Southern Hemisphere ANTics

Going Out on a High in Argentina

2010-12-07T21:31:00.014Z

I'm now able to count on two limbs the number of days left we have on this amazing trip, which isn't at all depressing...

There's one more blog entry to come after this one, which will be a rundown of various Top 5 lists (many of you will know my affection for lists), but this entry is all about probably the best 5 weeks we've had on this trip. This is largely thanks to three things: The people we've been travelling with (shout out to Mick, Jeanine, Jon, Kat and Kev); the amazing country that is Argentina (read on), and leaving Bolivia!

Reaching Argentina after 4 weeks in Bolivia was an ethereal pleasure - the two countries are so different, though I do find it slightly depressing that arriving back (arguable) in the first world was really nice.

2 cities + 2 much wine = Good Times

Our first stop in Argentina was the city of Salta. Arriving in Salta and seeing rubbish collection/bins, clean streets, flat roads, healthy (and happy!) people and a variety of great food was a shock to the system. This was before we went to the supermarket's wine aisle - which was an epiphany due to the abundance of good wine for under £3 a bottle.

In Salta we did very little other than drink too much ridiculously well priced wine and eat too much red meat (two very distinct and highly repetitive themes over the past month). I got a couple of smashings at ping-pong as well - thanks Mick.

Never too much?

It was here in Salta that I learnt WE WOULD HAVE to change our original plan of hitting Buenos Aires only at the end of the trip, learning that River Plate would be playing Boca Juniors in El Super Clasico in less than a week... A good part of my next few days were dedicated to sorting tickets, but that didn't stop the travelling.

A quick word on our main method of travel over the past 6 months - the humble bus. They take them to a new level over here... With seats better than Business Class, food, wine and champagne (sometimes), a 15 to 30 hour journey became a pleasure!

Our enforced and mandatory detour took us next to the lovely city of Cordoba - Argentina's second city and a lively student hotbed. Again, we passed our time taking in the city's architecture (both modern and colonial), and had a couple of close-to-epic nights out with our Irish friend Kev.

We also encountered one of those totally random but really lucky moments on one of our walks through the city, coming across a light / fountain show in a city square that would have been at home in Vegas.

Main Square at night

Aforementioned fountains

Having sorted tickets out to El Super Clasico through some spurious online agent (were they real tickets?! we'd have to find out on the day...) we had a couple of days to kill before we had to be in BA, so we factored we'd squeeze in a cheeky trip to Iguazu falls (20 hours there, 18 hours down to BA) - to give us a bit more time at the end of our trip to relax...

Not Much Water

Our one night stopover in Argentina's extreme north-east was for the sole purpose of seeing Iguazu Falls - bordering Brazil and Paraguay.

The falls are nothing short of immense... truly immense. I've never seen so much water making so much noise and creating so many rainbows as on that day. The moment we reached the falls after walking through jungle (with about 300 other tourists) was one of those 'wow' moments that totally takes your breath away. There's nothing more to say really...

Going Loco in El Monumental

Next stop - a very quick one in Buenos Aires (we would be back) for the small matter of El Super Clasico - the biggest game in Argentine football and arguably one of the biggest in the world (No.1 Sporting occasion to see before you die according to the Guardian), between River Plate (apparently a rich, elitist club from BA's north) and Boca Juniors (working class from BA's south).

The rivalry and hatred between the two teams' fans are obsessional - and on our way to the game on the bus we got our first taste... A policeman dragged a Boca fan from our bus for screaming abuse at some River fans. I was glad I made my decision NOT to wear my River Plate T-shirt at this point...

We spent a good hour trying to get in to River Plate's stadium - the 60,000+ El Monumental. Our tickets did prove to be genuine, and genuinely right in amongst River's hardcore faithful - obviously no seating and 100% terraced, where we were strangely given a massive wad of used paper... We had no idea why.

The atmosphere in the ground was getting ridiculous, and all came to a crescendo when the teams came out: Fire crackers went off; flares went flying and more paper than I've ever seen was thrown skywards - it was an amazing moment. Not as amazing as when River scored the only goal of the game at our end and the stadium erupted - followed by Boca's fans lighting 50+ flares and throwing them down at the River fans beneath them (good idea putting the away fans on the tier above the home fans... really).

Biggest flag ever...

Boca's Flares

Our £300 detour was massively worth it, topped off with an amazing steak at BA's best restaurant (surely!), called La Cabrera (we are definitely going back), at 2am. The next day we were to fly to Mendoza, heart of Argentina's wine production, for yes, more wine.

Mayhem in Mendoza

Mendoza is a beautiful city, in a valley under South America's highest mountains with a hot hot hot climate (in the summer). We were staying with our friends Mick and Jeanine in a lovely hostel with an incredible kitchen - which was the site of some inspired cooking, including my first curry for months...

The unquestionable highlight of our 3 days in Mendoza was our day out in Maipu (small town nearby), where we hired bikes from a complete hero (Mr Hugo) and rode from winery to winery, tasting (drinking) wine and taking in the general beauty of the area on our bikes.

Upon returning the bikes Mr Hugo sat us down and plied us with very unhealthy amounts of chilled Torrontes white wine (unheard of outside Argentina, it's delicious).

On this day I drank more wine than probably ever before in one day - and it was all topped off by an almost immemorable mexican meal (home-made Tortillas, thanks Mick and Jeanine!) at god knows what time back at the hostel...

Tasting tasting tasting

Us with the legendary Mr Hugo...

It was time for a break from quick travelling and too much drinking, so we headed down to Bariloche, in Argentina's lake district, for 5 days of hiking around some of the most sublime scenery.

The Start of Something Special...

The Lake District is in the north of Patagonia, a vast area we would fall in love with over the next two weeks. In the winter the Lake District and Bariloche are rammed with skiers and snow-boarders, but in the summer it's all about the hiking, biking and other outdoor activities.

The area is ridiculously beautiful, with azure blue lakes, green hills and snow-capped mountains - ideal for 5 days of hiking and some amazing barbecuing (thanks again to Mick) in our campsite, on a lake... bliss. What also helped was the arrogance of our so-called 'tent' - with a permanent cover, beds and a heater (it got down to freezing at night).

We even stretched to hiring a car for our last day in Bariloche, taking in some further-afield lakes and mountains... well worth the price we paid for our 'Silver Bullet', or Chevy Corsa.

Refreshed, enlivened and renewed we embarked on an epic, 28-hour bus journey which really was too easy, down to Southern Patagonia and a town called El Calafate.

One of many lakes

The End(ish) of the World - Southern Patagonia

Ice-fields ending at huge blue glaciers, falling into bright turquoise lakes, surrounded by lush green forests all in the shadow of rough, jagged mountain peaks goes some way to describing Southern Patagonia, but not all.

This part of the world is stunning, undoubtedly up there in terms of natural beauty (and importance) with anywhere we've been.

Our first day here was spent in El Calafate visiting the brilliant tourist attraction that is the Perito Moreno glacier (one of only a few that are actually advancing) - at more than 60m high it's pretty mind-bending, especially watching huge chunks fall off into the icy lake below.

We then proceeded to head to the small town of El Chalten, Argentina's trekking capital. El Chalten is on the border of the massive Parque Nacional Los Glaciares - which remarkably for it's amazing beauty and scenery is totally free to hike around, provided you don't set fire to anything or p!ss in the streams... (the water in the streams is drinkable and delicious). The park's most famous mountains - Fitzroy and Torre - dominate the skyline when they are not covered in cloud, which is, in our experience, very rare.

Behind the park, source of the glaciers, is the Southern Patagonian Ice Field - apparently the third biggest ice field in the world after Antarctica and Greenland, so it's no surprise that the weather here is mental. In one day there's sun, wind (unbearable on one day), rain and snow - but that didn't stop us from hiking... much.

In four days we covered more than 100km, taking in snowy forests, many remarkable lakes, great condor sitings and some amazing views of both Fitzroy and Torre... Unfortunately our bus back to El Calafate was on the one day when not one cloud was in the sky but we still squeezed in a 2 hour hike that morning.

Torre and Fitzroy

Rubbish glacier / lake

Our last night in Patagonia (my favourite place so far, I think) was spent devouring all you can eat Lamb Asado - having cooked for as long as we could remember we unleashed ourselves on Patagonia's famous lamb grills... That night's sleep wasn't the best but the meat was unreal.

Beach Life

Which brings us up to the present, with only just more than a week left the budget has almost gone out of the window - so we thought a few days of sun and rest on the beach was in order. The past two days have been spent doing very little other than strolling and pic-nicking on the beach and staying in our first actual hotel (where I'm writing this) in Villa Gesell, 5 hours south of Buenos Aires.

Tomorrow we head for our final week to Buenos Aires, where we are renting an apartment with our friends Ryan and Cynthia, and where we've pencilled in a curry-off, pizza-off and a final trip to La Cabrera... Seafood is very much on the cards tonight as well, not a bad way to go out.

Watch out for my Top 5s next week, and as always all photos can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/fernando.nilanga

UnBOLIVIAble

2010-11-15T14:22:00.021Z

Bolivia - a land of incredible natural beauty, dizzying altitudes, loose rules and tough people - at least that's our conclusion after spending the last month taking in its best and worst. What is for sure is that, now we are in Argentina, there cannot be many more neighbouring countries in the world that are so strikingly different.

Bolivia really was the experience of highs and lows, aside from the obvious 'high' of it being, well, very high - we've seen South America's (or the World's?) most unique landscapes in the Salar de Uyuni, had incredible experiences in the Amazon Basin, had crazy nights in La Paz and enjoyed Sucre's fine colonial streets.

At the same time we've endured some terrible food (not many Bolivian restaurants in London are there?!), fairly regularly sampled Bolivia's national dish (food poisoning), witnessed some of the most unimaginably bad working conditions in Potosi's mines and generally had our hygiene standards considerably withered!

The people of Bolivia's altiplano (the high, flat area between the two Andean ranges encompassing most of our travels) are tough, hardy and sometimes slightly miserable people - fair game given their life seems a constant struggle. Especially, the women, who always seem to be working. When they are not working, they are carrying ridiculous loads (and any number of babies) on the side of the road, sometimes hitching rides in buses. It's a fairly wide generalisation, but I didn't see that many men helping out...

Exactly a month has passed since my last update, and we have exactly a month left until the fateful 'end' - so appreciate the symmetry and read on...

As always some photo highlights included below, but all can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/fernando.nilanga

Birthplace of the Incas

Our first stop in Bolivia was the town of Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca - a marvel of a lake at nearly 4000m altitude. The town isn't really much more than a row of below par tourist restaurants, but it is the launchpad to the Isla Del Sol - an island with huge importance to indigenous people as the place of emergence of the first Inca King and his sister, who he later married and thus created the Inca dynasty, apparently.

The island itself is beautiful - surrounded by a clear-blue mass of water it's a bit bizarre to think you are 4km above sea level, and the clouds seem kind of close-by. We hiked from the north of the island to the south with our friends Jon and Kat, shortly before an episode involving rum at £1.50 a bottle - to keep away the cold.

La Paz (means 'peace') - Intense, crazy, dirty

We got the bus (obviously) to La Paz from Copacabana, no real highlights from the journey other than a comical 'will it / won't it topple' viewing of our bus crossing some of the lake on a wooden barge.

La Paz is famous to 'Gringos' for three things: Altitude (the highest capital city in the world), 'Death Road' (a bike-ride down 'the world's most dangerous road') and partying. Death Road was closed for most of our time due to striking coca farmers, who decided that a road block would be a good idea (I think it worked), and there's not really a huge amount I am willing to say about the partying...

One 'unique' thing we did do was to go and watch some Bolivian wrestling - unique it was, as we saw some pretty amateur WWE-type arguing and 'fighting'. The main attraction was 'Chulita' wrestling - basically crazed, overweight women going hell for leather against amongst other things a ninja, a werewolf and a soldier:

Anger...

(Fake blood obviously)

Some other photos of La Paz's nicer views:

Learning to be a Real Man - The Amazon Basin (Jungle)

After a few days in La Paz we caught a flight to Rurrenabaque, gateway to the jungle. The Amazon Basin covers almost half of Bolivia, and our 40-minute flight could not have taken us further in terms of a change in altitude (back to sea level), weather (HEAT at last!), and culture... We wasted no time in booking a tour into the jungle - in Bolivia's Madidi National Park - no place in the world is richer in terms of biodiversity.

With excitement and trepidation (mainly Jo's fear of spiders) we left on boat, along the Rio Beni, deep into the jungle.

"The jungle is our home, the rivers are our roads"

We were to spend three days and two nights trekking into the jungle, the last night sleeping under nothing more than a tarp ceiling and a mosquito net - as deep in the jungle as you can get in one day's hot and sweaty walking.

We couldn't believe how much we enjoyed it - being surrounded by so many noises, so many signs of life, in truly unspoilt jungle. We went on night-walks encountering some pretty cool bugs, awoke to a snake attempting to eat a frog under our lodge, saw howler monkeys, plenty of birds, jungle pigs and many bugs... But the best thing wasn't spotting animals, it was learning how communities have lived in the jungle for generations - using its immense wildlife without constantly taking from it.

(Sorry Mum)

Our guide, Alcide, was one of my favourite people we've met so far - 26 years old, speaking Spanish only for four years, he'd grown up in the jungle and it was all he knew and loved. In order to become a guide he had to pass a test: Dropped in the middle of the jungle with nothing but a mosquito net and machete - the first one out in 5 days got to be a guide. He nailed it (piece of cake).

His knowledge of the effects various trees and plants (that's a contraceptive... that's an anaesthetic... that's good for treating malaria... that will kill you...) was astonishing - they all looked the same! We tried some anaesthetic and within 10 minutes I couldn't feel the right-side of my mouth.

Two real men...

We also took in some spell-binding views, where nothing but nature could be seen for hundred of miles...

When the time came to return back to our lodge and then to Rurre, our guide and chef built a raft and we coasted along the river, taking regular dips after our 3 days of trekking - what a way to get back! Our feel good factor was complemented by the fact we were staying in a community-run venture, so felt good about the extra money we were spending. Our only regret was not staying longer...

Cities of old fame and fortune

We flew back to La Paz from the jungle (back to cold and altitude), and continued our journey south to the cities of Sucre and Potosi.

Sucre is without a doubt Bolivia's 'nicest' city - i.e. colonial architecture, cobbled streets. It's also the judicial capital, which went some (but not all) way to explaining just how many lawyer-practices there were. The Spanish, upon finding Bolivia's riches (silver, gold etc), built some incredible churches and plazas - we took in some fine buildings and finer food poisoning before continuing our travels...

...not before we visited the site of 68 MILLION year old dinosaur footprints (!), accidentally discovered by a cement factory - which had over millions of years, been shifted from horizontal ground to vertical cliffs. That's what I loved about Bolivia - here you have something truly amazing and a real historical relic, and they only started protecting it a few years ago!

Which took us to Potosi. I was especially keen to visit this city (the highest city in the world) having read some Latin American history. Back in the 16th century, it's 'Cerro Rico' (Rich Hill) was discovered to contain stupendous amounts of silver - this almost entirely bankrolled the Spanish conquests and the city grew into the RICHEST and LARGEST in the entire world.

Cerro Rico in the background - stripped bare

As soon as the silver veins ran dry it was largely abandoned and what is left now (of course) is a poor city, still dependent on mining, but with some lovely old buildings.

Miners amazingly still work in conditions that actually have not changed since the 16th century! As they are cooperatives (so, so poor), they buy their own dynamite and work in small groups with basic tools - none we saw were electric/pneumatic - and work in 12 hour shifts in horrendous conditions. Drinking, smoking and chewing coca leaves is their only refuge (as is worshipping the 'devil' who they claim owns the mountain's riches)...

Entering hell...

Our tour was enlightening and depressing at the same time - the miners are proud of their work and they appear to live a 'happy-go-lucky' life, albeit a tragically short one as silicosis-pneumonia restricts their lives to only 10-15 years from when they start in the mines.

We ended our tour with the compulsory dynamite explosion, and a final few sips of 96% proof alcohol. That night was spent (genuinely) reflecting how lucky we were to not have to work in or enter those mines ever again...

Truly mind-blowing Salar de Uyuni

From Potosi we took the bus down to the town of Uyuni - launchpad for the mind-blowing Salar de Uyuni and nearby high altitude lakes. The Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world - formed millions of years ago by the withdrawal of the inland atlantic ocean.

This was the location of the famous 'photos locos' (crazy photos) where you can play havoc with perspective...

The 3-day tour involved being driven in 4x4s from the salt flats to numerous high-altitude lakes, in the process turning one's brain into strawberry milkshake - so much we were shaken about. It didn't help that our jeep was a liability, and our on our third day we could not stop for fear of not starting again. Despite a broken radiator, no clutch, low battery, no fuel (we had to siphon some) we made it back thanks to some miraculous driving and repairing by our driver.

An all too familiar site

That's the rant over (DO NOT GO WITH OLIVOS TOURS!) - now for the good stuff...

The landscapes we took in I can honestly say cannot be found anywhere else in the world. At points we hit 5000m altitude, and at this height the lakes are filthy rich in minerals - attracting the famous flamingo and turning the lakes into crazy colours, including the famous red Laguna Colarada...

WOW

Some of the mountain landscapes were also crazy - this one below is known as the 'Fields of Dali' and you can see why:

The final 'f*** up' from our tour company was to book us on the wrong carriage for the 3am train from Uyuni to Tupiza near the Argentinian border. It was well below freezing and there we were sitting on a crowded bench in the unheated section - it's never good when you see Bolivians with a lot of blankets (especially when you have a raincoat and not much more). Anyway, I managed to sleep a bit (Jo none), despite a local lady putting her aforementioned heavy load on my head....

Red rock country - and happy people

Our train episode scarred us (and our wine-making friends Mick and Jeanine who, thanks to us, booked on the same fated tour) for a while - but we recovered well in the lovely town of Tupiza in the south. There's some fantastic hiking around proper 'cowboy country' here, once you can navigate out of the town.

Our last few days in Bolivia were spent hiking, enjoying some welcome warmth and dreaming of Argentina's relative development, famous steak and wine, and silky smooth paved roads. Having been here for a week we weren't wrong, on any count.

So - we have one month left, and after the mind-altering, emotionally exhausting and eye-openingly 'real' experience of South America that is Bolivia we have Iguazu, Mendoza, the Lake District, Patagonia, Buenos Aires and hopefully Uruguay to look forward to - that and the small matter of a rushed detour to Buenos Aires for the biggest (and ugliest?) football rivalry in the world: River Plate vs Boca Juniors.

If I blog again, we will have survived...

Incas, road-side ditches & wine from a glass... Oh, and Machu Picchu

2010-10-14T23:46:00.008+01:00

£1.50 for a bottle of Rum - such is the cost of living in Bolivia, the poorest country in South America yet one of its richest in terms of natural resources (oh the wonders of exploitation). Anyway, I'm not complaining about this one particular aspect seeing as between the four of us (ourselves and some friends - Jon and Kat) two bottles have been devoured tonight with surprising ease and very little impact on our ever-decreasing budget.

We successfully crossed into Bolivia from Peru along the banks of Lake Titicaca yesterday, the 12th October. What we expected to be a routine bus journey turned into a minor adventure as an axel on our bus broke in the middle of an overtaking manouvre (naturally?!), and our bus ended up front first in a ditch... Kudos to our driver as another two feet and the bus would have totally flipped.

Eeeeh...

All was well in the end so I'll start where I last finished, sometime around the end of September. As always, some photo highlights included below, but all can be seen here: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/fernando.nilanga.

Cusco's charms

Our mammoth 52-hour bus voyage from Cuenca in Ecuador to Cusco in Peru ended without a hitch, and we had a few days to explore the wonderful (yet obscenely touristy) city of Cusco - heart and capital of the Inca Empire and the longest continually inhabited city in South America.

The Incas were the first real invading power in this part of South America - expanding their empire in the 14th-16th centuries to stretch from Argentina up to Ecuador. That was until the Spanish came and desimated them with horse-back troops, lies, more sophistated weaponry and a not an insignificant amount of smallpox. Hardly anything is actually documented about the Incas, thus many of the historical pretexts are vague, contradictory and based on word of mouth in Quechua (the indigineous language still spoken in these parts).

Cusco is a city located 3,300m above sea level amid dazzling golden hillsides. Much of the city is built atop immense Inca walls - some built without any mortar with stones the size of houses, all carved into perfect crazy paving. You cannot even get a razor blade between the stones in some cases - quite incredible for 500+ years ago.

Big bricks

We were welcomed on our first night in Cusco by the owner of our Hostel - Coco - and his famous Pisco Sour cocktail. After a few of these, many more beers, and the worst game of darts ever known to man, we thoroughly enjoyed getting horizontal for the first time in four days.

Plaza de Armas

Plaza San Blas

Cusco really is a picturesque city but it is frustratingly touristy: I do not want to buy any paintings, carvings, pots, sunglasses, hats, gloves, jumpers, ponchos etc etc! Fair play I guess given its proximity to one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, I am of course talking about Machu Picchu.

Fat Nilly would have taken the train

We were fortunate enough (thanks to Jo) to book onto the Inca Trail a few months ago - as is required - so we embarked on our 4 day / 3 night trek early on the 29th September. Our two guides, Frank and Jose, picked us up at 5am from our hostel and we were off - along with 7 other merry trekkers (Irish, Americans, Kiwis and an Australian) and 17 other-worldly super-human porters. Our group was great and we hit it off from the start.

Our merry band of trekkers

The Inca Trail is understandably over-subscribed, and numbers are controlled heavily for a reason... It's incredible and needs to stay that way. Except for the toilets - which are incredible in another way. We were to walk the next 26 miles over four days, up and down three mountain passes, through various different terrains and viewing at least four Inca sites before the big daddy.

This involved, for those of us NOT clever enough to hire a personal Porter, carrying the best part of 10kg for up to 8 hours a day - reminding me of what it felt like to be Fat Nilly again, except of course he would have got the train. This also involved sitting (thankfully) in our tents during of all things a hailstorm (very rare I'm told), getting beaten consistently at cards, eating incredible food (how the hell can you bake a cake in a saucepan in the middle of forest?!) and learning a lot about Inca and Quechua history thanks to Frank.

One of many incredible views along the way

After 3 great days of hiking (and surprisingly decent sleep) we woke at 4am to hike the final 2 hours to the Inca's infamous lost city - Machu Picchu. Nobody is 100% sure why the city was built - theories include a university, a refuge for the virgins of the sun (interesting...) and a secret city only known to very important people. What cannot be disputed is its magnificence; built in the least accessible place possible, surrounded by a huge ravine, a gushing river and immense mountains. It is no wonder it was not discovered by the outside world until 1911.

It is the most amazing thing I've ever seen (I'm sure many who have been will agree), and the four days of trekking along the path the Incas walked and/or ran was undoubtably worth it - an unbelievable all round experience. Especially when we finally got back into Cusco very late that night and had a long hot shower and got into a bed. With a pillow.

Setting out on the last morning - myself and Frank

The first glimpse of the Lost City

Wow...

The next few days were spent nursing hangovers, getting full body massages and eating a lot of curry (we found an Indian buffet run by the ONLY Indian family in Cusco). After this period of rest and indigestion it was time to move on, and we headed south to Peru's second city - Arequipa.

A taste of luxury and then MORE hiking

Arequipa, or 'Cuidad Blanco' (the White City) is dominated by three substantial volcanoes - the most famous being 'El Misty'. It is also famous for its white walls made of volcanic rock that glow in the sunshine. It's a pretty enough city and the glow of the setting-sun on the volcanoes is special, but the real highlight was a long Ceviche lunch over wine (our first bottle consumed in public for well over 3 months), with cutlery that didn't bend and cloth napkins, a real luxury.

Ceviche!

A day or two in Arequipa was enough before we moved onto our next (and last) destination in Peru, the second deepest canyon in the world - Colca Canyon.

The sun-setting on El Misty

Colca Canyon is famous for two things: Trekking amidst magnificent scenery, and the iconic Andean Condor. Not content with our trekking to Machu Picchu, we got stuck into a two-day trek up and down this huge canyon, hiking 1,000m uphill and downhill no less than twice and destroying my knees in the process.

On the first morning we saw something we'd never previously encountered - a rainbow AROUND the Sun, believe it or not it was quite remarkable...

The views, thermal springs and oases were well worth it - as was the pizza, beer and hot pisco cocktail on our return to our hostel in one of the canyon's small villages.

Up and down and side to side:

Things in South America routinely run late - it's a fairly reliable premise. That is, until something actually leaves on time, well, ahead of time actually. The next morning we rose early to get the 06:30 van to the Condor viewing point - to find that it had left before 06:30, most likely because it was full with local women and their wares to sell to tourists. Who they were going to sell to was a mystery to me seeing as all the tourists that intended to catch the van couldn't and were left in Cabanaconde, alas the Condors will have to wait...

The following days were spent travelling south to cross over from Peru to Bolivia - this involved sitting on the dashboard of a bus for 2 hours as it hurtled through numerous mountain passes (see below) and the aforementioned ditch-related incident.

Which brings us back up to now - a £4 hostel room, rummed-up blogging and a sense of excitement as to what our last two months of travels will bring. I'll leave our adventures in Bolivia for another time but as a clue the two main adjectives most used in the past two days have been 'cheap' and '****ing cold'.

Hasta luego amigos!

D is for Darwin...and Dogs

2010-09-26T02:44:00.013+01:00

18 hours, that's the amount of time we have left on the bus we are currently on, having already watched two average films. I say bus but it's more like a fully reclining luxury leather sofa on wheels... with a stewardess. It's basically a business class flight - the only problem being the maximum speed is 90 KM/H, as opposed to 900 KM/H.

We are travelling from Lima to Cusco, and this is the last leg of hopefully our longest journey yet, consisting of 4 buses ever-increasing in duration, 5, 9, 15 and now 22 hours, from Cuenca in the south-ish of Ecuador to Cusco in the south-ish of Peru all - without stopping in a hotel. Unfortunately (and fortunately) we're in this huge rush because we somewhat underestimated the time required to get from Cuenca to Cusco, and we need to be in Cusco good time for our Machu Picchu / Inca Trail trek in a few days. The casualties being the north, middle and coast of Peru, which we have only seen by bus.

Since my last update we've swam with turtles/lots of other marine beings, played with sea lions, seen a few volcanoes, done some 'serious' hiking and tested Ecuador's healthcare system (and our Spanish)... oh and I turned 28. We've also discovered some handy photo-stitching software which allows us to show you some of the breathtaking views we've seen.

As always, I've included a few photos in this update but all can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/fernando.nilanga

I'll start in Quito, Ecuador, which is where we arrived slightly jaded on the 4th September, ahead of our trip to the Galapagos Islands. We were to come back to Quito (more than once it conspired!) so we just chilled and ATE SOME CURRY... which was actually really good - thanks to a Pakistani restaurant, whose owner surprisingly did not want to talk about Pakistani cricket... wonder why?!

The Galapagos Islands

The next day saw the start of our 8-day Galapagos cruise, something we had been looking forward to for a good few weeks and something we'll be paying for for a few more yet!

A snip of context first (for those who are not familiar with the islands' attraction). The Galapagos Islands are 600 miles away from the Ecuadorian mainland, have seen many different uses and inhabitants (from prisons to Norwegian fish factories) and were the inspiration to Darwin's crazy theory of evolution through natural selection / survival of the fittest. I'll get Jo to summarise what inspired Shropshire's second finest Pillow...

"His observation of the large number of closely related but reproductively distinct finches was one of the inspirations behind his theory of evolution and speciation i.e. all the different finches he saw evolved from a single species that had arrived on the islands and subsequently diversified, each taking advantage of a different food source/habitat to avoid competition".

Well put.

It's difficult to describe the whole experience without use of superlatives, so please excuse...

After our flight to the islands (which was in itself a bit of a novelty after so many buses), we boarded our boat, the Galapagos Vision - a small catamaran which miraculously, through some kind of illusion, slept 10 guest and 5 crew. The miracle was actualy a cabin and toilet that gave me back spasms, but it was worth the pain.

Each day essentially took the same form: An early rise to a great breakfast; a walk around one of the islands with our nature guide; a delicious lunch back on the boat; snorkeling, walking or sailing in the afternoon; a scrumptous dinner back on the boat and then after a few hours of near sickness, bed - whilst the crew sailed to the next island.

The experience was special for more than one reason, but the most striking feature, as people always say, was the fearlessness of the animals on the islands. The lack of land-based predation and very controlled human expansion (recently) has led to the animals really not giving a crap about humans walking up to / over / into them (well, maybe not into them). If a sea lion / iguana / bird of some sort is on the path, it doesn't move out of the way ... you do.

In the same way, the animals do not change their behaviour when humans get close, so we were able to experience a handsome blue-footed booby court his next 'victim' with a dance, turtles grazing underwater, sea lions playing, sea lions fighting, sea lions STINKING ... you get the point. The wealth of bird, reptile and sea life was stunning, with amazing sightings each day, both above and under water.

Albatross couple

Booby!

Pals

Not only was the wildlife stunning, the landscapes were sometimes equally breathtaking: taking in black, red, yellow and white beaches; crystal clear water; volcanoes; newly formed islands and stunning sunsets. I also celebrated my birthday on the boat complete with cake, made by our hilarious chef.

Sunset over two volcano islands

Spot our boat

A quick shout out to all the people on our boat; our friendly crew (I managed to get in on a game of football against another boat - and walked away, just, with a few good bruises) and our fun fellow guests.

Saying that, 8 days 'at sea' was just the right amount of time to see what we needed to see and get our land legs back, so we headed back to Quito for a couple of days of Colonial sightseeing - and a bit of a rush to get down to Cusco in less than 2 weeks.

Quito

Ecuador's capital, but not largest city - behind Guayaquil, has a very well preserved colonial old town and a new town with every modern european amenity. It's also set in the shadow of some fairly impressive volcanoes and mountains - allowing for some great hiking and views.

A couple of days was enough time to take in all the colonial architecture and some pretty stunning views as well -we climbed up some church towers, ascended the ludicrously expensive teleferiQo up Mount Pichincha (it did rise 1km I suppose) and went up 'El Panecillo' (Quito's much smaller version of Rio's Christo Redentor). I'm told Quito has a great nightlife too, but our splurge in the Galapagos meant no nights out for a while...

We were eager to see as much of Ecuador as possible in now ten days, so made haste, said goodbye to Quito (though unwittingly we were to see it again) and headed south for some rural hiking.

Quilotoa...

...is a tiny village famous for its volcano crater-lake, and is apparently an ideal place for some rural hiking and authentic andean village-life.

After an overnight in an uninspiring town called Latacunga, we set off in a car for Lake Quilotoa (quite a sight) and a subsequent 3-day village to village trek, carrying essentials only, that lasted about one hour. This was thanks to (excuse my french) a bastard dog that managed to bite Jo on the ankle! Totally unprovoked...

Following the use of said essentials (soap, water, disinfectant) we managed to hitch various rides back to Latacunga, and then the next day back to Quito for some rabies jabs and a good exercise in 'survival spanish'. Anyway, our plans had to change as we needed to be back in Quito in another three days for the second jab, so we decided to 'sack off' our planned beach trip and head to the touristy but lovely Banos (yes, bathroom) for a few days - within 4 hours of Quito.

Banos (means Bathroom)

Banos is a lovely small town famous for its thermal springs and outdoor activities. We were there for three nights - dog free (almost). The days were filled with mountain biking - which was thankfully mostly downhill, and hiking - which was mostly uphill.

There's not a huge amount to say other than it was a really refreshing few days of fresh air and exercise - amid some stunning scenery. Aside from this, we got to enjoy our first bottle of wine for months (it's getting cheaper the further south we go...), dominate some locals at pool (they really are that bad) and experience a hangover for the first time in ages. Before we knew it, it was time to head back to Quito for the second jab - from where we took the night bus to the city of Cuenca.

Cuenca and Surroundings

We arrived in Cuenca as the city was waking - the date now being Monday 20th September, and had a couple of days to enjoy before we were to embark on our current journey. Cuenca is a really beautiful city, famous for its colonial architecture, lovely climate, Inca ruins, strangely tranquil river and some stunning nearby scenery. Our time in the city was spent wandering through cobbled streets and checking out some of the Inca ruins.

The next day we took the bus to nearby Parque Cajas - a national park about an hour away by bus, which has literally hundreds of lakes. We decided (as always) to go for the toughest hike possible in 4 hours, and it was pretty tough - both going up and down. However, the views really were worth it - I've said this before on this trip, but it really was some of the most stunning landscapes I'd ever seen.

I'm not sure if we've done Ecuador justice as we've mainly travelled through the central mountains, missed the beaches and jungle, but seen the Galapagos Islands. I've found the people slightly more reserved than the raucous Colombias, and the landscapes just huge but incredibly beautiful. We certainly haven't (yet) done Peru justice, which brings us up to the present.

The journey we started on Wednesday is now nearly complete... on Saturday (I've slept on the bus since I started). In 4 days time (29th September) we'll be setting off for the 4-day Inca Trail, and then... who knows? Taking our time a bit more through to Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, hopefully no more dog-incidents, and surely more amazing cities, landscapes, wildlife and people!

4 Buses, 3 Cities, 2 Guitar Heroes and 1 Volcano

2010-09-02T17:59:00.012+01:00

It has been quite a while since our last update as I've been far too busy having fun, but enough is enough and as our time in Colombia is coming to an end it's an appropriate moment to sit down and put things together. This is a bumper issue so make yourself a cup of tea and settle in...

Some photo highlights are included but all can be found here (in various albums): http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/fernando.nilanga

Medellin (7th to 13th August)

I'll pick up where I left off, in Medellin - also known as the City of Eternal Spring due to its perfect all-year round weather. First, a small amount on Medellin's notorious modern history. This is a city that 20 years ago saw 60 bombs exploding in a three month period, this was the centre of the world cocaine trade for 15 years and the playground of the infamous Pablo Escobar - a man with the blood of thousands on his hands yet his legacy still commands respect from many of Medellin's poor.

We arrived early in the morning from Cartagena into a city at the crescendo of its biggest festival of the year - The Feria del Flores, or Festival of Flowers. Medellin is the capital of Antioquia, Colombia's richest and I think largest department, home to the 'Paisa' - who have a reputation for entrepreneurism, hard work and hard drinking! The city over the final weekend of the festival was one huge party, coming to a peak on Sunday 8th August with the Silleteros Parade, when hundreds of Paisas decend into Medellin to parade huge wooden constructions each containing thousands of flowers through the city.

This sounds rather strange but the spectacle was magnificent, some of the silleteros being over 10 feet tall, and some of the weight-bearers being small, old but clearly incredibly strong women! It was great to be there in the city's biggest moment and revel in the atmosphere of collective celebration.

Medellin has, in the style of Alan Partridge, Rolf Harris and Dennis Hopper, really bounced back from its dark modern history. It is beatifully set within a huge valley, with progressive architecture, a great modern Metro system, cable-cars to connect hillside slums to the city centre, great museums and an exhilarating nightlife.

We had to do the obligatory Pablo Escobar tour which was brought to life by our savvy and very amusing guide - who seemed to hate all the major players in Colombia's recent political and social history - politicians, guerillas, drug cartels and paramilitaries. It really was hard to fathom the extent of his power and control, rising to the top of the Medellin mafia at the age of 29 (I have 1 year left...). Not even he knew how much money he had but some accounts say up to $20bn.

On visiting his grave we met two locals in their 60s who were visiting his cousin (and major right hand man), it was intruiging to hear them almost praising Escobar - who was known to hand out money within poor slums, but who also never hesitated in murderous acts against the very same people to reach his enemies...

After 6 days in Medellin we decided it was time to move on, we were sad to leave such a fun (and surprisingly clean) city but we were to find paradise in our next main stop...

Zona Cafetera (13th to 20th August)

We left Medellin for Colombia's semi-mountainous coffee growing region, via a one night stop at some thermal springs for some much needed rest, recouperation and relaxation at Santa Rosa de Cabal. The next day (Saturday 14th August) we took the bus to Salento - a beautiful little town set in the heart of rolling green hills, coffee plantations and rushing streams and waterfalls.

The countryside truly was spectacular - no overstatement. We took a jeep (riding on the back and hanging on for dear life) out to the Cocora Valley, a unique place with huge palm trees that seem like they are not real. After a stiff 2 hour climb through jungle we were able to take in some breathtaking views and then stroll through the valley, walking among these strange, for-no-apparent-reason-ridiculously-tall trees.

Spot me at the bottom of the tree

We stayed in a phenomenal 'hostel' - basically a new eco-farm 1km out of town with incredible views, a chef from Barcelona who nightly prepared 8 course feasts and great fellow guests who we got to know well. We ended up staying a week in Salento, passing the time by walking in the hills, eating, reading and visiting coffee plantations. We were also fortunate enough to cross paths with two musicians from New Zealand (check them out: http://www.myspace.com/themaproomband) who led two great sing songs, one including a full rendition of the Dark Side of the Moon, fuelled by wine out of a box.

Don Elias - Don of Coffee

Again, we really didn't want to leave Salento but it was time to move on and we got the night bus to Bogota on Friday (13th!) night. Typically Colombian bus journeys have been at least 2 hours longer than the scheduled time, but this one really was a shocker... an 8 hour journey that eventually lasted 15 hours. Twas alright for me as I was mostly asleep however Jo was fuming and unfortunately mostly awake.

Bogota (21st to 25th August)

After resting for the first day we took to Bogota on foot - a city with a great number of museums, churches and cultural activities. In three days we managed to watch three different musical acts - one was part of the 'Salsa in the Park' festival (incredible dancing, some ridiculously cheesy), one was a trumpet quartet in a museum (oh how cultured) and the best was a threesome of young traditional Colombian guitarists.

We took in a couple of arial views from Colombia's tallest skyscraper and from Cerro Montserrate (one of the mountains overlooking Bogota).

Plaza Bolivar

Bogota is cool but regretfully I'm not sure we made the most of it - both were feeling a bit burnt out so we took it really easy. I was impressed with some of the museums, particularly the Museo Del Oro (Gold) - which was incredible, basically a chronicle of Colombia's pre-conquistador history told through the use of gold and other precious metals by indigenous tribes, many of which date back thousands of years and most of which are rather strange...

Roland Rat?

We continued on the theme of ancient cultures by heading from Bogota to San Agustin on the nightbus (again the theme being that I sleep and Jo doesn't) on Thursday 26th August.

San Agustin (27th to 29th August)

San Agustin is a small town nestled into a valley near the Rio Magdelena - Colombia's main river from south to north. It's famous for archealogical remains left by a mysterious and ancient indigenous tribe who did not leave behind any scriptures (but existed up until the 15th century) - hence are known as the 'Agustinians'.

The next two days were spent staying in a lovely countryside retreat and taking jeep tours / walking tours through beautiful scenery a large number of stone sculptures and burial mounds. Apparently the Agustinians mummified and buried their dead together with some great statues (some of which have been looted but many of which remain).

A happy statue

After a few days in San Agustin we decided to head north-east to Popayan, a city about 5 hours away by bus on a ridiculously bumpy road (that's only been free from landmines/guerilla activity for a couple of years). I say free from land mines but a friend we met saw one go off a few days before on the side of the road... EEEHH.

Anyway, the bus journey was a unique experience - an hour and a half in we encountered this:

What followed was 7 hours of standing still, waiting for parts for the lorry on the left (which had lost its rear axel), watching people unloading huge chunks of wood to stabilise the lorry on the right, and (me) discussing - in very broken Spanish - Colombia's recent political history with a crazed local who seemed to get a bit more passionate that I expected. Anyway, 7 hours later than expected we reached Popayan - a city famous for its white-washed colonial buildings.

Popayan and surroundings (29th August to 3rd September)

We arrived in Popayan at about 11pm and went straight out with our friends Denise (Aus) and Michael (UK). We bumped into some Colombians who plied us with Aguardiente (local anaseedy liquor), got us into a club then asked us to pay for their beers!

The next few days were spent chilling and wondering around the beautiful old town in Popayan - with two notable exceptions. One was a trip to a weekly indigenous market about an hour away from Popayan, in a small town called Silvia. I would loved to have taken some photos as it was a lot of fun but apparently it's an insult to the locals, so the camera was kept firmly in our bags.

The second exception was probably THE BEST thing I've done in Colombia (so it's really fitting that we did it on one of our last days here) - we hiked up and down a massive dormant volcano in Parque Purace - about an hour and a half from Popayan.

We woke up at 03.50am to get the bus to the park (a hugely important park in Colombia - source of its main rivers), and went up to 3,300m from where we started our 4 hour climb to the summit, at 4,850m. It was pretty tough but we made it up there in under 4 hours (YES!) - despite the altitude giving us pounding headaches and empty lungs.

We took in numerous different micro-climates on the way up, and some pretty horrendous cold weather and howling winds - but it was well worth it. As we got to the top we could see nothing... but after 20 minutes of walking around the crater the clouds were blown away and it was really quite weird to be looking across a volcano crater! One of the best things is that for the whole day, we were the only two people on the whole hike - so it was quite scary in terms of our isolation from any kind of assistance if anything went wrong, but all was good and we made it back down in time for the last bus to Popayan.

The start...

Strange plants...

So that's what a volcano looks like!

Which brings us up to the present. I am writing this in our bed in Popayan, with my body in pieces but feeling a good sense of having done something worthwhile. Tomorrow (3rd September) we are flying down to Ecuador and then bussing it to Quito, from where on the 5th September (Sunday) we depart for an 8 day cruise around the Galapagos - likely to be one of the highlights of our travels!

We've really enjoyed Colombia - it's a beautiful country with incredibly diverse landscapes, from white beaches to green valleys, from huge mountains to thick jungles. The people are insanely friendly and are so eager to banish the reputation of Colombia being a dangerous place to visit.

From what we've seen we can only agree with them and encourage other travellers to come and explore this incredible country.

Colombia so far... Fat Nilly making a comeback

2010-08-10T02:36:00.005+01:00

My last post was written after a few days in Cartagena (Colombia) - so that's where I'll pick up in this instalment. Before I start, all photos as usual can be found here http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/fernando.nilanga, though some highlights are included below...

Let me say a few words about Cartagena first. This is a city that was founded sometime in the 1500s by the Spanish conquistadors (obviously there was a settlement here before but I didn't understand enough of the museum's exhibits to be able to discuss it).

Anyway - it was a major port and fortress for the Spanish empire that witnessed hundreds of years of continuous destruction (mostly by the British) and fortification - hence the fact that the old walled city is now a World Heritage Site. Walking around the walled city is like stepping back in time; old buildings, cobbled stone paths and horse-drawn carts. The shed load of tourists and accompanying crap-selling locals do take away slightly from the experience but that's to be expected...

Cartagena is a beautiful, romantic and incredibly hot city - flanked by water on two sides and facing west over the Caribbean Sea. We stayed in Cartagena for a total of just under three weeks. There we got to grips with Latin American Spanish - having three hours of lessons practically every morning for three weeks really worked my obviously underused brain, our teacher (Amaury) was great and we learnt a huge amount in a very short period of time. We are now able to (just) converse with 'la gente' over here. It's nigh-on impossible to understand any response we receive but it's a start.

We stayed with a local family (who forced us to speak Spanish), our host was a lady called Ana Cecilia who also ran a catering business - hence we ate incredibly well (she was a feeder) and Fat Nilly is trying to make a comeback. It was great staying with such a wonderful family - we owe a great deal of thanks to all of them for making us feel so welcome - Ana, Daniela (her English a god-send), Julio (who got me involved in a couple of football games), Bilma (chef supreme) and Maria Paulina (5 months old...).

'Our Family'

Our Teacher, Amaury

There's not a huge amount to do in Cartagena - save from lovely museums, strolling around the old city - something we enjoyed a lot, and hitting its bars and music venues (music pumps out onto the street everywhere you go!).

The sunsets were stunning and the whole city had a very relaxed vibe - welcome after 10 days in Rio.

Looking from the wall into to the old city

Typical scene from Cartagena

Evening shot of one of its many plazas

Cafe del Mar (trendy bar) - opposite our sunset spot

One of many sunset photos

Big Weapon (sorry Jo)

Bocagrande at night

We made a couple of cool trips away from Cartagena. The first was to some stunning tropical islands (Islas De Rosario) - on a crazy party boat full of Colombians on their weekend blow-out. Unfortunately we only did a day trip so the beach (Playa Blanca) was fairly crowded but still sensational!

The next was to a real (!), active mud volcano. A very very strange experience - basically getting into a volcano filled with warm mud with loads of other tourists and getting massaged by random Colombians - then being washed in a lagoon by some more random Colombians (all which had to be paid for of course).

The last was to Taganga (a beautiful fishing village 5 years ago but now a hippy / party resort without any infrastructure), Tayrona National Park (incredibly 'Jurassic Park' like scenery / isolation) and Santa Marta (historic town where Simon Bolivar died). Tayrona was definitely the highlight - a couple of hours of hiking through deserted rainforests was rewarded by some amazing coastal scenery....

Tayrona National Park

That almost brings us up to the present-day. Right now (as I write this) we are in Medellin, formerly the most murderous city in the world (centre of the Cocaine trade and the infamous Escobar Cartel) but now a very progressive, scenic and hard-working city that's apparently totally turned itself around into one of Colombia's gems. I love it here - and we've had a great time in our first couple of days, but that will follow in the next update...

Across the Atlantic

2010-07-22T21:36:00.005+01:00

As my South African World Cup adventure came to an end, our South American adventure began - This one much longer and probably very different to the last!

I'll pick up on the 8th June - a bleary eyed start in Cape Town where I departed company from Glover after an EPIC holiday. I flew to Buenos Aires (bizarrely one of only two routes from South Africa direct to South America) where I would spend one night in the bohemian district of San Telmo. Nothing really to report other than steak sandwich, quilmes and coffee.

The next day I spent walking around San Telmo and Buenos Aires' microcentre, before heading to the airport to finally meet Jo in Rio de Janeiro. I was in BA for one day but got a really good vibe from the place and cannot wait to head back there in November (ish).

I say I was in BA for one day - but that's a bit of a lie... Later that day I headed to BA's domestic/regional Jorge Newbery airport for my flight to Rio de Janeiro to meet Jo. I arrived at the airport to scenes of utter chaos and confusion. My Castellan (South American Spanish) is non-existent so it took me a while to understand that there was an impromptu strike by Air Traffic Control staff - our first but surely not last taste of South American left-wing rebellion.

All flights were cancelled or delayed by at least 6 hours, and people were actually going mad in the airport - shouting, screaming and running in random directions. Anyway, I slept in the airport on a very comfortable marble floor and got the first available flight to Rio to finally meet Jo - 14 hours later than planned...

The first few days in Rio were very chilled - involving a lot of sleep and walking / cycling along Leme, Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon beaches. We were staying in Copacabana - a lovely studio apartment in a not so lovely part of town! It was fine for us and I'm sure we'll be staying in much worse accommodation in the next few months. Those of you that have been to the 'Cidade Maravilhosa' before will probably agree with me saying it can be a fairly grimey place up close - due in part to just how densely populated it is, but it does have a truly vibrant atmosphere and can be quite intoxicating in it's charm.

Things came to life on Monday 12th when we rose early to visit Christo Redontor (Christ the Redeemer) atop the Corcovado, stroll around the sumptously serene district of Urca and watch the sun set over Rio from Pao da Acucar (Sugar Loaf Mountain). As I said, Rio can be quite grimey at first, but from a distance it's nothing short of breathtaking - comparable only to Cape Town in terms of natural beauty (I still cannot decide which is more picturesque).

One thing I will say is that Rio is probably the most vain place I have ever visited! A stroll along any beach is likely to make anyone without a Hollywood body feel slightly inadequate, especially after 5 weeks of braai, beer and fast food!

Here are some of the best pictures of Rio - more can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/fernando.nilanga.

Christo doing a lot of redeeming...

Christo Redentor from afar...

View from the Corcovado...

Sunset from Pao da Acucar...

Ipanema Beach...

The next few days were spent sheltering from almost British weather in cafes, bars, restaurants and museums in various neighbourhoods throughout the city, many featuring live music. We did manage to catch a football match (my 11th in 5 weeks!)in the Maracana; for the uneducated (!), Rio's main football stadium and one of the largest and most historic in the world. It was a Rio derby - Flamengo vs Botafogo, but disappointingly the stadium was only about 1/4 full (which in an 85,000 seater stadium is still quite a few).

Nevertheless, we sat ourselves next to Flamengo's faithful samba band and watched a typically brazilian game of football - not a huge amount of tactics or teamwork but a lot of attacking flair and skill. The end result was 1-0 to the current league champions Flamengo, but more importantly I can now claim to have watched games at two successive World Cup Final venues(thanks to Pal for pointing that out).

Near the hallowed turf...

Our stay in Rio ended on a bit of a low - I managed to somehow pick up a seriously strong stomach virus halfway through a night out in a Samba club in Rio's Lapa district. Being sick 10 times in one night is something I've come close to before but I think that was a personal best even for me.

You'll be glad to know that I managed to recover just in time for our one-day, three-flight journey from Rio de Janeiro to Cartegena in the North of Colombia, via Sao Paulo and Bogota.

Miraculously our bags arrived with us in Cartagena and we've spent the last 3 days doing two things in the main - Sweating and learning Spanish. Cartagena is an incredibly beautiful city but that's all for the next blog, which will be from somewhere in Colombia.

Until then - Ciao!

Weeks 3 to 5: An emotional and physical whirlwind

2010-07-06T13:51:00.022+01:00

Wow. What an emotional and physical whirlwind the last few weeks have been...

My last blog entry was right at the start of the world cup, so there's a lot to cover off between then and now. In this time I've taken in the highs and the lows of 9 more world cup games (a total of 10), and driven well over 5000km (Cape Town -> Port Elizabeth -> Cape Town -> Port Elizabeth -> Bloemfontain -> Port Elizabeth -> Cape Town... you get the picture).

These are the games I've been to, along with a 'star' rating:

Game 1: 1st Round: France 0 - 0 Uruguay (Cape Town) - Star Rating: * (Sacre bleu!)

Game 2: 1st Round: Italy 1 - 1 Paraguay (Cape Town) - Star Rating: ** (Arrivederci Azurri)

Game 3: 1st Round: Ivory Coast 0 - 0 Paraguay (Port Elizabeth) - Star Rating: *** (No goals but a good game)

Game 4: 1st Round: England 0 - 0 Algeria vs (Cape Town) - Star Rating: * (THE WORST - By this point I'd been to every 0-0 in the tournament so far)

Game 5: 1st Round: England 1 - 0 Slovenia (Port Elizabeth) - Star Rating: *** (Getting better AND we got on BBC/SkySports News)

Game 6: Last 16: South Korea 1 - 2 Uruguay (Port Elizabeth) - Star Rating: **** (Great game, pretty sad for the Koreans)

Game 7: Last 16: England 1 - 4 Germany (Bloemfontain) - Star Rating: **** (Great game, largely thanks to the Germans and the ref)

Game 8: Last 16: Spain 1 - 0 Portugal (Cape Town) - Star Rating: **** (Iniesta, Xavi, Villa a pure pleasure to watch)

Game 9: Quarter Final: Ghana 1 - 1 Uruguay (J'Burg, Soccer City) - Star Rating: ***** (What a game! 'Hand of the Devil' etc. My heart bled for Ghana...)

Game 10: Quarter Final: Germany 4 - 0 Argentina (Cape Town) - Star Rating: ***** (Germans stupendously good)

This blog entry will attempt to cover off the rest of the World Cup since the 14th June, up until the semi finals. This is going to follow a Match of the Day type-theme, i.e. only the highlights. And in no particular order...

1. Shark Diving

En-route to Port Elizabeth for the second time; myself, James, Ramin and Tom decided it would be a good idea to go face to face with one of nature's greatest killers - the Great White. I drove the gang at 5am from Cape Town to Gansbaai - we got there just as the sun was rising. A quick few mouthfuls of breakfast and a gulp of coffee with the group, and before we knew it we were 15 minutes out to sea and donning ice cold / soaking wet wetsuits...

What followed was nothing short of incredible - 8 Great Whites following our tuna heads and chum formula - circling under our boat. We were the first to get into the cage on the side of the boat. Once in the cage, all we had to do was push our bodies under the water and there they were - Great White Sharks, not more that a couple of feet away - one of which was over 4m long!

At one point some fin was actually INSIDE the cage. It was probably the most exhilarating thing I've ever done, so much so that I managed to avoid being sick over the side of the boat until well after my time in the cage. To top things off, on the way back to shore we came across a school, or as I have been reliably informed by Dawg on Skype, a pod, of Dolphins...

Here are a couple of photos above deck:

Dolphins

Yak attack

2. Nights out / capers in general

Where to begin?! We've taken in everything that Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Joburg had to offer us in terms of restaurants, bars and clubs, and have just come out the other side intact. The World Cup really is a melting pot, and the combination of football matches, many different nationalities of people, south african locals and plenty of social lubricant meant for some memorable nights out. I'll let the pictures do the talking (spot the tallest man in the world)...

3. South African sights

In between going to football games and watching football on TV, we have managed to cram in a hell of a lot of sightseeing. We've climbed Table Mountain (me for the second time, James for the umpteenth time), seen the Twelve Apostles, done the Garden Route (between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth) four times, seen Cape Point, driven around some of the Eastern Cape and seen some amazing beaches and sunsets. Here are just some of the photos but I'm not sure these even do this country's natural beauty full justice...

Garden Route and the Eastern Cape...

Cape Town, Table Mountain & its beaches...

(Did you spot where I was doing press-ups on Table Mountain?!)

4. Ghana vs Uruguay at Soccer City (and ensuing night out...)

Myself and James made a whilstestop, 14 hour, "bring your A-game" trip to Jo'burg to witness a potentially historic World Cup moment - that of an African team making it to the Semi-Finals, and how poignant it would have been for that to happen in Africa. Alas you all know what happened, Uruguay prevailed through some excellent goalkeeping by their striker, but also credit them for maintaining their composure when Ghana DID have the golden chance to win the game but choked.

Anyway, Soccer City is an amazing football ground, and the atmosphere was incredible - with at least 80,000 fans willing on the Black Stars of Ghana in unison.

Throughout the night our one taxi driver in his BMW turned out to be three different taxi drivers in three different cars - but this is Africa and like the A-Team the plan did come together. So after the penalty shoot-out we headed to Sandton for a few bars, where we bumped into 2 boyhood footballing heroes - no less than Sir Les Ferdinand and Ruud Gullit!

We then went straight to the airport via the customary McDonalds drivethru and some wheelchair antics to fly back to Cape Town at 7am for the next game (Germany vs Argentina).

Good night James

5. South African hospitality

We owe an immense thanks to James' various family members in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth - where we were ridiculously well looked after. They have opened their homes, fridges, braais, bars (!) and washing machines to us and it's been so good to be able to stay in homes rather than hotels/hostels...

6. Port Elizabeth, Cape Town and Soccer City stadiums

3 great new grounds that gave me some pretty memorable (and some pretty forgettable!) games.

Port Elizabeth

Cape Town

Soccer City (Soweto, Jo'Burg)

So, that's pretty much it from South Africa - I've had an amazing time and I can safely say all the PALs that I've been with out here have too - what a beautiful country and with the added factor of the World Cup a truly unforgettable experience.

I will post the full repertoire of photos up on Picasa when I get a good enough internet connection.

Roll on South America!!!

Week 2: Back in the Cape(rs)

2010-06-14T11:40:00.005+01:00

Another week has flown by - not that I would really know it as I have started to lose the concept of which day of the week it actually is! Happy days.

I arrived back into Cape Town on Tuesday, picked up a whole wad of world cup tickets for Glover (oh the power) and picked up my hire car. I’ve had some pretty pathetic hire cars in the past, and seeing as this time I was on my own I went for the cheapest car available, which turned out to be a real chick magnet - a 1.1L Kia Picanto - from now on referred to as ‘the Box’.

Tickets, tickets, tickets....

The Box....

The next couple of days were pretty relaxing - chilling in a lovely beach flat in Muizenberg (about half an hour in the Box from central Cape Town), going for runs along the coast and doing some driving (again, in the Box) around some stunning coastal scenery. Some photographs are below and all can be found here (http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/101316266000543792716):

Muizenberg Beach:

Chapman's Peak:

Table Mountain from Signal Hill:

Some of the '12 Apostles':

Fishing Boat at Kalk Bay:

Friday saw the start of the World Cup. I am not exaggerating when I say the build up, anticipation and excitement has been almost painful in its intensity over here. It really has been incredible to see how momentous it is for this country (and this continent) to host this world cup - everywhere you look there are South Africa flags (and here in Cape Town a fair few England flags too), and there is a real sense that this can be a bit of a watershed for Africa and for unity in this country.

Myself and Doug watched the opening game (South Africa vs. Mexico) in a beer garden on the waterfront. The whole of Cape Town (and I imagine the rest of South Africa) was manic at this point. It was great that the opening goal was scored by a South African (like so many runs for England) - aside from being soaked in beer and pretty much deafened by the now ubiquitous vuvuzela.

If you can’t beat them, join them. Which is what I did when I bought a tasteful Uruguay-branded vuvuzela (i.e. it had a sticker on it) for the France vs. Uruguay game, which we watched at Cape Town’s new Green Point stadium. The game was a dull affair, but the stadium (or Spaceship as I will refer to it) is a spectacle in itself. After the game I descended back to Muizenberg from the Spaceship in the Box.

Stadium or Spaceship?

This was all in preparation for Saturday’s mammoth day of sport - with South Korea vs. Greece, South Africa vs. France in the rugby (which we had to watch!), Argentina vs. Nigeria and a random Queen concert all contributing to the crescendo for England vs. USA. We watched all this in another pub - so by the time it came for England to routinely disappoint the nerves were numbed slightly.

After the game (the less said about it the better), we headed for Long Street - where we bribed a doorman to let us into the Dubliner (again). It was full to the rafters of Yanks who you would have believed had just won the World Cup. Anyway, the great thing about the World Cup is that on any night out you find yourself mingling with fans from across the globe, from Uruguayans to Dutchmen, from Koreans to, bizarrely, the Irish (quite a few having come out here in protest at Henry and his va va voom). I don’t think you can really say that for any other sporting occasion.

Uruguay...

Not sure who (the bloke is Doug)

Sunday saw the introduction of a certain James Glover (ANT) into the mix, and a welcome day of rest and relaxation at his Mum’s place - home cooking, familial banter and more football.

Germany thankfully thumped the Aussies and looked, as always, like a unified team focussed on winning the World Cup - how I wish I was German…

Coming up: The Spaceship for Italy vs. Paraguay, then a trip to Port Elizabeth for the Brazilians…

Week 1: Cape Town and the Kalahari Bush

2010-06-07T18:27:00.008+01:00

Almost a week gone and it's flown by, as expected...

The flight to cape town was uneventful - which I suppose is a good thing. I watched 'Up in the air' - which I was told is a comedy but couldn't really see how.

Day 1 in South Africa consisted of a long walk up to Cape Town university (an incredible setting on the slopes of Table Mountain) and a long walk/trek through Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. Below are just some of the pictures of both, but all my photos can be seen here: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/101316266000543792716.

University of Cape Town:

Kirstenbosch Gardens:

Myself and Doug (who very hospitably put me up for the night) then hit Cape Town's Long Street, which I am sure will be the scene of many a caper during the world cup... What followed was a good night involving quite a few drinks, great burgers, stomach-curdling milkshakes, and some rather suspect dancing in (surprise surprise) an Irish Pub.

Day 2 was spent travelling to Botswana and then chilling, in preparation for the next few days of camping (ooooh mince!) in the Kalahari bush...

On Friday we (myself, my uncle - Podi Mama, and his two friends James and Dilan) set off on the road for Khutse game reserve (http://www.botswanatourism.co.bw/attractions/khutse_game_reserve.html). The drive featured a 100km stint on a dirt track, a few cans of Kilkenny and a tyre puncture. We got to the park just as the sun was setting and managed to catch a whole pride of lions apparently on the hunt - believe it or not this is a picture of a couple of them.

Lions...just:

Anyway - the weekend was awesome, camping in raw nature under the most stars I've ever seen, seeing loads of wildlife, sleeping in the boot / back seat of a land rover (whilst hearing lions nearby) and just generally enjoying the great outdoors. We ate and drank remarkably well - testament to the planning of the guys I went with.

I guess bush food doesn't usually include mutton biryani, sri lankan pork bite, sri lankan pork curry and roti - but it should. The nights were bloody freezing so it was also helpful to be able to put away a decent amount of whisky, sherry and vodka...

Biryani in the Bush:

Both mornings consisted of a 4.45am start (!)... Wildlife seen included the afformentioned lions, various antelope, the elusive caracal plus loads of other random kratouie / creatures... some pics below, all the photos can be found here... http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/101316266000543792716

Highlights had to be the safari sunsets, the uninterrupted star-studded night sky and the total sense of isolation one feels in the bush - would thoroughly recommend it.

The trip was completed with an element of symmetry, this time our landrover suffered a complete tyre puncture on the dirt track out of the reserve. The warm shower and 11 hours sleep that followed felt a little bit like heaven.

EEEEEH...

Next stop - Cape town / Muizenberg, a small matter of Le Coupe de Monde and a lot more capers...

1st June - On the off....

2010-06-01T18:39:00.000+01:00

Mildly emotional goodbyes at Heathrow T5 after the mandatory M25 madness... If there's an upside to the BA strike it's when you ARE in the 60% that are flying - no queues, colder beer and generally less hassle. Flight leaves in an hour so a quick last sip of beer on the Queen's soil for 7 months and then a trip to duty free. Reading material currently consists of the Times, FourFourTwo WC Special and the Economist - something for everyone. Will probably go with the Times, followed by FourFourTwo. Economist is there just to make me look clever / high brow, which I am of course.

Cape Town, Table Mountain and hopefully some Cape Malay cuisine beckons (for one day at least).

Hopefully will keep this blogging business up...