letlooseontheworld

random observations and first impressions

notsowildrover — Fri, 8 Jan 2010 16:10:00 GMT

the best things in life are free...

notsowildrover — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 03:46:00 GMT

For a football-loving fag-hag like me, the choice of entertainment for our first evening in Buenos Aires boded well for our stay - a choice between the first leg of the South American equivalent of the Champions League between Boca Juniors of Buenos Aires and Gremio of Brazil or an evening with Liza Minelli at the theatre two doors down from our hotel. Finances dictated that we opted for the football. The fanaticism of the supporters, the brilliance of the play and the excitement generated by a Boca victory meant that we did not regret our decision but I don´t think I am ever going to be able to go to a match again as nothing is going to quite live up to the buzz of watching that match in Argentina.

After Montevideo, Buenos Aires seemed like a proper grown-up city with broad avenues, hundreds of shops and enough traffic to make crossing the road an intimidating prospect. Our hotel was right in the centre, on the Avenida Corrientes - "Argentina´s Broadway" - and it was a gleaming, glistening conversion job staffed by bright young things in matching T-shirts, but I found myself hankering for the gently crumbling geriatric splendour of our hotel in Montevideo.

My banks in England decided to add some spice to our stay in Buenos Aires by suddenly suspecting that my cards had been filched by a fairly modest South American drug dealer and refusing to dispense any more money. It took a couple of days on the breadline and a couple of frantic phone calls to restore my access to funds and the money came too late for me to satisfy my long-suppressed urge to shop, but perhaps that is no bad thing after all.

In fact, the Inka taught me just how far you can get in Argentina without money with charm and a little bit of cheek. Our first freebie came on our second evening as we walked past one of the theatres near our hotel just as the audience was emerging for a sneaky fag during the interval of Dracula - The Musical. The Inka accosted two girls to ask them about the show on the grounds that we were contemplating buying tickets for the next evening´s performance. They were distinctly underwhelmed and said they were heading for home, so he asked if they could leave us their tickets and they did... We thoroughly enjoyed the slightly camp second half. It is clearly a bit of a cult musical as there was a solid bank of Goths sitting near us who sang along with all the songs and cheered rapturously every time Dracula flounced onto the stage.

Among our other successes we managed to snag some free licquor samples in a souvenir shop in San Telmo - the district of a thousand antique shops, then there was the free hot chocolate and biscuits we were rewarded with when we watched some Argentinian children saluting the flag on Argentina´s National Flag Day (yes, in keeping with tradition, the Argentinian leg of our trip also coincided with a fiesta). Believe me, the Argentinians take their flag seriously and the celebrations included a police band, a parade of vintage cars and a colourful craft fair.

The different quarters in Buenos Aires each have their own very distinct characters and we fell in love with one part in particular - La Boca - a poor neighbourhood with a reputation for being tough and best avoided at nights. At its heart is El Caminito ´a colourful street where all the buildings are painted in vibrant reds, blues, greens and yellows. It is down by the port and above it looms the stadium of the Boca Juniors football team - the team which nurtured the talents of Diego Maradona. In La Boca you cannot avoid reminders of the notorious "Hand of God" incident. Diego´s likeness is everywhere - he is part of the Holy Trinity of Argentina, along with Evita and the famous tango singer, Carlos Gardel. There is even a Maradona lookalike who loiters on the corner of El Caminito charging to have his picture taken with tourists.

We paid our respects to Evita at the cemetery in Recoleta. This "city of the dead" is imposing and the great and the good of Argentina attempt to outdo each other in death with their elaborate tombs. Evita´s grave is distinctly underwhelming compared to some of the other mausoleums, but it is the grave which every visitor gravitates towards.

As for the final member of the trinity, Senor Gardel, our finances meant that we couldn´t take in any of the highly priced tango shows, complete with dinner, but we did enjoy some spirited street performances. My favourite was when a dapper gentleman of about 80 swept a young woman off her feet outside one cafe and his sprightly performance put the professionals to shame.

Now, Argentinians have a reputation among other South Americans of being rather stuck-up and viewing themselves as superior to all comers. Walking the streets of the city and watching the well-dressed portenos going about their business, I could see where this idea comes from, but we made our first new friends of the trip in Argentina and it was all thanks to the Inka´s musical talent. One afternoon we were enjoying a glass of wine outside a cafe in La Boca when two musicians started to play - an accordeon player with very impressive dreadlocks and a lanky violinist. They played well and soon the Inka could not resist the urge to take out his Andean flute and join in. They attracted quite a crowd and the waitress from the cafe rewarded us with free wine. We went on to spend that evening and the next enjoying the company of our new friends from La Boca.

Although El Caminito is an unashamed tourist trp, it has managed to preserve a certain integrity and the natural friendly exuberance of its locals is a lot warmer and more inviting than the atmosphere in some of the more upmarket neighbourhoods.

Although there were many highlights to our stay in Buenos Aires, I was looking forward to the next leg of our trip - a visit to the heart of Argentina´s wine country - Mendoza. All the wine we sampled in Argentina had been excellent and I couldn´t wait to visit some of the wineries and perhaps buy a bottle for my birthday, but then all our plans were upset by snow in the mountains.

When we arrived in Mendoza, we learnt that no buses had been travelling to Chile via the route we planned to take for several days because of snow and there was no way of knowing when this situation would change. This left us with the uninviting prospect of waiting around indefinitely/entering Chile by the southern route which was prohibitively expensive and would treble our journey or returning to Peru via Bolivia. Given that I had to get back to Peru in time to continue my journey on to New Zealand, I´m afraid Bolivia it had to be, and the prospect of this made me lose all my enthusiasm for doing anything other than getting back to Peru as quickly as possible. The Inka also decided that he wanted to be in Cusco for Inti Raymi - Cusco´s big festival of the sun, so we cancelled our Mendoza plans, girded our loins and headed for the north of Argentina and the Bolivian border for "Bolivia - The Nightmare, Part II".

heart attack central

notsowildrover — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 22:57:00 GMT

Well, I am pleased to report that our luck changed at the Uruguayan border. We found the bus company at 2305 - just five minutes after the last bus to Montevideo had departed, but instead of directing us to wait six hours for the early morning departure, the ticket seller quickly rang the driver, printed out our tickets and told us to grab a cab and catch the bus, which was waiting for us at the border checkpoint - only five minutes away. Passport formalities were completed in an instant and we reached Montevideo in the early hours of Saturday morning.

I have to say that I fell in love with the Uruguayan capital, though it is hard to put my finger on the precise reason why. It isn´t beautiful like Cusco and the vaguely Soviet-looking poastcards, featuring 1970s public buildings, highlight the lack of obvious tourist landmarks, but as you wander around the old town, you can´t help but be struck by how many beautiful buildings there are which have been abandoned and in their current state of decay only hint at what they must have been like in their prime. Our hotel was one such building - beautiful proportions, high ceilings, tiled floors, but there was mould creeping up the walls and white emulsion blanking out the stained glass set into the internal doors... what I wouldn´t have given to do a quick restoration job on the place. The staff there were in the same state of decay as the building - a very charming old gentleman and a similarly ancient lady who fell for the Inka´s charms and became quite giggly and girly as she flirted with him. I told him that he had carried out a highly successful renovation job on her, uncovering the carefree young girl she must once have been.

Perhaps what I fell for was Montevideo´s laid-back feel - no blaring horns and choking exhaust fumes here; perhaps it was its compact size and the fact that you could walk its length and breadth with ease or perhaps it was just the delightful novelty of being somewhere flat after the vertiginous excesses of Cusco. Whatever the reason, I quickly felt at home here and found my bearings.

The first thing that struck me were the number of theatres in Montevideo relative to its size. I immediately decided that I had to test my Spanish so we opted to watch a Neil Simon play because that at least offered me the luxury of a familiar story. I am very pleased to report that after only three months´exposure to Spanish, I managed to follow the action and we both agreed that at around five dollars a ticket, the theatre really was a bargain.

Something else that appealed about Uruguay was its inhabitants´sneering contempt for the rules of healthy living. Although there is a law now which prevents smoking in bars and restaurants, the crowds huddled around doorways nursing cigarettes make it clear that the Uruguayans have no intention of ditching their tabs. In restaurants they serve up a carnivore´s wet dream of bleeding red meat and charge more for the house salad than for a steak. Add to this a sweet tooth which is satisfied by an imaginative array of cakes and pastries and even grappa which comes with a sweetening of honey and you can see why every Uruguayan over 60 is a walking miracle.

The other thing you can´t help but notice here is that the Uruguayans love their herbal tea, or mate - young and old alike walk the streets clutching their mate in one hand. They drink this herb infusion through a silver straw and have a thermos tucked under their other arm to replenish the cup a regular intervals. Perhaps there is some magic component in this herbal brew which counteracts all the ill effects of their terrible diet... well, it´s one theory.

El Ultimo Inka was adamant about one thing - he wanted me to hear candombe music in Uruguay - this is the traditional music dating from slave times and its rhythms have a distinctly African feel. The musicians play on drums of three different sizes which hang from straps which they wear slung across their shoulders. On Sunday evening, we headed for one of the backstreets of Montevideo. First the drummers, who all come from one barrio, built a little fire by the roadside and placed their drums in a circle around the fire to heat up the skins. There were about 25 drummers in total and once their preparations were complete, they lined up in three rows, filling the narrow street. A crowd of about 50 people accompanied them - some like us marching along with them, others forming an impromptu dance troupe just ahead of the drummers. The rhythm is hypnotic and, as we made our slow progress down the streets, I watched the drummers, some of whom seemed to go into an almost trance-like state as they played. All of them had bindings of different kinds on their hands and when they stopped for a break near a little shop selling wine from the barrel, I could see that the skins of their drums were stained with blood and the drummers themselves were dripping with sweat from their exertions. The candombe rhythm is so insistent that even non-dancers like me found themselves moving to it and it was several hours before the beat in my head subsided enough for me to sleep.

Although we had a great time in Uruguay, I´m afraid that neither our business nor the Inka´s personal quest went well. We arrived in winter, so people were more intent on buying scarves and gloves than T-shirts and earrings so the Inka decided to leave his stock with a Chilean friend and return in summer to flog it all at the beach. As for his son, he learnt that he and his mother are now living in Spain, so there was no reunion either. El Ultimo Inka´s natural ebullience does not really allow things to get him down for long, so my agony aunt services were not required, but I did feel for him in his disappointment that he could not discover how his son had changed in the last 10 years.

Well, on to Argentina now and another South American experience. I have to say that it is much harder to write about somewhere like Uruguay, where everything felt familiar and comfortable and we had no major problems... maybe you have to suffer to write interesting travel blogs, so my apologies if this entry strikes anyone as boring, but I would heartily recommend a short stay in Uruguay if anyone decides to travel in this part of the world. We all need to recharge our batteries from time to time...

what´s in a name?

notsowildrover — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 06:18:00 GMT

What´s in a name? Well, in Brazil the answer to this question is about 350 km... but I´m giving away the punchline here.

To start at the beginning, arriving in Brazil from Bolivia was like entering a different century - a world of asphalted roads, sleek air-conditioned buses and the most incredible expanse of female cleavage I´ve seen in my life. Yes, it quickly became apparent why El Ultimo Inka had raved about the beauty of Brazil. The acres of flesh on display cannot simply be explained away by the weather - being Brazilian is clearly a state of mind and the women all proudly wear vivid colours and are happy to expose the flesh they´ve got, even when it comes in generous quantities. I felt incredibly dull and dowdy in my shapeless T-shirt and sweat pants, but the rucksack failed to yield any vibrant, bosom-popping alternatives so I resigned myself to being a dusty moth amidst all the colourful butterflies.

Brazil´s modernity does come at a price though and it quickly became apparent that this was stretching the Inka´s budget. He also admitted over dinner on our first night in Corumba, just over the Brazilian border, that the real goal of his trip was Uruguay where he was hoping to see his 10-year-old son from a relationship dating back to his days as a travelling musician and purveyor of Peruvian tat. He has not seen him since he was one. I found this very hard to credit given that the Inka adores children and this feeling seems to be entirely mutual as he is always ready with a smile and a joke or a tune on his flute to keep children amused (I am sure in the UK he´d be on a paedophile register given his behaviour, but thankfully in Peru they can still distinguish between perverts and big kids who are reluctant to grow up). Anyway, how could I resist a mission like this?

With some reluctance, I must admit, I abandoned my dreams of Rio and we headed south towards the Uruguay border, stopping en route to see the Iguacu waterfalls - yes, not one waterfall but about 2 km of thundering natural power (and we were told that we were not seeing them in full spate). As you walk through the park up to the main cascade you feel yourself gradually getting soaked by the spray and the roar gets louder and louder then you get the chance to walk right out on a viewing platform and enjoy the view from below the falls. I´m afraid I could not resist a little "prow of the Titanic" moment, but believe me, I was not the only one.

Utterly elated by the Iguacu trip, we then headed south to Porto Alegre, the capital of Brazil´s gaucho-land. In what seems to be turning into a habit on this trip, we arrived on a public holiday so everything was shut. This rather stymied our plans to flog earrings so, a little disappointed, we decided to enjoy what Brazil is rightly famous for - some football. There were two key matches going on on the evening we were there - Boca Juniors of Argentina were playing a Colombian team to see who´d meet Porto Alegre´s team, Gremio, in the final of one championship then Independencia - Porto Alegre´s other team - were playing a Mexican team in the final of another championship. No chance of a ticket to that match I´m afraid, but we spent a great evening in a little bar opposite the bus station, enjoying the atmosphere and being deafened by car horns every time Independencia scored (they won 4-0 so it was pretty loud).

With a slight beer buzz, we got on our bus at midnight and headed for the Uruguay border, or so we thought. We arrived at 5.30 am and after a quick spruce-up in the bus station, we asked the morning paper seller which way to the border. He gave us directions, warning us that it was a long way and off we trudged. After walking for 20 minutes, we reached the edge of the town and still no sign of the border so we decided to double check at a nearby petrol station. There we discovered that in Porto Alegre, the ticket seller had misheard the Inka and sold us tickets to Ijui not Chuy (they sound pretty similar in Portuguese and we thought Ijui was a bizarre Brazilian spelling). We had, in fact, actually spent the night heading away from the frontier - in fact, 350km away from the frontier.

A kind insomniac at the garage, who overheard our sorry tale, kindly gave us a lift back to the bus station and, after taking advice, we bought tickets and spent the rest of the day doubling back on ourselves then heading for the border... Well, I suppose I did say that I wanted to see more of Brazil and that is exactly what I got to do, although what I saw were immaculate little villages with picture-postcard central squares, complete with white churches and a colourful assortment of locals standing around watching the world go by rather than the frenetic excitement of Rio... Still, I keep telling myself that it is all part of the adventure.

Bolivian blowouts

notsowildrover — Fri, 8 Jun 2007 04:49:00 GMT

I decided that the results of my first impulsive action were so good that I would do it again. This time, I discarded my plans to fly to Argentina on my own and instead hooked up with El Ultimo Inka to explore a possible new career - travelling overland around South America flogging cheap earrings and T-shirts... surely a step up from life as a chronically under-achieving Afghan editor...

The first stage of the journey was to cross Bolivia (not a good place to flog Peruvian tat as the economy there is worse than in Peru). Originally, I did not want to offend Bolivian sensibilities by describing it as a mere transit country, but after my experience, I vowed to change my itinerary and return to Peru via Chile - yes, it was that bad.

Before elaborating further, I must say that we arrived in La Paz on 2 June in good spirits. The de facto Bolivian capital is quite a spectacular sight - it lies in a canyon and a chaos of higgledy-piggledy housing tumbles down its steep sides. The whole scene is rendered even more dramatic by the snowy triple peak of Mount Illimani looming above it. We arrived on the day of the biggest festival in La Paz's calendar, though nobody seemed able to explain exactly what this festival was all about. All I can say is that whatever its religious origins, this festival is now firmly pagan and getting drunk in the sunshine was the order of the day. The whole centre of La Paz was closed off as troupe after troupe of dancers whirled past, the women sporting flared skirts, flirty lace-up boots and the tipsy-looking mini bowler hats which stay in place on their heads in defiance of all the laws of gravity. Each vivid dance troupe was accompanied by a spivvily-attired marching band in dazzling suits of white, blue or red. The incessant beat set the spectators' benches vibrating.

When we reached a park with a crowded funfair, the dancers who had completed their turns were relaxing amid a beguiling sizzle of heartily meat-based snacks and gallons of the local Pacena beer. When I tried to take a photo of one group, a particularly sociable band leader tried to press a beer on me and discuss the errors of Tony Blair's Iraq policy, but I felt that the sunny day demanded a rather more lighthearted topic of conversation and rather less alcoholic refreshment.

From La Paz we journeyed to Santa Cruz, which is an incredible contrast to the altiplano. The wealth is palpable as you drive into town, with well-kept farms and cattle herds and impromptu car showrooms in the middle of each tiny village, showcasing a dazzling array of shiny 4x4s. Apparently, the people of Santa Cruz and the surrounding area - the so-called cambas - really resent that the fertile wealth of their area subsidises the people of the barren altiplano - the so-called collas. Evidence of this was available in the men´s toilet, where one piece of graffitti written by a gay from Santa Cruz gave his name and number and added that he was even happy to do collas - nice to see there is no prejudice in the Bolivian gay community.

All this sounds relatively pain-free, but what scarred me for life and made me decide to return to Peru via Chile was my bus journey from Santa Cruz to the Brazilian border.

We'd planned to take the train, but the service has been dramatically reduced and there was no Sunday service so a dodgy chap in a baseball cap persuaded us to take his bus service instead. What should have been a 17-hour journey ended up taking much longer. My doubts were first triggered when I saw our vehicle, which even before being loaded sagged like a 70-year-old's buttocks. Somehow, a team of sweaty and slightly inebriated men managed to load it with everything from a chest freezer to crates of young chicks. Now people in South America do not travel light, but this was ridiculous. Set this bus on a road in the process of construction and you have a recipe for disaster - not one, but two blown-out tyres.

The driver and his band of helpmates, all of whom looked like one-cheeked hamsters as they chewed their wad of coca leaves throughout the journey to keep them awake, set to work with enthusiasm but little skill to change the tyre each time by the light of a single torch. Their efforts were accompanied by the comforting tinkle of urinating male passengers relieving themselves up against the remaining tyres. All of this took ages and was made more uncomfortable for me as I was practically pinioned to my seat for the duration by a rather large lady traveller in front of me and her defective reclining seat.

Oh, how welcome the sight of the Brazilian border! In my next entry, I'll write and let you know if the sunny welcome in Brazil was a mirage or a sign of a change for the better.

impulse

notsowildrover — Tue, 29 May 2007 02:54:00 GMT

Yes, its not only men who cannot help acting on Impulse, as the advert says. The day after my Cusco studies finished, I headed off to the airport with my rucksack. Although I´d deliberately kept my Cusco purchases to a minimum, I still found it hard to fit everything in it so it was with a heavy heart and an even heavier rucksack that I set off to explore the capital.

Lima came as a total shock to the system - the sheer size and volume of it after Cusco. Also, my "luxury" hotel turned out to be a little less swish than I´d imagined, although it did offer cable TV and a superior receptionist who looked down her finely chiselled nose at me as I hefted my rather scruffy-looking rucksack into her reception area.

After two days of exploring the amazing museums in the capital, my plan had been to head north, but that is when I had my "Impulse" moment. The idea of me acting on impulse seems rather strange, given that I usually have everything packed and organized at least a week before I travel, but this time I suddenly started to question the whole point of my trip. OK, I want to see a little more of the world, but not in a "ticking things off on a list" way. Weighing up the prospect of two weeks in the north or another two weeks in Cusco with my friends, the Cusco option won, so I rushed down to the hotel reception. Thankfully, little Miss Snooty had been replaced by a far more approachable colleague and he kindly booked me onto a flight to Cusco bright and early the next morning.

I must admit, when I landed in Cusco at 7am, I did start to wonder what my reception might be. Thankfully, the reaction was one of delight not horror and I have to say that I have not regretted my decision for a single second. Even Cusco seems different now that I am not bound by the routine of my lessons and fitting in around the family I was living with.

The first thing we did was take off to the Sacred Valley to stay with a friend of El Ultimo Inka (I presume he is the last-but-one Inka, although I couldn´t swear to it). He has a lovely house just outside a little village called Huaran, but we opted to camp in the grounds of this house, next to a stream and at the foot of a mountain, which like every mountain I have seen here so far you are told looks like a puma/condor/Inka profile... (select any one of the above). We spent two lovely days there, exploring some of the less visited ruins and enjoying the beauty of the Sacred Valley. I am convinced that the natural beauty of the place would attract people, even without the bonus of all the ruins, but all this yomping up hills at altitude is making me seriously reconsider my smoking habit. We did not go totally "back to nature", as we had all the mod-cons of the house at our disposal, including a temperamental wood-burning stove which was more demanding of attention than a pop diva on tour.

I think the best thing about this week has been the spontaneity of it - walking down a street and stumbling across an amazing fiesta outside a church where people from the mountains were thanking the virgin for their many blessings after a five-day trek across the mountains by donning long robes and multi-coloured balaclavas, then cracking whips with great enthusiasm but little accuracy while a band beat out a rhythm on enormous drums and the spectators nursed their enormous beers and looked on in a slightly bemused fashion. I´m afraid I cannot offer any blindingly incisive explanation as to what this all signified, but it was exuberant and colourful and, for that reason, uplifting.

Then there was the football match. Cusco´s team is called Cienciano and on Sunday it took on the team above it in the league - Universidad de San Martin. This was a crucial match because a victory for Universidad would clinch the championship for them. For this reason, quite a crowd headed for the stadium on Sunday afternoon. As I have been told repeatedly since coming to Peru, Cienciano were champions of South America two years ago and, after that glorious event, the capacity of the existing stadium was increased dramatically. Still, it is a long way from the super-stadiums of Europe. There was a gloriously relaxed feeling as families swarmed in to secure seats, walking past a dazzling array of tempting snacks, which included the ubiquitous guinea-pig. No ban on smoking in the stands here and no visiting fans either - just a sea of Cienciano red. To our left, an impressive team of cheerleaders shook their red pom-poms with gusto and kept up their energy levels throughout the whole match.

As with every football match the world over, you had the usual "armchair" experts offering their opinions, there was a suitably mad South American goalkeeper who kept rushing out of his area to try and get involved in the game and demonstrate his football skills, then of course the insults hurled at the referee. In this case though, every single rude word was loudly parotted by a little five-year-old sitting directly behind me. His piping voice prompted only smiles, although as it became clear that Cienciano was doomed, some of the language did become rather choice and I could feel my lips pursing with disapproval. A 2-1 defeat for Cienciano saw the visitors celebrating on the pitch in front of the silently indifferent Cusco crowd, but just before the final whistle, my favourite moment came when Cienciano had a free kick just outside the opposition´s area. The crowd were going wild as it was a chance to at least equalize, but one Universidad player was deliberately time-wasting and the referee was doing nothing. The Cienciano captain, who was standing at the halfway line, watched all this with growing impatience and incredulity then suddenly hared up the pitch and punched the time-waster with great force. He got a red card and the biggest round of applause of the afternoon from the Cusco crowd.

I am sure that once my trip is over, it is going to be little things like this which I remember so I am very happy with my decision to spend longer in Cusco. I am also hoping that I have just uncovered a new and more spontaneous Ann, but the jury is still out on that as I can feel myself starting to grow apprehensive about the next leg of my journey - to Argentina and Uruguay - where I won´t know anyone and I am assured by every Peruvian I talk to, "they don´t speak proper Spanish."

new vices

notsowildrover — Fri, 18 May 2007 03:32:00 GMT

I thought that title might grab people's attention... the fact is that I have developed a new vice here in Cusco. As anyone who knows me is well aware, I do have a bit of a girly thang for buying lots of shoes. Unfortunately, this is not something I can do very easily on this trip because shoes are heavy to lug around and there really isn't much room left in my rucksack for impulse buys. I have, however, found the perfect solution... this week I have treated myself to a colourful and impressive range of Peruvian hats.

The excuse I am offering is that when I reach my next stop, New Zealand, it is going to be winter so I'll need some warm headgear and that is how the whole thing started. Having invested in a woolly pixie hat with protective earflaps and a jolly llama design, I found I just couldn't stop myself. The next hat was a multi-coloured confection with a jaunty brim which looks as though it was knitted by a colour-blind, arthritic grandma, but I love it... Well, the people I meet on this trip don't live in Reading so if they think I have to be surgically separated from inappropriate headgear, it doesn't really matter very much, does it?

My other new vice is a serious addiction to the mad artist I met at the weekend. Although it was with some reluctance that I took him up on his offer to adopt me and show me Cusco, I have not regretted my decision for one instant. El Ultimo Inka, as he insists on calling himself, has not only helped to improve my Spanish by gently correcting my stumbling and error-strewn speech but he has also shown me little corners of Cusco which have managed to resist the surging tide of gentrification in a bid to appeal to the swarms of tourists.

I think I can sum him up best by describing what happened the other evening when we were walking back to the "arty" squalor of his flat. He insisted we made a slight detour to see a friend of his so I dutifully trotted behind until we came to a church. In the dusky gloom of a little square in front of the church was a tiny garden surrounded by a white fence and a number of benches where several courting couples embraced against the cold. I looked around in vain for his friend, hoping we were not about to break up one of those embraces, but instead he ignored the benches and led me to the garden. Right in the middle of the overgrown little plot was one brave marijuana plant, which he had planted a short time before. Apparently, Cusco is a bit cold for marijuana, but he decided to see if this one symbolic plant could survive and he goes on a daily pilgrimage to check on his progress. Something in that really appealed to me - I don't know if it was the cheeky defiance of the church or the touching faith in the triumph of hope over adversity - but that was what convinced me I had found a kindred spirit here in Cusco.

This last week has been quite emotional. Although my six weeks have passed quickly, I feel as though I have lived here for ages and the friendships I have formed, particularly with Palmyra in my house and with El Ultimo Inka, have become important. It has also been madly hectic as I have been enjoying some of the events of the week-long festival of artists against capitalism. I don't know if my Spanish is to blame, but the political significance of some of these events went whooshing over my head but still, it has been fun and I genuinely believe that the only thing which could have improved it would have been if I had had the power to transport some of my crusty Telegraph-reading friends here to see how they would cope with all this earnest Peruvian idealism. Oh well...

pretentious - moi?

notsowildrover — Mon, 14 May 2007 13:16:00 GMT

Darlings, last week two momentous events happened - first of all, I discovered the hidden underbelly of artistic Cusco and secondly, the men of Peru finally realized that I really was irresistible (well, OK, one of them succumbed to my ample womanly charms...)

The week began with me basking in reflected glory. My gauche 19-year-old English study-buddy was replaced by a jazz singer from the Phillipines, who is now living in the USA. Being girlies, we did not actually specify ages, but I got the feeling she was a lot closer to 40 than my previous fellow student. We got on really well in lessons and then she announced that she was going to give a charity concert in Cusco. At first, the whole thing sounded fairly low key, but like Topsy, it just growed, and eventually her face was on posters all around the town and she was having to miss classes to give interviews to the local TV channel. OK, it was only reflected glory, but I enjoyed my 15 minutes of surrogate fame.

The other big event of the week was Sunday - Mother's Day here and pretty much every else in the world apart from England. The first warning signals appeared fairly early on - adverts for concerts, bull fights - all the usual stuff that mothers enjoy. Then came a new breed of loiterer outside the 101 schools which lie on my path to lessons every day; now it was not just a case of women selling boiled potatoes and hard-boiled egg to the poor unfortunates who had missed their breakfasts that morning - we had hordes of eager salesmen offering truly hideous quasi-Catholic "darling Mama" engravings of angels, roses and slightly constipated Madonnas. The cards were equally hideous - all roses and corny verses - while the flower sellers were out in force here as they are in every country where guilty children try to make good a year's neglect on one day.

Thankfully, my family is not really into pink, fluffy greetings, so I was whisked off to a chicha party round at the house of a friend of Palmyra who is an artist. I love the way that wherever you go in the world, "alternative" society has a reassuring predictability. We finally turned up at a metal gate on a busy street and when someone finally opened it, we were ushered in to a shambolic courtyard, which opened onto another mini-courtyard and what can only be described as a shed, where our host doled out chicha from a huge barrel and his friends, all sporting colourful Peruvian knitwear, proceeded to smoke, chat and "make music" on the assorted drums and samponas littered around the place in the midst of some rather exotic candles and garish artwork.

Amidst all the earnest young men, who were promoting a quaintly anachronistic week of art and social struggle, was one particular artist with black hair cascading down to his waist and a face that looked as though it was hewn from Andean rock. Needless to say, he was the first specimen of Peruvian manhood to appreciate my charms. Resistance was not difficult, but thankfully this is a man with a great sense of humour (as well as designing T-shirts for the more discerning tourist, he spends the rest of his time touring around with a children's puppet show about an ear of corn who wants to fly - trust me, the kids love it), so he took rejection very much in his stride and I am happy to report that he has now taken me under his wing and he is doing wonders for my Spanish as he speaks no English at all.

I suppose the moral of this story is when you travel, make sure you only attract men who don't do it for you. Hope that makes it as "thought of the day" on some self-help calendar somewhere...

rejected by the orphans

notsowildrover — Fri, 4 May 2007 08:09:00 GMT

This really must rank as the ultimate insult. My worthy plan to study Spanish for 4 weeks then to bring a little joy to the poor orphans of Cusco whilst simultaneously gaining spiritual fulfilment myself has gone horribly awry. I have spared everyone the gory details prior to this as I did not want to turn this blog into a whinge-fest, but now it is official. Clearly news of my quasi-Herodian attitude to all children who are not my own reached Peru ahead of me, but I have to admit to a sneaking sense of relief... If the demon child I live with is anything to go by, the children here have no need of my pathetic attempts to keep them amused after school and as I don't bring any of the obviously "popular skills" to the table, like being able to teach them how to play the guitar or hack into the Peruvian Defence Ministry computer, I think they are better off in the hands of those bright-eyed 20-somethings from my school, while I just knuckle down to another couple of weeks of Spanish.

Of course this means that my trip to Peru is pure, unadulterated pleasure now, so it's just as well I went along to a church here in Cusco on 1 May to confess my sins to the Virgin of Chapi and to ask for her blessing on my totally selfish endeavours. The Virgin of Chapi is the patron saint of Arequipa, but there are a lot of people from Arequipa living in Cusco, including my teacher, so we joined the throngs for the mass and then the procession. I am not a frequenter of Catholic churches (or any churches come to that), but this one combined the Cusco particularity of being freezing cold with appalling acoustics and really choking clouds of incense hanging lethargically above the congregation. The inaudible murmuring and clearly earnest prayers of the majority were lent a slightly surreal air by the hordes of little children running up and down the aisles, the lights on the heels of their trainers flashing in the church's murky half-light.

At one stage in the service, when the priest announced the peace, one rather enthusiastic parishioner decided it was his duty to make sure all the foreign visitors felt the power of God's love, and that wasn't communion wine on his breath...

Having been molested in church, I decided it was time to go outside and wait for the procession to start. There was quite a crowd outside the church and they threw petals as about 12 besuited and rather sweaty men started manhandling the statue of the Virgin out of the church to parade it around the square. I hope I don't offend anyone, but this doll-like creature looming above the crowd with her totally blank porcelain face and immaculate ringlets really gave me the creeps. I felt as though her eyes were following me and I am sure she is going to figure in one of my nightmares very soon... Perhaps she was watching me because she saw into my heart and realized that I was pleased not to be helping the orphans... I definitely feel a good deed coming on. If I survive this weekend trip to the jungle, I promise I'll be a better person, truly I will, as long as the Virgin of Chapi doll doesn't come gliding after me.

la chicheria

notsowildrover — Tue, 1 May 2007 05:36:00 GMT

Ever since I arrived in Cusco, Palmyra - the poor unfortunate who has to put up with me as her house guest - has been eager for me to try chicha, the corn beer that put the oomph into the Incas. On Friday night, I finally got my chance and it was "girls' night" as I went with Palmyra and Carmen, the woman who cleans for her.Now this was a girls' night out with a difference. For a start, it began at 4.30 in the afternoon. I know I'm getting old, but this put me in mind of those early bird specials for seniors in America.

I'd never have found the chicheria if I had gone on my own as there was no sign outside to advertise its existence. We entered and found ourselves in a series of narrow and rather dingy rooms, furnished only with tables and benches, but the place was practically deserted. We stopped in the second of the three rooms as we were accosted by a beaming round-faced old lady nursing what looked like a great big vase of a rather cloudy liquid. She turned out to be Palmyra's mother-in-law, so we joined her and I was soon nursing my very own vase of chicha and staring at the room's only decoration - a vaguely pornographic and rather dated pin-up girl with a Farah Fawcett haircut who looked as though chicha had never passed her collagen-implanted lips.

The taste is hard to describe, but it brought back memories of the time my student housemates tried out a home brew kit with somewhat limited success. Still, the chicha was not the main attraction. As the place filled up, I realized I had come to the Cusco equivalent of the Black Horse as Palmyra and I were the only people under 55 in the place. The rather lugubrious menfolk trooped in, shook hands with each other then settled themselves side-by-side on benches to get down to the serious business of marking the end of the working week. A few played cards as the barmaid ran around with a plastic jug, topping up people's glasses then scribbling figures on the table to keep track of people's tabs.

The men were, however, outnumbered by the women, who were much livelier. Some sported long plaits, traditional hats and wide skirts, while others adopted the universal pensioner uniform of trousers with elasticated waists and headache-inducing patterned knitwear. I really wish my Spanish was better as I am sure I only picked up on 20 per cent of the rather ribald humour flying around my table. For some reason, they all decided that I was Swiss - presumably mistaking my bemused incomprehension for an expression of determined neutrality. After a while, I felt it would be unfair to correct the error so I regaled them with stories of my clock-making grandfather... (hopefully none of them will ever try to track him down in Switzerland).

Anyway, somehow I found I had consumed three great big glasses of chicha and I didn't really feel much the worse for wear, but later my stomach seemed to swell to an incredible size and it made some deeply disturbing noises which hastened my return to the flat and a rather more salubrious toilet than the one I braved in the chicheria itself (which rather embarassingly earned me a round of applause from those assembled when I emerged from it earlier in the evening - Voronezh flashback time, I'm afraid!)

I feel that I can excuse this one instance of falling off the wagon in Peru on the grounds of cultural research, but I have to say that I am in no hurry to move on to more advanced studies...

the perils of blogging

notsowildrover — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 04:16:00 GMT

For those Caversham (and ex-Caversham) types perusing this blog and flinching at my grammatical errors, I thought I should start this entry by describing the conditions in which I write. First of all, there is an Internet place on every corner in central Cusco, but most of them are tiny little rooms at the back of shops where 10 computers are crammed into a space that the BBC health and safety people would insist is not large enough for one. Enforced intimacy while writing a blog and how to deal with it is not covered by any of the etiquette books I have ever read, so I tend to keep my elbows firmly by my sides and my legs closed (which is the default position for every nice gal who goes travelling!)

OK, so now I´ve excused my writing, I´ll try to paint more of a picture of my daily routine here in Cusco. I have to say that it is very much an early to bed-early to rise existence here, coupled with no boozing and healthy eating - in other words, a Peruvian health boot camp for this jaded and previously somewhat debauched 40-something.

Monday to Friday I have four hours of classes a day and this week I am on mornings, which means an 8am start. I am one of those irritatingly exuberant morning people, so that does not bother me unduly, but all the schoolchildren in Peru are heading for their schools at the same time, so on my 20-minute walk to school I have to wade through hordes of the swarming creatures. They all sport immaculate uniforms, with the girls in pinafores, blazers and matching socks and the boys all suited, booted and wearing ties.

Apart from the mini-scrums outside the school gates - and believe me, there must be about 5 schools on the short stretch of road between my flat and the Spanish school - the other major hazard of the walk into school is the pollution. The minibuses which flow continuously along this main avenue are packed to the rafters and there are clearly no emissions controls on vehicles in Cusco. Some mornings the combination of pollution and altitude can leave me gasping as though I had chainsmoked 20 Gauloises before leaving the house.

Still, these are minor irritants and most of the time I enjoy wandering the streets of Cusco, people watching while sipping my coffee in one of the cafes downtown and scoring minor victories like managing to use my Spanish to change the date on my ticket to Lima without reducing the sales assistant to helpless hysterics.

Although Cusco is a tourist town, it is easy to avoid the haunts frequented by hordes of foreigners and the generally conservative and shy Cusqueños are unfailingly polite, helpful and unfazed by mad Englishwomen on a mission to learn their language.

Lake Titicaca

notsowildrover — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 08:39:00 GMT

And so to the place which has made schoolchildren laugh for decades... Lake Titicaca. Lulled into a false sense of security by the smooth efficiency of my Machu Picchu trip, I booked with the same agency to travel by bus to Puno for my weekend on Lake Titicaca... First lesson of travelling, don't make assumptions! An overnight bus on Friday 20 April, leaving Cusco at 9.30 pm and arriving in Puno at 4am was not exactly an appealing prospect, but when I arrived at the bus station and saw how smart and comfortable the bus looked, I felt I should be able to manage a couple of hours' sleep. What I hadn't allowed for was the bony Parisian who found himself sitting next to me. He looked down his fastidious little nose when he realized his master plan to spread out over two seats was to be thwarted by the great unwashed hordes of fellow travellers. To register his disgust, he waited until I was nodding off, then began a great performance of twisting, turning and flailing his razor-sharp elbows. Thankfully, exhaustion finally set in and I snatched a little sleep. The bus arrived in Puno on time, but unfortunately my meet-and-greet person did not turn up until 6am.

Two hours in a bus station alone is a pretty scary prospect anywhere in the world and I was sucking in my stomach muscles so that my precious money belt would be subtly absorbed into the rolls of fat and nobody would notice it and think to steal it - Traveller tip No 2, but only for fat travellers of course. I have to say though that the bus station at Puno was not too bad. It was full of a real mixed bag of people - peasant women with huge colourful bundles, some of which contained goods to sell and others which contained babies, the compulsory smattering of rag-tag backpackers, expectant hotel touts and taxi drivers, but nobody was drunk, abusive or overly insistent and intimidating.

Thankfully, I'd invested in a Janet Evanovich novel as an impulse buy before leaving Cusco, so I enjoyed the kick-ass adventures of Stephanie Plum until Mr Fixit, alias Albert, turned up at 6 to whisk me off to start my trip with breakfast in a truly seedy hotel. It was the kind of place where he had to screw in the one working lightbulb in the place above my table before I could start eating. If this trip is a voyage of discovery about myself as much as anything else, one thing I have discovered very early on is that even for reasons of economy, I can no longer tolerate the kind of rudimentary conditions my 20-year-old self happily laughed off.

I actually embarked upon the trip four hours after arriving in Puno. I have to say, I have slightly mixed feelings about the whole experience. Titicaca itself is beautiful - the altitude, the atmosphere and the sheer scale of it is amazing - but the whole tourist rigmarole set up there made me feel a little uncomfortable. For example, first we went to the floating islands of the Uros, built using layers of the reeds which grow in Titicaca. The colourfully dressed islanders sit around with their slightly tacky handicrafts arrayed before them and wait for us to buy them. Meanwhile, we admire their reed houses, go on one of their reed boats, which look rather like straw viking boats, with fierce animal heads at the helm, and wobble around their reed islands finding it hard to take in the idea that these people actually live here because the whole thing has a real theme park feel to it.

From these islands, we made our way to Amantani - a real island on the Peruvian side of the lake. The boat trip was lovely and I really came to appreciate my group of fellow travellers - a truly mixed bunch, including a mad Russian who insisted he was on a diet of LSD and tequila, some charming Argentinian women, a lone Czech traveller who clearly had not seen a washing machine for some months, a father and son from North Carolina who spoke like characters from Gone With the Wind but had some pretty radical political views and little ol' me. That is one of the benefits of travelling alone - you get chatting to all sorts of people but you don't have to put up with their idiosyncracies for any longer than you choose. Anyway, on Amantani we were divided up between the local families who then provided us with bed and board until our departure at 8am on Sunday morning.

I shared with two of the Argentinians, which was good for my Spanish and my sanity as the family seemed not to have read the small print about this being a cultural exchange which is how our guide explained the setup - they were pretty monosyllabic and merely put down our food then left us to our own devices. The food was all vegetarian and delicious and we needed to be well fed to tackle walking up all these fairly steep hills to explore the island. The sunset was quite spectacular, but then I was glad I had been told to bring a torch because after dark, there was no electricity in our bit of the island, and although the locals sprang around like wild goats, I needed my trusty torch in hand to teeter precariously down to the toilet block without gatecrashing the cow shed next door. One thing that really struck me there was the total silence - only the noise of cows and chickens and nothing else. As I lay there before going to sleep, the silence was palpable and almost oppressive and I realized that although I complain, I actually miss the background buzz and bustle of life in a town.

Anyway, the next touristy bit came that evening when our families dressed us in local costume and we went down to the main square for a dance and a party. OK, it was not exactly wild and abandoned - we were tucked up by around 10 - but it just felt a bit "laid on for the tourists" and I could have done without it.

Next day we visited another island - Taquile - which is famous for its weaving. The set-up there seemed a little better as they have formed a cooperative so the whole community shares in the money raised from the tourists. I had been dreading this island as I read there were 550 steps up from the harbour to the main square. Thankfully though, we were set down at the island's second harbour and we made our way round and round the island along a circuitious track until we reached all the weaving then after a lunch of fresh fish from Titicaca, which was delicious, we only had to go down the 550 steps. Just seeing the locals labour up them with their huge bundles made me feel exhausted and breathless.

The boat trip back to Puno was a delight and I managed to avoid the British disease of lying out in the sun too long, so I now have a little bit of colour, but that colour isn't glow-in-the-dark sunburn red!

Puno itself is a bit of a dump. Everywhere there is construction work and little moto-taxis zip everywhere, but I had a final wander around there before making my way back to my second home - the bus station, where I safely negotiated paying the 1 sol of duty and getting on the right bus. These little achievements mean a lot to someone starting out on the solo travel thang!

Hopefully in my next entry I'll talk a bit more about every day life in Cusco, as that is really interesting and I am certainly growing to like this place a lot.

machu picchu

notsowildrover — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 02:08:00 GMT

If there was one trip in Peru I had to make it was to Machu Picchu.

Anyone who knows me even a little will not be surprised to hear that I decided not to trek there at altitude along the Inca trail - I was panting just climbing the stairs to get to the viewing terrace. Instead, I went by train and what an experience that was. On Saturday 14 April I was at the station bright and early ready to get the Backpacker Express to Aquas Calientes - the town at the foot of Machu Picchu which is a bit of a touristy dump. I had heard some horror stories about this train but it was fine. To my great joy, we set off on time but after about 5 minutes we started to go backwards. I was a bit worried but the guard reassured us this was normal and indeed, for the next hour, we went forwards then backwards as we crawled up the hill, following the switchback track.

The next incident was slightly more alarming. The train suddenly gave an almighty judder. As I was in the first carriage, I got up to have a look and found that the train had become detached from the engine which was happily chugging onwards. Thankfully, this did not happen on an uphill leg. Anyway, the efficient Peruvian railwaymen soon had us reconnected and we were on our way.

What can I say about Machu Picchu? It more than lives up to all those iconic photos everyone has seen. It is absolutely breathtaking (quite literally given the altitude). I have decided that the most stunning sights in the world are where you get a combination of stunning natural setting and human ingenuity. In this age of digital cameras, everyone was snapping away furiously, but I am sure that very few will be discarded as every vista was stunning.

To everyone´s amusement, our guide kept exhorting us to go slowly and sit down while he gave his spiel, leading me to suspect that one of his group must have succumbed to the rigours of the climb on an earlier occasion.

I wanted to add one of my photos here, but the girl in this Internet cafe tells me it will take four minutes to upload every single photo and I have about 52 so I think that will have to wait for another day (well, that´s my excuse and I´m sticking to it!)

That has to go down as my best Saturday of 2007 so far, although the train journey home was pretty tiring. Now I have to work out how to top that this weekend when I take another well earned break from my studies, but I am planning to book this trip in Spanish so God knows where I´ll end up!

FIRST WEEK IN CUSCO

notsowildrover — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 03:27:00 GMT

My family

First of all, a bit more about my family. How can you go wrong when the first thing they do on your arrival is offer you coca tea to overcome the effects of altitude sickness? I'm not sure if that is what has done the trick, but I have been OK and am happy to keep taking the medicine, although I am not smoking quite so much here just in case. Apparently, it is tall, skinny people who suffer most from the altitude so no threat to me there...

Palmira, the wife, is an anthropololist, originally from Venezuela, who now teaches the native language, Qechwa, here, while her husband, Lito, coordinates a multi-media project for young artists. As you can imagine, with that sort of profile the house is full of interesting books and colourful artwork but like everywhere in Cusco, there is no heat. This means that my bed is piled high with hundreds of blankets so every night it is like the princess and the pea, but in this case I am the pea.

The only fly in the family ointment is the four-year-old son Rodrigo - the Peruvian Damian - whose favourite sport is Ann-baiting. I nearly committed infanticide the other day when he drenched me with his water pistol. Still, they have really been kind and on Sunday took me out for the day to a little village just outside Cusco, to a restaurant full of Cusqueno families enjoying the sunshine and a delicious lunch of guinea pig (a bit like rabbit in my view, but not something I am in a hurry to try again - alpaca is next on the list to try!)

The main meal of the day is at midday as the altitude makes it hard to digest if you eat to late. Unfortunately, my Spanish classes are in the afternoon so I have to start concentrating when I'd really prefer to take a siesta, but hopefully that will change next week.

Study

Despite the annoyance of being in the afternoon, my classes are pretty good and the school seems well organized, although I got depressed the other day when I was recounting some fascinating anecdote from my past and I realized it happened 20 years ago - a year before my classmate, Ben, was born!

Social life

I have mainly been spending time with the family in a bid to improve my Spanish, but on Friday evening when my first week of study was over, I decided to go to one of the bars on the lovely main square and treat myself to a beer. My first impression of gringo social life is that travellers are incredibly boring. It is all a game of one upmanship. 'I've been helping orphans in Peru for 3 months.' 'That's nothing, I'm in my 10th year saving sexually abused Peruvian midgets.' Still, it is useful hearing people's recommendations of places to go and I hope anyone reading this blog will write and warn me if I start to take on the smug tone of the hardened traveller in this blog. I want this to be a testament to the amateur traveller.

My other social outing was on Sunday evening. I went to a concert given by a group called Alborada - a combination of samponas and an orchestra of backing musicians with violins etc. It was at the sports hall and was packed and I really enjoyed the music and the atmosphere although these guys are really in to reaffirming their Inca roots and that seems to consist of wearing silly clothes, having long hair and jigging around a bit between tunes. A bit of a contrast to Razorlight, which was my last gig.

Next time I'll talk a bit about my trip to Machu Picchu. What an experience.

Can you believe I´m in Cusco?

notsowildrover — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 05:30:00 GMT

Well, I made it to Peru after all the pre-trip passport problems and second thoughts about the whole thing. God knows how though... The night before travelling I hardly slept and when I did drop off I had horrific dreams of exploding like a weak-skinned frankfurter on the plane thanks to a DVT episode (despite my carefully purchased and very flattering travel socks).

On arrival in Lima - after a harrowing few hours at Miami where I thought the security guard might cart me off as my hiking boots, which I had to remove, could have been confused for some sort of new lethal "dirty bomb" given the whiff coming off them - I could not find any smiling man with a sign to meet me and I suddenly realized that I had no Lima contact no. Thankfully, all the things they say about welcoming and kindly Peruvians is absolutely true and some guys from another tour company rang the Cusco person for me and obtained a Lima number and dragged some poor soul from his bed to take me to my hotel for the night - an unassuming little place opposite the bizarrely named restaurant Norky´s. No chance to explore Lima as it was gone midnight and I had to be up early in the morning for the Cusco flight.

Anyway, I´m going on a bit, so back to business. I flew into Cusco on a beautiful morning and the view coming in was every bit as breathtaking as I´d been promised. My host family were there to meet me and thankfully for their sanity and the sake of my pathetic Spanish they do speak some English. I´ll talk some more about them soon as they warrant an entry in their own right, but suffice it to say, I am very happy with them and my first tour around Cusco left me feeling very lucky to be spending time in such a spectacular place. I promise I´ll master the art of uploading some photos so you can see just what I mean before too long.

First day at the Spanish school was a bit like everyone´s recurring nightmare about going into an exam, turning over the paper and realizing that you revised for history but are having to take a physics exam. A first for me - I couldn´t even get through the whole paper - so it looks like I´ll be in the dummies´group -HO-HUM.

Time to go off for my first afternoon of humiliation, so wish me luck and drop me a line and I hope the next entry will be more interesting.

FALSE START

notsowildrover — Mon, 5 Mar 2007 22:42:00 GMT

Well, a certain friend known as Les Bridgeland jokingly suggested that I was actually going nowhere and would write a whole load of guff about travelling the world from a darkened room in Emmer Green. How I laughed when I got that e-mail, but it turns out that Les might have a fairly effecient crystal ball (which he should see the doctor about) because four days after my trip should have started, I am still in Reading.

I know this will turn into a great anecdote at some time in the future but at the moment I am still feeling like a prize idiot. How could anything go wrong on a trip planned by a woman who has had her rucksack packed for a month? The simple answer to that is that I had to fly via the USA to get to Lima. I turned up at Heathrow on 1 March and queued at the check-in feeling slightly nervous and feverish from lack of sleep only to be told most politely that my trusty passport, issued in Baku, is not machine-readable so I am not allowed to get onto a flight to the USA even though I was only due to spend four hours in Miami...

I wanted to curl up into a pathetic heap in the middle of Terminal 3 but a very efficient and kind BA woman would not allow me to do that. Instead of flying off on my adventure, I ended up heading back to Reading and giving poor Magda the shock of her life when I went into Tesco to replenish my empty fridge as she had dropped me off at the bus station that morning expecting not to see me for a year, then only a matter of hours later I was nudging my trolley into the back of her knees in Tesco, Reading.

The plan now is that my whole trip is deferred for a month, giving me time to get up to London to get a new passport - I start my Spanish course in April and get only a month to travel around Peru once my volunteer project is over, but the rest of the trip should be on schedule... however, after this false start I am more convinced than ever that I might need my friends to chip in and contribute to my bail fund at some point in the not-too-distant future. Ho-hum. Anyway, I hope this gives a few of you a good laugh. The moral of the story - avoid the USA!

Anyway, hope you'll all be checking in a month from now to see if it's second time lucky as I really don't think regaling you with tales of derring-do from Reading is really worthwhile.

Just want to start the trip...

notsowildrover — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 16:50:00 GMT

Well, rumours that I am going mad may not be exaggerated. This waiting around is the worst bit of any trip. I just want to get started now rather than spending another day staring at my rucksack and watching it shrink before my very eyes. I am torn - half of me feels I'll never be ready while the other half thinks it is time to sally forth and to hell with the consequences (although I have done my GAP year safety course so it is not quite to hell with the consequences...)

Anyway, the point of this piece of nonsense was to check out that my blog was OK so that I could forward my contact details to everyone and say that from 3 March onwards, watch this space...