... so I thought I'd set down some semi-random, unconnected thoughts.
Just like normal, then.
I'm currently still deep in footprints on the ceiling territory*, but soon I'll be leaving Iquitos and heading down the Amazon to Brazil, if only to gain some temporary respite from the infernal panpipes, and I may be gone some time.
Two or three days, maybe.
* The first time I saw this phenomenon was in Greece as a callow youngster, and I didn't understand it till a few days later, covered in itching bites, when I found myself chasing a recalcitrant mozzie round the room with a flip-flop in my hand. "Oh, that's how you get the footprints on the ceiling" I realised as I lashed out again at the little flying f*cker.
Anyway, I don't think Iquitos can decide whether it wants to be a palace of virtue or a den of iniquity. In the main square is a rather public Alcoholics Anonymous building (for the incognito dipsomaniac who wants to be seen around town), a cohort of Christian evangelists who try to introduce you to G*d in this rather unlikely setting, even if you've merely paused for breath, and a big sign saying "Say no to child sex tourism", whose very presence seems to indicate that, sadly, rather too many people must be saying yes.
Just off the plaza is The Yellow Rose of Texas Bar and Grill, where the waitresses wear what you'd imagine was traditional Texan dress if your only frames of reference were Daisy Duke and a young Dolly Parton. That's next to the Iron House, where the bar staff wear the uniform of a nineteenth century English butler, and next to that there is the Casino (No Gambling). Now I'm not exactly a high roller, but even I know that if you have a casino with no gambling then what you have is an empty room and a set of playing cards.
The town is a lot like Puerto Maldonado, another jungle town with such a different climate to Cusco in the mountains that it feels like a different country.
Iquitos has the added bonus, though, of being almost ten degrees of latitude closer to the equator, so its even warmer. Gosh. The day starts off fiery in the morning sun, is seriously baking when the sun is directly overhead, becomes ovenlike in the afternoon, then somehow seems to get even more blistering when the sun goes down, and progressively more roasting through the night. Then the next morning the whole sorry procession starts again.
Iquitos also has a level of humidity such that when it starts to rain it doesn't so much increase the amount of moisture in the air as merely give it direction.
In this situation you perspire at such a rate that you'd need to be hooked to a saline drip to replace the fluids you're losing, you just can't drink fast enough, and rehydration has to be a significant part of your daily budget. I'm spending more than I spent on a room for a night in Bolivia on bottled water, and am still thirsty.
Speaking of drink, I like what appears to be the naming convention of Peruvian beers - I've had Cusceña (which I think I mentioned translates as 'girl from Cusco'), Arequipeña ('girl from Arequipa'), and now Iquiteña ('girl from Iquitos'). I hope this continues into Brazil, because it would amuse me to be ordering a Girl From Ipanema in some seedy bar.
So with that I'm off
Alpace to the sauce
A return to the old school:
Travellers' Glossary
apparently (adv) "It says in the Lonely Planet that ..."
Bolivian (adj) aggressive, unpleasant and confrontational, as in "He's a good bloke, but he gets a bit Bolivian when he's drunk"
hot (adj) not a solid sheet of ice, but pretty d*mn close, as in "of course this hostel has hot showers"
leg room (n) (LAm) no information associated with this entry
safety standard (n) a legal ruling intended to ensure that the minimum number of tourists dies in the pursuit of any particular activity, or at the very least, if they do die their relatives can't sue; (LAm) no information associated with this entry
Walk a mile in flip-flops, see what a stupid idea it is
Sunday, 29 April 2007
Thursday, 26 April 2007
The hour of the exit is the 10 am and it is requested the passenger that leave
That's on a list of instructions in my hostel room, as well as the heading "This forbidden zone" above a list of things that aren't allowed in the rooms, including animals and electrical equipment.
Anyway, contrary to anything I may have previously led you to believe, the latest news on my trip is that tomorrow I shall be heading North to the jungle town of Iquitos (why do I do it to myself?) from where I should be able to take a river boat down the Amazon into Brazil.
I like to call it flexibility and spontaneity, but some might consider it an inability to plan and an unwillingness to make my mind up.
Oh yes.
Obviously, you know as well as I do that it's possible none of this will happen.
But I'm saying a fond farewell to Cusco, the city that has been my home, on and off, for the last three months, and striking out into the great unknown.
It's probable that the next time I email will be from Brazil.
Alpaca to the sauce
Anyway, contrary to anything I may have previously led you to believe, the latest news on my trip is that tomorrow I shall be heading North to the jungle town of Iquitos (why do I do it to myself?) from where I should be able to take a river boat down the Amazon into Brazil.
I like to call it flexibility and spontaneity, but some might consider it an inability to plan and an unwillingness to make my mind up.
Oh yes.
Obviously, you know as well as I do that it's possible none of this will happen.
But I'm saying a fond farewell to Cusco, the city that has been my home, on and off, for the last three months, and striking out into the great unknown.
It's probable that the next time I email will be from Brazil.
Alpaca to the sauce
Sunday, 22 April 2007
When the Good Lord created the world
... he very kindly put the more likeable aspects of our existence (air conditioning, refridgerators and cheesecake) where civilisation is, and left some of the nastier things that we must endure (killer ants, malaria and ten meter snakes) out in the jungle where they belong.
Despìte this, though, we somehow found ourselves flying into Puerto Maldonado airport with nothing but a fifteen gallon barrel of deet and my near-terminal hatred of mosuitos to sustain us.
Puerto Maldonaldo is a small town at the southern-ish end of the amazon rainforest, lying on the Madre de Dios river - so called because the first explorer to find it exclaimed "Mother of G*d, that's a big river!". The Madre de Dios runs four thousand kilometres before it meets the Amazon, and is therefore considered a 'tributary'. Two and a half thousand miles of water and it still doesn't make full river status. Harsh.
As we landed I felt confident because you could clearly see a half sized football pitch painted on one of the service roads leading to the only runway, obviously intended for the ground crew to have a quick kick-about in between flights. In an unprecedented display of positivity I even found myself singing "Welcome to the jungle" by Guns n Roses as we landed. My kind of place, I thought.
I was soon disabused of this ridiculous notion, though, by the welcoming committee of biting insects that had been organised in our honour - and that's even before I found myself up to my an*s in swamp water and down to my elbow in creepy tendrils camouflaged as snakes. I was expecting the jungle to be hot - that pretty much goes without saying. If you're visiting the amazon rainforest, too, you expect it to be wet (again the clue is in the title) - although would you believe that the time we spent there was the most rain free I've had since I arrived in Peru?
Of course you would. Before my visit, though, I would probably have used terms like steamy, sweltering and sultry to describe the place, whereas I now know that words such as sweaty, soggy and dank are more accurate. Not to mention airless, stifling, overpowering and suffocating. Positively torrid, it was.
What I hadn't been prepared for at all, though, was just how dark it would be. The thick canopy of branches in the sky lets little light penetrate to floor level, and if I'd known how badly my photos were going to turn out I don't think I'd have sallied forth to do battle with the bloodsuckers in the first place. Almost every creature we saw, our guide said "Hates sunlight" and I could really see that the jungle is the place to be if you're a sun-hater. "Over-hunted" was the other phrase he used about almost everything, too.
Something else I hadn't expected was the mud. We were travelling at the end of the rainy season and the start of the dry season, and it turns out I was focussing too much on the "start of the dry season" part of that equation.
What I hadn't considered enough was that for the previous three months all of the trails had been under water almost all the time, and then tramped and treaded by man and mammal alike.
Lots of the jungle animals, particularly the large ungulates, like to walk on the man-made trails because it makes life easier for them. For this reason you'll also often see a puma or a leopard ambling along the paths, on the off-chance of bumping into a convenient meal - saves all that tedious hunting, you see. You can't imagine how I was looking forward to turning a corner and coming face to face with two hundred pounds of jungle predator.
So although it didn't actually rain on us (much) while we were there, the trails were knee deep in a particularly rich and unpleasant form of jungle mud. Plus it was almost completely dark, and it was hot, and it was sweaty and wet. The jungle is hot, gloomy, sticky and covered in filth - just like my teenage bedroom. The horror.
Unlike my teenage bedroom, though, the jungle is home to an awful lot of activity, particularly at night. We didn't get to meet some of the more glamorous inhabitants of the area (ocelots, armadillos and coatimundis) but we did see plenty of other livestock - caimans (it's a kind of poor man's crocodile), mildly venomous snakes and plenty of monkeys (or mankeys as the brochure promised). Not everything could kill you, but a respectable percentage would put you in hospital for a few days. If there were any hospitals in the area, that is.
Our guide was incredibly knowledgeable and enthusiastic, too - it was like hiking with your own personal David Attenborough, though I didn't have the heart to tell him that we saw a wider range of exotic and potentially lethal wildlife on the way to the bathroom every night than we met on his nature trails.
I also suspected him of giving a slightly Disneyed account of the harsher realities of jungle life, especially when he pointed to two ants and said "Look, one ant is trying to help his friend, who is sick". Sick of the other one trying to bite his head off, maybe. And I may not be a regular subscriber to Nature magazine, but I reckon that what those two parrots were up to was more Playboy Channel than Disney Channel, and what that monkey was doing with himself was pure Men and Motors.
He was also good with the imaginery wildlife. "Wow", he'd exclaim, "A striated heron just flew away. Did you see that? It was a red breasted Macaw, but it's gone now. Oh, that was amazing, it was a spider monkey. He left".
My favourite commentary moment, though, was when he stopped for two minutes in the middle of nowhere, stared intently into the scrub and then announced, accusingly "Nothing. There is nothing here. Let's go."
He also pointed to a kind of fern and said "This plant is very nice. It's good for uses" and moved on.
His enthusiasm was infectious, and it did sustain me right up until the final day when we got up at four am in order to see a couple of parrots sitting on a rock. It was a very affecting experience.
We were told that in this area the people keep tarantulas in the house because they eat insects (I used to think I hated tarantulas, but it turns out they eat mozzies, and anything that eats those whining nectar-feeders is a friend of mine) and they also breed boas because they eat rats. However, once the constrictors get too big the poor loves get turfed out into the jungle to fend for themselves. As you can probably imagine, though, a five meter long snake can do a fair bit of fending.
There are quite a few animals and sanctuaries and shelters in the area, where they save such poor creatures as mistreated anacondas (eight to ten metres of man eating malevolence) rather than finishing the job, as would seem logical. They also save the poor jaguars (whose name in the native tongue translates as "death from above" or "he who can kill with one leap") in order to re-release them into the wild when they've recovered their strength and are feeling more up to the tricky task of hiding in trees and killing whatever walks underneath.
We also saw a chocolate tree, but to my disappointment it didn't have branches bowed under the weight of Green and Blacks, so we moved on.
Highlight of the trip, however, had to be visiting the traditional indigenous family and their traditional indigenous souvenir shop ("In case you want to buy some memories", as our guide put it. Good idea, I thought, I'll have some of Frank Sinatra's if they're going).
This visit consisted of the grandfather explaining what life used to be like in the jungle, and it was a lot like when your oldies go on about how different things were when they were kids - in his day they didn't have cotton, they made all their clothes out of bark; they didn't have shoes, they used to tramp through the jungle barefoot; they didn't have comfy mattresses, they slept on reed mats.
Sadly all of these 'traditional' ways are being lost, because it turns out that bark is itchy and unpleasant to wear, walking barefoot isn't too handy when you're treading on thorny and poisonous plants, and it turns out that it's easier to get a good night's sleep on a well sprung mattress than it is on a piece of reed.
My top five authentic indigenous 'you had to be there' moments (in reverse order) are:
5. As we left we turned back to see the guy ripping off his itchy bark smock to reveal a pair of board shorts underneath
4. After a long untranslated passage, the only comprehensible words being gringo, blanco, indigena and nativo, our guy mimed walking off into the jungle, legs splayed and arms aloft carrying bow and arrow. Our guide said "In the jungle, everyone walks like this"
3. After explaining that they had no drinking water in fancy bottles in the jungle, Mister Indigenous showed us how to get a drink out of sugar cane by beating it and twisting it into your mouth. Having taken a few mouthfuls he then preceded to have a coughing fit that lasted a good five minutes. Hmm, tasty.
2. He spent fifteen minutes of lighting a fire by rubbing two sticks together, only for his baby gap and wellington boot wearing grandson to stamp it out.
1. Our guide asked him "How long have you and your family lived here?""Eight years" was the reply.
Gosh, eight years, as long as that.
So I'm temporarily back in Cusco.
And finally, comrade Marloh sent a reply to a previous email of mine that I enjoyed tremendously. I hope he won't object to my quoting part of it for your instruction:
"So in this way I came upon "Alpaca to the sauce", and it has been keeping me amused ever since. I have a million little theories of what it could be; one of them is it's a battle-cry; from the olden days of Alpaca farming, when there were feuds between the alpaca farmers, and they would shout 'alpaca to the swords!'. Another of course is derived from the remaining social strata of Peruvian society, those who were not Alpaca farmers. When they were served food which had a particularly bad sauce, they'd deride it by shouting, contemptuously, "Alpaca to the sauce", which was the equivalent to "bollocks to this", or potentially translated as "Get the (resident) Alpaca to lick this off my plate, it's so bad it doesn't even deserve to be taken out to the Alpaca (when it would be "sauce to the Alpaca").
I have successfully used it all over London. It's particularly useful while driving. I said it with a smile, quietly, as I waved an old woman across a zebra crossing. Pointing at the lights which for me were green, I shouted it at a pedestrian who walked confidently across red traffic lights. I even said it on the phone today. I had a call offering me double-glazed windows.
Are you the homeowner?
Yes. What is it you are trying to sell?
Nothing, what would you say if you had new double-glazing installed free of charge?
Alpaca to the sauce
Excuse me?
You heard.
And with that I rang off. It worked a treat - they haven't called me back."
Good advice there, I think.
Alpaca to the sauce
ps
It has come to my attention that although my previous email was primarily about the Inca Trail, I barely mentioned Machu Picchu. So, for the curious, I shall now inform you that it was very nice. It's a series of small walls between two mountains.
Despìte this, though, we somehow found ourselves flying into Puerto Maldonado airport with nothing but a fifteen gallon barrel of deet and my near-terminal hatred of mosuitos to sustain us.
Puerto Maldonaldo is a small town at the southern-ish end of the amazon rainforest, lying on the Madre de Dios river - so called because the first explorer to find it exclaimed "Mother of G*d, that's a big river!". The Madre de Dios runs four thousand kilometres before it meets the Amazon, and is therefore considered a 'tributary'. Two and a half thousand miles of water and it still doesn't make full river status. Harsh.
As we landed I felt confident because you could clearly see a half sized football pitch painted on one of the service roads leading to the only runway, obviously intended for the ground crew to have a quick kick-about in between flights. In an unprecedented display of positivity I even found myself singing "Welcome to the jungle" by Guns n Roses as we landed. My kind of place, I thought.
I was soon disabused of this ridiculous notion, though, by the welcoming committee of biting insects that had been organised in our honour - and that's even before I found myself up to my an*s in swamp water and down to my elbow in creepy tendrils camouflaged as snakes. I was expecting the jungle to be hot - that pretty much goes without saying. If you're visiting the amazon rainforest, too, you expect it to be wet (again the clue is in the title) - although would you believe that the time we spent there was the most rain free I've had since I arrived in Peru?
Of course you would. Before my visit, though, I would probably have used terms like steamy, sweltering and sultry to describe the place, whereas I now know that words such as sweaty, soggy and dank are more accurate. Not to mention airless, stifling, overpowering and suffocating. Positively torrid, it was.
What I hadn't been prepared for at all, though, was just how dark it would be. The thick canopy of branches in the sky lets little light penetrate to floor level, and if I'd known how badly my photos were going to turn out I don't think I'd have sallied forth to do battle with the bloodsuckers in the first place. Almost every creature we saw, our guide said "Hates sunlight" and I could really see that the jungle is the place to be if you're a sun-hater. "Over-hunted" was the other phrase he used about almost everything, too.
Something else I hadn't expected was the mud. We were travelling at the end of the rainy season and the start of the dry season, and it turns out I was focussing too much on the "start of the dry season" part of that equation.
What I hadn't considered enough was that for the previous three months all of the trails had been under water almost all the time, and then tramped and treaded by man and mammal alike.
Lots of the jungle animals, particularly the large ungulates, like to walk on the man-made trails because it makes life easier for them. For this reason you'll also often see a puma or a leopard ambling along the paths, on the off-chance of bumping into a convenient meal - saves all that tedious hunting, you see. You can't imagine how I was looking forward to turning a corner and coming face to face with two hundred pounds of jungle predator.
So although it didn't actually rain on us (much) while we were there, the trails were knee deep in a particularly rich and unpleasant form of jungle mud. Plus it was almost completely dark, and it was hot, and it was sweaty and wet. The jungle is hot, gloomy, sticky and covered in filth - just like my teenage bedroom. The horror.
Unlike my teenage bedroom, though, the jungle is home to an awful lot of activity, particularly at night. We didn't get to meet some of the more glamorous inhabitants of the area (ocelots, armadillos and coatimundis) but we did see plenty of other livestock - caimans (it's a kind of poor man's crocodile), mildly venomous snakes and plenty of monkeys (or mankeys as the brochure promised). Not everything could kill you, but a respectable percentage would put you in hospital for a few days. If there were any hospitals in the area, that is.
Our guide was incredibly knowledgeable and enthusiastic, too - it was like hiking with your own personal David Attenborough, though I didn't have the heart to tell him that we saw a wider range of exotic and potentially lethal wildlife on the way to the bathroom every night than we met on his nature trails.
I also suspected him of giving a slightly Disneyed account of the harsher realities of jungle life, especially when he pointed to two ants and said "Look, one ant is trying to help his friend, who is sick". Sick of the other one trying to bite his head off, maybe. And I may not be a regular subscriber to Nature magazine, but I reckon that what those two parrots were up to was more Playboy Channel than Disney Channel, and what that monkey was doing with himself was pure Men and Motors.
He was also good with the imaginery wildlife. "Wow", he'd exclaim, "A striated heron just flew away. Did you see that? It was a red breasted Macaw, but it's gone now. Oh, that was amazing, it was a spider monkey. He left".
My favourite commentary moment, though, was when he stopped for two minutes in the middle of nowhere, stared intently into the scrub and then announced, accusingly "Nothing. There is nothing here. Let's go."
He also pointed to a kind of fern and said "This plant is very nice. It's good for uses" and moved on.
His enthusiasm was infectious, and it did sustain me right up until the final day when we got up at four am in order to see a couple of parrots sitting on a rock. It was a very affecting experience.
We were told that in this area the people keep tarantulas in the house because they eat insects (I used to think I hated tarantulas, but it turns out they eat mozzies, and anything that eats those whining nectar-feeders is a friend of mine) and they also breed boas because they eat rats. However, once the constrictors get too big the poor loves get turfed out into the jungle to fend for themselves. As you can probably imagine, though, a five meter long snake can do a fair bit of fending.
There are quite a few animals and sanctuaries and shelters in the area, where they save such poor creatures as mistreated anacondas (eight to ten metres of man eating malevolence) rather than finishing the job, as would seem logical. They also save the poor jaguars (whose name in the native tongue translates as "death from above" or "he who can kill with one leap") in order to re-release them into the wild when they've recovered their strength and are feeling more up to the tricky task of hiding in trees and killing whatever walks underneath.
We also saw a chocolate tree, but to my disappointment it didn't have branches bowed under the weight of Green and Blacks, so we moved on.
Highlight of the trip, however, had to be visiting the traditional indigenous family and their traditional indigenous souvenir shop ("In case you want to buy some memories", as our guide put it. Good idea, I thought, I'll have some of Frank Sinatra's if they're going).
This visit consisted of the grandfather explaining what life used to be like in the jungle, and it was a lot like when your oldies go on about how different things were when they were kids - in his day they didn't have cotton, they made all their clothes out of bark; they didn't have shoes, they used to tramp through the jungle barefoot; they didn't have comfy mattresses, they slept on reed mats.
Sadly all of these 'traditional' ways are being lost, because it turns out that bark is itchy and unpleasant to wear, walking barefoot isn't too handy when you're treading on thorny and poisonous plants, and it turns out that it's easier to get a good night's sleep on a well sprung mattress than it is on a piece of reed.
My top five authentic indigenous 'you had to be there' moments (in reverse order) are:
5. As we left we turned back to see the guy ripping off his itchy bark smock to reveal a pair of board shorts underneath
4. After a long untranslated passage, the only comprehensible words being gringo, blanco, indigena and nativo, our guy mimed walking off into the jungle, legs splayed and arms aloft carrying bow and arrow. Our guide said "In the jungle, everyone walks like this"
3. After explaining that they had no drinking water in fancy bottles in the jungle, Mister Indigenous showed us how to get a drink out of sugar cane by beating it and twisting it into your mouth. Having taken a few mouthfuls he then preceded to have a coughing fit that lasted a good five minutes. Hmm, tasty.
2. He spent fifteen minutes of lighting a fire by rubbing two sticks together, only for his baby gap and wellington boot wearing grandson to stamp it out.
1. Our guide asked him "How long have you and your family lived here?""Eight years" was the reply.
Gosh, eight years, as long as that.
So I'm temporarily back in Cusco.
And finally, comrade Marloh sent a reply to a previous email of mine that I enjoyed tremendously. I hope he won't object to my quoting part of it for your instruction:
"So in this way I came upon "Alpaca to the sauce", and it has been keeping me amused ever since. I have a million little theories of what it could be; one of them is it's a battle-cry; from the olden days of Alpaca farming, when there were feuds between the alpaca farmers, and they would shout 'alpaca to the swords!'. Another of course is derived from the remaining social strata of Peruvian society, those who were not Alpaca farmers. When they were served food which had a particularly bad sauce, they'd deride it by shouting, contemptuously, "Alpaca to the sauce", which was the equivalent to "bollocks to this", or potentially translated as "Get the (resident) Alpaca to lick this off my plate, it's so bad it doesn't even deserve to be taken out to the Alpaca (when it would be "sauce to the Alpaca").
I have successfully used it all over London. It's particularly useful while driving. I said it with a smile, quietly, as I waved an old woman across a zebra crossing. Pointing at the lights which for me were green, I shouted it at a pedestrian who walked confidently across red traffic lights. I even said it on the phone today. I had a call offering me double-glazed windows.
Are you the homeowner?
Yes. What is it you are trying to sell?
Nothing, what would you say if you had new double-glazing installed free of charge?
Alpaca to the sauce
Excuse me?
You heard.
And with that I rang off. It worked a treat - they haven't called me back."
Good advice there, I think.
Alpaca to the sauce
ps
It has come to my attention that although my previous email was primarily about the Inca Trail, I barely mentioned Machu Picchu. So, for the curious, I shall now inform you that it was very nice. It's a series of small walls between two mountains.
Monday, 16 April 2007
Did you know that the Rhinoceros Beetle can carry 850 times its own body weight?
It's officially the strongest member of the animal kingdom.
That's nothing.
The porters on the Inca Trail could carry all that, running, and then they'll happily strap your rucksack on top if you slip them a few quid.
Apparently the porters have a race along of the Inca Trail every year - the route is only about twenty miles, but a lot of it is along what our guide called "Inca flat" (ie a few degrees shy of vertical), and there are several stretches of ascent and descent using some pretty steep, narrow and slippery steps that are enough to make you wish you'd never heard of the f*cking Incas.
I'm told the record is three hours and twenty seven minutes, but four to five hours is supposedly considered a fairly acceptable time.
So, what it takes the average gringo four days, three heart attacks and a couple of nervous breakdowns to complete, the porters can run in less time than it takes to explain the off-side rule.
It was a great experience, but it's pretty humbling hobbling up and down those evil hills, stepping aside occasionally for the porters and septagenarians to skip jauntily past, then crawling into camp on all fours, having long ago lost the will to live, only to be applauded by the cook and his team who arrived three hours earlier and have erected the tents, set up a dining area and started cooking a three course meal.
The food was plentiful and tasty, a first on my Peruvian treks, and especially surprising considering the backend-of-nowhere location and the lack of basic cooking facilities. The birthday cake they made for a couple of the girls was particularly impressive given the fact that they had no oven - how? - though my personal favourite was the pizza they turned out for us.
If I could cook like that in my kitchen back home I would be a happy (and considerably fatter) man.
The group we hiked with was also really cool (always a bonus), apart from the campest German I've ever met - a guy called Hans Peter, or Hans Off as he was christened by one of the team.
As you know I'm not one to b1tch, but I did find his habit of waiting for the guide to finish talking and then say "So, could you repeat from the beginning please?" pretty wearing after a while. When we arrived in Maccu Picchu after four days of hiking, Rebecca and I got separated from the main group due to an urgent appointment with a cheese sandwich, and I was hugely disappointed not to get a laugh when we finally rocked up late and I asked the guide "So, could you repeat from the beginning please?" in a comedy German accent.
No sense of humour, some people.
Saturday, 7 April 2007
Doctor Johnson promised to complete the first English dictionary in three years
... when it had taken forty Frenchmen more than forty years to produce the French equivalent. "Forty times forty is sixteen hundred", Dr Johnson famously said, "And as three is to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman". I mention this because myself and m'colleague Rebecca went whitewater rafting with a group of native English speakers and an Argentinian couple, and it proved quicker to teach the five of us some basic commands in Spanish than it was to teach the Argies four words of English - left, right, backwards and forward. Even in Spanish they were still getting it wrong.
Anyway, we were rafting for three days in all, and it was great. Each day the rapids were faster and higher than the day before, so it just got more and more exciting. On the final day we were in a boat with four Israelis, thoroughly nice chaps all (notwithstanding the comments in my previous mail*), and they were just crazy enough to make the whole thing worthwhile - we were hurling ourselves headlong into the highest waves and the deepest drops, singing. It was Class IV and above (in other words, the good sh*t) and the Israelis acted like it was a personal affront if we missed even a single wave, they were so committed to the experience. Fantastic.
Apparently just above where we did it there is a stretch of river that they used to run which is Class V+, but the police closed it last year because six people died. Pah. That would never happen in Bolivia - what's six more dead gringos to the Bolivian police?
The nearby town we used as our base was called "Cusi Pata", which I'm told translates as "Happy place". It's a small town with no water and no electricity, though they are building a brand new five hundred seater football stadium - no wonder it's a happy place. It's all about priorities, you see.
I went sneppling on the final day, which seems to involve dangling from a hundred metre cliff by a thin rope. I'll upload some photos at some point so you can see what I mean.
* We also met a nice Californian guy, which was a relief to me since I'd met three Californians up till that point, and all of them had been aggressive, obnoxious and up-tight. It felt good to redress the balance.
Before that we spent three days trekking in the Colca Canyon, which is the second deepest canyon in the world (the deepest is right next door but you can't go there) and more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon - although as United States travellers like to point out, the walls aren't as steep, so ya boo s*cks to you.
It's good that the walls aren't as steep, though, because in the space of two days we walked down one side and then back up the other. It was more than two kilometres straight up and down, and god knows how much in total because it's an apparently endless series of zigzags and switchbacks, with every corner leading to yet more uphill until you've pretty much lost all interest in having legs at all. Some of the locals do that walk every day. Dragging donkeys, some of them.
Bring on the Inca Trail, that's all I can say.
In between we were in the stadium when the mighty Cienciano (the Red Fury) humbled ten man Boca by three goals to nil. So after their disastrous start to the Copa Libertadores the Cusco side have now qualified for the next stage with a game to spare. Maybe there's hope for England yet.
The Peruvians are a bit lacking in English style football chants, but one they use in the stadium is "si se puede", which I'd heard before from my teacher friends translated as "yes it can be done". I'd been told of a certain notorious film of that title, which apparently involves the use, misuse and even abuse of various members and orifices in order to prove once and for all that yes, it can be done.
So I was quite amused to be chanting "si se puede" for long stretches of the whitewater rafting. Morale building, that's what it was.
As you can tell, it's all go here. We barely have time to eat - though we have encountered more delightful menu translations I'd like to share. I had to try "Celestial bananas" (they were okay) but was happy to pass on "Hamburger of beast" and "Loin I die". However, it was hard to know what to choose when one venue offered us "Crumbled hen", "Crunchy of pig", "Alpaca to the sauce", "Gordon Blue of Chicken", "Brass chicken", "Avocado of the queen" and "Fillet in tree sauce with French frites"
Obviously I didn't want to steal the Queen's avocado, and alpaca to the sauce sounded a little bit gangsta for me, so I settled for the slightly Shakespearean "Pizza as you like it".
To my delight the meal was accompanied by a small group playing traditional Peruvian music. Barely a day goes by here without hearing El Condor Pasa (thank you Paul Simon) but I was surprised that they also included Sound of Silence in their repertoire. However, they capped it all with their Beatles renditions. I mean, you may have heard The Frog Chorus and Ebony and Ivory. You may have heard him give self-serving interviews in which John Lennon's role in the band is reduced to little more than making the tea. You might even be Heather Mills. However, I guarantee that you've never truly wanted to stab Paul McCartney in the face until you've heard the pan pipe version of Hey Jude.
ps
Seen on an Australian backpack - a sew-on patch asking "What would Merv drink?"I assume this is a reference to the famous Australian moustache wearer Merv Hughes (I believe he might have played a little bit of cricket, too, but he's definitely best known for his incredible contribution to facial hair). However, as far as I'm aware he's less famous for drinking than his compatriot David Boon, so maybe someone can enlighten me. What *would* Merv drink?
Anyway, we were rafting for three days in all, and it was great. Each day the rapids were faster and higher than the day before, so it just got more and more exciting. On the final day we were in a boat with four Israelis, thoroughly nice chaps all (notwithstanding the comments in my previous mail*), and they were just crazy enough to make the whole thing worthwhile - we were hurling ourselves headlong into the highest waves and the deepest drops, singing. It was Class IV and above (in other words, the good sh*t) and the Israelis acted like it was a personal affront if we missed even a single wave, they were so committed to the experience. Fantastic.
Apparently just above where we did it there is a stretch of river that they used to run which is Class V+, but the police closed it last year because six people died. Pah. That would never happen in Bolivia - what's six more dead gringos to the Bolivian police?
The nearby town we used as our base was called "Cusi Pata", which I'm told translates as "Happy place". It's a small town with no water and no electricity, though they are building a brand new five hundred seater football stadium - no wonder it's a happy place. It's all about priorities, you see.
I went sneppling on the final day, which seems to involve dangling from a hundred metre cliff by a thin rope. I'll upload some photos at some point so you can see what I mean.
* We also met a nice Californian guy, which was a relief to me since I'd met three Californians up till that point, and all of them had been aggressive, obnoxious and up-tight. It felt good to redress the balance.
Before that we spent three days trekking in the Colca Canyon, which is the second deepest canyon in the world (the deepest is right next door but you can't go there) and more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon - although as United States travellers like to point out, the walls aren't as steep, so ya boo s*cks to you.
It's good that the walls aren't as steep, though, because in the space of two days we walked down one side and then back up the other. It was more than two kilometres straight up and down, and god knows how much in total because it's an apparently endless series of zigzags and switchbacks, with every corner leading to yet more uphill until you've pretty much lost all interest in having legs at all. Some of the locals do that walk every day. Dragging donkeys, some of them.
Bring on the Inca Trail, that's all I can say.
In between we were in the stadium when the mighty Cienciano (the Red Fury) humbled ten man Boca by three goals to nil. So after their disastrous start to the Copa Libertadores the Cusco side have now qualified for the next stage with a game to spare. Maybe there's hope for England yet.
The Peruvians are a bit lacking in English style football chants, but one they use in the stadium is "si se puede", which I'd heard before from my teacher friends translated as "yes it can be done". I'd been told of a certain notorious film of that title, which apparently involves the use, misuse and even abuse of various members and orifices in order to prove once and for all that yes, it can be done.
So I was quite amused to be chanting "si se puede" for long stretches of the whitewater rafting. Morale building, that's what it was.
As you can tell, it's all go here. We barely have time to eat - though we have encountered more delightful menu translations I'd like to share. I had to try "Celestial bananas" (they were okay) but was happy to pass on "Hamburger of beast" and "Loin I die". However, it was hard to know what to choose when one venue offered us "Crumbled hen", "Crunchy of pig", "Alpaca to the sauce", "Gordon Blue of Chicken", "Brass chicken", "Avocado of the queen" and "Fillet in tree sauce with French frites"
Obviously I didn't want to steal the Queen's avocado, and alpaca to the sauce sounded a little bit gangsta for me, so I settled for the slightly Shakespearean "Pizza as you like it".
To my delight the meal was accompanied by a small group playing traditional Peruvian music. Barely a day goes by here without hearing El Condor Pasa (thank you Paul Simon) but I was surprised that they also included Sound of Silence in their repertoire. However, they capped it all with their Beatles renditions. I mean, you may have heard The Frog Chorus and Ebony and Ivory. You may have heard him give self-serving interviews in which John Lennon's role in the band is reduced to little more than making the tea. You might even be Heather Mills. However, I guarantee that you've never truly wanted to stab Paul McCartney in the face until you've heard the pan pipe version of Hey Jude.
ps
Seen on an Australian backpack - a sew-on patch asking "What would Merv drink?"I assume this is a reference to the famous Australian moustache wearer Merv Hughes (I believe he might have played a little bit of cricket, too, but he's definitely best known for his incredible contribution to facial hair). However, as far as I'm aware he's less famous for drinking than his compatriot David Boon, so maybe someone can enlighten me. What *would* Merv drink?
Monday, 26 March 2007
Here we go-oh ...
... moaning all over the world.
That's the English for you. During our travels we complain almost incessantly because nothing is ever quite good enough for us. Then we go home and people ask "How was your trip?", and we reply, quite truthfully, "Brilliant!".
Anyway, here is more nonsense from me for those gluttons for punishment, all slightly out of date - think of it as a sort of Bolivian de-brief.
I was prevented from travelling to the north and east of the country since the rains have caused terrible floods and a lot of the roads are washed out. Well, not prevented exactly, but it became impossible to reach most places without the kind of Herculean effort of which I really couldn't be bothered.
Entire villages have been destroyed - they're built them on the side of hills using mud bricks, so when the floods come the houses go. Bolivia is already a poor country, and a lot of these farmers are scraping a very basic living at the best of times, so the hardship and loss of life has been severe.
So maybe the nation has more on its mind than whether I have a good time or not.
Buuuuut ... the countryside in Bolivia is absolutely beautiful, and the only thing wrong with the place is the Bolivians. It is a lot like being in Wales after all.
I didn't experience any outright hostility from the locals, even while wearing my Cienciano football top (which I was told later was a no-no, even before the 5-1 Bolivar @ss whoopin') but I met people that had been spat at in the street and had stones thrown at them and the like. Welcome to Bolivia.
Apparently they're a very proud people.
A lot of the Bolivians you meet in the street are nice and friendly (those that don't spit at you, that is), but it seems that a prerequisite of being involved in the travel and tourism trade is the kind of deep rooted malevolence toward humanity that back home is the preserve of people that think up reality TV shows.
They use a lot of the same tricks to scam money off you as the Peruvians, but they don't have the affability or charm of their near neighbours.
Meeting some Peruvians is like chatting to an old Irishman at the bar, where he's regaling you with one tall tale after another, and, yes, of course he'll take a drink, that's very kind of you, and you'll be so thoroughly entertained by his nonsense that it won't be till the end of the evening, when your wallet is empty, that you'll realise how much you've spent. On him.
Meeting a Bolivian is like having a red faced Glaswegian come staggering up to you in a pub and shouting "Hey, pal, are you gonna buy me a drink, or what?"
In India people will tell you whatever you want to hear because they simply can't bear to disappoint you, but in Bolivia they will lie blatantly to your face, with attitude and with aggression, because they think you have money in your wallet. They couldn't give a llamas *rse for your disappointment. You're rich and I'm poor, their bearing seems to say, give me your money. It becomes tiresome.
I appreciate the lives these people lead are unimaginably harsh compared to mine, but still, y'know. F*ck 'em.
I still haven't been called gringo anywhere yet, but in La Paz one guy I walked past in the street turned back and shouted at me - I think he said "Hey whitey, give me some money!" ("Blanco, déme dinero") - to which "No" seemed the only apt and appropriate response. I was expecting further discussion on the subject but my reply seemed to satisfy him - he carried on walking at any rate.
On one occasion a few of us were standing in the street waiting for the rest of the group (you do a lot of that if you travel in packs) and a couple of donkeys wandered past. One of the guys put his camera to his eyes to take a photo and suddenly an old woman came from nowhere, screaming at him that he had to pay. You photograph my donkeys, she said, you pay. As if his photographing her donkeys in the middle of the street was an intrusion. Like I say, they're a proud people, but after five minutes of being shouted at by this extremely large old lady* he didn't bother with the photo.
* It's a tendency to describe all old ladies as "little", but there's no such thing as a little old lady in Bolivia. Only the robust survive. Largeness is considered attractive and marriageable to such an extent that slim young girls in the country wear skirts to make themselves look bigger. In La Paz, where they have a diet of US TV and Latin American Vogue, they're just as borderline anorexic as anywhere else, but out in the mountains different rules apply. No self-respecting farmer wants a slip of a girl who'll die before giving him sons.
I guess I should point out here that I've been spat at in Surrey, and robbed more times in London than anywhere else in the world, so it's easy to forget just how thieving and hostile people can be back home. In La Paz I was chatting to an English bloke that had been ripped off in Brazil - by another Englishman. He was absolutely livid that he "was robbed by an English c*nt" (to use his exact, if asterisked, words). It somehow broke the traveller solidarity that everyone assumes exists, but quite often doesn't.
It's also easy to believe that they target tourists, though - which they do, but only because the odds of a gringo having money are better. I saw enough in La Paz to realise that the thieves there will rob anyone. Just like thieves everywhere, in fact. Rob from the rich (you) to give to the poor (them) and all that.
Like I say, it's a beautiful country. I've read that Peru was equally obnoxious fifteen or twenty years ago but the economy is more prosperous now, life is easier, so the people are friendlier, so maybe if the truly beloved President Morales delivers on his promises of stability and prosperity, in fifteen years time there will be no Bolivian buts. For now, though, they're a bunch of w*nkers.
La Paz grew on me, though. Did I mention before that it's apparently the highest capital in the world? I was actually higher up sitting in a hillside cafe in La Paz than I was while jumping out of a plane. Not quite as scared, though, despite all the crime warnings and terrible tales I'd heard.
In La Paz the many shoe shine boys in the street all wear balaclavas and face masks. It seems incredible to me, but I'm told it's because it's such a low status occupation that none of those involved want to be recognised. It gives them the look, though, of a crack team of desperadoes that are about to storm the ministerial palace and give everyone inside a really good buff and polish. Like on every street corner there's a couple of trainee ninja turtles ready to fight crime.
Despite the poverty, one thing they seem to have in Bolivia is a more varied diet than Peru, where if they ever ran out of chicken, rice and chips I think there'd be a famine of epic proportions. In Bolivia they call that dish Chicken Milanese, which to me seems to be doing Milan a disservice. When I was in Milan (a long while ago, I must admit) I don't recollect ever seeing a single chip. It should really be called Chicken Peruano.
I did encounter another side effect of being in a dwarf nation, too.
I'd brought with me an old pair of hiking boots (that have already served in New Zealand and India, not to mention the mean streets of Redhill) and I watched as the hills and mountains of Latin America quite rapidly destroyed them. With the Inca Trail looming I felt it was time to invest in another pair.
Normally I hate shoe shopping because I have mutant duck feet and it's hard to find decent shoes that fit me. When I bought trainers in Cusco I tried on about twelve pairs that I hated, by which time I was so bored of the whole process that I pointed to the cheapest pair in the shop and said "Just give me those".
However, I was confident that La Paz would see me right because I found a corner of the street market where every stall sold only shoes - I thought I'd died and gone to quality footwear heaven.
I'd reckoned without these pesky tiny latinos, though. I take a size nine (42 in Europe, 10 in the Americas) and most of these stalls were utterly astonished to hear me asking for such an enormous monstrosity of a boot. At one shop, where they had some great shoe solutions for midgets and pixies, the woman disappeared out the back for about twenty minutes and returned with the ugliest pair of trainers I've ever seen and said
"This is the only pair we have, that big". Her bearing suggested that I should count myself lucky that they even had these clown rejects from the circus, but I politely declined.
Finally I managed to find somewhere that was selling boots for normal people, neither the best designs nor the best quality, it must be said, but at least each one was large enough to fit over my big toe, after a bit of breaking in.
Bolivians walk unimaginably slowly. In fact they walk as if they're only putting one foot in front of another because the world doesn't have the decency to turn faster. They also employ a rolling gait that allows even those that aren't morbidly obese to block the widest pathways, and often they use props, such as large canvas bags, to assist them in this task. If these prove unavailable they make do with wildly swinging arms and unpredictable leg twitches. They do this knowing full well you're trying to get past - even more so if they realise you're a tourist. If you're carrying a rucksack, forget it.
So while I was wearing in my new boots, I found some real satisfaction in using exaggerated leg movements (maybe some uncharitable people would call them "kicks") to get the more recalcitrant out of the way. Who needs "permiso?" to pass when you have new boots?
All the best
Nathan
ps
Ten signs you've been in Bolivia too long
1) You've met more than three Bolivians
2) You now think Peru is an over-priced tourist trap
3) Being ripped off to the tune of about 6p will leave you fuming for days, and ready to start a riot
4) Altitude, schmaltitude
5) Seeing vast fields of coca leaves, or raw cocaine, no longer interests or amuses you
6) You've taken to scrupulously checking every note you're given, so as not to be lumbered with any more worthless, unspendable pieces of scrap paper ... worth approximately sixty pence.
7) You're quite happy to shove even the old ladies off the pavement if they're in your way - it's either them or you
8) You've started awarding points for style to the people that try to rob you
9) You now know why you've never heard the phrase "Bolivian craftsmanship"
10) You're in Bolivia
pps
While I was in La Paz I had what was for me a genuinely new experience, meeting a whole crowd of unfriendly Australians. Although I was shocked at the blatant racism in Australia, especially Sydney, I think I can say that every native I met there was friendly (though some of them did need some softening up), and every antipodean I've met in London has been affability itself.
Maybe the Bolivian vibe had affected them, but this lot didn't quite fit the mould.
Apparently they were all quite young and this was their first trip abroad and they were terrified of everyone and everything, so were huddling together for protection, but I've truly not met such a bunch of stuck-up kangaroo-f*ckers before - and I realised that the Aussies can disappear up their own backsides like everyone else. You see, travel really does broaden the mind.
The people that seem to unite everyone, though, are the Israelis.
Almost everyone I've spoken to seems to have their obnoxious Israeli stories, and all the tour guides hate them - some even explicitly ban them. I must admit I haven't had any problems on this trip but when I was in New Zealand, if ever there was a group in a hostel or campsite that were throwing their weight around, acting like they owned the place and generally making things more awkward for everyone else, they were, without exception, Israeli. I even had a slight contretemps with one particular Israeli on a campsite once, and still bear the mental scars.
They're even less popular here than the Californians.
ppps
On my last night in La Paz I was having drinks with my tour group from the Salt Flats, and another group that had been following the same route and staying at the same places. In the normal way of these things, because there were so many of us we picked up quite a few stragglers, including a (friendly) Aussie called Phil and an English girl called Tracey that we rescued from the unfriendly Australians.
When the bar closed, one English couple invited everyone back to their hostel for further drinks. After a brief conversation with my Aussie, during which we agreed to buy some whiskey to take along, he disappeared to the bar and came back a few minutes later with a litre bottle of vodka. "This is better" he said "More people drink vodka".
I don't like vodka, but bearing in mind how late it was and how many we'd already had, I figured we might appreciate a little help with the booze, so I didn't punch him or anything.
So then the three of us, Phil, Tracey and me, leapt into a cab to head for the couple's hostel. At this point the English girl decided she didn't want to go to the party, but would rather go back to her hotel. Fine, we said through gritted teeth, which hotel is it?
She couldn't remember the name.
Where is it?, we asked.
She couldn't remember where it was, but suggested that we drive around until she saw something she recognised.
After a short while part of the name came back to her, and with the cab drivers help we worked out which hotel she needed.
When we arrived at the steep pedestrianised street leading to said hotel I realised for the first time just how drunk this girl was. She was unable to get out of the cab unaided, and it took both Phil and myself to hold her upright and get her moving in roughly the right direction. She couldn't remember her room number, but fortunately the doorman of the hotel knew her (he didn't look completely shocked to see her in such a state, either) and we left her in his capable hands.
So finally we headed off to our little party. Except that at this point we realised that we'd become separated from the main crowd, and didn't know the room number we wanted. Never mind, we said, we'd sort something out.
The taxi bill wasn't cheap in the end, but we figured the driver had earnt a tip. Quite frankly I felt like I'd earnt a tip myself, but finally we arrived at the right hostel, at the same time as a couple of blokes, and I slipped in behind them as if it was natural and followed them up the stairs.
I've cursed myself many times in the few days since for what happened next. I really don't know what came over me.
As I was about halfway up, I heard Phil the Aussie walk up to the night porter and explain, in Spanish even I could understand, that he'd met some people in the bar and they've invited him back for a drink. He didn't remember they're names, and he didn't know what room they were in, but could the porter tell him which room an English couple were staying in?
I could've kept walking up the stairs. I should've kept walking up the stairs. However, I turned round and went back to reception, just in time to see the night porter go absolutely mental, start shouting, and throw the pair of us out, saying something along the lines of "we're not running a night-club here".
So, there we were, in the street in the middle of the night, plus one bottle of vodka, minus one party. At this point Phil decided he was tired and wanted to go to bed, and frankly I was a little tired of him, so we decided to go our separate ways. The only thing left to sort out was what we'd do with the vodka. I'd paid for it and he'd given me half the cash, and he now didn't have enough cash to buy me out, so I gave him his money back and kept the bottle.
So that was how I came to find myself smuggling a litre of vodka that I don't like across the border into Peru.
That's the English for you. During our travels we complain almost incessantly because nothing is ever quite good enough for us. Then we go home and people ask "How was your trip?", and we reply, quite truthfully, "Brilliant!".
Anyway, here is more nonsense from me for those gluttons for punishment, all slightly out of date - think of it as a sort of Bolivian de-brief.
I was prevented from travelling to the north and east of the country since the rains have caused terrible floods and a lot of the roads are washed out. Well, not prevented exactly, but it became impossible to reach most places without the kind of Herculean effort of which I really couldn't be bothered.
Entire villages have been destroyed - they're built them on the side of hills using mud bricks, so when the floods come the houses go. Bolivia is already a poor country, and a lot of these farmers are scraping a very basic living at the best of times, so the hardship and loss of life has been severe.
So maybe the nation has more on its mind than whether I have a good time or not.
Buuuuut ... the countryside in Bolivia is absolutely beautiful, and the only thing wrong with the place is the Bolivians. It is a lot like being in Wales after all.
I didn't experience any outright hostility from the locals, even while wearing my Cienciano football top (which I was told later was a no-no, even before the 5-1 Bolivar @ss whoopin') but I met people that had been spat at in the street and had stones thrown at them and the like. Welcome to Bolivia.
Apparently they're a very proud people.
A lot of the Bolivians you meet in the street are nice and friendly (those that don't spit at you, that is), but it seems that a prerequisite of being involved in the travel and tourism trade is the kind of deep rooted malevolence toward humanity that back home is the preserve of people that think up reality TV shows.
They use a lot of the same tricks to scam money off you as the Peruvians, but they don't have the affability or charm of their near neighbours.
Meeting some Peruvians is like chatting to an old Irishman at the bar, where he's regaling you with one tall tale after another, and, yes, of course he'll take a drink, that's very kind of you, and you'll be so thoroughly entertained by his nonsense that it won't be till the end of the evening, when your wallet is empty, that you'll realise how much you've spent. On him.
Meeting a Bolivian is like having a red faced Glaswegian come staggering up to you in a pub and shouting "Hey, pal, are you gonna buy me a drink, or what?"
In India people will tell you whatever you want to hear because they simply can't bear to disappoint you, but in Bolivia they will lie blatantly to your face, with attitude and with aggression, because they think you have money in your wallet. They couldn't give a llamas *rse for your disappointment. You're rich and I'm poor, their bearing seems to say, give me your money. It becomes tiresome.
I appreciate the lives these people lead are unimaginably harsh compared to mine, but still, y'know. F*ck 'em.
I still haven't been called gringo anywhere yet, but in La Paz one guy I walked past in the street turned back and shouted at me - I think he said "Hey whitey, give me some money!" ("Blanco, déme dinero") - to which "No" seemed the only apt and appropriate response. I was expecting further discussion on the subject but my reply seemed to satisfy him - he carried on walking at any rate.
On one occasion a few of us were standing in the street waiting for the rest of the group (you do a lot of that if you travel in packs) and a couple of donkeys wandered past. One of the guys put his camera to his eyes to take a photo and suddenly an old woman came from nowhere, screaming at him that he had to pay. You photograph my donkeys, she said, you pay. As if his photographing her donkeys in the middle of the street was an intrusion. Like I say, they're a proud people, but after five minutes of being shouted at by this extremely large old lady* he didn't bother with the photo.
* It's a tendency to describe all old ladies as "little", but there's no such thing as a little old lady in Bolivia. Only the robust survive. Largeness is considered attractive and marriageable to such an extent that slim young girls in the country wear skirts to make themselves look bigger. In La Paz, where they have a diet of US TV and Latin American Vogue, they're just as borderline anorexic as anywhere else, but out in the mountains different rules apply. No self-respecting farmer wants a slip of a girl who'll die before giving him sons.
I guess I should point out here that I've been spat at in Surrey, and robbed more times in London than anywhere else in the world, so it's easy to forget just how thieving and hostile people can be back home. In La Paz I was chatting to an English bloke that had been ripped off in Brazil - by another Englishman. He was absolutely livid that he "was robbed by an English c*nt" (to use his exact, if asterisked, words). It somehow broke the traveller solidarity that everyone assumes exists, but quite often doesn't.
It's also easy to believe that they target tourists, though - which they do, but only because the odds of a gringo having money are better. I saw enough in La Paz to realise that the thieves there will rob anyone. Just like thieves everywhere, in fact. Rob from the rich (you) to give to the poor (them) and all that.
Like I say, it's a beautiful country. I've read that Peru was equally obnoxious fifteen or twenty years ago but the economy is more prosperous now, life is easier, so the people are friendlier, so maybe if the truly beloved President Morales delivers on his promises of stability and prosperity, in fifteen years time there will be no Bolivian buts. For now, though, they're a bunch of w*nkers.
La Paz grew on me, though. Did I mention before that it's apparently the highest capital in the world? I was actually higher up sitting in a hillside cafe in La Paz than I was while jumping out of a plane. Not quite as scared, though, despite all the crime warnings and terrible tales I'd heard.
In La Paz the many shoe shine boys in the street all wear balaclavas and face masks. It seems incredible to me, but I'm told it's because it's such a low status occupation that none of those involved want to be recognised. It gives them the look, though, of a crack team of desperadoes that are about to storm the ministerial palace and give everyone inside a really good buff and polish. Like on every street corner there's a couple of trainee ninja turtles ready to fight crime.
Despite the poverty, one thing they seem to have in Bolivia is a more varied diet than Peru, where if they ever ran out of chicken, rice and chips I think there'd be a famine of epic proportions. In Bolivia they call that dish Chicken Milanese, which to me seems to be doing Milan a disservice. When I was in Milan (a long while ago, I must admit) I don't recollect ever seeing a single chip. It should really be called Chicken Peruano.
I did encounter another side effect of being in a dwarf nation, too.
I'd brought with me an old pair of hiking boots (that have already served in New Zealand and India, not to mention the mean streets of Redhill) and I watched as the hills and mountains of Latin America quite rapidly destroyed them. With the Inca Trail looming I felt it was time to invest in another pair.
Normally I hate shoe shopping because I have mutant duck feet and it's hard to find decent shoes that fit me. When I bought trainers in Cusco I tried on about twelve pairs that I hated, by which time I was so bored of the whole process that I pointed to the cheapest pair in the shop and said "Just give me those".
However, I was confident that La Paz would see me right because I found a corner of the street market where every stall sold only shoes - I thought I'd died and gone to quality footwear heaven.
I'd reckoned without these pesky tiny latinos, though. I take a size nine (42 in Europe, 10 in the Americas) and most of these stalls were utterly astonished to hear me asking for such an enormous monstrosity of a boot. At one shop, where they had some great shoe solutions for midgets and pixies, the woman disappeared out the back for about twenty minutes and returned with the ugliest pair of trainers I've ever seen and said
"This is the only pair we have, that big". Her bearing suggested that I should count myself lucky that they even had these clown rejects from the circus, but I politely declined.
Finally I managed to find somewhere that was selling boots for normal people, neither the best designs nor the best quality, it must be said, but at least each one was large enough to fit over my big toe, after a bit of breaking in.
Bolivians walk unimaginably slowly. In fact they walk as if they're only putting one foot in front of another because the world doesn't have the decency to turn faster. They also employ a rolling gait that allows even those that aren't morbidly obese to block the widest pathways, and often they use props, such as large canvas bags, to assist them in this task. If these prove unavailable they make do with wildly swinging arms and unpredictable leg twitches. They do this knowing full well you're trying to get past - even more so if they realise you're a tourist. If you're carrying a rucksack, forget it.
So while I was wearing in my new boots, I found some real satisfaction in using exaggerated leg movements (maybe some uncharitable people would call them "kicks") to get the more recalcitrant out of the way. Who needs "permiso?" to pass when you have new boots?
All the best
Nathan
ps
Ten signs you've been in Bolivia too long
1) You've met more than three Bolivians
2) You now think Peru is an over-priced tourist trap
3) Being ripped off to the tune of about 6p will leave you fuming for days, and ready to start a riot
4) Altitude, schmaltitude
5) Seeing vast fields of coca leaves, or raw cocaine, no longer interests or amuses you
6) You've taken to scrupulously checking every note you're given, so as not to be lumbered with any more worthless, unspendable pieces of scrap paper ... worth approximately sixty pence.
7) You're quite happy to shove even the old ladies off the pavement if they're in your way - it's either them or you
8) You've started awarding points for style to the people that try to rob you
9) You now know why you've never heard the phrase "Bolivian craftsmanship"
10) You're in Bolivia
pps
While I was in La Paz I had what was for me a genuinely new experience, meeting a whole crowd of unfriendly Australians. Although I was shocked at the blatant racism in Australia, especially Sydney, I think I can say that every native I met there was friendly (though some of them did need some softening up), and every antipodean I've met in London has been affability itself.
Maybe the Bolivian vibe had affected them, but this lot didn't quite fit the mould.
Apparently they were all quite young and this was their first trip abroad and they were terrified of everyone and everything, so were huddling together for protection, but I've truly not met such a bunch of stuck-up kangaroo-f*ckers before - and I realised that the Aussies can disappear up their own backsides like everyone else. You see, travel really does broaden the mind.
The people that seem to unite everyone, though, are the Israelis.
Almost everyone I've spoken to seems to have their obnoxious Israeli stories, and all the tour guides hate them - some even explicitly ban them. I must admit I haven't had any problems on this trip but when I was in New Zealand, if ever there was a group in a hostel or campsite that were throwing their weight around, acting like they owned the place and generally making things more awkward for everyone else, they were, without exception, Israeli. I even had a slight contretemps with one particular Israeli on a campsite once, and still bear the mental scars.
They're even less popular here than the Californians.
ppps
On my last night in La Paz I was having drinks with my tour group from the Salt Flats, and another group that had been following the same route and staying at the same places. In the normal way of these things, because there were so many of us we picked up quite a few stragglers, including a (friendly) Aussie called Phil and an English girl called Tracey that we rescued from the unfriendly Australians.
When the bar closed, one English couple invited everyone back to their hostel for further drinks. After a brief conversation with my Aussie, during which we agreed to buy some whiskey to take along, he disappeared to the bar and came back a few minutes later with a litre bottle of vodka. "This is better" he said "More people drink vodka".
I don't like vodka, but bearing in mind how late it was and how many we'd already had, I figured we might appreciate a little help with the booze, so I didn't punch him or anything.
So then the three of us, Phil, Tracey and me, leapt into a cab to head for the couple's hostel. At this point the English girl decided she didn't want to go to the party, but would rather go back to her hotel. Fine, we said through gritted teeth, which hotel is it?
She couldn't remember the name.
Where is it?, we asked.
She couldn't remember where it was, but suggested that we drive around until she saw something she recognised.
After a short while part of the name came back to her, and with the cab drivers help we worked out which hotel she needed.
When we arrived at the steep pedestrianised street leading to said hotel I realised for the first time just how drunk this girl was. She was unable to get out of the cab unaided, and it took both Phil and myself to hold her upright and get her moving in roughly the right direction. She couldn't remember her room number, but fortunately the doorman of the hotel knew her (he didn't look completely shocked to see her in such a state, either) and we left her in his capable hands.
So finally we headed off to our little party. Except that at this point we realised that we'd become separated from the main crowd, and didn't know the room number we wanted. Never mind, we said, we'd sort something out.
The taxi bill wasn't cheap in the end, but we figured the driver had earnt a tip. Quite frankly I felt like I'd earnt a tip myself, but finally we arrived at the right hostel, at the same time as a couple of blokes, and I slipped in behind them as if it was natural and followed them up the stairs.
I've cursed myself many times in the few days since for what happened next. I really don't know what came over me.
As I was about halfway up, I heard Phil the Aussie walk up to the night porter and explain, in Spanish even I could understand, that he'd met some people in the bar and they've invited him back for a drink. He didn't remember they're names, and he didn't know what room they were in, but could the porter tell him which room an English couple were staying in?
I could've kept walking up the stairs. I should've kept walking up the stairs. However, I turned round and went back to reception, just in time to see the night porter go absolutely mental, start shouting, and throw the pair of us out, saying something along the lines of "we're not running a night-club here".
So, there we were, in the street in the middle of the night, plus one bottle of vodka, minus one party. At this point Phil decided he was tired and wanted to go to bed, and frankly I was a little tired of him, so we decided to go our separate ways. The only thing left to sort out was what we'd do with the vodka. I'd paid for it and he'd given me half the cash, and he now didn't have enough cash to buy me out, so I gave him his money back and kept the bottle.
So that was how I came to find myself smuggling a litre of vodka that I don't like across the border into Peru.
Thursday, 22 March 2007
I've learnt a new bit of latin american slang
A 'brichera' is a girl who targets gringos for their money, something a lot of the guys fall for because it's such a novel experience for them. You get bricheros, too, but mainly the guys here are just after a sh*g with the gringas, so I imagine it's not dissimilar to being at home. I think I'm fortunate enough to look like I don't have any money, but I think I might have met one brichera, a girl who was dancing in the middle of a bar who then came up to me and said "It makes you very thirsty, dancing so much". Fortunately I had a half-finished bottle of water with me, so I offered her that to stave off the worst effects of dehydration. She can't have been that thirsty, though, as she politely declined my offer.
I met one guy who'd had a Peruvian girlfriend for a while, and he told me he'd spent about two thousand quid in a single month. "What on earth on?" was my response, because life here is really cheap. Even when he told me I couldn't quite believe it, but that woman must have a pretty good jewellery collection by now. As soon as he was out of cash and wouldn't treat her to the high-life any more she started a massive row with him and stormed out of his flat. He was heartbroken.
I've also met a couple of guys that have admitted to being robbed after taking a pretty latina home - they have a good time but wake up the next morning a bit light in the wallet, camera and passport department.
Nothing, though, compares to the story this French guy told me.
He'd had a frustrating evening in a club, failing to pull a sexy Dutch blond. While walking home he met a latina in the street and smiled at her. Without a word being spoken, apparently, he found himself in an alley round the corner, she was on her knees, he had his trousers round his ankles and he was having quite a nice time. Then he took her back to his hostel where she continued to entertain him, and she even took some saucy photos of the pair of them.
Then she left.
The following morning he realised that everything he'd had in his trouser pockets had vanished, as had his camera.
He went to the police station to report the crime, but initially the police were sceptical of his account. It didn't seem plausible, they said. Lots of tourists make false police reports in Cusco, apparently, as part of various insurance scams, and the police have become quite sensitive to stories that don't quite ring true. They sent a policeman out to check his version of events and speak to potential witnesses, and fortunately the doorman at the hostel could verify the presence of someone in his room late the previous night, and even identified the miscreant from a photo.
The French lad was left sweating in an interview room while all this happened, and then the police chief came in, leaving the door open.
"There's good news and bad news", he said. "The good news is that the thief is a criminal known to us. The bad news is that it's a guy."
At this point he heard the entire room beyond erupt into furious laughter, and he was ushered out into the main office with a bright red face.
I can't verify the truth of this story, but the bloke swore it happened to him exactly as I've related it to you. Personally I think most people would keep quite if it happened to them, so I found myself believing it.
Touch wood I've still not been robbed yet. I've also not been sick so far, though lets just say that constipation hasn't exactly been a problem. I had a few nervous moments on the bus back to Cusco from La Paz, though.
Having been told it was an eleven hour journey (for which you can usually read fourteen), and still bearing the memorial scars from my ten hour hell-ride from Abancay to Cusco, I'd spent a fair amount of time shopping round the various bus companies, asking about the journey, the condition of the buses and the services they offered. I eventually plumped for a fantastic sounding affair that promised to be direct. Yes, there will be a toilet. Movies will be shown. Meals will be served. There will be lots of space aboard.
Fantastic.
While about half a dozen of us were waiting at the terminal for our palatial bus to Cusco, another bus pulled up. It was the oldest, dodgiest, most decrepit and most deserving of being taken up to the Death Road and thrown off that I've seen so far, which is saying something. It wouldn't even have been accepted as scrap back home.
Get out of the way, I thought, our wonder-bus needs to park there.
Then a woman from the bus company came out and told us that this bus would take us to another terminal, from where the real bus would leave. Hurry up and board, she said, the other bus is waiting. No time, no time for discussions.
Now, I've been told some outragious bus whoppers on this trip (in fact in latin america there are three questions to which bus companies are legally obliged to give inaccurate, erroneous or just plain dishonest answers: What time does it leave? How long does the journey take? Is it direct? All must be answered with a barefaced lie or the company runs the risk of losing its license to operate) but when confronted with this audacious piece of sheer effrontery, I almost burst into spontaneous applause.
Not believing for a second that this bus wasn't the one we'd end up lumbered with, and not being convinced it would even make it as far as Cusco, I hopped on board.
Now, the night before I'd been persuaded to try a new culinary experience by a group of friends from my hostel. Astonished that I'd not tried the food in the market yet, and knowing I was leaving the country in the morning, they promised me the best (and the cheapest) meal it was possible to get. They ate in the same place every day, they said, it was always good, they said, it was really clean and they loved it. They said.
It was far from the best, it was far from clean, and it was nowhere near as cheap as I'd been led to expect. Describing it as food at all, in fact, was a bit of a stretch as far as I was concerned, and when I pondered the quality of meal you can get in La Paz by spending about 50p more, I wondered about the hell kind of budget these kids were travelling on.
However, I was hungry so I ate what I could, washed down with a couple of beers and we all went to bed.
Then morning came.
Left to my own devious I can be pretty lazy. On a normal weekend back home it's only either the need to eat or the need to pee that will drive me out of bed at all, so I'm no stranger to the need to get up to use the lavatory.
This, though, was novel to me.
I don't want to go into too many details, but I was rather taken aback by the expansive nature of my toilette the following morning, and my body's enthusiasm to be making this lavatorial evacuation. I hoped that was it. Oh no.
A mere two hours into my 'bus' ride to Cusco I felt the first indications that the bank of Nathan's bowels were ready to make another express deposit, and I knew it was going to be a long trip.
As the journey wore on I was actually glad to have been told the obligatory "No, we don't stop anywhere except Cusco" lie, because during the frequent breaks in semi-deserted villages in Butt-f*ck, Nowhere, I was able to relieve some of the pressure that was building up so quickly. It took quite a few sessions before I was empty enough for my sphincter to relax. At that point so could I.
Like I say, not ill exactly but definitely ... uncomfortable.
You'll be pleased to hear that once we'd crossed the border the bus become almost deserted, and I think because it was a Bolivian company it was granted an exemption from the Peruvian Screaming Baby laws, so the last half of the journey was okay.
So I'm back in Cusco, ready to put the second part of my plan for world domination into effect.
Mwahahahahahaha
I met one guy who'd had a Peruvian girlfriend for a while, and he told me he'd spent about two thousand quid in a single month. "What on earth on?" was my response, because life here is really cheap. Even when he told me I couldn't quite believe it, but that woman must have a pretty good jewellery collection by now. As soon as he was out of cash and wouldn't treat her to the high-life any more she started a massive row with him and stormed out of his flat. He was heartbroken.
I've also met a couple of guys that have admitted to being robbed after taking a pretty latina home - they have a good time but wake up the next morning a bit light in the wallet, camera and passport department.
Nothing, though, compares to the story this French guy told me.
He'd had a frustrating evening in a club, failing to pull a sexy Dutch blond. While walking home he met a latina in the street and smiled at her. Without a word being spoken, apparently, he found himself in an alley round the corner, she was on her knees, he had his trousers round his ankles and he was having quite a nice time. Then he took her back to his hostel where she continued to entertain him, and she even took some saucy photos of the pair of them.
Then she left.
The following morning he realised that everything he'd had in his trouser pockets had vanished, as had his camera.
He went to the police station to report the crime, but initially the police were sceptical of his account. It didn't seem plausible, they said. Lots of tourists make false police reports in Cusco, apparently, as part of various insurance scams, and the police have become quite sensitive to stories that don't quite ring true. They sent a policeman out to check his version of events and speak to potential witnesses, and fortunately the doorman at the hostel could verify the presence of someone in his room late the previous night, and even identified the miscreant from a photo.
The French lad was left sweating in an interview room while all this happened, and then the police chief came in, leaving the door open.
"There's good news and bad news", he said. "The good news is that the thief is a criminal known to us. The bad news is that it's a guy."
At this point he heard the entire room beyond erupt into furious laughter, and he was ushered out into the main office with a bright red face.
I can't verify the truth of this story, but the bloke swore it happened to him exactly as I've related it to you. Personally I think most people would keep quite if it happened to them, so I found myself believing it.
Touch wood I've still not been robbed yet. I've also not been sick so far, though lets just say that constipation hasn't exactly been a problem. I had a few nervous moments on the bus back to Cusco from La Paz, though.
Having been told it was an eleven hour journey (for which you can usually read fourteen), and still bearing the memorial scars from my ten hour hell-ride from Abancay to Cusco, I'd spent a fair amount of time shopping round the various bus companies, asking about the journey, the condition of the buses and the services they offered. I eventually plumped for a fantastic sounding affair that promised to be direct. Yes, there will be a toilet. Movies will be shown. Meals will be served. There will be lots of space aboard.
Fantastic.
While about half a dozen of us were waiting at the terminal for our palatial bus to Cusco, another bus pulled up. It was the oldest, dodgiest, most decrepit and most deserving of being taken up to the Death Road and thrown off that I've seen so far, which is saying something. It wouldn't even have been accepted as scrap back home.
Get out of the way, I thought, our wonder-bus needs to park there.
Then a woman from the bus company came out and told us that this bus would take us to another terminal, from where the real bus would leave. Hurry up and board, she said, the other bus is waiting. No time, no time for discussions.
Now, I've been told some outragious bus whoppers on this trip (in fact in latin america there are three questions to which bus companies are legally obliged to give inaccurate, erroneous or just plain dishonest answers: What time does it leave? How long does the journey take? Is it direct? All must be answered with a barefaced lie or the company runs the risk of losing its license to operate) but when confronted with this audacious piece of sheer effrontery, I almost burst into spontaneous applause.
Not believing for a second that this bus wasn't the one we'd end up lumbered with, and not being convinced it would even make it as far as Cusco, I hopped on board.
Now, the night before I'd been persuaded to try a new culinary experience by a group of friends from my hostel. Astonished that I'd not tried the food in the market yet, and knowing I was leaving the country in the morning, they promised me the best (and the cheapest) meal it was possible to get. They ate in the same place every day, they said, it was always good, they said, it was really clean and they loved it. They said.
It was far from the best, it was far from clean, and it was nowhere near as cheap as I'd been led to expect. Describing it as food at all, in fact, was a bit of a stretch as far as I was concerned, and when I pondered the quality of meal you can get in La Paz by spending about 50p more, I wondered about the hell kind of budget these kids were travelling on.
However, I was hungry so I ate what I could, washed down with a couple of beers and we all went to bed.
Then morning came.
Left to my own devious I can be pretty lazy. On a normal weekend back home it's only either the need to eat or the need to pee that will drive me out of bed at all, so I'm no stranger to the need to get up to use the lavatory.
This, though, was novel to me.
I don't want to go into too many details, but I was rather taken aback by the expansive nature of my toilette the following morning, and my body's enthusiasm to be making this lavatorial evacuation. I hoped that was it. Oh no.
A mere two hours into my 'bus' ride to Cusco I felt the first indications that the bank of Nathan's bowels were ready to make another express deposit, and I knew it was going to be a long trip.
As the journey wore on I was actually glad to have been told the obligatory "No, we don't stop anywhere except Cusco" lie, because during the frequent breaks in semi-deserted villages in Butt-f*ck, Nowhere, I was able to relieve some of the pressure that was building up so quickly. It took quite a few sessions before I was empty enough for my sphincter to relax. At that point so could I.
Like I say, not ill exactly but definitely ... uncomfortable.
You'll be pleased to hear that once we'd crossed the border the bus become almost deserted, and I think because it was a Bolivian company it was granted an exemption from the Peruvian Screaming Baby laws, so the last half of the journey was okay.
So I'm back in Cusco, ready to put the second part of my plan for world domination into effect.
Mwahahahahahaha
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