).
So there, at least I've managed to write about something around here. Next stop BA.

[I never realised no one could download hi-res version of the pictures: if anyone wants any copies hi-res of pics for desktop backgrounds or for printing on a t-shirt for your dog just email me telling me which one you want and I'll make it happen.
Also the new Argentine Falls side pics are in Album Argentina 1 and in Brasil 6 Panoramas.]

Happy Birthday to Me! [Puerto Iguazú, 29/01/04]

2004-01-29T14:15:00.000-08:00

When I tried leaving Sao Paulo on Saturday the city didn't let me - all the buses were full-up. Besides, the city was throwing itself a 450th birthday party so I stayed another night and joined it. The location: an intersection of two streets that featured in a classic Paulista song which the songwriter was performing that day. The downside: even though the traffic lights were still trying to impose order it was complete chaos on the ground; moving was nigh on impossible. The only option was to find others likeminded who were seeking a way out. Almost magically such collection of people would coordinate their efforts by pushing the person in front of them with all their weight. We turned into a human ram, wedging the crowd violently apart and stumbling in whichever direction the first person in line could go to escape the flattening pressure from behind.
But we weren't the only ones having fun (and honestly, most in the line had big grins on their faces while getting dangerously close to being trampled to death). As I was being pushed along one smiling guy passing in the other direction firmly planted his hand on my crotch-area before disappearing into the crowd while others, I could swear, were rubbing themselves into me and others. Frotter's paradise!
The next morning I hung around the city and elevatored a tall building and got a nice view of the city from above.
That evening after barely missing my bus I made my way to Foz do Iguaçu, of waterfall fame. So far I've seen the Brasilian side of the falls which were mightily impressive. But since then I've been nastily sick, so much so that under suspicion of having caught Dengue Fever or Malaria earlier I got a blood test at the local hospital.
After an hour's wait they luckily returned negative on both counts. Which unfortunately means there can be less self-pity from now on and I'll have to suffer in comparative silence. However I swore to myself that as soon as I could walk without breaking out into a piggish sweat I would haul my ass to Argentina.
Which I have done today after bidding my goodbyes to Brasil... :*(

[Pictures of Sao Paulo and Foz have been uploaded into Albums Brasil 5 and 6. Album Brasil 6 contains Panorama shots of Sao Paulo from above and the falls from the Brasilian side. The very large panoramas had to be split so I could upload them - piece them together at home on photoshop for a desktop background for your ultra-widescreen monitor. :)
In other news a sicko hit this blog last week looking for 'pictures of foxes with there guts hanging out of there stomach'. For some reason google brings up my blog as the second hit on the query. Hmmmm... ;)]

Behemoth! [22/01/04, Sao Paulo]

2004-01-22T09:18:00.000-08:00

Sao Paulo is crazy. It is the city to end all cities. It is a hulking metropolis with what must be the highest concentration of bank central offices in South America. The sprawling behemoth stretches for miles in all directions, taking hours (at a bad time) to drive through and housing (or 'shacking' in the case of most favelas here) some 20 million or so people. In short, it's urbanisation gone haywire, concrete replacing trees and people going jogging on the thin green patches running between two 3-lane carriageways. Seemingly neverending multi-lane roads, jammed full of cars, cut through the city above and below each other and multi-story condos and offices rise up everywhere you look.
Concrete jungles may be dead on one level but of course the great thing about a city is that it is populated by human beings. Sao Paulo has everything (even pedestrianised zones to get you away from all the cars), the city's nightlife is said to be the best in South America and a lot of people are hip and young.
However, the people (the Paulistano) are a race apart from the native of Rio (the Carioca), for instance. While in Rio everyone and their dog walks around in flip-flops, lives to go to the beach to relax and works only if necessary to enable said activity, in Sao Paulo people seem to work first and then party if there's time (usually enough), and generally only wear flip-flops in the privacy of their own home (or don't have a pair).
But seriously, stereotypes about the people of the various states of Brasil are amazingly accurate. When moving North to South in Brasil almost every state you enter could be a different country altogether. They almost all have different music, foods, ways of speaking, living and having fun. However, in the end there is still that weird intangible link, that indefinable mix of the essence of Brasil inside everyone.
Anyway, getting back to Sao Paulo, yes, I've had fun here. But the problem with all metropoli (?) is that to some degree they are all similar and you've seen it all before somewhere. Of course all have their unique character but concrete still looks and feels like concrete no matter where in the world you are. In other words (how many ways will I find of saying this by the end of this trip?), I feel the need to move again.
The Iguacu falls will be the next stop and from all I've heard about it you don't need to see another waterfall once you've seen the Iguacu. Which is good because it'll later save me time on this trip and let me stay in Buenos Aires for longer... Ummm, what was that thing I said about cities again...? ;)

[Pics from Rio (statue of Christ) and Sao Paulo have been uploaded to albums Brasil 4 and 5.
Note the dangers of a large capacity memory card and the number of random shots taken... I think I soon have to start editing a little more... :)]

Time Capsule [Rio, 15/01/04]

2004-01-15T07:36:00.000-08:00

In Rio it's easy to forget time. The luxuries of beaches and a great city all around you are enough to keep anyone occupied for weeks or months and then wonder what happened. And where all the money went - Rio eats money like nowhere else in Brasil - with the exception of Sao Paulo, I hear, so at least I'm prepared for where I'll be heading today. Bye bye Rio. :(
I did see the obligatory statue of Christ the Redeemer though - after we prayed to his Daddy for 20 minutes while he was hiding modestly in thick clouds. Another check on that list of '20 things to do in Rio before you die' - 'before you leave' won't do as I'll definitely be back some day... I may pick a different time of year though, as it's been decidedly rainy and grey.
So, last week, instead of going to the beach I visited the favela again: Rocinha, the largest in Brasil with 200k people. When I first set foot there by myself I have to admit there was a little trepidation in my step, however, my eel was winding happily around (to be continuing with the fishy metaphor).
But slowly, I started seeing it for myself: it is a safe place. People leave their doors open and a shop selling televisions was left abandoned, with the wares right in front of open doors and windows while the owner went out for lunch. Similarly shops with kids playing PlayStation2 were unattended - several months wages just lying around for seemingly anyone to pick up. In London, New York or anywhere else they'd have grown legs within five minutes. There are restaurants everywhere filled with people eating, living their lives, doing their jobs and building existences for themselves and their families. The place is alive!
Dozens of flimsy, home-made but airworthy kites flutter high above the city-within-a-city, each attached by a string to a throng of kids in the street. Children only go to school in either the morning or afternoon which leaves them free to play or make a killing for the drug-lords for the rest of the day.
One by one some of them started getting interested in the Gringo who was watching a footvolley game in a 'square' delineated by crooked houses and a dangling chaos of illegally tapped powerlines overhead. Before long, drawn by my very obviously amusing attempts at Portuguese, I was surrounded by children and their older brothers and friends, everyone chatting happily (weirdly I saw very few girls on the street - I wonder where they hang out...). I made a fool of myself at footvolley (no rocket science: I suck, while they play all day!) and was taken on a tour of Rocinha. Down through the alleys we went, five kids running ahead and behind me. They took me to their favourite eatery (cheap, delicious food in huge portions!), we went shopping for some local music and hung around.
I started understanding what they say about the place: the favela is indeed safer than elsewhere in Brasil where police patrol and enforce the law. Any minor crime within the community must be immediately found out about and dealt with by the gangs more efficiently (read ruthlessly) than the police ever could. A smooth social contract: residents are guaranteed safety and they in turn protect the drug-lords from the police by keeping schtum.
It may not be ideal but it's amazing how efficiently it seems to work, even making the place accessible to Gringos like me.
Then again, I probably only know the tip of an iceberg of problems there. Most street corners are populated by 'watchers' for the gangs and dealers with their tell-tale bleached hair and walkie talkies in hand.
But people still live and lead their lives in the midst of all this, largely invisible to the rest of Brasil, shunned for living in a violent and base world. As ever, I have no answers nor know half the questions that need to be asked but I have found a new respect for the complexities of this world and the lack of blacks and whites. I also suspect, however, that the police and use of state force are out of place there: things would undoubtedly get much uglier than they currently are and they'd have a war on their hands...

[Some pictures of Rio will hopefully be uploaded soon, I'll keep posting.]

Homage to the Broccoli Eel [Rio, 08/01/04]

2004-01-08T17:47:00.000-08:00

Lately my traveling feet have started itching uncontrollably again (yes, I do shower daily!). Actually the feeling is more like a tickling somewhere behind my stomach, probably the nibbling of the peckish eel that is a winding and slithering cohabitee of my innards. It's sharing that space with my many other inner organs including my liver which has lately been heavily punished for what must have been the sins of its past lives.
The nightlife in Rio is great, every night of the week there's somewhere fun to go till the break of dawn. The last few nights I've tended the Gringo-connection, however, which has landed us in English and Irish pubs where weirdly all the Brasilians speak near-perfect English (still working out whether they all go there to practice their language skills or to hit on Gringo/as).
So, the restless eel in my guts has been hungering and nibbling away this time and to appease it I started doing more active things since yesterday instead of just being passively entertained (partly to blame was the weather of course as it had been raining and grey until then - and as I write it has started again...). I went up on the Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf mountain) so I could cross it off my proverbial list and was pleasantly surprised and granted a sudden insight into what makes Rio so special. Up from above the city rests like a giant, sprawled-out starfish, its arms reaching into the Atlantic and creating beautiful, mile-long beaches wherever land and water meet. The beaches are separated where a starfish's armpits would be by chunky, wooded rock formations (like the Sugarloaf) which rise between the jungles of skyscrapers and look as though they have been strategically placed by God to separate the various centres of Rio (presumably when, as they say here, He dedicated His 7th day to the city's creation). Possibly He also had the city's poor in mind with these geological features as clinging to the hills are the impossible constructions of the favelas, Brasil's 'slums', right next to the most expensive neighbourhoods and hotels - and with the best views of the city!
Rio feels slightly unreal and quite perfect from several hundred metres above. And it feels spoilt - how many other metropolis' are there where most of the centres are a mere few minutes walk from one gorgeous beach or another? No wonder most Cariocas (Rio's locals) seem so happy and friendly. Even - or maybe paradoxically, especially - those living in the favelas.
That's where I went today on a guided tour (I won't go into the debate some tourists like to have of whether it's exploitative or not and just settle the case arrogantly by saying that it's not! ;). Favelas are cities within cities housing in total some 1.5m people in Rio. They are tight knit communities with almost all amenities but mostly dirt-poor and with most people living in squalor (the rent is cheap though!). Drug trafficking rules supreme there and the police are twice as bad as the dealers. Few roads exist and the rest of human traffic moves through labyrinthine, tiny alleyways, snaking between houses stacked on top and below of each other at impossible angles and places. The infamous violence erupts when the police and the drug lords in turn try to assert their sovereignty over the favela which as a matter of everyday fact lies firmly with the latter. It is a crazy place but the people there make it amazing. The number of community, NGO and charity projects trying to better the situation of the places are incredible. Many are starting with the kids by attempting to get them educated and off the streets.
And I felt like I was back in Bahia (the state up North with Salvador) where seemingly anyone in the street gives you a smile and returns your thumbs-up or ridiculously elaborate handshakes. It's another world and also unfortunately the one which apparently most Brasilians can only associate with violence and will never dare see with their own eyes, thanks to the constant dutiful brainwashing by the media here (sound familiar?).
Finishing off today I stumbled off the street and into a free concert paying homage to a Brasilian music legend, Ary Barroso (I'd never heard of him either :). It ended up being a mix of Samba, Barbershop Quintet, Jazz and stand-up comedy (most of which went right over my linguistically-challenged head). The great thing was that most of the audience where at least three times my age but they were tearing up the stands, clapping, singing and Samba-ing as you'd only expect pensioners back at home to do after their eighth drink on their annual New Year's Bingo night.
As I've said before, they all know how to party and live in this country!
Meanwhile, the eel inside me still longs to hit the road again (or a favela!). Let's hope no-one gets hurt.

[google for "broccoli eel" for some good reading... if you have a couple of minutes that is...]

Feliz Ano Novo [02/01/2004(!)]

2004-01-02T09:34:00.000-08:00

The world's biggest beach party's aftermath consisted of a Copacabana beach drowning in bottles, plastic and junk and masses of people who were passed out, sleeping or watching the sunrise.
The night itself in several nutshells: staggering numbers of people populating the whole length of Copa beach. Amazing fireworks going on for a good 20 minutes all being launched from ships out at sea, one of which was carrying a huge lit-up Jesus. There were a couple of concerts but surprisingly no real sound systems between the stages, but in compensation locals drove their beefed up cars with speakers the size of coffins towards the beach and pounded out Funky, the dirty-dancing electronic music of the favelas. At the same time there were religious festivals of worshippers of a popular Afro-Brasilian 'cult', dancing to drums, going into ecstatic seizures and presenting offerings and wishes to the Goddess of the Sea, Iemanja. Very spiritual!
Finally, add some cheap and very lethal Caipirinhas to the whole mixture and you're guaranteed a good night!
They sure know how to throw a party in Brasil.
And Rio being the City of God, the Man Himself has taken it upon Himself to clean up the mess it left behind: it's been pouring it down for the past two days...

[The pictures from New Year are available on gallery Brasil 4, shouts out to Iam who took all of them with his camera. My current weapon of choice is a disposable Fuji cam :)]

Let the Games Begin [29/12/03]

2003-12-29T14:47:00.000-08:00

I've left Lencois and refreshingly the most unxmasy and least predictable Xmas of my life behind and have arrived in Rio de Janeiro several days ago (after my legs atrophied and I caught up on some sleep during 36 hours of bus rides).
Here in Rio I've been doing the Rio thing: lying on Copacabana and Ipanema, looking for the girl (lame joke, sorry) and enjoying the vibes.
My camera's gone on an extended holiday again (I won't go into details) so unfortunately there'll be no pics of Sugarloaf, Christ the Redeemer and the usual postcard shots for a little while. I will upload some Ipanema sunset shots soon though.
Anyway, almost all here is set for New Year, a party of two million people all dressed in white on Copacabana beach. Should be interesting.
But I may use this New Year instead to remember all the dead foreigners and Iraqis, now that people seem to have been forgotten after a certain son of an ex-president has finally gotten over his Oedipal inferiority complex by finally catching something, if not words before they leave his mouth (sorry, I promised I'd stop the ranting but the hostel here has cable and I've been watching too much late-night BBC and Fox News. That always gets my blood curdling.)
Apologies, happy New Year and all the good things for everyone in the next one! :)

Season's Greetings [23/12/03]

2003-12-23T16:21:00.000-08:00

As threatened here come the words to accompany the Arembepe / Aldeia Hippie pictures:
Once upon a time Arembepe, about an hour North of Salvador, used to be a small fishing village with beautiful beaches, palm trees and all the rest. Then, the Hippies came. They occupied the nearby land, built their huts for them and their kin and brought lots of drugs. This attracted other Hippies and people like Mick Jagger and Janis Joplin and others who liked doing drugs, having sex and rockin and rollin. Now Arembepe, the village, looks like any other holiday resort on the Brasilian coast and is packed with native tourists. Bloody hippies, they ruin everything.
But seriously folks, the actual Aldeia Hippie (which roughly means Hippie commune) still has a hint of paradise about it. No electricity or running water, but other amenities such as a very friendly community (which is nowadays more Rasta than Hippie), wind-bent palm trees everywhere and a clean river for bathing and the sea -both about 2 minutes away. People there don't live off much and the money they do need seems to come from selling art and crafts to tourists or homemade bread and the like which is sold from a basket, walking door-to-door in the commune. Ultimately, it is a very cool place for doing nothing (or any other such thing) for a couple of days.
That's about all I can currently remember or care to tell about Arembepe (I am notably leaving the stories of some of many of the crazy people there for another time).
My current home is Lencois which is a pretty amazing place so I've decided to spend Xmas here, instead of dodgy Salvador. A good way of describing the area is as a natural Disneyland for Brasilians and a lot of families seem to come here to relax. Lencois lies in the middle of a national park with seemingly endless possibilities for hiking to waterfalls, caves, lakes, rivers, mountains, horseback riding, another alternative commune and who knows what else. A main attraction seems to be a natural water slide. Natural in this case means it is made out of mostly smooth rock. Mostly in this case means that your ass (or other parts) tend to hurt quite badly after a good slide down and that it tore a nice hole into my swimming trunks. The less said the better, but I ended up flashing half the people there for a good while before being told.
Anyway, moving swiftly on and repeating myself, the town Lencois is very lovely, however, I will not delve into details now but instead wish everyone a very happy Xmas, Hanukkah, days off or whatever else people may be celebrating. Peace, love and rock n roll to all!

In Transit [21/12/03]

2003-12-21T16:36:00.000-08:00

I have just arrived back at the Salvador bus station from Arembepe and had a couple of hours to kill here before a bus leaves to Lencois later tonight.
I will hopefully write more on Arembepe and its nearby 'Aldeia Hippie' (Hippie commune) soon, but for now there will only be pictures of the place to entertain you (the usual link on the right).
And yes, I do realise I am cramming a lot into the space of a few days if I intend to return to Salvador for Xmas. Silly festive season messes up my schedule and still seems to have a chokehold of nostalgia over me - a.k.a. I can't yet picture myself hanging out during Xmas in the middle of nowhere by a waterfall - I need lots of bright lights and tacky music, damnit!!! argh.

The Dark Side of the Moon [18/12/03]

2003-12-18T11:14:00.000-08:00

Salvador de Bahia, a.k.a. simply Bahia, is a place of many faces. The current face is full of Xmas decorations, colourful lights, choirs of old women and small children singing carols in the evenings and gigantic Santa statues are guarding the major squarees, watching over a chunky overgrown baby Jesus in the arms of the kings or have been attached to and made to climb various buildings and other surfaces.
The historic town, Pelourinho, is rife with colonial architecture, narrow cobbled streets, wide open squares and what must be many of the 166 churches of the whole of Salvador.
Apparently Pelourinho is where Michael Jackson pranced around the streets in with a lot of poor but happy kids in one of his later videos (one of those dedicated to racial equality, peace and loving children (in which sense of the word no-one including himself seems to know anymore).
There are plenty of good restaurants and street vendors (many serving African dishes - the strong African influence on Bahia is everywhere, from religion, to music, to dress, etc...). There are many good swimming beaches, great live music and loud, loud Afro-Bahiano drum ensembles in the street and generally a lot of touristy, fun things to do here (although incomprehensibly a lot of nightlife here finishes at 12 while in the rest of Brasil it only seems to get started around then or later!)
All this entertainment and relative peace for tourists, however, seems to have been bought in Pelourinho through a massive police presence on every street corner, barely ever more than 30m away, 24 hours a day. I get the distinct feeling that Pelourinho is surrounded by Favelas and the only thing stemming the tide of crime, poverty and crack-smoking (which literally starts just one block away from the town centre in most directions), is a uniform and holstered gun.
During the day the only real signs are legions of people asking anyone remotely gringo-like for cash, but then late at night a lot of unsavoury start prowling and picking fights and I only really feel safe when in viewing distance of a copper or two. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em - I guess I'll never be satisfied...
Anyway, it looks like tomorrow I'll head off to a beach village, Arembepe, a little way from here and then return to Xmas decorations and carol singing in a couple of days. Then again, for me, the obligatory cold weather and sleet is missing so I may not get into the mood anyway. :)

[in the Xmas spirit here's an Onion article I found amusing, check it out if you're bored.
I also want to thank everyone for the overwhelming response to the Xmas poll: a grand total of 3 votes ;) have decided (2-1) I'll be staying in Salvador :).
I also want to apologise for the barrage of photos on the gallery - please let me know over the new poll whether you would prefer a shorter edited gallery with only half-way decent pictures or (unflatteringly to my photographic non-skills) to keep including almost everything (including all the rubbish and random memory-pictures)
Cheers for your participation :) ]

No more need for thousands of words [14/12/03]

2003-12-14T17:05:00.000-08:00

A short post: I have arrived in Salvador de Bahia and all is well.
They have lovely Xmas decorations here - I have uploaded random test pictures from Fortaleza and here taken with my new digital camera :) and you can check them out via the 'picture' link on the right, as usual.
More some time later...

This Side of Paradise [11/12/03]

2003-12-11T09:25:00.000-08:00

From where I left off last week in Sao Luis I don't quite know where to begin as it now seems like almost months ago, so I may just have to do things chronologically, day by day, as any other order would get me very confused.
Day 1: I arrived in Tútoia at 5am in the morning and watched the sun rise over the river. Tútoia is a smallish village in the Parnaiba delta, with donkeys and goats tethereded to chunks of rubble wandering the streets (or not in the case of the tethered goats). The market was starting to buzz with limited life shortly after (South Americans get up incredibly early!) and I set about finding the boat to the city of Parnaiba. However, that boat's engine happened to have died earlier in the week and I was starting to look forward to another exciting bus ride, missing the entire river route.
As things sometimes tend to do they turned out well in this case after starting to chat to several stoned fishermen (all of them there are, I later find out) who were heading to Parnaiba to sell their catch at a higher price than they would get in Tútoia. So, several hours later we were all cruising lethargically down the winding river in their five-man trawler.
In contrast to the boat from Manaus this one was much more entertaining with beautiful shores on both sides, heavily wooded then occasionally a white sand beach and dunes. There is also a point in the river where one second you taste the water and it is still salty and the next it has turned into freshwater. And the fishermen could cook, easily beating any of the grub served on the Amazon boats!
After a good six hours we arrived in Parnaiba where I met some fellow Gringos at the bus station and we made our way to Camocim that evening (another small town with the only nightlife being the 'bar' next to the bus station) and the next morning found a jeep that would take us over sand dunes and along deserted beaches to Jericoacoara. Jeri, as it's also known, is officially a nature reserve and used to be a small town with beautiful beaches, sand dunes, strong winds, a coconut grove and a healthy Capoeira culture. It is still all that but now it is also full of hostels, Italian windsurfers and a handful of backpackers (almost all of whom have stayed or decided to stay there for months and months). They seem to sleep most of the day in hammocks when not learning Capoeira, surfing or such like. In the evenings it is a tradition in Jeri for visitors to gather on a large sand dune overlooking the ocean and watch the sun drown into it while watching the sandboarding competition that sometimes gets going (or just the informal tumbling down spectacularly without a board competition). This is followed by everyone watching Capoeira on the beach - the acrobatics are pretty mind blowing - then sleeping a little more and towards the end of the week starting to go out in the bars (including more cheesy Brasilian Forro music for me :).
So, all in all, Jeri has a great atmosphere even if it does lie firmly on the Lonely Planet trail and it's probably only a matter of time before they'll build a Holiday Inn there. The locals are already ecstatic about the prospect! ;)
They say a picture is worth a thousand words and in this case I feel that even a camera roll full of my words (making around 36000 - a bit of a thesis) wouldn't really get the place across, which of course is another way of saying that my cameras have been nicked in Jeri (along with some other stuff, including my diary which was a particular bitch!).
At any rate, I have moved on and am now in Fortaleza where I've gotten a police report and am hoping that my travel insurance will stand up for what they're being paid for (Jeri only has a token police force that doesn't seem to have paper...). I'm also hoping to score a new, overpriced camera here. The city itself has beaches, beaches, beaches and gorgeous sea, all lorded over by skyscraper hotels. But it's a pleasant enough place and the cleanest city I've yet encountered in Brasil and I hear the night life ain't half bad either.
Several chores lie ahead for the next few days here, including deciding whether to go back to Jeri for a little while or whether to move on down South, and Xmas and New Year plans are currently completely undecided which may mean I'll have to greet 2004 with my backpack on when all the hotels are full. Oh, and I desperately need a haircut (I guess it may be a good thing that I have no camera anymore...)

[Here's the cheesily entitled 'Official Website of Paradise' I googled, but it does have some pictures of Jeri but they are pretty crummy and probably only worth about 50 words each.]

Show me the Money! [4/12/03]

2003-12-04T08:04:00.000-08:00

On a whim I've decided to only make it half-way to Fortalezza and ended up in Sao Luis whose current claim to fame includes being a UNESCO world heritage site and having gotten a lot of cash for the honour. Most of this cash seems to have flowed into springing up very helpful tourist information offices everywhere (a rarity so far in Brasil) and a tourist information museum of sort, with not much content, a couple of exhibits on a local 'bull death' festival (all symbolic!), many video screens with slickly produced films praising the region and 20 odd guides/wardens standing around not doing much at all. But then some of the money has apparently gone into restoring the beautiful colonial buildings many of which have walls clad in bathroom tiles, which is a little weird. There's also a lot of arts, handicrafts and live music and dancing around, making it quite a pleasant place.
Tonight, however, I'm moving on by bus to Tútoia, a town in a river delta and from there I'll make it on to a beach town called Jericoacoara which, they say, is nice. I assume though, that it won't have internet so you'll all be spared more posts from me for a little while...

And Nothing Ever Happens... [1/12/03]

2003-12-01T08:10:00.000-08:00

I am in a bit of a foul mood for various reasons and not many events of much interest have occurred anyway, so I will attempt to keep this one short and uninteresting!
Indeed most of the past week has been spent on two different boats, first from Manaus to Santarem, a one-night fairly pleasant, if not especially noteworthy, stay there and another boat to Belem from there. And after all this cruising of the largest waterway in the world I think I've decided I don't want to be a sailor: being on a boat 24 hours a day is DULL! A few interesting people here and there, a few of whom on the second boat even spoke Spanish, but for the rest there wasn't much to do except gaze at the riverbank (far, far away for most of the trip), listen to incredibly cheesy and very samey Northern Brasilian music (I became very intolerant of Calypso & Co) and a very monotonous diet (which also happened to be quite disgusting on the first boat). I also confirmed I don't make much of a fisherman as my attempts at catching Piranhas with left-over meat from lunch were all unsuccessful.
At any rate, it was an experience, maybe interesting for bits like the crowded sleeping deck that had one hammock next to and across others, tinned sardine style.
As seems to have become a trend with my interesting experiences so far I usually crown them with an attack of the killer stomach bugs, as also in this case. Suffice it to say, I have left a part of myself with the Amazon river, and it wasn't my heart that I threw off the back of the boat. I'm hoping that at the rate I'm going I'll be able to eat sewage for breakfast, no problem.
The last three days in Belem I've been mostly recuperation and looking around the city a little, which is kinda interesting but I wasn't particularly interested in general I guess. Tomorrow morning I'll probably catch a bus to Fortalezza (or Bahia) where I'll be hoping for some beach R&R and interesting things to happen. Or not.

[you may have noticed the website's back up with limited functionality and ads. I'm working on it. Slowly :)]

Outage [27/11/03]

2003-11-26T08:34:00.000-08:00

Avid readers (if there are any) may have noticed that the site's been down for the last day or so - it's up again in limited form without pics and with ads, I'll see whether it makes it back in its old form soon. *Sigh*, technology...
Anyway, I'm in Santarém but taking a boat to Belem today where I'll be arriving on Saturday when I'll write more on the rivertrip, etc.

So long and thanks for all the fish [22/11/03]

2003-11-21T10:45:00.000-08:00

I have revised my initial opinion of Manaus somewhat, even though it is still a bit of a dump, but more on that later. I am absolutely exhausted. The constant heat, running around and moving has finally gotten to me.
It all started with the way here from Sta. Elena, even though it began well enough. Took some taxis (cheap, fast and crowded) across the border and made it to Boa Vista fairly early. There had a delicious eat-all-you-can (Brasilians really know how to cook their meats!) and then thought it'd be a good idea getting a ride with a truck to Manaus (popular trucking route, supposedly). To cut a long story shorter, I ended up taking a nightbus after waiting by the roadside in the blistering sun, by two service stations, chatting to 'friendly' (hmph) truckers promising they'd find me a good ride, etc... for a good 7 hours. I was a mess. Not that I got my deserved rest on the bus either, after I, out of the kindness of my heart or some such (naiveté?) agreed to share my blanket with a guy in shorts (a stupid thing to do on those buses as the air con is generally set to perma-freeze). At any rate, sleep became difficult every few hours after he'd start mildly molesting and cuddling up next to me, at which point I'd have to wake up and make it clear to him that I like 'chicas' and would like to sleep. Needless to say, I rejected the offer of a free place to stay for the night but arrived with an appreciation of what is meant by the 'persistance' of Brasilian men - and a renewed respect for what women are probably putting up with all the time. Stupid men, eh girls? ;)
Anyway, enough about getting here, more about here. Manaus is dirty, big and busy and that about sums it up for the city itself. There's an extravagant Opera house, holding its own against the best of the West End, built during times of excess about 100 years ago during the Brasilian rubber boom. Crazy rich Europeans.
The most interesting bit here IMHO is the market close to the harbour. Teeming with people, life (flies?), death (in the form of smelly fish and meats), great, fresh fruits and produce, lovely scents of spices and occasionally interspersed with a truly horrendous stench from nearby rubbish tips, et voila, you have a perfect example of how I'd prefer Harrods to be like a little more. Manaus also has tons of snack stalls and juice bars, all of which make real nice fresh smoothies with Guarana of which I am guzzling crazy amounts (Guarana, I am constantly reassured by vendors, is the natural Viagra of the jungle, although I'm still wondering if that's a good thing).
In the meantime, I have also decided against a jungle tour (too expensive, too exhausted and always plenty more jungle in Peru + Ecuador I hope) and will instead try and catch a boat tomorrow down the Amazon to Santarém if possible (very confusing and busy at the port, although many Portuguese-speakers are proving to be easier to understand than the fast and furious Venezuelans' Spanish). Two days of hammock on boat will be much welcomed over I'm currently sleeping on (literally, slidy, sweaty plastic mats covered with a sheet :).

Glimpses of Eden [19/11/03]

2003-11-19T06:56:00.000-08:00

My plans of movie watching have been somewhat delayed by a spontaneous jeep ride to a village in the Gran Sabana called El Pauji with a Franco-German couple and their potential father-in-law.
El Pauji is a great community, slap-bang in the middle of the national park, housing a mix of Indios, Venezuelans and a few Europeans who have moved their existence there and decided to build a hut/shack/roof/house in the wilderness ('planning permission' is given by the community as a whole after you live there for two years and they like the look of you, I assume... If they don't they burn your house down as apparently a cocky German who moved there wanting to create a touristic supercomplex found out a couple of years back).
In line with the aforementioned, there's understandably no police force or seemingly any real authority of the Venezuelan government. It is very cool really, as everyone I've seen lives in harmony with no problems like crime (if you exclude the victimless variety) and all affairs of import are handled by a council that is representative of the ethnicities there.
Utopia? Well, whatever it is, it's very beautiful there too. Nature of indescribable variety: dense forests, savannah-like plains, mountains, thick jungle, waterfalls, pools and streams perfect for swimming, tepuys (rocky mountains with flat tops), etc, etc... And I've only just seen a fraction of it.
We got invited to the shared 'house'/kitchen/workshop/farm of an Italian woman who's lived there for several years and makes pizza and cakes and sells them to the village shop and an Indio who makes amazing handicrafts out of local stones and the like. Dog, cats and chickens are running all around the solar-powered house and a cassette player is making it all feel very cosy.
So, we spent the night in El Pauji and got up early the next morning and climbed the El Abismo mountain - at the top a spectacular view of Brasil and neverending jungle directions.
After being attacked by hyper aggressive bees, two of which committed ritual suicide on my behalf after I started running (not too smart with these buggers), and climbing down again in the scorching sun I was exhausted beyond belief. Thus I headed back to Santa Elena that afternoon.
So yesterday, I finally got my deserved movie fix and in the interests of no-one in particular but myself I will proceed to give my 2 cents on two of the more interesting ones: Matrix Revolutions, even though not amazingly great, concludes one of the best trilogies around, IMHO, but then again I was one of the few people who loved Reloaded, so it is likely no one will give a damn about what I say anyway. Tarantino's Kill Bill, Part 1 has blood by the buckets and is quite stylishly shot but hasn't much substance to speak of - kinda good, mindless fun for a while though.
Anyway, that concludes another lengthy entry (anyone still with me?) before I'll probably make it down to Brasil tomorrow. That's if I manage to avoid the temptation of climbing Mount Roraima, which I hear is gorgeous. Grrr, too much to see, too little time... (and there are still sooooh many movies to see... ;)

[the picture above is the pet of a girl at the hostel I'm now staying at. It's an anteater or something and waddles like a cross between a 4-legged duck and a crocodile. Very endearing!]

Puppy love [15/11/03]

2003-11-15T13:36:00.000-08:00

Since I've last written I took a day off to recover from my brush with death, then made my way out of town on the next nightbus. Got kept company on the bus by a young Indio and an Argentine who's been traveling the world for the last four years straight. Phew... Also found out a piece of trivia:
Q: How long does it take the Guardia Nacional to hand search the luggage of a busload of passengers?
A: Half an hour. Hmph... :)
Anyway, half-way to Santa Elena the Indio tells me about a beautiful waterfall and little village, Kama Meru, by the side of the road. So I was let out of the bus on the side of the road (try that with an English bus...) and, true to his word, it was gorgeous. A good 40m drop of water continuing along a picturesque river flanked on both sides by luscious, rolling green hills with patches of dense forests. Wow...
So, I slung up my hammock in a shelter by the road and spent the night there. A small dog from the village guarded me and kept me company through the night, Undoubtedly drawn by the boon of being fed morsels of Saltine crackers. Yumm...
The next morning I washed my clothes by the fall (dirty from trying to find my way back to the shelter in the dark, stomping through thigh-high mud).
After unsuccessfully attempting for two hours to hitch a lift to Santa Elena, I finally figured out the secret. Hide the dog behind the backpack (she'd stuck to my heels incessantly the whole while) and wait at the top of a steep hill: by the time most Venezuelan cars reach the top they've slowed to a crawl and are huffing and puffing so it's much harder for them not to stop!
And indeed, a friendly family drove me to St. Elena and, leaving behind a wildly disappointed bitch, here I am. Santa Elena is a cute little border town with Brasil with a lot going on and tons of hotels. And so it has come that I've taken my first hot shower since in Venezuela and will have the luxury of spending the night in a bed (a double even!) at a lovely but surprisingly cheap hotel (plug: Hotel Michelle).
I'll probably stay here for a few days and relax a little or do minor excursions (the surrounding area, Gran Sabana, is gorgeous - possibly a cross between the American Great Plains and the Wild West, but with palm trees). There's also a 'cinema' (more accurately a video store with private booths with VCRs) so I may get the much needed movie fix I've been craving recently, although my official excuse will be to brush up on my Spanish... :)
Just in time before entering Brasil soon where it'll probably be pretty much useless... :)

Caura's Revenge [12/11/03]

2003-11-12T14:41:00.000-08:00

I don't know if I can quite do justice to Rio Caura at this moment as I'm recovering from a nasty jungle bug or something. Suffice it to say there's been a lot of unpleasantness going on today for me but luckily I seem to have weathered the brunt of it, i.e. I can keep fluids down and in recent developments also solid food has stayed put!
But anyway, since I have nothing better to do right now except for drinking water, gagging on nasty rehydrating solution and sitting around, I may as well recount some of the Caura experience now.
Rio Caura is a long long river about four hours drive South-West of Ciudad Bolivar, snaking its way through thick rainforest and by settlements of the indigenous population. Tourism is fairly limited there, especially when compared to the Angel Falls, also near to here, where an airplane lands every few minutes carrying those eager to see the world famous trickle of the world's tallest waterfall. But anyway, I'm sidetracking and being bitchy so I will instead continue with what I did see.
Part of the experience were hours and hours of riding by motorised canoe down the river, jungle everywhere, occasionally a hut or tiny village passing us by. Lots of jumping into the river from the boat when the sun would get too unbearable. Realising how difficult it is to sleep in a hammock with a sunburnt back (ouch). Unsuccessfully fishing in the rapids after clambering over rocks for half an hour (this kid who was our part-guide and cook, Elio, of course caught a huge catfish within 10 minutes - there must have been some trick he wasn't telling us...). Amazingly impressive waterfalls rewarding a three hour hike through the jungle (the most impressive, close-up pictures of which are unfortunately unavailable after I took my digital camera river walking in my pocket - not a great idea - however, I'm happy to report that it is back amongst the living again after an extended drying session).
The two Spaniards' command of the Spanish language and talking about football landed us an apparently rare invitation to hang around with the Indios (Yekwane in this case), consuming considerable amounts of the local alcoholic beverages made of Yuca (Yerake in its unfiltered, chunky, vomit-like variant and Soquruhute (or something like it with weird weird spelling), which is the clear filtered form. Both quite potent...)
Also spent several nights in various beach huts and swam lots (or 'washed' depending on definitions). Also got a great view from a granite plateau over the seemingly infinite expanse of rainforest and the Caura winding through it (no digital pictures yet again as they fell victim to the temporary casualty of my camera).
On the way back by boat both motors broke and parts from one were butchered to make the other one work. We also ran out of gas resulting in us having to beg the few passing boats for some to get us back. After that a bridge giving 'easy' access to our departure point from the river had washed away so we had adventurous jeep and taxi rides to get us back over partly 'paved' roads that looked like meteorite storm impact sites and through rainy darkness where you could barely see the road.
And then, as crowning glory the next day, I get to experience that favourite bane of alltravelerss: stomach 'issues'. I guess I can go home now. But at any rate, I'm feeling much better now and if fully rested may still proceed to Santa Elena tomorrow as planned. As ever, I remain sickly yours. (pity me! :)

ps: Yes, I do look incredibly scruffy right now (yes, I guess I'm just inviting in the obvious jokes with that comment).

Quickie return [11/11/03]

2003-11-11T16:48:00.000-08:00

I have just come back from the jungle in one piece but alas I have prepared no jungle blog and everything in Ciudad Bolivar closes very early, including internet cafes...
Suffice it to say, it was an eventful trip and I'll bore everyone with details tomorrow or so.
For now, i have uploaded the pictures from the trip, so check out the link on the right and enjoy the silly pictures.

Mozzies, Buddhas etc... [06/11/03]

2003-11-06T12:12:00.000-08:00

Several days have yet again passed by and I have yet again used them to constructively lie in hammocks. I think I'm starting to prefer them to furniture like beds or sofas. Whenver I'll get back to civilisation I guess I'll have to drill a lot of holes in walls and attach hooks or something. However, bad thing about hammocks: my feet and legs are very itchy from mosquito bites jostling each other for space (no worries, no malaria here!)

Apart from counting mozzie bites (and taking pictures of the cathedral across the road - see picture :) I've been brushing up on my Spanish a little which will be put to the test for the next five days when I'll be going on the Rio Caura with two Spaniards. It should be fun and I'm very excited about the jungle and cruising down the river, Heart of Darkness style.
And on that note I may as well end with a literary quote from a short book I found in the hostel 'library':
"It is a good thing to experience everything oneself, he thought. As a child I learned that pleasures of the world and riches were not good. I have known it for a long time, but I have only just experienced it. Now I know it not only with my intellect, but with my eyes, with my heart, with my stomach. It is a good thing that I know this." (Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha - thoroughly recommended, Paolo Coelho eat your bleeding Alchemist's heart out!)

Nice [02/11/03]

2003-11-02T14:47:00.000-08:00

I am safe and sound in Ciudad Bolívar on the Orinoco River, South East of Caracas.
It is muy muy beautiful here: a dreamy town with colonial style houses in bright colours, always sunshine and always a hammock to hang around in (ha!). (see pics)
I arrived two days ago but time seems to have stopped for me (no watch) but probably also helped by the cathedral clocktower which chimes hourly but is always off by several (I haven't yet been able to figure out by how many).
From here it is also possible to cross the Orinoco by 'ferry' to get to the tiny but very cute village of Soledad, mostly sustained by fishing and people hanging around on the streets it seems. The main (only?) attraction is a ruined mansion overlooking the river, making it a great, atmospheric picnic place. My personal highlight was of course the incredible fish restaurant, serving delicious grilled fish, straight out of the river and posthumously laden with garlic, herbs and butter. Mmmmm... It almost made me cry when I ate it, it was so good, no kidding. And like everything in Venezuela, it is very cheap - if you have US dollars in cash. Every since the exchange rate of the Bolívare has been frozen recently there has been a thriving black market in cash dollars, going at up to 2/3 on top of the official rate. Like every other foreigner here I'm hitting myself for not bringing more $$$ - if only we had known...
But anyway, life is good, I am staying at a wonderfully laid back hostel with a great owner (plug: 'Amor Patria' if you're in the area).
So the current plan involves possibly staying here until Friday and then heading down the Rio Caura into the deep rainforest for 5 days with a couple of others and the hotel owner guy guiding us.
Until then time will be passed with reading, writing, eating fish, moderate amounts of partying and general hammocking around.
Nice.

ps: I forgot to mention previously that, in its favour, Caracas has a great, great Metro system.
pps: I have managed to upload random pictures and added a picture of LA to an earlier one. For those who want more pics there are all the pictures I took with the digital camera here, no sign up required.

Move along now, nothing to see here... [30/10/03]

2003-10-30T15:35:00.000-08:00

To be honest, Caracas ain't all bad - then again it ain't much great either: dirty, poor and depressing in most parts, pretty dodgy in others; scarily rich with huge villas and estates just a few metro stops east from the centre, a few stops the other way and you find conditions similar to parts of urban Nigeria. Not entirely pleasant.
But hey, I did not come here only to complain, so here are the fun activities. Then again I didn't come here with fun in mind, so maybe all is good.
There's the almost beautiful Parque del Este with a small zoo inside and activities for kids - however, it seems to be desolate during the day and entirely populated by lovers and skiving school kids.
The major other things that seem worth 'sightseeing' for are shrines, birthplace and everything else devoted to Simón Bolivár, a South American independence hero and the object of an almost unhealthy adoration by Venezuelans, as widely advertised in graffitis. The most entertaining one I spotted said something to the effect of Bolívar kicking Bush and Blair's asses (presumably after turning over in his grave or something).
Anyway, I feel that I've had my fair share of Caracas and am happy to be moving on tomorrow morning, taking a bus to Ciudad Bolívar, as fate would have it. It's hard to escape him here... Apparently it's a nice town though, lying next to the Orinoco river and with beautiful surrounding areas.
¡Viva Bolívar!

Fear and Leaving in America [30/10/03]

2003-10-30T06:59:00.000-08:00

The last night I spent in Berkeley I felt afraid, leaving its creature comforts behind for the unknown. Then in the clear blue California sky the next morning most of those fears evaporated in the bright sunshine. Volunteering for the overbooked flight to Mexico city landed me a free US-domestic flight voucher, an upgrade to first class for part of the way, a free lunch and a short rerouted visit of LA - which is currently covered in a heavy, red and nicotine-coloured smoke.
The whole valley was smothered by the forest fires that have been ravaging the area for the last few days, the Hollywood sign in the hills barely visible. Very creepy. (see picture)
Another stopover followed, this time in Mexico City. This humungous city is the most amazing sight from a plane at night time: seemingly endless, twinkling lights covering the ground like fallen stars in all directions as far as the eye can see. I was moved. And then, when I tried to fall asleep, I became scared again of the unknown and all the horror stories people spread about Caracas.
6 A.M. the next morning, barely having set foot in Caracas and brimming with optimism, I was gently introduced to my fears. My backpack apparently did not make it and may still be in Mexico, I was told. "Come back tomorrow and maybe it's here." Hmph. No cash machine would give me money on any of my cards and one was acting suspiciously, probably stealing my PIN. Everything at the airport was closed as it was too early and I didn't know where I'd stay for the night and how I'd get there. And, for those who don't know, my Spanish sucks.
Way too many bad omens for a city I've been frightened of for the past two days and I hadn't even left the airport. And I was hungry. Hmph.
After two hours of lounging around, waiting for stuff to open up in the airport, the sun finally started to really heat up the air. And with it, all my troubles evaporated, yet again. My bag miraculously appeared (no idea where it was spending its time), the bank opened up and gave me cash, I found a place to sleep, I was nibbling on provisions from the US and stolen from first class, and I wasn't abducted by the infamous 'pirate taxis' everyone keeps chatting about. And my Spanish improved.
I think those are GOOD omens.
Or maybe it means something else, like that I should not be out in the dark. I guess I'm afraid of the dark...

[which may be why I was up in the middle of the night writing overlong travel stories about nothing. Please post a scathing comment below if I should be more succinct in future... ]

No More Titles [27/10/03]

2003-10-27T11:49:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately I have run out of song titles about California to use in this blog and so I will have to depart.
I will leave behind carved pumpkins to keep Nicole company through Halloween - here I am pictured performing joint meditation exercises with the pumpkins in preparation for dealing with the inevitable culture shock I'll encounter in Caracas in two days. So far all is at peace.
I'll post up first impressions when I find an internet cafe there.

Fair and Balanced Facts

2003-10-22T16:22:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: I do not believe Americans are stupid. However, I'm sure all intelligent Americans will agree with me on the following:
Fact 1: It is an acknowledged fact by mothers everywhere that TV makes you stupid (except for possibly the Discovery Channel).
Fact 2: Many Americans watch way too much rubbish TV.
Fact 3: The incontrovertible, pseudo-scientific proof linking the above two pieces of traditional wisdom. Fox viewers' discretion is advised in following the above link.

Hotel Cali? [20/10/03]

2003-10-20T15:04:00.000-07:00

I unfortunately have not any earthshattering news to report, but hope the pictures below will do. Still beached in the lovely Bay Area (like a whale enjoying the sunshine), I am possibly becoming a Californian...
The snaps to the left are of San Franciscoan Chinatown with SF's largest pyramid thing building looming in the background; the infamous, twisty Lombard Street - down which only tourists seem to be stupid and willing enough to drive while snapping away -- then again walking up there is no joy either; myself (to prove I'm still alive), chilling in the dark Muir Woods, surrounded by those amazing Redwood tree creature things (whose majestic and thoughtful lives are pretty much impossible to capture on camera or to adequately describe in words); and finally a beautiful vineyard in the Sonoma Valley, in California's 'wine country' -- however, I have to admit that even after a short wine tasting 'education', my taste buds seem still too uneducated to really tell the difference between hints of brambleberry, blueberry, cherry and whatever other flavours connoisseurs invent, excuse me, discover in wines.
Other entertainment in my life is the occasional comedy, political broadcast which keeps me amused (I'm sorry to be droning on about Arnie and Dubya, but these guys just don't get old - especially when they're both in the same room - belly laughs guaranteed!). It's such a shame though that one of them may be out of a job if the economy keeps plummeting and the Iraqis (and recipients of bodybags in the US) keep getting more pissed off until next year. We can all hope for the world not to improve... (God, I guess I am a sick bastard sometimes).

Cali Dreaming [13/10/03]

2003-10-13T12:19:00.000-07:00

For the last week or so I've been taking it pretty easy here, enjoying the California weather (and politics, ahem) and staying with my girlfriend in Berkeley. However, I do intend to pick myself up and see a little more of San Francisco and possibly even take some typicial tourist snaps to post up on here.
In other news I have added a quick n dirty link on the right to a possible route my trip may take.
So long, and remember, as though we all haven't had enough fun yet, the Terminator is unstoppable... He'll probably be the first non-US-born US President -- unless we chuck him in a pool of molten metal-lava-stuff first, which I seem to remember used to work a couple of years back...

Requiem for New York [07/10/03]

2003-10-07T11:05:00.000-07:00

My last two somewhat interesting pictures from New York.
A Picasso-inspired mural in Harlem and one of the unrefurbished (and asbestos ridden) buildings on Ellis Island - the place where millions of immigrants to the US were 'screened' for unsavoury characters until around the 1950s. There's a lot of atmosphere in that place, although it would be much more interesting had they left most of it in the state of the dilapidated building (minus the asbestos). Now there's a pretty good museum on site but it's a bit too shiny and polished for my liking... They should have made a haunted house ride out of it, but that's just my opinion.
In other news I have now left New York and am in Berkeley, around San Francisco, which are also two lovely places.
All my digital (i.e. fairly crappy) pictures from New York can be viewed at snapfish.com over the following link: All NYC pictures. I think you need to sign up (free) to be able to view them, but they're a pretty good service anyway (they let you upload unlimited digital pictures online and then later print or do other stuff with them).
This will be all for now except for my final thought: Everyone pray for California, as the day of Recall is upon us today. We must all resist the Rise of the Machine-Gubornator 3, starring Arnie (which is, btw, a dreadful, dreadful movie).
I'll be back (enough puns now) with more blogs soon, bar the end of the world

Parking centrally [01/10/03]

2003-10-01T09:48:00.000-07:00

I would give one of my lungs for a park like New York's Central Park in London: Hyde Park, Shmyde Park. The snaps below I found quite cute and amusing so I thought I'd share them with the world at large.
What we have here is a pic of a little kid devotedly making his mom from Montana very happy but refusing to smile for the nice man; doing 'chins' with a 78-year-old New Yorker, here practicing for his goal of making a one-handed-'chin' (people in NYC are amazingly active and fit, especially when compared to places where an SUV is routinely taken to the nearest McD's drive-in, excuse the stereotype); a Central Park guest appearance of Alice with her little friends (a lot of kids are generally running around Central Park trying to be photogenic); and finally the John Lennon memorial in Strawberry Fields which was so very sweet and almost made me feel that the 60s were back, with candles, flowers and mourning hippies and all (and tourists like me, snapping away, possibly making it New York's most often photographed pieces of rock, but never mind that).
Another place in the park definitely worth mentioning is the 'Ramble'. This is a wilderness with winding paths, artificially but skillfully implanted into Central Park and now a paradise for birdwatchers and conservationists who are only too happy to tell you about turtles, birds and the history of their favourite park.
That more or less concludes my Short Tour of Central Park: Nature in the Heart of New York City: A Fun Day Out for All the Family (Including Grandpa). Now available at all quality bookselling establishments

Yankees suck? [29/09/03]

2003-09-29T08:57:00.000-07:00

My first post will also function as a showcase of the cheapskate digital camera I bought in New York. Yes, it's horrible quality, but it was tiny, cheap, cheerful and will enable me to post pictures online quite easily.
At any rate, the actual picture (click on thumbnail to enlarge) is of a New York Yankees game we went to (Friday) and which they happened to lose against the Baltimore Orioles (3-2). Very exciting stuff towards the end once the Yankees had to get off their asses when faced with the prospect of losing.
Apart from enjoying America's Favourite Pastime I'm having a great time here too. I think a certain something in me has fallen in love with New York City (the part that loves gritty, busy, and exciting cities, that is...).
And they have great entertainment here (endless numbers of bars, parks, crazy and beautiful streets to walk down, cheap, hidden away restaurants, baseball batting cages and Chinatown - what more can you say!). And the people here are oh-so-friendly and approachable - NYC's reputation for unfriendliness must either be unmerited or must mean that the rest of the US is a haven for saints and angels.
One of the annoying things here are the omnipresent cops (especially when eating Donuts around the UN Buildings when Dubya Bush happened to be inside for once trying to play nice with the GA - I still reckon I got racially profiled for my A-rab good looks when they ID'd me, searched my bag and asked where my guns where :).
I was going to stop this blog for now, but there's one more important message I need to pass on... There is hope for this country and for the world. The answer lies in a new president for the US and I've been suckered into believing a politician at a Democrat Primary Rally (or a 'protest march' as it was referred to by Police Captain whatshisname as he was trying to assert his authority - v. funny scene). So, if I have not been brainwashed completely and have not lost all my good judgment I urge everyone to tell their US-voting buddies to vote for Howard Dean for Pres (www.DeanForAmerica.com) if he ever makes it through the primaries (he's one of the frontrunners, so fingers crossed he'll get further). This guy used to be a Doctor in Vermont and is also now Governor, is for a better healthcare system, against unilateral wars, repealing all of Bush's tax cuts for the rich and a whole lot more. In short he seems like a guy with his heart in the right place (for a politician) and great intentions. And he seems to really inspire people, which is always good after having a monkey for Pres. Let's wait and see, and maybe tomorrow will be a better place for all (I'm such a hippie! ;).
Anyway, that'll be all for now (way too much, I'm sure), but I hope to keep the 3 or 4 readers of this blog posted in future (with shorter entries?!?). Also, please do give me feedback or greets as mail makes me happy.
Peace! :