The adventures of Robrob

Photos: Kano

robrobjos — Mon, 5 Jun 2017 20:11:00 GMT

From 0 to canoe in less than 24 hours.

robrobjos — Mon, 5 Jun 2017 19:06:00 GMT

Zaaandam. Zandaam? The place names are so unfamiliar so are very hard to remember, but Philip has written his address and the canoe is waiting for us.

Daydreaming about canoes, eating cakes called canoes, canoes canoes canoes. Would love to have a canoe.

“If you’re going to fetch the canoe, let me know and I will be there” Colin says as we part ways, after a rock band playing on the roof of a truck that they are flaming the bonnet to heat the burgers on (!?) have finished.

The sun is rising, and fate has dealt it’s hand, we’ve been offered a second chance on a fine looking canoe from the Dutch equivalent of ebay. This gives the occasion more urgency.

I cycle eagerly to the station, Colin meets me with energy and drive for bringing home this floating dream. We board the free ferry across The IJ, knowing that upon our return we’ll be seeing this stretch of water again, one way or the other.

The sun bakes, the bag is full of essentials, water, digestive biscuits, two cans of Heineken, music and enthusiasm.

We get an app based taxi, which picks us up promptly as we finish our drinks, with it’s leather seats, cool driver, and air-conditioning; we glide smoothly over gentle highways through flat wide expanses of lush green land, people cycle and walk dogs and it’s as if we can see to the end of this flat earth with all of it’s inhabitants in layers, as pathways lay parallel and trace waterways.

We arrive at our destination, an unfamiliar sort of suburbia, and Philip comes out to great us, he’s a whiting gentleman a bit older than us, and shakes our hand enthusiastically with a smile, then prompts us to follow him to the garage. He pops the door, and there she is.

The canoe sits proudly on the floor, a beautiful yellow colour, a fittingly snazzy 80s logo, and smart blue decal stripes that chase down the body. We’ll take it! I mean “So, any problems with her?” Ground we have covered before on e-mail but just before handing over the cash always feels like a mild amount of Q&A is required, we quickly get to discover that he is selling it because he is moving house.

“So is the *memory blank space* and the motorbike for sale?” “Yes, they are, but the motorbike isn’t starting at the moment”

A nice BMW Tourer it was. Ah damn, well that’s Plan C, for getting the Canoe back to Amsterdam out of the window and probably the third most practical anyway, but while we’re out shopping for transport, it was always worth considering.

We start running out of questions, and need to now work out how exactly we are going to get this thing back to home. Maybe one more to buy us some thinking time…

“Oh, and you didn’t steal this canoe did you? It said on the internet we should ask” says Colin, to a man who’s garage is so well organised that everything has it’s right place, there is room to walk around all of the items stored, without hindrance, and you’d probably notice a single screw if it fell out of place onto the oft brushed concrete flooring, as you would a single stray hair on his recently sculpted haircut too. This guy is the most unlikely criminal, or I guess could be a criminal mastermind, anyway... probably the former.

Everyone laughs a bit awkwardly, and it’s a “no, no I didn’t”

So back to Plan A,”Think we can get a van to take back this thing?” We try a few options but I think there was only ever one real plan, and Philip agrees, “You could paddle it back”

Done, fine, yes, great, we were kinda hoping he’d say that, and now it’s not just a crazy idea, it’s also been suggested by a canoe owner, ex-canoe owner. Let’s go!

So we carry the canoe to the canal which is a 4 minute walk, it’s heavy like a 5 meter hollow tree trunk, which is kind of what it is, it’s a welcome relief to put it down, and we’re glad we’re not going to have to carry it far. We hope.

I pop into the canoe and colin coaches from the dock, good advice and a few paddles set me off, and it glides through the water with ease, whooohooo! “Wow watch out for the ducks!” A family of ducks scramble into the water in front, and voluntarily start a sort of slow motion high speed water based police duck chase.

I hit the brakes and cruise behind them, and the ducklings seem to enjoy the glory and safety, as they pull off into the distance, I float and take in the waving high bank grasses, buzzing dragonflies chasing each other, sunlight catching the water and the swirling dust as it serenely floats down above the glistening river’s surface, wow.

It doesn’t last too long as we get to a crossing where the water stops and we need to carry the canoe, we paddle our way through and over a few of these hurdles, stopping for small breaks, but not too long so that the paddling arms and legs don’t get lazy.

Under the no go zone

Getting to the Dam

Colin finds me with an Uber, chatting to the water specialist.

Colin heads back, all alone. Guys in the boat, dancing, give me a lift. Hairy.

Lost in the ship yard - feel small like the ducklings earlier

Things get gray, gets a bit choppy

Can I rest here, where am I?

Can hear techno - but maybe just a mirage?

Skirt around, hitch a ride.

*slightly traumatic bit here, so let’s just continue*

Get a lift with the nicest crew, to a place near home.

Dropped off, open the bag, never take digestives into the water, it’s not a good combo.

Blood streams from my shin, it’s just a little graze but the water makes it look like a shark attack. I’ll go with that.

I arrive back and am pretty exhausted, it’s been 8 hours. Not sure I have the energy to even lift the canoe out, so I get out and lay against the shore, and sit with my foot keeping it at bay, waiting for the energy to come back, a 2nd (or 15th) wind. The sun continues to beat down.

5 minutes and I’ll lift the canoe out…
…

…

…

“Yes!” shouts Colin.

He’s back! Colin had been home to charge his phone, then came to check that the eagle had landed, or the salmon had surfaced, or something! We whip the canoe out, head home, have a fruit salad, some water and a rest, then walk to the get the ferry to pick up the bike.

The bike is there, and we have come full circle, it’s only been a day, but what an adventure. As a team, we’ve gone through highs and lows, new ducks and dead pigeons, and from 0 to canoe.

Love.

Magical Peru: Part 2 of ∞

robrobjos — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:54:00 GMT

What seems like an age ago now, I wrote we´d just returned from a trek through the Cordillera Blanca in Peru, starting off from Huaraz. Huaraz isn´t a particularly exciting city, but with the mountain ranges on both sides looming, challenging, it´s a City to prepare both mentally and resourcefully, for exposure to some seriously remote and potentially dangerous trekking.

We decided to go for the Santa Cruz 3/4 day trek, which takes you through the range, across flatlands, through meadows, past a mountain sporting a glacier cap, (of Paramount pictures fame) and over a 4,700m pass (ridge thing). "Cool" I said, and the suggestion was to go solo, no donkeys, no guide, just two amigo´s having a pop at one of the worlds toughest terrains carrying all food, camping equipment, photocopied topography maps and a bag of Coca leaves for the altitude.

The first day was blissful, the bags were heavy and the gradient steep, but the sun shone and sparkled in the tumbling waters of the river which the path roughly followed, the river that had eroded this valley no less? We ascended through a pine forest and above it, to some meadows with cactus displaying brilliant gradients of greens and yellows, happy lizards scuttling around and hummingbirds doing their thing. We stopped a few times to appreciate the beauty, rest our bodies, eat something small and drink some coca mate. Mate, once drank, ignites the will to forge on. After 3.5 hours we thought we must be getting close to the first camp site, but realised we´d misread the map and were quite a lot further back than we thought, not much we can do about that really.

So we picked up the pace and continued uphill. Still no campsite in sight, the air was getting cooler, the lizards had gone to bed and the terrain was becoming more barron by the minute. An hour or more later, we thought if we don´t find camp soon we´ll just camp anywhere. Let´s just get over the next bank, if there´s nothing in sight, we´ll set-up camp and cook dinner, we are after all, without guides or donkeys.

Almost crawling now, fingers crossed, we peeked over the embankment, what we saw was a glacier capped mountain in the distance, obscured by another hill, also in the distance, but no camp.

OK, logic has it I`m sure that the camp will be in a spot which has a good view of the glaciered mountain. Onward to the next ridge we agreed. Almost jogging now on a reserve fuel tank, we conquered the hill and glanced over at the normally diconcerting but now reassuring sight of adventure tourism. Twenty little tents, six donkeys and a make-shift shop. High five.

We set up camp, ate like kings, dressed like clowns (well I did) and drank Cocachada, before an early night.

Waking up early, we cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast, packed up camp and set-off, but something wasn`t right.

I was ill, no not now, not ever, but please definately not now. Maybe it was altitude sickness, maybe the water from that dubious stream which had wriggly things in it, who knows, but the next few days were going to be tough. So although the following days we passed some beautiful emerald blue lagoons at the foot of some of the biggest mountains I`ve ever seen, we kept the pace, laughed, made video diaries, did all the same things, there was this overwhelming illness which filled in the blanks, turning my eyesight keleidascopic at times and hindering my appreciation of details. We made it over the 4,700m pass to the `mirador` but unfortunately it was pretty misty so we couldn`t see much (Could they not install a projector to project the image of the intended view onto the mist for such occasions?).

It was then onto the descent, homeward bound, the descent was insanely steep and slippery, there was some heavy rain thrown in for good measure, we, after 3 days were now a marching unit and determined. We stomped our way for 7-8 hours for the second day running, potentially trying to make it home in three days instead of four so maybe I could feel better, but the 3km to the next campsite proposed on the sign was optimistic, and after maybe 5km we saw the site, it was a bunkhouse, a converted church, hallejuliah.

Hot tea and a bed instead of the 1.5 man tent we had helped, I started to feel a little better and the next afternoon we were home.

Back in Huaraz we were congratulated on making it in good time and solo, and so decided to celebrate, we went to an Amazon bar with all the people from the hostel where we drank pickled snake shots with some warm liquor chaser which looked to have made some of the locals crazy. My shot was poured and one of the snakes eyes popped out and bobbed up and down in the glass, "¿verdad?" (really?) I said, and the lady nodded. So down the hatch it went, next the warm liquor, racing down after it into my stomach like ingredients into a witches brew. The next day I briefly turned into a Unicorn. After several more drinks in the bar, having just conquered one of the toughest passes at altitude, Sam decided to take on another mountain, a local man as wide as he was tall, it started with a drinking game, moving swiftly into an arm wrestle then summeting in a game of `mercy`. Shirts were off, furniture and wall hangings irrelavent, it`s safe to say we weren`t beaten in the Cordillera Blanca.

After Huaraz it was on to Lima where we scooped up mi otra amigo, ready for a month of Birthday Fun.

Memories are hazy and pictures are worth a thousand words and all that, so here`s a combo.

Back to Huanchaco for my Birthday, we got the balcony terrace room and were joined by some amazing amigos to make for a four day birthday bonanza!

Then it was on to the desert oasis near Ica, Huacachino for some crazy sandboarding and sand buggy-ing..

After sandboarding we hit the road and headed to Cusco. Cusco, a picture postcard city, full of postcard buyers. To get out for a while white water rafting seemed like a good idea, until half way through it started hail stoning for the first time in the `captain`s` memory. No photos exist as they were extortionatly priced, but it brought the super crew closer, only the mental scars of the icy water, and the memories of the band of brothers hauling each other out of the rapids while participating in oar to oar combat with the rival other rafts remain.

The rest of the time in Cusco, involved dodgy hostels, different sleeping patterns, as many free drinks as you want at the bars at night (you pay in the morning), but amazing fresh fruit juices at the market.

** juice woman picture please amigos **

Then on to Machu Picchu, the hard way, a 6 hour bus ride from cusco for $3, a 3 hour van ride round roads with hairpins on hairpins for $2, we made good time, so it was too dark to walk, we were offered a place to stay for a $1, 3 hours sleep then off again at 6am. The taxi we had took a corner on the way to the Hydroelectric plant, but his wheel went the other way. 3 sheared bolts aren`t going to grow back any time soon, so sadly we left him to his own device.

Hitchhiking came up trumps and we were soon in the back of a caged van, only to find the road had collapsed 30mins ahead and we needed to take a cargo trolley across a 200m wide 150m high gorge on a thin cable. Great. Luckily I coupled with an old lady who`d clearly done it before and who`s bones seemed pretty light, we glided across no problems. Mi 6`4" amigo drew a long straw and was paired with a 6`5" Canadian, having worked on construction sites before, he`d already noticed the bolts wern`t up to UK regulations. A ghostly but elated amigo emerged on the other side.

The walk to Aguas Caliante (the town at the foot of Machu Picchu) was maybe a 4 hour walk along the train tracks, reminscent of `Stand by Me`, our ipod helping us keep pace and high spirits with `Selected Ambient Works`. A beautiful evening of food and beer in an insanely touristy but charming town was had, listening to the best live Peruvian music I`d heard in the street, played enthusiastically by traditionally dressed musicians, while children ran around the main square. Making me realise that this town does primarily exist because of tourism, but this means good schools where children from all around are able to attend and benefit from, groovy.

We set off for machu Pichu at 3.45am, stopping for coffee first in the dark, a rusty flashlight between us, we marched up the intense 1 hour climb. Only having one pace-setting for inclines, which is go fast and get there sooner then it`s over with, we overtook groups of people and ended up in the first 20 people in the queue, it was worth it, whoohooo.

One of the most emotional experiences of my life.

Drained emotionally and physically, we opted out of the long way home and got the bus down the hill then the train back to Cusco. Overwhelmed. Still to this day. Forever.

In other news:

* Peru has it all, especially magic.

* Puno, our last destination in Peru on Lake Titicaca is avoidable.

* The addition of Andy has naturally multiplied fun levels.

Up next Bolivia!

Suerte!
robrob
x

Magical Peru: Part 1 of ∞

robrobjos — Tue, 4 May 2010 09:11:00 GMT

After a 12 hour rapid speed boat up the Amazon river, skipping along the murky waters as the driver expertly avoided water hazards, such as floating tree barks, lonesome fishermen and suicidal river dolphins, we arrived at our destination, Iquitos. Once there we were whisked away by a moto-taxi man, his brief being somewhere without wildlife in the rooms (being in the middle the Amazon) and affordable. As we set off from the dock and in towards town, the number of moto-taxi´s weaving in and out at speed increased dramatically until our arriving at the Plaza de Armas, which was a whirling one way system alive with the sounds of these wildly decorated, buzzing and beeping taxi´s. Iquitos being the largest city not accessible by road or rail, as a result only has a handful of cars, but a reported 25,000, easier to import, Tuk-tuk/moto-taxi´s! It certainly makes the city feel alive, as everyone uses this super cheap mode of transport to go anywhere.

So we were dropped off at a very reasonable hotel and checked in before exploring the city, we were immediately pounced upon by a gang of street hawkers all selling ´the best Amazon tours`, after battling them off we found a nice place for lunch. The food was incredible! We tried a variety of places in our time in Iquitos, most of them exceptional, serving delicious cuisine which was always very varied, with notable world influences. A real surprise highlight.

After shopping around the 3-4 day tours they all sounded quite similar, and the hard sell was getting tiring. Most of the places these people were offering to take us weren´t even in the Pacaya-Samiria national park, which obviously has hunting restrictions etc. and so the likelihood of seeing any live animals would´ve been decreased.
I chatted to the lovely man at the tourist information centre iPeru who confirmed this was a factor, and he could recommend some guides within the park. As he was chatting away I spied on the promotional TV screen beside him an incredible humming bird with two crazy long tail feathers, both with bright blue bulbous bits on the end, “pardon Senor”, pointing at the TV, “Does he live around here?!”

“No, no, that´s the Marvellous Spatuletail, which is endemic to a remote part of the valleys in the Chachapoyas region, Northern Peru” Pointing at a map he´d unfolded. (The region was parallel to our latitude but quite far away.) Wow I thought, somehow, I vow to see you soon Mr Spatuletail.

Back to the plot, we rang the guides in the national reserve park, who were attempting to charge what seemed like an unfair amount and they were very unwilling to negotiate. This it seemed wasn´t to be our jungle time, and so we decided to continue enjoying the magic of Iquitos for another day.

Our final 24 hours involved a boat trip to the beautiful butterfly sanctuary and a slightly crazy evening where mi amigo managed to drive and crash a moto-taxi into one of the handful of cars in the city, nothing serious, but the driver strangely/drunkenly(?) encouraged me to try to do better, I couldn´t, no injuries but a gained respect for the insane skills these people have while negotiating the traffic of the city.
So we were to leave Iquitos, and continue our journey, the options were to fly or to brave one of the cargo ships which meander up the river every few days. To the Cargo ship port!

We were told we needed hammocks sleep in and some Tupperware to be served food in. The journey time was uncertain but the cost was 40 soles ($13) and the departure was at 6pm, a quick supplies dash and last moto-taxi adrenaline hit and we were ready! The ship was busy with people hanging hammocks but we were clearly the only tourists aboard. I could feel eyes watching as I attempted to tie my hammock securely, making up knots, looking experienced, a quick sit down strength test saw me hit the deck, and bounce back up, raised by laughter and smiles from all around, sabotage? Nope. Second time round and my hammock was safe and a perfect height, I was then asked to help share my new found knott knowledge to help hang my comrades hammocks, Rob the now knott specialist.

So after sunset we set off, maybe 25 people on our deck, swinging next to each other, chatting, whilst looking out over the deep dark Amazon, magical. It´d been a long day and everyone began dosing off, securely fastened like bats to a cave roof.

Hello morning! and there was general movement among the people, our experienced old man neighbour (I´m bad at names) explained it was breakfast time, our Tupperware was filled with a sweet milky substance and we were given two sandwiches each, edible for sure. The day was spent meeting the people aboard (one man pulling a live parrot out of his luggage for us to meet), being fed, hanging out on the roof and stopping at various villages along the way. At each village people would come aboard and add cargo, or we´d drop people and their goods off, whilst these exchanges were being made, hawkers would come and try and sell all manner of things, we tried some crazy nuts, a disgusting root drink thing and almost brought a monkey for 50 soles.

After 4 days 3 nights of this simple life, we slightly disappointingly arrived at our destination, where decisions and interactions outside of the ship had to be made, ahhh. I asked one of the ladies who´d been friendly with us on the boat how best to get to Tarapoto, she said to join her and she´d give us more information on the bus. Jaddy gave us the address of her friend who lived in a place called Rioja in the North, she said we should go visit him and then maybe carry on, seeing some more of the North’s highlights. I agreed. Also noticing this was the around the same region as my dream bird lived.
After an amazing Saturday night in Tarapoto at the enormous Anaconda night club, we started our journey to find Raul in Rioja, the contact we´d been given on the bus. It was a long but beautiful journey, the second leg to be done in a 3 hour taxi ride. 2 hours in and we winding through the valleys of Chachapoyas, watching the scenery pass by.... "Stop!! Por Favour!" I blurted!

Not incredibly, but amazingly, we had hit one of the regions hummingbird sanctuaries, the driver keen to repeatedly mention this wasn´t part of the deal, although he´d charged us for 4 people when there was only 3, I quickly explained to him I´d been waiting a lifetime for this moment (a moths lifetime?). Clearly more excited at the opportunity at maybe seeing one of these crazy hummingbirds than my amigos, they joined me enthusiastically nevertheless. At the viewing platform there were hummingbirds of all different shapes, colours and sizes arriving for dinner every minute, but a quick glance at the guide who´d joined us´ shaking head, confirmed we hadn´t seen one yet, and then... there it was; magical. (PHOTO) (BBC Planet Earth link)

The moment cut somewhat short by the taxi drivers concern for his dinner going cold and his angry wife, but nevertheless the rest of the journey was spent shaking my head at the amazingness of every moment spent so far in Peru (a week?). Gazing out of the window, night had fallen and amongst the stars I saw the top of a mountain ablaze, it was at least 2000m high and not a volcano, it was all too much, a question for another day. We arrived in Rioja late, checked in anywhere, and dreamt.

.........................

The next day we knocked on for Raul who lived in a place called ´Museo Toe´, after the explanation of who we were, he greeted us warmly and led us through his liquor bar(!), past his modest sized museum(?) and to our room on the second floor, "You can stay here as long as you want" he said, make yourselves at home then come down for a drink.
We, slightly bemused, sorted our room out, then went and joined him and his amiga downstairs at the bar, we tried his ´7 Rieces´ (7 roots) liquor which brought flashbacks of the drink on the slowboat but with liquor comfort, not fun. Keen to politely clear the palette, we quickly ordered 3 Cocochamba´s, they too came in 200ml servings, he explained it was Aguadiente (sugar cane liquor) with coca leaves left to soak for 6 months. It tasted amazing, and made me want to hug the World and Raul for his hospitality, more so than usual, we finished our drinks, remembered we hadn´t eaten, and said we were popping out to eat some chicken or something. He said that´s fine, here are the keys, if you´re back at 9 we can watch a TV program about me/with me in it, chevre we said, slightly confused, and headed out.

Back at five past nine, expecting him and his friends sat around a TV, we open the door, but there was seemingly no-one in the bar, then Rauls Amiga pops out of the back room, "Where´s Raul?" we ask, come through she says, we enter a small back room with a portable TV; ahhhh there´s Raul with a co-presenter, live on Peruvian TV of course (!?) I couldn´t make out lots of the content but with help, got the live shout-out to his Portuguese, English and Welsh guests currently sharing his home, and learning the culture. The TV studio´s were in Rioja and he was home within an hour, we bought him a drink, shook hands then retired to bed.

We spent the next few days with Raul, learning about and visiting various places, one day an untouched wildlife rich Nature Reserve called Tingana, in Moyobamba by canoe for a quarter of the price of the pushy touts we met in Iquitos. We left Raul and Rioja, giving him some of the photos we had together as keepsakes and he in return gave us each a signed copy of his book, a sad farewell.

From Rioja we headed to Chachapoyas, a relatively large town similar to most other Peruvian towns, the centre squared as standard called the Plaza de Armas, making for easy navigation of new towns.

An hour from Chachapoyas lays Kuelap, a pre-Inca fortress built on the top of a 4000m high mountain; luckily the bus takes you pretty much to the door. Our tour guide was fascinating and even more fun after he´d shared some of Rauls´ Cocochamba which we´d purchased and taken along for the ride. There are many fascinating things about the fortress which I´m sure Wikipedia would love to tell you about, my favourites being; the few entrance gates that exist are wedge shaped so that advancing armies get wedged at the end and are dealt with one by one. The whole fortress is built like a compass and in the centre lies a miniature rock compass, a Finnish girl with gadgets clarified the accuracy with her super geography watch. Finally, the Chachapoyans built their houses circular for harmony but also because this design is more effectively anti-seismic than the Incas square building design. The Chachapoyans were defeated after 80 years of Inca attack, where they were boxed into the fortress which had no water or fresh food, this had previously been supplied by the their surrounding villages. Doh.

After this sensory overload I was ready for some beach life and so headed towards the coast, Trujillo. I called by Chiclayo, which boats the biggest witchcraft market in South America. I picked up various things for my Souvenir website but mainly got stared out by monkey’s skulls with red gem eyes and lured into the back rooms of strange smelling stalls and encouraged to sample various coloured powders. I declined to try the powders but gave them a smell, they all smelt the same like herbs or dried grass cuttings, I navigated my way out of the market which was now reverberating somewhat and there was slight sense of it being a living breathing organism. On the 3 hour bus to the Trujillo, near the beach I was glad I hadn´t sampled anymore, as though although my bag was safe with the tourist police, that stuff must have been pretty potent and crawling through the streets of Chiclayo with my camera etc may have been a recipe for disaster. In the correct surroundings with a Shaman etc there are arguments for consuming these mind expanding substances.

Arriving in the surf town of Huanchaco I was re-united with Sam and we hung out at this typical surf town for a few days, because the surf here is so strong, the local fishermen have developed a unique straw canoe/surf board to get out and in through the swells, the world’s first surfers possibly.

In addition to this we visited the world’s biggest Adobe city Chan-chan, which was very impressive and a perfect venue for a multimedia music and art exhibition I dream to organize one day. We also lunched with Jaddy (from the slow boat) at her home with her parents and son, a delicious lunch followed by stories from her parents, and some beautiful live music from her son and his friend.

Peru´s magic emanates from everyone and everything here..

In other news:

• The Tingana nature reserve we visited with Raul is nicknamed ´The enchanted forest of the walking trees´ as it´s often flooded, the trees roots system extend into the water, with or without psychoactive help you can see how they look to be marching through the water. Lord of the rings type stuff!

• We just finished an unguided, un-donkeyed 4-day trek through the Cordillera Blanca, too tired to let you know now.

• Andy from University arrives here in Lima in 12 hours to begin 1 month of Birthday fun, whoohoo!

Hope everyone is well well,
Robrob
x

Defying death in Northern Bolivia

robrobjos — Sat, 1 May 2010 10:13:00 GMT

The trout are farmed, but in cages in the Lake, so I imagine they eat the same nutrients and goodness as the other trout in Lake Titicaca, but have to go to bed earlier. They could have relationships with other fish, but without direct contact, through the fence, sort of like a fish boarding school? (No? Sorry, it´s been a while since I last wrote)

So we were now in Cochabamba, BOLIVIA! Having crossed the border with ease and official smiles allround, now a group of 6, the Birthday month is still the excuse, and the fiesta seems somewhat contagious. After lots of walking, asking and discussing, we find a nice hostel with a terrace overlooking the lake. Perfect!

The view of the lake was bright, and the wine, incredibly cheap, we swilled our way through the reserve then went exploring. The incline was insane, and on the way up, the streets were lined with shops bursting with beautifully colouful, and incredibly intricate, well crafted clothes. Shop-Shop-Shop! Was the primal instinct but suspicion suggested in the heart of Bolivia, these things will be of even better value (NB: A woolen hat here costs $3)

We instead challenged some kids playing football on the gradient, us two them five, initially it was us displaying some fast and flamboyant football skills, this didn´t last long, five minutes later I thought my lungs had already flown home and the ninos ran rings around us. How high up are we anyway!?

2,570m says the guidebook, a perfect excuse for my lack of fitness! Retiring, we sat on the shore of the Worlds largest navigable lake and ate some of the finest trout anyone in the group had ever eaten, it was delicious. (I just hope we didn´t prematurely end any fenced romances.)

Later that evening we met and befriended the Strongest man in Belgium (but currently not in Belgium).

The sun rose above the Lake earlier than I´d hoped the next morning. I remembered we´d decided to shun the rite of passage to the ´Isla del Sol´, allegedly the birthplace of the entire Inca existence. Not in a ignorent manor, I´d read all the history at my disposal, but solely after being advised it involved lots of excessive walking, hidden charges and the existence of over-imaginative guides. So instead we hired 5 Motorbikes.

We rode like champions around the climbing coastal road, initially, 7 people on 5 (in retrospect, clearly) visibly tired motorcycles, safety is relative, there were no cars around and everyone could swim. We all arrived at the Mirador, eventually. A rear flat tyre caused my bike to shed my passenger temporarily, after an attempted roadside fix with some very nice locals, the tyre was no more. I wrestled the bike onwards, slowly.

At the mirador the view was incredible, the bikes not so much, one had overheated badly, possibly a serious engine problem, the other a broken clutch cable, mine without a tyre. We returned two bikes, and were offended when the vendor asked us for 5 hours rental for 5 bikes, we´ve spent the last two and half hours walking back Senor Loco!! Some firm and slightly scary discussions took place and the bill was met half way.

The next day was for a boat trip on Lake Titicaca, excellent. The lake was rough with high winds, but we´d stocked up on supplies and after 45 bouncy minutes we docked at a floating island. Solid ground was preferable so we climbed a small hilltop, attached by a bridge and had a very nice picnic.

After lunch it was back to the boat for some fishing. There was only one rod and Sam took the bull by the horns, stepping up to cast off first. Casting off from the roof, the weight and bait whipped back with vigour, too much it seems as it naturally circled it´s fulcrum and ´whoomph´ through the side window of the boat! Yikes. "Tranquilo" our captain re-assured us, that´s what deposits are for, fair enough.

Back to the fishing, the line was severed so I took both parts and executed my favourite knot, my turn now to cast off. Equal enthusiasm, a slipped knot and the weight sent a few hundred meters into the distance; my ex-favorite knot. No weights left, the rod was put away. Here's hoping we don't break everything we touch in Bolivia, thankfully we didn't...

We left the shores of the Lake to nearby La Paz that evening, arriving under the cover of darkness around 11, the locals not so discreet in their cover of covet. Feeling pretty scared we tried a few of the recommended hostels, after 45 mins of walking in a group, a 3 minute wait for a response from the reception at the most popular party hostel was enough to send us all packing.

We found a great 4 storey hotel with an incredibly leafy and bright atruim leading to some nice clean rooms for relative buttons, and so the fairytale resumed.

The next day we explored the city, Llama feotuses two a penny, this place looks not much happier in the day as it does in the night, hmmm. We bought amulets for good luck, then went down the local boozer.

------------------------------------------------------------

Take a seat downstairs the barman suggested, no, no, we prefer rooves I said, but thanks, on walking up the stairs and seeing a dank room without windows, heavy with muscle, we all about-turned and headed downstairs.

Unsatisfactory behaviour for the gents upstairs, and we were verbally coaxed back up the wipe clean wooden stairs. This'll be interesting, and potentially deadly.

The towering Strongest man in Belgium (but currently not in..) was instantly accustomed by a short but stocky self-proclaimed Bolivian 'Nam' War vetron (is that possible?) and challenged to an arm wrestle. This broke the ice, our man faigning a loss and we already had a group of friends in this room without days or nights. It wasn't the active ones that scared us/me the most, it was the silent group in the corner with deadly eyes.

Anyways, we spent the best part of our day drinking super cheap booze, hugging, then sharing strength stories with our new friendly locals in this windowless void, but I couldn't take my mind off the organisation in the corner, or my eyes off the innocent framed 'happy kitten and flowers' print hanging on the wall, pondering just what extremes it's eyes had witnessed in it´s lifetime over the shoulders of these men.

We left the bar and headed homewards, briefly distracted by bars and parties along the way, come to think of it totally distracted, I recollect walking out of an infamous bar (with terrible music) at 9am into the bright streets of La Paz, walking in the general direction of home and seeing a helpful gent dressed in a zebra outfit offering to guide us over the road, "¿Todo bien?" I offered.
"Si, muy bien, gracias" The zebra replied.
Really!?
Yes, really, a cross safely campaign in full swing, but not what you want when reality is already a stranger.

La Paz you´re too much for me, I now understand why people lose weeks of their life here, let´s go, we´re not learning anything, but not until we´ve conquered the Death Road...

And so, 7am the next day we set off for the infamous Death Road! A 61km downhill mountainbiking extravanganza, previously the worlds most dangerous road (now bypassed by passenger buses), we had only our crew in our group, no excess baggage thanks to mi hermano´s organisational skills. We got kitted up and took to the road in the freezing heights, it was unbelievable. Interesting to see the group naturally find it's correct order of descent, experienced speed freaks pushing on with the guide, throwing caution to the wind, following, the less experienced and those with faulty brakes!

Here's a little video of the action, Sam you legend....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsdRwctLIhU

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La Paz our work here is done. If in doubt, head into the wilderness. We booked our bus tickets and left in the evening, heart-brokenly leaving Sam who´d decided to conquer ice-climbing a 6088m mountain, solo, badman.

And so it was onwards to Rurrenabaque, an 18 hour terrifying bus ride down roads of equal width to the 'Death Road', just because it's not got the title of the 'Worlds Deadliest Road' doesn't mean it's not deadly.

Arriving at 4 am in Rurrenabaque we were scooped up by an early-bird tour-guide, he was offering competitive rates for a 4 day trip into the Pampas, exactly what we were looking for. The guy looked and talked like a used car salesman and we'd normally avoid this sort of hustle, but after asking all the necessary questions we couldn't find any reason not to go with him, so we left for the Pampas at 9am.

The Pampas is a vast area of flatland with a river running through the middle, all the animals need water and so hang out by, or visit the river regularly, it's basically the highest concentration of wildlife visible outside of the African Plains, that would have been some detour. The first thing we noticed was that for every tortoise or bird of paradise we saw there seemed to be 5 alligators, they were literally everywhere along the river bank, licking their lips as we chugged by in our motor canoe. Yikes!

The 4 days were amazing with lots of different activities, piranha fishing, hammock testing, eating delicious food and watching the burning sunset over what looked like the African Plains, it doesn't take much imagination to add a few mental elephants and giraffes. Even easier when playing 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' on the ipod speakers.

One activity we, at the time, wished we'd missed out on was the 'Anaconda Finding Expedition' aka 'The Patience Testing Wet Welly Competition' but there's always a silver lining.

And so we trudged through knee-deep odourfull swamp on the instructions, 'If you see an anaconda, grab it by the neck and hold it until we (the guides) come over and relieve you of the biting muscle-bound monster.' Ok, firstly, where does the neck stop and the tail start? Secondly, I'm not grabbing a snake, they wriggle through my nightmares regularly enough already thanks.

And so we spent the next few hours playing shouting games with some frogs and hoping that the army of biting things swimming in our wellies weren't laying eggs. Until one guide motioned for everyone to come over, so we all splashed our way over, an anaconda!? No, a deadly cobra! Oh great, they live in this paddling pool of anti-fun too, thanks for the heads up Mr Guide!

After a good old search for the elusive Anaconda the guides had started off out of the field admitting defeat, and we too,happily headed in that direction, but

"Cripes!!" came the cry

Looking over, we saw a dude with one arm in a sling, the other arm in the air, wielding a long dark snake! The snake was buckling around and he was wrestling with his immobilised arm trying to get the camera from around his neck and get an close up of the snake in his other hand! All this dancing meant our Hero fell backwards and landed with a splash on his back, but did he let go of the snake? Hell no! God bless Australians.

So we'd met an Anaconda and had an incredible time but it was time to leave. Andy's flight to London departing in 48 hours from La Paz, this magical chapter drawing to a close. Soon to be alone again, deep breath.

In other news:

* After dabbling with the tastes of the fishy underworld, I'm now a fish eater, groovy.

* Pink dolphins are the 'Kings of the River', so when they're around it's safe to swim in the piranha and cayman infested waters, safe!

Adios amigos,
Rob
x

A happy ending in Colombia

robrobjos — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Surprisingly things don´t always go amazingly and exceedingly to plan, which may not make for great reading, so sorry if it´s not riveting, but here´s what happened.

We arrived in Cartagena, Colombia after the super good catamaran experience from Panama, we´d been on the island for 11 days and the sea for 2, it was the weekend, and we fancied some social partying. We were in Cartegena a beautiful walled colonial town, famous for some of the best nightlife in Colombia; except when the elections are on, and the Country shuts all of it´s bars, liquor stores and clubs!

Not really being famous for it´s arts or museums, although I did check them out, and possibly not being as impressed as others by the beauty of the architecture, being from Europe and in that respect somewhat spoilt. I was left with the unlimited supply of fresh passion fruits, the beautiful people and the incredible array of fabric/textile shops to be my highlights.

Next up was Teganga our final farewell to the Caribbean coast, a picturesque seaside village with a horseshoe beach. What I imagine was once a sleepy fishing village has become, because of the constant stream of backpackers, a 7 days a week party town. Finding myself drunk in the early hours of the morning, helping fishermen haul tree trunks onto a cargo boat and polish off bottles of Aguadiente (semi-tasty cheap strong sugar cane liquor), I thought, although fun, is this really what I want?

No. And so onto the 20 hour bus to Medellin, Colombia´s second city. The fact that the South American Olympics were in town meant that the City was buzzing with activity and good vibes, although from what I hear, this is normally the case in Medellin. Spending a few days at various free open air gigs, meeting the very friendly local people, visiting numerous Art exhibitions and the excellently designed Botanical Gardens, I was definitely starting to feel at home in Medellin.

"Why would you want to visit Bogota when you are here in Medellin? In Bogota it´s cold and the people are cold."
...
"Another thing, the people there spend hours and days philosophising whether or not a dog has a 5th leg, where as in Medellin we just say ´ít´s a tail´ and get on with it", energetically explained a typically proud patron of Medellin while dissing/discussing the people of the Capital city, who live at a much higher altitude 8 hours away. I was clearly still going to go and see for myself, but it was an interesting metaphor, and insight into what is probably called ´Second City Syndrome´?

Back to Medellin with it all going so well, I was hanging out with some local ´Goth-ish´ graffiti writers, the alpha character with a now haunting, purple glitter tear below one eye. We were enjoying beers on the roof of one of the lo-fi bar´s overlooking the main square near Zona Rosa, the bar closed and we were out on the street for a while chatting. I mentioned I´d heard of a potential ´Gringo´ party we could maybe go to, and mix it up a bit. By this time we´d been joined by another friend of theirs, who was stocky, smartly dressed (standing out somewhat) and was semi-consistently snorting something Colombian.

Agreed we´d search for the party, we, eight of us, crammed into a regular style Taxi and headed towards the party venue, Colombian music blearing, the wheel arches screeching, lights flashing by and the carefree taxi driver laughing, mi gusto Colombia.

But the party didn´t materialise, there was some general confusion about what to do next, then :boom: I felt a mighty punch to the back of the head, I fell down (and bounced back up, because I´m pretty good at that), to see the smartly dressed dude swinging for me again... in the background I could see the others, clearly disapproving and concerned, but naturally going to side with their associate over me, as he demanded my sunglasses and money. Attempting to remember what "not a chance" was in Spanish, I shouted what I had, which looked to confuse him momenterily, then ran away.

Safely home, I woke the next morning, slightly concussed and feeling the situation was somewhat unresolved, and because the area of Medellin which appealed to me isn´t the biggest, I felt I should leave, but I love this place, dammit.

Manizales then, the quaint coffee district my next stop, but on arrival the capital was another bustling City, and I needed somewhere to rest. I read about a hostel called `Mona Lisa` an hour away in Rochelle. So I jumped on a bus, the scenery of the beautiful rolling hills covered with coffee plantations was incredible, I hopped out near the Church described in the directions, it was a nice pueblo/village, and the roars of the cowboys at the ongoing cattle auction filled the air.

I found the Hostel, and knocked on the big gates, a slightly bemused young man opened the door explaining there was no-one there, the owner was away on holiday for the week and he and his Amiga were looking after the place. I spoke to the owner on a Cellular who confirmed the above, but said I was welcome to stay and use the kitchen, pool, jacuzzi and roam the grounds all I wanted for $10 a night, perfect.

But/pero, although it was an idyllic and perfect place with friendly hosts, try as I might, I couldn´t find a local smile around, once I left the grounds of my new found budget mansion, I was met with offers of lifts to who-knows where, and unfriendly verbal exchanges at the fruit and food markets.

And so I spent my time watching brightly coloured birds come and go, practicing my Spanish with the young groundspeople about life, the olympics and the various flora around, swimming and cooking. The Welsh Cakes went down especially well, "muy Rico" they agreed, and so the recipe was passed on, again. Being too intimidated to interact with the locals and learning of their culture I felt I was wasting time here, and so it was time to move on again. So disappointingly after a few days of relaxing I jumped into the back of a pick up truck at the crack of dawn and waved goodbye to Manizales...

Arriving in Bogota, tired after the 12-hour breathtakingly beautiful but hairpin rich bus journey over the Andes. I had a good feeling upon arriving in the Candalaria district, with it´s bohemian style vibe, street art, nice looking restaurants and good music resonating throughout.

I checked in to a hostel there to find a Portuguese amigo I´d met in Cartagena, things it felt were finally beginning to fall into place again.

I stayed in Bogota for 9 days, enjoying every aspect and moment of it. Bogota is an amazingly cultural city of architecture, galleries and museums, notably Colombia’s greatest artist Botero´s collection, housed at the Museo Botero (which also houses many other excellent works by Miro, Picasso n that), a man who painted, sculptured and drew, inflated versions of the organic form.

Conveniently there was a two week bi-annial Theatre festival on at the time, so we visited a few of the events. A highlight being an amazing acrobatic street theatre rendition of the history of Colombia´s influencial figure Francisco de Miranda, who it seems along with shaping modern day Colombia was also an amazing gymnast. Tomas 28.3

We met some amazing people in Bogota (who were very warm and didn´t talk too much about dogs legs at all) they showed us around the city by day and night, one evening partying 31 floors up in what´s rumored to be Pablo Escobar’s old penthouse apartment, with incredible 360 degree views of the city.

On the final evening, which happened to be Good Friday, the cable car to Monserrate, the church 3160m high on the top of the mountain overlooking the city, was kept open for worshippers until 5am in the morning, so after the bars closed we headed up there. Full of warmth, probably from a combination of factors; the hot Aguadiente being served, the excellent company, the illuminated view of a City I now love and also of finally feeling settled in Colombia, I returned to my hostel for a couple of hours sleep before the fast approaching flight into the Colombian Amazon!

.......................................................................

As the plane descended towards Leticia, which has open borders with Brazil and Peru, I saw the awe inspiring Amazon basin for the first time, trees as far as the eyes could see, dissected by the snaking of the incredible mile wide Rio Amazonia, epic.

From Leticia we were to get a boat up the Amazon River to Iquitos, the largest city in the world not accessible by road or rail.

We needed to get our entrance stamps for Peru that day as our boat left at 4am the next morning, so we skipped over the Amazon river to Peru in a boat taxi, 25 mins, got our stamps, had a beer there with the locals in a bar full of monkeys, before returning to Colombia for lunch. In the evening we walked over to Brazil, had a few Caipirinias before heading home to sleep briefly, an odd experience! At 3am we were on the back of speeding moto-taxi´s setting off to catch a boat up the Amazon river, the beginning of a new chapter, Peru! Whoohoo!

In other news:

* I had a slightly drastic haircut by an over enthusiastic hairdresser, but change is good and I´m sure it´ll grow back.

* Sam went to meet his brother in Equador for some Galapagos action, where sealions walk the street =)

* I´m in Peru now and it´s overwhelmingly magical.

Bueno onda,
Besos.
Rob

Pananamana

robrobjos — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:56:00 GMT

Last time I wrote, we were setting off blind (after waking up to the wrong time zone), looking for some luck to get us past the impassable Darian gap in Panama to find our destination Colombia, in need of some luck...

Regreso. We arrived at Bocas Del Toro, Panama via the Caribbean coast from party town Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica as mentioned previous. We soon realised it shared the same love of permanent partying, and this was amplified by the Carnival which was on when we arrived, out of the frying pan and into the fire it seemed!

Despite this we stayed at a fairly quiet hostel with a good kitchen and an amazing Israeli amigo come Chef, we spent our days productively, cycling to the beach around the bay where the reef was good, and shooting sea life with a spear gun for our dinner.

We were a group of five and our vehicle of choice was a jolly looking 5-person tandem thing, there´s no wonder the fish, crab and lobsters didn´t fear the sight of us parking up. But looks can be deceptive and the ´Seamaster 500´ effective, so we ate well.

The Carnival was massively overpriced so we joined the locals in a boycott and partied outside the gates to the music, and later elsewhere. Aqualounge being one of the places serving until 4am, encompassing a diving board above a cut out section of the dance floor, beer was flowing along with a free-for-all multi-person diving acrobatics competition, funny to hear only the British and Americans concernedly discussing Health and Safety laws.

After this it was the long slog to Panama City, even though we had a lovely guide to show us around, we still failed to find much inspiration in this sprawling city of high risers and malls, which we overlooked from our hostel in the old town.

We had to visit the Canal which was as I had imagined, but did have a nice Welsh conversation with Mr & Mrs Thomas visiting from Anglesey. The main highlight of the city was the incredible artwork on the buses, of which I managed to photograph a small album worth of photos after bribing the guards with sodas for entry into the depot, but was disappointingly ejected by the manager before completing a books worth. The other highlight was a 90cent Butterfly Kite I bought, let´s get out of this city.

We luckily missed our pricey Gringo mini-bus to a pre-determined expensively priced 5 day boat ride to Cartagana, Colombia through the San Blas Islands, which had never felt like the right thing to do, but the D.I.Y options were strongly advised against and we were too bored to differ.

And so we set out on our own, whoo, a local bus to deadly Colon (which admittedly was a little scary), then on to Puerto Lindo where we stayed the night at a German run hostel :Wonderbar:. There we were told there were boats leaving in the next 3-5 days. I may well have suggested that we may as well sit out and wait for these boats to be ready on one of the 514 idyllic Islands nearby. Awesomely Gido the Hostel owner (who had lived in the San Blas Islands for 2 of his 19 years on the sea) was glad to give us his friends name and number on Chichimei island who would put us up until further notice.

Oumberto the King, had his brother pick us up from Pourveneir, San Blas, an hour down the sea, and took us to Chichi mei. We stayed in an amazing authentic Kuna tribe outouse with him and the familia for $10 all inclusive from then on.

The most beautiful island I ever met. Full of great people.

Hanging out with Desaiano on the first day, trying to scrimp Radio waves from Metallicas Panamanian debut relayed from the mainland, the first of many amazingnesses.

I received a handcrafted personalised anklet from Desaiano. Not wanting to spend any money =) I decided to teach the dude to juggle, he took to it well, and within 4 hours was juggling confidently, quickly moving to loaded coconuts, imitating my only ever daily attempt at a work-out. Shipwrecked, as dreamed about.

Great Chileans adorned our island with a tent, from a Catamaran. We caught wind of an imminent departing expensive charter ship, but the guys spoke over volleyball of an economic super-direct deal Catamaran returning, which was clearly going to be better.

We lined up the crossing for a quarter of the RRP while baking on the island, on the $1.5 million Maxicat, the only snag was, it wasn´t leaving for another 6 days. !. Game on, St David’s day and many others days in paradise ensued.

Breakfast – Bread con egg
Lunch (when they could be bothered) – Fish and Rice
Dinner (At some point when it was dark) – Rice and Fish.

We then boarded the amazing catamaran and after a rough 35 hours at sea, a University of 20 dolphins (and the flying fish who flew 30m to avoid them) lead us happily, towards the now alien, earthy aroma of soil. A new continent.

Hola Colombia. Safe, xxx!

In other News

* Some dweebdog Australians kept us awake for 10 hours so their Vegimite now sleeps with the fishes.

* I´m homesick, but hoping to stay strong/away.

A la orden.

A Costa Rican nutshell.

robrobjos — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:31:00 GMT

Reluctantly leave Nicaragua, feel sad. Hit infamously slow border crossing between Nicaragua and Costa Rica (because of age old rivalry, feuding, mutual discontent) queue in several seemingly needless passport queues for hours, enter Costa Rica.

Still need to locate the 7 hour bus to San Jose, step out of super-cooled passport office, hit heat, see 70 person bus queue, shoulders sink. A pumped-up Chevvy wagon containing 3 young guns from Australia swings into a free parking space next to my feet, they spring out.

"Yo!" I say,
"Yo!" They reply,
"A donde va?" ("where are you going?")
"San Jose, you need a lift?"
"That'd be awesome, Gracias!"

Goodbye 9 hour queuing and bus session, Hola open road, new amigos and freedom to roam. Much rejoicing.

(On the road we passed a large jail on the Pacific coast, near Puntarenas the biggest port in Costa Rica, perched on a hill, great views over the port and sea. n.b. Location. Location. Location...)

Arrive San Jose, Barrios California, party on.

(Barrios California reminded me of the amazing Friedrichain district of Berlin, ample street art, dark alternative bars and streets lined with friendly people with individual fashions. Excellent.)

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Having both grown up with Mike who spoke of his family in Costa Rica , we were overjoyed to go and stay with the half Welsh born Lloyd family, who own the British School in San Jose. We enjoyed fine dining in a lovely house in the city which bought me enough time to create the latest figment of my imagination..

http://www.souvenirsforeyesandears.tumblr.com

..today's Souvenir update coming from our time in Costa Rica, check check, we love guns!

How did it happen? Over dinner at an American Biker Bar we're tucking into some Buffalo wings, when we get to the subject of guns, the boyfriend of the Daughter of the family, mentions he runs the gun website for the whole of Costa Rica, and to illustrate the fact, pulls out a polished black 9mm pistol from his pocket. Sweet. Game on!

7am the next morning we climb Volcan Paos, to find the clearest views ever seen by my hosts, who marvel at a part of the crater they've never seen before. Feeling very lucky I took some panoramic shots and offered them along with a batch of fresh Welsh cakes as a gesture of goodwill in return for the overwhelming hospitality. Next stop Rancho Amazonia, blasting quarry come shooting range.

Picking up Sam, some imported Stella Artois (for proping) and furthermore the arsenal of sports 9mm's and a semi-automatic AK47, we headed to Ammunation(?)to pick up the shells. Loaded, we weave our way through the insane traffic across and out of town town to the danger zone shooting range. We spent the afternoon terrified of the seriousness of handling deadly weapons, but also learning from a great tutor, laughing and blasting watermelons! Evidence of the happiness...

AK47 Video

After San Jose we headed to Puerto Viejo, a crazy party town on the beach in a rain forest near the Panamanian border. The memorable moments that don't involve partying being the beautiful cloud forest landscape on the way in and out, and the Spear-gun owning Isreali who we're still traveling with now, marine kill count 5, stories to come in the next update. Writing this in smoggy Panama city, heading to Colombia tomorrow by boat via the San Blas Islands we hope, wish us luck.

In other news:

* Blood was shed on the soil of Costa Rica, after a dancing disagreement with a local narcotics dealer. Nothing serious.

* Coffee plantations have trees as borders which shade the plants for part of the day, as the coffee bean doesn't like continuous exposure to the sun.

Hasta luego,
Robrob
x

Perfect Nicaragua

robrobjos — Tue, 2 Feb 2010 15:38:00 GMT

Previously on the robrob show I´d just escaped rainy rainy Carribean Island Utila in Honduras, just in time it seems as the rain continued for many more days and Sam had to charter a light aircraft to fly off the island, which sounded like super funny if a little budget busting.

Leon was my first stop in Nicaragua, a beautiful small colonial town covered in murals paying respect to various armed struggles and revolutions. The centre piece for the city is a massive cathedral which for a small bribe the guard will allow you to explore. My breakfast normally involed a 25p bumper bag of fresh fruit consumed while dangling my legs over the edge of the Cathedral, admiring the view over the city to the range of a dozen volcanos, blissful.

Being such a relaxed, relatively small city which was pleasant to stroll around seemed the perfect place to finally get some Spanish study done, so I´d spend my days cooking and listening to hours of Pimsleur learn Spanish on the mp3 player. Amazingly the lessons worked a treat and I´d spend the rest of the day testing out my Spanish on shop workers and quizzing them on the various goods they had to offer. This led me to discover one of the highlights of Leon, the second hand stores! They sell all sorts of stuff with some clothing gems if you´re prepared to hunt for them, photos to follow.

An observation I´d made was since arriving in Nicargua was the amount of 80´s rock music being played by shops, bars, markets stalls and cars was very noticable, after the months of pure Reaggeaton http://tiny.cc/gasolinaaaa throughout Mexico and Central America, I then realised that a lot of the items being sold in the 2nd hand shops were retro 80´s toys etc. A theory I heard later down the line was that as Nicargua was going through a revolution and some serious changes were happening through the 80´s that, the music and items are Nostalgic and a pleasent reminder of change, sound plausible. I´ll give a visual and audio example of this when I get my ´Souvenirs for eyes and ears´ blog set up, it´s going to be sweet, watch this space.

After nearly a week in Leon I aimed to catch the 12;30 bus to Esteli in the Northern Highlands, giving me enough time to run round the city taking photos, I entered a building which had an interesting staircase on a quest to satisfy my passion for roofs. Only to be stopped on the staircase and told to wait, a jolly nice gentleman then came, took me onto the roof. Where he plucked us some mangoes from a nearby tree, we then we chatted about the volcanoes and admired the view, munching mangoes like apples, he refused to take any money for his time, the icing on the amzing cake called Leon. Hasta Luego Leon, I´ll be back.

So next up was Esteli, Nicargua´s second university city, it´s a bit of a one horse town and relatively expensive, the Graffiti scene is big there so I spent a few days renting a bike and admiring the street art. I also felt quite energetic and cycled to the highest point I could find to see the city from above, meeting a real cowboy on the way, strolling by on horseback as I rode past sweating on a ladies bike with front mounted basket, I think the manlyness competition was won by the weathered cowboy complete with cigerette in mouth and well worn hat atop a strapping horse complete with branding.

Esteli was fun but after the cowboy adventure I wanted to see some more of the remote highlands so I woke up early on Saturday morning and started hitching towards Tisey, A family in a people carrier stopped quite soon into the potential 15km walk and motioned that they had no room inside, because of the muchos ninios aboard but I could hang on the side, I said ´Si, bueno´ and off we went. They took me maybe 5km but weren´t going any further, no money expected again and I was clkoser to my destination. The road then became insanely steep as I trecked up for what was probably vertical 12km, unsure if I was actually going the correct way I stopped at the only shop I´d seen and asked if there was such a place around called Eco-Posada (lodge), some confusion but then the lady remebered there was and that it was ´just´ another 3km uphill, my reaction of fained celebration and some broken Spanish made the poeple there laugh, which felt like a breakthrough in my learning of the language, as I´d succeeded to make peopel laugh in a new language, whoo hoo! 25m into the final leg, another famnily stopped in a pick up and gave me a ride to the exact destination I was aiming for, life is sweet!

So my time at the Eco-lodge consisted of hours of Mp3 spanish lessons on top of the nearby hill/mountain, practisiing my juggling and eating rice and beans. There was no-one there who spoke English which was great for me, the lodging were super basic and very cheap, solo time in the great outdoors. I heard there was a crazy sculptor who lived nearby and set out to find him, after an hours walk through fields I found my man. An eccentric looking white wirey haired chap who was very keen to give me a tour. He had a large section of hillside which he´d planted bananas, coconuts, pineapples and organic coffee, interspersed between these were rocks which had been carved into various animals objects etc. It was a nice walk and we were zig zagging up the hillside to his Pièce de résistance, a 30 foot cliff face carved into an ever evolving mural of animals, biblical figures, an interpretation of his verios of downtown New York(?) and a Helicopter which had once flew past. A in a carvey amazing place, I showed him my apprection for the craftmanship and we sat on a bench looking out over the amzing rolling hills of Nicaraguan forest, what a dude.

Ok enough lonely time, so I headed back to Esteli to read an e-mail that Sam and crew had made it to Granada, Leons rival city, I hopped on various buses and made it to Granada before sunset, travelling quickly through Managua the capital which was a hectic sprawling city with a strange vibe.

Granada was like a touristy version of Leon which I didn´t like too much, but we made a day trip out to Laguna de Apoyo which is a crater lake, perfect for swimming and a very peculiar site to see, a circular lake sitting in a volcano crater.

Lago de Nicaragua is the biggest lake in cenntral America and contained within it is an island made up of two large volcanos, Ometepe. It also has a little island just off the coast called ´Monkey Island´ bit of a nerdy game reference but having grown up playing Monkey Island on the computer it was always an essential trip! So feeling like the swashbukling Welsh pirate Henry Morgan (who actually took over Granada with 12m canoes, some rum soaked merry men and got lots of riches) I set off for the water and to find Monkey Island!

Ometepe was incredible, we stayed at a place with a dock where we´d swim as the sun went down. Hiked the smaller Volcano called Madera, we took sandwiches, a tour guide and a bottle of Skotch. What more do we need. The hike was very tecnical and involved a fair bit of swinging through branches to get through the thicket, but we made it, and the views were beautiful. Looking over towards the higher Volcan Conception which was heavily fuming and is rumoured to be about to pop in the next few weeks, we chilled at the summit and toasted to a job well done, now for the wobbly descent.

We hired motorbike the following day figuring it´d be a nice way to see the island and the fact there were hardly any cars would mean it would be safe. The roads were rubbish with loose gravel and rocks and our abscence of motorbike skills meant it was a wobbly start, we picked it up ok after some top tips from a local chap called Elvis who popped out of the bushes next to where we´d had an unplanned lie down with the bike. It was an amazing day and we circled the volcano in around 4 hours, getting back in one piece with a few posed badmen on motorbike photos as souvenirs, result!

The following day an amiga and I hired kayaks and set off for Monkey Island! Sam had been the previous day and had been attacked by the monkey with the big balls as he´s not so keen on males hanging out with his seven monkey wives on the island, the situation ended with a few punches thrown from both sides but thankfully no bloodshed. So we decided not to dock the boat and taunt the monkeys from afar, it was nice, if a little sad as the monkeys had been put there to attract tourists, although unfortunately there´s not enough food on the tiny islands to sufficiently sustain the population, which probably explains why they´re so bad tempered, we threw them some sandwiches which they seemed to enjoy but didn´t change the look of anger on their little faces.

After successful monkey spotting we fancied some more motorbike action and so rented one for a few hours to visit the other side of the island, things were going well until on a dusty back road a pair of scruffy police men pulled us over. The skinny cop starting yabbering hard in Spanish about something, I explained I had a license and gave it to him to see, he passed it to the fat cop who glanced at it then stuffed it in his pocket, this wasn´t a good situation. He then began to demand the keys for the bike which I´d put in my pocket, naturally reluctant as I was hardly convinced they were real police, having shown no ID and no numbers to be seen on their shirts etc, although what they did have were guns. Still unprepared to hand over the keys I tried to get some clarification of what they were going to do with the bike, and couldn´t we just ring the owner to come and resolve the situation? It´s hard to communication in another language when all the words you´ve learnt have been scared out of reach by armed police, and so he just kept shouting ´Llaves!´ and motioning the application of handcuffs etc, so I kept shaking my head, when and how was this going to end?

In the end the police flagged down a passing pick up truck exchange a few words and the bike was taken from my grip and loaded on to the truck, the truck driver drove off, the fat police man wobled off on his motorbike after the truck, the skinny one revved up his bike looked me in the eyes and in a moment of lingual clarity waved and said “See ya later”. Hmmm, well at least I still had the keys. Every eventuality rushing through my brain, mostly terrible and financially trip ending, we decided to hitch hike back to the owner. A truck stopped within a few minutes and we hopped on, bouncing along towards an uncertain fate in the back of a pick up truck with some locals, surrounded by local produce, beautiful views of the volcanoes wondering if this would sour the Nicaraguan experience?

We finally arrived at the owners house after what felt like days, we found him sat round a table with his amigos, I held up the keys and he said “ah great, but where have you parked the bike?” I told the story as it happened in full, clearly shaken up by the situation. Without even standing up he calmly said “Ah right, no worries I´ll make few calls and go pick it up in the morning”
“How much is this all going to cost?” I said.
“Just give me $5 dollars for an hours rental, as that´s probably all the use you got out of it” taking a swig of beer, “Well done for not giving them the keys too, they´re bandits and would have been driving it around all night, do you need your license back?”
“I´d rather never see the police again thanks, they can keep it”
“Ok cool, put it down to experience”

We shook hands and walked away, infinitely best case scenario, elated. Nicaragua rocks. We celebrated that night with permanent smiles and plenty of the local Rum Flore De Cane. Result. The next day we left the incredible Island of Ometepe, sad to leave but having had the most amazing time.

Next stop San Juan del Sur where I´m writing this from, Surf and party central, the first night here we chipped in with a group we were traveling with and hired a three story villa on the hill with pool and partied hard. The following day I went surfing which was tricky to pick up,not being the best swimmer n that but after perseverance and a few tips from various people I got up and rode my first wave, and can now say I know the feeling that only surfers know (Billabong slogan innit). And there we have it, that´s how and why I fell love with Nicaragua, next stop Costa Rica then Carnival in Panama. I´ll keep you posted.

In other news:

· I met the leaf cutter crew, an ant based collective chopping up leaves and carrying them like sails.

· Sam purchased a badman Batman vest from a 9 year old boy for 10 cordobas (33p), both happy, fair trade, it´s ace.

Thanks for reading.

Miss you all
x

The final chapter: Argentina, drawn from memory.

robrobjos — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:55:00 GMT

And so I’d left Bolivia to find amazing Argentina. Still alone and missing home, I arrived in the city of Salta. Similar to Villazon, Bolivia, I felt like I’d landed on the set of a spaghetti western, a good feeling; if only I had spurs on my boots like ‘Billy the Kid’ who was killed not far from here.

I checked into a small hostel, which was so quiet I tried not to knock too hard while getting the receptionists attention. While I was checking in, the lady whispered ‘there’s a place on the corner if you’d like to party?’ Is it that obvious I’ve been dancing for the last 8 months?! Anyway, the idea of dancing didn’t really appeal, am I sick? Yes probably, homesick.

So I made my way to Buenos Aires rapido, feeling I needed to settle for a while, a few craigslist searches later I had a sweet flat in the trendy Palermo district of BA, living with an Argentinian rock and roll band(!). The flat was on the corner of Scalibri Ortiz with a nice accessible roof, complete with turret dome type thing (where my Landlord, the bass player of the band slept) I now had a place to call home, whooop whoop!

The World Cup was in full swing, Argentina were hot, I watched the games at the pavilion on the big screen, and joined the crowds as they hailed king Maradonna as he orchestrated some amazing wins. But in the end the bubble burst, and I felt a million hearts sink.

Couchsurfing.com was again kind to me and I met an awesome gang of ultimate frisbee players from different bits of the world, we played every Saturday, the green spaces of Buenos Aires were delightful, especially in the warming sun whilst scoring a frisbee touchdown!

I was settled and felt at home, I was cured!

A happy month went by in the flat, hanging out with Augus (on the bass) and a group of excellent Colombians whom I'd met, but it was time to travel again, to Patagonia!

It’s whale season and there are Welsh communities there, this is the reason I’ve had my Grandma’s recipes for Welsh cakes and Bara Brith laminated and stowed safely with my passport the whole trip. I’d had plenty of practice baking Welsh cakes along the way, using them as currency, gifts and educational tools (Wales isn’t in England by the way, eat that). And so I cooked the ultimate batch and jumped on a bus to Patagonia.

The bus was comfortable and they served tea, whiskey and champagne, it was a 22 hour journey and so I decided to take the time to think, the road was pin straight and seemed to go on forever, but strangely the end came too soon. I’d realised by now that being forced to stay in one place, be it bus or plane or days on a slow boat is the only time in my life when I stop and reflect, a type of forced meditation I suppose, and I think it's very important.

I was here in Puerto Madryn, 1 hour from Trelew, the area which is home to the majority of the remaining Welsh speakers. The place was vast, flat and somewhat baron, although it was sunny, it was freezing and the average colour of the view was definitely gray. I imagined racking up in a boat having rowed all the way from Wales, back when there was nowhere to get a warm coffee, and shuddered at the thought. It was the original Holiday from Hell, but although it wasn’t quite what the Welsh expected, they still irrigated an almost impossible area, cultivated crops and built a community which lives on. Pleidiol wyf i’m Gwlad.

I arrived in Trelew late and got goosebumps as I saw Welsh flags blowing in the wind. I walked into the first guest house I saw with a welsh dragon on, ‘Ty Nain’.

“Yda’ chi’n siared Cymraeg?” ("do you speak welsh?") I asked the short happy lady,

“dos minutos” ("two minutes") she replied and went to fetch someone...

“Croeso!” ("Welcome!") exclaimed a new tall lady with a beaming smile.

She asked me how far I’d come and how I was doing, in Welsh so pure I thought of my Welsh literature school teacher, surreal! I tried to get over it and although she had no room at the inn, she hooked me up with a place to rest down the road.

Susan had invited me to return for tea the next day, and so I went at 3pm armed with a box of home-made Welsh cakes, the laminated recipe card and an appetite. I presented the cakes and recipe whilst she served me a platter of baked goods along with a pot of strong tea. It turned out Susan was one of 5 Welsh chefs who had recently been sent to North America, representing Wales at a global food conference.

She enjoyed my welsh cakes, noting the subtle differences that time and distance had changed. We had a nice chat, I continued through the platter although I feared sweet bakes would soon be coming out of my ears, it was like a mixed grill made of cakes. Included in her grateful farewell was a gift, a signed copy of her recipe book, a token of appreciation she said, for sharing our recipe, she rules. Wow.

Overwhelmed, I got the bus back to Puerto Madryn and met an amazingly friendly Argentinian couple at the hostel, they kindly adopted me, and we spent a few days driving around the main wildlife observation points, drinking mate, the Argentinian tea, picnicking and imitating the sea lions.

The Whales need a shallow 3m of sea to mate and that’s why this beach is perfect for them and us, the way the water dips suddenly to 3m at the shoreline, means you can observe these magnificent creatures up close. We ate asado sausages, watched the courting beasts and listened to this... Aphex Twin - Cliffs

Harmony!

The next few days continued the theme of amazing smiley Argentines and wildlife, but also with new found celebrity status, the Welsh dragon patch I had pinned to my rucksack ignited passion in the locals, “...your people built this city” said an Italian panini making man with a look of total respect.

It was time now, I had completed the only real mission I’d come away with, and with incredible luck, mucho suerte. Trading smiles and Welsh cake recipes with a world famous chef, and, don’t tell customs but, I had a sample of the goods in some paper for my Father to taste test, must get home before it goes stale...

“Iesu mawr, llawer o flas arna nhw, ma rhei fi’n well!” (“Crikey, not much taste to them is there!? Mine are better”) - Dad

Arriving home I realised two things, I missed seeing my family so much and Dad may be biased when it comes to Welsh cake competitions. =)

Thank You kind World.

In other news:

While in Trelew I spent some time hanging out at the Welsh museum with the really interesting dude there, I served Welsh Cakes to the visitors that came from worldwide as I had a good supply, and the owner thanked me for adding another layer to the experience.
I met an amazing person on a language exchange who's made my stay incredible, happiness. Amor.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

End of transmission & trip, but this isn't the end.

Fiery Guatamala and a Carribbean Christmas!

robrobjos — Wed, 6 Jan 2010 05:24:00 GMT

It's been a while and the year is now 2010. Happy New Year and hope everyone is well, NYE was spent literally rocking a second storey pier construction, dancing forever to the minimal techno scene which strangely dominates here on the Island of Utila, Honduras. 5:30 am the sun comes up, a boat pulls up and serves a massive vat of soup to the remaining party, excellent! Since then though it has rained continuously for 4 days, hence the lengthy journal update.

When we finally managed to leave Mexico we headed to Antigua, Guatamala, which in comparison our previous location San Cristobal, Mexico was quite similar with it's small colonian town feel, but with lots of added Gringos. Antigua's distinction lies in the fact it is nestled between three towering volcanos which dwarf the town. One of the volcanos, volcano Pacaya had our name on it, so we put on our marching boots and signed up to meet our first volcano.

The walk up the volcano was pretty tough with the first 100m almost vertical! I think everyone there thought it was some sort of joke until it leveled out a bit, and turned into a one and a half hour steady climb. The terrain changed a fair bit with us being encouraged to run as fast as we could down some volcanic sand at one point, then further up with the more recent dried lava it became very brittle and we started to be able to feel the heat, and see some glowing red through the cracks in the rock, pretty incredible. We then came round the side of the volcano and could see the summit smoking away gently, this was as close as we could get to the top mentioned the guide, (who's calf muscles looked like solid steel after a routine of twice daily volcano marching), as it gets too unstable farther up, but he motioned for us to follow him over a stepping stone style route around another corner.

Around this corner was the insane sight of an 8 foot wide river of molten lava, feel the heat! The guide used his stick to scoop up some lava and lit a cigeratte, bad man! After this awe inspiring sight and before it got too dark we started off down the volcano.

Half-way down we stopped to sit and rest as an old, wise looking volcano man in a cowboys hat appeared to talk to the guide and tell him some stories, I couldn't understand half of what he was saying unfortunately but his voice was full of experience and this man with the backdrop of the volcano, the flowing lava, a sky bursting with stars and the a trail of other head torches coming down the side of this enormous and amazing piece of landscape, was a moment I'll never forget.

Next stop was Santa Cruz on the edge of a large lake called Lake Atitlan, we arrived late and there was only two options of accommodation, both large opulent places owned by foreigners happy to take our money for a place to stay but also seemingly keen to explain that we had missed dinner and they weren't willing to rustle anything up for us. We asked maybe if the traditional town of Santa Cruz 20 mins up the steep hill may be an option, but were told "No, all the shops close at 5, there's only one restaurant and that's probably closed down by now, so I'll make you a cheese sandwich take it or leave it" said the less than polite lady at one of the places.
"Leave it, cheers"

Unconvinced that the locals would all be tucked up in bed at 6:30 we hiked up the hill to see what we could find. The town was noisy with a 5-piece Guatamalan band practicing their set in a small Church, while kids played football in the central court. The shops were all still open and they directed us to a restaurant which had indeed closed for the evening but were happy to make us some traditional food if we could wait 15 mins.

We had a look around the shops while the meal was prepared, to find what would end up eating into our budget for the next couple of weeks, Pyrotechnics! Fireworks of all shapes and sizes and extremely cheap! We filled our bag with fireworks and a couple of bottles of the the local beer 'Gallo' and went to be seated on the roof to eat our meal. It wasn't the tastiest meal in the world but it was served with a smile and the beer washed it down a treat, as we looked down the hill towards the place we were staying on the edge of the lake thinking, "How can they live so close but yet be so isolated from this community?"

Regardless we'd paid our money to stay on the edge of the lake, so bought a few more beers for the evening, had a freestyle firework display on the pier and finished the evening with a wood fired midnight sauna. Sweet!

Christmas was coming and although we'd moved from Santa Cruz over the lake to San Pedro, which had a better vibe with excellent people and lots of fun, it still wasn't where I imagined myself at Christmas. So I set off solo to find myself a place for Christmas. It didn't seem like I'd made the right choice as the first night away in Rio Dulce I'd arrived at a hostel late and spent the night at the end of a pier in a dorm for 40 people but totally alone, I slept with my eyes open and carried on the journey in the morning when everything looked friendlier. I got a boat to Livingston which is right on the Carribean coast in between Honduras and Belize. Stayed there one night but it still wasn't right for Christmas, ahhhh 3 days to go!When I was younger I'd read an article on Belize and the postcard image of the blue hole and white sand beaches was still fresh in my mind, Belize was inviting me for Christmas.

It was an amazing high powered private boat ride from Guatamala over to the coast of Belize which felt like some illegal border crossing, but we docked, passed through customs ok and were in Belize! Belize's laid back Carribean vibe hits you straight away, with people on bikes zig-zagging slowly, whiling away time, slower reggea beats fill the air and everyones speaking English, but Creole English which is a rasta-fied dialect which can be hard to grasp at first.

I made it to Caye Culker for Christmas eve, had met people on the way and was super lucky to book in to a hostel which filled with more super good people. Christmas Eve was drunken with an crash course in sexual dancing by the locals at the late night club. Christmas morning was beautiful with a phone call home at 8am then setting off on an all day snorkling trip at 10am.

The snorkling was excellent and the guide and captain wore Christmas hats, serving as the only reminder of what day it actually was. Regardless of my pretty rubbish swimming skills I still managed to touch a small shark, swim with/scare off a turtle, saw a green bad tempered looking eel with pointy teeth and witnessed the guide dive 10m to 'tag' his name on the flat back of an angel ray in the sand which had collected! 'Tayo', excellent work! After 3 snorkle spots and getting pretty tired, the Reggea was cranked up, the sails were deployed and the barrell of rum punch was cracked open, ready for the slow sail back to the dock.

Christmas dinner was fresh fish cassarole or turkey which I carved, with kilos of trimmings, the whole day was excellent and did the trick to take my mind off home.

In other news:

* Sam's performed on request a 'God's Gift' gig at super religious San Pedro, Guatamala.

* I shared a bottle of Rum with 'Negro Loca' a 17 year old wanna be hip-hop star on a Chicken Bus vehicle through Belize.

So long Mexico, for now at least.

robrobjos — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:40:00 GMT

Hola! We've arrived in Guatamala, but that's another story.

Our last few weeks in Mexico were similarly amazing! It seems that just lying on a beach isn't as straightforward as it seems.

Our first stop was Puerto Escondido which was the closest coastal town Oaxaca City. We stayed at a strange hostel ran by an angry man from Devon, I got bit by his bed bugs quite a bit. Although the area itself was amazing, with an array of beaches, one of which was hosting a 'Sail Fish' fishing competition, we missed the competition but enjoyed closing ceremony 'Miss Sail Fish' female beauty contest. As dessert to the competition we ate dinner on the beach just before the sun went to sleep. As we ate we saw a flock of pelicans gathering, and watched in awe as they dive-harpooned fish from the sea, filling their beaks and bellies, amazing. We spent the rest of the days there perfecting our tans and the art of Waboba. The waboba is an amazing device used in the sea which throws like a ball and skims like a stone, sweet!

Next up was Zipolete, a beach an hour and a half away, renowned for nudism and turtles. We secured a room and were advised that the waves here were fierce and can claim lives (and the locals too apparently), so we treated them both with respect from the start. We played waboba away from the waves before attempting to invent an extreme version of the game, which would be to bounce the ball off the wall of the imposing wave before it broke. Agreed, I launched the ball at the inside of a towering wave, the velocity of the approaching wave and the strength of my pitch meant the wave batted the Waboba as far as the eye could see. RIP Waboba. Donations welcome.

While drinking that evening, our Landlord explained that as the area was so physically volatile he may at some point be forced to face locals in armed battle, and that the strong undercurrents can be favorable for 'tidying up', hesitant to probe further, I nodded, he continued, ever wondered why it's nicknamed 'Playa les Muertos'? ('The Beach of the Dead') At that point the loss of the Waboba ball seemed somewhat insignificant.

Ok, moving on!

Onwards to Tehuantapec, where Sam's friend lived, we arrived late and were swooped up by Michael and his friend in his super awesome jeep, we all drank beer as we drove to his house. His house in a small village outside was nice and cosy after a long travel, 'Wanna play in a Mexican football tournament in the morning?'
'More than anything' we said.

The goals were only slightly wider than the screen you're probably reading this on! Or maybe 1.5m in reality, the ball was a size 3, which is very small compared to the size 5 we play with in the UK, the ball was a 'Futball Sala' which kicks like heavy football but doesn't bounce! We were playing on the University staff team versus the students, who were super fast! Excuses aside, I scored a back in heal in the first game! We won the game after Sam playing in goal, stopped a million power shots from the opposition and Michael scored a beauty, if slightly illegal, power shot! The tournament lasted all afternoon and we lost out to the team who won the cup. Da nada.

Next we visted San Cristobal, Chiapas, 2,100 meters above sea level, it was amazing but my fingers are tired.

In other news:

* We ate an Iguanas head for dinner

* I hung out and photographed people doing Parkour at the incredible meyan ruins in Palenque.

* We reinacted a scene from Predator at the official waterfall from the movie.

* met my first hummingbird, they're amazing.

Hope everyone is ok,
x

Turning into a taco...

robrobjos — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:46:00 GMT

I think I may be turning into a taco, but it`ll be a submissive transition if it happens. Still in Mexico and the food here is still amazing.

We are now in Puerto Escondido after a busy week.

We watched Lucha Libre at Arena Mexico last Thursday, which was amazing after we had adjusted our seating position from second class to Ringside! We saw all shapes and sizes take to the ring and fight it out, there was a royal rumble style ladies bout, a tag team event with a side order of dwarf dressed in fur, and the main event with Strongman and Mystico! Mystico being the man of the moment and all round superstar, Strongman the strongest man I may ever have seen, muscles on muscles. We shouted and cheered all night, well until someone threw a cup at my head. We also had an enthusiastic local man sat beside us who had a bag full of the wrestlers masks to wear on his hands as they taught each other lessons in wrestling, excellent!

The morning after, having slept for a good 2 hours we were on our way with Leonardo, our Couchsurfing hosts brother, to the American Football game at the UNAM. Leonardo had taken us to Club Dubai after the wrestling, so we were all in the same boat regarding sleep. Regardless, spirits were high as we had Octavio our host, playing as wide-receiver for the Puma´s to look forward to. We arrived at the beautiful stadium and took our seats among the ~40,000 strong crowd. The game went well with the Puma´s emerging victorious, securing a place in the final on Friday 20th against and in Monterray. After the game we went for a meal with Octavio and family as we were leaving the next day, then we joined the football team for celebratory drinks. Most of the team were like slightly smaller versions of Strongman, but not as agressive. They were in fact very accomadating, we all drank lots of Ron (rum) and cheered. After a good night, drawn to a close over several tequilas and a handful of bear hugs, we were on our way home, 3 hours before the bus left for Oaxaca City. (Oh-wha-hacka City I´m told)

Arriving at Oaxaca City at 4pm we could see instantly although still a large city, it was going to be a more relaxed affair than Mexico City. Our new Couchsurfing host Carlos picked us up from the Bus Station and took a tired Sam and Rob to his parents house. Carlos showed us to our room and we slept for a few hours before waking to hear the plans for the evening. We headed out to eat their local dish with Carlos and his friend Rodro. The local dish was a massive flatbread folded in half filled with a mixture of meat and their local speciality ´Mole Negro´, which is a chocalate based sauce, very tasty. We ended the evening at a pool party as it was someones birthday, whoo!

The next day we explored the city which is like a traditional Mexican town combined with the good vibe and style of Barcelona. We ate some grasshoppers at the market and Sam devoured 3 live wriggling worms, the worms he said, tasted like tomatoes, I tried the dead versions, and he was right. We spent the evening chatting and drinking at a rooftop bar, I may have mentioned my love of roorftops, good roof. We were given the keys to Carlos´ spare apartment which also coincidently had a good roof, and enjoyed a guided tour around some local attractions during our stay, one which ended at a mescal factory, mescal being the local spirit here in Oaxaca, it´s brewed from cactus and makes you act strange and see weird things. Note to self: Go easy on the Mescal.

We left Carlos´ apartment and continued our journey here to Puerto Escondido, today we saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time, and it´s amazing. After a busy start to the trip, now it´s beach time.

In other news

* Sam starred in a photoshoot

* There´s a 3-day fishing competition starting here tomorrow (We may make press passes)

* Staying in hostel pales in comparison to the experience of Couchsurfing.

Adios, missing everyone.

Hola Mexico City!

robrobjos — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:48:00 GMT

After the slightly crazy and emotional 3 week leaving party, we were finally on flight AF438 to Mexico City, whoop whoop.

We arrived around 6:30 local time to a less than smooth passing through immigration, the Mexican Official literally picking holes in Sam´s less than immaculate Passport, we were allowed through in the end as long as we behave, I´m assuming that´s what she said, my Spanish not being up to speed yet!

We stayed at a Hotel the first night, did a little exploring, ate a scorchingly hot street burger and drank some Sol. The intensity of the day and trying to adapt to the new altitude then put us to sleep.

The second day we walked the streets exploring the surprisingly calm neighbourhood and stumbled across a street exhibition of massive psychadelic monster creatures (photos to follow of course), we checked out of the hotel to make the journey to our Couchsurfing hosts house.

We arrived at Octavios place which is in a nice district called Coyoacan, around 6, to be greeted by our host himself who opened a nicely painted large metal gate in the 20 foot perimeter wall. Inside we met his family and were shown around his home, a beautiful slightly european looking place. "You will be staying in here" he says as he shows down a short corridor to a room with sofa bed, en-suite bathroom, several framed completed jigsaw puzzles (animals of the kingdom being my instant favourite) and 4 foot TV & home theatre system, "nice, gracias" we both say. We unpack our stuff and fall asleep, jetlag wins again.

We had planned to stay here with Octavio en la famalia from Tuesday for 2-3 nights, but he kindly invited us to watch him play in a University American Football match on Saturday, which we accepted. It´s the rival match in the semi-finals and promises to be fierce. It´s being played at the University (UNAM) stadium, the same match last year sold out, the 60,000 capacity stadium!! I guess that´s why they call it University City. Whoo!

In other news:

* Pulled by La Policia for being la Tourista, think they wanted to take some money but decided against it.

* Went to a Darwin Lecture at the collage with Leonardo, Octavio´s brother

* Off to watch Lucha Libre (Mexian Wrestling) tonight in Downtown.

Our next stop will be Oaxaca City where we´ll hopefully find another Couchsurfing host, then it´s to the Oaxaca coast and Beaches before Guatemala!

Hope everyone is well.

adios

p.s It´s been a luxury to have the time to write but will try and keep the journal updated when I can, I´m drawing a little note as each day passes anyhoo.

Photos: Bolivio

robrobjos — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:53:00 GMT

bolivia for blog

Photos: Argentina drawn from memory

robrobjos — Sat, 30 May 2009 05:53:00 GMT

Photos: Peru for blog

robrobjos — Wed, 6 May 2009 00:43:00 GMT

Photos: adios mexico

robrobjos — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:36:00 GMT

Photos: colombia

robrobjos — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:34:00 GMT

Photos: Mexico city and beyond!

robrobjos — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:15:00 GMT