today´s blog is divided into 4 sections as follows
1. a competition!!!!!
2. some unanswered questions
3. miscellaneous comments
4. an actual update
1. competition!!!!!
something stupid happened to us on saturday. can you guess what it was? (laura inti, you are not allowed to post a comment about this as you know the answer). everyone else, please post comments on blog. prize for nearest correct guess is a free flight out to visit us. it really was the stupidest thing that we have done so far. but not dangerous so please don´t start panicking. in hindsight it is beginning to become vaguely amusing, but definitely not fully amusing quite yet.
ps if we don´t get enough responses with ideas, we won´t disclose the answer...
2. some unanswered questions
why do mosquito bites itch so much and for so long, do they inject poison into you when they bite you?
why do they use air bricks out here instead of solid ones, is it better for insulation, or is it cheaper in terms of resources, or both or neither?
what is the highest mountain in the uk, in metres?
is there a worldwide snowline, above which there is always snow? (we are obsessed with altitude. fyi, we are now at around 1500m)
if there is a full moon in england and you are looking at it from halifax, is a person in eg cornwall seeing exactly, the same full moon, and is a person in eg germany seeing it, and in australia 12 hours later seeing the same moon?
why are there no homeless people in peru, even though it´s really poor?
why is the english language so global, is it due to america´s influence today, or from years ago from the british empire spreading around and the growth of christianity?
what does INRI mean on crosses of jesus?
3. miscellaneous comments
abi fell over a chair in a hotel reception the other day, which was very very funny.
95% of roads in bolivia are unpaved
we saw some chickens actually crossing the road in salta, i don´t think i´ve ever seen that before. we don´t know why they were doing it, but it was definitely funny.
i was so excited to find some ritta sport chocolate one night in cuzco that i ate it all really fast and then had to take a stomach drug to stop me being sick.
the river urubamba in the sacred valley in peru supposedly follows the milky way, and is therefore super sacred.
eucalyptus trees were introduced to peru in the early 19th century to help with erosion, and they also use them to build houses and telegraph poles from. they are supporting beams in houses.
we visited a little village called ccaccacollo where they were weaving, they use cochinille worms blood who live on cactuses, to dye the wool red, and eucalyptus for green, and blue berries for blue and lots of other strange things. we gave a bouncy ball to some children, and a little action figure to a boy and some masks. we also saw a llama spitting.
on day 1 of the inca trail, in the afternoon, as it was an easy day of walking, we played football with the leaders and the porters, on a big dusty football pitch surrounded by the andes. it was amazing fun. i may have written about this already, but it was so good i´m mentioning it again. we won the first game, and lost the 2nd and nearly died from dust and altitude. someone asked me what team i played for usually ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. actually arsenal ladies.
jen got a hat that looked like a bee, so we called her mama abeja for the whole inca trail and made bee noises at her. ironically her only phobia is of bees and wasps.
on the 2nd night of the inca trail me and andy stayed up with the porters teaching them a card game called shithead (or cabeza de mierda in spanish), which was really funny as we really couldn´t communicate the rules properly, and there was 26 of them all staring at us expectantly. victor came to help but then left...
in the cathedral in cuzco there is a saint that single women pray to to find a nice man, there was lots of little letters in his shrine, and i read one of them from a woman saying she just wants a nice man to spend her life with and to have a lovely family with etc. later on in the cathedral there was another saint that men pray to to be rid of these crazy women.
on the inca trail i found a stick and used it to walk with, and called it gandalf as it was slightly reminiscent of the lord of the rings. i left him near the sun gate which overlooks machu picchu so he can look at it forever. we put some sacrificial raisins on his branches.
4. an actual update
so friday me and ab were laura-less and group and leader-less in lima. we spent the morning safe in the hotel, as soon as we ventured out things became strangely surreal. here is a bullet point list:
- we saw a nice cafe to have lunch in, but when we went back to find it it had gone
- an english lady with a guidebook stopped us to ask where she could buy a torch
- we got in a taxi to go to plaza mayor, but changed our minds and went to el museo de la nacion instead, as had heard it was amazing
- we got to museo de la nacion and had some lunch, everything we ordered the cashier got quite frustrated, so we just had some crisps and a piece of chocolate cake, all the sandwiches were chicken so no good for abi
- we found the first part of the museum and all was looking interesting and hopeful, saw some ancient pottery, and gold and silver and costumes, and t-shirts made of gold, they looked uncomfortable
- every floor we then got out of the lift on, there was absolutely nothing there. the lifts kept pinging and going up and down and nobody was getting in or out of them, in fact nobody was anywhere to be seen
- someone told us to go to the 4th floor, so we did, and lo and behold there was a whole exhibition dedicated to that national treasure the POTATO! We fell about laughing at all the little potatoes, there was gold potatoes, stone potatoes, twin potatoes, a potato theatre, pictures made of potato peel, potatoes with eyes, a neon potato sign.
- we left
- we went to plaza mayor to see the cathedral. in an interesting twist of fate, the taxi driver had my question asking tourettes disease, so all the way there, we had to answer questions in spanish from him, such as - are you catholic, do you have brothers and sisters, do you like sport, what is a typical english meal, what famous english authors are there, etc etc. this taxed my little spanish brain, and has made me think twice about asking so many questions
- lots of roads were closed by plaza mayor
- we tried to find the post office as we had a few parcels to post. we found the museum of post offices instead, but a nice man took us to the actual post office
- it took 40 minutes to post 3 parcels, and the post office was not even busy. this is because we had to buy envelopes from a stall outside, then write the letters and addresses and buy sellotape to tape up the envelopes as they didn´t have any stickiness on them. then they weighed them, and told us we shouldn´t have sealed them, and they may need to open them and check the contents. then we had to go down the road to a photocopier and get copies of abi´s passport, which were stuck to each parcel. abi then had to sign a declaration, and put a fingerprint on each parcel´s passport copy. then finally we put them in a letterbox
- meanwhile, lots and lots of policemen were parading round the playa mayor. there was lots of tanks around, with little policemen in them too, who looked quite stern until we got our cameras out then they started smiling and waving
- we couldn´t actually go in the cathedral due to the police procession, and when we returned later a mysterious large wedding was now going on in there. we watched it for a bit, and decided the couple did not look happy
- we went to iglesia san francisco instead to get some church action, and looked down into the crypt and saw lots of exposed bones which freaked us out a lot, so we ran out of there
- we went into a market, and saw a disabled lady in a wheelchair doing a concert. there was one person in the audience, gently swaying back and forth
- we left the market
- we asked some policemen what the hell was going on, they explained it was the founding day of the police force in lima, thus lots of parades and parties. they were very proud and happy and told us what all the buildings in the square were
- we found a pub and went and drank some beer from a massive jug to recover
thus ended our friday in lima
saturday - we can´t report on this yet, due to the aforementioned competition
yesterday - sunday - not much to report. stayed in our hostel room recovering from saturday for most of the morning. ventured out for a bagel and a coffee and cake, and a look round the town. it´s a nice town, cobbly, old, crumbly, colourful, lots of markets selling the usual textiles and crafts. there was an earthquake here in around 1967 from which lots of the buildings are still being repaired. on the drive from guatemala city we were very surprised at the seeming affluence around us, lots of car garages, fast food restaurants, and an obesity problem, which we definitely weren´t anticipating, thinking this was a poor country. good road system, and not half as dusty as peru. there was a massive rain storm yesterday lunchtime, the climate is quite jungly here, hot and humid. the rain lasted for hours and there was a huge river in the middle of the street. we found tourist information but it was closed, so have spent today doing lots of organising of the rest of our time here.
halfway through writing this blog yesterday there was a massive powercut, thus the delay.. nobody seemed to be at all concerned, and the power came back on around 4 hours later.
to conclude as this is getting rather long and potentially boring - last night we had really nice dinner in a pena restaurant - a pena is a place where you can go to eat and listen to local or national etc music. there was a band playing pan pipes and charangos, playing peruvian music ironically. the drummer in it was called bill and was from nashville and now lives here and owns the restaurant. we told him he was living the dream. the power came back on midway through our conversation with bill, to a round of applause.
today - is monday. we have been planning our next few weeks. great hostel breakfast on the roof terrace in the sun. going to eat cake now.
jim, not sure how they refer to el cruncho credito over here, i think they´ve been having a cruncho for a long time hence why they´re all so fat...
x
ps hurricane gustavo has missed us, though storms predicted in most of central america. will let you know if we get blown away.
pps another prize to anyone who has actually read this far.
Sunday, 31 August 2008
Friday, 29 August 2008
papa john
we are now in lima, flew here yesterday from cuzco in the morning. lima is a bit of a dive, but we are only here for the day so going to do some museums and churches etc.
we are now just 2 - me and abi, we delivered laura to the airport this morning at 430am for her flight home via atlanta. the group has dispersed and people have either gone home or are staying in lima for a few more days, so it´s quite sad and strange. i miss having a tour guide, i always like a bit of guidance. i think we´ll be used to it in a few more days but it´s quite a strange feeling. we are missing laura a lot already, hopefully we´ll be able to cope with just each other, we´ve always got our ipods after all. to make ourselves feel better we had a burger king meal and papa john´s pizza yesterday. both were great. and tonight we will go to see batman. we found a mall down by the sea. the sea, incidentally is rather strange and depressing, not very blue, quite misty and lots of waves, and a black dirty beach. it´s different weather here, bit cold but humid at the same time. sorry, my disorientation has made me spiral into boring weather chat....
so our last night in cuzco was great fun, we went to the fallen angel (remember it sarah/siobhan/harriet?), then to a bar called roots, where we danced like idiots, then to a club called mama afrika (ditto sarah/siobhan/harriet), where we stayed for most of the night. suffered slightly the next day, but it was worth the fun that was had. i really miss cuzco and am planning on going back there after my mexico course, i´ve been investigating what volunteer work there is, and there are lots of teaching/general helping out jobs at either schools or day centres for the really underprivileged children, so i think i will do something like that.
for the sake of posterity i thought i should write who our group has been for the last 26 days or so, and write one interesting sentence about them all. so, the first group from buenos aires to la paz was:
me: also known as questions, due to the amount of questions i like to ask. potentially going to end up in prison for trying to steal cute peruvian children. so far, has lost: pair of glasses, nice pen, necklace (lost on same day as purchase - impressive).
laura: we wanted to call her inti which means the sun, but this might be asking for trouble as the sun god might have struck us down. laura discovered she is allergic to horses on this trip, but would like to carry on horse riding in england, perhaps wearing a mask. left her bank card in 2 different cash machines, but got it back each time. so far, has lost: baseball cap on a bus, and kept thinking she´d lost lots of other things but then found them again. did you ever find your buff inti?? buena suerte laurita for returning to work on monday, we will be thinking about you and your classroom and your cats marley and jack. don´t forget us, and i think you should try speaking to everyone in huddersfield in spanish from now on. don´t forget to try out the quechua on your class.
abi: also known as packamama, as she likes to unpack and repack her bag constantly whenever we arrive somewhere. (this is a pun, as pachamama is the andean mother earth god, it made us giggle a lot). also known as mackenzie minute, as we realised her idea of getting ready quickly is quite at odds with ours - a mackenzie minute lasts approximately 10 normal minutes. has a bad reaction to mosquite bites and currently has a deformed wrist and arm from these. has lost so far: flip flops in rio, some makeup (but still looks beautiful ha ha), sometimes the will to live from hanging out with me and laura for too long.
jen: previously mentioned for calling someone a bogey. speaks spanish, french and german, is starting a pgce when she gets home.
charlotte: jen´s friend. also speaks spanish, french, german and is also going to do a pgce.
kate: from birmingham, is a primary school teacher, i danced tango with her. she took lots of photos, and is generally bonkers (in a nice way).
sophie: went to the toilet a lot, was sick after eating a steak and a toblerone one night, is now back in england and works for microsoft.
ursula: from germany, works in paris. juan called her barbara streisland as she had curly hair and looked a bit like her.
carol: from germany as well. abi mistook her for an english person at first as she is so fluent.
aswin: married to carol. has a very good camera. his horse went off in strange directions when we were horse riding, but he said he was used to it being married to carol.
hanno: carol´s brother. likes drinking flamboyant cocktails. is a psychologist so i asked him about my dream i´d had about finding my own death certificate, he said it was a good dream. i wasn´t convinced.
natalie: from french canada, a teacher. swam in the hot springs with me while i did handstands.
marie: from french canada, also a teacher. also swam in the hot springs.
mark: works at linklaters, which is opposite where i used to work - he was there the day the old fire station burnt down so we discussed that. is moving to dubai. he didn´t like my taste in music driving across the salt flats
justine: also works at linklaters, is also moving to dubai, with mark. had a similar eye problem to me, which is interesting as i have not met anyone else with this.
juan: our leader for the trip, from patagonia. likes lady in red by chris de burgh, and wanted to know if listening to this song would be seductive for us english people the same way it is for him apparently. is going to open up his own hostel in patagonia soon. i would ask him for a job but i don´t think he´d want to employ me since i spent most of the time practising my spanish insults on him. was a really good leader, especially on the burger king and cinema day.
in la paz, sophie, mark, justine, natalie, marie and ursula left us. and we got 3 new people, who were:
corey: from canada. likes the film napoleon dynamite.
hui: also from canada. had a good camera, which was also waterproof. likes asking questions, which is a quality i appreciate.
dena: from california and iran. bought lots of peruvian clothing, including stripy trousers. has a masters in brain technology.
rod: our leader. he owns 121 hats apparently, 17 of them came on the trip with us and to our joy we discovered one of them was pink on day 2. he´s from lima and was previously a teacher. he has done the inca trail 12 times, once without porters so carried everything himself. was a really nice leader to have, and knew a lot of good places to go eating and drinking.
and on our inca trail (which was all of us except dena, hui and corey) we had 4 others who were:
luke: on a gap year before starting university at cambridge to do natural sciences. asked him my question about the moon, but he wasn´t sure. climbed wayna picchu with me. liked garlic bread and ate it all one night.
andy: on a gap year before going to study music. had some chat about thomas tallis with him, nice to find someone who appreciates early music whilst on the inca trail. was reading captain corelli´s mandolin (not mandarin, that´s a type of orange lucy). did a really nice speech to our leaders on the last day. (not in spanish).
wilfred: from germany but lives in australia. told me i talked too much and that´s why i was always the last person to finish their dinner. was 52 but looked younger.
marie lou: from mauritius but lives in london in highgate. and is a teacher. was very brave going downhills on inca trail as had a bit of a phobia. well done marie lou!
alex: a leader, from cuzco. was very handsome and knowledgeable. had nice fluffy soft hair which we all stroked. was good at football. mentioned hiram bingham (the explorer who discovered machu picchu) 28 times whilst telling us about machu picchu, thus i won the bet on how many times he would be mentioned. we told him he was a fat condor, and that he reminded us of bart simpson. if you´re reading this alex, sorry, obviously this was a joke.
victor raul: another leader, also from cuzco. was also good at football, and knew lots of stories about things, including macchus, who are inca trail bad spirits who come and impregnate you in your tent at night. i don´t think this happened to any of us, but will keep you updated. he had other stories about some other spirits called pistacos, but wouldn´t tell us the stories, perhaps they were too scary. he gave us a lovely massage on day 2. was very caring and sweet and carried charlotte´s bag when she was struggling. we took a photo of him that made him look like a giant. he gave us some rum one night when we were playing cards.
eveylene: another leader, also from cuzco. had very nice long hair. was very good at walking fast. used to work in a hotel and has only recently started doing the inca trail tours. she was very uplifting and positive to us all, and also a very good footballer.
so, that´s that, i know the parents reading this like to know details like this, so i hope that is vaguely interesting for you all. to any of the people mentioned above, if you feel you have been misrepresented here, please contact my lawyers (mark and justine, help!).
we´re off to learn about MORE inca history and look at churches and potentially eat more fast food (if abi allows it). bye for now, next time will be from guatemala, i think there are storms there at the moment, but we have booked a nice hostel with pancakes at breakfast and a games room, so will shelter in that if necessary.
hope everyone is well in england which seems very far away right now. xx
we are now just 2 - me and abi, we delivered laura to the airport this morning at 430am for her flight home via atlanta. the group has dispersed and people have either gone home or are staying in lima for a few more days, so it´s quite sad and strange. i miss having a tour guide, i always like a bit of guidance. i think we´ll be used to it in a few more days but it´s quite a strange feeling. we are missing laura a lot already, hopefully we´ll be able to cope with just each other, we´ve always got our ipods after all. to make ourselves feel better we had a burger king meal and papa john´s pizza yesterday. both were great. and tonight we will go to see batman. we found a mall down by the sea. the sea, incidentally is rather strange and depressing, not very blue, quite misty and lots of waves, and a black dirty beach. it´s different weather here, bit cold but humid at the same time. sorry, my disorientation has made me spiral into boring weather chat....
so our last night in cuzco was great fun, we went to the fallen angel (remember it sarah/siobhan/harriet?), then to a bar called roots, where we danced like idiots, then to a club called mama afrika (ditto sarah/siobhan/harriet), where we stayed for most of the night. suffered slightly the next day, but it was worth the fun that was had. i really miss cuzco and am planning on going back there after my mexico course, i´ve been investigating what volunteer work there is, and there are lots of teaching/general helping out jobs at either schools or day centres for the really underprivileged children, so i think i will do something like that.
for the sake of posterity i thought i should write who our group has been for the last 26 days or so, and write one interesting sentence about them all. so, the first group from buenos aires to la paz was:
me: also known as questions, due to the amount of questions i like to ask. potentially going to end up in prison for trying to steal cute peruvian children. so far, has lost: pair of glasses, nice pen, necklace (lost on same day as purchase - impressive).
laura: we wanted to call her inti which means the sun, but this might be asking for trouble as the sun god might have struck us down. laura discovered she is allergic to horses on this trip, but would like to carry on horse riding in england, perhaps wearing a mask. left her bank card in 2 different cash machines, but got it back each time. so far, has lost: baseball cap on a bus, and kept thinking she´d lost lots of other things but then found them again. did you ever find your buff inti?? buena suerte laurita for returning to work on monday, we will be thinking about you and your classroom and your cats marley and jack. don´t forget us, and i think you should try speaking to everyone in huddersfield in spanish from now on. don´t forget to try out the quechua on your class.
abi: also known as packamama, as she likes to unpack and repack her bag constantly whenever we arrive somewhere. (this is a pun, as pachamama is the andean mother earth god, it made us giggle a lot). also known as mackenzie minute, as we realised her idea of getting ready quickly is quite at odds with ours - a mackenzie minute lasts approximately 10 normal minutes. has a bad reaction to mosquite bites and currently has a deformed wrist and arm from these. has lost so far: flip flops in rio, some makeup (but still looks beautiful ha ha), sometimes the will to live from hanging out with me and laura for too long.
jen: previously mentioned for calling someone a bogey. speaks spanish, french and german, is starting a pgce when she gets home.
charlotte: jen´s friend. also speaks spanish, french, german and is also going to do a pgce.
kate: from birmingham, is a primary school teacher, i danced tango with her. she took lots of photos, and is generally bonkers (in a nice way).
sophie: went to the toilet a lot, was sick after eating a steak and a toblerone one night, is now back in england and works for microsoft.
ursula: from germany, works in paris. juan called her barbara streisland as she had curly hair and looked a bit like her.
carol: from germany as well. abi mistook her for an english person at first as she is so fluent.
aswin: married to carol. has a very good camera. his horse went off in strange directions when we were horse riding, but he said he was used to it being married to carol.
hanno: carol´s brother. likes drinking flamboyant cocktails. is a psychologist so i asked him about my dream i´d had about finding my own death certificate, he said it was a good dream. i wasn´t convinced.
natalie: from french canada, a teacher. swam in the hot springs with me while i did handstands.
marie: from french canada, also a teacher. also swam in the hot springs.
mark: works at linklaters, which is opposite where i used to work - he was there the day the old fire station burnt down so we discussed that. is moving to dubai. he didn´t like my taste in music driving across the salt flats
justine: also works at linklaters, is also moving to dubai, with mark. had a similar eye problem to me, which is interesting as i have not met anyone else with this.
juan: our leader for the trip, from patagonia. likes lady in red by chris de burgh, and wanted to know if listening to this song would be seductive for us english people the same way it is for him apparently. is going to open up his own hostel in patagonia soon. i would ask him for a job but i don´t think he´d want to employ me since i spent most of the time practising my spanish insults on him. was a really good leader, especially on the burger king and cinema day.
in la paz, sophie, mark, justine, natalie, marie and ursula left us. and we got 3 new people, who were:
corey: from canada. likes the film napoleon dynamite.
hui: also from canada. had a good camera, which was also waterproof. likes asking questions, which is a quality i appreciate.
dena: from california and iran. bought lots of peruvian clothing, including stripy trousers. has a masters in brain technology.
rod: our leader. he owns 121 hats apparently, 17 of them came on the trip with us and to our joy we discovered one of them was pink on day 2. he´s from lima and was previously a teacher. he has done the inca trail 12 times, once without porters so carried everything himself. was a really nice leader to have, and knew a lot of good places to go eating and drinking.
and on our inca trail (which was all of us except dena, hui and corey) we had 4 others who were:
luke: on a gap year before starting university at cambridge to do natural sciences. asked him my question about the moon, but he wasn´t sure. climbed wayna picchu with me. liked garlic bread and ate it all one night.
andy: on a gap year before going to study music. had some chat about thomas tallis with him, nice to find someone who appreciates early music whilst on the inca trail. was reading captain corelli´s mandolin (not mandarin, that´s a type of orange lucy). did a really nice speech to our leaders on the last day. (not in spanish).
wilfred: from germany but lives in australia. told me i talked too much and that´s why i was always the last person to finish their dinner. was 52 but looked younger.
marie lou: from mauritius but lives in london in highgate. and is a teacher. was very brave going downhills on inca trail as had a bit of a phobia. well done marie lou!
alex: a leader, from cuzco. was very handsome and knowledgeable. had nice fluffy soft hair which we all stroked. was good at football. mentioned hiram bingham (the explorer who discovered machu picchu) 28 times whilst telling us about machu picchu, thus i won the bet on how many times he would be mentioned. we told him he was a fat condor, and that he reminded us of bart simpson. if you´re reading this alex, sorry, obviously this was a joke.
victor raul: another leader, also from cuzco. was also good at football, and knew lots of stories about things, including macchus, who are inca trail bad spirits who come and impregnate you in your tent at night. i don´t think this happened to any of us, but will keep you updated. he had other stories about some other spirits called pistacos, but wouldn´t tell us the stories, perhaps they were too scary. he gave us a lovely massage on day 2. was very caring and sweet and carried charlotte´s bag when she was struggling. we took a photo of him that made him look like a giant. he gave us some rum one night when we were playing cards.
eveylene: another leader, also from cuzco. had very nice long hair. was very good at walking fast. used to work in a hotel and has only recently started doing the inca trail tours. she was very uplifting and positive to us all, and also a very good footballer.
so, that´s that, i know the parents reading this like to know details like this, so i hope that is vaguely interesting for you all. to any of the people mentioned above, if you feel you have been misrepresented here, please contact my lawyers (mark and justine, help!).
we´re off to learn about MORE inca history and look at churches and potentially eat more fast food (if abi allows it). bye for now, next time will be from guatemala, i think there are storms there at the moment, but we have booked a nice hostel with pancakes at breakfast and a games room, so will shelter in that if necessary.
hope everyone is well in england which seems very far away right now. xx
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
arriba abuela
hi fans
sorry for the lack of blog updates, i´ve been very busy for the last week. i´ve not got time to write properly now, but just to say a few things so you get your pickles travelling fix.
here is a small summary of the last week or so
stayed on amantani island with a lovely family. danced in peruvian costume at the incatheque.
got a strange stomach bug during the night. possibly related to the frenzied dancing, and tightness of the costume, but who can say.
visited the reed islands on lake titicaca on way back to puno from amantani. they sang my bonnie lies over the ocean. they did this last time i was there 2 years ago, so this time i stayed in the boat to sleep off my illness and think how surreal it all was.
got bus to cuzco where we stayed a few days. went paragliding over the sacred valley - amazing. had a brilliant paragliding guide called jose luis infantes. he´s a pro, and is sponsored and wins competitions. he is very modest infact, but using the pickles-persistent-question-asking-technique (patent pending) i prised this information out of him, and got his business card too. result. incidentally is the past tense of paragliding paraglid or paraglided?
then did the inca trail over the weekend. this was really amazing, despite the overload of tourists, which you know is my pet hate, but being one of them myself i had to try to be buddhist about this fact. my ipod helped quite a lot re the buddhism. i know it´s a material possession and therefore not technically allowed, but i think buddha would understand under the circumstances. got up at 4am on the last day and walked along watching the sun rise and listening to mozart (yes helie, i am still a massive geek even though a million miles away, some things never change i´m afraid). was quite special. berated the amount of silly walkers with walking sticks, but in my head, not out loud. not the time or the place to be getting annoyed with other people i thought to myself. climed waynapicchu after looking around machu picchu, this is a higher little mountain to the side of machu picchu. it says it takes 2 hours to the top and back, but me and luke did it in 1 hour 10 mins, as we ran most of it so as not to miss the 2pm train back to cuzco. consequently can hardly walk today, but it was definitely worth it for the views from the top.
we had a load of local porters, who carried all our luggage, the tents, the cooking equipment etc for the whole inca trail. they were amazing. regulations came in a few years ago to limit the amount they´re allowed to carry to 25 kilos. before that they would carry up to 50, which is ridiculous given the terrain and steepness and altitude. the 2nd day was 7k up hill. my muscles shook quite a lot. every morning the porters brought us coca tea, left a little bowl of hot water by our tents to wash with, cooked our breakfast, basically totally looked after us, and were really really sweet. they don´t speak much english, so obviously i took the opportunity to practice my spanish on them. i learnt quite a few new words (mono travieso is cheeky monkey). i thought it would be a nice gesture to learn all their names, so as to make them feel more loved than perhaps they sometimes do, so on the last night with them, i read out another of my pre-prepared spanish speeches (along with drinking whisky this is one of my new hobbies), (i will post it on next blog, don´t have it with me today), and at the end i recited all their names to them, to rapturous applause! then we got a kiss from all 26 of them. you can imagine how exciting all this was for me. (just to update, i still haven´t managed to steal any peruvian children, but have unofficially enquired as to adoption).
went horse riding around the ruins of cuzco this morning. very tame horses, which was good as it was on my list of phobias. my horse was called alason, he was very nice, and had a long mane. i practised my spanish on him too, but he was quite unresponsive other than a few snorts, which is generally the reaction i get anyway.
a message for mr and mrs mackenzie and mr and mrs cook, as i know you have been worrying - all the references to drinking that have appeared on the blog, these do generally refer to me, and not to your very sensible and responsible daughters abi and laura. abi is possible THE most sensible person i know, so i always know i can get blind drunk in her company, and i would say laura is the 2nd most sensible person i know. so basically i am in safe hands, but it might not be quite so much fun for them. ha ha. and to mr and mrs pickles, thank you for your total lack of concern to these particular references.
must go for today as it´s our last night in cuzco, so we are going out. some of us might drink alcohol.
more soon, to lima tomorrow, and then to guatemala on saturday.
before i forget, interesting fact of the week. gringo, the term for a foreigner in south america or spain i think, comes from when mexico was fighting america for independence, and the americans wore green uniforms, thus the mexicans would shout at them ´green, go´. thus the term.
adios por ahora xx
sorry for the lack of blog updates, i´ve been very busy for the last week. i´ve not got time to write properly now, but just to say a few things so you get your pickles travelling fix.
here is a small summary of the last week or so
stayed on amantani island with a lovely family. danced in peruvian costume at the incatheque.
got a strange stomach bug during the night. possibly related to the frenzied dancing, and tightness of the costume, but who can say.
visited the reed islands on lake titicaca on way back to puno from amantani. they sang my bonnie lies over the ocean. they did this last time i was there 2 years ago, so this time i stayed in the boat to sleep off my illness and think how surreal it all was.
got bus to cuzco where we stayed a few days. went paragliding over the sacred valley - amazing. had a brilliant paragliding guide called jose luis infantes. he´s a pro, and is sponsored and wins competitions. he is very modest infact, but using the pickles-persistent-question-asking-technique (patent pending) i prised this information out of him, and got his business card too. result. incidentally is the past tense of paragliding paraglid or paraglided?
then did the inca trail over the weekend. this was really amazing, despite the overload of tourists, which you know is my pet hate, but being one of them myself i had to try to be buddhist about this fact. my ipod helped quite a lot re the buddhism. i know it´s a material possession and therefore not technically allowed, but i think buddha would understand under the circumstances. got up at 4am on the last day and walked along watching the sun rise and listening to mozart (yes helie, i am still a massive geek even though a million miles away, some things never change i´m afraid). was quite special. berated the amount of silly walkers with walking sticks, but in my head, not out loud. not the time or the place to be getting annoyed with other people i thought to myself. climed waynapicchu after looking around machu picchu, this is a higher little mountain to the side of machu picchu. it says it takes 2 hours to the top and back, but me and luke did it in 1 hour 10 mins, as we ran most of it so as not to miss the 2pm train back to cuzco. consequently can hardly walk today, but it was definitely worth it for the views from the top.
we had a load of local porters, who carried all our luggage, the tents, the cooking equipment etc for the whole inca trail. they were amazing. regulations came in a few years ago to limit the amount they´re allowed to carry to 25 kilos. before that they would carry up to 50, which is ridiculous given the terrain and steepness and altitude. the 2nd day was 7k up hill. my muscles shook quite a lot. every morning the porters brought us coca tea, left a little bowl of hot water by our tents to wash with, cooked our breakfast, basically totally looked after us, and were really really sweet. they don´t speak much english, so obviously i took the opportunity to practice my spanish on them. i learnt quite a few new words (mono travieso is cheeky monkey). i thought it would be a nice gesture to learn all their names, so as to make them feel more loved than perhaps they sometimes do, so on the last night with them, i read out another of my pre-prepared spanish speeches (along with drinking whisky this is one of my new hobbies), (i will post it on next blog, don´t have it with me today), and at the end i recited all their names to them, to rapturous applause! then we got a kiss from all 26 of them. you can imagine how exciting all this was for me. (just to update, i still haven´t managed to steal any peruvian children, but have unofficially enquired as to adoption).
went horse riding around the ruins of cuzco this morning. very tame horses, which was good as it was on my list of phobias. my horse was called alason, he was very nice, and had a long mane. i practised my spanish on him too, but he was quite unresponsive other than a few snorts, which is generally the reaction i get anyway.
a message for mr and mrs mackenzie and mr and mrs cook, as i know you have been worrying - all the references to drinking that have appeared on the blog, these do generally refer to me, and not to your very sensible and responsible daughters abi and laura. abi is possible THE most sensible person i know, so i always know i can get blind drunk in her company, and i would say laura is the 2nd most sensible person i know. so basically i am in safe hands, but it might not be quite so much fun for them. ha ha. and to mr and mrs pickles, thank you for your total lack of concern to these particular references.
must go for today as it´s our last night in cuzco, so we are going out. some of us might drink alcohol.
more soon, to lima tomorrow, and then to guatemala on saturday.
before i forget, interesting fact of the week. gringo, the term for a foreigner in south america or spain i think, comes from when mexico was fighting america for independence, and the americans wore green uniforms, thus the mexicans would shout at them ´green, go´. thus the term.
adios por ahora xx
Sunday, 17 August 2008
queso grande y senor bag
quechua update- turns out they speak aymara on the island we´re staying on tomorrow night, so they won´t actually appreciate my quechua attempts, but i´m going to do it anyway.
now in puno, had a pretty boring journey here, up early with hangovers after another night at the hard rock cafe. and yes i don´t remember much of it. it´s the altitude... really nice to be in peru, and back in puno which is where we started our bike ride from 2 years ago. it´s not as mental as i remember, but we were suffering from altitude then and there was a big parade going through the town. to my delight, this parade happened again tonight with the same song, i think it must be in honour of me being here. we had a drink in a pub which boosted morale as everyone was flagging a bit from hangovers and day of bus. i gave some money to a homeless woman, and me and abi talked about how the poverty over here hadn´t really hit us properly yet even though obviously we´d noticed it a lot, but coming into puno from la paz there is some really bleak landscape with women just sitting at the side of the road, or in the middle of a field. the scenery is really stunning, huge skies and mountains and great clouds (got some good photos for your cloud club clare), but you wonder how they survive and if they are happy and what do they think about. they seem content, but that´s coming from my privileged western background whizzing past on a bus, and i would like to speak to them properly to see how they feel. in a way, perhaps living hand to mouth, and with more of a community and family focus means you are more content, you don´t have to think about all the things that confuse you like which car to drive, or restaurant to go to, or what mobile phone contract to get. and having less possessions means you must value things so much more, we saw a boy buy a few marbles in la paz from a little street stall, he wanted the whole bag but couldn´t afford it, so he just got a few, and he ran off really happy with them.
we just had dinner in the hotel, we all ordered pasta to keep it quick and easy, but it took 1.5 hours to arrive. they made a phone call and then a man appeared outside and delivered something, and 20 minutes after, we had our pasta. it was cold and a bit stuck together, but it was food. and service is slow over here, you have to be patient. they brought a nice candlestick to appease us while we waited. we tried to eat it.
tomorrow we go and do our night on an island in lake titicaca, they play football with us apparently, that´ll be interesting at altitude, then we have a party, then we sleep in their little straw houses, then come back the next day. i´m really excited about this. we´re going to take a little present, like a tin of tuna or beans for them.
sad that some of the group aren´t with us anymore, we did a toast to them when we had our beer. jen wanted a particular mention, for saying someone looked like a bogey last night. it seemed like a good description after a caipirinha. off for an early night now in preparation for island trip. xx
now in puno, had a pretty boring journey here, up early with hangovers after another night at the hard rock cafe. and yes i don´t remember much of it. it´s the altitude... really nice to be in peru, and back in puno which is where we started our bike ride from 2 years ago. it´s not as mental as i remember, but we were suffering from altitude then and there was a big parade going through the town. to my delight, this parade happened again tonight with the same song, i think it must be in honour of me being here. we had a drink in a pub which boosted morale as everyone was flagging a bit from hangovers and day of bus. i gave some money to a homeless woman, and me and abi talked about how the poverty over here hadn´t really hit us properly yet even though obviously we´d noticed it a lot, but coming into puno from la paz there is some really bleak landscape with women just sitting at the side of the road, or in the middle of a field. the scenery is really stunning, huge skies and mountains and great clouds (got some good photos for your cloud club clare), but you wonder how they survive and if they are happy and what do they think about. they seem content, but that´s coming from my privileged western background whizzing past on a bus, and i would like to speak to them properly to see how they feel. in a way, perhaps living hand to mouth, and with more of a community and family focus means you are more content, you don´t have to think about all the things that confuse you like which car to drive, or restaurant to go to, or what mobile phone contract to get. and having less possessions means you must value things so much more, we saw a boy buy a few marbles in la paz from a little street stall, he wanted the whole bag but couldn´t afford it, so he just got a few, and he ran off really happy with them.
we just had dinner in the hotel, we all ordered pasta to keep it quick and easy, but it took 1.5 hours to arrive. they made a phone call and then a man appeared outside and delivered something, and 20 minutes after, we had our pasta. it was cold and a bit stuck together, but it was food. and service is slow over here, you have to be patient. they brought a nice candlestick to appease us while we waited. we tried to eat it.
tomorrow we go and do our night on an island in lake titicaca, they play football with us apparently, that´ll be interesting at altitude, then we have a party, then we sleep in their little straw houses, then come back the next day. i´m really excited about this. we´re going to take a little present, like a tin of tuna or beans for them.
sad that some of the group aren´t with us anymore, we did a toast to them when we had our beer. jen wanted a particular mention, for saying someone looked like a bogey last night. it seemed like a good description after a caipirinha. off for an early night now in preparation for island trip. xx
Saturday, 16 August 2008
la mommia
hola
so in the end we didn´t see batman, as it wasn´t on, we watched the mummy 3 instead. this is a terrible film, whatever language you watch it in, but it was fun to experience going to the cinema in bolivia. they had some chocolate coated quinoa sweets, but we didn´t try them. quinoa is a grain that grows in peru and bolivia, full of protein and you have it in soup, and with anything basically, but i´m not sure about it chocolate coated so we gave it a miss. i think you can still smoke in the cinema here as i´m sure somebody was.
today we went to the ancient ruins at tiahuanaco, which is around an hour from la paz. this was very interesting, basically the tiahuanacos were around for ages before the incas, and they were much more peaceful, and then the incas came along and massacred them and claimed all their culture for their own, like they tended to do. the incas only actually existed for around 100 years, but seem to have become very famous. they were brutal and stole the culture and iconography from the previous peoples and didn´t actually create their own things, because how could they in such a short period. they are now on my list of people i don´t like, along with that tour leader from brazil you may remember. anyway, our local guide was very informed and i asked him lots of questions, as usual. he had been on a course last year, so he liked answering questions. there was a pyramid and some other things, like walls (very straight), and monoliths of people. these are similar to the easter island statues, and they also had a picture of a crab, which means that the tiahuanacos must have gone to the coast and known the easter island people. a german discovered the site around 1900, so there are some artefacts from it in a museum in berlin. we went round a museum there as well and saw lots of deformed skulls, and ceramics and a mummy. they buried the mummies in the foetal position so they could be easier reborn in the next life, and gave them things to take with them as it was a long journey.
we learnt also that bolivia and chile had a war in 1879, and that jacques costeau (his 2nd mention on my blog, who would have thought it), was the first person to scuba dive in lake titicaca, and that one of the buildings in the ruins was lined up with the stars, that on june 21st they have a festival there to worship the sun, and that part of their pachamama worshipping system is based on the 3 levels of condor-puma-snake, ie the world above, the actual real world on the land, and the land below - not necessarily hell, but the unknown beneath world.
we had a really good lunch for about 1p, which was quinoa and vegetable soup, omelette and chips and rice and vegetables, and orange mousse. the mousse tasted of fanta. i took a photo of a dog and some swings, and then bought a quechua phrasebook, so i can speak to the natives in their native language on lake titicaca. it looks like a very strange language at first glance, not similar to spanish really at all. but i think they will appreciate if we can say a few words to them in it. i also learnt some new spanish words from going round the museum.
tonight we´re going for dinner with our new tour leader, and the 3 new people in our group. then maybe some drinks at the hard rock cafe where we went the other day. i´m starting to smell like a bolivian, i don´t know if that is because of the diet, or lack of washing, or just is that what happens when you spend a lot of time in a country. i brushed my hair the other day which was painful, but it was starting to get scraggly, so it was necessary.
so in the end we didn´t see batman, as it wasn´t on, we watched the mummy 3 instead. this is a terrible film, whatever language you watch it in, but it was fun to experience going to the cinema in bolivia. they had some chocolate coated quinoa sweets, but we didn´t try them. quinoa is a grain that grows in peru and bolivia, full of protein and you have it in soup, and with anything basically, but i´m not sure about it chocolate coated so we gave it a miss. i think you can still smoke in the cinema here as i´m sure somebody was.
today we went to the ancient ruins at tiahuanaco, which is around an hour from la paz. this was very interesting, basically the tiahuanacos were around for ages before the incas, and they were much more peaceful, and then the incas came along and massacred them and claimed all their culture for their own, like they tended to do. the incas only actually existed for around 100 years, but seem to have become very famous. they were brutal and stole the culture and iconography from the previous peoples and didn´t actually create their own things, because how could they in such a short period. they are now on my list of people i don´t like, along with that tour leader from brazil you may remember. anyway, our local guide was very informed and i asked him lots of questions, as usual. he had been on a course last year, so he liked answering questions. there was a pyramid and some other things, like walls (very straight), and monoliths of people. these are similar to the easter island statues, and they also had a picture of a crab, which means that the tiahuanacos must have gone to the coast and known the easter island people. a german discovered the site around 1900, so there are some artefacts from it in a museum in berlin. we went round a museum there as well and saw lots of deformed skulls, and ceramics and a mummy. they buried the mummies in the foetal position so they could be easier reborn in the next life, and gave them things to take with them as it was a long journey.
we learnt also that bolivia and chile had a war in 1879, and that jacques costeau (his 2nd mention on my blog, who would have thought it), was the first person to scuba dive in lake titicaca, and that one of the buildings in the ruins was lined up with the stars, that on june 21st they have a festival there to worship the sun, and that part of their pachamama worshipping system is based on the 3 levels of condor-puma-snake, ie the world above, the actual real world on the land, and the land below - not necessarily hell, but the unknown beneath world.
we had a really good lunch for about 1p, which was quinoa and vegetable soup, omelette and chips and rice and vegetables, and orange mousse. the mousse tasted of fanta. i took a photo of a dog and some swings, and then bought a quechua phrasebook, so i can speak to the natives in their native language on lake titicaca. it looks like a very strange language at first glance, not similar to spanish really at all. but i think they will appreciate if we can say a few words to them in it. i also learnt some new spanish words from going round the museum.
tonight we´re going for dinner with our new tour leader, and the 3 new people in our group. then maybe some drinks at the hard rock cafe where we went the other day. i´m starting to smell like a bolivian, i don´t know if that is because of the diet, or lack of washing, or just is that what happens when you spend a lot of time in a country. i brushed my hair the other day which was painful, but it was starting to get scraggly, so it was necessary.
Friday, 15 August 2008
cockroach sandwich
wednesday
abi and laura went to the silver mines in potosi, i didn´t as i get claustrophobic getting on the tube, so i figured it wouldn´t be much fun. they reported back that it was a real eye-opener, the life expectancy of the miners is around 37, they work for sometimes 24 hours without stopping, and for making 480 bags of silver over 2 weeks between 3 of them, they will earn 200 dollars. which is taxed, but the companies that employ them don´t pay any tax, and drive around potosi in big jeeps. i´m not going to buy any silver ever again now. there is asbestos in the mines, the miners don´t wear any masks, some of them are as young as 12.
instead of doing that, i wandered around potosi, it´s quite cobbly, and more higgledy piggledy than other towns we´ve been to, surrounded by mountains. lots of dust and poverty, and street stalls selling weird looking meat-potato products, that juan told us not to eat ever. i then found la casa de las monedas, which was where they used to mint all the bolivian currency. it´s meant to be very interesting so i went in and wandered around, but all the doors were locked, and eventually i found a little tour, so i joined on to that. it was all in spanish, so i didn´t understand it, but it was interesting to look around and try to figure out what the tour guide was talking about. i learnt a few new words and saw some old coins. abi and laura did the same tour in the afternoon, but in english (so clever), so they updated me, and it turned out i had understood some bits, about pirates, and a box with a lot of locks on it.
after lunch (pizza) (again), i sat in the central square and read my book, and a little boy came and sat with me and we had a conversation. he was called rolando, and was 9, and had a brother, and his little sister had died when she was young, and his mum was a teacher, his favourite subject was drama, and he hated maths - i agreed with him. i told him i was from england, and was waiting for my friends, and i was going to la paz and had he been. he had. i gave him a postcard of john o´groats i´d been using as a bookmark, and a biro, and i wrote some words in english for him. he said he liked the picture on the postcard. he gave me a little cardboard box as a gift, and he showed me a little toy lion he had in his pocket. then after a while he left to find his mum.
we then wandered around some more, and went up a little tower to look at some views, we had a tour guide who asked if we understood spanish. i said un pocito, and then he launched into a huge speech about the history of the town and the tower, and all sorts of things that none of us understood, which resulted in lots of giggling. we felt bad as he was so earnest, so i made up for it by asking some questions, and obviously not understanding the answers. a vicious circle.
we spent the night on a night bus. while queuing for the bus i helped a man who was digging a hole, by shining my torch for him, so he could see the hole better. we had a conversation, but as usual i didn´t know what it was about. i bought a bottle of whisky (it´s my new favourite thing), but after learning there was only one wee stop at midnight, i decided to only have a little bit of it. and no water. slept amazingly well considering.
thursday
arrive in la paz at 630am from night bus at bus terminal. very busy and noisy and lots of policemen whistling the traffic around, they seem to favour this technique, instead of traffic lights, maybe gives them something to do. our bus ran out of petrol about 20 metres from the actual bus stop because the bus company fill the bus up with exactly the right amount of petrol for the journey, having weighed all the luggage on, because otherwise the bus drivers will sell any remaining petrol on.
got to our hotel in pretty bad moods due to earlyness and having slept on a bus, then i went back to sleep. in the afternoon we did a city tour which was really interesting, run by a nice old man called pablo. he doesn´t like the president (evo morales, who the referendum was about the other day, which could have led to the revolution that would have meant we couldn´t come to bolivia), he thinks he is a liar, but seemingly the rest of the country are pleased with him as they voted him in again. he took us to a museum of pedro domingo murillo, who started the revolution in 1809, or 1948, i couldn´t quite figure it out, and will investigate some more. he told us about how bolivians are catholic, but also worship pachamama who is mother earth. i told him i loved bolivia, he said thank you, and so did he, and it was a shame that it has so many resources, and such beautiful countryside, but is so poor and bleak. then he took us to a witch market, where they sell llama foetuses for some sort of witch like reasons, and strange herbs for things. we felt a bit sick looking at llama foetuses.
we went out for dinner and then drinks, as this was our last night with Juan, we have a new tour guide for the rest of the trip. we forgot that we are still at altitude and that alcohol affects you quite a lot, so consequently all got very drunk. but are all still alive.
today
is friday. we woke up around 1.30... got a taxi to burger king to get rid of our hangovers, then a taxi back to the hotel. classy. we now have a meeting with our new tour guide, and then we´re going to watch batman at the cinema. we figured we´re allowed a day of hungover indulgence, as we´ve been pretty good at being cultured so far. today is 3 weeks since we left england, and it´s really nice to think that i´m not coming home until i want to. no offence meant as obviously i am missing everyone back home too.
tomorrow we go to see some ruins. then on to lake titicaca on sunday.
some questions
what is the japanese connection with south america - peru had a japanese president, and there are lots of japanese cars and buses here?
what is the technical grammatical difference between saying
they left without anyone noticing
and
they left without anyone´s noticing
abi and laura went to the silver mines in potosi, i didn´t as i get claustrophobic getting on the tube, so i figured it wouldn´t be much fun. they reported back that it was a real eye-opener, the life expectancy of the miners is around 37, they work for sometimes 24 hours without stopping, and for making 480 bags of silver over 2 weeks between 3 of them, they will earn 200 dollars. which is taxed, but the companies that employ them don´t pay any tax, and drive around potosi in big jeeps. i´m not going to buy any silver ever again now. there is asbestos in the mines, the miners don´t wear any masks, some of them are as young as 12.
instead of doing that, i wandered around potosi, it´s quite cobbly, and more higgledy piggledy than other towns we´ve been to, surrounded by mountains. lots of dust and poverty, and street stalls selling weird looking meat-potato products, that juan told us not to eat ever. i then found la casa de las monedas, which was where they used to mint all the bolivian currency. it´s meant to be very interesting so i went in and wandered around, but all the doors were locked, and eventually i found a little tour, so i joined on to that. it was all in spanish, so i didn´t understand it, but it was interesting to look around and try to figure out what the tour guide was talking about. i learnt a few new words and saw some old coins. abi and laura did the same tour in the afternoon, but in english (so clever), so they updated me, and it turned out i had understood some bits, about pirates, and a box with a lot of locks on it.
after lunch (pizza) (again), i sat in the central square and read my book, and a little boy came and sat with me and we had a conversation. he was called rolando, and was 9, and had a brother, and his little sister had died when she was young, and his mum was a teacher, his favourite subject was drama, and he hated maths - i agreed with him. i told him i was from england, and was waiting for my friends, and i was going to la paz and had he been. he had. i gave him a postcard of john o´groats i´d been using as a bookmark, and a biro, and i wrote some words in english for him. he said he liked the picture on the postcard. he gave me a little cardboard box as a gift, and he showed me a little toy lion he had in his pocket. then after a while he left to find his mum.
we then wandered around some more, and went up a little tower to look at some views, we had a tour guide who asked if we understood spanish. i said un pocito, and then he launched into a huge speech about the history of the town and the tower, and all sorts of things that none of us understood, which resulted in lots of giggling. we felt bad as he was so earnest, so i made up for it by asking some questions, and obviously not understanding the answers. a vicious circle.
we spent the night on a night bus. while queuing for the bus i helped a man who was digging a hole, by shining my torch for him, so he could see the hole better. we had a conversation, but as usual i didn´t know what it was about. i bought a bottle of whisky (it´s my new favourite thing), but after learning there was only one wee stop at midnight, i decided to only have a little bit of it. and no water. slept amazingly well considering.
thursday
arrive in la paz at 630am from night bus at bus terminal. very busy and noisy and lots of policemen whistling the traffic around, they seem to favour this technique, instead of traffic lights, maybe gives them something to do. our bus ran out of petrol about 20 metres from the actual bus stop because the bus company fill the bus up with exactly the right amount of petrol for the journey, having weighed all the luggage on, because otherwise the bus drivers will sell any remaining petrol on.
got to our hotel in pretty bad moods due to earlyness and having slept on a bus, then i went back to sleep. in the afternoon we did a city tour which was really interesting, run by a nice old man called pablo. he doesn´t like the president (evo morales, who the referendum was about the other day, which could have led to the revolution that would have meant we couldn´t come to bolivia), he thinks he is a liar, but seemingly the rest of the country are pleased with him as they voted him in again. he took us to a museum of pedro domingo murillo, who started the revolution in 1809, or 1948, i couldn´t quite figure it out, and will investigate some more. he told us about how bolivians are catholic, but also worship pachamama who is mother earth. i told him i loved bolivia, he said thank you, and so did he, and it was a shame that it has so many resources, and such beautiful countryside, but is so poor and bleak. then he took us to a witch market, where they sell llama foetuses for some sort of witch like reasons, and strange herbs for things. we felt a bit sick looking at llama foetuses.
we went out for dinner and then drinks, as this was our last night with Juan, we have a new tour guide for the rest of the trip. we forgot that we are still at altitude and that alcohol affects you quite a lot, so consequently all got very drunk. but are all still alive.
today
is friday. we woke up around 1.30... got a taxi to burger king to get rid of our hangovers, then a taxi back to the hotel. classy. we now have a meeting with our new tour guide, and then we´re going to watch batman at the cinema. we figured we´re allowed a day of hungover indulgence, as we´ve been pretty good at being cultured so far. today is 3 weeks since we left england, and it´s really nice to think that i´m not coming home until i want to. no offence meant as obviously i am missing everyone back home too.
tomorrow we go to see some ruins. then on to lake titicaca on sunday.
some questions
what is the japanese connection with south america - peru had a japanese president, and there are lots of japanese cars and buses here?
what is the technical grammatical difference between saying
they left without anyone noticing
and
they left without anyone´s noticing
Thursday, 14 August 2008
a continuar
hola otra vez
very sorry my last blog was so factual and not funny enough for you (siobhan). i´m afraid today´s may be quite the same, but i will try harder
sunday
up early had breakfast in our shelter. saw more lagunas and more flamingoes, became slightly blase about them. saw some vicunas, which are related to llamas and alpacas - they are bigger and more golden coloured and very thickly furred. i got bitten behind my ear by a big fat fly, but nothing serious came of it.
had lunch, then carried on driving in the SUVs. i fell asleep and dreamt i was driving along in halifax, by the halifax bank. am obviously a little bit homesick for my local bank. said some more stupid things to the driver like que camino - what a road, and llamas corriendo - llamas running. pretty stupid but it´s good to practise spanish.
that night we stayed in another shelter, in a town called bella vista, which really did have a good view. played basketball with a local little girl and nearly died from running around at altitude. i went to bed early as was tired and slightly sick of being in el grupo. the power ran out at 9pm in this shelter so it was candles after that. some people went for a walk at midnight and thought they heard a ghost puma near them.
monday
went to the salt flats. these are really amazing - it used to be an ocean, millions of years ago, that evaporated and left all the salt behind. in the summer they are a big lake again from the rain, and that evaporates again in the winter when the rain stops and they become salt flats again. very eerie, and so huge that you can´t see the horizon. i will post some photos at some point, as it is hard to describe in words.
we met 3 cyclists from france who were cycling all round the world. i asked them lots of questions, and was in love with them all. their website is http://roulezjeunesse.unblog.fr/ it´s in french so i can´t understand it.
we visited a salt hotel too, it was made of salt. then a train graveyard, helie you would have loved it. sadly my camera ran out whilst there, but i got a lot of good photos already.
we arrived in uyuni later on, and i read out a little farewell speech i had written to our SUV drivers. they didn´t seem to appreciate it but i´m glad i did it even though i looked like una idiota. here it is (final version, having been corrected by Juan)
muchas gracias por llevarnos alrededor de la tierra de la sal
ustedes son los mejores conductores en todo de Bolivia, y tambien en todo del mundo
esperamos que ustedes se divirtieron con los pasajeros inglesos, alemanos y canadiensos en sus camionetas
amamos bolivia
then had our best afternoon so far this trip, perhaps even so far in my whole life of 29.5 years. sat in the park drinking whisky and laughing our heads off, and taking photos of the cute children (and worrying we were going to get arrested), went to the bank and got money out and felt very clever as nobody else did this and the one ATM in uyuni was broken. we saw a dog who looked like he was waiting to get money out too which made us laugh. then went on the ferris wheel at the end of town and screamed our heads off and drank more and more whisky and took photos and videos. nobody else was screaming, it was a tiny ferris wheel. then went to the jewellers to mend my new ring which i´d broken at the train graveyard. had very funny time trying to make ourselves understood by him. danced round a traffic cone in the middle of the street and videod it. basically behaved like tourists who were drunk.
then had to go back to hotel for a briefing, then had pizza. i don´t remember any of this happening but it definitely did as we had some leftover pizza for lunch the next day.
tuesday
bus all day from uyuni to potosi. had to apologise for most of the morning to el grupo for being such drunkards yesterday. amazingly didn´t have hangovers. some bolivian women were standing on the bus all the way (around 6 hours), and one was holding a baby, so i offered to hold it for her, and she let me. i was hoping she would forget i had the baby as it was very cute, but after a while she started to cry (the baby not the mother), so i had to give her back. laura had a slightly older baby on her knee too, but he was a bit unresponsive, even to the spider man finger puppet we showed him. we thought maybe he was blind, or deaf, or autistic. the children here are so well behaved, and grown up, i think maybe it is because life is harsher over here and there is less fun to be had, so they grow up quicker. they are like little people rather than children.
got to potosi, which is famous for it´s silver, it used to be where all the coins in bolivia were minted, but it has since been overmined and is now very poor and dusty. we went out for dinner, but were tired and didn´t have much to say to each other, so nothing to report there. someone was sick as she ate a steak and then a whole toblerone, which made me laugh.
going on a city tour of le paz, where we arrived this morning now, so i will update more soon.
thanks for all emails, sorry i´m not replying, but internet is really really slow here, so i need to wait until i´ve got a lot of free time. xx
very sorry my last blog was so factual and not funny enough for you (siobhan). i´m afraid today´s may be quite the same, but i will try harder
sunday
up early had breakfast in our shelter. saw more lagunas and more flamingoes, became slightly blase about them. saw some vicunas, which are related to llamas and alpacas - they are bigger and more golden coloured and very thickly furred. i got bitten behind my ear by a big fat fly, but nothing serious came of it.
had lunch, then carried on driving in the SUVs. i fell asleep and dreamt i was driving along in halifax, by the halifax bank. am obviously a little bit homesick for my local bank. said some more stupid things to the driver like que camino - what a road, and llamas corriendo - llamas running. pretty stupid but it´s good to practise spanish.
that night we stayed in another shelter, in a town called bella vista, which really did have a good view. played basketball with a local little girl and nearly died from running around at altitude. i went to bed early as was tired and slightly sick of being in el grupo. the power ran out at 9pm in this shelter so it was candles after that. some people went for a walk at midnight and thought they heard a ghost puma near them.
monday
went to the salt flats. these are really amazing - it used to be an ocean, millions of years ago, that evaporated and left all the salt behind. in the summer they are a big lake again from the rain, and that evaporates again in the winter when the rain stops and they become salt flats again. very eerie, and so huge that you can´t see the horizon. i will post some photos at some point, as it is hard to describe in words.
we met 3 cyclists from france who were cycling all round the world. i asked them lots of questions, and was in love with them all. their website is http://roulezjeunesse.unblog.fr/ it´s in french so i can´t understand it.
we visited a salt hotel too, it was made of salt. then a train graveyard, helie you would have loved it. sadly my camera ran out whilst there, but i got a lot of good photos already.
we arrived in uyuni later on, and i read out a little farewell speech i had written to our SUV drivers. they didn´t seem to appreciate it but i´m glad i did it even though i looked like una idiota. here it is (final version, having been corrected by Juan)
muchas gracias por llevarnos alrededor de la tierra de la sal
ustedes son los mejores conductores en todo de Bolivia, y tambien en todo del mundo
esperamos que ustedes se divirtieron con los pasajeros inglesos, alemanos y canadiensos en sus camionetas
amamos bolivia
then had our best afternoon so far this trip, perhaps even so far in my whole life of 29.5 years. sat in the park drinking whisky and laughing our heads off, and taking photos of the cute children (and worrying we were going to get arrested), went to the bank and got money out and felt very clever as nobody else did this and the one ATM in uyuni was broken. we saw a dog who looked like he was waiting to get money out too which made us laugh. then went on the ferris wheel at the end of town and screamed our heads off and drank more and more whisky and took photos and videos. nobody else was screaming, it was a tiny ferris wheel. then went to the jewellers to mend my new ring which i´d broken at the train graveyard. had very funny time trying to make ourselves understood by him. danced round a traffic cone in the middle of the street and videod it. basically behaved like tourists who were drunk.
then had to go back to hotel for a briefing, then had pizza. i don´t remember any of this happening but it definitely did as we had some leftover pizza for lunch the next day.
tuesday
bus all day from uyuni to potosi. had to apologise for most of the morning to el grupo for being such drunkards yesterday. amazingly didn´t have hangovers. some bolivian women were standing on the bus all the way (around 6 hours), and one was holding a baby, so i offered to hold it for her, and she let me. i was hoping she would forget i had the baby as it was very cute, but after a while she started to cry (the baby not the mother), so i had to give her back. laura had a slightly older baby on her knee too, but he was a bit unresponsive, even to the spider man finger puppet we showed him. we thought maybe he was blind, or deaf, or autistic. the children here are so well behaved, and grown up, i think maybe it is because life is harsher over here and there is less fun to be had, so they grow up quicker. they are like little people rather than children.
got to potosi, which is famous for it´s silver, it used to be where all the coins in bolivia were minted, but it has since been overmined and is now very poor and dusty. we went out for dinner, but were tired and didn´t have much to say to each other, so nothing to report there. someone was sick as she ate a steak and then a whole toblerone, which made me laugh.
going on a city tour of le paz, where we arrived this morning now, so i will update more soon.
thanks for all emails, sorry i´m not replying, but internet is really really slow here, so i need to wait until i´ve got a lot of free time. xx
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
salty dog and winnie pig
abba is playing in spanish on the radio in this internet cafe.
sorry to leave a whole week between blogs, you must all be desperate for news..
to summarise-
last wednesday
went on a vineyard tur to cafayate, 100k roughly from salta, stopping en route to look at such natural phenomenons as rocks that look like castles, rocks that form natural amphitheatres, rocks that look like the wind has eroded them, rocks that look like rocks and other rocks. we bought some wine from one of the vineyards, abi stole a rock, i bought a hat, we looked for a post office after lunch in cafayate, but it was closed so we read our books in the sun. (sorry, i´ve been keeping a list of events so i don´t forget them, but it probably doesn´t read well). evening, we went for dinner in a pena place - pena is some sort of traditional argentine dancing and singing, it was very loud and not very good. our tour leader, juan got cross as they brough him the wrong food. a man outside had some telescopes pointing at the moon and jupiter, i took a photo of him.
thursday
early start, bus to san pedro de atacama, in chile. the scenery going from argentina to chile was absolutely stunning, completely overwhelming like being on another planet, and just no people for miles and miles, and then a little person with a llama/child on their back. high altitude today, up to 4200metres, lots of headaches and tiredness as we adjusted. really nice hostel in the town, with lots of blankets. i did some washing and hung it out on their line.
friday
me and ab had a lie in then got up slowly and wandered around and bought a jumper, found a post office (seems to be a recurring theme), saw some dogs fighting. the shop we bought the jumpers in, we paid on our visa cards, and when we gave them to him he had to take us over the road and into a market, where in a little booth was a little visa machine which we paid on. maybe it was shared between all the shops, it made us laugh. laura went horse riding, which she really enjoyed, but then found she was allergic to horses and went all blotchy. abi has had a strange rash too, but it seems to be subsiding now. after lunch we went to the valley of death (a mistranslation - supposed to be valley of mars, but a french person said it, and his accent sounded like he was saying death instead - muerte). we sandboarded, which was fun when you slightly got the hang of it. lots of falling off. our bus was late picking us up so we walked for a bit, then they drove us to a big hill in the desert to watch the sun do what it does best - set. the sky was amazing colours, sadly my little camera doesn´t do it justice. there is a volcano nearby with a lake on top, where according to local legend a diver who was friends with jacques costeau found a perfectly spherical crystal sphere, which when he picked up went very hot and he dropped it back in and it became embedded and never able to be found again. apparently you are supposed to ask the locals what they think of this, so i asked sebastian who was teaching us sandboarding, but he had a strong accent and i couldn´t understand his answer. at least i tried though. he was impressed i knew about it. i then had a very strange dream about it, along with dreaming i found my own death certificate - any idea what this means anyone?
saturday
bus to bolivia today. minibus was too small for us and all our luggage so it was a bit manic, and juan was cross again. bags all in the aisles and on top of us. health and safety isn´t big in south america, dad you would have a field day pointing out all the potential death traps. the night before, juan had briefed us on our next few days, and said that crossing the border from chile to bolivia you are not allowed to have a tour guide, so we were to just pretend he was a fellow passenger, and not ask him lots of questions that would give the game away etc. and also that a revolution was breaking out in bolivia to do with elections and we may not get over the border due to a snow storm that had happened that day (which is why our vans for snowboarding claimed to be delayed, this was obviously a lie as there wasn´t a snowflake to be seen). anyway, all went fine at the border. it was literally a building in the middle of the desert-mountains, with a bolivian flag, lots of photos of the bolivian president in frames, a burnt out old bus that we weed behind, and no visible security whatsoever. i had my glasses, hat and scarf on, and they didn´t even look at my passport photo anyway. we got a good multicoloured stamp in our passports anyway.
then we got into our SUVs which drove us around for the next 3 days, across the salt flats and lakes. bolivia is very poor, and very dry and deserty. the people are small. they don´t speak english at all, and the children are very very cute. i said a few sentences to our driver and the chef (his wife we think but i didn´t dare ask, i´m not sure of question asking etiquette over here yet). i said es un camino concurrido (it´s a busy road), when another van passed us going the other way, the first one in about 3 hours (don´t know if they get irony over here). and i asked them where they were from - uyuni - and did he like driving, he said he did, i said bueno, as he had to do lots of it. every time we stopped anywhere in the SUVs we got out, took photos, talked about the altitude, i asked juan some questions (sometimes relevant sometimes not - he just tells me to shut up now before i´ve even said anything). and the van drivers seem to get under the bonnet or van to tinker with the engine or wheels. on the last trip, juan said his SUV got 5 punctures in one day, the windows didn´t open, and they ran out of petrol and had to flag a passing van down to help. all things considered, our trip was quite uneventful in that respect.
we looked at laguna verde (it´s green due to arsenic and copper), laguna blanca (it´s white), laguna colorado (it´s red due to algae), saw some flamingoes, swam in a hot spring, which was the first time i´d felt clean in a long time.
our accommodation that night was a shelter, at 4200m, very deserted, literally a building and a few houses in the ´village´, and a little shop where we got some whiskey. there was more van tinkering, it seemed to go on all night. the electricity supposedly only lasts frm 630-830pm, but tonight we were lucky and it lasted all night. laura had really bad altitude sickness and vomited at 4800m, which was the highest we went today, so we looked after her in her sick bed. long long cold night, felt like it would never end. altitude makes you have strange dreams.
questions so far-
why are flamingoes the only pink animals, even though other animals must also eat shrimps?
what´s happening in the world and in the olympics?
why so many chemists in south america (we think it´s because you can buy lots of things that in england you would need prescriptions for)
is there a flamingo predator in south america?
what is sedimentary rock? apparently metamorphic rock is rock that started as sediment and became rock, in which case, what is sedimentary?
why is a thousand pounds called a grand?
do oranges that are more orange in colour contain more vitamins?
what is the richest and poorest continent?
have to stop now, will continue when i can, hopefully tomorrow. we are now in a town called potosi (famous for silver) further up bolivia. laura is much better, abi´s rash is going, and i am fine, though a bit hungry as always.
besos x
sorry to leave a whole week between blogs, you must all be desperate for news..
to summarise-
last wednesday
went on a vineyard tur to cafayate, 100k roughly from salta, stopping en route to look at such natural phenomenons as rocks that look like castles, rocks that form natural amphitheatres, rocks that look like the wind has eroded them, rocks that look like rocks and other rocks. we bought some wine from one of the vineyards, abi stole a rock, i bought a hat, we looked for a post office after lunch in cafayate, but it was closed so we read our books in the sun. (sorry, i´ve been keeping a list of events so i don´t forget them, but it probably doesn´t read well). evening, we went for dinner in a pena place - pena is some sort of traditional argentine dancing and singing, it was very loud and not very good. our tour leader, juan got cross as they brough him the wrong food. a man outside had some telescopes pointing at the moon and jupiter, i took a photo of him.
thursday
early start, bus to san pedro de atacama, in chile. the scenery going from argentina to chile was absolutely stunning, completely overwhelming like being on another planet, and just no people for miles and miles, and then a little person with a llama/child on their back. high altitude today, up to 4200metres, lots of headaches and tiredness as we adjusted. really nice hostel in the town, with lots of blankets. i did some washing and hung it out on their line.
friday
me and ab had a lie in then got up slowly and wandered around and bought a jumper, found a post office (seems to be a recurring theme), saw some dogs fighting. the shop we bought the jumpers in, we paid on our visa cards, and when we gave them to him he had to take us over the road and into a market, where in a little booth was a little visa machine which we paid on. maybe it was shared between all the shops, it made us laugh. laura went horse riding, which she really enjoyed, but then found she was allergic to horses and went all blotchy. abi has had a strange rash too, but it seems to be subsiding now. after lunch we went to the valley of death (a mistranslation - supposed to be valley of mars, but a french person said it, and his accent sounded like he was saying death instead - muerte). we sandboarded, which was fun when you slightly got the hang of it. lots of falling off. our bus was late picking us up so we walked for a bit, then they drove us to a big hill in the desert to watch the sun do what it does best - set. the sky was amazing colours, sadly my little camera doesn´t do it justice. there is a volcano nearby with a lake on top, where according to local legend a diver who was friends with jacques costeau found a perfectly spherical crystal sphere, which when he picked up went very hot and he dropped it back in and it became embedded and never able to be found again. apparently you are supposed to ask the locals what they think of this, so i asked sebastian who was teaching us sandboarding, but he had a strong accent and i couldn´t understand his answer. at least i tried though. he was impressed i knew about it. i then had a very strange dream about it, along with dreaming i found my own death certificate - any idea what this means anyone?
saturday
bus to bolivia today. minibus was too small for us and all our luggage so it was a bit manic, and juan was cross again. bags all in the aisles and on top of us. health and safety isn´t big in south america, dad you would have a field day pointing out all the potential death traps. the night before, juan had briefed us on our next few days, and said that crossing the border from chile to bolivia you are not allowed to have a tour guide, so we were to just pretend he was a fellow passenger, and not ask him lots of questions that would give the game away etc. and also that a revolution was breaking out in bolivia to do with elections and we may not get over the border due to a snow storm that had happened that day (which is why our vans for snowboarding claimed to be delayed, this was obviously a lie as there wasn´t a snowflake to be seen). anyway, all went fine at the border. it was literally a building in the middle of the desert-mountains, with a bolivian flag, lots of photos of the bolivian president in frames, a burnt out old bus that we weed behind, and no visible security whatsoever. i had my glasses, hat and scarf on, and they didn´t even look at my passport photo anyway. we got a good multicoloured stamp in our passports anyway.
then we got into our SUVs which drove us around for the next 3 days, across the salt flats and lakes. bolivia is very poor, and very dry and deserty. the people are small. they don´t speak english at all, and the children are very very cute. i said a few sentences to our driver and the chef (his wife we think but i didn´t dare ask, i´m not sure of question asking etiquette over here yet). i said es un camino concurrido (it´s a busy road), when another van passed us going the other way, the first one in about 3 hours (don´t know if they get irony over here). and i asked them where they were from - uyuni - and did he like driving, he said he did, i said bueno, as he had to do lots of it. every time we stopped anywhere in the SUVs we got out, took photos, talked about the altitude, i asked juan some questions (sometimes relevant sometimes not - he just tells me to shut up now before i´ve even said anything). and the van drivers seem to get under the bonnet or van to tinker with the engine or wheels. on the last trip, juan said his SUV got 5 punctures in one day, the windows didn´t open, and they ran out of petrol and had to flag a passing van down to help. all things considered, our trip was quite uneventful in that respect.
we looked at laguna verde (it´s green due to arsenic and copper), laguna blanca (it´s white), laguna colorado (it´s red due to algae), saw some flamingoes, swam in a hot spring, which was the first time i´d felt clean in a long time.
our accommodation that night was a shelter, at 4200m, very deserted, literally a building and a few houses in the ´village´, and a little shop where we got some whiskey. there was more van tinkering, it seemed to go on all night. the electricity supposedly only lasts frm 630-830pm, but tonight we were lucky and it lasted all night. laura had really bad altitude sickness and vomited at 4800m, which was the highest we went today, so we looked after her in her sick bed. long long cold night, felt like it would never end. altitude makes you have strange dreams.
questions so far-
why are flamingoes the only pink animals, even though other animals must also eat shrimps?
what´s happening in the world and in the olympics?
why so many chemists in south america (we think it´s because you can buy lots of things that in england you would need prescriptions for)
is there a flamingo predator in south america?
what is sedimentary rock? apparently metamorphic rock is rock that started as sediment and became rock, in which case, what is sedimentary?
why is a thousand pounds called a grand?
do oranges that are more orange in colour contain more vitamins?
what is the richest and poorest continent?
have to stop now, will continue when i can, hopefully tomorrow. we are now in a town called potosi (famous for silver) further up bolivia. laura is much better, abi´s rash is going, and i am fine, though a bit hungry as always.
besos x
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
new gloves
turns out el grupo are fine. and we don´t have to spend every minute with them. relief.
we´re now in salta, in northern argentina. it´s a town of about 500,000 people, near the andes. there´s 3 mummies that were found in the mountains nearby that were some early incan people, they are in a museum here but we were busy eating pizza so haven´t seen them. it´s quite similar to peruvian towns, so is reminding me lots of my trip there 2 years ago which is nice. definitely feels very south american, the people look different, more like peruvians, i guess because it´s higher up, that makes them smaller and darker doesn´t it. altitude and gravity do strange things to people.
we flew here this morning from buenos aires, which was all fine (i haven´t had to take any valiums or put my jumper on my head on any of my flights yet, definite improvement, but i did say to abi it was like that film alive when we were going over the andes today and it was a bit turbulent- she said if that happened, she would definitely eat me to stay alive. i said i would eat my own arm if it came to it).
last night we went to our tango night. the lesson was fun. i was the man and my roommate kate was the girl, which she is anyway. so if i ever actually have to do a tango dance with a real man i´ll have to explain that i also only know the man´s part and they´ll have to be the woman. we got a certificate. then watched some real tango dancers, they were good, but the whole thing was a bit too touristy for me, so i only gave it 5/10. we then went to a bar and drank some argentinian drink called fernet - a shot of something herby and bitter and a bit medicinal mixed with coke. we played pool with some local people, they were impressed with english people´s pool playing ability. i didn´t know the word for fluke in spanish, so i let them believe it was actual skill and not just luck that the balls were going in... this got 10/10 as it was not touristy at all, and was an interaction with real argentinians and it gave them a good impression of english people. though it loses one mark for the fact that they spoke really good english so we didn´t have to use our broken spanish.
also spoke to some cute argentinian children today, they were trying to speak english and us spanish. then i remembered reading somewhere that you shouldn´t look at or speak to children over here in case their family think you are going to kidnap them. you shouldn´t give them sweets either as they can´t afford dentists. i suppose if a dentist kidnaps them then that´s ok.
thanks for the comments on yesterday´s questions. we don´t have any today.
we´re now in salta, in northern argentina. it´s a town of about 500,000 people, near the andes. there´s 3 mummies that were found in the mountains nearby that were some early incan people, they are in a museum here but we were busy eating pizza so haven´t seen them. it´s quite similar to peruvian towns, so is reminding me lots of my trip there 2 years ago which is nice. definitely feels very south american, the people look different, more like peruvians, i guess because it´s higher up, that makes them smaller and darker doesn´t it. altitude and gravity do strange things to people.
we flew here this morning from buenos aires, which was all fine (i haven´t had to take any valiums or put my jumper on my head on any of my flights yet, definite improvement, but i did say to abi it was like that film alive when we were going over the andes today and it was a bit turbulent- she said if that happened, she would definitely eat me to stay alive. i said i would eat my own arm if it came to it).
last night we went to our tango night. the lesson was fun. i was the man and my roommate kate was the girl, which she is anyway. so if i ever actually have to do a tango dance with a real man i´ll have to explain that i also only know the man´s part and they´ll have to be the woman. we got a certificate. then watched some real tango dancers, they were good, but the whole thing was a bit too touristy for me, so i only gave it 5/10. we then went to a bar and drank some argentinian drink called fernet - a shot of something herby and bitter and a bit medicinal mixed with coke. we played pool with some local people, they were impressed with english people´s pool playing ability. i didn´t know the word for fluke in spanish, so i let them believe it was actual skill and not just luck that the balls were going in... this got 10/10 as it was not touristy at all, and was an interaction with real argentinians and it gave them a good impression of english people. though it loses one mark for the fact that they spoke really good english so we didn´t have to use our broken spanish.
also spoke to some cute argentinian children today, they were trying to speak english and us spanish. then i remembered reading somewhere that you shouldn´t look at or speak to children over here in case their family think you are going to kidnap them. you shouldn´t give them sweets either as they can´t afford dentists. i suppose if a dentist kidnaps them then that´s ok.
thanks for the comments on yesterday´s questions. we don´t have any today.
Monday, 4 August 2008
el grupo
day 10.
today we meet the group that we´re spending the next 3 weeks with on our tour from buenos aires to lima, via chile and bolivia. we´re not sure how we feel about this, but hopefully they will be nice. i am sharing a room with one of them tonight in hotel splendido (it´s not)...
today i have done boring things like change traveller´s cheques (takes longer than you think, when there´s seemingly only one place to do this in the whole city), buy some english books (again a bit of a mission, but i managed to get truman capote, f scott fitzgerald, and garcia marquez), posted a parcel (not telling who it´s to), and sorted out my bank account issues. we also dropped off our washing at the laundrette. getting that back will be the highlight of the day i think. suitably it has been raining all afternoon too. abi and laura have gone to see the ricoleta cemetry, where eva peron is buried and other famous argentinians.
i learnt who carlos gardel is, and then bought a postcard of him. he is argentina´s most famous tango singer, and he´s always smiling. not anymore as he died in 1935 in a plane crash. nobody knows where exactly he is from, could even be france, but he always said he was born in buenos aires at the age of 2 and a half.
i also bought a little radio so we can listen to local radio and try to understand it. this will hopefully annoy el grupo.
i learnt the words for a notebook (un block), what time do you close (que hora cierra), and a straw (pepita i think). argentinians are really friendly once you try to speak their language and tell them how much you like it here. perhaps they don´t get so many english people in winter (yes, it is winter here - southern hemisphere), as we seem to be a bit of a novelty for them.
we also bought some scissors to cut laura´s hair with. she is still feeling ill, but we are hoping it´s nothing serious.
tonight we go with el grupo for dinner, a tango lesson, and a tango show. hopefully not featuring us.
today´s questions are
who invented velcro and zips?
can all animals be rabies carriers, or just dogs, cats and monkeys?
what were the 2 types of transformers, deceptacons and something else?
some people have been asking is there a prize for answering the questions correctly - we hadn´t planned on having one, but i think the prize could be you get a special mention on our blog, and therefore the glory that goes with that. so send in your answers please!
ciao
today we meet the group that we´re spending the next 3 weeks with on our tour from buenos aires to lima, via chile and bolivia. we´re not sure how we feel about this, but hopefully they will be nice. i am sharing a room with one of them tonight in hotel splendido (it´s not)...
today i have done boring things like change traveller´s cheques (takes longer than you think, when there´s seemingly only one place to do this in the whole city), buy some english books (again a bit of a mission, but i managed to get truman capote, f scott fitzgerald, and garcia marquez), posted a parcel (not telling who it´s to), and sorted out my bank account issues. we also dropped off our washing at the laundrette. getting that back will be the highlight of the day i think. suitably it has been raining all afternoon too. abi and laura have gone to see the ricoleta cemetry, where eva peron is buried and other famous argentinians.
i learnt who carlos gardel is, and then bought a postcard of him. he is argentina´s most famous tango singer, and he´s always smiling. not anymore as he died in 1935 in a plane crash. nobody knows where exactly he is from, could even be france, but he always said he was born in buenos aires at the age of 2 and a half.
i also bought a little radio so we can listen to local radio and try to understand it. this will hopefully annoy el grupo.
i learnt the words for a notebook (un block), what time do you close (que hora cierra), and a straw (pepita i think). argentinians are really friendly once you try to speak their language and tell them how much you like it here. perhaps they don´t get so many english people in winter (yes, it is winter here - southern hemisphere), as we seem to be a bit of a novelty for them.
we also bought some scissors to cut laura´s hair with. she is still feeling ill, but we are hoping it´s nothing serious.
tonight we go with el grupo for dinner, a tango lesson, and a tango show. hopefully not featuring us.
today´s questions are
who invented velcro and zips?
can all animals be rabies carriers, or just dogs, cats and monkeys?
what were the 2 types of transformers, deceptacons and something else?
some people have been asking is there a prize for answering the questions correctly - we hadn´t planned on having one, but i think the prize could be you get a special mention on our blog, and therefore the glory that goes with that. so send in your answers please!
ciao
Sunday, 3 August 2008
oscar pringles
so we were supposed to fly yesterday from puerto iguazu (of waterfall fame) to buenos aires, but when we checked in for our flight, it turned out there were 2 aeroplane´s worth of people wanting to get on the flight, so they put us up in a 5 star hotel for the night. we didn´t even bother trying to look upset about not getting our scheduled flight. 5 stars in argentina is not the same as 5 stars in england, but it was still nice. we ordered a pedicure and a really nice argentinian woman came and painted our nails, and put little flower stickers on them. mine have already fallen off (the stickers, not my nails). she said they would last for 20 days (the stickers, not my nails).
we had cold buffet for dinner, which was cold buffet for starter, slightly warmer buffet for main course, and cold buffet for pudding. (it was about as cold as the outdoor pool). we ate absolutely loads though as it was free. then we went back to our room and the phone was ringing. strange as we weren´t expecting any calls. i answered: hola? spanish man: woierjh oadsighjaodifghaosifdjasodifjasd (unintelligible spanish paragraph). me: oh. vino. yes. we didn´t pay. ok. sorry. ciao! so we went back to the restaurant to pay for the wine we´d ´forgotten´to pay for. our nice waiter was there, so we appeased him by telling him how much we liked his name, it was oscar pringles. we told him that in england, pringles are a type of crisp, which are very nice. he liked this. then he said golf golf. we said yes, pringles jumpers golf golf. he laughed. we said do you play golf? he said no. we said you should with a name like that. he laughed. we left.
and so we flew to buenos aires this morning instead. it´s cold here. a man told us which bus to get from the airport. it´s a massive city, and vaguely european, sort of like scandinavia mixed with canada mixed with south america mixed with 10 years ago, and a bit quiet as it is sunday today. our hostel is above a pub which we are in now playing pool with a brazilian and an american person. after checking in we went for food (abi was having a food low, and laura is ill, so this was a slightly low hungry grumpy moment). we found an amazing restaurant, and had lots of red wine and steak and pork pamplona, and a selection of desserts. the steak and pork and wine were amazing. the puddings were awful. then we wandered around an old antiques market, took some photos of a little dog in a tartan jacket, went into a church and sang along with them to some songs about loving jesus and felt blessed. then went for some peanuts and olives and wine in a bar in plaza derroga. then we watched some people dancing tangos in the square which was lovely.
we had cold buffet for dinner, which was cold buffet for starter, slightly warmer buffet for main course, and cold buffet for pudding. (it was about as cold as the outdoor pool). we ate absolutely loads though as it was free. then we went back to our room and the phone was ringing. strange as we weren´t expecting any calls. i answered: hola? spanish man: woierjh oadsighjaodifghaosifdjasodifjasd (unintelligible spanish paragraph). me: oh. vino. yes. we didn´t pay. ok. sorry. ciao! so we went back to the restaurant to pay for the wine we´d ´forgotten´to pay for. our nice waiter was there, so we appeased him by telling him how much we liked his name, it was oscar pringles. we told him that in england, pringles are a type of crisp, which are very nice. he liked this. then he said golf golf. we said yes, pringles jumpers golf golf. he laughed. we said do you play golf? he said no. we said you should with a name like that. he laughed. we left.
and so we flew to buenos aires this morning instead. it´s cold here. a man told us which bus to get from the airport. it´s a massive city, and vaguely european, sort of like scandinavia mixed with canada mixed with south america mixed with 10 years ago, and a bit quiet as it is sunday today. our hostel is above a pub which we are in now playing pool with a brazilian and an american person. after checking in we went for food (abi was having a food low, and laura is ill, so this was a slightly low hungry grumpy moment). we found an amazing restaurant, and had lots of red wine and steak and pork pamplona, and a selection of desserts. the steak and pork and wine were amazing. the puddings were awful. then we wandered around an old antiques market, took some photos of a little dog in a tartan jacket, went into a church and sang along with them to some songs about loving jesus and felt blessed. then went for some peanuts and olives and wine in a bar in plaza derroga. then we watched some people dancing tangos in the square which was lovely.
Friday, 1 August 2008
munchhaussen by proxy
spent 23 hours 45 minutes on a bus since last writing. there´s not much to say about that - we got on and got off it and slept and ate cheese sandwiches and a small child spoke to us, then a man spoke to us, we didn´t understand them much. we played the a-z of fatal diseases to pass the time, and the first name last name game which we have called cheese cat.
sao paolo was slightly stressful as we had to get from one bus station to another on the underground in only an hour or we´d miss our night bus. not the best way to see one of the biggest cities in the world (17 million people...). some people said they´d help us but i was convinced that actually they wanted to kill us for our jewellery, so made abi and laura ignore them. they owe me big time.
so we got our passports stamped, that was exciting, and people say hola now instead of whatever they say in portuguese for hello. we went to the iguazu falls, which is our raison d´etre in iguazu after all. they are very big waterfalls, 2nd largest after victoria falls in africa. basically water falls over a cliff, obeying the laws of gravity, and people take photos of it. it´s pretty big. we got a bit splashed with water. there were lots of lovely butterflies, one of them was called Bert and he followed us to the bus stop. we took some photos of him. abi was distressed at the thought of mosquitos - iguazu supposedly malaria central - but we didn´t see any. she is going to camp out under her mosquito net tonight and disguise herself.
we went out just now for dinner, and for the equivalent of 11pounds a head, we had wine, bread, steaks, tortilla, vegetables, chips, mashed potatoes, and a piece of cheese cake (with 3 spoons). we like argentina.
big thunder storm most of the evening. we had a guiness in a pub next to our hostel. sorry, not very argentinian, and we promised to make up for the cake and pizza fiasco in brazil....
everyone is very friendly here. perhaps it´s because we are spending our money but we think they are just naturally very nice. to be continued from buenos aires.
question of the day: what type of animal is a coati, we think we saw one.
sao paolo was slightly stressful as we had to get from one bus station to another on the underground in only an hour or we´d miss our night bus. not the best way to see one of the biggest cities in the world (17 million people...). some people said they´d help us but i was convinced that actually they wanted to kill us for our jewellery, so made abi and laura ignore them. they owe me big time.
so we got our passports stamped, that was exciting, and people say hola now instead of whatever they say in portuguese for hello. we went to the iguazu falls, which is our raison d´etre in iguazu after all. they are very big waterfalls, 2nd largest after victoria falls in africa. basically water falls over a cliff, obeying the laws of gravity, and people take photos of it. it´s pretty big. we got a bit splashed with water. there were lots of lovely butterflies, one of them was called Bert and he followed us to the bus stop. we took some photos of him. abi was distressed at the thought of mosquitos - iguazu supposedly malaria central - but we didn´t see any. she is going to camp out under her mosquito net tonight and disguise herself.
we went out just now for dinner, and for the equivalent of 11pounds a head, we had wine, bread, steaks, tortilla, vegetables, chips, mashed potatoes, and a piece of cheese cake (with 3 spoons). we like argentina.
big thunder storm most of the evening. we had a guiness in a pub next to our hostel. sorry, not very argentinian, and we promised to make up for the cake and pizza fiasco in brazil....
everyone is very friendly here. perhaps it´s because we are spending our money but we think they are just naturally very nice. to be continued from buenos aires.
question of the day: what type of animal is a coati, we think we saw one.
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