Buggslife - the travelbugg.

"La Bombonera, Boca Juniors' stadium, Buenos Aires" - "...a period of confusion, the Boca keeper had come off his line, the River striker saw his chance and curled off a floaty shot towards the goal. As it was heading to cross the line from my angle I decided it was definitely going in, and, being well impressed with the shot I flung my fist into the air. In a tense situation surrounded by manic supporters who all appeared ready to kill for their club, the following period of time - which must have been about half a second - seemed to pass by over a couple of hours as thoughts, worries and emotions all cannoned through my mind instantaneously. I was sure that I was the only one celebrating this inevitable goal and unsure whether I was about to be majorly embarrassed, slightly strange looking or soon to be pummelled. Anyone in a rational calm state of mind would not have had this moment of, pretty much, panic and everyone would have appeared to react in a routine synchronised way. As the milli-seconds ticked by I was joined by many thousands of fellow River fans and the stand completely erupted with more force than I have ever known of any fans or for any group of humans doing anything..."

“Iguazu Falls, Argentinan Side” – “arriving at the top of the edge of The Devil’s Throat – the concentrated part of the huge falls – after a long day exploring the falls and park. The utterly immense natural power hit me hard, not literally luckily, as I watched individual drops and flows take their course down the fall and disappear among the mass of misty spray.”

In Chile:

"Portillo Ski Resort" - "Snowboarding down untouched areas of big sweet soft snow and even throwing in some little girlie jumps off rock mounds; the view of the surrounding mountains and lake at the bottom helped."

In Paraguay:

"River Paraguay" - "the 3 day passenger & cargo boat trip up the river on the Brazil border including the week spent stranded in Bahia Negra; a great adventure period with great people (fellow travellers – Irish, English, French and Spanish, locals and military officers) - just a great crack."

Hitch-hiking (actually in Brazil here) with the others from Paraguay

In Bolivia:

"National Park Noel Kempff Mercado" - "floating on my back swimming slowly backwards across the lagoon created by the magnificent waterfall 'El Encanto' - my only view in front of me and my ears underwater so completely silent and in my own solitude"
"National Park Noel Kempff Mercado" - "drifting along in a dug-out canoe before sunset in a totally serene but wild river and having our first big caiman suddenly leap out of nowhere from the reeds next to us. That was after spending time fascinating a troop of monkeys and having no effect whatsoever on a pair of capybara taking an afternoon snack on a bank.”

In Peru:

"A cliff trail near Chachapoyas, Northern Peru" - "being led by some local small children (without asking any help at all, just because they were so joyful and assume with little better to do) to the site of several ancient sarcophagi - like ritually painted coffins - stood scattered across a seemingly inaccessible cliff face. For me the sarcophagi were one of the most amazing historic artefacts I have seen"

"Gocta Waterfall, near Chachapoyas, Northern Peru" - "after a good hike, edging closer to the world's 3rd tallest waterfall via a few roughly-made tree branch ladders and some slippery and thick mud trails. The others including the guide were happy with how close we had made it but, of course, I needed to edge those 15 metres closer and standing in the shocking force of the spray coming off the falls was one of a few truly life-refreshing experiences"

“Machu Picchu, Peru” - “Early in the morning whilst the site was still really quite empty we were exploring a set of terracing off in one corner. I, of course, had to go down the terracing as far as I possibly could just to see how far they went on. Doing that though I found a classic perch to sit, on the edge of the Inca wall, with a magnificent drop into the beautiful gaping valley in front to my left and a bit of an unusual view of Mach Picchu ahead that included terracing and other features leading all the way down a slope that – if you didn’t come round to this corner of the site - you wouldn’t even see. Sitting there with the breeze from the gorge, swallows hunting ahead and a tranquil scene of one of the most magical historic sites I’ve been to, was one hell of a moment.”

In Ecuador:

"In the jungle of river Shiripuno" - “Marching through the forest on a round of ‘the traps’ and our local colleague-come-guide doesn’t just stop in his tracks but bolts backwards a couple of metres. We then stood and watched an incredible Boa Constrictor - unbelievably thick and about 5m long with such beautiful patterns over its scales with red towards the tail. That was enough to make it into my most memorable moments but to add to the scene a few Monk Saki monkeys (lovely shaggy monkeys that I did not see again; at least not with certainty) came down to low branches completely in view wondering why we were stood in silence below them. Sweet as.”
“Isla Isabela, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador” – “It’s tough to pick just one out from our time on this island. Free-diving with a turtle? Watching sharks swim by? Watching rays swim by within a metre if you? Sharing a beach with no one but 50 marine Iguanas? Nope. What sticks out more is when there was some major activity in the sea on the long beach at low tide with birds and sealions feasting. We were strolling along and, getting closer, we saw that birds would suddenly dive underwater having been floating on the surface. They looked like penguins but surely not. Besides, we never see penguins in groups of more than 15 resting and 3 hunting. This was a group of maybe 40 odd! Must be some other common sea bird. As we arrived to where they were fishing I could see for sure they were penguins and not far out at sea. Excited like the child I so often proved I am over the 12 months away, I used a sharp rocky outcrop that led out into the sea to get closer and was able to stand in the sea and watch loads of penguins pass right by me 1 or 2 at a time as they changed hunting sites. It was so cool.”

In Venezuela:

“Roraima, La Gran Sabana, Venezuela” – “Sitting by (not quite on as it was one hell of a scary drop) the edge of one of Roraima’s faces doing much contemplation and enjoying a stunning view of the savanna below and beyond.”

As well as all this there were so many other highlights that stick out in my mind but to try and list too many is pointless. Many of you will undoubtedly hear about plenty of the others over many years to come and often over many a pint I’d imagine.

HIGHLIGHTS - the places

2007-03-29T19:24:00.000-04:00

My top top personal highlights - the elite of the cream of the crop - things that stand out in my mind:

The places...

In Argentina:

1. The region of Santa Cruz, Patagonia - Lake Posadas, Cave of Hands, town of Perito Moreno and La Casa Amarilla, Patagonian countryside, tranquility, wildlife.

Wrapping up warm in the south

2.Puente del Inca (Inca bridge) - natural bridge of beautiful colours from minerals in the mountains; surrounded by deep snow when I stayed there in a mountaineers hut.

In Chile:

3. The Carretera Austral region - lush temperate rainforest, mountains, fjords/lakes, rivers, autumnal colours, cute villages.

View from window over a fjord in the Carreterra Austral region

In Bolivia:

4. National Park Noel Kempff Mercado - remote and rarely visited huge park of jungle/rainforest, pampas and floodlands full of amazing wildlife and natural beauty.

In Peru:

5. Region around Chachapoyas, North Peru - rivers, canyons, remote pre-inca ruins and the world's 3rd tallest waterfall.

6. Huayna Picchu; the tall peak looming over Machu Picchu - a good, fairly quick hike up the mountain which itself has cool Inca ruins, awesome views of the surrounding mountains and valleys and a bird's eye view of the Machu Picchu ancient city.

In Ecuador:

7. The river Shiripuno and its surrounding rainforest - wild, absolutely full of life, beautiful, peaceful and challenging.

8. Isla Isabela, Galapagos Islands - from the relatively tiny corner of the island that we saw it is in a fantastically unspoiled state and literally alive with wildlife with idyllic beaches.

In Colombia:

9. National Park Tayrona - a tropical paradise but also very wild with untamed seas and forests and scenery that makes you want to just stay put.

In Venezuela:

10. Roraima - the Tepuy (table-top mountain) with unique vegetation and even animals, awesome views and one of the strongest and strangest mystical atmospheres I've experienced.

Atlantic Rain Forest - Tijuca National Park

2007-03-28T14:38:00.000-04:00

Just came across this quote about the big national park I was impressed with in Rio de Janeiro...

"The Atlantic Rain Forest The Tijuca National Park is the largest urban natural reservation area in the world, covering an area of 3.200hec. and sheltering an enormous variety of birds and butterflies as well as "prego" and "sagui" monkeys. It is also home to hundreds of species of wildlife and plants, nowadays only found in the Atlantic Rainforest, many of them threatened by extinction."

I can believe it's the biggest urban reserve.

We saw both those species of monkeys there! The sagui is actually a marmoset (apparently the same as a tamarin but not certain) and it was the only time in the year that we saw 'monkeys' of that kind.

Some Stats

2007-03-13T20:28:00.000-04:00

Days I spent in each country:

Florida, USA: 12 + 5 = 17

Argentina: 41 + 18 + 1 = 60

Chile: = 44

Paraguay: = 20

Brazil: 4 + 16 + 3 + 1 = 24

Bolivia: 33 + 1 = 34

Peru: = 29

Ecuador: = 80

Colombia: = 25

Venezuela: = 32

TOTAL = 365

1 year, 10 countries

El fin del viaje maravilloso

2007-03-13T14:27:00.000-04:00

So, I'm back home now but I'll throw in one more travel entry as I don't expect life's going to be quite so interesting for a while now...

I went on a great 6 day trek up Roraima, a large table-top mountain renowned for its many endemic plants - including loads of carnivorous plants - and animals such as a hummingbird and frog.

Here are the clouds rolling over the edge from up top:

The 2 days we spent on top were fantastic, getting to know the unusual landscape, the quartz crystal 'rivers', freezing cold but stunning natural pools, the little animals including a scorpion and a rare big oilbird, almost blind, that relies on echo-location like a bat and lives in Venezuelan caves.

This is the group I was with and Roraima is the mountain on the right dominating the horizon.

Next up was Rio de Janeiro after a 3 flights in 1 job from near the Venezuelan border, across the amazon jungle, change in Sao Paulo and we're there. Two manic weeks that flew by during the carnival: masses in the streets, beer everywhere, samba drums, plenty of energy and a great atmosphere.

Clare's polishing off tangy home-made caipirinha in the flat before heading out...

Twas cool to have one place to stay put for 2 weeks. The flat was in a proper residencial block where the locals chuck rubbish bags out of the window into a mass rubbish bin courtyard below...nice. By normal terms it was a scummy kind of place, well more the block than the flat itself, but it was really quality compared to the standards of the majority of people that I'd been seeing since leaving Argentina and heading through Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela.

So, along with a nocturnal lifestyle that had gone from:

Roraima Trek
WAKE UP: SUNRISE
BED: WITHIN AN HOUR OF SUNSET

to:

Rio
WAKE UP: 1PM - 4PM
BED: 4AM - 8AM

we also managed to check out some of the absolutely shockingly well preserved national parks right in or around the city. In them we even saw monkeys, hummingbirds, loads of butterflies, iguanas, a squirrel and other lizards. Really surprised me being on the edge of such a city.

I also had to swallow my pride on the last night. Clare and I had spyed a cool looking little seafood restaurant and planned to pop in to celebrate 7 whole years together; however, that day Clare found out this little restaurant appeared in the 'ever so Lonely Planet' which quoted it as being "the best seafood restaurant in Rio de Janeiro". My pride was swallowed along with a couple of cans of beer and we still went there and, I hate to say it, but the book may have been right. It was at least the best meal out we had had in the past year.

So, lots of indulgence in Rio meant lots of cash spent which, in turn, meant the question "Can we still afford to do our final little excursion and ride 23 hours across Brazil (and another 23 hours back) to Iguazu Falls???". The true answer is really "no, we can't afford it" but we went anyway...

...and it was worth the effort.

There's the beauty of the sets of falls; the amazing force of them; lush forest around and even treats of seeing some cool animals I hadn't expected to see such as more monkeys, coatis, agoutis, toucans, (wild) guinea pigs, a river turtle and even a caiman (see left below)!

As for Brazil, I only spent a short time in 3 of its many many corners (Pantanal, Iguazu and Boa Vista up near Venezuela) plus enough time in Rio. There's obviously loads to see in South America's biggest country (and the 5th biggest in the world) - its own trip perhaps?

"Vamos a ver."

South America - The Music

2007-03-11T17:54:00.001-04:00

If I was to try and summarise the music I might say it's confused, confusing, vibrant, tacky, passionate and as varied throughout the continent as the landscapes.

Music is absolutely everwhere and mostly very loud and often closer to noise than anything else. That's probably partly because a lot sounds tacky to me but also, since it is everywhere, because bus's might have growling engines and wind rushing through the windows to combat the immense heat of the day; a street has cars, barking dogs and other sound systems to contend with; a shop or internet cafe is full of chattering, shouting kids, crashes and screams from x-box games, squeeky doors and people singing along; so assuming the sound quality is actually good there's not much chance of it sounding that great amongst everything else.

Sounds like a rant that, but it's all just real observations. Better than saying "Music is everywhere in South America" would be "South America is noisy".

At least the music varies an incredible amount with so many different genres being massively popular.

The mothers of all genres would probably be Salsa and Reggaeton. Salsa you probably know - full of energy, spicey, bongo type percussion, often brass instruments, often a superb lead singer and typically a group of 3 or 4 backing male singers. I still can't dance it. I've never had a lesson, but, sometimes you don't get much choice but to get up and strut.

Reggaeton is a beast in itself. It has a chunky beat with a ska/reggae kind of rhythm and usually ganster style kind of rapping and not much else - but it's catchy, fun and massive. Some artists are doing well in the States too; the big guns include Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, Tito El Bambino and Calle 13 - a clever rapper along the lines of a Spanish speaking Eminem but probably a lot more racist and controversial but great lyrics all the same.

The bigger stars seem to be from Puerto Rico.

As for the other big genres there's Merengue and Cumbia which are widely popular. I thought I was starting to understand these two until I was recently confused and gave up on telling Cumbia apart from Salsa and Merengue, they seem to merge to me.

On top of all these there are loads of styles of 'music' that you find regionally: Tango is great, mostly heard in Argentina and is usually one of the higher quality styles, typically using no synthesised instruments. Colombia has Vallenato (instruments in pic below) music using an Accordian, a scraping instrument called a Guacharaca and a drum along with a singer, and has appeal stretching into neighbours Ecuador and and Venezuela. Colombia also has a not so well known seldom listened to music termed Momposina - one of my favourite of the whole continent - with African roots and a female singer with a tribal chant style.

Venezuela has one of the more comedy genres called Joropo or Musica Llanera coming from the lowlands (Los Llanos) is a guy half rapping as he sings about how he is a humble Llanos cowboy and likes to ride horses accompanied by a harp, maracas and a small type of guitar. On first listen it sounds terrible. On 2nd, 3rd and 4th listen it still sounds awful. BUT, eventually, after enough bus/pickup rides you can start to almost appreciate it if you listen, at least, to the lyrics.

One running idea nearly every music type is to fit as many words into each line of song as possible causing the singer to rush them out as quickly as possible. This happens a lot in the soppy cheesey ballads, very popular everywhere, and just sounds awkard to me, surely leaving the guy out of breath on every line.

About these "soppy cheesey ballads". They really are soppy - incredibly lovey dovey, something the macho guys don't seem to be in their everyday lives. One classic is a very popular Argentinian singer, Axel, who has one particular tune called "I love you" that goes on and on like this:

"I love you in the morning
and in the afternoon
I love you in the body
and in your spirit
I love that which you love
I love you"

...and on and on and on...

As I'm writing this they've turned the soppy rock balad tunes up. Great. I've already sat through the spanish version of "Unbreak my heart" twice.

I bought loads of CDs, including some of the very chessiest stuff as souveniers, so remind me to sample you some when you come round...

>>> Note that I wrote all of the above about 5 weeks ago whilst I was still in Venezuela.

I'm now back home in Blighty (arrived yesterday) and didn't want to post this until I had given Brasil a chance to influence me.

So, in all I spent about 3 weeks in Brasil - a tiny period of time for such a huge country but I did pick up on some of the music.

The most obvious is Samba. Being there for Carnaval I obviously heard tons of it. I love it. It's one of the most energetic styles of music I've heard, all positive with some of the sweetest percussion imaginable (pic left shows one of many types of samba drum). A day before leaving Brasil I saw a parade in a small town. The parade was mostly made up of youngsters and kids but still the drumming section was awesome.

Other than that I didn't get exposed to a lot else apart from a very easy-going style with accordians. Don't know what they call it but it's fun and I have a CD from one band. As well as that I noticed that they love to cover big classic English songs (like Beatles) and translate and create Portuguese lyrics - strange and cool to hear.

So that's my South American music experience in a rambling nutshell about as coherent as the music itself.

How to dress for a night at....

2007-03-07T13:08:00.000-03:00

...the YMCA???

No, the Rio Carnival, aparently...

Samba de Janeiro

Number of Bird Species...

2007-03-07T00:04:00.000-03:00

No wonder I got into all the amazing variety of birds down there...

Number of Different Bird Species in the Continents:

3,200 South America
2,900 Asia
2,300 Africa
2,000 North America (from Panama north + Caribbean)
1,700 Australia + surrounding islands
1,000 Europe
65 Antarctica

La Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela

2007-02-04T19:59:00.000-03:00

Venezuela is a country with shockingly diverse landscapes.

Los Llanos is a region that's seasonally flooded but right now is the dry season. It's mostly open savanna and is generally full of wildlife. I climbed this tree to get some better photos of the Howler Monkeys who didn't quite howl at my encroachment on their territory but let open plenty of intimidating grunts whilst shifting about the tree to get better views of me - which was ideal for me with the camera (prob have to click on the monkey pic to appreciate it).

Another great treat in Los Llanos was going to see river dolphin on a boat trip - Clare swears they were pink (one of the two river dolphin types in the continent) but I'm not too sure...

The South American music scene has managed to keep on surprising me with another quite unique style here - Joropo - almost rapped by country folk about how they're humble horse-riders etc; and this is over music including a harp. You can have a listen at some point; I've got a view CDs (pirate of course, it's almost the only way to buy music).

So we headed off to the far north east corner of the country which is a stunning coastline. We managed to get to some isolated parts with empty long beaches backed by hillsides of tropical forests. However, these areas are known for being a bit dangerous and so we weren't able to properly enjoy them; more kind of travelling (hiking/boat) through them. The ones we did make good use of were very typical carribean, lined with palms and mostly empty too, in the region around a fishing village (pic below).

Further west in a more popular coastal region we went on a couple of boat trips to visit some excellent beaches and islands - enjoying some of my favourite snorkelling ever over coral reefs. They were different to anything else I'd seen because of the varieties of coral of so many shapes and colours - an underwater tropical garden.

We also saw loads of dolphins from the boat, plus I jumped of a cliff/rock into the sea - my highest crazy/stupid (but not my last!) leap of about 8-9m.

The theme since the coast has been waterfalls. I'm in the Gran Sabana; a beautiful natural region of rolling plains, palm forests and dotted with table-top mountains from where most of the rivers round here are born. A great 2 day tour took a fun group of us to loads of varied waterfalls - a wide ribbon one (6m high, 60m wide), a tall classic one and numerous smaller falls some with natural water slides and a couple flowing over bright red jasper rock. Plenty of fun was had swimming and jumping off the higher rocks. I also purchased a cool mini blow-dart pipe....sweet.

By the way, my switching from "we" to "I" is because Clare set off for Brasil today whilst I'm hanging around in Venezuela to go on a 6 day trek tomorrow. Wandering along earlier I saw Spurs Vs Man U on a TV in a kind of bar so sat down, ordered my BBQ/grill chicken and sat through my first English footy match since March or April. Well, I managed to catch 60 mins or so - enough to confirm Spurs were gonna lose - when the president suddenly appeared on the screen. Hugo Chavez was being driven on a procession of horses, cars and security through some big avenida, waving at the crowds. Five mins later he was still saluting and waving so I guess the TV channel agreed with me that Spurs had no hope of a comeback and so gave up on the game.

Feels like the final leg of the trip now. We don't have enough money to stay on so should be back in Blighty mid March. Before that though there's plenty going on...so you'll probably be treated to a few more entries yet...

A few scenes from Colombia...

2007-01-31T13:58:00.000-03:00

"La mano de Dios" = "The hand of god".
I just had to have a pic of an Englishman stood next to that...even if it wasn't in Argentina.

We went to a town called Mompos, which involved some of the most effort to get there of any town so far. Of course buses, then pick up truck, a boat ride upriver (they boat's engine messed up after 15 mins so we took another 45mins instead of 10 or so), then the most intense motorbike ride yet over a dusty road - the type you'd look for to mountain bike.

The town was full of cool old architecture and worth the visit.

The pic below is another real nice village in a different region. We camped in a cool site; a small field shared with big white rabbits and a sheep.

Above is a scene from that village's main square.

Paragliding was awesome fun. Starting up a hill overlooking farm fields, beyond them a big canyon and on the horizon were a few small table top mountains.

Once set to go I looked down and saw a group of vultures circling way below me but still high above the valley. We were waiting for the right thermals to set off. Then suddenly the vultures caught one and soared way way above us. A few seconds later and I was gliding above everthing!

The photo to the left was snapped up on the Colombian coast in tropical forest. We walked down a stream as the quickest and easiest way to get back to the beach (the path meandered loads).

I'm about to jump a log with a cool line of leaf cutter ants running along it.

That day on a walk to a pre-hispanic settlement up the mountain, I came face-to-face with a snake. Climbing up the boulders I was leaning forward because of the steepness and looking up it was right in front of my nose - luckily just as scared of me as it had started to crawl off...

We also saw bats in daylight, great big bright green iguanas, various coloured crabs and lizards, squirrels and a big rodent called an Agouti as well as the acient settlement hidden among the forest.

That was all a while ago now. We've now been in Venezuela about 3 weeks or so - a country full of fantastic countryside but people who are "generally" a bit daft and/or annoying.

In the Northern Hemisphere...

2007-01-31T12:10:00.000-03:00

We've been back on the Northern Hemishere for a while now but are disappearing off to the south again in about 12 days...

¿El hijo de Dios?

2007-01-22T14:41:00.000-03:00

I've now lost count of the number of people who have told me I look like Jesus Christ. I mostly only get it when the beard's gone wild.

They have this classic image of the great man in this coninent - fairly white (at least relative to locals), long face, long dark brown hair and beard. Sometimes his eyes are bright blue but sometimes brown. He's THE biggest celebrity here.

Yeah I know, the similarities seem minimal to us Europeans, but not to the local people who see few westerners especially in the last 2 countries - Colombia and currently Venezuela.

A tropical xmas

2006-12-31T18:35:00.000-03:00

We spent Christmas at Tayrona national park staying 4 nights in a cabin room on the top of a hut which you can see at the bottom right of this website:

http://wikitravel.org/en/El_Parque_Tayrona

Happy New Year everyone!

Las Islas Galapagos - wow!

2006-12-30T17:49:00.000-03:00

The time we spent in the Galapagos was just fantastic.

We did some big day trips on different types of boats, numerous day trips on land by walking or biking and saw such an amazing variation in countryside - for example wild cliffed islands, paradise style beaches, lava flow areas with cacti forests - constantly changing vegetation and of course the most awesome wildlife you could imagine.

The marine life was definitely a major highlight since we saw things I'd wanted to see all my life but some I never thought I would. Pods of dolphins diving in and out of the sea passing our boat, a group of killer whales also diving in and out later that day or the ocasional sea turtle - I even swam about with one - but more often seen when coming up for air. One night we were sat at the bay of the most populated town in the islands and I thought I saw something in the water with the streetlamp light; a few seconds later a turtle popped up right in front of us for a gulp of air and dived back under!

That's the way it was pretty much. There's life everywhere, of course far more in the less accesible parts but even right on the edges of populated places.

Without a doubt our favourite island was Isabela, the largest, even thought we only saw a relatively tiny fraction of it. From the port village walking along the beach we found the most idyllic individual beaches I've seen; and some less than an about 40mins walk. What adds superbly to these quality, secluded beaches is the life. You're usually only sharing it with big marine iguanas, some sealions, bright crabs and, with luck, penguins or rays! On the main beach I watched a group of at least 20 penguins hunting in front of me whilst I was chest deep in the water. Until then we had never seen groups of more than 8 or so! Plus the birds and sealions would get in on the act and take easy pickings among the feast. It was natural events like that that made it such an awesome experience.
I think what surprised me most, and ended up being my favourite animals to see, were the rays. On the first boat trip we watched the 'wings' of huge Manta Rays flipping about on the sea surface, then soon after we watched them leaping well out of the water and belly flopping or sometimes flipping and back flopping on the surface. Then one passed right by the boat at the surface and i saw its shocking size and beauty as it drifted by. After that we saw rays loads in various situations - often the big mantas jumping and flipping whilst we chilled on the beach. Occasionally, however, we saw beautiful Spotted Eagle Rays swim close to shore and a few times we swam with them including a time when we were snorkelling with loads of Galapagos sharks and Reef Sharks on a day trip and a group of 5 Eagle Rays came along and drifted around proper peaceful. So cool to watch them 'flying' through the water. Then there were the smaller sting rays we'd see hiding in the sand in the shallows which were cool to snorkel with and once we saw a school of Golden Rays off a boat - a stunning sight.

Getting between the major islands we took what was probably the worst boat ride experience of my life - thank f*ck it was only 2 and a half hours - and after that dodgy journey we decided on a flight to skip 2 more similar boat trips. The plane was a cool 8 seater with 6 people. I jumped at the chance to ride up in the co-pilot seat like the little child that I am. It was coooool!

As you can probably tell, this was all ideal for me. An amazing trip and still sooooo much more I could say.

Oh well, hopefully the snapfish pics will say more than a thousand waffled words....

Merry Christmas

2006-12-22T19:45:00.000-03:00

A simple Merry Christmas to everyone who reads and hopefully enjoys my blog.

Not entirely sure where I'll be for Xmas day yet but it's looking like in a hammock, by a beach, next to tropical forest in the far north of the continent in Colombia.

Feliz navidad.

Suited to the Jungle?

2006-12-17T16:08:00.000-03:00

Here's a recent quote from a friend, Mr JB:

"Easy Bugg. The jungle sounds perfect for you, no work, no need to wash, no need for cash, you should move in!"

Jungle Life - All Good

2006-12-01T20:37:00.000-03:00

So I've just spent almost a month in the rainforest and absolutely loved it.

Clare and I were there volunteering at a Jungle Lodge primarily for tourism but which also plays an important role in some research. This research took up our first 6 days.

Getting there involved us taking a 9 hour bus from the capital to a big jungle town called Coca. Then took a pallet mobile (rickety all wood thing) for about 3 hours along a pure bumpy road built by oil companies a while back.

Arriving at a bridge we set off in a huge canoe down the river Shiripuno and into a National Reserve of the indigenous people the Huaraoni, a certain few tribes of whom still live as they always did as hunter gathers deep in the forest. 4 hours or so in the canoe we arrived having already seen some cool birds, turtles and 1 caiman on route.

The main research going on is with Butterflies. They have 50 traps set up throughout the forest - 25 hanging close to the ground and 25 up in the canopy. So those 6 days involved carrying heavy buckets of rotting bananas, filling the traps, recording info, lowering and cleaning the traps, checking them and taking any butterflies.
We just weren't able to kill the things, so we left that job to Oscar (Oscar is Fernando's brother and a guy with the knowledge of most of this region of forest including all paths and traps and who also very quickly became a good mate). All this through numerous winding paths and many small trails throughout varying jungle, over streams and through mini swamps.

The walk for this job lasted at least 4 hours and sometimes up to 6 which would bring you into the harsh heat of the afternoon. The paths - at least for me - were completely confusing mixed with the heat and me being knackered usually after halfway. The trap job started really cool though with us finding a big and real heavy tortoise wandering through the forest on the first day.

I only started to understand all the roots after several walks through them and after extracting Oscar's knowledge in the form of a map; and a classic map at that indicating locations of cool places like swamps, a hummingbird nest, a nest of green eggs, streams and known sites of animals etc...
Of the various sites our favourite we named "La Isla" (The Island) because you had to cross a river over fallen trees and, when you got across, the vegetation was suddenly really different - it included a huge Ceibra tree, plenty of mud, low plants and plenty of vines and roots. Difficult to explain but it's just well different to the normal jungle. It's wild image is stronger because it is the farthest place from the Lodge on the current paths. What also made it our favourite were the animals we would often see and always loads of cool footprints; mostly of peccary and some deer. A lot of experiences with animals in dense rainforest is often seeing tracks, hearing them move or call and sometimes smelling their scents. All this is interesting and exciting when you know they're closeby but just don't give you a proper view. Of course the ultimate is to see the animals and we saw plenty, a fair amount of which was quick sitings of them rushing off.

On La Isla, however, we saw great views of the bigger species of the Peccary (White-lipped) and plenty of different species of Monkey.

THE ultimate day for us was a Monday when we were out doing the traps and on route saw a few groups of different monkeys, one of which was pretty feisty and did a good job of intimidating us. We also saw a cool snake (our first here) up close as he was chillin in our path. Later, on La Isla, we were plodding along as usual when all of a sudden Oscar froze and started scampering backwards. An increidle Boa Constrictor was right in our path! A beautiful, shockingly thick and real long (4-5m) snake with fantastic scale patterns which turned red towards the tail. We spent ages admiring it - it just didn't seem real. Right there in our trail, in a mysterious part of the forest surrounded by bending roots and vines.
As we silently observed the Boa Oscar pointed up and the coolest looking Monkey was staring down at us from a relatively low and open branch! It was a Monk Saki species which is not how you imagine a typical monkey - full of shaggy black/grey speckled fur, big wide fluffy tail and an undescribable face. There were a few more about bu the view I got of that particular one was just awesome - watching animals with binoculars adds another dimension.

I saw that species several times after that but never such good views and never so tranquil as they're renowned for fleeing soon after realising they've been spotted.

After the first week of doing the trap work we would spend the mornings doing various jobs including making a bench, clearing and making new paths, making signs, putting them up throughout the paths, making a few bridges, trying to teach some English and helping around the cabins. The making of the bench, bridges and paths involved loads of using a machete, which was great fun to learn and practice - boys and their toys eh...

One proper cool one-off job was when I acted as translator for a couple of days. Fernando (the boss) set off up river when a load of food failed to arrive with a group of tourists and after a few days of using up what was left he had to hitch a lift with a passing canoe of lumbermen.
Whilst he was gone a couple of ductch tourists with their motorist, guide and cook turned up looking for him to act as a translator - the guide didn't speak English and the motorist had been learning (for 2 months!) and was meant to translate. So Oscar suggested I go with them so headed of down river as they were on a camping trip.

I had a cool time learning loads about the plants (including drinking from the water vine) and animals as I was interpreting everything the guide said, had great sitings of animals including various Monkeys, Caiman, cool Frogs and Lizards, Peccary and even a group of 4 Giant Otters right by our canoe on an early morning leisurely trip downstream!

So I learned a hell of a lot about the jungle from everyone - guides, colleagues, local people - and went for sooo many walks (many alone) through the many paths of varying vegetation and scenery.

We thought about it and decided it's fair to say that we'd see at least a group of monkeys during 9 out of every 10 walks and that's not to mention squirrels, lizards (one big one about 1m - yellow striped), frogs, incredible insects, other mammals like Peccary, a shocking variety of spiders plus tarantulas, soooo many birds and the odd fish.

We got into the Naturalist scene as we'd read up on things we'd seen using the books back at the lodge. Most of the frogs I'd find were proper tiny with the exception of a couple - one of which was the very poisonous and huge Smoky Jungle Frog (this pic shows his patterned back).

As well as he walks Clare and I also dabbled in some "artesania". I attempted to carve a local nut (Tagua) into a tortoise, we made several friendship bracelets, did some drawing and painting and I enjoyed taking loads of photos. As well as the low light levels in the forest, plus the fact that most animals run a mile at the sound/sight or smell of you, there was also the fact that even the smaller animals weren't keen to pose for the camera. However, some came out ok, many insects...

We also took the little canoe for a paddle a few times...
Leaving the lodge was classic too. A proper case of "sit back and enjoy the show".
During the canoe ride upstream plenty of interesting birds (colourful parrots, cool tucans, hawks etc) either flew by in front of us or were perched on an open branch.

Plus we visited a community of the local tribespeople - the Huaorani. They keep a mad range of pets (anything you might find in the forest really) and I saw the hands of a Woolley Monkey which was being smoked on a fire. Their hunting method is impressive - the use a long and damn heavy blowpipe. The pipe, darts and poison are made by them - the poison is gathered from various vines, frogs and other plants. It often just immobilizes the animal (e.g. monkey) so it falls to the ground when the muscles are paralyzed.

So that was my month in the amazon. Of course there were plenty of other mini tales but you've got the idea...

Note: All the photos here will not be included in the Snapfish set. Enjoy.

Forgot to add...

2006-11-27T19:03:00.000-03:00

Missed out the 4 ticks I had in the jungle and I suppose I should mention getting completely lost once after following a troop of cool monkeys...

Jungle Life - The Bad Side

2006-11-26T14:32:00.000-03:00

What I had which I would have been happy without over the past month in the jungle:

3 Bee Stings
Several (6-12) Wasp Stings
3 Maggots
2 Burning Ant Stings
2 Thorns in Fingers

...and finally lots and lots of Butterfly and Bee saliva and pee over most clothes.

Bee Stings - 2 in bed after a poor effort (on Clare's behalf) of clearing out the mozzy net one night.
Wasp Stings - when 'cleaning' some paths I cut down a branch, which I soon realised had a wasp's nest on it, and instantly saw a small cloud of insects flying towards me and next felt numerous stings on my face and hands. I then let out a classic yelp and ran. The next time I cut down a wasp's nest by accident I was much much quicker to run and did not get stung.
Maggots - horse-flies follow mammals, including me, around and plant an egg or larva under your skin. This gradually grows and has small spines on its skin so stings whenever it turns, especially if you aggrevate it. Ba$tards! I had 3. To get it out you have to stop it breathing by covering its tiny breathing hole with glue or something. Later it dies and you have to squeeze the tiny thing out and it's fairly deep under. The things look as grim as they sound but cause more aggro than you'd expect for something so tiny...
Burning Ant Stings - along with the numerous small bites and stings that weren't a problem, I got stung by an infamous tiny little ant known for its sting that keeps burning for about 3 hours.
The thorns were nothing really - especially compared to Fernando's (boss/friend) who had a couple go proper deep into the palm of his hand.

Don't worry though, I absolutely loved the month out there and did and learned loads. The good side of the jungle will follow but not until I get a fair few photos up so maybe a week or two.

Update from: The Equator

2006-10-16T21:07:00.000-03:00

Ecuador's a real varied country from what I can tell and I've only seen a corner of it so far!

Quito's cool and I'm enjoying doing some voluntary work in a centre where kids (5-16 years old) come outside of school hours. Don't worry though, I'm not working hard! We tend to play basketball, football, dance, cook, I help with their homework - mainly their English - and other random things like today I taught two girls to play a bit of guitar.

Just to emphasize that I'm not working toooo hard I'll tell you that after the first week I decided to take a week off and travelled around the north east of the country for 9 days which included some stunning countrysides of cloud forest where I saw loads of waterfalls, hummingbirds, various other brightly coloured birds and heard the howling of a troop of Howler Monkeys echo through a valley. I also briefly swam in a lovely, wild, caiman infested lake.

After that sort of scenery it was off towards the coast where I sampled some truly fantastic food (the general South American food isn't great but this was damn good) including lovely shrimp and prawns and fish dishes (one in particular in a fresh coconut sauce). Spent a good few days in the mangrove region in a tiny community, chilling a lot on a hammock watching the fishing boats pass, crazy kids play and supping on beers.

The mangroves were all new to me and real interesting but not the most beautiful of areas since there's plenty of mud and insects but impressive to see.

One of the biggest shocks was that the community had a club! Furthermore, it was fooookin awesome! Definitely in my top 5 favourite clubs in the world. A very mad night was had for a local's birthday.

That's about it right now. If all goes to plan we're both off to the Amazon Jungle in two weeks for 1 month! (For the attentive of you, the original plan whereby I should already be in the jungle fell through so shuffled things round).

Satelite Views of Top Places..so far

2006-10-05T19:55:00.000-04:00

We've past the half way point in our trip now so looking back, these images show views of some of my favourite places over the last 6 months:

Lakes Lago Posadas and Purreydon in Patagonia, Argentina:

Ollantaytambo, a village in the Sacred Valley near Cusco, Peru:

Bahia Negra - the village up the river Paraguay - where I was stuck for a week:

Impressive Inca terracing in a valley near Ollantaytambo:

The glacier Perito Moreno in Patagonia, Argentina:

The unbelievably rainy village of Petrohue set on a lake near a volcano:

The pics are taken from Google Earth which patches together satelite images from all over the globe to varying degrees of detail.

A bolivian street scene

2006-09-26T16:58:00.000-04:00

The photos are back. In fact, this is 1 of only a few we have in digital form from Bolivia.

A bolivian street scene:

A peruvian pair of hands and hat:

Well, that's your lot for now. I've only had the camera 2 days!

The Camera Saga

2006-09-24T22:15:00.000-04:00

I'm guessing you know that my camera was stolen a few months back. Well, this is the ever so exciting tale of it's replacement...

I decided that I liked the stolen camera so much that I wanted the same one. This particular camera is not available in South America, the brand (Ricoh) isn't sold here at all. When I was in Paraguay (towards the end of the world cup) I ordered a new one with all the extras to my parents' address. My lovely helpful Mum and Dad then packed it all up and sent it to the La Paz (capital of Bolivia) main post office.

Me and Clare were ambling our way across Bolivia planning to arrive in La Paz about 2 weeks after the camera was due to arrive. When we got there, on schedule, the camera hadn't arrived. So after a few days in La Paz we went off to Lake Titicaca and spent about 4 or 5 fantastic days there. I then popped back to La Paz (about 4-5 hours journey inc. a boat crossing) to find that the Bolivia National Post Service had been on strike for the past 4 days. Looking at all the options and not trusting Bolivian organisation - the strike was officially on its final day - I decided best that we go off and travel round Peru. Of course knowing that at some point I'd have to trek back.

Soon after the delivery company in England let us know that the package had only just left the UK due to the terrorist problems. They did however say they guaranteed 26 days which meant it would arrive by 24th September...still reading? No, didn't think so...

Well, I've just done more than half the trek back. I left northern Peru Thursday night and, after several different buses and types of taxis taking me across much of the length of Peru, I got to the post office at 5:10pm yesterday (Saturday). So 43 hours journey in all, not bad...and...Hurrraaaaay, the camera was there!

So a big night out last night and a pre-midday start today and I'm back in Peru but the connections haven't been as ideal as before so I'm in a town on Lake Titicaca and hope to get back to the beach where Clare is taking it ever so easy by Wed night. Once I've trekked back up most of Peru, we then rush off up the entire length of Ecuador to start the volunteer projects...I knew there had to be a mild down-side to travelling at some point!

So, expect pictures again very soon!!

La Huaca de la Luna

2006-09-22T20:20:00.000-04:00

Viajando durante los ultimos 6 meses he conocido bastantes mochileros de los paises latinamericanos y por eso decidi que, de vez en cuando, voy a escribir en castellano - para se puede buscar informacion y, quizas, encontrar lo que se busca aca en este Blog.

Para empezar tengo que recomendar la "Huaca del la Luna" cerca de Trujillo en el norte de Peru. Todavia estan descubriendo cosas nuevas y, como un turista, se puede recorrer por el sitio y ver los muros impresionantes de la pyramide pero los mas increibles son las grandes pinturas - que existen como pescadores, aranas, guerreros y disenos de dioses distintos. Tambien, enfrente esta la otra mucha mas grande Huaca (del Sol), pero actualmente esa es para mirar no mas. El guia fue bien informativo y ademas el ingreso economico. Muy bien recomendable - descubrela!

Lo siento mucho que los accentos (que incluye la tilda) sobre las letras no funccionaron.

Classic Bent South American Filth

2006-09-22T19:45:00.000-04:00

As well as visiting some of the coolest sites I've ever seen recently, we also went out the other friday night as most other nights - restaurant, local licors - and ended up in a cool club with a circular balcony looking over the dancefloor. Chatted with a few randoms (you always get approached by curious locals in the more remote towns with few gringos) including a big group of coppers out on a bender for their captain's birthday! They were sound enough even though whilst drinking with them one was quite keen to offer us any type of ancient artefact you could think of. His pride and joy was a pure gold necklace of Inca origin that he "got" (assume confiscated) off a grave robber, which work all over the country especially in the areas we've been recently.

We didn't show too much interest and managed to move onto the next subject everytime - not wanting a free long-term tour of a south american prison - but classic that they probably have hordes of this stuff tucked away earning them a decent 2nd wage.

As I said, these filth were actually sound and real friendly and the other 7 or so guys were just having a laugh and not on a sales pitch. Twas a good night but agony early the next morning when we had a 3 1/2 hour drive up winding mountain rough dirt track roads...

Islas Ballestas

2006-09-14T22:46:00.000-04:00

Here's a good overview of the islands with Penguins we went to last week...(click!)

Life's great

2006-09-08T18:02:00.000-04:00

All's good over here. Had a great time seeing Inca and pre-inca ruins including the awesome Machu Picchu last week. Really impressive countryside too all around the region. Cusco, the main base city for most of the big sites, is so unbelievably touristy. I expected a lot but it's pretty ridiculous. The thing is that the city is actually stunning, full of quality buildings and cool streets along the lines of Bath or York. Just that touts come up to you all the time selling something or other. Out in the country though it was great - villages just as historical and real friendly.

We flew over the Nazca lines too the other day! Really fascinating figures of animals and shapes. The whole terrain is covered with lines as there's virtually no rain or anything to wash them away so you're looking at all these car tracks then suddenly you see a condor figure or a monkey with a spiral tail! Loved it. The plane was a 4 seater - I was damn close to chucking up at points. The other girl in the front seat spewed a fair amount but we managed to keep it all down...

So, as I said, all's good. Off to see some Penguins tomorrow unless they're b*ggered off! Quite a few times in this trip so far we planned to see penguins only to miss them or have something come up and stop us...

A Week in The Lost World

2006-08-27T09:35:00.001-04:00

The extreme laid-back attitude continued from Paraguay up into north-east Bolivia with the most frequent answers to questions being "tranquilo" (easy/no worries), "puede ser" (maybe) and "vamos a ver" (let's wait and see). In the park, at least at times, it was pretty handy that we had both got used to all this over the past month or so because things like the 4x4 pickup breaking down, push starting, getting up in the morning to see a large part of the engine in the passenger seat and the general open itinerary were all part and parcel of the week in the national park.

We had a really quality week involving some excellent treks such as the one on the first day in the park, where we walked through jungle where we saw our first monkey and trekked up to the Meseta, a table top style ledge with an awesome view and they say was the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Lost World'. On my birthday we woke up in the forest where we had camped and walked 40 mins or so across Pampas to a 'piscina' which turned out to be a gorgeous big rock pool with stream running into it. Was great to wash off the sweat (sooo much sweat), have a swim, do some diving from the top rocks and saw our first, very small, snake in the stream. On the way back to the camp we saw a Tapir strolling through the Pampas and soon after I heard a thunder style stampede noise which we soon realised was another Tapir running and getting closer to us. The two guys (locals) at the back of the group of 6 looked well worried and started running for it - the Tapir were massive! So got an excellent view of him as he went for the cover of the forest.

Throughout the whole week we saw loads of cool birds such as hawks, vultures, parrots, various types of jungle turkeys, tucans and even a couple of owls. During some of the off road drives and other hikes through jungle and pampas we saw two separate huge groups of Peccary (the guides said they typically go around in groups of 150 - 500!), the biggest lizard I've ever seen, a few Agouti (pic below)...

one rare Tayra (the biggest stoat species in South America), some foxes and even a Puma!

We camped in different places and on the second to last day we drove down to a private small estancia. Getting there we made some use of the chainsaw as well as the routine cutting and hacking with machetes and an axe. That night me, Clare and our guide went up the river in a dugout canoe. Edgar, our guide, did all the work and although there was pretty much no current, I managed to mess it up after a minute of taking over. Never try rowing from the middle, always the back or even the front. The trip was absolutely fantastic. We spent about 2 hours or so, most of the time gliding upstream just before sunset. Real tranquil and we saw plenty more birds (different kingfishers, storks...), loads of fish jumping out of the water around us, a paranha that Edgar caught and put back, some scary huge caiman, capybara and a troop of very cute and very curious monkeys in the trees on the river bank. They spent plenty of time assessing what we were so was ideal to sit back and watch the show.

The insects were mad, as expected. Mini bees that dive bomb for your eye-balls, various wasps and hornets, more ticks, a variety of ants, so many butterflies and standard mozzies. Most of these weren't too bad after you got used to having every part of your showing skin covered with them licking and sometimes chewing the salt from your sweat.

Quite a hard week, tiring, inspiring, eye-opening but with chilled times such as supping on Cairpirinhas (local rum, wild lemons from the jungle and sugar) on my birthday, eating grapefruits and tamarindos plucked from the trees and munching on some cool fodder including piranhas.

Checking for Ticks!

2006-08-02T21:03:00.000-04:00

After the Capyguara adventure which involved some trekking through reeds and scrub, the girls (Clare and Jenny) noticed some ticks on their clothes. Well, today we noticed a few half buried into our skin. Nice. They all seem to be gone now but it was grim stuff...

So long as all goes to plan we'll be off at sunrise to the National Park Noel Kempf Mercado for a week...fingers crossed.

All in the same boat!

2006-07-31T19:18:00.000-04:00

What a cool past month it's been. I left Buenos Aires for Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay and had a real good time around the capital, some of the Chaco where the Mennonite colonies live and then took an awesome 3 day boat ride up the river pretty much up to the Brasil/Bolivia border.

There, I got stuck but luckily I wasn't alone. After seeing virtually not a single gringo in the country, I met 10 on the boat! A great mix of Irish, English, French and a Spanish guy (presidente/rey/Juan the man). We all got stuck in a small village and soon became local celebraties...memories of Bahia Negra! We had a good laugh amongst trying to secure a boat to take us further up the river. At one point we finally made a deal, packed the stuff on the boat, climbed aboard and were off. Three of us layed back on the roof looking at the vivid milky way until we stopped 1km up stream. A few complications, the main one being that we were sinking, meant that we had to abandon ship. We were wondering why everyone below was shreeking and shouting over the noise of the engine!

Anyway, a lot happened including some real fun days including a trek with Travis, our local mate/guide, and his horses, some failed fishing attempts, some boat rides including one where Manon and me went 'hunting' with some locals, lots of beer, footy with the local kids (Leandro was legendary and Arturo was quality) and meeting cool people including the local navy military.

Since then we passed into Brasil for a bit and then onto Bolivia where I met up with Clare last week. We just walked out to a lake 6km out of the village where we are to catch the sunset and also saw loads of Capyguara (like mini furry hippos!) and loads of birds.

So all's good and so far Bolivia seems great!

We was robbed!

2006-06-26T12:53:00.000-04:00

Well, I was robbed. England managed to fight and struggle and, in the end, whimper their way past Ecuador.

Meanwhile, Friday night my small rucksack was knicked from under my table in quite a posh cafe where I was eating and waiting to move on to another city in Argentina.

A couple of weeks ago Clare and I moved off in separate directions, her North to Bolivia, me back South through part of Chile and into Argentina again. She starts her month volunteer work tomorrow having just done a week's Spanish course.

I spent some time climbing a mountain, too much time in 2 coastal resort type towns, got temporarily hooked on a gambling pinball type game, saw lots of hummingbirds and forests of wild Chilean palm trees....then in Argy I checked out a nice and leafy Mendoza and experienced the first proper festivities after their 6-0 win. I then b*ggered off to more remote areas again, saw some cool Indigenous rock carvings from around 500AD and Bovedas dated at around 1500AD, which were cool to photo domed buildings but didn't quite grasp what they really did.

Then spent about 5 days in the mountains looking for snow. I found snow - quite a lot of it - but not on the Argentinian resort. So after a few days at "Puente del Inca", which is a natural stone bridge with the coolest colours and patterns created by thermal springs and chemicals such as sulphur that have ran down the cliff faces, I crossed back to Chile to spend 2 days snowboarding! Portillo was a cool resort - all in jobby - so used the outdoor thermal pool set by the lake, played some B ball in the gym, some table footy, table tennis, pool and a good and tiring 5-a-side footy match with a mix of Brazilians, Chileans, Argentinians and even a Yank. Also had a quality night out with Alejandro (room-mate), the nut-case Albarita and all her fellow workers from the resort in a proper cool pub across the road.

As for the boarding, the snow was pretty good with some rough hard areas and some lush slightly sticky powder. The 2nd day I went for it properly trying off piste with Alejandro, really hard runs and some jumps - some of which I even landed. However, I also had two proper crashes resulting in aches and whiplash that is just going now about 3 days after.

So, most of what I told you had cool pictures to go with it but the camera along with my passport was stolen. So sorry! Other stuff knicked weren't too important but will take effort to replace but hey...

Off to Buenos Aires again now to get a new passport!

The Lake District

2006-05-26T22:20:00.000-04:00

So, what have we been up to in 'La region de los lagos'?

Well, we've been for some good walks through a variety of forests...

...sat in some trees...

...visited these great rapids
(Los Saltos)...

...kept an eye out for lots of wildlife...

...the sea lions live in the river of a city (Valdivia) and eat scraps from the fish market. They are grumpy, loud, smelly and pretty scary up close...

...seen a load of cool birds (here's one of the kingfishers we saw).

We leave this region tomorrow (27th) and have loved the countryside.

Catch of the day!

2006-05-25T20:06:00.000-04:00

The cool spiner thing pays dividends!! My investment of maybe 3 quid for a blue bait thing (like a spinner but not metal) and fishing line has helped me to my first catch along with providing some excuses to idle away good time by nice rivers and lakes. After the excitment of the first proper 'bite' last week I caught a nice brown trout from a boat in one of my favourite places so far. A tranquil, beautiful setting with a village of 12 houses on the river bank where it seems to rain almost constantly.

idle
adj. idler, idlest
v. intr.
1 a. Pass time without working or while avoiding work.
1 b. Avoiding work or employment; lazy: shiftless, idle youth. (See Synonyms at lazy).
2 a. To move lazily and without purpose.

Chiloe

2006-05-21T15:21:00.000-04:00

The island of Chiloe was good fun. Real nice people, great seafood, lots of coast and plenty of rain but also sun....hence we saw loads of rainbows whilst there! There are also a load of legends and mythical creatures which were fun to learn about. Trauco is a bit of a Geezer. Good summary about him on wikipedia here.

We wanted a better view of the houses on stilts (Palafitos) and so I chatted to some guys who were unloading their boat and managed to borrow it (well, he wanted a couple of quid) for a bit. So I rowed us up the channel and got up close to the houses which was cool.

By the way, to everyone in England enjoying the beginning of summer, it's damn cold over here!

Links Added...

2006-05-21T10:16:00.000-04:00

We met Michelle, a kiwi traveller, on Chiloe so just added a link to her blog on the right. Weird to see our names appear in another blog (16th & 17th May).

Also linked Paula's Spanish lessons she does in Buenos Aires. We only had 1 day in the end but was cool to be given tasks and split up in such a crazy place.

Fodder: Salmon, seafood and those Alfajores!

2006-05-19T17:57:00.001-04:00

Talking food. Our diet for the past 2-3 weeks or so has been made up of a fair bit of fish. It started of in south southern Chile, where we went through maybe 4 great Salmon dishes and also a quality HUGE smoked salmon which gave us a couple of great dinners and a few tasty lunches.

Since working our way further north (including an epic period - the tale can wait - of about 4 days hitching through some purely stunning scenery of rivers, valleys, lakes, mountains and temperate rain forest) we started to try more seafood including a great sea bass.

Most of this has been very recently on the island of Chiloe where they have local dishes similar to soups, stews and paella full of mussels, clams, different fish, octopus, oysters and plenty of things we didn't recognise and also couldn't work out after asking. Pretty much all of it has been really quality. The only worry was the other day when my swordfish, which was amazingly thick, had an uncooked patch in the middle. There's only one thing worse than over cooked fish...uncooked fish. Although how does Sushi work?? Anyway, after I'd eaten a lot of it, it was re-cooked although I still left a tiny patch from the middle and so, technically, didn't polish off the plate which is very very unlike me.

Finally, a word on Alfajores. These are sweet things made in Argentina and consist of two layers sandwiched together with a filling of Dulce de Leche and usually finished off with coconut shavings. The 2 layers are usually like shortbread but vary from soft donut type stuff, to more cakey to simply hard bread layers.

The chileans sell them too but try as they may, they rarely make them as well. You also get some dodgy packaged ones but the only great ones are fresh from the bakery. This has been the basis of our snacking diet for ages now and they deserve a mention. Bananas (often not great quality) and chocolate milk have played a lesser role than expected.

By the way, Dulce de Leche is a thick, very sweet caramel type thing of marmite texture but somewhere between chocolate paste and treacle in flavour (that's round here anyway; the rest of South America have their own versions).

P.S. Had my first attempt at fishing with my newly purchased cool spinner thing in a river the other day and, although nothing caught, had a dramatic 'bite' when a fish followed the bate towards the surface but missed it when lunging and jumped out of the water!

Note: for only the 2nd time so far, I borrowed these pics on this entry.

Update from: Patagonia

2006-04-30T16:18:00.000-04:00

We've covered a hell of a lot of ground now having passed back up through Argentinian Patagonia and just crossed into Chile the other day.

This picture says a few things about Patagonia...

Long straight roads, vastness and broken windscreens! I only noticed one which wasn't broken so far. Most are so knackered up it's mad. This one is typical and is from the top deck of a bus we took.

What the pic doesn't say is how incredibly big and deep blue the skies here have been.

Oh yeah, a new hitch-hiking experience. We had some more success last week hitchin from Perito Moreno to the nearest town 60km away. On the way there Clare got the comfort and warmth of a front seat and I got the open bit of a big pick up. Twas cool to have 360 degrees views. I loved it but was lucky I had my hardcore snowboard jacket and snowboard gloves on me as the Patagonian wind was icy as!

Nice town too - Los Antiguos - on a river and huge lake.

On the way back a cool well chilled dude gave us a lift in his car, chatting about clubbing in England and stuff.

Since then we left the comfort of our own pad and are in fantastic surroundings in Chile. This current town - Coyhaique - has mountainess views on all sides which are cool as they all have patches of forest of different autumnal colours.

A yellow pad, stunning colours and ancient artwork.

2006-04-28T18:21:00.000-04:00

I'm in Perito Moreno (the town rather than the glacier) at the moment and have just had a great week.

First of all, we managed to blag the coolest pad to stay. It's a cabin (kind of flat/apartment) all to ourselves! With 3 double bedrooms and a spare single, bathroom, big hallway room, a cool kitchen with 2 tables and even our own garden! You can't appreciate your own time and space until you've been staying in other people's for 6 weeks. And all of this at a rate cheaper if not the same as hostels we've been staying at. Sweeeeet.

From here we made a 2 day trip with a local guide (Daniel - a big, friendly bloke with a big beard and a gaucho hat). We drove for ages in his huge pick-up (with loads of features including a snorkel for the engine so it can keep going when submerged), maybe 3-4 hours, to a lake I read about before Xmas - Lago Posadas. It was really cool as the landscpae is full of loads of different colours, deep reds, sandy yellows, turquoise everywhere you look.

Two lakes are divided by a narrow bit of land (an isthmus I´m told) but the lakes are both quite different colours themselves. We spent time fascinated by the different stones and pebbles, setting up camp on the isthmus, walking, a little bit of fishing (spinning) and, of course, making a fire. Later we cooked up a feast on the fire including Daniel's freshly caught trout! Mmmmmmmmm.

During the evening it was real peaceful being 30km from the nearest village - population 290.

The next day, after our routine transport problems that seem to happen every Weds (the motorbike at the horse trek and the miserable hitch hiking) of the pick-up's battery being dead and not being able to push start it due to thick mud from the all night rain (luck came from a jump start later), we made our way towards the cave of the hands. The journey away from the lake was classic pushing the pick-up to the limit; slipping and skidding through the thick mud and deep puddles.

A few hours later we were passing through the awesome valley and started seeing a lot of guanacos (similar ish to llamas) and ostriches (local name choique). The caves are mostly overhanging cliffs but also one big cave that were used by idigenous indians (Telheulche) who painted the images using the different earth colours mixed with water and fat from guanacos. It was fantastic to see them all, mostly pairs of hands but also maps of guanaco trails, an iguana, guanaco figures, hunting scenes, even an ostrich hoof print and dots made by dipping animal droppings in the paint and throwing them up at the overhangs! The oldest paintings are dated at 9,300 years old.

We also walked along the river in the canyon basin and saw cool tucu tucus (rodents that look like big gerbils - kind of), a condor and an eagle.

A cool 2 day venture getting us back to our pad late the 2nd day.

Ushuaia, Tierra Del Fuego

2006-04-18T18:02:00.000-04:00

We spent some time at Ushuaia on (the island) Tierra del Fuego - have a look at a map, it's mad when you look at how south it is. Often referred to as the End of the World it's the last stop before Antartica.

We had a good time here. The town is reasonably touristy, nice shops and good atmosphere. It's on a slope starting from the bay so you get good little views around town with the mountains rising up to the north.

We did 2 separate day treks; the first up one of the mountains with the whole scenery plastered with deep snow. So some great, tranquil sights and landscape...but...some damn hard, icy, wet terrain. The view from the top was worth it and the sliding down slopes and the immense snowball fights on the way down were great fun. Although the last half hour was a bit of a race for a heated room to prevent frostbite.

The second trek took us through some of my favourite surroudings with a few different forests and a general path following a river up another mountain, so we had some cool rope bridges to cross. One well scary, high up but luckily quite short. All this led to a small glacier at the top that was kind of stuck in the highest cliffs.

After the stay here we had our first taste of hitch hiking in South America...

We did well to get 3 separate lifts, the first a quick one to the police check point on the edge of town, 2nd to nowhere - just nothing there - the third was the life saver. It was probably the most miserable day so far weather-wise - drizzly, cold and WINDY. The 3rd car was 2 Spanish guys who had rented it for the day, they were cool and took us to the next town. From there we cornered a minibus cab thing and paid a bit to get to the next town where, at least, there was accommodation. Rio Grande.

A Horse Trek - Gaucho Style

2006-04-13T15:05:00.000-04:00

This horse trek was great fun! We got picked up by Luciano early and drove out to an Estancia (farm estate) way out towards a lake (Lago Roca). A slow start; after finding out there were no horses in the stable, failing to get the motorbike started after push starts down a hill, wondering about the Estancia getting headbutted by a resident sheep and exploring with the local pair of cool dogs, Luciano returned with a small horse from a few fields away. He saddled him up and then rode off again with the dogs and returned with a herd of horses!

So, we eventually had a horse each, Remanco (calm) for me, Caballito (little horse) for Clare and Montana for Luciano. We then spent the rest of the day trekking up hills (stopping occasionally for another swig of Cognac!) and around a lake and saw a couple of cool foxes, flamingos, loads of birds of prey and a couple of huge hares.

We also saw fantastic cave paintings from the indigenous indians who used to live in the area.

A great day out finished off with a BBQ, Argentinian style, of the best steak we have had so far and plenty of wine.

Iceburg, dead ahead!

2006-04-12T14:42:00.000-04:00

Perito Moreno is an awesome Glacier and one of the most active in the world. It advances at a rate of 2m per day! The first echoing crack was a shock and we heard plenty more throughout the day and saw chunks break off.

I took loads of photos but can't seem to get them onto the blog (managed this one!)but they'll have their own album on Snapfish soon(ish).

A quick overview (by someone else) of the glacier with photos can be read here...

Trekking in the Andes

2006-04-08T13:22:00.000-04:00

A report by Clare 'Clarita' North....

Before we left England I photocopied some information on a trek near
Bariloche from a guidebook. It sounded like it could be hard in places but
fun, and so we decided to give it a go the other day. We spoke to the old
guy at the hostel who said it was very beautiful but kept saying 'ojo, el
viento', whilst pointing to his eye- literally meaning eye, the wind, or
watch out for the wind!

He let us leave our backpacks at the hostel and we headed off with lighter
packs and sleeping bags on the bus to Cerro Catedral. This place is normally
a ski resort but was completley dead. The lift we wanted to take was under
repair but luckily another was going so we were able to get up into the
mountain.

The trek takes you to 'refugios' or mountain huts and the book described
some 'minor hand climbing' on the 1st section. In reality we basically spent
4 hours climbing over massive boulders and rocks with a sheer drop to one
side. It was terrifying and knackering! There was then an incredibly steep
climb down to an amazing lake and just when i thought it must be nearly over
another scramble down a mountain side to a bigger lake where the refugio
sat at the far end.

It has to be said that the scenery was incredible but I couldn't really
believe that they let people with no experience climb this - it was so hard!
The refugio was very basic with bunk beds and a wood stove, no electricity
and I wont even mention the toilets(!) but the quiet and solitude of the
place was immense. We sat out for a bit in the freezing cold that night to
see the stars - so clear and bright, you could see the whole milky way. My
thermal vest has proved itself to be a worthy addition to my backpack!

The next morning was a dilema whether to go on to the next refugio (7 hours)
or duck out along an easy path home. My muscles were aching like mad, but I
knew deep down Dave really wanted to go on so we went for it. The first part
involved climbing back up past the 2 lakes which was relatively easy. The
next part however was virtually impossible. A steep steep descent over loose
rocks and scree, falling down into a mountain valley with the wind howling
in our faces. In the end Dave gripped my hand really tight and we literally
surfed down the mountain side. I'm sure it was highly dangerous- I fell over
a few times and have the bruises on my bum to prove it!

The next part was through a beautiful wooded valley with amazing autumn
colours and actually flat walking for a while (more how I'd envisiged a trek
to be!) However it was soon another huge climb and equally trecherous
descent over the next mountain. By now my whole body was completley
exhausted but the refugio was in sight down by another stunning mountain
lake.

We eventually made it down to the hut which was actually pretty nice. We
treated ourselves to a meal which was great, cooked up by the hut caretaker
on a wood stove and served by candlelight. Sat with a cool Isreali couple.

The next day we decided we couldn't do any more of the hike as we were aching
so much, so we took the gentler route back to the road. It was still 6-7 hours
walking, but through a valley with beautiful forest and a winding river. At
luchtime we met the couple from the night before who invited us to share
their lunch. They cooked up soup and mashed potatoe on a camping stove - it
was great and a lot nicer than the dry crackers and biscuits we would have
otherwise had!

We walked the rest of the way back with them and eventually caught a bus
back to our hostel in Bariloche. The hostel owner gave us the funniest look
when we arrived - we were sweaty, smelly, sunburnt, bruised but happy! I cant
actually believe I managed to do it, although it will be a few days till I
can walk normally without pain in my quads again!

A Stick

2006-04-07T15:15:00.000-04:00

Plucked from the shallows of Lake Tonchek in the shadow of Cerro Catedral, this stick proved a great companion and aide during the 3 day trek.

(San Carlos de) Bariloche

2006-04-04T14:53:00.000-04:00

We arrived in Bariloche Saturday 1st April after a 20 hour bus ride. It is a nice town on one of the 7 major lakes in this area. Here is the view from our hostel balcony:
On the 2nd day we went out into the mountains a bit to have a look around and ended up trekking for 5 hours through a peaceful nature park...

We have done loads since this and will update when I can.

A few days beside the seaside....Mar Del Plata

2006-03-31T11:02:00.000-04:00

From Buenos Aires we travelled south to the coast. Mar Del Plata is your typical seaside resort style town. Its not the prettiest but was good fun and a nice break from the huge city of BA.

Just by the beach were a load of pensioners playing this disc game. Unfortunately members only...

The well travelled cows

2006-03-28T10:22:00.000-04:00

It feels like these cows have followed me around the world, even though I have only seen them in two cities now...

Saying that, this lot were all different to those in Bratislava.

Celebrity Cemetry

2006-03-27T09:44:00.000-04:00

We spent Saturday night out and about in BA including a visit to a cemetry for families of high social status or people who are just plain rich. It is a walled of area with loads of different tombs along the streets. Most are old, grand and detailed but there are a few modern, shiny marble ones.

Cool fact: the tomb space costs more per square meter than in the nearby expensive area of town Palermo!

This is a photo taken from within one of the tombs:

Saturday night we went to see a superb Tango show in San Telmo. It was in a cool basement room with walls of just showing brick, completely different to the grand, fancy restaurant and hotel upstairs.

The band consisted of a huge double bass, an accordian and piano. The show was a mix of dancing, drumming and acting based around a basic story full of passion driven by lust, jealousy and typical Argentian front.

The Big One - Boca Vs River

2006-03-26T22:29:00.000-04:00

Boca Juniors Vs River Plate Sunday 26th March 2006.

Well, this match turned out to better than I could have imagined. The whole spectacle was just about unbelievable.

I'll start with the only slight downer which was the price. There were no tickets available except to members, so I ended up going through a kind of local tour operator called 'The Godfather' and soon found out why they chose that name!

They put on a cool bus with a driver who was continuously beeping the horn to random tunes on the way down to the cancha (stadium). I assumed he was into the footy after the game he asked us who was playing!

On the way I had chatted to the organiser dude (I can't remember his name so I'll call him Che - everyone calls everyone Che here, it's like us saying 'Hey') who turned out to be a River fan and kindly let me know that we were in the River supporters away end! The German bunch of guys I the group only found out this after we stepped out of the bus and one of them went to put his new Boca cap on! Che looked like he had sh!t himself and jumped at the guy to get him to hide it down his pants!

Oh, and here comes a truth many of you won't like; I am (now) a River supporter.

The Boca neighbourhood looked like a war zone, with loads of streets cordoned off making only one zigzagging route to the cancha. Each barrier had a row of policemen and every so often we had to go through a security check where a line of police in a different uniform padded us down. There were seven of these checks in total and the German guy lost his hat at the second! Che was sweating and looking terrified leading a group of gringos through Boca. Around one corner we were confronted with a tank with two water cannon turrets on top. At the penultimate corner a row of proper hardcore riot police were waiting; but at least Che managed to crack one joke by saying 'I'll give you 500 pesos if you go up to that lot and tell them their mothers are all putas!'.

And I can confirm that the Argentinian police have bigger truncheons than the English. Sorry Steve.

When we got into the stadium at about 1:20 a warm up match was playing between the reserve teams of both clubs. Che said that the best views are towards the top so I left then group and nudged my way as far up as I could. The reserves were pretty good and Boca ended up winning 4-2. The River fans constantly came out with new songs and were almost as vocal and passionate during the warm up alone as any fans I've seen and heard.

The stand was pretty full already and as I did't want to lose my place I ended up standing in pretty much exactly the same spot for almost 5 hours - the stand was terraced - and kick off was not until 4:10pm! It was a hot day and the sun was beating down since there was no shade in the away end. I survived on 1 ice lolly but also, luckily, because of clouds that passed over every now and then.

Quick description of the cancha then the main event. I was on the top (3rd) tier in an all open stadium behind the goal at the opposite end to the crazy Boca stand. The stand was really steep and there were hardly any bars at all so when the crowd moved, you just moved with it.

'El clasico' is what they call this match. Before kick off the whole pitch was swarming with people; photographers, who were bunched over one area to the side (reading the paper the next day it turned they were taking pics of Maradona who is the Boca director of football), officials, dancers, I don't know what most were doing.

The River players came out to warm and were running among all these people. When warming up the keeper with shots, the full back had to dodge around a photographer who was sat on a stool just outside the box. It was all pretty hectic. During this time the Boca fans had been singing one song, led by their full band, constantly for about half hour!

It all really hit me when the Boca players came out. Suddenly you couldn't see the opposite end for bog rolls floating through the air from the top stand, blue and yellow confetti coming from all over and manic noise from the fans! I couldn't believe how long all this went on for either! When some cleaners had finished clearing the bog roll of the pitch (which took a while as every time they finished another would rain down into the goal mouth) and when the guys had shifted the confetti with leave blower machines, I looked around and every single seat was filled.

Just before kick off a gigantic banner rolled down out of nowhere over 2/3 of the middle Boca stand and swayed from the fans pulling it about. Then another appeared with some text about River. That was really cool to see.

The game finally got going and was absolutely great to watch. The Argentinian matches tend to be really open, partly due to the skill of the players, any of whom can take it past a player, but also due to a lack of defensive organisation.

It had everything, a good goal before half time for River, an equaliser on 89 minutes for Boca via a penalty that came from a silky solo run, 3 red cards - 2 for Boca which were disgusting desperate challenges when the attacker was 1 on 1 with the keeper and then a defender and 1 for River which didn't look like a foul at all. I know that sounds biased but even the Boca based newspaper agreed the next day. Oh, and both goals were at my end - sweet!

The best moment for me was when River scored. The crowd went nuts. The passion was more extreme than I realised. I ended up drifting with the crowd about 5 metres forward and then to the side and finished pretty much where I started.

The reaction of the crowd after the Boca goal was incredible, every single person bouncing up and down.

I learned a few more Spanish words that day but I think most wouldn't be repeatable anywhere but a football match. I honestly think I heard the words puta / puto (b!tch or wh0re) several hundred times at least.

The whole thing was fantastic. They are unbelievably passionate about football and the fans have complete and utter hatred for each other. I can honestly believe that many would kill for their club! I kept my mouth shut a lot and either sang the 2 songs I thought I understood or mimed others - I survived it.

"Vamo Riiiiver Plate!"

Although all photos have, so far, been taken by me; I was advised not to take my camera (or anything of value!) to this match and so the pictures in this entry have been randomly borrowed and are not necessarily from this particular game.

Buenos Aires

2006-03-24T18:50:00.000-04:00

Simply put - this city is nuts!

It's dusty, well noisy, really busy in traffic and people, vibrant and fantastic!

We spent the first 3 nights staying at a hostel in San Telmo, which is the old side of town and is associated with being the Tango quarter. The streets are all old looking, cool antique / junk shops, mini art galleries, local cafes, restobars...you get the gist. It's a cool place to walk about, go for dinner (no earlier than 11pm though!) or check out some bars. I really like the area but our hostel is also a restobar downstairs and is unbelievably noisy. The rooms have shutter style high doors, really high ceilings and feature almost nothing more than two beds pushed together and a sink. There are areas where you can see directly down to the bar from the landing with only some netting between you and the people eating, drinking and talking (the locals' version of drunken talking here is pretty much as loud as I can shout). It was fine for midweek as we went out until fairly late anyway but we were warned not to expect to sleep before 7 or 8 am during the weekend and last night (Thurs) was a good taster of that (it quietened down about 6ish).

So, we've moved on to a place in the more northern side of town, partly to give us the option of sleep in case we don't stay out as late as we plan tonight and tomorrow but also to see a new side of the city. This city is huge with loads of areas with their own characters.

What have we been doing? Right, we spent hours going around La Boca Tues looking for ways of getting a ticket for Sunday's match - Boca Vs River. No luck. Members only! By the way, I quote from the Lonely Planet about the area (barrio) of Boca "The worst neighbourhoods you, as a tourist, will encounter are La Boca (stick to those few tourist streets like glue, even in daylight)...". We got lost twice and trekked most of the area and it wasn't all that bad. Don't 'always' believe the hype. More details will follow about Boca next week but I HAVE GOT A TICKET.

Like good tourists, we also checked out the main squares and stuff on the first day and joined the masses for the ritual of lunch. A real big deal here. We've had some good meals and some average. A Uruguayan restobar had good food - one was thin chicken wrapped around ricotta and other good fillings which I couldn't work out and the other was close to a big fry-up style bap. Tasty. Plus the beer was good and cheap - 1.20 pounds for 1 litre.

That reminds me, Buenos Aires is very very cheap. That meal I mentioned was 5 pound for 2 main meals plus 2 litres of beer.

We also sampled a few big bifes (various types of steak). Most have tasted awesome, perfect texture but they also tend to have too many fatty bits for my liking. Especially one I picked up from an asado on the street by the river. There are loads along this big stretch, little stalls with a tent style roof, painted sign and huge BBQ with monster slabs of beef cooking on them. By the time I had dissected my way through that one I was covered in grease and sauce. The sauces, however, have been consistently quality. Chimichurri is my favourite so far - fresh herbs, garlic, chilli and oil. Works a treat.

Best wrap this up. The meals have been mostly really good, the bars great, the weather real good but real hot and humid even though around only 27C temperature.

The new hostel is more intimate and we can use the kitchen and the roof terrace which is sweet as! I'm gusselling a bottle of red wine right now, we splashed out on a more expensive bottle at 1.20 (pounds) and are going to cook for the first time and enjoy it on the roof. Then off out to check a new area of bars we've ben told about...

Turtle Sanctuary

2006-03-18T09:49:00.000-04:00

Yesterday me and Jordi had an afternoon out at the turtle sanctionary and then at the beach. The sanctuary's pretty cool, as you might expect they rescue turtles and if possible release them in the future.

A couple of the turtles' names caught my eye...

...firstly Bentley looking as aged as always...

...and also Jonah...

...some strong resemblances eh.

Jordi tells it like it is....Pets

2006-03-17T06:22:00.000-04:00

After the Molly entry I have now been informed by my cousin, Jordan, about the other pets that she can remember them having.....

"All the ones I remember having...a snake, an iguana, 4 turtles, 2 guineau pigs....ok...."
Jordan lists these off whilst making me feel ill because she's bouncing up and down on a giant space hopper...

"4 dogs, yep, 4 dogs, ummmm, 4 cats, 2 hamsters" she is now making me dizzy by pacing round and round the room whilst thinking of any others...

"I had a slug for a pet for a day. And I had 2 millworms. It's a worm that turns into a bug."

"That's it."

Meet Molly!

2006-03-15T11:39:00.000-04:00

Meet Molly; one of the local resident pets at my Uncle Chris' house in Florida along with another - much more butch - Rotweiler called Rascal, a very vocal and chatty cat named Sooty, a more elusive moggy by the name of Magic plus numerous other non-residents including lizards, frogs, birds and some omni-eating squirrels.

Chillin'

2006-03-13T10:36:00.000-04:00

Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool...unfortunately there's been no B Ball as of yet but I'm hopeful about shooting some ball before the party on Saturday as the guy is supposed to have a marked out half court in his front yard.

Just been chillin' in this garden.

You'll have to bear with me on these cheesey lyrical references - but don't worry, they should drift away from the Will Smith theme soon...!

Welcome to Miami...bienvenido a Miami

2006-03-11T08:47:00.001-03:00

I was well surprised by just how Hispanic Miami is! Every single sign has it's Spanish translation, the majority of adverts are in Spanish and we heard far more Spanish voices than any other.

We spent 2 nights here and got a decent feel for the place. I really like it, there's a lively and positive atmosphere although it did happen to be Spring Break which meant there were plenty of youths chilling by day and making the most of their time off by night.

Our hotel was great - a real old building (especially for the U.S.) on the south side of the river. The pool was refreshing after you've been sweating in the tasty heat and all day sun! Although if you ask any local to Florida the water is 'freezing'. Bloody Brits!

We checked out Miami beach and South beach which were as expected, a good stretch of quality sand and gorgeous luke-warm sea. There's a good range of shops, bars and cafes and we found 2 fantastic restaurants thanks to tip offs from the hotel woman. First night we had quality Mexican (a certain American friend of mine was proven absolutely right, at least based on this one restaurant, as he always went on about how much better Mexican food is in the States commpared to Europe) which was unbelievably cheap. Then on the Friday night we went to a crazy Cuban place. The eating part was HUGE and pretty much empty. I had some damn fine Pargo (Snapper) while Clare sampled a seafood platter. Afterwards we checked out what all the commotion was about in the adjacent bar. The bar was cramped and packed with a small stage with two dancers (I think kind of Flamenco) and the most skillful guitarist I've ever seen up close (sorry Geoff, he even surpassed your mighty skills). He was pretty old, didn't use a pick, was playing an antic-looking guitar (I'd say was older than him) and honestly looked like he lived with the guitar permanently in his hands.

Anyway, enough. Miami was sweeeeeet!

* Every different nation, Spanish, Haitian, Indian, Jamaican
Black, White, Cuban, and Asian *

On a Jet Plane

2006-03-09T07:02:00.000-03:00

'No alarms and no surprises'. Strange tune to be playing in the plane as we walked aboard. Had a quality curry last night, a couple of pints, some wine and a sambuca. Perfect prep for an early flight eh....

Next stop Miami.

First Post - Countdown

2006-02-08T10:17:00.000-03:00

It's countdown time.
4 weeks tomorrow and we fly off.

If this blog site works out, I'll be using it to keep some kind of diary for any of yous to read, if and when you like.

So keep a note of the link and keep checking back.

Take it easy, Dave

P.S. This is an old photo just to test it out...