Week four is turning into an interesting week.
I sit at home typing this (as opposed to hiding under a desk at the Brazilian embassy) As the exiled President has just returned and has hogged that space for himself, his return of course causing riots and tear gas on the streets. But again I am getting ahead of myself.
Last week was Independence day where we (including children as young as four) marched in the streets trying to look like a model school, of model children and fine shiny foreigners, we also had children's day, a day of absolute chaos where children ran about and the teaching staff pretended to organise these wild beasties and choral them into planned games. We also had teacher's day a day of school. Oh what does a full week feel like, I can barely remember, my planning book absolutely bristles with tabs of missed lessons awaiting catch up (ha, ha, ha).
I have had my friend Sam (from my U.T.S. varsity days) and his girlfriend Jess staying with me which has been excellent, due to having a long weekend (timing), we went to Copan, my first Mayan ruins.
The ruins were fabulous, sacrifice tables and ball courts and wonderfully preserved statues. The ruins are very close to a little town with cobbled streets and tourist restaurants which are probably cheap if you have money, the downside of this job is that it really doesn't pay enough to live on, so not so cheap for me. Anyway I had a great time and returned in one piece all in time for Mr Zelaya to return and the Hondurans to have a second shot at this military coup bussiness.
Anyway I'll try to post this before the internet gets blocked again.
Take care, Love N.J.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Gracias 1
Well flying from Santiago to San Pedro Sula was of course an event in itself, The night before I hadn't slept properly as there were some incredibly drunk guys in my dorm room crashing and bumping into things and pissing on themselves and the guy in the bunk below!!! So I got up earlier than I would have liked, and of course I was trying to have a skype with you. The night I left Santiago there were student riots in the streets and the smell of capsicum spray caught in the back of my throat making my voice as hazy as my mind, I arrived at the airport early where they assured me my bags would be checked all the way through to San Pedro Sula. I happily boarded my plane and pretty much snoozed on and off all the way to Mexico where I discovered that even transit passengers have to queue (in a really long queue) and get a visa, tired and grumpy Mexico was rapidly becoming not my friend! Then the immigration chappie said I had to claim my bags and pass them through cusoms, so i looked about the carousel, no bags I waved my baggage claim ticket under the nose of the lady standing there, she assured me they had been checked through to San Pedro.
So I board my next plane, which incidently is smaller than some of the mosquitos I had seen in the Amazon only a week earlier, I am quite happy to watch the sun rise over Mexico city as I fly out, the flight is beautiful and I arrive in Honduras where the brief walk across the tarmac to the arrivals hall is pleasantly warm and tropical, my mind is humming slightly with the lack of proper sleep, immigration is a breeze and then I wait for my bags on the carousel, and wait... the plane was small, it doesn't take long to realise my bags aren't on the plane. I fill in a lost bag claim but have no address or phone number, apparently my bags were more taken with Mexico then I was and have decided to extend their stay there (or so I must conclude), I leave the immigration area to discover no reassuring person from the school with my name on a placard (as promised) now my life is unravelling fast.
I am in a strange city with no luggage, no local currency, no little dude to greet me, no map, no guide book, in short no fucking idea! (Oh I love these baptism of fire arrivals). There is of course no internet, I find an ATM, oooooooh money! I grovel a map from the rent a car people, I find some tourists and borrow their guide book, I catch a taxi to a hostel with internet my life is starting to come together again. An email is waiting for me apparently Hector (who was supposed to meet me at the airport has managed to be 4 hours late! He comes to the hostel to get me and I go back to the airport to meet another 2 girls we then sleep in town and head to Gracias in the morning, as soon as we arrive I choose my room, a nice sunny if somewhat small one and head back to the airport in an attempt to retrieve my luggage.
four hours later we get to the airport and in deed my bags are there and I merrily claim them as Hector thrusts the sign for the arriving folk in my hands and disappears off on some errand. Anyway the folk arrive but by the time we get back on the road to Gracias the weather has closed in there is of course no such thing as street lighting, the steam hissing up off the black top create such an ethereal mist that the headlights on the car are almost useless, and did I mention that Hector the driver is one eyed and drives like a nutbag even when it's daylight... it takes about 6 hours to get back to Gracias, I am thankful to have survived the journey at all, I am ecstatic to have reclaimed my baggage and I sleep in a real bed of my own. (yay).
The next day I met my colleagues and see the school. Gracias, first impressions, this place is seriously no where, it's beautiful but it really is the middle of nowhere.
Gracias for a town of it's size has an incredible number of foreigners, two bi-lingual schools, a large contingent of peace corp volunteers and two other volunteer organisations The school is a small collection of ramshackle buildings, Chandy the English co-ordinator has wide eyes a fresh smile and a bubbly people persona.
Bertha and Toni are from the Netherlands, Laura is from Colorado and she is ex peace corp. Liam is Canadian and ex volunteer for some organisation in Rawanda, Bobby is also American and ex-military. Matt and Rae are from Carolina, Julie is from Texas, Lindsay & Brian have brought two young children with them from Washington state and rounding out the crew is Sarisa from Chicago. It's lots of personalities and teething at the moment, if you've had puppies you know what I mean by teething. Well, I've met the kids and the are so cute, we camped all weekend, and today I saw a cow going through the trash, like a dog, this is a weird country!
Love N.J.
So I board my next plane, which incidently is smaller than some of the mosquitos I had seen in the Amazon only a week earlier, I am quite happy to watch the sun rise over Mexico city as I fly out, the flight is beautiful and I arrive in Honduras where the brief walk across the tarmac to the arrivals hall is pleasantly warm and tropical, my mind is humming slightly with the lack of proper sleep, immigration is a breeze and then I wait for my bags on the carousel, and wait... the plane was small, it doesn't take long to realise my bags aren't on the plane. I fill in a lost bag claim but have no address or phone number, apparently my bags were more taken with Mexico then I was and have decided to extend their stay there (or so I must conclude), I leave the immigration area to discover no reassuring person from the school with my name on a placard (as promised) now my life is unravelling fast.
I am in a strange city with no luggage, no local currency, no little dude to greet me, no map, no guide book, in short no fucking idea! (Oh I love these baptism of fire arrivals). There is of course no internet, I find an ATM, oooooooh money! I grovel a map from the rent a car people, I find some tourists and borrow their guide book, I catch a taxi to a hostel with internet my life is starting to come together again. An email is waiting for me apparently Hector (who was supposed to meet me at the airport has managed to be 4 hours late! He comes to the hostel to get me and I go back to the airport to meet another 2 girls we then sleep in town and head to Gracias in the morning, as soon as we arrive I choose my room, a nice sunny if somewhat small one and head back to the airport in an attempt to retrieve my luggage.
four hours later we get to the airport and in deed my bags are there and I merrily claim them as Hector thrusts the sign for the arriving folk in my hands and disappears off on some errand. Anyway the folk arrive but by the time we get back on the road to Gracias the weather has closed in there is of course no such thing as street lighting, the steam hissing up off the black top create such an ethereal mist that the headlights on the car are almost useless, and did I mention that Hector the driver is one eyed and drives like a nutbag even when it's daylight... it takes about 6 hours to get back to Gracias, I am thankful to have survived the journey at all, I am ecstatic to have reclaimed my baggage and I sleep in a real bed of my own. (yay).
The next day I met my colleagues and see the school. Gracias, first impressions, this place is seriously no where, it's beautiful but it really is the middle of nowhere.
Gracias for a town of it's size has an incredible number of foreigners, two bi-lingual schools, a large contingent of peace corp volunteers and two other volunteer organisations The school is a small collection of ramshackle buildings, Chandy the English co-ordinator has wide eyes a fresh smile and a bubbly people persona.
Bertha and Toni are from the Netherlands, Laura is from Colorado and she is ex peace corp. Liam is Canadian and ex volunteer for some organisation in Rawanda, Bobby is also American and ex-military. Matt and Rae are from Carolina, Julie is from Texas, Lindsay & Brian have brought two young children with them from Washington state and rounding out the crew is Sarisa from Chicago. It's lots of personalities and teething at the moment, if you've had puppies you know what I mean by teething. Well, I've met the kids and the are so cute, we camped all weekend, and today I saw a cow going through the trash, like a dog, this is a weird country!
Love N.J.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
On to Honduras
Choquequirao (which has many alternate spellings) was a hard walk, seven to ten hours a day (two days in, two days out) of hiking up and down canyon walls to get from Cachora the road to this, "the last refuge of the Inkas". I have never hiked so much or so hard in my life, the scenary was beautiful and our pint sized guide Juan Carlos brought the scenary to life with his enchanting if somewhat prosaic tales of the Inkas. Juan Carlos is related to basically everybody we meet along the way (big families are the norm here, he is one of nine), his extended family own basically all the land through which we must trek on the trail to Choqui, his great, great grandfather may indeed have been one of the last Inkas, who knows, this is an abandoned city, never discovered or ransacked by the Spanish the last of the Inka's seem to have just vaporised from here and allowed the surrounding vegetation to reclaim their once great city, along with Hampi in India, Bokor in Cambodia and Naachtun in Guatemala no-one knows where to or why these people left. Choqui was a huge city covering 1232 square hectares it's name in Quechua means crown of gold. Slowly now it is being rediscovered. Only an estimated 40% of the ruins have so far been excavated. After hiking out we left Cuzco and finally made it to Nazca, saw the odd but interesting Nazca lines and finally caught the never ending bus back to Santiago in order to fly North to honduras.
Here in Santiago it's really cold and rainy, must be time to get a real job!
Here in Santiago it's really cold and rainy, must be time to get a real job!
Friday, August 07, 2009
Cuzco
Cuzco at last, the bus ride was beautiful but looong, coming over the Andes there was so much snow we had to wait often and drive extremely slowly when we could, the bus was 8 hours late!!!
But I am getting ahead of myself.
From Iquitos our Amazon boat trip took 6 instead of five days, it was fantastic, the sunrises and sunsets were sensational, the misty mornings were full of atmosphere and inevitably cleared to clear hot days. the dolphins accompanying the boat were playful and the birds flying around in great squawking colourful flocks were amazing. we slung our hammocks and made friends with our near neighbours who really spoke no English so I got to practice my pitiful Spanish which as a result is much improved, most of our time was spent chatting to a couple of 16 year old boys who had more patience as they liked the opportunity to try to learn some English, apparently they learn English in school for five years, I suspect the schools here are not very good!!! The little towns we pulled in at (and the ones we didn't are really picturesque, folk in dug out canoes paddle past with boats full of bannanas or fish in amongst the reeds, women wash there clothes in the brown waters, how that makes anything clean is beyond me! Suffice to say after 6 days I was hugely relieved to sleep in a flat bed and have a shower in something that was not murky Amazon river water.
Pucallpa the town the boat left me in is really not much to write about, it had a beautiful cathedral, modern in design with fabulous stained glass panels all around the arched doorway, it was lovely when illuminated at night but my camera is not that good and Bec had her memory card stolen on the boat by a boy she befriended (I didn't like him right from the start and by the time we discovered that I knew why).
So we didn't hang around we caught a bus back to Lima where we stayed (due to lack of opportunity to leave right away)in Miraflores this time, very touristy but with ocean views and a chance for me to go to the cinema. I saw the new Mike Leigh film "Happy go lucky" which Michael had said the main character was not unlike me (I can see his point) One of the leads I was surprised to discover was a friend of mine from Thailand's brother (small world). I also saw the latest Harry Potter film, which I enjoyed but I suspect it's at the stage now where only addicts (poor sad addicts like me)like it.
So back to the bus ride, the coast of Peru is quite beautiful, if only God would choose to exhale and blow away the constant grey that hangs in the sky over that part of the world for 6 - 8 months of the year, mind you when that happens the bare rolling sand dunes would no doubt be unbearably hot as there really is no shelter.
The road through the Andes follows a rolling river, the hillsides are littered with small cascading waterfalls and llamas in the snow are something you really ought to see!
Finally in Cuzco, the city is really pretty, full of cobbled streets, wrought iron black standing street lamps and old stone buildings, Inka ruins being dug up in back alleys and on street corners.
Cuzco is cool, it has lots of character, but it is still full of dodgy characters, like the restaurant hawker Bec took to calling "rank-o" he was about the sleaziest person I think (well actually it was both with the restaurant a distant second), he accosted us with such stunning lines as "just lie back, you'll enjoy it" and "your a sexy lady" ooooooooo, so gross!!! I can't believe this approach actually works on anybody!
Anyway, moving right along, as the less time spent dwelling on "rank-o" guy the better. Machu Picchu is in deed "all that" we caught various forms of transport up to Aqua Calientes which is a very cute little town, but terribly touristy, (hard to believe, but even more so than the rest of Peru) the next morning woke at the crackers of dawn to get up to the complex, by this stage we were so over the whole experience of Peru, Machu Picchu was really going to have to be pretty fantastic. Peru is bizarre, they have had tourists or so long but there seems to be not a professional among the bunch, their attitude is a discomforting combination of blaise lack of interest and plain incompetence. But... Machu Picchu is all that" from the moment you get into the complex it is stunning scenery and history brought to life, it's an incredible experience! Truly an occassion to save the kiwi favourite "awesome" for. You really have to experience it for yourself to know just what it's all about. We met some lovely people and I indeed had a play with my poi, possibly Machu Picchu's inaugaral poi! the llama's were cute, we returned again by death defying roads to Cuzco and await the four day hike from hell to Choquequirao which we start on Monday.
As a side diversion today we went to the cementary in Cuzco which is amazing a whole community for the dead, the murals on the outside are beautiful, the coffins are piled on top of each other in streets of high-rises, it's really unusual, full of loved ones polishing graves, changing flowers or just praying for their ancestors it has the atmosphere of a mini village, a strange combination seemingly of catholicism and a kind of oriental ancestor worship.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
From Iquitos our Amazon boat trip took 6 instead of five days, it was fantastic, the sunrises and sunsets were sensational, the misty mornings were full of atmosphere and inevitably cleared to clear hot days. the dolphins accompanying the boat were playful and the birds flying around in great squawking colourful flocks were amazing. we slung our hammocks and made friends with our near neighbours who really spoke no English so I got to practice my pitiful Spanish which as a result is much improved, most of our time was spent chatting to a couple of 16 year old boys who had more patience as they liked the opportunity to try to learn some English, apparently they learn English in school for five years, I suspect the schools here are not very good!!! The little towns we pulled in at (and the ones we didn't are really picturesque, folk in dug out canoes paddle past with boats full of bannanas or fish in amongst the reeds, women wash there clothes in the brown waters, how that makes anything clean is beyond me! Suffice to say after 6 days I was hugely relieved to sleep in a flat bed and have a shower in something that was not murky Amazon river water.
Pucallpa the town the boat left me in is really not much to write about, it had a beautiful cathedral, modern in design with fabulous stained glass panels all around the arched doorway, it was lovely when illuminated at night but my camera is not that good and Bec had her memory card stolen on the boat by a boy she befriended (I didn't like him right from the start and by the time we discovered that I knew why).
So we didn't hang around we caught a bus back to Lima where we stayed (due to lack of opportunity to leave right away)in Miraflores this time, very touristy but with ocean views and a chance for me to go to the cinema. I saw the new Mike Leigh film "Happy go lucky" which Michael had said the main character was not unlike me (I can see his point) One of the leads I was surprised to discover was a friend of mine from Thailand's brother (small world). I also saw the latest Harry Potter film, which I enjoyed but I suspect it's at the stage now where only addicts (poor sad addicts like me)like it.
So back to the bus ride, the coast of Peru is quite beautiful, if only God would choose to exhale and blow away the constant grey that hangs in the sky over that part of the world for 6 - 8 months of the year, mind you when that happens the bare rolling sand dunes would no doubt be unbearably hot as there really is no shelter.
The road through the Andes follows a rolling river, the hillsides are littered with small cascading waterfalls and llamas in the snow are something you really ought to see!
Finally in Cuzco, the city is really pretty, full of cobbled streets, wrought iron black standing street lamps and old stone buildings, Inka ruins being dug up in back alleys and on street corners.
Cuzco is cool, it has lots of character, but it is still full of dodgy characters, like the restaurant hawker Bec took to calling "rank-o" he was about the sleaziest person I think (well actually it was both with the restaurant a distant second), he accosted us with such stunning lines as "just lie back, you'll enjoy it" and "your a sexy lady" ooooooooo, so gross!!! I can't believe this approach actually works on anybody!
Anyway, moving right along, as the less time spent dwelling on "rank-o" guy the better. Machu Picchu is in deed "all that" we caught various forms of transport up to Aqua Calientes which is a very cute little town, but terribly touristy, (hard to believe, but even more so than the rest of Peru) the next morning woke at the crackers of dawn to get up to the complex, by this stage we were so over the whole experience of Peru, Machu Picchu was really going to have to be pretty fantastic. Peru is bizarre, they have had tourists or so long but there seems to be not a professional among the bunch, their attitude is a discomforting combination of blaise lack of interest and plain incompetence. But... Machu Picchu is all that" from the moment you get into the complex it is stunning scenery and history brought to life, it's an incredible experience! Truly an occassion to save the kiwi favourite "awesome" for. You really have to experience it for yourself to know just what it's all about. We met some lovely people and I indeed had a play with my poi, possibly Machu Picchu's inaugaral poi! the llama's were cute, we returned again by death defying roads to Cuzco and await the four day hike from hell to Choquequirao which we start on Monday.
As a side diversion today we went to the cementary in Cuzco which is amazing a whole community for the dead, the murals on the outside are beautiful, the coffins are piled on top of each other in streets of high-rises, it's really unusual, full of loved ones polishing graves, changing flowers or just praying for their ancestors it has the atmosphere of a mini village, a strange combination seemingly of catholicism and a kind of oriental ancestor worship.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Amazon
Trujillo is a town with lots of pretty buildings painted in bright colours, it is an attractive city but the grey skies that have been following me up the coast persist and make it a not so nice place to be. I came to town to see the Huaca pyramids and the pre-Inca ruins at Chan chan.
The Huaca pyramids are in the middle of a complex which like Tiahuanaco in Bolivia is barely at the start of it's excavation and reconstruction process. The larger of the two temples, the temple of the sun is filled with adobe bricks as every time a flood, earthquake or other natural disaster happened the people would simply fill in the old temple and build a new one on top. The second pyramid, the pyramid of the moon appears to be five temples built atop one another, it is in the middle of it's excavation process and as they remove more or the adobe bricks from within, it reveals more and more of the original painted surfaces beneath.
The fanged faces one can only conclude were painted as protecting spirits, they have uncovered the sacred rock where the high priestess made her human sacrifices, the cup of blood was then taken to the area where the God needed to be appeased and poured on the ground there by the high priest.
After that I went to another bunch of ruins called Chan chan which was a community, ruins here are dusty, dirty and run down before they have had a chance to be dug up, Peru is somewhat of an anticlimax on the whole wow factor.
Then I headed to a town called Chiclayo where the ruins of various tombs have been found, most famously those of the lords of Sipan. The tombs were found mostly in tact with vast amounts of gold and silver ornamentation, the gold and turquoise earrings are pretty impressive, there is also a lot of very creepy ornaments and some odd nose rings which are kind of mouth protectors of some sort. They say in another 400 years they may have unearthed all the tombs in this area, amazing but true, why the hills around here are not heaving with grave robbers I have no idea, maybe in another 100 years the place will be worth visiting.
.
Then it was another overnight bus from hell to get to Chachapoyas, The first day we trekked to Karija to see the sarcophagus, kind of cool but small, we also saw a rather groovy cave, "Caverna De Quiocta", stalagtites and mites many looked like melting faces or foetal position skeletons with the limestone columns dripping like candle wax oveer them, one exceptionally creepy one looked like a melting marshmellow baby. considering the place used to be used by the Chachapoyas as a cemetary adds to it's creep factor.
The next day I finally made it to Kuelap the reason I had come all the way to Chachapoyas, it is really cool, it is a large fortress built by the "cloud people" on top of a hill, if someone died during construction they just added their bones (bodies)to the construction process, the bones can be seen inside of the walls, it was seen as a kind of sacrifice to the gods. They had fridge's for food storage and a sacred circular temple (their houses were also circular) inside was a bottle shape originally used by the Chachapoyans as a sun dial so they knew the seasons, the harvest time, the fiesta time, the solstice, the equinox etc. Then by the Incas (after they conqured the site) to drop sacrifices to the sun god inside and finally by the Spanish (when they conquered) as a prison. The scenary on the way up to the heighs of Kurlap through terraced agricultural lands and smattered with tiny villages is stunning, the clouds wraith like wrapping there fingers around the hillsides all add to the atmosphere, the first really awesome ruins I've seen since I've been here.
Tarapoto was a nothing town that we really only saw the bus station on arrival and the collectivo station on departure the next day, we stayed at a very classy hotel opposite the bus station, when the clerk showed us our room he kindly surfed off the porn channel when showing us how the t.v. worked! Oh yeah all class here.
and on to Yurimaguas where again we stayed long enough to eat lunch, (cerviche again, too lemony for my tastes again) and the got ourselves on board a boat to Iquitos.
Three days up the Amazon on the boat was nice, I slept in a hammock on deck and with all the other passengers, it was fun. The food was average (bring your own dish and cutlery) I saw dolphins up and down the river and flocks of birds, all very beautiful but large panoramas of this sort are impossible to photograph with any sort of justice to the beauty of the actual scenary. It's at last hot, though very humid with lots of rainstorms, it makes for beautiful Amazon rainbows. (I just love using the word Amazon as a sort of prefix). There are a zillion little huts along the edge of the river made from sticks with thatched roofs, very cute. The boat pulled in regularly at little towns, whereupon they were flooded with people selling fruit and frozen jellies in plastic bags.
Iquitos is full of very well heeled tourists, who fly in and out to do expensive Amazon tours. There are buildings and bandstands designed by Eiffel and very strange looking crumbling tiled buildings.
Our first attempt to get to Belen (an area of Iquitos the largest city in the world accessible only by air or river) was a complete disaster, we tumbled from our guest house all pink and freshly scrubbed, jumped on the bus that said Belen and ended up at the warfs at the opposite end of town, (the driver took us back to Belen for free). We wandered around the market looking for the local wharfs, and a policeman came and stopped us with the chilling words "come to the station, we want to talk to you", and muttering further something about how the boss would "Explain things to us." hmmmmm, having heard about how dodgy the police in south America are we declined to enter the station and scampered quickly in the opposite direction. We then caught a taxi to the "wharfs" The guy dropped us at this dodgy looking rubbish filled alley way, the three girls of the party looked at each other and I heard Dr Seuss in my head "You wont go down any not so good street." Yes I thought to myself, that's a not so good street if ever I saw one. So we walked back to town.
The next morning we had Bec and I had upped our bloke ratio and lowered our chick ratio and we tried again. This was a much more successful attempt, as we wandered around the market a helpful chap volunteered to be our guide, we hoped in a boat and cruised around the floating markets and houses on stilts of Belen, it's quite dry here at the moment and the dirt and grub factor is high, I would say if you have seen the floating markets and houses on stilts in Laos, forget it here.
Our guide took us on to the butterfly sanctuary, I wanted to see some of the guys responsible for the tornados and rainstorms in the rest of the world. Again unimpressive, if you have seen butterfly sanctuaries in Australia or Asia don't come to this one for the butterflies! Do come for the other attractions though, the owner has taken to adopting wildlife confiscated by border police at the airport here and illegal animal traders etc. As soon as we got to the sanctuary more or less a white painted Capuchin monkey decided he liked me and jumped on my shoulder, the feeling was not really mutual and he eventually left me alone! Then there were bright red faced monkeys running up and down and chattering their teeth at us, a Jaguar (called Pedro something) who is gorgeous, a Tapir called Lewis, a manatae a couple of very loud silky howler monkeys, several macaws and the highlight two sloths one of who is a three month old baby (rescued from smugglers at the airport) She is gorgeous and I got to hold her, unfortunately I didn't get a photo as the room was dark but sloth have seriously moved up my favourite animal chart, so cute, such long padded feet with loooong claws at the bottom. Anyway.
Tomorrow I start a five day boat trip up the Amazon, expect radio silence!
The Huaca pyramids are in the middle of a complex which like Tiahuanaco in Bolivia is barely at the start of it's excavation and reconstruction process. The larger of the two temples, the temple of the sun is filled with adobe bricks as every time a flood, earthquake or other natural disaster happened the people would simply fill in the old temple and build a new one on top. The second pyramid, the pyramid of the moon appears to be five temples built atop one another, it is in the middle of it's excavation process and as they remove more or the adobe bricks from within, it reveals more and more of the original painted surfaces beneath.
The fanged faces one can only conclude were painted as protecting spirits, they have uncovered the sacred rock where the high priestess made her human sacrifices, the cup of blood was then taken to the area where the God needed to be appeased and poured on the ground there by the high priest.
After that I went to another bunch of ruins called Chan chan which was a community, ruins here are dusty, dirty and run down before they have had a chance to be dug up, Peru is somewhat of an anticlimax on the whole wow factor.
Then I headed to a town called Chiclayo where the ruins of various tombs have been found, most famously those of the lords of Sipan. The tombs were found mostly in tact with vast amounts of gold and silver ornamentation, the gold and turquoise earrings are pretty impressive, there is also a lot of very creepy ornaments and some odd nose rings which are kind of mouth protectors of some sort. They say in another 400 years they may have unearthed all the tombs in this area, amazing but true, why the hills around here are not heaving with grave robbers I have no idea, maybe in another 100 years the place will be worth visiting.
.
Then it was another overnight bus from hell to get to Chachapoyas, The first day we trekked to Karija to see the sarcophagus, kind of cool but small, we also saw a rather groovy cave, "Caverna De Quiocta", stalagtites and mites many looked like melting faces or foetal position skeletons with the limestone columns dripping like candle wax oveer them, one exceptionally creepy one looked like a melting marshmellow baby. considering the place used to be used by the Chachapoyas as a cemetary adds to it's creep factor.
The next day I finally made it to Kuelap the reason I had come all the way to Chachapoyas, it is really cool, it is a large fortress built by the "cloud people" on top of a hill, if someone died during construction they just added their bones (bodies)to the construction process, the bones can be seen inside of the walls, it was seen as a kind of sacrifice to the gods. They had fridge's for food storage and a sacred circular temple (their houses were also circular) inside was a bottle shape originally used by the Chachapoyans as a sun dial so they knew the seasons, the harvest time, the fiesta time, the solstice, the equinox etc. Then by the Incas (after they conqured the site) to drop sacrifices to the sun god inside and finally by the Spanish (when they conquered) as a prison. The scenary on the way up to the heighs of Kurlap through terraced agricultural lands and smattered with tiny villages is stunning, the clouds wraith like wrapping there fingers around the hillsides all add to the atmosphere, the first really awesome ruins I've seen since I've been here.
Tarapoto was a nothing town that we really only saw the bus station on arrival and the collectivo station on departure the next day, we stayed at a very classy hotel opposite the bus station, when the clerk showed us our room he kindly surfed off the porn channel when showing us how the t.v. worked! Oh yeah all class here.
and on to Yurimaguas where again we stayed long enough to eat lunch, (cerviche again, too lemony for my tastes again) and the got ourselves on board a boat to Iquitos.
Three days up the Amazon on the boat was nice, I slept in a hammock on deck and with all the other passengers, it was fun. The food was average (bring your own dish and cutlery) I saw dolphins up and down the river and flocks of birds, all very beautiful but large panoramas of this sort are impossible to photograph with any sort of justice to the beauty of the actual scenary. It's at last hot, though very humid with lots of rainstorms, it makes for beautiful Amazon rainbows. (I just love using the word Amazon as a sort of prefix). There are a zillion little huts along the edge of the river made from sticks with thatched roofs, very cute. The boat pulled in regularly at little towns, whereupon they were flooded with people selling fruit and frozen jellies in plastic bags.
Iquitos is full of very well heeled tourists, who fly in and out to do expensive Amazon tours. There are buildings and bandstands designed by Eiffel and very strange looking crumbling tiled buildings.
Our first attempt to get to Belen (an area of Iquitos the largest city in the world accessible only by air or river) was a complete disaster, we tumbled from our guest house all pink and freshly scrubbed, jumped on the bus that said Belen and ended up at the warfs at the opposite end of town, (the driver took us back to Belen for free). We wandered around the market looking for the local wharfs, and a policeman came and stopped us with the chilling words "come to the station, we want to talk to you", and muttering further something about how the boss would "Explain things to us." hmmmmm, having heard about how dodgy the police in south America are we declined to enter the station and scampered quickly in the opposite direction. We then caught a taxi to the "wharfs" The guy dropped us at this dodgy looking rubbish filled alley way, the three girls of the party looked at each other and I heard Dr Seuss in my head "You wont go down any not so good street." Yes I thought to myself, that's a not so good street if ever I saw one. So we walked back to town.
The next morning we had Bec and I had upped our bloke ratio and lowered our chick ratio and we tried again. This was a much more successful attempt, as we wandered around the market a helpful chap volunteered to be our guide, we hoped in a boat and cruised around the floating markets and houses on stilts of Belen, it's quite dry here at the moment and the dirt and grub factor is high, I would say if you have seen the floating markets and houses on stilts in Laos, forget it here.
Our guide took us on to the butterfly sanctuary, I wanted to see some of the guys responsible for the tornados and rainstorms in the rest of the world. Again unimpressive, if you have seen butterfly sanctuaries in Australia or Asia don't come to this one for the butterflies! Do come for the other attractions though, the owner has taken to adopting wildlife confiscated by border police at the airport here and illegal animal traders etc. As soon as we got to the sanctuary more or less a white painted Capuchin monkey decided he liked me and jumped on my shoulder, the feeling was not really mutual and he eventually left me alone! Then there were bright red faced monkeys running up and down and chattering their teeth at us, a Jaguar (called Pedro something) who is gorgeous, a Tapir called Lewis, a manatae a couple of very loud silky howler monkeys, several macaws and the highlight two sloths one of who is a three month old baby (rescued from smugglers at the airport) She is gorgeous and I got to hold her, unfortunately I didn't get a photo as the room was dark but sloth have seriously moved up my favourite animal chart, so cute, such long padded feet with loooong claws at the bottom. Anyway.
Tomorrow I start a five day boat trip up the Amazon, expect radio silence!
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Peru!!!
Here is a letter I started a little while ago and finished today.
Well as you may have picked up by now all roads in Bolivia lead to La Paz!
After two nights at the tranquill lake titicaca I had to go back to La Paz as the biggest fiesta in their calendar year was on, and this year it coincides with Bolivia's bicentennary so as you can imagine it was huge!!!
The fiesta started at about 6:30 in the morning and went till after midnight, their were drunk people in the streets all day, the parade was endless, ladies in traditional Bolivian gear swirling their petticoats and shaking their tambourines, men in weird tiered wedding cake outfits with masks of the "Gran Poder" a chap who apparently smoked a pipe, young girls in decidedly unBolivian mini skirts and high boots marching and men in Jesters outfits with bells leaping down the streets every fourth or so group was a slick bunch of men in suits playing "the" song that the whole parade kept time to.
There were diablos (devil masks) accompanied by beautiful blue winged angels, their were Campesinos in traditional gear with fake babies or flowers in their cloth shoulder bags. There were real jesters in scary masks, men in cattle outfits and black slaves. There were girls in Inka indian mini dresses, men in leopard skins and feathery head dresses everywhere, seriously there must be a lot of very cold birds (of the avian kind) in Bolivia right now! My camera has never quite recovered from Uyuni so the photos I took just don't show the magnetude or the outfits but I hope they caught something of the spectacle.
Anyway needless to say it was massive and I spent most of the day up in "cementario" where the parade started watching the behind the scenes happenings and dancing into the crazy wee hours of the morning and avoiding kissing strange drunk Latin american men (eeeeeeew).
While on the subject I should tell you about Bolivian "fashion" for ladies it consists of a bowler hat, too small for your head and set at a jaunty angle, a blouse with a (preferably glittery) shawl over your shoulders, a long heavily pleated skirt also shimmery with a zillion lacey petticoats underneath and low flat slip on shoes also shimmery if possible. it's, erm.... interesting. For men fashion is trilby hat and suit, much nicer in fact quite stylish if only the men were better looking it would all be good.
Also did you know Bolivia has a Navy!!!? Useful for a landlocked country I'm sure, what optimists!!!
Isle del sol was great. it's unbelievably pretty, the walk along the centre of the island is so worth doing. I saw the rocks from which the Inca creation myths spawned. Isle del so is the Father of the male line and Isle del luna the female line. It's absolutely freezing at night and burning hot during the day but really pretty. The Inca ruins in the north have a very nice temple with a sacred well still working, infact Inca plumbing is still very much intact in most ruins and fairly impressive.
They also, certainly knew where to put their temples in order to maximise impact.
Back in Copacanana I saw cars being blessed, one day by a fellow wearing frian monk robes!!! Another day by several fellows in more traditional Bolivian campesino colours, the cars are washed and wreathed in flowers, the guys who do the blessings are carrying smouldering incense, opening bottles of champagne and beer, water and other fluids are sprinkled via flower head over the engines and cars in general, much fun is had by all.
Headed to Puno, so excited to get to Peru, Puno though is a grey town and I do not recommend it as an entry point to Peru, it's some what anticlimatic. The floating islands of Uros are pretty and worth seeing, the island of Taquile has a lot of arches and people selling tourist tat.
Arequipa is the next town I stopped at, it's still quite grey and a whole lot bigger than I expected, it has some beautiful buildings, the cathedral is very impressive, it has the usual baroque altars and a massive organ but it is not over done (by South American standards).
Today I went to the Monastry of Santa Catalina, it's massive, a city within a city, it's painted blue and terracota, it's full of beautiful flower filled courtyards and at night it is lit up by candles, open fires and lamplight. The old rooms of the nuns are all on display, their courtyards, kitchens, cloisters, bathrooms, and a sizable art gallery and the rooms of the beatified Sister Ana, it's really worth the ridiculous entrance fee. It is peaceful and serene, wandering around this pretty haven you can imagine how it would have felt to live in this isolated world and how appealing that could be, away from the chaos of the ordinary world, protected by the vows and veils of faith.
The art is mostly 17th and 18th century, almost all of it is bad but the odd piece that is good is arresting due to it's lack of compettion. there is a beautiful rendition of the virgin and child, there is a startling crucifiction piece where the eyes of Christ actually address the onlooker as he alone looks directly out of the frame at you as he stumbles with his cross, hair pulled and jabbed at by the wooden staves of the Roman guard, it's almost pornographic in the nature of it's directness. There are two panels depicting God creating the world in seven days, without irony it displays a nippless Eve and a genital hidden Adam before they realise their nakedness. hmmmm, well I guess the point perhaps is lost in translation. All in all if you come to Arequipa check it out.
Cabanaconde the little town from where I started my Colca canyon trek is really cute and in the throws of a massive fiesta (another one). Streets full of cowboys and dancing people accompanied by the standard dodgy marching bands, at night the sky was lit up by fountains of sparks which showered over and out of the extremely dodgy bamboo towers that had been constructed to hold them, dodgy home made rockets and catherine wheels, two guys simply drove up in their car with the boot packed with explosives and built these things. Colca canyon was a beautiful two day hike, the last day of which is a solid uphill slog for two or three hours, the bus trip back was stunning past numerous look outs and with majestic condors gliding effortlessly on the wind currents.
Here in Peru as in Bolivia the guys have installed car horns that wolf whistle instead of honking, and every time a pretty girl (or in fact any girl) passes them in the streets the car horns all whistle, it's weird and slightly off putting.
Great things about Peru include that there are street side stalls that sell one of my favourite deserts, yes indeed you can buy creamed rice with a kind of sticky plum sauce everywhere, it's heaven in a styrofoam dish!
The favourite snack here is corn nuts and puffed corn which can be purchased on every street corner, you can also buy snacks which often taste like slightly sweetened puffed air. The dish of choice available cheaply and everywhere is a massive plate of "chinese" fried rice known here as Chifa, boring but filling!
The roads to Cuzco are closed at the moment, there is much protesting in the streets and road blocks, the same is true of the roads into the Amazon so we bought a ticket to Nazca and ended up in Lima, the bus conductor lady neglected to tell us where to get off. Ahhh the joys of a foreign language. Lima was a big grey city but the hostal we stayed in was amazing a whirling wooden staircase, huge imitation famous paintings, mirrors and statues (Michelangelos David being a particular favourite), they also had four pet turtles that wandered about at will and a furry part persian cat. Still I was glad to get out of there after a few days, and headed to Huaraz.
Huaraz is set in an absolutely stunning location surrounded by magnificent mountains, the town itself is small and sweet, the first place in Peru I can say without reservation that I like, the hills around here are called the Cordillera Blanca and they are a chain of amazing snow capped peaks. Today is the day Michael Jackson died, it was evocative of the death of Princess Diana Spencer for me as in again I walked into a hotel room in a foreign country and flicked on the t.v. to see it all unfolding on the BBC and CNN et al, it enhances the foreign-ness of death to confront it in such circumstances.
Since I have been here I have discovered some disturbing animals one we have dubbed the lleep (as that's the noise you make when you see one) or sometimes called a shama it's a cross between a sheep (or alpaca) and a llama, basically it looks like a sheep with a long neck!
Just got back from a four day trek in the Cordillera blanca, truly beautiful but cold as, snow capped mountains, stunning aqua lakes and creaking glaciers, loads of beautiful weird frozen flowers and plants that seem as stunned by the daily frost as I am. Every night we ate and ran for our sleeping bags as the winds rushing down the glaciers froze the mucus on the end of my nose. I am awfully glad to be back in a warm hostel it's crazy but beautiful out there. The trip back was plagued by strikes and punctured tires as we had to pass through protests and were trapped in a town called Caraz for 8 hours or so, it was o.k as the town had great Cerviche, which I am learning to love and I even tried beer flavoured ice cream for desert. Weird.
Today I head for Trujillo (again look north on your map).
Love N.J.
Well as you may have picked up by now all roads in Bolivia lead to La Paz!
After two nights at the tranquill lake titicaca I had to go back to La Paz as the biggest fiesta in their calendar year was on, and this year it coincides with Bolivia's bicentennary so as you can imagine it was huge!!!
The fiesta started at about 6:30 in the morning and went till after midnight, their were drunk people in the streets all day, the parade was endless, ladies in traditional Bolivian gear swirling their petticoats and shaking their tambourines, men in weird tiered wedding cake outfits with masks of the "Gran Poder" a chap who apparently smoked a pipe, young girls in decidedly unBolivian mini skirts and high boots marching and men in Jesters outfits with bells leaping down the streets every fourth or so group was a slick bunch of men in suits playing "the" song that the whole parade kept time to.
There were diablos (devil masks) accompanied by beautiful blue winged angels, their were Campesinos in traditional gear with fake babies or flowers in their cloth shoulder bags. There were real jesters in scary masks, men in cattle outfits and black slaves. There were girls in Inka indian mini dresses, men in leopard skins and feathery head dresses everywhere, seriously there must be a lot of very cold birds (of the avian kind) in Bolivia right now! My camera has never quite recovered from Uyuni so the photos I took just don't show the magnetude or the outfits but I hope they caught something of the spectacle.
Anyway needless to say it was massive and I spent most of the day up in "cementario" where the parade started watching the behind the scenes happenings and dancing into the crazy wee hours of the morning and avoiding kissing strange drunk Latin american men (eeeeeeew).
While on the subject I should tell you about Bolivian "fashion" for ladies it consists of a bowler hat, too small for your head and set at a jaunty angle, a blouse with a (preferably glittery) shawl over your shoulders, a long heavily pleated skirt also shimmery with a zillion lacey petticoats underneath and low flat slip on shoes also shimmery if possible. it's, erm.... interesting. For men fashion is trilby hat and suit, much nicer in fact quite stylish if only the men were better looking it would all be good.
Also did you know Bolivia has a Navy!!!? Useful for a landlocked country I'm sure, what optimists!!!
Isle del sol was great. it's unbelievably pretty, the walk along the centre of the island is so worth doing. I saw the rocks from which the Inca creation myths spawned. Isle del so is the Father of the male line and Isle del luna the female line. It's absolutely freezing at night and burning hot during the day but really pretty. The Inca ruins in the north have a very nice temple with a sacred well still working, infact Inca plumbing is still very much intact in most ruins and fairly impressive.
They also, certainly knew where to put their temples in order to maximise impact.
Back in Copacanana I saw cars being blessed, one day by a fellow wearing frian monk robes!!! Another day by several fellows in more traditional Bolivian campesino colours, the cars are washed and wreathed in flowers, the guys who do the blessings are carrying smouldering incense, opening bottles of champagne and beer, water and other fluids are sprinkled via flower head over the engines and cars in general, much fun is had by all.
Headed to Puno, so excited to get to Peru, Puno though is a grey town and I do not recommend it as an entry point to Peru, it's some what anticlimatic. The floating islands of Uros are pretty and worth seeing, the island of Taquile has a lot of arches and people selling tourist tat.
Arequipa is the next town I stopped at, it's still quite grey and a whole lot bigger than I expected, it has some beautiful buildings, the cathedral is very impressive, it has the usual baroque altars and a massive organ but it is not over done (by South American standards).
Today I went to the Monastry of Santa Catalina, it's massive, a city within a city, it's painted blue and terracota, it's full of beautiful flower filled courtyards and at night it is lit up by candles, open fires and lamplight. The old rooms of the nuns are all on display, their courtyards, kitchens, cloisters, bathrooms, and a sizable art gallery and the rooms of the beatified Sister Ana, it's really worth the ridiculous entrance fee. It is peaceful and serene, wandering around this pretty haven you can imagine how it would have felt to live in this isolated world and how appealing that could be, away from the chaos of the ordinary world, protected by the vows and veils of faith.
The art is mostly 17th and 18th century, almost all of it is bad but the odd piece that is good is arresting due to it's lack of compettion. there is a beautiful rendition of the virgin and child, there is a startling crucifiction piece where the eyes of Christ actually address the onlooker as he alone looks directly out of the frame at you as he stumbles with his cross, hair pulled and jabbed at by the wooden staves of the Roman guard, it's almost pornographic in the nature of it's directness. There are two panels depicting God creating the world in seven days, without irony it displays a nippless Eve and a genital hidden Adam before they realise their nakedness. hmmmm, well I guess the point perhaps is lost in translation. All in all if you come to Arequipa check it out.
Cabanaconde the little town from where I started my Colca canyon trek is really cute and in the throws of a massive fiesta (another one). Streets full of cowboys and dancing people accompanied by the standard dodgy marching bands, at night the sky was lit up by fountains of sparks which showered over and out of the extremely dodgy bamboo towers that had been constructed to hold them, dodgy home made rockets and catherine wheels, two guys simply drove up in their car with the boot packed with explosives and built these things. Colca canyon was a beautiful two day hike, the last day of which is a solid uphill slog for two or three hours, the bus trip back was stunning past numerous look outs and with majestic condors gliding effortlessly on the wind currents.
Here in Peru as in Bolivia the guys have installed car horns that wolf whistle instead of honking, and every time a pretty girl (or in fact any girl) passes them in the streets the car horns all whistle, it's weird and slightly off putting.
Great things about Peru include that there are street side stalls that sell one of my favourite deserts, yes indeed you can buy creamed rice with a kind of sticky plum sauce everywhere, it's heaven in a styrofoam dish!
The favourite snack here is corn nuts and puffed corn which can be purchased on every street corner, you can also buy snacks which often taste like slightly sweetened puffed air. The dish of choice available cheaply and everywhere is a massive plate of "chinese" fried rice known here as Chifa, boring but filling!
The roads to Cuzco are closed at the moment, there is much protesting in the streets and road blocks, the same is true of the roads into the Amazon so we bought a ticket to Nazca and ended up in Lima, the bus conductor lady neglected to tell us where to get off. Ahhh the joys of a foreign language. Lima was a big grey city but the hostal we stayed in was amazing a whirling wooden staircase, huge imitation famous paintings, mirrors and statues (Michelangelos David being a particular favourite), they also had four pet turtles that wandered about at will and a furry part persian cat. Still I was glad to get out of there after a few days, and headed to Huaraz.
Huaraz is set in an absolutely stunning location surrounded by magnificent mountains, the town itself is small and sweet, the first place in Peru I can say without reservation that I like, the hills around here are called the Cordillera Blanca and they are a chain of amazing snow capped peaks. Today is the day Michael Jackson died, it was evocative of the death of Princess Diana Spencer for me as in again I walked into a hotel room in a foreign country and flicked on the t.v. to see it all unfolding on the BBC and CNN et al, it enhances the foreign-ness of death to confront it in such circumstances.
Since I have been here I have discovered some disturbing animals one we have dubbed the lleep (as that's the noise you make when you see one) or sometimes called a shama it's a cross between a sheep (or alpaca) and a llama, basically it looks like a sheep with a long neck!
Just got back from a four day trek in the Cordillera blanca, truly beautiful but cold as, snow capped mountains, stunning aqua lakes and creaking glaciers, loads of beautiful weird frozen flowers and plants that seem as stunned by the daily frost as I am. Every night we ate and ran for our sleeping bags as the winds rushing down the glaciers froze the mucus on the end of my nose. I am awfully glad to be back in a warm hostel it's crazy but beautiful out there. The trip back was plagued by strikes and punctured tires as we had to pass through protests and were trapped in a town called Caraz for 8 hours or so, it was o.k as the town had great Cerviche, which I am learning to love and I even tried beer flavoured ice cream for desert. Weird.
Today I head for Trujillo (again look north on your map).
Love N.J.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
La Paz (again)
Egads, is it the end of April already!!!
Well Valdivia and Pucon were a long time ago now.
Now I am in Bolivia, but how did I get here, I hear you ask.
Settle down grab a cerveza and I will tell you...
O.k. yes Pucon was busy in fiesta mode when I left, fabulous fun dancing in the streets, y´know how it is. I arrived in Valdivia which is a port city, and very German, it´s full of fabulous buildings, cool graffiti and really good chocolate cake. I stayed at this hostel down by the waterfront owned by a crazy French dyke, her Chillean partner and a couple of daschounds. A really lovely American couple were volunteering there and made American breakfast for us all every day, I got to try infamous ¨gravy and biscuits¨ for those of you unfamiliar with American food it´s a kind of dumpling, not bad at all. I spent a few days rumbling round the old ruins of a Spanish fort or two, we went on a Monday when indeed the fort was closed, but never fear we found a way to scale the walls and break into the fort. (we being Thurbid who is German and Yankee an Israeli who travels solo). Breaking into crumbling monuments is really easy. The wall we scaled was a tad close to the sea that´s all.
Then from Valdivia, I went down to Puerto Varas which had beautiful cobbled streets and again was very European, I went to the national park and hiked about which was beautiful, but a little drizzley. The mountains there are beautiful. I continued south to the Island of Chiloe which is a little, kind of grubby by Chilean standards, and saw the stilt houses and old wooden churches the seals accompany the ferries over to the islands splashing about in the wake and playing in front of the boat.
I then spent a few days in Puerto Mont, which is a working port without tourist attractions (which is not necessarily a bad thing).
I was thinking about Patagonia but I decided too cold and expensive for this stage of my trip so I headed back to Santiago, where I spent my birthday and a few days later saw Kraftwerk warm up for Radiohead, Great gig. Just don´t ask about the trip to the venue!!!
Then I headed north to San Pedro de Attacama, where I cycled around the valley of the moon ( a gruelling 64 km day). crawled through caves and canyons, climbed sand dunes, looked at rocks and even wandered about in a salt mine! I then headed north as far as Chile goes to Arica and saw my first geoglyphs and petroglyphs, very cool in deed, if you´ve see such things before probably not that special but for me, who has not seen them before it absolutely (and literally) rocked! (¨Quality¨ as my English companion said).
Then went to a little town called Putre and into Lauca national park, just give me a moment to open my superlative bag and I´ll get right back to you… Wow… If you really want to hike in nature with flamingos and vicunas, surrounded by amazing little rivers and majestic mountains, seriously you need to check this place out!!!
The border crossing into Bolivia from this direction is absolutely magnificent, though on the draw back side I arrived in La Paz after dark and after all the horror stories I had heard about La Paz and Bolivia generally I almost had a panic attack on the spot. But luckily I had met an English woman on the bus and together (with the help of a security guard we managed to secure ourselves a (safe) taxi to our respective hotels.
In the morning I discovered Bolivia is totally unlike Chile, it is really what I was expecting when I decided to come to South America, it´s very exotic and different. The percentage of ethnic people versus the obvious Spanish decendants is closer to 70/30 here (In Chile it's probably 80/20 the opposite direction). I was in La Paz at the same time as the Argentinian Soccer team, who had their ass whipped by Bolivia (much to everyone´s amazement and immense enjoyment 6/1. It was great fun, I went with a bunch of mad people, in fact most of the hostel I was staying at went. Stadium was packed and we all got sunburnt (except me) for a change, I had sunscreen, hat long sleeves but I did perspire a lot!!! It was really hot!
After several days in La Paz I headed down south to Potosi where the mines are and the altitude makes you completely breathless, fantastic views and the little cobbled alleyways and architecture is fab!
Then headed south to Uyuni and did the obligatory ¨salt flats¨tour which is three days of incredible lakes (more flamingos and vicuna) great volcanoes, rock formations, dehydrated lake beds and old coral beds, cacti, did I mention cacti, I keep expecting to see Snoopy's cousin with the moustache, (haven´t yet but if I do you´ll be the first to know!)
Then I arrived in Sucre or ¨the white city¨so named because of all the whitewashed buildings, it is an attractive city, very European architecturally (all the guys in colourful ponchos pissing in the street EVERYWHERE is decidedly uneuropean, not to mention smelly).
My Spanish lessons go well, I can conjugate many a verb now, but my listening and speaking really need a huge amount of work!
Oh and now even Sucre is a distant dream, yes I promise to post this today!!! From Sucre I headed to Smaipata and into Amboro National park, I hiked with an Australian girl and a lovely Dutch girl, The cloud forest was beautiful but it did rain a little (being a cloud forest this was about what I expected), the vegetation is much like New Zealand predominantly massive ferns, moss and lichens in fact I am constantly reminded how much like the green green grass of home South America is, the plants are very similar often you see plants which are obviously related to plants from home and it's the first place in the world where I have (happily) been able to find my favourite vegetable (what in New Zealand we call Yam a small pink variety of potatoe). Perhaps for this reason it makes me feel slightly home sick (or perhaps it's just the altitude).
Altitude is a funny thing you think your acclimatised then suddenly your gasping like a fish for a few breaths then it passes and you feel fine again, some people get headaches but for me it's a feeling not unlike being mildly high, slightly unsettling and disorienting but not painful.
Anyway from Amboro National park and Smaiapata I headed back to La Paz and a couple of friends from Chile were in town so it was great to catch up with Victor and Karina again, I headed to Tiwanaku.
Tiwanaku was amazing, the archeaologists currently working on the site suspect it may have been as important to the Incas as Macchu Picchu but at this stage they really are just digging bits of rock out of the ground and jigsawing the temples and structures back together. I arrived in town and went to find a hotel but the first was too expensive and the second locked up and abandoned. There are many, many new hotels in the throws of being built, it's a town that has great expectations!!! I was wandering around contemplating my next hotel when a little old chap on a bicycle hot off his bike and started chatting and walking beside me. He invited me back to his place and so i went. His son as it turns out is building a hostel on the side of their house and they showed me to a massive room for the princely sum of 15 Bolivianos a night (the equivalent of 3 dollars). There house backs onto the grounds of tiwanaku and my balcony looked out over the fence onto the grounds, perfect! They gave me some coca tea and I headed out to the museums, stuffed full of statues and cool suessian ceramics, (unfortunately they always seem to have a no photography law in these places but my camera has never recovered from the trip to Uyuni so it doesn't really matter, I will have to upgrade soon) I love the Inca representations of people and animals they are often just so bizarre. I ate Quinwha soup in a rundown, Ma and Pa store then and headed over to the first lot of ruins.
Puma Punku, I wander about the ruins and am thinking (perhaps meanly) it's just like a poor man's Egypt). the ruins here are barely excavated, most still lie (their shattered visage like Ozymandis amongst the sand) half buried, those they have excavated quite often now lie on their backs their ancient engravings exposed now to the sun wind and rain, it's crazy. Tourists can just wander about the rocks and willy nilly amongst over and around these ancient stones it's quite incredible, especially as most tourists are too ignorant to realise that these actions are damaging what remains, (we are programmed to believe if it needs protecting someone will have put a fence round it and erected a sign stating this... baa, baa). Anyway off my soap box now. I headed back to watch the sunset from my balcony.
The next morning I went early down to the market in town, Tiwanaku is a grubby little town and it had a grubby little market, although talked up by the local people it is nothing once one has seen the markets of La Paz and the giant sprawling mess of market similar to Bangkok's Chattuchak in Cochabamba. I returned to the main temple gates at Tiwanaku and waited for them to open, as I was the only foreigner in town I had the place to myself for the first two hours which was absolutely majic, again, huge sections of the compound have yet to be excavated and have a mixture of ancient Inca rocks sticking out of the mud and crumbling modern mud houses melting into the ground from which the latest inhabitants have been evicted when the sacred area was marked off. The semi-subteranean temple was my favourite it is dug into the ground and heads emerge from the brick work every foot or so in three or four rows. The Kantatallita or tomb area which is a new excavation area looks like it will be amazing once they have dug a bit more of it our of the ground and re-erected it's arched doorways and the like. The main temple area had evidence of recent rituals and the workmen appeared to just build their lunch fires wherever they like amongst the ruins??? Christopher (the son of the family who own the hostel I'm staying in) has during his excavations to build the kitchen and dining area of the guest accomodation come across great numbers of relics, mortars and pestels, broken crockery, even a piece of Inca drain, so he has his own little museum in the back yard too. In the evening he explained the significance of the various aspects of the temple and showed me photos of the last sun celebration, his Uncle is the high priest. "So" I said to him (having seen the impressive and old catholic church in town) "your not Catholic then?" "Of course we are Catholic" he hurried to correct me "but Pachamama is much older then Christ" Yes I thought, but decided it unwise to pursue this particular logic.
The next morning I saw the sun rise (in the vague direction of the puerto del sol from my balcony, and headed back to La Paz.
Then it was off to Rurrenabaque over the amazing Yungas and via the pretty little town of Corroico. First I did a pampas tour which was hot, and the mosquitos were biting, we spent many happy hours in a boat watching the millions of different types of Amazon birds, storks, cormorants, egrets, herons, spoonbills, kingfishers, macaws, vultures and small parrots and waders and I really don't know what all else so many it's amazing, we saw three different kinds of monkeys including squirrel and howler, three different kinds of snake, fished for Pirranha's and swam with pink river dolphins. I saw my first Toucan on the way back to Rurre and was really very happy with my whole trip. Then we went four days deeper into the amazon jungle where the mosquitos are joined by other manic biting insects and various members of my party got so many bites pieces of their anatomy swelled in quite hideous ways, we saw Cappybarris and trees and trees full of parrots and macaws, so many beautiful and huge butterflies every colour of the rainbow, their were also a lot of spiders and frogs we saw puma footprints in the sand but not the elusive creatures themselves.
We arrived exhausted back in La Paz yesterday and in a few days I will head for Lake Titicaca and the Isle del sol, apparently despite the name it's cold! Spot you later.
N.J.
Well Valdivia and Pucon were a long time ago now.
Now I am in Bolivia, but how did I get here, I hear you ask.
Settle down grab a cerveza and I will tell you...
O.k. yes Pucon was busy in fiesta mode when I left, fabulous fun dancing in the streets, y´know how it is. I arrived in Valdivia which is a port city, and very German, it´s full of fabulous buildings, cool graffiti and really good chocolate cake. I stayed at this hostel down by the waterfront owned by a crazy French dyke, her Chillean partner and a couple of daschounds. A really lovely American couple were volunteering there and made American breakfast for us all every day, I got to try infamous ¨gravy and biscuits¨ for those of you unfamiliar with American food it´s a kind of dumpling, not bad at all. I spent a few days rumbling round the old ruins of a Spanish fort or two, we went on a Monday when indeed the fort was closed, but never fear we found a way to scale the walls and break into the fort. (we being Thurbid who is German and Yankee an Israeli who travels solo). Breaking into crumbling monuments is really easy. The wall we scaled was a tad close to the sea that´s all.
Then from Valdivia, I went down to Puerto Varas which had beautiful cobbled streets and again was very European, I went to the national park and hiked about which was beautiful, but a little drizzley. The mountains there are beautiful. I continued south to the Island of Chiloe which is a little, kind of grubby by Chilean standards, and saw the stilt houses and old wooden churches the seals accompany the ferries over to the islands splashing about in the wake and playing in front of the boat.
I then spent a few days in Puerto Mont, which is a working port without tourist attractions (which is not necessarily a bad thing).
I was thinking about Patagonia but I decided too cold and expensive for this stage of my trip so I headed back to Santiago, where I spent my birthday and a few days later saw Kraftwerk warm up for Radiohead, Great gig. Just don´t ask about the trip to the venue!!!
Then I headed north to San Pedro de Attacama, where I cycled around the valley of the moon ( a gruelling 64 km day). crawled through caves and canyons, climbed sand dunes, looked at rocks and even wandered about in a salt mine! I then headed north as far as Chile goes to Arica and saw my first geoglyphs and petroglyphs, very cool in deed, if you´ve see such things before probably not that special but for me, who has not seen them before it absolutely (and literally) rocked! (¨Quality¨ as my English companion said).
Then went to a little town called Putre and into Lauca national park, just give me a moment to open my superlative bag and I´ll get right back to you… Wow… If you really want to hike in nature with flamingos and vicunas, surrounded by amazing little rivers and majestic mountains, seriously you need to check this place out!!!
The border crossing into Bolivia from this direction is absolutely magnificent, though on the draw back side I arrived in La Paz after dark and after all the horror stories I had heard about La Paz and Bolivia generally I almost had a panic attack on the spot. But luckily I had met an English woman on the bus and together (with the help of a security guard we managed to secure ourselves a (safe) taxi to our respective hotels.
In the morning I discovered Bolivia is totally unlike Chile, it is really what I was expecting when I decided to come to South America, it´s very exotic and different. The percentage of ethnic people versus the obvious Spanish decendants is closer to 70/30 here (In Chile it's probably 80/20 the opposite direction). I was in La Paz at the same time as the Argentinian Soccer team, who had their ass whipped by Bolivia (much to everyone´s amazement and immense enjoyment 6/1. It was great fun, I went with a bunch of mad people, in fact most of the hostel I was staying at went. Stadium was packed and we all got sunburnt (except me) for a change, I had sunscreen, hat long sleeves but I did perspire a lot!!! It was really hot!
After several days in La Paz I headed down south to Potosi where the mines are and the altitude makes you completely breathless, fantastic views and the little cobbled alleyways and architecture is fab!
Then headed south to Uyuni and did the obligatory ¨salt flats¨tour which is three days of incredible lakes (more flamingos and vicuna) great volcanoes, rock formations, dehydrated lake beds and old coral beds, cacti, did I mention cacti, I keep expecting to see Snoopy's cousin with the moustache, (haven´t yet but if I do you´ll be the first to know!)
Then I arrived in Sucre or ¨the white city¨so named because of all the whitewashed buildings, it is an attractive city, very European architecturally (all the guys in colourful ponchos pissing in the street EVERYWHERE is decidedly uneuropean, not to mention smelly).
My Spanish lessons go well, I can conjugate many a verb now, but my listening and speaking really need a huge amount of work!
Oh and now even Sucre is a distant dream, yes I promise to post this today!!! From Sucre I headed to Smaipata and into Amboro National park, I hiked with an Australian girl and a lovely Dutch girl, The cloud forest was beautiful but it did rain a little (being a cloud forest this was about what I expected), the vegetation is much like New Zealand predominantly massive ferns, moss and lichens in fact I am constantly reminded how much like the green green grass of home South America is, the plants are very similar often you see plants which are obviously related to plants from home and it's the first place in the world where I have (happily) been able to find my favourite vegetable (what in New Zealand we call Yam a small pink variety of potatoe). Perhaps for this reason it makes me feel slightly home sick (or perhaps it's just the altitude).
Altitude is a funny thing you think your acclimatised then suddenly your gasping like a fish for a few breaths then it passes and you feel fine again, some people get headaches but for me it's a feeling not unlike being mildly high, slightly unsettling and disorienting but not painful.
Anyway from Amboro National park and Smaiapata I headed back to La Paz and a couple of friends from Chile were in town so it was great to catch up with Victor and Karina again, I headed to Tiwanaku.
Tiwanaku was amazing, the archeaologists currently working on the site suspect it may have been as important to the Incas as Macchu Picchu but at this stage they really are just digging bits of rock out of the ground and jigsawing the temples and structures back together. I arrived in town and went to find a hotel but the first was too expensive and the second locked up and abandoned. There are many, many new hotels in the throws of being built, it's a town that has great expectations!!! I was wandering around contemplating my next hotel when a little old chap on a bicycle hot off his bike and started chatting and walking beside me. He invited me back to his place and so i went. His son as it turns out is building a hostel on the side of their house and they showed me to a massive room for the princely sum of 15 Bolivianos a night (the equivalent of 3 dollars). There house backs onto the grounds of tiwanaku and my balcony looked out over the fence onto the grounds, perfect! They gave me some coca tea and I headed out to the museums, stuffed full of statues and cool suessian ceramics, (unfortunately they always seem to have a no photography law in these places but my camera has never recovered from the trip to Uyuni so it doesn't really matter, I will have to upgrade soon) I love the Inca representations of people and animals they are often just so bizarre. I ate Quinwha soup in a rundown, Ma and Pa store then and headed over to the first lot of ruins.
Puma Punku, I wander about the ruins and am thinking (perhaps meanly) it's just like a poor man's Egypt). the ruins here are barely excavated, most still lie (their shattered visage like Ozymandis amongst the sand) half buried, those they have excavated quite often now lie on their backs their ancient engravings exposed now to the sun wind and rain, it's crazy. Tourists can just wander about the rocks and willy nilly amongst over and around these ancient stones it's quite incredible, especially as most tourists are too ignorant to realise that these actions are damaging what remains, (we are programmed to believe if it needs protecting someone will have put a fence round it and erected a sign stating this... baa, baa). Anyway off my soap box now. I headed back to watch the sunset from my balcony.
The next morning I went early down to the market in town, Tiwanaku is a grubby little town and it had a grubby little market, although talked up by the local people it is nothing once one has seen the markets of La Paz and the giant sprawling mess of market similar to Bangkok's Chattuchak in Cochabamba. I returned to the main temple gates at Tiwanaku and waited for them to open, as I was the only foreigner in town I had the place to myself for the first two hours which was absolutely majic, again, huge sections of the compound have yet to be excavated and have a mixture of ancient Inca rocks sticking out of the mud and crumbling modern mud houses melting into the ground from which the latest inhabitants have been evicted when the sacred area was marked off. The semi-subteranean temple was my favourite it is dug into the ground and heads emerge from the brick work every foot or so in three or four rows. The Kantatallita or tomb area which is a new excavation area looks like it will be amazing once they have dug a bit more of it our of the ground and re-erected it's arched doorways and the like. The main temple area had evidence of recent rituals and the workmen appeared to just build their lunch fires wherever they like amongst the ruins??? Christopher (the son of the family who own the hostel I'm staying in) has during his excavations to build the kitchen and dining area of the guest accomodation come across great numbers of relics, mortars and pestels, broken crockery, even a piece of Inca drain, so he has his own little museum in the back yard too. In the evening he explained the significance of the various aspects of the temple and showed me photos of the last sun celebration, his Uncle is the high priest. "So" I said to him (having seen the impressive and old catholic church in town) "your not Catholic then?" "Of course we are Catholic" he hurried to correct me "but Pachamama is much older then Christ" Yes I thought, but decided it unwise to pursue this particular logic.
The next morning I saw the sun rise (in the vague direction of the puerto del sol from my balcony, and headed back to La Paz.
Then it was off to Rurrenabaque over the amazing Yungas and via the pretty little town of Corroico. First I did a pampas tour which was hot, and the mosquitos were biting, we spent many happy hours in a boat watching the millions of different types of Amazon birds, storks, cormorants, egrets, herons, spoonbills, kingfishers, macaws, vultures and small parrots and waders and I really don't know what all else so many it's amazing, we saw three different kinds of monkeys including squirrel and howler, three different kinds of snake, fished for Pirranha's and swam with pink river dolphins. I saw my first Toucan on the way back to Rurre and was really very happy with my whole trip. Then we went four days deeper into the amazon jungle where the mosquitos are joined by other manic biting insects and various members of my party got so many bites pieces of their anatomy swelled in quite hideous ways, we saw Cappybarris and trees and trees full of parrots and macaws, so many beautiful and huge butterflies every colour of the rainbow, their were also a lot of spiders and frogs we saw puma footprints in the sand but not the elusive creatures themselves.
We arrived exhausted back in La Paz yesterday and in a few days I will head for Lake Titicaca and the Isle del sol, apparently despite the name it's cold! Spot you later.
N.J.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Pucon
Well your in for a treat this time, I have in deed attached a photo of Sudoku South American style, or what I call "Sudoporn" now why you disguise a perfectly respectable logic game inside a soft porn cover is beyond me, one wouldn't like fellow passengers on the bus to know your engaged in a semi-intellectual pursuit, no so much better that they think your a pervy type who is just upping your hormone level or something. Call it a culture chasm, and yes the girl I bought it off did look at me twice.
Other things I love about Sth America include that their is a section in the yellow pages entitled "Vigilantes" now I know it's just security guards but somehow being called a vigilante has got to increase your cool quotient.
There are stray dogs here, not so mangy and skinny as the Thai kind, more an unconnected tribe of hobos. So poopy does not get scoopied and the streets can be a little vile in the cities where there are no grass berms, but luckily Chile does have a lot of parks so things are not as bad as they could be. There is even a park in Valparaiso that has a bunch of dog statues around a very odd central statue which shows some midget men (possibly Mapuche men) nursing from a giant odd looking female dog.
The food here is rather repeatative, luckily I like avocadoes (a lot). But the "completoes" are more or less compulsory fare, they are basically a hotdog in a white bread roll with tomatoe, avocado and a wacking great dolop of mayo on top, I did take a rather bad photo of a promotion for one of these and a beer, it was (rather amusingly I thought) called a "gut promotion" (I know it's a german themed pub, but still funny).
When the light turns red you don't only have the junkies trying to wash your car windows for pesos, you also have acrobats and jugglers step out into the road and do their thing, which is much more fun in my book, I'm not sure of they make money out of it, but still, enterprising I think!
There is so much street art / grafitti here (it really is hard to tell which is which, I certainly prefer some of the "grafitti" to some of the "art") It makes me wonder about the personal reasons behind each work I've kind of concluded that some people do beautiful respectful work, while some people do thought provoking (sometimes) mass produced or political stencil art and others just do rude crude "tags" or the equivalent of territorial pissing. I guess it's kind of a window onto their personality, some people are rude and crude and others think about the context of their stuff before they start, maybe it reinforces the idea that every thing you do is an expression of your self, not only what you do but how and where you do it as well, obviously this form of public art if not exactly legal here is encouraged on some level (and many of the large works on public walk ways must be legal) and I'm sure more than one business and home owner have actually sought out someone to paint their house wall.
I have also had someone attempt to steal something out of my bag, I was amazed how quiet and efficient they were, I didn't even notice the attempt till well after the event, but I never carry anything valuable in the front pocket of my backpack for this very reason, luckily they didn't see any value in my glasses or contact lens fluid so they had wasted their time on that particular occassion.
I have left Santiago and gone South through Chillan and Villarica and am now hanging out in Pucon, it's beautiful here next to mount Villarica a still active volcano which I climbed (a 4 hour uphill trudge) my guide assured me he can do it in 2, argggh. Luckily we slid down the glacier at least half the way down, and got a numb bum despite wearing protective slidding clothes and a slidding "nappy" it was great fun if decidedly unglamorous.
Tomorrow I head for Valdivia while all remains relatively quiet on the work front, I've been offered a couple of language school gigs in Buenos Aires but I'm not sure they are what I want, we shall see.
Till next time, keep safe, besos,
Other things I love about Sth America include that their is a section in the yellow pages entitled "Vigilantes" now I know it's just security guards but somehow being called a vigilante has got to increase your cool quotient.
There are stray dogs here, not so mangy and skinny as the Thai kind, more an unconnected tribe of hobos. So poopy does not get scoopied and the streets can be a little vile in the cities where there are no grass berms, but luckily Chile does have a lot of parks so things are not as bad as they could be. There is even a park in Valparaiso that has a bunch of dog statues around a very odd central statue which shows some midget men (possibly Mapuche men) nursing from a giant odd looking female dog.
The food here is rather repeatative, luckily I like avocadoes (a lot). But the "completoes" are more or less compulsory fare, they are basically a hotdog in a white bread roll with tomatoe, avocado and a wacking great dolop of mayo on top, I did take a rather bad photo of a promotion for one of these and a beer, it was (rather amusingly I thought) called a "gut promotion" (I know it's a german themed pub, but still funny).
When the light turns red you don't only have the junkies trying to wash your car windows for pesos, you also have acrobats and jugglers step out into the road and do their thing, which is much more fun in my book, I'm not sure of they make money out of it, but still, enterprising I think!
There is so much street art / grafitti here (it really is hard to tell which is which, I certainly prefer some of the "grafitti" to some of the "art") It makes me wonder about the personal reasons behind each work I've kind of concluded that some people do beautiful respectful work, while some people do thought provoking (sometimes) mass produced or political stencil art and others just do rude crude "tags" or the equivalent of territorial pissing. I guess it's kind of a window onto their personality, some people are rude and crude and others think about the context of their stuff before they start, maybe it reinforces the idea that every thing you do is an expression of your self, not only what you do but how and where you do it as well, obviously this form of public art if not exactly legal here is encouraged on some level (and many of the large works on public walk ways must be legal) and I'm sure more than one business and home owner have actually sought out someone to paint their house wall.
I have also had someone attempt to steal something out of my bag, I was amazed how quiet and efficient they were, I didn't even notice the attempt till well after the event, but I never carry anything valuable in the front pocket of my backpack for this very reason, luckily they didn't see any value in my glasses or contact lens fluid so they had wasted their time on that particular occassion.
I have left Santiago and gone South through Chillan and Villarica and am now hanging out in Pucon, it's beautiful here next to mount Villarica a still active volcano which I climbed (a 4 hour uphill trudge) my guide assured me he can do it in 2, argggh. Luckily we slid down the glacier at least half the way down, and got a numb bum despite wearing protective slidding clothes and a slidding "nappy" it was great fun if decidedly unglamorous.
Tomorrow I head for Valdivia while all remains relatively quiet on the work front, I've been offered a couple of language school gigs in Buenos Aires but I'm not sure they are what I want, we shall see.
Till next time, keep safe, besos,
Monday, February 09, 2009
Saturday, February 07, 2009
February 2009
Yes, I am the slackest blogger on the planet!
Believe it or not I have been very busy, no really.
For those of you who live under a rock (or aren't on facebook), I no longer live in Thailand.
So I left Thailand, there were parties and tears and I travelled overland to Malaysia, did some posting and stuff in K.l.went down to Bali and went diving on the Liberty wreck in Tulumben the highlight of which was definitely seeing my first real live baby seahorse, it was tiny and sooo cute.
Bali was interesting as the American elections had just been held (yay Obama riding his unicorn of change over the rainbow of hope and into American hearts), the guy who ran one of the guest houses I stayed in (and in defence of his character I will say I saw him reading a newspaper, which he assured me he did every day) told me that they were all surprised that Americans had "voted for the Muslim ". I was indeed momentarily speechless but then thought hey this could be the best thing for world peace ever if all the countries that are breeding ground for terrorists believe this.
Also the Mumbai bombings had just happened and the Bali bombers from 2005 (I think) had just been executed the week before so there were travel warnings about that part of the world, The place was empty (it was Blackpool in winter all over again). People were very interested in how safe I felt being in Bali and discussions about "What terrorists want" were rampant. I of course am of the opinion that if I cease living my life my way then the terrorists have indeed won, I'm not saying one should be fool hardy in regards to their own safety but at the same time allowing others to dictate your life style has never been a thing that sits well with me.
Anyways, I then Christmassed with all my old friends in Australia, I was spoiled rotten and generally speaking drank far too much, and ate too much. January was spent in much the same manner in New Zealand with the family and friends of my childhood, great fun and thanks to everyone who humoredme, feed and sheltered me, besos darlings.
And so I have embarked on a new continent and hope to have a job here shortly, I flew into Santiago at the start of the month arriving fortuitously during a magnificent sunset over the spectacular Andes, even seeing some geoglyphs in the ground here and there as well, it was all a bit too fabulous as an arrival really. I am now in the process of discovering Chile, For some reason I find the lack of Spanish more disorientating then I did the lack of Thai, I am starting to string the odd stumbling sentence together but it takes me so long to understand what has been said to me and formulate a response that most people have given up by then. My first day I went to Plaza de Brazil and found my first rabid dog (luckily he was dead) unluckily in the children's playground, which made for some odd juxtaposition photography. I then headed down to Plaza de Armas where I discovered Chilean police wearing not only guns but bullet proof vests (oh yeah I'm feeling secure now). The glimpses of the Andes through the shop fronts keeps reminding me of what Upper Hutt (nestelled in the Akatarua mountains) might look like on steroids.
There are a million churches in Santiago, they fall into threebroad categories, Posh, under renovation, and slowly rotting, the first one I went into "Saint Francis" church had the goriest Christ on the cross I've ever seen, seriously any kid going into that church is doomed to nightmares for the rest of their days. Next I went into the main Cathedral, it has many splendid iconographic paintings, the cielings had not been spared a generous splashing of the oils though my favourite had to be one of the holy lamb barbque, I have a picture I promise to post it next time I have my camera hooked up. There was also some great stained glass as well.
Day 2 found me at the "Mueseo Chileano de Arte" which did indeed (as promised by the satanic verses) have many stunning statues and items from Inca and other Central and South American native peoples, it was exceptionally cool and i would love to have been able to take some photos, to remind myself how cool a lot of the stuff was as they simply don't do postcards (or allow photography) go figure!
Today I caught the bus, past a surprisingly barren but for cactus and eucalyptus trees sceenery to Valparaiso and am now staying at my friend Karenn's house, she is a lovely girl whom I have met through a friend of my Mothers and we walked over Valparaiso and saw some very cool architecture, again very reminiscent of Wellington. It{s late, I will try to post again soon (I know, I know, such empty words are bound to come back to haunt me).
Believe it or not I have been very busy, no really.
For those of you who live under a rock (or aren't on facebook), I no longer live in Thailand.
So I left Thailand, there were parties and tears and I travelled overland to Malaysia, did some posting and stuff in K.l.went down to Bali and went diving on the Liberty wreck in Tulumben the highlight of which was definitely seeing my first real live baby seahorse, it was tiny and sooo cute.
Bali was interesting as the American elections had just been held (yay Obama riding his unicorn of change over the rainbow of hope and into American hearts), the guy who ran one of the guest houses I stayed in (and in defence of his character I will say I saw him reading a newspaper, which he assured me he did every day) told me that they were all surprised that Americans had "voted for the Muslim ". I was indeed momentarily speechless but then thought hey this could be the best thing for world peace ever if all the countries that are breeding ground for terrorists believe this.
Also the Mumbai bombings had just happened and the Bali bombers from 2005 (I think) had just been executed the week before so there were travel warnings about that part of the world, The place was empty (it was Blackpool in winter all over again). People were very interested in how safe I felt being in Bali and discussions about "What terrorists want" were rampant. I of course am of the opinion that if I cease living my life my way then the terrorists have indeed won, I'm not saying one should be fool hardy in regards to their own safety but at the same time allowing others to dictate your life style has never been a thing that sits well with me.
Anyways, I then Christmassed with all my old friends in Australia, I was spoiled rotten and generally speaking drank far too much, and ate too much. January was spent in much the same manner in New Zealand with the family and friends of my childhood, great fun and thanks to everyone who humoredme, feed and sheltered me, besos darlings.
And so I have embarked on a new continent and hope to have a job here shortly, I flew into Santiago at the start of the month arriving fortuitously during a magnificent sunset over the spectacular Andes, even seeing some geoglyphs in the ground here and there as well, it was all a bit too fabulous as an arrival really. I am now in the process of discovering Chile, For some reason I find the lack of Spanish more disorientating then I did the lack of Thai, I am starting to string the odd stumbling sentence together but it takes me so long to understand what has been said to me and formulate a response that most people have given up by then. My first day I went to Plaza de Brazil and found my first rabid dog (luckily he was dead) unluckily in the children's playground, which made for some odd juxtaposition photography. I then headed down to Plaza de Armas where I discovered Chilean police wearing not only guns but bullet proof vests (oh yeah I'm feeling secure now). The glimpses of the Andes through the shop fronts keeps reminding me of what Upper Hutt (nestelled in the Akatarua mountains) might look like on steroids.
There are a million churches in Santiago, they fall into threebroad categories, Posh, under renovation, and slowly rotting, the first one I went into "Saint Francis" church had the goriest Christ on the cross I've ever seen, seriously any kid going into that church is doomed to nightmares for the rest of their days. Next I went into the main Cathedral, it has many splendid iconographic paintings, the cielings had not been spared a generous splashing of the oils though my favourite had to be one of the holy lamb barbque, I have a picture I promise to post it next time I have my camera hooked up. There was also some great stained glass as well.
Day 2 found me at the "Mueseo Chileano de Arte" which did indeed (as promised by the satanic verses) have many stunning statues and items from Inca and other Central and South American native peoples, it was exceptionally cool and i would love to have been able to take some photos, to remind myself how cool a lot of the stuff was as they simply don't do postcards (or allow photography) go figure!
Today I caught the bus, past a surprisingly barren but for cactus and eucalyptus trees sceenery to Valparaiso and am now staying at my friend Karenn's house, she is a lovely girl whom I have met through a friend of my Mothers and we walked over Valparaiso and saw some very cool architecture, again very reminiscent of Wellington. It{s late, I will try to post again soon (I know, I know, such empty words are bound to come back to haunt me).
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