After the poolside party with the Yankees, Luke and Jade, and a host of other good people it's time for some more bus travel.
36 hours in a bus seat, with only 1 hour off the bus to buy a second ticket. What worries me is how adebt I am at sitting in a chair and doing absolutley nothing at all. As long as I have a ipod of music, a iphone full of podcasts, the Angry Birds game, and the occasional film that works on the bus telly I can easily sit there for days.
It brings my laziness sharply into focus, I really am very very good at doing nothing at all. I'll happily sit and breathe for long periods, and when that gets tiring I'll have a nap. I might have myself committed when I get home, then I can sit in a chair all day AND get free drugs.
The first leg I do with Luke and Jade, we plum for the best bus we can find from Igazu to Buenos Aires. We are given booze and decent food, much nicer than plane food, and then Luke and I 'liberate' a bottle of champagne from the fridge while the hostess is asleep. I have to smuggle it off 'Great Escape' style in the morning. We go our seperate ways at the bus station, me onto another bus, them to Buenos Aires and beyond to New Zealand. I will miss them a lot for the next few days.
I suppose the reason why I can sit on a bus so readily for such a long time is the pay off when I finally stop.
To see Patagonia? I'd have sat there for 3 weeks. Well not really, you'd have to throw in a few 'gentleman time' stops and very fast WiFi for a 3 weeker.
I'm not sure if it's because I am in Patagonia or it's just that I'm not siiting on a bus, but as I walk along the seafront, with the warm sun loosening my tight, bus cramped muscles, I find myself deliriously happy . Young couples sit together on walls and benches, canoodling their afternoon siesta away, they get 4 hours off over here, from 12pm-4pm.
Lots of people are out walk/jogging, they smile sweetly as they pass the cleary Welsh me on their way. People love it when you say you are from Wales here, and they love you more when you say that you can speak Welsh.
Not so much the English, they don't like the English much here, and it doesn't help that every town has a street called Belgrano somewhere. But here, closer to the island, people have been shouted at and abused while they wander around the town.
I walk for 3 miles along the beach up to the embarkation museum. It's a little white house that sits on the top of a hill, just above the site of where the Mimosa landed full of Welsh settlers in 1865. They have designed the museum in a way to tell the story through the eyes of one of the passengers, a girl called Catherine. It explains the struggle to get to Argentina from Liverpool docks, and the problems they faced when they tried to build a life here. Even if you're not Welsh the history and story is very engaging and the little old lady who works there speaks Welsh, not Welsh as I know it or speak, it's Welsh with a strange lilt to it, with accents on letters very different to how I would say it. Her family were settlers and it's amazing to speak to her for a while and find out that there's a growing interest locally in the Welsh history of the place. I leave and as I walk back to the hostel I realize that I've spoken more Welsh to her in 2 hours than I have to anyone else over the last year. A sobering thought for a first language Welsh speaker.
The loneliness of the lone diner.
Now I've dined alone lots of times, mostly when I have been away for work, and of course whilst doing this trip, as well as those times I've been stood up.
I really don't mind the stares from other diners, or the over attentive staff, it's as though they feel sorry for you because you must be such a loser that nobody will even eat a meal with you, but for me it's never been a problem.
But it's gets bad when you have to eat alone in a empty restaraunt, because over here nobody eats until around 11pm! 11! My Mum needs to be sat down for dinner for 6:30pm, 7pm at the latest, any later and it's,
"Oh my stomach Gareth, I'll toss and turn all night. ooohhh and the wind! No, no, book the table for quarter past six, and we can't have anything with bell peppers, they're agony for me the other way out. I'll not sleep a wink"
I've got to see the penquins at 8am tomorrow so I'd like to be asleep by 11, so I find myself sitting down for dinner as the chef is warming the grill. It's quite the cultural kicker. I bottle it and head out to a bar to waste some time. Eventually I walk back in at 9:30pm and there are some 'early bird' diners in, so I sit down again and order a steak and Malbec.
Only 2 of us are sitting alone, and as I glance across to him I can see that he's ordered strong, a huge cut of loin beef arrives on his table on one of those mini heater thingy's, similar to the ones you see at a showy Chinese, but with loads more class. I got severe meat envy. The Bastard. And he looks good eating it, he looks like a cross between a Chilean miner and a moustached Frenchmen. I feel like a child against him. My meat envy properly kickwhen my food arrives, don't get me wrong, the filet is a work of art, but for volume and girth, the meat on his grill is monsterous. I finish my steak and head for the door, I swear I can hear a snort of derision from the French miner, but I turn round and he's just blowing his nose, then sets about finishing the bead basket and salad!
The penquins are fun to see but yet again television has lied to me. I expected them to all be huddled together in a huge ball like I've seen on the BBC, but they're not, they're all dotted around hiding under bushes in penquins sized divots, sheltering from the massive winds, I wished I'd thought of that because it's brassic out here.
That night I wander around the town and see a poster for Sepultura, they are playing a gig in Puerto Madryn! which is a bit like Coldplay playing a gig in Runcorn, a bit strange. I decide that I have to go and witness this explosion of Brazilian metal, with a massive throng of crazy Argentinians. Except it doesn't really go down like that. The gig has been moved from the local football stadium to a basketball hall. The expected crowd of around 20,000 is slightly less. 800 people. It's a very odd state of affairs and they of course won't serve booze inside so everyone is getting smashed in the car park. I've never understood this sort of policy on drink and drugs. if you don't allow drinking in the venue then everyone will just get smashed before they arrive, and you'll still have the same problem that you're trying to avoid by not serving booze!
The gig is cool but we leave and head to a bar, by now it's about 12:30pm, we sit in the bar and have some cocktails in a booth. In the booth behind me a woman is sitting breastfeeding her quite clearly 4 year old daughter. Now I know which part of that is worse but breast feeding in a bar at 1 in the morning? It's nuts.
We leave and we go back to the hostel.
The following day I head to Gaiman, a tiny village where the Welsh history is at its strongest. They have traditional Welsh tea houses and period buildings. The museum is run by Fabio, and he's a little odd and quirky, but a good laugh to chat to. I eat Welsh cakes and chat to the owners and genrally try to imagine moving somewhere that has nothing, and then you try to build something. It's a wonderful couple of days.
But I need to keep moving, and the next few days promise to be full of excitement and fun-
remedial horseriding
making new friends
watching a Frenchmen at work
visiting some of the best vineyards in the world
and more bus rides.
Friday 29 October 2010
Thursday 21 October 2010
Buses, Buses, Waterfalls, and the beauty that is Patagonia
Now, people say that travel broadens the mind, and by and large that's true.
However, getting to the places that broadens your mind can sometimes be, well, mind crushingly tedious.
I leave Bolivia by overnight train. It's 9 bone shaking hours to the border with Argentina but I have a cunning plan. I have taken advantage of Bolivia's wonderfully lax attitude to pharmacy and bought a job lot of Diazepam.
The last time I legally had these wonderful little pills was when a girl called Ymanda gave me a 'neck massage' in University. Long story short, she ruptured the muscles in my neck and I past out from the pain whilst in the shower the following morning. This episode is why nobody is allowed to 'massage' me without a certificate, or some sort of evidence that they've had training in massage therapy.
Of course since then girlfriends have tried to 'massage' me in some sort of foreplay type situation, I dismiss the whole idea, usually by pushing sex on them, which leads to many a row about me not being 'sensitive' or something.
Anyway, 1 Diazepam later and it's the morning! and I'm at the border. I expect the transition from Bolivia to Argentina to be a bit like water to oil, one place is sticky, smelly, and hard work to get around. The other is clear, calm, and healthy.
How wrong I was. The first Argentinian town I come to all the cash machine don't work. All of them. All 4 of them.
I beg and plead with the bus comapany to let me travel ahead to Salta, and that I'd pay there. No dice, they all want cash, but I don't have cash, because ALL of the cash machines don't work in the WHOLE town! all 4 of them!
Eventually I find one company that takes Visa and I'm off. It's 8 hours to Salta so I run out the last of my battery power listening to some 'we're not cool' mixes on my Ipod, and marveling at the progressively more beautiful scenery.
My friend is 'we're not cool' and his mixes are really really good. the tracks fit so well with my mindset and mood that they have soundtracked almost half of my trip. I'd never tell him this though, and luckly he can't read or write, but they have been a saving grace for me on this trip. I never ever realized how big this country was, and what appears close on a map is easily 9 hours away, and I used to think getting from Cardiff to London was a pain of a journey.
I stop overnight at Salta and leave the following day for Igazu. This is another 23 hours away on a bus. When I finally get off the bus the warm humidity of late afternoon Igazu lifts my tired legs.
I checked into my hostel and fall straight into the swimming pool, the fresh, ripe, cold water is a wicked shot to the system.
I get up early and head for the falls, where I have arranged to meet Luke and Jade, and 2 wicked Aussie fellas who were on our bus the day before. Luke and Jade have now become my antidote to all the other twats that I've met on this trip, their positvity and general niceness cheers me up no end. And as we all jump about waiting to buy tickets in the sunshine, it makes me feel like we're on a unsupervised school trip to Alton Towers.
As we wander closer to the falls the noise of the water hums in the background, not really giving us a clue of what we're about to see, and the sight catches me a little off guard.
Massive waterfalls strech out in front of us like a rainbow on it's side, the white clouds of water that jump up from the bottom of the falls rise up to about halfway, making it difficult to see how far down they go, and the falls ark around for what feels like miles.
We all go a bit quiet, then start laughing and smiling like loons. Everyone takes photos and then we get on a boat ride into the jaws of the falls. I get sodden wet but it's the best 20 minutes on a boat I've ever had.
We spend the rest of the day walking around the paths, joking, and bantering. We meet a couple of Yanky ladies who are living in Buenos Aires, and we all arrange to have a drink up at the hotel in the evening.
However, getting to the places that broadens your mind can sometimes be, well, mind crushingly tedious.
I leave Bolivia by overnight train. It's 9 bone shaking hours to the border with Argentina but I have a cunning plan. I have taken advantage of Bolivia's wonderfully lax attitude to pharmacy and bought a job lot of Diazepam.
The last time I legally had these wonderful little pills was when a girl called Ymanda gave me a 'neck massage' in University. Long story short, she ruptured the muscles in my neck and I past out from the pain whilst in the shower the following morning. This episode is why nobody is allowed to 'massage' me without a certificate, or some sort of evidence that they've had training in massage therapy.
Of course since then girlfriends have tried to 'massage' me in some sort of foreplay type situation, I dismiss the whole idea, usually by pushing sex on them, which leads to many a row about me not being 'sensitive' or something.
Anyway, 1 Diazepam later and it's the morning! and I'm at the border. I expect the transition from Bolivia to Argentina to be a bit like water to oil, one place is sticky, smelly, and hard work to get around. The other is clear, calm, and healthy.
How wrong I was. The first Argentinian town I come to all the cash machine don't work. All of them. All 4 of them.
I beg and plead with the bus comapany to let me travel ahead to Salta, and that I'd pay there. No dice, they all want cash, but I don't have cash, because ALL of the cash machines don't work in the WHOLE town! all 4 of them!
Eventually I find one company that takes Visa and I'm off. It's 8 hours to Salta so I run out the last of my battery power listening to some 'we're not cool' mixes on my Ipod, and marveling at the progressively more beautiful scenery.
My friend is 'we're not cool' and his mixes are really really good. the tracks fit so well with my mindset and mood that they have soundtracked almost half of my trip. I'd never tell him this though, and luckly he can't read or write, but they have been a saving grace for me on this trip. I never ever realized how big this country was, and what appears close on a map is easily 9 hours away, and I used to think getting from Cardiff to London was a pain of a journey.
I stop overnight at Salta and leave the following day for Igazu. This is another 23 hours away on a bus. When I finally get off the bus the warm humidity of late afternoon Igazu lifts my tired legs.
I checked into my hostel and fall straight into the swimming pool, the fresh, ripe, cold water is a wicked shot to the system.
I get up early and head for the falls, where I have arranged to meet Luke and Jade, and 2 wicked Aussie fellas who were on our bus the day before. Luke and Jade have now become my antidote to all the other twats that I've met on this trip, their positvity and general niceness cheers me up no end. And as we all jump about waiting to buy tickets in the sunshine, it makes me feel like we're on a unsupervised school trip to Alton Towers.
As we wander closer to the falls the noise of the water hums in the background, not really giving us a clue of what we're about to see, and the sight catches me a little off guard.
Massive waterfalls strech out in front of us like a rainbow on it's side, the white clouds of water that jump up from the bottom of the falls rise up to about halfway, making it difficult to see how far down they go, and the falls ark around for what feels like miles.
We all go a bit quiet, then start laughing and smiling like loons. Everyone takes photos and then we get on a boat ride into the jaws of the falls. I get sodden wet but it's the best 20 minutes on a boat I've ever had.
We spend the rest of the day walking around the paths, joking, and bantering. We meet a couple of Yanky ladies who are living in Buenos Aires, and we all arrange to have a drink up at the hotel in the evening.
Tuesday 5 October 2010
Salt flats, finding friends, I get a bit deep, and am I on Mars?n
The Salt Flat tour. 3 days and 2 nights driving in a massive circle round the south west of Bolivia. We are a group of six in a 4x4, an Irish couple, a couple from London, me, and a Aussie. Aussies!
The trip starts by us visting a train graveyard, where all the unused British steam trains have been left to rust. It's quite a sight but you get the feeling that we're filling in time, then a lot of other 4x4s begin to turn up, and I am again reminded that tourism drives this part of Bolivia, and that I am not the first person to see or do this.
We hang about and I start to hear a loud wonky cockney accent drift across the plain, it turns out to be the voice of the one and only English bloke I met in Machu Pichu, Luke, closely followed by his lovely girl Jade.
A nicer pair of people you couldn't wish to meet, especially when you've only had a bunch of French, Swiss, Belgian, and Spanish to not talk to for 3 days. Their accents and cries of 'fack me' and 'ave a look at that' were music to my ears. My group had stopped for lunch during the trek to Machu Pichu and they arrived at the same lunch spot. He started singing loudly to 'it's raining men' and Jade had this amazing sunglasses white batch on her face from her wrap around D&Gs. I knew straight away that they were going to be my sort of people.
I run over, jump on Luke's back and shout,
"where's my friend request you mug?"
they both turn and it's all shouts of,
"oh my gawd! Facking ell! we couldn't find ya!" we hug and have a bit of banter but their group starts getting a bit pissy, so I take their names for the facebook and promise to meet them in Argentina in a few days for beers.
The salt flats used to be a salt water lake 10,000km wide, the water evaporated, leaving a desert of salt as far as you can possibly see. The views are awesome, with miles of whiteness, surrounded by imposing mountains.
Before I'd left my hostel in the morning I'd seen on Facebook that it's been 15 years since 'what's the story (morning glory)' was released. 15 years is a very scary number when it's in years past, I think about things I've done and seen in those 15 years, and I get whistful.
I was 17 when that album was released, and the world was on it's knees to me, I could be whoever I wanted, and do whatever I wanted, and I never imagined then that my life would angle and contrive the way it has. As the salt flats fade away behind me I reach for my Ipod. I listen to music from 15 years ago, Oasis, Ocean Colour Scene, Menswear, Shed Seven, Gene, Elastica, Blur, music that meant everything to me then, and I get nostalgic.
I think about the friends I had then, and the things we did, the gigs we saw, and the jokes we repeated and repeated. The clothes we'd obsess over, and the girls we didn't sleep with. The memories pass through me as fast as the landscape around me does.
Memories are what you have left to remind you that you've lived, and I love my memories more as each year passes, but you have to create new memories as you go, because if you don't, or can't, the memories turn and become reminders, reminders of when you were happier, and that's not how to live a life. You have to fill your life with new experiences to pile on top of the others, filling your mind with more memories than you can cope with, otherwise you're wasted.
Day 2
We drive further into the Bolivian countryside and it's other worldly, lakes of red water, still lakes of crystal blue, flamingos standing in freezing cold lagoons, mountains as far as the eye can see, some with snow on top, some in different colours, others that seem to have animal faces etched on their sides, bright blue skies but freezing gale storm winds, rocks that seem to be from Mars, where hundreds of years of nature have made them beautiful and splendid. I've never seen anything like it in my life. I am so small in the face of this nature, so unnecessary and insignificant, and it's a beautiful emotion, because you understand that to experience it and feel it makes you something, something greater than what you are seeing, it makes you concious that you are. And I feel inside me that I know this feeling, I get it when I cross the Thames, and see London bow to me. I just don't recognize it most of the time.
It's fucking freezing though, so I run back to the 4x4 and tell the drive to turn the heating up.
Day 3
We get up at 4:30am and it's -20 outside. I have stomach cramps from eating too fast the night before, and this is not the perfect way to start the day. It's pitch black as we head to the volcanic geysers. I'm in no mood for this but once we get to a hot spring and I have a coca tea, and about 5 shits, my stomach finally settles.
We have to drop Conor and Jean at the Chile border, and I am sad to see them go. 3 days on a trip with people you don't know is the make or break of a tour and these people are lovely. But we're all swapping details, and I'm making outrageous claims that I'll take them to see Wales play Ireland at the rugby so it's all good.
We spend the rest of the day driving back to Uyuni, talking, joking around, and trying to sleep in a 4x4 that's bouncing across the badlands of Bolivia. my legs and back ache but to see what we've seen, it's worth every stab of pain.
The trip starts by us visting a train graveyard, where all the unused British steam trains have been left to rust. It's quite a sight but you get the feeling that we're filling in time, then a lot of other 4x4s begin to turn up, and I am again reminded that tourism drives this part of Bolivia, and that I am not the first person to see or do this.
We hang about and I start to hear a loud wonky cockney accent drift across the plain, it turns out to be the voice of the one and only English bloke I met in Machu Pichu, Luke, closely followed by his lovely girl Jade.
A nicer pair of people you couldn't wish to meet, especially when you've only had a bunch of French, Swiss, Belgian, and Spanish to not talk to for 3 days. Their accents and cries of 'fack me' and 'ave a look at that' were music to my ears. My group had stopped for lunch during the trek to Machu Pichu and they arrived at the same lunch spot. He started singing loudly to 'it's raining men' and Jade had this amazing sunglasses white batch on her face from her wrap around D&Gs. I knew straight away that they were going to be my sort of people.
I run over, jump on Luke's back and shout,
"where's my friend request you mug?"
they both turn and it's all shouts of,
"oh my gawd! Facking ell! we couldn't find ya!" we hug and have a bit of banter but their group starts getting a bit pissy, so I take their names for the facebook and promise to meet them in Argentina in a few days for beers.
The salt flats used to be a salt water lake 10,000km wide, the water evaporated, leaving a desert of salt as far as you can possibly see. The views are awesome, with miles of whiteness, surrounded by imposing mountains.
Before I'd left my hostel in the morning I'd seen on Facebook that it's been 15 years since 'what's the story (morning glory)' was released. 15 years is a very scary number when it's in years past, I think about things I've done and seen in those 15 years, and I get whistful.
I was 17 when that album was released, and the world was on it's knees to me, I could be whoever I wanted, and do whatever I wanted, and I never imagined then that my life would angle and contrive the way it has. As the salt flats fade away behind me I reach for my Ipod. I listen to music from 15 years ago, Oasis, Ocean Colour Scene, Menswear, Shed Seven, Gene, Elastica, Blur, music that meant everything to me then, and I get nostalgic.
I think about the friends I had then, and the things we did, the gigs we saw, and the jokes we repeated and repeated. The clothes we'd obsess over, and the girls we didn't sleep with. The memories pass through me as fast as the landscape around me does.
Memories are what you have left to remind you that you've lived, and I love my memories more as each year passes, but you have to create new memories as you go, because if you don't, or can't, the memories turn and become reminders, reminders of when you were happier, and that's not how to live a life. You have to fill your life with new experiences to pile on top of the others, filling your mind with more memories than you can cope with, otherwise you're wasted.
Day 2
We drive further into the Bolivian countryside and it's other worldly, lakes of red water, still lakes of crystal blue, flamingos standing in freezing cold lagoons, mountains as far as the eye can see, some with snow on top, some in different colours, others that seem to have animal faces etched on their sides, bright blue skies but freezing gale storm winds, rocks that seem to be from Mars, where hundreds of years of nature have made them beautiful and splendid. I've never seen anything like it in my life. I am so small in the face of this nature, so unnecessary and insignificant, and it's a beautiful emotion, because you understand that to experience it and feel it makes you something, something greater than what you are seeing, it makes you concious that you are. And I feel inside me that I know this feeling, I get it when I cross the Thames, and see London bow to me. I just don't recognize it most of the time.
It's fucking freezing though, so I run back to the 4x4 and tell the drive to turn the heating up.
Day 3
We get up at 4:30am and it's -20 outside. I have stomach cramps from eating too fast the night before, and this is not the perfect way to start the day. It's pitch black as we head to the volcanic geysers. I'm in no mood for this but once we get to a hot spring and I have a coca tea, and about 5 shits, my stomach finally settles.
We have to drop Conor and Jean at the Chile border, and I am sad to see them go. 3 days on a trip with people you don't know is the make or break of a tour and these people are lovely. But we're all swapping details, and I'm making outrageous claims that I'll take them to see Wales play Ireland at the rugby so it's all good.
We spend the rest of the day driving back to Uyuni, talking, joking around, and trying to sleep in a 4x4 that's bouncing across the badlands of Bolivia. my legs and back ache but to see what we've seen, it's worth every stab of pain.
A damsel in distress, but me in more. Luxury trains, floating towns, and a frozen bus
The Salkantay and Machu Pichu trek is finished, and so am I. My leg muscles throb and the infected bites look like the melting Nazis face in Indiana Jones, and to top those, the blisters on the balls of my feet spasm pain at every touch.
I bribe the bus driver to drop me at the door of my hostel, we get to the road and the only bin men in Peru are collecting the rubbish on the road of my hostel. We can't go any further so I have to walk.
I fall off the bus at around midnight, and I hobble up the cobbled street like Keyser Söze, the pain reaching biblical levels. Up ahead I see a girl standing in the road and looking around. She's got her hood tightened up like Kenny from South Park, she's wearing a backpack and seems a bit lost.
So as to not unecessarily scare her I cross to the opposite pavement, the last thing a women needs is me slowly lurching up behind her on a dark street late at night. I've done that before and it's not ended well.
I get alongside her and she really does seem lost,
"are you lost" is my genius opening line,
"noaw, I kinda know where I'm going, thanks heaps though"
The Aussie accent shrills through the night air like a defective rape alarm.
'oh god, a Aussie' my kneejerk reaction kicks in before I can even think of the word tolerance.
I've never liked the Aussie, but I know why I don't like them, it's obvious. Jealousy.
They're good at sports, look good naked, due to always being in swimwear as the weather is amazing there, win a at stuff a lot, are annoyingly happy and cheery, even when they're pulling pints in a wetherspoons in Watford. They're consistently really good looking and I hate them for it, and their cricket team makes me want to shoot them all in the head. All the time.
But, as usual, the ones I've actually met I really like. That means you Brooke, and now Anita. Oh, and you AJ.
Anyway, the civility has already started so I have to see it through,
"are you looking for a hostel?" I ask,
"noaw, my hotel is up here but I'm thinking that they might be full so I'm going to check"
"well my hostel has been empty the last 2 nights I've stayed there so if it's full you can try there"
Her hotel is locked up so we head up the street to my hostel, which sits at the top of the hill,
"are you ok?" the aussie asks, as my sharp intakes of breath and staggered steps become a little obvious,
"I did the Salkantay trek, got some blisters and infected mosquito bites"
"I did a trek too, but I came off alright, I'm a little tired though"
She looks like she's been to the corner shop and back, and I mutter cusses under my breath.
At my hostel the predictable happens,
"we are full" says the night watchmen,
"where's the next nearest hostel then please?" asks the aussie,
"down the hill, turn left, up the steep staircase to the top, turn right, walk down and it's there"
The aussie grabs her bag and heads for the door, suddenly, from nowhere I hear my own voice,
"you can't go on your own, I'll walk you there"
the aussie points out that I can't actually walk, bizarrely, I hear myself again,
"well you can't go on your own so we're going"
I am practically in tears as we head out again onto the cobbles, and I curse my Dad for teaching me manners and the inportance of respecting a lady.
Even an Austrailain one.
We find the hostel, they have a room, and I say my goodbyes. In the 10 minutes we've been walking she semms a nice enough person so I mention that I'll be drinking beer and eating a fry up in a cafe tomorrow if she's bored, she says that she'll pop by.
I crawl back up the hill and into my hostel, the night watchmen takes pity on me and carries my bag up the stairs to my dorm,
'that's it' I think to myself, 'I'm seconds away from a bed'
The dorm door opes and the final joke of the night is played on me, I'm seeping on the top bunk.
It takes about 5 minutes for me to climb the 4 steps of the ladder, and the woman in the bottom bunk barely notices the wheezing, tearful, pathetic figure wrestling above her. I get to the top, bash my head on the roof and lie down. I'm breathing as hard as Huntley must have been when Hollie hit her head on the bath.
I get under the covers and let the pain flow from my feet to my head and back again. And then I pass out.
Anita swings by the Real McCoy bar to say thanks for walking her home, I'd been there for 2 hours by this point, drinking beers and eating, with my wounded legs resting on some bean bags. We have a couple of pisco sours and she turns out to be wonderful company, and an all round amazing, lovely person. Yet again my sterotyping has been exposed as a pointless and fruitless exercise.
Peru is on strike so I'm going nowhere until they're ready. I'm stranded in Cusco, surrounded by people selling massages, and a thousand people selling their artwork, artwork which oddly all looks exactly the same, as if it had all been mass produced in a factory somewhere.
I finally leave for Puno on my posh train on the Monday. The train is operated by the company who own the orient express, so it's all big chairs, waiters in waistcoats, and carpets. It's brilliant. The toilet on board is the nicest I've sat on in Peru. I've been sat with a lovely couple of ramblers from Peckham, and the chap used to be in Blake 7, and plays the vicar in Eastenders everytime someone dies. We chat and get on like a house on fire, they're backpacking around Peru too, and their enthusiasum and happiness is contagious, I hope I'm like them when I'm in my fifties.
Mike the vicar orders drinks by mistake and they insist I drink them, and on top of the drinks I have correctly been ordering for myself I get a bit drunk, while the beautiful countryside trundles by.
In Puno I go to visit the floating towns built by the local people made from the reeds in the titikaka lake. They started building these floating towns to escape the Spanish, and it's very interesting to see but it has become very tourist driven, and I get a bit uncomfortable when the women of the island start to sing 'twinkle twinkle little star' at me in 4 languages. Japanese being the most cringe worthy.
From there we travel to the island of Amalanti, and spend the night living with a local family. They live of the their on produce, grown around their little house. The lady of the house explains that over the last few years the rains have been less and less, so they are now forced to travel to Puno to sell tat to tourists like me to buy food.
Global warming has a slow burning effect, which is maybe why people find it hard to believe, but when you see it in this context and you see the impact for yourself it's hard to ignore.
They have some Inca ruins on the island, as usual at the very fucking top of a steep hill so we all head up there to see the sunset. The guide has told us that the best view is from Pachatata but I want to head to Pachamama, because I've given offerings to her a few times during this trip, and end up on my own up there.
The view across the lake is stunning and I sit in silence and think. I try to be all spiritual and that, but all I think about is my infected bites, and whether or not I could deal with having my legs amputated, exes, and sex. In that order.
The sun sets and I head back down the hill to the village to meet the rest of the group. As I get to the main square a group of kids are hanging around outside the corner shop playing music out of their mobile phones. I'm 3,000m above sea level, on a island with a population of 2,000 people, with electricity only between 7pm - 2am, and the kids are basically the same as in London. I wonder if it will be like Hackney, and will some of these kids stab me up when I go past? they don't.
In the morning I head out of Puno and out of Peru, and into Bolivia. We get into La Paz at around 5:30pm, but I'm not stopping and get straight onto a night bus heading to Uyuni, so I can visit the amazing salt flats and general wilderness. On the bus I'm given a blanket and we head off. At the next stop a very large Peruvian man gets on and sits next to me. He's bought his own blanket, and he's wearing a massive winter coat,
'it's not that cold' I assure myself and the bus pulls off.
I wake up at 3:30am and my lips have frozen together, and I can't feel my feet. The condensation on the windows has frozen solid, it's unbelievably cold. I'm really badly prepared for this level of cold so I slowly lean in towards the large Peruvian fella to try and share his body heat. I pretend to be asleep when he wakes up and finds my face inches from his.
I bribe the bus driver to drop me at the door of my hostel, we get to the road and the only bin men in Peru are collecting the rubbish on the road of my hostel. We can't go any further so I have to walk.
I fall off the bus at around midnight, and I hobble up the cobbled street like Keyser Söze, the pain reaching biblical levels. Up ahead I see a girl standing in the road and looking around. She's got her hood tightened up like Kenny from South Park, she's wearing a backpack and seems a bit lost.
So as to not unecessarily scare her I cross to the opposite pavement, the last thing a women needs is me slowly lurching up behind her on a dark street late at night. I've done that before and it's not ended well.
I get alongside her and she really does seem lost,
"are you lost" is my genius opening line,
"noaw, I kinda know where I'm going, thanks heaps though"
The Aussie accent shrills through the night air like a defective rape alarm.
'oh god, a Aussie' my kneejerk reaction kicks in before I can even think of the word tolerance.
I've never liked the Aussie, but I know why I don't like them, it's obvious. Jealousy.
They're good at sports, look good naked, due to always being in swimwear as the weather is amazing there, win a at stuff a lot, are annoyingly happy and cheery, even when they're pulling pints in a wetherspoons in Watford. They're consistently really good looking and I hate them for it, and their cricket team makes me want to shoot them all in the head. All the time.
But, as usual, the ones I've actually met I really like. That means you Brooke, and now Anita. Oh, and you AJ.
Anyway, the civility has already started so I have to see it through,
"are you looking for a hostel?" I ask,
"noaw, my hotel is up here but I'm thinking that they might be full so I'm going to check"
"well my hostel has been empty the last 2 nights I've stayed there so if it's full you can try there"
Her hotel is locked up so we head up the street to my hostel, which sits at the top of the hill,
"are you ok?" the aussie asks, as my sharp intakes of breath and staggered steps become a little obvious,
"I did the Salkantay trek, got some blisters and infected mosquito bites"
"I did a trek too, but I came off alright, I'm a little tired though"
She looks like she's been to the corner shop and back, and I mutter cusses under my breath.
At my hostel the predictable happens,
"we are full" says the night watchmen,
"where's the next nearest hostel then please?" asks the aussie,
"down the hill, turn left, up the steep staircase to the top, turn right, walk down and it's there"
The aussie grabs her bag and heads for the door, suddenly, from nowhere I hear my own voice,
"you can't go on your own, I'll walk you there"
the aussie points out that I can't actually walk, bizarrely, I hear myself again,
"well you can't go on your own so we're going"
I am practically in tears as we head out again onto the cobbles, and I curse my Dad for teaching me manners and the inportance of respecting a lady.
Even an Austrailain one.
We find the hostel, they have a room, and I say my goodbyes. In the 10 minutes we've been walking she semms a nice enough person so I mention that I'll be drinking beer and eating a fry up in a cafe tomorrow if she's bored, she says that she'll pop by.
I crawl back up the hill and into my hostel, the night watchmen takes pity on me and carries my bag up the stairs to my dorm,
'that's it' I think to myself, 'I'm seconds away from a bed'
The dorm door opes and the final joke of the night is played on me, I'm seeping on the top bunk.
It takes about 5 minutes for me to climb the 4 steps of the ladder, and the woman in the bottom bunk barely notices the wheezing, tearful, pathetic figure wrestling above her. I get to the top, bash my head on the roof and lie down. I'm breathing as hard as Huntley must have been when Hollie hit her head on the bath.
I get under the covers and let the pain flow from my feet to my head and back again. And then I pass out.
Anita swings by the Real McCoy bar to say thanks for walking her home, I'd been there for 2 hours by this point, drinking beers and eating, with my wounded legs resting on some bean bags. We have a couple of pisco sours and she turns out to be wonderful company, and an all round amazing, lovely person. Yet again my sterotyping has been exposed as a pointless and fruitless exercise.
Peru is on strike so I'm going nowhere until they're ready. I'm stranded in Cusco, surrounded by people selling massages, and a thousand people selling their artwork, artwork which oddly all looks exactly the same, as if it had all been mass produced in a factory somewhere.
I finally leave for Puno on my posh train on the Monday. The train is operated by the company who own the orient express, so it's all big chairs, waiters in waistcoats, and carpets. It's brilliant. The toilet on board is the nicest I've sat on in Peru. I've been sat with a lovely couple of ramblers from Peckham, and the chap used to be in Blake 7, and plays the vicar in Eastenders everytime someone dies. We chat and get on like a house on fire, they're backpacking around Peru too, and their enthusiasum and happiness is contagious, I hope I'm like them when I'm in my fifties.
Mike the vicar orders drinks by mistake and they insist I drink them, and on top of the drinks I have correctly been ordering for myself I get a bit drunk, while the beautiful countryside trundles by.
In Puno I go to visit the floating towns built by the local people made from the reeds in the titikaka lake. They started building these floating towns to escape the Spanish, and it's very interesting to see but it has become very tourist driven, and I get a bit uncomfortable when the women of the island start to sing 'twinkle twinkle little star' at me in 4 languages. Japanese being the most cringe worthy.
From there we travel to the island of Amalanti, and spend the night living with a local family. They live of the their on produce, grown around their little house. The lady of the house explains that over the last few years the rains have been less and less, so they are now forced to travel to Puno to sell tat to tourists like me to buy food.
Global warming has a slow burning effect, which is maybe why people find it hard to believe, but when you see it in this context and you see the impact for yourself it's hard to ignore.
They have some Inca ruins on the island, as usual at the very fucking top of a steep hill so we all head up there to see the sunset. The guide has told us that the best view is from Pachatata but I want to head to Pachamama, because I've given offerings to her a few times during this trip, and end up on my own up there.
The view across the lake is stunning and I sit in silence and think. I try to be all spiritual and that, but all I think about is my infected bites, and whether or not I could deal with having my legs amputated, exes, and sex. In that order.
The sun sets and I head back down the hill to the village to meet the rest of the group. As I get to the main square a group of kids are hanging around outside the corner shop playing music out of their mobile phones. I'm 3,000m above sea level, on a island with a population of 2,000 people, with electricity only between 7pm - 2am, and the kids are basically the same as in London. I wonder if it will be like Hackney, and will some of these kids stab me up when I go past? they don't.
In the morning I head out of Puno and out of Peru, and into Bolivia. We get into La Paz at around 5:30pm, but I'm not stopping and get straight onto a night bus heading to Uyuni, so I can visit the amazing salt flats and general wilderness. On the bus I'm given a blanket and we head off. At the next stop a very large Peruvian man gets on and sits next to me. He's bought his own blanket, and he's wearing a massive winter coat,
'it's not that cold' I assure myself and the bus pulls off.
I wake up at 3:30am and my lips have frozen together, and I can't feel my feet. The condensation on the windows has frozen solid, it's unbelievably cold. I'm really badly prepared for this level of cold so I slowly lean in towards the large Peruvian fella to try and share his body heat. I pretend to be asleep when he wakes up and finds my face inches from his.
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