HI-HO, HI-HO...
ITS OFF TO BsAs (BUENOS AIRES) I GO!!
So, Beks and I spent Thursday and Friday night in Quito. Thursday was spent in the cinema watching Superman Returns with Beks, Katymae, Will (her boyfriend) and a small popcorn spiked with peanut M&Ms. (mmm!)
Friday was a different story. Beks rounded up the friends that she had made from living in the city over the last 5 and a half months and the night began.....
- Started at the hostal we were staying at, taking advantage of the free rum and coke on offer.
- Moved onto dinner at the faithful Indian place (was scrummy) then back to the hostal for a bit more drinking, this time of the local toddy; Zumir.
- Finally out to a club, the worst, seediest, hottest, sweatiest place in La Mariscal (which is essentially Gringoland) called Huainas, but a club nonetheless! I thought it was the perfect venue....reminiscent of nights gone by and the good times that always seem to roll!
- Needless to say, it was a late night and the next day was a struggle!
Saturday and the day that Beks flies back to the States. Poor thing was suffering from one helluva Chuchaqui (resaca; hangover) -lightweight! I went about buying myself a bus ticket to Guayaquil and running a few other errands....
Beks leaves that afternoon and it was a very sad moment. Cried my little heart out, it has been a great experience and adventure travelling with the Young Horowitz and never had an ordeal come along, and some of them were sooper dooper tough, that we hadnt managed to find a way to laugh through! I like her style. See ya in Philly soon!
That evening I got on a night bus to Guayaquil. I didnt mind too much as I was absolutely cream crackered from the night before, so i slept pretty soundly throughout the journey. Arrived at the bus station at the crack of dawn and sat about waiting for my bus over the border to Tumbes.
Waiting Time Count: 1 hour
Travel Time Count: 8 hours
I caught my bus to Tumbes after a couple of hours waiting and arrived there after a pretty tedious immigration stop on either side of the border. Had a scare at one point after the Ecuadorian immigration, once my passport was stamped, I marched onto the parked CIFA (bus company I was using) bus and despite lots of people calling out to me (I was in no mood to humour banter!) I hadnt realised that it wasnt my bus. Oh! So I sheepishly disembarked, asked the driver where my bus was, to which he replied: se fue (it went) Oh thanks buddy, thats mighty helpful of you! Luckily our bus came back after about 30mins and we continued on our journey!
Waiting Time Count: 2 hours
Travel Time Count: 6 hours
Once at Tumbes, I head straight over to the airport with the intention of gettin a flight to Lima. However due to it being the weekend of 28th July (Patria de la Republica/Independence Day) the three flights leaving were all packed. I hung around to see if I could take the place of a no show, but had no such luck. What to do,what to do....
Waiting Time Count: 4 hours
So, I decided I would see if I could get myself outta Tumbes, didnt wanna hang about another 24 hours, only to find that there was no room on the next evening´s flights either. I grabbed a cab abd we traied each of the three main, long distance bus companies...
Ormeño: their bus had left 10 mins ago.
CIVA: their bus was full.
Flores: there was a space...woohoo!!!
So I found myself buying a ticket to Lima. Needless to say I got a pretty raw deal on my seat. It was at the very back (therefore didnt recline) and right opposite the toilet (so when the door was opened (which it seemed to be ALL the time, could ppl stop drinking puhlease!), I got a lovely aroma waft my way!). When I first sat down, I found myself sat next to a rather large box of pre packed meals...oh my seat also doubled up as the kitchen area!
Despite all the discomfort, I found myself in Lima the following afternoon.
Travel Time Count: 18 hours
Lima. Now to find a flight to BA!
Over the last 39 hours (since Saturday 21.30)
Total Waiting Time: 7 hours.
Total Travel Time: 32 hours.
Job Done!
ECUADOR, PERU, BOLIVIA, BRASIL AND COLOMBIA DOWN....ARGENTINA TO GO!
Rebekah and I find ourselves back in the familiar throws of Quito, Ecuador once again after a tiresome couple of days worth of travelling from the North coast of Colombia! It´s a very strange feeling to find comfort in the familiarity of a South American city, which is clearly still unfamiliar in comparison to home!! But comfort has been found, familiar it feels and we are gonna make the most of this city over the next two days in memory of the good times that it provided us with!
So off for meals at our favourite places, drinks at the best watering holes, dancing at the creme of the clubs and more than all that...shisha!
Ciao for now, more news from Argentina (if I manage to get myself BACK across the continent!)
Love to all....xxxxx
CARTAGENA AND OUR ENCOUNTER WITH THE WORLD OF OVERHEATING, DEHYDRATION, ENDLESS MOANING AND THE DAY WE TRULY EMBRACED AGUARDIENTE ("FIRE WATER")
Last stop on our Colombian adventure...
Here´s the lowdown.....
1. Its hot. I am quite aware that you guys are having a heatwave in the UK....but its hot out here. Ive never experienced heat quite like it. Its hot. Did I mention the heat...oh ok, good. (hot)
Hardest thing: that would be the heat that i havent yet mentioned!
2. A day trip to Playa Blanca and Las Islas del Rosario. The boat left first thing in the morning, it was hot. A pretty long trip but we were rewarded at the end of it with the beautiful beach of Playa Blanca, sat on an island, just off the coast of Colombia in the middle of the Caribbean...i like!
Hardest thing: Having a back massage with Aloe Vera on the beach in the sun, by the water....I wont go on, its too painful.
3. Wandering around the old Colonial part of town. Balconies decked out with lush palms and a multitude of brilliantly coloured flowers. Pulchritudinous (tip: www.dictionary.com -dont worry i too, had to look that one up!) architecture. Lazy plazas. The sound of music drifting through the non existent breeze....
Hardest thing: immersing oneself in a city of such beauty!
4. Nightly consumption of Aguardiente. Its good stuff. It really is and plus, when in Rome.... So this is an alcohol made from sugarcane, very similar to Sambuca, Ouzo or Arrack...Anise, I can see you cringeing from here. ´fraid so folks, but when in Rome.... So the introduction of a pack of cards, a game called the Circle of Death and the company of some great people....its been good fun! So fun, we played solidly for the past five nights and we´ll be back on it tomorrow.
Hardest thing: not playing tonight!
5. Went to the mud volcano, where we sat in the crater in amongst a whole lot of....mud. The crater is 2300m deep...which is a very strange sensation as no matter how hard you try and push yourself down, you just dont sink one little bit!
"Mud, mud, glorious mud, nothing quite like it for cooling the blood. So follow me, follow, down to the hollow and there we shall wallow in glooooo-rious mud!"
Was great fun...trying to upload a pic, but it wont work!!! Aaaargh.
Hardest thing: Prob the mud massage that I got!
SANTA MARTA, TAGANGA AND PARQUE TAYRONA.
Q: WHAT DID WE ENCOUNTER?
A: THAT WOULD BE THE CARIBBEAN!
We finally hit the coast and gee whizz was it HOOOOOOOTTTTTTT! Now where do I start? With the bright blue skies or the glorious sunshine, or should I go with the beautiful beaches, the Caribbean sea, the palm trees, the waves lapping not more than 10 metres from where we lay dozing in our hammocks..people help me out here, this is tough. Really tough. And this life is tough. Really tough.
6 days of the good life...but we tore ourselves away. couldnt handle the tough life anymore. Decided we needed to head 6 hours West to Cartagena. Only problem...we are still on the Caribbean Coast. Anyone wanna come save me?
Wish you were here!
Oh and my tan...goddamn!
GIRON AND OUR ENCOUNTER WITH YET MORE ROAST CHICKEN EATEN WITH NONE OTHER THAN PLASTIC GLOVES!
As we sped along the side of the Chicamocha Canyon (according to the Colombian it is the 2nd biggest in the world -they have proof...."the Colombian Tourism Board says so"....so does that mean that if the Colombian Tourism Board declared that Colombia "is the 2nd biggest country in the world too" that people would be forced to believe that too?!) enjoying the spectacular views, we hear a thud from behind. I stick my head out the window expecting to see a trail of luggage strewn across the road behind us. Pleasantly surprised that there´s not, I realise that if I stick my head even further out the window, I can actually look behind my seat and into the trunk (I was sitting in the corner seat at the back of the bus....with the rest of the kool kids obviously!)
I peer in...and surprise, surprise...begin giggling, much to the bewilderment of the rest of the bus....couldnt help myself as I spy the trunk door flapping away and Katymae´s backpack precariously close to becoming roadkill!
The driver pulls over, gets out and walks around to the back of the bus, he closes the door, it swings back open....
Meanwhile, I am giving running commentary to the girls and the rest of the bus.....
The driver decides that in order to remedy the situation, he is going to try and use the key to lock the trunk shut...what a stroke of genius!!! Gear secured, driver in place, back on the windy, mountainous roads we go!
All things going smoothly until we round a sharp bend and almost career straight into the side of a stupisly positioned jeep. Wasnt sure if he was pulling out of anywhere, though seems unlikely as there was only the cliff wall for him to have "pulled out" from, and he didnt look too much like David Copperfield, so that theory is out. Therefore I came to the conclusion that he must have been doing a three-point turn!!
Our driver was pretty efficient with the brake and each of us was propelled forward and rudely awakened from our snoozy states. I merely rolled my eyes, but the huge guy (who had crossed himself numerous times before we left the bus terminal) who was sat beside me and already spilling onto my seat, was pretty nervous, making an already hot and sticky ride that much hotter and yet more sticky.
Now I know that I crack on about the bus journeys, but they truly are classic!!! The tone of the adventures of discovering a new town are always set by the difficulty of the journey in getting there...and if I didnt give you a journey by journey update...you wouldnt have nearly as much reading material!
So onto the surburb of Bucharamanga....Giron. The reason we decided to stop over here on our way to the coast was to shave about 2 and a half hours off of the bus journey up to Santa Marta. In reality, this place was fairly dull...not much to see or do, but always time for roast chicken especially if eaten with plastic gloves.
Mission accomplished...onto the coast we go!
SAN GIL AND OUR ENCOUNTER WITH SOME HUMONGOUS FRUIT SALADS
Lovely town, just North of Bogota....still heading towards the coast! This is the equivalent of Baños, Ecuador...a pretty town, with a varitey of adventure sports to be getting on with!
Available: Rafting, Waterfalls, Cycle rides, Paragliding, Swimming, Sightseeing, Botanical Garden...to name but a few.
We achieved: Umm, well there were those huge fruit salads we ate each morning.....
First Day: Arrived at the bus station in San Gil, after an eerily uneventful bus journey (oh, but i did discover that if you stuff a brown roll with peanuts, raisins and caramelised peanuts, the resulting effect is just...delight-ful-icious!) to find that it was a draw between France and Italy (World Cup final) and so we sat ourselves down on the floor of the bus terminal with all the other transfixed commuters and watched the penalty shoot out. What timing.
Second Day: Decided to head to a 180m waterfall nearby. Two ways to get there...2 hour cycle ride or 20 mins bus journey. We decided on the cycle ride, but in the process of walking the 4 blocks to the rent-a-dodgy-bike shop in the heat of the day (this was only 9.30am...what was it gonna be like later?!) We managed to make an executive decision to grab a bus instead. I like it!
The waterfall was... ok wait, you have to bear in mind that I have been to Iguacu falls....anyway this waterfall was....was...so....ummm...hate to say it....i do appreciate nature and all that jazz...but...quite frankly...it was....how should i put this....puny? Yep. Thats how I would put it....! However, it was great fun hiking through the rainforest-like vegetation, scrambling over rocks and wading through the water in order to get to our desired picnic spot....then the rains came. God damn it got cold.....
Grabbed a bus back after a couple of hours and set about making a stir fry for dinner...highlight! (Tip: Soak garlic and ginger in the soy sauce a couple of hours before you are about to cook...intense!)
Third Day: Head to Barichara, a small town nearby for the day. Was a lovely little town situated on the edge of Chicamocha Canyon. Incredible views, great pasta for lunch, an incredible drink called Sabajón....a Baileys like concoction infused with a variety of flavours, we opted for coffee and proceeded to spike every subsequent cup with the good stuff!!
Back in San Gil, we paid a visit to the Botanical Garden...was strange walking around and looking at all the exotic plants..most of which could be found in our garden in Nigeria....blast from the past! (Mum, maybe Emmanuel has come to Colombia?!) They also have heaps of huge trees all covered in Old Man`s Beard (Clematis Vitalba), a fast growing vine that covers and strangles trees and shrubs. Its thick blanket of growth blocks light from getting through to the plants underneath, eventually killing them. Looks pretty though!
And here endeth another installment! Caribbean here we come...one stop to go!
VILLA DE LEYVA AND OUR NAUSEATING ENCOUNTER WITH A BUS FULL OF CAR SICK PASSENGERS!
So Villa de Leyva was a nice little pueblo. It is home to the largest plaza in Colombia (measuring 120m x 120m) and has a nice small town, friendly feel to the place!
We head North out of Bogota, attempting to break up our journey towards the Caribbean Coast somewhat and Villa de Leyva was just one of those towns that screamed out to be a stopover!
Now, before I go into details about what we saw, did, ate etc etc...let me tell you about our journey there.....
Ordinarily I would jump for joy (actually I do!) when we have a mere 3hr bus ride ahead of us, but in this case I would have traded it for an easy 11 or 12 hours!!!
We started off well, as usual the conductor insisted on ramming extra passengers into our little collectivo (a mini bus type contraption) Normally this proves to be ok, we all shuffle about and exchange pleasantries with the new arrivals perched on our laps. But this time we had a couple of ladies who got really car sick and outta nowhere (I cant imagine the high speeds and windy roads had any part to play) began to vomit. The first lady vomiting made the second lady start and much like a game of Dominoes, the trend continued, which made the rest of us feel fairly queasy to say the least! The third lady with the group was able to lean forward and grab plastic bags from the driver...strangely he would only hand them out one at a time (I dont think sickbags were even rationed in WWII were they?!)....which made me feel distinctly uncomfortable and obviously didnt help the carsickness as the ladies were having to breathe into the soiled bag which only served to encourage the vomiting! I stuck my head out the window into the gale force winds to avoid the sounds and smells of them chucking up, it was all well and good while it lasted, but then a troop of super stinky men climbed aboard and practically perched themselves on my knee...nice! The head outta the window trick was a life saver, until one of them decided to stick himself right up against the window....so the air being filtered in, through his shirt smelt reeeeal good!!! By this point I was in a fit of giggles (which obviously didnt help my "dont inhale" strategy) but I was transported back, way back, back into time......
One Sunny Sunday September afternoon back in ´93, my family and I were driving along the leafy roads of Reigate with The Royal Alexandra and Albert School as our destination. My brother Vijay, and I were headed to our new boarding school...this would be the start of his third year at boarding school, (but first at RAAS) and the start of my first! Driving along happy as Mary, laughing, joking and the usual frolics of a happy and stable family....BUT THEN...Vij began to feel queasy. He insisted that my father pull over, but daddy dearest wasnt quick enough and before I knew what had happened I had been the victim of the rogue splashes of my brothers vomit...aaaaaaaaargh. Happiness? Stability? Laughing? Daisies? All these cheery things were soon out the window as I created a scene, made a fuss, got all upset and demanded that I be taken home and return to start my first day of school at a later stage....preferably with no vomit down my trousers!! My mother had a fair point when she pointed out that I hadnt actually been the victim of any sort of vomit splashing assault whatsoever, but that didnt matter...who wants to start school on a Sunday anyway!
Mmmm...love the buses but love the memories that they evoke that much more!!
Oh so back to this pretty town.....here were the highlights.....
- They had supreme Pasta Pesto.....happy? daisies...oh yes, it was all back!
- We went on a 15km hike to an archeological park...turned out to be filled with phallic shaped stones...ended up leapfrogging them, as one does...was well worth the hike!! NOT!
- Visited a market early on the Sat morning! Was interesting if you have never seen fruit and veg being sold before!
- Had supreme Pasta Pesto (had to mention that twice seeing as I ate it both nights!)
And that would be Villa De Leyva!
BOGOTA AND OUR ENCOUNTER WITH THE COLD MISERABLE ENGLISH WINTER!
Bogota, well...I must say it was nice to have escaped the cold, wet, rainy, miserable (did I say rainy?!) English winter this year, only to run into it...head on....in Colombia!!
Bogota´s highlights:
- Katymae, Rebekah´s friend from college arrived...she will be travelling with us until the end of our time out here.
- Met a couple of Krazy Kats from Kingston....always makes me happy to bump into some fellow homeboys! Shout out to Sam and Chris!!!!
- Went to the National Museum...it sucked...but Crepes & Waffles across the road was a def hit!
- We ate our first meal of roast chicken with a pair of plastic gloves! (what a novelty!)
- Hit the Botero museum...over 200 pieces of Botero´s work kindly donated by him...all well and good, still a fan...but a bit Botero-saturated at the mo....no more..please!!!!
- it rained.....
- and some more......
- and yet again.....
- bet that makes y´all feel good...does it? aye? what you saying?
- ok....im out!
MEDELLIN AND OUR ENCOUNTER WITH 827 STEPS, THE SMELLIEST FEET IN THE WORLD AND OUR NEW LIVES AS INSOMNIACS!
Medellin came and passed us by in a haze. We arrived early in the week and got down to business straight away while the nights were quiet and we woke up fresh faced and full of beans! The first day was spent milling about, getting used to the overwhelming number of guys in our hostal and orientating ourselves with the city. We weren´t very well rested as the previous night we had been rudely awoken at 3am by a fairly noisy and clumsy Dutch guy who came stumbling into our dorm. Thats all well and good, I am fine about being woken up in the middle of the night, we are in dorms after all and to be honest I dont have a leg to stand on as I have been known to be fairly on the noisy side myself. What wasn´t on, was him taking off his shoes, placing them right next to Beks and I bed (head end) and then proceeding to slowly gas us to death! The stench was unbearable (I have no idea how Beks survived the night, she was on bottom bunk!) I was hoping that I would be asphyxiated, just to put me out of my misery and the assault on my nose...but no such lucky break arrived and to add insult to injury the waft of rotten feet continued through the night! As a result of the horrendous night, we used it as a perfect excuse to spend the day chilling!
El Peñol - Guatape - Rionegro - La Ceja.
After a day of rest, relaxation and well needed recuperation, we headed out to conquer a few of the surrounding small towns in the area. Our first stop was El Peñol, the sugarloaf of Colombia. The rock (http://www.webcolombia.com/treasures/penol/Piedra_de_El_penol_1.jpg) was situated about 2 hours from Medellin. So all aboard a bus and away we went. Got there, climbed 827 steps (yes I counted!) and enjoyed a beautiful view of the surrounding area which was intentionally flooded (not actually sure why). They claim that there are 649 steps, but they fail to mention the 144 steps that you need to climb just to get to the rock, then once on top, the 60 steps to get to the mirador....oh and the other 34 step discrepancy...thats because i took a wrong turn (i too, am confused as to how that happened on a stairwell!) and climbed an extra section!
Once there, I asked to have my picture taken with a young girl sporting an "Im with Stupid" t-shirt. She was more than a bit scared as I propositioned her and didnt see the funny side in what I was trying to achieve! Once I realised that she didnt have a clue what her t-shirt actually said, i happily explained it to her and she was more than willing to stand by my side whilst the rest of her family looked on proudly!
From there we took to "10 min" walk to Guatape, "just across the bridge" -it was more like walking from Inverness to Lands End as we found ourselves walking along a highway in the blistering heat for far too long!
Once in Guatape, we had time to grab some chicken and jumped on board a bus to Rionegro. This was another pretty town, we walked around for a while, viewed another Betancur sculpture (they are brilliant!) and then moved onto our next stop; La Ceja. Another pretty town, another painful hour on the bus. A mango smoothie and a walk around the square later and we were ready to end our "little towns" experience and head back the sanctuary of our hostal!
Ordinarily the bus drivers are maniacs (i dont mind, gets me places quicker) Unfortunately, this guy was obviously totally mixed up about which pedal was actually the accelerator/brake and pumped away at the brake a painful amount! Eventually, we jumped off the bus at the first site of a metro station and put ourselves outta our misery.
A Day of Culture: Museo de Antioquía - Parque Berrio - San Antonio - Murals de Pedro Nel Gomez
We spent the day checking out museums, art galleries and public displays of art! El Museo de Antioquía is home to a fantastic collection of Botero´s (one of Colombia's most famous artists) pieces as well as some international artists and a temporary exposition of Santiago Cárdenas´ work. It was absolutely fantastic and i am now an avid Botero fan!
In the park in front of the museum, there are 23 huge, bronze Botero scuptures which are equally as fun! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fernando_Botero-Roman_Gladiator.jpg)
We then head off to see some of Pedro Nel Gomez´s murals...an artist who was heavily influenced by The Mexican Revolution and Diego Rivera.
Our cultural expedition also included heading over to San Antonio (a short walk away) to see another Botero sculpture; El Pajaro de Paz, (Bird of Peace) which was damaged by a guerrilla bomb. As a symbolic response to the violent act, the damaged bird is left untouched and a new one has been placed alongside!
The attempt to be cultural and productive dies down as we hit the nightlife head on!
It was def a good thing that Beks and I had had our fill of cultural excursions as Weds night hit and thats the day that the party comes to town in Medellin! Lots of late nights, y´all know the score...bars, clubs, drinks, dancing....lovely jubbly!!
All madness....we represented in true form, night after night after night. Our new lives as insomniacs kicked in, as we head back to the hostal in the early hours and woke up after a mere 0-3 hours kip! Strangely I couldnt convince myself to nap either, and we couldnt shake the early-morning-body-clock-timer thing that we have going on, so after 4 nights of true mayhem, it was time to leave Medellin and try and get in a few early nights in the country's capital!
Check out the new photos online!
