Life Love & Adventure

Epilogue

mattso — Mon, 3 Mar 2008 01:55:00 GMT

I had to write a final story to let you know how this journey ended :).

It was a very long day, starting with a 3 hour wait at Kona airport before flying to Honolulu. Then there was another 5 hour wait before flying to Auckland. I met a nice German girl at the check-in but lost her later during the flight. This was an 8 hour flight and the tiring overnight trip was alleviated somewhat by the humour of the New Zealand flight crew :).

On reaching Auckland, I had another long wait at the airport before making the last flight back to Perth. I tried to catch up on some sleep during the 7 hour wait, which is pretty hard in a busy departure lounge, so bleary eyed and fatigued, I was glad to get on my last flight.

Another long flight of 7 1/2 hours was shortened by a good chat with the guy sitting next to me who I shared a few beers with and had a few laughs :). On the approach to Perth airport, I was amused by the American lady behind me who couldn't stop exclaiming 'Oh my god! Is that it? Is that Perth? There's nothing down there! Oh my God! Its all desert!' haha. It was also a hot afternoon with temps in the high 30's!

So after getting through customs and finding some of my souvenirs got broken in transit (which I could glue back together later on), I was met by my dad and my friend Dan. They were stoked to se me back in one piece looking sun-soaked and triumphant :). My fatigue had given way to adrenaline as my second wind kicked in, and we went and had a pint at an airport bar while I spurted out stories in no particular order. We headed back to dad's and picked up Danka then headed down to the OBH in Cottesloe for another beer or two while the sun went down. Ah yes, it was good to be back! :).

I haven't stopped thinking about the places I've been, the things I've seen, the people I've met, and the good grace of the high spirit which guided and protected me along the way. My photos are bringing back all the memories and, having settled in back home quite easily, there's still a restlessness which I'll have to temper by making new plans to some far-off places, including my favourites from this journey. It was an extremely rewarding time and the lessons I've learnt will help in making the next one even better :).

So thank you all once again. I'll catch up with you down the track!

Mattso

PS. If you have Facebook, you can keep in touch with me and see more photos :).

Hawaii Hi Ho

mattso — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:25:00 GMT

Aloha! Yes I made it to Hawaii :) After a fairly long uneventful flight and a bit of time wasting at LAX, I was fortunate to be met by my friend Julie who picked me up and gave me a quick tour of Kona in the dark, for what its worth, hehe. I was also fortunate to get a hotel booking for the night which I made in Antigua before I left. But it was a culture shock to realise how much the cost of living is in the Western world, having being spoilt in Mexico and Guatemala. So as money is tight I had to do some quick negotiations to find a place for the rest of my days here. Living on bananas and munchy bars is ok for a short time haha.

The next day I walked the main 'strip' of Kona along with the thousands of American tourists, found a good place for breakfast and spent the rest of the day lazing by the pool. This is the Big Island which is quite different from Oahu as its just a giant lump of volcanic rock with little if any sandy beaches. The volcanic smoke/steam blows over the island every afternoon but the sun keeps things warm enough for the sun tan :). I managed to secure a room at King Kamehameha's Hotel which has its own litle beach so I get the best of pool and sea :). Now if only I could afford to go parasailing, snorkelling, diving, volcano climbing, ATVing and all the rest of activities on offer! lol.

Later in the evening a crowd of people were gathered at the beach so I went to investigate and found some free drinks on offer - tropical rum punch, yes please I'll have some of that! Then some traditionally dressed islanders dug up their version of a 'hungi' which had cooked a whole pig.
That's gotta be better than munchy bars! But then a traditional ceremony started, and when everyone was invited to take their seats for the song and dance show, it dawned on me, that I had gate-crashed a lu'au! haha ... exit stage left.

But most of my time has been spent not doing much - walking around, lying around - and trying to figure out how to rationalise my last pennys to get home. I made the decision to pull the pin on this place a few days early - no big loss, my heart is still in the Guatemalan jungle and the Mexican desert. From what I've seen, Hawaii, or Kailua-Kona at least, is one big tourist trap for the yanks. Any tradional culture has been synthesised into a show and tell for tourists and I haven't heard anyone speak the indigenous language (except for the obligatory aloha's which has lost its cultural 'punch'). But I really haven't seen a lot so I may be wrong - I hope so.

I bought a ticket from Kona to Honolulu so will be heading back to Aus this week. Its been a hell of a ride, and I've had a fantastic time :). I'd love to keep going, but I think the time has come to ditch the backpack and enjoy some homestays for a while. I've already flagged a couple of places for another visit in the future, including Mexico - anyone wanna learn salsa dancing? lol.

I really hoped you've all enjoyed travelling along with me, and I know I got slack with the photos in the last couple of weeks, but I'll put them up when I get home. Thanks to all those who left comments for me, I've loved reading them and they really make the world a smaller place :). So for my offical last post on this World Domination Tour I'd like to say farewell, dasvidanya, auf wiedersehn, adios, ciao, and seeya all in the lucky country!! woohooooo :)

Matteo

Guatemalan Highlights

mattso — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:17:00 GMT

Greetings once again :). I´ve been in Guatemala for the past 4 or 5 days since leaving the lovely coastline of Belize. We crossed the border without incident this time and endured a long bumpy bus ride to Flores, which is small little town on an island in Lago Peten Itza. Its geared up for the toursists with plenty of interesting stalls, cafes and bars, but its mainly used as the doorstep to the amazing Tikal National Park and the Tikal ruins.

We got up really early to catch the sunrise come up over Temple IV at Tikal, and were led by our guide through the jungle darkness before any of the local critters were awake :). Out of the gloomy dark the forboding sillouettes of massive pyramids looked over our tired but wide-eyed group emanating their ancient power. As we started to climb Temple IV which is the largest of the series of pyramids here, the howler monkeys roared forth the pre-dawn cries to awaken the parrots and toucans. As the sun rose, the mist slowly faded to reveal the jungle canopy and the sounds of the jungle waking from its slumber came to life. It was a great experience only marred by the chatter of other tourists and the scaffolding which was being used as part of restoration works.

We then moved through various parts of the old city including the Plaza of Seven Temples, the triple ball court, the Grand Plaza, the Temple of the Masks and the iconic Temple of the Jaguar. Tikal is a huge city covering some 25 sq km and its location in the Guatemalan jungle is just stunning :). We had time away from other tourist groups to explore some of the ruins and enjoy the misty morning among the massive trees.

Flores was a great place to unwind, do some souvenir shopping at cheap prices and drink cockatails by the lakeside, hehe. But we moved on via an overnght bus to Guatemala City and then a shuttle bus to Antigua. That was a long tiring ride so most of the next day was spent sleeping until we went for an afternoon walk around Antigua catching some of the sights. Many of the old Spanish buildings here were destroyed in earthquakes in the 1750s, and although the main ones have been restored somewhat, there a plenty of relics of that time still standing.

Antigua has a great ambience with iths colonial and colourful buildings, and its a hot spot for tourists so there are good facilities all around. Its nestled among three big volcanoes (one still active) which loom in every direction you look in town. A mixture of local and international cuisine, and the local brew (called Gallo) satisfied our empty stomaches :). We were preparing for our next adventure which was to climb the Pacaya Volcano the next morning!

And what a great hike that was :). We shuttled to the base of the volcano and were offered walking sticks by our guide, or to catch the horse ´taxi´ if you didn´t want to make the effort. We all walked the trail which has enough stops along the way to catch our breath. Pacaya is 2600m ASL and we weren`t allowed to walk to the crater as there had been some recent activity and it wasn`t safe. However, we got to a ridge aout 200m from the top, and from there onwards, everthing was covered in hardened black lava giving the place and eery alien landscape. If I was a geologist I´d probably be raving about pyroclastic pillow tufts and the like so its a good thing I`m not, hehe. There was an active lava flow within reach and were led across the gnarly and sharp rocks towards it. The rocks have a hollow metallic sound so our footing was tenous as the temperatue got higher and higher. In small cracks in the rocks below our feet, the orange glow of molten lava radiated upwards, and as we got closer to the main flow, it started to feel like the beach on a 42C day, and then like being cooked in an oven for Sunday´s roast! HOT, hot and HOT! We got as close as we dared to the slow stream of tumbling lava rock, then got the heck out of there! One other tourist had the sole of her shoe melt off so it was a good time to make the trek back up the ridge, hehe.

The hike down the slope was a lot quicker than that going up, and after some r&r back in town, me and my 3 girls went for lunch and some more souvenir shopping. It was our official last night of the tour so after a good dinner, we headed to a bar called Reilley´s (yes the Irish have infiltrated this part of the world as well) , and drank it up til closing time. Some of us partied on afterwards and stumpled up the quiet cobbled streets back to the hotel in the early morning :).

So it was sad to say goodbye to some of my new friends the next day, including our tour leader Eduardo who I shared a lot in common with, and I had to hold back the tears as their bus moved away :(. Kate, Alice and I were the last of the originals and these two girls have already left, so now I´m back to travelling alone - waaaaahh! lol. So i´ve been trying to organise myself for the next week in Hawaii, but its looking like I´ll have to wing it a bit. Accommodation hasn´t been secured and my money is stretched until after the weekend, but I should be fine so long as I get there in one piece, hehe.

Anyway folks, I´ve got some chill time coming up, and I know you´re keen to see some more photos, so I´ll do what I can.

Until next time ... ;)

Mexican Road Trip - Part 3

mattso — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:48:00 GMT

Sorry for the delay in getting this post up, but we've been covering some ground and fighting over the internet PC at hotels, so I've been chilling out and enjoying the ride :).

I got rid of that bug in my stomache that caused me some grief before, and we did a day trip from Merida to some Cenotes - pools in collapsed cave systems fed by underground streams. They lie in the area used to be covered by Haciendas which farmed the Agave cactus for its rope fibre before the invention of nylon. We accessed the Cenotes in small horse drawn carts along centuries old railway lines which used to carry the raw fibre to the Haciendas. Thats was a blast!, hehe. The cenotes themselves are about 15m deep in the gound and me and 1 other guy were the only ones brave (or foolish) enough to jump in from the top! I hadn't done something like that for 20 years, haha.

The next day we moved from Merida to Cancun via Chichen Itza. This is an icon site and unfortunately we arrived on a Saturday afternoon with hordes of other tourists. The place has really been exploited for its tourism value which detracted from its significance in the annals of Mexican history.

But despite the masses of people and souvenir stalls which litter every pedestrian access way, its an incredible place with the calendar pyramid, El Castillo, taking centre stage of the site. We saw the ball court, the Temple of Warriors and the Cenote where they used to throw their sacrificial offerings. But its the rounded observatory building which sets this site apart form others - being round, unlike any other Mayan building. It resembles the modern observatories of Mt Palomar and others.

Now Cancun is really just a playground for the Yanks on their vacation. It resembles the Gold Coast but worse! We avoided the main beach and deceided to bus it down to Playa del Carmen instead, which was supposed to be a more laid back beach atmosphere with less touristy type attractions. Wrong! Its still pretty choked with Yanks and all the hoohar of the Gold Coast but without the extensive stretches of high rise apartments and hotels. However we found a great little beach front cafe and bar and enjoyed the time sunning ourselves, dipping in the warm blue Carribean waters, eating fantastic fresh seafood and grooving to a small local outfit that played dance tunes in the background :).

But at Cancun we had to say farewell to half of our group, some of whom were heading for Cuba, and the others heading home. It was sad to see my new friends go :(. We also picked up 7 new people in the group, and it was hard to avoid analogies with the Big Brother evictees vs intruders scenario which changed the dynamic of the group.

Our next stop was the beachside ruin city of Tulum. Now these Mayans new how to pick the perfect place for a city! Right on the beach, atop a high ridge which looks up and down the coast. Its also amazing but unlike the other sites we've seen, this was the last to be vacated by the Mayans when the Spanish arrived. Its a walled city where only the elite lived inside the walls, including the high priest and his cohorts. The sacrifical rock of the priests temple still stands, as well as the observatories they used to read the stars. The ruins are inhabited by their new residents - large iguanas and lizards which posed freely for our cameras :). These 'Mexican Chickens' as they are called (doesn't everything taste like chicken?) were part of the highlight of Tulum for me. I haven't seen too much wildlife apart form the birds so far.

From Tulum, we crossed the Belize border into Belize City. There was a mishap at the crossing where our tour guide wan't allowed to pass as he didn't have his passport! Doh! So I resumed responsiblity for the group, and it was only thanks to the High Spirt thats guiding us across these lands, that our guide found a way to get across the border (isn't money a wonderful thing in times of strife? hehe) and meet up with our bus about 2 hours later. I must say I wasn't looking forward to haggling with Belizean taxi drivers to get us to our next stop!

Belize is a different world again. We entered a land which is mostly Afro Carribean 'rastafari' country and the language is a mix of English and Rasta! We boarded a speed boat and got taken out to Caya Caulker, an awesome tropical island bathing in the Carribean sun and surf :). So more sunning ourselves and swimming in clear blue waters was refreshed by downing 2 for 1 cocktails and eating fresh seafood - ahh does it get much better than this? lol. The motto on the island is 'Go Slow' and thats exactly what everyone does. There are no cars, only golf buggy carts to carry people or baggage around, and boats. We spent most of today out on the reefs snorkelling with big eagle rays, schools of tropical fish, a nasty looking barracuda and the occaisonal reef shark! This is the second largest coral reef in the world after our Great Barrier Reef, and all the little guys from 'Finding Nemo' were there :).

So now after more fun in the sun, we're preparing for the next leg of the tour which will take us into Guatemala and the island town of Flores. Lets hope the border crossing goes smoothly this time! hehe.

Until next time .... go slow! :)

Mexican Road Trip - Part 2

mattso — Fri, 8 Feb 2008 02:57:00 GMT

Ok so the horse riding adventure into the mountain indian village didn´t turn out as planned. Montezuma´s Curse took hold of me and wouldn't let me leave the toilet for a couple of days!
Needless to say, I was a little disapointed but in the end, there were more excellent adventures around the corner. We left San Cristobal and made the 5 hour bus trip to Palenque, but first we stopped at the most beautiful cascading waterfalls I've ever seen - Agua Azul.
This is pretty close to paradise, nestled in the thick of the Mexican jungle, sparkling crystal waters flowing over multi-tiered falls into pools of white pebble stones. The day was sunny and hot and it wasn´t long before we all got into our bathers and frolicked in the cool water, finding our own natural spas in the rock niches. I'm constantly bewildered how one day you can feel at the bottom of the barrel and the next day you´re floating on cloud 9 :).
The tourists are well catered for here with several outdoors restaurants under thatched roof structures, as well as the usual string of local craft and souvenir stalls. We could have stayed there all week but the bus driver was a little impatient so we had to keep going to Palenque.

Our hotel was themed in a similar thatched roof style with big spacious bedrooms. The adjacent hotel had the pool so we all headed there for more cool water and fun in the sun. Tequila sunrises and a boys vs girls frisbee match in the water might have upset the other tourists trying to relax but we mad our own fun and ignored the scowling expressions from the Dutchees.

The next day we journeyed to the famous Palenque archaeological site to see the ruins of this city.
Only 2% of the original city has been unearthed and the rest is ´protected´ in national park with the jungle still claiming ownership of the remaining buildings. We had a local guide lead us through the site, and the hot and muggy weather started to take its toll on some of us. Palenque was ruled by Pacal who's tomb still lies in the Temple of Inscriptions, one of three temples which are aligned the same way as the three main pyramids at Giza in Egypt, ie. to the stars in Orion. There are other links between the Mayans and Egyptians as we got told later. Its Pacal's tombstone that is engraved with the picture that the infamous Erik Von Daniken claimed was of the Mayan king riding a flying machine! The palace temple was free for us to look around and a lot of the original stonework is still existing although the nearby museum holds all the treasures. It includes a unique observatory tower which leans slightly to the south to counter for its latitude north of the equator.
There is also a 'Skull Temple' and the 'Red Temple' and the ball court similar to that at Monte Alban (I've since found out that the losers of the ball game had their hands cut off, weren't they lucky :)). But it was on top of one of the other pyramids that I made my own sacrifical offering to the gods when I left them my breakfast! I'm ashamed to say the heat and my weak stomach turned me inside out temporarily (or could it have been that damn mezcal from the night before, hehe). Anyway, I welcomed the offer to see the nearby waterfalls, which weren't as impressive as Agua Azul, but refreshing anyway. We saw monkeys in the jungle canopy as well which was a bonus :).
We ended off the day lazily by the pool or catching up on some much needed sleep, then went and had dinner with some live music being provided by some talented locals with traditional instruments.

We spent the whole following day in a bus to Merida, where I am now, and the afternoon thunderstorms have given us a tropical lightning show (complete with the tropical rains). We´ve got a fun day planned for tomorrow where we´ll be swimming in an underground cave in the jungle somewhere, so I´ll try keep you all up to date with the next installment of this fascinating country :).

Hasta luego!

Mexican Road Trip - Part 1

mattso — Sun, 3 Feb 2008 21:10:00 GMT

Hola!! Its been a while since my last post and thats because the group tour has limited my free time. But its been awesome so far. I haven't got my notes on me so will try and recap the last few days from memory.

We left Ciudad de Mexico and had a day trip to Teotihuacan which was one of my favourite places as it is where the Toltecs built the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon along the Avenue of the Dead - absolutely spectacular, and tiring, but we I picked up a couple of souvenirs. Despite the weary legs, some of us partied until 3am dancing salsa with Mexcican girls, and working up a thirst for Mezcal! (Is it Mezcal o'clock yet? hehe).

The next stop over was in Pueblo, another large town but much quieter than the capital. We had a good day cruising the markets, looking at art, and eating strange food (ok you could have told me it was pork foreskin before I ate that tortilla, hmm). We also bussed out to Cholula where an 17th century Spanish church was built on an ancient indian pyramid, and from the top you could see the smoking volcano in the distance. On the way down there was more strange food - roasted crickets in chillie (why is it only me daring to try this stuff?). Most of us were worn out so had an early night after eating in town, to the sounds of musicians at our al fresco tables.

The next town was Oaxaca a few hours away. This was in the middle of Chiapas State and has more resplendent markets and colour and foods, and our hotel resembled a Spanish palace complete with courtyard and pool. The weather has been wonderful and warm but we never got a chance to get wet this time. We had a lazy afternoon in the town eating and shopping, but partied hard till 2am at a bar with a young rock band blasting out some old favourites. The beer and mezcal kept flowing and the girls enjoyed 1 litre buckets of cocktails until we all sang classic Aussie songs down the street like the drunken tourists we were, hehe.

This made our next mornings excursion to Monte Alban a little blurry, but this was also an amazing old city built on a mountain top by the Zapotec indians many moons ago. Only 20% of the original city has been unearthed and the remains of other buildings still lie buried beneath vegetation and earth on adjacent hilltops. But I had to restrain my urge for fossicking for lost treasure due to time constraints. The remaining buildings include the arena where that ball game is played where you cant use hands or feet, and the winner is sacrificed to the gods for being such good sports! There was also some astronomical buildings used to tell the times of year for sowing and harvesting their fields by aligning Venus with the Sun at its zenith. They also had stone carvings of deformed people which I thought a bit odd, but they were believed to be special, and were kept alive, not killed at birth like some other cultures, because they could be studied by the scientists.

So after a heavy night and hours of walking in the sun, we all prepared for the 12 hour bus ride to San Cristobel. Now that was a ride! We were warned that the road winds its way up and over a mountain range, but not that the driver would take the hairpin bends at blinding speeds where the bus leant over as though on two wheels! Now I know why they took a video film of all the passengers before we left 'cos they never knew if we were coming back! hehe. But we arrived safely in the cold mountain air and recuperated for a few hours in our hotel, another lovely Spanish mansion with courtyard and pool. We spent a couple of hours walking around their amazing markets and this place is alive with more colour than any of the previous towns we've visited. The locals don't like tourists snapping photos so you hade to be discrete. But all the typical handcrafts Mexico is famous for can be found here.

We have another day here before hitting the road again, and we've got a horse ride planned up the mountain to an old indian village or ruin, I'm not sure which. Either way it should be an exhilerating look at the heart of Mexican indian culture.

Until then ... adios amigos!

Ciudad de Mexico

mattso — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:39:00 GMT

WOW wow WOW! Ciudad de Mexico is like nothing I´ve ever seen before. 25 million people spread over the valley, and once again I arrived at night so didn't get to see the extent of what I landed into until the next morning. The hotel is very close to one of the large central parks, so after a Mexican breakfast of scrambled eggs and some kind of meat and bean mush (all very tasty), I walked around a bit before meeting up with another Aussie guy that I met at the airport. The police had closed the streets and there were literally thousands of cyclists and skaters streaming down the road for some kind of 'life be in it' event. Different bird sounds were eminating from different looking birds in different looking trees, and market stall were being set up in every nook and cranny of the park and in the streets. It was going to be a festive Sunday in the city :).
There were drummers and costumed dancers on stilts and cops controlling the crowds on horseback in the guise of the Cisco Kid. Colours were ablazing from every market stall as crafts and foods were being sold by noisy vendors who had to shout over the 90db pop music blasting from their stereos.
Further near the city centre, thousands of people were lined up to see some kind of free cultural museum exhibition they had set up in the main square, and indian dancers in fantastic feathered head dress were stompin' to some drum-tastic rhythms. All the while I was thinking about our little Fremantle festival and how we have to lift our game! haha. I´ve been eating real enchiladas and drinking Mexican cervesas, hehe, and listening to ramshackle brass bands on street corners (I love that Mexican trumpet) - the place is so alive!
There were some free art exhibitions on and they integrate modern art well with some of the old classic architecture which displays weird cross-cultural indian and spanish stone work. The diablo theme is evident in a lot of it - the art that is, but the Christians did a good job in establishing their own culture over the indigenous ones, to the point of building their capital on top of the old indian city. Some of the 19th and 20th century art we saw depicts the revolutionary battles fought over the main square when their first constitution was realised, and I kept thinking of the blood thats been spillt on the very ground I was walking on (me and a multitude of other people!).
And every now and again a small child or an elderly woman will ask for money or try and sell sweets for loose change, so the poor are still struggling for an existence among the thriving masses. Most of the poverty will be hidden from a gringo like me staying in the city centre, but its very alive and evident nevertheless.
My tour starts tomorrow and I don't really know how much access I'll have to the internet while on the road. We first visit Teohihuacan and the Pyramid of the Sun, which I'm really looking forward to, then a City tour of the main sites, then we go bush and visit some of the regional centres like Pueblo and Oaxaca. I'm still trying to overcome the jet lag a bit and the culture shock is starting to wane, but at least the weather is great!, hehe nice mid-20s, woohoo!

So the journey continues!

Hasta luego amigos!!

Munich, Germany

mattso — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 08:51:00 GMT

When I arrived in Munich I found my hotel easily enough and settled in for the afternoon. My legs demanded I do a few miles so I hit the streets and stumbled across some grand old German buildings including the Feldherrnhalle in Odeonsplatz, some in Konigsplatz and the best in Mariensplatz which has the awesome Neues Rathaus building. I haven´t got any more tourist info on these places so I can´t give you the history lesson for the day, hehe, sorry ´bout that.

But I really came here for Ludwig II´s two castles - Linderhof and Neuschwanstein. I got the prime seat in the double-decker tourist coach, right up the front on the top level, and as we hit the autobahn, the Alps in the distance got closer, and I had recall flashes of Salzburg which I liked so much. But its on the smaller country roads that the Bavarian character really shows its charm :). It was a beautiful sunny day and even the -3C didn´t dissuade me from enjoying it. I´d forgotten about the squeaky crunch of walking in snow and the postcard landscapes in every direction.

Linderhof was Ludwig´s little retreat and is one of the smallest castles around. But it is exquisite! He styled everything after the French Louis XIV and its resplendent in gilt gold leaf, porcelain from France and China, silk embroidery and gemstones adorning eveything. It was as though he had walked out of the room before we walked in as the place is completely original and in pristine condition - quite extraordinary!. He certainly had some good taste :). The rest of the grounds were off limits as most of it snowed over in the winter and covered up for its protection.

The next stop took us to Oberammergau, a delightful Bavarian village where I definitely knew I was in the land of the Grimm Brothers. Their houses are painted with various fairytale characters including Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, and my favourite, Puss in Boots :). This town survived the black plague in the old times and they perfom the Passion of Christ every 10 years to honour their promise if they survived. There were a few elderly people skiing along the roadside getting their exercise (I´m sure they´d outlive most of us!).

Then we stopped for lunch at the base of Neuschwanstein which has been setup to cater just for the tourists. Some people talk the horse-drawn cart up to the top, but I walked the half a mile to the castle which sits about half way up the slopes of a precipitous alpine mountain. The views were awesome from up there :). Now I had heard about Ludwig´s eccentricity before but, yes, he was a strange bloke. Firstly he drained the Bavarian coffers dry with his elaborate castle building, and he was found dead under suspicious circumstances aged 40. So only 20 of the 60 rooms in the castle were ever finished being constructed. Then he dedicated the whole castle to Richard Wagner and his music, so every room has elaborate wall paintings of scenes from Wagner´s operas like Tannheuser. The paintings were done on canvas and made to look like tapestries by unknown but very good artisits.

The main throne room never had a throne in it, but the floor is an awseome mosaic of 2 million pieces of tile, and the guy was loopy about swans! He had aboot 140 swans adorning his bedroom in various designs, like the door handes and the water spouts. I didn´t know the castle had running water - warm and cold, and it even had a telephone system so he could communicate with the servants! I suppose it was 1868, however and these things had already been invented. Incidently, the first ´tourists´ came to the castle 6 months after the King´s death, and the´ve been coming ever since!. One other left-of-centre idea of the King was to have his own man-made cave built next to his bedroom, which was designed after the Venus Grotto in one of Wagner´s operas (I´m going to have to start listening to his music again - I always thought Wagner was like the heavy metal of classical which is pretty cool, hehe).

So after another exhilerating day of mountain air and snow, the tour finished up and most of us enjoyed a kip in the bus during the 100km trip back to Munich. I´m happy another little goal of mine has been achieved :).

I´ll be spending a day in Heidelburg, but probably won´t be posting any stories until I reach Mexico this weekend. Wow, now that´s gonna be a culture shock after this European vacation!

Until then, stay cool ;)

Valleta Vacation

mattso — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:31:00 GMT

Hi again folks :). I had a mishap with my last post from Malta due to the journal session timing out just before I saved it, so I was slightly peeved to say the least ´cos it was a ripping yarn, haha. I´ll try and recap for you now though.

I spent a couple of days vactioning in Valetta by getting around on the classic old maltese buses. They have a fleet of old Leylands and Bedfords left over from the Brits 50 years ago and they take great pride in keeping the old beasts in tip tip shape. So it took me back to my school days as the buses would crunch, grind and squeak they´re way round the windy Maltese streets, and you have to pull the rope to ding the ´dinger´ hehe. I also have to upgrade my previous description of where I´m staying as its more like a Mediterranean Gold Coast with its high rise apartments, hotels, casinos, bars and restauarants!

I went to Valetta and strolled leisurely for a while enjoying the nice warm day, past Fort St Elmo watching the fishermen down below, and later on I strolled leisurely to St Juliens Bay which is another beautiful place full of al fresco diners. It was a picture perfect afternoon with people walking along the seaside promenade so I joined in and took in the atmosphere - my kind of thing :).

The next morning I went to the Maltese Classic Car Collection which is a privately owned display of some magnificent machines including old jaguars, ferrari, aston martin, morris, MG, fiats, as well as some old fords and some great old BSA motorbikes. Yes dad I took pics :).

That afternoon I took part of a walking tour of Valetta where I met a nice Australian-Maltese girl (but still no romance :(, I´m going to have to change the title of this journal I think, hehe). The tour took us to Barracca gardens with outstanding views over the three cities (the other two being Vittoriosa and Senglea) and the fortifications around the Grand harbour. We mosied on down to St Johns Co-Cathedral (as its shared with 4 other nations) which was resplendent in gilt gold and marble stone work. It also included a couple of famous paintings by Caravaggio, some Flemish tapestries, and some big old books of latin hymns with the musical notation which the priests sing out during their jam sessions :). I´d love to hear the big pipe organs going off but I´d have to come back on a Sunday for that little treat.

We had some time off to get refreshed so I headed for the cafe and drank Maltese beer and watched the passers-by from my al fresco table - ahh this is the life, hehe. The group reformed and the tour guide picked me as a Maltese so we chatted about the other 250000 Maltese that have emigrated to Australia (names such as Fenech, Farrugia, Camilleri, Zammit, Magro and Borg might sound familiar). We went past the Grand Palace of the Knights, and finished the afternoon watching a film called ´The Maltese Experience´ which outlined the turbulent 7000 year history of the islands. I actually thought that would have been more useful at the start of the tour, but oh well. This place has been occupied by every man and his dog! The arabs, phonecians, turks, italians, french and english to name the main ones. Its in such a strategic location that its been the brunt of every war held in the Mediterranean.

So after a great day cruising the streets I had my last supper with some more Maltese cuisine - rabbit in white wine, washed down with more white wine, so it was no wonder I ended up on my hotel balcony singing ´When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie´ to the blazing full moon, lol.

But it was with a tear in my eye that I had to say farewell the next morning to my second island home. I´d love to come back in the summer when it goes off!

I´m actually in Munich now after more planes and trains, and a marathon walk to my hotel in Frankfurt with all my gear! Left, left, left right left - was the only way I made it but what a great sense of achievement when I arrived, hehe .. yes I can do anything I put my mind to .. yaaarrr! lol.

Ok I´ll try get some pics up later but for now I´m preparing for Neuschwanstein and Lindehof castles!! wooohooooo ;)

Auf wiedersehn!

Go Go Gozo!

mattso — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:34:00 GMT

So where do Maltese people go for their holidays? Their sister island Gozo of course. Gozo is like a smaller, slower, less populated Malta with so much spectacular scenery packed into a small space. So I got picked up from my hotel and taken to the ferry terminal in the north of Malta. The ferries are big enough to hold plenty of cars and people alike, and they run the 25 minute trip quite regularly. It was a fine sunny morning and the seas were calm, which is a good thing 'cos by now you know how much of a sailor I am, hehe.

We broke up into groups, this time with some poms and Italians, and were greeted by our tour guide, the lovely Fabrizia, who ran through our itinerary for the day. The first stop was another megalithic temple called the Ggantija Temple (because they thought it was built by giants) said to be the oldest free standing structure in the world pre-dating the (man-made) pyramids in Eqypt. Which is quite impressive considering they only had limestone, some obsidian fom Sicily and animal bones to build it. It wasn't quite as big as the temple I saw yesterday, but fabulous Fabi (as I called her) was good in explaining the siginficance of the spring fertility rites which governed these ancient societies. If I had a compass with me I would have checked its alignment too , but oh well.

Then we got to sample some Gozitan goat cheese and wine, and I picked up soem pomegranate liqueur and Gozitan noughart - yummo :) except the liqueuer was a bit like cough medicine only sweeter, heh. Lunch was at a beautiful place called Xlendi Bay which is hidden between massive sheer-faced limestone cliffs, and the old fishing village come 'resort' caters for the growing numbers of holiday makers with heaps of the good stuff - cafes, restaurants, summer activities and spectacular scenery. There was an old path along a ridge in the cliff face built for the nuns from the local church so they could have their own private cave to swim in to save them the embarrassment of swimming with the locals :).

We moved back through Victoria (aka Rabat) which is Gozo's main town to the other side of these cliffs to a place called Dwejra which is known for two things - a limstone outcrop called Fungus Rock where the old Knights used to collect a certain species of mushroom used as an aphrodesiac (of course its off-limits now! but I bet the heritage people are having a raving good time :P), and the inland sea, which is really just a lagoon fed by the sea through a carved out tunnel in the limestone cliff. We got to take a 15 minute boat ride through this tunnel which isnt much wider than the boat, and look around the headland and some other caverns. Great fun :)

Our last stop was in Victoria itself at a place called The Citadel which was built by the Knights of St John back in the 17th century. It combines an old Basilica with a small prison - funny that hey? hehe. So if the Knights broke their vow of chasitity after a visit to Fungus Rock, they'd end up in the lock-up for some time! Even the Grand Master Jean le Vallete (who the Maltese capital is named after) spent a few months in the prison! But the Citadel sits in the centre of Gozo ontop a high hill so it has great views of the whole island. There was also a smaller Basilica (for St George) nearby which had free entry so Fabi encouraged us to go see that instead :). It was quite respendent and the ceiling stonework as well as the inner sanctums gleamed in gold!

So endeth this tour and the rest of the time was spent getting back to the ferry and catching a ride back to the main island and our respective hotels. After some recuperating time, I went to a restaurant called Tex Mex and couldn't belive the size of the meals they served - twice as large as any I've had on my whole trip! So I filled up to bursting point on more ravioli and apple crumble, and a small bottle of wine, haha :)

Thank goodness its Sunday tomorrow, a day of rest! So I don't plan on doing too much except enjoying the local scene and maybe walk down to Valetta. But who knows, each day brings new surprises :)

Ciao.