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Tue, 18 May 2010 10:05:04 -0400

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Tue, 18 May 2010 09:55:27 -0400

My journey so far........

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:41:08 -0500

My journey so far........

4 months since the last time.... life in Argentina, post Bogotà....

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:18:04 -0500

It seems I am getting worse and worse at writing this, which I guess is only natural as the novelty wears off…. Not just that, but the serious lack of decent-speed computers here really makes it hard to muster up the motivation to write regularly. Having said that, even my diary has suffered, so I guess it is mostly the novelty factor….

Anyways, I am living in Buenos Aires, land of the revolution and constant struggle. I have been here since about the 13th or 14th of July, and it has been the hardest, most trying period of my travel so far, without a shadow of a doubt.

First things first however…Let`s take a trip back 4 long months to my leaving Bogotà……

Well, the ticket I had to Leticia is still in my backpack. You see, I forgot my PIN number on my bankcard(that`s right, after having used the card for more than a year, somehow my brain decided that the info was no longer necesary and discarded it.) So, I ended up missing my flight and it seemed that there was no hope for me at all….I was still in Sue, in limbo, my visa was expired, I had already had my leaving party and I really felt like there was nothing to do but stay in Bogotà. Then, I was chatting to a friend(remember Ali, the guy I went with to Carnival in Feb?) and he suggested going to Florianopolis, in Brazil. With what, was my (obvious) reply. He then offered to buy me a ticket to Brazil! No strings, and said I didn`t even need to pay him back! I obviously will as soon as I am home and working, but what an amazing guy! He truly sorted me out of a jam when I really needed it and I will never forget that amazing show of generosity and selflessness, particularly as he is now back in the UK working his ass off to pay his debts! More than a couple of beers are owed to that guy when I get home!

So, I had a total new change of plan, flights booked via Sao Paolo, Brazil to go to the paradise of the south of Brazil. I had been looking at Steve`s(the Kiwi dude who came with me and Ali to Carnival) photos from Flori and the place is truly paraiso… white sand, sun, caipirinhas, and not really much to do apart from sunbathe and enjoy existing. You can understand how excited I was!

The only trouble was, having been in Colombia for so long(ie on the Equator) I had totally forgotten that there are seasons in other countries! Seriously! So, instead of turning up to a hot, lazy-days paradise in summer I ended up in a cold, rainy nothing-to-do empty beach town! Still had fun but it was not quite the experience I had dreamed off! That said as well, Brazil is super expensive, by Latin American standards, and so when I come back here it will be from home, with pounds that will stretch heaps further than my Colombian pesos were!

One thing I would liek to mention here is that when I was sitting to eat the (extraordinary) breakfast in the hostal, a hummingbird flew in through the window, and hovered in front of me, totally still for what seemed like 10 seconds but can`t have been anything more than 2 or 3. It was a surreal and beautiful epoerience and I don`t want to leave it out of this blog!

After a few days I decided to head south to Argentina. I had a couple of friends in Buenos Aires(albethey complaining their asses off that it was too expensive and cold and blah blah blah) so I decided to pass through Iguazú Falls and then head south.

Iguazù Falls is the most beautiful place I have ever seen in my life! Really! It is breathtaking. I only went to the Argentine side because at that point the language barrier of Portugese, the cost of Brazil and the weather were all getting too much for me to bear. The place is astounding. There are waterfalls for miles, culminating in a place called `The Devil`s Throat`which, to put things in perspective, stands at a height of 80 metres and the surrounding subtropical forest includes over 2000 species of animals and birds, some of them endangered.

I stayed in a hostal in Iguazu for 2 nights, met some ace Dutch guys who were as keen on the beer as I was and then decided that, although beautiful, the place is just not big enough to entertain me for very long! On my last day there I visited the 3 point frontier, the river join between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. I made a promise to the Paraguay frontier that I will visit, if not in the near future, then certainly in the distant.

The bus I caught to get to Buenos Aires from Iguazù was INCREDIBLE! After several expensive, disappointing buses in Brazil and a lifetime of disappointing, but cheap buses through Colombia Ecuador and Peru, this bus journey was such a delight! Firstly, the seat I was given was LONG ENOUGH TO ACCOMMODATE MY LEGS! I know people of the shorter persuasion will not appreciate this, but when you are required to stay on a bus for 17 or 18 hours+ and the seat you have doesn`t allow you to stretch out properly, it is agony! Next up, the music comes on and is electro, banging out of the speakers like a beauty! Then, as I am writing in my journal, an Argentine boy I had kissed the day before came to find me to kiss me and tell me he would see me in Buenos Aires. So romantic! haha Bienvenidos a Argentina! Land of drama, romance, hardship and passion! To top everything off with the bus, they provided wine, decent(vegetarian) food for dinner and a couple of cool films. Nice nice, nice!

The next morning I awoke with anticipation, as I couldn`t wait to see what my new home was going to look like. I had already decided that as I really had no more money, I would have to work and live here for 6 months or so to try and save the fare home, or at the very least, to sustain myself so I could return to England in the summer. I can`t face the cold! Everything on first impression(and when compared to the other `cities`I have been to) is huge in BsAs. HUGE! Marketing billboards, slogans, skyscrapers and so much traffic. And it stretches for miles, Gran Bs As is the same size as Uruguay!

I got a taxi from the bus terminal to my hostal(my friend Rob from Bogotà worked in this hostal for a few months and hooked me up with the job- I make breakfast in return for a free room) and on arrival everything seems cool. They tell me that I will have to pay a couple of days because the girl who was doing breakfast before hasn`t left yet and I can start in a couple of days. Here it all began……..

update on the verge of leaving beloved Bogotà....

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:11:27 -0400

Well, as is obvious I have been rubbish at updating regularly on this blog, and rather than spending days and days agonisingly trying to translate my diary, I will give a summary of Bogotà, and my other travels around Colombia and then write a better report when I launch my award-winning travel novel, so watch this space! lol

Well, it`s Sunday early afternoon, 28th June 2009 and I am sitting in Hostal Sue, waiting for the rain to stop so I can go with the others to Rock Al Parque…it`s reggae today and will be really good(sans rain).

I have been living in this hostal for about 6 or 7 weeks, and over that time I have made some really good mates. I am basically having the best time of my life and the fact that there is a group of guys here who are all staying a while means I really feel like I have a family, for the first time(and I think more so) since Intiwawa…

I will write a page of characters I musn`t forget, and from this angle I predict that most of them will be from Sue… To update, as I realise I haven`t, after carnival I came back to Bogotà, started my jobs(more on that later) one in a kindergarten and the others teaching private classes to kids, met some wicked people, hated the cranky croc, left after 2 months-ish(no discount, no respect, no feeling of ´home´there) moved to an apartment, stayed for a grand total of 3 weeks then left and went to Hostal Sue, which proved to be the best decision I made regarding accommodation in Bogotà! At the same time as I arrived, there were quite a few others who arrived as well, and wanted to stay so it is from this perspective that I write this now.

I am going to leave on Thursday, I have a flight to Leticia, on the southern border tip of Colombia, only reachable by plane and I will get a boat from there to Manaus and then aterwards Bolivia, where I`ll get a bus to Buenos Aires. I haven`t saved nearly as much as I expected to so as soon as I get there I need to find work.

Map update...8th June 2009

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:45:02 -0400

Map update...8th June 2009

Carnival! Feb 21st 2009

Mon, 25 May 2009 18:14:00 -0400

Barranquilla! We spend 17 hours on a bus(more about my companions in a bit) and arrive sometime in the afternoon, at lunchtime. The first thing that strikes me is that the weather is so hot here, and the general atmosphere is so so hot and dusty. Barranquilla is not a pretty place, by any stretch of the imagination, and it is evident everywhere. As the hometown of Shakira, perhaps one would wonder why it wasn`t a bit more…bustling, or touristy, or something…I am not really sure what I would expect!

The people in Barranquilla are very poor. The homeless people are much more aggressive, which is partly due, I am sure to the fact that they never see gringos of any sort here, so they are super-hardy in trying to get cash. A couple of occasions are particularly hairy, with one guy trying to climb inside our taxi, screaming to give him money til the police come and take him away!

We manage to find a `hotel`(we are warned in advance that the places in Barranquilla bump their prices up for the carnival crowd) end up in a dingy, 5 bed room with a horrid bathroom and damp beds, oh well, it`s not like we are gonna spend much time sleeping anyways…my friend Fanny from Sweden comes(and manages to get here own double, en-suite room for the same price we are paying…booo!) and then a dude I met called Vlad from the coffee region and we go out the first night to some stadium where there is an opening night semi-extravaganza.

It ends in a pool of booze, as the drunker we get the better the idea it is to just buy cans of beer and tip them, all over each other, including bags of flour ands cans of `spuma`which will be the party staples of the weekend.

The next 5 days are a crazy blur of beer, rum, cans of foam and boxes of flour, as the parades continue for the next 3 days! Floats covered in dancers, singers, and every colour of feather and bead you can think of, boobs that don`t move when the girl does, boys who look better as girls than some girls do and the carnival theme tune…mama ron!

Things I love about Bogotà....

Mon, 25 May 2009 17:35:44 -0400

1- The street art. Grafitti is welcome in most places, and as a result there is some amazing work on display, everywhere you look.

2- The Sunday Cyclovia. The 7th Carrera(more on that later) is closed completely on Sunday mornings so people can take to the streets on their own wheels.

3- The Sunday flea markets. I have bought some seriously cool objects here, you gotta look about but that is all part of the fun!

4- The people. I have met some excellent travellers here, as well as Colombian locals. People are generally open, friendly and so accommodating!

5- The climate. Yes, it is cold, yes, it is rainy sometimes but where else in the world would you find 4 seasons in one day?

6- Cazuela de Mariscos. Better on the coast, but it is a seafood stew, served with rice, patacons(plantain patties) and hot sauce. Delicious!

7- The choice of vegetarian food! After Peru and to a lesser extent Ecuador, I feel like I am in heaven!

8- La Candelaria. Yes, it is filled with zombies after dark, yes, it is a bit dangerous but it is so beautiful and really has a community feel.

9- The fashion, and style. People here have a definite sense of style, I feel inspired as I didn`t in other countries.

more to come…..

Cranky Croc...Part 1

Mon, 25 May 2009 17:04:37 -0400

ok, this is the place where I will make my home(not intentionally) for the next 3 months… I was so excited when I finally managed to get bed-space, the beds are so comfy, and it`s the little things like reading lights on all the beds that make the difference…

Chris and Collette arrive from Salento, and we have an absolute monster of a weekend, they are a wicked couple and they tell me about about a 10-day electro festival that is starting in a week or 2(Bogotrax…look it up!) There is a rave in a warehouse-type building the following weekend, which is absolutely crazy! Me and Collette end up meeting this girl called Jackie, who left UK 7 years ago to live in Bogotà. This chance meeting ends up providing me with some serious luck!

The Bogotrax festival is amazing, it is a yearly event that looks to cement together art, music and other creative outlets in one massive festival, and its free! There are DJs all over the world who participate in the various different performances, and I am lucky enough to meet one of the organisers, that`s the thing with Bogotà, it is so creative and experimental, but the scene is also small, so you find everyone knows everyone else if you stay long enough….I meet Jackie again and she tells me she has work and can give me advice on finding an apartment etc, so I feel really fortunate that I met her(although she is also completely insane…but none of that here….)

I have met also a couple called Jim and Gen, he from England(Essex) and her from South Africa, they are really cool and will form the backbone of my social activities for the next 6 weeks-2 months….One thing you find fairly quickly with Bogotà is that it is really hard to leave!(As I write this I am still here…25th of May and I intended to leave in March….) The next few weeks are basically a haze of finding work, partying, sleeping in and looking for an apartment….

I find a job, which I will start when I return from Carnival in Barranquilla at the beginning of March, so all is working out. When I leave Bogotà to go to Carnival I go with 5 others…Ali, from Sheffield, Jordan from Nottingham, Steve from New Zealand, Phil from Newcastle and Felicity from…somewhere! We take off for Barranquilla on an overnight bus, and head for the `second biggest carnival in South America`How exciting!

Bogotà Part 1.... January 2009

Mon, 25 May 2009 16:39:32 -0400

Me and Ray get a night bus from Armenia to Bogotà, I felt sad when we left actually cos there had literally just arrived a bunch of really cool people, and you know how it is when you can sense there will be a really good time and you just don`t want to leave it?? But, Bogotà beckons and I really want to spend the weekend there.

We get the overnight bus from the terminal in Armenia, complete with a bottle of rum to see us through the night and eventually get to sit together(people don`t do well here with changing plans, or seats, even if they are sitting alone!) and get to drink it. Buses are freezing cold in Colombia as for some reason(I think to prevent falling asleep) the drivers whack the air-con on full throttle, so if you don`t have at least 2 coats or a decent blanket you are going to suffer!

Arrive in Bogotà at about 5am, tired, cold and so excited! The bus terminal is really far from the centre, where we will stay, so we get a taxi and as we get closer, you can see and feel the city unfolding before your eyes! The first surprise is how many skyscrapers there are, and how many of these are banks(I don`t know what I expected but maybe not quite so….highrise?). We get to hostal-town at about 6am, and find that nearly all of the hostals are full, except a place called Fatima, so we get a dorm there and book a bed in the Cranky Croc(which is where everyone tells you to stay and is therefore usually full). The streets where I will make my home for so long of the near future are still strange to me, and trying to navigate yourself is sooooo hard!

Roger leaves at the end of the weekend, so we spend the time looking at the usual tourist spots, Bolivar square(my universal truth that there are 2 things all over the world…pigeons and chinese food) is proved here, where the hell do all these birds come from??? The market centre here is bustling, venders selling icecreams, arepas and mobile phone cards, street performers trying to earn a penny doing mimes, stilt walks and those ´silent-til-you-pay`acts…The square itself is huge and stately, just filled with pigeons!

The weekend goes with a bang, a party at the hostal bar on Friday night culminates in a huge brawl outside, involving the rather burly barman beating the seven bells out of a petite teenage girl and her friends swinging bats, chains and random weaponry at him….I spoke to him the following day and he had no idea she was a she, as she had just used her spikey choker to swing at his head, culminating in 5 stitches, and she was also a skinhead, resulting in a certain gender-anonymity! Bogotà is excellent, but there is a lot of civil unrest and fights on a Friday or Saturday night are par for the course…..

Me Ray Ray and Vlad, the Salento Massive!

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:23:57 -0500

Me Ray Ray and Vlad, the Salento Massive!

"some gates are open, some gates are closed. this ones open. I think we should go the other way."

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:19:31 -0500

“some gates are open, some gates are closed. this ones open. I think we should go the other way.”

- Vlad Voicu`s unfaultable logic when trying to decide on the route at a fork in the road.

salento pics....

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:14:46 -0500

salento pics....

Salento coffee country! late January...backdated!

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:48:47 -0500

Well! I arrived in the hostal in Calì, feeling totally exhausted and met a group of Aussie guys, who had been in Calì and were leaving in a few hours…considering by now I was truly sick of my own company, coupled with the fact that they said Calì is really only fun over the weekend, and this was like a Monday or Tuesday, I thought fuck it and decided to leave with them. They were going to Salento, the coffee region, I don`t even like coffee but they seemed cool so I went with. Quickest exit ever!

Total time spent in Calì… 6 hours!

So…we headed to Salento, next to Armenia, in the south-centre of Colombia, and on the bus on the way there I managed to maintain a conversation with a woman entirely in Spanish for an hour! My Spanish was probably quite rubbish, but we understood each other so I was fully stoked! We rocked up at a hostal called Plantation House, really beautiful, rolling hills, traditional wooden htu bedrooms and 2 beautiful collies that looked just like lassie!

The dude who owns it, Tim, is an absolute, Brian Blessed style Emphesima nosed Alkie, who proceeded to inform us within minutes of entering `I don`t like alcohol`. yeah alrite mate, I light your breath and then you can repeat that statement!

Anyways, met some really cool people here, which is what I was after, turned out the Aussie boys and I were not quite on the same page and we parted company pretty much as soon as we completed a `nice country stroll`which turned out to be a 12 or 13k hike up a really steep hill that took about 5 hours. It was beautiful, I just wish I had been prepared!

The next day I met up with Roger, an English dude who was on the same bus from Calì and Vlad, a Romanian-American dude with some seriously funny stories. I swear I laughed so hard that day that my sides hurt! We took a tour of the coffee plantation nearby(much to Tim`s annoyment cos he wants all tourists to visit his place…oh well!) and the guide we had looked just like the dude from Del Monte! Got caught in a rain shower afterward and there was a massive powercut because of it, rendering the whole village basically useless. We dealt with it by cooking on gas and getting absolutely shitfaced!

I had the best afternoon, got to know some wicked people, including Chris and Colette, who I will talk about later! Anyways, it was time to go so me and Roger (or Ray Ray as I will from now on refer to him) headed off to Bogotà.

Where I am now......

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:43:53 -0500

Where I am now......

Losing a day and the Colombian border.......

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:34:21 -0500

After Quito I head North to go to Otavalo, a town famed over all of South America for it`s Saturday market. I head to a hostal out of my guidebook(unless you get advised otherwise it`s pretty hard to choose one!) And when I get there I realise there are the remnants of market stalls littering the sides of the streets but I figure it`s just a daily thing, this is marketland after all….

The hostal is cool and my room is so pretty! A real little cabin feel with private bathroom and a writing desk! The owner tells me when I ask him that it is Saturday, but no, I tell him, it must be Friday. I ask 3 more people and am told by all that it is Saturday….So I have missed a whole day and am here for no reason basically! I decide to go to the market tomorrow and leave after.I want to stay here but I am really keen to get to Colombia.

I head for the market the next day and enjoy Otavalo for a little bit. The men here wear their hair in those typical, western movie plaits and the women too, who are adorned with strings and strings of gold beads, but the weird thing is that because of the money involved here in the market trade, there are as many 4 wheel drives blaring rap music and kids with emo haircuts and new clothes, as there are traditionals and artesanias.

The market is horrendous. Heaps of middle-aged overweight americans are waddling around asking for cheaper and cheaper prices, without even bothering to attempt any Spanish. The produce is all pretty much the same and I leave fairly swiftly. I pack my bag and head for the bus, on the Pan American Highway.

I get a bus to Ipiales which is next to the border and after a 3 ish hour journey I am at the border, roughly 3pm. I get over the border and am amazed by how much police prescence there is, certainly the most since I arrived in South America. I go through immigration, and get buses overnight to go to Calì, by the time I get there(7 hour bus ride and 4 random police checks later) I am so tired and the idiot taxi driver I get doesn`t help either…he drives me all around the place on the meter to 3 places I don`t ask and then tries to make me pay, the hostal I finally end up in has this miserable, grumpy asshole working and when I am lead to the dorm-read prison, I feel so depressed, wired and exhausted I can barely sleep.

Cuenca...wicked city!

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:46:30 -0500

Got to Cuenca, found a really nice hostal, called Cuencita, on Hermano Miguel and Calle Larga if you ever go there! Was feeling quite depressed about being on my own and the stress of travelling, and was really missing Alberto. The son of the hostal, Jonathan took me under his wing, gave me wine and I was happy again! The next day he took me to a bar called Prohibido, kind of a museum, and considering this place is super catholic it`s quite a big deal…there are even 3 real crypts there of people who agreed or who`s families agreed for them to buried there. Sculptures of Jesus with bullet wounds, lots of vampires and devils, and when u wash ure hands in the ladies there is a horrid little gnome who wees the water out at you!

Cuenca is super pretty, rains in the afternoon but that`s really no biggy…I felt really safe there and had a really cool 3 days. I also visited the Panama hat factory, cos they don`t make em in Panama!

Left here to go to Quito on an overnight bus….

Quito I hated. I stayed there for a day, I have never been told(even in London) not to take my stuff out with me so often cos I was gonna get robbed or whatever, the weather was shit, my hostal was cheap enough(3 dollars a night) and I reckon if my mind was in it I could`ve gone out with the guys at my hostal but I felt so anti I just wanted to leave. It completely lacks the architectural value of other big cities and after seeing the Equator(which is cool but the bug museum is the best bit) I got the fuck out of there!

And by the way…did anyone ever know it was the French who `discovered`the Equator?????

after Perù.......

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:39:52 -0500

Ok so when I left Trujillo, I caught an overnight bus to Sullana, but it arrived at 5 or crazy in the morning so I stayed on until Piura…It had been raining too so was proper grotty and dark. Arrived in Piura at 7am and waited an hour or so for a bus to take me to the border with Ecuador.

Got there, crossed over but it had been raining for 3 days, so there was no power so I had to wait for another 5 hors for my passport to get stamped(I meanwhile journeyed into the nearest town called…Macarà, which was horrid) and then was finally on my way on a bus to Pasto at around 1.30pm. We arrived there at 6, really couldn`t be assed to keep there so I got straight on another bus to Loja, which arrived there at 8.30 ish. Holed up in a sleazy motel style affair, but it`s only one night so fuck it. Found a delicious potato cake there though(which doesn`t sound like much but after eating basically rice for 4 months it was sweet!”)

Had a walk around the next day, not much to do and hopped on a bus at midday to go to Cuenca.

bit of ecuador, bit of wrongness

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:34:53 -0500

bit of ecuador, bit of wrongness

temple shit

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:34:23 -0500

temple shit